CHAPTER XXXII.

THE WOLFER’S PLAN.

“If folks don’t want to git hurt they mustn’t come within reach of this yere,” continued Lish, tapping the handle of the knife he wore in his belt.

“I suppose not,” said Tom, who could not help feeling the most profound contempt for his lying partner. “Now what did you steal?”

“Wal, that _thar_ aint by no means so triflin’,” replied Lish, once more lowering his voice and glancing suspiciously about him. “I reckon mebbe we’d best move on an’ change our camp afore one of them sergeants comes down here with a squad. I seed a young leftenant down thar to the settlement, an’ I kinder thought he was arter me by the way he looked; but I had disremembered all about stealin’ that thar muel from Ike Barker last summer. The kurn knows it, I reckon.”

“Of course he does!” replied Tom promptly.

“Who told him?”

“My brother did. He’s just that sort.”

“What’s he got ag’in me, do you reckon?” asked Lish, who seemed to be all in the dark.

“Nothing at all. He wants to injure me, and the only way he can do it is by breaking up our expedition. He knows that I am going to make money this winter, and he doesn’t like it. He wants to keep me away from the hills, and that is the reason he is trying to have you arrested.”

“I wish I could bring the sights on my rifle an’ the tip eend of his nose in range for jest half a minute,” said the wolfer in savage tones, as he came out of the bushes and led the way down the ravine. “I’d make him think creation was comin’, sure!”

“I don’t want you to shoot at him,” said Tom, who need not have had any fear on this score. “I only want you to help me serve him as he is trying to serve me. He is getting on in the world altogether too fast.”

“Wharabouts in the hills is him an’ Big Thompson goin’?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”

“We must watch ’em an’ find out. If we see that they are strikin’ for our grounds we must shoot their critters an’ stop ’em. Thar aint room enough in our valley fur me an’ Big Thompson.”

“You don’t like that man, do you? What has he done to you?”

The two worthies had by this time reached the place where Lish had left his horse. The latter did not answer Tom’s question, but threw one of his long legs over the pony’s back, and rode toward the camp, leaving his partner to follow on foot.

He did not even offer to carry Tom’s bundle, for he was too lazy to make any unnecessary exertion.

While on the way down the ravine Tom made repeated efforts to find out why it was that Lish hated Oscar’s guide so cordially, but the answers he received did not let him into the secret of the matter.

All he could learn was that Big Thompson had interfered too much with the wolfer’s business, and that the latter owed the guide a grudge for it.

He had never been able to have a settlement with him, but he would have it the very first time they met.

The facts of the case were that Big Thompson, in his capacity of government scout, had several times caused the wolfer to be arrested on the charge of selling arms and ammunition to hostile Indians.

While there was not the least doubt of his guilt, there was no evidence on which he could be convicted, and he had always been released, after a short confinement in the guard-house.

This, of course, made Lish very angry, and on one occasion he had tried to make matters easier for himself, and deprive the government of a faithful servant at the same time, by sending a ball after Big Thompson; but the long chase that followed, and the noise of the bullets which his determined pursuer sent whistling about his ears, satisfied him that the scout was a good man to be let alone.

He never repeated the experiment, but took the best of care to keep out of Big Thompson’s sight. The latter had not forgotten this little incident, and that was the reason he threatened to pull the wolfer’s hair when he met him.

As soon as Tom and his companion reached their camp, they packed up the little luggage they possessed, and struck deeper into the woods.

Two hours afterward they were snugly settled in a thicket on the side of a bluff, from which they could see the bottom of the ravine for the distance of half a mile, and thus detect the presence of anyone who might approach the bluff before they could be seen themselves.

In this camp they passed only their nights, their waking hours being given to watching the fort from the top of the hill on which the sage-brush grew. They were waiting to see what Oscar and his guide were going to do. This was a matter of no little importance to the wolfer.

Whenever Tom grew down-hearted and discouraged Lish had always tried to cheer him up by describing to him a beautiful valley among the hills, in which not only wolves, but game animals of all kinds were so abundant that one soon grew tired of shooting and trapping them.

It was true that there was a valley something like this a few days’ journey distant, and it was also true that Oscar’s guide knew as much about it as Lish did, and that he quite as fully appreciated the hunting and trapping to be found there.

He had led a party of sportsmen to that very place a summer or two ago, and his presence there had caused the wolfer to pack up his skins and leave with the utmost precipitation.

Lish wanted to go to that same valley this winter, and if events proved that Big Thompson was going there too, he must be stopped at all hazards. It was too fine a hunting ground to be given up to anybody.

