CHAPTER XXXVTHREE IN A PIT
Wounded though he was, Houck managed to make a good deal of trouble for the punchers before they pinned him down and took the forty-five from him. His great strength was still at command, and he had the advantage that neither of his rescuers wanted to injure him during the struggle. They thrashed over the ground, arms and legs outflung wildly. Houck gave up only when his vigor collapsed.
His surrender was complete. He lay weak and panting, bleeding from reopened wounds, for the time as helpless and submissive as a child.
From a canteen they gave him water. Afterward they washed and tied up the wounds, bathed the fevered face, and kept the mosquitoes from him by fanning them away.
“Expect I’d better take a pasear an’ see where Mr. Ute’s at,” Dud said. “He’s liable to drap in onexpected while we’re not lookin’—several of him, huntin’ for souvenirs in the scalp line for to decorate his belt with.”
From the little opening he crept into the thicket of saplings and disappeared. Bob waited beside the delirious man. His nerves were keyed to a high tension. For all he knew the beadlike eyes of four or five sharpshooters might be peering at him from the jungle.
The sound of a shot startled him. It came from the direction in which Dud had gone. Had he been killed?Or wounded? Bob could not remain longer where he was. He too crept into the willows, following as well as he could the path of Hollister.
There came to him presently the faint crackle of twigs. Some one or something was moving in the bosk. He lay still, heart thumping violently. The sound ceased, began again.
Bob’s trembling hand held a revolver pointed in the direction of the snapping branches. The willows moved, opened up, and a blond, curly head appeared.
Bob’s breath was expelled in a long sigh of relief. “Wow! I’m glad to see you. Heard that shot an’ thought maybe they’d got you.”
“Not so you can notice it,” Dud replied cheerfully. “But they’re all round us. I took a crack at one inquisitive buck who had notions of collectin’ me. He ce’tainly hit the dust sudden as he vamosed.”
“What’ll we do?”
“I found a kinda buffalo wallow in the willows. We’ll move in on a lease an’ sit tight till Harshaw an’ the boys show up.”
They carried and dragged Houck through the thicket to the saucer-shaped opening Hollister had discovered. The edges of this rose somewhat above the surrounding ground. Using their spurs to dig with, the cowpunchers deepened the hollow and packed the loose dirt around the rim in order to heighten the rampart.
From a distance came the sound of heavy, rapid firing, of far, faint yells.
“The boys are attackin’ the gulch,” Dud guessed. “Sounds like they might be makin’ a clean-up too.”
It was three o’clock by Bob’s big silver watch. Heat waves were shimmering in the hollow and mosquitoes singing. Occasionally Houck’s voice rose in delirious excitement. Sometimes he thought the Utes were torturing him. Again he lived over scenes in the past. Snatches of babble carried back to the days of his turbulent youth when all men’s cattle were his. In the mutterings born of a sick brain Bob heard presently the name of June.
“... Tell you I’ve took a fancy to you. Tell you Jake Houck gets what he wants. No sense you rarin’ around, June. I’m yore man.... Mine, girl. Don’t you ever forget it. Mine for keeps.... Use that gun, damn you, or crawl into a hole. I’m takin’ yore wife from you. Speak yore piece. Tell her to go with me. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
The firing came nearer.
Again Dud guessed what was taking place. “They’ve got the Utes outa the gulch an’ are drivin’ them down the valley. Right soon they’re liable to light on us hard. Depends on how much the boys are pressin’ them.”
They had two rifles and four revolvers, for Houck had lately become a two-gun man. These they examined carefully to make sure they were in order. The defenders crouched back to back in the pit, each of them searching the thicket for an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees.
The sound of the battle died down. Evidently the pursuers were out of contact with the natives.
“Don’t like that,” Dud said. “If the Utes have time they’ll try to pick us up as they’re passin’.”
Bob fired.
“See one?” asked his friend.
“Think so. Something moved. Down in that hollow. He’s outa sight now.”
“They’ve got us located, then. Old Man Trouble headed this way. Something liable to start. Soon now.”
The minutes dragged. Bob’s eyes blurred from the intensity with which he watched.
A bullet struck the edge of the pit. Bob ducked involuntarily. Presently there was a second shot—and a third.
“They’re gettin’ warm,” Dud said.
He and Bob fired at the smoke puffs, growing now more frequent. Both of them knew it would be only a short time till one of them was hit unless their friends came to the rescue. Spurts of sand flew every few moments.
There was another undesirable prospect. The Utes might charge and capture the pit, wiping out the defenders. To prevent this the cowpunchers kept up as lively a fire as possible.
