CHAPTER VII
BOB HART TAKES A HAND
Bob Hart waited till his friend had disappeared into the house before he moved.
"Thought he'd run it over me, so I'd roost here on the roof, did he? Well, I'm after the ol' horn-toad full jump," the puncher murmured, a gay grin on his good-looking face.
He, too, examined his gun before he followed Dave through the dormer window and passed into the frowsy bedchamber. None of the details of it escaped his cool, keen gaze, least of all the sawed-off shotgun in the corner.
"That scatter gun might come handy. Reckon I'll move it so's I'll know just where it's at when I need it," he said to himself, and carried the gun to the bed, where he covered it with a quilt.
At the top of the stairs Bob also hesitated before passing down. Why not be sure of his line of communications with the roof before going too far? He did not want to be in such a hurry that his retreat would be cut off.
With as little noise as possible Bob explored the upper story. The first room in which he found himself was empty of all furniture except a pair of broken-backed chairs. One casual glance was enough here.
He was about to try a second door when some one spoke. He recognized the voice. It belonged to the man who wrote his pay checks, and it came from an adjoining room.
"Always knew you was crooked as a dog's hind laigs Doble. Never liked you a lick in the road. I'll say this. Some day I'll certainly hang yore hide up to dry for yore treachery."
"No use to get on the peck, Em. It don't do you no good to make me sore.
Maybe you'll need a friend before you're shet of Brad."
"It relieves my mind some to tell you what a yellow coyote you are," explained the cattleman. "You got about as much sand as a brush rabbit and I'd trust you as far as I would a rattler, you damned sidewinder."
Bob tried the door. The knob turned in his hand and the door slowly opened inward.
The rattle of the latch brought George Doble's sly, shifty eye round. He was expecting to see one of his friends from below. A stare of blank astonishment gave way to a leaping flicker of fear. The crook jumped to his feet, tugging at his gun. Before he could fire, the range-rider had closed with him.
The plunging attack drove Doble back against the table, a flimsy, round-topped affair which gave way beneath this assault upon it. The two men went down in the wreck. Doble squirmed away like a cat, but before he could turn to use his revolver Bob was on him again. The puncher caught his right arm, in time and in no more than time. The deflected bullet pinged through a looking-glass on a dresser near the foot of the bed.
"Go to it, son! Grab the gun and bust his haid wide open!" an excited voice encouraged Hart.
But Doble clung to his weapon as a lost cow does to a 'dobe water-hole in the desert. Bob got a grip on his arm and twisted till he screamed with pain. He did a head spin and escaped. One hundred and sixty pounds of steel-muscled cowpuncher landed on his midriff and the six-shooter went clattering away to a far corner of the room.
Bob dived for the revolver, Doble for the door. A moment, and Hart had the gun. But whereas there had been three in the room there were now but two.
A voice from the bed spoke in curt command. "Cut me loose." Bob had heard that voice on more than one round-up. It was that of Emerson Crawford.
The range-rider's sharp knife cut the ropes that tied the hands and feet of his employer. He worked in the dark and it took time.
"Who are you? Howcome you here?" demanded the cattleman.
"I'm Bob Hart. It's quite a story. Miss Joyce sent me and Dave Sanders," answered the young man, still busy with the ropes.
From below came the sound of a shot, the shuffling of many feet.
"Must be him downstairs."
"I reckon. They's a muley gun in the hall."
Crawford stretched his cramped muscles, flexing and reflexing his arms and legs. "Get it, son. We'll drift down and sit in."
When Bob returned he found the big cattleman examining Doble's revolver.
He broke the shotgun to make sure it was loaded.
Then, "We'll travel," he said coolly.
The battle sounds below had died away. From the landing they looked down into the hall and saw a bar of light that came through a partly open door. Voices were lifted in excitement.
"One of Em Crawford's riders," some one was saying. "A whole passel of 'em must be round the place."
Came the thud of a boot on something soft. "Put the damn spy outa business, I say," broke in another angrily.
Hart's gorge rose. "Tha's Miller," he whispered to his chief. "He's kickin' Dave now he's down 'cause Dave whaled him good."
Softly the two men padded down the stair treads and moved along the passage.
"Who's that?" demanded Shorty, thrusting his head into the hall. "Stay right there or I'll shoot."
"Oh, no, you won't," answered the cattleman evenly. "I'm comin' into that room to have a settlement. There'll be no shootin'—unless I do it."
His step did not falter. He moved forward, brushed Shorty aside, and strode into the midst of his enemies.
Dave lay on the floor. His hair was clotted with blood and a thin stream of it dripped from his head. The men grouped round his body had their eyes focused on the man who had just pushed his way in. All of them were armed, but not one of them made a move to attack.
For there is something about a strong man unafraid more potent than a company of troopers. Such a man was Emerson Crawford now. His life might be hanging in the balance of his enemies' fears, but he gave no sign of uncertainty. His steady gray eyes swept the circle, rested on each worried face, and fastened on Brad Steelman.
The two had been enemies for years, rivals for control of the range and for leadership in the community. Before that, as young men, they had been candidates for the hand of the girl that the better one had won. The sheepman was shrewd and cunning, but he had no such force of character as Crawford. At the bottom of his heart, though he seethed with hatred, he quailed before that level gaze. Did his foe have the house surrounded with his range-riders? Did he mean to make him pay with his life for the thing he had done?
Steelman laughed uneasily. An option lay before him. He could fight or he could throw up the hand he had dealt himself from a stacked deck. If he let his enemy walk away scot free, some day he would probably have to pay Crawford with interest. His choice was a characteristic one.
"Well, I reckon you've kinda upset my plans, Em. 'Course I was a-coddin' you. I didn't aim to hurt you none, though I'd 'a' liked to have talked you outa the water-holes."
The big cattleman ignored this absolutely. "Have a team hitched right away. Shorty will 'tend to that. Bob, tie up yore friend's haid with a handkerchief."
Without an instant's hesitation Hart thrust his revolver back into its holster. He was willing to trust Crawford to dominate this group of lawless foes, every one of whom held some deep grudge against him. One he had sent to the penitentiary. Another he had actually kicked out of his employ. A third was in his debt for many injuries received. Almost any of them would have shot him in the back on a dark night, but none had the cold nerve to meet him in the open. For even in a land which bred men there were few to match Emerson Crawford.
