Cattle Brands Part 15

Indications of where horses had been picketed for hours, and where both men and horses had slept were evident. The trail where it left this deserted camp was in no wise encouraging to the marshal, as it looked at least thirty-six hours old. As the pursuers began the descent, they could see below them where the San Juan River meanders to the west until her waters, mingling with others, find their outlet into the Pacific. It was a trial of incessant toil down the mountain slope, wearisome alike to man and beast. Near the foot-hill of this mountain they were rewarded by finding a horse which the robbers had abandoned on account of an accident. He was an extremely fine horse, but so lame in the shoulders, apparently owing to a fall, that it was impossible to move him. The trail of the robbers kept in the foot-hills, finally doubling back an almost due east course. Now and then ranches were visible out on the mesa, but in all instances they were carefully avoided by the pursued.

Spending a night in these hills, the posse prepared to make an early start. Here, however, they met their first serious trouble. Both of the younger dogs had feet so badly swollen that it was impossible to make them take any interest in the trail. After doing everything possible for them, their owner sent them to a ranch which was in sight several miles below in the valley. Several hours were lost to the party by this incident, though they were in no wise deterred in following the trail, still having the veteran dog. Late that afternoon they met a _pastor_ who gave them a description of the robbers.

"Yesterday morning," said the shepherd, in broken Spanish, "shortly after daybreak, four men rode into my camp and asked for breakfast. I gave them coffee, but as I had no meat in my quarters, they tried to buy a lamb, which I have no right to sell. After drinking the coffee they tendered me money, which I refused. On leaving, one of their number rode into my flock and killed a kid. Taking it with him, he rode away with the others."

A good description of the robbers was secured from this simple shepherd,--a full description of men, horses, colors, and condition of pack. The next day nothing of importance developed, and the posse hugged the shelter of the hills skirting the mountain range, crossing into New Mexico. It was late that night when they went into camp on the trail. They had pushed forward with every energy, hoping to lessen the intervening distance between them and the robbers. The following morning on awakening, to the surprise and mortification of everybody, the old dog was unable to stand upon his feet. While this was felt to be a serious drawback, it did not necessarily check the chase.

In bringing to bay over thirty criminals, one of whom had paid the penalty of his crime on the gallows, master and dog had heretofore been an invincible team. Old age and physical weakness had now overtaken the dog in an important chase, and the sympathy he deserved was not withheld, nor was he deserted. Tenderly as a mother would lift a sick child, Banks gathered him in his arms and lifted him to one of the posse on his horse. To the members of the posse it was a touching scene: they remembered him but a few months before pursuing a flying criminal, when the latter--seeing that escape was impossible and turning to draw his own weapon upon the officer, whose six-shooter had been emptied at the fugitive, but who with drawn knife was ready to close with him in the death struggle--immediately threw down his weapon and pleaded for his life.

Yet this same officer could not keep back the tears that came into his eyes as he lifted this dumb comrade of other victories to a horse.

With an earnest oath he brushed the incident away by a.s.suring his posse that unless the earth opened and swallowed up the robbers they could not escape. A few hours after taking up the trail, a ranch was sighted and the dog was left, the instructions of the Good Samaritan being repeated. At this ranch they succeeded in buying two fresh horses, which proved a valuable addition to their mounts.

Now it became a hunt of man by man. To an experienced trailer like the marshal there was little difficulty in keeping the trail. That the robbers kept to the outlying country was an advantage. Yet the latter traveled both night and day, while pursuit must of necessity be by day only. With the fresh horses secured, they covered a stretch of country hardly credible.

During the day they found a place where the robbers had camped for at least a full day. A trail made by two horses had left this camp, and returned. The marshal had followed it to a rather pretentious Mexican rancho, where there was a small store kept. Here a second description of the two men was secured, though neither one was Peg-Leg. He was so indelibly marked that he was crafty enough to keep out of sight of so public a place as a store. These two had tried unsuccessfully to buy horses at this rancho.

