by Brand, Max
He stepped inside, removing his hat.
“There — set down at that table,” she commanded. “I’ll fetch you some cold pone and some cold boiled beef, to fill yourself with. There’s no coffee, this time of day, but tea is — ”
“Thanks,” said Silver. “I don’t need anything to eat. I only want to find Alec Gary, if you’ll tell me where he’s probably working on the ranch.”
“Alec? How would you come to know a good, hard-working, honest boy like Alec?” she asked suspiciously. “What you want with him?”
“His uncle has died,” said Silver.
“A good riddance,” answered Mrs. Chester. “The great, hulking, cruel brute. There ain’t going to be no tears shed about his death. Not in no part of the world there ain’t!”
She had stepped back toward the stove, as she said this, and glancing out the kitchen window, she saw the great stallion at the hitch rack. The wind was blowing through his mane and tail, and his head was high, to look into the breeze at that moment. What Mrs. Chester saw made her turn and stare again at Silver, and he felt her eyes fix above his upon the telltale patches of gray on his temples, the hornlike spots of silver that had given him his nickname all through the world.
“Good heavens!” said Mrs. Chester. She picked up the skirt of her apron and folded her red hands inside it. “Good heavens, what have I been saying? Are you Jim Silver?”
He silently cursed the folly that had induced him to enter the kitchen where he had to take off his hat. But now he had to admit: “Yes, that’s my name. Alec Gary is — ”
“He’s down the creek, mending fence,” said she. “Mr. Silver, what’ll you be thinking about a fool of a woman that — ”
“Hush!” said Jim Silver, smiling. “You were perfectly right. I don’t know how many years have gone by since I’ve done an honest stroke of work.”
He got out to Parade, escaping from the apologies of Mrs. Chester as well as he could, and she remained staring after him, screening her eyes from the sun with one hand until he was well down the line of the creek.
A mile from the ranch house he found a tall cow-puncher toiling over a big-handled borer with which he was drilling a series of post holes. His hat was off. His curling black hair shuddered in the sunlight with the violence of his efforts. It was the perfect picture of a man doing disagreeable work with all his might, and striving as hard for wages as though for his own interests.
He looked up as Silver drew near, and Jim Silver was relieved to see a fine, open face and an excellently shaped head. He had feared that he would look on a type like that dead savage of the mountains, Bill Gary.
He dismounted, saying: “You’re Alec Gary? My name is Silver. I’ve brought you bad news and good news together. The bad part is that your uncle, Bill Gary, is dead.”
He waited curiously to see the reaction, and saw the brow of Alec Gary pucker.
“Are you Jim Silver?” asked Gary. “Then,” he added, as Silver nodded, “I suppose this is one of the first times in your life that you’ve ever brought a man bad news. It is bad news to me. Uncle Bill was a hard man, but he was pretty good to me.”
Silver nodded. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “I’ll follow up with the good news, if good is what you call it. This is a copy of a letter that he wrote as he was dying. The copy runs to the point where he must have stopped writing because he died. It was a wolf that killed him. He was badly torn, Gary.”
Young Alec Gary took the paper which Silver held out and scanned it carefully. He stared up into Silver’s face with amazement.
“A gold mine!” he exclaimed. And for one instant the yellow flame of the gold hunger burned wildly in his eyes. Then he groaned. “Inside the collar, and on the neck of Frosty! It might as well be tied to the neck of a thunderbolt, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Suppose,” said Silver, “that we both try our hands on him.”
“You?” said Gary. “Would you help? Why, Mr. Silver, if you will help me, of course we’ll make an even split on the profits.”
“I get profits of my own,” said Silver, “and I can’t take a share of anything that comes out of this.”
“Why not?” asked Alec Gary, amazed.
“Because I’ve made a resolution, long ago, never to handle blood money.”
“Blood money? This isn’t a price on a man’s head.”
