CAUGHT IN THE ACT.
Follansbee was carried to camp No. 2, where Bud, who was a pretty good
cow-camp surgeon, examined his wound. A ball from an automatic revolver
had struck him in the breast, but on account of the thickness of the
clothing he wore, and the fact that he had on a heavy vest of caribou
hide, in the pocket of which he carried a small memorandum book, the
ball had penetrated only a short distance.
While he had lost a lot of blood, and the shock of the ball striking had
caused him to lose consciousness, he was not seriously hurt.
It did not take Bud long to extract the bullet and stanch the flow of
blood, and Follansbee opened his eyes and looked about wildly.
"Where is he?" he cried in terror.
"Whar's who?" asked Bud.
"The man what didn't have no face," cried the cow-puncher.
"Carl chased him avay alretty," said Carl, bending over his partner.
"All right, Carl. You saw him, too, did ye?"
"Sheur I sawed him, mit mine own eyes."
"Then it's all right," murmured Follansbee, sinking back on his bunk. "I
wuz afeared the boys wouldn't believe me if I told them what I saw."
When Follansbee sank into a deep sleep, due to his weakness from loss of
blood, the three boys sat before the fire while Carl told of his
encounter with the faceless man, and of the six shots which he had fired
at him and the ineffective bullets which had struck his body.
As the story was told a hush fell upon Bud and Kit. They were deeply
affected by the fact that this unknown and terrible menace was upon the
range which they were compelled to patrol, and which not even the balls
from a heavy weapon could kill.
"I would hardly have believed it if both of you hadn't seen the
creature," said Kit. "It sounds too much like a pipe dream."
It was morning before Bud and Carl left Kit's camp and rode to their
own. Follansbee was apparently all right, and exhibited no symptoms of
fever, for he had the iron constitution of a seasoned cow-puncher, who
almost invariably recovers as if by magic from a gunshot wound if the
missile does not penetrate a vital spot or splinter a bone.
Follansbee, when he awoke from his sleep, told Kit of his meeting with
the "man without a face," as he called the man who had given him his
wound.
"I wuz ridin' at a pretty good clip along the line to meet Carl," he
began, "when I see a feller standin' waitin' for me by the deep coulee,
about three miles south.
"At first I thought it wuz Carl, but soon I see that it wuz too big fer
the Dutchman.
"I slowed down a bit, fer I saw it wasn't any o' our outfit. Ye see I
had in mind what Ted said about that Sweet Grass Mountain gang, an' I
wuz some skittish.
"As I rode along slowly the feller on the black hoss made a sign as if
he wanted me to foller him. But I didn't like the stunt, so I stops
still an' rubbers at him.
"Two or three times he makes his motions, an' I don't do nothin' but
shake my head.
"Kit, that wasn't no human bein'. It wuz ther devil as sure as shootin'.
I started to draw my gun, but shucks, I ain't got no chanct ter make a
move before thar was a crash, an' a blaze o' flame come from his chest,
right about the middle, an' I felt the ball strike me, I heard a queer
sorter laugh, like a man bubblin' with his mouth in a basin o' water,
an' then I went out, an' all I remember wuz fallin' out o' the saddle."
About noon of that day, Ted and Stella rode over from the ranch house on
a tour of inspection, and stopped at Bud's camp, where they were told
the story of Carl's strange encounter with the man without a face, to
which he listened in troubled silence.
When Carl was through with his story, Ted looked for a long time into
the fire without saying anything.
"Well, what do you think?" asked Stella, at last.
"I think it is the work of the Whipple gang," answered Ted.
"But why should they shoot Follansbee?"
"It is a piece of intimidation. Of course, they do not know us. Under
ordinary circumstances an apparition like that, followed by the shooting
of a man, would cause a panic among ignorant men on a ranch. It is a
cinch that the Whipple gang has got it in for us, and this is just the
beginning of it. You will soon see other evidences of their work."
"But why should they hev it in fer us?" asked Bud. "We ain't never done
nothin' ter them."
"I don't know, but I have several ideas."
"What are they?"
"There are two or three things to be considered. In the first place they
have it in for the ranch on general principles. You know Fred Sturgis
said in his letter that he and his boys had driven the gang away from
the ranch. That is reason number one. Then we are strangers in this part
of the country, and they have seen us and have us sized up for a lot of
boys, and, therefore, easy marks for them. Again, we have a big bunch of
cattle, which Whipple and his bunch think we will not be able to protect
against them.
