Gunsight Pass by William MacLeod Raine

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Even before he could spend time to determine the extent of the fire, Dave
selected his line of defense, a ridge of rocky, higher ground cutting
across from one gulch to the other. Here he set teams to work scraping
a fire-break, while men assisted with shovels and brush-hooks to clear
a wide path.

Dave swung still farther east and rode along the edge of Cattle Canon.
Narrow and rock-lined, the gorge was like a boiler flue to suck the
flames down it. From where he sat he saw it caging with inconceivable
fury. The earth rift seemed to be roofed with flame. Great billows
of black smoke poured out laden with sparks and live coals carried by the
wind. It was plain at the first glance that the fire was bound to leap
from the canon to the brush-covered hills beyond. His business now was
to hold the ridge he had chosen and fight back the flames to keep them
from pouring down upon the Jackpot property. Later the battle would have
to be fought to hold the line at San Jacinto Canon and the hills running
down from it to the plains.

The surface fire on the hills licked up the brush, mesquite, and young
cedars with amazing rapidity. If his trail-break was built in time, Dave
meant to back-fire above it. Steve Russell was one of his party. Sanders
appointed him lieutenant and went over the ground with him to decide
exactly where the clearing should run, after which he galloped back to
the mouth of Bear.

"She's running wild on the hills and in Cattle Canon," Dave told
Crawford. "She'll sure jump Cattle and reach San Jacinto. We've got to
hold the mouth of Cattle, build a trail between Bear and Cattle, another
between Cattle and San Jacinto, cork her up in San Jacinto, and keep her
from jumping to the hills beyond."

"Can we back-fire, do you reckon?"

"Not with the wind there is above, unless we have check-trails built
first. We need several hundred more men, and we need them right away. I
never saw such a fire before."

"Well, get yore trail built. Bob oughtta be out soon. I'll put him over
between Cattle and San Jacinto. Three-four men can hold her here now.
I'll move my outfit over to the mouth of Cattle."

The cattleman spoke crisply and decisively. He had been fighting fire for
six hours without a moment's rest, swallowing smoke-filled air, enduring
the blistering heat that poured steadily at them down the gorge. At least
two of his men were lying down completely exhausted, but he contemplated
another such desperate battle without turning a hair. All his days he had
been a good fighter, and it never occurred to him to quit now.

Sanders rode up as close to the west edge of Bear Canon as he could
endure. In two or three places the flames had jumped the wall and were
trying to make headway in the scant underbrush of the rocky slope
that led to a hogback surmounted by a bare rimrock running to the summit.
This natural barrier would block the fire on the west, just as the
burnt-over area would protect the north. For the present at least the
fire-fighters could confine their efforts to the south and east, where
the spread of the blaze would involve the Jackpot. A shift in the wind
would change the situation, and if it came in time would probably save
the oil property.

Dave put his horse to a lope and rode back to the trench and trail his
men were building. He found a shovel and joined them.

From out of Cattle Canon billows of smoke rolled across the hill and
settled into a black blanket above the men. This was acrid from the
resinous pitch of the pines. The wind caught the dark pall, drove it low,
and held it there till the workers could hardly breathe. The sun was
under entire eclipse behind the smoke screen.

The heat of the flames tortured Dave's face and hands, just as the
smoke-filled air inflamed his nostrils and throat. Coals of fire pelted
him from the river of flame, carried by the strong breeze blowing down.
From the canons on either side of the workers came a steady roar of a
world afire. Occasionally, at some slight shift of the wind, the smoke
lifted and they could see the moving wall of fire bearing down upon them,
wedges of it far ahead of the main line.

The movements of the workers became automatic. The teams had to be
removed because the horses had become unmanageable under the torture of
the heat. When any one spoke it was in a hoarse whisper because of a
swollen larynx. Mechanically they dug, shoveled, grubbed, handkerchiefs
over their faces to protect from the furnace glow.

A deer with two fawns emerged from the smoke and flew past on the way to
safety. Mice, snakes, rabbits, birds, and other desert denizens appeared
in mad flight. They paid no attention whatever to their natural foe, man.
The terror of the red monster at their heels wholly obsessed them.

The fire-break was from fifteen to twenty feet wide. The men retreated
back of it, driven by the heat, and fought with wet sacks to hold the
enemy. A flash of lightning was hurled against Dave. It was a red-hot
limb of a pine, tossed out of the gorge by the stiff wind. He flung it
from him and tore the burning shirt from his chest. An agony of pain shot
through his shoulder, seared for half a foot by the blazing branch.

