CHAPTER XII
NOWHERE outside of Cattleland would such a scene have been possible. The air was filled with the fine dust of milling cattle, with the sound of bawling cows and blatting calves. Hundreds of them, rounded up on the Flat Tops and driven down Eagle Creek, were huddled in a draw fenced by a score of lean brown horsemen.
Now and again one of the leggy hill steers made a dash for freedom. The nearest puncher wheeled his horse as on a half dollar, gave chase, and headed the animal back into the herd. Three of the old stockmen rode in and out among the packed cattle, deciding on the ownership of stray calves. These were cut out, roped, and branded on the spot.
Everybody was busy, everybody cheerful. These riders had for weeks been in the saddle eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. They were grimy with dust, hollow-eyed from want of sleep. But every chap-clad, sun-baked horseman was hard as nails and tough as leather. To feel the press of a saddle under his knees in all this clamour and confusion was worth a month of ordinary life to a cow-puncher.
McCoy, since he was boss of the round-up, was chief of the board of arbiters. An outsider would have been hopelessly at a loss to decide what cow was the mother of each lost and bewildered calf. But these experts guessed right ninety-nine times out of a hundred.
“Goes with the big bald-faced cow—D Bar Lazy R brand,” was the verdict of Rowan as to one roan stray.
“You done said it, Mac!” agreed Sam Yerby, chewing his quid of tobacco lazily.
The third judge, Brad Rogers, of the Circle B R, nodded his head. Duncan King, whose father owned a ranch near the headwaters of Hill Creek, cut out the bawling little maverick for the branders.
While the outfit was at supper after the day’s work a man rode up to the chuck wagon and fell into the easy, negligent attitude of the range rider at rest.
“Hello, Larry! Come and get it,” shouted the cook, waving a beefsteak on the prongs of a long fork.
Silcott slid from the saddle and joined the circle. He found a seat beside McCoy.
“I want to see you alone, Mac,” he said in a low voice.
Rowan nodded, paid no more attention to him, and joined again in the general conversation. But presently he got up and strolled toward the remuda.
Larry casually joined him.
“Tait has been across the dead line for two days, Mac. He’s travelling straight for the Circle Diamond with fifteen hundred sheep. About a third of them belong to Gilroy. Joe has two herders with him.”
“Where are they camped to-night?”
“At the foot of Bald Knob.”
“Is Gilroy with them?”
“No. He was this morning, but he telephoned his wife from Westcliff that he would be home to-night.”
The boss of the round-up looked away at the purple hills, his close-gripped jaw clamped tight, his eyes narrowed almost to slits.
“Drift back to the wagon, Larry, and tell Yerby and Rogers to drop out of the crowd and meet me here quietly.”
“Sure.” The younger man hung in the wind. “What are you going to do, Mac?”
“What would you do?”
Silcott broke into a sudden angry oath. “Do? I’d meet Joe Tait halfway. I’d show him whether he can spoil the range for us at his own sweet will. He wants war. By all that’s holy, I’d carry it right into his camp!”
Rowan did not deny to himself the seriousness of the issue as he waited for the coming of the two men. He faced the facts squarely, as he always did. Tait had again declared war. To let the man have his own way meant ruin to the cattle interests on the Fryingpan. For if one sheepman were permitted to invade the range, dozens of others would drive across into the forbidden territory. The big, fearless bully had called for a show-down. Let him win now, and it would be a question of months only until McCoy and his neighbours were sold out at a sheriff’s sale.
Out of the darkness sauntered Yerby, followed presently by Rogers.
“What’s on yore mind, Mac?” drawled Yerby, splattering expertly with tobacco juice a flat rock shining in the moonlight.
Sam Yerby was an old cowman from Texas. As a youth he had driven cattle on the Chisum Trail. Once, a small boy, he had spoken with Sam Bass, the outlaw. In the palmy days of Dodge City and Abilene, while still in his early teens, he had been a spectator of the wild life that overflowed into the frontier towns. Physically he was a wrinkled little man with a merry eye and a mild manner that was apt to deceive.
“Tait has crossed the dead line again. He is headed for the Thunder Mountain country.”
Yerby rubbed a bristling cheek slowly with the palm of his hand. “Well, I’ll be dog-goned! Looks like he’s gone loco,” he commented mildly.
The owner of the Circle B R broke into excited threats. “He’ll never take his sheep back again—never in the world. I’ll not stand for it; none of the boys will. Right now is when he gets all the trouble he wants.”
“That your opinion, too, Sam?” asked Rowan quietly.
The faded blue eyes of the Texan had a far-away look. His fingers caressed a chin rough with gray stubbles. He was thinking of his young wife and his year-old baby. Their future depended upon his little cattle ranch.
“I reckon, Mac. We got to fight some time. Might as well be right now.”
“To-night,” agreed McCoy decisively. “We’ll settle this before daybreak. We don’t want too many in this thing. Five or six are enough.”
“Here are three of your six,” suggested Rogers.
“Larry Silcott is four. We’ve got to take Larry. He brought me the news.”
“How about Dunc King? He’s a good boy—absolutely on the square.”
Rowan shook his head. “Let’s keep Dunc out of this. You know what a good old lady Mrs. King is. We’ll not take her only son into trouble. Besides, Dunc talks too much.”
