by Max Brand
Yet the strong horse was winded by the burden he bore, a mighty figure, deep-chested, amply shouldered, an ideal cavalier for the days when youths rode out in armour-plate to seek adventures and when men of fifty still lifted the lance to run a “friendly” course or two in the lists.
At sight of him Logan so far bestirred himself as to uncoil his long legs, rise, and stand with one shoulder propped against the tree.
“Evening, Mr. Drew,” he called.
“Hello, Logan. How’s everything with you?”
He would have ridden on, but at Logan’s reply he checked his horse to a slow walk.
“Busy. Lots of company lately, Mr. Drew.”
“Company?”
“Yes, there’s a young feller come along who says he wants to see you. He’s over there by the creek now, fishin’ I think. I told him I’d holler if I seen you, but I guess you wouldn’t mind ridin’ over that way yourself.”
Drew brought his horse to a halt.
“What does he want of me?”
“Dunno. Something about wanting to hunt and fish on your streams here.”
“Why didn’t you tell him he was welcome to do what he liked? Must be an
Easterner, Logan.”
“Wants to bunk in the old house, too. Seems sort of interested in it.”
“That so? What sort of a fellow is he?”
“All right. A bit talky. Green; but he rides damn well, an’ he smokes good tobacco.”
His hand automatically rose and touched his breast pocket.
“I’ll go over to him,” said Drew, and swung his horse to the left, but only to come again to a halt.
He called over his shoulder: “What sort of a looking fellow?”
“Pretty keen — dark,” answered Logan, slipping down into his original position. “Thin face; black eyes.”
“Ah, yes,” murmured Drew, and started at a trot for the creek.
Once more he imitated the actions of Bard the day before, however, for no sooner had the trees screened him thoroughly from the eyes of Logan than he abandoned his direct course for the creek. He swung from the saddle with an ease surprising in a man of such age and bulk and tossed the reins over the head of the horse.
Then he commenced a cautious stalking through the woods, silent as an Indian, stealthy of foot, with eyes that glanced sharply in all directions. Once a twig snapped under foot, and after that he remained motionless through a long moment, shrinking against the trunk of a tree and scanning the forest anxiously in all directions. At length he ventured out again, grown doubly cautious. In this manner he worked his way up the course of the stream, always keeping the waters just within sight but never passing out on the banks, where the walking would have been tenfold easier. So he came in sight of a figure far off through the trees.
If he had been cautious before, he became now as still as night. Dropping to hands and knees, or crouching almost as prone, he moved from the shadow of one tree to the next, now and then venturing a glance to make sure that he was pursuing the right course, until he manoeuvred to a point of vantage which commanded a clear view of Bard.
The latter was fishing, with his back to Drew. Again and again he cast his fly out under an overhanging limb which shadowed a deep pool. The big grey man set his teeth and waited with the patience of a stalking beast of prey, or a cat which will sit half the day waiting for the mouse to show above the opening of its hole.
Apparently there was a bite at length. The pole bent almost double and the reel played back and forth rapidly as the fisher wore down his victim. Finally he came close to the edge of the stream, dipped his net into the water, and jerked it up at once bearing a twisting, shining trout enwrapped in the meshes. Swinging about as he did so, Drew caught his first full glimpse of Anthony’s face, and knew him for the man who had ridden the wild horse at Madison Square Garden those weeks before.
Perhaps it was astonishment that moved the big man — surely it could not have been fear — yet he knelt there behind the sheltering tree grey-faced, wide, and blank of eye, as a man might look who dreamed and awoke to see his vision standing before him in full sunlit life. What his expression became then could not be said, for he buried his face in his hands and his great body shook with a tremor. If this was not fear it was something very like.
And very like a man in fear he stole back among the trees as cautiously as he had made his approach. Resuming his horse he rode straight for Logan.
“Couldn’t find your young friend,” he said, “along the creek.”
