by Zane Grey
“There is no occasion to tell her,” said Wade, hastily. “It was only an incident of every day for us riders.”
“Tell her, Hal,” cried Rona, resentfully. She had a red spot in each pale cheek.
“Bet your life I’ll tell her,” retorted Hal. “I’d told her long ago but for Dad.”
“What are you keeping from me?” queried Jacqueline, and she paled perceptibly.
“Hal, are you breaking my rule?” interposed Wade.
“Boss, I am, this once. I don’t care a damn. Jacque has one of her queer spells today. But she shan’t take it out on you.”
“Never mind my spell,” returned the girl, stiffly, once more prey to a vivid blush. “Tell me what’s happened!”
“Nothin’ much to us riders, Jacque,” answered the lad, nonchalantly. “If we hadn’t ridden your horses lately we’d been worse off. You know my job is scoutin’ with a glass from the high knoll. Hogue named it Rona’s Topknot, cause it’s got a bright grassy top. . . . Well, I was watchin’ for the boys to show along the edge of the cedars. Sunset right in my eyes the other way. That’s how it came I got held up by two geezers. They sneaked up an’ got the drop on me. One of them wanted to bust my head open right there. But the other thought they could get money from Dad by kidnappin’ me. So they tied my hands, made me get on my horse. We went down the hill. I seen the cowboys off in the cedars an’ I yelled bloody murder. My kidnappers wheeled for the open range keeping hold of my bridle an* did they ride! . . . At first we were too far apart for shootin’. But Hogue an’ the bunch burned a lot of powder anyway. Brandon was up on Pen. They’d had a hard ride before that. All the horses but Pen were spent. Pen got out ahead an’ the others fell back. He began to catch up with us. I never rode so fast in all my life. Then those two geezers began to shoot back at Brandon. They shot all their ammunition away. But he kept comin’ an’ gainin’. I began to figure I’d soon hear a bullet whistle. But I didn’t. I heard Brandon shoot an’ I heard his bullet hit the man who had my bridle square in the back. He yelled somethin’ awful, let go my bridle an’ his own. The other fellow grabbed him an’ kept him from failin’ off. He was shot for keeps, that geezer. I got my bridle up an’ pulled my horse. Brandon went by like the wind, workin’ that Winchester. They went out of sight. I heard more shots. Then Brandon came trotting over the ridge. He says, ‘How are you, Hal?’ An’ I answered, ‘Fine outside feelin’ kinda cheap for bein’ held up.’. . . He didn’t say a word about the two rustlers—for sure that’s what they were—an’ I didn’t need to ask. Pen was drippin’ wet, but not even winded. We rode back to meet the outfit. I guess that’s about all.”
If Wade had been capable of a thirst for revenge he could have had his fill. But sight of Jacqueline routed his hurt feelings,
“Hal!” she whispered, and reached blindly for her brother who was quick to take her hand.
“Jacque, it wasn’t nothin’—honest it wasn’t,” he protested, earnestly, shocked at the change he had wrought so quickly in her proud passionate bearing. “But Pen—Aw, what a horse! If you had any idea how good he is you wouldn’t be so stingy with him. Jacque, you ought to have heard what the cowboys said about that horse.”
Jacqueline raised her head to look at Wade, and it was certain she saw him alone.
“I didn’t know. . . . I despise myself—for insulting you. I was terribly wrong.”
“It’s all right, Miss Pencarrow,” rejoined Wade, hurriedly. “Naturally you were upset. You love Pen. He’s a grand horse. But neither I or any of us shall ride him again.”
“If Pen is that grand he might save Dad or Rona—or you, Brandon,” she said, with the resonant power back in her voice, “You shall ride him!”
“I’d rather—not,” replied Wade, hesitatingly, weakening at the onset of what he felt coming. “I’d never feel right. . . . I lamed him, you know. No one could forget that.”
