SHORT-CUT TO HELL

Originally published in Six-Gun Western, April 1950.

CHAPTER I

“Lock him up, Sheriff!”

Pete Barlow, sitting among the emigrants of the Red Fork Company, watched firelight play on the tanned faces of the men and on the canvas covers of wagons. Barlow, not yet discharged from the army, was conspicuous in his uniform, but no one noticed him. No one noticed anyone or anything but Kirby Swift, second in command of the emigrant wagon train.

The sodbusters, squatting in a half circle, had the same look Barlow had noted at political meetings when a spellbinder tricked his hearers into agreement, not because he spoke sense, but because he wished them to agree. Horace Parker, with the wheat colored beard and grave face and kindly eyes was still captain of the emigrant company, but his flashy segundo, Kirby Swift, had stolen command. Tall and swarthy and good looking, he filled the eyes. He had a daredevil swagger even when standing still. The tilt of his head, the set of his shoulders, the roving glance convinced the others that they could be like him simply by agreeing with him. He had them all wishing they were Kirby Swifts, admired by all men, and eyed fondly by all women.

Parker, trying to regain the attention he had lost, got to his feet and began, “All in favor of hauling out at dawn—”

Kirby Swift broke in, “Well, now, gentlemen, when do you think we want to haul out?”

The interruption was bravado, small boy showoff, and outright rudeness both to the speaker and the speaker’s office, yet the younger men and some of the older ones chuckled appreciatively as though they had heard rare wit and brilliance. But Barlow, who had a snootful, got up to speak his own piece.

He was tall, and coffin faced, and lanky; a good soldier, yet he did not look it. Though carrying himself well, there was nonetheless a suggestion of awkwardness and self consciousness in his posture and manner. He did not have presence, and he was setting himself against a man who did.

“Mr. Parker,” he began, gesturing with an oversized hand.

“Sit down, soldier!” they shouted. “Sit down!”

But Barlow’s earnest face and voice encouraged the outpointed emigrant captain. “Yes, Pete? What is it?”

Kirby Swift remained standing. He gave his admirers a meaningful glance. Barlow’s ears got red from knowing that half the company regarded him with derision and contempt, of a good humored sort simply because Swift wanted them to. Barlow cleared his throat, which seemed funny enough to get a fresh crop of grins.

“Mr. Parker, everything is done by vote. That’s the way the articles were written up, and that’s what we signed for. These here men all voted the other night to take a week more to finish refitting wagons and swapping for better oxen and horses, and then having a short shakedown run. They voted thattaway because it was good sense. It is just as good sense tonight!”

“What you say is true enough, Pete, but the majority—”

“We’re hauling out in the morning!” they chorused, drowning the captain’s words. The meeting broke up without formality of adjournment. The presiding officer stood there, no one giving him heed. Women appeared from among the wagons. Banjos plink-plank-plonked, and someone began to sing, “Oh Susanna!” Herd guards quit their posts to come in for fun and coffee. No one would do any thieving right at the outskirts of Kearneyville, they reasoned.

Above all the jollity, Swift called, “Stick to your tin horn army, soldier! Wait for your discharge, or haul out in the morning like a man and let ’em whistle for you!”

One of Swift’s admirers began to count, “ONE two three four, hup! hup! One two three four—”

Barlow, not marching to cadence, measured his man as he made for him: for Swift, not the mocker. The instant the final springy stride brought him within reach, he popped Swift, one-two. The segundo, amazed and caught off guard by the agility of an awkward looking man, went glassy-eyed before he got his hands up. He had been knocked so stiff that he toppled like a tree, instead of lurching to his knees.

“Next man up?” Barlow invited.

Nobody came up.

“You silly sons,” he went on, quietly, “taking off before you are ready to march is a fine way to commit suicide.”

He turned and shoulder-brushed the pack as he cleared their front. Once in the shadows beyond the wavering firelight, he looked back to see if he could find Sally Clayton among the dancers; but before he could spot the girl on whose account he had planned to become an emigrant, Horace Parker came toward him.

“Pete, it isn’t as bad as it seems to you. Everyone is naturally interested in getting to Red Fork ahead of other companies that are forming. To get our first choice of land is really necessary.”

Barlow shrugged; he had not the heart to attack Parker’s attempt to salvage a little self respect by accepting Swift’s reasoning. “If Sally hadn’t become so attached to you and Mrs. Parker during the time you folks have been camping and resting at this jumping off place, I’d tell her to call it off, and stay here, and to hell with the money we paid in.”

There was nothing but kindness in Parker’s voice as he countered, “Do you really think you could talk her into backing out now? She’s got her heart all set on taking up land, having a home of her own. She’s been waiting on you for quite some while to get out of the army so she could marry you.”

“She and I, getting two adjacent homesteads! Now I am marking time while army red tape unwinds. I am as good as out, only I can’t jump the gun. That segundo of yours, that loud mouthed show-off, has been playing up to her, talking big, till I guess I couldn’t get in a word edgewise any more.”

“Oh, shucks, Pete! He simply has to get all the women admiring him, there’s so many of ’em that each one is safe enough.”

“What I aimed to say,” Barlow went on, with rising resentment coming into his voice, “is that this sudden vote to rush things is Swift’s personal dirty trick to get me to get desperate and desert, and get myself into a heap of trouble, or else sit here while he’s playing up to Sally. I’ve used up all my spare cash, mainly blackjack winnings, to get my discharge by purchase. Unless I stole a horse, to overtake you people when I do get out, I’d be hanging around here waiting for another company to arrive and take off. That foxy devil had it all figured out. He’ll stake a claim alongside hers. And you’ve played into his hands, Mr. Parker!”

“That’s why you hit him. It wasn’t his mocking the army.”

“Oh, all right,” Barlow exclaimed, helplessly; he could not begrudge this good hearted man the chance to forget his humiliation. “But you see where it has left me.”

“Pete, you don’t need to buy or steal a horse, nor desert either. Take my mare, Alezan. Even if we have a week or ten day’s head start, you can overtake us in no time at all. Come on, I’ll get her now and you can saddle up.”

Alezan was a Morgan, fast and durable; whether she was worth five hundred or a thousand dollars depended largely on how Parker felt at the time someone made him an offer. The colonel at the fort would give his right eye for such a mount. But Barlow said, “You’re mighty kind, only I’ll talk to Sally first.”

“Very well, Pete, I’ll be saddling Alezan.”

Before Barlow could protest at being waited on by a man old enough to be his father, Parker was making for the picket line. Then, while Barlow still looked about him, a woman said from the darkness of the captain’s wagon, “He’s doing the best he can for us, darling.”

The whitish blur in the darkness of the wagon cover was Sally. He extended his arms, caught her, and after holding her close for a long moment, he set her on her feet. They stood there in the half light, clinging to each other as though they had been separated for days and weeks, rather than hours.

She was well shaped, solid, squarish of hip and shoulder, yet graceful. The smile of her upturned face was whole hearted; her nostrils had an eager flare, and the eyes, slightly prominent, radiated friendliness to all the world, though now they had an especial warmth and glow.

“Don’t worry, Pete,” she murmured, when their kiss finally ended. “That good looking fellow hasn’t impressed me with anything except the travelling salesman show-off manner that was just part of the day’s work, back in that hashery in St. Louis!”

They ignored the dancers, and set out for the willows of the creek which ran past the wagon park. There, watching the moon rise, Barlow tried to persuade her to withdraw from the Red Fork Company.

“Parker’s a fine man, but not tough enough to be captain of anything. Those fools might of a sudden vote for something to land the whole kit and caboodle in the worst kind of trouble!”

“Oh, don’t be such a worrier! Kiss me and quit frowning!”

The moon was high and the shadows short when at last they went slowly for the camp. Alezan was tied to the wheel of Parker’s wagon. Before Barlow boosted Sally to the tail gate, she whispered, “Think of me at reveille, darling. I’ll be up and moving by the time you hear first call…”

On his return to Kearneyville, Barlow left Alezan at the livery-stable, and said to the sleepy hostler, “Don’t skimp on the oats! I’m coming in every day to look at her and see how’s she’s doing.”

He was good as his word. He learned the following evening that Alezan liked ginger snaps and rock candy. He was engrossed in getting acquainted with the mount that would shorten his race when a man called from the corral fence, “Wait, it gives an apple, for nothing.”

The speaker had just let go the handles of a pushcart on the side of which was lettered in red, EPSTEIN WILL FIX IT. His nose, broad and curved and lordly, combined with sagging jowls to give solidity to a tanned and deeply lined face. The twinkle of his eyes suggested that his slogan was justified. He raised his Stetson, and with red bandanna mopped his high forehead. Except for a fringe of crisp hair to hedge his ears, he was gleaming bald.

“Where is it?” Barlow demanded. “If it’s free, I’m buying. Otherwise, you dicker with the mare!”

Epstein, dug under the tarpaulin which partly hid a tin smith’s kit, a cobbler’s kit, and a clutter of gear and merchandise. In addition to peddling odds and ends, the pushcart man repaired and patched his way from town to town. He got out a withered crab apple, which he offered Alezan.

Barlow nodded appreciatively, and joshed, “So you’re a one man covered wagon, eh?”

“No, this outfit is the cart before the horse. What time is it?”

Barlow glanced at his size sixteen watch. “Six five, exactly.”

“You need a chain, with a fob, for that beautiful time piece.” He produced both articles from his cart. “As good as new. Solid gold. Fourteen carats, and I guarantee it. Just what you need when you put on civilian clothes.”

“How the hell you know that’s what I’m going to do?”

“I was leaving the Red Fork Company yesterday, where I fixed things, and that young lady of yours, she told me. You didn’t see me when you came up and I left, you had something else on your mind.”

“I sure did! But look here—maybe I’d better sell you the watch, I have more time than money.”

