Silvertip's Strike

by Brand, Max

  She made a sweeping gesture.

  “He’ll have the men clear off the whole place. He’ll have them clear off every cow on the place and all the horses. Every head of live stock will be up there in the foothills, somewhere, within four or five hours. Because Danny says that the men have been drifting everything north for days. They have them ready, now, for a quick push.”

  Silver nodded. “That’s what Rutherford will do,” he agreed.

  Farrel looked painfully down at the table, before he began to shake his head.

  “You’re right,” he said. “There’s not time enough to let us get to town and back. There never was time enough for that. There’s only the pair of us against the nine of them — plus a lot of others that we don’t know anything about!”

  He took a good swallow of coffee. The girl was watching him with a peculiar anxiety. Silver watched him, too. Farrel was no lover of danger. That was clear. But he had two senses. One was of honor and one was of duty. They pinched and whitened his face, but at last he was able to lift his head.

  “All right,” he said quietly to Silver. “I didn’t see, at first, just what I was heading for. Now I see and I’ll go through with it if I can.”

  “You know the lay of the land,” said Silver. “What ought we to do, Danny?”

  Farrel brushed his knuckles across his forehead and left three parallel streaks of white from the greatness of the pressure.

  He flung out a hand behind him, pointing north.

  “They’ll scoop ’em all up and throw ’em into one of the two valleys,” he declared. “They’ll sweep ’em into the gap between the foothills of the Farrel Mountains and the hills below Mount Humphreys. Or else they’ll drive through between the Humphreys Mountains and the Kendal Hills. That’s the easiest way.”

  Silver nodded. “After that?” he suggested.

  “Well,” said Farrel slowly, as though he were willing to let his mind dwell on the details, “after that they’ll have no trouble. They’ll split the big herd into little sections and wind ’em through the mountains. You can depend upon it, if I’m right and they’re ready to make their sale, somewhere up there in the mountains there are a lot of punchers ready to grab the herd for Sam Waring and push it away to markets that we don’t know anything about. You could sprinkle ten million cows through those mountains and make it hard for anything but hawks to find ’em!”

  “That’s what they’ll do then,” said Silver calmly. “I believe every word that you say. But what about the pair of us? What can we do to stop ’em?”

  Farrel stirred uneasily in his chair.

  “Well,” he said at last, “I don’t know. First, we’ll have to spot the way they’re taking. That means that we’ll have to separate. You go to the head of the valley between Humphreys and Kendal. I’ll go to the head of the valley between Humphreys and Farrel Mountain. The one who sees the drift of cattle coming can climb the high hill at the foot of Humphreys. Know that hill?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll spot it easily enough. It stands up like a spur, all by itself. A fire lighted on that hill can be seen in both valleys. It will be the call which tells the other fellow that he’s wanted. And when the herd comes — and you and I are both together — well, then Heaven alone can tell what we’ll be able to do!”

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE SIGNAL FIRE

  It was not so much the courage of Farrel that moved Silver, though it was a stirring thing to see the way the man drove his unwilling mind, as it was the strength of the girl. Not once did she falter.

  The horses had been cleared out of the big corral, as a matter of course, by the retiring men of Rutherford and Delgas. But there were others in more distant fields. Silver went out on Parade and daubed a rope on a strong-looking mustang that led its herd in the effort to escape but could not lead fast enough to run away from the devouring stride of Parade. He brought that horse back and saddled it while Farrel said good-by to the girl.

  She was as steady as a rock, saying good-by. Silver, when he took her hand, said:

  “You have to stay alone, here, and I know that’s hard to do. You have to let Dan go with me. And that’s harder still. You’re a brick, and I’m not forgetting it.”

  That was all. He made her no promises of reward because he felt that such talk would be an insult to a spirit like hers. Then he rode off at the side of Farrel. They were well-armed, well-mounted, and they had their wits about them. But as they got under way and as the outlines of the foothills drew nearer to them under the brightness of the moonlight, the thing looked more and more hopeless to Silver.

