THE CROSS BAR-8 LOSES SLEEP
Sneed was angry, which could be seen by the way he talked, ate, moved and
swore. He had many cattle to care for and they were strewn over six
hundred square miles of territory. The work was hard enough when he had
his full dozen punchers, but now it forced groans from the tired bodies
of his men, who fell asleep while removing their saddles at night, and
who worked in a way almost mechanical. The extra work was not conducive to
sweetness of temper, and he was continually quelling fights among the
members of the outfit. Where only argument formerly would have arisen
over differences of opinion, guns now leaped forth; and the differences
were multiplied greatly, and getting worse every day. Things which
ordinarily would have provoked no notice, or a laugh at most, now caused
hot words and surliness. And the reason for the extra work was the
continued absence of five cow punchers.
Sneed, tired of cursing the missing men and of offering himself
explanations as to why they had not returned, fell, instead, to
planning an appropriate reception for them on their return to the ranch.
He needed no rehearsing, for while he did not know in just what manner
he would reveal his ideas concerning them, he knew what his ideas were
and he had always been good at extemporizing when under pressure, and he
was under pressure now if he had ever been.
The extra work was hard enough in itself to cause his anger to rise
and to create sensitiveness and surliness on the part of his men, but
it was only one factor of his discontent. Busy all day at driving the
scattered cattle away from the Backbone and closer to the ranch proper
where they would be less likely to fall prey to Apache raiders; working
all day from the first sign of dawn to the prohibitive blackness of the
night, they could have stood up under the strain, for these were men of
iron, inured to hardships and constant riding. But hardy as they were
there was one thing which they must have, and that was sleep. If they
could have only four hours of unbroken sleep when they threw themselves,
fully dressed with the exception of their boots, in their bunks, they
could have endured the labor for weeks. But this was denied them, and
constantly on their minds were thoughts of fire, slaughtered cattle
and death.
For a week night had been a terror on the Cross Bar-8. No sooner had the
exhausted outfit fallen asleep than bits of window glass would fly about
them, cutting and stinging. There was not a whole window pane in the house
and the door was so full of lead that it sagged on its half-shattered
hinges. Cooking utensils were fast deserving premiums, for hardly an
unperforated tin could be found on the premises. And their cook, a
Mexican, who most devoutly believed in a personal devil and a brimstone
hell, and who feared that he was living in uncomfortable proximity to
both, stood the strain for just two nights and then, panic-stricken, had
fled from the accursed place and left them to get their own meals as
best they could. The protection of the saints was all very well and good
under ordinary circumstances, but when they failed to stop the bullets
which passed through his cook shack and which more than once had grazed
him, it was time for him to find some place far removed from the Cross
Bar-8, and where the devil was less strong. When the saints allowed a
devil-sped bullet to completely shatter a crucifix it was time to migrate,
which he did, but in broad daylight when the outfit had departed and when
the devil was not in evidence.
The interiors of both the ranch house and the bunk house were wrecked.
The clock, the pride of the foreman, stood with half its wheels buried in
the wall behind it by a .50 caliber slug, its hands pointing to half-past
one. Lead filled the interior walls, where opposite windows, and the
holes and splinters were a disgrace. Sombreros, equipment and the few
pictures the walls boasted were like tops of pepper shakers. No sooner was
a light shown than it became the target for a shot, and more than one
wound gave proof as to the accuracy of the perpetrator. So tired that
they fell asleep at supper, the men were constantly awakened by the noise
of devastation and the whining hum of the bullets. Pursuit was a failure,
and was also hazardous, as proven by Bert Hodge's arm, broken by a .50
caliber slug from somewhere.
The two houses, wrecked as they were, were fortunate when compared to
the condition of the other appurtenances of the ranch. Horses were
found dead at all points, and always with a bullet hole in the center
of the forehead. The carcasses of cows dotted the plain, and fire had
half-destroyed the three corrals. The three new cook wagons, unsheltered,
were denuded of bolts and nuts, and their tarpaulins were hopelessly
ruined. A wheel was missing from each of them and their poles had been
cut through in the middle, the severed ends being found on the roof of
the ranch house three minutes after their crashing descent had
awakened the foreman, who heard the hum and thud of a bullet as he opened
the door. The best grass had been burned off and the outfit had fought
fire on several nights when it should have slept. And the small water
hole near the cook shack, which furnished water for the bunk house,
had been cleared of a dead calf on two mornings. Scouting was of no
avail, for the few remaining horses (which now spent the night in the
bunk house) were as exhausted as their riders. Keeping guard was a
farce, for it had been tried twice, and the guards had fallen asleep;
and, awakened by their foreman at dawn, found that their rifles,
sombreros and even their spurs were missing. With all his hatred for The
Orphan, Sneed was fair-minded enough to give his enemy credit for being
the better man. When the harassing outrages had first begun and the
foreman and his men were comparatively fresh, he had given the matter
his whole attention; and he was no fool. But he had gained nothing but a
sense of defeat, which fact did not improve his peace of mind or
cause him to lose a whit of his anger. Do what he could, plan as he
might, he was beaten, and beaten at every turn. He had to deal with a
man whose cunning and ingenuity were far above the average; a man who,
combining a rare courage and a wonderful accuracy in shooting with
devilish strategy, towered far above the ordinary rustler and outlaw.
