Summoned from the west end of the ranch, where he had been irrigating the alfalfa, Uncle Frank arrived at the house just as Cheyenne and Dorothy rode up. Little Jim was excitedly endeavoring to explain to Aunt Jane how the corral came to be filled with strange horses.
Uncle Frank nodded to Cheyenne and turned to Jimmy. "Where you been?"
"I was over on the mountain."
"How did these horses get here?"
Uncle Frank's eye was stern. Jimmy hesitated. He had been forbidden to go near Sneed's place; and he knew that all that stood between a harness strap and his small jeans was the presence of Dorothy and Cheyenne. It was pretty tough to have recovered the stolen horses single-handed, and then to take a licking for it.
Little Jim gazed hopefully at his father.
"Why, I was chousin' around up there," he explained, "and I seen dad's hosses, and--and I started 'em down the trail and the whole blamebunch followed 'em. They was travelin' so fast I couldn't cut 'em out, so I just let 'em drift. Filaree and Josh just nacherally headed for the corral and the rest followed 'em in."
Uncle Frank gazed sternly at Jimmy. "Who told you to help your father get his horses?"
"Nobody."
"Did your Aunt Jane tell you you could go over to the mountain?"
"I never asked her."
"You trot right into the house and stay there," said Uncle Frank.
Little Jim cast an appealing glance at Cheyenne and walked slowly toward the house, incidentally and unconsciously rubbing his hand across his jeans with a sort of anticipatory movement. He bit his lip, and the tears started to his eyes. But he shook them away, wondering what he might do to avert the coming storm. Perhaps his father would interpose between him and the dreaded harness strap. Yet Jimmy knew that his father had never interfered when a question of discipline arose.
Suddenly Little Jim's face brightened. He marched through the house to the wash bench, and, unsolicited, washed his hands and face and soaped his hair, after which he slicked itdown carefully, so that there might be no mistake about his having brushed and combed it. He rather hoped that Uncle Frank or Aunt Jane would come in just then and find him at this unaccustomed task. It might help.
Meanwhile, Cheyenne and his brother-in-law had a talk, outside. Dorothy and Aunt Jane retired to the veranda, talking in low tones. Presently Little Jim, who could stand the strain no longer,--the jury seemed a long time at arriving at a verdict,--appeared on the front veranda, hatless, washed, and his hair fearfully and wonderfully brushed and combed.
"Why, Jimmy!" exclaimed Dorothy.
Jimmy fidgeted and glanced away bashfully. Presently he stole to his Aunt Jane's side.
"Am I goin' to get a lickin'?" he queried.
Aunt Jane shook her head, and patted his hand. Entrenched beside Aunt Jane, Jimmy watched his father and Uncle Frank as they talked by the big corral. Uncle Frank was gesturing toward the mountains. Cheyenne was arguing quietly.
"It ain't just the runnin' off of Sneed's hosses," said Uncle Frank. "That's bad enough. But I told Jimmy to keep away from Sneed's."
"So did I," declared Cheyenne. "And seein'as I'm his dad, it's up to me to lick him if he's goin' to get licked."
"Sneed is like to ride down some night and set fire to the barns," asserted Uncle Frank.
"Sneed don't know yet who run off his stock. And he can't say that I did, and prove it. Now, Frank, you just hold your hosses. I'll ride over to camp and get my outfit together and come over here. Then we'll throw Steve Brown's hosses into your pasture, and I'll see that Sneed's stock is out of here, pronto."
"That's all right. But Sneed will trail his stock down here."
"But he won't find 'em here. And he'll never know they was in your corral."
Uncle Frank shook his head doubtfully. He was a pessimist and always argued the worst of a possible situation.
"And before I'll see Jimmy take a lickin'--this trip--I'll ride back and shoot it out with Sneed and his outfit," stated Cheyenne.
"I reckon you're fool enough to do it," said Uncle Frank.
An hour later Bartley and Cheyenne were at the Lawrence ranch, where they changed packs, saddled Filaree and Joshua, and turned thehorses borrowed from Steve Brown into Uncle Frank's back pasture.
Little Jim watched these operations with keen interest. He wanted to help, but refrained for fear that he would muss up his hair--and he wanted Uncle Frank to notice his hair as it was.
Aunt Jane hastily prepared a meal and Dorothy helped.
