As for Whitey Hope, punchers from time to time told of sighting him on the range, but he had always disappeared as if by magic when they reached the spot where they had seen him. On several occasions passing cowboys also had reported signs of life about the Dunning place. But never had they been able to satisfy themselves that the occupant was Whitey. Where he lived or how he existed was still another mystery.
It did not occur to the busybodies in Elbar to peer through the thick coating of dust on the windows of Whitey’s abandoned store. For if they had they would have seen not shelves stocked with provisions but empty shelves, stripped of canned goods under cover of darkness by the new segundo of the Buzzard spread.
Absorbed as it was with its own troubles, Elbar in the passing weeks forgot Whitey Hope. A few things only it remembered—one thing in particular. Whitey Hope, whom Elbar had come to know as a hotheaded youth, utterly devoid of fear, had made his threats against the Diamond A. If he lived, some day, Elbar knew, he would claim his revenge.
The investigation into the death of Pop Masterson ended with the sham inquest Montana had attended. Thanks to Kent and Tremaine all Elbar became convinced that Montana himself had done the killing and few there were who did not think he had received his just dues in drowning.
Smokey Tremaine’s arm healed quickly. In the span of a few short weeks he was swaggering about, bullying everyone as he had attempted to bully Montana and Whitey Hope. While most of rangeland swallowed the abuse in silence it secretly gloated over the tales of how both Montana and Whitey had made Tremaine back down and cherished a hope that one or the other of them someday might return to rid the Basin of the brutal foreman of the Diamond A.
The Buzzard punchers, including the cook, who, as Kent had told Whitey, had been arrested the night of the stampede, were arraigned the following morning on a trumped-up charge of having “deliberately and with malicious intent stampeded, scattered, slain, and otherwise harmed five hundred Diamond A cattle.” At first the men—who until then had had no direct dealings with Kent and Tremaine—were prone to take the matter as a joke. But they quickly realized that any justice would miscarry in Elbar. And when Kent finally came to them with a proposition to dismiss the charges provided they left the country they seized upon the chance and disappeared forthwith.
The Buzzard cattle were scattered to the four winds. Half-starved, straggling bunches roamed Thunder Basin, yet the main herd had vanished. Whether or not it had succumbed to the rigorous weather no one knew. Nor did they care. The remaining brutes supplied many a rancher with meat and offered excellent roping practice for frolicsome cowboys.
Despite his threat to attach the herd, it was so difficult to pull the Diamond A’s through the bitter winter and spring that Kent let it be noised about that he would let the matter drop rather than burden himself with more stock and would leave the final disposition of the blackballed stragglers to the County Stock Association.
Then came the pool roundup. Before the middle of June “reps” from every outfit on the range, with the exception of the Buzzard, began putting into the Diamond A, driving before them their cavvy strings. Soon the big ranch was crowded with punchers. The bunkhouses were filled to overflowing. Bedrolls and paraphernalia littered the yard. Dust rose in suffocating blankets from the corrals where the work of topping off new mounts to fill out the strings was being rushed. Saddles, bridles, and blankets were inspected, boots oiled, kinks stretched from new ropes, odd jobs of mending attended to, duffel bags stuffed, soogins sorted. The blistering days were an endless round of action. The close and sultry nights were filled with laughter, song, and the rattle of poker chips.
When all the neighboring outfits were represented, Kent called the punchers together for final instructions.
“Concerning the Buzzards,” he said in conclusion, “you all know they’ve been blackballed. The slicks, of course, go to the Stock Association. The grown stuff does too, for that matter, but a steer might come in handy now and then for fresh meat; and they’re always good for trying out your ropes. But we don’t want any Buzzards in the day herd. Let them be until the Association decides what it is going to do with them. It will do that as quick as it can and get them off the range just like they were strays. So remember, for the time being, we haven’t any business monkeying with any critter packing the Buzzard brand.”
