Gunsight Pass

by Raine, William MacLeod

  The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gunsight Pass, by William MacLeod Raine

  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

  Title: Gunsight Pass How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West

  Author: William MacLeod Raine

  Release Date: January 3, 2005 [EBook #14574]

  Language: English

  *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUNSIGHT PASS ***

  Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

  GUNSIGHT PASS

  HOW OIL CAME TO THE CATTLE COUNTRY AND BROUGHT A NEW WEST

  BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

  AUTHOR OF THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP, A MAN FOUR SQUARE, THE YUKON TRAIL, ETC.

  1921

  TO JAMES H. LANGLEY

  WHO LIVED MANY OF THESE PAGES IN THE DAYS OF HIS HOT-BLOODED YOUTH

  CONTENTS

  I. "CROOKED AS A DOG'S HIND LAIG"

  II. THE RACE

  III. DAVE RIDES ON HIS SPURS

  IV. THE PAINT HOSS DISAPPEARS

  V. SUPPER AT DELMONICO'S INTERRUPTED

  VI. BY WAY OF A WINDOW

  VII. BOB HART TAKES A HAND

  VIII. THE D BAR LAZY R BOYS MEET AN ANGEL

  IX. GUNSIGHT PASS

  X. THE CATTLE TRAIN

  XI. THE NIGHT CLERK GETS BUSY PRONTO

  XII. THE LAW PUZZLES DAVE

  XIII. FOR MURDER

  XIV. TEN YEARS

  XV. IN DENVER

  XVI. DAVE MEETS TWO FRIENDS AND A FOE

  XVII. OIL

  XVIII. DOBLE PAYS A VISIT

  XIX. AN INVOLUNTARY BATH

  XX. THE LITTLE MOTHER FREES HER MIND

  XXI. THE HOLD-UP

  XXII. NUMBER THREE COMES IN

  XXIII. THE GUSHER

  XXIV. SHORTY

  XXV. MILLER TALKS

  XXVI. DAVE ACCEPTS AN INVITATION

  XXVII. AT THE JACKPOT

  XXVIII. DAVE MEETS A FINANCIER

  XXIX. THREE IN CONSULTATION

  XXX. ON THE FLYER

  XXXI. TWO ON THE HILLTOPS

  XXXII. DAVE BECOMES AN OFFICE MAN

  XXXIII. ON THE DODGE

  XXXIV. A PLEASANT EVENING

  XXXV. FIRE IN THE CHAPARRAL

  XXXVI. FIGHTING FIRE

  XXXVII. SHORTY ASK A QUESTION

  XXXVIII. DUG DOBLE RIDES INTO THE HILLS

  XXXIX. THE TUNNEL

  XL. A MESSAGE

  XLI. HANK BRINGS BAD NEWS

  XLII. SHORTY IS AWAKENED

  XLIII. JUAN OTERO IS CONSCRIPTED

  XLIV. THE BULLDOG BARKS

  XLV. JOYCE MAKES PIES

  GUNSIGHT PASS

  CHAPTER I

  "CROOKED AS A DOG'S HIND LAIG"

  It was a land of splintered peaks, of deep, dry gorges, of barren mesas burnt by the suns of a million torrid summers. The normal condition of it was warfare. Life here had to protect itself with a tough, callous rind, to attack with a swift, deadly sting. Only the fit survived.

  But moonlight had magically touched the hot, wrinkled earth with a fairy godmother's wand. It was bathed in a weird, mysterious beauty. Into the crotches of the hills lakes of wondrous color had been poured at sunset. The crests had flamed with crowns of glory, the cañons become deep pools of blue and purple shadow. Blurred by kindly darkness, the gaunt ridges had softened to pastels of violet and bony mountains to splendid sentinels keeping watch over a gulf of starlit space.

  Around the camp-fire the drivers of the trail herd squatted on their heels or lay sprawled at indolent ease. The glow of the leaping flames from the twisted mesquite lit their lean faces, tanned to bronzed health by the beat of an untempered sun and the sweep of parched winds. Most of them were still young, scarcely out of their boyhood; a few had reached maturity. But all were products of the desert. The high-heeled boots, the leather chaps, the kerchiefs knotted round the neck, were worn at its insistence. Upon every line of their features, every shade of their thought, it had stamped its brand indelibly.

