Читать книгу Paradise Bend - William Patterson White - Страница 5

Table of Contents

"I woke up one mornin' on the old Chisolm trail, Rope in my hand an' a cow by the tail. Crippled my hoss, I don't know how, Ropin' at the horns of a 2-U cow."

Thus sang Loudon, carrying saddle and bridle to the corral in the blue light of dawn. Chuck Morgan was before him at the corral, and wrestling with a fractious gray pony.

"Whoa! yuh son of sin!" yelled Morgan, wrenching the pony's ear. "Stand still, or I'll cave in yore slats!"

"Kick him again," advised Loudon, flicking the end of his rope across the back of a yellow beast with a black mane and tail.

The yellow horse stopped trotting instantly. He was rope-broke. It was unnecessary to "fasten," thanks to Loudon's training.

"They say yuh oughtn't to exercise right after eatin'," continued Loudon, genially. "An' yo're mussin' up this nice corral, too, Chuck."

"I'll muss up this nice little gray devil!" gasped Chuck. "When I git on him I'll plow the hide offen him. —— his soul! He's half mule."

"He takes yuh for a relative!" called Jimmy, who had come up unobserved. "Relatives never do git along nohow!"

Jimmy fled, pursued by pebbles. The panting and outraged Chuck returned to his task of passing the rear cinch. Still swearing, he joined Loudon at the gate. The two rode away together.

"That sorrel o' Blakely's," observed Chuck, his fingers busy with paper and tobacco, "is shore as pretty as a little red wagon."

"Yeah," mumbled Loudon.

"I was noticin' him this mornin'," continued Chuck Morgan. "He's got the cleanest set o' legs I ever seen."

"This mornin'," said Loudon, slowly, "Where'd yuh see Blakely's sorrel this mornin'?"

"In the little corral. He's in there with the Old Man's string."

Loudon pulled his hat forward and started methodically to roll a cigarette. So Blakely had spent the night at the ranch. This was the first time he had ever stayed overnight.

What did it mean? Calling on Kate was one thing, but spending the night was quite another.

With the fatuous reasoning of a man deeply in love, Loudon refused to believe that Blakely could be sailing closer to the wind of Kate's affections than he himself. Yet there remained the fact of Blakely's extended visit.

"We've been losin' right smart o' cows lately," remarked Chuck Morgan.

"What's the use o' talkin'?" exclaimed Loudon, bitterly. "The Old Man says we ain't, an' he's the boss."

"He won't say so after the round-up. He'll sweat blood then. If I could only catch one of 'em at it. Just one. But them thievin' 88 boys are plumb wise. An' the Old Man thinks they're little he-angels with four wings apiece."

"Yuh can't tell him nothin'. He knows."

"An' Blakely comes an' sets around, an' the Old Man laps up all he says like a cat, an' Blakely grins behind his teeth. I'd shore like to know his opinion o' the Old Man."

"An' us."

"An' us. Shore. The Old Man can't be expected to know as much as us. You can gamble an' go the limit Blakely has us sized up for sheep-woolly baa-lambs."

Morgan made a gesture of exasperation.

"We will be sheep," exclaimed Loudon, "if we don't pick up somethin' against the 88 before the round-up! We're full-sized, two-legged men, ain't we? Got eyes, ain't we? There ain't nothin' the matter with our hands, is there? Yet them 88 boys put it all over our shirt. Blakely's right. We're related plumb close to sheep, an' blind sheep at that."

"Them 88 boys have all the luck," grunted Chuck Morgan. "But their luck will shore break if I see any of 'em a-foolin' with our cows. So long."

Chuck Morgan rode off eastward. His business was with the cattle near Cow Creek, which stream was one of the two dividing the Bar S range from that of the Cross-in-a-box. Loudon, his eyes continually sliding from side to side, loped onward. An hour later he forded the Lazy River, and rode along the bank to the mouth of Pack-saddle Creek.

The course he was following was not the shortest route to the two mud-holes between Box Hill and Fishtail Coulee. But south of the Lazy the western line of the Bar S was marked by Pack-saddle Creek, and Loudon's intention was to ride along the creek from mouth to source.

There had been no rain for a month. If any cows had been driven across the stream he would know it. Twice before he had ridden the line of the creek, but his labours had not been rewarded. Yet Loudon did not despair. His was a hopeful soul.

