The Settling of the Sage Part 16

"Squatter don't let sunset find you here," he read.

"It's about that time now," he observed, squinting over his shoulder.

"It'd be a mistake to leave evidence like that around." He tore down the sign and worked it into firewood with an axe. "Now they can't do nothing to us for drifting in here by error," he remarked to his companions. "It wouldn't be fair."

While four of them slept the other two remained awake, rousing a second pair after a three-hour period. In the morning the three wagons lumbered on. Near sunset they pa.s.sed another sign where the Three Bar road branched off to the left. Tiny pulled up the mules.

"Uproot that little beauty, Russet," he advised. "We're getting close to home."

The carrot-haired guard descended and threw his weight against the sign, working it from side to side until the posts were loosened in the ground, pried it up and loaded it on the wagon.

"Quick work, Russ," the big man complimented. "For a little sawed-off runt, you're real spry and active." He clucked to the mules and they settled steadily into the collars and moved on to the Three Bar. As they rolled up the lane the freighters could see the chuck wagon drawn up before the house, the remuda milling round the big pasture lot and a number of men moving among the buildings. The calf round-up was over.

The Three Bar men viewed the freighters curiously as they swung the mule teams in front of the blacksmith shop, noted the rifle in the hands of each guard and the second one in easy reach of each driver.

They knew what this portended.

The freighters had stripped off the wagon-sheet lashed across the top of each load and the Three Bar men moved casually toward the wagons, curious to view the contents.

"You boys get to knowing each other," Harris said. "These mule-skinners will be hanging out at the Three Bar from now on."

The short man, known as Russet, removed his hat and scratched his head reflectively as he studied the first move in unloading his wagon.

Moore promptly uncovered his own head and revealed his brilliant red shock of hair, his freckled face breaking into a genial grin.

"h.e.l.lo, you red-hot little devil," he greeted. "I'm glad some one has turned up with redder hair than mine. Brother--shake!"

Russ looked him over carefully.

"Don't you claim no relationship with me, you sorrel hyena," he said.

"I won't stand it for a holy second. Get a move on and help me s.n.a.t.c.h off this load."

All down the line the Three Bar men were getting acquainted with the freighters, introductions effected in much the same manner as that between Russet and Moore. A thousand pounds of oats were tossed from the top of the first wagon and when the concealing sacks were cleared away there were three heavy plows showing underneath, the s.p.a.ces between them filled with shining coils of fence wire. The second load consisted of a dismantled drill, a crate of long-handled shovels, and more barbed wire; the third held a rake and a mowing machine, more wire, kegs of fence staples and a dozen forks.

"The Three Bar will be the middle point of a cyclone," Moore prophesied as he viewed the implements. "Just as soon as this leaks out."

"We fetched our cyclone openers with us," Russ a.s.sured him. "Let her buck."

From the cook-shack door the girl viewed these preparations, then turned her eyes to the flat and visioned it with a carpet of rippling hay.

There was a clatter of hoofs and a rattling of gravel as five hors.e.m.e.n put their sure-footed mounts down the steep slope two hundred yards back of the house and followed along the fence of the corral. The five Brandons had cut across the shoulder of the mountain. The girl wondered at this visit as she heard Lafe Brandon, the father and head of the tribe, ask Harris to put them up for the night.

An hour later Harris and Lafe came to her door and she let them in.

"The Brandons are riding down to file on a quarter apiece," Harris said. "Art quit the wagon below their place as we came in and told the rest that we're going to farm the Three Bar."

"Then you're doing the same?" she asked Lafe with sudden hope that her brand would have company in the move.

Old man Brandon shook his head.

"Not right off," he said. "Until we see how you folks pan out. We can't fix to handle it the way you do. We're filing to protect ourselves before some nester outfit turns up at our front door."

The old man explained his views. There was enough flow in the stream that cut their home valley to water something over a section of land.

With that filed on they would control their home range. They could grade up their cows and increase a hundred per cent. with a section under hay. He hoped the Three Bar would win, but he feared to start in the face of the wave of opposition he was sure would rise against the move.

"We're not fixed for it," he explained again.

"But the other small outfits feel the same way," Harris said. "If two of us start the rest will join in."

