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or Show Down. There’ll be real

trackers huntin’ your trail.”

 

The listening girl suddenly appealed to Wilson.

 

“Don’t let him take me off — alone — in the woods!” she

faltered. That was the first indication of her weakening.

 

Jim Wilson broke into gruff reply. “I’m not bossin’ this

gang.”

 

“But you’re a man!” she importuned.

 

“Riggs, you fetch along your precious firebrand an’ come

with us,” said Anson, craftily. “I’m particular curious to

see her brand you.”

 

“Snake, lemme take the girl back to Pine,” said Jim Wilson.

 

Anson swore his amaze.

 

“It’s sense,” continued Wilson. “We’ve shore got our own

troubles, an’ keepin’ her ‘ll only add to them. I’ve a

hunch. Now you know I ain’t often givin’ to buckin’ your

say-so. But this deal ain’t tastin’ good to me. Thet girl

ought to be sent home.”

 

“But mebbe there’s somethin’ in it for us. Her sister ‘d pay

to git her back.”

 

“Wal, I shore hope you’ll recollect I offered — thet’s

all,” concluded Wilson.

 

“Jim, if we wanted to git rid of her we’d let Riggs take her

off,” remonstrated the outlaw leader. He was perturbed and

undecided. Wilson worried him.

 

The long Texan veered around full faced. What subtle

transformation in him!

 

“Like hell we would!” he said.

 

It could not have been the tone that caused Anson to quail.

He might have been leader here, but he was not the greater

man. His face clouded.

 

“Break camp,” he ordered.

 

Riggs had probably not heard that last exchange between

Anson and Wilson, for he had walked a few rods aside to get

his horse.

 

In a few moments when they started off, Burt, Jones, and

Moze were in the lead driving the pack-horses, Anson rode

next, the girl came between him and Riggs, and

significantly, it seemed, Jim Wilson brought up the rear.

 

This start was made a little after the noon hour. They

zigzagged up the slope, took to a deep ravine, and followed

it up to where it headed in the level forest. From there

travel was rapid, the pack-horses being driven at a jogtrot.

Once when a troop of deer burst out of a thicket into a

glade, to stand with ears high, young Burt halted the

cavalcade. His well-aimed shot brought down a deer. Then the

men rode on, leaving him behind to dress and pack the meat.

The only other halt made was at the crossing of the first

water, a clear, swift brook, where both horses and men drank

thirstily. Here Burt caught up with his comrades.

 

They traversed glade and park, and wended a crooked trail

through the deepening forest, and climbed, bench after

bench, to higher ground, while the sun sloped to the

westward, lower and redder. Sunset had gone, and twilight

was momentarily brightening to the afterglow when Anson,

breaking his silence of the afternoon, ordered a halt.

 

The place was wild, dismal, a shallow vale between dark

slopes of spruce. Grass, fire-wood, and water were there in

abundance. All the men were off, throwing saddles and packs,

before the tired girl made an effort to get down. Riggs,

observing her, made a not ungentle move to pull her off. She

gave him a sounding slap with her gloved hand.

 

“Keep your paws to yourself,” she said. No evidence of

exhaustion was there in her spirit.

 

Wilson had observed this by-play, but Anson had not.

 

“What come off?” he asked.

 

“Wal, the Honorable Gunman Riggs jest got caressed by the

lady — as he was doin’ the elegant,” replied Moze, who

stood nearest.

 

“Jim, was you watchin’?” queried Anson. His curiosity had

held through the afternoon.

 

“He tried to yank her off an’ she biffed him,” replied

Wilson.

 

“That Riggs is jest daffy or plain locoed,” said Snake, in

an aside to Moze.

 

“Boss, you mean plain cussed. Mark my words, he’ll hoodoo

this outfit. Jim was figgerin’ correct.”

 

“Hoodoo —” cursed Anson, under his breath.

 

Many hands made quick work. In a few moments a fire was

burning brightly, water was boiling, pots were steaming, the

odor of venison permeated the cool air. The girl had at last

slipped off her saddle to the ground, where she sat while

Riggs led the horse away. She sat there apparently

forgotten, a pathetic droop to her head.

 

Wilson had taken an ax and was vigorously wielding it among

the spruces. One by one they fell with swish and soft crash.

Then the sliding ring of the ax told how he was slicing off

the branches with long sweeps. Presently he appeared in the

semi-darkness, dragging half-trimmed spruces behind him. He

made several trips, the last of which was to stagger under a

huge burden of spruce boughs. These he spread under a low,

projecting branch of an aspen. Then he leaned the bushy

spruces slantingly against this branch on both sides,

quickly improvising a V-shaped shelter with narrow aperture

in front. Next from one of the packs he took a blanket and

threw that inside the shelter. Then, touching the girl on

the shoulder, he whispered:

 

“When you’re ready, slip in there. An’ don’t lose no sleep

by worryin’, fer I’ll be layin’ right here.”

 

He made a motion to indicate his length across the front of

the narrow aperture.

 

“Oh, thank you! Maybe you really are a Texan,” she whispered

back.

 

“Mebbe,” was his gloomy reply.

CHAPTER XXI

The girl refused to take food proffered her by Riggs, but

she ate and drank a little that Wilson brought her, then she

disappeared in the spruce lean-to.

 

Whatever loquacity and companionship had previously existed

in Snake Anson’s gang were not manifest in this camp. Each

man seemed preoccupied, as if pondering the dawn in his mind

of an ill omen not clear to him yet and not yet dreamed of

by his fellows. They all smoked. Then Moze and Shady played

cards awhile by the light of the fire, but it was a dull

game, in which either seldom spoke. Riggs sought his blanket

first, and the fact was significant that he lay down some

distance from the spruce shelter which contained Bo Rayner.

