Cassidy shrugged. "Forget it. We all make mistakes. Looks," he added innocently, "like my full house takes the pot?"
Troy had withdrawn his hand, and Cassidy coolly swept the chips toward him. That fourth king had been in Troy's hand, and had he spread the cards, he would have added it to those already there. It was an old trick, and one Ewalt had showed Cassidy in a bunkhouse years before.
It was Hopalong's deal, and he gathered the cards clumsily toward him. He had already noted two aces among the discard, and he neatly swept them into a bottom stock as he gathered the cards together.
He riffled the cards, spotted another ace and, in a couple of passes in shuffling, added it to his bottom stock. Palming the three, he passed the deck to Harris for cutting, returned them to the bottom after the cut, and calmly dealt five hands, giving himself two of the aces in bottom deals.
Drennan promptly glanced at his cards and tossed them aside. Hankins stayed and tossed in a red chip. Troy upped it five, and then Poker Harris grinned over at Hopalong.
"Reckon we'll see how you like it, Red! I'll see that ten and lift her forty!"
Cassidy hesitated, studied his cards, then raised twenty more. Hankins folded and Troy raised, Harris raised again, and they made another round of the table. At the draw Harris took two cards and Troy and Cassidy three each. One of the three Hoppy dealt himself was the remaining ace from his bottom stock.
Troy promptly tossed two blue chips into the pot. Harris saw him and raised, and Hopalong sat back in his chair and grinned at them. His hard blue eyes were smiling over the ice that glinted in their depths. Drennan suddenly shifted his feet and looked anxiously at Poker Harris, but the big man was looking at Hopalong. Hankins sat silent, his big hands resting on the arms of his chair. Troy twisted nervously and glared at Hopalong for the delay.
Hankins's guns, Hopalong noted, were almost under the arms of his chair, which precluded a swift draw. Drennan wore no gun in sight, and it was a question whether he would declare himself in or not. If trouble showed, Troy would be the first to move. He was the sort to go off half-cocked. Harris was the tough one.
"Let's make it pot limit," Cassidy said, chuckling. "I like 'em bloody!"
Troy swore bitterly as Harris nodded assent, then threw in his hand and drew back slightly, leaving himself in position to cover Hopalong if trouble started.
Poker Harris studied the man across the table with ill-concealed curiosity. It was possible the man who called himself Red River Regan might have guessed their play on the last hand. If he had guessed it, he knew something about crooked cards. If it had been mere chance that his hand had beaten Troy to the spread, he might be just a lucky cowhand. While inclining to this view, Harris was uncertain, and uncertainty he definitely did not like. He did not like it in others, and he liked it even less in himself.
"Pot limit," he said, "can run into money. You got it?"
For answer Hopalong drew a thick roll of bills from his pocket and placed them beside his chips. "I'll cover any play you make, Harris," he said carelessly. "Make her as tough as you like."
"Lot of money for a cowhand," Harris suggested.
"I make good money." Hopalong grinned widely.
This Red River Regan had dealt the cards, but his handling of them had been clumsy, and if he was a gambler, he looked less like one than any man Harris had ever seen. So far he had played a fair game of draw, but nothing unusual. It was true that twice, when Harris had planned a kill, Cassidy had thrown in his hand and passed.
"No," Harris said, "no pot limit, but I'll bet you a flat five hundred over what's in the pot now that I got you beat."
"Call," Hopalong said, still smiling. He spread his cards as he spoke-four aces.
Three by bottom dealing and one by accident.
Poker Harris's eyes bulged. He came half out of his chair, the cords in his neck swelling. "Why, you mangy wolf!"
Troy's grab for a gun was wasted,. With a swift motion Hop-along had sprung back, knocking over his chair as his Colts leaped to his hands.
Troy's hand froze, and Harris stiffened where he stood. Cassidy smiled. "What's the matter? You got aces too?" He motioned with his guns. "Back up!"
Holstering his left-hand gun, he turned over Harris's hand, then chuckled. "Your aces came from a newer deck, Poker. You should use two decks equal so it won't show up." Calmly he began to pocket the money. "Sorry to spoil this game for you boys, but you started playin' rough. I just kept it up." He nodded toward his hand. "Four bullets. Don't make me use any more."
