THE IMMORTAL TEN
Jimmie Welsh threw his hand into the discard and grinned sheepishly.
"Yuh got me this time," he said.
Billy Speaker, who held a full house, kings up, smiled pleasantly.
"I allow yuh'll have to put yore gun in the next pot if you want to stick
along," he said. "An' if yuh do I'll win it off yuh and get away from
here."
"No," said Jimmie regretfully, "if it was any other time I might resk it,
but not now."
Red Tarken, who had been shuffling the single greasy pack of cards, began
to deal. In the game beside these three were two more sheepmen and another
cattle-raiser.
The six sat in the shade of a huge bowlder that had broken off and rolled
down the side of the red scoria butte. The game had been going on for
hours, and captors and captives alike played with all the cowboys' fervent
love of gambling. Tarken, Speaker, and their companion were free to move
as they liked, but were on parole not to try to overpower their
guardians.
Others of the eleven owners sat about in the shade of rocks, playing
cards, or talking and doing their best to pass away the time. It was a
strange gathering. Only one man remained sitting by himself with bent head
and his hands bound behind him. This was Beef Bissell, the cattle-king,
who had steadfastly refused to give his word to remain peaceable, and
fumed his life away hour after hour with vain threats and recriminations.
At either end of the small inclosure that backed against the butte, two
men with Winchesters in their hands bestrode motionless horses.
This perpetual guard, kept night and day, though invisible from all but
one small point, was the only sign that there was anything but the
kindliest relations among all the members of the party.
When the cowmen had found that no personal harm was to be done them, all
but Bissell and one other had resigned themselves to making the best of a
laughably humiliating situation. It was Billy Speaker himself who had
suggested the idea of the paroles, and as Jimmie Welsh knew the word of a
Westerner was as good as his bond, the pact was soon consummated.
It was a remarkable formation in a desolate spot that the sheepmen had
taken for a prison. It is a common fact that on many of these high buttes
and mesas the pitiless weather of ages has chiseled figures, faces, and
forms which, in their monstrous grotesquery, suggest the discarded clay
modelings of a half-witted giant.
This place was a kind of indentation in the side of a precipitous butte,
above which the cliff (if it may be so called) arched over part way like a
canopy. The floor was of rock and lower than the plain, but over it were
scattered huge blocks of stone that had fallen from above. Other stones
had, in the course of time, made a sort of breastwork about this level
flooring so that the retreat was both a refuge and a defense.
Better even than its construction was its situation. This particular spot
was a corner of real "bad lands," and lumpy ridges, hogbacks, and barren
buttes arose on all sides like waves in a sea. So numerous were they that
unless riders passed directly by the sheepmen's hiding place the chances
of discovery were almost nil. At one spot only was it visible, and that
was a place where the edges of two hogbacks failed to lap and hide it.
The sheepmen were aware of this, and their two guards were placed out of
range of that single opening. The distance to it was almost half a mile.
The game of poker went on. Billy Speaker sat with his back to this
opening, and after a while, in the natural progress of things, the sun
crept over the top of the rock and smote him. It was a hot sun, although
it was declining, and presently Billy gave warning that he was about to
take off his coat.
When he did so without an alarming display of hidden weapons, the fancy
suspenders he wore came in for considerable attention. Now cowmen or
cowboys almost never wore braces; either their trousers were tight enough
at the waist to stay up, or they wore a leather strap to hold them.
Suspenders hampered an active man.
But Billy Speaker, who had originally come from Connecticut fifteen years
ago, wore these braces and treasured them because his mother had given
much light from her aging eyes and many stitches from her faltering needle
to the embroidery that traveled up and down both shoulder straps. She had
embroidered everything he could wear time and again, and at last had
fallen back on the braces as something new.
After free and highly critical comment regarding this particular aid to
propriety, the game was permitted to go on. It happened to be Billy
Speaker's lucky day, and he had nearly cleaned the entire six of all their
money and part of their outfits. In the exhilaration of raking in his
gains he moved about really lively, forgetful of the brilliantly polished
nickel-plated buckles that decorated his shoulder-blades and denoted the
height to which his nether garment had been hoisted.
Out in the bad lands a troop of horsemen moved slowly forward, detached
bodies scouring the innumerable hogbacks for signs of their prey. There
were a few more than a hundred in this body, and it represented the pick
of ten ranches. At the head of it rode a stolid, heavy-faced man, who
appeared as though he were in constant need of a shave, and whose features
just now were drawn down into a scowl of thought and perplexity.