Shorty looked at Steelman. "I'm waitin', Brad," he said.
The sheepman nodded sullenly. "You done heard your orders, Shorty."
The ex-convict reached for his steeple hat, thrust his revolver back into its holster, and went jingling from the room. He looked insolently at Crawford as he passed.
"Different here. If it was my say-so I'd go through."
Hart administered first aid to his friend. "I'm servin' notice, Miller, that some day I'll bust you wide and handsome for this," he said, looking straight at the fat gambler. "You have give Dave a raw deal, and you'll not get away with it."
"I pack a gun. Come a-shootin' when you're ready," retorted Miller.
"Tha's liable to be right soon, you damn horsethief. We've rid 'most a hundred miles to have a li'l' talk with you and yore pardner there."
"Shoutin' about that race yet, are you? If I wasn't a better loser than you—"
"Don't bluff, Miller. You know why we trailed you."
Doble edged into the talk. He was still short of wind, but to his thick wits a denial seemed necessary. "We ain't got yore broncs."
"Who mentioned our broncs?" Hart demanded, swiftly.
"Called Ad a horsethief, didn't you?"
"So he is. You, too. You've got our ponies. Not in yore vest pockets, but hid out in the brush somewheres. I'm servin' notice right now that Dave and me have come to collect."
Dave opened his eyes upon a world which danced hazily before him. He had a splitting headache.
"Wha's the matter?" he asked.
"You had a run-in with a bunch of sheep wranglers," Bob told him.
"They're going to be plumb sorry they got gay."
Presently Shorty returned. "That team's hooked up," he told the world at large.
"You'll drive us, Steelman," announced Crawford.
"Me!" screamed the leader of the other faction. "You got the most nerve
I ever did see."
"Sure. Drive him home, Brad," advised Shorty with bitter sarcasm. "Black his boots. Wait on him good. Step lively when yore new boss whistles." He cackled with splenetic laughter.
"I dunno as I need to drive you home," Steelman said slowly, feeling his way to a decision. "You know the way better'n I do."
The eyes of the two leaders met.
"You'll drive," the cattleman repeated steadily.
The weak spot in Steelman's leadership was that he was personally not game. Crawford had a pungent personality. He was dynamic, strong, master of himself in any emergency. The sheepman's will melted before his insistence. He dared not face a showdown.
"Oh, well, what's it matter? We can talk things over on the way. Me, I'm not lookin' for trouble none," he said, his small black eyes moving restlessly to watch the effect of this on his men.
Bob helped his partner out of the house and into the surrey. The cattleman took the seat beside Steelman, across his knees the sawed-off shotgun. He had brought his enemy along for two reasons. One was to weaken his prestige with his own men. The other was to prevent them from shooting at the rig as they drove away.
Steelman drove in silence. His heart was filled with surging hatred. During that ride was born a determination to have nothing less than the life of his enemy when the time should be ripe.
At the door of his house Crawford dismissed him contemptuously. "Get out."
The man with the reins spoke softly, venomously, from a dry throat. "One o' these days you'll crawl on your hands and knees to me for this."
He whipped up the team and rattled away furiously into the night.
CHAPTER VIII
THE D BAR LAZY R BOYS MEET AN ANGEL
Joyce came flying to her father's arms. The white lace of a nightgown showed beneath the dressing-robe she had hurriedly donned. A plait of dark hair hung across her shoulder far below the waist. She threw herself at Crawford with a moaning little sob.
"Oh Dad … Dad … Dad!" she cried, and her slender arms went round his neck.
"'T's all right, sweetheart. Yore old dad's not even powder-burnt. You been worryin' a heap, I reckon." His voice was full of rough tenderness.
She began to cry.
He patted her shoulder and caressed her dark head drawing it close to his shoulder. "Now—now—now sweetheart, don't you cry. It's all right, li'l' honey bug."
"You're not … hurt," she begged through her tears.
"Not none. Never was huskier. But I got a boy out here that's beat up some. Come in, Dave—and you, Bob. They're good boys, Joy. I want you to meet 'em both."
The girl had thought her father alone. She flung one startled glance into the night, clutched the dressing-gown closer round her throat, and fled her barefoot way into the darkness of the house. To the boys, hanging back awkwardly at the gate, the slim child-woman was a vision wonderful. Their starved eyes found in her white loveliness a glimpse of heaven.
Her father laughed. "Joy ain't dressed for callers. Come in, boys."
He lit a lamp and drew Dave to a lounge. "Lemme look at yore haid, son.
Bob, you hot-foot it for Doc Green."
"It's nothin' a-tall to make a fuss about," Dave apologized. "Only a love tap, compliments of Shorty, and some kicks in the slats, kindness of Mr. Miller."
In spite of his debonair manner Dave still had a bad headache and was so sore around the body that he could scarcely move without groaning. He kept his teeth clamped on the pain because he had been brought up in the outdoor code of the West which demands of a man that he grin and stand the gaff.
While the doctor was attending to his injuries, Dave caught sight once or twice of Joyce at the door, clad now in a summer frock of white with a blue sash. She was busy supplying, in a brisk, competent way, the demands of the doctor for hot and cold water and clean linen.
Meanwhile Crawford told his story. "I was right close to the club when Doble met me. He pulled a story of how his brother Dug had had trouble with Steelman and got shot up. I swallowed it hook, bait, and sinker. Soon as I got into the house they swarmed over me like bees. I didn't even get my six-gun out. Brad wanted me to sign a relinquishment. I told him where he could head in at."
"What would have happened if the boys hadn't dropped along?" asked Dr.
Green as he repacked his medicine case.
The cattleman looked at him, and his eyes were hard and bleak. "Why, Doc, yore guess is as good as mine." he said.
"Mine is, you'd have been among the missing, Em. Well, I'm leaving a sleeping-powder for the patient in case he needs it in an hour or two. In the morning I'll drop round again," the doctor said.
