Читать книгу Starlight Riders Boxed-Set 50 Western Classics in One Edition - Ernest Haycox - Страница 66

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Clint's first reaction was to race for the back way, flash a glance into an empty corral and sweep the level land in all directions. Nothing to be seen. Galloping back to the street, he let his eyes roam along all the horses in the plaza. The stable roustabout was just limping over from the saloon, dull face twitching with excitement. He stiffened when Charterhouses's hard challenge hit him.

"Where's my horse and gear? You been fiddling with something that don't belong to you?"

The roustabout was plainly startled. He broke into a trot and passed Charterhouse to spot the vacant stall. "Oh, gosh 'lmighty! Right from under my nose! Mister, I wasn't gone more'n a minute—right after the shooting! Say, look in the street. Somebody's playing a little joke on you."

"The joke ain't on me," Charterhouse grunted, boiling angry. "You've only been gone a minute, is that it? Then my outfit is somewheres around Angels. If I've got to tear this joint apart—"

"I wonder," began the roustabout, then clicked his teeth together. He shrugged his shoulders, pointing to a sign overhead: ALL PROPERTY LEFT HERE AT OWNER'S RISK. "Too bad, mister. But there's been a powerful crowd in Angels today. I'm sorry I was away, but it wouldn't 'a' done me no good if I was here. If a fellow had wanted that horse, he could of took it and told me to butt out. Pm only working here."

"Who owns this joint?"

"Studd."

Studd and Shander were crossing the plaza at that particular moment, deep in talk. Charterhouse waited until they reached the walk and then addressed the saloonkeeper curtly. "You may not be responsible, Studd, but that don't help me. Somebody's made off with around five hundred dollars of my horseflesh and gear. What do you aim to do about it?"

Studd jerked up his head in surprise. "Stole a horse from my stable? Like hell! Corbin—where was you?"

"I only left the place a minute to get me a snifter," said the roustabout sullenly. "I guess I got that right, when I work sixteen hours a day."

Studd pushed the man aside and walked in. Shander's brilliant eyes skimmed over Charterhouse. "You the fellow old Nickum talked uncivil to?"

"What of it?" retorted Charterhouse. "What's that got to do with my horse?"

"Nothing or everything," rasped Shander. He looked like a man physically ill; and in truth his skinny body was nothing but a shell. Joints showed through his loose clothing, his pigeon shoulders were too small for his head. The very brightness of his eyes seemed unhealthy. "Nothing or everything. You'll learn a lot if you stay around Casabella much."

"I'll stay till I find that horse, you just lay a bet on that," stated Charterhouse bluntly. Nero Studd came back in time to hear it, and he nodded.

"I don't blame you a bit. That horse made a pretty sight. Saw him myself."

"Well, what do you aim to do about it?" pressed Charterhouse.

Studd assumed an inscrutable air and looked at Shan-der. Charterhouse thought some kind of signal passed between them, though there was nothing definite about it. Then the saloonkeeper turned to inspect this tall man of the range more thoroughly.

"I can't replace your outfit. But I'll give you a good pony and good leather to sashay around and see can you find any trace of the thief. If you ain't lucky, I'll stand responsible for the difference in price. How's that?"

"Get me an outfit. I'm going to move. Won't be the first time I've trailed. I'll find my rig if I have to settle down and raise a family in Casabella."

Studd shifted to the roustabout. "Get the bay, Corbin, and my best leather. Hustle along, the gent wants to ride. Hell of it is there won't be no tracks to do you any good, Charterhouse. Ground's all muffled up with men coming and going today. Damned if I ain't sorry."

"You save your sorrow for the fellow that did the rustling," Charterhouse advised him and turned after the roustabout. Five minutes later he was out again, riding the substitute.

Studd broke off a low-pitched conversation with Shander. "Remember, I'll stand good for the difference. And if there's any favor I can do you, let me know. Sometimes I can be right useful to folks. Bear that in mind."

Charterhouse nodded and trotted northward in the path of the Box M outfit. It was useless to seek a trail among so many scuffed prints. But up yonder in the distance was the promise of wooded country which he meant to gain. From there he might sweep the land for stray riders; and timber was itself a possible hiding place. Not daring to press his mount too hard, he settled into a steady pace. "Favors from Studd, I bet, bear a return date with compound interest. That horse of mine might be right inside Angels this minute. If so, what could I do about it? I've got to play innocent and bold my cards high."

