Gunsight Pass by William MacLeod Raine

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Young Sanders felt keenly his inexperience. They were taking advantage of
him because he was a boy. He did not know what to do. He had a right to
insist on a siding, but it was not his business to decide which one.

The train rolled past another siding and into the yards of the division
town. At once Dave hurried to the station. The conductor about to take
charge of the train was talking with the one just leaving. The
range-rider saw them look at him and laugh as he approached. His blood
began to warm.

"I want you to run this train onto a siding," he said at once.

"You the train dispatcher?" asked the new man satirically.

"You know who I am. I'll say right now that the cattle on this train are
suffering. Some won't last another hour. I'm goin' to reload."

"Are you? I guess not. This train's going out soon as we've changed
engines, and that'll be in about seven minutes."

"I'll not go with it."

"Suit yourself," said the officer jauntily, and turned away to talk with
the other man.

Dave walked to the dispatcher's office. The cowpuncher stated his case.

"Fix that up with the train conductor," said the dispatcher. "He can have
a siding whenever he wants it."

"But he won't gimme one."

"Not my business."

"Whose business is it?"

The dispatcher got busy over his charts. Dave became aware that he was
going to get no satisfaction here.

He tramped back to the platform.

"All aboard," sang out the conductor.

Dave, not knowing what else to do, swung on to the caboose as it passed.
He sat down on the steps and put his brains at work. There must be a way
out, if he could only find what it was. The next station was fifteen
miles down the line. Before the train stopped there Dave knew exactly
what he meant to do. He wrote out two messages. One was to the division
superintendent. The other was to Henry B. West.

He had swung from the steps of the caboose and was in the station before
the conductor.

"I want to send two telegrams," he told the agent. "Here they are all
ready. Rush 'em through. I want an answer here to the one to the
superintendent."

The wire to the railroad official read:

Conductor freight number 17 refuses me siding to reload stock in my
charge. Cattle down and dying. Serve notice herewith I put responsibility
for all loss on railroad. Will leave cars in charge of train crew.

DAVID SANDERS

_Representing West Cattle Company_

The other message was just as direct.

Conductor refuses me siding to reload. Cattle suffering and dying. Have
wired division superintendent. Will refuse responsibility and leave train
unless siding given me.

DAVE SANDERS

The conductor caught the eye of the agent.

"I'll send the wires when I get time," said the latter to the cowboy.

"You'll send 'em now--right now," announced Dave.

"Say, are you the president of the road?" bristled the agent.

"You'll lose yore job within forty-eight hours if you don't send them
telegrams _now_. I'll see to that personal." Dave leaned forward and
looked at him steadily.

The conductor spoke to the agent, nodding his head insolently toward
Dave. "Young-man-heap-swelled-head," he introduced him.

But the agent had had a scare. It was his job at stake, not the
conductor's. He sat down sulkily and sent the messages.

The conductor read his orders and walked to the door. "Number 17 leaving.
All aboard," he called back insolently.

"I'm stayin' here till I hear from the superintendent," answered Dave
flatly. "You leave an' you've got them cattle to look out for. They'll be
in yore care."

The conductor swaggered out and gave the signal to go. The train drew out
from the station and disappeared around a curve in the track. Five
minutes later it backed in again. The conductor was furious.

"Get aboard here, you hayseed, if you're goin' to ride with me!" he
yelled.

Dave was sitting on the platform whittling a stick. His back was
comfortably resting against a truck. Apparently he had not heard.

The conductor strode up to him and looked down at the lank boy. "Say, are
you comin' or ain't you?" he shouted, as though he had been fifty yards
away instead of four feet.

"Talkin' to me?" Dave looked up with amiable surprise. "Why, no, not if
you're in a hurry. I'm waitin' to hear from the superintendent."

"If you think any boob can come along and hold my train up till I lose
my right of way you've got another guess comin'. I ain't goin' to be
sidetracked by every train on the division."

"That's the company's business, not mine. I'm interested only in my
cattle."

The conductor had a reputation as a bully. He had intended to override
this young fellow by weight of age, authority, and personality. That he
had failed filled him with rage.

"Say, for half a cent I'd kick you into the middle of next week," he
said, between clamped teeth.

The cowpuncher's steel-blue eyes met his steadily. "Do you reckon that
would be quite safe?" he asked mildly.

That was a question the conductor had been asking himself. He did not
know. A good many cowboys carried six-shooters tucked away on their ample
persons. It was very likely this one had not set out on his long journey
without one.

"You're more obstinate than a Missouri mule," the railroad man exploded.
"I don't have to put up with you, and I won't!"

"No?"

The agent came out from the station waving two slips of paper. "Heard
from the super," he called.

One wire was addressed to Dave, the other to the conductor. Dave read:

Am instructing conductor to put you on siding and place train crew under
your orders to reload.

