by COLE JACKSON
“Nobody knew what had become of him and nobody has seen hide nor hair of him since. Last seen of him he was in a saloon one night, talking with a little fellow who might have been an Indian. Barkeep happened to remember it, but didn’t recall much what the Indian looked like. All Indians look alike to him, he said. Now these two men drop in and bring a Ranger’s star they took off a skeleton, ‘way up by the Huachuca Trail. Couldn’t be anybody but Shafter. But what in blazes was he doing in the Tamarra Hills?”
“Must have had reasons to be there,” Jim Hatfield replied quietly, as he stood up. “That territory is in our district now, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh,” the Captain replied, “now that we’re over here at this new post. Used to be in Brooks’, but it isn’t any more.”
“Any assignment for me, sir?” Hatfield asked. He had just arrived at the post after satisfactorily completing a difficult and dangerous mission.
“Nothing particular right now, Jim,” the Captain answered.
Hatfield stretched his long arms above his head and the powerful muscles caused the seams of his coat sleeve to start. The tips of his fingers nearly reached the ceiling.
“Well, sir, guess I’d better be riding over to the Tamarra Hills for a spell, then,” he stated.
“But good gosh, Jim!” the Captain remonstrated, “it’s nearly a hundred miles over there and you’ve just come in from a mighty hard trip.”
Jim Hatfield smiled down at the old Captain from his great height.
“Ed Shafter went on a longer trip, and he didn’t come back,” he said softly. “Ed won’t rest over easy up there in the hills so long as the man that killed him is running around loose. You see, sir, I knew Shafter, too. I met him while I was running Brooks’ company last year when Brooks was sick. I’ve got a personal interest in this business, too. Besides, the fellow who got young Dick Webb hasn’t been brought in. Brooks figured it to be Cartina, and Cartina is still operating in that section, according to last reports. I’ve a notion that he’s likely to hang around that new mining town, Helidoro. Ought to be some fat pickings for his kind there. I’ll just ride up and look the situation over, if it’s agreeable with you, sir.”
For several minutes Captain McDowell sat staring straight ahead, his blue eyes frostier than usual.
“Jim,” he said softly at length, “Rangers aren’t over welcome in the Tamarra Valley, it appears. You know the Presidio post was abandoned a few months back and Brooks’ outfit moved back east.”
“You mean to say I can’t go up there, sir?”
“I mean to say I can’t order you up there. The Big Boss of that district seems to think local authorities can take care of things there without any outside help, and he’s got enough drag at the Capital to make folks there think his way.”
“Folks in the Tamarra Valley think that way, too?”
McDowell shook his head.
“No,” he replied, “they don’t. There’s been more than one letter sent to headquarters asking for Ranger help to wipe out Cartina and his kind, but headquarters replied that reports of conditions were exaggerated and that the local authorities were able to cope with the situation, leaving the Rangers free for duty in districts where they were needed more. It appears John Chadwick has organized a vigilante committee to help look after things. Chadwick’s paying the expenses of the organization and everything’s under control, according to reports — from Chadwick.”
“And Chadwick’s going to run for governor.”
“Uh-huh, and it looks like he’ll get the nomination, and that means election, of course.”
“And that means he’ll run the whole state like he runs the Tamarra Valley and the county and all the counties surrounding Tamarra. Why, sir, he’s running a big section of the state now! And he isn’t running it the Texas way, either. It isn’t right!”
“No, it isn’t,” Captain Bill agreed, “but it doesn’t look like there’s much anybody can do about it. Chadwick is honest, everybody agrees on that. He just wants things run his way. He plans on being governor, all right, and United States senator after that, I reckon, and that’ll put him before the whole country, and nobody knows where he’ll stop! Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything we can do about it. Fellows like Cartina are more our style.”
Hatfield nodded. “Guess that’s right, sir. Well, so long as you don’t tell me not to, I guess I’ll take a little ride. Maybe I’ll be lucky.”
The rugged old Captain said nothing, but he thrust a gnarled hand across the table to meet Hatfield’s steely grip.
