The Round-Up

  THE ROUND-UP

  by Clarence E. Mulford

  Hopalong Cassidy #24

  P.F. Collier & Son Corporation 1933

  Scanned and Proofed by Highroller and RyokoWerx

  CHAPTER I

  BOB CORSON, owner of the JC ranch, and sheriff of Cactus County, had been over near Bentley, on the Old California Trail, serving a writ. The task performed, he slipped his badge into a pocket and headed back toward town, intending to go home over the regular wagon road. Reaching the mouth of Lucas Arroyo, he remembered that he had not been through it and along the old, abandoned trail, since a boy. He and his father had followed it, camped for the night at Packers Gap, and finished the ride the following day.

  Curiosity made him hesitate. Knowledge that he would save a few miles by taking the old trail decided the matter. He was anxious to get back to the ranch and on to the JC wagon. Round-up conditions this spring were different from what they had ever been before, and he wanted to keep in touch with his outfit.

  He found the trail in fair condition and was a little surprised to see that it was still being used considerably. Two miles below the Gap he struck the first steep pitch and remembered it well. Close at hand, if his memory served him fairly, there should be a draw cutting in from the right. He rode on and soon came to it. A well-defined trail led up it. This was new to him, and he followed it with his eyes. He saw the gate of a corral, and back of it, in the mouth of a little side draw, the upper part of the front of an adobe house. Fate at that moment took a hand in his affairs. His horse picked up a stone, and he had nothing with him for its dislodgment, not even his knife.

  There was one thing to do, and only one. He dismounted and led the animal at a walk toward the distant building, and was halfway there when the door opened and a young woman stood framed by the casing. She seemed to be watching him intently. At that distance he thought her to be pretty, and each moment of progress made the thought more definite. She was pretty in figure, color, and features. He found himself smiling as he neared the door; and he was pleased, somehow, by the answering smile.

  "Your horse is lame," she said, practically, sympathetically. "Stone?"

  "Yes. Picked it up just below. I haven't a thing to get it out with. Even left my knife home."

  "There's a box of tools in th' kitchen," she said, stepping back from the door as an invitation for him to enter.

  The invitation given and understood, they remained as they were, looking at each other. Brown hair, and brown eyes. The figure had a moderate robustness that pleased him; it was sensible, strong, and sturdy. One experience with a delicate woman, his stepmother, had given him very definite ideas on this subject. He felt his face grow warm, and was guilty of a little tingle as he saw the blood deepen the color of her throat and cheeks. The horse moved restlessly and pressed against him.

  "I'll look th' tools over," he said.

  There was nothing coy about her, nothing affected. Her eyes did not evade him, and she faced him squarely. Her color deepened still more, and her eyes were glad. Without a word she turned and led the way.

  He found the hook he knew would be in the tool box, and in a moment the stone was out. He stepped forward to put the tool where he had found it, but she smiled and held out her hand for it. Their fingers touched, and blood again surged into their faces. They made a pair to draw to.

  "That's a beautiful horse," she said, looking over his shoulder at the restless and mettlesome animal.

  "Yes, he is; he's near as good as th' roan," gravely answered Corson. "His mother came from below the Rio Grande, and his father is blooded stock."

  "You're sure he's all right? All right to be ridden right away?"

  "Yes." He glanced around slowly and curiously. "I didn't know anyone lived up here; but then, th' last time I was through here was years ago."

  "This is the JM," she volunteered, a little hesitantly, and with the barest suggestion of defiance. Her lips compressed a little, and a vague expression came into her eyes, an expression which sobered him. It suggested fear.

  Corson was a hard-boiled cowman, a good mixer, handy with gun, rope or cards; and a relentless peace officer. Where women were concerned he was a gentleman. If his presence bothered her, and now it looked that way, he knew what to do. He nodded, thanked her, and swung into the saddle. He picked his hat off the pommel and turned the horse. For a moment their eyes met, and there was something in hers that hurt him.

  He touched a heel to the bay's flank, and was riding past the corral gate almost before he knew it. He turned to the right when he came to the arroyo, crossed the Gap and the main road beyond it without more than noticing them. He reached and followed the river and had passed Green Canyon before he remembered that the round-up crew and wagon lay in the other direction.