“But Pen is yours, I give him to you,” she replied, with finality. And she turned to the others with a mien poised and serious, and in decided contrast to the gay fire which had characterized her that day, and the petulant mood with which it had terminated. “Gentlemen,” she said to her guests, “it is too bad you did not get away before I fell into one of my tantrums—to insult Mr. Brandon, who has been our friend and savior. You will appreciate how badly off we are heah—how beset by troubles and dangers—how impossible it is to entertain visitors for a single day without subjecting them to embarrassment. I am sorry. It was kind of you to visit us. Good-by.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HAL’S story of his abduction almost split the Pencarrow family. The mother, particularly, went into hysterics and entreated and demanded that her son should no longer be permitted to ride with these wild cowboys. Pencarrow sustained a shock, but he realized that Hal was no longer a child, and he stoutly upheld the lad in his determination to stand by Brandon and do his share. Jacqueline maintained silence during the family dispute, plainly divided between love for her brother and this enlarged and terrifying duty. Rona was strong for Hal. Finally Jacqueline ended the argument by appealing to Brandon: “I think Hal should ride with you. But if possible, give the boy your care and protection while he is learning.”
Next day Wade kept Kinsey and Hicks with him while he sent Hal and the other cowboys, and also Lightfoot, to Holbrook for two wagonloads of supplies. Wade took the post of scout on the high knoll. Kinsey and Hicks, with light packs, rode away on the west side of the range, where they were to hide in the timber and watch the open. In case of a raid they were to take the trail of the rustlers, creep up on them in camp, shoot and slip away under cover of the night.
No time that he had ever spent on guard seemed to Wade so thought-compelling and significant as this upon the knoll. He could see the ranch house not far away, and sometimes the girls outdoors, and most of the wide gray range to the north and west. The cattle had scattered over five square miles or more, out in the open, and probably numbered close to four thousand head. Wade sat in the shade of a pine and watched every moving object within range of the powerful field glass. At the same time, thought and feeling were active.
As autumn had advanced the surrounding country had taken on a glorious glamour of gold which the spots of scarlet, the belts of black, and the vast rolling sea of gray appeared only to accentuate. The desert appealed to him most, with its stark and mystic strength, its call of silence and loveliness. Would he ever ride away toward that curtain of blue haze, down into the world of rock and sand?
That day the range, at least as much as he could command, showed no telltale clouds of dust or dots of dark riders on the desert. In the dusk he rode down to the cedars and back to the ranch and a late supper in the kitchen. Pencarrow came in to talk, and Jacqueline, with her all-embracing eyes followed to ask questions he could not answer. The one she came solely to satisfy herself upon was the one she did not ask—and it concerned his return his safety. Just the fact that she came, to look at him with haunted eyes, sent Wade to his cabin shaken with conflicting tides of emotion.
He sat on his porch in the cool starlight, and he saw Jacqueline’s dim face at her open window. Then began a strange duel. She watched him and he knew it, and that gave rise to vaster trouble than his longing to watch her. Why did she lean there? When he could bear it no longer he went inside, almost at once to peep from his dark window, to see with tumult that she at once closed hers and lighted her lamp.
Before dawn he rode off on his lonely vigil, keeping to the open range, and watching with eyes that pierced the gray gloom.
That day was like its predecessor. In the succeeding seven days the first dust clouds he sighted came from the wagons and horses of the returning cowboys. Wade rode in before sunset. Jerry reported so uneventful a round trip to Holbrook that its very quietness seemed ominous. It had turned cold up on the plateaus. Cattle were working down into the draws. Hal, as on the former trip, seemed to grow older and keener by leaps and bounds. Elwood Lightfoot kept silence until the
girls had taken Hal and his numerous packages away to the sitting room, and the cowboys had left him with Wade and Pencarrow.