These days of waiting were very tedious to Tom, who soon grew tired of lying around in the brush, watching for somebody who never showed himself. All this while Oscar was enjoying the best of sport, in company with a select party, coursing antelope and shooting wolves with the bow and arrow; but Tom and his companion did not see him when he left the fort or when he came back to it, for the reason that on both occasions they were soundly asleep in their camp on the bluff.

Monday morning dawned at last, and they had scarcely taken up their usual stations when a horseman rode out of the fort, followed by a covered wagon, drawn by a large mouse-colored mule.

Tom saw them, but he would have paid no very particular attention to them had it not been for the actions of the wolfer, who, after uttering an exclamation indicative of the greatest amazement, rubbed his hands together and chuckled to himself.

“It’s them,” said he; “the very fellers we’ve been a-waitin’ fur so long. That one on the pony is Big Thompson, an’ I reckon t’other one is yer brother, aint it?”

“I can’t tell yet. He’s too far away,” replied Tom. “You seem to be glad that we are about to make a start.”

“Yes, I be; but that aint what makes me feel so peart. That thar muel an’ wagon is the very ones I borrered from Ike Barker last summer. I sold ’em down in Denver; an’ if the feller I sold ’em to haint brung ’em up here an’ sold ’em to yer brother, I’m a Dutchman! Now, if they’re goin’ to our grounds, they’ll foller the trail, an’ that’ll take ’em right past Ike Barker’s ranch. If they’ll only go thar we’ll bust ’em up higher’n the moon!”

“How will we do it?” asked Tom.

“I’ll tell ye when the time comes. Stay here an’ keep your eyes on to ’em, while I go back to camp arter our plunder.”

As there was no very hard work about this, Tom readily consented to do as his companion desired. He lay concealed in the edge of the brush, watching the wagon, and as it drew nearer to him he saw that the driver of it was his brother. He recognized him by the clothes he wore. He shook his fist at him as he passed along the base of the hill.

When the wolfer came back an hour later, leading his pony, which was loaded with their camp equipage and provisions, Tom met him at the mouth of the ravine.

He told him which way the wagon had gone, and Lish declared that it was all right. He thought he knew where Big Thompson was going, but they would watch him a day or two, he said, until they were sure of his course, and then they would get ahead of him and carry out the plan he had determined upon.

We have already told what the plan was, and therefore it is needless to dwell upon it. The note Ike Barker found fastened to his door was written by Tom at his partner’s dictation, and as Lish could not have been induced to undertake so dangerous a mission himself, Tom volunteered to put it where the ranchman could find it.

This he did without being discovered, but he breathed a great deal easier when he came back from the dug-out and joined his companion, who was waiting for him behind a swell a little distance away.

“There was a blanket hanging in the doorway, and I fastened the note to it with a pin I happened to have in my coat,” said Tom, with a sigh of satisfaction. “I guess they have gone about as far toward the hills as they will get this fall—don’t you?”

“I’m sartin of it,” answered the wolfer, who seemed to be as highly elated as Tom was. “Ike’ll know his critter as soon as he puts his peepers on to him, and he’ll have him back spite of Big Thompson or anybody else. He’s that kind of a feller.”

If Tom had really succeeded in stopping his brother’s progress it would have been a most unfortunate thing for himself. But Oscar was helped out of the difficulty by the kindness of the ranchman, and thus it happened that he was in a condition to give assistance to Tom at a time when he stood in the greatest need of it.

After this piece of strategy the wolfers journeyed more rapidly toward the hills. Having no wagon to impede their movements, they were able to take a straight course for the valley of which Lish had so often spoken, and in this way they gained nearly three days on Oscar and his guide, who were obliged to keep to the “divides.”

With his usual caution, the wolfer proceeded to hide himself as soon as he reached his hunting grounds.

He went the whole length of the valley, and when at last he was ready to make his winter’s camp, he selected a spot that was almost hemmed in by high and perpendicular bluffs, and which could be approached only from one direction.

Long before they were settled in this camp (their only shelter was a hastily constructed “lean-to,” through whose roof the snow found its way to the ground almost as readily as it did anywhere in the woods) Tom had become heartily disgusted with his partner and tired of his company.

He turned out to be a regular tyrant; and when things went wrong—and they never seemed to go any other way—he abused Tom without stint.

He could do this with impunity now, for Tom could not desert him with any hope of finding his way back to civilization; nor could he resist his partner’s tyranny without bringing upon himself certain and speedy punishment. There was a wicked gleam in the wolfer’s eye sometimes that fairly made Tom tremble.