'Could we get closer, so as to identify some of them?' Arnold whispered in the ear of his friend.
Hal shook his head. 'Too big a risk. We'll do better playing it safe.'
The cattleman knew from a dozen experiences this indolent ten minutes while the irons were heating before branding began. A man strolled to the fire and with a long rod raked the coals around the irons. A wave of laughter followed a remark one of the group had evidently made. Occasionally some unseen animal stretched out its head and mooed plaintively.
From a truck a roped steer was dragged down a landing ladder. Lariats snaked out and caught its feet. Taken by surprise, it fell heavily. A man sat on its head. Others drew the ropes tight. An expert applied the branding iron, careful to make sure the burn was enough and no more. It scrambled to its feet, dazed and bewildered, to be pushed and prodded up the ladder into the truck. Presently another bawling steer took the place of the first. The branding went on for hours. Even from the distance where the two watchers lay, the acrid smell of burnt hair and flesh could be savored.
When the job was done, the trucks drove away, followed by the sedan. Stevens and Arnold had not waited till the branding was finished. They had slipped away to the road and were lying behind some prickly pears when the procession passed on the way to town. The moon was under cover again as the trucks rolled by, so that it was not possible to recognize the drivers. But it slid out from a cloud before the sedan appeared. Hal did not know the man at the wheel, nor could he identify the two in the dark rear seat. But the other rider in the front seat was Brick Fenwick.
CHAPTER 27
In the Gibson Stockyards
HAL KNEW it was not necessary for them to follow the trucks closely. They would be unloaded at the packinghouse pens. As a precaution, since the thieves knew Stevens and his guest were in town, a guard of at least two men would be left with them until morning. Gibson would take no chances. This new shipment would be butchered and the hides disposed of at once. The situation boiled down to this, that any proof of brand-blotting obtained would have to be got during the night.
The difficulty of getting evidence was increased by the fact that if the outlaws caught sight of them anywhere, a battle would almost certainly be precipitated. They could not shoot down the guards left at the stockyards nor could they make an investigation in their presence.
'Looks as though we are stymied,' Arnold conceded.
'Yes,' Hal agreed. 'We'll have to be lucky to hole out.' He added with a grin: 'We're too blamed lawful in our lawlessness.'
They decided that their best chance was to go down to the pens and hang around watching for an opportunity. The bandits might make a mistake. Five minutes inside the corral would be long enough if they were not interrupted.
Hal slipped down with a torch into the basement of the hotel to find a weapon necessary for the job. He discovered one in the furnace room, an axe used for splitting firewood and kindling.
Since there was a chance that the enemy might be watching their car, they decided to go to the packing house on foot. By way of the service entrance they slipped from the building into the alley back of the hotel, then cut across a vacant lot, which brought them to a narrow, unpaved road running parallel with the main one. Along this they trudged for nearly a mile before coming to the back fence of the Gibson plant. The sky had cleared, but the moon was down. They would have to be careful to avoid being seen.
Hal scouted the terrain, leaving his companion in the brush that grew thick almost to the fence. Owing to the limited activity of the company, most of the pens were empty. Those occupied were the ones close to the building. Hugging a fence, he drew near to an enclosure in which steers were moving about restlessly, protesting by uneasy bellows the indignity they had suffered. He felt sure these must be part of the consignment just trucked to the yards, because just before dark he had circled the pens and all but one had been empty.
Somebody in an adjoining corral grumbled a complaint to another unseen guard. 'Why do we have to draw this damned graveyard shift, Bill?' he wanted to know sulkily. Hal thought the voice was that of Mullins. He could vaguely see the man sitting on the fence.
From another pen a man answered, cheerfully enough. 'Someone has to do it, Ed. It's past three o'clock now. You can sit in the back seat on the way home and snooze.'
'I notice Brick ain't taking a turn.'
'Brick is sore about being dragged to jail. He'll get over it. No use stirring him up. It would only raise a rumpus.'
