In that rare half-hour just before sunrise, when the cool breeze blowing across the meadows seemed saturated with sweetness and the vivifying essence of all life, as if here for a moment one might inhale the very breath which God breathed into his image made of clay and awakened it to the consciousness that it was a man, seven riders mounted at the Meadowlark corrals and went galloping down the trail, bound for the Frying Pan ranch, a long ride of forty miles through rough country.
Quivering drops of dew, scattered by eager hoofs, blinked at the first mellow sun rays and vanished from sight. Birds chirped and sang and flew here and there seeking breakfast for their hungry fledglings that would themselves soon be surprising the early worm. Every man's face was eager and alert, glad for no tangible reason save that it was good to be alive and on a horse, riding out in the cool of the morning once more after the leisurely two weeks just gone.
Lark was not among them, having made the excuse that he was tired from his trip to Glasgow; a thin excuse, for Lark could stay in the saddle as long as any man when the need arose. In reality Lark wanted to leave this horse-buying deal for Bud to handle alone. It was time, he thought, that the young man learned to assume some responsibility in a business way, and he was curious to see what sort of bargain Bud would make with the Frying Pan. So far Lark was secretly proud of his handsome young nephew whom he had cared for since he was a boy the size of Skookum, but for all that he was minded now to supplement Bud's schooling with a course of practical application of the lessons he had presumably learned from books.
The Meadowlark needed to build up its horse herd, and it was Bud himself who had suggested that they see what the Frying Pan had to offer. Lark did not think much of the Frying Pan, and Kid Kern, the owner, he did not trust at all; but he told Bud to go ahead and see what he could do over there with fifteen hundred dollars, intimating that he ought to be able to buy a hundred head of mixed stock for that amount.
Privately, Lark believed that the Frying Pan dealt mostly in "wet" stock—which is range parlance for stolen stock. A fresh brand is a "wet" brand. Stolen horses or cattle must be rebranded, the original brand hidden under another. That detail, combined with the fact that stolen stock is rushed by forced drives to distant localities, gave rise to the term, and that term was applied in undertones to Frying Pan horses. Lark wondered if Bud knew that. But wet stock is usually good stock, and cheap—for cash. So Lark did not say anything to Bud. If the kid wanted advice he'd probably ask for it.
So Bud rode proudly at the head of the little cavalcade with fifteen hundred dollars in gold coin wrapped in his slicker and tied behind the cantle, and the cameo brooch pinning back his hat brim while a blue satin bow stolen laughingly from Marge sat perkily between the twitching ears of his horse—braided into the short hairs of the mane for safe-keeping. And Bud, the young devil, was not thinking of girls at all, but dreaming of those two black bronchos he meant to tame, and trying to think of names worthy their magnificent beauty. Stirrup to stirrup with him rode Frank Gelle, who sent a glance over his shoulder to see how close were the others when they slowed for the climb up through the pass.
"What was Butch quizzing Skookum about last night, Bud, down by the little corral?" he broke ruthlessly into Bud's meditations.
"Butch? I don't know, Jelly. I heard him say something about teaching the kid some birdcall or other." Bud, brought back to the present, bethought him that now was a good time to roll a smoke. He slipped the reins daintily between his third and little fingers and reached for tobacco sack and papers.
"Didn't sound like no birdcall to me, Bud. He was pumpin' the kid about something. I couldn't ketch none of the words, but I could tell by the tonation of his voice that he was askin' one question right on top of another. Do you reckon, Bud, he was snoopin' around tryin' to pump the kid about our pilgress?"
"Marge? No reason he should pump the kid about her. That girl's an open book—printed in clear type. She and Butch were having a great old visit down by the corral yesterday when he was showing off his fancy roping. You saw them, Jelly. I bet she was giving him her life history. A girl that's lived the pure, simple life Marge has will tell all about herself without much coaxing. I don't believe Butch would be a darn bit backward about asking her anything he wanted to know. He must have been quizzing the kid about something else."
"She's a purty girl and a sweet girl, and no mother to guide her," Gelle eulogized solemnly. "No bonehead rustler like Butch Cassidy can run any rannigans whilst I'm on the job. If I was shore—"
"It wasn't that. Anyway, Marge can hold her own without any help. If you'd heard some of the roastings I've got, already—somebody told her I lied about our frogs. I never will be able to square myself, I guess. Say, Jelly, Butch may have been asking Skookum about that boat. He seemed pretty keen about it in the bunk house."
"Bud, I wouldn't put that bank job past the Fryin' Pan outfit, do you know it? From the way Butch talked, I'll bet they've been figuring on it, some time or other." Gelle sent another cautious glance over his shoulder.
"They didn't do it, Jelly. I left them all at the ranch, and rode straight across the reservation, the shortest way there is. I was expecting to make it home that night, you see. They couldn't have beaten me in. They were sitting around the house, whittling and telling it scarey, when I left, and their horses weren't caught up or anything. Butch may feel sore because some one beat them to it, and if he thought the boodle was cached somewhere within reach—
"Tell you what I'm going to do, Jelly. Soon as we get back with the horses I'm going to do a little scouting around. I've thought of several places I want to take a look at. That yarn about how I was spotting for the gang that killed Charlie Mulholland—well, the quickest way to stop that is to pin it on the guilty parties. If it's a home job, as it looks to be, we can do as much as the sheriff toward getting them with the goods. And, Jelly, I may need you before I'm through."
"Well, now, you'd have a heck of a time tryin' to keep me out of the muss!" Gelle laughed to himself. "Here comes Butch, so I'll drop back with the roughnecks. I wouldn't trust Butch if I was you, Bud. He's a nice feller and all that, but he's a horse thief and a killer and I wouldn't trust him fur as I could throw a bull by the tail."
Bud was grinning at that when Butch rode up on his high-stepping brown horse, but he did not pass along the joke.
The Frying Pan ranch, so called because of the brand most used by the owners, lay a good day's ride from the Meadowlark, over near the Missouri and close to that stretch of chaotic country called the Badlands. A small town might have stood on the level plateau against the hills, but as it was the Frying Pan ranch had a fine sweep of pasture land with a long lane running straight back to where the house, stable and corrals stood against the butte. Had the owners planned the place with an eye to the strategic possibilities, they could not have improved the smallest detail. First, the house, a two-story log building set well out in the open with a well and pump in one corner of the woodshed built against the kitchen. Beyond the house stood the barn, another log building with ample room for hay sufficient to winter eight or ten horses; and behind the barn the corrals, three of them in a string, with a branding chute between the two smaller ones and with a pair of funnel wings that never failed to ease the wildest broomtails into the enclosure left open to receive them. A somewhat elaborate arrangement, though the Frying Pan was a horse outfit that seemed to be making money faster than the cattlemen.
Range gossip is quite as malicious as a small-town club that is on the brink of disorganization. Range gossipers grinned at the Frying Pan brand, a blotched circle with the handle pointing downward; very convenient to cover any small brand and blot it forever from sight; handier still to have the choice of left hip or shoulder. One might guess that another brand was buried beneath that burned circle, but who could swear to the fact?
