Rimrock Trail

"Good!" said Sandy. "That means the decent element aims to run things. We'll help 'em. It'll be easier with Plimsoll out of camp."

"Figger he'll go?" asked Sam.

"I w'udn't be surprised if he listened to the small voice of reason," answered Sandy. "You tell yore aunt we're much obliged fo' the grub, Ed. One of us'll be over afteh a bit an' tote our things across. We'll camp here fo' a bit an' sit tight. I'd do the same, if I was you, Ed, spite of yore friends. I don't doubt fo' a minute but what yore aunt is plumb capable of lookin' out for herself, but you see, she's a woman an' yo're a man, an' it's you folks'll be lookin' to."

The lad flushed with pride under the hand that Sandy set in chummy fashion on his shoulder.

"I'll do that," he said, and, picking up the emptied utensils he had brought he started off down and across the gulch.

"No sense in encouragin' him to hang around us," said Sandy. "There's apt to be fireworks round here most any time between now an' ter-morrer mo'nin'. Plimsoll'll shack erlong about sun-up – providin' he ain't able to call the tuhn on us befo'. Mormon, if you'll go git our blankets an' outfit, Sam an' me'll fix up those bu'sted guy ropes an' shift the tent."

"You don't aim fo' us to sleep in it, do you?" asked Mormon.

"Don't believe we'd rest well if we tackled it. But it mightn't be a bad scheme if we give the gen'ral idee that we are sleepin' in it. I put a lantern in the car when we stahted. Fetch that erlong too, will you, Mormon?"

It was late afternoon before Mormon reappeared, bearing a camp outfit, part of which was carried by Westlake. Sandy and Sam had repitched the tent on fairly level ground of the valley bottom. The claim boundaries ran to within fifty yards of the little creek named Flivver and the tent-pins were set almost on the border-line. The ground was sparsely covered with scrub grass, shrubs and willows, the space about the tent clear of anything higher than clumps of bushes and sage.

Mormon's eye brows went up at the location with which Sandy and Sam, seated cross-legged on the ground, one smoking, the other draining low harmonies through his mouth organ, appeared perfectly satisfied.

"Why on the flat?" asked Mormon. "There's a heap of cover round here where they might snake up afteh dahk an' sling anythin' they minded to at us, from lead to giant powdeh!"

"Wal," drawled Sandy, flicking the ash from his cigarette, "it's handy to watch, fo' one thing, an' yore right about that coveh, Mormon. That's why we chose it. Sam an' me had a heap of trouble pickin' out this place. Finally we found jest what we wanted, didn't we, Sam?"

"Sure did."

Mormon set down his load and took off his hat to scratch his head perplexedly. Then his face lightened as he looked up-hill.

"You figger on settin' the lantern in here afteh dahk," he said. "An' watchin' the fun from the tunnel."

"Pritty close, Mormon. Come inside, you an' Westlake, an' I'll show you suthin'."

They followed him into the tent and came out again laughing.

"No matteh what happens," said Sandy, "an' I'm hopin' fo' the worst, it ain't our tent. You been up to the main street this afternoon, Westlake?"

"Yes. There's a lot of talk loose about the trouble between you and Plimsoll's crowd. Factions for both sides and a lot of onlookers who are neutral and just waiting for the excitement. I saw Roaring Russell but he passed me up. He might not have known me. He was pretty well drunk. He's talking big about taking you apart, Mr. Peters. He claims to have been a champion wrestler at one time."

"You don't say so," said Mormon. "Me, I was the champeen wrastler of the Cow Belt, one time. Had the belt to prove it till I lost it at draw poker. I've got hawg fat sence then, but I don't believe I've softened any. An' the booze he's tuckin' away is mighty pore stuff fo' trainin'. But I ain't long on walkin'," he added. "B'lieve I'll sit me down a spell. I'll make fire an' git supper if you want to take Westlake up to the tunnel."

Westlake carefully inspected the tunnel, the float and the contents of the dump.

"I wouldn't wonder if Casey was running this as a drift to follow a good lead," he pronounced. "It looks better to me than any part of the camp I've inspected. I'll assay these samples for you, if you've no objection. I've got a lot of orders back at my shack already. My customers told me that they'd put a flea in Russell's ear that the camp assayer was not to be interfered with, so there is some value in an education, you see."

Sandy nodded. "You pack a gun?" he asked.

"No. I've got one, but I don't carry it. My practise with firearms has been with larger calibers."

"War?" asked Sandy.

