Whispering Smith Part 29

At last the smile changed on Whispering Smith's face. It lighted his eyes still, but with a different expression. "See here, Rebstock, you and I have always got along, haven't we? I've no desire to crowd any man to the wall that is a man. Now I am going to tell you the simple truth. Du Sang has got you scared to death. That man is a faker, Rebstock. Because he kills men right and left without any provocation, you think he is dangerous. He isn't; there are a dozen men in the Cache just as good with a gun as Du Sang is. Don't shake your head. I know what I'm talking about. He is a jay with a gun, and you may tell him I said so; do you hear? Tell him to come out if he wants me to demonstrate it. He has got everybody, including you, scared to death.

Now, I say, don't be silly. I want Du Sang."

Rebstock rose to his feet solemnly and pointed his finger at Whispering Smith. "Whispering Smith, you know me--"

"I know you for a fat rascal."

"That's all right. You know me, and, just as you say, we always get along because we both got sense."

"You're hiding yours to-day, Rebstock."

"No matter; I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you all the horseflesh you can kill and all the men you can hire to go after him, and I'll bury your dead myself. You think he can't shoot? I give you a tip on the square." Whispering Smith snorted. "He'll shoot the four b.u.t.tons off your coat in four shots." Smith kicked Rebstock's dog contemptuously. "And do it while you are falling down. I've seen him do it," persisted Rebstock, moist with perspiration. "I'm not looking for a chance to go against a sure thing; I wash my hands of the job."

Whispering Smith rose. "It was no trick to see he had you scared to death. You are losing your wits, old man. The albino is a faker, and I tell you I am going to run him out of the country." Whispering Smith reached for his hat. "Our treaty ends right here. You promised to harbor no man in your sink that ever went against our road. You know as well as I do that this man, with four others, held up our train night before last at Tower W, shot our engineman to death for mere delight, killed a messenger, took sixty-five thousand dollars out of the through safe, and made his good get-away. Now, don't lie; you know every word of it, and you thought you could pull it out of me by a bluff. I track him to your door. He is inside the Cache this minute.

You know every curve and canyon and pocket and washout in it, and every cut-throat and jail-bird in it, and they pay you blood-money and hush-money every month; and when I ask you not to give up a dozen men the company is ent.i.tled to, but merely to send this pink-eyed lobster out with his guns to talk with me, you wash your hands of the job, do you? Now listen. If you don't send Du Sang into the open before noon to-morrow, I'll run every living steer and every living man out of Williams Cache before I cross the Crawling Stone again, so help me G.o.d! And I'll send for cowboys within thirty minutes to begin the job.

I'll sc.r.a.pe your Deep Creek canyons till the rattlesnakes squeal. I'll make Williams Cache so wild that a timber-wolf can't follow his own trail through it. You'll break with me, will you, Rebstock? Then wind up your bank account; before I finish with you I'll put you in stripes and feed buzzards off your table."

Rebstock's face was apoplectic. He choked with a torrent of oaths.

Whispering Smith, paying no attention, walked out to where Kennedy was waiting. He swung into the saddle, ignoring Rebstock's abjurations, and with Kennedy rode away.

"It is hard to do anything with a man that is scared to death," said Smith to his companion. "Then, too, Rebstock's nephew is probably in this. In any case, when Du Sang has got Rebstock scared, he is a dangerous man to be abroad. We have got to smoke him out, Farrell.

Lance Dunning insisted the other day he wanted to do me a favor. I'll see if he'll lend me Stormy Gorman and some of his cowpunchers for a round-up. We've got to smoke Du Sang out. A round-up is the thing.

But, by Heaven, if that round-up is actually pulled off it will be a cla.s.sic when you and I are gone."

Thirty minutes afterward, messengers had taken the Frenchman trail for Lance Dunning's cowboys.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE FIGHT IN THE CACHE

A clear night and a good moon made a long ride possible, and the Crawling Stone contingent, headed by Stormy Gorman, began coming into the railroad camp by three o'clock the next morning. With them rode the two Youngs, who had lost the trail they followed across Goose River and joined the cowboys on the road to the north.