Troy was livid with fury, Poker Harris big, utterly contained, only his eyes showing the rage that consumed him. Hankins, whose hands had dropped only to realize the futility of attempting a draw from his position, held his place. Only Drennan seemed unmoved and somewhat curious.
"Enjoyed the game," Hopalong said quietly. "Now you boys sit quiet while I leave."
"Wait a minute!" Harris had relaxed in his chair. "Why leave? Strikes me you're an hombre knows his way around. You handle your guns faster than any man I ever saw-except one. Want a job?"
Hopalong gestured at the money. "With all that? You crazy?"
"That's chicken feed. There's plenty around here."
"Boss-" Troy started to protest.
"Shut up!" Harris replied irritably. "I can us!? a man like you."
Red River Regan shrugged. "I'll always talk business."
"Then find yourself a bunk over there. No hard feelin's. Stick around until mornin' and we'll make medicine."
"Sure." Hopalong coolly bolstered his gun.
Troy's eyes were ugly. "I'll kill you!" he said. "You don't size up right to me!"
"Any time you're ready," Cassidy said quietly, "just go to it!"
Troy's hands were trembling on the verge of a draw, and Hopalong knew it. He had seen such men, men driven by such a lust to kill that nothing mattered.
"Troy!" Harris swore at him. "Don't be a blame fool! Cut it out!"
Troy spat viciously, then wheeled and walked from the room, Cassidy stared after him, then shrugged. But his face was thoughtful.
Hopalong suspected that neither he nor his money would make it through the night, and now he wanted nothing so much as to get away . . . but without trouble. He turned to Harris. "See you tomorrow, then," he said. 'I'll see my horse is all right, then turn in."
When he went out the door he faded abruptly to the right and into the shadows. Someone was moving in the livery-stable door, but it was not Troy. Dropping from the porch in front of the saloon, he hiked across the street. A big man passed him almost in the door, a man who looked very familiar. Hopalong did not see the man turn to stare after him, but went into the stall and hurriedly slapped the saddle on the white gelding, then the bridle.
He walked the horse to the door and had him there as the big man turned to go into the saloon. That big man had stopped for several minutes on the steps, looking back, trying to make up his mind whether he had been recognized or not. At this stage of the game Dan Dusark did not want to be recognized. He opened the door and walked in.
"Howdy, Harris," he said, shoving his hat back on his head. He looked at Poker Harris.
"What was he doin' here?" He jerked his head in the direction of the livery stable.
"Why, you know him?" Harris stared hard at Dusark.
"Know him?" Dusark exploded. "Of course I know him! That's the new segundo on the Rockin' R. That's Hopalong Cassidy."
"What!" Poker Harris's face went livid, then a dark fury of blood. "Did you say Hopalong Cassidy?"
Hankins swore and grabbed for his guns. Two other men went out of the door behind him, and Harris jerked a shotgun from under the bar. They rushed to the bunkhouse, and only their own men snored there. They rushed to the stable, but the white horse was gone!
Harris shouted and raved, but Dusark lighted a smoke. "No use to get excited," he said calmly. "He's gone, and if you know anythin' about him you couldn't find him out there tonight with a search warrant, believe you
me!"
Walking his horse down the canyon while Dusark was talking to Harris, Hopalong swung into the saddle and rode swiftly out into the valley below. He did not turn northwest toward the Rockin' R, but southwest toward the stagecoach route. It was as good a time as any to look around the scene of the holdup. His visit to Corn Patch had netted him little beyond his winnings, yet he did know the sort of men to be found there and what might be expected of them.
Poker Harris was shrewd, capable, and dangerous. Troy was vicious as a sidewinder, erratic, and not to be trusted under any circumstances, but he was also a man whose own viciousness would defeat him. Hankins was tough-next to Harris the toughest of the lot. And Drennan-Drennan was an uncertainty. Of the others who had been around he knew little beyond what their presence in the place indicated. They were outlaws, drifters, cowhands gone bad, and the raw material of hell in the borning.