“Wal, Brandon, the seed we sowed has growed powerful rank an’ strong,” he said. “I never heerd so many conflictin’ stories. I took a flyin’ trip on the train over to Winslow an’ Flagstaff before I looked Holbrook over. All Arizona has heerd of Cedar Ranch doin’s. An’, Pencarrow, if ever a cattleman was lauded for stickin’ it out under impossible circumstances, you are thet man. An’, Brandon, if ever a gunman was welcomed on a range you are him. Gossip has magnified everythin’ thet’s happened, an’ created a hundred things thet never happened. You’re supposed to have an outfit of wild-ridin’ half-breeds an’ cowboys. The hangin’ of thet rustler at Pine Mound threw the light upon Blue an’ Harrobin. I’d almost go so far as to say it made them outlaws. They have powerful friends—all cattle buyers thet ask no questions, you can gamble—an’ the hue and cry is not all on one side. But the wedge is entered thet’ll split this range wide open. Every cowboy you meet will tell you hangin’ rustlers has come to Arizona an’ before long the big bones will be decoratin’ a cottonwood. That’s a juicy quid for cowboys. Some gambler blew in from Tombstone to taunt Holbrook Kent’s backers with Tex Brandon’s record in Tombstone, Douglas, Yuma. If you were Wess Hardin, Buck Duane an’ Billy the Kid rolled into one you couldn’t be as vicious, as deadly as they’ve got you figgered. It’s bad news for Blue an’ Harrobin. I talked with one man who heerd Blue himself rave about this Tex Brandon. ‘But who’n hell is he? I knew all the old gunmen in Texas. An’ some of the young comers. But I never heerd of Tex Brandon. If he’s such a hell of a gunman thet’s not his real name.’ . . . It’s shore put Holbrook Kent on the tip of every one’s tongue. Kent is a marked man. If he was a fourflusher, which no one could call him, he’d be forced to meet you. . .. An’ to sum up, thet’ll be hot-stove an’ fireplace gossip all winter. Next summer an’ fall will tell the tale.”
“It’ll be told before summer if I can write my page,” said Wade.
“Shore. Hit at them first. They won’t be expectin’ thet,” replied Lightfoot.
“Will they raid me again before winter?” asked Pencarrow.
“I’ve been expecting a raid every day. But nothing has happened. Kinsey and Hicks are out. I gave them a week. If they’re not back by tomorrow we’ll hunt them up.”
“If I had money, I’d buy cattle,” rejoined Pencarrow, decisively. “Rustlers in this section have kept the price low.”
“I banked nine thousand dollars for you after I sold the herd we got back,” said Wade. “Why not save a thousand out of that and buy with the rest.”
“I owe you nearly seven thousand.”
“What if you do? Let that ride.”
“Pencarrow, you could buy nine hundred head an’ more,” rejoined Lightfoot. “Cattle will never be so cheap again. Now’s the time—if we can only dig up some money.”
“Could I mortgage the ranch?”
“Shore. With all this stir, you could borrow big on it.”
“No mortgages,” cut in Wade, shaking his head. “That’s bad. Keep the land and property free.”
“I can sell out to Aulsbrook for ten thousand,” interfered Light-foot. “He shore wants thet water right of mine.”
“If you sell to anyone it’ll be Pencarrow,” replied Wade. “If next spring is absolutely the right time to buy then we must raise money some other way.”
“Wal, it is absolutely, provided you know you can break the power of this rustler outfit.”
“I know that I can,” rejoined Wade, with grim gravity, but he did not add that he could guarantee coming out of the fight alive.
“Heah we air talkin’ big,” interrupted Pencarrow, impatiently. “An’ it’s money thet talks. I’ll buy another thousand haid an’ then be satisfied to build up slow. Thet was our original idea.”
“Yes. But what a pity!” ejaculated Wade, regretfully.
“Beggars cain’t be chosers, Brandon. I tell you I’m happy now,” retorted the rancher, emphatically. “It’s you fellows who egg me on. Heah I have some money in the bank, an’ a few thousand cattle when a little while ago I was broke—practically ruined. Brandon, I’d be a poor sort of man if I didn’t appreciate what you’ve done for me an’ my family. I can wait.”
“But this chance will never come again,” protested Wade.
“What chance?”
“To make a fortune.”
“No, I reckon not. I shore hope not. At least not owin’ to a cattle war on one side an’ rustler bands on the other.”
“Perhaps I should have said to retrieve the fortune you lost,” ventured Wade, significantly.
“Wal, thet hurts, an’ if anythin’ could upset my equilibrium, thet would. But I was practically ruined. An’ I refuse to let dreams of a shore chance to make a fortune cheat me of content now.”
That ended the discussion. Wade respected the rancher’s fine attitude toward the past and present. But it did not prevent his longing for the realization of this unusual opportunity. He had discarded it before, but it had returned dedoubled and unforgettable.
Kinsey and the half-breed did not return the following day or the next. On the third, Wade made a very early start for the place where the two cowboys had planned to camp, and found that they had not been there for a week. Trailing them was too slow a job. Wade with his cowboys circled the west end of the range and soon ran across recent tracks of a small bunch of cattle traveling in a straight line westward. No doubt Kinsey and Hicks had followed. Before the day was out Wade came upon signs of the first camp of the rustlers, which at once took on deeper significance because of two hastily dug and covered graves.
