CHAPTER VIEVIDENCE IN THE CASEAt the outer end of a long ride, a circle which was carrying them deep into the Bad Lands lining the north side of the Missouri River, Robin found himself riding beside Mark Steele after all the other riders save Tommy Thatcher, Tex Matthews and himself had been turned off. They had fallen into pairs. Thatcher and Matthews jogged fifty yards in the rear.“You mentioned rustlers one time to me,” Robin said guilefully. “I haven’t seen no sign of crooked work. Did you dream somebody was draggin’ the long rope on the Block S range?”“If you were awake,” Mark retorted, “you might notice that slick-ears is damned scarce in this rough country where there’s generally plenty on account of bunches being missed here and there.”“Maybe so,” Robin answered. “But I haven’t noticed anything that looked like a maverick totin’ a strange brand, either.”“Look here.” Shining Mark lowered his voice. “What I said to you and what I say now is not for publication. I told you because you work for old Mayne and I reckon he can’t afford to have his stock stolen. You can tell old Dan what I said if you like—but you can tell him likewise that if I hear any loose talk about cow thieves there’ll be dust flyin’ around him. I know what’s goin’ on. I don’t want no rustler tipped off that I’m on his trail. You tell old Mayne to either keep his face closed or stop drinkin’ whisky.”“Why don’t you tell him yourself,” Robin suggested mildly.“I’m tellin’youto tell him,” Steele drawled coolly. “You’ll see him first, I guess. And that goes for anybody.Sabe?”He shot the last word at Robin as if it were a challenge.“Don’t know as I do, but I hear what you say,” Robin answered slowly.Steele rode along looking sidewise at him now and then. Robin was sensitive to impressions. He felt that this slender and capable range foreman regarded him with suspicion and annoyance, and a touch of contempt. Whether there was more in the back of Mark Steele’s mind Robin couldn’t say. Mark’s words did sound like a threat. Robin suspected Steele meant his message to Dan Mayne to be taken as a threat. It was as if he said, “You fellows keep off my trail or you’ll get hurt.”It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the cow business, Robin knew, that a range boss had used his delegated power and freedom of movement to feather his own nest at the expense of other people. Nor would Shining Mark be the first man to grow restive and see red when he found himself in danger.Robin knew he had to be wary—or blind. Steele was obliquely warning him that he and Dan Mayne had better be blind. But he did not let Steele know that he so understood. He simply said:“So long as this sight unseen cow thief don’t show his mark on anything belonging to the man I work for, I leave him—or them—to you. The Block S can take care of its own.”“You’re damned right it can,” Steele said tartly, “long as I run it. I don’t like cow thieves, myself.”Again that curious repetition, emphasised Robin had no acquaintance with classic literature, or he might have retorted: “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”As it was he said nothing.A mile farther Steele pulled up. When the other two came abreast he pointed into a ravine pitching down to a steep-walled canyon.“You and Tex,” he instructed Robin, “drop in here and get across on top of that other bench. Shove everything from there on back to camp. We’ll take in the flat at the river and come up the bottom of the canyon.”They parted. When Matthews and Robin reached the high bench across the canyon the other two were near the drop-off into the river, riding fast. Robin reflected that if there were any Bar M Bar cows with unbranded calves in that river flat they would probably stay there. But orders were orders. He couldn’t go one place when he had been told to go elsewhere. A range boss’s word was law on round-up. If a “rep” didn’t like it he could cut his string and go home.Bunches of cattle dotted the long, narrow plateau they had gained. The wild brutes fled before them until the dry soil smoked under their feet. All they had to do was lope and yell now and then. The cattle could only follow that bench north to the round-up ground. Where Tex and Robin crossed the canyon was the only possible crossing in ten miles.But though Steele had ordered them to work back from there, between them and the river the bench held other cattle.Tex rested both hands on his saddle horn and looked south. He frowned. A cow-puncher on circle is supposed to get all the cattle in sight except on ground he knows will be swept by other riders. They were both aware of that. Robin didn’t need to ask what Tex was thinking.“He wasn’t none too clear, was he, kid?” Tex remarked. “He said to work back. But if one of ’em don’t come up behind us there’ll be a parcel of stuff missed.”