Читать книгу Trailing Trouble - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 4

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When Tom Rainse awakened, dawn was just breaking. Tom lay in his dew-wet sleeping bag, still half asleep, but uneasily aware that something was wrong. At last he stirred, realizing what was wrong and, at the same time, knowing that it was not serious. Smoky was gone.

Of late, Smoky, Tom's big dog, half Plott hound and half bloodhound, had taken to prowling by himself. Tom suspected that he had a sweetheart somewhere, probably one of Bill Tolliver's pack. Last night Tom had tied him with a rope, but this morning the rope was neatly chewed in half and there was no evidence of Smoky. Well, when he was good and ready he would come back, find Tom's trail, and follow it.

Tom yawned, savoring the last few seconds of warmth and comfort before crawling out into the wet, cheerless morning. Then he crept unwillingly out of his sleeping bag, drew his boots on, tilted his battered hat on his head, and took his hunting knife from its sheath. He shaved the wet outer bark from a pine faggot and discarded the bark. Then he peeled down the dry inner portion of the stick until he had a handful of shavings. Laying them on the sleeping bag to keep them dry, he chopped firewood with a hand axe.

He laid a foundation of broken sticks, placed his tinder on them, and lighted it. Carefully he put smaller sticks on top, saw them catch fire, and added more wood. When the fire was blazing to suit him, he opened his pack, took out a skillet, a knife and fork, and an empty tin can. Ramming a crotched stick into the ground near the fire, he filled the can at a nearby spring, placed a generous handful of ground coffee in it, and hung it on the crotched stick to boil. From his pack he took ham, jelly, bread, and butter.

Yesterday, when he had set out on this patrol, there had been a variety of sarcastic comments from Buck Brunt, his fellow game warden. Any man who couldn't live off the country, Buck had said, was a fancy-pants who should take his out-of-doors in city parks. What was the matter with his hardihood? What had happened to the old pioneering spirit? If a man was too dumb to catch a few trout, and broil them on sticks, he could always scare up a mess of wild onions and June berries. If he couldn't do that much, he had no business going into the woods.

Tom smiled as he ate his ham from the skillet and drank hot coffee out of the tin can. Buck, true to his red hair and hair-trigger temper, was again yearning for violent action. Now that they had broken up the Black Elk's poaching ring, about all that remained was an occasional routine patrol like the one Tom was now on. He finished his breakfast, scrubbed his can and skillet in the sandy spring, and repacked them. Putting out his fire, he went to bring Pete in.

Last night Tom had slept high on a timbered mountain where there was not much good grazing, so he had staked his black and white pinto about two hundred yards from the more sheltered place where he himself had slept. Pete wouldn't mind the cold, and it was important that the tough little horse have all he could eat. It was thirty miles back to camp, and Tom wanted to get there early.

He broke through the thick stand of quaking aspens that shielded the meadow, then stopped in his tracks.

The meadow was there, and so was the picket pin to which Pete had been staked, but the black and white horse was not. Tom grunted his disgust. He should have been more careful; the pinto had broken picket ropes before. Pete was an exceptionally good mountain horse, fast and rugged, but he was also capricious. If he felt like working, he would come to Tom at once. If not, he would merely kick up his heels and run farther away.

Tom glanced at the circle of cropped grass around the picket pin. It was a wide circle, and closely eaten, therefore Pete had not broken away until early this morning. Perhaps he was still within hearing distance. Tom put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. For a moment he waited, and when nothing happened he whistled again. There was no response. Tom walked to the picket pin, and stopped to pull it up. Anger flared within him.

The picket rope had not been broken, but cut!

For a moment he stared unbelievingly at the clean break that could have been made only by a sharp knife. Some of the mountain men would steal horses, or anything else they could get their hands on, but it was highly improbable that any of them had stolen Pete. He was too well known as Tom's horse, and no mountain horse rustlers could hope to keep him even if they did steal him. Besides, before Tom bought him, Pete had been known far and wide as an outlaw. And even now, although almost anyone might lead Pete, no one else except Tom could ride him.

Tom got down on hands and knees to study the ground. Pete had been trampling on it most of the night, and the only tracks Tom could find had been left by the horse. Carefully, still on hands and knees, he circled while he continued to watch the grass closely. He reached down to pick up a long piece of thread.