'And what makes you think we'll be headin' for home in the morning? Cash good as said there was another job to do.'
'Not for me,' Bill answered. 'If it's the one Brick was talking about, I'm out.'
The nearer man struck a match to light a cigarette. Back of the cupped hand shielding the flame Hal recognized the face of Mullins.
Hal edged back, in the shadow of the fence, at first slowly, later with more speed. He rejoined Arnold and told him what he had found out. 'If they were in the same pen we might hold them up,' he concluded. 'But it isn't likely we could take both of them by surprise.'
'No.' Arnold offered a suggestion. 'If we could get close enough to cover one and keep him from yelling to the other, we might make him call the other.'
'Might be done,' Hal assented. 'The second man would hear our voices, but if his pal was scared enough, we could make him say we were some of the gang.'
'And if he didn't scare but started shooting?'
Hal thought that out. 'Mullins isn't very game, Ranny. He'll scare. Point is, can we stop him before he lets out a yell?'
'There's only one way to find out,' Arnold said with a wry grin. 'I don't like this. It's a long shot. But we'll have to take it.'
'Yes. If I can get near enough before he sees me, the surprise might hold him.'
They worked back toward the pen where Mullins had been. The gray light of dawn was beginning to sift into the sky, but it had not yet scattered the darkness below. Yet Hal knew their time was running out. What they had to do must be done quickly. It had been arranged that Arnold would hang back and let Hal attempt the hold-up alone. If it was successful, he would at once pile over the fence and assist with the second guard.
Hal crept forward, close to the ground. He circled the fence of the corral where Mullins sat on the top rail, his back to the approaching man. There was a rifle across the guard's knees. He put it down against a post to light another cigarette. The match had just flared when a voice not four feet away sent a shiver of fear down his spine.
'Make a sound, Mullins, and I'll pump lead into you,' it whispered.
The match went out. Mullins opened his mouth to yell and clapped a hand over it to stop himself.
'Slide down on this side of the fence,' Hal ordered.
Mullins swung his legs over and came to the ground. He was trembling violently. 'Don't shoot,' he begged.
A second man had joined his captor. Mullins's frightened eyes shifted to Arnold and back to Stevens. The stomach muscles of the rustler had gone lax from fright.
The man in the other pen had heard shuffling movements and looked across. Where there had been one man there were now three.
'Who is it, Ed?' he cried. 'Is everything all right?'
Hal was afraid the shaky voice of Mullins would give them away. He decided to do the talking himself. A good mimic, his slow drawl was an excellent imitation of Polk.
'It's Cash, Bill. Something unexpected has broke. Come over and I'll explain.'
Whatever suspicion had been in Bill's mind vanished when he heard the voice of Polk. He came across an empty pen to join them. While he was astride the fence, both hands on the top rail, the sharp summons came to stay there and let his ringers remain exactly where they were. A gun covered him not three feet from his belly. Bill Nuney was a game man, but he knew when not to fight. Before it would be possible for him to draw, this man could pour bullet after bullet into him.
'All right,' Nuney said quietly. 'What's yore game?'
> 'Come down,' Hal ordered, 'leaving your hands on the rail.'
Bill came down and Arnold disarmed him. Nuney knew Stevens by sight, though Hal did not remember having seen him before. The young rustler looked the cattleman over hardily. 'When I saw a guy standing back of Ed, I might have known it would be you,' he said disgustedly. 'You certainly enjoy buttin' in where you're not wanted.'
Hal liked the young scamp's audacity. Moreover, unless he had misunderstood the talk he had overheard, Bill had served notice to Mullins that murder was not his game and he would have nothing to do with it.
'I'm an annoying character,' Hal admitted. 'But we won't have time to go into that tonight. Ranny, if you'll ride herd on the gentlemen, I'll get busy. Better have them sit down against the fence so that they won't be tempted to try suicide by jumping you.'
Hal got the axe he had brought with him, climbed the fence, and watched his chance. As the cattle milled past him, he selected a steer and swung the butt of the axe against its forehead. The animal went down almost at his feet, dead before it struck the ground. The rest of the stock, excited by the smell of blood, rushed around wildly for a minute.
