Kitabı oku: «The Free Range», sayfa 5
CHAPTER IX
THE MAN IN THE MASK
As Bud Larkin jogged along on Pinte, apparently one of the group of men with whom he was riding, he wondered mechanically why his captors insisted on traveling ten miles to a tree sufficiently stout to bear his weight.
“I should think they’d stand me up and do the business with a bullet,” he thought.
But a moment’s reflection furnished the answer to this query. These men were cattle-rustlers and horse-thieves, than which no more hazardous existence ever was since the gentle days of West Indian piracy, and to them merely a single pistol shot might mean betrayal of their whereabouts, capture and death.
The character of the country through which they rode gave sufficient evidence of their care in all details, for it was a rough, wild, uninhabitable section that boasted, on its craggy heights and rough coulees, barely enough vegetation to support a wild mustang.
It was three o’clock of the afternoon and behind them the party could still see the place where they had camped. Joe Parker, fearful of stirring about much until the thoughts of range-riders were turning homeward like their ponies’ steps, had delayed the departure beyond the hour first intended.
The rustlers really did not want to dispose of Larkin. Being plainsmen, their acute sense of justice told them that this man was absolutely guiltless of any crime deserving of death. Untoward circumstances had forced him into their hands, and, like the boy with the fly-paper, they were unable to get rid of him peaceably. Their abuse of his insane folly was colorful and vivid.
But Larkin had reasons for his stubborn attitude. With the arrogance of youth and the inexperience of real danger, he had resolved that as soon as his sheep should be safely up the range he would devote some time, money, and effort to the running down of these rustlers. Some of their faces were unforgetably stamped on his memory now, and he had no doubt that he could be of great service to Wyoming Territory, which was just at this time petitioning for the dignity of Statehood.
He had known the losses and insolence of rustlers on his own sheep ranch in Montana, and, like every sympathizer with justice and order, had sworn to himself many times that all of them should be run to earth.
The longer Bud remained with the rustlers the more nervous some of them became. Since morning a number had been wearing masks made of their neckerchiefs, and one man had not shown his face since the moment he rode into camp after the all-night drive. This man’s peculiar actions piqued Bud’s curiosity, and he tried a number of times to draw him into conversation. But the rustler refused to speak and moved away whenever he found himself in the prisoner’s vicinity.
About five o’clock the cavalcade arrived at a point where, ahead of them, through the barren buttes and hogbacks, they could see the long, level expanse of the range; and, about half-way to the horizon, a line of trees that indicated the snake-like progress of a river. Here Joe called a halt and gave orders that the party should lie concealed until after dark, as the remainder of their business could then be conducted with less danger to themselves.
Accordingly the horsemen turned away from the trail they had been following and after fifteen minutes of tortuous riding, made camp on the other side of a particularly uninviting wall of rock.
After eating supper prepared around the little fires Larkin saw the rustlers all gather into a circle and start drawing lots. He shivered a little at the thought that this was his execution party being made up.
Four men had been designated as the number to see Larkin off on his long journey, and when at last the drawing was finished it was found that Joe Parker, the masked rider, and two others had been selected.
As darkness drew on Parker began to lose his patience with Bud.
“Look-a-here, Larkin,” he drawled, “I don’t love no sheepmen, noways, an’ I never did, but you ain’t no ordinary ’walker’ an’ I ain’t ashamed to talk with y’u. Now the boys want to meet y’u half-way on this business, an’ you won’t do it. All you got to say is that you won’t appear agin any of us in any court, an’ won’t ever say anythin’ agin any of us. Now what in blazes you’re actin’ like a mule balkin’ at a shadder for, I dunno. Be sensible.”
But to all such entreaties Larkin remained unmoved.
“If you hang me,” he said, “you’ll only hang yourselves, for all the sheepmen in Wyoming as well as the men from my own ranch will come down here, join with the cattlemen, and clean you fellows out. And if my Basque herders start in on you don’t imagine you will have the luxury of hanging. They’ll take their skinning knives and work from the neck down. No, I’d advise you to let me go and take your chances rather than kill me and wait.”
Such talk as this made a great impression on some of the rustlers and again opened up the subject of letting Larkin off. But the majority held firm and the sentence stood.
It was perhaps eight o’clock when the party of four approached Larkin and roused him up. This time his hands were bound behind his back and he noticed that the masked rustler was fastening them tightly but with a rotten rawhide. This peculiar circumstance caused a wild thrill to flash all through Larkin’s being. Perhaps, after all, here was the weak link in the rustler’s chain. The surmise became a certainty when the man, unobserved by his companions, sawed Bud’s arms back and forth, showing him the quickest and easiest way to work them loose.
Then came the greatest surprise of all. The man, who had spoken no word the whole time, thrust a heavy .45 revolver into his trouser-pocket. To permit this being done the eight-inch barrel had been sawed off five inches short, ruining the gun for ordinary use, but making it particularly handy and light for close work.
This action convinced Larkin that the man in the mask was not only willing that he should escape, but was actually determined that the event should occur. He also knew that he could count on the support of this ally in the final moment when the four men must fight it out two and two.
Whether this sudden change of aspect was the result of a determination by a minority of the rustlers not to let the execution take place, or whether by some miraculous means one of his own friends had succeeded in joining the organization, he could not determine, although he tried to sound the man in the mask when the others were busy with their horses. His only reply was a low hiss commanding silence.
A quarter past the hour found them on their way, the ponies picking their path gingerly over the bad ground until they reached the range. Here the three rustlers drew up short, for in the distance could be seen the twinkling of a camp-fire.
“One of the Bar T punchers,” said Joe; “but I reckon he won’t hear us.”
For half a mile further they walked their horses, and then urged them to a trot in the direction of the river whose tree-lined banks they had seen late in the afternoon. They paused only once in this place, and then to cross a small stream that lay in their path.
As he rode Larkin worked his arms cautiously back and forth until he felt the rotten rawhide give, and knew that a single violent motion would free him entirely. But he refrained from making that motion, feeling certain that the man in the mask would give the signal when the time was ripe.
At last they discerned the loom of the trees against the low northern sky and pulled their horses to a walk, until they arrived directly underneath a big cottonwood, which stood in sinister readiness.
“Here’s your last chance,” said Parker in a low voice. “If you swear as we have told you, you can go free now. We take a man’s word out here.”
“Never,” replied Larkin firmly. “Don’t waste time talking.”
“Shore not,” rejoined the other. “We always grant a man’s last request. Come on, boys, let’s finish this thing quick.”
He had hardly spoken when from the distance came the sound of rapid revolver firing, mingled with the wild shouts of men. For a few moments the drama beneath the cottonwood came to an abrupt halt.
“By gum!” cried Joe, “the Bar T punchers have found the boys and there’s the devil to pay back there. Lively, now.”
One of the others took his lariat from the throng at the side of his saddle and heaved the coil over an outstretched limb of the cottonwood. He had hardly done so when another sound reached them, a low, menacing rumble that grew momentarily louder until it reached a dull roar.
“A stampede!” bawled one of the men; “and it’s heading this way.”
Joe and the man in the mask still on their horses led Pinte directly beneath the limb of the cottonwood, and the former reached down to take the noose of the rope from the one who had arranged it. Suddenly Larkin felt a hand fumbling with the rawhide about his arms, and a low voice in his ear whispered: “Now.”
With the same motion Bud wrenched his hands free and dug his spurs into the sides of his horse. Pinte, startled, leaped forward just as Larkin drew the revolver from his pocket.
Joe, though caught by surprise, did not let go of the bridle that was wound about his right hand, but a blinding shot from the gun of the man in the mask did the work. With a groan Parker pitched forward out of his saddle and fell to the ground just as Larkin fired pointblank at the third man who appeared before him, still on foot.
The fellow went down, but not until a yellow stab of light flashed up from where he had been and Bud felt the wind of a bullet as it sped past his cheek. The fourth man was nowhere to be seen.
