by Grey, Zane
"Cedar, what'd'ye say?" he asked, in a hoarse low voice.
"Burridge, swear them steers air in Silver Meadows," said Cedar Hatt, his moccasined feet coming down with padded thuds as he leaped up and leaned out of the shadow.
"Sure I swear. Three days ago. An' the grass an' water are fine.
They'll work higher for several more days. . . . Ask Jim Lacy here. Reckon you'll not be intimatin' he's a liar."
"Talk up, Jim Lacy, if you're a rustler," called the younger Hatt.
"Wal, I was with Burridge. I saw the cattle," replied Lacy.
Cedar Hatt glided into the light of the fire, to lean over his father and strike out with lean dark hand, like the claw of an eagle.
"Papa, with ten riders I can run them cattle over the Rim in one day," he declared. How grotesque and striking the epithet he gave his father! He seemed the epitome of lawlessness, of the hardened rustler, yet acknowledged the endearing claim of blood.
"Thet settles it, then," returned Elam Hatt, throwing up his hands as one whose price had been met.
"Hold on! Thar ain't no Greaser herder in these brakes who'd lead thet drive. An' I'm the only white man who kin."
"Wal, what's makin' you yap so? It's settled, ain't it, 'cept the workin' out?"
"I want my pard, Burt Stillwell, in on this."
"Reckon I see no kick to thet. But it ain't my deal."
Cedar Hatt faced round with the swift, sinister action peculiar to him.
"Anythin' ag'in' Stillwell?" he queried.
"Wal, not any more, Hatt," drawled Jim. "I shore had a little grudge, but it's gone. When I saw Burt last, I shore had a friendly feelin' for him."
"Burridge, you had no use for the Stillwells. How're you standin' on this hyar deal I want?"
"Cedar, all I say is, sure--ring your pard Burt in--if you can get him," returned Burridge, with something unnatural in his tone. And it was noticeable that he stepped more into the shadow.
"Papa," hissed Cedar Hatt, and that word inspired awe as well as mirth, "I'm double-crossin' the Pine Tree outfit to make us all rich on this big job."
"Air you drunk, son?" asked Hatt, slowly rising to his feet.
"How'n tarnation can you double-cross them--onless you mean beatin' them to the deal?"
"Me an' Burt belong to the Pine Tree outfit."
Chapter seventeen.
A week later to the day, about the middle of the afternoon, Jim Lacy stood with Cash Burridge on the Mogollon Rim, facing south over the magnificent wilderness of southern Arizona. The black timber of the basin merged in the grassy parks and flats, growing hazy in the distance, and all that wild lowland led to the bleak colored desert ranges.
"My Gord! listen to that!" ejaculated Burridge, with red sweaty face wrinkled ecstatically. "Grandest music on earth."
"Cash, they'll greet you in Hades some day with that music," drawled Jim.
"Bawlin' bulls an' whoopin' cowboys! I'll be glad to hear it, providin' it don't come too soon," returned Burridge.
Yellow dust palls hung over the steep Maricopa trail, where it jumped zigzag off the Rim and wound down into the green depths. A mighty roar of trampling hoofs, and bellowing cattle, and crashing brush, and whooping riders waved up from that hot slope. It seemed an avalanche of sound now softening and again swelling, wild and free, harmonious with the country which made it possible. From the look of the trail, trampled and dug and widened by thousands of hoofs, it appeared that a river of live beasts had poured over the Rim.
"Lacy, it's all over but the fireworks," said Cash exultantly.
"QuiTn sabe? It might fetch some fireworks you're not figurin' on," admonished his companion, moving over from his heaving, foam- lashed horse to get in the shade of a pine.
"Not much. We're shakin' the dust of the brakes. Say, won't Ben Ide an' Tom Day bite nails? Biggest drive I ever had a hand in.
An' all so easy! All like clockwork! All in a couple of days despite that--yellow traitor, Cedar Hatt!"
"Shore we didn't need him," responded Lacy, thoughtfully.
"Jim, I've seen some mad hombres in my time, but that Cedar Hatt beats them all to hell," declared Burridge, aghast at the memory.
"Shore he was mad. Didn't I warn you to keep your outfit from givin' it away aboot Stillwell?"