"They may have learned that we are deputy United States marshals. That
is enough to condemn us in their eyes. They are all old and fugitive
criminals, and if we knew them I think that we would find that they are
all wanted in one or more of the States and Territories, and that the
aggregate amount of rewards which have been offered for them, dead or
alive, would amount to a neat sum. They do not need marshals in this
part of the country. There may be other reasons why they will make war
on us, which we will learn later, but the ones I have mentioned are
sufficient for them to make themselves very troublesome."
"So you think it is war, eh?" said Stella.
"I do, and I think that you will be a shining mark for them when they
learn that you are here. For that reason I would warn you to be very
careful where you go about the ranch, and especially ask you not to ride
about alone, and to keep away from the mountains."
"Oh, dear, and just when I had planned to explore those mountains from
one end to the other," said Stella, with a pout.
"Can't help it. You know what would happen if they should catch you and
spirit you off as Shan Rhue did in the Wichita Mountains."
"Yes, I know, I'm a lot of trouble to you, Ted, but you know I don't
mean to be."
"Of course I know it, but if you run into danger, and expose yourself to
the attack of those who are avowedly our enemies, you run the chance of
being caught, and then, of course, it is our duty to get you out of
trouble."
"Well, I'll be good."
"The attempted killing of Follansbee was no accident," continued Ted.
"It was the work of an exceedingly shrewd man, who knows the moral
effect of his strange and mysterious appearance."
"Ain't it a ghost?" asked Carl, who had become all swelled up at the
thought that he had made a ghost run away from him.
"I should say not."
"Den vy shouldn't mine bullets haf killed him?"
"I'm sure I don't know. That is why I say that he is a remarkably clever
man, and it is probably the cause of the power he wields that he is able
to do such things. It wouldn't surprise me any if some day we learned
that your visitor was none other than the renowned Whipple himself."
"What are you going to do about it?" asked Stella.
"What can we do? We wouldn't know a single member of the gang if we were
to meet him. We don't know where they hang out, and if we did we know
nothing about the Sweet Grass Mountains, and could not go to where they
are. All we can do is to watch the ranch house and the cattle as a cat
watches a mouse, and if anything more, such as the shooting of
Follansbee, occurs, we will have to go on the warpath ourselves. But I
don't want to do that. We are out here to winter feed our cattle, and
not to fight."
"Shore enuff, but yer kin bet yer breeches I'm not goin' ter let no cave
dweller or brush hider tromp onto my moccasins, an' turn ther other
cheek ter be tromped on. Ther first feller o' that outfit I cotch sashay
in' around me I'm goin' ter take a crack at him."
"Go as far as you like when it comes to an act of aggression on the part
of one of them, but don't start anything, Bud, unless you can positively
bring it to a successful end."
"I reckon I'm some of a fox myself. They ain't set no trap what I've put
my paw inter yet."
Ted and Stella rode on to Kit's camp to see how Follansbee was getting
on, and found him doing nicely, but Stella laughed at the bandages Bud
had put on the wounded cow-puncher, and insisted on redressing the
wound.
Stella was a master hand at bandaging, because she was deft of hand and
was naturally sympathetic.
When she had finished with Follansbee, and had sewed his bandages so
that he could not rub or drag them off, he said he felt a hundred per
cent better already.
Then they proceeded toward the mountains, where the third camp, under
the direction of Ben Tremont, was situated.
It was almost the dying of the day when they left Ben's camp. He had not
heard of the attack on Follansbee, and Ted made it an occasion to warn
Ben against the attacks of the Whipple gang, as he was in the most
exposed place, being so near the mountains.
When they turned their ponies' noses toward the south again it was to
ride through a part of the herd.
Ted noticed that the cattle were feeding well and that there was plenty
of good, rich, well-cured grass, and that it was free of snow in big
enough patches to give the cattle ample room to graze.
As they were riding along Stella drew rein.
"What's the matter with that steer over there, Ted?" she asked, pointing
to a steer that was dragging one of its hind legs.
Ted looked at the steer in question, which was moving slowly forward.
"See, there's another," cried Stella. "Why, I can see a dozen of them
all limping in the same manner."
"That's strange," said Ted. "I wouldn't think anything of it if only one
steer had gone lame, but I can't understand a dozen."
They rode slowly toward the lame steers.
"Great guns," exclaimed Ted, bending low in his saddle to examine the
steers closely.
"What is it?" asked Stella excitedly.
"This is terrible," said Ted. "If this keeps up we might as well shoot
all the cattle and let them lie out here on the prairie the prey to the
wolves. We will never get them back to Moon Valley."