Beneath was the signature of the superintendent.

The conductor flushed purple as he read the orders sent by his superior.

"Well," he stormed at Dave. "What do you want? Spit it out!"

"Run me on the siding. I'm gonna take the calves out of the cars and tie
'em on the feed-racks above."

"How're you goin' to get 'em up?"

"Elbow grease."

"If you think I'll turn my crew into freight elevators because some fool
cattleman didn't know how to load right--"

"Maybe you've got a kick comin'. I'll not say you haven't. But this is an
emergency. I'm willin' to pay good money for the time they help me." Dave
made no reference to the telegram in his hand. He was giving the
conductor a chance to save his face.

"Oh, well, that's different. I'll put it up to the boys."

Three hours later the wheels were once more moving eastward. Dave had had
the calves roped down to the feed-racks above the cars.

CHAPTER XI

THE NIGHT CLERK GETS BUSY PRONTO

The stars were out long before Dave's train drew into the suburbs of
Denver. It crawled interminably through squalid residence sections,
warehouses, and small manufactories, coming to a halt at last in a
wilderness of tracks on the border of a small, narrow stream flowing
sluggishly between wide banks cut in the clay.

Dave swung down from the caboose and looked round in the dim light for
the stockyards engine that was to pick up his cars and run them to the
unloading pens. He moved forward through the mud, searching the
semi-darkness for the switch engine. It was nowhere to be seen.

He returned to the caboose. The conductor and brakemen were just leaving.

"My engine's not here. Some one must 'a' slipped up on his job, looks
like. Where are the stockyards?" Sanders asked.

The conductor was a small, middle-aged man who made it his business to
get along with everybody he could. He had distinctly refused to pick up
his predecessor's quarrel with Dave. Now he stopped and scratched his
head.

"Too bad. Can't you go uptown and 'phone out to the stockyards? Or if you
want to take a street-car out there you'll have time to hop one at Stout
Street. Last one goes about midnight."

In those days the telephone was not a universal necessity. Dave had never
used one and did not know how to get his connection. He spent several
minutes ringing up, shouting at the operator, and trying to understand
what she told him. He did not shout at the girl because he was annoyed.
His idea was that he would have to speak loud to have his voice carry.
At last he gave up, hot and perspiring from the mental exertion.

Outside the drug-store he just had time to catch the last stockyards car.
His watch told him that it was two minutes past twelve.

He stepped forty-five minutes later into an office in which sat two men
with their feet on a desk. The one in his shirt-sleeves was a smug,
baldish young man with clothes cut in the latest mode. He was rather
heavy-set and looked flabby. The other man appeared to be a visitor.

"This the office of the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company?" asked Dave.

The clerk looked the raw Arizonan over from head to foot and back again.
The judgment that he passed was indicated by the tone of his voice.

"Name's on the door, ain't it?" he asked superciliously.

"You in charge here?"

The clerk was amused, or at least took the trouble to seem so. "You might
think so, mightn't you?"

"Are you in charge?" asked Dave evenly.

"Maybeso. What you want?"

"I asked you if you was runnin' this office."

"Hell, yes! What're your eyes for?"

The clerk's visitor sniggered.

"I've got a train of cattle on the edge of town," explained Dave. "The
stockyards engine didn't show up."

"Consigned to us?"

"To the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company."

"Name of shipper?"

"West Cattle Company and Henry B. West."

"All right. I'll take care of 'em." The clerk turned back to his friend.
His manner dismissed the cowpuncher. "And she says to me, 'I'd love to go
with you, Mr. Edmonds; you dance like an angel.' Then I says--"

"When?" interrupted Dave calmly, but those who knew him might have
guessed his voice was a little too gentle.

"I says, 'You're some little kidder,' and--"

"When?"

The man who danced like an angel turned halfway round, and looked at the
cowboy over his shoulder. He was irritated.

"When what?" he snapped.

"When you goin' to onload my stock?"

"In the morning."

"No, sir. You'll have it done right now. That stock has been more'n two
days without water."

"I'm not responsible for that."

"No, but you'll be responsible if the train ain't onloaded now," said
Dave.

"It won't hurt 'em to wait till morning."

"That's where you're wrong. They're sufferin'. All of 'em are alive now,
but they won't all be by mo'nin' if they ain't 'tended to."

"Guess I'll take a chance on that, since you say it's my responsibility,"
replied the clerk impudently.

"Not none," announced the man from Arizona. "You'll get busy pronto."

"Say, is this my business or yours?"

"Mine and yours both."

"I guess I can run it. If I need any help from you I'll ask for it. Watch
me worry about your old cows. I have guys coming in here every day with
hurry-up tales about how their cattle won't live unless I get a wiggle on
me. I notice they all are able to take a little nourishment next day all
right, all right."

