And in that fleeting glance, a blinding light of understanding struck Brant. With hair-trigger suddenness he realized the trap that had been set for him, into which he had so blithely walked. The explanation for Doran’s astounding championing of the dead rustler, Porter. Brant knew very well that Phil Doran had no more loyalty to anybody than a coyote. He saw now that he had been goaded into a wring he was bound to lose. Somehow, Doran had found out, or had divined that he, Brant, was packing the money John Webb received for his herd. Doran was out to get that money, and he had a mighty good chance to get it, too.
As a fist fighter, Brant knew he was out-classed by the Deadfall owner. In a few minutes, he would be knocked cold. Then Doran and his snake-blooded partner, with “chivalrous solicitude” for Doran’s defeated adversary, would pack him off to one of the Deadfall bedrooms until he had recovered from his beating. Doubtless a tap on the head with a gun barrel would insure that the recovery not to be too speedy. And when Brant would finally wake up, the money he carried would be gone. And not a thing to prove that Doran had anything to do with its disappearance.
All this passed through Brant’s mind in a flash while he ducked and parried and tried to get away from Doran’s shower of blows. He saw Doran’s eyes glitter with triumph as he maneuvered for the kill. He took a last chance, a desperate gamble that might succeed. As Doran feinted with his left to bring Brant’s guard down, his right in position for the knock-out blow, Brant hurled himself downward at Doran’s knees. The impact knocked the big man off his feet. As he sprawled on the floor, Brant surged erect, gripping Doran’s flailing ankles in both hands. With all his strength, he plucked the Deadfall owner from the floor and whirled him around and around. At the apex of the swing he altered its directions and brought Doran crashing down upon the floor. Doran gave a gasping groan, stiffened out and lay motionless, face white, arms wideflung.
Brant whirled, plucked his gun belts from the astounded Texas cowboy and slid one of the long Colts from its sheath. He faced Pink Hanson and the tense group behind him. Hanson, his mouth slightly ajar with astonishment at the sudden and unexpected end to the wring, stared back. Their glances crossed, perfect understanding in each. Hanson’s face twisted with baffled fury. Then the look of rage was supplanted by one of grudging admiration. Pink Hanson looked the six feet and more of Austin Brant up and down with the respect of one fighting man for another. His mouth snapped shut to its normal rat-trap tightness. He nodded, the nod of a loser who knows he has lost.
“By God!” he said. “Feller, you’re a man!”
Brant nodded reply. He was in no shape for speech. Awkwardly, still holding his drawn Colt on Hanson and his companions, he buckled his belts in place. Then he backed warily to the door, fighting a deadly nausea that threatened to crumple him up. The Texans present, not in the least understanding what it was all about, muttered their astonishment. Still watchful, Brant vanished between the swinging doors. He staggered to his horse, and with his last strength crawled into the saddle. He turned Smoke’s head toward the river. He knew he must put distance between himself and the Deadfall before Doran recovered.
“We won’t eat to night, feller,” he muttered as he surged Smoke into the water. A moment later they were both swimming. To Brant’s ears came the faint sound of shouts.
The cold water revived Brant somewhat, so that he was able to mount again when they reached the shallows near the south bank. Swinging forward on the horse’s neck, he twined his fingers in Smoke’s coarse mane and held on, giving the moros his head. Another moment and the big blue horse was speeding southward at a fast clip.
Brant rode for many miles. Finally he pushed the moros into the heart of a dense thicket, tumbled to the ground and almost instantly was asleep.
Chapter Seven
Sunshine was streaming down and birds were singing in the bushes when Brant finally awoke. He was stiff and sore all over; his eyes were nearly closed and his face was like a piece of raw beefsteak, but he felt greatly refreshed. With the elasticity of youth, he had thrown off the effects of the bad beating, the exhausting swim and the miles of hard riding. As he got a fire going and coffee on the boil, he was whistling as merrily through his cut lips as were the birds on the branches.
