CHAPTER XVIISTACY DECIDES TO LEAVEThe night that Stacy Brown was roped from his mustang he was put to sleep with a whack applied to his head from the butt of a revolver. When he awakened he found himself lashed to the back of a pony, traveling over a rough mountain trail. The pony was being led and there were men ahead and men to the rear. The fat boy could hear them speak at intervals.It did not seem to be a long journey, and the party finally pulled up before a cabin that Stacy observed was well hidden in a narrow rocky pass that was approached on three sides by way of a steep granite slope, while on the other side, as he later learned, a precipitous gorge dropped away for hundreds of feet.The Overland boy was removed from the horse and carried to a lean-to against the rear of the cabin in which horse equipment and weapons were stored. He was unceremoniously dumped into this place and left to his own reflections. For some time he heard men talking in the cabin, then silence settled over the place. It was near noon of the following day before food was brought to him and his hands were freed. After eating he was subjected to a grilling examination as to who he was and what his party were doing in the Coso Valley, and when he answered in his characteristic independent way one of the ruffians struck him a blow in the face that once more put the Overland boy to sleep.At least twice each night thereafter he was asked the same questions, and each time the interview ended in a blow or a violent kick until Chunky was sore all over.Occasionally he was permitted to sit or lie outdoors, and at such times Stacy used his eyes and ears to the best advantage. However, there was little for him to see except the scenery that he mentioned in his letter.His captors were away most of the time, though ordinarily there was one man prowling about, principally engaged in surveying the surrounding mountains from a vantage point on a rock. Then one evening came the order to Stacy to write the letter to the Overland party. He obeyed eagerly, for he was anxious to get away at any price—so long as the price was paid by someone other than himself. Stacy had slight hopes, though, that his companions would give so great a ransom.It was early in the evening of the following night when he heard more than the usual number of voices in the cabin. Voices now and then were pitched high, sometimes in anger. Stacy cautiously rolled close to the door communicating with the cabin and lay listening. His hopes rose high when he learned that some of the birds had returned with money. Two of the ruffians had come in with tidings that four birds were still missing, which revealed to Stacy the fact that the pigeons were not kept at the cabin. The one, however, which carried the answer to the demand of the rustlers, and that most concerned the men, had just come in, and its message was a subject of discussion. One ruffian was of the opinion that either Bindloss or the Overlanders were trying to play a sharp trick on them and search out their hiding place. He was laughed at.“How kin anybody foller er bird flyin’ high?” demanded another, whereat the ruffians laughed more uproariously than before. The feel of the money that the pigeons had brought, outweighed their caution. This was easy money, and there was more of it coming.“We’ll git all we kin fer this feller, an’ then make a price on t’other feller’s haid, an’ we’ll make er clean-up,” chuckled another. “It ain’t the first time thet them birds has done us a good turn, but never jest in this heah way.”At the mention of another captive on whose head a price was to be set, the fat boy pricked up his ears. He wondered whom else the ruffians had captured, and where the other captive was being held. This was interesting, but what followed was more so.From the talk Stacy overheard he learned that, after the ruffians had gotten all the money they could out of the Overlanders, the prisoners were to be disposed of.“They knows too much to let ’em git away, especially thet fat feller. He’s too fresh anyway,” averred one.“Best way is to take ’em out on a dark night, turn ’em ’round a few times and head ’em fer the canyon, an’ tell ’em to git home a-whooping. Ain’t no need fer us to do nothing more’n thet. They’ll do the rest,” advised another.“Thet’s the ticket, Charlie!” complimented another. “We’ll make ’em walk the plank, an’ the buzzards’ll do the rest.” The ruffians roared. It would be great sport and it would make disposal of their captives a most simple matter.Stacy Brown did not laugh. Instead, he swallowed hard, and a heavy frown wrinkled his forehead.“That’s what I call a low-down trick,” he muttered. “Going to get all the money they can for me and the other fellow and then send us out to walk on air. Wow! Stacy Brown, I reckon it’s time for you to leave.” He gazed out through the open door of the lean-to and contemplated the possibility of rolling out and trying to escape. That did not seem to be feasible, so he pondered, strained cautiously at the ropes with which he was tied, and decided that he must think of something else.“If I could get hold of a hunting knife I might manage it,” he thought, but did not recall having seen any such thing among the assortment of equipment in the lean-to. Then an idea occurred to him.“The axe!” exclaimed the fat boy, and instantly began rolling towards the door, just outside of which he had seen an axe that very day. He found the axe and after several failures Stacy succeeded in getting it between his knees blade up, and began sawing at the rope that bound his wrists. The rope soon fell apart. Stacy could scarcely repress a howl of delight. It was now the work of only a moment to free his legs, and the Overland boy, still clinging to the axe as a weapon in case of discovery, began considering his next move. He knew about where the ruffians’ ponies were tethered, because he had heard them stamping many times.