His own eyes swept over her. Without comparison she was the belle of the ball. The color came and went in her face like the changing colors on the mountain peaks.
“Montana!” she exclaimed, happily, he could have sworn. “Are you dancing?”
The question nonplused him, for the moment left him speechless. There was an invitation in that voice—an invitation that for a moment sent the suitors edging back.
“No ma’am,” he said, almost ruefully. “I’m looking for my buddy. He came down here to watch the crowd—” She glanced around quickly, startled.
“He was here only a moment ago. He has been with me. Why, I’ll help you look for him.”
“Thank you, just the same,” Montana said hastily. “He can’t be very far away. I’ll locate him pronto.” Before she could answer he elbowed away through the crowd which quickly wedged in about her.
But a thorough search of the dance hall revealed no trace of either Smokey or the boy. Prey by now to a rapidly increasing apprehension, Montana went about asking if anyone had seen them. But no one he approached had seen them, or, if they had, they had failed to notice them in the crowded pavilion.
Convinced presently that neither of the two was in the house, Montana went outside to stand peering into the darkness.
It was a night of charm, a night typical of the mountains. A cooling breeze, which after the long drought at last gave promise of rain, had sprung up to come whining down from the canyons. A new moon was sinking in the west—a thin, golden crescent that yet shed enough light to touch the trees with a soft pale glow, bringing out the shrubbery in gigantic spectral shapes and moving the mountains deceptively near.
Thoroughly alarmed by now, Montana set out in search of the grounds. He had gone but a short distance when the glow of a cigarette caught his eye. He moved nearer, stopped to listen. His nerves jerked tight. Little Montana was speaking.
“That’s my name, I tell you,” the boy was saying in a voice high-pitched with fear. “And that is all I know.”
“You’re lying, you brat,” came the snarl of Smokey Tremaine. “And I’m going—” Montana did not wait for him to finish. He lunged forward, seized hold of the startled Smokey, spun him around and sent his fist crashing to the puncher’s jaw. Tremaine went sprawling to the ground.
“You let this kid alone,” Montana whipped out. “You tried to tromp him down once today. Seems like just warning you don’t do any good. I don’t want to kill you if I can keep from it, but now, damn you, I’m telling you, and backing it up with gunplay. You understand, Tremaine?”
Seconds passed; tense, deadly seconds that struck terror to the heart of the frightened boy who cowered in the shadows, panting. In the wan light he caught sight of Montana, his features set, drawn. On the ground crouched Tremaine, his own face twisted hatefully.
“Don’t be scared, Button,” Montana was reassuring the youngster. “I’m watching this lobo. You travel,” he threw at Smokey. “And another break toward this kid and I’m shooting to kill.”
The Diamond A foreman got to his feet, face livid, gloved fingers dangerously near the butts of his forty-fives, which even at the dance, like the others, he had failed to discard. The boy’s terrified gaze flew back to Montana. He was standing with legs spraddled wide, the same steely glint in his eyes that he had seen at the rodeo grounds.
“I wasn’t hurting the brat,” Tremaine found his voice to snarl. He suddenly withdrew his hands from his cartridge belt to slap the dust from his clothes.
“Mebbe not,” Montana warned, “but get this straight. You ever make another break as long as we’re around this spread and I’m shooting to kill. Cousins wants to see you. Quick. You hit the grit.”
“I’ll get even with you for this,” Tremaine growled between clenched teeth. “And I’ll get even with this brat, too.” Muttering curses he spun about and strode away into the darkness.
Montana stood stock still watching him until he was swallowed up in the gloom. Then he faced the boy.
“What is the idea, Button?” he demanded. “I thought I told you to stay in the dance hall.”