Occasionally, as he rode, he saw cows. Here and there on the bank were cloven hoofprints, showing where cattle had come down to drink. But none of them had crossed since the rain. And there were no marks of ponies' feet.

At the mud-hole near Box Hill a lone cow stood belly-deep, stolidly awaiting death.

"Yuh poor idjit," commented Loudon, and loosed his rope from the saddle-horn.

The loop settled around the cow's horns. The yellow pony, cunningly holding his body sidewise that the saddle might not be pulled over his tail, strained with all four legs.

"C'mon, Lemons!" encouraged Loudon. "C'mon, boy! Yuh old yellow lump o' bones! Heave! Head or cow, she's got to come!"

Thus adjured the pony strove mightily. The cow also exerted itself. Slowly the tenacious grip of the mud was broken. With a suck and a plop the cow surged free. It stood, shaking its head.

Swiftly Loudon disengaged his rope, slapped the cow with the end of it, and urged the brute inland.

Having chased the cow a full half-mile he returned to the mud-hole and dismounted. For he had observed that upon a rock ledge above the mud-hole which he wished to inspect more closely. What he had noted was a long scratch across the face of the broad flat ledge of rock. But for his having been drawn in close to the ledge by the presence of the cow in the mud-hole, this single scratch would undoubtedly have escaped his attention.

Loudon leaned over and scrutinized the scratch. It was about a foot long, a quarter of an inch broad at one end, tapering roughly to a point. Ordinarily such a mark would have interested Loudon not at all, but under the circumstances it might mean much. The side-slip of a horse's iron-shod hoof had made it. This was plain enough. It was evident, too, that the horse had been ridden. A riderless horse does not slip on gently sloping rocks.

Other barely visible abrasions showed that the horse had entered the water. Why had someone elected to cross at this point? Pack-saddle Creek was fordable in many places. Below the mud-hole four feet and less was the depth. But opposite the rock ledge was a scour-hole fully ten feet deep shallowing to eight in the middle of the stream. Here was no crossing for an honest man in his senses. But for one of questionable purpose, anxious to conceal his trail as much as possible, no better could be chosen.

"Good thing his hoss slipped," said Loudon, and returned to the waiting Lemons.

Mounting his horse he forded the creek and rode slowly along the bank. Opposite the lower end of the ledge he found that which he sought. In the narrow belt of bare ground between the water's edge and the grass were the tracks of several cows and one pony. Straight up from the water the trail led, and vanished abruptly when it reached the grass.

"Five cows," said Loudon. "Nothin' mean about that jigger."

He bent down to examine the tracks more closely, and as he stooped a rifle cracked faintly, and a bullet whisped over his bowed back.

Loudon jammed home both spurs, and jumped Lemons forward. Plying his quirt, he looked over his shoulder.

A puff of smoke suddenly appeared above a rock a quarter of a mile downstream and on the other side of the creek. The bullet tucked into the ground close beside the pony's drumming hoofs.

Loudon jerked his Winchester from its scabbard under his leg, turned in the saddle, and fired five shots as rapidly as he could work the lever. He did not expect to score a hit, but earnestly hoped to shake the hidden marksman's aim. He succeeded but lamely.

The enemy's third shot cut through his shirt under the left armpit, missing the flesh by a hair's-breadth. Loudon raced over the lip of a swell just as a fourth shot ripped through his hat.

Hot and angry, Loudon jerked Lemons to a halt half-way down the reverse slope. Leaving his horse tied to the ground he ran back and lay down below the crest. He removed his hat and wriggled forward to the top.

Cautiously lifting his head he surveyed the position of his unknown opponent. A half-mile distant, on the Bar S side of the Pack-saddle, was the rock which sheltered the marksman. A small dark dot appeared above it.

Taking a long aim Loudon fired at the dot. As he jerked down the lever to reload, a gray smoke-puff mushroomed out at the lower right-hand corner of the rock, and a violent shock at the elbow numbed his right hand.

Loudon rolled swiftly backward, sat up, and stared wonderingly at his two hands. One held his Winchester, but gripped in the cramped fingers of the right hand was the bent and broken lever of the rifle. The bullet of the sharp-shooting citizen had struck the lever squarely on the upper end, snapped the pin, torn loose the lever, and hopelessly damaged the loading mechanism.

