by Zane Grey
Many times Chane halted to let Brutus come abreast of him, so that he could look up at Sue or touch her. And all at once something which had been forming in his mind coalesced into an insupportable query.
“Sue, when will you marry me?”
She laughed happily. “Why, we’ve only just become engaged,” she replied, roguishly.
“Darling, this is the wild canyon country of Utah,” he protested. “People only stay engaged in cities or settlements.”
“We’ll really be pioneers, won’t we?”
“Yes. But I shall always see that you go into civilization every summer, for a visit.... Tell me, how long must I wait?”
A rosy glow vied with the gold of Sue’s warm cheek.
“Surely until Uncle Jim comes,” she said, shyly.
“Your uncle! I remember now — he’s a preacher. And he may come yet this fall, certain in the spring?”
“I wish I could fib to you,” returned Sue, “and say spring. But dad is sure Uncle Jim will come by Thanksgiving.”
He pressed her hand, unable to utter his profound joy and gratitude. Then he took up the bridle and strode on, leading Brutus. He saw the widening canyon, the sand bars cut up by many hoofs, the lowering rims, the shallow brook, yet he was not conscious of them, for he walked as one in a trance.
The time came when ahead the canyon made a curve into brighter light. Beyond this point was the junction of the four canyons where camp had been made. As Chane turned the corner Brutus shied so violently that he tore the bridle from Chane’s grasp.
“Hands up, Weymer,” called a tough, husky voice.
Chane’s dream was rudely shattered. More than once he had heard the ominous note which rang now in his ears. He was unarmed. He raised his hands, and at the same instant he saw a dark-bearded man, with leveled gun, stride from behind the cliff.
“Up they are,” he said, and ground his teeth in sudden impotent anger. Then he recognized the man. “Howdy, Slack.”
“Same to you, Weymer,” replied the other, sidling round in front of Chane toward Brutus.
“Reckon you see I’m not packing a gun.”
“Yep, I shore was glad you wasn’t wearin’ any hardware. But just keep your hands up an’ a respectable distance. I’m a distrustful fellar,” replied Slack, and presently, getting within reach of Brutus, he secured the bridle.
Chane’s line of vision, as he stood rigidly, did not include Sue, until Slack led Brutus forward. Then she appeared, white of face and mute in her fear. Manifestly she had no thought of herself, but of the gun Slack held leveled at Chane.
“Mosey on in front, Weymer,” ordered the outlaw.
Chane had no choice but to comply. He had been in such situations before, and this one would not have greatly perturbed him if Sue had not been there. He lowered his hands and strode on toward the camp, intensely curious to see if what he found there would be identical with what he expected.
The triangular space of intersecting canyons presently came unobstructed to his view. A camp fire was burning, and several men surrounded it, one of them sitting. Even at considerable distance Chane recognized the hard lean face of Bud McPherson.
Chess sat on a stone to one side, with his hands tied behind his back. Melberne did not appear to be present.
“Oh, there’s Panquitch!” burst out Sue, in shrill distress.
Chane, shocked at Sue’s exclamation, saw a number of horses, all saddled, standing bridles down, to the left of the camp fire group.
“Look! Look!” cried Sue, as if choking.
As Chane did not know where she was looking and did not care to take too many risks with Slack, he shifted his gaze in search of the stallion.
“Chane! Look!” screamed Sue, this time with fury and horror.
“Manerube! Manerube! he’s got a rope on Panquitch!”
The content of her words flashed on Chane just as he espied Manerube hanging to two lassoes that were fast on Panquitch. The great stallion was holding back with a spirit vastly in excess of his strength.
Many as had been the bitter moments of Chane’s life, that was the bitterest. Sue’s cry of anguish rang in his ears. The wild horse which she had loved and freed was now in the power of a hated rider. It was a blow that to Chane struck home acutely. Panquitch, spent from his fight in the canyon pool, and expending what little strength he had left to catch up with his band, had fallen easily into Manerube’s clutches. The cheap and arrogant rider probably had not even credited his capture to the weakened condition of the stallion. He was crowing like a game cock over his prize, with his braggart’s and bully’s air more pronounced than ever. He whipped the ropes that secured Panquitch, making the horse flinch. The effect of this on Chane was to distort his vision with passion and hate, so that it seemed for a moment he was gazing through a blood-red haze.