“Let’s linger awhile,” Robin suggested. “See if one of ’em shows up. They’ll be in the river bottom by now.”They got down off their horses, sought the shade of a clump of jack pine. Half an hour passed. Those distant cattle fed undisturbed.“If they came up the canyon they ought to be abreast of here now.” Robin broke a long silence.“Yep. Let’s ride,” Tex muttered.“Which way?”“Look into the canyon first.”A view of that deep gorge, straight-walled, floored with sage, gave sight of cattle feeding quietly between them and the river.“No riders in sight,” Tex commented. “Maybe they went swimmin’. Reckon we better get those cattle below us on the bench, kid.”“Mark’ll bawl us out if one of them does come up behind us,” Robin observed. “But I ain’t workin’ for the Block S. I don’t want to miss cattle.”“We ain’t supposed to miss cattle,” Tex replied. “As a matter of fact I remember now that a man can’t ride up on this bench from the river bottom. Steele and Thatcher got to come up the canyon. I was mixed up on that proposition a couple of years ago on a pack trip down here. Mark knows that too. I guess he forgot.”They turned and rode south. Because to ride down the bench openly would start every hoof running toward the blind cliff overlooking the Big Muddy they sought the farther side and worked along under the brow, out of sight, until they judged they were south of the last bunch. It was rough going on steep sidehills with loose earth crumbling underfoot, gullies to scramble over, thickets of jack pine to scrub their faces with low branches.They came out on the bench again less than half a mile from the plateau end. Between them and where they had crossed the canyon at least a hundred and fifty cattle showed.“Shucks, there sure would have been a bunch of stuff missed,” Tex grunted.“Let’s take a look into the bottom,” Robin said. “Let’s look at the old Missouri once more for a change.”“Go look your head off,” Matthews said good-naturedly. “I’ve seen her plenty. I near drowned in her two or three times. She’s no beautiful sight I long to see.”“All right. I’ll catch you.”Robin headed for the end of the bench on a high run. He wanted to look. He didn’t know what he expected to see. He didn’t know if there was anything to be seen.What he did lay eyes on was sufficient to make him whirl his horse back out of sight the moment his eyes peered over the high bank. Then he dismounted, crawled to the rim and lay flat on his stomach, just as he had lain and looked that afternoon on Birch Creek, a deeply interested spectator.There was a good deal of activity in that lonely bottom. Fairly in the middle of a flat three hundred yards wide and half a mile long Steele and Thatcher had bunched about a hundred head of cattle of all ages. With only two riders to hold them this herd surged first one way then another and the two horsemen kept their mounts on the jump. Yet now and then one or the other managed by a combination of speed and skill to cut off a cow and a calf and turn them toward the blind end of the flat.Robin watched for half an hour. By that time the job was done. At least thirty cows and calves had been separated from the herd. Then Steele and Thatcher headed the remnant of mixed stuff into the mouth of the wide canyon.Robin mounted and sped south to overtake Matthews, who loped along with little bunches of wild cattle streaking out ahead of him. Robin had seen enough. Back in that bottom was a lot of fine material for Steele and Thatcher to work on at their leisure when round-up was over. No riders would sweep that territory for seven months. Those cows and calves would winter in the bottom. They would not see a rider until that precious pair came down to run the T Bar S on the calves. God only knew what would befall the cows. But whatever happened to them, long before spring, cows and calves would be separated, and the fresh brand scars healed. No one would ever question that indelible mark of ownership.Robin was satisfied up to a certain point. He had an idea how they worked. He knew who they were. No doubt of that remained. He was pretty sure that although there might be Bar M Bars in that throwback, there must be other brands, that in every place where this pair of thieves took the outside circle there would be cows and calves thrown back to be worked on later. Robin felt sure they played no favorites. He wondered what Adam Sutherland would say if he knew. He did not have to wonder how Dan Mayne would take it. Robin wished he had prevailed on Tex to ride with him to that jump-off. He had only his own word, as yet, in spite of what he had seen. So he couldn’t talk, even to Tex Matthews, whom he liked and felt he could trust. He could only relate this tale of wonders beheld to Dan Mayne, whom he couldn’t trust to keep still.Still, Robin was sanguine that in time, in not too great a span of time, Steele and Thatcher, with a little secret assistance from himself, would tangle themselves in their own ropes. The stock inspectors would get them, if a necktie party from the Bear Paws didn’t get them first.He rode fast. He wanted to be well ahead of those two driving the canyon. He took the opposite side of the bench from Tex and stirred the running cattle to even greater speed. Matthews spurred up to join him.