CHAPTER XXIVFAREWELL TO THE COSOSThe Overland Riders and the men from the Circle O ranch walked to the edge of the precipice and looked down. The girls shivered and quickly turned, facing the other way, while the men gazed solemnly into the abyss.“How’dy, folks,” greeted Jim. “Ain’t seen ye fer a week o’ Sundays. Ye see that no ’count pard o’ mine got his’n,” he chuckled, nodding at Sam, whose head was still swathed in bandages.“Yes, but what happened to you?” questioned Emma. “It would appear that you too got something.”Jim explained that he had been roped from his pony, carried into the mountains and secreted in a cave where the pigeon cotes were located. It was the wire-covered pigeon-yard just outside of the cave, well masked with foliage, that the Overland men and the ranchers, in their hunt for Jim, had stumbled upon, and that led to finding the missing guide. That was where the outlaws caught them, and, had not the men from the ranch been on the alert, would have made a quick finish of them.Tom told the Overlanders of Sam’s battle with the rustlers in the mountain cabin, of the further search for Jim, and of the culminating experience when a running battle with the rustlers was engaged in.“Stacy!” cried Nora in sudden recollection. In the excitement of that memorable morning she had forgotten about the fat boy.“He got away the night we come up heah,” Sam Conifer informed her. “I reckons he’s got home afore this, an’ that he’ll stay thar. They was goin’ to drop him into Red Gulch, an’ I reckon he thought it war time to leave.”At this juncture, Miss Briggs asked permission to look at the wounds of the party. Sam’s wounds were doing well, but needed professional care, which Elfreda gave to them on the spot. She next dressed Idaho Jones’ arm, which was bleeding from a bullet wound. Barring a few slight flesh wounds where bullets had narrowly missed doing serious injury, the other fighters were unharmed.“You now have the whole story,” announced Tom Gray, as she finished. “The rustlers, thanks to their own carelessness, have taken a bad job out of our hands.”“What a terrible death!” breathed Grace. “What about these?” she added, pointing to Mexican Charlie and Malcolm Hornby. “Shall I consult Judy about—about her fa—about Hornby?”Tom shook his head.“You girls go on and take care of her. We will do all that is necessary to be done,” he made reply.The Overland girls returned to Bindloss and the mountain girl, who was clinging to the hand of the old rancher, a deep pallor showing under the tan on her face. Emma slipped a hand into hers, and Judy turned a wan face to the little Overland girl, but the face wore a faint smile.“It’s all fixed, Emma,” she said, nodding. “I’m Judy Bindloss now. Leastwise I’m goin’ to be as soon as my new Pap kin git the papers made out. I don’t see no reason fer doin’ that, do you?”Miss Briggs, as a lawyer, tried to explain to her why it was very necessary, but the mountain girl shook her head.“He’s my Pap. It seems like he always was and no papers can’t make him more so. Pap, let’s go home.”The ponies were led along for some distance, to give them rest while the party were talking, and for the further purpose of giving the men back there opportunity to do their work and join the Overland Riders.The party finally being complete, Pete led the way across the blackened landscape to the old cabin. Reaching there, they laid up for a rest, and after luncheon Judy told them the story of her father, Malcolm Hornby, so far as she knew it.Certain recent occurrences had made her suspect that Hornby was in league with the rustlers, but the night before she brought warning to the Overland girls that Tom and Hippy were wounded, she heard a conversation between her father and Mexican Charlie in which her suspicion became a certainty. From that conversation she learned that much stock had been stolen from Bindloss, and that by making a “Q” out of the Circle O ranch brand and adding another “Q,” the marking conformed with Hornby’s brand, after which the stolen cattle were added to his own herd. He had, with the assistance of the mountain ruffians, carried on wholesale thievery in two great valleys for several years and made money. His reward had been reaped that day, and it had been coming for some time, because Mexican Charlie and he were rapidly nearing the breaking point just before the last attack on the Overland Riders, who were the indirect cause of breaking up the gang of mountain ruffians.That there were others of the gang still at large the ranchmen knew, but Judy could give them no information on