It was heavy blue thread, of a type that might well have unraveled from a pair of blue levis. Unfortunately levis were worn by almost everyone in the mountains. Tom examined the thread carefully, then put it into his pocket. It did not tell him anything, but it was all he had.

Pete had been in the meadow most of the night; the closely eaten grass was proof of that. Probably he had been gone an hour or two at the most, but an hour was a long start when Tom would have to trail the horse thief. Meanwhile the rustler, if he led Pete and didn't try to ride him, could be putting more distance between himself and pursuit. Tom strode back to camp.

Smoky had not yet returned. Obviously he had left camp before Pete had been stolen; otherwise he would have scented the rustler and given warning of his presence. The big, smoke-colored dog had a bloodhound's miraculous sense of smell. Although he would not hunt game, he was unexcelled as a man-hunter, and Tom had known him to wind a man a quarter of a mile away, and to follow a hundred-hour-old trail. If Smoky were only here now, trailing the horse thief would be no problem at all.

Reaching camp, Tom took his rifle out of its waterproof canvas cover, inspected it carefully, and leaned it against a tree. He slipped a small can of oil into his pocket, for the rifle was sure to get wet and need attention before he could return it to the sheath. He put a bit of cloth, to be used for cleaning patches, in the same pocket, and stuck half a dozen fishhooks through his hat band. Then he coiled a hank of fish line in his shirt pocket, hung axe and knife on his belt, made sure he had waterproof matches, and took a final look around the camp.

Everything was all right. Pete's saddle and bridle hung on the same limb over which he had draped them last night. His sleeping bag he hung over another limb, making sure that it was loosely spread. Rain would penetrate stretched fabric when it would only wet the surface of any loose material. Tom knelt beside the pack, took an extra box of cartridges, and tied the pack to another branch.

He was ready. Any camp he made tonight would satisfy even Buck's idea of roughing it. If he ate at all, he would eat what he took from the woods or waters, and if he slept warmly it would be beside a fire. It was better that way, even if he went cold and hungry, because if he hoped to get Pete back he must travel fast and light. Tom returned to the picket pin where he had left Pete last night.

It would be a slow trail and a difficult one, but it had to have a beginning—and an end. When he came to that end, Tom decided grimly, there would be the sort of reckoning he wanted with the man who had stolen his horse. Eyes to the ground, he circled the picket pin. Then he found what he was looking for.

It was a single imprint of a horse's hoof, in a muddy place beyond the distance that the picket rope might have reached. Marking it carefully, Tom swung along in the direction the track pointed. Continuing to study the ground, using the single track he had already found as a starting point, he sought more sign.

As soon as he found out a bit more, he might be able to travel faster. But a lot depended on the man who had stolen Pete. A greenhorn, after stealing a horse, might be expected to take the most direct route away from its former owner. An experienced rustler, or mountain man, would make every effort to hide his getaway route. Trying to outguess the thief before he discovered the getaway pattern could mean losing the trail entirely. Tom moved slowly in what he thought was the right direction. He stopped, frowned, and walked back down the slope.

Something had registered when he passed a blackberry bush, but it had not registered strongly. He returned because, after he was well past, it seemed that there had been something unnatural about the bush. Stooping, he pulled it out of the ground.

It came easily, slipping from its bed into his hand, and when he examined the end he saw that the bush had been sliced with a sharp knife and thrust into place to cover another horse track. The leaves were still fresh and green, not yet wilted in the cool morning air, but the bush had leaned at a slightly unnatural angle. Tom held the bush in his hand for a moment, thinking, then cast it aside.

Obviously the rustler was no amateur, but a man who knew how to hide his trail. Probably he had had reason to hide other trails, and was accustomed to working outside the law. For a moment more Tom stood still, a look of annoyance on his face.

Tracking Pete down would be a slow job, and of all the times Smoky might choose to be away, this was the most inconvenient. The big hound was a superb man-hunter, and would make short work of this fresh trail. But wishing would not bring Smoky back. He would return when he had finished whatever business had taken him from camp. Meanwhile, to wait for him would be to lose valuable time.

Tom lined up the two horse tracks he had found, then struck at a fast walk toward the top of the mountain. On a little bench, well beneath the summit, he found a row of hoof marks leading across a rain-softened meadow. Beside them were the tracks of a man. They headed directly up the mountain, but now Tom walked very carefully.