“Well, Jack Cole. He’ll go through and padlock his mouth, too. I’d trust Jack to a finish.”
“Cole is all right, Brad. You feel him out. Five of us are all that’s needed. We’ll meet at the Three Pines at midnight. Sam, you and Brad can decide to spend the night at home since we’re camping so near your places. I’ll drive my bunch of cows down to the Circle Diamond as an excuse to get away. I can take Jack and Larry with me to help. Probably you had better hang around till after we’ve been gone a while.”
The Circle Diamond cattle were cut out from the bunch and started homeward. Rowan, with Silcott and Cole to help him on the drive, vanished after them into the night.
“Funny Mac didn’t start at sunset. What’s the idea of waiting till night?” asked King of Falkner, who sat beside him at the campfire.
“Beats me.” Falkner scowled at the leaping flames. His face was still decorated with half a dozen ugly cuts and as many bruises, souvenirs of his encounter with Tait. Just now he was full of suspicions, vague and indefinite as yet, but none the less active. For Larry had told him the news he had brought.
“Sing the old Chisum Trail song, Sam,” demanded a cow-puncher.
A chorus of shouts backed the request.
“Cain’t you boys ever leave the old man alone?” complained Yerby. “I done bust my laig to-day when I fell off’n that pinto. I’ve got a half a notion to light a shuck for home and get Missie to rub on some o’ that white liniment she makes. It’s the healin’est medicine ever I took.”
“Don’t be a piker, Sam. Sing for us.”
“What’ll I sing? I done sung that trail song yesterday.”
“Anything. Leave it to you.”
The old Texan piped up lugubriously, a twinkle in his tired eyes:
“Come, all you old cow-punchers, a story I will tell,And if you’ll be quiet I’m sure I’ll sing it well,And if you boys don’t like it, you sure can go to hell!”
“Come, all you old cow-punchers, a story I will tell,And if you’ll be quiet I’m sure I’ll sing it well,And if you boys don’t like it, you sure can go to hell!”
“Come, all you old cow-punchers, a story I will tell,And if you’ll be quiet I’m sure I’ll sing it well,And if you boys don’t like it, you sure can go to hell!”
“Come, all you old cow-punchers, a story I will tell,
And if you’ll be quiet I’m sure I’ll sing it well,
And if you boys don’t like it, you sure can go to hell!”
A shout of laughter greeted this unexpected proposition. “Fair enough.” “Go to it, Sam!” “Give us the rest!” urged the chap-clad young giants around the fire.
Yerby took up his theme in singsong fashion, and went through the other stanzas, but as he finished he groaned again.
“My laig sure is hurting like sixty. I’m going home. Wish one of you lads would run up a hawss for me. Get the roan with the white stockings, if you can.”
“I’ll go with you, Sam,” announced Rogers. “I’m expecting an important business letter and I expect it’s waiting at the house for me. Be with you to-morrow, boys.”
After they had gone Falkner made comment to young King satirically: “What with busted laigs and important letters and night drives, we’re having quite an exodus from camp, wouldn’t you say?”
“Looks like,” agreed King. “Tha’s the way with married men. They got always to be recollectin’ home ties. We been on this round-up quite a spell, an’ I reckon they got kinda homesick to see their better halfs, as you might say.”
“Tha’s yore notion, is it?” jeered Falkner.
“Why, yes, you see——”
“Different here. They got a hen on. Tha’s what’s the matter with them.”
“Whajamean, a hen on?” King leaned forward, eyes sparkling, cigarette half rolled. If there was anything doing he wanted to know all about it.
“Larry let it out to me at supper. He was so full of it he couldn’t hold it in. Tait has done crossed the dead line again.”
“No?” The word was a question, not a denial. Young King’s eyes were wide with excitement. This was not merely diverting news. It might turn out to be explosive drama.
“I’m tellin’ you, boy.” Falkner rapped out an annoyed impatient oath. “They left me out of it. Why? I got as good a right to know what’s doing as any of ’em. More, by God! I’ve still got to settle with Joe Tait for these, an’ I aim to pay him interest aplenty.” He touched the scars on his face, and his eyes flamed to savage anger.
“What do you reckon Mac aims to do?” asked King.
“I reckon he means to raid Tait’s herd. Can’t be anything else. But I mean to find out. Right now I’m declarin’ myself in.”
The campfire circle broke up, and the cow-punchers rolled into their blankets. Falkner did not stay in his long. He slipped out to the remuda and slapped a saddle on one of his cow ponies. The explanation he gave to the night herders was that he was going to ride down to Bovier’s Camp to get some tobacco.
He struck the trail of McCoy’s bunch of cows and followed across the hills. Falkner rode fast, since he knew the general direction the driver must take. Within the hour he heard the lowing of cattle, and felt sure that he was on the heels of those he followed. From the top of the next ridge he looked down upon them in the valley below.
This was enough for Falkner. Evidently Rowan intended to get the cattle to his corral before any move was made against Tait. The range rider swung to the right across the brow of the hill, dipped into the next valley, struck a trail that zigzagged up the shale slope opposite, and by means of it came, after a half hour of stiff riding, to the valley where the Triangle Dot Ranch had its headquarters.
