The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  “No go,” he informed her. “Maison an’ Silverthorn an’ Dale have anticipated that move. We don’t sell any cattle in Okar.”

  The girl’s disappointment was deep.

  “I suppose we may as well give up,” she said.

  Sanderson lifted her face to his.

  “If you’re goin’ to talk that way I ain’t goin’ to love you like I thought I was,” he grinned. “An’ I’m sure wantin’ to.”

  “I don’t want to give up,” she said.

  “Meanin’?”

  “Meaning that I’d like to have you beat those men. Oh, the miserable schemers! They will go to any length to defeat you.”

  He laughed lowly and vibrantly. “Well, they’ll certainly have to travel some,” he said. “About as fast as the man will have to travel that takes you away from me.”

  “Is victory that dear to you?” she asked.

  “I won’t take one without the other,” he told her his eyes glowing. “If I don’t beat Silverthorn and the others, an’ keep the Double A for you, why I—”

  “You’ll win!” she said.

  “You are hopin’ I will?” he grinned. “Well,” he added, as she averted her eyes, “there’ll come a time when we’ll talk real serious about that. I’m goin’ to tell the range boss to get ready for a drive to Las Vegas.”

  “That is a hundred and seventy-five miles!” gasped the girl.

  “I’ve followed a trail herd two thousand,” grinned Sanderson.

  “You mean that you will go yourself—with the outfit?”

  “Sure.”

  Sanderson went out, mounted Streak, and found the range boss—Eli Carter. Carter and the men were ordered to round up all the Double A cattle and get ready to drive them to Las Vegas. Sanderson told Carter he would accompany the outfit.

  Cutting across the basin toward the ranchhouse, he saw another horseman riding fast to intercept him, and he swerved Streak and headed toward the other.

  The rider was Williams, and when Sanderson got close enough to see his face he noted that the engineer was pale and excited.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHECKED BY THE SYSTEM

  The engineer waved a yellow paper at Sanderson and shouted:

  “I just got this. I made a hit with the Okar agent last week, and he sent a man over with it. That’s a damned scoundrelly bunch that’s working against you! Do you know what they’ve done?”

  Sanderson said nothing, and the engineer resumed, explosively:

  “They’ve tied up your money at the Lazette bank! My material men won’t send a pound of stuff to me until they get the cash! We’re stopped—dead still!”

  He passed a telegram to Sanderson, who read:

  Bank here refuses to honor Sanderson’s check. Claim money belongs to Bransford estate. Legal tangle. Must have cash or won’t send material.

  THE BRANDER COMPANY.

  A flicker of Sanderson’s eyelids was all the emotion he betrayed to Williams. The latter looked at him admiringly.

  “By George,” he said, “you take it like a major! In your shoes I’d get off my nag and claw up the scenery!”

  Sanderson smiled. After telling the engineer to do as much as he could without the material, he rode on.

  He had betrayed no emotion in the presence of Williams, but he was seething with passion.

  Late the next afternoon he joined Carter and the outfit. The men had made good use of their time, and when Sanderson arrived, the entire herd of cattle was massed on a broad level near the river. They were milling impatiently, for the round-up had just been completed, and they were nervous over the unusual activity.

  The cowboys, bronzed, lean, and capable, were guarding the herd, riding slowly around the fringe of tossing horns, tired, dusty, but singing their quaint songs.

  Carter had sent the cook back to the ranchhouse during the afternoon to obtain supplies; and now the chuck wagon, with bulging sides, was standing near a fire at which the cook himself was preparing supper.

  Carter grinned as Sanderson rode up.

  “All ready!” he declared. “We sure did hump ourselves!”

  Around the camp fire that night Sanderson was moody and taciturn. He had stretched out on his blanket and lay listening to the men until one by one they dropped off to sleep.

  Sanderson’s thoughts were bitter. He felt the constricting influence of his enemies; he was like the herd of cattle that his men had rounded up that day, for little by little Silverthorn, Dale, and Maison were cutting down his area of freedom and of action, were hampering him on all sides, and driving him to a point where he would discover resistance to be practically useless.

