The Trail Horde, Charles Alden Seltzer [read out loud books .txt] 📗

of the herd far down the ever-broadening trail. The leaders were so far away that they seemed to be mere dots—black dots moving in an emerald lake.

The cattle, too, had glimpsed the alluring green that spread before them; and at a little distance from Lawler and several of the other men they were running, eager for the descent.

"She's a whopper, ain't she?" said Shorty's voice at Lawler's side. "I've seen a heap of this man's country, but never nothin' like that. I reckon if the Lord had spread her out a little mite further she'd have took in mighty near the whole earth. It's mighty plain he wasn't skimpin' things none, anyway, when he made this here little hollow."

He grinned as he rode, and then waved a sarcastic hand toward the cattle.

"Look at 'em runnin'! You'd think, havin' projected around this here country for a year or so, they'd be better judges. They're thinkin' they'll be buryin' their mugs in that right pretty grass in about fifteen seconds, judgin' from the way they're hittin' the breeze toward it. An' it'll take them half a day to get down there."

Shorty was a better judge of distance than the cattle. For it was afternoon when the last of the herd reached the level floor of the basin. They spread out, to graze industriously; the men not caring, knowing they would not stray far from such a wealth of grass.

By the time the chuck-wagon had come to a halt and the cook had clambered stiffly from his seat to prepare the noonday meal, Lawler and the others saw the horse-wrangler and his assistant descending the long slope with the remuda. The horses had fallen far behind, and Lawler rode to meet them, curious to know what had happened.

When he rode up, the horse-wrangler, a man named Garvin—a stocky individual with keen, inquiring eyes—advanced to meet him.

"Boss," he said, shortly; "there's somethin' mighty wrong goin' on behind us. Me an' Ed—my helper—has been kind of hangin' back, bein' sort of curious. They's a bunch of ornery-lookin' guys trailin' us. I first saw 'em after we'd struck the bottom of that cañon. They was just comin' around that big bend, an' I saw 'em. They lit out, turnin' tail—mebbe figurin' I hadn't seen 'em; but pretty soon I seen 'em again, sort of sneakin' behind us. I reckon if they was square guys they wouldn't be sneakin' like that—eh?"

CHAPTER XIV LAWLER'S "NERVE"

When Lawler spoke to Blackburn regarding the news that had been communicated to him by the horse-wrangler, Blackburn suggested that himself and several of the Circle L men ride back to ascertain the object of the trailers.

"We'll ride back an' make 'em talk!" he declared, heatedly.

Lawler, however, would not agree, telling Blackburn that the trail was free, and that, until the men made some hostile move, there was no reason why they should be approached.

So the men ate, selected new mounts from their "strings" in the remuda, and again started the big herd forward.

Lawler rode for a time with Garvin, keeping an alert eye on the back trail. But though he could see far up the cañon, where the trail—white with dust from the passing of the herd—wound its sinuous way upward into the dark recesses between the towering mesa walls, he could see no sign of life or movement.

The nonappearance of the mysterious riders was suspicious, for if their intentions were friendly they would have come boldly on. In fact, if they were abroad upon an honest errand, they must have found the slowness of the herd ahead of them irksome; and they would have passed it as soon as possible, merely to escape the dust cloud raised by the cattle.

When the afternoon began to wane the herd was far out in the basin, traveling steadily toward a point where the little river doubled, where Blackburn intended to camp for the night. And though both Blackburn and Lawler scanned the back trail intently at intervals, there was still no sign of the riders Garvin had mentioned.

Nor did the riders pass the herd in the night. Blackburn threw an extra guard around the cattle, making the shifts shorter and more frequent; and when daylight came a short conference among the Circle L men disclosed the news that no riders had passed. If any riders had passed the cowboys must have seen them, for there had been a moon, and the basin afforded in the vicinity of the herd, was clear and unobstructed.

Enraged at the suspicious nature of the incident, Blackburn took half a dozen cowboys and rode back, while the remainder of the trail crew sent the herd eastward. It was late in the afternoon when Blackburn returned, disappointed, grim, and wrathful.

"There's a bunch trailin' us, all right," he told Lawler; "about a dozen. We seen where they'd stopped back in the cañon a ways—where Garvin said he'd seen 'em sneakin' back. We lost their tracks there, for they merged with ours an' we couldn't make nothin' of 'em. But at the foot of the slope we picked 'em up again. Looks like they separated. Some of them went north an' some went south. I reckon that durin' the night they sneaked around the edge of the basin. It's likely they're hidin' in the timber somewhere, watchin' us. If you say the word I'll take some of the boys an' rout 'em out. We'll find what they're up to, damn 'em!"

"As long as they don't bother us we won't bother them," said Lawler. "It's likely they won't bother us."