He had no time to attend to the burn then. The fire had leaped the
check-trail at a dozen points. With his men he tried to smother the
flames in the grass by using saddle blankets and gunnysacks, as well
as by shoveling sand upon it. Sometimes they cut down the smouldering
brush and flung it back across the break into the inferno on the other
side. Blinded and strangling from the smoke, the fire-fighters would make
short rushes into the clearer air, swallow a breath or two of it, and
plunge once more into the line to do battle with the foe.

For hours the desperate battle went on. Dave lost count of time. One
after another of his men retreated to rest. After a time they drifted
back to help make the defense good against the plunging fire devil.
Sanders alone refused to retire. His parched eyebrows were half gone.
His clothes hung about him in shredded rags. He was so exhausted that he
could hardly wield a flail. His legs dragged and his arms hung heavy. But
he would not give up even for an hour. Through the confused, shifting
darkness of the night he led his band, silhouetted on the ridge like
gnomes of the nether world, to attack after attack on the tireless,
creeping, plunging flames that leaped the trench in a hundred desperate
assaults, that howled and hissed and roared like ravenous beasts of prey.

Before the light of day broke he knew that he had won. His men had made
good the check-trail that held back the fire in the terrain between Bear
and Cattle Canons. The fire, worn out and beaten, fell back for lack of
fuel upon which to feed.

Reinforcements came from town. Dave left the trail in charge of a deputy
and staggered down with his men to the camp that had been improvised
below. He sat down with them and swallowed coffee and ate sandwiches.
Steve Russell dressed his burn with salve and bandages sent out by Joyce.

"Me for the hay, Dave," the cowpuncher said when he had finished. He
stretched himself in a long, tired, luxurious yawn. "I've rid out a
blizzard and I've gathered cattle after a stampede till I 'most thought
I'd drop outa the saddle. But I give it to this here li'l' fire. It's
sure enough a stemwinder. I'm beat. So long, pardner."

Russell went off to roll himself up in his blanket.

Dave envied him, but he could not do the same. His responsibilities were
not ended yet. He found his horse in the remuda, saddled, and rode over
to the entrance to Cattle Canon.

Emerson Crawford was holding his ground, though barely holding it. He too
was grimy, fire-blackened, exhausted, but he was still fighting to throw
back the fire that swept down the canon at him.

"How are things up above?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Good. We held the check-line."

"Same here so far. It's been hell. Several of my boys fainted."

"I'll take charge awhile. You go and get some sleep," urged Sanders.

The cattleman shook his head. "No. See it through. Say, son, look who's
here!" His thumb hitched toward his right shoulder.

Dave looked down the line of blackened, grimy fire-fighters and his eye
fell on Shorty. He was still wearing chaps, but his Chihuahua hat had
succumbed long ago. Manifestly the man had been on the fighting line for
some hours.

"Doesn't he know about the reward?"

"Yes. He was hidin' in Malapi when the call came for men. Says he's no
quitter, whatever else he is. You bet he ain't. He's worth two of most
men at this work. Soon as we get through he'll be on the dodge again, I
reckon, unless Applegate gets him first. He's a good sport, anyhow. I'll
say that for him."

"I reckon I'm a bad citizen, sir, but I hope he makes his getaway before
Applegate shows up."

"Well, he's one tough scalawag, but I don't aim to give him away right
now. Shorty is a whole lot better proposition than Dug Doble."

Dave came back to the order of the day. "What do you want me to do now?"

The cattleman looked him over. "You damaged much?"

"No."

"Burnt in the shoulder, I see."

"Won't keep me from swinging a sack and bossing a gang."

"Wore out, I reckon?"

"I feel fine since breakfast--took two cups of strong coffee."

Again Crawford's eyes traveled over his ally. They saw a ragged, red-eyed
tramp, face and hands and arms blackened with char and grimed with smoke.
Outside, he was such a specimen of humanity as the police would have
arrested promptly on suspicion. But the shrewd eyes of the cattleman saw
more--a spirit indomitable that would drive the weary, tormented body
till it dropped in its tracks, a quality of leadership that was a trumpet
call to the men who served with him, a soul master of its infirmities.
His heart went out to the young fellow. Wherefore he grinned and gave him
another job. Strong men to-day were at a premium with Emerson Crawford.

"Ride over and see how Bob's comin' out. We'll make it here."

Sanders swung to the saddle and moved forward to the next fire front,
the one between Cattle and San Jacinto Canons. Hart himself was not here.
There had come a call for help from the man in charge of the gang trying
to hold the fire in San Jacinto. He had answered that summons long before
daybreak and had not yet returned.