  He had thought in the beginning that he could devise some way to escape the meshes of the net that was being thrown around him, but he was beginning to realize that he had underestimated the power and the resources of his enemies.

  Maison and Silverthorn he knew were mere tentacles of the capital they represented; it was their business to reach out, searching for victims, in order to draw them in and drain from them the last vestige of wealth.

  And Sanderson had no doubt that they did that work impersonally and without feeling, not caring, and perhaps not understanding the tortures of a system—of a soulless organization seeking only financial gain.

  Dale, however, was intensely human and individualistic. He was not as subtle nor as smooth as his confederates. And money was not the only incentive which would drive him to commit crime. He was a gross sensualist, unprincipled and ruthless, and Sanderson’s hatred of him was beginning to overshadow every other consideration.

  Sanderson went to sleep with his bitter thoughts, which were tempered with a memory of the gentle girl at whom the evil agencies of his enemies were directed. They were eager to get possession of Mary Bransford’s property, but their real fight would be, and was, against him.

  But it was Mary Bransford that he was fighting for, and if he could get the herd of cattle to Las Vegas and dispose of them, he would be provided with money enough to defeat his enemies. But money he must have.

  At breakfast the next morning Carter selected the outfit for the drive. He named half a dozen men, who were variously known as Buck, Andy, Bud, Soapy, Sogun, and the Kid. These men were experienced trail-herd men, and Carter had confidence in them.

  Their faces, as they prepared for the trip, revealed their joy and pride over their selection, while the others, disappointment in their eyes, plainly envied their fellow-companions.

  But Sanderson lightened their disappointment by entrusting them with a new responsibility.

  “You fellows go back to the Double A an’ hang around,” he told them. “I don’t care whether you do a lick of work or not. Stick close to the house an’ keep an eye on Mary Bransford. If Dale, or any of his gang, come nosin’ around, bore them, plenty! If any harm comes to Mary Bransford while I’m gone, I’ll salivate you guys!”

  Shortly after breakfast the herd was on the move. The cowboys started them westward slowly, for trail cattle do not travel fast, urging them on with voice and quirt until the line stretched out into a sinuously weaving band a mile long.

  They reached the edge of the big level after a time, and filed through a narrow pass that led upward to a table-land. Again, after a time, they took a descending trail, which brought them down upon a big plain of grassland that extended many miles in all directions. Fringing the plain on the north was a range of hills that swept back to the mountains that guarded the neck of the big basin at Okar.

  There was timber on the hills, and the sky line was ragged with boulders. And so Sanderson and his men, glancing northward many times during the morning, did not see a rider who made his way through the hills.

  During the previous afternoon the rider had sat on his horse in the dim haze of distance, watching the Double A outfit round up its cattle; and during the night he had stood on guard, watching the men around the camp fire.

  He had seen most of the Double A men return toward the ranchhouse af
ter the trail crew had been selected; he had followed the progress of the herd during the morning.

  At noon he halted in a screen of timber and grinned felinely.

  “They’re off, for certain,” he said aloud.

  Late that afternoon the man was in Okar, talking with Dale and Silverthorn and Maison.

  “What you’ve been expectin’ has happened,” he told them. “Sanderson, Carter, an’ six men are on the move with a trail herd. They’re headed straight on for Las Vegas.”

  Silverthorn rubbed the palms of his hands together, Maison smirked, and Dale’s eyes glowed with satisfaction.

  Dale got up and looked at the man who had brought the information.

  “All right, Morley,” he said with a grin. “Get going; we’ll meet up with Sanderson at Devil’s Hole.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  A QUESTION OF BRANDS

  Trailing a herd of cattle through a strange wild country is no sinecure. There was not a man in the Double A outfit who expected an easy time in trailing the herd to Las Vegas, for it was a rough, grim country, and the men were experienced.

  Wild cattle are not tractable; they have an irritating habit of obstinately insisting on finding their own trail, and of persisting in vagaries that are the despair of their escort.

  The Double A herd was no exception. On a broad level they behaved fairly well, though always requiring the attention of the men; but in the broken sections of country through which they passed, heart-breaking effort was required of the men to keep them headed in the right direction.