this point. It was decided, therefore, to ask the aid of the sheriff and his deputies, as well as that of other ranchers, to form a big party and comb the mountains for the other ruffians, who, now that the backbone of the band had been broken, could be driven more easily from that region, and perhaps some of them captured.In the early afternoon the journey home was begun. Judy did not accompany them all the way, saying that she wished to stop at her former home and get some personal belongings, she promising to ride back to the Circle O ranch on the following morning. Judy wished to be alone that night, and the Overland girls, at least, understood.Circle O was reached before dark, and Stacy Brown, who had gained entrance to the ranch-house, which he had reached only a few hours before, met them at the door. The “fat boy” was thin, there were hollows in his cheeks, and a livid mark on the left cheek where a bullet had left its trail.Stacy had been hunted all the way across the mountains, and shot at on several occasions, but had always outwitted his pursuers until finally they gave up the man-hunt and returned to the Diamond Bar ranch. Hungry and worn out and after considerable suffering he finally reached Circle O only to find it deserted and the Overland camp broken up.Now, however, that the opportunity was at hand to glorify his own achievements, Stacy Brown made the most of it, and out in the yard in front of the ranch-house, he declaimed loudly on his own prowess in fooling his pursuers.Stacy was still engaged in this before an interested audience when a rider approached from the valley, but no one gave heed to him, believing him to be one of Bindloss’s men. The rider dismounted at the stable and walked towards the group, his eyes fixed on Chunky. He halted just behind the boy and stood regarding him frowningly.“Well, sir, what is it?” demanded Joe Bindloss sharply.Stacy, in the midst of a loud boast, turned to look at the man behind him. The words died on his lips as he came face to face with the newcomer. It was Skip, the fellow on whose head Stacy had brought down the wagon stake at the Diamond Bar ranch.The Overland boy’s face grew a shade paler, and he made a move as if to run, but the pressure of a revolver against his stomach sent the shivers up and down his back and literally froze him.“Here! Here!” roared Joe Bindloss. “What do ye mean?”“This feller’s a hoss thief. We kotched him on a hoss that had been rustled from the Diamond Bar ranch. He got away by cloutin’ me over the haid. We follered, but he was too slippery fer us. I been lookin’ fer him ever since, an’ now I’ve got him!”“Put down thet gun, pard!” drawled Sam Conifer, and Skip found himself gazing at the muzzle of the old guide’s weapon. “Put it down, I says!”The caller shoved his weapon into its holster, and Stacy Brown drew a long breath of relief and then quickly stepped back a few paces.“This man is no more a thief than you are!” exploded Bindloss. “He is one of my friends, and that’s all there is to it.”“I got to take him back,” persisted Skip stubbornly.“Listen to me, young fellow!” commanded Bindloss, who thereupon repeated the story that Chunky had told them, adding further information of his own.“Thet’s what the critter told us back at the ranch. We reckoned he lied, an’ I reckon so too.”“Drop thet talk!” warned Sam Conifer.Joe Bindloss after some farther argument told the visitor that he would write a letter to Bill Crawley, owner of the Diamond Bar ranch, fully explaining the matter, but in no circumstances would Skip be permitted to take Stacy with him.“And that’s flat!” finished the rancher sternly.“Thet’s all right, Boss, but what ’bout this?” he demanded, exhibiting the lump that Stacy had left on the top of his head. “I got ter have satersfaction fer thet, I reckon.”“I’ll hit it again if you say so,” offered Stacy, but the boy met a quick rebuke from his companions.“Look here, my man! How much do you want for satisfaction?” interjected Tom Gray.“Wal, I reckon ’bout two bucks’ll satersfy me,” answered Skip, tenderly caressing the lump.