Clarence E. Mulford_Hopalong Cassidy 04 (22 page)

"Yo're a cheerful liar, you are," laughed Barr. "But can
you
ride?"

"Reckon so, but I ain't a-going to."

"Why, we
both
can go—it's a cinch!" Barr cried. "Come on!"

"Lord!—an' I never even thought of that! Reckon I was too mad," Johnny
replied. "But I sort of hates to leave Jackson an' Edwards," he added,
sullenly.

"But they're gone! You can't do them no good by staying."

"Yes; I know. An' how about Lacey chipping in on our fight?" demanded
Johnny. "I ain't a-going to leave him to take it all. You go, Barr; it
wasn't yore fight, nohow. You didn't even know what you was fighting
for!"

"Huh! When anybody shoots at me it's my fight, all right," replied Barr,
seating himself on the floor behind the breastwork. "I forgot all about
Lacey," he apologized. At that instant a tomato can went
spang!
and
fell off the shelf. "An' it's too late, anyhow; they ain't a-going to
let nobody else get away on that side."

"An' they're tuning up again, too," Johnny replied, preparing for
trouble. "Look out for a rush, Barr."

Hopalong Cassidy stopped swearing at the weather and looked up and along
the trail in front of him, seeing a hard-riding man approach. He
turned his head and spoke to Buck Peters, who rode close behind him.
"Somebody's shore in a hurry—why, it's Fred Neal."

It was. Mr. Neal was making his arms move and was also shouting
something at the top of his voice. The noise of the rain and of the
horses' hoofs splashing in the mud and water at first made his words
unintelligible, but it was not long before Hopalong heard something
which made him sit up even straighter. In a moment Neal was near enough
to be heard distinctly and the outfit shook itself out of its weariness
and physical misery and followed its leader at reckless speed. As they
rode, bunched close together, Neal briefly and graphically outlined the
relative positions of the combatants, and while Buck's more cautious
mind was debating the best way to proceed against the enemy, Hopalong
cried out the plan to be followed. There would be no strategy—Johnny,
wounded and desperate, was fighting for his life. The simplest way was
the best—a dash regardless of consequences to those making it, for time
was a big factor to the two men in Jackson's store.

"Ride right at 'em!" Hopalong cried. "I know that bunch. They'll be too
scared to shoot straight. Paralyze 'em! Three or four are gone now—an'
the whole crowd wasn't worth one of the men they went out to get. The
quicker it's over the better."

"Right you are," came from the rear.

"Ride up the arroyo as close as we can get, an' then over the edge an'
straight at 'em," Buck ordered. "Their shooting an' the rain will cover
what noise we make on the soft ground. An' boys,
no quarter
!"

"Reckon
not
!" gritted Red, savagely. "Not with Edwards an' Jackson
dead, an' the Kid fighting for his life!"

"They're still at it!" cried Lanky Smith, as the faint and intermittent
sound of firing was heard; the driving wind was blowing from the town,
and this, also, would deaden the noise of their approach.

"Thank the Lord! That means that there's somebody left to fight 'em,"
exclaimed Red. "Hope it's the Kid," he muttered.

"They can't rush the store till they get Lacey, an' they can't rush him
till they get the store," shouted Neal over his shoulder. "They'd be in
a cross fire if they tried either—an' that's what licks 'em."

"They'll be in a cross fire purty soon," promised Pete, grimly.

Hopalong and Red reached the edge of the arroyo first and plunged over
the bank into the yellow storm-water swirling along the bottom like a
miniature flood. After them came Buck, Neal, and the others, the water
shooting up in sheets as each successive horse plunged in. Out again
on the farther side they strung out into single file along the narrow
foot-hold between water and bank and raced towards the sharp bend some
hundreds of yards ahead, the point in the arroyo's course nearest the
town. The dripping horses scrambled up the slippery incline and then,
under the goading of spurs and quirts, leaped forward as fast as they
could go across the level, soggy plain.

A quarter of a mile ahead of them lay the scattered shacks of the town,
and as they drew nearer to it the riders could see the flashes of guns
and the smoke-fog lying close to the ground. Fire spat from Jackson's
store and a cloud of smoke still lingered around a window in Lacey's
saloon. Then a yell reached their ears, a yell of rage, consternation
and warning. Figures scurried to seek cover and the firing from
Jackson's and Lacey's grew more rapid.

