CHAPTER XIII
AN OBSERVANT OBSERVER
JIM ACKERMAN strode into Pop Hayes' saloon, where he found the proprietor and Charley James squabbling acrimoniously over the value of a cribbage hand.
"Not satisfied with gettin' a twenty-four hand," snorted Charley, "he tries to make it twenty-seven, shovin' 'em around like he was playin' three-card monte! You old fool! You've counted them runs once more'n you oughter; but I don't care how much you mills 'em; it's twenty-four!"
"I ain't done no more countin' than they'll stand!"
"I dunno what they they'll stand; but I knows what I'll stand. It's twenty-four!"
"Soon as you gets two bits up," sneered Pop, "you lose yore nerve. You can play all day for fun, an' never loose a yelp; but when you've got money up you acts like you was stabbed "
"That so? You forget how to count when there's money up!"
"When yo're winnin' everything is lovely; but when yo're losin' you go on th' prod!"
"You don't have to go; yo're allus rarin' around on yore hind laigs, a-pawin' th' air an' snortin'. Leave it to Ackerman. I dare you!"
"I'll leave it to anybody but you. You hadn't ought to even play for th' drinks. Jim, look at that twenty-seven hand an' tell that fool what it counts, will you?"
Ackerman moved it around and grinned. "Fifteen eight; two pairs is twelve, an' four runs of three makes that twenty-seven hand count just twenty-four. An' it's a cussed good hand, too; you shore knows how to discard."
Charley nodded emphatically. "There! I told you so!"
Pop raised his hands helplessly to heaven. "How much longer have I got to keep th' peace? Two more like you an' Charley an' this country would go plumb to th' dogs! Yo're two fools."
"Now who's stabbed?" jeered Charley. "You can get more out of one crib hand than most folks can find in two. 'Four, five, six,'" he mimicked. "Why don't you shift 'em around an' work six, five, four; an' five, six, four; an' four, six, five? A genius like you ought to get thirty-six out of a twenty-four hand an' never turn a hair. I'm such a stranger to a hand like that that I'd be satisfied with twenty-four. I ain't no genius at figgers."
"If I told you what you are, you'd get insulted!"
"Anybody that could insult you could make cows live on malpais an' get fat," sneered Charley. "I've done called you a liar, an' a cheat, an' a thief—"
"Hey! Stop that!" interposed Ackerman. "Quit it; an' have a drink with me. You'd let a man die of thirst, I believes."
Pop shuffled around behind the bar and sullenly produced the bottle and the glasses. "I know, Jim," he apologized; "but you don't know how my patience gets tried!"
Charley snorted. "If they ever tries yore patience they'll lynch it. Here's how, Jim."
"Good luck," said Jim, tossing off the drink.
Charley, walking back toward the card table, caught sight of the well-loaded horse outside; and Pop, taking advantage of the situation, reached swiftly under the bar and slid two Colts toward Ackerman, who frowned and pushed them back. "Some other time," he growled. "Ain't goin' back right away." He pushed his hat back on his head. "Any news?"
"There ain't never any news in this place," answered the proprietor. "But I hear as how th' Circle S has fired Long Pete Carson for stayin' drunk. Long Pete was all het up over it an' lets drive at Holmes. Bein' unsteady he missed Dick an' nicked Harry Kane. Then Dick took th' gun away from him an' give him a beatin'. Dick's hands are shore eddicated. Th' Long T near lost three bosses in that quicksand near Big Bend; an' Smith come near goin' with 'em. An' that Nelson is prospectin' somewhere near th' Circle S, if he ain't left th' country."
"What makes you think that he's mebby left th' country?" inquired Ackerman casually.
"He had his spirit busted when his cabin burned. Said this country was too full of dogs for a white man to live in. But I reckon he'll work around th' Circle S or th' Long T a while before he quits for good."
Charley turned and grunted derisively. "That's all you know about it. He crossed the river near th' Circle S, over Rocky Ford, an' went to Bitter Creek hills."
"How'd you know he did?" demanded Pop.
"I was told by th' man that saw him do it."
"Who was that?" asked Pop, indignant because he had not been told about it before.
"Yo're a reg'lar old woman," jeered Charley. "You can guess it."
"Funny he didn't tell me," sighed Pop.
"Mebby he reckoned it was his own business," retorted Charley. "Mebby he knowed you'd blurt it out to everybody you saw."
"I keep things under my belt!"
"Yes; food an' likker," chuckled Charley, enjoying himself. "If nobody come around for you to tell yore gossip to, cussed if you wouldn't tell it to th' sky, night an' mornin', like a ki-yote."
"So he's still prospectin'," laughed Ackerman. "He'll starve to death."
"I ain't so shore about that," said Charley. "He weighed his gold on my scales an' it was one pound an' eleven ounces. It was all gold, too; I saw it."
"He-he-he!" chuckled Pop. "If yore scales said one eleven he only had about half a pound. Them scales are worse than a cold deck."
"That's a lie; an' you know it! Them scales are honest!"
"Then they ain't 'pervious to their 'sociations," grinned Pop. He reached behind him, picked up a package and turned to Ackerman. "Did you say you was goin' near th' Circle S?" he inquired.
"He did not," said Charley gleefully. "Didn't I say you was an old woman?"
Ackerman laughed, winked at Charley and went out; and the two cronies listened to the rapidly dying hoof-beats.
Pop wheeled and glared at his friend. "Now you've done it! Ain't you got no sense, tellin' him where Nelson is?"
"If I had much I wouldn't hang out with you," grinned Charley. "But I got a little; an' if he crosses th' river he won't find Nelson. A Circle S puncher saw him hoofin' it into th' southwest. Quien sabe?"
"Sometimes you do have a spark of common sense," said Pop. "Sort of a glimmer. It's real noticeable in you when it shows at all, just like a match looks prominent in th' dark. Pick up them cards an' don't do no more fancy countin'."
"Countin' wouldn't do me no good while yo're multiplyin'. Get agoin'; I got to get my four bits back before I go home."
Well to the south of the two friends in Hastings, Jim Ackerman loped steadily ahead, debating several things; and as he neared the Circle S range a man suddenly arose from behind a rock. There was nothing threatening about this gentleman except, perhaps, his sudden and unexpected appearance; but Ackerman's gun had him covered as soon as his head showed.
"Turn it off me," said the man behind the rock, a note of pained injury in his voice. "My intentions are honorable; an' plumb peaceful. Yo're most scandalous suspicious."
Ackerman smiled grimly. "Mebby I am; but habit is strong. An' one of my worst habits is suspicion. What's th' idea of this jack-in-th'-box proceedin' of yourn? You've shore got funny ways; an' plumb dangerous ones."
"Reckon mebby it does look that way," said the man behind the rock. "I neglects caution. I should 'a' covered you first an' then popped up. That shows how plumb innercent an' peaceful I am. Yore name's Jim Ackerman, ain't it?"
"You can't allus tell," replied Ackerman.
"That's where yo're figgerin' wrong. I can allus tell. Havin' told me yore name, I'll tell you mine. I'm Pete Carson, known hereabouts an' elsewhere as Long Pete. Some calls me Long-winded Pete; but it's all th' same to me. Pint that a little mite more to th' sky; thank you, sir. I was punchin' for th' Circle S, but th' Circle S punched me; then it fired me. I've got to eat, so I got to work. Th' Long T ain't hirin'; an' I'd starve before I'd work for Logan. I ain't no slave, not me.
"I'm settin' there in th' sun whittlin' a stick an' arguin' with myself. I was gettin' th' worst of it when I hears yore noble cayuse. Not bein' curious I riz up instanter an' looked plumb into yore gun—just a little mite higher; ah, much obliged."
"What's all this to me?" demanded Ackerman impatiently.
"That's what I'm aimin' to find out. I saw you comin'—up a little more; thank you. Then I think I got a new chance. I want a job an' I want it bad. Hold it in yore left hand: yore right hand is tired, an' saggin'. Any chance for a close-mouthed man up yore way? One that does as he's told, asks no questions, an' ain't particular what kind of a job it is? Better let me hold that; I can see yo're gettin' tired. Thank you, sir. I'm desperate, an' I'm hungry. What you say? Speak right out—I'm a grand listener."
Ackerman grunted. "Huh! I ain't got nothin' to say about hirin' th' men where I work. As a matter of fact we ain't got work enough for another man. An' I reckon you don't understand nothin' about farmin', even in a small way; but if yo're hungry, why, I can fix that right soon. Got a cayuse?"
Pete nodded emphatically. "I allus manage to keep a cayuse, no matter how bad things busts; a cayuse, my saddle, an' a gun. Why?"
"Climb onto it an' come along with me. I'm aimin' to make camp as soon as I run across water. That's a purty good animal you got."
"Yes; looks good," grunted Long Pete; "but it ain't. It's a deceivin' critter. I'm yore scout. There's a crick half a mile west of here. I'm that famished I'm faint. Just a little more an' I'd 'a' cooked me a square meal off of one of th' yearlin's that wander on th' edge of th' range. That was what I was thinkin' over when I heard you."
"You shouldn't do a thing like that!" exclaimed Ackerman severely. "Besides, you shouldn't talk about it. An' if you do it you'll get shot or lynched."
"A man does lots of things he shouldn't. An' as for talkin', I'm th' most safe talker you ever met. I allus know where I'm talkin', what I'm talkin' about, an' who I'm talkin' to. Now, as I figger it, I'd rather get shot or lynched than starve in a land of beef. What do I care about killin' another man's cows? I'm plumb sick of workin' on a string that some bull-headed foreman can break; an' I'm most awful sick of workin' for wages. I ain't no hired man, d—n it! What I wants is an equal share in what I earns. An' you can believe me, Mister Man, I ain't noways particular what th' work is. I never did have no respect for a man that gambled for pennies. No tinhorn never amounted to nothin'. He can't lose much; but yo're cussed right he can't win much, neither. If th' stakes are high an' th' breaks anywhere near equal, I'll risk my last dollar or my last breath.
"As to what I am, you lissen to me: When I'm sober I stays strictly sober, for months at a time; an' when I'm drunk I likeways stays drunk for days at a time. I ain't like some I knows of, half drunk most of th' time an' never really sober. Me, I just serves notice that I'm goin' off on a bender, an' I goes. An' when I comes back I'm sober all th' way through. Here's th' crick. An' I never get drunk when there's work to be did. You can put up that Colt now an' watch me get a fire goin' that won't show a light for any distance or throw much smoke. I tell you I know my business."
Ackerman unpacked and turned the horses loose to graze, and by the time he was ready to start cooking, Long Pete had a fire going in a little hollow near the water.
"Now you just set down an' watch me cavort an' prance," quoth Long Pete pleasantly. "Reckon mebby you might not move fast enough for my empty belly. Chuck me that flour bag—I'm a reg'lar cook, I am. You just set there an' keep right on thinkin' about me; weigh me calm an' judicial."
Ackerman smiled, leaned back against his saddle and obeyed his verbose companion, pondering over what his deft guest had said. He knew of Long Pete by hearsay, and he now marshaled the knowledge in slow and orderly review before his mind.
The cook handed him a pan, a tin cup, and a knife, fork, and spoon. Then he waved at the pan. "Take all you want of this grub, an' take it now. This bein' a one-man outfit I'll eat off th' cookin' utensils—utensils sounds misleading don't it?—somethin' like tonsils or a disease. Now I warn you: dig in deep an' take all you kin eat, for there won't be no second helpin' after I gets my holt. Want yore coffee now?"
"Later, I reckon," smiled Ackerman. "You shore can cook. Better take th' cup first if you wants yore coffee now. I'll use it later."
"Soon as we open one of them cans I'll have a cup of my own, an' we're goin' to open one tomorrow," grinned Long Pete, opening his pocketknife and attacking the frying pan. When the pan had been cleaned of the last morsel Pete emptied the cup, washed it in the creek, refilled it and handed it to his companion. Rolling a cigarette with one hand, he lit it, inhaled deeply and blew a cloud of smoke toward the sky.
"Cuss me if that don't hit me plumb center," he chuckled. "An' plumb center is th' place for it. I'd ruther eat my own cookin' in th' open, than feed in th' house after some dirty cook got through messin' with th' grub. At first I thought you was another prospector; but when I looked close I saw that you didn't have th' rest of th' outfit. Now don't you say nothin'. I ain't lookin' for no information; I'm givin' it. You see, I shoots off my mouth regardless, for I'm a great talker when I'm sober; an' tight as a fresh-water clam when I'm drunk. A whiskered old ram of a sky-pilot once told me that I was th' most garrulous man he'd ever met up with. After I let him up he explained what garrulous means; an' th' word sort of stuck in my memory. I know it stuck in his; he'll never forget it."
Ackerman coughed up some coffee. "He won't," he gasped. "But what—made you think—I might be prospectin'?"
"Just a little superstition of mine," explained Long Pete. "There's some coffee runnin' down yore neck. You never ought to laugh when yo're drinkin'. Good thing it wasn't whiskey. Things allus comes in bunches. That purty near allus holds good, as mebby you've noticed. I have. I saw one prospector, a cow-puncher gone loco, hoofin' it in th' dirt alongside his loaded cayuse. Of th' two I thinks most of th' cayuse. It was a black, of thoroughbred strain, steppin' high an' disdainful, with more intelligence blazin' out of its big eyes than its master ever had. So when I sees you ridin' along with a big pack I reckoned mebby that you must 'a' eat some of th' same weed an' had got th' same kind of hallucernations. They's different kinds, you know. But this is once th' rule fails. There won't be no bunch of prospectors, an' I know why; but that's a secret. There won't be no third."
Ackerman looked keenly at him through narrowed lids, speculating, wondering, puzzled. Then he leaned back and yawned. "Is there a prospector down here?" he asked incredulously. "You don't mean it."
Long Pete coolly looked him over from boots to sombrero. "I'm duly grateful for this sumptious feed, an' I know what is th' custom when you breaks bread with a man; but I do mean it; an' I don't lie even when my words are ramblin' free. I reckon, mebby, you ought to remember that. We'll sort of get along better, day after day."
"No offense! I was just surprised. Which way was th' fool headin'?"
"Mebby I am a little too touchy. We all have our faults. He was headin' th' same as us because we're on his trail, right now. I sort of follered it here to keep my hand in. You never can tell when yo're goin' to need th' practice. Our fire is built on th' ashes of hisn. His fire an' smoke was well hid, too. What a two-gun cow-puncher, with a Tin Cup cayuse like that, wants to go hoofin' off on a fool's errand for, is more than I can figger out. But two heads are better than one; an' a man hears an awful lot of talkin' up in Old Pop Hayes' place. Queer old polecat, Pop is."
Ackerman stared thoughtfully into the fire for a few moments. Then he looked squarely and long into Pete's placid, unwavering eyes, and what he saw there must have pleased and piqued him.
"Pete, yore habit of usin' words reminds me of a gravel bed I once panned. It was a big bed an' I panned a terrible lot of gravel; but you'd 'a' been surprised if you knew how much gold there was in it. I was a rich man until I hit town." He waved his hands expressively. "You've said a whole lot, but it pans out strong. Anybody that won't listen to you is a fool. Let's have a pow-wow, without hurtin' any feelin's. Speak plain; keep cool. What you say?"
Pete waited until he rolled another cigarette and drew in another lungful of smoke. Then he recrossed his long legs, hitched comfortably against his saddle, and nodded.
"Meanin' to swap ideas an' personal opinions, ask questions regardless, an' if things don't come out like we'd mebby like 'em, keep our mouths shut afterwards an' not hold no hard feelin's?"
"Just that," Ackerman acquiesced. "Just what was you aimin' at in yore talk?"
Pete scrutinized the fire. "Well, I hit what I was aimin' at—you allus do with a scatter gun. An' for th' ease of my conscience, an' th' rest of my calloused soul, let me confess that I had a gun on you while I was talkin' to you. One arm was folded across behind my back an' a little old Colt was squeezin' against my side an' th' other arm, lookin' right at you. Carelessness ain't no sin of mine; I got enough without it. But, shakin' some of th' gravel out, let's see what I got.
"I wants a job. It's funny how many times I've wanted a job, an' then threw it sprawlin' after I got it. Bein' desperate, I was aimin' to stick you up an' take your outfit. Then when you got near an' I saw who it was, I knowed I'd have to shoot to kill; an' first, too. That's why I didn't tackle that other feller, too. An' just then my perverted mind says two an' two is four. An' it most generally is. Then I knowed you needed me. So I let th' gun slip an' got real friendly. But, as I was sayin', I want a job. Now you pay attention.
"We knows what's rumored around about Twin Buttes; an' we knows who lives up there; an' we knows there ain't never been no farm products come out of that section. That's th' biggest mistake you fellers ever made; you should 'a' run a garden. Likewise, we knows that tin-horns don't gamble with things that belong to other people, if th' other people packs guns. An' 'specially they don't gamble with no cows an' hosses. 'Tain't popular, an' folks don't like it. A tin-horn ain't man enough to risk a bullet or a rope. Now then, you just let me draw you th' picture of a dream I've often had.
"I can see a bunch of husky cow-punchers, among which I see myself, an' we're punchin' cows that we never bought. We're poolin' our winnin's an' sharin' th' risks. I can even see me rustlin' cows, an' there's men with me that I could name if my memory wasn't so bad. There's a big rock wall, an' a deep, swift river that's so d—d cold it fair hurts. An' somewhere back in th' buttes, which is in a section plumb fatal to strangers, all but one, is a little ranch, with a drive trail leadin' north or west. That's th' dream. Ain't it h—l what fool ideas go trompin' an' rampagin' through a man's mind when he's asleep, 'specially if he ain't satisfied to work for wages? Did you ever have any?"
Ackerman grinned to hide his surprise. "Yo're a grand dreamer, Pete. I've had dreams somethin' like that, myself; an' so far's I'm concerned yourn can come true; but I only got one vote. An' as I ain't goin' back for some time, I don't know just what to say."
"Not knowin' what to say never bothered me," chuckled Long Pete. "I can talk th' spots off a poker deck; I'll show you how, some day. But as long as you mentioned dreams, it reminds me of another I've had. Not long ago, neither. I saw a two-gun prospector leavin' an unpleasant location. He was a reglar two-gun man; a wise feller could just see it a-stickin' out all over him. I kept right on bein' hungry. Then, quite a little later I saw another man, a cow-puncher, ridin' along his trail; an' he had so much grub it fair dazzled me. An' bein' friendly, in my dream, I up an' tells th' second man where th' other feller was headin'. An' if th' dream hadn't 'a' stopped there I could 'a' told him which way th' two-gun prospector an' his black, Tin Cup cayuse went on th' mornin' follerin' th' day I saw him. Funny how things like that will stick in a man's memory. An' I've heard tell that lots of people believes in dreams, too. Seems like you only got to know how to figger 'em to learn a lot of useful an' plumb interestin' things. A fortune-teller told me that. Why, once I dreamed that I had shot a feller that had been pesterin' me; an' when I got sober, d—d if I hadn't, too!"
Ackerman slammed his sombrero on the ground and leaned quickly forward over the fire. "Pete, I ain't got much money with me—didn't expect to have no call to use it. I ain't got enough for wages for any length of time; but I've got grub, plenty of it. An' if you wants to make that first dream of yourn come true, you stick to me an' with me, come what may, an' I'll see you a member of a little ranch back in some buttes, or we'll d—d well know th' reason why. We need brains up there. Are you in?"
"Every d—d chip; from my hat to my worn-out boots; from soda to hock," grinned Long Pete. "You got your cayuse, yore shootin' irons, an' th' grub; I got my cayuse, mean as it is, my guns, an' a steady-workin' appetite. Pass them pans over; allus like to wash things up as soon as they've been used. It'll be yore job next meal. I believe in equal work. Better hang up that pack—there's ants runnin' around here."
"Yo're a better cook than me," said Ackerman cheerfully, as he obeyed. "You do th' cookin' an' leave th' cleanin' up to me. I'd rather wrastle dirty pans than eat my own cookin' any day. That fair?"
"As a new, unmarked deck," replied Long Pete contentedly. "An' while we're talkin' about washin' pans, I want to say that that two-gun hombre went due north, ridin' plumb up th' middle of this here crick. An' since yo're trailin' him, I reckon he kept goin' right on north. I allus like to guess when I don't know."
"Yo're a d—d good guesser," grinned Ackerman. "Let's roll up in th' blankets early tonight an' get an early start in th' mornin'."
"Keno. That suits me, for if there is one thing that I can do well, it's rollin' up in a blanket. I should 'a' been a cocoon."
CHAPTER XIV
THE END OF A TRAIL
JOHNNY ducked down behind a bowlder, for a horseman, sharply silhouetted against the crimson glow of the sunset, rode parallel to the edge of the cliff; and, judging from the way he was scrutinizing the ground, he was looking for tracks. While he searched, another horseman rode from the north and joined him. They made a splendid picture, rugged, lean, hard; their sharply-cut profiles, the jaunty set of the big sombreros, their alert and wiry cow-ponies, silhouetted against the crimson and gold sky; but to the hidden watcher there was no poetry, no art, in the picture, for to him it was a thing of danger, a menace. Their voices, carelessly raised, floated to him distinctly.
"Find anythin'?" asked Ben Gates ironically.
"Just what I reckoned I'd find, which was nothin'," answered Harrison. "Ackerman's loco. But I reckon it's better than loafin' around down below. I was gettin' plumb fed up on that."
"It's all cussed nonsense. Nelson's cleared out for good. He ain't no fool; an' there's too many of us."
"Seen th' others?"
"Only when they left. They ought to be ridin' back purty soon I reckon. This finishes this side, don't it?"
"Yes; they'll comb th' west side tomorrow; an' then take th' north end. Ridin' in daylight ain't so bad; but I got a fine chance seein' anythin' at night. An' I hope he has cleared out; a man on a bronc looks as big as a house."
"Don't ride at all; lay up somewhere near th' canyon trail an' let him do th' movin'. But, h—l! He's gone out of this country."
"That's just what I was aimin' to do. I could ride within ten feet of a man in th' dark, with all th' cover there is up here, an' not see him. Don't you worry about yore Uncle Nat; he's shore growed up. But it's all fool nonsense, just th' same."
"Oh, well; it'll make things pleasanter down below," grinned Gates. "It'll stop th' arguin'. Quigley's gettin' near as nervous as Ackerman. He's gettin' scared of shadows since Jim laced it into him. Well, I'm goin' on; if I meets Holbrook I'll tell him to take th' south end. So long."
They separated and went their respective ways, and while Johnny watched them he suddenly heard a murmur of voices below him, and he squirmed between two big bowlders as the sounds came nearer.
"Well, we've shore combed this side," said one of the newcomers. "An' that ends part of a fool's errand."
"We shore have," grunted another. "An' it did us good, too. We all have been gettin' too cussed lazy for any account. I reckon a certain amount of work is th' best friend a man has got."
"Mebby; anyhow, I know that my appetite is standin' on its hind laigs yellin' for help," laughed the third. "An' we have th' satisfaction of knowin' everythin' is all right out here. Cussed if I couldn't eat a raw skunk!"
"But that ain't what I'm drivin' at," said the first speaker, his voice growing fainter as they rode on. "I claims if he is workin' for th' CL he only has to get one look in our valley to tell him all he wants to know. If he's up here, or has been up here, that would be enough. He wouldn't stay here day after day like a dead dog in a well."