Stella looked at him with an expression of consternation on her face.
"These cows and steers have been hamstrung," said Ted, with a tone of
suppressed rage in his voice. "Any man who would do a trick like that
ought to be shot down in his tracks like a mad dog."
"Hamstrung! I don't understand."
"Some inhuman brute has ridden up behind these crippled animals, and
with a sharp knife has cut the tendons or leaders behind the hoofs, or,
rather, in the ankles, laming them and preventing them from being able
to follow a drive. Where would we be in the spring if any large portion
of our beasts were so maimed?"
"What a brutal thing to do!" exclaimed Stella, in indignation.
"Hello, what's that?"
Ted rose in his stirrups, standing and shading his eyes with his hand
against the glare of the setting sun on the snow. With the other hand he
was pointing off toward the east, where the cattle were milling
uneasily.
"Something wrong over there," said Stella.
They rode slowly in that direction to see what was disturbing the
cattle.
As they went, Ted was looking for other hamstrung beasts.
"By Jove! this is getting worse and more of it," he exclaimed. "See
there! That steer has had the tendons of his leg cut to-day. The wound
is fresh. It has hardly stopped bleeding. I wonder----"
But before he had finished the sentence he applied the quirt to his pony
and was dashing through the herd, with Stella close behind.
He had seen something strange and out of the way in the milling herd,
and while he thought he knew what it was he could hardly believe that it
could be true.
As he rode he drew his revolver, and broke it to see that its chambers
were filled.
Ted's face was pale and stern, and Stella saw at a glance that he was
terribly angry, and had the look in it that she had observed there
several times when he had seen animals being used with cruelty.
As he dashed into the milling herd he gave a cry of rage.
At the same moment a man sprang to an upright position in the midst of
the cattle, and gave a cry of surprise.
Over his shoulders hung the fresh hide of a cow, with the skin of the
head and the horns protruding above his head.
He gave one swift glance at Ted, then threw the hide to the ground and
set out at a run through the plunging beasts.
Ted was hampered by the cattle getting in his way, and was not making
much progress, but he was beating the horned beasts aside with his
quirt.
It was possible even yet that the man who was running from him would
escape, and this was what Ted was trying with all his might to prevent.
Ted knew why the man was among the cattle protected from them by his
disguise of the cow's hide.
He had been hamstringing them by the wholesale.
In one day the inhuman brute could destroy for range use a whole herd.
In the meantime, the cattle were growing wilder and wilder from the pain
caused by the hamstringer's knife, the wild career of the unmounted man
among them, and Ted and Stella pressing through them from the rear with
shouts and cracking quirts.
"Great Scott! They'll get him!" shouted Ted, reining in his pony.
The furious steers had turned their attention to the man on foot, and
were surging about him with angry bellowings, charging upon him, and
crowding him.
He was in a very perilous position, and it was only that the cattle were
herded so close together that he had not gone down sooner.
But once the cattle got him down he would be gored and trampled to
death. Nothing could save him.
Ted and Stella were trying to force their way to his side, but were
unable to do so.
Notwithstanding the fact the fellow had been caught in the act of
mutilating his cattle, Ted could not see him die without trying to save
him.
Now they heard a cry of fear, and saw the man throw his arms up in the
air.
The cattle were surging about him with wild and angry bovine cries, and
with a great tossing of horns, and leaps into the air.
There were muffled yells of agony from beneath the tossing mass of
horns.
"They've got him," muttered Ted. "They are wreaking their own revenge."
"Are they killing him, Ted?" asked Stella.
"They have got him down. The fool he was to go among them on foot. He
should have known better."
Ted made another effort to get through the cattle, and at last succeeded
in making a lane for himself.
"Stella," he shouted over his shoulder, "you stay where you are! This is
nothing for you to see. Better let me attend to this."
Stella was aware that Ted always knew what he was talking about when he
warned her away from anything, and she made her way out of the herd.
When Ted got to the spot where he had last seen the man, the cattle were
still milling, but were getting calmer, and had no hesitancy in
scattering when he rode among them slashing right and left with his
quirt and firing his revolver over their heads.
When he had cleared an open space he rode back into it, and instantly
recoiled from the sight presented to him.
On the ground lay the hamstringer, a mass of bloody clothes in which
were torn flesh and broken bones. He was quite dead, and had been not
only gored but had been trampled hundreds of times.
The vengeance of the maimed animals was complete.