Sagebrush, who had camped at the entrance of the cañon, listened
with hearty approval to Ramsay’s recital of the morning’s events.
His roar of laughter echoed back from the rocky walls and went
thundering away up toward the mesa.
“Durned if I’ve laughed so much since my ol’ woman run off!” he
exclaimed. “Shootin’s too good for that coyote Mesquite, anyhow.
He’ll run into jail to Meteorite, ’cause he’s wanted there for
robbin’ an Injun off the reservation last year. Yessir! That’s how
mean that pesky critter is. Done robbed an Injun squaw what had been
sellin’ beadwork to tourists on the trains.”
“Do you know those men he mentioned as the actual murderers?”
queried Ramsay.
“Nope. Never heard o’ Cholo Bill—most likely he’s a halfbreed
greaser, same’s that cuss Mendoza. Tom Emery’s different. He’s a bad
man, real bad. Got out o’ jail in Arizona two year back, murdered a
rancher in the White Mountains, and skipped out. I reckon there’s a
reward for him.”
“All right. You collect all the rewards—what I’m after is scalps.”
“That suits me, Perfesser. She goes as she lays. What’s the
program?”
Ramsay, having finished his breakfast, lighted his pipe and
considered.
“The thing to do, of course,” he said tentatively, “is to apprise
the nearest legal officers of conditions, get the sheriff to work,
and round up the gang.”
Sagebrush eyed him askance, in no little astonishment.
“Is that there your program, then?”
“No.” Ramsay’s blue eyes twinkled. “No, it isn’t. I only mentioned
it as the proper thing.”
“If we all done the proper thing, this would be a hell of a world,”
and Sagebrush sighed in relief. “I nominates that we light a shtick
out o’ yere, go over to that there Hourglass Cañon, and clean her
up. Everybody there is wanted, you betcha!. We don’t need no
warrants, nor no officers fussin’ around to see things is done
right.”
“Nomination seconded,” said Ramsay promptly. “How far is it from
here?”
“Hold on,” warned the desert rat. “This aint no picnic party,
Perfesser. We got to git busy ’fore Sidewinder gits busy, but
there’s no sense to rushin’ things. We can’t take no autybile over
there. We got to hike. Ground’s durned rocky and rough. Yessir!
We’re headin’ east on a rough and rocky road, and no mistake. That’s
one reason nobody aint never follered none o’ that gang to the
roost. Nobody much hint been along this yere range for ten or twelve
year—she’s got the repytation of havin’ petered out. You and me can
prob’ly git there sometime tonight, ease up the cañon, git the lay
of the land toward sunup, and git into action. Wipe out the hull
durned batch!”
Ramsay frowned. “That’s a trifle bloodthirsty, isn’t it? I want
those two murderers; if I can get ’em alive to stand trial, all
right. If not—”
“They’re all in the same kittle,” snapped Sagebrush. “Wipe ’em out!
Yessir! I’m riled. But no sense goin’ too fast. We got to see who’s
there and how many, and what things look like. That there cañon is
shaped like the figger X, and where the lines cross is a right
narrer gap. The back end is a box cañon, all right, with durned
steep walls and lots of timber. Only green spot this side o’ them
hills. Last time I was there was ten year back, when Chuck Martin
busted his whiffletree, and we rode over yere to find a new stick.
We had some liquor along them days, and Chuck he took a drap too
much and went to sleep in an ol’ shack, and when he woke up it was
dark, and they was a hull passel o’ ’phoby skunks holdin’ a
carnival, and Chuck busted up the dance ’fore he knowed what it was.
Gosh, I can smell him yet when I think of it. Yessir, ‘Look ’fore
you sleep’ is a dad-blamed good rule to foller in these ol’
shacks—and anywheres else too, I reckon. Well, I’ll git the packs
made up while you clean camp.”
The two men set to work. After the flivver was laid out of sight in
the clump of piñon trees and thorny mesquite, the loads were
assembled, and within twenty minutes the partners were on their way.
What with grub and blankets, rifle and water-bag, Ramsay had all the
weight to carry that he wanted, and he faced the prospect of a full
day in rocky desert ground with a grimace.
His expectations were entirely fulfllled. Sagebrush led the way,
skirting the high and precipitous mesa for a time and then striking
directly off toward the hills to the northeast. The abundance of
rocks showed Ramsay that no flivver could hope to cover this ground;
the snow had all vanished long since, and no trace of moisture
remained to mark its passing.
