Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 04 - Sudden Outlawed(1934) (18 page)

 
          
“Hell’s
bells, didn’t he try to bump off the 01’ Man?” Sandy demanded.

 
          
“O’ course, daddy-in-law to be, huh?”
Sudden nodded
comprehendingly. “But why ain’t yu in the hospital, swappin’ pains with him?”

 
          
“For
the same reason yu ain’t in a home for the half-witted —neither of us could
qualify,” came the swift retort. “
yo’re
sufferin’ from
the wrong nurse,” Sudden said shrewdly. “C’mon.

 
          
What
yu want
is
work, an’ its shorely waitin’ for yu.”

 
          
They
reached the herd–whither Jeff had preceded them—just after the missing rider,
Truthful, had arrived, proudly escorting a score of steers. Ringed in by the
rest, he was telling his story:

 
          
“When
the mix-up started, my horse went loco; he’s as strong as Satan’s breath, that
roan is, an’ I couldn’t hold him. Where he took me I dunno but we rode around
for”

 
          
“Days,” Silent suggested.

 
          
“Weeks,”
corrected the Infant.

 
          
“Hours,
I was gain’ to say, though it seemed like days,” the narrator said. “When dawn
arrove I found I was in the middle o’ the plain—”

 
          
“Oh,
bury me out on the lone pra-i-rie,” chanted the Infant, and was promptly
promised that fate if he opened his face again.

 
          
“
There warn’t nothin’ in sight but a clump o’ scrub, mostly
mesquite,
an’ while I’m lookin’ at this out steps one solitary steer,
an’ who’d yu think it was?”

 
          
“The
Bull o’ Bashan,” Sandy offered.

 
          
“Never
heard o’ the brand,” the tale-teller retorted. “No, gents, it was ol’
Show-‘em-how, shore as I’m standin’ here.”

 
          
“Yu
ain’t standin’—yo’re lyin’, Truthful,” sniggered Dumpy. Even Jeff laughed at
this, and then commanded silence. “Go ahead, boy,” he said. “I wanta hear how
yu rounded up them cows.”

 
          
“I
didn’t,” Truthful replied. “When of Show-‘em pops out I remarks aloud, `What’s
th’ use o’ one damn cow anyways?’ Well, that moss-head looks at me solemn for
‘bout a minitan’ then stalks back into the brush. I figure 1 shorely hurt his
feelin’s, but presently, out he comes again with eleven more along, sorta lines
‘em up, an’ cocks an eye at me. I points to the scrub.

 
          
“Good for yu, ol-timer,’ I sez.
`Fly at it—fetch ‘em all
out. Sic ‘em.’

 
          
“Shore
enough he heads in again; the steers start to foller but he lets out one beller
an’ they stops, mighty abrupt. Its mebbe half an hour before he shows up again
with eight cows.

 
          
“Ain’t
there no more?’ I
asks
, an’ I wish I may die if he
didn’t shake his head. Then he trots off across the plain, the rest tailin’
after, an’ here we are.”

 
          
One
by one the audience stepped forward, grasped the narrator’s right hand, shook
it vigorously and retreated without a word. Truthful endured it with widening
eyes until all but the foreman had taken part, and then: ’

 
          
“Jeff,
they think I’m stringin’ ‘em,” he cried.

 
          
“Don’t
yu care, son,” was the reply. “I’m believin’ yu, but” —there was a grin on the
leathery face— “not until frawgs grows feathers.”

 
          
WITH
the cattle and camp safely hidden in the arroyo, which two men could guard, the
remainder of the outfit were
free to scour the
surrounding country in search of the scattered longhorns. This meant a
repetition of the work done when the herd was got together, many hours of hard
riding, the routing of beasts out of brush-choked gullies and thorny chaparral.

 
          
Despite
the difficulties, additions to the herd dribbled in and with each one the
foreman’s face grew less sombre. On the fifth day, however, some of the
searchers returned empty-handed, though still nearly half the oattle were missing.

 
          
“They
musta got away with over a thousand head, reckonin’ they’d lose some we ain’t
found,” Jeff said. “We might as well push on; we won’t find many more.”

 
          
“Hold
on for another day,” Sudden advised, “
an
’ let me an’
Sandy have Jed an’ Dumpy tomorrow.”

 
          
The
foreman agreed without question; he was beginning to realize that this cool,
capable young cowboy usually had a reason for anything he said or did.

 
          
On
the following morning the four men set out. Jed, as ever, had his grumble:
“Waste o’ time. Betcha we don’t git a cow a-piece.”

 
          
Sandy
grinned at his friend. “Don’t tell ‘em,” he whispered. “Shore not,” Sudden
said.

 
          
“Besides,
the nest may be empty; the joke would be on us then.”

 
          
It
had been on the first day that the pair of them, returning after a fruitless
foray through a broken patch of country some twelve miles from camp, halted
abruptly on the edge of a wide swathe of cattle-tracks. The fact that the
beasts had been bunched together, and the prints of shod horses alongside, told
that they had been driven. The S E men followed the trail to a small, hidden
valley, rock-rimmed the narrow entrance to which was masked by a great boulder
and further defended by a rude fence of poles lashed together with rawhide, two
of which could be moved to permit passage. Riding through, they found a
grass-covered basin in which some hundreds of cows were feeding. There appeared
to be no one in charge, and they had no difficulty in getting near enough to
read the brand on the nearest beast.

 
          
“S
E,” Sandy cried exultantly. “Jim, our luck has shorely changed; here’s a sight
that’ll make Jeff’s eyes stick out like they was on stalks. Do we round ‘em
up?”

