Trail Dust Read online

  “That cavvy won’t be so very much scattered very long,” said Red. “Hosses like to drink, an’ th’ only water there is for ’em is in them little pools along th’ trail. That rill is too far south. It won’t be a terrible job to bunch ’em up an’ head ’em back.”

  Hearing no reply to his words, Red looked around and found that he had been talking to himself. He grinned and forthwith gave his attention to the scene down in the valley. Occasionally he searched the opposite hillside but could make out no watcher on its slope. However, he did see a man or two on the bench lift his head and look up in that direction.

  Johnny had done what he could do to expedite his entry into the action, and this had consisted of driving the pack horse off and leaving it side line hobbled in a deep little hollow surrounded with brush. Then he returned to his place and awaited Red’s arrival, steadily growing more impatient; but he was consoled by the thought that the action could not have begun, since he had heard no shots. Then he heard a well–known voice calling his name, and he swung quickly around.

  “Here, Hoppy. Over here,” he replied, and then for the first time heard sounds of human progress through the brush. He grinned as the trail boss pushed out into sight. “What’s th’ matter? Lose ’em?”

  “Found ’em,” grunted Hopalong. “Found ’em at home, settin’ on a bench as calm as if they never stole a hoss. Come on, Kid: want you to get close to their hosses an’ stay close. No shootin’ unless you have to. They got a lookout holed up on th’ hill behind th’ house, an’ he’s th’ only dangerous man in th’ crowd. We got to get him outa th’ way. That’s my job. Yore job is to stampede their hosses an’ run ’em off. Head ’em up toward th’ house so they’ll foller th’ trail back th’ way they come. After you get ’em started, Red’ll keep ’em goin’ till they’re around th’ bend an’ out of them fellers’ sight. While he’s doin’ that, you cut back this way, hit th’ valley above th’ bend, an’ keep them hosses goin’ till you get ’em back where th’ cavvy was scattered. Red an’ I’ll meet you there. But don’t you make a move with th’ hosses till after I take care of that lookout. When Red starts shootin’, that’s yore signal to start things.”

  Johnny nodded his understanding and was about to start for his new position when his companion checked him.

  “Where’s th’ pack hoss, Kid?”

  “Over yonder,” answered Johnny, waving a hand.

  “Show me,” ordered the trail boss. “Me or Red will have to pick him up—you won’t have time for that.”

  Johnny led the way to the little hollow and then, returning to his horse, mounted and rode southward, keeping well off ridges and high ground. He was glad that he had been told about the lookout.

  Hopalong slipped back to Red, making his approach known before showing himself.

  “Looks like we’re wastin’ a lot of time,” growled the red–headed sentry. “This fight coulda been half over by now.”

  “I shore wish you’d quit tryin’ to think!” retorted the trail boss. “You allus make a mess of it. Now you listen to me.”

  “All right,” sighed Red, with a vast and very apparent resignation.

  “Not a move outa you till after I get through on that hill over yonder,” ordered the trail boss. “An’ I won’t be all through till you hear me fire three shots as close together as I can put ’em. Then, an’ not before, you open up on that bench. You had a lot to say about four–inch groups—I don’t believe there’s a gun in th’ country can make groups like that at this distance. That don’t matter. I don’t care whether you hit ’em or miss ’em, as long as it’s close shootin’. All I want is to have ’em drove inside that house and kept there till I say to let ’em out. You savvy?”

  “They’ll be close, Hoppy: they’ll be right close because there ain’t no use gettin’ fancy an’ shootin’ at heads when I can pick a target six, eight times bigger. I’m figgerin’ to hold on th’ place where th’ middle shirt button oughta be. Anyhow, they’ll be close enough.”

  “All right,” said the trail boss, and then he carefully explained what Johnny was to do and how Red was to help him do it. They discussed other necessary angles for a few moments, and then, everything made clear, Hopalong slipped away to take care of the job he had given himself. It was a job he did not particularly fancy, but one which had to be done; and the reason it was there and had to be done was that cattle thieves themselves put it in front of a man and then forced him to do it. The rights, property, and lives of honest men on an open, trail were things to be safe–guarded. And so, with the determination to make and keep that trail safe, Hopalong faded into the brush and put his whole mind to the task in front of him.