  The Kiowa was low, and in some places not ankle deep. There had been no freshets to stir up the soft bottom, and a man could cross it almost any place without danger from quicksands. A glance at the sun told him that he could get to the wagon before dark if he rode hard; but he would have to cross the intervening hills and ridges by canyon trails, rough, steep, and tortuous, and the horse had covered more than its share of miles. He shook his head and followed the river. Just south of the Bar W ranch houses he cut close to the hill and turned up Coppermine Canyon. It was not long before the little town of Willow Springs came into sight, and he was practically home.

  He passed the hotel, the stores, and the frame bank building, stopping finally before the Cheyenne, the rendezvous of the range. The proprietor and bartender grinned as the sheriff stepped through the door, slid the bar cloth from the right to the left hand, and kept up the senseless polishing.

  " 'Lo, Bob," he said. "Reckoned you was roundin' up."

  " 'Lo, Steve," grunted Corson, absently, dropping into a convenient chair. He studied his boots without seeing them, and then, glancing around the room, looked at the placid bartender.

  "You ever hear of th' JM?" he asked, casually.

  "No," answered Steve, showing interest. "What have they up an' done?"

  "Nothin'."

  "Huh!" said Steve, speculatively.

  A horseman clattered past the door, a curling finger of dust drifting in through the opening. The distant and mournful squeak of a wagon sounded loudly in the silence. Steve meticulously straightened three piles of sacked tobacco on the back bar and slapped lazily at a loudly buzzing fly.

  Corson abruptly arose, turned on a heel, and stalked from the room. The sharp, sudden beat of hoofs told of his departure. Steve closed his mouth, gently scratched above an ear, and shook his head suddenly. Something was in the wind, and he would keep his ears cocked.

  Out on the JC ranch Shorty was arguing with the cook, both draped lazily on the wash bench just outside the bunkhouse door, when Corson rode into their sight on the Willow Springs trail.

  "Bob," said Shorty.

  "Yeah," said the cook.

  "Been to town," said Shorty.

  "Yeah," said the cook. He brightened suddenly. "He can tell us somethin' about this new-fangled round-up."

  "Yeah," said Shorty, and continued the argument.

  Corson kept on past the ranch house and the bunkhouse, unsaddled at the corral gate, turned the horse into the enclosure, and walked slowly toward the bunkhouse, lugging his heavy saddle.

  "How they comin'?" asked Shorty, curiously.

  "Who?" demanded his boss.

  "Th' wagon. Th' round-up. What th' hell you reckon I mean?"

  "Don't know."

  "You don't know?"

  "No. Been off servin' a writ."

  "Sheriffin' don't amount to much these days," volunteered the cook, pessimistically. "It's all paper work, now. There was a time when it was mostly lead."

 
"Yeah? That so?" snorted Shorty. He had vivid recollections of several jobs handled by the sheriff's office not too long ago, when the only paper involved might have been gun-wadding; only nobody used that kind of guns any more.

  "Shorty," said the sheriff, "you ever hear of th' JM?"

  "Cows or cigars?"

  "Cows!"

  "Needn't go on th' prod. No, I ain't never heard of it." He studied the solemn countenance of his boss and best friend. "Why?"

  "Nothin'," said Corson, executing an about-face and walking off toward the ranch house without another word.

  Shorty stared after him and then slowly turned his head and regarded the cook with triumph.

  "Mostly paper work, huh?" he said, with quiet satisfaction. Again he watched the ranchman until the ranch-house door hid him from sight. He nodded wisely and slowly got up from the bench to wrangle in the night horses.

  Suppertime came and went without Corson putting in an appearance. This was against his custom, for he usually ate in the bunkhouse. The light in the kitchen went out earlier than usual, but the glow of a cigarette on the back porch told Shorty that his boss had not turned in. When the boss herded by himself like that, after dark, it could be taken as an omen and a portent. Mostly paper work, huh?

