A MASTER-STROKE OF VILLAINY.
Piegan shortly proved that he made no vain boast when he asserted his
ability to follow their track. A lifetime on the plains, and a natural
fitness for the life, had made him own brother to the Indian in the
matter of nosing out dim trails. The crushing of a tuft of grass, a
broken twig, all the half-hidden signs that the feet of horses and men
leave behind, held a message for him; nothing, however slight, escaped
his eagle eye. And he did it subconsciously, without perceptible effort.
The surpassing skill of his tracking did not strike me forcibly at
first, for I can read an open trail as well as the average cowman, and
the mark of their passing lay plain before us; the veriest pilgrim, new
come from graded roads and fenced pastures, could have counted the
number of their steps--each hoof had stamped its impression in the soft
loam as clearly as a steel die-cut in soaked leather. But that was where
they had ridden while the land was still plastic from the rain. Farther,
wind and sun had dried the ridge-turf to its normal firmness and baked
the dobe flats till in places they were of their old flinty hardness.
Yet Piegan crossed at a lope places where neither MacRae nor I could
glimpse a sign--and when we would come again to soft ground the trail of
the three would rise up to confront us, and bid us marvel at the
keenness of his vision. He had a gift that we lacked.
We followed in the wake of Piegan Smith with what speed the
coulée-gashed prairie permitted, and about three o'clock halted for half
an hour to let our horses graze; we had been riding steadily over four
hours, and it behooved us to have some thought for our mounts. Within
ten minutes of starting again we dipped into a wide-bottomed coulée and
came on the place where the three had made their first night-camp--a
patch of dead ashes, a few half-burned sticks, and the close-cropped
grass-plots where each horse had circled a picket-pin.
Beyond these obvious signs, there was nothing to see. Nothing, at least,
that I could see except faint tracks leading away from the spot. These
we had followed but a short distance when Piegan, who was scrutinizing
the ground with more care than he had before shown, pulled up with an
exclamation.
"Blamed if they ain't got company, from the look uh things," he grunted,
squinting down. "I thought that was considerable of a trail for them t'
make. You fellers wait here a minute. I want t' find out which way them
tracks come in."
He loped back, swinging in north of the campground. While he was gone,
MacRae and I leaned over in our saddles and scanned closely the
grass-carpeted bottom-land. That the hoofs of passing horses had pressed
down the rank growth of grass was plain enough, but whether the hoofs of
six or a dozen we could only guess. Piegan turned, rode to where they
had built their fire, circled the place, then came back to us.
"All right," he said. "I was sure there was more livestock left that
campin'-place than we followed in. They come from the north--four
hosses, two uh them rode an' the other two led, I think, from the way
they heaved around a-crossin' a washout back yonder."
A mile or so farther we crossed a bare sandy stretch on the flat bottom
of another coulée, and on its receptive surface the trail lay like a
printed page--nine distinct, separate horse-tracks.
"Five riders an' four extra hosses, if I ain't read the sign wrong,"
Piegan casually remarked. "Say, we'll have our hands full if we bump
into this bunch unexpected, eh?"
"They'll make short work of us if they get half a chance," Mac agreed.
"But we'll make it a surprise party if we can."
From there on Piegan set a pace that taxed our horses' mettle--that was
one consolation--we were well mounted. All three of us were good for a
straightaway chase of a hundred miles if it came to a showdown. Piegan
knew that we must do our trailing in daylight, and rode accordingly. He
kept their trail with little effort, head cocked on one side like a
saucy meadowlark, and whistled snatches of "Hell Among the Yearlin's,"
as though the prospect of a sanguinary brush with thieves was pleasing
in the extreme.
The afternoon was on its last lap when we came in sight of Stony
Crossing. The trail we followed wound along the crest of a ridge midway
between the Crossing and Ten Mile Spring, where we had left Baker's
outfit that rainy morning. The freighters had moved camp, but the mud
and high water had held them, for we could see the white-sheeted wagons
and a blur of cattle by the cottonwood grove where Hank Rowan had made
his last stand. Presently we crossed the trail made by the string of
wagons; it was fresh; made that morning, I judged. A little farther, on
a line between the Crossing and the Spring, Piegan pulled up again, and
this time the cause of his halting needed no explanation. The bunch had
stopped and tarried there a few minutes, as the jumbled hoof-marks bore
witness, and the track of two horses led away toward Ten Mile Spring.