The stranger in the mask and the man he had rescued were now alone, but their thoughts were fully occupied. The sound of the distant stampede had become a veritable rumbling roar that told of its nearing proximity. Aside from this drumming of many feet, there was no sound, for the animals of the range when in the grip of panic are silent.
With glazed eyes and muscles strained to the utmost they thundered into the dark, unconscious and heedless of the sure destruction in their path. It was as though thousands of creatures, with their brains removed, had been turned loose to run at will.
“To the river!” cried the masked man, suddenly panic-stricken, spurring his horse in the direction of the stream.
But Larkin was at his heels, and in a moment had seized the other’s bridle and thrown the horse back on his haunches.
“No!” bawled he at the top of his voice. “The bank here is twenty feet high, and at the bottom are rocks.”
“Better a jump and a chance than sure death in the stampede,” yelled the stranger, but Bud would not yield and drew the horse back.
“We can divide the herd,” he cried. “Come, we haven’t a moment to lose!”
They wheeled as one and dashed out of the brush into the open of the range. The earth was now trembling beneath them and the pounding feet sounded a low, steady note, ominous with warning. Occasionally there was a revolver shot, but this was the only other sound.
Straight toward the oncoming living avalanche the two men rode until they had left an open space a hundred yards wide behind them. Then they pulled up short and dismounted.
Now out of the threatening thunder sounded a single individual note, the rapid beating of a horse’s feet – some horse that was bearing a desperate rider ahead of the stampede but powerless to avoid it.
Instantly Larkin saw the picture of the yawning precipice toward which the frantic rider was hurrying at breakneck speed. He raised his revolver and fired into the air. The signal was instantly acted on, for in another moment a lathering, heaving pony dashed up to them, and the rider leaped to the ground.
“Oh, what shall I do? Hello! Who are you?” cried a female voice, and Larkin’s heart leaped as though it had turned over in its place.
“Juliet!” he cried, seizing the girl with one arm and drawing her close.
“Bud!” For an instant she clung to him.
“Lead the horses together and shoot them!” he ordered, although the others could scarcely hear him.
Every instant was priceless now, for dimly at the edge of their vision the front wave of the living, leaping tide could be seen.
Larkin swung the girl’s horse alongside Pinte, and without a thought or a pang shot them both. They fell one on top of the other. Then the stranger in the mask led his animal in front of the two that had fallen and put a bullet through its brain. All now leaped behind this still throbbing barricade.
“Got a gun, Julie?” demanded Bud.
“Yes.”
“Give it to me and load mine from your belt.” They exchanged weapons and the girl with practiced hand slipped the cartridges into their chambers. The unknown had drawn two guns from some place in his equipment, and now the three peered over their shelter.
The advance line of animals was scarcely twenty-five yards away, and, with a clutch of horror at his heart, Bud recognized that they were not cattle as he had supposed, but sheep – his own two thousand.
In the instant that remained he remembered the shots and shouting of a quarter-hour before, and realized that the animals had been stampeded deliberately.
“Let ’er go,” he screamed above the tumult, “and yell like blazes!”
On the word yellow fire streamed out from the four guns and, accompanying it, a perfect bedlam of shrieks and cries. The sheep were now upon them, and the hail of bullets dropped some in their headlong career, piling them up against the horses and adding to the barricade. But it could not stop all, and a stream of the animals made its way over the bodies up to the very mouths of the spitting guns.
Now others stumbled and fell, to be instantly engulfed by the swirling flood behind; small, sharp feet were caught between the limbs of the struggling mass that eddied about the dead horses. Still the yellow fire stabbed out into the faces of the middlers – for now the leaders were already piling up mangled and dying in the rocky river-bed – but, past each side of this island of expiring creatures, thundered a vast, heaving stream, turbulent, silent, irrevocable.
The man in the mask with a revolver in each hand was firing steadily, and Larkin, thrilled at the sight of his apparent coolness, turned to look at him.
To his amazement he found that the mask had fallen or been snatched away. Again the man fired, and Bud Larkin’s jaw fell as he gazed on the queer, unmistakable features of the man who had saved his life that night.
It was Smithy Caldwell.
