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

first time, or th’ other ninety-nine will shore be lost. I’ll never forget it, not never.”

Watching a while, he wondered if it were guarded, and grinned at the foolishness of the idea; but he slowly pushed his sombrero out around a rock to find out. An angry spang! and a wailing in the sky told him the answer. The flat report in the valley became a mutter along the distant hills.

“Good shootin’,” he grunted. “Glad you was out of breath, or excited, or somethin’ this mornin’.”

Back at the top of the other trail he found two large rocks lying close together near the edge, and he crawled behind them and peered out through the narrow opening for a closer look at the canyon.

It was a chaos, dotted with bowlders of granite, sandstone, and lava, some of them as large as small houses, their tops on a level with the tops of the nearest trees. It was cut by rock ridges, great backbones of stone that defied Time; and dotted with heavily wooded draws which extended up to the foot of the great pile of detritus embracing the foot of the buttes. Down its lowest levels ran a zigzag streak of bright, clean rock, the waterswept path of the torrents sent roaring down by melting snows and an occasional cloud-burst. Several pools, fed by a dark trickle of water from the springs back in the upper reaches, could be seen. Of timber there was plenty, heavy growths of pine extending ffom the edge of the creek bed to the edge of the detritus, with here and there an opening made by the avalanches which had cut into the greenery for short distances. At other places even the stubborn pines could not find a grip, and a thinning out of the growth let him see the rocky skeleton below; but these were so few that he easily memorized their positions. Trouble would come awinging to any careless rustler who blundered out onto any of them.

The opposite butte took his attention and he marveled at it. Under its lava cap and the great layer of the limestones was a greater layer of clay and shale and the softer sandstones. These had been harassed and battered by the winds and rains and frosts of ages and the resulting erosion had chiseled out wonderful bits of natural sculpturing. At one place he could see, and with no very great strain upon his imagination, part of a massive building with its great buttresses, where a harder, more enduring streak of rock had offered greater resistance to the everlasting assaults.

Farther to the right was a wonderful collection of columns and pinnacles, and some of the openings between them ran back until shrouded in darkness; great caverns in which houses could be built.

As the sun sank lower the shadow effect was beautiful, and even Johnny’s practical mind was impressed by it. The color effect he had seen before the streaks of black, gray, red, green, maroon, and white. Bits of crystal and quartz were set afire by the sun’s slanting rays and some of them almost dazzled him.

To the west the sky was a blaze of color and the lengthening shadows made an ever-changing picture. Below him the dusk was beginning to shroud the bottom of the canyon, creeping higher and higher as the minutes passed. To see better, he wriggled closer to the edge, and a venomous whine passed over his head to die out swiftly in the air.

“Huh!” he grunted. “Fine target I must’ve been for that thief down there, with such a sky behind me. I’ve got to remember things up here, or I’ll lose my rememberer. I’m on a skyline that is a skyline. An’ I ain’t goin’ to answer every fool that cuts loose at me, neither. I got plenty of cartridges, but I won’t have if I start gettin’ foolish with ‘em. An’ before dark I’m goin’ to rustle me a blanket; it’s gettin’ cooler by jumps.”

He made another visit to the south side of the butte for a glance down the trail of misery, and then dismissed it from his mind. In view of his experiences with it in daylight, he knew that no human being could climb it in the dark.

“It’s as safe, day an’ night, as if Red or Hoppy was layin’ right here an’ that’s plenty good enough for me, M he smiled. “William, Junior’s, bobcat kitten won’t never grow big enough to climb that place an’ it’s th’ only thing on earth that he can’t climb, blast him!”

Returning to his camp he had a drink and a smoke, and then, taking up a blanket and a pan of cold beans, he went to the head of the trail, there to keep a long and wearisome vigil.

Darkness had descended when he reached his chosen spot, and wrapping the blanket around him he sat down cross-legged, laid his rifle near him, and leaned back against a rock to watch the trail and wait for daylight. Faint, longdrawn, quavering, came the howl of a wolf, and from a point below him in the blackness of the canyon a cougar screamed defiance. He was surprised by the clearness with which occasional sounds came up to him, for he distinctly heard the crack of dead wood where some careless foot trod, and he heard a voice ask who had the second shift on the south side of the butte.

“Turn in,” came the answer. “We ain’t watchin’ that side no more. You relieve me at midnight, an I don’t forget it!”

For some time he had been hearing strange, dragging sounds which seemed to come from the foot of the trail; and had been fooled into believing that an attack was under way. Then several low crashes gave him the distance, and he again leaned back against the rock, slipping the Colt into its holster.