  XVIII

  Hopalong proceeded on a roundabout course, keeping under the cover of the brush and every available hollow and ravine, moving steadily southward toward the jutting promontory which shut off the lower end of the main valley from the view of anyone at the house. He passed Johnny on the south and smiled at how well the Kid had concealed himself and his horse from anyone at the house. The Kid would make a good man—in fact, he was a good man already.

  Then Hopalong found the ground rising and made his cautious way up the increasing slope of the hill until he reached its crest. Here he flattened and waited while he scrutinized the country about him. Through an occasional small opening in the brush he could see the rear wall of the house, and he was glad that it had no windows. The ’dobe was a veritable jail. He moved on again, just below the top of the hill and on the farther side. From time to time he crept up to the crest and looked over it, searching the slope below him. It was on perhaps the sixth or seventh of these little side excursions that he saw what he was looking for: a man lying prone on a small shelf, snuggled down behind a boulder, hat on the ground beside him and his rifle resting across the rock. Here was the reason for the apparent carelessness of the men below; the reason which that carelessness had preached to an observing man.

  The trail boss could have killed the lookout from where he was, with one shot from a Colt. The power and accuracy of a big–calibered Colt are vastly underestimated by those who are not familiar with such a weapon. One shot would do it; but Hopalong was not a cold–blooded murderer. With all his hatred for cattle thieves, when face to face with such a deed he could not do it. He had taken life, and would take more lives before he died, but he would always accept the risk of an even break, of a fair chance, and depend solely upon his own expertness.

  Hopalong moved with cautious care, working over the crest and down the north slope, his eyes on the quiet watcher below him. Not a leaf rustled, not a twig snapped. Naturally enough, the thoughts of the man below were concerned with the territory in front of him and not with that behind him. He regarded his job as more or less a matter of form, a necessary safeguard, and his thoughts were turning more and more to what the cook was doing in the kitchen of the house below. He simply was standing his trick on guard.

  Hopalong deliberately shook a dead branch, its dry leaves rustling noisily. The warning thus given was a general one, and not a particular one, such as a shout would be. It simply gave notice that something was moving in the brush, and it served to make the lookout squirm around and look up toward the sound. While it did not tell him that an armed enemy was close to him, it did save him from that momentary shock of surprise which might slow his offensive action for a second or more. It put him squarely on an even footing with his danger.

  Then a twig snapped to his left, and he faced the new sound with one hand on his belt gun. As he touched it he saw a stranger step out into full view, also with hand on gun. The two men acted as one. The two shots sounded almost as one. The man above felt a sudden sting on an ear, and a clipped branch fell behind him; the man below folded up like a hinge and dropped against the boulder.

  Hopalong watched him for perhaps two seconds and then raised the still smoking gun and fired three quick shots into the air. He slipped back into cover, and as he did so he heard the heavy roar of Red
’s rifle, sudden shouting from below, and Red’s crashing second shot.

  The trail boss stood up and calmly and openly worked his way up the hill, serene in his confidence of Red’s marksmanship. Hurrying along the top of the ridge, he came to a place whence he could look down upon the six saddle horses, and smiled again.

  Johnny was after them, slapping with his quirt, shouting like a wild Indian and firing his Colt. The frightened animals bunched, milled for an instant, and then stampeded for the trail, with Johnny in close pursuit. The Kid followed them almost too far, as evidenced by the puff of dust in front of his horse and the angry song of a ricochet. Johnny swung his horse into a swift, short arc and raced off in a safe direction. He rode roundabout for the thrusting promontory and disappeared behind it. The stampeded horses kept on past the house, Red’s heavy bullets raising little puffs of dust at their heels. They knew the trail, and they kept to what they knew. In a few moments they swept out of sight around a bend in the upper end of the valley and were lost to sight.

