by Zane Grey
That brought Pan back to earth.
“What’s their game?” he asked swiftly, indicating the watching whispering group.
“I had only a few words with Hardman. Your dad went out of his haid. Reckon he’d have done fer Hardman with his bare hands, if Purcell hadn’t knocked him down with the butt of a gun.”
Again there was a violent leap of Pan’s blood. It jerked his whole frame.
“Blink, did that big brute?—” asked Pan hoarsely, suddenly breaking off.
“He shore did. Your dad’s got a nasty knock over the eye.… No, I hadn’t any chance to talk to Hardman. But his game’s as plain as that big nose of his.”
“Well, what is it?” snapped Pan.
“Shore he’ll grab our hosses, or most of them,” returned Blinky.
“You mean straight horse stealing?”
“Shore, thet’s what it’ll be. But the hell of it is, Hardman’s outfit helped make the drive.”
“No!”
“You bet they did. Thet’s what galls me. Either they was layin’ fer the day or just happened to ride up on us, an’ figgered it out. Mebbe thet’s where Mac New comes in.”
“Blink, I don’t believe he’s double-crossed us,” declared Pan stoutly.
“Wal, he’s an outlaw.”
“No difference. I just don’t believe it. But we’ll find out.… So you think Hardman will claim most of our horses or take them all?”
“I shore do.”
“Blink, if he gets one of our horses it’ll be over my dead body. You fellows sure showed yellow clear through—to let them ride in here without a fight.”
“Hellsfire!” cried Blinky, as if stung. “What you think?… There wasn’t a one of us thet had a single lead left fer our guns. Thet’s where the rub comes in. We played their game. Wasted a lot of shells on them damn broomies! So how could we fight?”
“Ah-huh!” groaned Pan, appalled at the fatality of the whole incident.
“Pan, I reckon you’d better swaller the dose, bitter as it is, an’ bluff Hardman into leavin’ us a share of the hosses.”
“Say, man, are you drunk or loco?” flashed Pan scornfully.
With that he whirled on his heel and strode toward where Hardman, Purcell, and another man stood somewhat apart from the lounging riders.
Slowly Blinky followed in Pan’s footsteps, and then Mac New left the group in the shade of the wall, and shuffled out into the sunlight. His action was that of a forceful man, dangerous to encounter.
In the dozen rods or more that Pan traversed to get to Hardman he had reverted to the old wild spirit of the Cimarron. That cold dark wind which had at times swept his soul returned with his realization of the only recourse here. When he had walked the streets of Marco waiting for Matthews to prove his mettle or show his cowardice, he had gambled on the latter. He had an uncanny certainty that he had only to bluff the sheriff. Here was a different proposition. It would take bloodshed to halt this gang.
As Pan approached, Purcell swung around square with his hands low, a significant posture. Hardman evinced signs of extreme nervous tension. The third man walked apart from them. All the others suddenly abandoned their lounging attitude.
“Hardman, what’s your game?” queried Pan bluntly, as he halted.
The words, the pause manifestly relieved Hardman, for he swallowed hard and braced himself.
“Game?” he parried gruffly. “There’s no game about drivin’ a million wild hosses through the dust. It was work.”
“Don’t try to twist words with me,” replied Pan fiercely. “What’s your game? Do you mean a straight out and out horse-thief deal? Or a share and share divvy on the strength of your riding in where you weren’t asked?”
“Young man, I’m warnin’ you not to call me a hoss thief,” shouted Hardman, growing red under his beard.
“I’ll call you one, damn quick, if you don’t tell your game.”
“We made the drive, Smith,” returned Hardman. “You’d never made it without us. An’ that gives us the biggest share. Say two-thirds, I’ll buy your third at ten dollars a head.”
“Hardman, that’s a rotten deal,” burst out Pan. “Haven’t you any sense? If you could make it, you’d be outlawed in this country. Men won’t stand for such things. You may be strong in Marco but I tell you even there you can’t go too far. We planned this trap. We worked like dogs. And we made the drive. You might account for more horses trapped, but no difference. You had no business here. We can prove it.”
“Wal, if I’ve got the hosses I don’t care what you say,” retorted Hardman, finding bravado as the interview progressed.