This man's body remained quite motionless as his horse plodded on with
hanging head, but his small black eyes darted from side to side
ceaselessly.
It was in one of these quick glances that he experienced a blinding flash
upon his retina. A second later it occurred again, and then a third time.
Suspiciously the man drew his horse to a stand, and those behind him did
likewise.
Stelton thought for a moment that there must have been an outbreak from
the near-by Wind River or Shoshone Reservation, and that the Indians were
heliographing to one another. Presently, in an open space between the
edges of two buttes he caught the flash close to the ground.
It probably was a tin can left by a herder--they often flashed that
way--but he would prove it before he went on. He took from their case the
pair of field-glasses that swung from his shoulder and raised them to his
eyes.
What he saw caused him to swear excitedly and order the company to back
out of sight.
At the same instant Jimmie Welsh, holding a straight flush, looked up
triumphantly at Billy Speaker who had just raised him. He looked over
Billy's shoulder and the smile froze on his face. He continued to look,
and the cards dropped one by one out of his hand. Then his face became
stern and he jumped to his feet.
"No more of this," he ordered. "We're discovered. You fellows get back out
of sight," he added to the cowmen. "Here, Harry, Bill, Chuck, search
these fellers again an' see they ain't got nothin' in their shoes."
"What ails yuh, Jimmie? Are yuh locoed?" asked a man who had not
understood the sudden change in Welsh.
"I plenty wish I was," came the reply, "but I ain't. We've been
discovered, an' we've got to fight. I don't know how many there was in the
other party, but I 'low we ain't in it noways. Red an' Plug, you take yore
horses round the butte to where the others are tethered, an' help Jimmie
and Newt bring in them casks o' water. They ought to be back from the
spring by this time. Tip, Lem, and Jack, help me put our friends here in
the most-sheltered places."
In a moment the camp that had been sleepy and placid was bustling with a
silent, grim activity. From secret places men produced Winchesters,
revolvers, and knives, if they carried them. In half an hour all the food
had been brought in, and the casks of water laboriously filled at a
brackish pool five miles away.
"That flush excited yuh so you seen a mirage, Jimmie," bantered Speaker,
whose ready wit and genial manner had won their way into the sheepman's
affection.
"I hope so," was the curt response. But Welsh had seen no mirage, and he
was aware of the fact, knowing that a council of war was delaying the
action of the other party.
His chief concern was the disposal of his prisoners. Excepting for the
first line of breastworks, the only protection in the flat area of the
camp was derived from the masses of stone that had fallen into it, and
behind which one or two men could hide. At last it was decided that the
prisoners, unarmed as they were, should lie down behind the wall out of
danger's way, while the sheepmen should take their chances behind the
rocks. Another reason for this was, that it would never do to have the
prisoners behind the men who were doing the fighting, ready to attack from
the rear at first chance.
Each man had fifty rounds of ammunition, and was a fairly good shot, not,
of course, equaling the cowboys in this respect. The prisoners had hardly
been placed when, from behind a neighboring hogback, rode a man waving a
white handkerchief.
Welsh stepped out of the camp and drove him back before he could talk,
realizing the fellow's clever idea of spying on the defenders' position.
The cowboy had little to say except to demand the immediate surrender of
the cattle-owners and the delivery up to court martial of half the
sheepmen. Jimmie laughed in the messenger's face, and told him to tell
whoever was boss of that outfit to come and take anything he wanted, and
to come well heeled.
Then he went back to the rocky camp and stood his men up in a row.
"We got to keep our guests another week yet, boys," he said. "Mr. Larkin
won't be up the range till that time, and our job is to keep them cowboys
occupied so as to hold the range open for the sheep. Now anybody what
don't want to take chances with lead can go from here now and get hung by
the punchers. If there's many of 'em I allow we won't see Montana ag'in
till we're angels; if there ain't, they won't see the Bar T. Now that's
the story. One other thing.
"Our guests are out in front. If yuh see any of 'em actin' funny or tryin'
to get away, put a hole in 'em an' end that right off. Hear that, boys?"
he yelled to the cowmen who were on the ground behind the defense.
"Yep," they shouted, and continued to chaff one another unmercifully in
the greatest good-humor.