“Hey, what’s the rush?” he inquired. “What for the Blocker graze? Sutherland wouldn’t thank you for meltin’ the tallow off’n his steers’ ribs thataway.”Robin let that go by. It struck him that he had better stop Tex from casual talking.“Say, Tex,” he put it bluntly. “Don’t you let out I rode down where I could look into the river bottom, will you?”Matthews stared at him for a second. Robin matched his gaze without change of expression. The Texan suddenly shrugged his shoulders.“I’m deef, dumb an’ blind,” said he. “What’d we do? Cross the canyon, see a few head behind us, a little back, an’ get ’em?”“Yes, if anybody asks,” Robin agreed.“Guess maybe wehadbetter run a little fat off these steers,” Tex drawled, “else we sure will have Mark inquirin’ where in hell we were at. An’ you don’t want him gettin’ curious? Eh?”“You’re gettin’ curious?”The Texan shook his head.“I been on many a cow range since I quit the Rio Grande,” said he. “An’ on some of ’em I learned not to be curious. It’s a wise cow-hand that knows enough to keep his mouth shut. The flies don’t get in.”“Blow flies,” Robin muttered.Tex laughed.“You’re a bright kid,” he said teasingly. “Let’s push these cows on an’ talk about the weather.”They hazed the cattle up the bench, between those gaudy canyons, torn out of the plains level as if by some Gargantuan plow. Robin loped over to the rim of the canyon once for a look down. Cattle were running. He could see the glint and flash of shining horns. Far back a haze of dust showed where Steele and Thatcher were punching up the drag. Robin felt easier. He and Tex were well ahead of that thieving pair. Mark would not be suspicious of spying from above.Nearly an hour after they threw their cattle on the round-up ground Steele and Thatcher came in with a couple of hundred head. They were the last drive. Their horses were rough with sweat, tired. When they rode into camp to catch fresh mounts to work the herd Mark commented on their ride. To Robin it seemed like overdoing the thing.“Ten miles for nothing,” Mark observed to him casually. “There was a lot of stuff in the canyon, but hardly a dozen head in the river bottom.”
At the outer end of a long ride, a circle which was carrying them deep into the Bad Lands lining the north side of the Missouri River, Robin found himself riding beside Mark Steele after all the other riders save Tommy Thatcher, Tex Matthews and himself had been turned off. They had fallen into pairs. Thatcher and Matthews jogged fifty yards in the rear.
“You mentioned rustlers one time to me,” Robin said guilefully. “I haven’t seen no sign of crooked work. Did you dream somebody was draggin’ the long rope on the Block S range?”
“If you were awake,” Mark retorted, “you might notice that slick-ears is damned scarce in this rough country where there’s generally plenty on account of bunches being missed here and there.”
“Maybe so,” Robin answered. “But I haven’t noticed anything that looked like a maverick totin’ a strange brand, either.”
“Look here.” Shining Mark lowered his voice. “What I said to you and what I say now is not for publication. I told you because you work for old Mayne and I reckon he can’t afford to have his stock stolen. You can tell old Dan what I said if you like—but you can tell him likewise that if I hear any loose talk about cow thieves there’ll be dust flyin’ around him. I know what’s goin’ on. I don’t want no rustler tipped off that I’m on his trail. You tell old Mayne to either keep his face closed or stop drinkin’ whisky.”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself,” Robin suggested mildly.
“I’m tellin’youto tell him,” Steele drawled coolly. “You’ll see him first, I guess. And that goes for anybody.Sabe?”
He shot the last word at Robin as if it were a challenge.
“Don’t know as I do, but I hear what you say,” Robin answered slowly.
Steele rode along looking sidewise at him now and then. Robin was sensitive to impressions. He felt that this slender and capable range foreman regarded him with suspicion and annoyance, and a touch of contempt. Whether there was more in the back of Mark Steele’s mind Robin couldn’t say. Mark’s words did sound like a threat. Robin suspected Steele meant his message to Dan Mayne to be taken as a threat. It was as if he said, “You fellows keep off my trail or you’ll get hurt.”
It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the cow business, Robin knew, that a range boss had used his delegated power and freedom of movement to feather his own nest at the expense of other people. Nor would Shining Mark be the first man to grow restive and see red when he found himself in danger.
