The Settling of the Sage

by Hal G. Evarts

  VI

  Billie Warren rode with Harris on the last lap of the circle. Therewere but two men remaining with them.

  "Moore!" Harris called, and the man turned his horse down the head of adraw that would lead him out into the bottoms a trifle less than a mileabove the wagon. Harris heard a shrill whistle behind him and turnedsidewise in the saddle to look back, saw that Moore had regained theridge and was signaling. They turned and rode back to him.

  "There's another," Moore said, pointing down the gulch. "It's gettingto be a habit."

  A dead cow lay on a little flat a hundred yards below. For threeconsecutive days some rider had found a fresh-killed Three Bar cow.Every animal had been shot.

  "I'll look this one over myself," Harris decided. "There's only twomore gulches to work. Each one of you boys take one."

  The girl followed him as he turned down the first steep pitch. Theypulled up their horses and sat looking at the cow. A trickle of bloodoozed out of a hole between her eyes. Harris rode in a circle roundthe spot.

  "He downed her from some point above," he said. "Not a sign anywhereclose at hand." He surveyed the ridges that flanked either side of thedraw and the little saddle-like depression at the head of it from whichthey had just descended. From beyond this gap came the shrill nickerof a horse, the sound chopped short as if a man had clamped his hand onthe animal's nostrils to silence it. Harris turned swiftly to the girl.

  "It's a plant," he said. "Ride--hard!"

  He suited his action to the words and jumped his horse off down thebottoms. He waved her over to one side.

  "Keep well away from me!" he ordered. "They don't want you."

  They hung their spurs into their mounts and the horses plunged down thesteeply-pitching bottoms, vaulting sage clumps and bounding along thecow trails that threaded the brush. Two hundred yards below the cowthe draw made an elbow bend. The girl rounded it and as Harrisfollowed a jump behind he felt a jarring tug at the cantle of hissaddle and the thin, sharp crack of a rifle reached him. The gulchmade a reverse bend and as they swept around it Harris swung sidewisein the saddle and looked back. They were entirely sheltered from anypoint on the divide six hundred yards behind them. He pulled his horseto a swinging trot and they rode down the sloping meadow that ledstraight to the main valley.

  "It was certainly stupid of me not to know right off that it was adecoy," he said. "A man just out to act spiteful would have piled up adozen cows at one stand and left. He's downed one every day--in plainsight of the divide we'd follow on the circle, knowing that I'd soonride down to look one over myself. All he had to do was to cachehimself on the far side, watch for me to ride down, wait until the resthad gone on and climb to the divide and pot me. And it would have beenso dead easy to turn the tables and bushwhack him," he addedregretfully. "If only I'd have used my head in time."

  A sick chill swept the girl as she thought of an enemy with thepatience to kill a cow every day, use it for a decoy and wait for achance at his human prey.

  The cows that grazed on the meadow raced off ahead of them. A bunch ofwild range horses swept up the broken slopes and wheeled to watch thempass.

  "We didn't get started any too soon," Harris said. "His horse wasn'tmore than a hundred feet beyond the notch when he blew off and warnedus--not time for me to get cached and drop him as he topped the ridge."

  The girl's eyes suddenly riveted on a small round hole in the cantle ofhis saddle where the ball had entered. On the inside and far to theleft extremity of the cantle a ragged gash showed where if had passedout. The shot had been fired as he wheeled round the sharp bend,quartering away from the man above, but even then the ball had notmissed his left hip to exceed an inch.

  She started her horse so suddenly that before he realized her purposeshe was well in the lead and going at a dead run toward the mouth ofthe gulch where it opened out into the main bottoms two hundred yardsbeyond.

  From the opposite slope riders were hazing cows out of their respectivedraws; some had reached the wagon; others were coming down from above.The running horse caught every man's eye as the girl careened out intothe center of the valley, rose in her stirrups and waved an arm in acircle above her head. In five seconds riders were whirling in behindher from all directions as she headed for the wagon.