* * * *

They ended by agreeing to have a beer, and not talk business until the following evening. Epstein, it seemed, would spend another week or so, working out of Kearneyville, and going to the farms and cattle ranches which surrounded the jumping off place. “Every time I sell, it means I got to buy,” Epstein compromised, amiably. “And every time I buy, it means, I got to sell some time. You see how it is? No matter which way, I am bound to lose, so I don’t care what is your choice, as long as it gives a little business.”

After an interminable week, the final mile of red tape was cut, and Barlow, at last wearing civilian clothes, rode from the post with a supply troop teamster. The sun was low when they reached town. He had to fight the crackbrained urge to mount up and ride, if only for the remaining hour or two of daylight.

At the livery corral, he paused to look around for Epstein; but the pushcart man had not yet returned to park at his accustomed spot.

“Can’t haul out without telling Saul I’m not buying and not selling,” Barlow said, and decided to cure his restlessness by taking a sentimental ride to the now deserted flats, and the spot where he and Sally had sat beneath the willows.

Barlow had just done saddling Alezan when the hostler came in, trailing after the two purposeful men who loomed up in the doorway of the stable. One was a leathery, saturnine fellow with deep set eyes, deeply lined face, and drooping moustaches; judging by boots and vest and hat, a cattleman. The other was Lem Craven, the deputy sheriff who had only a few days previous taken over because of the illness of the town marshal.

“That’s the mare, Craven! And that’s the thief!”

“You sure, Lathrop?”

Lathrop snorted. “Arrest him, man! Now! Course I’m sure! Why do you suppose I swore out a warrant?”

And Barlow was helpless. Even if he had been the sort ready to shoot it out with a lawman, he would not, could not have risked Alezan’s stopping a stray bullet. Neither could he submit to arrest, and spend weeks, perhaps months in the hoosgow before clearing himself of the unjust charge. Freedom, and without gunplay, looked like a hopeless proposition: the two were loaded for bear.

CHAPTER II

Ambush

Lathrop, who looked as if he’d take his own grandmother’s scalp for a one peso bounty, must have put up a convincing yarn, whether he himself did or did not believe it. Craven, reputed to be pretty much on the level, was probably playing it as it looked.

Barlow said, “Running a man in for stealing a horse is pretty serious business, sheriff. Reach into the saddle bags and you’ll find my discharge papers, I just done got out of uniform, after serving most of a hitch out at the fort. I’ve had this horse stabled here for over a week, open and above board. Taking me in and locking me up for Lord knows how long, whilst I am proving legally what anyone out to the fort can tell you and a lot of folks in town here will back up, is downright unjust.”

“Mmmmm…where’d you get that mare?”

“From a sodbuster, Simon Parker. Captain of the Red Fork Company.”

Craven smiled crookedly. “And it’s mighty handy, those emigrants being way to hell and gone on the road from here. Got a bill of sale?”

“Parker loaned me the horse to overtake the wagons. Sheriff, who’s named in the warrant? I’m Pete Barlow and you can prove it a dozen times over.”

“It’s thissaway,” the law man answered. “The writ is for one Jawn Doe. It’s for the repossessing of such and such a hoss from the hands of party or parties described irregardless of name.”

Lathrop, Barlow now knew, had been foxy. Whoever the man was, he was gunning for Alezan, who could not speak for herself, claiming to have traced or trailed her; in so doing, he had neatly forestalled Barlow’s proving that he, Barlow, could not have been traced to Kearneyville, since he had been in and about town all the while. Yet Barlow persisted by repeating, “I can prove who I am, and where I’ve been for weeks, months, a couple years.”

He looked and sounded doleful, futilely indignant. And Lathrop on that account overstepped himself a shade more than he realized.

“Don’t make a damn bit of difference who you are, you got stolen property in your possession. And I got witnesses to prove that there animal is mine.”

“That’s the point of the process,” Craven said. “It is receiving stolen property. Serious as doing the outright thieving yourself. Too dang much of it going on, fellows saying they didn’t know a hoss or a cow critter was stolen. Nobody’d buy or sell a valuable animal like this’n, without there being a bill of sale. You come along and if you can prove you didn’t knowingly and willfully and maliciously and intentionally receive a stolen critter, you won’t be fined or strung up or sent to the pen or nothing.”

This was entirely on the level. Craven was merely trying to do his duty and he was getting impatient. Barlow, having worked up to within arm’s reach of a saving play, felt like a cat walking on eggs. If he fumbled in trying to bait Lathrop, the man might catch on, and the trick would then kick back.

“Look here, sheriff,” Barlow said, with a show of despair that was all too easy to feign, “it’s up to him to prove this is his animal—it’s not up to me. I’m no thief.”

“That’s for the jedge, I’m not a-trying this case.”

And then, from the doorway, another county was heard from. Epstein, chain and fob temptingly displayed, stepped into view and said, “Hey, wait, I am giving you a special price. Or I sell it somewhere else!”

The lift and quirk of Epstein’s left eyebrow told Barlow that the pushcart man had been dallying outside long enough to have learned what was going on.

“They claim I stole this mare, Saul! Where I’m going, I won’t need watches and chains, time won’t mean a thing unless I round up a good lawyer. You take my watch and find me one, in case I’m locked up.”

Epstein regarded Lathrop with an ingratiating smile. He turned on him with the chain and fob. “See how nice it looks across the vest front. Prosperous with dignity—”

“For hell’s sweet sake, get out, I’m busy.”

“Officer, the man is busy.” Epstein’s face changed; he backed off. He eyed Lathrop, and then Barlow, and as though with growing recognition of something significant or important. “Sheriff, I been travelling. Every place I go, I pick up wanted posters. You wait, I get them. If you got a wanted man here, we split the reward—”

He darted for the door, agile as a lizard, all the while chattering about wanted men he had met in his travels. And Barlow noted Lathrop’s change of expression, a flicker of uneasiness. This was Barlow’s moment, and he challenged, boldly, “Lathrop, if that’s your horse, give the sheriff a close description.”

“He’s done given it, for the writ,” the lawman cut in.

But Barlow, interrupted, “Describe her teeth. What’s odd about them, or is there anything odd?”

“Shucks, they’re just like any five-year-old’s teeth,” Lathrop declared.

Outside, Epstein was muttering in a voice that would carry across a parade ground, “No, this ain’t him—hmmm—but with the moustache shaved—hey, sheriff, how would Mr. Lathrop look with a shave?”

“She’s a seven year old!” Barlow countered. “Claims he owns the animal, don’t know her age. Never seen her teeth. Me, I’ve seen ’em, every one of, know ’em by heart. Sheriff, you take a look and see who’s right.”

Craven turned to open Alezan’s mouth for a look at the disputed teeth. Epstein came in, waving a fistful of posters and dodgers. “That’s the man! That’s the man!”

Lathrop turned; Barlow whipped the Peacemaker from his hip and clouted him. Buffaloed, the man dropped to his knees and clawed the stable floor. And Barlow, pocketing his gun, said to the lawman, “She’s got tusks—look and see! Ain’t one mare in a thousand got tusks in back of her mouth like a stallion or gelding, but this one has, and that coyote couldn’t think of a thing to say excepting about how old she is from her teeth.”

“By gravy, she sure has tusks!” Craven muttered, and then, turning, “Hey, what’s this?”

“Good Lord must’ve struck him with lightning, for a liar,” Barlow said, shaking his head as though perplexed by the sight of Lathrop lying face down and mumbling. “Fact is, she’s a four year old. This dirty son didn’t guess any too bad, he must’ve looked her over pretty close, but he skimped the job. If you’d owned her, you’d for sure have known she had tusks.”

Epstein came in with a dodger. He masked the lower part of the face, looked at Jed Lathrop’s back, looked at the sheriff, and said, as-though crestfallen, “No, this ain’t right around the eyes, this ain’t the same jail bird, sheriff.” He sighed. “And it gives no reward for us to split.”

“Mebbe not! But if this son ain’t out of town by noon tomorrow, I’m throwing him in the pokey jest to wait till I can find out where he is wanted, if any. Huh! Didn’t know she has tusks!”

Jed Lathrop was now scrambling to his knees. Craven repeated his advice about getting out of town. And as the man lurched from the stable, Craven added, “And that goes for your witnesses, too!”

When the law man left, Barlow let out a long sigh. “Saul, if you hadn’t had that stinker so worried, I couldn’t’ve clipped him, I’d’ve had to shoot it out, and then there’d been the devil to pay. What the blazes are you, toting reward notices? Pinkerton?”

“Man hunting ain’t my business. But a fellow pushing a cart gets into lonesome places, and he meets all kinds of people—and I lose enough money, without being held up.”

Barlow chuckled, “I bet you do!”

Epstein grinned and raised his hat. “But so far,” he said, stroking his gleaming bald head, “I ain’t been scalped. You leaving now? All saddled up?”

“Just restless, aiming to ride a bit, so I’ll sleep better.”

“When I was your age, I wouldn’t sleep a wink either, with a race starting in the morning to catch up with such a nice young lady. If you won’t sell me your watch, maybe you will buy a wedding ring—I got a brand new one—wait, I show you!”

Long before dawn, Barlow was in the saddle; and when the sun reddened the mesquite dotted plain and outlined the iron-purple crags on the horizon, he picked up the ruts left by emigrant wagons. A couple of hours later, he came to the first camp site, which had taken the slow moving oxen a full day to reach. And Alezan stretched her legs, eating up the miles.

Well past midafternoon, a gentle climb led to a low summit, one side of which was topped by a rocky wall. He had no more than entered the pass when he glimpsed the next water hole.

The trail swung left, down a narrow valley which for a stretch had grass and a few stunted poplars. Bit by bit, the higher ridges blocked out the wind which had been peppering him with sand. He rode into sweltering calm. Ocatillas, thumb-thick stalks armed with spines half an inch long, found root in the tumbled rocks of a slope which supported no other growth. Each had a crest of red blossoms.

