Gunsight Pass by William MacLeod Raine

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GUNSIGHT PASS

HOW OIL CAME TO THE CATTLE COUNTRY AND BROUGHT A NEW WEST

BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

AUTHOR OF THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP, A MAN FOUR SQUARE, THE YUKON TRAIL, ETC.

1921

TO JAMES H. LANGLEY

WHO LIVED MANY OF THESE PAGES IN THE DAYS OF HIS HOT-BLOODED YOUTH

CONTENTS

I. "CROOKED AS A DOG'S HIND LAIG"

II. THE RACE

III. DAVE RIDES ON HIS SPURS

IV. THE PAINT HOSS DISAPPEARS

V. SUPPER AT DELMONICO'S INTERRUPTED

VI. BY WAY OF A WINDOW

VII. BOB HART TAKES A HAND

VIII. THE D BAR LAZY R BOYS MEET AN ANGEL

IX. GUNSIGHT PASS

X. THE CATTLE TRAIN

XI. THE NIGHT CLERK GETS BUSY PRONTO

XII. THE LAW PUZZLES DAVE

XIII. FOR MURDER

XIV. TEN YEARS

XV. IN DENVER

XVI. DAVE MEETS TWO FRIENDS AND A FOE

XVII. OIL

XVIII. DOBLE PAYS A VISIT

XIX. AN INVOLUNTARY BATH

XX. THE LITTLE MOTHER FREES HER MIND

XXI. THE HOLD-UP

XXII. NUMBER THREE COMES IN

XXIII. THE GUSHER

XXIV. SHORTY

XXV. MILLER TALKS

XXVI. DAVE ACCEPTS AN INVITATION

XXVII. AT THE JACKPOT

XXVIII. DAVE MEETS A FINANCIER

XXIX. THREE IN CONSULTATION

XXX. ON THE FLYER

XXXI. TWO ON THE HILLTOPS

XXXII. DAVE BECOMES AN OFFICE MAN

XXXIII. ON THE DODGE

XXXIV. A PLEASANT EVENING

XXXV. FIRE IN THE CHAPARRAL

XXXVI. FIGHTING FIRE

XXXVII. SHORTY ASK A QUESTION

XXXVIII. DUG DOBLE RIDES INTO THE HILLS

XXXIX. THE TUNNEL

XL. A MESSAGE

XLI. HANK BRINGS BAD NEWS

XLII. SHORTY IS AWAKENED

XLIII. JUAN OTERO IS CONSCRIPTED

XLIV. THE BULLDOG BARKS

XLV. JOYCE MAKES PIES

GUNSIGHT PASS

CHAPTER I

"CROOKED AS A DOG'S HIND LAIG"

It was a land of splintered peaks, of deep, dry gorges, of barren mesas
burnt by the suns of a million torrid summers. The normal condition of it
was warfare. Life here had to protect itself with a tough, callous rind,
to attack with a swift, deadly sting. Only the fit survived.

But moonlight had magically touched the hot, wrinkled earth with a fairy
godmother's wand. It was bathed in a weird, mysterious beauty. Into the
crotches of the hills lakes of wondrous color had been poured at sunset.
The crests had flamed with crowns of glory, the canons become deep pools
of blue and purple shadow. Blurred by kindly darkness, the gaunt ridges
had softened to pastels of violet and bony mountains to splendid
sentinels keeping watch over a gulf of starlit space.

Around the camp-fire the drivers of the trail herd squatted on their
heels or lay sprawled at indolent ease. The glow of the leaping flames
from the twisted mesquite lit their lean faces, tanned to bronzed health
by the beat of an untempered sun and the sweep of parched winds. Most of
them were still young, scarcely out of their boyhood; a few had reached
maturity. But all were products of the desert. The high-heeled boots, the
leather chaps, the kerchiefs knotted round the neck, were worn at its
insistence. Upon every line of their features, every shade of their
thought, it had stamped its brand indelibly.