The next morning the representative of the express company left the posse to report progress. He was enabled to give such an exact description of the robbers that the company, through their detective system, were not long in locating the leader. The marshal and posse pushed on with the same unremitting energy. The trail was now almost due east. The population of the country was princ.i.p.ally Mexican, and even Mexicans the robbers avoided as much as possible. They had, however, bought horses at several ranches, and were always liberal in the use of money, but very exacting in regard to the quality of horseflesh they purchased; the best was none too good for them. They pa.s.sed north of old Santa Fe town, and entering a station on the line of railway by that name late at night, they were liberal patrons of the gaming tables that the town tolerated. The next morning they had disappeared.

At no time did the pursuers come within two days of them. This was owing to the fact that they traveled by night as well as day. At the last-mentioned point messages were exchanged with the express company with little loss of time. Banks had asked that certain points on the railway be watched in the hope of capture while crossing the country, but the effort was barren of results. In following the trail the marshal had recrossed the continuation of the first range of mountains which they had crossed to the west ten days before, or the morning after the robbery, three hundred miles southward. There was nothing difficult in the pa.s.sage of this range of mountains, and now before them stretched the endless prairie to the eastward. Here Banks seriously felt the loss of his dogs. This was a country that they could be used in to good advantage. It would then be a question of endurance of men and horses. As it was, he could work only by day. Two lines of railway were yet to be crossed if the band held its course.

The same tactics were resorted to as formerly, yet this vigilance and precaution availed nothing, as Peg-Leg crossed them carefully between two of the watched places. Owing to his occupation, he knew the country better by night than day.

Banks was met by the officials of the express company on one of these lines of railroad. The exhaustive amount of information that they had been able to collect regarding this interesting man with the wooden leg was astonishing. From out of the abundance of the data there were a few items that were of interest to the officer. Several of Eldridge's haunts when not actively engaged in his profession were located. In one of these haunts was a woman, and toward this one he was heading, though it was many a weary mile distant.

At the marshal's request the express people had brought bloodhounds with them. The dogs proved worthless, and the second day were abandoned. When the trail crossed the Gulf Railway the robbers were three days ahead. The posse had now been fourteen days on the trail.

Banks followed them one day farther, himself alone, leaving his tired companions at a station near the line of the Panhandle of Texas. This extra day's ride was to satisfy himself that the robbers were making for one of their haunts. They kept, as he expected, down between the two Canadians.

After following the trail until he was thoroughly satisfied of their destination, the marshal retraced his steps and rejoined his posse.

The first train carried him and the posse back to the headquarters of the express company.

Two weeks later, at a country store in the Chickasaw Nation, there was a horse race of considerable importance. The country side were gathered to witness it. The owners of the horses had made large wagers on the race. Outsiders wagered money and livestock to a large amount.

There were a number of strangers present, which was nothing unusual.

As the race was being run and every eye was centred on the outcome, a stranger present put a six-shooter to a very interested spectator's ear, and informed him that he was a prisoner. Another stranger did the same thing to another spectator. They also snapped handcuffs on both of them. One of these spectators had a peg-leg. They were escorted to a waiting rig, and when they alighted from it were on the line of a railroad forty miles distant. One of these strangers was a United States marshal, who for the past month had been very anxious to meet these same gentlemen.

Once safe from the rescue of friends of these robbers, the marshal regaled his guest with the story of the chase, which had now terminated. He was even able to give Eldridge a good part of his history. But when he attempted to draw him out as to the whereabouts of the other two, Peg was sullenly ignorant of anything. They were never captured, having separated before reaching the haunt of Mr.

Eldridge. Eldridge was tried in a Federal court in Colorado and convicted of train robbery. He went over the road for a term of years far beyond the lease of his natural life. He, with the companion captured at the same time, was taken by an officer of the court to Detroit for confinement. When within an hour's ride of the prison--his living grave--he raised his ironed hands, and twisting from a blue flannel shirt which he wore a large pearl b.u.t.ton, said to the officer in charge:--

"Will you please take this b.u.t.ton back and give it, with my compliments, to that human bloodhound, and say to him that I'm sorry that I didn't antic.i.p.ate meeting him? If I had, it would have saved you this trip with me. He might have got me, but I wouldn't have needed a trial when he did."

XII

IN THE HANDS OF HIS FRIENDS

There was a painting at the World's Fair at Chicago named "The Reply,"

in which the lines of two contending armies were distinctly outlined.

