There is a superstition about prophesying too boastfully that a certain thing will or will not happen; you will remember that there is also a 193
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provision that the rash prophet may avert disaster by knocking wood. Applehead should, if there is any grain of sense in the rite, have knocked wood with his fingers crossed as an extra precaution against evil fortune.
For after they had eaten and methodically packed away the food, and while they were lying around the cheerful glow of their little campfire, misfortune stole up out of the darkness unaware. They talked desultorily as tired men will, their alertness dulled by the contented tinkle-tinkle of the little bell strapped around the neck of big, bay Johnny, Applehead's companion of many a desert wandering. That brilliant constellation which seems to hang just over one's head in the high altitude of our sagebrush states, held hypnotically the sleepy gaze of Pink, whose duty it was to go on guard when the others turned in for the night. He lay with his locked fingers under his head, staring up at one particularly bright group of stars, and listened to the droning voice of Applehead telling of a trip he had made out into this country five or six years before; and soaking in the peace and the comfort which was all the more precious 194
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because he knew that soon he must drag his weary body into the saddle and ride out to stand guard over the horses. Once he half rose, every movement showing his reluctance.
Whereupon Weary, who sprawled next to him, reached out a languid foot and gave him a poke. " Aw, lay down," he advised. " They're all right out there for another hour. Don't yuh hear the bell?"
They all listened for a minute. The intermittent tinkle of the cheap little sheep bell came plainly to them from farther down the draw as though Johnny was eating contentedly with his mates, thankful for the leisure and the short, sweet grass that was better than hay. Pink lay back with a sigh of relief, and Luck told him to sleep a little if he wanted to, because everything was all right and he would call him if the horses got to straying too far off.
Down the draw — where there were no horses feeding — an Indian in dirty overalls and gingham shirt and moccasins, and with his hair bobbed to his collar, stood up and peered toward the vague figures grouped in the fire-glow. He lifted his 195
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hand and moved it slightly, so that the bell he was holding tinkled exactly as it had done when it was strapped around Johnny's neck; Johnny, who was at that moment trailing disgustedly over a ridge half a mile away with his mates, driven by two horsemen who rode very carefully, so as to make no noise.
The figures settled back reassured, and the Indian grinned sourly and tinkled the little bell painstakingly, with the matchless patience of the Indian. It was an hour before he dimly saw Pink get up from the dying coals and mount his horse. Then, still tinkling the bell as a feeding horse would have made it ring, he moved slowly down the draw; slowly, so that Pink did not at first suspect that the bell sounded farther off than before slowly yet surely, leading Pink farther and farther in the hope of speedily overtaking the horses that he cursed for their wandering.
Pink wondered, after a little, what was the matter with the darned things, wandering off like that by themselves, and with no possible excuse that he could see. For some time he was not uneasy; he expected to overtake them within the next five or 196
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ten minutes. They would stop to feed, surely, or to look back and listen — in a strange country like this it was against horse-nature that they should wander far away at night unless they were thirsty and on the scent of water. These horses had drunk their fill at the little pool helow the spring. They should be feeding now, or they should lie down and sleep, or stand up and sleep — anything but travel like this, deliberately away from camp.
Pink tried loping, but the ground was too treacherous and his horse too leg-weary to handle its feet properly in the dark. It stumbled several times, so he pulled down again to a fast walk. For a few minutes he did not hear the bell at all, and when he did it was not where he had expected to hear it, but away off to one side. So he had gained nothing save in anger and uneasiness.
There was no use going back to camp and rousing the boys, for he was now a mile or so away; and they would be afoot, since their custom was to keep but one horse saddled. When he went in to call the next guard he would be expected to bring that man's horse back with him, and would 197
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turn his own loose before he went to sleep. Certainly there was nothing to be gained by rousing the camp.
He did not suspect the trick being played upon him, though he did wonder if someone was leading the horses away. Still, in that case whoever did it would surely have sense enough to muffle the bell. Besides, it sounded exactly like a horse feeding and moving away at random — which, to those familiar with the sound, can never be mistaken for the tinkle of an animal traveling steadily to some definite point.
It was an extremely puzzled young man who rode and rode that night in pursuit of that evasive, nagging, altogether maddening tinkle. Always just over the next little rise he would hear it, or down in the next little draw; never close enough for him to discover the trick; never far enough away for him to give up the chase. The stars he had been watching in camp swam through the purple immensity above him and slid behind the skyline. Other stars as brilliant appeared and began their slow, swimming journey. Pink rode, and stopped to listen, and rode on again until it 198
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seemed to him that he must be dreaming some terribly realistic nightmare.
He was sitting on his horse on a lava-crusted ridge, straining bloodshot eyes into the mesa that stretched dimly before him, when dawn came streaking the sky with blood orange and purple and crimson. The stars were quenched in that flood of light; and Pink, looking now with clearer vision, saw that there was no living thing in sight save a coyote trotting home from his night's hunting. He turned short around and, getting his bearings from his memory of certain stars and from the sun that was peering at him from the top of a bare peak, and from that sense of direction which becomes second nature to a man who had lived long on the range, started for camp with his ill news.