His last guess was dead center. No sooner had he cleared the town when Studd beckoned Corbin from the stable. "Who got the gent's outfit?"

"Pawl and Stuke Rennert. Horse is in the vacant lodge hall."

Studd nodded, at which Shander asked a question. "What did you do that for?"

"Good horse," opined Studd. "And I figured it might keep this Charterhouse around Cassabella for a while. We might need him."

"I don't intend to trust anything to a stranger," countered Shander.

"No-o, but he might be a good peg to hang some blame on. Ever think of that?"

"I doubt it," said Shander. "The lines are drawn too tight. What happens from now in is going to be pretty much in the open. No use trying to fool Nickum. He knows it's a case of simple and pure war. The bucket's tipped over. What he don't know is the amount of help we've got. Curly is coming to see me tonight. Curly's got thirty first-rate hands. Nickum don't savvy that."

"What you going to do with 'em?"

"Remains to be seen," rasped Shander. "Mebbe we'll nibble off a little chunk of Box M's stuff, mebbe we'll arrange to get some of his outfit out of call and tend to them. Mebbe a straight fight, no favors asked. But the other thing is already settled for tomorrow morning."

"Where?" asked Studd.

"Red Draw, same spot his lad was killed."

"Why pick on the same location? That ain't bright. How you going to get him there?"

"That's fixed. We got a simple, easy way of bringing him thataway. Just him and Haggerty." For some reason the two men grinned maliciously.

Studd poked a black thumb under the brim of his hat. "Didn't I say the stranger would come in handy? Nickum burnt his nose. Everybody heard it. What's hard about laying the blame on Mister Charterhouse?"

"What's the use of beating about the bush?" queried Shander. "We don't need any excuse. Once Nickum's gone, who is going to be interested in tracing down the reason for his killing? You run too much to this secret hocus-pocus."

"Stood me well in my affairs, Shander. May again. I never leave any loose strings if I can help it. What's orders from headquarters?"

"I'll know tonight," said Shander and swung away. "I'm riding home."

As Charterhouse rode, the land gradually lifted him and he began to command a more sweeping view of Casabella's vastness. The trees advanced slowly, the burning sun packed the heat layers more thickly against the ground, and the afternoon began to shimmer and drone. To his left a trail split away from the main stem and shot into the narrow mouth of a canyon that burrowed directly into the increasing elevation. For a considerable time he paralleled this, then lost it. But as he approached the summit of the ridge and the trees stood thinly around him, he found himself halted in a beaten area and looking down two hundred feet into sunless bottom.

Clint had often heard of Red Draw in his travels, for it was one of those natural freaks of nature worthy of more than a passing glance. Today he gave it only that and pressed on to thicker timber, finding the heat more oppressive in the shade than elsewhere. Eventually he came to a sort of knob that allowed him a full vista eastward.

Mile after mile the land stretched away, dimming with haze, empty of life, infinitely barren. Just visible was the low, bluish outline of a sprawling set of hills which, much riding experience told him, would be also barren and shelterless. Yet it was the kind of country Clint Charterhouse loved; here was room for a man to turn around, here was solitude; in short, this was cattle land, sweeping free and trackless. On impulse he left the trail that beckoned him deeper into timber and cut down into the open. To his left about a half mile, the piece of a house was visible, but he gave it no attention.

The suppressed, burning anger that had carried him out of town was now subsiding. Always the open trail had the power to soothe him like this, to whisper that another day would come and another chance present itself. The immense freedom of the prairie by day, the vaulted mystery by night—the appeal of it was in his blood and would be forever.

Three months ago he had been a responsible ranch foreman in the still farther west. Seasons of hard work behind, more seasons of hard work ahead. Sitting in the shade of a corral, he had thought about the back trail and in that instant the discovery every man makes sooner or later flashed devastatingly before him. He was twenty-six and the fine, fresh years of youth were going swiftly by. At the thought of it the savor of his cigarette went flat and all the old familiar objects about him became unsatisfactory. In the very heyday of physical and mental vigor what had he to look back upon but solemn plodding, and what could he look forward to but a straight and uneventful trail that in time dipped over the last hill? He had smoked the cigarette down to the end, risen and resigned to an astonished boss. Twenty minutes later he was riding forth, footloose and fancy free, neither knowing what he was to do or where he was to go. But he did know that the vast loneliness of the prairie impelled him to ride out and have a last taste of the heady, reckless days.

