by Zane Grey
“Shore I’m sorry,” said Nels, slowly. “Then you was goin’ to hit the trail?”
“I am going to. Let go, Nels.”
“Shore you ain’t goin’, Gene?”
“Let go, damn you!” cried Stewart, as he wrestled free.
“What’s wrong?” asked Nels, lifting his hand again.
“Man! Don’t touch me!”
Nels stepped back instantly. He seemed to become aware of Stewart’s white, wild passion. Again Stewart moved to mount.
“Nels, don’t make me forget we’ve been friends,” he said.
“Shore I ain’t fergettin’,” replied Nels. “An’ I resign my job right here an’ now!”
His strange speech checked the mounting cowboy. Stewart stepped down from the stirrup. Then their hard faces were still and cold while their eyes locked glances.
Madeline was as much startled by Nels’s speech as Stewart. Quick to note a change in these men, she now sensed one that was unfathomable.
“Resign?” questioned Stewart.
“Shore. What ’d you think I’d do under circumstances sich as has come up?”
“But see here, Nels, I won’t stand for it.”
“You’re not my boss no more, an’ I ain’t beholdin’ to Miss Hammond, neither. I’m my own boss, an’ I’ll do as I please. Sabe, señor?”
Nels’s words were at variance with the meaning in his face.
“Gene, you sent me on a little scout down in the mountains, didn’t you?” he continued.
“Yes, I did,” replied Stewart, with a new sharpness in his voice.
“Wal, shore you was so good an’ right in your figgerin’, as opposed to mine, that I’m sick with admirin’ of you. If you hedn’t sent me—wal, I’m reckonin’ somethin’ might hev happened. As it is we’re shore up against a hell of a proposition!”
How significant was the effect of his words upon all the cowboys! Stewart made a fierce and violent motion, terrible where his other motions had been but passionate. Monty leaped straight up into the air in a singular action as suggestive of surprise as it was of wild acceptance of menace. Like a stalking giant Nick Steele strode over to Nels and Stewart. The other cowboys rose silently, without a word.
Madeline and her guests, in a little group, watched and listened, unable to divine what all this strange talk and action meant.
“Hold on, Nels, they don’t need to hear it,” said Stewart, hoarsely, as he waved a hand toward Madeline’s silent group.
“Wal, I’m sorry, but I reckon they’d as well know fust as last. Mebbe thet yearnin’ wish of Miss Helen’s fer somethin’ to happen will come true. Shore I—”
“Cut out the joshin’,” rang out Monty’s strident voice.
It had as decided an effect as any preceding words or action. Perhaps it was the last thing needed to transform these men, doing unaccustomed duty as escorts of beautiful women, to their natural state as men of the wild.
“Tell us what’s what,” said Stewart, cool and grim.
“Don Carlos an’ his guerrillas are campin’ on the trails thet lead up here. They’ve got them trails blocked. By to-morrer they’d hed us corralled. Mebbe they meant to surprise us. He’s got a lot of Greasers an’ outlaws. They’re well armed. Now what do they mean? You-all can figger it out to suit yourselves. Mebbe the Don wants to pay a sociable call on our ladies. Mebbe his gang is some hungry, as usual. Mebbe they want to steal a few hosses, or anythin’ they can lay hands on. Mebbe they mean wuss, too. Now my idee is this, an’ mebbe it’s wrong. I long since separated from love with Greasers. Thet black-faced Don Carlos has got a deep game. Thet two-bit of a revolution is hevin’ hard times. The rebels want American intervention. They’d stretch any point to make trouble. We’re only ten miles from the border. Suppose them guerrillas got our crowd across thet border? The U. S. cavalry would foller. You-all know what thet’d mean. Mebbe Don Carlos’s mind works thet way. Mebbe it don’t. I reckon we’ll know soon. An’ now, Stewart, whatever the Don’s game is, shore you’re the man to outfigger him. Mebbe it’s just as well you’re good an’ mad about somethin’. An’ I resign my job because I want to feel unbeholdin’ to anybody. Shore it struck me long since thet the old days hed come back fer a little spell, an’ there I was trailin’ a promise not to hurt any Greaser.”
CHAPTER XIX
Don Carlos
Stewart took Nels, Monty, and Nick Steele aside out of earshot, and they evidently entered upon an earnest colloquy. Presently the other cowboys were called. They all talked more or less, but the deep voice of Stewart predominated over the others. Then the consultation broke up, and the cowboys scattered.