"Yes. I was in the artillery. Is there anything else I can do? Get you some supplies? I'm coming back to have supper with Miss Bailey and her nephew."

"Not a thing," said Sandy. "Much obliged." He watched the engineer swing away.

"There's a good man for you," he said to Sam. "Well set up and able to handle himself. I like his ways first-rate."

"Me, too," said Sam. "He'd make a good match fo' Molly, when she comes back with her eddication, w'udn't he?"

Sandy stopped in his stride suddenly, so that Sam halted and regarded him curiously.

"Twist yo' foot?" he asked. "High heels is all right fo' stirrups but they're tough on hill climbin'."

"No. I was jest thinkin'. Nothin' that amounts to shucks. Gettin' dahk. We better git outside of our supper an' sneak up to the tunnel soon's it gits dusk enough to light the lantern."

CHAPTER XIII

A ROPE BREAKS

The lantern, turned down, dimly illumined the tent and revealed the figures of three men seated about some sort of rough table. The flap was drawn and fastened. Occasionally a figure moved slightly. No passer-by would have guessed that the three partners were ensconced in the black mouth of the tunnel, ramparted by the dump heap, watching for developments they were fairly sure would start with darkness. Every little while Sandy twitched a line that was attached to a clumsy but effective rocker he had contrived beneath one of the dummies they had built from the stuff that Plimsoll had not reclaimed.

"Don't want to work the blamed thing too much," he said. "Might bu'st it. It's on'y the one figger but I'll be derned if it don't look natcherul."

After which they all relapsed into silence, restrained from smoking for fear of a telltale spark or casual fragrance carried by the wind. It was a dark night, the hillsides stood blurry against a blue-black sky in which the stars glittered like metal points but failed to shed much light. Later, much later, toward morning, a moon would rise.

Here and there on the slopes bright spots or glows of fire marked the occupied claim-sites. From the camp itself there came a murmur that sometimes swelled louder under the dull flare that hung over the lower end of the valley; reflection and diffusion from the gasoline lights and acetylene flares used by the owners of the eating-houses, the bars and gambling shacks, all open for business during miners' hours, which meant two shifts, of night and day.

From the mouth of the tunnel the three watched the march of the stars, the wheel of the Big Dipper around its pivot, the North Star; marking time by the sidereal clock of the heavens, each with a variant emotion.

Mormon shifted his position more frequently than the others. None of them was especially comfortable, but Mormon wanted to keep as limber as possible, he was afraid of stiffening up, thinking always of his challenge to Roaring Russell. Slow to anger, Mormon, when his rage mounted was slow of statement. What he said he meant. The insult to Miranda Bailey while under his escort chafed him as a saddle chafes a galled horse. It had to be wiped out at the earliest moment and, singularly enough, the spinster was not particularly prominent in the matter. It was not a personal question; the insult had been offered to womanhood, and Mormon was ever its champion and its victim.

Sam, cut off from tobacco and melody, bunkered down with his back against a frame timber and looked at the tall lean figure of Sandy silhouetted against the stars, wondering why Sandy had stopped so abruptly when the names of Westlake and Molly Casey had been coupled. It wasn't like Sandy to move or halt without definite purpose, Sam reasoned. "I suppose he figgers Molly too much of a kid," he told himself. "If these claims pan out she'll be rich. Likewise, so will we." His thoughts shifted to dreams of what he would do when they were wealthy. Very far beyond the purchase of an elaborate saddle and outfit, a horse or two he coveted, the finest harmonica to be bought, he did not go. That Sandy might have felt a tinge of jealousy toward young Westlake was furthest from his conjectures.

As for Sandy, he had lost his mental orientation. Something had happened, something was happening within him and he could not tell the process nor name it. He was as a man who goes out into the darkness amid rooms and passages with which he considers himself familiar and suddenly – there comes a door where should be space, or space where there should be a window – and he is lost, his senses betray him, for the moment he is completely fogged, all bearings lost, possessed with the blankness that accompanies the flight of self-confidence.

He could see very plainly in mental vision the picture that Molly had sent to the Three Star, now framed and given the place of honor on the table of the ranch-house living-room. The picture of a girl in whose eyes the fleeting look of womanhood, that Sandy had now and then seen there and which had thrilled him so strangely, had become permanent. That she was something so vital she could not be dismissed from the life of the Three Star, from his own life, by sending her to school whence she would return almost a stranger, by making her an heiress, Sandy recognized. He had deliberately given her his hand to help her out of the rut in which he had found her and now, with the swift series of tableaux conjured up by Sam's suggestion of her and Westlake together, lovers, Sandy realized the gap that was widening between Molly and him. If she was out of the rut would she not now regard him as in another of his own from which there was no up-lifting?

