On the level stretch between the ranch-house and the creek the cowboys staged, after dinner, a Frontier Day show and a Fourth of July celebration combined. The fun began mildly with the three-legged races and the business of the greased pig. From these diversions it proceeded to foot races, in which Indians shone, and to keenly contested pony races between cowboys, Reservation bucks and sports from Sleepy Cat. Money was stacked with freedom and differences of opinion were intensified by victory and defeat.
While the spirit ran high, rodeo riding began with the master artists of the range and the pink of American horsemanship in the saddle. In each succeeding contest the Sleepy Cat visitors headed by Sawdy and Lefever with big loose bunches of currency backed their favorites freely, and men that counted nothing of caution in their make-up took the other end of every exciting event. Flushed faces and loud voices added to the rapidly shifting excitement as one event followed another, and the betting fever keenly roused called, after every possible wager had been laid, for fresh material to work on.
It was at this juncture that the shooting matches began. In a line and in a country in which many excelled in perhaps the most important regard, rivalry ran high and critics were naturally fastidious. The temptation to belittle even excellent work with rifle and revolver was, in Sawdy and especially in Carpy, partly due to temperament. Both men were bad gamesters because they bet on feeling rather than judgment. They would back a man, or the horse of a man they liked, against a man they did not like and sometimes thereby knew what it was to close the day with empty pockets.
On this Fourth of July at Doubleday's, both men, as well as Lefever, had been hit by hard luck. Their free criticism of the horse-racing and the shooting did not pass unresented and the fact that Tom Stone and his following had most of the Sleepy Cat money while the sun was still high did not tend to temper the acerbity of their remarks.
Nothing that the crack shots of the range could do would satisfy either Sawdy or Carpy. Van Horn, himself an expert with rifle and gun, was master of these ceremonies and the belittling by the Sleepy Cat sports of the best the cowboys could show, nettled him: "Before you knock this any more," he said, "put up some better shooting."
The taunt went far enough home to stir the fault-finders. Sawdy and Carpy took grumpy counsel together. Presently they hunted up Laramie, who in front of the ranch-house was talking horses with Kitchen and Doubleday. They told him the situation and asked for help: "Come over to the creek and show the bunch up, Jim," was Sawdy's appeal.
The response was cold. Laramie refused to take any part in the shooting. Sawdy could not move him. In revenge he borrowed what money Laramie had—not much in all—and went back in bad humor. With the peeve of defeated men, the Sleepy Cat sports called for more horse racing to retrieve their fortunes—only to lose what money they had left and suffer fresh jeering from Van Horn and his following.
But abating in defeat and with empty pockets, nothing of their confident swagger, Carpy and Sawdy reinforced this time by Lefever—McAlpin trailing along as a mourner—headed again for the ranch-house after Laramie.
They found him on a bench where he could command the front door, whittling and talking idly with Bill Bradley. Laramie was there intent on waylaying Kate, within. His friends descended on him for the second time in a body. They laid their discomfiture before him. They begged him to pull them out of the hole. It was too much in the circumstances to refuse men he counted on when he, himself, needed friends, but he yielded with an ill grace: "What do you want me to do?" he demanded finally.
They told him. He would not stand up before a target, nor would he shoot in competition with anybody else.
"I've only got a few cartridges, anyway," he objected. "Suppose when they're shot away these fellows get a fight going on me?"
It was argued that there were enough gunmen in the Sleepy Cat crowd for defensive purposes and that there was no end of available ammunition. A way was found to meet Laramie's objection on every point and it only remained to hatch up a scheme for lightening the cattlemen's pockets.
With Carpy, Lefever and Sawdy, Laramie sat down apart. An exchange of views took place. Sawdy had in mind something he had once seen Laramie achieve and on this—and the possibility of its success—the talk centered. The feat, it was conceded, would be a stiff one. It was put up to Laramie; he consented, after some wrangling and with misgivings, to try to save the day for his misguided Sleepy Cat friends. The moment consent was assured, his backers hurried away in a body—McAlpin as crier, Lefever and Sawdy to raise money, and Carpy to bully Van Horn and Stone and their following.
The news that Laramie would shoot caused a stir. Not everyone present had seen him shoot. His reputed mastery of rifle and gun was often in question; and no more grueling test before friends and enemies could ever be given than what he was to attempt now.
Not everyone got clearly as the talk went on just what the trial was to be. Sawdy having reinforced his resources, announced the event as Laramie against his record—to tie or to beat.
Laramie, himself, unmindful of the controversy, held to the bench. He was still sitting, head down, and still whittling, when Bradley came to say the crowd was waiting. He asked Bradley to bring up his horse.
Kate coming out of the house drew his attention. He threw away the stick in his hand and rose.
"I hear you are going to shoot," she said.
"Can't get out of it very well, I guess."
"You wouldn't shoot, the time I asked you to."
"I didn't actually refuse, did I?"
"Pretty near it."
"It's a harder case today. Your men have got all the money. My friends are broke. And they've asked me to help them out somehow. That's the only reason. If you really want to see me shoot, all you've got to do is to tell me the next time you see me."