As the words died out in the distance Johnny started to slip out from between the bowlders, when a sharp spang! rang out at a rock near his waist, and a whining scream soared skyward. An opening made by a split in the bowlder had partly revealed his moving body to a pair of very keen eyes on the lookout for just such a sign. A second later the flat report of the shot cracked against his ears, but he was on the other side of the bowlders and leaping down the seep hillside when he heard it. As he cleared a big rock he landed almost upon a slinking coyote, which instantly destroyed distance at an unbelievable speed. It shot up the hill, over the crest, and sped like an arrow of haze across the open table-land. Another shot rang out and a laughing voice shouted greeting.
"Hi-yi! Who-o-p-e-e-e! Scoot, you streak of lightnin'! Cookie's layin' for you with nine buckshot in each barrel. But I'm a drunk Injun if you didn't fool me."
A peeved voice raised loudly in the twilight. "Hey! D—n you! Look out where yo're shootin'! That slug ricochetted plumb between our heads! Ain't you got no sense a-tall?"
"That's right! Start kickin'!" retorted Gates at the top of his voice. "Didn't you ever hear a slug before? Don't you know that th' slug you can hear is past you?"
"That so? How'd you like to listen to one now?" angrily shouted the objector. "How do I know that th' next one is goin' past?"
"Ah, go to h—l!" jeered Gates. "Little things make big bumps on you, you sage hen!"
"Little things!" roared a second voice. "Little things! Would you lissen to him? It sounded like a train of cars to me, d—d if it didn't!"
"Thinks he's treed another cougar," laughed a third voice.
The three appeared upon the plateau and rode toward the disgruntled marksman, their hands up over their heads in mock anxiety and surrender. Down from the north rolled a swift, rhythmic drumming, and Harrison, eagerly alert, his rifle balanced in his hands, slid to a dusty stop.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Reckon it was Cookie's pet ki-yote," grinned Gates. "There ain't nothin' with wings, even, can beat 'em. He just melted."
"Yo're a d—d fool!" swore Harrison angrily.
"Huh! I could 'a' told you that long ago," observed Purdy. "You just catchin' on?"
"I saw somethin' move," retorted Gates. "It slid past that crack an' th' sun caught it purty fair, so I let drive. How th' devil do you suppose I knowed it was a ki-yote? Think I'm one of them mejums an' has second sight?"
"Never!" chuckled Fleming. "People make mistakes, but th' man don't live, free an' unrestrained, that would think you had second sight. He might even be doubtful about th' first sight. You want to practice second look. Look twice, pray, an' then count ten, Dan'l, old trapper."
"He oughta be penned up nights," growled Sanford. "He's a cussed sight more dangerous than a plague."
Another rider joined them from the south. "Dan'l Boone at it again?" he asked, grinning.
"He is!" snapped Purdy.
Harrison quieted his horse. "You fellers take him home with you, an' keep him there. He shoots at anythin' that moves! I'm goin' to take root right here till he gets down below. Mebby he might take me for somethin' suspicious."
"If I'd 'a' got that chicken-thief," placidly remarked Gates, "I'd 'a' slipped it into Cookie's coop tonight, cussed if I wouldn't!"
"You keep away from his coop," warned Fleming, with a solemn shake of his head. "He's another that shoots at anythin' that moves."
Holbrook looked at Harrison. "You takin' th' north end tonight?"
"Yes; but I'm stayin' right here till Davy Crockett gets down on th' range. Don't you move, Frank; he'll likely blow you apart if you do."
"Glad he ain't ridin' in yore place. Good night, fellers."
The group split up and four of the riders rode toward the canyon trail.
"Take th' lead, Art," said Purdy. "You know that ledge better'n we do."
Holbrook and Harrison watched them disappear, consulted a few moments and then separated.
At the bottom of the steep eastern bank of the plateau, Johnny, a vague blur in the fading light, hastened stealthily into the brush. When assured that he was safe from observation he swung north and made the best time possible in the darkness over such ground, eager to reach his horse, which was picketed more than a mile away.
"Huh!" he grunted. "So they're combin' th' country an' patrolin'. Hereafter an' henceforth I've got to play Injun for all I'm worth. An' if they comb th' west side tomorrow I've got to move my camp at daylight."
To the southwest of the rustlers' ranch Ackerman and his new friend had sworn day after day, for they found no tracks to follow. After riding up several creeks to their head-waters they gave up such careful searching and went blindly ahead in the direction Ackerman thought their enemy would take; and the ashes of dead camp-fires from time to time told them that they had decided right.
At last they came to a point due west of the little valley of the burned cabin, and Ackerman did not choose to pass the stream which flowed from that direction. As the day was about done they camped on the bank of the little tributary and planned the next day's work. Arising early the following morning Ackerman divided the supplies and gave part of them to Long Pete.
"Well," he said, smiling grimly; "here's where we separate. We're north of Twin Buttes, an' that means we are about even with th' south end of our ranch. He could 'a' turned off any place from here on because when he got this far he had just about arrived.
"Now I reckon I better keep on follerin' th' big creek, for I got a feelin' that I know purty well just about where he's located. But we can't overlook no bets. You foller this crick to th' end, or till you see where he left it. An' you meet me tonight, if you can, at th' south end of that big butte up there, th' one with th' humpback.
"I've told you he's dangerous, chain-lightnin' with his guns; an' I'm tellin' you now to make shore you won't forget it. If you run across him, shoot first, as soon as you see him. You can't beat him on th' draw; an' while I don't like to shoot a man that way, I'm swallerin' my pride in this case because he's a spy, or else he'd never ride up th' cricks for forty miles. I never heard of anybody bein' so cautious an' patient all th' time. We got to get him; if we don't there'll be h—l to pay."
"Don't you get no gray hair about me," growled Long Pete. "I know what it means, d—n him!" A smile flitted across his face. "But I shore has to laugh at th' son-of-a-gun! An' me thinkin' he was a prospector, an' loco! I'd feel ashamed of myself if I really did think he was a prospector. You see, I've seen prospectors before. You mustn't mind me makin' a break like that once in a while; I've had to fool so many folks I can't sort of get my bearin's now. I'd be prouder of gettin' a man like him than anythin' I ever done. Did you gimme plenty of grub? All right; I'm movin' on now. So long."
"So long; an' good luck," replied Ackerman, going north along the creek.
Long Pete rode carefully up his own watery way, thoroughly alert and closely scrutinizing both banks.
"Settin' on a cayuse, out here, don't set well on my stummick," he muttered uneasily. "I'd mebby be more prominent cavortin' around on a mountain top, or ridin' upside down on th' under side of a cloud, but I ain't hankerin' after no prominence. Nope; I'm a shrinkin' wiolet. An' splash! splash! says th' bronc. Splash! splash! reg'lar as a watch, for th' whole wide world to hear, observe, an' think about. Long Pete, yo're a fool. Long Pete, yo're several, all kinds of fools. What you should oughta do is picket th' bronc an' perceed with more caution, on yore belly like a silent worm, or at least on yore kneecaps an' han's, like a like a—a—who th' h—l cares what? Day after day we been temptin' Providence. 'Hurry up!' says he. 'Hurry be d—d!' thought I. But we hurried. Yes sir. But it must be did. D—n th' must. All my sinful life there was a must or a mustn't. It's a must-y world. He-he! That ain't a bad one, or I'm a liar!
"All serene. Both banks lovely. Lush grass an' mosquitoes an' flies. Splash! Splash! Ker-splash! Ker-splash! Slop inter it, bronc. Don't mind my stummick. Keep lungin' on, pluggin' right ahead, stubborn as th' workin's of hell. Long Pete! Long Pete! Ker-splash! Here's Long Pete! Tell him, bronc; grease th' chute for yore boss. Even th' frogs got more sense; they shut up when they hears us. It's a gamble, bronc; a toss-up. Our friend, Mr. James Ackerman, says: 'Here, Long Pete. We done reached th' partin' of th' ways. He could 'a' left th' crick any place, now. Over east yonder is where he was burned out. You take that way, an' I'll go on north where I reckon I know mebby where he oughta be.' That's what he said, bronc. But what he kept a damp, dark, deep secret was: 'But I know he ain't. He's east, where he knows th' lay of th' land. Where he feels at home. An' anyhow, Long Pete, you know too d—d much about our affairs.' He's a friend of ours, bronc; we know that—but he's a better friend of hisself.
"We must watch both banks, bronc; watch 'em close. All right; but this time we'll just bust h—l out of Mr. Must. We'll square up, right now, for th' way Mr. Must has horned inter our affairs all our fool life. Come on; get out of this! That's right. Now you stand there an' drip. I'm going to travel humble an' quiet. I don't want no fife an' drum to lead me to war; no ma'am; not a-tall."
Long Pete's low, muttered chatter ceased as he wriggled through the cover. Minutes passed as he went ahead, glancing continually at the banks of the small creek for the telltale signs. He wormed around some scattered bowlders and came to the edge of a small, rock-floored clearing, where he paused.
A movement half-way up on a mesa close by caught his eye, and he backed over his trail, wriggled around the little clearing and began to stalk that particular mesa ledge. Yard after yard was put behind him, nearer and nearer he approached the ledge and a nest of bowlders three hundred yards from it. The bowlders were his objective, for, once among them, he would have the view he wished. Leading to them was a brush-covered ridge and toward this he cautiously advanced, rifle at the ready and every sense alert. But he never reached it.
Behind him and two hundred yards to his right a man slowly arose from behind a rock and, resting a rifle on the bulwark, took slow and careful aim at the gray shirt crawling close to the ridge. There was a flash, a puff of smoke, a sharp report. Pete, a look of great surprise on his face, tried to rise and turn to pay his debt, crumpled suddenly and lay inert, sprawled grotesquely on the ground.
The man behind the rock mechanically reloaded and walked slowly toward his victim, waving his sombrero in a short arc. On his face was an expression of triumphant joy. Up on the ledge of the mesa wall another man arose, acknowledged the signal and began to climb down the wall as hurriedly as safety would permit. When he reached the prostrate figure he found the successful marksman standing like a man in a trance, a look of blank wonderment on his face, his lower jaw sagging loosely.
"Good for you!" said the man from above; and then he paused. "What's th' matter?" A ghastly suspicion flashed into his mind and he leaped forward to see who the victim was. He arose relieved, but as surprised as his companion. "Lord! I was scared you'd got one of th' boys, from th' way you looked! Who th' devil is this feller? An' what's he doin' up here? I've seen him before; who th' devil is he?"
The other drew a long breath. "It's Long Pete, of th' Circle S; but what he's doin' up here is past me. Look at his shirt, his hat, an' say he don't look like Nelson from th' back! He only wears one gun, but I couldn't see that; th' grass an' brush hid it. But, just th' same, he was stalkin' you! If you'd 'a' shoved up yore head, he'd 'a' drilled it, shore!"
"But why should he stalk me?" demanded Harrison. "He didn't have no business up here; he didn't have no reason to sneak along, an' he didn't have no call to stalk me! Say! Mebby he's throwed in with Nelson! If he has, mebby his outfit has throwed in, too! Mebby they're up here strong, an' closin' in from all directions, for a show-down! We better warn th' boys, an' get back to Quigley; an' d—d quick!"
"Go ahead," said Gates. "I'll get his cayuse an' foller close. Where's Art an' Frank?"
"They went on north—I'm off after 'em," snapped Harrison. "Let his cayuse be. You hot-foot it to Quigley!"
"Come on!" growled Gates, wheeling. "They may be on both sides of th' ranch!"
Jim Ackerman, riding slowly along the bank of the main creek, saw everything that could be seen by a man with keen eyes; and he felt nervous. There was cover all about him, good cover; and any of it might be sheltering the man he was hunting. There was no sense for him to ride along the bank, an inviting target that a boy hardly could miss; there was no sense in riding at all; so he picketed his horse and went ahead on foot.
Gaining Humpback Butte, the meeting place he had mentioned to Long Pete, he worked along its eastern base, noiselessly, cautiously, alertly; and he stopped suddenly as he caught sight of the ashes of a dead fire; stopped and looked and listened and sniffed. It did not smell like a fire that had been dead very long, he thought; and then a playful little whirlwind, simulating ferocity, spun across the partly covered ashes and caught up a bit of charcoal which glowed suddenly as if winking about what it knew and could tell.
Ackerman flitted back into the brush and when he again reached the side of the butte he was north of the camp, and had viewed it from all angles. Pausing for a moment he started back again, on a longer radius, and soon found Pepper's newly made tracks in a moist patch of sand, and hurried along the trail until he saw where it entered the creek. No need for him to wonder which way the submerged and obliterated trail led; for it must lead north. Otherwise he would have met his enemy. Swearing in sudden exultation he whirled and ran at top speed to gain his horse.
Ackerman knew Humpback Butte and its surrounding valley and canyons as he knew the QE ranch, for he had spent days hunting all over that country; and he knew that the great slopes of the valley grew steadily steeper as they reached northward until they became sheer cliffs without a single way up their walls that a horse could master. A mile above Humpback Butte the walls curved inward until only a scant six hundred yards lay between them; and on the southern side of the eastern cliff, which jutted out into the valley, hidden behind an out-thrust point, was a narrow canyon leading into the valley which formed the northwestern outlet of the QE ranch. For nearly five miles north of Humpback Butte extended the valley, now a great, wide canyon; and not one of the several blind canyons in its great walls gave a way out. Anyone passing the hidden canyon would hunt in vain for an exit and have to return again.
Reaching his horse, Ackerman mounted and rode north at top speed, guiding the animal over grass as he threaded his way in and out among the obstructions. Speed was the pressing need now, for if he could gain the hidden canyon before his enemy found it on his return, he had him trapped. There was an up-thrust mass of rock, covered with brush and scrub timber, which lay before the entrance of the canyon; once up on that he could command both the canyon and the valley, the greatest range not over five hundred yards.
Dismounting in a thicket close to the entrance, he slipped to the canyon and looked for tracks. Finding none he clambered up on the mass of rock and searched the valley for sight of Nelson. For a quarter of a mile he could follow the winding creek and he watched for a few minutes, studying the whole width of the valley.
"I've beat him; an' he ain't come back yet," he chuckled grimly. "I got five minutes to look in th' canyon an' be dead shore!"
For a hundred yards the little creek flowed along the north wall of the canyon and he wasted no time on it; any man who would ride for forty miles in creeks would not forsake the water for a mere hundred yards. Running at top speed he dashed around a bend, eager for what he would find. There was a six-foot drop in the bottom of the canyon, and a small waterfall, where a rider would be forced to forsake the creek to climb the ridge. A quick glance at a wide belt of sand running out from the ledge at a place where it had crumbled into a steep slope told him that no one had passed that way, and he wheeled and ran back to gain the great pile of rock outside.
"Got you!" he panted triumphantly. "Yo're a clever man, Mr. Nelson; but you can't beat a stacked deck. Here's where I pay for a certain day in Hastings!"
As he reached the mouth of the canyon he heard a crashing in the brush near where he had left his horse and he dove into cover like a frightened rabbit. The crashing continued and then he heard the animal tearing off leaves, and the swish of the released branches. As he slipped forward, cursing under his breath, the horse emerged and walked slowly up on a ridge, where it paused to look calmly around.
"D—n you!" raged Ackerman, leaping forward. "I'll learn you to stay where I put you! H—l of a cow-pony you are!"
Grabbing the reins he kicked the horse on the ribs and dragged it back into the thicket, where he tied it short to a tree. As soon as the knots were drawn tight he scurried along the ridge, slipped through a clump of scattered brush and climbed frantically up the side of the mass of rock. A swift glance about reassured him, and, settling behind a rock, he patted his rifle and softly laughed.
An hour passed, and then suddenly he heard a plunging in the thicket below him. Pivoting like a flash, he faced about and threw himself flat on the ground, his rifle cuddled against his cheek. To his utter amazement his own horse walked into view again, the broken reins dangling and dragging along the ground. A gust of rage swept over him and he came within a hair of shooting the animal; only the need for silence kept his tightening trigger-finger from pressing that last hundredth of an inch. White with rage, choking with curses, he writhed behind his breastwork, for the horse was on the ridge again, a bold, skyline target for any eye within a mile.
"Th' journey home will be yore last!" he gritted furiously, slipping down the steep incline as rapidly as he dared. "We'll see if you can bust my rope, doubled twice! If you strain at th' rig I'm goin' to fix, you'll choke yoreself to death, d—n you!"
Driving it back into the thicket he fastened it to a sapling with the lariat, doubled twice; and the noose around the animal's neck was a cleverly tied slip-knot.
"Now, d—n you!" he blazed, kicking the horse savagely. "Take that, an' that, an' that!"
Reaching up to readjust the rope he suddenly froze in his tracks as a crisp voice hailed him.
"Keep 'em up!" said Johnny, stepping into view. "Turn around—keep 'em up!"
Cool as ice and perfectly composed, Ackerman slowly obeyed and scowled into the muzzle of a leveled Colt, waiting for his chance.
"A man that treats a cayuse like that ain't hardly worth a bullet," said Johnny. "If you'd 'a' looked at them reins you'd 'a' seen th' knife-pricks."
Ackerman smiled grimly with understanding, but made no answer.
"Sorry that human ramrod ain't with you," continued Johnny. "If I'd knowed he was a friend of yourn I'd 'a' stopped him cold down south of Hastings."
Ackerman scowled. "Talk's cheap. Th' man with th' drop can find a lot to say, if he's a tin-horn."
Johnny slipped the Colt into its holster and slowly raised his hands even with his shoulders. "I want you to have an even break," he muttered. "But I ain't goin' to stay here till that Circle S puncher blunders onto us. I'll wait one minute. It's yore play."
"I've been waitin' for a chance like this," said Ackerman. "Remember how you kicked me? I allus pay my debts. Th' next time—" He sprang aside with pantherish speed and the heavy Colt glinted as it leaped from his holster and flashed in an eye-baffling arc. A spurt of flame flashed from his hip and a rolling cloud of smoke half hid him as he pitched forward on his face.
Johnny staggered and stepped back out of the smoke-cloud which swirled around him and fogged his vision, A trickle of blood oozed down his cheek and gathered in his three-days beard. Peering at the huddled figure, he pushed his gun back into its holster and wiped the blood from his face.
"There ain't many as good as you with a gun, Ackerman," he muttered. "Well, I got to get out of here. Them shots will shore call some of th' others; an' I'd rather let 'em guess than know."
He sprinted to Ackerman's horse, released it and stripped it of saddle and bridle, turning it loose to freedom and good grass; and then, slinging the pack of supplies on his back, hastened to his own horse and rode away.
All day long Pepper moved ahead as fast as the country would permit, first north, then east, and finally south; and when she was stopped in mid-afternoon she was under the frowning wall of the southern Twin, three miles east of Quigley's stone houses and less than half a mile from the trail used by the rustlers when they rode abroad.
The very audacity of his choice of a camp site tended to make it secure; and it was in the section combed by the rustlers only the day before; it was under the most prominent landmark for miles around and practically under the nose of the QE outfit. His camp-fire and its almost invisible streamer of smoke from carefully selected dry wood was screened on the south and east by the great side of the southern Twin, and on the north and west by the bulk of the northern Twin; and by the time the filmy vapor reached the tops of those towering walls it would have become as invisible as the air of which it was a part. And because of the tumbled chaos of rock, ridge, arroyos, bowlders, shrubs, and trees, the little tent easily could be overlooked by anyone passing within twenty feet.
It had been his intention the day before to watch that out-bound trail in hope of following the next raiding party and learning what Logan wanted to know; but now he was forced to change his plans.
"All right," he muttered as he finished putting the new camp to rights. "As long as you know I'm here, an' are huntin' me down, it's time I showed my teeth. I'm goin' gunnin': it's a game two can play."
Having had his supper and lashed a small pack of food and ammunition on his back, he led Pepper farther down the chasm between the two buttes and let her graze where she pleased, knowing that she would not stray far. Then he plunged into the tangled cover and headed toward the entrance canyon of the QE ranch.
CHAPTER XV
BLINDMAN'S BUFF
IT WAS nearly dark when he came to the long slope leading to the plateau behind the QE ranch-houses and he went on with infinite caution, at last looking down upon the buildings, which showed no lights.
Had they gone on another raid and had he missed the opportunity of trailing them? He shook his head. There would be no more raids until they were sure that no one was watching them. Suddenly he grinned. The Circle S puncher, when last seen, was going straight toward the ranch-houses. It was simple now. Having been told all that the Circle S man knew, they knew that only one man was watching them and would plan accordingly.
"Layin' low an' settin' traps for me," he grunted. "Bet th' three canyons are guarded—an' that trail down th' blind canyon farther along this wall. That's th' easiest for me, so I'll slip up there an' look around; but first I'll take a look down in th' main canyon."
A short time later he peered over the rim of the chasm and chuckled, for a small fire, cunningly placed so as not to shine in the eyes of anyone in the houses, burned at the base of the great wall and made sufficient light to show a watching marksman every rock and hollow across that part of the canyon.
"They can set in th' house at a loophole an' keep a good watch," he muttered. "There ain't a man livin' could cross that patch of light. An' if they're guardin' one end they're guardin' th' others—an' I'll exchange compliments with one bunch."
Squirming back from the edge he started north, and he stopped only when the plashing of water told him that he was near his objective.
"If I was watchin' that trail I'd stay down below," he thought. "It would be near th' narrowest part of the ledge an' where nobody could shoot down on me. I know th' place, too; glad I learned th' lay of th' land around this sink."
He crept forward confidently, his rifle strapped across his back, for he decided to depend on his Colts. Reaching the head of the trail he dropped to all fours and crept onto it; instantly a flash split the darkness ten feet below him, the bullet ripping through his sombrero. He did not reply, but wriggled against the base of the wall, where an out-cropping stratum of rock gave him shelter. As he settled down he heard a sound above him and a pebble clicked at his side and bounced out into the chasm.
Here was a pleasant situation, he thought. They were guarding the top of the trail when they should have been guarding the bottom. There was an outlaw below him and another above him, and at the first streak of dawn he would find himself in a bad fix. Glancing up at the sky he saw that the ledge protected him from the man above; but it would take the man above only half an hour to run back along the canyon, round its upper end and appear, ready for business, on the farther side, in which case a certain member of the CL outfit would be neatly picked off at the first blush of daylight.
"I was hell-bent to get down here," he soliloquized in great disgust; "an' now I'm hell-bent to get back again. What business have they got to watch this end?"
He looked back up the trail and could see nothing. Then he held out his hand and could not see that. "That fool didn't see me; he heard me! I'm glad I didn't shoot back. He'll wait a while, doubt his ears an' think mebby that he's loco."
But Ben Gates, firing on a guess, thought he saw what he fired at when the flash of his gun lit up the trail in front of him. True, the smoke interfered; but Gates was backing both his eyes and his ears.
Johnny waited half an hour, and then grew anxious. His enemies were not doing anything, but appeared to be copying the patience of the noble red men, and waiting for dawn.
"Cuss th' dawn!" mused Johnny fretfully. "If th' feller below still thinks he heard me, th' feller up above may get dubious an' reckon his friend pulled at nothin'; an' he's th' man I got to gamble with an' th' sooner th' better."
He wriggled backward an inch at a time until he had gained a few yards and then he softly turned around. Another pebble fell on the ledge close to the place he had just evacuated. The instant he heard it he moved a little more rapidly because he was now east of the man above. A soft shuffle came to his ears and he swore under his breath when the sounds stopped at the head of the trail. The man above was now east of him, and painfully alert.
Slowly arising, Johnny hugged the wall and felt it over carefully. There were knobs and slight foot-holds and small cracks in it, and he took the only way open to him, desperate as it was. He judged the rim to be thirty feet above him, and setting his jaws he started to climb it. The shuffling again was heard and it now passed to the west of him.
"Cuss him!" gritted Johnny. "He acts like he don't know what to do with hisself. Why th' devil can't he stay where he belongs?"