He tied his horse in a pine grove and stole silently down to the bunk house. This he circled, came to the front door on his tiptoes, and entered noiselessly. A man lay sleeping on one of the farther bunks, arms flung wide in the deep slumber of fatigue.
Falkner reached for a rifle resting on a pair of elk horns attached to the wall, and took from one of the tines an ammunition belt. He turned, knocked over in the darkness a chair, and fled into the night with the rifle in one hand, the belt in the other.
Reaching the pine grove, he remounted, skirted the lip of the valley, and struck at its mouth the trail to the Circle Diamond. Three quarters of an hour later he was lying on the edge of a hill pocket above that ranch with his eyes fastened to the moonlit corral in which stood two saddled horses.
CHAPTER XIII
THE moon was just going under a cloud when Rowan and his two companions rode away from the Circle Diamond. They had plenty of time before the appointed hour at the Three Pines. Since they expected to ride hard during the night, they took now a leisurely road gait in and out among the hills.
There was little conversation. Cole was not friendly toward Silcott, though he had had no open break with him. He still remembered with resentment that night when Larry had flirted so outrageously with Kate. To Jack Cole’s simple mind the thing had carried the earmarks of treachery. The two had been rather close. They had slept under the same tarp many a time. He could not understand the vanity which had driven Larry to a public exhibition of his power with women. But he and Kate had talked the thing out, had quarrelled and made up. His sense of dignity kept him from settling the matter with Silcott by the simple primitive method of fisticuffs. Therefore he bottled up his sense of injury under a manner of cool aloofness.
Yerby and Rogers were waiting for them beneath the largest of the big pines.
“Better ’light, boys,” suggested the Texan. “I reckon we might as well kinder talk things over. We aim to bend the law consid’able to-night. If any of you lads is feelin’ tol’able anxious he’d better burn the wind back to camp. Old Man Trouble is right ahaid of us on the trail. Now’s the time to holler. No use bellyachin’ when it’s too late.”
“Think we’re quitters?” Larry demanded indignantly.
“No, son, I don’t allow you are. If I did you can bet them fifteen-dollar boots of yours that you or Sam Yerby one wouldn’t be here. What I’m sayin’ is that this is serious business. Take a good, square look at it before you-all go ahaid.”
“Sam’s quite right,” assented McCoy. “We’re going on a sheep raid, and against a desperate man. We’re going to kill his sheep—ride them down—stampede them. It’s not a nice business, and the law is dead against us. I don’t like it a bit, but I’m going because it is the only way to pound sense into Tait’s fool head. We’ve got to do it or shut up shop.”
Rowan spoke with a gravity that carried conviction. He was a man notable even in that country which bred strong men. His steel-gray eyes looked out unafraid upon a world still primitive enough to demand proofs of any man who aspired to leadership among his fellows. McCoy had long since demonstrated his fitness to lead. No man in the Fryingpan country doubted this. Hence his words now carried weight.
“I stand pat,” said Silcott.
Cole nodded agreement.
“Good enough. But understand this: We’re not man-killers. Tait is a bad lot, all right, but we’re not out to get him. We’re going to mask, surprise the camp, hold it up, do our business, then get out. Is that plain?”
“Plain as the Map of Texas brand,” assented Yerby with a grin. “Listens fine, too. But what have you arranged for Tait to be doing while you-all is making him a prisoner?”
“He’ll be sleeping, Sam. Here’s the layout. One of the herders and the dogs will be with the sheep. We’ll slip right up to the wagon and capture Tait first thing. He’s a heavy sleeper—always was. Once we get him the rest will be easy.”
The Texan nodded. “Ought to go through as per plan if the sheep are far enough from the wagon.”
“They’ll be far enough away so that the dogs won’t bark at us.”
“Who is that?” cried Rogers, pointing to the trail below.
All of them with one consent stopped to watch the horseman riding up out of the darkness.
“It’s Hal Falkner,” Cole cried in a low voice.
“Falkner! What’s he doing here?” demanded McCoy. He whirled on Silcott. “Did you tell him where we were to-night, Larry?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You told him something—that Tait had crossed the dead line and was heading for Thunder Mountain.”
“I might have said that,” admitted Silcott a little sulkily.
“Did you tell any one else?”
“No. What’s ailin’ you, Mac?”
“Just this. I don’t want to go to the penitentiary because you can’t keep your mouth shut, Larry. Falkner is the last man you ought to have told. I don’t want him with us to-night. He’s too anxious to get at Tait.”
“Oh, well, I guess he’ll be reasonable.”
Falkner rode up the trail out of the shadowy gloom. “Thought you’d lose me, did you? Fine stuff, boys. How’s yore busted laig, Sam? And did you get that important letter, Brad? I know you other lads got the cattle to the Circle Diamond because I saw them there.”
“What do you want, Hal?” asked Rowan curtly.
“Me, Mac? Same as you. I want to shoot some pills into Mary’s little lambs. Did you think I was riding for my health?”
“We don’t want you along with us. Our party’s made up.”
“Short and sweet, Mac. What’s the objection to my company?” demanded Falkner frostily.
“No personal objection whatever, Hal. But we don’t want any one along that has a grudge at Tait. We’re fighting for the range, and we don’t intend to settle any individual scores.”