Whether Bud knew the gossip or not, he did know good horses when he saw them, and it was with a glow of pride that he climbed the fence of the largest corral and roosted on the top rail with the other Meadowlark riders, all staring down at the circling, kicking, squealing, nipping herd which the Frying Pan boys had just whooped down the wings and inside. A pretty sight they were—one that brought a shine into eyes other than Bud's.
"I trimmed the bunch down to about three hundred while we had them up waiting for you to come over after them," Kid Kern shouted, climbing up to straddle the rail and sit beside Bud. "I knew pretty well what you didn't want. Some good stuff there, hunh?"
"I've seen worse pelters than these," Bud grinned. "Got any fillies you want to throw in as an honorarium to me for having Lark dig up the full price in gold?"
"Say, Bud! If you bring any honorariums on to the ranch, by golly, you'll have to break 'em yourself!" Tony yelled, and winked at Jack Rosen. "They're tricky as hell, and you know it."
"Oh, I know you're not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth," Bud retorted, "but I'll take a chance on five or six colts presented by Kid, here."
"If you put it that way, I might add half a dozen head; for you yourself, Bud. Gold is mighty useful to me, boy."
"You talk like good old greenbacks ain't money no more," Bob Leverett chided.
"There's a black gelding I'm going to build a loop for," Tony cried enthusiastically, and pointed to where a magnificent head and neck showed over the shoulder of a sorrel, the big brown eyes regarding curiously the strange row of figures on the fence.
"There's his twin, by golly! I speak fer him right now," Jack Rosen exclaimed.
"And they both belong to yours truly," Bud stated with outward calm. "Lark's giving them to me for making the deal, and my one-legged Meadowlark goes on to-morrow morning. You'll need darned fast loops, you fellows, to beat mine."
"My gosh, more honorariums!" wailed Tony. "Bud's bashful, I don't think!"
"Bud knows two good horses," Kid grinned, glancing sidelong toward Butch. "Them two blacks came"—he glanced again toward Butch and went on smoothly—"damn' near queering the deal. I didn't want to let them two go, but Bud, he couldn't see no bunch of horses that didn't include them, so I had to cave in or lose the sale. You'll have two dandy mounts, Bud, if you break 'em right."
"I don't intend to break them at all." Bud's eyes softened wonderfully as they rested on the nearest black horse. "All they need is to be taught. I'll have them both following me around like dogs, inside a month."
Butch lounged over and leaned against the fence near where Bud was perched. His hatcrown reached to Bud's knees, and he stared into the restless herd that crowded to the far side of the corral. His lip lifted a bit at one corner.
"Look out fer hydrophoby, then," he drawled. "One of 'em is a mankiller at heart; mebbe both. You'll have one fine time makin' pet dogs outa them two. I advise yuh to hogtie 'em and put a muzzle on 'em before you go caressin' around them birds."
Bud's cheeks darkened with the hot blood of anger, for Butch lied. Those big, intelligent eyes staring with shy wistfulness from the head of the nearest black betrayed the slander.
"Thanks for the advice, Butch. When I need more, I'll send word over," he said coldly.
The Meadowlark boys almost stopped breathing for a moment, and sent swift, sidelong glances at one another. But nothing came of the incident, save a tenseness in the atmosphere, a guarded note in conversations that had before been carelessly friendly. Not until after supper, however, did Bud speak his mind to any one, and then it was to Gelle.
"I don't like the feel of this place, Jelly. We'll get out of here as soon as we can in the morning, and I wish you'd come with me while I turn over the money to Kid and get a bill of sale—and then I wish you'd slip the word to the boys that I'd like to have them keep out of the card games and turn in early.
"The Frying Pan thinks I'm young and green. I suppose they also think I'm a fool, and can't take the hints that have dropped around here. But it's like this, Jelly: We need this bunch of horses. I want that bill of sale signed to-night, and I want you to see me pay Kid the money. Butch doesn't want to see me get those two blacks, and the whole bunch may be slightly damp." He grinned, and Gelle laughed softly. "But if we lose any horses on that account, Kid will have to settle with the Meadowlark; don't think he won't!
"And when we've got them safe home," he added, after a reflective pause, "I'll have Lark let the boys off for a few days. They can go spend their good money in Smoky Ford while you and I take a little scouting trip around. How does that strike you, Jelly?"
"Fine and dandy; betcher life!"
"So come on, now, while all the boys are in sight and it's still daylight, and we'll dig up the gold and get the paper signed that will make theseourhorses. One hundred and six head of them, at least. Nothing like being young and innocent, is there, Jelly?"
"No, there ain't," Gelle agreed soberly. "I never did have much use fer the Fryin' Pan, and that's the truth. Now Butch is with 'em, they don't stack up near so good. Come awn, let's git that gold money paid over to Kid before they steal it. That's howItrust this bunch!"
Have you ever watched a herd of horses come streaming down a hill at the end of a hard day's travel? There's a thrill in it such as comes when soldiers are marching by. First a drifting haze which is the dust kicked up by the traveling herd; then the faint, muffled sound of hoof beats; the heads of the point riders seen dimly through the cloud, and after them the upflung heads of the leaders.
As the freshly branded horses sighted the delectable green of the Basin, smelled the river rushing out of the encircling wall of rugged hills, they came streaming down through the pass in sudden forgetfulness of the weary miles behind them. At the foot of the hill riders spurred out from the veil of dust, swinging closed loops and shouting, forcing the eager band close to the bluff and away from the alluring green of the meadows. Tired muscles tensed again. Heads went up, dusty nostrils belled and quivered with the mingled scents of the valley. The leg-weary colts, dusty, lagging behind and then making sudden, shrill uproar when they missed their mothers, were sought with frantic whinnyings by the mares. Once found, they were torn from eager nuzzlings by the light thwacks of rope ends and the insistent, "Hi! Hi-yee!" from the hoarse throats of the tired riders; the cry that all day long without ceasing had dogged the laggards on the trail.
Even Maw left her endless pottering around the house and waddled down to the corral where Lark was already propping open the big gate, when Skookum came running with his body slanted perilously forward while he yelled that the horses were coming. Marge went back for her notebook and pencil, because you never know when cowboys are going to say something odd or picturesque, or a killing may take place—as she confided to her brother in passing.
(As a matter of fact, Marge was beginning to complain at the paucity of dramatic happenings on the ranch where she had confidently expected to find adventure galore. For however much the boys might boldly proclaim their gallant intentions, Marge saw them mostly at a distance and found them hopelessly shy when brought face to face with her. Young Bud talked with her gravely and misleadingly upon occasion, wherefore she called Bud bashful and slow—when in reality Bud was anything else, and was mostly preoccupied with other matters. So the coming of the new horses loomed before her as an event that promised something in the way of Western color and, possibly, drama.)
