Читать книгу Robbers' Roost - Zane Grey - Страница 5

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A RED sunrise greeted Wall upon his awakening. He rolled his bed and carried it back to the corral. There was a thin skim of ice on the water in the trough. As it had not been broken, he believed that he was the first up. Bay whinnied to him from the stall.

When, a little later, he presented himself at the back of Red’s house for breakfast, he was to find Hays, Happy Jack, and Brad Lincoln ahead of him.

“Mornin’!” said Hays cheerily. “Do you smell spring in the air?”

“Howdy, everybody!” replied Wall. “I guess I like this country.”

“Only bad thing about this end of Utah is thet you hate to leave,” observed the robber. “Usually we winter here an’ go somewhere else in summer. It’s hotter’n hell here in July an’ August. But I always want to come back. Gets hold of a feller. An’ thet’s bad.”

They had breakfast. “Brad, you fetch your pack-hosses round back,” ordered the leader, when they got outside. “Happy, you get yourself a hoss. Then meet us at the store quick as you can get there.... Jim, you come with me.”

“Hays, I’m in need of some things,” said Wall.

Hays drew out a handful of bills and pressed them upon Wall without any interest in how much or little was there.

“Shore. Buy what outfit you need an’ don’t forget a lot of shells,” replied Hays. “If I don’t miss my guess, we’ll have a smoky summer. Haw, Haw! ... Here’s the store. Run by Josh Sneed, friendly to Mormons. I’ve a sneakin’ hunch he’s one himself. Hasn’t any use for us. But he’ll take our money, you bet, an’ skin the pants off us, if we let him.”

The store proved to be similar to most Western stores dependent upon the stage line for their supplies. It consisted of the whole floor of a stone-walled building, and general merchandise littered it so that moving around was not easy.

A bright young fellow, who looked to be the son of the proprietor, took charge of Wall. A new saddle blanket was Wall’s first choice, after which he bought horseshoes and nails, a hammer and file, articles he had long needed, and the lack of which had made Bay lame. After that he selected a complete new outfit of wearing apparel, a new tarpaulin, a blanket, rope, and wound up with a goodly supply of shells for his .45 Colt, bearing in mind the cardinal necessity of constant practice, a habit neglected of late, for the very good reason that he had no funds. Likewise he got some boxes of .44 Winchester shells for his rifle.

After this stocking-up he was surprised to find that he had considerable money left. Hays had been generous. Whereupon Wall went in for some luxuries, such as a silk scarf, razor and brushes and comb, towels and soap, and finally, amused at himself, some boxes of nuts and candy.

All these purchases he rolled in the tarpaulin, which he threw over his shoulder. Starting out, he passed Hays, who was buying food supplies.

“I’ll need a pack-horse,” said Wall.

“Ha! I should smile you will!” replied the other, with a grin. “Take your pick. We got five or six extra hosses. ... Did you buy saddle-bags an’ a canvas water-bag?”

“No. I didn’t think of them.”

“Wal, I’ll fetch them things round for you. Rustle Happy an’ Brad over here, will you? An’ throw the pack-saddles on. We want to be hittin’ the trail.”

Wall met the two men on the way to the store.

“Hays wants you to rustle,” he said.

“We’re mozyin’ along. You’ve a fust-rate pack-hoss, Wall,” returned the genial Happy Jack.

Jim thought so himself by the time he had reached the corral. He was glad he no longer needed to make a pack-animal of Bay. There were six or eight horses in the corral several of which took Jim’s eye. Still, they could not compare with Bay.

Spreading out his possessions, he packed them in one small and two large bundles. This he performed with care, having in mind a long journey over bad trails. By the time he had finished Happy Jack and Lincoln arrived, staggering under burdens. While they rested Hays came along, and the pack he carried attested to the fact that he was no shirker.

“Hank, you look like a thundercloud,” observed Brad Lincoln, chuckling.