"That jigger can shore handle a gun," remarked Loudon. "If this ain't one lovely fix for a Christian! Winchester no good, only a six-shooter, an' a fully-organized miracle-worker a-layin' for my hide. I'm a-goin' somewhere, an' I'm goin' right now."

He dropped the broken lever and rubbed his numbed fingers till sensation returned. Then he put on his hat and hurried down to his horse.

He jammed the rifle into the scabbard, mounted, and rode swiftly southward, taking great pains to keep to the low ground.

A mile farther on he forded the creek and gained the shelter of an outflung shoulder of Box Hill.

Near the top Loudon tied Lemons to a tree and went forward on foot. Cautiously as an Indian, Loudon traversed the flat top of the hill and squatted down in a bunch of tall grass between two pines. From this vantage-point his field of view was wide. The rock ledge and the mud-hole were in plain sight. So was the rock from which he had been fired upon. It was a long mile distant, and it lay near the crest of a low hog's-back close to the creek.

"He's got his hoss down behind the swell," muttered Loudon. "Wish this hill was higher."

Loudon pondered the advisability of climbing a tree. He wished very much to obtain a view of the depression behind the hog's-back. He finally decided to remain where he was. It was just possible that the hostile stranger might be provided with field glasses. In which case tree-climbing would invite more bullets, and the shooting of the enemy was too nearly accurate for comfort.

Loudon settled himself comfortably in his bunch of grass and watched intently. Fifteen or twenty minutes later what was apparently a part of the rock detached itself and disappeared behind the crest of the hog's-back.

Soon the tiny figure of a mounted man came into view on the flat beyond. Horse and rider moved rapidly across the level ground and vanished behind a knoll. When the rider reappeared he was not more than nine hundred yards distant and galloping hard on a course paralleling the base of the hill.

"Good eye," chuckled Loudon. "Goin' to surround me. I'd admire to hear what he says when he finds out I ain't behind that swell."

The stranger splashed across the creek and raced toward some high ground in the rear of Loudon's old position.

Now that the enemy had headed westward there was nothing to be gained by further delay.

Loudon had plenty of courage, but one requires more than bravery and a six-shooter with which to pursue and successfully combat a gentleman armed with a Winchester.

Hastily retreating to his horse, Loudon scrambled into the saddle, galloped across the hilltop and rode down the eastern slope at a speed exceedingly perilous to his horse's legs. But the yellow horse somehow contrived to keep his footing and reached the bottom with no damage other than skinned hocks.

Once on level ground Loudon headed southward, and Lemons, that yellow bundle of nerves and steel wire, stretched out his neck and galloped with all the heart that was in him.

Loudon's destination was a line-camp twelve miles down the creek. This camp was the temporary abode of two Bar S punchers, who were riding the country south of Fishtail Coulee. Loudon knew that both men had taken their Winchesters with them when they left the ranch, and he hoped to find one of the rifles in the dugout.

With a rifle under his leg Loudon felt that the odds would be even, in spite of the fact that the enemy had an uncanny mastery of the long firearm. Loudon's favourite weapon was the six-shooter, and he was at his best with it. A rifle in his hands was not the arm of precision it became when Johnny Ramsay squinted along the sights. For Johnny was an expert.

"Keep a-travellin', little hoss, keep a-travellin'," encouraged Loudon. "Split the breeze. That's the boy!"

Loudon had more than one reason for being anxious to join issue with the man who had attacked him. At nine hundred yards one cannot recognize faces or figures, but one can distinguish the colour of a horse, and Loudon's antagonist rode a sorrel. Chuck Morgan had said that Blakely's horse was a sorrel.

Loudon sighted the dugout that was Pack-saddle line-camp in a trifle less than an hour. He saw with elation that two hobbled ponies were grazing near by. A fresh mount would quicken the return trip. Loudon's elation collapsed like a pricked bubble when he entered the dugout and found neither of the rifles.

He swore a little, and smoked a sullen cigarette. Then he unsaddled the weary Lemons and saddled the more vicious of the two hobbled ponies. Subjugating this animal, a most excellent pitcher, worked off a deal of Loudon's ill-temper. Even so, it was in no cheerful frame of mind that he rode away to inspect the two mud-holes between Fishtail Coulee and Box Hill.

