Guardians of the Sage (20 page)

The spot he had chosen for the ambush suited their purpose ideally. The willows grew dense there. When they had crawled into them and concealed themselves there was no sign to say that danger lurked there.

But they were totally unaware of a pair of piercing black eyes watching them from the top of the bank just as intently as they were watching the creek bottom for sight of Montana. It was Plenty Eagles. Quantrell had made few moves in the last few days that the young Indian had not observed. He could not voice his gratitude to Jim, but he was proving it in more tangible ways.

When he finally slipped away, he moved noiselessly. No eye was turned in his direction. After he had put a screen of trees between him and the waiting men, he came back to the creek bottom and headed for the north.

“Not letting Montana walk into that trap,” he muttered fiercely. “He make big mistake not letting me kill Quantrell.”

M
R. STALL had said nothing to Letty concerning the reason for his mysterious journey to Vale with MacMasters. He had returned breathing confidence regarding the outcome of the struggle in which he was engaged.

Reb had met him with the news that parties unknown were rustling their cattle. It was rubbing him on a sore spot.

“It's squarely up to you to spot it,” old Slick-ear had raged. “You ought to know where to look for them.”

“I'm only askin' permission to shoot first and ask questions later,” Reb had answered.

“On our range, yes! That's first principles in this business! Have you seen anyone?”

“Last night—but they got away. . . . I'm not underestimatin' Jim Montana now. He's pretty smart.”

The shot told. Mr. Stall chewed his mustache.

“You may have to look further than Montana, Mr. Russell.”

“Mebbe he isn't leadin' 'em,” Reb hedged, “But he's standin' for it; he's still down there. It gets to the same thing with me.”

Despite renewed vigilance on his part the rustling had continued. Mr. Stall stormed to no avail. In his mind he charged up every lost steer against the day when the Squaw Valley men should be forced to their knees.

Although he never admitted it, he was secretly happy to have Letty near him. Her “sprained” ankle had improved slowly and before she had fully recovered he had ceased thinking about sending her away.

Weeks had passed since he had visited his Nevada ranches. Business in California called to him. Only by mail could he keep in touch with his far-flung empire. He would write for half a day at a time, putting out of his mind all thought of the Squaw Valley strife and giving orders and advice to his foremen, with an eye for detail that was uncanny.

He was at it today, dispatching a long letter to the foreman of his Humboldt ranch, east of Winnemucca.

“I am in receipt of your report for last month. In general it is satisfactory. I note what you say about the men. Tom Kelsey has been working for me a long time, but if he insists on going into Golconda and getting drunk, you should dismiss him. It has a bad effect on the rest of the men, and you can't get work out of him if he's been drunk the night before.

I notice in your accounts the amount of meat you have been using. It is altogether too much. I want the men to have enough; but you have a good garden on the river. The men will work better for having more vegetables and less meat.

Of course it is disappointing to learn that Mrs. Kirk did not come up to your expectations as a cook. I have found that when you have to hire a man and his wife to get a cook you are usually borrowing trouble. Either the man will not do the chores or work with a will at anything, or his wife will turn out to be a very third-rate woman in the kitchen. I advise you to hire a Chinaman. They are clean and waste very little.

I had been waiting to visit the ranch to tell you about the stove in the dining-room. The legs are wobbly, and if some one bumps against the stove accidentally it will surely upset. I want you to have that looked after while the stove is not in use. A fire would be very expensive.

In regard to the cellar. The dobe was crumbling badly last year. It would be a waste of money to repair it. You will find it more economical to build a new one. You could place it next to the blacksmith shop.

I cannot say when I will be down. I note that Mr. Taylor would like to contract for some of our pasture this fall. With the water situation what it is, I am against that. We will need all our pasture, and there is no profit in letting it out and having to repair the fences and possibly pump water for him.”

A broken window, a leaking head-gate in an irrigation ditch—nothing was too small to escape his attention. Perhaps it would not have been unusual for a man to give such attention to details on one ranch, but he was doing it for a score of ranches spread over four states.

When thus engaged he was so absorbed with his train of thought that he permitted no interruption except on the most urgent matters. Even Letty, for all her bossing of him, respected his wish in this matter.

He had seen her ride away that morning. But she had been doing it for some days now and always returning within an hour or so, and it gave him no cause for concern this time. Several hours had passed as he sat at his desk, but he wrote on unmindful of her protracted absence.

If he had stepped to the door he could have caught a glimpse of her, riding in from the south with Montana beside her.

Blissfully unaware of the fact that they had been spied on, Jim and Letty had followed the Big Powder north. It gave Montana a thrill to see the old Bar Son a steer's hide. It was like coming home, in a way.

Reb had too many men riding the range for Jim and Letty to proceed very far before encountering them. They had not covered more than a mile before Johnny Lefleur cut across their trail. Seeing Jim there was startling enough to leave Johnny speechless.

Letty called out a greeting to him, but Montana maintained a tight-lipped silence. He knew he was
persona non grata
with all Bar S men. He did not propose to give Johnny a chance to humble him.

They rode on. Letty had lost her smile. For a few minutes she had been day-dreaming, but the work-a-day world with its problems and strife had caught up with her.

They met other men who turned away without a word, contempt for Montana in their eyes.

“Don't let it worry you, ma'am,” Jim told her. “I had to expect that or worse.”

They had just reached the ranch yard when a horseman rode toward them. It was Reb. After his first start of surprise, a sneer curled his lips and he turned away without a word. Montana pretended not to notice.

“I'll hardly be seeing you before you leave,” Letty told him. “I want you to know this, Jim. If there's ever anything I can do to help—I will! You'll find Father in the front room.”

She was gone then, without another word.