“Suits me. I expect I can square accounts with Joe Tait at the proper time without lugging all you fellows along.”
McCoy looked directly at him. “This party is ducking trouble, not looking for it, Hal. We intend to get the drop on Tait and hold him prisoner till we’re through. Our only targets will be sheep.”
“Fine! I’ll take orders from you to-night, Rowan.”
“That makes everything all right then,” put in Larry cheerfully.
McCoy still hesitated. He knew of Falkner’s gusty and ungovernable temper, and suspected the bilious rancour of his ill will toward Tait.
“Oh, let him go,” decided Rogers impatiently. “One more won’t do any harm, and we might need him. Falkner is not a fool. He knows we can’t afford to shoot up Tait or his men.”
“Sure I know it. What’s the use of so much beefing? I’m going with you, whether or no.”
“Looks like our anxious friend has elected himself one of us,” Sam assented amiably.
Rowan was outvoted. He shrugged, and, against his better judgment, gave up the point.
They rode hard across a rough, hilly country. The moon had gone under scudding clouds. It had turned a good deal colder, and there was a feel of rain in the air.
They were following no trail, but were cutting as near a bee-line as possible over mountains, through gulches, and along washes. McCoy led them with the sure instinct of the hillsman. The night was dark, and the hill pockets they traversed were like one another as peas in a pod. But there was never a moment when he hesitated as to direction.
The time was half-past two when Rogers struck a match and looked at his watch.
“Bald Knob is less than a mile from here,” said McCoy. “We’ll mask now in case we should bump into the camp sooner than we expect. Think we’d better cut out talking. We’ve got to surprise them. If we don’t, Tait will fight and that isn’t what we want.”
He drew from his pocket half a dozen bandannas. Each man made and fitted his own mask from a handkerchief.
“The wind is from the north. That’s lucky, because we’ve got to get at the camp from the south. The dogs couldn’t scent us even if they are close to the wagons,” Rowan explained.
“The dogs will be with the sheep. I ain’t worried about them,” answered Rogers.
They rode cautiously now, one after the other in single file. From a ridge McCoy pointed out the sheep camp at the foot of Bald Knob.
“We’ll leave our horses in that clump of pines and creep forward to the wagons,” he gave directions. “Remember, boys. No shooting. We’re going to get the drop on Tait and take him prisoner. If we can’t do that, the raid is off. We’re not killing human beings. Get that, Hal.”
Falkner nodded sulkily. “I told you I was taking orders from you to-night, Mac.”
Under cover of a hill they rode into the pines and tied their horses. McCoy deployed his men in such a way that they could move toward the camp in a half circle. He put Cole on the extreme left, and next to him Yerby, Rogers, Silcott, and Falkner in the order named. Rowan chose the place on the right for himself, because it was nearest the wagons. He stationed Falkner next to him so that he could keep an eye on him.
The raiders crept forward slowly through the brush. It was a damp, cold night. Clouds in battalions were sweeping across the sky. McCoy, as he moved forward, took advantage of all the cover he could find. He could see Falkner as a dark shadow over to his left. Silcott was lost in the gloom.
The sound of a shot shattered the stillness. Falkner, the rifle in his hand smoking, let out the exultant “Yip—yip!” of a cowboy.
“Back to cover, boys!” yelled Rowan instantly.
He stumbled on a clump of grass and went down. Before he reached his feet again the tragedy was under way. Another shot rang out—a third—and a fourth.
Tait, revealed by a fugitive moon which had escaped from behind scudding clouds, was in the door of the wagon, as he had often promised. The rifle in his hand was pumping lead at the foes advancing toward him from the brush. Flashes in the darkness told Rowan that the cattlemen were answering his fire.
The head of the big sheepman lurched forward, and the rifle slid from his hands out of the wagon to the ground. At the same moment another man leaped from the wagon and started to run.
“Stop firing!” ordered McCoy sharply.
He ran forward to protect the retreat of the sheepman, but he was too late. Falkner fired. The running figure doubled up like a jack-rabbit and went down headfirst.
McCoy plunged straight for the second wagon. He could hear a herder tumbling hastily out of it, and he stood directly between the man and Falkner. The runner was, he knew, scuttling into the brush for safety.
“Let him go. Don’t shoot, Hal!” shouted McCoy.
Falkner, panting, eyes burning with the lust of battle, pulled up beside Rowan.
“Whad you get in my way for?” he cried excitedly. “We got to make a clean sweep now. Got to do it to save ourselves.”
“No. You can’t get the others without getting me first.” McCoy’s voice rang sharp and dominant.
“But, man, don’t you see we’ve got to destroy the evidence against us? Leggo my arm.”
Rowan’s fingers had fastened upon the wrist of the other like steel clamps. His steady eyes were deadly in their intentness.
“You’ve got to kill me before you kill them. Understand?”
Yerby had reached the wagon. He spoke up at once: “Mac is right. We’ve done too much killing already. Good Lord, how did it start?”
Falkner opened his lips to speak, then closed them again. He looked at McCoy and waited savagely for the accusation. But none came. Rowan said nothing.
“First I knew Tait was in the wagon door with his gun and we were all shooting. But someone fired first and brought him out from the wagon. It came from the right. Who was it, Mac?” demanded Rogers.