If the three moving forces in the Seven Pines country were tied together, there was as yet no indication of it that he could see. The Gores wanted the Rockin' R range, the rustlers wanted cattle, and the gang that pulled the stage holdup wanted-and had-gold.
There was no uncertainty about the 3 G outfit. The Gore boys had a goal in mind and would waste no time in achieving it, nor would they hesitate to throw lead. The rustlers no doubt had a tie-up with Harris. The holdup men, whoever they might be, would have to have a tighter organization than such a man as Harris could handle. Their greatest problem would be disposal of the gold itself, and raw gold in quantity presented a very real problem in the marketing.
Dark as it soon became, Hopalong had no trouble holding to his direction. Without landmarks from this approach, he nevertheless had the stars to guide him on a course, and knew that if he headed in his present direction he must sooner or later run into the stage trail. Heading south, he made camp in a small hollow among the hills near Poker Gap.
Fixing coffee and a quick meal, Hopalong then killed his fire and, moving back into the sage a short distance, spread his sugan and rolled up.
Silence awakened Cassidy. Total, complete silence. The pulsing of the crickets had stilled; no wind, no movement of small animals in the brush. It was as if the entire landscape had frozen in fear. Even the breeze was holding its breath. Hopalong's right hand closed on the grip of one of his pistols, and he slowly turned his head to look across the campsite at Topper. In the dark the big gelding was only a pale blur, but Hoppy could tell his head was up and his ears pricked, focused intently on something in the distance. A glance at the sky told him that it was near three o'clock.
Taking a fresh grip on the gun, he rolled out of bed, eyes scanning the darkness.
Nothing moved; the night waited, tense in anticipation. He was just considering putting the Colt aside to pull on his boots when there was a sound from far off. It was like distant thunder in a narrow valley, like blasting powder set off deep in a mine, like a huge boulder rolling down a steep hillside; getting closer and closer. . . The earth under Hopalong's bare feet trembled, then jerked. Topper snorted, prancing backward. A rock fell, off to his right, hit with a clatter, and then all was still.
After a moment or two the silence was broken by the plaintive call of a night bird, then the sound of a single cricket, but soon it was joined by others. Topper blew, and Hopalong went over to comfort him.
"Easy, boy. Just an earthquake, that's all. Take it easy an' we'll see if we can't sleep for a couple more hours."
At the first gray light he was out of bed and building a fire in a small hollow where the flame would be concealed. He used dry sticks and knew they would allow almost no smoke. All the while he kept a sharp lookout on the country around him, watching for any sign of movement or smoke.
The events of last night had focused Hopalong's thinking on caution. That he was in the enemy's country he knew, and the holdup gang might have their hideout anywhere in the area. From now on he would have to exercise utmost care. Swinging into the saddle, he moved out, keeping to washes and bottoms, avoiding all ridge lines and hills. As he rode, his attention was divided between the country itself and the ground beneath.
Suddenly he drew up. A fresh line of tracks, probably only hours old, crossed before him, and one of the hoofmarks had that same close-trimmed look as one of the horses ridden in the holdup! This was luck! Hopalong studied that track, as well as the three accompanying it, for in the future he might not be so fortunate as to see that one print. However, the other forefoot was also closely trimmed, and the horse toed in slightly.
From under the big hat Hopalong scanned the country. His cold blue eyes left nothing unseen. They were eyes long accustomed to searching desert and range, and he knew how to look for what he saw. His eye would instantly separate anything from the surrounding terrain that did not belong there. When his inspection was completed he started on, but he did not deliberately follow the trail of the horse. He headed in the same direction, swinging on ahead to cut the trail at another point.
Before him the sandy knolls of the desert, covered with sagebrush mingled with creosote, rolled back in a wide but narrowing fold. Huge plates of rock pushed up, the strata in them visibly tilted toward the sky. Here was a piece of the fault along which had run last night's minor earthquake.
The trail he followed headed into the gap between those tilted rocks. He studied it with care, then turned Topper and rode up the side of the hill across from the trail. Keeping below the line of sight from beyond the ridge, he pushed on for half a mile and halted. Leaving the gelding in the juniper, he made his way to the crest and, removing his hat, peered over the top.