From down the valley came the sound of scattered shots and yells. Dud swung his hat in glee.
“Good boys! They’re comin’ in on the rear. Hi yi yippy yi!”
Firing began again on the other side. The Utes were caught between the rangers to the left and the soldiers to the right. Bob could see them breaking through the willows toward the river. It was an easy guess that their horses were bunched here and that they would be forced to cross the stream to escape.
Five minutes later Harshaw broke through the saplings to the pit. “Either of you boys hurt?” he demanded anxiously.
“Not a scratch on either of us,” Dud reported.
The boss of the Slash Lazy D wrung their hands. “By Godfrey! I’m plumb pleased. Couldn’t get it outa my head that they’d got you lads. How’s Houck?”
“He’s right sick. Doc had ought to look after him soon. He’s had one mighty bad day of it.”
Houck was carried on a blanket to the riverbank, where camp was being made for the night. The Utes had been routed. It was estimated that ten or twelve of them had been killed, though the number could not be verified, as Indians always if possible carry away their dead. For the present, at least, no further pursuit of them was feasible.
Dr. Tuckerman dressed the wounds of the Brown’s Park man and looked after the others who had been hurt. All told, the whites had lost four killed. Five were wounded more or less seriously.
The wagons had been left on the mesa three miles away. Houck was taken here next day on a stretcher made of a blanket tied to willow poles. The bodies of the dead were also removed.
Two days later the rangers reached Bear Cat. They had left the soldiers to complete the task of rounding up the Utes and taking them back to the reservation.
CHAPTER XXXVIA HERO IS EMBARRASSED
Following the Ute War, as it came to be called, there was a period of readjustment on the Rio Blanco. The whites had driven off the horses and the stock of the Indians. Two half-grown boys appropriated a flock of several thousand sheep belonging to the Indians and took them to Glenwood Springs. On the way they sold the sheep right and left. The asking price was a dollar. The selling price was twenty-five cents, a watermelon, a slice of pie, or a jack-knife with a broken blade.
The difficulties that ensued had to be settled. To get a better understanding of the situation the Governor of the State and a general of the United States Army with their staffs visited the White River country. While in Bear Cat they put up at the hotel.
Mollie did a land-office business, but she had no time to rest day or night. Passing through the office during the rush of the dinner hour, she caught sight of Blister Haines sprawled on two chairs. He was talking with Bob Dillon.
“Hear you done quit the Slash Lazy D outfit. What’s the idee?” he said.
“Nothin’ in ridin’,” Bob told him. “A fellow had ought to get a piece of land on the river an’ run some cattle of his own. Me an’ Dud aim to do that.”
“Hmp! An’ meanwhile?”
“We’re rip-rappin’ the river for old man Wilson.”[4]
Blister was pleased, but he did not say so. “Takes a good man to start on a s-shoestring an’ make it go with cattle.”
“That’s why we’re going into it,” Bob modestly explained.
Mollie broke in. “What are you boys loafin’ here for when I need help in the dining-room? Can either of you sling hash?”
The fat man derricked himself out of the chairs. “We can. L-lead us to the job, ma’am.”
So it happened that Blister, in a white apron, presently stood before the Governor ready to take orders. The table was strewn with used dishes and food, débris left there by previous diners. The amateur waiter was not sure whether the Governor and his staff had eaten or were ready to eat.
“D-do you want a r-reloadin’ outfit?” he asked.
The general, seated beside the Governor, had lived his life in the East. He stared at Blister in surprise, for at a council held only an hour before this ample waiter had been the chief spokesman in behalf of fair play to the Indians. He decided that the dignified thing to do was to fail to recognize the man.
Blister leaned toward the Governor and whispered confidentially. “Say, Gov, take my tip an’ try one o’ these here steaks. They ain’t from dogy stock.”
The Governor had been a cattleman himself. The free-and-easy ways of the West did not disturb him. “Go you once, Blister,” he assented.
The waiter turned beaming on the officer. His fat hand rested on the braided shoulder. “How about you, Gen? Does that go d-double?”
Upon Blister was turned the cold, hard eye of West Point. “I’ll take a tenderloin steak, sir, done medium.”
“You’ll sure find it’ll s-stick to yore ribs,” Blister said cheerfully.
Carrying a tray full of dishes, Bob went into the kitchen choking down his mirth.
“Blister’s liable to be shot at daybreak. He’s lessie-majesting the U.S. Army.”
