As the valley of the Stillwater River—so named because of its
swiftness—approaches the high Rockies, it is divided into many
sections by the streams that go rushing down to join the larger river;
so that the valley resembles a giant hand with outstretched fingers
pointing toward the higher peaks to the westward.
Each branch bears a name which grew out of its most conspicuous
characteristic, and little timber grows in the valley but crowds close
to the base of the mountains. So the broad plateaus that lie between
the tributaries of the Stillwater make wonderful grazing ground, while
the creeks running down the cañons are bordered with willows and
quaking aspen groves that give shelter to the cattle and horses that
tread down the trails from higher ground to water.
Before the national forest reserve brought this fine cattle country
under its supervision and allotted to each settler certain
well-defined grazing grounds for which he must pay an annual fee based
upon the number of animals which feed thereon, Stillwater Valley saw
many a range battle waged between rival ranchers. Now that the
national forest service held all the range—or at least the best of it
next the mountains—the fight went much the same, except that the
policing of the forest injected a new factor into the struggle.
Isabelle Boyce was right, and Ranger Cushman also summed up the
situation rather accurately. The stockmen were ready to fly at each
other’s throats for little cause, but they stood as one man against
the forest service.
“And it’s man by man that I must take them and make them see sense, if
I have to crowd it down the throats of them with my fist!” mused
Patrick O’Neill, as he reined his horse into the trail that led with
steep and devious turnings down into Bad Cañon, which he must cross in
order to reach Peterson’s home ranch.
“I’ll talk to him fair,” Pat promised himself. “No man shall ever say
that Ranger O’Neill rushed into a fight for the pure love of the
scrimmage, without first giving the enemy a chance to eat his words
and go in peace. I’ll first reason with the big bully—should it so
happen that I have time enough for that. Then if he comes at me—which
he will!—I’ll use the fists God gave me for the purpose, and drive my
meaning home to the point of his jaw.
“For to teach a dog new tricks you must first convince him that you’re
the master of him—and faith, I shall point that out to Queen Isabelle,
should some rumors of what is to take place to-day reach her before
next Thursday. They’ll likely be out riding, since it’s the round-up
time, and he’ll have his friends about him, so that none can say I
took an unfair advantage of the man.”
* * * * *
So, thinking piously of his duty to Peterson, he rode splashing into
Bad Cañon Creek. A mountain trout the length of his forearm slid from
under the very feet of his horse and, with one flip of his tail,
darted into the shadow of a still pool sheltered by a mossy boulder,
and Ranger O’Neill forgot the duty which brought him there and pulled
back to the gravelly bank, dismounting in haste. For fishing stood
close to fighting in his Irish heart, and there were other trout lying
like slaty, living shadows in the depth of that pool.
To cut a short, pliable willow row and take a white miller from the
fine assortment of flies hooked into his hatband was the work of two
minutes, with another spent in unwinding trout line and leader from a
small card in his breast pocket, where he kept his book of cigarette
papers. Then O’Neill led his horse into the shade and tied him there
against wandering, pulled his hat low over his eyes to shield them
from whipping brush and sun glare alike, and stepped catwise to the
brink of the pool.
His tutelage of Peterson could wait, while the trout stream called to
the sporting blood of him. He got two trout from that small pool,
threaded their panting gills on a bit of line which he tied to his gun
belt—on the left side of him, since he was no fool after all—and began
fishing upstream, going stealthily from riffle to pool, oblivious to
all else for the time being, like all born anglers held entranced with
the whipping of a fly out over a mountain stream, skittering it above
the water to tempt the king of all wiliness from his dusky retreat
beneath a rock.
Any trout fisherman knows the lure of the next pool above, and the
next, and yet another. Patrick O’Neill crept warily upstream, parting
the bushes with care, landing each trout in silence and putting back
all but the largest of his catch. Just one more pool would he whip
before he turned back, he promised himself, and stole up to a
willow-bordered spot, where the slack water lay enticingly under a
high bank grown thick with bushes.
* * * * *
He stopped to reach forward, poised for the cast, then froze in his
tracks as some one beyond the bushes spoke his name. He turned his
head and stared upward, but could see nothing save the yellow-leaved
thicket.
“Aw, that damn ranger!” came Peterson’s drawling voice. “Forget him!
Plenty of time for gettin’ him outa the way. Now we’ll settle about
the cattle for Whiskers. When will he be through gatherin’ ’em?”
“We’re through now with the bunch I told yuh about,” the voice of
Little Bill made reply. “All you can git away with safe. They was
throwed in on Castle Creek yesterday. That’s the reason the old man’s
been keepin’ cattle outa Castle Creek, so the feed’ll be good to hold
his beef steers on till he gits ready to trail ’em out.”
“Somebody’ll stay with ’em, perhaps. Will you be the one, Bill?”
“Aw, they don’t need herdin’, Gus. The drift fence holds ’em from
crossin’ to Drew’s range and they won’t work back up over the ridge
the other way—not with the feed like it is in there. That’s the way
old Boyce figures on savin’ men’s wages. He’ll throw all the beef in
there fast as we gather, and make one drive out. I’m s’posed to be
huntin’ strays over here, Gus.”
