Читать книгу The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox - Страница 58

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Thirty-four Pass lay hard locked in the grip of the storm. For almost a week daylight had been little more than a gray and weaving half light. Sight of the distant valley was blotted out; even the timber line was lost somewhere down the driving mists. Twenty feet below the drifts lay the trail, and the wind, booming across these drifts, ripped high sprays of snow upward and sent them sheeting against the summit cabin, like tall waves smashing across a stormy sea. A bitter and bleak world it was, with the peaks obscured and enshrouded, and sending earthward the errie scream of the gale as it sheered the sharp points; a world of torturing cold and uneasy loneliness. Even the cabin, perched on a ledge above the trail, was banked to the eaves. Inside, a fire burned, and the heat formed layers of thawed ice against the panes, adding to the interior darkness. Water dripped through the roof; wind and snow sifted between every minute interstice. Jim Chaffee sat hugging the stove and studied the dwindling pile of wood.

"I always figured Purgatory was a hot place," he muttered. "But I reckon I must have been mistaken. If this ain't hell's back door then I'm a monkey's lineal cousin."

One foot was bare and soaking in a pan of hot snow water. He lifted the member with patient care and ran a thumb around a swollen ankle bone. "No use tryin' to walk on that for another week. It won't hold me up none before. Then what? In a week I won't have energy enough to open that door. Fact is, I'm awful gant right now. Chaffee, old horse, if you got a brain, now is the time to use it. If I stay I starve. If I try to crawl out I freeze. From these simple facts let us proceed somewhere."

A fat and sedentary man could have lived on the strength stored in his surplus tissues these five monotonous days. Jim Chaffee was not fat, nor never had been anything else than muscularly thin. And he always had lived the kind of a life that absorbed the energy of each meal and left none for storing away. He was feeding on his life's vitality, slowly breaking down the fine machinery of his body. After the horse had thrown him he had crawled better than one mile along the gathering darkness to the cabin. The place was just as some itinerant trapper had left it—a pile of wood by the stove, a half-dozen battered utensils hung along the wall. But excepting a rind of bacon as hard as a rock and an empty flour sack there was nothing left to eat in the cupboard. During the first two days he considered himself absolutely destitute of food. After that an empty stomach jogged his wits and he experimented. He filled a lard pail with water. Turning the flour sack inside out he took his pocket knife and scraped away the gray film of flour left in the seams. This went into the pail of water. After it went the bacon rind. He stoked the stove and let the mixture boil of an hour.

The lard can smelled bad to begin with, the bacon rind was not easy to look at. "However, it's nourishment, ain't it?" he consoled himself, and poured out a small portion of the brew. He had always heard that a starving man could eat anything and say that it was as good as a king's dish. The first drink of this rancid, anemic soup convinced him that was gross error. Nothing in all his mature experience tasted half as horrible. He choked down the revolt of his stomach and optimistically took his pulse. Maybe it was the last jog of nourishment in the bacon rind and flour that made him feel a kind of glow. Maybe it was just the hot water, maybe it was only the excitement of hope. All in all, it was a poor experiment. In fact, it seemed to make matters worse, for the hot water further aggravated the sensation of being as hollow as a drum. He drank a little more on the third day. But on the fourth day disgust took him and he threw can and contents across the room. "I'd as lief eat dead rats."

Meanwhile, the snowdrift piled higher around the cabin, and he knew that unless he kept some sort of an alley cleared from the door the time would come when he couldn't get out, as weak as he was becoming. On hands and knees he crawled across the room and opened the door, to face a solid wall of snow. Very patiently he burrowed a tunnel upward through it, working in the manner of a mole. He reached daylight and looked into a dim, bleak world blasted by the bitter wind; he heard the shrill and weird wailing of the peaks lost above the pall. A minute or two of this was ample. He slid back into the cabin and built a stronger fire to thaw the frozen marrow of his bones.

