STACY DECIDES TO LEAVE
The night that Stacy Brown was roped from his mustang he was put to
sleep with a whack applied to his head from the butt of a revolver.
When he awakened he found himself lashed to the back of a pony,
traveling over a rough mountain trail. The pony was being led and
there were men ahead and men to the rear. The fat boy could hear
them speak at intervals.
It did not seem to be a long journey, and the party finally pulled
up before a cabin that Stacy observed was well hidden in a narrow
rocky pass that was approached on three sides by way of a steep
granite slope, while on the other side, as he later learned, a
precipitous gorge dropped away for hundreds of feet.
The Overland boy was removed from the horse and carried to a lean-to
against the rear of the cabin in which horse equipment and weapons
were stored. He was unceremoniously dumped into this place and left
to his own reflections. For some time he heard men talking in the
cabin, then silence settled over the place. It was near noon of the
following day before food was brought to him and his hands were
freed. After eating he was subjected to a grilling examination as to
who he was and what his party were doing in the Coso Valley, and
when he answered in his characteristic independent way one of the
ruffians struck him a blow in the face that once more put the
Overland boy to sleep.
At least twice each night thereafter he was asked the same
questions, and each time the interview ended in a blow or a violent
kick until Chunky was sore all over.
Occasionally he was permitted to sit or lie outdoors, and at such
times Stacy used his eyes and ears to the best advantage. However,
there was little for him to see except the scenery that he mentioned
in his letter.
His captors were away most of the time, though ordinarily there was
one man prowling about, principally engaged in surveying the
surrounding mountains from a vantage point on a rock. Then one
evening came the order to Stacy to write the letter to the Overland
party. He obeyed eagerly, for he was anxious to get away at any
price—so long as the price was paid by someone other than himself.
Stacy had slight hopes, though, that his companions would give so
great a ransom.
It was early in the evening of the following night when he heard
more than the usual number of voices in the cabin. Voices now and
then were pitched high, sometimes in anger. Stacy cautiously rolled
close to the door communicating with the cabin and lay listening.
His hopes rose high when he learned that some of the birds had
returned with money. Two of the ruffians had come in with tidings
that four birds were still missing, which revealed to Stacy the fact
that the pigeons were not kept at the cabin. The one, however, which
carried the answer to the demand of the rustlers, and that most
concerned the men, had just come in, and its message was a subject
of discussion. One ruffian was of the opinion that either Bindloss
or the Overlanders were trying to play a sharp trick on them and
search out their hiding place. He was laughed at.
“How kin anybody foller er bird flyin’ high?” demanded another,
whereat the ruffians laughed more uproariously than before. The feel
of the money that the pigeons had brought, outweighed their caution.
This was easy money, and there was more of it coming.
“We’ll git all we kin fer this feller, an’ then make a price on
t’other feller’s haid, an’ we’ll make er clean-up,” chuckled
another. “It ain’t the first time thet them birds has done us a good
turn, but never jest in this heah way.”
At the mention of another captive on whose head a price was to be
set, the fat boy pricked up his ears. He wondered whom else the
ruffians had captured, and where the other captive was being held.
This was interesting, but what followed was more so.
From the talk Stacy overheard he learned that, after the ruffians
had gotten all the money they could out of the Overlanders, the
prisoners were to be disposed of.
“They knows too much to let ’em git away, especially thet fat
feller. He’s too fresh anyway,” averred one.
“Best way is to take ’em out on a dark night, turn ’em ’round a few
times and head ’em fer the canyon, an’ tell ’em to git home
a-whooping. Ain’t no need fer us to do nothing more’n thet. They’ll
do the rest,” advised another.
“Thet’s the ticket, Charlie!” complimented another. “We’ll make ’em
walk the plank, an’ the buzzards’ll do the rest.” The ruffians
roared. It would be great sport and it would make disposal of their
captives a most simple matter.
Stacy Brown did not laugh. Instead, he swallowed hard, and a heavy
frown wrinkled his forehead.
“That’s what I call a low-down trick,” he muttered. “Going to get
all the money they can for me and the other fellow and then send us
out to walk on air. Wow! Stacy Brown, I reckon it’s time for you to
leave.” He gazed out through the open door of the lean-to and
contemplated the possibility of rolling out and trying to escape.
That did not seem to be feasible, so he pondered, strained
cautiously at the ropes with which he was tied, and decided that he
must think of something else.
“If I could get hold of a hunting knife I might manage it,” he
thought, but did not recall having seen any such thing among the
assortment of equipment in the lean-to. Then an idea occurred to
him.
“The axe!” exclaimed the fat boy, and instantly began rolling
towards the door, just outside of which he had seen an axe that very
day. He found the axe and after several failures Stacy succeeded in
getting it between his knees blade up, and began sawing at the rope
that bound his wrists. The rope soon fell apart. Stacy could
scarcely repress a howl of delight. It was now the work of only a
moment to free his legs, and the Overland boy, still clinging to the
axe as a weapon in case of discovery, began considering his next
move. He knew about where the ruffians’ ponies were tethered,
because he had heard them stamping many times.