Peterson grunted, and another voice which O’Neill did not recognize
spoke up, offering a few choice remarks on the subject of Boyce’s
stinginess. He was answered by yet another, and when Peterson spoke
again, a third man’s voice was raised in protest.
“If you take ’em up around Lodgepole Basin and across Squaw Gulch and
that way—why, hell! You might just as well ride up to Boyce and tell
’em you got his steers—and what’ll he do to yuh! He’s goin’ to miss
the bunch first time any one rides to Castle Creek, an’ a blind man
could foller their trail.
“Now, what yuh want to do is take ’em out on Drew’s range, on
Limestone. We can break the drift fence there and make it look like
the cattle done it, and take the bunch out that way, on Drew’s range,
and haze some of Drew’s cattle back through the fence onto Castle
Creek. That way, old Boyce won’t miss his cattle for a week, maybe.
Neither will Drew, because he ain’t half through with his round-up
yet. When they’re ready to make their drive out, it’ll look like the
cattle got mixed up, is all. And if Boyce don’t find his steers over
on Drew’s range, let ’em lock horns over it if they want to! They’re
always fighting, anyway, over the line or some darn thing.
“That way, there ain’t any mysterious tracks across Myers Creek and up
Squaw Gulch way, and it’s about as close to where you want to hold
’em, Gus. Time the brands is healed and you get ’em down outa that
high basin, winter’ll be on and you’re dead safe. You’ll make a late
drive this year with your beef, that’s all, and you’ll have all Box S
brands—see? If that damn O’Neill don’t go prowling around up there-”
“Aw, what’s goin’ to take him up there? That basin is hemmed in on all
sides with young lodgepole pines, and the chances are he don’t even
know it’s there. Yeah, that scheme oughta work fine, Gus. We’ll see
yuh as far as the hideout, for five dollars a head, and from then on
you’ll have to handle it alone.”
“You fellows should help change the brands, too, for five dollars,”
Peterson objected. “A five-spot just for drivin’ the cattle is too
much. I won’t pay five dollars for just to-night’s work.”
* * * * *
While they wrangled over the money, Patrick O’Neill went down the
creek to where his horse was tied, mounted and urged the animal across
the creek and up the farther side of the cañon, taking a trail that
led sharply away from his objective, which was the trail up from Bad
Cañon to the Box S Ranch. He wanted very much to see the three men
whose voices he failed to recognize.
Little Bill and Peterson, the ranger could swear to, if it came to a
court trial for cattle stealing, but he would feel much easier in his
mind if he had the added evidence of meeting the group riding up the
cañon where he had heard them planning the details of the crime.
Morenci, the horse, was sweating to his ears when O’Neill finally
reached the trail he wanted and loped along it to Bad Cañon. The
detour had been made in record time, but even so he was too late, as
he was forced to admit when he rode down to the creek at the point
where he had heard the discussion, and found the men gone. A
windowless log hut set back from the creek bank beyond the willow
thicket had been their meeting place, he discovered. There were signs
enough of their presence—cigarette stubs on the dirt floor, burned
matches, boot tracks, while farther back from the creek he found the
place where they had tied their horses.
“They went down the creek, and I missed them entirely,” he decided
ruefully, at last. “Rode straight away from them as if the devil was
after me, when all I had to do was stop where I was, at the creek with
my fishing tackle, and they’d have been atop of me before they knew I
was there—and me with the best and most peaceful excuse any man could
want! Pat, me lad, you should be well booted for that blunder!”
That night they would make the drive, they had said. They were wise to
hurry the job, since there was little time to spare before the winter
snows would send the stolen herd down from the high basin; and the
altered brands would take some time to heal so that the theft would
not be apparent. Furthermore, it was only a matter of days until Boyce
or Drew would discover the broken drift fence and begin to search for
strayed cattle.
Ranger O’Neill rode with a cigarette gone cold from neglect between
his lips while he pondered the best manner of protecting Boyce. He
could ride to the Bar B and warn them——
“But what if those strange men are Bar B riders?” he argued the point
with himself. “Or what if Boyce is not at home, or more likely starts
his tongue wagging at me and stirs the Irish before I get out the
news? I’d ride away and let Peterson put through the steal—if Boyce
makes me mad enough. And the time is short for a ride to the Bar B and
back again to Castle Creek soon enough to stop them.
“Morenci, you’ve the mark of a good cow pony in the way you handle
yourself on range inspection, and if you work fast enough, I’m
thinking we can handle this little matter alone; though it’s little
encouragement I’ve lately received for playing the patron saint to old
Boyce. Still, there’s a way to work it that appeals to my sense of
humor, and it’s that we’re going to do. So shake a leg, Morenci!
You’ve a lot of violent exercise between you and your feed box
to-night.”
And Patrick O’Neill, for the first time that day, whistled under his
breath, as he galloped, to show how content he was with his mission.