By the fifth day he had used all of the wood. The next fuel was the bunk. The posts and the lodgepole stringers went into the stove. All that was then left was the cupboard, and he was afraid that once the cupboard came down more rifts of the cabin wall would be uncovered there. Debating over this, the fire died and the snow water in the pan cooled. He pulled on his sock and shoe and rose to his one good foot.

"Got to keep the fire burnin'," said he with a spry cheerfulness. "While I'm warm I might as well be good an' warm. When I'm cold it won't make no difference, anyhow. Mister Cupboard, come to your uncle."

The cupboard was only a dry-goods box nailed to the wall. He hopped over to it and gripped the edges, hauling downward with his weight. The cupboard gave slightly and resisted. Jim Chaffee let his arm fall; and an expression of shocked surprise flickered across his slim face. Two ten penny nails—nothing more—anchored that box. And he couldn't pull it down. This was bold handwriting on the cabin wall. He became aware than that he was weaker than he figured and he made no further attempt at getting firewood. Instead, he hopped back to the stove and plunged into an involved train of thoughts.

"Now this ain't really so bad. I'm alive, ain't I? I'm not hangin' by mere perspiration to the edge of the canyon. And I'm not dodgin' any bullets. Nobody can poison my soup, because there ain't any soup to poison. It bein' cold, I don't need to worry about bein' bit by a hydrophobia dog. Shucks, there's lots of things that can't happen to me. The point is, I wonder what Mack's up to?"

He had promised to drop a line from Bannock City. Mack would worry about not getting a letter. Mack would begin to look ahead and count over possibilities. Knowing his partner very well, Jim understood that after a certain length of time had elapsed without word Mack Moran would not sit idle. The battling puncher would fet aboard a horse and investigate. Right there was a definite hope.

"Question becomes, how long will he wait?" pondered Jim Chaffee. "If everything had gone according to schedule I'd have written three days ago, and he'd have said letter by now. He'll be wonderin' right now. But he'll wait another twenty-four hours, anyhow. Then he'll start up this way. If I can hold out till Tuesday—"

Tuesday seemed remote. In fact the longer he studied his position the more impossibly distant Tuesday became. He took himself to account. "Listen, Chaffee, what's the idea of expectin' somebody else to hoist you out of this pickle? It ain't your style. You're twenty-one, free, white, and hungry. You got into this jackpot. Now it's up to you and nobody else. Do somethin'."

A gunny sack lay over in one corner of the room. He boosted himself across the floor and got it. Taking his knife he cut a hole in the sewed end and shook out the dirt. Then he measured himself against it and slit an aperture on either side. Throwing the sack over his head he found he had a smock which, though quite dusty and smelling very evil, gave him so much extra protection. Thus far he had no idea at all of what he meant to do. The next logical thing seemed to be an inspection of his gun, and following that he moved toward the door.

"It's a long way back to Gorman's lodge," he muttered. "Too far to crawl. But do somethin' anyhow. You can't expect a break unless you go out there and make one. Stick here much longer and you'll be pickin' bananas off the wall. It's serious when a man begins talkin' to himself unless he's a sheep herder. Just amble out and have a look."

He opened the door and found the tunnel half filled in. So he took up the bitter work of clearing another alley to the surface. Once again the knife edge of the slashing wind bit into his bones, and once again he heard the shrill wailing of the peaks above him. According to his judgment it was around noon, but he had no way of exactly determining. There was no hint of sun in the cheerless snow mist, no hint of time's passage at all except the waxing and waning of the thin, bleak light. He was isolated, cut off from human kind in this high, storm battered world.

The rounding alley of the pass beckoned either way. West was back to timber line, back to Gorman's. East was into the adjacent valley. All landmarks were buried, and the weaving, driving snow choked out everything but the immediate foreground. Rising to one knee he studied this desolation neither hopefully nor otherwise. He could fight, and he was so prepared to fight—the last great fight for simple existence; yet at the same time he was a gambler at heart and, being a gambler, studied his chances with a critical eye. Not for a moment did he allow himself the folly of optimism. He knew very well that the elements had him hamstrung, that they were pulling him down to a soundless and not unpleasant death. So much he admitted.