The party divided under Kennedy and Smith, who rode through the Door into the Cache just before daybreak.

"I don't know what I am steering you against this morning, Farrell,"

said Whispering Smith. "Certainly I should hate to run you into Du Sang, but we can't tell where we shall strike him. If we have laid out the work right I ought to see him as soon as anybody does. Accidents do happen, but remember he will never be any more dangerous than he is at the first moment. Get him to talk. He gets nervous if he can't shoot right away. When you pull, get a bullet into his stomach at the start, if you possibly can, to spoil his aim. We mustn't make the mistake of underestimating him. Rebstock is right: he is a fright with a revolver, and Sinclair and Seagrue are the only men in the mountains that can handle a rifle with him. Now we split here; and good luck!"

"Don't you want to take Brill Young with you?"

"You take both the Youngs, Farrell. We shall be among rocks, and if he tries to rush us there is cover."

Stormy Gorman with four Crawling Stone cowboys followed Whispering Smith. Every rider on the range had a grievance against Williams Cache, and any of them would have been glad to undertake reprisals against the rustlers under the wing of Whispering Smith.

Just how in the mountains--without telegraph, newspapers, and all ordinary means of publicity--news travels so fast may not certainly be said. The scattered lines of telephone wires help, but news outstrips the wires. Moreover, there are no telephones in the Mission Mountains.

But on the morning that the round-up party rode into the Cache it was known in the streets of Medicine Bend that the Tower W men had been tracked into the north country; that some, if not all, of them were in Williams Cache; that an ultimatum had been given, and that Whispering Smith and Kennedy had already ridden in with their men to make it good.

Whispering Smith, with the cowboys, took the rough country to the left, and Kennedy and his party took the south p.r.o.ng of the Cache Creek. The instructions were to make a clean sweep as the line advanced. Behind the centre rode three men to take stock driven in from the wings. Word that was brief but reasonable had been sent everywhere ahead. Every man, it was promised, that could prove property should have a chance to do so at the Door that day and the next; but any brands that showed stolen cattle, or that had been skinned or tampered with in any way, were to be turned over to the Stock a.s.sociation for the benefit of owners.

The very first pocket raided started a row and uncovered eighty head of five-year-old steers bearing a mutilated Duck Bar brand. It was like poking at rattlesnakes to undertake to clean out the gra.s.sy retreats of the Cache, but the work was pushed on in spite of protests, threats, and resistance. Every man that rode out openly to make a protest was referred calmly to Rebstock, and before very long Rebstock's cabin had more men around it than had been seen together in the Cache for years. The impression that the whole jig was up, and that the refugees had been sold out by their own boss, was one that no railroad man undertook to discourage. The cowboys insisted on the cattle, with the a.s.surance that Rebstock could explain everything. By noon the Cache was in an uproar. The cowboys were riding carefully, and their guards, rifles in hand, were watching the corners. Ahead of the slowly moving line with the growing bunch of cattle behind it, flourished as it were rather conspicuously, fugitive riders dashed back and forth with curses and yells across the narrow valley. If it had been Whispering Smith's intention to raise a large-sized row it was apparent that he had been successful. Rebstock, driven to desperation, held council after council to determine what to do.

Sorties were discussed, ambushes considered, and a pitched battle was planned. But, while ideas were plentiful, no one aspired to lead an attack on Whispering Smith.

Moreover, Williams Cache, it was conceded, would in the end be worsted if the company and the cowmen together seriously undertook with men and unlimited money to clean it out. Whispering Smith's party had no explanation to offer for the round-up, but when Rebstock made it known that the fight was over sending out Du Sang, the rage of the rustlers turned on Du Sang. Again, however, no man wanted to take up personally with Du Sang the question of the reasonableness of Whispering Smith's demand. Instead of doing so, they fell on Rebstock and demanded that if he were boss he make good and send Du Sang out.