“Why,” said Logan, “I can reach him with a holler from here, I think.”
“Never mind; just tell him that he’s welcome to do what he pleases on the place; and he can bunk down at the house if he wants to. I’d like to know his name, though.”
“That’s easy. Anthony Bard.”
“Ah,” said Drew slowly, “Anthony Bard!”
“That’s it,” nodded Logan, and fixed a curious eye upon the big grey rider.
As if to escape from that inquiring scrutiny, Drew wheeled his horse and spurred at a sharp gallop up the hill, leaving Logan frowning behind.
“No stay over night,” muttered the shepherd. “No fooling about that damned old shack of a house; what’s wrong with Drew?”
He answered himself, for all shepherds are forced by the bitter loneliness of their work to talk with themselves. “The old boy’s worried. Damned if he isn’t! I’ll keep an eye on this Bard feller.”
And he loosened the revolver in its holster.
He might have been even more concerned had he seen the redoubled speed with which Drew galloped as soon as the hilltop was between him and Logan. Straight on he pushed his horse, not exactly like one who fled but rather more like one too busy with consuming thoughts to pay the slightest heed to the welfare of his mount. It was a spent horse on which he trotted late that night up to the big, yawning door of his barn.
“Where’s Nash?” he asked of the man who took his horse.
“Playing a game with the boys in the bunk-house, sir.”
So past the bunk-house Drew went on his way to his dwelling, knocked, and threw open the door. Inside, a dozen men, seated at or standing around a table, looked up.
“Nash!”
“Here.”
“On the jump, Nash. I’m in a hurry.”
There rose a man of a build much prized in pugilistic circles. In those same circles he would have been described as a fellow with a fighting face and a heavy-weight above the hips and a light-weight below — a handsome fellow, except that his eyes were a little too small and his lips a trifle too thin. He rose now in the midst of a general groan of dismay, and scooped in a considerable stack of gold as well as several bright piles of silver; he was undoubtedly taking the glory of the game with him.
“Is this square?” growled one of the men clenching his fist on the edge of the table.
The sardonic smile hardened on the lips of Nash as he answered: “Before you’ve been here much longer, Pete, you’ll find out that about everything I do is square. Sorry to leave you, boys, before you’re broke, but orders is orders.”
“But one more hand first,” pleaded Pete.
“You poor fool,” snarled Nash, “d’you think I’ll take a chance on keepin’ him waiting?”
The last of his winnings passed with a melodious jingling into his pockets and he went hurriedly out of the bunk-house and up to the main building. There he found Drew in the room which the rancher used as an office, and stood at the door hat in hand.
“Come in; sit down,” said “him.” “Been taking the money from the boys again, Steve? I thought I talked with you about that a month ago?”
“It’s this way, Mr. Drew,” explained Nash, “with me stayin’ away from the cards is like a horse stayin’ off its feed. Besides, I done the square thing by the lot of those short-horns.”
“How’s that?”
“I showed ’em my hand.”
“Told them you were a professional gam
bler?”
“Sure. I explained they didn’t have no chance against me.”
“And of course that made them throw every cent they had against you?”
“Maybe.”
“It can’t go on, Nash.”
“Look here, Mr. Drew. I told ’em that I wasn’t a gambler but just a gold-digger.”
The big man could not restrain his smile, though it came like a shadow of mirth rather than the sunlight.
“After all, they might as well lose it to you as to someone else.”
“Sure,” grinned Nash, “it keeps it in the family, eh?”
“But one of these days, Steve, crooked cards will be the end of you.”
“I’m still pretty fast on the draw,” said Steve sullenly.
“All right. That’s your business. Now I want you to listen to some of mine.”
“Real work?”
“Your own line.”
“That,” said Nash, with a smile of infinite meaning, “sounds like the dinner bell to me. Let her go, sir!”
CHAPTER XI
THE QUEST BEGINS
“YOU KNOW THE old place on the other side of the range?”
