Rimrock Trail

He did not spare Pronto nor did Pronto attempt to spare himself, going at the task set before him with all the superb coordination of muscle and tendon and bone that he possessed. They slid down the sides of ravines that were almost as steep as a wall, the pinto squatting on its tail; they climbed the opposing banks with the surety of a mountain goat, a rush, a scramble of well-placed hooves, a play of fetlocks; then, with a heave of spreading ribs and hammer-strokes of a gallant heart under Sandy's lean thighs, they were over the top and away, with Sandy's eyes searching the land for the shortest, most practical way.

The place it had taken Molly and young Keith nearly three hours to reach in leisurely fashion, Sandy gained in one, splashing through the shallows of Willow Creek at the ford below the big bend and giving Pronto the chance to cool his fetlocks and rinse out his mouth in the cold water.

Ahead lay the chimney ravine that led around into Beaver Dam Lake, in which Molly and the boy had been attacked. Sandy viewed the chaparral, the trees that covered the lesser slopes, the stark cliffs above. Part of this lay in the Waterline territory. The chances that Plimsoll had left some one on guard were not to be slighted. But he rode on down the narrow trail. Once in a while he broke a branch and left it swinging as a guide to Sam when he should follow with the riders from the ranch. They would be coming in now and in a few minutes would start on remounts. Perhaps Brandon had come? Sandy wasted little time on surmise.

The tracks of Molly's Blaze and the horse Donald had been riding were plain as print to Sandy. He even noticed the slot of Grit's pads here and there in softer soil. He had picked them up at the coming-out place of the ford. Two more sets of hoofs came out of the chaparral and from there on the sign was badly broken. But Sandy knew the story and the interpretation was sufficient.

The shadows were getting longer, half the eastern side of the ravine was in shadow that steadily crept down as if to obliterate the telltale imprints. The moon was slowly brightening. Sandy's eyes, burning steadily, were untroubled by doubt.

The place of the struggle was plain. The brush was trampled. To one side of the trail there was a clot of blood, almost black, with flies buzzing attention to it. It must have come from Grit. He caught sight of another fleck of it on some leaves where Grit had raced into the brush out of the way of the crippling fire.

"I'll score one fo' you, Grit, while I'm about it," muttered Sandy as he dismounted and carefully surveyed the sign. He even picked up Donald's returning shoemarks. Six horses had gone on, one led.

Sandy swung up the heavy stirrups and tied them above the saddle seat. He stripped the reins from the bridle and pulled down Pronto's wise head.

"Hit the back-trail fo' home, li'l' hawss," he said. "If I need me a mount to git back I'll borrow one. I got to go belly-trailin' pritty soon."

He gave the pinto a cautious slap on the flank and Pronto started off down the trail. So far Sandy believed he had not been seen. If he had, a rifle-shot would have been the first warning. With the experience of a man who has seen shooting before, he had chanced a miss, knowing the odds on his side. It was twenty to one Plimsoll and his men had hurried off to the Hideout.

A buzzard hung in the early evening sky, circling high and then suddenly dropping in a swoop.

"Looks like Grit's cashed in," thought Sandy. "That bird was a late comer, at that."

But it was not Grit.

The ravine curved, forked. One way led to Beaver Dam Lake, the other rifted deep through rocky outcrop, leading to the Waterline Range. The boundary fence crossed it. Two posts had been broken out, the wire flattened. Through the gap led the sign that Sandy followed. He carried his rifle with him and he moved cautiously but swiftly through the half light, for the cleft was in shadow. The walls lowered, the incline ended, became a decline, leading down. The clouds were assembling for sunset overhead, the moon just topped the eastern cliffs, beginning to send out a measure of reflected light. A beam struck a little cylinder, the emptied shell of a thirty-thirty rifle. There was another close by. And scanty soil was marked with more hoofs. Sandy halted, wondering the key to the puzzle. Did it mean a quarrel between Plimsoll's men? Altogether he figured there had been a dozen horses over the ground. It was only a swift guess but he knew it close to the mark. Had Plimsoll been joined or attacked? And…?