It was no use to try to appeal to any sense of fairness in this man. Pan saw that and his passionate eloquence died in his throat. Coldly he eyed Hardman and then the greasy dust-caked face of Purcell. He could catch only the steely speculation in Purcell’s evil eyes. He read there that, if the man had possessed the nerve, he would have drawn on him at the first.
Meanwhile Blinky had come up beside Pan and a moment later Mac New. Neither had anything to say but their actions, especially Mac New’s, were not to be misunderstood. The situation became intense. Hardman suddenly showed the strain.
Pan’s demeanor, however, might have been deceiving, except to the keenest of men, long versed in such encounters.
“Jard Hardman, you’re a low-down horse thief,” said Pan deliberately.
The taunt, thrown in Hardman’s face, added to the tension of the moment. He had lost the ruddy color under his beard. His eyes stood out. He recognized at last something beyond his power to change or stop.
“Smith, reckon you’ve cause for temper,” he said, huskily. “I’ll take half the hosses—an’ buy your half.”
“No! Not one damn broomtail do you get,” returned Pan in a voice that cut. “Look out, Hardman! I can prove you hatched up this deal to rob me.”
“How, I’d like to know?” blustered the rancher, relaxing again.
“Mac New can prove it.”
“Who’s he?”
“Hurd here. His real name is Mac New. You hired him to get in with me—to keep you posted on my movements.”
Again Hardman showed his kind of fiber under extreme provocation:
“Yes, I hired him—an’ he’s double-crossed you as well as me.”
“Did he? Well, now you prove that,” flashed Pan who had read the furious falseness of the man.
“Purcell here,” replied Hardman hoarsely, “he’s been camped below. Hurd met him at night—kept him posted on your work. Then, when all was ready for the drive Purcell sent for me. Ask him yourself.”
Pan did not answer to the suggestion. “Mac, what do you say to that?” he queried, sharply, but he never took his eyes off Purcell.
“Hardman, you’re a liar!” roared Mac New, sonorously. If ever Pan heard menace in a voice, it was then.
“Take it back!” went on the outlaw, now with a hiss. “Square me with Panhandle Smith!”
“Mac, he doesn’t have to square you. Anyone could see he’s a liar,” called Pan derisively.
“Hurd, I—I’ll have you shot—I’ll shoot you myself,” burst out Hardman, wrestling his arm toward his hip.
A thundering report close beside Pan almost deafened him. Hardman uttered a loud gasp. His eyes rolled—fixed in awful stony stare. Then like a flung sack he fell heavily.
“Thar, Jard Hardman,” declared the outlaw, “I had one bullet left.” And he threw his empty gun with violence at the prostrate body.
Purcell’s long taut body jerked into swift action. His gun spurted red as it leaped out. Pan, quick as he drew and shot, was too late to save Mac New. Both men fell without a cry, their heads almost meeting.
“Blink, grab their guns!” yelled Pan piercingly, and leaping over the bodies he confronted the stricken group of men with leveled weapon.
“Hands up! Quick, damn you!” he ordered, fiercely.
His swiftness, his tremendous passion, following instantly upon t
ragedy, had shocked Hardman’s men. Up went their hands.
Then Blinky ran in with a gun in each hand, and his wild aspect most powerfully supplemented Pan’s furious energy and menace.
“Fork them hosses, you —— —— ——!” yelled Blinky. Death for more of them quivered in the balance. As one man, Hardman’s riders rushed with thudding boots and tinkling spurs to mount their horses. Several did not wait for further orders, but plunged away down the lane toward the outlet.
“Rustle, hoss thieves,” added Blinky, with something of the old drawl in his voice, that yet seemed the more deadly for it. With quick strides he had gotten behind most of the riders. “Get out of heah!”
With shuffling, creaking of leather, and suddenly cracking hoofs the order was obeyed. The riders soon disappeared around the corner of the bluff.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The two horses left, belonging to Hardman and Purcell, neighed loudly at being left behind, and pulled on their halters.
Pan’s quick eye caught sight of a rifle in a sheath on one of the saddles. He ran to get it, but had to halt and approach the horse warily. But he secured the rifle—a Winchester—fully loaded.
