Raiders of Spanish Peaks

by Zane Grey

  “Gun-fighter?—Killed some one! … Oh, how dreadful!” exclaimed the Eastern girl.

  “And Ted has been a—what do you call a rider—a range-rider, all these years?” queried Mrs. Williams, aghast.

  “Ten years, I think he said. And the last four he has been closely associated with Laramie Nelson, and another of our riders, Lonesome, they call him. They are like brothers.”

  “Lonesome? How cute!” cried Kitty.

  Mrs. Williams gazed in apprehension at her husband. “Father, I fear Ted is going to give us a shock.”

  “I’m prepared for anything,” replied Williams, happily. “But I’m not worried any more. I’ll take the West as I find it. And right here I find it most satisfactory. For years I’ve feared Ted had become a disgrace to us—an idle, drunken cow-puncher. But I’m sure I’ll have to apologize.”

  Florence gave him a proud little smile.

  “Indeed you will. Ted is the farthest removed from that. He is just the finest boy in all the world.”

  “All’s well that ends well,” returned Mr. Williams, feelingly.

  “Mrs. Williams, of course, you will stay?” asked Harriet. “We can make you comfortable and will be most happy to have you.”

  “Thank you, we will stay—unless one of your wild riders makes up to Kitty.”

  “One of them! They’ll all make up to her…. And I warn you, Kitty, they make love like—like cyclones.”

  “It’ll be just great,” replied that demure young lady, her eyes shining.

  Here Strickland interposed: “Lindsay, now that your range boss is here suppose we get our little confab over. I’ll have to leave at daybreak tomorrow. An’ as my business with you is important, I’d like to get it off my chest.”

  “Range boss?” echoed Hallie, wonderingly. “Am I he?”

  “So your father gives me to understand,” replied Strickland.

  “Oh, I—I’ve made a mess of it. All I’ll ever do after this is handle the money.”

  “Wal, that includes about everythin’.”

  “Ma, you folks please excuse us a while,” said Lindsay, rising. “Come, Hallie, we’ll go to the office…. Mr. Williams, didn’t you say you might back Ted in some cattle deal or other?”

  “Yes, I said I might, if he was half decent and it would help him,” replied Williams, genially. “Now after hearing what you say about Ted, and meeting his lovely wife, I’m inclined to buy them a corner of Colorado for a wedding present.”

  “Fine. Then you sit in with us on this little game. Come.”

  He led the way with Hallie, while Strickland and Williams followed.

  “Mr. Williams, are you really serious about settin’ your boy up in the cattle business?” Strickland was saying.

  “I am indeed—if the boy will only forgive me. I guess I wasn’t ——”

  “Shucks! That’ll be all right. Dads will be Dads. I had a boy who disappointed me turrible. He went to the bad an’—never come back.”

  “Ah! That’s sad. I’m sorry.”

  “But I have two other sons, both doin’ wal, one out here, an’ the other in Kansas City, at the receivin’ end of our cattle business…. It’s not a bad idee your backin’ the boy now. This particular range is due for a boom, an’ it’ll run half a million haid of stock.”

  “Half a million!” echoed Mr. Williams.

  Harriet led them into her cool and tidy office with a conscious pride.

  “Wal, this looks like business to me,” declared Williams.

  “She was my right-hand man back in Ohio,” replied Lindsay.

  “What’ll you do when one of these buckaroos rides oft with her?” queried the Eastern, bluntly.

  “That isn’t—likely,” stammered Harriet, with a furious blush.

  “Isn’t it?” dryly added Strickland. “Wal, sufficient unto the day…. Now, Lindsay to get down to talk, I want you an’ Miss Harriet to glance over these papers.”

  “What are they?” asked Harriet, as the rancher slapped a bundle of long envelopes upon the desk.

  “Wal, I calculate they prove my status. Letters from bankers, stockmen, an’ so forth. One from a Denver judge, an’ executive of the Santa Fé, an’ others, all well-known men.”

  “I see,” replied Lindsay, fingering the letters, which Strickland had opened. “What’s the idea? Your status?”

  “These are references, I take it?” inquired Harriet.

  “Exactly, an’ to your evident kindly objection to see any reason for them I have this to say,” returned Strickland. “I am an old cattleman an’ you are a newcomer. This cattle business has grown so complicated, as it has prospered, that no rancher knows whether his neighbor is stealin’ his cattle or not. That’s the gist of the matter.”

