IN ADDITION to his sons, Dan had two men on the ranch,—Romero, the Mexican, and Ben Vining, an old-time buckaroo from Nevada. They ate together in the ranch kitchen, Mrs. Crockett doing the cooking.
Eating was a solemn rite that seemed to dry up the wells of conversation.
Before they had finished, people began to arrive. With one or two exceptions they were all related in some way to the Crocketts.
“One or two others to come yet,” Dan told them. “We’ll wait a few minutes.”
Quantrell was the last to arrive. He gave Jim a curt nod. His displeasure was evident on learning that Montana had injected himself into the fight and was now riding for the Box C. He had an excuse for his tardiness. Jim thought his horse looked as though it had been ridden hard.
The meeting got under way at last . . . The day had been one to try tempers. A dozen men recounted their verbal clashes with Reb and his men. All agreed that they must stand together.
Dan Crockett spoke at length, advising them to be patient and stay within the law. They listened, but there was no enthusiasm for what he had to say.
Quantrell spoke, fanning their hatred of the Bar S.
“The law’s too one-sided for me!” he bellowed. “The other fellow’s got it all! We got to take care of this in our own way—without the help of any outsiders!”
Evidently it was what they wanted to hear, for they cheered him when he finished. Montana knew this reference to outsiders was directed at him. He couldn’t escape the feeling that the fight was resolving itself into a personal one between Quantrell and himself. His face was stern and uncompromising as he arose and faced them.
“I want to remind you men that when anybody labels me an outsider that you consider the facts,” he began. “I saw this trouble coming long before any of you gave it a thought. If Henry Stall had got the reservation—where would you be now?”
“We’d be on our way out!” Dan exclaimed courageously. “There ain’t a man here but has to thank you for what you did, Montana.”
There was muttered approval of this, in which Quantrell did not join. He leaned on the corral gate with sullen defiance in his eyes.
“Well, if I was with you then, I’m with you now,” Montana continued. “And I’m with you all the way. Loose talk almost cost you the reservation—the same sort of talk that refers to me now as an outsider.” His eyes were fixed on Quantrell. A sneer curled the big fellow’s mouth. “You’ve been told that the law was all on the other fellow’s side. It’s true. And it’s the best reason I know for staying clear of it. You’ve got your homes here. You’ve got to think of your wives and children. Blood won’t help them.”
He paused to let the effect of his words sink in.
“This fight has just begun, and yet, your patience is gone already. You can’t win that way! My God, men, where is the iron in you? You haven’t lost yet! Don’t let yourselves be stampeded into taking the law into your own hands!”
Lance Morrow stepped into the cleared space in front of Jim. He was a little bandy-legged man, nearing seventy, and the father of five strapping sons.
“Montana, I was nursed on a rifle. I’ve lived with one all my life, but I was taught never to take hit down unless I couldn’t git justice no other way. I don’t want to take hit down now. My boys feel as I do about hit. But what are we agoin’ to do, Montana? Man to man, what hope have we got?”
The old man had put it concretely. That was what they all wanted to know; what hope did they have? They waited anxiously for Montana to answer.
Jim refused to be hurried.
“Well,” he said at last, “I never knew Henry Stall to send bad dollars after good ones when time had proved that he had a losing proposition on his hands. If you stand pat and stick together, you can beat him. He can’t consolidate his water unless some one of you sells him land. The man who lets him have one acre is a traitor to you all!”
“A steer needs grass as well as water. It’s going to cost the Bar S a lot of money to keep moving their stuff. It won’t put any fat on a yearling. And don’t forget, they can’t keep on driving cattle across your range. That’s been threshed out in this county before. The shoe is pinching you now, but it will be the other way around before snow flies.”
His logic swayed the majority of them. They effected an organization of a sort under Dan Crockett’s leadership and agreed to act together. Even Quantrell consented to the arrangement. His apparent change of face did not fool Montana. He knew the man was dangerous.
The sun had set before they finished, but no one seemed in a hurry to leave. Jim was talking to Dan and old Lance Morrow when young Gene sounded a warning.
“Somebody comin’!” he called out.
Montana looked up to see four horsemen fording the creek. Once across, they rode up at a hard gallop. Hands strayed toward guns in the waiting crowd. The oncoming men were either part of the Bar S bunch or strangers, and with things as they stood, a stranger was more apt to be an enemy than a friend.
Montana shared the tenseness of the others. A moment later he recognized Reb Russell. Instinctively, the crowd had lined up to face the newcomers. Reb pulled his horse up sharply fifty yards from them and slid to the ground. Without a word to his men, he stalked across the intervening space, a mad fury on him.
Dan stepped out to face him.
“You’ve come far enough, Reb! I advise you to get back in your saddle and fan it out of here!”
A dozen guns were trained on him, but Reb came on until only ten yards separated them.
“You won’t shoot while I’m facing yuh,” he snarled. “You’ll wait until I’m lookin’ the other way for that.” He saw Montana then. “So you’re here, eh? I never thought you’d get down to herdin’ with a bunch that would pot a man in the back.”
