by Zane Grey
He had ridden along that babbling brown stream, but he could not recall the exact location. The huge pines shaded boulders covered with green moss; open forest stretched away on each side; the brook came rushing down from the higher country above; deer grazed with the cattle; wild horses trooped up to whistle and look, and then race away with manes flying. This was the edge of the mountain range where thirty thousand head of mixed brands roamed, wilder than the deer.
“Boys, your dad has stuck us with a job he thinks we can’t do,” observed Rock, at the camp fire. “Five hundred head of two-year-olds by August.”
“Can’t be did,” replied Tom, throwing up his hands.
“By thunder! What’s eatin’ Dad these days?” exclaimed Harry.
“Let’s fool him once,” added Al, with spirit. “For some reason or other he wants us holed up out here like a lot of gophers. There’s another dance in town along early in August. An’ if you-all want a hunch—there’s Somebody who says I gotta be on hand.”
“That’s the talk, Al,” said Rock. “If we can find a canyon or draw somewhere close we’ll drive what we round up each day, and fence them in.”
“Good big draw over here. Water an’ grass. Once been fenced in, but the poles are down. Reckon we could fix it up pronto.”
Before they went to bed Rock had imbued the brothers with something of his own will to do or die. Next morning they were up in the dark, had the horses in at dawn, breakfast before sunrise, and on the drive when the first tinges of rose colored the rims of the Pass.
It was another old story for Rock, though he had never herded cattle with such a horse as Egypt. This fact and the forest with its multiple aspects of wild beauty and lonesome solitude, and the oft-recurring memory of Thiry, so poignant and sweet, made the hours seem days and the days weeks.
It rained every day, mostly summer showers, with rainbows bent from cloud to forest. The dry dusty brush grew green with renewed life; the pines and oaks were washed clean; the streams sang bank-full of amber water; the aspens began to take on a tinge of gold.
One night Al got in latest of all, weary and sullen. Rock knew something untoward had happened, but he waited until the lad had eaten and rested.
“What did you run up on today, cowboy?” queried Rock, at length.
“I was up under the Notch,” replied Al, “an’ first thing I seen a couple of riders high up, watchin’ me. I didn’t let on, an’ went on drivin’ same as if I hadn’t seen them. Reckon they never lost sight of me all day.”
“Dog-gone!” ejaculated Rock.
The twins were silent, which fact did not argue for a favorable reception of this news.
“See any brands except ours?” asked Rock, pertinently.
“Shore did. Lot of Half Moon stock scattered all over.”
“The devil you say. I thought Hesbitt ran the Half Moon outfit low down on the range.”
“We heard in town he was goin’ to change,” replied Al.
“Any two-year-olds in that bunch?” asked Rock.
“Reckon most of them.”
“Ahuh! And how many of our brand?
“Pretty scarce. I won’t bother to drive there tomorrow.”
Three days later, miles east of the Notch, Rock’s alert eye caught sight of riders above him on a slope, keeping behind the trees, and no doubt spying upon him with a glass. Though boiling with rage, he went right on driving as if he were none the wiser. On the return to camp he came to the conclusion that one of Hesbitt’s outfits was deliberately on the trail. This roused more than anger in Rock. The situation around Gage Preston was narrowing down critically. Rock thought it best not to acquaint the brothers with his discovery. They were doing wonderful driving, and soon the five hundred head would be all rounded up, ready to be moved down into the Pass.
But a couple of days before this longed-for number had been herded into the canyon-corral, the thing Rock expected came to pass. Early in the morning, at breakfast hour, a group of riders, five in number, rode down upon the camp.
“Boys, reckon I don’t like this,” said Rock, gruffly. “But you take it natural-like, and I’ll do the talkin’.”
As the riders entered camp Rock rose from his seat beside the camp fire to greet the visitors. They were seasoned range-riders, a hard-looking quintet, not one of whom Rock had ever seen. They probably belonged to the Wyoming outfit which had come from the north with Hesbitt. It took no second glance for Rock to decide they did not know him by sight or reputation.
“Howdy! Just in time for grub,” he said, heartily.
“Much obliged, but we had ourn,” replied the leader, a bronzed, rugged cowman, with bright bold eyes that roved everywhere.
“Say, you must crawl out early mornin’s,” drawled Rock, going back to his seat and lifting plate and cup. “Get down and stay awhile.”