“Reckon that sidewinder knows he was in a wrong, too,” he chuckled. “Bet I loosened every joint in his ornery carcass when I slammed him on the floor.”
The feel of the packets of money was as comforting as the food he consumed with ravenous appetite. Then he dried out his tobacco in the sun and enjoyed a refreshing smoke.
“Let’s go, feller,” he told the grazing horse. “We got a long ride ahead of us still, but I’ve a notion we won’t meet up with any more trouble. Whoever managed to get word to Doran and his hellions that we were packing all this dinero hardly had time to get ahead of us again. We’ll make Texas okay. I’ll be glad to see the old Palo Duro again. To heck with this Kansas and Oklahoma country! Folks don’t act nice up here.”
As he rode away from the thicket, Brant puzzled greatly as to how Doran could have known he carried Webb’s money. He was sure that the Deadfall owner would never have taken such a chance based on mere guesswork.
“Nope, somebody must have hightailed mighty fast to get to the Crossing before I did. The question is, who? I can’t for the life of me figure who knew what I had in mind. Reckon somebody must have overheard Webb talking to me there in the hotel lobby, but I sure don’t call to mind anybody hanging around close right then. Oh, well, no harm done. I got a couple of black eyes and a cut lip out of it, but I did have some fun. That hellion Doran must have put in some time in the prize ring, to learn to swing his fists like he did. But their cute little scheme didn’t pan out as figured, so what the hell!”
Brant rode swiftly, more swiftly than he had intended during the latter part of his journey. Across the forks of the Canadian, and across the Prairie Dog fork of the Red, with the limitless plains of the Texas Panhandle stretching on all sides, until before him was the strange and wonderful cleft across the plains known as the Palo Duro Canyon.
The canyon, really a great sunken valley, was many miles wide and very deep. In places its rock walls were sheer, in others they were slopes of crumbling shale and rock fall. Shadowy, mysterious, well watered, with stands of cedar and other growth, it lay like the raw wound left in the rangeland by a random stroke of some flaming sword of vengeance. It was an ideal range for cattle fenced in by walls hundreds of feet high. It had offsets, such as Tule Canyon, where once more than fifty thousand head of wild mustangs ranged. When Charles Goodnight, the great Panhandle cattle baron, settled his cows in Palo Duro Canyon, he had to run buffalo from the range.
Brant rode along the rim of the canyon. Finally, in the distant southwest wall, he saw a dark and sinister looking opening choked with a bristle of cedars that grew thickest along the shadowy battlements that hemmed it in. Far up the ominous gorge a mighty spire of naked rock soared above the stony walls. Veined and ledged and turreted, it had the appearance of a great light house standing isolated and alone, its lofty summit as devoid of life as it had been since the beginning of time.
It was a grim and even sinister formation, but to Austin Brant it was a friendly beacon welcoming the traveller home.
Brant skirted the west end of the canyon, crossed Palo Duro Creek and, just as dusk mantled the prairie in its mystic robe, he reached the Running W ranch house.
After doing full justice to a bountiful surroundin’ Brant stood on the ranch house porch gazing across the star burned prairie; endeavoring to envision something of the future of this vast land of wide spaces and unlimited opportunity. Unlike many of the older cowmen who took it for granted that present conditions would always prevail, Brant sensed that changes were coming to the grasslands, that new forces were gathering, new events were in the making.
Nor was he wrong in his guess. Already the change was under way. Nesters and farmers were arriving. Cowboys were taking up spots of land and running their own
brands. Soon the supremacy of the great cattle barons would be challenged, and out of that challenge would come conflict.
Some years before, Col o nel Charles Goodnight had formed a partnership with Adair, an Irishman, who invested $375,000 as against Good-night’s Palo Duro ranch, the JA. The Prairie Cattle Company, the Spurs, the Matadors, and other organizations were buying land and running in great numbers of long-horns. The XIT, owned by the Capitol Syndicate, for many years the greatest ranch in America, was in pro cess of formation. The XIT, when the deal to build the Texas State Capitol in exchange for land grants was consummated, would consist of three million acres— “Ten Counties in Texas!”
