BREAKING CLOUDS FOR ONE
ON top of the gigantic rock in the chaparral fastness sat Manzanita
Canby and Falcon the Flunky. Overhead the sun was creeping slowly
toward the zenith. From time to time the girl lifted the binoculars
from her lap and trained them on Squawtooth. Each time, as she lowered
them, she sighed.
“They’ve not found any of our messages,” she said, “or else things
wouldn’t be so quiet down there, with noon almost here. All of the
men that just rode in from the mountains have gone into the house--to
eat, I suppose. If they were going to signal at noon, wouldn’t they be
standing around to see if anything would happen?”
“I should think their curiosity might be aroused to that extent,”
replied her companion. “All in the house, eh?”
“Every last one of them.” She was once more holding the glasses to her
eyes. “I might have known there wasn’t a chance in a million of any one
finding a tumbleweed with a message in it. But I thought that, with
men scouring the country all about, somebody surely would stumble onto
one of them and be curious enough to find out what had been tied to a
thing like that. There are two automobiles at the ranch. The sheriff’s,
I suppose.”
“Don’t be discouraged yet,” he comforted her. “Maybe they’ve sent my
letter to Los Angeles, and have not yet got a satisfactory answer.
In which case they wouldn’t signal until to-morrow at noon--or next
day, if the answer was still delayed. Perk up, dear! You had a great
scheme--too great to fail.”
“There goes a lone rider toward Squawtooth--from the mountains, I
guess. Looked like Ed Chazzy’s caballo. Yes, that’s the cream he rides.
That’s Ed, too. I--oh, there! There! They’re signaling! Look!”
“You’re right. I can see a fleck of red against the cottonwood with my
naked eye. You keep the glasses.”
She glued the binoculars to her eyes and watched.
“Sure enough! There’s a man up in the tree with a red blanket, or
something. And--yes!--there’s another fellow standing at the foot.
Everything’s all right. But say--I guess we’re not so notorious as we
thought. Can you imagine all of the rest of them in there at dinner?
Cool! Well, I guess we’ll have to really hold up the stage, or do
something, to wake them up. I thought perhaps we were making a hit!”
“How about Mart?” he asked.
“Goodness! I’d almost forgotten him. Why, there’s no sign of him at
all. Something is wrong, Tom. The kid would never, never fail us. If
the signal were genuine, the instant it had been raised old Podhead
would be on that bronc and riding him to a fare-you-well. It’s
wrong--all wrong! A trick! I see it all now. Oh, I didn’t think such
a thing of Pa Squawtooth! He’s refused to give Rattle-pod my half of
the letter, and of course the kid has had no chance to read the milk
message. Oh, Pa Squawtooth! I’ll never forgive you! And the coarseness
of their work, Tom. Even though they’re trying to fake us, they ought
to have sense enough to all stand out there and look on. They don’t
know enough to try and make the proceeding appear natural. That alone
might scare us off, even if we didn’t know the signal is a trap.”
“Not so fast,” said The Falcon. “It has just occurred to me that
perhaps your father has offered a reward to the man who brings us in.”
“It would be just like him.”
“In that case--can’t you see?”
“Of course I can. The man who found the message might be selfish enough
to think nothing of justice or our predicament, and would keep his
discovery to himself and try to lure us out so that he--and a few pals
maybe--could nab us and claim the reward. Even though we might be able
to prove your innocence, and to show that eventually we would have
come out anyway, pa would be in duty bound to pay what he’d offered.
He’d do it, too. Oh, I never thought of such a situation! That’s just
it. Somebody’s signaling unbeknown to pa and the rest, in at dinner.”
“Still no Mart, eh?”
“No sign of him. And there the signal goes down.”
Fully two minutes passed before she spoke again.
“There go two men away from Squawtooth over the desert,” she finally
reported. “I’ll bet they set that signal, though I can’t make sure.
Barns and things were in the way. Ed’s nearing Squawtooth, walking his
cream.”
A little later: “Ed has reached the house and turned his horse into a
corral.”
Then: “The two who left the ranch in the other direction are running
toward a couple of horses, some distance from Squawtooth. I saw the
horses there, but thought they were loose and cropping bunch grass. Now
I see they’re saddled.