Blinky, observing Pan’s act, repeated it with the other horse.
“Pard, I ain’t figgerin’ they’ll fight, even from cover,” said Blinky. “By gosh, this hoss must have been Purcell’s. Shore. Stirrups too long for Hardman. An’ the saddle bag is full of shells.”
“Slip along the fence and see where they went,” replied Pan.
“Aw, I can lick the whole outfit now,” declared Blinky, recklessly.
“You keep out of sight,” ordered Pan.
Whereupon Blinky, growling something, crashed a way through the cedar fence and disappeared.
Pan hurriedly sheathed his gun, and with the rifle in hand, ran back to the overhanging bluff, where he began to climb through the brush. Fierce action was necessary to him then. He did not spare himself. Forever he half-expected some kind of attack from the men who had been driven away. Soon he had reached a point where he could work round to the side of the bluff. When he looked out upon the valley he espied Hardman’s outfit two miles down the slope, beyond the cedar fence. They had set fire to the cedars. A column of yellow smoke rolled way across the valley.
“Ah-huh! They’re rustling—all right,” panted Pan. “Wonder what—kind of a story—they’ll tell. Looks to me—like they’d better keep clear of Marco.”
Then a reaction set in upon Pan. He crawled into the shade of some brush and stretched out, letting his tight muscles relax. The terrible something released its hold on mind and heart. He was sick. He fought with himself until the spasm passed.
When he got back to his men, Blinky had just returned.
“Did you see them shakin’ up the dust?” queried Blinky.
“Yes, they’re gone. Reckon we’ve no more to fear from them.”
“Huh! We never had nothin’. Shore was a yellow outfit. They set fire to our fence, the —— —— ——!”
It took some effort for Pan to approach his father. The feeling deep within him was inexplicable. But, then, he had never before been compelled to face his father after a fight. Pan’s relation to him seemed of long ago.
“How are you, Dad?” he asked with constraint.
“Little shaky—I guess—son,” came the husky reply. But Smith got up and removed his hand from the bloody wound on his forehead. It was more of a bruise than a cut, but the flesh was broken and swollen.
“Nasty bump, Dad. I’ll bet you’ll have a headache. Go to camp and bathe it in cold water. Then get Juan to bandage it.”
“All right,” replied his father. He forced himself to look up at Pan. His eyes were warming out of deep strange shadows of pain, of horror. “Son, I—I was kind of dazed when—when you—the fight come off.… I heard the shots, but I didn’t see… Was it you who—who killed Jard Hardman?”
“No, Dad,” replied Pan, placing a steady hand on his father’s shoulder. Indeed he seemed more than physically shaken. “But I meant to.”
“Then how—who?—” choked Smith.
“Mac New shot him,” replied Pan, hurriedly. “Hardman accused him of double-crossing me. Mac called him. I think Hardman tried to draw. But Mac killed him.… I got Purcell too late to save Mac.”
“Awful!” replied Smith, hoarsely.
“Pan, I seen Purcell’s eyes,” spoke up Blinky. “Shore he meant to drop Mac an’ you in two shots. But he wasn’t quite previous enough.”
“I was—too slow myself,” rejoined Pan haltingly. “Mac New was an outlaw, but he was white compared to Hardman.”
“Wal, it’s all over. Let’s kinda get set back in our saddles,” drawled Blinky. “What’ll we do with them stiffs?”
“By George, that’s a stumper,” replied Pan, sitting down in the shade.
“Huh! Reckon you figger we ought to pack them back to Marco an’ give them church services,” said Blinky, in disgust. “Jest a couple of two-bit rustlers!”
“Somebody will come out here after their bodies, surely. Dick Hardman would want to—”
“Mebbe someone will, but not thet hombre,” declared Blinky. “But I’m gamblin’ Hardman’s outfit won’t break their necks tellin’ aboot this. Now you jest see.”
“Well, let’s wait, then,” replied Pan. “Wrap them up in tarps and lay them here in the shade.”
The trapped wild horses, cracking their hoofs and whistling in the huge corrals, did not at the moment attract Pan or wean him away from the deep unsettled condition of mind. As he passed the corral on the way to the camp the horses moved with a trampling roar. The sound helped him toward gaining a hold on his normal self.