“OH-H!” cried Sue, now deep and poignantly. “He’s hurting Panquitch. I won’t stand it.”
“Sue, keep still,” ordered Chane, sharply. “We can do nothing.”
“Hyar, you squallin’ bobcat,” growled Slack, “stop walkin’ your hoss on my heels.”
They reached the camp fire, with Chane a little in the lead. One of the other men, whose face was familiar but whose name Chane could not recall, drew a gun and pointed it at him.
“Bill, he ain’t got no gun, but your idee is correct,” drawled Slack, and turning to Sue he laid a rough and meaning hand upon her, which she repulsed in anger. Then Slack swore at her and pulled her out of the saddle.
“Say, wench, if you know when you’re well off, you’ll be sweet instead of catty,” he declared.
On the moment, when the other men were hawhawing at Slack’s sally, Chane happened to catch Sue’s eye and conveyed to her in one glance the peril of the situation.
“Howdy, Weymer,” said Bud McPherson, coolly. “I’m savin’ some of your good grub.”
“Howdy, Bud. It’s a habit of yours to help yourself to other people’s property,” rejoined Chane. This outlaw was the most dangerous of the group, Chane decided, though he knew little of the two strangers who had followed Manerube from Wund. But McPherson, though a horse thief and a bad man, had elements that Manerube and the others did not show. He was not little.
Back of the camp fire, near where Chess sat bowed and disconsolate, crouched another man, also tied, and he appeared a pretty worn and miserable object. Chane at last recognized the unshaven and haggard face.
“Loughbridge!” he ejaculated, in both amaze and satisfaction. “Well, what’re you hawg-tied for? Reckoned you’d thrown in with this outfit.”
“Weymer, I was fooled worse’n Melberne,” said Loughbridge. “I took Manerube at his brag. I had no idea he was a hoss thief—”
“Stop your gab!” yelled Manerube, stridently. “You’re a white- livered liar. I’m not a horse thief.”
“Bud, give it to me straight,” said Chane. “What’s the deal with Loughbridge?”
“Wal, it ain’t so clear to me,” replied McPherson, wiping his mouth and scant beard and rising to his feet. “Somebody gimme a smoke.... Fact is, Weymer, I wasn’t keen on havin’ this man thrown in with us. Wal, when he found out our plan to appropriate Melberne’s stock — which shore come out at this camp — he hedged an’ began to bluster. You know I never argue. So we just put a halter on him.”
“Where’s Melberne?” added Chane.
“Shore you ought to know. We’re waitin’ fer him.”
“Then what?” demanded Chane.
“Weymer, you allus was a hell-bent-pronto hombre,” declared McPherson, with good humor. “Reckon you want to know bad what the deal is. Wal, I’ll tell you. We’ve been loafin’ in camp waitin’ for you-all to ketch the last bunch of hosses before fall set in cold. Then we seen them two Piutes prowlin’ around, an’ we figgered they’d fetched you another bunch of mustangs. Wal, the deal is hyar. When Melberne comes we’ll rustle back to his homestead an’ relieve you-all of considerable hoss wranglin’ an’ feedin’ this
winter.”
“Then, next summer, you’ll look us up again,” asserted Chane, with sarcasm.
“Haw! haw! You shore hit it plumb center,” rejoined the ruffian.
“Bud, you’re no fool,” said Chane, seriously. “You can’t keep up this sort of thing. Somebody will kill you. Why don’t you cut loose from these two-bit wranglers you’ve been riding with? I’ve known horse thieves to go back to honest ranching. It paid.”
McPherson had no guffaw or badinage for this speech of Chane’s. It went home. His frankness relieved Chane. McPherson would hardly resort to blood-spilling unless thwarted or cornered. Chane felt greatest anxiety on behalf of Sue. The outlaw leader, however, had never struck Chane as being a man to mistreat women, white or red. Slack was vicious, but under control of McPherson. It narrowed down to Manerube.
This individual swaggered into the camp circle. He had stretched two ropes on Panquitch, in opposite directions, and for the time being the great stallion was tractable. Manerube’s blond face showed heat, not all of excitement. He shot a malignant glance at Chane, and leered. The true nature of the man came out when he was on the side in control. As he turned to look Sue up and down, Chane saw the surge of blood ridge his neck. Chane also saw a whisky flask in his hip pocket and a gun in his belt.