Chung Lung shuffled to the door and peered through. Internal mirth struggled with his habitual gravity. “Gleat smoke, Blister spill cup cloffee on general.”
This fortunately turned out to be an exaggeration. Blister, in earnest conversation with himself, had merely overturned a half-filled cup on the table in the course of one of his gestures.
Mollie retired him from service.
Alone with Bob for a moment in the kitchen, June whispered to him hurriedly. “Before you an’ Dud go away I want to see you a minute.”
“Want to see me an’ Dud?” he asked.
She flashed a look of shy reproach at him. “No, not Dud—you.”
Bob stayed to help wipe the dishes. It was a job at which he had been adept in the old days when he flunkied for the telephone outfit. Afterward he and June slipped out of the back door and walked down to the river.
June had rehearsed exactly what she meant to say to him, but now that the moment had arrived it did not seem so easy. He might mistake her friendliness. He might think there was some unexpressed motive in theback of her mind, that she was trying to hold him to the compact made in Blister Haines’s office a year ago. It would be hateful if he thought that. But she had to risk it if their comradeship was going to mean anything. When folks were friends they helped each other, didn’t they? Told each other how glad they were when any piece of good luck came. And what had come to Bob Dillon was more than good luck. It was a bit of splendid achievement that made her generous blood sing.
This was all very well, but as they moved under the cottonwoods across the grass tessellated with sunshine and shadow, the fact of sex thrust itself up and embarrassed her. She resented this, was impatient at it, yet could not escape it. Beneath the dusky eyes a wave of color crept into the dark cheeks.
Though they walked in silence, Bob did not guess her discomposure. As clean of line as a boy, she carried herself resiliently. He thought her beautiful as a wild flower. The lift and tender curve of the chin, the swell of the forearms above the small brown hands that had done so much hard work so competently, filled him with a strange delight. She had emerged from the awkwardness and heaviness of the hoydenish age. It was difficult for him to identify her with the Cinderella of Piceance Creek except by the eager flash of the eyes in those moments when her spirit seemed to be rushing toward him.
They stood on the bank above the edge of the ford. June looked down into the tumbling water. Bob waited for her to speak. He had achieved a capacity for silence and had learned the strength of it.
Presently June lifted her eyes to his. “Dud says youan’ he are going to take up preëmptions and run cattle of your own,” she began.
“Yes. Harshaw’s going to stake us. We’ll divide the increase.”
“I’m glad. Dud ought to quit going rippity-cut every which way. No use his wastin’ five or six years before he gets started for himself.”
“No,” Bob assented.
“You’re steadier than he is. You’ll hold him down.”
Bob came to time loyally. “Dud’s all right. You’ll find him there like a rock when you need him. Best fellow in all this White River country.”
Her shining eyes sent a stab of pain through his heart. She was smiling at him queerly. “One of the best,” she said.
“Stay with you to a fare-you-well,” he went on. “If I knew a girl—if I had a sister—well, I’d sure trust her to Dud Hollister. All wool an’ a yard wide that boy is.”
“Yes,” June murmured.
“Game as they make ’em. Know where he’s at every turn of the road. I’d ce’tainly back his play to a finish.”
“I know you would.”
“Best old pal a fellow ever had.”
“It’s really a pity you haven’t a sister,” she teased.
Bob guessed that June had brought him here to talk about Dud. He did, to the exclusion of all other topics. The girl listened gravely and patiently, but imps of mischief were kicking up their heels in her eyes.
“You give him a good recommendation,” she said at last. “How about his friend?”
“Tom Reeves?”
“No, Bob Dillon.” Her dark eyes met his fairly. “Oh, Bob, I’msoglad.”
He was suddenly flooded with self-consciousness. “About us preëmptin’?” he asked.
“No. About you being the hero of the campaign.”
The ranger was miserably happy. He was ashamed to have the thing he had done dragged into the light, embarrassed to hear her use so casually a word that made him acutely uncomfortable. Yet he would not for the world have missed the queer little thrills that raced through him.
“That’s plumb foolishness,” he said.
“Yes, it is—not. Think I haven’t heard all about it? How you dragged Jake Houck into the willows right spang from among the Utes? How you went to the river an’ got him water? How you went for help when everybody thought you’d be killed? An’ how you shamed Dud into going back with you? I made Mr. Harshaw tell me all he knew—and Dud too. He said—Mr. Harshaw said—”
Bob interrupted this eager attack. “I’ll tell you how it was, June. When I saw Houck lying out there with a busted leg I didn’t know who he was—thought maybe it was Dud. So I had to go an’ get him. If I’d known it was Houck—”
“You knew it was Houck before you dragged him back, didn’t you?” she charged. “You knew it when you went to the river to get him water?”
