THE CATTLE-SHEEP WAR
Next morning before dawn a determined and desperate band of men rode from the Star Circle Ranch, under the leadership of Mart Cooley. Whitey and Injun were wise enough not to show themselves, Whitey fearing not only that they would be forbidden to go, but that they would be sent home. This would be mortifying, to say the least. But if he were not forbidden—well, we all know the kinds of excuses with which we ease our consciences.
While this was going on in Whitey's mind, Bill Jordan was sleeping at the Bar O. But had Bill known whither his joke on Whitey was leading the boys, it is likely that he would not have slumbered so peacefully.
So they waited until the warlike expedition had disappeared on the rolling prairie, and then they followed at a distance. And that was easy, for Injun could have tracked that mass of horses' hoofprints in his sleep.
Most of the time Injun and Whitey were out of sight of the cattlemen. So in order to make this story run right along, it is necessary to tell what happened to the men while the boys were absent, all of which Injun and Whitey heard about afterwards.
It was well along in the forenoon when in the distance a mass of moving dots, with moving specks on its outskirts, indicated a flock of sheep, and spurring their horses to a gallop the men dashed toward it. And I regret to say that when the flock was reached, the gallop did not end. The men rode straight through that bleating, panic-stricken mass, on the edge of which two hysterical collies vainly tried to exert control of their charges. The cattlemen were looking for the shepherd.
Some distance beyond the flock, or where the flock had been, for the sheep were now rushing across the plain, was a two-horse, canvas-topped wagon, with a stove-pipe protruding through the top at the back. For your sheepherder does not sleep on the ground like the cowboy, but prefers a sheltering wagon. When the men reached this shelter, there was no one in sight. As they reined in, one of the leaders called, "Come out of there, you black-hearted dog!"
There was no response. Twenty guns were drawn from their holsters. There was a moment's pause, and the guns were raised. But the curtains of the wagon were drawn, and a figure appeared and descended to the ground. The guns were held suspended in the hands of their surprised owners—for they faced a woman.
The lynching party drew the line at killing the woman—though she did not know that—but they did not draw the line at making her talk. She was a half-breed, and she spoke English very badly, but with a gun thrust in her face, she spoke enough.
And from what the frightened creature gasped out, and from what Mart Cooley figured in his mind, this is what was learned: Knowing that the cattlemen would seek revenge, but would first round up their scattered herd, the sheepmen had had time to act. They had driven almost all their sheep to the home ranch of the big owners, thinking they could be protected better there. They had gathered all the men available, and these were at the ranch, awaiting an attack. The woman's flock was too far away to be driven in, and she had been left in charge because the sheepmen had thought that the cowmen would not harm her.
With this knowledge gained, the party wasted no more time on the woman or on her scattered sheep, but started off for the bigger game. When Injun and Whitey arrived on the spot, the woman had nothing more to say. She possibly felt that she had talked enough. Besides, she was busy smoking a pipe and waiting for the clever dogs to gather the scattered flock. But the ground was like the page of a book to Injun, and he read there, much better than the woman could have told him, that the sheep had been scattered, and the direction in which the men had gone.
Donald Spellman, the manager of the sheep ranch, was a clever, daring, and resourceful man. His ranch house was situated at the head of a narrow canyon, or coulee, that led up into steep, barren hills down which no horse could go. Into this pocket he had the sheep driven by thousands. Across the narrow entrance his men had built a heavy barbed-wire fence that was not visible from the foothills. In the daytime the pass could be defended from the ranch house. At night, with the sheepmen stationed in the hills, an attempt to break through that wire fence would be more than dangerous. And this was the situation against which Mart Cooley led his determined band.
It was at the end of a hard day's ride, and, late afternoon, when the cattlemen arrived in sight of the enemies' stronghold. They had circled the plains to the west, and ridden down in the shelter of the hills, to avoid coming within rifle range of the house. These western hills were rocky, and at their end a growth of firs, scrub oak, and brush gave the lynchers shelter. They were four or five hundred yards from the house, which was in plain view.
Mart Cooley, Walt Lampson, Buck Milton, and a couple of ranchmen stood in this natural screen and took in the situation.
"Sheep must be up in that coulee," said Walt.
"Sure," Mart replied. "They c'n wait. That there house is sure in a good spot. If it'd bin planned for a fort it couldn't be better." He stood and silently regarded the house, his eyes narrowed more than usual. "How many men d'ye s'pose they've got in there?" he asked finally.
"Reck'n they could scrape up 'bout twenty-five, in th' time they've had," Walt answered.
"An' some o' 'em shepherds, an' rotten shots, an' they's fifty o' us," Buck put in. He was eager for action.
"Well, I come here t' fight, an' I'm paid for it," said Mart Cooley. "But if we go after 'em in th' open an' th' daylight, they'll get a lot of us. We'll wait till night."
