The Round-Up
Dumont had been on the grill for three hours. He had taken refuge in
dogged silence. He had been badgered into lies. He had broken down at
last and told the truth. Sheriff Billie Prince, keen as a hound on the
scent, persistent as a bulldog, peppered the man's defense with a
machine-gun fire of questions. Back of these loomed the shadow of a
long term in the penitentiary.
For Dumont had been caught with his iron hot. The acrid smell of burnt
flesh was still in the air when an angry cattleman and two of his riders
came on the man and the rustled calf. Fortunately for the thief the
sheriff happened to be in the neighborhood. He had rescued the captured
waddy from the hands of the incensed ranchers and brought him straight to
Live-Oaks.
The rustler was frightened. There had been a bad quarter of an hour when
it looked as though he might be the central figure in a lynching. Even
after this danger had been weathered, the outlook was full of gloom. He
had to choose between a long prison sentence and the betrayal of his
comrades. Dumont had no iron in his blood. He dodged and evaded and
bluffed--and at last threw up his hands. If the sheriff would protect him
from the vengeance of the gang, he would give any information wanted
or do anything he was told to do.
The arrival of Reb and his prisoner interrupted the quiz. Prince had
Dumont returned to his cell and took up the new business of Roush and his
story. The sheriff knew he would be blamed for the escape of Clanton and
he thought it wise to have the whole matter opened up before witnesses.
Wallace Snaith and Dad Wrayburn both happened to be in town and Billie
sent the boss mule-skinner to bring them. To these men he turned over the
examination of Roush.
They wrung from him, a scrap at a time, the story Yankie had told his
confederates at the camp-fire. A statement of the facts was drawn up
and signed by Roush under protest. It was witnessed by the four men
present.
Devil Dave was locked up and Dumont brought back to the office of the
sheriff. Taken by surprise at the new form of the questionnaire, already
broken in spirit and therefore eager to conciliate these powerful
citizens, the rustler at once corroborated the story of Roush. He, too,
signed a statement drawn up by Prince.
"Just shows, doggone it, how a man can be too blamed sure," commented
Wrayburn. "I'd 'a' bet my life Go-Get-'Em Jim killed Webb. But he
didn't. It's plain enough now. After his rookus with the old man, Yankie
must have got a seventy-three an' waited in the chaparral. It just
happened he was lyin' hid close to where we met Clanton. It beats the
Dutch."
"An' if Jim hadn't escaped he'd have been hanged for killin' Webb."
"That's right, sheriff. On my testimony, too. Say, let me go to the
Governor with these papers an' git the pardon. I'd like to give it to the
boy myself, jest to show him there's no hard feelin's," urged Wrayburn.
"That's all right, Dad. I'm goin' to be right busy this next week, I
shouldn't wonder. I've got business up in the hills."
"If you're goin' on a round-up, I hope you make a good gather, Prince,"
said Snaith, smiling.
Not in the history of Washington County had there been another such a
round-up as this one of which Sheriff Prince was the boss. He made his
plans swiftly and thoroughly. His posses were to sweep the country
between Saco de Oro Creek and Caballero Cañon. Every gap was to be
stopped, every exit guarded. Dumont, much against his will, rode beside
the sheriff as guide. Goodheart had charge of the first party that went
out. His duty was to swing round and close the gulches to the north. Here
he would wait until the hunted men were driven into the trap he had set.
Old Reb, with a second posse, started next morning for the head-waters
of Seven-Mile Creek. An hour later the sheriff himself took the road. He
left town sooner than he had intended because Roush had escaped during
the night and was probably on his way into the hills to warn the
rustlers.
Get them in a talkative mood and old-timers who took part in it will
still tell the story of that man-drive in the mountains. Riders combed
the draws and the buttes, eyes and ears alert for those who might lie
hidden on the rim rocks or in the cactus. It was grim business. Driven
out of their holes, the rustlers fought savagely. One, trapped in a hill
pocket, stood off a posse till he was shot to death. A second was
wounded, captured, and sent back with two other suspects to Live-Oaks.
At the end of a week Prince had the remnant of the band surrounded in a
mountain park close to Caballero Cañon.
The country into which the outlaws had been driven was an ideal terrain
for defense. The brush was thick and tall. Two wooded arroyos gashed the
rim of the valley and ran down into the basin. An attack against
determined men here was bound to prove costly.
Billie knew that three men lay in the chaparral and he believed that one
of them at least was wounded. Old Reb had jumped them up from a fireless
camp, and in their hurry to escape the outlaws had left all their
provisions and two of their horses. They left, too, one of the posse with
a bullet hole in his forehead. The sheriff's plan was to tighten the
lines gradually and starve out the rustlers.
But though Prince would not let his men advance to a general assault, he
made up his mind to find out more as to the condition of the men he had
surrounded. He wanted to make sure they had not slipped past his guards
into Caballero Cañon. In the back of his head, too, was the feeling that
if he could get into touch with them, perhaps he might arrange for a
surrender.
He called Goodheart to one side. "As soon as it's dark I'm goin' in to
find out what's doin'. We haven't heard a murmur from these birds for
hours. Perhaps they've flown. Anyhow, I'm goin' to find out."
"How many of us are goin'?"
"Just one of us--Billie Prince."
"If two of us went--"
"It would double the chances of discovery. No, I'm goin' alone. Maybe I
can have a talk with Albeen or Yankie. I don't want to take 'em dead, but
alive."
"They'll probably get you while you're in there, Prince."
"I don't think it. But if I'm not back by mornin' you are in charge of
this hunt. Use yore judgment."
The deputy ventured one more protest, but his chief vetoed it. Billie had
decided what to do and argument did not touch him.
