Clarence E. Mulford_Hopalong Cassidy 04 (14 page)

His mount very quickly learned that something was wrong and that it was
being given its head. As long as it could go where it pleased it could
do nothing better than head for home, and it quickened its pace towards
Winchester. Some time after daylight it pricked up its ears and broke
into a canter, which soon developed signs of irritation in its rider.
Finally Hopalong opened his heavy eyes and looked around for his
bearings. Not knowing where he was and too tired and miserable to give
much thought to a matter of such slight importance, he glanced around
for a place to finish his sleep. A tree some distance ahead of him
looked inviting and towards it he rode. Habit made him picket the horse
before he lay down and as he fell asleep he had vague recollections
of handling a strange picket rope some time recently. The horse slowly
turned and stared at the already snoring figure, glanced over the
landscape, back the to queerest man it had ever met, and then fell
to grazing in quiet content. A slinking coyote topped a rise a short
distance away and stopped instantly, regarding the sleeping man with
grave curiosity and strong suspicion. Deciding that there was nothing
good to eat in that vicinity and that the man was carrying out a fell
plot for the death of coyotes, it backed away out of sight and loped on
to other hunting grounds.

Stevenson, having started the fire for breakfast, took a pail and
departed towards the spring; but he got no farther than the corral gate,
where he dropped the pail and stared. There was only one horse in the
enclosure where the night before there had been four. He wasted no time
in surmises, but wheeled and dashed back towards the hotel, and his
vigorous shouts brought Old John to the door, sleepy and peevish. Old
John's mouth dropped open as he beheld his habitually indolent host
marking off long distances on the sand with each falling foot.

"What's got inter you?" demanded Old John.

"Our broncs are gone! Our broncs are gone!" yelled Stevenson, shoving
Old John roughly to one side as he dashed through the doorway and on
into the room he had assigned to the sullen and bibulous stranger. "I
knowed it! I knowed it!" he wailed, popping out again as if on springs.
"He's gone, an' he's took our broncs with him, the measly, low-down dog!
I knowed he wasn't no good! I could see it in his eye; an' he wasn't
drunk, not by a darn sight. Go out an' see for yoreself if they ain't
gone!" he snapped in reply to Old John's look. "Go on out, while I throw
some cold grub on the table—won't have no time this morning to do no
cooking. He's got five hours' start on us, an' it'll take some right
smart riding to get him before dark; but we'll do it, an' hang him,
too!"

"What's all this here rumpus?" demanded a sleepy voice from upstairs.
"Who's hanged?" and Charley entered the room, very much interested. His
interest increased remarkably when the calamity was made known and he
lost no time in joining Old John in the corral to verify the news.

Old John waved his hands over the scene and carefully explained what
he had read in the tracks, to his companion's great irritation, for
Charley's keen eyes and good training had already told him all there
was to learn; and his reading did not exactly agree with that of his
companion.

"Charley, he's gone and took our cayuses; an' that's the very way he
came—'round the corner of the hotel. He got all tangled up an' fell
over there, an' here he bumped inter the palisade, an' dropped his
saddle. When he opened the bars he took my roan gelding because it was
the best an' fastest, an' then he let out the others to mix us up on
the tracks. See how he went? Had to hop four times on one foot afore he
could get inter the saddle. An' that proves he was sober, for no drunk
could hop four times like that without falling down an' being drug to
death. An' he left his own critter behind because he knowed it wasn't no
good. It's all as plain as the nose on your face, Charley," and Old John
proudly rubbed his ear. "Hee, hee, hee! You can't fool Old John, even if
he is getting old. No, sir, b' gum."

Charley had just returned from inside the corral, where he had looked
at the brand on the far side of the one horse left, and he waited
impatiently for his companion to cease talking. He took quick advantage
of the first pause Old John made and spoke crisply.

"I don't care what corner he came 'round, or what he bumped inter; an'
any fool can see that. An' if he left that cayuse behind because he
thought it wasn't no good, he
was
drunk. That's a Bar-20 cayuse, an'
no hoss-thief ever worked for that ranch. He left it behind because
he stole it; that's why. An' he didn't let them others out because he
wanted to mix us up, neither. How'd he know if we couldn't tell the
tracks of our own animals? He did that to make us lose time; that's what
he did it for. An' he couldn't tell what bronc he took last night—it
was too dark. He must 'a' struck a match an' seen where that Bar-20
cayuse was an' then took the first one nearest that wasn't it. An' now
you tell me how the devil he knowed yourn was the fastest, which it
ain't," he finished, sarcastically, gloating over a chance to rub it
into the man he had always regarded as a windy old nuisance.