“Wal, I feel like one. What do you think, fellers? Thet fox-faced Sneed always did make me pay cash, but this time I had to produce beforehand.”

“These Mormons are slick business men,” said Happy Jack.

“Hank, it ain’t only your credit thet’s bad here in Green River,” added Lincoln, satirically.

“Wal, I’ll tell you what,” growled Hays. “If we didn’t have this Star Ranch deal on we’d take every damn thing Sneed has.”

“Let’s do it, anyhow.”

“Nope. At least not now. Mebbe this fall ... I’d like to have a shot at Sneed’s sharp nose.... Rustle an’ pack now, fellers. We’re behind.”

Half an hour later the four men, driving five packed horses and two unpacked, rode off behind the town across the flat toward the west. Coming to a road, Hays led on that for a mile or so, and then branched off on a seldom-used trail which appeared to parallel the wonderful, gray-cliffed mountain wall that zigzagged on to the purple-hazed distance.

They went down a long hill of bare clay earth dotted with rocks and scant brush, at the bottom of which ran a deep, wide, dry wash. Green River with its cottonwoods dropped behind the hill, to be seen no more.

Gradually the pack-horses settled into single file on the trail and required little driving. The riders straggled along behind. Jim Wall brought up the rear. If he was ever contented it was when he was on horseback with open, unknown country ahead. This for him was familiar action. Once he caught himself looking back over his shoulder, and he laughed. It was an instinct, a habit.

When the opposite, endless, slow-rising slope had been surmounted, Wall saw all around country that wrenched a tribute from him. Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana left much to be desired in comparison with Utah. Jim had not ridden over Arizona, so could not judge. But Utah was stunning.

To his right ran the crooked rim-rock, gray and yellow, with its speckled slides, its jagged peaks, its rough wildness increasing on and on. Ahead a vast rolling plain, bare in the foreground, stark and ghastly in patches, and in the distance rolling from monotonous gray to faint green. Above the horizon towered the black Henry Mountains, far away, dim and strange, with white peaks in the blue.

But it was the region to the left and south of the Henrys that fascinated Jim Wall.

Beyond the bulge of the plain, buttes stood up here, and there, lofty and sentinel-like, isolated, hinting of rough country. More toward Wall’s left, the plain dropped off, allowing him to see boundlessly in that direction. A shiny, wandering line of river, bordered with green, disappeared in a chaotic wilderness of bare rock, carved and broken into every conceivable shape.

The thought came to Wall that a rider down in there would have little to fear, from pursuers. He would be alone. He could sleep. He could idle for hours, with never a need to hurry or think or watch. But how could he live? It looked formidable and forbidding.

These impressions of Wall’s did not materially change as the miles passed by, except to augment. The trail grew sandy, though not dragging. Thin, bleached grass, with a little touch of green, began to show on the desert. Wall watched for some evidence of wild creatures. What a bleak, inhospitable land! Hours passed before he sighted a track, and that had been made by an antelope. Patches of sunflower stalks, beginning to green, showed in the sandy swales. There were no birds, no lizards, no hawks, no rabbits, nothing but endless rolling plain tinged with green. But the hours did not drag. They never dragged for Wall on a ride like this, when he could forget all that he had turned his back upon and could look ahead to the calling horizons.

Toward sunset they drew down to the center of a vast swale, where the green intensified, and the eye of the range-rider could see the influence of water. Gradually the Henrys sank behind the rim of this bowl, and the zigzag wall, growing crimson, appeared to lose its lofty height. Only one of the buttes showed its blunt crown of gold and red. For the rest, all was sunset flare, a blazing sky of rose and salmon, with gold clouds on the west. And the huge, circular swale was bathed in an ethereal violet light.

Hays halted for camp at a swampy sedge plot where water oozed out and grass was thick enough to hold the horses.

“Aha! Good to be out again, boys,” said Hays, heartily. “Throw saddles an’ packs. Turn the hosses loose. Happy, you’re elected cook. Rest of us rustle somethin’ to burn, which is shore one hell of a job.”