"What's life for?" he murmured now to the brassy sky. "A little work, a little to eat, a little to drink—and then a sleep. It ain't enough. Every man's got the right to look back on some piece of foolishness. Well, if I stay around Casabella, I'll get all the foolishness I can absorb. Storm brewing, clouds in the distance. It'll be a bloody welter when it gets going and nothing in God's green earth can stop it. If I was wise, I'd keep right on going. But I'm tired of being wise—and I'm looking for a horse." Range wars were always grim affairs, but while his mind condemned the impulse to stay, his blood pulsed with a tightening excitement.

He thought of Buck Manners, trying to match the inconsistencies of the man's nature. "Easy-going, packed full of deviltry, strong as a horse, laughs at most everything. But that grin conceals a heap of energy. I'd hate to be on the wrong side of any quarrel he was in. A left-handed, yellow-haired hellion. Nickum—he's true stuff, but why did he have to give me the razmataz?"

Something brought him out of his long study. At the last glance he had been surrounded by emptiness. Now, out of the northeast, grew a fan-shaped cloud with a black core, a little like the image of a baby cyclone snorting across the prairie. In time the black core became a solid, moving shape and that in turn shifted to individual riders abreast. They were aiming at him; he knew that because their angle of travel was always broadside to him as he jogged sedately along. He swept the country on all other sides and narrowed his hazel eyes. "Seem to think they have business with me. Wonder if this is to be a formal or informal party?" He shifted in the saddle, let his finger tips brush the butt of his gun, and pulled down the rim of his hat. His shadow grew longer and the burning rays of a sinking sun began to catch the back of his head. The party had swerved to cut in front of him. Never varying the even tempo of his march, he was presently confronted by ten Box M riders, Driver Haggerty and Heck Seastrom to the fore. He halted. Haggerty's stringy, unpleasant wedge of a face poked forward.

"What you doing here?"

"What of it?" countered Charterhouse.

"You know the rules," stated Haggerty, grinding down on his chew.

Clint stared at the group emotionlessly. "I'm acquainted with the general rules of the road, yeah. But I can't nowise keep up with a lot of tinhorn house rules that some of these rinkydink counties keep making and changing. What rules do you happen to allude to?"

"The deadline's what I mean," grunted Haggerty, increasingly sullen. "How come you're over it?"

"Don't recall any chalk marks or fences or deep sea buoys on the road. What deadline?"

"This ain't a fence country, brother. If you come from one, better get the hell back there. You're on Box M land, three miles deep from the deadline. What's your business?"

"My business is minding my business," allowed Charterhouse calmly. "I seem to have trouble doing it. You Box M buzzards sure seem awful proud of a few sand-blistered sections that ain't worth spitting on. How do you get that way? What misled you into believing the Lord personally anointed this scope of range anyhow?"

"I wouldn't get salty," growled Haggerty, a higher gleam of temper in his red eyes. "You may be a sure enough stranger and again mebbe you ain't. Pretty sassy, seems to me. Talked real large to old John, didn't you? How would you like to be left afoot out here and cool off?"

"That's just the kind of an Indian I got you pegged to be."

"Yeah?" snarled Haggerty. "Well, I'm apt to show you some more tricks besides. You know what happens to a man on the wrong side of the deadline?"

Charterhouse studied the group. Excepting for Seastrom they sat like so many sacks of meal, slant-eyed and hostile, just exactly the kind of men to take their instructions seriously. Seastrom grinned frankly at him and built a cigarette with a slightly bored air.

"Listen," said Charterhouse, using diplomacy's siren tongue, "I am aiming to ride across this flea-bit stretch of country and pass out of it. You boys have maybe swallowed enough of this real estate to consider you have a vested interest in it, which is all right with me. When I reach this said deadline I'll brush off my clothes so's I won't be packing any of your sacred soil away. That fair?"

