by Unknown
The big cattleman ignored this absolutely. "Have a team hitched right away. Shorty will 'tend to that. Bob, tie up yore friend's haid with a handkerchief."
Without an instant's hesitation Hart thrust his revolver back into its holster. He was willing to trust Crawford to dominate this group of lawless foes, every one of whom held some deep grudge against him. One he had sent to the penitentiary. Another he had actually kicked out of his employ. A third was in his debt for many injuries received. Almost any of them would have shot him in the back on a dark night, but none had the cold nerve to meet him in the open. For even in a land which bred men there were few to match Emerson Crawford.
Shorty looked at Steelman. "I'm waitin', Brad," he said.
The sheepman nodded sullenly. "You done heard your orders, Shorty."
The ex-convict reached for his steeple hat, thrust his revolver back into its holster, and went jingling from the room. He looked insolently at Crawford as he passed.
"Different here. If it was my say-so I'd go through."
Hart administered first aid to his friend. "I'm servin' notice, Miller, that some day I'll bust you wide and handsome for this," he said, looking straight at the fat gambler. "You have give Dave a raw deal, and you'll not get away with it."
"I pack a gun. Come a-shootin' when you're ready," retorted Miller.
"Tha's liable to be right soon, you damn horsethief. We've rid 'most a hundred miles to have a li'l' talk with you and yore pardner there."
"Shoutin' about that race yet, are you? If I wasn't a better loser than you--"
"Don't bluff, Miller. You know why we trailed you."
Doble edged into the talk. He was still short of wind, but to his thick wits a denial seemed necessary. "We ain't got yore broncs."
"Who mentioned our broncs?" Hart demanded, swiftly.
"Called Ad a horsethief, didn't you?"
"So he is. You, too. You've got our ponies. Not in yore vest pockets, but hid out in the brush somewheres. I'm servin' notice right now that Dave and me have come to collect."
Dave opened his eyes upon a world which danced hazily before him. He had a splitting headache.
"Wha's the matter?" he asked.
"You had a run-in with a bunch of sheep wranglers," Bob told him. "They're going to be plumb sorry they got gay."
Presently Shorty returned. "That team's hooked up," he told the world at large.
"You'll drive us, Steelman," announced Crawford.
"Me!" screamed the leader of the other faction. "You got the most nerve I ever did see."
"Sure. Drive him home, Brad," advised Shorty with bitter sarcasm. "Black his boots. Wait on him good. Step lively when yore new boss whistles." He cackled with splenetic laughter.
"I dunno as I need to drive you home," Steelman said slowly, feeling his way to a decision. "You know the way better'n I do."
The eyes of the two leaders met.
"You'll drive," the cattleman repeated steadily.
The weak spot in Steelman's leadership was that he was personally not game. Crawford had a pungent personality. He was dynamic, strong, master of himself in any emergency. The sheepman's will melted before his insistence. He dared not face a showdown.
"Oh, well, what's it matter? We can talk things over on the way. Me, I'm not lookin' for trouble none," he said, his small black eyes moving restlessly to watch the effect of this on his men.
Bob helped his partner out of the house and into the surrey. The cattleman took the seat beside Steelman, across his knees the sawed-off shotgun. He had brought his enemy along for two reasons. One was to weaken his prestige with his own men. The other was to prevent them from shooting at the rig as they drove away.
Steelman drove in silence. His heart was filled with surging hatred. During that ride was born a determination to have nothing less than the life of his enemy when the time should be ripe.
At the door of his house Crawford dismissed him contemptuously. "Get out."
The man with the reins spoke softly, venomously, from a dry throat. "One o' these days you'll crawl on your hands and knees to me for this."
He whipped up the team and rattled away furiously into the night.
CHAPTER VIII
THE D BAR LAZY R BOYS MEET AN ANGEL
Joyce came flying to her father's arms. The white lace of a nightgown showed beneath the dressing-robe she had hurriedly donned. A plait of dark hair hung across her shoulder far below the waist. She threw herself at Crawford with a moaning little sob.
"Oh Dad ... Dad ... Dad!" she cried, and her slender arms went round his neck.
"'T's all right, sweetheart. Yore old dad's not even powder-burnt. You been worryin' a heap, I reckon." His voice was full of rough tenderness.
She began to cry.
He patted her shoulder and caressed her dark head drawing it close to his shoulder. "Now--now--now sweetheart, don't you cry. It's all right, li'l' honey bug."
"You're not ... hurt," she begged through her tears.
"Not none. Never was huskier. But I got a boy out here that's beat up some. Come in, Dave--and you, Bob. They're good boys, Joy. I want you to meet 'em both."
The girl had thought her father alone. She flung one startled glance into the night, clutched the dressing-gown closer round her throat, and fled her barefoot way into the darkness of the house. To the boys, hanging back awkwardly at the gate, the slim child-woman was a vision wonderful. Their starved eyes found in her white loveliness a glimpse of heaven.
Her father laughed. "Joy ain't dressed for callers. Come in, boys."
