frontispiece

The Strike at Too Dry

By Willis Brindley

Young Percival came out of the East to a Montana ranch, and a pleasant time was not had by all—though the reader will be much diverted.

The postmaster at Too Dry poked his head out of the door of the shack which served as combination of post office, real-estate office and residence, spat generously into the dusty road and yelled to the big man who had drawn up at what might in a city have been called the curb.

“Letter for you, Dog.”

“Who? Me?”

“I guess it’s for you. Came yesterday. It’s in a thick envelope and the address is Percival John Bigelow, Too Dry, Montana.”

“That’s me,” agreed Dog, and added mournfully: “Well, if that don’t beat the scratch. That’s two letters I got so far this year. If this keeps up, I’ll have to hire me a secretary. Bring it out to the car, Steve. What did she say?”

But the postmaster had returned, with the popping suddenness of a prairie-dog, to his hole of an office, and Dog saw that he must follow or do without his letter.

“You tote your own in this town,” he grumbled to the little man beside him. “You stay here, Ducky, till I come back, and don’t go wandering off anywhere. We gotta be traveling. It’ll be dark as the ace of spades, time we get home, as it is.”

“Don’t we meet the stage or nothin’?” whined Ducky.

“No, we don’t meet the stage or nothin’,” answered Dog, pushing back his wide hat and swinging a booted foot over the edge of the coverless Ford. A stranger would have known at once why he who had been named Percival John was known to his fellows as “Dog.” He looked like a dog—very much like a bench bull, with his button nose, his underslung chin, his sharp little eyes and forehead that was almost no forehead at all. As for his partner, he came quite readily by his nickname—not through any facial resemblance to a duck, but because, with his short bowlegs, he walked like one. A preacher in a day long past had baptized him Elbert Spence.

Minutes passed, during which Ducky dozed, slumped low in the front seat, and when Dog finally came and climbed over into his place slowly, the face which Ducky opened his eyes on, was drawn and sober.

“You remember that I had a sister,” Dog said at last. “I don’t often speak of her.”

“Uh-huh!”

“Married an artist guy.”

“They’re never no good.”

“Not generally, but this one wasn’t so bad, take him altogether. Used to draw waterfalls and such, but he gave it up. Now he makes pretty pictures for toothpowder ads.”

“Uh-huh! What about it?”

“Well, they had a son, named after me—Percival Bigelow James. I got a letter from my sister. Seems he’s turned out bad.”

“That so?” Ducky roused himself into a sitting position. This was better. “Rob a bank or something?”

Dog shook his head.

“Nope. Turned poet.”

“Good gosh!” Ducky slumped again. Dog went on with it.

“He must be about twenty-five or -six years old now. You remember when we were in Klondike we got a letter from my sister about her having a kid, and I made him a nugget watchchain.”

“Oh, yes. You bummed most of those nuggets off me. But what about it? Ten minutes ago you were in a tooting hurry to get home, and now you sit here drooling like a new calf.”

“I’m breaking it to you gently,” said Dog. “Fact is, Ducky, this letter says the boy’s health aint been any too good. Threatened with T.B., I reckon, though she don’t come right out with it. My sister wants this Percival to come out and pay us a visit.”

“Huh?”

“Yea-ah. I’ll read you the finish of it.” He pulled the letter from the pocket of his shirt, shucked the many closely written leaves from the envelope and read the concluding sentences. “‘And so, because I know that you would refuse, yet dare not give you an opportunity to refuse, I have arranged for Percy to start West on the day after mailing this letter, and of course you will arrange to meet him; and while your life must be rude and living-quarters of the roughest, we are sure that the change will be just what he needs. We have bought his ticket and berth and shall furnish him with funds to pay for meals and incidentals, but he must work and earn and stay with you until he has earned enough to bring him home again. This is part of our plan—a return to health, and the necessary discipline to make a man of him.’”

“Good gosh!” Ducky sat bolt upright now. “This letter came yesterday. That means he’ll be here on today’s stage?”

“That’s it,” said Dog. There was nothing more to be said. When things happen to people, things happen to them, and that’s all there is to it.