As yet the change had little affected the region wherein lay John Webb’s Running W spread.
“But we’re due to catch it, and before long,” Brant mused as he gazed across the broad acres which Webb owned, or laid claim to.
Brant’s first chore the following day was to visit Wes Morley of the Bar M and hand him the sum of money needed to meet his note. Morley evinced surprise.
“What’s eatin’ that old pelican?” he demanded. “I was in no hurry for this dinero. My note isn’t due for nigh onto a month, and I could get an extension if I needed it, I figger.”
Brant was not particularly surprised at this information. It but confirmed his suspicion that Webb had desired to get him away from Dodge City at once.
“And he came nigh to heading me into a worse rukus,” he chuckled to himself as he rode back to the Running W. “That one has still got me puzzled. How in blazes did Doran learn I was packing that money!”
The mystery was intriguing, but Brant had other things to think about.
“We been havin’ trouble—everybody’s been havin’ trouble,” the temporary range boss left in charge of the spread told him. “We’ve been losin’ cows, and so has everybody else. There’s been brand blottin’ and brand alterin’, and we ain’t been able to prove anything on anybody.”
Brant nodded, his face grave. He understood very well the situation that was developing. It was a country where a cow thief could hole up easily and do a lucrative business in other men’s cattle. In fact, the bonanza cattle days were at hand all over the West. It cost a dollar to drive a Texas steer to the Northern market. By the change of location, its value was increased four dollars. With such a margin of profit, anyone could make a fortune in cows, if he could manage to get hold of enough cows.
Matching wits on the part of the range rider and the widelooper became an exciting and often dangerous game, the one endeavoring to get evidence of guilt, the other to escape proof. Later would come the question of the relative rights of the big outfits and the small cattlemen. This controversy would also prove profitable for the rustler, who played both ends against the middle.
“It’s them sidewinders from over New Mexico way what are responsible for most of the hell raisin’,” the range boss declared.
“Chances are,” Brant conceded. “But the home grown variety aren’t doing so bad by themselves, either, I’ve a notion. We’ve got to do a heap of patrolling if we want to keep our beefs.”
Brant determined on some patrolling on his own account, with a particular objective in view. The following morning found him riding north by east, toward the Bar O range. It was the spread owned by old Nate Loring, the Oklahoma cowman he had met in the Deadfall. Brant rode at a good pace, noting the position of various bunches of cows, estimating their numbers and checking his observations against conditions prevailing before he left for the northern drive. About mid-morning found him traversing a section of rolling land dotted with thickets and occasional groves. To his left, some hundreds of yards distant, was a thick bristle of growth that fringed a wide and deep gulley, its steep sides grown with grass and flowering weeds. As far as the eye could reach it wound its uneven way across the prairie.
Smoke was taking it easy up the long slope of a rise when Brant suddenly stiffened in the saddle. From somewhere ahead came the hard, metallic clang of a rifle shot.
Instantly Brant was very much on the alert. That abrupt burst of gunfire might mean nothing—a range rider shooting at a coyote, perhaps—but again it might mean a good deal. With things as they were at present on the rangeland, most anything was liable to happen.
As he listened intently for further shots, a low drumming sound reached Brant’s ears, which he quickly cata logued as the beat of a horse’s irons on the farther side of the ridge.
“Comin’ fast,” he muttered. “Sounds like some jigger has places to go. Here he comes!”
Over the crest of the rise appeared a small bay horse, materializing against the skyline as if jerked up by unseen strings. Down the sag it scudded, as if blown before the wind. It was not headed straight for the Running W foreman but was veering sharply to the west.
“What in blazes?” Brant asked himself. “If that jigger doesn’t pull up, he’ll find himself at the bottom of that draw with a busted neck. Wonder what he’s runnin’ from?”
On came the fleeing rider, hunched over in the saddle. Suddenly Brant swore aloud. He had caught a glimpse of tossing, wind-blown curls back of the bay’s head.
