Brand Blotters

by Raine, William MacLeod

  “Throw down that box.”

  Alan lowered his hands and did as directed.

  “Now reach for the stars again.”

  McKinstra’s arms went skyward. Without his weapon, he was helpless to do otherwise. The young man had an odd sense of unreality about the affair, a feeling that it was not in earnest. The timbre of the fresh young voice that came from the bushes struck a chord in his memory, though for the life of him he could not place its owner.

  “Drive on, José. Burn the wind and keep a-rollin’ south.”

  The Mexican’s whip coiled over the head of the leaders and the broncos sprang forward with a jump. It was the summit of a long hill, on the edge of which wound the road. Until the stage reached the foot of it there would be no opportunity to turn back. Round a bend of the road it swung at a gallop, and the instant it disappeared Melissy leaped from the bushes, lifted the heavy box, and carried it to the edge of the ditch. She flew down the sandy bottom to the place where the rig stood, drove swiftly back again, and, though it took the last ounce of strength in her, managed to tumble the box into the trap.

  Back to the road she went, and from the place where the box had fallen made long strides back to the bushes where she had been standing at the moment of the hold-up. These tracks she purposely made deep and large, returning in her first ones to the same point, but from the marks where the falling treasure box had struck into the road she carefully obliterated with her hand the foot-marks leading to the irrigation ditch, sifting the sand in carefully so as to leave no impression. This took scarcely a minute. She was soon back in her runabout, driving homeward fast as whip and voice could urge the horse.

  She thought she could reason out what McKinstra and the stage-driver would do. Mesa was twenty-five miles distant, the “Monte Cristo” mine seventeen. Nearer than these points there was no telephone station except the one at the Lee ranch. Their first thought would be to communicate with Morse, with the officers at Mammoth, and with the sheriff of Mesa County. To do this as soon as possible they would turn aside and drive to the ranch after they reached the bottom of the hill and could make the turn. It was a long, steep hill, and Melissy estimated that this would give her a start of nearly twenty minutes. She would save about half a mile by following the ditch instead of the road, but at best she knew she was drawing it very fine.

  She never afterward liked to think of that drive home. It seemed to her that Bob crawled and that the heavy sand was interminable. Feverishly she plied the whip, and when at length she drew out of the ditch she sent her horse furiously round the big corral. Though she had planned everything to the last detail, she knew that any one of a hundred contingencies might spoil her plan. A cowpuncher lounging about the place would have ruined everything, or at best interfered greatly. But the windmill clicked over sunlit silence, empty of life. No stir or movement showed the presence of any human being.

  Melissy drove round to the side door, dumped out the treasure-box, ran into the house, and quickly returned with a hammer and some tacks, then fell swiftly to ripping the oilcloth that covered the box which stood against the wall to serve as a handy wash-stand for use by dusty travellers before dining. The two boxes were of the same size and shape, and she draped the treasure chest with the cloth, tacked it in place, restored to the top of it the tin basin, and tossed the former wash-stand among a pile of old boxes from the store, that were to be used for kindling. After this she ran upstairs, scudded softly along the corridor, and silently unlocked the cook’s door, dropping the key on the floor to make it appear as if something had shaken it from the keyhole. Presently she was in her brother’s room, doffing his clothes and dressing herself in her own.

  A glance out of the window sapped the color from her cheek, for she saw the stage breasting the hill scarce two hundred yards from the house. She hurried downstairs, pinning her belt as she ran, and flashed into the store, where Jim sat munching peanuts.

  “The stage is coming, Jim. Remember, you’re not to know anything about it at all. If they ask for Dad, say he’s out cutting trail of a bunch of hill cows. Tell them I started after the wild flowers about fifteen minutes ago. Don’t talk much about it, though. I’ll be back inside of an hour.”