They summoned courage, finally, to discuss details. He could sleep in the loft—up there with Spud Dugan, the man-of-all-work about the place. Spud wouldn’t like it, and the boy wouldn’t care for Spud’s snoring, but they would have to put up with one another. He probably smoked tailor-made cigarettes. Ducky went to get a carton. He probably would be one of those fellows that’s always got to be washing himself. Dog went to buy some white soap, and then, remembering something, bought a dozen cakes of laundry soap as well. Time for the stage any time now, and presently it came, in an enveloping swirl of gray dust—a big truck, with an extra seat crosswise behind the driver, and the back end filled with freight.

“Here he is,” bawled Duke Envers, the driver, and added to the slim youngster at his side: “There’s your uncle over there, him with the face like a bench bull.”

The young man climbed down, stiffly. He wore a flappy hat that had been pearl-colored, tweed knickerbockers, and boots of that golden yellow shade peculiar to New York outfitting shops.

“He’s got a couple of bags that was made from a cow apiece,” added Duke, “and they’s a crate of mail-order stuff for you, Dog.”

Percival stepped forward, blinking in the strong light. Dog, swallowing hard, strode toward him and shook hands with a heartiness at which the visitor cried out.

“My partner, Ducky Spence,” said Dog. Percy nodded, his right hand safely behind his back. Ducky went for the bags, and presently returned, staggering.

“Don’t forget that mail-order stuff,” Duke Envers bawled to Dog, climbing back over the freight. “It’s here in the hind end. I’ll hand it down. Looks like a washing-machine to me.”

He handed it down, and Dog carried it to the Ford, lifted it over the side and snugged it in, between the back and front seats, on top of sundry supplies. The stranger and Ducky followed, Ducky swaying under the grips, his legs moving with that strange waddle which had given him his moniker. Dog lifted the grips, plunking them down on the back seat, which they completely filled.

“Maybe we better eat first,” he suggested. “It’s a good forty mile, and the road’s a bit rough in spots. What do you say?” This last to nephew Percival.

“What does it matter? What does anything matter?” squeaked Percival.

Dog looked at him, looked at Ducky. Ducky looked at Percival, looked at Dog. It was worse than they had feared.

“Well, if you don’t want to eat, what do you want to do?” Dog asked.

“I want to go back.”

Dog grabbed him by the arm. “That’s the one place you don’t go. We eat.”

He lead the Easterner across the street to the Ideal Cafe, Ducky following, sundry acquaintances staring. They mounted stools at the counter.

“Ducky and I are having ham and eggs. How about you?”

Percival shivered,—perhaps shuddered,—gazing straight into the fly-specked mirror of the back bar.

“I think I shall just have some thin toast, without butter, some bar-le-duc jelly and a pot of oolong tea, very weak.”

Red Leonard, cook and waiter, treated himself to half a snigger. The second half died at the look Dog gave him.

“That makes three ham and eggs, Red,” Dog said, “with some fried potatoes and a slab of pie and plenty of coffee. If you’ve got any comparatively modern eggs, we’d like to be favored with ’em. And snap out of it. This is my nephew. Going up to our place for a while with Ducky and me, to pay a visit to Spud Dugan.”

He grinned, and Red grinned back.

“Spud Dugan is our cook,” Dog told Percival, by way of conversation. “Used to wash dishes for Red, here, but we got him to come up to the ranch and work for us. Ducky likes to cook, but he can’t, and I’m a good cook, but I wont, so we figured we’d better get in a neutral party.”

They ate, then, with that whole-souled attention to food which makes conversation impossible, Percival nibbling at first, but getting in some pretty fair work himself toward the finish, for he had not broken fast since morning. Observing this, Dog felt encouraged, very slightly, but his courage fell when he attempted to draw Percival into conversation on the long ride home, while the lad sat beside him, with Ducky perched precariously on the luggage in the rear.

“This is a fine country,” he hazarded. “Gets a bit dry at times, of course.”

“I don’t like it,” said Percival.

“You will, all right. Probably the name sort of prejudiced you—Too Dry.”

“What does a name matter?”

Dog stuck to it.

“Of course you heard about the big Too Dry Gulch Dam. I imagine they talk about that a lot back East.”

“No.”

