Grat walked out and roped and saddled a horse. Bones would not like it, but the boss was right, nevertheless. This had been the most peaceful rustling he had ever done; not a shot fired, not a doubt raised. Why, it could go on for years, maybe!
For years? He suddenly realized he was already tired of it. Too much like regular work. It was time to make a big clean-up and get out, and apparently that was what the boss thought, too.
Tascotal drowsed in the warmth of a noonday sun. Flies buzzed lazily and the horses stamped in the dust. The sound of boots on the boardwalk was pleasant to hear, and the lazy voices of men making cow-town conversation, casual shoptalk, and easy jokes that drew smiles rather than laughter.
A buckboard’s wheels creaked as it slowed before the hitch rail in Higgins’ Emporium. Sue Gibson got down, and the men looked up with the interest always drawn by a pretty girl stepping out of a vehicle.
“Howdy, ma’am! How’s your pa?” One of the men drawled a polite, lazy question.
She looked around with a quick smile. Her red-gold hair accompanied a ready, friendly expression and there were a few freckles over her nose.
“He’s better,” she replied, “but more trouble to me! He thinks he should be out looking after his cattle. He’s worried about rustlers.”
“Aw! That’s all talk, Miss Sue! Come late spring they always start to head back in the hills like this! Tell him not to worry none.”
“Is Red Connors around town?” she asked. “He left suddenly and we haven’t seen him.”
“We ain’t seen him neither,” another man spoke up, his eyes alert with interest. “We figured he’d be around awhile, the way he talked.”
Sue hesitated. “If you see him, let us know. He left his horse at the ranch and took off riding a sorrel of Dad’s. Most of his outfit is there, too.”
Grat was lounging in front of the saloon, a big, hard-faced man, waiting for Bones to get into town with Sim so he could warn him of what the boss had said. He had given Bones his permission to come on in, thinking it would be all right with Bolt. Now he was worried, for Jack Bolt meant what he said, and Grat could see the sense in the order.
He walked down the boardwalk toward Sue Gibson. “Howdy, ma’am! Heard you speakin’ about that Connors feller. I reckon he sloped it. One of the boys met him ’way east of here, and he said he was headin’ for Montany.”
“Montana?” Sue frowned. “But he wouldn’t do that! I know one of his old outfit has a ranch up there, but he’d not leave when he knew Hopalong was coming!”
Grat stiffened. It took him a minute to get his voice calm so he could speak. “Did you say Hopalong? You mean Hopalong Cassidy?”
“Why, yes! I suppose you’ve heard of him.” Sue looked at Grat, somewhat surprised at the reaction to her statement. “He and Red rode together for a long time. They were to meet here.”
At once Grat knew panic. If Hopalong was coming this way, Bolt should know it at once. Notorious for his willingness to do battle on any and all occasions, Cassidy had a wide reputation for disliking rustlers. It was no time to rustle that herd of Gibson’s.
“When was he supposed to arrive?” he asked casually.
“Why, he’s overdue, and Dad wanted to see him very much. I thought maybe he and Red had gotten together here in town and were having a good time before they came to the ranch.”
Grat shoved his hat on the back of his head and rubbed his unshaven jaw as he stared down the street. For once he did not turn to watch Sue walk into the store. He was worried and angry. This would have to happen just when they were about to make a clean-up so he could get out of the country! Now everything would be delayed!
But would it? Suppose Hopalong never got here? Suppose he was dry-gulched on the way? If Aragon heard about it, then it would not be his fault if Sim took it on himself to kill Hopalong, and there was nothing that he would like better, Grat knew. That was it—he would tell Sim. And Aragon was due in town at any minute.
Somewhat relieved by the decision, Grat leaned against the awning pole and waited, smoking two cigarettes before he saw them ride into town: the rotund Bones and the lean-featured, tigerlike Aragon.
Both men swung down in front of the saloon, and Grat stepped between the horses and passed on his information. Sim Aragon’s eyes lighted with excitement. A vicious killer he might be, but he was not a coward. A vain man, he could see how people would fear him if he killed the famous gunslinger of the Bar 20. Bones’s face had gone blank with shock, and Grat was struck by something in his expression.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded sharply.
