CHAPTER XXIIBREAKING CLOUDS FOR ONE
ON top of the gigantic rock in the chaparral fastness sat Manzanita Canby and Falcon the Flunky. Overhead the sun was creeping slowly toward the zenith. From time to time the girl lifted the binoculars from her lap and trained them on Squawtooth. Each time, as she lowered them, she sighed.
“They’ve not found any of our messages,” she said, “or else things wouldn’t be so quiet down there, with noon almost here. All of the men that just rode in from the mountains have gone into the house—to eat, I suppose. If they were going to signal at noon, wouldn’t they be standing around to see if anything would happen?”
“I should think their curiosity might be aroused to that extent,” replied her companion. “All in the house, eh?”
“Every last one of them.” She was once more holding the glasses to her eyes. “I might have known there wasn’t a chance in a million of any one finding a tumbleweed with a message in it. But I thought that, with men scouring the country all about, somebody surely would stumble onto one ofthem and be curious enough to find out what had been tied to a thing like that. There are two automobiles at the ranch. The sheriff’s, I suppose.”
“Don’t be discouraged yet,” he comforted her. “Maybe they’ve sent my letter to Los Angeles, and have not yet got a satisfactory answer. In which case they wouldn’t signal until to-morrow at noon—or next day, if the answer was still delayed. Perk up, dear! You had a great scheme—too great to fail.”
“There goes a lone rider toward Squawtooth—from the mountains, I guess. Looked like Ed Chazzy’s caballo. Yes, that’s the cream he rides. That’s Ed, too. I—oh, there! There! They’re signaling! Look!”
“You’re right. I can see a fleck of red against the cottonwood with my naked eye. You keep the glasses.”
She glued the binoculars to her eyes and watched.
“Sure enough! There’s a man up in the tree with a red blanket, or something. And—yes!—there’s another fellow standing at the foot. Everything’s all right. But say—I guess we’re not so notorious as we thought. Can you imagine all of the rest of them in there at dinner? Cool! Well, I guess we’ll have to really hold up the stage, or do something, to wake them up. I thought perhaps we were making a hit!”
“How about Mart?” he asked.
“Goodness! I’d almost forgotten him. Why, there’s no sign of him at all. Something is wrong, Tom. The kid would never, never fail us. If the signal were genuine, the instant it had been raised old Podhead would be on that bronc and riding him to a fare-you-well. It’s wrong—all wrong! A trick! I see it all now. Oh, I didn’t think such a thing of Pa Squawtooth! He’s refused to give Rattle-pod my half of the letter, and of course the kid has had no chance to read the milk message. Oh, Pa Squawtooth! I’ll never forgive you! And the coarseness of their work, Tom. Even though they’re trying to fake us, they ought to have sense enough to all stand out there and look on. They don’t know enough to try and make the proceeding appear natural. That alone might scare us off, even if we didn’t know the signal is a trap.”
“Not so fast,” said The Falcon. “It has just occurred to me that perhaps your father has offered a reward to the man who brings us in.”
“It would be just like him.”
“In that case—can’t you see?”
“Of course I can. The man who found the message might be selfish enough to think nothing of justice or our predicament, and would keep his discovery to himself and try to lure us out so that he—and a few pals maybe—could nab us and claim the reward. Even though we might be able toprove your innocence, and to show that eventually we would have come out anyway, pa would be in duty bound to pay what he’d offered. He’d do it, too. Oh, I never thought of such a situation! That’s just it. Somebody’s signaling unbeknown to pa and the rest, in at dinner.”
“Still no Mart, eh?”
“No sign of him. And there the signal goes down.”
Fully two minutes passed before she spoke again.
“There go two men away from Squawtooth over the desert,” she finally reported. “I’ll bet they set that signal, though I can’t make sure. Barns and things were in the way. Ed’s nearing Squawtooth, walking his cream.”
A little later: “Ed has reached the house and turned his horse into a corral.”
Then: “The two who left the ranch in the other direction are running toward a couple of horses, some distance from Squawtooth. I saw the horses there, but thought they were loose and cropping bunch grass. Now I see they’re saddled.
