L'Amour, Louis - Hopalong 03 - The Trail To Seven Pines

by The Trail To Seven Pines (lit)

  I t was Tex Milligan who first saw John Gore. He saw him when he was several miles off and kept watch on the lone rider, suspecting at first that it might be Cassidy or Shorty Montana. When he did see who it was, he almost broke a leg getting down the mountain to where Frenchy and Kid Newton were loafing outside the bunkhouse. Bob Ronson had come from the house at first sign of his descent, and with him were Dr. Marsh and the Ronson sisters. Before Milligan could burst out with his story, Ronson was alongside him. "Who is it, Tex? What's happened?" "Gore!" Tex gasped, when he could catch a breath. "John Gore headin' this way. Be here in a couple of minutes. He's ridin' a spent cayuse, and with my glass he looks sore as a boiled owl!" "He may want peace talk," Ronson said. "If he does, we'll dicker with him." He glanced around the circle of his riders and added quietly, "I'll do the talking." "Boss," Newton objected, "he may be huntin' trouble. Maybe huntin' me. Let me have him." 188 187 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES "Or me," Ruyters said quietly. "The Kid's had his share of the Gore outfit. I want mine." "No." Bob Ronson's voice was clear with authority. "I'll handle this, and handle it my way." The rage of John Gore had now become a cold fire that blazed through every muscle of him. What had happened he had no idea, and strangely, he did not care. Later, when he had calmed down and with time to think, he would have cared, but now he was too filled with a burning lust to vent his fury on someone, something. He had been woefully outgeneraled, and by circumstances, not by men. His trip to Corn Patch had isolated him from the fight when he was most needed; he had been set afoot, trapped in an isolated mountain village with only two dead men for company. What had happened to his men, he did not know. The deserted ranch, empty of supplies, ammunition, and horses, portended the worst. Certainly, from the look of things, Rocking R men had been on his ranch. Where his men now were, or if any were alive, he did not know. Had he seen them at that moment his fury would have driven him insane, for they were walking, plodding wearily on blistered feet, in boots never made for walking, across the seemingly endless miles of an alkali flat. For all their use to the fight now under way, they might have been on another planet. John Gore's eyes were red-rimmed from the blazing sun, his face grim under the film of dust, his lips tight with the tenseness of his rage as he rode down the trail and into the yard of the Rocking R. 189 188 LOUIS L'AMOUR He had expected to find a deserted ranch and only the horses and perhaps the Ronsons. For Bob Ronson he had only contempt, and for the women only irritation and the hope they would keep out of his way. What he found instead was a small circle of men waiting for him. Frenchy, Tex, Kid Newton-and in the door of the bunkhouse now, Joe Hartley. A few feet away stood another group, the two girls and Doc Marsh. Straight before him was Bob Ronson, who now took a step forward. "How are you, John?" Ronson spoke clearly. "Get down. I suppose you've come to talk peace." The word was a red rag to a bull. "Peace!" The fury within him turned his voice hoarse. "I'll peace you, you idiot!" Ronson was unmoved. He stood quietly, his face white but composed. Frenchy, the oldest hand here, touched his tongue to his lips. Bob Ronson had never faced a situation like this before. Secretly, Frenchy had always been afraid that he would not measure up. More than anything in the world he wanted now to step forward and take this fight off the hands of his boss, but he knew the fierce pride of the young man, knew how much he would resent it. Knowing the others had a like feeling, he whispered, "Stay back. It's his fight." Ronson said calmly, "Gore, don't be a fool. As we've said before, there is range enough for both of us here. All you have to do is stay on your side of the Blues and not figure because Dad is dead that you can ride roughshod over this range. "You have no alternative to peace. Your men are out in the desert afoot and pretty badly off from hunger and thirst by now. You have no horses at your ranch nor at any of your stations. Cassidy has seen to that. Harris, with whom you apparently tried to do business, is dead. Within a matter of hours we'll burn Corn Patch to the ground. 