by Zane Grey
“Wal, Colonel,” began Keetch, sonorously, “I take it you mean this movement on the border will rub out the old outlaws pronto—if they keep on.”
“Exactly.”
Mizzouri puffed his cigar and eyed the blue cloud of smoke as if it was as new to him as the idea Latch propounded.
“Thar’s a lot in what you say, boss. I’ve always been for you, an’ if you’re turnin’ honest, so am I.”
“Sho, Kumel, I’ve always done expected to tumble on the end of a rope,” spoke up the negro.
“Latch, me an’ Jerry Bain was talkin’ thet very thing over not so long ago,” added Seth Cole, ponderingly. “An’ we agreed…. The wust about turnin’ honest is how’n hell are we goin’ to make a livin’?”
“Colonel, you always knew that bein’ crooked was forced on me,” said Plug Halstead. “It seems to me men of my callin’ have to keep on bein’ crooked—if it’s crooked to throw guns. Suppose I turned over a new leaf. Suppose I became a judge or preacher. Pretty soon some hombre would come huntin’ me—to see if I could draw a gun quicker’n he.”
This sally elicited a laugh. Leighton was now the only one left to give his opinion, if he had any.
“Latch, your idea is sound,” he concluded, with his baffling smile. “As for me—I always intended to turn over a new leaf. Probably there couldn’t be a better time for me to try it.”
“Settled!” rang out Latch, rising to pace the floor. “Now for ways and means…. This valley will graze half a million head of cattle—if we keep the buffalo out. The cattle era has begun. Fortunes are made in Dodge City. Trail-drivers buy cattle for two and three dollars a head. Sell them at Dodge for fifteen! That price will go up and up. In a few years it will be forty dollars. Forty dollars a steer delivered at Dodge!… Men, we’ll all get rich. We are rich, right now.”
“Boss, s’pose you prove that statement,” drawled Mizzouri.
“We’re here first. This valley is mine. As you know, I bought it from Satana. It is wonderfully rich in grass, water, climate. Farms will prosper here. Game abounds. The hills are covered with timber…. My proposition to you all, except Leighton, is this. I’ll start you with a ranch and cattle—say five hundred head each. A fine start! Also five thousand dollars each. Bunch together with some Mexicans, and Keetch here to superintend, and throw up cabins, corrals, barns. Build homes. Get yourselves wives, even if they have to be squaws. Work. And live down the past.”
Keetch made a great thump with his crutch as he got up to support his master.
“Fellars, it’s a grand idee. Any man of you can see the sense of Latch’s plan, as wal as his generosity. Come! you can all have many years to live yet. Honest years!”
The negro tumbler rolled his great ox eyes. “Marse Latch, I done knowed you wuz a good man. All the time I knowed it.”
“Hell yes!” shouted Mizzouri, roused out of his good-nature.
Bain, Cole, and Halstead in quick succession, moved by the fire of the moment, acquiesced dramatically.
“Leighton, you don’t need a start in ranching. You are already doing well, Keetch says, on the way to prosperity. Are you with us?” Latch halted to bend eagerly over his one-time confederate.
“Latch, I prefer to go my way alone,” returned Leighton, inscrutably. “But I’m with you so far as the secrecy of our old band is concerned.”
“You don’t join us in this turn to honest living?” queried Latch.
“I will never join any band again,” replied Leighton, harshly. “But I approve of the plan. Only I’ll make my own turn.”
“Fair enough” interposed Keetch. “Let Leighton go his own way—so long’s it’s honest”
“I agree to that,” added Latch.
“How do you propose to placate Satana?” queried Leighton. “I just lately came down from Spider Web. Was up on a hunt…. The old chief is restless. It was our deals, you know, that kept him off the warpath. He’ll be hard to handle.”
“That will be my job and my expense,” declared Latch.
“Here’s a harder job. What to do about the, well, men of our old calling who come heah, more and more of them, every winter.”
“They will be welcome. Outlaws, Indians, every kind and class of men will be welcome. We’ll keep open house. We’ll hide them, if necessary, feed them, be friends with them….Only, we have turned honest!”
