CHAPTER XXXIV

THE TRAIL MAKER

THE reports came steadily—ten, fifteen, twenty. It was easy for the trail men to locate the rifleman. They advanced rapidly in his direction. As they topped a little ridge there lay before them the last scene of one of countless similar tragedies of the Plains then going on all over the country a thousand by fifteen hundred miles in extent.

Within the circle of a shallow swale stood a huddled group of black figures of buffalo still on their feet. Among them, around them, over a space no larger than a half acre, lay motionless or struggling two score other dark figures—the bodies of the fallen.

The drovers saw the rifle smoke, two hundred yards from the game. The killer lay concealed back of a wisp of grass which topped a near-by ridge. He lay flat, his heavy rifle supported by two cross sticks, his wiping rod and another hickory wand held together by the fingers of his left hand as a rest for the barrel. His hat was off. His hair tossed, blending with the waving grasses. He never had shown himself at all. Mercilessly, carefully, he placed one shot after another. At each shot a dust spot spurted out on a dark hide. An animal staggered, made a little run; but, shot through the lungs, soon lay down. The survivors smelled at it, made short rushes, returned, stood confused. Each time one of the victims headed out, it fell before the white puff of smoke which came from the hidden death engine.

The killer had the range perfectly. He paid no attention to the result of any shot, for he knew that it was fatal. Each heavy bullet tore through the lungs of a buffalo. It would not go far. The ground was black with them already. Some day the bone pickers would rejoice, for here they would find fifty skeletons packed close together.

It was the “stand” of the professional or the expert buffalo hunter. The skin hunters were even then pushing out into the Plains on their unholy calling.

But the skin hunter did not belong to the Indian lands, and no Indian hunted buffalo in this way. The Del Sol men therefore were not sure as to the identity of this man. They rode off to investigate, not showing themselves at first. But at length they did sharpen on the sky line. The staggered remnant of the befuddled animals caught their scent in the air and at last nerved themselves for a saving rush away from this slaughter hole.

When he saw the intruders the rifleman himself drew back to safety. After a short mutual reconnaissance he rose and held up his hand in the sign of peace. The Del Sol men approached in like fashion.

The marksman might now be seen to be a man of anywhere from forty to sixty years of age, wrinkled of face, crowned with stubbly hair. His dark, thick skin showed him to be of mixed blood. His garb was that of the white man, save that he wore no hat. He leaned on his deadly rifle with unconcern and in silence as the trail men approached.

“How, friend!” saluted Nabours.

“How do you do?” replied the other in fair English. “Which way you go?”

“North. We’ve got a herd of cows, three thousand head, five miles south of here.”

“Three thousand head! Ha! You go Ab’lene—Caldwell—Wich’ta?”

“Yes, if we can ever get through here. I was wondering what had drifted the buffalo.”

“I kill ’em few for hides,” grinned the half-breed. “My man come pretty soon for skin. My camp over, there, maybe so two mile. Where you come from?”

“Caldwell County,” answered Nabours. “Our brand is T.L. You’re headed south? Are you buffalo hunting?”

“No, got wagon train—Army supplies. Take ’em south from railroad across Nations, for Caddoes, Wichitas, Wacos. I just laying out road for wagons. Army forts got to have supplies.”

“Well, the country needs a road all right,” commented Nabours. “We started to find what they call the Chisholm Trail. There ain’t no such a thing.”

“No?” The oldish face wrinkled into a smile. “No find ’em trail? Too bad! You don’t know me,” he added after a time.

“No, we don’t know nobody.”

“I’m Jesse Chisholm. My ranch is in Nations, south long way. I bring plenty horses up from Texas. I know your people. I been all across Texas from Palo Pinto to Double Mountain Fork, Buffalo Gap, Estacado; all the time I make trails.”

“And you have left one behind you now?”

“Sure! She’s easy from here to Caldwell. I got fifty wagon, plenty horse, plenty mule; make ford, sometime make bridge, sometime make raft. I got some wagons for Colonel Griswold. He’s going to make big reservation for Kiowas and Comanches. Fort Sill, he’ll call ’em.”

“So you’re Jesse Chisholm?” remarked Jim Nabours after a time. “I didn’t know for sure there was no such person. Tell me, is there such a place as Aberlene?”

“Sure! I trail up Arkansas River from east, pass Wichita. I hear Ab-lene up north. Sure!”

“All the Injuns know Jesse Chisholm,” he continued. “Osage, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw—I trade ’em horse all through there. I know Shawnee Trail, through Choctaws.”

“Then tell us, friend, since you know this country pretty well, how far is it out of the Nations from here?”

“Maybe so fifty-six mile. Caldwell, he’s on line above Osages. Always grass. So you go Ab’lene?”

Nabours nodded.

“We don’t know where it is.”

“You come my camp with me. I got a man in my camp, he come from Ab’lene. He come down here to find you people.”

“Find us? He never heard of us!”

“I dunno. He say he come south till he meets cows. He show you Ab’lene all right.”

“Len, ride back to the men and tell them to hold the herd till I come,” said Nabours, turning. “I may be late. I’ll go over and see what there is in all this.”

Without further speech, the famous half-breed trail maker led them back for a quarter of a mile or so to where he had picketed his horse. Soon they passed another uncommunicative half-breed, driving a wagon team. A few words between him and Chisholm, and the driver passed on to begin his share of the work—skinning the dead buffalo, for their hides alone.