Of all this commotion the railroad men saw only the outward indications. As the excitement grew on both sides there was perhaps a little more of display in the way the cattle were run in, especially when some long-lost bunch was brought to light and welcomed with yells from the centre. A steer was killed at noon, everybody fed, and the line moved forward. The wind, which had slept in the sunshine of the morning, rose in the afternoon, and the dust whirled in little clouds where men or animals moved. From the centre two men had gone back with the cattle gathered up to that time, and Bill Dancing, with Smith, Stormy Gorman, and two of the cowboys, were heading a draw to cross to the north side of the Cache, when three men rode out into the road five hundred yards ahead, and halted.

Whispering Smith spoke: "There come our men; stop here. This ground in front of us looks good to me; they may have chosen something over there that suits them better. Feel your guns and we'll start forward slowly; don't take your eyes off the bunch, whatever you do. Bill, you go back and help the men with the cattle; there will be four of us against three then."

"Not for mine!" said Bill Dancing bluntly. "You may need help from an old fool yet. I'll see you through this and look after the cattle afterward."

"Then, Stormy, one or two of you go back," urged Whispering Smith, speaking to the cowboy foreman without turning his eyes. "There's no need of five of us in this."

But Stormy swore violently. "You go back yourself," exclaimed Stormy, when he could control his feelings. "We'll bring them fellows in for you in ten minutes with their hands in the air."

"I know you would; I know it. But I'm paid for this sort of thing and you are not, and I advise no man to take unnecessary chances. If you all want to stay, why, stay; but don't ride ahead of the line, and let me do all the talking. See that your guns are loose--you'll never have but one chance to pull, and don't pull till you're ready. The albino is riding in the middle now, isn't he? And a little back, playing for a quick drop. Watch him. Who is that on the right? Can it be George Seagrue? Well, this is a bunch. And I guess Karg is with them."

Holding their horses to a slow walk, the two parties gingerly approached each other. When the Cache riders halted the railroad riders halted; and when the three rode the five rode: but the three rode with absolute alignment and acted as one, while Whispering Smith had trouble in holding his men back until the two lines were fifty feet apart.

By this time the youngest of the cowboys had steadied and was thinking hard. Whispering Smith halted. In perfect order and sitting their horses as if they were riding parade, the horses ambling at a snail's pace, the Cache riders advanced in the sunshine like one man. When Du Sang and his companions reined up, less than twelve feet separated the two lines.

In his tan shirt, Du Sang, with his yellow hair, his white eyelashes, and his narrow face, was the least impressive of the three men.

The Norwegian, Seagrue, rode on the right, his florid blood showing under the tan on his neck and arms. He spoke to the cowboys from the ranch, and on the left the young fellow Karg, with the broken nose, black-eyed and alert, looked the men over in front of him and nodded to Dancing. Du Sang and his companions wore short-armed shirts; rifles were slung at their pommels, and revolvers stuck in their hip-scabbards. Whispering Smith, in his dusty suit of khaki, was the only man in either line who showed no revolver, but a hammerless or muley Savage rifle hung beside his pommel.

Du Sang, blinking, spoke first: "Which of you fellows is heading this round-up?"

"I am heading the round-up," said Whispering Smith. "Why? Have we got some of your cattle?"

The two men spoke as quietly as school-teachers. Whispering Smith's expression in no way changed, except that as he spoke he lifted his eyebrows a little more than usual.

Du Sang looked at him closely as he went on: "What kind of a way is this to treat anybody? To ride into a valley like this and drive a man's cows away from his door without notice or papers? Is your name Smith?"

"My name is Smith; yours is Du Sang. Yes, I'll tell you, Du Sang. I carry an inspector's card from the Mountain Stock a.s.sociation--do you want to see it? When we get these cattle to the Door, any man in the Cache may come forward and prove his property. I shall leave instructions to that effect when we go, for I want you to go to Medicine Bend with me, Du Sang, as soon as convenient, and the men that are with me will finish the round-up."

"What do you want me for? There's no papers out against me, is there?"

"No, but I'm an officer, Du Sang. I'll see to the papers; I want you for murder."

"So they tell me. Well, you're after the wrong man. But I'll go with you; I don't care about that."

"Neither do I, Du Sang; and as you have some friends along, I won't break up the party. They may come, too."

"What for?"

"For stopping a train at Tower W Sat.u.r.day night."

The three men looked at one another and laughed.