  The men of the outfit had little sleep during the first two days of the drive. Nights found them hot, tired, and dusty, but with no prospect of an uninterrupted sleep. Still there was no complaint.

  On the third night, the herd having been driven about forty miles, the men began to show the effects of their sleepless vigil.

  They had bedded the herd down on a level between some hills, near a rocky ford over which the waters of a little stream trickled.

  Buck and Andy were on their ponies, slowly circling the herd, singing to the cattle, talking to them, using all their art and persuasion to induce the herd to cease the restless “milling” that had begun with the effort to halt for the night.

  Around the camp fire, which had been built at the cook’s orders, were Sanderson, Carter, Bud, Sogun, Soapy, and the Kid. Carter stood at a little distance from the fire, watching the herd.

  “That’s a damned nervous bunch we’ve got, boys,” he called to the other men. “I don’t know when I’ve seen a flightier lot. It wouldn’t take much to start ’em!”

  “We’ll have our troubles gettin’ them through Devil’s Hole,” declared Soapy. Soapy, so called because of his aversion to the valuable toilet preparation so necessary to cleanliness, had a bland, ingenuous face and perplexed, inquiring eyes. He was a capable man, however, despite his pet aversion, and there was concern in his voice when he spoke.

  “That’s why I wasn’t in no hurry to push them too far tonight,” declared Carter. “I don’t want to get anywhere near Devil’s Hole in the darkness, an’ I want that place quite some miles away when I camp. I seen a herd stride that quicksand on a run once, an’ they wasn’t enough of them left to make a good stew.

  “If my judgment ain’t wrong, an’ we can keep them steppin’ pretty lively in the mornin’, we’ll get to Devil’s Hole just about noon tomorrow. Then we can ease them through, an’ the rest ain’t worth talkin’ about.”

  “Devil’s Hole is the only trail?” inquired Sanderson.

  Carter nodded. The others confirmed the nod. But Carter’s desire for an early start the next morning was denied. Bud and Sogun were on guard duty on the morning shift, with the other men at breakfast, when a dozen horsemen appeared from the morning haze westward and headed directly for the camp fire.

  “Visitors,” announced Soapy, who was first to see the riders.

  The Double A men got to their feet to receive the strangers. Sanderson stepped out from the group slightly, and the horsemen came to a halt near him. A big man, plainly the leader of the strangers, dismounted and approached Sanderson.

  The man radiated authority. There was a belligerent gleam in his eyes as he looked Sanderson over, an inspection that caused Sanderson’s face to redden, so insolent was it. Behind him the big man’s companions watched, their faces expressionless, their eyes alert.

  “Who’s runnin’ this outfit?” demanded the man.

  “You’re talkin’ at the boss,” said Sanderson.

  “I’m the sheriff of Colfax County,” said the other, shortly. “There’s been a complaint made about you. Bill Lester, of the Bar X, says you’ve been pickin’ up his cattle, crossin’ his range, yesterday.”

  This incident had happened before, both to Sanderson and to Carter. They had insisted on the right of inspection themselves, when strange herds had been driven through their ranges.

  “We want to look your stock over,” said the sheriff.

  The request was reasonable, and Sanderson smiled.

  “That’s goin’ to hold us up a spell,” he returned; “an’ we was figurin’ on makin’ Devil’s Hole before dark. Hop in an’ do your inspectin’.”

  The big man motioned to his followers and the latter spurred to the herd, the other being the last to leave the camp fire.

  For two hours the strangers threaded and weaved their horses through the mass of cattle, while Sanderson and his men, impatient to begin the morning drive, rode around the outskirts and watched them.

  “They’re takin’ a mighty good look,” commented Carter at the end of the two hours.

  Sanderson’s face was set in a frown; he saw that the men were working very slowly, and were conferring together longer than seemed necessary.

  At the end of three hours Carter spoke to Sanderson, his voice hoarse with rage:

  “They’re holdin’ us up purposely. I’ll be damned if I’m goin’ to stand for it!”

