"What ails you?" Law inquired as he and Blaze rolled away in the
buckboard.
"Serves me right for leaving my six-shooter at home," panted the
rancher. "Well, I might have known they'd find me some day."
"'They'? Who?"
"That hombre and his wife--the woman with the mustache. They swore
they'd get me, and it looks like they will, for I daresn't raise my
hand to protect myself."
This was very mystifying to Dave, and he said so.
"The woman'll recognize me, quick enough," Blaze asserted, and then,
"God knows what Paloma will do."
"Really! Is it that bad?"
"It's a vile story, Dave, and I never expected to tell anybody; but
it's bound to come out on me now, so you better hear my side. Last
summer I attended a convention at Galveston, and one hot day I decided
to take a swim, so I hired a suit and a room to cache my six-shooter
in. It was foolish proceedings for a man my age, but the beach was
black with people and I wasn't altogether myself. You see, we'd had an
open poker game running in my room for three days, and I hadn't got any
sleep. I was plumb feverish, and needed a dip. Well, I'm no water-dog,
Dave; I can't swim no better than a tarrapin with its legs cut off, but
I sloshed around some in the surf, and then I took a walk to dreen off
and see the sights. It was right interesting when I got so I could tell
the women from the men--you see I'd left my glasses in the bath-house.
"Now I'd sort of upheld the general intemperance of that poker game for
three days and nights--but I don't offer my condition as an excuse for
what follows. No gentleman ought to lay his indecencies onto John
Barley corn when they're nothing more nor less than the outcroppin's of
his own orneriness. Liquor has got enough to answer for without being
blamed for human depravities. I dare say I was friendlier than I had
any right to be; I spoke to strangers, and some of the girls hollered
at me, but I wouldn't have harmed a soul.
"Well, in the course of my promenade I came to a couple of fellers
setting half-buried in the sand, and just as I was passing one of them
got up--sort of on all-fours and--er--facing away from me--sabe? That's
where the trouble hatched. I reached out and, with nothing but
good-will in my heart, I--sort of pinched this party-sort of on the
hip, or thereabouts. I didn't mean a thing by it, Dave. I just walked
on, smiling, till something run into me from behind. When I got up and
squared around, there was that man we just left cutting didos out of
black paper.
"'What d'you mean by pinching my wife?' he says, and he was r'arin' mad.
"'Your WIFE?' I stammers, and with that he climbs me. Dave, I was weak
with shame and surprise, and all I could do was hold him off. Sure
enough, the man I'd pinched was a long, ga'nt woman with a little black
mustache, and here she came!
"We started in right there. I never saw such a poisonous person as that
woman. She was coiled, her head was up, and her rattles agoing, and so
I finally lit out But I'm sort of fat, and they over-ran me. They bayed
me against the sea-wall, and all I had the heart to do was to hold 'em
off some more. Soon as I got my wind I shook 'em off a second time and
run some more, but they downed me. By that time we'd begun to gather
quite a crowd. ...
"Dave, was you ever treed by wild hogs? That's how them two people kept
after me. You'd have thought I'd deprived 'em of their young. I didn't
want to hurt 'em, but whenever I'd run they'd tangle my legs. By and by
I got so short of breath that I couldn't run, so I fell on top of the
man. But the woman got me by the legs and rolled me under. I busted out
and hoofed it again, but they caught me and down we went, me on top.
Then that man's helpmate grabbed my legs and rolled me over, like she
did before. Finally I got too tired to do anything but paw like a
puppy. It seems like we must have fought that way all the morning,
Dave. Anyhow, people gathered from long distances and cheered the
woman. I got desperate toward the last, and I unraveled the right hip
of my bathing suit grabbing for my gun. I couldn't see the bath-house
for the sand in my eyes, so I must have led 'em up across the boulevard
and into the tent colony, for after a while we were rolling around
among tent-pegs and tangling up in guy-ropes, and all the time our
audience was growing. Dave, those tent-ropes sounded like guitar
strings."
Blaze paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, whereupon his listener
inquired in a choking voice:
"How did you come out?"