He did, and found Dave much improved. The clean outdoors of the rough-riding West builds blood that is red. A city man might have kept his bed a week, but Dave was up and ready to say good-bye within forty-eight hours. He was still a bit under par, a trifle washed-out, but he wanted to take the road in pursuit of Miller and Doble, who had again decamped in a hurry with the two horses they had stolen.
"They had the broncs hid up Frio Cañon way, I reckon," explained Hart. "But they didn't take no chances. When they left that 'dobe house they lit a-runnin' and clumb for the high hills on the jump. And they didn't leave no address neither. We'll be followin' a cold trail. We're not liable to find them after they hole up in some mountain pocket."
"Might. Never can tell. Le's take a whirl at it anyhow," urged Dave.
"Hate to give up yore paint hoss, don't you?" said Bob with his friendly grin. "Ain't blamin' you none whatever, I'd sleep on those fellows' trail if Chiquito was mine. What say we outfit in the mornin' and pull our freights? Maybeso we'll meet up with the thieves at that. Yo no se (I don't know)."
When Joyce was in the room where Dave lay on the lounge, the young man never looked at her, but he saw nobody else. Brought up in a saddle on the range, he had never before met a girl like her. It was not only that she was beautiful and fragrant as apple-blossoms, a mystery of maidenhood whose presence awed his simple soul. It was not only that she seemed so delicately precious, a princess of the blood royal set apart by reason of her buoyant grace, the soft rustle of her skirts, the fine texture of the satiny skin. What took him by the throat was her goodness. She was enshrined in his heart as a young saint. He would have thought it sacrilege to think of her as a wide-awake young woman subject to all the vanities of her sex. And he could have cited evidence. The sweetness of her affection for rough Em Crawford, the dear, maternal tenderness with which she ruled her three-year-old brother Keith, motherless since the week of his birth, the kindness of the luminous brown eyes to the uncouth stranger thrown upon her hospitality: Dave treasured them all as signs of angelic grace, and they played upon his heartstrings disturbingly.
Joyce brought Keith in to say good-bye to Dave and his friend before they left. The little fellow ran across the room to his new pal, who had busied himself weaving horsehair playthings for the youngster.
"You turn back and make me a bwidle, Dave," he cried.
"I'll sure come or else send you one," the cowpuncher promised, rising to meet Joyce.
She carried her slender figure across the room with perfect ease and rhythm, head beautifully poised, young seventeen as self-possessed as thirty. As much could not be said for her guests. They were all legs and gangling arms, red ears and dusty boots.
"Yes, we all want you to come back," she said with a charming smile. "I think you saved Father's life. We can't tell you how much we owe you. Can we, Keith?"
"Nope. When will you send the bwidle?" he demanded.
"Soon," the restored patient said to the boy, and to her: "That wasn't nothin' a-tall. From where I come from we always been use to standin' by our boss."
He shifted awkwardly to the other foot, flushing to the hair while he buried her soft little hand in his big freckled one. The girl showed no shyness. Seventeen is sometimes so much older than twenty.
"Tha's what us D Bar Lazy R boys are ridin' with yore paw's outfit for, Miss—to be handy when he needs us," Bob added in his turn. "We're sure tickled we got a chanct to go to Brad Steelman's party. I'm ce'tainly glad to 'a' met you, Miss Joyce." He ducked his head and scraped back a foot in what was meant to be a bow.
Emerson Crawford sauntered in, big and bluff and easy-going. "Hittin' the trail, boys? Good enough. Hope you find the thieves. If you do, play yore cards close. They're treacherous devils. Don't take no chances with 'em. I left an order at the store for you to draw on me for another pair of boots in place of those you lost in the brush, Dave. Get a good pair, son. They're on me. Well, so long. Luck, boys. I'll look for you-all back with the D Bar Lazy R when you've finished this job."
The punchers rode away without looking back, but many times in the days that followed their hearts turned to that roof which had given the word home a new meaning to them both.
CHAPTER IX
GUNSIGHT PASS
The pursuit took the riders across a wide, undulating plain above which danced the dry heat of the desert. Lizards sunned themselves on flat rocks. A rattlesnake slid toward the cover of a prickly pear. The bleached bones of a cow shone white beside the trail.
The throats of the cowpunchers filled with alkali dust and their eyes grew red and sore from it. Magnificent mirages unfolded themselves: lakes cool and limpid, stretching to the horizon, with inviting forests in the distance; an oasis of lush green fields that covered miles; mesquite distorted to the size of giant trees and cattle transformed into dinosaurs. The great gray desert took on freakish shapes of erosion. Always, hour after hour beneath a copper sky, they rode in palpitating heat through sand drifts, among the salt bushes and the creosote, into cowbacked hills beyond which the stark mountains rose.
Out of the fiery furnace of the plain they came in late afternoon to the uplands, plunging into a land of deep gorges and great chasms. Here manzanita grew and liveoaks flourished. They sent a whitetail buck crashing through the brush into a cañon.
When night fell they built a fire of niggerheads and after they had eaten found its glow grateful. For they were well up in the hills now and the night air was sharp.
In the sandy desert they had followed easily the trail of the thieves, but as they had got into the hills the tracks had become fainter and fewer. The young men discussed this while they lay in their blankets in a water-gutted gulch not too near the fire they had built.
"Like huntin' for a needle in a haystack," said Bob. "Their trail's done petered out. They might be in any one of a hundred pockets right close, or they may have bore 'way off to the right. All they got to do is hole up and not build any fires."
"Fat chance we got," admitted Dave. "Unless they build a fire like we done. Say, I'd a heap rather be sleepin' here than by that niggerhead blaze to-night. They might creep up and try to gun us."
Before they had been in the saddle an hour next day the trail of the thieves was lost. The pursuers spent till sunset trying to pick it up again. The third day was wasted in aimless drifting among the defiles of the mountains.
"No use, Bob," said his friend while they were cooking supper. "They've made their getaway. Might as well drift back to Malapi, don't you reckon?"
"Looks like. We're only wastin' our time here."
Long before day broke they started.
The cañons below were filled with mist as they rode down out of the mountains toward the crystal dawn that already flooded the plain. The court-house clock at Malapi said the time was midnight when the dust-covered men and horses drew into the town.
