CHAPTER XXXIII
ON THE DODGE
Up in the hills back of Bear Canon two men were camping. They breakfastedon slow elk, coffee, and flour-and-water biscuits. When they hadfinished, they washed their tin dishes with sand in the running brook.
"Might's well be hittin' the trail," one growled.
The other nodded without speaking, rose lazily, and began to packthe camp outfit. Presently, when he had arranged the load to hissatisfaction, he threw the diamond hitch and stood back to take a chew oftobacco while he surveyed his work. He was a squat, heavy-set man with aChihuahua hat. Also he was a two-gun man. After a moment he circled anarrowweed thicket and moved into the chaparral where his horse washobbled.
The man who had spoken rose with one lithe twist of his big body. Hiseyes, hard and narrow, watched the shorter man disappear in the brush.Then he turned swiftly and strode toward the shoulder of the ridge.
In the heavy undergrowth of dry weeds and grass he stopped and tested thewind with a bandanna handkerchief. The breeze was steady and fairlystrong. It blew down the canon toward the foothills beyond.
The man stripped from a scrub oak a handful of leaves. They were verybrittle and crumbled in his hand. A match flared out. His palm cupped itfor a moment to steady the blaze before he touched it to the crispfoliage. Into a nest of twigs he thrust the small flame. The twigs, dryas powder from a four-months' drought, crackled like miniature fireworks.The grass caught, and a small line of fire ran quickly out.
The man rose. On his brown face was an evil smile, in his hard eyessomething malevolent and sinister. The wind would do the rest.
He walked back toward the camp. At the shoulder crest he turned to lookback. From out of the chaparral a thin column of pale gray smoke wasrising.
His companion stamped out the remains of the breakfast fire and threwdirt on the ashes to make sure no live ember could escape in the wind.Then he swung to the saddle.
"Ready, Dug?" he asked.
The big man growled an assent and followed him over the summit into thevalley beyond.
"Country needs a rain bad," the man in the Chihuahua hat commented."Don't know as I recollect a dryer season."
The big hawk-nosed man by his side cackled in his throat with short,splenetic mirth. "It'll be some dryer before the rains," he prophesied.
They climbed out of the valley to the rim. The short man was bringing upthe rear along the narrow trail-ribbon. He turned in the saddle to lookback, a hand on his horse's rump. Perhaps he did this because of thepower of suggestion. Several times Doble had already swung his head toscan with a searching gaze the other side of the valley.
Mackerel clouds were floating near the horizon in a sky of blue. Was thator was it not smoke just over the brow of the hill?
"Cayn't be our camp-fire," the squat man said aloud. "I smothered thatproper."
"Them's clouds," pronounced Doble quickly. "Clouds an' some mist risin'from the gulch."
"I reckon," agreed the other, with no sure conviction. Doble must beright, of course. No fire had been in evidence when they left thecamping-ground, and he was sure he had stamped out the one that hadcooked the biscuits. Yet that stringy gray film certainly looked likesmoke. He hung in the wind, half of a mind to go back and make sure. Firein the chaparral now might do untold damage.
Shorty looked at Doble. "If tha's fire, Dug--"
"It ain't. No chance," snapped the ex-foreman. "We'll travel if you don'tfeel called on to go back an' stomp out the mist, Shorty," he added withsarcasm.
The cowpuncher took the trail again. Like many men, he was not proofagainst a sneer. Dug was probably right, Shorty decided, and he did notwant to make a fool of himself. Doble would ride him with heavy jeers allday.
An hour later they rested their horses on the divide. To the west layMalapi and the plains. Eastward were the heaven-pricking peaks. A long,bright line zig-zagged across the desert and reflected the sun rays. Itwas the bed of the new road already spiked with shining rails.
"I'm goin' to town," announced Doble.
Shorty looked at him in surprise. "Wanta see yore picture, I reckon. It'son a heap of telegraph poles, I been told," he said, grinning.
"To-day," went on the ex-foreman stubbornly.
"Big, raw-boned guy, hook nose, leather face, never took no prize as alady's man, a wildcat in a rough-house, an' sudden death on the draw,"extemporized the rustler, presumably from his conception of the rewardposter.
"I'll lie in the chaparral till night an' ride in after dark."
With the impulsiveness of his kind, Shorty fell in with the idea. He washungry for the fleshpots of Malapi. If they dropped in late at night,stayed a few hours, and kept under cover, they could probably slip out oftown undetected. The recklessness of his nature found an appeal in thedanger.
"Damfidon't trail along, Dug."
"Yore say-so about that."
"Like to see my own picture on the poles. Sawed-off li'l runt. Straightblack hair. Some bowlegged. Wears two guns real low. Doncha monkey withhim onless you're hell-a-mile with a six-shooter. One thousand dollarsreward for arrest and conviction. Same for the big guy."
"Fellow that gets one o' them rewards will earn it," said Doble grimly.
"Goes double," agreed Shorty. "He'll earn it even if he don't live tospend it. Which he's liable not to."
They headed their horses to the west. As they drew down from themountains they left the trail and took to the brush. They wound in andout among the mesquite and the cactus, bearing gradually to the north andinto the foothills above the town. When they reached Frio Canon theyswung off into a timbered pocket debouching from it. Here they unsaddledand lay down to wait for night.
Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West Page 33