Chapter 9

"In one country after the next they've hit the toboggan whenever they got to feeling too strong. If you line up against me that time has come again. If I get potted from the brush I've hedged it so that those boys that filed over there won't be left in the lurch. There'll be a reward of a thousand dollars hung up for the scalp of each of fifteen men whose names I gathered while I was prowling round--reliable men to carry on what I've begun; and marshals thicker than flies to protect the homestead filings on the Three Bar."

"Then it might be bad policy to bushwhack you," Harper observed.

"You can go your own gait," Harris said. "As long as you lay off Three Bar cows. You invited me one time to come down to your hangout in the Breaks. I won't ever make that visit unless you call on the Three Bar first; then, just out of politeness, I'll ride over at the head of a hundred men."

"Then it don't look as if we'd get anywhere, visiting back and forth," Harper said.

"Now don't think I'm throwing a bluff or threatening; I'm just telling you. You could recite a number of things that could happen to me in return--all of 'em true. I'm just counting that you've got brains and can see it's not going to help either one of us to get lined up wrong. What do you say--shall we call it hands off between the Three Bar and you?"

The albino half-closed his eyes, the pale eyeballs glittering through the slit of his lids as he reflected on this proposition, tapping a careless finger on his knee. He glanced absent-mindedly toward the bar, his thoughts wholly occupied with the matter in hand. A pair of eyes that gazed back at him drew his own and he found himself looking at Bentley, the man who repped with the Three Bar for Slade. The albino's suspicions were as fluid and easily roused as those of a beast of prey in a dangerous neighborhood. With one of those quick shifts of which his mind was capable he concentrated every mental effort toward linking Bentley with some unpleasant episode of the past. The man had turned away and Harper could only sense a vague feeling that he was dangerous to him, without definite point upon which to base his suspicions. At the sound of Harris's voice his mind made another lightning shift back to the present.

"Well?" Harris asked.

"Why, if I had anything to do with it, like you seem to think, I'd advise against our bucking each other," Harper said. "I'd try to get along--and declare hands off." He rose, nodded to the two men and returned to the stud game.

"He'll do it too," Evans predicted. "There's that much fixed anyway--not a bad piece of work."

The two men returned to the bar and Brill moved close to Harris. For fifteen years he had stood behind that bar and observed the men of the whole countryside at their worst--and best; and he knew men. As well as if he had heard the words of the three at the table he knew that Harris and Harper had reached an agreement of some sort that was satisfactory to both.

"Take the boys over a drink on me," Harris said, and Brill slid a bottle and five whisky glasses on to a tray and moved over to the table.

"Here's a drink on the Three Bar boss," he announced.

Lang scowled, remembering the recent occasion when Harris had ordered them off.

"To hell with----" he commenced, but the albino cut him short.

"Drink it," he said.

Ten minutes later the five men rose to go. Harris looked at his watch.

"I'm off," he said to Evans. "Try and get the boys home by to-morrow morning if it's possible."

He went outside and mounted as the five rustlers swung to their saddles.

"I'm going your way as far as the forks," he said to Harper.

The Three Bar men were treated to the sight of their foreman riding down the road beside Harper at the head of four of the worst ruffians in the State.

And behind the bar Brill moved softly back and forth when not serving drinks, pausing opposite first one group and then the next to dab at the polished wood with his cloth, listening carefully to the conversation and gauging it to determine whether the apparent sentiment toward the squatter foreman was sincere or would prove different when the men, flushed with undiluted rye, were unrestrained by his presence. At one end of the bar Evans and Bentley conversed together in low tones but whenever Brill strolled casually to their end the conference lagged. The few sentences which reached his ears were of trivial concern.

IX

There was a new contentment in the eyes of the Three Bar girl as she sat her horse beside Carlos Deane and looked off down the bottoms. A haze of smoke drifted above the little valley of the Crazy Loop. Three mule outfits were steadily ripping up the sage flats. Men lifted the uprooted brush on forks and piled it for the burning. The two rode down to the fields with the pungent sage smoke drifting in their faces. Harris joined them, a smudge of fire-black across his forehead, and swept his arm across the stretch of plowed ground.

