Bar-20 Days, Clarence E. Mulford [world best books to read .TXT] 📗

After a night spent on the plain and a cigarette for his breakfast, Hopalong, grouchy and hungry, rode slowly to the place appointed for his meeting with Red, but Mr. Connors was over two hours late. It was now mid-forenoon and Hopalong occupied his time for a while by riding out fancy designs on the sand; but he soon tired of this makeshift diversion and grew petulant. Red’s tardiness was all the worse because the erring party to the agreement had turned in his saddle at Hoyt’s Corners and loosed a flippant and entirely uncalled-for remark about his friend’s ideas regarding appointments.

“Well, that red-headed Romeo is shore late this time,” Hopalong muttered. “Why don’t he find a girl closer to home, anyhow? Thank the Lord I ain’t got no use for shell games of any kind. Here I am, without anything to eat an’ no prospects of anything, sitting up on this locoed layout like a sore thumb, an’ can’t move without hitting myself! An’ it’ll be late to-day before I can get any grub, too. Oh, well,” he sighed, “I ain’t in love, so things might be a whole lot worse with me. An’ he ain’t in love, neither, only he won’t listen to reason. He gets mad an’ calls me a sage hen an’ says I’m stuck on myself because some fool told me I had brains.”

He laughed as he pictured the object of his friend’s affections. “Huh; anybody that got one good, square look at her wouldn’t ever accuse him of having brains. But he’ll forget her in a month. That was the life of his last hobbling fit an’ it was the worst he ever had.”

Grinning at his friend’s peculiarly human characteristics he leaned back in the saddle and felt for tobacco and papers. As he finished pouring the chopped alfalfa into the paper he glanced up and saw a mounted man top the sky-line of the distant hills and shoot down the slope at full speed.

“I knowed it: started three hours late an’ now he’s trying to make it up in the last mile,” Hopalong muttered, dexterously spreading the tobacco along the groove and quickly rolling the cigarette. Lighting it he looked up again and saw that the horseman was wildly waving a sombrero.

“Huh! Wigwagging for forgiveness,” laughed the man who waited. “Old son-of-a-gun, I’d wait a week if I had some grub, an’ he knows it. Couldn’t get mad at him if I tried.”

Mr. Connors’ antics now became frantic and he shouted something at the top of his voice. His friend spurred his mount. “Come on, bronc; wake up. His girl said ‘yes’ an’ now he wants me to get him out of his trouble.” Whereupon he jogged forward. “What’s that?” he shouted, sitting up very straight. “What’s that?”

Red energetically swept the sombrero behind him and pointed to the rear. “War-whoops! W-a-r w-h-o-o-p-s! Injuns, you chump!” Mr. Connors appeared to be mildly exasperated.

“Yes?” sarcastically rejoined Mr. Cassidy in his throat, and then shouted in reply: “Love an’ liquor don’t mix very well in you. Wake up! Come out of it!”

“That’s straight—I mean it!” cried Mr. Connors, close enough now to save the remainder of his lungs. “It’s a bunch of young bucks on their first war-trail, I reckon. ‘T ain’t Geronimo, all right; I wouldn’t be here now if it was. Three of ‘em chased me an’ the two that are left are coming hot-foot somewhere the other side of them hills. They act sort of mad, too.”

“Mebby they ain’t acting at all,” cheerily replied his companion. “An’ then that’s the way you got that graze?” pointing to a bloody furrow on Mr. Connors’ cheek. “But just the same it looks like the trail left by a woman’s finger nail.”

“Finger nail nothing,” retorted Mr. Connors, flushing a little. “But, for God’s sake, are you going to sit here like a wart on a dead dog an’ wait for ‘em?” he demanded with a rising inflection. “Do you reckon yo’re running a dance, or a party, or something like that?”

“How many?” placidly inquired Mr. Cassidy, gazing intently towards the high sky-line of the distant hills.

“Two—an’ I won’t tell you again, neither!” snapped the owner of the furrowed cheek. “The others are ‘way behind now—but we’re standing still!”

“Why didn’t you say there was others?” reproved Hopalong. “Naturally I didn’t see no use of getting all het up just because two sprouted papooses feel like crowding us a bit; it wouldn’t be none of our funeral, would it?” and the indignant Mr. Cassidy hurriedly dismounted and hid his horse in a nearby chaparral and returned to his companion at a run.

