Desert Conquest; or, Precious Waters

by A. M. Chisholm

  CHAPTER XXX

  Casey and Sheriff Dove did not start the next afternoon. A telegram haddetained the sheriff, and he did not reach Chakchak till night. Hespent the evening with them, taking a great fancy to Clyde. He evenblossomed out as a story teller, spinning yarns without embellishmentand with great clearness. He told of cattle wars, of outlaws, of Indianfighters, of strange occurrences, of strange men, primitive of mind andof action, who had played their parts in the history of the West. Itwas information at first-hand, rare nowadays, and the listeners foundthe evening too short.

  "Blanket time," said the sheriff, looking at his watch. "I ain't ayoung nighthawk no more. If we're to git a good start----"

  "We'd like to hear more, sheriff," said Clyde.

  "Sho!" said Sheriff Dove, well pleased. "I could keep yarnin' half thenight to a pretty girl. I ain't too old for that. Maybe when we getback we'll have another session."

  Outside on the veranda she slipped her arm in his. "Take good care ofCasey for me, sheriff, please."

  "I sure will, little girl," he replied. "Don't you go to worryin', now.There's no call to. If it was easier travellin' you might come along,for all the trouble there'll be." He smiled down at her in fatherlyfashion, his great, sinewy arm pressing hers, and the pressurereassured her.

  "Thank you, sheriff. You--you're a _dear_!"

  "Do I git a bid to the weddin'?"

  "Of course you do." Clyde blushed and laughed. "Only I don't know justwhen it will be."

  "Make it soon," he advised. "Life's short, little girl. Take all thehappiness you can git. Good night."

  They rode westward in the morning before the sun had risen, and campedthat night in the foothills, having seen nobody. They entered the pass,and immediately came upon the trail of horses.

  "Looks like there's been some travel," said the sheriff. "This herepass used much?"

  "Not at this time of year. The Indians use it in the fall. They huntacross the range."

  "These horses is shod," the sheriff remarked. "I sh'd say there's beenhalf a dozen of 'em. Not less. Maybe more. I've knowed men that couldtell exact."

  "Not many of them left now."

  "That's so. There ain't much need for trailin' these days. Too manytelegraph wires."

  They held to the pass, as did the hoofprints, eventually dropping downinto the valley of the Klimminchuck, where they camped for the nightbeside the ford, cooked supper, unrolled their blankets, and lay by thefire, smoking.

  "This bunch of hosses," the sheriff observed, "seems to have split uphere. Two or three of 'em crossed over, but the most went down thevalley. What's down there?"

  "Just valley. It's partly open and part heavy timber. There was a packtrail cut through once, but it's mostly grown up."

  "Nobody lives down there?"

  "Not a soul. Now and then somebody traps in winter."

  "Um." The sheriff was thoughtful for some moments. "Does McHale knowthe country hereabouts?"

  "Fairly well. Better than I do. And McCrae knows it better than hedoes."

  "Um." The sheriff became silent again. "When a man goes to hidin' out,"he observed after a long pause, "he 'most always hits for the countryhe knows. Seems like it's human nature. I'd do it myself, and so'd you.Seems like a man that's wanted is suspicious of strange ground. Hedon't know what's in it, and he's afraid of gettin' cornered. He don'tknow what he's goin' to run up against any mile. It's a mean feelin',that. It keeps a man on edge every minute. So he naturally makes forthe district he's at home in. It's a mistake, but they all make it.They figure they can dodge around where they know the trails andcut-offs. Consequently it's just a matter of time till they're caught.It's like an old buck that won't leave his range. Any man can git himthat wants to spend a week at it."

  "That's so," Casey agreed.

  "So when I want a man and don't know where he's gone, I find out whatplace he thinks he knows best," the sheriff continued. "The system winsnine times out of ten. Now you say McHale's only out temporary. He'sgot a clear self-defence case, or thinks he has, and he's merelyside-steppin' trouble. In that case he won't go as far as another manmight. My _tumtum_ is that he's somewheres down along this valley."

  "Good reasoning," Casey admitted.

  "The way to see a man down in a hole is to look over the edge," saidthe sheriff; "and the way to find a man in a valley is to get up on ahill. They ain't no such thing as a smokeless campfire invented yet,though, if a man rustles dry sticks and does his cookin' at noon of abright day, he don't make much smoke. A feller fooled me once that way.He didn't take a chance on noon, but done his cookin' at night, down ina hole. Only way I got him, the fire burned in under a rock into someold roots, and sorter smudged along one mornin' when he was asleep."

  Casey glanced up at the bulk of the ranges outlined in blacknessagainst the sky. "If you say so, sheriff, we'll climb."

  "I hate to," the sheriff admitted. "Couldn't you make a good guess?"

  "No. I don't know any more than you do."

