“When does the shooting happen?” asked Luis.
“Oh, maybe they won’t be no shootin’,” replied Cheetim. “I was jest warnin’ you in case they was. I’ll write the letter now an’ then you hit the trail. Ef you ride hard you’ll make it before sun up. I want you there before the hands start out fer the day. Savvy?”
Laboriously, with the stub of a pencil that he constantly wet with his tongue, “Dirty” Cheetim wrote. It appeared to Luis that Senor Cheetim was not accustomed to writing—he seemed to be suffering from mental constipation—but at last the agony was over and Cheetim handed Luis a sheet of soiled paper folded many times into a small wad.
“If Kreff asks you about the cattle you say that when you went up this mornin’ the bars o’ the c’rral was down an’ the cattle gone, an’ don’t you tell him nothin’ different. If you do you won’t get no fifty dollars ’cause you won’t need ’em where I’ll send you.” Cheetim slapped the six-shooter at his hip.
“I understand,” said Luis. He did not like Senor Cheetim, but fifty dollars are fifty dollars.
The sun was but a few minutes high when Luis Mariel reined into the Billings ranch yard. From a slight eminence a mile or two away, beyond the east pasture fence, Shoz-Dijiji saw him come and wondered.
The Apache had taken his position just before dawn and at the first flush of the new day had fixed his field glasses upon the ranch yard. He wished to get in touch with Jensen as quickly as possible and saw in this plan the surest method of determining when and in what direction Luke rode that morning.
Luis went at once to the bunk house, where the men were already astir, and delivered the letter to Kreff, whom he at once recognized as the tall, sandy haired man who had taken him to the herd and given him the torn playing card and his instructions. Kreff recognized Luis, too, but he only frowned.
Almost as laboriously as Cheetim had written it, Kreff deciphered the note.
“Frend Kref:” he read. “Sum fellers stole the herd bring al yore hands & help Me round them up they will think the fellers stol them & That will let us out doan fetch the greser i think he wus in on it dirty yours truely.”