Mother Crockett, leaning heavily on Dan, waited until Quantrell and his men had started for their horses before she suffered her husband to take her on to the house.
Now that the services were over the crowd made no move to depart. Living apart as they did it was only the burying of a loved one, or perchance a wedding, that permitted them to gather together as they were to-day. The women folk, especially, saw too little of each other. They began to draw apart now, the men moving toward the corral. Knowing that the Reverend Gare would be spending the night with the Crocketts, they looked forward to hearing him speak further. He not only had come a long distance, bringing them the news of Wild Horse and the world beyond, but he had a practical knowledge of husbandry, with all the vexing problems it brought them, even to being able to diagnose the condition of an ailing calf and prescribe the best treatment for tick fever.
Montana had lingered behind, a little bewildered at the turn events had taken. He refused to believe the rebuff Quantrell had just received would deter the big fellow for long.
“But it may trip him at that,” he thought, “because it’s going to hurry him, whatever his game is. He won’t sit around waiting for something to happen.”
He was still fifty yards from the house when he saw Quantrell and his men riding toward him, evidently leaving by way of the Skull, although they had ridden in from the north. Jim felt it was a meeting that could accomplish nothing and he chided himself for not having kept out of the man’s way. Now that it was unavoidable he met it without fear or favor, continuing on as though Quantrell did not exist.
The big fellow pulled up his horse and threw the animal across Jim’s path. There was no need for him to cover up now. His face was livid with rage.
“I can thank you for this,” he snarled.
“You can if you care to,” Montana answered coolly, “but you may be flattering me.”
Quantrell ripped out an oath.
“I’m puttin’ it on the fire along with a few other things I got cookin’ for you, Montana,” he ground out furiously. “I’ll be dishin’ them out to you one of these days.”
“Be careful you don’t burn your fingers on ’em,” Jim said easily.
He could hear the big fellow cursing as he rode away.
“Got a bad taste in his mouth, all right,” Montana murmured to himself. “You’d have hydrophobia if he bit you tonight.”
He found the men grouped about John Gare, listening intently as the minister harangued them. At last the setting sun warned them that they must be getting home. The men began to round up their families. Abel Morrow, one of old Lance’s married sons, spoke to Gare.
“Knowin’ you was comin’,” he said, “we brought the baby over with us. We been aimin’ to take him into town to have him christened; but all this trouble comin’ up——”
“Why, sure,” Gare laughed. “Where is the little slick-ear? I’ll put the brand of the Lord on him. You don’t want a maverick running around the house.”
The mother soon appeared, the women folk trooping after her, and the baby was christened. Immediately afterwards, they began to set out for their homes.
“Fine people, Jim,” Gare said as he and Montana sat together on the bench outside the kitchen door. “This country is going to settle up in time and their grandchildren are going to be the ladies and gentlemen of it.”
Their conversation drifted to Quantrell.
“You smoked him out,” Jim said. “The seed you planted this afternoon bore fruit in a hurry.” He was thinking of what Mother Crockett had done.
“Wasn’t any more than you’ve been telling them,” Gare insisted.
“They wouldn’t take it from me.”
“You don’t always know what they really think. They respect you, Jim. You’ve done a lot for them—more than they realize—and you’ve got small thanks for it. But your day will come. If they win this fight they’ll have you to thank.”
This was richer praise than Montana felt he deserved. He was saying so when Dan came out to tell them supper was ready.
“I didn’t want Mother to speak so sharp to Quantrell,” Crockett said to them. “But I’ve had time to think it over and I’m glad she did. It sorta clears the air.”
It was agreed that Brent was to drive Gare back to Wild Horse. Jim took Dan into his confidence regarding his projected trip to the Needles, and in the morning, shortly after Brent and Gare pulled out, he saddled a horse and crossed the Skull. His way lay westward then until he had left even Big Powder Creek far behind. He was climbing steadily.
