"Honest," Andy asserted, and flushed a little. "I'll go tell some one to catch up the team--you'll want to make that 11:20, I take it." He added, as Chip went by him hastily, "I had the agent wire for sleeper berths on the 11:20 so--"
"Thanks. Yes, you have the team caught up, Andy." Chip was already well on his way to the house.
Andy waited till he saw the Little Doctor come hurriedly to the end of the porch overlooking the pathway, with the telegram fluttering in her fingers, and then led his horse down through the gate and to the stable. He yanked the saddle off, turned the tired animal into a stall, and went on to the corral, where he leaned elbows on a warped rail and peered through at the turmoil within. Close beside him stood Weary, with his loop dragging behind him, waiting for a chance to throw it over the head of a buckskin three-year-old with black mane and tail.
"Get in here and make a hand, why don't you?" Weary bantered, his eye on the buckskin. "Good chance to make a 'rep' for yourself, Andy. Gawd greased that buckskin--he sure can slide out from under a rope as easy--"
He broke off to flip the hoop dexterously forward, had the reward of seeing the buckskin dodge backward, so that the rope barely flicked him on the nose, and drew in his rope disgustedly. "Come on, Andy--my hands are up in the air; I can't land him-- that's the fourth throw."
Andy's interest in the buckskin, however, was scant. His face was sober, his whole attitude one of extreme dejection.
"You got the tummy-ache?" Pink inquired facetiously, moving around so that he got a fair look at his face.
"Naw--his girl's went back on him!" Happy Jack put in, coiling his rope as he came up.
"Oh, shut up!" Andy's voice was sharp with trouble. "Boys, the Old Man's--well, he's most likely dead by this time. I brought out a telegram--"
"Go on!" Pink's eyes widened incredulously. "Don't you try that kind of a load, Andy Green, or I'll just about--"
"Oh, you fellows make me sick!" Andy took his elbows off the rail and stood straight. "Dammit, the telegram's up at the house--go and read it yourselves, then!"
The three stared after him doubtfully, fear struggling with the caution born of much experience.
"He don't act, to me, like he was putting up a josh," Weary stated uneasily, after a minute of silence. "Run up to the house and find out, Cadwalloper. The Old Man--oh, good Lord!" The tan on Weary's face took a lighter tinge. "Scoot--it won't take but a minute to find out for sure. Go on, Pink."
"So help me Josephine, I'll kill that same Andy Green if he's lied about it," Pink declared, while he climbed the fence.
In three minutes he was back, and before he had said a word, his face confirmed the bad news. Their eyes besought him for details, and he gave them jerkily. "Automobile run over him. He ain't dead, but they think--Chip and the Little Doctor are going to catch the night train. You go haze in the team, Happy. And give 'em a feed of oats, Chip said."
Irish and Big Medicine, seeing the, three standing soberly together there, and sensing something unusual, came up and heard the news in stunned silence. Andy, forgetting his pique at their first disbelief, came forlornly back and stood with them.
The Old Man--the thing could not be true! To every man of them his presence, conjured by the impending tragedy, was almost a palpable thing. His stocky figure seemed almost to stand in their midst; he looked at them with his whimsical eyes, which had the radiating crows-feet of age, humor and habitual squinting against sun and wind; the bald spot on his head, the wrinkling shirt-collar that seldom knew a tie, the carpet slippers which were his favorite footgear because they were kind to his bunions, his husky voice, good-naturedly complaining, were poignantly real to them at that moment. Then Irish mentally pictured him lying maimed, dying, perhaps, in a far-off hospital among strangers, and swore.
"If he's got to die, it oughta be here, where folks know him and--where he knows--" Irish was not accustomed to giving voice to his deeper feelings, and he blundered awkwardly over it.
"I never did go much on them darned hospitals, anyway," Weary observed gloomily. "He oughta be home, where folks can look after him. Mam-ma! It sure is a fright."
"I betche Chip and the Little Doctor won't get there in time,"
Happy Jack predicted, with his usual pessimism. "The Old Man's gittin' old--"