Trail Dust Page 17
The trail cutter nearly strangled on a swallow of coffee and instantly became the focal point of the cook’s suspicious eyes; but his gaze shifted as he heard the sounds of a running horse.
Hopalong swept up to the fire and on to the wagon, dismounting and crawling under the canvas. When he emerged he had his slicker, and he quickly fastened it to his saddle.
“Be a good idear if you boys carried yore own,” he said, getting into the saddle again. Then he faced the cook. “You remember what I said about ready grub an’ plenty of hot coffee?”
“Yeah, I do. I’ll keep a good fire goin’ an’ th’ pot handy to it.”
“When it gets dark, which will be right soon,” continued the trail boss, “you light a lantern an’ hang it where we can see it from th’ bed ground.”
“Shucks! I’ll keep th’ fire goin’. Won’t that be light enough?” asked the cook in surprise.
“You mebby won’t have a fire very long after this storm busts!” retorted the trail boss as a wink of light flashed along the northern horizon. He called to Red and Lanky, telling them to help Skinny drive off the cavvy and to locate it, if possible, out of the way of a stampeded herd, and then for all three to lend a hand with the cattle. The cavvy would have to get along by itself. He whirled and rode swiftly out toward the herd as the others saddled their night horses.
The trail cutter slid his eating utensils into the wreck pan and strode toward his horse, thankful that he had not ridden it hard that day.
“Joinin’ up with you boys,” he said. “Hell shore is goin’ to bust before mornin’, an’ you’ll need every rider you can get.”
“Good for you,” said Lanky. “Here comes Johnny an’ Pete to feed an’ go back.” Another faint wink of light against the northern horizon caught his eye. “Looks like she’s on her way, all right.”
The trail cutter, wise in the ways of the weather in his own land, pondered for a moment.
“Yeah,” he said; “but I don’t figger she’ll bust till after midnight.”
Lanky swore with deep feeling.
“They ’most allus hop us in th’ dark,” he complained. “Be bad enough in daylight, when a feller could see what he’s doin’; but they allus wait till night.”
“You hop in here with th’ cavvy!” bellowed Red, as lightning again flashed above the horizon, this wink brighter than the last. Lanky jumped at the summons, and the trail cutter loped off toward the herd.
Twilight developed early and faded quickly into dark. Not a breath of wind stirred the grass. The animals grazed restlessly, loath to lie down, here and there a low bawling voicing their uneasiness. The encircling riders, not able to see anything at a distance, rode by instinct and by the monotonous singing of the man ahead.
The trail cutter slowed to a walk and let his ears guide him and after a while heard the plaintive song of the nearest rider. He called out in a singsong voice and, after a moment, fell in line behind the trail boss. The lantern shone brightly at the chuck wagon, and he made use of its interrupted beams, when on the far side of the herd, to locate himself more definitely in regard to the cattle. Occasionally the hat and shoulders of some rider were silhouetted against the sector of lantern light. The lightning was flashing higher in the sky, and now the faint mutter of thunder could be heard. On and on he rode, around and around; and the lightning flashes now gave light enough to see the herd, every animal standing on its feet, every head turned to the north.
Still the air was dead, and the trail cutter found that it required an effort to breathe. A vivid flash zig–zagged earthward, and the roll of the thunder was sharper. He had a glimpse of other riders ahead of him, and the glimpses became more frequent and the thunder increased in sharpness and volume. All at once the air seemed to be sucked from his lungs, and then a gust of wind struck him and forced him to lean against it. He buttoned the slicker and turned up its collar, and as his hands fell down again the rain and hail smashed against the weatherproof with a sound like shot against wood. The rain and hail were so thick that the lightning flashes seemed to make hardly more than a ghostly opalescence, and the herd was blotted from sight. A voice, roaring above the sound of the storm, spoke in his ear, and he found the rider almost knee to knee with him.
“Come on! Get away from here! We’re right in front of ’em!”