“Grat”—Bones’s lips fumbled with the words—“that hombre Hopalong Cassidy was a friend of Red Connors. Cassidy will be plenty sore if Connors is dead.”
Sim Aragon laughed. “Why be worried? He’s only one man! I’ll take care of him!”
“You can have him!” Bones whispered fervently. “I want nothin’ to do with that hombre!”
Grat had forgotten what Bolt had advised, and the three trooped into the saloon together. One of the men who had spoken to Sue Gibson looked after them, his brow furrowed. “Now, that’s funny!” he said to the man beside him. “I’d never figure any of Bolt’s boys to be hangin’ out with a thief like Aragon!”
“Aw, just rode in with him, maybe. I did it myself, few days back.” He spat. “Can’t say I liked it, neither.”
“Yeah, that could be it.” The tall puncher got to his feet. “Think I’ll have a drink.” He scowled. There had been something furtive about them as they talked, and he had heard Grat swearing. Now what was that about? Stopping short, he went into the Emporium.
“Miss Sue,” he said apologetically, “could I ask you somethin’?”
She turned quickly, a surprised smile on her face. These men were always most polite, but few of them had ever gone out of their way to address her. “Why, certainly, Joe. What is it?”
“Seems sort of strange to me, and it sure ain’t none of my business, but what did you tell Grat just now?”
“Grat? Oh! Why, not much of anything! He just said he thought Red had gone on out of the country, and I told him that wouldn’t be true because Red knew Hopalong Cassidy was coming up to meet him.”
“Cassidy?” Joe stared at her, an idea slowly forming in his brain. “Now what do you know about that?”
“Why do you ask, Joe? What happened?”
“Why, Grat seemed plumb upset about something, and then that Bones feller come in ridin’ with Sim Aragon, and he couldn’t get to them fast enough to tell ’em. Then Bones told Grat somethin’ and he fell to cussin’ somethin’ awful. I reckon,” he added, “I’m makin’ a lot out of nothin’, but it doesn’t look right, and them with Aragon, too.”
“No,” Sue replied slowly, “it doesn’t.”
Sue looked at Joe. She knew the man by sight and had even danced with him once at a social. Joe Gamble rode for the 3F outfit. He was an honest, hard-working man and a top hand. “Joe,” she asked suddenly, “have you lost any cattle lately?”
It was his turn to look sharply at her, his eyes suddenly alert. “We sure have, ma’am. Hard to say how many, but some.”
“So have we. Red thought he had found a trail that morning he rode off. He said nothing to anyone else and told me not to tell Dad—it might worry him. He said he would follow it up, then come back. That was days ago, and there has been no sign of him since.”
Joe Gamble absorbed that slowly. He frowned at his boot toes. It was all vague and made no sense. None of them really knew they had lost cattle, and it might be they were heading into higher country where there was more water and the grass was greener. It could be. Still, when a man has been on the range for years he comes to the point where he can judge the number of cattle very well, and he was positive they were losing stock. Now Sue Gibson said Red had had the same suspicion. How about the others? It would do no harm to ask around.
“May be nothin’ to it,” he commented then, “but if this here Hopal
ong shows up, let me know, will you? I may,” he added, “scout around and try to pick up Red’s trail. He seemed like a right nice feller.”
“We—Dad, I mean—have known Red Connors for a long time, and Hopalong, too. They drove herds over the trail together. They were together when my husband was killed.”
“Your husband?” Joe Gamble was startled. None of them had any idea Sue Gibson had been married, let alone that she was a widow.
“Yes, I was married to Luke Potter. After he died I started using my own name again, as Dad wanted me to. Luke was a fine man.”
Back out on the store porch Gamble shook his head and smiled to himself. Women were always a surprise, he thought. It was best, he realized, never to think you had a handle on one of them, because you were always sure to be wrong.
At the bar, over whiskey, the three owlhoots had reached some conclusions. “He smelled somethin’, that’s what. He’s up in those hills somewheres now, scoutin’ for Connors.”
“Maybe he’s found him already.” Grat was thinking of the gray horse that Hoyt had been riding … the one that was still missing.