Fortunately for Ramsay, the old desert rat was used to the slow
burro pace, and shuffled along at a steady plodding gait which was
not difficult to sustain, and which ate up the distance slowly but
surely. To anyone not used to it, there was something terrible in
the thought of thus shuffling across the desert day in and day out
for years, eternally seeking the yellow dust; and yet men did it,
hundreds of them, and were not happy unless doing it.
Pat Ramsay faced the project which lay ahead of them, unblinking the
facts, and not shirking what was to be done. He now knew what before
he had only conjectured. Impossible as it seemed, he knew it to be
true. Here at this back door of civilization existed a number of men
whose business in life was robbery and if necessary murder—an
abnormal situation, to be handled with other than normal methods.
Ramsay was no innocent in the waste places. He knew that in these
vast stretches of desert country there existed strange things, that
in this apparently empty basin of forgotten seas there were still
unsolved problems and undiscovered wonders. If he was to go seeking
the men who had murdered his brother, he must put away all thought
of haling them before the bar of justice; the only justice which
obtained in the desert was that of the strong hand and the
inexorable requisitions of nature. If men offended the laws of
nature, a terrible punishment was exacted from them. If they
offended the laws of man, as they did every day, the ordinary
machinery of man’s justice could not always reach them—and they knew
it.
“By gosh,” said Sagebrush, when they halted at noon in the shade of
a towering pinnacle of rock, “ye done a good stroke when ye got to
work this mornin’ and cut off Sidewinder from them fellers yonder!
Yessir! I’d think twicet or maybe three times ’fore I tackled that
there gent. Most likely that cholo and Mesquite rode in to git
supplies, and cuttin’ them off was a right smart piece o’ work.
Wisht we had a hoss apiece! Sing out next you see a nice fat
chuckwalla. I’d like to git me a good chunk o’ lizard-tail for
supper, Per-fesser.”
Before they had left the overhanging rock, indeed, Sagebrush located
a fine big lizard and staged a battle royal. The lizard, ensconced
in a rock cranny, inflated himself and could not be dislodged for
all the tugging of Sagebrush, who in the end was content with taking
the tail. This the chuckwalla gladly surrendered, and Sagebrush
stowed it away in his pocket after Ramsay refused to share the
delicacy.
The afternoon drew on. They did not hurry; yet the ground was
covered steadily, and no moving object broke the dun expanse of
glaring rock and sand. Gradually they approached a patch of green
high on the hills, which served as landmark, but the entrance to
Hourglass Cañon itself did not open up before them. When the sun was
drawing down to the western horizon, Sagebrush halted.
“No use goin’ on now—we’ll be in the cañon in half an hour and can’t
take no chances. Goin’ to be a clear night, and cold as hell. Why
don’t preachers make hell a cold place, Perfesser? Dad blame if I
can see anythin’ ornery in hell the way it’s laid out. I bet it aint
no hotter’n the Ralston Desert up in Nevada, and that don’t stack up
noways alongside what Imperial Valley used to be ’fore they started
growin’ melons and garden truck there. Reckon I’m goin’ to freeze
tonight ’thout no fire, but can’t be helped. Let’s git our victuals
washed down, and then we’ll mosey along and take it easy till dark.”
When the sun was down, they moved on again, and before the last of
the daylight died into the starry radiance of night, Ramsay descried
the lines of the cañon opening out from the general mass of hills
ahead. The night was clear, with a thin green-silver crescent of
moon hanging high, but nothing could be seen of the environment,
though old Sagebrush plodded along without a pause. A little later
he broke into speech.
“Trail. No talkin’, now. Watch out underfoot.”
A trail indeed—at least, a path beaten by the hoofs of horses.
Sagebrush had need to mind his own warning, for the next moment he
jumped sharply aside, dropped his pack and picked up the nearest
rock to crush a sidewinder in his path. After this both men kept a
sharper watch for the nocturnal reptiles than on the surrounding
scenery.
They had proceeded perhaps two miles when Ramsay found the cañon
walls closing in ahead, apparently forming an unbroken barrier. Then
he began to appreciate the strategic value of the place, which to
anyone on the search would appear to be an empty cañon, while in
reality there was a narrow passage opening into a second but
completely hidden cañon. This was a freak of erosion and
wind-carving, for the trail led them sharply to the right, and then
into a black hole—a widening cleft in the rock, ten feet in width
and twenty through to the other side. Sagebrush halted his companion
and stole forward cautiously, then summoned Ramsay. The opening was
unguarded.
