“How did yuh know that?”
“Deducted it, Blubber. I could tell that by lookin’ at yuh. Tomorrow I’m
goin’ over and talk with Snag Thorn.”
“You are not!” declares Windy.
“Uh-huh, I sure am. Now, I know what I want to do, Windy.”
“You’ll get killed sure as thunder.”
“Thanks, Windy.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” says Bowers. “I sure wouldn’t.”
“Which entirely makes up my mind,” grins Hashknife. “Why don’t you rise
to object, Sleepy?”
“Go ahead,” says I. “Ventilation won’t hurt yuh none, I reckon.”
Hashknife went. About noon the next day he saddles his bronc, refuses to
let us go with him, and rides away.
“You ain’t got a lick of sense, Hashknife!” yells Windy.
“I know it,” says Hashknife. “This is a job that takes brains, so I’m
leavin’ the brains behind me to keep safe.”
“Now, what did he mean, Sleepy?” asks Windy.
“I dunno. The longer I lives with that blamed hatchet-faced cross
between a danged fool and a heavenly angel, the less I _sabe_ his
_wau-wau_. Mebbe he wants to commit suicide, but I’m bettin’ money that
he ain’t.”
It was about two hours before we seen him come into sight. He pokes into
the ranch, takes his saddle off and comes up to the porch, dragging the
saddle with him.
“Well, yuh got back, I see,” grins Windy.
“Yuh got good eyesight, Windy. Awful hot today. Got a blister on my
heel, too.”
“Well, did yuh bring any messages from the Bar 20, Hashknife?” I asks.
“Uh-huh--two. Long distance, as yuh might say.”
“Meanin’ what?” inquires Windy. Hashknife pulls his saddle over to him
and yanks it around. Then he points to a long jagged rip in the fork,
where a bullet plowed its way. Then he points to a jagged hole, drilled
plumb through the right side of the cantle.
“Read ’em for youselves,” says he, grinning. “The first one busted into
the fork and the next one just grazed my boot as I flipped off the
saddle.”
“Where?” asks Windy.
“Just across the Cow Crick. I reckon it’s Cow Crick. I’m just goin’ up
the far bank, when I gets reminded that I ain’t wanted. I humps out of
the saddle before the next message arrives. I sure comes close to
gettin’ peeled. I lit low down behind the bank and my bronc went across
the crick into some willers. I sure tried to spot that bushwhacker, but
he was too far away. A magpie gave him away by flyin’ over his location
and then doin’ a upward twist, but there wasn’t much between him and me,
and the danged fool shoots too close for comfort. Then I had to chase
that fool bronc for half a mile before I got my hands on him, and I got
a blister on my heel--dang the luck!”
“You ought to cuss your luck,” says Windy. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Must be a big blister,” complains Hashknife. “Got my feet wet, too.”
“I hope you’re satisfied,” says I, and Hashknife nods.
“Uh-huh, I’m satisfied of one thing, Sleepy.”
“What’s that?”
“I dunno--yet. I’ve got to do somethin’ for that blister.”
Hashknife limps down to the bunk-house, dragging his saddle.
“What do yuh reckon he found out?” asks Windy. “Why is he satisfied?”
“Don’t ask me, Windy, and it won’t do yuh no good to ask him. A clam is
a howling hyena beside that jasper, when he wants to keep still about
his thoughts.”
Then he wants to see the place they calls the Devil’s Dooryard; so Windy
guides us to that place. It sure looks like it might ’a’ been. Once on a
time it was a volcano which busted out the side of the mountain and it
sure made a barren spot out of a piece of country about two miles wide
and three miles long.
Man, that must ’a’ been a hot place at one time. There ain’t a danged
thing growing there. She’s just a humped-up mass of pillars, boulders
and jagged rocks, kind of red and yaller and melted-like. The floor of
it is solid rock, where the lava spewed over the side of the mountain.
This rock is kinda like glass, having been heated so blamed hot.
We rides up one side of it, almost to the top, but she’s all alike. It
ain’t no place to ride a horse on account of the sharp rocks. At the top
is just one high cliff of the same rocks, sticking two or three hundred
feet high into the air. The whole divide is one series of cliffs. We
rides back to the foot of it and sits down to rest in the shade of a
pillar.
“This place is sure well named,” opines Hashknife. “I reckon it was too
hot for the devil, so he moved to his present location. This is where
that Bar 20 puncher got shot, eh?”
“That’s what they say,” nods Windy. “It’s about five miles to the Bar 20
from here. I reckon he just hung on and let his bronc take him home.”
“Do yuh reckon he lied?” asks Hashknife.
“No, I don’t. Barrin’ the fact that he works for the Bar 20, Baldy ain’t
such a bad _hombre_. I worked with him on the Seven Bar Seven Horse
outfit, and he ain’t the kind that would lie thataway. Likely he just
got it in his mind, don’t yuh know? Kinda knowin’ he was on the Circle
Dot Range, and then gettin’ shot thataway, he might ’a’ imagined
somebody yelled at him.”
“I reckon somebody yelled at him,” says Hashknife.
“Yuh think he--uh--told the truth?” asks Windy.
“I dunno. Mebbe they did and mebbe they didn’t. If they did, the Circle
Dot has got it on the Bar 20, ’cause nobody yelled at me, that’s a
cinch.”
“I reckon they keeps close watch on us,” opines Windy.
* * * * *
We rides back to the ranch and the next morning we went to Sundown City.
As we rides in past the little depot, the agent yells at us and we goes
over. He’s got a telegram for us, which reads: