On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane

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      “Shootin’, fer further orders, and driftin’ their sheep. They’s about a hundred thousand, right over the hill.”

      “Huh!” grunted Creede, turning to his belated dinner, “what d’ye make of that, Rufe?”

      “Nothing,” replied Hardy, “except more work.”

      It seemed as if he had hardly fallen asleep when Creede was up again, hurling the wood on the fire.

      “Pile out, fellers!” he shouted. “You can sleep all day bimebye. Come on, Rufe –– d’ye want to find them sheep in the corral when you go back to Hidden Water?” And so with relentless energy he roused them up, divided out the work, and was off again for Bronco Mesa.

      It was early when they arrived at the first deserted sheep camp, but search as they would they could see no signs of the sheep. The puny fire over which the herders had fried their bread and mutton was wind-blown and cold, the burros and camp rustlers were gone, and there was no guiding dust cloud against the sky. From the little butte where Creede and Hardy stood the lower mesa stretched away before them like a rocky, cactus-covered plain, the countless ravines and gulches hidden by the dead level of the benches, and all empty, lifeless, void. They rode for the second camp, farther to the west, and it too was deserted, the sheep tracks cunningly milled in order to hide the trail.

      “They’re gittin’ foxy,” commented Creede, circling wide to catch the trend of their departure, “but I bet you money no bunch of Chihuahua Greasers can hide twenty thousand sheep in my back yard and me not know it. And I’ll bet you further that I can find every one of them sheep and have ’em movin’ before twelve o’clock, noon.”

      Having crystallized his convictions into this sporting proposition the rodéo boss left the wilderness of tracks and headed due south, riding fast until he was clear of sheep signs.

      “Now here’s where I cut all seven trails,” he remarked to his partner. “I happen to know where this sheep outfit is headin’ for.” With which enigmatic remark he jerked a thumb toward Hidden Water and circled to the west and north. Not half an hour later he picked up a fresh trail, a broad path stamped hard by thousands of feet, and spurring recklessly along it until he sighted the herd he plunged helter-skelter into their midst, where they were packed like sardines in the broad pocket of a dry wash.

      “Hey there! Whoopee –– hep –– hep!” he yelled, ploughing his way into the pack; and Hardy swinging quickly around the flank, rushed the ruck of them forward in his wake. Upon the brow of the hill the boss herder and his helpers brandished their carbines and shouted, but their words were drowned in the blare and bray which rose from below. Shoot they dared not, for it meant the beginning of a bloody feud, and their warnings were unheeded in the mêlée. The herd was far up the wash and galloping wildly toward the north before the frantic Mexicans could catch up with it on foot, and even then they could do nothing but run along the wings to save themselves from a “cut.” More than once, in the night-time, the outraged cowmen of the Four Peaks country had thus dashed through their bands, scattering them to the wolves and the coyotes, destroying a year’s increase in a night, while the herders, with visions of shap lessons before them, fired perfunctory rifle shots at the moon. It was a form of reprisal that they liked least of all, for it meant a cut, and a cut meant sheep wandering aimlessly without a master until they became coyote bait –– at the rate of five dollars a head.

      The padron was a kind man and called them compadres, when he was pleased, but if one of them suffered a cut he cursed, and fired him, and made him walk back to town. Hence when Chico and Grande suddenly gave over their drive and rode away to the northwest the Mexican herders devoted all their attention to keeping the herd together, without trying to make any gun plays. And when the stampede was abated and still no help came they drifted their sheep steadily to the north, leaving the camp rustlers to bring up the impedimenta as best they could. Jasper Swope had promised to protect them whenever they blew their horns, but it was two days since they had seen him, and the two Americanos had harried them like hawks.

      Never had armed men so lacked a leader as on that day. Their orders were to shoot only in self-defence; for a war was the last thing which the Swope brothers wanted, with their entire fortunes at stake, and no show of weapons could daunt the ruthless Grande and Chico. All the morning the cow horns bellowed and blared as, sweating and swinging their hondas, the stern-eyed Americanos rushed band after band away. Not a word was passed –– no threats, no commands, no warnings for the future, but like avenging devils they galloped from one herd to the other and back again, shoving them forward relentlessly, even in the heat of noon. At evening the seven bands, hopelessly mixed and mingled in the panic, were halfway through the long pass, and the herders were white with dust and running. But not until dusk gathered in the valleys did Creede rein in his lathered horse and turn grimly back to camp.

      His face was white and caked with dust, the dirt lay clotted in his beard, and only the whites of his eyes, rolling and sanguinary, gave evidence of his humanity; his shirt, half torn from his body by plunging through the cat-claws, hung limp and heavy with sweat; and the look of him was that of a madman, beside himself with rage. The dirt, the sweat, the grime, were as heavy on Hardy, and his eyes rolled like a negro’s beneath the mask of dust, but weariness had overcome his madness and he leaned forward upon the horn. They glanced at each other indifferently and then slumped down to endure the long ten miles which lay between them and home. It had been a stern fight and the excitement had lulled their hunger, but now the old, slow pang gnawed at their vitals and they rolled like drunkards in the saddle.

      It was a clear, velvety night, and still, after the wind of the day. Their horses jogged dumbly along, throwing up their heads at every step from weariness, and the noises of the night fell dully upon their jaded ears. But just as they turned into Carrizo Creek Cañon, Creede suddenly reined in old Bat Wings and held up his hand to Hardy.

      “Did you hear that?” he asked, still listening. “There! Didn’t you hear that gun go off? Well, I did –– and it was a thirty-thirty, too, over there toward the Pocket.”

      “Those herders are always shooting away their ammunition,” said Hardy peevishly. “Come on, let’s get back to camp.”

      “They don’t shoot in the night-time, though,” grumbled Creede, leading off again. “I’ll bet ye some of them Greasers has seen a ghost. Say,” he cried, “the boys may be out doin’ some night ridin’!”

      But when they rode into camp every man was in his blankets.

      “Hey, what’s all that shootin’ goin’ on over there?” he called, waking up the entire outfit in his excitement.

      “Sheepmen,” responded some sleeper briefly.

      “Cleanin’ their guns, mebbe,” suggested another, yawning. “Did you move ’em, Jeff?”

      “You betcher neck!” replied Creede promptly, “and I’m goin’ back in the mornin’, too.”

      The morning turned black, and flushed rosy, and fell black again, but for once the merciless driver of men slept on, for he was over-weary. It was a noise, far away, plaintive, insistent, which finally brought him to his feet –– the bleating of ewes to lambs, of lambs to mothers, of wethers to their fellows, beautiful in itself as the great elemental sounds of the earth, the abysmal roarings of winds and waves and waterfalls, but to the cowman hateful as the clamors of hell. As Creede stood in his blankets, the salt sweat of yesterday still in his eyes, and that accursed blat in his ears, his nerves gave way suddenly, and he began to rave. As the discordant babel drew nearer and nearer his passion rose up like a storm that has been long brewing, СКАЧАТЬ