“I did,” the boy faltered through chattering teeth. “I sat there and waited for a long spell. Then I saw Sally. She talked with me for a time. Smokey came along and started talking with me. He was nice and I figured we might have made a mistake this afternoon; that he didn’t really try to tromp me down. He got to telling me about all his horses. Asked me if I didn’t want to see them. I didn’t see any harm in that, and besides I’d gotten over being scared of him, so I started to the barn with him. He stopped out here and wanted to know my name. I told him it was Little Montana and he just seemed to get sore all of a sudden. He was getting pretty tough when you came up. Gosh, I’m glad you came, Montana.”
“The thing has got me plumb stumped,” Montana said blankly, lifting his hat to run his fingers through his hair thoughtfully. “I just can’t get head or tail of it. But let’s walk around a spell, buddy. I want to look this place over.” Taking hold of the frightened boy’s arm, he started away along a trail that ran into the gloom beyond the dimly lighted entrance to the dance pavilion. “What else did Tremaine have to say to you?”
“Nothing,” timidly, “only just asked who I really was. I told him, Little Montana. And he called me a liar.”
In silence Montana walked on through the shadows that lay thick and ominous about them.
“What the devil is eating on that jasper?” he mused aloud after a time. “Hell—this whole spread is crazy as a herd of locoed steers—crazy as we ever were to come down here in the first place.”
“I think so, too,” Little Montana agreed, hugging close to his side. “Let’s go away from here. I’m scared worse than ever now.”
“We’ll go,” Montana said grimly. “Tomorrow. I tried my damnedest to shut Cousins up long enough to give him this letter tonight. But just seems the old fellow is like you, scared plumb to death about things—so scared a jasper can’t even talk sense to him. And—something happened.”
“What?” the boy asked fearfully.
“Cousins got shot.”
“Shot? Who did it?”
“Your guess is just as good as mine.” Montana paused to glance about cautiously. “I just wish I knew, or even had a hunch.”
By now the lights of the ranch had vanished in the gloom behind them. They were enveloped in darkness unpierced save for the feeble rays of the setting moon, which caused the vegetation to rise up in eerie,-unreal shapes about them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WRONG TRAIL
“I reckon we had best be milling back,” Montana said presently. “I’ll get this letter to Cousins yet tonight if I have to ear him down long enough to listen; then we’ll skin out—go back with Whitey and—” He broke off shortly to seize the boy’s arm and hurl him to the ground. “Lay still,” he warned in an undertone.
Frightened half out of his senses, Little Montana sprawled breathless. The crack of a six-shooter out of the night set his nerves to singing. He cringed in terror. Came a crackling of underbrush from behind. Silence.
The boy leaped up. Montana took an uncertain step forward, threw out his arms and pitched to the ground.
“Shot in the left arm,” he gasped. “We were sky-lined right in here. I ought to have known. But you. Get away from here quick. Go back to the ranch. Find Sally. Stay in the dance hall with her. Don’t leave her for anything, even if you have to go to town with her. Tell her I’ll make it right when I come.”
“But you’re shot,” the boy protested, forgetful of his own fright at thought of Montana’s predicament.
“Never mind me,” Montana panted. “Take care of yourself.”
“That would be a fine way for a pard to act,” Little Montana flung back. “I can help you.” He dropped to his knees. “Who do you suppose did it?”
“I do
n’t know,” Montana gasped. “But I’m not hurt very bad. The shock knocked me off my pins, I reckon. But—light out, Button. And keep your mouth shut.”
“I want to help you,” the boy said through chattering teeth. “But if you want me to go—”
“I do,” Montana whispered. “I’ll get back all right. As soon as I catch my wind. Take care of yourself until I’m able.”
Little Montana waited to hear no more. Leaping up, he sped away, determined, no matter what Montana said, to bring help.
Until the breath was tearing at his lungs he ran, his only thought of Montana. For all his exertion now he was cold, shivering in the chill night air, now hot, burning with resentment against the coward who had shot down his friend. Not once in his childish mind could he picture anyone but Tremaine as that assailant. The affair between Montana and Smokey at the rodeo grounds, the set-to outside the pavilion, Smokey had slung away threatening. Even now the swarthy-faced foreman of the Diamond A might be lurking in the brush to waylay him.