“Now, if I had a gun I’d be—Sure I have!” He felt along the rear wall of the lean-to, where among saddles and bridles hung holsters with weapons in them, and ammunition belts, and rifles of quite modern pattern hanging from nails in the wall.The fat boy quickly helped himself to two revolvers and a rifle, each of which he found loaded. That gave him fresh courage. He might be surprised, but it was his idea that the other fellow might be more so. Stacy, armed and eager, crept from the lean-to and picked his way cautiously towards the spot at the base of the granite slope where he hoped to find the rustlers’ horses tethered. They were not there, but he found them about a hundred yards to the left, all saddled and bridled, ready for instant use in case of need.There appeared to be no one on guard, but, though he did not know it, two men were stationed a short distance from the cabin on the Coso Valley side of the mountain hiding place. Fortunately for him, the fat boy was on the other side.Stacy selected a mount, and, finding a rifle in the saddle boot, he threw away the one he had taken from the lean-to.“I wish I dared to shoot up that place,” he muttered, gazing off towards the cabin which he could not now see. “I’ll come back and do it.”Stacy led the mustang along carefully for a while, taking what he believed to be an easterly course, and getting his bearings from the stars so that he might not travel in a circle and bring up at his starting point.There appearing to be no pursuit, the boy finally mounted and rode away with increasing speed and rising spirits. He continued on until towards daylight when he found himself descending into what he believed to be foothills, but which proved to be grazing grounds in the mountains. They were of vast extent, covering many acres, and over this mesa Stacy wandered for hours trying to find a way out. He was hungry, ravenously so now, and a search of the saddle-bags revealed not even a biscuit.Noon came and, well-nigh famished, he turned the mustang into the chaparral determined to find a new trail. The boy had gone in but a short distance when he began to sniff the air. Even the mustang lifted its head and snorted.“If that isn’t food smoke I never smelled any. Stacy Brown, follow your nose, for your nose knows. Gid-ap, you lazy lout!” he cried.Perhaps the pony really knew, for it pricked up its ears with new interest and seemed eager to go on, and a few moments later Stacy discovered a shack ahead. The smoke odor was by now quite strong.The boy approached the shack with caution, and rode twice around it before deciding to hail. When he finally did so there was no answer, so he dismounted and entered.What he had come upon was a chuck-house where mountain herders got their meals.That a meal had quite recently been eaten there was evidenced by the soiled dishes still on the table, and the food that was simmering in frying pans on the stove.“Eats! I don’t know who it belongs to, but I know when I am hungry,” cried Stacy, helping himself to several slices of bacon from a frying pan and eating them out of his hand. There was bread, too, and coffee in the pots. Stacy tasted the coffee and made a wry face.“Worse than the rustlers made,” he complained.Had the Overland Rider not been so fully occupied with satisfying his hunger, he probably would have been more observant. As it was he did not see a horseman ride up, dismount and peer into the shack. Nor did he see the fellow’s expression when he looked over Stacy’s mount. The newcomer rode away quietly to a distance and then put his pony to a run.Half an hour later while the boy was still eating, and just as he was about to place a biscuit in his mouth, a voice out of the silence arrested him.“Put up yer hands, young feller! I’ve got ye covered,” warned the voice.The hand that held the biscuit was already raised to a level with his mouth, and the other promptly went above his head.“Turn around, an’ let’s git a look at ye!”Stacy turned and found himself facing a weapon in the hands of a man at the door. Just to the rear of the man with the gun were half a dozen others.“Tough-lookin’ critter, all right. Who be ye?” demanded the hold-up man.“Name’s Brown,” answered the fat boy, transferring the biscuit to his mouth and beginning to chew on it.“Whar’d ye git that cayuse?”“Maybe I stole him,” answered Chunky thickly, for the biscuit was large. “What difference does it make to you where I got him?”“It may make a lot of difference to ye, young feller. I reckon mebby ye knows thet thet critter belongs to the Diamond Bar ranch, an’ thet he was stole from thar three days ago. Turn round while I relieve ye of some of thet hardware.”Stacy ceased chewing and stood with arms uplifted while his weapons and cartridge belt were being removed, following which he was roughly yanked around facing his captors.“You be careful, you rough-necks. You’ll find out that I’m a bad man when I get riled,” warned Chunky boastfully.“I reckon ye be all of thet. Jest now ye ain’t, an’ ’fore long mebby ye won’t be nothin’ ’tall. Yer under arrest!” announced the spokesman.“Wha—at for?” gasped the Overland boy, his face losing some of its color.“Horse stealin’! Thet’s all!”A strong hand was fastened on Stacy’s collar and he was roughly jerked out of the cabin and thrown on the pony that he was accused of having rustled. It began to dawn on Stacy Brown that he was in a serious predicament.
