Bar-20 - Clarence E. Mulford (best e books to read .txt) 📗

and Buck lay in the course the besieged would most

likely take if they tried a dash. Off to the east Red barred them from creeping down the

arroyo, and from where Pete was he could creep up to within sixty yards if he chose the

right rocks. The ranges varied from four hundred yards for Buck to sixty for Pete, and the

others averaged close to three hundred, which allowed very good shooting on both sides.

 

Hopalong and Skinny gradually moved nearer to each other for companionship,

and as the former raised his head to see what the others were doing he received a graze on

the ear.

 

“Wow!” he yelled, rubbing the tingling member.

 

Two puffs of smoke floated up from the knoll, and Skinny swore.

 

“Where’d he get yu, Fat?” asked Hopalong.

 

“G’wan, don’t get funny, son,” replied Skinny.

 

Jets of smoke arose from the north and east, where Buck and Red were stationed,

and Pete was half way to the knoll. So far he hadn’t been hit as he dodged in and out,

and, emboldened by his luck, he made a run of five yards and his sombrero was shot from

his head. Another dash and his empty holster was ripped from its support. As he

crouched behind a rock he heard a yell from Hopalong, and saw that interested individual

waving his sombrero to cheer him on. An angry pang! from the knoll caused that

enthusiastic rooter to drop for safety.

 

“Locoed son-of-a-gun,” complained Pete. “He’ll shore git potted.”

 

Then he glanced at Billy, who was the center of several successive spurts of dust.

 

“How’s business, Billy?” he called pleasantly.

 

“Oh, they’ll git me yet,” responded the pessimist. “Yu needn’t git anxious. If that

off buck wasn’t so green he’d `a’ had me long ago.”

 

“Ya-hoo! Pete! Oh, Pete!” called Hopalong, sticking his head out at one side and

grinning as the wondering object of his hail craned his neck to see what the matter was.

 

“Huh?” grunted Pete, and then remembering the distance he shouted, “What’s th’

matter?”

 

“Got any cigarettes?” asked Hopalong.

 

`Yu poor sheep!” said Pete, and turning back to work he drove a .45 into a yellow

moccasin.

 

Hopalong began to itch and he saw that he was near an ant hill. Then the cactus at

his right boomed out mournfully and a hole appeared in it. He fired at the smoke and a

yell informed him that he had made a hit. “Go `way!” he complained as a green fly

buzzed past his nose.

 

Then he scratched each leg with the foot of the other and squirmed incessantly,

kicking out with both feet at once. A warning metallic whir-r-r! on his left caused to

yank them in again, and turning his head quickly he the pleasure of lopping off the head

of a rattlesnake with his Colt’s.

 

“Glad yu wasn’t a copperhead,” he exclaimed. “Somebody had ought `a’ shot that

fool Noah. Blast the ants!” He drowned with a jet of tobacco juice a Gila monster that

was staring at him and took a savage delight in its frantic efforts to bury itself.

 

Soon he heard Skinny swear and he sung out: “What’s the matter, Skinny? Git

plugged again?”

 

“Naw, bugs-ain’t they mean?” Plaintively asked his friend. “They ain’t none over

here. What kind of bugs?”

 

“Sufferin’ Moses, I ain’t no bugologist! All kinds!”

 

But Hopalong got it at last. He had found tobacco and rolled a cigarette, and in

reaching for a match exposed his shoulder to a shot that broke his collar bone. Skinny’s

rifle cracked in reply and the offending brave rolled out from behind a rock. From the

fuss emanating from Hopalong’s direction Skinny knew that his neighbor had been hit.

 

“Don’t yu care, Hoppy. I got th’ cuss,” he said consolingly.

 

“Where’d he git yu?” he asked.

 

“In di’ heart, yu pie-faced nuisance. Come over here an’ corral this cussed

bandage an’ gimme some water,” snapped the injured man.

 

Skinny wormed his way through the thorny chaparral and bound up the shoulder.

 

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Yes. Shoot that bunch of warts an’ blow that tobacco-eyed Gila to Cheyenne.

 

This here’s worse than the time we cleaned out th’ C 80 outfit!” Then he kicked the dead

toad and swore at the sun.

 

“Close yore yap; yore worse than a kid! Anybody’d think yu never got plugged

afore,” said Skinny indignantly.

 

I can cuss all I wants,” replied Hopalong, proving his assertion as he grabbed his

gun and fired at the dead Indian. A bullet whined above his head and Skinny fired at the

smoke. He peeped out and saw that his friends were getting nearer to the knoll.

 

“They’s closin’ in now. We’ll soon be gittin’ home,” he reported.

 

Hopalong looked out in time to see Buck make a dash for a bowlder that lay ten

yards in front of him, which he reached in safety. Lanky also ran in and Pete added five

more yards to his advance. Buck made another dash, but leaped into the air, and, coming

down as if from an intentional high jump, staggered and stumbled for a few paces and

then fell flat, rolling over and over toward the shelter of a split rock, where he lay quiet.

 

A leering red face peered over the rocks on the knoll, but the whoop of exultation was cut

short, for Red’s rifle cracked and the warrior rolled down the steep bank, where another

shot from the same gun settled him beyond question.

 

Hopalong choked and, turning his face away, angrily dashed his knuckles into his

eyes.