“For the love of Pete!” he exclaimed, “A girl!” His voice let loose in a stentorian roar—
“Look out! Pull up! Want to bust your neck?”
The rider of the bay apparently did not hear him, or if she did she took no heed. Brant swore again. His voice rang out, urgent, compelling—
“Trail, Smoke, trail!”
The great moros shot forward, angling to the left in obedience to the pressure of the rein on his neck. His irons beat a drumroll of sound from the hard earth. He slugged his head above the bit. His legs drove backward like steel pistons as he fairly poured his long body over the ground. Brant let out another shout of warning. But the girl on the bay did not slacken speed. The bay, apparently frantic with fright, sped on blindly, straight for the ominous fringe of growth that bordered the unseen gulch.
Brant was also headed for the gulch. The course of the two riders formed a triangle, its apex the bristle of low brush. Brant’s eyes narrowed. He twisted the split reins together and dropped them on Smoke’s neck. He saw now that the girl was sawing frantically at the bay’s bridle, and getting no results.
“Hellion’s got the bit in his teeth,” Brant muttered, “and he’s scared blind loco about something. This is going to be close.”
On raced the moros, without slackening speed, as the growth and the lip of the draw seemed to fairly leap toward them. Brant gripped Smoke’s swelling barrel hard with his thighs. He rammed his feet deep into the stirrups. The bay was almost within arms’ reach now, and almost to the first straggle of brush. Brant caught a glimpse of the girl’s face, a white blur beneath her flying hair. Brant rose in his stirrups. Then he hurled himself sideways as shifted metal glinted in the sunlight.
There was a flash of fire, the roar of a shot. Brant gasped as a bullet burned its way along his ribs. He lunged forward, knocking the gun up even as the girl pulled trigger a second time. The slug fanned his face as the gun went spinning through the air. And just as the bay hit the brush with a crackling crash, Brant wound an arm about the girl’s waist and jerked her from the saddle. The bay horse, with an almost human scream, went over the lip of the gorge and hurtled downward.
The girl struck at Brant with little fists, clawed at his face with her nails.
“Stop it, you hellcat!” he bellowed as Smoke hit the brush like a tornado, cleared the lip of the gorge in a great bound and came down on the slope on bunched hoofs.
By a miracle of agility, the blue horse kept his footing. Down the dizzy slope he scudded, apparently walking on empty air most of the time. Brant crushed the struggling girl against his breast with a force that squeezed most of the breath out of her body. Brant seized the bridle from Smoke’s neck and steadied him. Smoke went over a bench like a flickering blue sunbeam, sailed through the air and landed on the slope a dozen feet farther down with a jolt that n
early drove Brant’s spine through the top of his head.
“Settin’ on his tail,” Smoke took the last score of yards in a blaze of glory and a cloud of dust. An avalanche of loosened pebbles and boulders went along with him. They hit the bottom of the gorge together. The boulders kept going for some distance. Smoke skittered to a slithering halt and stood snorting and blowing.
Brant loosened his grip on the gasping girl. He glared down at her, his temper not improved by the sting of the bullet sear along the ribs and the uncomfortable warm stickiness that accompanied it.
“What’s the big notion?” he demanded wrathfully. “I risk getting myself scattered all over the prairie to save you from getting your neck busted and you throw at me and try to claw my eyes out. I—”
Abruptly he ceased speaking. He stared incredulously at the piquant little face that seemed to be all great terrified blue eyes.
“He—heck and blazes!” he exclaimed. “I know you. You’re the girl I saw in the Deadfall, up at Doran’s Crossing on the Cimarron!”
Chapter Eight
Some of the fear left the girl’s eyes. “And—and I know you,” she said. “You’re the cowboy who had the fight there. You’re—you’re Austin Brant!”
“That’s right,” Brant replied. “And you’re Verna Loring, old Nate’s niece. Say, what in blazes is going on hereabouts? What’s the notion, skalleyhootin’ around over the prairie like you were trying to outrun your shadow, and throwin’ down on folks? And what was that shooting about over the other side of the sag?”
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