The talk was frank and elemental. It had the crisp crackle that goes with
free, unfettered youth. In a parlor some of it would have been offensive,
but under the stars of the open desert it was as natural as the life
itself. They spoke of the spring rains, of the Crawford-Steelman feud, of
how they meant to turn Malapi upside down in their frolic when they
reached town. They "rode" each other with jokes that were familiar old
friends. Their horse play was rough but good-natured.

Out of the soft shadows of the summer night a boy moved from the remuda
toward the camp-fire. He was a lean, sandy-haired young fellow, his
figure still lank and unfilled. In another year his shoulders would be
broader, his frame would take on twenty pounds. As he sat down on the
wagon tongue at the edge of the firelit circle the stringiness of his
appearance became more noticeable.

A young man waved a hand toward him by way of introduction. "Gents of the
D Bar Lazy R outfit, we now have with us roostin' on the wagon tongue Mr.
David Sanders, formerly of Arizona, just returned from makin' love to his
paint hoss. Mr. Sanders will make oration on the why, wherefore, and
how-come-it of Chiquito's superiority to all other equines whatever."

The youth on the wagon tongue smiled. His blue eyes were gentle and
friendly. From his pocket he had taken a knife and was sharpening it on
one of his dawn-at-the-heel-boots.

"I'd like right well to make love to that pinto my own se'f, Bob,"
commented a weather-beaten puncher. "Any old time Dave wants to saw him
off onto me at sixty dollars I'm here to do business."

"You're sure an easy mark, Buck," grunted a large fat man leaning against
a wheel. His white, expressionless face and soft hands differentiated him
from the tough range-riders. He did not belong with the outfit, but had
joined it the day before with George Doble, a half-brother of the trail
foreman, to travel with it as far as Malapi. In the Southwest he was
known as Ad Miller. The two men had brought with them in addition to
their own mounts a led pack-horse.

Doble backed up his partner. "Sure are, Buck. I can get cowponies for ten
and fifteen dollars--all I want of 'em," he said, and contrived by the
lift of his lip to make the remark offensive.

"Not ponies like Chiquito," ventured Sanders amiably.

"That so?" jeered Doble.

He looked at David out of a sly and shifty eye. He had only one. The
other had been gouged out years ago in a drunken fracas.

"You couldn't get Chiquito for a hundred dollars. Not for sale," the
owner of the horse said, a little stiffly.

Miller's fat paunch shook with laughter. "I reckon not--at that price.
I'd give all of fohty for him."

"Different here," replied Doble. "What has this pinto got that makes him
worth over thirty?"

"He's some bronc," explained Bob Hart. "Got a bagful of tricks, a nice
disposition, and sure can burn the wind."

"Yore friend must be valuin' them parlor tricks at ten dollars apiece,"
murmured Miller. "He'd ought to put him in a show and not keep him to
chase cow tails with."

"At that, I've seen circus hosses that weren't one two three with
Chiquito. He'll shake hands and play dead and dance to a mouth-organ and
come a-runnin' when Dave whistles."

"You don't say." The voice of the fat man was heavy with sarcasm. "And on
top of all that edjucation he can run too."

The temper of Sanders began to take an edge. He saw no reason why these
strangers should run on him, to use the phrase of the country. "I don't
claim my pinto's a racer, but he can travel."

"Hmp!" grunted Miller skeptically.

"I'm here to say he can," boasted the owner, stung by the manner of the
other.

"Don't look to me like no racer," Doble dissented. "Why, I'd be 'most
willin' to bet that pack-horse of ours, Whiskey Bill, can beat him."

Buck Byington snorted. "Pack-horse, eh?" The old puncher's brain was
alive with suspicions. On account of the lameness of his horse he had
returned to camp in the middle of the day and had discovered the two
newcomers trying out the speed of the pinto. He wondered now if this
precious pair of crooks had been getting a line on the pony for future
use. It occurred to him that Dave was being engineered into a bet.

The chill, hard eyes of Miller met his. "That's what he said, Buck--our
pack-horse."

For just an instant the old range-rider hesitated, then shrugged his
shoulders. It was none of his business. He was a cautious man, not
looking for trouble. Moreover, the law of the range is that every man
must play his own hand. So he dropped the matter with a grunt that
expressed complete understanding and derision.