His invitation was not accepted nor acknowledged.
“Gage Preston outfit?” inquired the leader.
“Part of it,” replied Rock, not so cordially. He meant presently to show that he was thinking hard.
“Round-up or drivin’ a herd?” went on the interlocutor, visibly cooler.
Rock set down his plate, his cup, and slowly turned on his seat.
“We’re drivin’ five hundred head of two-year-olds down the Pass. Reckon another day or so will make the full count,” rejoined Rock.
“Big job for so few punchers. Anybody else with you?”
“No.”
“Where you got the herd bunched?”
“We fenced a canyon across the creek,” returned Rock, pointing eastward.
The leader was evidently finding Rock a man about whom he had begun to have uneasy conceptions.
“Don’t know the lay of the land,” went on the leader. “Haven’t rid long on this range.”
“Shore you didn’t have to tell me that,” replied Rock, bluntly. “You’re from Wyomin’, an ridin’ for Hesbitt.”
“How’d you know thet?”
“Reckon nobody else would brace me this way.”
“You? Which one of the Prestons might you be? I’ve seen Ash Preston out on the range, an’ you’re shore not him.”
“I might be any one of the other six Prestons,” rejoined Rock, with dry sarcasm. “Hadn’t you better hand over your callin’-card before askin’ me to introduce myself?”
“I’m Jim Dunne, foreman for Hesbitt,” replied the rider.
“All right. How do, Mr. Dunne? A blind cowboy could see your call isn’t friendly. Now what do you want?”
“Wal, we’ve come over to have a look at your herd,” answered Dunne.
“Ahuh!” Rock, with suddenness, stood erect. He strode halfway across the camp space to confront Dunne. “Just to see if by accident we didn’t round up a couple of Half Moon steers?”
“Wal I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ about accidents,” returned the other, no doubt stirred by Rock’s caustic query.
“Dunne, you bet your life you’re goin’ to look over our herd,” snapped Rock. “Then I’ll call you plumb straight.”
One of Dunne’s men whispered to him, with visible effect.
“Say, are you this fellar Rock?” he asked, suddenly.
“Yes, I’m Rock. Reckon that doesn’t mean anythin’ to you. But maybe it will later.”
“Wal, I can’t see as there’s any reason to be riled,” returned Dunne, shifting in his saddle, evidently now wanting to conciliate Rock.
“That’s because you don’t know this range,” said Rock, curtly, and then turned to the Preston brothers. “Boys, we’ll drive the steers out of the canyon for inspection. We’ll head them down into the Pass. Then we’ll pack and go on in.”
Rock relentlessly held the Half Moon outfit on both sides of the corral gate while the cowboys drove the steers out in single file and in twos and threes. It was Rock’s task to head them down toward the Pass, which was easy after the leaders got started.
Dunne made several weak attempts to call off the inspection, but
Rock rigorously held him and his men to a count of every steer that passed the gateway. It was a long, tedious job.
“Dunne, between you all you’ve seen every head of stock we’ve driven,” said Rock, when he had dismounted to face the men.
“Reckon we have,” rejoined Dunne, and made as if to mount his horse.
“Stay on the ground,” ordered Rock. “You didn’t see one Half Moon brand, did you?”
“Who said we was lookin’ for Half Moon brands?” blustered Dunne.
“Bah!—Out with the truth! You didn’t see one Half Moon brand?” demanded Rock.
“Can’t say I did.”
“And you punchers? Neither did you?”
“No, Rock, we didn’t,” replied the one who had whispered to Dunne. “An’ if we’d had our way this deal wouldn’t hev come off.”
“All right. . . . Dunne, go for your gun!” commanded Rock.
“What!” ejaculated Dunne, hoarsely, his face turning yellow.
“Can’t you hear? . . . Any man who thinks me a rustler has got to back it with his gun.”
“Rock, I—I—we— Throwin’ guns wasn’t in my orders.”
“Dunne, you don’t fit on this range,” replied Rock, in bitter scorn. “Keep out of my way hereafter.” Then he turned to the other riders. “Reckon you’re not willin’ parties to this raw deal Dunne gave me. Any self-respectin’ cowboy, if he calls another a rustler, knows it’s true and is ready to fight. . . . Tell Hesbitt exactly what happened here. If you don’t I’ll hold it against you. Tell him rotten gossip on the range isn’t proof of an outfit’s guilt.”
