Cow-Country Part 20

In the creek bed he mounted and rode away at a sharp gallop, glad that Sunfish, thoroughbred though he was, had not been raised tenderly in stall and corral, but had run free with the range horses and had learned to keep his feet under him in rough country or smooth. When he reached the crossing of the stage road he turned to the left as Marian had commanded and put Sunfish to a pace that slid the miles behind him.

With his thoughts clinging to Marian, to the harshness which life had shown her who was all goodness and sweetness and courage, Bud forgot to keep careful watch behind him, or to look for the place where the hill trail joined the road, as it probably did some distance from Crater.

It would be a blind trail, of course--since only the Catrock gang and Marian knew of it.

They came into the road not far behind him, out of rock-strewn, brushy wilderness that sloped up steeply to the rugged sides of Gold Gap mountains. Sunfish discovered them first, and gave Bud warning just before they identified him and began to shoot.

Bud laid himself along the shoulder of his horse with a handful of mane to steady him while he watched his chance and fired back at them. There were four, just the number he had guessed from the sounds as they came out of the tunnel. A horse ran staggering toward him with the others, faltered and fell. Bud was sorry for that. It had been no part of his plan to shoot down the horses.

The three came on, leaving the fourth to his own devices--and that, too, was quite in keeping with the type of human vultures they were. They kept firing at Bud, and once he felt Sunfish wince and leap forward as if a spur had raked him. Bud shot again, and thought he saw one horseman lurch backward. But he could not be sure--they were going at a terrific pace now, and Sunfish was leaving them farther and farther behind. They were outcla.s.sed, hopelessly out of pistol range, and they must have known it, for although they held to the chase they fired no more shots.

Then a dog barked, and Bud knew that he was pa.s.sing a ranch. He could smell the fresh hay in the stacks, and a moment later he descried the black hulk of ranch buildings. Sunfish was running easily, his breath unlabored. Bud stood in the stirrups and looked back. They were still coming, for he could hear the pound of hoofs.

The ranch was behind him. Clear starlight was all around, and the bulk of near mountains. The road seemed sandy, yielding beneath the pound of Sunfish's hoofs. Bud leaned forward again in the saddle, and planned what he would do when he reached Crater; found time, also, to hope that Marian had gone back, and had not heard the shooting.

Another dog barked, this time on the right. Bud saw that they were pa.s.sing a picket fence. The barking of this dog started another farther ahead and to the left. Houses so close together could only mean that he was approaching Crater. Bud began to pull Sunfish down to a more conventional pace. He did not particularly want to see heads thrust from windows, and questions shouted to him. The Catrock gang might have friends up this way. It would be strange, Bud thought, if they hadn't.

He loped along the road grown broader now and smoother. Many houses he pa.s.sed, and the mouths of obscure lanes. Dogs ran out at him. Bud slowed to a walk and turned in the saddle, listening. Away back, where he had first met the signs of civilization, the dog he had aroused was barking again, his deep baying blurred by the distance. Bud grinned to himself and rode on at a walk, speaking now and then to an inquiring dog and calling him Purp in a tone that soothed.

Crater, he discovered in a cursory patrol of the place, was no more than an overgrown village. The court-house and jail stood on the main street, and just beyond was the bank. Bud rode here and there, examining closely the fronts of various buildings before he concluded that there was only the one bank in Crater. When he was quite sure of that he chose place near by the rear of the bank, where one horse and a cow occupied a comfortable corral together with hay. He unsaddled Sunfish and turned him there, himself returning to the bank before those other night-riders had more than reached the first straggling suburbs of the town.

On the porch of the court-house, behind a jutting corner pillar that seemed especially designed for the concealment of a man in Bud's situation, he rolled cigarette which he meant to smoke later on when the way was clear, and waited for the hors.e.m.e.n to appear.

Presently they came, rode to a point opposite the court-house and bank with no more than a careless glance that way, and halted in front of an uninviting hotel across the street. Two remained on their horses while the third pounded on the door and shook it by the k.n.o.b and finally raised the landlord from his sleep. There was a conference which Bud witnessed with much interest. A lamp had been lighted in the bare office, and against the yellow glow Bud distinctly saw the landlord nod his head twice--which plainly betokened some sort of understanding.