The sheep mind has the power of tenacity, but not that of change. There was scarcely a shot left in the guns, and still the fear-blinded animals battered at the growing wall of dead and dying that divided them. But at last they began to push to each side, and gradually the idea of splitting took full hold.
Then the prisoners behind the dead horses sank down in almost hysterical relief, for there was no danger that any more would attempt to mount the barricade. In fact, had the obstacle to their progress been suddenly removed, the stampeded herds would have continued to split for an indefinite period.
Now, listening, Larkin could hear the crash of the animals through the underbrush and the horrid, sickening sounds of the writhing, half-dead mass in the river-bed as more and more, following their predecessors blindly, took the leap.
At last the stream on each side thinned, the rumbling thunder of pounding feet grew less, and the tail of the flock passed, leaving behind it a sudden, deathly silence. In the distance a faint murmur was heard, and Larkin found later that this was made by the two or three hundred which escaped death in the river.
As a matter of fact, the great number of the animals had filled the narrow gully, and the last few charged across the bodies of their fallen comrades to solid ground and safety beyond.
Now that the danger had passed, Larkin felt a certain miserable nausea in the pit of his stomach, and fought it down with all his might. Caldwell was not so successful, however, and stumbled from the shelter and his companions, furiously sick. Juliet began to weep softly, the tears of nervous reaction coming freely when neither pain nor fear could have brought them.
Bud passed his arm gently about her shoulders, and patted her with soft encouragement and praise for her bravery. Nor did the girl resent his action. Rather it seemed to steady her, and after a few minutes she looked up with an unsteady laugh.
“Isn’t it funny for that other man to get seasick out here where we can’t get enough water to drink?” she asked, with a sudden tangent of humor that made Bud laugh uproariously, and seemed to relieve the strain that oppressed them.
“Brave little girl!” he said, getting up. “That reminds me. I wonder where our friend is?”
He walked out in the direction Caldwell had taken and expected to find the other recovering from his attack. But he could see or hear nothing to indicate that the man was within a dozen miles. He called, and his voice sounded puny and hollow against the vastness of the sky. He heard no hails in answer, except the long, shrill one which the coyotes gave from a neighboring rise of ground.
Smithy Caldwell had disappeared.
Larkin returned to Juliet Bissell perplexed, mystified, and disturbed. What possible reason could there be for the quixotic actions of the man he hated more than any other in the world? How did he happen to be received and at perfect ease among a band of desperate rustlers?
How and why? Caldwell presented so many variations on those two themes that Larkin’s head fairly swam, and he turned gladly to relieve the situation in which Juliet Bissell now found herself.
CHAPTER X
WAR WITHOUT QUARTER
He found her where he had left her, but now she was standing and looking out over the silent prairies, as though searching for someone.
“What are you trying to see?” Bud asked.
“I thought father and some of the cowboys would probably follow the sheep once they had started them. Oh, what have I said?”
“I imagined it was they who had done it,” said Bud quietly, the full enormity of the thing not yet having sunk deep into his mind. “How did you get mixed up in it?”
“Simply enough,” replied Julie. “Late in the afternoon Chuck, one of the men on the eastern range, came riding in and said that your sheep were directly east of the ranch house. Father and Mike Stelton talked a lot about it at supper, and figured up then that the easiest way – well, to teach you a lesson, they called it – was to run them over the bank of the Little River.
“I don’t like sheep, Bud, as you know; but that was going too far for me, and I protested, with the result that father took Mike outside with him, quite upset that I said anything at all. Both of them looked black as a silk hat.”
“Good little girl!” cried Bud gratefully, and she turned her face directly toward him and smiled; just such a smile, Larkin remembered, as he had seen her use on other soft nights years before, in circumstances so totally different.
“After supper,” she continued, “there was a great bustle of getting away, and I grew curious to see what they would do and how. So as soon as they left I saddled my calico and set out after them, keeping about abreast but a couple of miles to the north. The next thing I heard was a terrific lot of shooting and yelling, and the business was done. I don’t wonder the sheep were in a panic!
