A MAN IN THE CORRAL
At nine o’clock that evening the boys started for home. Roy had
half-heartedly suggested leaving earlier, but he was overruled. So it
was not until the moon was well above the horizon that the two young
ranchers got away. Belle was to stay at the 8 X 8 for a few days, after
which Roy and Teddy were to come for her.
Good-byes were said, and the boys started. As the car rolled toward
home, Teddy, who was driving, sang softly under his breath. Roy was
content to sit quietly and observe the splendor of the prairie night.
The white moonlight painted the ground with an almost phosphorescent
glow. On either side of the road quakermasts reared their heads, like
tall, gaunt giants. Now and then would come the cry of some animal in
the distance, weirdly human. The hills ahead seemed to be crouched in
attitudes of slumber.
Teddy squirmed in his seat.
“Itch,” he declared briefly, as Roy looked at him. “Flea, maybe.”
“Good heavens!” Roy groaned. “On a night like this, you talk about
itches and fleas! Man! where is your appreciation?”
“My what? Oh, my appreciation. Got it sewed up in my pocket, where I
won’t lose it. Say, Roy, you reckon that bunch that vamoosed from Hawley
will really start something?”
“Hope not.” A frown crossed the boy’s face. “You know what a cattle war
means in this country. Well, it seems to me those birds are laboring
under the impression that they have something on us, and they think it’s
all right to injure dad if that will square their account with the X Bar
X. Doesn’t make any difference to them that they’re outlaws. They figure
the country owes them a living, I guess, and they’ll take it by force if
they can’t get it for nothing.”
There was silence for a few moments before Teddy said slowly:
“They’re hanging around this section, and it’s up to us to watch out.
Forewarned is forearmed, you know. Golly! That moon is so bright I’ll
bet I could run without any glims. Look—” He switched off the
headlights for a moment. The road stretched before him like a silvered
path. Each rut and depression in it was clearly defined, so that Teddy
had no trouble in guiding the car.
“Better turn ’em on again,” Roy suggested, after a minute. “If the moon
should slide under a cloud you’d be ditched in a second. I wonder—”
Just at that moment the very thing Roy had anticipated came to pass. The
silvery glow was cut off as suddenly as a flashlight that is switched
out. The wind, blowing at a fair rate of speed, had tossed a cloud
between the prairie and the moon. Roy gave a yell.
“Jam on the brakes! Never mind the lights! Stop!”
Teddy obeyed, and with a screeching of brakebands the car came to a
halt. Then Teddy threw the lights on once more. The front of the car was
nearly off the road.
“Good thing the brakes held,” Teddy remarked, grinning.
“I’ll tell a maverick it is!” Roy retorted. “I suppose you just wanted
to try ’em out, hey? After this you’d better leave the lights on, unless
you want to haul this boiler out of a ditch.”
“Yes, sir!” Teddy answered, with mock humility. “Anything you say, sir.
We strive to please. Say—” He stopped and lowered his voice. “Listen!
You hear anything?” He reached forward and turned off the ignition
switch, killing the motor.
For a moment both boys sat in silence. The face of the moon was still
clouded, so that darkness surrounded them. Then, in the distance, the
boys heard the sound of a horseman—clickety-click, clickety-click,
clickety-click—
“In a hurry,” Roy said wonderingly. “Seems to be coming this way, too.
Well—”
He hitched his left shoulder a trifle and brought his pistol forward.
Teddy did the same.
“Shall we wait?” Teddy asked, glancing back and striving to pierce the
blackness.
Roy shook his head.
“Let’s not. If he wants us, he knows where to find us. Though the
chances are it’s only one of the men from the 8 X 8. Anyway, it’s none
of our business. Come along—step on it!”
Teddy started the motor again, and the car proceeded. As the moon lit
the landscape with its beams once more, Roy turned and glanced back. But
the road curved just here, and he could see no rider. Also, they could
no longer hear the hoofbeats, which, if they were approaching, should
have become louder.
“That’s something else to worry about,” Teddy said, with a grin. “Funny
that we both took it for granted that whoever it was must be on _our_
trail! We seem to be getting sillier every day. At least I do. Like this
afternoon, when we had that snake scare.”
