The Man From Bar-20, Clarence E. Mulford [distant reading TXT] 📗

and walked slowly toward his victim, waving his sombrero in a short arc. On his face was an expression of triumphant joy. Up on the ledge of the mesa wall another man arose, acknowledged the signal and began to climb down the wall as hurriedly as safety would permit. When he reached the prostrate figure he found the successful marksman standing like a man in a trance, a look of blank wonderment on his face, his lower jaw sagging loosely.

“Good for you!” said the man from above; and then he paused. “What’s th’ matter?” A ghastly suspicion flashed into his mind and he leaped forward to see who the victim was. He arose relieved, but as surprised as his companion. “Lord! I was scared you’d got one of th’ boys, from th’ way you looked! Who th’ devil is this feller? An’ what’s he doin’ up here? I’ve seen him before; who th’ devil is he?”

The other drew a long breath. “It’s Long Pete, of th’ Circle S; but what he’s doin’ up here is past me. Look at his shirt, his hat, an’ say he don’t look like Nelson from th’ back! He only wears one gun, but I couldn’t see that; th’ grass an’ brush hid it. But, just th’ same, he was stalkin’ you! If you’d ‘a’ shoved up yore head, he’d ‘a’ drilled it, shore!”

“But why should he stalk me?” demanded Harrison. “He didn’t have no business up here; he didn’t have no reason to sneak along, an’ he didn’t have no call to stalk me! Say! Mebby he’s throwed in with Nelson! If he has, mebby his outfit has throwed in, too! Mebby they’re up here strong, an’ closin’ in from all directions, for a show-down! We better warn th’ boys, an’ get back to Quigley; an’ d–-d quick!”

“Go ahead,” said Gates. “I’ll get his cayuse an’ f oiler close. Where’s Art an’ Frank?”

“They went on north I’m off after ‘em,” snapped Harrison. “Let his cayuse be. You hot-foot it to Quigley!”

“Come on!” growled Gates, wheeling. “They may be on both sides of th’ ranch!”

Jim Ackerman, riding slowly along the bank of the main creek, saw everything that could be seen by a man with keen eyes; and he felt nervous. There was cover all about him, good cover; and any of it might be sheltering the man he was hunting. There was no sense for him to ride along the bank, an inviting target that a boy hardly could miss; there was no sense in riding at all; so he picketed his horse and went ahead on foot.

Gaining Humpback Butte, the meeting place he had mentioned to Long Pete, he worked along its eastern base, noiselessly, cautiously, alertly; and he stopped suddenly as he caught sight of the ashes of a dead fire; stopped and looked and listened and sniffed. It did not smell like a fire that had been dead very long, he thought; and then a playful little whirlwind, simulating ferocity, spun across the partly covered ashes and caught up a bit of charcoal which glowed suddenly as if winking about what it knew and could tell.

Ackerman flitted back into the brush and when he again reached the side of the butte he was north of the camp, and had viewed it from all angles. Pausing for a moment he started back again, on a longer radius, and soon found Pepper’s newly made tracks in a moist patch of sand, and hurried along the trail until he saw where it entered the creek. No need for him to wonder which way the submerged and obliterated trail led; for it must lead north. Otherwise he would have met his enemy. Swearing in sudden exultation he whirled and ran at top speed to gain his horse.

Ackerman knew Humpback Butte and its surrounding valley and canyons as he knew the QE ranch, for he had spent days hunting all over that country; and he knew that the great slopes of the valley grew steadily steeper as they reached northward until they became sheer cliffs without a single way up their walls that a horse could master. A mile above Humpback Butte the walls curved inward until only a scant six hundred yards lay between them; and on the southern side of the eastern cliff, which jutted out into the valley, hidden behind an out-thrust point, was a narrow canyon leading into the valley which formed the northwestern outlet of the QE ranch. For nearly five miles north of Humpback Butte extended the valley, now a great, wide canyon; and not one of the several blind canyons in its great walls gave a way out. Anyone passing the hidden canyon would hunt in vain for an exit and have to return again.

Reaching his horse, Ackerman mounted and rode north at top speed, guiding the animal over grass as he threaded his way in and out among the obstructions. Speed was the pressing need now, for if he could gain the hidden canyon before his enemy found it on his return, he had him trapped. There was an up-thrust mass of rock, covered with brush and scrub timber, which lay before the entrance of the canyon; once up on that he could command both the canyon and the valley, the greatest range not over five hundred yards.

Dismounting in a thicket close to the entrance, he slipped to the canyon and looked for tracks. Finding none he clambered up on the mass of rock and searched the valley for sight of Nelson. For a quarter of a mile he could follow the winding creek and he watched for a few minutes, studying the whole width of the valley.

“I’ve beat him; an’ he ain’t come back yet,” he chuckled grimly. “I got five minutes to look in th’ canyon an’ be dead shore!”