  “Easy there!” cautioned Sanderson. “I’ve never seen a sheriff that was long on speed. They’ll be showin’ their hand pretty soon.”

  Half an hour later the sheriff spurred his horse out of the press and approached Sanderson. His face was grave. His men rode up also, and halted their horses near him. The Double A men had advanced and stood behind Sanderson and Carter.

  “There’s somethin’ wrong here!” he declared, scowling at Sanderson. “It ain’t the first time this dodge has been worked. A man gets up a brand that’s mighty like the brand on the range he’s goin’ to drive through, an’ he picks up cattle an’ claims they’re his. You claim your brand is the Double A.” He dismounted and with a branch of chaparral drew a design in the sand.

  “This is the way you make your brand,” he said, and he pointed out the Double A brand. That’s an ‘A’ lookin’ at it straight up an’ from the right side, like this, just reversin’ it. But when you turn it this way, it’s the Bar X—an’ there’s a bunch of your steers with the brand on them that way. I’ll have to take charge of the herd until the thing is cleared up!”

  Sanderson’s lips took on a straight line; the color left his face.

  Here was authority—that law with which he had unaccountably clashed on several occasions during his stay at the Double A. Yet he knew that—as on those other occasions—the law was operating to the benefit of his enemies.

  However, he did not now suspect Silverthorn and the others of setting the law upon him. The Double A men might have been careless with their branding, and it was unfortunate that he had been forced by the closing of the Okar market to drive his cattle over a range upon which were cattle bearing a brand so startlingly similar to his.

  His men were silent, watching him with set faces. He knew they would stand behind him in any trouble that might occur. And yet he hesitated, for he did not wish to force trouble.

  “How many Bar X cattle do you think are in the herd?” he asked.

  “Mebbe a hundred—mebbe more.”

  “How lo
ng will it take you to get Bill Lester here to prove his stock?”

  The big man laughed. “That’s a question. Bill left last night for Frisco; I reckon mebbe he’ll be gone a month—mebbe more.”

  The color surged back into Sanderson’s face. He stiffened.

  “An’ you expect to hold my herd here until Lester gets back?” he said, slowly.

  “Yep,” said the other, shortly.

  “You can’t do it!” declared Sanderson. “I know the law, an’ you can’t hold a man’s cattle that long without becomin’ liable for damages.”

  “We’ll be liable,” grinned the sheriff. “Before Bill left last night he made out a bond for ninety thousand dollars—just what your cattle are worth at the market price. If there’s any damages comin’ to you you’ll get them out of that.”

  “It’s a frame-up,” growled Carter, at Sanderson’s side. “It proves itself. This guy, Lester, makes out a bond before we’re within two days’ drive of his bailiwick. He’s had information about us, an’ is plannin’ to hold us up. You know what for. Silverthorn an’ the bunch has got a finger in the pie.”

  That suspicion had also become a conviction to Sanderson. And yet, in the person of the sheriff and his men, there was the law blocking his progress toward the money he needed for the irrigation project.

  “Do you think one hundred and fifty heads will cover the suspected stock?” he questioned.

  “I’d put it at two hundred,” returned the sheriff.

  “All right, then,” said Sanderson slowly; “take your men an’ cut out the two hundred you think belong to Lester. I’ll stop on the way back an’ have it out with you.”

  The sheriff grinned. “That’ll be square enough,” he agreed. He turned to the men who had come with him. “You boys cut out them cattle that we looked at, an’ head them toward the Bar X.” When the men had gone he turned to Sanderson.

  “I want you men to know that I’m actin’ under orders. I don’t know what’s eatin’ Bill Lester—that ain’t my business. But when I’m ordered to do anything in my line of duty, why, it’s got to be done. Your friend has gassed some about a man named Silverthorn bein’ at the bottom of this thing. Mebbe he is—I ain’t got no means of knowin’. It appears to me that Bill ain’t got no call to hog your whole bunch, though, for I’ve never knowed Bill to raise more than fifteen hundred head of cattle in one season. I’m takin’ a chance on two hundred coverin’ his claims.”