by Bar-20 Days
Jackson crawled to his rifle and then to the side window, where he propped his back against a box and prepared to do his best. "It was shore a surprise," he swore. "An' they went an' got Edwards before he could do anything."
"They did not!" retorted Johnny. "He—" the glass in the door vibrated sharply and the speaker, stepping to one side out of sight, with a new and superficial wound, opened fire on the building down the street. Two men were lying on the ground across the street—these Edwards had shot—and another was trying to drag himself to the shelter of a building. A man sprinted from an old corral close by in a brave and foolhardy attempt to save his friend, and Johnny swore because he had to fire twice at the same mark.
The rear door crashed open and shut as Barr, closely followed by Neal, ran in. They had been caught in the corral but, thanks to Harlan's whiskey, had managed to hold their own until they had a chance to make a rush for the store.
"Where's the marshal?" cried Barr, catching sight of Jackson. "Are you plugged bad?" he asked, anxiously.
"Well, I ain't plugged a whole lot good!" snapped Jackson. "An' Edwards is dead. They shot him down without warning. We're going to get ours, too—these walls don't stop them bullets. How many out there?"
"Must be a dozen," hastily replied Neal, who had not remained idle. Both he and Barr were working like mad men moving boxes and barrels against the walls to make a breastwork capable of stopping the bullets which came through the boards.
"I reckon—I'm bleeding inside," Jackson muttered, wearily and without hope. "Wonder how—long we—can hold out?"
"We'll hold out till we're good an' dead!" replied Johnny, hotly. "They ain't got us yet an' they'll pay for it before they do. If we can hold 'em off till Buck an' the rest come back we'll have the pleasure of seeing 'em buried."
"Oh, I'll get you next time!" assured Barr to an enemy, slipping a fresh cartridge into the Sharps and peering intently at a slight rise on the muddy plain. "You shoot like yo're drunk," he mumbled.
"But what is it all about, anyhow?" asked Neal, finding time for an immaterial question. "Who are they?—can't see nothing but blurs through this rain!"
"Yes; what's the game?" asked Barr, mildly surprised that he had not thought of it before.
"It's that Oasis gang," Johnny responded. He fired, and growled with disappointment. "Harlan's at the head of it," he added.
"Edwards—told Harlan to—get out of—town," Jackson began.
"An' to take his gang with him," Johnny interposed quickly to save Jackson from the strain. "They had till dark. Guess the rest. Oh, you coyote!" he shouted, staggering back. There was a report farther down the barricade and Neal called out, "I got him, Nelson; he's done. How are you?"
"Mad! Mad!" yelled Johnny, touching his twice-wounded shoulder and dancing with rage and pain. "Right in the same place! Oh, wait! Wait! Hey, gimme a rifle—I can't do nothing with a Colt at this range; my name ain't Hopalong," and he went slamming around the room in hot search of what he wanted.
"There ain't—no more—Johnny," feebly called Jackson, raising slightly to ease himself. "You can have—my gun purty—soon. I won't be able—to use it—much longer."
"Why don't Buck an' Hoppy hurry up!" snarled Johnny.
"Be a long time—mebby," mumbled Jackson, his trembling hands trying to steady the rifle. "They're all—around us. Ah, missed!" he intoned hoarsely, trying to pump the lever with unobeying hands. "I can't last—much—" the words ceased abruptly and the clatter of the rifle on the floor told the story.
Johnny stumbled over to him and dragged him aside, covering the upturned face with his own sombrero, and picked up the rifle. Rolling a barrel of flour against the wall below the window he fixed himself as comfortably as possible and threw a shell into the chamber.
"Now, you coyotes; you pay me for that!" he gritted, resting the gun on the window sill and holding it so he could work it with one hand and shoulder.
"Wonder how them pups ever pumped up enough courage to cut loose like this?" queried Neal from behind his flour barrel.
"Whiskey," hazarded Barr. "Harlan must 'a' got 'em drunk. An' that's three times I've missed that snake. Wish it would stop raining so I could see better."
