The Hopalong Cassidy Novels 4-Book Bundle

by Louis L'Amour

  Ben Lock was coming along the path toward him, preceded by Duck Bale with his hands high. They were coming toward Hopalong, but the footsteps sounded behind him!

  “What do you know?” Ben said wonderingly.

  “It’s the cliff back there,” Bale said. “This whole basin has places like that all over it. It catches the sound somehow and makes it sound funny-like. Sounds seem to come from the wrong direction.”

  “Where’s Dud?”

  “He came into the woods after me,” Ben replied. “He missed his first shot.” Ben Lock looked down at the body of Clarry Jacks. “Well, you got him. Maybe Jesse will rest easy now.”

  * * *

  They were within two miles of the Rocking R before Shorty sighted them. With Tex Milligan and Frenchy Ruyters they came racing down to meet the little cavalcade. Shorty looked at Bale.

  “See you got the Duck,” he said. “How about the others?”

  “They won’t bother anybody,” Ben replied. He looked ahead to see Lenny Ronson racing a black mare from the ranch to meet them. “Better not tell her yet.”

  Hopalong drew up as Lenny swung alongside, and Ben rode on with his prisoner. Shorty Montana watched him go, grinning. “There goes an hombre who will be a married man inside the week! You wait and see!”

  “He?” Milligan was surprised. “Who’ll marry him?”

  “Katie.”

  “Katie?” Frenchy stared. “I thought you had that claim staked. Wasn’t that where you always hung out?”

  “Sure it was.” Montana grinned, his tough brown face lightening with good humor. “Katie’s my sister!”

  “Your sister?” Milligan stared at him in mock horror. “Who’d think a horny toad like you could come from the same basket as her! She’s beautiful as a bay pony with three white feet, and you’re as ugly as the mornin’ after payday in a minin’ town!”

  “Huh!” Shorty sneered. “You should talk! You got a face like a lonesome jackass!”

  Hopalong chuckled. It was time he was moving on to the 3 T L to look Gibson up. He’d gotten word that Red Connors would be there and Hopalong was looking forward to seeing his old friends again.

  “Hoppy,” Lenny suggested tentatively, “now the trouble is over we can have time to get acquainted. There’s to be a dance and pie supper at the school Monday.”

  “Won’t be able to make it.” Hoppy smiled at Lenny, happiness bringing a strange radiance to his face. Lenny noticed it and looked at him in amazement.

  “I was headed north,” Hopalong continued, keeping his face grave, “and I better push on. Now with this fuss over, your brother won’t need a fightin’ segundo anymore.”

  He sighed deeply and cast a glance around, as if memorizing the distant mountains, the sparkling streams, the broad acres of rolling grasslands. “Sure like it here. But then,” he added, “I’m a ridin’ man. And I do get restless when things are quiet.”

  * * *

  The morning sun found him on the edge of the Black Sand Desert. Hopalong eased the big guns on his thighs and looked between the horse’s ears at the skyline. The wind was at his back and it carried a vague scent of pine down from the slopes of the mountains. It touched his collar and tugged at the brim of his hat.

  Somewhere up ahead were towns where he had never been, country he had never seen. The trail stretched out before him, a thin line of possibilities worn in the sand. Hopalong Cassidy paused a moment, then urged Topper into a trot and pointed him at where the road crossed into the distance. His friends Red Connors and Mesquite Jenkins were waiting for him, and it had been a long time since he had seen Gibson of the 3 T L.

  A Note of Explanation,

  Thanks, and Other Things

  * * *

  For those of you who have not read The Rustlers of West Fork and its Afterword, here is a brief history of my father’s involvement with Hopalong Cassidy stories:

  In the early 1950s, actor William Boyd took his version of the Cassidy character from the big screen to television. His earlier movies and Clarence Mulford’s Hopalong books had been very popular and so Doubleday, Mulford’s publisher, became interested in marketing some new Hoppy novels. Mulford, who had been retired since 1941, did not want to go back to the job and so he turned the task over to a young (actually not that young—Dad was 42) writer of pulp magazine westerns … Louis L’Amour.

  The publishers chose the pen name Tex Burns for him and in 1950 and ’51 he wrote his four Hopalong Cassidy books. They were published as the feature stories in the short-lived periodical, Hopalong Cassidy’s Western Magazine, and in hardback by Doubleday. Due to a disagreement with the publisher over which interpretation of the Hopalong character to use (Dad wanted to use Mulford’s original Hoppy, a red-haired, hard-drinking, foulmouthed, and rather bellicose cowhand, instead of Doubleday’s preference for the slick, heroic approach that Boyd adopted for his films) my father refused to admit that he had ever written those last four Hopalong stories. Starting with The Rustlers of West Fork, this is the first time that they have ever been published with his name on them. For a more in-depth version of the story of how Louis L’Amour came to write and then deny that he had written the Cassidy stories you can take a look at the Afterword in Rustlers.

