Bar-20 Days by Clarence Edward Mulford (new reading TXT) 📗

“Mebby nothing!” snapped Charley. “If he wanted to mix the tracks would he 'a' hopped like that so we couldn't help telling what cayuse he rode? He knowed we'd pick his trail quick, an' he knowed that every minute counted; that's why he hopped—why, yore roan was going like the wind afore he got in the saddle. If you don't believe it, look at them toe-prints!”

“H'm; reckon yo're right, Charley. My eyes ain't nigh as good as they once was. But I heard him say something 'bout Winchester,” replied Old John, glad to change the subject. “Bet he's going over there, too. He won't get through that town on no critter wearing my brand. Everybody knows that roan, an'—”

“Quit guessing!” snapped Charley, beginning to lose some of the tattered remnant of his respect for old age. “He's a whole lot likely to head for a town on a stolen cayuse, now ain't he! But we don't care where he's heading; we'll foller the trail.”

“Grub pile!” shouted Stevenson, and the two made haste to obey.

“Charley, gimme a chaw of yore tobacker,” and Old John, biting off a generous chunk, quietly slipped it into his pocket, there to lay until after he had eaten his breakfast.

All talk was tabled while the three men gulped down a cold and uninviting meal. Ten minutes later they had finished and separated to find horses and spread the news; in fifteen more they had them and were riding along the plain trail at top speed, with three other men close at their heels. Three hundred yards from the corral they pounded out of an arroyo, and Charley, who was leading, stood up in his stirrups and looked keenly ahead. Another trail joined the one they were following and ran with and on top of it. This, he reasoned, had been made by one of the strays and would turn away soon. He kept his eyes looking well ahead and soon saw that he was right in his surmise, and without checking the speed of his horse in the slightest degree he went ahead on the trail of the smaller hoof-prints. In a moment Old John spurred forward and gained his side and began to argue hot-headedly.

“Hey! Charley!” he cried. “Why are you follering this track?” he demanded.

“Because it's his; that's why.”

“Well, here, wait a minute!” and Old John was getting red from excitement. “How do you know it is? Mebby he took the other!”

“He started out on the cayuse that made these little tracks,” retorted Charley, “an' I don't see no reason to think he swapped animules. Don't you know the prints of yore own cayuse?”

“Lawd, no!” answered Old John. “Why, I don't hardly ride the same cayuse the second day, straight hand-running. I tell you we ought to foller that other trail. He's just cute enough to play some trick on us.”

“Well, you better do that for us,” Charley replied, hoping against hope that the old man would chase off on the other and give his companions a rest.

“He ain't got sand enough to tackle a thing like that single-handed,” laughed Jed White, winking to the others.

Old John wheeled. “Ain't, hey! I am going to do that same thing an' prove that you are a pack of fools. I'm too old to be fooled by a common trick like that. An' I don't need no help—I'll ketch him all by myself, an' hang him, too!” And he wheeled to follow the other trail, angry and outraged. “Young fools,” he muttered. “Why, I was fighting all around these parts afore any of 'em knowed the difference between day an' night!”

“Hard-headed old fool,” remarked Charley, frowning, as he led the way again.

“He's gittin' old an' childish,” excused Stevenson. “They say warn't nobody in these parts could hold a candle to him in his prime.”

Hopalong muttered and stirred and opened his eyes to gaze blankly into those of one of the men who were tugging at his hands, and as he stared he started his stupefied brain sluggishly to work in an endeavor to explain the unusual experience. There were five men around him and the two who hauled at his hands stepped back and kicked him. A look of pained indignation slowly spread over his countenance as he realized beyond doubt that they were really kicking him, and with sturdy vigor. He considered a moment and then decided that such treatment was most unwarranted and outrageous and, furthermore, that he must defend himself and chastise the perpetrators.

“Hey!” he snorted, “what do you reckon yo're doing, anyhow? If you want to do any kicking, why kick each other, an' I'll help you! But I'll lick the whole bunch of you if you don't quite mauling me. Ain't you got no manners? Don't you know anything? Come 'round waking a feller up an' man-handling—”

“Get up!” snapped Stevenson, angrily.

“Why, ain't I seen you before? Somewhere? Sometime?” queried Hopalong, his brow wrinkling from intense concentration of thought. “I ain't dreaming; I've seen a one-eyed coyote som'ers, lately, ain't I?” he appealed, anxiously, to the others.

“Get up!” ordered Charley, shortly.

“An' I've seen you, too. Funny, all right.”

“You've seen me, all right,” retorted Stevenson. “Get up, damn you! Get up!”

“Why, I can't—my han's are tied!” exclaimed Hopalong in great wonder, pausing in his exertions to cogitate deeply upon this most remarkable phenomenon. “Tied up! Now what the devil do you think—”

“Use yore feet, you thief!” rejoined Stevenson roughly, stepping forward and delivering another kick. “Use yore feet!” he reiterated.

“Thief! Me a thief! Shore I'll use my feet, you yaller dog!” yelled the prostrate man, and his boot heel sank into the stomach of the offending Mr. Stevenson with sickening force and laudable precision. He drew it back slowly, as if debating shoving it farther. “Call me a thief, hey! Come poking 'round kicking honest punchers an' calling 'em names! Anybody want the other boot?” he inquired with grave solicitation.

Stevenson sat down forcibly and rocked to and fro, doubled up and gasping for breath, and Hopalong squinted at him and grinned with happiness. “Hear him sing! Reg'lar ol' brass band. Sounds like a cow pulling its hoofs outen the mud. Called me a thief, he did, just now. An' I won't let nobody kick me an' call me names. He's a liar, just a plain, squaw's dog liar, he—”

Two men grabbed him and raised him up, holding him tightly, and they were not over careful to handle him gently, which he naturally resented. Charley stepped in front of him to go to the aid of Stevenson and caught the other boot in his groin, dropping as if he had been shot. The man on the prisoner's left emitted a yell and loosed his hold to sympathize with a bruised shinbone, and his companion promptly knocked the bound and still intoxicated man down. Bill Thomas swore and eyed the prostrate figure with resentment and regret. “Hate to hit a man who can fight like that when he's loaded an' tied. I'm glad, all the same, that he ain't sober an' loose.”

“An' you ain't going to hit him no more!” snapped Jed White, reddening with anger. “I'm ready to hang