190 189 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES "This is an ultimatum. You can make peace now and sign an agreement to remain on your side of the mountains, or we'll ride on the 3 G and burn it to the ground. Then we'll herd your riders, still afoot, out of the country, and you with them!" Frenchy could scarcely restrain his elation. Cattle Bob in his palmiest days could not have laid it on the line so simply and directly. Frenchy was grinning despite himself, and despite the tightness of the situation. Gore slid from his horse, so hurried that he staggered when he reached the ground, and then he turned. "I'll see you in hell first!" he roared. "Sorry, John." Ronson was still cool. "If that's the way you want it." John Gore was beyond reason. He had never known defeat, and there was nothing in his makeup that would accept it. He knew now only one thing, a red rage and lust to kill. He growled and his hand whipped down for his gun. To Frenchy that scene moved with the slow pace of a death march. He saw John Gore's flashing draw, not a fast draw as such things go, but much faster than that of Bob Ronson. He saw the rancher's gun come up, heard the hard sharpness of the report, and incredibly Bob Ronson still stood there! Ronson was lifting his pistol and taking aim at shoulder height, standing sideways as though on a target range. Gore shot again and again. And then Bob Ronson fired. John Gore's knees buckled and slowly he sank to the ground. From his knees he went over on his face, stretching out on the ground, and there was not a man there but knew he was dead. Slowly, white as death itself, Ronson lowered his pistol. "Frenchy," he said quietly, "you and the boys put his body in the barn for now. If he is not claimed by some of his own 191 190 LOUIS L'AMOUR crowd by nightfall, we'll bury him in the morning." He turned then. "Doc, you'd better get your kit. I think I've been shot." It was pouring rain when Hopalong Cassidy and Shorty Montana rode into the street of Seven Pines. Both men were hungry and badly whipped by the hours of riding. Leaving their horses in the livery stable, they pushed on up the street, their heads buried in their slicker collars, hat brims pulled low. Be hind them rode Ben Lock. He had fallen slightly behind the others, and his face was grim.( "This durned country!" Montana said bitterly. "If she ain't burnin' up with heat, she's drownin' in rain!" "Let it rain!" Hopalong said. "I'm for a bunk and some blankets. Another few miles and that horse's backbone would have wore clean through to my shirt pockets!" "What do we do about Harper?" Shorty asked, Hopalong having informed him as to the contents of Thacker's wallet. "That will wait. We get the Rockin' R trouble off our hands first." They shook off their dusters and hats on the hotel porch. Inside the dimly lit lobby they paused a moment. A sleepy clerk stuck his head out of his door and glared at them. "Number ten. Pick up the key in the pigeonhole and don't bother me!" He drew back inside his door but did not return to bed. Instead, he stood thinking for a minute, and then quickly drew on his pants and hurried down the hall to Pony Harper's room. Harper had been in bed for an hour and was still not asleep. Too many things were happening and there was too little news. He heard the gentle tap on his door and reared up in bed. He reached first for the pistol under his pillow and then listened. 192 191 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES The tap came again. "Who is it?" He spoke in a low tone to be heard only just beyond the door. "Me-Jerry! Got news for you!" Harper rolled from bed in his flannel nightshirt and opened the door. Jerry came in and closed it quickly behind him. "Figured you'd want to know. Hopalong Cassidy's in town! He and Shorty Montana! Blew in about five minutes ago, and I put 'em in number ten." "Cassidy? He say anythin? Any news?" "Not a word. Both of 'em looked plumb beat, but they sure aren't hurt." "All right, go to bed. Circulate around in the morning and let me know if you can find out what's been happening." By morning news had drifted in, as news will. John Gore was dead, killed by, of all people, Bob Ronson! The Gore riders had been trapped, their horses driven off, and they were wandering afoot somewhere in the alkali basin between Willow Springs and the 3 G Ranch. And then, almost an hour later, two men rode into town. Hankins and Drennan had broken away from the crowd and gone off on their own and had had instant luck. They found some of the horses left by the 3 G grazing in a side canyon. As they had parted under the worst possible terms with the others