“All right, Rock, we’ll shore give Hesbitt the straight of this,” replied the rider.
The four mounted men rode away, and Dunne made haste to get astride and follow. Rock called after him:
“Dunne, I reckon all the Prestons—Ash in particular—will take your insult to me home to themselves.”
The three young Prestons with Rock certainly took it so. Through the whole affair they had been pale, set-faced, silent. After Dunne and his men left they broke out, Al worst of all.
“But, True, look ahere,” he protested, when Rock tried to quiet him, “it means we Prestons are suspected of rustlin’.”
“I reckon so. By that particular Hesbitt outfit. But, Al, that isn’t much to rile you. This Wyomin’ outfit is sort of new. They want to boss the range. I met Clink Peeples, another Hesbitt foreman. He’s not a bad fellow.”
“What’s Dad goin’ to say?” queried Al, wide-eyed.
“What’s Ash goin’ to do—that’s the thing?” returned Tom, tragically.
“Looks bad to me, boys,” added Harry, gloomily. “Clears up some queer remarks I heard in town.”
“Let’s rustle home.”
Rock agreed to that last, whereupon they bent united efforts to breaking camp.
On the third day following, early in the afternoon, Rock and his cowboys left the herd of steers in the meadowland below Slagle’s ranch, and rode on home, a weary and silent four, scattered wide along the lane.
The labor of the past few weeks had been so strenuous and the application to it so zealous that Rock scarcely realized the lapse of time. What had happened at Sunset Pass during the interim? He hoped but little. What pleasure he might have had in driving the herd down to the Pass, ahead of schedule, had been spoiled by the advent of the Half Moon outfit and the necessity of revealing it to Preston.
Rock asked the brothers to keep their mouths shut, but strict observance of their promises was not likely. Indeed, by the time he had shaved and changed his clothes, there came rapid footfalls, followed by a thump on his cabin door.
“Who is it?” he called, for he had taken the precaution to lock the door.
“Preston. Open up,” came the peremptory reply.
Rock slid back the bar, whereupon Preston stamped in, with Ash close behind him.
“Howdy, boss!” said Rock, cheerfully, and nodded to Ash. But his geniality did not inhibit a lightning scrutiny of both men, especially the latter.
“Al busted in with a wild story,” broke out Preston, waiving a greeting. “Said Hesbitt’s outfit spied on you while you was drivin’? Then they rode into your camp. Five of them. Feller named Dunne in charge. He was mean as a skunk an’ said he’d look your herd over. But when you called him an’ he found out who you was he tried to hedge. . . . Al says you made him inspect every steer you had—an’ after that dared him to throw a gun. . . . Al was terrible excited. Darn fool blurted thet all out in front of the folks. . . . Rock, was he just loco, or is he exaggeratin’ a little run-in you had with one of Hesbitt’s outfit’s?”
“Boss, Al told the truth, and put it mild at that,” replied Rock, and turned to tie his scarf before the mirror. In the glass he saw Preston’s eyes roll and fix with terrible accusation upon his son. “Sit down, both of you,” went on Rock, and presently faced them again. Ash was coolly rolling a cigarette, his face a mask. Preston had been drinking of late, but appeared sober, and now, though grim and angry, met Rock’s glance steadily.
“Wal, thet’s short an’ sweet,” he said, with a gruff laugh. “So you come in only a little short of five hundred head?”
“Four eighty, if we counted correct.”
“Wonderful job!” exclaimed Preston, as if the eulogy had to be paid. “Never expected you till mid-August. What you think, Ash?”
“Rock, how’d you get such work out of Al an’ the twins?” queried Ash, from a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“They were plumb fine,” replied Rock, with enthusiasm. “I couldn’t ask any better boys.”
“Wal, thet pleases me. Too bad such a fine job had to end bad,” said Preston. “How’d they take this suspicious deal?”
“Mad as hornets.”
“Wouldn’t be Prestons if they wasn’t. . . . Rock, suppose you tell us everythin’ thet come off.”
Thus adjured, Rock began a minute narrative of the situation from the day Al caught the two riders spying upon him from the slope. When he reached a point where he too had observed watchers, Preston interrupted with a curse, then:
“Al didn’t tell me thet.”