Foolishly brave, he walked up and down the line, meeting them eye to eye with a sneer on his lips.
“Come on!” he burst out fiercely. “Which one of you potted that boy?”
The surprise his words occasioned caused the crowd to fall back. Men turned to their neighbors for an explanation. Dan and Montana exchanged an uneasy glance, sensing that the thing they had feared and hoped to avoid had already happened.
“Reb, I’ll talk for our side,” Dan announced. “I told you yesterday I didn’t want any trouble. If it’s come, I want to know about it. What’s happened?”
Reb tried to glare a hole through him before he answered.
“Picked up one of our boys west of here at the forks on Powder Creek about an hour ago. He was dead when we found him . . . Been shot in the back! Some skunk got him from the rimrocks!”
Montana groaned. “Who was it, Reb?”
“The kid.”
“Billy?” Jim’s voice betrayed his emotion.
“Yeah—Billy Sauls, your old buddy. You don’t have to look so white about it. You’re on the other side of the fence, ain’t yuh?”
Montana let the taunt go unrebuked. For the moment he was speechless. The crowd was stunned, too, by the news that a Bar S man had been slain. All their deliberations had come to naught, for beyond doubt the boy had been killed by someone opposed to the Bar S. Being the sons and grandsons of feudists, they knew that only blood could atone for blood.
Old Lance questioned his sons. Dan tried to read the souls of his boys. Brothers looked at each other with suspicion.
“Hits natural to suppose somebody on our side done hit, said Lance, “but mebbe hit ain’t so. Mebbe that boy had a personal quarrel with someone.”
“I’ll say he did!” Reb thundered. “With a hombre that filled four of our yearlin’s full of lead from the same gun that killed him! You can’t crawl out of it! One of your pack got him!”
“Men, listen to me!” It was Montana. He had jumped up on the wagon-box Dan had been repairing. His voice was charged with a deadly calmness that was more arresting than all of Reb’s vituperation. “You know I’m an old Bar S man. I always found it a good outfit to work for; but I won’t takes wages from a man who’ll grind his neighbors under his heel and bring misery and poverty to women and children for no better reason than that he can make a few more dollars. All I said here this evening still goes. I’m with you to the finish. This killing hasn’t changed that at all. But I don’t believe you approve of shooting men in the back. God knows Billy Sauls never fought that way. I don’t know who got him, but I aim to find out!”
“You needn’t bother,” Reb rasped scornfully. We’ll take care of that! There’s no need of any more palaverin’. Don’t let me catch any of you above the North Fork after to-night!”
Without another word, he turned and stalked back to his horse. The light was failing fast. In a few seconds he and his men were only moving gray smudges bobbing over the sage.
“There’ll be hell to pay now,” old Lance muttered prophetically. “Talkin’ won’t do no good.”
Montana was not listening. He was staring at Quantrell. The longer he started the more certain he became that the big fellow was aware of his scrutiny and was purposely avoiding his eyes.
“He’s a tin-horn, and a tin-horn did this job.” Montana could not put the thought away. Quantrell had been the last to arrive. His horse had looked winded.
From where he stood, Jim could see the animal. Even now it looked weary, head drooping. The muzzle of a rifle peeped out of a saddle scabbard.
That rifle suddenly became of absorbing interest to Montana.
“I’m going to have a look at that gun before he pulls out of here,” he promised himself. “If what I’m thinking is correct, it’ll be dirty. He’d hardly have stopped to clean it.”
Montana changed his position, moving about without apparent purpose, talking to this man and that, but gradually maneuvering so as to bring him nearer to Quantrell’s horse. And now he was certain that Quantrell was watching him.
The big fellow had broken off his conversation with Brent Crockett. If Montana took a step toward the horse, so did Quantrell. It became a game.
“Well, if it’s a showdown, let’s get it over with,” Jim muttered to himself. Throwing caution to the winds, he strode up to the horse. Quantrell was only a step behind him. It gave Jim time enough to insert the tip of his little finger into the rifle barrel. Quantrell caught him by the wrist as he started to bring his hand away.
“What in hell are you snoopin’ around here for?” he snarled under his breath. His eyes were cold and fishy. “It ain’t healthy to handle my stuff!”
“You might get a disease or something,” Montana taunted. He was armed. His left hand had closed over his gun. “Folks are beginning to look this way. If you want an audience, you can get one in a hurry. Let go of that wrist or I’ll do a little irrigating on you!”
Quantrell hung on, trying to save his face. He laughed unpleasantly then. “What’s the idea? What are you tryin’ to pin on me?” he demanded as he dropped Jim’s hand.
“I guess you get my drift. You were the last to get here. You’re rifle’s dirty——”
“What of it? That gun ain’t been out of the scabbard since yesterday mornin’ when I killed a coyote. It’s gettin’ so you got your nose in everywhere—and you’re wrong as usual. Why should I bump that kid off? He didn’t mean any thin’ to me.”
“No?” Montana ground out between clenched jaws. “Let me tell you this, Clay—if I ever prove what I’m thinking I’ll make that kid mean plenty to you. This happens to be something I aim to remember!”