, neither man felt any necessity of riding back with horses. They mounted bareback and started for Seven Pines. Their faces were blistered and their feet in terrible shape. Both men were caked with alkali and rifled with only one urgent desire: to get out and stay out. Hopalong Cassidy was sitting over his second cup of coffee 193 192 LOUIS L'AMOUR when the two cowhands staggered into Katie's. He looked across the table at them, his blue eyes measuring and cool. "Coffee's good, boys. What's it to be? Breakfast or trouble?" Hankins stared sullenly, and it was Drennan who spoke. "Breakfast and a bath. Then a chance to ride on. How about it, Hopalong?" Shorty Montana's hands were inches from his gun butts, waiting. "That go with you too, Hankins?" Hopalong asked. The o utlaw nodded sullenly. Then his lips parted in an ironic grin. "You fellers raised hob," he said. "You sure raised hob! If that outfit got to the 3 G without a killin', I'd be surprised. Con was fit to be tied, and that Troy!" He shook his head. "Ah, what a rat! The man's meaner than a crippled coyote, believe me!" Katie put out coffee for them and then breakfast. While they ate, Shorty Montana sat with his shoulders back against the wall and told them all that had happened. Harris and Dusark dead, John Gore recently killed by Bob Ronson, who was shot but living, and then the biggest news, told for the first time: the killing of Laramie by Ben Lock, and Clarry Jacks by Hopalong Cassidy. Later that day Hankins and Drennan drifted out of town. Before the end of the week the range had quieted, Corn Patch had been burned out, John Gore had been buried alongside his brother at Seven Pines, and Bob Ronson was slowly recovering from his wound. Restlessly, Hopalong worked with his outfit, shaping a herd for a drive to market, cleaning water holes, putting in a couple of dams and a drift fence. It was time to leave, and Gibson of the STL would still be watching for him. Yet he stayed on, held by 194 193 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES he knew not what. The range war that had blossomed so quickly had died almost as quickly. Nothing was seen of Con Gore, and word came that he had moved his cattle east of the Blues and was running them there. Rawhide was back in town and was rarely seen away from Pony Harper's side. Sheriff Hadley, moving belatedly to stop the fighting, had repeated the ultimatum laid down by Bob Ronson and had ridden to the 3 G with it. Con Gore had listened in silence and then turned his back and walked into the house. Boucher was still with him, and Troy had hired on as a hand. Of Dud Leeman there was but one report: He had been seen at Unionville but had left town with Duck Bale, no one knew where, not even an idea of where they were going. One of the last to hear that report was Hopalong Cassidy. Riding in from Mandalay Springs, he was told the story, and back at the Rocking R he sat down on the porch and thought things over. Dud Leeman had been the riding partner of Clarry Jacks, and the two had been almost inseparable. Duck Bale had been holding the fort at the hideout, and Duck had been alive when they left. Of Laramie there had been no doubt. Hopalong had himself seen the man fall, riddled with bullets. Jacks had fallen, too, but there had been no time to examine him. Under oath Hopalong could not have sworn he was dead. The peculiar feeling that had disturbed him for the past ten days began to make itself plain now. Perhaps there had been some unconscious realization that Jacks was not dead, but alive and a danger. Now he knew that, whatever else came, he must ride to the hideout and make sure. As long as Clarry was alive, there would be no peace here. Dangerous before, the man was sure to be utterly vicious now. 195 194 LOUIS L'AMOUR Something of the same feeling seemed to obsess the men. "Did either you or Hoppy take a look at him?" Ruyters was asking. "Maybe Jacks is still around." "He was dead all right!" Shorty sounded too positive. "He sure went down hard with his head all bloody." "I've seen men live through some awful wounds. Remember how Cole Younger rode away from the Northfield raid, shot through with bullets?" "Reminds me." Kid Newton shoved his narrow-brimmed round hat back on his head. His boyish face with its few whiskers looked very young, and only his eyes were those of a man. "Saw some tracks in that box canyon this side of Sawtooth. Lone rider, wanderin', sort of, like he was huntin' something or lookin' the country over." "And I saw some over this side the lava beds," Hartley offered. "Somebody had bedded down near that spring. One man, ridin' a sorrel horse." It was late afternoon when Hopalong reached Seven Pines. He went at once to Katie's, and she greeted him with a smile. "Seen Ben Lock?" he asked her. 