“They’re on ’em! Galloping like the dickens toward the buttes! Here come Ed and pa and—yes, I think it’s the sheriff. They’re in the corrals looking around. Seems almost as if they were looking up into the cottonwood. I’ve got it! You were right! Ed saw the signal, and asked what it meant when he got there. And pa and thesheriff couldn’t answer him, and have gone out to investigate. There go those two men, galloping like mad! That’s funny! If they meant to get us when we came out, why are they running directly away?
“There goes Pa Squawtooth and the rest of them back to the house. Now they’ve gone out of sight around the house. Oh, dear! And the grub’s almost gone! And that jack was the grandfather of all the rabbits in these mountains! Oh, I could just baw-awl!”
Then Falcon the Flunky took the glass and looked.
“I guess that’s the sheriff riding with three others in the direction taken by those two who galloped off,” was his first report. “They’re not hurrying, though. And now the others are getting their horses out of the corral. Here they come straight toward us—all in a bunch. M’m-m! I’d say everybody’s crazy down there!”
A sniffle.
“Cheer up! Cheer up! So long as they’re hunting over the desert there’s the chance of another of your messages being found. We’ll sit here and watch while they’re in sight. Maybe we can find out what they’re up to.”
“If we d-don’t we’re likely to starve,” the girl said sobbingly, wretched over the defeat of her clever plans.
The tents of the Jeddos that had been swept down by the wind were up again. Jeddo the Crow had slept throughout the greater part of the storm, and when conscious again had been in no condition to return to his camp from Stlingbloke to help repair the damage. Consequently he managed to get drunk again and forgot it.
On the slender shoulders of Wing o’ the Crow, then, had descended in violence one catastrophe after another. Her father was incapacitated, and she was in charge of the work as well as cook and dishwasher for the outfit. Halfaman had been arrested on suspicion of highway robbery and the killing of a man. On her hands he had left extra stock to be cared for, with no one to do it or to work them and make them earn their keep. Her friend, Manzanita, and The Falcon were fugitives in the mountains. Then the storm had swooped down and devastated the camp. And Wing o’ the Crow was only a girl of twenty-two.
Nevertheless the tents were up again, and everything was put to rights. Out on the job the few men at her command were following the teams, with the most dependable one among them acting as foreman. Stolidly the girl cooked for them, fed and watered the extra teams, and then went out to help with the dirt moving, dully wondering if ever there would be an end to her calamities.
Then the tide of her fortunes suddenly began to change.
To this wonderful little black-eyed girl at noon came Fred Glenn, sheriff, with three deputies, on horseback.
“You Miss Crow, ma’am?” he asked kindly.
“Miss Jeddo,” she corrected, standing in the door of the cook tent, for she was cleaning up after the noonday meal.
“Yes—that’s right. I got it wrong. Here’s a note for ye, ma’am.”
“Who from?”
“Daisy.”
The envelope was dirty and not addressed. She tore it across the end and removed a dirtier piece of paper. She read:
Wing o’ the Crow,Care Jeddo Daisy and Jeddo contracters beloved—Each little itum is jake wingo and I will be back in no time Ask the Sheriff if that aint so. Then we will knock them in the colar together hey wingo. You and me and some more old stifs. Im sending you some stifs—put them on those new teems and feed them wel.Phinehas Daisy Vise PresidentYour Devoted Phinehas
Wing o’ the Crow,
Care Jeddo Daisy and Jeddo contracters beloved—
Each little itum is jake wingo and I will be back in no time Ask the Sheriff if that aint so. Then we will knock them in the colar together hey wingo. You and me and some more old stifs. Im sending you some stifs—put them on those new teems and feed them wel.
Phinehas Daisy Vise PresidentYour Devoted Phinehas
She looked up at the wizened little sheriff. “Is it Jake?” she asked.
“Yes,” the sheriff returned. “He’ll be out soon; maybe to-morrow.”
She lowered her long black lashes. “Much obliged,” she said.
The sheriff flipped a finger at his hat brim, and rode on up the line.
An hour later Wing o’ the Crow was out in the borrow pit, driving a slip team, dully watching a six-horse freighter making it in from Opaco, when seven men came walking down the line. They stopped and surveyed the work, then one approached her.
“Hello, Wing o’ the Crow,” he ventured, grinning.
“Hello,” she returned.