"Yes, you did, an' I talked myself hoarse. But it couldn't be kept. They HATED Cedar, an' the minute somebody got two drinks aboard he up an' blows that Burt Stillwell was dead. It sure made a hydrophobia-coyote out of Cedar. But he didn't know WHO shot Burt. When he spit questions at you, like a snake with a hunch, why didn't you lie?"
"Wal, Cash, I reckon you don't savvy me."
"Why didn't you kill him, then?" went on Burridge, sharper of tongue.
"I just aboot did," returned Lacy, reflectively. "But I saw he didn't have the nerve to draw--so I waited."
"Ahuh! Waited? I get your hunch. Cedar knows somethin' you're keen to find out. Bet it's that Pine Tree outfit."
"Cash, you're figurin' fair. But on the daid square now-- rememberin' the favors I've done you--cain't you tell me somethin' about that outfit?"
"No more'n we all know, Jim."
"Shore you have some suspicion aboot who leads them?"
"Honest to Gawd, Lacy, I haven't even an idee!" returned Burridge, with truth in look and voice. "It might be Judge Franklidge himself."
"Holy Moses! Cash, that's a wild guess!" ejaculated Lacy.
"Sure. An' it's only a guess. But you can gamble all the coin you're goin' to get pronto that the Pine Tree boss is not hidin' in the brakes, like the rest of us rustlers. He's an honest member of range society. Ha! Ha! Yes he is! . . . Jim, there might be a combine of homesteaders an' ranchers in cahoots with an outfit of great riders like Burt Stillwell an' Cedar Hatt."
"Reckon I've thought of that."
"What's it to you, anyway, Jim?" queried Burridge, curiously.
"Reckon I've got to put my brand on the boss of the Pine Trees," said Lacy.
"Ah! Is THAT all? Hell! I thought you might have some interest in him," retorted Cash sarcastically. "Jim, on the square, if you hadn't done so much to straighten me out again, I'd have suspicions about you."
"Wal, keep them in your haid."
Burridge laughed, and gathering up his bridle swung into the saddle.
"Come on. I don't want the outfit to get far ahead. You'll be hearin' the clink of gold before sundown."
"Not me, Cash."
"What?"
"I'm not goin' any farther with you."
The rustler exhibited profound concern and amaze.
"You're not goin' any farther--what--?"
"Say, Cash, are you out of your haid?" queried Jim, testily.
"Sure I am, if you're not."
"Wal, I'm not, old-timer."
Burridge studied his companion for a long moment, his face working.
Regret began to erase the incredulity.
"What the hell are you goin' to do?"
"That's my concern now. I'm through."
"Through! . . . But, Jim--"
"Didn't I help you out of a bad hole--the worst you was ever in?"
"You sure did, Jim. An' I--"
"Didn't I rustle cattle with you?"
"Yes."
"Didn't I come out in the open--so everybody on this range will know I helped steal Ben Ide's cattle?"
"By Heaven! you did!" declared Burridge, with redder face. "An' I hold that against you, Jim. I just can't figure why you did that.
We could sure have laid that onto the Pine Tree outfit."
"Wal, neither Ben Ide nor any other honest rancher will know YOU had the high hand in this big cattle steal. But my name an' my hand in it will be known. I saw to that. They'll think _I_ am the boss of the Pine Tree outfit."
"I'm damned! . . . Jim Lacy, you're too deep for me. But I'm gettin' a hunch. . . . How about your share in the divvy for this deal?"
"You're welcome to it. Take it an' go out of this country. Try bein' honest ag
ain. You might succeed next time. But don't ever come back heah!"
"Why not, Jim?" queried Burridge, strong and hard.
"Because if you do I'll kill you," flashed Lacy, in a voice that cut like a whip.
The ruddy heat left Burridge's face, and he began to nod his head, slowly, with increasing motion, while his eyes fixed in a startling comprehension.
"JIM--LACY!" he said, huskily.
"I reckon," replied Lacy, grimly, as he turned to his horse.
"You been a pard to me, whatever your reasons," went on Burridge, with feeling. "I don't care a damn what they were. . . . I'll leave this country. Here's my hand on it. . . . Good-by an' good luck!"
"Same to you, Cash," replied Jim, as they gripped hands.
