“He couldn’t get away with it,” snorted Graham. “And besides, he’s a cattleman and always has been one. A real cattleman doesn’t do such tricks.”
“No? Well, you’d sure be surprised at some of the tricks I’ve known ’em to pull, and I’ve never seen one yet that would reason when it came to sheep or in dealing with anybody mixed up with sheep. I think Lamby lied about the number of cattle he’s lost, and if he’ll lie about that, he’ll lie about other things. One point I’m sure of … if it was just a case of outside rustling, the range would rise up and drive the outlaws out. It can be done.”
Having delivered himself of this speech, Davitt rose as if to go.
“Sit down a minute,” Graham said earnestly. “I may as well tell you that the bank is interested in this. Every stockman has to borrow money and we’re here to lend it. Naturally we expect to get it back with interest. If there was a big rustling scare right now it would attract rustlers clear from the border. Now you know another reason why I want to go at this business quietly. I really don’t know what inside conditions are. That’s why I recommended you.”
The banker tapped his desk with his fingers and looked Davitt squarely in the eyes as he finished.
“That’s saying a straight mouthful,” said Davitt. “Is there anything else you can tell me that’ll help me to figure this thing out? I haven’t got much to work on, you know.”
“Not a thing,” Graham replied soberly.
“You don’t believe Hull knows anything about the rustling?”
“I don’t believe he knows a thing about it. I have a way to make him tell if he knows anything. Between you and me, he has everything to lose and nothing to gain by making trouble on this range.”
Davitt rose again from his chair. “All right,” he said crisply, his eyes narrowing, “now I’ll tell you something. It isn’t any baby outfit of amateurs that’s stealing these cattle. They mean business. There’s going to be shooting of the worst kind before this is over. If anybody concerned is holding anything back from me, or tries to put anything over on me, he’ll find himself on the wrong end, that’s all.”
“I hear there’s been shooting already,” Graham said with a frown.
“A barroom misunderstanding,” scoffed Davitt.
“I hear, too, that you’ve split with that upstart puncher, Granger,” said Graham, giving Davitt a keen look. “He could make a mess of things easy enough.”
“Things will make a mess of themselves without any help,” Davitt said mysteriously. “Did Hull tell his foreman, Quigley, about my being asked to take a hand?”
“He probably did. Quigley’s been with him a long time.”
“Well, it’s a nice day,” Davitt said, as he left the office.
He went out of the bank with a grim smile playing on his lips. From the banker he had learned the sum total of nothing, in so far as a hint indicating who might be stealing the cattle was concerned. He had merely verified his suspicions that both Lamby and Hull were into the bank for heavy loans, and that it was Graham who had suggested that he be called in in the first place because the banker wished to protect his collateral and do so without disturbing the range in general. This could hardly be called selfish on Graham’s part. It was good business at the expense of the stockmen. Yet something in Lamby’s manner had convinced Davitt that he had acceded to Graham’s demands unwillingly. Davitt was annoyed because he could not put his finger definitely on a clue. Everything was under cover, unless Buck had stumbled into something that morning. But Davitt was of determined caliber.
He returned to the room in the hotel. He could not shake off the feeling that invisible eyes had noted his movements. But as he was a stranger in the town he could not distinguish other strangers from habitants or regular frequenters of the place. Although he had kept his eyes alert, he had seen nothing of Screw-eye, nor anyone answering the description Buck had given him of Trawler. He stood still in the center of the room struck by the realization that he actually missed Buck Granger. For several years Davitt had been a lone rider. He had welcomed the companionship of the jovial, happy cowpuncher. He was conscious of an inward glow of supreme satisfaction that his first estimate of Buck had been correct. For Buck was honest and frank, fearless and capable, with many of Davitt’s own devil-may-care characteristics, and—most important of all—Buck possessed a delicious sense of humor.
Davitt had not felt altogether comfortable about drawing Buck into an adventure which might prove exceedingly dangerous. He had opened the way for the cowpuncher to decide that a good stake in the bank, and a steady place, with an excellent chance for promotion, was better than being with him in a dangerous undertaking, the outcome of which was far from certain. He half hoped that Buck would give up thought of participation in the enterprise. But there was a wistful look in Davitt’s eyes as he considered this.
“He knows, doggone him, that I’m going to take the Horseshoe trail,” Davitt muttered, looking about vacantly. “It’s the worst of the three ways to the Triangle range, and the badlands are a natural hideout. He knew I was testing him with the we’re-quits bluff. I wonder if I’ll meet him.”
His eyes flashed clear and a stern look came to his face. A different Davitt than had sauntered down to the bank a short time before. He turned to his open pack, spread out on the floor. From it he took his cartridge belt and gun and cleaning kit and put them on the table. Then he changed his clothes.
The neat blue suit was switched for a black sateen shirt, dark trousers, heavier socks. The polished riding boots were put aside for a worn pair, pulled on over his pants bottoms. Spurs now jingled when he stepped about. A blue silk scarf was substituted for the cravat he had worn. A Stetson that had seen hard service replaced the elegant beaver-plush headpiece that had won such admiration.
