CLEWS THAT WERE LOADED
It was found that a bullet had hit the fleshy part of the old
guide’s left arm, and that there was considerable laceration. First
aid was administered and the patient restored to consciousness.
“Quite a hospital we have here, Mr. Bindloss,” observed J. Elfreda
after she had done all she could for Sam.
“A-huh! What made the old fellow faint like that? He must be getting
old.”
“Loss of blood made him faint. So it would you. He will shortly be
able to tell us how he got the wound.”
“I’ll talk now. I’m so full of it I’ve got to talk. I’m an old
idiot! No mistake ’bout that,” rumbled Sam. “I must talk, fer
somethin’ has got to be did. They’ve got Jim, an’ I reckons they’ve
got the fat boy, too.”
“Take it easy like,” urged the rancher. “No hurry at all. Does he
want something to eat?”
“We are preparing something. Pete has killed a chicken and Nora is
making broth for him,” replied Miss Briggs.
“Huh! Reckon you folks think you own this ranch, eh?” demanded the
owner, his eyes twinkling.
“We might were we to sue for the damage we have sustained here,”
retorted Emma snappily.
“Oh, ho! I reckon you’re right,” agreed Bindloss. “What’s on your
mind, Conifer?”
“I found the trail!”
“You did?” cried Tom Gray.
“Yes, but that ain’t all. It was a fixed trail to make the finder
reckon that Jim had made it hisself so we could foller him. I
swallered the bait an’ the hook an’ the line too. I fust found whar
thar’d been a scrimmage, an’ I found Jim’s heel marks right thar.
Then they disappeared jest as if he’d gone up into the air. He’d
been boosted to the back of a hoss. Ye never seen no hoss track so
a-mighty plain. Well, I follered right on. Jim wouldn’t have made
that mistake. He’d jest kinder sneaked. Then I got mine.”
“How far into the hills did you get?” interrupted the rancher.
“’bout half a mile. Wal, as I was sayin’, all of a sudden I heard
somethin’ like someone had stepped on a stick back of some juniper
bushes. I didn’t like thet sound; I knowed thar was a gun behind it,
so I jest naturally got ready for trouble, but trouble got me first.
The feller shot, an’ I shot. The only difference was thet he had a
plain mark to shoot at an’ I didn’t. He hit me in the arm, an’ then
I shot thet Juniper bush so full of holes that it won’t make no
shade till next summer.”
“Did—did you hit him?” questioned Emma eagerly.
“I hit somethin’ that grunted, but the grunter got away from me. I
stalked him fer two hour, but couldn’t even find his tracks, though
I did find some blood thar, an’ if he’d a looked he’d found a heap
sight more blood whar I was. If thet feller hit what he shot at
thar’s only one man in this heah neck of the world thet could do it,
an’ he’s the feller I’m lookin’ fer. When I find him, one or t’other
of us’ll go down an’ stay down. Thet’s shore,” threatened Sam
grimly.
“I don’t understand how Jim could have been caught in broad
daylight,” wondered Tom.
“Thar’s only one way, onless they shot him, which I don’t reckon
they did, jedging from the look of the trail. Folks, they roped him
jest like they’d rope an old maverick steer. I reckon mebby that’s
what happened to Stacy.”
“Yes. But why, why?”
“Ye kin search me. I’ll be all right after I gits a few hours’ sleep
an’ some chuck; then I’m goin’ to hit the trail agin, and I’ll bet
ye this trail won’t be loaded. Leastwise, I’ll dodge the loaded
places.”
“Samuel, you will not be hitting any trail just yet,” admonished
Miss Briggs. “I think you had better stop talking now. Your broth
will be ready in a few moments, after which you are going to sleep.”
Elfreda motioned to the others to leave, which they did, and half an
hour later Sam was sleeping soundly. Elfreda thereupon went out to
the front porch where Bindloss, Tom and the others of the Overland
party were awaiting her.
Bindloss said they had been discussing the situation, and that not
only for their sakes, but for the sake of his business in the Coso
Valley, something must be done to check the outlawry that had been
going on and that was getting worse.
“Have you appealed to the law?” asked Miss Briggs.
The rancher laughed, but without mirth.
“The sheriff has been after this gang for three months, but that’s
as far as the law has ever got. The law has never caught up with the
gang. There’s some fellow with a head bossing that gang, and they
ought to be getting rich judging from the stock they’ve stolen from
me.”
“If you wish to make a drive and try to clean them up perhaps we can
assist you,” offered Tom.
“I’ve been thinking of that,” replied Bindloss reflectively. “I
don’t reckon, though, that I want you folks to get mixed up in it,
for somebody is sure to get hurt,” he added.
“It occurs to me that someone already has,” observed Miss Briggs
wisely. “You must remember that, having lost one of our party and
one guide, we are not wholly disinterested spectators, and should
Stacy not get back, we probably shall organize a drive on our own
hook.”
