The Happy Family written by Bertha Muzzy Bower

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Patsy never had been angelic; he had always been the victim of more or
less ill-timed humor on the part of the Happy Family, and the victim
of hunger-sharpened tempers as well. He had always grumbled and
rumbled Dutch profanity when they goaded him too hard, and his
amiability had ever expressed itself in juicy pies and puddings rather
than in words. On this roundup, however, he was not often amiable and
he was nearly always rumbling to himself. More than that, he was
becoming resentful of extra work and bother and he sometimes permitted
his resentment to carry him farther than was wise.

To quarrel with Patsy was rapidly becoming the fashion, and to gossip
about him and his faults was already a habit; a habit indulged in too
freely, perhaps, for the good of the camp. Isolation from the world
brings small things into greater prominence than is normally their
due, and large troubles are born of very small irritations.

For two days there was peace of a sort, and then Big Medicine, having
eaten no dinner because of a headache, rode into camp about three
o'clock and headed straight for the mess-wagon, quite as if he had a
right that must not be questioned. Custom did indeed warrant him in
lunching without the ceremony of asking leave of the cook, for Patsy
even in his most unpleasant moods had never until lately tried to stop
anyone from eating when he was hungry.

On this day, however, Big Medicine unthinkingly cut into a fresh-baked
pie set out to cool. There were other pies, and in cutting one Big
Medicine was supported by precedent; but Patsy chose to consider it an
affront and snatched the pie from under Big Medicine's very nose.

"You fellers vot iss always gobbling yet, you iss quit it alreatty!"
rumbled Patsy, bearing the pie into the tent with Big Medicine's knife
still lying buried in the lately released juice. "I vork und vork mine
head off keeping you fellers filled oop tree times a day alreatty; I
not vork und vork to feed you effery hour, py cosh. You go mitout till
supper iss reaty for you yet."

Big Medicine, his frog-like eyes standing out from his sun-reddened
face, stared agape. "Well, by cripes!" He hesitated, looking about
him; but whether his search was for more pie or for moral support he
did not say. Truth to tell, there was plenty of both. He reached for
another pie and another knife, and he grinned his wide grin at Irish,
who had just come up. "Dutchy's trying to run a whizzer," he remarked,
cutting a defiant gash clean across the second pie. "What do yuh know
about that?"

"He's often took that way," said Irish soothingly. "You don't want all
that pie--give me about half of it."

Big Medicine, his mouth too full for coherent utterance, waved his
hand and his knife toward the shelf at the back of the mess-wagon
where three more pies sat steaming in the shade. "Help yourself," he
invited juicily when he could speak.

Those familiar with camp life in the summer have perhaps observed the
miraculous manner in which a million or so "yellow-jackets" will come
swarming around when one opens a can of fruit or uncovers the sugar
jar. It was like that. Irish helped himself without any hesitation
whatever, and he had not taken a mouthful before Happy Jack, Weary and
Pink were buzzing around for all the world like the "yellow-jackets"
mentioned before. Patsy buzzed also, but no one paid the slightest
attention until the last mouthful of the last pie was placed in
retirement where it would be most appreciated. Then Weary became aware
of Patsy and his wrath, and turned to him pacifically.

"Oh, yuh don't want to worry none about the pie," he smiled winningly
at him. "Mamma! How do you expect to keep pies around this camp when
yuh go right on making such good ones? Yuh hadn't ought to be such a
crackajack of a cook, Patsy, if you don't want folks to eat themselves
sick."

If any man among them could have soothed Patsy, Weary would certainly
have been the man; for next to Chip he was Patsy's favorite. To say
that he failed is only one way of making plain how great was Patsy's
indignation.

"Aw, yuh made 'em to be eat, didn't yuh?" argued Happy Jack. "What
difference does it make whether we eat 'em now or two hours from now?"

Patsy tried to tell them the difference. He called his hands and his
head to help his rage-tangled tongue and he managed to make himself
very well understood. They did not argue the fine point of gastronomic
ethics which he raised, though they felt that his position was not
unassailable and his ultimate victory not assured.

Instead, they peered into boxes and cans which were covered, gleaned a
whole box of seeded raisins and some shredded cocoanut just to tease
him and retired to wrangle ostentatiously over their treasure trove in
the shade of the bed-tent, leaving Patsy to his anger and his empty
tins.

Other men straggled in, drifted with the tide of their appetites to
the cook-tent, hovered there briefly and retired vanquished and still
hungry. They invariably came over to the little group which was
munching raisins and cocoanut and asked accusing questions. What was
the matter with Patsy? Who had put him on the fight like that? and
other inquiries upon the same subject.

