by Zane Grey
Tom sold Hudnall’s hides at a higher figure than Hudnall had received for his first batch. Sprague not only corroborated the rumors that had been the cause of Hudnall’s sending Tom out, but also added something from his own judgment. The peak of prices for hides had not been reached. He offered so much himself that Tom wondered whether or not Hudnall would sell at all to the buyers from Dodge City. Tom gathered that there was now great rivalry among the several firms buying hides, a circumstance of profit to the hunters.
“I’ll give you another hunch,” said Sprague. “After the hides, the bones of the carcasses will fetch big money. I just heard thet a twenty-mile pile of buffalo bones along the Santa Fe railroad sold for ten dollars a ton. For fertilizer!”
“You don’t say!” exclaimed Tom in surprise. “What’ll Hudnall think of that? But, Sprague, it isn’t possible to haul bones from the Red River country in quantity enough to pay.”
“Reckon thet seems far-fetched, I’ll admit. But you can never tell.”
“Now about the Indian scare,” went on Tom anxiously. “What’s your honest opinion? Is it serious?”
“Doan, listen,” replied Sprague impressively. “Believe what the scouts an’ plainsmen say. They know. The whole half of Texas is bein’ run over by a lot of farmers . . . hide hunters for the time bein’. They don’t know the West. An’ some of them will be killed. Thet’s the least we can expect.”
“Then . . . these hide thieves. What do you know about them?” inquired Tom.
“Not much. Thet’s not my business. I’m buyin’ hides from anybody an’ everybody. I can’t afford to be suspicious of hunters.”
“Did you know the little girl, Molly Fayre, who was staying with Missus Hudnall?”
“Shore did, an’ I took to her pronto. Missus Hudnall told me aboot Jett bein’ her stepfather, an’ was packin’ her off with him, togged out as a boy. I sold Jett the boy’s clothes, but I didn’t know then what he wanted them for.”
“She’s engaged to marry me. She hates Jett and is afraid of him.”
“So that’s the story,” stated the sharp-featured Westerner, with quick gesture of comprehension. “Doan, I ain’t sayin’ much, but this deal looks bad.”
“It looks terrible to me. Is Jett just a . . . a rough customer?”
“Doan, what he may be doesn’t matter, I reckon,” returned Sprague in a low voice. “But take this hunch from me. Follow Jett an’ get your girl out of his clutches . . . if you have to kill him. Savvy?”
Tom had seen the same dancing light gleam, sharp as fiery sparks, in the eyes of Pilchuck, that now shot from Sprague’s.
“Yes . . . I savvy,” replied Tom, swallowing hard.
An hour later he was driving his team at a brisk trot south on the military road, and Stronghurl was hard put to it to keep up with him.
Chapter Ten
Rising early and driving late, Tom Doan, with Stronghurl keeping in sight, traveled southward over the prairie toward the buffalo fields. He made it a point always to reach the camp of outfits that had been ahead of him. Thus every day was a dragging one of anxious hope to catch up to Jett, and every sunset was a time fraught with keen throbbing excitement. Always, however, his search among the outfits ended in bitter disappointment.
A remarkable thing about this journey was that every outfit he passed on the way put on more speed and kept him and Stronghurl in sight. Tom considered it just as well that they did so, as they were fast penetrating into the Indian country.
Early on the ninth morning of that long journey Tom and Stronghurl forded the Pease River, at a dangerous crossing, and entered the zone of slaughter. No live buffalo were in sight, but the carcasses left by the advancing hunters polluted the summer air and made of the prairie air a hideous shambles. They passed thousands and thousands of bone piles and rotten carcasses, and, as they advanced, the bone piles became less and the solid carcasses more. Coyotes in droves, like wild dogs, fought along the road, regardless of the wagons. Indeed, many of them were so gorged that they could not run. And as for buzzards, they were as thick as crows in a Kansas cornfield in October, likewise gorged to repletion.
The wake of the hide hunters was a thing to sicken the heart of the stoutest man and bring him face to face with an awful sacrifice.