Sim Aragon downed his whiskey and shoved back in his chair. “You tell Jack he needn’t worry about Cassidy. I’ll pick up my outfit and we’ll go through them hills so careful we could find any rabbit and squirrel in the place. We’ll find those two, and when we do, Jack’s trouble regardin’ them’ll be over.”
After Sim was gone, Grat looked across the table at Bones. He shook his head. “Too good to last! I knowed it. I hate to tell Jack. He’ll raise the roof.”
Bones looked like a soiled cupid, his round face heavy with knowledge of a chance lost. “That musta been Cassidy we seen at White Rock. We could’ve bushed him,” he said, “if we knowed.”
Chapter 5
RANCH SPY
Copper Mountain’s cave was exactly where Letsinger had advised Hoppy. It was after dark when Red Connors and he made it, but once at the mouth, Hopalong took time to investigate the terrain as thoroughly as possible. The cave was big, and pack rats had dragged in huge piles of dead brush to make nests. They offered a good supply of kindling.
When he had a fire going and Red was bedded down, Hopalong examined his friend’s wound. It looked bad, and obviously the long day’s ride had done it no good at all. After bathing the wound and dressing it once more, Hopalong returned to the fire and got busy with supper. The horses had been unsaddled and picketed on grass in the nearby woods. The grass was thick, and as little game and no stock came up this high, it was undisturbed. The fire was well back into the cave, and the mouth was concealed anyway by the wall formed by the stand of trees.
“Gibson’s the only one who’s been very suspicious of Bolt, and he may be wrong,” Red offered suddenly. “Until I followed this trail, there was no evidence of any kind against him. It might be just that Aragon outfit.”
“Heard of them. Three of ’em, aren’t there?”
“Uh-huh. And they got three or four gents ridin’ with ’em. Rough crowd. Reminds me of that bunch Nevady had down south, that time. Sim’s the boss. He’s a long, thin galoot who fancies himself with a gun. He’s purty good, too. Pete and Manuel are the other two. Both of ’em plumb salty.”
“They run with the Bolt outfit?”
“Not so’s you’d notice. Nobody likes the Aragons. Poison mean. They’d as soon shoot you as look at you.”
“Red,” Hopalong said as they were eating, “there’s grub enough here for several days. You’ve got plenty of firewood without moving to get it, and your horse will do all right on that grass. There’s water back in the cave, and I notice that there’s some rain in a pool outside that’ll do your cayuse.”
“All of which means you’re pullin’ your freight?” Red grinned at him. “Shucks, Hoppy, hit the trail! I can get along, and Gibson will be needin’ help.”
“Well, I think you’ll be all right,” Hopalong said. “At least until I can get back or send someone for you.”
Rolling up in his blankets, Hopalong tried to get to sleep. Red Connors stared at him and grinned. Not for the world would he have hinted to his old friend how good it was to have him back, but now there would be little to worry about, for the famous gunman could always, in his experience, outfigure and outshoot anybody who came along the pike. With the first sense of comfort he had felt in days, Red Connors stretched out and was soon asleep. When he awakened, the first gray of day was appearing far off over the mountains. Hopalong Cassidy was already gone.
Before Hopalong lay a vast sweep of sunken gorges and towering peaks, most of them timber-clad, but gradually growing less so towards the west until, near the area where the 3TL lay, the hills were almost without a tree. That country to the west was barren and showed no sign of water, yet Hopalong knew it was there—if a man knew how to find it.
Below him all was dark and still. The stars were bright overhead, and the hint of dawn lay along the sky far away, a thin spreading gray in the east. The palouse took to the trail with ears pricked up, eager to be going. Angling across the mountain, Hopalong found a way into the forest and slowly worked his way farther and farther down the slope. Tascotal lay off to the south and west, but he intended to hold to the wilder country as long as he could before breaking into the open where he might be seen.
