THE DOUBLE CROSS
A month passed, drearily; and while Ike Crittenden and his punchers
gathered U cows on one side of the Four Peaks and shoved them over the
summit Pecos Dalhart roped them as they came in to Carrizo Springs for
water and doctored over their brands. The boys were following in the
wake of Upton's round-up and the brands on the calves were freshly
made and therefore easy to change, but it called for all of Pecos's
professional skill to alter the cow brands to match. In order not to
cause adverse comment it is necessary that the cow and calf shall show
the same mark and since the mother's brand was always old and peeled
Pecos called into requisition a square of wet gunny-sack or blanket
to help give the antique effect. Spreading this over the old U he
retraced the letter through it with a red-hot iron and then extended
the brand downward until it formed a neat Wine-glass ([Illustration: Y
[++] Brand in the shape of a wine-glass.]), scalded rather than seared
into the hair. Such a brand would never look fresh or peel, though it
might grow dim with years, and after working the ear-marks over on cow
and calf the transformation was complete. But while the results of his
labor was a fine little bunch of Wine-glass cows hanging around Carrizo
Springs, to Pecos himself, tying a knot in a buckskin string to count
off each weary day, the month seemed interminable.
There was a sound of music in the store as he rode into Verde Crossing
and he spurred forward, eager for the sight of a human face and a
chance to sit down and talk. But at the thud of hoofs and the chink of
spurs Angevine Thorne brought his song to an untimely close and, as
Pecos dismounted, Marcelina Garcia slipped out through the door and
started towards home, favoring him in passing with a haughty stare.
"Good-morning, Mex!" he exclaimed, bowing and touching his heart in an
excess of gallantry, "fine large day, ain't it?"
"_Gringo!_" shrilled Marcelina, flaunting her dark hair, "_Pendejo
Texano!_ Ahhr!" She shuddered and thrust out her tongue defiantly,
but as the "fool Texan" only laughed and clattered into the store she
paused and edged back towards the door for further observations.
"W'y, hello, Angy!" cried Pecos, racking jovially up to the bar, "how's
the champeen? Sober as a judge, hey? Well, gimme another shot of that
snake-pisen and if it don't kill me I may swear off too, jest to be
sociable! Say, what does 'pen_day_ho' mean?" He glanced roguishly back
towards the door, where he knew Marcelina was listening, and laughed
when he got the translation.
"Dam' fool, hey? Well, I thought it was something like that—kinder
p'lite and lady-like, you know. Marcelina hung that on me as I come in,
but I called her a Mex and I'll stand by it. Where's Old Crit?"
Angevine Thorne drew himself up and regarded the cowboy with grave
displeasure.
"Mr. Crittenden is out riding," he said, "and I'll thank you not to
refer to the nativity of my friend, Miss Garcia."
"Certainly not—to be sure!" protested Pecos Dalhart. "If you will jest
kindly give me an introduction to the young lady I'll—"
"See you in hell first," broke in Angy, with asperity. "Where you been
all the time?"
"Ramblin' around, ramblin' around," answered Pecos, waving his hand
vaguely. "What's the chances for a little music and song to while the
time away? I'm lonely as a dog."
"Joe Garcia tells me he's been packin' grub out to you at Carrizo—what
you been doin' in that God-forsaken hole?"
"Yore friend Joe talks too much," observed Pecos, briefly, "and I
reckon _you_ tell everything you know, don't you? Well and good, then,
I'll keep you out of trouble with the Boss by listenin' to what you
know already. Can you sing the 'Ranger,' or 'California Joe'? No?
Can't even sing 'Kansas,' can you? Well, it's too bad about you, but
I'm going to show you that they's another canary bird on the Verde,
and he can sure sing." With this declaration Pecos leaned back against
the bar, squared his shoulders, and in a voice which had many a time
carolled to a thousand head of cattle burst into a boastful song.
"Ooh, I can take the wildest bronco
Of the wild and woolly West;
I can back him, I can ride him,
Let him do his level best.
I can handle any creature
Ever wore a coat of hair,
And I had a lively tussle
With a tarnal grizzly bear."
He glanced slyly towards the door, threw out his chest, and essayed
once more to attract the attention of his girl, if she was anywhere
within a mile.