In a few minutes Cheyenne and Bartley had eaten, and were ready for the road. Cheyenne stepped up and shook hands with Jimmy, as though Jimmy were a grown-up. Jimmy felt elated. There was no one just like his father, even if folks did say that Cheyenne Hastings could do better than ride around the country singing and joking with everybody.
"And don't forget to stop by when you come back," said Aunt Jane, bidding farewell to Bartley.
Dorothy shook hands with the Easterner and wished him a pleasant journey, rather coolly, Bartley thought. She was much more animated when bidding farewell to Cheyenne.
"And I won't forget to send you that rifle," said Bartley as he nodded to Little Jim.
Uncle Frank helped them haze Sneed's horsesout of the yard on to the road, where Cheyenne waited to head them from taking the hill trail, again.
Just as he left, Bartley turned to Dorothy who stood twisting a pomegranate bud in her fingers. "May I have it?" he asked, half in jest.
She tossed the bud to him and he caught it. Then he spurred out after Cheyenne who was already hazing the horses down the road. Occasionally one of the horses tried to break out and take to the hills, but Cheyenne always headed it back to the bunch, determined, for some reason unknown to Bartley, to keep the horses together and going south.
The road climbed gradually, winding in and out among the foothills. As the going became stiffer, the rock outcropped and the dust settled.
The horses slowed to a walk. Bartley wondered why his companion seemed determined to drive Sneed's stock south. He thought it would be just as well to let them break for the hills, and not bother with them. But Cheyenne offered no explanation. He evidently knew what he was about.
To their right lay the San Andreas Valley across which the long, slanting shadows ofsunset crept slowly. Still Cheyenne kept the bunch of horses going briskly, when the going permitted speed. Just over a rise they came suddenly upon an Apache, riding a lean, active paint horse. Cheyenne pulled up and talked with the Indian. The latter grinned, nodded, and, jerking his pony round, rode after the horses as they drifted ahead. Bartley saw the Apache bunch the animals again, and turn them off the road toward the hills.
"Didn't expect to meet up with luck, so soon," declared Cheyenne. "I figured to turn Sneed's hosses loose when I'd got 'em far enough from the ranch. But that Injun'll take care of 'em. Sneed ain't popular with the Apaches. Sneed's cabin is right clost to the res'avation line."
"What will the Indian do with the horses?" queried Bartley.
"Most like trade 'em to his friends."
Bartley gestured toward a spot of green far across the valley. "Looks like a town," he said.
"San Andreas--and that's where we stop, to-night. No campin' in the brush for me while Sneed is ridin' the country lookin' for his stock. It wouldn't be healthy."
A sleepy town, that paid little attention to the arrival or departure of strangers, San Andreas in the valley merely rubbed its eyes and dozed again as Cheyenne and Bartley rode in, put up their horses at the livery, and strolled over to the adobe hotel where they engaged rooms for the night.
Bartley was taken by the picturesque simplicity of the place, and next morning he suggested that they stay a few days and enjoy the advantage of having some one other than themselves cook their meals and make their beds. The hotel, a relic of old times, with its patio and long portal, its rooms whose lower floors were on the ground level, its unpretentious spaciousness, appealed strongly to Bartley as something unusual in the way of a hostelry. It seemed restful, romantic, inviting. It was a place where a man might write, dream, loaf, and smoke. Then, incidentally, it was not far from the Lawrence ranch, which was not far from thehome of a certain young woman whom Little Jim called "Dorry."
Bartley thought that Dorothy was rather nice--in fact, singularly interesting. He had not imagined that a Western girl could be so thoroughly domestic, natural, charming, and at the same time manage a horse so well. He had visioned Western girls as hard-voiced horse-women, masculine, bold, and rather scornful of a man who did not wear chaps and ride broncos. True, Dorothy was not like the girls in the East. She seemed less sophisticated--less inclined to talk small talk just for its own sake; yet, concluded Bartley, she was utterly feminine and quite worth while.
Cheyenne smiled as Bartley suggested that they stay in San Andreas a few days; and Cheyenne nodded in the direction from which they had come.
"I kinda like this part of the country, myself," he said, "but I hate to spend all my money in one place."
Bartley suddenly realized that his companion, was nothing more than a riding hobo, a vagrant, without definite means of support, and disinclined to stay in any one place long.
"I'll take care of the expenses," said Bartley.
