"We're goin' to have suthin' to say about that, Bill, yu an' me," the foreman said harshly. "Outfit to be depended on?"
"Shorest thing yu know," the other replied.
"Purdie said there was one of mosshead who would mebbe make trouble," Sudden said slyly, and Bill Yago swore.
"Yu'll have that trouble yet if yu overplay yore hand," he threatened. "What's that smoke mean?"
They had worked northwards, and were riding down the lower slope of the mountain, passing over rolling, grassy country studded with thickets, and broken here and there with brush-cluttered depressions. It was from the midst of one of these that a smudge of smoke corkscrewed into the still air, and they heard, faintly, the cry of a calf. The foreman looked at his companion.
"Any o' the boys carry irons?" he asked.
"Nope," Yago said, and even as he spoke, the tell-tale smoke died out. "We better look into this."
Side by side they raced for the spot, slowing up as they neared it. A wall of dense scrub sent them circling in search of an opening. They found it, a narrow, cattle-trampled path which zigzagged downwards to where a rude pole hurdle blocked the way. Removing this, they reached the edge of the brush, and saw that the floor of the hollow was grass-covered and bare of trees. A dozen cows and as many calves were grazing, but there appeared to be no humans. For some time the two men watched.
"They've punched the breeze," Bill said. "We just missed 'em, cuss the rotten luck!"
They walked their mounts to the nearest of the feeding beasts. One glance told the story; the C P brand had been rather clumsily changed to a Circle B. The state of the wounds showed that this had only just been done.
"Raw work," Bill commented, as he studied the rough conversion of the C into an indifferent circle and the added lower loop to the P. "But if they stayed cached here till the scars healed who's to say it ain't but a careless bit o' brandin'?"
"Mebbe," Sudden said thoughtfully, "though I've a hunch they was meant to be found. Guess we'll leave 'em here--there's plenty feed an' a spring. Don't say nothin' to anyone. If Purdie hears o' this he'll paint for war immediate an'--if I'm right--play into their hands."
On the far side of the hollow they found another narrow pathway, which accounted for their not having seen the brand-blotters. Following this up through the scrub, they emerged again into the open. Sudden smiled grimly.
"She's a neat little trap, all nicely baited, but the C P ain't goin' to be catched," he said. "Them poles was newly-cut."
Pushing further north, grass and sage gradually disappeared, their place being taken by sand, cactus, and mesquite. Presently they pulled up on the edge of a desolate welter of grey-white dust, the undulations of which, in the shimmering heat-haze, seemed to move like the surface of a troubled sea. To the far horizon it reached, dead, menacing, pitiless.
"She's thirty miles acrost, they say, an' me, I'm believin' it," Yago said in answer to a question. "Sandover is on the other side, but I ain't been there; I don't likedeserts nohow. Cripes! Makes me thirsty to look at her." His eyes followed those of the foreman to where the skeleton of a steer gleamed white in the sunshine. "No, we don't lose many thataway--the critters stay with the feed," he offered. "Went loco, mebbe."
They rode along the edge of the desert, heading east, and sighted a log shack with a sodded roof.
"Our line-house," Yago stated. "Wonder if Strip Levens is to home? Yu ain't seen him yet."
In answer to his hail, a long, lanky cowboy emerged from the shack, hand on gun, his narrowed, humorous eyes squinting at them from beneath the brim of his big hat.
"'Lo, Bill," he greeted. "Come to take over?--if so, you're damn welcome."
"We aim to feed with yu, Strip," Yago informed him, and waved in the direction of his companion. "This is Jim Green, our new foreman."
"Glad to meetcha," Strip smiled, and retired to make additions to the meal he was already preparing.
"He's a good fella, but he don't like this job; none of us does," Yago explained. "We takes her in turn, three-day spells; it's damn lonesome."
"What's the idea of a line-house out here?"
"We was losin' cows, an' Purdie figured Greasers from Sandover was snakin' 'em across the desert."
The appointments of the shack were primitive. A packing-case served as a table, and up-ended boxes, which had contained "air-tights," provided the seats. Two bunks, a stove, and shelves for stores of food and ammunition comprised the rest of the furniture. The fried bacon, biscuits, and coffee occupied the attention of all three men for a time, and then Yago asked a question.
"Anythin' new, Strip?"
