Gunsight Pass by William MacLeod Raine

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Shorty looked at Doble. "If tha's fire, Dug--"

"It ain't. No chance," snapped the ex-foreman. "We'll travel if you don't
feel called on to go back an' stomp out the mist, Shorty," he added with
sarcasm.

The cowpuncher took the trail again. Like many men, he was not proof
against a sneer. Dug was probably right, Shorty decided, and he did not
want to make a fool of himself. Doble would ride him with heavy jeers all
day.

An hour later they rested their horses on the divide. To the west lay
Malapi and the plains. Eastward were the heaven-pricking peaks. A long,
bright line zig-zagged across the desert and reflected the sun rays. It
was the bed of the new road already spiked with shining rails.

"I'm goin' to town," announced Doble.

Shorty looked at him in surprise. "Wanta see yore picture, I reckon. It's
on a heap of telegraph poles, I been told," he said, grinning.

"To-day," went on the ex-foreman stubbornly.

"Big, raw-boned guy, hook nose, leather face, never took no prize as a
lady's man, a wildcat in a rough-house, an' sudden death on the draw,"
extemporized the rustler, presumably from his conception of the reward
poster.

"I'll lie in the chaparral till night an' ride in after dark."

With the impulsiveness of his kind, Shorty fell in with the idea. He was
hungry for the fleshpots of Malapi. If they dropped in late at night,
stayed a few hours, and kept under cover, they could probably slip out of
town undetected. The recklessness of his nature found an appeal in the
danger.

"Damfidon't trail along, Dug."

"Yore say-so about that."

"Like to see my own picture on the poles. Sawed-off li'l runt. Straight
black hair. Some bowlegged. Wears two guns real low. Doncha monkey with
him onless you're hell-a-mile with a six-shooter. One thousand dollars
reward for arrest and conviction. Same for the big guy."

"Fellow that gets one o' them rewards will earn it," said Doble grimly.

"Goes double," agreed Shorty. "He'll earn it even if he don't live to
spend it. Which he's liable not to."

They headed their horses to the west. As they drew down from the
mountains they left the trail and took to the brush. They wound in and
out among the mesquite and the cactus, bearing gradually to the north and
into the foothills above the town. When they reached Frio Canon they
swung off into a timbered pocket debouching from it. Here they unsaddled
and lay down to wait for night.

CHAPTER XXXIV

A PLEASANT EVENING

Brad Steelman sat hunched before a fire of pinon knots, head drooped low
between his high, narrow shoulders. The restless black eyes in the dark
hatchet face were sunk deeper now than in the old days. In them was
beginning to come the hunted look of the gray wolf he resembled. His
nerves were not what they had been, and even in his youth they were not
of the best. He had a way of looking back furtively over his shoulder,
as though some sinister shadow were creeping toward him out of the
darkness.

Three taps on the window brought his head up with a jerk. His lax fingers
crept to the butt of a Colt's revolver. He waited, listening.

The taps were repeated.

Steelman sidled to the door and opened it cautiously. A man pushed in and
closed the door. He looked at the sheepman and he laughed shortly in an
ugly, jeering way.

"Scared, Brad?"

The host moistened his lips. "What of, Dug?"

"Don't ask me," said the big man scornfully. "You always had about as
much sand in yore craw as a rabbit."

"Did you come here to make trouble, Dug?"

"No, I came to collect a bill."

"So? Didn't know I owed you any money right now. How much is it?"

Steelman, as the leader of his gang, was used to levies upon his purse
when his followers had gone broke. He judged that he would have to let
Doble have about twenty-five dollars now.

"A thousand dollars."

Brad shot a quick, sidelong look at him. "Wha's wrong now, Dug?"

The ex-foreman of the D Bar Lazy R took his time to answer. He enjoyed
the suspense under which his ally was held. "Why, I reckon nothin'
a-tall. Only that this mo'nin' I put a match to about a coupla hundred
thousand dollars belongin' to Crawford, Sanders, and Hart."