"You'll do just what I say you'll do," grunted Haggerty.

Seastrom chuckled. "Hell's fire, Haggerty, he's all right. How could he know about a deadline? Let him fog on."

"Shut up. I'll attend to this business."

"Yeah?" murmured Seastrom, very mild. "You make another break like that to me and I'll begin to proceed to commence. I'm not your official pants buttoner."

The two men swapped long glances. Haggerty's sour face flushed up a little and he jerked his elbow at Charter-house. "Get out of here. Ride three miles south—and stay out! You've had your warning and next time you're caught there won't be any debate."

"Check," agreed Charterhouse, gathering his reins. "Being slapped twice today by your virtuous outfit, I'm beginning to feel you don't really admire me. Life's pretty short, Haggerty, to be so serious-minded. If I meet you again on open territory, I might enlarge on the subject."

Haggerty jammed his horse against Charterhouse. "If you want to make any speeches to me, go ahead."

"Never play another man's game," observed Charter-house.

"I thought so! Beat it, yellow-belly!"

"I'll bear that in mind," said Charterhouse without a trace of inflection. Swinging, he rode off, hearing Seastrom's lazy comment.

"You're a fool, Haggerty. Crooked or straight, that man ain't meek enough to swallow those remarks. You stepped over the line." Then the party gathered up and swept westward.

Charterhouse maintained the same level pace and the same indolent posture. But he was afire again, the hazel eyes stormy. The long nose pinched in at the nostrils and his mouth made a long thin line across the bronzed skin. The horse, without pressure, began to quicken and grew restless.

"Easy," said Charterhouse softly. "Plenty of time, plenty of time. Long day and another one coming. I see I have got more business than looking for stolen gear. Evidently Mister Haggerty has forgotten men are supposed to stand accountable for their remarks. That's a lesson he will be soon taught."

Since he had given his word to cross some imaginary deadline, he kept it stolidly—bearing constantly to the south. The sun sank and blue twilight began to fill up the arroyos like running water. Off easterly was the spread of a ranch and he curved for it while the moon strengthened in the sky and night fell down soundlessly and mysteriously. Then the lull of twilight was gone and a coyote mournfully announced the parade of night creatures. A yellow beam winked across the prairie, cutting through a velvet blackness that seemed to absorb the pale effort of the moon. The pony breathed beneath him, bridle chains tinkled—and elsewhere were only the musical reverberations of the earth.

Ears tuned to this, Clint was suddenly aware of a deep, subdued drumming ahead. Horsemen curved out of yonder space and cut across the beam of light one at a time. Perhaps three, perhaps ten. He couldn't tell. But they had drawn into the ranch. When he arrived in front of the main house, he saw the shadowed horses waiting and heard talk coming out of the open front door. He eased himself, thought it over a long moment and hailed the place. The talk cut off. A man blocked the area of light coming through the portal and then swiftly moved away from it, standing on the porch.

"Light and come in," was the curt welcome.

Charterhouse sidled his pony to the end of the porch and stepped off. "Passing through," was all he said, considering he had stated his needs sufficiently for any man versed in range hospitality. But the host's reply seemed long in coming and reserved in manner. "Step in," was all he said.

Charterhouse walked through the door, expecting to confront others. But the room was empty. A whisky bottle and several glasses were on a table, some half filled; tobacco smoke still curled in the light. Swinging about, he saw Shander follow through and stop, queerly watchful. "So—the stranger?" he muttered.

"Sure seems like I keep butting into the same list of people around here," rejoined Charterhouse gravely.

"Population of Casabella ain't so large," said Shander rather dryly. "And most of us shift ground in a hurry. You are welcome to my place. I'll have one of the boys put up your horse."

Warning struck Charterhouse like the clang of a fire bell. "If you don't mind," he answered, "I'll partake of a bite and pass on. Night riding's easy on the horse."

Shander's lips twitched sardonically. "Reckon that would depend what sort of night riding it was, wouldn't it?" A new idea diverted his line of thought. "I came out of Angels right behind you. Funny I didn't draw abreast along the way."

"Me, I cut for the timber country and then swung east."