  With that she was gone, back to her trap, which she swung along a trail back of the house till it met the road a quarter of a mile above. Her actions must have surprised steady old Bob, for he certainly never before had seen his mistress in such a desperate hurry as she had been this day and still was. Nearly a mile above, a less well defined track deflected from the main road. Into this she turned, following it until she came to the head-gates of the lateral which ran through their place. The main canal was full of water, and after some effort she succeeded in opening the head-gates so as to let the water go pouring through.

  Returning to the runabout, the girl drove across a kind of natural meadow to a hillside not far distant, gathered a double handful of wild flowers, and turned homeward again. The stage was still there when she came in sight of the group of buildings at the ranch.

  As she drew up and dismounted with her armful of flowers, Alan McKinstra stepped from the store to the porch and came forward to assist her.

  “The Fort Allison stage has been robbed,” he blurted out.

  “What nonsense! Who would want to rob it?” she retorted.

  “Morse had a gold shipment aboard,” he explained in a low voice, and added in bitter self-condemnation: “He sent me along to guard it, and I never even fired a shot to save it.”

  “But—do you mean that somebody held up the stage?” she gasped.

  “Yes. But whoever it was can’t escape. I’ve ’phoned to Jack Flatray and to Morse. They’ll be right out here. The sheriff of Mesa County has already started with a posse. They’ll track him down. That’s a cinch. He can’t get away with the box without a rig. If he busts the box, he’s got to carry it on a horse and a horse leaves tracks.”

  “But who do you think it was?”

  “Don’t know. One of the Roaring Fork bunch of bad men, likely. But I don’t know.”

  The young man was plainly very much excited and disturbed. He walked nervously up and down, jerking his sentences out piecemeal as he thought of them.

  “Was there only one man? And did you see him?” Melissy asked breathlessly.

  He scarcely noticed her excitement, or if he did, it seemed to him only natural under the circumstances.

  “I expect there were more, but we saw only one. Didn’t see much of him. He was screened by the bushes and wore a black mask. So long as the stage was in sight he never moved from that place; just stood there and kept us covered.”

  “But how could he rob you if he didn’t come out?” she asked in wide-eyed innocence.

  “He didn’t rob us any. He must ’a’ heard of the shipment of gold, and that’s what he was after. After he’d got us to rights he made me throw the box down in the road. That’s where it was when he ordered us to move on and keep agoing.”

  “And you went?”

  “José handled the lines, but ’t would ’a’ been the same if I’d held them. That gun of his was a right powerful persuader.” He stopped to shake a fist in impotent fury in the air. “I wish to God I could meet up with him some day when he didn’t have the drop on me.”

  “Maybe you will some time,” she told him soothingly. “I don’t think you’re a bit to blame, Alan. Nobody could think so. Ever so many times I’ve heard Dad say that when a man gets the drop on you there’s nothing to do but throw up your hands.”

  “Do you honest think so, Melissy? Or are you just saying it to take the sting away? Looks like I ought to ’a’ done something mor’n sit there like a bump on a log while he walked off with the gold.”

  His cheerful self-satisfaction was under eclipse. The boyish pride of him was wounded. He had not “made good.” All over Cattleland the news would be wafted on the wings of the wind that Alan McKinstra, while acting as shotgun messenger to a gold shipment, had let a road agent
hold him up for the treasure he was guarding.

  “Very likely they’ll catch him and get the gold back,” she suggested.

  “That won’t do me any good,” he returned gloomily. “The only thing that can help me now is for me to git the fellow myself, and I might just as well look for a needle in a haystack.”

  “You can’t tell. The robber may be right round here now.” Her eyes, shining with excitement, passed the crowd moving in and out of the store, for already the news of the hold-up had brought riders and ranchmen jogging in to learn the truth of the wild tale that had reached them.

  “More likely he’s twenty miles away. But whoever he is, he knows this county. He made a slip and called José by his name.”

  Melissy’s gaze was turned to the dust whirl that advanced up the road that ran round the corral. “That doesn’t prove anything, Alan. Everybody knows José. He’s lived all over Arizona—at Tucson and Tombstone and Douglas.”