“What are your plans, Bindloss? What have you in mind?” asked Tom
Gray.
“’Bout that matter? I can’t do anything till we get finished with
the round-up. When that’s done we’ll turn some of our cowpunchers
loose, letting Pete lead them, for Pete is a natural leader and can
shoot, and he knows the mountains better than any other fellow on
the range. In the meantime, if Sam gets fit, we will ask him to
scout and see if he can find the hang-out of the ruffians. It will
be a ticklish job, but I suppose it can be done. Miss Briggs, when
do you think the old man will be able to start?”
“He should lay up for a week, but I do not believe it will be
possible to hold him that long,” replied Elfreda.
“Leave Stacy all that time without doing anything to help him?”
wailed Nora.
Grace explained that all was being done that could be done, and that
a few days more or less probably would be none the worse for the
missing Overland boy. She said the delay would enable them to
perfect their plans for the proposed man-hunt, and that in the
meantime the ruffians might make a slip and place themselves in the
hands of the men of Circle O. Bindloss nodded his approval, and
there the matter was left.
Conifer improved much more rapidly than Elfreda had thought possible
and two days later Hippy, on his feet again, was walking about,
limping ever so little, his head swathed in bandages and his face
lined and pale.
“I’ve been down long enough,” he told Bindloss. “It is time that I
was out and looking for that nephew of mine, Chunky Brown. Conifer
declares that he is going out tomorrow and I’m going with him.”
“You are not,” replied the rancher. “Man, it’ll kill you! Conifer
wasn’t hit like you and he has his right hand as good as ever.
There’s lots of fight left in the old man yet, and if we don’t let
him go he will worry himself and the rest of us to death. No,
Lieutenant, you keep your hosses staked down and get lazy for a few
days more. I promise you there will be plenty of excitement and
activity for you and the rest of us when we start that man hunt.”
The Overlanders were as emphatic as Bindloss had been, and Hippy,
much against his will, submitted to their demand that he stay at the
ranch. Conifer, too, was ordered by Miss Briggs to defer his
departure, so that it was the latter part of that week before she
gave him permission to take the trail on the following day.
That night, however, something occurred to change the plans of
Bindloss and his guests. Two-gun Pete, who had come in late from the
range, had discovered a man prowling about the stable. Pete hailed
him and the man ran, whereupon the cowboy fired six shots at him,
but in the darkness all his bullets went wild.
The firing awakened the occupants of the ranch-house and the
Overland camp, and in a few minutes all hands were on the scene,
armed and ready for whatever might be required of them. Guards were
thrown out to protect the place from a surprise attack. The prowler
had disappeared, but he had left a plain trail to a point where his
mustang had been staked down. From there his tracks led into the
foothills, but the direction he took upon entering the hills was no
indication of his probable destination.
“I found something,” shouted Idaho who had just come around the
corner of the corral with his lantern and passed down at the rear of
the stable. The Overlanders and Bindloss found him carrying a large
basket at arm’s length. Idaho plainly was suspicious of that basket,
and he proposed to take no chances with it. For all he knew it might
be full of rattlers.
No one made a move to investigate the basket’s contents as Idaho put
it down on the ground and backed away.
“Perhaps the man went away in such haste he forgot his luncheon,”
suggested Emma whimsically, which caused a laugh and relieved the
tension somewhat.
“You are a lot of tenderfeet,” averred Hippy, limping over and
peering down at the basket. He gave it a gentle shake.
“Oh, Hippy darlin’! Be careful,” begged Nora.
“Be quiet! There is something alive in here,” warned Lieutenant
Wingate, giving the basket another shake, whereupon his companions
distinctly heard familiar sounds coming from it.
“Birds! Well, what do you folks know about that? Someone has made us
a present of a basket of birds, perhaps blackbirds with which to
make a pie,” chortled Hippy.
The basket cover was secured with a piece of wire, which the
Overlander unwound and cautiously peered within while Tom Gray held
a lantern to enable Hippy to see. He thrust a hand in and brought
out a bird, holding it up for the others to look at.
“Bindloss, what do you think of our present?” he cried jovially.
“Well, I’ll be shot!” exclaimed the rancher. “What fool is carrying
’round a basket of birds?” The rancher laughed uproariously.
Tom Gray took one look at the bird and uttered an exclamation under
his breath, then after cautiously peering into the basket, being
careful that none of the other birds there made its escape, he got
up and faced his companions with a puzzled expression in his eyes.
At this instant, Grace and Elfreda also discovered what both Tom and
Hippy already knew.
“A carrier pigeon!” exclaimed Miss Briggs wonderingly. “Are they all
carriers?”
“All carriers, and fully equipped for business,” Tom informed them.
“Are we back in France in the war?”
Hippy turned the basket about so that the light would shine on the
other side of it, and made a fresh discovery, more important, even,
than the discovery of the carrier pigeons. They heard him utter an
exclamation and saw him remove something that was hanging to the
handle and tied to it with a leather thong.