With a last flurry of hard riding and hoarse shouts, the leaders swung away from the tempting meadows and inside the wing fence that slanted down from the corrals to the road, the precipitous bluff forming the other barrier. The herd galloped in mass formation to the very gate before they realized that here they faced another one of those hated periods of captivity. They swerved toward the bluff, hurtled back along it and met the implacable Meadowlark riders; milled briefly and thundered again down the throat of the wings toward the corral. With a flick of heels, a last surge of upflung dust, they dodged inside. The big gate slammed shut behind them and the chain was pulled around the great post that looked as though rats had gnawed it just there—the hook rattled into a heavy link and that particular horse deal was completed. The horses were safe at home and milling inside the corral just as they had circled round and round within the Frying Pan enclosure that morning.
Six tired cowboys rode over to the open space beside the shed where saddles were kept, and with a backward swing of saddle-stiffened legs over the cantles they thankfully dismounted. A hot, windy ride—and the wind in their backs most of the way. Their throats were parched and raw from the dust and shouting.
"Me, I'm goin' to put sideboards on my chin, to-morra, and plug up my ears. That way I can hold more beer." This from Tony, who wished his world to know how dry he was.
"Yeah—if we git to go," Jack Rosen qualified pessimistically. "Lark may not let us off."
"Say, he'll letmeoff, if he has to fire me!" Bob Leverett threatened with a surface vehemence not meant to be taken too seriously.
"I'll see that you boys get a couple of days off, all right." Bud had ridden up and swung from the saddle, his face a gritty gray mask from riding point in the thick of the dust. "I'll fix it up with Lark this evening. Now's a good time to find out just what all this talk amounts to, and where it started. Of course, we think we know, but by the time you boys put a little gold into circulation, we ought to be dead sure we know. All I ask is that you boys keep your ears open and let me know what you pick up."
"Nice bunch of horses, Bud." Lark walked over from the corral and stood among them. "I s'pose you boys are framin' a trip in to the Ford, about to-morra. Better not say anything to Lightfoot about goin'. He's just fool enough to be game for anything that comes up, but he can't ride with you bunch of hellions yet. I'd hate to tell him he can't go, so if you'll leave without hollerin' it all over the ranch it'll suit me just as well. I'll be over to the bunk house after a while; you can draw what money you want then."
"Now, ain't that hell?" cried Tony after an eloquent pause. "Here we been gittin' ready to appoint a committee to approach the throne—aw, shucks. Lark, yo're a good boss, in some ways, but you'd keep men on the payroll longer if you was kind to 'em!"
Since no man ever left the Meadowlark of his own free will, even the weariest puncher laughed at that, Lark with the others; but his eyes held a shadow as he walked toward the house with Bud.
"What do you think of my two blacks? Aren't they peaches?" For the first time Bud's tone betrayed the fact that the black bronchos were not absorbing his full thought, but were being used to make conversation.
Lark grunted. They walked farther before he spoke.
"Horses are all right, I guess. Say, Bud, did you meet a feller ridin' a chunky little bay with the Acorn brand on its hip? He rode in here yesterday and stopped all night. Snoopy kinda cuss. Claimed to be a stock buyer, but he didn't show me no credentials, nor talk like he wanted to buy anything in p'ticular. Ast questions of everybody but me, seems like—mostly things that wasn't none of his business. He left right after dinner and said he was ridin' over Landusky way and would mebbe meet you boys somewheres on the trail. He didn't, hunh?"
"Never saw him at all, Lark. I don't see how we could have missed him, either, if he kept to the trail. How did you grade him, Lark? A detective?"
"Had the earmarks, son. Sicked onto us by some of them damn' granny-gossips in town, I take it. You goin' in with the boys to-morra?"
"No-o—well, I thought I'd take a ride around and see what sign I can pick up; on the quiet, Lark. I want to take Jelly with me, and I don't want the boys to know anything about it. They'll proceed to tarry with the wine cup, the first thing they do, and what they don't know they can't let slip when their tongues loosen a bit. I hope they stir things up and keep the town interested enough so Jelly and I won't be missed."
"Purty late to pick up anything on the range, Bud. Seven days now, it's been. That alleged stock buyer said they ain't got the first clew yet. He might of lied, though. Prob'ly did. You goin' to take a look around Palmer's place?"
"I thought we would, if we get the chance. I want to let the boys ride in ahead of us. I want to use them for a decoy. I believe Palmer and his men will follow them in if they see a bunch of Meadowlark boys go riding into town. They'll want to see what's taking place, and guilty or innocent, I believe their mental reactions will send them after the boys."
"Mebbe." Lark lifted his hat while he pawed at his hair. "I never went into fizzyology much, so I can't say what reactions will do to a feller. If you say they'll act that way, I ain't goin' to contradict. But what's the rule fer perventin' a killin' if our boys run into Palmer whilst they're lit up? I got a nice bunch of boys, now, and I don't want to see 'em killed off ner sent to the pen."
"Oh, you work that out by the rule of subtraction," Bud grinned. "Have the boys leave their guns with the bartender when they take their first drink."
"Hunh? No, sir, I won't ast the boys to do what I wouldn't do m'self. I'd ruther leave my pants with the bartender! You musta got that idee in school. What's the use of havin' a gun, if you got to hand it over to some slick-haired bar-wiper just when it looks like you may want it? I'd go in myself, but"—he paused to glance over his shoulder—"I'm goin' to fix up the Nest again. My old dad would raise up in his grave if he knowed how things has been let run down that way. The Lookout needs some work on it too.
"You go on and carry out what's in yore mind, son. I'll buy in later on, if it's necessary. But you kin make this yore fight, for the present, and if things look like they're comin' to a head, you kin send one of the boys back after me. I'll be workin' here, puttin' things in shape fer a show-down. Once these things start, they's no tellin' where they'll wind up. Callin' us a hard outfit to monkey with is one thing—that's somethin' to be proud of. But when it comes to sayin' we killed a man so as to rob the bank where we do our business—my Jonah, but that's damn' hard to swaller!"
"We aren't going to swallow it," Bud declared, promptly. "Where's Maw? I'm about half starved!"
Maw was coming, taking short, quick steps and waving the mosquitoes off with her apron. Behind her, Marge was walking with many short halts while she wrote something in her notebook, while whooping along in the rear came Skookum, driving Lightfoot and flailing him with a tall weed to keep him at a high gallop. Bud's eyes lingered on the bent head of Marge, and he loitered, waiting for her. Then, his glance going to the boy, his face hardened again with the purpose that filled his mind.
It was after he had eaten and Marge was waiting in the living room, hoping Bud would come in and talk to her after the deadly monotony of the past two days, that Bud artfully drew Skookum off by himself and turned the conversation very casually to Butch Cassidy. He wanted to know what it was that Butch had been talking about; but Skookum, unfortunately, had promised not to tell.