"Oh, I'm going to see you shoot now." She looked at the gun holster slung at his left hip. "I hear you are left-handed."
"They've got work enough lined up today for two hands."
Bradley returned with the horse and climbed awkwardly down from the saddle. Laramie tried the cinches and turned to Kate.
"Are you all ready?" she asked.
"Just about."
"You try the cinches; I should think you'd want to try your gun."
"I tried that this morning before I left home. All I've got to do before I begin is to slip an extra cartridge into the cylinder."
Leading his pony, Laramie, clinging to the talk as long as he could, walked with Kate toward the creek. Leaving her on a slight rise, where he told her he thought she could see, he got into the saddle and rode down to where the crowd had assembled.
On a stretch of the trail extending along the creek, John Frying Pan, under the direction of Sawdy and Van Horn, was placing at intervals of from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards a series of targets. These were ordinary potatoes, left over from the barbecue, but selected with great care as to size and shape by the man whose money was up—Sawdy; Frying Pan's work was to impale them on low-growing scrub along the trail to serve as targets. Against these targets—six in number—Laramie was to undertake to ride and to split five out of the six as he galloped past them with six and no more bullets. The potatoes were up when Laramie joined Sawdy, and Lefever with leather lungs announced the terms of the test. Accompanied by Sawdy, Van Horn and Frying Pan, Laramie rode slowly down the course—a quarter of a mile long—examining the roadway and the targets. Here and there a loose stone was removed from the trail; one potato was moved from a dip in the course to a safer point; one was raised and one placed more clearly in sight.
Having ridden to the end, Laramie expressed himself as satisfied with the conditions. Alone, he went back over the course and starting down the creek made a trial heat at full speed past the targets. One of these at his request was shifted again. While he watched this change, Sawdy and Lefever, surrounded by their followers, were crowding him as race touts crowd a favorite jockey with final words of admonition and advice. When the one target was satisfactorily adjusted, Laramie breaking away from everybody returned alone to the starting point. Dismounting, and taking his time to everything, he again tested his cinches, drew his gun from its holster and breaking it slipped a sixth cartridge into the cylinder. Dropping the gun back into place, he pulled his hat a little lower, glanced down the course and up toward the little hill on which he had parted from Kate. She was standing where he left her but Van Horn had ridden up and, joining Kate, was talking to her. While she listened to him she watched the preparations below.
Laramie spoke to his pony, patted him on the neck and mounted. Wheeling, he swung out into a wide circle across the level bench and with gradually increasing speed into a measured gallop. Molded into one flesh with his mount, Laramie, impassive in the saddle as a statue, watched and nursed to his liking the pony's gait. When the rhythm suited, he urged the horse to a longer stride and circling back into the course, drew his gun, held it high in the air and, swinging it slowly as if like a lariat, bore down at full speed on the first target.
Markers for both sides in the betting stood to watch each potato. No signal would mean the potato had been missed; for each hit, a hat was to be thrown into the air. In a complete silence among the spectators every eye was fixed on Laramie. Those close at hand saw him, with his left arm still high in the air, sway slightly backward and slowly forward, while with the circling gun poised at arm's length he shrank closer and lower into the saddle. When he neared the first target, throwing his left arm toward it like a bolt, he fired, sped on and was again swinging his gun. He had hardly covered six more paces before a hat was tossed into the air behind him.
A yell went up from his friends. Horsemen wheeled into the course behind the flying marksman. With five potatoes still to negotiate they were afraid to cheer. But as one hat after another along the shooting line—the second, the third and the fourth—were tossed up from the target behind the speeding horseman, the Sleepy Cat men bellowed with joyful confidence. The fifth target was of unusual distance—a hundred and fifty yards—from the fourth. Leaving the fourth, Laramie's horse broke and the onlookers saw that his rider was in trouble. He kept the swing of his gun without breaking the rhythm, but his efforts were in his bridle arm to steady his horse.
The hopes of his backers fell as they saw how stubborn the pony had become. The hundred and fifty yards were barely enough to bring him under control. Laramie still circling his raised gun did bring him under. But he was already nearing the fifth target. And to the horror of his friends passed it without attempting to fire.
Of the two chances left him to tie—which meant to win—he had passed up one; the sixth and last meant life or death to the shaken hopes of his backers.
They saw him settled once more into the long, even stride he needed for the shot and their breaths hung on each flying leap that brought the rider nearer his last chance. The sixth target was separated by barely fifty yards from the fifth. Laramie had covered half the distance when he completely reversed his form. He stretched gradually up in the saddle and riding close in on the target itself, rose to his full height in the stirrups and smashed his fifth shot almost straight down on it; the potato split into a dozen fragments. Bill Bradley at the sixth was watching for Sawdy; his hat sailed twenty feet in the air. The yelling crowd rode Laramie down as he galloped in a long circle back, his lines swung on his forearm, while he slipped four fresh cartridges into the warm cylinder of his revolver.
