The Trail Driver

by Zane Grey

  Texas Joe drove late that day and made dry camp. All night the guards sang and rode to keep the herd bedded down. Morning disclosed the endless stream of buffalo closer. But Indians were not in sight. Smoke signals, however, arose from two distant hills, one on each side of the trail.

  Loss of sleep and ceaseless vigilance by night, and the slow march by day, wore upon the drivers. Brite had ceased to count the camps. Every hour was fraught with dread expectation. Yet at last they reached the Red River. The buffalo were crossing some miles above the trail, but a spur of the prodigious herd kept swinging in behind. Texas Joe pointed the cattle across and took the lead himself, magnificent in his dauntlessness.

  The Red was midway between high and low water stages—its most treacherous condition. Four hours were consumed in the drive across and more than a hundred long-horns were lost. All the drivers were needed to get the wagons over, a desperate task which only such heedless young men would have undertaken.

  Night found them in camp, some of them spent, all of them wearied, yet cheered by the fact that Doan’s Post was within striking distance on the morrow.

  Texas Joe drove the remaining ten miles to Doan’s before noon of the next day. All the drivers wanted to get a few hours’ release from the herd, to drink, to talk, to get rid of one danger by hearing of another. But when Brite called for volunteers to stand guard with the herd for a few hours they all voiced their willingness to stay.

  “Wal, I’ll have to settle it,” said Brite. “Ackerman, yu drive the Hardys in. Tex, yu an’ Pan Handle come with me. …Boys, we’ll be back pronto to give yu a chance to ride in.”

  Doan’s Post gave evidence of having more than its usual number of inhabitants and visitors. Horses were numerous on the grass plain around the post. Half a dozen wagons were drawn up before the gray, squat, weather-beaten houses. A sign, Doan’s Store, in large black letters, showed on the south side of the largest house. This place, run by Tom Doan, was a trading-post for Indians and cattlemen, and was in the heyday of its useful and hazardous existence.

  Mounted men, riders with unsaddled horses, Indians lounging and squatting before the doors, watched the newcomers with interest. Arriving travelers were the life of Doan’s Post. But the way Pan Handle and Texas Joe dismounted a goodly distance from these bearded watchers, and proceeded forward on foot, surely had as much significance for them as it had for Brite. The crowd of a dozen or more spread to let the two slow visitors approach the door. Then Brite came on beside the Hardy wagon. Reddie, disobedient as usual, had joined them.

  “Howdy, Tom,” called Brite, to the stalwart man in the door.

  “Howdy yoreself,” came the hearty response. “Wal, damme if it ain’t Adam Brite. Git right down an’ come in.”

  “Tom, yu ought to remember my foreman, Texas Joe. An’ this is Pan Handle Smith. We’ve got a sick man in the wagon heah. Hardy, by name. Thet’s his daughter on the seat. They’re all thet’s left of a wagon-train bound for California. Can yu take care of them for a while, till Hardy is able to join another train?”

  “Yu bet I can,” replied the genial Doan. Willing hands lifted Hardy out of the wagon and carried him into the Post. Ann sat on the wagon seat, her pretty face worn and thin, her eyes full of tears, perhaps of deliverance, perhaps of something else, as she gazed down upon the bareheaded cowboy.

  “We’ve come to the partin’ of the trail, Miss Ann,” Deuce was saying, in strong and vibrant voice. “Yu’re safe heah, thank God. An’ yore dad will come around. I’m shore hopin’ we’ll make it through to Dodge. An’—I’m askin’ yu—will it be all right for me to wait there till yu come?”

  “Oh yes—I—I’d be so glad,” she murmured, shyly.

  “An’ go on to California with yu?” he concluded, boldly.

  “If yu will,” she replied; and for a moment time and place were naught to these two.

  “Aw, thet’s good of yu,” he burst out at last. “It’s just been wonderful—knowin’ yu. …Good-by. …I must go back to the boys.”

  “Good-by,” she faltered, and gave him her hand. Deuce kissed it right gallantly, and then fled out across the prairie toward the herd.

  Chapter Fourteen

  REDDIE jumped off her horse beside the Hardy wagon, on the seat of which Ann sat still as a stone, watching the cowboy. Ackerman turned once to hold his sombrero high. Then she waved her handkerchief. He wheeled and did not look back again.

  “Ann, it’s pretty tough—this sayin’ good-by,” spoke up Reddie. “Let’s go in the Post, away from these men. I’m shore gonna bawl.”

