THE MASKED HORSEMAN.
Alma Caldwell assumed the burden of managing Nick Caldwell’s ranch.
She was the only heir of the man who had been dubbed by his slayers
“the king of the rustlers,” but who, as Bertram had discovered, had
some prominent connection with the other side in the cattle war.
Most of the Caldwell cattle were running in the hills, mixed with the
stock from other ranches in the neighborhood. Comparatively little of
Nick Caldwell’s ranch was under cultivation. Like most other ranchers
in that part of the State he contented himself with raising enough
alfalfa for his saddle stock and a little winter feeding, in case of
an unusually severe season. But for the most part it was “horseback
farming” that was practiced everywhere.
Alma’s day was largely spent in the saddle. With her, as a small, but
valiant, bodyguard, went young Jimmy Coyle. There was only one point
of difference between the cousins, and that was Alma’s dismissal of
Milton Bertram. Jimmy not only stood up for the Texan, but visited him
frequently during the remainder of Bertram’s stay at Uncle Billy’s.
Also it was Jimmy who came to Alma with the first news that the Texan
had made good his words, and had located on a homestead.
“It’s up at the headwaters of the Roaring Fork, ’way up above Uncle
Billy’s,” said Jimmy. “Milt’s got a cabin all built, and he’s took on
a pardner, a cowboy named Archie Beam, from Swingley’s outfit. Beam
couldn’t stand Swingley’s goins on, so he and Milt have hooked up
together. They’ve got some good range right back of ’em, and Milt’s
goin’ to have some cattle drove up from Texas, and I’m bettin’ they
make good, right from the start.”
Alma refused to show any interest.
“I don’t see why you’re mad at Milt Bertram,” went on Jimmy. “He’s a
dandy, I think. And say, I never saw anybody shoot the way he can.
He’s that quick with both hands. I can see now that it was only fool
luck that kept me from bein’ filled full of lead, after I had plugged
him in the shoulder that time. He never asks about you, but I know he
wants to hear all about what luck you’re havin’ at ranchin’. I’ve told
him as much as I could about things here, specially about the cattle
you’ve been losin’ lately.”
“I’m sure there are at least fifty more gone from that bunch over on
Devil’s Head,” said Alma. “The other ranchers around here are sure
they are losing cattle, anywhere from ten to fifty head at a time, but
they can’t seem to catch any one at it.”
Alma was soon to learn, however, that Swingley was not to be content
with getting cattle by means of occasional raids.
The ranchmen throughout the county were served with notice that the
newly organized Cattlemen’s Association, of which Swingley was
ostensibly the head, intended to put in effect a series of district
round-ups. All cattle were to be gathered and inspected, and unbranded
cattle, or any livestock that carried suspicious-looking brands, were
to become the property of the new organization.
No sooner were the notices served than the round-ups were organized,
all manned by Association men. The cow-punchers, who had made up the
invading army, which was now spoken of only in terms of hatred
and contempt by the small ranchmen, were scattered about in small, but
aggressive, delegations, with the different round-up wagons.
Swingley himself captained the round-up outfit that combed the
Powderhorn Valley, from its wide reaches on the plains, to the final
ranch in the foothills.
When the riders had gathered the cattle from the vicinity of her
ranch Alma was dismayed at the smallness of her herd. Fully half of
Nick Caldwell’s cattle had been spirited away. Swingley, as sole judge
and dictator, when the inspection of brands was going on, threw at
least half of the remaining cattle into the Association’s pool.
“It’s an outrage!” protested Alma. “There’s no question about the
validity of all those brands you’ve claimed.”
“You don’t know nothin’ about the cattle game, young lady,” responded
Swingley callously. “Every brand I’ve claimed was made with a runnin’
iron. Nick Caldwell’s title of the ‘king of the rustlers’ was well
earned. And it’d be better for all who sympathized with him if they
moved out of this country, without standin’ on ceremony,” added the
rustler significantly. “We’re not through with ’em yet.”
The girl did not lose the general meaning of the threat, but at first
she did not get its full import. A few weeks later she learned what
Swingley had meant. Immediately after the completion of the
Association round-ups, which resulted in many thousands of cattle
being seized from small ranchers by the big cattle interests, there
began a series of assassinations which soon had the entire countryside
terrorized.
One ranchman after another, who had been identified with the
opposition to the big cattlemen, was shot down by a mysterious
rifleman. It was apparent that the work was done by one person, yet
the shootings occurred at such divergent points of the compass that it
seemed impossible that a single rider could cover so much ground in
such a short space of time.
Two bachelor brothers, who conducted a small ranch on one of the
tributaries of the Upper Powderhorn, were shot dead, as they sat at
their evening meal, the assassin firing, with deadly accuracy, through
the open window. To the cabin door was attached a paper, on which was
printed in rude letters: Rustlers, Beware!