'Look out they don't trample you,' Arnold called to him.
'They'll quiet in a minute and huddle in the other side of the corral,' Hal said.
Already he had his knife out and was on his knees. He cut a circle through the hide around the brand and ripped off the enclosed skin. This he rammed into his pocket. In another minute he was outside of the pen with the other men.
From where he sat in the dust, Nuney looked up at him. 'Smart as a new whip, aren't you? Maybe too smart. I know some fellows who aren't going to take this well. If I were you I'd hire about six bodyguards.'
'Thanks,' answered Hal. 'And while free advice is going, let me give some, Bill. Better get out of this part of the country and lose yourself while there is still time. The rustling game here is played out. It's the penitentiary for you if you stick around.'
'If I get you right, you're not putting us in the calaboose tonight then,' Nuney said.
'Not tonight. Too busy. You can drift as soon as you like, but we'll keep your weapons.'
Nuney rose and dusted his trousers. 'You'd be surprised, Mr. Stevens,' he said lightly, 'but maybe you have made an honest man of me. I don't like the way this thing is developing. I'm no killer, and sure as God made little apples you are marked for death unless you watch yore step. Your advice is good medicine — and so is mine.'
'You talk too much,' Mullins growled. 'Let's beat it.'
'Have you a car down here?' Arnold asked.
'No,' Nuney replied. 'They were going to pick us up.'
'Wait here till we have gone, and don't hurry to catch up with us,' the Government man ordered.
'Suits me,' Nuney said. 'Our shift isn't over anyhow.' He laughed wryly. 'We're going to have a hell of a story to tell the boys.'
As Hal and Ranny walked back to town, they decided it would be better not to try to reach their car. They could telephone to the hotel later to take care of it. James Hunter lived in a hill suburb north of town. He had two cars and would probably lend them the small one. They must leave as soon as they could, for when Brick Fenwick heard what had occurred at the Gibson yards he would not lose a moment.
CHAPTER 28
Under a Magnifying Glass
JAMES HUNTER led the way into the living-room of his house and turned on his tormentors. He was in pajamas and dressing-gown, and sleep was not yet wholly rubbed out of his eyes. A solid man, square-shouldered and well-set-up, even under the present unfavorable circumstances he retained a certain dignity and poise.
'Now what do you want?' he demanded. 'Your story has to be good after waking me up in the middle of the night.'
'We want to borrow yore car for a joyride,' Hal told him, eyes twinkling impudently.
'What for?' he snapped. 'You have a car of your own.'
'We have and we haven't,' the cattleman explained. 'Our idea is that four or five men with guns are hanging around it waiting for us.'
'What have you been up to — that burglary you were hinting about?'
'We took your advice and dropped that idea.' Hal grinned. 'All they can send you to jail for is being accessory to a hold-up after the fact. Probably you won't get more than a couple of years if you throw yourself on the mercy of the court.'
'Stop talking in riddles and spill your story,' the banker ordered.
Hal told him briefly the tale of the night's adventures. The comment of Hunter was tart. 'After the Lord made you, I hope he broke the mold. I've seen a lot of hella-milers in my time, but you take the cake.'
This criticism did not quite express Hunter's real feeling. He had spent an adventurous youth, and young Stevens carried him back to the carefree days when he had lived in the open and spent months in the hills on the trail of horse thieves and bandits. As a solid citizen it was his duty to disapprove of his friend's audacious methods of countering crime. Arizona was a civilized state, and this reversion to the wild days of its territorial status was outdated. Yet he felt a queer lift at being dragged even into the outskirts of such jeopardy. Vicariously at least he could experience for an hour the old untamed frontier license.
'I'm a Government officer,' Arnold reminded their host.
'And you know very well that Washington would repudiate such high-handed ways of getting evidence if it turned out these men you held up were not guilty.'
