ON THE TRAIL TO THE BLUE
In the shade of the forest that edged the mesa, and just back of
Fernando's camp, a Ranger trail cuts through a patch of quaking-asp and
meanders through the heavy-timbered land toward the Blue range, a
spruce-clad ridge of southern hills. Close to the trail two saddle
horses were tied.
Fadeaway, riding toward his home ranch on the "Blue," reined up, eyed
the horses, and grinned. One of them was Chinook, the other Eleanor
Loring's black-and-white pinto, Challenge. The cowboy bent in his
saddle and peered through the aspens toward the sheep-camp. He saw
Corliss and Nell Loring standing close together, evidently discussing
something of more than usual import, for at that moment John Corliss
had raised his broad Stetson as though bidding farewell to the girl,
but she had caught his arm as he turned and was clinging to him. Her
attitude was that of one supplicating, coaxing, imploring. Fadeaway,
with a vicious twist to his mouth, spat. "The cattle business and the
sheep business looks like they was goin' into partnership," he
muttered. "Leave it to a woman to fool a man every time. And him
pertendin' to be all for the long-horns!" He saw the girl turn from
Corliss, bury her face in her arms, and lean against the tree beneath
which they were standing. Fadeaway grinned. "Women are all crooked,
when they want to be," he remarked,--"or any I ever knowed. If they
can't work a guy by talkin' and lovin', then they take to cryin'."
Just then Corliss stepped to the girl and put his hand on her shoulder.
Again she turned to him. He took her hands and held them while he
talked. Fadeaway could see her lips move, evidently in reply. He
could not hear what was being said, as his horse was restless, fretting
and stamping. The saddle creaked. Fadeaway jerked the horse up, and
in the momentary silence he caught the word "love."
"Makes me sick!" he said, spurring forward. "'Love,' eh? Well, mebby
my little idea of puttin' Billy Corliss in wrong didn't work, but I'll
hand Jack a jolt that'll make him think of somethin' else besides love,
one of these fine mornin's!" And the cowboy rode on, out of tune with
the peace and beauty of his surroundings, his whole being centered upon
making trouble for a man who he knew in his heart wished him no ill,
and in fact had all but forgotten him so far as considering him either
as an enemy or a friend.
Just as he was about to swing out to the open of the mesa near the edge
of the cañon, he came upon a Mexican boy asleep beneath the low
branches of a spruce. Fadeaway glanced across the mesa and, as he had
expected, saw a band of sheep grazing in the sunshine. His trail ran
directly toward the sheep. Beyond lay the cañon. He would not ride
around a herd of sheep that blocked his trail, not if he knew it! As
he drew nearer the sheep they bunched, forcing those ahead to move on.
Fadeaway glanced back at the sleeping boy, then set spur to his horse
and waved his sombrero. The sheep broke into a trot. He rode back and
forth behind them forcing them toward the cañon. He beat upon his
rolled slicker with his quirt. The sound frenzied the sheep and they
leaped forward. Lambs, trailing behind, called dolefully to the
plunging ewes that trampled each other in their terror. Again the
cowboy glanced back. No one was in sight. He wondered, for an
instant, what had become of Fernando, for he knew it was Fernando's
herd. He shortened rein and spurred his pony, making him rear. The
sheep plunged ahead, those in front swerving as they came to the
cañon's brink. The crowding mass behind forced them on. Fadeaway
reined up. A great gray wave rolled over the cliff and disappeared
into the soundless chasm. A thousand feet below lay the mangled
carcasses of some five hundred sheep and lambs. A scattered few of the
band had turned and were trotting aimlessly along the edge of the mesa.
They separated as the rider swept up. One terror-stricken lamb,
bleating piteously, hesitated on the very edge of the chasm. Fadeaway
swung his hat and laughed as the little creature reared and leaped out
into space. There had been but little noise--an occasional frightened
bleat, a drumming of hoofs on the mesa, and they were swept from sight.
Fadeaway reined around and took a direct line for the nearest timber.
