The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
Читать онлайн книгу.
He slapped the horse on the hip with his hat, and gave the latter a whirl in the air with a shrill "Whoooop-eee!" which was all that remained needful to set the horse off on a series of wild, stiff-legged plunges — the "bucking" of which Franklin had heard so much; a manoeuvre peculiar to the half-wild Western horses, and one which is at the first experience a desperately difficult one for even a skilful horseman to overcome. It perhaps did not occur to Curly that he was inflicting any hardship upon the newcomer, and perhaps he did not really anticipate what followed on the part either of the horse or its rider. Had Franklin not been a good rider, and accustomed to keeping his head while sitting half-broken mounts, he must have suffered almost instantaneous defeat in this sudden encounter. The horse threw his head down far between his fore legs at the start, and then went angling and zigzagging away over the hard ground in a wild career of humpbacked antics, which jarred Franklin to the marrow of his bones. The air became scintillant and luminously red. His head seemed filled with loose liquid, his spine turned into a column of mere gelatine. The thudding of the hoofs was so rapid and so punishing to his senses that for a moment he did not realize where he actually was. Yet with the sheer instinct of horsemanship he clung to the saddle in some fashion, until finally he was fairly forced to relax the muscular strain, and so by accident fell into the secret of the seat — loose, yielding, not tense and strung.
"Go it, go it — whooop-e-e-e!" cried Curly, somewhere out in a dark world. "Ee-eikee-hooo! Set him fair, pardner! Set him fair, now! Let go that leather! Ride him straight up! That's right!"
Franklin had small notion of Curly's locality, but he heard his voice, half taunting and half encouraging, and calling on all his pluck as he saw some hope of a successful issue, he resolved to ride it out if it lay within him so to do. He was well on with his resolution when he heard another voice, which he recognised clearly.
"Good boy, Ned," cried out this voice heartily, though likewise from some locality yet vague. "R-ride the divil to a finish, me boy! Git up his head, Ned! Git up his head! The murdering haythin' brute! Kill him! Ride him out!"
And ride him out Franklin did, perhaps as much by good fortune as by skill, though none but a shrewd horseman would have hoped to do this feat. Hurt and jarred, he yet kept upright, and at last he did get the horse's head up and saw the wild performance close as quickly as it had begun. The pony ceased his grunting and fell into a stiff trot, with little to indicate his hidden pyrotechnic quality. Franklin whirled him around and rode up to where Battersleigh and Curly had now joined. He was a bit pale, but he pulled himself together well before he reached them and dismounted with a good front of unconcern. Battersleigh grasped his hand in both his own and greeted him with a shower of welcomes and of compliments. Curly slapped him heartily upon the shoulders.
"You're all right, pardner," said he. "You're the d——dest best pilgrim that ever struck this place, an' I kin lick ary man that says differ'nt. He's yore horse now, shore."
"And how do ye do, Ned? God bless ye!" said Battersleigh a moment later, after things had become more tranquil, the horse now falling to cropping at the grass with a meekness of demeanour which suggested innocence or penitence, whichever the observer chose. "I'm glad to see ye; glad as ivver I was in all me life to see a livin' soul! Why didn't ye tell ye was coming and not come ridin' like a murderin' Cintaur — but ay, boy, ye're a rider — worthy the ould Forty-siventh — yis, more, I'll say ye might be a officer in the guards, or in the Rile Irish itself, b'gad, yes, sir! — Curly, ye divvil, what do ye mean by puttin' me friend on such a brute, him the first day in the land? And, Ned, how are ye goin' to like it here, me boy?"
Franklin wiped his forehead as he replied to Battersleigh's running fire of salutations.
"Well, Battersleigh," he said, "I must say I've been pretty busy ever since I got here, and so far as I can tell at this date, I'm much disposed to think this is a strange and rather rapid sort of country you've got out here."
"Best d——n pilgrim ever hit this rodeo!" repeated Curly, with conviction.
"Shut up, Curly, ye divvil!" said Battersleigh. "Come into the house, the both of you. It's but a poor house, but ye're welcome. — An' welcome ye are, too, Ned, me boy, to the New World."
CHAPTER VIII THE BEGINNING
Franklin's foot took hold upon the soil of the new land. His soul reached out and laid hold upon the sky, the harsh flowers, the rasping wind. He gave, and he drank in. Thus grew the people of the West.
The effect upon different men of new and crude conditions is as various as the individuals themselves. To the dreamer, the theorist, the man who looks too far forward into the future or too far back into the past, the message of the environment may fall oppressively; whereas to the practical man, content to live in the present and to devise immediate remedies for immediate ills, it may come sweet as a challenge upon reserves of energy. The American frontier subsequent to the civil war was so vast, yet so rapid, in its motive that to the weak or the unready it was merely appalling. The task was that of creating an entire new world. So confronted, some sat down and wept, watching the fabric grow under the hands of others. Some were strong, but knew not how to apply their strength; others were strong but slothful. The man of initiative, of executive, of judgment and resource, was the one who later came to rule. There was no one class, either of rich or of poor, who supplied all these men. The man who had been poor in earlier life might set to work at once in bettering himself upon the frontier; and by his side, equally prosperous, might be one who in his earlier days had never needed to earn a dollar nor to thrash a fellow-man. Civilization at its later stages drives the man into a corner. In its beginning it summons this same man out of the corner and asks him to rely upon himself for the great and the small things of life, thus ultimately developing that sturdy citizen who knows the value of the axiom, "Ubi bene, ibi patria." The great deeds, the great dreams become possible for nation or for individual only through the constant performance of small deeds. "For it must be remembered that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments. The greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstructions and frequent interruptions."
Such philosophy was for Franklin unformulated. Care sat not on his heart. There were at first no problems in all the world for him. It was enough to feel this warm sun upon the cheek, to hear the sigh of the wind in the grasses, to note the nodding flowers and hear the larks busy with their joys. The stirring of primeval man was strong, that magnificent rebellion against bonds which has, after all, been the mainspring of all progress, however much the latter may be regulated by many intercurrent wheels. It was enough for Franklin to be alive. He stood straight, he breathed deep. This infection was in his blood.
"Think you, Ned, me boy," said Battersleigh, one day, as they stood at the tent door — "think you, this old gray world has been inhabited a million years, by billions of people, and yet here we have a chance to own a part of it, each for himself, here, at this last minute of the world's life! Do you mind that, what it means? Never you think a chance like that'll last forever. Yet here we are, before the law, and almost antedatin' the social ijee. It's the beginning man, it's the very beginnin' of things, where we're standin' here, this very blessed day of grace. It's Batty has travelled all his life, and seen the lands, but never did Batty live till now!"
"It's grand," murmured Franklin, half dreamily and unconsciously repeating the very words of his friend, as he had done before.
Yet Franklin was well bitten of the ambition germ. It would serve him to run only in the front rank. He was not content to dream. He saw the great things ahead, and the small things that lay between. In a week he was the guiding mind in the affairs of the odd partnership which now sprang between him and his friend. Battersleigh would have lived till autumn in his tent, but Franklin saw that the need of a house was immediate. He took counsel of Curly, the cowboy, who proved guardian and benefactor. Curly forthwith produced a workman, a giant Mexican,