“Truth is, I was scared so I shook,” he confessed humbly. “But when a fellow’s sufferin’ like Jake Houck was—”
“Even your enemy.”
“Oh, well, enemies don’t count when you’re fightin’ Utes together. I had to look after him—couldn’t duck it. Different with Dud when he rode back to get Tom Reeves. Did you hear about that?”
She put a damper on the sudden enthusiasm that lilted into his voice. “Yes, I heard about that,” she said dryly. “But we’re talking of another man now. You’ve got to stand there an’ take it, Bob. It won’t last but a minute anyhow. I never was so tickled in my life before. When I thought of all you’ve suffered an’ gone through, an’ how now you’ve stopped the tongues of all the folks who jeered at you, I went to my room and cried like a little girl. You’ll understand, won’t you? I had to tell you this because we’ve promised to be friends. Oh, I amsoglad for you, Bob.”
He swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded. “Yes, I’ll understand, June. It—it was awful nice of you to tell me. I reckon you ought to hate me, the way I treated you. Most girls would.”
She flashed a quick look at his flaming face. His embarrassment relieved hers.
“As ifyouknew what most girls would think,” she derided. Nevertheless she shifted the conversation to grounds less personal and dangerous. “Now you can tell me some more about that Dud you’re always braggin’ of.”
Bob did not know as he talked of his friend that June found what he said an interpretation of Robert Dillon rather than Dudley Hollister.
[4]Piling up brush to protect the bank from being washed away.
Piling up brush to protect the bank from being washed away.
CHAPTER XXXVIIA RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN
Dillon and Hollister were lounging on the bank of Elk Creek through the heat of the day. They had been chasing a jack-rabbit across the mesa for sport. Their broncos were now grazing close at hand.
“Ever notice how a jack-rabbit jumps high when it’s crowded?” Dud asked idly.
Bob nodded. “Like a deer. Crowd one an’ he gets to jumpin’ high. ’D you see that jack turn a somersault just as I threw my rope the last time?”
Dud’s keen eyes ranged the landscape. They were on the edge of the mesa where it dipped down into the valley. Since he and Bob had decided to preëmpt a quarter-section each, it had become a habit of his to study the localities over which they rode.
“Country looks good round here,” he suggested.
“Yes,” agreed his friend.
“What we lookin’ for anyhow, Bob?”
“Wood, grass, and water.”
“Well, they’re right here, ain’t they?”
Bob had been thinking the same thing himself. They saddled and quartered over the ground carefully. There was a wide stretch of meadow close to the junction of Elk Creek and the river. Upon part of it a growth of young willow had sprung up. But he judged that there was nearly one hundred and fifty acres of prairie. This would need no clearing. Rich wild grass already coveredit luxuriously. For their first crop they could cut the native hay. Then they could sow timothy. There would be no need to plough the meadow. The seed could be disked in. Probably the land never would need ploughing, for it was a soft black loam.
“How about roads?” Bob asked. “The old-timers claim we’ll never get roads here.”
“Some one’s going to take up all this river land mighty soon. That’s a cinch. An’ the roads will come right soon after the settlers. Fact is, we’ve got to jump if we’re going to take up land on the river an’ get a choice location.”
“My notion too,” agreed Bob. “We’d better get a surveyor out here this week.”
They did. Inside of a month they had filed papers at the land office, built cabins, and moved their few possessions to the claims. Their houses were made of logs mud-chinked, with dirt floors and shake roofs instead of the usual flat dirt ones. They expected later to whipsaw lumber for the floors. A huge fireplace in one end of each cabin was used for cooking as well as for heat until such time as they could get stoves. Already they planned a garden, and in the evenings were as likely to talk of turnips, beets, peas, beans, and potatoes as of the new Hereford bulls Larson and Harshaw were importing from Denver.
For the handwriting was on the wall. Cattlemen must breed up or go out of business. The old dogy would not do any longer. Already Utah stock was displacing the poor southern longhorns. Soon these, too, would belong to the past. Dud and Bob had vision enough to see thisand they were making plans to get a near-pedigreed bull.
Dud sighed in reminiscent appreciation of the old days that were vanishing. He might have been seventy-two instead of twenty-two coming February. Behind him lay apparently all his golden youth.