A mounted man emerged from a corral and tore away, others following his
example, and the outfit separated to take up the chase individually.
Harlan, wounded hard, was trying to run to where he had left his horse,
and after him fled Slivers Lowe. Hopalong was gaining on them when he
saw Slivers raise his arm and fire deliberately into the back of the
proprietor of the Oasis, leap over the falling body, vault into the
saddle of Harlan's horse and gallop for safety. Hopalong's shots went
wide and the last view any one had of Slivers in that part of the
country was when he dropped into an arroyo to follow it for safety.
Laramie Joe fled before Red Connors and Red's rage was so great that it
spoiled his accuracy, and he had the sorrow of seeing the pursued grow
faint in the mist and fog. Pursuit was tried until the pursuers realized
that their mounts were too worn out to stand a show against the fresh
animals ridden by the survivors of the Oasis crowd.

Red circled and joined Hopalong. "Blasted coyotes," he growled. "Killed
Jackson an' Edwards, an' wanted the Kid! He's shore showed 'em what
fighting is, all right. But I wonder what got into 'em all at once to
give 'em nerve enough to start things?"

"Edwards paid his way, all right," replied Hopalong. "If I do as well
when my time comes I won't do no kicking."

"Yore time ain't coming that way," responded Red, grinning. "You'll die
a natural death in bed, unless you gets to cussing me."

"Shore there ain't no more, Buck?" Hopalong called.

"Yes. There was only five, I reckon, an' they was purty well shot up
when we took a hand. You know, Johnny was in it all the time," replied
the foreman, smiling. "This town's had the cleaning up it's needed for
some time," he added.

They were at Jackson's store now, and hurriedly dismounted and ran in
to see Johnny. They found him lying across some boxes, which brought him
almost to the level of a window sill. He was too weak to stand, while
near him in similar condition lay Barr, too weak from loss of blood to
do more than look his welcome.

"How are you, Kid?" cried Buck anxiously, bending over him, while others
looked to Barr's injuries.

"Tired, Buck, awful tired; an' all shot up," Johnny slowly replied.
"When I saw you fellers—streak past this windy—I sort of went
flat—something seemed to break inside me," he said, faintly and with an
effort, and the foreman ordered him not to talk. Deft fingers, schooled
by practice in rough and ready surgery, were busy over him and in half
an hour he lay on Jackson's cot, covered with bandages.

"Why, hullo, Lacey!" exclaimed Hopalong, leaping forward to shake hands
with the man Red and Billy had gone to help. "Purty well scratched up,
but lively yet, hey?"

"I'm able to hobble over here an' shake han's with these
scrappers—they're shore wonders," Lacey replied. "Fought like a whole
regiment! Hullo, Johnny!" and his hand-clasp told much.

"Yore cross fire did it, Lacey; that was the whole thing," Johnny
smiled. "Yo're all right!"

Red turned and looked out of the window toward the Oasis and then
glanced at Buck. "Reckon we better burn Harlan's place—it's all that's
left of that gang now," he suggested.

"Why, yes; I reckon so," replied the foreman. "That's as—"

"No, we won't!" Hopalong interposed quickly. "That stands till Johnny
sets it off. It's the Kid's celebration—he was shot in it."

Johnny smiled.

After the flurry at Perry's Bend the Bar-20 settled down to the calm
routine work and sent several drive herds to their destination without
any unusual incidents. Buck thought that the last herd had been driven
when, late in the summer, he received an order that he made haste to
fill. The outfit was told to get busy and soon rounded up the necessary
number of three-year-olds. Then came the road branding, the final step
except inspection, and this was done not far from the ranch house, where
the facilities were best for speedy work.

