Sudden: The Range Robbers

by Oliver Strange

  It was a plain statement of fact, with no trace of boast about it, and the cattle-owner knew that the speaker meant just what he said. He had to choose between the two men. For a while he was silent, trying to find a way out. Presently he hit upon one.

  “I ain’t accusin’ yu, an’ Blaynes has been with me for some time,’ he began slowly. “Supposin’ yu stay on the payroll an’ let on yu have quit. I reckon that would give yu more of a free hand.’

  The cowpuncher considered the proposition for a few moments and saw that it possessed advantages. As a mere loafer in town, attached to no ranch, he could not be regarded as a danger by the rustlers, and apart from the personal enmities he had acquired, which troubled him not at all, could expect to oerelieved of their attentions. Another possibility also presented itself.

  “I’ll take yu,’ he said, “but don’t yu forget that I came to ask for my time, an’ yu give it me.’

  “That’s whatever,’ Simon agreed. “We’ve had a hell of a row over yu beatin’ up my foreman, an’ we ain’t on speakin’ terms.’ He produced a roll of bills and peeled off a number of them. “Here’s what’s due to yu, an’ a month’s pay in advance; yu want to be well heeled to hang about town. Where do yu aim to put up?’

  “The hotel—I’ll hear all the news there. Yu had any offers for the range?’

  “Why, no,’ said Simon in surprise, and then, “Well, Tarman did mention a figure, but in was so low that I took it he was jokin’ an’ laughed it off. What yu askin’ that for?’

  “Just a notion I had,’ replied Green. “Well, I’ll be gettin’ my warbags an’ hosses; I’m takin’ Blue Devil with me.’

  “Shore, I gave yu the hoss,’ Simon said.

  The cowpuncher returned to the bunkhouse and began to pack his few belongings. The place was empty save for the invalid, Ginger, the rest of the outfit being abroad on various duties. Blaynes, according to the sick man, had eventually been restored to consciousness, and had departed, vowing all kinds of reprisals.

  “Looks like yu was preparin’ for a long trip,’ was the nearest approach to the question that Ginger would venture on. “Only to town, but I may be there quite a spell,’ said Green. “I’ll be at the hotel if I’m wanted,’ he added meaningly. “So long, Ginger, an’ good luck.’

  The wounded man asked no more, but through the open door he presently saw his friend ride away on Blue, leading his other pony, and drew his own conclusions. When, later in the day, Larry, with Dirty and Simple, rode in, he told them the news and a small indignation meeting was immediately held, which resulted in the three striding determinedly to the ranch-house. That they walked speaks eloquently for the state of their minds, for your cowboy normally will fork his pony to cross a street. Old Simon met them at the door.

  “Well, boys, what’s eatin’ yu,’ he asked, scenting trouble from their perturbed appearance.

  “We understan’ yu fired Green,’ Larry blurted out.

  “Well, what of it?’ asked the boss acidly.

  “We don’t reckon he’s had a square deal, an…’ Larry bogged down.

  “We want our time,’ Dirty came to the rescue.

  “We’re speakin’ for Ginger too,’ added Simple, not to be left out.

  For about ten seconds the old man glared at them in speechless amazement, and then the storm broke :

  “Damnation!’ he roared. “What the devil’s it gotta do with yu if I fire a hand? Have I gotta ask a passel o’ boneheaded cowwrastlers how I’m to run my own ranch? If yu want yore time yu can have it, every mother’s son o’ ye, but if yu got any sense at all yu’ll get to hell out o’ this an’ mind yore own business, an’ I reckon Green’ll tell yu the same if yu ask him. Now, get out, ‘fore I lose my wool over yu.’

  As Dirty put it afterwards, “The depitation then withdrew,’ and the Old Man, with a final snort of disgust, vanished into the office.

  “An’ now where are we?’ disconsolately queried Larry, when they foregathered again at Ginger’s bedside, and informed him of the result of their protest. “Did we resign, were we fired, or are we still “Wise-heads”?’

  “‘Boneheads’ the Old Man called us,’ Dirty reminded. “But he didn’t pay us off, so I reckon we still belong.’