The situation on the Cattle-San Jacinto front was not encouraging. The
distance to be protected was nearly a mile. Part of the way was along a
ridge fairly easy to defend, but a good deal of it lay in lower land of
timber and heavy brush.

Dave rode along the front, studying the contour of the country and the
chance of defending it. His judgment was that it could not be done with
the men on hand. He was not sure that the line could be held even with
reinforcements. But there was nothing for it but to try. He sent a man to
Crawford, urging him to get help to him as soon as possible.

Then he took command of the crew already in the field, rearranged the men
so as to put the larger part of his force in the most dangerous locality,
and in default of a sack seized a spreading branch as a flail to beat out
fire in the high grass close to San Jacinto.

An hour later half a dozen straggling men reported for duty. Shorty was
one of them.

"The ol' man cayn't spare any more," the rustler explained. "He had to
hustle Steve and his gang outa their blankets to go help Bob Hart. They
say Hart's in a heluva bad way. The fire's jumped the trail-check and
is spreadin' over the country. He's runnin' another trail farther back."

It occurred to Dave that if the wind changed suddenly and heightened, it
would sweep a back-fire round him and cut off the retreat of his crew. He
sent a weary lad back to keep watch on it and report any change of
direction in that vicinity.

After which he forgot all about chances of danger from the rear. His
hands and mind were more than busy trying to drive back the snarling,
ravenous beast in front of him. He might have found time to take other
precautions if he had known that the exhausted boy sent to watch against
a back-fire had, with the coming of night, fallen asleep in a draw.

CHAPTER XXXVII

SHORTY ASKS A QUESTION

When Shorty separated from Doble in Frio Canon he rode inconspicuously to
a tendejon where he could be snugly hidden from the public gaze and yet
meet a few "pals" whom he could trust at least as long as he could keep
his eyes on them. His intention was to have a good time in the only way
he knew how. Another purpose was coupled with this; he was not going to
drink enough to interfere with reasonable caution.

Shorty's dissipated pleasures were interfered with shortly after
midnight. A Mexican came in to the drinking-place with news. The world
was on fire, at least that part of it which interested the cattlemen of
the Malapi district. The blaze had started back of Bear Canon and had
been swept by the wind across to Cattle and San Jacinto. The oil field
adjacent had been licked up and every reservoir and sump was in flames.
The whole range would probably be wiped out before the fire spent itself
for lack of fuel. Crawford had posted a rider to town calling for more
man power to build trails and wield flails. This was the sum of the news.
It was not strictly accurate, but it served to rouse Shorty at once.

He rose and touched the Mexican on the arm. "Where you say that fire
started, Pedro?"

"Bear Canon, senor."

"And it's crossed San Jacinto?"

"Like wildfire." The slim vaquero made a gesture all-inclusive. "It runs,
senor, like a frightened jackrabbit. Nothing will stop it--nothing. It
iss sent by heaven for a punishment."

"Hmp!" Shorty grunted.

The rustler fell into a somber silence. He drank no more. The dark-lashed
eyes of the Mexican girls slanted his way in vain. He stared sullenly at
the table in front of him. A problem had pushed itself into his
consciousness, one he could not brush aside or ignore.

If the fire had started back of Bear Canon, what agency had set it going?
He and Doble had camped last night at that very spot. If there had been a
fire there during the night he must have known it. Then when had the fire
started? And how? They had seen the faint smoke of it as they rode away,
the filmy smoke of a young fire not yet under much headway. Was it
reasonable to suppose that some one else had been camping close to them?
This was possible, but not likely. For they would probably have seen
signs of the other evening camp-fire.

Eliminating this possibility, there remained--Dug Doble. Had Dug fired
the brush while his companion was saddling for the start? The more Shorty
considered this possibility, the greater force it acquired in his mind.
Dug's hatred of Crawford, Hart, and especially Sanders would be satiated
in part at least if he could wipe their oil bonanza from the map. The
wind had been right. Doble was no fool. He knew that if the fire ran wild
in the chaparral only a miracle could save the Jackpot reservoirs and
plant from destruction.

Other evidence accumulated. Cryptic remarks of Doble made during the
day. His anxiety to see Steelman immediately. A certain manner of
ill-repressed triumph whenever he mentioned Sanders or Crawford. These
bolstered Shorty's growing opinion that the man had deliberately fired
the chaparral from a spirit of revenge.