  Red had waited with placid patience until those two close shots had sounded on the hill across the valley. He slipped the butt of the rifle against his shoulder, steadied the weapon, and bent his head. This smacked too much of murder. Four men, loafing on a bench until the hillside shots aroused them; then quick risings and short runs to the corner of the building. At the triple signal Red’s finger gently, steadily pressed against the trigger. The bullet struck the end of the house, and the exploding adobe filled the first rustler’s eyes and nose with dust, making him sneeze as he frantically ducked back. There was a concerted rush for the safety offered by the open doorway, and as the last man dashed into the house he closed the plank door upon the passage of a slug which tore a heel from his boot.

  Red sent the third shot through an open window and sighed gustily from relief: he had taken a chance, two of them, with such close shooting; but he had gotten away with it, murdered no one, and his conscience was clear. After this warning, and such close shooting, his conscience would not be at all concerned: he would, if he could, hit any head which showed itself, and he rather thought he could.

  He was conscious of sudden activity south of the house and risked a quick glance: Johnny was stampeding the saddle horses. Suddenly Red swore: the Kid was following them too far and was getting into the sector commanded by a front window. He dropped his head to the sights and fired just in time: not in time to stop the shot, but in time to make it a wild one. He could see the chunk of adobe fly from the side of the window, where his bullet had struck, and he could imagine what had happened to the face and eyes of the man it hit. There was no second shot at the Kid, and the horses swept on, now even with the building, now past it. They showed faint indications of milling, and Red began to drop bullets where they would do the most good. Gravel began to explode behind hoofs, and a shot grooved the hip of the last horse, whereupon the indications of milling were lost in the sudden surge of the frightened animals. They raced past him and around the bend. His gaze went back to the building as a bullet hummed high to his right. There was a pale, vague spot framed by a window, and his answering shot dropped it from sight. He had the feeling of being “on,” that every good rifleman knows, and he counted it as a hit. Changing his position by a few yards, he again lay down to cover the house, to keep its door closed and its occupants inside it. Occasionally he fired at a window, with due regard for his supply of cartridges, and during one of these lulls he heard a well–known voice.

  “Yeah, Hoppy,” answered Red. “They’re penned up tight as hell, an’ right glad of it.”

  “All right; keep ’em penned,” said the trail boss, fading back into the brush. “I’m gettin’ our hosses an’ th’ pack hoss. I’ll leave yours where we dismounted, back yonder. I’ll go on with th’ others, an’ then Johnny an’ me will keep busy with th’ scattered cavvy till ’most dark. You figger you can hold ’em in th’ house that long?”

  “I don’t see where you got no call to insult a man!” retorted Red with spirit. “You get busy with th’ hosses an’ let me mind my own business for myself. Two of them coyotes are half blind, another’s head is mostly missin’, an’ they’re all on foot. Clear outa here: yo’re only wastin’ time.”

  “All right,” chuckled the trail boss. “You want to get away from here before it gets too dark for you to find yore hoss, or makes you waste too much time gettin’ down to us. An’ if you’ll figger that out to be an insult, I’ll be much obliged.”

  “You go to hell!” snapped Red and gave his attention to the house.

  Johnny was busy, very busy. The rustlers’ six horses had stopped running and were placidly grazing, as if nothing unusual had occurred. Red’s prediction regarding the scattered animals of the cavvy was partly fulfilled, and becoming more so with each passing minute. Driven hard and watered insufficiently, the T Dot Circle animals were coming out of the brush to drink at the pools. They were tired and had had their fill of running, which perhaps explains why Johnny found them so tractable.

  The Kid was doing very well by himself when Hopalong rode into sight with the pack horse and gave him a hand; and they had hardly gone to work in earnest before Hopalong’s restless gaze descried moving dust over a slight rise in the valley’s floor. It was to the north of him, but, even so, he shouted a warning to Johnny and took to cover.

  Horses’ heads and soiled hats appeared above the rise, and then a compact body of horsemen popped into sight. They drew rein for an instant at the scene before them and then pushed forward with rifles at the ready as Hopalong rode out of the brush and into their sight. His left hand was raised, palm out, and the sheriff’s answering gesture caused the trail boss to sit a little less erect in the saddle. The sheriff said something to the riders behind him, and they stopped. The peace officer pushed on at a walk, alert as a cat in a strange house, his keen eyes on the lone horseman down the trail. Then, suddenly, he recognized the Circle 4 trail boss, and a wide grin slid over his face.