Stepping back on the trail again Johnny stooped over and ran silently toward its upper end, thankful that he was wearing moccasins; and he had come within ten feet of it when the shuffling sound again passed him, eastward bound.
"There!" grumbled Johnny. "I knowed it. He acts like a bobcat in a cage. All right, d—n you! I'll give you some music to shuffle to!"
Finding several pebbles, he threw them, one at a time, over the rim and about over the place where he had found shelter. A muttered expletive came from above and the shuffling went rapidly toward the sounds. Below him on the trail he heard a slight stir, but ignored it as he sprinted up the trail, silent as a ghost, and gained the shelter of a bowlder. Here he waited, grim and relentless, for the sentry's return.
Shuffle Foot was peeved, and cared not a whit who knew it. Just because he was hitched to a fool was no reason why he should endure asinine practical joking; so he peered over the canyon's rim and spoke softly:
"What th' h—l do you think yo're doin'?"
The silence below was unbroken; but the astonished Mr. Gates longed passionately for the power of thought transmission. It was all right for Nat Harrison to go wandering around and braying like a jackass; he wasn't lying almost nose to nose with the most capable two-gun man that had ever cursed the Twin Buttes country.
"'Sleep?" queried Harrison. "What did you shoot at; 'nother ki-yote?" Receiving no answer he became exasperated. "If it was anybody but you I'd pay some attention to it. First you shoots a cougar out of a tree when we're all holdin' our breath to keep quiet. Then you let drive at a measly ki-yote, which you opined was a he-man. Next you plugs Long Pete, thinkin' he was Nelson. An' now what do you think you see? If I poke my head out far enough, even though I'm talkin' to you, I'll bet you'd let loose at it, thinkin' th' Lord only knows what. Why don't you say something? Do you think we're playin' some kid's game, where th' feller that keeps still longest gets th' apple? Did you make that noise?"
Gates writhed in impotent rage; but he suffered in silence, which only increased the pressure of his anger.
"Mebby you done shot yoreself," suggested Harrison hopefully. "Didn't see somethin' down by yore feet, an' shoot off yore toes, did you? What's th' matter with yore mouth? You can use it enough, th' Lord knows when nobody wants to hear it. Say somethin', you locoed polecat."
The pause was fruitless, and he continued, cheerfully:
"Mebby he's clubbed you again," he said. "Clubbed yore stone head with th' butt of his gun an' gagged you with yore own handkerchief; yore very much-soiled handkerchief. But I hardly reckon he did, because any blow heavy enough to send a shock through that head of yourn would 'a' been heard at th' houses, an' I didn't hear nothin' like that. Goin' to say somethin'?"
Harrison chuckled, and tried again: "Well, if you ain't talkin' I'll bet yo're thinkin'. Bet yo're wishin' I'd find a million dollars, get elected president of th' country an' not have nothin' to worry about all th' rest of my life. Ain't you, Dan'l Boone?
"You must be scared 'most to death," he continued after a pause. "Any time you can't find a chance to talk you shore are in a bad fix. I'm beginnin' to lose my temper. You make me plumb disgusted, you do. What th' devil do you think I was doin' out here all night? Think anybody got past me to go down there for you to shoot at? If there's anybody down there he come up from below an' crawled over you before you woke up."
Suddenly he cocked his head on one side and listened as a low gurgle sounded in the canyon.
"Cuss my fool hide!" he whispered. "Mebby he did see something! Mebby somebody come up th' trail, tryin' to get out of th' valley before daylight! Mebby it wasn't Ben at all that did th' shootin'! Hey, Ben; Ben! For heaven's sake, say something, anything!"
Gates, stung into a blinding rage which swept aside every thought of caution, did say something. Nature seemed to shrink from the stream of throbbing profanity which came shouting up out of the black canyon, whose granite walls flung it back and forth until the chasm reverberated with it.
Harrison listened, entranced, his open mouth, refusing to shut, testifying to the great awe which held him spellbound. Never in all his sinful life had he heard such a masterpiece of invective, epithet, and profane invocation. The words seemed to be alive and writhing with venom; he almost could hear them crackle in the air. He heard himself called everything uncomplimentary which a frontier vocabulary saved for just such situations. He heard his ancestors described back to the time of Adam; sweeping up to the present, himself, his relatives, his ambitions, habits, and personal belongings were dissected by the man below. And then his future and the prophesied future abode of his spirit were probed and riddled and described by a furious, vitriolic tongue. His hair, eyes, ears, nose, gait, and manners were gathered up and torn apart for microscopic examination and the descriptions were shouted at the top of his companion's voice, which bellowed and boomed, rasped and coughed, screeched and shrilled down in the blackness forty feet below him. Then there fell a sudden calm, a silence which seemed doubly silent, unreal, because of the contrast. A convulsive, retching, strangling fit of coughing broke it, and then a hoarse, rasping voice asked mildly, anxiously, a mild question:
"Is there anything I forgot?"
Johnny, standing up behind the smaller bowlder that he might not lose a word or an inflection of the masterpiece, lost in admiration, forgetful of purpose and the situation, danced gleefully and gave a joyous shout: "Not a cussed thing!"
Harrison fired at the sound, and a sharp, lurid flash replied to his own. He staggered back as he fired again, and an answering flash doubled him up. Gamely he pulled the trigger again and two spurts of flame, so close to each other that they seemed almost to merge, sent him staggering and reeling toward the edge of the canyon. Tripping over an inequality in the earth he threw out his arms, fought to regain his balance and with a sob plunged over the wall into the darkness below.
Down on the trail Gates muttered in sudden horror as he felt the wind of the hurtling body, and he leaned against the wall, white, sick, shaken. A muffled, sickening sound came up from the pit, and Gates dropped to his hands and knees, not daring to stand erect.
"Nat!" he cried. "Nat! Was that you? Nat! Nat!"
At the top of the trail a rapier-like flash of fire split the darkness, and then a series of lurid spurts of flame stabbed in short jets, rapidly, regular as the ticking of a clock, marking the place where two heavy guns crashed and jumped as they poured forth a stream of lead down the narrow rock shelf that formed the precarious trail. The canyon roared in one prolonged reverberation and the bullets whined and spatted and screamed in high falsetto as they cleared the wall or struck it to glance out into the valley below.
Gates, on his hands and knees, shaken, sick with horror, crept slowly downward, oblivious to the crashing, rolling thunder and the flying lead.
"I didn't mean it, Nat!" he muttered over and over again. "I didn't mean it; not a word of it!"
A sharp spang! sounded on a rock close to his head and a hot splinter of lead cut through his cheek. He stopped and spat it out, his nerve returning as a cold rage swept over and steadied him. Jerking his gun loose he emptied it up the trail, and, methodically reloading, emptied it again, slowly, deliberately, moving it a little at each shot so as to cover a short arc. Another spurt stabbed the darkness above, and his gun, again refilled, replied to it. Again the canyon sent roaring echoes crashing from wall to wall as flash answered flash. Then suddenly the gun below grew silent, and the guns above spat twice spitefully without a reply, and they, too, ceased.
Gates stirred and slowly raised himself on an elbow, groping blindly for his gun. His trembling hand struck it blunderingly and knocked it over the edge of the trail as his numbed fingers sought to close over it. Dazed, racked with pain, he sobbed senseless curses as he slowly dragged himself down the trail, desperately anxious to reach his picketed horse before his reeling senses left him.
After an unmeasured interval, as vague and unreal as an elusive dream, he stumbled over the picket rope and sprawled full length. Arousing himself he felt along it and managed to loosen it from around the rock which served as a picket pin; and then, slowly, by a great effort he crawled along the rope and staggered to his feet to grasp the pommel of his saddle, where he clung and rested for a moment.
The restless horse, scenting blood, tossed its head and moved forward; but Gates, by a great, supreme effort, crawled heavily into the saddle and bound himself there with his lariat. Then, spurring clumsily, he started the animal toward the ranch-houses, fighting desperately to keep his wandering senses.
An hour later two men stole to the door of the end house and listened, questioning each other. Actuated by a common impulse they slipped out toward the corral, gun in hand, and found Gates, unconscious and weak, but alive, huddled forward on the horse's neck.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SCIENCE OF SOMBREROS
JOHNNY rubbed his eyes and sat up, wondering. It was still dark, but a grayness in the east told of approaching daylight. He was puzzled, for it had been mid-forenoon when he had gone to sleep. Unrolling stiffly from the blanket, he sat up to listen and to peer about him. From his thicket he could see the tent, with the soles of his boots and part of his blanket showing. Arising he stretched and flexed his muscles to ease the ache of them, and then approached the ashes of the fire, and found them and the ground underneath to be stone cold. Rubbing his eyes, he laughed suddenly: he had slept for nearly twenty hours!
"Shore made up for th' sleep I been missin'!" he grunted. "An' ain't I hungry!"
Having eaten a hearty breakfast he scouted along his back trail, acting upon the assumption that the Circle S puncher might have gone back again, picked it up and followed it. Reassured as to that he started back to camp, and on the way topped a little rise and caught sight of Pepper grazing in the narrow canyon.
"That won't do, at all," he muttered, thoughtfully. "She's a dead give-away—an' now I can't take no chances."
Returning to his camp he packed up food and spare ammunition, and then, hurrying down the canyon, whistled to the horse, who followed him closely, as he searched in vain for a safe place to put her. He was growing impatient, when he chanced to look closely at the face of the southern Twin, and then nodded quickly. If there was water on its top, that was the place for the horse. Half an hour later, after some careful climbing, he reached the high plateau, dropped the reins down before Pepper's eyes and made a swift examination of the top of the butte. His hopes were rewarded, as he had expected them to be, for in a deep bowl-like depression lying at the foot of a high steep ridge he found a large pool, the level of which was considerably below the high-water mark on the wall. This meant concentration due to evaporation, and he tasted the water to be sure that it was fit to drink. Whistling Pepper to him, he picketed her so that she could reach the edge of the pool and range over enough grass to satisfy her needs, cached the pack and departed.
When he reached the canyon he went around the butte and started for his camp along its southern side, critically examining the sheer wall as he fought the brush and the loose shale under his feet. There was one place where he thought it possible for a cool-headed, experienced man to climb to the top, if he put his mind to the task and took plenty of time. Giving it no further thought he plunged on, glad that the horse was out of the sight of any scouting rustler and picketed so she could not get near the edge, where she would have shown up sharply against the sky, visible for miles.
Swinging past his camp and turning to the south he cautiously crossed the rustlers' main trail and climbed the wall behind it, and as he went forward he tried to figure out what his enemies thought of the situation. If they believed that several enemies opposed them they would be likely to stay in the houses, or not stray far from them; but if they thought only one man fought them they would most certainly take the field after him. Such was his summing up; and, bearing in mind that Long Pete, when last seen by him, was headed toward the houses, he took full advantage of the cover afforded.
Approaching the cliff by a roundabout way, he at last wriggled to the edge and peered over. A gun-barrel projected from the crack of the door in the last house; a man lay behind a bowlder on the cliff across the valley, facing eastward; and almost directly below him a sombrero moved haltingly as its wearer slowly climbed up the cliff at one of the few places where it could be scaled.
"They've figgered right," thought Johnny; "an' they're goin' to make things whiz for me. Red Shirt, over there, must be a thousand yards away; but this sink is deceivin'."
He looked down at the climber, who was about half way up the bluff. "Huh! I don't want to shoot him without givin' him a chance; but he just can't come up. Le's see: one, two, three; an' one in th' house, wounded, is four. There's a couple more somewhere, layin' low I reckon, waitin' for me to move across their sights."
He looked across at Red Shirt and grinned. "He's layin' on th' wrong side of that rock an' don't know it. I'll tell him, an' get rid of that climber at th' same time. Hope he busts his neck gettin' down."
Wriggling back from the edge so that the man in the house could not locate him by the smoke, he took deliberate aim at Red Shirt and gently squeezed the trigger. Red Shirt soared into the air and dove over the bowlder headfirst and with undignified speed.
"Knowed it was deceivin'," growled Johnny. "Shot plumb over him. Can't be more'n eight hundred yards. An' that's a fool color of a shirt to wear on a job like this."
Johnny's shirt had been blue, a long time back; but now its color hardly could be described by a single adjective. Sun, wind, and strong lye soap had taken their toll; and it had not been washed since he had left his little valley.
Wriggling back to the patch of grass, a quick glance below showed the climber frantically descending; and the man in the house was making lots of smoke on a gamble. Across the valley a gray-white cloud puffed out above the big rock and a little spurt of sand forty feet to Johnny's left told him that Red Shirt, too, was guessing
"Must 'a' been asleep not to see my smoke," muttered Johnny.
More smoke rolled up from the bowlder and soon some pebbles not ten feet away from him scattered suddenly, while a high-pitched whine soared skyward.
"He's pluggin' at every bit of cover he can see," mused Johnny, wriggling back behind a rock. "An' he'll prospect that bunch of grass—knowed it! He can shoot," he exclaimed in ungrudging praise; "an' he's got th' range figgered to a foot. An' he's workin' steady from th' north to th' south; an' when he tries for that clump of brush over there he's got to show his head an' shoulder."
A puff of dust and sand fifty feet to his right told him to get ready; and then a bowlder south of the sand-puff said spat!
Johnny lowered his rear sight and cuddled the stock of the heavy Sharp's to his cheek. Slowly a red dot moved up in front of his sights and he again squeezed the trigger, and again missed. But he had no way of knowing that Art Fleming was spitting sand and that his eyes had not escaped the little shower.
"I got to guess too much," swore Johnny. "That front sight hides him. I wonder how many times I was goin' to file it sharp?"
As he reloaded, his sombrero suddenly tugged at his scalp and a flat report sounded behind him. He quickly rolled into a shallow depression and another bullet sprayed him with sand.
"Repeater," he growled. "I got as much sense as a sheep-herder!"
There now was plenty of cover between him and Repeater, but there was still too little distance between him and Fleming; and the latter was a disconcertingly good shot. Two quick reports sounded from the house and Johnny smiled; the man at the door was seeing things, and backing his imagination with lead.
Johnny was watching a ridge behind him. "Me an' Repeater are goin' to argue," he remarked, and almost fired when a sombrero slowly arose on the skyline.
"Cussed near bit," he chuckled; "but you got to have yore head in that bonnet before I lets drive."
A matted tuft of grass on the top of the ridge moved so gently that only a very observant eye would have detected it. Johnny's Sharp's roared, and instantly was answered from a point a yard away from the stirring clump of grass, the bullet fanning his face.
"Yo're too cussed tricky," grunted Johnny; "but I got a few of my own."
Leaving his rifle lying so that its barrel barely projected into sight, he slipped into a gulley and crept toward the west, a Colt in his hand.
Repeater again stirred the grass tuft, and then he found a rock about the size of a man's head and pushed it up to the skyline of the ridge. Nothing happened "If my hair wasn't so red," he murmured, "I'd take a peek. It's an awful cross for a man to bear."
He was a cheerful cattle-thief and did not get easily discouraged. Also, he was something of a genius, as he proved by putting his sombrero on the rock and raising the decoy high enough in the grass for the hat brim to show.
"Shoot, cuss you!" he grunted, leveling his rifle; and then as the uneventful seconds passed he grew fault-finding and used bad language. Suddenly a suspicion flashed across his mind.
"That would fool a man with second sight," he muttered. "Somethin's plumb wrong; an' I think I better move. That bowlder over there looks good." And as he crawled behind it a pair of keen eyes barely caught sight of his disappearing heel.
"That man's got th' right to wear expensive hats," grinned Johnny, squatting behind a great mass of lava; and his grin widened as he glimpsed the sombrero-topped rock. "Yes, sir: he's got a head worth 'em; an' if I don't watch him close I'll grab holt of th' wrong end of somethin'."
Across the valley Fleming, having cleared his eyes of sand, was rapidly recovering his normal vision and was preparing with cheerful optimism to bombard everything which looked capable of sheltering his enemy, when a movement north of and far behind the suspected area acted upon him galvanically. He threw the rifle to his shoulder without elevating the sight, raised it instinctively to the angle of maximum range and squeezed the trigger. He did not expect a hit, and he did not get one; but he caused his friendship to be strongly doubted.
Repeater ducked, and when his face bobbed up again it wore an expression of outraged trust, and he raised a belligerent fist and muttered profanely in hot censure of the distant experimenter. Fleming, chuckling at his friend Sanford's anxiety, raised his sombrero and waved it, seeming to regard this as ample reparation.
"He's gettin' as bad as Gates," growled Sanford, eying a leaden splotch on a bowlder a foot above his head; "but he can shoot like th' hinges of h—l with that blasted Sharp's."
He suddenly leaped closer to the bowlder and behind its sheltering bulge, for Fleming, having apologized, fired again. The marksman was frantically waving his sombrero, seemingly indicating a southerly direction.
Sanford scowled at him. "Does he want me to go south, or does he mean that that feller is south of me?"
Fleming, with no regard for the cost of Sharp's Specials, fired again and Sanford heard the slobbering, wheezing hum of a nearly spent bullet turning end over end in the air and trying to ricochet after it struck.
"He's shootin' south of me," said Sanford; "an' I stays here. Somethin' tells me that th' feller that does th' movin' is goin' to die. No red-head ever made a handsome corpse, an' bein' th' red-head which I mentions, I'm goin' to stick to this hunk of granite like a tick to a cow."
Johnny, hands on hips, was glaring defiance at the cheerful spendthrift, sorry that he had left his rifle behind. He regarded Fleming as a meddlesome busybody who took delight in revealing his every movement. Also, the optimist was a good shot; but he derived no satisfaction from the fact that the closest bullet had been a ricochet, for a key-holing slug makes an awful mess if it lands.
"I'll bust yore neck!" quoth Johnny, shaking a fist at the persistent nuisance; and then he jumped aside as a sudden sharp spat! came from the bowlder. "You can shoot near as good as Red Connors: but if he was here he'd show you what that little difference means." He raised his voice: "Hey, Repeater! Who is that fool?"
Sanford laughed softly and made no answer; but he carelessly showed a shirt sleeve, and when he jerked it back under cover it needed a patch.
"What th' h—l you doin'?" demanded Sanford heatedly.
"Who's Red Shirt?"
"Ackerman."
"Then he's better with a Sharp's than a Colt."
"That's a Spencer carbine."
Johnny laughed derisively: "If it is he'll strain it."
"It's a Winchester," chuckled Sanford
"Yo're a liar!"
"Yo're another! She's a single-shot, .40-90."
"Then he's changed guns. He had a Winchester repeater in Hastings. I saw it."
"You'll see too much some day. You'll see a slug in yore eye."
"I'm waitin'," replied Johnny, and ducked. Fleming was getting good again, and Johnny was glad that he could not see where his bullets were landing, for as it was he was shooting by guess.
"He'll get you yet," encouraged Sanford.
"Think I'm goin' to wait for it?" indignantly demanded Johnny.
"Gimme a look at you," urged Sanford genially.
"Stand up an' take it," retorted Johnny.
"Reckon I'm scared to?"
There was no reply, for Johnny had slipped away and was running at top speed along a gully, where he was out of sight of the hard-working Fleming. A few minutes later he had reached his rifle and was cuddling it against his cheek; and he was causing Sanford a great amount of mental anguish and wriggling progress.
"Some people calls this strategy," muttered Johnny, "but I calls it common sense."
Raising his head cautiously he looked across the valley but saw no sign of Fleming; and he figured that it would be an hour before that interesting person could cross the valley and get close enough to be a menace. What concerned him most were the two rustlers' friends, who must certainly have heard the shooting. Out of deference to the curiosity of those individuals he crawled into a partly filled-in crevice, whose sides were steep rock and whose floor was several feet below the level of the surrounding plateau.
Peering out from between two rocks he saw Sanford's sombrero disappear from the ridge, and then it cautiously arose again; and Johnny's eyes narrowed, for he knew the numerous uses of sombreros.
"Keep stickin' it up," he muttered. "An when I get tired shootin' at it you'll stick yore head in it an' get a good look around. Most generally when a man pokes up an empty hat th' crown don't tip back as it rises; it just comes up level. An honest hat slants back more an' more as it comes up. 'Cause why? Why, 'cause. 'Cause a man uses his neck to raise his head with. Now, if he kept his neck stiff an' raised his whole body, from th' knees up, plumb straight in th' air, then th' hat would come up level. An' I asks you, Ladies an' Gents, if a man layin' down behind a little ridge can raise his whole body stiff an' straight, plumb up an' down? No, ma'am; he can't. He raises his soiled an' leathery neck, an' th' top of th' useful sombrero just naturally leans backward; just like that.
"Look, Mister; there it comes again; an' it don't tip back at all. I shall ignore it, deliberate an' cold. But when it tips back, lifelike an' natural, like a' honest hat should, then I'll pay attention to it, me an' my little Sharp's Special.
"Oh, I've done made a study of appearin' hats. I'm a reg'lar he-milliner. It was Red Connors an' Hoppy that directed my great intelligence to that important science. Tex Ewalt knowed about it, too. Tex was eddicated, he was. He said it is in th' little things that genius showed. He said somethin' about genius payin' attention to details, an' havin' infernal patience. Now, Ladies an' Gents, a hat is a detail; an' right now I've got th' infernal patience. Lookee! There she comes again! Level as a table. So, you see; I'm a genius. An' ain't he a persistent cuss? He's got infernal patience, too; but he ain't no genius. He ain't strong on details."
He looked around and grinned. Another hat, to the west of him, was in plain sight.
"Huh! Two hats in sight are two corners of a triangle; an' sometimes th' most dangerous corner is th' third, where there ain't no hat. Somewhere east of me there's a feller sneakin' up; an' he's th' feller I got to ventilate with my long-distance ventilator. An' mebby th' second hat's boss is circlin' around bare-headed; but it is still a triangle. Mebby it's a four or five or six cornered triangle. An' me, I'm all alone; so I'll crawl east an' hunt for company."
He dropped the monologue and took up the science of wriggling swiftly and silently; and when he stopped he was in the middle of a nest of rocks and bowlders at the base of a great pile of them.
The second hat still could be seen, but he gave most of his attention to the opposite direction.
"If I'm wrong, why did Number Two stick up his hat? I'll bet a peso that him, or Red Shirt, or their friends are stalkin' me from th' east. An' I'll bet two pesos that I'll cure him of such pranks. There's only two ways of explainin' that second hat. One is that th' owner is loco. Th' other is that he left his sign hangin' up to show me where he ain't. Th' other is that he left it so I'd think he wasn't there, but he is. An' th' other is that he figgered I'd think he left it to show me where he ain't an' that I'd think he was, so he moved on an' ain't there at all. Jumpin' mavericks! It makes my head ache. Havin' settled it with only four ways left to guess, I'll stay pat, right here, an' let them do th' openin'."
The shadows were growing longer and reaching out from bowlders and brush like dark fingers of destiny, and the sun hung over the western buttes and set them afire with brilliant colors. A lizard flashed around a rock, regarded the prone and motionless figure with frank suspicion until a slight movement sent it scurrying back again.
To the left a bush trembled slightly and he covered a rain-worn crease which cut through the top of a ditch bank. To the right a pebble clicked and behind him came the faint snapping of a twig.
"Three of 'em stalkin' me!" he muttered angrily, "I got to shoot on sight an' not waste a shot. An' they knowed where I was, judgin' from th' way they're closin' in on that crevice."
In front of him a red line showed and, rising steadily into view, became the back of a bare head. Then, very slowly, a brown neck pushed up, followed by the shoulders. Johnny picked up a small rock and arose to a squatting position.