Cheyenne smiled, but shook his head. "It ain't that, right now. Me, I got to shoot that there game of craps with Panhandle, and I figure he won't ride this way."
"But you have recovered your horses," argued Bartley.
Cheyenne gestured toward the south. "I reckon I'll keep movin', pardner. And that game of craps is as good a excuse as I want."
"I had hoped that it would be plain sailing, from now on," declared Bartley. "I thought of stopping here only three or four days. This sort of town is new to me."
"They's lots like it, between here and the border," said Cheyenne. "But I don't want no 'dobe walls between me and the sky-line, reg'lar. I can stand it for a day, mebby."
"Well, perhaps we may agree to dissolve partnership temporarily," suggested Bartley. "I think I'll stay here a few days, at least."
"That's all right, pardner. I don't aim to tell no man how to live. But me, I aim to live in the open."
"Do you think that man Sneed will ride down this way?" queried Bartley, struck by a sudden idea.
"That ain't why I figure to keep movin',"said Cheyenne. "But seein' as you figure to stay, I'll stick around to-day, and light out to-morrow mornin'. Mebby you'll change your mind, and come along."
Bartley spent the forenoon with Cheyenne, prowling about the old town, interested in its quaint unusualness. The afternoon heat drove him to the shade of the hotel veranda, and, feeling unaccountably drowsy, he finally went to his room, and, stretching out on the bed, fell asleep. He was awakened by Cheyenne's knock at the door. Supper was ready.
After supper they strolled out to the street and watched the town wake up. From down the street a ways came the sound of a guitar and singing. A dog began to howl. Then came a startled yelp, and the howl died away in the dusk. The singing continued. A young Mexican in a blue serge suit, tan shoes, and with a black sombrero set aslant on his head, walked down the street beside a Mexican girl, young, fat, and giggling. They passed the hotel with all the self-consciousness of being attired in their holiday raiment.
A wagon rattled past and stopped at the saloon a few doors down the street. Then a ragged Mexican, hazing two tired burros, appeared inthe dim light cast from a window--a quaint silhouette that merged in the farther shadows. Cheyenne moved his feet restlessly.
Bartley smiled. "The road for mine," he quoted.
Cheyenne nodded. "Reckon I'll go see how the hosses are makin' it."
"I'll walk over with you," said Bartley.
As they came out of the livery barn again, Bartley happened to glance at the lighted doorway of the cantina opposite. From within the saloon came the sound of glasses clinking occasionally, and voices engaged in lazy conversation. Cheyenne fingered the dice in his pocket and hummed a tune. Slowly he moved toward the lighted doorway, and Bartley walked beside him.
"I got a thirst," stated Cheyenne.
Bartley laughed. "Well, as we are about to dissolve partnership, I don't mind taking one myself."
"Tough joint," declared Cheyenne as he stepped up to the doorway.
"All the better," said Bartley.
A young rancher, whose team stood at the hitch-rail, nodded pleasantly as they entered.
"Mescal," said Cheyenne, and he laid a silver dollar on the bar.
Bartley glanced about the low-ceilinged room. The place, poorly lighted with oil lamps, looked sinister enough to satisfy the most hardy adventurer, although it was supposed to be a sort of social center for the enjoyment of vino and talk. The bar was narrow, made of some kind of soft wood, and painted blue. The top of it was almost paintless in patches.
Back of the bar a narrow shelf, also painted blue, offered a lean choice of liquors. Several Mexicans lounged at the side tables along the wall. The young American rancher stood at the bar, drinking. The proprietor, a fat, one-eyed Mexican whose face was deeply pitted from smallpox, served Bartley and Cheyenne grudgingly. The mescal was fiery stuff. Bartley coughed as he swallowed it.
"Why not just whiskey, and have it over with?" he queried, grinning at Cheyenne.
"Whiskey ain't whiskey, here," Cheyenne replied. "But mescal is just what she says she is. I like to know the kind of poison I'm drinkin'."
Bartley began to experience an inner glow that was not unpleasant. Once down, thisnative Mexican drink was not so bad. He laid a coin on the bar and the glasses were filled again.
Cheyenne nodded and drank Bartley's health. Bartley suggested that they sit at one of the side tables and study the effects of mescal on the natives present.
"Let joy be unconfined," said Cheyenne.
"Where in the world did you get that?"