At dawn the following morning the roundup crew, in the charge of Smokey Tremaine, and, strangely, accompanied by both Kent and Bob Hartzell of the T6, moved away from the Diamond A and struck down Tongue River. Ahead thundered the cavvy, pitching, snorting, kicking, threatening to bolt while the sleepy-eyed horse “jingler” dozed in his saddle and let them run. Behind came the bed and mess wagon, driven by a grumbling cook and on which the night wrangler, between jolts, tried vainly to make up for the sleep he knew he would lose before the roundup swung about and put back into the home ranch.
Through the blazing heat of the day they rode, finally to make camp far down the river. Supper over, the punchers sprawled on the bedrolls around the campfire, smoking and talking. With the crack of dawn they were up and gone on circle. Piloted by a puncher astride a bawling, pitching bronc, the wagon careened along the cow trails and across the sagebrush toward the noon camp. The big pool calf roundup of Thunder Basin was under way!
Then on the third night a strange thing happened. A man rode boldly into camp. At sight of him Tremaine, seated cross-legged near the fire, leaped to his feet and would have whipped out his forty-five had not King Kent stopped him.
“What do you want—Whitey Hope?” Kent demanded, peering through the flickering light at the cowboy who seemed to have grown a trifle stouter and more wrinkled since he had dropped from sight after the stampede.
“A job,” the puncher answered in an exceedingly quiet and unperturbed tone, Kent thought.
“You’ll get a job,” the cowman snorted. “A job busting rock. As long as you’re here I reckon you’ll stay. We haven’t forgotten your bluffs back yonder at the river the day Montana was killed. And if you’ll recklect there is still that five hundred dollars I offered on your head.”
“I’ve got a proposition, Kent,” Whitey said in the same cool careless tone that puzzled the cowman. “If you’ll let me talk to you alone for a minute we’ll see if we can dicker.”
Grudgingly Kent detached himself from the group and followed the youth into the shadows, careful however to keep his hand on his gun. Tremaine and Hartzell stood peering after them, and while Whitey never once gave them so much as a glance he could feel their eyes boring into his back.
“I made a mistake, Kent,” Whitey said when the two were out of earshot of the others. “I can see it now. I wasn’t trying to help Montana in particular. But Tremaine had made life so miserable for me I just blew up.”
“Coming to your senses, huh?” Kent sneered. “I thought you would sooner or later. But that isn’t what you had on your mind to risk riding into this camp.”
“You’re right,” Whitey admitted. “When Masterson died, charge of the Buzzards went to Montana. When Montana died, charge of the critters naturally fell on me. Me being the only one of the spread left on Thunder. It’s been a long spell now since the Buzzards moved in and I haven’t been able to get head or tail to who owns them—if anybody does—or anything about them. They are scattered bad. I’ve stuck with what I could find of them as long as I can without wages. I’m getting sick and tired of it.
“A pile of the stuff is winterkilled. The rest is—the Lord knows where. I haven’t got the men to gather them. And anyhow they’re blackballed. I haven’t even a place to run them under fence except the Dunning place. I’m up against it properly. I can’t buck a strong cowman like you any longer.”
“Now you’re beginning to talk like you aren’t all plumb loco,” Kent observed, a crafty note in his voice. “I could have told you all that before. But no, you knew it all.”
“I’
ll admit that I’ve been hotheaded and shortsighted,” Whitey agreed with unbelievable meekness. “But here is my proposition. As near as I can find out those Buzzards don’t belong to anybody. There isn’t one chance in a thousand that anybody ever will claim them. I can’t gather them alone. The Diamond A is the only outfit running enough men to do it. Suppose you give me a job—just an ordinary riding job. Then supposing, without saying a word to anybody, not even Tremaine or Hartzell, you start re-working those Buzzards into Diamond A’s. It will re-run dead easy. No trick at all.”
“Rustle!” Kent exploded. “If that’s your proposition you might just as well not mention it. The Diamond A has never rustled yet.”
“All right,” Whitey said, gathering up his reins. “If that is the way you feel about it. Just let Hartzell and the rest of the ranchers knock them off from under your nose. That’s what Hartzell came along with the wagon for. Course, I reckon it would be rustling in a way. Then again, when those critters are eating the grass that your stuff ought to have, and nobody owns them, you ought to have a right to pick them up; at least enough to pay for your feed bill. The shape the range is in, you haven’t enough feed for yourself, let alone for a herd that doesn’t seem to belong to anybody.”