"Darn it all!" Piegan grumbled. "Now, what d'yuh reckon's the meanin' uh
that? Them two has lit straight for where Baker's layout was camped this
mornin'. What for? Are they pullin' out uh the country with the coin? Or
are they lookin' for you fellers?"
"Well"--MacRae thought a moment--"considering the care they've taken to
cover up their movements, I don't see what other object they could have
in view but making a smooth getaway. They've worked it nicely all
around. You know that if there was anything they wanted they weren't
taking any risk by going to any freight camp. We're the only men in the
country that know why they are pulling out this way--and _they_ know
that we daren't go in and report it, because they've managed to put us
on the dodge. They have reason to be sure that headquarters wouldn't for
a minute listen to a yarn like we'd have to tell--they'd have time to
ride to Mexico, while we sucked our thumbs in the guardhouse waiting for
the rest of the Police to get wise by degrees."
"Then I tell yuh what let's do," Piegan abruptly decided. "I like t'
know what's liable t' happen when I'm on a jaunt uh this kind. One of us
better head in for the Crossin' an' find out for sure if any uh them
fellers come t' the camp, an' what he wanted there. An' seein' nobody
outside uh Horner knows I'm in on this play, I reckon I better go
m'self. If there should happen t' be a stray trooper hangin' round
there, the same would be mighty awkward for you fellers. So I'll go. You
poke along the trail slow, an' I'll overhaul yuh."
"All right," MacRae agreed, and Piegan forthwith departed for the
Crossing.
After Piegan left us we rode at a walk, and even then it was something
of a task to follow the faint impression. In the course of an hour a
cluster of dark objects appeared on the bench, coming rapidly toward us.
MacRae brought the glasses to bear on them at once, for there was always
the unpleasant possibility of Mounted Policemen cutting in on our trail;
the riders of every post along the line were undoubtedly on the watch
for us.
"It's Piegan and another fellow," Mac announced shortly. "They're
leading two extra horses, and Piegan has changed mounts himself. I
wonder what's up--they seem to be in a dickens of a hurry."
We got off and waited for them, wondering what the change of horses
might portend. They swung down to us on a run, and it needed no second
glance at the features of Piegan Smith to know that he brought with him
a fresh supply of trouble. His scraggly beard was thrust forward
aggressively, and his deep-set eyes fairly blazed between narrowed lids.
"Slap your saddles on them fresh hosses," he grated harshly from the
back of a deep-chested, lean-flanked gray. "Let the others go--to hell
if they want to!"
"What's up?" I asked sharply, and MacRae flung the same query over one
shoulder as he fumbled at the tight-drawn latigo-knot.
Piegan rose in his stirrups and raised a clenched fist; the seamed face
of him grew purple under its tan, and the words came out like the
challenge of a range-bull.
"Them--them ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- has got your girl!" he roared.
The latigo dropped from MacRae's hand. "What?" he turned on Piegan
savagely, incredulously.
"I said it--I said it! Yuh heard me, didn't yuh!" Piegan shouted. "This
mornin' about sunrise. That Hicks--the damned ---- ---- ---- he come t'
Baker's as they hooked up t' leave the Spring. He had a note for her,
an' she dropped everything an' jumped on a hoss he'd brought an' rode
away with him, cryin' when she left. He told Horner you'd bin shot
resistin' arrest, an' wanted t' see her afore yuh cashed in. They ain't
seen hide nor hair uh her since. Aw, don't stand starin' at me thataway.
Hurry up! They ain't got twelve hours' start--an' by God I'll smell 'em
out in the dark for this!"
