Cowmen and Rustlers Part 14

"And yet you may be the next to fall during this frightful state of affairs. If the situation of your mother and sister is so sad because of the loss of the head of the household, what will it be if you should be taken?"

"I appreciate your kindness, Mont, but you put the case too strongly; in one sense we all stand in danger of sudden death every day. I might live to threescore and ten in Wyoming, and be killed in a railroad accident or some other way the first day I left it. There is no particular enmity between the rustlers and me; that brush yesterday was one of those sudden outbursts that was not premeditated by them."

"It didn't look that way to me."

"You were not there when it opened. They were driving a lot of mavericks toward their ranch down the river, when Budd Hankinson saw a steer among them with our brand. You know it--a sort of cross with father's initials. Without asking for its return, Budd called them a gang of thieves, cut out the steer and drove him toward our range. If he had gone at the thing in the right way there would have been no trouble, but his ugly words made them mad, and the next thing we were all shooting at each other."

"You inflicted more harm than they, and they won't forget it."

"I don't want them to forget it," said Fred, bitterly, "but they won't carry their enmity to the extent of making an unprovoked attack on me or any of my people."

"Possibly not, but you don't want to bank on the theory."

"You must not forget," continued the practical Whitney, "that all we have in the world is invested in this business, and it would be a sacrifice for us to sell out and move eastward, where I would be without any business."

"You could soon make one for yourself."

"Well," said Whitney, thoughtfully, "I will promise to turn it over in my mind; the a.s.sociations, however, that will always cling to this place, and particularly my sympathy for mother and Jennie, will be the strongest influences actuating me, provided I decide to change."

Mont Sterry experienced a thrill of delight, for he knew that when a man talks in that fashion he is on the point of yielding. He determined to urge the matter upon Jennie, and there was just enough hope in his heart that the prospect of being on the same side of the Mississippi with him would have some slight weight.

"I am glad to hear you speak thus, for it is certain there will be serious trouble with the rustlers."

"All which emphasizes what I said earlier in the evening about your duty to make a change of location."

The proposition, now that there was reason to believe that Fred Whitney had come over to his way of thinking, struck Sterry more favourably than before. In fact he reflected, with a shudder, what a dismal, unattractive section this would be, after the removal of his friends.

"I shall not forget your words; what you said has great influence with me, and you need not be surprised if I bid adieu to Wyoming within a week or a few days."

"It can't be too soon for your own safety, much as we shall regret to lose your company."

CHAPTER XIV.

UNWELCOME CALLERS.

Although Budd Hankinson and Grizzly Weber were removed from the scene of the events described, the night was not to pa.s.s without their becoming actors in some stirring incidents.

Ordinarily they would have spent the hours of darkness at the ranch of their employer, for the immense herds of cattle, as a rule, required no looking after. The ranges over which they grazed were so extensive that they were left to themselves, sometimes wandering for many miles from the home of their owner. They might not be seen for days and weeks. Their brands and the universal respect in which such proof of proprietorship was held prevented, as a rule, serious loss to the owners.

But the date will be recognized by the reader as one of a peculiarly delicate nature, when men were obliged to look more closely after their rights than usual.

The couple, therefore, rode behind the cattle to the foothills, along which they were expected to graze for an indefinite time. Hustlers were abroad, and the occurrences of the previous day had inflamed the feeling between them and the cowmen. It was not unlikely that, having been beaten off, some of them might take the means of revenging themselves by stealing a portion of the herd.

Budd and Weber dismounted after reaching the foothills, and, without removing the saddles from their horses, turned them loose to graze for themselves. No fear of their wandering beyond recall. A signal would bring them back the moment needed.

The hardy ranchers seated themselves with their backs against a broad, flat rock, which rose several feet above their heads. The bits were slipped from the mouths of their horses, so as to allow them to crop the succulent gra.s.s more freely, while the men gave them no attention, even when they gradually wandered beyond sight in the gloom.

"Times are getting lively in these parts," remarked Weber, as he filled his brierwood and lit it; "this thing can't go on forever; the rustlers or cowmen have got to come out on top, and I'm shot if one can tell just now which it will be."