"Maybe so," the old man said doubtfully. "But noways likely. They're too set on the other side." The thought was deep-rooted and he could not be moved.

"We'll let it out it's only for protection that we all are filing," he said. "And that we don't aim to prove up. The outfits that don't file now will lose out. This will always be open range, more than ninety per cent. of it, and those who file on their water will control the gra.s.s. As soon as the squatters see one outfit starting, they'll take out papers on every piece of dirt they can get water to. They'll have six months to move on, then a six months' stay. They'll hang round waiting for things to open up so they can rush in here. The brand owners who haven't hedged theirselves beforehand will run down to file and find that nesters have had papers on all the good pieces right in their dooryard for months. They'll have only the plots left that their home ranch sets on, and likely no water even for that."

The Brandons stayed for the night and rode off at daylight the next morning, while the Three Bar men prepared for a trip to Brill's. As the rest were saddling for the start Harris saw old Rile Foster seated by himself, gazing off across the hills.

"Better come and ride over with us, Rile," he urged. "Bangs would want you to try and forget."

The old man shook his head.

"I'm drifting to-day," he said. "I'll likely be back before long. I back-tracked Blue to their camp and trailed them twenty miles to where they joined another bunch. It was some of Harper's devils--I don't know which four. One way or another, whether I get the right four or not, I'm going to play even for Bangs."

When the rest of the men rode off the old man was still leaning against the shop.

There were less than a dozen others in Brill's store when the Three Bar men crowded through the door. Five men sat at one of the tables in the big room and indulged in a casual game of stud. Harper and Lang were among them. Two of them Harris knew as men named Hopkins and Wade.

The fifth was unknown to him.

The albino's eyes met Harris's steadily as he entered at the head of the Three Bar men. Those among the hands who had formerly fraternized as freely with Harper's men as with those who rode for legitimate outfits now held way from them since their foreman had ordered Harper from the Three Bar wagon. They merely nodded as they filed past to the bar.

"Who is the man dealing now?" Harris inquired of Moore.

The freckled youth turned to the card players.

"Magill," he said. "Same breed as the rest."

The news that the Three Bar had turned into a squatter outfit had been widely noised abroad. Carpenter had stopped at Brill's late the night before and announced the fact. Others had seemed already aware of it.

From behind the bar Brill covertly studied the man who was responsible for this change. Four men from the Halfmoon D stood grouped at one end of the room. They split up and mingled among the others. Brill moved up and down behind the bar, polishing it with a towel. One after another he drew each of the men from the Halfmoon D into conversation with the Three Bar foreman to determine whether or not they resented his move. There was no evidence of it in their speech. They had all been present when Harris rode the blue horse and had heard his subsequent remark to Morrow. There was but one reference to the state of affairs at the Three Bar.

"Now you've gone and raised h.e.l.l," one boy from the Halfmoon D remarked to Harris. "You'll have folks out looking for your scalp." He lowered his voice and Brill moved nearer to wipe away an imaginary spot on the bar. "It's Slade you'll have to buck," the boy warned. "There's likely to be some excitement over in your neighborhood. I'd like right well to ride for the Three Bar next year. Hold a job for me in the spring."

The men from the two outfits mingled as unrestrainedly as before and at last Harris smiled across at Brill.

"Well, have you sized it all up?" he asked.

The storekeeper looked up quickly, knowing that Harris had read his purpose in drawing him into conversation with the four men. He polished the bar thoughtfully, then nodded.

"A man in my business has to keep posted--both ways," he said. "I just wanted to make sure. Five years ago every man would have quit the Three Bar like a snake--feeling was that strong. But the boys drift from place to place and they've seen both ends of it. They don't give a d.a.m.n one way or the other now. Why should they? They've got nothing at stake. Five years ago you couldn't have hired a man to ride for you. Now they'll be pouring in asking for jobs--just because they figure there'll be some excitement on tap."

The men from the Halfmoon D were due back and inside of an hour they rode off, leaving only Harris's men and the five card-players in the place. Harris walked over to the table and the Three Bar men shifted positions, slouching sidewise at the bar or leaning with their backs to it, alertly watching this unexpected move as the foreman spoke to the albino.

"Let's you and I draw off and have a little talk," he said. "If you can spare the time."