"I reckon I'd have got shed of 'em somehow, for I was resting up on top
of my man, but that stinging lizard of a woman got her claws into the
neck of my bathing-suit and r'ared back on it. Dave, she skinned me out
of that garment the way you'd skin out an eel, and--there I was! You
never heard such a yelling as went up. And I didn't hear all of it,
either, for I just laid back my ears and went through those sight-seers
like a jack-rabbit. I never knew a man could run like I did. I could
hear people holler, 'Here he comes,' 'There he goes,' 'Yonder he went,'
but I was never headed. I hurdled the sea-wall like an antelope, and
before they got eyes on me I was into my bath-house.
"When I'd got dressed, I sneaked up to the Galvez for a drink. In the
bar were a lot of stockmen, and they asked me where I'd been. I told
'em I'd been nursing a sick lodge member, and they said:
"'Too bad! You missed the damnedest fight since Custer was licked. We
couldn't get very close, for the jam, but it was great!'
"The story went all over Galveston. The husband swore he'd kill the man
who attacked his wife, and the newspapers called on the police to
discover the ruffian."
There was a protracted silence; then Law controlled his voice
sufficiently to say: "It's fortunate he didn't recognize you to-night."
"Maybe he did. Anyhow, his wife is the new dressmaker Paloma's hired. I
'ain't got a chance, Dave. That story will ruin me in the community,
and Paloma will turn me out when she learns I'm a--a lady-pincher."
"What are you going to do about it?"
Blaze sighed. "I don't know, yet. Probably I'll end by running from
those scorpions, like I did before."
The next morning at breakfast Paloma announced, "Father, you must
help Dave hunt down these cattle thieves."
"Ain't that sort of a big order?" Blaze queried.
"Perhaps, but you're the very man to do it. Ricardo Guzman is the only
person who knows the Lewis gang as well as you do."
Jones shook his head doubtfully. "Don Ricardo has been working up his
own private feud with that outfit. If I was the kind that went looking
for a fight, I wouldn't have paid freight on myself from the Panhandle
down here. I could have got one right at home, any morning before
breakfast."
"Ricardo Guzman is something of a black sheep himself," Law spoke up.
"Pshaw! He's all right. I reckon he has changed a few brands in his
time, but so has everybody else. Why, that's how 'Old Ed' Austin got
his start. If a cowman tells you he never stole anything, he's either a
dam' good liar or a dam' bad roper. But Ricardo's going straight enough
now."
"He has lost his share of stock," Paloma explained, "and he'll work
with you if father asks him. You go along with Dave---"
"I'm too busy," Blaze demurred, "and I ain't feeling good. I had bad
dreams all night."
"I don't want you around here this morning. That new dressmaker is
coming."
Jones rose abruptly from the table. "I reckon my business can wait.
Hustle up, Dave." A few moments later, as they were saddling their
horses, he lamented: "What did I tell you? Here I go, on the dodge from
a dressmaker. I s'pose I've got to live like a road-agent now, till
something happens."
Don Ricardo Guzman was an American, but he spoke no English. An
accident of birth had made him a citizen of the United States--his
father having owned a ranch which lay north instead of south of the Rio
Grande. Inasmuch as the property had fallen to Ricardo, his sons, too,
were Yankees in the eyes of the law. But in all other respects Don
Ricardo and his family differed not at all from the many Guzmans who
lived across the border. The Guzman ranch comprised a goodly number of
acres, and, since live stock multiply rapidly, its owner had in some
sort prospered. On the bank of a resaca---a former bed of the Rio
Grande--stood the house, an adobe structure, square, white, and
unprotected from the sun by shrub or tree. Behind it were some brush
corrals and a few scattered mud jacals, in which lived the help.
Ricardo had just risen from a siesta when his two visitors rode up, and
he made them welcome with the best he had. There followed a
complimentary exchange of greetings and the usual flow of small talk.
Ricardo had suffered a severe toothache--the same abominable affliction
that had lost Porfirio Diaz an empire. It had been a dry spring, but,
praise God, the water still held in the resaca--his two sons were
branding calves in one of the outer pastures--and there had been a very
good calf crop indeed. Blaze recounted his own doings; Law told of
Ranger activities along the lower border. In the cool of the afternoon
Ricardo rode with his visitors, and then, cordial relations being now
established, he began to divulge information of value to Law.
