Desert Conquest - A. M. Chisholm (all ebook reader txt) 📗

judge you can't, either. Do you remember ever doin' it?"

"Why, no," Casey admitted, "now you speak of it, I don't. And I do remember rubbering into dozens of old wikiups one place and another."

"Sure," said the sheriff. "Human nature again. Anything that's made by a man and left behind will draw another man like molasses will a fly. I never knew a man yet that wouldn't nose around an old camping spot. Not that he expects to find anything, or wants to. He just can't help it. McCrae didn't stop here. Where did he go? We might as well look around a little."

In the process of looking around, they came on an abandoned camp. By the quantity of ashes a number of fires had been burned. There were the poles of a lean-to and a bough bed beneath it, and at a little distance were other beds of boughs. The ground was trampled, and the grass beaten down in the vicinity.

The sheriff nosed among the signs, lifting the boughs of the beds, trying the ashes with his finger for heat, making an examination of the ground, and wandering off in a circle around the camp, where horses had been picketed. Finally he came back to the fireplace, filled his pipe, and lay down. Casey, meanwhile, had been forming his own conclusions.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well," said the sheriff, "I reckon you been usin' your eyes, too. Let's hear about it."

"It's your hunt."

"So it is. McCrae's met up with McHale. This here is their camp."

"How do you know?"

"You askin' because you don't know yourself, or because you want me to tell you?"

"I think you're right, but I'd like to know how you get at it."

"Well, I ain't no Old Sleuth nor Sherlock Holmes," said the sheriff, "but I've lived some years out of doors. I ain't workin' out no chain of reasonin'; I'm just usin' my eyes and a bit of savvy. This is how she works out:

"McHale and McCrae is both foot-loose, and both know this part of the country. They leave about the same time, and chances is they make for it. Then they meet. That's easy. Then we find the moccasin track. That fits McCrae. Next we find a lean-to with a two-man bough bed. There's the hollows where two men lay. That helps prove our first guess. It shows that some one was with McCrae, and the only other man hidin' out is McHale."

"But there are other bough beds. How do you know they weren't all made by one outfit?"

"There's only one lean-to."

"Two men may have been more particular than the others."

"The boughs of them other beds were cut later than this lean-to one."

"But the boughs are all green."

"The ends where they were cut are different. There's more gum on these than the others. That shows they were cut before. Then there's more needles broken off and sifted through to the ground beneath this bed. That shows it's been slept on more. Where would a man get his boughs? The nearest trees, of course. Well, there's more gum where the limbs were cut on the nearest trees than on them farther away. Then there's been a bunch of horses staked out. Why didn't they bell 'em and let 'em range? Either because they didn't have no bells, or didn't want to use 'em. McHale and McCrae would keep their hosses on a rope so's they could make a quick get-away if they had to. They wouldn't take a chance on their strayin'. Now the grass that's been eaten down by the hosses is beginnin' to sprout again in some places, and not in others. Maybe that's because the pickets were shifted, but it's more likely that some hosses was here before the rest. That's about all. She works out all right, don't she?"

"Down to the hock card," Casey admitted. "I saw some of the signs, but not all. You filled in the gaps."

"It's a pity if I wouldn't savvy a few things about my own business," said the sheriff. "Some of it's guesswork, but the main features ain't. Now, when we go farther, we got to do straight guessin'. Who was this bunch that come in here where the two men was already camped? My guess is that it was this here Dade and his outfit. But they don't find the two here when they come, or there'd sure be sign of it. It looks to me like them two boys got to know that somebody was on their back trail, and moved camp sudden. But not so durn sudden they had to leave anything behind. Question is, where have they went to—the whole b'ilin' of 'em?"

"Down the valley. Otherwise we'd have seen some sign."

"I reckon that's so. If Dade works out things the way I have, he knows he's close on to McHale. Say he's got four or five men with him. He can comb the valley pretty clean. But here's another thing: How long will them two boys let themselves be chased?"

"Not very long. It's not safe to crowd either of them."

"If it was me," said the sheriff reflectively, "and a feud party was out on my trail, I'd be apt as not to bushwhack 'em some. You bet I wouldn't stand on ceremony with such hostiles. If I knowed the country I'd cache myself alongside some good open spot, wait till they got into the middle of it, and then slam loose. With two men that savvy their guns any one that got away would sure have a pull with Providence and be workin' it awful hard."

"Sandy would do that in a minute; but I think Tom doesn't want any more trouble if he can help it."

"He may get it shoved onto him. Well, seein' we're here, we may as well eat. Then we'll move on."

When their meal was over they followed the valley. Sunset found them at the edge of thick timber.

"How far does this run?" asked the sheriff.

"I don't know. I was never here before."

"Then we'll camp," said Dove, "and tackle her by daylight."

It was almost dark when Casey, sitting by the fire, suddenly held up his hand. "Somebody coming."