"Well, that's all right, pardner. If you promised, don't go back on your word; unless," he added, "it was something mean. In that case, of course, I ought to know."
"It wasn't mean," said Skookum, after a pause for reflection. "If you asked questions like Butch did, I'd tell you more'n I told Butch. I—I didn't tell him any more than—than I had to. I—wouldn't hold out on you that way, Bud. You're my—my pal."
Bud could have hugged the boy. There was a chance, then, that Butch had not learned much more than they all had heard in the bunk house. He did not see just what use Butch could make of the information gleaned in this manner, but he knew what he himself wanted to do. So Bud began to ask questions, and Skookum answered them as carefully and as completely as possible.
When he went to bed that night, Bud kept smiling in the dark until he fell asleep, and even then his lips were curved as if his dreams were pleasant. Skookum smiled also and dreamed of the pinto pony Bud had given him for his very own; a pony that was too small for a full-grown man; a pony with white eyelashes, one blue eye, a doglike devotion to any one who would pet him, and the unusual name of Huckleberry.
The satisfaction of Bud and Skookum must have continued through the night, for both were up and out in the cool, dewy dawn when all the birds were ruffling feathers and puffing throats in rhapsodical melody.
Sooner than would seem humanly possible, Skookum went wading through dew-drenched meadows that straightway wet his feet, a frayed rope end dragging from the coil hung over his arm and in his two hands a battered basin holding oats enough to founder the pinto pony—or so Jake would have told him.
The pinto proved a willing partner to the new alliance, and let Skookum climb on his back and ride to the stable, obeying the guidance of a hand-slap on the neck, just as Bud had said he would. Picture any ranch-bred boy of eight or nine in full possession of a new and gentle pony, and you will have Skookum fully accounted for: riding reckless circles around and between Maw's flower beds to show her how Huckleberry neckreined; sending terror to the heart of a certain mother hen when he galloped full tilt and scattered her brood; roping gate posts, calves, old Jake, Lark—anything upon which a loop could settle. That was Skookum for the next few days.
As for young Bud, he was up and had a rope on one of the blacks before Skookum had so much as glimpsed the pinto pony. There was a certain shady corral with running water and a pole rack for hay, called the bronch corral, where he meant to leave them until his return, but already he was bent on making friends with them. He heard the boys making hectic preparations for the trip to town, and thought they must certainly be faring forth to carry out plans carefully laid in many conferences; whereas no man save Bud had any plan at all. They meant to ride to Smoky Ford and put a stop to the slander against the Meadowlark—how, they did not know.
"Funny Lark wouldn't do something about it," Jake Biddle grumbled, when the boys were saddling after breakfast. "Ain't like the old days—not a damn' bit. Old Bill would 'a' rode into town with a gun in each hand and a booie knife in his teeth, hollerin' his opinion of sech damn' liars. The fellers that started it—"
"I shore wisht he'd of lived to show us how to cuss and hold a knife in our teeth at one and the same time," fleered Tony. "You old broken-down riders makes me tired. Think us boys is kids?"
"Yeah. Where'd you git the idee we're goin' to run home bawlin' fer Lark to come show us what t' do to them bad men that's sayin' mean things about us?" Bob Leverett turned a shade redder. "Mebbe we ain't got the knack of carryin' a knife in our teeth whilst we cuss, but I betcha we can holler our opinions jest about as loud as old Bill ever done. And as fer wavin' a gun in both hands—why, me, I can look scarey enough with one gun to put Smoky Ford on the run. Come on, boys. We're keepin' Jake from settin' in the kitchen weepin' fer the days that is gone."
"Say, ain't Jelly goin' to town?" As they swung to the saddles Tony missed the tall rider. "Hey, Jelly!"
"You boys go awn," Gelle called from the far corral where he was killing time with Bud until the others were gone. "Bud and me'll be along after a while, mebbe. If we don't overtake you, you boys ride awn in and make yoreselves to home."
"Foolin' with them black bronchs," Rosen made indulgent comment. "Let 'em throw away good minutes if they ain't got better sense. Come on, let's be movin'."
They moved to such good purpose that presently a slow-settling dust cloud alone remained to tell of their haste.
Palmer's ranch, called so because the man himself came first to mind when one thought of his outfit—which bore the brand called the Roman Three—lay along the road from Meadowlark Basin to Smoky Ford. The fields lay farthest up river, but his house and stables stood in that narrower level where the river swung abruptly eastward toward the Indian Reservation and the hills. At that point the road drew in close to the house and not more than a long rifle-shot away from the river. Smoky Ford lay nearly seven miles farther down river; not a long ride for men accustomed to spend most of their waking hours in the saddle. Indeed, the Meadowlark boys thought of Palmer's ranch as being almost in the edge of town, and called their journey nearly done when they came loping up to the place.
"Let's wake the old devil up," Tony suggested recklessly, as they neared the gate and fired two shots into the Palmer roof-tree.
"Yeah! Let him know we ain't sneakin' past his door, scared he'll sick his dog on to us!" Jack Rosen lifted his gun and sent splinters flying from two shingles.
"Bet he don't keep no dog. Too darn stingy to feed one. Aye—Palmer! Yore roof's leaky!" Bob Leverett yelled, in a voice trained to carry across a restless herd, and splintered another shingle.
The front door opened abruptly and Palmer himself stood briefly revealed to the four riders halted in the roadway just outside the big, closed gate. Palmer waved a rifle and yelled obscene epithets until Tony stopped that with a leaden pellet planted neatly between his feet. Palmer jumped, banged the door shut and took a shot at them through a window. Evidently he had no intention of killing in broad daylight, for he shot high.
"His loyal henchmen must be gone somewheres. T' town, mebbe," Tony surmised shrewdly. "The old devil could hit some one if he wanted to, but he knows damn' well we'd git him if he did, so he's jest expressin' his sentiments in a general way, same as we are. What say, boys? Shall we take him along with us to town?"
"Hell, what'd we wanthimfor?" Jack Rosen's voice was heavy with disgust. "He shore ain't good comp'ny."
"Oh, I jest thought mebbe we might take him along because he wouldn't want to go," Tony replied naïvely, slipping cartridges into his gun. "There goes that foolish jasper. Rest of 'em must be in town. Well, how about it?"
"Takin' him along would shore hurt my feelin's worse than it would his, fer I'd be in worse comp'ny than he would. What say we ride on in and see what's goin' on, and if the rest of these birds is there? If so, we can clean up on what's in town and come back out here later on. Mebbe Palmer'll foller us in. Be jest like him to have the law on us, don't you know it? I'm goin' to rip off another shingle and go about my business, I'm dry as a bleached bone."
They proceeded to rip off several shingles. But Palmer did not choose to retaliate, so they rode on, yelling derisively until they were out of hearing. Within a mile they had settled down and were tardily making plans calculated to stir Smoky Ford out of its lethargy and give it something to talk about. The idea was Tony's, and he was so proud of it that he could afford to give some credit to Bob as a true prophet when they topped a rise and had a glimpse of a horseman just riding out of Palmer's gate. Palmer, following them in, no doubt meant to stir up trouble for them before he was through. Well, let him. Trouble was what the Meadowlark boys were looking for to-day.