“Stacy, shell out! Give the man two dollars,” ordered Lieutenant Wingate. Stacy demurred, but there was no avoiding payment. He tried to borrow the money, but not one of the Overlanders would give him a cent, so Stacy Brown reluctantly parted with two silver dollars.The letter was written by Grace at Bindloss’s dictation, and half an hour later Skip headed back towards the Diamond Bar ranch, not only with the letter and two silver dollars in his pocket, but with a request from Bindloss that Bill Crawley and his men join with the Circle O men in making a final drive on the rustlers.It was early to bed that night at the Circle O, for all hands were worn out. On the following morning the girls had a long talk with Joe Bindloss. It was decided that the Overlanders should remain at the ranch while the ranchers drove out the last of the rustlers.Judy came in in time for luncheon that day. The girls saw that she had been weeping, but made no comment. It was then that they broached the subject that had been discussed with Judy’s new “Pap.” Grace and Elfreda wished to take her back east with them and show her some of the world that she had so often dreamed of seeing.At first Judy was obdurate, but the thought grew and Bindloss urged, so, before the departure of the Overlanders two weeks later, Judy had said “yes.”The drive of the ranchers proved successful in ridding the Cosos of rustlers, though only one man was captured. The others had fled, following the disaster to Hornby and his immediate gang, and the drive of the ranchers.The journey of the Overland party, following the recovery of Hippy and Sam from their wounds, lasted until mid-September when the great day in Judy’s life arrived. The Overland Riders had returned to the ranch to pick her up, and to arrange for returning Joe Bindloss’s ponies to him at the railroad station, and, after a day’s rest at the ranch-house, they set out for the east—and home. Judy wavered at the last moment, but finally rode away with her friends, waving her sombrero to the rugged old rancher, and trying to laugh through her tears. The world that Judy had so yearned for lay just before her, and after a winter with the Overland girls she was destined to return much benefited in every way, but with a fuller realization that her duty to herself and to her new “Pap” lay in the beautiful Valley of the Cosos.There was still a large measure of adventure before Grace Harlowe and her young friends, and to which every member of the party was already looking forward for the coming season. The story of these adventures will be related in a following volume entitled, “Grace Harlowe’s Overland Riders Among the Border Guerrillas,” where, in the Guadalupe Mountains, they encounter experiences that make the story replete with interest that cannot fail to hold the undivided attention of the reader.
The Overland Riders and the men from the Circle O ranch walked to the edge of the precipice and looked down. The girls shivered and quickly turned, facing the other way, while the men gazed solemnly into the abyss.
“How’dy, folks,” greeted Jim. “Ain’t seen ye fer a week o’ Sundays. Ye see that no ’count pard o’ mine got his’n,” he chuckled, nodding at Sam, whose head was still swathed in bandages.
“Yes, but what happened to you?” questioned Emma. “It would appear that you too got something.”
Jim explained that he had been roped from his pony, carried into the mountains and secreted in a cave where the pigeon cotes were located. It was the wire-covered pigeon-yard just outside of the cave, well masked with foliage, that the Overland men and the ranchers, in their hunt for Jim, had stumbled upon, and that led to finding the missing guide. That was where the outlaws caught them, and, had not the men from the ranch been on the alert, would have made a quick finish of them.
Tom told the Overlanders of Sam’s battle with the rustlers in the mountain cabin, of the further search for Jim, and of the culminating experience when a running battle with the rustlers was engaged in.
“Stacy!” cried Nora in sudden recollection. In the excitement of that memorable morning she had forgotten about the fat boy.
“He got away the night we come up heah,” Sam Conifer informed her. “I reckons he’s got home afore this, an’ that he’ll stay thar. They was goin’ to drop him into Red Gulch, an’ I reckon he thought it war time to leave.”
At this juncture, Miss Briggs asked permission to look at the wounds of the party. Sam’s wounds were doing well, but needed professional care, which Elfreda gave to them on the spot. She next dressed Idaho Jones’ arm, which was bleeding from a bullet wound. Barring a few slight flesh wounds where bullets had narrowly missed doing serious injury, the other fighters were unharmed.
“You now have the whole story,” announced Tom Gray, as she finished. “The rustlers, thanks to their own carelessness, have taken a bad job out of our hands.”
“What a terrible death!” breathed Grace. “What about these?” she added, pointing to Mexican Charlie and Malcolm Hornby. “Shall I consult Judy about—about her fa—about Hornby?”