Entirely recovered from all ill effects of his afternoon in Jackson's
store up in Perry's bend, Johnny Nelson waited with Red Connors on the
platform of the branding chute and growled petulantly at the sun, the
dust, but most of all at the choking, smarting odor of burned hair which
filled their throats and caused them to rub the backs of grimy hands
across their eyes. Chute-branding robbed them of the excitement, the
leaven of fun and frolic, which they always took from open or corral
branding—and the work of a day in the corral or open was condensed into
an hour or two by the chute. This was one cow wide, narrow at the bottom
and flared out as it went up, so the animal could not turn, and when
filled was, to use Johnny's graphic phrase, "like a chain of cows in a
ditch." Eight of the wondering and crowded animals, guided into the pen
by men who knew their work to the smallest detail and lost no time in
its performance, filed into the pen after those branded had filed out.
As the first to enter reached the farther end a stout bar dropped into
place, just missing the animal's nose; and as the last cow discovered
that it could go no farther and made up its mind to back out, it was
stopped by another bar, which fell behind it. The iron heaters tossed
a hot iron each to Red and Johnny and the eight were marked in short
order, making about two hundred and fifty they had branded in three
hours. This number compared very favorably with that of the second
chute where Lanky Smith and Frenchy McAlister waved cold irons and
sarcastically asked their iron men if the sun was supposed to provide
the heat; whereat the down-trodden heaters provided heat with great
generosity in their caustic retorts.

"Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me," sang Billy Williams, one of the
feeders. "But why in Jericho don't you fellers get a move on you? You
ain't no good on the platform—you ought to be mixing biscuits for
Cookie. Frenchy and Lanky are the boys to turn 'em out," he offered,
gratis.

Red's weary air bespoke a vast and settled contempt for such inanities
and his iron descended against the side of the victim below him—he
would not deign to reply. Not so with Johnny, who could not refrain from
hot retort.

"Don't be a fool
all
the time," snapped Johnny. "Mind yore own
business, you shorthorn. Big-mouthed old woman, that's what—" his tone
dropped and the words sank into vague mutterings which a strangling
cough cut short. "Blasted idiot," he whispered, tears coming into his
eyes at the effort. Burning hair is bad for throat and temper alike.

Red deftly knocked his companion's iron up and spoke sharply. "You mind
yourn better—that makes the third you've tried to brand twice. Why
don't you look what yo're doing? Hot iron! Hot iron! What're you fellers
doing?" he shouted down at the heaters. "This ain't no time to go
to sleep. How d'ye expect us to do any work when you ain't doing any
yoreselves!" Red's temper was also on the ragged edge.

"You've got one in yore other hand, you sheep!" snorted one of the iron
heaters with restless pugnacity. "Go tearing into us when you—" he
growled the rest and kicked viciously at the fire.

"Lovely bunch," grinned Billy who, followed by Pete Wilson, mounted the
platform to relieve the branders. "Chase yoreselves—me an' Pete are
shore going to show you cranky bugs how to do a hundred an hour. Ain't
we, Pete? An' look here, you," he remarked to the heaters, "don't you
fellers keep
us
waiting for hot irons!"

"That's right! Make a fool out of yoreself first thing!" snapped one of
the pair on the ground.

"Billy, I never loved you as much as I do this minute," grinned Johnny
wearily. "Wish you'd 'a' come along to show us how to do it an hour
ago."

"I would, only—"

"Quit chinning an' get busy," remarked Red, climbing down. "The chute's
full; an' it's all yourn."

Billy caught the iron, gave it a preliminary flourish, and started to
work with a speed that would not endure for long. He branded five out of
the eight and jeered at his companion for being so slow.

"Have yore fun now, Billy," Pete replied with placid good nature.
"Before we're through with this job you'll be lucky if you can do two of
the string, if you keep up that pace."

"He'll be missing every other one," growled his heater with overflowing
malice. "That iron ain't cold, you Chinaman!"

"Too cold for me—don't miss none," chuckled Billy sweetly. "Fill the
chute! Fill the chute! Don't keep us waiting!" he cried to the guiders,
hopping around with feigned eagerness and impatience.

Hopalong Cassidy rode up and stopped as Red returned to take the place
of one of the iron heaters. "How they coming, Red?" he inquired.

"Fast. You can sic that inspector on 'em the first thing to-morrow
morning, if he gets here on time. Bet he's off som'ers getting full of
redeye. Who're going with you on this drive?"

"The inspector is all right—he's here now an' is going to spend the
night with us so as to be on hand the first thing to-morrow," replied
Hopalong, grinning at the hard-working pair on the platform. "Why, I
reckon I'll take you, Johnny, Lanky, Billy, Pete, an' Skinny, an'
we'll have two hoss-wranglers an' a cook, of course. We'll drive up
the right-hand trail through West Valley this time. It's longer, but
there'll be more water that way at this time of the year. Besides, I
don't want no more foot-sore cattle to nurse along. Even the West Valley
trail will be dry enough before we strike Bennett's Creek."