The night that Stacy Brown was roped from his mustang he was put to sleep with a whack applied to his head from the butt of a revolver. When he awakened he found himself lashed to the back of a pony, traveling over a rough mountain trail. The pony was being led and there were men ahead and men to the rear. The fat boy could hear them speak at intervals.
It did not seem to be a long journey, and the party finally pulled up before a cabin that Stacy observed was well hidden in a narrow rocky pass that was approached on three sides by way of a steep granite slope, while on the other side, as he later learned, a precipitous gorge dropped away for hundreds of feet.
The Overland boy was removed from the horse and carried to a lean-to against the rear of the cabin in which horse equipment and weapons were stored. He was unceremoniously dumped into this place and left to his own reflections. For some time he heard men talking in the cabin, then silence settled over the place. It was near noon of the following day before food was brought to him and his hands were freed. After eating he was subjected to a grilling examination as to who he was and what his party were doing in the Coso Valley, and when he answered in his characteristic independent way one of the ruffians struck him a blow in the face that once more put the Overland boy to sleep.
At least twice each night thereafter he was asked the same questions, and each time the interview ended in a blow or a violent kick until Chunky was sore all over.
Occasionally he was permitted to sit or lie outdoors, and at such times Stacy used his eyes and ears to the best advantage. However, there was little for him to see except the scenery that he mentioned in his letter.
His captors were away most of the time, though ordinarily there was one man prowling about, principally engaged in surveying the surrounding mountains from a vantage point on a rock. Then one evening came the order to Stacy to write the letter to the Overland party. He obeyed eagerly, for he was anxious to get away at any price—so long as the price was paid by someone other than himself. Stacy had slight hopes, though, that his companions would give so great a ransom.
It was early in the evening of the following night when he heard more than the usual number of voices in the cabin. Voices now and then were pitched high, sometimes in anger. Stacy cautiously rolled close to the door communicating with the cabin and lay listening. His hopes rose high when he learned that some of the birds had returned with money. Two of the ruffians had come in with tidings that four birds were still missing, which revealed to Stacy the fact that the pigeons were not kept at the cabin. The one, however, which carried the answer to the demand of the rustlers, and that most concerned the men, had just come in, and its message was a subject of discussion. One ruffian was of the opinion that either Bindloss or the Overlanders were trying to play a sharp trick on them and search out their hiding place. He was laughed at.
“How kin anybody foller er bird flyin’ high?” demanded another, whereat the ruffians laughed more uproariously than before. The feel of the money that the pigeons had brought, outweighed their caution. This was easy money, and there was more of it coming.
“We’ll git all we kin fer this feller, an’ then make a price on t’other feller’s haid, an’ we’ll make er clean-up,” chuckled another. “It ain’t the first time thet them birds has done us a good turn, but never jest in this heah way.”
At the mention of another captive on whose head a price was to be set, the fat boy pricked up his ears. He wondered whom else the ruffians had captured, and where the other captive was being held. This was interesting, but what followed was more so.
From the talk Stacy overheard he learned that, after the ruffians had gotten all the money they could out of the Overlanders, the prisoners were to be disposed of.
“They knows too much to let ’em git away, especially thet fat feller. He’s too fresh anyway,” averred one.
“Best way is to take ’em out on a dark night, turn ’em ’round a few times and head ’em fer the canyon, an’ tell ’em to git home a-whooping. Ain’t no need fer us to do nothing more’n thet. They’ll do the rest,” advised another.
“Thet’s the ticket, Charlie!” complimented another. “We’ll make ’em walk the plank, an’ the buzzards’ll do the rest.” The ruffians roared. It would be great sport and it would make disposal of their captives a most simple matter.
Stacy Brown did not laugh. Instead, he swallowed hard, and a heavy frown wrinkled his forehead.
“That’s what I call a low-down trick,” he muttered. “Going to get all the money they can for me and the other fellow and then send us out to walk on air. Wow! Stacy Brown, I reckon it’s time for you to leave.” He gazed out through the open door of the lean-to and contemplated the possibility of rolling out and trying to escape. That did not seem to be feasible, so he pondered, strained cautiously at the ropes with which he was tied, and decided that he must think of something else.
“If I could get hold of a hunting knife I might manage it,” he thought, but did not recall having seen any such thing among the assortment of equipment in the lean-to. Then an idea occurred to him.
“The axe!” exclaimed the fat boy, and instantly began rolling towards the door, just outside of which he had seen an axe that very day. He found the axe and after several failures Stacy succeeded in getting it between his knees blade up, and began sawing at the rope that bound his wrists. The rope soon fell apart. Stacy could scarcely repress a howl of delight. It was now the work of only a moment to free his legs, and the Overland boy, still clinging to the axe as a weapon in case of discovery, began considering his next move. He knew about where the ruffians’ ponies were tethered, because he had heard them stamping many times.