Davitt sat down by the table and carefully cleaned and oiled his gun. He spun the cylinder until it seemed on ball bearings. He fanned the hammer until it almost appeared as a shadow. And finally, he fondled it, slid it back and forth in the palm of his hand, admiring its balance, and slipped it into its holster.
He put his yellow slicker aside and wrapped his clothes carefully in a piece of thin canvas, carried for the purpose. This he would leave for safekeeping in the hotel. Done up in his slicker would be only some sandwiches and other emergency food and some coffee and sugar, and extra cartridges and his cleaning kit. He would travel light.
And all this time, while he went about his preparations with methodical thoroughness, his brain was busy. There was no place in his thoughts for anything of a trivial nature. Worms as clues, indeed. Davitt’s lips tightened firmly.
At six o’clock he went down to supper. After the meal he went to the livery and made sure of the directions to Lamby’s ranch house. The road swung north at the west end of the main street, as he already knew. He made inquiries in the event that word of his going, and his direction, would be given out.
The twilight was blending into night when he rode out of town at a canter. He turned up trail number one and put his mount to a swinging lope. He kept close watch over his shoulder but glimpsed no pursuing shadow. Five miles out on the north road he swung east across the open plain in a spurt. He crossed trail number two, the dim road which led to the boundary between the Triangle and the Hull range. Then he swerved a bit south and in another half hour picked up the trail that wound up the snaky course of the stream and then veered northeast toward the shadow of Horseshoe Butte, which loomed dimly against the low-hanging stars.
He got off his horse presently and examined the trail, even feeling of it with his open hand. It would not be good policy to light a match to look more closely. But he was certain the fresh tracks left by a horse were there. He mounted swiftly and sped at a fast pace.
The level prairie became disturbed and rolled with occasional dips into shallow washes and coulees which the trail skirted. Ridges appeared. Horseshoe frowned c
loser. The sky was studded with stars but there was no moon. The shadows danced, gathered, and broke apart as he surmounted the rises, formed blots in the washes, black streaks in the narrow deep ravines. Clumps of trees and willows appeared in the occasional wet places. The going became rough.
Then, far ahead, two pinpoint flashes of red winked.
Davitt leaned forward and shook out his reins. His horse broke into a gallop.
Chapter Fifteen
Buck Granger trotted out of town on the south road shortly after high noon. He wore his hat at a saucy angle over his right eye, whistled merrily, and to all appearances was headed for his home ranch after an enjoyable and profitable holiday. In truth Buck was in excellent humor. He had surmised almost from the moment when Davitt had first addressed him in the lobby before Lamby that Davitt was simulating displeasure for effect. Davitt didn’t want the town at large to know that Buck was associated with him in the new job. It was just as well, Buck decided, to keep the public in the dark as to their movements. He had sufficient faith in Davitt to respect the latter’s notions. He grinned when he thought of the clumsy way in which Davitt had given him an opportunity to back out. He sensed that Davitt didn’t want him to do any such thing, and it went without saying that he had no such intentions. The very fact that Davitt might possibly be worried about the outcome of the rustling investigation convinced Buck that Davitt expected fast and dangerous work. The reckless light of wild adventure sparkled in Buck’s eyes. He even whistled cheerfully, and his horse caught this spirit of wild abandon, pricked up its ears, and pranced like a thoroughbred.
Buck laughed with sheer delight. “Horse, you won’t feel like dancing before this trick is over, or the buckaroo who’s forking you will miss his guess,” he sang.
The horse single-footed prettily down the dusty road. Buck looked back through the golden, spinning dust spirals to where the green setting of the town was shading to a drab gray in the brilliant sunshine as the distance lengthened. He was looking for a telltale dust cloud that might indicate that he was being followed. But the town’s shadow was blotted out and faded from view, with no such signal appearing.
With no one in sight, Buck increased his pace and galloped along the verdant banks of the stream. He stopped whistling and smiling, and the alert light in his eyes changed to a look of eagerness. Buck was familiar with almost every square mile of the north range and he thought with no small measure of satisfaction that Davitt, who was a stranger in the district, needed his services as guide. Presently he came to stony ground where the shod hoofs of his horse struck fire from small rocks and raised no dust. His gaze now was fixed on the trees that lined the banks of the stream. He grunted with satisfaction when he saw a rift of horizon blue through the leafy branches. He turned abruptly off the road and soon was in a gravel-floored gully riding down, hugging his horse’s neck, with the branches arching over him. Soon he splashed through the shallow waters of a ford in the stream with hard footing underneath.
As he rode up the steep sandy bank on the opposite side he came into a clear, grassy space among some twisted thorn-apple trees. Here he drew rein, dismounted, and tossed the loose reins over his horse’s head to dangle while the animal grazed. With the natural respect of a top hand for his favorite mount’s well-being and comfort, he loosened the single cinch of his stock saddle. Then Buck proceeded to lighten his slicker pack by doing his town clothes up in a neat bundle, using some newspapers for a wrapper, and tying the pack with a rawhide thong. He secreted the pack in a miniature rock cave in the bank of the stream.
“And if a chipmunk gives ’em to a muskrat, I won’t be losing much,” he said aloud gaily.
