A QUESTION OF BRANDS
Trailing a herd of cattle through a strange wild country is no
sinecure. There was not a man in the Double A outfit who expected an
easy time in trailing the herd to Las Vegas, for it was a rough, grim
country, and the men were experienced.
Wild cattle are not tractable; they have an irritating habit of
obstinately insisting on finding their own trail, and of persisting in
vagaries that are the despair of their escort.
The Double A herd was no exception. On a broad level they behaved
fairly well, though always requiring the attention of the men; but in
the broken sections of country through which they passed,
heart-breaking effort was required of the men to keep them headed in
the right direction.
The men of the outfit had little sleep during the first two days of the
drive. Nights found them hot, tired, and dusty, but with no prospect
of an uninterrupted sleep. Still there was no complaint.
On the third night, the herd having been driven about forty miles, the
men began to show the effects of their sleepless vigil.
They had bedded the herd down on a level between some hills, near a
rocky ford over which the waters of a little stream trickled.
Buck and Andy were on their ponies, slowly circling the herd, singing
to the cattle, talking to them, using all their art and persuasion to
induce the herd to cease the restless "milling" that had begun with the
effort to halt for the night.
Around the camp fire, which had been built at the cook's orders, were
Sanderson, Carter, Bud, Sogun, Soapy, and the Kid. Carter stood at a
little distance from the fire, watching the herd.
"That's a damned nervous bunch we've got, boys," he called to the other
men. "I don't know when I've seen a flightier lot. It wouldn't take
much to start 'em!"
"We'll have our troubles gettin' them through Devil's Hole," declared
Soapy. Soapy, so called because of his aversion to the valuable toilet
preparation so necessary to cleanliness, had a bland, ingenuous face
and perplexed, inquiring eyes. He was a capable man, however, despite
his pet aversion, and there was concern in his voice when he spoke.
"That's why I wasn't in no hurry to push them too far tonight,"
declared Carter. "I don't want to get anywhere near Devil's Hole in
the darkness, an' I want that place quite some miles away when I camp.
I seen a herd stride that quicksand on a run once, an' they wasn't
enough of them left to make a good stew.
"If my judgment ain't wrong, an' we can keep them steppin' pretty
lively in the mornin', we'll get to Devil's Hole just about noon
tomorrow. Then we can ease them through, an' the rest ain't worth
talkin' about."
"Devil's Hole is the only trail?" inquired Sanderson.
Carter nodded. The others confirmed the nod. But Carter's desire for
an early start the next morning was denied. Bud and Sogun were on
guard duty on the morning shift, with the other men at breakfast, when
a dozen horsemen appeared from the morning haze westward and headed
directly for the camp fire.
"Visitors," announced Soapy, who was first to see the riders.
The Double A men got to their feet to receive the strangers. Sanderson
stepped out from the group slightly, and the horsemen came to a halt
near him. A big man, plainly the leader of the strangers, dismounted
and approached Sanderson.
The man radiated authority. There was a belligerent gleam in his eyes
as he looked Sanderson over, an inspection that caused Sanderson's face
to redden, so insolent was it. Behind him the big man's companions
watched, their faces expressionless, their eyes alert.
"Who's runnin' this outfit?" demanded the man.
"You're talkin' at the boss," said Sanderson.
"I'm the sheriff of Colfax County," said the other, shortly. "There's
been a complaint made about you. Bill Lester, of the Bar X, says
you've been pickin' up his cattle, crossin' his range, yesterday."
This incident had happened before, both to Sanderson and to Carter.
They had insisted on the right of inspection themselves, when strange
herds had been driven through their ranges.
"We want to look your stock over," said the sheriff.
The request was reasonable, and Sanderson smiled.
"That's goin' to hold us up a spell," he returned; "an' we was figurin'
on makin' Devil's Hole before dark. Hop in an' do your inspectin'."
The big man motioned to his followers and the latter spurred to the
herd, the other being the last to leave the camp fire.
For two hours the strangers threaded and weaved their horses through
the mass of cattle, while Sanderson and his men, impatient to begin the
morning drive, rode around the outskirts and watched them.
"They're takin' a mighty good look," commented Carter at the end of the
two hours.
Sanderson's face was set in a frown; he saw that the men were working
very slowly, and were conferring together longer than seemed necessary.
At the end of three hours Carter spoke to Sanderson, his voice hoarse
with rage:
"They're holdin' us up purposely. I'll be damned if I'm goin' to stand
for it!"
"Easy there!" cautioned Sanderson. "I've never seen a sheriff that was
long on speed. They'll be showin' their hand pretty soon."
Half an hour later the sheriff spurred his horse out of the press and
approached Sanderson. His face was grave. His men rode up also, and
halted their horses near him. The Double A men had advanced and stood
behind Sanderson and Carter.
"There's somethin' wrong here!" he declared, scowling at Sanderson.
"It ain't the first time this dodge has been worked. A man gets up a
brand that's mighty like the brand on the range he's goin' to drive
through, an' he picks up cattle an' claims they're his. You claim your
brand is the Double A." He dismounted and with a branch of chaparral
drew a design in the sand.
"This is the way you make your brand," he said, and he pointed out the
Double A brand:
[Illustration: Double A and Bar X brands.]
"That's an 'A' lookin' at it straight up an' from the right side, like
this, just reversin' it. But when you turn it this way, it's the Bar X:
"An' there's a bunch of your steers with the brand on them that way.
I'll have to take charge of the herd until the thing is cleared up!"
Sanderson's lips took on a straight line; the color left his face.
