Shoe-Bar Stratton
It was a peaceful picture, yet Stratton could not rid his mind of the curious feeling that the peacefulness was all on the surface. He had not missed that swift exchange of glances that heralded his first appearance in the bunk-house; and though Slim McCabe particularly had been almost effusively affable, Buck was none the less convinced that his presence here was unwelcome. That business of the branding-iron, too, was puzzling. Was it merely a bit of rough but harmless horse-play or had it a deeper meaning? Bud did not look like a fellow to lose his nerve easily, and the iron had certainly been hot enough to brand even the tough hide of a three-year-old steer.
Buck glanced sidewise at his companion to find the blue eyes studying his face with a keen, questioning scrutiny. They were hastily withdrawn, and a faint color crept up, darkening the youngster’s tan.
“Trying to size me up,” thought Stratton interestedly. “He’s got something on his chest, too.”
But he gave no sign of what was in his mind. A moment or two later he paused and, leaning indolently against a tree, let his gaze sweep idly over the cattle in the near-by pasture.
“Looks to me like a pretty good bunch of steers,” he commented, and then added carelessly: “What sort of a guy is this Tex Lynch, anyhow?”
Bud hesitated briefly, sending a swift, momentary glance toward the bunk-house.
“Oh, he’s all right, I guess,” he answered slowly.
Stratton grinned. “If you don’t look out you’ll be overpraising him, kid,” he chuckled.
Jessup shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t say I liked him,” he defended. “He knows his business all right.”
“Oh, sure. Otherwise, I s’pose he wouldn’t hold down his job. But what I want to know is the kind of boss he is. Does he treat the fellows white, or is he a sneak?”
Bud’s face darkened. “He treats some of ’em white enough,” he snapped.
“That so? Favorites, eh? I’ve met up with that kind before. Is he hard to get on the right side of?”
“Dunno,” growled the youngster. “I never tried.”
Buck chuckled again. “Well, kid, so long as you don’t seem to think it’s worth while, I dunno why I should take the trouble. Who else is on the outs with him?”
Jessup flashed a startled glance at him. “How in blazes do you know – ”
“Oh, gosh! That’s easy. That open-faced countenance of yours would give you away even if your tongue didn’t. I’d say you weren’t a bit in love with Lynch, or any of the rest of the bunch, either. Likely you got a good reason, an’ of course it ain’t any of my business; but if that stunt with the red-hot branding-iron is a sample of their playfulness, I should think you’d drift. There must be plenty of peaceful jobs open in the neighborhood.”
“But that’s just what they want me to do,” snapped Jessup hotly. “They’re doin’ their best to drive me – ”
His jaws clamped shut and a sudden suspicion flashed into his eyes, which caused Buck promptly to relinquish all hope of getting any further information from the boy. Evidently he had said the wrong thing and got the fellow’s back up, though he could not imagine how. And so, when Jessup curtly proposed that they return to the bunk-house, Stratton readily acquiesced.
They found the five punchers gathered around the table playing draw-poker under the light of a flaring oil lamp. McCabe extended a breezy invitation to Buck to join them, which he accepted promptly, drawing up an empty box to a space made for him between Slim and Butch Siegrist. With scarcely a glance at the group, Jessup selected a tattered magazine from a pile in one corner and sprawled out on his bunk, first lighting a small hand lamp and placing it on the floor beside him.
Stratton liked poker and played a good game, but he soon discovered that he was up against a pretty stiff proposition. The limit was the sky, and Kreeger and McCabe especially seemed to have a run of phenomenal luck. Buck didn’t believe there was anything crooked about their playing; at least he could detect no sign of it, though he kept a sharp lookout as he always did when sitting in with strangers. But he was rather uncomfortably in a hole and was just beginning to realize rather whimsically that for a while at least he had only a cow-man’s pay to depend on for spending-money, when the door was suddenly jerked open and a tall, broad-shouldered figure loomed in the opening.
“Well, it’s all right, fellows,” said the new-comer, blinking a little at the light. “I saw – ”
He caught himself up abruptly and glowered at Stratton.
“Who the devil are yuh?” he inquired harshly, stepping into the room.
Buck met his hard glance with smiling amiability.
“Name of Buck Green,” he drawled. “Passed you on the trail this afternoon, didn’t I? You must be Tex Lynch.”