His practised eyes, roving here and there, saw still more cartridge shells. Walking cat-footed, he made no sound but suddenly three buzzards rose on heavy wings and he went swiftly to where they had been squatting. A dead man lay up against the cliff, a saddle blanket thrown over his face. This had held off the carrion birds. The body was limp and still warm, it had been a corpse only a short time. Sandy took off the blanket.

It was Wyatt! Wyatt, whom he had seen not much more than four hours before, riding on the main street in Hereford, threatening vengeance on Plimsoll. A bullet had made a small hole in his skull by the right temple and crashed out through the back of his head in a bloody gap!

CHAPTER XIX

THE HIDEOUT

The row that had culminated at the Waterline Ranch, ending in the trouble between Plimsoll and Wyatt, had brewed steadily. It had been a reckless crowd at the horse ranch, practically outlaws by their actions though not yet so adjudged, yet knowing their tenure of immunity was growing short. There had collected, besides Plimsoll's riders, Butch Parsons, Hahn's and others of Plimsoll's following who had been forced from their livelihood as gamblers. They still hung together, waiting for Plimsoll to make a clean-up of his horses and move to places where they were less discredited.

Meantime they made their own crude liquors and drank them freely. They gambled and caroused late. There were some women at the ranch. There was little fellowship.

Plimsoll had lost caste as a leader. His moods were morose or bragging. His ascendancy was gone. The crowd clung to him like so many leeches, waiting for a split of the proceeds of the sale of horses that no one appeared eager to buy in quantity. Ready cash was short. There were frequent quarrels; through it all there worked the leaven of Wyatt's jealousy, fermenting steadily. There were men among them who had fought with gunplay and who had killed but, as they were cheats, so they were cravens, at heart.

When the split came, after an all-night session with cards and liquor, following the refusal of a dealer to buy the herd, it was not merely a matter between Wyatt and Plimsoll. Sides were taken and the weaker driven from the ranch. Preparations were made for departure. The frightened women fled back to Hereford.

"It's a rotten mess," declared Butch Parsons. "Wyatt or one of the others'll tell all they know. You ought to have shot straighter, Plimsoll. Just like cuttin' our own throats to let 'em get away."

"You did some missing on your own account," retorted Plimsoll.

"It was the rotten booze. You started it. If you'd plugged Wyatt right it would have ended it. Now we've got to clear out."

"There isn't two hundred dollars of real money in the crowd," said Plimsoll. "If Taylor had taken the herd…"

"He was afraid to touch it. We'll go south. That's my plan. You can find a buyer in Tucson. Put the horses in the Hideout. Leave one or two to look out for 'em an' turn 'em over later. We can arrange for a delivery if we make a sale."

"Who in hell's goin' to stay behind?" asked one of the men.

"We'll cut cards for it."

"Not me."

"What's the use of fighting among ourselves again?" suggested Hahn smoothly. "We can settle who's to stay later. There's grub in the Hideout and a safe place to lay low if anything goes wrong. They'll have a fine time proving up the horses are stolen. We've got to take a chance. Butch is right. We can't take them with us. There's a good chance of a sale in Tucson. Meantime we've got to figure on Wyatt. He'll likely try to get in touch with that Brandon outfit."

"Or that chap who said he was from Phoenix," put in Butch. "You made a misplay, there, Plimsoll. That chap was a ringer."

"You talk like a fool," retorted Plimsoll. "He sold us the bunch cheap enough. He never raised horses he'd let go at that price. He lifted 'em, like he said."

"Just the same, he didn't act like a rustler."

"It was his first trick. Young vouched for him."

"This ain't getting us anywhere," said Hahn. "Let's make for the Hideout and talk it out there. This place ain't safe."

Within an hour the herd, already corralled for the chance of a quick sale, was being driven to the glen known as the Hideout, a little mountain park with water and good feed where Plimsoll placed the horses that his men drove off from far-away ranches, or Plimsoll bought from other horse dealers of his own sort, keeping them there until their brands were doctored and possible pursuit died down. There were two entrances to the Hideout, one through a narrow gut almost blocked by a fallen boulder, with only a passage wide enough to let through horse and rider single file, a way that could be easily barricaded or masked so that none would suspect any opening in the cliff. The second led by a winding way through a desolate region, over rock that left no sign and wound by twists and turns that none but the initiated could follow. The place, accidentally discovered, was perfect for its purpose.