"Why lay down and quit in that cabin? I might make it to Gorman's. I might. Wind's behind me and it's down grade. Well, if there's any other chances I'd better think of 'em right now before I start."

He was conscious all of a sudden that the intense cold didn't bite him as it should. He wasn't feeling it like he ought to feel it. "A good man can stand lots of this," said he. "But it gets a thin old wolf like me sudden, I better be movin'. I sure do wish I could eat coffee and flapjacks in that little log house of mine once more."

He crawled away from the tunnel, testing his strength against the snow. Ten yards left him doubtful. Twenty more yards and he stopped, breathing hard and feeling the quiver of his muscles. It may have been a momentary flash of despair that turned him about for a last look at the summit cabin; it may have been a recognition of defeat; or it may have been some impalpable note of warning singing along the whipping wind. But he turned at any rate; and deep in the mist, beyond the cabin, he saw a tall silhouette moving across the gray background of the storm. It woke all the hope he had left; it dredged up the last of his strength. He stood on his knees, trying to penetrate the pall; he shouted, knowing that the wind whipped his words on down the slope—the wrong way. Then the silhouette disappeared.

"Eyes goin' bad. Why don't I get sore about it? Why don't I kick up a fuss? Now what—"

The silhouette reappeared, quartered along the lifting clouds of snow, and halted. Didn't have the shape of a man. Maybe a horse. But what would a horse be doing up here? The tricks of the snow tantalized him, thinning and thickening, giving him an instant's glimpse of the moving object and then shutting it from sight. He dropped to all fours and crawled against the wind. He came abreast the cabin, toiled on, and stopped out of exhaustion. The silhouette grew plainer, broke the mists. A mule-tail buck deer stood fifty yards away, ribs sprung out against sunken flanks; the animal braced its feet wide in the snow and lowered its head.

Chaffee reached for his gun. "Mister Buck, just take your time. Don't be in any hurry. And drift this way, you son-of-a- gun!"

The deer advanced a few more yards and again took a stand. The wind was driving him onward across the pass. How he had gotten this far up Chaffee didn't understand, but he was not disposed to reflect on the vagaries of the animal kingdom at this precise moment. Flat on his stomach, he crawled ahead, wishing the day was still darker. He stopped, afraid to move into the buck's line of vision, and he made a tripod with his elbows and propped the gun between palms.

"That's all right Take your time. You got this far, now come a little farther. No, that snow ain't fit to eat. And you can't smell me a-tall. Not a-tall, Mister Buck. Wind's the wrong way. That's right—one foot in front of the other. Same way my mamma taught me to walk. Nossir, you can't see me, either. I'm all covered with snow. It's only a log you see. Yeah."

The buck plowed ahead, directly in fine with Chaffee. The man pulled back the gun's hammer and took a test sight. Right in the chest and a little to one side. But it was still too far. The buck had trouble in making traction, and three times during that long spell of waiting the beast stopped. Chaffee throttled the impulse to shoot. Another yard would make it surer. And when the deer advanced the necessary yard Chaffee argued with himself again as if he were lecturing an impatient child. Still another yard to be more sure. "Yuh look hungry. Well, they's all sorts of nice grass down beyond me. Don't take my word for it. Use your own judgment. Ain't that what you come all this way to find? Now next time you stop, turn halfway round. I'll be obliged. I'd rather aim behind a forequarter. Won't hurt you near so much."

