DOWN FROM THE SKY!
Drop Off Valley, its name won to it by its salient feature, was but a
long, narrow, and very high plateau in the mountains lying to the east
of Ranch Number Ten. It was well watered from springs at the upper end
which wandered the entire length of the tract and spilled down the
cliffs which cut in abrupt fashion across the lower end, making a
natural and fearsome boundary.
From this portion of the "valley" one might kick a stone a sheer and
dizzy distance down into the head-waters of Indian Creek, which
indicated the beginning of the narrow pass which led through the
mountains and to the misty blue hills of Old Mexico.
Here in the abundant, rich, dry feed wandered upward of two hundred
head of Ranch Number Ten and Temple Ranch cattle, mingling freely, the
herds of one outfit carrying their brands in and out of the herds of
the other. A sign and a token that at last a certain dead-line had
ceased to exist.
Steve had found Andy Sprague, as crooked a little man as he looked to
be according to Bill Royce and others who should know, and had arranged
with him for the leasing of the mountain pasturage. Less than a week
later Sprague was back saying that he had seen Hell-Fire Packard and
that that old mountain-lion had roared at him terribly, had threatened
him with utter ruin if ever again he helped out Steve Packard and had
bade him carry a message.
"Tell that smart young fool of a gran'son of mine," was the word
Sprague gave Steve, "that right now I'm gettin' ready to polish him off
final. Tell him what I done to him, blockin' his sale in San Juan,
wasn't a patch on what I can do; tell him he'll lose more steers than
he ever los' before. Tell him if he don't want to get hisself all
mussed up in this deal he'd better come over to my place an' throw up
his han's. I'm gettin' mad!"
Before having these words from Andy Sprague's twisted mouth Steve
Packard had been puzzled to explain two matters: According to count, on
one hand there were too few cattle by perhaps a score while on another
hand there were too many by at least a half dozen. And, though Terry
Temple was directly concerned, he had said nothing to her.
The first mystifying suggestion that some strange juggling of stock had
been going on came to him just before he had driven the hundred and
eighty-six steers to San Juan. Rounding up his own stock and cutting
it out from Temple stock, he had had the opportunity to check up
carefully in Terry's interests.
Calves, cows, steers, and horses, he knew to the head just what Terry
numbered them. And in the round-up, going over his figures carefully,
he had found that wearing the Temple brand there were six steers more
than there should be. A matter of some five or six hundred dollars.
Were it only the financial end of it Steve would have thought little of
the matter. But, going over the herd animal by animal, he made a
discovery which shocked him. He found six big steers in the lot which
wore fairly recently burned Temple brands--crudely scrawled over the
brands of the Big Bend ranch, old man Packard's favorite outfit in the
north.
It was impossible to know just how long ago a searing-hot iron had
altered the range indication of ownership; Steve could merely stare and
wonder and finally hazard a guess. Temple had been hard-driven; he had
succumbed to temptation and opportunity as he had to whiskey and many
other things. Seeing life obliquely he had no doubt told himself that
he was squaring accounts. So, in the end, Steve was inclined to
believe.
Just what to do he did not know. It seemed best to him to bide his
time, to keep his eyes open, to hope for the way out of an embarrassing
situation. He would willingly have made restitution himself, to save
Terry from knowing and to save her name from the smudge which old man
Packard would eagerly put upon it were he offered the opportunity. And
right here was the trouble; he did not care to let his grandfather know
what had happened.
While striving with this matter the other was brought to his attention.
Also at the time of the round-up Barbee reported a black-and-white
steer missing, the prize of the beef herd, said Barbee. Strayed into
some far out-of-the-way cañon, perhaps. But as the days went by other
cattle, finally totalling a score, were reported missing. And Steve
remembered how one evening he and Terry from a log had watched Blenham
driving off a string of steers.
"My beloved grandfather has no love for the courts of law," mused Steve
many a time. "And he knows that in that I am like him. So to his way
of thinking it's just Packard eat Packard and the rest of the world
'Hands Off.' And so he is going the limit. Well, I guess that's as
good a way as any other."
The day came when Steve put his cattle into Drop Off Valley. The
herds, his and Terry's, were counted twice, once as they filed through
the gate of the round-up corrals, again as they were turned into the
upland range. Two hundred and thirty-four head.
"Two hundred and thirty-four head where I defy Blenham or the devil
himself to steal a single one of them," said Steve positively.
For though there were no fences here nature had raised sufficient
barriers in the way of the sheer Drop Off Chasm cutting across the
southern end of the plateau and in rocky, uninviting and all but
impassable mountain peaks on north and east and a section of the
western boundary.