Old Slick-ear was seated at a table, his pen still travelling swiftly over the paper as he dashed off another of his endless letters. Jim stood there for half a minute before the old man looked up. The change that swept over Mr. Stall's plump face was startling. With a snort of rage he pushed his chair back.

“What you doing here?” he demanded.

“I came to see you, Mr. Stall.”

“Well, you're seeing me! How did you get here?”

Jim hesitated. “Miss Letty brought me——”

“That girl!” The old man's face was purple. He slammed his pen down on the table violently. It splattered ink across his letter.

Montana explained how he had met Letty and begged her to bring him to the house.

“Well, you're here now, and you can turn around and get out! If you think you can come here as an envoy from that cattle-stealing pack you've been running with, you're mistaken!”

“But we're losing stuff, too, Mr. Stall—perhaps more than you—and you're not taking it!”

“Hunh?” Suspicion and baffled rage battled for supremacy in that hoarse cry.

“And we are not rustling your stuff!” Jim drove on. “I'll prove that to you if you'll listen. Don't get the idea I'm here asking for quarter, or speaking for anyone but myself. This fight can go on, but while we're battling over the bone, a third party is running off with it!”

It was unexpected enough to take some of the bluster out of the old man. Keen judge of men that he was, he knew Montana was not given to over-statement. He stared at him fiercely but he could not beat down his eyes.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded, and he could not have clipped the words off shorter with a knife.

“I mean that Billy Sauls wasn't killed in any range feud. He was murdered in the hope that it would stampede Reb into something just as desperate. For the same reason, houses and hay were burned—and the work charged to you.”

Old Slick-ear bit at his mustache for a moment and then did a typical about-face.

“Sit down,” he said, his tone almost mild.

“No, I'll get this off my chest standing up. I'm too full of it to sit down. I should have tumbled to the game long before I left Wild Horse. I
was
suspicious, but I never got it right until the last few days. I know now. One man has engineered every move. He killed that Crockett boy just as sure as though he'd held a gun up to his head and blazed away. That boy's father is the only man on our side who knows I'm here. If I'm caught it's going to go pretty hard with me—I've already been accused of being in your employ. But that's beside the point.”

“Well, who is it?” the old man thundered. “Give him a name!”

Jim shook his head.

“Not yet, Mr. Stall. He belongs to me. Billy Sauls was my buddy.”

There was nothing in the old man's manner to say that he believed what Montana was saying. In his heart he did. And it put a different complexion on things. For the better part of ten minutes he tried unsuccessfully to find out who it was that Montana suspected.

“No, I'll get him myself, Mr. Stall,” Jim insisted. “There's only two or three ways a man could run cattle out of this country. Wild Horse would be too dangerous. To the south, they'd have to go through Willow Vista and, further along, Quinn River. You'd know about it if that was the case—wouldn't you?”

“I'd know all right,” he muttered pointedly.

“There's only one other way then—the back door, so to speak—Iron Point and Cisco.”

“I've got that covered, if that's what you're driving at! What's your point?”

Montana permitted himself a grim smile. It was simple enough. If the Bar S had lost as heavily as the other side there was well on toward two hundred steers missing. If they hadn't been driven out to a shipping-point, they were being held somewhere between the Malheurs and the Junipers. He said as much.

“Hunh!” The old man's grunt was sceptical now. It was not easy to hide two hundred steers.

“And no easier to move them with as many men on the range as this! They'd have to hold 'em until the overbranding healed. If they can hold them a week, why can't they hold them a month? I don't believe they've ever been driven out. I aim to find them, if that's the case.”

“Where are you going to look?”

“That's my problem, Mr. Stall. If I succeed, I want you to reconsider your stand in the valley.”

“What? In what way?”

“In a dollar and cents way. There'll never be a profit here for you as long as these Kentuckians hang on. And they'll stick it out. They're that kind.”

“What, compromise with them?” The little veins in his cheeks were purple again. “Not a chance! Not a single chance!” he exclaimed, banging the table with his fist. “There's too many ifs in your talk, Montana, and they're all on your side!” He got up to indicate that the interview was over. “You want to grow up before you cross bows with me. I told you in Wild Horse I'd fight. That's what I'm doing, and I don't mean rustling cattle or burning people out of their homes by that. This thing is moving on to the end, and I'm perfectly satisfied to let it. Even if I had any reason to think of changing my mind I'd not obligate myself to anything on ifs. If ever you have any facts to present, I'll listen to 'em; but I'm not compromising anything.”

Jim left. Old Slick-ear had more letters to write but he sat at his desk without reaching for his pen, deep in thought. He could no longer ignore Letty's continued interest in Montana. His frown deepened as he considered it.

“That's why she came here,” he told himself. “That's why she had to make that long trip to Wild Horse. . . . Always defending him.”

He went back to the days at Willow Vista when Jim had worked for him. He found plenty to substantiate what he was thinking.

“Began way back there,” he mused. “. . . Breaking horses for her. Teaching her how to ride.”

He also recalled how Montana had come to him and asked for his wages. His work had been more than satisfactory. He had not asked for more money. It had been hard to understand at the time—harder than it was now.

“No question about her having been responsible,” he argued. Just how, he could not decide. “Evidently he figured he was over his head and took that way out.” It gave him a new respect for Montana. “Cost me a good man,” he thought, only to add, “but of course he did the right thing. He knew what I'd say about anything like that. But the nerve of him, coming here thinking I might compromise!” The very thought won a snort of contempt from him. “I've got the skids under them right now. I'll show Montana what he's up against.”

He picked up his pen and reached for a sheet of paper. For once he found it difficult to begin his letter.

“Biggest mistake I ever made in my life letting that man get away from me,” he muttered. “I could use him now.”