Jim rambled far afield to collect an armload of dead stalks of cactus, greasewood, sunflower; and dusk was mantling the desert when he got back to camp. Happy Jack was whistling about a little fire; Hays knelt before a pan of dough, which he was kneading; Lincoln was busy at some camp chore.

“Wal, I don’t give a damn for store bread,” Hays was saying. “Give me sour-dough biscuits.... How about you, Jim?”

“Me too. And I’d like some cake,” replied Jim, dropping his load.

“Cake!—Wal, listen to our new hand. Jack, can you bake cake?”

“Sure. We got flour an’ sugar an’ milk. Did you fetch some eggs?”

“Haw! Haw! ... Thet reminds me, though. We’ll get eggs over at Star Ranch. None of you ever seen such a ranch. Why, fellers, Herrick’s bought every durn hoss, burro, cow, steer, chicken in the whole country.”

“So you said before,” returned Lincoln. “I’m sure curious to see this Englisher. Must have more money than brains.”

“Hell yes! He hasn’t got any sense, accordin’ to us Westerners. But, Lordy! the money he’s spent!”

Jim sat down to rest and listen. These riders had accepted him and they were out in the open now, where one might expect frankness.

“Rummy deal—a rich Englishman hirin’ men like us to run his outfit,” pondered Lincoln, in a puzzled tone. “I don’t understand it.”

“Wal, who does? I can’t, thet’s shore. But it’s an honest God’s fact, an’ we’re goin’ to be so rich pronto thet we’ll jest about kill each other.”

“More truth than fun in thet, Hank, old boy, an’ don’t you forget it,” rejoined Lincoln. “How do you aim to get rich?”

“Shore, I’ve no idee. Thet’ll all come. I’ve got the step on Heeseman an’ his pards.”

“He’ll be aimin’ at precisely the same deal as you.”

“Shore. We’ll have to kill Heeseman an’ Progar, sooner or later. I’d like it sooner.”

“Humph! Thet ain’t goin’ to be so easy, Hank.”

“Wal, Brad, don’t jump your ditches before you come to them,” advised Hays, philosophically.

“I don’t like the deal,” concluded Lincoln, forcibly.

Presently they sat to their meal, and ate almost in silence. Darkness settled down; the staccato cry of coyotes came on the night wind; the little fire burned down to red coals. Lincoln essayed to replenish it with fresh fuel, but Hays made him desist. One by one they sought their beds, and Wall was the last. He did not lie awake long.

Dawn found them up and doing. Wall fetched in some of the horses; Lincoln the others. By sunrise they were on the trail.

It turned out to be a windy day, cold, almost raw, with only a pale sun. Blowing dust and sand shrouded distant landmarks. About noon they passed close to one of the buttes, a huge disintegrated rock, the color of chocolate, and so weathered that it resembled a colossal pipe organ. Not long afterward another loomed up through the dust—a mound with the shape of an elephant. Thereafter outcropping ledges of rock and buttes grew increasingly more abundant, as did the washes and shallow, stony defiles.

The gray, winding wall sheered off more to the north. About mid-afternoon the trail led down through high gravel banks to a wide stream-bed, dry except in the middle of the sandy waste, where a tiny ribbon of water meandered. It was a mile across this flat to the line of green brush.

“This here’s the Muddy,” announced Hays, for Jim’s benefit. “Bad enough when the water’s up. But nothin’ to the Dirty Devil. Nothin’ atall!”

“What’s the Dirty Devil?” asked Jim.

“It’s a river an’ it’s well named, you can gamble on thet. We’ll cross it tomorrow sometime.”

Next camp was on higher ground above the Muddy, and as it was a protected spot, in the lee of rocks, the riders were not sorry to halt. Wood was fairly plentiful, but there was an entire absence of grass and water. The horses, however, would not suffer, as they had drunk their fill at the river. They were tied up for the night and fed grain.