Barlow looked up and about him from force of habit. The scent of water made Alezan perk up her ears. Out of the oven, and into the coolness—

Then he noted the stirring of one ocatilla somewhat ahead and well up the wall. The lowering sun’s glare put him at a disadvantage: but that motion, where every thing else was dead still, warned Barlow, and a deceptive patch of shadow seemed to shift a bit.

There was little enough warning, yet Alezan, sensitive to the moods of which her rider himself was not fully conscious, snorted and made a skittish move. Smoke blossomed from the rocks. Instead of drilling Barlow, the bullet ploughed through the saddle skirt. Coming from a considerable height above him, the angle was such that the slug no more than raked a furrow in the horse’s hide. She reared, and Barlow, half out of the saddle already, and reaching for his carbine, was piled to the rocks.

Alezan clattered away. Barlow, paralyzed by the fall, rolled helplessly until an outcropping checked him. He was still exposed, with hardly enough cover to protect a jackrabbit. A man came up from cover, rifle in hand.

Barlow, recovering a little from the crash, got his Colt. He steadied it. The man stepped down out of the worst glare. Barlow fired. The lurker recoiled, stumbled, and lurched downgrade several strides. He won the shelter of a rock and shot again, just as Barlow cut loose.

The two blasts were simultaneous. Lead screamed and whined. Barlow, however, did not hear the ricochet of his own, or of his enemy’s shot. The glancing slug had dug a long gash which girdled his head. The impact, though cushioned somewhat by the Stetson, nonetheless knocked him out as from a hammer blow, so that he slumped, rolled over his limp gun hand, and across the weapon which had dropped from it.

* * * *

The bitter chill of dawn aroused him to thirst and pain. The early light, treacherous lavender gray, found him wondering how he had come to be in a draw, where small pools reached out from beneath the overhang of a dry creek bed. Bit by bit, he recollected the ambush, and realized that as though sleep walking, he had crawled back to the trail from which he had been shot and apparently left for dead. And his enemy had not made such a gross mistake after all.

Before starting on his half-conscious stumbling, Barlow had holstered his pistol. He still had his hat. It was well jammed down over the inflamed furrow left by the bullet. He knelt to drink and to bathe his eyes. He fell face down in the shallow water. The drenching shocked him to alertness for a moment.

After tying a piece of shirt tail over the eye injured by chunks of flying rock, he set out to overtake the wagon train, though the easier task of returning to Kearneyville would have been far too much for his strength. The valley soon became a blast furnace. A glimmering of sense told him to turn back toward the water he had left behind. Still out of his head, and getting more so, he worked his way to the emigrant camp site.

He found among the scattered rubbish a sack from which he shook more than a handful of cornmeal. This he put into one of the tin cans lying about. Presently, he had a mess of mush cooking.

Elsewhere, he found a bottle and cork. A gob of mush, a quart of water, and the rest depended on his boots. One trouble with a fancy horse: someone was always ready to steal it.

Barlow moved as in a nightmare. Though making back for Kearneyville, to get a fresh start, he seemed also to be hunting Sally. Every so often, he found her, and talked to her. Most of the time she ignored him, as though she did not hear his voice, or feel the hand which reached for her. And what made it worse, Sally seemed always to be a phantom which would not fill his arms.

Coyotes yip-yipped, and for a change, they howled eerily. Barlow baked, and then he froze. Sleeping and waking became one continuous confusion. The cornmeal and the water were gone. Buzzards, after long circling, now settled to perch on mesquite and scrubby acacia. Barlow had come within sight of a tinaja, one of the water holes at which the emigrants had camped, when he dropped. It was dusk when someone shook him.

“Drink only a drop now. Later, it gives soup.”

And presently, Saul Epstein handed Barlow some jerked beef broth. “I left the morning you did,” the pushcart man explained, “only later. And when I saw the buzzards coming down, I went past the tinaja and here you are. Now I will patch you up where you been shot.”

“Buy my watch, so I can get myself some sort of critter back in Kearneyville,” Barlow proposed.

But Epstein wagged his head and countered, “In the morning, that is something to talk about. Not now!”

CHAPTER III

One-Man Covered Wagon

When, after days of hoofing, Barlow finally sighted the dust of the emigrant train, he and Epstein followed in its wake until dusk. Then, leaving his companion well beyond the sight of the herd guards, he left him and made for the fires which outlined the wagon tops.

Once or twice as Barlow picked his way about the fringe of the camp, a man or woman spoke a civil word of greeting, as to a fellow emigrant not individually recognized in the darkness. For a moment, it was all unreal, doing what he had done so many times before, wandering about in delirium to find Sally. Of a sudden, his being in camp became the foremost wonder of his life, so that he could not believe that it had happened. He choked and his eyes swam, and he leaned against a wagon wheel as though mortally tired, or very drunk.

Then his eyes focused and his ears heard: and there she was, close at hand. “Sally,” he said, quietly. “I had trouble on the way, but I made it.”

There was enough reflected firelight to show how little her face changed; it was as though she had known to the minute when he would arrive, and had never doubted that he would rejoin her. “Oh, Pete, I’ve missed you!” She did not raise her voice, or cry out in gladness, lest the others hear and intrude. “What happened?”

Then they were in each other’s arms, and for awhile, neither spoke. Finally, he repeated, “Trouble on the way. Had to walk most of it.”

She took his hand, and they went toward the fire where the captain sat. “Mr. Parker, look what I found!”

Horace Parker got to his feet. “Well, Pete! Where’ve you been?”

Barlow was busy watching Kirby Swift’s face. He did not expect the segundo to join the others who welcomed him, though largely out of curiosity and by way of following the captain’s example. To nearly every one of the emigrants, Barlow was a stranger whose brief appearance in Kearneyville had been a triviality in a long succession of important events. Meanwhile, Sally had become one of the group: and to the young fellows who had had an eye on her, the newcomer was an intruder.

Barlow said, directly to Parker but to the others as well, “I took good care of your Alezan, boarded her well, and came from the post each evening to see she was getting her oats. The way she ate up the miles the first days was a sight!” He raised his hat. “Right up till a .45 scratched her, and she reared up just as I was fixing to pile out of the saddle for some skirmishing. This here crease in my head is the second shot the bushwhacker fired, and it saved my life. Knocked me out, and the skunk figured no need coming to finish me off. When I come to, I had a piece of walking to do, and I’ve done it.”

“What’d you eat?” one demanded, having apparently estimated the days it would take a man afoot to overtake lumbering oxen.

“Shucks, that was simple! Snared quail at the tinajas, and rattlesnake is mighty tasty when you’re hungry.”

The women insisted on getting him leftovers from supper, but Barlow shook his head. “Fellow shouldn’t over-eat, when he isn’t used to rich living. Captain, you set me to whatever chores you’ve a mind to in the morning.” He dug into his pockets. “Here’s my watch, and here’s what money I’ve got left. I’ll make up the balance I owe you for losing Alezan, one way or another, soon as I see my chance.”

“Talk about that when we get to Red Fork, Pete. Right now, you rest up, you look all fagged out and peaked.”

He sat down, with Sally beside him, and drank coffee, and smoked. Later, when by common consent and weariness, the harmonica player quit competing with the banjo, and the emigrants made for their shake-downs, Barlow laid a hand on Sally’s arm and whispered, “You wait outside for me a minute.”

He stood aside until Swift was apart from his admiring crowd. Barlow, accosting him, said in a matter of fact tone, “You and I had trouble. Not from the way you and your sidekicks mocked me, but because it looked as if you’d undermined me. Between here and Red Fork I am obligated to get along with you, and you have to get along with me. When we get to where we’re going, there is plenty of time to square our accounts if you think you’ve got something against me. That fair?”

“I don’t bear you any personal grudge for the blow, though it was a dirty one and without warning,” Swift answered. “But striking me, the segundo, isn’t a personal matter—it was pretty nearly as bad as hitting Mr. Parker. We’re the law and the leaders.”

“We weren’t on the march, that evening. Anyway you’ve not lost any respect, judging from the way your cronies hang on every word you say. You and I can keep peace till further orders, but your boon companions may not feel that way toward me. I want you to call them off before they start anything.”

“Meaning,” Swift demanded wrathfully, “I need them to take my part?”

“I’ll say you must’ve needed someone to do your dirty work! I’ve not said it to anyone else, and I won’t, because I can not prove it. But till my dying day, I’ll be sure you fixed it to have Jed Lathrop try to have me arrested for a horse thief, so I’d lie rotting in jail till Sally lost hope for keeps.”

“Didn’t you tell everyone you were shot at?”

“I noticed you looked funny when I told that part of it. The part you had not aimed to have done. I pistol whipped Lathrop after I made him out a liar. And that’s the man who laid for me with a gun. Who else would be lurking in that pass, with no stage, no freight, nothing expected? How would that man know way ahead of time I’d be passing through, excepting he’d been in cahoots with you?”

“You dare start any such story,” Swift began.

Barlow cut in, “My story sort of proves itself, don’t it? But you keep your boot lickers off of me, and I’ll save you the trouble of trying to live down a story that’ll prove itself. I’ll work with you as long as you are segundo. Turn my offer down and take your chances on what will happen.”

Without waiting for an answer, he went to join Sally. Once they had spread a blanket beneath the Parker wagon, and wedged their backs against the spokes of a wheel, she said, “There’s a lot you’ve not told me, Pete. Don’t tell me there wasn’t more to it.”

“You hush up, honey. This is kissing time, not talking time.”

In the morning, Barlow set to work yoking and hitching oxen. Swift, riding one of Parker’s fancy horses, made a grand figure as he bossed the job. The lead position, being dust free, was a prize which went by rotation, but before the train got rolling, the captain had to settle a wrangle as to whose turn it was to lead. The loser showed his spirit by refusing to fall in at the rear. He swung out and found his own track, alongside the train.