He dismounted to ease his cinches. "I guess I over-did it," he explained to the friends that crowded closest. "I got the cinches a little tight. The pony didn't like it. I couldn't get the gait in time for the Number Five. But I knew I could make Number Six."
Remounting, he made his way through the crowd back over the course. Kate was still on the hill. "You won, didn't you?" she cried as he rode toward her.
"If I hadn't, I guess I'd have had to head straight across the creek for home. Could you see?"
"I watched you the whole way. What a long arm you have."
"While these tin horns are counting their money, would you like to show me the ponies?"
"You have a long memory, too."
"I was brought up a good deal with Indians. Shall I hunt up Van Horn to go with us?"
She darted a quick glance at him: "Why, yes, surely," she retorted, "if you want him."
Laramie was tearing out a cigarette paper: "I could look at them without him," he returned calmly.
"I don't see him, anyway," murmured Kate, professing to sweep the crowded course with her eyes.
"Don't look too hard," cautioned Laramie.
"I suppose we might save time," she suggested, ignoring his last remark, "by going without him."
Those closest to headquarters sometimes know least of what is going on. That the big celebration at the ranch could have been anything more or less than what it professed to be, did not occur to Kate; nor could anyone actually say that it was more or less. Hawk could contemptuously refuse its overtures; Laramie could for reasons of his own accept them; the Falling Wall rustlers were out for a good time or they would not have been rustling and they would celebrate any time at anybody's expense—except their own; Carpy could believe it was to usher in a better feeling—everyone to his taste.
But the suspicious, because they did not quite understand such a move, harbored their suspicions, and among the doubting was Belle Shockley—shrewd and very much alive to the drift of things since her struggle with a cyclone. Had Belle, instead of Kate, been out at the ranch, things now coming along that Kate failed to see, would have told volumes to her.
But Kate did not feel at liberty to make of Belle a confidant in everything—certainly not in what happened at home; so she neither said anything to Belle nor asked of her any explanation of things that she herself did not understand—such as guarded and more frequent consultations between her father and Van Horn, Pettigrew and Stone; and such as men riding up with a clatter to the ranch-house at night and calling Doubleday out and calling for Van Horn who often now spent the night at the ranch and left before daybreak.
Some of this, Kate saw. She could see how absent-minded her father was. He grew so taciturn she hardly knew him but the reason for it was beyond her. More than she saw, she picked up from Bradley, working then at the ranch. Bradley had taken a liking to Kate and often reminded her of the night he brought her into the Falling Wall country.
Whenever she was in Sleepy Cat, Belle was inquisitive. She always wanted to know what Van Horn was doing, what her father was doing, and then fell back on vaguely general questions about ranches and the range and rustlers. More than once she spoke of strangers in town, Texas men—cowboys and gunmen she called them—who bothered her for meals, and whom she scornfully sent packing.
And Henry Sawdy, too, one of her frequent visitors, was trying to court her, she complained; all this made her suspicious. Of whom? Of what? Kate asked. Belle could not tell exactly of whom, of what—she was just suspicious: "Why should that big fat man come courting me?" she demanded one day when Kate had come in for lunch.
"You don't think it possible he likes you?" suggested Kate, barely glancing Belle's way, and taking care to make her tone very skeptical. Belle only snorted contemptuously and turned to her cooking; but as she did so, she gave her wig a punch.
By the merest chance, John Lefever came in a few minutes later. Belle and Kate were at the table. John asked for something to eat. When Belle wanted to be rid of him he refused "no" for an answer:
"You wouldn't send me away without a cup of coffee, would you? No potatoes? Well, I never eat potatoes"—John coughed. "They are fattening." Then he looked up cheerfully as if a new idea had struck him: "What's the matter with a little soft-boiled ice cream?"
The upshot was that he had to be asked to share the lunch which he did with relish, paying his way with his usual foolery. When the plates were emptied and John had officiously asked leave to light a cigarette, he glanced toward the folding bed and asked Belle to play something.
"That's no piano," exclaimed Belle, with contempt. "That's a bed."
John seemed undisturbed: "Curious," he mused, "we used to have an upright piano at home with that same kind of wood, same pattern exactly; you could have that bed made over into a piano, Belle. Straighten out the springs and you wouldn't have to buy hardly any wire at all."
Belle stared at him: "Where would I sleep if I did?" she demanded.
John threw back his head, blew a delicate puff of smoke toward the ceiling and looked across at his unsympathetic hostess. Then he brought his fist down on the table; "Marry me, Belle, and sleep in a regular bed! What?"
Belle was justly indignant. Kate's laughing made her more indignant. For John had fairly bubbled his proposal through a laugh of his own.
"I used to sleep in a box like that myself," he went on. "But the year it was so dry the grasshoppers got into it." John coughed again unobtrusively. "I raffled that bed off," he continued, low and reminiscently. "A conductor won it. But it didn't fool him. He knew the bed as well as I did; he'd slept in it. So I bought it in again, cheap, and traded it to an old Indian buck—a one-eyed man—for a pony. Many a time I've laughed, thinking of that bed up on the Reservation. Those bucks, you know, are desperate gamblers. I understand they've been playing hearts with that blamed bed ever since and putting it on the high man."