  She waved those already on the spot toward the rope corral.

  "Change horses!" she called, and as each man rode in he caught up afresh horse.

  "Scatter out; some of you below where we came down, some above," shesaid. "Five hundred to the man that brings Morrow in."

  "It's no use, Billie," Harris counseled mildly. "He's plum out of thecountry by now. It'll be dark in three hours--and it's right choppycountry over there."

  Waddles interposed and seconded her move.

  "Let 'em rip," he said. "There's just a chance."

  Bangs was the first to change mounts. The boy's physicalqualifications were as sound as his mental ability was limited and itwas his pride to have a string of mounts that included the worst horsesin the lot. He rode from the corral on Blue, holding the big roansteady, and headed up the ridge a mile below where Harris and the girlhad come down. Rile Foster chose the next; five riders were but a fewjumps behind. Harris did not change horses but searched hastily in hiswar bag and slipped the strap of a binocular case across his shouldersand rode off with the girl as she finished cinching her saddle on afresh horse.

  In less than five minutes from the time she had reached the wagon thelast Three Bar man had mounted and gone. Harris rode with her up along ridge that led up to the divide; they followed another into thenext bottoms and ascended the second divide. This was sharp and rocky,its crest a maze of ragged pinnacles. He chose the highest of theseand dismounted to sweep the range with his glasses. The low countrybeyond them was broken and choppy, a succession of tiny box canyons andrough coulees. Off to the right he made out Rile Foster workingthrough the tangle. Somewhere beyond him Bangs would be doing thesame. Riders came into view off to the left, crossing some ridge, onlyto disappear once more. The high point afforded a view of every ridgefor miles. After perhaps half an hour Harris caught five horsemen inthe field of his glasses. They were riding in a knot.

  "They've picked up his trail," he said. "But he'll have too long alead. He'll be fanning right along and they'll have to work out atrack. In less than two hours it will be dark--and by morning he'll beforty miles from here and up on a fresh horse."

  He rested his elbows on the ground to steady the glasses as he trainedthem off in the direction the five men had gone. Twice he saw themcross over ridges. Then a tiny, swift-moving speck came into his fieldof view, traveling up the slope of a distant divide. The ant-likerider dipped over the crest of it and was gone.

  "He's more than five miles in the lead of them," he said. "Acrossrough country too. There was just a chance that he would work backthrough these breaks below us instead of making a ride for it, and wecould have spotted him from up here. We might as well be going."

  They mounted and headed to the right along the divide.

  "If Rile is in sight we can wait for him," he said. "And see if he'spicked up any tracks."

  A half-mile along the ridge they saw Foster off through the breaks andhe was working back their way.

  "Thanks, Billie," Harris said. "For losing a circle trying to run himdown."

  "I'd have done as much for any Three Bar man," she returned.

  "Of course," he said. "I'd have expected that. But all the same I'dhardly looked to see you show much concern over what happened to me."

  "I don't want to see even you shot in the back," she said. "Is thatanswer enough?"

  "It shows that I'm progressing," he smiled. "Maybe my good qualitieswill grow on you until you get to thinking right well of me."

  They waited till Foster joined them on the ridge.

  "Bangs crossed over a mile below," Rile said. "We might pick him up."

  "Any sign?" Harris asked
as they moved down the divide.

  "A bunch of shod horses went down through there a few days back," Rilesaid. "Three or four men likely, with a few pack horses along. Therewas a fresh track, made this morning, going up-country alone. Helikely stayed at their camp all night, wherever it is. I workedacross, thinking he might go back to it; but there was no down trail.He's pulled out."

  "I saw him," Harris said. "He's gone."

  They stopped in the saddle of the ridge where a fresh track showed thespot Bangs had crossed.

  The girl was looking at Harris and saw a sudden pallor travel up underhis tan and as she turned to see what had occasioned it he crowded hishorse against her own.