Bob Hart helped things along. "Jokin' aside, what's the matter with a
race? We'll be on the Salt Flats to-morrow. I've got ten bucks says the
pinto can beat yore Whiskey Bill."

"Go you once," answered Doble after a moment's apparent consideration.
"Bein' as I'm drug into this I'll be a dead-game sport. I got fifty
dollars more to back the pack-horse. How about it, Sanders? You got
the sand to cover that? Or are you plumb scared of my broomtail?"

"Betcha a month's pay--thirty-five dollars. Give you an order on the boss
if I lose," retorted Dave. He had not meant to bet, but he could not
stand this fellow's insolent manner.

"That order good, Dug?" asked Doble of his half-brother.

The foreman nodded. He was a large leather-faced man in the late
thirties. His reputation in the cattle country was that of a man ill to
cross. Dug Doble was a good cowman--none better. Outside of that his
known virtues were negligible, except for the primal one of gameness.

"Might as well lose a few bucks myself, seeing as Whiskey Bill belongs to
me," said Miller with his wheezy laugh. "Who wants to take a whirl,
boys?"

Inside of three minutes he had placed a hundred dollars. The terms of the
race were arranged and the money put in the hands of the foreman.

"Each man to ride his own caballo," suggested Hart slyly.

This brought a laugh. The idea of Ad Miller's two hundred and fifty
pounds in the seat of a jockey made for hilarity.

"I reckon George will have to ride the broomtail. We don't aim to break
its back," replied Miller genially.

His partner was a short man with a spare, wiry body. Few men trusted him
after a glance at the mutilated face. The thin, hard lips gave warning
that he had sold himself to evil. The low forehead, above which the hair
was plastered flat in an arc, advertised low mentality.

An hour later Buck Byington drew Sanders aside.

"Dave, you're a chuckle-haided rabbit. If ever I seen tinhorn sports them
two is such. They're collectin' a livin' off'n suckers. Didn't you sabe
that come-on stuff? Their pack-horse is a ringer. They tried him out
this evenin', but I noticed they ran under a blanket. Both of 'em are
crooked as a dog's hind laig."

"Maybeso," admitted the young man. "But Chiquito never went back on me
yet. These fellows may be overplayin' their hand, don't you reckon?"

"Not a chanct. That tumblebug Miller is one fishy proposition, and his
sidekick Doble--say, he's the kind of bird that shoots you in the stomach
while he's shakin' hands with you. They're about as warm-hearted as a
loan shark when he's turnin' on the screws--and about as impulsive. Me,
I aim to button up my pocket when them guys are around."

Dave returned to the fire. The two visitors were sitting side by side,
and the leaping flames set fantastic shadows of them moving. One of
these, rooted where Miller sat, was like a bloated spider watching its
victim. The other, dwarfed and prehensile, might in its uncanny
silhouette have been an imp of darkness from the nether regions.

Most of the riders had already rolled up in their blankets and fallen
asleep. To a reduced circle Miller was telling the story of how his
pack-horse won its name.

"... so I noticed he was actin' kinda funny and I seen four pin-pricks in
his nose. O' course I hunted for Mr. Rattler and killed him, then give
Bill a pint of whiskey. It ce'tainly paralyzed him proper. He got
salivated as a mule whacker on a spree. His nose swelled up till it was
big as a barrel--never did get down to normal again. Since which the ol'
plug has been Whiskey Bill."

This reminiscence did not greatly entertain Dave. He found his blankets,
rolled up in them, and promptly fell asleep. For once he dreamed, and his
dreams were not pleasant. He thought that he was caught in a net woven by
a horribly fat spider which watched him try in vain to break the web that
tightened on his arms and legs. Desperately he struggled to escape while
the monster grinned at him maliciously, and the harder he fought the more
securely was he enmeshed.