  Farrel drew up his horse presently and pointed off to the right.

  “That’s your way, Jim,” said he. “Ride up the valley there between the foothills. When you get to the head of it, you can wait. If my idea’s right, those punchers are sweeping in the cows right now, out of the desert behind us. Once they get the herd together and start it rolling, it will move fast because these cows can run and keep on running like horses. They can be pushed like a big gang of mustangs. You’ll hear ’em coming before you see ’em, maybe. And when you hear ’em pointing up your valley, climb the hill that will be off to the side — you won’t miss it — and light the fire. If I don’t see the red of the fire in this moonlight, I’ll spot the rising of the smoke. Is that all straight?”

  “That’s all straight,” said Silver. Then he added:

  “I’d very much like to know the top thing in your mind, right now.”

  “Why,” said Farrel, “I’m thinking about Steve Wycombe. Wherever he is, if he knows what’s happening on earth, he must be laughing. See the way it’s all working out for him! He split up his land among three men, and now he’s got a first-rate chance that they’ll cut each other’s throats for the sake of his land. He’s got a ten-to-one chance that you’ll go down, anyway. And you’re the one that bumped him off. Oh, Steve’s laughing good and hard now, all right.”

  Silver nodded. “Let him laugh,” he murmured. “One chance in ten isn’t bad, when the stakes run high. Every man bets on a long shot, now and then. That’s the spice of life.”

  Farrel stared back at him. Silver could feel the eyes under the black mask of shadow that fell across the forehead of his companion.

  “I’d like to know one thing, Jim,” said Farrel. “What’s the top layer in your mind, just now?”

  “The white of Rutherford’s face,” said Silver instantly. “And the blue of the eyes of your girl. I hope that you get back to her. But — so long, Danny!”

  He shook hands with Farrel, and saw the puncher jog his mustang off to the left until it was out of sight beyond the first of the low-rolling hills that descended from the mighty knees of Mount Humphreys.

  It was a bitter business, and he wondered how he could be justified by any sense of higher right in allowing this man to ride into the danger. Yet something sure and strong in the nature of Silver told him that he was right. If all worked out as he faintly hoped it might, there would be a reward for his friend, and such a reward was worth working for.

  He kept telling himself that.

  A wolf howled from the hillside, unseen. The doleful sound roused Jim Silver to action. He spoke, and Parade stepped out into a trot, then into a long and sweeping gallop that started him up the wide mouth of the valley, with the hills walking slowly back behind him to either side.

  Nothing lived around him, and yet everything seemed at wait, the cactus with its black spot of shadow beside it, the crouching shapes of the hills themselves, and the narrow mouths of the ravines that opened ominously toward him as he went by. It was a moment not easy on the nerves; he wondered how big Dan Farrel was handling the thing.

  He thought of Steve Wycombe, too, who had planned his revenge on his enemies so cunningly, as he lay dying. Poison was usually put in food; this was poison placed in rich possessions. Truly Farrel was right, and the soul of Wycombe must be laughing at thought of the evil he had left behind him on earth.
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br />   When Silver got up to the head of the valley, where the hills pinched together, he dismounted, let Parade graze on the dusty tufts of grass, here and there, and smoked a cigarette while he walked up and down.

  The night was perfectly still now. It seemed as though the slightest sound must necessarily trouble and dim the pure outline of the hills against the moonlight in the sky.

  He fell into a mood of absolute quiet. This sort of a time of stillness was, after all, nearer and dearer to him than anything else in life. Neither man nor woman could enter his heart so deeply. So he sat like a stone, only his eyes moving, as he heard Parade crop the grass with slight ripping noises like the tearing of bits of cloth.

  He had been there for a long time when, looking up the slope toward the isolated hill of which Farrel had spoken, he saw a red flower bloom in the steep shadow of a rock high above. He knew that it was the signal fire by which Dan Farrel was calling to him for help.