“Like a book. I got pet names for all the trees.”
“There’s a man there I want.”
“Logan?”
“No. His name is Bard.”
“H-m! Any relation of the old bird that was partners with you back about the year one?”
“I want Anthony Bard brought here,” said. Drew, entirely overlooking the question.
“Easy. I can make the trip in a buckboard and I’ll dump him in the back of it.”
“No. He’s got to ride here, understand?”
“A dead man,” said Nash calmly, “ain’t much good on a hoss.”
“Listen to me,” said Drew, his voice lowering to a sort of musical thunder, “if you harm a hair of this lad’s head I’ll-I’ll break you in two with my own hands.”
And he made a significant gesture as if he were snapping a twig between his fingers. Nash moistened his lips, then his square, powerful jaw jutted out.
“Which the general idea is me doing baby talk and sort of hypnotizing this Bard feller into coming along?”
“More than that. He’s got to be brought here alive, untouched, and placed in that chair tied so that he can’t move hand or foot for ten minutes while I talk.”
“Nice, quiet day you got planned for me, Mr. Drew.”
The grey man considered thoughtfully.
“Now and then you’ve told me of a girl at Eldara — I think her name is
Sally Fortune?”
“Right. She begins where the rest of the calico leaves off.”
“H-m! that sounds familiar, somehow. Well, Steve, you’ve said that if you had a good start you think the girl would marry you.”
“I think she might.”
“She pretty fond of you?”
“She knows that if I can’t have her I’m fast enough to keep everyone else away.”
“I see. A process of elimination with you as the eliminator. Rather an odd courtship, Steve?”
The cowpuncher grew deadly serious.
“You see, I love her. There ain’t no way of bucking out of that. So do nine out of ten of all the boys that’ve seen her. Which one will she pick? That’s the question we all keep askin’, because of all the contrary, freckle-faced devils with the heart of a man an’ the smile of a woman, Sally has ’em all beat from the drop of the barrier. One feller has money; another has looks; another has a funny line of talk. But I’ve got the fastest gun. So Sally sees she’s due for a complete outfit of black mournin’ if she marries another man while I’m alive; an’ that keeps her thinkin’. But if I had the price of a start in the world — why, maybe she’d take a long look at me.”
“Would she call one thousand dollars in cash a start in the world — and your job as foreman of my place, with twice the salary you have now?”
Steve Nash wiped his forehead.
He said huskily: “A joke along this line don’t bring no laugh from me, governor.”
“I mean it, Steve. Get Anthony Bard tied hand and foot into this house so that I can talk to him safely for ten minutes, and you’ll have everything I promise. Perhaps more. But that depends.”
The blunt-fingered hand of Nash stole across the table.
“If it’s a go, shake, Mr. Drew.”
A mighty hand fell in his, and under the pressure he set his teeth. Afterward he covertly moved his fingers and sighed with relief to see that no permanent harm had been done.
“Me speakin’ personal, Mr. Drew, I’d of give a lot to seen you when you was ridin’ the range. This Bard — he’ll be here before sunset to-morrow.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Steve. I’ve an idea that before you count your thousand you’ll think that you’ve been underpaid. That’s straight.”
“This Bard is something of a man?”
“I can say that without stopping to think.”
“Texas?”
“No. He’s a tenderfoot, but he can ride a horse as if he was sewed to the skin, and I’ve an idea that he can do other things up to the same standard. If you can find two or three men who have silent tongues and strong hands, you’d better take them along. I’ll pay their wages, and big ones. You can name your price.”
But Nash was frowning.
“Now and then I talk to the cards a bit, Mr. Drew, and you’ll hear fellers say some pretty rough things about me, but I’ve never asked for no odds against any man. I’m not going to start now.”
“You’re a hard man, Steve, but so am I; and hard men are the kind I take to. I know that you’re the best foreman who ever rode this range and I know that when you start things you generally finish them. All that I ask is that you bring Bard to me in this house. The way you do it is your own problem. Drunk or drugged, I don’t care how, but get him here unharmed. Understand?”