CHAPTER II

THE RACE

The coyotes were barking when the cook's triangle brought Dave from his
blankets. The objects about him were still mysterious in the pre-dawn
darkness. The shouting of the wranglers and the bells of the remuda
came musically as from a great distance. Hart joined his friend and the
two young men walked out to the remuda together. Each rider had on the
previous night belled the mount he wanted, for he knew that in the
morning it would be too dark to distinguish one bronco from another. The
animals were rim-milling, going round and round in a circle to escape the
lariat.

Dave rode in close and waited, rope ready, his ears attuned to the sound
of his own bell. A horse rushed jingling past. The rope snaked out, fell
true, tightened over the neck of the cowpony, brought up the animal
short. Instantly it surrendered, making no further, attempt to escape.
The roper made a half-hitch round the nose of the bronco, swung to its
back, and cantered back to camp.

In the gray dawn near details were becoming visible. The mountains began
to hover on the edge of the young world. The wind was blowing across half
a continent.

Sanders saddled, then rode out upon the mesa. He whistled sharply. There
came an answering nicker, and presently out of the darkness a pony
trotted. The pinto was a sleek and glossy little fellow, beautiful in
action and gentle as a kitten.

The young fellow took the well-shaped head in his arms, fondled the
soft, dainty nose that nuzzled in his pocket for sugar, fed Chiquito a
half-handful of the delicacy in his open palm, and put the pony through
the repertoire of tricks he had taught his pet.

"You wanta shake a leg to-day, old fellow, and throw dust in that
tinhorn's face," he murmured to his four-footed friend, gentling it with
little pats of love and admiration. "Adios, Chiquito. I know you won't
throw off on yore old pal. So long, old pie-eater."

Across the mesa Dave galloped back, swung from the saddle, and made a
bee-line for breakfast. The other men were already busy at this important
business. From the tail of the chuck wagon he took a tin cup and a tin
plate. He helped himself to coffee, soda biscuits, and a strip of steak
just forked from a large kettle of boiling lard. Presently more coffee,
more biscuits, and more steak went the way of the first helping. The
hard-riding life of the desert stimulates a healthy appetite.

The punchers of the D Bar Lazy R were moving a large herd to a new range.
It was made up of several lots bought from smaller outfits that had gone
out of business under the pressure of falling prices, short grass, and
the activity of rustlers. The cattle had been loose-bedded in a gulch
close at hand, the upper end of which was sealed by an impassable cliff.
Many such canons in the wilder part of the mountains, fenced across the
face to serve as a corral, had been used by rustlers as caches into which
to drift their stolen stock. This one had no doubt more than once played
such a part in days past.

Expertly the riders threw the cattle back to the mesa and moved them
forward. Among the bunch one could find the T Anchor brand, the Circle
Cross, the Diamond Tail, and the X-Z, scattered among the cows burned
with the D Bar Lazy R, which was the original brand of the owner,
Emerson Crawford.

The sun rose and filled the sky. In a heavy cloud of dust the cattle
trailed steadily toward the distant hills.

Near noon Buck, passing Dave where he rode as drag driver in the wake of
the herd, shouted a greeting at the young man. "Tur'ble hot. I'm spittin'
cotton."

Dave nodded. His eyes were red and sore from the alkali dust, his throat
dry as a lime kiln. "You done, said it, Buck. Hotter 'n hell or Yuma."

"Dug says for us to throw off at Seven-Mile Hole."

"I won't make no holler at that."

The herd leaders, reading the signs of a spring close at hand, quickened
the pace. With necks outstretched, bawling loudly, they hurried forward.
Forty-eight hours ago they had last satisfied their thirst. Usually Doble
watered each noon, but the desert yesterday had been dry as Sahara. Only
such moisture was available as could be found in black grama and needle
grass.

The point of the herd swung in toward the cottonwoods that straggled down
from the draw. For hours the riders were kept busy moving forward the
cattle that had been watered and holding back the pressure of thirsty
animals.

Again the outfit took the desert trail. Heat waves played on the sand.
Vegetation grew scant except for patches of cholla and mesquite, a
sand-cherry bush here and there, occasionally a clump of shining poison
ivy.

Sunset brought them to the Salt Flats. The foreman gave orders to throw
off and make camp.

