*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76839 ***


A Knife in Time
---------------

By Ray Humphreys

Author of “The Mutt,” etc.


Good mule skinners were at a premium with the Q B freighting outfit, or
Tom Morgan couldn’t have held his job ten minutes.

Tom, drifting in from nowhere, had fully demonstrated to McCarthy, the
wagon boss, that he could handle a six-mule hitch. He seemed to have a
way with mules; he also had a sheath knife in plain view.

“You’re hired,” said McCarthy. “I’m needin’ good men to handle that Red
Cliff ore contract--but what’s the idea o’ that scalpin’ knife ye’re
carrying there?”

The stranger had just grinned and shrugged, which made him look more
insignificant than before--for he was undersize, underweight, and
altogether unattractive.

“No idea,” he answered with a grunt back.

“Then scrap it, fer this is no fightin’ outfit,” advised McCarthy, “an’
a knife----”

“I always carry it,” said Morgan, with such evident finality in his
words that McCarthy swallowed what he meant to say. After all, a driver
was a driver, and Morgan had proved he could handle the ribbons. The
matter of the knife could be postponed a while at that, for the Red
Cliff contract would brook no delay, and three six-mule hitches, minus
drivers, were eating their heads off in the corrals.

“Pick your team,” said McCarthy, as he showed the new driver the
surplus animals.

“I’ll take any of ’em,” said Morgan indifferently; “mules is mules,
boss!”

So Morgan came to work for the Q B, the biggest freighting outfit in
the Colorado Hills. The Q B handled ore and timber contracts, conducted
a number of stage and freight lines, and occasionally worked big
grading jobs.

The knife that had attracted McCarthy’s attention when he hired Morgan,
speedily put the new driver in bad with the wagon crews, who viewed him
askance.

“A knife thrower, eh?” commented “Big Jim” Williams. “The little runt
ain’t man enough to fight his battles like a white man. He must be a
fine feller!”

“Him and his sword,” said another driver bitterly. “I’d not trust him
far behind me back!”

The remarks were meant for Morgan to hear. He did. He reddened,
protested, flared up--but the persecution did not cease. It grew worse
as the days went on. Finally McCarthy, the wagon boss, grew desperate.
The men were goading Morgan to violence, and the wagon boss trembled to
think what would happen if Morgan sent his knife flashing home on some
unlucky teamster. Murder--perhaps a lynching, afterward--and scandal,
and “Old Man” Ashton, the wealthy owner, fuming in from Denver to find
a new wagon boss.

“Still,” debated McCarthy, “if I can him there’ll be a six-mule team in
the corrals idle, and the ol’ man will raise Ned ef he sees that!”

So, seeking a solution to the trouble, the wagon boss went to some of
the skinners.

“Ye’ll have to stop baiting that runt Morgan,” ordered McCarthy, “or
thar’ll be plenty o’ grief and some jobs open, too! Ye’re drivin’ him
wild with yer talk an’ I can see him gettin’ to th’ breaking point. He
ain’t harmed any of you that you should rag him like that?”

“No, he ain’t,” said Joe Myers, “but that’s the way them knife fighters
do; they lay low until their chance comes, an’ then they tickle a man’s
backbone with the blade when he’s least expectin’ it. This little rat
we got will do that an’ the boys hate him fer it!”

McCarthy was still without a solution. He tried to pacify Morgan, but
Morgan was bitter, too. He said he was being persecuted, and McCarthy
couldn’t deny it. What McCarthy could and did do, moreover--was to warn
the runt against violence in no uncertain terms.

“We’re a peaceable lot,” said McCarthy, “an’ the ol’ man, especially,
is against trouble--says it brings bad repute on the outfit an’ sets
towns against us. We gotta toe the straight and narrer here. Mebbe the
boys are carryin’ their joke a bit too far against you--but never you
mind. If you weren’t such a good driver----”

“I understand,” said the runt sourly.

Three days later Ashton, the owner, struck camp. McCarthy offered up a
silent prayer. True, the corral was as empty as ever Ashton had seen
it--not even a sick or lame animal in camp; still McCarthy trembled.
The bad blood between Morgan, the knife carrier, and the rest of the
men, was reaching fever pitch. Even the cook and his helper had started
to discriminate against the runt. If there is one place where
persecution actually hurts, it’s in the mess room of a freighting
outfit.

Ashton had come to praise, not to find fault, much to the surprise of
McCarthy.