"That there ventilation in my lid weren't there night before last," the cowboy replied, pointing to the Stetson he had pitched on one of the bunks.
The visitors examined the two bullet-holes through the crown of the hat; obviously the wearer had escaped death by a bare inch.
"How come?" Bill inquired.
"Yestiddy afternoon I was siftin' through Split-ear Gulch when some jigger cut down on me from the rim. The brush is pretty thick up there, yu know, an' all I could see was the smoke."
"Yu didn't stay to argue, I betcha."
"I'm here, ain't I?" was the grinned retort. "No, sir, when Mister man with the gun is all hid up an' yo're in the open is one time to find out if you're hoss has any speed. I did, an' he had, or yu'd 'a' cooked yore own eats."
"This is a two-man job," the foreman decided. "S'pose Levens had been crippled, we wouldn't 'a' knowed till his relief came out."
Leaving Strip greatly cheered by the prospects of a fellow-sufferer, the other two continued their journey. A few miles brought them to the brink of a winding chasm, a mighty crack in the earth's crust, which stretched left and right for miles. Less than a hundred yards in width, the bare, precipitous walls dropped steeply down to the stony floor beneath. Gazing into the shadowy depths, the foreman put a query.
"Dark Canyon--there's places where she's mighty gloomersome even in daylight," Yago told him. "Makes a good eastern boundary till the range drops down into the valley. The other side is Slype's land."
"What sort o' place has he got?"
"Pretty triflin'--on'y runs a few hundred head. Ramon an' his two Greasers must have an easy time."
At Sudden's suggestion they made their way to Split-ear Gulch and, after a painstaking search, found the spotwhere the bush-whacker had lain in wait for Strip. In the flattened, broken grass lay a spent cartridge--a .38. Not far away were the prints of a standing horse, and the surrounding bushes had been nibbled; a few hairs adhering to one of the branches afforded further evidence.
"Paint pony, nail missin' from the off fore, tied here a considerable spell," the foreman decided. "What sort o' hoss does Luce Burdette usually ride?"
"A grey an' he's a good 'un," Yago replied. "Yu don't think...?"
"Why not? It ain't so difficult," his friend grinned. "Yu oughta try it, Bill. After a bit o' practice."
Yago's reply was a short but pungent description of his new foreman, who laughed as he listened.
"Yore cussin' ain't improved any," he commented. "Yu repeated yoreself twice; yu gotta watch that, Bill. What say we call it a day?"
Yago agreed, and they headed for the ranch.
Chapter VII
WHEN Yago parted from his foreman at the corral he approached the bunkhouse with slowing steps. He knew perfectly well that the outfit would ride him unmercifully and that the only excuse he had to offer would be received with jeers. That there would be no malice in the proceedings helped a little, but Bill was conscious that he had made a fool of himself, and did not welcome the prospect of having it rubbed in, even good-humouredly. Most of the boys were there when he entered. For a moment silence reigned, and then Curly spoke :
"Bill, I'm right sorry; I've looked everyhere an' can't find it?""
"Can't find what, yu chump?" Yago incautiously asked.
"That nerve yu lost when yu saw the new foreman," came the swift answer.
"Aw, Bill didn't lose no nerve--he's kind-hearted, an' saw the foreman was young an'--Green," sniggered another.
"That warn't it neither," Lanty Brown chimed in. "Ain't yu never heard o' the power o' the human eye? Yu fix yore optic on a savage beast an' it stops dead in its tracks. That's what the foreman done."
"I've heard o' the power of the human foot on a silly jackass," the badgered man retorted. "If yu gotta know, I recognized Jim Green as an old friend."
As he had known, a yell of derisive laughter greeted the explanation.
"I knowed it was that," remarked a quiet, unsmiling youth, who, being named "Sankey," was known as "Moody" wherever he went. "Lemme tell yu the sad story. Long, long ago, Bill loved the foreman's mother--this, o' course, was before she was his mother--an' they were to be married. But, alas! Along comes a real good-lookin' fella, an' Bill lost out. So when he sees the boy whose daddy he oughta been..."
A storm of merriment cut the narration short, and in the midst of it Curly's voice made itself heard : "Yu got it near right, Moody, but it was the foreman's gran'mother Bill loved."
The improvement met with vociferous approbation, and when the uproar had subsided a little, Bill managed to get a word in.