"Well, mebby what you said is—"

"Mebby nothing!" snapped Charley. "If he wanted to mix the tracks would
he 'a' hopped like that so we couldn't help telling what cayuse he rode?
He knowed we'd pick his trail quick, an' he knowed that every minute
counted; that's why he hopped—why, yore roan was going like the wind
afore he got in the saddle. If you don't believe it, look at them
toe-prints!"

"H'm; reckon yo're right, Charley. My eyes ain't nigh as good as they
once was. But I heard him say something 'bout Winchester," replied Old
John, glad to change the subject. "Bet he's going over there, too. He
won't get through that town on no critter wearing my brand. Everybody
knows that roan, an'—"

"Quit guessing!" snapped Charley, beginning to lose some of the tattered
remnant of his respect for old age. "He's a whole lot likely to head for
a town on a stolen cayuse, now ain't he! But we don't care where he's
heading; we'll foller the trail."

"Grub pile!" shouted Stevenson, and the two made haste to obey.

"Charley, gimme a chaw of yore tobacker," and Old John, biting off a
generous chunk, quietly slipped it into his pocket, there to lay until
after he had eaten his breakfast.

All talk was tabled while the three men gulped down a cold and
uninviting meal. Ten minutes later they had finished and separated to
find horses and spread the news; in fifteen more they had them and were
riding along the plain trail at top speed, with three other men close at
their heels. Three hundred yards from the corral they pounded out of
an arroyo, and Charley, who was leading, stood up in his stirrups and
looked keenly ahead. Another trail joined the one they were following
and ran with and on top of it. This, he reasoned, had been made by one
of the strays and would turn away soon. He kept his eyes looking
well ahead and soon saw that he was right in his surmise, and without
checking the speed of his horse in the slightest degree he went ahead
on the trail of the smaller hoof-prints. In a moment Old John spurred
forward and gained his side and began to argue hot-headedly.

"Hey! Charley!" he cried. "Why are you follering this track?" he
demanded.

"Because it's his; that's why."

"Well, here, wait a minute!" and Old John was getting red from
excitement. "How do you know it is? Mebby he took the other!"

"He started out on the cayuse that made these little tracks," retorted
Charley, "an' I don't see no reason to think he swapped animules. Don't
you know the prints of yore own cayuse?"

"Lawd, no!" answered Old John. "Why, I don't hardly ride the same cayuse
the second day, straight hand-running. I tell you we ought to foller
that other trail. He's just cute enough to play some trick on us."

"Well, you better do that for us," Charley replied, hoping against hope
that the old man would chase off on the other and give his companions a
rest.

"He ain't got sand enough to tackle a thing like that single-handed,"
laughed Jed White, winking to the others.

Old John wheeled. "Ain't, hey! I am going to do that same thing an'
prove that you are a pack of fools. I'm too old to be fooled by a common
trick like that. An' I don't need no help—I'll ketch him all by myself,
an' hang him, too!" And he wheeled to follow the other trail, angry and
outraged. "Young fools," he muttered. "Why, I was fighting all around
these parts afore any of 'em knowed the difference between day an'
night!"

"Hard-headed old fool," remarked Charley, frowning, as he led the way
again.

"He's gittin' old an' childish," excused Stevenson. "They say warn't
nobody in these parts could hold a candle to him in his prime."

Hopalong muttered and stirred and opened his eyes to gaze blankly into
those of one of the men who were tugging at his hands, and as he stared
he started his stupefied brain sluggishly to work in an endeavor to
explain the unusual experience. There were five men around him and
the two who hauled at his hands stepped back and kicked him. A look of
pained indignation slowly spread over his countenance as he realized
beyond doubt that they were really kicking him, and with sturdy vigor.
He considered a moment and then decided that such treatment was most
unwarranted and outrageous and, furthermore, that he must defend himself
and chastise the perpetrators.

