Part 4

We staggers along, cutting our feet on the sharp rocks and praying that it will be light enough to shoot when we meet somebody to shoot at. All to once we hits the edge of that deep cañon. There ain’t no warning. I feels my feet slip into some loose stuff, so I grabs hold of Windy.

I hears Hashknife speak an unlovely word, and then me and Windy starts doing a toboggan to the bottom. It wasn’t straight down, but I’d just as soon fall as to set down in that loose stuff and get all heated up doing a slide for life.

* * * * *

We landed in the bottom with about a ton of loose stuff, composed mostly of glassy gravel and other sharp-pointed particles. I got the dust out of my mouth, and I orates openly that we’ve lost Hashknife.

That operation caused a bullet to _flup_ into our private landslide.

“Mebbe you’ll keep your mouth shut,” says Hashknife’s voice.

“How’d yuh get there?” I asks.

“Sittin’ down, yuh ---- fool!”

“Oh,” says Windy, taking a few deep breaths, “I’m all worn off from my belt to my knees. Who is shootin’ at us, I’d love to ask?”

Then we seen the flash of the next shot and the bullet threw dust into my face. I reckon our six-shooters cracked at the same time and then we fell all over each other trying to change positions. I bumped into Hashknife and we both fell over Windy.

“Don’t get excited,” begs Hashknife.

“That ---- fool up there couldn’t hit us with a shotgun--unless it was a mistake.”

“Mistakes has killed a lot of good men,” wails Windy. “I don’t want to be no accidental corpse. Let’s go and find Mary Jane Haley. We’re wastin’ a lot of good time, don’t yuh know it? Come on.”

“Well, who is shooting at us?” I asks. “Hashknife Hartley, if yuh know, tell us, will yuh?”

“Merely a surmise, Sleepy, but I think I’m right. Felt all along that I had the answer, but I wasn’t sure until tonight.”

“Fine!” grunts Windy. “Go ahead and tell us.”

“Let’s get under cover and wait for daylight.”

“While our li’l boss wanders around this God-forsaken place in the dark?” asks Windy. “I’m goin’ out and find her.”

“All right,” says Hashknife, “go ahead. I’ve got a hunch that somebody’ll lead yuh up a heap if yuh climb any farther, but it’s your business, Windy.”

“Who’d lead me up?”

“Tell yuh tomorrow--or, I reckon I’d better say, today. Must be gettin’ toward mornin’.”

A deer came along after while, and if Hashknife hadn’t grabbed my arm I’d a took a shot at it. I thought it was a man with a white pack on his back. It sure was sneaking along mysterious-like. My nerves had got to a frazzled state. I ain’t brave. Nope--not when it’s so danged dark that I can’t see which way to run.

After while it begins to get lighter and the old moon begins to lose a lot of his yaller. Down the hill a cougar rises his voice in sorrow and wo, and far away we hears the nicker of a horse.

“I can see to notch my sights,” announces Hashknife, after while, “and I reckon I can recognize a friend as far as I can hit anything. Let’s go.”

“Who do we shoot at?” I asks. “Any preference, Hashknife?”

“I reckon they’ll show their hand, Sleepy. Keep your danged head down.”

“Whose danged head is this? Yuh won’t tell anything, and yuh crabs when a feller wants to see something for himself. What for kind of a way is that to act? Are we with yuh, or just one of your party?”

“I wants to find Mary Jane first of all,” says Windy, sad-like. “I’m gettin’ worried.”

“Yeah, and get wrinkled like a Siwash squaw,” grunts Hashknife. “Whoa, Blaze!”

Hashknife points at a jumble of rocks farther up on the hill. We sees the figure of a man, humped over, crawling along like a big lizard. Comes the _whang_ of a gun, and the man collapses in the rocks. But he ain’t dead. We sees him shoot twice, and then he drops lower and begins crawling.

“Shall I wing him?” asks Windy.

“Nope,” grunts Hashknife. “Dunno who he is yet. Got a idea, but ain’t sure.”

“This is a lot of fun for us, Sleepy,” says Windy. “The general won’t let us privates shoot until he sees the whites of their eyes.”

We sneaked along behind boulders, working up higher all the time. I ain’t got no knees left in my pants, the same of which makes ’em match in front and rear. We rounds the corner of a pinnacle, and Hashknife stops.

“I’m foreman of the Circle Dot,” says Windy, peevish-like, “and I do admire to know why they comes up here and shoots up my nice li’l rocks. Goin’ to put up signs today, warnin’ folks to keep off my grass, y’betcha.”

I sticks my head over the top. _Zowie!_ A bullet _spings_ off the rock beside my ear and goes buzzing off down among the cliffs.

“Next time I go out with you, Sleepy, I’m goin’ t’ pack a spade,” says Hashknife. “You sure does invite interment.”

We hugs the rocks for a while, and then peers out again. _Splat!_ A bullet flattens right beside my ear and I slides back.