Just because they were all lying around camp with nothing to do but
eat, Patsy was late with his supper that night. It would seem that he
dallied purposely and revengefully, and though the Happy Family flung
at him taunts and hurry-up orders, it is significant that they shouted
from a distance and avoided coming to close quarters.

Just how and when they began their foolish little game of imitation
broncho-fighting does not matter. When work did not press and red
blood bubbled they frequently indulged in "rough-riding" one another
to the tune of much taunting and many a "Bet yuh can't pitch _me_
off!" Before supper was called they were hard at it and they quite
forgot Patsy.

"I'll give any man a dollar that can ride me straight up, by cripes!"
bellowed Big Medicine, going down upon all fours by way of invitation.

"Easy money, and mine from the start!" retorted Irish and immediately
straddled Big Medicine's back. Horses and riders pantingly gave over
their own exertions and got out of the way, for Big Medicine played
bronk as he did everything else: with all his heart and soul and
muscles, and since he was strong as a bull, riding him promised much
in the way of excitement.

"Yuh can hold on by my collar, but if yuh choke me down I'll murder
yuh in cold blood," he warned Irish before he started. "And don't yuh
dig your heels in my ribs neither, or I'm liable to bust every bone
yuh got to your name. I'm ticklish, by cripes!"

"I'll ride yuh with my arms folded if yuh say so," Irish offered
generously. "Move, you snail!" He struck Big Medicine spectacularly
with his hat, yelled at the top of his voice and the riding began
immediately and tumultuously.

It is very difficult to describe accurately and effectively the
evolutions of a horse when he "pitches" his worst and hardest. It is
still more difficult to set down in words the gyrations of a man when
he is playing that he is a broncho and is trying to dislodge the
fellow upon his back. Big Medicine reared and kicked and bellowed and
snorted. He came down upon a small "pin-cushion" cactus and was
obliged to call a recess while he extracted three cactus spines from
his knee with his smallest knife-blade and some profanity.

He rolled down his trousers' leg, closed his knife and tossed it to
Pink for fear he might lose it, examined critically a patch of grass
to make sure there were no more cacti hidden there and bawled: "Come
on, now, I'll sure give yuh a run for your money _this_ time, by
cripes!" and began all over again.

How human muscles can bear the strain he put upon his own must be
always something of a mystery. He described curves in the air which
would sound incredible; he "swapped ends" with all the ease of a real
fighting broncho and came near sending Irish off more than once.
Insensibly he neared the cook-tent, where Patsy so far forgot himself
as to stand just without the lifted flap and watch the fun with sour
interest.

"Ah-h _want_ yuh!" yelled Big Medicine, quite purple but far from
surrender, and gave a leap.

"Go _get_ me!" shouted Irish, whipping down the sides of his mount
with his hat.

Big Medicine answered the taunt by a queer, twisted plunge which he
had saved for the last. It brought Irish spread-eagling over his head,
and it landed him fairly in the middle of Patsy's great pan of soft
bread "sponge"--and landed him upon his head into the bargain. Irish
wriggled there a moment and came up absolutely unrecognizable and a
good deal dazed. Big Medicine rolled helplessly in the grass, laughing
his big, bellowing laugh.

It was straight into that laugh and the great mouth from where it
issued, that Patsy, beside himself with rage at the accident,
deposited all the soft dough which was not clinging to the head and
face of Irish. He was not content with that. While the Happy Family
roared appreciation of the spectacle, Patsy returned with a kettle of
meat and tried to land that neatly upon the dough.

"Py cosh, if dat iss der vay you wants your grub, py cosh, dat iss der
vay you gets it alreatty!" he brought the coffee-boiler and threw that
also at the two, and followed it with a big basin of stewed corn.

Irish, all dough as he was, went for him blindly and grappled with
him, and it was upon this turbulent scene which Chip looked first when
he rode up. The Happy Family crowded around him gasping and tried to
explain.

"They were doing some rough-riding--"

"By golly, Patsy no business to set his bread dough on the ground!"

"He's throwed away all the supper there is, and I betche--"

"Mamma! Yuh sure missed it, Chip. You ought--"

"By cripes, if that Dutch--"

"Break away there, Irish!" shouted Chip, dismounting hurriedly. "Has
it got so you must fight an old man like that?"