  * * *

  In the same afterword I mentioned that, before he died, my father had wanted to include a note in the back of one of his books asking all of his readers to take it upon themselves to go out and plant a tree. So here I want to send out my special thanks to Ken Munro of Owen Sound, Ontario. He was the first reader to write and tell me that he had planted a tree, and he even sent along a picture of it. My father would have been very pleased.

  Deforestation is not only a problem in the remote reaches of the Amazon, but right here in good old North America as well. Logging is one of the more destructive legacies left to us from the period of the Old West. We must replant forests in North America, even if it is only to supply the next generation with construction materials and paper products.

  We must ask our legislators to limit cutting and require replanting. Logging is a business that will not go away (nor should it, as a good portion of the population depends on it for their livelihood), but the industry, left to its own devices, would cut itself out of business. Like most American businesses based on natural resources, it knows little restraint, and would practice its craft until the last redwood toppled to the ground and the entire industry collapsed. If logging companies are forced to replant the trees they cut, with luck, there will still be a trade left for their grandchildren to practice.

  We can also plant trees ourselves, as individuals. In the wilderness, in your back yard (you might as well get some pleasure from it), in a pot on your twentieth floor balcony. I urge you to do it anywhere you can and as often as you can. It is an inexpensive investment in our future.

  * * *

  To conclude, I want to offer my thanks to David R. Hastings II and Peter G. Hastings, Trustees of the Clarence E. Mulford Trust. Also to the late C. E. Mulford himself for creating the classic character of Hopalong Cassidy.

  My best to you all.

  Beau L’Amour

  THE RIDERS OF HIGH ROCK

  A Bantam Book

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Previously published as Hopalong Cassidy and the Riders of High Rock under the pseudonym Tex Burns

  Bantam hardcover edition published June 1993

  Bantam mass market edition / May 1994

  Bantam reissue / September 2004

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 1951, renewed © 1979 by Bantam Books

  Note copyright © 1993 by Beau L’Amour


  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-37034

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: Bantam Books, New York, New York.

  Visit our website at www.bantamdell.com

  Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  eISBN: 978-0-553-89966-5

  v3.0_r3

  Contents

  Master - Table of Contents

  The Riders of High Rock

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Afterword

  Chapter 1

  CHASE IN THE MOUNTAINS

  As Red Connors put the sorrel up the slope he felt the big horse break stride and knew that it was all in. From the top of the hill Red could see the cloud of dust marking pursuit, but realized that he was out of sight, for the time being at least. Grimly he stared at the rifle in the saddle scabbard. If he just had some more cartridges!

  This Winchester in the hands of Red Connors had done phenomenal shooting, but now he had no more ammunition and even his six-shooter was empty. There was a bloody wound in his side and unless he quickly found somewhere to hide he was a gone gosling.

  More than once in these past few days he had thought of his old friend Hopalong Cassidy. There was no one like him for planning a way out or around, and no one like him with a six-gun either. Right then Red Connors would have given almost anything if he could have seen Hopalong come over the rise ahead of him.

  He turned the sorrel along the ridge, keeping to the broken country and putting as many pines between himself and the direction of the pursuit as possible. He knew this was a race with death, and the men behind him had every intention of leaving him for the buzzards.

  Yet it was not his own life alone that hung in the balance, but the lives and hopes of his friends on the 3TL. With what he now knew, there was every chance they might finally end the systematic cattle stealing that he suspected had been going on in the High Rock country for the last several months. However, that was the very reason the rustlers could not let him live.

  Before him the mountain broke off sharply, offering a magnificent view of the sunken gorges and the distant Sawtooth Range far to the north. The path he had followed was an ancient game trail; now he turned off it, holding to a rocky shelf to leave no prints, and headed down-slope into a grove of aspen and mountain laurel. Far below he could see the brilliant blue of a small lake, set like a jewel among the towering peaks and the ranges about it.

  The sorrel plodded wearily, and Red knew that behind him his enemies would be gaining. Their own animals were fresh. Sooner or later they would corner him.

  Sweat trickled down Red’s face and he removed his hat, wiping his hand over his sparse red hair. Suddenly he saw a steep footpath, turning down the face of the cliff to the right of the trail, and instantly he decided to gamble. Swinging down, he hastily stripped his saddle and bridle from the exhausted horse and, hitting it a thump on the shoulder, swung toward the trail.

  He staggered now, almost dropping the heavy saddle. Fifty feet down the steep path he found a tiny ledge, a place that offered a little shelter from above, and into which no man could gain entry as long as Red remained conscious and able to resist, for the narrowness of the path was such that it would be very easy to overbalance an attacker and send him crashing down the face of the cliff.

  Above him he heard horses, then voices. The riders reined in and he heard them talking. “Aw! Don’t tell me that! I hit the redheaded billy goat, and you know it! No use to chase him! He’s done for!”