* * * *

Within the hour, a dozen other wagons had pulled out, each bullwhacker bent on dodging dust. When a dry wash was to be crossed, there was a scramble of those from right and left trying to cut in ahead of those still keeping in column. Barlow, trudging along with his bull whip, figured that Saul Epstein had easier going.

Toward sunset, there was a rush to be first at the water hole. The pool got all fouled and trampled. Later, Barlow said to Sally, “See what I mean? Fretting and wearing themselves out, running their animals extra miles that get them nowhere, and ending up with less time for the critters to graze—this outfit’s not going to Red Fork, it is bound plumb to hell in a hand basket!”

“Is that why you were looking back, all day?”

He was not aware he had done anything of the sort, but he answered, “Sure, looking at you, or trying to.”

“But often it wasn’t in my direction. It was right back-trail.”

“I deserted afore I got my discharge, and I’m nervous account they may be sending after me.”

“Don’t you expect me to believe that! What are you expecting to put-over on us?”

“Being shot from ambush leaves a fellow skittish,” he answered, and realized that whatsover obscure reason he might have, he was undoubtedly expecting more trouble from Lathrop.

And then it was time for supper. Barlow, joining up with his mess group, was just getting his portion of stewed dried peaches when one of his messmates exclaimed, “Well, can you beat that! One man covered wagon.”

Saul Epstein had overtaken the emigrants. Several, remembering him from his tinkering, back in Kearneyville, greeted him and made room. But Barlow, aside from bidding him good evening, was casual as though they had never before met. He figured now that however much his pondering on Lathrop’s skullduggery had kept him looking over his shoulder, he had actually been anxious for Epstein to overtake and join the train, as they had arranged.

“If something is wrong,” the newcomer announced, “Epstein will fix it. Young man, you need some good half soles, you are pretty nearly barefooted, and I give you a special price.”

CHAPTER IV

Redheaded Peril

Like most of the girls and younger women, Laura Frazer tramped along, picking up brush for the evening fire. She contrived every so often to fall in step with Barlow as he drove Rafe Ainsley’s oxen. For all her apron-load of fuel, Laura managed to slip a couple of molasses cookies into his hand; and for a few strides, the curve of her hip brushed eloquently against him.

The redheaded girl was slender enough, yet the wind driven calico of her dress clung close enough to make it plain that she was full breasted in a dainty way. She smiled from the shadow of her sunbonnet, and went on, leaving a promise behind her, and an invitation. She went on, easily outpacing the lumbering oxen, and still having time to stoop and pick up brush. Each glimpse of momentarily bared legs fascinated Barlow, mainly because of the smile and the promise she had left with him. He became riled with himself because it became increasingly difficult to keep his eyes and his mind off of Laura, who was by no means the only attractive and well shaped wench the wagon train offered. He did not want to think of her. Sally was plenty for any man to think of, the most exciting female critter he’d ever kissed or looked at: and he resented his response to Laura.

He resented it because he began to feel awkward whenever he came within reaching distance of Sally. He began studying Sally of an evening, studying her face and her voice and her eyes, looking for her to reveal her awareness of his thoughts, and of the redhead’s attentions. And when he could find nothing of the sort, he was more than ever disturbed, for he felt then that Sally must know and was concealing, pretending to ignore the matter.

Standing guard at night was different from watching cattle bedded down; oxen ordinarily were not spooky. The purpose of the guard was to keep a lookout for varmints, human or four legged, so when Laura found Barlow sitting on a blanket near the edge of the tinaja, one night, she did not interfere with his duties by joining him.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she murmured. “I thought I screamed, but I couldn’t have, else someone’d have awakened—oooh, it’s chilly, Pete, let me have a corner of your blanket. I should’ve brought my coat.”

“What was the nightmare about, Indians or renegades?”

Laura shivered. “Just afraid, afraid of something. Dark, dangerous, all bad, but you don’t know what it is.”

A coyote howled. “That’s maybe what gave you the creeps?”

She drew some of the blanket over her shoulders and snuggled up cozily. Until that moment, Barlow had been wondering how soon he could get rid of her; but the first light touch made him fear that she would leave way too soon. Knees drawn up, she hugged them with her arms. Her legs gleamed in the moonlight; and then, after unclasping her hands and stretching her feet out before her, she hitched about to get the bunched up skirt back to her ankles. In this, she succeeded: but the shift of weight threw her closer to Barlow.

Before he could even think of what he wanted to do, he had done it; he had the armful he had craved. After a moment of feeling her yield to his arms, the two were mouth to mouth, and he could not have let go. She would not have let him, even if he had had the will.

“Oh… I shouldn’t stay here,” she murmured, finally. “There’ll be someone coming to take your place on watch.”

He drew her closer. “Won’t be for awhile yet. I’ll hear him.”

“Pete—you’re driving me crazy—you’re killing me—”

But she pressed nearer, to hasten the fatality. And then, startled, she tried to get away, and might have, except that he could not so suddenly release her.

“Pete—oh—let go! Someone—”

The smell of fresh coffee shocked him. The chill that gripped Barlow cracked his embrace. A stick, a bit of brush snapped, and then Sally was so near them that Laura, scrambling to her feet, barely missed lurching against the newcomer.

“I thought you’d like some coffee,” Sally said, with only a little tremor in her voice. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t know you had company already.”

Barlow’s horse snorted, whinnied. Barlow turned to face the dark shape looming up not far from Sally. It was Kirby Swift. He said, “What’s all this lollygagging? You girls better go back to bed, this fellow’s here to keep watch!”

Barlow took a step toward the segundo. “You sneaking son!”

Sally interposed. “Don’t blame Kirby. It’s his job to keep an eye on things.” She set the coffee down. “Don’t forget to bring the pot back, Pete,” she said, and took the segundo’s arm. “I think I should get back to my wagon.”

Confusion made Barlow stand fast as Sally and the segundo blended into shadow, and he heard him say to her, “With you stirring around, I got to wondering. Half aroused me, you know how it is when you hear something and you’re not quite awake, I wasn’t snooping.”

“Oh, I know you weren’t, Kirby.”

Being at once fighting mad, embarrassed, and wholly in the wrong, as far as appearances were concerned, kept Barlow from any action at all. After a long moment, he again became aware of Laura. Timidly, she laid a hand on his arm. “Pete, I’m sorry! Don’t hold this against me. He didn’t hear me stirring around.”

Unreasoning hatred of this shapely redheaded girl who penitently awaited his outburst grappled with helplessness, and the certainty that he could never explain how impulse and attraction had pulled him off balance against his will. He felt desolate and abandoned as ever he had during those hours of wandering in the delirium of wounds and exhaustion. He remembered that dreadful futile groping, and turned to Laura now as something real and solid.

“Sit down for a spell,” he said. “We’re both in the wrong.”

He reached for the coffee pot and emptied it to the ground.

For some minutes, Laura sat in silence. “I ought to be leaving.” She twisted her hand free. “Don’t keep me here, not after the trouble I’ve made you.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“When you are sure you mean that, you’ll come looking for me.”

She kissed him lightly, and got up to make for camp. After a single step, Barlow stopped short, instead of detaining her.

While he could have, he did not wish to, and this puzzled him. Laura came close to being the prize package of the entire party. Her parents were solid folks. Barlow liked them both, they had not followed the common reasoning that only the shiftless and the worthless ever enlisted in peace times in the army. And when, after the relief man came to take his place, Barlow headed for his blankets, he still could not figure out why Laura’s promise had been poor consolation.

Early in the morning, Barlow found time for a word with Epstein, who had just finished lashing the tarpaulin over his pushcart.

“Morning, Saul! Aim to swallow dust another day?”

“The more I see this outfit, the more I know it gives yet some more to be fixed. And for business, a man can eat dust.”

“You’re expecting something to go wrong.”

“You don’t see buzzards making circles, do you?”

“Look-ee here, Saul! Did you ever answer a question in your life, even once, instead of asking another question?”

Epstein grinned. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but that’s a habit you’ve got, and just now, you did it.”

Barlow cursed in good humored exasperation. “Well, it’s nice having you tag along, whatever your notion is.”

“Now let me tell you something. That redhead is going to make trouble for you.”

* * * *

All day, Sally avoided Barlow without being conspicuous about it; and in a similar easy way, she and Swift exchanged words during halts, or as he rode alongside her wagon when she took a spell from walking.

People were eyeing Barlow. He could feel their glances. He knew that the story of the previous night’s encounter had spread. Horace Parker, riding up for a few words, stuck strictly to business, yet acted as though he had come to offer advice and had thought better of it.

Toward mid-afternoon, Swift returned from his usual scouting trip, and said that the next watering place was little more than a puddle. That evening, the rush for advantage was all the worse because of the warning. Barlow, doing his best to control his animals, got his thanks by having Laura’s father, Walt Frazer, cut slantwise across his way. Old man Ainsley, for whom Barlow was driving, let out an indignant screech and snatched the bull whip.

Ainsley cracked the whip. The thirsty leaders responded. Where the most skillful whacking would not move them from their slow pace during the day’s march, the sodbuster’s lash now got them running. Barlow tore the whip from the owner’s hands. He easily outran the peevish oldster. But he did not, and could hardly have made the leaders swerve in time to avoid the Frazer team.

There was a tangle of harness, a clash of horns, a grinding and smashing as wagon hubs locked and the vehicles came to a halt.

Frazer loomed up in the dust. “You young whelp! First my daughter and now my team!” He slashed at Barlow, giving him a whip cut which for all its clumsiness bit and tore, “You’ve had this coming, you no-account son! You—”

But now Barlow was inside the reach of the whip. He dropped his own. The blow and the reviling were the final touch to set him off. He danced in and knocked the farmer staggering backward. He gave him no chance for defense or recovery. He shook off the awkward blows and bored home with smashing jabs that shocked and cut. In a flash, he had Frazer out on his feet, bleeding, stumbling drunkenly, hands drooping.