Robin knew he had to be wary—or blind. Steele was obliquely warning him that he and Dan Mayne had better be blind. But he did not let Steele know that he so understood. He simply said:
“So long as this sight unseen cow thief don’t show his mark on anything belonging to the man I work for, I leave him—or them—to you. The Block S can take care of its own.”
“You’re damned right it can,” Steele said tartly, “long as I run it. I don’t like cow thieves, myself.”
Again that curious repetition, emphasised Robin had no acquaintance with classic literature, or he might have retorted: “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”
As it was he said nothing.
A mile farther Steele pulled up. When the other two came abreast he pointed into a ravine pitching down to a steep-walled canyon.
“You and Tex,” he instructed Robin, “drop in here and get across on top of that other bench. Shove everything from there on back to camp. We’ll take in the flat at the river and come up the bottom of the canyon.”
They parted. When Matthews and Robin reached the high bench across the canyon the other two were near the drop-off into the river, riding fast. Robin reflected that if there were any Bar M Bar cows with unbranded calves in that river flat they would probably stay there. But orders were orders. He couldn’t go one place when he had been told to go elsewhere. A range boss’s word was law on round-up. If a “rep” didn’t like it he could cut his string and go home.
Bunches of cattle dotted the long, narrow plateau they had gained. The wild brutes fled before them until the dry soil smoked under their feet. All they had to do was lope and yell now and then. The cattle could only follow that bench north to the round-up ground. Where Tex and Robin crossed the canyon was the only possible crossing in ten miles.
But though Steele had ordered them to work back from there, between them and the river the bench held other cattle.
Tex rested both hands on his saddle horn and looked south. He frowned. A cow-puncher on circle is supposed to get all the cattle in sight except on ground he knows will be swept by other riders. They were both aware of that. Robin didn’t need to ask what Tex was thinking.
“He wasn’t none too clear, was he, kid?” Tex remarked. “He said to work back. But if one of ’em don’t come up behind us there’ll be a parcel of stuff missed.”
“Let’s linger awhile,” Robin suggested. “See if one of ’em shows up. They’ll be in the river bottom by now.”
They got down off their horses, sought the shade of a clump of jack pine. Half an hour passed. Those distant cattle fed undisturbed.
“If they came up the canyon they ought to be abreast of here now.” Robin broke a long silence.
“Yep. Let’s ride,” Tex muttered.
“Which way?”
“Look into the canyon first.”
A view of that deep gorge, straight-walled, floored with sage, gave sight of cattle feeding quietly between them and the river.
“No riders in sight,” Tex commented. “Maybe they went swimmin’. Reckon we better get those cattle below us on the bench, kid.”
“Mark’ll bawl us out if one of them does come up behind us,” Robin observed. “But I ain’t workin’ for the Block S. I don’t want to miss cattle.”
“We ain’t supposed to miss cattle,” Tex replied. “As a matter of fact I remember now that a man can’t ride up on this bench from the river bottom. Steele and Thatcher got to come up the canyon. I was mixed up on that proposition a couple of years ago on a pack trip down here. Mark knows that too. I guess he forgot.”
They turned and rode south. Because to ride down the bench openly would start every hoof running toward the blind cliff overlooking the Big Muddy they sought the farther side and worked along under the brow, out of sight, until they judged they were south of the last bunch. It was rough going on steep sidehills with loose earth crumbling underfoot, gullies to scramble over, thickets of jack pine to scrub their faces with low branches.
They came out on the bench again less than half a mile from the plateau end. Between them and where they had crossed the canyon at least a hundred and fifty cattle showed.
“Shucks, there sure would have been a bunch of stuff missed,” Tex grunted.
“Let’s take a look into the bottom,” Robin said. “Let’s look at the old Missouri once more for a change.”
“Go look your head off,” Matthews said good-naturedly. “I’ve seen her plenty. I near drowned in her two or three times. She’s no beautiful sight I long to see.”
“All right. I’ll catch you.”
Robin headed for the end of the bench on a high run. He wanted to look. He didn’t know what he expected to see. He didn’t know if there was anything to be seen.
What he did lay eyes on was sufficient to make him whirl his horse back out of sight the moment his eyes peered over the high bank. Then he dismounted, crawled to the rim and lay flat on his stomach, just as he had lain and looked that afternoon on Birch Creek, a deeply interested spectator.