Eagerly Steelman clutched his arm. "You did it, then?"

"Didn't I say I'd do it?" snapped Doble irritably. "D'ya ever know me rue
back on a bargain?"

"Never."

"Wha's more, you never will. I fired the chaparral above Bear Canon. The
wind was right. Inside of twenty-four hours the Jackpot locations will go
up in smoke. Derricks, pumps, shacks, an' oil; the whole caboodle's
doomed sure as I'm a foot high."

The face of the older man looked more wolfish than ever. He rubbed his
hands together, washing one over the other so that each in turn was
massaged. "Hell's bells! I'm sure glad to hear it. Fire got a good start,
you say?"

"I tell you the whole country'll go up like powder."

If Steelman had not just reached Malapi from a visit to one of his sheep
camps he would have known, what everybody else in town knew by this time,
that the range for fifty miles was in danger and that hundreds of
volunteers were out fighting the menace.

His eyes glistened. "I'll not wear mournin' none if it does just that."

"I'm tellin' you what it'll do," Doble insisted dogmatically.

"Shorty with you?"

"He was, an' he wasn't. I did it while he wasn't lookin'. He was saddlin'
his horse in the brush. Don't make any breaks to him. Shorty's got a soft
spot in him. Game enough, but with queer notions. Some time I'm liable to
have to--" Doble left his sentence suspended in air, but Steelman,
looking into his bleak eyes, knew what the man meant.

"What's wrong with him now, Dug?"

"Well, he's been wrong ever since I had to bump off Tim Harrigan. Talks
about a fair break. As if I had a chance to let the old man get to a gun.
No, I'm not so awful sure of Shorty."

"Better watch him. If you see him make any false moves--"

Doble watched him with a taunting, scornful eye.

"What'll I do?"

The other man's gaze fell. "Why, you got to protect yoreself, Dug, ain't
you?"

"How?"

The narrow shoulders lifted. For a moment the small black eyes met those
of the big man.

"Whatever way seems best to you, Dug," murmured Steelman evasively.

Doble slapped his dusty hat against his thigh. He laughed, without mirth
or geniality. "If you don't beat Old Nick, Brad. I wonder was you ever
out an' out straightforward in yore life. Just once?"

"I don't reckon you sure enough feel that way, Dug," whined the older man
ingratiatingly. "Far as that goes, I'm not making any claims that I love
my enemies. But you can't say I throw off on my friends. You always know
where I'm at."

"Sure I know," retorted Doble bluntly. "You're on the inside of a heap of
rotten deals. So am I. But I admit it and you won't."

"Well, I don't look at it that way, but there's no use arguin'. What
about that fire? Sure it got a good start?"

"I looked back from across the valley. It was travelin' good."

"If the wind don't change, it will sure do a lot of damage to the
Jackpot. Liable to spoil some of Crawford's range too."

"I'll take that thousand in cash, Brad," the big man said, letting
himself down into the easiest chair he could find and rolling a
cigarette.

"Soon as I know it did the work, Dug."

"I'm here tellin' you it will make a clean-up."

"We'll know by mornin'. I haven't got the money with me anyhow. It's in
the bank."

"Get it soon as you can. I expect to light out again pronto. This town's
onhealthy for me."

"Where will you stay?" asked Brad.

"With my friend Steelman," jeered Doble. "His invitation is so hearty I
just can't refuse him."

"You'd be safer somewhere else," said the owner of the house after a
pause.

"We'll risk that, me 'n' you both, for if I'm taken it's liable to be bad
luck for you too.... Gimme something to eat and drink."

Steelman found a bottle of whiskey and a glass, then foraged for food in
the kitchen. He returned with the shank of a ham and a loaf of bread. His
fear was ill-disguised. The presence of the outlaw, if discovered, would
bring him trouble; and Doble was so unruly he might out of sheer ennui or
bravado let it be known he was there.

"I'll get you the money first thing in the mornin'," promised Steelman.