  “That’s right too,” the lad admitted.

  The riders in advance of the dust cloud resolved themselves into the persons of her father and Norris. Her incautious admission was already troubling her.

  “But I’m sure you’re right. No hold-up with any sense would stay around here and wait to be caught. He’s probably gone up into the Galiuros to hide.”

  “Unless he’s cached the gold and is trying to throw off suspicion.”

  The girl had moved forward to the end of the house with Alan to meet her father. At that instant, by the ironic humor of chance, her glance fell upon a certain improvised wash-stand covered with oilcloth. She shook her head decisively. “No, he won’t risk waiting to do that. He’ll make sure of his escape first.”

  “I reckon.”

  “Have you heard, Daddy?” Melissy called out eagerly. She knew she must play the part expected of her, that of a young girl much interested in this adventure which had occurred in the community.

  He nodded grimly, swinging from the saddle. She observed with surprise that his eye did not meet hers. This was not like him.

  “What do you think?”

  His gaze met that of Norris before he answered, and there was in it some hint of a great fear. “Beats me, ’Lissy.”

  He had told the simple truth, but not the whole truth. The men had waited at the entrance to the Box Cañon for nearly two hours without the arrival of the stage. Deciding that something must have happened, they started back, and presently met a Mexican who stopped to tell them the news. To say that they were dazed is to put it mildly. To expect them to believe that somebody else had heard of the secret shipment and had held up the stage two miles from the place they had chosen, was to ask a credulity too simple. Yet this was the fact that confronted them.

  Arrived at the scene of the robbery both men had dismounted and had examined the ground thoroughly. What they saw tended still more to bewilder them. Neither of them was a tenderfoot, and the little table at the summit of the long hill told a very tangled tale to those who had eyes to read. Obvious tracks took them at once to the spot where the bandit had stood in the bushes, but there was something about them that struck both men as suspicious.

  “Looks like these are worked out on purpose,” commented Lee. “The guy’s leaving too easy a trail to follow, and it quits right abrupt in the bushes. Must ’a’ took an airship from here, I ’low.”

  “Does look funny. Hello! What’s this?”

  Norris had picked up a piece of black cloth and was holding it out. A startled oath slipped from the lips of the Southerner. He caught the rag from the hands of his companion and studied it with a face of growing astonishment.

  “What’s up?”

  Lee dived into his pocket and drew forth the mask he had been wearing. Silently he fitted it to the other. The pieces matched exactly, both in length and in the figure of the pattern.

  When the Southerner looked up his hands were shaking and his face ashen.

  “For God’s sake, Phil, what does this mean?” he cried hoarsely.

  “Search me.”

  “It must have been—looks like the hold-up was somebody—my God, man, we left this rag at the ranch when we started!” the rancher whispered.

  “That’s right.”

  “We planned this thing right under the nigger’s room. He must ’a’ heard and—— But it don’t look like Jim Budd to do a thing like that.”

  Norris had crossed the road again and was standing on the edge of the lateral.

  “Hello! This ditch is full of water. When we passed down it was empty,” he said.

  Lee crossed over and stood by his side, a puzzled frown on his face. “There hadn’t ought to be water running hyer now,” he said, as if to himself. “I don’t see how it could ’a’ come hyer, for Bill Weston—he’s the ditch rider—went to Mesa this mo’ning, and couldn’t ’a’ got back to turn it in.”

  The younger man stooped and examined a foot-print at the edge of the ditch. It was the one Melissy had made just as she stepped into the rig.

  “Here’s something new, Lee. We haven’t seen this gentleman’s track before. Looks like a boy’s. It’s right firm and deep in this soft ground. I’ll bet a cooky your nigger never made that track.”

  The Southerner crouched down beside him, and they looked at it together, head to head.