"Yo're a cheerful lot o' locoed pups," he said. "Just bite on this--the foreman has made me segundo, an' if yu don't watch yore steps I'll shake shinin' hell outa yu."
The grin on his weathered features belied the threat, and with one accord they fell upon him. Under this human avalanche Bill disappeared, and furniture flew in all directions as members of the struggling mass sought for a bit of him to pat. "Hi, that's my ear yo're pulling off," came faintly from the depths of the heaving heap of profanity, and then, "Take yore blame' foot outa my mouth, yu mule," from another sufferer. "Don't yu go chawin' it--I ain't no dawg-food," panted the owner, striving desperately to recover limbs which appeared to have left him. In the height of the confusion the new foreman entered unobserved.
"Seen anythin' o' Yago?" he asked quietly, and then, as the tangled mass disintegrated into units again, permitting the breathless, dishevelled victim to emerge, he added softly, "An' a good time was had by all. Why for the celebration?"
"We was just congratulatin' Bill," Curly explained.
"On bein' the foreman's friend?" Sudden asked slyly.
"No, we're all hopin' to be that," the boy flashed back with a quick smile. "On bein' made segundo; an' I wanta say yu have shore picked the right man, an' that goes for all of us, I reckon."
A chorus of assent came from the others, and Sudden's eyes swept over them approvingly. "Purdie told me he had a good outfit--he was damn right," he said, and turning to his second in command, "Good thing they didn't each want a lock o' yore hair, Bill," with a sardonic glance at the sparse covering of his friend's cranium. "Yu feel able to hobble outside a minute?"
Yago was soon back. "Who's next on the slate for the line-house?" he inquired
"Me is, an' thank Gawd it's a day off yet," Moody replied.
"It ain't," Bill told him. "Yu start right after supper; there's allus to be two there in future. 'Nother thing, we gotta take turns watchin' the ranch-house, nights."
"What's the notion, Bill?" Curly wanted to know. "Anybody liable to steal it?"
"Dunno, but Jim don't do things for no reason," Yago said.
"I'll bet he don't," the boy agreed. "He has a thoughtful eye, that Jim fella." He nodded his head. "I'm thinkin' King Burdette's throne mebbe ain't so secure as he reckons."
Yago grinned. "There's times when yu come mighty near sayin' somethin' sensible," he complimented.
At supper that evening the foreman met the only member of the outfit he had not yet seen, a hatchet-faced youth with a beak of a nose and a saturnine expression, who was presented to him as "Flatty." Sudden's look was a question.
"Real name is Watson, but a piece ago we had to rechristen him," Yago said, and chuckled. "It was shorely funny."
"Tell the yarn, Bill; we didn't all see it," someone urged.
"Well, it was this away," Yago began. "Flatty goes out without his slicker--which was plumb careless--gets wet, an' complains plenty persistent o' pains in his back. It's clear he's sufferin' from rheumatism. Moody claims to know a shore cure, an' Flatty admits he's willin' to try anythin' --once. `Once'll be enough,' Moody tells him, an' as things turned out he was dead right. Follerin' instructions, the patient strips to his middle an' lays face down on the bunkhouse table. Moody spreads a blanket over him, fetches a hot flat-iron from the kitchen, an' begins to run it up an' down Flatty's back. `Which if I had a straight iron I could brand you good an' proper,' he remarks. The patient makes noises signifyin' satisfaction.
"But it ain't too long before Moody discovers that pushin' a heavy flat-iron aroun' is tirin' to the wrist. `This launderin' o' humans is shorely no picnic,' he says, an' stops to spit on his han's an' take a fresh holt. But he forgets that a hot iron gets in its best work standin' still. It don't take the invalid no time a-tall to find this out; he lets go a whoop that would 'a' turned an Injun green with envy an' arches his back like a buckin' pony. The iron mashes two o' Moody's toes, but he don't wait; Flatty's face, emergin' from under the blanket, looks to him like the wrath o' God, an' he aims to be elsewheres when the lightnin' strikes. He makes the door a healthy flea's jump ahead an' points for the small corral, plannin' to climb a hoss, but Flatty is crowdin' him, an' he has to run round it. His busted foot handicaps him, but the pursuin' gent ain't got no suspenders an' has to hold his pants up, which evens things some. Also, Flatty ain't savin' his breath, an' the things he asks his Creator to do to Moody yu wouldn't hardly believe.