  “Oh, Reddie, I—I’m bawling now,” cried Ann, as she clambered down, not sure of her sight. “He was so—so good—so fine. …Oh, will we ever meet—again?”

  Arm in arm the girls went toward the door of the Post, where Brite observed Ann shrink visibly from two sloe-eyed, gaunt, and somber Indians.

  “Let’s get this over pronto, Tex,” said Brite. “I’ll buy what supplies Doan can furnish.”

  “All right, boss. Pan an’ I will come in presently,” replied Texas. “We want to ask some questions thet mebbe Doan wouldn’t answer.”

  Brite hurried into the Post. It was a picturesque, crowded, odorous place with its colorful Indian trappings, its formidable arsenal, its full shelves and burdened counters. When Doan returned from the after quarters, where evidently he had seen to Hardy’s comfort, Brite wrote with a stub of a lead pencil the supplies he needed.

  “What you think? This ain’t Santone or Abiline,” he said gruffly. “But I can let you have flour, beans, coffee, tobacco, an’ mebbe ——”

  “Do yore best, Tom,” interrupted Brite, hastily. “I’m no robber. Can yu haul the stuff oot to camp?”

  “Shore, inside an hour.”

  “Thet’s all, then, an’ much obliged. …Any trail drivers ahaid of me?”

  “Not lately. You’ve got the trail all to yourself. An’ thet’s damn bad.”

  Brite was perfectly well aware of this.

  “Comanches an’ Kiowas particular bad lately,” went on Doan. “Both Nigger Horse an’ Santana are on the rampage. Let me give you a hunch. If thet old Comanche devil rides into camp, you parley with him, argue with him, but in the end you give him what he wants. An’ for thet reason take grub to spare an’ particular coffee an’ tobacco. But if thet Kiowa chief stops you don’t give him a thing ’cept a piece of your mind. Santana is dangerous to weak outfits. But he’s a coward an’ he can be bluffed. Don’t stand any monkey business from the Kiowas. Show them you are heavily armed an’ will shoot at the drop of a hat.”

  “Much obliged, Doan. I’ll remember your advice.”

  “You’re goin’ to be blocked by buffalo, unless you can break through. I’ll bet ten million buffalo have passed heah this month.”

  “What month an’ day is it, anyhow?”

  “Wal, you have been trail-drivin’. …Let’s see. It’s the sixteenth of July.”

  “Yu don’t say? Time shore flies on the trail. …I’d like to know if Ross Hite an’ three of his ootfit have passed this way lately?”

  “Been several little outfits by this week,” replied the trader, evasively. “Travelin’ light an’ fast. … I don’t know Hite personally. Heerd of him, shore. I don’t ask questions of my customers, Brite.”

  “Yu know yore business, Doan,” returned Brite, shortly. “For yore benefit, though, I’ll tell yu Hite’s ootfit raided us twice. He had all of my herd at one time.”

  “Hell you say!” ejaculated Doan, sharply, pulling his beard. “What come of it?”

  “Wal, we got the stock back an’ left some of Hite’s ootfit along the trail.”

  Reddie Bayne came stumbling along, wiping her eyes.

  “Wait, Reddie. I’ll go with yu,” called Brite. “Where can I say good-by to the Hardys?”

  She pointed to the open door through which she had emerged. Brite went in quickly and got that painful interview over.

  “Just a minute, Brite,” called Doan, as the
cattleman hurried out. “I’m not so particular aboot Indians as I am aboot men of my own color. But I have to preserve friendly relations with all the tribes. They trade with me. I am goin’ to tell you, though, that the two bucks standin’ outside are scouts for some Comanche outfit, an’ they’ve been waitin’ for the first trail herd to come along. You know all you trail drivers do. Pack the bucks back to the next herd, if you can. It’s a mistaken policy. But the hunch I want to give you is to stop those two Comanches.”

  “Stop them?”

  “Shore. Don’t let them come out an’ look over your outfit—then ride to report to their chief. Like as not it’s Nigger Horse, himself.”

  “That is a hunch. I’ll tell Texas,” replied Brite, pondering, and went out with Reddie.

  “Gee!” she whispered, with round eyes. “He’s givin’ us a hunch to shoot some more Comanches.”

  “’Pears thet way. Yet he shore didn’t give us any hunch aboot Ross Hite.”

  Texas Joe and Pan Handle appeared to be in a colloquy with two men, and Williams and Smiling Pete were engaged with the remainder of the white men present.