As usual the high places, with their wide panoramas, fascinated him. He pulled up, and tossing a leg over the horn of his saddle, smoked a contemplative cigarette. What John Gare had said about this country being settled some day came back to him. Sitting there, with a territory almost as large as some of the New England states unrolled before him, he found it hard to believe. And yet, he had seen bench land nesters moving into country back in Idaho that was just as big—plowing the trails under and planting them to wheat.
“Scarcity of water will keep them out of here for a long while,” he mused. “A railroad will find it an expensive job throwing a line through these hills. Until that happens this country isn’t going to change much.”
He had been in sight of the Needles for half an hour, even though they were still eight to ten miles away. He contemplated no difficulty in locating Plenty Eagles and his father. With typical Indian caution, they might have decided that the old cabin was too exposed and not have remained there; but there were only three or four places where they could find water. He was sure to pick up their trail at one of them.
He had just emerged from a patch of scrub cedar and was well across a little mountain meadow, knee-deep in grass, when he jerked his head around and looked back, feeling that he was being watched. He was too far away from the trees to make out anyone lurking there, but well within range of a high-powered rifle. Giving his horse the spurs he soon topped the rise ahead of him. “I’m going to be sure about this,” he promised himself. With that in mind he made a circle that would bring him back to the meadow at the point where he had just left it.
It took him a quarter of an hour. He was rewarded by finding the tracks of a shod horse stamped upon those his own pony had made a few minutes past. He slipped out of his saddle and went ahead on foot, his rifle in his hands. He had not gone ten yards before some one hailed him. He raised his eyes to the rocks ahead and saw Plenty Eagles awaiting him.
There was an amused twinkle in the young Indian’s eyes. He knew he had surprised Montana.
“Very easy picking you off from up here,” he said, his teeth gleaming whitely as he grinned.
“I knew I wasn’t alone,” Jim smiled. “But why are you trailing me?”
“Not knowing it is you until you cross the meadow. My pony stumble in the brush.” He permitted himself a chuckle. “You hearing him all right,” he declared. “You move fast; pretty soon you hard to find.”
“I just lit out on a little circle to find out what was what,” Jim acknowledged.
“Not good for circle down-hill,” said Plenty Eagles. “Me, if I was Quantrell, be just too bad for you. Thinking you more careful.”
“I guess it was a tenderfoot trick,” Jim was compelled to admit. “What’s this about Quantrell? Has he been up here?”
Plenty Eagles shook his head. He had been down below repeatedly, watching Quantrell, but he had no intention of admitting it.
“Just thinking you better be watching out for him,” he said. “Not seeing anyone up here except a Bar S man and a girl.”
It startled Montana, but as he stared at the young Indian understanding dawned in his eyes.
“A girl?” he queried. “You mean Letty Stall?”
“Same one who was in Wild Horse with the old man,” Plenty Eagles explained.
“Rode in from Willow Vista,” Jim thought, his mouth unusually grave as he considered the dangers to which she was now exposed. It passe
d belief that Mr. Stall had given permission for her to come. She had made this decision herself.
He told himself she was being foolhardy; and yet, it was no more than he could have expected. He could surmise the reasons that had prompted her to come—and it did not occur to him that he figured in them at all.
“When did you see her?” he asked.
“Day before yesterday. I follow them for long time. Know you not wanting anything happen to her.”
Montana was not prepared for such shrewd observation. He could feel his ears burning. Gratitude tempered his annoyance; the boy had done him a service.
“You did well, Cola,” he said and then turned the conversation abruptly by asking about the boy’s father.
“Oh, he liking this place,” said Plenty Eagles. “Not staying on cabin. Make wickiup by Antelope Springs—you know that place, eh ?”
Jim said that he did.
“All the time when my father young man coming there for hunt,” the boy went on. “Still some meat up here.”
“I’ve got some grub for you,” Montana informed him. “I was over in Wild Horse a day ago. Rand and I got a bagful of things together for you.”
