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

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СКАЧАТЬ into one –– waiting to follow him to the hills.

      For a mile up and down the cañon of the Alamo, the palo verde stumps dotted the hillside, each with its top below it, stripped to the bark and bared of every twig. As the breathless heat of July came on, Hardy was up before dawn, hewing and felling, and each day the long line of cattle grew. They trampled at his heels like an army, gaunt, emaciated; mothers mooing for their calves that lay dead along the gulches; mountain bulls and outlaws, tamed by gnawing hunger and weakness, and the awful stroke of the heat. And every day other bands of outlaws, driven at last from their native hills, drifted in to swell the herd. For a month Hardy had not seen a human face, nor had he spoken to any living creature except Chapuli or some poor cow that lay dying by the water. When he was not cutting trees on the farther ridges, he was riding along the river, helping up those that had fallen or dragging away the dead.

      Worn and foot-sore, with their noses stuck full of cactus joints, their tongues swollen from the envenomed thorns, their stomachs afire from thirst and the burden of bitter stalks, the wild cattle from the ridges would stagger down to the river and drink until their flanks bulged out and their bellies hung heavy with water. Then, overcome with fatigue and heat, they would sink down in the shade and lie dreaming; their limbs would stiffen and cramp beneath them until they could not move; and there they would lie helpless, writhing their scrawny necks as they struggled to get their feet under them. To these every day came Hardy with his rawhide reata. Those that he could not scare up he pulled up; if any had died he dragged the bodies away from the water; and as soon as the recent arrivals had drunk he turned them away, starting them on their long journey to the high ridges where the sheep had not taken the browse.

      Ah, those sheep! How many times in the fever of heat and work and weariness had Hardy cursed them, his tongue seeking unbidden the wickedest words of the range; how many times had he cursed Jim Swope, and Jasper Swope, the Mexicans, and all who had rushed in to help accomplish their ruin. And as the sun beat down and no clouds came into the sky he cursed himself, blindly, for all that had come to pass. One man –– only one –– at the mouth of Hell’s Hip Pocket, and the sheep might have been turned back; but he himself had seen the dust-cloud and let it pass –– and for that the cattle died. The sheep were far away, feeding peacefully in mountain valleys where the pines roared in the wind and the nights were cool and pleasant; but if the rain came and young grass sprang up on Bronco Mesa they would come again, and take it in spite of them. Yes, even if the drought was broken and the cattle won back their strength, that great army would come down from the north once more and sheep them down to the rocks! But one thing Hardy promised himself –– forgetting that it was the bootless oath of old Bill Johnson, who was crazy now and hiding in the hills –– he would kill the first sheep that set foot on Bronco Mesa, and the next, as long as he could shoot; and Jasp Swope might answer as he would.

      Yet, why think of sheep and schemes of belated vengeance? –– the grass was gone; the browse was cleaned; even the palo verde trees were growing scarce. Day by day he must tramp farther and farther along the ridge, and all that patient, trusting army behind, waiting for him to find more trees! Already the weakest were left behind and stood along the trails, eying him mournfully; yet work as he would he could not feed the rest. There was no fine-drawn distinction now –– every palo verde on the hillside fell before his axe, whether it was fine-leaved and short-thorned, or rough and spiny; and the cattle ate them all. Mesquite and cat-claw and ironwood, tough as woven wire and barbed at every joint, these were all that were left except cactus and the armored sahuaros. In desperation he piled brush beneath clumps of fuzzy chollas, the thorniest cactus that grows, and burned off the resinous spines; but the silky bundles of stickers still lurked beneath the ashes, and the cattle that ate them died in agony.

      Once more Hardy took his ax and went out in search of palo verdes, high or low, young or old. There was a gnarled trunk, curling up against a rocky butte and protected by two spiny sahuaros that stood before it like armed guards, and he climbed up the rock to reach it. Chopping away the first sahuaro he paused to watch it fall. As it broke open like a giant melon on the jagged rocks below, the cattle crowded about it eagerly, sniffing at the shattered parts –– and then the hardiest of them began suddenly to eat!

      On the outside the wiry spines stood in rows like two-inch knife blades; but now the juicy heart, laid open by the fall, was exposed, and the cattle munched it greedily. A sudden hope came to Hardy as he watched them feed, and, climbing higher, he felled two more of the desert giants, dropping them from their foothold against the butte far down into the rocky cañon. As they struck and burst, and the sickly aroma filled the air, the starved cattle, bitten with a new appetite, rushed forward in hordes to eat out their bitter hearts. At last, when the battle had seemed all but over, he had found a new food, –– one that even Pablo Moreno had overlooked, –– each plant a ton of bitter pulp and juice. The coarse and wiry spines, whose edges would turn an axe, were conquered in a moment by the fall from the precipitous cliffs. And the mesa was covered with them, like a forest of towering pin-cushions, as far as the eye could see! A great gladness came over Hardy as he saw the starved cattle eat, and as soon as he had felled a score or more he galloped up to Carrizo to tell the news to Jeff.

      The mesa was deserted of every living creature. There was not a snake track in the dust or a raven in the sky, but as he topped the brow of the hill and looked down into the cañon, Hardy saw a great herd of cattle, and Creede in the midst of them still hacking away at the thorny palo verdes. At the clatter of hoofs, the big man looked up from his work, wiping the sweat and grime from his brow, and his face was hard and drawn from working beyond his strength.

      “Hello!” he called. “How’s things down your way –– water holdin’ out? Well, you’re in luck, then; I’ve had to dig the spring out twice, and you can see how many cows I’m feedin’. But say,” he continued, “d’ye think it’s as hot as this down in hell? Well, if I thought for a minute it’d be as dry I’d take a big drink and join the church, you can bet money on that. What’s the matter –– have you got enough?”

      “I’ve got enough of cutting palo verdes,” replied Hardy, “but you just lend me that axe for a minute and I’ll show you something.” He stepped to the nearest sahuaro and with a few strokes felled it down the hill, and when Creede saw how the cattle crowded around the broken trunk he threw down his hat and swore.

      “Well –– damn –– me,” he said, “for a pin-head! Here I’ve been cuttin’ these ornery palo verdes until my hands are like a Gila monster’s back, and now look at them cows eat giant cactus! There’s no use talkin’, Rufe, the feller that wears the number five hat and the number forty jumper ain’t worth hell-room when you’re around –– here, gimme that axe!” He seized it in his thorn-scarred hands and whirled into the surrounding giants like a fury; then when he had a dozen fat sahuaros laid open among the rocks he came back and sat down panting in the scanty shade of an ironwood.

      “I’m sore on myself,” he said. “But that’s the way it is! If I’d had the brains of a rabbit I’d’ve stopped Jasp Swope last Spring –– then I wouldn’t need to be cuttin’ brush here all Summer like a Mexican wood-chopper. That’s where we fell down –– lettin’ them sheep in –– and now we’ve got to sweat for it. But lemme tell you, boy,” he cried, raising a mighty fist, “if I can keep jest one cow alive until Fall I’m goin’ to meet Mr. Swope on the edge of my range and shoot ’im full of holes! Nothin’ else will do, somebody has got to be killed before this monkey business will stop! I’ve been makin’ faces and skinnin’ my teeth at that dastard long enough now, and I’m goin’ to make him fight if I have to put high-life on ’im!”

      He stopped and looked out over the hillside where the heat quivered in rainbows from the rocks, and the naked palo verdes, stripped of their bark, bleached like skeletons beside their jagged stumps.

      “Say, Rufe,” he began, abruptly, СКАЧАТЬ