XI

The two loggers had finished cutting their quota of timber for the

homestead cabins and the white peeled logs lay piled and ready to be

snaked down to the Three Bar on the first heavy snows of fall. The

choppers had transferred their operations to the lower broken slopes

which they scoured for the scattered cedars of the foothills, cutting

them for fence posts and piling them in spots accessible to the wagons

to be hauled whenever the mule teams could be spared.

The acreage of plowed ground increased day by day and would continue

till frost claimed the ground. As soon as the brush was burnt the mule

teams pulled heavy log drags across the field, pulverizing the lumps

and leveling inequalities of the surface.

Evans had been sent out as foreman of the beef round-up while Harris

remained behind to direct the operations at the ranch. The details of

the new work were unfamiliar ones for the girl and she was entirely

absorbed in learning the reasons for every move; so much engrossed, in

fact, that she had not left the Three Bar during the month which had

elapsed since the dance at Brill's. A few days before Evans was due

with the beef herd she rode Papoose away from the ranch, intending to

make a long-deferred visit to the Brandons.

After covering two-thirds of the distance along the foot of the hills

to the V L she saw a rider dip over a ridge two miles away. She

unslung Harris's glasses and dismounted to watch for his reappearance.

When he came again into her field of view another man was with him and

they were driving a few head of cows before them. They angled into a

valley that led off to the south, dropping into it some three miles

from her.

She mounted Papoose and headed him on a parallel course, keeping well

out of sight behind the intervening waves of ground. After holding her

direction at a stiff lope till satisfied that she had passed the men

she angled across to intersect their course.

As Papoose topped a low hogback that flanked the valley she saw the men

riding toward her down the bottoms, driving twenty or more head of

cows. One of the horses threw up his head, his ears pricked sharply

toward her, and the swift upward tilt of the rider's hat, as swiftly

lowered, informed her that she had been sighted. The other man did not

look up. They lifted their horses from a walk to a stiff trot and

veered past the cows, then looked up as if just aware of her approach,

and waited for her. The men were Bentley and Carp.

Bentley greeted her cheerily. Carp nodded without a word.

"What are you two doing up here?" she demanded without parley.

"I repped with the Three Bar wagon and Carp worked with you for a spell

so we sort of know the range," Bentley explained. "Slade sent us up to

drift any strays back south."

"Those you were driving are Three Bar stuff--every hoof," she said.

"All two-year-old she-stock."

Bentley turned and regarded the little herd they had just passed.

"Them? Sho--we wasn't driving them," Bentley denied easily. "They

just drifted ahead of us as we rode down the bottoms. A cow critter

will always move on ahead of a man. We rode on past 'em as soon as we

decided to amble along."

She knew that they were on safe ground. Any cow would drift on before

a horseman.

"The only way to convict a man on a case like this is to shoot him out

of the saddle before he has a chance to pass the cows," she said.

"That's what will happen to the next Slade rider that gets noticed with

any Three Bar cows moving out in front of him and headed south. You

can carry that word to Slade."

She whirled Papoose and headed back for the ranch, the intended visit

to the Brandons postponed. Harris was piling brush in the lower field

when she arrived and she informed him of the act of the two men.

"I wouldn't put it past Carp," he said. "But I hadn't sized Bentley up

just that way. It's hard to tell. If Carp shows up here again we'll

make him a visit in the middle of the night--and he won't trouble us

much after that."

"We'd better pay Slade a night visit too," she said. Her feelings

toward Slade had undergone a complete revulsion. She knew beyond a

doubt that he had been responsible for the raid on Three Bar bulls.

The wild bunch would have had no object in such a foray. Figuring it

from any angle Slade was the only one man who could possibly derive any

benefit from that. She had come to see that Slade was fighting with

his back to the wall,--that he had run his course and come to the end

of it if squatters secured a start in his range, and he considered the

act of the Three Bar the opening wedge which would throw open the way

for the nesters to crowd him out.

The evening of the following day the beef herd trailed into the lower

end of the Three Bar valley and bedded for the night. In the morning

the trail herd was headed for the railroad under a full crew, for

Harris had kept all hands on the job.

There was none of the fast and varied work of the round-up; the

trail-herding of beef to market seeming a slow and monotonous procedure

in comparison. The cows were drifted slowly south, well spread out and

grazing as they moved. Harris detailed two men to ride the "points,"

the two forward extremities of the herd; two others rode the "drags,"

holding to either flank of the rear end of the drive. In choppy

country he detailed a third pair to skirt the middle flanks and prevent

leakage up any feathering coulees.