"Suits me," said Walt Lampson. "I don't want no sheepman t' get me."
There was a puff of smoke from the house, and a bullet whined over the men's heads. They dropped to the ground. The lynchers raised their rifles and emptied them, but not at the house. Back of it and to the left was a raised water tank, and into the lower part of this the shots were directed. As the men wormed their way back through the scrub, and around the hill, thin streams of water began to trickle from the tank.
"If we have t' stick 'round awhile, we'll leave 'em some thirsty, anyhow," said Walt.
Volleys of harmless shots had followed their creeping course, for at five hundred yards it is hard to hit an object on the ground—especially when it is protected by scrub.
Under cover of the steep hills the cattlemen waited for night. There was no sign of attack from the hills. Evidently the sheepmen were keeping their forces in the house during the daylight hours. After a brief twilight the night fell, cloudy and very dark. And Mart Cooley had formed another plan.
One of the men knew the lay of the canyon. Its only practical outlet was that guarded by the sheepmen. But a short way up the canyon there was a spring in the hills, which found its outlet in a narrow stream that ended in a small waterfall at the edge of a cliff. Mart figured on his force entering the canyon, stampeding the sheep, and driving them over this waterfall. It was as simple as it was cruel, but you may have noticed that it takes clever people to think of simple things, and Mart Cooley was proving almost as clever with his mind as he was with his guns. For Mart also figured on the effect on the sheepmen's nerve when they found their herds gone, and their water from the tank giving out.
Under cover of darkness Mart led about fifteen men around the hill, which they skirted, and, giving the ranch house a wide berth, made their way toward the mouth of the canyon. There was only one thing to guide them on their course. Where the western hills raised their heights toward the sky, their outline showed darker than the surrounding night. From this wall of black, Mart's force steered a diagonal course that would lead to the center of the canyon's mouth. Once in the canyon, out of range of the house and among the sheep, lanterns and fires would provide light enough for the men's purpose.
It is not likely that there was an idea of poetic justice in the mind of Mart Cooley; a thought that in stampeding the sheep he was repaying the sheepmen in their own coin for stampeding the cattle, repaying them with the death of the victims added as interest.
The plan seemed to be working out easily—too easily. Then, from one of the foremost rider's mounts, came the shrill neigh of a horse in pain, and the thudding of the animal's hoofs as it shied violently, for it had collided with the barbed wire fence. This was Mart's first intimation that there was a fence, but he had no time to think that he had been matched in cleverness by Donald Spellman, for things began to happen.
First came the sound of a cowbell. At intervals along the lower strands of barbed wire bells had been hung. Next came a volley of shots, from the hills, which had been sought by the sheepmen under the cover of the night. They were firing toward the sound of the bells. The firing was not well-directed, but it was steady and dangerous.
It is doubtful whether the attackers could have cut their way through the fence, handicapped as they were, but they had no chance to try, for just then a third thing happened. A cloud-obscured moon had been climbing the eastern hills, and at that moment the clouds parted and the entire valley was bathed in moonlight.
The light was peaceful and beautiful, but it brought a deadly effect. Not only did it reveal the cattlemen to their enemies in the hills, but to those in the distant ranch house, as well. The cracking of rifles was almost continuous in that fatal triangle, in which the sheepmen formed two points, and the cowmen the tragic third.
As the trapped fifteen rushed their mounts toward the shelter of the western hills, drawing farther away from their eastern enemies, they were forced to a nearer approach to the ranch house, to run the gantlet of its concealed sharp-shooters. A galloping horse, with its rider, does not offer an easy mark; fifteen of them, the objective of twenty rifles, form a better target. And when Mart Cooley's followers reached the shadows of the farther hills, they did not number fifteen, but eight.
It was into this party of flying horsemen that Injun and Whitey were carried bodily. As darkness had come on, the boys had ridden cautiously in the tracks of the advancing party. They had been attracted by the sound of the shots, and approached as near as they dared, to witness the battle. They were near the corner of the hill when the terrified horses dashed toward them, and to avoid being run down they had spurred their ponies ahead and were swept along with the flying riders.
Well, Mart Cooley had made the mistake of not figuring on the cleverness of Donald Spellman, and the result of this was not only to make him furious with himself, but to add to his, and to all the other men's desire for revenge. All thoughts of starving the enemy out were lost, absorbed in a lust for killing. The excited men paid no attention to the boys. It is doubtful if they even saw them.
Mart took his forty-odd men back to the firs and scrub oaks at the lower point of the western hills, and there they stretched out in the brush, and prepared to bombard the ranch house. The moonlight was now Mart's friend instead of his enemy. The sheepmen were divided. Those on the hills would come in range of the cattlemen's rifles if they attempted to cross the moonlit valley, and in the meantime they were harmless.