"Hey!" he snorted, "what do you reckon yo're doing, anyhow? If you want
to do any kicking, why kick each other, an' I'll help you! But I'll lick
the whole bunch of you if you don't quite mauling me. Ain't you got no
manners? Don't you know anything? Come 'round waking a feller up an'
man-handling—"

"Get up!" snapped Stevenson, angrily.

"Why, ain't I seen you before? Somewhere? Sometime?" queried Hopalong,
his brow wrinkling from intense concentration of thought. "I ain't
dreaming; I've seen a one-eyed coyote som'ers, lately, ain't I?" he
appealed, anxiously, to the others.

"Get up!" ordered Charley, shortly.

"An' I've seen you, too. Funny, all right."

"You've seen me, all right," retorted Stevenson. "Get up, damn you! Get
up!"

"Why, I can't—my han's are tied!" exclaimed Hopalong in great wonder,
pausing in his exertions to cogitate deeply upon this most remarkable
phenomenon. "Tied up! Now what the devil do you think—"

"Use yore feet, you thief!" rejoined Stevenson roughly, stepping forward
and delivering another kick. "Use yore feet!" he reiterated.

"Thief! Me a thief! Shore I'll use my feet, you yaller dog!" yelled the
prostrate man, and his boot heel sank into the stomach of the offending
Mr. Stevenson with sickening force and laudable precision. He drew it
back slowly, as if debating shoving it farther. "Call me a thief,
hey! Come poking 'round kicking honest punchers an' calling 'em names!
Anybody want the other boot?" he inquired with grave solicitation.

Stevenson sat down forcibly and rocked to and fro, doubled up and
gasping for breath, and Hopalong squinted at him and grinned with
happiness. "Hear him sing! Reg'lar ol' brass band. Sounds like a cow
pulling its hoofs outen the mud. Called me a thief, he did, just now.
An' I won't let nobody kick me an' call me names. He's a liar, just a
plain, squaw's dog liar, he—"

Two men grabbed him and raised him up, holding him tightly, and they
were not over careful to handle him gently, which he naturally resented.
Charley stepped in front of him to go to the aid of Stevenson and caught
the other boot in his groin, dropping as if he had been shot. The man
on the prisoner's left emitted a yell and loosed his hold to sympathize
with a bruised shinbone, and his companion promptly knocked the bound
and still intoxicated man down. Bill Thomas swore and eyed the prostrate
figure with resentment and regret. "Hate to hit a man who can fight like
that when he's loaded an' tied. I'm glad, all the same, that he ain't
sober an' loose."

"An' you ain't going to hit him no more!" snapped Jed White, reddening
with anger. "I'm ready to hang him, 'cause that's what he deserves, an'
what we're here for, but I'm damned if I'll stand for any more mauling.
I don't blame him for fighting, an' they didn't have no right to kick
him in the beginning."

"Didn't kick him in the beginning," grinned Bill. "Kicked him in the
ending. Anyhow," he continued seriously, "I didn't hit him hard—didn't
have to. Just let him go an' shoved him quick."

"I'm just naturally going to clean house," muttered the prisoner,
sitting up and glaring around. "Untie my han's an' gimme a gun or a club
or anything, an' watch yoreselves get licked. Called me a thief! What
are you fellers, then?—sticking me up an' busting me for a few measly
dollars. Why didn't you take my money an' lemme sleep, 'stead of waking
me up an' kicking me? I wouldn't 'a' cared then."

"Come on, now; get up. We ain't through with you yet, not by a whole
lot," growled Bill, helping him to his feet and steadying him. "I'm
plumb glad you kicked 'em; it was coming to 'em."

"No, you ain't; you can't fool me," gravely assured Hopalong. "Yo're
lying, an' you know it. What you going to do now? Ain't I got money
enough? Wish I had an even break with you fellers! Wish my outfit was
here!"

Stevenson, on his feet again, walked painfully up and shook his fist at
the captive, from the side. "You'll find out what we want of you, you
damned hoss-thief!" he cried. "We're going to tie you to that there limb
so yore feet'll swing above the grass, that's what we're going to do."

Bill and Jed had their hands full for a moment and as they finally
mastered the puncher, Charley came up with a rope. "Hurry up—no use
dragging it out this way. I want to get back to the ranch some time
before next week."