For a hundred yards the little creek flowed along the north wall of the canyon and he wasted no time on it; any man who would ride for forty miles in creeks would not forsake the water for a mere hundred yards. Running at top speed he dashed around a bend, eager for what he would find. There was a six-foot drop in the bottom of the canyon, and a small waterfall, where a rider would be forced to forsake the creek to climb the ridge. A quick glance at a wide belt of sand running out from the ledge at a place where it had crumbled into a steep slope told him that no one had passed that way, and he wheeled and ran back to gain the great pile of rock outside.

“Got you!” he panted triumphantly. “Yo’re a clever man, Mr. Nelson; but you can’t beat a stacked deck. Here’s where I pay for a certain day in Hastings!”

As he reached the mouth of the canyon he heard a crashing in the brush near where he had left his horse and he dove into cover like a frightened rabbit. The crashing continued and then he heard the animal tearing off leaves, and the swish of the released branches. As he slipped forward, cursing under his breath, the horse emerged and walked slowly up on a ridge, where it paused to look calmly around.

“D—n you!” raged Ackerman, leaping forward. “I’ll learn you to stay where I put you! H—I of a cow-pony you are!”

Grabbing the reins he kicked the horse on the ribs and dragged it back into the thicket, where he tied it short to a tree. As soon as the knots were drawn tight he scurried along the ridge, slipped through a clump of scattered brush and climbed frantically up the side of the mass of rock. A swift glance about reassured him, and, settling behind a rock, he patted his rifle and softly laughed.

An hour passed, and then suddenly he heard a plunging in the thicket below him. Pivoting like a flash, he faced about and threw himself flat on the ground, his rifle cuddled against his cheek. To his utter amazement his own horse walked into view again, the broken reins dangling and dragging along the ground. A gust of rage swept over him and he came within a hair of shooting the animal; only the need for silence kept his tightening trigger-finger from pressing that last hundredth of an inch. White with rage, choking with curses, he writfied behind his breastwork, for the horse was on the ridge again, a bold, skyline target for any eye within a mile.

“Th’ journey home will be yore last!” he gritted furiously, slipping down the steep incline as rapidly as he dared. “We’ll see if you can bust my rope, doubled twice! If you strain at th’ rig I’m goin’ to fix, you’ll choke yoreself to death, d—n you!”

Driving it back into the thicket he fastened it to a sapling with the lariat, doubled twice; and the noose around the animal’s neck was a cleverly tied slipknot.

“Now, d—n you!” he blazed, kicking the horse savagely. “Take that, an’ that, an’ that!”

Reaching up to readjust the rope he suddenly froze in his tracks as a crisp voice hailed him.

“Keep ‘em up!” said Johnny, stepping into view. “Turn around keep ‘em up!”

Cool as ice and perfectly composed, Ackerman slowly obeyed and scowled into the muzzle of a leveled Colt, waiting for his chance.

“A man that treats a cayuse like that ain’t hardly worth a bullet,” said Johnny. “If you’d ‘a’ looked at them reins you’d ‘a’ seen th’ knife-pricks.”

Ackerman smiled grimly with understanding, but made no answer.

“Sorry that human ramrod ain’t with you,” continued Johnny. “If I’d knowed he was a friend of yourn I’d’ve stopped him cold down south of Hastings.”

Ackerman scowled. “Talk’s cheap. Th’ man with th’ drop can find a lot to say, if he’s a tinhorn.”

Johnny slipped the Colt into its holster and slowly raised his hands even with his shoulders. “I want you to have an even break,” he muttered. “But I ain’t goin’ to stay here till that Circle S puncher blunders onto us. I’ll wait one minute. It’s yore play.”

“I’ve been waitin’ for a cnance like this,” said Ackerman. “Remember how you kicked me? I allus pay my debts. Th’ next time—” He sprang aside with pantherish speed and the heavy Colt glinted as it leaped from his holster and flashed in an eye-baffling arc. A spurt of flame flashed from his hip and a rolling cloud of smoke half hid him as he pitched forward on his face.

Johnny staggered and stepped back out of the smokecloud which swirled around him and fogged his vision, A trickle of blood oozed down his cheek and gathered in his three-days beard. Peering at the huddled figure, he pushed his gun back into its holster and wiped the blood from his face.

“There ain’t many as good as you with a gun, Ackerman,” he muttered. “Well, I got to get out of here. Them shots will shore call some of th’ others; an I—I’d rather let ‘em guess than know.”

He sprinted to Ackerman’s horse, released it and stripped it of saddle and bridle, turning it loose to freedom and good grass; and then, slinging the pack of supplies on his back, hastened to his own horse and rode away.

All day long Pepper moved ahead as fast as the country would permit, first north, then east, and finally south; and when she was stopped in mid-afternoon she was under the frowning wall of the southern Twin, three miles east of Quigley’s stone houses and less than half a mile from the trail used by the rustlers when they rode abroad.

The very audacity of his choice of a camp site tended to make it secure; and it was in the section combed by the rustlers only the day before; it