There were some horses now in the Hideout, the lot purchased from the man from Phoenix, whom Butch suspected. But Parsons was of a suspicious disposition and the rest had overruled him, though the purchase had taken most of the cash at their disposal, until they could make the sale that had fallen through at the last minute. There was feed enough for the entire herd for a month. There was a cabin in a side gully of the park, near the blocked entrance, the whole place was honeycombed with caves, in the towering sidewalls and underground.

Five of the nine left of the Waterline outfit drove the herd. Hahn and Parsons could both ride, but they were not experts at handling horses. They chose to go with Plimsoll and the outfit-cook, while the rest took the long way round to the other way in. The four lingered to give the rest a start. There was some liquor left and this they started to dispose of. At noon the cook got a farewell meal and they mounted.

"I hate leaving the country without evening up some way with the Bourke outfit," said Plimsoll. "Damn him and the rest of them, they broke the luck for us. As for the girl, if…?"

"Oh, quit throwing the bull con about that, Jim," said Parsons bluntly. "Sandy Bourke's a damn good man for you to leave alone an' you know it. Talk ain't goin' to hurt him."

"I'm coming back some time," said Plimsoll with a string of oaths. "Then you'll see something besides talk."

Parsons jeered at him. Plimsoll was no longer the leader and he knew it. But he hung on to the semblance of authority that an open quarrel with Butch might shatter. Butch was a bully, but Plimsoll respected his shooting. And Hahn sided with him. The cook did not count.

Plimsoll carried with him a fine pair of binoculars and, as they rode leisurely on and reached a vantage-point, he swept the tumbled horizon for signs of any strange riders. It was the caution of habit as much as actual fear of a raid. There were no Hereford County horses in his herd save those he had bred himself and he did not think Wyatt or the others who had left the outfit would be able to stir up sentiment against him in Hereford. It would take time to get in touch with Brandon. But they made it a point to be sure that no casual rider noticed them on the way to the Hideout, or coming from it.

At times Plimsoll rode aside from the trail to a ridge crest for wider vision. At last, coming up the pass of Willow Creek, he sighted Molly and Donald with Grit trotting beside them. It was the dog that confirmed his first surmise. He had heard that Molly had returned, but he had not dared a visit to the Three Star. Who the rider with her was he did not care. That it was a tenderfoot was plain by his clothes and by his seat. As he adjusted the powerful glasses to a better focus Plimsoll's face twisted to an ugly smile. He had a flask in his hip pocket and he swigged at it before he rode to catch up with Parsons and Hahn.

"I'll show you if I do nothing but talk," he said to Butch after he told them of his discovery. "We'll wait for them along the trail. We'll send the chap with her back afoot."

"And what'll you do with her?" asked Hahn. "We've had enough of skirts, Plimsoll. This is no time to be mixed up with them."

"Isn't it?" The drink had given Plimsoll some of his old swagger, and the prospect of hatching the revenge over which he had brooded so long took possession of him. "Then you're a bigger fool than I thought you, Hahn. That particular skirt, aside from my personal interest in her, represents about a quarter of a million dollars – maybe more. She's got a quarter interest and a little better in the Molly Mine. The Three Star owns another quarter. How much will they give up to have her back? Bourke's her guardian, remember. I think the chap with her may be young Keith. We won't monkey with him. He'll do to tell what happened. But we'll take the girl along and we'll send back word of how much we want to let her go. After I'm through with her. She may not go back the same as she came, but they won't know that and they'll pay enough to set us up and to hell with the herd."

Parsons and Hahn looked at each other, greed rising in their eyes. They had no love for the partners of the Three Star nor for Molly Casey. A big ransom was possible if it was handled right.

"You'll have the whole county searching the range," objected Parsons. "There's a lot know something about the Hideout and they'll use Wyatt to show 'em the way. Bourke'll guess where she is."

"Let him. Wyatt don't know about the caves, does he? We can take her some other place to-morrow. We won't say anything now to the kid about a ransom. We'll mail a letter after we fix details. But we'll take the girl into the Hideout now. That tenderfoot'll be lucky if he drifts back to the Three Star by nightfall afoot. We'll be out of the place long before that. And we'll put her where they can't find her till they come through. I'm running this."

The cook had ridden on ahead. Now he was waiting for them, looking back. Parsons shrugged his shoulders.