Hal pulled from his pocket the strip of hide he had skinned from the dead steer. 'We haven't had time to examine our evidence yet,' he said. 'Maybe we have been holding up good honest citizens and are headed for the penitentiary.'
From another pocket he took a magnifying glass. The bit of hide he put on a table with a newspaper under it. He scanned deliberately both the hairy and the inner sides of the hide patch they had risked their lives to get, after which he handed the glass to Arnold. Ranny took a long look, and so in turn did the banker.
'The brand has been doctored, I think,' Hunter said at last, 'but I don't know whether a jury would accept that as proved.'
'It would after it had looked at magnified photographic charts,' Hal said confidently. 'The difference between the old marking and the new would show very clearly.'
'Whose brand is this 0 B in a Box?' Hunter asked.
'We'll find that out tomorrow, but I'll give you ten to one that it is registered in the name of one of Black's gang,' Hal replied. 'The original brand is a J Bar. It belongs to an Easterner named Walsh who bought out an oldtimer last year.'
He took the magnifying glass a second time and inspected the markings on the hide. His trained eye saw clearly that the J of the first branding had cut deeper into the hide than the which had been added to make the new brand .
Hunter said abruptly, 'I think you boys had better get into that sport car of mine and light out of here before these fellows find you.'
'That's in perfect agreement with our wishes,' Arnold replied.
'You know too much for your own safety. They dare not rest now until they have stopped you from talking.'
'If you will take care of Exhibit A, we'll leave it with you,' Hal said, indicating the strip of hide. 'It will be safer in a deposit box in your bank vault than with us.'
'I'll take care of it,' Hunter promised. 'Now get going as soon as I have given you the car keys — and don't stop until you have plenty of friends around you.'
'Yes, sir,' Hal promised meekly.
'No more damn foolishness. You have your evidence now, and it isn't worth a nickel if you let these scoundrels shoot you down.'
Hunter watched them drive away. He liked this cool young ranchman who had the gift of taking danger in his stride, and with it the aplomb to shrug off the experience as all in the day's work.
As he was walking along the upstairs hall to his bedroom, a girl of about nineteen poked her head out of a door he was passing. 'For Pete's sake, who were they and what did they want in the middle of the night?' she d
emanded.
'Go to bed, young woman,' her father told her. 'Their business was very private.'
'Is that so?' she retorted saucily and somewhat sleepily. 'And it's none of my business, of course, even though I saw them driving away in my car.'
'If you'll look up the records at the courthouse you'll find it isn't your car,' he said, and continued to his room.
'It's practically mine,' she flung after him. 'And I can tell you one thing. They won't get far. The tank registered empty last night, and I didn't have my coupons with me.'
Hunter was just closing his door, but he jerked it open fast. 'What's that — no gas in the car?'
'Not a pint. But of course they can get it filled — if they happen to notice. I hope they stall two miles from a filling station. Serve them right for having the nerve to wake us up at this hour.' She yawned, stretched, gave him a mocking 'Good night, darling,' and went back to bed. Her tousled head had scarcely hit the pillow before she was again asleep.
But the information she had tossed off so airily interfered effectually with any more sleep for her father. Instead of having helped young Stevens and his friend, he had increased their danger by giving them a car they could not use. Even if they discovered at once that the tank was empty, they could not get it filled at this time of day.
CHAPTER 29
Nuney Makes a Decision
THE NEWS CARRIED by the two night guards to their companions brought them out of their beds and into a huddle. This was disturbing information. Their foes had outwitted them and obtained evidence the rustlers had trucked fifty miles to put in their possession.
'So you handed over yore guns like a pair of lambs and let them skin the brand off one of the critters,' jeered Fenwick.
'That's right,' agreed Nuney. 'We sat there with a six-shooter at our heads and liked it.' He added gently, 'The way you did when Stevens took you to the calaboose.'
Fenwick glared at him. 'Don't get funny with me, fellow,' he warned, the words coming from between set teeth.
Who Wants to Live Forever? Page 14