The Orphan, Clarence E. Mulford [find a book to read TXT] 📗

that it was thin, being a connecting link between the two larger chaparrals.

“I don’t know how you are on the jump, bronch,” he said to his mount, “but I reckon you can get through that, all right.”

The cowboys disappeared from his sight behind the northern chaparral, and as they did so he sunk his spurs into his horse and rode straight at the prickly screen and, going partly over and partly through it, galloped westward as the war party and the ranch contingent met. The shots and yells were as music to his ears, and he bowed in mockery and waved his hand at the turmoil as he made his escape. The timber wolf had won.

CHAPTER IX
THE CROSS BAR-8 LOSES SLEEP

SNEED was angry, which could be seen by the way he talked, ate, moved and swore. He had many cattle to care for and they were strewn over six hundred square miles of territory. The work was hard enough when he had his full dozen punchers, but now it forced groans from the tired bodies of his men, who fell asleep while removing their saddles at night, and who worked in a way almost mechanical. The extra work was not conducive to sweetness of temper, and he was continually quelling fights among the members of the outfit. Where only argument formerly would have arisen over differences of opinion, guns now leaped forth; and the differences were multiplied greatly, and getting worse every day. Things which ordinarily would have provoked no notice, or a laugh at most, now caused hot words and surliness. And the reason for the extra work was the continued absence of five cow punchers.

Sneed, tired of cursing the missing men and of offering himself explanations as to why they had not returned, fell, instead, to planning an appropriate reception for them on their return to the ranch. He needed no rehearsing, for while he did not know in just what manner he would reveal his ideas concerning them, he knew what his ideas were and he had always been good at extemporizing when under pressure, and he was under pressure now if he had ever been.

The extra work was hard enough in itself to cause his anger to rise and to create sensitiveness and surliness on the part of his men, but it was only one factor of his discontent. Busy all day at driving the scattered cattle away from the Backbone and closer to the ranch proper where they would be less likely to fall prey to Apache raiders; working all day from the first sign of dawn to the prohibitive blackness of the night, they could have stood up under the strain, for these were men of iron, inured to hardships and constant riding. But hardy as they were there was one thing which they must have, and that was sleep. If they could have only four hours of unbroken sleep when they threw themselves, fully dressed with the exception of their boots, in their bunks, they could have endured the labor for weeks. But this was denied them, and constantly on their minds were thoughts of fire, slaughtered cattle and death.

For a week night had been a terror on the Cross Bar-8. No sooner had the exhausted outfit fallen asleep than bits of window glass would fly about them, cutting and stinging. There was not a whole window pane in the house and the door was so full of lead that it sagged on its half-shattered hinges. Cooking utensils were fast deserving premiums, for hardly an unperforated tin could be found on the premises. And their cook, a Mexican, who most devoutly believed in a personal devil and a brimstone hell, and who feared that he was living in uncomfortable proximity to both, stood the strain for just two nights and then, panic-stricken, had fled from the accursed place and left them to get their own meals as best they could. The protection of the saints was all very well and good under ordinary circumstances, but when they failed to stop the bullets which passed through his cook shack and which more than once had grazed him, it was time for him to find some place far removed from the Cross Bar-8, and where the devil was less strong. When the saints allowed a devil-sped bullet to completely shatter a crucifix it was time to migrate, which he did, but in broad daylight when the outfit had departed and when the devil was not in evidence.

The interiors of both the ranch house and the bunk house were wrecked. The clock, the pride of the foreman, stood with half its wheels buried in the wall behind it by a .50 caliber slug, its hands pointing to half-past one. Lead filled the interior walls, where opposite windows, and the holes and splinters were a disgrace. Sombreros, equipment and the few pictures the walls boasted were like tops of pepper shakers. No sooner was a light shown than it became the target for a shot, and more than one wound gave proof as to the accuracy of the perpetrator. So tired that they fell asleep at supper, the men were constantly awakened by the noise of devastation and the whining hum of the bullets. Pursuit was a failure, and was also hazardous, as proven by Bert Hodge’s arm, broken by a .50 caliber slug from somewhere.

