Part 15 (1/2)

Young Carson, skilful as the son of the convict stock-lifter had been trained to be, deftly herded the thundering stampede in the desired direction; and at the end of a galloping mile abruptly gave the shrill yell of command to the two men whom he was piloting. There was a swerve aside out of the pounding melee, a dash for an opening between the swelling foothills, and the ruck of snorting mules swept on in a broad circle that would later make recapture by the night herders a simple matter of gathering up the trailing picket-ropes.

The three riders drew rein in the shelter of the arroyo gulch to breathe their horses, and Ballard gave the boy due credit.

”That was very neatly done, d.i.c.k,” he said, when the thunder of the pounding hoofs had died away in the up-river distances. ”Is it going to b.u.mp those fellows off of our trail?”

The water-boy was humped over the horn of his saddle as if he had found a stomach-ache in the breathless gallop. But he was merely listening.

”I ain't reskin' any money on it,” he qualified. ”If them cow-punch's 've caught on to where you're goin', and what you're goin' _fer_----”

Out of the stillness filling the hill-gorge like a black sea of silence came a measured thudding of hoofs and an unmistakable squeaking of saddle leather. Like a flash the boy was afoot and reaching under his bronco's belly for a tripping hold on the horse's forefoot. ”Down! and pitch the cayuses!” he quavered stridently; and as the three horses rolled in the dry sand of the arroyo bed with their late riders flattened upon their heads, the inner darkness of the gorge spat fire and there was a fine singing whine of bullets overhead.

XII

THE RUSTLERS

In defiance of all the laws of precedence, it was the guest who first rose to the demands of the spiteful occasion. While Ballard was still struggling with the holster strappings of his rifle, Bigelow had disengaged his weapon and was industriously pumping a rapid-fire volley into the flame-spitting darkness of the gorge.

The effect of the prompt reply in kind was quickly made manifest. The firing ceased as abruptly as it had begun, a riderless horse dashed snorting down the bed of the dry arroyo, narrowly missing a stumbling collision with the living obstructions lying in his way, and other gallopings were heard withdrawing into the hill-shadowed obscurities.

It was Ballard who took the water-boy to task when they had waited long enough to be measurably certain that the attackers had left the field.

”You were mistaken, d.i.c.k,” he said, breaking the strained silence.

”There were more than two of them.”

Young Carson was getting his horse up, and he appeared to be curiously at fault.

”You're plumb right, Cap'n Ballard,” he admitted. ”But that ain't what's pinchin' me: there's always enough of 'em night-herdin' this end of the range so 'at they could have picked up another hand 'r two. What I cayn't tumble to is how they-all out-rid us.”

”To get ahead of us, you mean?”

”That's it. We're in the neck of a little hogback draw that goes on down to the big canyon. The only other trail into the draw is along by the river and up this-a-way--'bout a mile and a half furder 'n the road we come, I reckon.”

It was the persistent element of mystery once more thrusting itself into the prosaic field of the industries; but before Ballard could grapple with it, the fighting guest cut in quietly.

”One of their bullets seems to have nipped me in the arm,” he said, admitting the fact half reluctantly and as if it were something to be ashamed of. ”Will you help me tie it up?”

Ballard came out of the speculative fog with a bound.

”Good heavens, Bigelow! are you hit? Why didn't you say something?” he exclaimed, diving into the pockets of his duck coat for matches and a candle-end.

”It wasn't worth while; it's only a scratch, I guess.”

But the lighted candle-end proved it to be something more; a ragged furrow plowed diagonally across the forearm. Ballard dressed it as well as he could, the water-boy holding the candle, and when the rough job of surgery was done, was for sending the Forestry man back to the valley head and Castle 'Cadia with the wound for a sufficient reason. But Bigelow developed a sudden vein of stubbornness. He would neither go back alone, nor would he consent to be escorted.

”A little thing like this is all in the day's work,” he protested.

”We'll go on, when you're ready; or, rather, we'll go and hunt for the owner of that horse whose saddle I suppose I must have emptied. I'm just vindictive enough to hope that its rider was the fellow who pinked me.”

As it happened, the hope was to be neither confirmed nor positively denied. A little farther up the dry arroyo the candle-end, sputtering to its extinction, showed them a confusion of hoof tramplings in the yielding sand, but nothing more. Dead or wounded, the horse-losing rider had evidently been carried off by his companions.