Dave Caches a Gunnysack
Fox rode about ten yards behind his prisoner, who plodded without
spirit up the creek trail that led from the basin.
"You're certainly an accommodating fellow, Dave," he jeered. "I've
seen them as would have grumbled a heap at digging up that sack, and
then loaning me their horse to carry it whilst they walked. But you're
that cheerful. My own brother wouldn't have been so kind."
Dingwell grunted sulkily. He may have felt cheerful, but he did not
look it. The pudgy round body of Fox shook with silent laughter.
"Kind is the word, Dave. Honest, I hate to put myself under
obligations to you like this. If I hadn't seen with my own eyes how
you was feeling the need of them health exercises, I couldn't let you
force your bronc on me. But this little walk will do you a lot of
good. It ain't far. My horse is up there in the pines."
"What are you going to do with me?" growled the defeated man over his
shoulder.
"Do with you?" The voice of Fox registered amiable surprise. "Why, I
am going to ask you to go up to the horse ranch with me so that the
boys can thank you proper for digging up the gold."
Directly in front of them a spur of the range jutted out to meet the
brown foothills. Back of this, forty miles as the crow flies, nestled
a mountain park surrounded by peaks. In it was the Rutherford horse
ranch. Few men traveled to it, and these by little-used trails. Of
those who frequented them, some were night riders. They carried a
price on their heads, fugitives from localities where the arm of the
law reached more surely.
Through the dry brittle grass the man on horseback followed Dingwell to
the scant pines where his cowpony was tethered. Fox dismounted and
stood over his captive while the latter transferred the gunnysack and
its contents to the other saddle. Never for an instant did the little
spy let the other man close enough to pounce upon him. Even though
Dingwell was cowed, Chet proposed to play it safe. Not till he was in
the saddle himself did he let his prisoner mount.
Instantly Dave's cowpony went into the air.
"Whoa, you Teddy! What's the matter with you?" cried the owner of the
horse angrily. "Quit your two-stepping, can't you?"
The animal had been gentle enough all day, but now a devil of unrest
seemed to have entered it. The sound of trampling hoofs thudded on the
hard, sun-baked earth as the bronco came down like a pile-driver,
camel-backed, with legs stiff and unjointed. Skyward it flung itself
again, whirled in the air, and jarred down at an angle. Wildly flapped
the arms of the cattleman. The quirt, wrong end to, danced up and down
clutched in his flying fist. Each moment it looked as if Mr. Dingwell
would take the dust.
The fat stomach of Fox shook with mirth. "Go it, you buckaroo," he
shouted. "You got him pulling leather. Sunfish, you pie-faced cayuse."
The horse in its lunges pounded closer. Fox backed away, momentarily
alarmed. "Here ---- you, hold your brute off. It'll be on top of me
in a minute," he screamed.
Apparently Dingwell had lost all control of the bucker. Somehow he
still stuck to the saddle, by luck rather than skill it appeared. His
arms, working like windmills, went up as Teddy shot into the air again.
The hump-backed weaver came down close to the other horse. At the same
instant Dingwell's loose arm grew rigid and the loaded end of the quirt
dropped on the head of Fox.
The body of Fox relaxed and the rifle slid from his nerveless fingers.
Teddy stopped bucking as if a spring had been touched. Dingwell was on
his own feet before the other knew what had happened. His long arm
plucked the little man from the saddle as if he had been a child.
Still jarred by the blow, Fox looked up with a ludicrous expression on
his fat face. His mind was not yet adjusted to what had taken place.
"I told you to keep the brute away," he complained querulously. "Now,
see what you've done."
Dave grinned. "Looks like I spilled your apple cart. No, don't bother
about that gun. I'll take care of it for you. Much obliged."
Chet's face registered complex emotion. Incredulity struggled with
resentment. "You made that horse buck on purpose," he charged.
"You're certainly a wiz, Chet," drawled the cattleman.
"And that business of being sore at yourself and ashamed was all a
bluff. You were laying back to trick me," went on Fox venomously.
"How did you guess it? Well, don't you care. We're born to trouble as
the sparks fly upward. As for man, his days are as grass. He diggeth
a pit and falleth into it his own self. Likewise he digs a hole and
buries gold, but beholds another guy finds it. See, Second Ananias,
fourteen, twelve."
"That's how you show your gratitude, is it? I might 'a' shot you safe
and comfortable from the mesquite and saved a lot of trouble."