  When the cook shouted his breakfast call in the morning it was not answered from the ranch house, and a glance at the corral showed one saddle horse missing. Corson's saddle was not on the rack.

  The horse that was missing was the bay, a first-class cow horse, a well-trained cutting-out horse, shod especially for that kind of work. Shorty knew how well his boss liked that horse and he had stall-fed it the night before, instead of turning it out on the range, on the off chance that Corson might want to go on to the wagon and join the boys in working the cattle. Shorty turned and went back toward the bunkhouse to continue the argument with the cook.

  CHAPTER II

  IT WAS the seventeenth day of the round-up, and Corson knew that the JC wagon should be up on Jimmy Branch, near the alkali holes. The outfit was working the country west of the brakes, having already cleaned up the western part of their allotted section.

  It was the first year of the Cattlemen's Association and, therefore, the first round-up run under its supervision. In this section alone there were nine wagons out this spring, and the range was being combed as it never had been combed before. At most, the number of stray men in previous years with his wagon had been four; this year the number was eight, and he had the same number of JC representatives with the other outfits, a man to each wagon.

  He followed the trail which led from the JC ranch houses up through Horsethief Gap, climbed up the long slope on the north side of Saddle Pass, and dropped swiftly down the steep pitch leading to the alkali ponds. It would be good to join the boys and work with them again, good to keep his hand in with horse, rope, and iron. He was riding the best cutting-out horse on the ranch, especially shod for the hard, fast work with range cattle. The animal was not young, not as good cutting-out horses went, but its forefeet were swift and sure, its shoulders flexible. It was still good for a considerable number of years at this hard and punishing work.

  Around the shoulder of the ridge, just east of the holes, he located the looked-for dust cloud. The chuck-wagon, he knew, would be at a little spring on a feeder to the branch. He came to the fork of the trail and followed the road leading to the Turkey Track, Owen French's ranch to the east. French had been assigned the country east and north of his home ranch, which included the desert stretch. Most of his gathers necessarily would be light, and while he had more country to cover than any other wagon working the range, it was much flatter.

  Corson rode around the shoulder of the ridge and saw the wagon halfway up the little draw. The great circle of riders was cleaning up the basin, and had constricted about halfway. Cattle were popping out of the draws and thickets before its advance. The day herd, off to the right, was being held on the far side of the draw by two men; and a beef herd, all JC steers for the filling of an unexpected order, was farther up the draw, with two men holding it in loose formation.

  He dismounted at the wagon, tossed the reins over his mount's head, and nodded to the cook.

  "Howd'y, sheriff," said that important person, deftly slicing a number of steaks from a hindquarter of beef on the tailboard. He silently counted them, his lips moving, glanced speculatively at the JC owner, and forthwith cut off two more.

  Corson passed between two sizzling Dutch ovens and seated himself cross-legged on the sand in the scant shade of the chuckwagon. It was like old times, and he was eager to take part in the afternoon's work and to get his rope arm limbered up. The calf round-up was the highlight of the whole year's work, and its tally sheets would tell a man pretty near where he stood in his business. Up north a man had to cut hay all summer and stack it against the winter's demands ; down here the cattle rustled for themselves all year around. Both ranges had spasmodic outbursts of cattle-stealing; but, he chuckled, that sort of thing had been cleaned up and stopped in his country and county.

  "I see th' boys are workin' right to th' schedule," he said, his eyes on the distant, dust-wreathed slope.

  "Yeah; an' so am I," growled the cook, with the traditional range cook's pessimism.

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. Great Gawd, Corson! Eight stray men to feed, three times a day. An' eat! I suspicion they never had a square meal between 'em till they hooked onto this here wagon."

  "You oughta have lots of help, an' have things right easy, with eight men to bully," countered the JC owner. "Let's see, now: no firewood to rustle, no dishes to wash, no water to tote; an' a man as wise as you are shoulda broken one of 'em into gettin' th' breakfast fires goin' so you can sleep a few minutes longer in th' mornin'."

  The cook's answering grin forthwith pleaded him guilty on all four counts.