Again that night the men worked in extra shifts; and the following morning the herd climbed out of the basin and straggled up a narrow trail through some foothills. At noon they passed through a defile between two mighty mountains; and when twilight came they had descended some low hills on the other side and went to camp for the night on a big grass level near the river they had followed for three days.

The level upon which they camped was much lower than the floor of the big basin, for the water from the river came tumbling out of a narrow gorge between the hills through which the herd had passed.

They were in a wild section, picturesque, rugged. There was plenty of water; and Blackburn and Lawler both knew that there would be water enough for the herd all the way to Red Rock. There was a section of desert before them, which they would strike before many days; but they would cross the desert in one day, barring delay; and there seemed to be no reason why the long drive should not prove successful despite the mountain trails—most of them hazardous—through which they must still pass.

And yet the men were restless. The continued presence of an invisible menace near them, disturbed the men. They had not seen the mysterious riders again, but there was not a man in the outfit who did not feel them—not a man but was convinced that the riders were still trailing them, watching them.

Long ago the younger men had ceased to laugh and joke. During the day they kept gazing steadily into the gulf of space that surrounded them, carefully scrutinizing the timber and the virgin brush which might form a covert; and at night they were sullen, expectant; every man wearing his gun when he rolled himself in his blanket.

It was not fear that had seized them. They were rugged, hardy, courageous men who had looked death in the face many times, defying it, mocking it; and no visible danger could have disturbed them.

But this danger was not visible; it was stealthy, secret, lurking near them, always threatening, always expected. It might stalk behind them; it might be flanking them as they rode; or it might creep upon them in the night.

Blackburn had fallen into a vicious mood. His eyes glowed with the terrible, futile rage that surged in his veins, it was a reflection of a wrath that grew more and more intolerant as the days passed and the danger that portended did not materialize.

"Boss," he said to Lawler on the tenth day following that on which Garvin had reported the presence of the riders behind them; "the boys is gettin' jumpy. They're givin' one another short answers, an' they're growlin' about things they never noticed before.

"I'm gettin' fed up on this thing, too. It's a cinch them riders is following us. I seen 'em dustin' north of us this mornin'. I ain't said anything to the boys, but it's likely they've seen 'em, too—for they've got their eyes peeled. It's gettin' under my skin, an' if they don't come out into the open pretty soon and give us an idee of what game they're playin', me an' some of the boys is goin' to drag 'em out!"

Yet Blackburn did not carry out his threat. He knew pursuit of the riders would be futile, for there were no further signs of them for several days, and Blackburn knew the riders would have no trouble in eluding them in the vast wilderness through which the herd had been passing for a week. They went on, continuing to watch, though there were no further signs of the men.

They had been on the trail twenty days when at dusk one day they moved slowly down a wide, gradual slope toward a desert. At the foot of the slope was a water hole filled with a dark, brackish fluid, with a green scum fringing its edges. The slope merged gently into the floor of the desert, like an ocean beach stretching out into the water, and for a distance out into the floor of the desert there was bunch grass, mesquite, and greasewood, where the cattle might find grazing for the night. Beyond the stretch of grass spread the dead, gray dust, of the desert, desolate in the filmy, mystic haze that was slowly descending.

The cattle came down eagerly, for they had grazed little during the day in the mountainous region through which they had passed. They were showing the effects of the drive. They had been sleek and fat when they started from the Circle L; they were growing lean, wild, and they were always ravenously hungry.

But where they could feed they required little attention; and the cowboys, after halting them, helped Garvin establish the lines of a rope corral into which they drove the remuda. Then they built a fire and squatted wearily around it—at a respectful distance—to watch the cook—and to listen to him as he complainingly prepared supper.

The men had finished, and the long shadows of the dusk were stealing out over the desert, when Lawler—sitting on the chuck-box—heard Blackburn exclaim sharply:

"Hell's fire! Here they come!"

Blackburn had sprung to his feet, his eyes blazing with the pent-up wrath that had been in them for many days. He was tense, his muscles straining; and his fingers were moving restlessly near the butt of the huge pistol that swung at his hip. The fingers were closing and unclosing, betraying the man's passion.

Lawler got to his feet. Following the direction of Blackburn's flaming eyes, he saw, perhaps a mile away, a large body of horsemen. They were descending the long slope over which the herd had been driven.

Lawler counted them—thirty-nine. But the menace was no longer invisible; it was now a material thing which could be met on such terms as might be, with the law of chance to govern the outcome.

Lawler did not doubt that the on-coming riders were hostile. He had felt that when he first had been made aware of their presence behind the herd. He saw, too, that the men of his outfit felt as he did; for they were all on their feet, their faces grim, their eyes glowing with the rage that had gripped them over the presence of the unseen menace; their muscles were tensed and their lips were in the sullen pout which presages the imminence of action.

Shorty, the