“The Red Cliff people tell me we’re more than caught up,” said Ashton,
“and that is good news to hear. Over on the western division we have
landed a good dirt-hauling job that will keep every man and mule in the
Mesa region on the job all fall, and further----”

Here the boss’ face beamed with pride.

“Monte Vista has just paid us a fine compliment, McCarthy. They’ve
asked me to bring down five of our best hitches for a special
freight-wagon race for their rodeo, next week--which is showing their
faith in the Q B, and is a big ad for us, too. They’ve offered a prize
of twenty-five dollars to the winning driver----”

“Too bad,” said McCarthy, “that we’re all tied up here, and you say the
western division is goin’ to tackle a dirt-haulin’ contract----”

“Already started,” said the big boss crisply, “but that doesn’t cut any
ice. You have the pick of the stock, McCarthy, in this camp--and the
drivers, too--so you’ll pick five outfits----”

“But the Red Cliff job----” began McCarthy.

“We’re caught up now, and we can catch up again if we have to,” said
Ashton. “You leave Evans in charge here and bring down five of the best
hitches to Monte next Wednesday. It’ll take you a day to drive over, so
leave here Monday morning--see that every wagon is tiptop, every mule
in good shape, every driver----”

“Yes, sir!” said the wagon boss.

When news of the race, and of the boss’ unusual interest in it, spread
through the camp, the drivers went wild with excitement. McCarthy found
himself besieged by every one of the thirty-odd skinners on the
division. He saw Ashton safely on his way, and then set to work to pick
his rodeo team. The first driver he thought of--and there was nothing
strange about it, seeing he had the best working hitch in camp--was
“Runt” Morgan. But the wagon boss was too canny to write Morgan’s name
down heading the list. In fact, he debated for a long time about
writing Morgan’s name down at all. Finally he reached a decision.

“If I’m boss here, as I’m supposed to be, Morgan will go, ’spite all
heck--an’ if I ain’t boss here, then the sooner I find it out the
better fer us all!”

So the list of lucky drivers was posted:

	NEESON
	BUCKLEY
	DWYER
	FLYNN
	MORGAN

What a howl went up--not only from the drivers who were not included,
but from Neeson, Buckley, Dwyer, and Flynn, as well. The quartet
objected to the fifth-man, Morgan. McCarthy was ready for the protest.

“You fellers,” he told the aggrieved foursome, “go with me an’ Morgan,
or you don’t go a-tall. I’ll choose four others! That’s that. Are you
going, or are you ain’t?”

“We’ll go,” they agreed.

As for the howl from the camp in general, the wagon boss ignored it
completely. With the five men he had picked he set to work polishing up
mules, harness, and wagons. The rest of the crew, under Evans, the
assistant wagon boss, went sadly back to the task of hauling ore.

“That knife thrower will ruin ’em all,” said Jack Engels. “He’ll
lose--an’ then he’ll knife the winner!”

“Liable to be a killin’,” admitted Dick Galvin; “the runt is off his
feed--seein’ th’ cookie ain’t rationing him accordin’ to Hoyle--an’
McCarthy pickin’ Morgan to go!”

When Monday morning came, Morgan’s six were the first ready, and when
the wagon train pulled out, early, his black, mealy nosed hitch was
third in the caravan. McCarthy rode in spruced-up grandeur on the first
wagon with Flynn. Every mule in the outfit had been carefully curried,
the harness trappings glinted in the sun, and the great wagons rolled
without a single, solitary squeak or squeal.

In Monte Vista, Tuesday, the outfit rested and policed up again. When
Wednesday and the race came, the Q B freighting company’s
representatives in the rodeo were spick-and-span and ready. The big
boss, Old Man Ashton, was on hand, of course. He inspected the turnout
and approved--to the delight of McCarthy. Then Ashton gave the drivers
a little talk.

“While I want every man to do his best to win, and give the crowd a
good race, I don’t want any dirty work,” said Ashton. “I don’t want any
pinching or jockeying that might cripple a team of leaders or smash a
wheel! The track is just wide enough to accommodate all five hitches
abreast, and every man must keep his place. He’ll draw for place, and
he must hold that position through the race!”

The driver nodded. After the old man and the wagon boss had retired to
talk over other matters, Flynn and Dwyer suggested a few side bets.
Neeson and Buckley agreed. Nobody spoke to Morgan, the knife fighter.