“Red, gimme yore Winchester an’ then hustle on for a ways, have an accident, fall off yore cayuse, an’ act scared to death, if you know how. It’s that little trick Buck told us about, an’ it shore ought to work fine here. We’ll see if two infant feather-dusters can lick the Bar-20. Get a-going!”

They traded rifles, Hopalong taking the repeater in place of the single-shot gun he carried, and Red departed as bidden, his face gradually breaking into an enthusiastic grin as he ruminated upon the plan. “Level-headed old cuss; he’s a wonder when it comes to planning or fighting. An’ lucky,—well, I reckon!”

Hopalong ran forward for a short distance and slid down the steep bank of a narrow arroyo and waited, the repeater thrust out through the dense fringe of grass and shrubs which bordered the edge. When settled to his complete satisfaction and certain that he was effectually screened from the sight of any one in front of him, he arose on his toes and looked around for his companion, and laughed. Mr. Connors was bending very dejectedly apparently over his prostrate horse, but in reality was swearing heartily at the ignorant quadruped because it strove with might and main to get its master’s foot off its head so it could arise. The man in the arroyo turned again and watched the hills and it was not long before he saw two Indians burst into view over the crest and gallop towards his friend. They were not to be blamed because they did not know the pursued had joined a friend, for the second trail was yet some distance in front of them.

“Pair of budding warriors, all right; an’ awful important. Somebody must ‘a’ told them they had brains,” Mr. Cassidy muttered. “They’re just at the age when they knows it all an’ have to go ‘round raising hell all the time. Wonder when they jumped the reservation.”

The Indians, seeing Mr. Connors arguing with his prostrate horse, and taking it for granted that he was not stopping for pleasure or to view the scenery, let out a yell and dashed ahead at grater speed, at the same time separating so as to encircle him and attack him front and rear at the same time. They had a great amount of respect for cowboys.

This manoeuvre was entirely unexpected and clashed violently with Mr. Cassidy’s plan of procedure, so two irate punchers swore heartily at their rank stupidity in not counting on it. Of course everybody that knew anything at all about such warfare knew that they would do just such a thing, which made it all the more bitter. But Red had cultivated the habit of thinking quickly and he saw at once that the remedy lay with him; he astonished the exultant savages by straddling his disgruntled horse as it scrambled to its feet and galloping away from them, bearing slightly to the south, because he wished to lure his pursuers to ride closer to his anxious and eager friend.

This action was a success, for the yelling warriors, slowing perceptibly because of their natural astonishment at the resurrection and speed of an animal regarded as dead or useless, spurred on again, drawing closer together, and along the chord of the arc made by Mr. Connors’ trail. Evidently the fool white man was either crazy or had original and startling ideas about the way to rest a horse when hard pressed, which pleased them much, since he had lost so much time. The pleasures of the war-trail would be vastly greater if all white men had similar ideas.

Hopalong, the light of fighting burning strong in his eyes, watched them sweep nearer and nearer, splendid examples of their type and seeming to be a part of their mounts. Then two shots rang out in quick succession and a cloud of pungent smoke arose lazily from the edge of the arroyo as the warriors fell from their mounts not sixty yards from the hidden marksman.

Mr. Connors’ rifle spat fire once to make assurance doubly sure and he hastily rejoined his friend as that person climbed out of the arroyo.

“Huh! They must have been half-breeds!” snorted Red in great disgust, watching his friend shed sand from his clothes. “I allus opined that ‘Paches was too blamed slick to bite on a game like that.”

“Well, they are purty ‘lusive animals, ‘Paches; but there are exceptions,” replied Hopalong, smiling at the success of their scheme. “Them two ain’t ‘Paches—they’re the exceptions. But let me tell you that’s a good game, just the same. It is as long as they don’t see the second trail in time. Didn’t Buck and Skinny get two that way?”

“Yes, I reckon so. But what’ll we do now? What’s the next play?” asked Red, hurriedly, his eyes searching the sky-line of the hills. “The rest of the coyotes will be here purty soon, an’ they’ll be madder than ever now. An’ you better gimme back that gun, too.”

“Take yore old gun—who wants the blamed thing, anyhow?” Hopalong demanded, throwing the weapon at his friend as he ran to bring up the hidden horse. When he returned he grinned pleasantly. “Why, we’ll go on like we was greased for calamity, that’s what we’ll do. Did you reckon we was going to play leap-frog around here an’ wait for the rest of them paint-shops, like a blamed fool pair of idiots?”

“I didn’t know what you might do, remembering how you acted when I met you,” retorted Red, shifting his