Hays and Lincoln renewed their argument about the Herrick ranch deal. It proved what Wall had divined—this Brad Lincoln was shrewd, cold, doubtful, and aggressive. Hays was not distinguished for any cleverness. He was merely an honest, unscrupulous robber. These men were going to clash. That was inevitable, Jim calculated; and for that matter he had never ridden with an outfit of hunters or cowboys some of whom did not clash. It was the way of men in the open. Jim remembered a posse with which he had once ridden, in pursuit of rustlers, whose members had argued and fought so much among themselves that they failed to catch their quarry. And certainly it was common knowledge to Westerners that gangs of robbers were continually at strife. Hank Hays was evidently a robber of some degree, though scarcely an outlaw yet. It was difficult to define an outlaw in a country where there was no law.

Early the next day Jim Wall had reason to be curious about the Dirty Devil River, for the descent into the defiles of desert to reach it was a most remarkable one. The trail, now only a few dim old hoof tracks, wound tortuously down and down into canyons of gray, yellow, brown, violet, black earth where stone appeared conspicuous for its absence.

At midday the sun poured down into this colorful hole so hotly that horses and men sweat tremendously, and suffered from thirst and choked with acrid dust. The tracks Hays was following failed and he got lost in a labyrinthine maze of deep washes impossible to climb and seemingly impossible to escape from. Their situation became serious, and they halted for a conference.

“Hell hole!” gasped Happy Jack.

“How much more of this, Hays?” asked Wall, seriously.

“I wish I was shore. If we get off down into the brakes proper it’s all up with us. For this ain’t nothin’ to the seventy miles between here an’ the canyon country. I’ve heared of men bein’ chased down in there, an’ of prospectors goin’ in thet nothin’ was ever known of them again.”

“We’ve walked round and round a good many miles,” said Wall.

Lincoln got off his horse and went down the canyon, evidently searching for a place to climb to the rim above. But he did not find it. Nevertheless, he returned in an assertive manner, and mounting, called for the others to follow.

“No. Thet’s the wrong way,” shouted Hays. “Thet’s south an’ if we keep on we’ll never get out.”

“Wal, I hear the river an’ I’m makin’ for it,” returned Lincoln.

Jim had heard a faint, low murmur which had puzzled him, and which he had not recognized because he did not dismount. They all followed Lincoln, who halted at the mouth of every intersecting gorge to step away from his horse and listen. Eventually he led them into a narrow, high-walled canyon where ran the Dirty Devil. The water was muddy, the current mean, the sandbar treacherous, but as it was shallow the riders, by driving the pack-animals on a rim, and plunging after themselves, forded it without more mishap than a wetting. The great trouble with the horses was that they were so thirsty they would have mired down had they not been forced on. At last a gravelly bar afforded solid enough footing for the animals to drink, and the men to fill their water-bags.

Still they were lost. There was nothing to do, however, but work up a side canyon, which fortunately did not break up into innumerable smaller canyons, as had those on the other side of the river. Eventually they got out, when Hays at once located himself and soon led them to a camp-site that never could have been expected there.

“Fellers, I’ll bet you somethin’,” he said, thoughtfully, before dismounting. “There’s a roost down in thet country where never in Gawd’s world could anybody find us.”

“Ha! An’ when they did it’d be only our bleached bones,” scoffed Lincoln.

“Wal, mebbe you won’t need such a place,” returned Hays, curtly. “Jim, what do you think?”

“I never saw such a place in all my riding. Nothing would surprise me,” replied Wall. “When will we get up high where we can see?”

“Tomorrow. Just before we reach the foothills. Wonderfulest country I ever seen, an’ different. Thet’s what fetched the Englishman. He’s plumb crazy over the view. Wal, it’s grand, shore as shootin’.”

“Hank, you always had the same weakness.”

“Ahuh. A man has to have weaknesses, hasn’t he? Yours is whisky, hard feelin’, an’ greediness,” returned Hays, deliberately.