Sanford was now on his toes, crouching, the tips of his left hand fingers on the ground, while in his other hand, held shoulder high, poised a Colt, ready for that quick, chopping motion which many men affected.
Johnny took careful aim and threw the stone. Sanford jumped when the missile struck near him, and wheeled like a flash, the Colt swinging down. He saw a squatting figure, a dull glint of metal and a spurt of flame. Johnny wriggled swiftly back among the rocks and awaited developments.
"They don't know who fired," he mused, "an' they dassn't ask."
If it had been a miss the silence would have been unbroken, as before, until a second shot shattered it; and if it had killed the rustler the silence also would remain unbroken; but if Sanford had scored a kill he instantly would have made it known. Being uncertain they were sure to investigate.
"Cuss it, there's at least two left; an' there may be four or five," grumbled Johnny. " I stay right here till dark."
Suddenly he heard a soft, rubbing sound, and he guessed that someone wearing leather chaps was crawling along the rocky ground behind the pile of bowlders which sheltered him. The sound grew softer and died out, and a panic-stricken lizard flitted around a rock, stopped instantly as it caught sight of him, wheeled and darted between two stones. Johnny smiled grimly and waited, the gun poised in his hand. Again the rubbing sounded, this time a little nearer, and he softly pushed himself further back among the bowlders. Something struck his left hand holster and he glanced quickly backward, and paled suddenly as he saw the copperhead wrestling to get its fangs loose. He drew in his breath sharply and his hand darted back and down, gripping behind the vicious, triangular, burnished head; and instantly a three-foot, golden-brown, blotched band writhed around his wrist and arm, seeming to flow beneath its skin. Jerking his hand forward again he broke the reptile's neck, tore it from his arm, shoved it back among the rocks, picked up the Colt again, and waited.
There sounded, clear and sharp, a sudden whirring rattle and the rubbing sound grew instantly louder. Again the fear-inspiring warning sounded and he heard pebbles rolling, where a creeping rustler made frantic efforts to get back where he suddenly felt that he belonged. A rattlesnake ready for war is not a pleasant thing to crawl onto.
"This is a devil of a place!" muttered Johnny, cold chills running along his spine. "It's a reg'lar den! As soon as that cow-thief gets far enough away, that rattler will slip in among these rocks—an' my laigs ain't goin' to be back there when he arrives!"
He wriggled softly out of the narrow opening and found more comfort on a wider patch of ground, where he could sit on his feet. As he settled back he saw the rattler slipping among the stones at his left.
"It all belongs to you an' yore friends," muttered Johnny, getting off his feet. "I'll risk th' bullets, cussed if I won't!" And he forthwith crawled toward the side where he had heard the rubbing sounds.
The shadows were gone, merged into the dusk which was rapidly settling over the plateau, and he had to wait only a little longer to be covered by darkness; but he preferred to do his waiting at a point distant from a snakes' den. Creeping along the edge of the bowlder pile, alert both for snakes and rustlers, he at last reached the southern end and stopped suddenly. A leather-covered leg was disappearing around a dense thicket, and he darted to the shelter of a gully to wait until darkness would hide him on his return to camp.
CHAPTER XVII
TREED
JOHNNY awakened at the shot and softly rolled out of his blanket. The fire was nearly out, but an occasional burst of flame from the end of the last stick served to show him the outlines of the little tent and the glistening hobnails in the soles of the protruding boots. A bush stirred and a careless step snapped a twig with a report startlingly loud in the night. A voice some distance behind him called out to a figure which appeared like a ghost upon the edge of the little clearing.
"Get him, Purdy?"
Boots scraped on stone at his right and another voice raised out of the dark. "If he didn't, there'd be some cussed rapid shootin' about now!"
"Course I got him!" snorted Purdy.
Johnny cautiously backed out of the thicket while the men behind him crashed through the brush and swore at the density of the growth.
The man at the end of the clearing stopped and stood quietly regarding the vague boots, his rifle at the ready. Somehow he did not feel that everything was as it should be. The boots appeared to be in the same position as when he had espied them a moment before. He must have made a lucky brain or heart shot, or—. He raised his hand swiftly and backed into the oak brush again, where Mexican locust in the high grass stabbed him mercilessly. Again his rifle spoke. The boots did not move.
"You got him th' first time," laughed Fleming, walking rapidly toward the tent; but he was not confident enough in his claim to put up his Colt.
"Shore," endorsed Holbrook. "It was good judgment, an' good luck."
Fleming, Colt ready, leaned swiftly over, grasped a boot and gave a strong pull—and went down on his back, the Colt exploding and flying one way while the boot, showering pebbles and small bits of rock, soared aloft and went the other way.
"D—n him!" swore Purdy, diving back into the brush and giving no thought to the thorns. "Cover, fellers! Quick!" he cried.
His warning was hardly needed, for Holbrook had dived headfirst into a matted thicket and landed on some locust with but little more that passing knowledge of its presence. Fleming bounded to his feet, scooped up his Colt on the run and jumped into another thicket, unmindful at first of the peculiar odor which assailed his nostrils. He had no time, then, to think about skunks, or whether or not they were hydrophobic.
The silence was deep and unbroken, except for an occasional faint swish or scrape, for three men had settled down where they had landed, there to remain until daylight, not far off, came to help them.
Out of the clearing a small, striped animal moved leisurely and defiantly, tainting the air, and entered the tent. It instantly became the cynosure of three pairs of anxious eyes, for while August was a long way off, three worried punchers found small satisfaction in that. They would sooner face an angry silver-tip, or a cougar with young, than to intrude upon the vision of that insignificant but odorous "'phoby cat." Each of them knew of instances, related by others, where men bitten by a skunk had gone raving mad; but none of them, personally, ever had seen any such case; and none of them had any intention of letting the other two see any such a shocking spectacle in the immediate future.
The little animal emerged from the tent and appeared to be undecided as to which way to go; and no roulette ball ever possessed the fascination nor furnished the thrills that took hold of the three staring watchers. It took a few steps one way and a few steps the other, and then started straight for the thicket where Art Fleming shuddered and swore under his breath. Two sighs arose on the air concurrent with the cursing.
"Just my cussed luck!" gritted Fleming. "Get out of here, cuss you!" he whispered fiercely, and raised his Colt. No sane man, with his firm beliefs regarding skunks, would hesitate when forced to choose between probable death from a bullet or certain and horrible death from hydrophobia. The skunk reached the edge of the thicket, five feet from the perspiring puncher, and was blown into a mass of reeking flesh.
Fleming groaned miserably. "They shore dies game!" he swore, half-nauseated. "They're cussed strong finishers! Why couldn't he 'a' headed for one of th' others? I got to move, right now."
He did so, slowly, cautiously, painfully; but the scent moved with him. He stopped, mopped his face, and then held his hand away from him. His sleeve, vest, and sombrero proclaimed their presence with an enthusiastic strength and persistence.
"Cussed if he didn't hit me! An' I might just as well go back to th' ranch, so far's huntin' Nelson is concerned. He could smell me a day before he caught sight of me!" A sickly grin slipped over his face, for he was blessed with a keen sense of humor. "Won't Gates an' Quigley be indignant when I odors in upon 'em!"
Purdy rolled his head in silent mirth, one hand over his nose; and Holbrook alternately chuckled and swore, wishing that the soft wind would shift and spare him.
"Laugh!" blazed Fleming, angry, ashamed, and disgusted, removing his vest and throwing it into the clearing. His sombrero followed it and then there was a ripping sound and a red flannel shirt sleeve joined the other cast-offs. The little, persistent flame on the stick blazed higher and revealed the collection of personal effects.
"If he peels off th' rest of his shirt an' shucks his pants, he'll smell near as bad," chuckled Purdy gleefully.
"Dan'l Boone Number Two!" said Holbrook, tears in his eyes. "But I shore wish he had enticed it off aways before he shot it!"
Dawn stole from the east and the magnificent sunrise passed unnoticed. Fleming, sullen, angry, odorous, trudged doggedly to his horse, which regarded him with evil eyes, mounted and rode away at a gallop in his desire to create a breeze; and in this the horse needed no urging. Back in the canyon Purdy and Holbrook scouted diligently, but with caution, covering ground slowly and thoroughly as they advanced.
Under a tangled thicket near the camp there was a sudden movement, and Johnny, hands and face covered with blood from the scratches of thorns, slowly emerged and followed the scouting rustlers at a distance. Satisfied that they would not return he circled swiftly to the south of the camp and caught a glimpse of Fleming as that unfortunate plodded dejectedly over a distant ridge on his way to his horse.
Johnny watched for a moment, and then, turning hastily, slipped back to the camp, where he collected what he could carry, packed it into blankets, put on the well-worn, heavy boots, fastened the pack on his back and dashed into the cover again, desperately anxious to gain his objective.
He knew what would happen. As soon as Fleming reached the ranch-houses he would reclothe himself and return with those of his friends who were able to accompany him; and it would not be long before the Twin Buttes section would be thoroughly combed. He could not hide his trail, so it were wise to lead them to a place they could not search.
Slipping on the treacherous malpais and loose stones, fighting through the torturing locust and cactus hidden in the grass, he pushed through matted thickets of oak brush and manzanito by main strength, savagely determined to gain his goal well in advance of the creeping, cautious cattle-thieves who crept, foot by foot, down the canyon on the other side of the butte.
A black bear lumbered out of his way and sat down to watch him pass, the little eyes curious and unblinking. Several white-tailed deer shot up a slope ahead of him in unbelievable leaps and at a remarkable speed. He leaped over a fallen pine trunk and his heavy boot-heel crushed a snake which rattled and struck at the same instant; but the heavy boots and the trousers tucked within them made the vicious fangs harmless. Flies swarmed about him and yellow-jackets stung him as he squashed over a muddy patch of clay. A grinning coyote slunk aside to give him undisputed right-of-way, while high up on the slope a silver-tip grizzly stopped his foraging long enough to watch him pass.
For noise he cared nothing; the up-flung butte reared its rocky walls between him and his enemies; and he plunged on, all his energies centered on speed, regardless of the stings and the sweat which streamed down him, tinged with blood from the mass of smarting scratches. Malpais, cunningly hidden in the grass, pressed painfully against the worn, thin soles of his boots and hurt him cruelly as he slipped and floundered. He staggered and slipped more frequently now, and the pack on his back seemed to have trebled in weight; his breath came in great, sobbing gulps and the blood pulsed through his aching temples like hammer blows, while a hot, tight band seemed to encircle his parched throat; but he now was in sight of his goal.
Beginning at a rock slide, a mass of treacherous broken rock and shale in which he sank to his ankles at every plunging step, a faint zigzag line wandered up the southern face of the butte. He did not know that it could be mastered, but he did not have time to gain the easier trail, up which he had led his horse. Struggling up the shale slope, slipping and floundering in the treacherous footing, he flung himself on the rock ledge which slanted sharply upward.
Resting until his head cleared, he began a climb which ever after existed in his memory as a vague but horrible nightmare. Rattlesnakes basked in the sun, coiling swiftly and sounding their whirring alarm as he neared them; but blindly thrown rocks mashed them and sent them writhing over the edge to whirl to destruction in the valley below. Treacherous, rotten ledges crumbled as he put his weight on them, and he saved himself time and time again only by an intuitive leap nearly as dangerous as the peril he avoided. At many places the ledge disappeared, and it was only by desperate use of fingers and toes that he managed to pass the gaps, spread-eagled against the cliff while he moved an inch at a time, high above the yawning depths, to the beginning of a new ledge.
Scrawny, hardy shrubs, living precariously in cracks and on ledges, and twisted roots found his grip upon them. At one place a flue-like crack in the wall, a "chimney," was the only way to proceed, and he climbed it, back and head against one side, knees and hands against the other, the strain making him faint and dizzy. Below him lay the tree-tops, dwarfed, a blur to his throbbing eyes.
A ledge of rock upon which he momentarily rested his weight detached itself and plunged downward a sheer three hundred feet, crashing through the under-brush and scrub timber before it burst apart. On hands and knees he crossed a muddy spot, where a thin trickle of water, no wider than his thumb, spread out and made the ledge slippery before it was sucked in by the sun-baked rocks. A swarm of yellow-jackets, balancing daintily on the wet rock, attacked him viciously when he disturbed them. He struck at them blindly, instinctively shielding his eyes, and arose to his feet as he groped onward.
The pack on his back, aside from its weight, was a thing of danger, for several times it thrust against the wall and lost him his balance, threatening him with instant destruction; but each time he managed to save himself by a frantic twist and plunge to his hands and knees, clawing at the precarious footing with fingers and toes.
At one place he lay prostrate for several minutes before his will, shaking off the lethargy which numbed him, sent him on again. And the spur which awakened his dulled senses proved that his frantic haste was justified; for a sharp, venomous whine overhead was followed by the flat impact of lead on rock, and a handful of shale and small bits of stone showered down upon him. The faint, whip-like report in the valley did not penetrate his roaring ears, for now all he could think of was the edge of the butte fifty feet above him.
Never had such a distance seemed so great, so impossible to master. It seemed as though ages passed before he clawed at the rim and flung himself over it in one great, despairing effort and fell, face down and sprawling, upon the carpet of grass and flowers. Down in the valley the persistent reports ceased, but he did not know it; and an hour passed before he sat up and looked around, dazed and faint. Arising, he staggered to the pool where Pepper waited for him at the end of her taut picket rope.
The water was bitter from concentration, but it tasted sweeter to him than anything he ever had drunk. He dashed it over his face, unmindful of the increased smarting of the stings and scratches. Resting a few minutes, he went to the top of the easier trail, up which he had led the horse, and saw a man creeping along it near the bottom; but the rustler fled for shelter when Johnny's Sharp's suggested that the trail led to sudden death.
Having served the notice he lay quietly resting and watching. The heat of the canyon was gone and he reveled in the crisp coolness of the breeze which fanned him. As he rested he considered the situation, and found it good. He was certain that no man would be fool enough to attempt the way he had come while an enemy occupied the top of the butte; the trail up the north side could easily be defended; the other Twin, easy rifle range away, was lower than the one he occupied and would not be much of a menace if he were careful; he had water in plenty, food and ammunition for two weeks, and there was plenty of water and grass for the horse.
Safe as the butte was, he cheerfully damned the necessity which had driven him out of the canyon: the question of sleep. Dodging and outwitting four men during his waking hours would not have been an impossible task; but it only would have been a matter of time before they would have caught him asleep and helpless.
Returning to the pool, he saw how closely Pepper had cropped the grass within the radius of the picket rope, changed the stake and then built a fire, worrying about the scarcity of fuel. Since he could not afford to waste the wood he cooked a three-days supply of food.
Eating a hearty meal, he made mud-plasters and applied them to the swollen stings, binding them in place by strips torn from an undershirt, and then he sought the shade of the ledge by the pool for a short sleep, which he would have to snatch at odd times during the day so as to be awake all night, which would be the time of greatest danger.
CHAPTER XVIII
AT BAY
IT WAS late in the afternoon when he awakened from a sleep which had been sound despite the stings. Removing the plasters he made a tour of the plateau, satisfying himself that there was really only one way up and that the rustlers were not trying to get to him. Returning to the camp, he filled a hollow in the rock floor with water, bathed, put on his other change of clothes, and then made a supper of cold beans and bacon. Filling another hollow, he pushed his soiled clothes in it to soak over night.
When he passed a break in the rampart-like wall near the top of the trail, which at that point shot up several feet above the top of the butte, a bullet screamed past his head, so close that he felt the wind of it. Peering cautiously across the canyon he saw a thin cloud of smoke lazily rising over the top of a huge, black lava bowlder on the crest of the other butte. A head was just disappearing and he jerked his rifle to his shoulder and fired.
"Five hundred an' a little more," he muttered. "I got it now, you wall-eyed thief!"
Another puff of smoke burst out from the lower edge of the lava bowlder, the bullet striking the rampart below him. His reply was instantaneous, and was directed at a light spot which ducked instantly out of sight, just a little too quickly to be hit by the bullet, which tossed a fine spray of dust into the air and put a leaden streak where the face had been. He fired again, this time at the other side of the bowlder, where he thought he saw another moving white spot, and he thought right.
After a quick glance down the trail, Johnny took a position a hundred yards to the left, trying to find a place where he could catch a glimpse of the hostile marksman. But Fleming had a torn and bloody ear and a great respect for the man on the southern Twin, and henceforth became wedded to caution. Curiosity was all very well, but his was thoroughly satisfied, and discretion meant a longer life of sinful activities.
"I had my look, three of 'em," growled Fleming. "An' three looks are enough for any man," he added quizzically, binding up his bloody ear with a soiled and faded neckerchief, which should have given him blood-poisoning, but did not.
"Now that we got him treed, there ain't no use goin' on th' rampage an' gettin' all shot up tryin' to get him. All we got to do is wait, an' get him when he has to come down. It'll be plumb easy when he makes his break. A man like him is too cussed handy with his gun for anybody to go an' get reckless with. If we keep one man near th' bottom of that trail, he's our meat. I don't know how he ever got up that scratch on th' wall; but I'll bet there ain't a man livin' that can go down it."
Johnny grew tired of watching for Fleming, and wriggling back to where he could safely get on his feet he arose and made the rounds again. When he reached the place where he had floundered over the edge to safety he critically examined the faint trail from cover, and the more he saw of it the more he regarded his ascent as a miracle.
"Only a fool would 'a' tried it," he grinned. "It's somethin' a man can do once in a hundred times; only he's got to make it th' very first time, or th' other ninety-nine will shore be lost. I'll never forget it, not never."
Watching a while, he wondered if it were guarded, and grinned at the foolishness of the idea; but he slowly pushed his sombrero out around a rock to find out. An angry spang! and a wailing in the sky told him the answer. The flat report in the valley became a mutter along the distant hills.
"Good shootin'," he grunted. "Glad you was out of breath, or excited, or somethin' this mornin'."
Back at the top of the other trail he found two large rocks lying close together near the edge, and he crawled behind them and peered out through the narrow opening for a closer look at the canyon.
It was a chaos, dotted with bowlders of granite, sandstone, and lava, some of them as large as small houses, their tops on a level with the tops of the nearest trees. It was cut by rock ridges, great backbones of stone that defied Time; and dotted with heavily wooded draws which extended up to the foot of the great pile of detritus embracing the foot of the buttes. Down its lowest levels ran a zigzag streak of bright, clean rock, the water-swept path of the torrents sent roaring down by melting snows and an occasional cloud-burst. Several pools, fed by a dark trickle of water from the springs back in the upper reaches, could be seen. Of timber there was plenty, heavy growths of pine extending from the edge of the creek bed to the edge of the detritus, with here and there an opening made by the avalanches which had cut into the greenery for short distances. At other places even the stubborn pines could not find a grip, and a thinning out of the growth let him see the rocky skeleton below; but these were so few that he easily memorized their positions. Trouble would come a-winging to any careless rustler who blundered out onto any of them.
The opposite butte took his attention and he marveled at it. Under its lava cap and the great layer of the limestones was a greater layer of clay and shale and the softer sandstones. These had been harassed and battered by the winds and rains and frosts of ages and the resulting erosion had chiseled out wonderful bits of natural sculpturing. At one place he could see, and with no very great strain upon his imagination, part of a massive building with its great buttresses, where a harder, more enduring streak of rock had offered greater resistance to the everlasting assaults.
Farther to the right was a wonderful collection of columns and pinnacles, and some of the openings between them ran back until shrouded in darkness; great caverns in which houses could be built.
As the sun sank lower the shadow effect was beautiful, and even Johnny's practical mind was impressed by it. The color effect he had seen before—the streaks of black, gray, red, green, maroon, and white. Bits of crystal and quartz were set afire by the sun's slanting rays and some of them almost dazzled him.
To the west the sky was a blaze of color and the lengthening shadows made an ever-changing picture. Below him the dusk was beginning to shroud the bottom of the canyon, creeping higher and higher as the minutes passed. To see better, he wriggled closer to the edge, and a venomous whine passed over his head to die out swiftly in the air.
"Huh!" he grunted. "Fine target I must 'a' been for that thief down there, with such a sky behind me. I've got to remember things up here, or I'll lose my rememberer. I'm on a skyline that is a skyline. An' I ain't goin' to answer every fool that cuts loose at me, neither. I got plenty of cartridges, but I won't have if I start gettin' foolish with 'em. An' before dark I'm goin' to rustle me a blanket; it's gettin' cooler by jumps."
He made another visit to the south side of the butte for a glance down the trail of misery, and then dismissed it from his mind. In view of his experiences with it in daylight, he knew that no human being could climb it in the dark.
"It's as safe, day an' night, as if Red or Hoppy was layin' right here—an' that's plenty good enough for me," he smiled. "William, Junior's, bobcat kitten won't never grow big enough to climb that place—an' it's th' only thing on earth that he can't climb, blast him!"
Returning to his camp he had a drink and a smoke, and then, taking up a blanket and a pan of cold beans, he went to the head of the trail, there to keep a long and wearisome vigil.
Darkness had descended when he reached his chosen spot, and wrapping the blanket around him he sat down cross-legged, laid his rifle near him, and leaned back against a rock to watch the trail and wait for daylight. Faint, long-drawn, quavering, came the howl of a wolf, and from a point below him in the blackness of the canyon a cougar screamed defiance. He was surprised by the clearness with which occasional sounds came up to him, for he distinctly heard the crack of dead wood where some careless foot trod, and he heard a voice ask who had the second shift on the south side of the butte.
"Turn in," came the answer. "We ain't watchin' that side no more. You relieve me at midnight, an' don't forget it!"
For some time he had been hearing strange, dragging sounds which seemed to come from the foot of the trail; and had been fooled into believing that an attack was under way. Then several low crashes gave him the distance, and he again leaned back against the rock, slipping the Colt into its holster.
A tiny point of light sprang up in the darkness, whisked behind a bowlder as he reached for his rifle, and grew rapidly brighter. Then it soared into the air and curved toward the foot of the trail, and almost instantly became a great, leaping flame which soon lit up the trail, the towering walls of the buttes, and the glistening bowlders in the canyon.
He stared at it and then laughed. "They ain't satisfied with watchin' th' trail an' listenin' with both ears, but they has to light it up! There ain't no danger whatever of me tryin' to get down now; an' I'd like to see anybody try to get up it while that fire's burnin'! They're shore kind to me."
"You be careful an' keep it out of th' brush," warned a faint voice. "If she catches, this canyon will be a little piece of h—l. Everything so dry it rustles."
"Ain't you turned in yet?" demanded the guard. "You never mind about th' fire. You get to sleep; an' you get awake again at twelve."
"Huh!" came the laughing retort. "We can all go to sleep while that's blazin'. Go gnaw yore bone an' quit growlin'."
Johnny laughed loudly, derisively. "I may set it on fire myself!" he jeered. "An' if I don't, th' rainy season is purty near due—an' when it comes you'll need a boat. Fine lot of man-hunters you are. All you can shoot is boots an' skunks!"
A flash split the darkness, and the canyon tossed the report from side to side as though loath to let it die. When the reverberations softened to a rolling mutter he jeered the marksman and called him impolite names. The angry retort was quite as discourteous and pleased him greatly.
An hour passed, and then Johnny arose and crept softly down the trail, hugging the rock wall closely. When he reached a small pile of broken branches, caught in a fissure, he gathered an armful and carried them up on the butte. Firewood was too scarce for him to neglect any opportunities. A second trip enabled him to find a few scattered pieces and they were added to his store. Then he went to his horse, removed the picket rope, and going to the edge of the cliff at a spot over the trail he tied one end of the rope around a rock and lowered the rest of it over the rim. Another trip down the trail was necessary to make the free end fast to a dead fir that lay along the wall, and having tied it securely he slipped back to the plateau, hurried to the rope and pulled on it in vain. Try as he might he could raise only one end of the log.