  “No, it ain’t Jim’s. I don’t rightly savez this thing at all,” the old man muttered, troubled at this mystery which seemed to point to his household.

  “By Moses, I’ve got it! The guy who did the holding up had his horse down here. He loaded the sack on its back and drove off up the ditch. All we got to do is follow the ditch up or down till we come to the place where he climbed out and struck across country.”

  “That’s right, Phil. He must have had a pardner up at the head-gates. They had some kind of signal arranged, and when Mr. Hold-up was ready down come the water and washed out his tracks. It’s a blame’ smooth piece of business if you ask me.”

  “The fellow made two bad breaks, though. That piece of shirt is one. This foot-print is another. They may land him in the pen yet.”

  “I don’t think it,” returned the old man with composure, and as he spoke his foot erased the telltale print. “I ’low there won’t anybody go to the pen for he’pin himself to Mr. Morse’s gold dust. I don’t give a cuss who it was.”

  Norris laughed in his low, easy way. “I’m with you, Mr. Lee. We’ll make a thorough job while we’re at it and mess up these other tracks. After that we’ll follow the ditch up and see if there’s anything doing.”

  They remounted their broncos and rode them across the tracks several times, then followed the lateral up, one on either side of the ditch, their eyes fastened to the ground to see any evidence of a horse having clambered over the bank. They drew in sight of the ranch house without discovering what they were looking for. Lee’s heart was in his mouth, for he knew that he would see presently what his eye sought.

  “I reckon the fellow went down instead of up,” suggested Norris.

  “No, he came up.”

  Lee had stopped and was studying wheel tracks that ran up from the ditch to his ranch house. His face was very white and set. He pointed to them with a shaking finger.

  “There’s where he went in the ditch, and there’s where he came out.”

  Norris forded the stream, cast a casual eye on the double track, and nodded. He was still in a fog of mystery, but the old man was already fearing the worst.

  He gulped out his fears tremblingly. For himself, he was of a flawless nerve, but this touched nearer home than his own danger.

  “Them wheel-tracks was made by my little gyurl’s runabout, Phil.”

  “Good heavens!” The younger man drew rein sharply and stared at him. “You don’t think——”

  He broke off, recalling the sharp, firm little foot-print on the edge of the ditch some miles below.

  “I don’t reckon I know what to think. If she was in this, she’s got some good reason.” A wave of passion sudde
nly swept the father. “By God! I’d like to see the man that dares mix her name up in this.”

  Norris met this with his friendly smile. “You can’t pick a row with me about that, old man. I’m with you till the cows come home. But that ain’t quite the way to go at this business. First thing, we’ve got to wipe out these tracks. How? Why, sheep! There’s a bunch of three hundred in that pasture. We’ll drive the bunch down to the ditch and water them here. Savez?”

  “And wipe out the wheel-marks in the sand. Bully for you, Phil.”

  “That’s the idea. After twelve hundred chisel feet have been over this sand I reckon the wheel-tracks will be missing.”

  They rode up to the house, and the first thing that met them was the candid question of the girl:

  “Have you heard, Daddy?”

  And out of his troubled heart he had answered, “Beats me, ’Lissie.”

  “They’ve sent for the officers. Jack Flatray is on the way himself. So is Sheriff Burke,” volunteered Alan gloomily.

  “Getting right busy, ain’t they?” Norris sneered.

  Again Lee glanced quickly at Norris. “I reckon, Phil, we better drive that bunch of sheep down to water right away. I clean forgot them this mo’ning.”

  “Sure.” The younger man was not so easily shaken. He turned to McKinstra naturally. “How many of the hold-ups were there?”

  “I saw only one, and didn’t see him very good. He was a slim fellow in a black mask.”

  “You don’t say. Were you the driver?”

  Alan felt the color suffuse his face. “No, I was the guard.”

  “Oh, you were the guard.”

  Alan felt the suave irony that covered this man’s amusement, and he resented it impotently. When Melissy came to his support he was the more grateful.