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

>“He ain’t bitin’ today; an’ he’s savin’ his cartridges. Well, I got plenty; so here goes for that shirt again.”

Again the inoffensive garment flopped; and then a singing bullet passed squarely through Holbrook’s expensive sombrero.

“You stay down from up there!” grunted Holbrook at the hat. “Plumb center! I got a lot of respect for that hombre. He got th’ best of th’ swap, too. I spoiled a worn-out shirt, an’ he ventilated a twenty dollar Stetson. He owes me a couple more shots!”

The next shot missed, but the second turned the shirt into another funnel.

“Hey!” shouted an angry voice. “What you think yo’redoin’?”

Holbrook’s grin turned into a burst of laughter as the pole swiftly descended, and he again poked up his hat, hoping for a miss and another wasted cartridge; but, failing to draw a shot, he gave it up and crawled back to a safer and more comfortable place where he lay down to get some sleep.

Johnny, full of wrath, worked along the edge of the butte in a vain endeavor to catch sight of his enemy, and he took plenty of time in his efforts to be cautious. Any man who could hit a shirt plumb center and nearly every time, at that distance, shooting across a deceptive canyon and against the sky, was no one to get careless with. After waiting a while without hearing any more from his humorous enemy, he looked down each trail and then went to the other end of the butte.

Not far from him a slender column of smoke arose from a box-like depression which lay beyond a high ridge and was well protected from his rifle. Peering cautiously over the rim of the butte, his head hidden in a tuft of grass, he critically examined the canyon, bowlder by bowlder, ridge by ridge. A puff of smoke spurted from a pile of rocks and a malignant whine passed over his head. Wriggling back, he hurried to another point fifty yards to his right, where he again crept to the edge and looked down. Another puff of smoke and a bloody furrow across his cheek told him that the marksman had good eyes and knew how to shoot. Johnny drove a Sharp’s Special into the middle of the smoke and heard an angry curse follow it.

“Hey, Nelson!” called a peeved voice from the rocks. “Nelson!”

“What you belly-achin’ about?’ I demanded Johnny insolently.

“How’d you like to join us instead of fightin’ us?”

“Yo’re loco!” retorted Johnny. “Can’t you think of anything better’n that? I cut my eye-teeth long ago.”

“I mean it,” said Quigley, earnestly. “Mean it all th’ way through. We talked it over last night. It’s poor business fightin’ each other when we might be workin’ together. Laugh if you want to; but lemme tell you it ain’t as foolish as you think. It’s a lazy, independent life; an’ there’s good money in it. You’d do better with us than you’d ‘a’ done alone.”

“I’ve shore fooled ‘em!” chuckled Johnny softly. Aloud he said: “I can’t trust you, not after what’s happened.”

“I reckon you are suspicious; an’ nobody can blame you,” replied Quigley. “But I mean it.”

“Why didn’t you make this play when I was in my valley, pannin’ gold an’ gettin’ a little herd together?” demanded Johnny. “You knowed I wasn’t after no gold; an’ you knowed what I was after. But no; you was hoggin’ th’ earth an I too cussed mean to give a man a chance, an’ make another split in yore profits. You burned oh, what’s th’ use? If you want my answer, stick yore head out an’ I’ll give it to you quick !”

“I know we acted hasty,” persisted Quigley; “but some of us was ag’in it. Three of ‘em are dead now; Ackerman’s missin’. We’ll give you th’ share of one of ‘em in th’ herd that we got now; an’ an equal share of what we get from now on. That’s fair; an’ it more than makes up for yore cabin an’ them six cows. As far as they are concerned, we’ll give you all of what they bring. How about it?”

“Reckon it’s too late,” replied Johnny. “I ain’t takin’ nobody’s share. I’m aimin’ to take th’ whole layout, lock, stock, an’ barrel. Why should I give you fellers any share in it? What’ll you give me if I let you all clear out now?”

“What you mean?” demanded Quigley.

“Just what I said,” retorted Johnny. “There’s six of you now. It ought to be worth something to you fellers to be allowed to stay alive. I’ll throw off half for th’ wounded men let ‘em off at half price. What are you fellers willin’ to pay me if I let you leave th’ country with a cayuse apiece an’ all yore personal belongin’s?”

“This ain’t no time for jokin’!” snapped Quigley angrily.

“I ain’t jokin’ a bit! I’ll have yore skins pegged out to dry before I get through with you. Yo’re a bunch of sap-headed jackasses, with no more sense than a sheep-herder. I’m ‘most ashamed to get you; but I’m stranglin’ my shame. You pore muttonheads!”

Quigley’s language almost seared the vegetation and he was threatened with spontaneous combustion. When he paused for breath he swung his rifle up and pulled the trigger, almost blind with rage. Johnny’s answering shot ripped through his forearm and he felt the awful sickness which comes when a bone is scraped. Half fainting, Quigley dropped his rifle and leaned back against a rock, regarding the numbed and bleeding arm with eyes which saw the landscape turning over and over. Gathering his senses by a great effort of will, he steadied himself and managed to make and apply a rough bandage with the clumsy aid of one hand and his teeth.