To Sandy, Westlake seemed little more than a likable lad, placing him at about twenty-three or four. He felt immeasurably older, harder, though there were not more than six years between them – seven at the most. Even that made him almost twice the age of Molly. With this twist of his reverie he realized that Molly was no longer to be considered as a girl. Toward the little maid he had poured out protectiveness, affection and, while his vials were emptying, she had crossed the brook. Into what had his affection shifted with the changing of Molly to womanhood?

Sandy Bourke, knight of the roving heel, had never attempted to find solution for his attitude toward women. It was neither wariness nor antipathy. His life, drifting from rancho to rancho, sometimes consorting with the rougher side of men careless of conventions, had been, in the main, not unlike the life of a hermit, with long periods when he rode alone under sun and stars with only his horse for company.

There were months of this and then came swiftly moving periods of relaxation in a cattle town where men unleashed the repressions and let pent-up energies and appetites have full sway. Sandy loved card chances where his own skill might back what luck the pasteboards brought him in the deal. Drinking bouts, the company of the women with whom many of his fellows consorted, never appealed to him. His reservations found outlet in gambling or in the acceptance of some job where the danger risks ran high, where success and self-safety hung upon his coolness, his keen sense, his courage and his skill with horse and lariat and gun. A life as apart as a sailor's, more lonely, for he was often companionless for months.

So far he had never felt lack of anything, least of all lately, with the two men he liked best in active partnership with him, with a maturing interest in the development of his ranch and his grade of cattle by modern methods. But, to have Molly not come back, or, returning, to have her wooed and won, entirely absorbed by some one like Westlake, struck him with a sense of impending loss that amounted to a real pain, difficult of self-diagnosis. Westlake was worthy enough. A good mate for Molly, climbing up the ladder of education and culture to stand where the engineer, well-bred, well-mannered, now stood, the two of them to go on together…

"Shucks!" muttered Sandy. "And he ain't even seen her picture. I must have been chewin' loco weed."

"What say?" asked Sam.

"I'm goin' to take a li'l' look-see," said Sandy. "I reckon they're tryin' to git warmed up an' decide on what they'll do round here. No tellin' how long they may take or what kind of deviltry that camp booze may work 'em up to. I'm pritty certain no one saw us sneak out of the tent afteh dahk."

If they had been seen no attempt might be made to dislodge them from the claims. Sandy did not believe such effort would turn out to be a shooting match, – unless the defenders started it, – but something more underhanded. The flinging of a dynamite stick, if the throwers felt certain of not being caught, was a possibility if enough crude whisky had been absorbed. In all probability the crowd of ousted men were making themselves conspicuous in the camp during the earlier hours of the evening in view of a needed alibi. Nothing might happen until midnight and the long vigil was not comfortable. Sandy vanished from the tunnel mouth, sinking to the ground, instantly indistinguishable even to Sam and Mormon. There was nothing to tell whether he had gone up-hill or down. The momentary cessation of the cicadas' chorus was the only warning that a human was abroad.

"Have a chaw?" Mormon whispered presently, after he had changed his pose.

Sam took the plug tobacco and bit into it gratefully.

"I sure hate stickin' around, waitin'," he said under his breath. "Allus makes me plumb nerv'us."

"Same here," answered Mormon. "Reckon it's that way with most men. Sandy don't show it, 'cept by goin' out on a snoop."

"He can see, smell an' hear where we'd be deef, dumb an' blind," said Sam. "Wonder what time it is? We've been here all of two hours already 'cordin' to them stars."

"What time does the moon rise?" asked Mormon.

"'Bout half past three or so. You figgerin' on wrastlin' Roarin' Russell by moonlight, after we git through down here?"

"I've got a hunch this is goin' to be a busy night, plumb through till sun-up," said Mormon. "An', when I meet up with Roarin' Russell it ain't goin' to be jest a wrastlin match, believe me. It's goin' to be a free-fo'-all exhibition of ground an' lofty tumblin', 'thout rounds, seconds or referee. When one of us hits the ground it'll likely be fo' keeps."

"I ain't seen you so riled up in a long time, old-timer. An' I'm backin' you fo' winner, at that. Jest the same, me an' Sandy'll do a li'l' refereein' fo' the sake of fair play."

"I can hear you two gossipin' old wimmin gabbin' clear up to the top of the hill an' down to the crick," added a third voice as Sandy glided in, materializing from the darkness.