The two houses, wrecked as they were, were fortunate when compared to the condition of the other appurtenances of the ranch. Horses were found dead at all points, and always with a bullet hole in the center of the forehead. The carcasses of cows dotted the plain, and fire had half-destroyed the three corrals. The three new cook wagons, unsheltered, were denuded of bolts and nuts, and their tarpaulins were hopelessly ruined. A wheel was missing from each of them and their poles had been cut through in the middle, the severed ends being found on the roof of the ranch house three minutes after their crashing descent had awakened the foreman, who heard the hum and thud of a bullet as he opened the door. The best grass had been burned off and the outfit had fought fire on several nights when it should have slept. And the small water hole near the cook shack, which furnished water for the bunk house, had been cleared of a dead calf on two mornings. Scouting was of no avail, for the few remaining horses (which now spent the night in the bunk house) were as exhausted as their riders. Keeping guard was a farce, for it had been tried twice, and the guards had fallen asleep; and, awakened by their foreman at dawn, found that their rifles, sombreros and even their spurs were missing. With all his hatred for The Orphan, Sneed was fair-minded enough to give his enemy credit for being the better man. When the harassing outrages had first begun and the foreman and his men were comparatively fresh, he had given the matter his whole attention; and he was no fool. But he had gained nothing but a sense of defeat, which fact did not improve his peace of mind or cause him to lose a whit of his anger. Do what he could, plan as he might, he was beaten, and beaten at every turn. He had to deal with a man whose cunning and ingenuity were far above the average; a man who, combining a rare courage and a wonderful accuracy in shooting with devilish strategy, towered far above the ordinary rustler and outlaw. Sneed knew that he was absolutely at the mercy of his persistent enemy and wondered why it was that he did not steal up in the night and kill the outfit as it slept, which was entirely feasible. Finally, when the strain had grown too much for even his iron nerves the sheriff was implored to take command on the ranch and give it his personal protection. The relations between the sheriff and the ranch were not as cordial as they might have been, and the asking of this favor was gall and wormwood to the foreman and his outfit.

When Shields arrived to take charge of the trouble, accompanied by Charley and two others, he sought the foreman, for Charley had news of a grave nature for the Cross Bar-8.

The foreman ran out of the bunk house and met them near the corral, where the disagreement had taken place.

“By the living God, Sheriff!” he cried, white with anger. “This thing has got to stop if we have to call out the cavalry! We can’t get a decent breakfast–not a whole plate or pan in the house! Our cayuses and cows are being slaughtered by the score! And as for the rest of our possessions, they are so full of holes that they whistle when the wind blows!”

“So I heard,” replied the sheriff. “I’ll do my best.”

“We’ve been doing our best, but what good is it?” cried the foreman. “We are so plumb sleepy we go to sleep moving about! We dassent show our faces after dark without being made a target of! Our new wagons are wrecks, the corrals destroyed and the best grass made us fight for our lives while it burned! That cursed outlaw has got to be killed, d––n him!”

“We’ll do our best, Sneed,” responded Shields. “I reckon we can stop it; at least we can give you a good night’s rest.”

“Where are my five punchers?” Sneed asked; his words bellowed until his voice broke. “And Bucknell! D––n near dead before you found him above the cañon, tied up like a package of flour!”

“Well, Charley can tell you about your men,” Shields responded, viewing the devastation on all sides of him.

“Well, what about them?” cried the foreman turning to the sheriff’s deputy, anger flashing anew in his eyes.

“Well,” Charley slowly began, “I was taking a short cut this morning, and when I got to a place about a dozen miles southeast of the mouth of Bill’s cañon, I saw five bodies on the desert. They were your cow-punchers, and they was so full of arrows that they looked like big brooms. Apaches, I reckon,” he added sententiously.

Sneed tore his hair and swore when he was not choking.

“And after I told them to let up on that blasted outlaw’s trail!” he yelled. “Where will it end, between war-whoops and murders? What sort of a God-forsaken layout is this, anyhow? A man can’t stick his nose out of his own house after dark without having it skinned by a slug! He’s a h–l of a hefty orphant, he is! Poor thing, ain’t got no paw or maw to look after his dear little hide! He needs a regiment of cavalry for a papa, that’s what he needs, and a good strong lariat for a mamma! Orphant! He’s a h–l of a sumptious orphant!”

“Have you trailed him?” asked the sheriff, having to smile in spite of himself at the execution on all sides of him, and at the foreman’s words.

“Trailed him!” yelled Sneed, raising on his toes in his vehemence. “Trailed him! Good God, yes! But what good is it, what can we do when our cayuses are so dod-gasted tired that they can’t catch a tumble bug? Trailed him! Yes, we trailed him, all right! We trailed him until we fell asleep in the saddles on our sleeping cayuses! And while we were gone, d––d if he didn’t blow in and smash up our furniture! We trailed him, all right; just like a lot of cross-eyed, locoed drunken ants! We had to wake each other up, and he could-a killed the whole crowd of us with a club!