"It was shorely funny to see them two skippin' round the corral like a coupla jack-rabbits, Flatty without a stitch above his middle, an' the big red brand o' the iron showin' clear on his back. They does the first lap in record time, an' then Flatty's luck breaks--he stubs his toe on a stump an' flings his han's up to save hisself. An', o' course, that's the minit Miss Nan appears, comin' to get her pony. Flatty gives her one horrified look, grabs his slippin' pants, an' streaks for the bunkhouse. Moody pulls up an' tries to look unconcerned.
"What on earth is the matter with Watson?" Miss Nan asks.
"Just a li'l race," Moody explains. "I bet I could beat him even if he stripped.
"Yo're the poorest liar in the outfit," Miss Nan smiles, an' to this day Moody don't know whether she meant it as a compliment. We gets Flatty smoothed down after a bit--not with the iron this time--an' he consents to let Moody go on breathin', but he'll carry that brand till he caches."
"Which Miss Nan shorely saved yore triflin' life," Flatty grinned at the other actor in the comedy.
"Shucks, I had yu beat a mile," Moody retorted. "What yu gotta belly-ache about, anyways--I cured yu."
The wrangle went on, good-humoured, mordant jests which showed the men were real friends. Sudden listened with a smile; he felt he was going to like this outfit.
About two hours later the new foreman of the C P rode into Windy, added his horse to the dozen or so already attached to the hitch-rail outside "The Plaza," and stepped inside. Smaller than "The Lucky Chance," the saloon differed in little else save that it was rather more ornate; mirrors, and pictures of a sort, adorned the walls, which were of squared logs, and the tables and chairs were of better quality. In many little ways the hand of a woman made itself evident.
But if "The Plaza" was no more than a commonplace Western saloon, it possessed one feature which raised it above the rut--its owner. Seated behind the bar, she looked like a fine jewel in a pinch-beck setting. Her beautiful black hair, plaited and coiled upon her small head, was held in place by a great Spanish comb set with red stones. A flame-coloured dress of silk revealed neck and arms, and on her white bosom, suspended by a slender chain of gold, was a single ruby, gleaming like a new-spilt spot of blood. She had been chatting to the bar-tender and regarding the scene with the indifference of use, but her eyes lit up when Sudden, hat in hand, stepped
up to the bar.
"Ah, my so brave caballero has come to veezit ze poor --how you say--tenderfoot?" she greeted.
"Shucks," he smiled, as he took the slim white hand she extended. "I ain't no more a caballero than yu are a Greaser, an' that pony warn't wantin' to get away from yu--hosses have sense."
She clapped her hands softly. "A compliment, not so?" she laughed.
"Yu oughta know," he said. "Reckon yu get a-plenty."
A little shadow flitted across her face. "True, my friend," she said soberly. "And what are they worth? I'd give them all for one honest word of censure." Then the dancing lights came back into her eyes. "Not that I don't get any of that, you know. Oh yes, from my own sex especially. I am a wicked woman, a brazen hussy, and you'll lose your character if you speak to me."
The cow-puncher grinned. "Fella can't lose what he ain't got--I'm a pretty desperate person my own self," he bantered, for the bitterness behind her gay tone was very apparent. "Also, I never did allow anyone to pick my friends for me."
He saw her face change. "Hell! what's that fool trying to do?" she cried.
Trouble had started at a neighbouring table. A big, blue shirted miner with a coarse, liquor-bloated face was on his on his feet fumbling for a gun at his hip and mouthing curses.
In an instant the girl had slipped from her seat.
"Lemme 'tend to this," Sudden suggested.
"No, I can handle it," she replied.
Raising the flap, she stepped from behind the bar and three quick strides brought her to the trouble-maker just as his weapon left the holster. The men he had been playing with were standing, hands on their own guns, watching him uncertainly.
"Put that gun back and get out of here," the woman said sharply.
The man looked at her, standing slim and straight before him, and for a moment it seemed that he would obey. Then from somewhere in the room came a laugh which bred shame in the drink-sodden mind.
"Yu go to hell," the fellow said thickly. "Think I'm goin' to be ordered about by a booze-slingin'..."
Hardly had the vile epithet left his lips when the girl's hand swept across his cheek with a slap which rang out like a pistol-shot and drew an oath of pain and surprise from the recipient.
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