  "Well," said the sheriff thoughtfully, "we'll try the valley first. Wemay come on some sign. It's bound to take time, anyway. There's a wholeheap of country here if it was smoothed out and stretched level."

  He knocked out his pipe and pulled his blanket around him, for down inthat deep, watered valley the nights were cold. Casey followed hisexample. In two minutes both men were asleep, with the rush of thewater and the crunch-crunch of the horses' teeth cropping the grassesin their ears.

  They breakfasted in the dawn, saddled, and took a course downstream,The trail petered out; the hoof marks vanished. They rode with carethrough thick brush, and more easily in open, parklike glades. Grouserose almost under their horses' hoofs, to sit bright-eyed on adjacentlimbs, watching the travellers. Occasionally deer by twos and threesbounded springily away, white flags waving. Once the horses snorted andshowed a disinclination to proceed, sniffing the air nervously.

  "Bear," said Casey.

  "Down among them berry bushes, I reckon," said the sheriff.

  As he spoke, a black, furry head, short ears, and sharp muzzle roseabove the tangled bushes. A narrow, red tongue licked out. Cunninglittle eyes regarded them with indignant suspicion.

  "Woof!" said the bear. The sound was something between the snort of ahog and the first interrogative note of a watchdog, which hears a noisethat requires explanation.

  "Well, sport," said the sheriff, "berryin' good this mornin'?"

  But at the sound of the human voice the black head disappeared beneaththe surface of foliage. There was a momentary swaying of bushes in onespot, like the swirl of disturbed water after a fish; but there wasnothing to mark the line of the beast's flight. For all his bulk hemelted through the tangle as soundlessly as a spirit.

  "Bears is learnin' manners nowadays," the sheriff commented. "Course,these here black ones never was much different from pigs. But takegrizzlies. When I come West with my old people, a little shaver justable to set a pony, they was plumb sassy. I never did see suchbiggotty-actin' critters. Britch-loaders hadn't been in so durn long,and men didn't go huntin' grizzlies with the little old pea rifle justfor fun. They was range bosses, and they knowed it. Now it's only oncein a while you'll find one that wants all the trail."

  In the afternoon they came to an abandoned cabin, and dismounted toinvestigate. Casey shook his head at the filthy litter. "Nobody's beenhere," said he.

  The sheriff peered narrowly about. "No?" he said. "Well, how aboutthat?" He pointed to the ground. "Moccasin track, or part of one. Whowears moccasins?"

  "McCrae does, most of the time."

  "Then he's been here. He couldn't pass without lookin' in."

  "Why not?"

  "Because four men out of five can't go by an old shack without takin' apeep inside. I can't, myself. I judge you can't, either. Do youremember ever doin' it?"

  "Why, no," Casey admitted, "now you speak of it, I don't. And I doremember rubbering into dozens of old wikiups one place and another."

  "Sure," said the s
heriff. "Human nature again. Anything that's made bya man and left behind will draw another man like molasses will a fly. Inever knew a man yet that wouldn't nose around an old camping spot. Notthat he expects to find anything, or wants to. He just can't help it.McCrae didn't stop here. Where did he go? We might as well look arounda little."

  In the process of looking around, they came on an abandoned camp. Bythe quantity of ashes a number of fires had been burned. There were thepoles of a lean-to and a bough bed beneath it, and at a little distancewere other beds of boughs. The ground was trampled, and the grassbeaten down in the vicinity.

  The sheriff nosed among the signs, lifting the boughs of the beds,trying the ashes with his finger for heat, making an examination of theground, and wandering off in a circle around the camp, where horses hadbeen picketed. Finally he came back to the fireplace, filled his pipe,and lay down. Casey, meanwhile, had been forming his own conclusions.

  "Well?" he asked.

  "Well," said the sheriff, "I reckon you been usin' your eyes, too.Let's hear about it."

  "It's your hunt."

  "So it is. McCrae's met up with McHale. This here is their camp."

  "How do you know?"

  "You askin' because you don't know yourself, or because you want me totell you?"

  "I think you're right, but I'd like to know how you get at it."

  "Well, I ain't no Old Sleuth nor Sherlock Holmes," said the sheriff,"but I've lived some years out of doors. I ain't workin' out no chainof reasonin'; I'm just usin' my eyes and a bit of savvy. This is howshe works out:

  "McHale and McCrae is both foot-loose, and both know this part of thecountry. They leave about the same time, and chances is they make forit. Then they meet. That's easy. Then we find the moccasin track. Thatfits McCrae. Next we find a lean-to with a two-man bough bed. There'sthe hollows where two men lay. That helps prove our first guess. Itshows that some one was with McCrae, and the only other man hidin' outis McHale."

  "But there are other bough beds. How do you know they weren't all madeby one outfit?"

  "There's only one lean-to."

  "Two men may have been more particular than the others."

  "The boughs of them other beds were cut later than this lean-to one."