CHAPTER
11
CORNY wrenched his gaze from the set eyes and twitching face of the prostrate trail-driver. Suddenly sick and cold, he turned away.
“He forced you to draw, Corny,” spoke up Weaver, the trail boss, in hoarse and hurried tones. “We all seen that. But he was Lanthorpe’s favorite an’ you know Lanthorpe was already sore at you. Fork your horse, boy, before he gits back.”
“We air damn sorry, Corny,” spoke up a lean-jawed rider. “None of us had any use for Pitch. He was an ornery hombre. An’ he got what he always expected. But as Weav says, Lanthorpe was some kin or other to Pitch. You gotta rustle.”
“Wal, I’ve a mind to stay,” drawled Corny as he flipped his gun and sheathed it
“Yes, an’ like as not bore him, too,” added Weaver, earnestly. “Don’t do it, Corny. I bet it’d make you an outlaw. Wouldn’t it, Chet?”
“Shore as hell. And we’re jest too fond of you, Corny. If you don’t care aboot yourself, why, think aboot us.”
“If you put it that way—” returned Corny, ponderingly.
“Listen, cowboy,” interrupted Weaver, so relieved that he seemed tense. “We’ll keep this from Lanthorpe as long as we can. You ride down along the river, back to town. There’s a wagon train got in last night, an’ it’ll be leavin’ this mawnin’. Fall in with it, Corny.”
“Wagon train! Weav, I’ll hit the next trail-herd boss for a job—an’ see you in Dodge.”
“No, you won’t, Corny,” returned Weaver, emphatically. “You’ve wore oot this heah trail-drivin’. Texas ain’t big enough for you, no more…. Corny, don’t argue an’ don’t git sore at me. Take my hunch an’ hit for the West.”
“Where?” queried Corny, as if intrigued by a new idea.
“Anywhere West. Even Califomy…. Corny, you’ve spent six years up an’ down this Chisholm Trail—huntin’ for thet—thet brother…. Forgive me, Corny, but this is straight talk…you’ll never find him. So git off the trail where you’ve earned so bad a name for throwin’ a gun. Go where you’ve never been heerd of—an’ begin all over.”
“Corny, it’s more than straight talk,” added the other driver. “It’s sound sense. You’re no low-down hombre of a gun-slinger. Corny, you’re good old Texas stock an’. ——”
“You-all win,” interposed Corny, coldly. “Don’t rub it in…. But where in hell will I go?”
“I was aboot to tell you,” continued Weaver.
“Rustle, boss, I see Lanthorpe comin’,” spoke up a driver in the background.
“Ride oot with thet caravan,” went on Weaver, hastily. “They’re travelin’ west on thet Lyons wagon road. Go with them—as far as the Canadian River, anyhow. Try your hand at buffalo-huntin’. This’ll be a great year for buffs, Corny …or better, ride on to Latch’s Field. Steve Latch is runnin’ Chisholm a close second these days. They say Latch has a wonderful range up on the North Fork”
“Latch’s Field! But that’s an outlaw rendezvous—didn’t we heah? Some stranger rider down on the Brazos.”
“Range gossip, boy, so far as Latch is concerned. But at thet in Dodge you heah aboot outlaws holin’ up in the bad lands west of the Cimarron. As for thet, Corny, where can you go these days an’ not run into gangs of bad hombres? Look at this old cattle trail since the buffalo hide-hunters have got so thick! But back off the main roads an’ trails! Thet’s your deal, boy.”
“Wal, I’m thankin’ you-all,” replied Corny, and made for his horse, just saddled for the day’s drive. He led the horse away from camp, to the bank of the river, where a fringe of willows and cottonwoods soon hid him fro
m sight. As he strode along he concerned himself with fighting the bitter nausea that possessed his vitals. Coming to a grove of cottonwoods, he halted to sit on a log and roll a cigarette.
“I wonder if Weav was right aboot Lester,” he soliloquized. “I reckon…. But all I hoped these years was to find out what become of him…Wal, wal!… That’ll never be.”