Cole and Silcott joined them. They had been examining the fallen men.
“Both of them are dead,” said Cole. “I can’t hardly believe it. But it’s so. A bullet got Gilroy right through the heart.”
Rowan looked up quickly. He was white to the lips. “Gilroy? Did we kill Gilroy?” He turned to Larry. “I thought you said he went home to-day.”
“He telephoned his wife he would be home to-night. Must have changed his mind.”
“It cost him his life, poor devil!” Rogers broke out.
“I ain’t so sure it won’t cost us ours,” added Yerby quietly. “If I’d known Gilroy was here to-night, Sam Yerby wouldn’t have gone raiding.”
“That’s right,” agreed Cole. “Tait is one proposition; Gilroy is another. This whole country is going to buzz now. He has hundreds of friends.”
All of them recognized the truth of this. The death of Tait alone would have stirred no resentment. But Gilroy was an old-timer, a quiet, well-respected man who had many friends. He had been sheriff of the county some years before, and at the last election had been chosen county commissioner.
“Who killed him?” asked Rogers again. “Who started this shooting? That’s what I want to know.”
Rowan answered quietly: “The less we know about that the better, boys. We’re all tied up together in this. In the excitement some of us have gone too far. That can’t be helped now. We’ve got to see it out together—got to stand back of each other. Before the law we’re all guilty. The only thing to do is to let to-night’s work be a mystery that is never solved. We’ll fix up a story and all stand by it.”
Yerby broke a long silence. “Well, boys, we better make our get-away. A whole passell of sheriffs will be combing these hills for us soon. Posses will be pouring in like buzzards to a water hole in the desert. I reckon we had better fix up our alibis and then burn the wind for home.”
“Can’t start pushing on our reins any too quick to suit me,” Cole assented.
“That’s the only thing to do,” agreed McCoy. “Sam, you and Brad had better get back to your homes, where you’ve been sleeping all night if any one asks you. Falkner, you go back with us to the ranch. We’ll fix up a story about how you joined us there and bunked with Jack and Larry.”
“What about these?” Rogers indicated with his hand the sprawling bodies of the sheepmen. His voice was a whisper.
“We can’t do anything for them,” answered Rowan. “We’ve got to think of ourselves. If we talk, if we make any mistakes, we’re going to pay the price of what we’ve done. We can’t explain we didn’t intend to kill any one. We’re all in this. The only thing to do is to stand together and keep our mouths shut.”
Everybody was in a sudden hurry to be gone. They tramped back to the pine grove, and hurriedly mounted, eager to put as many miles as possible between them and what was lying at the foot of Bald Knob.
A light snow was already falling. They welcomed it for the protection it offered.
“We’ve bumped into good luck to start with,” said Larry to Cole. “The snow will blot out our tracks. They can’t trail us now.”
Cole nodded. “Yep. That’s so.”
But the thing that had been done chilled their spirits, and the dread as to what was to come of it rested like a weight upon their hearts. Mile after mile they rode, swiftly and silently. More than once Larry glanced over his shoulder with a shudder. He could see the snow sifting into the sightless eyes that stared up at the breaking dawn. Always he had laughed at the superstitions which rode ignorant people, but now he was careful not to bring up the rear of the little procession.
Once an elk crashed out of some brush fifty feet from them. The sudden clamour shook their nerves with dread.
Falkner laughed, but there was only bravado in his voice. “I could ’a’ brought that elk down if it hadn’t been the closed season,” he said.
The man riding next him did not speak aloud the thought that flashed through his mind—that it had been an open season on sheepmen an hour before.
The party broke up at the Three Pines after a hurried agreement as to plans. They were all to meet at the round-up. None of them was to know anything about the raid until news of it came to the camp from outside.
Yerby and Rogers rode into the hills, the rest down to the Circle Diamond.
They covered the ground fast, so as to get into the house before any one was astir with the coming day. Already gray was sifting into the sky, a warning that the night was ending.
Larry, riding beside McCoy, looked furtively at him and asked a question just as they came in sight of the ranch.
“Who shot Gilroy, Mac?”
Rowan looked at him with bleak, expressionless eyes. “We all did.”
“Yes, but——” His whisper died away.
“None of us know who fired the shot. It doesn’t matter. Never forget one thing, Larry. We’re all in the same boat. We sink or swim together.”
“Sure. But whoever it was——”
“We don’t know who it was,” McCoy lied. “We’re not going to try to find out. Forget that, Larry.”
They stabled their horses and stole into the bunk house. Fortunately it was empty, Rowan’s men being at the round-up. McCoy left them there and returned to the house.
He met Mrs. Stovall in the corridor. She was on her way to the kitchen to begin the day’s work.
“I’ve been out looking at one of the horses,” McCoy explained. “Colic, looks like.”
The housekeeper made no comment. It passed through her mind that it was odd he should take his rifle out with him to look at a sick horse.
CHAPTER XIV
ROWAN closed the door of his bedroom with a sick heart. It was characteristic of him that he did not debate his responsibility for the death of the two sheepmen. It did not matter that he had repeatedly warned his friends not to shoot nor that from the beginning to the end of the affair he had not fired his rifle. He could not escape the conviction of guilt by pleading to himself that but for the heady folly of one man the raid would have worked out as planned. Nor did it avail to clear him that he had tried to save the life of Gilroy and had protected the herders from the blood lust of Falkner. Before the law he was a murderer. He had led a band of raiders to an attack in which two men had died.