  “Ridiculous, in your case, Mr. Strickland,” replied Harriet, warmly.

  “Thanks, miss. That’s nice from you. But do me the favor, you an’ your father an’ Mr. Williams, too, to run over them.”

  The request was acceded to, at the conclusion of which Mr. Williams said to Lindsay: “These are unquestionably and legally a guarantee of Mr. Strickland’s position. I should say leading position.”

  “Agree with you, Williams,” replied Lindsay.

  “An’ you, Miss Hallie” queried the cattleman.

  “I read them to please you, Mr. Strickland, but I did not need to.”

  “You can see through men?”

  “Hardly that, Mr. Strickland. But I have a woman’s instinct. I think I know whom I can trust.”

  “Did you trust Lester Allen?” queried Strickland, bluntly.

  “I did not,” retorted Harriet. “I told father Allen had cheated him.”

  “How about Arlidge? I remember you were—evidently interested in him at La Junta. Pardon me. This is business. Would you trust him?”

  “Mr. Strickland, you must make allowances for an Eastern tenderfoot,” replied Harriet, blushing as usual, to her annoyance. “I was interested in Arlidge, perhaps somewhat fascinated—but as surely repelled. I would not trust him in any way.”

  “Thank you. That is straight talk. I like it an’ I like your eyes, aside from their beauty,” rejoined Strickland, and then he turned to Lindsay. “You are fortunate in your right-hand man. May I ask if you have relied wholly upon this—this woman’s instinct she called it?”

  “No, I haven’t, and I’ve lived to regret it,” rejoined Lindsay, frankly.

  “Wal, I’ve taken the trouble to find out all the range knows about you an’ your family an’ your riders. It’d surprise you. Westerners take stock of any newcomers, but they’re slow aboot it. Sometimes it’s unhealthy.”

  “You’re very kind to be so—so interested, Strickland.”

  “Not at all. But I’ve become sort of a leader in eastern Colorado. Now, for the reason. You’ll see in this list of names—here—all the reputable cattlemen in this section, an’ that runs over into Kansas an’ Nebraska. I’ll be frank with you. There may be cattlemen listed there who are crooked, and we may have left out some honest ones. But we’ve done our best. Bain, Stockwell, Halscomb, an’ myself are responsible for this organization I’m representin’. We call it The Spanish Peaks Cattlemen’s Protective Association. Our object is to band together for protection against rustlers. There always has been rustlin’ in the West, an’ so long as cattle are raised there will continue to be rustlin’…. You have lost considerable yourself, I understand?”

  Lindsay nodded and spread wide his hands. “I came West to recover my health. I did. And I’m so glad about it that I’m not kicking over my losses.”

  “How much stock have you lost?”

  Hallie replied for him: “We are cleaned out. Father bought ten thousand head from Allen. The actual number here upon our arrival was much less than that. Now they are all gone.”

  Mr. Williams leaned forward in genuine amaze. “Is it possible? Ten thousand head of cattle! I am shocked. Why, this rustling must be a business.”

  “Bane of the cattlemen, Mr.
Williams,” replied Strickland, tersely. “Wal, naturally you have suffered most, Lindsay. But some of the rest of us are losin’ stock, more an’ more all the time. There’s a wave of rustlers swellin’ on us, about to swamp us. It’s a big range, with thousands of cattle spread all over, easy pickin’ for thieves. There must be a number of gangs, perhaps none of them large. An’ when mixed brands can be driven an’ sold to one of half a dozen markets—wal, it’s somethin’ for us to stack up against…. Lindsay, we want you in our organization. We want your son also, an’ young Williams, too, if he is becomin’ a rancher.”

  “I accept, and thanks to you, Mr. Strickland,” replied Lindsay.

  “Gentlemen, I can’t answer for my son yet, but I’m strong to see him go in with you and fight these robbers,” spoke up Williams, forcibly.

  “So far so good,” declared Strickland, with gratification. “But the rub has been, an’ still is, how to operate against these rustlers. Every growin’ range sees somethin’ of the same trouble. But ours is particularly lax, mainly because we have only one or two men capable of controllin’ riders an’ wipin’ out the rustlers. My foreman, Stevens, was one. Unfortunately, Stevens was shot a week ago. Not fatally, I’m glad to say, but he’ll be out of harness for a while. We must get the other man to lead our forces, or else import some one. That I don’t approve of, because it’d be hard to get the right one. We might hire a man who would fall in with the rustlers. That has been done often.”