The hour now was near sunset and the heat of day had passed. A cool light breeze made soft low sound in the trees.
Pan found his father sitting with bandaged head beside the campfire, apparently recovering somewhat.
“Did you take a peep at our hosses?” he asked.
“No, not yet,” replied Pan. “I reckon I will, though, before it gets dark.”
“We’ve got a big job ahead.”
“That depends, Dad. If we can sell them here we haven’t any job to speak of. How about it, Blink?”
“How aboot what?” inquired the cowboy, who had just come up.
“Dad’s worrying over what he thinks will be a big job. Handling the horses we’ve caught.”
“Shore thet all depends. If we sell heah, fine an’ dandy. The other fellar will have the hell. Reckon, though, we want to cut out a string of the best hosses fer ourselves. Thet’s work, when you’ve got a big drove millin’ round. Shore is lucky we built thet mile-round corral. There’s water an’ feed enough to last them broomies a week, or longer on a pinch.”
While they were talking Gus and Charley Brown returned to camp. They were leading the horses that had been ridden by Hardman and Purcell.
“Turn them loose, boys,” directed Pan, to whom they looked for instructions.
Presently Gus handed Pan a heavy leather wallet and a huge roll of greenbacks.
“Found the wallet on Purcell an’ the roll on Hardman,” said Gus.
“Wal, they shore was well heeled,” drawled Blinky.
“But what’ll I do with all this?” queried Pan blankly.
“Pan, as you seem to forget, Hardman owed your dad money, reckon you might rustle an’ hunt up Dick Hardman an’ give it to him. Say, Dick’ll own the Yellow Mine now. Gee! He could spend all this in his own joint.”
“Dad, you never told me how much Hardman did you out of,” Pan.
“Ten thousand in cash, an’ Lord only knows how many cattle.”
“So much! I’d imagined.… Say, Dad, will you take this money?”
“Yes, if it’s honest an’ regular for me to do so,” replied Smith stoutly.
“Regular? There’s no law in Marco. We’ve got to make our own laws. Let it be a matter of conscience. Boys, this man Hardman ruined my father. I heard that
from a reliable source at Littleton before I ever got here. Don’t you think it honest for Dad to take this money?”
“Shore, it’s more than thet,” replied Blinky. “I’d call it justice. If you turned thet money over to law in Marco it’d go to Matthews. An’ you can bet your socks he’d keep it.”
The consensus of opinion did not differ materially from Blinky’s.
“Dad, it’s a long trail that has no turning,” said Pan, tossing both wallet and roll to his father. “Here’s to your new ranch in Arizona!”
Lying Juan soon called them to supper. It was not the usual cheery meal, though Juan told an unusually atrocious lie, and Blinky made several attempts to be funny. The sudden terrible catastrophe of the day did not quickly release its somber grip.
After supper, however, there seemed to be a lessening of restraint, with the conversation turning to the corrals full of wild horses.
“Wal, let’s go an’ look ’em over,” proposed Blinky.
Pan was glad to see his father able and eager to accompany them, but he did not go himself.
“Come on, you wild-hoss trapper,” called Blinky. “We want to bet on how rich we are.”
“I’ll come, presently,” replied Pan.
He did not join them, however, but made his way along the north slope to a high point where he could look down into the second corral. It was indeed a sight to fill his heart—that wide mile-round grassy pasture so colorful with its droves of wild horses. Black predominated, but there were countless whites, reds, bays, grays, pintos. He saw a blue roan that shone among the duller horses, too far away to enable Pan to judge of his other points. Pan gazed with stern restraint, trying to estimate the numbers without wild guess of enthusiasm.
“More than fifteen hundred,” he soliloquized at last, breathing hard. “Too good to be true! Yet there they are.… If only that…well, no matter. I didn’t force it. I wasn’t to blame… Maybe we can keep it from mother and Lucy.”
Pan did not start back to camp until after nightfall, when he heard Blinky call.
“Say, you make a fellar nervous,” declared Blinky, in relief, as Pan approached the bright campfire. “Wal, did you take a peep at ’em?”
“Yes. It’s sure a roundup,” replied Pan. “I’d say between fifteen and sixteen hundred head.”