VOICES IN THE NIGHT
Teddy’s surprise did not prevent him from going into immediate action.
He had not been hurt by the bullet, which had been just low enough to
draw blood and not stun him. He jumped Flash forward and swung to the
left, leaning far over his saddle.
Roy, when he saw that his brother was not injured, followed. But there
were no more shots.
On the other side of the herd of cattle they halted. There were a
hundred cows between them and the hidden gunman, for the shot could
only have come from the one direction. Thus protected, they pulled rein.
“Better slide off,” Roy said in a low voice. He dismounted, as did
Teddy. “Let’s see your head.”
Teddy submitted to an inspection.
“Skin’s broken, but that’s all,” Roy pronounced, relief in his voice.
“By golly! who in thunder did that?” His anger flared up suddenly.
There is a feeling of helplessness about being shot at from ambush
which fills one with a hot rage. “That’s the trick of a skunk! Tried to
get you from the back! By golly--”
“Well, he missed,” Teddy said shortly. His lips were pressed tightly
together. His eyes flashed. “If we had guns on I’d like nothing better
than to do a little hunting. I know where that shot came from. Some
place in that grove of trees.”
“What grove? Oh, there?” Roy pointed to a group of trees the tops of
which could be seen over the backs of the cattle. Teddy nodded grimly.
“I’d take a bet on it. That’s the only place anyone could hide. Say,
gun or no gun--”
He rested his hand on the saddle horn and was about to mount when Roy
seized him by the arm. With Teddy’s just desire for vengeance there had
arisen in Roy a more calculating mood, taking the place of his former
anger. He was now the steadier of the two.
“We’ll do nothing as foolish as that, Teddy,” he said quietly. “We
wouldn’t have the ghost of a chance. If I wanted to remove someone, I’d
like nothing better than to have him come for me in the open, unarmed,
while I was hidden and had a gun. That’s the way our friend will
figure. No, not this time. We’d have to ride across that open space to
reach the woods, and if there is someone there who wants to see us
pushing up daisies, he’ll sure get his wish. We’ll have to let him go.”
“But--”
“I know. It’s tough. But you know we can’t do anything. Think it over.”
“You mean to say we’re going to do nothing--not even find out who fired
that shot? Just go away and pretend nothing happened?”
“But, Teddy, what can we do? Now listen. I know how it feels to be shot
at. In fact, it may have been me instead of you at whom that bullet was
directed. We were pretty close together, you know. Well, it’s a nasty
sensation, I’ll admit. Makes you want to beat up something or other.
But look at things calmly. That gunman is over in that grove of trees,
you say, and I think you’re right. Unless, of course, he ran when he
saw that he’d missed. You and I are here without guns. Problem--to get
to him without his getting to us. Do you know the answer?”
“Reckon it hasn’t any,” and Teddy grinned ruefully. “He’s got us cold,
all right. Though I’d be satisfied to find out who fired that and take
my chances of getting him later. However, I can at least get my hat.”
He mounted, and started to ride back.
“No, you don’t, Teddy! That hat is right in line with his fire. No
telling how long he’ll wait there, hoping we’ll go by again. You let
that hat rest awhile.”
“And go home without it? Not for a million bucks! If I have to stay
here till night I want that hat. These cows look as though they were
here for the rest of the day. I’ll just stick here, behind ’em, and
when it gets dark I’ll go after my Stetson.”
Roy looked at his brother with an amused smile. This was a new side
to Teddy’s character, one which he had never seen before. The hat was
a small item, yet Roy knew that Teddy meant exactly what he said. He
would never leave without that hat.
“Well,” Roy laughed dubiously, “if you think that much of it, I guess
we’ll hang around. As you say, the dogies seem to be pretty well
settled, or else they might take a notion to trample that headpiece of
yours to dust. We’ll wait.”
Teddy nodded, as though Roy had said exactly what he had expected him
to say. The fact is, it was hard for Roy to understand this mood of his
brother’s. He thought that by agreeing with him he might discover his
purpose in staying. Roy could scarcely believe that Teddy would wait
five or six hours simply to recover a hat.
Yet there was no more reason behind Teddy’s stubbornness than just
this. It relieved him a great deal to feel that he was not giving
in entirely to his hidden enemy--that he was contesting with him the
supremacy of the small plot of ground that lay between the cattle and
the grove of trees. If Teddy had ridden on without his hat, it would
have meant that the gunman was the admitted ruler. Thus the Stetson
stood for one of the vital principles of Teddy’s life--don’t give up in
the face of danger.