"Oh, I can read," declared Cheyenne. "Before I took to ramblin', I used to read some, nights. I reckon that's where I got the idea of makin' up po'try, later."
"I really beg your pardon," said Bartley.
"The mescal must of told you."
"I don't quite get that," said Bartley.
"No? Well, you ain't the first. Josh and Filaree is the only ones that sabes me. Let's sit in this corner and watch the mescal work for a livin'."
It was a hot night. Sweat prickled on Bartley's forehead. His nose itched. He lit a cigar. It tasted bitter, so he asked Cheyenne for tobacco and papers, and rolled a cigarette. He inhaled a whiff, and felt more comfortable. The Mexicans, who had ceased to talk when Bartley and Cheyenne entered, were now at it again, making plenty of noise.
Cheyenne hummed to himself and tapped the floor with his boot-heel. "She's a funny old world," he declared.
Bartley nodded and blew a smoke-ring.
"Miss Dorry's sure a interestin' girl," asserted Cheyenne.
Bartley nodded again.
"Kind of young and innocent-like."
Again Bartley nodded.
"It ain't a bad country to settle down in, for folks that likes to settle," said Cheyenne.
Bartley glanced sharply at his companion. Cheyenne was gazing straight ahead. His face was unreadable.
"Now if I was the settlin' kind--" He paused and slowly turned toward Bartley. "A man could raise alfalfa and chickens and kids."
"Go ahead," laughed Bartley.
"I'm goin'--to-morrow mornin'. And you say you figure to stay here a spell?"
"Oh, just a few days. I imagine I shall grow tired of it. But to-night, I feel pretty well satisfied to stay right where I am."
Cheyenne rose and strode to the bar. After a short argument with the proprietor, he returned with a bottle and glasses. Bartley raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"Once in a while--" And Cheyenne gestured toward the bottle.
"It's powerful stuff," said Bartley.
"We ain't far from the hotel," declared Cheyenne. And he filled their glasses.
"This ought to be the last, for me," said Bartley, drinking. "But don't let that make any difference to you."
Cheyenne drank and shrugged his shoulders. He leaned back and gazed at the opposite wall. Bartley vaguely realized that the Mexicans were chattering, that two or three persons had come in, and that the atmosphere was heavy with tobacco smoke. He unbuttoned his shirt-collar.
Presently Cheyenne twisted round in his chair. "Remember Little Jim, back at the Hastings ranch?"
"I should say so! It would be difficult to forget him."
"Miss Dorry thinks a heap of that kid."
"She seems to."
"Now, I ain't drunk," Cheyenne declared solemnly. "I sure wish I was. You know Little Jim is my boy. Well, his ma is livin' over to Laramie. She writ to me to come back to her, onct. I reckon Sears got tired ofher. She lived with him a spell after she quit me. Folks say Sears treated her like a dog. I guess I wasn't man enough, when I heard that--"
"You mean Panhandle Sears--at Antelope?"
"Him."
"Oh, I see!" said Bartley slowly. "And that crap game, at Antelope--I see!"
"If Panhandle had a-jumped me, instead of you, that night, I'd 'a' killed him. Do you know why Wishful stepped in and put Sears down? Wishful did that so that there wouldn't be a killin'. That's the second time Sears has had his chance to git me, but he won't take that chance. That's the second time we met up since--since my wife left me. The third time it'll be lights out for somebody. I ain't drunk."
"Then Sears has got a yellow streak?"
"Any man that uses a woman rough has. When Jimmy's ma left us, I reckon I went loco. It wa'n't just herleavin'us. But when I heard she had took up with Sears, and knowin' what he was--I just quit. I was workin' down here at the ranch, then. I went up North, figurin' to kill him. Folks thought I was yellow, for not killin' him. They think so right now. Mebby I am.
"I worked up North a spell, but I couldn't stay. So I lit out and come down South again. First time I met up with Sears was over on the Tonto. He stepped up and slapped my face, in front of a crowd, in the Lone Star. And I took it. But I told him I'd sure see him again, and give him another chance to slap my face.
"You see, Panhandle Sears is that kind--he's got to work himself up to kill a man. And over there at Antelope, that night, he just about knowed that if he lifted a finger, I'd git him. He figured to start a ruckus, and then git me in the mix-up. Wishful was on, and he stopped that chance. Folks think that because I come ridin' and singin' and joshin' that I ain't no account. Mebby I ain't."