The rock upon which the venture had split was Falkner’s uncontrolled venom. But for that first shot and the triumphant shout of vengeance Tait could have been captured and held safely a prisoner. Now they all stood within the shadow of the gallows.
The shock of Gilroy’s death was for the time deadened to McCoy by the obligation that lay on him to look out for the safety of his associates. The cattleman did not deceive himself for an instant. The days when men could ride to lawless murder in Wyoming were past. Tom Horn had been hanged in spite of a tremendous influence on his behalf. So it would be now. Shoshone County would flame with indignation at the outrage. A deep cry for justice upon the guilty would run from border to border.
Beyond doubt suspicion would be directed toward them on account of their absence from the round-up camp at the time of the raid. But unless some of them talked there could be no proof. The snow had turned out only a flurry of an inch or two, but it was not likely Matson could reach Bald Knob before night. This would give them till to-morrow morning, by which time the trail would be obliterated. There was the taste of another storm in the air. Unless McCoy was a poor prophet, the ground would be well covered with snow before midnight.
Rowan had collected all of the bandannas used as masks. He intended to burn them in the kitchen stove as he passed through to breakfast. It could not be proved that Rogers and Yerby had not slept at home unless their wives got to gossiping, nor that the others had not spent the night at the Circle Diamond. On the whole they were as safe as men could be who stood over a powder mine that might be fired at any moment.
When the breakfast bell sounded McCoy descended by the back stairs to the kitchen. Mrs. Stovall was just putting a batch of biscuits into the oven.
“Would you mind stepping outside and ringing the bell, Mrs. Stovall?” Rowan asked. “Three of the boys are sleeping in the bunk house. They stayed there last night after we drove the bunch of cows home.”
As soon as his housekeeper had left the room McCoy stepped to the stove, lifted a lid, and stuffed six coloured handkerchiefs into the fire. When Mrs. Stovall returned he was casting a casual eye over the pantry.
“Not short of any supplies, are you, Mrs. Stovall?”
“I’m almost out of sugar and lard.”
“Better make out a list. I’ve got to send one o’ the boys to Wagon Wheel with the team to-morrow.”
The burden of keeping up a pretense of conversation at breakfast rested upon the host and Jack Cole. Silcott was jumpy with nerves, and Falkner was gloomy. As soon as he was alone with the men on the trail to the round-up camp McCoy brought them to time.
“This won’t do, boys. You’ve got to buck up and act as usual. You look as if you were riding to your own funeral, Hal. You’re just as bad, Larry. Both of you have ‘criminal’ written all over you. Keep yore grins working.”
“What am I to do with this gun?” demanded Falkner abruptly. “I got it last night from the bunk house at the Triangle Dot.”
“Did anybody see you get it?”
“No.”
“We’ll have to bury it. You can’t take it into camp with you.”
With their knives they dug a shallow ditch back of a big rock and in it hid the rifle. The ammunition belt was put beside it.
It was perhaps fortunate that by the time they reached camp the riders had scattered to comb Plum Creek for cattle. Rowan sent his companions out to join the drive, while he waited in camp for a talk with Rogers and Yerby, neither of whom had yet arrived.
About noon the two hill cattlemen rode into the draw. The men met in the presence of the cook. They greeted each other with the careless aplomb of the old-timer:
“ ’Lo, Mac!”
“ ’Lo, Sam—Brad! How’s every little thing?”
“Fine. Missie done fixed my game laig up with that ointment good as new. I want to tell you-all that girl is a wiz,” bragged Yerby, firing his tobacco juice at a white rock and making a centre shot.
McCoy breathed freer. Yerby and Rogers could be depended upon to go through the ordeal before them with cool imperturbability. Cole, under fire, would be as steady as a rock. Falkner and Silcott were just now nervous as high-bred colts, but Rowan felt that this was merely the reaction from the shock of the night. When the test came they would face the music all right.
Late in the afternoon the bawling of thirsty cattle gave notice that the gathered stock were nearing camp. Not until the stars were out was there a moment’s rest for anybody.
Supper was eaten by the light of the moon. During this meal a horseman rode up and nodded a greeting.
Young King caught sight of him first. “Hello, Sheriff!” he shouted gaily. “Which of us do you want? And what have we been doing now?”
Rowan’s heart sank. Matson had beaten the time he had allowed him by nearly twenty-four hours. But he turned a wooden face and a cool, impassive eye upon the sheriff.
“ ’Lo, Aleck! Won’t you ’light?”
“Reckon I will, Mac.”
The sheriff swung from his horse stiffly and came forward into the firelight. At least six pairs of eyes watched him closely, but the tanned, leathery face of the officer told nothing.
“Anything new, Matson?” demanded a young cow-puncher. “Don’t forget we’ve been off the map ’most three weeks. Who’s eloped, absconded, married, divorced, or otherwise played billiards with the Ten Commandments?”
Matson sat down tailor fashion and accepted the steak, bread, and coffee offered him.
“The only news on tap when I left town was that the Limited got in on time—yesterday. Few will believe it, but it’s an honest-to-goodness fact. We had it sworn to before a notary.”