CHAPTER XIY
ONE PUT OVEE ON THE BUNCH
' * £*1 OUNDS to me," volunteered the irrepres-k_J sible Big Medicine after a heavy silence, " like as if you'd gone to sleep on your hawse, Little One, and dreamed that there tinkle-tinkle stuff. By cripes, I'd like to see the bell-hawse that could walk away from me 'nless I was asleep an' dreamin' about it. Sounds like —"
" Sounds like Navvy work," Applehead put in, eyeing the surrounding rim of sun-gilded mesa, where little brown birds fluttered in short, swift flights and chirped with exasperating cheerfulness.
" If it was anybody, it was Ramon Chavez," Luck declared with the positiveness of his firm conviction. " By the tracks here, we're crowding up on him. And no man that's guilty of a crime, Applehead, is going to ride day after day without 200
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wanting to take a look over his shoulder to see if he's followed. He's probably seen us from some of these ridges — yesterday, most likely. And do you think he wouldn't know this bunch as far as he could see us, even without glasses ? The chances are he has them, though. He'd be a fool if he didn't stake himself to a pair."
" Say, by gracious," Andy observed somewhat irrelevantly, his eyes going over the group, " this would sure make great picture dope, wouldn't it ? Why didn't we bring Pete along, darn it ? Us all standing around here, plumb helpless because we're .afoot —"
" Aw, shut up! " snapped Pink, upon whom the burden of responsibility lay heavy. " I oughta be hung for laying around the fire here instead of being out there on guard! I oughta —
" It ain't your fault," Weary championed him warmly. " We all heard the bell —"
" Yes — and damn it, I heard the bell from then on till daylight! " Pink's l
ips quivered perceptibly with the mortification that burned within him. " If I'd been on guard —"
"Well, I calc'late you'd a been laid out now 201
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with a knife-cut in yah som'ers," Applehead stopped twisting his sunburnt mustache to say bluntly. " 'S a dang lucky thing fer you, young man, 't you wasn't on guard, V the only thing't looks queer to me is that you wasn't potted las' night when yuh got out away from here. Musta been only one of 'em stayed behind, an' he had t' keep out in front uh yuh t' tinkle that dang bell. Figgered on wearin' out yer hoss, I reckon, 'n r didn't skurcely dare t' take the risk uh killin' you off 'nless they was a bunch around t' handle us." His bright blue eyes with their range squint went from one to another with a certain speculative pride in the glance. " 'N' they shore want t' bring a crowd along when they tie into this yere outfit, now I'm tellin' yuh! "
Lite Avery, who had gone prowling down the draw by himself, came back to camp, tilting stiff-leggedly along in his high-heeled boots and betraying, in every step he took, just how handicapped a cowpuncher is when set afoot upon the range and forced to walk where he has always been accustomed to ride. He stopped to give Pink's exhausted horse a sympathetic pat on the shoulder,
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and came on, grinning a little with the corners of his mouth tipped down.
" Here's what's left of the hobbles the buckskin wore," he said, holding up the cut loops of a figure-eight rope hobble. "KInda speaks for it-, self, don't it ? "
They crowded around to inspect this plain evidence of stealing. Afterwards they stood hard-eyed and with a flush on their cheek-bones, considering what was the best and wisest way to meet this emergency. As to hunting afoot for their horses, the chance of success was almost too small to be considered at all. Pink's horse was not fit for further travel until he had rested. There was one pair of field glasses — and there were nine irate men to whom inaction was intolerable.
" One thing we can do, if we have to," Luck said at last, with the fighting look in his face which moving-picture people had cause to remember. " We can help ourselves to any horses we run across. Applehead, how's the best way to go about it?"
Applehead, thus pushed into leadership, chewed his mustache and eyed the mesa sourly. " Well,, 203
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aeein' they've set us afoot, I calc'late we're jest about entitled to any dang thing we run across that's ridable," he acceded. " ']$P the way I'd do, would be to git on high groun' with them glasses 'n' look fer bosses. '£P then head fer 'em 'n' round 'em up afoot 'n' rope out what we want. They's enough of us t' mebby git a mount apiece, but it shore ain't goin' t' be no snap, now I'm tellin' ye. 'W if yuh do that," he added, " yuh want t' leave a man er two in camp —'n' they want to keep their dang eyes peeled, lemme tell yuh! Ef we was t' find ourselves afoot an' our grub 'n' outfit stole —"
" We won't give them that chance at us." Luck was searching with his eyes for the nearest high point that was yet not too far from camp. " I think I'll just take Andy up on that pinnacle there, and camp down by that pile of boulders. The rest of you stay around camp and rest yourselves while you've got the chance. In a couple of hours, Applehead, you and Lite come up and take our place; then Miguel and Bud, and after that Weary and Happy. Pink, you go and bed down in the shade somewhere and go to sleep — and quit 204
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worrying over last night. Nobody could have done any better than you did. It was just one put over on the bunch, and you happened to be the particular goat, that's all.
