Hopalong Cassidy Part 23

"Turn around an' hit th' back trail," ordered Red. "No back talk!"

"I'll bust you wide open, someday, you red-headed wart!" threatened Dan, shaking his fist at the grinning line man. "That's a h--l of a thing to do, that is!"

"Shut up an' go home. Ain't you got enough?" shouted Red.

"Just wait, you half-breed!" yelled Ed Joyce.

"That's two with th' waiting habit," laughed Johnny.

"What do--" began Chick, stepping forward.

"Shut up! Who told you to open yore face!" cried Red, savagely. "Get home! G'wan!"

"Walk, you coyotes, walk!" exulted Johnny.

He and his companion watched the three angry punchers stride off towards the H2 and then Red told Johnny to ride west while he, himself, would go east to help his friends if they should need him.

They had just begun to separate when Johnny uttered a shout of joy.

Antonio had joined the trio of walkers and they were pulling him from his horse. He waved his arms excitedly, but Chick had him covered. Dan and Ed were already on the animal and they quickly pulled Chick up behind them, narrowly watching the Mexican all the while. The horse fought for some time and then started south, the riders shouting while Antonio, still waving his arms, plodded homeward on foot.

Great joy filled Johnny's heart as he gloated over the Mexican's predicament. "Hoof it, you greasy snake! Kick up th' dust, you lazy lizard!"

"They can't get in th' game again for some time, till they get cayuses," remarked Red. "That makes four less to deal with, counting th' Greaser as a whole man."

"Three an' a third," corrected his companion. "He acts like he had all eternity to get nowhere--look at him! Let's go down an' rope him. He's on th' prod now--we can have a lot of fun."

"If I go down there it'll be to plug him good," Red replied. "You hang around out here for a while. I'm goin' west--Pete's in that house alone--so long, Kid."

Johnny grinned a farewell to Antonio and followed instructions while his friend rode towards the Peak to a.s.sist Pete, the lonely, who as it happened, would be very glad to see him.

CHAPTER XVII

PETE IS TRICKED

Pete Wilson grumbled, for he was tiring of his monotonous vigil, and almost hoped the H2 would take the house because of the excitement incident to its re-capture. At first his a.s.signment had pleased, but as hour after hour pa.s.sed with growing weariness, he chafed more and more and his temper grew constantly shorter.

With the exception of smoking he had exhausted every means of pa.s.sing the time; he knew to a certainty how many bushes and large stones were on the plateau, the ranges between him and distant objects, and other things, and now he had to fall back on his pipe.

"Wish some son-of-a-thief would zephyr up an' start something," he muttered. "If I stays in this fly-corral much longer I'll go loco. A couple of years back we wouldn't have waited ten minutes in a case like this--we'd 'a chased that crowd off th' range quick. What's getting into us has got me picking out th' festive pea, all right."

He stopped at the east window and scrutinized the line as far as he could see the dim, dusty, winding trail, hoping that some of the outfit would come into sight. Then he slid the Sharps out of the window and held it on an imaginary enemy, whom he pretended was going to try to take the house. While he thought of caustic remarks, with which to greet such a person, he saw the head of a horse push up into view over the edge of the hill.

Sudden hope surged through him and shocked him to action. He c.o.c.ked the rifle, the metallic clicks sweet to his ears. Then he saw the rider, and it was--Mary Meeker.

Astonishment and quick suspicion filled his mind and he held the weapon ready to use on her escort, should she have one. Her horse reared and plunged and, deciding that she was alone, and ashamed to be covering a woman, he slid the gun back into the room, leaning it against the wall close at his hand, not losing sight of the rider for a moment.

"Now, what th' devil is she doing up here, anyhow?" he puzzled, and then a grin flickered across his face as the possible solution came to him. "Mebby she wants Hopalong," he muttered, and added quickly, "Purty as blazes, too!" And she did make a pretty picture even to his scoffing and woman-hating mind.

She was having trouble with her mount, due to the spurring it was getting on the side farther from the watcher. It reared and plunged, bucking sideways, up-and-down and fence-cornered, zig-zagging over the ground forward and back, and then began to pitch "stiff-legged."

Pete's eyes glowed with the appreciation of a master rider and he was filled with admiration, which soon became enthusiastic, over her saddle-ease and cool mastery. She seemed to be a part of the horse.

"She'd 'a been gone long ago if she was fool enough to sit one of them side saddle contraptions," he mused. "A-straddle is th' only--_Good!_ All right! Yo're a stayer!" he exclaimed as she stepped from one stirrup and stood up in the other when the animal reared up on its hind legs.

He glanced out of the other windows of the house and fell to watching her again, his face darkening as he saw that she appeared to be tiring, while her mount grew steadily worse. Then she "touched leather," and again and again. Her foot slipped from the stirrup, but found it again, while she frantically clung to the saddle horn.