The notion lent speed to his feet. On and on he ran until he was reeling with fatigue. Then he stopped to look around, striving to pierce the ominous darkness until his eyes ached with the strain. The moon had set behind the mountains. The heavens were starless and black with clouds. Trees loomed like hulking ghosts about him. Out of the far dark came the boom of the river. Yet the lights of the Diamond A had vanished; the music and laughter were drowned in the noises of the night. He turned slowly in all directions. But for the life of him he could not tell where he was. He walked on, then paused to listen. No sound reached him save the crash of the river and the moaning of the wind through the pines.
The stark reality of the thing began to dawn upon him. He was lost! The shadowed mountains suddenly had become hideous prisons that held him in a grip as firm and horrible as anything he could conjure up in his childish mind. Panic descended upon him, terror of the darkness, of Tremaine, that the wounded Montana would die before he could return with aid.
He plunged on again only to pitch headlong into a thicket. Not until his clothes were almost torn from his body was he able to extricate himself. He was aware that he was crying, crying loudly for help. Yet no answer reached his straining ears.
When he was able he arose. He found that by standing still he could see a short distance ahead. The thread of silver at his feet, he reasoned, must be the trail he had followed with Big Montana. Yet he wondered at the distance they had come.
Cautiously he started along it, filled with hope that now he could find Sally and get help for his wounded comrade. His terror increased, urging him on until he was running swiftly. Again the swarthy face of Tremaine leered at him from every thicket of brush. And Montana—He stopped to cry Sally’s name at the top of his voice. Still no answer came out of the blackness.
He stumbled on. Again and again he plunged headlong into the brush which tore his face and filled his arms and hands with thorns. Vaguely now he realized that he was going away from the ranch. Time and again he imagined he had changed his course. But he was not certain. His sense of direction had deserted him. The darkness overwhelmed him. His voice was husky from his constant calls for help. To add to the horror of the moment thunder began growling in the ebon void above the towering mountains. His strength was ebbing swiftly. Manfully he forced his logy muscles to respond. He must get aid for Montana!
Then he became aware of the chill of water on his feet. His boots were soaked. The cold reached above his ankles. No longer could he see the trail. He seemed to be crossing a stream, picking his way along slippery cobblestones, managing miraculously to maintain his balance. Above and below was a mighty roar.
Then the chill on his feet ceased. And the going required greater effort. He must be climbing. It sapped his little remaining strength and breath. Still he struggled on, now possessed of a grim stubbornness that took no notice of time or distance.
Came a blinding flash of lightning to dazzle him with its brilliance and leave its glare for several seconds before his eyes. A deafening crash of thunder sent him cringing to the ground. For an infinity of time he lay in a daze. When he had collected his wits he was conscious of a vast and foreboding silence about him. Below he could hear the river, its roar lessened with distance. The air, which had been cool, suddenly seemed inert, suffocating.
Came another streamer of lightning followed by a clap of thunder that seemed to rock the mountains. A deluge descended from the inky heavens. Too weak to rise, he began crawling along in the rain that drenched him to the skin, made his teeth chatter with its biting cold. But now he seemed to have lost all sense of the things about him. His terror had become so deep-rooted that he was merely an automaton, the victim of some hideous nightmare.
After an endless period of desperate struggling he became aware that the rain had ceased. He could still hear it, but strangely it had stopped beating down upon his helpless form. He stared around in the darkness. By a vivid bolt of lightning he found that he had crawled beneath a ledge of rock where he lay spent and fighting for breath.
Once he thought he heard a shout. In vain he tried to hear it repeated above the sluicing roar of the blood in his ears. Convinced finally that his fancy had tricked him, he sank back down, weary to the point of death, beaten, drenched, bruised, stricken with the thought that he had failed Montana who was lying along the trail, his life perhaps depending on his aid.
