CHAPTER XXVII

POINTS OF THE COMPASS

The long-slanting shadows found Hopalong and Tex far from Lone Tree Pass, riding straight for the Double Y ranch. Their chase after Dave had taken them well to the west of south and they had concluded to keep the horses and equipment and strike for the ranch. As Hopalong sagely remarked: "Eighty dollars is eighty dollars, Tex, but these here two bronchs 'pear to me purty good stock; besides, what's eighty dollars 'longside the money-bag I 'm a-sittin' on?" and he eyed, complacently, the bloated gunny-sack that hid its wealth under so innocent an exterior.

They went ahead with that unerring instinct of the plainsman whose sense of direction seems positively uncanny to a tenderfoot, especially if the tenderfoot has ever been lost. There was no sign of a trail nor did they expect to see one, until they struck the Big Moose, north of the Reservation. This in itself was a source of gratification to them; they were quite content to meet with no one and all they asked was to be let severely alone until such time as the money was turned over to Buck and they should cease to be responsible for it.

The stumbling of the tired horses led them reluctantly to make camp. Hopalong was loath to be away from Mary longer than was necessary; only the grim determination to get Buck's money to him with as little risk as possible had decided him to ride to the ranch instead of taking the train from X----, which would have been hours quicker. They had discussed this matter, even to the thinking of a possible train hold-up, and Hopalong expressed his very decided preference for the open. "I was in a train hold-up once," he told Tex, "an' seven of th' boys was n't none too many to break it up. Skinny got plugged--not bad--but it might be us this time, an' it might be a whole lot worse."

He entertained Tex with the story while they made their simple preparations for their supper. Tex listened with the ear of a good listener, giving voice to his amusement, or endorsement of an action, or profanely consigning the whole troupe of train robbers to that region where go the "many who are called but not chosen." But all the while, though interested in the tale which concerned so many of his old friends, his analytical mind was pondering over the reason of Dave's action: How had he got the money from Schatz? Why had no one seen Schatz in Wayback? Where had the transfer of the money been made from Schatz to Dave? What had happened to change the plans of the fake hold-up, when Dave was to relieve Schatz of the money? His busy mind approached the riddle from many angles, as in the dark of night, a man with a lantern might cover a big stretch of country, searching everywhere for the track which would lead him to the finding of a hidden treasure. Farther and farther afield went Tex, examining, comparing, and rejecting every possibility that presented itself to his inward vision. Disappointed at the failure of his efforts to discover the solution, he cast from his mind all his useless speculation and adopted the slower but surer method which he should have tried at first: He put himself in the place of Dave--little by little he cast off his own personality and changed to that of the other, picturing to himself the effect upon Dave's cupidity when told of the part he was to play in the stealing of the money. So sensitive was his intelligence, so receptive to the shadowy suggestions that beckoned to him, perhaps from that lonely, unmarked grave beside the upper waters of the Little Jill, that presently his eyes began to gleam, his lips parted, and he stretched out his hand to Hopalong in unconscious emphasis. "Th' gunny sack, Hoppy! Where did he get th' gunny sack?"

The ghost of Schatz smiled. Tex was a man after his own heart.

Tex's abstraction had not escaped Hopalong. The end of his tale reached, he had put away the balance of the food, seen to the secure picketing of the two horses, put out the fire by the simple expedient of kicking over it sufficient sand, and had arranged the saddles in such a way that they completely hid the sack and could not be disturbed without arousing both him and Tex. From time to time he glanced at his silent companion, smiling to himself at the sight of such complete absorption. He could see himself over again in Tex, who was almost as old a man, recalling how he had been wont to ponder on the probable movements of an enemy and the pleasure he took, after a victory, in reviewing what had gone before and checking the mistakes and the successes in his reasoning. He wondered idly why it had lost its attraction for him and he concluded, with a whimsical grin, that marriage gave a man other things to think about.

But however lost Hopalong might be to inward speculation, no outward manifestation of the unusual or unlooked-for failed to appeal to his always active and alert senses. The pipe he had been smoking contentedly was held between his fingers, out and almost cold, his head was bent to one side and he was listening intently. He put his head to the ground and then arose to his feet, his ear turned to the stray breeze that was bringing to him faint and disagreeable sounds. When Tex's hand went out to him and Tex's voice broke in upon those barely audible sounds, he grasped the hand and gripped it hard to enjoin silence. Tex listened with all his ears but the ground noises had ceased and he was not high enough to have the advantage of the wind that was vexing Hopalong's hearing. Hopalong silently dragged him to his feet; they stood thus for a few seconds and then the look they turned upon each other was pregnant with significance.

"Makin' quite a noise," said Hopalong. "An' we ain't near th' trail yet. What do you make of it?"