“We got to adopt ourselves to new ways, old Sure-Shot,” he ruminated aloud. “Got to quit hellin’ around an’ raisin’ Cain. Leastways I have. You never did do any o’ that. Yes, sir, I got to be a responsible citizen.”
The partner of the responsible citizen leaned back in a reclining chair which he had made from a plank sawed into five parts that were nailed together at angles.
“You’ll be raisin’ little towheads right soon,” he said through a cloud of smoke.
“No, sir. Not me. Not Dud Hollister. I can boss my own se’f for a spell yet,” the fair-haired youth protested vehemently. “When I said we got to adopt ourselves, I was thinkin’ of barb-wire fences an’ timothy hay. ’S all right to let the dogies rough through the winter an’ hunt the gulches when the storms come. But it won’t do with stock that’s bred up. Harshaw lost close to forty per cent of his cattle three years ago. It sure put some crimp in him. He was hit hard again last winter. You know that. Say he’d had valuable stock. Why, it would put him outa business. Sure would.”
“Yes,” admitted Bob. “There’s a schoolmarm down at Meeker was askin’ me about you. You know her—that snappin’-eyed brunette. Wanted to know all about yore claim, an’ was it a good one, an’ didn’t I think Mr. Hollister a perfect gentleman, an’—”
Dud snatched a blanket from the bunk and smothered the red head. They clinched, rolled on the floor, and kicked over the chair and stool. Presently they emerged from battle feeling happier.
“No, we got to feed. Tha’s the new law an’ the gospel of the range,” Dud continued. “Got to keep our cattle under fence in winter an’ look after ’em right. Cattle-raisin’ as a gamble will be a losing bet right soon. It’s a business now. Am I right?”
“Sounds reasonable to me, Dud.”
Bob’s face was grave, but he smiled inwardly. The doctrine that his friend had just been expounding was not new to him. He had urged it on Dud during many a ride and at more than one night camp, had pointed to the examples of Larson, Harshaw, and the other old-timers. Hollister was a happy-go-lucky youth. The old hard-riding cattle days suited him better. But he, too, had been forced at last to see the logic of the situation. Now, with all the ardor of a convert, he was urging his view on a partner who did not need to be convinced.
Dillon knew that stock-raising was entering upon a new phase, that the old loose range system must give way to better care, attention to breeding, and close business judgment. The cattleman who stuck to the old ways would not survive.
CHAPTER XXXVIIIBEAR CAT ASLEEP
Bear Cat basked in the mellow warmth of Indian summer. Peace brooded over the valley, a slumberous and placid drowsiness. Outside Platt & Fortner’s store big freight wagons stood close to the sidewalk. They had just come in from their long overland journey and had not yet been unloaded. A Concord stage went its dusty way down the street headed for Newcastle. Otherwise there was little evidence of activity.
It was about ten o’clock in the morning. The saloons and gambling-houses were almost deserted. The brisk business of the night had died down. Even a poker player and a faro dealer must sleep.
Main Street was in a coma. A dog lazily poked a none too inquisitive nose into its epidermis in a languid search for fleas. Past the dog went a barefoot urchin into a store for two pounds of eight-penny nails.
Three horsemen appeared at the end of the street and moved down it at the jog-trot which is the road gait of the cowpuncher. They dismounted near the back door of Platt & Fortner’s and flung the bridle reins over the wheel spokes of the big freight wagons with the high sides. They did not tie the reins even in slip knots.
The riders stood for a moment talking in low voices before they separated. One went into Dolan’s. He was a good-looking young fellow about twenty. A second wandered into the hotel saloon. He was not good-looking and was twice twenty. The third strolled past thebank, glanced in, turned, and walked past it a second time. He straddled, with jingling spurs, into the big store.
Tom Platt nodded casually to him. “Anything I can do for you, Houck?”
“I reckon,” Houck grunted.
Platt noticed that he limped slightly. He had no feeling of friendliness toward Houck, but common civility made him inquire how the wounded leg was doing. After the Indian campaign the Brown’s Park man had gone to Meeker for his convalescence. That had been two months since.
“’S all right,” growled the big fellow.
“Good. Thought you kinda favored it a little when you walked.”
The Brown’s Park man bought a plug of chewing tobacco and a shirt.
“Guess the soldiers got the Utes corralled all right by this time. Hear anything new about that?” Platt asked by way of making conversation.
“No,” Houck replied shortly. “Got an empty gunnysack I could have?”
“Sure.” The storekeeper found one and a string with which to tie it.
“I’ll take a slab of side meat an’ a pound of ground coffee,” the big man growled.