A course was chosen for the race. From a selected point the horses
were to run to a clump of mesquite, round it, and return to the
starting-place. Dug Doble was chosen both starter and judge.

Dave watched Whiskey Bill with the trained eyes of a horseman. The animal
was an ugly brute as to the head. Its eyes were set too close, and the
shape of the nose was deformed from the effects of the rattlesnake's
sting. But in legs and body it had the fine lines of a racer. The horse
was built for speed. The cowpuncher's heart sank. His bronco was fast,
willing, and very intelligent, but the little range pony had not been
designed to show its heels to a near-thoroughbred.

"Are you ready?" Doble asked of the two men in the saddles.

His brother said, "Let 'er go!" Sanders nodded. The revolver barked.

Chiquito was off like a flash of light, found its stride instantly. The
training of a cowpony makes for alertness, for immediate response. Before
it had covered seventy-five yards the pinto was three lengths to the
good. Dave, flying toward the halfway post, heard his friend Hart's
triumphant "Yip yip yippy yip!" coming to him on the wind.

He leaned forward, patting his horse on the shoulder, murmuring words of
encouragement into its ear. But he knew, without turning round, that the
racer galloping at his heels was drawing closer. Its long shadow thrown
in front of it by the westering sun, reached to Dave's stirrups, crept to
Chiquito's head, moved farther toward the other shadow plunging wildly
eastward. Foot by foot the distance between the horses lessened to two
lengths, to one, to half a length. The ugly head of the racer came
abreast of the cowpuncher. With sickening certainty the range-rider knew
that his Chiquito was doing the best that was in it. Whiskey Bill was a
faster horse.

Simultaneously he became aware of two things. The bay was no longer
gaining. The halfway mark was just ahead. The cowpuncher knew exactly how
to make the turn with the least possible loss of speed and ground. Too
often, in headlong pursuit of a wild hill steer, he had whirled as on a
dollar, to leave him any doubt now. Scarce slackening speed, he swept the
pinto round the clump of mesquite and was off for home.

Dave was halfway back before he was sure that the thud of Whiskey Bill's
hoofs was almost at his heels. He called on the cowpony for a last spurt.
The plucky little horse answered the call, gathered itself for the home
stretch, for a moment held its advantage. Again Bob Hart's yell drifted
to Sanders.

Then he knew that the bay was running side by side with Chiquito, was
slowly creeping to the front. The two horses raced down the stretch
together, Whiskey Bill half a length in the lead and gaining at every
stride. Daylight showed between them when they crossed the line. Chiquito
had been outrun by a speedier horse.

CHAPTER III

DAVE RIDES ON HIS SPURS

Hart came up to his friend grinning. "Well, you old horn-toad, we got no
kick comin'. Chiquito run a mighty pretty race. Only trouble was his
laigs wasn't long enough."

The owner of the pony nodded, a lump in his throat. He was not thinking
about his thirty-five dollars, but about the futile race into which he
had allowed his little beauty to be trapped. Dave would not be twenty-one
till coming grass, and it still hurt his boyish pride to think that his
favorite had been beaten.

Another lank range-rider drifted up. "Same here, Dave. I'll kiss my
twenty bucks good-bye cheerful. You 'n' the li'l hoss run the best race,
at that. Chiquito started like a bullet out of a gun, and say, boys! how
he did swing round on the turn."

"Much obliged, Steve. I reckon he sure done his best," said Sanders
gratefully.

The voice of George Doble cut in, openly and offensively jubilant. "Me,
I'd ruther show the way at the finish than at the start. You're more
liable to collect the mazuma. I'll tell you now that broomtail never
had a chance to beat Whiskey Bill."

"Yore hoss can run, seh," admitted Dave.

"I _know_ it, but you don't. He didn't have to take the kinks out of his
legs to beat that plug."

"You get our money," said Hart quietly. "Ain't that enough without
rubbin' it in?"

"Sure I get yore money--easy money, at that," boasted Doble. "Got any
more you want to put up on the circus bronc?"