“Rustle, you Indians!” ordered Stewart.
The ensuing scene of action was not reassuring to Madeline and her friends. They were quiet, awaiting someone to tell them what to do. At the offset the cowboys appeared to have forgotten Madeline. Some of them ran off into the woods, others into the open, grassy places, where they rounded up the horses and burros. Several cowboys spread tarpaulins upon the ground and began to select and roll small packs, evidently for hurried travel. Nels mounted his horse to ride down the trail. Monty and Nick Steele went off into the grove, leading their horses. Stewart climbed up a steep jumble of stone between two sections of low, cracked cliff back of the camp.
Castleton offered to help the packers, and was curtly told he would be in the way. Madeline’s friends all importuned her: Was there real danger? Were the guerrillas coming? Would a start be made at once for the ranch? Why had the cowboys suddenly become so different? Madeline answered as best she could; but her replies were only conjecture, and modified to allay the fears of her guests. Helen was in a white glow of excitement.
Soon cowboys appeared riding barebacked horses, driving in others and the burros. Some of these horses were taken away and evidently hidden in deep recesses between the crags. The string of burros were packed and sent off down the trail in charge of a cowboy. Nick Steele and Monty returned. Then Stewart appeared, clambering down the break between the cliffs.
His next move was to order all the baggage belonging to Madeline and her guests taken up the cliff. This was strenuous toil, requiring the need of lassoes to haul up the effects.
“Get ready to climb,” said Stewart, turning to Madelines party.
“Where?” asked Helen.
He waved his hand at the ascent to be made. Exclamations of dismay followed his gesture.
“Mr. Stewart, is there danger?” asked Dorothy; and her voice trembled.
This was the question Madeline had upon her lips to ask Stewart, but she could not speak it.
“No, there’s no danger,” replied Stewart, “but we’re taking precautions we all agreed on as best.”
Dorothy whispered that she believed Stewart lied. Castleton asked another question, and then Harvey followed suit. Mrs. Beck made a timid query.
“Please keep quiet and do as you’re told,” said Stewart, bluntly.
At this juncture, when the last of the baggage was being hauled up the cliff, Monty approached Madeline and removed his sombrero. His black face seemed the same, yet this was a vastly changed Monty.
“Miss Hammond, I’m givin’ notice I resign my job,” he said.
“Monty! What do you mean? What does Nels mean now, when danger threatens?”
“We jest quit. Thet’s all,” replied Monty, tersely. He was stern and somber; he could not stand still; his eyes roved everywhere.
Castleton jumped up from the log where he had been sitting, and his face was very red.
“Mr. Price, does all this blooming fuss mean we are to be robbed or attacked or abducted by a lot of ragamuffin guerrillas?”
“You’ve called the bet.”
Dorothy turned a very pale face toward Monty.
“Mr. Price, you wouldn’t—you couldn’t desert us now? You and Mr. Nels—”
“Desert you?” asked Monty, blankly.
“Yes, desert us. Leave us when we may need you so much, with so
mething dreadful coming.”
Monty uttered a short, hard laugh as he bent a strange look upon the girl.
“Me an’ Nels is purty much scared, an’ we’re goin’ to slope. Miss Dorothy, bein’ as we’ve rustled round so much; it sorta hurts us to see nice young girls dragged off by the hair.”
Dorothy uttered a little cry and then became hysterical. Castleton for once was fully aroused.
“By Gad! You and your partner are a couple of blooming cowards. Where now is that courage you boasted of?”
Monty’s dark face expressed extreme sarcasm.
“Dook, in my time I’ve seen some bright fellers, but you take the cake. It’s most marvelous how bright you are. Figger’n’ me an’ Nels so correct. Say, Dook, if you don’t git rustled off to Mexico an’ roped to a cactus-bush you’ll hev a swell story fer your English chums. Bah Jove! You’ll tell ’em how you seen two old-time gun-men run like scared jack-rabbits from a lot of Greasers. Like hell you will! Unless you lie like the time you told about proddin’ the lion. That there story allus—”
“Monty, shut up!” yelled Stewart, as he came hurriedly up. Then Monty slouched away, cursing to himself.