It seemed the simplest matter in the world here with but ordinary
diligence and vigilance on the part of his cowboys to make good Steve's
vow. Therefore, with Barbee in charge of the men here and under
instructions to keep the eyes of trusted night riders always open,
Steve thought to have heard the last of cattle losses.
The steers were to be counted every day if Barbee thought necessary; so
much Steve had said coolly, merely for the emphasis of the words.
Barbee had looked at him curiously, making no rejoinder and going about
his business with a puzzled look on his face.
A week later Barbee reported to Steve down at Ranch Number Ten.
"Five steers gone," he said succinctly, his eyes hard and expectant,
challenging his employer's.
"Gone?" repeated Steve. "Where? And when?"
"I don't know," replied Barbee. "I missed 'em four days ago. I
wouldn't believe they'd gone for good. I didn't see how they could of
gone. I've looked for 'em ever since; I've rode into an' out of every
cañon an' pass; I've been everywhere they could go. But--they're gone.
Five big steers."
For a moment their eyes, Steve's as hard as Barbee's, held steady and
unwinking in a deeply probing gaze.
"Barbee," said Steve after a little, "remember the night Blenham tried
to bribe you with a thousand-dollar bill?"
Barbee flushed and nodded.
"I get you," he said quietly. "Think he's bought me up, maybe?"
"I don't know what to think. But this much is clear; If you are on the
level it's up to you to see that I don't lose any more stock. And it's
also up to you to find where those five steers went. And get them
back. Every single hoof of them."
That night Steve himself spent in Drop Off Valley, a rifle over his
arm. He had ordered his men to carry guns, and if Blenham or another
man were detected driving off his cattle, to shoot and to shoot to kill.
But the next day he returned to the home ranch. He trusted his
cowboys--all but Barbee, and in Barbee's case he was not sure what to
think--and it was only too clear to him that there were enough men
there to cope with the situation without his interference. Two days
later Barbee reported to him again.
The boy's face was haggard and drawn, his eyes burned sullenly.
"Six head more gone!" he announced defiantly. His look said plainly:
"What are you going to say about it? They're gone."
"So you've turned cattle-thief, have you, Barbee?" was what Steve said.
A sickly flush stained Barbee's hollow cheeks.
"No!" he snapped hotly. "I ain't. But----"
He swung on his heel and started to the door. Steve called him back.
"What are you going to do, Barbee?"
"I'm goin' an' get Blenham," said Barbee between his teeth. "I been
wantin' him a long time. Now this is his work an' he makes it look
like it's mine. I'm goin' an' get him."
"If it is Blenham," Steve offered coldly, "and if you are playing
square with me, how does it happen that he can get away with a thing
like this? Right under your nose--and you not know? It sounds-- You
know how it sounds, Barbee."
"I don't know how he does it," growled Barbee. "I don't know how a man
could run off a string of cows like that in them mountains an' not
leave no tracks. Why, there ain't half-a-dozen places where they could
be drove out'n the valley an' through the cliffs, an' I been watchin'
every one of them places myself all night an' keepin' the other boys
ridin' until they're saddle-weary. An'--an' six head more gone----"
"You're either a clever little actor, Mr. Barbee," muttered Steve
sharply, "or you are straight, and I'm hanged if I know which. Just
leave Blenham alone for a while; go back to your job."
Barbee, his spurs dragging disconsolately, went out. Steve saw how the
boy's shoulders slumped and again asked himself if Barbee were acting
or if Blenham were simply too sharp for him? In the end he decided
that he had better move his headquarters to Drop Off Valley.
That same day there came a cowboy riding from the Big Bend ranch
bringing a brief note from Steve's grandfather. It ran:
DEAR STEPHEN: Better not go too far, my boy. Eye for an eye is
first-class gospel. And there ain't no game yet I ever been bluffed
out on. Guess you understand.
PACKARD.
Steve didn't altogether understand but the messenger could add nothing
save that the old man was chuckling with Blenham when he gave the
message. Steve, in no mood to hear of his grandfather's high good
humor, tore the letter to bits, distributed them upon the afternoon
wind and told the lean cowboy that he could tell Grandfather Packard
and Blenham to go straight to everlasting blazes. The cowboy laughed
and rode away.
Steve, riding slowly through the lengthening shadows falling through
the pines of the mountain slopes before one comes to Drop Off Valley,
was overtaken by Terry Temple riding furiously. Terry's horse was
dripping with sweat; Terry's face was troubled; there was a look almost
of terror in her eyes.
"Steve Packard," she cried out as she came abreast of him and they
stared into each other's eyes in the dusk under the big trees. "Tell
me everything you know about those stolen steers! Everything."