The space between had narrowed into a rocky defile, and he could vaguely make out what seemed to be the trail below him. Turning his eyes, he could see up the defile through a maze of gigantic ledges into what seemed to be a canyon, but this was no canyon worn by the slow hand of time, but rather an enormous crack caused by some not-too-ancient upheaval of the earth. Red and raw, the ledges exposed the broken fangs of their ugly jaws to the morning sky, and between two of them lay a narrow valley, in the bottom of which were several makeshift shelters of stone, adobe, and logs. In a pole corral were three horses, and the whiter marks of a trail led away even deeper into the maze of faulted rock.
As Hopalong watched, a man came to the door of one of these shelters and threw a bucket of water onto the ground. Then he walked out of sight behind some rock. When he next appeared, the bucket was full. He went back into the cabin.
For an hour Hopalong carefully studied the situation. Several times he shifted his position for a different viewpoint. To approach up the usual path through the rocks looked to be foolhardy in the extreme, for these men would be taking no chances, and the sight of a stranger would be enough to start them shooting. Yet no matter how he studied the terrain, he could not see what became of the path that vanished into the rocks.
Returning to his horse, he mounted and started riding west. The trail was precarious and he worked his way in and around the tangle of canyons and washes, trying to get at the upper end of the valley to see where the trail he had glimpsed would emerge.
Some bygone earthquake had created havoc with the country, and so it was not as easy to read the terrain as it was in a country of natural grades.
Emerging from the tangle, he found himself below the crest of a long ridge. Turning in the saddle, he could see that a high peak ended the ridge, and beyond were two more peaks. The canyon he was looking for must lie between those peaks and this ridge.
Mopping the sweat from his face, for the morning was already warm, Hopalong studied the situation once more but saw nothing new. Following a vague hunch, he pushed on into a tangle of juniper, where the ground seemed to slant sharply away, and found himself at the head of a steep declivity, a rock slide that slanted sharply away for at least two hundred yards, then disappeared out of sight around a shoulder.
Dismounting, Hoppy worked his way slowly down the slope, leaving Topper tied at the top. When he reached the shoulder, he saw
that the slide made a ramp that changed directions but fell sharply away to the bottom of a canyon that could only be the one he had glimpsed. If such was the case, it extended much farther than he had believed.
Returning for Topper, Hopalong led the horse carefully down over the rocks. An excellent mountain horse, the gelding took it with patience and some prick-eared interest.
Reaching the trail, Hopalong saw nothing behind him in the direction of the small cluster of huts, but before him, in a small amphitheater in the mountains, lay a forest of pine and fir, and in the back of the hollow was the stone face of a building.
Working his way into the basin, Hopalong studied the building. It was a rebuilt cliff dwelling that had obviously been found in good shape. Nearby was a corral, and five beautiful horses stood in it. Hoppy could hear water running, and there appeared to be plenty of grass. He took another step, then stopped abruptly. One of the horses in the corral was that same white-splashed paint horse he had seen in the holdup bunch!
Chapter 6
Frazer Makes an Error.
Duck Bale was mad. He was mad clean through. For three days before the last holdup and now for every day since then he had been stuck at the hideout, and Duck was a man who liked company.
Frazer was here, of course, but nobody ever claimed that Bud Frazer was good company.
He slept most of the time, growled about doing his share of the work, and played solitaire the rest of the time. Duck was a man who liked to talk, and on occasion he liked to listen. Mostly it was just that he liked to talk himself, which was one reason he had the nickname. The other reason was his long nose and flappy lips.
He was good and mad this morning. Frazer had crawled out of bed long enough to eat and had then gone back. He was lying there now, snoring like all get-out. Why wasn't Laramie here? Now Laramie was all right, a pleasant man, but a fighter too. Duck Bale had his own ideas about fighters, and in his mind Laramie stacked up as the toughest of the lot. He was slick with a six-gun and a handy man with a rifle. Someday Laramie would tangle with the boss; Bale was sure of that. He had been pretty sore when the news reached them of how Jesse Lock had been killed.
the Trail to Seven Pines (1972) Page 7