"Dunno," answered Tex. "Had n't ought to be a man within twenty miles of us, Hoppy, 'less it's a Injun--an' them's no Injuns. Sounds to me like singin'."

"Same here," agreed Hopalong. "Can't be a drive herd, can it?"

"Not as I knows of. No herd ever come this way since th' railroad put through, an' then they stuck to th' trail."

"We got to find out, Tex," declared Hopalong, decisively. "Can't roost with a noisy bunch of coyotes like them runnin' 'round an' howlin' for gore."

"I 'll go, Hoppy," said Tex, "an' if I ain't back in an hour, you take both cayuses an' hike out for th' ranch."

"An' leave you afoot?" asked Hopalong. "Not by a d--n sight."

"You must, Hoppy. I got a reputation that 'll serve me with either honest men or thieves. I can't come to no harm. 'Tother way, you might get hurt. Two of us can't get away on them bronchs, they did too much to-day already. You 'll have to go at a walk, if you do go. 'Course I don't stop with that bunch 'less I has to. It's that bag I 'm thinkin' about, Hoppy. If I has to stop, you want to put as much ground as you can between them an' you. I 'm d--d glad they did n't see our fire."

"All right, Tex. I gives you an hour. 'Tain't more 'n a mile. Get a-goin'."

Tex started away and Hopalong began to get ready for a possible flight. Even if Tex did return they might decide that another location for their camp would be healthier. As he fastened the saddles to the two animals they each turned and looked at him with a disgust as expressive as if spoken.

Tex made for the spot from which the sounds had come, walking easily but silently, his form a mere shadow in the star-lit night and invisible on the lower levels, to which he carefully kept, at a distance of two hundred yards. At the end of ten minutes he was able to distinguish words and knew that Hoppy's and his surmise had been correct: they had heard the singing of night riders around a herd. It was the un-called-for presence of a herd in this vicinity which, more than all else, had led Tex to insist upon the reconnoitre being left to him. "Honest men or thieves," he had said. He was very doubtful of finding honest men. Only the condition of the horses had checked him from advising a departure on suspicion.

He was skulking along now, bent double; in his hand, the blade lying along his arm, was a knife such as few men in the West carried at that day and in the use of which Tex was unusually expert. It was entirely characteristic of him that he should possess such a weapon: silence in action is desired by the worst class of man, and Tex had been of that class before the enforced association of better men and the heroically magnanimous action of an opponent had changed him to the man he was. He slunk forward with the stealthy prowl of a wolf, glancing to right and left as he went, hoping to sight the camp of the cattlemen and get near enough without being seen, to learn what he had come to find out. He dropped flat to earth as a sudden snort startled him: he had come upon the herd without knowing it. A disquieted animal sprang to its feet and did not lie down again until the soothing voice of the herder was raised. The song floated down the wind and Tex listened as well as the cow:

"'Now then, young men, don't be melancholy; Just see, like me, if you can't be jolly; If anything goes wrong with me I never sulk nor pout; In fact I am and always was The merriest girl that's out.'"

If the cow were soothed it was quite otherwise with Tex: his hair almost bristled as the rider went past, near enough for the heavy knife to have sped through the air and sunk haft-deep between his shoulders. "Chatter Spence!" sprang to Tex's lips. "Who's he driving for?" a question that he was still asking himself when another herder neared him, whose choice of lullaby was probably influenced by that of his companion, for he was calling out in most lugubrious voice:

'Buffalo gals, are you comin' out to-night, Comin' out to-night, comin' out to-night? Buffalo gals, are you comin' out to-night To dance by th' light of th' moon?'

"It's all wrong," the singer broke off to say in a sing-song voice, that, as far as the cattle were concerned, had all the effect of a melody. "It's all wrong," he repeated. "There ain't no moon. 'To dance by th' light of th' stars,'" he corrected, and then: "Gentlemen, I rises to a question of order. I don't want to dance. I 'm too blasted sore to dance--I 'm too sore to be a-sittin' on this cross-eyed, rat-tailed, flea-bitten son-of-a-dog, too; an' if I ain't relieved pretty soon, Shanghai is a-goin' to hear--" his voice trailed away and the words were no longer distinguishable.

Tex cautiously sat up. "That's Argue Bennett. And Shanghai is with them. Why, d--n it! There must be a whole brood of Ike's chickens roosting around here. I 'm going to find them, even if I miss Hoppy in doing it."

He started to arise and back away before the first singer should approach again, only to drop back into his former prone position at the sound of a third singer, coming from his right. Bennett and Spence heard him too and were more than ready to resign the herd by the time he and his companion arrived. Bennett did not hesitate to announce his bitter condemnation of the way things were being done.

"That you, Ship?" he called.

