Gunsight Pass by William MacLeod Raine

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Miller was furious. He had intended to clean up this bantam in about a
minute. He rushed again, broke through Dave's defense, and closed with
him. His great arms crushed into the ribs of his lean opponent. As they
swung round and round, Dave gasped for breath. He twisted and squirmed,
trying to escape that deadly hug. Somehow he succeeded in tripping his
huge foe.

They went down locked together, Dave underneath. The puncher knew that if
he had room Miller would hammer his face to a pulp. He drew himself close
to the barrel body, arms and legs wound tight like hoops.

Miller gave a yell of pain. Instinctively Dave moved his legs higher and
clamped them tighter. The yell rose again, became a scream of agony.

"Lemme loose!" shrieked the man on top. "My Gawd, you're killin' me!"

Dave had not the least idea what was disturbing Miller's peace of mind,
but whatever it was moved to his advantage. He clamped tighter, working
his heels into another secure position. The big man bellowed with pain.
"Take him off! Take him off!" he implored in shrill crescendo.

"What's all this?" demanded an imperious voice.

Miller was torn howling from the arms and legs that bound him and Dave
found himself jerked roughly to his feet. The big raw-boned foreman was
glaring at him above his large hook nose. The trail boss had been out
at the remuda with the jingler when the trouble began. He had arrived
in time to rescue his fat friend.

"What's eatin' you, Sanders?" he demanded curtly.

"He jumped George!" yelped Miller.

Breathing hard, Dave faced his foe warily. He was in a better strategic
position than he had been, for he had pulled the revolver of the fat man
from its holster just as they were dragged apart. It was in his right
hand now, pressed close to his hip, ready for instant use if need be. He
could see without looking that Doble was still struggling ineffectively
in the grip of Russell.

"Dave stumbled and spilt some coffee on George; then George he tried to
gun him. Miller mixed in then," explained Hart.

The foreman glared. "None of this stuff while you're on the trail with my
outfit. Get that, Sanders? I won't have it."

"Dave he couldn't hardly he'p hisse'f," Buck Byington broke in. "They was
runnin' on him considerable, Dug."

"I ain't askin' for excuses. I'm tellin' you boys what's what," retorted
the road boss. "Sanders, give him his gun."

The cowpuncher took a step backward. He had no intention of handing a
loaded gun to Miller while the gambler was in his present frame of mind.
That might be equivalent to suicide. He broke the revolver, turned the
cylinder, and shook out the cartridges. The empty weapon he tossed on the
ground.

"He ripped me with his spurs," Miller said sullenly. "That's howcome I
had to turn him loose."

Dave looked down at the man's legs. His trousers were torn to shreds.
Blood trickled down the lacerated calves where the spurs had roweled the
flesh cruelly. No wonder Miller had suddenly lost interest in the fight.
The vaquero thanked his lucky stars that he had not taken off his spurs
and left them with the saddle.

The first thing that Dave did was to strike straight for the wagon where
his roll of bedding was. He untied the rope, flung open the blankets, and
took from inside the forty-five he carried to shoot rattlesnakes. This he
shoved down between his shirt and trousers where it would be handy for
use in case of need. His roll he brought back with him as a justification
for the trip to the wagon. He had no intention of starting anything.
All he wanted was not to be caught at a disadvantage a second time.

Miller and the two Dobles were standing a little way apart talking
together in low tones. The fat man, his foot on the spoke of a wagon
wheel, was tying up one of his bleeding calves with a bandanna
handkerchief. Dave gathered that his contribution to the conversation
consisted mainly of fervent and almost tearful profanity.

The brothers appeared to be debating some point with heat. George
insisted, and the foreman gave up with a lift of his big shoulders.

"Have it yore own way. I hate to have you leave us after I tell you
there'll be no more trouble, but if that's how you feel about it I got
nothin' to say. What I want understood is this"--Dug Doble raised his
voice for all to hear--"that I'm boss of this outfit and won't stand for
any rough stuff. If the boys, or any one of 'em, can't lose their money
without bellyachin', they can get their time pronto."

The two gamblers packed their race-horse, saddled, and rode away without
a word to any of the range-riders. The men round the fire gave no sign
that they knew the confidence men were on the map until after they had
gone. Then tongues began to wag, the foreman having gone to the edge of
the camp with them.

"Well, my feelin's ain't hurt one li'l' bit because they won't play with
us no more," Steve Russell said, smiling broadly.

"Can you blame that fat guy for not wantin' to play with Dave here?"
asked Hart, and he beamed at the memory of what he had seen. "Son, you
ce'tainly gave him one surprise party when yore rowels dug in."