Steve Russell voiced his sentiments curtly. "You make me good and tired,
Doble. There's only one thing I hate more'n a poor loser--and that's a
poor winner. As for putting my money on the pinto, I'll just say this:
I'll bet my li'l' pile he can beat yore bay twenty miles, a hundred
miles, or five hundred."

"Not any, thanks. Whiskey Bill is a racer, not a mule team," Miller said,
laughing.

Steve loosened the center-fire cinch of his pony's saddle. He noted that
there was no real geniality in the fat man's mirth. It was a surface
thing designed to convey an effect of good-fellowship. Back of it lay
the chill implacability of the professional gambler.

The usual give-and-take of gay repartee was missing at supper that night.
Since they were of the happy-go-lucky, outdoor West it did not greatly
distress the D Bar Lazy R riders to lose part of their pay checks. Even
if it had, their spirits would have been unimpaired, for it is written in
their code that a man must take his punishment without whining. What hurt
was that they had been tricked, led like lambs to the killing. None of
them doubted now that the pack-horse of the gamblers was a "ringer."
These men had deliberately crossed the path of the trail outfit in order
to take from the vaqueros their money.

The punchers were sulky. Instead of a fair race they had been up against
an open-and-shut proposition, as Russell phrased it. The jeers of Doble
did not improve their tempers. The man was temperamentally mean-hearted.
He could not let his victims alone.

"They say one's born every minute, Ad. Dawged if I don't believe it," he
sneered.

Miller was not saying much himself, but his fat stomach shook at this
sally. If his partner could goad the boys into more betting he was quite
willing to divide the profits.

Audibly Hart yawned and murmured his sentiments aloud. "I'm liable to
tell these birds what I think of 'em, Steve, if they don't spend quite
some time layin' off'n us."

"Don't tell us out loud. We might hear you," advised Doble insolently.

"In regards to that, I'd sure worry if you did."

Dave was at that moment returning to his place with a cup of hot coffee.
By some perverse trick of fate his glance fell on Doble's sinister face
of malignant triumph. His self-control snapped, and in an instant the
whole course of his life was deflected from the path it would otherwise
have taken. With a flip he tossed up the tin cup so that the hot coffee
soused the crook.

"Goddlemighty!" screamed Doble, leaping to his feet. He reached for his
forty-five, just as Sanders closed with him. The range-rider's revolver,
like that of most of his fellows, was in a blanket roll in the wagon.

Miller, with surprising agility for a fat man, got to his feet and
launched himself at the puncher. Dave flung the smaller of his opponents
back against Steve, who was sitting tailor fashion beside him. The gunman
tottered and fell over Russell, who lost no time in pinning his hands to
the ground while Hart deftly removed the revolver from his pocket.

Swinging round to face Miller, Dave saw at once that the big man had
chosen not to draw his gun. In spite of his fat the gambler was a
rough-and-tumble fighter of parts. The extra weight had come in recent
years, but underneath it lay roped muscles and heavy bones. Men often
remarked that they had never seen a fat man who could handle himself like
Ad Miller. The two clinched. Dave had the under hold and tried to trip
his bulkier foe. The other side-stepped, circling round. He got one hand
under the boy's chin and drove it up and back, flinging the range-rider
a dozen yards.

Instantly Dave plunged at him. He had to get at close quarters, for he
could not tell when Miller would change his mind and elect to fight with
a gun. The man had chosen a hand-to-hand tussle, Dave knew, because he
was sure he could beat so stringy an opponent as himself. Once he got the
grip on him that he wanted the big gambler would crush him by sheer
strength. So, though the youngster had to get close, he dared not clinch.
His judgment was that his best bet was his fists.

He jabbed at the big white face, ducked, and jabbed again. Now he was in
the shine of the moon; now he was in darkness. A red streak came out on
the white face opposite, and he knew he had drawn blood. Miller roared
like a bull and flailed away at him. More than one heavy blow jarred him,
sent a bolt of pain shooting through him. The only thing he saw was that
shining face. He pecked away at it with swift jabs, taking what
punishment he must and dodging the rest.

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