Paradise Bend Part 6

"Five cows," said Loudon. "Nothin' mean about that jigger."

He bent down to examine the tracks more closely, and as he stooped a rifle cracked faintly, and a bullet whisped over his bowed back.

Loudon jammed home both spurs, and jumped Lemons forward. Plying his quirt, he looked over his shoulder.

A puff of smoke suddenly appeared above a rock a quarter of a mile downstream and on the other side of the creek. The bullet tucked into the ground close beside the pony's drumming hoofs.

Loudon jerked his Winchester from its scabbard under his leg, turned in the saddle, and fired five shots as rapidly as he could work the lever.

He did not expect to score a hit, but earnestly hoped to shake the hidden marksman's aim. He succeeded but lamely.

The enemy's third shot cut through his shirt under the left armpit, missing the flesh by a hair's-breadth. Loudon raced over the lip of a swell just as a fourth shot ripped through his hat.

Hot and angry, Loudon jerked Lemons to a halt half-way down the reverse slope. Leaving his horse tied to the ground he ran back and lay down below the crest. He removed his hat and wriggled forward to the top.

Cautiously lifting his head he surveyed the position of his unknown opponent. A half-mile distant, on the Bar S side of the Pack-saddle, was the rock which sheltered the marksman. A small dark dot appeared above it.

Taking a long aim Loudon fired at the dot. As he jerked down the lever to reload, a gray smoke-puff mushroomed out at the lower right-hand corner of the rock, and a violent shock at the elbow numbed his right hand.

Loudon rolled swiftly backward, sat up, and stared wonderingly at his two hands. One held his Winchester, but gripped in the cramped fingers of the right hand was the bent and broken lever of the rifle. The bullet of the sharp-shooting citizen had struck the lever squarely on the upper end, snapped the pin, torn loose the lever, and hopelessly damaged the loading mechanism.

"That jigger can sh.o.r.e handle a gun," remarked Loudon. "If this ain't one lovely fix for a Christian! Winchester no good, only a six-shooter, an' a fully-organized miracle-worker a-layin' for my hide.

I'm a-goin' somewhere, an' I'm goin' right now."

He dropped the broken lever and rubbed his numbed fingers till sensation returned. Then he put on his hat and hurried down to his horse.

He jammed the rifle into the scabbard, mounted, and rode swiftly southward, taking great pains to keep to the low ground.

A mile farther on he forded the creek and gained the shelter of an outflung shoulder of Box Hill.

Near the top Loudon tied Lemons to a tree and went forward on foot.

Cautiously as an Indian, Loudon traversed the flat top of the hill and squatted down in a bunch of tall gra.s.s between two pines. From this vantage-point his field of view was wide. The rock ledge and the mud-hole were in plain sight. So was the rock from which he had been fired upon. It was a long mile distant, and it lay near the crest of a low hog's-back close to the creek.

"He's got his hoss down behind the swell," muttered Loudon. "Wish this hill was higher."

Loudon pondered the advisability of climbing a tree. He wished very much to obtain a view of the depression behind the hog's-back. He finally decided to remain where he was. It was just possible that the hostile stranger might be provided with field gla.s.ses. In which case tree-climbing would invite more bullets, and the shooting of the enemy was too nearly accurate for comfort.

Loudon settled himself comfortably in his bunch of gra.s.s and watched intently. Fifteen or twenty minutes later what was apparently a part of the rock detached itself and disappeared behind the crest of the hog's-back.

Soon the tiny figure of a mounted man came into view on the flat beyond. Horse and rider moved rapidly across the level ground and vanished behind a knoll. When the rider reappeared he was not more than nine hundred yards distant and galloping hard on a course paralleling the base of the hill.

"Good eye," chuckled Loudon. "Goin' to surround me. I'd admire to hear what he says when he finds out I ain't behind that swell."

The stranger splashed across the creek and raced toward some high ground in the rear of Loudon's old position.

Now that the enemy had headed westward there was nothing to be gained by further delay.

Loudon had plenty of courage, but one requires more than bravery and a six-shooter with which to pursue and successfully combat a gentleman armed with a Winchester.

Hastily retreating to his horse, Loudon scrambled into the saddle, galloped across the hilltop and rode down the eastern slope at a speed exceedingly perilous to his horse's legs. But the yellow horse somehow contrived to keep his footing and reached the bottom with no damage other than skinned hocks.

Once on level ground Loudon headed southward, and Lemons, that yellow bundle of nerves and steel wire, stretched out his neck and galloped with all the heart that was in him.