Tom verified another thing that had long troubled him, and of which he had heard hunters speak. For every single buffalo that was killed and skinned there was one that had been crippled and had escaped to die, so that, if ever found, its hide was useless. In every ravine or coulée or wash off the main line of travel Tom knew, by investigation of those near where he and Stronghurl camped or halted at noon, there lay dead and unskinned buffalo that had escaped the slaughter. If he saw a hundred thus, how many thousands must there be? It was a staggering arraignment to confront the hide hunters.
Toward noon of that day herds of live buffalo came in sight, and thereafter grew and widened and showed movement. Tom eventually overhauled a single wagon drawn by four horses, and drew up beside it, asking the usual query.
“Whoa thar!” called the stout old driver to his team. “Jett? No, I ain’t heared thet name, hev you, Sam?”
His companion likewise could not remember such a name as Jett.
“We’ve met up with lots of outfits an’ never heerd nary name a-tall,” added the former.
Then Tom asked if they had seen an outfit of three large wagons, three men, a woman, and a boy.
“Big outfit . . . wal, I reckon. Was the boss a yaller-bearded man?”
“Yes, that’s Jett,” replied Tom eagerly.
“Passed us this mawnin’ back a ways. I recollect sure, ’cause the boy looked at us an’ waved a red kerchief. He had big black eyes.”
“Molly,” breathed Tom, low and tense. “Thank you, men. That’s the outfit I’m after.”
He drove on, urging the tired horses, and he was deaf to the queries his informants called after him upon their own account. Hope and resolve augmented in Tom as he traveled onward. Jett was hurrying back to the main camps, and he would not be hard to locate, if Tom did not catch up with him on the road. Molly’s letter lay in the breast pocket of Tom’s flannel shirt, and every now and then he would press his hand there, as if to answer Molly’s appeal. He drove so persistently and rapidly that he drew far ahead of Stronghurl, and the string of outfits that followed.
Miles farther, with straggling herds on each side, and then the boom-boom-boom of heavy guns! From the last ridge above the river he saw a pall of dust away to the west. Here there was action. But it must have been miles away. The river meandered across the prairie, a wide strip of dark green cottonwood and elm. In an hour Tom reached it. Not yet had he come in sight of a three-wagon outfit. With keen eyes he searched the dusty road to make sure that no wheel tracks swerved off without his notice.
Not long after this time he drew near the zones of camps, and presently passed the first one, new since he had come by that way two weeks and more before. It was now August. Tom’s misery had diminished to a great extent, and he could contain himself with the assurance that Molly would be somewhere along this tributary of the Pease River.
Boom-boom-boom resounded the Big Fifties, not louder than at first, yet more numerous and on both sides of the river. Tom rolled by camp after camp, some familiar to him, most of them new. But no red scarf adorned any tent or wagon to gladden his eye. Miles he drove along the river, passing many more camps, with like results. The hunters were returning from the chase; a gradual cessation in gunfire marked Tom’s approach to Hudnall’s camp. It was now impossible to see all the camps; some were too far from the road, others down in the widening breaks of the river. There were wagon tracks that turned off the main road to cross the river. Tom found no sign of Jett’s outfit; yet, though much disappointed, it did not discourage him. Jett would be among the hunters after this main herd. Before sunset he drove into Hudnall’s camp.
“If it ain’t Tom!” yelled Burn, who was the first to see him.
; But Hudnall was the first to get to Tom, and almost embraced him, so glad and amazed was he. “Back so soon? Gosh, you must have come hummin’,” he rolled out heartily. “Say, we’ve had great huntin’. Hard, but just like diggin’ gold. What’d you get for my hides?”
“Fifty cents more on every hide,” replied Tom, producing an enormous wad of bills. “Maybe I’m not glad to get rid of that! And here’s letters. There are newspapers, magazines, and other stuff in a basket under the seat.”
“How’s my womenfolk?” asked Hudnall, fingering the greenbacks.
“Just fine. You couldn’t hope for better. But my . . . but Molly was gone,” answered Tom.
“Molly. Who’s she? Ah, yes, your girl . . . I’d forgotten. . . . Say, Doan, you’re thin, you look used up. Trip wear you out?”
Hudnall was all kindliness and solicitude now.
“No. Worry. I’ll tell you presently. . . . Dave is somewhere along behind, heading a whole caravan of new hide hunters.”