He made other purchases,—flour, corn meal, beans, and canned tomatoes. These he put in the gunnysack, tying the open end. Out of the side door he went to the horses standing by the big freight wagons. The contents of the sack he transferred to saddle-bags.
Then, without any apparent doubt as to what he was going to do next, he dropped into another store, one which specialized in guns and ammunition, though it, too, sold general supplies. He bought cartridges, both for the two forty-fives and for the rifle he carried. These he actually tested in his weapons, to make sure they fitted easily.
The proprietor attempted a pleasantry. “You’re kinda garnished with weapons, stranger. Not aimin’ to hold up the town, are you?”
The amiable laugh died away. The wall-eyed stranger was looking at him in bleak silence. Not an especially timid man, the owner of the place felt a chill run down his spine. That stare carried defiance, an unvoiced threat. Later, the storekeeper made of it a stock part of his story of the day’s events.
“When the stranger gave me that look of his I knew right away something was doing. ’Course I didn’t know what. I’ll not claim I did, but I was sure there’d be a job for the coroner before night. Blister come into the store just after he left. I said to him, ‘Who’s that big black guy?’ He says, ‘Jake Houck.’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘Jake Houck is sure up to some deviltry.’”
It is easy to be a prophet after the event. When Houck jingled out of the store and along the sidewalk to the hotel, none of the peaceful citizens he met guessed what he had in mind. None of them saw the signal which passed between him and the young fellow who had just come out of Dolan’s. This was not a gesture. No words were spoken, but a message went from one to the other and back. The young puncher disappeared again into Dolan’s.
Afterward, when Bear Cat began to assemble its recollections of the events prior to the dramatic climax, it was surprising how little that was authentic could be recalled. Probably a score of people noted casually the three strangers. Houck was recognized by three or four, Bandy Walker by at least one. The six-foot youngster with them was known by nobody who saw him. It was learned later that he had never been in the town before. The accounts of how the three spent the hour between ten and eleven are confusing. If they met during that time it was only for a moment or two while passing. But it is certain that Bandy Walker could not have been both in the blacksmith shop and at Platt & Fortner’s five minutes before eleven. The chances are that some of the town people, anxious to have even a small part in the drama, mixed in their minds these strangers with others who had ridden in.
Bob Dillon and Dud Hollister dropped from their saddles in front of the hotel at just eleven o’clock. They had ridden thirty miles and stood for a moment stretching the cramp out of their muscles.
Dud spoke, nodding his head to the right. “Look what’s here, Sure-Shot. Yore friend Bandy—old, tried, an’ true.”
Walker was trailing his high-heeled boots through the dust across the street from Dolan’s toward the big store. If he saw Bob he gave no sign of knowing him.
The two friends passed into the hotel. They performed the usual rites of internal and external ablutions. They returned to the bar, hooked their heels, and swapped with Mike the news of the day.
“Hear Larson’s bought the K T brand. Anything to it?” asked Dud.
“Paid seven thousand down, time on the balance,” Mike said. “How you lads makin’ it on Elk?”
“Fine. We got the best preëmptions on the river. Plenty of good grass, wood an’ water handy, a first-class summer range. It’s an A1 layout, looks like.”
“At the end of nowhere, I reckon,” Mike grinned.
“The best steers are on the edge of the herd,” Dud retorted cheerfully. “It’s that way with ranches too. A fellow couldn’t raise much of a herd in Denver, could he?”
A sound like the explosion of a distant firecracker reached them. It was followed by a second.
It is strange what a difference there is between the report of one shot and another. A riotous cowpuncher bangs away into the air to stress the fact that he is a live one on the howl. Nobody pays the least attention. A bullet flies from a revolver barrel winged with death. Men at the roulette wheel straighten up to listen. The poker game is automatically suspended, a hand half dealt. By some kind of telepathy the players know that explosion carries deadly menace.
So now the conversation died. No other sound came, but the two cattlemen and the bartender were keyed to tense alertness. They had sloughed instantly the easy indolence of casual talk.
There came the slap of running footsteps on the sidewalk. A voice called in excitement, “They’ve killed Ferril.”
The eyes of the Elk Creek ranchers met. They knew now what was taking place. Ferril was cashier of the Bear Cat bank.
CHAPTER XXXIXBEAR CAT AWAKE
At exactly eleven o’clock Houck, Bandy Walker, and the big young cowpuncher who had ridden into town with them met at the corner of one of the freight wagons. Houck talked, the others listened, except for a comment or two. A cattleman passing them on his way to the bank recalled afterward that the low voice of the Brown’s Park man was deadly serious.
