Trail Dust Read online

  Pete Wilson stirred, lazily recrossed his legs, and sought an easier position on the hard ground.

  “Wonder how soon they’ll be comin’ back?” he inquired speculatively. “We’ve done lost five days a’ready.”

  Skinny Thompson looked across the glowing coals at the speaker and let his gaze flick around the radiant arc of the fire.

  “Don’t know,” he grunted, shifting in turn and taking advantage of the movement to drag a tobacco sack from a pocket. “They won’t waste no time.” He finished rolling the cigarette and looked up again. “Anyhow, we ain’t lost no five days: we’ve been lettin’ ’em move ahead as they grazed.”

  The cook rested a hand on his blanket roll. He had discovered that prairie rattlesnakes were not only diminutive, but also scarce along this section of the trail. He no longer slept in the wagon. There were several bolt heads in the bottom of the wagon box that a man could not avoid. He reached out a foot, pushed a stick farther into the fire, and ventured an opinion.

  “Hoppy said it was about two days’ ride each way. He works fast. I wouldn’t be surprised if they rid in ’most any minute.”

  “Mebby,” grunted Pete. Instinctively he glanced in the direction of his thoughts, looking southward down the trail. “Some of them herds will be catchin’ up with us,” he growled.

  Skinny smiled.

  “I’ve been lookin’ down that way for dust signs near all day,” he confessed.

  Pete’s thoughts leaped to his absent friends and to what they had set out to do.

  “It was a damn–fool idear,” he growled. “We shoulda let them fellers get back their hosses by themselves. They had it comin’ to ’em, didn’t they?”

  “Hoppy done right. Trail outfits oughta stick together,” said the cook smugly.

  “Hell!” said Pete, looking the cook in the eye. “That sounds right good. So does turnin’ th’ other cheek sound good; but try it, an’ you’ll mebby get it blowed plumb off yore face. Them smart Alecks got what they deserved!”

  “Ain’t you near outa wind?” asked Skinny, pulling off his boots. He reached behind him for his blanket roll. “Shut up; we got a trick to ride.” He unbuckled his gun belt and placed it close to his hand. “Time passes fast at night, ’cept when yo’re out with th’ herd; an’ we’re three men short.”

  “Huh!” sneered Pete. “An’ you talkin’ about bein’ outa wind!”

  “Figger yo’re both right,” grunted the cook, pulling a blanket over him and sighing with relief.

  Dawn and a cloudless sky. A faint thread of smoke streamed upward, straight as a plumb line. Two men wiped their mouths on a sleeve and strode toward their horses, already impounded in the little rope corral. In a few moments they were riding northward, toward the grazing herd. The cook stuck his finger into the dishwater, snapped it suddenly, and swore gently under his breath. Some day he would lose that finger. He went to the wagon, tossed a few more sticks of wood toward the fire, and reached for a dipper of flour. He had bread to bake. The outfit much preferred biscuits, and that was the reason why he was making bread. The last guard with the cattle rode rapidly nearer, and the cook glanced around at the sounds of the nearing horses. He grinned frankly: it was double turns with the herd now, since Hopalong and his two companions had ridden from camp.

  “I near shot that damn bummer!” Pete was saying. “Everythin’ was sweet as blackstrap till he started in to raise hell. Once I thought that bunch never would lay down ag’in. Pokin’ round an’ buttin’ sleepin’ steers off their beds!”

  “He wanted a nice warm spot to lay down on,” said Skinny, grinning.

  “Warm spot? Hell, th’ ground ain’t cold these nights!”

  “Thought we didn’t have no bummers?” said the cook. “Wasn’t it you that told me that?”

  “You ever hear of range strays gettin’ into a herd?” growled Pete.

  “Yeah, lots of times; but only when th’ riders ain’t no good,” said the cook.

  “Oh, that so?” demanded Pete, shortly.

  Skinny glanced at the tailboard of the wagon and turned hopeful eyes to the cook.

  “Biscuits?” he asked, grinning.

  “Nope,” grunted the cook. “Bread.”

  Pete slanted a glance in the cook’s direction.

  “Huh!” he snorted. “You been makin’ bread ever since we started out; but we ain’t had no bread yet.”

