Code of the West. Zane Grey

up in the foothills, and was not many miles from the great slopes, ridges, and canyons of the Tonto, and within half a day’s ride of the lofty Rim. How different his wonderful Bear Flat from this country!

      Several miles east of Ryson he turned a curve in the road to see a tall lanky young man plodding wearily along, bowed under the burden of a bundle wrapped in canvas. As Cal neared the fellow it became evident that he could hardly lift one foot after the other. His soiled worn garb attested to the possibility of contact with brush and a bed on the ground. Cal slowed up, naturally expecting the man to turn and ask for a ride. But he did neither. Then Cal stopped and hailed him.

      “Hey, want a lift?”

      The young man raised a cadaverous pale face that quickly aroused Cal’s sympathy.

      “Thanks. I’ll say I would,” replied the traveler, and he lifted the bundle down from his stooped shoulders.

      “Throw it in back an’ ride in front with me,” suggested Cal, eying him with growing interest. Upon closer view this individual appeared to Cal to be the most singularly built human being he had ever seen. He was very tall, and extremely thin, and so loose jointed that he seemed about to fall apart. His arms were so long as to be grotesque—like the arms of an ape—and his hands were of prodigious size. He had what Cal called a chicken neck, a small head, and the homeliest face Cal had ever looked into. Altogether he presented a ridiculous and pathetic figure.

      “I was all in—and lost in the bargain,” said he. The freckles stood out prominently on his wax-colored skin. He was so long and awkward, and his feet were so huge, that Cal thought he was not going to be able to get into the front seat. But he folded himself in, and slouched down with a heave of relief.

      “Lost? What place were you trying to find?” queried Cal as he started the car again.

      “I’ve hiked from Phoenix. And a couple of days this side of Roosevelt Dam I butted into a gas station along the road—Chadwick. The man there told me I could get a job at the Bar XX ranch, and where to find the trail. I found a trail all right, but it led nowhere. I got lost and couldn’t find my way back to Chadwick. Been ten days and nights.”

      “Huh! You must be hungry?”

      “I’ll say so.”

      “Well, you’re way off the track. Bar XX ranch is east. You’ve traveled north. An’ I happen to know Bloom, the foreman of that outfit. He doesn’t want any men.”

      “It’s kinda hard to get a job,” replied the fellow, with a sigh. “Made sure I could catch on in the Salt River Valley. But everybody’s broke there, same as me, and I guess they’d just as lief not see any service men.”

      “You were in the army?” asked Cal, with a heightening of sympathy.

      “No. I was a marine,” replied the other, briefly.

      His tone of aloofness rather reminded Cal of Boyd upon his return from France. These service men who had seen service were reticent, strange.

      “Marine? That’s a sailor, huh? Did you get over?”

      “I’ll say so. I went through Château Thierry, and now by God! I can’t get work in my own country,” he replied bitterly.

      “Say, Buddy, if you’re on the level you can get a job in the Tonto,” returned Cal, rather curtly. His companion vouchsafed no reply to this, and the conversation, so interestingly begun, languished. Cal thought the fellow seemed cast down by this remark. Meanwhile the car swung into the long stretch of gray road at the farther end of which lay the village of Ryson.

      Ranches gave place to cottages, widely separated, and these in turn to the row of square-fronted, old, and weather-beaten frame and stone structures that constituted Ryson. The one street appeared as wide as a public square. Along its quarter of a mile of business section could be seen several cattle, two horses, a burro, and some dogs, but no people. A couple of dilapidated automobiles marked the site of the garage, which had evidently once been a blacksmith’s shop. The town seemed enveloped in the warm, drowsy, sleepy air of midsummer.

      Cal stopped his Ford at the garage, not without a slight feeling of gratification at the amaze his advent would create. Upon the last occasion of his leaving the garage with this particular Ford one of the mechanics had remarked: “It’s a cinch we’ll never see this flivver ag’in!”

      “Say, will you have dinner with me?” queried Cal, of his silent companion.

      “Will I? Boy, lead me on,” replied the ex-marine. “I’ll say you’re a sport.”

      “Glad to have you,” responded Cal. “But we’re early. There’s the hotel—that gray house with the wide porch. You can wait for me there.”

      “You’ll find me anchored, and I’m hoping the dinner bell will ring quick,” he replied, taking his bundle and shuffling away in the direction indicated.

      The young man of the garage stood gaping. “Cal, what is thet you had with you?” inquired one.

      “Where’d it come from?” asked another.

      “It’s a scarecrow hitched on to a coupla bean-poles,” said a third.

      Cal laughed and explained: “Oh, that’s a chap I picked up on the road.”

      “Did he manipulate on this hyar Lizzie of yourn?” inquired the first garage man, indicating the Thurman Ford.

      “No, he didn’t,” retorted Cal. “I’ll have you understand I drove this car.”

      “Car? This ain’t no car. It’s a sheet-iron wagon with a milk-can fer an engine.”

      “Ahuh! Well, you lay off her with your monkey-wrenches,” returned Cal.

      Leaving the car there, Cal proceeded into the big barn-like general store and post-office, and set about the responsible and difficult task of selecting and purchasing the things enumerated by the women-folk of the Thurman household. In his anxiety during the performance of this duty he quite forgot the dinner engagement he had made with the hungry traveler until he had completed the selection to the best of his ability. Then he carried the packages out to the car and deposited them on the back seat. “Reckon she’ll have a lot of stuff to pack,” he muttered, suddenly reminded of his expected passenger.

      After this he repaired to the hotel porch, there to find the cadaverous individual waiting with hungry eyes.

      “Say, I’m sorry I was so long, but I had a lot to do,” said Cal. “Let’s go in an’ get it.”

      In the ensuing half-hour Cal was to learn that a kind action, however thoughtlessly entered into, could have singular effect, not only upon the recipient, but upon him who offered it. Naturally, being a range-rider, he had been many a time as hungry as a bear, but he had never seen a man apparently half starved. How good this meal must have been to the fellow! Cal’s curiosity followed his sympathy.

      “My name’s Cal Thurman,” he said, at the end of the dinner. “What’s yours?”

      “Tuck Merry,” was the reply.

      “Say, that’s a funny name. Merry! It sure doesn’t suit you, friend. An’ Tuck—never heard it before.”

      “It’s a nickname. Almost forgot I had another. But it was Thaddeus.”

      “Huh? How’d you ever get called Tuck?” asked Cal, curiously.

      “I was in the marines. They’re a scrappy bunch. An’ every time I punched a buddy I’d tuck him away to sleep. So they nicknamed me Tuck.”

      “Well, I’ll be darned!” exclaimed Cal, in wondering admiration. Nothing could have been more calculated to arouse his friendliness. “You must have a punch?”

      “Yes. It just comes natural,” replied Merry, simply. “I’ve got a couple of mitts, too. See there.”

      He doubled his enormous hands and showed Cal two