  "Th' boys turned up a new brand," he said, adding fuel to the third oven. He glanced at his alarm clock and fell to putting lard into the ovens. It sizzled and crackled at a furious rate and the cook scraped away some of the glowing embers.

  "That so?" asked Corson quickly, his questioning gaze on the placid cook.

  "Yeah," said the cook. "Yesterday, over in Bull Canyon," he amplified. "Nueces was figgerin' on sendin' in a man with th' news, if you didn't show up today."

  "Bull Canyon," mused Corson thoughtfully. If he had taken the right-hand trail at the fork, instead of the one leading east to the Turkey Track, he would have passed the mouth of the canyon. "What's th' brand, George?" he asked.

  "Hoss-shoes."

  "Horseshoes?"

  "Yeah; but they warn't on no cattle," said the cook, realizing his importance.

  "Horses?" asked Corson, a little mystified.

  "Nope. On th' ground."

  "What you drivin' at?" demanded the sheriff, shortly and a little brusquely.

  "Why, they found forty-two yearlin' steers holed up in th' canyon. Slick-ear mavericks, all of 'em. There was two down trees acrost that narrow place, that closed it tight; an' there was hoss-shoe tracks in that soft dirt near th' spring."

  Corson glanced at the alarm clock, found that it was facing away from him, and pulled out his watch. Verifying this by a glance at the sun, he again leaned back against the wagon.

  "Seems like we musta been right careless in our round-ups," he said. "Last year we musta been extra careless."

  "You figger they're all JC critters?" asked the cook, popping steaks into the furiously noisy grease.

  "Huh! That's right," admitted Corson, slowly. "Nueces recognize any of 'em?"

  "Nope; but that don't mean nothin' definite."

  "Shore. I know that; but sometimes a man sees a critter that he's seen before."

  The moving circle of riders out in the basin was now drawn close, the herd loosely gathered in the center of it. One rider flung up his arm. The circle stopped. The horse wrangler began to bunch up his herd a little. The cook began to slice bread and pile it on three plates on the tailb
oard. Corson arose, vaulted into the saddle, and rode at a walk to meet the incoming rider.

  Nueces grinned cheerfully, wiping dust and sweat from one side of his face to the other.

  " 'Lo, Bob."

  " 'Lo, Nueces. Heavy gather."

  The boss of the wagon and foreman of the JC glanced over his shoulder at the herd behind him and nodded briskly.

  "Yeah. Been havin' heavy gathers right along. I got th' beef cut out, over yonder. Reckon I'll have a couple of th' boys start it in for th' ranch after dinner. Sooner I get it off my hands, th' more riders I'll have. I shore need them two fellers."

  "Good idea. Throw 'em into th' big pasture."

  "Yeah," grunted Nueces, who was also a deputy sheriff and a good one. There was a rumor that the new Cattlemen's Association wanted to use him in another specialized capacity. "After dinner, Bob, me an' you'll take a little ride. We didn't bother 'em when we found 'em, because we wanted you to see how nice they was holed up. Be a damn' shame to slap th' Association brand on that bunch. In th' old days we woulda divided 'ern up between us an' the Turkey Track an' th' Bar W. Accordin' to th' breeds, we oughta divide 'em between us an' th' Bar W. Don't know but it would be a good idear to do it anyhow. Most of th' stray men feel that way about it."

  "Mavericks will carry th' Association brand," said Corson. "We accepted th' new rules, an' I helped to make 'em. So did th' Bar W an' th' Turkey Track. You recognize any of 'em?"

  Nueces shook his head.

  "No; but that don't mean a thing," he growled.

  "There's a hull lot of cattle on this range that I've never seen, or would know again if I had seen 'em."

  "Any of th' stray men recognize 'em?" persisted Corson, with deep interest.

  "Yeah," answered Nueces, slowly. "That Baylor Ranch rider says he's right shore of three of 'em. Wanted to slap th' BLR onto th' hull bunch." He laughed sarcastically. "I up an' handed him a two-bit piece as a medal for bein' th' galliest hombre north of th' Rio Grande. He got mad an' thrun it on th' ground. There was just enough Scotch in me to pick it up ag'in."