Oscar arrived durin’ the night with the whole four Simpson boys; and
word that Kit and the kid were in fine shape, with ol’ man Simpson
keepin’ a sharp watch, and Kit ready to take a standpat hand any time
trouble crowded too close. We expected to keep Ty busy, and so didn’t
worry any about Kit. Before dawn we started the four Simpsons out to
make a circle and cross the crick, tellin’ ’em to use their own
judgment to some extent; but not to run any risk. We wanted ’em to act
like scouts and, if possible, to draw Ty into chasin’ ’em, and then to
lead him back to our camp. We could see all of the other side o’ the
crick from our look-out.
By dawn the rest of us were down on the edge of the cliff, and we saw
’em find Dixon’s body. They were consid’able excited about it; so we
judged they had also read the notice on the door.
“What shall we do, to-day?” asked Horace.
“Shoot dogs,” sez I. “There ain’t any call to play safe any longer,
and those dogs are the worst bother we have.”
“All right,” sez Horace. “This will be a good chance for me to see if
I’m still in practice. I’m a purty good rifle-shot, Happy.”
I never could quite harden myself to Horace. The change in him was
almost as much as that between an egg and a chicken; but yet the’ was
still a suggestion of what he had been at first—his side-burns, most
likely—and it allus jarred me to see him steamin’ ahead with
self-confidence fizzin’ out of his safety valve. He took his elephant
gun and trained it on one o’ the dogs which was sniffin’ around the
place where Dixon’s body had lain. We were purty well off to the north
of the ravine; but it was still a consid’able angle of a down-shot,
and a good long one too.
“Remember,” sez I, “that when shootin’ down grade, you are mighty apt
to shoot too high.”
He lowered his gun an’ looked at me as though I had called him a girl
baby. “I have shot from every angle the’ is,” sez he; “and I’ve shot
big game, too.”
“Ex-cuse _me_!” sez I. “Shoot now, and let’s see what happens.”
You had to take off your hat to Horace when it came to a cultivated
taste in firearms. The thing he had got Promotheus with had been small
enough to conceal in your back hair, while his present instrument
wasn’t rightly a rifle at all, it was a half-grown cannon. It shot a
bullet as big as your thumb which mushroomed out and exploded, as soon
as it hit. The dog died a merciful death; but he left a mighty
disquietin’ bunch o’ remains.
“Good boy, Horace!” I said, slappin’ him on the shoulder. “You keep on
removin’ the dogs, and I’ll go up the slope, and pertect your rear,
should they try to come up the ravine.”
I heartily endorsed this slaughter o’ the dogs; but I wasn’t ambitious
to see it done. I have been well acquainted with a large number o’
dogs of all sorts and sizes, and I have deep feelin’s for dogs. When
it comes to livin’ accordin’ to a feller’s own standard, a dog has us
all beat. When a dog signs up, he don’t whisper nothin’ under his
breath. He signs up for the full trip, and he don’t ask a lot o’
questions about how long the hours’ll be, or what sort o’ grub and
quarters and pay he’ll draw. He just wags his tail, and sez: “This
here feller is my idea of exactly what a feller ought to be; and I’m
for him in all he does. If he wants me to fight, I’m hungry for it, if
he wants me to be polite and swaller a lot o’ insults, I’ll do it, or
if the time comes when my death is worth more to him ’n my life, why,
I don’t know nothin’ about future rewards or such truck; but I’m
perfectly willin’ to swap life for death in his name, and I’m proud to
take the consequences—so long as he gets the reward.”
I own up ’at a dog has no morality; he’s only a reflection of his
master. A decent man has a decent dog, a vicious man has a vicious
dog—and this is why it would have hurt me more to watch Horace
testin’ his aim on the dogs ’n it would if he had been minded to pot a
few Cross-branders themselves, especially Ty Jones.
Now, the sound o’ this gun, and the sight of the dead dog made things
buzz down below. The men peered out from all directions, but hardly
knew what to do. I had sent Mexican Slim off to the right, just above
the ravine, to pick off any dogs ’at came in that direction, and soon
after Horace got his, Slim also got one; and Ty whistled the dogs to
come to the house. Here was where his method of treatin’ a dog showed
up bad. Any time before this, a dog which so much as set foot on the
porch had been belted with anything capable of inflictin’ pain, and
now they refused to go inside.
The Chink was able to whistle ’em to the cook-house; but that was as
far as they’d go; and while they were standin’ in a bunch, Horace and
Slim each got one. Ty was standin’ near one o’ the poles which upheld
the back porch, and Horace exploded a slab from this pole in such a
way that it knocked Ty down. This put the whole bunch into a
consternation. Horace certainly could shoot some. It made me think o’
the poorhouse, when I reflected on what it had cost him to learn how.
Nothin’ much happened that day. Horace and Slim stuck to their
knittin’, and the Simpson boys played their part well. They rode in a
bunch, and when they’d come in sight o’ the ranch house, one would
hold the field-glass case to his eyes, as though lookin’ through the
field glasses, and another would turn and wave his hands, as though
signallin’ to some one up in the hills. Once, two punchers went to the
corral and saddled hosses; but Horace shot one o’ the hosses, and both
men flew for the stable without waitin’ to take off the saddles. They
had never seen such wounds as Horace’s elephant gun created, and it
put ’em in a mighty thoughtful mood.