Tom shook his head.
“You girls go on and take care of her. We will do all that is necessary to be done,” he made reply.
The Overland girls returned to Bindloss and the mountain girl, who was clinging to the hand of the old rancher, a deep pallor showing under the tan on her face. Emma slipped a hand into hers, and Judy turned a wan face to the little Overland girl, but the face wore a faint smile.
“It’s all fixed, Emma,” she said, nodding. “I’m Judy Bindloss now. Leastwise I’m goin’ to be as soon as my new Pap kin git the papers made out. I don’t see no reason fer doin’ that, do you?”
Miss Briggs, as a lawyer, tried to explain to her why it was very necessary, but the mountain girl shook her head.
“He’s my Pap. It seems like he always was and no papers can’t make him more so. Pap, let’s go home.”
The ponies were led along for some distance, to give them rest while the party were talking, and for the further purpose of giving the men back there opportunity to do their work and join the Overland Riders.
The party finally being complete, Pete led the way across the blackened landscape to the old cabin. Reaching there, they laid up for a rest, and after luncheon Judy told them the story of her father, Malcolm Hornby, so far as she knew it.
Certain recent occurrences had made her suspect that Hornby was in league with the rustlers, but the night before she brought warning to the Overland girls that Tom and Hippy were wounded, she heard a conversation between her father and Mexican Charlie in which her suspicion became a certainty. From that conversation she learned that much stock had been stolen from Bindloss, and that by making a “Q” out of the Circle O ranch brand and adding another “Q,” the marking conformed with Hornby’s brand, after which the stolen cattle were added to his own herd. He had, with the assistance of the mountain ruffians, carried on wholesale thievery in two great valleys for several years and made money. His reward had been reaped that day, and it had been coming for some time, because Mexican Charlie and he were rapidly nearing the breaking point just before the last attack on the Overland Riders, who were the indirect cause of breaking up the gang of mountain ruffians.
That there were others of the gang still at large the ranchmen knew, but Judy could give them no information on this point. It was decided, therefore, to ask the aid of the sheriff and his deputies, as well as that of other ranchers, to form a big party and comb the mountains for the other ruffians, who, now that the backbone of the band had been broken, could be driven more easily from that region, and perhaps some of them captured.
In the early afternoon the journey home was begun. Judy did not accompany them all the way, saying that she wished to stop at her former home and get some personal belongings, she promising to ride back to the Circle O ranch on the following morning. Judy wished to be alone that night, and the Overland girls, at least, understood.
Circle O was reached before dark, and Stacy Brown, who had gained entrance to the ranch-house, which he had reached only a few hours before, met them at the door. The “fat boy” was thin, there were hollows in his cheeks, and a livid mark on the left cheek where a bullet had left its trail.
Stacy had been hunted all the way across the mountains, and shot at on several occasions, but had always outwitted his pursuers until finally they gave up the man-hunt and returned to the Diamond Bar ranch. Hungry and worn out and after considerable suffering he finally reached Circle O only to find it deserted and the Overland camp broken up.
Now, however, that the opportunity was at hand to glorify his own achievements, Stacy Brown made the most of it, and out in the yard in front of the ranch-house, he declaimed loudly on his own prowess in fooling his pursuers.
Stacy was still engaged in this before an interested audience when a rider approached from the valley, but no one gave heed to him, believing him to be one of Bindloss’s men. The rider dismounted at the stable and walked towards the group, his eyes fixed on Chunky. He halted just behind the boy and stood regarding him frowningly.
“Well, sir, what is it?” demanded Joe Bindloss sharply.
Stacy, in the midst of a loud boast, turned to look at the man behind him. The words died on his lips as he came face to face with the newcomer. It was Skip, the fellow on whose head Stacy had brought down the wagon stake at the Diamond Bar ranch.
The Overland boy’s face grew a shade paler, and he made a move as if to run, but the pressure of a revolver against his stomach sent the shivers up and down his back and literally froze him.
“Here! Here!” roared Joe Bindloss. “What do ye mean?”
