by Unknown
"I'm no pet of anybody," he flung out. "Gimme that money. It ain't a square deal, but I reckon I can stand it."
"I reckon you'll have to. It's neck meat or nothin'," grunted the foreman.
Doble counted him out eighty dollars in cattlemen's checks and paid him two-fifty in cash. While Dave signed a receipt the hook-nosed foreman, broad shoulders thrown back and thumbs hitched in the arm-holes of his vest, sat at ease in a tilted chair and grinned maliciously at his victim. He was "puttin' somethin' over on him," and he wanted Dave to know it. Dug had no affection for his half-brother, but he resented the fact that Sanders publicly and openly despised him as a crook. He took it as a personal reflection on himself.
Still smouldering with anger at this high-handed proceeding, Dave went down to the Longhorn Corral and saddled his horse. He had promised Byington to help water the herd.
This done, he rode back to town, hitched the horse back of a barber shop, and went in for a shave. Presently he was stretched in a chair, his boots thrown across the foot rest in front of him.
The barber lathered his face and murmured gossip in his ear. "George Doble and Miller claim they're goin' to Denver to run some skin game at a street fair. They're sure slick guys."
Dave offered no comment.
"You notice they didn't steal any of Em Crawford's stock. No, sirree! They knew better. Hopped away with broncs belongin' to you boys because they knew it'd be safe."
"Picked easy marks, did they?" asked the puncher sardonically.
The man with the razor tilted the chin of his customer and began to scrape. "Well, o'course you're only boys. They took advantage of that and done you a meanness."
Dug Doble came into the shop, very grim about the mouth. He stopped to look down sarcastically at the new boots Sanders was wearing.
"I see you've bought you a new pair of boots," he said in a heavy, domineering voice.
Dave waited without answering, his eyes meeting steadily those of the foreman.
The big fellow laid a paper on the breast of the cowpuncher. "Here's a bill for a pair of boots you charged to the old man's account--eighteen dollars. I got it just now at the store. You'll dig up."
It was the custom for riders who came to town to have the supplies they needed charged to their employers against wages due them. Doble took it for granted that Sanders had done this, which was contrary to the orders he had given his outfit. He did not know the young man had lost his boots while rescuing Crawford and had been authorized by him to get another pair in place of them.
Nor did Dave intend to tell him. Here was a chance to even the score against the foreman. Already he had a plan simmering in his mind that would take him out of this part of the country for a time. He could no longer work for Doble without friction, and he had business of his own to attend to. The way to solve the immediate difficulty flashed through his brain instantly, every detail clear.
It was scarcely a moment before he drawled an answer. "I'll 'tend to it soon as I'm out of the chair."
"I gave orders for none of you fellows to charge goods to the old man," said Doble harshly.
"Did you?" Dave's voice was light and careless.
"You can go hunt a job somewheres else. You're through with me."
"I'll hate to part with you."
"Don't get heavy, young fellow."
"No," answered Dave with mock meekness.
Doble sat down in a chair to wait. He had no intention of leaving until Dave had settled.
After the barber had finished with him the puncher stepped across to a looking-glass and adjusted carefully the silk handkerchief worn knotted loosely round the throat.
"Get a move on you!" urged the foreman. His patience, of which he never had a large supply to draw from, was nearly exhausted. "I'm not goin' to spend all day on this."
"I'm ready."
Dave followed Doble out of the shop. Apparently he did not hear the gentle reminder of the barber, who was forced to come to the door and repeat his question.
"Want that shave charged?"
"Oh! Clean forgot." Sanders turned back, feeling in his pocket for change.
He pushed past the barber into the shop, slapped a quarter down on the cigar-case, and ran out through the back door. A moment later he pulled the slip-knot of his bridle from the hitching-bar, swung to the saddle and spurred his horse to a gallop. In a cloud of dust he swept round the building to the road and waved a hand derisively toward Doble.
"See you later!" he shouted.
The foreman wasted no breath in futile rage. He strode to the nearest hitching-post and flung himself astride leather. The horse's hoofs pounded down the road in pursuit.
Sanders was riding the same bronco he had used to follow the horsethieves. It had been under a saddle most of the time for a week and was far from fresh. Before he had gone a mile he knew that the foreman would catch up with him.
He was riding for Gunsight Pass. It was necessary to get there before Doble reached him. Otherwise he would have to surrender or fight, and neither of these fitted in with his plans.
Once he had heard Emerson Crawford give a piece of advice to a hotheaded and unwise puncher. "Never call for a gun-play on a bluff, son. There's no easier way to commit suicide than to pull a six-shooter you ain't willin' to use." Dug Doble was what Byington called "bull-haided." He had forced a situation which could not be met without a showdown. This meant that the young range-rider would either have to take a thrashing or draw his forty-five and use it. Neither of these alternatives seemed worth while in view of the small stakes at issue. Because he was not ready to kill or be killed, Dave was flying for the hills.