The old story states that the Spartans prepared for the battle of
Thermopylae by oiling their bodies and brushing their hair, much to the
surprise of the Persians, who were forever wailing to their gods. This
story has come down to us to illustrate solid, supreme courage in the face
of certain death.
No less inspiring, though in a different way, was the preparation of
Jimmie Welsh and his nine sheepmen. They cracked jokes on the situation,
reminded one another of certain private weaknesses under fire, recalled
famous range yarns, and enumerated the several hundred things that were
going to happen to the enemy during the next few hours.
In all this banter the cowmen joined with their own well-flavored wit.
These facts have been given to show the natures of these men who made the
West; who carved, unasked, an empire for the profit of us who live now,
and who, in a space of less than forty years, practically passed from the
face of the earth. Trained by their environment, they finally conquered it
and left it to a more-civilized if softer generation.
At four o'clock of that afternoon came the first attack.
Stelton and his men were under a great disadvantage. In front of the
sheepmen's defense was a little plain some three hundred yards across
which was bare of any protection. The canopy of rock that overshadowed the
camp prevented attack from above or behind. There was nothing for it but
an onslaught in the face of a deadly fire.
Suddenly from around the butte that faced the camp poured the charge of
the cowboys. Instantly they scattered wide, adopting the circling Indian
mode of attack. On they raced to a distance of a hundred, then fifty
yards.
Then, as though by preconcerted word, the Winchesters of both parties
spoke, and the cowboys, turning at a sharp angle, galloped off out of
range with one riderless horse, and two men, clinging, desperately
wounded, to their pommels.
Jack Norton, one of the sheepmen, who had exposed himself for a better
shot, dropped dead where he stood.
Now there was no word spoken. The helpless cowmen huddled against the wall
while the hail of bullets swept over them in both directions, cursed
softly to themselves, and smoked cigarettes. The punchers, having learned
the lay of the land, drew off for consultation. Half of them were
dispatched around the butte that protected the defenders and the plan of
attack was changed.
On signal, the parties from both sides charged along the face of the butte
toward each other, this movement being calculated to bring them out close
to the enclosure without the danger of an attack in front, and at the same
time give them the chance to fire upon the sheepmen from a destructive
angle at either side.
The maneuver resulted in concentrating the fire within a zone of
twenty-five yards, and it was fire so murderous that, before the cowboys
could get out of range, ten were dead or wounded, while two of the
sheepmen were killed outright and a third was disabled and rolled out into
the sun to writhe in agony until his pal ran from cover and dragged him
back.
The result was now a foregone conclusion, for the cowboys had solved the
difficult problem of attack. Mushrooming out on either side at a distance
of three hundred yards, they formed again in the shelter on either side
and charged once more.
The wounded man, hearing the drumming of hoofs, seized his revolver,
rolled out into the sun, and sat up on the ground. And from this position
he emptied his gun at the yelling cowboys until another shot put him out
of his misery.
More cowboys fell, and now, in front of the stone breastworks, a dozen
bodies lay, some twitching, and others still. The number of the defenders
was reduced to five capable of holding and using a weapon, for such
marksmen were the punchers that, if they did not kill outright, their
bullets inflicted mortal wounds.
Jimmie Welsh was undisturbed and unhurt. He and Newt were sheltered behind
one rock, while Tip and Lem defended another, and Chuck Durstine held a
third by the side of his dead partner, Red. The fourth charge found them
lying on the ground, contrary to their former practice of standing, and
they escaped unhurt, although their ability to shoot the mounted punchers
above the wall was not diminished. Again they wrought terrible havoc.
"I sure wish I could've cleaned up on that straight flush, Billy,"
remarked Jimmie Welsh to Speaker.
"So do I, Jimmie," returned the other; "yore bad luck was just breakin'.
But, look here. Suppose you fellers quit this business now. I don't relish
yore all bein' slaughtered this-a-way, and it's shore a comin' to yuh if
yuh don't quit."
"Yuh talk like a Sunday-school class had stampeded on yuh, Billy. I'm
surprised!" gibed Welsh. "Mebbe yuh don't like yore flowery bed of ease
out there, what?"
"All horsin' aside, I mean it," insisted Speaker. "Yuh better quit now
before they come ag'in."
"Yeah, an' get strung up to the nearest tree fer my pains, eh? Oh, no; I
like this better; but, of course, if any o' the boys--"
"Naw! What the deuce are yuh talkin' about?" demanded an aggrieved voice,
instantly joined by the other three.