"Py cosh, _I'll_ fight mit him alreatty! I'll fight mit any mans vat
shpoils mine bread. Maybe I'm old yet but I ain't dead yet und I could
fight--" The words came disjointedly, mere punctuation points to his
wild sparring.

It was plain that Irish, furious though he was, was trying not to hurt
Patsy very much; but it took four men to separate them for all that.
When they had dragged Irish perforce down to the creek by which they
had camped, and had yelled to Big Medicine to come on and feed the
fish, quiet should have been restored--but it was not.

Patsy was, in American parlance, running amuck. He was jumbling three
languages together into an indistinguishable tumult of sound and he
was emptying the cook-tent of everything which his stout, German
muscles could fling from it. Not a thing did he leave that was eatable
and the dishes within his reach he scattered recklessly to all the
winds of heaven. When one venturesome soul after another approached to
calm him, he found it expedient to duck and run to cover. Patsy's aim
was terribly exact.

The Happy Family, under cover or at a safe distance from the hurtling
pans, cans and stove wood, caressed sundry bumps and waited meekly.
Irish and Big Medicine, once more disclosing the features God had
given them, returned by a circuitous route and joined their fellows.

"Look at 'em over there--he's emptying every grain uh rolled oats on
the ground!" Happy Jack was a "mush-fiend." "Somebody better go over
and stop 'im--"

"You ain't tied down," suggested Cal Emmett rather pointedly, and
Happy Jack said no more.

Chip, usually so incisively clear as to his intentions and his duties,
waited irresolutely and dodged missiles along with the rest of them.
When Patsy subsided for the very good reason that there was nothing
else which he could throw out, Chip took the matter up with him and
told him quite plainly some of the duties of a cook, a few of his
privileges and all of his limitations. The result, however, was not
quite what he expected. Patsy would not even listen.

"Py cosh, I not stand for dose poys no more," he declared, wagging his
head with its shiny crown and the fringe of grizzled hair around the
back. "I not cook grub for dat Irish und dat Big Medicine und Happy
Jack und all dose vat cooms und eats mine pies und shpoils mine pread
und makes deirselves fools all der time. If dose fellers shtay on dis
camp I quits him alreatty." To make the bluff convincing he untied his
apron, threw it spitefully upon the ground and stamped upon it
clumsily, like a maddened elephant.

"Well, quit then!" Chip was fast losing his own temper, what with the
heat and his hunger and a general distaste for camp troubles. "This
jangling has got to stop right here. We've had about enough of it in
the last month. If you can't cook for the outfit peaceably--" He did
not finish the sentence, or if he did the distance muffled the words,
for he was leading his horse back to the vicinity of the rope corral
that he might unsaddle and turn him loose.

He heard several voices muttering angrily, but his wrath was ever of
the stiff-necked variety so that he would not look around to see what
was the matter. The tumult grew, however, until when he did turn he
saw Patsy stalking off across the prairie with his hat on and his coat
folded neatly over his arm, and Irish and Big Medicine fighting
wickedly in the open space between the two tents. He finished
unsaddling and then went stalking over to quell this latest
development.

"They're trying to find out who was to blame," Weary informed him when
he was quite close. "Bud hasn't got much tact: he called Irish a
dough-head. Irish didn't think it was true humor, and he hit Bud on
the nose. He claims that Bud pitched him into that dishpan uh dough
with malice aforethought. Better let 'em argue the point to a finish,
now they're started. It's black eyes for the peacemaker--you believe
_me_."

While the dusk folded them close and the nighthawks swooped from afar,
the Happy Family gathered round and watched them fight. Chip and Weary
thoughtfully went into the bed-tent and got the guns which were stowed
away in the beds of the combatants, so that when their anger reached
the killing point they must let it bubble harmlessly until the fires
which fed it went cold. Which was exceeding wise of the two, for Big
Medicine and Irish did get to that very point and raged all over the
camp because they could not shoot each other.

The hottest battle must perforce end sometime, and so the camp of the
Flying U did at last settle into some semblance of calm. Irish rolled
his bed, saddled a horse and rode off toward town, quite as if he were
going for good and all. Big Medicine went down to the creek for the
second time that evening to wash away the marks of strife, and when he
returned he went straight to bed without a word to anyone. Patsy was
gone, no man knew whither, and the cook-tent was as nearly wrecked as
might be.

"Makes me think uh that time we had the ringtailed tiger in camp,"
sighed Andy Green, shaking sand out of the teakettle so that it could
be refilled.

