ACROSS THE DEAD LINE
NOWHERE outside of Cattleland would such a scene have been possible. The air was filled with the fine dust of milling cattle, with the sound of bawling cows and blatting calves. Hundreds of them, rounded up on the Flat Tops and driven down Eagle Creek, were huddled in a draw fenced by a score of lean brown horsemen.
Now and again one of the leggy hill steers made a dash for freedom. The nearest puncher wheeled his horse as on a half dollar, gave chase, and headed the animal back into the herd. Three of the old stockmen rode in and out among the packed cattle, deciding on the ownership of stray calves. These were cut out, roped, and branded on the spot.
Everybody was busy, everybody cheerful. These riders had for weeks been in the saddle eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. They were grimy with dust, hollow-eyed from want of sleep. But every chap-clad, sun-baked horseman was hard as nails and tough as leather. To feel the press of a saddle under his knees in all this clamour and confusion was worth a month of ordinary life to a cow-puncher.
McCoy, since he was boss of the round-up, was chief of the board of arbiters. An outsider would have been hopelessly at a loss to decide what cow was the mother of each lost and bewildered calf. But these experts guessed right ninety-nine times out of a hundred.
“Goes with the big bald-faced cow—D Bar Lazy R brand,” was the verdict of Rowan as to one roan stray.
“You done said it, Mac!” agreed Sam Yerby, chewing his quid of tobacco lazily.
The third judge, Brad Rogers, of the Circle B R, nodded his head. Duncan King, whose father owned a ranch near the headwaters of Hill Creek, cut out the bawling little maverick for the branders.
While the outfit was at supper after the day’s work a man rode up to the chuck wagon and fell into the easy, negligent attitude of the range rider at rest.
“Hello, Larry! Come and get it,” shouted the cook, waving a beefsteak on the prongs of a long fork.
Silcott slid from the saddle and joined the circle. He found a seat beside McCoy.
“I want to see you alone, Mac,” he said in a low voice.
Rowan nodded, paid no more attention to him, and joined again in the general conversation. But presently he got up and strolled toward the remuda.
Larry casually joined him.
“Tait has been across the dead line for two days, Mac. He’s travelling straight for the Circle Diamond with fifteen hundred sheep. About a third of them belong to Gilroy. Joe has two herders with him.”
“Where are they camped to-night?”
“At the foot of Bald Knob.”
“Is Gilroy with them?”
“No. He was this morning, but he telephoned his wife from Westcliff that he would be home to-night.”
The boss of the round-up looked away at the purple hills, his close-gripped jaw clamped tight, his eyes narrowed almost to slits.
“Drift back to the wagon, Larry, and tell Yerby and Rogers to drop out of the crowd and meet me here quietly.”
“Sure.” The younger man hung in the wind. “What are you going to do, Mac?”
“What would you do?”
Silcott broke into a sudden angry oath. “Do? I’d meet Joe Tait halfway. I’d show him whether he can spoil the range for us at his own sweet will. He wants war. By all that’s holy, I’d carry it right into his camp!”
Rowan did not deny to himself the seriousness of the issue as he waited for the coming of the two men. He faced the facts squarely, as he always did. Tait had again declared war. To let the man have his own way meant ruin to the cattle interests on the Fryingpan. For if one sheepman were permitted to invade the range, dozens of others would drive across into the forbidden territory. The big, fearless bully had called for a show-down. Let him win now, and it would be a question of months only until McCoy and his neighbours were sold out at a sheriff’s sale.
Out of the darkness sauntered Yerby, followed presently by Rogers.
“What’s on yore mind, Mac?” drawled Yerby, splattering expertly with tobacco juice a flat rock shining in the moonlight.
Sam Yerby was an old cowman from Texas. As a youth he had driven cattle on the Chisum Trail. Once, a small boy, he had spoken with Sam Bass, the outlaw. In the palmy days of Dodge City and Abilene, while still in his early teens, he had been a spectator of the wild life that overflowed into the frontier towns. Physically he was a wrinkled little man with a merry eye and a mild manner that was apt to deceive.
“Tait has crossed the dead line again. He is headed for the Thunder Mountain country.”
Yerby rubbed a bristling cheek slowly with the palm of his hand. “Well, I’ll be dog-goned! Looks like he’s gone loco,” he commented mildly.
The owner of the Circle B R broke into excited threats. “He’ll never take his sheep back again—never in the world. I’ll not stand for it; none of the boys will. Right now is when he gets all the trouble he wants.”
“That your opinion, too, Sam?” asked Rowan quietly.
The faded blue eyes of the Texan had a far-away look. His fingers caressed a chin rough with gray stubbles. He was thinking of his young wife and his year-old baby. Their future depended upon his little cattle ranch.
“I reckon, Mac. We got to fight some time. Might as well be right now.”
“To-night,” agreed McCoy decisively. “We’ll settle this before daybreak. We don’t want too many in this thing. Five or six are enough.”
“Here are three of your six,” suggested Rogers.
“Larry Silcott is four. We’ve got to take Larry. He brought me the news.”
“How about Dunc King? He’s a good boy—absolutely on the square.”
Rowan shook his head. “Let’s keep Dunc out of this. You know what a good old lady Mrs. King is. We’ll not take her only son into trouble. Besides, Dunc talks too much.”