He lit a lamp and drew Dave to a lounge. "Lemme look at yore haid, son. Bob, you hot-foot it for Doc Green."
"It's nothin' a-tall to make a fuss about," Dave apologized. "Only a love tap, compliments of Shorty, and some kicks in the slats, kindness of Mr. Miller."
In spite of his debonair manner Dave still had a bad headache and was so sore around the body that he could scarcely move without groaning. He kept his teeth clamped on the pain because he had been brought up in the outdoor code of the West which demands of a man that he grin and stand the gaff.
While the doctor was attending to his injuries, Dave caught sight once or twice of Joyce at the door, clad now in a summer frock of white with a blue sash. She was busy supplying, in a brisk, competent way, the demands of the doctor for hot and cold water and clean linen.
Meanwhile Crawford told his story. "I was right close to the club when Doble met me. He pulled a story of how his brother Dug had had trouble with Steelman and got shot up. I swallowed it hook, bait, and sinker. Soon as I got into the house they swarmed over me like bees. I didn't even get my six-gun out. Brad wanted me to sign a relinquishment. I told him where he could head in at."
"What would have happened if the boys hadn't dropped along?" asked Dr. Green as he repacked his medicine case.
The cattleman looked at him, and his eyes were hard and bleak. "Why, Doc, yore guess is as good as mine." he said.
"Mine is, you'd have been among the missing, Em. Well, I'm leaving a sleeping-powder for the patient in case he needs it in an hour or two. In the morning I'll drop round again," the doctor said.
He did, and found Dave much improved. The clean outdoors of the rough-riding West builds blood that is red. A city man might have kept his bed a week, but Dave was up and ready to say good-bye within forty-eight hours. He was still a bit under par, a trifle washed-out, but he wanted to take the road in pursuit of Miller and Doble, who had again decamped in a hurry with the two horses they had stolen.
"They had the broncs hid up Frio Cañon way, I reckon," explained Hart. "But they didn't take no chances. When they left that 'dobe house they lit a-runnin' and clumb for the high hills on the jump. And they didn't leave no address neither. We'll be followin' a cold trail. We're not liable to find them after they hole up in some mountain pocket."
"Might. Never can tell. Le's take a whirl at it anyhow," urged Dave.
"Hate to give up yore paint hoss, don't you?"
said Bob with his friendly grin. "Ain't blamin' you none whatever, I'd sleep on those fellows' trail if Chiquito was mine. What say we outfit in the mornin' and pull our freights? Maybeso we'll meet up with the thieves at that. Yo no se (I don't know)."
When Joyce was in the room where Dave lay on the lounge, the young man never looked at her, but he saw nobody else. Brought up in a saddle on the range, he had never before met a girl like her. It was not only that she was beautiful and fragrant as apple-blossoms, a mystery of maidenhood whose presence awed his simple soul. It was not only that she seemed so delicately precious, a princess of the blood royal set apart by reason of her buoyant grace, the soft rustle of her skirts, the fine texture of the satiny skin. What took him by the throat was her goodness. She was enshrined in his heart as a young saint. He would have thought it sacrilege to think of her as a wide-awake young woman subject to all the vanities of her sex. And he could have cited evidence. The sweetness of her affection for rough Em Crawford, the dear, maternal tenderness with which she ruled her three-year-old brother Keith, motherless since the week of his birth, the kindness of the luminous brown eyes to the uncouth stranger thrown upon her hospitality: Dave treasured them all as signs of angelic grace, and they played upon his heartstrings disturbingly.
Joyce brought Keith in to say good-bye to Dave and his friend before they left. The little fellow ran across the room to his new pal, who had busied himself weaving horsehair playthings for the youngster.
"You turn back and make me a bwidle, Dave," he cried.
"I'll sure come or else send you one," the cowpuncher promised, rising to meet Joyce.
She carried her slender figure across the room with perfect ease and rhythm, head beautifully poised, young seventeen as self-possessed as thirty. As much could not be said for her guests. They were all legs and gangling arms, red ears and dusty boots.
"Yes, we all want you to come back," she said with a charming smile. "I think you saved Father's life. We can't tell you how much we owe you. Can we, Keith?"
"Nope. When will you send the bwidle?" he demanded.
"Soon," the restored patient said to the boy, and to her: "That wasn't nothin' a-tall. From where I come from we always been use to standin' by our boss."
He shifted awkwardly to the other foot, flushing to the hair while he buried her soft little hand in his big freckled one. The girl showed no shyness. Seventeen is sometimes so much older than twenty.
"Tha's what us D Bar Lazy R boys are ridin' with yore paw's outfit for, Miss--to be handy when he needs us," Bob added in his turn. "We're sure tickled we got a chanct to go to Brad Steelman's party. I'm ce'tainly glad to 'a' met you, Miss Joyce." He ducked his head and scraped back a foot in what was meant to be a bow.