"Ooh, I can rope and tie a long-horn,
Of the wildest Texas brand,
And in any disagreement,
I can play a leading hand.
I—"
A dark mass of hair shading a pair of eyes as black and inquisitive as
a chipmunk's appeared suddenly in the vacant square of the doorway and
instantly the bold cowboy stopped his song.
"Good-morning, Miss Garcia," he said, bowing low, "won't you come
in—now, Angy, do your duty or I'll beat you to death!" At this hasty
aside Angevine Thorne did the honors, though with a bad grace.
"Marcelina, this is Mr. Dalhart—you better go home now, your mother's
callin' you."
"I will not shake hands with a _Texano_!" pronounced Marcelina,
stepping into the open and folding her arms disdainfully.
"Come on in then and hear the music," suggested Pecos, peaceably.
"Pah! The _Tehannos_ sing like coyotes!" cried Marcelina, twisting
up her lips in derision. "They are bad, bad men—_mi madre_ say so.
No, I go home—and when you are gone Babe will sing _sweet_ moosic for
me." She bowed, with a little smile for Babe, and glided through the
doorway; and though he lingered about until Old Crit came in, Pecos
Dalhart failed to catch another glimpse of this new queen of his heart.
It was dusk when Crittenden rode into camp, and at sight of Pecos
Dalhart sitting by the fire the cowman's drawn face, pinched by hunger
and hard riding, puckered up into a knot.
"What you doin' down here?" he demanded, when he had beckoned him to
one side.
"Come down for my pay," responded the cowboy, briefly.
"Your pay," fumed Crittenden, "your pay! What do you need with money up
at Carrizo? Say, have you been gittin' many?" he whispered, eagerly.
"Have they been comin' in on you?"
"Sure thing. Branded forty-two cows, thirty calves, and sixteen twos.
But how about it—do I draw?"
"Only thirty calves! W'y, what in the world have you been doin'? I
could pick up that many mavericks on the open range. You must've been
layin' down under a tree!"
"That's right," agreed Pecos, "and talkin' to myse'f, I was that
lonely. But if you'll kindly fork over that eighty that's comin' to
me we'll call it square, all the same—I only branded about a thousand
dollars' worth of cows for you."
"Eighty dollars!" cried Old Crit. "W'y, I never agreed to nothin' like
that—I said I'd give you sixty. But I'll tell you what I'll do," he
added, quickly, "I'll make it eighty if you'll go up there for another
month."
"After I git my first month's pay they will be time to discuss that,"
replied Pecos Dalhart, and after a thousand protestations the cowman
finally went down into his overalls and produced the money.
"Now what about next month?" he demanded, sharply.
"Nope," said Pecos, pocketing his eighty dollars, "too lonely—too much
trouble collectin' my pay—don't like the job."
"Give you eighty dollars," urged Crit, "that's a heap o' money for one
month."
"Nope, this'll last me a while—so long." He started toward the corral
but Crittenden caught him by the arm instantly.
"Here, wait a minute," he rasped, "what's the matter with you anyhow?
I'm ridin' early and late on my round-up and dependin' on you to finish
this job up! You ain't goin' to quit me right in the middle of it, are
you?"
"That's what," returned Pecos. "I ain't so particular about brandin'
a maverick once in a while—every cowman does that—but this idee of
stealin' from a man you never saw goes agin' me. I git to thinkin'
about it, an' it ain't right!"
"Aw, sho, sho, boy," protested Crittenden, "you don't want to mind a
little thing like that—I thought you was a man with nerve. Now here,
I can't stop to go out there now and I want to git that work finished
up—I'll give you _eight-y-five dol-lars_ to stay another month! This
man Upton is the biggest cow-thief in the country," he went on, as
Pecos shook his head, "it ain't stealin' to rob a thief, is it?"
"Oh, ain't it?" inquired the cow-puncher, gravely, and he smiled grimly
to himself as Crittenden endeavored to set his mind at rest. "All right
then," he said, cutting short the cowman's labored justification of
cattle-rustling, "I'll go you—for a hundred."
