Guardians of the Sage

by Harry Sinclair Drago

  “That may be,” Jim admitted. “God knows they’d rather go down fighting than wait for you to crush them.” He picked up his yardstick again. “The sale will continue!” he cried. “Section one, the northeast quarter! What am I bid?”

  Joe Tracey, Judd Case and Reb gathered about the old man and Letty.

  “The sale won’t go on if you want it stopped,” Reb informed him. “We can stampede this crowd.”

  The old man was biting his mustache nervously. For once he seemed not to know his own mind.

  “Father—we’re going!” Letty exclaimed. “I can’t stand any more of this!” She got her arm around his. “Please——”

  “Might as well,” he decided grudgingly. “I’ll fight this in my own way. We’ll let this smart aleck have his little party to-day.”

  If Montana noticed that the Bar S was leaving en masse, he gave no sign of it. The sale proceeded satisfactorily. Everybody seemed to get what they wanted, except Quantrell. He had to be satisfied with half a loaf. But prices were cheap, the land good. They knew they’d never give it up without a struggle.

  Finding himself near a post-office, old Slick-ear had to tarry to write his usual stack of letters, included in which were his voluminous epistles to his foremen, apprising them when and where to meet him, or not to expect him at all, and going into the minutest details about a hundred things he expected them to take care of before he should next see them.

  By the time he had finished, he had so far recovered his temper as to suggest that they have dinner before starting their long ride back to the South Fork and Willow Vista.

  Letty had no desire for food, but to humor him, she accompanied him to the dining-room of the hotel. He ate as slowly and methodically as he did everything else. Busy with his thoughts, he kept his eyes on his plate as he munched his food, and said nothing. Letty was equally engrossed in her own musing.

  They had almost finished when he surprised her by saying:

  “I made a mistake in not making Montana a foreman last year. There wouldn’t have been any of this nonsense to-day if I had. But like as not he would have done something else just as foolish. A man that can’t mind his own business isn’t worth his salt. He certainly made a spectacle of himself to-day, the contemptible ingrate!”

  “Not to me,” Letty murmured tremulously, her eyes fixed on the crowd moving away from the court-house. “I—I thought he was magnificent.”

  CHAPTER V BACKS TO THE WALL

  POETS have made immortal the exile of the humble Acadian farmers from the homes and the land they loved. The Squaw Valley Piutes had no poet to sing their swan song. But their passing was hardly less tragic. For countless generations they had waged incessant warfare against their natural enemies, the Bannocks and the Snakes, for the land of their fathers. They had even waged a long and losing fight against their white brothers. A remnant of a once proud race, they had consented to be herded together in Squaw Valley. Now even that last refuge had been taken from them.

  For fifty years a benign government had said in effect that one reservation was as good as another for an Indian. What difference could it possibly make to him where he found himself? Fort Hall was a big reservation. Three hundred Piutes would not overcrowd it. Of course it was a Bannock reservation. But what of that?

  Debauched, exploited, mute—perhaps it was strange that it could matter, that the blood hatred of a Piute for a Bannock still coursed through their veins.

  Old men and women, children—a troop of cavalry hurrying them along—they filed into Wild Horse, their worldly goods piled hit or miss on a long line of army wagons. In the truest sense, they all were children, with a child’s eagerness to be amused. Ordinarily, a trip to Wild Horse would have been an adventure. But their eyes were dull to-day, their faces stolid.

  “Aie-e-e, aiee,” the old squaws wailed as they called on Nanibashoo, the god of their fathers, to help them.

  Little Boy, their tribal chief, a wrinkled and toothless old man, rode on the first wagon, proud and dignified, a chief even in his rags.

  “Aie-e-e,” Montana echoed. He sat alone with Graham Rand, the sheriff, in the latter’s tiny office. His face was stern. “They don’t savvy this at all,” he said. “When Little Boy saw me, I got his thought. They think I did this to them.”

  “They’re crazy!” The sheriff drew his shaggy brows down. “They never had a better friend. You’re all Indian under the skin, Jim.”