One of these armies had demanded the surrender of the other. The reply was being written by a little fellow, surrounded by grim veterans of war. He was not even a soldier. But in this little fellow's countenance shone a supreme contempt for the enemy's demand. His patriotism beamed out as plainly as did that of the officer dictating to him. Physically he was debarred from being a soldier; still there was a place where he could be useful.

So with Little Jack Martin. He was a cripple and could not ride, but he could cook. If the way to rule men is through the stomach, Jack was a general who never knew defeat. The "J+H" camp, where he presided over the kitchen, was noted for good living. Jack's domestic tastes followed him wherever he went, so that he surrounded himself at this camp with chickens, and a few cows for milk. During the spring months, when the boys were away on the various round-ups, he planted and raised a fine garden. Men returning from a hard month's work would brace themselves against fried chicken, eggs, milk, and fresh vegetables. After drinking alkali water for a month and living out of tin cans, who wouldn't love Jack? In addition to his garden, he always raised a fine patch of watermelons. This camp was an oasis in the desert. Every man was Jack's friend, and an enemy was an unknown personage. The peculiarity about him, aside from his deformity, was his ability to act so much better than he could talk. In fact he could barely express his simplest wants in words.

Cripples are usually cross, irritable, and unpleasant companions. Jack was the reverse. His best qualities shone their brightest when there were a dozen men around to cook for. When they ate heartily he felt he was useful. If a boy was sick, Jack could make a broth, or fix a cup of beef tea like a mother or sister. When he went out with the wagon during beef-shipping season, a pot of coffee simmered over the fire all night for the boys on night herd. Men going or returning on guard liked to eat. The bread and meat left over from the meals of the day were always left convenient for the boys. It was the many little things that he thought of which made him such a general favorite with every one.

Little Jack was middle-aged when the proclamation of the President opening the original Oklahoma was issued. This land was to be thrown open in April. It was not a cow-country then, though it had been once.

There was a warning in this that the Strip would be next. The dominion of the cowman was giving way to the homesteader. One day Jack found opportunity to take Miller, our foreman, into his confidence. They had been together five or six years. Jack had coveted a spot in the section which was to be thrown open, and he asked the foreman to help him get it. He had been all over the country when it was part of the range, and had picked out a spot on Big Turkey Creek, ten miles south of the Strip line. It gradually pa.s.sed from one to another of us what Jack wanted. At first we felt blue about it, but Miller, who could see farther than the rest of us, dispelled the gloom by announcing at dinner, "Jack is going to take a claim if this outfit has a horse in it and a man to ride him. It is only a question of a year or two at the farthest until the rest of us will be guiding a white mule between two corn rows, and glad of the chance. If Jack goes now, he will have just that many years the start of the rest of us."

We nerved ourselves and tried to appear jolly after this talk of the foreman. We entered into quite a discussion as to which horse would be the best to make the ride with. The ranch had several specially good saddle animals. In chasing gray wolves in the winter those qualities of endurance which long races developed in hunting these enemies of cattle, pointed out a certain coyote-colored horse, whose color marks and "Dead Tree" brand indicated that he was of Spanish extraction.

Intelligently ridden with a light rider he was First Choice on which to make this run. That was finally agreed to by all. There was no trouble selecting the rider for this horse with the zebra marks. The lightest weight was Billy Edwards. This qualification gave him the preference over us all.

Jack described the spot he desired to claim by an old branding-pen which had been built there when it had been part of the range. Billy had ironed up many a calf in those same pens himself. "Well, Jack,"

said Billy, "if this outfit don't put you on the best quarter section around that old corral, you'll know that they have throwed off on you."

It was two weeks before the opening day. The coyote horse was given special care from this time forward. He feasted on corn, while others had to be content with gra.s.s. In spite of all the bravado that was being thrown into these preparations, there was noticeable a deep undercurrent of regret. Jack was going from us. Every one wanted him to go, still these dissolving ties moved the simple men to acts of boyish kindness. Each tried to outdo the others, in the matter of a parting present to Jack. He could have robbed us then. It was as bad as a funeral. Once before we felt similarly when one of the boys died at camp. It was like an only sister leaving the family circle.