"How do we split?" asked Hahn.

"Three ways," said Plimsoll. "We'll take her to the cabin. The rest'll be at the other end. We'll keep Cookie with us – for the present. No need for the boys to know about it. We can manage that all right. Three ways, and I handle the girl."

Butch Parson grinned at him.

"I thought you'd lost all your nerve, Jim, but I guess I was wrong. All right, it goes as it lays. You handle the lady. You ought to know how. Now then, how'll we bring it off?"

Plimsoll talked glibly, convincingly. Butch Parsons had no extra share of brains, those he had had never been developed beyond the ordinary. Hahn was a good faro dealer. There his intelligence specialized and ended. Plimsoll was the master-mind of his crowd; they appreciated and acknowledged his capacity for details. That he had been unsuccessful of late they set down to his lack of nerve, dissipated in his encounter with Sandy. Their present lack of cash, the doubtfulness of being able to sell and deliver the horses, made ransom a glittering possibility. Hahn had some objections, but Plimsoll overruled them plausibly enough.

"I don't see the sense of letting the kid go," questioned Hahn. "He's good for a big split as well as the girl."

"You're a fool when it comes to looking ahead, Hahn. You always were," answered Plimsoll. What with the chance of revenge in sight over which he had brooded until it became a part of his consciousness, and the liquor still stirring potently within him, he felt that his ascendancy had become reestablished, "Keith – the old man – is too big a fish to monkey with. Got too many pulls and connections. He'd have the whole country out and the trick played up big in every dinky newspaper. That's part of his business – publicity. We've got one fish – or will have – no sense straining the net. We don't want the kid. Let him string along back best way he can. We'll get all the start we need. What else would you do with him?"

"Stow him away somewhere and send a tip where they can find him in a day or two."

Plimsoll shot a look of contempt at Butch, making the proposal.

"You and Hahn make a good team," he said. "No. One's enough. He may get lost – we'll take his horse – and that won't be our fault. He may make Three Star late this afternoon. I wish I could be with him when he tells what he knows. Time they locate the Hideout, we'll be miles away through the south end and they'll have one hell of a time trailing us over the rocks. The boys weren't over-keen about staying with the herd and they can vamose. We'll tell them it's best to scatter for a bit and name a meeting-place. The horses can stay in the park. If we put this deal over right we don't need to bother about horse-trading. We can get clean out of the country with a big stake, go down to South America and start up a place. There are live times and good plays down there, boys. All right, Cookie, we're coming. I'm going to take another look. It's ten to one they're making for Beaver Dam Lake – on a picnic."

He laughed and the two laughed with him as he went for his survey and returned, announcing that the girl and her escort were entering the ravine at the other end. They rode through the trees toward them. Molly and Donald came on so leisurely that Plimsoll feared they might have turned back and, with Butch, he risked a look down the trail, sighting them.

"They didn't recognize us," he said. "We've got to take Cookie into this. You and Butch ride on through the trees a ways, Hahn, till you get back of them. Then we'll get 'em between us. I'll wise Cookie up to what we are doing."

It was more than doubtful whether the three ever intended for a second to allow Cookie to share in the ransom money, but Plimsoll easily persuaded him that he would be a partner, adding that it would be foolish to let all the riders into the pot.

"She's Molly Casey of the Casey Mine," he told him. "Sandy Bourke's her guardian. We'll make him come through with twenty or thirty thousand, sabe? But there ain't enough to go all round and make a showing."

Cookie was a willing rascal and a natural adept at the double-cross. He raised no objections and the trap was set and sprung.

"You go ahead, Cookie, and open up the gate," said Plimsoll. Hahn and Butch were speeding Donald Keith on his way with close-flung bullets. "I'm going to have a little private talk with this lady. Go to the cabin and get some grub ready. There's plenty there. Spread yourself. We'll be along in a little while. That was a nice job of roping you did. I won't forget it."

"Allus c'ud lass' fair to middlin'," grinned the man through yellow, stumpy teeth. "That's why I tote a rope. An' I sure had a purty target."

