Later Pat O’Neill did not whistle, though he still rode in haste. The
afternoon was older than he had suspected when he rode up out of Bad
Cañon and across the high grazing ground that lay between his fishing
place and Lodgepole Basin. He had a plan which he felt would work
beautifully, if only he had time for it; but now with the sinking of
the sun, he was not so sure. A great deal depended upon his horse, and
he had not spared the animal in his roundabout ride to cut the
homeward trail of Peterson and his men.
“First, I must be sure that Boyce’s steers are safe,” he decided, and
crossed Limestone Creek with a splash and a clatter of hoofs on the
stones. “It’s a new range the Bar B cattle are on, and if I can read
the mind of cow brutes, they have traveled as far down the creek as
they can go. They will not be satisfied to stay at the upper end of
the bottom where the grass is quite as good, but must range farther in
the vain hope of finding range that pleases them better. At any rate,
it’s worth the gamble.”
As he opened the wire gate in the drift fence which separated Drew’s
range from Boyce’s on Castle Creek just above its junction with
Limestone, the parklike basin was dusky with the coming of night, but
as he led his horse through, closed the gate and remounted, a steer
snorted dew from its nostrils not far away. O’Neill turned and rode
that way, peering down satisfiedly at the dark forms of the Bar B beef
steers bedded down on a rise of ground just back from the creek and
the mosquitoes and close to the fence.
“What did I tell you, Morenci? Now, rout them up and we’ll haze them
on down the fence toward Picket Pin. If it’s through a fence they want
to travel, they may try the other side of the fence on Picket Pin and
welcome—and the farther they drift, the safer they’ll be, though it
will make more work for the Bar B riders.”
When he had finished that job and the Bar B steers were plodding in
the dark to find another bed ground on Picket Pin, Patrick O’Neill
cautiously lighted a match in the crown of his hat and looked at his
watch.
“Eight o’clock and our work only begun! Get away from here, Morenci,
and show the stuff that’s in you!” And striking into a cow path that
wound through thickets of aspen and across little open glades, he
pelted away up Castle Creek to the steep trail where the rim rock
broke down in a great slide of boulders on the divide between Myers
Creek and Castle.
When he reached Lodgepole Basin, his watch said ten o’clock and Ranger
O’Neill had a deep crease between his eyebrows, for Morenci was wet to
his ears—and that not from splashing through creeks, though he had
crossed two—and there were more cattle to be moved.
But these were Peterson’s and Ranger O’Neill was not so gentle. Across
Lodgepole Basin, he galloped, to where a hundred head or more of Box S
cattle ranged happily enough and had for their bed ground a knoll not
far from Squaw Gulch, which was not very distant from the Myers Creek
divide. For the Stillwater Forest Reserve, you must know, is a network
of streams and their cañons, once you are back in the hills.
So Ranger O’Neill made a hasty gathering of Peterson’s cattle and
hazed them along at a lumbering gallop to the fenced gap in the rim
rock and so down into the Castle Creek pasture which was leased to
Boyce. Just for good measure he rode after them and threw a hastily
gathered rock or two, and the cattle went down the creek as if a full
crew rode hard at their heels.
Ranger O’Neill pulled up and listened until the last sound of whipping
brush and the clicking of cloven feet against the rocks had died to
silence. The cattle were tired after that headlong drive up Myers
Creek to the rim. It had been steep in places and only the manner in
which he had rushed them along had held them to the trail. Morenci was
standing with his feet slightly braced—the mark of a tired horse—and
his flanks palpitating with exhaustion. O’Neill listened while the
horse caught his wind, then suddenly he leaned forward and gave the
reeking neck a grateful slap.
“Not a dozen horses in the district could have done it, and that’s the
truth, Morenci!” Then he fell silent, though his thoughts went on
quite as definitely as if he were actually speaking them.
“No sound of riders down below there, so the cattle will quiet down
before Peterson comes for them—he chooses late hours for his stealing,
thank the Lord! So now let him steal his own stock, though what he’ll
think or what he’ll say when he sees their brands in the morning, I
sure would like to know. I’d like to go and collect a bit of gratitude
from Queen Isabelle and the Honorable Standish Boyce for this night’s
work, but that will have to wait until Thursday, for I’m due at Blind
Bridger to-morrow. But when I do see her, she will admit I’m doing
much to promote peace and quiet along the Stillwater, I’m thinking.”
Wherefore Ranger Patrick O’Neill was a contented young man although a
weary one as he rode home under the cool stars of midnight. Morenci
got an extra rubdown as well as his supper before O’Neill went away to
the cabin to fill his own empty stomach. The fish he had caught were
far past their fresh toothsomeness and he threw them away and dined
upon what happened to stand ready cooked in the cupboard. But it was a
good night’s work and he grinned over it frequently.
“Murray would appreciate that!” O’Neill chuckled, as he pulled off his
boot. He was thinking of Peterson’s slack-jawed amazement when he
recognized the cattle he had stolen away from Castle Creek that night.
The ranger’s last thought as he put his head on the pillow was of the
peppery Bar B owner and his probable mystification when he found his
beef herd over on the Picket Pin. Some one would catch a tongue
lashing, O’Neill suspected.
“But I’ll ride over and tell him about it before he has time to
discover the change of pasture,” he comforted himself. “Peterson was
counting on a week or so before the rustling would be suspected, and
I’ll see Boyce before then. And Isabelle,” he added sleepily, and then
began to dream of all that he would have to say.