With a scarcely perceptible movement he shifted his cards to his left hand. His right, the palm half open, rested on the edge of the table just above his thigh. He didn’t really believe the foreman would start anything, but one never knew, especially with a man of such evidently uncertain temper.
“Huh!” grunted Lynch. “Why didn’t yuh stop me then? Yuh might have saved yourself a ride.” He continued to stare at Stratton, a veiled speculation in his smoldering eyes. “Well?” he went on impatiently. “What can I do for yuh now I’m here?”
Buck raised his eyebrows. “Do for me? Why, I don’t know as there’s anything right this minute. I s’pose you’ll be wanting to put me to work in the morning.”
“You’ve sure got nerve a-plenty,” rasped the foreman. “I ain’t hirin’ anybody that comes along just because he wears chaps.”
“That so?” drawled Buck. “Funny the lady didn’t mention that when she signed me up this afternoon.”
Lynch’s face darkened. “Yuh mean to say – ”
He paused abruptly, his angry eyes sweeping past Stratton, to rest for an instant on Flint Kreeger, who sat just beyond McCabe. What he saw there Buck did not know, but it must have been something of warning or information. When his eyes returned to Stratton their expression was veiled under drooping lids; his lithe figure relaxed into an easier position against the door-casing, both hands resting lightly on slim hips.
“Miss Thorne hired yuh, then?” he remarked in a non-committal voice which yet held no touch of friendliness. “Well, that’s different. Where’ve yuh worked?”
“The last outfit was the Three-Circles in Texas.” Buck named at random an outfit in the southern part of the state with which he was slightly acquainted. “Been in the army over two years, and just got my discharge.”
“Texas?” repeated Lynch curtly. “How the devil do yuh happen to be lookin’ for work here?”
“I’d heard Joe Bloss was foreman,” explained Buck calmly. “We used to work together on the Three-Circles, and I knew he’d give me a job. When I found out in Paloma he’d gone, I took a chance an’ rode out anyhow.”
He bore the foreman’s searching scrutiny very well, without a change of color or the quiver of an eyelash. Nevertheless he was not a little relieved when Lynch, with a brief comment about trying him out in the morning, moved around the table and sat down on a bunk to pull off his chaps. That sudden and complete bottling up of emotion had shown Buck how much more dangerous the man was than he had supposed, and he was pleased enough to come out of their first encounter so well.
With a barely perceptible sense of relaxing tension, the poker game was resumed, for which Buck was devoutly thankful. Throughout the interruption he had not forgotten his hand, which was by far the best he had held that evening. He played it and the succeeding ones so well that when the game ended he had managed to break even.
Ten minutes later the lights were out, and the silence of the bunk-house was broken only by the regular breathing of eight men, or the occasional creak of some one shifting his position in the narrow bunk. Having no blankets – a deficiency he meant to remedy if he could get off long enough to-morrow to ride to Paloma Springs – Buck removed merely chaps and boots and stretched his long form on the corn-husk tick with a little sigh of weariness. Until this moment he had not realized how tired he was. But he had slept poorly on the train, and this, coupled with the heady air and the somewhat stirring events of the last few hours, dragged his eyelids shut almost as soon as his head struck the improvised pillow.
It seemed as if scarcely a moment had passed before he opened them again. But he knew that it must be several hours later, for it had been pitch-dark when he went to sleep, and now a square of moonlight lay across the floor under the southern window, bringing into faint relief the outlines of the long room.
Just what had roused him he did not know; some noise, no doubt, either inside the bunk-house or without. Nerves attuned to battle-front conditions are likely to become sharp as razor-edges, and Buck, starting from deep slumber to complete wakefulness, was almost instantly aware of a sense of strangeness in his surroundings.
In a moment he knew what it was. Even though they may not snore, the breathing of seven sleeping men is unmistakable. Buck did not have to strain his ears to realize that not a sound came from any of the other bunks, and swiftly the utter, unnatural stillness became oppressive.
Quietly he swung his stockinged feet to the floor and was reaching for the holster and cartridge-belt he had laid beside him, when, from the adjoining bunk, Bud Jessup’s voice came in a cautious whisper.
“They’re gone. The whole bunch of ’em just rode off.”
CHAPTER VI
THE BLOOD-STAINED SADDLE
“Hello, kid!” said Stratton quietly. “You awake? What’s up, anyhow?”
There was a rustle in the adjoining bunk, the thud of bare feet on the floor, and Jessup’s face loomed, wedge-shaped and oddly white, through the shadows.