“We had a project to dam the creek in Too Dry Gulch, above our place. Wasn’t going to cost only thirty million dollars, but that no-account Congressman of ours fumbled the cards somehow and fell down on the appropriation. Steve Martin, that runs the post office, he come out here to go into the real-estate business, and he did too, and he’s in it yet, but the boys kind of schemed around to get him made postmaster so he wouldn’t starve to death while he was waiting for the real-estate boom to start. You ever interested in real-estate?”

“No.”

Dog gave it up for a while. He was pretty busy, anyway. Driving a Ford that has no front bushings, on a road that is composed chiefly of ruts with a generous sprinkling of crags that must be leaped, is a man-sized job by itself. When he finally resumed, it was via a third party. He addressed his remarks to Ducky, hollering them from the side of his mouth.

“You didn’t know I was getting a washing-machine, did you?”

“No, and I don’t care for it any,” came a jolted answer. “Seems to me we’re getting all-fired civilized lately. Next thing I know you’ll be sending away for a woman.”

Dog laughed. Percival suddenly sat up straight and looked at him anxiously.

“Are there no women?”

This was, of course, as funny a thing as he could have said. Dog and Ducky laughed noisily, and the Ford, unattended for a split second, leaped into a ditch, and then, in answer to a savage jerk, hopped back onto the road, quivering from her nose to the place where her tail-light once was.

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” said Dog. “There’s a nester in beyond about twenty miles that’s got a woman. He got her off the reservation near Parma, summer before last. They say she’s a pretty good cook for a squaw. We could go over and see her some time if you want to.”

He looked at the lad by his side, but the lad was looking straight ahead, tight-lipped, silent and unutterably sad. Dog gave it up, and they made the last twelve miles, which, incidentally were the worst, in a silence broken only by the never-stopping rattle of the Ford. The Ford had lights, of a sort, but after darkness set in, Dog made small use of them, driving by a sixth sense that enabled him to steer the crazy vehicle in its rock-strewn course. Twice the car broke loose and dived down dry watercourses, and Ducky had to get out and push to help get it back onto the track that Western courtesy called a road.

But all things, even bad roads, come to an end, and finally they arrived, and Spud Dugan, a sour wisp of a man with a bald head and fierce mustaches, met them with a lantern and helped tote things in.

“What’s this?” he demanded abruptly, when Dog lifted out the heavy, crated washing-machine.

“Little present for you. I’ll open it up when we get into the house.”

They went in, Percival Bigelow James following, carrying nothing. It was a house of goodly size, made of native Montana timber such as is found along stream-beds, with a kitchen and bedroom on the first floor, and a loft above, reached by a ladder nailed to a side wall. Percival dropped onto a bench in the kitchen. Spud set about putting away stores in a cupboard. Dog found a hatchet and tore the crate from the washing-machine.

“What-in-the-hell-is-it?” demanded Spud testily.

“Washing-machine,” Dog told him. “Genuine Old Faithful, twenty-four fifty, F. O. B. factory. She’s a peach. Swishes the clothes back and forth, and the dirt settles in the bottom.”

“Hump. What’s this thing?”

“That’s the handle you work it by. Just pull the handle back and forth, and the wheels go round, and the clothes get washed in no time and all the dirt falls to the bottom. You’ll like it.”

Spud shook his head.

“Not me. Take her outside. I pull no handles. We wash in the creek like always—what washing we do, which aint much; and I might add that your little friend here does his own or it don’t get done, and that’s that.”

Apparently that was that. Dog, mustering a grin, set the machine outside, under the leanto-porch, and suggested that they all turn in.

“Where?” asked Percival in a dead voice.

Dog told him, upstairs, in a fine comfortable bunk with a buffalo robe to throw over him if it got cold. Percival still sat on the bench which he had found upon entering the house.

“I want three hundred dollars,” he said suddenly. “I must have three hundred dollars. You let me have three hundred dollars and take me back to where I can get a train for New York. Mother’ll pay you back.”

Dog shook his head.

“You get no three hundred dollars from me. Your mother gave me positive instructions. You’ll like it fine here after you get used to it, and you’ll get strong and hearty. Why, in a month, you wont want to go back, not never.”