That sally did not set well with Lincoln, though it effectually silenced him. There never had been any love lost between these two men, Jim conjectured.

A good camp-site left the men more leisure, except Happy Jack, who evidently liked to work as well as talk and laugh. He was capable, too. After supper Jim strolled away from camp, down to where the canyon opened upon a nothingness of space and blackness and depth. The hour hung suspended between dusk and night. He felt an overpowering sense of the immensity of this region of mountain, gorge, plain, and butte into which he was traveling.

He heard running water over rocks, a welcome, soothing sound. Coyotes had raised their hue and cry; now and then a shrill whistle of a nighthawk rent the air; cracking of weathered rock and rustling of brush indicated the presence of nocturnal animals. Hays had led up out of the barren network of canyons to the edge of a zone of life. The wind had a whisk, a tone, an icy touch of the mountain heights. While Jim Wall meditated there in the gathering darkness he was visited by an inexplicable reluctance to go on with this adventure. A blank, impondering fate seemed to stand up, vague, indefinable, yet more bitter than a fugitive life. He could not laugh it away. It needed daylight, and clear view of this calling wilderness, to dispel unrealities. He had had presentiments before, all of which had turned out incredibly true, but this clamped his soul somehow. He seemed to catch a glimpse of that soul, in the shape of a naked man, driven to and fro across the sand and the rock, tormented by horrors that were not physical, tortured by a spirit within.

Jim ponderingly retraced his steps. He could make but little of such a visitation, and that little had to do with his youth, his home, his sister, his mother, all of whom were but ghosts of a dim past. Every man, even these brutalized robbers, had some caverns of memory, into which sleep or unsolicited turn of consciousness thrust them momentarily. It was singular that the instant he caught sight of Hays and Lincoln lying prone on the ground, dark, still, betraying faces turned up to the starlight, this strange feeling left him. It never returned. But Jim Wall went to bed with a feeling that right then he should have found his horse and ridden off into the unknown.

Next morning he remembered something like a distorted dream, but he could not recall details. He had smoked too much these several days, and the strong drink Hays had brought along was not conducive to quiet nerves. Jim found himself confronted by a choice of drifting on in the ways of these men or returning to the lone-wolf character which had long been his. For the time being he chose the former.

Despite the abundance of water and feed thereabouts, some of the horses had strayed. Lincoln came in with the last few and he was disgruntled. Hays cursed him roundly. They got a late start. Nevertheless, Hays assured Jim that they would reach Star Ranch toward evening.

The trail led up a wide, shallow, gravelly canyon full of green growths. Like a black cloud the mountains loomed ahead and above. Jim was glad to ride up at last out of that interminable canyon into another zone—the slope of the foothills. At last the cedars! Was there ever a rider who did not love the cedars—sight of their rich, green foliage and purple berries, their sheathed bark hanging in strips, their dead snags, their protection from wind and cold, their dry, sweet fragrance?

But upon looking back Jim forgot the foreground. Had he ridden out of that awful gulf of colors and streaks? Hays caught up with him. “Come on, Jim. This here ain’t nothin’. Wait till we get around an’ up a bit. Then I’ll show you somethin’.”

They rode on side by side. The trail led into a wider one, coming around from the northeast. Jim did not miss fresh hoof tracks, and Hays was not far behind in discovering them.

“Woods full of riders,” he muttered, curiously.

“How long have you been gone, Hays?” inquired Jim.

“From Star Ranch? Let’s see. Must be a couple of weeks. Too long, by gosh! Herrick sent me to Grand Junction. An’ on the way back I circled. Thet’s how I happened to make Green River.”

“Did you expect to meet Happy Jack and Lincoln there?”

“Shore. An’ some more of my outfit. But I guess you’ll more’n make up for the other fellers.”

“Hope I don’t disappoint you,” said Jim, dryly.

“Wal, you haven’t so far. Only I’d feel better, Jim, if you’d come clean with who you air an’ what you air.”