  “Ain’t, huh?” retorted the cook, bridling a little. “Where you been all this time?”

  “Oh, I been along, lettin’ range strays join up with th’ herd,” said Pete. “Just th’ same we ain’t had no bread.”

  Skinny pushed his big hat up on one side of his head and cogitated judiciously.

  “No, we ain’t: Pete’s right,” he said, flatly, sadly, and positively.

  “Hell you ain’t!” retorted the cook, the veins of his neck swelling.

  “No, we ain’t; but we shore have been eatin’ some right good stuffin’ for hoss–hair sofas. How you make it hang together like you do? All hell couldn’t bite through it with one chaw.”

  “’Tain’t sawdust,” volunteered Skinny. “’Tain’t ’dobe, neither. What th’ hell is it?”

  “Some of these here days——” began the cook, and stopped suddenly, his eyes on the back trail. “There they come—all three of ’em!”

  “How many you s’pose would be comin’: four, five?” asked Pete, turning to look southwestward.

  “No! But only one or two might be comin’ back!” snapped the cook, knowing that the little expedition had been one of war.

  “That’s right,” admitted Pete. “Them that didn’t come back mighta got to thinkin’ about that stuff you call bread.”

  “Most generally when they go off with Hoppy they all come back ag’in,” said Skinny placidly. “Hoppy’s got a head on him.”

  “Yeah, an’ so have you,” said the cook. “You have to have a head or you couldn’t wear no hat. Talk about stuffin’ in hoss–hair sofies! Damn if you don’t make me laugh!”

  “You ever laugh till you cried?” softly asked Skinny, inching forward.

  The cook knew the length of that reach and the knobs of bone at the end of it. He backed away, instantly solicitous about his bread. Skinny turned, grinned at Pete, and waited expectantly for the distant riders to come up.

  The three horsemen came on steadily, and one of them suddenly raised a hand above his head, raised it as high as it would go. The gesture was not casual, not just a greeting: it was exultant, prideful.

  Skinny’s lean face was immobile from concentration, his steady gaze on that upraised hand, and suddenly he sighed.

  “They did th’ job,” he said flatly. “Th’ Kid’ll be a damn nuisance from now on—he’s all swelled up like a poisoned coyote. Lookit him!”

  “Yeah,” agreed Pete slowly. “Just like a poisoned coyote. Well, yearlin’s are allus bumptious.”

  The cook looked up from his work, a gleam in his eye.

  “Yeah,” he said with placid satisfaction, “they are.” He reached for more flour. “But,” he added gratuitously, “there warn’t no bummer in this man’s herd while he was here.” He smacked his lips and waited, and the wait was very brief.

  “Oh, so you got it all figgered out, ain’t you?” growled Pete, glowering at him.

  “Shore have,” said the cook, stripping dough from his fingers. He was enjoying himself.

  “Have, huh?” inquired Pete, his voice rising.

  “On yore own say–so,” retorted the cook, and then he laughed outright.

  Pete scratched his head, cogitated briefly, and found that he had nothing further to say.

  The three riders came down the slope and stopped near the fire, Johnny’s grin proving the tensile strength of epidermis.

  “We got ’em!” he exulted. “Got ’em! Me an’ Hoppy an’ Red got ’em! We got everythin’!”

  “Too bad you didn’t get th’ colic, too!” grunted Skinny in disgust.

  “You shore
got a swelled head,” said Pete.

  “Yah!” jeered Johnny. “We got th’ cavvy an’ th’ hoss thieves, too!”

  “What did you do with ’em?” asked Skinny, his fingers itching.

  “Huh!” snorted the Kid. “Turned ’em over to their owners: gave ’em back to th’ T Dot Circle.”

  “I didn’t ask you about th’ damn hosses!” retorted Skinny, edging a little closer. “Hell with th’ hosses! What happened to th’ thieves?”

  Johnny freed one foot from a stirrup, the foot on Skinny’s side of the horse, and held it ready. Skinny stopped edging, and Hopalong spoke.