“Doggone!” drawled Jerry, as he rolled a cigarette. “Hogue an’ Hicks paid their respects to this outfit, huh?”
They turned back arriving at the ranch late in the night. Kinsey and Hicks lay in their bunks so dead asleep that they did not awaken. On the following morning Wade let all the cowboys have a much-needed rest, while he went down to see Elwood Lightfoot. The homesteader listened and pondered for a while.
“Lull before the storm, mebbe,” he said. “I look to see Pencarrow cleaned out this fall. It’ll cost you ten thousand head of steer to bust up this new rustler combine.”
“That’d be cheap.”
“Make Pencarrow buy more cattle pronto. Blue an’ Harrobin will concentrate on the Cedar Range next spring. I’ve an idee all these ranchers would contribute a lot of cattle to the good cause of eggin’ on the rustlers to this range. They’d lose the cattle anyhow.”
“What do you mean? Have Aulsbrook, Driscoll, Mason, and even little cattlemen like Drill drive some stock over here to be stolen?”
“Thet’s what, if they’d do it. Think it over.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to buy their contribution cheap.”
“It shore would—an’ they would sell cheap with thet under-standin’. But how’n hell can we buy?”
“Elwood, I haven’t figured on that. I always make up my mind first.”
“Ahuh. . . . Brandon, I reckon all the cattlemen between the desert an’ the White Mountains would be a heap interested in thet idee. Altogether we might buy thirty or forty thousand head for what the rustlers get—provided you can convince the cattlemen you’ll clean out the rustlers. Aulsbrook, Driscoll,—they know damn wal they stand to lose all their cattle. Blue has been around this range for near five years. Harrobin less. It’s about time for them to make some top raids, then move on to their next stampin’ ground. So it behooves. . . . Say, what ails you?”
Wade had violently responded to an illuminating thought. It burst like sparks into his mind, making him leap up as if galvanized.
“You’ve given me a hunch!” After that ejaculation Wade abruptly left.
Hogue Kinsey’s report seemed characteristic of what this genius of a cowboy had developed into.
“We tracked nine rustlers drivin’ a small herd hell-bent for the
brakes. Sneaked up on their first camp just about dark. They were eatin’ round the fire. They had dogs an’ those dogs gave us away. We each got in a shot an’ then run for our horses. Tracked them next day. Found their camp. There was seven of them, an’ all damn suspicious an’ watchful. We waited till late. Even then some of them were awake, because the instant we opened up they was bouncin’ lead off the rocks an’ trees. We’d planned to sling some lead ourselves an’ vamoose before the rest waked up. We slung it an’ vamoosed, but the goin’ was hot. Next mornin’ we found they’d broke camp in the night, leavin’ some seventy odd steers in the woods—an’ a couple of their outfit layin’ with guns an’ spurs gone, an’ pockets inside out. Then we mosied for home.”
The snows did not come in time to save most of Pencarrow’s cattle from the raiders. He had bought fifteen hundred head from Drill, and these five, two and three-year-old steers went with the rest. While Wade and his cowboys trailed and fought one outfit of rustlers, two or three larger ones made successive raids, leaving only a few hundred cows and calves on the range.
When the winter finally did send the rustlers to their burrows in the brakes, Pencarrow was again on the verge of ruin.
A thin skim of snow lay on the range, except on south exposures where the sun struck warm. The few cows and calves, melancholy reminders of Pencarrow’s once big herd, concentrated on those grassy spots. The high ridges and plateaus shone glistening white. Cold wind swept down from the heights. Wolves bayed from the hill slopes, threatening what cattle were left. And the November days came, dark with leaden skies and dreary with the moan in the pine trees.
But the big bunkhouse presented a cheerful sight with its blazing cedar fagots in the open fireplace, and the colorful trappings of the cowboys strewn around.
Pencarrow, accompanied by Jacqueline and the twins, had just addressed the outfit, including Elwood Lightfoot, thanking them in a husky voice for their efforts to save him and his family, and advising them to leave Cedar Ranch to be employed by better ranchers who could pay for their wonderful services.