“Reckon my grays is the fastest, ef they wanta work,” said Flynn, and
he laid his bet accordingly.

“We’re all about even,” said Neeson, “but I got purty heavy wheelers,
however----”

And he bet on himself, of course.

“Huh,” muttered Morgan, completely left out, “I ain’t got no chance to
gather up no money exceptin’ the prize. Waal, I’ll take that. If Imp
and Blackie ain’t the fastest leaders in this bunch I’ll eat my hat!
An’ I’ll wallop the swing and the wheelers to keep up with ’em. They’ll
have to do it!”

Just as the race was called, the big boss, Ashton, came up, mounted on
a sorrel mule, borrowed for the occasion.

“The committee wants me to start the race,” he explained, “so to be in
style I’m going to do it from mule back. When you hear the revolver
shot, go!”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Morgan, leaning down from his wagon seat and
staring hard at the sorrel mule that Ashton rode, “that mule, sir--he’s
a bad un--if I were you, sir--I’d----”

“Mind your mules!” said Ashton crisply, coloring under the driver’s
warning, “I can handle my business!”

Flynn and Dwyer and Neeson and Buckley exchanged glances and
smirks--the knife thrower was getting in bad already. Flynn shrugged as
he recalled that the big boss had ordered clean driving. Otherwise he
and Neeson would pinch Morgan out of the race for sure, seeing that
Morgan had fourth place from the rail between Flynn, who would drive
the outer circle, and Neeson, who had drawn third place. Dwyer had the
rail and Buckley was second from the pole.

At a word from McCarthy the five wagons rumbled out on the half-mile
track to be greeted with a great cheer. The band was playing, and the
leaders of the hitches danced and shied, none more than Imp and
Blackie, the leaders of Morgan’s hitch. The burnished mules, the trim
wagons and the sparkling harness made a splendid impression on the
crowd. Ashton, on his sorrel mule, swelled up with pride.

McCarthy, leaning over the rail, reflected that pride. Flynn, Dwyer,
Neeson, and Buckley bowed and smiled at the applause as they maneuvered
into position. Only Morgan took his place silently and calmly. He had
made up his mind to win, despite all odds. He’d show his tormentors
something!

As the wagons lined up, Ashton dropped in behind them, on his sorrel
mule. It wouldn’t be safe to be ahead of those thirty fidgeting mules
and five heavy wagons! So he pulled up about five yards behind the line
and raised his revolver. The five waiting racers just filled the track,
from fence to fence, Ashton noted. Possibly each driver had six feet
leeway to each side--but that was nothing for experienced skinners,
barring accident. A rodeo official, in the judges’ stand, nodded.
Ashton pulled the trigger:

“Bang!”

At the shot the five drivers whooped and whirled their whips, careful
to avoid each other, and the race was on. The mule teams, as Neeson had
said, were very evenly matched. Where one driver had a pair of light,
fast leaders, another had a faster team of wheelers, but no hitch could
be faster than its slowest team, and each driver was burdened with
certain animals that handicapped him. The result was that the five
swept down the track in almost perfect alignment. Dwyer, on the inside,
with the advantage, had his leaders a head to the front, and that was
all.

The excitement was tremendous. Cheers and whoops rocked the grand
stand. McCarthy grinned happily as he leaned over the rail and sniffed
the dust kicked up by the start. His grin left his face suddenly when
he saw through the settling dust a sight that made his heart jump! The
big boss, Ashton, was in trouble.

The sorrel mule wanted to race, too; it had taken the bit in its
capable teeth and bolted, along with the rest. It was trailing Morgan’s
wagon now, threatening, it seemed to McCarthy, to run into the wagon at
every great jump it took. Ashton was helpless to stop it.

Morgan, on his part, was unaware of Ashton’s danger. Morgan, bent on
winning the race, was bawling at his swing team, Satan and Tar Baby,
who were tying up his hitch for him. The leaders, Imp and Blackie, were
stretching forward, eager to go, the wheelers, hardly larger than the
rest of the hitch, were equally as anxious to run, but the swing team
was shirking. The wheelers were on the swing’s heels, and that would
never do--so Morgan yelled and sent his whip whining out over the
glistening backs. Meantime the big sorrel, with Ashton, was bumping the
wagon tail.