"That's me," came the answer.

"Shore it's you," agreed Bennett, in sarcastic acknowledgment. "I 'd a' bet every cow I own it's you. An' I goes on record as bettin' every cow _you_ own that Cracker is a-ridin' 'longside you. Do I win?"

"You win with yore own stock but I objects to you winnin' with mine. It _might_ a' been Shanghai."

"Yes, it _might_; but if it was I 'd a' dropped dead from surprise. What I want to know is: what call has Shanghai got to hold down all th' soft snaps? Is he any better'n we are? Echo answers no--Echo bein' Chatter Spence, who has n't got pride enough to disagree with a hen."

"Aw, what's eatin' you! This ain't no regular drive. An' did you ever know Shanghai to get left on a deal? How'd we ever got through th' Cyclone if it hadn't been for Shanghai? You make me tired. Did you ever know a herd to get over th' ground so fast? Been you, we 'd be some're near Big Moose right now. You leave Shanghai alone an' we 'll have th' herd in our pockets afore Peters knows they 're gone. Nice little bunch, too. Go an' get yore chuck an' you 'll feel better. 'Jennie, my own true loved one, Wait till th' clouds roll by'"--he rode on to circle the herd.

"Did you ever hear such a pill? He thinks nobody knows nothin' but Shanghai. What do you say, Cracker?"

"Well, I kind o' sides with Ship. We ain't done as much as Shanghai, if it comes to that, 'ceptin' night herd."

H--l! I 'm wastin' my breath talkin' to you. Come on, Chatter, we--why, th' greedy hog 's gone a'ready." Bennett made haste to get back to camp. He knew the supplies to be none too plentiful. So did Chatter Spence.

Tex stole away as silently as he had come, leaving the cattle-thieves happy in their ignorance of his discovery. He pushed himself hard on his return, fearful of having overstayed the time. Hopalong was waiting for him, however, and listened to his news with quiet interest.

"Buck's cows, Hoppy," was Tex's greeting, as he arrived on the run. "We got to get 'em but it's one sweet little job. Old Ship o' State is a holy terror in a row; Chatter Spence ain't bad, an' Argue Bennett an' Cracker impressed me as bein' good men to have around. But th' one we got to watch out for is Shanghai. He never falls down an' it would n't surprise me none to know he was watchin' them four same as I was. There's two of 'em ridin' herd an' three in camp. How do we go at it?"

"Got to get th' two night-ridin'. Tie 'em up an' th' other three is easy. Hol' on a minute till I get th' bank."

Ship o' State was beginning the twenty-seventh stanza in the melodious history of an incorrigible reprobate who deserved death in every one of them, when he was utterly confounded to hear a voice, almost at his ear, command him to "throw up his hands an' climb down of 'n that cayuse, _pronto_." Contrary to what all his friends would have expected him to do, he obeyed the command instantly and to the letter. He was relieved of his gun and was being very effectually secured when the strangely quavering voice of Cracker was heard and came near. Ship eyed his captor in wonder. If Cracker were to be captured in the same manner, then this was the coolest man in the country. Nearer and nearer came the voice until Ship actually found himself worrying over the narrowness of the margin of safety. It was not until Cracker went by that he understood. The grotesque shape could only be accounted for in one way: Cracker's captor was straddling the same pony.

It was just when Ship had reached this conclusion that a very unpleasant bunch of rags was thrust into his mouth and he was lifted and thrown face down across the back of his horse. Hopalong got into the saddle and they rode away from the herd. They had not gone far before another horseman joined them and Ship could hear the singing Cracker as he circled the herd. "There's three of 'em anyway," was his thought, wherein he was wrong. Cracker, with his hands trussed high behind his back and his feet hobbled, was stumbling slowly along with the threat in his memory that if he stopped singing until he was told, his head stood a good chance of being separated from the rest of his carcass, when he would never be able to sing again; and the further information that, if the herd should stampede, he was in a fair way to be crushed to a pulp. The latter he knew to be true and he was equally convinced that the other would be quite likely to take place.

Fifty yards from the herd, Ship was quietly dumped to the ground. Far enough away from him the horses were picketed and two forms crept carefully upon the three men in camp.

Dark as it was, there was no difficulty in finding two of the three. Spence and Bennett, the latter agreeably surprised to find that Shanghai had depleted the general treasury to the extent of one cow, had both eaten a large and satisfying meal; their hunger appeased, weariness had asserted itself in double force and nothing less than a determined kick would have awakened either of them. But Hopalong and Tex prowled around looking for Shanghai without success.