"I don't wonder you're disgusted, Chet. But be an optimist. I might
'a' busted you high and wide with that quirt instead of giving you a
nice little easy tap that just did the business. There's no manner of
use being regretful over past mistakes," Dave told him cheerfully.
"It's easy enough for you to say that," groaned Fox, his hand to an
aching head. "But I didn't lambaste you one on the nut. Anyhow,
you've won out."
"I had won out all the time, only I hadn't pulled it off yet," Dingwell
explained with a grin. "You didn't think I was going up to the horse
ranch with you meek and humble, did you? But we can talk while we
ride. I got to hustle back to Battle Butte and turn in this sack to
the sheriff so as I can claim the reward. Hate to trouble you, Chet,
but I'll have to ask you to transfer that gunnysack back to Teddy.
He's through bucking for to-day, I shouldn't wonder."
Sourly Fox did as he was told. Then, still under orders, he mounted
his own horse and rode back with his former prisoner to the park.
Dingwell gathered up the rifle and revolver that had been left at the
edge of the aspen grove and headed the horses for Battle Butte.
"We'll move lively, Chet," he said. "It will be night first thing we
know."
Chet Fox was no fool. He could see how carefully Dingwell had built up
the situation for his coup, and he began at once laying the groundwork
for his own escape. There was in his mind no intention of trying to
recover the gold himself, but if he could get away in time to let the
Rutherfords know the situation, he knew that Dave would have an uneasy
life of it.
"'Course I was joking about shooting you up from the mesquite, Dave,"
he explained as the horses climbed the trail from the park. "I ain't
got a thing against you--nothing a-tall. Besides, I'm a law-abiding
citizen. I don't hold with this here gunman business. I never was a
killer, and I don't aim to begin now."
"Sure, I know how tender-hearted you are, Chet. I'm that way, too.
I'm awful sorry for myself when I get in trouble. That's why I tapped
you on the cocoanut with the end of my quirt. That's why I'd let you
have about three bullets from old Tried and True here right in the back
if you tried to make your getaway. But, as you say, I haven't a thing
against you. I'll promise you one of the nicest funerals Washington
County ever had."
The little man laughed feebly. "You will have your joke, Dave, but I
know mighty well you wouldn't shoot me. You got no legal right to
detain me."
"I'd have to wrastle that out with the coroner afterward, I expect,"
replied Dingwell casually. "Not thinking of leaving me, are you?"
"Oh, no! No. Not at all. I was just kinder talking."
It was seven miles from Lonesome Park to Battle Butte. Fox kept up a
kind of ingratiating whine whenever the road was so rough that the
horses had to fall into a walk. He was not sure whether when it came
to the pinch he could summon nerve to try a bolt, but he laid himself
out to establish friendly relations. Dingwell, reading him like a
primer, cocked a merry eye at the man and grinned.
About a mile from Battle Butte they caught up with another rider, a
young woman of perhaps twenty. The dark, handsome face that turned to
see who was coming would have been a very attractive one except for its
look of sulky rebellion. From the mop of black hair tendrils had
escaped and brushed the wet cheeks flushed by the sting of the rain.
The girl rode splendidly. Even the slicker that she wore could not
disguise the flat back and the erect carriage of the slender body.
Dingwell lifted his hat. "Good-evenin', Miss Rutherford."
She nodded curtly. Her intelligent eyes passed from his to those of
Fox. A question and an answer, neither of them in words, flashed forth
and back between Beulah Rutherford and the little man.
Dave took a hand in the line-up as they fell into place beside each
other. "Hold on, Fox. You keep to the left of the road. I'll ride
next you with Miss Rutherford on my right." He explained to the girl
with genial mockery his reason. "Chet and I are such _tillicums_ we
hate to let any one get between us."
Bluntly the girl spoke out, "What's the matter?"
The cattleman lifted his eyebrows in amused surprise. "Why, nothing at
all, I reckon. There's nothing the matter, is there, Chet?"
"I've got an engagement to meet your father and he won't let me go,"
blurted out Fox.
"When did you make that hurry-up appointment, Chet?" laughed Dingwell.
"You didn't seem in no manner of hurry when you was lying in the
mesquite back there at Lonesome Park."
"You've got no business to keep him here. He can go if he wants to,"
flashed the young woman.
"You hear that, Chet. You can go if you want to," murmured Dave with
good-natured irony.
"Said he'd shoot me in the back if I hit the trail any faster," Fox
snorted to the girl.
"He wouldn't dare," flamed Beulah Rutherford.
Her sultry eyes attacked Dingwell.