  CHAPTER XIV

  A RECEPTION COMMITTEE

  Dan Farrel, when he trotted his horse away from Silver and up the shallow mouth of the valley that lay between the sprawling hills of the Farrel Mountains and those that descended from Mount Humphreys, felt with every beat of the mustang’s right forefoot that he must rein the little horse around and return to tell Silver frankly: “I’m not in this game. I haven’t the nerve. I can’t do it. The cattle don’t belong to me. The land doesn’t belong to me. I’m out of the picture.”

  That would have been talking the way he felt. And finally he swung the mustang sharply around only to find that the lower foothills from the Humphreys range had crawled between him and Silver. He was alone. With the moonlight gleaming in the desert dust, he seemed to be sitting in a thin, ground mist. The hammering of his heart made it hard for him to breathe; it was as though he were submerged in water.

  The air was warm enough. He knew that. And yet there was cold inside him. It seemed to come out of the moonlight and run into the marrow of his bones.

  “You’re a yellow dog,” he told himself.

  His throat worked on the words. He remembered how he had sat at the table, that night, and how Jim Silver had drawn guns to protect him.

  “You’re a yellow dog!” he said, out loud.

  The bigness of his own voice amazed him. He turned his horse around and made it walk up the flat of the valley. As for fellows like Silver, why should they be praised for courage when, as a matter of fact, the God that made them had given them different nerves, different capacities? Does one praise a cat for its skill in catching a bird? No, one simply admires the delicate craftsmanship of nature which can bring foot and eye to such perfection. Does one eulogize the hawk that blows on an easy wing across the heavens?

  Then why should Silver be worshiped like a glorious thing when he was simply one of nature’s special products, one of her fine elaborations? His eye was surer, his hand was swifter. He could take a fellow like that husky lad, Red, and paralyze him with a grip. At a single gesture he showed himself to be beyond the ken of ordinary people. And as a type of his superiority there was the horse he rode which, to other mustangs, was as an eagle to a crow. From the pursuit of Silver no man in open country could escape. From the pursuit of others, he could easily drift away.

  So Farrel kept telling himself over and over again that he was a fool, that he had no business trying to follow the seven-league strides of Jim Silver. And yet, all the while something inside him made him know that he would not give up this fight until bullets or blows had forced him out of it.

  He got up to the head of the valley, dismounted, threw the reins off the mustang, and started walking up and down. He was caught, he felt. He was enslaved by an idea, a sense of pride and duty. Was there not a story of the Roman sentinel who kept at his post as the city burned, simply because no orders had come relieving him? And he, Danny Farrel, was like that. He was being a blind and automatic machine. He would get no glory for it, only a hard-nosed bullet out of a Winchester to nudge the life out of him and turn him into food for buzzards.

  He looked up the slope of the signal hill, again and again, each time half expecting to see the fire. He was not sure that he would be able to spot the flame. It was perhaps only the dim shimmer of the smoke as it rose through the moonlight that he would be able to distinguish. Or would Silver light the fire in the shadow of a certain tall rock, so that the flames would look out with a redder eye?

  He walked up to the top of a low hummock from which he had a better view of the lower valley. He could look out onto the desert itself, which appeared as a thicker streak of mist in the distance.

  He came down again to the horse. There was a sudden bond between him and that roach-backed, ewe-necked gelding. He could remember it as a yearling, as a two-year-old. A good set of legs and a body that was like a question mark. Just an ordinary dull-witted, stubborn, headstrong, savage little animal, but now the pressure of fear brought Farrel close to the horse.

  The stock of the Winchester that protruded out of the saddle holster was another comfort like the face of a friend. He pulled the gun out, and after handling it a moment, he put it back inside the cover.

  If he had had any sense, he would have spent time every day practicing. He would have known that, sooner or later, his life might depend upon his marksmanship. He would have known that it was better to waste a few cartridges for half an hour a day than it was to come to a moment like this. He told himself that therein lay the difference, in part, between himself and men who got on in the world. Fellows like Delgas and Rutherford, for instance, were willing to practice their card tricks and their gun work for hours every free day. That meant that they were prepared when the pinches came, the golden opportunities which so often went hand in hand with terrible dangers.