A day after this double murder the county was thrilled by the news
that Fred Hersekorn, a prosperous ranchman in another part of the
valley, had been shot, as he was riding home after a trip to Wild
Horse. The ranchman was murdered almost at the door of his home. His
wife, who had rushed to the yard at the sound of the shot, had found
her husband shot through the head. It was dusk, but she descried a
horseman riding across the prairie, on the opposite side of the road.
The rider turned with a defiant wave of the hand, and the woman saw
that he wore a black mask, covering the upper part of his face.
On a tree beside the driveway leading to the ranchman’s house was
found a sign similar to that posted on the cabin of the assassin’s
victims on the Upper Powderhorn.
The countryside was terrorized, the feeling of helplessness being
intensified because the sheriff was notoriously indifferent to
anything that was not to the best interests of the big cattlemen. Men
were afraid to meet on the main-traveled roads. When a traveler saw
another traveler approaching there was a mutual survey at long
distance. Then, to make assurance doubly sure, each horseman usually
made a detour. Men did not stir outdoors unless they were armed.
Curtains were put up at ranch house windows that had never previously
known such obstructions to the light.
In spite of the fact that hundreds of ranchmen were searching for and
laying traps for him, night and day, the visitations of the masked
horseman went on. Arson was added to his crimes, as he burned the
ranch of a newcomer on Lone Lake Mesa, after shooting the homesteader,
as the others had been shot. Again men examined the mysterious square
of paper, with its poorly printed message of warning.
Milton Bertram and Arch Beam, on the headwaters of the Roaring Fork,
the stream which later on foamed past the naturalist’s cabin, felt
that only extreme vigilance could save them from being victims of the
assassin. They went cautiously about their work each day and seldom
exposed themselves to fire from the points of attack that covered
their cabin, without first making reconnaissance.
They felt that their caution was not misplaced, when, on two
occasions, they found pony tracks in the thickets that commanded
unobstructed views of their homestead.
“That feller is a real rifleman, whoever he might be,” observed Arch
Beam. “He never shoots until he has his man well covered. But some day
he’s goin’ to slip up, and a better man than he will do the shootin’
first.”
“I hope that time isn’t far off, Arch,” returned Bertram. “There’s no
use fooling around in the open with an enemy like that, a man who
won’t even give you as much warning as a rattlesnake gives before he
strikes. He’d simply add you to his victims, as easily as you might
mark up another point on a billiard string. A man like that has to be
caught off his guard. He knows there are plenty of men looking for him
in the open, and that’s why he’s not going to be caught there.”
“Where are you goin’ to get him, then?” asked Archie doubtfully.
“I don’t say I’m going to get him,” responded Bertram. “But whoever
does get him will probably land his game in some totally unexpected
place. Wild Horse wouldn’t be a bad place to look. I think I’ll drift
around there a little more than I have been.”
Bertram followed out the hint he dropped to his partner. He rode to
Wild Horse, where he had seldom been seen since he and Archie had
taken up their homestead.
Wild Horse was typical of the towns of the frontier. Most of its
one-story business houses were spread along both sides of a broad
street. There were a few general stores, two banks, a hotel, several
restaurants, and numerous saloons and gambling places. All were
prosperous, and, while the sun might cease to illumine Wild Horse at
evening, there was plenty of light there, of an artificial kind, till
well along toward the next daybreak.
The topic of conversation in Wild Horse, as everywhere else, was the
work of the masked horseman. But here the comments were a little more
guarded, on account of the feeling that some inside ring of the cattle
interests was prompting the assassinations, and Wild Horse was
headquarters of those interests, which fact Swingley did not allow to
be forgotten for a moment.
Bertram had hardly seated himself in the hotel restaurant before
Swingley saw him and came over to his table. “Milt,” he said, “you’re
too good a man to be wastin’ your young years on a hopeless homestead
proposition like the one you’ve got. If you’ve come up here, prepared
to listen to reason and to throw in with us again, I can put you where
you’ll be on the road to a fortune in the cow game.”
“I’m glad it’s the cow game and not making go-devils,” said the young
Texan, as he poured his coffee with a steady hand.
Swingley smiled saturninely. “I’ve got it figgered out what’s turned
you wrong,” he said. “When you first agreed to go along with us you
didn’t have any particular idee of kickin’ over the traces, did you?”
“Maybe not.”
“Well, you met this girl, and then you got some foolish idees in your
head. As a matter of fact the killin’ of Nick Caldwell wasn’t nothin’
for you to be sore about, as Nick deserved what he got. It is true he
was good enough to that stepdaughter of his, who took his name, and
who looked on him as a father. But he was the leader of the rustler
crowd.”
“I don’t know whether he was or not,” replied the Texan, with a keen
glance at Swingley. “I’ve sort of drawn some conclusions of my own to
the effect that Caldwell was really a power with the cattle interests,
though maybe only a little inside circle knew what he was doing. He
might have had a falling out with a big man in that inside circle.
Maybe that other man was jealous of Nick’s power.
Maybe Nick had some information about the other man’s crookedness.