“I’ll give you till tomorrow mornin’ to make me an offer,” shouted Johnny; “but don’t get reckless before then, because th’ temptation shore will be more than I can stand. Think it over.”

“D—n his measly hide!” moaned Quigley, his anger welling up anew. “Give him our ranch, an I cows, an’ pay him to let us leave th’ country! Six of us I Six gun-fightin’, law-breakin’, cattle-liftin’ cowpunchers; sane, healthy, an’ as tough as rawhide rope, payin’ him, a lone man up a tree, to let us leave th’ country I All right, you conceited pup; you’ll pay, an’ pay well, for that insult!”

He still was indulging in the luxury of an occasional burst of profanity when Holbrook approached the bowlders on his hands and knees.

“I’m still hungry; an’ I can’t sleep unless I’m full of grub,’! apologized the rustler. “An’ I heard shootin’. What’s th’ matter, Tom? Yore language ain’t fit for innercent ears!”

“Matter?” roared Quigley, going off in another flight of oratory. “Matter?” he shouted. “Look at this arm! An’ listen to what that carrioneatin’ squaw’s dog of a had th’ gall to say!”

As the recital unfolded Holbrook leaned back against a rock and laughed until the tears washed clean furrows through the dust and dirt on his face; and the more he laughed the more his companion’s anger arose. Finally Quigley could stand it no longer, and he loosed a sudden torrent of verbal fire upon his howling friend.

Holbrook feebly wiped his eyes with the backs of his dusty hands, which smeared the dirt over the wet places and gave him a grotesque appearance.

“Why shouldn’t I laugh?” he choked, and then became indignant. “Why shouldn’t I?” he demanded. “I’ve laughed at yore jokes, Fleming’s stories, Cookie’s cookin’, an’ Dan’l Boone’s windy lies; an’ now when something funny comes along you want me to be like th’ chief mourner at a funeral! I’m forty years old an I I’ve met some stuck-up people in my life; but that fool up there has got more gall an’ conceit than anybody I ever even heard tell of! I’m glad I didn’t hear him say it, or I shore would ‘a’ laughed myself plumb to death. Did you ever hear anything like it; drunk or sober, did you?”

“No, I didn’t!” snapped Quigley. “An’ if you’ve got all over yore nonsense, suppose you take a look at my arm, an’ fix this bandage right!”

“Sorry, Tom,” answered Holbrook quickly; “but I was near keeled over. Here, gimme that arm; an’ when I get it fixed right, you make a bee-line for th’ ranch. There ain’t no use of you stayin’ out here with an arm like that. Good Lord! He shore made a mess of it! Them slugs of his are awful; an’ that gun is th’ worst I ever went up ag’in. I want that rifle; an’ I speaks for it here an’ now. When we get him, I get th’ gun.”

“It’s yourn,” groaned Quigley. “Gimme a drink of whiskey before I start out. But I don’t like to leave you to handle this alone. I can stick it out.”

“It’s a one-man job until somebody comes out,” responded Holbrook. “All I got to do is lay low an’ not let him come down that trail. A ten-year-old kid can do that durin’ daylight. But you ain’t goin’ to go till you feel a little better,” he ordered, producing a flask. “You wait a while th’ sun won’t be hot for a couple of hours yet An’ would you look at th’ mosquitoes! They must ‘a’ smelled th’ blood. Here, wrap yore coat around it or they’ll pump it full of pizen.”

Two hours later, Quigley having departed for the ranch, Holbrook lay on the top of the northern Twin, glad to have escaped from the attacks of the winged pests which had driven him out of the canyon; and hoping that his enemy would try to take advantage of the situation, if he knew of it, and try to escape. He had decided that he could guard the trail as well from the top of the butte as he could from the canyon, for the whole length of the steeply sloping path lay before him. Cool breezes played about him, there were neither flies, mosquitoes, nor yellowjackets to plague him, and the opposite butte and the whole canyon lay under his eyes. And he also had better protection than the canyon afforded, for there was always present a vague uneasiness, no matter how well hidden he might be, while his good-shooting enemy was five hundred feet above him. Food and water were close to his hand and he enjoyed a smoke as he lazily sprawled behind his protecting breastwork of rocks and set himself the task of keeping awake and alert. He had seen no sign of his enemy, although he had closely scrutinized every foot of the opposite butte. Quigley, he thought, must have reached the ranch by that time and no doubt Fleming or Purdy was on the way to relieve him. As he glanced along the canyon in the direction that his friend would appear he saw a movement of the brush near the bottom of the much watched trail and he slid his rifle through an opening between the rocks covering the center of the disturbance.

It was too early for Fleming or Purdy, he reflected; and his eyes narrowed as he wondered if it could be some friend of the man he was watching.

The bushes moved again and a grizzled head thrust out into view, slowly followed by a pair of massive shoulders as a great silver-tip grizzly pushed out into the little clearing where the guarding fire had been, and slowly turned its head from side to side, sniffing suspiciously. Satisfied that there was nothing to fear, it crossed the clearing and ripped the bark off of a dead and fallen tree trunk, licking up the grubs and the scurrying insects. Shredding the bark and thoroughly cleaning up the last