Cheyenne poured another drink for himself. Bartley declined to drink again. He was thinking of this squalid tragedy and of its possible outcome. The erstwhile sprightly Cheyenne held a new significance for the Easterner. That a man could ride up and down the trails singing, and yet carry beneath it all the grim intent some day to kill a man--
Bartley felt that Cheyenne had suddenly become a stranger, an unknown quantity, a sinisterjester, in fact, a dangerous man. He leaned forward and touched Cheyenne's arm.
"Why not give up the idea of--er--getting Sears; and settle down, and make a home for Little Jim?"
"When Aunt Jane took him, the understandin' was that Jimmy was to be raised respectable, which is the same as tellin' me that I don't have nothin' to do with raisin' him. Me, I got to keep movin'."
Bartley turned toward the doorway as a tall figure loomed through the haze of tobacco smoke: a gaunt, heavy-boned man, bearded and limping slightly. With him were several companions, booted and spurred; evidently just in from a hard ride.
Cheyenne turned to Bartley. "That's Bill Sneed--and his crowd. I ain't popular with 'em--right now."
"The man who had your horses?" queried Bartley.
Cheyenne nodded. "The one at the end of the bar. The hombre next to him is Lawson, who claims he bought my hosses from a Mexican, down here. Lawson is the one that is huntin' trouble. Sneed don't care nothin' about a couple of cayuses. He won't start anything. He's here just to back up Lawson if things git interestin'."
"But what can they do? We're here, in town, minding our own business. They know well enough that Panhandle stole your horses. And you said the people in San Andreas don't like Sneed a whole lot."
"Because they're scared of him and his crowd. And we're strangers here. It's just me and Lawson, this deal. Sneed is sizin' you up, back of his whiskers, right now. He's tryin' to figure out who you are. Sneed ain't one to run into the law when they's anybody lookin' on. He works different.
"Now, while he is figurin', you just git up easy and step out and slip over to the barn and saddle up Joshua. I'm goin' to need him. Take the tie-rope off Filaree and leave him loose in his stall. Just say 'Adios' to me when you git up, like you was goin' back to the hotel. And if you'll settle what we owe--"
"That's all right. But my feet aren't cold, yet."
"You figure to stay in town a spell, don't you? Well, I figure to leave, right soon. I'm tryin' to dodge trouble. It's your chanct to help out."
"Why can't we both walk out?"
"'Cause they'd follow us. They won't follow you."
Bartley glanced at the men ranged along the bar, rose, and, shaking hands with Cheyenne, strode out, nodding pleasantly to the one-eyed proprietor as he went.
Sneed eyed the Easterner sharply, and nudged one of his men as Bartley passed through the doorway.
"Just step out and see where he goes, Hull," he ordered in an undertone. "Keep him in sight."
The man spoken to hitched up his chaps,and, turning to finish his drink, strolled out casually.
Bartley saw a row of saddle-horses tied at the rail. He noticed the slickers on the saddles and the carbines under the stirrup leathers. It was evident that the riders were not entirely on pleasure bent. He crossed the street, wakened the stableman, paid the bill, and saddled Joshua. Then he took the tie-rope off Filaree, as Cheyenne had directed. Bartley led Joshua through the barn to the back, where he was tying him to a wagon wheel when a figure loomed up in the semi-darkness.
"Ridin', stranger?"
The figure struck a match and lighted a cigarette. Bartley at once recognized him as one of Sneed's men. Resenting the other's question and his attitude of easy familiarity, Bartley ignored his presence.
"Hard of hearin'?" queried Hull.
"Rather."
"I said: Was you ridin'?"
"Yesterday," replied Bartley.
Hull blew a whiff of smoke in Bartley's face. It seemed casual, but was intended as an insult. Bartley flushed, and realizing that the other was there to intercept any action on his part toaid Cheyenne, he dropped Joshua's reins, and without the slightest warning of his intent--in fact, Hull thought the Easterner was stooping to pick up the reins--Bartley launched a haymaker that landed with a loud crack on Hull's unguarded chin, and Hull's head snapped back. Bartley jumped forward and shot another one to the same spot. Hull's head hit the edge of the doorway as he went down.
He lay there, inert, a queer blur in the half-light. Bartley licked his skinned knuckles.
"He may resent this, when he wakes up," he murmured. "I believe I'll tie him."
