by Zane Grey
“Rustle, you two-bit brand blotters!” called a harsh voice. “An’ from today you stay out of Pine Mound!”
“Come on Hogue,” called one of the cowboys, over his shoulder.
“I’m damned if I will,” came the reply, ringing shrilly.
Wade’s thought was as swift as his leaping pulse. As the group at the bar, silenced by this row, moved back, curiously, Wade intercepted the two cowboys to whisper coolly in their faces: “Don’t show yellow!” And he spun them around to pass ahead of them. His startling action had halted them. “Jerry, who’n hell?—”
Wade was among the foremost of the curious onlookers that crowded back to the gaming tables. Some had been vacated by players, at others the gamblers stood up, their heads craned toward a group at the rear table. Wade saw a handsome flaming-faced youth confronting five men, three of whom were standing.
“Harrobin, you can’t drive me off this range,” he declared hotly.
“Look here, Kinsey,” retorted a dark-bearded man who sat at the table, his hands covering a stack of cards and chips. “I’ve warned you before. You and your outfit will rustle or take the consequences.”
“Bah! You can’t bluff me, Harrobin.”
“It’s no bluff.”
“But what have I done? Sure, you owe Jerry an’ me money. An’ we don’t happen to be Mormons—”
“Cut that kind of talk,” interrupted Harrobin. “If you’d done no more, you talk too much. Men get shot for that on this range.”
“I daresay they do—in the back—or when they’re not packin’ a gun, as I’m not,” flashed Kinsey, scornfully.
“Once more I warn you.”
“Aw Hell! I’m not afraid of you, Harrobin. If I had my gun I’d call you right here an’ now.”
“Cowboys like you are always armed as far as I’m concerned,” said Harrobin with cold voice and lowering scowl.
“If I gotta get off this range an’ be murdered I’ve a right to know why,” rejoined Kinsey, passionately.
“You talk too much.”
“Talk?—Hell, you talk, everybody talks. When I told Band Drake—”
“Shut up!” hissed Harrobin, moving as if to sit back a little from the table.
Wade was swift to seize the opportunity made for him. He leaped out to draw his gun.
“Hold!” he yelled, like the clap of a bell. Then cold, measured, menacing he continued: “Don’t move, men!—Careful, Harrobin!”
From a violent start the Mormon froze stiff. He had drawn his gun or had a hand on it under the table. Wade’s posture, his colorless voice, his bladelike eyes left no room for conjecture.
“Don’t shut up, Kinsey,” went on Wade, curtly. “Your talk was damn interesting to another Gentile, one Tex Brandon. . . . Go on!”
The cowboy’s lean frame strung like a whipcord. “Thanks, stranger,” he rejoined quietly, his young face paling. “You bet your life I’ll go on. . . . Harrobin, take this in your teeth. . . . You’re sore—you’re tryin’ to hound me off this range—because I told Band Drake about the herd of C. R. Bar cattle you got penned in Green Canyon.”
Harrobin turned livid under his dark scant beard. No power but the unknown quality of Wade could have stayed his hand. But his intuition, his wisdom, his experience were not so great as his fury.
“Much obliged, Hogue,” rang out Wade. “C. R. Bar cattle. That’s Pencarrow’s brand. And I happen to be Pencarrow’s new foreman. . . . Go on!”
“Aw! . . . Reckon thet’ll be about all,” drawled the cowboy, who, game as he was, turned white at the situation he had precipitated.
“Harrobin, I want that bunch of C. R. Bar cattle,” demanded Wade.
“Kinsey’s a liar,” hissed the Mormon, malignantly. “No one will believe the sneaking lout. He and his two-bit outfit have run off Pencarrow stock themselves. I know. I’ve bought it”
“That so, Hogue?” queried Wade, never relaxing a fraction of his quivering readiness.
“Sure it’s so. Who hasn’t run off Pencarrow cattle? The fool rancher kept no riders to brand his stock. I never drove off a hoof thet wasn’t a maverick. An’ in Arizona a maverick belongs to the man who brands it.”
“Harrobin, you stand corrected. I reckon you’re the liar,” snapped Wade.
“Brandon?—That your name? Pencarrow’s new foreman, eh? . . . Ha! Ha! You’ll last long on Cedar Range.”
“Drop that gun on the floor,” ordered Wade.
“What gun?”
“The gun you have in your hand.”
“You’re mistaken. I’ve no gun.”