  "Don't look!" he ordered, and forced her horse over the far side of theridge. "You'd better ride on back to the wagon," he urged. "There'sbeen some sort of doings over across. Rile and I will ride down andlook into it." Without a word she turned her horse toward the wagon.

  "It's God's mercy she didn't see," Harris said, as the two crossed backover the ridge. "Isn't that a hell of a way for a man to die?"

  But the girl had seen. Her one brief look had revealed a horse cominground a bend in a little box canyon below. A shapeless thing draggedfrom one stirrup and at every third or fourth jump the big blue horseside-slashed the limp bundle with his heels.

  As the two men reached the bottoms the frenzied horse had stopped andwas fighting to free himself of the thing that followed him. He movedaway from it in a circle but it was always with him. He squealed andkicked it, then dashed off in a fresh panic, side-swiping his pursuer.

  Harris's rope tightened on his neck and threw him. As he rolled overFoster's noose snared both hind feet and he was held stretched andhelpless between two trained cow horses while the men disengaged thebundle that had once been Bangs. One boot heel was missing and hisfoot was jammed through the stirrup, evidence that the horse hadpitched with him and the loosened heel had come off, allowing his footto slip through as he was thrown.

  Harris pointed to a burnt red streak across the right side of Bangs'sneck. He unbuttoned his shirt and revealed a similar streak under hisleft armpit.

  Old Rile cursed horribly and his face seemed to have aged ten years.

  "They learned that from the albino," he said. "It's an old trick thatalways works. They dropped a rope on him and jerked him, pried off hisheel, shoved his boot through and laid the quirt on his horse. Bluedid the rest."

  Both men knew well how it had happened. Bangs had run across the campof some of the wild bunch, men he had known for long, and theslow-thinking youth had suspected no more danger from riding on up tothem at this time than at any other. He had told them of the shotfired at Harris and they had known that some other Three Bar man wouldfind the trail leading from the direction of their camp. And Bangswould mention having found them there, linking them with thebushwhacker.

  When Bangs had left a pair of them had ridden a distance with him andaccomplished their aim.

  "It's coming dark," Harris said. "And by morning they'll be thirtymiles away. That sort of a killing was never fastened on to any manyet."

  The old man raised a doubled fist and his face was lined with sorrow.

  "Bangs was almost a son to me," he said. "I taught him to ride--andwe've rode together on every job since then. You hear me! Some one isgoing to die for this!"

  It was an hour after sundown when they reached the wagon with all thatwas earthly of Bangs lashed across the blue horse and it was midnightbefore the five men who had followed the trail returned with the wordthat they had been unable to even sight the man they tracked.

  During the next week the girl inwardly accused the men ofheartlessness. They jested as carelessly as if nothing unusual hadoccurred and she heard no mention of Bangs. It seemed that it took buta day for them to forget a former comrade who had come to an untimelyend. Rile Foster had disappeared but on the fifth day he turned up atthe Three Bar wagon and resumed his work without the least explanationof his absence.

  The old man was gloomy and silent, his face set in sorrowful lines ashe went about his work, and it was evident that he was continuallybrooding over the fate of the youth he had loved. It seemed to thegirl that the men were even more cheerful and thoughtless than usual,that they concerned their minds with every conceivable topic exceptthat which was uppermost in her own. The death of Bangs had affectedthem not at all.

  She could not shake off the remembrance of the boy's adoring gaze ashis eyes had followed every move she made and in some vague way shefelt that she was responsible for the accident. She often rode nearRile Foster, knowing what was in his mind. He spoke but little and, incommon with the rest, he never once mentioned Bangs.

  At the end of a week Slade rode up to the wagon as the men were workingthe cows gathered in the second circle of the day. He jerked his headto draw her aside out of range of Waddles's ears.

  "How's the Three Bar showing up this spring?" he asked abruptly.

  "Better than ever," she retorted and he caught a note of defiance inher voice.