Passing through, both men came to an astonished halt. They stood in
an almost circular bowl which, so far as the deceptive light told
them, was not more than a mile in diameter, closed in by gigantic
walls of rock which, on the side opposite them, presented only
blackness which was illumined by three yellow pin-points.
“Lamps,” said Sagebrush. “Got some shacks over there, by gosh!”
It was not this which had startled them both, however. In their
immediate vicinity were great masses of jumbled rock, fallen from
the walls that hemmed in the entrance. At a distance of fifty feet
from them the scattered rock and sand gave place to a thick green
carpet which seemed to cover the entire bowl, and across this carpet
moved masses of horses, quietly grazing.
The explanation was simple. Just now, immediately after the rains,
this hidden box cañon was saturated with drainage from the slopes
above and behind. Either the growth of grass here was natural, or as
was more likely, it had been sown by the occupants of the cañon.
“Set,” said Sagebrush, slipping off his pack and squatting down.
Ramsay followed suit, and the desert rat softly elucidated the
situation.
“We got things straight now, Perfesser. This yere crowd is right
happily located, for a fact! The idee is, they slide acrost the
hills to the Chuckwalla range and slide back with a few hosses
picked up over there. When they get a right good remuda, they drive
’em over to the railroad at Meteorite, or maybe up north acrost the
Salt Pans to Silver City. They keep ’em yere maybe six months till
the hair’s growed out over the rebrand, and by that time everybody’s
give up looking: they prob’ly git a lot o’ foals, too.”
“With a base of supplies at Stovepipe Springs, they’re safe,”
commented Ramsay. “And Sidewinder Crowfoot is the brains of the
outfit. All right. What d’you want to do?”
“Sneak up and look things over. Better let me do it when we git
right close. Then I’ll come back yere and lay up in these yere rocks
with both guns handy. You cut around and open fire on them shacks.
You’ll jest naturally catch ’em penned up, and if they git away,
I’ll catch ’em yere. If they don’t bust loose, I’ll come over and
help you. How’s that strike ye, Per-fesser?”
“First rate,” said Ramsay. “What does Tom Emery look like?”
“Red whiskers. Can’t miss him. Let’s mosey along.”
They rose, picked up their loads, and set forth.
In the darkness of the upper cañon, with the stars glimmering far
above, the scout was made, and all things considered, it was a good
scout. But when it had been ended, the two men drew off together for
consultation, upon both of them settled a silent consternation. For
here was a factor they had not reckoned on.
Three cabins, and in one of them four men sitting playing cards, a
lantern swinging from a rafter. One was Tom Emery—a brutal giant of
a man with a great fringe of flaring red whiskers and matted red
hair, a murderer and escaped jailbird with a price on his head. One,
whom old Sagebrush did not know, was a swarthy halfbreed, doubtless
the Cholo Bill mentioned by the dying Alec Ramsay—a slender, furtive
man, on the surface all smiles, and all deviltry beneath. The third
card-player was identified as Gentleman Jimson, an elderly man with
handsome, ascetic features and the general air of a benevolent
preacher. He had escaped from a California penitentiary three years
previously, where he was serving a life term for murder and forgery.
The last of the four men was a pure Mexican, one Manuel Ximines—a
scowling, sullen scoundrel from below the border, a murderer of
women. Not all this had given the two friends pause, however, but
the shrill wail of an infant from one of the other shacks, and the
thin voices of two Mexican women.
“Women everywhere. Aint it hell?” demanded Sagebrush, when they were
at a safe distance. “And now what?”
“Walk in on the four of them,” said Ramsay promptly. “And we have
’em.”
“Nope. Them cholo women would jump us in the back in a minute. Then,
if anything went wrong, the bunch would scatter in the darkness. We
don’t know the lay o’ the ground.”
“All right. Then stick to our original plan.”
Sagebrush dissented with a grunt. “Pardner, it means the females
fight with the men. Now, I jest naturally can’t abide that notion
nohow. When it comes to puttin’ a bullet into a female, I pass. We
got to sep’rate them fellers from the females.”
“Granted,” assented Ramsay at once. “How?”
“There aint but one way out o’ this yere cañon—the front way. Let’s
you and me go back through that hole in the wall and wait. If
anybody comes, we got him; if anybody leaves, we got him. Then, come
sunup, we lights a fire out beyond. They see the smoke, and most
likely that feller Ximines comes out to investigate. We got him. The
other fellers come out when he don’t return—and we got ’em all.”
“Good,” said Ramsay. “Let’s go.”