"I can see now how he come to take a quirtin' from Lark," Mark Hanley said contemptuously. "He's yeller as mustard, without the bite. Jest the kind that would cave in a man's head when he wasn't lookin'. 'Twouldn't a took much nerve to shoot up the bunch of us, him in the house like that and us in the open. We got to git that old coot in a corner, somehow. Now, Tony, that idee of yourn—"
"It's a darn good idee," Tony defended hastily. "They could guess everything else and lay plans to block it, but they couldn't guess we'd pull off anything like that. First off, we better ride to Delkin's stable and put him wise. Our horses is our excuse for going there."
Stirrups tangled, they rode so close together. Often a man would break into laughter and glance back at the trail to see if Palmer was still following them. They trotted up to the very door of Delkin's stable, ducked heads and rode inside, where they dismounted and unsaddled without help or interference from the stableman, who knew them of old. When their horses were turned into the corral behind the barn, where they speedily found hay and water and a place to roll, the quartet went trooping back down the long floor, spurs jingling pleasant accompaniment to their low-voiced laughter. Slightly bowed in the legs, they were—or it may have been the permanent kink in their chaps. Twitching hats and neckerchiefs into becoming angles, lest the eye of some young woman catch them in disarray, they made for the screened door of the office, where Tony peered in, saw Delkin sitting gloomily before his desk, and pushed open the door, entering with a slight swagger.
"Oh, hello!" Delkin's eyes went from one to the other in apathetic greeting. "You boys in for a good time, eh?"
"Yeah. We just stopped by to let you in on the joke. Seen anything of Bat Johnson and the rest of the bunch from Palmer's?"
"Why, yes. They rode in an hour or so ago, I believe. They don't put up their horses when they come to town, you know. Post hay is cheaper." Delkin did not know just how much resentment was in his voice, but his mood was bitter these days.
"Well, how's the scandal comin' along, Mr. Delkin?" Tony asked cheerfully. "Still shootin' off their mouths about the Meddalark?"
"Oh, about the same, I guess. But they'll never make me believe your outfit had anything to do with it." The mind of Delkin was so obsessed with the murder and robbery that it did not occur to him that scandal could focus on anything else.
"Well, we shore appreciate that, because we got a scheme for stirrin' up the bandits some. It's my idee," Tony informed him proudly. "I'd like to see what you think of it before we git to work on it. And mebbe it might be jest as well if you'd call in some of yore bank officers, so in case of a kick-back we won't git lynched without nobody to put in a word for us. That there," he added slightingly, "is Rosy's idee. He's scared to turn himself loose like he claims he kin, unless he's shore his imagination ain't goin' to be fatal. Rosy claims he's sech an eloquent cuss he's liable to git hung. Git the men that's handiest, will you? We're darn dry, and I can't hold these pelicans away from the flowin' bowl much longer."
Delkin glanced out through the open window, got up hurriedly and called to three men who were talking on a corner across the street. One threw up his hand to show that he heard, and they came over, tapering off their conversation on the way. Inside, they looked at the four Meadowlark riders and nodded, turning inquiringly to Delkin afterwards.
"I called you in to hear something or other that these boys have framed. Don't know what it is, but it ought to work. You know the Meadowlark has the name of putting through what it starts."
"So I hope they're starting in the right direction," grinned Bradley, vice president of the bank and proprietor of the town's principal store. "I've been wondering if the Meadowlark was going to tuck its head under its wing, with all the talk going round about it. I overheard one of Palmer's men saying in the store that the bank has put a detective on Bud Larkin's trail. I wonder where he got that idea?" Bradley sat down and thrust out his long legs before him in the attitude of one who has the habit of taking his ease whenever possible. He knew the boys well. He could have told you exactly how much each man there had paid for the shirt he had on—though what his own profit had been would have been carefully guarded as a dark secret. Every mouthful of food that went down the throat of a Meadowlark man when at home came from Bradley's store unless it had been produced on the ranch.
The other two men were also important business men of the town; one owned the hardware store and the other a small, fly-specked drugstore stocked mostly with patent nostrums. The boys could not have chosen four men more to their liking for this particular conference.
"Well, here's what we aim to do." Tony began rolling a cigarette as an aid to eloquence, and stated the plan.
The audience grunted and looked doubtful; then Delkin gave a short laugh.
"I admit it's original," he said dryly. "And it's lucky you told us beforehand, or you boys might find yourselves swinging from a limb somewhere before you could convince any one you were only joking."
"Only danger," Bradley agreed, "is making too big a success of it. We've been watching Palmer and his men pretty close, and I must say we haven't a thing to go on, except that Palmer was the last man in the bank before Charlie was killed, and Bat Johnson was the first man seen near the bank afterwards. On the other hand, Bud and that young stranger—"
"Say, Bud's name don't sound purty to me, used that way; and that stranger's wearin' the Meddalark brand, Mr. Bradley," Tony interrupted meaningly. "Well, we're dry, and thank Gawd our duty calls us to git pickled or nearly so. And here," he added, glancing through the window, "comes the he-one of 'em all. Palmer's follered us in. Come awn, boys. Let's go git near-drunk. And, oh, say!" he added, reaching into his pocket, "here's the evidence agin us! Lark went and borried some money in Glasgow—I guess he told yuh himself—and us boys is plumb lousy with gold tens and twenties. So don't git nervous and think we're spendin' the bank's good money in righteous livin'. We worked fer this. Every dime was earnt in sweat and sorrow. Ain't that right, boys?"
"Damn' right that's right," they agreed solemnly.
"I'll tackle Bat," Tony announced, as they walked across the street to the Elkhorn, thumbs hooked inside their belts, hats atilt, eyes seeing everything. "Lordy, how this town's growed since I seen it last! There's a new dog, layin' right on Bradley's steps. Wouldn't that jar yuh some, hunh?"
"Who's goin' to tackle Palmer?" Bob Leverett wanted to know. "Me, I wouldn't come within ropin' distance of that old coyote. Rosy, you take 'im."
"Have to play the cards as they run," Tony warned them, pausing with one foot on the platform. "Make it look stagey, and my idee's plumb wrecked. Come awn in—like you hated to but had to. And we'll keep together right at first, hunh?"
"Shore. I wish't Jelly was here, and Bud." Bob cleared his throat, hitched up his belt and lounged in, the other three at his heels.
The four drank together, inviting the bartender to join them. Other occupants of the room may have noticed that they held their beer mugs in their left hands, and that they drank with their faces half turned to the room. Tony it was who paid in silver. They talked afterward among themselves in tones slightly lowered. Had they been men burdened with too much knowledge of evil, on guard against some overt move of an enemy, they would have worn that same air of aloofness, that faint challenge to the world hidden under the guise of careless ease. The dozen men lounging within knew without being told that the Meadowlark men were aware of the talk about them and felt themselves observed with suspicion. Indeed, every one must have seen how these four watched the room in the mirror of the back bar, and how they studiously kept their right hands free and hovering near their belts.