The two boys picketed their ponies near a bush, and sat down about two
hundred yards from the cattle. Now and then a cow would leave the herd
and trot toward them, but seeing they made no motion, it would trot
back again. There was no danger from these Durhams, even to a man on
foot. The sun was too warm, the air too pleasant, to waste energy on
the pursuit of human beings.
The cattle moved slowly, when they did move, to find new grazing spots,
and the boys had no trouble in keeping behind them. An hour in one
place, then a shift, when the ponies were led to the new resting place,
and Teddy and Roy again threw themselves on the ground and talked.
Roy made no mention of the ridiculous course of conduct they were
following. He was wise enough to let a thing rest when he could not
understand it.
The hat had fallen quite a distance back, but Teddy had the spot
marked. The day grew colder as the sun approached the horizon.
Gradually the mountains took on that blueish tint that heralds the
twilight. The moon arose, a pale, washed-out circlet in the azure sky.
As the day darkened, the moon became brighter, and when it finally
shone, an incandescent orb, Teddy arose. Night had come.
“Now,” he said casually, “I’ll get my hat.” Roy stared at him curiously.
“Going to ride over or walk?”
“Walk. I know just where it is, and I might miss it on horseback. You
stay here and watch the ponies, will you? Too bad we didn’t get in any
fence repairing, but we can do that to-morrow.”
He sauntered off, a strange figure in the moonlight. The cattle were
some distance off now, and this was fortunate, for Durhams do not like
men on foot near them at night.
Now Teddy was directly in front of the grove of trees, and he halted to
gaze at them steadily. If anyone were there, waiting, this should draw
the fire. It was not quite so foolhardy a proceeding as it appeared.
The light was very poor and the distance too great for accurate
shooting. For a moment the boy stood there, then moved on. Not a sound
disturbed the stillness of the night. There was no sign of life in the
grove of trees.
The hat was lying where it had fallen, near a bush. It looked like a
mound of white sand as Teddy approached. He picked it up, dusted it
off, felt with his finger the bullet hole, then clapped it on his head
and started back. A voice, low, distinct, came to his ears, and he
dropped to the ground with the limpness and suddenness of a man whose
legs have turned to water.
The voice came from the group of trees. It was hard, as a whiphandle is
hard, and was applying itself to the scourging of someone.
“You’re still a fool, I see! A skunk I can stand. A fool isn’t even
worth killin’--his hide’s no good. Understand?”
“But Jerry, you told me--”
Jerry! That was it! Jerry Lefton! That’s who the speaker was! He and--
“I told you,” the voice went on “not to try anything without me or Bill
with you! Just because you’re known as Mob Jamisson, bad man, you think
you can’t miss, hey? Well, here’s one you missed, and it’s going to
mean plenty of trouble for us, too! Even if you did plug one of ’em,
what about the other? He’d get away sure, an’ the fat would be in the
fire. It is, anyhow, I guess. They know we’re after ’em now. Before
they only suspected it. Mob, I could crease you myself for this!”
“Aw, lay off!” The voice was raised in anger. Mob had evidently come
to the limit of his endurance. “You’ll crease nobody! Get that? An’ you
won’t bawl me out no more, either! If there’s any creasin’ to be done,
I’ll do it! I’m a partner in this scheme, same as you are. If I got an
idea that I think is a good one, I can try it, I reckon.”
“You’d better let me or Bill look over your ideas for you,” Jerry
Lefton said dryly. “If you were alone I wouldn’t care what you did. You
could hang yourself for all of me. But the way things are fixed now,
if the rope goes around your neck it goes around ours too. Me, I don’t
like that kind of a necktie. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” Jamisson growled. “I bungled, I admit it. But I thought
I could get that fool easy. Must have been a bum cartridge. Well, the
next time you want a thing done you’ll do it yourself. I had--”
The voices grew indistinct as the men moved on. An isolated word would
come back to Teddy, then the tones ceased altogether. Still the boy lay
there, thinking.
“Jerry Lefton and Mob Jamisson,” he muttered slowly. “Now we’re out
in the open. The cards are on the table. He wanted to kill me--and
Roy--because we suspect what they are up to. Uh-huh.”
He got to his feet and settled the hat more firmly on his head.
Carefully, quietly, he walked back. Roy was waiting for him.
“Got it, hey? Bet you had a hard time to find it. I should have gone to
you. Golly, I was afraid you’d got lost!”
“No, I didn’t get lost,” Teddy answered musingly. “And I didn’t have a
hard time to find the hat,” he added. “I knew just where it was.”
“You did? Then what in thunder--”
“Roy, you haven’t got a spare badge, have you?”
“Huh? What’s that? What kind of a badge?”
“A detective badge.” Teddy chuckled. “I just joined your force.”