Miller seemed to enjoy the discomfiture of the rest of us. This creedless old Christian had fine strata in his make-up. He and Jack planned continually for the future. In fact they didn't live in the present like the rest of us. Two days before the opening, we loaded up a wagon with Jack's effects. Every man but the newly installed cook went along. It was too early in the spring for work to commence. We all dubbed Jack a boomer from this time forward. The horse so much depended on was led behind the wagon.

On the border we found a motley crowd of people. Soldiers had gathered them into camps along the line to prevent "sooners" from entering before the appointed time. We stopped in a camp directly north of the claim our little boomer wanted. One thing was certain, it would take a better horse than ours to win the claim away from us. No sooner could take it. That and other things were what all of us were going along for.

The next day when the word was given that made the land public domain, Billy was in line on the coyote. He held his place to the front with the best of them. After the first few miles, the others followed the valley of Turkey Creek, but he maintained his course like wild fowl, skirting the timber which covered the first range of hills back from the creek. Jack followed with the wagon, while the rest of us rode leisurely, after the first mile or so. When we saw Edwards bear straight ahead from the others, we argued that a sooner only could beat us for the claim. If he tried to out-hold us, it would be six to one, as we noticed the leaders closely when we slacked up. By not following the valley, Billy would cut off two miles. Any man who could ride twelve miles to the coyote's ten with Billy Edwards in the saddle was welcome to the earth. That was the way we felt. We rode together, expecting to make the claim three quarters of an hour behind our man.

When near enough to sight it, we could see Billy and another horseman apparently protesting with one another. A loud yell from one of us attracted our man's attention. He mounted his horse and rode out and met us. "Well, fellows, it's the expected that's happened this time,"

said he. "Yes, there's a sooner on it, and he puts up a fine bluff of having ridden from the line; but he's a liar by the watch, for there isn't a wet hair on his horse, while the sweat was dripping from the fetlocks of this one."

"If you are satisfied that he is a sooner," said Miller, "he has to go."

"Well, he is a lying sooner," said Edwards.

We reined in our horses and held a short parley. After a brief discussion of the situation, Miller said to us: "You boys go down to him,--don't hurt him or get hurt, but make out that you're going to hang him. Put plenty of reality into it, and I'll come in in time to save him and give him a chance to run for his life."

We all rode down towards him, Miller bearing off towards the right of the old corral,--rode out over the claim noticing the rich soil thrown up by the mole-hills. When we came up to our sooner, all of us dismounted. Edwards confronted him and said, "Do you contest my right to this claim?"

"I certainly do," was the reply.

"Well, you won't do so long," said Edwards. Quick as a flash Mouse prodded the cold steel muzzle of a six-shooter against his ear. As the sooner turned his head and looked into Mouse's stern countenance, one of the boys relieved him of an ugly gun and knife that dangled from his belt. "Get on your horse," said Mouse, emphasizing his demand with an oath, while the muzzle of a forty-five in his ear made the order undebatable. Edwards took the horse by the bits and started for a large black-jack tree which stood near by. Reaching it, Edwards said, "Better use c.o.o.n's rope; it's manilla and stronger. Can any of you boys tie a hangman's knot?" he inquired when the rope was handed him.

"Yes, let me," responded several.

"Which limb will be best?" inquired Mouse.

"Take this horse by the bits," said Edwards to one of the boys, "till I look." He coiled the rope sailor fashion, and made an ineffectual attempt to throw it over a large limb which hung out like a yard-arm, but the small branches intervening defeated his throw. While he was coiling the rope to make a second throw, some one said, "Mebby so he'd like to pray."

"What! him pray?" said Edwards. "Any prayer that he might offer couldn't get a hearing amongst men, let alone above, where liars are forbidden."

"Try that other limb," said c.o.o.n to Edwards; "there's not so much brush in the way; we want to get this job done sometime to-day." As Edwards made a successful throw, he said, "Bring that horse directly underneath." At this moment Miller dashed up and demanded, "What in h.e.l.l are you trying to do?"

"This sheep-thief of a sooner contests my right to this claim,"

snapped Edwards, "and he has played his last cards on this earth. Lead that horse under here."

"Just one moment," said Miller. "I think I know this man--think he worked for me once in New Mexico." The sooner looked at Miller appealingly, his face blanched to whiteness. Miller took the bridle reins out of the hands of the boy who was holding the horse, and whispering something to the sooner said to us, "Are you all ready?"