  “There’s two of us. I reckon you’d throw that star away in a hurry if they’d only give us back this country as it used to be before the barbed wire hit it.” Montana mused to himself for a moment. “Graham, I didn’t see Thunder Bird in that bunch. Did you?”

  The marshal grinned mischievously as he shook his head.

  “I helped him to get away, Jim. He’s hiding out in the old Adelaide mine on Quantrell’s ranch. Plenty Eagles asked me to do something; his father didn’t want to leave the Malheurs. He’ll have to lay low for a couple of weeks.”

  “He’s too old to work,” Montana thought aloud. “Plenty Eagles will have to take care of him.”

  “I’ll see that he does,” Rand volunteered. “The old fellow’s got grub enough to last ten days.” He paused to refill his pipe. “No need to tell you to say nothin’ about this over there,” he went on presently. “What you aimin’ to do, Jim?”

  “I’m going to strike Dan Crockett for a job.”

  “Yeah?” In the inflection of his voice there was deep understanding rather than surprise. “Gunnin’ for trouble, eh?”

  “No, just hoping I can steady the boat a little. The old man won’t back up an inch, now that the courts have upheld him. He can do about as he pleases in that country. With Creiger and his deputies to help him, he’ll take possession of his water.”

  “And when old Slick-ear puts on the pressure, something happens!” Graham summed up tersely. “The next thing he’ll do will be to move in enough men and stock to worry that Squaw Valley crowd into doin’ somethin’ foolish.”

  “I expect he’s moved in already.” Montana’s expression was as grave as his words. “Mr. Stall never wastes any time.”

  That night he camped on Skull Creek, inside of the old reservation and several miles north of where the creek flows into the Malheur.

  Imagine a great inverted capital V with the Malheur Range forming the eastern line and the Junipers the western. Picture the Malheur River, rising in the Junipers and flowing to the north and east, so as to close the great triangle, and you have Squaw Valley, with the reservation occupying the lower part of the triangle. To the north, extending into the mountains, you would find the eight and nine-thousand acre outfits that were fighting for existence.

  There were three creeks of major importance in the valley. From east to west: Skull Creek, Big Powder Creek and Owl Creek. Eventually, all found their way to the Malheur.

  Montana rolled his blankets at dawn. The valley was wide there, not less than twenty miles from range to range. The scene was a familiar one to him. Beyond the willows and aspens that choked the creek bottom, the native bluejoint grew high and green, even though the year was a dry one. Because sheep had never ranged there, no ugly patches of burr or broncho grass marred that blue-green expanse.

  At that hour, the rolling Junipers to the west looked like great tufts of pink cotton. The Malheurs, nearer and more formidable, too, rose sheer and forbidding, varnished-green patches of mountain mahogany marking the spots where the snow lay late in the spring.

  Skull Creek purled over the rocks at Montana’s feet, as garrulous as an old woman, as he waited for the coffee to boil.

  “Just as sassy as usual,” he said. “Think you’d get tired, jawing away like that night and day.”

  He had not finished breakfast when he caught the sound of breaking brush up the creek. Presently, two mounted troopers rode into view.

  “Saw your smoke a long way off,” said one. “We thought you might be the party we’re lookin’ for. But God knows you ain’
t an Injun.”

  From their conversation Jim surmised that they had made only a perfunctory search for Plenty Eagles’ father. He invited them to share his flapjacks, but they said no.

  “Goin’ back to McDermitt, the younger of the two explained. “Want to get started before the sun begins to climb.”

  After they had gone on, Montana saddled his horse and followed the creek north. The afternoon was well along before he reached Dan Crockett’s Box C ranch.

  Dan, together with his cousins, the Gaults and the Morrows, had been the first to run cattle in the upper valley. He was thrifty and a hard worker, as were his grown sons. Comparatively, he had done well, but the Box C was a far cry from anyone of the big Bar S ranches.

  Dan was repairing a wagon-box as Montana rode into the yard.

  “Hi, Jim!” he called out, surprised to see him there. “What you all doin’ up this way? You still workin’ fer Uncle Sam?”

  “No, I’m paying my own wages now,” Montana laughed as he slid from his saddle. “And that’s a condition that’s got to be corrected awful sudden, Dan.”