Burridge wheeled his horse so violently that it reared and plunged, and then slid to its haunches in the soft ground where the trail broke over the Rim. Burridge hauled it up and used his spurs. The animal snorted and took the first descent on a jump, then steadied to a quick walk. At the first bend of the trail into the timber the rustler looked back up to the Rim.
"I'll send my compliments to Cedar Hatt an' his boss in hell!"
Lacy strode into the level shady forest, leading his horse. He had prepared for this separation from Burridge, and had tied a light pack behind his saddle. There was a spring in his step and a light on his face. The deep forest land, beginning almost at once to slope north from the Rim, seemed to receive and absorb Lacy as a transformed man. How sweet and enchanting the silence, the solitude! He listened for the last ebb of that tide of hoofs, roaring down into the Basin. Gone! The air had cleared of the dust, the heat, the din, the smell of a cattle drive.
It still wanted an hour to sunset, and the time was approaching the most wonderful of all hours on the Mogollons. Birds and game had roused from the midday Indian-summer heat; the long black shadows of the trees were slanting down across the open swales and dells, where the white grass furnished contrast to the reds and purples and golds of the autumn leaves. The tracks of man and horse showed dark through the thick covering of gold and green that carpeted the ground.
Lacy descended winding ravines and aspen hollows until one opened into the head of a canyon where the murmur of water invited him to camp.
"Reckon you're plumb tired," he said to his horse, laying swift hands on the ropes. "Wal, it was a day. But we're through now-- through with that kind of work. . . . An' I'm hatin' to hobble you, old boy."
Jim kindled a little fire, and while he heated water in his one pot he gathered ferns for bedding. The frost had seared the long leaves, making them brittle and easy to break off. He piled a great bundle in his blanket and carried it to the edge of an aspen thicket, where, as was his habit, he made a bed under cover of the foliage.
"I'll be cold as blazes along toward mawnin', but I cain't keep a fire goin' . . . not with that Indian Cedar Hatt roamin' the woods!"
The sordid atmosphere common to the rustler gang was lacking here.
Lacy did not realize it until he grew conscious of his alacrity, of his zest with the old camp tasks, in the pause to see and feel and hear and smell the forest which seemed now his alone, in his habit of talking to himself.
"Wal, now, won't there be hell around the Ide ranch some of these heah mawnin's, when riders come in with the news? Last of the Ide cattle! . . . Jim Lacy takin' to rustlin'. . . . It will be funny. I'd like to be hid an' heah Ben cuss. This'll be the last straw. He'll get as many gun-toters as he can hire, an' set out to land me in jail."
Jim seemed immensely pleased with the thought. The hard, morose intentness of the past weeks did not inhibit his natural geniality.
"Ben is shore goin' to get the shock of his life one of these heah days," went on Jim. "The doggone old wild-hoss hunter! . . .
What's he goin' to say to me first off--an' then after? . . .
Lordy! . . . An' Hettie! . . . She'll call me a low-down yellow faithless . . . Say, meetin' her will be about as funny as dyin'.
I can feel myself cavin' in right heah!"
Jim Lacy, with his plans well in mind, had on the whole journey across country from Elam Hatt's ranch to the head of the Maricopa trail, taken careful account of the lay of the land.
It served him now. His intention was to return to Hatt's ranch, if possible without encountering even a sheepherder. Hatt had left his daughter Rose alone, unless the mysterious woman consort of Henny or Tobe Hatt, of whom Jim had heard vaguely, might be considered as company. Elam, of course, with his two sons, could be expected to get back home from the cattle drive in two days from the time Jim had left them, or even less. As for Cedar Hatt, who had deserted Burridge and Elam after the revelation of Stillwell's death, no doubt he had rushed to the secret rendezvous of the Pine Tree men, wherever that was, there to betray to them news of the impending drive of the Ide stock. It was Cedar Hatt whom Lacy had greatest interest in, at the present stage of the game; and Cedar was most likely to be found at or near home.
There was reason, too, for Lacy to have an interview with Rose Hatt, from whom he expected to force more about the man who dominated her brother and whom she feared. Moreover, Rose was to be considered on her own behalf.