He followed the running horse across the south side of the herd, realizing the deadly danger of his position, realizing the impotence of one man or a score of men to stand in the path of the avalanche of flesh that a stampede would release, and it would release it almost like an arrow from a bow. The place to turn a stampede was on the corners of the front lines, to force the cattle inward, with a cross direction; to turn them in, to start a circling movement of the animals themselves, to get them milling; to force them to run and to get nowhere, to let them run themselves down. As he followed that racing horseman he had no complaint to make about darkness: flash followed flash so quickly that the ghastly light was almost constant. He wondered why the herd had stood so long, and as the thought passed through his mind he saw greenish glows on the tips of two thousand horns, heard one soul–racking crash and saw the green–white ball explode in the middle of the herd. Above the roar of the rain and hail, above the crashing of the thunder rose the instant drumming of four thousand hard hoofs, the clicking of horns against horns; and a close–packed mass of maddened steers, steam rising from their heated bodies, moved almost like a section of the earth itself past him and thundered into the explosive night.
He found himself in company with three other horsemen, riding as if the devil were after him, along the flank of the stampede, pressing slowly sideways in vain efforts to turn the cattle, and time after time forced backward and saved only by the agile sure–footedness of his horse. During one desperate retreat he chanced to face north and received the impression that the sky was clearing; but here there was no let–up. The hail had ceased, but the rain was pouring down in sheets, whipped and driven into his face until at times he could not see, and even had to turn his head to breathe.
A rider crowded against him, and a flash of lightning revealed his identity and also showed that the whole outfit was concentrating on this side of the herd in an effort to turn the frightened animals toward the east and away from the main trail.
“They ain’t spreadin’ out much!” shouted Hopalong in his ear. “If we can turn ’em before they scatter, we won’t lose none to speak of. Th’ tighter they’re packed th’ more they’re in each other’s way.”
“Yes,” shouted the trail cutter, and an almost unrelated thought, since the cattle were already stampeding, popped into his mind: the mind does tricks like that. “Any chronic stampeders among ’em?” he yelled, using a second pet word, and again he pressed in against the mass of running animals.
“No!” shouted Hopalong after a perceptible pause while he wrangled with the word. “They ain’t got th’ habit yet!”
Another thought popped into the trail cutter’s mind, this one pertinent: when the run had started, the riders had been more or less evenly spaced around the cattle; but now, after what seemed to have been a very brief interval of time, every man of them was in one spot, at the side of their boss, adding their individual efforts to the power of the whole. Perhaps this explained why a seven–man crew had thought itself sufficient to handle a trail herd which usually was a job for an outfit four men larger, and none too large, at that. He laughed in his throat and drove in again, the trail boss on one side and Red on the other. By God, they’d make this bunch of locoed beef swap ends! Yes, an’ make ’em like it!
The riding was dangerous and desperate in an attempt to force a quick mill. Stampedes have been stopped in a mile or less, others have run for a score of miles and more, the animals scattering so widely that recovery of the entire herd became impossible. These animals were not chronic stampeders and had no clique of chronic stampeders. They had been well trail–broken, they had been driven hard all day and were well watered and fed
. Their fright was natural and excusable. There came a sudden shout of exultation: it sounded like Johnny, a youth not yet out of his teens, and it was pitched high in excitement.
“They’re turnin’! Come on, fellers: all together! Turn ’em! Turn ’em!”
The answering surge was instant. The weight of the outfit was thrown against the yielding point, and it yielded more. The outer steers began to press inward at an angle, toward the center of the front line; others joined in the crisscross, and before long the sweeping circle was forming, the inner animals forced to join it by the wall of running flesh in front of them. They were still running without an appreciable lessening in speed, but they were beginning to run without forward direction, to describe a great circle, and soon the whole herd was racing around like a lively eddy in a stream. There were no physical traps on this part of the plain, no steep–banked washes to cripple horses and throw their riders, no thick clumps of scrub timber. The lightning still flashed but was growing more distant, and the pelting rain was easing up a little. The riders were now on the flanks of the milling herd, keeping it spinning; and here and there a voice could be heard raised in song. Gradually the running animals lost speed and compacted; and as the noise of their running died down, the sound of the singing voices increased.