The tired men slept till noon. At the Delmonico Restaurant they found Buck Byington and Steve Russell. The trail herd had been driven in an hour before.
"How's old Alkali?" asked Dave of his friend Buck, thumping him on the back.
"Jes' tolable," answered the old-timer equably, making great play with knife and fork. "A man or a hawss don't either one amount to much after they onct been stove up. Since that bronc piled me at Willow Creek I been mighty stiff, you might say."
"Dug's payin' off to-day, boys," Russell told them. "You'll find him round to the Boston Emporium."
The foreman settled first with Hart, after which he, turned to the page in his pocket notebook that held the account of Sanders.
"You've drew one month's pay. That leaves you three months, less the week you've fooled away after the pinto."
"C'rect," admitted Dave.
"I'll dock you seven and a half for that. Three times thirty's ninety.
Take seven and a half from that leaves eighty-two fifty."
"Hold on!" objected Dave. "My pay's thirty-five a month."
"First I knew of it," said the foreman, eyes bleak and harsh. "Thirty's what you're gettin'."
"I came in as top hand at thirty-five."
"You did not," denied Doble flatly.
The young man flushed. "You can't run that on me, Dug. I'll not stand for it."
"Eighty-two fifty is what you get," answered the other dogmatically. "You can take it or go to hell."
He began to sort out a number of small checks with which to pay the puncher. At that time the currency of the country consisted largely of cattlemen's checks which passed from hand to hand till they were grimy with dirt. Often these were not cashed for months later.
"We'll see what the old man says about that," retorted Dave hotly. It was in his mind to say that he did not intend to be robbed by both the Doble brothers, but he wisely repressed the impulse. Dug would as soon fight as eat, and the young rider knew he would not have a chance in the world against him.
"All right," sneered the foreman. "Run with yore tale of grief to Crawford. Tell him I been pickin' on you. I hear you've got to be quite a pet of his."
This brought Dave up with a short turn. He could not take advantage of the service he had done the owner of the D Bar Lazy R to ask him to interfere in his behalf with the foreman. Doble might be cynically defrauding him of part of what was due him in wages. Dave would have to fight that out with him for himself. The worst of it was that he had no redress. Unless he appealed to the cattleman he would have to accept what the foreman offered.
Moreover, his pride was touched. He was young enough to be sensitive on the subject of his ability to look out for himself.
"I'm no pet of anybody," he flung out. "Gimme that money. It ain't a square deal, but I reckon I can stand it."
"I reckon you'll have to. It's neck meat or nothin'," grunted the foreman.
Doble counted him out eighty dollars in cattlemen's checks and paid him two-fifty in cash. While Dave signed a receipt the hook-nosed foreman, broad shoulders thrown back and thumbs hitched in the arm-holes of his vest, sat at ease in a tilted chair and grinned maliciously at his victim. He was "puttin' somethin' over on him," and he wanted Dave to know it. Dug had no affection for his half-brother, but he resented the fact that Sanders publicly and openly despised him as a crook. He took it as a personal reflection on himself.
Still smouldering with anger at this high-handed proceeding, Dave went down to the Longhorn Corral and saddled his horse. He had promised Byington to help water the herd.
This done, he rode back to town, hitched the horse back of a barber shop, and went in for a shave. Presently he was stretched in a chair, his boots thrown across the foot rest in front of him.
The barber lathered his face and murmured gossip in his ear. "George Doble and Miller claim they're goin' to Denver to run some skin game at a street fair. They're sure slick guys."
Dave offered no comment.
"You notice they didn't steal any of Em Crawford's stock. No, sirree! They knew better. Hopped away with broncs belongin' to you boys because they knew it'd be safe."
"Picked easy marks, did they?" asked the puncher sardonically.
The man with the razor tilted the chin of his customer and began to scrape. "Well, o'course you're only boys. They took advantage of that and done you a meanness."
Dug Doble came into the shop, very grim about the mouth. He stopped to look down sarcastically at the new boots Sanders was wearing.
"I see you've bought you a new pair of boots," he said in a heavy, domineering voice.
Dave waited without answering, his eyes meeting steadily those of the foreman.
The big fellow laid a paper on the breast of the cowpuncher. "Here's a bill for a pair of boots you charged to the old man's account—eighteen dollars. I got it just now at the store. You'll dig up."
It was the custom for riders who came to town to have the supplies they needed charged to their employers against wages due them. Doble took it for granted that Sanders had done this, which was contrary to the orders he had given his outfit. He did not know the young man had lost his boots while rescuing Crawford and had been authorized by him to get another pair in place of them.
Nor did Dave intend to tell him. Here was a chance to even the score against the foreman. Already he had a plan simmering in his mind that would take him out of this part of the country for a time. He could no longer work for Doble without friction, and he had business of his own to attend to. The way to solve the immediate difficulty flashed through his brain instantly, every detail clear.
It was scarcely a moment before he drawled an answer. "I'll 'tend to it soon as I'm out of the chair."
"I gave orders for none of you fellows to charge goods to the old man," said Doble harshly.
"Did you?" Dave's voice was light and careless.
"You can go hunt a job somewheres else. You're through with me."
"I'll hate to part with you."
"Don't get heavy, young fellow."
"No," answered Dave with mock meekness.
Doble sat down in a chair to wait. He had no intention of leaving until
Dave had settled.
After the barber had finished with him the puncher stepped across to a looking-glass and adjusted carefully the silk handkerchief worn knotted loosely round the throat.
"Get a move on you!" urged the foreman. His patience, of which he never had a large supply to draw from, was nearly exhausted. "I'm not goin' to spend all day on this."
"I'm ready."
Dave followed Doble out of the shop. Apparently he did not hear the gentle reminder of the barber, who was forced to come to the door and repeat his question.
"Want that shave charged?"
"Oh! Clean forgot." Sanders turned back, feeling in his pocket for change.
He pushed past the barber into the shop, slapped a quarter down on the cigar-case, and ran out through the back door. A moment later he pulled the slip-knot of his bridle from the hitching-bar, swung to the saddle and spurred his horse to a gallop. In a cloud of dust he swept round the building to the road and waved a hand derisively toward Doble.
"See you later!" he shouted.