"By golly, I'd ruther have a whole band uh tagers than this fighting
bunch," Slim affirmed earnestly. Slim was laboring sootily with the
stove-pipe which Patsy had struck askew with a stick of wood.

Outside, Happy Jack was protesting in what he believed to be an
undertone against being installed in Patsy's place. "Aw, that's always
the way! Anything comes up, it's 'Happy, you git in and rustle some
chuck.' _I_ ain't no cook--or if I be they might pay me cook's wages.
I betche there ain't another man in camp would stand for it.
Somebody's got to take that bacon down to the creek and wash it off,
if yuh want any meat for supper. There ain't no time to boil beef. If
I'd a been boss uh this outfit, I betche no blame cook on earth would
uh made rough-house like Patsy done." But no one paid the slightest
attention to Happy Jack, having plenty to think of and to do before
they slept.

Not even the sun, when it shone again, could warm their hearts to a
joy in living. Happy Jack cooked the breakfast, but his coffee was
weak and his biscuits "soggy," and Patsy had managed to make the
butter absolutely uneatable with sand; also they were late and Chip
was surly over the double loss of cook and cowboy. Happy Jack packed
food and dishes in much the same spirit which Patsy had shown the
night before, climbed sullenly to the high seat, gathered up the reins
of the four restive horses, released the brake and let out a yell
surcharged with all the bitterness bottled within his soul. _He_ had
not done anything to precipitate the trouble. Beyond eating half a pie
he had been an innocent spectator, not even taking part in the
rough-riding. Yet here he was, condemned to the mess-wagon quite as if
he were to blame for Patsy's leaving. The eyes of Happy Jack gazed
gloomily upon the world, and his driving seemed a reckless invitation
to disaster. "I betche I'll make 'em good and sick uh _my_ cooking!"
he plotted while he went rattling and bumping over the untrailed
prairie.

He succeeded so well that two days later Chip gave a curt order or two
and headed his wagons, horses and his lean-stomached bunch of riders
for Dry Lake, passing by even the Flying U coulee in his haste. Just
outside the town, upon the creek which saves the inhabitants from
dying of thirst or _delirium tremens_, he left the wagons with Happy
Jack, Slim and one alien to set up camp and rode dust-dogged to the
little, red depot.

The telegram which went speeding to Great Falls and to a friend there
was brief, but it was eloquent and not quite flattering to Happy Jack.
It read like this:

"JOHN G. SCOTT,

"The Palace, Great Falls.

"For God's sake send me a cook by return train; must deliver goods
or die hard.

"BENNETT, Flying U."

Whether the cook must die hard, or whether he meant the friend, Chip
did not trouble to make plain. Telegrams are bound by such rigid
limitations, and he had gone over the ten-word rate as it was. But he
told Weary to receive the cook, be he white or black, have him restock
the mess-wagon to his liking and then bring the outfit to the ranch,
when Chip would again take it in hand. He said that he was going home
to get a square meal, and he mentioned Happy Jack along with several
profane words. "Johnny Scott will send a cook, and a good one,"; he
added hopefully. "Johnny never threw down a friend in his life and he
never will. And say, Weary, if he wires, you collect the message and
act accordingly. I'm going to have a decent supper, to-night!" He was
riding a good horse and there was no reason why he should be late in
arriving, especially if he kept the gait at which he left town.

In two hours Weary, Pink and Andy Green were touching hat-brims over a
telegram from Johnny Scott--a telegram which was brief as Chip's, and
more illuminating:

"CHIP BENNETT,

"Dry Lake.

"Kidnaped Park hotel chef best cook in town will be on next train.
J.G. SCOTT."

"Sounds good," mused Andy, reading it for the fourth time. "But
there's thirteen words in that telegram, if yuh notice."

"I wish yuh wouldn't try to butt in on Happy Jack's specialty," Weary
remonstrated, folding the message and slipping it inside the yellow
envelope. "If this is the same jasper that cooked there a month ago,
we're going to eat ourselves plumb to death; a better meal I never
laid away inside me than the one I got at the Park Hotel when I was up
there last time. Come on over to the hotel and eat; their chuck isn't
the best in the world, but it could be a lot worse and still beat
Happy Jack to a jelly."

PART TWO

The whole Happy Family--barring Happy Jack, who was sulking in camp
because of certain things which had been said of his cooking and which
he had overheard--clanked spurs impatiently upon the platform and
waited for the arrival of the train from the West. When at last it
snorted into town and nosed its way up to the platform they bunched
instinctively and gazed eagerly at the steps which led down from the
smoker.

