One night Carl started from the sign camp to ride north to meet the rider from sign camp No. 2, which lay nearer the mountains.
The camp in which Bud and Carl were stationed was camp No. 1.
The distance between the camps was about six miles, so that each rider had to go about three miles to meet.
The night was clear and cold, and the air fairly sparkled with the frost in the brilliant white moonlight. It was a glorious night, and Carl, in a leather coat lined with fleece, and with a fur cap upon his head, and his feet in thick felts, started away from the camp on his ride.
There was no wind, but the temperature was very low.
To the north the Sweet Grass Mountains loomed, a black mass against the sky, while all about the world was carpeted with snow.
Carl had not progressed more than a mile from his camp when he saw a dark object against the snow some distance in front of him.
At first he thought it might be a bush or a rock, so still it was in the moonlight.
But he could not remember of ever having seen either a rock or a bush in that part of the range.
Then he wondered if he was late at the meeting place, and that the other line rider had got tired of waiting for him, and had ridden forward upon his line to meet him.
This stimulated him to greater speed, and he pricked up his pony.
But as he got nearer the black blot on the snow there seemed to be something unusual about it, and he unconsciously slowed his animal down to a walk.
At last he got within hailing distance, and saw that it was a man on horseback that he had been approaching.
The man on night duty at the second sign camp was a cow-puncher named Follansbee, a short, reckless, yet amiable fellow, whom Carl knew well.
The rider who was awaiting him was an unusually large man, and bestrode an enormous horse. The two were as if they had been carved from ebony, as they stood silent and absolutely still, outlined sharply against the dazzlingly white background.
Something inside of Carl began to sink as he went on, slower and slower, his hand gripping the reins tightly, and holding back on them.
"Vot it is?" he was saying over and over to himself. "Vot it is? Dot is not Billy Follansbee. Dot man vould make dree times of Follansbee, nit?"
Cold fear was slowly stealing over Carl, and he wanted in his heart to turn and ride the other way.
But something seemed to draw him forward, and, try as he would, he could not bring himself to turn back.
The man on the black horse could not be a member of the Long Tom force, for Carl knew every one of them well, as a fellow will who has camped with them for months on a cattle drive.
Now Carl was near enough to see the man's face, and he peered eagerly forward to get a glimpse of it.
Then his heart sank lower yet, for the man's face was as white as the snow beyond. There were no features; neither nose, nor mouth, nor eyebrows, only a pair of black eyes gleamed out of that dead-white face.
Carl clutched at the horn of his saddle to keep from falling, he was so frightened.
"Vot it is?" he kept repeating to himself.
His pony stopped of its own volition directly in front of this black apparition, and Carl swayed in his saddle and would have fallen out of it had he not clung to it with the unconscious strength of despair.
"Iss dot you, Follansbee?" asked Carl, in a weak, thin voice, well knowing that it was not his line partner, but trying to break the spell of fear that held him.
There was no reply, but the gleaming black eyes never left his own, nor did the figure on the horse move a hair's breadth.
"Vy don't you say someding?" said Carl, his voice sounding like the piping noise of the wind through a keyhole. "Speak someding."
Then it suddenly struck Carl that the man could not speak, because in that white, immovable face there was no mouth to speak with, only those black, blazing eyes.
"If you can't speak, make motionings," said Carl, in an imploring voice.
The sinister figure on the black horse slowly raised his arm, and motioned Carl toward him, at the same time swinging his black horse around and riding toward the mountains.
Chilled to the heart, Carl obeyed the signal, and sent his pony forward.
The man, apparition, demon, or whatever it was, sent his horse into a gallop, and Carl, with no volition on his own part, followed at the same speed.
But with the black and menacing eyes of the man with the dead face away from his own, some small part of courage oozed back into Carl again, and he remembered Ted's injunction to question every stranger met on the range, and if he did not give a satisfactory answer to drive him off.
But Carl had not got over the fright the sight of that face and eyes had thrown him into.
Suddenly his hand came into contact with the handle of his six-shooter, and a thrill of daring ran through him.
He looked ahead at the back of the man riding only a few feet in advance of him.
Should he take the chance? He knew that Ted or Bud or any of the boys would do so. Why not he?
If the man was only human a bullet would soon settle the matter. But if he should be a ghost or an emissary of the devil, as Carl strongly suspected, nothing like a ball from a forty-five would do him harm.
This had the effect of staying his hand, and the revolver stopped halfway out of its holster.
Then Carl thought of the boys, and what they would say if they knew that he had not nerve enough to pot the enemy when he met him.
Carl was not the bravest fellow in the world, and he was intensely superstitious.
Again the thoughts of the taunts of the other boys, should they ever know that he lacked the nerve to take advantage of the moment, came to him, and he gulped something hard that rose in his throat, and drew out his revolver.
At that moment the man in black turned and looked over his shoulder, his dead face gleaming white, out of which shone those terrible black eyes.
The revolver stopped suddenly in its upward course, and Carl's jaw dropped as he stared in abject fear at that white and expressionless face.
Then the man in black turned his horrible face once more to the fore, and rode on.