Anyway, the other man figured that Nick had to go. So there wasn’t any
powder spared in getting him when the chance opened up.”
Swingley turned pale with rage, but he choked back his inclination to
denounce Bertram.
“Do you mean to say that I was mixed up in any deal with Nick
Caldwell?” he demanded.
“I said it looked as if some other man was, that man being in the
confidence of the cattle interests,” responded the Texan coolly. “I
didn’t say it was you, but it might have been. Do you want me to
spring any documentary evidence I might have?”
“Do you mean you’ve got letters, papers of any kind?” Here a note of
anxiousness crept into Swingley’s voice.
“You had it right the first time. There are some letters of interest,
and I want to tell you to quit your high-handed persecutions in this
county, or they’re going to be made public.”
“That girl’s turned ’em over to you, if there is anything of the
sort,” said Swingley, his face working convulsively, his voice thick
with anger and fear.
“The girl has had nothing to do with it,” responded Bertram. “But
she’s one of the people around here that you’ve got to let alone from
now on.”
“I’ll let nobody alone,” said Swingley, liquor and his anger getting
the better of his tongue. “There ain’t enough left of her herd now for
her to make a living with, but there’s worse in store for her, if she
don’t clear out of the country. As for you, you’re a marked man, and
you won’t be safe till you’re on the other side of the mountains.”
“Better not have me marked too plainly, Swingley,” observed the Texan.
“I’m not fool enough to carry those letters on me, you know. I’ve left
them where they’re sure to come to light if I’m killed. So call off
the man who’s been prowling around our cabin lately, and tell him to
pack his guns elsewhere. Speaking of gunmen, there’s Tom Hoog looking
for you.”
Swingley looked around, just as Hoog came through the doors leading
from the hotel office to the restaurant.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “Hoog’s been around all the afternoon. Here I am,
Tom,” he called to his retainer. Then, as Hoog beckoned to him,
Swingley rose and added:
“I’ve been talkin’ kinda strong, Milt, because I’ve had a little more
liquor than common. I ain’t given that way as a rule, so fergit what
I’ve been sayin’. Think over that offer I’ve made you. It’s good as
gold, and all you’ve got to do is reach out your hand and get a
fortune. I’ll have you set up in an ideal grazin’ country, with a
smackin’ big herd of your own, inside of a month.”
“I wouldn’t take any range, nor run any cows that came to me by way of
you and Hoog, if the cattle were all prize-winners, and the grass on
the range was belly-deep, all the year round, and the weather was
always June,” replied the Texan.
Swingley turned, as if to make a heated answer, but Hoog’s voice came
insistently: “Ace, come here. Here’s news!”
The cattleman joined Hoog, and the two walked through the swinging
door together. Every one else had gone out of the room but Bertram. He
rose, troubled in mind about the threat Swingley had made concerning
Alma. He turned cold at the thought that some harm might come to her.
“I never thought it, not even of such scoundrels as these!” he
muttered. “Women have always been safer in the West than anywhere else
in the world. Perhaps they’re going to strike at her in some way that
I hadn’t thought of.”
With his mind full of plans for the protection of Alma, Bertram left a
coin on the table for the waitress and walked slowly toward the
hat-rack for his battered, high-crowned felt. He intended to go right
to the ranch, to tell the girl that this foolishness on her part had
to stop, that her safety was now the prime consideration, and that he
himself intended to enlist as a personal guard, until these troubles
were over.
The Texan’s reflections were broken in upon by confused voices from
the hotel lobby and the barroom just beyond. He stepped through the
swinging doors and almost ran into the hotel clerk, white-faced with
excitement.
“Ain’t that the limit!” said the clerk, as Bertram stopped him with a
query. “Such a kid, too! Didn’t you know about it? Young Jimmy
Caldwell was found shot this morning. Another masked-horseman job.
Some say the kid’s dead, but the latest word is that he’s alive at
Uncle Billy’s place, and that he may live.”
As the clerk vanished, to spread the news to the rest of the hotel
help, Bertram stood a moment in thought. Then the significance of one
of Swingley’s remarks came to him, full force.
“By all the gods!” he exclaimed, slapping his leather-clad thigh.
“Swingley was careful to tell me that Hoog had been around here all
the afternoon. It was an alibi he was parroting. That’s slip number
one. The rest will follow fast.”
Walking swiftly to the barroom the Texan drove his arm against the
swinging doors and opened them with a bang. Facing the inquiring crowd
he stood looking for Swingley and Hoog. The cowboy’s attitude was
tense, and his hands were close to the butts of the guns that showed
low on his hips.
Swingley and his lieutenant were gone. Turning as suddenly as he had
entered the Texan strode out of the hotel and flung himself on his
horse.
As he sped toward the foothills, the rage, which had prompted him to
kill at sight, died out of his heart, and it was succeeded by a cold
determination to bring retribution to those who had committed this new
crime. With such retribution would come proofs, which would satisfy
others as well as himself, that justice had not miscarried.