  Crockett’s habitually solemn face creased into a smile.

  “Well, with all this war-talk in the air, there ain’t no one I’d rather have around than you,” he said. “A top hand is worth fifty a month and cakes. I ain’t got no right to be treating myself to a luxury like that, but I reckon you’re hired.” His smile flickered out. “Things are goin’ to happen fast around here, Jim. In fact they begun to happen already. The Bar S moved in yesterday.”

  “I reckoned they would,” Montana acknowledged glumly. “They drive some stock in?”

  “About five hundred head. They came in through the Malheurs from Furnace Creek. They’re on the Big Powder and the North Fork of the Skull. There’s at least twenty Bar S men with Reb.”

  “So Reb’s going to represent for the old man, eh?” Montana shook his head slowly. “That ought to show you how things are drifting. If the old man wasn’t looking for trouble he’d have given this job to Joe Tracey or Case—somebody who’d be awfully slow on the draw. Reb’s distinctly hair-trigger . . . Did anything happen?”

  “Not so far as I know. It looked like trespassing to move across a man’s range; but the sheriff was here, spoutin’ law. He says a man’s got a right to move his stuff up to his own water. The boys let it go at that. Quantrell was there. He’s a fire-eater; you know that. His talk sounded good to some, I reckon. But Dave Morrow and Gault and me cooled them down.”

  “Quantrell hasn’t any judgment,” Montana declared bluntly. “Look out for him, Dan; he’s a trouble maker. The old man is going to give us every chance to overplay our hand. If we do, look out! He can move two hundred men in here. And the law will ride with ’em, ’cause he can deputize every one of them!”

  “I know it,” Dan nodded. “You ain’t paintin’ it any blacker than it is. With Furnace Creek on the east and Willow Vista to the southwest, he can squeeze us on two sides—and he will, Jim. I reckon until last week he didn’t have a thousand acres in the valley—and that was cut up into four pieces. He’s got more now.”

  “Where’d he get it?” Montana asked uneasily.

  Dan squatted on his toes and began to draw a map on the ground.

  “You can see the old Adelaide mine from here,” he explained. “Quantrell’s line goes north of there about two miles.” He indicated it with his stick. “From there, right through the Junipers to the Willow Vista line, was Eph Mellon’s range . . . You follow me, Montana?”

  “Yes. And——?”

  Dan tossed away his stick and stood up.

  “Eph sold out to the Bar S on Monday,” he muttered gloomily. “Old Slick-ear’s line is now right here in the valley. He’s driven a wedge right into the middle of us—and you’ll see plenty Bar S steers in here before you git your hair cut ag’in.”

  Montana did not try to hide his vexation. By advancing the boundary line of Willow Vista into the very heart of Squaw Valley, the Bar S had scored a tactical victory that strengthened their stand immeasurably. He could appreciate the fortitude it took to face the future calmly.

  Gene and Brent Crockett, Dan’s sons, narrow-hipped six-footers, rode in half an hour later. Both were taciturn, in the way of the mountain breed. If they were surprised to see Montana, they dissembled it.

  “The boys have been mavin’ some of our stuff onto our new range in the reservation,” Dan explained. “Without the North Fork water I can’t keep ’em up here no longer. Course I’m better off than some folks. I had some water rights of my own that the Bar S couldn’t grab. But you know how range cattle are, Jim. They get used to waterin’ in one place and they’ll go back to it in spite of hell. That’s where the rub is goin’ to come. I suggested to Reb that we put up a line fence and each pay half of the cost.”

  “I don’t suppose that interested him,” Montana volunteered. “That’s not the Bar S game.”

  “No, he wouldn’t lissen at all. Said he’d keep his stuff on his own range and we’d have to do the same.”

  “Darin’ us, that’s all!” Gene Crockett muttered bitterly. He was the younger of the two boys. “It’s a fine law that lets an outfit rob you like that! That water was our’n. Mebbe old man Stall saw it ’fore Pap did. That didn’t make it his if he didn’t use it. We ain’t no better off than we was ’fore they opened up the reservation. Now we got water in one place and range in another, and nothin’ short o’ God a’mighty can make a steer eat one place and drink another.”