"Can you picture that covered with a stand of alfalfa hay?" he asked.

The girl nodded.

"Yes--and cut and cured and in the stack yards," she said. "And a straight red run of Three Bar cows wintering under fence."

Harris wondered if her new contentment came wholly from the progress the Three Bar was making or was derived partly from the presence of Carlos Deane. Each man had recognized the other as a contender for the love of the Three Bar girl and during the two days of Deane's stay each one had been covertly sizing and estimating the caliber of the other man.

"The opposite faction hasn't succeeded in wrecking the Three Bar up to date," Deane said. "It's probable they see you're too strong for them."

"It's hard to wreck plowed ground," Harris pointed out. "And that's all they have to work on right now; not a fence to tear up, a stack to fire or any growing crops to trample down. All they can do right now is to wait. It must be wearing. But sooner or later they'll show their teeth."

For a month prior to Deane's arrival Harris had been occupied from dawn till dark with the details of the new work. The wagons had made a week's trip to the railroad to freight in more implements and supplies. A hundred acres of plowed ground lay mellowing under the sun. Five miles back up the slope of the hills two men worked in a valley of lodgepole pine, felling, trimming and peeling sets of matched logs for the cabins that must be erected on each filing. The cowhands were out working the range in pairs, branding late-dropped calves and moving drifted stock back to the home range. Forty white-face bulls had been trail-herded from the railroad and thrown out along the foot of the hills to replace the other bulls that had been rounded up and brought in. These old stags now grazed in the big pasture lot until such time as the beef herd should be gathered and shipped. In a few more days the boys would come in from the range and gather at the home ranch, preparatory to going out once more on the beef round-up.

"I'm about to take a vacation," Harris said. "The ranger is coming over to mark out some more trees for us and to run the U. S. brand on the logs we've already cut. I'm going back up in the hills with him to sort out a valley or two for summer range."

"We don't need any extra range now," Billie said. "Why pay grazing fees before we need the room."

"Just to get our wedge in first," Harris explained. "We can get grazing permits on the Forest now--right in the best grass valleys. Each year we'll throw some cows up there to hold our rights. There'll always be good grass on the Forest Reserves for they won't permit overstocking. The day will come when we'll be glad to have permits to summer-feed a thousand or so head on the Forest. I was thinking maybe you and Deane would like to make the jaunt."

"We'll go," the girl decided.

"It's a question of time," Deane said. "How long will we be gone?"

"We'll start in an hour or two," Harris said. "Just as soon as Wilton turns up. We'll only be gone five days at the most."

"Then I'll stretch my stay to cover it," Deane accepted. "I'd certainly hate to pass up a chance for a trip in the hills."

"We'll ride back and make up an extra bed roll," Harris said. "Then we'll be all set to start when Wilton shows up."

Calico had sidled off the plowing and was cropping the grass at the edge of it. As Harris moved toward him Evans rode down the right-hand slope and the three waited for him.

"Moore and I were working in close and I thought I'd ride over to tell you that the wild bunch has lost a veteran," he said. "Some one put Barton out over in the Breaks."

Barton, whose name was linked with that of Harper, had been found with a rifle ball through his chest. His own gun, found by his out-stretched hand, had showed one blackened cylinder, the empty shell sufficient proof that he had fired a single shot at his assailant.

"Anyway, he had a chance to see who got him," Lanky philosophized. "He was likely ordered to turn round--given a fighting chance maybe."

The girl could find no sorrow in her heart over the passing of Barton but there was an uneasy feeling deep within her,--a vague suspicion that she should be able to pronounce the killer's name. This elusive thought was crowded from her mind when the ranger rode up to the Three Bar accompanied by Slade, each man leading a pack horse.