The foreman wasted no breath in futile rage. He strode to the nearest hitching-post and flung himself astride leather. The horse's hoofs pounded down the road in pursuit.
Sanders was riding the same bronco he had used to follow the horsethieves. It had been under a saddle most of the time for a week and was far from fresh. Before he had gone a mile he knew that the foreman would catch up with him.
He was riding for Gunsight Pass. It was necessary to get there before Doble reached him. Otherwise he would have to surrender or fight, and neither of these fitted in with his plans.
Once he had heard Emerson Crawford give a piece of advice to a hotheaded and unwise puncher. "Never call for a gun-play on a bluff, son. There's no easier way to commit suicide than to pull a six-shooter you ain't willin' to use." Dug Doble was what Byington called "bull-haided." He had forced a situation which could not be met without a showdown. This meant that the young range-rider would either have to take a thrashing or draw his forty-five and use it. Neither of these alternatives seemed worth while in view of the small stakes at issue. Because he was not ready to kill or be killed, Dave was flying for the hills.
The fugitive had to use his quirt to get there in time. The steepness of the road made heavy going. As he neared the summit the grade grew worse. The bronco labored heavily in its stride as its feet reached for the road ahead.
But here Dave had the advantage. Doble was a much heavier man than he, and his mount took the shoulder of the ridge slower. By the time the foreman showed in silhouette against the skyline at the entrance to the pass the younger man had disappeared.
The D Bar Lazy R foreman found out at once what had become of him. A crisp voice gave clear directions.
"That'll be far enough. Stop right where you're at or you'll notice trouble pop. And don't reach for yore gun unless you want to hear the band begin to play a funeral piece."
The words came, it seemed to Doble, out of the air. He looked up. Two great boulders lay edge to edge beside the path. Through a narrow rift the blue nose of a forty-five protruded. Back of it glittered a pair of steady, steely eyes.
The foreman did not at all like the look of things. Sanders was a good shot. From where he lay, almost entirely protected, all he had to do was to pick his opponent off at his leisure. If his hand were forced he would do it. And the law would let him go scot free, since Doble was a fighting man and had been seen to start in pursuit of the boy.
"Come outa there and shell out that eighteen dollars," demanded Doble.
"Nothin' doin', Dug."
"Don't run on the rope with me, young fellow. You'll sure be huntin' trouble."
"What's the use o' beefin'? I've got the deadwood on you. Better hit the dust back to town and explain to the boys how yore bronc went lame," advised Dave.
"Come down and I'll wallop the tar outa you."
"Much obliged. I'm right comfortable here."
"I've a mind to come up and dig you out."
"Please yoreself, Dug. We'll find out then which one of us goes to hell."
The foreman cursed, fluently, expertly, passionately. Not in a long time had he had the turn called on him so adroitly. He promised Dave sudden death in various forms whenever he could lay hands upon him.
"You're sure doin' yoreself proud, Dug," the young man told him evenly.
"I'll write the boys how you spilled language so thorough."
"If I could only lay my hands on you!" the raw-boned cattleman stormed.
"I'll bet you'd massacree me proper," admitted Dave quite cheerfully.
Suddenly Doble gave up. He wheeled his horse and began to descend the steep slope. Steadily he jogged on to town, not once turning to look back. His soul was filled with chagrin and fury at the defeat this stripling had given him. He was ready to pick a quarrel with the first man who asked him a question about what had taken place at the pass.
Nobody asked a question. Men looked at him, read the menace of his sullen, angry face, and side-stepped his rage. They did not need to be told that his ride had been a failure. His manner advertised it. Whatever had taken place had not redounded to the glory of Dug Doble.
Later in the day the foreman met the owner of the D Bar Lazy R brand to make a detailed statement of the cost of the drive. He took peculiar pleasure in mentioning one item.
"That young scalawag Sanders beat you outa eighteen dollars," he said with a sneer of triumph.
Doble had heard the story of what Dave and Bob had done for Crawford and of how the wounded boy had been taken to the cattleman's home and nursed there. It pleased him now to score off what he chose to think was the soft-headedness of his chief.
The cattleman showed interest. "That so, Dug? Sorry. I took a fancy to that boy. What did he do?"
"You know how vaqueros are always comin' in and chargin' goods against the boss. I give out the word they was to quit it. Sanders he gets a pair of eighteen-dollar boots, then jumps the town before I find out about it."
Crawford started to speak, but Doble finished his story.
"I took out after him, but my bronc went lame from a stone in its hoof.
You'll never see that eighteen plunks, Em. It don't do to pet cowhands."
"Too bad you took all that trouble, Dug," the old cattleman began mildly.
"The fact is—"
"Trouble. Say, I'd ride to Tombstone to get a crack at that young smart
Aleck. I told him what I'd do to him if I ever got my fists on him."
"So you did catch up with him."
Dug drew back sulkily within himself. He did not intend to tell all he knew about the Gunsight Pass episode. "I didn't say when I told him."
"Tha's so. You didn't. Well, I'm right sorry you took so blamed much trouble to find him. Funny, though, he didn't tell you I gave him the boots."
"You—what?" The foreman snapped the question out with angry incredulity.
The ranchman took the cigar from his mouth and leaned back easily. He was smiling now frankly.
"Why, yes. I told him to buy the boots and have 'em charged to my account. And the blamed little rooster never told you, eh?"
Doble choked for words with which to express himself. He glared at his employer as though Crawford had actually insulted him.
In an easy, conversational tone the cattleman continued, but now there was a touch of frost in his eyes.
"It was thisaway, Dug. When he and Bob knocked Steelman's plans hell west and crooked after that yellow skunk George Doble betrayed me to Brad, the boy lost his boots in the brush. 'Course I said to get another pair at the store and charge 'em to me. I reckon he was havin' some fun joshin' you."
The foreman was furious. He sputtered with the rage that boiled inside him. But some instinct warned him that unless he wanted to break with Crawford completely he must restrain his impulse to rip loose.
"All right," he mumbled. "If you told him to get 'em, 'nough said."
CHAPTER X
THE CATTLE TRAIN
Dave stood on the fence of one of the shipping pens at the Albuquerque stockyards and used a prod-pole to guide the bawling cattle below. The Fifty-Four Quarter Circle was loading a train of beef steers and cows for Denver. Just how he was going to manage it Dave did not know, but he intended to be aboard that freight when it pulled out for the mile-high town in Colorado.