“Lucky!” Captain Bill growled to himself when the door had closed on his tall Lieutenant. “Lucky! Some folks may call it luck, but I have another name for it. I have a notion it’s going to be almighty unlucky for the men that did for Shafter and Webb, now they have the Lone Wolf on their trail.
“Uh-huh, old Carney surely named that big fellow right. He’s one fine Ranger when he’s with a troop, but when he’s by himself, he’s a holy terror. Has never failed to outsmart or out-shoot any tough, clever man he’s been sent after, and he always brings his man in — or buries him! The Lone Wolf!”
CHAPTER 5
JIM HATFIELD was thinking of that parting handshake as he stared at the bleached bones of Ranger Ed Shafter. Stern old Captain Bill’s confidence meant a great deal to the Lone Wolf. He was thinking of that when he knelt beside the skeleton and began to painstakingly examine the bones and the rags of clothing which covered them.
The bullet-riddled skull received his first attention and as he gazed at the holes in the forehead, the concentration furrow between his level black brows deepened. He recalled a paragraph in the report relative to the killing of young Dick Webb, a paragraph dealing with the bullet wounds in the Ranger’s body.
“Begins to look as though the man who killed Shafter was the same one that got Webb,” he muttered. “Well, that’s something to go on — not much, but something. Fellows who carry guns that way aren’t so common. I don’t recall ever knowing more than one or two who did, and they were both lefthanded. Seems lefthanded fellows handle guns better that way; some of them, anyhow. And that’s something to remember.”
Hatfield next turned to the remnants of clothing. From the pockets he turned out a miscellany of articles — a knife, a stoppered bottle filled with matches, a pencil stub, and other trinkets. There was a notebook, but the writing on the mouldy pages was smeared and illegible.
A heavy Colt was rusted in its mildewed sheath, each chamber loaded with unfired shells. The cartridges in the belt loops were green with verdegris. Finally, from the side pocket of the coat, the one which remained entire, he drew forth three fragments of stone. With narrowed eyes he stared at them and his lips pursed in a soundless whistle. Jim Hatfield knew silver ore when he saw it and the richness of the specimens astounded him.
“I don’t know what Ed was doing, ‘way up here, but he sure hit on something worth while, judging from the looks of these rocks,” he told himself.
Sitting back on his heels, he stared about him, and his keen eyes saw what the two miners, Bill and Curt, had missed.
Snugged down under the overhang of the rock, almost obscured from view by the trailing prickly pear, was a bulky object. A moment later he hauled Ed Shafter’s pack into the sunlight. A quick survey of its contents deepened the line between his brows.
“Prospector’s outfit!” he muttered. “Now why that? Was Ed on the trail of something and using this outfit to cover up with, or was he really on a prospecting trip? Funny thing for a Ranger on assignment to be doing, but you never can tell. Ed was a mining man before he joined up with the Rangers, and when a mining man gets a lead to something like the story these rocks tell, he’s pretty hard to hold.
“Brooks figured it was Cartina who got Webb, and figuring that way, Ed’s only job was to drop his loop on Cartina. Maybe he had a tip about when Cartina would come back on this side the Line and while he was waiting, he might have heard of something good up here in the hi
lls. That would account for him mavericking up here with a prospecting outfit.
“And if Brooks figured right on Webb’s killing, and it was Cartina did the job, Ed must have tangled with Cartina up here. Cartina might have come up here over the Huachuca Trail for some reason or other and met up with Ed. Then again Ed might have got a tip on him and was up here on that tip. All of which doesn’t tie up very satisfactorily, I’ll admit.”
Hatfield was, in fact, evolving another theory. He was still working on it when he left the skeleton and the pack and began ranging the neighborhood of the cliff. Working away from it in widening circles he discovered, more than a hundred yards distant from its foot and on the crest of a little rise, the skeleton of a burro. The skull was drilled with a clean hole. Hatfield stood over it thoughtfully.
“Uh-huh, killed the burro, too,” he immediately understood. “Didn’t want it straying around and attracting attention. Begins to look more and more like the fellow who did the shooting was planning to come back to this neighborhood.”