Then, as McCarthy and others who had seen the freight owner’s plight,
held their breaths, the big sorrel saw an opening and made a dash
between Neeson’s wagon and Morgan’s. Neeson looked down to see his boss
go flying past, face white, jaws set, eyes staring. Neeson, with an
oath, jerked his animals slightly to the left to give the sorrel more
room; Morgan, watching his swing team, didn’t see Ashton until the big
boss and the sorrel were even with his swing team. They were even only
a moment, for the big sorrel galloped ahead the next instant, gaining a
position out in front of the five teams.

The spectators, seeing this, sighed in relief. The man on the mule
could beat the wagons to safety now. Even McCarthy was relieved, for he
was afraid of a jam as the sorrel went through the line. If Ashton
could stay on, the sorrel would undoubtedly beat all the wagons home.
Interest thereupon shifted from Ashton to the racing wagons again, and
the crowd saw that Morgan’s team was forging ahead, was even now with
Dwyer, on the rail. The other three teams had dropped behind about half
a mule’s length. Morgan, however, was watching the big boss, out ahead.
If the sorrel should stop, it would be Morgan’s hitch, or possibly
Neeson’s, that must strike him! Morgan’s face twitched, but nobody was
close enough to see that.

Then, without warning, the unexpected happened. The sorrel mule, seeing
a piece of paper on the track, shied violently, and Ashton slumped in
his saddle, lost a stirrup, fought for his balance, lost that, and
tumbled off--all in a shorter space of time than it takes to tell it. A
groan went up from the stands, for it seemed to every one that the man
must be crushed, in a minute, under the racing wagons. No driver could
halt in time.

To McCarthy, who had climbed to the top of the fence to see, and to
Morgan, who had already seen, the situation was worse than that, if
such was possible. Ashton had not fallen on the track, where
_expert_ drivers _might_, by a miracle, avoid him and sweep to
both sides. Instead he was bumping along, one foot caught in a stirrup,
at the heels of the sorrel mule--powerless to help himself!

Morgan had waited only a second; in that second he had glanced at
Neeson, to see that Neeson had turned his head away. No help there!
Flynn, on the other side, was a team’s length behind, and Morgan
couldn’t see his face. It didn’t matter. While the crowds gasped in
horror, Morgan swung down from his seat, worked along the pole between
the wheelers, slid out over the back of Tar Baby, one of the swing
team, while the hitch went on at a tremendous gallop. Then, by sheer
luck, or nerve--perhaps both--by clinging to straps, and a leap,
reached the back of Imp, the off leader, and perched there for breath.

It was heroic work, but what could the daring driver do to help Ashton?
To the crowd it seemed that Morgan’s exploit was in vain. Mounted on
one of his leaders he might reach for Ashton if the hitch overtook the
sorrel, but even at that he could not disentangle the unfortunate owner
in time to save him from the mess that would follow the overtaking of
the sorrel. No, Morgan’s work was in vain. Even McCarthy, the wagon
boss, groaned with that realization. Morgan was trying, but unless the
sorrel and Ashton parted company before Morgan’s hitch overtook them,
there seemed no chance.

On swept the five wagons, but a bit slower, for the drivers were
tugging at the reins like madmen, hoping against hope. Morgan’s wagon,
driverless, was swaying a bit, for the swing team was acting up again,
and Morgan ahead, on a leader! Morgan, however, was fumbling at his
belt. The next minute he reached down in a wide swoop of one arm and
the crowd thought that he, too, had fallen.

He was up again in a twinkling, though he repeated his strange gestures
several times. Suddenly, McCarthy saw the flash of a blade, and
understood. Even before that, Morgan had freed his mule from the
traces. The little black leader leaped out, ahead of the rest of the
team, in a race that had never before been equaled on a Colorado rodeo
track. The whole crowd cheered wildly.

The other leader, Blackie, bewildered by the loss of his mate,
hesitated, and then swung to the right, with the crazy swing team
following. Flynn’s yell came first and then the crash as Morgan’s
unguided hitch messed into Flynn’s grays, and the two careening wagons
met with a shower of sparks and splinters and a thud that seemed to
make the track tremble. But Morgan, on Imp, was out ahead now, trailing
the sorrel runaway.

Ashton, still snagged by one foot, had ceased to struggle. McCarthy,
the wagon boss, unmindful of the terrible crash of two of his crack
hitches, was wondering if Ashton was alive. And if he was, what chance
had he now that the sorrel, mule-like, had swerved in toward the rail,
directly in the path of Dwyer’s hitch, which seemed to be running away,
too?