"Why don't you wish they'd all drop dead? Wish good when you wish at all: got as much chance of having it come true," responded Neal, sarcastically. He smothered a curse and looked curiously at his left arm, and from it to the new, yellow-splintered hole in the wall, which was already turning dark from the water soaking into it. "Hey, Joe; we need some more boxes!" he exclaimed, again looking at his arm.
"Yes," came Johnny's voice. "Three of 'em—five of 'em, an' about six feet long an' a foot deep. But if my outfit gets here in time we'll want more'n a dozen."
"Say! Lacey's firing now!" suddenly cried Barr. "He's shooting out of his windy. That'll stop 'em from rushing us! Good boy, Lacey!" he shouted, but Lacey did not hear him in the uproar.
"An' he's worse off than we are, being alone," commented Neal. "Hey! One of us better make a break for help—my ranch's the nearest. What d'ye say?"
"It's suicide; they'll get you before you get ten feet," Barr replied with conviction.
"No; they won't—the corral hides the back door, an' all the firing is on this side. I can sneak along the back wall an' by keeping the buildings atween me an' them, get a long ways off before they know anything about it. Then it's a dash—an' they can't catch me. But can you fellers hold out if I do?"
"Two can hold out as good as three—go ahead," Johnny replied. "Leave me some of yore Colt cartridges, though. You can't use 'em all before you get home."
"Don't stop fer that; there's a shelfful of all kinds behind the counter," Barr interposed.
"Well, so long an' good luck," and the rear door closed, and softly this time.
"Two hours is some wait under the present circumstances," Barr muttered, shifting his position behind his barricade. "He can't do it in less, nohow."
Johnny ducked and looked foolish. "Missed me by a foot," he explained. "He can't do it in two—not there an' back," he replied. "The trail is mud over the fetlocks. Give him three at the least."
"They ain't shooting as much as they was before."
"Waiting till they gets sober, I reckon," Johnny replied.
"If we don't hear no ruction in a few minutes we'll know he got away all right," Barr soliloquized. "An' he's got a fine cayuse for mud, too."
"Hey, why can't you do the same thing if he makes it?" Johnny suddenly asked. "I can hold her alone, all right."
"Yo're a cheerful liar, you are," laughed Barr. "But can you ride?"
"Reckon so, but I ain't a-going to."
"Why, we both can go—it's a cinch!" Barr cried. "Come on!"
"Lord!—an' I never even thought of that! Reckon I was too mad," Johnny replied. "But I sort of hates to leave Jackson an' Edwards," he added, sullenly.
"But they're gone! You can't do them no good by staying."
"Yes; I know. An' how about Lacey chipping in on our fight?" demanded Johnny. "I ain't a-going to leave him to take it all. You go, Barr; it wasn't yore fight, nohow. You didn't even know what you was fighting for!"
"Huh! When anybody shoots at me it's my fight, all right," replied Barr, seating himself on the floor behind the breastwork. "I forgot all about Lacey," he apologized. At that instant a tomato can went spang! and fell off the shelf. "An' it's too late, anyhow; they ain't a-going to let nobody else get away on that side."
"An' they're tuning up again, too," Johnny replied, preparing for trouble. "Look out for a rush, Barr."
Chapter XIX - The Bar-20 Returns
*
Hopalong Cassidy stopped swearing at the weather and looked up and along the trail in front of him, seeing a hard-riding man approach. He turned his head and spoke to Buck Peters, who rode close behind him. "Somebody's shore in a hurry—why, it's Fred Neal."
It was. Mr. Neal was making his arms move and was also shouting something at the top of his voice. Th
e noise of the rain and of the horses' hoofs splashing in the mud and water at first made his words unintelligible, but it was not long before Hopalong heard something which made him sit up even straighter. In a moment Neal was near enough to be heard distinctly and the outfit shook itself out of its weariness and physical misery and followed its leader at reckless speed. As they rode, bunched close together, Neal briefly and graphically outlined the relative positions of the combatants, and while Buck's more cautious mind was debating the best way to proceed against the enemy, Hopalong cried out the plan to be followed. There would be no strategy—Johnny, wounded and desperate, was fighting for his life. The simplest way was the best—a dash regardless of consequences to those making it, for time was a big factor to the two men in Jackson's store.