“They’re on ’em! Galloping like the dickens toward the buttes! Here
come Ed and pa and--yes, I think it’s the sheriff. They’re in the
corrals looking around. Seems almost as if they were looking up into
the cottonwood. I’ve got it! You were right! Ed saw the signal, and
asked what it meant when he got there. And pa and the sheriff couldn’t
answer him, and have gone out to investigate. There go those two men,
galloping like mad! That’s funny! If they meant to get us when we came
out, why are they running directly away?
“There goes Pa Squawtooth and the rest of them back to the house. Now
they’ve gone out of sight around the house. Oh, dear! And the grub’s
almost gone! And that jack was the grandfather of all the rabbits in
these mountains! Oh, I could just baw-awl!”
Then Falcon the Flunky took the glass and looked.
“I guess that’s the sheriff riding with three others in the direction
taken by those two who galloped off,” was his first report. “They’re
not hurrying, though. And now the others are getting their horses out
of the corral. Here they come straight toward us--all in a bunch.
M’m-m! I’d say everybody’s crazy down there!”
A sniffle.
“Cheer up! Cheer up! So long as they’re hunting over the desert there’s
the chance of another of your messages being found. We’ll sit here and
watch while they’re in sight. Maybe we can find out what they’re up to.”
“If we d-don’t we’re likely to starve,” the girl said sobbingly,
wretched over the defeat of her clever plans.
The tents of the Jeddos that had been swept down by the wind were up
again. Jeddo the Crow had slept throughout the greater part of the
storm, and when conscious again had been in no condition to return to
his camp from Stlingbloke to help repair the damage. Consequently he
managed to get drunk again and forgot it.
On the slender shoulders of Wing o’ the Crow, then, had descended in
violence one catastrophe after another. Her father was incapacitated,
and she was in charge of the work as well as cook and dishwasher for
the outfit. Halfaman had been arrested on suspicion of highway robbery
and the killing of a man. On her hands he had left extra stock to be
cared for, with no one to do it or to work them and make them earn
their keep. Her friend, Manzanita, and The Falcon were fugitives in the
mountains. Then the storm had swooped down and devastated the camp. And
Wing o’ the Crow was only a girl of twenty-two.
Nevertheless the tents were up again, and everything was put to rights.
Out on the job the few men at her command were following the teams,
with the most dependable one among them acting as foreman. Stolidly the
girl cooked for them, fed and watered the extra teams, and then went
out to help with the dirt moving, dully wondering if ever there would
be an end to her calamities.
Then the tide of her fortunes suddenly began to change.
To this wonderful little black-eyed girl at noon came Fred Glenn,
sheriff, with three deputies, on horseback.
“You Miss Crow, ma’am?” he asked kindly.
“Miss Jeddo,” she corrected, standing in the door of the cook tent, for
she was cleaning up after the noonday meal.
“Yes--that’s right. I got it wrong. Here’s a note for ye, ma’am.”
“Who from?”
“Daisy.”
The envelope was dirty and not addressed. She tore it across the end
and removed a dirtier piece of paper. She read:
Wing o’ the Crow,
Care Jeddo Daisy and Jeddo contracters
beloved--
Each little itum is jake wingo and I will be back in no time Ask
the Sheriff if that aint so. Then we will knock them in the colar
together hey wingo. You and me and some more old stifs. Im sending
you some stifs--put them on those new teems and feed them wel.
Phinehas Daisy Vise President
Your Devoted Phinehas
She looked up at the wizened little sheriff. “Is it Jake?” she asked.
“Yes,” the sheriff returned. “He’ll be out soon; maybe to-morrow.”
She lowered her long black lashes. “Much obliged,” she said.
The sheriff flipped a finger at his hat brim, and rode on up the line.
An hour later Wing o’ the Crow was out in the borrow pit, driving a
slip team, dully watching a six-horse freighter making it in from
Opaco, when seven men came walking down the line. They stopped and
surveyed the work, then one approached her.
“Hello, Wing o’ the Crow,” he ventured, grinning.
“Hello,” she returned.
“D’youse know me?”
“I don’t think I do.”
“I seen youse lots o’ times. I been on jobs wid youse in Kansas an’
Colorado.”