Doble poured himself a large drink and took it at a swallow. "I would,
Brad."

"No use you puttin' yoreself in unnecessary danger."

"Or you. Don't hand me my hat, Brad. I'll go when I'm ready."

Doble drank steadily throughout the night. He was the kind of drinker
that can take an incredible amount of liquor without becoming helpless.
He remained steady on his feet, growing uglier and more reckless every
hour.

Tied to Doble because he dared not break away from him, Steelman's busy
brain began to plot a way to take advantage of this man's weakness for
liquor. He sat across the table from him and adroitly stirred up his
hatred of Crawford and Sanders. He raked up every grudge his guest had
against the two men, calling to his mind how they had beaten him at every
turn.

"O' course I know, Dug, you're a better man than Sanders or Crawford
either, but Malapi don't know it--yet. Down at the Gusher I hear they
laugh about that trick he played on you blowin' up the dam. Luck, I call
it, but--"

"Laugh, do they?" growled the big man savagely. "I'd like to hear some o'
that laughin'."

"Say this Sanders is a wonder; that nobody's got a chance against him.
That's the talk goin' round. I said any day in the week you had him beat
a mile, and they gave me the laugh."

"I'll show 'em!" cried the enraged bully with a furious oath.

"I'll bet you do. No man livin' can make a fool outa Dug Doble, rustle
the evidence to send him to the pen, snap his fingers at him, and on top
o' that steal his girl. That's what I told--"

Doble leaned across the table and caught in his great fist the wrist of
Steelman. His bloodshot eyes glared into those of the man opposite. "What
girl?" he demanded hoarsely.

Steelman looked blandly innocent. "Didn't you know, Dug? Maybe I ought
n't to 'a' mentioned it."

Fingers like ropes of steel tightened on the wrist, Brad screamed.

"Don't do that, Dug! You're killin' me! Ouch! Em Crawford's girl."

"What about her and Sanders?"

"Why, he's courtin' her--treatin' her to ice-cream, goin' walkin' with
her. Didn't you know?"

"When did he begin?" Doble slammed a hamlike fist on the table. "Spit it
out, or I'll tear yore arm off."

Steelman told all he knew and a good deal more. He invented details
calculated to infuriate his confederate, to inflame his jealousy. The big
man sat with jaw clamped, the muscles knotted like ropes on his leathery
face. He was a volcano of outraged vanity and furious hate, seething with
fires ready to erupt.

"Some folks say it's Hart she's engaged to," purred the hatchet-faced
tempter. "Maybeso. Looks to me like she's throwin' down Hart for this
convict. Expect she sees he's gonna be a big man some day."

"Big man! Who says so?" exploded Doble.

"That's the word, Dug. I reckon you've heard how the Governor of Colorado
pardoned him. This town's crazy about Sanders. Claims he was framed for
the penitentiary. Right now he could be elected to any office he went
after." Steelman's restless black eyes watched furtively the effect of
his taunting on this man, a victim of wild and uncurbed passions. He was
egging him on to a rage that would throw away all caution and all
scruples.

"He'll never live to run for office!" the cattleman cried hoarsely.

"They talk him for sheriff. Say Applegate's no good--too easy-going. Say
Sanders'll round up you an' Shorty pronto when he's given authority."

Doble ripped out a wild and explosive oath. He knew this man was playing
on his vanity, jealousy, and hatred for some purpose not yet apparent,
but he found it impossible to close his mind to the whisperings of the
plotter. He welcomed the spur of Steelman's two-edged tongue because he
wanted to have his purpose of vengeance fed.

"Sanders never saw the day he could take me, dead or alive. I'll meet him
any time, any way, an' when I turn my back on him he'll be ready for the
coroner."

"I believe you, Dug. No need to tell me you're not afraid of him, for--"

"Afraid of him!" bellowed Doble, eyes like live coals. "Say that again
an' I'll twist yore head off."

Steelman did not say it again. He pushed the bottle toward his guest and
said other things.