"Ride right at 'em!" Hopalong cried. "I know that bunch. They'll be too scared to shoot straight. Paralyze 'em! Three or four are gone now—an' the whole crowd wasn't worth one of the men they went out to get. The quicker it's over the better."
"Right you are," came from the rear.
"Ride up the arroyo as close as we can get, an' then over the edge an' straight at 'em," Buck ordered. "Their shooting an' the rain will cover what noise we make on the soft ground. An' boys, no quarter!"
"Reckon not!" gritted Red, savagely. "Not with Edwards an' Jackson dead, an' the Kid fighting for his life!"
"They're still at it!" cried Lanky Smith, as the faint and intermittent sound of firing was heard; the driving wind was blowing from the town, and this, also, would deaden the noise of their approach.
"Thank the Lord! That means that there's somebody left to fight 'em," exclaimed Red. "Hope it's the Kid," he muttered.
"They can't rush the store till they get Lacey, an' they can't rush him till they get the store," shouted Neal over his shoulder. "They'd be in a cross fire if they tried either—an' that's what licks 'em."
"They'll be in a cross fire purty soon," promised Pete, grimly.
Hopalong and Red reached the edge of the arroyo first and plunged over the bank into the yellow storm-water swirling along the bottom like a miniature flood. After them came Buck, Neal, and the others, the water shooting up in sheets as each successive horse plunged in. Out again on the farther side they strung out into single file along the narrow foot-hold between water and bank and raced towards the sharp bend some hundreds of yards ahead, the point in the arroyo's course nearest the town. The dripping horses scrambled up the slippery incline and then, under the goading of spurs and quirts, leaped forward as fast as they could go across the level, soggy plain.
A quarter of a mile ahead of them lay the scattered shacks of the town, and as they drew nearer to it the riders could see the flashes of guns and the smoke-fog lying close to the ground. Fire spat from Jackson's store and a cloud of smoke still lingered around a window in Lacey's saloon. Then a yell reached their ears, a yell of rage, consternation and warning. Figures scurried to seek cover and the firing from Jackson's and Lacey's grew more rapid.
A mounted man emerged from a corral and tore away, others following his example, and the outfit separated to take up the chase individually. Harlan, wounded hard, was trying to run to where he had left his horse, and after him fled Slivers Lowe. Hopalong was gaining on them when he saw Slivers raise his arm and fire deliberately into the back of the proprietor of the Oasis, leap over the falling body, vault into the saddle of Harlan's horse and gallop for safety. Hopalong's shots went wide and the last view any one had of Slivers in that part of the country was when he dropped into an arroyo to follow it for safety. Laramie Joe fled before Red Connors and Red's rage was so great that it spoiled his accuracy, and he had the sorrow of seeing the pursued grow faint in the mist and fog. Pursuit was tried until the pursuers realized that their mounts were too worn out to stand a show against the fresh animals ridden by the survivors of the Oasis crowd.
Red circled and joined Hopalong. "Blasted coyotes," he growled. "Killed Jackson an' Edwards, an' wanted the Kid! He's shore showed 'em what fighting is, all right. But I wonder what got into 'em all at once to give 'em nerve enough to start things?"
"Edwards paid his way, all right," replied Hopalong. "If I do as well when my time comes I won't do no kicking."
"Yore time ain't coming that way," responded Red, grinning. "You'll die a natural death in bed, unless you gets to cussing me."
"Shore there ain't no more, Buck?" Hopalong called.
"Yes. There was only five, I reckon, an' they was purty well shot up when we took a hand. You know, Johnny was in it all the time," replied the foreman, smiling. "This town's had the cleaning up it's needed for some time," he added.
They were at Jackson's store now, and hurriedly dismounted and ran in to see Johnny. They found him lying across some boxes, which brought him almost to the level of a window sill. He was too weak to stand, while near him in similar condition lay Barr, too weak from loss of blood to do more than look his welcome.
"How are you, Kid?" cried Buck anxiously, bending over him, while others looked to Barr's injuries.
"Tired, Buck, awful tired; an' all shot up," Johnny slowly replied. "When I saw you fellers—streak past this windy—I sort of went flat—something seemed to break inside me," he said, faintly and with an effort, and the foreman ordered him not to talk. Deft fingers, schooled by practice in rough and ready surgery, were busy over him and in half an hour he lay on Jackson's cot, covered with bandages.