So she knew, too? Yet he had cautioned Barbee not to talk and to
instruct the other boys to keep their mouths shut until such time as
they could understand this hand being played in the dark.
"Who told you?" he asked quickly.
"I saw them!" she told him, her spirit shining like fire in her eyes.
"The whole six of them. I knew they were not our cattle. I saw how
the brands had been worked, clumsily worked. Oh, my God, Steve
Packard, what does it mean?"
Now it flashed upon him. Terry was not speaking of the cattle lost
from the upland valley; she referred to those half-dozen big steers
roaming on the Temple ranch whose brands had been crudely altered from
the sign of the Big Bend outfit to the sign of her father's. Slowly
the red blood of shame, shame for her, crept up into his cheeks, dusky
under his tan.
"Terry," he began lamely.
But she halted him with the word, her ear catching the subtle note of
sympathy, her hand upflung, her temper flaring out that he, of all men,
should think shame of her blood.
"My father was never a thief!" she cried hotly, her voice ringing clear
and certain. "Not that, Steve Packard. Don't you dare say that! And
yet-- You saw them, you knew, and you didn't say a word to me, to
anybody?"
"I didn't know what to say or what to do,", he explained gently. "I
thought it best just to wait, to hope for the sense of all this
infernal jumble. I hoped----"
"You big fool!" she called him with all due emphasis. "Just like all
of the rest of your blundering sex. If the good Lord had stopped with
the job of making Adam, his whole creation wouldn't have been worth the
snap of my thumb and finger."
"It isn't, anyway," said Steve. "I wouldn't swap your little finger
for a king's gold crown----"
"Moonshine," cut in Terry. "Listen to me, Steve Packard: You saw those
swapped brands and you kept your mouth shut."
"It is generally considered----"
"I said to listen to me! You didn't say a word to me because you
believed my dad was a cattle-thief!"
Steve, despite himself, shifted uneasily in his saddle and finally
dropped his eyes. Terry sat there staring at him fixedly, her own eyes
wide open and again harboring that look that was almost fear.
"You--you--Oh, Steve Packard! This is contemptible of you!"
Then he lifted his eyes and looked at her solely enough.
"Terry Temple," he said very gently, "I pray God that you are right and
that I am wrong. I did not know, I only saw what I saw, and wondered
and kept my mouth shut. But--listen to me now, Terry Temple. You are
not the one to dodge an issue, no matter how hard it is to face it.
Tell me: If your father did not shift those brands, then who did? And
why? Don't you see that is what it amounts to, that is what we've got
to answer?"
"Blenham!" she told him swiftly, hardly waiting for him to finish.
"Blenham, under orders. Orders from your precious old thief of a
grandfather!"
He smiled back at her, hoping to coax an answering smile to her lips
and into her troubled eyes. But she only shook her head and went on
steadily.
"Recrimination of a sort----"
"Recrimination is quite some word, no matter what it means," sniffed
Terry. "But we can leave it out. In words of one syllable, your old
thief of a grandfather ordered his pet dog and sub-thief to go tie
something on poor old dad. And you fell for it! You ought to go to a
school for the simple-minded."
"Just what," demanded Steve equably, "do you suppose a play like that
would win for anybody? Any time my old thief of a grandfather, as you
call him, hands an enemy of his several hundred dollars in beef cattle,
why, just please wake me up."
"A play like that is just what old Hell-Fire would be up to right about
now," she told him positively. "You have been proving something too
much for him to swallow whole and boots on; your chipping in with us
that time you took the mortgage over made him hungrier than ever to
gobble up the crowd of us. So he plays the dirty trick of making it
appear my father is a cattle-thief."
"Blenham might do a trick like that. My grandfather wouldn't. That
is, I don't think he would."
"Better hedge! Wouldn't he, though! He's always been as mean as
gar-broth; the older he gets the meaner and nastier he is. He'd do
anything to double-cross a Temple and you know it. It's one crooked
play; there'll be more like it. Just you see, Steve Packard. And the
next one--at least if it concerns me--you see that you let me know
about it instead of going around like a dumb man."
Then he blurted out word of the recent losses from Drop Off Valley.
For her herds mingled there with his and a part of the losses were to
be borne by her.
"I'm on my way there now," he concluded. "I've an idea----"
"You haven't!" she interrupted. "Steve Packard, I don't believe you
ever had an idea in your life. Don't you know--don't you know what's
going with those steers up there?"
"Do you?"
"You just bet your life I do! It's that crook of a Yellow Barbee, in
cahoots with that crook of a Blenham who's taking orders from that
crook of an old Hell-Fire Packard! Can't you see their play?"
"I rather think I can. But I don't happen to be as positive about the
unknown as you do."
