FAREWELL TO THE COSOS
The Overland Riders and the men from the Circle O ranch walked to
the edge of the precipice and looked down. The girls shivered and
quickly turned, facing the other way, while the men gazed solemnly
into the abyss.
“How’dy, folks,” greeted Jim. “Ain’t seen ye fer a week o’ Sundays.
Ye see that no ’count pard o’ mine got his’n,” he chuckled, nodding
at Sam, whose head was still swathed in bandages.
“Yes, but what happened to you?” questioned Emma. “It would appear
that you too got something.”
Jim explained that he had been roped from his pony, carried into the
mountains and secreted in a cave where the pigeon cotes were
located. It was the wire-covered pigeon-yard just outside of the
cave, well masked with foliage, that the Overland men and the
ranchers, in their hunt for Jim, had stumbled upon, and that led to
finding the missing guide. That was where the outlaws caught them,
and, had not the men from the ranch been on the alert, would have
made a quick finish of them.
Tom told the Overlanders of Sam’s battle with the rustlers in the
mountain cabin, of the further search for Jim, and of the
culminating experience when a running battle with the rustlers was
engaged in.
“Stacy!” cried Nora in sudden recollection. In the excitement of
that memorable morning she had forgotten about the fat boy.
“He got away the night we come up heah,” Sam Conifer informed her.
“I reckons he’s got home afore this, an’ that he’ll stay thar. They
was goin’ to drop him into Red Gulch, an’ I reckon he thought it war
time to leave.”
At this juncture, Miss Briggs asked permission to look at the wounds
of the party. Sam’s wounds were doing well, but needed professional
care, which Elfreda gave to them on the spot. She next dressed Idaho
Jones’ arm, which was bleeding from a bullet wound. Barring a few
slight flesh wounds where bullets had narrowly missed doing serious
injury, the other fighters were unharmed.
“You now have the whole story,” announced Tom Gray, as she finished.
“The rustlers, thanks to their own carelessness, have taken a bad
job out of our hands.”
“What a terrible death!” breathed Grace. “What about these?” she
added, pointing to Mexican Charlie and Malcolm Hornby. “Shall I
consult Judy about—about her fa—about Hornby?”
Tom shook his head.
“You girls go on and take care of her. We will do all that is
necessary to be done,” he made reply.
The Overland girls returned to Bindloss and the mountain girl, who
was clinging to the hand of the old rancher, a deep pallor showing
under the tan on her face. Emma slipped a hand into hers, and Judy
turned a wan face to the little Overland girl, but the face wore a
faint smile.
“It’s all fixed, Emma,” she said, nodding. “I’m Judy Bindloss now.
Leastwise I’m goin’ to be as soon as my new Pap kin git the papers
made out. I don’t see no reason fer doin’ that, do you?”
Miss Briggs, as a lawyer, tried to explain to her why it was very
necessary, but the mountain girl shook her head.
“He’s my Pap. It seems like he always was and no papers can’t make
him more so. Pap, let’s go home.”
The ponies were led along for some distance, to give them rest while
the party were talking, and for the further purpose of giving the
men back there opportunity to do their work and join the Overland
Riders.
The party finally being complete, Pete led the way across the
blackened landscape to the old cabin. Reaching there, they laid up
for a rest, and after luncheon Judy told them the story of her
father, Malcolm Hornby, so far as she knew it.
Certain recent occurrences had made her suspect that Hornby was in
league with the rustlers, but the night before she brought warning
to the Overland girls that Tom and Hippy were wounded, she heard a
conversation between her father and Mexican Charlie in which her
suspicion became a certainty. From that conversation she learned
that much stock had been stolen from Bindloss, and that by making a
“Q” out of the Circle O ranch brand and adding another “Q,” the
marking conformed with Hornby’s brand, after which the stolen cattle
were added to his own herd. He had, with the assistance of the
mountain ruffians, carried on wholesale thievery in two great
valleys for several years and made money. His reward had been reaped
that day, and it had been coming for some time, because Mexican
Charlie and he were rapidly nearing the breaking point just before
the last attack on the Overland Riders, who were the indirect cause
of breaking up the gang of mountain ruffians.
That there were others of the gang still at large the ranchmen knew,
but Judy could give them no information on this point. It was
decided, therefore, to ask the aid of the sheriff and his deputies,
as well as that of other ranchers, to form a big party and comb the
mountains for the other ruffians, who, now that the backbone of the
band had been broken, could be driven more easily from that region,
and perhaps some of them captured.
In the early afternoon the journey home was begun. Judy did not
accompany them all the way, saying that she wished to stop at her
former home and get some personal belongings, she promising to ride
back to the Circle O ranch on the following morning. Judy wished to
be alone that night, and the Overland girls, at least, understood.
Circle O was reached before dark, and Stacy Brown, who had gained
entrance to the ranch-house, which he had reached only a few hours
before, met them at the door. The “fat boy” was thin, there were
hollows in his cheeks, and a livid mark on the left cheek where a
bullet had left its trail.
Stacy had been hunted all the way across the mountains, and shot at
on several occasions, but had always outwitted his pursuers until
finally they gave up the man-hunt and returned to the Diamond Bar
ranch. Hungry and worn out and after considerable suffering he
finally reached Circle O only to find it deserted and the Overland
camp broken up.