  But as for himself, what was he, and what had he done? He was merely a growth from the soil and attached to it by a blind affection and yearning. He was a thing all root and no tree, like the twisted mesquite. And his labors had been given to riding herd, building fences, doctoring sick cows, tailing them out of mud-holes, keeping the night watch, singing to the dogies, breaking mean, down-headed horses, patching sheds. Why, when he died and went over the rim of things into the other world, the ghosts of real men would laugh at him when he tried to describe the still, strange beauty of the desert and the way the three mountains climbed up the northern sky.

  He sighed, and then went up to the top of the hummock from which he could look out to the desert. It was just the same with some difference that he could not spot, some small difference.

  Then, his mind clearing, he knew what the change was. The sheen of desert dust under the moon was no longer a low, thin streak. It rose much higher, as though a wind were blowing straight up the valley. But something more than the wind might cause the dust to rise.

  He looked up at the sky and studied the thin patches of clouds for a moment. No, there was no wind.

  So he hurried to his horse, with his heart beating very fast. Still, he must not merely guess, in this fashion. He must not call to Silver with an entirely false alarm.

  He threw himself down on the ground and pressed his ear to it. At first he thought that he could hear a distant sound, but finally he knew that it was only the rushing of the blood through the arteries of his head. That noise grew dim, disappeared. Then he could really listen and make out a subdued murmuring. No, it was a rhythm, a pulse, and nothing more. He lay there still, holding his breath, and strained every nerve.

  Then he distinguished it clearly — the noise of many, many hoofs trampling.

  He was on the back of the mustang in a moment, staring under the shadow of both hands. Now, clearly, he could see the rising of the dust. He thought that he could even make out the twistings of the upper layers of it as the herd entered the mouth of the valley. Perhaps, if the men riding point had sent out a scout well ahead, the puncher in the lead might not be far from him at that moment.

  But he gave only a casual glance to the floor of the valley
about him. Anger such as he could hardly believe in himself was surging and rising in him. He cast a glance toward the mountains, and marked the jet-black, zigzag traceries of the innumerable canyons against the brightness of the smoother slopes. Once the herd reached that hole-in-the-wall country, pursuit would simply be ridiculous. And therefore, all the early work of his life would be wiped out. It would more than be wiped out. It would be cast into the hands of the two scoundrels, Delgas and Harry Rutherford.

  The heat of his anger dissolved all fear. He put the mustang at the slope, and the little horse went up the rough and graveled surface with perfect certainty, straining, throwing itself into its labor as though it perfectly understood.

  Right up toward the top they went until they reached that high rock which the glance of Farrel had picked out before this. There was plenty of brush for the kindling of a fire. However, he did not want a great deal. Even the smallest eye of red was likely to meet not only the eye of Silver, in the valley beneath, but also the attention of the men handling the herd, and on a night like this they would be on edge with nervous suspicions.

  The brush was tough sage. He tore up some small bushes. The wood resisted his hands when he stripped off the branches. However, he rapidly made a small pile. The leaves which he had shaken off he swept together in a heap, and put a match to them. The flame caught in them. There was a crinkling sound. The red of the fire disappeared. A thickening white smoke went up. The breath of it was pungent and sweet to him. It reminded him of a thousand open camp fires that he had kindled before this, but never had he struck a match that might lead to what would follow now!

  The flame burst up through the center of the leaves in a small volcanic eruption of red. He put on little branches of the sage. It burned with a greasy crackling. He put on the larger brush. He stood back and watched the red flower bloom in the shadow of the rock.

  He had built it right on the farther edge of this little shoulder, yet it seemed to him that the feeble glow of the flame could not possibly walk so far through the moonlight as to come to the eyes of Jim Silver, in the valley beneath.