“Hays, I didn’t ask you to take me on.”

“Shore, you’re right. Reckon I figgered everybody knew Hank Hays. Why there’s a town down here named after me—Hankville.”

“A town? No one would think it.”

“Wal, it ain’t much to brag on. A few cabins, the first of which I threw up with my father years ago. In his later years he was a prospector—before thet a Mormon. I never had no Mormon in me. We lived there for years. I trapped fur up here in the mountains. In fact I got to know the whole country except thet Black Dragon Canyon, an’ thet hell hole of the Dirty Devil.... My old man was shot by rustlers.”

“I gathered you’d no use for rustlers.... Well then, Hays, how’d you fall into your present line of business?”

“Haw! Haw! Present line. Thet’s a good one. Now, Jim, what do you reckon thet line is?”

“You seem to be versatile, Hays. But if I was to judge from our meeting with the fat Mormon at the ferry, I’d say you relieved people of surplus cash.”

“Very nice put, Jim. I’d hate to be a low-down thief. ... Jim, I was an honest man once, not so long ago. It was a woman who made me what I am today. Thet’s why I’m cold on women.”

“Were you ever married?” went on Jim, stirred a little by the other’s crude pathos.

“Thet was the hell of it,” replied Hays, and he seemed to lose desire to confide further.

Jim revolved in mind a story to tell this robber, if only to please him and establish some kind of background.

“Well, Hank, my story isn’t anything to excite pity, like yours. And sure not friendship.”

“Ahuh. I had you figgered, Jim,” replied Hays, wagging his head. “Shore Jim Wall ain’t your right handle. Wal, any handle will do out here.... Don’t be afraid to tell me about yourself, now or some other time.”

“Thanks, Hank. A man gets to be cautious. A rolling stone gathers no moss.”

“Wal, I’d rather train with enemies than alone. I can’t stand bein’ alone much.”

“That accounts for Lincoln. He rubs you the wrong way, Hank.”

“Brad’s a cross-grained cuss, but he has his good points. They don’t show in times like this.”

Jim had to make conjecture about the times that did bring out a desirable side of Brad Lincoln. And he had his doubts about it. The trail narrowed into rough going, which necessitated single file, and gradual separation of the riders. The morning was bright, cool, beautiful, with air full of sweet smells of sage, which soft gray growth had come down to meet them. Blue jays squalled, mockingbirds sang melodiously; ring-tailed hawks sailed low over the slopes. Deer loped away among the cedars. As there were three riders ahead of Jim, none of whom got off to shoot, it appeared no time for him to do so, either. Star Ranch probably abounded with game. Jim wondered about this new ranch. It would not last long.

They rode into the zone of the foothills, with ever-increasing evidence of fertility. The blue, cloudy color of the still pools of water in rocky beds gave proof of melting snow. But Jim’s view had been restricted for several hours, permitting only occasional glimpses up the gray-black slopes of the Henrys and none at all of the low country.

Therefore Jim was scarcely prepared to come round a corner and out into the open. Stunned by the magnificence of the scene, he would have halted Bay on the spot, but he espied Hays waiting for him ahead, while the others and the pack-animals disappeared round a gray rock-wall bend.

“Wal, pard, this here is Utah,” said Hays, as Jim came up, and his voice held a note of pride. “Now let me set you straight.... You see how the foothills step down to the yellow an’ gray. Wal, thet green speck down there is Hankville. It’s about forty miles by trail, closer as a crow flies. An’ thet striped messy pot of hash beyond is the brakes of the Dirty Devil. Reckon a diameter of seventy miles across thet circle wouldn’t be far wrong. Thet’s the country nobody knows. My father told me of a hole in there I’d shore like to see. Wal, where the green begins to climb to them red buttes—there you’re gettin’ out of hell. An’ beyond lays grassy plain after grassy plain, almost to Green River.”

Jim’s silence was eulogy enough. In fact, he could not think of adequate expression.

