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TOM LOSES HIS KNIFE

Half an hour later, Tom was once more riding toward Cottonwood Springs. Rivers had given him explicit instructions to ride back to the outfit if he saw any sign of the road agents.

“Split the wind back thisaway hel-a-mile, Tom,” he said. “Don’t take any chances with those scalawags. They’d sure do you a meanness if they could. But I don’t reckon you’ll see them. It ain’t hardly reasonable that they would come close to the trail in open daylight so soon.”

Tom was of that opinion himself. It turned out he was right. At any rate, he reached Cottonwood unmolested.

He had been told to select a good camp ground close to water and grass. A stretch near the stream, about three hundred yards from the station, seemed to fill the requirements. A covered wagon outfit was camped near, but there was plenty of room for the bull train, too.

Young Collins rode up to the wagon. A red-bearded man appeared and looked at him in surly fashion without offering a greeting.

“Right hot to-day,” Tom said. “Skeeters bad at our camp last night. Green-headed flies troublin’ our stock some.”

The man stared at Tom, ignoring his friendly lead.

Tom tried again. “We’ll be neighbours to-night, looks like. My outfit is on the road headin’ this way. Jest pulled up to say ‘Hello!’ as I was passin’.”

“Yore outfit ain’t campin’ on this slope,” the man returned, a threat in his voice.

“Up there.” Tom indicated the place with a sweep of the hand. “Plenty of room for you an’ us too. We’ll not disturb you.”

“You can’t jump my feed ground, not without a fight,” the man growled.

Tom’s gaze took in the wide sweep of grass and then the little bunch of mules not far away.

“We don’t allow to do that,” he said. “But there’s plenty here for all of us, feed and water too.”

“Say, young fellow, don’t argue with me.” The man’s voice was heavy with menace. “I’m Buck Comstock, if you want to know, an’ I ain’t scared of any slit-eyed son of a sea cook this side of the River,^[1] or the yon side either. I’m a bad man to monkey with, an’ no pilgrim can run on me an’ make the riffle.”

Tom was careful not to let the growing resentment inside reach either voice or manner. He did not want to quarrel, and in any case every man working for the company had definite orders not to engage in fights. He spoke softly.

“I’m not tryin’ to run on you, Mr. Comstock. I’m mentionin’ that our outfit will camp on this slope to-night.”

Comstock’s face took on an ugly expression. He was a thickset man of medium height with heavy rounded shoulders. His eyes were small and black.

“If you come, come a-shootin’, for there will sure be sudden trouble.” The man’s sulky anger reached the point of explosion. “Say, don’t sit up there an’ tell me what you’ll do. Git down off’n that horse, an’ right now I’ll beat yore head off.”

It was characteristic of Tom that he grew cold instead of hot as anger stirred in him. “You want too much for a bit, Mr. Comstock,” he said. “Last fellow who beat me up drug me from the saddle.”

“Don’t you git heavy with me, young fellow, or I’ll show you.” Comstock took a step toward him and stopped. He did not want to make any mistake. He had observed a brown hand sliding casually toward the butt of a revolver. On the face of it this stringy, gangling boy ought to be an easy subject to pick upon, but the steady eyes held a quiet resolution that was disconcerting. “Say, git down jest a minute an’ I’ll give you four bits. I’ll give you a dollar.”

“Cash on the barrel head?” asked Tom.

“I’ll learn you to get funny with me. For half a plug of tobacco, I’d yank you down an’ skin you alive.”

Tom said no more. He sat motionless in the saddle for a few moments, waiting for the man to make his choice, and while he waited, his eyes were fixed steadily on the camper. Then, slowly, he swung his horse and rode to the station.

To the station boss he made a report on the theft and recovery of the horses and of the wounding of the superintendent. This done, he returned to the camp ground.

The man who had given his name as Buck Comstock hailed him and walked forward, a shotgun under his arm. Tom drew up, watching him carefully. If the fellow meant to make trouble, he did not intend to be caught by surprise.

“How big an outfit you-all got?” demanded Comstock.

The man on horseback told him.

“You tell yore boss if he camps here he’s got to pay me for using my feed ground.”

“How did it get to be yore ground?” asked Tom. “Looks to me like part of a million miles of open range.”

Comstock swore violently. “I done told you onct not to git heavy with me. Tell him what I said. That’s all you got to do. Understand?”

A faint satiric smile lit the eyes of the young man. “You’ll get a chance to tell him yore own self, likely, when he drifts around. No need for an interpreter. You make yore own funeral oration.”

“I’ll sure tell him, by gum, what I think of him if he tries to jump my feed ground.”

“Don’t tell him out loud. He might hear you,” advised Tom.

Comstock struggled inarticulately with a complexity of desires. He wanted to punish this impudent youth who refused to be browbeaten. He wanted it understood distinctly that he was a bad man of sorts. Yet all the cupidity of his dull mind made him eager to hold up the freight outfit for the camp ground.

“Who is this pilgrim that runs yore outfit?” he blustered. “He sure can’t run over me. I’ll make him climb a tree.”