“Well, Jack Cole. He’ll go through and padlock his mouth, too. I’d trust Jack to a finish.”
“Cole is all right, Brad. You feel him out. Five of us are all that’s needed. We’ll meet at the Three Pines at midnight. Sam, you and Brad can decide to spend the night at home since we’re camping so near your places. I’ll drive my bunch of cows down to the Circle Diamond as an excuse to get away. I can take Jack and Larry with me to help. Probably you had better hang around till after we’ve been gone a while.”
The Circle Diamond cattle were cut out from the bunch and started homeward. Rowan, with Silcott and Cole to help him on the drive, vanished after them into the night.
“Funny Mac didn’t start at sunset. What’s the idea of waiting till night?” asked King of Falkner, who sat beside him at the campfire.
“Beats me.” Falkner scowled at the leaping flames. His face was still decorated with half a dozen ugly cuts and as many bruises, souvenirs of his encounter with Tait. Just now he was full of suspicions, vague and indefinite as yet, but none the less active. For Larry had told him the news he had brought.
“Sing the old Chisum Trail song, Sam,” demanded a cow-puncher.
A chorus of shouts backed the request.
“Cain’t you boys ever leave the old man alone?” complained Yerby. “I done bust my laig to-day when I fell off’n that pinto. I’ve got a half a notion to light a shuck for home and get Missie to rub on some o’ that white liniment she makes. It’s the healin’est medicine ever I took.”
“Don’t be a piker, Sam. Sing for us.”
“What’ll I sing? I done sung that trail song yesterday.”
“Anything. Leave it to you.”
The old Texan piped up lugubriously, a twinkle in his tired eyes:
“Come, all you old cow-punchers, a story I will tell,
And if you’ll be quiet I’m sure I’ll sing it well,
And if you boys don’t like it, you sure can go to hell!”
A shout of laughter greeted this unexpected proposition. “Fair enough.” “Go to it, Sam!” “Give us the rest!” urged the chap-clad young giants around the fire.
Yerby took up his theme in singsong fashion, and went through the other stanzas, but as he finished he groaned again.
“My laig sure is hurting like sixty. I’m going home. Wish one of you lads would run up a hawss for me. Get the roan with the white stockings, if you can.”
“I’ll go with you, Sam,” announced Rogers. “I’m expecting an important business letter and I expect it’s waiting at the house for me. Be with you to-morrow, boys.”
After they had gone Falkner made comment to young King satirically: “What with busted laigs and important letters and night drives, we’re having quite an exodus from camp, wouldn’t you say?”
“Looks like,” agreed King. “Tha’s the way with married men. They got always to be recollectin’ home ties. We been on this round-up quite a spell, an’ I reckon they got kinda homesick to see their better halfs, as you might say.”
“Tha’s yore notion, is it?” jeered Falkner.
“Why, yes, you see——”
“Different here. They got a hen on. Tha’s what’s the matter with them.”
“Whajamean, a hen on?” King leaned forward, eyes sparkling, cigarette half rolled. If there was anything doing he wanted to know all about it.
“Larry let it out to me at supper. He was so full of it he couldn’t hold it in. Tait has done crossed the dead line again.”
“No?” The word was a question, not a denial. Young King’s eyes were wide with excitement. This was not merely diverting news. It might turn out to be explosive drama.
“I’m tellin’ you, boy.” Falkner rapped out an annoyed impatient oath. “They left me out of it. Why? I got as good a right to know what’s doing as any of ’em. More, by God! I’ve still got to settle with Joe Tait for these, an’ I aim to pay him interest aplenty.” He touched the scars on his face, and his eyes flamed to savage anger.
“What do you reckon Mac aims to do?” asked King.
“I reckon he means to raid Tait’s herd. Can’t be anything else. But I mean to find out. Right now I’m declarin’ myself in.”
The campfire circle broke up, and the cow-punchers rolled into their blankets. Falkner did not stay in his long. He slipped out to the remuda and slapped a saddle on one of his cow ponies. The explanation he gave to the night herders was that he was going to ride down to Bovier’s Camp to get some tobacco.
He struck the trail of McCoy’s bunch of cows and followed across the hills. Falkner rode fast, since he knew the general direction the driver must take. Within the hour he heard the lowing of cattle, and felt sure that he was on the heels of those he followed. From the top of the next ridge he looked down upon them in the valley below.
This was enough for Falkner. Evidently Rowan intended to get the cattle to his corral before any move was made against Tait. The range rider swung to the right across the brow of the hill, dipped into the next valley, struck a trail that zigzagged up the shale slope opposite, and by means of it came, after a half hour of stiff riding, to the valley where the Triangle Dot Ranch had its headquarters.
He tied his horse in a pine grove and stole silently down to the bunk house. This he circled, came to the front door on his tiptoes, and entered noiselessly. A man lay sleeping on one of the farther bunks, arms flung wide in the deep slumber of fatigue.
Falkner reached for a rifle resting on a pair of elk horns attached to the wall, and took from one of the tines an ammunition belt. He turned, knocked over in the darkness a chair, and fled into the night with the rifle in one hand, the belt in the other.
Reaching the pine grove, he remounted, skirted the lip of the valley, and struck at its mouth the trail to the Circle Diamond. Three quarters of an hour later he was lying on the edge of a hill pocket above that ranch with his eyes fastened to the moonlit corral in which stood two saddled horses.