'Tes, he's been around a lot, but he spends most of the time around the High-Grade. He doesn't talk, not even to me, but I think he's watching somebody. Maybe it's Pony Harper." Hopalong nodded. What did Lock intend to do? It was likely the man did not know himself. Yet a few minutes later, when he saw Harper walk down the street and enter the saloon, he was not sure. Harper looked bad and must have lost fifteen pounds. "Ben's been riding, too," Katie volunteered. "I don't think he believes Jacks is dead. Do you?" Hopalong shrugged. "He took one slug, maybe two. Men 196 195 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES have lived through lots worse than that. We'll never know unless we go back and look. And that," he added, "is what I think I'll do." Shorty Montana and Tex Milligan pushed into the room. "How's for some of that coffee, Katie?" Shorty demanded cheerfully. "That cook out at the Rockin' R is good, but he doesn't have your touch with coffee." "Look, Katie," Milligan interrupted, "I tried to steer Shorty away, but there was no chance. He simply wouldn't go. I know you don't want to lower the tone"-he glanced around smugly- "of your establishment by havin' ornery coyotes around, but I couldn't keep him away." "Keep me away?" Shorty glared. "Why, you waffle-headed picture of a string bean, you never saw the time you could keep me away from anything! In the first place there isn't enough of you to make a good man! You're so thin you'd have to stand twice in the same place to make a shadow!" "Huh!" Milligan grunted. "Don't pay him any attention, Katie. He's just sore because he has to stand on his tiptoes to see over a saddle." Both men were arguing just to hear the sound of their voices, Hoppy knew. While they argued both were acutely conscious of him, and he had a rough idea they were riding herd on him. The thought of it amused him and yet it warmed his heart to think that they liked him enough to worry. That the country was still filled with enemies of the Rocking R and of Hopalong Cassidy, they all knew. Many of the outlaws were gone or had been killed, but others might be lurking about, and some of the ranchers who hoped to profit from the fall of the Rocking R were still sore about their failure. Con Gore had not been seen in town and had talked to no 197 196 LOUIS L'AMOUR one. What he was thinking was a complete mystery. That Troy would be nursing a grudge was obvious, and it was probable that Rawhide, who walked always beside Pony Harper, was thinking of his sore feet with no pleasure. It was a rare night that some veiled allusion was not made to his hiking proclivities, and the thing was eating on him, corroding his self-control, and driving him to a fury that was beyond reason. The sun was scarcely up the following morning before Hop-along forked Topper and headed east for the hideout to settle his doubts once and for all. As on the last occasion when he left the place, the sky was cloudy and it looked like rain. He pushed the white gelding steadily toward the faulted ground, scanning the country with care as he rode. If Jacks was alive, and if he had Dud Leeman and Duck Bale with him, Hopalong might very well be riding into a trap, and a serious one. By now they would know that he had been using the rockslide for a means otf entry into the valley, and if they were still there they would certainly be on their guard against that approach. The lowering clouds pressed down around the higher peaks and in some places had swallowed the serrated crests of the mountains, sinking in cottony billows down the mountainsides and drifting in ghostly wraiths among the scattered junipers. Once, far off, Hopalong saw a coyote lope away and vanish among the greasewood. A tall-eared jackrabbit leaped from its nest in startled confusion and bounded away to lose itself among the sage. All else was still. No breath of air stirred, and the gelding moved steadily and easily through the brush. 198 197 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES Although he kept a close watch, Hopalong spotted no new tracks. Several times he stopped and, squinting his blue eyes against the distance, looked, studied, and examined all within range of his sight. The desert was empty, as far as he could