"Wonder to me he didn't stampede the cows, way he hollered," grinned a
third. "I don't grudge him my ten plunks. Not none. Dave he give me my
money's worth that last round."

"I had a little luck," admitted Dave modestly.

"Betcha," agreed Steve. "I was just startin' over to haul the fat guy off
Dave when he began bleatin' for us to come help him turn loose the bear.
I kinda took my time then."

"Onct I went to a play called 'All's Well That Ends Well,'" said Byington
reminiscently. "At the Tabor Grand the-a-ter, in Denver."

"Did it tell how a freckled cow-punch rode a fat tinhorn on his spurs?"
asked Hart.

"Bet he wears stovepipes on his laigs next time he mixes it with Dave,"
suggested one coffee-brown youth. "Well, looks like the show's over for
to-night. I'm gonna roll in." Motion carried unanimously.

CHAPTER IV

THE PAINT HOSS DISAPPEARS

Wakened by the gong, Dave lay luxuriously in the warmth of his blankets.
It was not for several moments that he remembered the fight or the
circumstances leading to it. The grin that lit his boyish face at thought
of its unexpected conclusion was a fleeting one, for he discovered that
it hurt his face to smile. Briskly he rose, and grunted "Ouch!" His sides
were sore from the rib squeezing of Miller's powerful arms.

Byington walked out to the remuda with him. "How's the man-tamer this
glad mo'nin'?" he asked of Dave.

"Fine and dandy, old lizard."

"You sure got the deadwood on him when yore spurs got into action. A
man's like a watermelon. You cayn't tell how good he is till you thump
him. Miller is right biggity, and they say he's sudden death with a gun.
But when it come down to cases he hadn't the guts to go through and stand
the gaff."

"He's been livin' soft too long, don't you reckon?"

"No, sir. He just didn't have the sand in his craw to hang on and finish
you off whilst you was rippin' up his laigs."

Dave roped his mount and rode out to meet Chiquito. The pinto was an
aristocrat in his way. He preferred to choose his company, was a little
disdainful of the cowpony that had no accomplishments. Usually he grazed
a short distance from the remuda, together with one of Bob Hart's string.
The two ponies had been brought up in the same bunch.

This morning Dave's whistle brought no nicker of joy, no thud of hoofs
galloping out of the darkness to him. He rode deeper into the desert. No
answer came to his calls. At a canter he cut across the plain to the
wrangler. That young man had seen nothing of Chiquito since the evening
before, but this was not at all unusual.

The cowpuncher returned to camp for breakfast and got permission of the
foreman to look for the missing horses.

Beyond the flats was a country creased with draws and dry arroyos. From
one to another of these Dave went without finding a trace of the animals.
All day he pushed through cactus and mesquite heavy with gray dust. In
the late afternoon he gave up for the time and struck back to the flats.
It was possible that the lost broncos had rejoined the remuda of their
own accord or had been found by some of the riders gathering up strays.

Dave struck the herd trail and followed it toward the new camp. A
horseman came out of the golden west of the sunset to meet him. For a
long time he saw the figure rising and falling in the saddle, the pony
moving in the even fox-trot of the cattle country.

The man was Bob Hart.

"Found 'em?" shouted Dave when he was close enough to be heard.

"No, and we won't--not this side of Malapi. Those scalawags didn't make
camp last night. They kep' travelin'. If you ask me, they're movin' yet,
and they've got our broncs with 'em."

This had already occurred to Dave as a possibility. "Any proof?" he asked
quietly.

"A-plenty. I been ridin' on the point all day. Three-four times we cut
trail of five horses. Two of the five are bein' ridden. My Four-Bits hoss
has got a broken front hoof. So has one of the five."

"Movin' fast, are they?"

"You're damn whistlin'. They're hivin' off for parts unknown. Malapi
first off, looks like. They got friends there."

"Steelman and his outfit will protect them while they hunt cover and make
a getaway. Miller mentioned Denver before the race--said he was figurin'
on goin' there. Maybe--"

"He was probably lyin'. You can't tell. Point is, we've got to get busy.
My notion is we'd better make a bee-line for Malapi right away," proposed
Bob.

"We'll travel all night. No use wastin' any more time."

Dug Doble received their decision sourly. "It don't tickle me a heap to
be left short-handed because you two boys have got an excuse to get to
town quicker."

Hart looked him straight in the eye. "Call it an excuse if you want to.
We're after a pair of shorthorn crooks that stole our horses."

The foreman flushed angrily. "Don't come bellyachin' to me about yore
broomtails. I ain't got 'em."