“I want to go back now,” whined Percival.

“Aw shut up,” said Ducky suddenly. “You make me sick. It’s going to be hard enough on us to have you around here at best, and if you’re going to yowl around all the time, it’ll be a lot worse. Get up to bed and sleep off your grouch.”

“Ducky’s right,” added Dog, picking up the big grips, which he carried to the foot of the ladder. Leaving them on the floor, he climbed halfway, and at a signal Ducky handed them up one at a time, and he boosted them through the ceiling hole onto the floor above. Percival watched this performance, but made no move to help.

Out of deference to company, Spud Dugan lighted a lantern and carried it up into the loft, and still Percival sat. Finally, Dog took him by the arm, led him to the ladder, and pushed him up. Just before his head disappeared through the hole, he turned and spoke:

“I’ll bet I’ll make you give me three hundred dollars.”

“You lose your bet,” said Dog sullenly. “Good night.”

Percival was not up when Dog and Ducky left next morning on a long trip to the North Cañon country. Returning, dog-tired, at dark, they found him on the bench in the kitchen, sitting perfectly still, eyes straight ahead, looking at nothing.

Spud Dugan whispered to Dog:

“Just like that all day. Wont do nothing.”

“Let him alone,” answered Dog.

The next day, as reported by Spud, was just about the same, and the next no better. The third day was, in fact, slightly worse, because Percival had brought to his bench a book bound in limp leather. Books always irritated Spud.

“He’ll die on you, sure. Remember that dog the nester’s squaw brought with her from over by Parma. Just sat around and died. Same with him.”

“Aw, dry up,” Dog told him. But he was worried, and next morning he made excuse to stay at the house, and determined to have a talk with Percival. He drew up a backless kitchen chair and filled a cob pipe.

“Montana’s not such a bad country, son,” he began.

No answer.

“I’ve seen lots of places—Texas, New York, Klondike, and for just plain satisfaction, Montana beats ’em all.”

No answer.

“Take it, now, down around Bozeman and Belgrade—there’s as fine irrigated land as there is in the world. And the Gallatin Valley. Then we’ve got oil, some places, and lots of mining around Butte and Anaconda.”

The boy on the bench lifted his head.

“I want to go home, and if I had three hundred dollars, I’d go.”

It was pretty tough.

“Come on outside a minute,” Dog said finally, and Percival reluctantly rose and followed.

“Now, if you’re a poet, take a look at that valley. Ever see anything prettier than that? That’s why we’re here—this valley. Cattle graze in the free range, and there’s always water in the creek.”

The boy looked up at him.

“If there was three hundred dollars in that creek, I’d care for it. Otherwise not.”

He turned and dragged himself back toward the house. An idea came to Dog, who had racked his brain for three days for one—came with that suddenness that is characteristic of ideas. Anything was better than the present situation. He called the boy back, spoke to him in hushed tones.

“There might be.”

“Might be what?”

“Three hundred dollars in that creek. I’m not saying there is, but I’ll say that it looks an awful lot like a creek that Ducky and I took thirty thousand dollars out of in the Klondike, and I might add—”

“How do you get gold out of a creek?”

Hooray! There might be a chance yet. Get the lad interested in any kind of outdoor work, and give the good old Montana ozone a chance on him.

“I’ll show you.”

He ran to the house, dived into a cupboard and returned with a deep pie-pan. It was not shaped just right, but it would answer. He picked up a shovel from where it leaned against the corner of the house, and led Percival up the creek and showed him how to wash gravel. And the third pan showed color—just a trace, but enough to show. Of course, Percival did not know that color and gold in paying quantities are things often as far apart as Montana is from New York. But Dog knew that the sight of color will edge a chechahco, rouse lust within his soul, stir him to feats of physical endurance undreamed of. He sneaked away and joined Ducky in a fence-mending job.

That night a very tired Percival, but a Percival with a real appetite, joined them at dinner, stoked himself with beans and fried pork, and retired immediately afterward to the loft.

“He’s gone cuckoo now,” Spud Dugan told Dog and Ducky, jerking his bald head toward the ceiling hole. “Been out up the creek all day, panning for gold.”