see, no living thing moved or had its being. Soon scattered rocks began to appear, not loose boulders, but the upthrust ledges of the faulted ground. Uneasily he surveyed the prospect, and he did not like it. Getting into the fault canyon would be a serious problem now, and he had to admit to himself that he never approached this place without awe and wonder. Here there was something far more vast than any work of man. This rock had been broken asunder by the forces of nature itself, a cataclysm that man could not control and before which all his powers, all his inventions were as nothing. The titanic forces that had broken these ledges far beneath the surface of the earth and thrust their jagged edges through the soil were not dead, but lying there only leashed for the time. The land was still. A silence lay upon it, a vaster silence than the desert usually knew. No cicada sang in this cloudy weather; no bird twittered among the greasewood. All was still, and with the stillness his alertness grew, his readiness for the danger he seemed to sense. Topper slowed to a walk, ears pricked forward. Occasionally, of his own volition, he stopped and looked ahead and around. There was upon the earth a feeling of expectation, a sense of waiting. Uneasily, Hopalong shook off the feeling. He was a man not easily disturbed, yet the last one to shake off such a feeling as of no importance. It remained only for him to interpret it, and do so correctly and at once. 199 198 LOUIS L'AMOUR Much of this might be his own imagination, his own mind. Tough and practical as he was, he still retained strong respect for the wild. There were strange currents of feeling in the wilderness, or perhaps those feelings were in men when they were in the wilds. In any event, most men who have lived in the great loneliness of Arctic, desert, ocean, or high mountains but have known that peculiar feeling that conveys itself to all who inhabit the wilderness. Over such country as this he had ridden much of his life. He knew its moods and changes, and at the same time he knew that sixth sense that sometimes warns of danger. He had never, so far as he could recall, underrated an opponent. If Clarry Jacks was alive, he was a deadly antagonist, a man cold-nerved but fired with killing lust, and one not easily upset by trifles. He would be a hard man to kill, and he might take someone with him when he went. The rockslide was seemingly unchanged, but the serrated ridge showed many differences, and the towering upthrust of granite appeared to have fallen inward. Hopalong again descended to the bottom. He had detected no sign of life about either part of the fault canyon, and now on the bottom he saw that the adobe house was a ruin. Two walls stood, but both were cracked. No horses remained in the corrals. If Clarry Jacks was alive, Hopalong Cassidy was sure he was not in the canyon. The floor of the canyon was a jumble of fallen rock, and around the base of the walls the earth was broken and shoved back by the movement of the rock. A silence as of death hung over the place, an eerie loneliness that brought an involuntary shudder to his shoulders. Among the ruins of the house he found no sign of a body, although the darkness of blood was on the floor. Then near the corral he found a grave. 200 199 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES LARAMIE 1881 DIED WITH HIS BOOTS ON One grave! Clarry Jacks was alive! Swiftly now Hopalong moved to the shack where he had originally talked with Bale. Here there was every evidence of hurried leave-taking. Glancing at the gelding, Hopalong saw the horse had his ears up and was looking wildly about. Warily, Hopalong looked around him, and then the landscape seemed to shimmer. Cassidy reached the saddle in one long dive and swung up as the startled horse leaped into a dead run for the canyon mouth. Under the horse's feet the earth seemed to groan, and with an appalling grinding the rock to the south pushed higher and higher into the sky. With the portals of the narrow opening seeming even narrower than usual, Hopalong lunged the horse through. Beside him the earth cracked and there was a vile odor as of sulfur mingled with something long dead, and then the horse was down the draw and into the open. The effects