THE WITNESS
The morning was hardly two hours old, and the crisp air was stinging
sweet with the tang of pine and fir, as Rathburn rode jauntily down
the trail on the eastern slope of the divide and drew rein on the
crest of a high ridge. As he looked below he whistled softly.
"Juniper, hoss, there's folks down there plying a nefarious trade, a
plumb dangerous trade," he mused, digging for the tobacco and brown
papers in the pocket of his shirt. "I reckon they're carrying on in
direct defiance of the law, hoss."
The dun-colored mustang tossed his head impatiently, but his master
ignored the animal's fretful desire to be off and dallied with tobacco
and paper, fashioning a cigarette, lighting it, breathing thin smoke
as his gray eyes squinted appraisingly at the scene below.
Winding down into the foothills, in striking contrast to the dim
trails higher up, was a well-used road. It evidently led from the
saffron-tinted dump and gray buildings of a mine which showed on the
side of a big, bald mountain to southward. At a point almost directly
below the ridge where the man and horse stood, it crossed a small
hogback and descended a steep slope between lines of jack pines,
disappearing in the timber farther down.
The gaze of the man on the ridge was concentrated on the bit of road
which showed on the hogback and the slope beyond. A truck was
laboriously climbing the ascent. But the watcher evidently was not so
much concerned with the approach of the truck as with certain
movements which were in progress on the hogback at the head of the
grade.
Three persons had dismounted from their horses behind the screen of
timber. One, a tall man, had donned a long, black slicker and was
tying a handkerchief about his face.
"Juniper, hoss," said Rathburn, "what does that gent want that slicker
on for? It ain't going to rain. An' how does he reckon to see onless
maybe he's got holes cut in that there hanky?"
A second man had made his way down the slope a short distance. He took
advantage of the timber which screened him from sight of the driver of
the oncoming truck.
"I 'spect that's in case the truck driver should suddenly take it into
his head to slide down backwards," said the observer, speaking his
thoughts aloud in a musical, bass voice. "One in front, one behind;
now how about the kid?"
As if in answer to his question the third member of the party,
evidently a boy, led the horses a short way up the hogback where a
good view could be obtained of the road in both directions.
The watcher grunted in approval. "One in front to do the stick-up, one
behind to stop a retreat and get whatever it is they're after, and one
on the lookout to see there ain't any unexpected guests. Couldn't have
planned the lay any better ourselves, hoss."
He was too far distant to interfere, even if he had had any desire to
do so, which was doubtful from his interested and tolerant manner.
Anyway it could have done no good to shout a warning, for the driver
of the truck could not have heard anything above the roar of his
machine, and the trio had gone about the preparations with dispatch.
Already the truck was climbing the last steep pitch to the top of the
hogback.
The tall man in the black slicker and mask now quickly stepped forth
from the edge of the timber. The watcher above saw his right hand and
arm whip out level with his shoulders. There was a glint of morning
sunlight and dull metal. The truck came to a jarring stop as the
driver jammed on the brakes. Then the driver's hands went into the
air.
Stepping from the timber at the roadside behind the truck, the second
man leaped upon the machine. The watcher grunted again as he saw that
this man was also masked. The driver was disarmed and searched, then
forced to clamber down from the truck into the road, where the man in
the slicker kept him covered while the other quickly searched about
the seat and cab of the truck. Then the second man released the brakes
and dropped nimbly from the machine which plunged backward down the
steep slope, crashed into the tree growth on one side of the road, and
overturned.
The boy mounted and led the other two horses down the hogback in the
scanty timber to the head of the grade. There the man in the slicker
and his companion joined him, mounted, and the trio rode quickly along
the hogback in a southerly direction and disappeared on a blind rail
into the forest.
Rathburn rolled himself another cigarette with a grin as he watched
the truck driver stand for some moments uncertainly in the road and
then start rapidly down the slope toward his disabled machine.
"C'mon, hoss," said the erstwhile spectator, turning his dun-colored
mount again into the trail. "So far's I can make out, this is the only
way down out of these tall mountains to the east, so we might as well
get going. We ain't got no business south or west. We'll be just in
time to get blamed for what's happened down there."
Whatever there might be in the prospect, the rider did not permit it
to have any influence on his cheerful mood. He drew in long breaths of
the stimulating air and sniffed joyously at the fragrance of the
murmuring forests which clothed the higher hills. Far below the timber
would dwindle, the ridges would flatten into round knolls and lose
their verdure; then would come the dust and lava slopes, and
beyond--the desert.
A wistful light came into the horseman's eyes. "Home, Juniper, hoss,"
he said softly. "We've just got to have cactus an' water holes an'
danged blistering heat in ours; and I don't care so much as the faded
label off an empty tomato can if it's in California, or Arizona, or
Nevada, so long as it's desert!"
The trail he was following wound tortuously around ridges, through the
timber, into ravines and canyons; now treading close upon the bank of a
swift-running mountain stream in a narrow valley, and again seeking
the higher places where there were rocks and fallen trees and other
obstructions. An observer would have gleaned at once that the rider
was not familiar with the trail or territory he traversed.