Hatfield dug a grave with Shafter’s pick and shovel. He wrapped the bones in a blanket which had been protected by the waterproofed covering of the pack and gave them decent burial. Later, they could be disinterred and taken to a cemetery. He hid the pack. Then he moved off a little way, built a fire and cooked the last of his food. After breakfasting and allowing the sorrel ample time to graze, he saddled up and rode away, leaving Ed Shafter to sleep in his lonely grave.
As he left the neighborhood of the overhanging rock, he heard, faint with distance, a deep and sullen rumble, and another and another. He nodded understanding and headed almost due east along the slightly sloping floor of the wide gorge.
More than one angle of the mystery was puzzling Hatfield. He knew that Shafter had been a dead shot with his old single-action Colt, and could draw with blinding speed. That he had been killed by revolver shots at comparatively short range was obvious. Why had his sixgun remained unfired in its sheath, while his rifle lay beneath the clutching bones of his dead hand? And, the rifle had been cocked when Shafter fell! The hammer was rusted into position.
Undoubtedly Shafter had been holding the rifle when killed. Ordinarily, a man making camp would not be holding a rifle in his hands. Hatfield had no way of knowing for sure that Shafter had been making camp when killed, but the evidence pointed that way. The pack had not yet been opened, and the Ranger had searched in vain for traces of a fire. There was no smudge against the face of the rock, the logical place for the blaze to have been kindled. A smudge there would not have been washed away, even during a period of months. Little or no rain would strike the face of the rock, no matter from what direction it came.
“Looks like he might have been watching for something, and somebody crept up on him,” Hatfield deduced shrewdly. “It’s funny. If he’d been shot in the back it wouldn’t be so queer, but for Ed to get drilled between the eyes while facing somebody was unusual, considering the way that boy could handle a gun. Looks almost as though he knew the fellow who did it and wasn’t expecting trouble from him and let him get the drop.”
A mile or so distant from the rock, Hatfield became conscious of a peculiar sound drifting through the quiet of the canyon. It was a strange hissing and clicking that steadily increased in volume. It grew as he threaded his way through a grove of burr oaks and slanted around the curve of a low ridge. He passed a jutting cliff and the sound became much louder. From out the shadows rushed something huge and menacing.
Goldy gave a bound as the dark mass hurtled toward him. Hatfield was jolted sideways in the saddle and for a moment he had all he could do to control the frightened horse. The dark mass whizzed by, high overhead, and almost instantly another burst from the shadows cast by the cliff. Goldy immediately had another tantrum.
“Hold it, you darned jughead!” Hatfield roared. “Those things won’t hurt you!”
Goldy subsided, sweating and shivering, and still snorting his apprehension each time one of the great missiles hurtled past. The Ranger eyed them with a speculative glance that held much of approval.
“Somebody surely knows their business,” he declared.
High overhead stretched two heavy wire cables. From post to post they marched up and down the gorge. From the east, where the gorge dwindled to a wide dry wash, which in turn opened upon the level rangeland, clicked an endless succession of ponderous iron buckets, empty buckets that were drawn toward the head of the gorge. But those which whizzed downward toward the rangeland were loaded to the rim with crushed stone.
“Yes, somebody surely knows their business,” the Ranger repeated. “Sending the ore down from the mines by conveyor buckets. Down below are the stamp mills, where there’s plenty of water and fuel. Makes all the difference in the world. The mines in this district ought to be coining money. No wonder folks say that Helidoro town is a whizzer. Things must be booming down there.”
Jim Hatfield had studied engineering in the course of his two years in college, before the death of his father, subsequent to the loss of the elder Hatfield’s ranch, had cut short his scholastic career. He could understand and appreciate the worth of the conveyor system working before his eyes, and admire the man who had the foresight to replace pack mules or wagons with the efficient mechanical device.
Undoubtedly the Helidoro mines were making money and making it fast. He felt surer than ever that his surmise had been correct and that the mining town would represent opportunities hard for a bandit leader like Pedro Cartina to resist. Sooner or later, he was confident, Cartina would show up in the town, either leading a raid of some sort or scouting the ground preparatory to one.
