Читать книгу Wild Paradise - Kenneth Taylor Perkins - Страница 11
ОглавлениеFLAPJOHN ON THE TRAIL.
It was early on that same morning that three riders arrived at the Box Deuce outfit. They were a trio that would command attention in any part of the range. One was a squat chunky fellow with faded red hair, a deeply corrugated face of the same color, and a rust-speckled star. Another was a barkeep—the sharpshooter in Cobb’s Coulee. The third was a chulo—a swarthy, high-cheekboned breed who knew the desert gulches and passes like an old coyote.
This little posse had picked up the tracks of the white stallion in an arroyo a few miles from the Box Deuce shacks. When they arrived at the cow ranch they found the outfit in a state of disorder. The cook was at the cow-shack swearing and calling to the hands—although it was a pretty late hour for herders to be breakfasting.
Riders were galloping in from the surrounding trails. On the porch of the main ranch house, two fat, red-faced ladies were watching the surrounding hills.
And another unusual thing: Sheriff Flapjohn was received with unwonted enthusiasm, although under ordinary circumstances he was treated rather coldly by the Box Deuce brothers. He had never before been anywhere in the county when the outfit was raided. But here he was on the scene early in the morning.
“What-all brought you here, chief?” demanded the elder brother, Tim Boskin, a raw-boned gray-whiskered scarecrow. “We was raided last night. My pet mare—three-quarters thoroughbred—was rustled. But how come you’re on the scene.”
The sheriff refused to take this as an aspersion upon his past inactivities. Besides the news about a stolen mare was important and surprising news.
“We’re on the trail of the hoss thief right now,” he said to the assembled hands. The Boskin brothers, their fat wives, the cook, the wrango and the cowherders had come down to meet the three man-hunters.
“You-all know the circus outfit which showed in our town,” the sheriff went on, “well, a stranger from the desert—who looked like a prospector, which he was, a gaunt fightin’ lookin’ hombre with pale gunmetal eyes—why he took it into his head that he wanted the outfit’s star performer. Which same was a white stallion—the finest hoss ever seen——”
“Worth ten thousand dollars,” supplemented the barkeep.
“We tracked him to this here ranch,” said the sheriff.
“Well, then it’s the same hombre which rustled my claybank,” said one of the Boskins. “Seems like he’s a specialist in valuable hosses. I’ll give five hundred dollars to see that hellbender stretched—and to git back my little mare! And what’s more, chief, I’ll lend you all my cowhands here—and fresh horses—and me and my brother will join in likewise.”
“If it only happened last night,” said the sheriff, “then it ’pears to me we kin get somewheres. Look around here for the tracks of that hoss——”
“Cain’t track my mare, bein’ I rode her every which way yesterday,” Tim Boskin objected.
“But we can track the stud,” said the sheriff. “He had shoes on which you can easily identify: Light hunting shoes which you’d never see in this country; seven nail holes; and the whole shoe concave on the ground side.”
“Well, I’ll be damned if I ain’t seen them very prints in this here corral!” one of the herders said.
The whole gang went to the corral where the claybank had been kept the night before. The gate was closed—had been closed that morning—according to the wrango.
“The rustler was sort of systematic,” the sheriff said, pulling at his mustache thoughtfully. “Then again, closin’ a gate after you’ve rustled a hoss, don’t mean nothin’ here nor there.”
“It’s my opinion he didn’t use the gate at all,” said Tim Boskin. “They ain’t no tracks of this huntin’ shoe you mention hereabouts. And they ain’t been no wind to cover up same.”
From the corral several of the herders spoke up.
“Here are the tracks over here chief. Here they are. Runnin’ up and down thisaway. Here they’ve dug into the corral dust—like he was fightin’.”
The sheriff, dismounting, went over to the desert side of the corral.
“Them are the prints we been trailin’, sure enough!” he announced.
“Looks to me like the stallion took off—where those deep marks are. And he cleared the fence.”
“Well, I swan!” said one of the ranch wives.
“How about the mare?” asked another. “Do you reckon he took her over the fence?”
“It ain’t impossible,” said Tim Boskin. “She was a spry little critter. I led her over a couple of bars at the gate wunst. But she never took a leap this height.”
“Well, she did last night,” the wrango said. “Here’s where she lit.”
They all crowded to the fence and looked at the tracks on the other side.
“And there’s where she lit out for the desert,” said the wrango. “Looks like she went with a will, too. Lopin’ right along—if I know how to read tracks.”
“Well, I swan!” said the two ranch wives.
“Well, I’ll be damned! Straight for the Bad Lands!” cried Tim Boskin. “My poor little claybank!”
“Let’s hit the trail right now, chief. We’re all with you!” said the other Boskin.
“Now wait, gents!” Sheriff Flapjohn objected. “We kin git this hellbender all right. I’m figurin’ dead certain on that. But I don’t want to go troopin’ down there with a whole outfit of yippin’ cowhands and a cook and a cavy wrango throw’d in.
“All I want is two good men. You two—the owners of this outfit. I’ve heard tell that you’ve held the record for sharpshootin’ in this here country for nigh onto thirty years. That satisfies me. Just us five; you Boskin brothers, my two deputies here and myself.”
“ ’Pears to me that’s not a bad idea, chief,” said Tim Boskin. He ordered the wrango to saddle a couple of his best desert horses.
The two grizzled old men said good-bye to their wives. They got their six-guns and holsters and ammunition. The saddle horses were brought.
“One thing else,” said the sheriff. “You mentioned somethin’ concernin’ a reward.”
“Five hundred dollars—if we git both the hoss and the hellbender,” said Tim.
“And your own services throw’d in?” the sheriff asked shrewdly.
“So help me, yes!” Tim cried readily. “We ain’t givin’ the five hundred to ourselves—even if we do catch the rustler. It’s for you, chief.”
“Then let’s hit the trail,” said Sheriff Flapjohn.
They were off. The two fat wives were excited and weeping, and looking southward to the diminishing cloud of alkali. The rest of the herders waited in dumb disappointment. They were half of a mind to follow—against the orders of their foreman. But the voice of the cook detained them:
“Chow-pile! An hour late, you cowdogs! Take it away! Chuck away! Chuck away!”