“This feller’s a hoss thief. We kotched him on a hoss that had been rustled from the Diamond Bar ranch. He got away by cloutin’ me over the haid. We follered, but he was too slippery fer us. I been lookin’ fer him ever since, an’ now I’ve got him!”
“Put down thet gun, pard!” drawled Sam Conifer, and Skip found himself gazing at the muzzle of the old guide’s weapon. “Put it down, I says!”
The caller shoved his weapon into its holster, and Stacy Brown drew a long breath of relief and then quickly stepped back a few paces.
“This man is no more a thief than you are!” exploded Bindloss. “He is one of my friends, and that’s all there is to it.”
“I got to take him back,” persisted Skip stubbornly.
“Listen to me, young fellow!” commanded Bindloss, who thereupon repeated the story that Chunky had told them, adding further information of his own.
“Thet’s what the critter told us back at the ranch. We reckoned he lied, an’ I reckon so too.”
“Drop thet talk!” warned Sam Conifer.
Joe Bindloss after some farther argument told the visitor that he would write a letter to Bill Crawley, owner of the Diamond Bar ranch, fully explaining the matter, but in no circumstances would Skip be permitted to take Stacy with him.
“And that’s flat!” finished the rancher sternly.
“Thet’s all right, Boss, but what ’bout this?” he demanded, exhibiting the lump that Stacy had left on the top of his head. “I got ter have satersfaction fer thet, I reckon.”
“I’ll hit it again if you say so,” offered Stacy, but the boy met a quick rebuke from his companions.
“Look here, my man! How much do you want for satisfaction?” interjected Tom Gray.
“Wal, I reckon ’bout two bucks’ll satersfy me,” answered Skip, tenderly caressing the lump.
“Stacy, shell out! Give the man two dollars,” ordered Lieutenant Wingate. Stacy demurred, but there was no avoiding payment. He tried to borrow the money, but not one of the Overlanders would give him a cent, so Stacy Brown reluctantly parted with two silver dollars.
The letter was written by Grace at Bindloss’s dictation, and half an hour later Skip headed back towards the Diamond Bar ranch, not only with the letter and two silver dollars in his pocket, but with a request from Bindloss that Bill Crawley and his men join with the Circle O men in making a final drive on the rustlers.
It was early to bed that night at the Circle O, for all hands were worn out. On the following morning the girls had a long talk with Joe Bindloss. It was decided that the Overlanders should remain at the ranch while the ranchers drove out the last of the rustlers.
Judy came in in time for luncheon that day. The girls saw that she had been weeping, but made no comment. It was then that they broached the subject that had been discussed with Judy’s new “Pap.” Grace and Elfreda wished to take her back east with them and show her some of the world that she had so often dreamed of seeing.
At first Judy was obdurate, but the thought grew and Bindloss urged, so, before the departure of the Overlanders two weeks later, Judy had said “yes.”
The drive of the ranchers proved successful in ridding the Cosos of rustlers, though only one man was captured. The others had fled, following the disaster to Hornby and his immediate gang, and the drive of the ranchers.
The journey of the Overland party, following the recovery of Hippy and Sam from their wounds, lasted until mid-September when the great day in Judy’s life arrived. The Overland Riders had returned to the ranch to pick her up, and to arrange for returning Joe Bindloss’s ponies to him at the railroad station, and, after a day’s rest at the ranch-house, they set out for the east—and home. Judy wavered at the last moment, but finally rode away with her friends, waving her sombrero to the rugged old rancher, and trying to laugh through her tears. The world that Judy had so yearned for lay just before her, and after a winter with the Overland girls she was destined to return much benefited in every way, but with a fuller realization that her duty to herself and to her new “Pap” lay in the beautiful Valley of the Cosos.
There was still a large measure of adventure before Grace Harlowe and her young friends, and to which every member of the party was already looking forward for the coming season. The story of these adventures will be related in a following volume entitled, “Grace Harlowe’s Overland Riders Among the Border Guerrillas,” where, in the Guadalupe Mountains, they encounter experiences that make the story replete with interest that cannot fail to hold the undivided attention of the reader.