"Anythin' doin'?" asked Sam.

"No, an' there won't be long as you air yo' voices. You play like an angel on that mouth harp of yores, Sam, but you talk like a rasp. Mormon booms like a bull frawg."

They settled down again to their watch. The Great Bear constellation dipped down, scooping into the darkness beyond the opposing hill.

"Pritty close to midnight," said Sam at last. "What's the …"

Sandy's grip on his arm checked him, all senses centering into listening.

The three stared blankly into the night, while their hands sought gun butts and loosened the weapons in their holsters. Out of the blackness came little foreign sounds that they interpreted according to their powers. The tiny clink of metal, the faint thud of horses' hoofs, an exclamation that had barely been above the speaker's breath floated up to them through the stillness. The glow of the lantern showed through the tent wall.

"Two riders," mouthed Sandy so softly that Mormon and Sam swung heads to catch his words. "Came up the valley t'other side of the crick. Both crossed it above the tent. Reckon they're visitin' us. One of 'em's comin' this way."

They crouched, breathless now, listening to the soft padded sounds that told of the approach of man and horse. These ceased. Still they could see nothing. Then there came a sharp shrill whistle, answered from the levels. Followed instantly the thud of galloping ponies going at top speed, parallel, one between the watchers and the tent as they saw the swift shadow shade the glow for an instant, the other between the tent and the creek. There was a sharp swishing as of something whipping brush.

"Yi-yi-yippy!" The cries rang out exultant as the horses dashed by the tunnel. The light in the tent wavered, went out. There was a shout of surprise and dismay, a twang like the snapping of a mighty bowstring and then came the whoops of the trio from the Three Star as they realized what the attempt had been and how it had failed.

Two riders, trailing a rope, had raced down the valley hoping to sweep away the tent, to send its occupant sprawling, its contents scattered in a confusion of which advantage would be taken to chase the three off their claims, taken by surprise, made ridiculous.

Sandy and Sam, searching for a convenient tent site, had happened upon a mass of outcrop, overgrown by brush. Over this they had pitched the tent, using the rock for table, propping their dummies about it. If dynamite was flung it would find something to work against. They had not anticipated the use of the rope to demolish the canvas any more than the two riders had expected to bring up against a boulder. The impact, with their ponies spurred, urged on by their shouts to their limit, tore the cinches of one saddle loose, jerked it from the horse and catapulted the unprepared rider over its head, flying through the air to land heavily, while his mount, unencumbered, frightened, went careering off leaving its breathless master stunned amid the sage.

As the cinches had given way at one end, the line itself had parted at the other. The second pony had stumbled sidewise, rolling before the man was free from the saddle. They could hear it thrashing in the willows, the rider cursing as he tried to remount while Sandy ran cat-footed down the hill, leaving Mormon and Sam to handle the other. If there had been assistants to the raid they had melted away, willing enough to join in a drive against men yanked from their tent, defenseless, but not at all eager to face the guns of those same men on the alert, the aggressive.

Mormon and Sam found their man groaning and limp.

"Don't believe he's bu'sted anything," announced Sam, "'less he's druv his neck inter his shoulders. Got his saddle, Mormon?"

"Yep. Want the rope?"

They trussed their captive with the lariat still snubbed to his saddle-horn. Down in the willows there was a flash, a report, a scurrying flight punctuated by an oath almost as vivid as the shot. Sandy came up the hill toward them.

"Miss him?" asked Mormon.

"It was sure dahk," said Sandy, "and I hated to plug the hawss. So I only took one shot to cheer him on his way. He was mountin' at the time an' it was a snapshot. I aimed at the seat of his pants. I w'udn't be surprised but what he's ridin' so't of one-sided. Who you got here? Tote him down-hill. I don't believe they bu'sted the lantern. We'll take a look at him."

Sandy retrieved the lantern from the collapsed canvas and lit it. Mormon and Sam took the senseless man down to the creek where they attempted to revive him by pouring hatfuls of the icy water on his head. He was a black-haired chap, sallow of face, clean-shaven. His clothes were those of a cowman.

"Looks a heap like a drowned rat," said Mormon. "It's Sol Wyatt, one of Plim's riders oveh to his hawss ranch. He got fired from the Two-Bar-Circle fo' leavin' his ridin' iron to home an' usin' anotheh brand. Leastwise, that's what they suspected. Old Man Penny giv' him the benefit of the doubt an' jest kicked him out of the corral. If he'd had the goods on him he'd have skinned him alive an' put his pelt on the bahn do' fo' a warnin'."