of the quakes were noticeable even here, for long cracks ran into the desert as far as he could see. Turning at right angles, he ran Topper out of the faulted area, slowed to a canter, then a walk. Clarry Jacks was alive. If so, where was he? Corn Patch had been burned to the ground, and while he might have ridden to join the remnants of the 3 G crowd, Hopalong doubted it. Jacks was a man to lead, not follow. Duck Bale would be with him, and by now he would be in communication with Dud Leeman. Cutting the desert for some sign of the outlaws would be useless. If they were to be tracked it would be with the mind, not the sign they would leave upon the desert. Dud and Clarry had both been known around Unionville, yet he doubted they would 201 200 LOUIS L'AMOUR go there for that very reason. Hopalong believed that Clarry would hope his enemies would accept his death as a fact. Night was coming on. A cluster of cottonwoods in a hollow raised the possibility of water, and Hopalong started the white gelding toward them. He suddenly realized he was tired, and he could tell by the way Topper was walking that the horse was also. The cottonwoods did not prove themselves liars, for among them was a small pool supplied by a seep. The manzanita clustered thick at one end of the grove, and there Hopalong made camp alongside a huge deadfall. Nothing bigger than a coyote could possibly get through the manzanita without making noise enough to wake the dead, and the log offered some cover in the other direction. Scraping together some bark fragments, some dead branches, and a few chunks of half-rotted wood, Hopalong got his fire going, a small fire that threw very little light. He was pouring coffee when he heard a hoof click on stone, and he put down his cup, then rolled over into the brush near the big end of the log, rifle in hand. For a long time there was no sound, and he eyed the steaming coffee irritably. Somebody would have to come up on him just as the coffee was hot! An idea occurred to him, and with utmost caution he snaked out the rifle barrel, hooking the front sight through the handle of the cup, and slowly dragged it back toward him. Luckily it slopped over very little, and it was with real satisfaction that he gulped the hot coffee. Now let them come. He was ready. Again a hoof clicked, closer this time. Whoever it was approaching had become mighty cautious. Hopalong studied the skyline, seeking some obstruction that would blot out the stars, but there was none. A murmur of voices came to his ears, and he tilted his head, trying to catch the inflection. When it came to him he grinned, and easing around the end of the log, he 202 201 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES crawled forward through the grass. When he could see their broad hats stark against the sky, he said aloud, "If you pilgrims would holler when you approach a camp, you wouldn't get caught this way." Shorty and Tex turned sheepishly as he walked from the brush. "We sort of figured you might want company," Tex suggested. "And as long as we're ridin' down the country we figured to bring you the news." "What news?" Hopalong demanded suspiciously. "Well, Doc and Miss Irene are gittin' hitched up real soon." "I knew that." "And there was a shindig of some sort over to the 3 G. Hank Boucher got into an argument with Con Gore, and that coyote Troy up and shot Boucher in the back. Doc figures he may pull out of it, but it's still a question." "That outfit can't even get along with themselves," Hopalong said. "Come on back to camp-coffee's hot." As they started back he turned his head. "Feel that quake?" "Feel it?" Tex said. "Scared the livin' daylights out of me. Caught us right out on the open desert, nothin' close up, but we could see rocks fallin' off the ridges. That old flat-top mesa south of here lost a corner." Over coffee Hopalong recounted the experiences of the day and the finding of Laramie's grave. He also commented on the fact that he believed Jacks was alive and teamed up with Bale and Leeman. "We heard he was alive. Ben Lock cut the sign of that toed-in paint you trailed before the stage robbery. There was three horses in the bunch, all with riders. He followed 'em some distance before he lost 'em. Feller came in the other day said they 203 202 LOUIS L'AMOUR stopped him on the road. He never said a word about it until Lock told us. The three of them spooked him so bad he was afraid to talk, but he said that they stopped him on the road and made him give them some grub." "Where do you think he'll head for?" Milligan asked. "No tellin'. Maybe that claim on Star Peak." "Doubt it," Montana objected. "Too many people know about it now. Although there's old tunnels around what's left of Star City, and