"You're just a man," said Terry. "That's why. And now you are on your
way to the feeding-grounds up there, to come in and say, 'Here I am,
Barbee, come to watch you and see that you don't steal any more stock
for me to-night.' That the idea?"
Steve laughed.
"Not exactly. I had intended leaving my horse before I got to the rim
of the valley and going on on foot, not telling everybody what I was
about."
"And you'd come to the rim of the valley either by Hell Gate pass or
through the old Indian Trail, wouldn't you? And Barbee or Blenham
would see that both ways were watched."
"You seem to know the trails rather well," he began, but she merely
broke in:
"That's not all I know about this neck of the woods, either, Steve
Packard. Maybe it's lucky for you and for me too that you told me all
this. I'll take you into Drop Off Valley to-night, and Blenham and
Yellow Barbee can watch all they please and never guess we're there.
For there's a way up that not even Blenham knows and where they will
never look for us. Come on, Steve Packard; use a spur."
She shot by him, leading the way.
So Steve and Terry rode through the forests, passing from the dull
fringe of the day into the calm glory of the night, feeling the air
grow cooler and sweeter against their faces, sensing the shutting-in
about them of the gentle serenity of the wilderness. They followed
little-travelled trails where she rode ahead and he, following close at
her horse's heels, was glad each time that an open space beyond or a
ridge crested showed him her form pricked clearly against the sky.
They spoke less and less as they went on. Deeper grew the silences
into which they made their way, with only the gush of a mountain brook
or the fluttering of a startled bird or the rustle of dead leaves under
some alert little wild thing, just these sounds occasionally and ever
the soft thud of shod hoofs on leaf mould and loose soil.
The stars multiplied swiftly, grew in brilliancy. But down here close
to the face of the earth where the shadows were, the dark was
impenetrable.
For many a mile Terry led the way through the forests. Steve was on
the verge of suggesting that she had lost her way, when she turned off
to the right and down a long slope in so decided a fashion that he
closed his lips to his suspicion.
She knew where she was going; as he once again saw her body against a
patch of sky--she had gone down the slope and climbed a ridge
ahead--and as he noted her carriage and the poise of a chin for the
instant clearly outlined, he knew that she was sure of herself. Well,
she was that sort of a girl; she might have confidence in herself and a
man might place his confidence with hers.
So at last Terry brought him down into a creek-bed and the bottom on a
steep-sided cañon. He merely said, "I'll take your word for it!" when
she told him that this was the deep-cleft ravine which lay like a gash
at the base of the sheer Drop Off Cliffs.
Yonder, perhaps a mile ahead and yet prominently asserting itself to
their view because of a certain widening and straightening of the cañon
here, a bold head of cliffs stood out like a monster carving in ebony.
Up there, at the top of these cliffs, was the southern end of Drop Off
Valley.
"And it is up those cliffs that we are going," Terry announced when,
having drawn nearer, they stopped again to gaze upward. "There's a
trail climbing straight up from the bed of the pass; a trail to go
hand-and-foot style. Once on top we'll be among Barbee's herds, Barbee
guessing nothing of our coming since he'll be busy watching the other
ways in. And-- Look!"
They were close together and she gripped his arm in her sudden
amazement while she threw out one hand pointing. He heard her little
gasp; he looked upward; an astonished ejaculation broke from his own
lips. A breathless moment and already the thing, appearing from the
black nothingness, silhouetted but a moment against the sky, was gone
and he vaguely saw Terry's face turned toward him while they sought to
find each other's eyes and know if each had seen what the other had
glimpsed.
"It's impossible!" he muttered. "We are imagining things."
"Wait!" said Terry. "Maybe after all----"
They waited impatiently, their blood atingle. And in a very few
moments there was, seeming absurd and impossible, a repetition of the
vision which had so startled them: a black form at the head of the
cliffs, the field of star-strewn sky back of it limning it into vivid
distinctness--the ebon bulk of a steer moving straight out from the top
of the precipice, straight out a half-dozen feet into nothingness of
empty space, then slowly descending through the air, gone silently in
the deeper shadows of the cañon below!
"Block and tackle!" muttered Steve abruptly. "A small steel cable.
Two or three men up there; a man on horseback down below. And while
Barbee and the boys guard the other end----"
"Blenham puts one across on us down here!" Terry finished it for him.
"Only here's where we put one over on Blenham," rejoined Steve hotly.
He threw a cartridge into his rifle-barrel and spurred ahead of her.
"You stay here, Terry. I----"
"Will I?" Terry retorted with animation. "Not on your life, Steve
Packard! If this is the beginning of Blenham's finish-- Well, I'm in
on it."