The 3TL lay in a corner of the hills and among a pleasant grove of cottonwood. There were the usual scattered outbuildings, in better shape than most, several corrals, and a green patch that might be a lawn. Nearer, Hopalong saw that it was not only a lawn but there were flowers. He dismounted, wanting to look around before he went inside, but there was no chance of that. There was a call from the door, and he turned to see a girl waving from the steps. Her hair caught the morning sun and gleamed red and gold. For an instant Hopalong’s cold blue eyes lit, and then he dropped the reins of his palouse, who promptly walked off toward the watering trough, and strode toward the girl.
Her eyes bright with curiosity, she looked up at this man of whom she had heard so much. In Texas, as a little girl, she had heard of him and of the fabled Bar 20 and the Double Y, which succeeded it as the hangout of the old Bar 20 outfit. She saw the weather-beaten face, the sloping shoulders, his friendly smile, and then her eyes fell to the two bone-handled Colts tied down to his legs. These guns had killed more than one man.
“Hoppy?” she asked expectantly. “You are Hopalong, aren’t you?”
“Sure am! And you’re Sue Gibson—or is it Potter?”
“Gibson. Did you know Luke?”
“Never did.” He did not say that he had seen him once; Luke Potter had been lying trampled in the mud beside his saddle. The girth had broken when he was trying to head off a stampede. “Your dad getting along all right?”
“Yes, he’s dying to see you, Hoppy! He’s done nothing but talk about you since he first heard you were coming.” She looked up quickly. “Red’s not here. He rode off and hasn’t come back.”
“I know. I’ve seen him.”
A stumpy rider with a deep chest who lounged in the shade of the blacksmith shop got up quickly and walked toward his horse. He swung into the saddle and started off. After a moment Hopalong heard the sound of the horse beginning to run. He stopped in the doorway, his eyes straying toward the sound. “How many of your boys here now?” he asked.
“Why, only two!” Sue was surprised. “Frank Gillespie and Pod Griffin. Why do you ask?”
“Been with you long?”
“Frank has. He rode in here with Dad. He was with him on that same drive where you met Father. Pod? Well, he’s been with us three or four months, maybe a little more.”
“Go find out if they are still there, will you, ma’am? As a favor to me?” He smiled. “I think Pod will be gone off somewheres.”
She started away from him, and removing his hat, Hopalong shoved his damp white hair back from his brow and started into the house, where Gibson was calling him.
The older man was propped up in bed, a big man with a kindly f
ace topped off with bristly gray hair. His smile was wide. “Hoppy! You old son of a gun! Sure is good to see yuh!”
“Better than last time?” Hopalong chuckled. “Last time I remember you figured maybe I was lyin’ to you about having my herd sold.”
Gibson chuckled. “Well, wouldn’t you have been suspicious? That story sounded mighty old. Just the same, tough as they was, I’d like to take a herd over that trail again!”
“You wouldn’t like it now.” Hopalong dropped into a chair. “Fact is, she’s almost gone. Too many fences. An hombre was plowing up a field sixty miles north of Doan’s Crossin’ last time I come through. First time I ever saw that country was over the sights of a Sharps with Injuns coming a-whooping. She sure has changed.”
Sue came in and paused in the door. “Pod’s rode off somewhere,” she said, looking curiously at Hopalong. “How did you know?”
“Read it in my crystal ball.” He smiled. “I reckon he’s gone off to tell somebody I’m here. Somebody who’s rustling cows.”
“Oh, no!” Sue objected. “Not Pod!”
Hopalong shrugged. “Perhaps not, but I’d be mighty curious why else a man races out of here this time of day running his horse, and just after I arrived. Looks strange to me.”
“He’s sort of peculiar, that one,” Gibson admitted. “Acts like he was raised on sour milk.”
Briefly, then, Hopalong covered the events of his arrival at Tascotal, and his earlier meeting with Slim and Bones at White Rock Wells, and how they had mistaken him for a man they were hunting. Their further comments had led him to believe that that man was Red Connors.
“You eat yet?” Gibson asked. “Fix him somethin’, Sue. Cook’s gone to town,” he added, “buyin’ supplies.”
Sue led the way to the kitchen and got down some cold beef, beans, and some biscuits. “They are hucky-dummy,” she said. “But if I catch you picking the raisins out and eating them without bread, I’ll scorch you!”
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