"A hundred!" repeated Crittenden, aghast. "Well, for—all right, all
right," he cried, as Pecos moved impatiently away. "Now you pull out of
here the way you did before and I'll have Joe pack you over some more
grub. A hundred dollars," he murmured, shaking his head at the thought,
"that boy will ruin me."
Early the next morning Pecos Dalhart rode slowly up the trail that led
to Carrizo Springs and the deserted country beyond, a land where as
yet the cowmen had not extended their sway. To his left rose the sharp
granite spires of the Four Peaks, to the right gleamed the silvery
thread of the Salagua, that mighty river that flowed in from the east;
and all the country between was a jumble of cliffs and buttes and
ridges and black cañons, leading from the mountains to the river.
"So it ain't no crime to rob a thief, hey?" he muttered, when, topping
the last ridge, he gazed down at Carrizo Springs and across at the
white-worn trail which led into the wilderness beyond. "Well, if that's
the case I might as well search out that country over there and git
busy on Old Crit. A man's a dam' fool to steal a thousand dollars'
worth of cattle and only git eighty dollars for it."
Three days later, riding by a trail that led ever to the east, Pecos
came upon a narrow valley filled with cottonwoods and wild walnuts and
echoing to the music of running water. A fine brook, flowing down from
the brushy heights of the Peaks, leaped and tumbled over the bowlders
and disappeared through a narrow cleft below, where the two black walls
drew together until they seemed almost to block the cañon. As Pecos
rode cautiously down the creek-bed he jumped a bunch of cattle from
the shade of the alders and, spurring after them as they shambled
off, he saw that they bore the familiar U, even to the young calves.
Undoubtedly they belonged to the same bunch that he had been working
on over at Carrizo Springs—the fresh-branded calves and U cows that
Crittenden was shoving over the Peaks. Riding farther down the gulch
Pecos came upon a cave at the base of the overhanging cliff. In time
past the Indians had camped there, but the ashes of their fires were
bedded and only their crude pictures on the smoke-grimed rocks remained
to tell the tale. It was the cave of Lost Dog Cañon.
On their trip over the simple-minded José had spoken of a lost cañon
somewhere over in the mountains but Pecos had never dreamed of finding
a paradise like this. According to José the Cañon of Perro Perdito was
haunted by a spirit which was _muy malo_, throwing down great rocks
from the sides of the cañon and howling like a lost dog at night, but
in the broad light of noonday Pecos was undaunted and he rode on into
the tunnel-like box cañon until it pinched down to a mere cleft. It was
an eerie place, but there never was a ghost yet that threw a track like
a cow and, led on by their familiar foot-prints among the rocks, Pecos
forged ahead until he stepped out suddenly into a new world. Behind
him the pent and overhanging walls shut out the light of day but here
the sun was shining into a deep valley where in exquisite miniature
lay parks and grassy meadows, while cathedral spires of limestone,
rising from the cañon floor, joined their mighty flanks to the
rim-rock which shut the whole space in. The glittering waters of the
Salagua, far below, marked a natural barrier to the south and as Pecos
Dalhart looked at the narrow trail which had brought him in he began
instinctively to figure on a drift fence, to close the entrance to the
pocket, and make the hidden valley a mile-wide pasture and corral. All
nature seemed conspiring to make him a cattle-rustler and this hidden
pasture, with its grass and water and the gate opening at his very
door, cast the die. Two days later he moved his camp to Lost Dog Cañon
and flew at the fence with feverish energy. Within a week he had the
box cañon barricaded from wall to wall and then, as the U cows came
down to the creek to drink, he roped them, worked over their brands,
and threw them into his new pasture. By this time, with his tongue in
his cheek, he attached a circle instead of a bar to the U and named his
new brand the Monkey-wrench ([Illustration: [++] Brand in the shape of
a monkey-wrench]). If he had any qualms as to the morality of this last
act Pecos did not let them interfere with his industry in any way. The
ethics of the cattle business will not stand too stern a scrutiny, even
at this late date, and the joke on Old Crit was so primordial in its
duplicity that it obscured the finer moral issues. Like many another
cowman of those early days Pecos Dalhart had made his start with the
running iron and with luck and judgment he might yet be a cattle king.