The line of tracks was too plain, too inviting, and too easy. No horse thief, so careful to hide his trail in the beginning, would expose it like this without good reason. Tom left the bench and ascended the little pitch that led to the next one. He stopped again. To the left was soft ground, ahead the ground was covered with scuffed, wet leaves, but to the right an almost solid bed of granite boulders made a stone path that stretched indefinitely among the trees.

Tom hesitated, and murmured under his breath as a distant clap of thunder echoed. Last night's rain was not yet finished, evidently, and a heavy downpour such as often deluged the mountains would go a long way toward wiping out whatever trail existed. He would have to hurry. On sudden impulse Tom turned right and picked his way over the granite boulders.

He did not look at them as he stepped from stone to stone. Pete, who did not know what it was to travel a paved road, was never shod. It was useless to look for sign on the boulders because a shoeless horse would leave no indication of his passage across them. Tom walked as fast as he could.

Thunder blasted again, and again, nearer each time. Brilliant flashes of lightning struck through the gloomy morning and, overhead, rolling black clouds surged like an angry sea. Tom went on at a dogtrot, and emerged from the end of the boulders into a little open meadow. He stopped, sure now that his guess had been the correct one.

The meadow, like all mountain meadows, had been carpeted with grass and spotted with alpine flowers. But now it was chewed into black mud. Flowers were trampled, and broken bushes and shrubs trailed shattered branches toward the ground. As Tom read the signs, a grim satisfaction rose within him.

The thief, whoever he was, had considered himself far enough from Tom's camp to try riding Pete. Doubtless he had made a hackamore of the picket rope and had tried to control the horse with it.

Tom looked again at the destruction in the meadow. Pete had never been ridden by anybody except Tom, and obviously still didn't intend to be. Almost the entire meadow was churned up, and every bush bordering it had at least one broken branch. Pete had shown his mettle.

But so, Tom admitted, had the man who had tried to ride him. Pete wore neither saddle nor bridle, and anyone who could stay on his bare back, with only a hackamore as control, long enough to let Pete do as much damage as he had done, was a horseman in every sense of the word. The fact that he had managed to hold onto Pete after he was thrown, provided additional evidence that he knew his way around horses. A tenderfoot would have let Pete go.

Lightning appeared almost continuously now, and each brilliant flash was closely followed by its blast of thunder. Rain began to fall.

It came in great, sluicing sheets that pounded the earth and beat savagely at the trees. Tom buttoned his coat around his neck, and faced grimly into the storm. He knew several things about the horse thief now.

He was not a tenderfoot, a casual passer-by who had seen a good horse and impulsively stolen it. He knew how to ride and he was not a stranger to these mountains. But he had not been in them recently. If he had been, he would have known about Pete. Every native of the mountains knew the little horse, and that only Tom could ride him.

With painful slowness, Tom worked out the trail. The horse thief, knowing well that he had left a plain story in the glade for anyone who had eyes to read it, had resorted to cunning again when he left. A cluster of broken columbine showed Tom where he had swerved from the bench to strike across the mountain's summit. Tom followed, and as soon as he knew definitely that the thief had led Pete over the summit, he left the trail and ran.

Panting from the steep climb, he stood on top of the mountain and stared ahead. Keen disappointment stabbed him. The mountain top commanded an unsurpassed view of other peaks. One behind the other, they stretched in a seemingly endless panorama of almost virgin wilderness. It was glorious, unspoiled country, one of the few such places remaining. Ordinarily it thrilled Tom, but now he was disappointed because the rain was still falling furiously. He could see the peaks, but sheets of rain fell like dense mist into the valleys and obscured everything there. Tom had hoped to see Pete on one of the adjacent hillsides. On a normal day, his white color would have shown plainly, but today the rain hid everything except the slopes' indistinct outlines. Tom stood uncertainly.

The horse thief must have an objective, but just what was it? What was he doing in the mountains at all? Why had he kept a horse which he could not ride? Tom shifted the rifle from his left hand to his right, and bent his head against the slashing rain. Those were all questions that must be answered, but where would he find the answers?

Since he did not know the rustler's destination, and the man had held to no set pattern, Tom did not dare get off the trail or make any assumptions as to where the other man might be going. He must follow exactly, and the heavy rain was making that harder every minute. Slowly, letting nothing escape his probing eyes, he followed Pete's trail down the slope. Sometimes pausing several minutes to determine whether a pile of scuffed leaves had been left by the rain or a horse's hoof, occasionally back-tracking to straighten the trail out, he clung doggedly to it. He knew that the thief, leading Pete, could travel faster than he and that irritated him. He could do nothing about it, for to go plunging blindly on would only result in failure.