Jim Lacy did not think it wise to go near Silver Meadows, where the cattle had been collected for the great drive; and therefore he made a wide detour, hoping to strike the trail he and the rustler band had made coming from Hatt's ranch. But he had to go into camp the second night of his journey without having come to this trail.
The forest was exceedingly rough, he had only a general direction to go by, and often windfalls and impassable brakes threw him off.
On the third morning, however, he struck the trail he was looking for, and he back-tracked it all day. On the following day it failed on high ridges, on hard ground, rocky flats, and pine-needle mats, over which Elam Hatt had led the rustlers for the express purpose of hiding their tracks.
Lacy wasted no time trying to recover them, though he believed he could eventually have done so. Sure of his direction now, he pressed on rapidly, and the next afternoon struck the deep canyon east of the one in which Hatt lived. During his sojourn with the Hatts, Lacy had hunted turkey and deer up and down these brakes, with the sport of the hunt not at all his prime motive.
Jim took the precaution to ride well back from the Rim, peeping over whenever opportunity offered from behind foliage or rock covert. He did not really expect to see anyone, but that did not influence his actions. Lacy was always cautious, watchful, alert; and in this instance he might have been on a scent, so instinctive was his progress along that Rim.
Presently, down in an open bend of the deep canyon Lacy caught a glimpse of a rider. He was riding slowly up the trail, leaning down from his saddle, evidently with eyes on the ground.
"Trackin' somethin'," muttered Jim. "Now I wonder who that is an' what he's trackin'."
Lacy rode back away from the Rim, and urged his horse to a lope, careful to avoid rocks and brush. There were places where he had to go slowly, but in the main he covered a mile or more in short order, then again approached the Rim.
This time he dismounted and cautiously stole to a vantage-point, from which he could peer unseen. As luck would have it, there was an open grassy meadow, narrow and long, just beneath his position.
The canyon was five hundred feet deep at this point, green-walled, precipitous, and unsurmountable.
Lacy watched so long without seeing the rider that he believed he had been too late to catch him crossing this open flat. But as Lacy had about decided to hurry on again, the man emerged from the lower end.
Horse and rider grew strangely familiar as they came nearer.
Lacy's iron nerves were not beyond a tiny burning thrill.
"Am I drunk or loco?" he muttered.
On the rider came, his horse at a trot, and still he bent over to one side, studying tracks in the trail. He would have had an ominous look to any experienced eye. This rider was not tracking a lost horse or deer or turkey.
He was a manhunter.
"CEDAR HATT!" whispered Lacy, his head lowering with the motion of a striking eagle. "Talk about luck! I'm shore smothered with it. . . . Jim Lacy's luck! . . . But bad for you, Cedar--you treacherous soul!"
Lacy watched the man with a strained, piercing gaze, as if it were possible to divine his motive.
"This might be the trail Marvie Blaine rides when he comes to meet Rose," soliloquized Jim, ponderingly. "Shore it is. She said the brake east of where she lived."
Cedar Hatt rode on, directly under Jim's position, and once he halted his horse, to lean far down from his saddle. How like an Indian! Then he swung up again to peer ahead, as if calculating on something. He made a dark wild figure, suiting his ragged horse and the background of tangled brush and rugged wall. Then he rode on, more slowly.
"By God!" burst out Lacy. "That hombre is sure trackin' Marvie Blaine!"
Lacy crawled back from the Rim, then rose to run for his horse. He would head off this rustler. Luckily, the lower part of the canyon was miles below the locality where Rose was in the habit of meeting young Blaine. Lacy had time to get ahead and find a place where he could descend to the floor of the canyon. Working still farther back from the Rim, he put his horse to a gallop and made a hard fast ride for several miles. Then he slowed down and headed for the Rim again. No break in sight where he might descend! The wall grew more precipitous and higher. Lacy rode on, close to the Rim now, risking detection in his search for a descent. But he had no concern that Cedar Hatt might be the one to espy him.
At length Lacy came upon an interesting canyon, a narrow crack which ran off into the woods. He rode back to where it headed in one of the thickest ravines, so common to the country. He descended as far as possible, then dismounting, he tied his horse and hurried on. This gorge deepened into a split between toppling walls, so rough that there was not even a deer trail. But Lacy, sparing no effort, traversed it, to reach the main canyon hot and bruised and out of breath.