"There can only be one ending," quietly replied his companion, whose pipe, being already lit, was puffed with the deliberate enjoyment of a veteran; "the rustlers may stir things up, and I s'pose they've got to get worse before they get better, but what's the use? It's like a mob or a riot; the scamps have things their own way at first, but they knuckle under in the end."

"I guess you're right; that was bad business yesterday; I shouldn't wonder if it ended in the young folks moving East again with their mother, whose heart is broke by the death of her husband."

"The younker is too plucky a chap to light out 'cause the governor has been sent under; he's had better luck than most tenderfeet who come out here and start in the cattle bus'ness; he done well last year, and if the rustlers let him alone, he'll do a good deal better this year; he may move, but he ain't agoin' to let them chaps hurry him, you can make up your mind to that."

The couple smoked a minute or two in silence. Then Weber, without removing his pipe from between his lips, uttered the words:

"Budd, something's going to happen powerful soon."

Hankinson, also keeping his pipe between his lips, turned his head and looked wonderingly at his friend. He did not speak, but the action told his curiosity; he did not understand the words.

"I mean what I say," added Weber, shaking his head; "I know it."

"What do you mean? Something happens every night and every day."

"That isn't what I'm driving at; something's going to happen afore daylight; you and me ain't through with this work."

Hankinson was still dissatisfied. He took his pipe from his mouth, and, looking sideways at his friend, asked:

"Can't you come down to facts and let a fellow know what you're driving at?"

"I don't exactly know myself, but I feel it in my left leg."

At this strange remark the other laughed heartily and silently. He had little patience with superst.i.tion. He knew his friend held peculiar whims in that respect. Weber expected something in the nature of scoffing and was prepared for it. He spoke doggedly:

"It has never deceived me. Six years ago, when we was trying to round up Geronimo and his Apache imps, ten of us camped in the Moggollon Mountains. Hot! Well, you never knowed anything like it. All day long the metal of our guns would blister our naked hands; we didn't get a drop of water from sunup till sundown; we was close on to the trail of the varmints, and we kept at it by moonlight till our horses gave out and we tumbled out among the rocks so used up that we could hardly stand. Our lieutenant was a bright young chap from South Car'lina that had come out of West Point only that summer, but he was true blue and warn't afeared of anything. We all liked him. I had seen him fight when a dozen of the Apaches thought they had us foul, and I was proud of him. He belonged to a good family, though that didn't make him any better than anyone else, but he treated us white.

"So when we went into camp, I goes to him and I says, says I, 'Lieutenant, there's going to be trouble.' He looked up at me in his pleasant way and asks, 'What makes you think so, Grizzly?' The others was listening, but I didn't mind that, and out with it. "Cause,' says I, 'my left leg tells me so.'

"'And how does your leg tell you?' he asked again, with just a faint smile that wasn't anything like the snickers and guffaws of the other chaps. 'Whenever a twitch begins at the knee and runs down to my ankle,' says I, 'that is in the left leg, and then keeps darting back and forth and up and down, just as though some one was p.r.i.c.king it with a needle, do you know what it says?'

"'I'm sure I don't, but I'd like to know.'

"'Injins! Varmints! They're nigh you; look out!'

"Wal, instead of j'ining the others in laughing at me, he says; just as earnest-like as if it was the colonel that had spoke, 'If that's the case, Grizzly, why we'll look out; you have been in this business afore I was born and I am glad you told me. I didn't s'pose any of 'em was within miles of us, but it's easy to be mistaken.'

"Wal, to make a long story short we didn't any of us go to sleep; the boys laughed at what I said, but the way the lieutenant acted showed 'em he believed me, and that was enough. The Apaches come down on us that night and wiped out two of the boys. If the lieutenant hadn't showed his good sense by believing what I told him, there wouldn't have been one of us left."

Budd Hankinson then crossed his legs, extended on the ground as they were, shoved his sombrero back on his head, with his Winchester resting against the rock behind him, and smoked his pipe after the manner of a man who is pondering a puzzling question. The latter a.s.sumed much the same position, but, having said sufficient, was not disposed to speak until after the other had given his opinion.

"Grizzly, when your leg warns you like that, does it speak plain enough to tell you the sort of danger that's coming? Does it say what hour; where the trouble is to come from, and who them that make the trouble will be?"

"No!" replied the other, contemptuously; "how could a fellow's leg do that?"