Evening Star Newspaper, December 22, 1929, Page 90

Twagy The Story of a Cowhand Who Had One Chance to Be Kind—and T ook It. | SKETCHES BY GEORGE CLARK. ENSEN suspected from the first that / the boy had run away from some- thing. Something that might catch up to him any day and hale him back. Jensen didn't ask questions. But he watched. Jensen was top cowhand on the Randolph ranch. He had a reputation for hard-boiled- ness. He was proud of it and lived up to it. The boy Ralph had drifted in one cold eve- ning, a few weeks before Christmas, and had asked to be taken on. Questioned if he could ride, he said: “A little.” Said it with a little slight grin. Jen- sen, watching even from the first, thought he ‘could probably sit a horse better than some ‘and took him on. “How old are you, Buddy?” asked Jensen. “Nineteen.” “Raised around here?” “Nope. North. Panhandle-way.” “Come from that a-way myse'f,” said Jen- ‘sen. “Ain’'t been back for most 20 years.” The boy said nothing. He was a fair-haired boy with bright blue eyes. And he had, of course, splendid shoulders and a slim, hipless shape, being a cowboy. “That new hand sure can ride,” they said in the bunk house a day or so later. They'd picked on him for the bad horses and he'd sat them all. ¢ Jensen had watched each ride. He'd seen green hands tried out before now and hadn't cared a damn whether they stuck or not. He'd laughed when they were thrown. But when the boy Ralph rode he'd felt each buck- jump as though he'd been sitting the horse himself. After the ride on Tornado the boy had been white and faint and Jensen had been the first to bring him a whisky flask, though he had never done anything like this before in his life. You rode and you took your medicine. “You sure are kind,” said the boy as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Kind like Santa Claus!” him any IND! To Jensen, the scowling, hard-boiled one! Jensen wasn't sure he liked the idea of being thought “kind.” Nights they played poker. The boy had a way of winning. Even Jensen lost to him. And Jensen wasn't accustomed to leave a poker game poorer than when he went in. “Say, Buddy,” he remarked, after having been cleaned out of 50 bucks, “you must be gettin’ quite a pile saved up.” “Aimin’ to,” said the boy Ralph. to be needin’ it.” A cowboy saving money! They were out after a bunch of cattle, rounding them up and getting them in for the branding. Jensen hadn’t gone with the outfit. Something had gone wrong with the windmiils. He had to see about the repairs, He was alone in the ranch house. The bunks with their rough blankets were empty. ‘There was one under the window that seemed to Jensen emptier than the rest. It was Ralph's. He remembered how the boy's fair, wind-burned face looked mornings with the blond hair rumpled and the vividly blue eyes blinking with sleep. Once He'd raised himself on his elbow in the night and had looked across at Ralph's bunk. The moon was round and high and in the light of it the boy's face was pale and still. Jensen had lain that way a long time, looking. There were snores and restlessness and mutterings all around him, but the boy slept calmly and quietly. He Icoked like a girl sleeping there, Jensen thought. His mouth was soft and tender like a girl's. Jensen hadn’t noticed before how curved it was. And suddenly, at some mem- ory, Hard-boiled Jensen turned on his stomach in his bunk and hid his face on his arms. Next morning he was ashamed of himself. Hearing Ralph swearing profusely and more than holding his own among the other cow- boys with a choice collection of profanity, he tried to forget that he’d been such a boob in the night. Why, the boy was pretty nearly as _ hard-boiled as he was himself. And he was only 19. “I expect I'JENSEN, himself, had been rather soft at 19, he remembered. Too soft to face trial for the money he hadn't stolen, but which he couldn’'t prove %e hadn’t. That's why he bhad called himself Jensen and had run away to Mexico. Mexico had taken all the softness THE SUNDAY STAR, WASPIINGT.C)N, D. C, DECEMBER 22, 1 It wasn’t until just before turning-in time that Jensen had a chance of a word with the boy alone. out of him. After 15 years he had come back. It was a risk, but Texas called him. So he came back as Jensen, the hard-boiled. He found out about Molly a long time be- fore. She'd married. A Panhandle man he'd met in Mexico City had told him. Well, that was all right, too. He'd. wanted her to think he was dead. Besides, he’d done things in Mexico that separated them worse than dying. No one had known they were married, anyway, boy and girl folly, kept secret until they could live openly together. A few stolen meetings, that was all there had been to their marriage. Dreams now. Almost forgotten. Then the money had been missed. Jensen had carried the letter in which it had been sent from the post office to the ranch owner for whom he’d been’working. It was a clear case against him. Even Jensen himself could not think of any one who would have had a chance at it. But still, if he hadn’'t been so soft, if he hadn’'t quit, if he’d had the guts to stand trial, perhaps the truth would have come out. Oh, well! More likely he would have rotted in jail for it. He was glad he'd done as he did. As for Molly, he hadn‘t hurt her any. Life had been bitter in spots, but he'd gotten a kick out of it. More than he would have got out of being married to Molly, he