“Bud, I heard you weren’t boss of your outfit,” said Chane, whose wits were active.
“Huh! The hell you did. When an’ whar did you hear thet?”
“Reckon it was in Wund, when we drove Melberne’s horses in.”
“Wal, you heerd wrong,” replied McPherson, gruffly, and his glance fell on Manerube with a glint that surely fanned a flame of cunning in Chane’s mind.
“Bud, I trapped Panquitch in a deep hole down in the canyon,” went on Chane. “It was a dirty trick to play on such a horse. I roped him. We had an awful time. He nearly drowned Brutus and me. But we got him out. And then — what do you think?”
“I’ve no idee, Weymer,” returned the outlaw, eagerly. He had the true rider’s love for a horse, the true wrangler’s ambition and pride. Only adverse circumstances had made him a thief. Chane knew how to work on his feelings.
“Bud, I let Panquitch go free!” declared Chane, impressively.
“Aw now, Weymer, you can’t expect me to believe thet,” said McPherson, with a broad smile.
“I swear it’s true.”
“But you’re a wild-hoss wrangler. I’ve heerd of you for years,” declared the outlaw, incredulously.
“I was. But no more. Bud, I’m giving it to you straight. Panquitch was the last wild horse I’ll ever rope. I let him go free.”
“But what fer? You darned locoed liar!” shouted McPherson, getting red in the face.
“Ask Sue Melberne,” replied Chane, recognizing the moment to impress the outlaw. He was intensely interested, curious, doubtful, yet fascinated. He turned to Sue. She was pale, yet composed, and aside from the heaving of her bosom, showed no agitation.
“Girl, what’s he givin’ me? Guff?”
“No, it’s perfectly true. He let Panquitch go. I watched him do it.”
“So did I,” spoke up Chess, in a loud voice. “He and Sue were out of their heads. They let Panquitch go!”
“Wal, I’ll be damned!” ejaculated McPherson. “Shore, girl, I don’t see any reason for you to lie about a hoss, even Panquitch. But I gotta know why, if you want me to believe.”
“It was my fault,” replied Sue, deliberately. “I told Chane — if he’d free Panquitch — I’d be his wife.”
“An’ he took you up,” shouted McPherson, in gleeful wonder.
“Yes. He let me pull the lasso free.”
“Wal, I’ve seen the day I could have done the same, even if it had been Panquitch,” boomed McPherson. From the rough, hardened outlaw that speech was a subtle compliment to both Sue and Chane. It hinted, also, of a time when McPherson had not been what he was now. Suddenly he lost that shadow of memory, and wheeled to Manerube, who stood derisive and rancorous, glaring at Chane.
“Didn’t I tell you that hoss was tuckered out? Didn’t I say he was all wet?”
“Yes, you said so, but I don’t have to believe you. And Weymer’s a liar,” retorted Manerube.
“Sure I’m a liar — when you’ve got a gun and I haven’t,” interposed Chane, stingingly.
“Huh! You wouldn’t call the little lady a liar, too, would you?” demanded McPherson.
“She would lie and he would swear to it,” snapped Manerube.
“Wal, that’s no matter, except where I come from men didn’t call girls names. But what I gotta beat into your thick head is this, that Panquitch was a spent horse. An’ you never seen it. You thought you roped him when he was good as ever. You never seen it!”
“Suppose I didn’t,” returned Manerube, furiously. “I roped him, spent or not. And he’s mine.”
“Hell! You’re a fine wild-hoss wrangler!” exclaimed McPherson, in disgust. “You don’t even get my hunch. Let me say it slow an’ plain. In this heah Utah there’s a code, the same among hoss thieves as among wranglers. It’s love of a grand hoss. An’ I’m tellin’ you it’s a damn shame Panquitch fell into your rope.”
“Say, Bud, are you going to let Manerube keep that horse?” demanded Chane, ringingly, sure now of his game. He could play upon this outlaw’s feelings as upon an instrument.
“Wha-at?” queried McPherson, as if staggered. The idea Chane launched had struck like a thunderbolt.
“If it’s your outfit — if you’re the boss, Panquitch is yours,” asserted Chane, positively. “That’s the law of the range. But even if it wasn’t would you let Manerube keep that grand stallion? He’ll ruin the horse. He couldn’t break him. He couldn’t ride him. For this man is not the real thing as a rider. He never was a wrangler.... Now, McPherson, listen. You may be a horse thief, but you’re a real rider. You have a rider’s love for a grand stallion like Panquitch. You have a wrangler’s pride in him. You’d never beat Panquitch, now would you?”