" Now, if one of us waves his hat over his head, all of you but Happy and Bud and Pink come up with your rifles and your ropes, because we'll have some horses sighted. If we wave from side to side, like this, about even with our belts, you boys want to look out for trouble. So one of you keep an eye on us all the time we're up there. We'll be up outa reach of any trouble ourselves, if I remember that little pinnacle right." He hung the strap that held the leather case of the glasses over one shoulder, picked up his rifle and his rope and started off, with Andy similarly equipped coming close behind him.
The mesa, when they reached the pinnacle and looked down over the wide expanse of it, glimmered like clear, running water with the heat 1 waves that rose from the sand. Away to the southward a scattered band of sheep showed in a mirage that made them look long-legged as camels and half convinced them both that they were seeing 205
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the lost horses, until the vision changed and shrunk the moving objects to mere dots upon the mesa.
Often before they had watched the fantastic air-pictures of the desert mirage, and they knew well enough that what they saw might be one mile away or twenty. But unless the atmospheric conditions happened to be just right, what was pictured in the air could not be depended upon to portray truthfully what was reflected. They sat there and saw the animals suddenly grow clearly defined and very close, and discovered at last that they were sheep, and that a man was walking beside the flock; and even while they watched it and wondered if the sheep were really as close as they seemed, the vision slowly faded into blank, wavery distance and the mesa lay empty and quivering under the sun.
" Fine chance we've got of locating anything," Andy grumbled, " if it's going to be miragy all day. We could run our fool heads off trying to get up to a bunch that would puff out into nothing. Makes a fellow think of the stories they tell about old prospectors going crazy trying to find mirage water-holes. I'm glad we didn't get hung up at 206
a dry camp, Luck. Yuh realize what that would belike?"
" Oh, I may have some faint idea," Luck drawled whimsically. " Look over there, Andy — over toward Albuquerque. Is that a mirage again, or do you see something moving ? "
Andy, having the glasses, swung them slowly to the southeast. After a minute or two he shook his head and gave the glasses to Luck. " There was one square look I got, and I'd been willing to swear it was our saddle-bunch," he said. " And then they got to wobbling and I couldn't make out what they are. They might be field mice, or they might be giraffes — I'm darned if I know which."
Luck focussed the glasses, but whatever the objects had been, they were no longer to be seen. So the two hours passed and they saw Applehead and Lite come slowly up the hill from camp bearing their rifles and their ropes and a canteen of fresh water, as the three things they might find most use for.
These two settled themselves to watch for horses — their own range horses. When they were relieved they reported nothing save a continued 207
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inclination on the part of the atmosphere to be what Andy called miragy. So the day passed, chafing their spirits worse than any amount of active trouble would have done. Pink slept and brooded by turns, still blaming himself for the misfortune. The others moped, or took their turns on the pinnacle to strain their eyes unavailingly into the four corners of the earth — or as much as they could in those directions.
With the going of the sun Applehead and Lite, sitting out their second guard on the pinnacle, discussed seriously the desperate idea of going in the night to the nearest Navajo ranch and helping themselves to what horses they could find about the place. The biggest obstacle was their absolute ignorance of where the nearest ranch lay. Not, surelj, that half-day's ride back towards Albuquerque, where they had seen but one pony and that a poor specimen of horseflesh. Another obstacle would be the dogs, which could be quieted only with bullets.
" We might git hold of something to ride," Applehead stated glumly, " an' then agin the chances is we wouldn't git nothin' more'n a scrap on our 208
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hands. 7 N' I'm tellin' yuh right now, Lite, I ain't hankerin' fer no fuss till I git a hoss under me."
" Me either," Lite testified succinctly. " Say, is that something coming, away up that draw the camp's in ? Seems to me I saw something pass that line of lava, about half a mile over."<
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Applehead stood up and peered into the half darkness. In a couple of minutes he said: " Ye better git down an' tell the boys t' be on the watch, Lite. They can't see no hat-wavin' this time uh day. They's somethin' movin' up to-wards camp, but what er who they be I can't make out in the dark. Tell Luck —"
" What's the matter with us both going ? " Lite asked, cupping his hands around his eyes that he might see better. " It's getting too dark to do any good up here —"
" Well, I calc'late mebby yore right," Applehead admitted, and began to pick his way down over the rocks. " Ef them's Injuns, the bigger we stack up in camp the better. If it's Ramon 'n' his bunch, I want t' git m' hands on 'im."
He must have turned the matter over pretty thoroughly in his mind, for when the two reached 209
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camp he had his ideas fixed and his plans all perfected. He told Luck that somebody was working down the draw in the dark, and that it looked like a Navvy trick; and that they had better be ready for them, because they weren't coming just to pass the time of day —" now I'm tellin' ye! "
The nerves of the Happy Family were raw enough by now to welcome anything that promised action; even an Indian fight would not be so much a disaster as a novel way of breaking the monotony. Applehead, with the experience gathered in the old days when he was a young fellow with a freighting outfit and old Geronimo was terrorizing all this country, sent them back in compact half circle just within the shelter of the trees and several rods away from their campfire and the waterhole. There, lying crouched behind their saddles with their rifles across the seat-sides and with ammunition belts full of cartridges, they waited for whatever might be coming in the dark.
" It's horses," Pink exclaimed under his breath, as faint sounds came down the draw. " Maybe —"
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