“Now, if I had a gun I’d be—Sure I have!” He felt along the rear
wall of the lean-to, where among saddles and bridles hung holsters
with weapons in them, and ammunition belts, and rifles of quite
modern pattern hanging from nails in the wall.
The fat boy quickly helped himself to two revolvers and a rifle,
each of which he found loaded. That gave him fresh courage. He might
be surprised, but it was his idea that the other fellow might be
more so. Stacy, armed and eager, crept from the lean-to and picked
his way cautiously towards the spot at the base of the granite slope
where he hoped to find the rustlers’ horses tethered. They were not
there, but he found them about a hundred yards to the left, all
saddled and bridled, ready for instant use in case of need.
There appeared to be no one on guard, but, though he did not know
it, two men were stationed a short distance from the cabin on the
Coso Valley side of the mountain hiding place. Fortunately for him,
the fat boy was on the other side.
Stacy selected a mount, and, finding a rifle in the saddle boot, he
threw away the one he had taken from the lean-to.
“I wish I dared to shoot up that place,” he muttered, gazing off
towards the cabin which he could not now see. “I’ll come back and do
it.”
Stacy led the mustang along carefully for a while, taking what he
believed to be an easterly course, and getting his bearings from the
stars so that he might not travel in a circle and bring up at his
starting point.
There appearing to be no pursuit, the boy finally mounted and rode
away with increasing speed and rising spirits. He continued on until
towards daylight when he found himself descending into what he
believed to be foothills, but which proved to be grazing grounds in
the mountains. They were of vast extent, covering many acres, and
over this mesa Stacy wandered for hours trying to find a way out. He
was hungry, ravenously so now, and a search of the saddle-bags
revealed not even a biscuit.
Noon came and, well-nigh famished, he turned the mustang into the
chaparral determined to find a new trail. The boy had gone in but a
short distance when he began to sniff the air. Even the mustang
lifted its head and snorted.
“If that isn’t food smoke I never smelled any. Stacy Brown, follow
your nose, for your nose knows. Gid-ap, you lazy lout!” he cried.
Perhaps the pony really knew, for it pricked up its ears with new
interest and seemed eager to go on, and a few moments later Stacy
discovered a shack ahead. The smoke odor was by now quite strong.
The boy approached the shack with caution, and rode twice around it
before deciding to hail. When he finally did so there was no answer,
so he dismounted and entered.
What he had come upon was a chuck-house where mountain herders got
their meals.
That a meal had quite recently been eaten there was evidenced by the
soiled dishes still on the table, and the food that was simmering in
frying pans on the stove.
“Eats! I don’t know who it belongs to, but I know when I am hungry,”
cried Stacy, helping himself to several slices of bacon from a
frying pan and eating them out of his hand. There was bread, too,
and coffee in the pots. Stacy tasted the coffee and made a wry face.
“Worse than the rustlers made,” he complained.
Had the Overland Rider not been so fully occupied with satisfying
his hunger, he probably would have been more observant. As it was he
did not see a horseman ride up, dismount and peer into the shack.
Nor did he see the fellow’s expression when he looked over Stacy’s
mount. The newcomer rode away quietly to a distance and then put his
pony to a run.
Half an hour later while the boy was still eating, and just as he
was about to place a biscuit in his mouth, a voice out of the
silence arrested him.
“Put up yer hands, young feller! I’ve got ye covered,” warned the
voice.
The hand that held the biscuit was already raised to a level with
his mouth, and the other promptly went above his head.
“Turn around, an’ let’s git a look at ye!”
Stacy turned and found himself facing a weapon in the hands of a man
at the door. Just to the rear of the man with the gun were half a
dozen others.
“Tough-lookin’ critter, all right. Who be ye?” demanded the hold-up
man.
“Name’s Brown,” answered the fat boy, transferring the biscuit to
his mouth and beginning to chew on it.
“Whar’d ye git that cayuse?”
“Maybe I stole him,” answered Chunky thickly, for the biscuit was
large. “What difference does it make to you where I got him?”
“It may make a lot of difference to ye, young feller. I reckon mebby
ye knows thet thet critter belongs to the Diamond Bar ranch, an’
thet he was stole from thar three days ago. Turn round while I
relieve ye of some of thet hardware.”
Stacy ceased chewing and stood with arms uplifted while his weapons
and cartridge belt were being removed, following which he was
roughly yanked around facing his captors.
“You be careful, you rough-necks. You’ll find out that I’m a bad man
when I get riled,” warned Chunky boastfully.
“I reckon ye be all of thet. Jest now ye ain’t, an’ ’fore long mebby
ye won’t be nothin’ ’tall. Yer under arrest!” announced the
spokesman.
“Wha—at for?” gasped the Overland boy, his face losing some of its
color.
“Horse stealin’! Thet’s all!”
A strong hand was fastened on Stacy’s collar and he was roughly
jerked out of the cabin and thrown on the pony that he was accused
of having rustled. It began to dawn on Stacy Brown that he was in a
serious predicament.