“Hell no! I never beat any hoss,” shouted the outlaw, hoarsely.
“There you are,” announced Chane, with finality, and he threw up his hands. How well he knew the state into which he had thrown McPherson! Chane actually thrilled in the suspense of the issue at stake. His argument had been sound, his persuasion hard for a rider to resist; but he staked most on McPherson’s dislike of Manerube. Any honest rider would despise Manerube, but McPherson, hard, strong, matured outlaw, who, bad as he was, would have died for a horse, would hate him.
“Reckon you’re talkin’ fine, Weymer, but ain’t a little of it fer your hoss Brutus?” queried McPherson, shrewdly.
“No. I never thought of my horse. But now you mention him, I’ll say this. You stole my last bunch of mustangs. Brutus is all I have left. A horse and a saddle! That’s the extent of my riches. You’d not be so mean as to rob me of them?”
“Wal, Weymer, I reckon I wouldn’t now,” he replied, significantly. “Brutus ain’t so bad. But what’d I do with him now? Haw! Haw!”
Chane drew a quick breath of relief, yet the suspense of that argument was in no wise diminished.
Manerube grew black with rage. His light eyes gleamed balefully.
“Bud McPherson, you mean you’ll take Panquitch?” he rasped out.
“Wal, you heerd Weymer’s idee of the code of the range,” replied the outlaw, calmly. With all his acumen and experience he had no fear of Manerube. Rather contempt!
“Code be damned!” yelled Manerube, fiercely. “Panquitch is mine. I roped him.”
“Shore. But you’re in my outfit, an’ what you ketch is mine, if I want it. An’ I want Panquitch. Savvy?”
Chane, watching so piercingly, saw a break in Manerube’s quivering rage. His body grew rigid before the blackness left his face. If Chane had been in McPherson’s boots he would have reacted with subtle keenness to those peculiar changes.
“You’re a — horse — thief,” panted Manerube, suddenly crouching.
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“Wal, wal, wal!” guffawed McPherson, and he bent double with the mirth of the joke. When he straightened up it was to meet the red flame, the blue spurt of Manerube’s gun. He uttered a gasp and fell limply, as if his legs had been chopped from under him.
Manerube did not lower the leveled gun. Smoke issued from the dark hole in the barrel. All the men seemed paralyzed, except Chane, who stepped aside, with eyes roving for a weapon in the belts near him. But none showed. Chane read Manerube’s ferocious face. It was now gray and set with murderous intent.
“Jump aside, Slack, or I’ll kill you,” he hissed. “I want Weymer.”
Slack frantically leaped aside, leaving Chane exposed. But Manerube did not fire. The smoking gun shook in his nerveless hand, and fell. At that instant, perhaps a fraction of a second before, Chane heard a tiny spat. He knew what it was. A lead bullet striking flesh!
Chane’s gaze shot over Manerube’s outstretched hand to his face. It was the same, but fixed. Then from the ragged brushy cliff above rang out the crack of a rifle. The echoes clapped back and forth. Over Manerube’s glazed blank eyes, in his forehead, appeared a little round hole, first blue, then red. He swayed and fell, full length, face down.
This action was incredibly swift. Before Chane could make a move to rush to Sue he heard another spat. The bullet spanged off bone. Slack was knocked flat. Again the sharp crack of a rifle rang out. It broke the rigidity of that group. Frantically the three left of McPherson’s band rushed for their horses. Slack leaped up, bloody of face, wild of mien, and he bellowed:
“It’s them hell-hound Piutes! Bud swore they was trailin’ us. Get on an’ ride!”
Not far behind was he in a leap to the saddle. The horses plunged madly and broke up the canyon. Another shot sounded from the cliff, deadened by the trampling hoofs. Then the swiftly moving dark blot of riders disappeared.
Chane’s first thought was for Sue. He ran to her, took her in his arms. She seemed stiff, but her hands suddenly clutched him. Her cheek, which was all he could see as he grasped her, was ashen in hue.
“Come away, Sue dear,” he said, gently, half carrying her. “Over here where Chess is.... You’re safe. I’m all right. We’re all saved. They went up a different canyon from the one your father took. They won’t meet him.”