reckoned. Still he remembered her as she was at 17, blond and blue-eyed and tender- lipped. It was that that had got him in the night. Ralph’s mouth in the moonlight had somehow reminded him of Molly's. Looking at Ralph’s empty bunk now it came back to him. SOUNDS of horses outside. Men’s voic:s. Jensen went to the door. Three riders out there seen in the dim light that came through the ranch house doorway, the sheriff and two revenue officers. “We're lookin' for Tom Runyon,” said the sheriff. He here?” Jensen started. He hadn't heard his name spoken in a long, long time. Had they found out about him? After 20 years was he going to jail? He stuck his hands in his belt because they trembled, and leaned against the deorjamb—a tall, muscular, indifferent figure. “Nope.” “Ain’t got nobody workin’ for you by that name?” “Hell, no.” “Have had, ain't you?” “Nope. Ain’t never heard the name before.” The men looked at each other. “Damn funny!” They began again. “Ain’t seen anything of . Married, too, the damn fool. a boy 'bout 19 or 20, white-headed, blue eyes, a good-lookin’ boy? Great hand at poker. Sure can ride. Must have blown in here about a month ago if he come at all.” Jensen snapped out of assumed indifference like a spring that is pulled too taut. But you'd never have known it. Ralph! They meant .Ralph! “Nope. Ain't been here. What's he wanted for?” “Bootleggin’. B:en gettin’ stuff over the line and totin’ it up Panhandle way by auto. ‘We got. the dope from his wife. Give her the third degree. Women can’t keep a secr:t.” “Well, he ain’t here,” said Jensen. “If I meet up with any one that covers them points you mentioned I'll sure let you know.” In two days th: outfit was back again. Christmas was coming and the men were in holiday spirits. The boy Ralph rode at the head of the herd. He was gay and dirty. He was singing a cowboy song. “‘For we all love our cowboy. Although he done wrong.’” The long-horned cattle and their blatting calves came trooping along with the cowboys riding to left and right. Ralph was the gayest, the happiest of the lot. Jensen was conscious of something like pride of him swelling his heart. The boy sure had nerve. He was gams. You'd never think he was up against the sheriff. T wasn't until just before turning-in time that Jensen had a chance of a word with him alone. He found him down under the windmill when Ralph went to wash up. The boy was stripped to the waist and his smooth shoulder and chest muscles were white in the cold starlight. A good-lookin’ boy, the sheriff had said. Yes, he sure was that! Again that swelling of pride at Jensen's heart. “There’s been three o:. your friends lookin’ for you, Buddy,” he said. ‘The boy stopped throwing the icy water over him from the tin dipper. Then he laughed. “Sure didn’'t know I had that many! Who was they?” “The sheriff and two revenue officers. Thought they was lookin' for me at first, though I ain't committed no bad crimes jest lately. But they said it was a bootlegger they wanted and that let me out. Bootleggin's about the only thing I ain’t done or been accused of doin’. Then they went on to say they wanted a boy ’bout 20, a white-headed boy that sure knew how to ride and play poker. They give his name as Tom Runyon, but I reckon they meant you, Buddy.” The boy thought a minute, shining there in the starlight like something out of classic Greece, then evidently decided there wasn't much use in lying. . “I reckon they did, maybe. Tom Runyon was my dad’s name and they named me after him. Took advantage of me when I was a baby. Sure don’'t know why they done it when he wasn't man enough to stand by my mother when I was a-comin’. Gawd, but I was glad to shake that name! A quitter like him!" ENSEN'S bold, hard eyes had a queer expres- sion in them. Almost like the beginning of tears. He was looking at the boy’s mouth, which at this moment wasn't tender. Of course he'd been right that night in the mooniight. It was like Molly's. “Maybe he didn't know - what-all he was quittin’,” sa!d Jensen. x The boy laughed. The lips that were like a girl's, like Molly’s, curled scornfully. “He sure knew he was quittin’ my mother.” “Buddy,” said Jensen, for he had to be sure, “what was your mother's name?” “Molly,” said the boy briefly. ;And she sure was a good woman. My stepdad seen that anyway, and treated her accordin’. Well, she's dead now. It don't make no difference to her amy more.” Molly dead! use hoping now. 5 “Reckon you might have taken your step- dad’s name if you didn’t like your old man's,” said Jensen—said it rather wistfully, “He wanted mé to and I'd have liked it. But my mother wouldn't let. me. Seems like she always liked my dad better than she did the others, spite of everything.” “Some women is like that!” said Jensen. “Faithful!” And there was something like triumph in his voice. Molly hadn’t forgotten. “And some men is like my father—quitters!” said the boy. “Well, what you goin’ to do about my bein’ wanted? Let 'em take me to jail?” Well, that settled things. No “I AIN'T aimin' to,” said Jensen. “I was aimin’' to get you off to Mexico—you and that girl they say you've got hitched up with.” ; The boy shook his head. “It can’t be done. She's got a kid comin’. That's what I'm savin® money for. It's to make her comfortable when the kid ccmes.” “When's she expectin’ it?” Jensen said in a hushed voice, “’'Bout three months now, accordin’ to the Continued on Twentieth Fage