Shorty was an outlaw and a bad man. He had killed, and might at any time
kill again. To save the Jackpot from destruction he would not have made a
turn of the hand. But Shorty was a cattleman. He had been brought up in
the saddle and had known the whine of the lariat and the dust of the drag
drive all his days. Every man has his code. Three things stood out in
that of Shorty. He was loyal to the hand that paid him, he stood by his
pals, and he believed in and after his own fashion loved cattle and the
life of which they were the central fact. To destroy the range feed
wantonly was a crime so nefarious that he could not believe Doble guilty
of it. And yet--

He could not let the matter lie in doubt. He left the tendejon and rode
to Steelman's house. Before entering he examined carefully both of his
long-barreled forty-fives. He made sure that the six-shooters were in
perfect order and that they rested free in the holsters. That sixth sense
acquired by "bad men," by means of which they sniff danger when it is
close, was telling him that smoke would rise before he left the house.

He stepped to the porch and knocked. There came a moment's silence, a
low-pitched murmur of whispering voices carried through an open window,
the shuffling of feet. The door was opened by Brad Steelman. He was alone
in the room.

"Where's Dug?" asked Shorty bluntly.

"Why, Dug--why, he's here, Shorty. Didn't know it was you. 'Lowed it
might be some one else. So he stepped into another room."

The short cowpuncher walked in and closed the door behind him. He stood
with his back to it, facing the other door of the room.

"Did you hire Dug to fire the chaparral?" he asked, his voice ominously
quiet.

A flicker of fear shot to the eyes of the oil promoter. He recognized
signs of peril and his heart was drenched with an icy chill. Shorty was
going to turn on him, had become a menace.

"I--I dunno what you mean," he quavered. "I'll call Dug if you wanta see
him." He began to shuffle toward the inner room.

"Hold yore hawsses, Brad. I asked you a question." The cold eyes of the
gunman bored into those of the other man. "Howcome you to hire Dug to
burn the range?"

"You know I wouldn't do that," the older man whined. "I got sheep, ain't
I? Wouldn't be reasonable I'd destroy their feed. No, you got a wrong
notion about--"

"Yore sheep ain't on the south slope range." Shorty's mind had moved
forward one notch toward certainty. Steelman's manner was that of a man
dodging the issue. It carried no conviction of innocence. "How much you
payin' him?"

The door of the inner room opened. Dug Doble's big frame filled the
entrance. The eyes of the two gunmen searched each other. Those of Doble
asked a question. Had it come to a showdown? Steelman sidled over to
the desk where he worked and sat down in front of it. His right hand
dropped into an open drawer, apparently carelessly and without intent.

Shorty knew at once that Doble had been drinking heavily. The man was
morose and sullen. His color was high. Plainly he was primed for a
killing if trouble came.

"Lookin' for me, Shorty?" he asked.

"You fired Bear Canon," charged the cowpuncher.

"So?"

"When I went to saddle."

Doble's eyes narrowed. "You aimin' to run my business, Shorty?"

Neither man lifted his gaze from the other. Each knew that the test had
come once more. They were both men who had "gone bad," in the current
phrase of the community. Both had killed. Both searched now for an
advantage in that steady duel of the eyes. Neither had any fear. The
emotions that dominated were cold rage and caution. Every sense and nerve
in each focalized to one purpose--to kill without being killed.

"When yore's is mine, Dug."

"Is this yore's?"

"Sure is. I've stood for a heap from you. I've let yore ugly temper ride
me. When you killed Tim Harrigan you got me in bad. Not the first time
either. But I'm damned if I'll ride with a coyote low-down enough to burn
the range."

"No?"

"No."

From the desk came the sharp angry bark of a revolver. Shorty felt his
hat lift as a bullet tore through the rim. His eyes swept to Steelman,
who had been a negligible factor in his calculations. The man fired again
and blew out the light. In the darkness Shorty swept out both guns and
fired. His first two shots were directed toward the man behind the desk,
the next two at the spot where Doble had been standing. Another gun was
booming in the room, perhaps two. Yellow fire flashes ripped the
blackness.

Shorty whipped open the door at his back, slid through it, and kicked it
shut with his foot as he leaped from the porch. At the same moment he
thought he heard a groan.

Swiftly he ran to the cottonwood where he had left his horse tied. He
jerked loose the knot, swung to the saddle, and galloped out of town.