Bartley took Joshua's tie-rope and bound Mr. Hull's arms and legs, amateurishly, but securely.
Then he strode through to the front of the barn. He could hear loud talking in the saloon opposite and thought he could distinguish Cheyenne's voice. Bartley wondered what would happen in there, and when things would begin to pop, if there was to be any popping. He felt foolishly helpless and inefficient--rather a poor excuse for a partner, just then. Yet there was that husky rider, back there in the straw. He was even more helpless and inefficient. Bartley licked his knuckles, and grinned.
"There must have been a little mescal in that second punch," he thought. "I never hit so hard in my life."
The stableman had retired to his bunk--a habit of night stablemen. The stable was dark and still, save for the munching of the horses. In the saloon across the way Cheyenne was facing Sneed and his men, alone. Bartley felt like a quitter. Indecision irritated him, and curiosity urged him to do something other than to stand staring at the saloon front. He recalled his plan to sojourn in San Andreas a few days, and incidently to ride over to the Lawrence ranch--frankly, to have another visit with Dorothy. He shrugged his shoulders. That idea now seemed insignificant, compared with the present possibilities.
"I'm a free agent," he soliloquized. "I think I'll take a hand in this, myself."
He snapped his fingers as he turned and hastened to Dobe's stall. He led Dobe out to the stable floor, got his saddle from the office, told the sleepy stableman that he was going to take a little ride, and saddled Dobe. And he led Dobe back to where Joshua was tied. He had forgotten his victim on the floor, for a moment, but was aware of him when hestumbled over him in the dark. The other mumbled and struggled faintly.
"I left your gun in the wagon-box," said Bartley. "I wouldn't move around much, if I were you. One of the horses might step on your face and hurt his foot."
Mr. Hull was not pleased at this, and he said as much. Bartley tied Dobe to the back of the wagon.
"Just keep your eye on the horses a minute," he told Hull. "I'll be back soon."
Bartley felt unusually and inexplicably elated. He had not realized the extreme potency of mescal. The proprietor of the hotel was mildly surprised when Bartley, remarking that he had been called away unexpectedly, paid the hotel bill. Bartley hastened back to the stable. Across the way the horses of the mountain men drowsed in the faint lamplight. Turning, Bartley saw Joshua and Dobe dimly silhouetted in the opening at the far end of the stable. Cheyenne was still in the saloon.
Bartley grinned. "It might help," he said as he stepped across the street. Taking down the rope from the nearest horse, he tied the end of the rope in the horse's bridle and threaded the end through the bridles of all five horses,tying the loose end to the last horse's bridle. "Just like stringing fish!" he murmured soulfully. "When those gentlemen from the interior try to mount, there'll be something doing."
He had just turned to walk back to the stable when he heard a shot, and the lighted doorway of the saloon became suddenly dark. Without waiting to see what would happen next, Bartley ran to the rear of the stable and untied the horses. Behind him he heard the quick trample of feet. He turned. A figure appeared in the front doorway of the stable, a figure that dashed toward him, and, with a leap and a swing, mounted Joshua and spurred out and down the alley back of the building.
Bartley grabbed for his own stirrup, missed it, grabbed again and swung up. Dobe leaped after the other horse, turned at the end of the alley, and, reaching into a long, swinging gallop, pounded across the night-black open. San Andreas had but one street. The backs of its buildings opened to space.
Ahead, Cheyenne thundered across a narrow bridge over an arroyo. Dobe lifted and leaped forward, as though in a race. From behind came the quick patter of hoofs. One of Sneed's men had evidently managed to get his horseloose from the reata. A solitary house, far out on the level, flickered past. Bartley glanced back. The house door opened. A ray of yellow light shot across the road.
"Hey, Cheyenne!" called Bartley.
But Cheyenne's little buckskin was drumming down the night road at a pace that astonished the Easterner. Dobe seemed to be doing his best, yet he could not overtake the buckskin. Behind Bartley the patter of hoofs sounded nearer. Bartley thought he heard Cheyenne call back to him. He leaned forward, but the drumming of hoofs deadened all other sound.
They were on a road, now--a road that ran south across the spaces, unwinding itself like a tape flung from a reel. Suddenly Cheyenne pulled to a stop. Bartley raced up, bracing himself as the big cow-horse set up in two jumps.
"I thought you was abidin' in San Andreas," said Cheyenne.