"Slade's going to look over a little territory up on the Forest," Wilton explained. "So we can get it all done on one trip."

There was no way to avoid this unexpected addition to their party. Harris and the ranger packed the three bed rolls and Billie's teepee along with the necessary equipment and in half an hour the little cavalcade filed up a gulch back of the Three Bar, the ranger in the lead with his pack horse. The other pack animals followed and the three other men and the girl brought up the rear in single file. By noon they made the first rims and followed over into a rolling country, heavily timbered in the main. In the early evening they rode out on to a low divide and Blind Valley showed below them, a broad expanse of open grassland. A little stream threaded the bottoms and its winding course was marked by thickets of birch. In places it disappeared under the leafy tunnels of aspen groves, their pale silvery trunks and leaves contrasting with the heavy blue-green of an occasional water-spruce. In a narrowing of the valley it was choked from wall to wall by a cottonwood jungle, opening out once more into wide meadows immediately below the neck. Long open parks extended their tongues well back up the timbered sidehills.

"Feed!" Harris said. "Feed. Worlds of it."

They angled down the slope and struck the rank grass of the bottoms,--mountain hay in which the horses stood knee-deep. They made camp at the mouth of a branching canyon, just within the timber. The ranger threw the horses up this side gulch while Harris felled a dead pine and kindled a fire. When the ranger returned he picketed one horse in the heavy grass while Slade pitched Billie's teepee under a spruce. The meal was finished, dishes washed and the five sat round a fire.

Harris sensed Deane's attitude toward it all for he knew something of the other man's way of life. Those with whom Deane was thrown most in contact were careful of appearances. It was unheard-of in his code that a girl should jaunt for days accompanied by four men. Here appearances seemed entirely disregarded and no one gave the matter a thought.

The moon swung over the ridges and shed its radiance over Blind Valley. Deane motioned to Billie and the girl rose and followed him to the edge of the timber where they sat on a blow-down.

"Billie, let me take you away from all this," he urged. "All this hard riding and rough man's work. Let me give you the things that will shut out all the hardships. What's the use of going on like this?"

The girl was conscious of a vague sense of disappointment. Deane was an active figure in the business life of his own community and she had felt some pride in the fact that when he should come to the Three Bar he would find that she too was doing real work in the world. She reflected that his attitude was that of so many other men, his idea of love synonymous with shelter for the object of it, and his main plea was that of providing her with shelter against all the rough corners of life. Shelter! And what she wanted was to be part of things--to have a hand in running her own affairs. It came to her that of all men perhaps Slade understood her the best.

"I don't want shelter!" she said. "And I can't think of anything else till after the Three Bar is a going concern."

The voices of the three men round the fire drifted to them.

"Listen," she urged.

"Blind Valley ought to summer-feed three hundred head," the ranger was saying. "I'll recommend permits for that many cows."

"That'll suit me," Slade nodded. "I'll put in application through you?"

"Not if I can help it you won't," Harris said. "Why should you have permits right in the back yard of the Three Bar with all the rest of the hills open to you? There's a natural lead right down to the corrals; divides to form wings. It's up to Wilton, of course, but I'm going to make application to graze Blind Valley myself. They'll allow whichever one he recommends."

"Harris has first call," the ranger stated mildly. "This is the logical range for his stuff--this and one or two others right close. We can fix you up in a dozen other good grass countries further on, Slade, if it's all the same."

Slade nodded agreement. The ranger had authority to recommend the issuing of permits and his superiors would not go contrary to his suggestions in any but exceptional cases--certainly not in this matter. Slade's eyes turned frequently toward the two figures on the log, silhouetted against the white of the moonlit meadow, and his slashed mouth set in disapproval. Harris noted this and smiled as it occurred to him that Slade's views on the subject of Deane's appropriating the girl for himself were about on a par with Deane's ideas relative to her touring the hills with four men.