"We know who's got 'em," said Dave evenly. "What we want is a wage check
so as we can cash it at Malapi."

"You don't get it," returned the big foreman bluntly. "We pay off when we
reach the end of the drive."

"I notice you paid yore brother and Miller when we gave an order for it,"
Hart retorted with heat.

"A different proposition. They hadn't signed up for this drive like you
boys did. You'll get what's comin' to you when I pay off the others.
You'll not get it before."

The two riders retired sulkily. They felt it was not fair, but on the
trail the foreman is an autocrat. From the other riders they borrowed a
few dollars and gave in exchange orders on their pay checks.

Within an hour they were on the road. Fresh horses had been roped from
the remuda and were carrying them at an even Spanish jog-trot through the
night. The stars came out, clear and steady above a ghostly world at
sleep. The desert was a place of mystery, of vast space peopled by
strange and misty shapes.

The plain stretched vaguely before them. Far away was the thin outline of
the range which enclosed the valley. The riders held their course by
means of that trained sixth sense of direction their occupation had
developed.

They spoke little. Once a coyote howled dismally from the edge of the
mesa. For the most part there was no sound except the chuffing of the
horses' movements and the occasional ring of a hoof on the baked ground.

The gray dawn, sifting into the sky, found them still traveling. The
mountains came closer, grew more definite. The desert flamed again, dry,
lifeless, torrid beneath a sky of turquoise. Dust eddies whirled in
inverted cones, wind devils playing in spirals across the sand.
Tablelands, mesas, wide plains, desolate lava stretches. Each in turn was
traversed by these lean, grim, bronzed riders.

They reached the foothills and left behind the desert shimmering in the
dancing heat. In a deep gorge, where the hill creases gave them shade,
the punchers threw off the trail, unsaddled, hobbled their horses, and
stole a few hours' sleep.

In the late afternoon they rode back to the trail through a draw, the
ponies wading fetlock deep in yellow, red, blue, and purple flowers. The
mountains across the valley looked in the dry heat as though made of
_papier-mache_. Closer at hand the undulations of sand hills stretched
toward the pass for which they were making.

A mule deer started out of a dry wash and fled into the sunset light. The
long, stratified faces of rock escarpments caught the glow of the sliding
sun and became battlemented towers of ancient story.

The riders climbed steadily now, no longer engulfed in the ground swell
of land waves. They breathed an air like wine, strong, pure, bracing.
Presently their way led them into a hill pocket, which ran into a gorge
of pinons stretching toward Gunsight Pass.

The stars were out again when they looked down from the other side of the
pass upon the lights of Malapi.

CHAPTER V

SUPPER AT DELMONICO'S INTERRUPTED

The two D Bar Lazy R punchers ate supper at Delmonico's. The restaurant
was owned by Wong Chung. A Cantonese celestial did the cooking and
another waited on table. The price of a meal was twenty-five cents,
regardless of what one ordered.

Hop Lee, the waiter, grinned at the frolicsome youths with the serenity
of a world-old wisdom.

"Bleef steak, plork chop, lamb chop, hlam'neggs, clorn bleef hash,
Splanish stew," he chanted, reciting the bill of fare.

"Yes," murmured Bob.

The waiter said his piece again.

"Listens good to me," agreed Dave. "Lead it to us."

"You takee two--bleef steak and hlam'neggs, mebbe," suggested Hop
helpfully.

"Tha's right. Two orders of everything on the me-an-you, Charlie."

Hop did not argue with them. He never argued with a customer. If they
stormed at him he took refuge in a suddenly acquired lack of
understanding of English. If they called him Charlie or John or One Lung,
he accepted the name cheerfully and laid it to a racial mental deficiency
of the 'melicans. Now he decided to make a selection himself.

"Vely well. Bleef steak and hlam'neggs."

"Fried potatoes done brown, John."

"Flied plotatoes. Tea or cloffee?"

"Coffee," decided Dave for both of them. "Warm mine."

"And custard pie," added Bob. "Made from this year's crop."

"Aigs sunny side up," directed his friend.

"Fry mine one on one side and one on the other," Hart continued
facetiously.

"Vely well." Hop Lee's impassive face betrayed no perplexity as he
departed. In the course of a season he waited on hundreds of wild men
from the hills, drunk and sober.

Dave helped himself to bread from a plate stacked high with thick slices.
He buttered it and began to eat. Hart did the same. At Delmonico's nobody
ever waited till the meal was served. Just about to attack a second
slice, Dave stopped to stare at his companion. Hart was looking past his
shoulder with alert intentness. Dave turned his head. Two men, leaving
the restaurant, were paying the cashier.

"They just stepped outa that booth to the right," whispered Bob.