To be beaten is not a pleasant state of affairs. Not only had he been beaten, but he had been caught by the old Indian fighter's trick of the empty hat. That was what galled Loudon. To be lured into betraying his position by such an ancient snare! And he had prided himself on being an adroit fighting man! The fact that he had come within a finger's breadth of paying with his life for his mistake did not lesson the smart, rather it aggravated it.

Late in the afternoon he returned to the line-camp. Hockling and Red Kane, the two punchers, had not yet ridden in. So Loudon sliced bacon and set the coffee on to boil. Half an hour after sunset Hockling and Kane galloped up and fell upon Loudon with joy. Neither relished the labour, insignificant as it was, of cooking.

"Company," remarked Red Kane, a forkful of bacon poised in the air.

The far-away patter of hoofs swelled to a drumming crescendo. Then inside the circle of firelight a pony slid to a halt, and the voice of cheerful Johnny Ramsay bawled a greeting.

"That's right, Tom!" shouted the irrepressible Johnny. "Always have chuck ready for yore uncle. He likes his meals hot. This is shore real gayful. I wasn't expectin' to find any folks here."

"I s'pose not," said Red Kane. "You was figurin' on romancin' in while we was away an' stockin' up on our grub. I know you. Hock, you better cache the extry bacon an' dobies. Don't let Johnny see 'em."

"Well, o' course," observed Ramsay, superciliously, "I've got the appetite of youth an' a feller with teeth. I don't have to get my nourishment out of soup."

"He must mean you, Hock," said Red Kane, calmly. "You've done lost eight."

"The rest of 'em all hit," asserted Hockling, grinning. "But what Johnny wants with teeth, I dunno. By rights he'd ought to stick to milk. Meat ain't healthy for young ones. Ain't we got a nursin'-bottle kickin' round some'ers, Red?"

"Shore, Red owns one," drawled Loudon. "I seen him buyin' one once over to Farewell at Mike Flynn's."

"O' course," said Johnny, heaping his plate with bacon and beans. "I remember now I seen him, too. Said he was buyin' it for a friend. Why not admit yo're married, Red?"

"Yuh know I bought it for Mis' Shaner o' the Three Bars!" shouted the indignant Kane. "She done asked me to get it for her. It was for her baby to drink out of."

"Yuh don't mean it," said Johnny, seriously. "For a baby, yuh say. Well now, if that ain't surprisin'. I always thought nursin'-bottles was to drive nails with."

In this wise the meal progressed pleasantly enough. After supper, when the four were sprawled comfortably on their saddle-blankets, Loudon launched his bombshell.

"Had a small brush this mornin'," remarked Loudon, "with a gent over by the mud-hole north o' Box Hill."

The three others sat up, gaping expectantly.

"Djuh get him?" demanded Johnny Ramsay, his blue eyes glittering in the firelight.

Loudon shook his head. He raised his left arm, revealing the rent in his shirt. Then he removed his hat and stuck his finger through the hole in the crown.

"Souvenirs," said Loudon. "He busted the lever off my Winchester an' gormed up the action."

"An' he got away?" queried Red Kane.

"The last I seen of him he was workin' in behind where he thought I was."

"Where was you?"

"I was watchin' him from the top o' Box Hill. What did yuh think I'd be doin'? Waitin' for him to surround me an' plug me full o' holes? I come here some hurried after he crossed the creek. I was hopin' you'd have left a rifle behind."

"Wish't we had," lamented Hockling. "Say, you was lucky to pull out of it without reapin' no lead."

"I'll gamble you started the fraycas, Tommy," said Johnny Ramsay.

"Not this trip. I was lookin' at some mighty interestin' cow an' pony tracks opposite the rock ledge when this gent cuts down on me an' misses by two inches."

"Tracks?"

"Yep. Some sport drove five cows on to the ledge an' chased 'em over the creek. That's how they work the trick. They throw the cows across where there's hard ground or rocks on our side. 'Course the rustlers didn't count none on us nosyin' along the opposite bank."

"Ain't they the pups!" ejaculated Hockling.

"They're wise owls," commented Johnny Ramsay. "Say, Tom, did this shootin' party look anyways familiar?"

"The colour of his hoss was—some," replied Loudon. "Blakely was at the ranch last night, an' his hoss was a sorrel."

"What did I tell yuh?" exclaimed Johnny Ramsay. "What did I tell yuh? That Blakely tinhorn is one bad actor."

"I ain't none shore it was him. There's herds o' sorrel cayuses."