Barlow hewed him again. He went with him, keeping him upright with blows until the man crumpled and lay a sodden bloody heap in the dust; and then Barlow stood over him, gasping, “Get up and fight, you dirty mouthed skunk! I’ve had enough of you!”

Parker and Swift came up with a dozen other scowling emigrants; sweaty, tired, angry at the whole world, and muttering about Laura. Parker said, “You’ve half killed him! Loomis—Christy—get those bulls untangled. Barlow, get away, we’ll tend to this.”

And, then Laura came up, wide eyed, to Barlow. “Don’t worry, Pete,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “Dad’s awfully hot tempered, though you’d never suspect it.”

CHAPTER V

Kangaroo Court

They held a trial that night according to the by-laws of the Red Fork Company: and when Barlow saw the faces of those whose vote would convict and sentence him, he knew that a plea of self defense would do no good at all. Too many young men hated him because of Laura; and every family man, particularly if he had an unattached daughter, was against him. There was not a word said about the meeting of Laura and Barlow, the previous night, but the very way in which the men assembled about the fire avoided all reference to Laura or any other woman made it clear that the story of kisses stolen by moonlight had spread to every family.

Sally had confided in someone…

Laura had talked…

Swift had made the most of it…

And as Barlow heard Parker, who presided as a matter of course, read the paragraph on “brawlings and affrays,” he was betting that Kirby Swift had got things going; just as Swift, coming up from behind, had covered him with a gun and had disarmed him.

Laura’s father was, after all, a decent and right minded man; and when Barlow saw the terribly battered face, he was ashamed, and so much so that he could not resent his having appeared without a bandage. The light made his closed eyes and slashed features look far worse than they actually were. Parker was grave and troubled. Swift did his best to look that way, but could not make a go of it. This was his meat.

“I was trying to keep my team from fouling up with his,” Barlow said, when they gave him his chance. “Trying to obey orders, not rushing for the water.”

“That’s right,” affirmed the owner of the team.

“And he cut me with his bull whip,” Barlow concluded.

“And you damn near beat him to death, a man old enough to be your father,” several summed up at once. “What’re the laws?”

Parker read, hastily skimming until he came to, “…shall be flogged; or expelled from the party, with or without refund of what monies he has paid in, according to the merits of the case, which will be decided by vote… Gentlemen, understand that that is what may be done. It does not have to be done. There is provision for a fine assessed by the group.”

“Fines, my eye!” one shouted. And another, “Whale him within an inch of his life!”

Parker rapped on the barrel head for order. Order was restored long enough for there to be a sentence, by acclaim and not by vote, of one hundred lashes. The hostile faces made it plain that the penalty would be as final as hanging, except not as quick. Parker got up to protest. He was shouted down, until Swift restored order. In another moment, Barlow would be tied up to a wagon wheel.

When a soldier was flogged, the post surgeon stood by to supervise the punishment, and there was also an officer;—remote, aloof, neither for nor against the culprit. Here there was a mob.

Barlow demanded, “Give me a word while I can talk,” and when this was granted, he went on, “Let Mr. Frazer do the flogging. He has the grievance. None of you have.”

A mutter of approval greeted this logical quirk of justice. Swift, however, could endure nothing which impaired his vengeance. He loomed up more as the man actually in command, and before Parker had a chance for a word, Swift took charge.

“This is not a matter of revenge at all. It is a matter of law and order. Is that not right, Mr. Parker?”

Calling deferentially on the captain established more than ever that Swift, the polite man, was also the important man. But the moment Parker agreed with words which in form could not be disputed, Barlow snatched at his next risky chance.

“Swift, you’re not captain, but you are the law around here. So you take the whip. Then it won’t be personal at all. It won’t be a man getting even because he likes Mr. Frazer.”

“Lay it on good!” Swift’s admirers chorused. “You got the heft, Kirby, you can peel him!”

Barlow, unrestrained, held his hands out before him, and took a step toward Swift, and a second. Looking the man full in the eye, he said, “The harder you hit, the bigger name you’ll make. Your bunkies expect a lot of you.”

Barlow’s voice was soft. He cocked his head a little, and his eyes became pointed; a small, twisted smile, almost as of triumph, prodded the segundo with its mockery. It was almost as if Barlow had actually said “The harder you hit, the more surely you are through with Sally. You’ll be showing yourself up for a skunk!”

And Swift’s face changed. Those watching him shifted and choked back exclamations. They had understood, as clearly as if Sally’s name had actually been spoken.

Parker took heart. He cleared his throat. “This has gone too far. This—”

“Let him be,” Barlow broke in quietly. “He has to finish me this chance. He is afraid to meet me man to man, at Red Fork. He knows he’s going to meet me. On horse or on foot. With guns or knives. Here’s his chance of being sure to win.”

“Fight him now, Kirby!” someone shouted.

“Silence! Quit this!” Parker protested.

“Oh, shut up! Shut up, Cap’n!”

And then a stranger intervened, Epstein, parking his cart at the fringe of the crowd, spoke up. “Vait, this ain’t constitutional. It ain’t right, making a man defend himself. He didn’t have counsel to advise him. You didn’t do it American style.”

“It’s all in the bag!” Swift retorted, eager for a change of subject. “Plain as the nose on your face, and he didn’t need a lawyer, we heard him out.”

The quip about noses got a splendid guffaw, and restored Swift’s power. Epstein rubbed his nose, and grinned quizzically, playing up to the laugh. Then he declared, “The sentence is wrong.” He faced them for a moment, standing as though about to review a regiment; he stood so that the width of his shoulders could counter-balance his paunch. The firelight exaggerated the deep lines of his face, the sag of his jowls. He was no longer funny; he was no longer a man offering bargains; and the nose, broad and lordly, had ceased to be amusing.

Epstein took off his hat. For a moment, he held them with pose and gesture. Then he grinned, inviting them all into his confidence and his generosity.

“You wait, I show you something!” He got a solid, black covered book, well worn and well thumbed, from his push cart. He opened it and read a few lines which not a man of them could understand. “That means in English,” he interpreted, “that the Good Lord don’t allow more than forty stripes on a man at one whipping.”

Swift flared up, “Oh, to hell with that! What’s a Yiddish bible count around here—we’re Christians!”

Epstein smiled benevolently. During a scene stealing pause, his deep set eyes twinkled, catching and holding the eye of this one and that. “What I read is written in your Bible, my friend. In your own. In the fifth book, chapter twenty-five, second and third line. Mine is just like yours. What I got is the first edition, that’s all.”

Several chuckled appreciatively. Parker said, “Epstein’s right. And there’s hardly a man of you here who isn’t familiar with the Scriptures. Forty lashes—”

And then Swift saw his chance to regain the lost hold. The darkness of his wrath faded, and he shouted triumphantly, “This Daniel coming to judgment is exactly what we need! I am not doing the flogging, and I am not meeting this loud mouth for a knife or gun fight. It’d look like spite-work, account he and I had words, back in Kearneyville. Get a whip, and let Epstein do the job!”

“Let Epstein fix it!” several cried, thoroughly enjoying the big fellow’s neat twist. “Do it good, Saul, or we get our money back. We’ll take it out of your hide if you don’t do it good!”

“Hey, vait a minute!” Epstein protested. “You ain’t heard everything—”

“Go shove your book, we’ve heard enough!”

Half a dozen sodbusters swooped in on Barlow, to hustle him to a wagon wheel. Others crowded forward with cords and bull whips. They swept Epstein from his cart and took him with them in their rush. By the time Barlow was jammed up against the wheel and secured, his shirt had been torn from him.

“Eye, wye, wye!” Epstein muttered, and mopped his forehead, when the pressure eased off. “This ain’t right, I tell you.”

The butt of a bull whip was thrust into his hand. He shoved it aside. “That ain’t for whipping a min, it iss for an ox. I won’t do it. A cat with nine tails, yes, but not this here.”

Swift pulled the Peacemaker he had taken from Barlow at the time of arrest. “Listen, pushcart man! You’re getting to work and doing as you’re told, understand? You talked him out of sixty lashes, so you are damn well going to give him the forty he still has coming.”

Epstein’s eyes bulged perceptibly. He shrank from the pistol as though it had been a rattlesnake ready to strike; and he cringed as he took the whip and edged away, and toward Barlow.

“Pete, I can’t help it. I won’t make it too easy, I won’t make it too hard. It is better I do it instead of somebody else. Anyway, I got to. He pulled a gun. He’s still pointing it at me, he won’t put it in his pocket.”

“Go ahead, Saul!” Barlow said. “Get it over!” He added, in a whisper, which none but the executioner could hear, “I can take forty good ones, and the harder you hit now, the better I’ll do when I cut his guts out and wrap ’em around his neck!”

Epstein backed away. He gestured for space, and he got it. He flexed the long whip, fingered the lash, hefted the grip. He seemed less apprehensive about Swift’s revolver. After all, it was no longer dead center on him.

“Someone count, so I don’t give him too many.”

He unleashed the whip. The bitter cold hiss and explosive smack of the lash made Barlow wonder why he had been able to flinch, when he should have been slashed to the verge of paralysis. Hot iron seemed to have been streaked across his back; he could feel that, but no weight or shock at all. He heard the involuntary gasp of the spectators.

“One!” Epstein called.

Again, the hiss and blast. The man was a fancy performer. All bite, sting, welt, but no tearing and shredding of the flesh; nor that feeling of having one’s ribs collapsed and one’s breath knocked out as though forever, the way the army’s “cat” did the job for a chronic trouble maker.

“Two!” Epstein announced.