The two big men walked into the bank. Bandy stayed with the horses. In the building, not counting the cashier and his assistant, were two or three patrons of the institution. One was Sturgis, a round little man who had recently started a drug-store in Bear Cat. He was talking to the assistant cashier. The cattleman was arranging with Ferril for a loan.
The attention of the cattleman drifted from the business in hand. “Carryin’ a good deal of hardware, ain’t they, Gus?”
Ferril smiled. “Most of the boys are quittin’ that foolishness, but some of ’em can’t get it out of their heads that they look big when they’re gun-toters. Kind of a kid business, looks to me.”
The eyes of the cattleman rested on Houck. “I wouldn’t call that big black fellow a kid. Who is he?”
“Don’t know. Reckon we’re due to find out. He’s breakin’ away from the other fellow and movin’ this way.”
Houck observed that the big cowpuncher was nervous. The hand hitched in the sagging belt was trembling.
“Don’t weaken, Dave,” he said in a whisper out of the corner of his mouth. “We’ll be outa town in ten minutes.”
“Sure,” agreed the other in a hoarse murmur.
Houck sauntered to the cage. This was a recent importation from Denver. Bear Cat was proud of it as an evidence of progress. It gave the bank quite a metropolitan air.
He stood behind the cattleman, the wall at his back so that his broad shoulders brushed it. Jake had no intention of letting any one get in his rear.
“Stick yore hands up!” he ordered roughly.
The cattleman did not turn. His hands went up instantly. A half a second later those of the startled cashier lifted toward the ceiling.
The assistant made a bad mistake. He dived for the revolver in the desk close at hand.
Houck fired. The bank clerk dropped.
That shot sent panic through the heart of Sturgis. He bolted for the side door. A second shot from Houck’s weapon did not stop him. A moment more, and he was on the street racing to spread the alarm.
The leader of the bank robbers swung round on Ferril. His voice was harsh, menacing. He knew that every moment now counted. From under his coat he had drawn a gunnysack.
“The bank money—quick. No silver—gold an’ any bills you’ve got.”
Ferril opened the safe. He stuffed into the sack both loose and packed gold. He had a few bills, not many, for in the West paper money was then used very little.
“No monkey business,” snarled Houck after he had stood up against the opposite wall the cattleman and the depositor who chanced to be in the bank. “This all you got? Speak up, or I’ll drill you.”
The cashier hesitated, but the ominous hollow eye into which he looked was persuasive. He opened an inner compartment lined with bags of gold. These he thrust into the gunnysack.
The robber named Dave tied with shaking fingers the loose end of the sack.
“Time to go,” announced Houck grimly. “You’re goin’ with us far as our horses—all of you. We ain’t lookin’ for to be bushwhacked.”
He lined up the bodyguard in front and on each side of himself and his accomplice. Against the back of the cattleman he pushed the end of the revolver barrel.
“Lead the way,” he ordered with an oath.
Houck had heard the sound of running feet along the street. He knew it was more than likely that there would be a fight before he and his men got out of town. This was not in his reckoning. The shots fired inside the bank had been outside his calculations. They had been made necessary only by the action of the teller. Jake’s plan had been to do the job swiftly and silently, to get out of town before word of what had taken place reached the citizens. He had chosen Bear Cat as the scene of the robbery because there was always plenty of money inthe bank, because he owed its people a grudge, and because it was so far from a railroad.
As he had outlined the hold-up to his fellows in crime, it had looked like a moderately safe enterprise. But he realized now that he had probably led them into a trap. Nearly every man in Bear Cat was a big-game hunter. This meant that they were dead shots.
Houck knew that it would be a near thing if his party got away in time. A less resolute man would have dropped the whole thing after the alarm had been given and ridden away at once. But he was no quitter. So he was seeing it out.
The cattleman led the procession through the side door into the street.
Sunshine warm and mellow still bathed the street, just as it had done ten minutes earlier. But there was a difference. Dave felt a shiver run down his spine.
From the horses Bandy barked a warning. “Hurry, Jake, for God’s sake. They’re all round us.”
CHAPTER XLBIG-GAME HUNTERS AT WORK
Bob and his partner did not rush out of the hotel instantly to get into the fray. They did what a score of other able-bodied men of Bear Cat were doing—went in search of adequate weapons with which to oppose the bank robbers. Bear Cat was probably the best-equipped town in the country to meet a sudden emergency of this kind. In every house, behind the door or hanging on the wall, was a rifle used to kill big game. In every house was at least one man who knew how to handle that rifle. All he had to do was to pick up the weapon, load it, and step into the street.