The chuck wagon followed a mile behind and the horse wrangler brought

up the rear, bringing the remuda, much depleted in numbers from full

round-up strength, for it now carried but three extra horses for each

man.

Three hours out from the Three Bar some of the cows showed a

disposition to rest and calmly bedded down; the forward drift of the

herd was arrested. After a prolonged rest they rose in scattering

groups to feed and once more they were moved slowly to the south. The

men not on active duty with the herd rode in knots and whiled away the

time as best they could. It was the habit to cover less than twenty

miles a day with the beef herd as any strenuous exertion would reduce

the weight of the grass-fattened steers.

The drove was a nondescript lot. In addition to the steers and older

cows that comprised every trail herd, the off-color she-stock had been

carefully culled from the range.

Harris pointed to the bunch.

"Look that assortment over well, Billie," he advised. "A few seasons

more, with fair luck, and you won't see one of these rainbow droves

with every color from brindle to strawberry roan; none of those

humpbacked runts; they'll all be gone. That's almost the last mongrel

herd that will ever wear your brand. They'll run better every year

until we have all big flat-backed beef stock--a straight white-face

run."

The third morning out from the home ranch broke stormy. Gray, leaden

skies and low scudding, drab clouds drifted over the foothills and

obscured the view of the peaks. A nasty drizzle dampened the face of

the world and laid its clammy touch on all living things. This

condition prevailed all through the day and shortly after the cows had

been milled and bedded for the night the drizzle turned to rain, now

falling straight and soft, again in fierce squalls whipped by varying

shifts of wind. A saddled night horse was picketed for every man. The

wagon stood close under a hill while the herd was bedded on a broad

flat at the mouth of a valley.

The men lay in the open, their bed-tarps folded to shed as much

moisture as possible. The soggy patter of the rain on her teepee

lulled the girl to sleep but she was frequently roused. A dull

muttering materialized suddenly into a sharp thunderstorm and the

canvas walls of her teepee were almost continuously illuminated by

successive flashes. The picketed horses fretted and stamped. Between

peals she heard the voices of the night guards singing to soothe their

restless charges on the bed ground. One of the men shifted his bed

roll from a gathering puddle to some higher point of ground.

She dropped to sleep again but was roused by voices outside as the

guards changed shifts and she estimated that it must be near morning,

the fourth change of guards.

The sounds ceased as the men who had just been relieved turned in for

their sleep. A horse neighed shrilly within a few yards of her teepee.

Another took it up and an answer sounded from the flats. There was a

crash of pistol shots, a rumble of hoofs and the instant command of

Harris.

"Roll out! Roll out!" he called. "Saddles! On your horses."

Even as he shouted there came the swish of wet canvas as the men

tumbled from their bed rolls, the imprecations of the suddenly

awakened. Billie thrust her head from the teepee flap, the water

cascading down her neck. The successive flashes showed the men tugging

desperately at boots and chaps, their grotesque, froglike leaps for

their tethered mounts. She saw Harris, buckling his belt as he ran,

and the next flash showed him vaulting to Calico's back.

The thunder of hoofs drew her eyes to the bed ground where a black mass

surged, then bore off up the valley. A scattered line of riders bore

down on the herd, two ghostly apparitions among them throwing the cows

into a panic of fear. She knew these for riders flapping yellow

slickers in the wind. As the light faded she saw three horizontal red

streaks cut the obscurity and knew that one of her guards was in the

midst of the rustlers, doing his single-handed best. The red splashes

of answering shots showed on all sides of him. She tugged on her chaps

and boots, slipped Papoose's picket rope and vaulted to his back.

The scene was once more illuminated as she rode from the wagon. A big

pinto horse was strung out and running his best, the other Three Bar

men pounding after him. A riderless horse circled in the flat, a dark

shape sprawled near him, and she wondered which one of her men had gone

down. A knot of horsemen were turning up an opening gulch on the far

side of the valley. A half-dozen Three Bar riders veered their horses

for the spot. Harris turned in his saddle and his voice reached her

above the tumult.

"Let 'em go!" he shouted. "Let 'em go! Hold the herd!"