The long-lost brother was to become only a memory. Corny experienced a relief at the actual abandoning of a search that was hopeless. He felt glad, too, that the Chisholm Trail had seen the last of him. He had been a trail-driver since he was sixteen. It had suited his wild nature, this roaring cattle drive from the Rio Grande to the markets in Abilene and Dodge. The constant action, the ever-present peril of stampedes, floods, storms, Indians, buffalo, rustlers, the conflict with as fiery, ruthless, and devil-may-care young men as himself, the romance and magic of the greatest movement of cattle the West was ever to know—these had filled out Corny’s restless, unhappy life, these things alone could have saved him from becoming a gun-packing tramp. He loved Texas. It hurt terribly to give up the long, endless ranges, the sight of the white Llano Estacado, the fording of the Nueces, the Brazos, the Red, the Canadian, all those rivers so dear to him. But on the other hand it was well that Dodge and Abilene and Hays City were to see him no more. “Corny barks too often with his gun!” an old trail boss had averred. Corny confessed it. All the same he knew more than anyone else how he had been barked at.
Corny smoked another cigarette and then mounted his horse to ride up on the bank where he could see. Lanthorpe’s big herd was crossing the river above—a long, moving, spotted line breaking the bright serenity of the stream. Soon a moving bridge of longhorns spanned the space from bank to bank. The drivers were having trouble with the rear end of that triangle-shaped herd of three thousand cattle.
“Wal, Weav will shore miss me when it comes to drivin’ the: drags,” said Corny, with pride. He was proud of his reputation as the best rear-end driver on the trail. Corny gazed once more. This was his farewell to the Chisholm Trail.
A dull thud of hoof on soft ground caught his ear. There was a horse moving down in the willow brake under the bank. Presently he espied the sombrero of a rider. One of the drivers was trailing him. Corny rode back to where he had climbed out, and it was not long before the lean-pawed trailer confronted him.
“What you countin’ my tracks for, Jeff?” inquired Corny.
“Jest wanted to say good-by an’ hand you this,” returned the other, and he handed Corny a roll of greenbacks.
Corny stared at the money and then at Jeff. He was trying to roll a cigarette while engaged in watching Corny appealingly.
“Gosh blast it, pard! Thet was Weav’s idea. He knowed you hadn’t a dollar. An’ Weav said we’d all chip in. Didn’t want you to start a new trail without some money. Only don’t hit the bottle, Corny—An’ Weav says for you shore to write him home at Santone. An’ he’ll let us all know how you air.”
This kind thought of Weaver’s, the gift from all his trail comrades, the faith and hope expressed in the wish to hear from him—these broke down Corny’s reserve and he bowed his head over his saddle.
“My Gawd!… an’ I never cared for—nobody—but himr
“Shore. We understood, Corny,” replied the other, softly. “An’ thet is one reason we-all cared so much—Good-by, old man. Weav says to go straight. I needn’t tell you to shoot straight.”
Jeff wheeled his horse, and piled over the bank so quickly that when Corny looked up he was gone.
“Tell Weav I will,” called Corny, hoarsely, down into the shaking green foliage. “Good-by, Jeff.”
Corny rode away from the river bank across the flat toward the post. The sun was well up now and warm. Birds flew from the brush and rabbits scampered before his horse. Soon he saw blue columns of smoke and then the outlying gray shacks of Findlay. Corny remembered when the little settlement had once been a single trading-store, a landmark on the long trail of the drivers. A stench of buffalo hides assailed his nostrils. Huge bales of the shaggy pelts lay scattered around. Freighters were busy packing. Corny passed them. He rode on to a camp on the outskirts of Findlay and inquired if a wagon train bound west had passed.
“Left before daybreak,” replied a red-whiskered hide-hunter, bending a curious glance on Corny. “Didn’t I see you with Weaver’s trail herd?”