“They’re gone,” he repeated, with a curious, nervous hesitancy of manner.
“I know. You said that before. What the devil are they doing out this time of night?”
In drawing his weapon to him, Buck’s eyes had fallen on his wrist-watch, the radiolite hands of which indicated twenty minutes after twelve. He awaited Jessup’s reply with interest, and it struck him as unnaturally long in coming.
“I don’t rightly know,” the youngster said at length. “I s’pose they must have gone out after – the rustlers.”
Buck straightened abruptly. “What!” he exclaimed. “You mean to say there’s been rustling on the Shoe-Bar?”
Again Jessup hesitated, but more briefly. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t tell yuh. Everybody’s wise to it, or suspects somethin’. They’ve got away with quite a bunch – mostly from the pastures around Las Vegas, over near the hills. Tex says they’re greasers, but I think – ” He broke off to add a moment later in a troubled tone, “I wish to thunder he hadn’t gone an’ left Rick out there all alone.”
Stratton remembered Las Vegas as the name of a camp down at the southwesterly extremity of the ranch. It consisted of a one-room adobe shack, which was occupied at certain seasons of the year by one or two punchers, who from there could more easily look after the near-by cattle, or ride fence, than by going back and forth every day from the ranch headquarters.
“Who’s Rick?” he asked briefly.
“Rick Bemis. He – he’s one dandy fellow. We’ve worked together over two years.”
“H’m. How long’s this rustling been going on?”
“Three or four months.”
“Lost many head, have they?”
“Quite a bunch, I’d say, but I don’t know. They never tell me or Rick anythin’.”
Bud’s tone was bitter, and Stratton noticed it in spite of his preoccupation. Rustling! That would account for several of the things that had puzzled him. Rustling was possible, too, with the border-line comparatively near, and that stretch of rough, hilly country which touched the lower extremity of the ranch. But for the stealing to go on for three or four months, without something drastic being done to stop it, seemed peculiar, to say the least.
“What’s been done about it?” Buck asked briefly.
“Oh, they’ve gone out at night a few times, but they never caught anybody that I heard. Seems like the thieves were too slick, or else – ”
He paused; Buck regarded him curiously through the faintly luminous shadows.
“Well?” he prodded
Bud moved uneasily. “It ain’t anythin’ special,” he returned evasively. “All this time they never left anybody down to Las Vegas till Rick was sent day before yesterday. I up an’ told Tex straight out there’d oughta be another fellow with him, but all he done was to bawl me out an’ tell me to mind my own business. It ain’t safe, an’ now they’ve gone out – ”
Again he broke off, his voice a trifle husky with emotion. He was evidently growing more and more worked up and alarmed for the safety of his friend. It was plain, too, that the recent departure of the punchers for the scene of action, instead of reassuring Bud, had greatly increased his anxiety. Buck decided that the situation wasn’t as simple as it looked, and promptly determined on a little action.
“Would it ease your mind any if we saddled up an’ followed the bunch?” he asked.
Jessup drew a quick breath and half rose from the bunk. “By cripes, yes!” he exclaimed. “Yuh mean you’d – ”
“Sure,” said Stratton, reaching for his boots. “Why not? If there’s going to be any excitement I’d like to be on hand. Pile into your clothes, kid, and let’s go.”
Jessup began to dress rapidly. “I don’t s’pose Tex’ll be awful pleased,” he murmured, dragging on his shirt.
“I don’t see he’ll have any kick coming,” returned Buck easily. “If he’s laying for rustlers, seems like he’d ought to have routed out the two of us in the beginning to have as big a crowd as possible. You never know what you’re up against with those slippery cusses.”
Bud made no further comment, and a few minutes later they left the bunk-house and went up to the corral. The bright moonlight illumined everything clearly and made it easy to rope and saddle two of the three horses remaining in the enclosure. Then, swinging into the saddle, they rode down the slope, splashed through the creek, and entering the further pasture by a gate, headed south at a brisk lope.
The land comprising the Shoe-Bar ranch was a roughly rectangular strip, much longer than it was wide, which skirted the foothills of the Escalante Mountains. As the crow flies it was roughly seven miles from the ranch-house to Las Vegas camp, and for the better part of that distance there was little conversation between the two riders. Buck would have liked to question his companion about a number of things that puzzled him, but having sized up Jessup and come to the conclusion that the youngster was the sort whose confidence must be given uninvited or not at all, he held his peace. Apparently Bud had not yet made up his mind whether to class Stratton as an enemy or a friend, and Buck felt he could not do better than endeavor unobtrusively to impress the latter fact upon him. That done, he was sure the boy would open up freely.