He had reached Albuquerque by a strange and devious route of zigzags and back-trackings. His weary bronco he had long since sold for ten dollars at a cow town where he had sacked his saddle to be held at a livery stable until sent for. By blind baggage he had ridden a night and part of a day. For a hundred miles he had actually paid his fare. The next leg of the journey had been more exciting. He had elected to travel by freight. For many hours he and a husky brakeman had held different opinions about this. Dave had been chased from the rods into an empty and out of the box car to the roof. He had been ditched half a dozen times during the night, but each time he had managed to hook on before the train had gathered headway. The brakeman enlisted the rest of the crew in the hunt, with the result that the range-rider found himself stranded on the desert ten miles from a station. He walked the ties in his high-heeled boots, and before he reached the yards his feet were sending messages of pain at every step. Reluctantly he bought a ticket to Albuquerque. Here he had picked up a temporary job ten minutes after his arrival.
A raw-boned inspector kept tally at the chute while the cattle passed up into the car.
"Fifteen, sixteen—prod 'em up, you Arizona—seventeen, eighteen—jab that whiteface along—nineteen—hustle 'em in."
The air was heavy with the dust raised by the milling cattle. Calves stretched their necks and blatted for their mothers, which kept up in turn a steady bawling for their strayed offspring. They were conscious that something unusual was in progress, something that threatened their security and comfort, and they resented it in the only way they knew.
Car after car was jammed full of the frightened creatures as the men moved from pen to pen, threw open and shut the big gates, and hustled the stock up the chutes. Dave had begun work at six in the morning. A glance at his watch showed him that it was now ten o'clock.
A middle-aged man in wrinkled corduroys and a pinched-in white hat drove up to the fence. "How're they coming, Sam?" he asked of the foreman in charge.
"We'd ought to be movin' by noon, Mr. West."
"Fine. I've decided to send Garrison in charge. He can pick one of the boys to take along. We can't right well spare any of 'em now. If I knew where to find a good man—"
The lean Arizona-born youth slid from the fence on his prod-pole and stepped forward till he stood beside the buckboard of the cattleman.
"I'm the man you're lookin' for, Mr. West."
The owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle brand looked him over with keen eyes around which nets of little wrinkles spread.
"What man?" he asked.
"The one to help Mr. Garrison take the cattle to Denver."
"Recommend yoreself, can you?" asked West with a hint of humor.
"Yes, sir."
"Who are you?"
"Dave Sanders—from Arizona, first off."
"Been punchin' long?"
"Since I was a kid. Worked for the D Bar Lazy R last."
"Ever go on a cattle train?"
"Twice—to Kansas City."
"Hmp!" That grunt told Dave just what the difficulty was. It said, "I don't know you. Why should I trust you to help take a trainload of my cattle through?"
"You can wire to Mr. Crawford at Malapi and ask him about me," the young fellow suggested.
"How long you ride for him?"
"Three years comin' grass."
"How do I knew you you're the man you say you are?"
"One of yore boys knows me—Bud Holway."
West grunted again. He knew Emerson Crawford well. He was a level-headed cowman and his word was as good as his bond. If Em said this young man was trustworthy, the shipper was willing to take a chance on him. The honest eye, the open face, the straightforward manner of the youth recommended his ability and integrity. The shipper was badly in need of a man. He made up his mind to wire.
"Let you know later," he said, and for the moment dropped Dave out of the conversation.
But before noon he sent for him.
"I've heard from Crawford," he said, and mentioned terms.
"Whatever's fair," agreed Dave.
An hour later he was in the caboose of a cattle train rolling eastward.
He was second in command of a shipment consigned to the Denver Terminal
Stockyards Company. Most of them were shipped by the West Cattle Company.
An odd car was a jackpot bunch of pickups composed of various brands. All
the cars were packed to the door, as was the custom of those days.
After the train had settled down to the chant of the rails Garrison sent Dave on a tour of the cars. The young man reported all well and returned to the caboose. The train crew was playing poker for small stakes. Garrison had joined them. For a time Dave watched, then read a four-day-old newspaper through to the last advertisement. The hum of the wheels made him drowsy. He stretched out comfortably on the seat with his coat for a pillow.
When he awoke it was beginning to get dark. Garrison had left the caboose, evidently to have a look at the stock. Dave ate some crackers and cheese, climbed to the roof, and with a lantern hanging on his arm moved forward.
Already a few of the calves, yielding to the pressure in the heavily laden cars, had tried to escape it by lying down. With his prod Dave drove back the nearest animal. Then he used the nail in the pole to twist the tails of the calves and force them to their feet. In those days of crowded cars almost the most important thing in transit was to keep the cattle on their legs to prevent any from being trampled and smothered to death.
As the night grew older both men were busier. With their lanterns and prod-poles they went from car to car relieving the pressure wherever it was greatest. The weaker animals began to give way, worn out by the heavy lurching and the jam of heavy bodies against them. They had to be defended against their own weakness.
Dave was crossing from the top of one car to another when he heard his name called. He knew the voice belonged to Garrison and he listened to make sure from which car it came. Presently he heard it a second time and localized the sound as just below him. He entered the car by the end door near the roof.
"Hello! Call me?" he asked.
"Yep. I done fell and bust my laig. Can you get me outa here?"
"Bad, is it?"
"Broken."
"I'll get some of the train hands. Will you be all right till I get back?" the young man asked.
"I reckon. Hop along lively. I'm right in the jam here."
The conductor stopped the train. With the help of the crew Dave got Garrison back to the caboose. There was no doubt that the leg was broken. It was decided to put the injured man off at the next station, send him back by the up train, and wire West that Dave would see the cattle got through all right. This was done.
Dave got no more sleep that night. He had never been busier in his life. Before morning broke half the calves were unable to keep their feet. The only thing to do was to reload.
He went to the conductor and asked for a siding. The man running the train was annoyed, but he did not say so. He played for time.
"All right. We'll come to one after a while and I'll put you on it," he promised.