  “One o’ yu ride in tonight an’ see Green,’ suggested Ginger. This seemed a good idea and they cut the cards to decide who should make the trip. The choice fell to Larry, much to the disgust of the other two, which was not decreased when he added cheerfully, “Now yu gotta cut to see which o’ yu takes my place line-ridin’ tonight—I shan’t be back in time likely.’

  “By Gosh, yu got nerve,’ snorted Dirty.

  Nevertheless, being good fellows and good friends, they submitted, and in due course Larry set out in search of the man for whom they had gone on strike. He found him in the bar of the Folly, and far less grateful than the circumstances might seem to warrant. After listening to the emissary’s account of the bearding of their employer and the reception they met with, he remarked :

  “Huh! “Boneheads” he called yu, did he? Well, he got yu dead right. D’yu reckon any self-respectin’ feller is goin’ to let his men dictate to him? I wonder he didn’t fire you straight away.’

  “We did it to help yu,’ Larry reminded him.

  “Shore, I know,’ smiled Green, “but yu get this into yore brainbox—yu can help me the best way by holdin’ down yore jobs at the Y Z. There’s dirty work goin’ on, an’ I’m aimin’ to clean up before I leave the district, for my own satisfaction, yu understand. What yu gotta remember is that I’m an outawork puncher, layin’ off for a spell, an’ not too well disposed to the ranch that give me the bounce. When I want any o’ yu I’ll let yu know. Seen anythin’ o’ Job?’

  “Nope,’ said Larry, “but I hear he’s the maddest man this side o’ the Rockies. Simple ran across Woods an’ he said Leeming damn near blew up when they got back an’ found another lot lifted. These fellers ain’t sleepin’ on their job for shore.’

  “All the same, they’ll be caught nappin’ one o’ these days,’ Green retorted, with a grin.

  “See here, Don,’ wheedled Larry. “What about me cuttin’ loose an’ throwin’ in with yu? The others can look after the ranch end of it, an’ two of us can keep cases on these cutthroats better than one.’

  “Nothin’ doin’,’ was the reply. “I’m playin’ a lone hand for the present. Yu gotta toddle back to the Y Z like a good little boy, be very polite to the foreman, an’ not too kind to me.’

  “That last bit’ll be easy enough, yu hog,’ returned his friend, and with a casual salutation, took his departure just as Tarman, his henchman, Pete, and the marshal came in together. Green had stepped over to the bar and was talking to Silas, to whom he had already confided his rupture with the Y Z, knowing that this would be the speediest way of spreading the version he wished to be known.

  “So yu ain’t quittin’ us for a while,’ the bartender remarked. “Goin’ to tie up with Leeming?’

  The puncher shook his head. “Guess I’ll take a holiday,’ he said. “Might do a bit o’ prospectin’ too; there oughta be gold in some o’ them creeks towards Big Chief.’

  Tarman and his party were beginning a game of cards at a near-by table, and the puncher had spoken loudly enough for the words to reach them. He caught a quick look from the gambler.

  “Old Nugget don’t seem to find much dust; if he does he spends it somewhere else,’ Silas rejoined.

  “I’ve a hunch it’s there anyways, an’ I might as well give her a trial; I’ve got all the time there is,’ Green said carelessly. He stood watching the play for a while and then went out.

  “Huh! Prospectin’, eh?’ said the marshal, as the door closed behind him. “Reckon he won’t get very fat on that. Funny how a busted puncher’s thoughts allus turn to gold-diggin’.’

  “Yu think he meant it then?’ asked Poker Pete.

  “He said it loud enough.’

  “He said it too loud—he meant us to hear.
I’ll want to see him at work afore I swaller that.’

  “Bah! He won’t trouble about us, Pete,’ Tonk said. “He’s through with the Y Z.’

  “No doubt o’ that,’ corroborated Tarman. “I was there this afternoon. He damn near killed Blaynes, an’ Petter is mighty sore over it. He’d be a useful man.’

  The gambler swore luridly. “I’m agoin’ to feed Mister Green to the buzzards,’ he said savagely.

  “I ain’t objectin’, Pete,’ Tarman observed. “But why not use him first? Think it over.’

  The man’s voice was quiet, silken almost, but it carried a note of authority to which the gambler offered no further resistance. Tarman smiled. “Get him to the Fort an’ put it to him—one o’ the boys there can do it, a stranger, o’ course. If he throws in, well an’ good; if he don’t keep him there.’