At this, John laughed harder than ever, Belle sputtering as she watched him.
Then he turned his amiable face on Kate: "How are you all at the home?"
"Very well."
"What's the news up your way?"
"Not a thing since the Fourth of July."
"Father pretty well?"
"Quite."
"When did you see him last?"
It was an odd question: "Last night—why?" asked Kate in turn.
"He didn't come in town with you today?" countered John.
"He rarely does," said Kate.
John nodded soothing assent to her explanation: "How's Van Horn?" he asked casually. "And Stone?" he added, with undiminished interest. "All well," was his echo to her perfunctory answers. "Say, Belle, was Jim Laramie in town yesterday?"
Belle shook her head. "How about the day before?" he asked. Again she said, "no"; and went on with an impatient comment of her own: "You're always asking questions. What for? That's what I want to know."
John laid his cigarette on the rim of his plate and appealed to Kate: "Did you ever in your life see a more unreasonable woman than Belle? How am I to find things out without asking questions of my friends? And among them I number you both," he added.
Leaning forward, he spoke on: "Now I'll tell you why I asked those harmless little questions—for I wouldn't ask either of you any other kind. This news will get to each of you, about evening. By morning it will be all over Sleepy Cat and by tomorrow noon across the Spanish Sinks. This morning, early, Van Horn, Tom Stone, Pettigrew with Bradley, and a bunch of Texas men and cowboys rode over into the Falling Wall country and there's been hell to pay there every minute since daylight—that's the word I got about half an hour ago, by telephone, from a little ranch away up on the head-waters of the Crazy Woman."
He drew his handkerchief and wiped his brow. "The only man up there—Belle knows that—that I'm any ways interested in, is Jim Laramie. According to what I can hear, Jim is home. That's worrying me just a little.
"What will Jim do? That's what I'm thinking of. How will he stack up if that bunch goes to his ranch on the Turkey? He hates 'em like poison. They've gone up there, you understand," he added, speaking to Kate, as if some further explanation were due a comparative stranger, "to clean out the rustlers. You can imagine it'll be done—or at least attempted—without much talk. There won't be very much talk. I've known for some little time what's been going forward. They tried to get Jim to join them; offered him about anything he wanted; offered to see that the contests on his preemption and homestead be withdrawn; offered him quite a bunch of cattle, I heard; and some money."
Belle's face, her staring eyes and strained expression as she listened, showed how well she knew what the news meant. "What answer did Jim give?" she asked anxiously.
"From what I can pick up," declared John, dropping calmly into the inelegant expression, "he told 'em to go to hell.
"That's what I'm worrying about now. Not about their going, but about what Jim will do. What do you think, Belle?"
Belle shook her head; she offered no comment.
"And," John added, looking at Kate, "that was hatched mostly, right at your place. And they rode away from there about two o'clock this morning. That's why I was pumping you a little, till I see you didn't know a thing about it."
Why Kate had not asked before, she could not tell; but the possibility never crossed her mind—until Lefever told her of their starting from the ranch that morning—that her father might have gone. She recollected now she had not seen him, as she usually saw him, the first thing when she came from her room. Her heart leaped into her throat: "Was my father with them?" she asked.
She must have shown her excitement and fear in her manner, as well as in her words, for Lefever looked at her considerately: "According to my reports," he answered carefully, "your father was with them."
"Godfrey!" muttered Belle. Kate could say nothing.
Against the alert, the effective blow is a sudden blow. Secrecy, and a surprise, were the only hope of success in what the cattlemen were now attempting in the Falling Wall. Of the men on whom they could count to organize and carry through such a raid, they had just one capable of energizing every detail—Harry Van Horn. Laramie, the man Doubleday and Pettigrew would have chosen, they had failed to enlist, and what was more serious—though this, perhaps, Doubleday did not realize—they had likewise failed to rid themselves of; Tom Stone had bungled.
But Doubleday in especial was not a man to lose time over a failure. He knew that Van Horn had "go" enough in him to clean out a whole county if he were given the men and backing, and that he stood high in the councils of the range. When Van Horn spoke, men listened. His eye flashed with his words and his long, straight hair shook defiance at opposition. He swore with a staccato that really meant things and cut like a knife. When once started, mercy was not in him.
In the Falling Wall park there lived a mere handful of men, and these widely scattered; but Van Horn was the last man to underestimate the handful he was after. He knew them every one, and knew that no better men ever rode the range than Stormy Gorman, Dutch Henry, Yankee Robinson and Abe Hawk, and their associates—if, indeed, for a man that never mixed with other men, Hawk could be said to have associates.
But the four named were the men to whom the lesser rustlers of the park looked; the men whose exploits they imitated, and these were the men on whose heads a price had, in effect, been set.