It was the bad-man attitude, beautifully done. Had the Meadowlark boys murdered three men and robbed a dozen banks they could scarcely have been more careful. And they had the attention of every man there, thinly disguised, but all the keener for that. Bat Johnson, playing pool at the far end, lifted his lip in a sneer while he deliberately chalked his cue and raised a leg to rest it on the corner of the table for a difficult shot. But he did not make any audible remarks about the Meadowlark men, and he did pocket four balls in succession to show how steady were his nerves. In the back-bar mirror Tony saw that only two men were playing and that the game had just started. Bat would be occupied for the next half-hour, so there was plenty of time for certain necessary preliminaries.
Jack Rosen bought a bottle of whisky and paid for it with a ten-dollar gold piece. Bob Leverett watched the transaction and decided that he too wanted to drink out of a bottle and stop when he pleased. Bob fumbled in his pockets, looked uneasily over his shoulder and pushed a double eagle across the bar as if he were ashamed of having it. Indeed, Tony gave him a frown of disapproval and a shake of the head, and this was not lost upon the bartender nor upon others who were covertly watching the quartet.
"Well, gimme a bottle too. It's cheaper that way." Mark Hanley also paid with gold, explaining behind his hand to the others that he just had to have change, and he guessed it was all right. And thereupon Tony borrowed the price of a bottle from Mark, and they went clanking out and across to the stable, leaving tongues tickling to talk behind their backs, and a thoughtful look on the face of Bat Johnson.
In the far corner of the corral Tony was carefully spilling whisky on his undershirt and emptying the remainder of the quart on the ground.
"This is a hell of a way to get a jag on," he mourned, "but we got to stay sober and act drunk. Keep 'er on the outside, boys, till we put over this play. Actin's an art, and you can't be too clear-headed fer the parts you got."
"Ah, gwan!" Jack Rosen pulled the cork from his bottle and took a long, rapturous sniff. "Only way to act drunk is togitdrunk. Me, I always git a glassy look in my eyes, and my face gits redder 'n hell. I can't git that way by pourin' three drops on my shirt front like it was perfumery. If I'm goin' to play drunken cowboy with no brains atall, I gotta put at least a pint under m' belt."
"Rosy, youcan't! When you're drunk you wanta fight and beller out everything you know. We gotta play this thing fine." The anxious author of the idea snatched the bottle and broke it against the manger. "Say, you can git soused to the eyebrows when this play-actin's over. We'llallgit drunker'n fools. Ain't that enough to make a man stay sober, if he's got to, in order to block their play? Come alive here, boys. We got a good chance t' make Palmer's gang show their hands. Do we go after 'em, or do we belly up to the bar and make hawgs of ourselves?"
"Oh, shut up! I'll bet yo're drunk before the rest is, Tony. No use addin' to our misery by chewin' the rag about it, is they?" Bob Leverett poured whisky into his palm and proceeded to wash his face with it. "Gawd, that's coolin'!" he exclaimed afterwards, licking his lips as far back as his tongue would reach. "Refreshin'est thing in the world! Betcha there ain't a feller in the outfit dast try it—wallop it all around your mouth without lettin' any go down. Betcha I'm the damnedest strong-minded cuss in the outfit!"
"Betcha five dollars," cried Mark Hanley, and swept off his hat to give his hair a whisky shampoo.
Jack Rosen washed face, neck, ears and hair, and saturated his handkerchief as a final flourish.
"By golly, that shoreisrefreshin'!" he testified earnestly, with his face lifted ecstatically to the hot wind. "Gimme some more. Tony went an' got fresh and busted mine. You owe me two bottles, don'tcha fergit that; one fer smashin' mine, and one fer misjudgin' yore betters."
They went swaggering through the barn and stopped at the office, where Delkin's three visitors still sat talking of the one big subject. The four leading citizens sniffed and leaned away.
"That's stage settin's," Tony informed them equably.
"Overdone," Bradley snorted, waving a hand before his face. "They'll think you fell into the barrel."
"Damned refreshin'," Bob told them soberly. "You fellers oughta try it in hot weather. You wouldn't never wash in nothin' else."
They backed out and went weaving across the street, arm in arm and stepping high. Apparently they were the drunkest punchers that ever spent money over a saloon bar, and their aloofness was all forgotten. They entered the Elkhorn singing raucously a sentimental ditty which must never see print, and Jack Rosen on the outside of the group stopped and attempted to embrace Palmer in almost tearful joy at seeing him. The others pulled him along to the bar and Tony swung round upon the crowd.
"Everybody drink!" he shouted thickly. "Drown yore sorrers whilst we drown ours. Money's made to spend—come on, boys, an' let's squander some."
There is only one answer to that, in a saloon. Not a man in the place but had a convincing whiff of the reason why the boys from the Meadowlark had suddenly changed their tone. The curtain was up on Tony's play.
"There goes old Palmer himself," Bud exclaimed with some eagerness, as he and Gelle rode out from behind a low hill and started down the long, straight stretch beside Palmer's field of grain, fenced and rippling a green sea of wheat heads. "Now as the rest of the bunch is out of the way, it will be smooth riding. You know your part, Jelly. You just ride up to the house and do whatever you damn please, so long as you hold the cook and Blinker and any of the other men who happen to be home, right there at the house. I hope they've followed the boys to town, though. It's the logical thing for them to do unless they're bigger cowards than I take them to be."
"Say, if you're goin' to sneak up to the stables, you'd better be drifting right now," Gelle told him. "If there's anybody down around the corrals, I'll have 'em up to the house before you need their absence very bad. Don't you worry about that, Bud."
"All right. I did intend to ride past the house and come back the other way. It's just about as close. But this will do. Give me a few minutes' start, will you, Jelly?" Bud grinned, waved a hand in casual farewell and reined his sorrel out of the road and into the tangle of chokecherry bushes that grew in a shallow gully leading back toward the river.
Once away from Gelle, however, the grin left his face and a smoldering purpose glowed in his eyes. He was on enemy soil; if any of Palmer's men were at home and he were discovered he would probably find himself dodging leaden slugs before he got away. Midday was not the best hour for invading an unfriendly man's premises, but he had decided that it would be safer after all than midnight, when Palmer would be easily alarmed. Besides, the dogs were chained during the day and turned loose at dusk. Skookum had told him that: and for what he wanted to find he needed the broad sunlight.