Sneed knew that he was absolutely at the mercy of his persistent enemy
and wondered why it was that he did not steal up in the night and kill
the outfit as it slept, which was entirely feasible. Finally, when the
strain had grown too much for even his iron nerves the sheriff was
implored to take command on the ranch and give it his personal
protection. The relations between the sheriff and the ranch were not
as cordial as they might have been, and the asking of this favor was
gall and wormwood to the foreman and his outfit.
When Shields arrived to take charge of the trouble, accompanied by Charley
and two others, he sought the foreman, for Charley had news of a grave
nature for the Cross Bar-8.
The foreman ran out of the bunk house and met them near the corral, where
the disagreement had taken place.
"By the living God, Sheriff!" he cried, white with anger. "This thing
has got to stop if we have to call out the cavalry! We can't get a
decent breakfast--not a whole plate or pan in the house! Our cayuses
and cows are being slaughtered by the score! And as for the rest of our
possessions, they are so full of holes that they whistle when the wind
blows!"
"So I heard," replied the sheriff. "I'll do my best."
"We've been doing our best, but what good is it?" cried the foreman. "We
are so plumb sleepy we go to sleep moving about! We dassent show our faces
after dark without being made a target of! Our new wagons are wrecks, the
corrals destroyed and the best grass made us fight for our lives while it
burned! That cursed outlaw has got to be killed, d----n him!"
"We'll do our best, Sneed," responded Shields. "I reckon we can stop it;
at least we can give you a good night's rest."
"Where are my five punchers?" Sneed asked; his words bellowed until his
voice broke. "And Bucknell! D----n near dead before you found him above
the canyon, tied up like a package of flour!"
"Well, Charley can tell you about your men," Shields responded, viewing
the devastation on all sides of him.
"Well, what about them?" cried the foreman turning to the sheriff's
deputy, anger flashing anew in his eyes.
"Well," Charley slowly began, "I was taking a short cut this morning,
and when I got to a place about a dozen miles southeast of the mouth
of Bill's canyon, I saw five bodies on the desert. They were your
cow-punchers, and they was so full of arrows that they looked like big
brooms. Apaches, I reckon," he added sententiously.
Sneed tore his hair and swore when he was not choking.
"And after I told them to let up on that blasted outlaw's trail!" he
yelled. "Where will it end, between war-whoops and murders? What sort of
a God-forsaken layout is this, anyhow? A man can't stick his nose out of
his own house after dark without having it skinned by a slug! He's a
h--l of a hefty orphant, he is! Poor thing, ain't got no paw or maw to
look after his dear little hide! He needs a regiment of cavalry for a
papa, that's what he needs, and a good strong lariat for a mamma! Orphant!
He's a h--l of a sumptious orphant!"
"Have you trailed him?" asked the sheriff, having to smile in spite of
himself at the execution on all sides of him, and at the foreman's words.
"Trailed him!" yelled Sneed, raising on his toes in his vehemence.
"Trailed him! Good God, yes! But what good is it, what can we do when
our cayuses are so dod-gasted tired that they can't catch a tumble bug?
Trailed him! Yes, we trailed him, all right! We trailed him until we fell
asleep in the saddles on our sleeping cayuses! And while we were gone,
d----d if he didn't blow in and smash up our furniture! We trailed him,
all right; just like a lot of cross-eyed, locoed drunken ants! We had to
wake each other up, and he could-a killed the whole crowd of us with a
club! And my punchers who were so cock-sure they'd get him! How in
h--l did they go and mess up with Apaches? They wasn't no fool kids!"
"The last time we saw them they were leaving the stage to go south after
him," Charley said. "They hadn't got more than ten miles south when they
must have met the Apaches. I have a suspicion that The Orphan had a hand
in that meeting, but how he did it I don't know. But I know that the spot
was lovely for a head-on collision. Punchers riding south would turn the
corner of the chaparral and run into the war party before they knowed
it. And I didn't see The Orphant's body laying around all full of arrows,
neither."
Sneed's rage was pathetic. He almost frothed, and tears stood in his
blood-shot eyes. His neck and his face were red as fire and the veins
of his neck and forehead stood out like whip-cords, while his face
worked convulsively. He was incapable of coherent speech, his words being
unintelligible growls, a series of snarls, and he could only pace back
and forth, waving his arms and cursing wildly.
Shields glanced about the ranch and gave a few orders, his men executing
them without delay. One man was to keep guard in the bunk house while
Sneed and his woe-begone men slept. The sheriff and Charley rode away
toward the north to begin the search for the outlaw; and there was to
be no quarter asked or given if his deputies had anything to do with it.