Half an hour later the train rumbled merrily past a siding without stopping. Dave walked back along the roof to the caboose.
"We've just passed a siding," he told the trainman.
"Couldn't stop there. A freight behind us has orders to take that to let the Limited pass," he said glibly.
Dave suspected he was lying, but he could not prove it. He asked where the next siding was.
"A little ways down," said a brakeman.
The puncher saw his left eyelid droop in a wink to the conductor. He knew now that they were "stalling" for time. The end of their run lay only thirty miles away. They had no intention of losing two or three hours' time while the cattle were reloaded. After the train reached the division point another conductor and crew would have to wrestle with the problem.
Young Sanders felt keenly his inexperience. They were taking advantage of him because he was a boy. He did not know what to do. He had a right to insist on a siding, but it was not his business to decide which one.
The train rolled past another siding and into the yards of the division town. At once Dave hurried to the station. The conductor about to take charge of the train was talking with the one just leaving. The range-rider saw them look at him and laugh as he approached. His blood began to warm.
"I want you to run this train onto a siding," he said at once.
"You the train dispatcher?" asked the new man satirically.
"You know who I am. I'll say right now that the cattle on this train are suffering. Some won't last another hour. I'm goin' to reload."
"Are you? I guess not. This train's going out soon as we've changed engines, and that'll be in about seven minutes."
"I'll not go with it."
"Suit yourself," said the officer jauntily, and turned away to talk with the other man.
Dave walked to the dispatcher's office. The cowpuncher stated his case.
"Fix that up with the train conductor," said the dispatcher. "He can have a siding whenever he wants it."
"But he won't gimme one."
"Not my business."
"Whose business is it?"
The dispatcher got busy over his charts. Dave became aware that he was going to get no satisfaction here.
He tramped back to the platform.
"All aboard," sang out the conductor.
Dave, not knowing what else to do, swung on to the caboose as it passed. He sat down on the steps and put his brains at work. There must be a way out, if he could only find what it was. The next station was fifteen miles down the line. Before the train stopped there Dave knew exactly what he meant to do. He wrote out two messages. One was to the division superintendent. The other was to Henry B. West.
He had swung from the steps of the caboose and was in the station before the conductor.
"I want to send two telegrams," he told the agent. "Here they are all ready. Rush 'em through. I want an answer here to the one to the superintendent."
The wire to the railroad official read:
Conductor freight number 17 refuses me siding to reload stock in my charge. Cattle down and dying. Serve notice herewith I put responsibility for all loss on railroad. Will leave cars in charge of train crew.
DAVID SANDERS
Representing West Cattle Company
The other message was just as direct.
Conductor refuses me siding to reload. Cattle suffering and dying. Have wired division superintendent. Will refuse responsibility and leave train unless siding given me.
DAVE SANDERS
The conductor caught the eye of the agent.
"I'll send the wires when I get time," said the latter to the cowboy.
"You'll send 'em now—right now," announced Dave.
"Say, are you the president of the road?" bristled the agent.
"You'll lose yore job within forty-eight hours if you don't send them telegrams now. I'll see to that personal." Dave leaned forward and looked at him steadily.
The conductor spoke to the agent, nodding his head insolently toward
Dave. "Young-man-heap-swelled-head," he introduced him.
But the agent had had a scare. It was his job at stake, not the conductor's. He sat down sulkily and sent the messages.
The conductor read his orders and walked to the door. "Number 17 leaving.
All aboard," he called back insolently.
"I'm stayin' here till I hear from the superintendent," answered Dave flatly. "You leave an' you've got them cattle to look out for. They'll be in yore care."
The conductor swaggered out and gave the signal to go. The train drew out from the station and disappeared around a curve in the track. Five minutes later it backed in again. The conductor was furious.
"Get aboard here, you hayseed, if you're goin' to ride with me!" he yelled.
Dave was sitting on the platform whittling a stick. His back was comfortably resting against a truck. Apparently he had not heard.
The conductor strode up to him and looked down at the lank boy. "Say, are you comin' or ain't you?" he shouted, as though he had been fifty yards away instead of four feet.
"Talkin' to me?" Dave looked up with amiable surprise. "Why, no, not if you're in a hurry. I'm waitin' to hear from the superintendent."
"If you think any boob can come along and hold my train up till I lose my right of way you've got another guess comin'. I ain't goin' to be sidetracked by every train on the division."
"That's the company's business, not mine. I'm interested only in my cattle."
The conductor had a reputation as a bully. He had intended to override this young fellow by weight of age, authority, and personality. That he had failed filled him with rage.
"Say, for half a cent I'd kick you into the middle of next week," he said, between clamped teeth.
The cowpuncher's steel-blue eyes met his steadily. "Do you reckon that would be quite safe?" he asked mildly.
That was a question the conductor had been asking himself. He did not know. A good many cowboys carried six-shooters tucked away on their ample persons. It was very likely this one had not set out on his long journey without one.
"You're more obstinate than a Missouri mule," the railroad man exploded.
"I don't have to put up with you, and I won't!"
"No?"
The agent came out from the station waving two slips of paper. "Heard from the super," he called.
One wire was addressed to Dave, the other to the conductor. Dave read:
Am instructing conductor to put you on siding and place train crew under your orders to reload.
Beneath was the signature of the superintendent.
The conductor flushed purple as he read the orders sent by his superior.
"Well," he stormed at Dave. "What do you want? Spit it out!"
"Run me on the siding. I'm gonna take the calves out of the cars and tie 'em on the feed-racks above."
"How're you goin' to get 'em up?"
"Elbow grease."
"If you think I'll turn my crew into freight elevators because some fool cattleman didn't know how to load right—"
"Maybe you've got a kick comin'. I'll not say you haven't. But this is an emergency. I'm willin' to pay good money for the time they help me." Dave made no reference to the telegram in his hand. He was giving the conductor a chance to save his face.
"Oh, well, that's different. I'll put it up to the boys."
Three hours later the wheels were once more moving eastward. Dave had had the calves roped down to the feed-racks above the cars.