Plimsoll scowled at him and he rode off. Molly, the lariat twisted about her upper body from shoulders to waist, constricting her arms, fastened where she could not reach it by a hitch, sat on Blaze, looking with steady contempt at Plimsoll, who held her bridle rein. He regarded her with sleek complacency and then his eyes slowly traveled over her rounded figure, accented by her riding toggery.

"Grown to be quite a beauty, quite a woman, Molly, my dear," he said. "Never should have suspected you'd turn out such a wonder. Clothes make the woman, but it takes a proper figure to set them off. And you've got all of that."

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"I'm not going to tell you – yet. It depends upon circumstances, my dear. We'll all have a little chat after lunch. I'd take that rope off if I wasn't afraid I might lose you. You are quite precious."

She looked through him as if he had been a sheet of glass. From her first sight of him, back in childhood, she had known instinctively the man was evil. But she was not afraid. The blood that ran in her veins was pure and bore in its crimson flood the sturdy heritage of pioneers who had outfaced dangers of death and torture and shame. She was all westerner. The blood was fighting blood. She felt it urged in her pulses while her brain bade her bide her time. Rage mounted as she faced the possible issues of this capture, the flaunting dismissal of young Keith.

Plimsoll must be either very sure of his ground or desperate, she fancied. Both, perhaps. Molly had come into contact with life in the raw long before she went east. Education had not made a prude of her nor tainted her clean purity. She faced the fact and, for the time, she ignored the man. She had even time to think of young Donald turned tenderfooted into the mountains, to wonder whether he would be able to find his way back or get lost in the ranges. She heard the laughter that followed the rifle-shots and surmised that they were having their idea of a joke with the lad.

If he got back – then Sandy would come after her. She was very sure of Sandy and that he would find her. Until he did she must use her wits.

And Grit, gallant Grit, wounded and lying in the chaparral!

Though she still gazed through Plimsoll rather than at him, the scorn showed in her eyes and bit through his assumption of ease as acid bites through skin, eating its way on. He burned to wipe out his own trickeries, his cowardice, his failures, to wreak a vile satisfaction on this girl who sat so disdainfully, with her chin lifted, her lips firm, oblivious of him. She baffled him. A mind like Plimsoll's never had the clarity of prevision to see the strength of character that had been in the prospector's child, even as he had never suspected her unfolding to beauty. It roused the vandal in him – he longed to break her, mar her.

The return of Butch and Hahn brought him back to the fact that he was not playing this deal alone. While they might allow him some personal license, to them the girl represented so much money. Plimsoll's reprisals were only partly theirs, they would not permit him to balk them of their share. There is Berserker madness latent in every one that breaks out sometimes in the child that torments a kitten and ends by torturing it, maiming – killing. There had been nothing in what stood for Plimsoll's manhood to change such instinct, to restrain it where he held the will and power. But here he had to go carefully.

He cut short Butch's boast of the way they had scared young Keith. Both Hahn and Parsons felt a coil of embarrassment at the silence, almost the serenity, of their captive. They had expected her to act far differently, to rage, threaten, cry out. She almost abashed them.

"See if you can round up that damned dog, Butch," said Plimsoll. "I plugged him but we want to be sure he don't get away. He might help Keith's kid, for one thing. And he clamped my arm."

Parsons rode into the chaparral until he was barred by its thickness, trying to stir out the dog, without success.

"Dead, I reckon," he reported. "Crawled in somewheres. You hit him hard, Plim. Plenty blood on the leaves."

Molly bit her lips and paled a little, but turned away her head so that they could not see. She winked back the tears that came to her thought of Grit helpless, panting, bleeding.

They rode on up the rocky ravine that gradually closed in on either side with the rock walls set with cactus here and there, carved into great masses superimposed upon one another for a hundred feet. Presently they turned aside from the stony trail that left no record of hooves, and, Plimsoll in the lead, Molly next, walked their horses over a precarious ledge that zigzagged back and forth up to where a notch in the cliff had been nearly filled by a titanic boulder. To one side appeared a narrow opening, unseen from below by the curve of the great rock, just wide enough to admit horse and rider. A few feet in, they halted, and Plimsoll turned in his saddle while the other three men dismounted and carefully adjusted several rock fragments in the opening, piling them with a swift care that showed familiarity with their task, so placing them that they appeared as if a part of the wall. Butch clambered to the top of the great boulder and viewed the job from the outside.