Next, he folded some food rations he had brought along into his slicker and tied it to the rear of his saddle. His trail preparations completed, he sat down on a tuft of bunch grass and leaned comfortably against the trunk of a cottonwood. From this position he could see through the rift in the line of trees and glimpse any rider who might come along the road from any direction.
A man bred and raised in primitive open country possesses the soothing faculty of communing with nature and his own soul without wearisome brain effort or conscious perception of the passage of time. As proof of this an Indian never had need of a sedative. Instead of worrying his mind with conjectures and deductions having to do with the work at hand, Buck lapsed into a reverie, rolling and puffing and relighting brown-paper cigarettes while the sun slipped down the serrated peaks of the western mountains. During those hours the only activity he saw on the road was a passing buckboard bearing some rancher homeward. At sunset he ate two sandwiches of cold beef between thick slices of bread and refreshed himself at a spring that trickled into the stream. Then he watered his horse, tightened his saddle cinch, and struck out of the trees across the undulating reaches of prairie to the Horseshoe Butte trail.
When the twilight lost its seductive purple and deepened into night with the first stars scattered like glowing lanterns in the sky, Buck found himself some miles northwest of the point where the east road led out of town. He had seen no one. He had not expected to meet Davitt this early, yet he had seen what he assumed were fresh tracks in the trail he was following. Either Davitt had passed that way ahead of him, which he doubted, or another rider was making for the Horseshoe country. This last possibility aroused Buck’s natural instinct for caution.
In traversing the washes, where his horse’s hoofs echoed dully on the hard gumbo, and in skirting the shadowy depths of ravines and coulees, he drew his gun and held it close to him between the pommel of his saddle and his waist, where it could not easily be seen but would be ready for instant action. He rode slowly now, walking his horse. This was to give Davitt quick opportunity of overtaking him.
Although he had left the stream, he was really cutting across an area of broken prairie lying in a great bend of the same stream that curved around to the east toward the opening in Horseshoe Butte. He could see the dark band of shadow made by the trees along the banks of the river directly ahead, with the black bulk of the butte looming behind it. The point where the stream swung in below the butte marked the beginning of a rugged, tumbled district known as the badlands. Here the river flowed down from due north, passing a mile west of the butte near the southwestern corner of Hull’s range.
As Buck approached the river slowly he came to a long, gradual ascent where the prairie climbed up to the line of trees. He could barely make out the thin ribbon of trail, but the footing was sound on the path worn through the grass. He had climbed halfway, when, after a searching glance at the shadowy waste behind, he urged his horse on up the ascent at a fast pace.
He could feel the muscles and strong body of his gallant mount bunch and heave under him as the horse lunged forward and literally cleared the remaining distance in a series of mighty bounds. As he reached the top of the rise, Buck’s gun was out and held close on his left side under his left arm.
He had scarcely reached the level when he brought his horse to a quick stop and gave vent to a smothered exclamation. On the left the line of trees was broken, the bank of the stream was clear and fell away in a sheer drop of ten feet or more to a wide pool. Above the pool the water seemed barely moving and alive with silver spangles that reflected the light of the stars. On the edge of the steep bank an object which Buck had thought to be a stump, or a rock of fantastic contour proved to be the silhouette of a man. He was sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the cliff, a slender rod in his hands, and as Buck caught the flash of the nickel reel he realized the man was fishing.
Buck stared with open-mouthed wonder. Such fishing as he himself had done had been of an early morning or evening and he had invariably used artificial flies. But he had heard of large trout being caught at night, particularly on starlit nights, with a baited hook.
The profile of the fisherman disappeared as the man turned to look at him, and Buck noted he was short, slender, and slightly hunched. Buck
walked his horse forward a few paces and slipped from the saddle, still keeping his gun concealed.
He walked close to the fisherman and broke into a short laugh.
“Catching anything, Screw-eye?” he asked in a tone of deliberate derision. He noted that from his position the man had a view of the slope that led up to the high bank of the river. Thus, while Screw-eye, for it was indeed the spy Davitt had suspected, could see the approach of a rider, he could not make his escape readily without showing himself in the act.
“My luck ain’t as good as yours,” was the sneering answer.
Buck had already decided that the man’s presence was not a mere coincidence. Now he decided to take a chance on Screw-eye being identified in some way with the rustling operations. To his way of thinking, any unusual happening might furnish the source for a clue. Since Screw-eye was there, it was not unreasonable, so he figured, to assume that Trawler also was in the vicinity.
“You fishing for something to eat or just for pastime?” he asked.
“G’wan chase your cows,” said the man in a vicious voice. “What you sneaking around in the night for, eh?”
For answer Buck stooped quickly and jerked the rod from the man’s grasp, using his left hand and glancing quickly about the open space. He pulled the line out of the water and a baited hook dangled in the cold light of the stars.
“You’re not faking, at that,” Buck growled, throwing down the rod. “How come everywhere I go I find you squatting around?”
The man leaned back on his hands, his eyes glowing green and then sparking red as he looked up at Buck.
“You clumsy fool!” he got out, with an added curse.
Three Trails to Triangle Page 12