CHAPTER XI
THE NIGHT CLERK GETS BUSY PRONTO
The stars were out long before Dave's train drew into the suburbs of Denver. It crawled interminably through squalid residence sections, warehouses, and small manufactories, coming to a halt at last in a wilderness of tracks on the border of a small, narrow stream flowing sluggishly between wide banks cut in the clay.
Dave swung down from the caboose and looked round in the dim light for the stockyards engine that was to pick up his cars and run them to the unloading pens. He moved forward through the mud, searching the semi-darkness for the switch engine. It was nowhere to be seen.
He returned to the caboose. The conductor and brakemen were just leaving.
"My engine's not here. Some one must 'a' slipped up on his job, looks like. Where are the stockyards?" Sanders asked.
The conductor was a small, middle-aged man who made it his business to get along with everybody he could. He had distinctly refused to pick up his predecessor's quarrel with Dave. Now he stopped and scratched his head.
"Too bad. Can't you go uptown and 'phone out to the stockyards? Or if you want to take a street-car out there you'll have time to hop one at Stout Street. Last one goes about midnight."
In those days the telephone was not a universal necessity. Dave had never used one and did not know how to get his connection. He spent several minutes ringing up, shouting at the operator, and trying to understand what she told him. He did not shout at the girl because he was annoyed. His idea was that he would have to speak loud to have his voice carry. At last he gave up, hot and perspiring from the mental exertion.
Outside the drug-store he just had time to catch the last stockyards car.
His watch told him that it was two minutes past twelve.
He stepped forty-five minutes later into an office in which sat two men with their feet on a desk. The one in his shirt-sleeves was a smug, baldish young man with clothes cut in the latest mode. He was rather heavy-set and looked flabby. The other man appeared to be a visitor.
"This the office of the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company?" asked Dave.
The clerk looked the raw Arizonan over from head to foot and back again.
The judgment that he passed was indicated by the tone of his voice.
"Name's on the door, ain't it?" he asked superciliously.
"You in charge here?"
The clerk was amused, or at least took the trouble to seem so. "You might think so, mightn't you?"
"Are you in charge?" asked Dave evenly.
"Maybeso. What you want?"
"I asked you if you was runnin' this office."
"Hell, yes! What're your eyes for?"
The clerk's visitor sniggered.
"I've got a train of cattle on the edge of town," explained Dave. "The stockyards engine didn't show up."
"Consigned to us?"
"To the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company."
"Name of shipper?"
"West Cattle Company and Henry B. West."
"All right. I'll take care of 'em." The clerk turned back to his friend. His manner dismissed the cowpuncher. "And she says to me, 'I'd love to go with you, Mr. Edmonds; you dance like an angel.' Then I says—"
"When?" interrupted Dave calmly, but those who knew him might have guessed his voice was a little too gentle.
"I says, 'You're some little kidder,' and—"
"When?"
The man who danced like an angel turned halfway round, and looked at the cowboy over his shoulder. He was irritated.
"When what?" he snapped.
"When you goin' to onload my stock?"
"In the morning."
"No, sir. You'll have it done right now. That stock has been more'n two days without water."
"I'm not responsible for that."
"No, but you'll be responsible if the train ain't onloaded now," said
Dave.
"It won't hurt 'em to wait till morning."
"That's where you're wrong. They're sufferin'. All of 'em are alive now, but they won't all be by mo'nin' if they ain't 'tended to."
"Guess I'll take a chance on that, since you say it's my responsibility," replied the clerk impudently.
"Not none," announced the man from Arizona. "You'll get busy pronto."
"Say, is this my business or yours?"
"Mine and yours both."
"I guess I can run it. If I need any help from you I'll ask for it. Watch me worry about your old cows. I have guys coming in here every day with hurry-up tales about how their cattle won't live unless I get a wiggle on me. I notice they all are able to take a little nourishment next day all right, all right."
Dave caught at the gate of the railing which was between him and the night clerk. He could not find the combination to open it and therefore vaulted over. He caught the clerk back of the neck by the collar and jounced him up and down hard in his chair.
"You're asleep," he explained. "I got to waken you up before you can sabe plain talk."
The clerk looked up out of a white, frightened face. "Say, don't do that.
I got heart trouble," he said in a voice dry as a whisper.
"What about that onloadin' proposition?" asked the Arizonan.
"I'll see to it right away."
Presently the clerk, with a lantern in his hand, was going across to the railroad tracks in front of Dave. He had quite got over the idea that this lank youth was a safe person to make sport of.
They found the switch crew in the engine of the cab playing seven-up.
"Got a job for you. Train of cattle out at the junction," the clerk said, swinging up to the cab.
The men finished the hand and settled up, but within a few minutes the engine was running out to the freight train.
Day was breaking before Dave tumbled into bed. He had left a call with the clerk to be wakened at noon. When the bell rang, it seemed to him that he had not been asleep five minutes.
After he had eaten at the stockyards hotel he went out to have a look at his stock. He found that on the whole the cattle had stood the trip well. While he was still inspecting them a voice boomed at him a question.
"Well, young fellow, are you satisfied with all the trouble you've made me?"
He turned, to see standing before him the owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter
Circle brand. The boy's surprise fairly leaped from his eyes.
"Didn't expect to see me here, I reckon," the cattleman went on. "Well, I hopped a train soon as I got yore first wire. Spill yore story, young man."
Dave told his tale, while the ranchman listened in grim silence. When Sanders had finished, the owner of the stock brought a heavy hand down on his shoulder approvingly.
"You can ship cattle for me long as you've a mind to, boy. You fought for that stock like as if it had been yore own. You'll do to take along."
Dave flushed with boyish pleasure. He had not known whether the cattleman would approve what he had done, and after the long strain of the trip this endorsement of his actions was more to him than food or drink.
"They say I'm kinda stubborn. I didn't aim to lie down and let those guys run one over me," he said.
"Yore stubbornness is money in my pocket. Do you want to go back and ride for the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle?"
"Maybe, after a while, Mr. West. I got business in Denver for a few days."
The cattleman smiled. "Most of my boys have when they hit town, I notice."
"Mine ain't that kind. I reckon it's some more stubbornness," explained
Dave.
"All right. When you've finished that business I can use you."
If Dave could have looked into the future he would have known that the days would stretch into months and the months to years before his face would turn toward ranch life again.