  “Left th’ rest of ’em for th’ sheriff to smoke out,” said the trail boss. “Skinny, you wrangle us in some fresh hosses. We got to get th’ herd movin’: there’s dust climbin’ high, back down on th’ trail. Them herds will be steppin’ on our tail, first thing we know. Cook, you cut out yore work hosses after you throw us some grub, an’ get this wagon rollin’ soon——”

  “But I’m makin’ bread!” interrupted the culinary artist and scowled quickly at Pete and Skinny.

  “Bread?” sarcastically asked the trail boss. “Hell with yore bread! Thow it away an’ try yore hand with some biscuits for a change. Bread? My Gawd!”

  Hopalong stood up in his stirrups and swung his big hat above his head, swung it once, twice, thrice, in a well–known signal. The riders with the herd, their eyes on the camp, came to life with a snap, their long–range curiosity driven from them. The grazing animals nearest the camp suddenly left off feeding and pushed toward the animals just ahead of them, picked these up and kept on going. Slowly and steadily the herd compacted, the natural leaders moving up into their accustomed places, the falterers filtering back to later become the drag. Movement was general, and in almost no time the entire herd was moving toward the great cattle highway like the trail–broken veterans they were. The low, spreading dust cloud concentrated and began to climb into the air, a gray–white fog, dense here and opening there; and through the swirling openings could be seen dark and sometimes shapeless objects plodding doggedly onward. The Circle 4 was throwing back upon the trail again.

  Riders streaked from camp to join the herd, each man taking up his regular position. As yet there was no drag, since all the animals were fresh and rested. Hoofs thudded, horns clicked; and behind them a swearing cook loaded his wagon, hitched up his work horses, and rolled down the slope on his way to the next camp. He, personally, did not care for biscuits, which seemed to him to be reason enough for the making of bread; and besides, the outfit’s capacity for biscuits seemed to be unlimited, and it seemed as if some of their stomachs had no bottoms.

  “But if they’re goin’ to Canady, then I’m a–goin’, too,

  Me an’ my roll with th’ whole damn’ crew!”

  sang Johnny in the soaring dust, his voice carrying above the noise of the hoofs and the horns.

  “All swelled up like a poisoned coyote,” growled Pete, and deftly drove back an erring steer. He looked over the moving animals, hoping to catch sight of the pestiferous bummer; but the bummer was well hidden by the dust and, likely as not, well in the middle of the herd. Having a guilty conscience, no doubt, and a canny instinct, the bummer was keeping well hidden.

  XX

  They struck the trail and swung into it, rolling along at a good traveling gait, kicking up a dust made deeper by the thousands of hoofs which already had cut and churned it; but while they were shrouded with dust, there was no dust to be seen either behind them or before them; they were in the middle of a long trail space.

  Noon came and passed, and still the herd went plodding on, the drag beginning to grow a little now; but the main herd was holding the pace it had set when starting out. Past mid–afternoon they struck the first water, a shallow, sluggish creek whose banks were littered with dead and trampled brush and grass. Into it went the herd, loitered there while its thirsty units nosed the water, drank and let it flow around their legs. Then out again and up the gentle slope from the northern edge, up the slope and over the crest and on again. Along here the feed was poor, cropped close and trampled down by many bedded herds. Mindful of the difficulty of starting a herd from water, and wishing for better grass, Hopalong kept the cattle moving for another hour.

  The trail boss finally gave the word, and the herd swung in a wide circle from the beaten welt and moved to the right, toward the east, heading for the bed ground. Again he signaled, and the flankers fell back while the pointers crossed the front of the herd, checking it; and the tired animals slowed, stopped, and spread out, industriously searching for grass. The dusty and hungry riders sighed with relief and hopefully looked toward the little wagon camp; for the cook, as usual, had rolled past them on the drive, stopped when the herd turned off, started his fire, and even now was ready to place the coffee pot on the glowing coals.

  “We picked up some time today,” said Hopalong with satisfaction, as he joined Red and rode in toward camp. “An’ we’ll have to pick up plenty more. That delivery date’s gettin’ closer every day.” He did not believe it necessary to explain that the delivery date they all knew so well was a full week ahead of the real date, the date mentioned in the contract.

  Red nodded and let his gaze flick up the trail, another thought coming into his mind.