What followed perplexed Barlow. A man cried out in pain and bewilderment. “Don’t move!” Epstein commanded. “It is loaded.”

Then the peddler was beside Barlow. A knife flashed, and the haft was thrust into his liberated hand. When he turned about, he understood: Epstein, whip in one hand, and an enormous Smith & Wesson .44 in the other, stood there like a lion tamer. He commanded the close packed crescent of spectators. He had bunched them up with his neat handling of the whip—and he had with his third blow slashed Swift’s gun hand instead of Barlow’s back.

Epstein made the whip ripple like a living snake. The Colt he had torn from Swift’s grip engaged in the lash. Epstein drew the weapon right up to his feet.

“Take it, Pete,” he said. “Two heads are better than one.” Then, to the sod-buster, “Instead of the other thirty-eight lashes, it gives exile instead. We are going to Red Fork, faster than an ox.”

Barlow quickly reached to the ground and scooped up the gun.

CHAPTER VI

Gold for Dead Men

The following day, Epstein parked his cart at a tiny spring far off the emigrant route. “We got no oxen to graze,” he explained, “so it gives a shortcut to Red Fork for a one man covered wagon.”

Barlow, having taken his turn, was ready to drop. Pushing a cart took skill as well as beef. “Be damned!” he muttered, as he helped make camp. “How do you stand up to it?” And then, as they hunkered down to bake sourdough with chunks of bacon in it, he went on, “I hate like snakes to run out this way on Sally.”

“There you are wrong. This gives her time to get good and sore at Mr. Swift. People always get sore at what is closest to them. And when we get to Red Fork first, you and I pick out the best homesteads for you and her. Maybe I even stake one in my own name, even if I won’t work it. A fellow is crazy, killing himself with farming!”

They tramped on, each day’s march covering half as much again as even a well managed ox train. Looking back from a high crest, could see not even the dust of the emigrants.

Toward noon, four dusty riders hailed them. They were leather faced, unshaven, and heavily armed. They had the wary eyes of scouts, which was what they proved to be. They were trailing horse thieves, and they’d get and forthwith hang them, if they had to go all the way to Mexico to do it. Satisfied that neither Barlow nor Epstein had information, they spoke of doings far west, in the Red Fork country.

“Some bad Injuns snuck off the reservation,” the spokesman said. “Raising sand with emigrant trains, freighters, and such like. But now the army’s patrolling the route and probably driving the varmints off this way. You all better watch your hair.”

With that, the four rode on. Ahead, barren ridges loomed up. The way, though clear, became harder. There were stretches of black lava flow. It had thin spots which concealed blowholes big enough to swallow a wagon. More and more, this shortcut became country which demanded a good piece of knowing. Long windrows of tumbled fragments looked as if hundreds of cars of coal had been dumped. The trail wound in and out among these.

“Over there,” Epstein announced, near sundown, “it gives a basin your hat can hide. If you don’t know where it is, you go thirsty for a whole day.”

When they rounded a ridge, they saw that two men had already made camp near a tiny basin which had scarcely a trace of green growth to betray its presence. The pair had burros. Prospecting gear made up most of the packs laid out on the ground. Epstein hailed them, and in a moment, the bearded desert rats were plying the newcomers with questions.

Grover and Phelan they called themselves, and they were gold-drunk. They had to talk. Any audience would do. They showed ore specimens. “Rich as all git out,” they babbled. “From the Muleshoe Mountains, yonder.” Grover handed Barlow a chunk. “Scads of it! A ring-tailed heller of a lode. Free milling ore—”

The threads and flakes of wheat colored metal spoke for themselves. This had not the glitter of fool’s gold; it had the mellowness of the real article. “Looks good, Saul,” Barlow observed, and handed him the specimen. “Too bad it isn’t pushcart country over yonder.”

Phelan cried out, “The devil it ain’t! This canyon here, this draw betwixt the lava, it leads right into the Muleshoe Canyon, and that’s lousy with float.”

Epstein’s hand and voice shook as he surrendered the sample. “It gives a town there before you know it. Eye, wye, wye! I can get a load of bargains in Yuma and come back in time for the first business. Come now, Pete, we got no time to lose!”

The prospectors stared. “Gosh, man, you loco? Figuring on trading when you can stake a claim?”

“We’re running short of grub,” Barlow contended.

Epstein filled the canteens. “It gives another hour of daylight, hurry up, Pete, no time to lose.”

Once they were on their way, Barlow said, “I got your play so strong I could taste it. What was wrong with the outfit?”

“With those fellows, something smells. I been in plenty camps. Some prospecting men don’t talk even to burros, some talk like magpies and drunks. But there ain’t any ore like that in these parts. And that ain’t the only lie they told. Some of the fresh sign is horses. And the burros’ hoofs and the men’s boots don’t look right for the kind of country they say they been working.”

Once darkness fell, they camped in a swale. It was not until after supper that Barlow’s uneasiness came to a point, and he said, abruptly, “Saul, a fake gold strike would be enough to drive sodbusters crazy as coots, particularly with a fellow like Swift. He’d get his crowd to head this way, a far piece from the route the army is watching.”

Epstein let out a long breath. “I been waiting to see if you caught on by yourself. What do we do?”

“I aim to sneak back for a look-see and listen. Find out what those jiggers are really thinking. If there is sure enough dirty work, I’ll risk going back to warn Horace Parker, and take my chances on what I get.”

“What do I do?”

“I’d admire to meet anyone who ever figured out what you are fixing to do!”

“Most of the time I don’t know it myself until I do it,” Epstein admitted. “But better I wait to see how it goes with you.”

Barlow accordingly set out along the back-trail. The silhouette of the lava ridge against the stars guided him. He did not slow down until he could smell the mesquite root fire of the prospectors. Wind whine and the incessant spatter of driven sand made a curtain of sound to mask his approach. The subdued glow of embers warned him that he was within sight of his goal. On working his way closer, he decided that the pair had decamped.

The ash filming the coals suggested that the two had left soon after he and Epstein had moved on. He wondered if they had aimed to bushwhack him and Saul. While this was an uncomfortable thought, he realized that his companion would hardly be caught napping. “Having us go yonder, instead of on our way,” he reasoned, “couldn’t do ’em a bit of good unless they knew we’d meet someone up the draw who’d keep us from coming back.”

The moon’s first glow was reaching into the draw whose general direction was toward the distant Muleshoe Mountains. He worked his way along an earth bottom which before long began to dip from its first steady rise. As he rounded a bend, he smelled horses and tobacco. There were men lounging about a small fire in a sheltered alcove.

The dim light gave him glimpses of hobbled horses. There seemed to be no lookouts. There was no reason for any, in this corner of desolation. Thinking of the four scouts who hunted horse thieves, Barlow asked himself whether these he now saw were the crowd the quartet had been looking for.

As the fire flared up, he saw many more horses, further up the draw, than the men in sight could possibly need. And then he recognized Horace Parker’s mare. Alezan stood out like a torch light procession among the bangtails and scrubs of the remuda. The man who had bushwhacked Barlow in the pass outside of Kearneyville was now sitting in on a game involving fake prospectors and a fake gold strike. There was far more to this than Barlow could possibly figure for the moment.

One thing however was certain: he had to recapture Alezan. Doing so would not only cancel a debt, but would lend weight to his words when he rejoined the wagon train and outlined his suspicions to Horace Parker.

He considered half a dozen plans which would have a chance if he went back to get Epstein. He ended by rejecting them all. It took only one man to steal a horse. He remained in hiding, shifting at times when moonlight invaded the shadows of the rocks which sheltered him. He watched the strangers spread their blankets. And he kept his eye on Alezan…

* * * *

The approach was infinitely harder than the act. He was shaky, sweating, and dry-mouthed when he left, leading the mare and shouldering saddle gear. He had fed her rock candy and ginger snaps during the week she was stabled in Kearneyville, and she remembered him. She made no disturbance at all on being taken from her companions.

Once Barlow told Epstein what he had done and learned, he muffled Alezan’s hoofs with pieces of blanket. The peddler said, “Don’t worry about me. Lots of times, I have walked by moonlight. And if someone trails you to this camp, they won’t go further after me. Not even Epstein can carry a horse in a pushcart.”

“When’ll I be seeing you?”

“Maybe at Red Fork. Maybe somewhere else. If I knew, wouldn’t I say so?”

When, after hard riding, Barlow finally saw the dust of the emigrant train, it was, as he had feared, far off the guarded route, and making for the shortcut which he and Epstein had taken. He came down from the ridge; which ran parallel to the train’s direction, and rode so as to approach it from the rear. He overtook the caravan when halted for a rest.

Despite the dust which masked him, the men Barlow accosted recognized him, but were too astonished for speech.

“Where’s Parker?” he demanded. “Where’s Swift?”

Mounted as well as armed, Barlow carried more weight than he had as a bullwhacker; and that in a large measure he controlled the fate of all these people added something to his presence. The man he addressed lost countenance, and instead of saying, “Try looking for them!” he answered, “Up toward the head, last time I seen him.”

He wore his gun strapped low. He tested the way it sat in the holster. Whatever happened, they’d not catch him off guard again. When he recognized the captain among a group waiting their turn at a water barrel, he reined in, and deliberately eyed them until one looked up as though he had felt the impact of the stare. Barlow saw the expression of recognition, but ignored the man, and said, “Mr. Parker, I am here to pay a debt. If you can control these knuckleheads of yours, I’ll dismount and give you your horse.

“If you can not keep them in order, I’ll be riding on, while you’re busy tending to some burials you’ll be having on your hands. I’d like to hear your choice, sir.”

Parker whirled. “Pete! Where did you come from? By George, that is Alezan!” He came, forward, hand extended. “If there’s any trouble, the horse is yours for keeps. Get down, I’m glad to see you!”