It was obvious to the sharp-eyed cowboy that Kent was swayed by the argument, although he gave no outward indication of it other than a slight puckering of his brows.
“No,” he said briefly. “I can’t do it. The Diamond A does not rustle. But—” The crafty gleam deepened in his eyes. “I’m willing to let bygones be bygones with you and forget. Hunt you up a bedroll and report to Smokey for guard. You can work for me—but don’t ever fool yourself that you can pull any monkey business.”
“Thanks,” Whitey muttered. “I’ll watch my knitting.”
“Be sure you do,” Kent returned impatiently. “Just hit the ball for us and we’re willing to shoot square with you. But remember, King Kent turned your proposition to rustle those Buzzards down cold. Now go talk to Smokey.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ROUGH-STRING RIDER
Whitey rode directly to the campfire to halt his pony in the gloom just beyond the circle of flickering light. Once he glanced back at Kent, who stood where he had left him, staring into the blackness of the night. And a cold grim smile came to rest for a moment on Whitey’s lips.
“Tremaine,” he said quietly, “Kent just gave me a job riding for the Diamond A. Told me to report to you. Can you stake me to a bedroll?”
“I’ll give you a job,” Tremaine snarled, moving away from the fire. “I haven’t forgotten you killed my horse and damned nigh got me crushed to death the morning back yonder alter Montana cashed in. And I haven’t forgotten your big talk, either. Damn you, you’ve got a lot of guts to be asking for a job after that play. I’ll see you in hell before you’ll ever ride with a wagon I’m ramrodding. You—”
“Smokey?” The voice of Kent interrupted from out of the gloom. “Come here a minute.”
Eyeing the unperturbed Whitey balefully, the flickering firelight accentuating the sinister gleam in his black eyes, Tremaine strode over to join Kent. They talked for a moment in lowered tones. Then Tremaine came striding back.
“There’s a bedroll yonder,” he growled. “Crawl in. You take the graveyard watch. And damn you,” he came close to glower at the cowboy, “you’d better toe the scratch, for the first break you make you’re plumb out of the picture. You get that?”
Whitey’s only answer was to dismount, lead his pony off a short distance, hobble it, drag the saddle from its back and disappear into the darkness in search of a bedroll.
A cooling breath of air had sprung up when Whitey rolled out to stand his guard. A myriad of stars of startling brilliance glowed in the ebon void a moonless night had flung across the heavens. Sagebrush and grease-wood loomed like hideous monsters of a nightmare. A silence as vast as that found in chambers of the dead lay on the flats; a silence broken only by the long-drawn, contented sighs of cud-chewing cattle on bedground, the distant yip, yip, of coyotes and the thin, shrill noise of crickets. It was a world at peace after the scorching heat of the day.
Saddling his pony, Whitey rode forth whistling, a far different Whitey than had come into the roundup camp and humbled himself for the sake of work, far different from the Whitey who had shot Tremaine’s horse out from under him and defied the crew to do its worst.
“The poor damned fools,” he muttered under his breath as he rounded the herd. “Kent fell for that gag a heap easier than I figured he would. No, he won’t rustle! I should say not. But I notice he called Smokey right over and they augered plenty after he’d toned the walloper down and I’d hit the hay. All right, Mister Kent,” he chuckled, twisting in his saddle to stare back at the camp, “don’t forget what Whitey Hope told you—three Diamond A’s for every Buzzard and our meat supply to boot!”
The first tinge of dawn in a flawless sky—which gave promise of another blistering day—found the punchers pulling on their dew-damp boots. Even before the cook had summoned them to their breakfast, Kent and Tremaine, Whitey noted, already were up and in a deep conference over by the rope corral. He sauntered toward them.
“Whitey,” Kent said as he came up, “about that proposition you made last night—I don’t want any mistake, understand. I’ll have no part of it. It wouldn’t be honest.” He paused to give effect to his words. Smokey turned away with a shrug. Whitey met the rancher’s gaze without batting an eye. “We don’t want anything to do with those Buzzards. Now you understand?”