Hatfield knew that the Tamarra Valley had been Cartina’s favorite hunting ground even before the mining strike. In the year and more that had passed since that sunny day when the bandit and his mysterious companion had delivered the Ranger to death by torture, Cartina had continued his depredations. For a while after Hatfield’s troop had killed a number of his men and brought the Slash K trail herd back from Mexico, little had been heard of him. Later, however, Ranger reports on the district showed his renewed activity.
Hatfield, posted far to the east, had followed these reports with unflagging interest. He had looked forward to the time when he might possibly be assigned to a post that would take in the territory over which Cartina operated. The Lone Wolf had never forgotten that terrible experience on the ant hill. Later, the news of the death of young Dick Webb, apparently at the hands of the Cartina outfit, had strengthened his resolve to even the score with the snaky-eyed Mexican. The blood of a slain Ranger cried out for vengeance and Hatfield, intense in his loyalty to the outfit, would never rest easy so long as Webb’s killer was not brought to justice. Now the death of Ed Shafter, Webb’s successor in the district, was a further incentive to solve the mystery that brooded over the Tamarra Valley.
As to whether Cartina was responsible for Shafter’s death, Hatfield was not sure. The clear-headed Ranger was not one to jump to conclusions. Many a man of the West had been killed because of his discovery of a rich mining claim. Perhaps Shafter had gone to swell their number. That he had struck it rich in the district seemed certain, to judge from the specimens in his pocket. Rich mines had been developed in the section during the past year. It looked like there might be a tie-up between those unexpected discoveries and Shafter’s murder. Perhaps Cartina and his outfit must be absolved of this particular killing.
Ranger headquarters had received a number of bitter complaints from John Chadwick, the cattle king of the valley, and others. Young Dick Webb had been posted at Santa Rosita because of Cartina’s continued depredations, and there had been talk of sending a troop after his death.
However, the serious outlaw trouble on the Oklahoma Border, the Cuevas County cattle war and the Comanche Raids had made it impossible to spare such a number of men. Ed Shafter, the ace man of Brooks’ command, had been sent to investigate Webb’s death and, if possible, snare Cartina. It was all too evident now
that Shafter had failed.
“Maybe he sowed the seed, though,” mused the Lone Wolf as he rode along the line of the overhead conveyor. “Maybe what I’ve learned will be what it takes to clean up this mess.”
As he turned into the shallow wash that led to where the smoke haze of Helidoro stained the clear blue of the eastern sky, Hatfield began to hear a low throb and mutter that swelled and swelled, never ceasing, never changing the steady beat of its monotonous tempo. He knew it meant stamp mills, not one but several, where the silver ore was ground to powder by the thundering dance of the ponderous steel pestles, preparatory to separating the silver from the stone.
“Sounds like big ones, too,” he nodded. “Yes, this is going to be a salty town. Most anything’s liable to happen, I guess.”
He was not, however, prepared for what did happen as he cantered up the dusty main street just as the blue mystery of the dusk was whispering down from the hill crests.
The Ranger had already passed the gaunt buildings that housed the stamp mills before he turned into the main street of the town, which ran from north to south. Bars of light from windows and open doors were slashing the dusk with gold and in the dust of the street lay golden rectangles with misty purple edges. Men who paused before the doorways were clothed in blue and gold as light and shadow merged.
But those who suddenly came thundering down the street were not pausing anywhere. They were quirting their horses furiously, bending low in their saddles, close behind the necks of their mounts. Behind them sounded a stutter of shots and a chorus of yells.
Straight at the Ranger crashed the group of six or seven riders. Hatfield caught a glimpse of dark, savage faces and glinting black eyes. Then guns blazed and bullets stormed about him.
What it was all about, Jim Hatfield did not know, but he had a decided aversion to being shot at. A twitch of the reins and Goldy went across the street in a weaving series of jumps that made him as elusive a mark as a scared rabbit. Hatfield, knowing his trained horse would do what was expected of him, dropped the reins on the sorrel’s neck and went for his guns.