“You let him alone,” said Dog.

“Don’t worry.” Spud stacked a precarious load of dishes in the nightly chore of clearing off. “Letting him alone is what suits me best.”

“You’d better salt that creek some,” Ducky suggested. “Long about ten o’clock tomorrow morning, that kid’ll get tired of mining. We got three-four old Klondike nuggets somewhere, aint we?”

Dog nodded, grinning. He went to an old trunk in a far corner of the sleeping-room, rummaged in it profanely and finally came back with a small chamois sack which, upended, spewed forth five pieces of rough gold, each about as big as a shriveled pea.

“We gave away too many souvenirs,” he commented, “but I’ll plant one of these tomorrow, maybe two the next day, and that’ll leave two for the day after, and he might just happen to pick up one or two on his own account.”

“Fat chance, on that creek! You gotta salt it. Get up there first thing, and put one in the gravel where he’s left his shovel stuck in. A man always pans that shovelful.”

It worked beautifully. Next evening, Percival was hungry again, tired, but there was about him an air of elation, elaborately concealed. Dog, getting an early start again, planted two more nuggets, and on the following day, the final two from the pouch. At the close of each day upon which a planting had been made, Percival was hungry, tired but elated, and elaborately concealing his elation.

Ducky had another idea, an idea unique for sheer craziness. He led Percival, with elaborate caution, onto the side porch, and pointed to the washing-machine.

“I understand you’ve been digging up the creek,” he whispered.

“A little,” admitted Percival.

“Get much?”

“Not much.”

“Thought so. I’ve got an idea. Your method is too slow—you don’t get over enough dirt in a day. We’ll start in the morning, early, just you and me, and we’ll take this washing-machine up the creek a bit and plant her solid, and shovel dirt and gravel into her. She’s rigged, you see, so that the dirt from the clothes will settle in this place at the bottom. Well, now, suppose we take a saw and make some slits in her sides—get me? No? Why, the idea is simple enough, and practical. The water and dirt and little rocks slip out of the slits in the side, but the gold settles in the bottom, where the dirt is supposed to settle when you use the rig for washing clothes. How’s that?”

Percival nodded, and for the first time since coming to Too Dry, he smiled.

“Don’t tell anybody. Nobody’s interested in this washing-machine and it wont be missed. You slide in now, and up to bed and get a big sleep, and I’ll call you at daybreak and we’ll eat a cold bite for breakfast and sneak up the creek before Dog and Spud are stirring.”

When the boy had gone, he told Dog.

“The scheme is crazy, of course, but it’ll keep him interested a few days longer, and if he once gets used to this country, and gets a little flesh on him, he’ll be a man, and we’re going to need a man bad before long to help in the branding.”

Dog nodded. The scheme was good—for what it was meant to accomplish.

“We need a little more salt, though,” he added. “Wait a minute.”

Again he went to the trunk and engaged in profane search, returning at last with a nugget mounted on a pin.

“Forgot this one,” he said, and wrenched the pin from where it was soldered to the back of the nugget. “Take this and plant it.”

The washing-machine rocking device kept Percival happy all next day, and his eye was lighted by a particularly bright gleam of elation as he settled to the fried pork and beans at dinner next night.

“If we just had about one more piece of salt,” mourned Ducky, after Percival had climbed the ladder, but Dog shook his head. The stick-pin had cleaned the place of nuggets.

“We’ve done all we can,” he said. “I wish he’d find something of his own.”

But Ducky shook his head at this. No chance. And yet, come dinner time next night, here sits Percival again, looking as cocky as a cat that’s eaten a canary. Throughout the meal Dog and Ducky cast anxious eyes at him. Percival finished, pushed his plate toward the center of the table, got up, thrust his hand deep into his right-hand trouser pocket and brought forth something wrapped in a bit of paper. He unwrapped the paper and held out for inspection a nugget twice as large as any that the conspirators had planted for him.

“I worked in new ground today, farther up the creek. Good night.”

They watched him, fascinated, as he climbed the ladder to the loft.

“Suffering crawfish!” hissed Ducky, after he had safely gone.

Dog said nothing at all for a full minute, and then:

“You remember that Swede at Dawson that took a million dollars out of the place we gave up as no good.”