  “Williams, yu’ll ride over to say good-by?” queried Brite.

  “Shore we will. For two bits I’d go on all the way with yu,” he replied.

  “Wal, I’ll give yu a lot more than thet. …Yu’ve been mighty helpful. I couldn’t begin to thank yu.”

  “Pete wants to hunt buffalo,” rejoined Williams. “An’ thet sticks us heah.”

  Brite got on his horse. “Tex, we’re goin’. Come heah.”

  Texas strode over, and giving Reddie a gentle shove as she mounted, he came close to Brite.

  “Texas,” whispered Brite, bending over. “Those two Comanches there are scouts for a raidin’ bunch, so says Doan. Dam’ if he didn’t hint we ought to do somethin’ aboot it. He cain’t, ’cause he has to keep on friendly terms with all the reddies.”

  “Wal, boss, we got thet hunch, too, an’ heahed somethin’ aboot Hite. I’ll tell yu when we come back to camp.”

  Reddie had put her black to a canter, and had covered half the distance back to camp before Brite caught up with her.

  “Save yore hawse, girl. What’s yore hurry?”

  “Dad, I just get sick inside when I see thet look come to Texas Jack’s eyes,” she replied.

  “What look?”

  “I don’t know what to call it. I saw it first thet day just before he drawed on Wallen. Like thet queer lightnin’ flash we saw durin’ the storm the other night.”

  “Reddie, yu ought to be used to hard looks of trail drivers by now. It’s a hard life.”

  “But I want Texas Jack to quit throwin’ guns!” she cried, with surprisingly poignant passion.

  “Wal! Wal!” exclaimed Brite. “An’ why, lass?”

  “Pretty soon he’ll be another gunman like Pan Handle. An’ then, sooner or later, he’ll get killed!”

  “I reckon thet’s true enough,” replied Brite. “Come to think aboot thet, I feel the same way. What air we goin’ to do to stop him?”

  “Stop Tex? It cain’t be done, Dad.”

  “Wal, mebbe not oot heah on the trail. But if we ever end this drive—then it could be done. Yu could stop Tex, lass.”

  She spurred the black and drew away swift as the wind. Brite gathered that she had realized how she could put an end to the wildness of Joe Shipman.

  The cattle were grazing and in good order. Westward along the river, clouds of dust rolled aloft, and at intervals a low roar of hoofs came on the still hot air. The buffalo were crossing the Red River. Brite and Reddie took the places of San Sabe and Rolly Little at guard, and the two cowboys were like youngsters just released from school. They raced for town. Several slow dragging hours passed by. The herd did not move half a mile; the remuda covered less ground. Brite did not relish sight of a mounted Indian who rode out from the Post and from a distance watched the camp.

  A little later Brite was startled out of his rest by gunshots. He leaped up in time to see the Indian spy riding like a streak across the plain. Texas and Pan Handle, two hundred yards to the left, were shooting at the Comanche as fast as they could pull triggers. Probably their idea was to frighten him, thought Brite, in which case they succeeded amply. No Indian could ride so well as a Comanche and this one broke all records for a short race. It chanced that he took down the plain in a direction which evidently brought him close to the far end of the herd, where one of the cowboys was on guard. This fellow, either Holden or Bender, saw the Indian and opened up on him with a buffalo gun. From that instant until the Comanche was out of sight he rode hidden on the far side of his mustang.

  Texas Joe was using forceful range language when he rode in, and manifestly had been irritated by something.

  “What ails yu, Tex?” asked Brite. “I’m feelin’ cheerful, myself.”

  “Yu’re loco. Do yu know what we did?—We hired them cowhands to hawg-tie the two Comanches an’ to keep ’em in Doan’s storehouse for a couple of days. Great idee! But all for nothin’. This buck we was shootin’ at had counted our wagons, hawses, cattle, an’ drivers. We was shore shootin’ at thet redskin to kill. But he was oot of range. What’n hell was eatin’ yu men thet yu didn’t see him long ago?”

  Brite maintained a discreet silence.

  “Boss, the supplies will be oot pronto,” went on Texas as he dismounted. “Reddie, if yu have another hawse handy I’ll relieve one of the boys.”

  “Same heah,” spoke up Pan Handle.

  “Throw some grub pronto, Moze. …Boss, our man Hite rode through heah day before yestiddy mawnin’. He had three fellars with him, one crippled up serious an’ had to be tied in the saddle. Hite was spittin’ fire, an’ they all was ugly.”