Straight through the thicket he rode until he reached a barbed-wire fence extending up the river for a considerable distance. This, Skookum had told him, was the cow pasture which he would have to cross on foot, keeping one eye peeled for the big, black bull that had once killed a man and liked it so well he had been trying ever since to repeat the performance. Bud tied the sorrel well out of sight, unbuckled his spurs and hung them on the saddle horn, hitched up his belt and pulled his gun forward, and crawled through the fence. Skookum had advised him to pass the house, hide his horse in the bushes and come back up the river, keeping in the willows on the bank. In that way he would run no risk of the bull, of which Skookum seemed to be in terror almost as great as his fear of his grandfather. This was shorter, however, and Bud remembered how terrible a cross bull can look to a small boy; to a man it is not so formidable.
This end of the pasture was brushy, full of the twitterings of bird families, the scurrying of small furred creatures. Blue-bodied flies poised humming just before his face; great, long-legged mosquitoes sang a whining chorus around him. He made his way quickly toward the river, where the bank rose abruptly in a worn sandstone ledge. The pasture gate was built close against the ledge, and it was this point that held most of the danger. Some one at the stables might see him—Skookum had told him that the gate was in sight of the stable, but that the ledge was mostly hidden by the trees. Bud guessed that he would be obliged to walk in the open for a few rods, but with Gelle bullying the cook—or whatever it was he meant to do—even the dogs would have scant attention for any one moving down by the pasture gate.
Once, when Skookum had ventured into the pasture after a rabbit that had been caught in a trap and lamed, the black bull had come grumbling ominously from the bushes. Skookum had scrambled up the ledge out of reach of the bull and had waited so long in the shade of a jutting rock that he had gone to sleep. When he awoke the bull was gone, but his grandfather was coming in at the gate, which was almost as bad, so he had cowered down out of sight and waited for that threatening presence to pass. His grandfather had stood for two or three minutes looking back at the house, while he pretended to be fastening the gate behind him, and then he had walked on past where Skookum was hiding and had begun to climb the ledge.
"And—and I didn't tell Butch what—what I done after he—he climbed up on the ledge," Skookum had declared earnestly to Bud at this point. "I mean, I never told Butch about me sneakin' along after—after grandpa went back to—to the house, and lookin' to see what—what grandpa was doin'. So I—I found all his money—but I never took any. I—I was scared!" Skookum was very careful to let Bud know what he hadnottold Butch, since he had promised Butch that he would not tell a soul the things he had revealed during the quizzing. Skookum believed in the letter of the law.
"I couldn't see grandpa after he climbed up on the ledge, because the—the rocks was in the way," he had explained further, and because he had told Bud so much more, Skookum was now in beatific possession of Huckleberry, the pinto pony.
"He's a smart kid. I suppose with the wrong training it would develop into foxiness like his grandfather. He sure described it perfectly," Bud made mental comment when, from a safe covert of wild currant bushes, he surveyed the ledge. He could even recognize the place where Skookum had scrambled up to get away from the bull, and the rock jutting out and away from the main outcropping where he had curled up and gone to sleep. From that point Skookum had drawn what he called a map, and crude though it was, Bud felt sure that he could find the place of which the boy had told him in a scared half-whisper.
He did one foolish thing. In crossing the open strip of trampled grass just inside the gate he nearly stepped on a huge rattlesnake lying asleep in the hot sunshine. To pass so venomous a thing without killing it went contrary to all Bud's instincts and training. Rangemen reason that every rattlesnake left to crawl away may sink its poison fangs into the next unwary passer-by, and that death may be the result of some one's carelessness. Bud picked up a rock and sent it straight at the ugly head, following with other rocks to make absolutely sure of the job. When the snake was dispatched, he took long steps into the fringe of concealing bushes and climbed to the rock which Skookum had described so accurately.
At the house Frank Gelle was holding in his horse, that backed and circled restively, fighting the tight rein. Gelle himself was insisting loudly that Palmer had better come out or he'd go drag him out. No use hiding under the bed, he argued contemptuously. He wanted to talk to him a minute, and he would stay until he did talk to him, if he had to sit there 'til his horse starved to death.
"Boss ain't heah nohow!" Black Sam protested, rolling his eyes so that the whites showed all around. "You Meddalahk boys done plowed up ouah roof a'ready wif youah bullets, an' Boss he gwine on in to talk to Mist' Shu'f man. He jes plumbkain'tcome out, 'cause he ain't heah. No, suh, ain't pawssible fo' him to come out, nohow."
"I think yo're lyin' to me, Snowball," Gelle declared firmly, and shook his head. "You gotta prove it."
"Lawsy, Boss, how Ah goin' to prove nothin' like dat air, 'cep'n' you git off'm dat hawse an' look fo' youahse'f? B-but 'twon't do no good nohow, Mist' Meddalahk, awnes, it won't! Dat ole house ain't got nobody into itatall. Ain't nobody undah no baid, Boss, Ah swah to goodness dey ain't. Blinkah, he's somewhah on de place, but he don' count no moah 'n Ah counts, an' Ah don' count nothin'atall." Sam backed warily toward the kitchen door as Gelle pressed closer. "Blinkah, he ain't got no sense nohow, Mist' Meddalahk, an' A'm jes' an old black cook what doan' 'mount to nothin'. Boss, he's in town—leastwise he's awn de way—yessuh, yo'all kin ride awn aftuh him, Mist' Meddalahk, suh, an' tawk all you'm a mine to. Yessuh."
Sam was so scared, so plainly and honestly helpless, so anxious to placate the man he believed a dangerous foe, that Gelle hadn't the heart to bully him further. At the same time he must give Bud time in which to make a thorough search. He looked around for Blinker, but that peculiar fellow was nowhere to be seen.
"Got any coffee?" Gelle demanded for want of something else to hold him there.
"Yessuh, Boss, Ah got whole pawt uh cawfee, yessuh, Mist' Meddalahk."
"All right, bring me a cup. No sugar, Snowball—"
"Lawsy, Boss, we doan' nevah have no sugah atall! Boss, he buy silk foah dishrags soon as evah he buy sugah foah cawfee an' sech." Sam grinned in spite of his terror, showing the strong, even teeth so characteristic of the negro race. "We got milk, 'cause milk doan' cos' nawthin'."
"How about buttermilk?" Gelle was better pleased with his task now. He thought he could keep this up for an hour if necessary.
"Yessuh, Boss, Ah jes' chuhned dis mawnin'. Buttah doan' cos' nawthin', neithah, an' it saves meat. An' aigs, we got aigs; hens, dey doan' deman' no wages, Mist' Meddalahk." Sam chuckled with a wry twist to his big mouth, as if the joke was barbed.
"What wages do you git, Snowball?" Gelle's tone indicated that he was prepared to be sympathetic.
"Me? What wages do Ah git? Ah doan'git. No, suh, Boss, time Ah wuhks out de cos' of pants an' shuht an' shoes an' hat, Ah doan'git!"