Voice and handclasp made it plain that Parker spoke from the heart. At least half the others were embarrassed, rather than angry at seeing the man they had intended to flog within an inch of his life. Women were drawing nearer, but holding their distance.

Dismounting, Barlow flashed a glance that sought Sally, but he saw only Laura, whose eyes widened in the shade of her bonnet.

“Sound, and none the worse,” Barlow said, slapping the mare’s shoulder. “But what’s the idea, being so far off the track?”

Parker looked embarrassed, and fingered his beard. “Prospectors with rich ore. We voted to—”

“The hell you voted! You mean Swift’s loud mouth and a handful of hotheads hounded the rest of you into it. I bet you’ve got ore specimens they gave you.”

“Yes,” Parker answered, and sounded nettled. “Here it is.”

One of the men growled, “Gun or no gun, you can’t run—”

Barlow turned on the man. “Reach, or shut up! I remember your loud mouth at my trial.” Then, addressing all: “That gold strike is a fake. Get back on the track quick as you can. The army is patrolling it. Indians and renegades are on the prowl. You’re being baited into a trap, somewhere ahead, where you’ll be easy meat.”

Parker interposed, “Calm down, all of you! Swift is out scouting, beyond the next ridge. Barlow, I’m beholden to you for coming back with my mare, but that does not entitle you to throw the entire party into an uproar. You others, you listen to me—you are not going to bring up the difficulty Barlow had with Frazer. He’s recovered, and that business is at an end. Now go about your own business, all of you.”

Barlow, seeing their expressions as they obeyed, was sure that Parker’s leadership was not strong enough to enforce more than a temporary and partial obedience. “Where’s Sally?” he asked the captain. “If it weren’t for her, and my debt to you, I’d’ve let the whole kit and caboodle of you go to hell and the quicker, the better!”

Parker smiled indulgently. “No, Pete, you would not. Quite aside from the women and children who’d suffer, you would not let your anger keep you from warning us. Sally’s riding in Higgins’ wagon, up toward the head of the train. It’s been wearisome walking. Even the oxen are footsore.”

Unthinking, Barlow led Alezan with him, and Parker let him. It was as though both men sensed that he might need a horse at hand if gold crazed emigrants flared up against his story. Barlow found Sally nested among the household goods in the wagon.

“Oh, Pete!” she cried, as he vaulted over the tailgate and with one swoop caught her in his arms. “Darling, I knew you were all right with Saul, but I was worried—I felt terrible, not going with you, then and there.”

“You hush up, honey. Three couldn’t’ve made it.”

“I was silly, all upset about—well, it didn’t occur to me that maybe you hadn’t been able to do anything about it, the way she came out there, that night.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t kicking and screaming.” And after that honest admission, he told her what he and Epstein had learned, and what they suspected.

When she had heard it all, Sally said, “You’re right. Kirby did all he could to start that gold rush that none of the older heads wanted. Though we’d not learned of Indians on the loose. Kirby threatened to divide the company, and pull out with all his friends. That was what made Mr. Barker give in.”

“This time,” Barlow declared, “the party does divide if it has to, even if only you and me have sense enough to keep off any shortcut to hell.” He cocked his head. “That’s Kirby they’re hailing now. He’s come back from scouting out the pass, I bet.”

Barlow moved over to clear the tail gate. Sally caught him by the arm. “There’ll be trouble for sure, Pete. Wait for things to cool down,” she pleaded. “I know you’re not afraid of him. It’s just that he may be more sensible if he doesn’t have to face you.”

“He’ll know I’m back.”

“But that’s not the same as facing you and getting riled and feeling that he has to show off, then and there.”

Barlow shrugged. “He’ll keep, all right.”

Sally tugged at the edge of the wagon cover, so that they could peep out and toward the head of the halted train. Swift and another who trailed after him rode down the line. The two dismounted to talk to Parker, who had succeeded in getting the others back to their chore of checking up on the rawhide shoes they had laced about the hoofs of the oxen.

“Good camp over the ridge,” Swift was reporting. “Plenty water and forage.”

And then Swift’s companion came into Barlow’s field of vision. With a quick move, he broke away from Sally. “There’s a man I want to talk to, and right now! What’s he doing here?”

“Oh, that’s one of a posse looking for horse thieves. He joined us about the time prospectors met us.”

“Whatever his go-by is this time,” Barlow told her, “that’s Jed Lathrop, the stinker that tried to have me jailed in Kearneyville.”

He cleared the tailgate, and taking Alezan by the curb chains, he led off for the three who discussed the road ahead.

CHAPTER VII

Epstein Does It With Mirrors

Anger and triumph made Barlow light headed and reckless, so that he spoke, instead of drawing to shoot it out on sight. Lathrop recognized the mare before he did Barlow. His first glimpse of Alezan prodded him to action. He was slapping leather before Barlow had fairly challenged him. His haste, however, made him fumble. Lathrop’s first shot went wild.

Barlow made up for lost time. He did better, though not well enough. His pistol blast came a split second after Lathrop, but instead of drilling him dead center, he raked the man’s forearm for half its length, and knocked dust from his shirt. Lathrop tried to shift the weapon to his left hand, but missed, and it dropped to the ground. Barlow, cheated of his chance to finish the fellow, closed in to pistol-whip him to shreds.

Parker, who had been blocking Swift’s sight of Barlow, leaped clear. Swift reached for his gun and shouted. Barlow whirled, and before the segundo’s weapon could clear leather.

“Hold it!” Barlow warned.

From behind him came a scream. Alezan bolted. A woman flung herself against Barlow, snatching his arm. She hung her weight from him, tangling her legs with his until he staggered off balance and came near lurching to his knees. It was Laura, the red headed trouble maker. She cried; “Don’t you dare, you dirty son! You—”

Swift could not shoot. Laura blocked his line of fire. He stood there, gun in hand and nothing to do with it. But this was only for a moment.

Sally, coming up with a shotgun she had snatched from the wagon, had the muzzle trained on Swift, and without menacing anyone else. “Drop your gun, Kirby,” she said in a quiet, deadly voice. “Get your redhead away, or she can have you in two pieces.”

Swift obeyed. Sally’s voice had made him turn ash grey. He let the weapon fall, not even daring keep it long enough to holster it. He took Laura by the shoulders, and stuttered, “It’s all right, you let go of him, it’s all right.”

Barlow yelled, “Stop that—Stop him! Damn it, let go of me! Stop him!”

Laura still clawed and kicked until he broke away. Blind with fury, he blazed away at Lathrop, who had taken advantage of the fracas to mount up and ride. The fugitive, un-hit, swerved between teams of restive oxen. Barlow had to lower his gun.

He lost time catching Alezan. When he was in the saddle to make a race of it, Parker snatched the reins.

“We need you here, Pete! I can’t have you riding off and plunging into an ambush.”

“That brute he’s riding is fast,” Barlow grumbled. “Too far off already to do anything with a rifle.” He dismounted, and returned Swift’s look of surly defiance. “You’re right, Mr. Parker. I’d better stay here and make it clear what your segundo has been doing.

“You, Swift! You listen and if you let out one word till I’m through, I’ll shoot you in your tracks, no matter if you’re not heeled! You don’t deserve a white man’s chance; so I’m keeping your gun. You made it up with Lathrop to have me jailed for stealing Alezan. I ended by getting her from a crew of thieves in the hills yonder, right where you and Lathrop aimed to lead us.

“He didn’t dare ride her into camp because he knew she’d be recognized! He came here figuring he was sure he’d killed me, a long piece back. Now have you got something to say before you get a taste of what you aimed to give me?”

“I didn’t know,” Swift, began gropingly. “‘I didn’t believe Lathrop had bushwhacked you after you left Kearneyville.”

Somehow, the man was convincing; but Barlow tore into him, pressing the accusation: “When Lathrop and the prospectors ‘accidentally’ tangled with this company, you knew him for a coyote who’d connive to have a man jailed—have me jailed, so you could have Sally all to yourself. You took the word of a skunk like that and gulped the gold rush story.”

“I’ve got a stake in this company,” Swift protested. “Do you suppose I’d knowingly risk my own money, animals, everything?”

Parker looked at those who had gathered round. “I don’t think he would, Pete. I think he’s guilty of no more than poor judgment in dealing with a man he knew was low enough to try to jail an innocent man. We’ll vote on it tonight.”

“Vote on what?” Swift demanded, voice cracking with apprehension.

“Electing another segundo. You’re through with show off tricks, shining up to all the women folks, and making the young fellows imitate you and back your every play. We are backtracking right now. The by-laws say we organized to settle at Red Fork, and to Red Fork is where we are going.”

Parker paused. He saw that for the first time, he was actually leader, instead of captain in name only. But his justifiable satisfaction hardly outlasted the deep breath which expanded his chest. One of the sodbusters shouted, “Maybe we’re bound for Red Fork, but we’ll get to hell first! Look yonder, riding out of the pass. They knowed we’d not be crazy enough to go further, so they’re coming to get us.”

Barlow looked and saw the riders on the skyline. He wondered whether it was insensate wrath that made them strike at once, or whether it was fear that the emigrants would send for help, or in one way or another survive to tell what had happened, and who had menaced them. As he looked, he wondered also at the peculiar blinding flash which winked from the heights of a further ridge. But getting the wagons into a circle, with the animals inside, was far more important than speculating as to the enemy’s motives, or what caused the queer flickering so far away.

Most of the riders proved to be Apaches. They wore the levis issued by the Indian agent of the reservation they had quit; they had their heads bound, turbanwise, with red calico. Judging from the whine and spat of bullets they poured into the wagon train as they rode in a circle about it, they had plenty of ammunition. But there were white renegades, worse than any Indian, in the howling pack.

The sodbusters had firearms enough: shotguns and rifles; powder and ball and caps, and cartridges for the breech loaders and the few repeaters in the train, but by no means enough for a siege such as this promised to be. They had come fixed for pot hunting, and not for battle. Even though they had reckoned on the possibility of trouble, none had had any idea of how much powder could be burned in a short time.

