Chapter Fourteen: BAR 33 STEERS

Leach Wigran’s Running W outfit was placed deep in the timbered foothills of the Calicoes. Johnny remembered that it was a big frame place built in the dead center of a grassy valley so that no one could approach it without being seen. While Leach had not built it, it seemed as if this place were designed for a man of his shady business. Remote, inaccessible, in the heart of a wide, good range, with a thousand canyons behind it, it was a perfect headquarters for a cattle thief.

They had left the road long since, and were now making their slow way through the tall lodgepoles when Johnny spotted a light off to the right and below them.

“That’s the Runnin’ W,” Turk said.

“We can’t move till daylight,” Johnny said, “so we might as well pick a comfortable spot.”

It was just breaking dawn when they had settled on their place of observation. It was on a high, wooded ridge which afforded perfect cover, yet allowed them a good view down through the tall avenue of trees to the valley below.

While they were not close enough to identify individual riders going into the Running W, they were near enough to the road to ride down for a closer view.

Slowly color began to bloom over the gray landscape, and day marched forward. Smoke began to rise from the chimneys of the Running W, and Johnny settled down to watch, while Turk and Hank rolled up in their blankets for an hour of sleep.

Soon, a strange and distant noise came riding down from the south on the faint wind. Johnny listened, head cocked. In another moment he identified it. The sound of a herd of bawling cattle cannot be mistaken for long. They were being driven up the narrow valley to the Running W.

Johnny moved over to Hank and Turk, about to wake them, and then decided to let them sleep. He could do this job alone, and they were in no danger of discovery.

So, putting the bridle back on his horse which was grazing with its saddle still on, he mounted and worked his way down the slope. He hurried, for the sound of the driven cattle was becoming plainer every minute. When he came to a sprawling thicket of scrub oak, he rose in his saddle and looked down through the trees. Here he could get a good view of the road. He tied his horse in the screening oak, then went forward and down the slope a way and hid himself in the brush.

Presently, the point rider appeared, the cattle strung out in a long bawling line behind him. Johnny caught the brand on this rider’s horse, and it was a Running W.

Then, through the cloud of dust that the shuffling herd was kicking up, Johnny tried to read the brands on the cattle. He saw one he thought was a Bar 33, but knew he might be mistaken. He could not be sure because these cattle were branded on the right hip, and he was on their left side. But he was patient, knowing that sooner or later he would have the chance to make sure.

And he did. One of the weary steers angled out of the herd and began to graze, turning back to get some fresh bunchgrass, and Johnny saw with amazement that he had been right. These were Bar 33 steers! Still he could not believe it, for this did not fit in with his theory. But when a calf, pushed ahead in the crush, finally broke loose and turned around and started bawling for its mother, Johnny was certain. Bar 33 cattle!

When they were past, he walked back to his horse, mounted, and turned up the slope, his face thoughtful. Hank and Turk had been awakened by the noise of the herd, and they had guessed where Johnny had gone.

“Whose were they?” Turk asked sleepily.

“Bar 33, believe it or not,” Johnny said grimly. Hank sat bolt upright in his blankets.

“Well, I’ll be sunk in sheep dip!” he said slowly, looking at Johnny. “Leach is s’posed to be workin’ for Fitz. Where does that put us?”

“In the wrong,” Turk ventured.

Johnny squatted on his haunches and sifted gravel through his fingers, staring thoughtfully at the ground. “Does Leach bring all his rustled stuff up to this place?” Johnny asked Turk.

“Mostly he drives it over to Warms. It’s too easy to track up to here. He ain’t got enough rock and rough weather and wind and rain and hard goin’ here, and that’s what you need to steal cattle.”

“Then why is he doin’ it?”

Turk shrugged. Johnny was silent for a full minute, and then he rose and savagely threw down his handful of gravel.

“This don’t make no sense at all!” He looked up at Hank. “You reckon Fitz sold or give him those cattle?”

“Might be—in payment for a job, or somethin’.”

“I’m goin’ to find out.”

“How?”

“Backtrack, and see if the boys even tried to hide the tracks of this herd. If they did, it might be they stole the beef. If they didn’t, it’d mean Fitz knew about them bein’ moved.”

An hour later, the three of them rode down off the slopes to the valley bottom, and picked up the sign of the cattle. An hour of following the tracks showed them that the Running W men had taken no pains to cover up cattle signs. A two-hour drive to the east, in the rocky, mountain going, would have afforded the Running W men a terrain which would make the tracking of the beef less easy. Apparently, then, they were making no attempt to conceal the drive, although they had been careful to avoid the roads.

It was only when they did not find a bed ground, or place where the riders had camped, that Johnny became suspicious again. “If they were drivin’ bought beef, they’d’ve stopped to make a camp, wouldn’t they, and rest the stuff?”

“Sure,” Turk said. “It’s a two-day drive from Fitz’s place, if they didn’t push ’em.”

“Let’s go on,” Johnny said. “They looked pushed.”

In midafternoon, Hank, riding ahead as a sort of scout, wheeled his horse and rode back. “Pull off in the brush,” he said. “Somebody else has the same idea as us.”

They turned off behind a ridge into the brush, and dismounted. Johnny mounted the ridge and bellied down to see who was coming.

A lone rider came into sight—Kennicott, one of the ranchers Johnny had seen some days ago. He was riding at a fast walk, eyes on the ground.