"Cuss it!" he grunted; then he grinned and whistled a clear note. A few minutes passed and soft hoof-beats came slowly nearer. Then a black bulk loomed up beside him and nuzzled his neck. "I forgot th' saddle," he said. "You wait here, Dearly Beloved," and he slipped away, the horse following him.
They returned together and Johnny made the line fast to the pommel of the saddle, took hold of it himself to show his good will, and spoke to the horse.
"Oh, you don't know nothin' about haulin', huh?" he grunted, dropping the rope and taking the reins. "Come on, now—easy does it. Easy! Easy! Keep it there—th' cussed thing's got stuck on th' edge." In a moment he returned. "All right! Over she comes."
The man at the foot of the trail hurled more wood on the fire and then tried a few shots when the noise above caught his ear. Then as the flames shot up he grunted a profane question and stared at the animated tree trunk which climbed sheer cliffs in the dark.
"Well, I'm cussed!" he grumbled. "Firewood! An' me lettin' him get down there to tie that rope!"
Johnny peered over the rim and noticed that the flashes came from one place, and getting his rifle he kicked a few rocks over and fired instantly at the answering flash. Two guns in the canyon awakened the echoes and he stepped back to let the whining lead pass over his head.
"There I go!" he snorted. "Wastin' cartridges already! But I wish—gosh! I got it!"
Grinning with elation he felt his way along the butte until he was directly over the fire, where he stopped and began to search for rocks and stones, and he did not cease until he had quite a pile of them. Approaching the rim he peered over cautiously and searched the canyon within the radius of the firelight, but without avail. He noticed, however, that there seemed to be a nest of rocks and bowlders on the outer edge of the circle of illumination and he surmised that it was there the guards were lying. He heaved a big stone and watched it whiz through the lighted arc. It fell short and he tried again. The second rock struck solidly and made quite a noise, and choice bits of profane inquiry floated up to him. Several more rocks evoked a sudden scramblingand more profanity, and a lurid bayonet of fire flashed from a dark spot.
"Now he's took to heavin' rocks!" growled a peeved, angry voice. "D—d if he ain't th' meanest cuss I ever saw!"
Johnny threw a few more missiles and a deep curse replied from the pit. Close to the edge of the wall was a large rock, nicely balanced. It was the size of a small trunk, and a grin crept across his face as he walked over to it Putting his shoulder, all his wiry strength, and plenty of grunts into the task, he started it rocking more and more, and, catching it at the right instant, he pushed it over and rolled it to the edge, where it threatened to settle back and remain; but another great effort rolled it slowly over the edge and it disappeared as if by magic. Striking a sharp bulge in the great wall when about half way down, it bounced out in an arc; and when it struck the bowlder pile it was a real success, judging from the noise it made. The canyon roared and seemed to shudder as the crash boomed out; and the huge missile, shattering into hundreds of fragments, lavishly distributed itself through the brush and among the bowlders like a volley of grape.
Deep curses roared from the canyon and several flashes of flame darted out.
"Lay on yore stummicks, fightin' mosquitoes, an' heavin' wood on that fire at long range, huh?" jeered Johnny, throwing another rock. "These are better at night than cartridges, an' they won't run out. I'll give you some real troubles. I only wish I had a bag of yellow-jackets to drop!"
Another jet of flame stabbed upward, but from a new place, farther back; and a voice full of wrath and pain described the man on the butte, and with a fertile imagination.
"What's th' matter with you? An' what's all th' hellaballoo?" indignantly demanded another and more distant voice. "How can a man sleep in such a blasted uproar?"
"Shut up!" roared Purdy with heat. "Who cares whether you sleep or not? He cut my head an' near busted my arm with his d—d rocks! Mebby you think they ain't makin' good time when they get down here! Only hope he stumbles an' follers 'em!"
"He's a lucky fool," commented Fleming, serene in the security of his new position. "Luckiest dog I ever saw."
"Lucky!" snorted Purdy. "Lucky! Anybody else would 'a' been picked clean by th' ki-yotes before now. For a cussed fool playin' a lone hand he's doin' real well. But we got th' buzzard where we want him!"
"Lone hand nothin'," grunted Fleming. "Didn't he have that drunken Long Pete helpin' him?"
Purdy growled in his throat and gently rubbed his numbed arm. "There's another. It just missed th' fire. Say! That's what he's aimin' at!"
"Mebby he is," snorted Fleming; "but if he is he's got a cussed bad aim. Judgin' from where they landed, I bets he was aimin' 'em all at me. I got four bits that says he wasn't aimin' at no fire when he thrun them little ones. One of 'em come so close to my head that I could hear th' white-winged angels a-singin'."
"'White-winged angels a-singin'!'" snorted Purdy. "H—l of a chance you'll ever have of hearin' white angels sing. Yore spiritual ears'll hear steam a-sizzlin', an' th' moans of th' damned; an' yore spiritual red nose will smell sulphur till th' stars drop out."
"I'm backin' Purdy," said the distant voice. "They don't let no skunk perfume get past th' Golden Gates."
"They won't let any of you in hell," jeered a clear voice from above. "You'll swing between th' two worlds like pendulums in eternity. Cow-thieves are barred."
A profane duet was his answer, and he listened closely as Holbrook's voice was heard. "Say!" he growled, killing mosquitoes with both hands and sitting up behind his bowlder. "Can't you hold yore pow-wow somewhere else? Want him to heave rocks all night? How can I sleep with all that racket goin' on? Yo're near as bad as these singin' blood-suckers; an' who was it that kicked me in th' ribs just now?"
"If you wouldn't sprawl out in a natural path an' take up th' earth you wouldn't get kicked in th' ribs!" snapped Fleming.
"Yo're a fine pair of doodle-bugs," sneered Holbrook, sighing wearily as he arose. He lowered his voice. "Here he is over this end of th' trail an' givin' you a fine chance to sneak up an' bushwhack him; an' all you do is dodge rocks, cuss yore fool luck, an' kick folks in th' ribs. Don't you know an opportunity when you see one?"
"Is this an opportunity?" mumbled Purdy sarcastically, rubbing his arm and fighting mosquitoes.
"With that fire showing up everything for rods?" softly asked Fleming with heavy irony. "Who's been puttin' loco weed in yore grub?"
"'Tain't loco weed," growled Purdy. "It's red-eye. He drinks it like it was water."
"No such luck," retorted Holbrook; "not while yo're around. It ain't no opportunity if yo're aimin' to have a pe-rade past th' fire," he continued in a harsh whisper; "but it shore was a good one if you had cut down through th' canyon a couple of rods below th' end of th' trail, an' then climbed up to it an' stuck close to th' wall. You could 'a' been up there now, a-layin' for him when he went back on guard. It's cussed near as simple as you are."
"You must 'a' read that in that joke book what come with th' last bottle of liniment," derided Purdy. "Fine, healthy target a man would make if he didn't get over th' top in time! Lovely job! You must think he's a fool."
"Don't be too sarcastic with him, Purdy," chuckled Fleming. "He does real well for a man that thinks with his feet."
"You fellers make me tired!" muttered Holbrook in sudden decision as another rock flew into pieces on a bowlder and rattled through the brush. "I'd just as soon get shot on a good gamble as die from these whinin' leeches. I'm all bumps, an' every bump itches like blazes. I never thought there was so many of 'em on earth. You watch me go up there—an' cover me if you can. Jeer at him an' keep him up there heavin' rocks as long as you can."
"Watch you?" grunted Purdy. "That's just what I'm aimin' to do. I'm aimin' to watch you do it. We don't have to take chances like that. His grub will run out an' make him come down. Time is no object to us. We can afford to wait."
"You can't do it, Frank," said Fleming, dogmatically, ducking low as another rock smashed itself to pieces against a bowlder.
"Huh!" snorted Holbrook, picking up his rifle and departing.
His friends chose their positions judiciously and shouted insults at the man on the butte; and after a few minutes they saw Holbrook, bent double, dart swiftly across a little open space, disappear into the brush and emerge into sight again, vague and shadowy, near the base of the wall a dozen yards below the end of the trail. He crept slowly over a patch of detritus which sloped up to the wall, and began his climb, which was not as easy a task as he had believed.
The wall, eroded where rotting stone had crumbled away in layers, was a series of curving bulges, each capped by and ending in an out-thrust ledge. He forsook his rifle on the second ledge and went slowly, doggedly upward, but despite all his care to make no noise, he dislodged pebbles and chunks of rotten stone and shale which lay thick upon the rocky shelves. When half way up he paused to search out hand and foot holds and became suddenly enraged at the amount of time he was consuming; and he realized, uneasily, that he had heard no more crashing rocks. The knowledge sent caution to the winds and drove him at top speed, and it also robbed him of some of the jaunty assurance which had urged him to his task. Fear of the ridicule and the jeers of his sarcastic friends now became a more compelling motive than the hope of success; and he writhed and stretched, twisted, clawed, and scrambled upward with an angry, savage determination which he would have characterized as "bull-headed" in anyone else. Then another smashing rock revived his hopes and made him strain with renewed strength.
At last his fingers gripped the crumbling sandstone of the trail's edge and by a fine display of strength and agility he swung himself over it and rolled swiftly across the slanting ledge to the base of the wall, where he arose to his feet and leaped up the precarious path. The ascent was twelve hundred feet long and it swept upward at a grade which defied anyone to dash along it for any distance. Walking rapidly would have taxed to the utmost a man in the pink of condition; and his pedal exercise for years had been mostly confined to walking to his horse.
The footing was far from satisfactory and demanded close scrutiny in daylight, while in the dark it was a desperate gamble except when attempted at a snail's pace. Ridges, crevices, stones, pebbles, drifts of shale and rotten stone, treacherous in their obedience to the law of gravity when the pressure of a foot started them sliding toward the edge of the abyss; places where the soft sandstone had split in great masses and dropped into the canyon, taking parts of the trail with them and leaving only broken, narrow ledges of the same rotten stone, all these conspired to make him use up precious minutes.
Below him to his right lay a sheer drop of two hundred feet; above him towered the massive wall; behind him and unable to help him, were his friends, and the fire, which was not bright enough to let him see the footing, but too bright for his safety in another way; before him stretched the heart-breaking trail, steep, seemingly interminable, leading to the top of the butte, where the silence was ominous, for somewhere up there was an expert shot defending his life. He had heard no more crashing rocks, and the insults of his friends had not been answered; and to hear such an answer or the crash of a rock he would have given his season's profits.
He paused for breath more frequently with each passing minute and his feet were like weights of lead, the muscles in his legs aching and nearly unresponsive. He was paying for the speed he had made in the beginning.
The great wall curved slightly outward now and he hugged it closely as he groped onward, and soon emerged from its shadow to become silhouetted against the fire below. And then a spurt of flame split the darkness above him and a shriek passed over his head and died out below as the roar of the heavy rifle awoke crashing echoes in the canyon.
Below him lurid jets of fire split the darkness and singing lead winged through the air with venomous whines, which arose to a high pitch as they passed him and died out in the sky. He knew that his friends were firing well away from the wall, but he cursed them for the mistakes they might make. Another flash blazed above him, and the sound of the lead and the roar of the gun told him that his enemy was now using a Colt. Ordinarily this would have given him a certain amount of satisfaction, for everyone knows that while a rifle is effective at such a range, a hit with a revolver is largely a matter of luck; but as he leaped back into a handy recess a second bullet from the Colt struck the generous slack of his trousers and burned a welt on that portion of his anatomy where sitting in a saddle would irritate the most. It was a lucky shot, but Holbrook was too much of a pessimist at that moment to derive any satisfaction from the knowledge.
"I'm in a h—l of a pickle!" he growled as the shadows of the recess folded about him. "I can't go up, an' I can't go down—I can't even sit down. I got to wait till that fire dies out—an' suppose they don't let it die? Five minutes more an' I would have won out."
"Hey, Frank! Are you all right?" asked a voice.
"That's Fleming, th' fool," growled Holbrook. "I suppose he wants me to step out on th' edge of the platform an' speak a piece for him."
A laugh rang out at the head of the trail. "Answer th' gentleman," said Johnny in a low voice, fully appreciating Holbrook's feelings. "Don't it beat all how some folks allus pick th' wrong time in their yearnin' for conversation? I've been there; more'n once. You promise to go down an' give him a lickin' an' I won't pull a trigger on you while yo're on th' trail!"
"Hey, Frank! Oh, Frank!" persisted Fleming.
"Tell him to shut up," chuckled Johnny. "Here, I'll do it for you: Hello!" he shouted. "Hello, you loquacious fool! Frank says for you to shut up!"
Fleming's retort was unkind.
"Frank says he ain't smelled no skunk since he left th' canyon!" jeered Johnny. "Don't you get up-wind of me!"
Fleming's retort was even more unkind.
"Hey!" yelled Purdy, cheerfully "You ought to 'a' heard what Quigley said when Art odored into th' house! Dan'l Boone was scared it would get in his wounds an' poison him to death."
"Yo're a sociable ki-yote!" jeered Fleming.
Johnny laughed. "I'm that sociable I carries callin' cards, like you read about in th' mail-order catalogues. They're snub-nosed an' covered with grease, which I mostly rubs off because of th' sand stickin' to it. I'm 'most as sociable as th' dogs that drove me out of my valley, burned my cabin, stole my cows, an' put me out of th' game. I'm 'most as sociable as th' three skunks that laid for me that night. I told Quigley in Pop Hayes' saloon what I'd do if I was pestered; an' I've been doin' it. An' I ain't through yet, neither. Here's one of my cards now," he jeered, sending a .45 down the trail to let Holbrook know that he was not forgotten.
"You stopped my play, an' stole my cows," he said. "So I'm goin' to take all them that you got in yore sink. When I gets through I'll be th' owner of th' QE ranch, all by myself; an' there won't be none of you left to bother me. Hoggin' a free country is a game two can play at, an' you shore got a good pupil when you taught me th' game. I'm aimin' to set up a record for th' cow-country. I never heard tell of a man shootin' off a whole outfit an' takin' their ranch; but that's just what I'm goin' to do unless you fellers get out of th' country while you can."
Jeering laughter and ridicule answered him; and then Purdy had an inspiration and voiced it with unnecessary vigor and quite a little pride.
"Hey, Frank!" he yelled. "If yo're all right, heave a rock over th' edge!"
There was a moment's silence and then a faint crash sounded in the canyon.
"There," called Johnny pleasantly. "Does that satisfy you, or shall I heave another? "
Fluent swearing came from below, in which Holbrook fervently joined, sotto voce, and he heaved another rock.
Johnny laughed loudly. "There's another in case you didn't hear th' first. I'm tellin' you about it because I don't want to deceive you. Mebby one of you fellers would like to sneak up here an' drag yore friend down?"
Holbrook reviewed the situation and could not see that he gained anything by keeping silent.
"I heaved them rocks!" he shouted savagely. "I'm all right. Now you put out that fire an' gimme a chance. I don't want to stay up here forever!"
"All right, Frank," called a new voice, which Johnny recognized as belonging to Quigley.
"Shore," jeered Johnny. "Run out an' kick it apart an' smother it with sand," he invited, reaching for his rifle. "But you want to do a good job. An' if he's still there at daylight you won't have to bother about him no more. I mean business now. I gave three of you thieves yore lives th' night you burned my cabin; but I'm shootin' on sight now."
"You got too cussed much to say!" snapped Holbrook angrily.
"An' I'll have more to say if yo're there at sunup," retorted Johnny. "An' lemme tell you, fire or no fire, you ain't down in th' canyon yet!"
Holbrook laughed. "You'll be as savin' of yore cartridges as you are of yore grub. How long do you reckon you can hold out?" he sneered.
"It only takes four bullets to clear a way for me," retorted Johnny.
New sounds came from the canyon. Rock after rock curved into the arc of illumination and landed in the fire, knocking it apart and sending blazing sticks flying toward the wall of the butte. Quigley warned his men to be careful and not set the brush on fire. There was a sudden puff of steam and the light dimmed quickly. Several other hatfuls of water turned the blazing embers into a black, smoking mass, where only an occasional red speck showed in the darkness.
The trail was blotted out and Johnny sent a .45 whining along it. A flash from below replied to him and he listened for a sound which would tell him that Holbrook had started on the return trip. But that individual, boots in hand, made no noise as he slipped along the wall. Coming to another recess, he sought its shelter, tied the boots together with his neckerchief, slung them over his shoulder and started down again.
Quigley ordered his companions not to shoot. "You might get Frank; an' he's in danger enough as it is. Yore flash will give that coyote a fair idea of where th' trail is."
"Did you hear what that ki-yote said about takin' our ranch?" asked Purdy.
Quigley laughed. "Yes; an' I admire his gall. He's got three of us, if he got Ackerman; but we wasn't awake to his game then." Another flash came from the top of the butte, and he growled when he heard the spat of the bullet. "He ain't lost th' trail yet, but he's puttin' 'em high."
"He'd be a handy man to have around," said Fleming. "I wonder if he'd 'a' throwed in with us, 'stead of rustlin' by hisself?"
"I'd 'a' found that out if Ackerman hadn't 'a' been so dead set ag'in him," grunted Quigley, not refusing to take credit for an idea that was not his own. "I wonder," he mused.
"Offer him a share," suggested Purdy. "If we change our minds later, that's our business. We're losin' a lot of time with him; too much."
There was a sudden rattle of shale and pebbles, low-voiced profanity and a crash of breaking branches. "Cuss them rotten ledges!" said a voice not far distant. "An' d—n these cactus an' locusts! I owe him more than he can ever square up, blast his hide!
"Thank th' Lord," muttered Quigley in sudden relief.
"But mebby he is workin' for Logan," objected Fleming. "Hey, Frank! Over here."
"If he is it's about time for th' CL to hunt him up," Purdy growled anxiously. "We'd shore be in a fix if they caught us down here!"
"CL or no CL, we stays!" snapped Holbrook, rounding a bowlder and swearing at every step. "We got him now; an' we ain't goin' to let him go!"
"Shore!" endorsed Quigley. "They drove me off th' range; but I'll stay in these hills if I dies for it. Once we get this feller out of th' way an' get back to th' ranch we can put up an awful fight from th' houses, if we're forced to. They're stocked good enough to last us six fellers over four months. It's a show-down for me, come what might; but any man can take his share of th' money an' get away, if he wants."
Growls answered him, and he laughed. "That's th' way! Well, Frank; now what do you think of th' grand opportunity?"
"It was there; I started too late!" snapped Holbrook angrily. "If Art an' Purdy had any sense, one of 'em would 'a' jumped for that trail when th' first rock came down, instead of duckin' around these bowlders like a pair of sage hens. I didn't wake up till th' show was 'most over; an' I got within a hundred yards at that. Five minutes more an' I'd 'a' been layin' behind a rock waitin' for him to come back. It would 'a' been all over by now."
"Well, don't try it again," said Quigley. "He's got all th' best of it up there. We'll give him a week for his grub to peter out before we force things. An' there ain't no use of all of us stayin' out here. This is th' only way he can come down. Two of us out here is plenty, takin' turns watchin' th' trail. An' if you keep a fire burnin' you both could almost sleep nights. He'd never tackle it. Purdy, you an' Art clear out for th' ranch at daylight. Me an' Holbrook will stay here tomorrow an' tomorrow night, when you fellers can relieve us. I'd feel better, anyhow, if there was somebody besides Ben an' th' cook in them houses. You can't tell what might happen. It'll be light in an hour, so I'll go over an' start some breakfast."
"Say, Tom," said Fleming. "Make yore camp up on th' other Twin, an' get out of this cussed hole with its heat an' its pests. Th' man off guard could get a real sleep up there. But, of course, you'll have to do th' cookin' down here, where there's water handy."
"See about that later," answered Quigley. "Anyhow, we can sleep up there without shiftin' th' camp," and he disappeared in the darkness.
Fleming rolled a cigarette by sense of touch and thoughtlessly struck a match. Spang! said a bowlder at his side. Ping-ing-ing-g-g! sang the ricochet down the canyon.
"Put it out!" yelled Holbrook, diving for cover.
"You d—d fool!" sputtered Purdy from behind a pile of rocks.
"Beats all how careless a feller will get," laughed Fleming as he slid behind a rock. "I plumb forgot!"
CHAPTER XIX
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR
DAWN broke, and as the light increased Holbrook saw a column of smoke arising from the southern Twin like a faint streamer of gauze. A slender pole raised and stood erect, and his suspicious mind sought a reason for it.
"Wonder if he's tryin' to signal somebody? Long Pete! I reckon he don't know Pete's dead. He'll not see him this side of h—l," he muttered, settling in a more comfortable position to go to sleep.
The pole swayed as a rope shot over it and grew taut, and then a faded shirt, heavy with water, came into view and sagged the rope.
Holbrook grinned and picked up his rifle. "Gettin' th' wash out early. An' he must have plenty of water, to waste it like that."
He raised the sight a little and tried again. "Can't tell where they're goin'," he grumbled, and tried the third time. The edge of the shirt flopped inward as the garment momentarily assumed the general shape of a funnel.
"He ain't th' only ki-yote that can shoot," chuckled the marksman. "Fleming couldn't 'a' done any better'n that. Bet he's mad. Serves him right for havin' two. He ain't no better than me, an' I only got one, since Ackerman took my other one. Cuss it!" he swore, blinking rapidly and spitting as a sharp spat! sent sand into his face.
He shifted, wiped his lips, and peered out at a spot on the other butte where a cloud of smoke spread out along the ground. Then he poked his sombrero over the breastwork and wriggled it on a stick, but waited in vain for the expected shot
"He ain't bitin' today; an' he's savin' his cartridges. Well, I got plenty; so here goes for that shirt again."
Again the inoffensive garment flopped; and then a singing bullet passed squarely through Holbrook's expensive sombrero.
"You stay down from up there!" grunted Holbrook at the hat. "Plumb center! I got a lot of respect for that hombre. He got th' best of th' swap, too. I spoiled a worn-out shirt, an' he ventilated a twenty dollar Stetson. He owes me a couple more shots!"
The next shot missed, but the second turned the shirt into another funnel.
"Hey!" shouted an angry voice. "What you think yo're doin'?"
Holbrook's grin turned into a burst of laughter as the pole swiftly descended, and he again poked up his hat, hoping for a miss and another wasted cartridge; but, failing to draw a shot, he gave it up and crawled back to a safer and more comfortable place where he lay down to get some sleep.
Johnny, full of wrath, worked along the edge of the butte in a vain endeavor to catch sight of his enemy, and he took plenty of time in his efforts to be cautious. Any man who could hit a shirt plumb center and nearly every time, at that distance, shooting across a deceptive canyon and against the sky, was no one to get careless with. After waiting a while without hearing any more from his humorous enemy, he looked down each trail and then went to the other end of the butte.
Not far from him a slender column of smoke arose from a box-like depression which lay beyond a high ridge and was well protected from his rifle. Peering cautiously over the rim of the butte, his head hidden in a tuft of grass, he critically examined the canyon, bowlder by bowlder, ridge by ridge. A puff of smoke spurted from a pile of rocks and a malignant whine passed over his head. Wriggling back, he hurried to another point fifty yards to his right, where he again crept to the edge and looked down. Another puff of smoke and a bloody furrow across his cheek told him that the marksman had good eyes and knew how to shoot. Johnny drove a Sharp's Special into the middle of the smoke and heard an angry curse follow it.
"Hey, Nelson!" called a peeved voice from the rocks. "Nelson!"
"What you belly-achin' about?" demanded Johnny insolently.