“Sure,” Whitey said. “That’s what I figured last night.”
“I just wanted to be certain,” Kent reiterated. “Our men have strict orders not to touch a head of Buzzard stuff on circle. And when you’re out just bear that in mind. Don’t pick up a single Buzzard! No man can say King Kent ever took a critter that didn’t belong to him.”
“Yes, sir,” Whitey replied. “Have you got a spare string for me?”
“Smokey will fix you out with one,” Kent returned. “And you just remember what I told you, don’t pick up a single Buzzard.”
He turned on his heel and strode away toward the mess wagon. Whitey watched after him until he had rejoined Tremaine and together they strolled away in the opposite direction.
“The lying old fourflusher,” Whitey snorted to himself. “The first thing he did was to talk my proposition over with Smokey. But I notice they’re not letting Hartzell in on the deal.”
Breakfast over, Whitey sought out Tremaine with a request for a string.
“Did you ever do any riding?” Smokey sneered.
“A little,” Whitey answered. “If you’ve got any braying, long-eared stuff among those crowbaits branded Diamond A, I might manage to tromp one down.”
The insolent reply took Tremaine’s breath away. Czar of the pool roundup that he was, it was something new to have a man in the outfit dare to answer him thus. Anger darkened his tanned cheeks. But the furious glint in his eyes gave way quickly to a malicious gleam.
“Just for that you’ll ride the rough string,” he snarled. “When those snake-eyes get through with you I reckon you won’t be so mouthy; and you won’t find any mules among them either.” He swung on his heel and started away.
Whitey stared after him, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“It’s funny a new hand would draw the rough string when you don’t even know whether he can ride or not,” he threw after Tremaine. “Do you give a jasper a decent burial if his horse bucks him down and tromps him to death?”
The careless tone brought Smokey about.
“Not you, jasper,” he sneered. “You’re coyote meat as far as I’m concerned.” His gaze whipped on to the men in the corral. “They’ve got a rope on Black Spirit there now—the meanest hellion in your string—in any string. Climb aboard and let’s see him buck the part clean out of your
hair.”
Whitey turned to look at a big bay horse the men were fighting to ear down in the rope corral.
“I’m scared you’ve framed me, Smokey,” he said meekly. “That horse isn’t anybody’s fool.”
“I’ll say he isn’t.” Tremaine grinned maliciously. “And if you top him you’re a bronc peeler from who laid the chunk. The other two up ahead of you—Well,” he shrugged significantly.
“Did anybody ever ride him?” Whitey inquired.
“Nobody but me,” Tremaine boasted. “Toss this bronc snapper’s saddle on him, fellers!” he yelled to the men in the corral. “We might just as well peg him for a fourflusher now as anytime.”
Without a word Whitey walked over to watch the saddling of the bronc. Tremaine came grinning behind. When the sweating men finally had succeeded in getting the saddle onto the brute, Whitey himself cinched it up.
“Has he got any eyes?” the puncher asked suddenly of Tremaine.
“Sure he’s got eyes,” came the surprised answer. “Why?”
Whitey swung into the saddle.
“Because I always get an eye with my rowels the first jump,” he threw back. “Turn him loose, jaspers, and get a bucket of water. There’s going to be one bad horse minus an eye pronto!”
“You gouge that horse’s eye out and I’ll—” Tremaine began only to stop and leap to safety as Whitey came out of the rope corral aboard Black Spirit. The brute let forth a bellow of rage, threaded its nose between its fetlocks, bowed itself like a hairpin and hit the ground with an impact that brought a groan from both man and horse.
Straight through the camp the outlaw pitched, bawling like a foghorn, kicking over the Dutch oven, scattering the cooking utensils, sending the embers of the campfire flying after the cursing cook who ducked behind the mess wagon, then bolting across the Hats to pitch from sight in a draw. But apparently Whitey Hope had been there before. And much to Tremaine’s surprise and disgust, he rode back some thirty minutes later, the thoroughly whipped outlaw bathed in lather but docile and eager to do the bidding of the human leech that had bucked it down and raked its blood from its shoulder and rump.
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