“Then I heard the sound of the stampede, but I did not realize it was driving straight at me. I must have been confused in my idea of where the Little River was. Anyway, before I had time to think about it I realized I was directly in their path and with a very small advantage. I could escape neither to right nor left, for the wings of the running flock were wide, and all I could do was to run my pony as hard as he could go.
“He seemed to know the danger; all cow ponies do, I guess, for I never saw him travel like that in all my life; he stretched so flat along the ground that it almost seemed as though I could reach down and touch it with my hand. You know what such speed as that is at night with the gopher-holes and other ankle-breakers! Well, we took the chance, and Billy actually drew away from the sheep, panicky as they were.
“But I couldn’t gain enough to dare to turn to right or left, and I had just about given up hope because the trees were ahead, when I saw the flash and heard the report of your gun. Thank God it was you, Bud. I’ve never known you to be a coward or to fail in any situation. I can’t say how grateful I am for what you have done to-night.”
“I assure you I didn’t do it, Julie; it was that man who got sick and left us. He’s disappeared now.”
“Who was he? One of the Bar T punchers?”
“No, it was that fellow, Caldwell. Perhaps you don’t remember him – he came to the Bar T for supper the same night I did.”
“Yes, I remember him,” said Julie in a tone out of which all the impetuous warmth had gone. Suddenly in this strange situation she found herself face to face with another chapter in the mystery that baffled her.
“Well, he saved my life to-night, and, though I can’t say I admire the fellow very much, I am mighty grateful to him.”
“It is strange you two should be together out here when your sheep were somewhere else,” hazarded Juliet, looking full at Larkin and expecting some action or word to betray his fear of her suspicions.
“Not at all strange when you know the circumstances,” he replied. “Just listen to this tale of adventure. But first I think we had better start walking toward the Bar T ranch house. We ought to meet some of the cowboys. Br-r – it’s cold!” and Bud shivered in the piercing chill of the spring night.
To the plainsman walking is the most refined form of punishment. Your real cowboy slouches miserably along in his tight-fitting, uncomfortable high-heeled boots, looking about as much in his element as a stranded whale. In cowboy parlance his “feet don’t track,” his backbone wilts, and his knees bow naturally as a result of early horseback riding. On solid earth the cowboy is a crestfallen and dejected object.
As the two trudged along beneath the calm stars that had seen a thousand stampedes since the millions of buffalo roared up and down its length, Larkin told Juliet of the events that had occurred since they had said farewell at the fork of Grassy Creek. At the mention of the rustlers and the activities they were carrying on the girl gave a little, low cry.
“Father must hear that,” she said. “He would give a lot to have descriptions of those men.”
“He couldn’t give me back two thousand sheep and lambs,” rejoined Bud bitterly.
“No, but I think he would give you their value.”
“Yes, and stampede it into another gully when I brought it across his range. Juliet, I’m not done with this thing. I’ll fight your father or any other man that ever heard a calf bawl for milk, until I get my rights on the free range.”
Larkin’s voice was deep and full-throated with the righteous anger that surged through him over the outrage that had been wrought that night.
As for the girl, she did not recognize this Bud Larkin. The man she had known had been one of gay pleasantries, but rather ineffectual endeavors; this man who spoke was one to whom his will was his law, and obstacles merely helps because of their strengthening of his determination. For the first time she saw the Bud Larkin that had developed in the last year, and a kind of admiring thrill at the mental stature of the man went through her.
And yet she knew that war – hard, tenacious, ugly war – war without quarter, mercy, or respite, was irrevocably declared between Larkin and her father; and, even in her instinctive loyalty to her house, she had to admit that Bud was justified.
“Oh, I wish you would give the whole thing up!” she said plaintively. “It will only result in ruin to everybody.”
Larkin laughed harshly.
“I’ll never give it up until I am either dead or haven’t a dollar left,” he replied. “I am determined to have my rights in this matter, and I shall have them whatever the cost.”
For a time there was silence between them, each realizing that further discussion could only prove unhappy.
They had gone about two miles from the scene of the stampede when suddenly a man appeared close in front of them and commanded them to halt.
