The Free Range Part 18

a word for a week. I 'low if he don't turn up to-morrow I'll have to send you boys lookin' fer him."

But the morrow brought its own solution of the problem.

In the middle of the morning a lone horseman was seen approaching over the hills, and the restless sheepmen, eager for any sport, spread out into a veritable ambuscade, taking position behind rocks and in depressions along the hills on either hand.

The horseman was very evidently a poor rider, for, instead of holding the reins easily and jauntily in his upturned right hand, he was clinging to the pommel of the saddle, while the pony slipped and slid along the difficult path.

Within a furlong of the camp, the man's nationality was made apparent by the flapping shirt and trousers he wore, as well as the black, coa.r.s.e cue that whipped from side to side.

Among the secreted sheepmen a grin spread from face to face at the sight of this distressful figure, evidently in real wo from hours in the hard saddle. About a hundred yards from camp a single shot rang out, and then there arose such a wild chorus of reports and yells as would have terrified a stone image.

The cow pony (which of all horses loathes a bad rider) showed the whites of his eyes wickedly, laid his ears back into his mane and bucked madly with fright. The Chinaman, chattering like a monkey, described a perfect parabola and alighted right side up on the only tuft of gra.s.s within ten yards.

In an instant he bounced to his feet, took one look at the surrounding society, and made a bolt for the cook-wagon, the one place that was familiar to him.

At the door he encountered the sheepmen's regular cook coming out to see what the trouble was, and the next moment witnessed the near-annihilation of the yellow peril.

Sims and Jimmie Welsh pulled the burly cook off in time to save the Oriental, and the latter sat up with a dazed, frightened air.

"Yah! Makee much damee h.e.l.lee!" he announced.

"Too much damee h.e.l.lee," said Sims sententiously. "John, you good fighter.

Me like you. What you do here?"

"Me bling message," and he reached into his blouse and drew out a piece of paper folded and pinned.

This he handed to Sims, who promptly opened it and started to read. In a minute he stopped and yelled for everyone who was not in the immediate circle to gather round and listen. Then, haltingly, he read aloud the following:

Dear Sims:

Ah Sin who brings you this is a bang-up cook, and I am sending him to you to get a job. Pay him fifty dollars on the spot in advance for his first month. I told him you would. He was the Bar T cook, I am sorry to say, but there was no other way of getting a message to you than to send him.

For the last few days I have been a prisoner in the "guest room" of the Bar T ranch-house. This is the middle room on the northwest side.

After a certain row here I was clapped into confinement, and the Chinaman had to do the honors for me at all meals. I got friendly with him and found he was getting only thirty a month.

When he told me he owned one of the horses in the corral the whole thing was easy. I offered him fifty, gave him exact directions how to find your camp, and told him the best time to start.

If he ever reaches you, you will know where I am, and I want some of you to come and get me out of this. The cattlemen from all over are here, and they accuse me of standing in with the rustlers. What will happen to me I don't know, but I'm sure of this, it won't be healthy.

I should think the boys would be down from the north by this time.

Now, Simmy, keep everything under your hat and work quietly. Let the sheep pile up if you have to. Things aren't ripe here yet to move 'em north.

I'll be looking for you any day.

Bud.

When Sims had read the entire note twice, a puzzled silence ensued. Men lifted their hats and scratched their heads meditatively. Here among fifty men there was plenty of energy for action once the action was suggested, but very little initiative.

"I allow we'll sh.o.r.e have to get 'im out o' there," seemed to be the consensus of opinion.

"Sh.o.r.e, boys, sh.o.r.e," said Sims impatiently; "but how? That's the question. There's about a dozen real smart shooters on that ranch, and I'm plenty sure they don't all sleep to once. Besides, the worst part of it'll be gettin' near the dum place. If a hoss squeals or whinnies the rescuin'

party might as well pick out their graves, 'cause yuh see only two or three can make the trip."

"Mebbe they can an' mebbe they can't," broke in Jimmie Welsh, his little, bright eyes twinkling with suppressed merriment. "I should think the hull outfit, cook-wagons, an' all, could make the visit to the Bar T."

"Yeah?" remarked Sims politely scornful but inquisitive. "Tell us about it."

And Welsh did.

CHAPTER XIV

SENTENCED

Everybody at the Bar T ranch house was laboring under suppressed excitement. It was now the middle of June when the yearly round-up should be under way, yet, owing to the invasion of the sheep and the recent rustler troubles, the cowboys had not been free to undertake this task.

On other ranches this spring work was well advanced, and the fact that the Bar T had not yet begun was a source of constant worry to Bissell and Stelton. The former, when he had sent out his call for other cowmen of the region, had encountered great difficulty in getting his neighbors to give up their time to the disposal of Bud Larkin's case.

At last, however, ten owners, impatient at the summons and anxious to return as quickly as possible to their work, had ridden in, some of them alone and others with a cowboy taken from the round-up.

Since the Bar T ranch house was incapable of accommodating them all, the punchers had been ousted from their bunk-house and the structure given over to the visitors.

The sudden disappearance of the Chinese cook had added to Bissell's troubles and shamed the hospitality of his home. This situation had been relieved temporarily by the labors of Mrs. Bissell and Juliet until an incompetent cowboy had been pressed into service at an exorbitant figure.

Therefore it was with short temper and less patience that Bissell began what might be called the trial of Larkin. The meeting-place of the men was under a big cottonwood that stood by the bank of the little stream curving past the Bar T.

As each man arrived from his home ranch he was made acquainted with the situation as it stood, and one afternoon Larkin was brought out from his room to appear before the tribunal. The owners were determined to end the matter that day, mete out punishment, and ride back to their own ranches in the morning.

It was a circle of stern-faced, solemn men that Larkin faced under the cottonwood tree, and as he looked at one after another, his heart sank, for there appeared very little of the quality of mercy in any of them.

Knowing as he did the urgency that was drawing them home again, he feared that the swiftness of judgment would be tempered with very little reason.

Bissell as head of the organization occupied a chair, while at each side of him five men lounged on the gra.s.s, their guns within easy reach. Larkin was a.s.signed to a seat facing them all, and, looking them over, recognized one or two. There was Billy Speaker, of the Circle-Arrow, whom he had once met, and Red Tarken, of the M Square, unmistakable both because of his size and his flaming hair.

"Now, Larkin," began Bissell, "these men know what you've been tryin' to do to my range--"

"Do they know what you did to my sheep?" interrupted Bud crisply.

Bissell's face reddened at this thrust, for, deep down, he knew that the stampede was an utterly despicable trick, and he was not over-anxious to have it paraded before his neighbors, some of whom had ridden far at his request.

"Shut yore mouth," he snarled, "an' don't yuh open it except to answer questions."

"Oh, no, yuh can't do that, Bissell," and blond Billy Speaker shook his head. "Yuh got to give 'im a chance to defend himself. Now we're here we want to get all the facts. What did yuh do to his sheep, Beef? I never heard."

"I run a few of 'em into the Little River, if yore any happier knowin',"

snapped Bissell, glowering on Speaker.