  "You're lying, Billie," he asserted calmly. "The Three Bar will showanother shrinkage this year."

  "How do you know?" she flashed; and the distrust of him that Harris hadroused in her, lately submerged beneath the troubling thoughts ofBangs, was suddenly quickened and thrown uppermost in her mind. Ingauging him from this new angle she sensed a ruthlessness in him thatwas not confined solely to business efficiency; he would crush herinterests without a qualm if it would gain his end.

  "I know," he asserted. "It's my business to know everything that goeson anywhere near my range. There's not another outfit within a hundredmiles that's on the increase. They're just hanging on, some of themmaking a little, some of them not. You say you want to run the ThreeBar brand yourself. There's not a man in this country that would toucha Three Bar cow if you was hooked up with me."

  "And then the Three Bar would be only one out of a dozen or more Sladebrands," she said. She pointed to the men that worked with the millingcows in the flat. "That's what I want," she said. "To run an outfitof my own--not one of yours."

  For no reason at all she was suddenly convinced of the truth ofHarris's suspicions concerning Slade. She noted that his eyes traveledfrom one man to the next till he had scrutinized every one that workedthe herd.

  "Are you looking for Morrow?" she demanded, and instantly regretted herremark. Slade's face did not change by so much as the bat of an eyeand he failed to reply for a space--too long a space, shereflected--then turned to her.

  "Morrow--who's he?" he asked. "And why should I look for him?"

  "He rode for you last year," she said.

  "Oh! That fellow. I recall him now. Bleak-looking citizen," he said."And what about him?"

  "You tell me," she countered.

  "That new foreman of yours--the fellow that was scouting round alonefor a few months--has been talking with his mouth," Slade said. "If hekeeps that up I'll have to ask him to speak right out what's on hismind."

  "He'll tell you," she prophesied. "What then?"

  "Then I'll kill him," the man stated.

  The girl motioned to Lanky Evans and he rode across to them.

  "Lanky, I want you to remember this," she said. "Slade has justpromised to kill Harris. And if he does I'll spend every dollar I ownseeing that he's hung for it," she turned to Slade. "You might repeatwhat you just told me," she suggested.

  Slade looked at her steadily.

  "You misunderstood me," he stated. "I don't recall any remark to thateffect or even to mentioning the name of Harris. Who is he, anyhow?"

  Evans slouched easily in the saddle and twisted a smoke.

  "Now let's get this straight what I'm to remember," he said. "Mr.Slade was saying that he planned to down Cal Harris the first time hecaught him out alone. I heard him remark to that effect." He turnedand grinned cheerfully at Slade. "That's his very words--and I'd swearto it as long as my breath held out. I'll sort of rep
eat it over tomyself so that I can give it to the judge word for word when the timecomes."

  Slade favored him with a long stare which Lanky bore with unconcern,smiling back at him pleasantly.

  "I've got my little piece memorized," Evans said; "and in parting letme remark that Cal Harris will prove a new sort of a victim for you towork on. If you tie into him he'll tear down your meat-house." Heturned his horse and rode back to the herd.

  "I'll play your own game," the girl told Slade. "If anything happensto another man who is riding for me and I have any reason to evensuspect you were at the bottom of it I'll swear that I saw you do thething yourself. The Three Bar is the only outfit with a clean enoughrecord to drag anything up for an airing before the courts withouttaking a chance. This rule of every man for himself won't hold goodwith me."

  She moved toward the wagon and Slade kept pace with her, leading hishorse. There was no sign of life around the wagon and the jerkymovement of a hat, barely visible through the tips of the sage,indicated that Waddles was washing out some clothing at the creek bankfifty yards away.

  Slade leaned against the hind wheel on the far side from the herd andlooked down at her.

  "You're a real woman, Billie," he said. "You better throw in with areal man--me--and we'll own this country. I'll run the Three Bar onten thousand head whenever you say the word."

  "I'd rather see it on half as many through my own efforts," she said."And some day I will."