  “Well, I reckon we can push ’em if we have to,” he said, thinking of trail space. “We ain’t seen no dust in front of us to worry about; an’ we haven’t seen none behind us since we joined up with th’ herd. Anyhow, them follerin’ herds ain’t as close to us now as they was this mornin’. We got plenty of room, front an’ back.”

  “Mebby,” grunted Hopalong, estimating the distance as well as he could between themselves and the big, mixed herd ahead. “But we’ve cut down some on Gibson’s lead. They’ll be driftin’ easy till Halliday’s crew joins ’em with th’ cavvy.”

  “Yeah,” rejoined Red. “They wouldn’t drive ’em very hard with th’ outfit they got.”

  “They’ll have to cut them two herds apart, soon as they can,” said Hopalong, smiling: “an’ that’s when we’ll go past ’em. There’ll be a mighty big gap ahead of them that we’ll fit into right snug an’ make good time from then on. We got things about where we want ’em.”

  The cook grinned at their approach and looked meaningly at three pans of biscuits resting on the tailboard of the wagon.

  “There’s yore biscuits,” he said, waving a hand at the pans. “Turn to an’ make hawgs of yoreselves.

  “When did you bake ’em?” asked Hopalong.

  “Stopped around noon long enough to do that,” answered the cook. “They’re cold, but they’re good hawg stuffin’: I reckon you can eat ’em.”

  “We’ll do our best,” grunted Red, dismounting and heading for the tin cup and the water bucket. He drank deeply, dragged a sleeve across his lips, and rolled a cigarette. Then he went back to his horse, stripped the saddle off, rubbed the sweaty back with the saddle blanket, and spread the blanket out to air and dry. Hopalong was doing the same with his horse, and the two men stepped back to watch the animals roll enthusiastically before they fell to grazing. Simultaneously the two men turned and moved toward the fire.

  “Well,” said the cook, smiling at the trail boss, “we shore high–tailed it today. Made a good drive.”

  “Shore did,” said Hopalong, his gaze on the distant cavvy being driven in by Skinny. “An’ we high–tail it ag’in tomorrow, too: we got some lost time to make up.” He flashed a glance at the brown–topped biscuits. “We’ll keep you movin’ so damn fast you won’t have no time to bake bread, ’less you do it while we sleep.”

  “Work while you–all sleep?” said the cook with indignation. “Like hell! I can make hawg stuffin’, if that’s what you–all want.”

  “Time you found that out,” retorted Red, heading for the washbasin. “How’d you like to get up in th’ night an’ ride shifts with th’ herd?” He washed his face, slicked his hair, and then, getting his saddle
blanket from where he had draped it over a bush, shook it out and hung it on a wagon wheel, to match Hopalong’s blanket on the other wheel. Then he joined the trail boss and helped to rig the flimsy rope corral for the cavvy. They cut out and impounded the night horses and watched Skinny drift the riding stock off again, to check them not far from the wagon, where they were held to wait for the other tired horses of the rest of the outfit. When the two men turned back to camp they saw Pete and Johnny riding in toward the wagon. Not long thereafter the cook raised his hand, grabbed the coffee pot, and yelled; and the short line quickly got into motion past the tailboard.

  Pete stole a biscuit from Johnny’s plate and grinned as he dragged it through the smear of sorghum on his own plate; and then, looking up, checked what he was about to say and stared southwestward, in the direction of the trail they had just left.

  “Here comes a pair of pilgrims. Ridin’ th’ grub line, I reckon,” he said, his gaze on the nearing horsemen. “You got any biscuits left, cook?”

  “Yeah, I have,” growled the cook, glaring at the newcomers. “Damn these visitin’ empty–bellies! You notice how you never see any of ’em around ’cept at meal time?”

  “That only shows that they use their heads,” grunted Johnny, grinning. He glanced at the slowly riding newcomers.

  Hopalong put his plate down beside him on the ground and looked at Red.

  “You see anythin’ familiar about that right–hand rider?” he asked.

  “By ——!” said Red, slowly. “I shore do: it’s th’ sheriff.”

  “Yeah, shore is,” replied the trail boss. “With one prisoner. Them fellers musta fought it out after we left.”

  “It shore looks that way,” admitted Red. “There was three, mebby four when we left, far’s I know. You got one, an’ I’m right shore of another. Huh!”