“I remember,” said Ducky. “Probably nothing to this.”

“Probably not,” agreed Dog, but without conviction. “We’ll see what he brings home tomorrow night.”

Next night Percival stoked as usual, pushed back his plate, got up, fished into his right-hand trouser pocket and produced two nuggets about the size of the one he had displayed the night before.

Dog cleared his throat and spoke with elaborate casualty.

“Just where are you working now?”

“Up the creek. Around that second bend. Good night.”

Again they watched him climb the ladder. Ducky spoke first.

“That takes him out of our land, onto the free range. All he’s got to do is stake his claim.”

“I know it. Let’s wait one more day.”

At the end of the day that followed, Percival again ate his dinner, pushed back his plate and dug into his right-hand trouser pocket, producing this time three nuggets.

“Getting better,” he said, and started toward the ladder, but this time Dog called to him.

“Of course a nugget now and then don’t really mean anything.”

“They’re good for money,” said Percival calmly. “After I get enough of them, I can trade them for three hundred dollars, and that’s what I need to get back to New York.”

Dog looked at Ducky, and Ducky at Dog. Dog spoke.

“That’s all you want, is it? Three hundred dollars?”

“That’s all.”

“Well—” Dog seemed to hesitate. “If that’s really all you want, maybe Ducky and I could scrape it up between us.”

“All right. Take me to town tomorrow, and give me three hundred dollars. Good night.”

Again he started for the ladder, and this time they let him go. Dog looked at Ducky, and Ducky looked at Dog. Spud Dugan, who had been standing by, put in an oar.

“You’re going to put this over on him, are you?”

“It’s his own proposition,” said Dog decisively.

“Looks raw to me,” answered Spud. “All I got to say is that money or anything else that’s come by through sharp practice don’t ever do nobody no good. I hope you never find a thing after that kid’s gone.”

“Oh, dry up,” said Dog. “What does a poet want with money, anyhow?”

They got an early start for town, to catch the stage, and made it. Dog and Ducky held brief but effective converse with old man Kellifer at the store, who always had money, and came out of the conference with a roll of bills, which Dog handed to Percival, just as the stage was ready to start. Percival gave brief thanks, ran across to the Ideal Cafe for a moment, then climbed aboard the stage, while Ducky heaved his big bags into the freight compartment. Duke Envers, the driver, cranked the big truck, and the engine burst into a violent coughing. Envers got aboard and started his stage, and Dog and Ducky watched it, until all that was visible was a fine swirl of dust in the far distance.

“Well, that’s that!” said Dog. “He’s gone, and gone for good. Couldn’t call him back if we wanted to. Couldn’t catch him.”

“Well, let’s not worry,” answered Ducky. “All I want to do now is to get back to that creek and find out what we’ve got. How rich do you suppose it is?”

Dog shook his head.

“Hard telling. The blamed fool didn’t bother to save anything but big nuggets. No telling how much fine stuff there is.”

Red Leonard stuck his head out of the Ideal Cafe and called:

“Oh, Dog.”

Dog went over, Ducky trailing. Red Leonard handed Dog an envelope, addressed in a fair hand to Mr. Percival John Bigelow, kindness of restaurant man.

“That sissy kid left it with me, to hand to you after he’d gone.”

Dog tore open the letter, Ducky crowding for a look. They read:

Dear Uncle:

I had to have three hundred dollars. At first, I thought there really was gold in the creek, although it seemed strange that I found a nugget or more in the first shovelful and nothing after that all day. Of course, when I found that stick-pin nugget, with solder on the back of it, then I knew. So I broke up the nugget chain you gave me when I was a baby, and found nuggets for myself, just as easy. I had to have three hundred dollars.

Percival.

“What does he say?” yelled Red Leonard from the doorway.

Dog tore the letter, viciously, into very small pieces and heaved them into the wind. Then he steadied himself for an appropriate reply to Red Leonard.

“He says that he thanks Mr. Spence and me for the nice entertainment we provided for him during his stay in Montana, and when he gets back to New York, he’s going to tell all the folks there what a wonderful State Montana is.”

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the January 1925 issue of Blue Book magazine.