  The emphasis on the last three words brought a meaning smile to the faces of his listeners, and Pete was quick to agree: “Yo’re right, Joe, as usual; that’s the play to make. I’ll put California on the job—he’s done some prospectin’ in his time, an’ he ain’t known here.’ Tarman nodded his approval, and the game proceeded.

  On leaving the Folly, Green went to the store, where he purchased a small hatchet, a miner’s pick, a shovel, and a shallow pan for washing dirt. He also replenished his stock of ammunition and tobacco, and laid in a varied assortment of provisions.

  ‘Goin a-travellin’?’ asked the storekeeper.

  “Takin’ a lintle holiday—got sick o’ poundin’ beasts,’ explained the customer. “Got any fishhooks?’

  “Shore I have—if I can find ‘em. Yu aimin’ to combine business an’ pleasure?’

  “Yu called it—that’s just my idea. When I get tired o’ diggin’ up nuggets I’ll catch me a trout or two for supper.’

  “Reckon yu will get more fish than gold,’ laughed the old man, “though I dunno why there shouldn’t be some good pickin’s; it was there once.’

  Having arranged for his purchases to be sent to the hotel, the puncher returned there himself, satisfied with the evening’s work. He had recognised that some good excuse for his remaining in Hatchett’s was essential, and that it must be one that would explain solitary excursions into the surrounding country. So he had made his bluff and with customary thoroughness intended to carry it through. That Tarman was in some way mixed up with the rustling he now felt convinced, and also that it was Laban who had so neatly circumvented the attempt to recover the stolen Frying Pan herd.

  Broad smiles broke out on the faces of early risers in Hatchett’s next morning when they saw a cowboy riding slowly along the street upon a pony whose air was clearly one of chastened disgust at being festooned with the unusual implements which constitute the impedimenta of a prospector. Green returned the smiles and replied in kind to the various jocular greetings. He welcomed these effusions, for they signified that he was being taken seriously. Two miles out of town he had an encounter which pleased him still more when Noreen loped round a bend in the trail. He snanched his hat off as she pulled up and surveyed his baggage with patent amusement.

  “I’m glad you didn’t inflict that on Blue, it would have broken his heart,’ she said, and then, her face sobering, “Why have you left the Y Z?’

  “Me an’ the foreman had an argument,’ he replied gravely, but the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes were much in evidence, and she knew that he was anything but downcast. She determined to punish him.

  “Dad told me you nearly killed Blaynes,’ she said severely. “I’m afraid you’re of a quarrelsome disposition—we seem to have had nothing but trouble since you came.’

  The reproof did not have the effect she expected, for the recipient grinned widely, and asked, “Yu blamin’ me for the rustlin’ too?’

  “You know I did not mean that,’ the girl replied indignantly. “Why do you always put me in the wrong?’

  “Must be my quarrelsome disposition,’ he returned, and then, noting the expression on her face, added, “I shore am a trouble-hunter, yu see.’

  His quizzically woebegone air dispersed her resentment and she smiled as she said, “You have certainly made a lot of enemies. Why don’t you go away?’

  “Do yu want me to?’ he countered.

  The blunt question made her hesitate. For some reason which she did not attempt to account for she knew that she would be sorry if he took her advice but, of course, she could not tell him so.

  “I am still in your debt, and I naturally do not wish that harm should come to you,’ she fenced.

  “Yu don’t owe me anythin’,’ he replied. “As for enemies, well I reckon the man who never makes any don’t amount to much. I ain’t runnin’ away.’

  “You are risking your life just for a matter of pride?’ she queried.

  “That, an’—other things,’ he smiled. “Yu see, I’ve a hunch there’s a gold-mine around here, an’ I aim to locate it.’

  Noreen gathered up her reins. She did not in the least believe he was staying to hunt gold, but she knew he would not tell her anything he did not want to—he was not the type.

  “I sincerely hope you will be fortunate,’ she said.

  “Thank you, ma’am, if I get what I’m hopin’ for I’ll be more than that,’ the puncher said, and again there was the look in his eyes which had stirred her pulses once before in the street at Hatchett’s. At the touch of the spur her pony jumped forward, and with a wave of the hand she was gone. Green watched until a turn in the trail took her from sight, and then resumed his way.