“No,” said Silver. “It’s a price that your uncle has already paid. If the mine goes to you, it’s all right. If I share in it, the ghost of Bill Gary will haunt me. Let’s find Chester and ask him if you can cut loose for a few weeks. Or maybe it will be months. There is a great deal that we have to talk over — and the first thing is Frosty.”
CHAPTER X
The Hunter
CHRISTIAN went to Joe Thurston. It was on record that Joe Thurston had killed a running deer at eight hundred yards. There was no doubt about the fact, and though a good many of the old-time hunters were likely to say that nothing but luck could account for such marksmanship, there were others who said that a man like Thurston never had luck. He was simply one of the few past masters.
But Thurston spent most of his time not in hunting with a rifle, but with a pack of dogs. To support that pack and to follow it afield, he had allowed his big ranch to go to pieces. The one thing that he valued in life, outside of an occasional brawl in a saloon, was a chance to see his pack corner a wild beast and tear it to pieces, or at least hold it at bay until his rifle settled the argument.
Joe Thurston was himself a wild beast, and perhaps that was why he understood the ways of the wilderness so very well. He was a little man, very dark, very handsome when he smiled, and very sinister when, in silence, he allowed his upper lip to curl a little.
He sat, on this day, on the back of a young brown gelding which he had just finished breaking. Blood was still trickling down the gored sides of the horse, and bloodstained, also, the froth that dripped from the wounded mouth of the gelding, for Thurston used a cruel spade bit that opened up like a sword when the rider jerked on the reins. A horse, for Thurston, was simply a machine that got him from one place to another. He despised sentimentality. It was not in his nature. He was forty-five. He looked a full ten or even fifteen years younger. But as many years as he had gained, his poor wife had lost. He looked more like her son than her husband.
He was overlooking the feeding of his pack. They were fed once a day, in the middle of the afternoon, and they got little, from one end of the year to the other, except raw meat. If one of them fell sick, it rarely received medicine. Either nature cured it, or soon it was brained and its carcass fed to the ravenous pack.
That pack was always ravenous. Joe Thurston knew exactly how the dogs should be fed in order to keep them in the pink of condition, thin until they were as keen as edged swords for game and food, but not thin enough to be weakened.
Barry Christian and Gregor came up at that moment and waved to the keeper of the pack.
“Are you Joe Thurston?” Christian said.
Thurston failed to turn his head. His mood was savage that afternoon. Ordinarily, he would have given some heed to a pair of big, powerful, well-mounted fellows like Christian and Gregor, but on this day he had in mind the pressing demands of certain creditors. Already his ranch was heavily mortgaged, and now it seemed that it would be wiped out. He cared nothing about the loss of land and cattle, but with the other possessions his pack would go, also. And that was a knife in his heart.
“I’m Joe Thurston,” he admitted shortly.
“My name is Barry Christian,” said the outlaw.
“The devil it is,” answered Thurston.
“And this is Duff Gregor,” said Christian.
The head of Thurston slowly turned. He looked over the pale, clean lines of the face of Christian and at the bright, thoughtful eyes. They were a little too bright, in fact. Suddenly Thurston knew that it was Christian, indeed. And he could not help smiling. There was so much evil, so much violence in his own nat
ure that he suddenly felt something expand and lighten in his heart.
He held out his hand, silently, and took the strong grip of the criminal. He shook hands with Duff Gregor, also, and saw that the man was a nonentity compared with his more celebrated companion. And yet any one who had dared, more than once, to play the role of Jim Silver, was worthy of some attention.
“Want something here?” asked Thurston.
“Yes,” said Christian, “I want you and your dogs.”
“Ah?” said Thurston.
“I’m going to hunt wolves,” said Christian.
The door of the house slammed. Christian saw a girl with a face pale as stone, and shadowy, great eyes, come out on the back porch and look toward him. She turned and reëntered the house again.
“Inviting me or hiring me?” asked Thurston.
“Inviting you,” said Christian.
Thurston took a quick breath. Rage had been mounting in his throat, tightening like a fist inside his gullet. Now the passion left him.