The men were George Doble and a cowpuncher known as Shorty, a broad,
heavy-set little man who worked for Bradley Steelman, owner of the
Rocking Horse Ranch, what time he was not engaged on nefarious business
of his own. He was wearing a Chihuahua hat and leather chaps with silver
conchas.

At this moment Hop Lee arrived with dinner.

Dave sighed as he grinned at his friend. "I need that supper in my
system. I sure do, but I reckon I don't get it."

"You do not, old lizard," agreed Hart. "I'll say Doble's the most
inconsiderate guy I ever did trail. Why couldn't he 'a' showed up a
half-hour later, dad gum his ornery hide?"

They paid their bill and passed into the street. Immediately the sound of
a clear, high voice arrested their attention. It vibrated indignation and
dread.

"What have you done with my father?" came sharply to them on the wings of
the soft night wind.

A young woman was speaking. She was in a buggy and was talking to two men
on the sidewalk--the two men who had preceded the range-riders out of the
restaurant.

"Why, Miss, we ain't done a thing to him--nothin' a-tall." The man Shorty
was speaking, and in a tone of honeyed conciliation. It was quite plain
he did not want a scene on the street.

"That's a lie." The voice of the girl broke for an instant to a sob. "Do
you think I don't know you're Brad Steelman's handy man, that you do his
meanness for him when he snaps his fingers?"

"You sure do click yore heels mighty loud, Miss." Dave caught in that
soft answer the purr of malice. He remembered now hearing from Buck
Byington that years ago Emerson Crawford had rounded up evidence to send
Shorty to the penitentiary for rebranding through a blanket. "I reckon
you come by it honest. Em always acted like he was God Almighty."

"Where is he? What's become of him?" she cried.

"Is yore paw missin'? I'm right sorry to hear that," the cowpuncher
countered with suave irony. He was eager to be gone. His glance followed
Doble, who was moving slowly down the street.

The girl's face, white and shining in the moonlight, leaned out of the
buggy toward the retreating vaquero. "Don't you dare hurt my father!
Don't you dare!" she warned. The words choked in her tense throat.

Shorty continued to back away. "You're excited, Miss. You go home an'
think it over reasonable. You'll be sorry you talked this away to me," he
said with unctuous virtue. Then, swiftly, he turned and went straddling
down the walk, his spurs jingling music as he moved.

Quickly Dave gave directions to his friend. "Duck back into the
restaurant, Bob. Get a pocketful of dry rice from the Chink. Trail those
birds to their nest and find where they roost. Then stick around like a
burr. Scatter rice behind you, and I'll drift along later. First off, I
got to stay and talk with Miss Joyce. And, say, take along a rope. Might
need it."

A moment later Hart was in the restaurant commandeering rice and Sanders
was lifting his dusty hat to the young woman in the buggy.

"If I can he'p you any, Miss Joyce," he said.

Beneath dark and delicate brows she frowned at him. "Who are you?"

"Dave Sanders my name is. I reckon you never heard tell of me. I punch
cows for yore father."

Her luminous, hazel-brown eyes steadied in his, read the honesty of his
simple, boyish heart.

"You heard what I said to that man?"

"Part of it."

"Well, it's true. I know it is, but I can't prove it."

Hart, moving swiftly down the street, waved a hand at his friend as he
passed. Without turning his attention from Joyce Crawford, Dave
acknowledged the signal.

"How do you know it?"

"Steelman's men have been watching our house. They were hanging around at
different times day before yesterday. This man Shorty was one."

"Any special reason for the feud to break out right now?"

"Father was going to prove up on a claim this week--the one that takes in
the Tularosa water-holes. You know the trouble they've had about it--how
they kept breaking our fences to water their sheep and cattle. Don't you
think maybe they're trying to keep him from proving up?"

"Maybeso. When did you see him last?"

Her lip trembled. "Night before last. After supper he started for the
Cattleman's Club, but he never got there."

"Sure he wasn't called out to one of the ranches unexpected?"

"I sent out to make sure. He hasn't been seen there."

"Looks like some of Brad Steelman's smooth work," admitted Dave. "If he
could work yore father to sign a relinquishment--"

Fire flickered in her eye. "He'd ought to know Dad better."

"Tha's right too. But Brad needs them water-holes in his business bad.
Without 'em he loses the whole Round Top range. He might take a crack at
turning the screws on yore father."

"You don't think--?" She stopped, to fight back a sob that filled her
soft throat.