"That would be in Box M territory," suggested Shan-der, eyes riveted on his guest. Charterhouse saw suspicion coiled in the man's eyes.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I found out about that later."

"How so?" asked Shander, driving the question home.

"Committee came out and spent a few minutes of their good time instructing me as to Casabella's lines and corner posts." Charterhouse rolled a cigarette, grinning slightly as if the memory amused him. But his nerves kept tightening up as he stood there facing that gaunt rancher with the sick body and burning glance. And though the house was quite still, he felt the presence of a great many other men just beyond sight, listening in on his words. Shander cleared his throat.

"I'll not bother you with rules," said he with plain courtesy. "Come along and I'll see you get a snack." He led the way through a back door into a dining room and lifted his voice. "Vasco—boil the coffee." And he bowed his head slightly at Charterhouse. "Excuse the lack of company. I've got a little business to take care of."

He went out as a Mexican came in from the kitchen and laid a platter of boiled beef and potatoes in front of Charterhouse. The latter fell to, not yet rid of the feeling he was under observation. Judging from the stacked dishes the men of the outfit had already eaten. Savoring his meal with the gusto of a hungry traveler, he heard footsteps tramping through the front room. Somebody swore and a general murmur of conversation eddied meaninglessly back to him. Vasco returned from the kitchen with a tin of pie and the coffee pot, leaving both for Charterhouse's pleasure. Dallying with his food, Charterhouse posted up his silent observations.

"Den of forty thieves. Couldn't of horned into a worse joint. Everything I do today is wrong and getting wronger. I don't feel right and I don't feel very damned safe. Sooner I ride off the better it's going to be. But I ain't so sure—"

He rolled a cigarette and rose to go into the front room. He knew he would face additional men but he was not prepared for the crowd that fronted him when he pushed open the door. Fifteen or twenty of them, with here and there an individual he thought he had previously seen in Angels. But familiar or strange, they were a woolly, bitten lot, a stolid and unpleasant set of characters. Nor was it reassuring to realize that they had come out of hiding; either they felt he was harmless or could soon be rendered harmless. Shander lolled in a chair and waved at the center table.

"Help yourself to the bottle. Welcome to the party."

Charterhouse grinned. "Should of brought my invite. Must have left it home on the bureau top."

"Doubt if it makes any difference," said Shander, hard amusement cropping out. "Main point is you're here and among friends."

"I was wondering about that last point," mused Charter-house, helping himself from a bottle.

"You're not deaf or dumb," said Shander, "and you seem able to add round numbers. So you can make up your own mind about the friend business. Said you come through the timber and circled east at the Bowlus place?"

"I came through the timber," replied Charterhouse. "I don't make this Bowlus place you mention. But there was a house off a ways."

"See anybody there?"

Charterhouse liked the tang of his liquor and decided for another, all the while feeling the increased pressure of attention from these taut-cheeked men. He was going through the grist mill, no doubt of that.

"No-o, it looked like empty country to me."

"How many in the Box M party that stopped you?" Charterhouse considered. "Six, eight—ten, I gather."

"Any familiar faces?"

"Seastrom...Haggerty."

This seemed to contain meat. There was a slight shifting, a covert passage of glances. Through the smoke he made out a white- faced youngster sitting in a dark corner and staring at him like an unwinking reptile. Shander pressed on.

"Which way did they go after they left you?"

"Struck westward," stated Charterhouse and put down his glass very carefully. "And with that answered, school's out for old man Charterhouse's little boy."

Shander's mouth tipped down at the corners. "Considered you've paid for your supper, uh?"

"In my country," Charterhouse drawled, "a guest owns the house as long as he is in it, no questions asked, no pay taken."

"Nice sentiment—for a peaceful land," admitted Shan-der and seemed to be unpleasantly affected by the remark. He rolled his cigar between fingers. "But we have to do different in Casabella."

"I am making a stab at playing neutral, Shander. What I see or hear I keep to myself."

"Also impossible in Casabella."

"I have bought no chips in this game," Charterhouse remarked.

"Beg to differ. You have."

"As how?"

"By stepping into Angels, for one thing. By having your nose blistered at Nickum's hands for another. By having your horse stole. By being chased across the deadline. If I'm any judge of human nature, you can't truthfully say it is your intention to ride out of Casabella and call it quits."