Long experience with Indians had taught him that gratitude usually rendered them inarticulate. Months later, when he had quite forgotten some trifling favor, he had often been reminded that they had not forgotten.
It was so now. The young Piute just grinned, and obviously embarrassed, turned to find his pony.
“I want to make talk with your father,” Montana told him. His blood was flowing faster. He found a new tang in the air. It was strange that the mere presence of Letty Stall in Squaw Valley could so affect one who believed himself so far removed from her thoughts.
With Plenty Eagles leading the way they rode on. Jim was satisfied to trail along with his thoughts for company. When they reached the old cabin below the Needles, he saw the Piute draw up and wait for him.
“You still thinking my father know somethings about who killed your friend, eh?” he asked without preamble of any sort. Montana purposely withheld his answer for a moment.
“I think he does,” he said finally. “From his perch up there at the mine he could see what went on below him. Being afraid that Quantrell or his men might find his hide-out, he’d have been watching them particularly. . . . Have you been talking to him?”
“Yeh, but so old man hard to make him understand.” Plenty Eagles pressed his knees into his horse and went on. It put such an abrupt end to their conversation that Montana wondered about it.
“Doesn’t look as though he was going to help me very much,” he thought, giving the boy a shrewd glance. “Something worrying him. He wants to talk, but he’s afraid.”
They found old Thunder Bird basking in the sun. Jim raised his hand to sign to him that he came as a friend. The old brave’s wrinkled face remained an inscrutable mask.
Plenty Eagles spoke to his father in Piute.
“Ai—” the old man grunted.
“Telling him you came to have big talk with him,” the boy explained to Montana.
“No hurry about that,” said Jim. To prove it he told Plenty Eagles to take the bag he had brought and then proceeded to yank the saddle from his pony. When he had spread a blanket he began to draw forth from the bag the treasures he had brought. Old Thunder Bird’s face lighted up when Montana placed before him a pound of tobacco.
“Tobacco . . . good!” he grinned.
“And here’s a new pipe to go with it,” Jim went on, as pleased as the old man. He had brought sugar, coffee, flour and a side of bacon, but it was the sight of a can of syrup that completely broke down Thunder Bird’s reserve. He picked up the little cabin-shaped can and fondled it as a child does a toy.
“Never paying you for all this,” Plenty Eagles declared solemnly.
“Cola, my heart is full for you and your father; so is Rand’s, yet you talk of paying us. I come to your wickiup to spread the robe and smoke the pipe, and we are one.”
He found the old man more pliable than he was the day he had taken him from the mine. It was not always possible for him to understand whether Thunder Bird understood him, even though he regarded him intently, trying to read the little fleeting glimpses of emotion that flitted across his weather-beaten face.
He talked at length, moving to his point by indirection. After he had told them about Gene Crockett’s death, he touched the subject that had brought him there. Immediately Plenty Eagles addressed his father. Jim would put a question and the boy would talk to Thunder Bird. If the old man answered at all it was to his son.
Montana understood a few Piute expressions but he could not follow them. He felt he was not getting anywhere. Half an hour passed without producing the slightest information.
“Too old,” the boy shrugged. “Not remember so much.”
Jim hid his sense of failure. The thought had grown on him that Plenty Eagles was really keeping the old man from telling what he knew. When he had spoken to Thunder Bird before the old man had been able to make himself understood without his son’s help.
He said nothing at the time but ate a bite with them and after smoking a cigarette or two prepared to leave. He said farewell to the old man, and, accompanied by Plenty Eagles, started for the valley. When they reached the cabin, the boy pulled up. He was turning back there. Montana had waited for this moment.
“Plenty Eagles—why are you afraid to let your father talk to me?”
“Not afraid,” he said.
“Cola, your tongue is not straight now,” Jim chided him. “I can read your eyes, and I know what I say is true. You have talked to your father and he has told you what I want to know.” Montana was only voicing a surmise. The effect it produced in the boy prompted him to continue. “My heart bleeds for your father. I will not see him go hungry. When the winter comes he will be warm. Nothing he could tell me would bring trouble to him.”