A tiny point of light sprang up in the darkness, whisked behind a bowlder as he reached for his rifle, and grew rapidly brighter. Then it soared into the air and curved toward the foot of the trail, and almost instantly became a great, leaping flame which soon lit up the trail, the towering walls of the buttes, and the glistening bowlders in the canyon.

He stared at it and then laughed. “They ain’t satisfied with watchin’ th’ trail an’ listenin’ with both ears, but they has to light it up I There ain’t no danger whatever of me tryin’ to get down now; an’ I’d like to see anybody try to get up it while that fire’s burninM They’re shore kind to me.”

“You be careful an’ keep it out of th’ brush,” warned a faint voice. “If she catches, this canyon will be a little piece of h—l. Everything so dry it rustles.”

“Ain’t you turned in yet?” demanded the guard. “You never mind about th’ fire. You get to sleep; an’ you get awake again at twelve.”

“Huh!” came the laughing retort. “We can all go to sleep while that’s blazin’. Go gnaw yore bone an’ quit growlin’.”

Johnny laughed loudly, derisively. “I may set it on fire myself! “he jeered. “An’ if I don’t, th’ rainy season is purty near due an’ when it comes you’ll need a boat. Fine lot of man-hunters you are. All you can shoot is boots an’ skunks!”

A flash split the darkness, and the canyon tossed the report from side to side as though loath to let it die. When the reverberations softened to a rolling mutter he jeered the marksman and called him impolite names’. The angry retort was quite as discourteous and pleased him greatly.

An hour passed, and then Johnny arose and crept softly down the trail, hugging the rock wall closely. When he reached a small pile of broken branches, caught in a fissure, he gathered an armful and carried them up on the butte. F tewood was too scarce for him to neglect any opportunities. A second trip enabled him to find a few scattered pieces and they were added to his store. Then he went to his horse, removed the picket rope, and going to the edge of the cliff at a spot over the trail he tied one end of the rope around a rock and lowered the rest of it over the rim. Another trip down the trail was necessary to make the free end fast to a dead fir that lay along the wall, and having tied it securely he slipped back to the plateau, hurried to the rope and pulled on it in vain. Try as he might he could raise only one end of the log.

“Cuss it!” he grunted; then he grinned and whistled a clear note. A few minutes passed and soft hoofbeats came slowly nearer. Then a black bulk loomed up beside him and nuzzled his neck. “I forgot th’ saddle,” I he said. “You wait here, Dearly Beloved,” and he slipped away, the horse following him.

They returned together and Johnny made the line fast to the pommel of the saddle, took hold of it himself to show his good will, and spoke to the horse.

“Oh, you don’t know nothin’ about haulin’, huh?’ T he grunted, dropping the rope and taking the reins. “Come on, now easy does it. Easy! Easy! Keep it there th’ cussed thing’s got stuck on th j edge.” In a moment he returned. “All right! Over she comes. “

The man at the foot of the trail hurled more wood ‘on the fire and then tried a few shots when the noise above caught his ear. Then as the flames shot up he grunted a profane question and stared at the animated tree trunk which climbed sheer cliffs in the dark.

“Well, I’m cussed!” he grumbled. “Firewood! An’ me lettin’ him get down there to tie that rope!”

Johnny peered over the rim and noticed that the flashes came from one place, and getting his rifle he kicked a few rocks over and fired instantly at the answering flash. Two guns in the canyon awakened the echoes and he stepped back to let the whining lead pass over his head.

“There I go!” he snorted. “Wastin’ cartridges already! But I wish gosh! I got it! “

Grinning with elation he felt his way along the butte until he was directly over the fire, where he stopped and began to search for rocks and stones, and he did not cease until he had quite a pile of them. Approaching the rim he peered over cautiously and searched the canyon within the radius of the firelight, but without avail. He noticed, however, that there seemed to be a nest of rocks and bowlders on the outer edge of the circle of illumination and he surmised that it was there the guards were lying. He heaved a big stone and watched it whiz through the lighted arc. It fell short and he tried again. The second rock struck solidly and made quite a noise, and choice bits of profane inquiry floated up to him. Several more rocks evoked a sudden scrambling and more profanity, and a lurid bayonet of fire flashed from a dark spot

“Now he’s took to heavin’ rocks!” growled a peeved, angry voice. “D d if he ain’t th j meanest cuss I ever saw!”

Johnny threw a few more missiles and a deep curse replied from the pit Close to the edge of the wall was a large rock, nicely balanced. It was the size of a small trunk, and a grin crept across his face as he walked over to it Putting his shoulder, all his wiry strength, and plenty of grunts into the task, he started it rocking more and more, and, catchin^ it at the right instant, he pushed it over and rolled it to the edge, where