"It was a point I was debating," admitted Charter-house.

"I was betting you'd already made up your mind," countered Shander, seeming to enjoy himself. Light gleamed against his eyes. "Sit down and take life easy."

"I'd prefer to ride," said Charterhouse with a great deal more casualness than he felt.

"Couldn't think of turning a guest out this late. It wouldn't be seemly. I've had one of the boys put up your horse."

"In other words, I do what I'm told," challenged Charterhouse.

"Good guess. You're old enough to know why?"

"I have been known to do some private thinking," agreed Charterhouse. "Well, I never argue with a better run of cards than mine And if this whisky holds out, what difference does it make?"

Shander's sick face broke into lines of cynical humor, and he was on the point of speaking again when the youngster in the dark corner rose and pushed himself toward the table with a swagger of shoulders. In full light Charterhouse saw a triangular face, strangely pallid and as smooth as a woman's, with a pair of eyes as pale and unwavering as he had ever marked. A lock of silky hair escaped the brim of a floppy hat and fell down in front of each ear. A kid with a dirty face stood there, smiling a little, yet without the slightest humor; a vain, boasting youngster armed to the teeth. He squared himself at Charterhouse.

"Ever see me before?"

"Haven't had the pleasure."

"I'm Curly. You know who I am now?"

"Your reputation is known to me," admitted Charter-house truthfully. There was no man in the state more notorious than this youthful bandit.

"What's this for?" complained Shander.

"So he'll know me when he sees me again," grinned Curly and turned away. "Seems like we've done a smear of talking and got nowhere."

Shander nodded. "Chaterhouse, I expect you're pretty tired. We'll excuse you. Louey, escort the guest to the bunkhouse, and stay there yourself."

"I had just got to drinking good," mourned Charter-house and walked through the crowd. "Thanks for the hospitality, Shander, and I hope you have pancakes for breakfast. My favorite dish."

His guard ambled out behind him; they crossed the porch and stepped down to the soft earth. Horses nodded patiently in the darkness and one groaned dismally right beside Charterhouse. He had the stub of a dead cigarette in his mouth and halted to find a match, while Louey, not particularly interested, stood a yard off and waited.

"Damn," grunted Charterhouse, breaking his first match. He searched himself once more, eyes questing through the shadows. "Pass me a light, will you?"

As he said it, he began marching forward again, toward the dim shadow of the bunkhouse. Louey fell in step, both hands dropping into his pockets. Charterhouse veered slightly, gun ripping out of its seat, rising and smashing across the solid head of Shander's man. He fell and lay sprawling. Charterhouse whirled and checked an almost irresistible impulse to run for the horses; instead he walked quietly up to the nearest animal, reached for the trailing ribbons and stepped into the saddle. From the angle of the yard he was able to look through the open door of the house and see part of the crowd as they shifted about the room, with Shander risen and tramping around the table. He even caught a stray word or two. "...to-morrow, but otherwise..." Pulling the horse clear of the porch, he suddenly stiffened, all nerves like cold drawn wire. Somebody walked out of the desert, saw him, and casually hailed.

"Who's that—where you going?"

"Back in a minute," muttered Charterhouse.

"What for?" demanded the other. Talk in the house stopped; boots tramped over the boards as Charterhouse increased the distance intervening. The man swore glumly. "Quit sucking your tongue and talk up. Who is it?"

Then Shander's voice echoed flatly. "Who is that? Hold on—draw in! Louey, where are you? Louey! where are you? Louey! Stop that horse or—"

Charterhouse sank his spurs and the pony lurched into a swift burst of speed. The night was split apart by a shot, then a second, both whipping wide; Shander yelled and his crew came beating out to the porch. More explosions blasted the shadows. Charterhouse, drawing into the protecting darkness, heard a vast volume of swearing as that unruly crew fought their pitching horses. He had this much grace, this margin of safety and he rowled the sturdy beast beneath him unmercifully. Yet, pointed due eastward, he caught the peaked outline of Shander's barn right beside him and there flashed across his mind another expedient. If he kept going straight, they would pick up the drum of his flight or catch his silhouette against the horizon; if he swung now—

Obeying the impulse, Clint shot for the barn, rode against a side wall and stopped dead. The deep gloom folded about him. A few riders sped by easterly and then the bulk of the party pounded past. Somebody yelled an order to spread out fanwise. Another rider veered near and skirted Charterhouse no more than ten feet away. Then the thud and jangle of their progress dimmed, leaving him safe for the moment.