“I’ve hunted wolves before,” said he noncommittally. “Where do you want to pick them up?”
“In the Blue Waters, or the foothills near them,” said Christian.
“That’s a hard country,” said Thurston. “Are you talking about Frosty?”
“That’s the only wolf I’ve ever wanted to catch,” said Christian.
Thurston narrowed his eyes.
“There’s a price on the head of that wolf,” he remarked.
“I’m not hunting for the price. That goes to you. Besides, I’ll add something over and above. A thousand dollars, say.”
“Well?” murmured Thurston, pinching his lips together in a smile. “I understand that Jim Silver is down there in the Blue Waters — doing good for humanity again — hunting for Frosty, the cattle thief.”
“Silver is there,” agreed the outlaw. “That’s why I want to be there. To meet him on his own ground.”
“Haven’t there been times,” said grim Joe Thurston, “when you weren’t so glad to meet Jim Silver on any ground?”
“He’s had the upper hand more than once,” answered Christian. “But the fact is that there isn’t room on top of the earth for the two of us. One of us has to be buried, and the time has come.
“He’s in the Blue Waters hunting a wolf. Well, I’m going to be there hunting a wolf. He has a man with him. I have Gregor. If we happen to meet along the trail, it’s no business of yours. Gregor and I will have to try to tend to that part of the game.”
“I don’t follow this,” said Thurston. “Unless you mean that it’s a challenge to Jim Silver — something to make him come hunting for you?”
“You can call it that. If he comes for me, he has to meet me on my own ground. And I won’t be asleep.”
“It looks to me,” said Thurston, “as though there might be something in this deal. I’ll go one step farther. I’ll admit that I need the money. That thousand — ”
“I’ll pay half of it on the nail the moment we shake hands,” said Christian, “and the other half the instant that Frosty’s dead at my feet.”
“What’ll you do with him?” asked Thurston curiously.
“Mount the hide. Send it somewhere to stand behind glass. A proof to people that I’ve beaten Silver at at least one job.”
Thurston actually laughed aloud.
“Here’s my hand on the deal,” he exclaimed.
Christian shook the hand. He pulled out a wallet and counted five hundred-dollar bills and put them in the fingers of Thurston.
“That binds the deal,” he said.
“I’ll write up the contract,” said Thurston.
“We’ve shaken hands,” said Christian, “and that’s enough.”
A dull flush of pleasure worked in the face of Thurston.
“Besides,” exclaimed Christian, in his gentle and persuasive voice, the very accent of courtesy, “you can’t draw up a contract between yourself and Barry Christian. You can’t make a contract with an outlawed man. To you, my name is simply Wilkins, and this is Murphy.” He broke off to add: “I’d like to see the pack.”
“Use your eyes,” said Thurston, whose own politeness could not last long. He waved toward the big pens that contained the dogs.
“I don’t know enough about them to see the whole truth,” answered Christian.
Thurston glanced at him with an appreciative flash of the eye.
“Few men with brains enough to say they don’t know,” said Thurston. “Come along with me.”
He moved down the line of the pens.
“There’s the brains of the pack,” he said, pointing to a number of big, rangy pointers. “People use ‘em to find birds. I use ‘em to find coyotes and wolves and mountain lions. They’ve got the best noses in the world. They’re fast, and they can run all day. I’ve bred ‘em for speed and nose and brain. Those pointers would never point a bird in a thousand years, but they’ll point a wolf. What’s more, they’ll hold the trail on a wolf. Yes, or a mountain lion. Whatever they’ve been entered on.”
“What’s wrong with them?” asked Christian.
“Why do you ask?”
“Nothing is perfect.”
Thurston grinned.
“They’re too hot-headed and tender. They want to rush in and get their teeth into the game, and the wolves or the big cats open ‘em up like fried beefsteak.”
He went to another set of pens where were housed some of the biggest greyhounds that Christian had ever seen. They moved around with little, stilted steps, as though their muscles were sore. They were tucked up into bows. Their chests were narrow. The shoulders and thighs were overlaid with entangled whipcords.