Emerson Crawford sauntered in, big and bluff and easy-going. "Hittin' the trail, boys? Good enough. Hope you find the thieves. If you do, play yore cards close. They're treacherous devils. Don't take no chances with 'em. I left an order at the store for you to draw on me for another pair of boots in place of those you lost in the brush, Dave. Get a good pair, son. They're on me. Well, so long. Luck, boys. I'll look for you-all back with the D Bar Lazy R when you've finished this job."
The punchers rode away without looking back, but many times in the days that followed their hearts turned to that roof which had given the word home a new meaning to them both.
CHAPTER IX
GUNSIGHT PASS
The pursuit took the riders across a wide, undulating plain above which danced the dry heat of the desert. Lizards sunned themselves on flat rocks. A rattlesnake slid toward the cover of a prickly pear. The bleached bones of a cow shone white beside the trail.
The throats of the cowpunchers filled with alkali dust and their eyes grew red and sore from it. Magnificent mirages unfolded themselves: lakes cool and limpid, stretching to the horizon, with inviting forests in the distance; an oasis of lush green fields that covered miles; mesquite distorted to the size of giant trees and cattle transformed into dinosaurs. The great gray desert took on freakish shapes of erosion. Always, hour after hour beneath a copper sky, they rode in palpitating heat through sand drifts, among the salt bushes and the creosote, into cowbacked hills beyond which the stark mountains rose.
Out of the fiery furnace of the plain they came in late afternoon to the uplands, plunging into a land of deep gorges and great chasms. Here manzanita grew and liveoaks flourished. They sent a whitetail buck crashing through the brush into a cañon.
When night fell they built a fire of niggerheads and after they had eaten found its glow grateful. For they were well up in the hills now and the night air was sharp.
In the sandy desert they had followed easily the trail of the thieves, but as they had got into the hills the tracks had become fainter and fewer. The young men discussed this while they lay in their blankets in a water-gutted gulch not too near the fire they had built.
"Like huntin' for a needle in a haystack," said Bob. "Their trail's done petered out. They might be in any one of a hundred pockets right close, or they may have bore 'way off to the right. All they got to do is hole up and not build any fires."
"Fat chance we got," admitted Dave. "Unless they build a fire like we done. Say, I'd a heap rather be sleepin' here than by that niggerhead blaze to-night. They might creep up and try to gun us."
Before they had been in the saddle an hour next day the trail of the thieves was lost. The pursuers spent till sunset trying to pick it up again. The third day was wasted in aimless drifting among the defiles of the mountains.
"No use, Bob," said his friend while they were cooking supper. "They've made their getaway. Might as well drift back to Malapi, don't you reckon?"
"Looks like. We're only wastin' our time here."
Long before day broke they started.
The cañons below were filled with mist as they rode down out of the mountains toward the crystal dawn that already flooded the plain. The court-house clock at Malapi said the time was midnight when the dust-covered men and horses drew into the town.
The tired men slept till noon. At the Delmonico Restaurant they found Buck Byington and Steve Russell. The trail herd had been driven in an hour before.
"How's old Alkali?" asked Dave of his friend Buck, thumping him on the back.
"Jes' tolable," answered the old-timer equably, making great play with knife and fork. "A man or a hawss don't either one amount to much after they onct been stove up. Since that bronc piled me at Willow Creek I been mighty stiff, you might say."
"Dug's payin' off to-day, boys," Russell told them. "You'll find him round to the Boston Emporium."
The foreman settled first with Hart, after which he, turned to the page in his pocket notebook that held the account of Sanders.
"You've drew one month's pay. That leaves you three months, less the week you've fooled away after the pinto."
"C'rect," admitted Dave.
"I'll dock you seven and a half for that. Three times thirty's ninety. Take seven and a half from that leaves eighty-two fifty."
"Hold on!" objected Dave. "My pay's thirty-five a month."
"First I knew of it," said the foreman, eyes bleak and harsh. "Thirty's what you're gettin'."
"I came in as top hand at thirty-five."
"You did not," denied Doble flatly.
The young man flushed. "You can't run that on me, Dug. I'll not stand for it."
"Eighty-two fifty is what you get," answered the other dogmatically. "You can take it or go to hell."
He began to sort out a number of small checks with which to pay the puncher. At that time the currency of the country consisted largely of cattlemen's checks which passed from hand to hand till they were grimy with dirt. Often these were not cashed for months later.
"We'll see what the old man says about that," retorted Dave hotly. It was in his mind to say that he did not intend to be robbed by both the Doble brothers, but he wisely repressed the impulse. Dug would as soon fight as eat, and the young rider knew he would n
ot have a chance in the world against him.
"All right," sneered the foreman. "Run with yore tale of grief to Crawford. Tell him I been pickin' on you. I hear you've got to be quite a pet of his."
This brought Dave up with a short turn. He could not take advantage of the service he had done the owner of the D Bar Lazy R to ask him to interfere in his behalf with the foreman. Doble might be cynically defrauding him of part of what was due him in wages. Dave would have to fight that out with him for himself. The worst of it was that he had no redress. Unless he appealed to the cattleman he would have to accept what the foreman offered.
Moreover, his pride was touched. He was young enough to be sensitive on the subject of his ability to look out for himself.