Twice more he found where the thief had attempted to ride the stolen horse, and where he had been thrown from Pete's back. Both times he had gone on, leading the horse. Maybe he had come close to riding Pete, and thought he would ride him if he tried again, or perhaps he hoped Pete would get used to him. Tom furrowed his brows. If the rustler could get a saddle and bridle somewhere, he might be able to ride Pete. Certainly he had already proved that he was a good horseman.

Then the heavy rains stopped, the sky cleared, and a short time later, twilight fell.

Curbing his impatience, Tom stopped beside a little stream that bubbled down a valley. It would be futile to go on at night; he had had difficulty enough following the trail by daylight. However, the thief could not travel at night either if he hoped to hide his trail. Tom looked sourly up the valley.

He had had to work the trail out and doubtless the rustler had increased his lead. But tomorrow was another day and a lot of things could happen. Sooner or later the rustler was sure to consider himself safe, and when he did he would grow more careless. Also, it was certain that, if he kept on, he would meet some mountaineer, and a lot of the mountain dwellers were Tom's fast friends. If the thief met somebody like old Bill Tolliver, it would be to his sorrow. Tom's friends, finding Pete in the possession of a stranger, were apt to shoot first and ask questions afterward.

Tom set about making camp. With the night, the cold had again returned. Tom cut a pile of firewood, enough to last until morning, and built a small fire against the face of a large boulder. Heat, reflected back from the boulder, would keep him warm. He drank from the stream, then kicked a clod of dirt aside and picked up half a dozen wiggling worms he found beneath it. Taking a hook from his hat band, he attached it to the fishing line and baited it.

Almost as soon as the hook hit the water, a trout struck. Tom lifted out a fat, nine-inch brook trout, and cast again. He had not stopped for lunch and was ravenous, so he fished until half a dozen trout lay on the stream bank beside him. Tom cleaned them, cut some green sticks, impaled a trout on each, and thrust the sticks into the earth near the fire. He licked his lips in anticipation. Unseasoned fish, under normal circumstances, were not the best of fare. But hunger was indeed a wonderful sauce, and flavoring that seemed necessary when it was available was not needed when hunger was intense.

Tom walked into the forest, found a patch of leeks, and grubbed a dozen out of the ground. He peeled off the outer layer and ate them with his fish. Hunger satisfied, he leaned quietly against the boulder.

By the fire's leaping light he set about cleaning his rifle, wiping all the outer metal parts thoroughly so that they would not rust, leaving a thin film of oil on them, and using a piece of fish line to pull an oily patch through the bore. In the mountains, when a man was alone, his rifle was his best and sometimes his only friend.

Suddenly Tom shoved six cartridges back into the rifle's magazine, and slipped away from the fire.

He had sensed, rather than heard or saw, something coming. Under the circumstances, it had better receive due attention. More than one man who otherwise might have lived to a ripe old age had failed to get out of a campfire's light. Tom lay still in the darkness, the rifle across his arm and his hand on the lever. What he did next depended upon what happened next, but he was ready to shoot if necessary.

A shadow moved against the fire, there was the bubbling sound of heavy jowls working, and the shadow halted. A second later the thing hurled itself across the intervening space straight at Tom. He grasped his rifle in one hand.

"Smoky!" he said delightedly.

The big hound stretched full length beside him, panting audibly and thumping his tail like a wind-hammered shrub. He sighed heavily, and laid his huge head on Tom's lap. Smoky had been on a long journey, clear back to old Bill Tolliver's house, to see how things were there. He had run half the night and all day, and now he was supremely happy to be back with his beloved master. All resentment forgotten, Tom tickled his ears.

"You big mutt," he crooned. "You useless old hammerhead. You would be away just when you were needed, wouldn't you?"

Smoky wagged his tail faster, and licked Tom's hand with his big tongue. He wriggled a bit closer, and grunted happily. Tom continued to massage his ears gently. It was good to have the great hound back with him.

"Bet you're hungry," he murmured. "I'll just bet you could eat. Well now, how'd you like a mess of trout? The commissary is all out of everything else!"