  "Some day you'll see it my way," he prophesied. "I know you betterthan any other man. You want an outfit of your own--and if the ThreeBar gets crowded out you'll go to the man that can give you one in itsplace. That will be me. Some day we'll trade."

  "Some day--right soon--you'll trade your present holdings for a nicelittle range in hell," a voice said in Slade's ear and at the sameinstant two huge paws were thrust from the little window of thecook-wagon and clamped on his arms above the crook of his elbows.Slade was a powerful man but he was an infant in the grip of the twogreat hands that raised him clear of the ground and shook him before hewas slammed down on his face ten feet away by a straight-arm thrust.His deadly temper flared and the swift move for his gun wassimultaneous with the twist which brought him to his feet, but his handfell away from the butt of it as he looked into the twin muzzles of asawed-off shotgun which menaced him from the window.

  It occurred to him that the nighthawk must have been restless and hadelected to wash at the creek bank instead of indulging in sleep, thusaccounting for the bobbing hat he had seen, for assuredly it did notbelong to the cook, as he had surmised. The face behind the gun wasthe face of Waddles.

  "I'm about to touch off a pound of shot if you go acting up," Waddlessaid. "Any more talk like you was just handing out and you'll getsmeared here and there."

  "Are you running the Three Bar?" Slade asked.

  "Only at times, when the notion strikes me," Waddles said. "And thisis one. Whenever you've got any specific business to transact with uswhy come right along over and transact it--and then move on out."

  Billie Warren laughed suddenly, a gurgle of sheer amusement at thesight of the most dreaded man within a hundred miles standing thereunder the muzzle of a shotgun, receiving instructions from the mouth ofthe Three Bar cook. For Slade was helpless and knew it. Even if hetook a chance with Waddles and won out he would be in worse shape thanbefore, for if he turned a finger against her old watchdog and friendhe would gain only her deadly enmity.

  "Waddles, you win," Slade said. "I'll be going before you change yourmind."

  As the man walked toward his horse which had sidled a few steps awaythe big cook gazed after him and fingered the riot gun regretfully.

  The wagon did not move on when the men had finished working the herd asthe rest of the day had been set aside for kill-time. An hour afterSlade's departure the hands were rolling in for a sleep. The girl sawRile Foster draw apart from the rest and sit with his back against arock. He was regarding some small object held in his hand. As heturned it around she recognized it as a boot heel and the reason forRile's absence was clear to her. He had back-tracked the blue horse tothe scene of the mishap.

  She was half asleep when a voice some distance from the teepee rousedher by speaking the name of Bangs.

  "I've a pretty elastic conscience myself," the voice went on. "I'm notabove lifting a few calves for the brand I'm riding for or any littlething like that, but this deal sort of gorges up in me. They'll nevercinch it on to any man--they never do. Old Rile is brooding over it.He'll likely run amuck. One way or another he'll try to break even forBangs."

  Billie recognized the voice as Moore's and knew that one of her men, atleast, had not forgotten Bangs. It was the first time an intimationthat the affair was other than an accident had reached her ears.

  In the evening, after resting, the men once more gathered round a firefor an hour's play. They had evidently blotted out the memory of afriend who had raised his voice with theirs on the last such event, forthey sang mostly the rollicking airs with even more than the usualamount of chaff between songs. But there was one old favorite thatthey did not sing. At last Waddles swung into the tune of it and asthey buried the poor cowboy far out on the lone prair-ee she noted thedifference at once, and more clearly than ever before she divined thereason why cowhands were apparently so devoid of sentiment, refusing tobe serious on any topic, passing off those things nearest to theirhearts with a callous jest. It was only that there were so many roughspots in the hard life they led that they avoided dwelling tooseriously on matters that could not be rectified lest they becomegloomy and morose. There were warm hearts under the indifferentexteriors. For now the voices were soft and hushed and she knew thatevery man was thinking of the lonely mound of rocks that marked thelast resting place of Bangs.