  The talk was frank and elemental. It had the crisp crackle that goes with free, unfettered youth. In a parlor some of it would have been offensive, but under the stars of the open desert it was as natural as the life itself. They spoke of the spring rains, of the Crawford-Steelman feud, of how they meant to turn Malapi upside down in their frolic when they reached town. They "rode" each other with jokes that were familiar old friends. Their horse play was rough but good-natured.

  Out of the soft shadows of the summer night a boy moved from the remuda toward the camp-fire. He was a lean, sandy-haired young fellow, his figure still lank and unfilled. In another year his shoulders would be broader, his frame would take on twenty pounds. As he sat down on the wagon tongue at the edge of the firelit circle the stringiness of his appearance became more noticeable.

  A young man waved a hand toward him by way of introduction. "Gents of the D Bar Lazy R outfit, we now have with us roostin' on the wagon tongue Mr. David Sanders, formerly of Arizona, just returned from makin' love to his paint hoss. Mr. Sanders will make oration on the why, wherefore, and how-come-it of Chiquito's superiority to all other equines whatever."

  The youth on the wagon tongue smiled. His blue eyes were gentle and friendly. From his pocket he had taken a knife and was sharpening it on one of his dawn-at-the-heel-boots.

  "I'd like right well to make love to that pinto my own se'f, Bob," commented a weather-beaten puncher. "Any old time Dave wants to saw him off onto me at sixty dollars I'm here to do business."

  "You're sure an easy mark, Buck," grunted a large fat man leaning against a wheel. His white, expressionless face and soft hands differentiated him from the tough range-riders. He did not belong with the outfit, but had joined it the day before with George Doble, a half-brother of the trail foreman, to travel with it as far as Malapi. In the Southwest he was known as Ad Miller. The two men had brought with them in addition to their own mounts a led pack-horse.

  Doble backed up his partner. "Sure are, Buck. I can get cowponies for ten and fifteen dollars—all I want of 'em," he said, and contrived by the lift of his lip to make the remark offensive.

  "Not ponies like Chiquito," ventured Sanders amiably.

  "That so?" jeered Doble.

  He looked at David out of a sly and shifty eye. He had only one. The other had been gouged out years ago in a drunken fracas.

  "You couldn't get Chiquito for a hundred dollars. Not for sale," the owner of the horse said, a little stiffly.

  Miller's fat paunch shook with laughter. "I reckon not—at that price.

  I'd give all of fohty for him."

  "Different here," replied Doble. "What has this pinto got that makes him worth over thirty?"

  "He's some bronc," explained Bob Hart. "Got a bagful of tricks, a nice disposition, and sure can burn the wind."

  "Yore friend must be valuin' them parlor tricks at ten dollars apiece," murmured Miller. "He'd ought to put him in a show and not keep him to chase cow tails with."

  "At that, I've seen circus hosses that weren't one two three with Chiquito. He'll shake hands and play dead and dance to a mouth-organ and come a-runnin' when Dave whistles."

  "You don't say." The voice of the fat man was heavy with sarcasm. "And on top of all that edjucation he can run too."

  The temper of Sanders began to take an edge. He saw no reason why these strangers should run on him, to use the phrase of the country. "I don't claim my pinto's a racer, but he can travel."

  "Hmp!" grunted Miller skeptically.

&n
bsp; "I'm here to say he can," boasted the owner, stung by the manner of the other.

  "Don't look to me like no racer," Doble dissented. "Why, I'd be 'most willin' to bet that pack-horse of ours, Whiskey Bill, can beat him."

  Buck Byington snorted. "Pack-horse, eh?" The old puncher's brain was alive with suspicions. On account of the lameness of his horse he had returned to camp in the middle of the day and had discovered the two newcomers trying out the speed of the pinto. He wondered now if this precious pair of crooks had been getting a line on the pony for future use. It occurred to him that Dave was being engineered into a bet.