“Do you think any man with a gun in his hand could fool me? . . . If I hadn’t interfered you’d have shot this cowboy in cold blood.”
“I’ll shoot him later,” retorted Harrobin, who seemed wholly governed by passion.
“Like hell you will!” shouted Kinsey. “I can beat you to a gun any day, you black-faced Mormon!”
“Drop it thundered Wade.
Harrobin was not yet intimidated to the point of complying. His gaze betrayed a calculation of chances as opposed to releasing his gun. The instant Wade read that conflict of thoughts he took swift aim at the Mormon’s right arm and pulled the trigger. The heavy colt filled the room with booming crash. A trenchant silence ensued. It was broken by the metallic thud of a gun striking the floor.
Wade stepped forward to shove the smoking gun almost in the faces of the five men. Harrobin sat rigid, ghastly, his eyes windows of hell. His four comrades were under a spell that gave evidence of a nervous break. Wade placed his foot against the table and gave it a tremendous shove. Table, cards and chips, chairs and men went down in a thumping heap.
“Kinsey, get outside,” ordered Wade, beginning to back away, keeping the group covered. “Harrobin, I proved you a liar about your gun. . . . Well, throw it pronto if we ever meet again! Because I’ll know then what I suspect now—that you’re a cattle thief!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
SAY, who are you?” drawled Hogue Kinsey, as Wade, leading his horse, halted under a wide-spreading cottonwood on the outskirts of Pine Mound. “I shore want to shake your hand— an’ thank you heaps—but I’m not stuck on steppin’ under this tree.”
“Big shady tree. What’s the matter with it?” replied Wade, finding a seat and removing his sombrero.
“Nothin’ ’cept there’s been a couple of hombres hanged heah.”
“Hanged!” ejaculated Wade, his head coming up erect.
“Shore. Makes a fellow feel creepy. I don’t mind bein’ shot. Been winged a few times. But chokin’ to death—kickin’ at the end of a rope—in the air! I wouldn’t like thet.”
“Neither would I, Hogue,” laughed Wade, remembering the years when he swore he would never dangle at the end of a rope. “All you Arizonans shy of a noose, eh?”
“Shy isn’t the word, mister. Let’s dodge the idee. I want to thank—”
“Dodge the thanks. But you’ve given me an idea, by heaven!” ejaculated Wade, with a swift snatch at the air.
“What’d you say your name was?”
“Brandon. Tex Brandon.”
“An’ you’re Pencarrow’s new foreman?”
“Yes. An’ damn glad to meet you, Hogue.”
“Wal, I’m glad too. I kinda like you, Tex. The way you laid it on to Harrobin! Thet was great. But out here, after it’s over, wal, I don’t feel so good.”
“Why not? We’re going to be friends.”
“Thet so? You heard me tell Harrobin about Pencarrow’s mavericks?”
“Forget it. That’s past. We’ve all done some bad things we’re ashamed of. I have. . . . Hogue, you’re through training to be a rustler.”
“Hell you say!” retorted Kinsey, his face flaming. But at Wadena keen steady look his eyes lost their hot, shamed resentment.
“Yes. . . . You were on the way. But I’m checking you up. . . . You’re going to be my right-hand rider. You’re going to persuade your outfit to throw in with me. I’ll whip them
into the hardest-riding, hardest-shooting outfit in Arizona. You weren’t cut out for a cattle thief. You just got a wrong start, I’ll bet. And you’re sore. You’ve just drifted. Well, I don’t need to tell you where you were drifting. But one thing you didn’t know—any more than Harrobin or Drake—and that is you were due to run up against a new deal— a chance to square yourself—to turn honest and stay honest—to be able presently to help your Dad—and your sister—and to have them proud of you—proud of the name that’ll come to you, just as sure as we sit here. . . . We’ll retrieve Pencarrow’s losses. We’ll make his fortune. We’ll clean out these pack-rat nests of rustlers. . . . We’ll hang Harrobin and Drake!”
“My—Gawd!” gasped the cowboy, as if carried off his feet.
“How do you like the prospect?” flashed Wade. All his bitter youth came back at sight of Kinsey’s face. If he had been given a chance like this!
“Like—it!—Say, man, you’re loco—or you’re bigger caliber— than ever rode to this range.”
“Hogue, are you with me?”