"Shore there are, but there's only one Blakely. Oh, it was him all right."

"Whoever it was, I'm goin' to wander over onto the 88 range to-morrow, if Red or Hock'll lend me a Winchester."

"Take mine," said Hockling. "Red's throws off a little."

"She does," admitted Red Kane, "but my cartridges don't. I'll give yuh a hull box."

Followed then much profane comment relative to the 88 ranch and the crass stupidity of Mr. Saltoun.

"I see yo're packin' a Winchester," said Loudon to Johnny Ramsay, when Hockling and Red had turned in.

"Hunter's trip," explained Johnny, his eyes twinkling. "Jack Richie's got his own ideas about this rustlin', so he sent me over to scamper round the 88 range an' see what I could see. I guess I'll travel with you a spell."

"Fine!" said Loudon. "Fine. I was wishin' for company. If we're jumped we'd ought to be able to give 'em a right pleasant little surprise."

Johnny Ramsay rolled a cigarette and gazed in silence at the dying fire for some minutes. Loudon, his hands clasped behind his head, stared upward at the star-dusted heavens. But he saw neither the stars nor the soft blackness. He saw Kate and Blakely, and thick-headed Mr. Saltoun bending over his desk, and he was wondering how it all would end.

"Say," said Johnny Ramsay, suddenly, "this here hold-up cut down on yuh from behind a rock, didn't he?"

"Shore did," replied Loudon.

"Which side did he fire from?"

"Why, the hind side."

"I ain't tryin' to be funny. Was it the left side or the right side?"

"The right side," Loudon replied, after a moment's thought.

"Yore right side?"

"Yep."

"That would make it his left side. Did yuh ever stop to think, Tom, that Blakely shoots a Colt right-handed an' a Winchester left-handed?"

Loudon swore sharply.

"Now, how did I come to forget that!" he exclaimed. "O' course he does."

"Guess Mr. Blakely's elected," said Johnny Ramsay. "Seems likely."

Early next morning Loudon and Ramsay rode northward along the bank of the Pack-saddle. They visited first the boulder a quarter of a mile below the mud-hole. Here they found empty cartridge shells, and the marks of boot-heels.

They forded the creek at the ledge above the mud-hole, where the cows had been driven across, and started westward. They were careful to ride the low ground at first, but early in the afternoon they climbed the rocky slope of Little Bear Mountain. From the top they surveyed the surrounding country. They saw the splendid stretches of the range specked here and there with dots that were cows, but they saw no riders.

They rode down the mountainside and turned into a wide draw, where pines and tamaracks grew slimly. At the head of the draw, where it sloped abruptly upward, was a brushless wood of tall cedars, and here, as they rode in among the trees, a calf bawled suddenly.

They rode toward the sound and came upon a dead cow. At the cow's side stood a lonely calf. At sight of the men the calf fled lumberingly. Ramsay unstrapped his rope and gave his horse the spur. Loudon dismounted and examined the dead cow. When Ramsay returned with the calf, Loudon was squatting on his heels, rolling a cigarette.

"There y'are," observed Loudon, waving his free hand toward the cow. "There's evidence for yuh. Ears slit with the 88 mark, an' the 88 brand over the old Bar S. Leg broke, an' a hole in her head. She ain't been dead more'n a day. What do you reckon?"

"That the 88 are damn fools. Why didn't they skin her?"

"Too lazy, I guess. That calf's branded an' earmarked all complete. Never was branded before, neither."

"Shore. An' the brand's about two days old. Just look at it. Raw yet."

"Same date as its ma's. They done some slick work with a wet blanket on that cow, but the Bar S is plain underneath. Give the cow a month, if she'd lived, an' yuh'd never know but what she was born 88."

"Oh, they're slick, the pups!" exclaimed Johnny Ramsay.

"The Old Man ought to see this. When Old Salt throws his eyes on that brandin' I'll gamble he'll change his views some."

"You bet he will. Better start now."

"All right. Let's get a-goin'."

"One's enough. You go, Tommy. I'll stay an' caper around. I might run onto somethin'. Yuh can't tell."

"I'd kind o' like to have yuh here when I get back."

"Don't worry none. From what I know o' Old Salt you an' him won't be here before to-morrow mornin'! I'll be here then."

"All right. I'll slide instanter. So long, Johnny."