All this was under his breath. Feeling fast fled from his arms. The muzzle of the gun had a tendency to droop. The buck halted twenty yards or more away. Chaffee sighed and squeezed the trigger. The report of that shot roared in his ears and was flung back by the wind; the buck reared, whirled about, and raced into the teeth of the driving mist. A moment later he was beyond the pall, and all of Jim Chaffee's hopes went with him. The revolver dropped to the snow, nor did the man make any effort to secure it. Very, very slowly he hauled himself toward the cabin. He was sleepy and he began to argue with himself, "about the blamed well you got to exert a little more steam. Cabin ain't but a mite off. Hoopa—one more boost." His head dropped and he never knew when he went to sleep. The descent to oblivion was very easy. Gay Thatcher and Ranzo Taber, coming along less than five minutes later with Taber's huskies, almost ran over him.

His feet hurt—that woke him out of the stupor. They stung like fury. So did his hands; so did his ears. And somebody worked over him with a great deal of unnecessary roughness. He opened his eyes and saw Ranzo Taber, whom he didn't know. Beyond stood Gay Thatcher.

"I missed that doggone buck," he murmured.

"I guess you did," said Taber. "He went by us like a shot out of a gun. How do you feel?"

"All the symptoms. Yeah, I know you're pinchin' my legs. Feelin's comin' back."

"Guess you can stoke up the fire," said Taber to Gay.

The girl went over and ripped the cupboard down with one single motion. Chaffee couldn't help grinning. "I wasn't able to budge it a little while back. When I get out of here I'm goin' to hire somebody to haul six-eight cords of wood alongside this cabin. Where did you come from?"

"Have a drink first," suggested Taber. Chaffee strangled over a jolt of whisky, but the benefit derived there from was immediate.

"When did you eat last?" asked the girl, breaking the cupboard into the stove.

"Not since I left Linderman's."

The girl pulled a canteen from her shoulders and came over to Chaffee. "I thought something like that might have happened. This is chocolate. One big drink, Jim. No more."

Ranzo Taber started for the door. "Want to look at the dogs. We better be hittin' out of this pretty quick. Ain't long till dark."

Chaffee took a long drink of warm chocolate. Every minute brought an added sting and jab of some reviving piece of skin, but he felt in pretty good shape, almost as if he were waking from a turbulent dream. Gay Thatcher he began to study with freshening interest. In the week's interval she had changed some. Laying aside the effect of man's clothing and high boots, she appeared tired, somehow sad. Her eyes were of a deeper color; once when she caught his direct glance a tinge of crimson slowly rose to her cheeks—and went away. He remembered their meeting in the jail and he wondered what she thought about now.

"You tell your story; then I'll tell mine," said she.

He took another pull on the canteen. "Takes a woman to think of a drink like that. Wouldn't this be a haywire world without women? My story don't amount to much. I got out of the jail, ran the lines with Mack, ended up at Linderman's, borrowed a horse and hit for the pass. Was kind of tired, so the horse caught me sleepin' and threw me. Twisted my ankle. Got to the cabin. Been here ever since. Was about to depart for regions unknown when you came along. How did you figure I was here?"

"I saw Mack. He told me you hadn't written. He was worried. I got the whole story from him and put two and two together. So I circled around to Bannock City and went to Ranzo Taber's ranch. It is only ten miles east of here. Ranzo runs two or three strings of huskies every winter for sport. I knew that. You weren't in Bannock City, and I figured you must be somewhere along the trail. So we came." She fell silent. But a moment later he was startled to hear the swift vehemence of her words. "Jim, do you know how close to death you were out there in the snow!"

"I can make a guess at it," he muttered, bothered by something else. "I don't just see why you went to all this trouble."

"Don't you, Jim?"

The color came to her cheeks again; her lips were pursed tightly and she held herself very straight and still. He turned his head to the wall, stirred by strange currents. "Well—give me that canteen." He downed the last of the chocolate. Ranzo Taber came back.

"Better be going. How do you stack up, Chaffee?"

"Nothing wrong with me except a weak ankle and an empty stomach. Once I get about haif a cow inside me I'll be ready to r'ar."