Dave was not sure what he thought, but he answered cheerfully and
instantly. "No, I don't reckon they've dry-gulched him or anything.
Emerson Crawford is one sure-enough husky citizen. He couldn't either be
shot or rough-housed in town without some one hearin' the noise. What's
more, it wouldn't be their play to injure him, but to force a
relinquishment."

"That's true. You believe that, don't you?" Joyce cried eagerly.

"Sure I do." And Dave discovered that his argument or his hopes had for
the moment convinced him. "Now the question is, what's to be done?"

"Yes," she admitted, and the tremor of the lips told him that she
depended upon him to work out the problem. His heart swelled with glad
pride at the thought.

"That man who jus' passed is my friend," he told her. "He's trailin' that
duck Shorty. Like as not we'll find out what's stirrin'."

"I'll go with you," the girl said, vivid lips parted in anticipation.

"No, you go home. This is a man's job. Soon as I find out anything I'll
let you know."

"You'll come, no matter what time o' night it is," she pleaded.

"Yes," he promised.

Her firm little hand rested a moment in his brown palm. "I'm depending on
you," she murmured in a whisper lifted to a low wail by a stress of
emotion.

CHAPTER VI

BY WAY OF A WINDOW

The trail of rice led down Mission Street, turned at Junipero, crossed
into an alley, and trickled along a dusty road to the outskirts of the
frontier town.

The responsibility Joyce had put upon him uplifted Dave. He had followed
the horse-race gamblers to town on a purely selfish undertaking. But he
had been caught in a cross-current of fate and was being swept into
dangerous waters for the sake of another.

Doble and Miller were small fish in the swirl of this more desperate
venture. He knew Brad Steelman by sight and by reputation. The man's
coffee-brown, hatchet face, his restless, black eyes, the high, narrow
shoulders, the slope of nose and chin, combined somehow to give him the
look of a wily and predacious wolf. The boy had never met any one who so
impressed him with a sense of ruthless rapacity. He was audacious and
deadly in attack, but always he covered his tracks cunningly. Suspected
of many crimes, he had been proved guilty of none. It was a safe bet that
now he had a line of retreat worked out in case his plans went awry.

A soft, low whistle stayed his feet. From behind a greasewood bush Bob
rose and beckoned him. Dave tiptoed to him. Both of them crouched behind
cover while they whispered.

"The 'dobe house over to the right," said Bob. "I been up and tried to
look in, but they got curtains drawn. I would've like to 've seen how
many gents are present. Nothin' doin'. It's a strictly private party."

Dave told him what he had learned from the daughter of Emerson Crawford.

"Might make a gather of boys and raid the joint," suggested Hart.

"Bad medicine, Bob. Our work's got to be smoother than that. How do we
know they got the old man a prisoner there? What excuse we got for
attacktin' a peaceable house? A friend of mine's brother onct got shot
up makin' a similar mistake. Maybe Crawford's there. Maybe he ain't. Say
he is. All right. There's some gun-play back and forth like as not. A
b'ilin' of men pour outa the place. We go in and find the old man with a
bullet right spang through his forehead. Well, ain't that too bad! In the
rookus his own punchers must 'a' gunned him accidental. How would that
story listen in court?"

"It wouldn't listen good to me. Howcome Crawford to be a prisoner there,
I'd want to know."

"Sure you would, and Steelman would have witnesses a-plenty to swear the
old man had just drapped in to see if they couldn't talk things over and
make a settlement of their troubles."

"All right. What's yore programme, then?" asked Bob.

"Darned if I know. Say we scout the ground over first."

They made a wide circuit and approached the house from the rear, worming
their way through the Indian grass toward the back door. Dave crept
forward and tried the door. It was locked. The window was latched and the
blind lowered. He drew back and rejoined his companion.

"No chance there," he whispered.

"How about the roof?" asked Hart.

It was an eight-roomed house. From the roof two dormers jutted. No light
issued from either of them.

Dave's eyes lit.

"What's the matter with takin' a whirl at it?" his partner continued.
"You're tophand with a rope."

"Suits me fine."

The young puncher arranged the coils carefully and whirled the loop
around his head to get the feel of the throw. It would not do to miss the
first cast and let the rope fall dragging down the roof. Some one might
hear and come out to investigate.

The rope snaked forward and up, settled gracefully over the chimney, and
tightened round it close to the shingles.

"Good enough. Now me for the climb," murmured Hart.

"Don't pull yore picket-pin, Bob. Me first."

"All right. We ain't no time to debate. Shag up, old scout."

Dave slipped off his high-heeled boots and went up hand over hand, using
his feet against the rough adobe walls to help in the ascent. When he
came to the eaves he threw a leg up and clambered to the roof. In another
moment he was huddled against the chimney waiting for his companion.

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