“Hello, Sims!” cried Larkin joyfully, recognizing the other’s voice, but at the same time hoisting his hands above his head.
“Well, chief,” said the herder imperturbably, returning his revolver to its holster, “I allow your vacation has cost you a lot of money.”
Bud then outlined his experiences briefly, concluding with his story of the stampede, and Sims whistled in amazement, his one method of expressing astonishment.
“Well, what’s the story now?” Bud asked.
Juliet had walked ahead when the two men met, and now Larkin dropped far enough behind to be out of ear-shot and yet keep the girl dimly in sight.
Hurriedly, for him, Sims related the story of the ill-fated expedition up to the time of the stampede. He and the herders had put up what defense they could, he said, and, as a result, two of his men were dead and the others scattered. However, he expected they would return to the now deserted camp.
“I want you to take them back south to the Badwater River,” ordered Larkin. “The second flock ought to be there by this time, but I want you to hold them there. In two days the boys from Montana ought to be down, and when you’re ready to start north you will have force enough to fight any bunch of cowboys old Bissell can scrape together.”
“But if we don’t move that flock out right away the others will come and pile up there, and then we shore will have our hands full.”
“All right, let ’em pile up. We’ll get ’em through just the same. Now, Sims, we are in this thing for blood from now on, and don’t you forget it for a minute.”
“Trust me, boss,” drawled the herder. “Are you comin’ down to join us?”
“Yes, if I can. As soon as I get Miss Bissell into safe hands I’ll come. But don’t count on me; I may never get there. Do whatever you think best, but bring those sheep through. And tell the herders and the boys from the north that while this trouble is on I’ll pay them five dollars a day apiece.”
“Shore, they’d rassle the devil himself for that,” commented Sims.
“And you get ten,” supplemented Larkin. “Now go ahead and make all preparations the way you think best. Everything is in your hands.”
Sims faded from sight noiselessly, and Larkin hurried forward to overtake Juliet. They had not been together five minutes when the rapid trotting of horses was heard ahead and Larkin, taking the chance of falling into evil hands, called out to the travelers.
“Who’s there?” came a gruff voice, accompanied by the click of hammers drawn back.
“Oh, father, it’s I – Juliet!” cried the girl, recognizing the speaker and running toward him.
There was a surprised exclamation out of the darkness, and the sound of a man vaulting from the saddle. The next moment and he had clasped his daughter in his arms.
Larkin, his mission completed, started to back away from the scene, but the girl herself wrecked this intention.
“It was Mr. Larkin who called out,” she said, evidently in answer to a question. “He saved my life, father, and he has brought me safely back. He is standing right over there.”
At this Bud turned and ran, but the sound of a pony closing in on him brought him to a stop.
“Well, what do you want?” he demanded angrily.
“Bissell wants to see you,” said the rider whose voice the sheepman recognized as that of Stelton.
Not deigning to enter an argument with the foreman, Bud walked back to where Bissell stood beside his horse.
“Now the sheep are out of the way, if you want to learn anything about rustlers I guess our friend here can tell you,” remarked Stelton suddenly, in a voice exultant as it was ugly.
“Oh, yes, father,” added Juliet, “he’s been with them for almost two days.”
“Is this so, Mr. Larkin?” asked Bissell.
“Yes.”
“Well, we won’t discuss it now,” said the cowman. “Let’s go back to the ranch house and get something to eat. I have an extra horse here, Larkin, if you care to ride.”
“I don’t care to, thanks,” answered Bud dryly. “Since you have ruined me, you will do me a favor by letting me go.”
“I allow I’d like to do you a favor,” rejoined Bissell with equal courtesy, “but I’ve got to find out about them rustlers. We won’t keep yuh long.”
“Come on, get up on that horse,” said the voice of Stelton close beside him, and Bud turned to look into the long barrel of the foreman’s gun that was stuck under his nose.
Trembling with suppressed fury, he did as he was told, but on the ten-mile ride to the Bar T ranch said nothing, and only revolved in his mind one question: How did Stelton know he had been with the rustlers before Julie had said anything about them?