Van Horn assembled his men, earlier than Lefever had been informed. An old trail from Doubleday's ranch to the Falling Wall crosses the road to the Fort some distance north of Sleepy Cat. The party from the ranch—Tom Stone with some of the most reckless cowboys and Doubleday—waited there for the Texans whom Van Horn was bringing from Pettigrew's. Both parties were at the rendezvous that night by twelve o'clock, and within thirty minutes were headed north by way of the Crazy Woman for Falling Wall park.
The night for the raid had been chosen. The sky was overcast, and when the party left the crossing between twelve and one o'clock their exact destination was still a secret to the greater number. Small ranchers along the creek might have wakened at the smart clatter of so many horses, but men to and from the Fort traveled late at times and made even more noise. This night there were riders abroad; but there was no singing.
Dawn was whitening the eastern sky when the raiding party halted near a clump of trees on the south fork of the Turkey. The valley into which they had ridden during the night was very broken, but offered good grazing. Along the tortuous water course, Stormy Gorman, the old prize-fighter, and Dutch Henry, the ex-soldier, had preempted two of the very few pieces of land that did not stand directly on edge and built for themselves cabins. Gorman's cabin lay a mile above the fork where the raiders had halted; Henry's lay a few miles farther up the creek.
During the long night ride it had been decided to strike at Gorman's ranch first; thence to follow the creek trail up to Dutch Henry's, despatch him in turn, to cross rapidly a narrow rough divide beyond which they could reach Hawk's cabin on the east fork of the Turkey and thence sweep into the northwest to clean out the smaller fry—the "chicken feed" rustlers—as Van Horn called them. But toward morning, following much ill-natured dispute between Stone and Van Horn, the tactics were changed. It was decided to go after Dutch Henry first—as the more alert and slippery of the two—and as quietly as possible the silent invaders rode slowly along the creek past Gorman's place up to Henry's.
Day was breaking as the riders, dismounting and leaving their horses on the creek bottom, crept noiselessly, under Stone's guidance, up a wash to the bench on which Henry's cabin stood. Hiding just below a shallow bank at the head of a draw, they lay awaiting developments. Where Stone had posted them they commanded the cabin perfectly. He had lived part of one year with Henry when they two preyed jointly on the range and he knew the ground well.
They had hardly disposed of themselves in this manner and were beginning, in the gray dusk, to distinguish objects with some certainty, when the door of the distant cabin opened and a mongrel collie bounded out followed by a man who left the door ajar. The man, carrying a water pail, set it down, yawned, stretched himself and tucked his shirt slowly inside his trousers. Wild with joy the dog danced, leaped and barked about his master—only to be rewarded by a kick that sent him yelping to a little distance, where turning, crouching with extended paws, whining and frantically wagging his tail, the poor beast tried to beg forgiveness for its half-starved happiness. The man, giving this demonstration no heed, picked up the pail and started for the creek.
His path took him in a direction roughly parallel to the line along which his hidden enemy lay.
"Don't fire at that man," exclaimed Van Horn to his companions under cover of the draw. "That's not Dutch Henry," he whispered the next moment. "Don't fire. I'll take care of him."
The rustler, quite unconscious of his deadly danger, tramped unevenly on. His dog, no longer repulsed, dashed joyously back and forth, scenting the trails of the night and barking wildly at his master by turns. The man was walking hardly three hundred yards from where Stone, rifle in hand, lay, and had reached the footpath leading from the bench to the creek bottom when Stone, half rising, covered him slowly with point-blank sights. In the path ahead, the dog had struck a fresh gopher hole and, still yelping, was pawing madly into it, when a rifle cracked. The man with the pail, swung violently half around by the shock of a spreading bullet, jerked convulsively and the pail flew clattering from his hand. He struggled an instant to keep his footing, then collapsing, fell prone across the path and lay quite still.
Stone, followed by a man nearest him, scrambling down the draw, hurried along the creek bottom, and ran up to reach the path where the murdered man lay. The dog, barking and dashing wildly around his prostrate master, spied the foreman and sprang furiously down the trail at him. Stone, rifle in one hand and revolver in the other, was ready, and, firing from the hip, broke the collie's back. With a howl the stricken brute turned, and, dragging his helpless hindquarters along the ground with incredible swiftness, pawed himself back to the dying man's head and yelping, licked frantically at the hand of his master. Coming up into plain sight, Stone got a good look at the man he had killed: "Stormy Gorman!" he exclaimed, with an oath of surprise. "Who'd 'a' thought," he continued, "that big bum would be up at Dutch Henry's this morning!"
The old prize-fighter was struggling in his last round. His heavy-lidded eyes, swollen with drink and sleep, were closed, and from his mouth, as his head hung to one side, a dark stream ran to a little pool in the dust. Only a stertorous breathing reflected his effort to live and even this was fast failing. Van Horn hurried up the path from the bottom, whither he had followed Stone; anger was all over his face: "Kill that damned dog," he exclaimed, out of breath, to those about him. Two of the three men drew revolvers and shot the collie through the head.