The sheriff listened for a moment. "Two horses," he announced. "May be Jack Pugh." Nevertheless, the old frontiersman shifted his position so that his gun lay ready to his hand.

A moment later two shadowy horsemen appeared, resolving themselves, as they approached, into Farwell and old Simon.

"Hello, the camp!" cried the former. "That you, Dunne?"

"Yes. What on earth are you doing here?"

"Same thing as yourself. This old Siwash missed you somehow. He found McHale and young McCrae, and, on the way out, he ran into Dade, Lewis, and the rest—six in all. When he got to the ranch you were gone, and nobody could tell him where. He came over to Talapus to tell them he'd seen Sandy. That's where I ran into him. And so, knowing that Sandy was with McHale, I got the old man to come back with me. I wanted to be in it if help was needed. We picked up your trail—or he did—and here we are."

"Well, it's blamed decent of you, Farwell," said Casey. "I didn't know that you and Sandy were such friends."

"We're not. The kid doesn't like me. I told you he pulled a gun on me once. All the same, it was up to me this time. I'm going to marry Sheila."

"The devil you are!" Casey exclaimed.

"You're blamed flattering," said Farwell. "You bet I'm going to marry her."

"You're getting one of the finest girls on earth."

"I know that as well as you do," said Farwell. "Then you see how it was up to me——"

He broke off suddenly. Rolling softly along the hills, flung back and forth across the valley from rock wall to rock wall, repeated and magnified a hundred times, came an echo. So distant was it that the original sound itself was not heard; merely the reverberations of it struck the ear. But unmistakably it was made by a far-off gun. Before the echoes had died away others followed, until their resonance resembled continuous thunder.

"Hiyu shootum!" said Simon.

"You bet," the sheriff agreed. "I reckon the boys has got tired bein' moved on. Or else they been jumped sudden. That shootin's all of six miles off. Maybe more. It'll be plumb dark in no time. If there's no more shootin' it's settled by now. If there is it's a stand-off. Either way we have to wait till it gets light."

CHAPTER XXXI

"I been thinkin' we might as well move on a ways," said McHale. "Here's old Simon drops in on us. Somebody else might. I don't feel right about it. I want to git some place, like up in one o' them basins, where strangers won't be passin' by every day."

"Well, I'll go you," Sandy agreed; "but there's an old bear that I want first. He's got a foot as big as a fiddle; I'll bet he weighs as much as a steer."

"What'll you do with a bear? We don't want to go packin' a green hide about with us. The horses hate the smell of it."

"Let 'em get used to it, then," Sandy returned. "I'm starting after that bear now. Better come along. If I don't get him I'll go to-morrow."

But McHale refused to accompany him. He hated climbing. If he could go on a horse that would be different. Therefore Sandy set out alone.

He ascended a shoulder of the mountain, working his way upward to where he had located the range of the big bear. It was steady climbing, and rough as well, but Sandy was in hard, lean condition, with the limitless wind and springy muscles of youth. He arrived at his objective point, a spot which gave him a clear view of the mountain side for a mile on either hand. Somewhere in that area, he had already decided, the bear would be feeding. He settled down for a long, careful inspection; first with the naked eye, which yielded nothing, and next with a pair of binoculars. Sandy, when hunting, possessed unlimited patience. He settled himself comfortably, and kept the glasses at work. Finally his patience was rewarded. A mile or more up the hillside a huge, brown shape shambled into view.

"Lord! he's a big brute," Sandy muttered. "That's a hide worth getting. I'll wait till he settles down for keeps."

Apparently the bear had found food to his liking. He was busy with paw and tongue beside a rotten log. Sandy mapped out a route in his mind, and decided to make a start. It was then noon. As he rose he happened to look up the valley.

It lay below him, ashimmer in the summer sun, a panorama of green, light and dark of shade, with the silver ribbon of the Klimminchuck appearing and disappearing down its length. It was, perhaps, as beautiful a mountain valley scene as eye ever beheld; but Sandy McCrae would not have looked at it twice save for a thin, gray thread which appeared above the treetops some miles away. It became a column, ballooned, and then was invisible. But he knew that somebody had just started a fire.

He picked out the spot with the glasses. Smoke was plainly visible through the powerful lenses. It was close to the river—beside the bank, in fact—and he could catch glimpses of one or two horses. But, because of the trees, he could see little more.

"Darn the luck," said Sandy. "There's the biggest hide in the whole range waiting for me, and somebody has to come butting in. Well, there's only one thing to do."

That thing being to get back to camp as fast as possible, Sandy proceeded to do it. He went downhill at a pace that would have shaken an older and heavier man to pieces; for going downhill is, contrary to the popular idea, much harder on the human frame than going up. He broke into camp and roused McHale from a state of somnolence and tobacco.

"I