  The chill, hard eyes of Miller met his. "That's what he said, Buck—our pack-horse."

  For just an instant the old range-rider hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. It was none of his business. He was a cautious man, not looking for trouble. Moreover, the law of the range is that every man must play his own hand. So he dropped the matter with a grunt that expressed complete understanding and derision.

  Bob Hart helped things along. "Jokin' aside, what's the matter with a race? We'll be on the Salt Flats to-morrow. I've got ten bucks says the pinto can beat yore Whiskey Bill."

  "Go you once," answered Doble after a moment's apparent consideration. "Bein' as I'm drug into this I'll be a dead-game sport. I got fifty dollars more to back the pack-horse. How about it, Sanders? You got the sand to cover that? Or are you plumb scared of my broomtail?"

  "Betcha a month's pay—thirty-five dollars. Give you an order on the boss if I lose," retorted Dave. He had not meant to bet, but he could not stand this fellow's insolent manner.

  "That order good, Dug?" asked Doble of his half-brother.

  The foreman nodded. He was a large leather-faced man in the late thirties. His reputation in the cattle country was that of a man ill to cross. Dug Doble was a good cowman—none better. Outside of that his known virtues were negligible, except for the primal one of gameness.

  "Might as well lose a few bucks myself, seeing as Whiskey Bill belongs to me," said Miller with his wheezy laugh. "Who wants to take a whirl, boys?"

  Inside of three minutes he had placed a hundred dollars. The terms of the race were arranged and the money put in the hands of the foreman.

  "Each man to ride his own caballo," suggested Hart slyly.

  This brought a laugh. The idea of Ad Miller's two hundred and fifty pounds in the seat of a jockey made for hilarity.

  "I reckon George will have to ride the broomtail. We don't aim to break its back," replied Miller genially.

  His partner was a short man with a spare, wiry body. Few men trusted him after a glance at the mutilated face. The thin, hard lips gave warning that he had sold himself to evil. The low forehead, above which the hair was plastered flat in an arc, advertised low mentality.

  An hour later Buck Byington drew Sanders aside.

  "Dave, you're a chuckle-haided rabbit. If ever I seen tinhorn sports them two is such. They're collectin' a livin' off'n suckers. Didn't you sabe that come-on stuff? Their pack-horse is a ringer. They tried him out this evenin', but I noticed they ran under a blanket. Both of 'em are crooked as a dog's hind laig."

  "Maybeso," admitted the young man. "But Chiquito never went back on me yet. These fellows may be overplayin' their hand, don't you reckon?"

  "Not a chanct. That tumblebug Miller is one fishy proposition, and his sidekick Doble—say, he's the kind of bird that shoots you in the stomach while he's shakin' hands with you. They're about as warm-hearted as a loan shark when he's turnin' on the screws—and about as impulsive. Me, I aim to button up my pocket when them guys are around."

  Dave returned to the fire. The two visitors were sitting side by side, and the leaping flames set fantastic shadows of them moving. One of these, rooted where Miller sat, was like a bloated spider watching its victim. The other, dwarfed and prehensile, might in its uncanny silhouette have been an imp of darkness from the nether regions.

  Most of the riders had already rolled up in their blankets and fallen asleep. To a reduced circle Miller was telling the story of how his pack-horse won its name.

  "… so I noticed he was actin' kinda funny and I seen four pin-pricks in his nose. O' course I hunted for Mr. Rattler and killed him, then give Bill a pint of whiskey. It ce'tainly paralyzed him proper. He got salivated as a mule whacker on a spree. His nose swelled up till it was big as a barrel—never did get down to normal again. Since which the ol' plug has been Whiskey Bill."

  This reminiscence did not greatly entertain Dave. He found his blankets, rolled up in them, and promptly fell asleep. For once he dreamed, and his dreams were not pleasant. He thought that he was caught in a net woven by a horribly fat spider which watched him try in vain to break the web that tightened on his arms and legs. Desperately he struggled to escape while the monster grinned at him maliciously, and the harder he fought the more securely was he enmeshed.