"The damn fool rode a single-fire saddle fo' a job like that," said Sam. "No wonder it bu'sted. He's sniffin', Sandy; what we goin' to do with him?"

"Take him up inter camp, soon's he's able to walk an' hand him over to Plimsoll with our compliments. They figgered they'd make us all look plumb ridiculous with bein' flipped out of the tent. Then they'd have had the crowd on their side erlong with the la'f, way it usually goes. Don't drown him, Mormon, he don't look oveh used to water, to me."

Wyatt opened a pair of shifty black eyes to consciousness and the light of the lantern and immediately closed them again, playing opossum. Sam prodded him gently in the ribs.

"Wake up, Sol," he said. "Come back to earth, you sky-salutin' circus-rider. You sure looped the loops 'fore you lit. Serves you right fo' usin' a one-cinch saddle. Git up!"

Wyatt gasped and sat up, grinning foolishly.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Nothin'," answered Sandy. "Jest nothin'. Who was your buckaroo friend on the otheh end of the rope?"

"I dunno. Never saw him before to-night."

"Pal of Jim Plimsoll?"

"I dunno. Nobuddy I know. Nobuddy you know, I reckon."

"I'll know him likely next time I run across him," said Sandy. "He's packin' a saddle brand I put on him." His voice was grimly humorous, he recognized Wyatt's obstinacy as something not without merit. "How's yore haid?"

"Some tender."

"It ain't in first-rate condition or you w'udn't be drawin' pay from Plimsoll. Yore saddle's here, yore hawss went west. Ef you want to leave the saddle till you locate the hawss, you can git it 'thout any trouble any time you come fo' it. Or you can pack it with you now. We're goin' up to camp."

"Figger it's safe to leave yore claims now?" asked Wyatt cheerfully.

"I don't figger we'll be jumped ag'in befo' mornin'," replied Sandy. "Ef we are, why, we'll have to start the arguments all over."

"I w'udn't be surprised," said the philosophic Wyatt, gingerly pressing his head with his fingertips, "but what there is a gen'ral impression 'stablished by this time that you three hombres from the Three Star are right obstinate about considerin' this yore property."

"You leavin' camp with Plimsoll in the mornin'?" Mormon asked casually.

"I heard some rumor about his hittin' the sunrise trail," said Wyatt. "Ef he goes, I stay. I'm a li'l' fed up on Jim Plimsoll lately. He pulls too much on his picket line to suit me. Ef he's got a yeller stripe on his belly, I'm quittin'. Some day he's goin' to git inter a hole that'll sure test his standard. Me, I may be a bit of a wolf, but I'm damned ef I trail with coyotes. I'll leave my saddle. Any of you got the makin's? I seem to have lost most everything but my clothes. I shed a gun round here somewheres."

"You can have it when you come back fo' yore saddle, Wyatt," said Sandy. "Where was you an' yore unknown pal goin' to repo't back to Plimsoll?"

Wyatt grinned in the lantern light.

"Ef we trailed inter his place an' made a bet on the red over to the faro table he'd sabe everything went off fine an' dandy. He w'udn't figger we'd show at all if it didn't come off. An' we w'udn't have."

"There was one or two mo' staked out in the brush, 'less my hearin's gone back on me," said Sandy. "Seemed to me I heard 'em makin' their getaway. I suppose you don't know their names, either?"

"No, sir, I sure don't. An' I don't imagine they'll be showin' up at Plimsoll's right off. It was a win-or-lose job. Pay if it was pulled off. Otherwise, nothin' doin'. You hombres treated me white. There's a lot who'd have plugged me full of lead an' death. I was on yore land. Ef you force me to walk into Plimsoll's Place ahead of you I ain't resistin' none, an' I shall sure admire to watch Plim's face when he sees you-all back of me."

He took the trail ahead of them, hands in his pockets, his cigarette glowing. Behind him walked Sandy. Wyatt finished his smoke and started to hum a tune.

"Oh, I'm wild an' woolly an' full of fleas,I'm hard to curry below the knees.I'm a wild he-wolf from Cripple Crick,An' this is my night to howl."I ain't got a friend but my hawss an' gun,The last kin shoot an' the first kin run,An' I'm a rovin' son-of-a-gun,An' this is my night to howl."

"He's a cool sort of a cuss," said Sam to Mormon. "I reckon he's a bad actor, but there's sure somethin' erbout the galoot I like. He ain't over fond of Plimsoll, that's a sure thing, if he is workin' fo' him. Wonder why?"