Then I scratches my ear, looks at the lead spatter on the rock and cusses some more.

“We-e-e-ell,” drawls Hashknife, grinning, “I reckon you’ll get sensible now. That only misses by six inches. Huh!”

Hashknife rolls over, pokes into a rock crevice, and begins to climb. It’s only about seven feet to the top of the rock, and me and Windy stays there looking up at the soles of his boots. He stops. We sees him kinda anchor his knee against the side of the rock and then his rifle sings its little song. A empty shell rattles down at us and we hears him chuckle. Then he slides down to us and huddles down.

“Ketchum bad-man,” he grunts, stuffing another shell into the magazine of his rifle.

“Didja hit him?” asks Windy.

“If I didn’t, he must be a danged fool to upset the way he did.”

_Spo-o-o-w!_ A bullet burned across my shoulder and whizzed into the air off the rock behind me. I dropped flat and remembered every cuss word I ever heard.

“And I raised him, Windy,” says Hashknife when I runs out of breath.

“I’ve learned his meek and mildness, but the minute the ---- fool gets mad he backslides. Didja ever hear such language? Awful! I hates to see anybody kill him, ’cause his soul won’t be welcome nowheres.”

“He ain’t got none,” declares Windy. “No soul a-tall, Hashknife, but, man, man, he sure has a memory for words.”

“Burnt me right across the shoulder,” says I. “Stay here and get killed if you must, but I’m goin’ to smoke that _hombre_ out. _Sabe_?”

“We’ve got to find Mary Jane,” says Windy. “All this time----”

“We’ll find her,” says Hashknife. “I figure she ain’t far away.”

* * * * *

We crawls over the top of them rocks, out through the fissure and glides down the other side. Then we crawls on our hands, knees and belly until our shirts are on a par with our knees and seats. We reaches the other side of the hill and angles through the rocks, until we’re working around behind a sort of cliff. Then a danged rattlesnake has to plant himself right in our trail. Ornery son of a gun wouldn’t budge and we didn’t want to shoot him for fear of letting folks know where we were.

There wasn’t a loose rock in reach, so Hashknife takes off his belt, slips his holster off and then he slams Mr. Snake with the buckle-end. It sure was effective. Windy collects the rattles as we go past. We gets almost around the cliff and then gets to our feet and peers around.

“Got to get up higher,” whispers Hashknife. “I reckon we can climb this end of the cliff.”

We crawls to the top and finds that it’s still lower than the main part of the cliff, but between us and the high part is about fifty feet of open country. We thought it was cliff all the way, and here we are up on kind of a table-rock. We peers around.

“Look!” croaks Windy.

There’s a man crawling along the base of the higher cliff. Windy lifts his rifle and lines his sights, but Hashknife pushes the gun aside.

“That’s Snag Thorn!” grits Windy.

“Lemme nail him, Hashknife. Dirty rustler.”

“Betcha the whole gang are scattered around here,” says I.

“Wait a minute,” cautions Hashknife. “Plenty of time to kill him.”

“My ----! Look!” wails Windy. “There’s Mary Jane!”

We gets a glimpse of her on the side of that cliff, beyond the angle of where Snag Thorn is crawling, and she’s coming down. We can see her plain for a moment and then she goes down behind the angle of the rocks.

“Snag’s sneaking up on her!” gasps Windy. “The dirty pup!”

“----!” grunts Hashknife. “He likely don’t know she’s anywhere near here. Watch up the hill. Keep looking up toward where Snag is going.”

The three of us searches every sign on the side of the hill and all to once Windy says: “I see a man. See that V-shaped pinnacle, with the point stickin’ out the side? Look right in below that. See him? Look--he’s movin’ around!”

Hashknife’s rifle jerks to his shoulder and shoots twice.

“My ----!” yelps Windy. “You’ve hit him! Some shootin’!”

“Come on,” snaps Hashknife.

We went down off that rock like three squirrels and went ducking and dodging straight for where we seen Snag, but there ain’t a bullet coming our way. We’re halfway across to the rock when we hears a gun, but Hashknife don’t stop.

The three of us went around the corner of that cliff, and there stands Snag Thorn with his back to us, and he’s nursing his right hand. Against the side of the cliff stands Mary Jane, her hair hanging down, her hat gone and her dress is all torn and dirty. Her face is as white as chalk, and I thought she might ’a’ got hit. Neither of them sees us, although Snag ain’t twenty feet away.

Then Snag says:

“I thought it was you. I seen yuh in town--just a glimpse, but I remembered yuh, and when your horse ran away with yuh----”

“Oh!” says Mary Jane, “I w-wish I hadn’t shot you--I--I----”

“I tried to find yuh in Frisco,” says Snag. “I lost the address and I-- But it don’t matter, I reckon.”

Snag looks down at his hand.

“Yuh see the Circle Dot says I’m a rustler and my dad and your uncle killed each other, and--I’ll help yuh get home safe, Miss Haley--if your men won’t fill me full of lead on my way out.”