It wasn’t his beef, Johnny mused. Why is he cuttin’ sign for it?

When Kennicott came to the place where Johnny and Turk and Hank had pulled off the trail of the cattle, he reined up. For a moment, he stared at their tracks, then up at the ridge, and suddenly whirled and spurred his horse off into the brush. A minute later, Johnny caught sight of Kennicott’s horse heading back in the direction from which he had come.

Johnny returned to the horses and told what he had seen.

“Kennicott?” Hank exclaimed. “It ain’t his beef.”

“Maybe he was as curious as we was,” Turk offered.

Johnny remembered that Kennicott might be one of the eight who accused Fitz. More evidence. He turned a thoughtful face to the south. “It’s about time I talked to Hugo Miller,” he murmured. “I’ve got to find out what’s goin’ on in town.”

They stopped on the outskirts of Cosmos just after midnight. The town, as in the days before Johnny Hendry’s brief spell of sheriffin’, was roaring wide open. The saloons were a bedlam of noise; occasional gunshots racketed down the street. A ranny, dead drunk in his saddle, galloped past without even seeing them.

Johnny made his way carefully down the back alleys until he arrived at Hugo’s. A pencil of light lay under the rear door; Johnny moved over to the window and looked in before he knocked. Hugo, his feet tilted on his desk, was deep in a book.

At Johnny’s entrance, he rose and frowned. “I’ve been worried,” Hugo said, regarding Johnny with fond seriousness. “Blue was out this morning lookin’ for you with a posse.”

Johnny grinned and sat down. “He’ll never find us. We’ve got a safe hide-out.”

“That’s what he said when he came back,” Hugo observed dryly.

“Came back?” Johnny echoed. “You mean he only looked for us one morning?”

“Oh, Tip Rogers is still out, but Blue was called back to town by business. Major Fitz had a herd of beef stolen.”

“Ah,” Johnny said. “Did he?”

“He and his men rode into town this morning and started yelling for Blue. It seems a herd of his just vanished.” Hugo shook his head. “The hardcases will start working on Fitz now, since he put up that reward money. Fitz thinks that’s what’s behind the rustling.”

“Does he, now?” Johnny murmured.

Hugo looked sharply at him, his curiosity awakened by the tone of Johnny’s voice. For a moment, Johnny was tempted to tell Hugo what he suspected of Major Fitz, but he refrained. If he was wrong in his guess—and he was sure he wasn’t—it would not be fair to Fitz. Besides, a secret can be kept only by a few. He said quickly to Hugo, “Did Blue go out with Fitz?”

“Out and back. The rustlers drove the stuff into the mountains, Blue said, and didn’t leave a sign.” Hugo smiled wryly. “It’s the old excuse.”

“Into the mountains,” Johnny murmured, smiling privately. “So Blue give up?”

“He did. Fitz was helpless.”

Johnny looked at Hugo with some curiosity. “Has anyone claimed that it was me and Turk and Hank that stole Fitz’s stuff?”

Hugo shook his head. “Fitz killed that story right off. He said it was five men. Besides, he said you’d be the last man in the world to touch a head of Bar 33 cattle.”

“Well, well,” Johnny drawled.

Again Hugo looked at him sharply. He said suddenly, impulsively, “What’s got into you, Johnny? You’re changed.”

A slow flush darkened Johnny’s lean and browned cheeks. He cuffed his Stetson back on his forehead. “Changed?”

“Are you lettin’ this frame-up sour you, boy?”

“No,” Johnny said stubbornly. “Why?”

“Just a look in your eyes. Like you don’t give a tinker’s curse any more.” He paused, as if wondering how what he was about to say would be received. “This is none of my business, Johnny, but have you had a row with Nora?”

“Have you asked her?”

Again Hugo shook his head. “No, but she’s got the same look in her eyes that you’ve got—a nothing-matters-now look. Besides, when I asked her what you planned to do after she saw you last night, she didn’t say a word.” Hugo grinned disarmingly. “Maybe that’s all right, but I’ve got an interest in your career, too, boy.”

“Maybe you better ask her, Hugo. As for me,” Johnny said slowly, “you know how I feel about Nora—how I always will feel. No, that hasn’t changed.” He rose and hiked up his Levi’s. “Nothin’ new about Pick’s claim?”

Hugo only shook his head. At the door, Johnny turned and said briefly, “It’ll be some time before you see me again, Hugo. Take care of Nora, will you?”

And with that, he slipped out into the night. Back at the horses, he said to Turk and Johnny, “Fitz had a herd of beef stole. Blue went out to take a look and come back with the story that the herd got clean away.”

“Ain’t that too bad?” Turk murmured sarcastically. “A jasper that couldn’t track a ten-horse freight hitch across an alkali flat could have followed that herd.” Pausing, Turk waited for Hank to say something.

Hank said only, “Well, don’t that prove that Fitz wanted Leach Wigran to get away with the stuff?”

“So it would look to the town like the hardcases was fightin’ Fitz now,” Johnny put in grimly. “That’s what he wants. And”—here his voice took on a tone of quiet savagery—“that’s what’s goin’ to happen.”

“Us bein’ the hardcases,” Turk murmured.

“Right,” Johnny said. “And when we end up, Fitz won’t know whether he can trust his own mother.”