Far off on the opposite side she made out a lone horseman riding at a

full run along the sidehill above the cows as he made a supreme effort

to reach the head of the run. The Three Bar men split and streamed up

both sides of the bottoms. The flashes had ceased except for brief,

quivering plays of less than a second's duration. She hung her spurs

into Papoose and trusted to his footwork. The swift little horse

passed one rider, then another. There were only the rumble of hoofs

and the crazed bawling of cows to guide her as she drew near the rear

of the herd. A half-flare showed the pinto a bare twenty yards ahead,

with Harris putting him at the slope to pass the cows. She swung her

own horse after him and she felt the frequent skid of his feet on the

treacherous sidehill. Papoose braced on his haunches and slid down a

precipitous bank, buckled up the far side and down again, then swooped

across a long flat bench. Three times she felt the heaving plunge and

jar as the little horse skimmed over cut-bank coulees and washes which

her own eyes could not see in the dripping velvet black.

From the sounds below she knew they were well up on the flanks of the

run and nearing the peak. The stampede seemed slowing. A long,

wavering flash revealed Harris a dozen jumps ahead. Papoose followed

the paint-horse as Harris put Calico down the slippery sidehill and

lifted him round the point of the herd. In the same flash Billie had

seen two slickers out before the peaks of the run, flapping weirdly in

the faces of the foremost cows. This accounted for the slowing-up she

had sensed. Two of her men were before them and she wondered how this

had come to pass.

The lightning-play broke forth once more. She saw two riders swinging

round the opposite point. The two slickers were working in the center.

Harris's gun flashed six times. She jerked her own and rolled it. The

two riders who had just rounded the far point joined in. Cows in the

front ranks held back from this fearsome commotion out in front.

Others, driven by the pressure behind, forged past them, only to hold

back in their turn as the guns flashed before their eyes.

The storm ceased as suddenly as it had begun and for two miles she rode

in inky darkness. The last mile was slower. It was showing gray in

the east and the night run had spent its force. The herd stopped and

the cows gazed stupidly about, standing with drooping heads and heaving

sides. Three Bar men showed on both flanks and in the rear. They had

held the drove intact and prevented its splitting up in detachments and

scattering through the night.

Horne and Moore rode over to them and for the first time the girl

noticed that the two men who had wielded slickers out in front of the

run were nowhere to be seen.

"Who was the pair out ahead?" Moore asked. "And what swallowed 'em up?"

Harris shook his head.

"Billie and I were the first to make the front," he said.

"Not any," Moore stated positively. "I saw 'em five minutes before you

two swung round the point. I was wondering who had outrode the

paint-horse and Billie's little nag."

Moore's left side was plastered with mud, as was the left side of his

mount.

"I was on guard and halfway up the far side," he said. "Split Ear took

a header with me and delayed me some."

He pointed to the mud crusted on his clothes. Billie knew that he was

the lone rider she had seen on the flanks of the herd as she rode away

from the wagon. The fall accounted for their Founding the point ahead

of him. Moore was looking off across the country.

"Do you mean to tell me you didn't see those two slickers flapping out

in front?" he demanded.

"I confess I didn't observe any," Harris said. "You're getting spooky,

Moore. A couple of white cows, likely, out ahead of the rest."

Moore regarded him curiously.

"Maybe that's so," he said. "Waving their tails in the air, sort of."

He grinned and turned his horse to head back a bunch that had drifted

out of the herd.

"The boys made a nice ride," Harris said to Horne. "You float round

from one to the next and tell 'em we'll soon have a feed. I'll ride

back and send the wagon up."

Billie rode with him as he skirted the herd and started on the return

trip. Her mind was occupied with the two riders who had slowed the run

and disappeared. There had been something familiar about them, for

every man has his individual way of sitting a saddle as he has an

individuality of gait when on foot. As she had viewed them in the

lightning's flash they had closely resembled Bentley and Carp. But she

decided that this resemblance had been but a fancied one, suggested by

the fact that the two men had been much on her mind of late.

"We're not hurt bad," Harris said. "The boys held them bunched in good

shape. Maybe forty or so head down with broken legs--and ten pounds of

fat apiece run off the rest."

A hatred of Slade was growing within her. Here, too, was a case where

no other would benefit by the senseless stampede. If the beef herd

could be broken up it would cause a delay to round it up in a strange

range with the certainty of many cows being missed,--a case of

weakening the Three Bar.

She had been so absorbed in learning the details of the new work, so

elated at its progress, that she had come to believe in its ultimate

success. And they had been unmolested for so long a time. Then had

come the wanton slaughter of Three Bar bulls and now the stampede of

the trail herd. It was conclusive proof that Slade had abandoned his

former wearing-down process as too slow and was out to crush the Three

Bar in the speediest possible way and through any available means.