Now, however, that the opportunity was at hand to glorify his own
achievements, Stacy Brown made the most of it, and out in the yard
in front of the ranch-house, he declaimed loudly on his own prowess
in fooling his pursuers.
Stacy was still engaged in this before an interested audience when a
rider approached from the valley, but no one gave heed to him,
believing him to be one of Bindloss’s men. The rider dismounted at
the stable and walked towards the group, his eyes fixed on Chunky.
He halted just behind the boy and stood regarding him frowningly.
“Well, sir, what is it?” demanded Joe Bindloss sharply.
Stacy, in the midst of a loud boast, turned to look at the man
behind him. The words died on his lips as he came face to face with
the newcomer. It was Skip, the fellow on whose head Stacy had
brought down the wagon stake at the Diamond Bar ranch.
The Overland boy’s face grew a shade paler, and he made a move as if
to run, but the pressure of a revolver against his stomach sent the
shivers up and down his back and literally froze him.
“Here! Here!” roared Joe Bindloss. “What do ye mean?”
“This feller’s a hoss thief. We kotched him on a hoss that had been
rustled from the Diamond Bar ranch. He got away by cloutin’ me over
the haid. We follered, but he was too slippery fer us. I been
lookin’ fer him ever since, an’ now I’ve got him!”
“Put down thet gun, pard!” drawled Sam Conifer, and Skip found
himself gazing at the muzzle of the old guide’s weapon. “Put it
down, I says!”
The caller shoved his weapon into its holster, and Stacy Brown drew
a long breath of relief and then quickly stepped back a few paces.
“This man is no more a thief than you are!” exploded Bindloss. “He
is one of my friends, and that’s all there is to it.”
“I got to take him back,” persisted Skip stubbornly.
“Listen to me, young fellow!” commanded Bindloss, who thereupon
repeated the story that Chunky had told them, adding further
information of his own.
“Thet’s what the critter told us back at the ranch. We reckoned he
lied, an’ I reckon so too.”
“Drop thet talk!” warned Sam Conifer.
Joe Bindloss after some farther argument told the visitor that he
would write a letter to Bill Crawley, owner of the Diamond Bar
ranch, fully explaining the matter, but in no circumstances would
Skip be permitted to take Stacy with him.
“And that’s flat!” finished the rancher sternly.
“Thet’s all right, Boss, but what ’bout this?” he demanded,
exhibiting the lump that Stacy had left on the top of his head. “I
got ter have satersfaction fer thet, I reckon.”
“I’ll hit it again if you say so,” offered Stacy, but the boy met a
quick rebuke from his companions.
“Look here, my man! How much do you want for satisfaction?”
interjected Tom Gray.
“Wal, I reckon ’bout two bucks’ll satersfy me,” answered Skip,
tenderly caressing the lump.
“Stacy, shell out! Give the man two dollars,” ordered Lieutenant
Wingate. Stacy demurred, but there was no avoiding payment. He tried
to borrow the money, but not one of the Overlanders would give him a
cent, so Stacy Brown reluctantly parted with two silver dollars.
The letter was written by Grace at Bindloss’s dictation, and half an
hour later Skip headed back towards the Diamond Bar ranch, not only
with the letter and two silver dollars in his pocket, but with a
request from Bindloss that Bill Crawley and his men join with the
Circle O men in making a final drive on the rustlers.
It was early to bed that night at the Circle O, for all hands were
worn out. On the following morning the girls had a long talk with
Joe Bindloss. It was decided that the Overlanders should remain at
the ranch while the ranchers drove out the last of the rustlers.
Judy came in in time for luncheon that day. The girls saw that she
had been weeping, but made no comment. It was then that they
broached the subject that had been discussed with Judy’s new “Pap.”
Grace and Elfreda wished to take her back east with them and show
her some of the world that she had so often dreamed of seeing.
At first Judy was obdurate, but the thought grew and Bindloss urged,
so, before the departure of the Overlanders two weeks later, Judy
had said “yes.”
The drive of the ranchers proved successful in ridding the Cosos of
rustlers, though only one man was captured. The others had fled,
following the disaster to Hornby and his immediate gang, and the
drive of the ranchers.
The journey of the Overland party, following the recovery of Hippy
and Sam from their wounds, lasted until mid-September when the great
day in Judy’s life arrived. The Overland Riders had returned to the
ranch to pick her up, and to arrange for returning Joe Bindloss’s
ponies to him at the railroad station, and, after a day’s rest at
the ranch-house, they set out for the east—and home. Judy wavered
at the last moment, but finally rode away with her friends, waving
her sombrero to the rugged old rancher, and trying to laugh through
her tears. The world that Judy had so yearned for lay just before
her, and after a winter with the Overland girls she was destined to
return much benefited in every way, but with a fuller realization
that her duty to herself and to her new “Pap” lay in the beautiful
Valley of the Cosos.
There was still a large measure of adventure before Grace Harlowe
and her young friends, and to which every member of the party was
already looking forward for the coming season. The story of these
adventures will be related in a following volume entitled, “Grace
Harlowe’s Overland Riders Among the Border Guerrillas,” where, in
the Guadalupe Mountains, they encounter experiences that make the
story replete with interest that cannot fail to hold the undivided
attention of the reader.