“Now, if I had a gun I’d be—Sure I have!” He felt along the rear wall of the lean-to, where among saddles and bridles hung holsters with weapons in them, and ammunition belts, and rifles of quite modern pattern hanging from nails in the wall.
The fat boy quickly helped himself to two revolvers and a rifle, each of which he found loaded. That gave him fresh courage. He might be surprised, but it was his idea that the other fellow might be more so. Stacy, armed and eager, crept from the lean-to and picked his way cautiously towards the spot at the base of the granite slope where he hoped to find the rustlers’ horses tethered. They were not there, but he found them about a hundred yards to the left, all saddled and bridled, ready for instant use in case of need.
There appeared to be no one on guard, but, though he did not know it, two men were stationed a short distance from the cabin on the Coso Valley side of the mountain hiding place. Fortunately for him, the fat boy was on the other side.
Stacy selected a mount, and, finding a rifle in the saddle boot, he threw away the one he had taken from the lean-to.
“I wish I dared to shoot up that place,” he muttered, gazing off towards the cabin which he could not now see. “I’ll come back and do it.”
Stacy led the mustang along carefully for a while, taking what he believed to be an easterly course, and getting his bearings from the stars so that he might not travel in a circle and bring up at his starting point.
There appearing to be no pursuit, the boy finally mounted and rode away with increasing speed and rising spirits. He continued on until towards daylight when he found himself descending into what he believed to be foothills, but which proved to be grazing grounds in the mountains. They were of vast extent, covering many acres, and over this mesa Stacy wandered for hours trying to find a way out. He was hungry, ravenously so now, and a search of the saddle-bags revealed not even a biscuit.
Noon came and, well-nigh famished, he turned the mustang into the chaparral determined to find a new trail. The boy had gone in but a short distance when he began to sniff the air. Even the mustang lifted its head and snorted.
“If that isn’t food smoke I never smelled any. Stacy Brown, follow your nose, for your nose knows. Gid-ap, you lazy lout!” he cried.
Perhaps the pony really knew, for it pricked up its ears with new interest and seemed eager to go on, and a few moments later Stacy discovered a shack ahead. The smoke odor was by now quite strong.
The boy approached the shack with caution, and rode twice around it before deciding to hail. When he finally did so there was no answer, so he dismounted and entered.
What he had come upon was a chuck-house where mountain herders got their meals.
That a meal had quite recently been eaten there was evidenced by the soiled dishes still on the table, and the food that was simmering in frying pans on the stove.
“Eats! I don’t know who it belongs to, but I know when I am hungry,” cried Stacy, helping himself to several slices of bacon from a frying pan and eating them out of his hand. There was bread, too, and coffee in the pots. Stacy tasted the coffee and made a wry face.
“Worse than the rustlers made,” he complained.
Had the Overland Rider not been so fully occupied with satisfying his hunger, he probably would have been more observant. As it was he did not see a horseman ride up, dismount and peer into the shack. Nor did he see the fellow’s expression when he looked over Stacy’s mount. The newcomer rode away quietly to a distance and then put his pony to a run.
Half an hour later while the boy was still eating, and just as he was about to place a biscuit in his mouth, a voice out of the silence arrested him.
“Put up yer hands, young feller! I’ve got ye covered,” warned the voice.
The hand that held the biscuit was already raised to a level with his mouth, and the other promptly went above his head.
“Turn around, an’ let’s git a look at ye!”
Stacy turned and found himself facing a weapon in the hands of a man at the door. Just to the rear of the man with the gun were half a dozen others.
“Tough-lookin’ critter, all right. Who be ye?” demanded the hold-up man.
“Name’s Brown,” answered the fat boy, transferring the biscuit to his mouth and beginning to chew on it.
“Whar’d ye git that cayuse?”
“Maybe I stole him,” answered Chunky thickly, for the biscuit was large. “What difference does it make to you where I got him?”
“It may make a lot of difference to ye, young feller. I reckon mebby ye knows thet thet critter belongs to the Diamond Bar ranch, an’ thet he was stole from thar three days ago. Turn round while I relieve ye of some of thet hardware.”
Stacy ceased chewing and stood with arms uplifted while his weapons and cartridge belt were being removed, following which he was roughly yanked around facing his captors.
“You be careful, you rough-necks. You’ll find out that I’m a bad man when I get riled,” warned Chunky boastfully.
“I reckon ye be all of thet. Jest now ye ain’t, an’ ’fore long mebby ye won’t be nothin’ ’tall. Yer under arrest!” announced the spokesman.
“Wha—at for?” gasped the Overland boy, his face losing some of its color.
“Horse stealin’! Thet’s all!”
A strong hand was fastened on Stacy’s collar and he was roughly jerked out of the cabin and thrown on the pony that he was accused of having rustled. It began to dawn on Stacy Brown that he was in a serious predicament.