“Now shift an’ look across the canyon country,” went on Hays, stretching a long arm. “There’s two hundred miles of wind an’ water-worn rock. You see them windin’ threads, sort of black in the gray. Wal, them’s rivers. The Green runs into the Grand to make the Colorado, less’n sixty miles from where you’re sittin’ your hoss. An’ look at the threads meetin’ the Colorado. Canyons! I’ve looked down into Escalante, San Juan, Noki, Piute. But thet was when I rode with my father. I couldn’t take you to one of them places. We heard of great stone bridges spannin’ the canyons, but only the Injuns know of them. ... Thet round-top mountain way across there is Navajo. An’ now, look, Jim. See thet high, sharp, black line thet makes a horizon, level as a floor. Thet’s Wild Hoss Mesa. It’s seventy-five miles long, not countin’ the slant down from the Henrys. An’ only a few miles across. Canyons on each side. It reaches right out into thet canyon country, which makes our Dirty Devil here look like a Mormon ranch full of irrigation ditches. Nobody knows thet country, Jim. Think of thet. My father said only a few Mormons ever got on top of Wild Hoss Mesa. ... What you think of it?”

“Grand.... That’s all, Hank.”

“Ahuh. I’m glad you ain’t like Lincoln. We’ll get somewhere together, Jim.... An’ now, comin’ nearer home, there’s the Black Buttes, sometimes called Bears Ears, an’ here’s Gray Bluff—thet wall thet dances toward us from the gray out there.... An’ this mess of rocks across the valley is Red Rocks. An’ so on, as you’ll come to know. Round the corner here you can see Herrick’s valley an’ ranch. It’s a bit of rich land thirty miles long an’ half as wide, narrowin’ like a wedge. Now let’s ride on, Jim, an’ have a look at it.”

But Jim elected to stay behind, trying to realize what it was that caused him to stare blankly, to feel his temples throb. Had he ridden half across the wild West to be made to feel like this?

Jim tried to grasp the spectacle that his eyes beheld. But a moment’s sight seemed greater than a thousand years of man’s comprehension. It would take time and intimacy to make this Utah his own. But on the moment he trembled, as if on the verge of something from which he could never retrace his steps. His sensations were not his to control.

Across the mouth of Herrick’s gray-green valley, which opened under the escarpment from which Jim gazed, extended vast level green and black lines of range, one above the other, each projecting farther out into that blue abyss, until Wild Horse Mesa, sublime and isolated in its noonday austerity, formed the last horizon. Its reach seemed incredible, unreal—its call one of exceeding allurement. Where did it point? What lay on the other side? How could its height be attained?

Nearer, and to the left, there showed a colossal space of rock cleavage, walls and cliffs, vague and dim as the blank walls of dreams, until, still closer, they began to take on reality of color, and substance of curve and point. Mesas of red stood up in the sunlight, unscalable, sentinels of that sepulcher of erosion and decay. Wavy benches and terraces, faintly colorful, speckled with black and gray, ran out into the void, to break at the dark threads of river canyons.

All that lay beyond the brakes of the Dirty Devil.

Here was a dropping away of the green-covered mountain foothills and slopes to the ragged, wild rock and clay world, beginning with scarfs of gray wash and rims of gorge and gateways of blue canyons, and augmenting to a region that showed Nature at her most awful, grim and ghastly, tortuous in line, rending in curve, twisting in upheaval, a naked spider-web of the earth, cut and washed into innumerable ridges of monotonous colors, gray, drab, brown, mauve, and intricate passageways of darker colors, mostly purple, mysterious and repelling. Down in there dwelt death for plant, animal, and man. For miles not one green speck! And then far across that havoc of the elements which led on to a boundless region of color—white jagged rents through miles of hummocky ground, and streaked by washes of gray and red and yellow, on to vast green levels, meadow-like at such a distance, which stretched away to the obstructing zigzag wall of stone, the meandering White Bluffs along the base of which Jim had ridden for many days.