But as he gathered the reins and decided to ease gradually away in a southerly direction, he discovered himself trapped. Voices advanced from the house and a tardy horseman came around from the other end of the barn and jogged circularly about the ranch, apparently on guard against surprise. The voices came nearer. Two men talking. One was Shander, whose irritable tones began to carry distinct meaning.

"I never trust anybody. He may be one of Nickum's damned spies, for all we know. That palaver in the saloon between the two could easily have been faked. You got to remember old John knows all the tricks of the trade. We're not up against a greenhorn."

"Sure. But this Charterhouse probably was telling a straight yam." That, Charterhouse decided, was Curly. "I take it so. He just got scared and figured to pass out. I give him credit for guts, the way he pounded Louey down. I could use fellas like that."

"I don't trust anybody," repeated Shander, seeming to be nearer. "But he didn't hear anything important, if he was Nickum's man. Nickum already knows you and me are hooked up. All our cards have been exposed except one, which is how many men you've got collected. I want that held secret. You see to it nobody rides away from you. Keep a strict hand on your gang."

"Well, what's the next play? I got thirty-five tough nuts, and I can't keep 'em entertained by playing duck on a rock all day in Dead Man. Those fellows want to see action. Elsewise they'll pull freight."

"Everything depends on what happens in the morning," countered Shander. "Once Nickum is knocked over, the gate's wide open to us."

"Where's it going to happen?"

"Same place his kid was killed. On the trail to Angels, beside Red Draw where the trees thin down. Remember those three rocks in a row? That's the spot. Him and Haggerty will be coming alone. About ten in the morning, figuring them to start from Box M Ranch at eight, which is Nickum's habit."

"How'd you engineer this business, anyhow? What makes you so sure he'll be riding along there?"

"That's all taken care of by the other party. Let's go back to the house."

Charterhouse waited until their talk dwindled away. Then, knowing that any longer delay would narrow his chance of safe flight, he pushed the pony along the barn wall until he came to the corner. The mournful whistling of the riding guard approached. Some of the pursuers were straggling back. Charterhouse quelled a strong impulse to break and run, silently cursing this laggard riding guard who slid in front of him and slowly curved to the north. A shout came out of the distance, answered by another. Charterhouse slipped on into the open, scanning every inch of the shadows between barn and house. The Mexican cook walked out of a back door and dumped a pan of water. The sound evoked a clear call from a returning man.

"Say, he musta ducked into a hole around here! It ain't scarcely reasonable he coulda fell off the edge of the earth so sudden. How about looking around the yard? Anybody done it?"

Charterhouse was three hundred feet away and increasing the distance at a pace that seemed slower than crawling. He began to sweat, expecting at any moment to have them catch sight of his fugitive silhouette and come charging down. They were alive and excitable back there, like a pack of hounds trying to catch the scent of a rabbit. Lanterns bobbed; a strong party circled the barn rapidly; he felt rather than saw a second party driving straight at him. His horse walked down the lip of an arroyo and hesitated. Charterhouse drew a long breath, swung with the arroyo and increased speed. Presently he pulled out of the arroyo and cut a circle in the desert and never stopped until Shander's place was a mile southward, light still winking through the fog.

"Time to pause and consider," he mused. "I'm in a bad hole. One side or the other, it's open season on me. If I had the sense of a cooked flea, I'd turn and put the boundaries of this doggoned county away behind. So they are going to kick old John Nickum down the chute? Well, what of it? I don't owe him any favors. If he considers he don't need anybody's help, then I sure haven't got a call to butt in. No sir, I ought to turn."

Common sense told him to retreat. Therefore he did exactly the opposite thing, squared himself by the high, dim stars and settled into a steady jog eastward. Soon after he had crossed the deadline again, bound for the timbered ridge.

"Less than twelve hours from now—and hell to pay prob'ly. Well, I'm getting my wish."