The remaining deputy busied himself about the ranch in executing a
plan the sheriff had thought out, and his actions were peculiar. First
selecting a position from which a man could command an extensive view of
the premises, he began to pace off distances in all directions. The
place was about eight hundred yards west of the ranch house and bunk
house, and formed one angle of a triangle with them; and from it it was
possible to look in through the windows of both of them. Anyone passing
within good rifle range of either house would show up against the lights
in the windows; and if a man had been covered over with sand on that
particular outlying angle, he could pick off the intruder without being
seen. The Orphan was due to meet with a surprise if he paid his regular
visit the coming night.
The deputy, after completing his work to his satisfaction found three more
positions where they respectively commanded the corrals, the wagons and
the rear of the bunk house. Then he paced more distances and was careful
that bulky objects interposed in the direct lines between the positions,
this latter precaution being to make it impossible for the deputies to
shoot each other. This done, he went into the house and consulted with
his companion in arms, laughing immoderately about the joke they would
play on the marauder.
While Shields and Charley vainly searched the plain and while the
deputy paced and thought and paced, and while Sneed and his exhausted
cow-punchers slept as if in death, safely under guard, two men were
riding along the Ford's Station Sagetown Trail well to the east of the
Backbone, chatting amicably and smoking the same brand of tobacco. One of
them sat high up in the air on the seat of a stage coach, from where he
overlooked his six-horse team. His face was wreathed in grins and his
expression was one of beatific contentment. The other cantered alongside
on a dirty brown horse which had a white stocking on the near front
foot, keeping close watch of the surrounding plain, his mind active and
alert.
Bill Howland laughed suddenly and slapped his thigh with enthusiasm:
"Say, Orphant," he cried, "you are shore raising h--l with that Cross
Bar-8 gang! You has got them so tangled up and miserable that they don't
know where they are! If their brains was money they'd have to chalk up
their drinks. They're about as dangerous as ossified prairie dogs.
They remind me of the feller who kicked a rattlesnake to see if it was
alive, and found out that it was. No, sir, they shore won't die of brain
fever. Why, they ain't had any sleep for a week, have to work double
hard, eat what they can cook in sieve tins, and can't say their soul's
their own after dark. They could get rest if they quit working one
day and all but one get plenty of sleep. Then the other feller could get
his at night. But they don't know enough. Oh, it's rich: the whole
blamed town is laughing at 'em fit to bust. It's the funniest thing
ever happened in these parts since I've been out here."
Then he suddenly paused: "Say, Sneed sent a puncher to town this morning.
It was that brass-headed, flat-faced Bucknell, what you tied up by the
canyon. He begged the sheriff to swear in a dozen bad men and come out and
protect his foreman and the rest of the outfit. And the pin-headed wart
went and blabbed the whole thing right in front of the Taggert's saloon
crowd, and he shore had to blow, all right. He shore did, and that gang's
always thirsty."
The horseman flecked the ashes from his cigarette and smiled: "Well?" he
asked, looking up.
"So Shields took Charley Winter and the two Larkin boys and went out
to the ranch right after the puncher went back. So you want to go easy
to-night or you'll touch off some unexpected fireworks and such. Shields
and his men will stay out there for several days and nights. That'll
give the crazy hens a chance to rest up a bit nights. But you be blamed
careful about them pinwheels and skyrockets or you'll get burned some.
Now, don't you even remember that _I_ told you about it. I wouldn't-a
said nothing at all, seeing as it ain't none of my business, only you
went and got me out of a tight place, and Bill Howland don't forget a
favor, no siree! You gave me a square deal and a ace full on kings with
them animated paint shops, and I'll give you a lift every time I can.
It wouldn't be a bad scheme to watch for me once in a while--I might have
some news for you."
Bill's offer, plain as it was that he wished to help, not only because
he was in debt to the outlaw, but also because he wished to have safe
trips, touched the horseman deeply. Never in his life had The Orphan
been offered a helping hand from a stranger; all he could hope for was
to get the drop first. He rode on silently, buried in thought, and then,
suddenly flipping his cigarette at a cactus, raised his head and looked
full at the man above him.
"You play square with me, Bill, and I'll take care of you," he replied.
"The less you say, the less apt you are to put your foot in it. I'll
hold my mouth about your information, for if Shields knew what you've
just said he'd play a tune for you to dance to. The Cross Bar-8 would
shoot you before a day passed. Any time you have news for me, tie your
kerchief to that cactus," pointing to an exceptionally tall plant close
at hand. "Do it on your outward trip. If I see it in time I'll meet you
somewhere on the Sagetown end of the trail on your return. I'm going
back now, so by-by."
"So long, and good luck," replied Bill heartily. "I'll do the handkerchief
game, all right. Be some cautious about the way you buzz around that
stacked deck of a Cross Bar-8 for the next few days."
The Orphan wheeled and cantered back, making a detour to the south, for
he had a plan to develop and did not wish to be interrupted by meeting
any more hunting parties. Bill lashed his team and rolled on his way to
Sagetown, a happy smile illuminating his countenance.
"They can't beat us, bronchs," he cried to his team. "Me and The Orphant
can lick the whole blasted territory, you bet we can!"