He was glad that he had not stopped at the hotel. He felt much more comfortable on the court-house porch. "Mother's guardian angels must be riding 'point' to-night," he mused.

The hors.e.m.e.n rode back to a livery stable which Bud had observed but had not entered. There they also sought for news of him, it would appear.

You will recall, however, that Bud had ridden slowly into the business district of Crater, and his pa.s.sing had been unmarked except by the barking of dogs that spent their nights in yammering at every sound and so were never taken seriously. The three hors.e.m.e.n were plainly nonplussed and conferred together in low tones before they rode on. It was evident that they meant to find Bud if they could. What they meant to do with him Bud did not attempt to conjecture. He did not intend to be found.

After a while the hors.e.m.e.n rode back to the hotel, got the landlord out with less difficulty than before and had another talk with him.

"He stole a horse from Dave Truman," Bud heard one of the three say distinctly. "That there running horse Dave had."

The landlord tucked in his s.h.i.+rt and exclaimed at the news, and Bud heard him mention the sheriff. But nothing came of that evidently. They talked further and reined their horses to ride back whence they came.

"He likely's give us the slip outside of town, some place," one man concluded. "We'll ride back and see. If he shows up, he'll likely want to eat... And send d.i.c.k out to the Stivers place. We'll come a-running."

He had lowered his voice so that Bud could not hear what was to happen before the landlord sent d.i.c.k, but he decided he would not pry into the matter and try to fill that gap in the conversation.

He sat where he was until the three had ridden back down the sandy road which served as a street. Then he slipped behind the court-house and smoked his cigarette, and went and borrowed hay from the cow and the horse in the corral and made himself some sort of bed with his saddle blanket to help out, and slept until morning.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE CATROCK GANG

A woman with a checkered ap.r.o.n and a motherly look came to let her chickens out and milk the cow, and woke Bud so that she could tell him she believed he had been on a "toot", or he never would have taken such a liberty with her corral. Bud agreed to the toot, and apologized, and asked for breakfast. And the woman, after one good look at him, handed him the milk bucket and asked him how he liked his eggs.

"All the way from barn to breakfast," Bud grinned, and the woman chuckled and called him Smarty, and told him to come in as soon as the cow was milked.

Bud had a great breakfast with the widow Hanson. She talked, and Bud learned a good deal about Crater and its surroundings, and when he spoke of holdup gangs she seemed to know immediately what he meant, and told him a great deal more about the Catrockers than Marian had done.

Everything from murdering and robbing a peddler to looting the banks at Crater and Lava was laid to the Catrockers. They were the human buzzards that watched over the country and swooped down wherever there was money.

The sheriff couldn't do anything with them, and no one expected him to, so far as Bud could discover.

He hesitated a long time before he asked about Marian Morris. Mrs.

Hanson wept while she related Marian's history, which in substance was exactly what Marian herself had told Bud. Mrs. Hanson, however, told how Marian had fought to save her father and Ed, and how she had married Lew Morris as a part of her campaign for honesty and goodness. Now she was down at Little Lost cooking for a gang of men, said Mrs. Hanson, when she ought to be out in the world singing for thousands and her in silks and diamonds instead of gingham dresses and not enough of them.

"Marian Collier is the sweetest thing that ever grew up in this country," the old lady sniffled. "She's one in a thousand and when she was off to school she showed that she wasn't no common trash. She wanted to be an opery singer, but then her mother died and Marian done what looked to be her duty. A bird in a trap is what I call her."

Bud regretted having opened the subject, and praised the cooking by way of turning his hostess's thoughts into a different channel. He asked her if she would accept him as a boarder while he was in town, and was promptly accepted.

He did not want to appear in public until the bank was opened, and he was a bit troubled over identification. There could be no harm, he reflected, in confiding to Mrs. Hanson as much as was necessary of his adventures. Wherefore he dried the dishes for her and told her his errand in town, and why it was that he and his horse had slept in her corral instead of patronizing hotel and livery stable. He showed her the checks he wanted to cash, and asked her, with flattering eagerness for her advice, what he should do. He had been warned, he said, that Jeff and his friends might try to beat him yet by stopping payment, and he knew that he had been followed by them to town.