Loudon's destination was a line-camp twelve miles down the creek. This camp was the temporary abode of two Bar S punchers, who were riding the country south of Fishtail Coulee. Loudon knew that both men had taken their Winchesters with them when they left the ranch, and he hoped to find one of the rifles in the dugout.

With a rifle under his leg Loudon felt that the odds would be even, in spite of the fact that the enemy had an uncanny mastery of the long firearm. Loudon's favourite weapon was the six-shooter, and he was at his best with it. A rifle in his hands was not the arm of precision it became when Johnny Ramsay squinted along the sights. For Johnny was an expert.

"Keep a-travellin', little hoss, keep a-travellin'," encouraged Loudon.

"Split the breeze. That's the boy!"

Loudon had more than one reason for being anxious to join issue with the man who had attacked him. At nine hundred yards one cannot recognize faces or figures, but one can distinguish the colour of a horse, and Loudon's antagonist rode a sorrel. Chuck Morgan had said that Blakely's horse was a sorrel.

Loudon sighted the dugout that was Pack-saddle line-camp in a trifle less than an hour. He saw with elation that two hobbled ponies were grazing near by. A fresh mount would quicken the return trip.

Loudon's elation collapsed like a p.r.i.c.ked bubble when he entered the dugout and found neither of the rifles.

He swore a little, and smoked a sullen cigarette. Then he unsaddled the weary Lemons and saddled the more vicious of the two hobbled ponies. Subjugating this animal, a most excellent pitcher, worked off a deal of Loudon's ill-temper. Even so, it was in no cheerful frame of mind that he rode away to inspect the two mud-holes between Fishtail Coulee and Box Hill.

To be beaten is not a pleasant state of affairs. Not only had he been beaten, but he had been caught by the old Indian fighter's trick of the empty hat. That was what galled Loudon. To be lured into betraying his position by such an ancient snare! And he had prided himself on being an adroit fighting man! The fact that he had come within a finger's breadth of paying with his life for his mistake did not lesson the smart, rather it aggravated it.

Late in the afternoon he returned to the line-camp. Hockling and Red Kane, the two punchers, had not yet ridden in. So Loudon sliced bacon and set the coffee on to boil. Half an hour after sunset Hockling and Kane galloped up and fell upon Loudon with joy. Neither relished the labour, insignificant as it was, of cooking.

"Company," remarked Red Kane, a forkful of bacon poised in the air.

The far-away patter of hoofs swelled to a drumming crescendo. Then inside the circle of firelight a pony slid to a halt, and the voice of cheerful Johnny Ramsay bawled a greeting.

"That's right, Tom!" shouted the irrepressible Johnny. "Always have chuck ready for yore uncle. He likes his meals hot. This is sh.o.r.e real gayful. I wasn't expectin' to find any folks here."

"I s'pose not," said Red Kane. "You was figurin' on romancin' in while we was away an' stockin' up on _our_ grub. I know you. Hock, you better cache the extry bacon an' dobies. Don't let Johnny see 'em."

"Well, o' course," observed Ramsay, superciliously, "I've got the appet.i.te of youth an' a feller with teeth. I don't have to get my nourishment out of soup."

"He must mean you, Hock," said Red Kane, calmly. "You've done lost eight."

"The rest of 'em all hit," a.s.serted Hockling, grinning. "But what Johnny wants with teeth, I dunno. By rights he'd ought to stick to milk. Meat ain't healthy for young ones. Ain't we got a nursin'-bottle kickin' round some'ers, Red?"

"Sh.o.r.e, Red owns one," drawled Loudon. "I seen him buyin' one once over to Farewell at Mike Flynn's."

"O' course," said Johnny, heaping his plate with bacon and beans. "I remember now I seen him, too. Said he was buyin' it for a friend. Why not admit yo're married, Red?"

"Yuh know I bought it for Mis' Shaner o' the Three Bars!" shouted the indignant Kane. "She done asked me to get it for her. It was for her baby to drink out of."

"Yuh don't mean it," said Johnny, seriously. "For a baby, yuh say.

Well now, if that ain't surprisin'. I always thought nursin'-bottles was to drive nails with."

In this wise the meal progressed pleasantly enough. After supper, when the four were sprawled comfortably on their saddle-blankets, Loudon launched his bombsh.e.l.l.

"Had a small brush this mornin'," remarked Loudon, "with a gent over by the mud-hole north o' Box Hill."