The Settling of the Sage Part 15

She crossed to her teepee to write the letter asking Judge Colton's advice on this matter which would mean the turning point in Three Bar affairs. An hour later a man rode away from the wagon, his bed roll packed on a led horse, heading for Brill's with the message that meant so much to the Three Bar. As he left Harris handed him two letters he had written weeks past, before leaving the ranch.

Presumably only the three of them knew of the intended move but in the course of the next few days it had become rumored among the men that the Three Bar was to turn into a farming outfit. The girl learned that Carpenter was the source of these whispers. Hanson, the rep from the Halfmoon D, apprised her of this fact.

Ever since the departure of Morrow Carp had been sullen. Twice he had taken exceptions to some order of Harris's but the new foreman had patiently overlooked the fact. However on the fifth day after the departure of Horne with the letter to Judge Colton, Harris whirled on the man as he made an anti-squatter remark when the hands were gathered for the noon meal.

"That'll be all," he said. "I'll figure out your time. You took things up where Morrow left off. Now you can go hunt him up and compare notes."

"Can't a man speak his mind?" Carp demanded.

"He can talk his head off," Harris said. "But he can't overlook any Three Bar calves on his circle while I'm running the layout. Morrow tried that on while he was breaking you in."

Carp surveyed the faces of the men and started to speak but changed his mind and headed for the rope corral.

"He's a cringing sort of miscreant," Moore said as Carp rode off. "He was even afraid to speak up for himself--thought maybe the boys would pa.s.s sentence on him before he could get out of sight. I expect Carp is poor sort of folks."

"That's going to leave us short-handed," Harris said to the girl.

"Morrow, Carp and Bangs--three short. Horne ought to get back from Brill's to-day. We've only one more week out so I guess we can worry through."

"How did you know?" she asked. "About Carp, I mean."

"Lanky caught him overlooking a bunch of cows with calves," Harris explained. "Lanky is worth double pay."

The Three Bar girl had noted that Carpenter had been much with Bentley, Slade's rep, since Morrow had gone. She had come to be suspicious of all things connected with Slade.

"Are you watching Bentley?" she asked.

Harris shook his head.

"No use," he said. "Slade wouldn't work that way. Bentley is his known representative and anything Bent might do would reflect on Slade.

Slade only works through one or two others who arrange for all the rest. Morrow is likely one of his right-hand men. He'd fix it for Carp without Slade's name even coming into it at all. Carp might have a good idea where the money came from but he'd draw it from Morrow and never get to the man behind. We'll never get anything on Bentley for that reason--because he's known to draw Slade's pay."

"Then how can we ever prove anything on Slade?" she insisted.

"It's ten to one we can't," he said. "Even if one of his chief fixers should turn him up it wouldn't work. It would be the same old story--the word of an owner against that of a self-confessed thief. We may have to handle Slade without proof."

Horne came back from Brill's in the early evening and another man rode with him.

"Alden," Billie said. "I wonder what the sheriff is doing out in here."

The sheriff stripped the saddle from his horse and the wrangler swooped down to haze the animal in with the remuda as Alden joined Harris and the girl. He was a tall, gaunt man with a slight stoop. His keen gray eyes peered forth from a maze of sun-wrinkles surmounted by bushy eyebrows, the drooping gray mustache accentuating rather than detracting from the hawk-like strength of countenance. He dropped a hand on the girl's shoulder and looked down at her.

"How are things breaking this season, Billie?" he asked. "Everything running smooth?"

"About the same," she said. They were old friends and the girl knew that Alden would help her in any possible way.

The sheriff turned to Harris.

"I see you've settled down to a steady job, Cal, instead of browsing round the hills alone. I run across Horne at Brill's and he was telling me about some one gunning for you from the brush. Morrow, he says. Do you want me to pick Morrow up?"

"It would only waste your time," Harris said. "We couldn't prove it on him--the way things are."

"Fact," Alden agreed. "But I could hold him till after you're back at the ranch. Some day folks may wake up and need a sheriff. It's hard to say."

The men had finished working the herd and were crowding around the wagon for their meal.

"You go ahead and eat, Billie," Alden said. "Cal and I'll feed a little later on. I've got a fuss to pick with Cal."

Billie left them together and the sheriff squatted on his heels.

"What's this rumor about your farming the Three Bar?" he asked. "Horne said all the hands were guessing, but I haven't heard anything about it outside."

"And I don't want it leaking out before we start," Harris said. "But we're going to break out the flat. I had the plans all laid and sent word off. Things are moving toward the start right now."

"It'll stir things up," Alden predicted. With one forefinger he traced a design in the dust, then blotted it out. "I'll play in with you the best I can."

"We've got to make a clean split," Harris said. "Get the wild ones definitely set apart. Then they can be handled." When he spoke again it was apparently as if to himself. "Al Moody sprung it in the Gallatin country a few years back," he said reflectively. "And old Con Ristine worked it on the Nations Cow-trail twenty years ago. It always brings the split."

"That kind of thing is dead against the law," the sheriff said. "But it works right well--that backfire stuff. And it's never been proved on either Al Moody or old Con Ristine, so I hear."

"But of course I wouldn't have a hand in anything like that," Harris stated.

"No. Neither would I," said the sheriff. "Nothing like that."

Alden was regarding old Rile Foster who had drawn apart from the rest and was eating his meal in solitude. The old man had taken a boot heel from his pocket and was studying it as if fascinated by the somber reflections it roused in him. Alden shook his head as he rose and moved toward the wagon.

"Horne was telling me about Bangs too," he said. "Pretty tough for Rile. They was as close as father and son, those two."

Harris and the sheriff joined the rest at the wagon and held out plates and cups to Waddles. The girl was oddly excited, anxious for the start, now that the decision had been made.

"How long will it take to get things moving after we get back?" she asked.

"Not more than a week at the outside," Harris said. "Probably less."

"You don't mean that," she stated. "I want to know the truth."

"You have it," he a.s.sured her. "I had the plans all laid. Our crew is already headed for the Three Bar. Before they get there every man will have filed on a quarter I designated for him. Inside a week we'll have covered the flat."

Long after the hands had turned in for the night she heard a faint murmur of voices and looked from her teepee. The brilliant moonlight showed Harris and the sheriff sitting off by themselves. For no apparent reason she thought of Carlos Deane and, point by point, she contrasted him with the man who sat talking to the sheriff. Each was almost super-efficient in his own chosen line and she caught herself wondering what each one would do if suddenly transplanted to the environment of the other. Then her mind occupied itself with Harris who would soon break out the first plow furrow that had ever scarred the range within a radius of fifty miles and she pictured again a sign she had seen that day: "Squatter let your wagon wheels keep turning."

VIII

Three heavy wagons, each drawn by four big mules, traveled north along the Coldriver stage trail. Every wagon was loaded to the brim of the triple box. Two men were mounted on each wagon seat, the man beside the driver balancing a rifle across his knees. The b.u.t.t of another protruded from a saddle scabbard that was lashed to each wagon within easy reach of the man who handled the reins.

"Nice place to camp, Tiny," said the guard on the lead wagon. He pointed off across a flat beside the road toward a sign that loomed in the center. The black-browed giant designated as Tiny swung the mules off the road and headed for the sign. The three wagons were drawn up some fifteen yards apart in the shape of a triangle, the mules unhitched and given a feed of grain from nose-bags, tied to the wagons and supplied with baled hay. Tiny walked over and viewed the sign.