"There's some one coming!" warned Bartley, breathing heavily.
"And his name is Filaree," declared Cheyenne. "You sure done a good job. Let's keep movin'." And Cheyenne let Joshua out as Filaree drew alongside and nickered shrilly.
"Now I reckon we better hold 'em in a little," said Cheyenne after they had gone, perhaps, a half-mile. "We got a good start."
They slowed the horses to a trot. Filaree kept close to Joshua's flank. A gust of warm air struck their faces.
"Ain't got time to shake hands, pardner," said Cheyenne. "Know where you're goin'?"
"South," said Bartley.
"Correc'. And I don't hear no hosses behind us."
"I strung them together on a rope," said Bartley.
"How's that?"
"I tied Sneed's horses together, with a rope. Ran it through the bridles--like stringing fish. Not according to Hoyle, but it seems to have worked."
Cheyenne shook his head. He did not quite get the significance of Bartley's statement.
"Any one get hurt?" queried Bartley presently.
"Nope. I spoiled a lamp, and I reckon I hit somebody on the head, in the dark, comin' through. Seems like I stepped on somethin' soft, out there back of the barn. It grunted like a human. But I didn't stop to look."
"I had to do it," declared Bartley ambiguously.
"Had to do what?"
"Punch a fellow that wanted to know what I was doing with your horse. I let him have it twice."
"Then you didn't hit him with your gun?"
"No. I wish I had. I've got a fist like a boiled ham. I can feel it swell, right now."
"That there mescal is sure pow'ful stuff."
"Thanks!" said Bartley succinctly.
"Got a kick like white lightin'," said Cheyenne.
"And I paid our hotel bill," continued Bartley.
"Well, that was mighty thoughtful. I plumb forgot it."
Just before daybreak Cheyenne turned from the road and picked his way through the scattered brush to a gulch in the western foothills. Cheyenne's horses seemed to know the place, when they stopped at a narrow, pole gate across the upper end of the gulch, for on beyond the gate the horses again stopped of their own accord. Bartley could barely discern the outlines of a cabin. Cheyenne hallooed.
A muffled answer from the cabin, then a twinkle of light, then the open doorway framing a gigantic figure.
"That you, Shy?" queried the figure.
"Me and a friend."
"You're kind of early," rumbled the figure as the riders dismounted.
"Shucks! You'd be gettin' up, anyway, right soon. We come early so as not to delay your breakfast."
In the cabin, Cheyenne and the big man shook hands. Bartley was introduced. The man was a miner, named Joe Scott.
"Joe, here, is a minin' man--when he ain't runnin' a all-night lunch-stand," explained Cheyenne. "He can't work his placer when it's dark, but he sure can work a skillet and a coffee-mill."
"What you been up to?" queried the giant slowly, as he made a fire in the stove, and set about getting breakfast.
"Up to Clubfoot Sneed's place, to get a couple of hosses that belonged to me. He was kind of hostile. Followed us down to San Andreas and done spoiled our night's rest. But I got the hosses."
"Hosses seems to be his failin'," said the big man.
"So some folks say. I'm one of 'em."
"How are the folks up Antelope way?"
"Kinda permanent, as usual. I hear Panhandle's drifted south again. Wishful, he shoots craps, reg'lar."
Scott nodded, shifted the coffee-pot and sat down on the edge of his bunk. "Got any smokin'?" he queried presently.
Bartley offered the miner a cigar. "I'm afraid it's broken," apologized Bartley.
"That's all right. I was goin' to town this mornin', to get some tobacco and grub. But this will help." And doubling the cigar Scottthrust it in his mouth and chewed it with evident satisfaction.
The gray edge of dawn crept into the room. Scott blew out the light and opened the door.
Bartley felt suddenly sleepy and he drowsed and nodded, realizing that Scott and Cheyenne were talking, and that the faint aroma of coffee drifted toward him, mingling with the chill, fresh air of morning. He pulled himself together and drank the coffee and ate some bacon. From time to time he glanced at Scott, fascinated by the miner's tremendous forearms, his mighty chest and shoulders. Even Cheyenne, who was a fair-sized man, appeared like a boy beside the miner. Bartley wondered that such tremendous strength should be isolated, hidden back there behind the foothills. Yet Scott himself, easy-going and dryly humorous, was evidently content right where he was.