"Damnation!" cried Van Horn in a fury. "Stop your shooting. Couldn't you knock him in the head? Do you want to start up the whole country?" he demanded, as he saw the man who lay at his feet and had taken the brief count for eternity was Gorman. He turned on Stone with rage in his eyes and his voice: "Now," he cried, punctuating his abuse with the fiercest gestures, "you've done it, haven't you!" Anger almost choked him. "You've got Gorman with a brass band and left Dutch Henry in the cabin waiting for us, haven't you? Why," he roared, "didn't you obey orders, let this tank get down to the bottom and knock him on the head into the creek?" A violent recrimination between Stone and Van Horn followed. But the milk was spilt as well as the blood of the stubborn rustler, and there was nothing for it but new dispositions.
Gorman's presence indicated that Henry was at home. If he were at home, he was, no doubt, within the cabin; but just how, after Stone's blunder, to get at him, was a vexing question.
Van Horn started down the foot trail back to the bottom and around to the first hiding place. Lingering with a companion to look at Gorman in his blood, Stone turned for approval: "See where I hit him?" he grinned. "Poor light, too."
A brief council was held in the draw. Watched for more than an hour, not the slightest sign of life about the lonely cabin could be detected. Various expedients, none of them very novel, were tried to draw Henry's fire should he be within. But these were of no avail. A dozen theories were advanced as to where Henry might or might not be. To every appearance there was not, so far as the enemy could judge, a living man within miles of the spot. The older heads, Pettigrew, Doubleday, Van Horn, even Stone, talked less than the others; but they were by no means convinced that the house was empty.
One of the least patient of the cowboys at length deliberately exposed himself to fire from the sphinx-like cabin. He stood up and walked up and down the edge of the draw. Nothing happened. Emboldened, he started out into the open and toward the cabin. No shot greeted him. A companion, jumping up, hurried after him; a third, a Texas boy, sprang up to join them. For those watching from hiding it was a ticklish moment. Toward the draw there was a considerable growth of mountain blue-stem, none of it very high and gradually shortening nearer the house. The three men were hastening through the grass, separated by intervals of perhaps fifty feet. The foremost got within a hundred yards of the cabin door, which still stood open as Gorman had left it, before Van Horn's fear of an ambush vanished. He himself, not to be too far behind his followers, then rose to join the procession through the blue stem and the crack of a rifle was heard. Van Horn, with a shout of warning, dropped unhurt into the draw. But the last man of the three in the field stumbled as if struck by an ax. Of the two men ahead of him, the hindermost dropped into the grass and crawled snakelike back; the man in front dropped his rifle and started at top speed for safety; from the edge of the draw his companions sent a fusillade of rifle fire at the cabin.
Apparently the diversion had no effect on the marksman within. He fired again; this time at the Texan crawling in the blue stem, and the half-hidden man, almost lifted from the ground by the blow of the bullet, dropped limp. Meantime the first cowboy in his dash for safety was making a record still unequaled in mountain story. He jumped like a broncho and zig-zagged like a darting bird, but faster than either. The efforts of his companions to divert attention from him were constant. Some of them poured bullets at the cabin. Others jumped to their feet, and, yelling, sprang from point to point to expose themselves momentarily and draw the fire of the enemy. This was of no avail. The hidden rifle with deliberate instancy cracked once more. The fleeing cowboy, slammed as if by a club, dashed on, but his right arm hung limp. No snipe ever made half the race for life that he put up in those fleeting seconds; and by his agility he earned then and there the nickname of the bird itself, for before the deadly sights could cover his flight again he threw himself into a slight depression that effectually hid him from the range of the enemy.
A swarm of hornets, roused, could not have been more furious than the company under the lee of the draw. Shooting, shouting, cursing deep and loud, they made continual effort to keep the deadly fire off their fallen companions. They saw the half-open door of the cabin swing now slowly shut and they riddled it with bullets. They splintered the logs about it and, scattering in as wide an arc as they dare, continued to pour a fire into the silent cabin. At intervals they paused to wait for a return. There was no return. All ruses they had ever heard of they tried over again to draw a fire and exhaust the besieged man's ammunition. Nothing moved the lone enemy—if he were, indeed, alone. The day wore into afternoon. By shouting, the assailants learned that two of their three hapless companions lying in the blue stem were still alive—the Snipe very much alive, as his stentorian answers indicated. He called vigorously for water but got none. His refuge was too exposed.
How to get rid of Dutch Henry taxed the wits of the invaders. The whole morning and the early afternoon went to pot-luck firing from the trench along the draw, but although it was often asserted that Henry must long since be dead—having returned none of the shooting that was meant to call his fire—no one manifested the curiosity necessary to prove the assertion by closing in on the cabin. Stone was still sulking over Van Horn's sharp talk of the morning when Van Horn came over to where the foreman had posted himself to cover the cabin door: "We've got to get that guy before dark, Tom, or he'll slip us."
"All right," replied Stone, "get him."
"I want a wagon," scowled Van Horn. "There's one down at Gorman's place he won't need any more. There's some baled hay down there, too. Take the men you need, load what hay you can find on the wagon and hustle it up here."