The trail boss dropped out of the line of flankers and looked around for sight of the cook’s lantern, but it could not be seen. His sense of direction, like that of any plainsman, was well developed; but after the mad ride through the dark and all the excitement he frankly admitted to himself that he did not know just where the wagon lay. Time in itself has no meaning, no measure; they might have run for an hour or for half that time. The sky was still too heavily clouded to see the stars: one glimpse of the pole star would be enough for practical orientation; but the glimpse was denied him. Even the wind might have changed direction. He rode forward again to join the flankers and passed the word along: hold the herd where it was until the sky cleared or until daylight came, when they would find the wagon and get fresh horses. He laughed a little: they had fresh horses, all right; seven of them, if they could be found.
The cattle were still moving, but at a much slower pace, and the encircling riders still pressed in, to compact them further and still further hamper them. All right, keep them moving and tire them as much as possible: the night was not yet over, and the storm might swing back. At last the animals dropped to a walk, still milling, and the riders gradually ceased pressing them and rode on a greater circle to remove the feeling of restraint. Then the general movement ceased as animal after animal finally stopped. They would not lie down, of course, on the wet and sodden earth. A bit of song floated toward him, a bit of song after such a race with death:
“I’ve rid all night long in a pourin’ rain,
An’ I’ll shore be damned if I’ll do it again——”
and was ended abruptly by a laugh as the singer realized that he was doing what he had just sung that he would not do.
“Better cross yore fingers, Kid,” called a voice, “or mebby you’ll be ridin’ ag’in before you know it!”
“That you, Kid?” asked the trail boss, heading toward the indistinct blot at his right.
“Yeah, shore is,” answered Johnny. “Man, oh, man: I coulda lit a cigarette with one of them flashes! Huh. Well, we’ve shore stopped ’em, but th’ rain don’t show no signs of stoppin’. Who’s that?”
“Me,” said the trail cutter, moving up. “Reckon they’ve had all th’ runnin’ they want, huh? Let’s find th’ wagon an’ get some of that hot coffee I been hearin’ about; but I don’t know how th’ hell he’ll make it hot!”
“Me neither,” confessed the trail boss. “We’re shore lucky, gettin’ ’em stopped so soon. I figger th’ wagon oughta be about over——What’s that?”
The three riders listened intently, holding their breath to aid their hearing.
“Thunder, I reckon,” muttered Johnny. “Sorta steady an’ a long way off, but it don’t sound very much like it——”
“No!” shouted the trail boss, suddenly. “It’s a stampede! They’re comin’ down this way, th’ T Dot Circle an’ th’ 3 TL!” He raised his voice in a shout of warning. “Look out, fellers! Here comes that mixed herd, all alather!”
“But they was ten miles north of you when I rode past yesterday,” expostulated the trail cutter.
“Well, they ain’t ten miles now!” retorted the trail boss and again shouted a warning.
Here was possible death, to strike them or to miss them, and they helpless to get out of the way. If the avalanche passed on either side they were safe; if it struck them, no man was safe. Coming such a distance, the mixed herd would not be compact but would spread out over a sizable front. If it passed on either side, their own herd might stampede again; if it struck them, their own herd would almost certainly stampede again; but if it did so, it might take a moment to acquire momentum, and the animals already had used up some of their energy in the first run. The safest place, although a desperate choice, was in front of their own herd.
“Over here!” shouted the trail boss at the top of his voice. “Over here, with us! Pronto!”
Shouted replies answered him, and quick–drumming hoofs tore through the dark, guided by the faint light of the distant lightning flashes. The riders pulled up, forming a close group, ready to ride at top speed, while the distant rumble of madly running cattle came steadily nearer.