He sat up, feeling a little bit giddy, and drew on his socks and boots. But he wasn't ready to stand on his own strength yet, so Ranzo Taber bent a shoulder, and in this manner they left the summit cabin. Chaffee rolled into the sled; Gay Thatcher pulled the blankets around him and stepped back.

"You take 'er down, Miss Gay," said Taber. "I'll trot behind. Mush!"

So in the deepening mists and with the peaks shrilling dismally the dog team snapped into the traces, ran the sled across the level mouth of the pass and down the eastern slopes. Full dark found them inside Taber's ranch house at the foot of the bench, found Jim Chaffee siting up to a table and eating his first good meal in five or six days.

"Once a sourdough, always a sourdough," said Taber, smiling reminiscently. "It's been ten years since I left the Klondike, but I never been without huskies in that time. Folks have always wondered why I fooled with 'em. Well, you're the fourth man I've found up around the peaks. Two of 'em came in stiff. You're lucky. Now it ain't any of my business, But I'm wonderin' what the next play is."

The girl said nothing, leaving the question for Chaffee to answer. She had slipped back to feminine clothing, and the transformation somehow bothered Chaffee. He recollected moments when she had seemed close and intimate, when she had appeared to be fashioned out of the same simple, sturdy clay that he himself was made of. Now she had withdrawn and become silent and aloof; and she added a touch of grace and beauty to the table that marked her of another world. Nothing definite. Only the lamplit casting a glow on her clear profile. The slender suppleness of her fingers twining around the water glass.

"I've got to get into Bannock City and drop Mack a note," said Chaffee. "Then I reckon I'll give my foot a week to limber up. After that I reckon I'll sort of breeze back into Roaring Horse again. Maybe—maybe not. Depends."

"Mack is laid up with a bullet in his shoulder," said the girl.

"Who did it?" demanded Chaffee with so much force that Ranzo Taber's interest switched away from his coffee cup.

The girl went through the story, her soft voice rounding out the details of Stirrup S passing into other hands, of the arrival of the first homesteaders. Chaffee's face settled. "Where's Miz Satterlee?"

"She left. I don't know where she went."

"Where's the crew?"

"Some are at Melotte's, watching over Mack. Others just took the trail. Times have changed, Jim. It is Mr. Woolfridge's country now."

"I suppose," agreed Chaffee, heavy hearted. "It was a sweet little valley. Just made for a man to live out a comfortable life with good friends. Jupiter, but I hate to see that swept from under my feet."

"Aren't things always going out from under our feet?" murmured Gay. "Isn't that life—nothing sure, nothing settled?"

Ranzo Taber looked at her with a significant bobbing of his head. "Now yore talkin' from experience, Miss Gay."

"I suppose. I have never known a certain day since I was fifteen. And the older I grow the less sure I am of anything—even of myself."

"Well," went on Taber, "this is a darned good place to rest up, Chaffee. Make it two weeks. I'll teach you how to run huskies, like I taught Miss Gay when she was a youngster. Both of you stay on. Miss Gay"—and again significance dwelt in Taber's words—"you need a little rest. Won't be anybody around here to pester you. I'll see to that."

"I'm obliged, but I better get on to Bannock City and get in touch with some folks," said Chaffee. Taber's talk concerning the girl stirred his curiosity, though he tried to keep from showing it. She looked across to him in a manner that for a moment reminded him again of the scene in the jail. Wistful—asking him unvoiced questions.

"Thanks, Ranzo. You have always been kind to me. But I must get back to the capital."

Therefore the both of them were in a rig driven by Taber by starlight the following morning. They reached Bannock City an hour or less before the stage started south to the railroad. Chaffee felt a little flimsy and he allowed them to help him into the hotel and up to a second floor room, although it touched his pride to be thus nursed. He had always been self-sufficient, always had leaned confidently on his strength. Ranzo Taber shook hands and left behind him a hearty invitation. Gay walked into the hall and spoke a moment with Taber in a subdued voice; then Taber went away and the girl returned to the room to find Jim Chaffee in a chair and studying the blank walls with a set, grim gaze.