  “Here’s his trail,” a new voice said. “His horse broke stride here, but kept on goin’. He won’t get far now, and it’s a long ways until dark. We got him wherever he is.”

  “Mount up, then,” a third voice said. “Hoyt, you and Mex stay here until we send up a smoke or signal you. He might try to double back over the mountain.”

  “No chance. That redhead’s done for!” The speaker cleared his throat. “And I’m just as glad! He could shoot!”

  There was a sound of horses moving off and then silence. A boot scuffed on rock and then a match scratched. “Me, I’m pleased to be here,” a voice said. “I’ve had enough of ridin’ for one week. That hombre was sure hard to catch!”

  “Señor, ’ave you see thees trail? She’s been travel’ recent!”

  Red Connors stiffened. Half dead with exhaustion as he was, he forced his muscles to alertness and waited, tense with effort.

  Now Hoyt scoffed. “Ain’t been nobody down there but a goat! And if there was,” he added, “you want to go down that trail after him? I don’t!”

  Red Connors backed up and sat down. For the first time he had a chance to examine his wound. The slug had cut through the flesh of his side, but although his clothing was soaked with blood, the wound didn’t look serious. He looked again at his canteen. It was empty. They had given him no time to stop and refill. Like cowhands cutting a steer, they had kept after him, keeping him away from water, away from town, away from main trails. Whichever way he headed they were ready for him and had turned him back.

  Worse, they seemed to know how much ammunition he had. They had drawn him into a fire fight, they had given him chances, and he knew he had killed two horses and crippled at least one man. But that was only after he had learned that what ammunition he had was in his belt. His rifle and pistol had been empty—and that meant somebody had made sure they were empty, for he never left them so. Somebody on the 3TL was a traitor; somebody there wanted him dead.

  Sagging back against the wall, he fought for consciousness. Pain mounted through his exhausted body and waves of darkness went over him. Over the mountains the sun was bright and hot. The slow afternoon drew on, the coolness and darkness came, and Red Connors lay sprawled full length in the tiny hollow of rock where he had fallen.

  Twelve miles to the south Hopalong Cassidy rode along the main trail toward the cow town of Tascotal and the 3TL Ranch. Hopalong had been in the saddle all day and he was tired. The trail was good and the excellent steeldust gelding he rode was a horse that liked to travel. He had left Topper on the other side of the mountain, suffering from a temporary lameness. Hopalong had hired a man to bring him out to Gibson’s when Topper recovered.

  Farther south, long chains of mountains stretched away from the trail, and to the north, beyond the foothills were towering ranges, all clad with pines and firs, some capped with crowns of snow. The wheel marks of the stage were in the road, but there were few other signs of passing until he reached White Rock Wells.

  Filling his canteen at the Wells, he looked around from long habit and saw signs left by a body of at least six riders. All had been armed and ready, for he saw the marks left by the rifle stocks in the damp sand. They had been leaned against a rock while their owners drank. Men carrying rifles in their hands usually meant trouble … so it might pay to ride carefully on the way into town.

  Several of the men had smoked cigarettes here, and there had been a fire where they made coffee. Then four horses had ridden on and two had remained at the spring. Where were those two n
ow?

  His ears caught a whisper of sound and he wheeled just in time to see two men emerge from the woods. They were staring, wild-eyed, and even as their eyes met, both men grabbed for their guns.

  Then their hands froze, for they were looking into the muzzles of a pair of Colt .45’s. Hopalong’s flashing, lightning-swift draw left them both in a state of complete paralysis. All they could do was stare with a sinking feeling in the pits of their stomachs that told them they had never in all their misspent lives been so close to death. One of them was lean and rawboned. His companion was a burly, unshaven man in a dirty vest.

  “Just who do you hombres think I am?” Cassidy demanded.

  “It ain’t him,” the stocky man said swiftly, with brightening face. “Our feller’s older and he’s got red hair.”

  “That’s right, Bones.” The taller of the two men shook his head. “Sorry, mister. When we first saw you we figured you was the hombre we were huntin’. We had our minds dead set on him!”

  For an instant Hopalong studied them, then holstered his guns. “Who are you hunting?” he asked curiously.

  “Redhead. Hombre’s a killer. Shot a cowpoke up north of here. But don’t worry, we got him sewed up tighter’n a green hide in the hot sun. Every water hole is blocked, all the trails, and the road to town.”

  Bones nudged the taller man. “Shut up, Slim! You talk too much!”

  Cassidy slung his canteen on the saddle horn, and keeping the horse between himself and the two men, he swung a leg over the saddle. His eyes strayed to the horses the men had been leading. Both of them were marked 8 Boxed H. The 8 preceded the box, the H enclosed. He looked up at the riders and neither of them impressed him favorably. He decided that his sympathies were with the pursued man.