  “Where’d you git ’em all?” asked the sheriff, looking at the cavvy.

  “Right around here,” answered Hopalong, waving his hand in a gesture which took in considerable of the surrounding brush. “There’s more of ’em back in th’ brush, I reckon; don’t know how many head Halliday had. Now that him an’ his boys are here, they can get busy drivin’ th’ rest out. I’m glad to get ’em off my hands.” He looked curiously at the officer. “How come yo’re with Halliday?”

  “Just sorta bumped into him, this side th’ big trail,” answered the officer. “He had just begun to git things figgered out. I knowed about where to ride, an’ we all come a–kitin’. You all alone, down here?”

  “No. Two of my boys come with me. Johnny’s in th’ brush, somewhere close by. Red’s layin’ on his belly, couple miles south of here, keepin’ five hoss thieves penned up in a ’dobe shack down below him. I had to shoot th’ other feller.”

  “I know that ’dobe,” said the sheriff. He turned and motioned to the men behind him. “You reckon they’re still in it?”

  “You ask Red that, if you want to get insulted!”

  Halliday pulled up beside the two men, his outfit close behind him.

  “Howdy,” he grunted, his face wearing a suspicious frown.

  “Howdy,” replied Hopalong, trying not to smile.

  “What th’ hell’s goin’ on down here?” demanded the T Dot Circle boss.

  “Just a couple of round–ups: hoss thieves, an’ trail herd cavvy,” answered Hopalong and turned to the sheriff.

  “Reckon you can take care of th’ hoss thieves an’ let Red pull outa there. There’s enough men here, without me an’ my friends, to take care of th’ ’dobe an’ these hosses, too.”

  Halliday had a glimmer of light, and a look of great surprise came over his face. He pushed forward, his hand held out.

  “Sorry, friend,” he said frankly, like a full–grown man. “Sorry I pulled back onto th’ trail after tellin’ you to pass. But I never saw you before;
an’, you know, you mighta been lyin’.”

  “Shore! That’s about th’ way it looked to me, after I’d had time to set down an’ wrastle it out,” replied Hopalong. He laughed. “It just happened I wasn’t lyin’. Now, there’s six saddled hosses in th’ bunch that don’t belong to you. Mebby th’ sheriff will give ’em to you when he gets through: th’ saddles, anyhow.”

  “If he gives ’em to anybody, he’ll give ’em to you,” said Halliday, his eyes on a commotion in the brush. His eyelids narrowed as a horseman pushed out into sight. “Who’s that?”

  Hopalong looked around.

  “Johnny, one of my riders.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Kid! Show th’ sheriff where Red’s holed up, an’ tell Red to get a move on. We’ve lost too damn much time now, with a delivery date gettin’ closer every day, an’ only half a crew with th’ herd.”

  He turned to the sheriff, who had started to ride forward at the head of three men.

  “I reckon you can handle them thieves without us,” he said loudly.

  “Reckon mebby we can, if yore man ain’t let ’em get out,” replied the sheriff and went on to join the impatient Kid.

  “What’d you say, Halliday?” asked Hopalong, turning to the T Dot Circle boss.

  “I was sayin’ that mebby them thieves won’t need their hosses,” grimly repeated Halliday. He was looking at two trees on the farther hill, the limbs of which seemed to be high enough and strong enough for the purpose he had in mind.

  Hopalong followed the look and laughed gently.

  “Mebby they won’t,” he said; “but I’m bettin’ th’ sheriff gets them fellers to jail, an’ no worse off than they are when he captures ’em.”

  Later he learned that his bet would have won.

  XIX

  The small fire glowed on the slope of the hollow, casting huge, faint shadows against the rising ground and picking out small details of the near–by wagon. Overhead the hard brilliance of countless stars studded the clear, dark sky. There was not a sound to break the silence, not even the gentle whisper of a wind. Then a sapwood stem exploded with a sharp pop, abruptly disturbing the glowing coals of the fire.