CHAPTER XV
IT happened that Sheriff Matson was in the hills on official business and slept at Bovier’s Camp the night of the sheep raid. He was by custom an early riser. The sky was faintly pink with the warning of a coming sun when he stepped out of the house to wash in the tin basin outside the kitchen. As he dried his face on the roller towel there came to him the sound of dragging steps and laboured breathing.
Matson turned. A pallid little man sank down on the step and buried his face in his hands.
“What’s up?” demanded the officer.
The panting man lifted to him eyes which still mirrored the fear of death.
“They—they’ve killed Tait and Gilroy.”
“Who?”
“Raiders.”
“When?”
“This morning—two hours ago.” A shiver shook the fellow like a heavy chill. “My God—it was awful!” he gasped.
The sheriff let fall a strong brown hand on his shoulder. “Tell me about it, Purdy. You were there at the time?”
The man nodded assent. He swallowed a lump in his dry throat and explained: “I been herding for Tait. We bedded at Bald Knob last night. Joe was aiming to go to Thunder Mountain. They—shot up the camp and killed Tait and Gilroy. Jim and me just escaped. We got separated in the brush.”
“Just where was the camp?”
“Right at the foot of Bald Knob.”
“Did you recognize any of the raiders?”
“No. They wore masks.”
“How many were there?”
“About twenty; maybe twenty-five.”
“You’re sure they killed Tait and Gilroy?”
“Don’t I tell you I saw them dead?” quavered the unstrung man with weak irritability.
The cool, hard eyes of the sheriff narrowed to slits. Matson belonged to the class of frontier man hunter which sleeps on the trail of a criminal until he is captured. Not hardship nor discouragement nor friendship would stand in his way. He had a fondness for his work that amounted to a passion and an uncanny capacity for it.
With the news that had just come to him he was a changed man. The careless good nature was sponged from his face. His features seemed to have sharpened. His body had grown tense like a coiled spring. There was in his motions the lithe wariness of the panther stalking its prey for the kill.
A few more sharp, incisive questions told him all Purdy knew. He ordered his horse to be saddled and asked for breakfast at once. Meanwhile he got Wagon Wheel on the long-distance, and rang his deputy up from sleep.
“There has been a big killing at Bald Knob, Lute. Drop everything else. Get together half a dozen good men and ride up to Bovier’s Camp. Bring with you supplies enough for several days. Wait at the camp until you hear from me. Tait and Gilroy killed. By cattlemen, looks like. I’ll know more about that later.”
He ate a hurried breakfast, gathered together a couple of sandwiches for lunch, and struck across country for the raided sheep camp. He plunged into the gray desert, keeping the rampart of hills at his left. In the early-morning light the atmosphere gave to the panorama in front of him an extraordinary effect of space.
As soon as he came in sight of the sheep camp Matson dismounted and tied his horse. He had to pick up a cold trail covered with snow. The fewer unnecessary tracks the better.
The bodies of the sheepmen lay where they had fallen, a light mantle of snow sheeting the still forms. Three empty shells lay close to the rifle of Tait, but Gilroy’s gun had not been fired. It was lying in the wagon, where he had left it when he made his dash to escape.
The contour of the country was such that the attack must have been made from in front. Matson put himself in place of the raiders, and guessed with fair accuracy their plan of operations. The sun had already melted most of the snow, and for hours he quartered over the ground, examining tracks that the untrained eye would never have seen. Sometimes a bit of broken brush, sometimes a leaf trampled into the ground, told him what he wanted to know. Again, it was a worn heel plate that stood out to him like a signpost on the road. Twice he picked up an empty shell that had been thrown out of a rifle during the rush forward.
The boot tracks, faint though they were, led him to the pine grove where the horses had been tethered. Here he went down on his hands and knees, studying the details of every hoofprint that differentiated it from others. The care with which he did this, the intentness of his observation, would have surprised and perhaps amused a tenderfoot. An unskilled tracker, though he might be a Sherlock Holmes in the city, could have discovered nothing here worth learning. Matson found registered marks of identification for horses as certain as those of the Bertillon system for criminals.
With amazing pains he traced the retreat of the raiders to the Three Pines. It was a very difficult piece of trailing, for the snow had wiped out the tracks entirely for stretches of hundreds of yards. Once it was a splash of tobacco juice on a flat rock that told him he was still on the heels of those he wanted. In Shoshone County men will still tell you that Aleck Matson’s feat of running down the night raiders in spite of an intervening snowstorm was the best bit of trailing they ever knew.
From the Three Pines the tracks of most of the party took the sheriff straight to the Circle Diamond Ranch. He dropped in just in time to join Mrs. Stovall at her midday dinner.
They exchanged the casual gossip of the neighbourhood. Presently he steered the talk in the direction he wanted.
“Mac is up at the round-up, I reckon.”
“Yes. He drove a bunch of cattle down last night.”
“So? Any of the boys with him?”
“Three of them. They stayed in the bunk house.”
“I’ve been wanting to see Art Philips. Was he one of them?”
“No. Young Silcott and Jack Cole and Hal Falkner.”
“Went back this morning, did they?” asked Matson casually. He gave rather the impression that he was making conversation to pass the time.