There rose in her a flare of resentment against her neighbors, the

Brandons of the V L and the McVeys of the Halfmoon D. Both had taken

out papers on the best land in their respective localities as soon as

forewarned of her intended move. Ostensibly this was done merely as a

protection against outsiders but in reality they were hoping that she

would win out, in which case they would go through with their filings

and prove up. But neither outfit would come out in the open and give

her their support, preferring to hold aloof and benefit by her success

if it so transpired and lose nothing themselves if she should

fail--part of the policy of every man for himself--in the meantime

letting her brand bear the brunt of the fight.

Harris, too, was pondering over Slade's change of tactics. He felt

assured that Slade's own men had not participated in starting the run.

Slade would not let any considerable number of his boys know that much

about him. Some of Lang's men had undoubtedly been hired to stampede

the Three Bar herd.

"The very fact that Slade is so bald with it is proof that he sees the

necessity of crowding us fast," Harris said. "If we get too big a

start he's blown up--and he hasn't had anything to work on but plowed

ground. He's out now to worry us at odd ends. We can expect a steady

run of mishaps now, for he'll work fast--but we'll win out in the end."

She nodded a little wearily for she knew that with Slade throwing all

his forces against her the Three Bar would be hard pressed. In

addition to this worry her mind was concerned with the riderless horse

she had seen as she rode away from the wagon, the huddled figure

sprawled in the flat. Every Three Bar rider was a friend and she

hesitated to hear which one of her men had gone down in the raid.

"Who was it?" she asked at last, and Harris divined that she was

harking back to the fallen night guard who had tried to head the

raiders alone.

"I've been trying not to think about that," he said. "Lanky was a good

pal of mine. I saw him go down, but I couldn't stop right then."

Evans occupied a place in her regard that was perhaps a notch higher

than that of any other of the crew.

"Can't we prove anything on Slade--do anything to stop him?" she

demanded. "If they've killed Lanky, I'll perjure myself if it's the

only way. I'll have Alden pick him up and I'll swear I saw him do the

thing himself. He's as guilty as if he actually had."

"I've a bait or two out for Slade," Harris said. "But that way may

prove too slow. If Lanky's gone under, I expect I'll have to pick a

quarrel with Slade and hurry things along."

"Don't you!" she objected. For all of her confidence in Harris's

efficiency in most respects, her implicit belief in his courage, she

could not forget the awkward swing of his gun and she had a swift

vision of him facing Slade without a chance.

A crash of wagon wheels and the voice of Waddles admonishing the horses

interrupted her. The chuck wagon rolled round a bend as the big cook

followed the trail of the night run. Every bed had been rolled and

loaded to eliminate the necessity of a return. The remuda trailed

behind the wagon under the combined supervision of the nighthawk and

the wrangler.

"How is Lanky?" was Harris's first query.

Waddles jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Evans, shot once through the

arm and a second time through the shoulder, reclined on the

triple-thickness bed roll the cook had spread for him on the floor of

the wagon.

"Only nicked--clean holes and no bones," Lanky said. "I'll be all

right as soon as Waddles will let me out of this chariot and I get to

riding comfortable on a horse."

"He'll come round fine in a few days if we can keep him offen a horse

and riding comfortable in the wagon," Waddles countered. "I've give

him orders to that effect."

Evans groaned.

"He drives over places I wouldn't cross afoot," he complained. "Did

you hold the run?"

Reassured on this point he flattened out on his pallet and the wagon

held on toward the herd.

The weary cows were held over for a day of rest. The night guards were

doubled and this precaution was maintained during the succeeding two

stops before reaching the shipping point.

Harris and Billie sat on the top rail of the loading chute while the

last few Three Bar steers were being prodded on board the cars.

Harris slipped from his perch and motioned to Moore and Horne.

"You can go up town now and take on a few drinks. Hunt up an old

friend or two and wag your chins. Make it right secretive and

confidential and make each one promise faithful not to breathe a

syllable to another living soul. That way the news is sure to travel

rapid."

He returned to the girl as the stock train pulled out. Two hands waved

a joyous farewell from the top of the cars, delighted at the prospect

of a trip to market with the steers.

"I don't pretend to regret that old Rile played even for Bang's,"

Harris said. "But I wish he'd sorted out some one else in the albino's

place. It was bad business for the Three Bar when Harper went down."

"He was the head of the gang," she said. "The worst of the lot."

"And for that reason he was able to hold them down," Harris explained.

"It was some of the outfit from over in the Breaks that stampeded us.

Slade wouldn't let his own boys know that much about him so he'd hire

Lang. Harper had brains. He wouldn't have gone in for that. Lang has

thrown in against us. He's all bulk and no brains and as savage as an

Apache buck. He'll hang himself in the end but in the interim he may

hand us considerable grief."