The wisdom of this policy became evident sooner than he expected. From time to time as they rode, Stratton commented casually, as a new hand would be likely to do, on some feature or other connected with the ranch or their fellow-punchers. To these remarks Jessup replied readily enough, but in a preoccupied manner, until all at once, moved either by something Buck had said, or possibly by a mind burdened to the point where self-restraint was no longer possible, he burst into sudden surprising speech.
“That wasn’t no foolin’ with that iron this afternoon. If yuh hadn’t come along jest then they’d of branded me on the back.”
Astonished, Buck glanced at him sharply. They had traveled more than two-thirds of the distance to Las Vegas camp, and he had quite given up hope of Jessup’s opening up during the ride.
“Oh, say!” he protested. “Are you trying to throw a load into me? Why would they want to do that?”
Jessup gave a short brittle laugh.
“They want me to quit,” he retorted curtly.
“Quit?” repeated Stratton, his eyes widening. “But – ”
“Tex don’t want me here,” broke in the youngster. “For the last three months he’s tried all kinds of ways to make me an’ Rick take our time; but it won’t work.” His lips pressed together firmly. “I promised Miss – ”
His words clipped off abruptly, as a single shot, sharp and distinct, shattered the still serenity of the night. It came from the south, from the direction of Las Vegas. Buck flung up his head and pulled instinctively on the reins. Jessup caught his breath with an odd, whistling intake.
“There!” he gasped unevenly.
For a moment or two they sat motionless, listening intently, Buck’s face a curious mixture of alertness and surprise. Up to this moment he had taken the whole business rather casually, with small expectation that anything would come of it, but the sound of that shot changed everything. Something was happening, then, after all – something sinister, perhaps, and certainly not far away. His eyes narrowed, and when no other sound followed that single report, he loosed his reins and urged the roan to a gallop.
For perhaps half a mile the two plunged forward amidst a silence that was broken only by the dull thudding of their horses’ hoofs and their own rapid breathing. Then all at once Buck jerked his roan to a standstill.
“Some one’s coming,” he warned briefly.
Straight ahead of them the moonlight lay across the flat, rolling prairie almost like a pathway of molten silver. On either side of the brilliant stretch the light merged gradually and imperceptibly into shadows – shadows which yet held a curious, half-luminous quality, giving a sense of shifting horizons and lending a touch of mystery to the vague distances which seemed to be revealed.
From somewhere in that illusive shadow land came the faint beat of a horse’s hoofs, growing steadily louder. Eyes narrowed to mere slits, Stratton stared ahead intently until of a sudden his gaze focused on a faintly visible moving shape.
He straightened, his right hand falling to the butt of his Colt. But presently his grip relaxed and he reached out slowly for his rope.
“There’s no one on him,” he murmured in surprise.
Without turning his head, Jessup made an odd, throaty sound of acquiescence.
“He’s saddled, though,” he muttered a moment later, and also began taking down his rope.
Straight toward them along that moonlit pathway came the flying horse, head down, stirrups of the empty saddle flapping. Buck held his rope ready, and when the animal was about a hundred feet away he spurred suddenly to the right, whirling the widening loop above his head. As it fell accurately about the horse’s neck the animal stopped short with the mechanical abruptness of the well-trained range mount and stood still, panting.
Slipping to the ground, Bud ran toward him, with Stratton close behind. The strange cayuse, a sorrel of medium size, was covered with foam and lather, and as Jessup came close to him he rolled his eyes in a frightened manner.
“It’s Rick’s saddle,” said Bud in an agitated tone, after he had made a hasty examination. “I’d know it anywhere from – that – cut – in – ”
His voice trailed off into silence and he gazed with wide-eyed, growing horror at the hand that had rested on the saddle-skirt. It was stained bright crimson, and Buck, staring over his shoulder, noticed that the leather surface glistened darkly ominous in the bright moonlight.
Slowly the boy turned his head and looked at Stratton. His face was lint-white, and the pupils of his eyes were curiously dilated.
“It’s Rick’s saddle,” he repeated dully, and shuddered as he stared again at his blood-stained hand.