Shanghai was living up to his reputation. Having made his plans and given orders to insure their carrying out, he then stayed around and saw it done. Argue Bennett might grumble to the others but he knew the futility, as also the danger, of grumbling to Shanghai. When his two subordinates had eaten their fill and gone to sleep, Shanghai still sat hunched before the dying embers of the fire, smoking a meditative pipe. When the smoke ceased to float lazily from his nostrils he knocked the warm ashes onto the palm of his hand, got to his feet and slipped quietly away from the camp.

Any one who knew Shanghai well would have reasoned that he was probably going to look over the herd because he started away in the opposite direction. Going straight to his objective point was entirely too elemental for Shanghai. He fetched a wide circle before drawing near the herd, his approach being unheralded and made with the suspicious caution which marked all his movements. He listened inattentively to the husky voice of Cracker who was mourning the demise of somebody named Brown, and moved a little nearer. Presently he became vaguely uneasy at the silence of old Ship-o'-State. It was not the lack of song on Ship's part that troubled Shanghai--the cattle were resting easy enough--but where was he? When Cracker came around again Shanghai was near enough to see him and he craned his neck in wonder at the sight: Cracker on his two feet, staggering along like a man about three whiskeys from oblivion, and Ship off post. Here was something very wrong and Shanghai cursed softly to think how far away his horse was. What in blazes made him come afoot, anyway? He started back to camp to repair the oversight and to have Chatter and Argue behind him before making an investigation of Cracker's astonishing preference for night-herding on foot.

His descent upon the camp would have been creditable to an Apache. First making sure of his horse and leaving him in shape for instant departure, he circled the two sleeping forms, viewing them from all sides. There was something wrong. Shanghai did not know what it was but the figures of his two companions seemed actually to exhale menace and the longer he hesitated the stronger the feeling became. Shanghai stole quietly back to his horse, mounted and rode off with the settled conviction that sun-up was the proper time for investigating these unusual circumstances and that the proper spot was several miles distant from below the sky-line of some convenient knoll.

At the unmistakable sound of retreating hoofbeats the figures in camp came to life. They sat up and listened and then Tex looked at Hoppy with frank disapprobation. "Hoppy, my way was best," he declared. Hopalong nodded, in silent agreement, and Tex continued: "I been a-hearin' considerable talk about this here Shanghai an' I 'm bound to say I believe all I hears. D--n if he ain't got second sight."

Hopalong nodded again. "Let's round up th' rest of th' roosters, anyhow. We got four, an' four's a plenty to take care of."

"Shore is," admitted Tex. "Let's bring 'em in an' hog-tie 'em. Them cows would n't move for anythin' 'less 'n a Norther after th' way they 've come across country."

A half hour later Ike's four pets were lying side by side in camp, trussed to the point of immovability and all apparently, in spite of their discomfort, taking advantage of the opportunity to secure the sleep they so much needed after their unsuccessful exertions.

"Hoppy," said Tex, "I think that with that Shanghai party still runnin' at large, it 'd be some wise to split up that wealth. Better take a chance of losin' half of it than all of it. What you think?"

"Same here," agreed Hopalong. He opened the sack and dumped out the packages, dividing them roughly into two parts with a sweep of his hand, and proceeded to rip up the sack, preparatory to making two parcels of the money.

"'With milk an' honey blest,'" faltered a voice and they turned to find Argue Bennett's eyes almost starting from his head at the sight he beheld.

"Playin' 'possum, eh? It'd do you no harm to stretch hemp right now," and Tex's meditative air was fringed with ferocity.

"No offence, Comin', no offence. You woke me movin'. Is that what Dave got away with?"

"Yes--an' there won't no more Daves get away with it, you can bet all th' cows you own on that."

"An' me a-riskin' my neck rustlin' that bunch when all that beautiful wealth was a-leavin' th' country easy an' graceful an' just a-shoutin' to be brought back. Excuse me, Comin'. I ain't got no call to talk. I reckon I never did talk. Th' best I ever done since I was born is bray."

Thus it came about that Shanghai suffered the acute misery of seeing his four-footed fortune headed back the way it had come. Not that he lost heart all at once. After some hours of following he had decided that a bold stroke might put him again in possession and was perfecting the details of the stratagem his ready mind conceived, when a sudden check was given by a rapidly approaching cloud of dust from the northwest. The check became check-mate when the useful field-glasses disclosed to his pained vision the hilarious meeting that took place. A certain jaunty carriage, a characteristic swagger that did not forsake him even in the saddle, made Shanghai look hard at the leader of the new-comers and suspect Cock Murray. And his suspicion was well founded. Cock Murray had already redeemed his promise to Buck and it may be pardoned him if in the joy of his heart, his swagger became so pronounced as to disclose his personality across some miles of country.

Shanghai closed his glasses and moved slowly to his horse. "Well, it had to be," he conceded, philosophically. "An' I reckon it's about time I pulled my freight."