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“DRAP THAT GUN!”

Along the well-rutted road, a bull outfit crept. The sun was sliding down toward the western hills. Its rays streamed in a silvery sheen across the desert mesquite. A cloud of fine yellow dust rose, stirred by the feet of hundreds of oxen. The yoked animals swayed forward patiently, laboriously. Behind them the yellow trail ribbon stretched many arid leagues. In front of them it wound its tortuous way for nearly a thousand miles.

That ribbon pointed to the land of gold. It led through flood and drought, to exposure and starvation, to possible attack by Indians or road agents. During the past decade, a quarter of a million people had travelled this trail in ox teams, in coaches, behind mules, and on horseback. Every mile of it had echoed the laughter of eager youth and the groans of despairing age. For this was the great Overland Trail.

In the train were twenty-five wagons, built in St. Louis by J. Murphy for crossing the plains. They were very large and strong. Each box was covered with two heavy canvas sheets. In addition to the bull whackers there were two night herders, a cavvy driver, an extra hand, the wagon master, and his assistant, thirty-two men in all, each armed with Colt’s pistols and Mississippi Yagers. It was a Russell, Majors & Waddell outfit, one of many plying between the Missouri River and the gold diggings.

A young man on a claybank pony cantered along the wagon train. He was slender and berry brown. For costume he wore fringed buckskin trousers, a homespun hickory shirt, boots run down at the heel, and a dusty slouch hat.

One of the drivers, a lank Missourian, hailed him. “Boy, where we throw off at to-night?”

“Cottonwood Springs, I hear,” the rider answered.

“Hmp! Hope it’s near. Our tails are shorely draggin’. Say, Tom, the bull boss was lookin’ for you awhile ago. He’s up ahead somewheres. Got back some whipped out.”

“Didn’t get the horses, then?”

“No, sir. Neither hide nor hair.”

Tom Collins waved a hand in farewell and rode to the head of the train. The wagon master, colloquially called the bull boss, hailed him as he drew up. Sim Rivers was a long-bodied man about forty, slow but reliable. After the fashion of the times, he was heavily bearded.

“Rock along to the Springs, Tom, an’ find us a good camp ground,” he gave instruction. “There’s been a chance of pilgrims along this trail to-day an’ yesterday. A lot of ’em are likely to be bunched up there thick as three in a bed. An’ tell the station master about that bunch of stolen horses.”

“You didn’t find ‘em, then?”

“Lost the trail in the hills. Tell him how the Injuns jumped ’em in the night, Tom, an’ how I got right after the lousy thieves.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tom swung his horse and was gone. He was a youth of few words. Life in the open, often alone, had made him taciturn.

He rode a sun-scorched plain beneath a brazen sky. The gray vegetation was heavy with dust. A yellow powder filled every wrinkle of his clothes and sifted into his nostrils. His throat was parched. But the young fellow’s heart was light. He was astride a good horse. The pungent odour of the sage wafted to him. Shy antelope slipped gracefully through the shining chaparral. Meadow larks flung out their joyous sudden songs. It was a good world for a man who felt the call of adventure in his blood.

Tom pulled up. His eyes had been caught by tracks in a sandy wash running into the road. He dismounted, dropped the bridle rein to the ground, and moved forward to investigate. A good many horses had swung off from the trail at this point. Some were shod, some not. They had crowded each other and blurred a good many of the tracks. Very likely those driving the animals had swung them around sharply at this point to take the draw leading to the bluff a quarter of a mile back from the road. It had been careless to leave the road just at this sand wash, if this really were the trail of the thieves. Probably, in the darkness, they had not recognized the bluff until almost past the draw.

He knew he was jumping to a conclusion not yet established by the evidence. The sign he had cut might have been left by a party of honest emigrants. But he did not for a moment believe it. These hoof marks had been made recently, and no sizeable outfit with horses had passed the bull train for three or four days.

A little glow of excitement quickened his blood. One of the stolen horses had had a hoof torn by the rocks. Tom had noticed this while driving the cavvy only the day before. His eyes fixed themselves now on this same ragged mark printed on the sand. Old Blaze had stamped it there.

What ought he to do? He might ride back to Rivers with news of his discovery. Or he might follow the thieves for a few miles and so, perhaps, obtain more definite information. He knew which he wanted to do, and after only a moment of hesitation, he decided to yield to his desire. Swinging to the saddle, he jogged up the wash toward the bluff.

Presently, another bit of evidence stared up at him. The riders following the stolen animals were mounted on shod horses. Therefore, they were not Indians. Probably they were members of the notorious Wilson gang against which Slade, division superintendent of the stage company, had been waging bitter warfare. Yet this did not agree with the story told by Shep Hods. Shep had been guarding the cavvy at the time of the night stampede, and he had said positively that the raiders were Indians.

Tom followed the draw to its head, then climbed a steep hillside to the bluff above. Here he picked up again the trail of the horses and verified his conclusion that the riders herding the bunch were upon mounts wearing shoes. He was puzzled. Of course, Hods might have been mistaken. But that was not likely, since he was a slow, methodical Arkansan whose indolent brain did not register snapshot impressions.

The country grew rougher. Its contour broke into hill waves. The sage was heavier, the brush denser.

Young Collins knew that it was time to turn back, but he wanted to carry with him as much information as possible. He promised himself that he would go only as far as the next brow, a promontory which jutted out above the surrounding country. The tracks he followed deflected to the left, swinging around the butte and into a small wooded cañon that ran back of it.

He had been a plainsman for years, and some sixth sense warned him that he was drawing close to the hiding place of the robbers. The whinny of a horse brought him up short. He slid from the saddle and grounded the reins, then moved forward cautiously into the gulch. The Colt was at his hip, the Yager in his hands. Almost noiselessly, with the utmost precaution, he crept through the brakes into a sunny spot beyond. An aspen thicket ran back from the dry creek to the wall of the cañon. He stood crouched for a moment. Time to back-track, he told himself. He was here to spy out the land, not to force an issue. If he should be discovered, he would probably be shot down, after which the road agents would decamp.

Warily, he drew back toward the brakes. A twig snapped under his foot and startled him. His questing eyes stabbed at the cottonwoods on his right, at the fallen boulders close to the creek bed, at the aspen thicket.

A voice, low and menacing, shocked him like the crash of a shot shattering the silence.

“Drap that gun!”

Tom looked around. On a boulder rested the barrel of a rifle, pointed straight at him. Back of the weapon was a man’s head. Chalky eyes watched him unblinkingly.

The young man did not argue the point. He was trapped. From his fingers the Yager slid to the ground.

“Unbuckle that belt!”

Again Tom obeyed. The Colt dropped beside the rifle.

“Move right ahead,” the voice ordered. “Keep yore hands up an’ go slow.... To the left now round the aspens.... Straight along the trail.... Don’t make a mistake, young fellow.”

Tom did not make a mistake. He knew that, if he failed to obey orders exactly, a bullet would come crashing through his back between the shoulder blades. The trail led into the aspens and to the door of a log hut just back of them.

“Knock on the door!”

Tom knocked.

There was a moment’s silence, then someone said hoarsely. “Come in.”

He pushed the door open and took a step forward. It seemed to Tom that his heart ceased beating. The room was filled with men, and the weapons of all of them were trained on him.