The fugitive had to use his quirt to get there in time. The steepness of the road made heavy going. As he neared the summit the grade grew worse. The bronco labored heavily in its stride as its feet reached for the road ahead.
But here Dave had the advantage. Doble was a much heavier man than he, and his mount took the shoulder of the ridge slower. By the time the foreman showed in silhouette against the skyline at the entrance to the pass the younger man had disappeared.
The D Bar Lazy R foreman found out at once what had become of him. A crisp voice gave clear directions.
"That'll be far enough. Stop right where you're at or you'll notice trouble pop. And don't reach for yore gun unless you want to hear the band begin to play a funeral piece."
The words came, it seemed to Doble, out of the air. He looked up. Two great boulders lay edge to edge beside the path. Through a narrow rift the blue nose of a forty-five protruded. Back of it glittered a pair of steady, steely eyes.
The foreman did not at all like the look of things. Sanders was a good shot. From where he lay, almost entirely protected, all he had to do was to pick his opponent off at his leisure. If his hand were forced he would do it. And the law would let him go scot free, since Doble was a fighting man and had been seen to start in pursuit of the boy.
"Come outa there and shell out that eighteen dollars," demanded Doble.
"Nothin' doin', Dug."
"Don't run on the rope with me, young fellow. You'll sure be huntin' trouble."
"What's the use o' beefin'? I've got the deadwood on you. Better hit the dust back to town and explain to the boys how yore bronc went lame," advised Dave.
"Come down and I'll wallop the tar outa you."
"Much obliged. I'm right comfortable here."
"I've a mind to come up and dig you out."
"Please yoreself, Dug. We'll find out then which one of us goes to hell."
The foreman cursed, fluently, expertly, passionately. Not in a long time had he had the turn called on him so adroitly. He promised Dave sudden death in various forms whenever he could lay hands upon him.
"You're sure doin' yoreself proud, Dug," the young man told him evenly. "I'll write the boys how you spilled language so thorough."
"If I could only lay my hands on you!" the raw-boned cattleman stormed.
"I'll bet you'd massacree me p
roper," admitted Dave quite cheerfully.
Suddenly Doble gave up. He wheeled his horse and began to descend the steep slope. Steadily he jogged on to town, not once turning to look back. His soul was filled with chagrin and fury at the defeat this stripling had given him. He was ready to pick a quarrel with the first man who asked him a question about what had taken place at the pass.
Nobody asked a question. Men looked at him, read the menace of his sullen, angry face, and side-stepped his rage. They did not need to be told that his ride had been a failure. His manner advertised it. Whatever had taken place had not redounded to the glory of Dug Doble.
Later in the day the foreman met the owner of the D Bar Lazy R brand to make a detailed statement of the cost of the drive. He took peculiar pleasure in mentioning one item.
"That young scalawag Sanders beat you outa eighteen dollars," he said with a sneer of triumph.
Doble had heard the story of what Dave and Bob had done for Crawford and of how the wounded boy had been taken to the cattleman's home and nursed there. It pleased him now to score off what he chose to think was the soft-headedness of his chief.
The cattleman showed interest. "That so, Dug? Sorry. I took a fancy to that boy. What did he do?"
"You know how vaqueros are always comin' in and chargin' goods against the boss. I give out the word they was to quit it. Sanders he gets a pair of eighteen-dollar boots, then jumps the town before I find out about it."
Crawford started to speak, but Doble finished his story.
"I took out after him, but my bronc went lame from a stone in its hoof. You'll never see that eighteen plunks, Em. It don't do to pet cowhands."
"Too bad you took all that trouble, Dug," the old cattleman began mildly. "The fact is--"
"Trouble. Say, I'd ride to Tombstone to get a crack at that young smart Aleck. I told him what I'd do to him if I ever got my fists on him."
"So you did catch up with him."
Dug drew back sulkily within himself. He did not intend to tell all he knew about the Gunsight Pass episode. "I didn't say when I told him."
"Tha's so. You didn't. Well, I'm right sorry you took so blamed much trouble to find him. Funny, though, he didn't tell you I gave him the boots."
"You--what?" The foreman snapped the question out with angry incredulity.
The ranchman took the cigar from his mouth and leaned back easily. He was smiling now frankly.
"Why, yes. I told him to buy the boots and have 'em charged to my account. And the blamed little rooster never told you, eh?"
Doble choked for words with which to express himself. He glared at his employer as though Crawford had actually insulted him.
In an easy, conversational tone the cattleman continued, but now there was a touch of frost in his eyes.
"It was thisaway, Dug. When he and Bob knocked Steelman's plans hell west and crooked after that yellow skunk George Doble betrayed me to Brad, the boy lost his boots in the brush. 'Course I said to get another pair at the store and charge 'em to me. I reckon he was havin' some fun joshin' you."