He smiled, not a whit disturbed. "You see how it is, Chet. Maybe I
will; maybe I won't. Be a sport and you'll find out."
For a minute the three rode in silence except for the sound of the
horses moving. Beulah did not fully understand the situation, but it
was clear to her that somehow Dingwell was interfering with a plan of
her people. Her untamed youth resented the high-handed way in which he
seemed to be doing it. What right had he to hold Chet Fox a prisoner
at the point of a rifle?
She asked a question flatly. "Have you got a warrant for Chet's
arrest?"
"Only old Tried and True here." Dave patted the barrel of his weapon.
"You're not a deputy sheriff?"
"No-o. Not officially."
"What has Chet done?"
Dingwell regarded the other man humorously. "What have you done, Chet?
You must 'a' broke some ordinance in that long career of
disrespectability of yours. I reckon we'll put it that you obstructed
traffic at Lonesome Park."
Miss Rutherford said no more. The rain had given way to a gentle mist.
Presently she took off her slicker and held it on the left side of the
saddle to fold. The cattleman leaned toward her to lend a hand.
"Lemme roll it up," he said.
"No, I can."
With the same motion the girl had learned in roping cattle she flung
the slicker over his head. Her weight on the left stirrup, she threw
her arms about him and drew the oil coat tight.
"Run, Chet!" she cried.
Fox was off like a flash.
Hampered by his rifle, Dave could use only one hand to free himself.
The Rutherford girl clung as if her arms had been ropes of steel.
Before he had shaken her off, the runaway was a hundred yards down the
road galloping for dear life.
Dave raised his gun. Beulah struck the barrel down with her quirt. He
lowered the rifle, turned to her, and smiled. His grin was rueful but
friendly.
"You're a right enterprising young lady for a schoolmarm, but I
wouldn't have shot Chet, anyhow. The circumstances don't warrant it."
She swung from the saddle and picked her coat out of the mud where it
had fallen. Her lithe young figure was supple as that of a boy.
"You've spoiled my coat," she charged resentfully.
The injustice of this tickled him. "I'll buy you a new one when we get
to town," he told her promptly.
Her angry dignity gave her another inch of height. "I'll attend to
that, Mr. Dingwell. Suppose you ride on and leave me alone. I won't
detain you."
"Meaning that she doesn't like your company, Dave," he mused aloud,
eyes twinkling. "She seemed kinder fond of you, too, a minute ago."
Almost she stamped her foot. "Will you go? Or shall I?"
"Oh, I'm going, Miss Rutherford. If I wasn't such an aged, decrepit
wreck I'd come up and be one of your scholars. Anyhow, I'm real glad
to have met you. No, I can't stay longer. So sorry. Good-bye."
He cantered down the road in the same direction Fox had taken. It
happened that he, too, wanted to be alone, for he had a problem to
solve that would not wait. Fox had galloped in to warn the Rutherford
gang that he had the gold. How long it would take him to round up two
or three of them would depend on chance. Dave knew that they might be
waiting for him before he reached town. He had to get rid of the
treasure between that spot and town, or else he had to turn on his
tired horse and try to escape to the hills. Into his mind popped a
possible solution of the difficulty. It would depend on whether luck
was for or against him. To dismount and hide the sack was impossible,
both because Beulah Rutherford was on his heels and because the muddy
road would show tracks where he had stopped. His plan was to hide it
without leaving the saddle.
He did. At the outskirts of Battle Butte he crossed the bridge over
Big Creek and deflected to the left. He swung up one street and down
another beside which ran a small field of alfalfa on one side. A
hundred yards beyond it he met another rider, a man called Slim
Sanders, who worked for Buck Rutherford as a cow-puncher.
The two men exchanged nods without stopping. Apparently the news that
Fox had brought was unknown to the cowboy. But Dingwell knew he was on
his way to the Legal Tender Saloon, which was the hang-out of the
Rutherford followers. In a few minutes Sanders would get his orders.
Dave rode to the house of Sheriff Sweeney. He learned there that the
sheriff was downtown. Dingwell turned toward the business section of
the town and rode down the main street. From a passer-by he learned
that Sweeney had gone into the Legal Tender a few minutes before. In
front of that saloon he dismounted.
Fifty yards down the street three men were walking toward him. He
recognized them as Buck Rutherford, Sanders, and Chet Fox. The little
man walked between the other two and told his story excitedly.
Dingwell did not wait for them. He had something he wanted to tell
Sweeney and he passed at once into the saloon.