In time they found the wagon encampment, its band of horses and mules hobbled or picketed near by; a pleasant though extraordinary sight in these surroundings. Chisholm led the way to a point a few yards distant from the main camp.

Lying on his saddle blankets under the shade of a scrubby bush, there was a white man—a bearded man of middle age, with clothing not much worn and of distinctly Northern cut. Caught by a severe attack of fever and ague, he now was in a raging fever. But at the sight of these newcomers—who presentiment told him were the very men he sought—he sprang to his feet and held out his hand.

“I knew you’d come!” said he. “I know you are drovers! Where is your herd? I told them I’d find a herd coming up to Abilene this spring. McCoyne’s my name.”

“Well,” said the trail boss, “they call me Jim Nabours. We’re people from Caldwell County, Texas—thousand miles south of here for all I know, or anyway six hundred. We’re in the T.L.; Fishhook road brand. We was headed for Aberlene.”

“That’s my town,” said the stranger. “And I’ll tell you, friend, she is a town! We’ve got the railroad, and I’ve got the stockyards, built and waiting. Don’t let no one talk to you about Baxter Springs; don’t you think of stopping at Caldwell or Wichita. Abilene is the only town in Kansas with a railroad and a stockyards and a real market. There’s buyers five deep a-waiting for you up there. How many cattle you got?”

“Say three thousand.”

“Great Scott! Abilene’s made! You’re made too!”

“How much did you pay for cows when you started north?” he asked. Nabours was looking at his eyes.

“You ain’t so sick!” said he. “Well, we didn’t pay nothing for ours. We raised them by hand from calves. How much can a man get for fine fours in your neighborhood?”

“Well, that depends; but all they’re worth. Do you want to contract yours as they come, straight fours at ten a head?”

“Ten a head!” said Jim Nabours with well-feigned surprise. “What? Fours like them? Fat and ready for market? Well there may be a little she-stuff in here and there, but we couldn’t help that. Us Texans always figgers one cow’s as old and as fat as another.”

“As good as any,” asserted the stranger. “There’s millions of acres of range north and west of Abilene, a-weeping and a-wailing for stock cattle. There’s millions of pounds of beef that’s got to be raised on Army contracts to feed the reservation Indians. There’s all America and all Europe east of here. Market? Why, man, we can take five million cattle, in five years, if you can bring them in! You’re the first, and you didn’t know it! You didn’t even know where Abilene was!”

“We don’t yet,” replied Nabours; “but we’re willing to rock along with you and have you show us.”

“I’ll be glad to! What d’you say to three cents a pound on the hoof?”

Nabours looked at him with astonishment in his eyes.

“Mister, you talk like them cows was sugar or coffee. I never did hear of ary man selling a cow that way. No man can tell how much a cow weighs by looking at him, and I never did see one weighed. Of course, I could make a scales by swinging a pole and putting a few men at the other end of it to balance up a cow—you can guess how much a man weighs pretty clost. But all that’d take too much time. No, a cow is a cow where I come from, whether he’s big or little.”

“Well, what d’you say to eleven dollars a head?”

“I don’t say nothing. These here cows is family pets, and we don’t like fer to part with them. But like enough this is the only herd that ever will come up from Texas, anyhow this year.”

“You wouldn’t say twelve dollars?”

“Straight count, a cow for a cow, as she tallies out?”

“Well, I’d sorter like to see the herd first.”

“It ain’t no trade,” said Nabours calmly. “If I’d sell them family favorites of ours the owner of Del Sol would feel sore—she shore would.”

“You say ’she’ would. Are you working for a widow?”

“She ain’t a widow yet, but she may be a’fore long.”

“Married?”

“The same answer. Not yet, but right apt to be.”

“How old is she?”

“Why, I don’t know. Plenty of cows we got in that herd is a heap older than she is.”

“And you’re taking a girl through to Abilene!”

“What’s wrong with Aberlene, friend?”

“Well,” admitted McCoyne, “we got eight saloons and five gambling palaces now; a good many railroad men and skin hunters and people like that hang around. It might be a little bit swift if you ain’t used to traveling fast.”

“What you say sounds cheerful. We’d like to wet the dust in our throats and play a few cards in a innocent way.”

“I wouldn’t say that Abilene ain’t safe,” argued the market man. “We got the best town marshal in Kansas, or are going to have if we can get him away from Hays City. Wild Bill Hickok is his name. He’s the best shot in Kansas.”

“He may be in Kansas, but he ain’t in Texas,” replied Nabours. “We had him along ourselves. You didn’t happen to meet up with a man named Dan McMasters in Caldwell, did you?”

McCoyne drew himself up.

“I don’t go to Caldwell. But since you mention it, that name sounds familiar. I met a McMasters over in the Baxter Springs country last winter; tall fellow, with a little mustache. He was the man that told me he was going to send up a Texas herd when he got back home.”

“He done so,” replied Nabours. “Here it is.”

“He certainly done us both a good turn. I was saying McCoyne—Joe McCoyne’s my name. I come from Indianny. I’m president of the stockyards up to Abilene. The whole Eastern country is out here hunting cattle. There’s a thousand miles of range north and west of us that’s got to have cattle. Why, cattle will be gobbled up as fast as you can drive them in.”

“You must be running a kind of cow heaven, friend,” said Jim Nabours. “Well, come and see our boss. You needn’t be scared, even if she ain’t married. I will pertect you against any designing female that might be smit by your looks.”