there's shelter there. That might be it." "If I was him," Tex said, "I'd hit northwest toward the Black Sand. I'd lose myself in those hills over yonder." "Well"-Hopalong shrugged-"if he gets out of the country I won't follow him. It's time I was movin' on, anyway." Tex fed a few sticks into the fire and started a long story about running cattle down on the Brazos, and in a few minutes he and Shorty were arguing hotly over respective methods of roping and whether it was better to tie or dally the rope. Hopalong leaned back and listened with only half his attention. It would be good to see Red Connors now. The last time he had seen Johnny or Mesquite was down on the Gila. They had come along then and butted into a fight just in time to help him. That had always been the way of the Bar 20 or any of the outfits started by the old crowd: They never hesitated to side each other. He grinned, remembering the fights Mesquite and he had found themselves getting into at Dodge and Ogallala, but even those towns weren't what they had been. The old cattle drives weren't so big as they used to be, either. It was towns like Tombstone and Deadwood that were getting all the play now. But for sheer murderous toughness there were a half-dozen mining camps in Utah and Nevada that would compare with the old trail towns. The longhorn had taken over from the buffalo and now 204 203 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES was giving way to the white-face. Before long there would be plows on the range. The old West was changing, and there was nothing to do but accept it. "What now?" Shorty asked suddenly. "You goin' to hunt Jacks?" "Possibly." Cassidy rolled a smoke and stretched his legs to ease the cramp building in his thighs. "But it could be he's had enough. As for the 3 G, I hope they mind their own affairs. Ronson wants no trouble he can avoid." His eyes twinkled. "And I'm feelin' about the same." Milligan looked downcast. "Just when it was gettin' to be a good fight, too!" In 1863, Unionville had been wide open. At that time it had ten stores, six hotels, nine saloons, two express offices, two drugstores, four livery stables, and a brewery. Everybody had a claim staked out and every claim was potentially the richest ever found. Men without a nickel to their name talked in terms of thousands of dollars, and they exchanged, bought, or sold claims, and veins that sold by the foot. Mining men being what they are, optimism was the normal attitude, and it takes a n optimistic man to live in a dugout or brush shelter while grubbing in a mountainside for the rainbow's end; but in a country where a chunk of silver nearly a ton in weight had been found and rich veins were paying off in millions, optimism had some excuse for being. Within twenty miles of Unionville a half dozen hamlets were born, some to last only a few months, some a few years, and some to move at least once during their lifetimes. One of these was Star City, a haphazard collection of habitations clustered on 205 204 LOUIS L'AMOUR a mountainside guarded from view by a lower but neighboring peak. There had been a rich strike here. It had lasted almost two years, then died. The miners, finding too little to do, had drifted on to Unionville and elsewhere. The shacks remained, and in them a few optimists and a few casual squatters. The optimists stayed on, while the squatters changed from week to week. At last even these drifted on and the town acquired a few desert owls, a pack rat or two, and some migrating bats. Clarry Jacks was white-faced and half dead when the faithful Duck Bale brought him to the collection of shacks. In one of these that was reasonably intact they found shelter, and Bale, whose experience with gunshot wounds had been wide, worked over the injuries. The scalp had been laid open to the bone and there had been a concussion, but the body wound was the most serious. After a few days, when he could leave the wounded man without danger, Bale made contact with Dud, then returned to the cluster of shacks. For a week Jacks hovered between Me and death, ministered to by Bale himself and by old Doc Benton, smuggled into the town blindfolded by Dud Leeman. Benton, a former army surgeon now far gone in