“Hands up!” he commanded, and the man obeyed.
Charlie sat up. The rawhide fell away from him, parted at the lacings. He wiggled his legs out of the narrow pocket.
“Keep ’em up, too,” he said cheerfully, “unless you’d rather join your partner.”
Charlie stretched his legs casually. He glanced at the body behind him. Not much need to look. The muzzle of the gun had been fairly in the man’s face when he fired. He stepped behind the other man, disarmed him, and then ordered him to walk over beside his horse and mount. With the fellow’s own reata he tied both wrists securely behind his back.
“Next time you sew a man in a cowhide and figure to dump him in a burning coal seam to roast alive,” Charlie said, “you’d better search him to make sure he hasn’t got a gun in a Texas holster under his armpit. And try to remember that green hide stretches quite a lot if a man has any strength in his arms, and he has an hour or so to work it loose.”
He mounted the other horse and hazed his prisoner down the draw until he picked up his own outfit. Then he headed straight for the Marias, riding fast. Riders on fresh horses could beat that wagonload of stolen beef to the railroad camp. The Seventy-seven round-up would just about be camped at the ranch. It was a little closer to the Seventy-seven than to Rock Holloway’s, and Charlie felt that it would really be a lot of responsibility off his shoulders if he delivered his prisoner and his information straight to the hands of Elmer Duffy.
Charlie lifted his head from a bunk in one corner of the Seventy-seven ranch house. A wagon was clattering into the yard. Elmer Duffy and half a dozen riders flanked it like a bodyguard.
The box was piled high with beef. A tarpaulin was stretched over the quarters. On top of the tarp lay several fresh hides. Beside the man driving the wagon sat a sullen-looking captive.
Charlie went out to meet them without undue haste. He looked the layout over from the porch and stooped to buckle on his spurs. Elmer Duffy swung down from his sweaty horse.
“Well, kid,” he said genially, “we got ’em with the goods. That contractor slid out, but the stock inspectors are after him. Come back by the furnace an’ the old corral an’ pick up the hides an’ the feller you bumped off. Some of them cattle was Seventy-sevens, but mostly TL stuff. These fellers had a lot of the money on ’em they got for this beef. You sure done a nice stroke of business last night.”