"You're wrong, Jimmie; of course, I don't mean that. If yuh'll quit I'll
see that yuh don't get strung up."
"You're shore some friendly, Billy," said Jimmie, shaking his head; "but I
couldn't never look my boss in the face if I even thought o' quittin'.
That ain't what he pays me fer."
"I'll give yuh a job as foreman on the Circle Arrow. I see one of you
hellions got my foreman; he's layin' out there kickin' still. What d'ye
say?"
"I'm plumb regretful, Billy," returned Welsh, without hesitation; "but I
can't do it. Mebbe one o' the boys--"
"Naw!" said the boys in unified contempt.
"Well, yuh pig-headed sons o' misery, go on an' die, then!" cried
Speaker, quite out of patience.
"Jest a minute an' we'll oblige yuh, Billy," rejoined Welsh, as the
dreaded drumming of hoofs foretold the next charge.
There was a tense moment of waiting, and then the fusillade began again,
pitifully weak from the sheepmen. When the horsemen had whirled out of
sight Lem and Newt lay groaning on the ground, while Tip O'Niell lay
strangling in a torrent of blood that rushed from what had once been his
face.
Welsh took one look at the tortured man, and with a crack over the head
from the butt of his pistol, rendered him unconscious and stilled his
blood-curdling agonies. Then he walked over to the cowmen.
"Anybody got the makin's?" he asked. "One o' them punchers spilt mine out
o' my pocket last time."
Nonchalantly he showed the clean rent on the left side of his flannel
shirt, just over his heart, where his pocket had been.
Somebody handed up the paper and tobacco, and he rolled a cigarette,
tossing the materials back to Chuck Durstine, who sauntered up, examining
his gun curiously.
Durstine, from his appearance, had no right to be alive. His cheek bled
where a bullet had grazed him, his left arm was scratched, and there were
three holes in his clothes. His revolver was so hot he could hardly hold
it.
When they had finished their smoke they started back to their shelter, the
middle rock of the enclosure.
"Well, good-by, boys," said Jimmie. "I allow it's pretty near my turn an'
Chuck's."
"Good-by!" came the chorus from the owners, all of whom had pleaded
steadily with the two to give up the unequal struggle. These men were hard
and brave men, and they appreciated genuine grit as nothing else in the
world, for it was a great factor in their own make-up.
"I'll tell yuh this, Jimmie," called out Beef Bissell, whose conceptions
had been undergoing a radical change for the last two hours, "if you an'
Chuck are sheepmen, I take off my hat to yuh, that's all! I never seen
better fighters anywhere."
"Yuh ought to see us when we ain't dry-nursin' a dozen cattle-owners,"
retorted Welsh, amid a great guffaw of laughter.
Suddenly again sounded the roar of the galloping horses.
"Well, so-long, boys!" yelled Chuck, his voice barely audible.
"So-long."
The chorused response was cut short by the spitting of weapons. Chuck
faced to the left, Welsh to the right. Both pumped two guns as fast as
they could. Presently Chuck dropped one and leaned against the rock, his
face distorted, but the other gun going. Jimmie felt a stab of fire, and
found his weight all resting on one foot. Dropping their pistols, they
drew others from holsters and fought on.
A bullet furrowed Chuck's scalp, and the blood blinded him so that he
could not shoot. He stepped out from behind the rock, "fanning" one gun
and clearing his eyes with the other hand. Three bullets hit him at once,
and he dropped dead, firing three shots before he reached the ground.
He had scarcely fallen when Welsh's other leg and both arms were broken,
and he tumbled in a heap just as the last of the charging cowboys swept
past. When they had gone there was a moment's silence. Then:
"Hello, anybody!" called Speaker.
There was a pause.
"Hello!" came a muffled voice. "Come an' git me. I cain't fight no more."
And with a great shout the owner of the Circle Arrow outfit ran to where
Jimmie Welsh, the indomitable, lay helpless, disabled by six bullets, but
still full of fight.
"Stick me up on that wall, Billy," he said faintly, "an' put a gun in each
hand. I can't shoot 'em, but them punchers'll think I can and finish me."
"You go to Hell!" remarked Speaker joyfully.
"Don't call yore ranch names," admonished Jimmie with a grin, and fainted.