A slim little man in blue serge, a man with the complexion of a strip
of rawhide and the mustache of a third-rate orchestra leader, felt his
way gingerly down by the light of the brakeman's lantern, hesitated
and then came questioningly toward them, carrying with some difficulty
a bulky suitcase.

"It's him, all right," muttered Pink while they waited.

The little man stopped apologetically before the group, indistinct in
the faint light from the office window. Already the train was sliding
away into the dark. "Pardon," he apologized. "I am looking for the U
fich flies."

"This is it," Weary assured him gravely. "We'll take yuh right on out
to camp. Pretty dark, isn't it? Let me take your grip--I know the way
better than you do." Weary was not in the habit of making himself a
porter for any man's accommodation, but the way back to where they had
left the horses was dark, and the new cook was very small and slight.
They filed silently back to Rusty Brown's place, invited the cook in
for a drink and were refused with soft-voiced regret and the gracious
assurance that he would wait outside for them.

Weary it was, and Pink to bear him company, who piloted the stranger
out to camp and showed him where he might sleep in Patsy's bed. Patsy
had left town, the Happy Family had been informed, with the
declaration often repeated that he was "neffer cooming back alreatty."
He had even left behind him his bed and his clothes rather than meet
again any member of the Flying U outfit.

"We'd like breakfast somewhere near sunrise," Weary told the cook at
parting. "Soon as the store opens in the morning, we'll drive in and
you can stock up the wagon; we're pretty near down to cases, judging
from the meals we have been getting lately. Hope yuh make out all
right."

"I will do very nicely, I thank you," smiled the new cook in the light
of the lantern which stood upon the fireless cook-stove. "I wish you
good-night, gentlemen, and sweet dreams of loved ones."

"Say, he's a polite son-of-a-gun," Pink commented when they were
riding back to town. "'The U fich flies'--that's a good one! What is
he, do you thing? French?"

"He's liable to be most anything, and I'll gamble he can build a good
dinner for a hungry man. That's the main point," said Weary.

At daybreak Weary woke and heard him humming a little tune while he
moved softly about the cook-tent and the mess-wagon, evidently
searching mostly for the things which were not there, to judge from
stray remarks which interrupted the love song. "Rolled oat--I do not
find him," he heard once. And again: "Where the clean towels they are,
that I do not discover." Weary smiled sleepily and took another nap.

The cook's manner of announcing breakfast was such that it awoke even
Jack Bates, notoriously a sleepy-head, and Cal Emmett who was almost
as bad. Instead of pounding upon a pan and lustily roaring
"_Grub-pi-i-ile!_" in the time-honored manner of roundup cooks, he
came softly up to the bed-tent, lifted a flap deprecatingly and
announced in a velvet voice:

"Breakfast is served, gentlemen."

Andy Green, whose experiences had been varied, sat up and blinked at
the gently swaying flap where the cook had been standing. "Say, what
we got in camp?" he asked curiously. "A butler?"

"By golly, that's the way a cook _oughta_ be!" vowed Slim, and reached
for his hat.

They dressed hastily and trooped down to the creek for their morning
ablutions, and hurried back to the breakfast which waited. The new
cook was smiling and apologetic and anxious to please. The Happy
Family felt almost as if there were a woman in camp and became very
polite without in the least realizing that they were not behaving in
the usual manner, or dreaming that they were unconsciously trying to
live up to their chef.

"The breakfast, it is of a lacking in many things fich I shall
endeavor to remedy," he assured them, pouring coffee as if he were
serving royalty. He was dressed immaculately in white cap and apron,
and his mustache was waxed to a degree which made it resemble a cat's
whiskers. The Happy Family tasted the coffee and glanced eloquently at
one another. It was better than Patsy's coffee, even; and as for Happy
Jack--

There were biscuits, the like of which they never had tasted before.
The bacon was crisp and delicately brown and delicious, the potatoes
cooked in a new and enticing way. The Happy Family showed its
appreciation as seemed to them most convincing: They left not a scrap
of anything and they drank two cups of coffee apiece when that was not
their habit.

Later, they hitched the four horses to the mess-wagon, learned that
the new cook, though he deeply regretted his inefficiency, did not
drive anything. "The small burro," he explained, "I ride him, yes, and
also the automobile drive I when the way is smooth. But the horses I
make not acquainted with him. I could ride upon the elevated seat,
yes, but to drive the quartet I would not presume."

"Happy, you'll have to drive," said Weary, his tone a command.

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