  “Did they stop at Doan’s?”

  “Shore, accordin’ to Bud. They was oot of grub an’ ammunition. Had only two pack hawses. We shore won’t see no more of Hite till we get to Dodge. He hangs oot at Hays City, so Bud said, an’ comes often to Dodge.”

  “Let Hite go, boys. No sense huntin’ up trouble,” advised Brite, tersely.

  “Boss, yu’re a forgivin’ cuss,” drawled Texas, admirlngly. “Now I just cain’t be that way. An’ Pan, heah, why, he’ll ride a thousand miles to meet thet Ross Hite again. An’ I’m goin’ with him.”

  “Yu air not,” spoke up Reddie, tartly, a red spot in each cheek.

  “Wal, dog-gone! There’s the kid, bossy as ever. Brite, if I get plugged on the way up yu let Reddie boss the ootfit.”

  Texas Joe had found a way to make Reddie wince, and he was working it on every possible occasion. The chances were surely even that the daring cowboy would lose his life one way or another before the end of the trail, and Reddie simply could not stand a hint of it without betraying her fear. Probably, to judge from her flashing eyes, she would have made a strong retort had it not been for the arrival of Williams and Smiling Pete.

  “Wal, heah we air to set in our last supper on Moze,” said Williams, genially. “I shore hate to say good-by to this ootfit. Folks get awful close on such drives as we had comin’ up.”

  “Reddie Bayne, don’t yu want to stay behind with us?” asked Smiling Pete, teasingly. “We shore won’t boss yu aboot like thet Texas fellar.”

  “Ump-umm. I like yu, Smilin’ Pete,” replied Reddie, in the same spirit. “But I’m strong for Santone an’ Dad’s ranch.”

  “Dad?” echoed the hunters, in unison.

  “Shore. I’ve adopted Mr. Brite as my dad.”

  “Haw! Haw! The lucky son-of-a-gun. He ain’t so old, neither. Mebbe Hash an’ me will have to send our cairds to yore ——”

  But Reddie ran away behind the chuck-wagon.

  “Come heah, yu men, an’ be serious,” said Brite. “We want all the hunches yu can give us for the rest of this drive north.”

  Brite’s outfit left Doan’s Post before sunrise next morning with just short of six thousand long-horn cattle. The buffalo herd had apparently kept along the Red River.


  In the afternoon of that day a band of Comanches rode out from a pass between two hills and held up the cavalcade. Brite galloped ahead in some trepidation, yelling for Reddie to leave the remuda and follow him. When he arrived at the head of the herd he found Texas Joe and Pan Handle, with the other drivers, lined up before about thirty squat, pointed-faced, longhaired Indians.

  “Boss, meet Nigger Hawse an’ his ootfit,” was Texas’s laconic greeting.

  “Howdy, Chief,” returned Brite, facing Nigger Horse. This Comanche did not look his fame, but appeared to be an ordinary redskin, stolid and unofficious. He did not altogether lack dignity. To Brite he was a surprise and a relief. But his basilisk eyes might have hid much. Brite wished the buffalo-hunters had come on with them.

  “How,” replied Nigger Horse, raising a slow hand.

  “What yu want, Chief?”

  “Beef.”

  Brite waved a magnanimous hand toward the herd.

  “Help yoreself.”

  The Comanche spoke in low grunts to his redmen.

  “Tobac,” he went on, his dark, inscrutable eyes again fixing on Brite.

  “Plenty. Wagon come,” replied Brite, pointing to Moze, who had the team approaching at a trot. Nigger Horse gazed in the direction of the chuck-wagon, then back at the vast herd, and lastly at the formidably armed drivers solidly arrayed in a line.

  “Flour,” resumed the chief. His English required a practiced ear to distinguish, but Brite understood him and nodded his willingness.

  “Coffee.”

  Brite held up five fingers to designate the number of sacks he was willing to donate.

  “Beans.”

  “Heap big bag,” replied Brite.

  Manifestly this generosity from a trail driver had not been the accustomed thing.

  “Boss, the old devil wants us to refuse somethin’” put in Texas.

  “An’ he’ll keep on askin’ till yu have to refuse,” added Pan Handle.

  Moze arrived with the chuck-wagon, behind which the Comanches rode in a half circle, greedy-eyed and jabbering. Moze’s black face could not turn pale, but it looked mighty strange.