It moved the boy.
“It is true,” Plenty Eagles murmured. “He has spoken. If I am afraid it is for him.”
“I promise you no trouble will come to him,” Jim repeated. “. . . Was it Quantrell?”
“Not knowing that. It was so: My father is hiding in the mine. Quantrell and some of his men are there; building the gate. A man comes and tells them there is Bar S men in the cañon. Quantrell he say, ‘This what we been wait for. We start ball rolling now.’ ”
“Yes—” Jim prompted. “What did they do?”
“They riding away together. My father is watch. He see them come out on the rimrocks. In few minutes he hear a rifle. They come back, then; but Quantrell is not with them.”
“No, he went on to the meeting at the Box C,” Montana muttered. If he had needed proof to convince him that what Rand and Gare and he had been thinking was true he had it now.
“The chance they had been waiting for,” he mused bitterly. “A chance to start the ball rolling—to make the fight a certainty by killing Billy!”
He realized that he would likely never know who actually shot the boy. But here, as in the case with Gene, the crime could be placed at Quantrell’s door.
“I’ll never forget this, Plenty Eagles,” he said. “You are my brother.”
“Quantrell no good,” the young Indian murmured thoughtfully. “Better you let me kill him before he make more trouble. . . . I have plenty chance.”
Montana knew the depth of the feeling that had prompted the boy to speak. He put his hand on Plenty Eagles’ shoulder.
“You get that idea out of your mind, Cola,” he said. “This is sorta up to me.”
“I be watching him just the same.”
“I don’t object to that. If you run into something that looks queer, you get word to me. He’s angling for something, and he can’t get it without showing his hand.”
CHAPTER XV LONG RIDERS
WHEN Brent Crockett returned from Wild Horse he brought a letter from Graham Rand. Rand wrote he had talked to Vickers, the new agent, and had
not got anything further out of him. The man had left for Vale. But he was often up there, and Graham did not consider it had anything to do with the Squaw Valley sale. He concluded in characteristic fashion:
“Undoubtedly I’ve been worrying you about nothing at all. So forget it. If I keep on this way I’ll soon be taking in knitting. I’ll manage to keep you posted—about Vickers and not the knitting.”
There was an apparent contradiction there that struck Montana at once. He could smile over Graham’s letter, but his fears were not allayed. The days that immediately followed brought no new threat from above the North Fork, and a dozen times Jim wondered if their inactivity had any connection with news from Washington.
Quantrell did not come to the Box C again. One evening Brent rode over to Lance Morrow’s place. He came back with word that Quantrell had been there, talking to the old man. He claimed to have had an offer from Stall and Matlack for his property.
“He told Lance that he’d turned it down,” Brent informed them. “Claims he’ll never sell out to the Bar S.”
“Don’t you believe it!” Montana scoffed! “He’d sell out in a hurry if he got an offer—and the price was attractive. I’d have to see the offer in writing before I’d admit he had one.”
Crockett disagreed with him.
“That’s go in’ pritty far, Jim,” he argued. “I ain’t got no love for Quantrell, but I’m not go in’ to let that run away with my judgment. If they could grab Quantrell’s place it would be just puttin’ on the vise a little tighter. I’ve never said nothin’ but I’ve wondered once or twice if somethin’ like that wouldn’t happen. I don’t see why you figure they wouldn’t make him an offer. What’s your argument?”
“Dollars and cents! I never knew Henry Stall to give a man a profit when he had the whiphand. Quantrell’s got some water, but it’s hard to get at. He’s been frozen out of the Big Powder. It just don’t make sense to me, Dan.”
“Just the same it would be a blow to us if Quantrell sold out,” Crockett murmured glumly. “It would be pritty discouragin’. First thing you know someone else would be takin’ the bait. You got to give the devil his due, Jim. Think what you will about the man, but if he sticks with us we got to be big enough to appreciate it.”
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