“There they come!” cried Lanky, standing up in the stirrups and looking over the backs of his own herd. “Looks like all th’ cattle in th’ world!”
“There’s hosses!” yelled Johnny, pointing. “A whole cavvy! Them fellers shore have had bad luck with their saddle stock this trip!”
“Ready to go, fellers, if our herd breaks,” ordered Hopalong, “an’ shore as hell it will!”
Red’s comment was profane and had something to do with their being able to handle their own herd; but not all the so–and–so herds on the main trail.
The front line of the stampeding cattle struck the herd, piled into it, split and flowed around it, pressing from the rear and enveloping it on both sides; and then the whole bunch, unable to withstand this added strain and terror, was off again like a runner from a mark, a solid mass of flesh thundering through the dark. And before the maddened, threatening cattle rode eight men, tight–lipped, silent, each giving his whole attention to his horse; each man’s life balanced against the stumble of his horse, the loosening of a cinch. The wind increased suddenly, and the rain poured down again in sheets, and against the increasing roll of the thunder was the steady roar of thousands of hoofs.
In the press of it, in the face of deadly danger, a vague shape twisted around in a saddle, searching for a face he could not see.
“I told you to cross yore fingers, Kid: you sung that song too damn soon!”
Somebody laughed.
XXII
Stars blazed in the dark heavens, unobscured by even a single cloud. What vague movements there were in the blanketing darkness were unhurried, casual: six thousand cattle and three cavvies of saddle stock were somewhere resting or grazing in the dark. They had had their fill of running.
“Hello!” called a voice, and a flash of fire spurted in the night, the sound of the flat report dying out swiftly.
To the right there came a second flash, a second flat report. South of these two came a third, and another winked far off to the left. The four men rode slowly toward a common center, an occasional gun flash showing them the way. There was an instant wink of faint light well to the west of them, so far away that the report barely could be heard; and south of that came another, with no report at all.
Hopalong Cassidy picked out the blot moving ahead of him and called:
“Hello!”
“Hello,” came the reply, and the two blots moved toward each other.
“There’s six of us accounted for,” said the trail boss, stopping his tired horse. “Who’re you?”
“Red,” said the other, also stopping. “Talk about a mess of cattle!”
“Yeah. All mixed up to hell an’ gone,” agreed the trail boss. He raised his gun and fired into the air again, and the answering flashes were much nearer. He glanced up at the pole star, cogitated for a moment, and continued:
“While th’ boys are comin’ together I’ll be on my way back to th’ wagon. There’s seven fresh hosses hog–tied up there, an’ we can use ’em. I’ll drive ’em back with me.”
“I shore could eat somethin’,” said Red.
“Yeah, reckon we all could,” replied the trail boss. “I’ll bring cook back with me, too. While I’m gone, you an’ th’ rest of th’ boys see if you can find his work hosses. If you can, he can take ’em back with him an’ bring th’ wagon down here. It oughta be here, anyhow, where we’ll be workin’.”
“Hi!” shouted a voice faintly, and the speaker headed for the shouted reply. To the south another gun flash spurted, asking direction, and Red’s Colt replied to it. As Red lowered the weapon he found that the trail boss had been swallowed up in the night.
“One hell of a night,” said the newcomer with great disgust. “Wish I had some hot coffee.”
“Hello, Kid,” said Red. “You an’ me’ll stay here to wait for th’ others. Hoppy’s gone up to find th’ wagon.”
“Shore hope he don’t miss it. My belly’s so loose it rattles.”
Red glanced up at the North star and smiled in the darkness: by its light roaming humans had been shown the true way for thousands of years.
“He’ll find it,” he said.
“I crossed th’ trail back yonder,” said Johnny. “You reckon I oughta go after Hoppy an’ tell him? He’ll be lookin’ for it.”
“He’ll find it,” repeated Red. “Here comes another: wonder who he is.”
“Anybody missin’?” shouted the rider in question as he pushed up in the dark.