“Forget it,” Roy advised. “You were no worse than I was. I heard a
noise—and I would have sworn it was a side-winder. So we’re both in the
same boat.”
As they neared home, both boys were wondering about the rider they had
heard from afar. Neither would admit this, afraid of being accused of
nervousness, but, nevertheless, when they came in sight of the corral of
the X Bar X, they glanced cautiously about the place before riding in.
Teddy made a complete circle of the ranch yard, looking keenly about.
Roy did not remark on this strange behavior. As they neared the entrance
to the yard for the second time, Roy stretched and yawned.
“Let’s hit the hay,” he suggested, letting his arms drop to his sides.
“Suits me,” Teddy agreed. Then: “Kind of quiet here to-night; don’t you
think so, Roy?”
“What do you expect, a brass band?” his brother grinned. “Golly, Teddy,
you don’t mean to say it’s getting you, too?”
“Is what getting me?” the other countered, though he knew well enough
what Roy meant. He guided the car toward the garage. “What do you mean,
Roy?”
“That note,” his brother responded laconically. “And the horseman we
heard—but didn’t see. And the puncher who rides leaning to the left in
the saddle. And the whole blamed, silly business! How about it—am I
talking straight or shall I elucidate?”
Teddy climbed stiffly out of the driver’s seat and walked toward the
large doors of the auto shed. Halfway there he turned.
“I get you,” the boy said shortly. “Roy, you’re right. I’ve been
thinking. These things that are happening, though they seem small and
insignificant, all mean something. I’ll lay a bet on that.” He stopped
and mused for a moment. “It’s hard to explain, but I feel as though some
one or something were waiting around to sock me in the neck with a juicy
tomato when my back is turned. And I don’t like it, by jinks! I don’t
like it! Why don’t they start something? If the rustlers would show
their hand, we’d know what we were up against. But this waiting, without
knowing what for, is getting me sort of nervous, I don’t mind saying!”
He strode forward, and flung one of the doors shut savagely.
Roy was closing the other, and until the garage was closed and locked he
did not speak.
“You’re not the only one who feels that way,” he then said in a low
voice. “I’ve been thinking those things for the past two or three days.
And let me tell you something—dad has too. He may not say much, but
he’s worried all the same. He hasn’t quite gotten over the time we had
with that bunch of horse thieves only a little while ago, and he doesn’t
want it to happen again. That’s why he wanted more men to ride herd.
When he went to Eagles a few days ago, he toted a gun. You knew that?”
Teddy grunted affirmatively. The two boys walked toward the house.
“He didn’t have it on to-day, but maybe he took it off because he didn’t
want to worry mother,” Roy went on. “Dad knows there are a few men in
Eagles that wouldn’t cry if he disappeared in a sort of general way,
like being shot up. And he’s not going to give them a gun, butt
first—not if I know dad!”
Teddy nodded. He recalled the look on his father’s face the other day in
the yard, as, with a savage gesture, he had thrown the mysterious note
to the ground.
“Dad certainly seems changed,” Teddy said slowly. At the steps, leading
to the porch of the house, the boys paused for a moment to take one last
look around. From the corral came the noise of restless horses, moving
about, rubbing against the bars, now and then neighing.
“Wonder what’s bothering them,” Roy said, more to himself than to Teddy.
“I suppose it’s just one of the nights when the cattle want to be
walking around instead of resting. I notice that happens mostly on
nights when the moon is full. Maybe that has something to do with it.
Jimminy, it sounds like a horse convention going on. There—that’s Star
whinnying—I could tell him a mile off. I got a good notion to—”
“Come on, hit the hay,” Teddy said, with a laugh. “You want to dream
about rustlers all night? You will, by jinks, if you don’t snap out of
it. Star’s all right. You don’t have to sing him a lullaby every time he
gets insomnia, you know. Let’s go. Put the hall light out, will you?”
The young ranchers ascended the stairs softly to their room. In little
more than five minutes both were ready for bed. Roy switched the light
off and crawled under the covers.
Out in the corral the horses still moved restlessly. The figure of a man
on foot, pressed against one of the far posts so as to be out of sight
from the house, seemed to annoy the ponies greatly.