Morgan, urging Imp on, glanced back over his shoulder and estimated his
distance. His first idea had been to crowd the sorrel to the upper rim
of the track, safe now since the collision of the black and the gray
hitches, there to reach down and cut the stirrup strap.

The sorrel had spoiled that plan by heading in toward the rail. There
was no time to cut the man loose, then dismount and carry him out of
the path of the three remaining hitches. There was hardly time for
anything--yet Morgan’s mind raced as fast as any mule team had ever
raced. He sped ahead and came abreast of the sorrel. The next minute
the crowd was treated to a sight seldom seen except in a circus--Morgan
had transferred from the black mule to the sorrel, and going at a good
gallop!

The next minute the teamster’s hat was off, and he was beating the
sorrel on the left side of its head. The sorrel turned and headed for
the upper edge of the track, still dragging the fallen rider. Then, out
of the path of the racers, Morgan tried to stop the sorrel, but the
sorrel, with a mouth like a tin bucket, was not stopping--so Morgan
stooped swiftly. Again the knife blade flashed in the afternoon
sun--and the ordeal for Ashton was over. He lay still, where his mad
ride had ended, when Morgan had cut the strap. Morgan, on the runaway
sorrel, went on down the track.

The nearest spectators swarmed out to lift Ashton.

Twenty minutes later, McCarthy, half out of his mind, found Morgan, the
knife thrower, sobbing in a back corral, where rodeo officials had
dragged the body of Blackie, Morgan’s near leader, after Blackie had
gone down in the crash of the two six teams when Morgan had cut away
from his outfit. McCarthy shook Morgan by the shoulder, and Morgan
looked up, to see a strange expression on the wagon boss’s face.

“Yuh bawlin’ over a daid mule when the big boss is half kilt and Flynn
is in th’ hospital?” cried McCarthy, in a peculiar voice that he had
tried to steady, but couldn’t. “You’re a fine knife fighter! Say, you
come along with me--right now--I been lookin’ high an’ low fer you!”

Morgan got up, like a man in a trance. He wiped a sleeve across his
eyes. Blackie dead--his wagon smashed--Flynn in the
hospital--misfortune in plenty! He followed McCarthy blindly to the
hospital tent, where Ashton, his face and hands bandaged, but
apparently not badly injured, smiled weakly at him. Flynn, also
bandaged, and on another cot, grinned, too, but Morgan hung his head.

“Here’s the blamed little knife thrower,” began McCarthy, and at that
Morgan’s head came up.

“Knife thrower!” he cried. “Say, ain’t nobody ever goin’ to let up on
that? That knife came in handy to-day! An’ I carried it just fer such a
case! I never threw no knife--I never hurt any one--but I lost a team
o’ four mules in th’ Carolinas oncet--slipped over a ledge--the leaders
did--an’ I could of saved the wheelers ef I had a knife. I didn’t--an’
since then I’ve carried that knife----”

“Thank God for that!” said Ashton, speaking softly from beneath the
bandages that all but masked him. “Your knife saved me to-day, Morgan!
Flynn has been telling me about you, in the last five minutes--about
your misunderstanding with the boys in camp. He says they had you
wrong--and that was before you explained why you carried that knife.
That explanation straightens out matters, I guess, but say----”

The big boss paused a moment. “Are you going to continue to carry that
knife,” he went on, “or are you going to put it aside now that----”

“I’m gonna carry it!” said Morgan doggedly.

“Fine,” said the big boss, “an’ nobody will ride you for it, either,
for it won’t show if you wear a coat. As assistant wagon boss over on
the western division, where there is a vacancy--you’ll be expected to
wear a coat at all times. The Q B company insists on its officials
doing that!”

Morgan took the bandaged hand that the big boss extended to him, and he
tried to say something appropriate.

“That sorrel mule, sir,” he stumbled. “I knew he was wrong--he had a
white streak in his eye, over the eyeball--bad sign--an’ so--an’
so--well----”

“You gonna hold th’ boss’ hand all day,” demanded McCarthy finally,
“with Flynn an’ me here waitin’ to shake with you? An’ about a thousand
people outside waitin’ to do th’ same--includin’ Neeson, an’ Buckley,
an’ Dwyer?”

“Let ’em wait!” grinned the new assistant wagon boss happily. “Times
like this don’t come every day!”


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 7, 1925 issue
of _Western Story Magazine.]



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76839 ***