“The more the merrier. There’s room an’ we don’t see any slackin’ up of buffalo,” said Hudnall. “Pilchuck got two hundred an’ eighty-six day before yesterday. That’s his top notch. But he says he’ll beat it. Tom, I forgot to tell you, we’ll pay you for drivin’ out the hides. Five dollars a day, if that’s all right.”
“Much obliged,” replied Tom wearily as he sank down to rest. “Guess I’m fagged, too. . . . You see, I tried to catch up with Jett. He left Sprague’s a day ahead of me with Molly.”
“The hell you say,” Hudnall said, suddenly losing all his animation. “We’ve heard bad rumors about that Jett outfit. You must take Molly away from them.”
“Couldn’t get track of Jett until today,” went on Tom. “He was just ahead of me, though I couldn’t see his wagons. He hit the river along about midafternoon and he’s somewhere.”
“Wal, we’ll find him, an’ don’t you worry. These camps are no place for womenfolk. I’ve come to seein’ that, Tom.”
“What’s happened since I left?” queried Tom.
“Son, if I believed all I heard, I’d be pullin’ stakes for Sprague’s,” declared Hudnall. “Reckon some of it’s true, though. All I seen for myself was some Kiowas that got killed at the forks of the river above. They raided a camp, an’ was crossin’ the river when some hunters on the other side piled them up, horses an’ all.”
“Believe I expected to hear worse,” replied Tom soberly.
“Wash up an’ take a rest,” advised Hudnall. “I’ll look after the horses. Reckon we’d better hold off supper a little. Pilchuck’s always late these days . . . he likes the evenin’ hunt, an’ I don’t see any sign of Stronghurl.”
“Dave was in sight when I struck the river,” said Tom. “Then I slowed up. So he can’t be far behind, unless he broke down.”
Later, after a bath and shave, and the donning of clean clothes, Tom felt somewhat relieved in body, although resting in the shade of a cottonwood seemed the acme of desire. His mind, however, was busy, pondering, clouded, and so it must continue until he had found Molly.
Pilchuck rode in after sunset, a dust-covered, powder-begrimed figure, ragged, worn, proven, everything about him attesting to the excessive suddenness that made him a great hunter. His jaded horse was scarcely recognizable; froth and sweat and dust had accumulated in a caked lather, yellow and hard as sun-baked mud, over front and hindquarters.
“Howdy Doan,” was his greeting to Tom, offering a horny grimy hand. “As a freighter you’re a number one. Reckon you look sorta washed out . . . an’ washed up, too. Shore you’re spick an’ span. I’ll go fall in the crick myself.”
“Did you have a good day?” asked Tom, after returning his greeting.
“Huh! Not much. I dropped fourteen buffs early, then got jammed in a herd, an’ had to quit shootin’. Wasn’t no stampede or mebbe my story would never have been told. But the pesky bunch took me more’n twenty miles along Soapberry, an’, when I did get clear of them, I run plumb into some mean-lookin’ Kiowas. They was between me an’ camp. I had to head off west a little. They rode along fer a couple of miles, keepin’ on the wrong side for me, an’ then, seein’ I was sure alone, they took after me.” The scout abruptly ended his narrative there, and went about his tasks.
Tom, strange to realize, took the incident with a degree of calmness that seemed to him to be an acceptance of times grown heroic and perilous.
A little later Dave Stronghurl drove into camp with weary team, and tired himself, yet unusually loquacious and robustly merry for him. Tom could tell that Dave had something on his mind, and awaited results with interest. Hudnall greeted Dave in the same cordial way as he had Tom, asked the same questions, made the same statements about the hide hunting and news of camp. And he also took charge of Dave’s team.
“Get any line on Molly?” asked Dave as he peeled off his shirt. “By gum, you shore rustled across the prairie.”
Tom was glad to acquaint his comrade with the trace he had gotten of Jett’s outfit. Dave vented his satisfaction in forceful, though profane speech.
While he was performing his ablutions, Dunn and Ory Jacks drove in with the day’s total of hides, eighty-six, not a good showing. Dunn threw the folded hides out on the open ground some rods from camp, while Jacks unhitched the team.
Hudnall, swift and capable around the campfire as elsewhere, had a steaming supper soon ready, to which the six men sat down, hungry as wolves and as talkative as full mouths would permit.