“D’youse know me?”
“I don’t think I do.”
“I seen youse lots o’ times. I been on jobs wid youse in Kansas an’ Colorado.”
“Oh!”
“How’s chances?”
“Chances fer what?”
“To go to woik. Dere’s seven of us. We rambled out wid Demarest, Spruce & Tillou’s outfit. In Opaco I see old Halfaman Daisy in de hoosegow, an’ he says he’s gonta be out in a day er so, and dat dere was a mistake, and everyt’ing like that—see? He could come right now if he wanted to. De door of his cell was unlocked.He’s nuts! And he says he’s got some new teams, an’ he said fer me to get some o’ de plugs and go to woik fer youse folks. Said he was pardners wid youse an’ Jeddo de Crow now; and he wanted me to get some reg’lar stiffs an’ help youse out. I know Halfaman dese many years, an’ I says I’ll take a shot at ’er. Dere’s six o’ my pals wid me—all good plugs—all skinners.”
“Not stiffs! Reg’lar stiffs?”
“Yeah—sure. Ol’-timers. Dey all savvy Halfaman. He’s one good scout. A plug likes to see a stiff like Halfaman get started wid an outfit of his own, so we said we’d help um out a little.”
“Well, my goodness! Stiffs never work for us. Look at the bunch o’ hicks we got! Sure you’re not kiddin’ me?”
“Lead us to Jack an’ Ned. An’ Halfaman says fer youse to let me boss de job till he gets here and fer youse to go read yer hist’ry in de camp wagon and leave outside t’ings to me. I’m Schmitty—Paprika Schmitty.”
“Paprika Schmitty!” she cried. “Why—why you’ve been bossman for big outfits! I know about you. You ain’t got any business here.”
“Lead us to Jack an’ Ned,” Schmitty persisted.
Ten minutes later seven of the ten young mule teams were heaving into the collars, each team with an apparently lounging stiff in rear of it. In the snap of one’s finger almost results were beingdoubled, and with a light heart Wing o’ the Crow ran to the cook tent and plunged into a rearrangement of her plans for the evening meal.
Late that evening a deputy of Sheriff Glenn rode into Squawtooth on a tired horse.
Blacky Silk and Kid Strickland had seen the little posse riding toward Stlingbloke and had grown suspicious. They had promptly mounted fresh horses and escaped in the direction of Death Valley. The sheriff and the other two deputies were trailing them as best they could, and the rider to Squawtooth had come to notify Barstow and Dagget to be on the lookout for the escapes.
Shortly before this Squawtooth and his party, not so large now as at first, had returned from the day’s fruitless search. Demarest and Spruce had driven on to their new camp, but the former had promised to drop in at the ranch in his frequent comings and goings back and forth to see if he could be of any service.
Squawtooth was discouraged. Now that the sheriff had assured him of Falcon the Flunky’s innocence, he was ready to make almost any concession to get back his daughter. But no opportunity had been offered him. His great fear was that the two had managed to get entirely out of the country, perhaps by crossing the mountains over obscure trails to the coast side, and that by now they weremarried. Try though he did, he somehow could not believe the young man to be one who would harm his daughter. No, whatever he might be, he was not that kind. Not long before this, under the stress of his great tribulation, the cattle king had been ready to accuse the flunky of any crime. But his brain had been overheated then, and he had not been responsible. Now he was reasoning calmly, and finally decided that, if it proved to be the price of getting his daughter back, he even would consent to a marriage, no matter if his ambitious plans for her were entirely smashed. He loved her more than all the wealth in the world. Nothing else really mattered. Yes, he would sacrifice everything, pride, money, prestige, to be able to hold her in his arms again and know that she was safe. What a fool he had been!
Next morning they continued the search, but now the party was composed only of such Squawtooth vaqueros as could be spared from working the cows, and a few neighbors whose own business was not pressing—fifteen in all, counting the cattleman and Mart.
All day the search was continued, over country which had virtually been combed before. But night came again, and the searchers knew no more than when they had set out in the morning. And Mrs. Ehrhart reported that no word had come from townson the inside, whose authorities had been asked to look out for the missing pair.
Webster Canby went to bed to a sleepless night, but was in the saddle again at the head of his men at six o’clock.