 
          
Sudden
shook his head. “Here’s how I figure it,” he explained. “Rogue’s men couldn’t
hold the herd no more’n we could.
They’re combin’ the country
too an’ bringin’ ‘em here as they gather ‘em.
I’m bettin’ that if we
call again in a few days’ time we’ll find twice as many.”

 
          
Sandy
let out a whoop. “Jim, yo’re a great man,” he said. “The notion o’ lettin’ them
skunks collect cows for us hits me where I live.”

 
          
So they had left the valley undisturbed and for the ensuing days
had ridden in other directions.
It had been a gamble, and they were now
on their way to learn if they had lost or won.

 
          
If
the rustlers had removed their plunder
… .

 
          
They
reached the spot, and leaving Sandy on guard outside, the others rode into the
valley. One glance told Sudden that he had guessed correctly; the herd had more
than doubled; roughly he estimated it at nearly a thousand head, with a
sprinkling of horses. His companions yelped gleefully.

 
          
“Seems
we might git a cow a-piece arter all, Jed,” the fatman remarked. “Wish I’d took
that bet. Why didn’t yu take him up, Jim?”

 
          
“They
might not ‘a’ been here,” Sudden smiled. “We’ll have one fine job handlin’ ‘em;
I didn’t expect so many.”

 
          
“What
about sendin’ to Jeff for help?” Jed asked.

 
          
“Too
risky—the rustlers may be showin’ up any moment. We’ll go while the goin’s
good.”

 
          
For
the next few hours all four riders were far too busy to think of anything but
the work in hand. It was a big bunch for so small a crew, and the cattle—loth
to leave the peaceful, sheltered valley, made frequent efforts to break back.
By the time the arroyo was reached the men were limp, drenched with
perspiration, and utterly profane.

 
          
They
found the foreman and Carol at the entrance to the arroyo, and the little man’s
slitted eyes widened when he saw the cattle pouring through.

 
          
“Christ-opher
Columbus!” he ejaculated, remembering just in time that his employer’s daughter
was present. “Whose ranch yu bin raidin’, Jim?”

 
          
But
the girl had seen the brand. “They are our own cows, Jeff,” she cried. “Won’t
Dad be
pleased!
”

 
          
“I’ll
say he will,” the foreman grinned. “This’ll do him more
good
than all the nussin’.
How come, Jim?”

 
          
Sudden
told the tale, while Jeff swore delightedly to himself as he listened.

 
          
“Yu
shore got nerve, boy,” he commented. “Lettin’ them thieves collect our cows for
us was one great scheme.”

 
          
“Seemed
fair to me,” Sudden smiled. “They scattered ‘em.”

 
          
Jeff’s
eyes had been busy and as the last of the herd trotted by he slapped his thigh
joyously. “Damn near a thousand head,” he said. “Why, we won’t be more’n
three-four hundred shy after all, an’ we owe it to yu, Jim.”

 
          
“Shucks,”
Sudden said lightly, and jerked a thumb at his friend. “There’s the fella yu
gotta thank.”

 
          
“I
was meanin’ both,” the foreman replied. “It was shorely a good day for the S E
that brought yu boys along.” Sandy cared nothing for the little man’s praise;
the look of gratitude the girl gave him as she rode away to tell her father the
news was all the reward he wanted.

 
          
“We’ll
be all fixed to take the trail in the mornin’,” Jeff went on. Sudden’s eyebrows
rose and he shot a whimsical glance at the sun overhead. The foreman read it. “
yo’re
figurin’ we oughta start now?” he asked.-

 
          
“Think
it over,” the cowboy replied. “We don’t know how soon them hombres will
discover their loss, but yu can bet they won’t waste no time high-tailin’ it
after us—follerin’ the cattle won’t be no trick a-tall, we couldn’t blind our
tracks. Any lead we can get will be all to the good.”

 
          
“Yo’re
damn right,” Jeff agreed. “We want to be plenty absent when they arrive. Sandy,
go tell the boys we’ll be settin’ out pronto.”

 
          
In
less than an hour the herd was again on the move, heading away from where they
conjectured the rustlers to be encamped. Despite the disaster, cheerfulness
reigned. The loss had proved far less than had seemed likely, and the riders,
with the optimism born of their hardy natures, had already transformed the
incident into a victory; they had “put one over” the cattlethieves. Pebbles
expressed his satisfaction in song:

 
          
“Roll
yore tails an’ roll ‘em high,
We’ll
all be angels by
an’ by.”

 
          
The
foreman’s face creased in a smile. “Hark to him,” he said. “
He’s
wore
to a frazzle—as we all are–his clothes is sca’cely decent, an’ he
ain’t got a dollar to his name, but he’s happy. Yu can’t heat them fellas.”

 
          
SUDDEN
reined in his horse on the top of a broken-backed ridge and surveyed the
surrounding scenery; the indentation between his level brows denoted that he
was not entirely pleased with what he saw.
Since the stampede
and the events which followed it, day after day had passed in wearying but
satisfactory monotony.

 
          
For the last day or so Sudden had been wondering whether, in their
search for easy going, they had veered too much to the west.
Now, it was
clear that the surface of the prairie was changing, the grass was becoming
sparse and sand was taking its place. Ahead of him, a giant cactus, its
candelabra-like arms curving upwards, stood like a warning sentinel. Far away,
almost on the horizon, a swarm of black dots moved slowly nearer. He rode back
to the herd.