"Well, Jim."

She had meant to say good-bye then and there. But the words got turned aside, and she found herself asking questions. "What are you going to do?"

"The hardest work I ever did in my life for the next ten days," said he. "Rest. Stay off my feet. Eat. And wish to God I was on the other side of the range. Jupiter, but it is going to actually hurt."

"Then back to fight? Oh, Jim, why?"

"It's my country, ain't it?"

"Do you know, I have heard you get stubborn like this before. And somehow I always feel a bit proud of you. But I wish—Isn't there some other little creek with cottonwoods growing around it, and peace for you?"

He shook his head. She saw his rawboned hands come together and grip hard. "I reckon not. Tell me—has Locklear still got all those burglar-jawed gents around him?"

"I have heard by the grapevine route," said she, "that most of them were sent away. When I left I saw only three or four. Perrine and his men are off in the desert somewhere. Everything is on the boom for the new settlers. Mr. Woolfridge has sent his ad through half a dozen states for them to come. Promising them everything when the power company builds its dam in the Roaring Horse. And his name is on about every third building in town. It is his town, Jim."

He absorbed the news silently. By and by he raised his head. "Yes, I'm going back there."

"I knew you would," she murmured. "Good-bye, Jim."

That roused him. He took hold of the chair arms and half rose. "Wait a minute. Now wait. When am I going to see you again—where will you be?"

"Our trails seem to keep crossing, don't they, Jim?" She had a trick of smiling to hide the elusive wistfulness of her heart. "But—it can't go on forever. I don't know when I'll see you next. I don't know where I'll be. There'll come a time, though, when you and I will be far apart. One of these days I am going to leave this country."

"Why?"

Her sturdy shoulders rose. "Isn't it human to be seeking something you haven't got?"

"What would that be?" he persisted, worry creeping along his face.

"I don't even know," said she. "The trouble with me, Jim, is that I have no roots down. They were torn out of the ground a few years ago. There is nothing to hold me steady."

"I sort of hate to hear you talk that way," he protested. "Change—why have things got to change so fast? Here's something else sliding away from me. I wish—" But he never finished the remark, falling instead into another somber study. Presently the girl prompted him with a gentle phrase: "Wish what, Jim?"

"I reckon I've got no right to wish anything at the present state of affairs. I want you to know, Gay, I'm thinkin' of what you've done for me. And I'll remember it a long, long time." His fist doubled. "I'm not sayin' what I want to say."

She came over to him as he rose and balanced on his one sound foot. She put out her hand, manlike; his big palm closed around it and he peered down into her face, sharp and questioning. "That time I first saw you passin' on the street—I never made a mistake. I wanted to meet you pretty bad."

Her smile deepened. "And I thought you would never manage it. You are a fine gentleman, Jim. I wish you all the luck in the world. And if I could only feel surer of your safety in the future—"

Her hand was warm with her quick blood; fragrance rose from her hair. She was a woman through and through, troubling his senses with her sweet desirability. Again she appeared to be asking him questions with her calm eyes, and there was a contradiction in the firm red lips. Her chin tilted to meet his glance, and somehow the soft curves of her throat sent fire through his veins. He was still weak and his will relaxed. Otherwise it never would have happened. But the next moment he had drawn her tightly against him, murmuring some choked phrase, and he had kissed her. She was as still as death. He felt both hands resting lightly on his shoulders, and the throb of her heart swelled against his chest. Then she swayed, the pressure breaking the spell. He dropped his arms, a fury of self-reproach blazing on his lean face.

"If I had a gun, Gay, I'd ask you to take a shot at me!"