Too stubborn to ask questions, and only starting after many hard words—with which all the ground of the morning quarrel and much more was traversed—Stone took two men and started reluctantly for Gorman's. He spent a long time on his job, but came back as directed with the wagon loaded with hay.
The wagon was not much to view. It looked like the wagon of a man that spent more time in Sleepy Cat saloons than on his ranch. A rack, equally old and dilapidated, had been set on the running gear. The paint had long since blown off the wheels, and one of these, a front wheel, had lost a tire on the rough trip up the creek. But the felloes hung to the spokes and the spokes to the hub.
Van Horn inspected the outfit grimly. With half a dozen men he set quickly to work and under his resourceful ingenuity the wagon and hay were speedily turned into what would now-a-days be termed a tank. Only lack of hay kept him from making a mobile fortress of it. By means of wire he slung along the sides what baled hay he could spare, and with much effort to avoid exposure the armored wagon was dragged over the roughest kind of ground, to the north and west of the cabin. From this direction the ground, fairly smooth, sloped from a ridge fringed by jutting patches of rock, directly toward the cabin itself and eager hands made the final preparations to smoke Henry out. With the load of hay set ablaze and the wagon run down against the cabin the defender was bound to be driven from cover or burnt.
When the bustling, contradicting and confusion finally subsided, the wagon was stealthily pushed over the ridge, the hay fired and the blazing outfit, christened a go-devil, was started with a shout down the slope.
If there existed in the minds of those that talked least a lingering suspicion that Dutch Henry was still alive it was soon strongly justified. Before the wagon had rolled twenty feet the challenge of a rifle-shot from the cabin answered the attack. Everybody dodged quick, but no one was hit and a yell of derision rose from behind the rocks. With ropes, borrowed from the men that carried them, and knotted together, the wagon was kept under partial control and the line, as paid out, served in some measure to guide it. On it went accompanied with shouts and yells. From the threatened cabin came no answering defiance. Henry's case looked bad as the wagon rolled down on him, but his rifle fire, though seemingly wasted, answered unflinchingly.
Stone danced with joy: "He'll be running the gauntlet next clip. He's not hitting anybody. He must be shooting," yelled the excited foreman, "at the blamed wagon."
A steady fire, undismayed, did continue to come from the cabin. Van Horn, who had run to the extreme right of the new sector, and was keeping a close watch on the go-devil, was the first to perceive trouble. "Hell's delight, boys," he cried, taken aback, "he's shooting up the wheels."
The words flew around behind the rocks. The rifle fire was explained. Every eye was turned to the danger point, the wheel without the tire which, as the wagon wobbled, was unluckily exposed to the cabin fire. It could easily be seen where the deliberate marksman was getting in his work. He had knocked one felloe off the rim and was hitting at the spokes. It began to look like a race between the burning wagon and Henry at bay. The hay was a mound of flame and sparks and smoke shot high into the air. A hundred feet more would lodge the fire trap against the rear wall of the cabin. But under the steady pounding of a rifle that seemed never to miss its mark the injured wheel showed fast increasing signs of distress. A second felloe was tracking uncertainly.
As a diversion, Van Horn, active, energetic and covering every part of his little line at once, ordered an incessant fire centered on the threatened cabin. Nothing seemed to check the regular report of the hidden high-powered rifle and the bullets that were splintering the old oak spokes. When the roaring wagon struck a loose stone or rough spot in its trackless path it wobbled and hesitated. Yet, jerked, steadied, halted and started by means of the long cable, it rolled to within twenty yards of its mark. There it pitched a bit, recovered and for another ten yards sailed down a smooth piece of ground. The cowboys were yelling their loudest when a lucky shot from the cabin knocked off a second felloe. A second and third shot smashed rapidly through the spokes of the staggering wheel. A threatening boulder lying to the right of the wagon's course could not be avoided. The men on the line jerked and swore. It was useless. One side of the wheel collapsed, the front axle swung around and the blazing wagon straddled the troublesome boulder like a stranded ship. The men guiding heaved to on the line—it parted; the cabin stood safe.
At once, the rifle fire from the cabin ceased. No taunt, no threat could draw another shot from the silence. Chagrined, eyes flashing, silent in his defeat, Van Horn, contemplating the last of the burning wagon and watching the cabin as a dog, baffled, watches a cat on a fence, was let alone even by the most reckless of his companions; for the failure no one tried to bait him. Nor were he and Doubleday ready to quit. They got ready a circle of fires to block any attempt made to escape the beleaguered place after dark. This proved a difficult undertaking, both because fuel was scarce and because the dead line, drawn by the rifle fire of the wary defender, extended a long way in every direction around his log refuge.