"You don't?" Genuine surprise was in Gelle's voice. "Git out! Say, Snowball, slavery days is over, don't yuh know it? You don't have to work fernoman that's too damn' stingy to buy sugar fer coffee, an' runs a sandy like that on yuh fer pay. Judgin' by them garments yo're draped in now, Snowball, I'd say you must spend as much as five, ten dollars mebbe, a year on clothes. What wages does ole Palmer claim he pays you, if it's a fair question?"
"What wages? Wa' now, Mist' Meddalahk, Ah doan' rightly know, suh. Boss, he claim lak Ah eats moah 'n what Ah kin earn nohow, cookin'. He talk lak he pay me ten dollah, mebbe. Mist' Meddalahk, suh, Ah wuhk an' wuhk, an' mos' Ah kin do is eat an' sleep, an' nevah much of dat. Doan' seem pawssible to git ahaid mo'n one shuht."
Sam wiped a ragged sleeve across his perspiring face, turned and went into the house, his terror of the Meadowlark man erased from his simple soul by the note of human understanding and sympathy. He returned presently with a big tin cup full of cold buttermilk over which Gelle promptly bent his eager lips.
"Say, Snowball," he remarked, when he came up for air, "our cook at the Meddalark gits sixty dollars a month. And hegitsit—and buys his own pants and shirts. You're bein' robbed and you don't know it. And say! Lark buys sugar, five sacks at a lick, and nobody gits the bad eye for dumpin' three or four spoonsful into his coffee. 'Tain't none of my business, Snowball, but I hate to see even a coon git the worst of it like that. Say, here's a dollar. Don't let ole Palmer ketch you with it though."
Sam's eyes would not stand out farther if he were being choked. He was too stunned by this munificence to put out his hand for the money, so Gelle tossed the dollar in his general direction, finished the buttermilk in one long drink, set the cup down on an upturned barrel near by and rode back to the gate to meet Bud, who was coming at a swift gallop. Bud pulled up, his eyes snapping with excitement.
"Go back around the corner of the fence, Jelly, and down the gully about fifty yards," he directed crisply. "I left that old man Blinker tied up, and I want you to stand guard over him until I can ride into town and back. He came up on me before I could get away in the brush, and all I could do was glom him and bring him out with me. I won't be gone more than a couple of hours, but it's too hot a day to leave an old man tied up with ants and mosquitoes and flies raising merry hell with him. Will you do it, Jelly?"
"Sure, I'll do it. Thank Gawd fer that buttermilk! Say, you ain't leavin' me out of anything like a scrap, are yuh, Bud? If you are, I'll pack m' prisoner in under my arm but what I'll go to yore party."
"No—don't think there'll be a word of trouble. I'll be right back, Jelly, and then we'll both ride in and make merry. We'll have a right." He was galloping down the road before Gelle could answer him.
Even in his haste Bud took thought of the curiosity he would probably excite if he came pounding down the hill with his horse in a lather, and once on the subject of precautions it struck him forcibly that perhaps Smoky Ford would be just as well off if it failed to see him at all. At the foot of the hill, therefore, he turned sharply off the road on a dim trail that meandered up a wash and rounded an elbow of the bluffside, and so came out at the rear of Delkin's livery stable, where four Meadowlark horses took their ease in the corral, the sweat scarcely dried on their backs. The sight of them reminded Bud that after all he had not been so far behind the boys who were probably still feeling the thrill of their first cold drinks. Indeed, they had not been gone on their odorous adventure more than ten minutes when Bud led his lathered sorrel into a shadowy stall and went burring his spur rowels down the long stable so lately echoing to the footsteps of those other Meadowlark riders. With considerable abruptness he pulled open the screen door and stepped into the office, his eyes flashing quick glances at the four men who sat there talking about the one big subject.
"Howdy. Glad to see you all here, because you're the men I came after, and I don't know just how quiet you want to keep this business. I've found your money—or the bank's money, rather. If you folks will ride out with me, I'll show you where it's cached. I went on a still hunt around Palmer's on my way in; saw he was headed for town, so I took advantage of his absence. His grandson, the one he abused so that Lark took him away, told me some things that gave a clew to the whole business. Palmer's gang came down river in a boat, hid under the bank and then took the loot back up river, and probably sunk the boat after they were through with it. That's the way I've doped it out, at least. At any rate, I can show you the stuff, and you can bring it in; but you'll have to hurry. Unless you can get there, and the stuff is moved before Palmer goes home, he may discover us. And he'll be leaving probably—"
"No!" The front legs of Bradley's chair came to the floor with a thump. "My heavens, but you Meadowlark boys work fast when you get started! There's those young devils over in the Elkhorn, pulling off a bit of play-acting to make Palmer's gang give themselves away. And hereyoucome, busting in here with the news—"
"No time for argument," snapped Delkin. "You men come along and bear witness to this. If we recover the bank's property, you have a right to be there, anyway. I think those boys over there will keep Palmer and his men interested for another hour or two, which will give us time. Bud, are you alone, or did your uncle come with you?"
"Lark's at home. I left Jelly on guard, back there; had to take that crazy old fellow at Palmer's and tie him up. He came and caught me at the cache, so there was nothing else to do. I wonder if I can borrow a fresh horse, Mr. Delkin?"
"By the lord Harry, you can have anything I've got, down to my last shirt!" As the news took hold of his imagination, Delkin was like another man. He led the way into the stable and on to the corral, choosing mounts for his companions and shouting orders to the scurrying hostler.
Stauffer and Kline, the two other bank directors, ejaculated futile comments but failed to contribute anything further than their presence to the venture. There are always men of that type in any gathering. They have little to say, they never take the initiative, but they do add the force of numbers—a useful incident at times.
"Better tie on some saddlebags, or take a grain sack or two. You know that stuff is a bit bulky," Bud reminded them. "There must be twenty-five or thirty pounds of gold, besides the other currency and papers. I was in too much of a hurry to go over it, after I'd fully identified it as belonging to the bank. And we'd better go out the back way by the trail I came in on. Mr. Delkin, I suppose you know whether your man here needs a gag, or whether he can be trusted to keep his mouth shut."
"Say, you don't need to worry about no gag ferme, young feller," the stableman retorted indignantly. "If it's the bank money you're goin' after, seven hundred and thirty dollars of it belongs t'me! I ain't liable to spill no beans off'n my own plate, I guess."
"You'd be a fool if you did," Bud laughed. "Well, we don't want a single solitary soul to know we've left town, or that I've been here. Mr. Delkin, are you ready?"
Five saddled horses, following five men who unconsciously held the reins in their left hands in preparation for any emergency, walked out of the doorway and into the hot sunlight that lay on the dim trail which joined the road at the foot of the grade.
The stableman stood with his back bowed in and his hands on his hips, teetering up and down on his toes, and watched them go, his jaws working in absent-minded industry on a tasteless quid of much-chewed tobacco.
"I golly, looks like I'll git m' money back, after all!" he cackled gloatingly, and followed the departing horsemen to the doorway, where he stood staring after them until not even their bobbing heads were longer visible as they trotted up the trail. When they were gone, he turned back grinning to his work.