Tom dropped a bomb, very casually. “His name is Slade.”

“Slade!” The man’s jaw dropped.

“Joseph A. Slade.”

The camper was taken aback. He stood open-mouthed while his slow brain tried to cope with this development. Slade! Slade the killer! He tried both to back-track and to save his face.

“I’m sure enough no man to go around lookin’ for a fuss, but if someone brings one an’ lays it on my lap, why I aim to take care of it. But in regards to Mr. Slade, I’ve always heard tell he’s a right fair man, an’ I won’t make no holler if he wants to camp here.”

“Won’t make him climb a tree or anything?” asked Tom innocently.

Comstock glared at him. “I’d sure give six bits for a chanct to work you over, young fellow,” he growled.

Tom laughed. He was not afraid of this man, and, in any case the superintendent’s reputation protected him. There was something so implacable about Slade’s vengeance when he was aroused that desperadoes sidestepped an issue with him.

There was the historic case of Jules Reni, the story of which was known wherever frontiersmen gathered. Slade and Jules had quarrelled. The Frenchman, coming on the other unarmed, emptied the contents of a shotgun and a revolver into his body. With thirteen buckshot and bullets in his person, Slade was lifted into a bunk. He heard Jules give directions for burying him and sat up to gasp out that he would live to wear the Frenchman’s ears on his watch chain. He did. After the superintendent’s recovery months later, Jules returned to the division, from which he had been driven. He publicly threatened to kill his enemy at sight. Slade forestalled him. He had the man arrested, tied to a post, and held a prisoner. Upon his arrival, Slade shot him in cold blood.

Tom rode away to a distance of a hundred yards, dropped the bridle reins to the ground, and began to gather buffalo chips for fuel. Earlier campers had largely exhausted the supply. Tom took an ax from its place under the stirrup leather and, with a rifle in the other hand, strolled down to the stream. A drove of wild turkeys were roosting in the cottonwoods. He shot four and drew them. Then he chopped dead and down trees for the camp fire. The covered wagons were already drawing in to the camp ground before he had finished.

The ax across his shoulder, Tom walked toward the outfit. Shouts of men, the rumble of wheels, the bawling of cattle filled the air. Long whips cracked. Quick fires from the buffalo chips Tom had gathered were already sending up streamers of smoke.

With a yoke of oxen and a logging chain, Tom dragged to the camp the wood he had cut. As he returned to the camp, he noticed with some amusement that Comstock was on hand trying to ingratiate himself with Rivers.

“An’ if there’s anything I can do for you or Mr. Slade, why o’ course——”

“Nothing,” replied Rivers. “Mr. Slade is going to Denver to have his arm looked after. He’ll take the stage to-morrow.”

Tom heard no more. He was busy about his work and caught only so much of the conversation as he was passing.

It was dark long before supper was ready. After he had eaten, Tom stuffed the turkeys he had shot and, without picking the feathers from the birds, coated them with three inches of daubed mud. He scooped a place among the hot coals, dug away some dirt, put the turkeys in the hollow, covered them with ashes, and piled the fire above the spot. Left there all night, in the morning they would be baked to a delicious flavour.

Tom discovered that his hunting knife was missing. He remembered that he had used it among the cottonwoods after he had shot the turkeys, and in the darkness he walked down to get it. Since he was wearing moccasins, he made no sound as he moved.

A murmur of voices came to him. Tom opened his mouth to call, assuming that some of the teamsters had drifted down to the river. But he changed his mind about shouting out his presence. The mosquitoes were singing all about him in the willow bushes. This was a queer place to choose for a private conversation. He drew closer, along the edge of the willow fringe. Two men were crouched on the bank under a cottonwood. Their backs were toward him, but he recognized one of the voices. It was that of Buck Comstock. He could make out some of the words.

“... bust his arm ...”

The other man made some comment. Tom could not hear what it was, nor did he get what followed. Presently there came a snatch once more in Comstock’s heavy growl.

“... stage for Denver to-morrow ...”

The other man laughed, an evil laugh. For the first time Tom made out something of what he said.

“... start but never get there ...”

That was all. The men rose from where they sat and moved away, in the direction of the station. They separated, not far from Comstock’s wagon, the unknown man going on alone.

Presently Tom followed him. He wanted to see where he went and whom he met. After that, it would be time to report to Rivers what he had learned. The bull boss might dismiss it as unimportant, and very likely he would be right. But Tom was not ready yet to believe this. If he could get some more evidence, something to confirm the snatches of murmured talk, he would have a story Rivers might give attention to.

The stranger moved toward the station roadhouse. Something in his build or in his gait seemed familiar to Tom. The fellow was tall and awkward. He shambled as he walked. After a moment’s hesitation, Tom followed him into the drinking place.

Instantly, he wished he had been more discreet. For, as Tom stood in the doorway, the man who had preceded him turned and their eyes met.

The man was Orton, the fellow he had seen a few hours earlier with Mose Wilson.

[1]	“The River,” as used by the emigrants of ’59, always meant the Missouri.