Presently young Burt went off grumbling to his bed. And not

long afterward the card-players did likewise.

 

Snake Anson and Jim Wilson were left brooding in silence

beside the dying campfire.

 

The night was dark, with only a few stars showing. A fitful

wind moaned unearthly through the spruce. An occasional

thump of hoof sounded from the dark woods. No cry of wolf or

coyote or cat gave reality to the wildness of forestland.

 

By and by those men who had rolled in their blankets were

breathing deep and slow in heavy slumber.

 

“Jim, I take it this hyar Riggs has queered our deal,” said

Snake Anson, in low voice.

 

“I reckon,” replied Wilson.

 

“An’ I’m feared he’s queered this hyar White Mountain

country fer us.”

 

“Shore I ‘ain’t got so far as thet. What d’ ye mean, Snake?”

 

“Damme if I savvy,” was the gloomy reply. “I only know what

was bad looks growin’ wuss. Last fall — an’ winter — an’

now it’s near April. We’ve got no outfit to make a long

stand in the woods… . Jim, jest how strong is thet

Beasley down in the settlements?”

 

“I’ve a hunch he ain’t half as strong as he bluffs.”

 

“Me, too. I got thet idee yesterday. He was scared of the

kid — when she fired up an’ sent thet hot-shot about her

cowboy sweetheart killin’ him. He’ll do it, Jim. I seen that

Carmichael at Magdalena some years ago. Then he was only a

youngster. But, whew! Mebbe he wasn’t bad after toyin’ with

a little red liquor.”

 

“Shore. He was from Texas, she said.”

 

“Jim, I savvied your feelin’s was hurt — by thet talk about

Texas — an’ when she up an’ asked you.”

 

Wilson had no rejoinder for this remark.

 

“Wal, Lord knows, I ain’t wonderin’. You wasn’t a hunted

outlaw all your life. An’ neither was I… . Wilson, I

never was keen on this girl deal — now, was I?”

 

“I reckon it’s honest to say no to thet,” replied Wilson.

“But it’s done. Beasley ‘ll get plugged sooner or later. Thet

won’t help us any. Chasin’ sheep-herders out of the country

an’ stealin’ sheep — thet ain’t stealin’ gurls by a long

sight. Beasley ‘ll blame that on us, an’ be greaser enough

to send some of his men out to hunt us. For Pine an’ Show

Down won’t stand thet long. There’s them Mormons. They’ll be

hell when they wake up. Suppose Carmichael got thet hunter

Dale an’ them hawk-eyed Beemans on our trail?”

 

“Wal, we’d cash in — quick,” replied Anson, gruffly.

 

“Then why didn’t you let me take the gurl back home?”

 

“Wal, come to think of thet, Jim, I’m sore, an’ I need money

— an’ I knowed you’d never take a dollar from her sister.

An’ I’ve made up my mind to git somethin’ out of her.”

 

“Snake, you’re no fool. How ‘ll you do thet same an’ do it

quick?”

 

“‘Ain’t reckoned it out yet.”

 

“Wal, you got aboot tomorrer an’ thet’s all,” returned

Wilson, gloomily.

 

“Jim, what’s ailin’ you?”

 

“I’ll let you figger thet out.”

 

“Wal, somethin’ ails the whole gang,” declared Anson,

savagely. “With them it’s nothin’ to eat — no whisky — no

money to bet with — no tobacco!… But thet’s not what’s

ailin’ you, Jim Wilson, nor me!”

 

“Wal, what is, then?” queried Wilson.

 

“With me it’s a strange feelin’ thet my day’s over on these

ranges. I can’t explain, but it jest feels so. Somethin’ in

the air. I don’t like them dark shadows out there under the

spruces. Savvy? … An’ as fer you, Jim — wal, you allus

was half decent, an’ my gang’s got too lowdown fer you.”

 

“Snake, did I ever fail you?”

 

“No, you never did. You’re the best pard I ever knowed. In

the years we’ve rustled together we never had a contrary

word till I let Beasley fill my ears with his promises.

Thet’s my fault. But, Jim, it’s too late.”

 

“It mightn’t have been too late yesterday.”

 

“Mebbe not. But it is now, an’ I’ll hang on to the girl or

git her worth in gold,” declared the outlaw, grimly.

 

“Snake, I’ve seen stronger gangs than yours come an’ go.

Them Big Bend gangs in my country — them rustlers — they

were all bad men. You have no likes of them gangs out heah.

If they didn’t get wiped out by Rangers or cowboys, why they

jest naturally wiped out themselves. Thet’s a law I

recognize in relation to gangs like them. An’ as for yours

— why, Anson, it wouldn’t hold water against one real

gun-slinger.”

 

“A-huh’ Then if we ran up ag’in’ Carmichael or some such

fellar — would you be suckin’ your finger like a baby?”

 

“Wal, I wasn’t takin’ count of myself. I was takin’

generalities.”

 

“Aw, what ‘n hell are them?” asked Anson, disgustedly. “Jim,

I know as well as you thet this hyar gang is hard put. We’re

goin’ to be trailed an’ chased. We’ve got to hide — be on

the go all the time — here an’ there — all over, in the

roughest woods. An’ wait our chance to work south.”

 

“Shore. But, Snake, you ain’t takin’ no count of the

feelin’s of the men — an’ of mine an’ yours… . I’ll bet

you my hoss thet

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