“Oh!”
“How’s chances?”
“Chances fer what?”
“To go to woik. Dere’s seven of us. We rambled out wid Demarest, Spruce
& Tillou’s outfit. In Opaco I see old Halfaman Daisy in de hoosegow,
an’ he says he’s gonta be out in a day er so, and dat dere was a
mistake, and everyt’ing like that--see? He could come right now if he
wanted to. De door of his cell was unlocked. He’s nuts! And he says
he’s got some new teams, an’ he said fer me to get some o’ de plugs and
go to woik fer youse folks. Said he was pardners wid youse an’ Jeddo de
Crow now; and he wanted me to get some reg’lar stiffs an’ help youse
out. I know Halfaman dese many years, an’ I says I’ll take a shot at
’er. Dere’s six o’ my pals wid me--all good plugs--all skinners.”
“Not stiffs! Reg’lar stiffs?”
“Yeah--sure. Ol’-timers. Dey all savvy Halfaman. He’s one good scout.
A plug likes to see a stiff like Halfaman get started wid an outfit of
his own, so we said we’d help um out a little.”
“Well, my goodness! Stiffs never work for us. Look at the bunch o’
hicks we got! Sure you’re not kiddin’ me?”
“Lead us to Jack an’ Ned. An’ Halfaman says fer youse to let me boss de
job till he gets here and fer youse to go read yer hist’ry in de camp
wagon and leave outside t’ings to me. I’m Schmitty--Paprika Schmitty.”
“Paprika Schmitty!” she cried. “Why--why you’ve been bossman for big
outfits! I know about you. You ain’t got any business here.”
“Lead us to Jack an’ Ned,” Schmitty persisted.
Ten minutes later seven of the ten young mule teams were heaving into
the collars, each team with an apparently lounging stiff in rear of it.
In the snap of one’s finger almost results were being doubled, and
with a light heart Wing o’ the Crow ran to the cook tent and plunged
into a rearrangement of her plans for the evening meal.
* * * * *
Late that evening a deputy of Sheriff Glenn rode into Squawtooth on a
tired horse.
Blacky Silk and Kid Strickland had seen the little posse riding toward
Stlingbloke and had grown suspicious. They had promptly mounted fresh
horses and escaped in the direction of Death Valley. The sheriff and
the other two deputies were trailing them as best they could, and the
rider to Squawtooth had come to notify Barstow and Dagget to be on the
lookout for the escapes.
Shortly before this Squawtooth and his party, not so large now as at
first, had returned from the day’s fruitless search. Demarest and
Spruce had driven on to their new camp, but the former had promised to
drop in at the ranch in his frequent comings and goings back and forth
to see if he could be of any service.
Squawtooth was discouraged. Now that the sheriff had assured him
of Falcon the Flunky’s innocence, he was ready to make almost any
concession to get back his daughter. But no opportunity had been
offered him. His great fear was that the two had managed to get
entirely out of the country, perhaps by crossing the mountains over
obscure trails to the coast side, and that by now they were married.
Try though he did, he somehow could not believe the young man to be one
who would harm his daughter. No, whatever he might be, he was not that
kind. Not long before this, under the stress of his great tribulation,
the cattle king had been ready to accuse the flunky of any crime. But
his brain had been overheated then, and he had not been responsible.
Now he was reasoning calmly, and finally decided that, if it proved
to be the price of getting his daughter back, he even would consent
to a marriage, no matter if his ambitious plans for her were entirely
smashed. He loved her more than all the wealth in the world. Nothing
else really mattered. Yes, he would sacrifice everything, pride, money,
prestige, to be able to hold her in his arms again and know that she
was safe. What a fool he had been!
Next morning they continued the search, but now the party was composed
only of such Squawtooth vaqueros as could be spared from working the
cows, and a few neighbors whose own business was not pressing--fifteen
in all, counting the cattleman and Mart.
All day the search was continued, over country which had virtually been
combed before. But night came again, and the searchers knew no more
than when they had set out in the morning. And Mrs. Ehrhart reported
that no word had come from towns on the inside, whose authorities had
been asked to look out for the missing pair.
Webster Canby went to bed to a sleepless night, but was in the saddle
again at the head of his men at six o’clock.