There was a good deal of activity in that lonely bottom. Fairly in the middle of a flat three hundred yards wide and half a mile long Steele and Thatcher had bunched about a hundred head of cattle of all ages. With only two riders to hold them this herd surged first one way then another and the two horsemen kept their mounts on the jump. Yet now and then one or the other managed by a combination of speed and skill to cut off a cow and a calf and turn them toward the blind end of the flat.
Robin watched for half an hour. By that time the job was done. At least thirty cows and calves had been separated from the herd. Then Steele and Thatcher headed the remnant of mixed stuff into the mouth of the wide canyon.
Robin mounted and sped south to overtake Matthews, who loped along with little bunches of wild cattle streaking out ahead of him. Robin had seen enough. Back in that bottom was a lot of fine material for Steele and Thatcher to work on at their leisure when round-up was over. No riders would sweep that territory for seven months. Those cows and calves would winter in the bottom. They would not see a rider until that precious pair came down to run the T Bar S on the calves. God only knew what would befall the cows. But whatever happened to them, long before spring, cows and calves would be separated, and the fresh brand scars healed. No one would ever question that indelible mark of ownership.
Robin was satisfied up to a certain point. He had an idea how they worked. He knew who they were. No doubt of that remained. He was pretty sure that although there might be Bar M Bars in that throwback, there must be other brands, that in every place where this pair of thieves took the outside circle there would be cows and calves thrown back to be worked on later. Robin felt sure they played no favorites. He wondered what Adam Sutherland would say if he knew. He did not have to wonder how Dan Mayne would take it. Robin wished he had prevailed on Tex to ride with him to that jump-off. He had only his own word, as yet, in spite of what he had seen. So he couldn’t talk, even to Tex Matthews, whom he liked and felt he could trust. He could only relate this tale of wonders beheld to Dan Mayne, whom he couldn’t trust to keep still.
Still, Robin was sanguine that in time, in not too great a span of time, Steele and Thatcher, with a little secret assistance from himself, would tangle themselves in their own ropes. The stock inspectors would get them, if a necktie party from the Bear Paws didn’t get them first.
He rode fast. He wanted to be well ahead of those two driving the canyon. He took the opposite side of the bench from Tex and stirred the running cattle to even greater speed. Matthews spurred up to join him.
“Hey, what’s the rush?” he inquired. “What for the Blocker graze? Sutherland wouldn’t thank you for meltin’ the tallow off’n his steers’ ribs thataway.”
Robin let that go by. It struck him that he had better stop Tex from casual talking.
“Say, Tex,” he put it bluntly. “Don’t you let out I rode down where I could look into the river bottom, will you?”
Matthews stared at him for a second. Robin matched his gaze without change of expression. The Texan suddenly shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m deef, dumb an’ blind,” said he. “What’d we do? Cross the canyon, see a few head behind us, a little back, an’ get ’em?”
“Yes, if anybody asks,” Robin agreed.
“Guess maybe wehadbetter run a little fat off these steers,” Tex drawled, “else we sure will have Mark inquirin’ where in hell we were at. An’ you don’t want him gettin’ curious? Eh?”
“You’re gettin’ curious?”
The Texan shook his head.
“I been on many a cow range since I quit the Rio Grande,” said he. “An’ on some of ’em I learned not to be curious. It’s a wise cow-hand that knows enough to keep his mouth shut. The flies don’t get in.”
“Blow flies,” Robin muttered.
Tex laughed.
“You’re a bright kid,” he said teasingly. “Let’s push these cows on an’ talk about the weather.”
They hazed the cattle up the bench, between those gaudy canyons, torn out of the plains level as if by some Gargantuan plow. Robin loped over to the rim of the canyon once for a look down. Cattle were running. He could see the glint and flash of shining horns. Far back a haze of dust showed where Steele and Thatcher were punching up the drag. Robin felt easier. He and Tex were well ahead of that thieving pair. Mark would not be suspicious of spying from above.
Nearly an hour after they threw their cattle on the round-up ground Steele and Thatcher came in with a couple of hundred head. They were the last drive. Their horses were rough with sweat, tired. When they rode into camp to catch fresh mounts to work the herd Mark commented on their ride. To Robin it seemed like overdoing the thing.
“Ten miles for nothing,” Mark observed to him casually. “There was a lot of stuff in the canyon, but hardly a dozen head in the river bottom.”