The drumming of hoofs came down the wind to a young fellow returning from
a late call on his sweetheart. He wondered who was in such a hurry.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

DUG DOBLE RIDES INTO THE HILLS

The booming of the guns died down. The acrid smoke that filled the room
lifted to shredded strata. A man's deep breathing was the only sound in
the heavy darkness.

Presently came a soft footfall of some one moving cautiously. A match
flared. A hand cupped the flame for an instant to steady it before the
match moved toward the wick of a kerosene lamp.

Dug Doble's first thought was for his own safety. The house door was
closed, the window blinds were down. He had heard the beat of hoofs die
away on the road. But he did not intend to be caught by a trick. He
stepped forward, locked the door, and made sure the blinds were offering
no cracks of light. Satisfied that all was well, he turned to the figure
sprawled on the floor with outflung arms.

"Dead as a stuck shote," he said callously after he had turned the body
over. "Got him plumb through the forehead--in the dark, too. Some
shootin', Shorty."

He stood looking down at the face of the man whose brain had spun so
many cobwebs of deceit and treachery. Even in death it had none of that
dignity which sometimes is lent to those whose lives have been full of
meanness and guile. But though Doble looked at his late ally, he was not
thinking about him. He was mapping out his future course of action.

If any one had heard the shots and he were found here now, no jury on
earth could be convinced that he had not killed Steelman. His six-shooter
still gave forth a faint trickle of smoke. An examination would show that
three shots had been fired from it.

He must get away from the place at once.

Doble poured himself half a tumbler of whiskey and drank it neat. Yes, he
must go, but he might as well take with him any money Steelman had in the
safe. The dead man owed him a thousand dollars he would never be able to
collect in any other way.

He stooped and examined the pockets of the still figure. A bunch of keys
rewarded him. An old-fashioned safe stood in the corner back of the desk.
Doble stooped in front of it, then waited for an instant to make sure
nobody was coming. He fell to work, trying the keys one after another.

A key fitted. He turned it and swung open the door. The killer drew out
bundles of papers and glanced through them hurriedly. Deeds, mortgages,
oil stocks, old receipts: he wanted none of these, and tossed them to the
floor as soon as he discovered there were no banknotes among them.
Compartment after compartment he rifled. Behind a package of abstracts he
found a bunch of greenbacks tied together by a rubber band at each end.
The first bill showed that the denomination was fifty dollars. Doble
investigated no farther. He thrust the bulky package into his inside coat
pocket and rose.

Again he listened. No sound broke the stillness of the night. The silence
got on his nerves. He took another big drink and decided it was time to
go.

He blew out the light and once more listened. The lifeless body of his
ally lying within touch of his foot did not disturb the outlaw. He had
not killed him, and if he had it would have made no difference. Very
softly for a large man, he passed to the inner room and toward the back
door. He deflected his course to a cupboard where he knew Steelman kept
liquor and from a shelf helped himself to an unbroken quart bottle of
bourbon. He knew himself well enough to know that during the next
twenty-four hours he would want whiskey badly.

Slowly he unlocked and opened the back door. His eyes searched the yard
and the open beyond to make sure that neither his enemy nor a sheriff's
posse was lurking in the brush for him. He crept out to the stable,
revolver in hand. Here he saddled in the dark, deftly and rapidly,
thrusting the bottle of whiskey into one of the pockets of the
saddlebags. Leading the horse out into the mesquite, he swung to the
saddle and rode away.

He was still in the saddle when the peaks above caught the morning sun
glow in a shaft of golden light. Far up in the gulches the new fallen
snow reflected the dawn's pink.

In a pocket of the hills Doble unsaddled. He hobbled his horse and turned
it loose to graze while he lay down under a pine with the bottle for a
companion.

The man had always had a difficult temper. This had grown on him and been
responsible largely for his decline in life. It had been no part of his
plan to "go bad." There had been a time when he had been headed for
success in the community. He had held men's respect, even though they had
not liked him. Then, somehow, he had turned the wrong corner and been
unable to retrace his steps.

He could even put a finger on the time he had commenced to slip. It had
begun when he had quarreled with Emerson Crawford about his daughter
Joyce. Shorty and he had done some brand-burning through a wet blanket.
But he had not gone so far that a return to respectability was
impossible. A little rustling on the quiet, with no evidence to fasten
it on one, was nothing to bar a man from society. He had gone more
definitely wrong after Sanders came back to Malapi. The young ex-convict,
he chose to think, was responsible for the circumstances that made of him
an outlaw. Crawford and Sanders together had exposed him and driven him
from the haunts of men to the hills. He hated them both with a bitter,
morose virulence his soul could not escape.

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