  “Who is this—other man you speak of?” asked Hallie, with a sudden sense of catastrophe.

  “Your foreman, Laramie Nelson,” answered Strickland. “I don’t know Nelson, but I have heard of him. I dare say, Miss Lindsay, that neither you nor your father have any idea who this Nelson is.”

  “Buffalo Jones got Nelson for me—told us a lot about him,” replied Lindsay.

  “Yes. I met Jones in Denver recently an’ I told him about our troubles. An’ he growled about what’d come over Laramie Nelson. That acquainted me with the fact of Jones’ interest in you. Wal, he told me that though he recommended Nelson highly to you, he did not tell you altogether who an’ what Nelson was.”

  “I see. All right, it’s not pertinent right now to waste time on who and what Nelson was or is, jest so long as he’s the man you need.”

  “He is. An’ now I must get—wal, sort of personal, Miss Lindsay. I hope you’ll forgive me. We’re all deeply concerned…. The talk of the range is that Nelson has laid down on his job.”

  “What?” demanded Lindsay.

  “Mr. Strickland, you mean La—Nelson has—has not lived up to his reputation—that he has not done anything to—to end this rustling?” queried Harriet, hurriedly.

  “Exactly. He has not.”

  “I—I am to blame. I have kept him from—from violence. It made me sick to think of his—spilling blood…. Oh, indeed, I have been—I am the most chicken-hearted of tenderfoots.”

  “No one would suspect that,” returned Strickland. “But I think I understand you. We all wondered about Nelson…. May I presume to ask—are you engaged to him?”

  “Oh! … No, indeed,” murmured Hallie, and this time her skin blanched cold and tight instead of burning.

  “Wal, that’s too bad, for us an’ Laramie, too,” went on Strickland, wholly unconscious of flaying Hallie. “The range gossip has it that Nelson is so sweet on you he can’t run the riders, much less go out an’ hang a rustler.”

  “Such gossip is a—a great injustice to him,” replied Hallie, lifting her head.

  “Wal,” drawled Strickland, his eagle-eyes piercing and warm upon her, “such things always right themselves. That gossip won’t hurt Nelson so long as he corrects it, particularly the report that he intends to quit your father.”

  “Quit me!” ejaculated Lindsay, astounded. “No, Strickland, he’ll stick to me.”

  “Father, I must confess to you,” said Hallie, fighting for composure, “that Laramie quit this morning. He assured me he would fetch Lenta back to us—then he was through.”

  The significant glances of the three men were not lost upon Harriet. At the moment she was more concerned with concealing her secret than with anything else.

  “Lindsay, I’ll gamble Nelson quit so he’d have a free hand. I know Westerners of his stripe. With all due respect to Miss Hallie’s feelin’s, I’m glad he quit. There’ll be hell out there on the range. Don’t worry, he’ll fetch the little girl back safe an’ unharmed…. But, his quittin’ is serious now. He might take a shot at some one, then ride away. The thing is—he must he got back—he must be the man to lead our protective organization.”

  “Maybe a good big offer of money would help,” suggested Williams.

  “No,” replied Strickland, decidedly, and he shifted his gaze back to Hallie.

  “Strickland, I had a hunch Nelson was going to leave us. And I asked Hallie to persuade him to stay…. Hallie, you must have failed.”

  “Father, I—I did not try,” responded Harriet, and she walked to the window to look out. Then ensued a silence that enabled Hallie to find herself. She turned. “Dad,” she began, and the fact that she called him that was revealing, “And Mr. Strickland, if Laramie Nelson is so—so vital to our interests I promise you I will do my utmost to keep him here—and no longer influence or hinder his actions.”

  Hallie shirked facing what she actually meant and how she should proceed in such a crucial situation. She had an inkling that if she shunted aside her too sensitive delicacy and reacted in a wholesome and unrestrained way she might be better off. Moreover she was resisting a suspicion that she was being false to this new character. Sufficient unto the day! She did not dare think of meeting Laramie again, while she knew that she must. Would that meeting give her the shock she needed?