  "But the boughs are all green."

  "The ends where they were cut are different. There's more gum on thesethan the others. That shows they were cut before. Then there's moreneedles broken off and sifted through to the ground beneath this bed.That shows it's been slept on more. Where would a man get his boughs?The nearest trees, of course. Well, there's more gum where the limbswere cut on the nearest trees than on them farther away. Then there'sbeen a bunch of horses staked out. Why didn't they bell 'em and let 'emrange? Either because they didn't have no bells, or didn't want to use'em. McHale and McCrae would keep their hosses on a rope so's theycould make a quick get-away if they had to. They wouldn't take a chanceon their strayin'. Now the grass that's been eaten down by the hossesis beginnin' to sprout again in some places, and not in others. Maybethat's because the pickets were shifted, but it's more likely that somehosses was here before the rest. That's about all. She works out allright, don't she?"

  "Down to the hock card," Casey admitted. "I saw some of the signs, butnot all. You filled in the gaps."

  "It's a pity if I wouldn't savvy a few things about my own business,"said the sheriff. "Some of it's guesswork, but the main features ain't.Now, when we go farther, we got to do straight guessin'. Who was thisbunch that come in here where the two men was already camped? My guessis that it was this here Dade and his outfit. But they don't find thetwo here when they come, or there'd sure be sign of it. It looks to melike them two boys got to know that somebody was on their back trail,and moved camp sudden. But not so durn sudden they had to leaveanything behind. Question is, where have they went to--the wholeb'ilin' of 'em?"

  "Down the valley. Otherwise we'd have seen some sign."

  "I reckon that's so. If Dade works out things the way I have, he knowshe's close on to McHale. Say he's got four or five men with him. He cancomb the valley pretty clean. But here's another thing: How long willthem two boys let themselves be chased?"

  "Not very long. It's not safe to crowd either of them."

  "If it was me," said the sheriff reflectively, "and a feud party wasout on my trail, I'd be apt as not to bushwhack 'em some. You bet Iwouldn't stand on ceremony with such hostiles. If I knowed the countryI'd cache myself alongside some good open spot, wait till they got intothe middle of it, and then slam loose. With two men that savvy theirguns any one that got away would sure have a pull with Providence andbe workin' it awful hard."

  "Sandy would do that in a minute; but I think Tom doesn't want any moretrouble if he can help it."

  "He may get it shoved onto him. Well, seein' we're here, we may as welleat. Then we'll move on."

  When their meal was over they followed the valley. Sunset found them atthe edge of thick timber.

  "How far does this run?" asked the sheriff.

  "I don't know. I was never here before."

  "Then we'll camp," said Dove, "and tackle her by daylight."

  It was almost dark when Casey, sitting by the fire, suddenly held uphis hand. "Somebody coming."

  The sheriff listened for a moment. "Two horses," he announced. "May beJack Pugh." Nevertheless, the old frontiersman shifted his position sothat his gun lay ready to his hand.

  A moment later two shadowy horsemen appeared, resolving themselves, asthey approached, into Farwell and old Simon.

  "Hello, the camp!" cried the former. "That you, Dunne?"

  "Yes. What on earth are you doing here?"

  "Same thing as yourself. This old Siwash missed you somehow. He foundMcHale and young McCrae, and, on the way out, he ran into Dade, Lewis,and the rest--six in all. When he got to the ranch you were gone, andnobody could tell him where. He came over to Talapus to tell them he'dseen Sandy. That's where I ran into him. And so, knowing that Sandy waswith McHale, I got the old man to come back with me. I wanted to be init if help was needed. We picked up your trail--or he did--and here weare."

  "Well, it's blamed decent of you, Farwell," said Casey. "I didn't knowthat you and Sandy were such friends."

  "We're not. The kid doesn't like me. I told you he pulled a gun on meonce. All the same, it was up to me this time. I'm going to marrySheila."

  "The devil you are!" Casey exclaimed.

  "You're blamed flattering," said Farwell. "You bet I'm going to marryher."

  "You're getting one of the finest girls on earth."

  "I know that as well as you do," said Farwell. "Then you see how it wasup to me----"

  He broke off suddenly. Rolling softly along the hills, flung back andforth across the valley from rock wall to rock wall, repeated andmagnified a hundred times, came an echo. So distant was it that theoriginal sound itself was not heard; merely the reverberations of itstruck the ear. But unmistakably it was made by a far-off gun. Beforethe echoes had died away others followed, until their resonanceresembled continuous thunder.

  "_Hiyu_ shootum!" said Simon.

  "You bet," the sheriff agreed. "I reckon the boys has got tired bein'moved on. Or else they been jumped sudden. That shootin's all of sixmiles off. Maybe more. It'll be plumb dark in no time. If there's nomore shootin' it's settled by now. If there is it's a stand-off. Eitherway we have to wait till it gets light."