  ‘She shore didn’t want me to clear out, but shucks, there ain’t nothin’ to that,’ he mused. “Reckon if our ears was longer, hoss, we’d make a fair pair o’ jackasses, so don’t yu go puttin’ on any frills either.’

  It was towards noon when he reached the blind canyon, for he had travelled by devious ways; it was possible that his movements might be watched and he wished his choice of a locality to commence operations to appear haphazard. Several times during the journey he had paused and investigated certain spots as though considering them. He now did the same as he stood on the bank of the stream, about halfway along the canyon, and then he spoke aloud: “She’ll do. I reckon there oughta be colour in them sands, an’ there’s shore enough trout in the pools below. Anyway, she’s a dandy place for a camp.’

  He led his horse back to a strip of grass which stretched from the shady bank of the stream to the overhanging cliff which formed one of the walls of the canyon, stripped the animal and tethered it with his rope. Then winh his axe he attacked a nearby thicket and cut a number of light poles. With these, and the strippings from them, he soon erected a lean-to shelter, choosing a spot where the rock-face shelved and formed a shallow cave. In this he deposited his baggage, and having lighted a fire, began to prepare a meal. This despatched, he pottered about the camp making his hut more weatherproof, cutting additional fuel, and gathering spruce-tops for his bed. Presently he took the spade and the shallow pan and went down to the stream to make his first bid for fortune. He found it hard and disappointing work, for no sign of the precious metal rewarded his efforts.

  “Durn it, this ain’t goin’ to be such a picnic as I thought,’ he soliloquised. “Guess I’ll have to look around for likelier spots.’

  He tried several other places with the same result, and at length flung down his tools in disgust and went a-fishing. Here he met with more success and soon three speckled beauties lay on the grass beside him. He broiled them for his supper and turned in. On the following morning he again tackled the search for wealth and found it no more successful or attractive than it had been the day before. But he stuck manfully to it, for he was conscious of a conviction that he was not alone in the canyon. Therefore, he was not so surprised as he appeared to be when a rider came ambling along the bank of the stream on which he was working, and pulled up to watch with a cordial greeting of, “Howdy, stranger.’ Green returned the salutation, while his quick eyes gathered the details of the newcomer’
s appearance. He was evidently a cowhand, about forty, with a clean-shaven, open face, good-humour in every line of it. Hecarried a revolver at his hip and had a winchester on the saddle. He was riding a pinto horse the brand on which Green could not see. Pushing back his big sombrero, the visitor said: “Findin’ much?’

  Green, kneeling over the pan, grinned up at him. “Plenty dirt,’ he replied, “but not a smidgin’ o’ gold so far.’

  The stranger looked around. “Seems a likely place,’ he remarked. “But that’s the funny thing ‘bout minin’; yu never can tell.’

  “I take it yo’re speakin’ from experience.’

  “Shore I am—wasted part o’ my life in California. Meanin’ no offence, I take it yu are new at this game.’

  “Yu take it correct; I reckon I must seem plumb clumsy.’

  The other man laughed. “Everythin’ has to be learned, an’ yu shore are makin’ yoreself in a mess. Lemme show yu the trick of it.’

  Dismounting from his horse, he trailed the reins, and took the pan of dirt Green was beginning to wash. In about half the time the novice had required the pan was empty save for a tiny residue of sand which the operator scanned eagerly, and then threw out.

  “Not a colour,’ he said. “Well, let’s try her again.’

  “Yu shore have got that there pannin’ business thrown an’ tied,’ Green remarked, as he watched the deft hands of the expert. “I’m hopin’ yu’ll stay an’ eat with me; my camp’s just handy.’

  “Yu bet I will. I’m short on grub an’ got a goodish way to go,’ replied the other.

  The puncher left him busy with his self-imposed task and went to prepare a meal. A few fortunate casts provided him with fish, and when, in response to his hail, the visitor reached the camp, an appetising odour of broiled trout and coffee greeted him. Facing his host, cross-legged on the grass, he attacked the food like a hungry man.

  “Say, these fish is prime,’ he remarked presently. “Yu may be a mite awkward with a gold-pan but with a frying-pan yo’re ace-high.’