Through the chimera of his tortured mind he became aware that someone really was shouting. He screamed, then held his rasping breath until he was faint, listening. Nearer and nearer came the cry of a voice. He tried to answer. But after his first outcry he could only reply in almost inaudible gurgles. Then the one who had shouted stood directly above him. A bolt of lightning revealed him clearly. The blood in Little Montana’s veins seemed to turn to ice. He cowered back beneath the ledge. It was Smokey Tremaine!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LOST IN THE STORM
The chill of water on his face and a numbing pain in his left arm were the first sensations of Big Montana. He forced his weighted eyelids open only to close them quickly against the rain beating down upon him. He was lying in the trail, half drowned, shivering violently. Yet he was thankful for the downpour that had revived him. With difficulty he raised himself to a sitting posture, felt gingerly of the hole in the flesh of his forearm that seemed on fire.
Despite the shock to his wits, Montana knew that he had not been wounded seriously; that the bullet pinging out of the dark behind luckily had missed the bone of his arm. Slipping off his neckerchief, with awkward fingers he bound the bleeding wound and knotted the bandage with his teeth.
He labored with feverish haste, praying the while that no accident had befallen the boy along the trail and that he had reached the ranch ahead of the storm. Once he was on the point of shouting. But caution warned him to silence. His unknown assailant might still be lying in wait for him.
To his mind flew the note Cousins had received. One sentence of the scrawl beat on his brain. If another pussyfoot comes in here we’ll get you and him, too!
That the rustlers had mistaken him for a detective, as Cousins had done, and made good their threat, was possible. This also would explain the shot that had creased Cousins. Yet, somehow he could not shake off a suspicion that Smokey had fired at him out of revenge. But if this were the case, who had shot Cousins? Certainly not Smokey, whom he had found with the boy outside the dance hall a short time afterward. And who was it that Cousins was about to name when the mysterious bullet sent him down?
Determined to find out, he climbed to his feet. His good hand fell to his holster. It was empty. He felt around on the ground for his forty-five, which he recalled having drawn just before he dropped. But he could not locate it in the darkness. He abandoned the search presently. Getting the wound attended to and satisfying himself that Little Montana was safe were far more important at the moment than recovering his C
olt.
He started along the trail toward the Diamond A, pausing now and then to get his bearings by the flashes of lightning, and listen for the sound of any footsteps behind.
After an infinity of time the lights of the dance hall burst into view. Careful to avoid a chance meeting with anyone until he could reach the ranch house and have Cousins or the cook care for his wound, he kept well in the shadows and made a detour of the entrance. He had gone but a short distance when a shout halted him.
“Montana!” It was Cousins calling.
Surprised to see the cowman about so quickly, Montana waited.
Cousins ducked out from the pavilion and hobbled toward him through the rain.
“What did you find out?” he demanded, stopping beside Montana to huddle in his great yellow slicker, his back to the downpour.
Montana thrust his wounded arm behind him.
“Where is Little Montana?” he asked anxiously.
“Nobody seems to have seen him,” Cousins answered. “I got worried about the little shaver in this storm and I’ve been trying to locate him. He isn’t at your bunk-house nor in the dance hall. Some of the folks thought they heard a shot just before the storm. Did you hear it?”
“Little Montana isn’t here?” Montana cried blankly, ignoring the question. “Where is Sal—Miss Hope?”
“She left for town before the storm, along with a lot of the Elbar people,” was Cousins’s disturbing reply.
“And Smokey Tremaine?” Montana blurted out, prey to a dread fear that grew mightily upon him.
“Smokey hasn’t been seen since before the storm either,” Cousins answered.
Montana’s heart sank within him. The girl gone to town. Smokey missing. Little Montana missing. The discovery set his nerves to strumming, brought a steely light into his eyes.
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