“Right after breakfast.”
“Jack Cole was talking about trading me a Winchester. Don’t suppose he had it with him.”
“No. Hal Falkner had one. A deer had been seen near camp, and he brought it on the chance he might see it again.”
“I like a .30-30 for deer myself. Didn’t happen to notice what Falkner carried?”
Mrs. Stovall shook her head. “A gun is a gun to me.”
“When it comes to guns I reckon a man and a woman are made different. I never see one without wanting to look it over. Mac was going to show me one of his next time I came up to the ranch. I don’t suppose——”
“All his guns are in that little room off the living room, as Mrs. McCoy calls the parlour. Go in and look ’em over if you like.”
The sheriff thanked her and availed himself of the chance. When he came out he found Mrs. Stovall clearing off the table.
“Expect the boys were glad to come down and eat a home-cooked meal at a real table. I’ll bet they were so frolicsome at getting away from camp that they kept you up all hours of the night.”
“They woke me when they first came, but I soon fell asleep. Likely they were tired and turned right in.”
“Sounds reasonable. Well, I’ll be moving along, Mrs. Stovall. Much obliged for that peach cobbler like Mother used to make.”
On his way to the stable Matson dropped in at the bunk house. He made the discovery that at least one of McCoy’s guests had lain on top of the blankets and not under them. Nor had he taken the trouble to remove his boots. The mud stains of the heels were plainly printed on the wool.
The officer smiled. “Just made a bluff of lying down; figured it wasn’t worth while taking off his boots for a few minutes. I’ll bet that was Falkner. He’s a roughneck, anyhow.”
Matson rode back to the Three Pines, and from there followed the trail of the two horses that had turned into the hills at this point. By the middle of the afternoon it brought him to the Circle B R, a ranch which nestled at the foot of the big peaks in a little mountain park.
It took no clairvoyant to see that Mrs. Rogers was not glad to see him. Unless her face libelled her, she had been weeping. Her eyes flew a flag of alarm as soon as they fell upon him.
“G’afternoon, Mrs. Rogers. Brad home?”
“No. He’s at the round-up.”
“Gone back, has he?”
She considered a moment before a reluctant “Yes” fell from her lips.
“Reckon I’ll ride over to the camp. Is it still at the foot of the Flat Tops?”
“Yes.” Then, as if something within forced the words out in spite of her, she added: “Are you looking for Brad?”
“I want to have a talk with him.”
His eyes told him that she was in a flutter of apprehension. He guessed that the dread which all day had weighed on her heart was no longer a dull, dead thing in her bosom. Her lips were ashen.
“Maybe—maybe I could tell him what it was.”
“Oh, I’ll ride over. When did he leave?”
“I don’t rightly know just when,” she faltered.
It was clear that she feared to arouse his suspicion by refusing to talk and that she was equally afraid of telling too much.
The sheriff smiled grimly as he rode across the hills. He had five of the raiders identified already—five out of either six or seven, he wasn’t quite sure which. He glanced across toward Bald Knob, and judged from the sky that it was already snowing over there. If he had been at Wagon Wheel instead of at Bovier’s Camp when Purdy panted in with the news of the killing he could not have arrived in time to pick up the trail. His luck had stood up fine. That the evidence against the lawbreakers would sift in to him now he had no doubt. He intended that this should be the last night raid ever made in Shoshone County. Unless the district attorney fell down on his job, more than one of the Bald Knob raiders would end with a rope around his throat.
Matson admitted to himself a certain surprise that McCoy and Rogers should be involved in such an affair. Sheep raids were one thing; murder was quite another. The sheriff liked Rowan. The cattleman was straight as a string. His word was good against that of any man in the district. It was known that he would fight, but it was hard to think of him as planning the cold-blooded murder of an enemy.
The sheriff knew how high the feelings ran between the sheep and cattle interests. The cattlemen knew they were facing ruin because Tait and his associates maintained the right to run sheep upon any range just as others ran stock. To them it seemed that the intruders had no right whatever to the range. It belonged to cattle by right of a long-time prior occupancy. Moreover, under the leadership of Tait the sheepmen had been particularly obnoxious. They had refused to recognize any dead line whatever and their attitude had been in the nature of a boastful challenge.
It was generally known that several of the cattlemen had personal grievances against Tait. First there was McCoy, with one that dated back several years. Silcott had been wounded by the sheepman and Falkner had been badly beaten by him. Cole, too, had quarrelled with him. One of these four might have started the shooting, Matson reasoned, or Tait might have done so himself. Legally, the question was not a vital one, since Tait had been shot down while defending his property against attack. Those who had ridden on the raid were guilty of murder no matter who fired the first shot.
Yet Matson was puzzled. McCoy had been the leader of the group. There could be no doubt about that. His was far and away the strongest personality. And McCoy usually thought straight. He did not muddle his brain with false reasoning. How, then, had he come to do such a thing?
As the sheriff sat by the campfire at the round-up later, it was even more difficult to think of this clean, level-eyed boss of the rodeo as an ambusher by night. The whole record of the man rose up to give the lie to the story that he had ridden out to kill his foe in the dark. While Sam Yerby entertained the boys with one of his trail songs, Matson’s mind was going over the facts he had gathered.