Halfway across the open he saw the Mexican boy running toward him. He
leaned forward in the saddle and hung his spurs in his pony's sides. A
quick beat of hoofs and he was within the shadow of the forest. The
next thing was to avoid pursuit. He changed his course and rode toward
the heart of the forest. He would take an old and untraveled
bridle-trail to the Blue. He was riding in a rocky hollow when he
thought he heard the creak of saddle-leather. He glanced back. No one
was following him. Farther on he stopped. He was certain that he had
again heard the sound. As he topped the rise he saw Corliss riding
toward him. The rancher had evidently swung from the Concho trail and
was making his way directly toward the unused trail which Fadeaway
rode. The cowboy became doubly alert. He shifted a little in the
saddle, sitting straight, his right hand resting easily on his hip.
Corliss drew rein and they faced each other. There was something about
the rancher's grim, silent attitude that warned Fadeaway.
Yet he grinned and waved a greeting. "How!" he said, as though he were
meeting an old friend.
Corliss nodded briefly. He sat gazing at Fadeaway with an unreadable
expression.
"Got the lock-jaw?" queried Fadeaway, his pretended heartiness
vanishing.
Corliss allowed himself to smile, a very little. "You better ride back
with me," he said, quietly.
Fadeaway laughed. "I'm takin' orders from the Blue, these days," he
said. "Mebby you forgot."
"No, I haven't."
"And I'm headed for the Blue," continued the cowboy. "Goin' my way?"
"You're on the wrong trail," asserted Corliss. "You've been riding the
wrong trail ever since you left the Concho."
"Uhuh. Well, I been keepin' clear of the sheep camps, at that."
"Don't know about that," said Corliss, easily.
Fadeaway was too shrewd to have recourse to his gun. He knew that
Corliss was the quicker man, and he realized that, even should he get
the better of a six-gun argument, the ultimate result would be outlawry
and perhaps death. He wanted to get away from that steady,
heart-searching gaze that held him.
"Sheep business is lookin' up," he said, with an attempt at jocularity.
"We'll ride back and have a talk with Loring," said Corliss. "Some one
put a band of his sheep into the cañon, not two hours ago. Maybe you
know something about it."
"Me? What you dreaming anyhow?"
"I'm not. It looks like your work."
"So you're tryin' to hang somethin' onto me, eh? Well, you want to
call around early--you're late."
"No, I'm the first one on the job. Did you stampede Loring's sheep?"
"Did I stampede the love-makin'?" sneered Fadeaway.
Corliss shortened rein and drew close to the cowboy.
"Just explain that," he said.
"Oh, I don' know. You the boss of creation?"
Corliss's lips hardened. He let his quirt slip butt-first through his
hand and grasped the lash. Fadeaway's hand slipped to his holster.
Before he could pull his gun, Corliss swung the quirt. The blow caught
Fadeaway just below the brim of his hat. He wavered and grabbed at the
saddle-horn. As Corliss again swung his quirt, the cowboy jerked out
his gun and brought it down on the rancher's head. Corliss dropped
from the saddle. Fadeaway rode around and covered him. Corliss's hat
lay a few feet from where he had fallen. Beneath his head a dark ooze
spread a hand's-breadth on the trail. The cowboy dismounted and bent
over him. "He's sportin' a dam' good hat," he said, "or that would 'a'
fixed _him_. Guess he'll be good for a spell." Then he reached for
his stirrup, mounted, and loped up the trail.
Old Fernando, having excused himself on some pretext when Corliss rode
into the camp that morning, returned to find Corliss gone and Nell
Loring strangely grave and white. She nodded as he spoke to her and
pointed toward the mesa. "Carlos--is out--looking for the sheep," she
said, her lips trembling. "He says some one stampeded them--run them
into the cañon."