"How'd you like to join us instead of fightin' us?"
"Yo're loco!" retorted Johnny. "Can't you think of anything better'n that? I cut my eye-teeth long ago."
"I mean it," said Quigley, earnestly. "Mean it all th' way through. We talked it over last night. It's poor business fightin' each other when we might be workin' together. Laugh if you want to; but lemme tell you it ain't as foolish as you think. It's a lazy, independent life; an' there's good money in it. You'd do better with us than you'd 'a' done alone."
"I've shore fooled 'em!" chuckled Johnny softly. Aloud he said: "I can't trust you, not after what's happened."
"I reckon you are suspicious; an' nobody can blame you," replied Quigley. "But I mean it."
"Why didn't you make this play when I was in my valley, pannin' gold an' gettin' a little herd together?" demanded Johnny. "You knowed I wasn't after no gold; an' you knowed what I was after. But no; you was hoggin' th' earth an' too cussed mean to give a man a chance, an' make another split in yore profits. You burned—oh, what's th' use? If you want my answer, stick yore head out an' I'll give it to you quick!"
"I know we acted hasty," persisted Quigley; "but some of us was ag'in it. Three of 'em are dead now; Ackerman's missin'. We'll give you th' share of one of 'em in th' herd that we got now; an' an equal share of what we get from now on. That's fair; an' it more than makes up for yore cabin an' them six cows. As far as they are concerned, we'll give you all of what they bring. How about it?"
"Reckon it's too late," replied Johnny. "I ain't takin' nobody's share. I'm aimin' to take th' whole layout, lock, stock, an' barrel. Why should I give you fellers any share in it? What'll you give me if I let you all clear out now?"
"What you mean?" demanded Quigley.
"Just what I said," retorted Johnny. "There's six of you now. It ought to be worth something to you fellers to be allowed to stay alive. I'll throw off half for th' wounded men—let 'em off at half price. What are you fellers willin' to pay me if I let you leave th' country with a cayuse apiece an' all yore personal belongin's?"
"This ain't no time for jokin'!" snapped Quigley angrily.
"I ain't jokin' a bit! I'll have yore skins pegged out to dry before I get through with you. Yo're a bunch of sap-headed jackasses, with no more sense than a sheep-herder. I'm 'most ashamed to get you; but I'm stranglin' my shame. You pore mutton-heads!"
Quigley's language almost seared the vegetation and he was threatened with spontaneous combustion. When he paused for breath he swung his rifle up and pulled the trigger, almost blind with rage. Johnny's answering shot ripped through his forearm and he felt the awful sickness which comes when a bone is scraped. Half fainting, Quigley dropped his rifle and leaned back against a rock, regarding the numbed and bleeding arm with eyes which saw the landscape turning over and over. Gathering his senses by a great effort of will, he steadied himself and managed to make and apply a rough bandage with the clumsy aid of one hand and his teeth.
"I'll give you till tomorrow mornin' to make me an offer," shouted Johnny; "but don't get reckless before then, because th' temptation shore will be more than I can stand. Think it over."
"D—n his measly hide!" moaned Quigley, his anger welling up anew. "Give him our ranch, an' cows, an' pay him to let us leave th' country! Six of us! Six gun-fightin', law-breakin', cattle-liftin' cow-punchers; sane, healthy, an' as tough as rawhide rope, payin' him, a lone man up a tree, to let us leave th' country! All right, you conceited pup; you'll pay, an' pay well, for that insult!"
He still was indulging in the luxury of an occasional burst of profanity when Holbrook approached the bowlders on his hands and knees.
"I'm still hungry; an' I can't sleep unless I'm full of grub," apologized the rustler. "An' I heard shootin'. What's th' matter, Tom? Yore language ain't fit for innercent ears!"
"Matter?" roared Quigley, going off in another flight of oratory. "Matter?" he shouted. "Look at this arm! An' listen to what that carrion-eatin' squaw's dog of a had th' gall to say!"
As the recital unfolded Holbrook leaned back against a rock and laughed until the tears washed clean furrows through the dust and dirt on his face; and the more he laughed the more his companion's anger arose. Finally Quigley could stand it no longer, and he loosed a sudden torrent of verbal fire upon his howling friend.
Holbrook feebly wiped his eyes with the backs of his dusty hands, which smeared the dirt over the wet places and gave him a grotesque appearance.
"Why shouldn't I laugh?" he choked, and then became indignant. "Why shouldn't I?" he demanded. "I've laughed at yore jokes, Fleming's stories, Cookie's cookin', an' Dan'l Boone's windy lies; an' now when something funny comes along you want me to be like th' chief mourner at a funeral! I'm forty years old an' I've met some stuck-up people in my life; but that fool up there has got more gall an' conceit than anybody I ever even heard tell of! I'm glad I didn't hear him say it, or I shore would 'a' laughed myself plumb to death. Did you ever hear anything like it; drunk or sober, did you?"
"No, I didn't!" snapped Quigley. "An' if you've got all over yore nonsense, suppose you take a look at my arm, an' fix this bandage right!"
"Sorry, Tom," answered Holbrook quickly; "but I was near keeled over. Here, gimme that arm; an' when I get it fixed right, you make a bee-line for th' ranch. There ain't no use of you stayin' out here with an arm like that. Good Lord! He shore made a mess of it! Them slugs of his are awful; an' that gun is th' worst I ever went up ag'in. I want that rifle; an' I speaks for it here an' now. When we get him, I get th' gun."
"It's yourn," groaned Quigley. "Gimme a drink of whiskey before I start out. But I don't like to leave you to handle this alone. I can stick it out."
"It's a one-man job until somebody comes out," responded Holbrook. "All I got to do is lay low an' not let him come down that trail. A ten-year-old kid can do that durin' daylight. But you ain't goin' to go till you feel a little better," he ordered, producing a flask. "You wait a while—th' sun won't be hot for a couple of hours yet. An' would you look at th' mosquitoes! They must 'a' smelled th' blood. Here, wrap yore coat around it or they'll pump it full of pizen."
Two hours later, Quigley having departed for the ranch, Holbrook lay on the top of the northern Twin, glad to have escaped from the attacks of the winged pests which had driven him out of the canyon; and hoping that his enemy would try to take advantage of the situation, if he knew of it, and try to escape. He had decided that he could guard the trail as well from the top of the butte as he could from the canyon, for the whole length of the steeply sloping path lay before him. Cool breezes played about him, there were neither flies, mosquitoes, nor yellow-jackets to plague him, and the opposite butte and the whole canyon lay under his eyes. And he also had better protection than the canyon afforded, for there was always present a vague uneasiness, no matter how well hidden he might be, while his good-shooting enemy was five hundred feet above him. Food and water were close to his hand and he enjoyed a smoke as he lazily sprawled behind his protecting breastwork of rocks and set himself the task of keeping awake and alert.
He had seen no sign of his enemy, although he had closely scrutinized every foot of the opposite butte. Quigley, he thought, must have reached the ranch by that time and no doubt Fleming or Purdy was on the way to relieve him. As he glanced along the canyon in the direction that his friend would appear he saw a movement of the brush near the bottom of the much watched trail and he slid his rifle through an opening between the rocks covering the center of the disturbance.
It was too early for Fleming or Purdy, he reflected; and his eyes narrowed as he wondered if it could be some friend of the man he was watching.
The bushes moved again and a grizzled head thrust out into view, slowly followed by a pair of massive shoulders as a great silver-tip grizzly pushed out into the little clearing where the guarding fire had been, and slowly turned its head from side to side, sniffing suspiciously. Satisfied that there was nothing to fear, it crossed the clearing and ripped the bark off of a dead and fallen tree trunk, licking up the grubs and the scurrying insects. Shredding the bark and thoroughly cleaning up the last of the grubs, it sat down and lazily regarded the towering butte.
Holbrook watched it with interest, for there was something almost human in the great bear's actions, a comical gravity and a deftness of paws which brought a grin to his face.
The bear arose clumsily, scratched itself, and proceeded toward the trail in that awkward, lumbering way which conveys such a vivid impression of tremendous strength and power. Holbrook knew that the lazy, clumsy shuffling, the indolent thrust of the rounded shoulders and the slow, deliberate reaching of the great legs, the forefeet flipping quickly forward, hid an amazing, deceptive quickness and agility, and a devastating strength. Sleepy, peaceful, and good natured as the beast appeared, its temper was always on edge and its heart knew nothing of fear when that temper was aroused; and he also knew that the vitality in that grub, insect, and berry-fed body was almost beyond belief, that a clean, heart shot would not stop it instantly.
The animal waddled onto the trail and paused to turn over a rock, licked up a few scurrying bugs and waddled on again, the great shoulders rising and falling with each deliberate step. A pause, and the red tongue wiped out a procession of hard-working ants, and again it lumbered upward.
"Nelson is due to have company; an' plenty of it!" chuckled Holbrook; "an' if he slides any lead into th' wrong place under that flea-bitten hide he'll find that butte is a cussed lot smaller than he ever thought it was. Ah-ha! Cussed if th' yellow-jackets ain't declarin' war on him! Just wait till his snout gets well stung, an' he'll be ready an' eager to fight anything that lives!"
The bear was moving swiftly now, but pausing frequently to scrape his smarting snout with one paw or the other, and it was beginning to show signs of irritation as the swarming yellow-jackets warmed to the attack.
"Gettin' riled more every minute!" grinned Holbrook. "I'd hate to run foul of him now! Mr. Nelson shore is goin' to have a grand an' busy little seance up there, unless that Sharp's of his gets home plumb center th' first crack. He'll mebby wish it was a repeater. That old varmint must be nine feet long, an' just plumb full of rage. I can imagine them wicked little eyes of hisn gettin' redder an' redder every minute. An' one swipe of them paws would cave in th' side of th' biggest steer on th' range. It's a cussed good thing grizzlies ain't got th' speed an' habits of mountain lions—they'd be th' most dangerous things on earth if they had."
The bear sat down suddenly and dragged himself a few feet, and then ran on at top speed.
Holbrook roared with laughter. "Ho! Ho! Ho! This is goin' to be as much fun as a circus! D—d if I'd miss it for a week's pay! Go on, Old Timer; steam up!"
Free at last from the stinging attacks of the yellow-jackets, the great bear suddenly stopped, squatted back on his haunches and rubbed his head and snout with both paws; and then, looking across the canyon at the place the laughter was coming from, slouched back on four legs and waddled rapidly upward, his huge body twisting ponderously at each step. Reaching the top he paused while he surveyed his immediate vicinity, looked back down the trail, glanced across the canyon again, and then slowly disappeared among the rocks and bowlders.
Holbrook shifted his rifle to a more comfortable position cross his knees and leaned forward expectantly, grinning in keen anticipation, his cigarette cold and forgotten between his lips. It was just possible that there might be more in the coming show for him than amusement, for Mr. Nelson, intent, very, very intent, upon his part of a game of tag among the bowlders, might forget for a moment and carelessly show himself long enough to become a promising target.
"Wonder how much he'll take, purty soon, to let Ol' Silver-tip leave th' country along with us?" he chuckled. "I wish Tom was here!"
Johnny opened his eyes at Pepper's snort and glanced at the horse, which trembled in every limb and whose big eyes were ablaze with terror. She had jerked the picket rope loose from under the rock which had held it, but was rigid with fear. Sitting bolt upright upright as he jerked out a Colt, Johnny glanced in the direction of Pepper's stare and then left the blanket to take care of itself. Twenty paces distant was the Sharp's, loaded and lying on a rock, and he hotly cursed the stupidity and carelessness which had caused him to go to sleep so far away from the weapon. It was the first time such a thing had happened in weeks, and he instantly resolved that it never would happen again. Between him and the rifle was the biggest, meanest looking grizzly it ever had been his misfortune to face.
The unwelcome visitor had finished a pan of beans and a pan of rice and had its nose jammed in the last can of sugar that Johnny owned. Observing his unwilling host's acrobatic leap and the flying blanket, the huge animal pushed the sugar can from its swollen nose with a cunningly curved paw, and heaved itself onto its four legs, regarding the puncher with a frankly curious and belligerent stare. The little eyes were wicked and bloodshot and one of them was nearly closed from the stings of the yellow-jackets. Altogether it was as unpleasant a sight as anyone would care to look upon at such close range.
Behind Johnny was the rock wall, rising fifteen feet above the bottom of the little rock basin, and it curved slightly outward at the top. On one side were scattered several great bowlders, and he kept these in mind as he glanced quickly behind him at the wall, which was smooth and devoid of hand-holds.
He had killed a grizzly with a six-shooter, but no such an animal as the one facing him; and a Colt was not a weapon to be eagerly used, especially at such close quarters, where a sudden rush might be fatal to the user. He knew the thickness of the bone over the little brain, and keenly realized the smallness of the eyes as a target in the slowly moving head; if he could maneuver the animal to give him a heart shot he would have a fair chance.
"G'wan away from here!" he ordered peremptorily, with an assurance in his voice which he did not feel. "Pull your stakes, you big tramp, or I'll bust yore neck!"
Bruin refused to heed him; instead, the animal shuffled forward, its head wagging, and Johnny also stepped forward, on his toes, yelled loudly and waved his arms. Bruin paused and looked him over. Johnny side-stepped toward the rifle, but the bear pivoted quickly, swung around and declared its intentions with a low but entirely sufficient growl.
Johnny figured quickly. He might beat his visitor to the gun, but he strongly doubted if he would lead by a margin large enough to have time to swing the weapon to his shoulder and obtain the nicety of aim necessary to stop his pursuer as suddenly as the occasion demanded. The bowlders remained as his other alternative, and as the bear took its second step, which was the beginning of the rush, Johnny made a very creditable leap in the direction of the bowlders, gained the first by ten feet to spare, vaulted the second, dashed around the third and streaked up the slope leading to the top of the rocky wall behind the pool.
As he gained the top a bullet hummed past his head, but it received no recognition from him, for the bear also was hustling up the slope, thoroughly aroused and abrim with energy and ambition. Jerking out his Colts, he emptied one of them into the rushing animal as he leaped aside to get behind another bowlder. The bear slowed for an instant as the six heavy slugs ripped into it, and then, loosing a roar that awoke the echoes, it gathered speed and slid around the rock, clawing desperately to make a short turn. Johnny emptied his second gun into the enraged animal as he dodged around another rock, and then, dropping both Colts into their holsters, he sprinted for the top of the wall as Holbrookes second bullet loosened a heel and almost threw him.
Reaching the edge he launched himself from it, recovered his balance like an acrobat and dashed for his rifle as the grizzly, reaching the edge, checked himself barely in time and hunted hurriedly for a way to get down the wall. Giving it up in an instant, the animal drew up its forelegs with a pivoting swing, and started at full speed along the edge, to go down the way it had come up. This exposed its left side, and the Sharp's, already at Johnny's shoulder, steadied upon the vital spot as he timed the swing of the great foreleg. There was a sharp roar, and an ounce and a quarter of lead smashed through skin and flesh, squarely into the animal's heart. The great beast collapsed, slid around and raised its head; but again the heavy rifle spoke and the massive head dropped limply, for the stopping power of a Sharp's Special is tremendous.
Johnny jerked out the smoking shell, slid another great cartridge into place, and then sat down on the rock, wiping his face with his sleeve.
"Hey!" called a distant voice. "Want any help with th' varmints?"
Johnny grabbed his rifle and slipped to the edge of the butte. Holbrook called again, carelessly exposing his shoulder; and then cursed the bullet which grooved it.
"Can I do anything more for you?" jeered Johnny.
CHAPTER XX
A PAST MASTER DRAWS CARDS
BACK on the CL the foreman was worried about his new, two-gun man, and had almost made up his mind to order the outfit into the saddle and to lead it up into the Twin Buttes country to aid Johnny. While he was turning the matter over in his mind he entered the bunk-house and saw Luke Tedrue, the oldest man on the ranch, dressed in a clean shirt, new trousers, and a pair of new boots. Luke looked surprisingly clean and he was busily engaged in cleaning and oiling the parts of an old .44 caliber Remington six-shooter, one of those early models which had been transformed from its original cap-and-ball class into a weapon shooting center-fire cartridges. It had been the butt of many joking remarks and the old man cherished it, and had defended it in many a hot, verbal skirmish. Considering its age and use it was in a remarkably fine state of preservation.
Luke had played many parts in his day, for he had been a hunter, frontiersman, scout, pony-express rider, miner, and cavalryman, and as an Indian fighter he had admitted but few masters. Tough, wiry, shrewd, enduring, of flawless courage and bulldog tenacity of purpose, he had behind him long years of experience; and his appearance of age was as deceptive as the pose of a basking rattler.
The lessons of such a long, precarious, and daring life as he had led were not easily ignored, and now as a cow-puncher, riding out his declining days on the range, there were certain habits which clung to him with the strength of instinct. One of these was his faith in a weapon almost universally condemned on the range. It mattered nothing to him that times and conditions had changed; he had proved its worth in years of fighting, and now he refused to lay it aside. There had been a day when Bowie's terrible weapon had entered largely into the life of the long frontier.
Logan, worried and preoccupied as he was, could not keep from smiling at the old man's patient labor.
"Luke, you waste more time an' elbow grease on that worn-out old relic than most people do with real guns. Th' whole outfit, put together, don't pamper their six-guns th' way you do that contraption. Why don't you throw it away an' get a good gun?"
Luke snorted, and screwed the walnut butt-plates into place. Then he slipped the cylinder into position, slid the pin through it, swung up the old ramrod lever and snapped it into its catch under the barrel. Spinning the cylinder, he weighed the heavy weapon affectionately, and looked up.
Luke grunted. "Huh! Mebby that's why old Betsy is a better gun today than any in this outfit. Why should I get a new one? This old Rem. has been a cussed good friend of mine. She's never balked nor laid down, an' she puts 'em where she's pointed. An old friend like her ain't goin' to rust if I can help it."
"Rust?" inquired Logan, chuckling. "Why, there ain't been enough moisture in th' air lately to rust anything, let alone any gun that's as full of grease an' oil as that contraption. Wait till th' rainy season hits us before you worry about rust. An' what arc you all dressed up for? When I saw you this mornin' you was th' dirtiest man on th' ranch; an' now you fair shines! Ain't aimin' to go an' hitch up with no female, are you?"
Luke shoved home the last greasy cartridge, snapped shut the hinged flange, laid the gun aside, and pointed to a pile of wet clothing on the floor near his bunk.
"There ain't no female livin' can put a rope on me no more," he grinned. "See them clothes? I done fell in th' crick. Some slab-sided nuisance shifted th' planks an' was too lazy to put 'em back right. They tip sideways. I got half way acrost an' up she turns. Lost my balance an' lit belly-whopper. But I put 'em back just like I found 'em."
"An' you'll get an innercent man."
"There ain't none in this outfit," grunted Luke. He searched the foreman's face with shrewd eyes. "John, worryin' never did help a man. Get shet of it, or it'll get shet of you."
"Easy said, Ol' Timer; but it ain't so easy done," replied Logan.
Luke kicked his wet holster toward the clothes and took down one belonging to someone else, and calmly appropriated it, belt and all.
"Two most generally splits a load about in half," he observed, shoving the gun into the sheath. "An' it allus helps a lot to talk things over with somebody."
"Well, I ain't heard a word from Nelson since he left that note tellin' me where he was goin' an' for me not to bother about our five-day arrangement; an' he shore started off to wrastle with trouble."
"Huh!" snorted Luke grimly. "Dunno as I'd do much worryin' about him. Real active, capable hombre, he is. Chain lightnin', an' an eye like a hawk. A few years more an' he'll steady down an' get sensible. Lord, what a fool I was at his age! Beats all how young men ever live long enough to become old ones."
"But he's been gone a month," replied Logan. "It's been two weeks since I heard from him, an' longer. He's playin' a lone hand ag'in them fellers, an' it ain't no one-man job, not by a d—d sight! He was to find out certain things an' then come back here an' report. Why ain't he got back?"
"Busy, mebby," grunted Luke. "I have an idea th' job would keep one man purty tolerable busy, with one thing an' another turning up. He don't want to get seen an' tip off his hand; an' keepin' under cover takes time."
"I should 'a' taken th' outfit up there an' combed th' hills, regardless what anybody said about squarin' up old scores."
"What you should 'a' done, an' what you did do don't track," replied Luke. "An' I ain't shore that you oughta 'a' busted loose like that a-tall. It's a good thing most generally to know where yo're goin' to light before you jump. What you should 'a' done was to 'a' sent me up there, either alone or with him. 'Tain't too late to deal me a hand. Where'd he say he was goin'?"
"West of Twin Buttes. But if you go it'll be a one-man job again, an' I don't like it."
"Uh-huh!" chuckled Luke. "That's just what it is; an' I do like it. I drove stage, carried dispatches through Injun country, an' was th' boss scout for th' two best army officers that ever fit Injuns. Reckon mebby if th' Injuns couldn't lift my scalp, no gang of thievin' cow-punchers can skin it off. An' I'm cussed tired of punchin' cows. I ain't no puncher by nature, hopes, or inclinations. I'm a scout, I am; an' I'm goin' up there somewhere west of th' Twins an' find Nelson, if he's still alive, get them facts an* bring 'em back."
"I don't like th' idea," muttered Logan.
"Huh! I ain't got them fool notions that Nelson has. I ain't no Christian when I'm on a war trail. He worries about givin' th' other feller an even break; but I worries if I lets him have it. Greasers, thieves, an' Injuns—they're all alike; an' they don't get no even break from me if I can help it. I puts th' worryin' right up to them. I'll bet he's alive, an' workin' all th' time; but he ain't got no chance to get quick results; an' it's his own handicappin', too. When a man's scoutin' around a whole passel of rustlers, a gun has got its limits. Gimme a pair of moccasins an' ol' Colonel Bowie."
"I likes you purty much; but d—d if I thinks much of any man that uses a knife!"
Luke laughed grimly and got the knife from his bunk. "There he is. He don't make a man no deader than a bullet; an' he don't make no noise. There ain't nothin' handier in a mix-up—an' a good man can drive it straight as any bullet, too. I'm gettin' het up considerable about all this palaver about this knife an' me; an' I'm goin' to lick th' next man that rides me about it. It's a' honest weapon. It was ground out of a two-inch hoof file, an* when it cuts through th' air it takes considerable to stop it. When I was younger I could send it so far into a two-inch plank that you could feel th' pint of it on th' other side. Just feel th' heft an' balance of that blade!"
"Feel it yoreself!" snapped Logan. "That ain't fair fightin'; an' if you don't like that, you can start in here an' now an' lick me."
"I never said I was a fair fighter," grinned Luke, slipping the weapon into a scabbard sewed to the inside of his boot; "but old as I am, I can put yore shoulders in th' dust. We'll argue instead. Them fellers ain't fair fighters; they dassn't be even if they wanted to be; an' when I'm tanglin' up with 'em I ain't polite a-tall. I just fights, knife, gun, teeth, hands, feet, an' head, any way as comes handy. That's why I'm still alive, too. Now I'm goin' up somewhere west of th' Buttes an' look around from there; an' Colonel Bowie goes with me, right where he is. Tell th' cook to give me what grub I wants. An' I reckon I better take Nelson some ca'tridges an' tobacco."
"Tell him yoreself; an' if he won't do it, I'll tell you who moved th' planks," grinned Logan. "But I hate to see you go alone."
"An' I'd hate to have anybody along," grunted Luke. "I'll be busy enough takin' care of myself without botherin' with a fool puncher."