The two came back and sat with the others round the dying fire, then all turned in for the night, Billie in her teepee and the men in their bed rolls with no other overhead shelter than the trees. In less than an hour Harris raised on one elbow. The ranger woke just as Harris slipped from his bed roll and tugged on his chaps. The steady thud of hoofs had penetrated each man's consciousness and apprised him of the fact that the horses were coming down.

Wilton closed his eyes as Harris departed to head them back. Three times during the night Deane was roused as one or the other of the three men left his bed roll to frustrate an attempt of the horses to make a break for home. Near morning he was once more wakened by a clammy dampness on his face. A fine drizzle was falling. Slade was on his feet, shoving a few sticks of wood inside the flap of Billie's teepee.

In the first gray light of morning Harris was up and slicing shavings from the few dry sticks Slade had so thoughtfully tucked away. Breakfast was cooked under the dripping trees. The ranger was soaked to the knees as he waded through the tall grass to the picketed horse. He saddled him and went up-country after the other horses. The outfit was packed up and the little procession filed away toward the next valley--and Carlos Deane proved his real caliber to Harris.

Throughout the day they rode in a fine drizzle; in the timber the wet branches whipped them and sprayed water down the necks of their slickers; in the boggy meadows of the bottoms the mosquitoes hovered round them in humming swarms. The horses stamped, shook their heads angrily and switched their tortured flanks with dripping tails till at last the men greased their noses, eyes and flanks to protect the animals from the singing horde. When they dismounted to lead their horses up precipitous game trails leading to the crest of some divide Deane's Angora chaps flapped like dead weights and seemed to drag him back. From the lofty ridges they gazed down upon white clouds floating in the valleys; and at night they made camp and slept in damp bed rolls with the clammy mist chilling them. The next day was the same.

Harris knew that a man might evidence great courage in the face of danger, risk his life in the heat of excitement, but that the true test of iron control is to experience grinding discomfort and smile. Deane's neck was raw and chafed from the wet neckband of his flannel shirt and his hands and cheeks were puffed with the bites of the buzzing pests. But Deane had been cheerful throughout and had uttered no complaint.

Toward evening of the second gloomy day Harris rode up beside him.

"You'll do," he said.

"How's that?" Deane asked.

"There's maybe one man out of every two hundred that can go along like this and not get to blaming every one in sight for what's happening to him. I don't know as I'd have blamed you any if you'd been cussing us all out for the past two days."

Deane laughed and shook his head.

"I've been rather enjoying it," he said.

"You're just a plain, old-fashioned liar, Deane," Harris returned. "You haven't been enjoying it any more than the rest of us--which is mighty little; but you've got insides enough to let on like it's considerable sport--which is a whole lot."

"No one else has done any beefing," Deane said. "So why should I?"

"This is everyday business with us," Harris pointed out. "And right unusual for you. There's likely a number of things you do every day back your way, but that doesn't signify that I could amble back there and perform as well as you."

"I suspect you'd make out all right," Deane said. "Anyway--I'm much obliged for the endorsement."

They camped again in the drizzle but by noon of the following day the sun peeped through. In an hour every cloud and fog-bank had been dispersed with a rapidity which is seen only in the hill country. The ranger pulled up his horse as they struck a game trail in the saddle of a low divide. A bunch of shod horses had been over it a few hours past.

"Some of the albino's layout," Wilton surmised. "They cross through here to that camp of theirs down in the Breaks. I've run across their trails up here before."

They rode out on to a spur and looked down on the low country. Slade and the ranger were going on, the others returning to the Three Bar. Harris pointed to the country spread out below them.

"That's the Breaks," he told Deane. "I'll point out the albino's stronghold."

"While they're looking I want to talk to you," Slade said to Billie.

"Let's get together," he said, when the others had passed on. "Why are you so dead set on making a squatter outfit of the Three Bar? Don't you know the nesters will flock in here and cut the range all up as soon as they see a chance?"