Fernando called upon his saints and cursed himself for his negligence
in leaving his son with the sheep. Nell Loring spoke to him quietly,
assuring him that she understood why he had absented himself. "It's my
fault, Fernando, not yours. The patron will want to know why you were
away. You will tell him that John Corliss came to your camp; that you
thought I wanted to talk with him alone. Then he will know that it was
my fault. I'll tell him when I get back to the rancho."
Fernando straightened his wizened frame. "Si! As the Señorita says, I
shall do. But first I go to look. Perhaps the patron shall not know
that the vaquero Corlees was here this morning. It is that I ask the
Señorita to say nothing to the patron until I look. Is it that you
will do this?"
"What can you do?" she asked.
"It is yet to know. Adios, Señorita. You will remember the old
Fernando, perhaps?"
"But you're coming back! Oh! it was terrible!" she cried. "I rode to
the cañon and looked down."
Fernando meanwhile had been thinking rapidly. With quaint dignity he
excused himself as he departed to catch up one of the burros, which he
saddled and rode out to where his son was standing near the cañon. The
boy shrank from him as he accosted him. Fernando's deep-set eyes
blazed forth the anger that his lips imprisoned. He sent the boy back
to the camp. Then he picked up the tracks of a horseman on the mesa,
followed them to the cañon's brink, glanced down, shrugged his
shoulders, and again took up the horseman's trail toward the forest.
With the true instinct of the outlander, he reasoned that the horseman
had headed for the old trail to the Blue, as the tracks led diagonally
toward the south. Finally he realized that he could never overtake the
rider by following the tracks, so he dismounted and tied his burro. He
struck toward the cañon. A mile above him there was a ford. He would
wait there and see who came. He made his perilous way down a notch in
the cliff, dropped slowly to the level of the stream, and followed it
to the ford. He searched for tracks in the sun-baked mud. With a sigh
of satisfaction, perhaps of anticipation, he stepped to a clump of
cottonwoods down the stream and backed within them. Scarcely had he
crossed himself and drawn his gun from its weather-blackened holster,
when he heard the click of shod hoofs on the trail. He stiffened and
his eyes gleamed as though he anticipated some pleasant prospect. The
creases at the corners of his eyes deepened as he recognized in the
rider the vaquero who had set the Concho dog upon his sheep some months
before. He had a score to settle with that vaquero for having shot at
him. He had another and larger score to settle with him for--no, he
would not think of his beloved sheep mangled and dead at the bottom of
the cañon. That would anger him and make his hand unsteady.
Fadeaway rode his horse into the ford and sat looking downstream as the
horse drank. Just as he drew rein, the old herder imitated with
perfect intonation the quavering bleat of a lamb calling to its mother.
Fadeaway jerked straight in the saddle. A ball of smoke puffed from
the cottonwoods. The cowboy doubled up and slid headforemost into the
stream. The horse, startled by the lunge of its rider, leaped to the
bank and raced up the trail. A diminishing echo ran along the cañon
walls and rolled away to distant, faint muttering. Old Fernando had
paid his debt of vengeance.
Leisurely he broke a twig from the cottonwoods, tore a strip from his
bandanna, and cleaned his gun. Then he retraced his steps to the
burro, mounted, and rode directly to his camp. After he had eaten he
told his son to pack their few belongings. Then he again mounted the
burro and rode toward the hacienda to face the fury of the patron.
He had for a moment left the flock in charge of his son. He had
returned to find all but a few of the sheep gone. He had tracked them
to the cañon brink. Ah! could the patron have seen them, lying mangled
upon the rocks! It had been a long hard climb to the bottom of the
cañon, else he should have reported sooner. Some one had driven the
sheep into the chasm. As to the man who did it, he knew nothing.
There were tracks of a horse--that was all. He had come to report and
receive his dismissal. Never again should he see the Señora Loring.
He had been the patron's faithful servant for many years. He was
disgraced, and would be dismissed for negligence.
So he soliloquized as he rode, yet he was not altogether unhappy. He
had avenged insult and the killing of his beloved sheep with one little
crook of his finger; a thing that his patron, brave as he was, would
not dare do. He would return to New Mexico. It was well!