  With congenial company to entertain, Hallie seemed to put off the inevitable for the time being. When it came to dinner, Jud did the ranch proud. Then the evening passed swiftly until the tired visitors reluctantly retired. Hallie said good-night to Strickland with a feeling that he would indeed be the friend and adviser her father needed.

  Strong as was her longing to see Lenta home safely, and to beg her forgiveness, Harriet felt relief when the hour of eleven arrived without the return of Laramie and his riders. They had been detained. Had they succeeded in trailing and catching Lenta and her companion? Hallie felt no divination of that in her heart, but she knew Laramie would fetch her back. And when she reflected that here she relied upon his Western force—the bold and relentless violence which had repelled her, then she realized she was nearing an eclipse of old standards.

  She shared Flo’s room and bed that night, to her benefit, for the excited girl, so full of delight with Ted’s people, did not give her a chance to think of herself. And at last sleep brought oblivion.

  The next day, given over to walking and riding with the Williamses, passed swiftly, though punctuated by recurrent and increasing concern about Lenta. Neale, too, had been absent for two days. By dinner time, which arrived with no riders in sight, Hallie gave way to dread. Something had happened. It could not be that Stuart had been able to elude Laramie. Absurd! Nevertheless, the unexpected could always happen. Hallie passed a miserable night.

  If another, a third day, passed without sign or word of her sister, Hallie felt that she would be frantic. The hours wore on. There was now no attempt to entertain the guests. Indeed, they shared the suspense. Hallie had to get away from everybody, to pace her room alone, in an agony of accusation. Had she not driven Lenta to such a rash act?

  A clatter of hoofs out on the hard court brought Hallie up short. She rushed to open the door. Clay Lee was in the act of reining a wet and panting horse.

  “Lee,” she called, hurriedly. “Are the riders coming?—Have they got Lenta?”

  “No, I’m sorry to say,” he shouted.

  Lindsay strode out upon the porch.

  “What’s that?”

  Hallie, in her hurry across the court, did not catch Lee’s reply.
But it was bad news, judging by her father’s paling face when she reached the porch.

  “Father!”

  “Neale has been shot,” said Lindsay, with stunned blank look.

  “Oh, my God! … Don’t—don’t say he’s ——”

  “He’s not dead or even hurt fatal, Miss Lindsay,” interrupted Lee. “A rider jest went through. Didn’t know him. He said there was a cattle drive over here at Meadow Wash. Thet’s half way to Allen’s ranch. Neale was there. It seems he took offense at a remark an’ went for his gun an’ got shot.”

  “A—remark?” faltered Hallie.

  “Yes, ma’am. It was about your sister—about her runnin’ off.”

  “Oh! … Is he—badly hurt?”

  “This rider said not. Bad gun-shot through his arm, but no bones broke. Arlidge jest shot to cripple the boy.”

  “Arlidge!”

  “Yes, Miss Lindsay. Arlidge made the remark an’ did the shootin’. I reckon thet was a bad job for him. Hadn’t I better ride over?”

  “Please go—hurry,” whispered Hallie. Then as Lee wheeled his horse to gallop away Hallie did battle with the hottest gust of fury that had ever taken possession of her. Arlidge had maligned Lenta and then crippled her brother. But Hallie suppressed this strange new heat for the moment, and thought of her mother. “Father, let me break it.”

  “Sure, Hallie,” he replied, hoarsely. “But I’m going to break something myself and that pronto.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE day with its sustained suspense and final tragedy had worked its deadly havoc among the riders. Laramie felt the steely, ruthless clutch, though he showed it least. The creed of the range kept such men justified in their own minds; nevertheless, the dealing of death visited upon each its icy touch.

  During the night Laramie dozed at intervals. He tried to woo sleep. The morrow would bring even a sterner encounter for him—one he had to seek deliberately. His comrades expected it of him. Though he had contempt for Arlidge, still he wanted steady nerves and clear eyes, and brain swift as lightning. For years he had trained himself to have these. And even during these lax months, when he had smothered old instincts, the habit of self-preservation, exceedingly tenacious in him, had forced him to continue his old secret practice of throwing his gun. Not even subjugation to the charm and command of Harriet Lindsay had been able to eradicate that. And in the wakeful lonely hours of night he felt that it was well.