“They’re the point of the arrow,” he said. “They’ll run down any wolf that ever breathed almost two steps for one. If the pointers get a wolf into open sight, this gang will get up in time to mob him and hold him back until the heavy artillery gets into action. And here’s the heavy artillery.”
He indicated the next pens, where there were dogs built and furred like Scottish deerhounds, but enormously bigger. They looked made for speed and strength of running, but also there was a terrible promise in the size of the muzzles, the fangs, the huge muscles along the jaws.
“Every one of ‘em,” said Christian with keen interest, “looks able to do for a wolf.”
“Some of ‘em could kill a buffalo wolf now and then,” agreed Thurston, watching the monsters with a hungry eye. “But some wolves are mean devils in a fight. No matter what’s the breed or the training of a dog, a wolf seems to have more biting powers and more fighting brains and tricks. However, I’ll match two of these dogs against the biggest wolf that ever lived, and three of ‘em will kill the champion of the wolf world — even if his name is Frosty!”
He nodded with assurance as he said this, adding, “This breed was started by Bill Gary. You may happen to know him since you know Frosty. Frosty was what killed Gary, people say. I don’t know how the story started. But Gary never managed to get out of his own stock what I’ve done with it. He didn’t use enough persistence, enough time and money on the job. I don’t care where the wolf is, I’ll catch him with this pack. In open country or foothills it will be a joke. In the middle of the mountains I’ll catch him or run him to earth. Frosty’s hide is as good as mounted and behind glass, Christian, this very minute!”
CHAPTER XI
Frosty’s Mate
SHE was tall. She was beautiful. She moved with a light and delicate grace. There was bright humor and good nature in her eyes. She was young. She was gay. She was foolish. And Frosty loved her the moment he set eyes on her in the moonlight of that glade.
Wolf song had been in the air for a long time that night, and there were notes in the singing that made Frosty wrinkle his nose and point his head at the sky and break that inviolable rule of silence which had been his for a year — since the days of his puppyhood, in fact. Now he opened his throat, and his immense bass note went booming through the canyons a
mong the softer singing of the wind and the rumble and hollow crashing of cataracts which had been newly loosened from the long, white silence of the winter. Spring was in the air.
Frosty had not seen enough springs to know what it was that worked like electric fire through his blood. But it was a thing that called him in hot haste to that mountain gorge where five big wolves moved slowly around this cream of wolf beauty, this sleek, well-furred lady of the hills.
Frosty came swiftly. He fell in love while he was still on the run, literally, and so he continued his charge. He did not even pause to touch noses with the lady and inquire after her health and happiness. He simply ran berserk among those wolves.
In fact, Frosty had been laid up all this time in order to be healed of the wounds that he had received while he was in the jaws of the trap. He was now completely recovered, and the thick fur had closed well over the scars. But he was hungry. He had been living on rabbits he had managed to surprise, on unwary squirrels, on mice above all. He was hungry, too, for a dash of excitement. And five wolves looked just about the right number to give him a good fight, he felt.
He gave one such a tremendous shoulder wallop that the big lobo rolled a dozen yards away and let out the yell of fear and of defeat. He dived straight on under the throat of another and slashed him deeply across the breast. He nearly ripped the hamstring out of the next, and laid open the head of the fourth hero from eye to muzzle. The fifth timber wolf had seen enough, and took to his heels. The others followed as fast as they could, while Frosty, laughing his wide, red laughter, lay down and licked the blood from his white vest, and from his forelegs and forepaws. He was a very dainty and clean-living fellow, was Frosty.
The pleasure of that brief skirmish had not yet rollicked out of his heart when he saw that the lady of his dreams was sitting on a hummock with her beautiful long, bushy tail curled around her forepaws. The moment he glanced at her she rose, turned, and fled.
He followed.
She was as fast as a deer, and she went down the wind as though the devil of wolves were after her. But, fast as she was, he was a little bit faster.