Yes, he had endured many depredations from thieves. It was shameful,
but doubtless God willed that a certain amount of stealing should go on
in the world. The evil-doers were certainly favored by nature, in this
locality, for the great expanse of brush country to the north and east
offered almost perfect security, and the river, to the south, gave
immunity from pursuit or prosecution. The beeves were driven north into
the wilderness, but the horses went to Mexico, where the war had
created a market for them. The Federals had plenty of money to buy
mounts.
Whom did Don Ricardo suspect?
The old man was non-committal. Suspicion was one thing, proof was quite
another; and conviction was difficult under the best of circumstances.
Why, even a cow's recognition of her own calf was not evidence for a
court, and alibis were easily proven. Unless the thieves were caught in
the very act there was no case against them, and--por Dios!--one could
not be for ever on guard. Who could tell where the malefactors would
strike next? Now, in Mexico one could afford to kill an undesirable
neighbor without so much formality. But, thank God! Don Ricardo was not
a Mexican. No, he was a good American citizen. It was something to make
him sleep well in these war-times.
"Just the same, I'll bet he'd sleep better if the Lewis outfit was
cleaned up," Dave ventured, and Blaze agreed.
Guzman caught his enemy's name and nodded.
"Ah! That sin verguenza! He sells arms to the Candeleristas and horses
to the Potosistas. Perhaps he steals my calves. Who knows?"
"Señor Lewis doesn't need to steal. He has money," Jones argued.
"True! But who is so rich that he would not be richer? Lewis employs
men who are poor, and he himself is above nothing. I, too, am a friend
of the Rebels. Panchito, the Liberator, was a saint, and I give money
to the patriots who fight for his memory. But I do not aid the tyrant
Potosi with my other hand. Yes, and who is richer, for instance, than
Señor Eduardo Austin?"
"You surely don't accuse him of double-dealing with the Rebels?" Blaze
inquired, curiously.
"I don't know. He is a friend of Tad Lewis, and there are strange
stories afloat."
Just what these stories were, however, Ricardo would not say, feeling,
perhaps, that he had already said too much.
The three men spent that evening together, and in the morning Blaze
rode home, leaving the Ranger behind for the time being as Guzman's
guest.
Dave put in the next two days riding the pastures, familiarizing
himself with the country, and talking with the few men he met. About
all he discovered, however, was the fact that the Guzman range not only
adjoined some of Lewis's leased land, but also was bounded for several
miles by the Las Palmas fence.
It was pleasant to spend the days among the shy brush-cattle, with
Bessie Belle for company. The mare seemed to enjoy the excursions as
much as her owner. Her eyes and ears were ever alert; she tossed her
head and snorted when a deer broke cover or a jack-rabbit scuttled out
of her path; she showed a friendly interest in the awkward calves which
stood and eyed her with such amazement and then galloped stiffly off
with tails high arched.
Law had many times undertaken to break Bessie Belle of that habit of
flinging her head high at sudden sounds, but she was nervous and
inquisitive, and this was the one thing upon which she maintained a
feminine obstinacy.
On the second evening the Ranger rode home through a drizzle that had
materialized after a long, threatening afternoon and now promised to
become a real rain. Ricardo met him at the door to say:
"You bring good fortune with you, señor, for the land is thirsty.
To-morrow, if this rain holds, we shall ride together--you, Pedro, and
I. Those thieves do their stealing when they leave no tracks."
Raoul, the younger son, volunteered to go in place of his father, but
Ricardo would not hear of it.
"Am I so old that I must lie abed?" he cried. "No! We three shall ride
the fences, and if we encounter a cut wire--diablo!--we shall have a
story to tell, eh?"
The sky was leaden, the rain still fell in the morning when Dave and
his two companions set out. Until noon they rode, their slickers
dripping, their horses steaming; then they ate an uncomfortable lunch
under the thickest hackberry-tree they could find, after which they
resumed their patrol. Ricardo's tongue at length ran down under this
discomfort, and the three riders sat their saddles silently, swaying to
the tireless fox-trot of their horses, their eyes engaged in a watchful
scrutiny.
At last Pedro, who was ahead, reined in and pointed; the others saw
where the barbed-wire strands of the fence they had been following were
clipped. A number of horse and calf tracks led through the opening, and
after an examination Ricardo announced:
"There are two men. They have come and gone, with the calves tied neck
and neck."
"That is Las Palmas, isn't it?" Law indicated the pasture into which
the trail led.