Her eyes were brilliant; she had caught her upper lip between her teeth as if to suppress the tears. And she studied Jim Chaffee as no other woman had ever studied him before. "You—you have nothing to be sorry for, Jim. Nothing! That was my reward and I'll always remember it."

"I'm God's own fool."

"You are the finest gentleman I have ever known," said she. Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "But—I wish you had asked me some questions first. Oh, Jim, I have wanted you to ask them for so long a time. Good-bye, my dear."

He held himself up to the chair, still struggling with self- condemnation. The girl said nothing more. Slipping from the room she half ran down the stairs and out to the street. The stage was waiting in front of the hotel, and she caught up her grip and started to climb inside. A puncher idled across the street, and her attention, struck by something familiar, dwelt on him. Poised on the coach step she beckoned to him.

"Aren't you a Stirrup S man?"

"Was, ma'am. Ain't no Stirrup S any more."

"What are you doing here?"

"Jus' a-roamin'."

"Go up to room twenty-one. Jim Chaffee is there."

The puncher omitted a wild yip and plunged through the door. She heard him pounding along the stairs and she heard him yelling Chaffee's name. Then she settled inside the coach and a moment later was bound south for the railroad. There was nobody else traveling this morning; and so she could freely cry. Which she did.

Red Corcoran—that was the name of the ex-Stirrup S puncher—rolled an endless number of cigarettes and pumped Chaffee bone dry. Throughout the story he interjected amazing epithets. "Th' hell!" "Oh, the dirty Dion-eyed dawgs!" "Jim, yore a-makin' me inhuman an' impervious to charitable sentiments." "An' so the gal pulls yuh outen the hole? Say, I'd marry a woman for lessn' that."

"How about Locklear's white savages?"

"Shucks, they wasn't paid by Locklear, Jim. Ain't it clear by now? They was imported by Woolfridge. He's the main squeeze. Well, they've mostly went away. Couple-three-four left. They did the job, didn't they? Guess Woolfridge thinks so. Got a reason to think so. A flea can't even bite in Roarin' Horse 'less he gets orders from Woolfridge. Oh, it's a turrible mess. Stirrup S gone. Half dozen other outfits along the rim gone. Some old-timers left, but they ain't doin' no arguin'. Woolfridge has done put his moniker on a flock of buildin's. He did it dirty, but he did it. And what's anybody goin' to do about it? Nothin'."

"Where's Perrine?"

"Sashayin' around the country lookin' for yuh. As far as yore concerned they got the bee on yuh."

"I guess," agreed Chaffee. "But with all those hired plugs gone it wouldn't be so hard to buck Woolfridge and Locklear. Red, how many of the gang do you figger you could collect in ten days?"

The puncher brightened. "Fight? Why, I guess pretty close to twenty if I rode hard enough."

"Think they'll back me up in any play I make?"

"What yuh think we are?" was Corcoran's indignant rejoinder, "a pack uh yella pups? Shore! Miz Satterlee cried when she paid us off. Now if that ain't enough to make us fight I guess nothin' would. Gimme my travelin' orders and I'll do the trick."

"I'm goin' back," said Chaffee, "to find the man that killed Satterlee. Ten days I lay on my back right here. You collect the gang. Tell 'em to meet me the night of the eighth at the old ranch. If it's occupied by strangers, then have 'em meet me on the south bank of Linderman's. Keep it strictly under your Stetson. Tell the boys to do the same. When we get started we work under cover and we put the fear of God in somebody's black heart. Get goin'. Red."

"I'm gone," said Red Corcoran, and hoisted himself toward the door. On the threshold he tarried. "Better stay under cover yoreself. Perrine or Woolfridge or Locklear might have friends here which'd squeal on yuh."

"I'm all right. You travel."

Corcoran had one more bright thought. "Say, that Gay Thatcher ain't difficult to glance upon. Not any. Ever think of—"

But Chaffee's face turned so black and unfriendly that Corcoran closed the door in haste and departed.