liquor, still retained ability, and he used it. When he finally was returned to the saloons of Unionville, Jacks was well on the way to recovery. Yet as he recovered, his manner grew increasingly irritable, then vicious. Moving from Star City, they took shelter in the haft-dozen ramshackle buildings in a deep gash in the mountainside that constituted all that remained of the High Card Mining Company. Thin, white-faced, and mean, Clarry Jacks paced the floor, seething with repressed fury. Duck Bale watched him and worried, and even the phlegmatic Dud Leeman eyed him with misgiv- 206 205 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES ings. Whether it was the sharp defeat administered by Hopalong or the concussion was hard to say. The fact remained that the man's character stood starkly revealed now. The cloak of easy laughter was gone, and all that remained was the killer, but now without a single relieving virtue. Dud Leeman chewed silently on his plug of tobacco and ruminated upon what he knew of his companion. Clarry Jacks had been close to him, but Clarry Jacks in a tight spot had murdered Dakota Jack. Dud had known for a long time that Vasco Graham and Jacks were one. It had been Bale, a friend of Jacks back in his Bald Knob days, who had told him the truth. None of it made Dud any more confident of his future. "My idea," he ventured once, "would be to pull out. This country's finished as long as Cassidy's here. We can take care of Pony later." "Forget that!" Jacks whirled on him, his eyes narrowed viciously. "We don't leave this country until both Cassidy and Harper are dead! I want that gold, but that isn't so important to me as gettin' Cassidy!" "Boss," Leeman protested quietly, "the whole country's against us now. If we stay we haven't got a chance to get out alive. I mean it. We can get away now. They don't know whether you're alive or dead, but believe me, they are gettin' suspicious. "Cassidy," he continued, "is ridin' the country. So's Ben Lock, and from all I hear, it was Lock who killed Laramie. Yesterday, from the top of the ridge, I watched Lock for two hours with a glass. He was on a trail. Maybe it was yours-I don't know. Anyway, he lost it down in the valley, but every so often he'd look up and see these mountains and study 'em like he figured on scoutin' around. I tell you, Clarry, Lock isn't quittin'!" Jacks's eyes were somber with hatred. "What's the matter, 207 206 LOUIS L'AMOUR Dud?" he sneered. "Gettin' yellow? I wouldn't be surprised if it was Bale here, but you!" He turned on his heel and walked to the door, but when he looked back he said, low-voiced and tense with emotion: "Nobody leaves me! Get that? Nobody!" He stalked outside, and they heard his steps receding down the trail. White-faced, Bale glanced at Dud. "He sure has changed." Leeman nodded worriedly. "There's no sense in stayin', Duck! None at all! I tell you, that Lock is like a bloodhound. He'll never leave that trail! That hombre worries me, stickin' at it the way he does. He's lost weight, he's slept out for days, but he keeps goin'. He'll never quit. As for Hopalong, I'd sooner tackle a catamount in his own cave than that hombre. The only reason Clarry is alive today is because of that quake." "What you goin' to do?" Bale inquired cautiously. Dud Leeman said nothing. He got swiftly and silently to his feet and peered outside, then sat down. "Do?" he said loudly. "I'm stickin' with the boss. What else? It's just a matter of how we can get that Cassidy hombre!" Bale looked at him quickly, then at the window, and nodded. "Yeah," he said, "the first thing is to get him, then that gold from Harper." Clarry Jacks stalked into the room suddenly and glared sullenly first at one, then at the other. That he had gone down the trail, then dodged back to listen, they both knew. Jacks lighted a cigarette, drew impatiently on it, then stalked again to the door, muttering to himself. Dud Leeman looked at his broad back, then shot a quick glance at Duck. It was not in him to shoot a man in the back, but at that moment he wondered if it would not be best. It was 208 207 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES beginning to look like the only choice they had was to kill or be killed. Clarry Jacks turned around and stared at them, his eyes malevolent and evil, and behind that there was something else that Dud Leeman glimpsed for the first time and recognized with a chill. Clarry Jacks was insane. 209 208 CHAPTER 12 Furtive Enemy 209