The night, however, was fairly clear and a pretty good moon was due by ten o'clock. The fires were lighted, not without some sharp objection from the cabin, the moment darkness fell. The difficulty then was to keep them replenished and maintain an adequate guard. Dark spots and shadows fell within and across the circle around the cabin. Van Horn ordered a rifle fire directed into these places; it was placed so persistently that when the moon rose, the besiegers felt pretty confident Henry had not escaped. And just before its light had penetrated the narrow valley, the invaders had a cheering surprise when the wounded man, nicknamed "The Snipe," crawled from his hollow between the lines back to his comrades and told them in immoderate terms what he thought of them for leaving him wounded and thirsty under the enemy fire. Volunteers, inspired by his abuse, crawled out to the second man that had fallen in the morning and by really heroic effort got him back into the draw; badly hit, he was given long-needed attention. The first man, shot through the head, the rescuers reported dead.
When midnight came, the men had been fed and the watch well maintained. A steer, interned earlier, had been cut up for the men's supper and Van Horn and Doubleday were seated together before the camp fire near the creek eating some of the reserve chunks of meat when a hurried alarm called them up the draw—the cabin was on fire.
Nothing could have happened to take the besiegers more by surprise. There was hasty questioning but no explanation. Of all the possibilities of the night none could have been so unexpected. But whatever the cause, and theories were broached fast, the cabin was ablaze. Smoke could be seen pouring through the chinks in the roof and little tongues of flame darted out at the rear under the eaves. Though there was not a breath of air stirring, the roof within fifteen minutes was in flames and the cowboys, confident of victory, set up, Indian fashion, their death chant for Dutch Henry.
The old shack made a good fire. The roof collapsed and with the incantations of the cowboys, the stout walls, worm-eaten and bullet-splintered, falling gradually, blazed on.
"The jig's up here, boys," announced Van Horn, as the fire burned down. "The two biggest thieves on the range are accounted for. It's a good job. If I guess right you'll find the Dutchman in the fire. Yankee Robinson's next. He won't put up much of a fight, but the hardest man to get is still ahead of us. This was a boy's job beside rounding up Abe Hawk. He'll never be taken alive, because he knows what's comin' to him.
"There's not a minute to lose now. Stone and I will take two of your men, Barb, and round up Yankee Robinson. From there we'll ride over to Abe's place on the Turkey. About our only chance is to catch him before he's up. If he's got wind of this, we'll have a hell of a chase to get him. Feed the horses, the rest of you eat, and we're off! You can follow us with Pettigrew and the bunch, Doubleday, just as soon as you look the cabin over after daylight." Within half an hour Van Horn and Stone and the two men crossed the creek, rode into the hills and disappeared into the night.
Setting a watch, Doubleday and his men curled up on the ground. When earliest dawn streaked the sky the logs were still smoking, and the cowboys, rifles in hand, walked down to where the cabin had stood.
Everything within the walls had been consumed. Long after daylight, with some of the men asleep, and others waiting for the fire to cool, one of Doubleday's cowboys, poking about the sill log of the rear wall with a stick, gave a shout. What had been taken for a half-burned log was the charred body of a man. The invaders gathered and the body was presently declared by those who knew him well to be that of Dutch Henry. There was nothing more to detain the men that were waiting. The cowboy worst wounded had started with a companion for home. The Snipe insisted on going on with Doubleday.
The horses had been left in good grass a little way down the creek. When they were disturbed it was found that one was missing. A hurried search failed to recover the horse.
While trackers were at work, the Snipe, always alert, found a clue that upset all calculations. It was a small dark red spot soaked into the dust of the creek trail. It was very small, such as might have been made by a single drop of blood; but one such sign was enough to put on inquiry a man versed like the Snipe in mountain craft. Keeping his discovery to himself, he tracked back and forth from his single spot, almost invisible in the dust, until he found a second similar spot. This he marked, and dodging and circling, like a hound on a scent, the Snipe ran his trail from his first tiny spot to the trees near the creek where the horses had been left. Doubling, he patiently tracked the telltale spots up the path that led to the cabin. Then he called to Barb.
Doubleday, much out of temper, was in the saddle waiting to get started. He bawled at the Snipe, and not amiably.
"Keep cool," was the answer; "I'm 'a' comin'. But look here before you start; there was two men in that cabin, Barb."
"What are you givin' us?" blurted out a cowboy. Doubleday stared ferociously. "There was two of 'em, boys," persisted the Snipe.
"You must 'a' seen double when you was runnin'," was the skeptical suggestion of another man. But Doubleday listened.
The Snipe took him from the cabin down to the creek. Then back to the cabin. There he showed him where someone had dug what might have been a hole under the sill log, near the door.
A horse was certainly missing. Then, shells from two different rifles were picked out of the ashes. One size had been fired from a Winchester rifle; the others, much more numerous, belonged to a Marlin.
"Who was it, Barney?" asked Doubleday, breathing heavily. He was so wrought up and so hoarse he could hardly frame the words. But he was already convinced.
The Snipe shook his head. "There's two or three fellows up here shoots a Marlin rifle. If I got one guess on this man that's made his get-away, Barb, I'd say——" The Snipe poked further into the ashes.
"Well, say!" thundered Doubleday.
"I'd say it was Abe Hawk."