“Down in there somewhere this Hank Hays will find his robbers’ roost,” soliloquized Jim, and turned his horse again into the trail.

Before late afternoon of that day Jim Wall had seen as many cattle dotting a verdant, grassy, watered valley as ever he had viewed in the great herds driven up from Texas to Abilene and Dodge, or on the Wind River Range of Wyoming. A rough estimate exceeded ten thousand head. He had taken Hays with a grain of salt. But here was an incomparable range and here were the cattle. No doubt, beyond the timbered bluff across the valley lay another depression like this one, and perhaps there were many extending like spokes of a wheel down from the great hub of the Henry Mountains. But where was the market for this unparalleled range?

Herrick had selected as a site for his home what was undoubtedly the most picturesque point in the valley, if not one that had the most utility for the conducting of a ranch business. Ten miles down from the apex of the valley a pine-wooded bench, almost reaching the dignity of a promontory, projected from the great slope of the mountain. Here, where the pines straggled down, stood the long, low cabin of peeled logs, yellow in the sunlight. Below, on the flat, extended the numerous barns, sheds, corrals. A stream poured off the mountain, white in exposed places, and ran along under the bench, and out to join the main brook of the valley.

Somewhat apart from both the corrals and outbuildings on the flat stood a new log cabin, hurriedly built, with chinks still unfilled. The roof extended out on three sides over wide porches, where Wall observed three or four beds, a number of saddles, and other riders’ paraphernalia. The rear of the cabin backed against the rocks. Jim understood that Hays had thrown up this abode, rather than dwell too close to the other employees of Herrick. From the front porch one could drop a stone into the brook, or fish for trout. The pines trooped down to the edge of the brook.

Naturally, no single place in all that valley could have been utterly devoid of the charm and beauty nature had lavished there, but this situation was ideal for riders. Hays even had a private corral. As Jim rode up to this habitation his quick eye caught sight of curious, still-eyed men on the porch. Also he observed that there was a store of cut wood stowed away under the porch.

“Wal, here we air,” announced Hays. “An’ if you don’t like it you’re shore hard to please. Finest of water, beef, lamb, venison, bear meat. Butter for our biscuits. An’ milk! An’ best of all—not very much work. Haw! Haw!”

“Where do we bunk?” asked Jim, presently.

“On the porch. I took to the attic, myself.”

“If you don’t mind I’ll keep my pack inside, but sleep out under the pines,” responded Wall.

When at length Jim carried his effects up on the porch Hays spoke up: “Jim, here’s the rest of my outfit.... Fellers, scrape acquaintance with Jim Wall, late of Wyoming.”

That was all the introduction Hays volunteered. Jim replied: “Howdy” and left a return of their hard scrutiny until some other time.

Hays went at once into low-voiced conference with these four men. Happy Jack hauled up the supplies. Brad Lincoln occupied himself with his pack. Jim brought his own outfit to a far corner of the porch. Then he strolled among the pines, seeking a satisfactory nook to unroll his bed. Jim, from long habit, generated by a decided need of vigilance, preferred to sleep in coverts like a rabbit, or any other animal that required protection. He was not likely to depart from such a habit, certainly not while in the company of Hank Hays and comrades. His swift glance at the four members new to him had not been comprehensive, but it had left a sharply defined impression. Any rancher who would hire this quartet of lean, dark-faced, hard-lipped, border-hawks for cowboys was certainly vastly ignorant, if not mentally deranged. Jim was most curious to meet the English rancher.

At length he found a suitable niche between two rocks, one of which was shelving, where pine needles furnished a soft mat underneath, and the murmur of the brook just faintly reached him. Jim would not throw his bed where the noise of rushing water, or anything else, might preclude the service of his keen ears. There was no step on his trail now, but he instinctively distrusted Lincoln, and would undoubtedly distrust one or more of these other men. Hays exemplified the fact of honor among thieves. Jim had come to that conviction. This robber might turn out big in some ways.