"Not my range," she said. "Outside of the V L and the Halfmoon D there's not another site they can get water for, except maybe a couple of spring gulches where flood reservoirs will hold back enough to water a forty. So we'll still control our home range."

"But there's a dozen sites down in my range," he said.

"And a dozen small outfits wouldn't run any more cows than you do now," she said. "At least not on my range; so what difference will it make to me? Why don't you have men file on all those sites?"

"You can't make a contract that will hold a man to turn over his homestead after it's proved up," he said. "Half of them would keep their land."

"Of course," she agreed. "But then you'd have half instead of nothing at all. Do you want the world?"

"I want you!" he said. "Throw in with me, girl. I'm going to fight these nesters off--the Three Bar among the rest if you don't quit. I'll smash the Three Bar into mincemeat unless you run this damned Harris off and quit this game."

It was the first time Slade had ever threatened. Her spirits had soared over the prospects of the Three Bar and she was suddenly afraid for her brand if Slade, who had whittled down a dozen outfits at once, should suddenly turn his whole attention to the Three Bar.

"I've got it to do," Slade stated. "Since you've started this deal there's been nesters filed papers on every good site in my range, waiting to rush in as soon as I lose my grip. Do you think I'll let them crowd me out? Not in a thousand years! I'm telling you--I'll break the Three Bar if you keep it up."

"All right!" she said. "And what about the homestead laws?"

"I'm the law out here," he asserted.

It came to her that Slade was fighting on the defensive, that he feared to let the Three Bar succeed and set up a precedent in defiance of the signs that dotted the range.

"Then it's war!" she said. "And you'll go under yourself, from your own size, if you haven't the judgment to hedge yourself now like the rest. The Three Bar is going ahead--and we're going to win."

She turned her horse but Slade caught her arm and whirled her around. He jerked a thumb at the two men down the ridge.

"What can Deane, a half-baked boy, give you?" he demanded. "Money--and trinkets to hang all over you till you flash like a Mexican's bridle; a flower garden and a soft front lawn to range in--and after a year or two you'd give your soul to trade it off for an acre of raw sage. You'd trade a castle full of glittering chandeliers for one hour at the round-up fire--your box at the opera for a seat on the ground with your back against the chuck-wagon wheel while the boys sang just one old song. I know! You'd soon get fed up on too much of that. You want an outfit of your own. I'll give you that--the biggest in the State."

She shook her head without answering.

"Then I'll break you," he predicted a second time. He drew a folded slip of paper from his pocket and held it out to her. "That's the exchange slip," he said. "It calls for three hundred odd head of mixed stuff. You can send yours over any time." He turned his horse and followed after the ranger while the girl joined Harris and Deane.

Harris had slipped the strap of his glasses and handed them to Deane who had dismounted and was peering off at the spot Harris had pointed out. A few scattered shacks, showing as toy houses from the distance, stood in the center of a broad open basin, sheltered on all sides by the choppy mass of the Breaks. A solid corral, almost a stockade, stood near the buildings and a few white points indicated that a teepee or two had been pitched along its edge.

"That's Arnold's stockade," Harris explained to Deane. "Arnold was an old-time rustler that finished at the end of a rope fifteen years ago. Now all the drifters in the country stop over here if they want a place to hole up."

Deane had been striving to fathom the attitude of a community where the thieves were known as such, their headquarters a matter of common knowledge, and yet allowed to carry on their trade.

"Can't the sheriff clean them out of there?" he asked.

"He could," Harris said. "But no man will make a complaint. They can rustle every steer in the country and the losers are afraid to make a report. Every outfit is supposed to protect its own. If Alden should ride up to almost any ranch within a hundred miles and ask them if they'd missed any stock in the last three years they'd shake their heads and swear that they hadn't lost a hoof. But the Three Bar has a clean page; we're not afraid he'll get a line on us while we're having him round up some one else. The first time we get a scrap of real evidence on any man we'll call Alden in."

"You told me the Three Bar herds have been cut in half," Deane said. "How much evidence do you need?"