Madeline and Helen, assisted by Castleton, worked over Dorothy, and with some difficulty quieted her. Stewart passed several times without noticing them, and Monty, who had been so ridiculously eager to pay every little attention to Dorothy, did not see her at all. Rude it seemed; in Monty’s ease more than that. Madeline hardly knew what to make of it.
Stewart directed cowboys to go to the head of the open place in the cliff and let down lassoes. Then, with little waste of words, he urged the women toward this rough ladder of stones.
“We want to hide you,” he said, when they demurred. “If the guerrillas come we’ll tell them you’ve all gone down to the ranch. If we have to fight you’ll be safe up there.”
Helen stepped boldly forward and let Stewart put the loop of a lasso round her and tighten it. He waved his hand to the cowboys above.
“Just walk up, now,” he directed Helen.
It proved to the watchers to be an easy, safe, and rapid means of scaling the steep passage. The men climbed up without assistance. Mrs. Beck, as usual, had hysteria; she half walked and was half dragged up. Stewart supported Dorothy with one arm, while with the other he held to the lasso. Ambrose had to carry Christine. The Mexican women required no assistance. Edith Wayne and Madeline climbed last; and, once up, Madeline saw a narrow bench, thick with shrubs, and overshadowed by huge, leaning crags. There were holes in the rock, and dark fissures leading back. It was a rough, wild place. Tarpaulins and bedding were then hauled up, and food and water. The cowboys spread comfortable beds in several of the caves, and told Madeline and her friends to be as quiet as possible, not to make a light, and to sleep dressed, ready for travel at a moment’s notice.
After the cowboys had gone down it was not a cheerful group left there in the darkening twilight. Castleton prevailed upon them to eat.
“This is simply great,” whispered Helen.
“Oh, it’s awful!” moaned Dorothy. “It’s your fault, Helen. You prayed for something to happen.”
“I believe it’s a horrid trick those cowboys are playing,” said Mrs. Beck.
Madeline assured her friends that no trick was being played upon them, and that she deplored the discomfort and distress, but felt no real alarm. She was more inclined to evasive kindness here than to sincerity, for she had a decided uneasiness. The swift change in the manner and looks of her cowboys had been a shock to her. The last glance she had of Stewart’s face, then stern, almost sad, and haggard with worry, remained to augment her foreboding.
Darkness appeared to drop swiftly down; the coyotes began their haunting, mournful howls; the stars showed and grew brighter; the wind moaned through the tips of the pines. Castleton was restless. He walked to and fro before the overhanging shelf of rock, where his companions sat lamenting, and presently he went out to the ledge of the bench. The cowboys below had built a fire, and the light from it rose in a huge, fan-shaped glow. Castleton’s little figure stood out black against this light. Curious and anxious also, Madeline joined him and peered down from the cliff. The distance was short, and occasionally she could distinguish a word spoken by the cowboys. They were unconcernedly cooking and eating. She marked the absence of Stewart, and mentioned it to Castleton. Silently Castleton pointed almost straight down, and there in the gloom stood Stewart, with the two stag-hounds at his feet.
Presently Nick Steele silenced the camp-fire circle by raising a warning hand. The cowboys bent their heads, listening. Madeline listened with all her might. She heard one of the hounds whine, then the faint beat of horse’s hoofs. Nick spoke again and turned to his supper, and the other men seemed to slacken in attention. The beat of hoofs grew louder, entered the grove, then the circle of light. The rider was Nels. He dismounted, and the sound of his low voice just reached Madeline.
“Gene, it’s Nels. Somethin’ doin’,” Madeline heard one of the cowboys call, softly.
“Send him over,” replied Stewart.
Nels stalked away from the fire.
“See here, Nels, the boys are all right, but I don’t want them to know everything about this mix-up,” said Stewart, as Nels came up. “Did you find the girl?”
Madeline guessed that Stewart referred to the Mexican girl Bonita.
“No. But I met”—Madeline did not catch the name—“an’ he was wild. He was with a forest-ranger. An’ they said Pat Hawe had trailed her an’ was takin’ her down under arrest.”
Stewart muttered deep under his breath, evidently cursing.
“Wonder why he didn’t come on up here?” he queried, presently. “He can see a trail.”
“Wal, Gene, Pat knowed you was here all right, fer thet ranger said Pat hed wind of the guerrillas, an’ Pat said if Don Carlos didn’t kill you—which he hoped he’d do—then it ’d be time enough to put you in jail when you come down.”
“He’s dead set to arrest me, Nels.”