"Why, hullo, Lacey!" exclaimed Hopalong, leaping forward to shake hands with the man Red and Billy had gone to help. "Purty well scratched up, but lively yet, hey?"
"I'm able to hobble over here an' shake han's with these scrappers—they're shore wonders," Lacey replied. "Fought like a whole regiment! Hullo, Johnny!" and his hand-clasp told much.
"Yore cross fire did it, Lacey; that was the whole thing," Johnny smiled. "Yo're all right!"
Red turned and looked out of the window toward the Oasis and then glanced at Buck. "Reckon we better burn Harlan's place—it's all that's left of that gang now," he suggested.
"Why, yes; I reckon so," replied the foreman. "That's as—"
"No, we won't!" Hopalong interposed quickly. "That stands till Johnny sets it off. It's the Kid's celebration—he was shot in it."
Johnny smiled.
Chapter XX - Barb Wire
*
After the flurry at Perry's Bend the Bar-20 settled down to the calm routine work and sent several drive herds to their destination without any unusual incidents. Buck thought that the last herd had been driven when, late in the summer, he received an order that he made haste to fill. The outfit was told to get busy and soon rounded up the necessary number of three-year-olds. Then came the road branding, the final step except inspection, and this was done not far from the ranch house, where the facilities were best for speedy work.
Entirely recovered from all ill effects of his afternoon in Jackson's store up in Perry's bend, Johnny Nelson waited with Red Connors on the platform of the branding chute and growled petulantly at the sun, the dust, but most of all at the choking, smarting odor of burned hair which filled their throats and caused them to rub the backs of grimy hands across their eyes. Chute-branding robbed them of the excitement, the leaven of fun and frolic, which they always took from open or corral branding—and the work of a day in the corral or open was condensed into an hour or two by the chute. This was one cow wide, narrow at the bottom and flared out as it went up, so the animal could not turn, and when filled was, to use Johnny's graphic phrase, "like a chain of cows in a ditch." Eight of the wondering and crowded animals, guided into the pen by men who knew their work to the smallest detail and lost no time in its performance, filed into the pen after those branded had filed out. As the first to enter reached the farther end a stout bar dropped into place, just missing the animal's nose; and as the last cow discovered that it could go no farther and made up its mind to back out, it was stopped by another bar, which fell behind it. The iron heaters tossed a hot iron each to Red and Jo
hnny and the eight were marked in short order, making about two hundred and fifty they had branded in three hours. This number compared very favorably with that of the second chute where Lanky Smith and Frenchy McAlister waved cold irons and sarcastically asked their iron men if the sun was supposed to provide the heat; whereat the down-trodden heaters provided heat with great generosity in their caustic retorts.
"Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me," sang Billy Williams, one of the feeders. "But why in Jericho don't you fellers get a move on you? You ain't no good on the platform—you ought to be mixing biscuits for Cookie. Frenchy and Lanky are the boys to turn 'em out," he offered, gratis.
Red's weary air bespoke a vast and settled contempt for such inanities and his iron descended against the side of the victim below him—he would not deign to reply. Not so with Johnny, who could not refrain from hot retort.
"Don't be a fool all the time," snapped Johnny. "Mind yore own business, you shorthorn. Big-mouthed old woman, that's what—" his tone dropped and the words sank into vague mutterings which a strangling cough cut short. "Blasted idiot," he whispered, tears coming into his eyes at the effort. Burning hair is bad for throat and temper alike.
Red deftly knocked his companion's iron up and spoke sharply. "You mind yourn better—that makes the third you've tried to brand twice. Why don't you look what yo're doing? Hot iron! Hot iron! What're you fellers doing?" he shouted down at the heaters. "This ain't no time to go to sleep. How d'ye expect us to do any work when you ain't doing any yoreselves!" Red's temper was also on the ragged edge.
"You've got one in yore other hand, you sheep!" snorted one of the iron heaters with restless pugnacity. "Go tearing into us when you—" he growled the rest and kicked viciously at the fire.