“It takes my breath, Brandon. . . . It’s a cowboy dream. My head whirls. . . . But the way you walked out to call Harrobin! . . . I got to believe my own eyes. Lord, if I only could. . . . But Pencarrow. I stole from him.”
“Boy, Pencarrow’s a Texan. Salt of the earth. You’ll love him. You’ll start right by telling him straight. Then that’ll be the end of your two-bit rustling.”
“I’ve heard of the Pencarrow girls. Never seen them. But I’d shore be afraid—”
“Listen, cowboy. Wipe off your mind whatever rotten range gossip you’ve heard. Think of this. You’ll be riding, fighting for two of the truest finest girls who ever came out here to make the West a better place.”
“– —it! Brandon, you’re makin’ me a better fellow than I am!” fired the cowboy, caught in the throes of mingled uplift and degradation.
“Nope. I just know what’s in you, Hogue. Shake hands.”
Kinsey had a calloused hand and a grip like steel. He was won. A blaze burned out the tears in his eyes. Something hard, like a shadow of viciousness, passed out of his young face.
“Brandon—I hope—you’re not too late,” he replied, brokenly.
“Never too late. I can tell you that. . . . Now, Hogue, what about this outfit of yours?”
“Wal, somebody has given you a wrong hunch. It’s not exactly an outfit. Bunch of us been livin’ together in an old cabin over here. Pretty sick of livin’ on beef. An’ just about ready for any-thin’, I’d say. Four of us you can gamble on. An’ I reckon Kid Marshall could be worked up. But Rain Carter—I’m not guaranteed’ him. I wouldn’t trust thet hombre. He’s an older fellow. Used to ride for Harrobin.”
“When can I talk to this outfit?”
“Right away. Jerry an’ Bill are waitin’ for me. I’ll call them, an’ we’ll ride out to the cabin.”
Before the hour was gone Wade had presented his offer to Kinsey’s comrades. The nature of it, the way Wade put it, had the same effect upon four of them that it had had upon Kinsey. Carter, a silent man, thin-lipped and shifty-eyed, manifested a slow amaze, a pondering thoughtfulness, but no eager excitement. His youth lay behind him. The others were all boys under twenty, and Wade had caught them at a critical time. He could as well have persuaded them to a crooked deal that would have made them outlaws. One by one they shook hands with Wade, awed by his force, yet ready to burst into whoops.
“Carter, you’re an older man,” said Wade, curtly. “I see you’ve got more to wipe out than these boys. But my offer holds for you. Only think well what you’re doing.”
“I been thinkin’, Brandon,” returned the other; and the fact that his glance was enigmatical and his face a mask settled in Wade’s mind an unfavorable conviction. “I’ll be ridin’ my hoss over somebody’s toes. But let ’er rip! ”
“One last word, fellows, and get me straight,” said Wade, uncompromisingly. “I’m giving you a chance to be honest. . . . To escape the noose! For that’s what’ll come to Arizona rustlers pretty pronto. I’m guaranteeing you work, board, horses and outfits, guns. And if you stick you’ll be paid for your services. . . . But if any one of you ever double-crosses me he’ll get the same I’m going to hand out to these rustlers.”
“Pards,” spoke up Kinsey, “Put thet in your pipes an’ smoke it. I’m grabbin’ this chance like a fellar who’s bogged down in quicksand, when you throw him a rope. . . . An’ I say to one an’ all of you—an’ you ’specially, Carter, if you’re not shore—good an’ straight shore—duck this deal right here an’ now.”
Carter sat with his head bowed, silenced if not visibly pale and tense like his comrades. After a moment’s trenchant pause, Kinsey turned to Wade.
“Boss, it’s a deal. May you never regret it!” he announced, coolly. “An’ here’s an idee thet just popped into my head. . . . Let’s rustle down to Meadow Canyon an’ drive thet herd of Pencarrow’s back to his ranch. Harrobin will be nursin’ thet sore arm an’ his grouch for a few days. Some of his outfit are away. At what I can’t guess. But they’re away. An’ Stranathon, who sat next to him, an’ those other three hombres I don’t know—they couldn’t stop us if they did find out.”
Wade was on his feet in excitement.
“Hogue, by heaven, what a great start!” he yelled. “I guess maybe I didn’t have you figured. . . . Boys, we’re off. Tie on your belongings. You’ll never come back to this scurvy shack.”
Four days later before sunset, a long stream of tired dusty cattle filed into the lower end of Pencarrow’s fenced pasture. And seven tattered grimy riders on lame horses wended their weary Way toward the ranch house and the cabins.