"What You'll do will be what I tell ye," Mrs Hanson replied with decision. "The cas.h.i.+er is a friend to me--I was with his wife last month with her first baby, and they swear by me now, for I gave her good care.

We'll go over there this minute, and have talk with him. He'll do what he can for ye, and he'll do it for my sake."

"You don't know me, remember," Bud reminded her honestly.

The widow Hanson gave him a scornful smile and toss of her head. "And do I not?" she demanded. "Do you think I've buried three husbands and thinking now of the fourth, without knowing what's wrote a man's face?

Three I buried, and only one died his bed. I can tell if a man's honest or not, without giving him the second look. If you've got them checks you should get the money on them--for I know their stripe. Come on with me to Jimmy Lawton's house. He's likely holding the baby while Minie does the dishes."

Mrs. Hanson guessed shrewdly. The cas.h.i.+er of the Crater County Bank was doing exactly what she said he would be doing. He was sitting in the kitchen, rocking a pink baby wrapped in white outing flannel with blue border, when Mrs. Hanson, without the formality of more than one warning tap on the screen door, walked in with Bud. She held out her hands for the baby while she introduced the cas.h.i.+er to Bud. In the next breath she was explaining what was wanted of the bank.

"They've done it before, and ye know it's plain thievery and ought to be complained about. So now get your wits to work, Jimmy, for this friend of mine is ent.i.tled to his money and should have it if it is there to be had."

"Oh, it's there," said Jimmy. He looked at his watch, looked at the kitchen clock, looked at Bud and winked. "We open at nine, in this town," he said. "It lacks half an hour--but let me see those checks."

Very relievedly Bud produced them, watched the cas.h.i.+er scan each one to make sure that they were right, and quaked when Jimmy scowled at Jeff Hall's signature on the largest check of all. "He had a notion to use the wrong signature, but he may have lost his nerve. It's all right, Mr.

Birnie. Just endorse these, and I'll take them into the bank and attend to them the first thing I do after the door is open. You'd better come in when I open up--"

"The gang had some talk about cleaning out the bank while they 're about it," Bud remembered suddenly. "Can't you appoint me something, or hire me as a guard and let me help out? How many men do you have here in this bank?"

"Two, except when the president's in his office in the rear. That's fine of you to offer. We've been held up, once--and they cleaned us out of cash." Jimmy turned to Mrs. Hanson. "Mother, can't you run over and have Jess come and swear Mr. Birnie in as a deputy? If I go, or he goes, someone may notice it and tip the gang off."

Mrs. Hanson hastily deposited the baby in its cradle and went to call "Jess", her face pink with excitement.

"You're lucky you stopped at her house instead of some other place,"

Jimmy observed. "She's a corking good woman. As a deputy sheriff, you'll come in mighty handy if they do try anything, Mr. Birnie--if you're the kind of a man you look to be. I'll bet you can shoot. Can you?"

"If you scare me badly enough, I might get a cramp in my trigger finger," Bud confessed. Jimmy grinned and went back to considering his own part.

"I'll cash these checks for you the first thing I do. And as deputy you can go with me. I'll have to unlock the door on time, and if they mean to stop payment, and clean the bank too, it will probably be done all at once. It has been a year since they bothered us, so they may need a little change. If Jess isn't busy he may stick around."

"No one expects him to round up the gang, I heard."

"No one expects him to go into Catrock Canyon after them. He'll round them up, quick enough, if he can catch them far enough from their holes."

Jess returned with Mrs. Hanson, swore in a new deputy, eyed Bud curiously, and agreed to remain hidden across the road from the bank with a rifle. He nodded understandingly when Bud warned him that the looting was a matter of hearsay on his part, and departed with an awkward compliment to Mrs. Jim about hoping that the baby was going to look like her.

Jim lived just behind the bank, and a high board fence between the two buildings served to hide his coming and going. But Bud took off his hat and walked stooping,--by special request of Mrs. Hanson--to make sure that he was not observed.