“An’ he’ll do it, like the old lady who kept tavern out West. Gene, the reason thet red-faced coyote didn’t trail you up here is because he’s scared. He allus was scared of you. But I reckon he’s shore scared to death of me an’ Monty.”
“Well, we’ll take Pat in his turn. The thing now is, when will that Greaser stalk us, and what’ll we do when he comes?”
“My boy, there’s only one way to handle a Greaser. I shore told you thet. He means rough toward us. He’ll come smilin’ up, all soci’ble like, insinuatin’ an’ sweeter ’n a woman. But he’s treacherous; he’s wuss than an Indian. An’, Gene, we know for a positive fact how his gang hev been operatin’ between these hills an’ Agua Prieta. They’re no nervy gang of outlaws like we used to hev. But they’re plumb bad. They’ve raided and murdered through the San Luis Pass an’ Guadalupe Canyon. They’ve murdered women, an’ wuss than thet, both north an’ south of Agua Prieta. Mebbe the U. S. cavalry don’t know it, an’ the good old States; but we, you an’ me an’ Monty an’ Nick, we know it. We know jest about what thet rebel war down there amounts to. It’s guerrilla war, an’ shore some harvest-time fer a lot of cheap thieves an’ outcasts.”
“Oh, you’re right, Nels. I’m not disputing that,” replied Stewart. “If it wasn’t for Miss Hammond and the other women, I’d rather enjoy seeing you and Monty open up on that bunch. I’m thinking I’d be glad to meet Don Carlos. But Miss Hammond! Why, Nels, such a woman as she is would never recover from the sight of real gun-play, let alone any stunts with a rope. These Eastern women are different. I’m not belittling our Western women. It’s in the blood. Miss Hammond is—is—”
“Shore she is,” interrupted Nels; “but she’s got a damn sight more spunk than you think she has, Gene Stewart. I’m no thick-skulled cow. I’d hate somethin’ powerful to hev Miss Hammond see any rough work, let alone me an’ Monty startin’ somethin’. An’ me an’ Monty’ll stick to you, Gene, as long as seems reasona
ble. Mind, ole feller, beggin’ your pardon, you’re shore stuck on Miss Hammond, an’ over-tender not to hurt her feelin’s or make her sick by lettin’ some blood. We’re in bad here, an’ mebbe we’ll hev to fight. Sabe, señor? Wal, we do you can jest gamble thet Miss Hammond’ll be game. An’ I’ll bet you a million pesos thet if you got goin’ onct, an’ she seen you as I’ve seen you—wal, I know what she’d think of you. This old world ain’t changed much. Some women may be white-skinned an’ soft-eyed an’ sweet-voiced an’ high-souled, but they all like to see a man! Gene, here’s your game. Let Don Carlos come along. Be civil. If he an’ his gang are hungry, feed ’em. Take even a little overbearin’ Greaser talk. Be blind if he wants his gang to steal somethin’. Let him think the women hev mosied down to the ranch. But if he says you’re lyin’—if he as much as looks round to see the women—jest jump him same as you jumped Pat Hawe. Me an’ Monty’ll hang back fer thet, an’ if your strong bluff don’t go through, if the Don’s gang even thinks of flashin’ guns, then we’ll open up. An’ all I got to say is if them Greasers stand fer real gun-play they’ll be the fust I ever seen.”
“Nels, there are white men in that gang,” said Stewart.
“Shore. But me an’ Monty’ll be thinkin’ of thet. If they start anythin’ it’ll hev to be shore quick.”
“All right, Nels, old friend, and thanks,” replied Stewart. Nels returned to the camp-fire, and Stewart resumed his silent guard.
Madeline led Castleton away from the brink of the wall.
“By Jove! Cowboys are blooming strange folk!” he exclaimed. “They are not what they pretend to be.”
“Indeed, you are right,” replied Madeline. “I cannot understand them. Come, let us tell the others that Nels and Monty were only talking and do not intend to leave us. Dorothy, at least, will be less frightened if she knows.”
Dorothy was somewhat comforted. The others, however, complained of the cowboys’ singular behavior. More than once the idea was advanced that an elaborate trick had been concocted. Upon general discussion this idea gained ground. Madeline did not combat it, because she saw it tended to a less perturbed condition of mind among her guests. Castleton for once proved that he was not absolutely obtuse, and helped along the idea.