Here was authority--that law with which he had unaccountably clashed on
several occasions during his stay at the Double A. Yet he knew
that--as on those other occasions--the law was operating to the benefit
of his enemies.
However, he did not now suspect Silverthorn and the others of setting
the law upon him. The Double A men might have been careless with their
branding, and it was unfortunate that he had been forced by the closing
of the Okar market to drive his cattle over a range upon which were
cattle bearing a brand so startlingly similar to his.
His men were silent, watching him with set faces. He knew they would
stand behind him in any trouble that might occur. And yet he
hesitated, for he did not wish to force trouble.
"How many Bar X cattle do you think are in the herd?" he asked.
"Mebbe a hundred--mebbe more."
"How long will it take you to get Bill Lester here to prove his stock?"
The big man laughed. "That's a question. Bill left last night for
Frisco; I reckon mebbe he'll be gone a month--mebbe more."
The color surged back into Sanderson's face. He stiffened.
"An' you expect to hold my herd here until Lester gets back?" he said,
slowly.
"Yep," said the other, shortly.
"You can't do it!" declared Sanderson. "I know the law, an' you can't
hold a man's cattle that long without becomin' liable for damages."
"We'll be liable," grinned the sheriff. "Before Bill left last night
he made out a bond for ninety thousand dollars--just what your cattle
are worth at the market price. If there's any damages comin' to you
you'll get them out of that."
"It's a frame-up," growled Carter, at Sanderson's side. "It proves
itself. This guy, Lester, makes out a bond before we're within two
days' drive of his bailiwick. He's had information about us, an' is
plannin' to hold us up. You know what for. Silverthorn an' the bunch
has got a finger in the pie."
That suspicion had also become a conviction to Sanderson. And yet, in
the person of the sheriff and his men, there was the law blocking his
progress toward the money he needed for the irrigation project.
"Do you think one hundred and fifty heads will cover the suspected
stock?" he questioned.
"I'd put it at two hundred," returned the sheriff.
"All right, then," said Sanderson slowly; "take your men an' cut out
the two hundred you think belong to Lester. I'll stop on the way back
an' have it out with you."
The sheriff grinned. "That'll be square enough," he agreed. He turned
to the men who had come with him. "You boys cut out them cattle that
we looked at, an' head them toward the Bar X." When the men had gone
he turned to Sanderson.
"I want you men to know that I'm actin' under orders. I don't know
what's eatin' Bill Lester--that ain't my business. But when I'm
ordered to do anything in my line of duty, why, it's got to be done.
Your friend has gassed some about a man named Silverthorn bein' at the
bottom of this thing. Mebbe he is--I ain't got no means of knowin'.
It appears to me that Bill ain't got no call to hog your whole bunch,
though, for I've never knowed Bill to raise more than fifteen hundred
head of cattle in one season. I'm takin' a chance on two hundred
coverin' his claims."
It was after noon when the sheriff and his men started westward with
the suspected stock.
Carter, fuming with rage, watched them go. Then he turned to Sanderson.
"Hell an' damnation! We'll hit Devil's Hole about dusk--if we start
now. What'll we do?"
"Start," said Sanderson. "If we hang around here for another day
they'll trump up another fake charge an' clean us out!"
The country through which they were forced to travel during the
afternoon was broken and rugged, and the progress of the herd was slow.
However, according to Carter, they made good time considering the
drawbacks they encountered, and late afternoon found them within a few
miles of the dreaded Devil's Hole.
Carter counseled a halt until morning, and Sanderson yielded. After a
camping ground had been selected Carter and Sanderson rode ahead to
inspect Devil's Hole.
The place was well named. It was a natural basin between some jagged
and impassable foothills, running between a gorge at each end. Both
ends of the basin constricted sharply at the gorges, resembling a wide,
narrow-necked bottle.
A thin stream of water flowed on each side of a hard, rock trail that
ran straight through the center of the basin, and on both sides of the
trail a black bog of quicksand spread, covering the entire surface of
the land.
Halfway through the basin, Sanderson halted Streak on the narrow trail
and looked at the treacherous sand.
"I've seen quicksand, _an'_ quicksand," he declared, "but this is the
bogs of the lot. If any steers get bogged down in there they wouldn't
be able to bellow more than once before they'd sink out of sight!"
"There's a heap of them in there," remarked Carter.
It was an eery place, and the echo of their voices resounded with
ever-increasing faintness.
"I never go through this damned hell-hole without gettin' the creeps,"
declared Carter. "An' I've got nerve enough, too, usually. There's
somethin' about the place that suggests the cattle an' men it's
swallowed.
"Do you see that flat section there?" he indicated a spot about a
hundred yards wide and half as long, which looked like hard, baked
earth, black and dead. "That's where that herd I was tellin' you about
went in. The next morning you couldn't see hide nor hair of them.
"It's a fooler for distance, too," he went on, "it's more than a mile
to that little spot of rock, that projectin' up, over there. College
professors have been here, lookin' at it, an' they say the thing is fed
from underground rivers, or springs, or somethin' that they can't even
guess.
"One of them was tellin' Boss Edwards, over on the Cimarron, that that
rock point that you see projectin' up was the peak of a mountain, an'
that this narrow trail we're on is the back of a ridge that used to
stick up high an' mighty above a lot of other things.
"I can't make it out, an' I don't try; it's here, an' that's all there
is to it. An' I ain't hangin' around it any longer than I have to."
"A stampede--" began Sanderson.
"Gentlemen, shut up!" interrupted Carter. "If any cattle ever come
through here, stampedin', that herd wouldn't have enough left of it to
supply a road runner's breakfast!"
They returned to the camp, silent and anxious.