So it was past noon when he finally reached the hogback where the
outstanding event of the morning had taken place. The rider looked
back up toward the divide and grinned as he rested his horse just
above the scene of the holdup.
"Don't reckon they'd have heard me if I'd hollered, or seen me if I'd
waved," he mused. "They picked out a good spot for the dirty work," he
concluded, looking about.
Shortly afterward, as he was staring down at the tracks in the road,
he smothered an exclamation. Then he dismounted, picked up two small
objects from the dust at the point where the trio had started on
their get-away, examined them with a puzzled expression, and thrust
them into a pocket.
"Queer," he ruminated; "mighty queer. If those silly things had been
laying there in the road before the rumpus they'd have been tracked
into the dust. But they was on _top_ of a perfectly good hoss track.
An' it don't look like there's been anybody along here since."
He continued down the road, descending the steep slope, and came to
the overturned truck. At a glance he saw it had been used for hauling
supplies, doubtless to the mine he had glimpsed on the slope of the
high mountain to southward. Several kegs of nails, some hardware, and
some sacks of cement were scattered in the road. He remembered that
the man who had climbed on the truck had only searched the driver and
the cab. Anything he might have taken must have been in a small
package or it would have been discernible even at that long distance.
"That outfit wasn't after no mine supplies," Rathburn reflected as he
finished his brief inspection and again mounted. "An' they wasn't
taking any chances on smoking anybody up or being followed too quick.
Pretty work all around. An' here's the committee, hoss!"
A touring car came careening around a turn in the road and raced
toward him. He turned his horse to the side of the road and spoke to
him as the animal, plainly unfamiliar with motor cars, snorted and
shied.
The car drew to a stop with a screeching of brakes. The horseman
raised his hands as he saw two rifles leveled at him from the rear
seat. There were five men in the car besides the driver. One of the
men, who had been sitting in the front with the driver, leaped from
the machine and strode toward the rider.
"Calm that horse down an' climb out of that saddle," he commanded.
"If you make any motions toward that gun you're packing, it'll make
things simpler, in a way."
The rider slipped from the saddle with a broad grin. "Right up to
form," he sang cheerfully, although he kept his hands elevated while
the other took his gun. "My hoss'll be calm enough now that that
danged thing is shut off. You must be a sheriff to be flirting with
the speed limit that way an' forgetting you've got a horn."
"Where are you from an' where was you going?" demanded the other.
"I'm from up in the mountains, but I'd never got where I was going if
I hadn't seen you first the way you busted around that curve," was the
cool reply.
"Stranger," was the next comment in a tone of satisfaction. "Look
here, friend, I'm Mannix, deputy from High Point. You'll sail smoother
if you answer my questions straight."
The deputy motioned to two men in the car. "Search him," he ordered.
Then he stood back, six-shooter in hand.
The stranger built a cigarette while the men were going through him.
He lighted the weed and smiled quizzically while they examined the
meager contents of the slicker pack on the rear of his saddle.
"See you're packing a black slicker," said Mannix, pointing to the
rough raincoat in which the pack was wrapped.
"That's in case of rain," was the ready answer.
"What's your name?" asked the deputy with a frown.
"Rathburn."
"Where was you heading?"
"I was aiming in a general eastern direction," Rathburn replied in a
drawl. "Is there any law against ridin' hosses in this here part of
the country?"
"Not at all," replied the deputy heartily. "An' there's no law against
drivin' automobiles or trucks. But there's a law against stoppin' 'em
with a gun."
"So," said Rathburn. "You stopped because you saw my gun? An' I'm to
blame, for it? If I'd known you were touchy about guns down here I'd
have worn mine in my shirt."
One of the other men from the car had joined the deputy. He was
looking at Rathburn keenly. Mannix turned to him.
"Look like him?" he asked.
The man nodded. "About the same size and height."
"This man was drivin' a truck up here that was stopped this morning,"
said the deputy sternly to Rathburn. "He says you size up to one of
the men that turned the trick--one of them that wore a black slicker
like yours."
Rathburn nodded pleasantly. "Exactly," he said with a smile. "I happen
to be in the country an' I've got a black slicker. There you are;
everything all proved up. An' yet there was somebody once told me it
took brains to be a sheriff!"
There was a glint in Rathburn's eyes as he uttered the last sentence.
Instead of flying into a rage, Mannix laughed.
"Don't kid yourself," he said grimly. "You're not the man who held up
this truck driver."
He gave Rathburn back his gun, to the latter's surprise. Then he waved
toward Rathburn's horse.
"Go ahead," he said, smiling. "General eastern direction, wasn't it?
This road will take you clean to the desert, if you want to go that
far. So long."
He led the others back to the car which started off with a roar. It
passed the truck and continued on up the road.
Rathburn sat his horse and watched the automobile out of sight. His
expression was one of deep perplexity.
"By all the rules of the game that fellow should have held me as a
suspect," he soliloquized. "Now he don't know me from a hoss thief--or
does he?"
He frowned and rode thoughtfully down the road in the direction from
which the automobile had come.