The old scout sauntered into the kitchen. "Mat, you sage hen; th' next time you shifts them planks, put a stone under th' edges that don't touch th' ground. You near drownded me in three inches of water an' a foot of mud. Now you gimme a chunk of bacon, couple pounds of flour, three pounds of beans, couple of pounds of that rice, 'though I ain't real fascinated by it, couple handfuls of coffee, handful of salt, an' a pound of tobacco. I may be gone a couple of months an' get real hungry. Nope; no canned grub. I want this fryin' pan, that tin cup, an' a fork."
He sniffed eagerly and strode to a covered pan. "Beans, ready cooked! Mat, you was hidin' them! Dump some of 'em into a cloth—now I won't have to cook my first couple of meals. Stick all th' stuff in a sack, them on top," and he hurried out.
Fifteen minutes later Logan entered Mat's domain. "Where's Luke? What, already? Must 'a' been scared I'd change my mind. Why, he left his pipe an' smokin' behind," pointing at the table.
Mat grinned. "He says a smoker can't smell, an' gets smelled. An' he says for somebody to go up to Little Canyon for his bronc. He's leavin' it there to-night, hobbled. An' take that pipe out of here; I don't want them beans ruined."
Luke was crossing the CL range at a gallop, anxious to cross the river and get past the Hope-Hastings trail before dark. Reaching the Deepwater he forced his indignant horse into it and emerged, chilled, on the farther bank. Hobbling the animal, he put his boots on the saddle, slipped on a pair of moccasins, fastened the pack on his back and swung into the canyon, his mind busily forming a mental map of the country.
Placing Hope at one end and Hastings at the other, he connected them by the trail, putting in the Deepwater, the Barrier, and Twin Buttes.
"They comes to Hastings 'stead of Hope, which says Hastings is nearest. He said west of Twin Buttes. Then I'll start at th' Buttes an' go west till I find his trail; an' if I don't find it, I'll circle 'round till I finds something! I'd know that black cayuse's tracks in a hundred.
"Logan sent Nelson up here because nobody knowed him an' that he was workin' for us. Huh! What good will it do 'em to know a man if they never see him? An' they won't see me, 'less I wants 'em to. That water feels colder than it ought to—reckon I'm gettin' old. I shore ain't as young as I uster be. Got to move lively to get thawed out an' dry these clothes."
Crossing the main trail after due observation, he saw an old and well-worn trail leading westward into a deep valley.
"Huh! Hit it first shot. You just can't beat luck!"
Choosing the cover along one side of the smaller trail, he melted into it and plunged westward, swinging along with easy, lazy strides that covered ground amazingly and with a minimum of effort. His long legs swung free from his hips, the hips rolling into the movement; his knees were rather stiff and as his feet neared the ground at the end of each stride he pushed them ahead a little more before they touched. This was where the swaying hips gave him an added thrust of inches. And like all natural, sensible walkers, his toes turned in.
Night was coming on when he neared Twin Buttes and a rifle shot in their direction drew a chuckle from him. Throwing off the pack he ate his fill of Mat's cooked beans, shoved the wrapped-up remainder into his shirt, hid the pack and slipped into the deeper shadows, his rifle on his back, the old Remington in one hand and Colonel Bowie lying along the other, its handle up his sleeve and the keen point extending beyond his fingers.
A coyote might have heard him moving, but the task was beyond human ears; and after a few minutes he stopped suddenly and sniffed. The faint odor of a fire told him that he was getting close to a camp, and a moment later a distant flare lit up the treetops in the canyon proper. Looking down he noticed the buckle of his belt, thought that it was too bright, and wrapped a bandanna handkerchief around it. Slipping the six-shooter into its holster he moved forward again, bent over, going swiftly and silently, his feet avoiding twigs, branches, and pebbles as though he had eyes in his toes. Rounding the southern Twin he melted into the darkness at the side of a bowlder and peered cautiously over the rock.
A great, crackling fire sent its flames towering high in the air from a little clearing at the lower end of a path which went up the side of the butte and became lost in the darkness. Examining the scene with shrewd, keen, and appraising eyes, he waited patiently. A burst of fire darted from the top of the northern Twin and a strange voice jeered softly in the distance. From the top of the southern butte came an answering jeer in a voice which he instantly recognized.
"Treed, by G-d!" he chuckled gleefully. "Reckon he'll be tickled to see me. Wonder how long he's been up there?"
A piece of wood curved into the circle of illumination and landed on the blazing fire, sending a stream of sparks soaring up the mesa wall.
"There's Number Two," soliloquized Luke cheerfully, "feedin' th' fire an' watchin' th' trail. Cuss him for a fool! Some of them sparks will get loose, an' hell will be a nice, quiet place compared to this canyon. Well, now I got to rustle around an' locate 'em all; an' this ain't no place or time for no shootin', neither."
Half an hour later Fleming tossed more wood on the fire and settled back to fight mosquitoes. A glittering streak shot through the air and he crumpled without a sound. A shadow moved and a silent form wriggled through the brush and among the bowlders and retrieved the knife, took the dead man's weapons and wriggled back again. It slipped noiselessly across the canyon, searched along the base of the northern Twin, found the wide, up-slanting trail and flitted along it, pausing frequently to look, sniff, and listen. Reaching the top of the butte, it wriggled from bowlder to bowlder, ridge to ridge, systematically covering every foot of the plateau, and steadily working nearer the southern rim.
Holbrook yawned, stretched, and yawned again. He picked up his rifle and scowled into the canyon, where the fire engaged his critical attention.
"That lazy cuss is lettin' it burn too low," he growled. "Wonder if he's asleep!" He laughed and shook his head. "Nope; don't believe even Art could sleep down there, with them mosquitoes pesterin' him. This suits me, right here!"
He looked around uneasily. "I do so much layin' around out here in daytime that I can't sleep nights," he grumbled, not willing to admit that he felt uneasy. "Funny how a man's nerves will get hummin' when he's on a job like this. It shore is monotonous." Looking around again, he shifted so that he could see part of the mesa top behind him, and tried to shake off the premonition of evil which persisted in haunting him.
"How many cows you thieves sold so far?" called a voice from the other butte.
"Nowhere near as many as we're goin' to get," retorted Holbrook, laughing. "Changin' yore mind?" he jeered.
"Not me; I wouldn't work with no teethin' infants. I'd rather work alone. I associates with men, I do."
"You'll 'sociate with dead men purty soon," sneered Holbrook. "We got you just where we—" the words choked into a gurgle and a lean, vague figure moved slowly forward from behind a ridge.
"What's th' matter?" ironically demanded the man on the southern Twin. "Swaller yore cigarette? That's a good thing. You want to practice swallerin' hot things because tomorrow yo're goin' to swaller a snub-nosed Special." Pausing, Johnny waited expectantly for an answer, but receiving none, he grunted cheerfully. "All right; go to blazes!"
The fire burned lower and lower and Johnny became suspicious. If the rustler on the other butte hoped to keep him engaged in snappy conversation when the fire grew low, there was no telling what the man in the canyon might do; so he crept to the top of the trail and peered down it, scanning the wall intently, half expecting to glimpse some swift, shadowy movement; but his alertness was not rewarded.
"Wonder how long Hoppy or Red would loaf on a game like this," he grinned, "if they was down there! But there ain't many of their breed runnin' around."
An hour passed and the fire was a mass of glowing embers, now and then relieved by a spasmodic burst of flame, which flickered up and died. Across the little clearing a shadowy form moved slowly backward, chuckling softly. If there were any more rustlers around, one of them certainly would have investigated why the fire was allowed to die; and Luke felt quite confident that he had accounted for all of them who were in the vicinity. Still, he argued, nothing was a certainty which depended upon circumstantial evidence, and he did not relax his caution as he moved away.
Johnny, straining his eyes in trying to discover signs of enemies on the trail, suddenly stiffened, listening eagerly with every nerve taut. Again came the voice, barely audible. Moving to the outer edge of the butte he peered over cautiously, well knowing that he could see nothing.
"'Tell Red his pants wear well,'" floated up to him out of the canyon.
Johnny moved a little and leaned farther over after a glance at the black sky assured him that he would not be silhouetted for a marksman below.
"'Does William, Junior, chew tobacco?'" persisted the whisper.
Johnny wriggled back and sat bolt upright, incredulous, doubting his senses. "What th' devil!" he muttered. "Am I loco?"
"'We was scared he'd die,'" continued the canyon.
Taking another good look down the threatening trail, Johnny wriggled to the edge and again looked down.
"'Pete paid Red th' eight dollars,'" said the chasm, a little louder and with a note of irritation.
"Who th' devil are you?" demanded Johnny loudly.
"Not so loud. Luke Tedrue," whispered the darkness. "How many of them skunks are around here?"
"Yo're a liar!" retorted Johnny angrily. "An' a fool!"
"Go to th' devil!" snapped the canyon.
"Come around in daylight an' I'll send you to him!" growled Johnny. "Think I'm a fool?"
There was no answer, and, fearful of a trick, Johnny wriggled back to his snug cover at the head of the trail, finding that the fire had become only a dull, red mass of embers which gave out almost no light.
"You shore got me guessin'," he grumbled; "but I reckon mebby I'm guessin' purty good, at that. You just try it, cuss you!"
Luke explored the canyon again to make assurance doubly sure, and again approached the great wall.
"'Does William, Junior, chew tobacco?'" he demanded.
Johnny squirmed, but remained where he was. "You can't fool me!" he shouted peevishly.
"Reckon not; yo're as wise as a jackass, a dead one," said Luke. "You stubborn fool, listen to this: 'Don't look for no word from me. I'm goin' west, to try it from back of Twin Buttes. They've drove me out.'" The voice was plainer now. "How many of 'em are out here?"
Johnny grinned suddenly, for in the increase in the power of the voice he recognized a friend.
"Hello, Luke, you old skunk!" he called, laughing. "Glad to see you. There's four been hangin' around but there's only two now, or three at th' most. Look out for 'em. Goin' to try to come up?"
"No, not a-tall," replied Luke. "There's enough of our outfit up there now. I only found two of th' thieves, but th' third may be hid som'ers well back, 'though I've shore hunted a-plenty."
"Found two?"
"Yep; one down here, an' t'other up there. Colonel Bowie pushed 'em over th' Divide. Comin' down?"
"When that fire's out."
"How'd they come to drive you up there?"
"I come up myself. Couldn't watch while I slept; an' I had to sleep. Now that there's two of us it's all right."
"You called th' turn. Get yore traps together an' I'll fix th' fire. Where's yore cayuse?"
"Up here. Don't bother with th' fire. Be right down."
Half an hour later Johnny reached the bottom of the trail and paused.
"'Red's pants,'" said a humorous voice.
"Come on, Luke. We'll hold up somewhere an' get th' relief shift when it comes out from th' ranch."
"Shore. Where's th' ranch?"
"'Bout three miles west; an' it's a cussed fine one, too."
"All right; get movin'. I want to dry out these pants. They must be all cotton from th' way they feel. We'll go back a ways an' start a fire."
"No, we won't; too dangerous," growled Johnny decidedly. "We got this game won right now if we don't let 'em know there's two of us."
Luke grinned in the dark. "Suits me. You wait here a minute," he said, disappearing. When he returned he grunted with keen satisfaction, for Fleming's trousers felt snug and warm. "How many are left?" he asked, leading the way toward his hidden pack.
"Quigley, Purdy, Gates, an' th' cook."
"Them names don't surprise me," grunted Luke.
"How'd you get so wet?"
"Swimmin'," growled Luke.
"Yore shirt feels dry."
"It is, around th' shoulders; but th' tail feels like th' devil. But it's wool, all through."
"Was you trailin' Ackerman an' Long Pete?"
"Nope; didn't trail nobody a-tall. How many cows they got?"
"Plenty, d—n 'em!" growled Johnny.
"What you been doin' up here all this time; an' how many have you got?"
"Three; I've been busy."
"Why, you had time to get 'em all."
"Didn't dare do any shootin' till I had to," replied Johnny. "Didn't want 'em to know I was up here. A gun makes a lot of noise."
Luke chuckled grimly. "Shore! That's what I allus said; an' that's why I use Colonel Bowie. He don't even whisper."
Johnny snorted with disgust. "Huh! I ain't knifin' or shootin' from ambush. There's some things I won't do!"
"Uppish, huh?" chuckled Luke. "Well, young man; mebby ambushin' ain't yore style, but I feels free to remark that it's mine in any game like this. Them pants feel good. That river's gettin' colder every year."
"River!" ejaculated Johnny, pausing in his surprise. "What river?"
"Deepwater, of course. How many rivers do you reckon we got out here?"
"Th' devil!" muttered Johnny. "Say! When did you leave th' ranch?"
"'Bout three o'clock. I'd 'a' been here sooner, only I hoofed it from th' river. Cayuses can't go where a man can; they make a lot of noise, an' a man sticks up too cussed prominent in a saddle. They ain't worth a cuss in this kind of country when trouble's afoot."
"Well, I'll be hanged!" grunted Johnny.
"Pull up; here we are," said Luke, stopping and bending over some rocks, which he rolled aside. "Rocks are reg'lar telltales. They has a dark side an' a light side; an' th' deeper they're set in th' ground, th' bigger th' dark side is. When you want to cache with 'em, you picks them that sets on th' ground; an' you don't turn 'em wrong side up, neither. Then a little sand used right will fix things so that only me or an Injun can tell that anything's been moved. Here's yore ca'tridges an' tobacco. Tote 'em yoreself."
"Much obliged. But how did you find me so cussed quick?" demanded Johnny, breaking open the boxes and distributing their contents about his person.
"Smelled you," chuckled Luke, fixing the pack on his back.
"Yo're an old liar!" retorted Johnny. "Tell me about it."
"Can't; there ain't nothin' to tell," replied Luke, winking at the sky. "It's just experience, instinct, brains, knowin' how, an' a couple more things. Us old-timers done better'n that, forty year ago. I'm glad to get my hand in ag'in; punchin' cows shore does spoil a man. Now, you know this layout; where we goin' now? An' what you goin' to do with that four-laigged nuisance?"
"Put her in a draw east of here. She'll stay where I leave her."
"Then she ain't no fe-male. It just can't be did. I know 'em!"
"You an' our Pete oughta get acquainted with each other," chuckled Johnny. "You fellers has th' same ideas 'bout some things."
"Foreman, or owner?"
"Just a plain puncher."
"He oughta be th' foreman; he's got sense. I buried one, an' left two more. You can't fool me about th' sex."
"Yo're a reprobate. Come on, Pepper," said Johnny, whistling to the horse, who heeled like a dog. "It'll be light purty soon, an' we want to hide this cayuse."
"It's yore say-so; I'll string along, ready to chip."
CHAPTER XXI
SCOUTING AS A FINE ART
QUIGLEY, favoring his injured arm, led the way toward Twin Buttes to relieve the men on guard, Purdy close behind him; and he did not stick to the trail, but cut straight for his objective along a way well known to both. He was not in good shape for hard work or hard fighting, but he felt that his place was on the scene of action, as befitted a chief; and he had stubbornly battered down all the reasons advanced by his companions at the ranch by which they sought to dissuade him. It had to be either him or the cook, for he was not as seriously wounded as Gates.
The chief was the best man for leader that the outfit contained, and if he had erred in being slack and over-confident it was only because they never had been molested seriously since they had taken to the Twin Buttes country, and, with the exception of Ackerman, he secretly felt less security than any of the others. Thanks to his earlier activities and clever distortion of facts as to why he had crossed the Deepwater to live in the Buttes, the outfit had not been bothered; and the Twin Buttes section had become taboo, in recent years, to everyone, no man caring to risk his life in penetrating that locality until Johnny Nelson appeared. And although Ackerman had preached disaster, he had preached it so long and so much that he was regarded as a calamity howler.
There were two comparatively safe ways to reach the Buttes, when once the last high, intervening ridge was attained. One led to the far side of the northern Twin and was hidden by it from the sight of anyone on the other butte; the second course swept to the south, running through arroyos and draws, and sheltered by the dense growths of pine; and it not only was a shorter and easier course, but allowed an occasional glimpse of the way Johnny had scaled the great southern wall.
Reaching the ridge, Quigley paused to rest, and weighed the merits of the two approaches. He could be as clever and cautious as the next man when he felt that the occasion demanded it; and the events of the last few days told him that such an occasion had arrived. Easing the bandages, he chose the southern course and led the way again.
"There's his smoke," grunted Purdy, trudging along in the rear. "Wonder how much grub that ki-yote's got?"
"Don't know; an' don't care much," replied Quigley. "It don't make no difference. Th' time will come when he's got to come down, an' bein' there when he does is our job. If I was plumb shore he was workin' on his own hook my worries would simmer down a whole lot; an' until I am shore, I ain't overlookin' nothin'."
"You ain't got no business comin' out here with an arm like that," growled Purdy. "Three of us are enough."
"I ain't got no business bein' nowhere else," retorted Quigley. "An' as long as yo're ridin' that subject again, lemme tell you that from now on till we get him, I'm goin' to stay right there. My eyes are all right, an' my Colt arm is th' same as ever. Bend low here an' foller my steps close—on th' jump, now!"
Reaching the end of the wide valley they came to a great widening of the lower levels, where the canyon emerged from between the Buttes and became lost in the great sink which surrounded the Twins. Quigley knew the sink from former explorations, and he chose ridges and draws without hesitation and kept well hidden at all times from anyone up on the butte. In order to continue in this security it was necessary to go almost to the eastern wall of the sink in a wide detour, and the chief unhesitatingly chose that route.
Because of an instinct born from years of woodcraft, Quigley's eyes missed nothing. Had he been riding down Hastings' single street he unconsciously would have observed every tin can, every old boot, and his memory, automatically photographing than with remarkable fidelity, would have filed the pictures away for future reference. Crossing a sage hen's track he unconsciously observed it minutely, and he could have told quite an interesting and intimate tale of what the bird had been doing.
Plunging into a deep gully, he swung up the opposite slope on a diagonal, and stopped suddenly, his busy mind instantly sidetracking its cogitations to take care of a matter immediately under his eyes. Three small stones lay, dark and damp, against the sun-dried, whitish rock stratum which formed the surface of the ridge. Above the level of his shoulders several green twigs were well chewed, two of them bitten clean off, and a dried lather still clung to them. Shoving his elbows out from his side to check his companion, he looked closely at both signs, and then, bending over, hurried along the slope searching the ground and swiftly disappeared around a bowlder. Purdy followed and bent over beside him. In a small patch of sand and clay which filled a hollow in the rock floor was the print of a hoof, and extending in front of it lay the imprint of the forward half of a moccasin.
Quigley glanced up quickly at his companion. "Fresh made!" he grunted. "Leads away from th' butte. Might be two men, one of 'em ridin'. Wait here, an' lay low!"
Going on a few steps he shook his head slowly and disappeared around a thicket. Ahead of him was a wide streak of sand and gravel and he hurried to it
"Two men on foot, leadin' a hoss!" he growled. "Wish I had time to foller these tracks; but there's no tellin' how far they go." He paused a moment in indecision, tempted to go on, but shaking his head he wheeled and ran back to Purdy, cursing the increased throbbing of his arm.
"Purdy!" he whispered incisively; "somethin's rotten! One cayuse; two men. Wait a minute!" and he sent his thoughts racing over every possibility. "They can be strangers that blundered through here; or friends of Nelson's. If they was strangers, an' passed th' Buttes, as that back trail indicates, they wouldn't try to keep hidden, an' either Art or Frank would 'a' seen them, an' follered them. If they was friends of his—d—n it! Wish I had taken th' trouble to hunt up th' tracks of that black cayuse some place where they showed up plain an' deep!"
Purdy thoughtfully rubbed his head. "Mebby that cayuse wandered down, an' th' boys led it off to hide it."
"Both of 'em?" snapped Quigley. "One had to stay on guard. An' they can't turn boots into moccasins. Cuss it! Why would innercent strangers wear moccasins in this kind of country? They wouldn't, unless they was up to some deviltry. Purdy, we got a job on our hands. First, we'll see Art an' Frank—no we won't: I will. You foller these tracks an' find out what you can. Don't foller 'em longer than an hour. We'll meet right here. If you hear three shots so close together that they sound like a ripple, you cut h—l-bent for th' ranch, by a roundabout way," and he was gone before Purdy could answer him.
Purdy ran forward, his gaze on the ground, and every time the trail became lost on clean, hard rock, he swore impatiently and ran in ever-widening circles until he found it again. Suddenly he crouched low and froze in his tracks. In an opening at the bottom of a deep, heavily wooded draw lying just ahead of him he caught sight of a black horse, saddled, cropping grass. The animal threw up its head, looked at him, flattened its ears and backed away, ready to bolt. And under his eyes lay four pairs of moccasin prints, two of them pointing back toward the Buttes.
"It's his bronc!" growled Purdy under his breath. "How th' devil—!" Wild conjectures filed into his mind in swift confusion, and, wrestling with them, he wheeled sharply and dashed back the way he had come, his Colt ready for action.
Quigley, calling into play every trick of woodcraft that he knew, kept on toward the Twin Buttes canyon, silent, alert, never once leaving cover. The smoke of the fire up on the butte was barely discernible now and the smoke from the rustlers' fire at the foot of the trail could not be seen at all. Eagerly he scrutinized the tops of the two buttes, but in vain.
Working steadily forward with the caution of an Indian, he followed and kept close to the eastern wall of the sink until directly back of the place where the trail guard should be, and in line with that and the lower end of the trail. His progress now became slow, and he exercised an infinite caution and patience. Cover followed cover, and every few yards he stopped and waited, his senses at the top pitch of their efficiency. Drawing near the position used by him and his men in guarding the mesa trail he passed within fifty feet of Luke Tedrue, and neither knew of it. Had he gone ten feet farther forward he would have died in his tracks.
He stopped. It was now Art's or Frank's turn to show some sign of life. Neither of them had any need to remain quiet, and he knew that under such circumstances a man is almost certain to make some kind of a noise within a reasonable length of time.
The minutes passed in absolute silence, and finally he could wait no longer, for each passing minute was precious to him, and he silently backed away, to approach from another direction. As he crept past a bowlder, avoiding every growing thing and every twig or loose pebble, he glanced along a narrow opening between some rocks and a thinning of the brush, and saw two sock-covered feet, toes up. It took him a long time to maneuver so that he could see enough of the body to be sure of its identity, and when he was sure he choked back a curse.
"Fleming!" he breathed. "Knifed through th' throat! An' they took his pants an' left a pair of blue ones. Nelson wore black! An' Frank, up there on th' other butte—I can't get up there without bein' seen. Frank, my boy; if yo're alive, you'll have to look out for yoreself!"
As he crawled and wriggled and dashed back over his trail his racing thoughts threw picture after picture on his mental screen, until every possible solution was eliminated and only the probable ones remained; and from these two there loomed up one which almost bore the stamp of certainty. The CL outfit, either wholly or in part, had arrived on the scene, and even now might be attacking the ranch-houses. Dashing around a pinnacle of granite, he sped down the slope of the draw where Purdy, behind a thicket, awaited him.
"Here, Tom!" softly called the waiting man, arising.
"Quick!" panted Quiglcy. "H—l's broke loose with all th' gates open! What you find?"
"Nelson's bronc. Th' two men that led it cached it in a draw an' went back again towards th' Buttes. What's up?"
"Everything, I reckon. Fleming's dead—knifed," panted Quigley, leading the way westward. "Frank—I don't know—about him. Never—had a chance—Art didn't. Good thing—I reckon we come—th' way we did. There—ain't no tellin'—what we might 'a' run—up ag'in. D—n 'em! I'll never leave—th' hills! Dead or—alive, I stays!"