Something inside of Carl seemed to snap, and a great glow of courage swept over him. He fairly hated the sight of the grim rider in front of him, who was taking him he knew not where, and whom he yet dreaded with all his heart.
Up came the revolver again, and, almost before he realized what he was doing, Carl was firing, straight at the back in front of him.
The target could not be fairer, that black mark against the snow.
The first ball struck, for Carl heard the thud of it, as if it had struck and sunk into something soft.
The report of the weapon crashed through the still night, and was carried far on the frosty air, reverberating and echoing back from the distant mountains.
But the creature in whose body the ball had lodged did not seem to know it. The head was not turned, the body did not lurch or sway.
Carl, now blind to everything but the terror that had taken possession of him, fired again and again until every chamber in his revolver was empty, pausing after every shot to note the effect.
That every shot was fair he was sure, for he could hear the sound of the impact of the bullet.
The recipient of the bullets seemed not to know that they had been fired, for he did not hasten or retard the progress of the horse, nor did he take any personal notice that they gave him any discomfort.
But when Carl ceased firing he threw his head backward, looking over his shoulder again, and from that hideous face without nose or mouth came a gurgling noise that was like, and yet not like, laughter.
The laughter was worse on Carl's nerves than the silence, and he felt himself grow sick at heart.
How could he expect to fight or escape from a devil impervious to the balls from a Colt forty-five?
Then, to Carl's amazement and relief, the black horse sprang forward over the snow
so swiftly that it seemed as if it was flying rather than running, but this probably was due to the uncertainty and the illusion of the moonlight, and vanished into thin air, leaving Carl staring open-mouthed.
It was several minutes before Carl regained his senses and knew that he was sitting with his revolver in his hand, staring into space and seeing nothing.
Then he rode slowly forward to the brink of a deep coulee.
Here was where he had last seen the phantom rider, for such Carl had at last come to regard him.
Looking to the bottom of the coulee, Carl saw nothing but snow, where he had expected to find a dead horse and rider.
"Ach, vot a country," he wailed. "Vy did I effer come to it? Mutter, I vish you vas here to hellup your Carlos."
Then he heard a groan close at hand and looked about, expecting to see the phantom rider by his side.
A short distance off lay a black splotch on the snow.
It resembled the prostrate form of a man. Had he, after all, killed his horrible enemy? Cautiously he rode toward it. It was a man, and not the phantom, and it looked very much like a cow-puncher, for it was clad in leather coat and chaps, and there was a belt filled with cartridges, and in the snow beside it lay a Colt forty-five.
This at least was human, and Carl climbed stiffly from his saddle and bent over it.
He started back with a cry of surprise.
The man in the snow was his line partner, Follansbee.
That he was not dead was evident, for he groaned occasionally.
It was up to Carl to get him to camp as soon as he could, and when he tried to raise the insensible form he was stopped by a gush of blood from a wound in the breast.
But he heard a shot in the distance, then another, and another.
The boys had heard his shots, and were riding toward him with all speed.
Presently he heard the long yell, and in a few minutes Bud Morgan came dashing toward him at top speed, and soon they were joined by Kit Summers from sign camp No. 2, and the horror of the night was over for Carl.
* * *
CHAPTER VI.
CAUGHT IN THE ACT.
Follansbee was carried to camp No. 2, where Bud, who was a pretty good cow-camp surgeon, examined his wound. A ball from an automatic revolver had struck him in the breast, but on account of the thickness of the clothing he wore, and the fact that he had on a heavy vest of caribou hide, in the pocket of which he carried a small memorandum book, the ball had penetrated only a short distance.
While he had lost a lot of blood, and the shock of the ball striking had caused him to lose consciousness, he was not seriously hurt.
It did not take Bud long to extract the bullet and stanch the flow of blood, and Follansbee opened his eyes and looked about wildly.
"Where is he?" he cried in terror.
"Whar's who?" asked Bud.
"The man what didn't have no face," cried the cow-puncher.
"Carl chased him avay alretty," said Carl, bending over his partner.
"All right, Carl. You saw him, too, did ye?"
"Sheur I sawed him, mit mine own eyes."
"Then it's all right," murmured Follansbee, sinking back on his bunk. "I wuz afeared the boys wouldn't believe me if I told them what I saw."
When Follansbee sank into a deep sleep, due to his weakness from loss of blood, the three boys sat before the fire while Carl told of his encounter with the faceless man, and of the six shots which he had fired at him and the ineffective bullets which had struck his body.
As the story was told a hush fell upon Bud and Kit. They were deeply affected by the fact that this unknown and terrible menace was upon the range which they were compelled to patrol, and which not even the balls from a heavy weapon could kill.
"I would hardly have believed it if both of you hadn't seen the creature," said Kit. "It sounds too much like a pipe dream."
It was morning before Bud and Carl left Kit's camp and rode to their own. Follansbee was apparently all right, and exhibited no symptoms of fever, for he had the iron constitution of a seasoned cow-puncher, who almost invariably recovers as if by magic from a gunshot wound if the missile does not penetrate a vital spot or splinter a bone.
Follansbee, when he awoke from his sleep, told Kit of his meeting with the "man without a face," as he called the man who had given him his wound.