“You might of. Mawnin’, friend,” drawled Corny, and turned west on the dusty road. He put his horse to a lope until over a rolling ridge out of sight of the camp, and then slowed to a walk. The long road wound to the west, disappearing here and there over ridges, to come into sight farther on. Evidently it followed a stream-bed, a branch of the river, where fringe of willows and clumps of trees marked its course. Corny bent experienced scrutiny upon the wheel tracks in the road. The caravan was hours ahead of him. Corny decided to travel leisurely so that he would not catch up with the train before camp that night. A long day on the lonely road in which to think! He had bade the old trail and his driver comrades, farewell. He must by some power of mind place the deed that had forced him to part with them far back in the past. He had done that before. And when he looked up from the dusty road again to face the vast purple rangeland it seemed with strange relief, certainly with resolve. Something beyond the dim bold hills called him.
Midday found Corny topping a high ridge from which he saw dust clouds rising far ahead and also behind. The wagon train he was tracking no doubt accounted for the former, but who was raising dust in the rear? Corny made the acquaintance of what Westerners called a step on his trail. Lanthorpe was quite capable of sending a posse in pursuit of him. But reflection showed the fallacy of this thought. Weaver and the other drivers had long ago pointed the big herd of cattle to the north and somehow they would circumvent any attempts of Lanthorpe to catch him.
He rode on down the long slope, to a pleasant valley bottomland, where groves and patches of prairie grass bright with flowers bordered a meandering brook. Shade invited a rest. Corny let his horse drink and then led him across the brook into a grove some rods from the road. Then Corny retraced his steps and found a shady covert where he proposed to wait until whoever was raising the dust should pass.
The nook was cool and restful. A noonday breeze rustled the leaves and pleasant sounds came from the grove. He had difficulty in keeping awake. When had a trail-driver ever had enough sleep? In less than a half-hour, however, he heard the clip-clop of two horses on the hard road. His position was such that any riders happening along must pass before he could see them. Presently two rough dark-clad men, astride bay horses, came into sight riding off the road. They had a look trail-drivers were wont to regard with suspicion. Dismounting at the brook, they watered their horses, then led them back of the thicket where Corny lay concealed. Too close for comfort! Yet Corny could not distinguish the low deep voices. He sensed, however, that something was afoot; with his unfailing misfortune and fatality he had gravitated to another incident, probably calamitous. Riders did not dismount and hide along the road just to rest in the cool shade.
Corny guessed that other riders and perhaps a belated wagon belonging to the caravan were coming along. These two men in hiding were highwaymen. Robbery along the trails and roads of Texas in that day was a frequent occurrence.
Keen as Corny was, however, he had not prepared himself for the rhythmic trot of four horses and the rolling sound of a stagecoach, coming also, evidently slowing up at this point for water.
At this juncture, scrape of boots and jingle of spurs made Corny aware that the two ambushers were coming round in front of the thicket. Corny peered through the brush to see them slink by.
“Steve Latch would pay handsome to git thet gal of his back alive,” said one, gruffly.
“I’m leary of the idee. We don’t know this country. But let’s see how they’re heeled before riskin’ any more’n a hold-up,” returned the other.
They passed on out of hearing. Corny was taut with exciteme
nt. He whispered under his breath: “Wal, what the hell have I run into now? Steve Latch’s gal!” He got up noiselessly, and bending low weaved to and fro through the thicket until he approached the road. This he could not see, but the near approach of horses slowing to a walk acquainted him with his position. What he wanted to find out was where the two robbers had located.
Corny ventured crawling to the edge of the thicket. From here he could see the road a few rods out, but could not detect the whereabouts of the two men. They must be close, and would presently leap out to hold up the stage-coach. Corny pulled one of his guns, the new Colt. There was a grim little laugh behind his set lips. Fine chance he had of avoiding gun-play! But this deal sent sharp thrills over him.
Suddenly a crash of brush in front sent a hot gush of blood after the thrills.
“—Hands up thar!” pealed out a stentorian command.
A girl’s scream, pound of hoofs, startled voices, and scrape of wheels attested to a halt. Corny put his head out of the brush. Robbers and victims were just out of sight around the corner of thicket. Corny crawled out, ran with light steps, halted for a deep full breath—then leaped.
This action brought him within a rod of the two dark-garbed robbers, standing with backs toward him, their guns slanting up at the driver and his companion on the seat of the stage-coach. Their hands were high above their heads and the driver still held the reins of the restive horses.