"I've located—here permanent myself," growled Purdy. "Fleming knifed, huh? Mebby—mebby they're Injuns! Knife-play an' moccasins! I—betcha!"
"D—n fool!" gritted Quigley savagely; and then, remembering his companion's declaration of permanent location, he relented. "He wasn't—scalped!"
"Apaches—don't scalp!" grunted Purdy doggedly.
"But they make—tracks, don't they?" blazed Quigley. "I tell you—I know Injun tracks—like I know my name. They're—white men!"
CHAPTER XXII
"TWO IJUTS"
LUKE TEDRUE brushed flies. Since a little after dawn he had brushed them continually, insistently, doggedly, with an enforced calmness and apathy which only an iron, stubborn will made possible; and had they suddenly desisted in their eager explorations he would have kept on brushing from sheer force of habit. But while his hands and arms were moving mechanically, his mind was having an argument with itself concerning his ears, and a vague uneasiness made him restless.
He suspected that he had heard a sound, one which only a moving body would have made; but it had been so slight that he had not recognized it at the time, and it was only through the persistent, indefatigable urging of some subconscious sense that he was now trying to force his memory to repeat it for him, to give him a hold upon it that he might describe and classify it. Exasperated, fretful, uneasy, he called himself a fool with too zealous an imagination; but he kept straining at his reluctant memory, trying to force it to leap back and grasp the elusive impression. Vexed and anxious, he at last wriggled back among the bowlders which sheltered him, determined to prove or disprove the haunting subconscious sense. It had become maddening, a ghost he simply had to lay.
Realizing that the moving object is the more readily seen, Luke moved slowly and with no regard for dignity; and he proceeded, an inch at a time, upon his lean, old stomach. Nothing was too small or insignificant to escape his notice, for his eyes, close to the ground, first took in the entire field of vision with one quick, sweeping glance, and then, beginning with the more distant objects, examined everything in sight as though he had lost something of great value and of size infinitesimal. Another few inches of slow, laborious progress, and another searching scrutiny, his ears as busy as his eyes. In half an hour he had covered ten feet, and at the end of an hour he had made it twenty. And then, as he glanced around to obtain a general and preliminary view of a new vista, his eyes passed over a little patch of sand, and instantly flashed back to it, regarding it with an unwinking intentness.
He hitched forward again, more rapidly, and gained three feet before he stopped to peer about him. At last he came to the sand patch, which lay between a bowlder and a clump of dry, dead, and rustly brush; which accounted for its having a story to tell. It was the only way a cautious man could have proceeded; and the print of the heel of a hand and the five little dots where the tips of thumb and fingers had rested was well to one side of it. Furthermore, there was a smooth streak across it which contained two other streaks along the outer edges of the first one. The story was plain: a stomach, followed by two legs, had been dragged across the little patch of sand.
Luke raised his educated eyes and looked around him, but now his field of vision was considerably constricted, for he paid attention only to those few spaces in the brush and among the rocks which a clever man would be likely to use; and being a clever man himself, he unerringly picked certain openings and almost instantly riveted his gaze on a sign: a toe print at his left. Close to it was another, and the way in which the sand had been pushed up told him that the first had been made by a man crawling west; and the other announced to him that it had been made by a man moving east. Luke deduced that the same man, returning over his own trail, had made the second as well as the first.
Luke was relieved, and, having a safe trail to follow, he pushed on rapidly but silently, soon reaching the place where it ended; and in plain sight of him, through the thin growth of brush, was Fleming's body. One glance at it and Luke turned, following the trail back as he had come; and an hour later, having learned a great deal, he ran and crept, leaped and wriggled up to the place where his friend lay and petulantly cursed the flies.
"Ijut Number Two," said Luke pleasantly, "where are you?"
"Talkin' to hisself again," grumbled a low voice from the mysterious passages under a great, tumbled mass of bowlders. "If a body meet a body, reachin' for th' rye," continued the vexed voice, "whose treat is it?"
"Depends on who can't keep still," answered Luke brightly. "We are two ijuts," he said positively and flatly.
"Well, I allus like a man that speaks his mind, even if he is a liar," commented the mysterious voice. "D—n these flies! I crawled in here to get rid of 'em; but they come right along. An' a little while back I smelled a striped kitty-cat. I knowed what it was because th' wind wasn't blowin' from yore direction."
"Cuss his impudence!" said Luke. "He takes me for a wild flower! A rose, mebby. An' me comin' out here to save his worthless life!"
"You didn't do nothin' of th' kind," contradicted the sepulchral voice. "You come out here to practice with Colonel Bowie! I can prove it before any fool jury. D—n th' flies!"
"What flies?" innocently demanded Luke, his voice suggesting a hot curiosity and a thirsty yearning for knowledge.
"Time," said the other. "Time flies; an' I've had these flies all th' time. It's time they flies away, to fly back another day. You leave yours behind you, Cow Face, if you visit me."
"Ain't got none; an' ain't seen none," replied Luke cheerfully.
"Twice a liar," observed Johnny pleasantly. "Why don't you learn to speak th' truth sometimes? I'm worried about yore soul."
"I'm worried about my belly an' my knees. They're scraped clean, wrigglin' over rock."
"'Tain't possible; not at yore age," commented Johnny. "Th' accumulations of years can't be got rid of so easy, Old Timer."
"No wonder they chased him off th' Tin Cup," grinned Luke. "We are two ijuts."
"Listen to th' jackass," stid Johnny. "Th' flies that flew an' flied; th' flies that crawled an' died; th' flies that buzzed an'—an'—holy h—l! Did you ever see so many of 'em?"
"I done listened to th' jackass," grunted Luke. "An' now I observes, gentle but firm: We are two ijuts."
"We are one ijut," corrected Johnny. "You are th' one. A soft answer turneth away wrath."
"I am an ijut; an' you are an ijut," replied Luke with exaggerated patience. "That makes two; an' so we are two ijuts."
"Can't you say nothin' else, One Ijut?" demanded Johnny peevishly. "Yo're tiresome; yo're a repeater, rim fire, Chestnut, model of 1873. I'm lazy by nature; but doin' nothin' all th' time is hard work. It don't set right. They have taken her to Georgia, there to wear her life away. An' my neck aches from lookin' up, an' holdin' my head out on th' end of it. My stummick an' my elbows, my knees an' my toes all, all ache. They are rock-galled. As she toils 'mid th' cotton an' th' corn."
"Cane," corrected Luke. "Yore appalin' ignerence is discouragin'. We are two ijuts."
"All right; I quit," said Johnny wearily. "Have it yore own way; mebby we are. But it could 'a' been corn just as well as cane, anyhow. Why are we two ijuts?"
"Because we are holdin' th' bag," said Luke sadly.
Johnny turned around and stuck his head out. "Yes?" he inquired, with a rising inflection. "I'm plumb insulted. I ain't never held no bag; not never!"
"'Tain't never too late to learn," said Luke sorrowfully. "Th' snipe has come, an' went; an' we're still holdin' th' bag."
"Let's fill it full of flies," suggested Johnny. "Say! If you ain't seen no flies, how did all of them get squashed on yore face?"
"Come flyin' out of yore cave just now an' bumped into me full speed," replied Luke, grinning. "We have been out-guessed, we have. They smelled us out. We're two tenderfeet in a wild, bad camp. Somebody's likely to hurt us, first thing you know. What did you see when you wasn't killin' flies?"
"Th' sky, th' canyon, an' th' butte."
"Uh-huh; so did I. I saw th' butte, th' canyon, an' th' sky. Then I moved an' saw hand prints, belly prints, toe prints, knee prints, an' other kinds of prints. Yore friends stacked th' deck on us an' dealt 'em from th' middle. Now what?"
"First, we eat," said Johnny, arising with alacrity. "Then, mebby, we eat again. We drink an' we wash. I'm near half as dirty as you. What have you found out?"
"Did you ever see two calves, wobble-kneed, friskin' around lookin' saucy an' full of h—l an' wisdom; but actin' plumb foolish?"
"I shore did. I never saw no other kind, unless it was sick. Stiff back, humped in defiance; tail tryin' to stand up; stiff-laigged, when they didn't buckle unexpected; jumpin' sideways, tryin' to butt, an' allus hungry. I did, Old Timer; lots an' lots of times."
"Well, them's us," sighed Luke. "You hold yore trap an' listen while I speaks my piece. I saw them signs, like I said. Th' cuss that made 'em sneaked right up to my back door, went around th' side of my house, stopped just in time for his health, backed off, saw his friend's body, an' my pants, an' backed off some more. Then he climbed up on two good feet an' made toe prints plumb deep. He didn't run; no, ma'am; he just telegraphed hisself; never stopped for nothin'. He sped, he shot, he moved!
"An' us two ijuts layin' out here in th' sun till we was cussed near jerked meat!" growled Johnny. "I call that blamed unpolite."
"Didn't I tell you we was two ijuts? When an older man speaks you want to keep yore mouth shut an' yore ear tabs open. Th' young bucks go out an' steal th' horses an' lift th' scalps; but th' old fellers make good talk around th' council fires. Stick that in yore peace pipe an' smoke it. Might be good for your health sometime."
"Yo're a purty spry scalper yoreself," admitted Johnny. "Regular old he-whizzer; but you got no morals, an' a very bad, disgustin' habit. I'm surprised you didn't take scalps, too!"
"You let the Colonel alone," warned Luke. "Now, that rustler is some he-whizzer hisself, an' he won't need nobody to tell him what he saw. He's done told his tribe about that; an' bein' a stranger here I'm only guessin'. Say what's on yore mind."
"Th' young buck will now talk at th' council fire," grinned Johnny. "Yo're right, for once. It wasn't th' cook. I never saw a cook yet that could move around so nobody could hear him. It wasn't Gates, because he's wounded several; an' I don't think it was that other feller, because somehow I ain't feverishly admirin' his brains. That leaves Quigley; an' he ain't no fool all th' time. I can see him beatin' hell an' high-water to his three stone shacks, where his friends are, an' where his guns, grub, clothes, an' other things are. I can see four men lookin' out of four loopholes. They are if they ain't jumped th' country; an' if they has, we'll let 'em go.
"Takin' a new, fresh holt, I'd say that they don't know that we'd let 'em go; an' they don't know how many we are, or where all of us are located. They don't aim to lead us a chase; that is, mebby they don't. Them shacks are shore strong; an' they don't know how far they might get if they run for it. 'Tain't like open country—they got just four places to ride out of that sink an' they all can be easy guarded."
"They won't come out th' way they went in," said Luke. "That would be risky an' foolish; so they's only three places left."
"A wise man never does what he ought to do," said Johnny. "Now, I'll bet they are either in them stone houses, or some place else," he grinned. "Th' only way, after all, to see a good man's hand, is to call it. Me an' you, bein' amazin' curious, will do just that. If they're in them houses they'll be expectin' us; they'll turn th' 'Welcome' sign to th' wall an' smoke up them loopholes. Don't interrupt me yet! I'm long-winded an' hard to stop. Th' question is: Are you primed to wrastle this thing out, just me an' you, or shall I watch 'em while you go back to th' CL for help? That—"
"I will interrupt!" snorted Luke heatedly. "If it wasn't that yo're only a fool infant, d—d if I wouldn't fan yore saddle end! I ain't never yelled for help when it wasn't needed; an' lots of times when it was needed I forgot to yell. Too busy, mebby. You've been running things with a high hand out here, an' yore head reminds me of th' head of a cow bit by a snake. It's swelled scandalous. I'm goin' to show you how to get four men out of them loopholes. Bein' young an' green, you'd likely want to crawl in an' pull 'em out. But me, bein' wise, will use brains, an' more brains. I can make a cat skin itself."
"You want to be plumb shore that it ain't one of them striped kitties—they look a lot alike in a poor light; an' that entrance canyon is shore poor light. I reckon we won't eat, yet. We better rustle for their ranch."
"But Logan wants to know them facts that he sent us after," growled Luke regretfully.
"We ain't got 'em; an' we can't get 'em. Them fellers won't do no rustlin' now, so how can we trail 'em? They're too cussed busy lookin' out for their skins about now. An' only two of 'em ain't wounded; Purdy an' th' cook."
"How many cows they got?"
"Near two hundred."
"Holy Jumpin' Jerusalem!" snorted Luke. "We're lucky that we still got th' ranch-house an' th' river!"
"We're wastin' time," growled Johnny, impatiently. "There's no telling what they're doin'. Come on. Bein' desperate, mebby they're roundin' up to make a drive. Come on!"
It was past mid-afternoon when the two punchers looked down into the QE valley and found relief at the sight of the cows lazily feeding. They were scattered all over the range and both men knew that no attempt had been made to round them up.
Going down the blind-canyon trail, they crossed the range, climbed the opposite cliff and finally stopped in front of the stone houses. A gun barrel projected from a loophole in the south wall of the house nearest the canyon, and four saddled horses were in the smaller corral.
"There they are," said Johnny. A bullet stirred his hair and he drew back from the rim. "We got to get 'em. Start skinnin' that cat, Old Timer."
"It'll shore take a lot of skinnin'," growled Luke.
"Not if we uses 'brains an' more brains,'" jeered Johnny. "Th' young buck will now be heard shootin' off his mouth at th' council fire; an' you listen close, One Ijut!"
"Have yore say," said Luke, covering a loophole which showed signs of activity.
"We've got to move fast, before they learn that there's only two of us," said Johnny. "When them houses was built they was laid out with th' idea of men bein' in all of 'em; an' they'd be cussed hard to lick, then. But I reckon they're all in that one house. There ain't men enough to hold 'em all; an' so they favored th' one near th' canyon. We got to keep that door shut so they can't get out an' away. I'll do that after dark; an' I'll stampede them cayuses. That leaves 'em no chance to make a dash an' ride for it. Now you see that little trickle of water flowin' under th' houses? That's their water supply; I know something about that crick; but that's another job for th' dark. Take a look over there, where it turns. See that dirt bank, on th' bend? That's where they turned it out of its course an' sent it flowin' in th' ditch leadin' to th' houses. Do you reckon you could cut that bank with Colonel Bowie an' throw a little dam across th' ditch? 'Tain't wide; only a couple of feet. I—"
Luke fired, and grunted regretfully. "Missed him, d—n it!" he swore, reloading. "Gettin' so you can find work for my knife, huh?" he chuckled. "Not bein' blind, I see th' bank an' th' bend. An' if I can't turn that water back th' way it used to go, I'll fold up an' die. This is like old times. You must 'a' had a real elegant, bang-up time out here, crawlin' around an' raisin' h—l with 'em. What a grand place for th' Colonel! I shore missed a lot; but I'm here now, an' with both feet! Sing yore song; I'm listenin'."
"It's sung," grinned Johnny; "an' now we got to dance."
"I ain't as spry as I used to be," grunted Luke; "so I'll have to make them fellers do th' dancin'."
CHAPTER XXIII
"ALL BUT TH' COWS"
GATES, the wounded, tossed restlessly in his bunk, and finally rolled over and faced the dark room.
"Never was so wide awake in my life," he grumbled. "Been settin' around too much lately. If I wanted to stay awake I'd be as sleepy as th' devil."
"Better try it again," counseled Quigley, shifting from his loophole. "You don't want to be sleepy tomorrow when yo're on guard."
"Tom," said Gates, ignoring the advice. "I've been doin' some thinkin'. A feller does a lot of thinkin' when he can't sleep. We made a couple of mistakes, holin' up like this. In th' first place, if we had to hole up, we should 'a' occupied both end houses, 'stead of only one. This way, they can walk right up to within twenty feet of us, use th' cook shack, th' grub in th' store-house, an' them store-house loopholes, which is worse. If we had both end houses, two men in each, they couldn't get anywhere close to us except along th' crick an' up on th' cliff."
"Yes; I reckon so," said Quigley. "'Tain't too late yet, mebby. I didn't like th' idea of splittin' up our forces. As far as grub is concerned, we're near as well off that way as we are in our water supply. We got grub in here for two months, an' plenty of cartridges if we don't get reckless with 'em. Of course, I wish that other case was in here, too; it'd give us another thousand rounds for th' rifles; but I ain't worryin' none about that. An' I'm purty near shore, now, that there's only two of 'em fightin' us: Nelson an' that Tedrue, judgin' from th' knife-work."
"That's th' way I figger it," agreed Gates. "An' that's why we shouldn't 'a' holed up like this. Me an' th' cook could 'a' held this house, while you an' Purdy was on th' outside stalkin' 'em. Any man that can stalk like you can is plumb wastin' his time cooped up in here; an' you could 'a' made things sizzlin' hot for them two fellers, good as they are. This way, they've got us located, an' they only have to look for trouble in front of 'em. They know where to expect it all th' time. It was a big mistake."
"Mebby," grunted Quigley. "We'll try it in here tonight an' tomorrow, an' then if we don't have no luck, I'll fade away tomorrow night an' give 'em a taste of Injun fightin'. There ain't no moon this week, so we can pick our time to suit ourselves."
Purdy leaned his rifle against the wall and groped for the water bucket. "I'll make a try for that extra case of cartridges right now, if you say th' word," he offered. "Huh! We shore drink a lot of water," he grunted. "I filled this pail before sundown, an' it's near empty now. Too much bacon, I reckon."
Quigley laughed softly. "Water is one thing we don't have to worry about at all. That ditch was a great idea."
Could he have followed the ditch in the dark he would have been surprised to have seen the dam across it, and the cut through the artificial bank, where Luke Tedrue and a commandeered shovel had released the little stream and let it flow to Rustler Creek along its old, original bed down a shallow gully. That was Johnny's idea; but after the old scout had carried it out, he had an idea of his own which pleased him greatly, and he acted upon it without loss of time.
The cook stirred and sat up, feeling for his pipe, which was always his first act upon awakening. He grunted sleepily and sat on the edge of his bunk. "This is a whole lot like bein' in jail," he yawned. "An' what do you think? I dreamed that somebody had just tapped a keg of beer, an' when I sidled over to see that none of it was wasted, why I woke up! That's allus my luck. How soon'll it be daylight? That dream made me thirsty. Where's that cussed water bucket?"
"Right where it was th' last time you found it," grinned Purdy. "It ain't moved none at all."
"Yo're right, it ain't," grumbled the cook, scraping a tin cup across the bottom of the pail. "It never does unless I do it. I'll bet four bits that I've filled it every time it got empty; an' I'll bet four bits more that I ain't goin' to fill it this time," he chuckled. "There's just enough here for me. Th' next gent that wants a drink will be observed bendin' over th' trapdoor an' fillin' it for hisself. Here's how! An' d—n th' beer what only comes in dreams."
Gates crawled out of his bunk and limped to the bucket. "Get out of my way," he growled. "Speakin' of beer started my throat to raspin'. No you don't; not a-tall," he grumbled, pushing the cook aside. "I'll wait on myself, slugs or no slugs. I ain't no teethin' infant, even if I am full of holes." He crossed to the trapdoor and fumbled around in the dark. "Huh! I knowed it couldn't get far away. I've been kneelin' on it all th' time!"
"Better lemme do that," offered the cook, advancing.
"Better yore grandmother," said Gates. "No, ma'am; you put on too many airs, you do." He raised the door. "You might strain yore delicate back, Cookie, old hoss. An' anyhow, I'm aimin' to spite you for that unnecessary remark about openin' a keg of beer. This ain't no time to talk about things like that." He leaned down and swung the bucket, but there was no splash, only a rattling, tinny thump. "Why," said his muffled voice, "there ain't no water here! Mebby I missed it. Why, d—n it, there ain't no water here a-tall! What th'—" His voice ceased abruptly and a solid, muffled thump came up through the opening.
The cook, leaning forward in the position he had frozen in when he had grasped the significance of the sound of the striking bucket, moved toward the trap, feeling before him. He touched the edge of the opening and swiftly felt around it. Gates was not there.
"D—n it, he's fell in!" he muttered. "It wasn't no job for a wounded man like him, bendin' over that way. Here, Purdy!" he called. "Gimme a hand with Ben. He plumb keeled over an' fell in." He reached down impatiently and felt around. "H—l!" he yelled as an up-thrust hand gripped him, jerked him off his balance and pulled him down through the opening. "Look out, fellers!" he shouted.
A second thump, softer than the first, ended the cry,and Purdy, leaping forward, slammed shut the trap and bolted it. "More knife-work!" he gritted, pale with rage. Arising, he leaped toward the cabin door, yanked it open and dashed along the house, staggering as a finger of flame spurted from a loophole in the wall of the store-house, but recovered his balance and turned the corner. As he did so he caught sight of a thickening in the darkness, which moved swiftly and silently along the ditch, and he fired at it. Something whizzed past his neck and rang out, sharp and clear as a bell, on the end wall of the house. He answered it with another shot and saw the blot stagger and fall.
From the ditch came a spurt of fire and Purdy plunged forward, firing as he fell. Another shot answered him and again he fired, but with a weak and shaking hand. Then from a loophole behind him Quigley's rifle poked out and sent shot after shot along the ditch, firing on a gamble.
As the rifle spoke, a shadow flitted past the corner of the store-house, passed swiftly and silently across the space between the two houses and plunged through the open door of the rustlers' stronghold. It tripped over a box and sprawled headlong just as Quigley wheeled and sent a bullet through the space Johnny had occupied an instant before.
Leaping to his feet, Johnny hurled himself upon the rustler, wrenched the rifle loose and gripped the owner's throat. Plunging, heaving, straining, they thrashed around the room, smashing into bunks, breaking dishes; hammering, gouging, biting, choking, they bumped into the door, plunged through the opening and carried the struggle out under the sky.
Quigley, his face purple and his eyes popping out, almost senseless on his feet, and fighting from instinct, managed to break the grip on his throat and showered blows on his enemy's face. Sinking his teeth in Johnny's upper arm, he got both of his hands around Johnny's throat and closed his grip with all his weakened strength.
Across the yard they reeled, bumped into the corral and along it, following the slope of the ground without thought. Johnny, suffocating, thrust the heel of his right hand against his enemy's nose and pushed upward and back, while his left hand, leaving the gripping fingers around his throat, smashed heavily into Quigley's stomach. The hands relaxed, loosened their grip and fell away, and before they could regain their hold, Johnny's chin settled firmly against his chest and protected his windpipe. Just in time he caught Quigley's gun hand and tore the Colt out of it, whereupon Quigley hammered his face with both hands. Shoving, wrestling, reeling, they came to the edge of the ravine through which flowed Rustler Creek, and, plunging over the steep bank, rolled to the bottom and stopped in the mud and water of the creek itself, where they fought lying down, each trying desperately to remain an top.
Quigley's hand brushed one of Johnny's guns, gripped it, drew it out and shoved the muzzle against his enemy's side. As he pulled the trigger Johnny writhed swiftly and turned the muzzle away. Squirming on top, he again turned the muzzle away as Quigley fired the second time. At the roar of the shot the rustler grunted and grew suddenly limp.
Logan pushed back from the dinner table and glanced out of the window. Shouting an exclamation he leaped for the door, the rest of the outfit piling pell-mell at his heels.
A black horse, carrying double, stopped near the door and eager hands caught Luke Tedrue as he fell from Pepper's back. Johnny, covered with mud, dust, blood, and powder grime, his clothes torn into shreds and his face a battered mass of red and black and blue flesh, swayed slightly, grasped the saddle horn with both hands and sat stiffly erect again.
"Good Lord!" shouted Logan, jumping to him. "What th' h—l's up?"
"Rustlin'," muttered Johnny. "Luke's brains got foundered in th' head an' he pulled three of 'em out of a hole; but I made Quigley skin th' cat."
"Are they all gone under?" yelled Logan incredulously.
"All but th' cows," sighed Johnny, and strong arms caught him as he fell.
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