The Simpson boys came in soon after dark; and we all held a council of
war while eatin’ supper. I was purty certain that we had a better
bunch o’ men than those we were fightin’. It is no test of nerve to
kill a man: a lot o’ men who got the reputation o’ bein’ bad were
nothin’ but accidents or sneaks; but when you have to stick through a
slow fight without knowin’ the odds again’ ya, it gives your nerve a
mighty searchin’ try-out. I had hopes that after a day or so, they’d
be certain that the hills on all sides of ’em were full of enemies,
and they’d be mighty glad to settle on our terms. I didn’t want to
kill a single man more ’n was necessary. Horace also thought we could
wear out their nerve; but Olaf shook his head.
“Some o’ the punchers may desert in the night,” sez he; “but as long
as a single one remains to stand back to back with Ty Jones, Ty
Jones’ll stay and fight. He has no fear—I have seen.”
“The question is this,” sez I, “if those fellers are the kind to get
fiercer the longer they’re kept in suspense, the thing to do is to
raid ’em to-night; but, on the other hand, if they’re the kind whose
nerve evaporates when it is kept uncovered, the thing to do is to wear
’em down. Let’s vote on it.”
We decided to do some more wearin’; so we kept a guard at the camp,
and the rest of us went down to the cliff, and tossed over stones to
where we thought they’d be hid, providin’ they had put guards at the
mouth of the ravine. We raised a yelp the first throw, and heard a
rush o’ men from the new cabin, though the shadow was so dense down
below we couldn’t see a thing. This showed us that some o’ the dogs
still survived and were bein’ used as guards, and also that there were
men quartered in the woman’s cabin. This was a bother, as it would
force us to be careful until we found out where she was livin’.
We posted a guard at the top of the path leadin’ up from the ravine,
another at our camp, and went to sleep, feelin’ purty tol’able well
fixed. Nothin’ happened that night, and the next day, we made ready to
do about the same as we had done the day before; but when we reached
the cliff, the’ wasn’t a sign o’ life below—not a single, breathin’
thing in sight, not even a hoss in the pasture.
“They’ve got away!” exclaimed Horace.
“Where to?” sez Olaf. “Ty Jones hasn’t any more use for the law ’n we
have, and you’ll never make me believe ’at he’s pulled out and left
all his belongin’s for whoever wants ’em.”
“That’s so,” sez I; “but where the deuce are they?”
We watched all mornin’; but not a sign, not a bit o’ smoke from the
cook-house, just the ranch buildin’s settin’ there as deserted as the
Garden of Eden. The Simpsons were workin’ their stunts across the
crick; so about ten in the mornin’, Slim and Dutch rode over to tell
’em to come in, as they would look mighty foolish, providin’ they were
makin’ signals to one of the hills where the Cross-branders themselves
were hid.
After eatin’ dinner, the rest of us went down to the lookout, Horace
shoulderin’ his elephant exterminator, and lookin’ peevish and
fretful, ’cause the’ was nothin’ to shoot at. “Boys,” sez I, “do ya
suppose ’at poor old Promotheus has been goin’ all this time on
nothin’ but water.”
“He’s gone longer ’n this on nothing but water,” sez Horace; “and so
have I. Over in Africa, once, we sent a tribe o’ blacks around to beat
some lions out for us; but they fell in with another tribe who were
not friendly, and they just kept on goin’. Promotheus and I were lost
from everything, and we got into a desert before we found a way out.
We went for I don’t know how long without water. Anyway, we went long
enough to get into that numb condition when the earth becomes molten
copper, and the sky a sun glass, and a man himself feels like another
man’s nightmare. That tender old Promotheus you’re sympathizin’ with,
carried me the best part of a day, or a century—time had melted
entirely away—and when we came back to our senses we lay beside a
pool of water. He’s tough, Promotheus is.”
“At the same time,” sez Tank, “settin’ cooped up in a log hut with
nothin’ to cheer ya but water, isn’t my idy of havin’ high jinks.”
“Perhaps, too,” sez Spider Kelley, who didn’t have enough sense of
fitness to change a nickel, “those mongrel coyotes lynched both him
an’ the Friar before they vamosed.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” sez Olaf; “but I wish we knew what they had
done.”
“Let’s go and shoot at the old cabin or the bunk-shack,” sez Oscar.
“I move we wait, and raid ’em to-night,” sez I, and this was what we
decided to do.
The rest of us lolled about purty patient—as active men, an’ beasts
too, are likely to do when the’s nothin’ on hand—but Horace who had
lived in a room most of his life, hadn’t quite learned to turn off his
steam when he hadn’t any use for it; so he kept bobbin’ up and fussin’
about. All of a sudden, he gave a sort of gasp, and pointed up the
slope.
We looked and saw one man crouched over and runnin’ along where the
south trail to our camp swung around a crag; and we sprang to our
feet, and looked up at the camp. As we looked, the face of Ty Jones
with a grin on it, poked up over a stone and leered down at us most
exasperatin’.