“He never knew it. I though I’d better keep it to myself until I saw you,” returned Rock, and then went on with the story, which the rancher allowed him to complete.
“So you invited Dunne to draw?” he queried, rising with his eyes like lights behind transparent veils.
“Boss, I did. Reckon I was good and sore,” admitted Rock. “But what could you expect of me? He made me out a rustler, though he crawfished yellow on it. Besides, that insult extended to my boss, didn’t it?”
“It shore did,” rejoined Preston, thick-voiced. “Rock, suppose Dunne couldn’t have been bluffed? What then?”
“Say, you call yourself a Westerner?” queried Rock, derisively. “Gage, you haven’t been long out here, or you’d never ask a fool question like that.”
“All the same, I’m askin’ it an’ I want to know.”
“I’d have bored him,” answered Rock, provoked to something he seldom yielded to. “And I told Dunne to keep out of my way. If I meet him——”
“Wal, Rock,” interposed Ash, in a voice that made Rock’s flesh creep, “I’ll see to it I’ll meet him first.”
“Cowboy, I never expected you’d stand up fer me thet way,” burst out Preston, genuinely moved. “Course I never knew you. It means more’n I can tell you, havin’ my youngsters be with you then. I just can’t thank you.”
“Don’t try,” returned Rock, turning it off with an easy laugh.
“Wal, would you mind givin’ me your angle on this deal?” went on Preston, relaxing to earnest anxiety.
“’Most as short an’ sweet as the other. Hesbitt is a new rancher here. He doesn’t know our range. He’s never been a cowboy. There’s been some rustlin’, as you know. Like in my day here years ago. Reckon Hesbitt has been losin’ most of any of you ranchers. He’s sore, and his outfits are tryin’ to be Wyomin�
�� smart. They’ve picked on you. That’s my angle.”
“Wal, by——! it’s as clean an’ sharp as everythin’ else about you,” returned Preston, perturbed. “Ash, did you savvy thet?”
“Shore, but I ain’t awful impressed,” replied the son, puffing smoke. Rock could not see his face, but he had further reason to respect Ash’s cunning.
“Rock, do you figger thet other old-timers hyar have the same angle?”
“I’d say so, unless some one like Slagle. But naturally he’d be quick to think ill of you.”
Preston paced the room, gazing down at the bare rough-hewn floor.
“Reckon this hyar deal wouldn’t be particular bad fer me if it wasn’t fer our butcherin’ bizness,” he remarked, as if thoughtfully to himself. Rock, however, divined that was a calculating speech.
“You hit it, Gage. There’s the rub. My hunch is you must quit the butcherin’,” said Rock, deliberately, his eye on Ash. He anticipated that individual’s reaction.
“I will, by thunder!” replied the rancher, wheeling instinctively to face his son.
Ash rose out of the cloud of smoke. At that moment, for Trueman Rock, nothing in the world could have been so desirable as to smash that face. Ash took no notice of his father’s decision. He flipped his cigarette butt almost at Rock.
“I’m butcherin’ tomorrow, Mister Rock,” he asserted.
“Butcher and be darned!” retorted Rock, absolutely mimicking the other’s tone.
“You’re gettin’ too thick out here,” said Ash, backing to the door, which he opened. “I told you once to clear out. This’s the second time. There won’t never be no third.”
“See here, Ash, I’m not tryin’ to run your affairs. I was just givin’ my angle. Take it for what it’s worth. As for clearin’ out—well, I’ll consider that. Reckon I don’t want to make trouble between you and your folks.”
Ash backed out the door, his wonderful blue eyes like fire under ice, then he stalked off the porch toward his cabin.
“Gage, that bull-headed son of yours will be the ruin of you,” said Rock, turning to the rancher.
“Lord! don’t I know it!” groaned Preston from under his huge hands. His massive frame wrestled. Up he sprang, to lift clenched fists, and broke into an ungovernable rage that both astonished and mystified Rock. The rancher’s face turned a purple hue; his thick neck bulged almost to bursting. He stamped and cursed and swung his arms, as a man of strength and will baffled and defeated. The paroxysm subsided, and he grew composed, but if there was not actual hate in the set glare of his deep gray eyes, then Rock erred in his belief.