CHAPTER XXXV

FIRE IN THE CHAPARRAL

A carpenter working on the roof of a derrick for Jackpot Number Six
called down to his mates:

"Fire in the hills, looks like. I see smoke."

The contractor was an old-timer. He knew the danger of fire in the
chaparral at this season of the year.

"Run over to Number Four and tell Crawford," he said to his small son.

Crawford and Hart had just driven out from town.

"I'll shag up the tower and have a look," the younger man said.

He had with him no field-glasses, but his eyes were trained to
long-distance work. Years in the saddle on the range had made him an
expert at reading such news as the landscape had written on it.

"Fire in Bear Canon!" he shouted down. "Quite a bit of smoke risin'."

"I'll ride right up and look it over," the cattleman called back. "Better
get a gang together to fight it, Bob. Hike up soon as you're ready."

Crawford borrowed without permission of the owner the nearest saddle
horse and put it to a lope. Five minutes might make all the difference
between a winning and a losing fight.

From the tower Hart descended swiftly. He gathered together all the
carpenters, drillers, enginemen, and tool dressers in the vicinity and
equipped them with shovels, picks, brush-hooks, saws, and axes. To each
one he gave also a gunnysack.

The foot party followed Crawford into the chaparral, making for the hills
that led to Bear Canon. A wind was stirring, and as they topped a rise it
struck hot on their cheeks. A flake of ash fell on Bob's hand.

Crawford met them at the mouth of the canon.

"She's rip-r'arin', Bob! Got too big a start to beat out. We'll clear a
fire-break where the gulch narrows just above here and do our fightin'
there."

The sparks of a thousand rockets, flung high by the wind, were swept down
the gulch toward them. Behind these came a curtain of black smoke.

The cattleman set his crew to work clearing a wide trail across the gorge
from wall to wall. The undergrowth was heavy, and the men attacked with
brush-hooks, shovels, and axes. One man, with a wet gunnysack, was
detailed to see that no flying sparks started a new blaze below the
safety zone. The shovelers and grubbers cleared the grass and roots off
to the dirt for a belt of twenty feet. They banked the loose dirt at the
lower edge to catch flying firebrands. Meanwhile the breath of the
furnace grew to a steady heat on their faces. Flame spurts had leaped
forward to a grove of small alders and almost in a minute the branches
were crackling like fireworks.

"I'll scout round over the hill and have a look above," Bob said. "We've
got to keep it from spreading out of the gulch."

"Take the horse," Crawford called to him.

One good thing was that the fire was coming down the canon. A downhill
blaze moves less rapidly than one running up.

Runners of flame, crawling like snakes among the brush, struck out at the
fighters venomously and tried to leap the trench. The defenders flailed
at these with the wet gunnysacks.

The wind was stiffer now and the fury of the fire closer. The flames
roared down the canon like a blast furnace. Driven back by the intense
heat, the men retreated across the break and clung to their line. Already
their lungs were sore from inhaling smoke and their throats were
inflamed. A pine, its pitchy trunk ablaze, crashed down across the
fire-trail and caught in the fork of a tree beyond. Instantly the foliage
leaped to red flame.

Crawford, axe in hand, began to chop the trunk and a big Swede swung an
axe powerfully on the opposite side. The rest of the crew continued to
beat down the fires that started below the break. The chips flew at each
rhythmic stroke of the keen blades. Presently the tree crashed down into
the trail that had been hewn. It served as a conductor, and along it
tongues of fire leaped into the brush beyond. Glowing branches, flung by
the wind and hurled from falling timber, buried themselves in the dry
undergrowth. Before one blaze was crushed half a dozen others started in
its place. Flails and gunnysacks beat these down and smothered them.

Bob galloped into the canon and flung himself from the horse as he pulled
it up in its stride.

"She's jumpin' outa the gulch above. Too late to head her off. We better
get scrapers up and run a trail along the top o' the ridge, don't you
reckon?" he said.