"Four-legged devil!" Pete exclaimed. "Wish _I_ was on you, you ornery dog! Hey! Don't you bite like that! Keep yore teeth away from that leg or I'll blow yore d----d head off!" he cried wrathfully as the animal bit viciously several times at the stirrup leather. "I'll whale th'

stuffin' outen you, you wall-eyed clay-bank! Yo're too bronc for _her_ to ride, all right."

Then, during another and more vicious fit of stiff-legged pitching the rider held to the saddle horn with both hands, while her foot, again out of the stirrup, sought for it in vain. She was rapidly losing her grip on the saddle and suddenly she was thrown off, a cry reaching Pete's ears. The victorious animal kicked several times and shook its head vigorously in celebration of its freedom and then buck-jumped across the plateau and out of sight down the hill, Pete strongly tempted to stop its exuberance with a bullet.

Pete glanced at the figure huddled in the dust and then, swearing savagely and fearing the worst, threw down the bar and jerked open the door and ran as rapidly as his awkward legs would take him to see what he could do for her, his hand still grasping his rifle. As he knelt beside her he remembered that he had been told not to leave the house under any circ.u.mstances and he glanced over his shoulder, and just in time to see a chap-covered leg disappear through the doorway. His heart sank as the crash of the bar falling into place told him that he had been unworthy of the trust his best friend had reposed in him. It was plain enough, now, that he had been fooled, to understand it all and to know that as he left the house one or more H2 punchers had sprinted for it from the other side of the plateau.

Red fury filled him in an instant and tearing the revolver from the girl's belt he threw it away and then, grasping her with both hands, he raised her up as though she weighed nothing and threw her over his shoulder, sprinting for the protection of the hillside, which he reached in a few bounds. Throwing her down as he would throw a bag of flour he snarled at her as she arose and brushed her clothes. Years ago in Pete's life a woman had outraged his love and trust and sent him through a very h.e.l.l of sorrow; and since then he had had no love for the s.e.x--only a bitter, scathing cynicism, which now found its outlet in words.

"Yo're a nice one, you are!" he yelled. "You've done yore part! Yo're all alike, every d----d one of you--Judas wasn't no man, not by a d----d sight! You know a man won't stand by an' see you hurt without trying to help you--an' you play it against him!"

She was about to retort, but smiled instead and went on with her dusting.

"Tickled, hey! Well, you watch an' see what _we_ do to coyotes! You'll see what happens to line-thieves down here!"

She looked up quickly and suspected that instead of averting a fight she had precipitated one. Both Hopalong and her father were in as much danger now as if she had taken no part in the trouble.

Pete emptied his revolver into the air as rapidly as he could work the hammer and hurriedly reloaded it, all the time watching his prisoner and the top of the hill. Three quick reports, m.u.f.fled by distance, replied from Long Hill and he turned to her.

"Now why don't you laugh?" he gritted savagely. He caught sight of her horse grazing calmly further down the hill and his Sharps leaped to his shoulder and crashed. The animal stiffened, erect for a moment, and then sank slowly back on its quivering haunches and dropped.

"_You_ won't pitch no more, d--n you!" he growled, reloading.

Her eyes snapped with anger and she caught at her holster. "You coward! You coward!" she cried, stamping her foot. "To kill that horse, an' steal my gun--afraid of a woman!" she taunted. "Coward!"

"I'll pull a snake's fangs rather than get bit by one, when I can't shoot 'em!" he retorted, stung by her words. "You'll see how big a coward I am purty soon--an' you'll stay right here an' see it, too!"

"_I_ won't run away," she replied, sitting down and tucking her feet under her skirts. "_I'm_ not afraid of a coward!"

Another shot rang out just over the top of Stepping Stone Hill and he replied to it. Far to the west a faint report was heard and Pete knew that Skinny was roweling the lathered sides of his straining horse.

Yet another sounded flatly from the direction of the dam, the hills multiplying it into a distant fusillade.

"Hear 'em!" he demanded, fierce joy ringing in his voice. "Hear 'em!

You've kicked th' dynamite, all right--you'll smell th' smoke of yore little squib clean down to yore ranch house!"

"That's grand--yo're doing it fine," she laughed, strangling the fear which crept slowly through her. "Go on--it's grand!"

"It'll be a whole lot grander when th' boys get here an' find out what's happened," he promised. "There'll be some funerals start out from what's left of yore ranch house purty soon."

"Ki-i-i-e-e-p! Ki-ip ki-ip!" came the hair-raising yell from the top of Stepping Stone Hill, and Pete withheld the rest of his remarks to reply to it in kind. Suddenly Red Connors, his quirt rising and falling, bounded over the top of the hill and shot down the other side at full speed. Close behind him came Billy Williams, who rode as recklessly until his horse stepped into a hole and went down, throwing him forward like a shot out of a catapult. He rolled down the hill some distance before he could check his impetus and then, scrambling to his feet, drew his Colt and put his broken-legged mount out of its misery before hobbling on again.