The foreman was furious. He sputtered with the rage that boiled inside him. But some instinct warned him that unless he wanted to break with Crawford completely he must restrain his impulse to rip loose.
"All right," he mumbled. "If you told him to get 'em, 'nough said."
CHAPTER X
THE CATTLE TRAIN
Dave stood on the fence of one of the shipping pens at the Albuquerque stockyards and used a prod-pole to guide the bawling cattle below. The Fifty-Four Quarter Circle was loading a train of beef steers and cows for Denver. Just how he was going to manage it Dave did not know, but he intended to be aboard that freight when it pulled out for the mile-high town in Colorado.
He had reached Albuquerque by a strange and devious route of zigzags and back-trackings. His weary bronco he had long since sold for ten dollars at a cow town where he had sacked his saddle to be held at a livery stable until sent for. By blind baggage he had ridden a night and part of a day. For a hundred miles he had actually paid his fare. The next leg of the journey had been more exciting. He had elected to travel by freight. For many hours he and a husky brakeman had held different opinions about this. Dave had been chased from the rods into an empty and out of the box car to the roof. He had been ditched half a dozen times during the night, but each time he had managed to hook on before the train had gathered headway. The brakeman enlisted the rest of the crew in the hunt, with the result that the range-rider found himself stranded on the desert ten miles from a station. He walked the ties in his high-heeled boots, and before he reached the yards his feet were sending messages of pain at every step. Reluctantly he bought a ticket to Albuquerque. Here he had picked up a temporary job ten minutes after his arrival.
A raw-boned inspector kept tally at the chute while the cattle passed up into the car.
"Fifteen, sixteen--prod 'em up, you Arizona--seventeen, eighteen--jab that whiteface along--nineteen--hustle 'em in."
The air was heavy with the dust raised by the milling cattle. Calves stretched their necks and blatted for their mothers, which kept up in turn a steady bawling for their strayed offspring. They were conscious that something unusual was in progress, something that threatened their security and comfort, and they resented it in the only way they knew.
Car after car was jammed full of the frightened creatures as the men moved from pen to pen, threw open and shut the big gates, and hustled the stock up the chutes. Dave had begun work at six in the morning. A glance at his watch showed him that it was now ten o'clock.
A middle-aged man in wrinkled corduroys and a pinched-in white hat drove up to the fence. "How're they coming, Sam?" he asked of the foreman in charge.
"We'd ought to be movin' by noon, Mr. West."
"Fine. I've decided to send Garrison in charge. He can pick one of the boys to take along. We can't right well spare any of 'em now. If I knew where to find a good man--"
The lean Arizona-born youth slid from the fence on his prod-pole and stepped forward till he stood beside the buckboard of the cattleman.
"I'm the man you're lookin' for, Mr. West."
The owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle brand looked him over with keen eyes around which nets of little wrinkles spread.
"What man?" he asked.
"The one to help Mr. Garrison take the cattle to Denver."
"Recommend yoreself, can you?" asked West with a hint of humor.
"Yes, sir."
"Who are you?"
"Dave Sanders--from Arizona, first off."
"Been punchin' long?"
"Since I was a kid. Worked for the D Bar Lazy R last."
"Ever go on a cattle train?"
"Twice--to Kansas City."
"Hmp!" That grunt told Dave just what the difficulty was. It said, "I don't know you. Why should I trust you to help take a trainload of my cattle through?"
"You can wire to Mr. Crawford at Malapi and ask him about me," the young fellow suggested.
"How long you ride for him?"
"Three years comin' grass."
"How do I knew you you're the man you say you are?"
"One of yore boys knows me--Bud Holway."
West grunted again. He knew Emerson Crawford well. He was a level-headed cowman and his word was as good as his bond. If Em said this young man was trustworthy, the shipper was willing to take a chance on him. The honest eye, the open face, the straightforward manner of the youth recommended his ability and integrity. The shipper was badly in need of a man. He made up his mind to wire.
"Let you know later," he said, and for the moment dropped Dave out of the conversation.
But before noon he sent for him.
"I've heard from Crawford," he said, and mentioned terms.
"Whatever's fair," agreed Dave.
An hour later he was in the caboose of a cattle train rolling eastward. He was second in command of a shipment consigned to the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company. Most of them
were shipped by the West Cattle Company. An odd car was a jackpot bunch of pickups composed of various brands. All the cars were packed to the door, as was the custom of those days.
After the train had settled down to the chant of the rails Garrison sent Dave on a tour of the cars. The young man reported all well and returned to the caboose. The train crew was playing poker for small stakes. Garrison had joined them. For a time Dave watched, then read a four-day-old newspaper through to the last advertisement. The hum of the wheels made him drowsy. He stretched out comfortably on the seat with his coat for a pillow.