“Have they been shooting at you?” she asks and he nods.

“Did you or your men shoot at me?”

“I came alone--and I didn’t shoot at you.”

“I thought it was your men,” says she. “I--I--that horse ran away with me and brought me up here. I was afraid to get off but after a while it stopped and I got off, and--and I didn’t have any bridle and I couldn’t catch it again.

“It got dark and I climbed up on top of the cliff and in the night I saw two men on horses ride past. I was afraid to call to them, but as I followed them--or rather went the way they did and heard them talking--I almost ran into them. There’s a cave up there, and they were talking something about somebody getting suspicious and about cow-tracks, and one of them said the best thing they could do was to either bluff it out or fight it out.

“I heard my name mentioned and Mr. Hartley’s, and--and I thought it was some of your men, and then one of them said: ‘Let’s bunch it. Nobody will ever know where we went, and they’ll never find this place in a thousand years.’”

“A cave?” asks Snag. “Up here?”

“Yes. It’s big enough to ride a horse into. One of the men said: ‘This sure has been easy pickings for us, but I made a big mistake when I missed that Hashknife person. He’s got too much _sabe_.’ And then the other one said: ‘Yes, you went too strong, I guess, and didn’t shoot straight enough.’

“I don’t know just what happened then, but I must have touched a loose rock, because it fell and made a lot of noise. I ran behind the rock and they went past me. Then I crept to the side of the hill, but they saw me and shot at me. I just remembered that I still had a gun and I shot. I don’t think I hit anybody and then I managed to get here and climb up on that rock. I--I think they shot several times at me, but it all seemed like nightmare, and then I--I shot at you.”

“So did they,” said Snag, foolish-like.

* * * * *

Mary Jane leans back against the rock and begins to weep. I starts to go over to her but Hashknife yanks me back. Snag walks over to her and pats her on the shoulder, kinda bashful-like, and says:

“Gosh, don’t do that! I’m all right and you found the place where they drifted all those cows, and we’ll find the rustlers.”

“Bub-but I shot you,” wails Mary Jane. “I--I don’t know how I happened to hit you. You saved my life that n-night in San Francisco, and I wanted to th-thank you, but I shot----”

“Aw, that’s all right,” says Snag, foolish-like. “You can shoot me any old time yuh feel like it.”

Wasn’t that a ---- of a thing for a growed-up man to say?

“Duck!” says Hashknife, and the three of us went down like prairie-dogs when a hawk shows up.

“What was it?” whispers Windy, cocking his gun.

“Arrows,” says Hashknife, and then he takes me by the arm and leads me away, with Windy sneaking along behind.

Hashknife takes us ’way down among the rocks and then stops.

“Arrows?” asks Windy. “Whatcha mean?”

Just then we sees Mary Jane and Snag come down around the side of the cliff. They stops and looks off across the country, and then they starts off down among the rocks, and Snag and Mary Jane are hanging on to each other’s hand.

“Arrows?” asks Windy again.

“Cupid,” explains Hashknife. “Little feller, who don’t wear no pants. Shoots a bow and arrow.”

“You’re loco,” grunts Windy, and then we follers Hashknife up to where we saw the man spill into the rocks. Windy looks at Hashknife, but don’t say a word, and then we went down and helped Hashknife find the other one.

“My ----” says Windy. “Did yuh know who they was, Hashknife?”

“Sure. I had a good idea right off the reel, but I wasn’t sure until I got shot at down on Cow Crick, after I told Bowers I was goin’ over to the Bar 20. Did you ever hear of that cave?”

“Nope,” replies Windy. “I don’t reckon anybody ever cared to pesticate around up there, ’cause I never heard there was any caves.”

“There had to be a way out,” states Hashknife. “I reckon that old crater must run plumb through into Bluff Lake Valley, and they runs a few head of steers through at a time. Likely run in a few at a time and held them up in the rocks until they has enough to make a drive. I knowed the answer was up here, ’cause Baldy got shot here, and somebody bawled him out for bein’ on Circle Dot Range. They kept the two ranches fightin’ each other, while they stole from both.”

“I wonder,” says Windy, sad-like. “I wonder if Snag and Mary Jane----”

“Kinda looks thataway,” nods Hashknife. “And the sheriff’s office ain’t got no keeper and Blubber won’t ever have to get his adenoids cut out,” says I.

“Well,” says Windy, “I reckon it’s all right for Snag to get Mary Jane. I like her fine, yuh understand. Yeah, I like her better than any girl I ever seen, but she’s too danged good for me. I--I never said anythin’ to her--never intended to, yuh understand? Why, if she was to ask me to marry her I’d have to refuse. Yessir, I’d have to. What would you do in a case like that, Hashknife?”

“Just like you would, you ---- liar,” says Hashknife, and we went down through the Devil’s Dooryard without further comment.