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

by The Trail To Seven Pines (lit)

  A . week later Hopalong rode into town, accompanied by Tex and Shorty. They had searched the ruins of Star City and found nothing. What might have been the remains of a campfire had been scattered, and it was impossible to tell if the charred sticks found on the spot were a few days or a few months old. Nobody had seen either Dud Leeman or Duck Bale. Pony Harper was never alone. Rawhide haunted his vicinity; his dark eyes with their yellowish whites were always busy, searching, staring, watching windows, doorways, and alleys. Harper had grown noticeably thin. His jowls, which had been plump, now sagged over his heavy jawbones. He was irritable and seldom in the High-Grade during rush hours. Ben Lock had returned to town and, despite Katie's objections, had bought supplies and started out again. He had admitted that he was having no luck but was working systematically now, searching each section of country as though hunting strays or prospecting. Rumors got around. Clarry Jacks was alive- somebody who knew somebody else was told by his cousin that Jacks had been seen. Jacks, according to another story, was 212 210 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES dead. He had been buried by moonlight in Poker Gap, dying of wounds. Ben Lock met Hoppy in the livery stable at Seven Pines. Hopalong had just come in and Lock was leaving. "Cut any sign, Ben?" Lock shrugged. "Not lately. He's alive, though. I got a feelin'." "Yeah." Hopalong sat down on a bale of hay and struck a match with his thumbnail. "A man's got to figure this thing with his head. No real trail. You just got to think it out." "Never was much good at that," Ben said. "I can read trail sign as good as most men, and I can follow a color upstream, but that about lets me out." He looked at Hopalong thoughtfully. "What do you reckon he'll do, Hoppy?" "Hard to say," Cassidy admitted. "But let's take it for granted that Duck and Leeman are with him. That means three men. They have to have food, water, ammunition, and concealment. Ammunition they probably have without buyin' more. Maybe not, but we'll figure it that way. Now that still means they have to have food, water, and a hideout. "He's not in Seven Pines-you can bank on that. North of here the country is nearly all Rockin' R, with the only water on our range. We've rebuilt the cabin at Willow Springs and the boys are there every other day or so. Mandalay, Haystack, and the Rabbithole likewise are visited. Corn Patch was burned to the ground and would be too risky for 'em. "Clarry has enemies in Unionville, so he'll stay away from there. Poker Gap in the daytime is wide open. What does that leave us?" "Not much," Ben admitted, scowling. He looked around quickly at the sound of a step and saw Tex Milligan and Shorty 213 211 LOUIS L'AMOUR Montana. Both were looking at the map sketched in the dirt of the floor. Shorty dropped to his haunches. "Say, Ben," he asked, "when you were lookin' around Star City, did you go to the High Card Mine?" "Where's that?" Shorty indicated on the map. "Deep canyon back in there. If you didn't know she was there, you could sure miss it." "No," Ben admitted. "I reckon that's one I missed. Water there?" "Uh-huh. Not very good, but water." Ben nodded seriously. "Then that could be it. I'm headin' that way." He turned to look at Hopalong. "Want to come along, Cassidy?" Cassidy shook his head regretfully. "Sorry. I got to get out to the ranch and see Ronson. Anyway," he added, "I've had my trouble with Clarry Jacks. As long as he leaves the R alone, I'll leave him alone, unless he starts something." Nevertheless, he was worried. Knowing something of the caliber of man Clarry Jacks was, he realized that so long as the man was alive and in the Seven Pines country there would be trouble. It was time he himself moved on. He was restless and wanted to head north for Gibson's spread. There was only a little business with Ronson to hold him now. Yet somehow he hesitated to go, and itching with irritation, he paused on the street and studied it without seeing anything before him. It was a long time since anything had bothered him this much, for usually he was a man immune to petty irritations and not one inclined to pay attention to hunches, but right now he had a feeling that trouble was headed his way. Gloomily he watched Ben Lock saddle up and strike out across the valley 214 212 THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES toward Poker Gap and the hills beyond. Shorty and Tex were in the High-Grade enjoying a drink, and he sat down on the edge of the boardwalk. Hopalong was scowling at his own uncertainty, and it was not like him to feel as he did. Yet he knew the kind of man Clarry Jacks was, and it worried him that the man was still at large. His eyes drifted along the boardwalk across the street where two old men sat in the sun, spinning yarns of the old days in the Mother Lode country. Beyond them, in the door of the High-Grade, Pony Harper stood, his coat hanging a little slack these days. Rawhide came to the door and reported something to Harper. Hopalong's eyes keened as they saw the reaction. Harper stiffened, then leaned forward, asking a question. Rawhide replied, then gestured off to the west, and the two talked excitedly. Watching with interest, Hopalong wondered what could have them so excited. Then they left the porch and went around to the side of the saloon, where they examined the ground and the window ledge. Suddenly noticing him, Harper straightened and said something in a low tone to Rawhide, who immediately glanced over at Hopalong Cassidy. Then both men walked inside. Thoroughly interested now, Hopalong waited until they were out of sight. Then he crossed the street and examined the ground under the window. The tracks were plain enough, for here a man with small booted feet had stood and tried to force up a window. The marks on the ledge of the window and its frame were obvious enough. That he had not succeeded was equally obvious. Clarry Jacks had been in town! If he had tried to force a way in through the office window 215 213 LOUIS L'AMOUR of the High-Grade, it must have been after hours, for the saloon was open until two o'clock almost every night. Where, then, had he gone? And why had he tried to get into the High-Grade? Returning to his horse, Hopalong stood for a while with his hand on the pommel, studying the matter. And then another idea came to him and his eyes shifted. He stared thoughtfully at Jaeger's store, which was separated from the High-Grade by only a few feet. Old Fritz Jaeger, a thin, cantankerous man, slept in the back of his store. Had he heard anything? Hopalong dropped the reins over the hitch rack again and tied a slipknot. Then he turned and walked across to the store. Jaeger looked up at Hopalong, then came toward him. "Something for you?" 'Teah. Some .44s. Give me two boxes." While the old man went back of the counter for the shells, Hopalong looked around. It was the typical western store. Down the center was a counter covered with merchandise, mostly clothing of various types for both men and women. A counter ran around the store on three sides, and the walls behind were shelved to the ceiling and lined with goods-all that a man might need or think of needing for living on the range. Tools, nails, rifles, ammunition, knives, rope, buckets, tubs, and all manner of food supplies. Jaeger placed the two boxes of shells on the counter before Hopalong and then looked up at him. Something in the cold eyes made him vaguely uneasy. "You sleep in the back of the store?" Hopalong inquired casually. Jaeger stiffened. "Yeah. Anything more? If not, I got work to do." "It can wait." Hopalong's eyes had chilled slightly. "Hear anything last night after you went to bed? Or this morning, say after two?" 216