Later the miner showed Bartley about the diggings, quietly proud of his establishment, and enthusiastic about the unfailing supply of water--in fact, Scott talked more about water than he did about gold. Bartley realized that the big miner would have been a misfit in town, that he belonged in the rugged hills from which hewrested a scant six dollars a day by herculean toil.
In a past age, Scott would have been a master builder of castles or of triremes or a maker of armor, but never a fighting man. It was evident that the miner was, despite his great strength, a man of peace. Bartley rather regretted, for some romantic reason or other, that the big miner was not a fighting man.
Yet when they returned to the shack, where Cheyenne sat smoking, Bartley learned that Big Joe Scott had a reputation in his own country. That was when Scott suggested that they needed sleep. He spread a blanket-roll on the cabin floor for Cheyenne and offered Bartley his bunk. Then Scott picked up his rifle and strode across to a shed. Cheyenne pulled off his boots, stretched out on the blanket-roll, and sighed comfortably. Bartley could see the big miner busily twisting something in his hands, something that looked like a leather bag from which occasional tiny spurts of silver gleamed and trickled. Bartley wondered what Scott was doing. He asked Cheyenne.
"He's squeezin' 'quick.'" And Cheyenne explained the process of squeezing quicksilver through a chamois skin. "And I'm glad it ain'tmy neck," added Cheyenne. "Joe killed a man, with his bare hands, onct. That's why he never gets in a fight, nowadays. He dassn't. 'Course, he had to kill that man, or get killed."
"I noticed he picked up his rifle," said Bartley.
"Nobody'll disturb our sleep," said Cheyenne drowsily.
The afternoon shadows were long when Bartley awakened. Through the doorway he could see Cheyenne out in the shed, talking with Joe Scott.
"Hello!" called Bartley, sitting up. "Lost any horses, Cheyenne?"
Presently Scott and Cheyenne came over to the cabin.
"I'm cook, this trip," stated Cheyenne as he bustled about the kitchen. "I reckon Joe needs a rest. He ain't lookin' right strong."
An early supper, and the three men forgathered outside the cabin and smoked and talked until long after dark. Cheyenne had told Scott of the happenings since leaving Antelope, and jokingly he referred to San Andreas and Bartley's original plan of staying there awhile.
Bartley nodded. "And now that the smokehas blown away, I think I'll go back and finish my visit," he said.
Cheyenne's face expressed surprise and disappointment. "Honest?" he queried.
"Why not?" asked Bartley, and it was a hard question to answer.
After all, Bartley had stuck to him when trouble seemed inevitable, reasoned Cheyenne.
Now the Easterner felt free to do as he pleased. And why shouldn't he? There had been no definite or even tentative agreement as to when they would dissolve partnership. And Bartley's evident determination to carry out his original plan struck Cheyenne as indicative of considerable spirit. It was plain that Sneed's unexpected presence in San Andreas had not affected Bartley very much. With a tinge of malice, born of disappointment, Cheyenne suggested to Bartley that the man he had knocked out, back of the livery barn, would no doubt be glad to see him again.
Bartley turned to Joe Scott. "He's trying to 'Out-West' me a bit, isn't he?"
Scott laughed heartily. "Cheyenne is getting tired of rambling up and down the country alone. He wants a pardner. Seems he likes yourcompany, from what he says. But you can't take him serious. He'll be singin' that everlastin' trail song of his next."
"He hasn't sung much, recently."
Cheyenne bridled and snorted like a colt. "Huh! Just try this on your piano." And seemingly improvising, he waved his arm toward the burro corral.
One time I had a right good pal,Git along, cayuse, git along;But he quit me cold for a little ranch gal,Git along, cayuse, git along.And now he's took to pitchin' hayOn a rancho down San Andreas way;He's done tied up and he's got to stay;Git along, cayuse, git along.
"I was just learnin' him the ropes, and he quit me cold," complained Cheyenne, appealing to Scott.
"He aims to keep out of trouble," suggested Scott.
"I ain't got no friends," said Cheyenne, grinning.
"Thanks for that," said Scott.
Cheyenne reached in his pocket and drew out the dice. His eyes brightened. He rattled the dice and shot them across the hardpacked ground near the doorstep. Then he struck a match to see what he had thrown. "I'm hittin' the road five minutes after six, to-morrow mornin'," he declared, as he picked up the dice.