"I wuz ridin' at a pretty good clip along the line to meet Carl," he began, "when I see a feller standin' waitin' for me by the deep coulee, about three miles south.
"At first I thought it wuz Carl, but soon I see that it wuz too big fer the Dutchman.
"I slowed down a bit, fer I saw it wasn't any o' our outfit. Ye see I had in mind what Ted said about that Sweet Grass Mountain gang, an' I wuz some skittish.
"As I rode along slowly the feller on the black hoss made a sign as if he wanted me to foller him. But I didn't like the stunt, so I stops still an' rubbers at him.
"Two or three times he makes his motions, an' I don't do nothin' but shake my head.
"Kit, that wasn't no human bein'. It wuz ther devil as sure as shootin'. I started to draw my gun, but shucks, I ain't got no chanct ter make a move before thar was a crash, an' a blaze o' flame come from his chest, right about the middle, an' I felt the ball strike me, I heard a queer sorter laugh, like a man bubblin' with his mouth in a basin o' water, an' then I went out, an' all I remember wuz fallin' out o' the saddle."
About noon of that day, Ted and Stella rode over from the ranch house on a tour of inspection, and stopped at Bud's camp, where they were told the story of Carl's strange encounter with the man without a face, to which he listened in troubled silence.
When Carl was through with his story, Ted looked for a long time into the fire without saying anything.
"Well, what do you think?" asked Stella, at last.
"I think it is the work of the Whipple gang," answered Ted.
"But why should they shoot Follansbee?"
"It is a piece of intimidation. Of course, they do not know us. Under ordinary circumstances an apparition like that, followed by the shooting of a man, would cause a panic among ignorant men on a ranch. It is a cinch that the Whipple gang has got it in for us, and this is just the beginning of it. You will soon see other evidences of their work."
"But why should they hev it in fer us?" asked Bud. "We ain't never done nothin' ter them."
"I don't know, but I have several ideas."
"What are they?"
"There are two or three things to be considered. In the first place they have it in for the ranch on general principles. You know Fred Sturgis said in his letter that he and his boys had driven the gang away from the ranch. That is reason number one. Then we are strangers in this part of the country, and they have seen us and have us sized up for a lot of boys, and, therefore, easy marks for them. Again, we have a big bunch of cattle, which Whipple and his bunch think we will not be able to protect against them.
"They may have learned that we are deputy United States marshals. That is enough to condemn us in their eyes. They are all old and fugitive criminals, and if we knew them I think that we would find that they are all wanted in one or more of the States and Territories, and that the aggregate amount of rewards which have been offered for them, dead or alive, would amount to a neat sum. They do not need marshals in this part of the country. There may be other reasons why they will make war on us, which we will learn later, but the ones I have mentioned are sufficient for them to make themselves very troublesome."
"So you think it is war, eh?" said Stella.
"I do, and I think that you will be a shining mark for them when they learn that you are here. For that reason I would warn you to be very careful where you go about the ranch, and especially ask you not to ride about alone, and to keep away from the mountains."
"Oh, dear, and just when I had planned to explore those mountains from one end to the other," said Stella, with a pout.
"Can't help it. You know what would happen if they sh
ould catch you and spirit you off as Shan Rhue did in the Wichita Mountains."
"Yes, I know, I'm a lot of trouble to you, Ted, but you know I don't mean to be."
"Of course I know it, but if you run into danger, and expose yourself to the attack of those who are avowedly our enemies, you run the chance of being caught, and then, of course, it is our duty to get you out of trouble."
"Well, I'll be good."
"The attempted killing of Follansbee was no accident," continued Ted. "It was the work of an exceedingly shrewd man, who knows the moral effect of his strange and mysterious appearance."
"Ain't it a ghost?" asked Carl, who had become all swelled up at the thought that he had made a ghost run away from him.
"I should say not."
"Den vy shouldn't mine bullets haf killed him?"
"I'm sure I don't know. That is why I say that he is a remarkably clever man, and it is probably the cause of the power he wields that he is able to do such things. It wouldn't surprise me any if some day we learned that your visitor was none other than the renowned Whipple himself."
"What are you going to do about it?" asked Stella.
"What can we do? We wouldn't know a single member of the gang if we were to meet him. We don't know where they hang out, and if we did we know nothing about the Sweet Grass Mountains, and could not go to where they are. All we can do is to watch the ranch house and the cattle as a cat watches a mouse, and if anything more, such as the shooting of Follansbee, occurs, we will have to go on the warpath ourselves. But I don't want to do that. We are out here to winter feed our cattle, and not to fight."
"Shore enuff, but yer kin bet yer breeches I'm not goin' ter let no cave dweller or brush hider tromp onto my moccasins, an' turn ther other cheek ter be tromped on. Ther first feller o' that outfit I cotch sashay in' around me I'm goin' ter take a crack at him."
"Go as far as you like when it comes to an act of aggression on the part of one of them, but don't start anything, Bud, unless you can positively bring it to a successful end."
"I reckon I'm some of a fox myself. They ain't set no trap what I've put my paw inter yet."
Ted Strong in Montana Page 4