He did not take a rifle. In the thick brush it would be hard to handle
noiselessly and the snapping of a twig might mean the difference between
life and death. The sheriff slipped into the tangle of cat-claw, prickly
pear, and mesquite, vanishing into the gloom from the sight of Goodheart.
On the back of an envelope Dumont had drawn for him a rough map of the
valley. It showed that the wooded arroyos ran together like the spokes of
a wheel. The judgment of Prince was that he must look for the men he
wanted close to the angle of intersection. Up one or the other of these
draws it was likely they would make their dash for freedom, since
otherwise they would have to emerge into the open. Therefore, they would
hold the base of the V in order not to be cut off from the chance of
getting out of the trap.
The sheriff snaked forward, most of the time on his stomach or on hands
and knees, for what seemed an interminable period. Each least movement
had to be planned and executed with precision. He dared not risk the
cracking of a dead branch or the rustle of dry foliage. As silently as
an Apache he wriggled through the grass.
Billie became aware of a sound to the left. He listened. It presently
defined itself as a wheezing rattle halfway between a cough and a groan.
Toward it Prince deflected. He knew himself to be now in the acute danger
zone, and he increased if possible his precautions. The moaning continued
intermittently. Billie wondered why, if this were the camp of the
outlaws, no other sound broke the stillness. Closer, inch by inch, making
the most of every bunch of yucca and cholla, the officer slowly crept.
The figure of a man lay in the sand, the head resting on a folded
slicker. From time to time it moved slightly, and always the restlessness
was accompanied by the little throat rattle that had first attracted the
attention of the sheriff. The face, lying full in the moonlight, was of a
ghastly pallor.
Prince lay crouched behind a piñon till he was sure the man was alone. It
was possible that his confederates might return at any moment, but Billie
could not let him suffer without aid. He stepped forward, revolver in
hand, every sense ready for instant response.
The wounded man was Joe Yankie. The experienced eyes of Prince told him
that the rustler had not long to live. He was already in that twilight
region which is the border land between the known and the unknown. Billie
spoke his name, and for a moment the eyes of the man cleared.
"Yore boys got me when they jumped our camp," he explained feebly.
"Sorry, Joe. You were firin' when they hit you."
The wounded man nodded. "'S all right. Streak o' bad luck. Gimme water.
I'm on fire," The officer unbuckled his canteen, lifted the head of the
dying man, and let the water trickle down his throat. Gently he lowered
the head again to the pillow.
Then he asked a question. "Where are Albeen and--Roush?"
The last name was a shot in the dark, but it hit the bull's eye.
"Left--hours ago,"
Yankie closed his eyes wearily, but by sheer strength of will Prince
recalled him from the doze into which he was slipping.
"Did you kill Homer Webb?"
"Yes."
"Had Clanton anything to do with it?"
"No."
A film gathered over the eyes of the dying man. The lids closed. Billie
adjusted the pillow a little more comfortably and rose. He could do no
more for him at present and he must set about his work. For though the
net of the round-up had gathered hundreds of stolen cattle and most of
those engaged in the business of brand-blotting, Prince knew his job
would not be finished if Roush and Albeen escaped.
He quartered over the ground foot by foot. The camp of the rustlers had
been here and the footsteps showed there had been three. Yankie was
accounted for. That left Roush and Albeen. The sheriff discovered the
place where they had been sleeping.
His eyes lit with the eagerness of the hunter who has come on the spoor.
He had found two sets of tracks leading from the bed-ground. One of these
showed no heel marks and the deep impress of toes in the soft sand. The
other presented a more sharply defined print with a greater distance
between the steps. They told Billie a story of a man tiptoeing away in
breathless silence, and of another man, wakened by some sound or by some
premonition, pursuing him in reckless haste.
The imagination of the trailer built up a web of cause and effect. Two
men, with only one horse, were caught in a trap from which both were in a
desperate hurry to escape. Each, no doubt, was filled with suspicion of
the other while they waited for darkness to fall that they might try to
slip through the cordon of watchers. One of the at least, was unknown. If
he could make a get-away, _and leave no witness behind_, there would be
no proof positive that he was one of the rustlers. The situation was ripe
for tragedy.
In the back of the sheriff's mind rose thoughts of something sinister
that had happened in the early hours of darkness. A chill ran down his
spine. He expected presently to stumble across something cold and chill
that only a little while ago had been warm with life.
Prince recognized a weakness in his theory. If Roush was the man who had
tiptoed toward the horse in the pines, why had he not made sure first
by shooting Albeen while he slept? There was no absolute answer to that.
But it might be that the one-armed man had been dozing lightly and that
Roush had not the nerve to take a chance. For if his first shot failed to
kill, the betrayed man could still drop him.
The trailer had no doubt in his mind that Roush was the man who had tried
to slip away to the horse. Albeen was a gun-fighter, quick on the shoot,
hasty of temper, but with the reputation of being both game and stanch.
It would not be in character for him to leave a companion in the lurch.
In the scrub pines at the foot of the arroyo Prince found the place where
a horse had been tied. The footprints had diverged sharply toward a
duster of big boulders that rose in the grove. Billie did not at once
follow them. He wanted to make sure of another point first.
Every sense alert against a possible surprise, he studied the ground
around the spot where the bronco had been fastened. One set of tracks
came straight from the big rocks to the hitching tree. Here all tracks
ended, except those of a galloping horse and the ones made by the man who
had originally left the animal here.
One man had gone up the arroyo to slip through or to fight his way out of
the trap. The other man had stayed here. The officer knew what he would
find lying among the big rocks.
The body lay face down, a revolver close to the still hand. Three
chambers of it had been fired. Prince turned over the heavy torso and
looked into the contorted face of Dave Roush.
The man had fallen a victim to his own treachery.