"Yes, son," agreed Crawford. "We can just about hold her here. It'll be
hours before I can spare a man for the ridge. We got to get help in a
hurry. You ride to town and rustle men. Bring out plenty of dynamite
and gunnysacks. Lucky we got the tools out here we brought to build the
sump holes."

"Betcha! We'll need a lot o' grub, too."

The cattleman nodded agreement. "And coffee. Cayn't have too much coffee.
It's food and drink and helps keep the men awake."

"I'll remember."

"And for the love o' Heaven, don't forget canteens! Get every canteen in
town. Cayn't have my men runnin' around with their tongues hangin' out.
Better bring out a bunch of broncs to pack supplies around. It's goin' to
be one man-sized contract runnin' the commissary."

The canon above them was by this time a sea of fire, the most terrifying
sight Bob had ever looked upon. Monster flames leaped at the walls of the
gulch, swept in an eyebeat over draws, attacked with a savage roar the
dry vegetation. The noise was like the crash of mountains meeting.
Thunder could scarce have made itself heard.

Rocks, loosened by the heat, tore down the steep incline of the walls,
sometimes singly, sometimes in slides. These hit the bed of the ravine
with the force of a cannon-ball. The workers had to keep a sharp lookout
for these.

A man near Bob was standing with his weight on the shovel he had been
using. Hart gave a shout of warning. At the same moment a large rock
struck the handle and snapped it off as though it had been kindling wood.
The man wrung his hands and almost wept with the pain.

A cottontail ran squealing past them, driven from its home by this new
and deadly enemy. Not far away a rattlesnake slid across the hot rocks.
Their common fear of man was lost in a greater and more immediate one.

Hart did not like to leave the battle-field. "Lemme stay here. You can
handle that end of the job better'n me, Mr. Crawford."

The old cattleman, his face streaked with black, looked at him from
bloodshot eyes. "Where do you get that notion I'll quit a job I've
started, son? You hit the trail. The sooner the quicker."

The young man wasted no more words. He swung to the saddle and rode for
town faster than he had ever traveled in all his hard-riding days.

CHAPTER XXXVI

FIGHTING FIRE

Sanders was in the office of the Jackpot Company looking over some
blue-prints when Joyce Crawford came in and inquired where her father
was.

"He went out with Bob Hart to the oil field this morning. Some trouble
with the casing."

"Thought Dad wasn't giving any of his time to oil these days," she said.
"He told me you and Bob were running the company."

"Every once in a while he takes an interest. I prod him up to go out and
look things over occasionally. He's president of the company, and I tell
him he ought to know what's going on. So to-day he's out there."

"Oh!" Miss Joyce, having learned what she had come in to find out, might
reasonably have departed. She declined a chair, said she must be going,
yet did not go. Her eyes appeared to study without seeing a field map on
the desk. "Dad told me something last night, Mr. Sanders. He said I might
pass it on to you and Bob, though it isn't to go farther. It's about that
ten thousand dollars he paid the bank when it called his loan. He got the
money from Buck Byington."

"Buck!" exclaimed the young man. He was thinking that the Buck he used to
know never had ten dollars saved, let alone ten thousand.

"I know," she explained. "That's it. The money wasn't his. He's executor
or something for the children of his dead brother. This money had come in
from the sale of a farm back in Iowa and he was waiting for an order of
the court for permission to invest it in a mortgage. When he heard Dad
was so desperately hard up for cash he let him have the money. He knew
Dad would pay it back, but it seems what he did was against the law, even
though Dad gave him his note and a chattel mortgage on some cattle which
Buck wasn't to record. Now it has been straightened out. That's why Dad
couldn't tell where he got the money. Buck would have been in trouble."

"I see."

"But now it's all right." Joyce changed the subject. There were teasing
pinpoints of mischief in her eyes. "My school physiology used to say that
sleep was restful. It builds up worn-out tissue and all. One of these
nights, when you can find time, give it a trial and see whether that's
true."