Buck’s own fingers caught the youngster’s shoulder in a reassuring grip, and his lips parted. But before he had time to speak a sudden volley of shots rang out ahead of them, so crisp and distinct and clear that instinctively he stiffened, his ears attuned for the familiar, vibrant hum of flying bullets.
CHAPTER VII
RUSTLERS
Swiftly the echoes of the shots died away, leaving the still serenity of the night again unruffled. For a moment or two Stratton waited expectantly; then his shoulders squared decisively.
“I reckon it’s up to us to find out what’s going on down there,” he said, turning toward his horse.
Jessup nodded curt agreement. “Better take the sorrel along, hadn’t we?” he asked.
“Sure.” Buck swung himself lightly into the saddle, shortening the lead rope and fastening it to the horn. “I was thinking of that.”
Five minutes later they pulled up in front of a small adobe shack nestling against a background of cottonwoods that told of the near presence of the creek. The door stood open, framing a black rectangle which proclaimed the emptiness of the hut, and with scarcely a pause the two rode slowly on, searching the moonlit vistas with keen alertness.
On their right the country had grown noticeably rougher. Here and there low spurs from the near-by western hills thrust out into the flat prairie, and deep shadows which marked the opening of draw or gully loomed up frequently. It was from one of these, about half a mile south of the hut, that a voice issued suddenly, halting the two riders abruptly by the curtness of its snarling menace.
“Hands up!”
Buck obeyed promptly, having learned from experience the futility of trying to draw on a person whose very outlines are invisible. Jessup’s hands went up, too, and then dropped quickly to his sides again.
“Why, it’s Slim!” he cried, and spurred swiftly toward the mouth of the gully. “What the deuce is the matter?” he asked anxiously. “What’s happened to Rick?”
There was a momentary pause, and then McCabe stepped out of the shadows, six-gun in one hand.
“What the devil are yuh doin’ here?” he demanded with a harshness which struck Buck in curious contrast to his usual air of good humor. “Who’s that with yuh?”
“Only Green. We – we got worried, an’ saddled up an’ – followed yuh. When we heard the shots – What did happen to Rick, Slim? We caught his horse out there, the saddle all – ”
“Since yuh gotta know,” snapped the puncher, “he got a hole drilled through one leg. He’s right here behind me.”
As Bud flung himself out of the saddle and hurried over to the man lying just inside the gully, McCabe stepped swiftly to the side of Stratton’s horse. There was a mingling of doubt and sharp suspicion in the upturned face.
“Yuh sure are up an’ doin’ for a new hand,” he commented swiftly. “Was it yuh put it into his head to come out here?”
“I reckon maybe it was,” returned Buck easily. “When we woke up an’ found you all gone, the kid got fretting considerable about his friend here, and I didn’t see why we shouldn’t ride out and join you. According to my mind, when you’re out after rustlers, the more the merrier.”
“Huh! He told yuh we was after rustlers?”
“Sure. Why not? It ain’t any secret, is it? Leastwise, I didn’t gather that from Bud.”
McCabe’s face relaxed. “Wal, I dunno as ’t is,” he shrugged. “Tex likes to run things his own way, though. Still, I dunno as there’s any harm done. Truth is, we didn’t get started soon enough. We was half a mile off when we heard the shot, an’ rid up to find Rick drilled through the leg an’ the thieves beatin’ it for the mountains. The rest of the bunch lit out after ’em while I stayed with Rick. I dunno as they caught any of ’em, but I reckon they didn’t have time to run off no cattle.”
Stratton slid out of the saddle and threw the reins over the roan’s head. He had not failed to notice the slight discrepancy in McCabe’s statement as to the length of time it took the punchers to ride from the bunk-house to this spot, but he made no comment.
“Bemis hurt bad?” he asked.
“Not serious. It’s a clean wound in his thigh. I got it tied up with his neckerchief.”
Buck nodded and walked over to where Bud was squatting beside the wounded cow-puncher. By this time his eyes were accustomed to the half-darkness, and he could easily distinguish the long length of the fellow, and even noted that the dark eyes were regarding him questioningly out of a white, rather strained face.
“Want me to look you over?” he asked, bending down. “I’ve had considerable experience with this sort of thing, and maybe I can make you easier.”
“Go to it,” nodded the young chap briefly. “It ain’t bleedin’ like it was, but it could be a whole lot more comfortable.”