It was like a knife-thrust in the back; such a devilish and unexpected
turn of affairs that for half a second I had the same shuddery feeling
that came to me the night I stooped over Hans Rutter and gasped at sight
of what the fiends had done. MacRae whitened, but the full import of
Piegan's words stunned him to silence. The bare possibility of Lyn Rowan
being at the dubious mercy of those ruthless brutes was something that
called for more than mere words. He hesitated only a moment, nervously
twisting the saddle-strings with one hand, then straightened up and tore
loose the cinch fastening.
After that outburst of Piegan's no one spoke. While Mac and I
transferred our saddles to the Baker horses, Piegan swung down from his
gray and, opening the pack on the horse we had been leading, took out a
little bundle of flour and bacon and coffee and tied it behind the
cantle of his saddle. A frying-pan and coffee-pot he tossed to me. Then
we mounted and took to the trail again, stripped down to fighting-trim,
unhampered by a pack-horse.
Of daylight there yet remained a scant two hours in which we could hope
to distinguish a hoof-mark. Piegan leaned over his saddle-horn and took
hills and hollows, wherever the trail led, with a rush that unrolled the
miles behind us at a marvelous rate. For an hour we galloped silently,
matching the speed of fresh, wiry horses against the dying day, no sound
arising in that wilderness of brown coulée banks and dun-colored prairie
but the steady beat of hoofs, and the purr of a rising breeze from the
east. Then I became aware that Piegan, watching the ground through
half-closed eyelids, was speaking to us. From riding a little behind, to
give him room to trail, we urged our horses alongside.
"Them fellers at Baker's camp," he said, without looking up, "would 'a'
come in a holy minute if there'd been hosses for 'em t' ride. But they
only had enough saddle-stock along t' wrangle the bulls--an' I took
three uh the best they had. Three of us is enough, anyhow. We kain't
ride up on them fellers now an' go t' shootin'. They're all together
again. I seen, back a ways, where them two hoss-tracks angled back from
the spring. They must 'a' laid up at that camp we passed till sometime
before daylight--seein' that damned Hicks come t' Baker's early this
mornin'. An' if they didn't travel very fast t'-day--which ain't likely,
'cause they probably figure they're dead safe, and their track don't
show a fast gait--there's just a chance that we'll hit 'em by dark if we
burn the earth. We're good for thirty miles before night covers up their
track. Don't yuh worry none, old boy," he bellowed at MacRae. "Old Injun
Smith'll see yuh through. God! I could 'a' cried m'self when I hit that
camp an' the old nigger woman went t' bawlin' when I told her yuh was
both out on the bench, sound as a new dollar. That was the first they
suspicioned anythin' was wrong. Them dirty, low-lived ---- ---- ----!"
Piegan lapsed into a string of curses. MacRae, apparently unmoved,
nodded comprehension. But I knew what he was thinking, and I knew that
when once we got within striking distance of Hicks, Gregory & Co., there
would be new faces in hell without delay.
We slowed our horses to a walk to ascend an abrupt ridge. When we gained
the top a vast stretch of the Northwest spread away to the east and
north. Piegan lifted his eyes from the trail for an instant.
"Great Lord!" he said. "Look at the buffalo. It'll be good-by t' these
tracks before long."
As far as the eye could reach the prairie was speckled with the herds,
speckled with groups of buffalo as the sky is dotted with clusters of
bright stars on a clear night. They moved, drifting slowly, in a
southerly direction, here in sharply defined groups, there in long
lines, farther in indistinct masses. But they moved; and the air that
filled our nostrils was freighted with the tang of smoke.
We did not halt on the ridge. There was no need. We knew without
speculating what the buffalo-drift and the smoke-tinged air presaged;
and it bade us make haste before the tracks were quite obliterated.
So with the hill behind us, and each of us keeping his thoughts to
himself--none of them wholly pleasant, judging by my own--we galloped
down the long slope, a red sunset at our backs and in our faces a gale
of dry, warm wind, tainted with the smell of burning grass. And at the
bottom of the slope, in the depths of a high-walled coulée where the
evening shadows were mustering for their stealthy raid on the gilded
uplands, we circled a grove of rustling poplars and jerked our horses up
short at sight of a scarlet blotch among the gloom of the trees.