Dave laughed. The mother in this young woman would persistently out. "I
get plenty of sleep, Miss Joyce. Most people sleep too much."

"How much do you sleep?"

"Sometimes more, sometimes less. I average six or seven hours, maybe."

"Maybe," she scoffed.

"Hard work doesn't hurt men. Not when they're young and strong."

"I hear you're trying to work yourself to death, sir," the girl charged,
smiling.

"Not so bad as that." He answered her smile with another for no reason
except that the world was a sunshiny one when he looked at this trim and
dainty young woman. "The work gets fascinating. A fellow likes to get
things done. There's a satisfaction in turning out a full day and in
feeling you get results."

She nodded sagely, in a brisk, business-like way. "I know. Felt it myself
often, but we have to remember that there are other days and other people
to lend a hand. None of us can do it all. Dad thinks you overdo. So he
told me to ask you to supper for to-morrow night. Bob will be there too."

"I say thanks, Miss Joyce, to your father and his daughter."

"Which means you'll be with us to-morrow."

"I'll be with you."

But he was not. Even as he made the promise a shadow darkened the
doorsill and Bob Hart stepped into the office.

His first words were ominous, but before he spoke both of those looking
at him knew he was the bearer of bad news. There was in his boyish face
an unwonted gravity.

"Fire in the chaparral, Dave, and going strong."

Sanders spoke one word. "Where?"

"Started in Bear Canon, but it's jumped out into the hills."

"The wind must be driving it down toward the Jackpot!"

"Yep. Like a scared rabbit. Crawford's trying to hold the mouth of the
canon. He's got a man's job down there. Can't spare a soul to keep it
from scootin' over the hills."

Dave rose. "I'll gather a bunch of men and ride right out. On what side
of the canon is the fire running?"

"East side. Stop at the wells and get tools. I got to rustle dynamite and
men. Be out soon as I can."

They spoke quietly, quickly, decisively, as men of action do in a crisis.

Joyce guessed the situation was a desperate one. "Is Dad in danger?" she
asked.

Hart answered. "No--not now, anyhow."

"What can I do to help?"

"We'll have hundreds of men in the field probably, if this fire has a
real start," Dave told her. "We'll need food and coffee--lots of it.
Organize the women. Make meat sandwiches--hundreds of them. And send
out to the Jackpot dozens of coffee-pots. Your job is to keep the workers
well fed. Better send out bandages and salve, in case some get burnt."

Her eyes were shining. "I'll see to all that. Don't worry, boys. You
fight this fire, and we women will 'tend to feeding you."

Dave nodded and strode out of the room. During the fierce and dreadful
days that followed one memory more than once came to him in the fury of
the battle. It was a slim, straight girl looking at him, the call to
service stamped on her brave, uplifted face.

Sanders was on the road inside of twenty minutes, a group of horsemen
galloping at his heels. At the Jackpot locations the fire-fighters
equipped themselves with shovels, sacks, axes, and brush-hooks. The
party, still on horseback, rode up to the mouth of Bear Canon. Through
the smoke the sun was blood-red. The air was heavy and heated.

From the fire line Crawford came to meet these new allies. "We're holdin'
her here. It's been nip an' tuck. Once I thought sure she'd break
through, but we beat out the blaze. I hadn't time to go look, but I
expect she's just a-r'arin' over the hills. I've had some teams and
scrapers taken up there, Dave. It's yore job. Go to it."

The old cattleman showed that he had been through a fight. His eyes were
red and inflamed, his face streaked with black, one arm of his shirt half
torn from the shoulder. But he wore the grim look of a man who has just
begun to set himself for a struggle.

The horsemen swung to the east and rode up to the mesa which lies between
Bear and Cattle Canons. It was impossible to get near Bear, since the
imprisoned fury had burst from its walls and was sweeping the chaparral.
The line of fire was running along the level in an irregular, ragged
front, red tongues leaping ahead with short, furious rushes.

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