Barlow, crouching behind a wagon wheel, picked a renegade, and leveled his Winchester. He taught that one the advantage of riding Indian style, protected by his horse. But that one effective shot set the emigrants off on a wild burst firing. Barlow quit squinting through the dust for a glimpse of Jed Lathrop and got up to find Parker.

“Make ’em quit wasting powder,” he demanded. “They’re doing nothing but keep the varmints away till we’re out of ammunition.”

A .60 caliber buffalo gun bellowed. The emigrants howled in triumph, seeing man and beast drilled with a single slug; the animal had been knocked stem winding, lifted and flung. Barlow raced over to the marksman. “Hold it a spell! You’ve got every pot-head in the crowd trying to do the same with buckshot and bird-shot. Let ’em get close, and then hose ’em!”

The emigrants’ fire tapered off. Those who lost their heads and let a good target tempt them, or those who were plainly defiant, served their purpose. Barlow said to Parker, “Might as well let them be. If we all quit shooting, those devils’d think we aimed to do the very thing we are going to do—let ’em have it from close range. Now with a dribble of shots, it looks like we’re hard up for powder.”

They busied themselves with the wounded. Women were tearing up sheets for bandages. A child went out beyond the barricade of wagons, enjoying all the fun. A man shouted, and would have gone out to get the little fellow, had not Barlow laid him out with a well planted fist.

“We need that man for fighting,” he told those who cried out against him.

A woman did run out. She was riddled by bullets. The child came back, slugs kicking up dust about him. He was unharmed.

“Pete,” the captain began, hoarsely, “you can’t—

“We’re fighting a war. She’s done for anyway.”

The circle of riders suddenly closed in. Lead spatted through wagon tops. Lead thumped into wagon beds, and zinged from bolts and hubs. Animals in the center of the barricade were hit. Horses fought their hobbles.

“Hold it!” Barlow shouted. “Hold it till buckshot will count!”

Sally, bedraggled and grimy and scratched by flying splinters, came up beside him with a cap and ball Colt and a double barreled derringer. “I’ll hand you these when you need them,” she said.

And she went with him to crouch behind sandbags he had filled. The emigrant volley was ragged, yet a dozen riders were knocked out. The charge broke. Bullets drove the enemy off until Parker made the sodbusters quit firing.

During the confusion, and with dust rising high, Barlow darted from cover and scooped the wounded woman from the ground. He walked back with her. She lived long enough for a word with her husband, who had recovered from Barlow’s blow.

“Now you’re fit to fight,” Barlow told the man, “and you have plenty to fight about.”

Then Kirby Swift came up. “Pete,” he said, grinning painfully, as he wiped blood from his face, “you called me a grandstand player. Look at you.”

“Saved a man for when we needed him.”

“I’m beating you with a better play.” He turned to Parker, who had just come up. “Horace, if we run them off once more like we just did, there’s a chance for a man to ride out through all the dust and get away without being noticed—they’ll be too confused for a second or two to notice who’s who. A man with a fast horse could get word to the army patrols. Give me Alezan. Better than having those devils get her.”

Parker eyed Barlow questioningly.

Barlow answered, slowly, “Kirby’s entitled to this chance. Providing our folks don’t misunderstand and think he’s joining the enemy. That’d make them throw up the sponge.”

Kirby Swift’s face whitened beneath the dust. “I earned that one. They might think I was going to tell Jed Lathrop we can’t hold much longer. But if they didn’t believe I meant well, they’d’ve settled me before now, wouldn’t they?”

“Get ready to ride,” Parker told him. And when Swift left to saddle Alezan, Parker said, “Pete, did you have to pour it on him that way?”

“The dig might help him get through.” He looked at the sun, all red through dust. “Maybe he’d better wait till dusk.”

“If they know a man got through,” Parker objected, “they’ll start worrying and might pull out. Indians don’t usually close in by night.”

“That’s right, “Barlow admitted. “Though you can’t tell what they’ll do with white renegades working with them.”

Parker went to talk to Swift.

Before Barlow could learn the decision the captain and Swift had made, the enemy was closing in again. Again, the defenders held their fire: but the Apaches had a surprise. They were not yet close enough to get the deadly raking that awaited them when they wheeled; and those among them armed with bows loosed a flight of blazing arrows.

The flaming shafts dotted the wagon sides and covers. Wind whipped the dry wood and dry canvas to fierce burning.

Covered by musketry, Barlow and others tore and slashed at the wagon covers, while, some fought the blaze with water soaked gunny sacks. Parker was busy trying to keep this one and that from wasting water on wagons ignited beyond saving.

Gusts of smoke rose high, and then, wind driven, flattened out to blanket the earth, and hide whatever the enemy might next do.

The sodbusters manhandled two wagons which were too well ablaze to be saved. This kept the fire from spreading to those which had been put out. Then came a wild yell, and a whip crack.

Kirby Swift, stampeding some twenty oxen, followed them through the gap. Crazed by excitement, they raced for the enemy, who was closing in again, this time through a wall of smoke. As he rode, Swift threw away his bullwhip and went on with a pistol in each hand. The stampede crashed headlong into the ranks of the converging Apaches. Swift followed through.

Buckshot and pistol ball broke the charge. The next rush, however, would settle things; Smoke and dust covered the field. There was no telling what had happened to Swift, but Barlow said to Sally, as they shared a dipper of water, “He could have got through; Pass the word along that he did get through! All we have to do is keep holding till help gets here! Tell ’em!”

He gave her a squeeze and then a shove, and turned to encourage those who looked as though they knew themselves good as done for. He caught a sodbuster and his woman crouching in the shelter of two water barrels. They had an old revolver. The way they looked at it and each other made Barlow step up, snatch the weapon, and slap them with the flat of his hand.

“Stand up and fight till you can’t be taken alive! What do you mean, you fools, fixing to waste cartridges on each other? Kill those devils out there instead!”

The two stared at him, half defiant, half ashamed. Then the haggard woman’s face changed. “We’re good as dead already!” she cried, hysterically; “Hear the trumpets and music! You hear it, Asa?”

Barlow’s thought was, “He couldn’t have found help so soon.” Then he caught the thin, far off sound, and yanked the woman to her feet. “Angels, my eye! That’s a cavalry trumpet sounding off!”

Either the wind shifted, or else the troop had come up out an arroyo that had choked the sound, for in a moment the call swelled, loud and fierce. There would be a charge—but not by renegades and Apaches.

The sodbusters heard, and shouted crazily. They helped speed the departing enemy. Barlow, resting a long barreled .45-90 on a sack of grain, unseated riders as far as he could hit them.

There was far off firing; but a squad of troopers led by a corporal came toward the wagons to take charge until the main party had done its work.

“Hell, no,” the noncom answered in reply to Barlow’s question, “we didn’t get any messenger. The skipper’ll tell you, maybe, when he comes in. It was funny business. What outfit were you in?”

And answering that question led to other things which kept them busy until the corporal cocked his head and remarked, “Sounding recall. Show’s over. Hey, where you going?”

“Someone I hope got knocked over. Renegade by the name of Lathrop. I’m going out to make sure.”

“No, you’re not! The skipper sent us to see no ‘dead’ Injuns came to life and raised sand whilst he was chasing those that ran out. You stay put.”

“OK, corporal. But there’s something else I want to find out.”

“It’ll keep. Another scalp you’re hankering for?”

“I did, right up till a little while ago. Now I feel different about that jigger.”

When he had told about Kirby Swift, the noncom shrugged. “One man couldn’t’ve got this whole outfit off the track if the captain’d been worth a second hand chew of tobacco. It’s everyone’s fault, not just the showoff’s—well—what’s that?”

A pushcart was coming up out of a swale. A longish bundle was lashed over the tarpaulin. “That’s Epstein,” Barlow said. “And for once, he didn’t get around to fixing things.”

But Barlow was wrong. Epstein’s odd cargo was Kirby Swift, and his two emptied Colts. Far behind him, a familiar horse loomed up: Alezan, apparently none of the worse. Epstein called, “Pete, it gives something back there I didn’t take the scalp from. It belongs to Swift.”

“Jed Lathrop?”

Epstein nodded. “He had a pistol, and from that far, you wouldn’t be pulling a pistol for using against these wagons. They shot each other up, Lathrop and Swift. What happened?”

“All of a sudden, Swift ran hog wild. Whether he meant to ride for help, or just had a hunch he’d get square with the skunk that led him into trouble, nobody’ll ever know.”

And then, when the cavalry troop came to the wagons, Barlow got the answer to the remaining riddle. Epstein dug into his cart and produced four small, framed mirrors. “Some of my bargains,” he said. “From a high spot I could see far off with the spy glasses. So with the mirrors I made signals. Like the army heliograph. General Crook used to use them, and I bet the captain here caught the flashes and read my bad spelling.”

Later, when the dead had been buried and the camp set in order, Sally came from one of the wagons and joined Barlow and Epstein. Her eyes were gleaming, and tears still trickled down her cheeks.

As she clung to Barlow’s arm, she said, “I’ve been with Laura Frazer. She’s all broken up about Kirby. Poor thing, she was playing up to you just to make him jealous. Anyway—thinking of how she and Kirby have been parted forever—”

Words choked in her throat. Barlow carried on, saying, “What Sally means is, she doesn’t want to wait another day or hour. With all your handiness with scriptures, you don’t happen to be a rabbi? That’d make it legal.”

Epstein sighed regretfully. “Look at me, do I have a beard? I ain’t even a justice of the peace.” He pounced for his cart, and as he rummaged, he said over his shoulder, “But I got a nice ring, brand new, solid gold, just the right size—I give you a bargain and it ain’t far to Red Fork and preachers.”