A number of volleys were fired into the house, not at the windows, but beneath the window ledges. When men are besieged in a house they must fire from the windows, kneeling by them. Several of the cattlemen's bullets tearing through the wooden wall of the house had caught these kneeling figures, and the fire from the place, never accurate, began to weaken. Mart had another purpose in view, but of that he said nothing. Possibly he was mortified by the failure of his sheep raid.
Knowing Injun and Whitey as you do, you can imagine that they got as near to this dangerous situation as they could. No one ordered them back because no one noticed them. But they fired no shots. The wish to kill any man, no matter how vile, filled no part of Whitey's young life. It would be hard to answer for Injun. Hard to tell what the blood of all his fighting forefathers was prompting him to do.
But Injun couldn't fire a shot if he wanted to. You may remember the Winchester that had been presented to Injun at the Bar O Ranch. He had left the gun at home. Injun knew nothing of the modern silencer, but he had one of his own—his bow and arrows. When he had started out in pursuit of the horse-thief, whom he supposed to be Henry Dorgan, Injun had carried these. No explosive gunshots for him. He expected to have to work silently.
While most of the men had their eyes and the sights of their guns fixed on the house, Mart Cooley kept his eyes on the sky. But despite this Mart noticed that no shots came from two figures near him, and looking closer he saw the crouching Whitey and Injun, the latter with his bow and arrows. Mart was about to speak to them, when a cloud crossed the moon. Mart gave vent to an oath of satisfaction and started forward. Then he thought of something, came back, and grasping Injun by the arm, dragged him forward with him.
It was a large cloud that obscured the moon, so there was a long period of darkness. Whitey stayed where he was. He wondered whether Mart Cooley would come and drag him forward, and rather hoped so. He wondered whether this darkness would give the men on the hills a chance to join their fellows in the ranch house. And Whitey also wondered where Buck Milton was. He hadn't seen him with the party. But Buck was lying out there on the plain; that is, the mortal Buck was. The other Buck was probably with his friend Tom.
At last Whitey's curiosity could hold him back no longer, and he crept forward to the front line of men, keeping well to one side. They had ceased firing, the house was dark. And the sheepmen there had ceased firing too. Their only marks had been the flashes of the cattlemen's guns, and those showed no longer.
All the men were hushed, as though in expectancy. Whitey peered into the darkness, as they were doing. The cloud's ragged edge showed at the lower half of the moon, and the ranch house could be dimly seen. From halfway between it and the men a small light appeared, flickered for a moment, then rising in the air described a graceful half-circle and alighted on the ranch house roof. Another, another, and then others followed. Injun was firing lighted arrows.
The moon came forth, and a volley of shots was poured from the ranch house toward the spot from whence the arrows had come. A volley from the cattlemen penetrated the walls of the house. Whitey trembled for Injun, out there in No Man's Land. He need not have trembled, for that young person was safely crouching behind a boulder.
For the first time Whitey noticed that a breeze was stirring. Just as in the night when you light a match a breeze springs up to put it out, so now wind seemed to come to fan those burning arrows on the ranch house roof. Whitey watched, chilled but fascinated. The men around him were in the whirl of a fight. He was a spectator; one who saw other men being forced out of a trap to their deaths. The arrows burned like tinder. Whitey did not know that they were soaked in oil, brought along for the purpose of firing the house.
There had been no rain for a week, so the roof was dry, and soon narrow, snake-like lines of flame began to creep across it. Whitey thought of the feelings of the imprisoned sheepmen, knowing what was going on overhead, but helpless to prevent it. It seemed that they surely must make some effort. Both sides had ceased firing. Then an idea occurred to Whitey. Why did not the sheepmen escape from the back of the house? A volley of shots from the other side of the valley seemed to answer the question. Under cover of the darkness Mart Cooley had sent half his men to a point that commanded the rear of the ranch house. Their shots sounded continuously for a moment and told a plain story. The sheepmen had tried to escape from the back, and had failed.
These shots told another story. Why were they not answered from the hills? Because the hill men had joined their fellows in the ranch house. All were cooped up there, making their choice of deaths; by fire or by bullets. Anything would be better than the fire. Why didn't they do something? Whitey found himself growing impatient with these doomed men whom he never had seen.
Something was stirring on the ranch house roof and glittered occasionally in the moonlight. The cattlemen watched it intently. It was the head of an axe, forcing its way through from beneath. The cattlemen laughed. When the wielded axe had formed a sufficient opening, the head and shoulders of a man appeared in it, and his hands followed, supporting a bucket of water. Twenty of the attackers' rifles were directed toward the roof, but at an order from Mart Cooley they were lowered. Mart raised his rifle, fired a single shot, and the man's figure disappeared through the opening, the bucket falling from his hands and pitching down over the edge of the roof.
