CHAPTER FOUR
THE ACCOMPLISHMENT
The next morning Buck Johnson took a trip down into the "pasture" offive hundred wire-fenced acres.
"He means business," he confided to Jed Parker, on his return. "Thatcavallo of his is a heap sight better than the Shorty horse we let himtake. Jed, you found your man with nerve, all right. How did you doit?"
The two settled down to wait, if not with confidence, at least withinterest. Sometimes, remembering the desperate character of theoutlaws, their fierce distrust of any intruder, the wildness of thecountry, Buck Johnson and his foreman inclined to the belief that thestranger had undertaken a task beyond the powers of any one man.Again, remembering the stranger's cool grey eye, the poise of hisdemeanour, the quickness of his movements, and the two guns with tiedholsters to permit of easy withdrawal, they were almost persuaded thathe might win.
"He's one of those long-chance fellows," surmised Jed. "He likesexcitement. I see that by the way he takes up with my knife play.He'd rather leave his hide on the fence than stay in the corral."
"Well, he's all right," replied Senor Buck Johnson, "and if he evergets back, which same I'm some doubtful of, his dinero'll be here forhim."
In pursuance of this he rode in to Willets, where shortly the overlandtrain brought him from Tucson the five thousand dollars in doubleeagles.
In the meantime the regular life of the ranch went on. Each morningSang, the Chinese cook, rang the great bell, summoning the men. Theyate, and then caught up the saddle horses for the day, turning thosenot wanted from the corral into the pasture. Shortly they jingled awayin different directions, two by two, on the slow Spanish trot of thecow-puncher. All day long thus they would ride, without food or waterfor man or beast, looking the range, identifying the stock, brandingthe young calves, examining generally into the state of affairs, gazingalways with grave eyes on the magnificent, flaming, changing,beautiful, dreadful desert of the Arizona plains. At evening when thecoloured atmosphere, catching the last glow, threw across theChiricahuas its veil of mystery, they jingled in again, two by two,untired, unhasting, the glory of the desert in their deep-set, steadyeyes.
And all the day long, while they were absent, the cattle, too, madetheir pilgrimage, straggling in singly, in pairs, in bunches, in longfiles, leisurely, ruminantly, without haste. There, at the longtroughs filled by the windmill of the blindfolded pump mule, theydrank, then filed away again into the mists of the desert. And SenorBuck Johnson, or his foreman, Parker, examined them for theircondition, noting the increase, remarking the strays from anotherrange. Later, perhaps, they, too, rode abroad. The same thinghappened at nine other ranches from five to ten miles apart, wheredwelt other fierce, silent men all under the authority of Buck Johnson.
And when night fell, and the topaz and violet and saffron and amethystand mauve and lilac had faded suddenly from the Chiricahuas, like aveil that has been rent, and the ramparts had become slate-grey andthen black--the soft-breathed night wandered here and there over thedesert, and the land fell under an enchantment even stranger than theday's.
So the days went by, wonderful, fashioning the ways and the charactersof men. Seven passed. Buck Johnson and his foreman began to look forthe stranger. Eight, they began to speculate. Nine, they doubted. Onthe tenth they gave him up--and he came.
They knew him first by the soft lowing of cattle. Jed Parker, dazzledby the lamp, peered out from the door, and made him out dimly turningthe animals into the corral. A moment later his pony's hoofs impactedsoftly on the baked earth, he dropped from the saddle and entered theroom.
"I'm late," said he briefly, glancing at the clock, which indicatedten; "but I'm here."
His manner was quick and sharp, almost breathless, as though he hadbeen running.
"Your cattle are in the corral: all of them. Have you the money?"
"I have the money here," replied Buck Johnson, laying his hand againsta drawer, "and it's ready for you when you've earned it. I don't careso much for the cattle. What I wanted is the man who stole them. Didyou bring him?"
"Yes, I brought him," said the stranger. "Let's see that money."
Buck Johnson threw open the drawer, and drew from it the heavy canvassack.
"It's here. Now bring in your prisoner."
The two-gun man seemed suddenly to loom large in the doorway. Themuzzles of his revolvers covered the two before him. His speech cameshort and sharp.
"I told you I'd bring back the cows and the one who rustled them," hesnapped. "I've never lied to a man yet. Your stock is in the corral.I'll trouble you for that five thousand. I'm the man who stole yourcattle!"
PART III
THE RAWHIDE
Arizona Nights Page 20