“Mr. Drew, you can start figurin’ what you want to say to him now. I’ll get him here — safe! And then Sally—”
“If money will buy her you’ll have me behind you when you bid.”
“When shall I start?”
“Now.”
“So-long, then.”
He rose and passed hastily from the room, leaning forward from the hips like a man who is making a start in a foot-race.
Straight up the stairs he went to his room, for the foreman lived in the big house of the rancher. There he took a quantity of equipment from a closet and flung it on the bed. Over three selections he lingered long.
The first was the cartridge belt, and he tried over several with conscientious care until he found the one which received the cartridges with the greatest ease. He could flip them out in the night, automatically as a pianist fingers the scale in the dark.
Next he examined lariats painfully, inch by inch, as though he were going out to rope the stanchest steer that ever roamed the range. Already he knew that those ropes were sound and true throughout, but he took no chances now. One of the ropes he discarded because one or two strands in it were, or might be, a trifle frayed. The others he took alternately and whirled with a broad loop, standing in the centre of the room. Of the set one was a little more supple, a little more durable, it seemed. This he selected and coiled swiftly.
Last of all he lingered — and longest — over his revolvers. Six in all, he set them in a row along the bed and without delay threw out two to begin with. Then he fingered the others, tried their weight and balance, slipped cartridges into the cylinders and extracted them again, whirled the cylinders, examined the minutest parts of the actions.
They were all such guns as an expert would have turned over with shining eyes, but finally he threw one aside into the discard; the cylinder revolved just a little too hard. Another was abandoned after much handling of the remaining three because to the delicate touch of Nash it seemed that the weight of the barrel was a gram more than in the other two; but after this selection it seemed
that there was no possible choice between the final two.
So he stood in the centre of the room and went through a series of odd gymnastics. Each gun in turn he placed in the holster and then jerked it out, spinning it on the trigger guard around his second finger, while his left hand shot diagonally across his body and “fanned” the hammer. Still he could not make his choice, but he would not abandon the effort. It was an old maxim with him that there is in all the world one gun which is the best of all and with which even a novice can become a “killer.”
He tried walking away, whirling as he made his draw, and levelling the gun on the door-knob. Then without moving his hand, he lowered his head and squinted down the sights. In each case the bead was drawn to a centre shot. Last of all he weighed each gun; one seemed a trifle lighter — the merest shade lighter than the other. This he slipped into the holster and carried the rest of his apparatus back to the closet from which he had taken it.
Still the preparation had not ended. Filling his cartridge belt, every cartridge was subject to a rigid inspection. A full half hour was wasted in this manner. Wasted, because he rejected not one of the many he examined. Yet he seemed happier after having made his selection, and went down the stairs, humming softly.
Out to the barn he went, lantern in hand. This time he made no comparison of horses but went directly to an ugly-headed roan, long of leg, vicious of eye, thin-shouldered, and with hips that slanted sharply down. No one with a knowledge of fine horse-flesh could have looked on this brute without aversion. It did not have even size in its favour. A wild, free spirit, perhaps, might be the reason; but the animal stood with hanging head and pendant lower lip. One eye was closed and the other only half opened. A blind affection, then, made him go to this horse first of all.
No, his greeting was to jerk his knee sharply into the ribs of the roan, which answered with a grunt and swung its head around with bared teeth, like an angry dog. “Damn your eyes!” roared the hoarse voice of Steve Nash, “stand still or I’ll knock you for a goal!”
The ears of the mustang flattened close to its neck and a devil of hate came up in its eyes, but it stood quiet, while Nash went about at a judicious distance and examined all the vital points. The hoofs were sound, the backbone prominent, but not a high ridge from famine or much hard riding, and the indomitable hate in the eyes of the mustang seemed to please the cowpuncher.