  “No use los in’ your haid about it,” his father protested. “We got to go easy and figure this thing out.”

  “It’s all right to talk about takin’ things easy, Pap,” the other boy declared soberly, “but Gene’s right; you can’t swallow every thin’ they hand you and pretend to like it. I hazed a cow and her calf out of the North Fork bottoms for over an hour this morning. Like as not she’s back there right now. That’s what the Bar S wants. They’ll catch our stuff trespassing and using their water. Lawsuits will be slapped on us till we’re busted. Then we can git out.”

  “You said it!” Gene agreed. “Clay Quantrell’s got the right idea. If we’re goin’ to git licked anyhow, let’s git licked fightin’! Why wait ’til we’re helpless?”

  Montana had known the boys for years. Their bitterness was no surprise, but he had expected them to be long-suffering rather than rash under the first prod of the Bar S. Their talk sounded reckless. Since Quantrell’s name had come into the conversation, Montana thought he had the explanation.

  “That’s brave talk, Gene,” he said, “but I’m afraid it won’t get us anywhere. We can’t shoot this thing out and win. If we want to beat that bunch we’ve got to outsmart them.”

  The boys were not impressed with his logic, but their father agreed with him.

  “There can’t be any doubt of it,” he said with great deliberation. “Spillin’ a lot of blood won’t settle this at all. The first thing we got to do is get organized. We’re goin’ to have a meetin’ here towards evenin’. I reckon most of the folks will come.” He glanced at the westering sun. “Gene will take you over to the house and show you where to drop your war-bag, We’ll have supper before the crowd comes.”

  CHAPTER VI TRAGEDY RIDES THE RANGE

  IN ADDITION to his sons, Dan had two men on the ranch,—Romero, the Mexican, and Ben Vining, an old-time buckaroo from Nevada. They ate together in the ranch kitchen, Mrs. Crockett doing the cooking.

  Eating was a solemn rite that seemed to dry up the wells of conversation.

  Before they had finished, people began to arrive. With one or two exceptions they were all related in some way to the Crocketts.

  “One or two others to come yet,” Dan told them. “We’ll wait a few minutes.”

  Quantrell was the last to arrive. He gave Jim a curt nod. His displeasure was evident on learning that Montana had injected himself into the fight and was now riding for the Box C. He had an excuse for his tardiness. Jim thought his horse lo
oked as though it had been ridden hard.

  The meeting got under way at last . . . The day had been one to try tempers. A dozen men recounted their verbal clashes with Reb and his men. All agreed that they must stand together.

  Dan Crockett spoke at length, advising them to be patient and stay within the law. They listened, but there was no enthusiasm for what he had to say.

  Quantrell spoke, fanning their hatred of the Bar S.

  “The law’s too one-sided for me!” he bellowed. “The other fellow’s got it all! We got to take care of this in our own way—without the help of any outsiders!”

  Evidently it was what they wanted to hear, for they cheered him when he finished. Montana knew this reference to outsiders was directed at him. He couldn’t escape the feeling that the fight was resolving itself into a personal one between Quantrell and himself. His face was stern and uncompromising as he arose and faced them.

  “I want to remind you men that when anybody labels me an outsider that you consider the facts,” he began. “I saw this trouble coming long before any of you gave it a thought. If Henry Stall had got the reservation—where would you be now?”

  “We’d be on our way out!” Dan exclaimed courageously. “There ain’t a man here but has to thank you for what you did, Montana.”

  There was muttered approval of this, in which Quantrell did not join. He leaned on the corral gate with sullen defiance in his eyes.

  “Well, if I was with you then, I’m with you now,” Montana continued. “And I’m with you all the way. Loose talk almost cost you the reservation—the same sort of talk that refers to me now as an outsider.” His eyes were fixed on Quantrell. A sneer curled the big fellow’s mouth. “You’ve been told that the law was all on the other fellow’s side. It’s true. And it’s the best reason I know for staying clear of it. You’ve got your homes here. You’ve got to think of your wives and children. Blood won’t help them.”