Two heavy-laden wagons, one of them new, and a buckboard, had come along the road parallel with the lane, accommodating their movements to the slow walk of the riders. This was the Pencarrow caravan returning from Holbrook.
A wild whoop from the driver of that new wagon greeted Wade’s ears and wakened him from utter exhaustion to a tremendous throbbing glow of delight. That yell emanated from Hal Pencarrow’s lusty throat and heralded the singularly opportune hour of Wade’s arrival.
“Boys, we’re a scarecrow outfit,” said Wade with a laugh. “But we needn’t be ashamed to meet the Pencarrows.”
But Hogue Kinsey was the only one to follow Wade across the green square to the ranch house. Surely that was the strangest and most all-satisfying ride of Wade’s long career as a horseman. How deeply he felt the joy he would give Pencarrow! And when Wade saw Jacqueline stand up in the buckboard to let the reins fall and stare with great dark wide eyes, he felt no less the glory of a victor returning from the war. He did not look up again until he reached the wagon, when he stiffly dismounted and hobbled to the porch where Pencarrow stood, his white hair erect like the mane of a lion. Wade heard Kinsey’s slow clinking step behind him.
“Brandon!” tolled out the rancher, sonorously. “Is thet you or a niggah?”
“Yes sir, it’s me,” replied Wade. “We must be pretty black and crumby. No wash, no bed, no grub—nothing but dust and meat these last five days. . . . I have to report, sir—”
“You shore look it. Never saw such ragamuffins! . . . Brandon, I reckon I can see, but I cain’t believe my own eyes.”
“I have a report to make, sir,” went on Wade. “I just drove in four thousand head of cattle. Rough estimate. Most of them are yours. Harrobin rustled them from time to time. He kept this herd in Meadow Canyon. I lost a few on the way.”
“Four thousand—haid!” gasped Pencarrow, hoarsely. “Harrobin! . . . Thet Mariposa rancher?”
“Harrobin may be a rancher over there. But here he is a rustler.”
“My Gawd! . . . An’ what’s all the stock I saw as we come up the valley?”
“I drove the brush and canyons. Accounted for about thirty-five hundred head.”
“My cattle?”
“Yes, sir. You can count on around eight thousand head.”
; “Man!—How’d you do this?”
“I made the acquaintance of this cowboy, Hogue Kinsey. He and his outfit of five riders threw in with me.”
Kinsey clinked up beside Wade and removed his sombrero to disclose a dust-caked visage and narrow eyes of blue lightning. He might have served as a model from which to sculpture the hard rider of the West.
“Mr. Pencarrow, I reckon I want to come clean right here,” he said. “Your man Brandon got me out of a bad scrap over at Pine Mound. He had to shoot Harrobin to do it, but not fatally, I’m sorry to say. I an’ my pards have throwed in to ride for Brandon. We’re the new C.R.B. outfit. We’re gonna make cattle history on this range. Brandon will write it—an’ shore in blood. . . . He got me an’ my pards to see the error of our ways. . . . I’ve appropriated a lot of your mavericks in the past. I want thet understood.”
“Appropriated?—What do you mean, cowboy?” queried Pencarrow, puzzled.
“Wal, I just branded your mavericks whenever I run across them. An’ sold them.”
“Brandon, what’s he aimin’ at?”
“Kinsey did not need to tell you,” returned Wade. “But I’m glad he did. . . . You know the law of the Texas range, where the maverick had its origin. If you and I run cattle in the same range, and if I find an unbranded calf I can burn my brand on it. Kinsey’s reliance on that law is farfetched, of course, because he did not own any cattle on this range. But that appears to be the free and easy way here in Arizona. What counts with me is that Kinsey has turned his back on such loose work and will ride for me.”
“Wal, it counts more with—me thet he told me,” replied Pencarrow, huskily. “Brandon, I’ll heah all these particulars later. . . . I confess I’m—saggin’. . . . My laigs air weak as my haid.”
Rona Pencarrow came running to her father.
“Oh Dad! I think he is wonder—ful!” she cried, hugging Pencarrow’s arm.
At that instant Kinsey turned and saw Rona, certainly for the first time. Their glances locked. Wade trembled before that glance. Rona and Hogue became oblivious to the others, to time and place. Wade divined the mysterious and merciless youth and life which struck them blind and mute.