  CHAPTER II

  THE RACE

  The coyotes were barking when the cook's triangle brought Dave from his blankets. The objects about him were still mysterious in the pre-dawn darkness. The shouting of the wranglers and the bells of the remuda came musically as from a great distance. Hart joined his friend and the two young men walked out to the remuda together. Each rider had on the previous night belled the mount he wanted, for he knew that in the morning it would be too dark to distinguish one bronco from another. The animals were rim-milling, going round and round in a circle to escape the lariat.

  Dave rode in close and waited, rope ready, his ears attuned to the sound of his own bell. A horse rushed jingling past. The rope snaked out, fell true, tightened over the neck of the cowpony, brought up the animal short. Instantly it surrendered, making no further, attempt to escape. The roper made a half-hitch round the nose of the bronco, swung to its back, and cantered back to camp.

  In the gray dawn near details were becoming visible. The mountains began to hover on the edge of the young world. The wind was blowing across half a continent.

  Sanders saddled, then rode out upon the mesa. He whistled sharply. There came an answering nicker, and presently out of the darkness a pony trotted. The pinto was a sleek and glossy little fellow, beautiful in action and gentle as a kitten.

  The young fellow took the well-shaped head in his arms, fondled the soft, dainty nose that nuzzled in his pocket for sugar, fed Chiquito a half-handful of the delicacy in his open palm, and put the pony through the repertoire of tricks he had taught his pet.

  "You wanta shake a leg to-day, old fellow, and throw dust in that tinhorn's face," he murmured to his four-footed friend, gentling it with little pats of love and admiration. "Adios, Chiquito. I know you won't throw off on yore old pal. So long, old pie-eater."

  Across the mesa Dave galloped back, swung from the saddle, and made a bee-line for breakfast. The other men were already busy at this important business. From the tail of the chuck wagon he took a tin cup and a tin plate. He helped himself to coffee, soda biscuits, and a strip of steak just forked from a large kettle of boiling lard. Presently more coffee, more biscuits, and more steak went the way of the first helping. The hard-riding life of the desert stimulates a healthy appetite.

  The punchers of the D Bar Lazy R were moving a large herd to a new range. It was made up of several lots bought from smaller outfits that had gone out of business under the pressure of falling prices, short grass, and the activity of rustlers. The cattle had been loose-bedded in a gulch close at hand, the upper end of which was sealed by an impassable cliff. Many such cañons in the wilder part of the mountains, fenced across the face to serve as a corral, had been used by rustlers as caches into which to drift their stolen stock. This one had no doubt more than once played such a part in days past.

  Expertly the riders threw the cattle back to the mesa and moved them forward. Among the bunch one could find the T Anchor brand, the Circle Cross, the Diamond Tail, and the X-Z, scattered among the cows burned with the D Bar Lazy R, which was the original brand of the owner, Emerson Crawfo
rd.

  The sun rose and filled the sky. In a heavy cloud of dust the cattle trailed steadily toward the distant hills.

  Near noon Buck, passing Dave where he rode as drag driver in the wake of the herd, shouted a greeting at the young man. "Tur'ble hot. I'm spittin' cotton."

  Dave nodded. His eyes were red and sore from the alkali dust, his throat dry as a lime kiln. "You done, said it, Buck. Hotter 'n hell or Yuma."

  "Dug says for us to throw off at Seven-Mile Hole."

  "I won't make no holler at that."

  The herd leaders, reading the signs of a spring close at hand, quickened the pace. With necks outstretched, bawling loudly, they hurried forward. Forty-eight hours ago they had last satisfied their thirst. Usually Doble watered each noon, but the desert yesterday had been dry as Sahara. Only such moisture was available as could be found in black grama and needle grass.

  The point of the herd swung in toward the cottonwoods that straggled down from the draw. For hours the riders were kept busy moving forward the cattle that had been watered and holding back the pressure of thirsty animals.

  Again the outfit took the desert trail. Heat waves played on the sand. Vegetation grew scant except for patches of cholla and mesquite, a sand-cherry bush here and there, occasionally a clump of shining poison ivy.