Smoky followed closely as Tom moved back inside the circle of light cast by the fire. He needn't fear anything now. Should an enemy come, Smoky would scent him and give warning while he was a long way from camp. With his near-miraculous power of scent, Smoky could detect a man three times as far away as the ordinary dog could.

Tom grubbed about in the dirt, scratching furrows with a sharp piece of firewood and picking up the worms he uncovered. When he had enough, he moved back to the stream and cast his baited hook. Smoky sat beside him, waiting patiently. Two minutes later, when Tom caught the first trout, Smoky ate it greedily. He ate another, and another, until he had had seven. When Tom caught the eighth, the big hound turned his head aside to signify that he had had enough. Tom disengaged the hook and returned the wriggling fish to the water, then moved back to the fire. Smoky padded closely beside him.

As Tom sat down, back against the boulder and one hand resting on Smoky's big head, an exultant little thrill gripped him.

All day long he had worked at a tremendous disadvantage. Now, with Smoky's return, the odds were again with him. The trail was only a few hours old, and despite the rain that had pounded into it, a bloodhound could still pick up the scent. Tom kept his hand on Smoky's head.

Both he and the dog had hit a long trail and both were in need of rest, but they would not require much. A few hours of sleep would suffice, then they could start out. Undoubtedly the horse thief thought himself safe. If he hadn't known Pete he wouldn't know Smoky either, and it would never occur to him that he might be trailed in the dark. If they started out shortly after midnight, Tom decided, they should gain back all the time he had lost and perhaps even surprise the thief in his camp.

His head pillowed on a block of wood, Smoky curled beside him, Tom lay down in the welcome heat cast by the fire. A woodsman who had often slept this way, he had no trouble sleeping now. Smoky edged a bit closer, and put his big head across Tom's stomach. Drowsily Tom reached out in the darkness to caress him.

He did not know what time it was when he awakened, but the fire had flickered to a few glowing coals and the resulting chill had ended slumber. Tom pitched a few more sticks on the fire and watched blue flames creep around them. The fire flared, and Tom went back to sleep. He replenished his fire again, and a third time. The fourth time he was awakened by the cold, he got stiffly to his feet.

The sky was completely clear, and filled with stars. The moon was a thin crescent, ready to sink behind a peak. Tom shook the final remnants of sleep away and picked up his rifle. There was no way of telling exactly what time it was, but he guessed it to be somewhere between midnight and one o'clock. He kicked dirt over the embers of his fire, then, taking the fish line from his pocket, he doubled it and tied one end to Smoky's collar. The other end he held in his hand.

"All right," he said softly. "Hunt him up."

Smoky wagged an amiable tail and snuffled at Tom's hand. Then, slowly, he went directly to the trail that led up the valley. He had known of the strange scent as soon as he came into camp, and stored it away with the maze of other scents within the recesses of his brain. Now he knew he was supposed to find the man who had left the trail.

Smoky swung up the valley, traveling just fast enough to keep the fish line taut. This was the way he was supposed to hunt, and he knew it. Man-hunting hound and master must never be separated. Should the dog get too far ahead, he probably would run into serious trouble. Most fugitives knew bloodhounds, and were aware of the fact that there was no escape from them. They would take any measures to thwart such deadly pursuit.

Straight up the valley Smoky went, and over the saddle at its head. He curved and twisted, over rocks and through thickets, so Tom knew that the fugitive was still trying to hide his trail. Had Tom been forced to work it out by himself, he would have needed hours to cover the distance Smoky could lead him in half an hour.

They dipped into another valley, then angled up a mountain slope. Despite the precautions the fugitive was taking, he had traveled fast, and a grudging admiration arose within Tom. Obviously he had pitted himself against a first-class woodsman.

Dawn broke slowly, and a half hour afterward they found the horse thief's camp. It must have been abandoned very recently, but the rustler furnished further proof that he was an experienced woodsman. The fire's dead ashes were thoroughly soaked with water.

Leaving the camp, they broke over the crest of a low hill on a course that led toward a mountain trail that Tom knew. If the thief had taken that, he was heading deep into the wilderness.

Smoky stopped suddenly, and bristled. He looked inquiringly around, while a low growl bubbled in his throat. Tom sank to hands and knees, crept cautiously toward the trail, and hid himself in a laurel thicket. Not moving a muscle, Smoky crouched beside him.

Three minutes later a man on a smart black horse appeared. Behind him, on a lead rope, was Pete.