Ory Jacks had now been some weeks in the buffalo fields. Not in the least had it changed him, except he did not appear to be quite so fat. Toil and danger had no power to transform his expression of infantile glee with life and himself. He wore the old slouch hat jauntily and as always a tuft of tow-colored hair stuck out through a hole in its crown.
Ory plied Tom with queries about Sprague, obviously leading up to something, but Tom, being both hungry and thoughtful, did not give him much satisfaction.
Forthwith Ory, between bites, turned his interest to Strong-hurl, with the difference that now he was more than eager.
“Mister Strongthrow,” he began, as usual getting Dave’s name wrong, “did you see my . . . our . . . the young lady at Sprague’s?”
“No, she was gone with Jett, I’m shore sorry to say,” replied Dave.
“Miss Sally gone!” ejaculated Ory.
“Naw, I meant Tom’s girl, Molly Fayre,” replied Dave rather shortly.
“But you saw Miss Sally?”
“Shore did.”
“Haven’t you a letter for me from her?” inquired Ory, with astonishing naïveté.
“What?” gaped Dave, almost dropping a large bite of biscuit from his mouth.
“You have a letter for me from Sally,” said Ory, now affirmatively.
“Boy, do you reckon me a Pony Express rider, carryin’ the mail?”
“Did you see much of her?” inquired Ory, with scrupulous politeness.
“Nope. Not a great deal.”
“How long were you with her? I’m asking, because, if you saw her for even a little, she’d have given you a message for me.”
“Only saw her about thirty minutes, an’ then, ’cause Tom was shore rarin’ to leave, Sally an’ me was busy gettin’ married,” replied Dave, with vast assumed imperturbability.
It had the effect to crush poor Ory into bewildered silence; he sank down quite staggered. Tom wanted to laugh, yet had not quite the meanness to let it out. Hudnall looked up, frowning.
“Dave, that’s no way to tease Ory,” he reproved severely. “Ory’s got as much right to shine up to Sally as you. Now if she sent him a letter, you fork it over.”
Dave got red in the face. “She didn’t send none,” he declared.
“Are you sure?” added Hudnall suspiciously. “I ain’t placin’ too much confidence in you, Dave.”
“So it ’pears. But I’m not lyin’.”
“All right. An’ after this don’t make any fool remarks about marryin’ Sa
lly, just to tease Ory. It ain’t good taste.”
“Boss, I wasn’t teasin’ him or talkin’ like Ory’s hair sticks through his hat,” returned Dave deliberately.
“What?” shouted Hudnall.
“Me an’ Sally was married.”
“You was married!” roared Hudnall, in amaze and rage.
“Yes, sir. There was a travelin’ parson at Sprague’s, an’ Sally an’ me thought it a good chance to marry. So we did.”
“Without askin’ leave of me . . . of her dad?”
“You wasn’t around. Sally was willin’ . . . an’ we thought we could tell you afterward.”
“Did you ask her mother? She was around.”
“Nope. I wanted to, but Sally said her mother didn’t think I was much of a match.”
“So you just run off with my kid an’ married her?” roared Hudnall, beside himself with rage.
“Kid! Sally’s a grown woman. See here, Hudnall, I didn’t reckon you’d be tickled, but I shore thought you’d have some sense. Sally an’ me would have married, when this huntin’s over. I wanted someone to take care of my money, an’ keep it, case I got killed out here. So what’s wrong about it?”
“You big Swede!” thundered Hudnall. “You didn’t ask me. That’s what. An’ I’ve a mind to pound the stuffin’s out of you.”
Stronghurl was not profoundly moved by this threat. “If you feel that way, come on,” he replied coolly. He was a thick, imperturbable sort of fellow, and possibly, Tom thought, he might be a Swede.
Pilchuck was shaking with silent mirth; Ory Jacks was reveling in revenge; Burn Hudnall sat divided between conversation and glee; old man Dunn looked on very much amazed; as for Tom, he felt that it looked mightily like a fight, yet he could not convince himself it would go that far.
“Come on, huh?” echoed Hudnall boomingly as he rose to his lofty height. He was twice the size of Stronghurl. He could have broken the little tough sturdy bridegroom in short order.