June was in the kitchen with Chung Lung. The Reverend Melancthon Browning had just collected two dollars from Chung for the foreign missionary fund. Usually the cook was a cheerful giver, but this morning he was grumbling a little. He had been a loser at hop toy the night before.
“Mister Blowning he keep busy asking for dollars. He tell me givee to the Lord. Gleat smoke, Lord allee timee bloke?”
The girl laughed. The Oriental’s quaint irreverence was of the letter and not of the spirit.
Through the swing door burst Bob Dillon. “Know where there’s a rifle, June?”
She looked at him, big-eyed. “Not the Utes again?” she gasped.
“Bank robbers. I want a gun.”
Without a word she turned and led him swiftly down the passage to a bedroom. In one corner of it was a .40-.70 Marlin. From a peg above hung a cartridge belt. Bob loaded the gun.
June’s heart beat fast. “You’ll—be careful?” she cautioned.
He nodded as he ran out of the door and into the alley behind.
Platt & Fortner’s was erecting a brick store building, the first of its kind in Bear Cat. The walls were up to the second story and the window frames were in. Through the litter of rubbish left by the workmen Bob picked a hurried way to one of the window spaces. Two men were crouched in another of these openings not fifteen feet from him.
“How many of ’em?” he asked in a loud whisper.
Blister answered from the embrasure opposite. “D-don’t know.”
“Still in the bank, are they?”
“Yes.”
Some one peered out of Dolan’s through the crack of a partly opened door. Bob caught the gleam of the sun upon the barrel of a gun. A hat with a pair of eyes beneath the rim of it showed above the sill of a window in the blacksmith shop opposite. Bear Cat was all set for action.
A man was standing beside some horses near the back door of Platt & Fortner’s. He was partially screened from Bob’s view by one of the broncos and by a freight wagon, but the young cattleman had a fleeting impression that he was Bandy Walker. Was he, too, waitingto get a shot at the bandits? Probably so. He had a rifle in his hands. But it struck Dillon he was taking chances. When the robbers came out of the bank they would be within thirty feet of him.
Out of the front door of the bank a little group of men filed. Two of them were armed. The others flanked them on every side. Ferril the cashier carried a gunnysack heavily loaded.
A man stepped out upon the platform in front of Platt & Fortner’s. From his position he looked down on the little bunch of men moving toward the horses. Bandy Walker, beside the horses, called on Houck to hurry, that they were being surrounded.
“I’ve got you covered. Throw down yore guns,” the man on the platform shouted to the outlaws, rifle at shoulder.
Houck’s revolver flashed into the air. He fired across the shoulder of the man whom he was using as a screen. The rifleman on the store porch sat down suddenly, his weapon clattering to the ground.
“Another of ’em,” Houck said aloud with a savage oath. “Any one else lookin’ for it?”
Walker moved forward with the horses. Afraid that general firing would begin at any moment, Ferril dropped the sack and ran for the shelter of the wagons. His flight was a signal for the others who had been marshaled out of the bank. They scattered in a rush for cover.
Instantly Houck guessed what would follow. From every side a volley of bullets would be concentrated on him and his men. He too ran, dodging back into the bank.
He was not a tenth part of a second too soon. A fusillade of shots poured down. It seemed that men were firing from every door, window, and street corner. Bandy Walker fell as he started to run. Two bullets tore through his heart, one from each side. The big cowpuncher never stirred from his tracks. He went down at the first volley. Five wounds, any one of which would have been mortal, were later found in his body and head.
All told, the firing had not lasted as long as it would take a man to run across a street. Bear Cat had functioned. The bank robbers were out of business.
The news spread quicker than the tongue could tell it. From all directions men, women, and children converged toward the bank. In the excitement the leader of the bandits was forgotten for a minute or two.
“What about the third fellow?” a voice asked.
The question came from Dud Hollister. He had reached the scene too late to take any part in the battle, much to his chagrin.
“Went into the bank,” Blister said. “I s-saw him duck in just before the shooting began.”
The building was surrounded and rushed. Houck was not inside. Evidently he had run out of the back door and made for the willows by the river. A boy claimed that he had seen a man running in that direction.
A crowd of armed men beat the willows on both banks for a distance of a mile both up and down the stream wherever there was cover. No trace of the outlaw could be found. Posses on horseback took up the search. These posses not only rode up and down the river. They scoured the mesa on the other bank all day. When night fell Houck was still at large.