 

“Blast `em! Blast `em! They’ve got Buck! They’ve got Buck, blast `em! They’ve

got Buck, Skinny! Good old Buck! They’ve got him! Jimmy’s gone, Johnny’s plugged,

and now Buck’s gone! Come on!” he sobbed in a frenzy of vengeance. “Come on,

Skinny! We’ll tear their cussed hides into a deeper red than they are now! Oh, blast it, I

can’t see-where’s my gun?” He groped for the rifle and fought Skinny when the latter, red-eyed but cool, endeavored to restrain him.

 

“Lemme go, curse yu! Don’t yu know they got Buck? Lemme go!”

 

“Down! Red’s got di’ skunk. Yu can’t do nothin’-they’d drop yu afore yu took five

steps. Red’s got him, I tell yu! Do yu want me to lick yu? We’ll pay `em back with

interest if yu’ll keep yore head!” exclaimed Skinny, throwing the crazed man heavily.

 

Musical tones, rising and falling in weird octaves, whining pityingly, diabolically,

sobbing in a fascinating monotone and slobbering in ragged chords, calling as they swept

over the plain, always calling and exhorting, they mingled in barbaric discord with the

defiant barks of the six-shooters and the inquiring cracks of the Winchesters. High up in

the air several specks sailed and drifted, more coming up rapidly from all directions.

 

Buzzards know well where food can be found.

 

As Hopalong leaned back against a rock he was hit in the thigh by a ricochet that

tore its way out, whirling like a circular saw, a span above where it entered. The wound

was very nasty, being ripped twice the size made by an ordinary shot, and it bled

profusely. Skinny crawled over and attended to it, making a tourniquet of his neckerchief

and clumsily bandaging it with a strip torn from his shirt.

 

“Yore shore lucky, yu are,” he grumbled as he made his way back to his post,

where he vented his rancor by emptying the semi-depleted magazine of his Winchester at

the knoll.

Hopalong began to sing and shout and he talked of Jimmy and his childhood,

interspersing the broken narrative with choice selections as sung in the music halls of

Leavenworth and Abilene. He wound up by yelling and struggling, and Skinny had his

hands full in holding him.

 

“Hopalong! Cassidy! Come out of that! Keep quiet-yu’ll shore git plugged if yu

don’t stop that plungin’. For gosh sake, did yu hear that?” A bullet viciously hissed

between them and flattened out on a near-by rock; others cut their way through the

chaparral to the sound of falling twigs, and Skinny threw himself on the struggling man

and strapped Hopalong with his belt to the base of a honey mesquite that grew at his side.

 

“Hold still, now, and let that bandage alone. Yu allus goes off di’ range when yu

gets plugged,” he complained.

He cut down a cactus and poured the sap over the wounded man’s face, causing

him to gurgle and look around. His eyes had a sane look now and Skinny slid off his

chest.

 

“Git that-belt loose; I ain’t-no cow,” brokenly blazed out the picketed Hopalong.

 

Skinny did so, handed the irate man his Colts and returned to his own post, from where

he fired twice, reporting the shots.

 

“I’m tryin’ to get him on th’ glance’ first one went high an’ th’ other fell flat,” he

explained.

 

Hopalong listened eagerly, for this was shooting that he could appreciate.

 

“Lemme see,” he commanded. Skinny dragged him over to a crack and settled down for

another try

“Where is he, Skinny?” Asked Hopalong.

 

“Behind that second big one. No, over on this here side. See that smooth granite?

If I can get her there on th’ right spot he’ll shore know it.” He aimed carefully and fired.

 

Through Pete’s glasses Hopalong saw a leaden splotch appear on the rock and he

notified the marksman that he was shooting high. “Put her on that bump closer down,” he

suggested. Skinny did so and another yell reached their ears.

 

“That’s a dandy. Yore shore all right, yu old cuss,” complimented Hopalong,

elated at the success of the experiment.

 

Skinny fired again and a brown arm flopped out into sight. Another shot struck it

and it jerked as though it were lifeless.

 

“He’s cashed. See how she jumped? Like a rope,” remarked Skinny with a grin.

 

The arm lay quiet.

 

Pete had gained his last cover and was all eyes and Colts. Lanky was also very

close in and was intently watching one particular rock.

 

Several shots echoed from the far side of the knoll and they knew that Red was all

right. Billy was covering a cluster of rocks that protruded above the others and, as they

looked, his rifle rang out and the last defender leaped down and disappeared in the

chaparral. He wore yellow trousers and an old boiled shirt.

 

“By an’-by, by all that’s bad!” yelled Hopalong. “Th’ measly coyote!

An’ me a-fillin’ his ornery hide with liquor. Well, they’ll have to find him all over

again now,” he complained, astounded by the revelation. He fired into the chaparral to

express his pugnacious disgust and scared out a huge tarantula, which alighted on

Skinny’s chaps, crawling rapidly toward the unconscious man’s neck. Hopalong’s face

hardened and he slowly covered the insect and fired, driving it into the sand, torn and

lifeless. The bullet touched the leathern garment and Skinny remonstrated, knowing that

Hopalong was in no condition for fancy shooting.

 

“Huh!” exclaimed Hopalong. “That was a tarantula what I plugged. He was

headin’ for yore neck,” he explained, watching the chaparral with apprehension.

 

“Go `way, was it? Bully for yu!” exclaimed Skinny, tarantulas being placed at par

with rattlesnakes, and he considered that he had been saved from a horrible death.

 

“Thought yu said they wasn’t no bugs over here,” he added in an aggrieved tone.

 

“They wasn’t none. Yu brought `em. I only had th’ main show-Gilas, rattlers an’

toads,” he replied, and then added, “Ain’t it cussed hot up here?”

 

“She is. Yu won’t have