Part 14 (1/2)
”Huh! What were they doing!”
”You can search me for the answer. I haven't got it,” laughed the big fellow. ”We don't need to bother about them. They're out here with some crazy idea in their tops. They can't interfere with our plans any.”
”You'd better not be too sure about that,” chuckled Tad. ”Perhaps one of them may if he has the good luck to get out of here without being discovered.”
”What's the plan, Bluff?”
”So that's his name? I'll remember that,” muttered Tad.
”That's what I wanted you boys to meet me here for. I want you to see all the ranchers before to-morrow night on both sides of the Rosebud. Understand now, no blunt giving away of the game. You want to start by telling them you hear Boss Simms is bringing in ten thousand head of sheep, and that he's going to graze them up the valley all the way over the free gra.s.s to the north. Tell them that it'll be mighty poor picking for the cows and so on until you get 'em good and properly mad----”
”Yes, what then?”
”Better let the ranchers make threats first, then you can say that you hear the others are going to teach Boss Simms a lesson and stampede his flock to-morrow or next night. Say you hear the word will go out when the mine is ready to touch a match to. You'll know how to work it?”
”Sure thing, Bluff. Who do you want us to see?”
”I want you and Jake to take the west side of the mountains. Lazy and I will take the east. Work it thoroughly and don't you go to making any bad breaks. Right after the job is over, besides the sheep we get for our own herd, there'll be a few thousand laying dead around these parts. We'll take the contract to skin them for the hides. That'll be another rake off. Do you follow me?”
”Yes.”
”To-morrow night meet me at the Three Sisters and I'll be able to give you your orders for the rest of the boys.”
”You don't think they'll suspect you--that they'll be wise to what the game is?” asked one of the men apprehensively.
”No fear of that. They'd never mix me up with any such deal as that. I'm a respectable law abiding rancher, I am,” laughed the man with the red beard. ”Don't you go to getting cold feet. That's the sure way to get caught,” admonished the leader.
”Want us to start now?”
”No, sure not. What's the use? We'd better turn in and get some sleep. It'll be light enough by three o'clock in the morning. We'll get a rasher of bacon and some hot coffee, then we'll light out for the valley. You know you don't have to see Bob Moore. And better not go near the Circle T Ranch. I'm not any too sure about those fellows. We'll turn in now.”
”I've heard enough to hang the whole bunch,” thought Tad Butler. ”The trouble is I don't know who they are. But that does not make so much difference. Only if I did know, Mr. Simms might be able to have them arrested. As it is, I guess the best he can do is to get ready to fight them off when they do come,” reasoned the lad.
”Better stake the ponies nearer camp in case anything comes along. I came across bear tracks a few miles to the east of here,” the big man advised them.
”So did I,” thought Tad.
”I forgot to tell you that there'll be three or four Crow braves with us on the raid as well as half a dozen Blackfeet?”
”Blackfeet? What are them redskins doing down here, off the reservation?” demanded Jake.
”They're like all critters, think the pasture over the fence is better'n their own,” laughed Bluff. ”Guess there's no need of any of us keeping awake. We ain't likely to have any surprises.”
The cowboy outlaw, however, was about to have the most surprising of surprises that could have come to him at that time.
Tad, in his anxiety to catch every word that was uttered, had drawn his body close up to the edge of the cliff, his head and shoulders hanging well over.
In front of him, right down to the camp stretched a long, sloping rock, whose smooth face, glistened in the light of the camp fire. As the men rose to prepare for the night, Tad began pulling himself cautiously back, bracing himself with one hand.