Dave caught at the gate of the railing which was between him and the
night clerk. He could not find the combination to open it and therefore
vaulted over. He caught the clerk back of the neck by the collar and
jounced him up and down hard in his chair.

"You're asleep," he explained. "I got to waken you up before you can sabe
plain talk."

The clerk looked up out of a white, frightened face. "Say, don't do that.
I got heart trouble," he said in a voice dry as a whisper.

"What about that onloadin' proposition?" asked the Arizonan.

"I'll see to it right away."

Presently the clerk, with a lantern in his hand, was going across to the
railroad tracks in front of Dave. He had quite got over the idea that
this lank youth was a safe person to make sport of.

They found the switch crew in the engine of the cab playing seven-up.

"Got a job for you. Train of cattle out at the junction," the clerk said,
swinging up to the cab.

The men finished the hand and settled up, but within a few minutes the
engine was running out to the freight train.

Day was breaking before Dave tumbled into bed. He had left a call with
the clerk to be wakened at noon. When the bell rang, it seemed to him
that he had not been asleep five minutes.

After he had eaten at the stockyards hotel he went out to have a look at
his stock. He found that on the whole the cattle had stood the trip well.
While he was still inspecting them a voice boomed at him a question.

"Well, young fellow, are you satisfied with all the trouble you've made
me?"

He turned, to see standing before him the owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter
Circle brand. The boy's surprise fairly leaped from his eyes.

"Didn't expect to see me here, I reckon," the cattleman went on. "Well,
I hopped a train soon as I got yore first wire. Spill yore story, young
man."

Dave told his tale, while the ranchman listened in grim silence. When
Sanders had finished, the owner of the stock brought a heavy hand down on
his shoulder approvingly.

"You can ship cattle for me long as you've a mind to, boy. You fought for
that stock like as if it had been yore own. You'll do to take along."

Dave flushed with boyish pleasure. He had not known whether the cattleman
would approve what he had done, and after the long strain of the trip
this endorsement of his actions was more to him than food or drink.

"They say I'm kinda stubborn. I didn't aim to lie down and let those guys
run one over me," he said.

"Yore stubbornness is money in my pocket. Do you want to go back and ride
for the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle?"

"Maybe, after a while, Mr. West. I got business in Denver for a few
days."

The cattleman smiled. "Most of my boys have when they hit town, I
notice."

"Mine ain't that kind. I reckon it's some more stubbornness," explained
Dave.

"All right. When you've finished that business I can use you."

If Dave could have looked into the future he would have known that the
days would stretch into months and the months to years before his face
would turn toward ranch life again.

CHAPTER XII

THE LAW PUZZLES DAVE

Dave knew he was stubborn. Not many men would have come on such a
wild-goose chase to Denver in the hope of getting back a favorite horse
worth so little in actual cash. But he meant to move to his end
intelligently.

If Miller and Doble were in the city they would be hanging out at some
saloon or gambling-house. Once or twice Dave dropped in to Chuck Weaver's
place, where the sporting men from all over the continent inevitably
drifted when in Denver. But he had little expectation of finding the men
he wanted there. These two rats of the underworld would not attempt to
fleece keen-eyed professionals. They would prey on the unsophisticated.

His knowledge of their habits took him to that part of town below
Lawrence Street. While he chatted with his foot on the rail, a glass of
beer in front of him, he made inconspicuous inquiries of bartenders. It
did not take him long to strike the trail.

"Two fellows I knew in the cattle country said they were comin' to
Denver. Wonder if they did. One of 'em's a big fat guy name o'
Miller--kinda rolls when he walks. Other's small and has a glass eye.
Called himself George Doble when I knew him."

"Come in here 'most every day--both of 'em. Waitin' for the Festival of
Mountain and Plain to open up. Got some kinda concession. They look to
yours truly like--"

The bartender pulled himself up short and began polishing the top of the
bar vigorously. He was a gossipy soul, and more than once his tongue had
got him into trouble.

"You was sayin'--" suggested the cowboy.

"--that they're good spenders, as the fellow says," amended the
bartender, to be on the safe side.

"When I usta know 'em they had a mighty cute little trick pony--name was
Chiquito, seems to me. Ever hear 'em mention it?"

"They was fussin' about that horse to-day. Seems they got an offer for
him and Doble wants to sell. Miller he says no."

"Yes?"

"I'll tell 'em a friend asked for 'em. What name?"

"Yes, do. Jim Smith."

"The fat old gobbler's liable to drop in any time now."

This seemed a good reason to Mr. Jim Smith, _alias_ David Sanders, for
dropping out. He did not care to have Miller know just yet who the kind
friend was that had inquired for him.

But just as he was turning away a word held him for a moment. The
discretion of the man in the apron was not quite proof against his habit
of talk.

"They been quarrelin' a good deal together. I expect the combination is
about ready to bust up," he whispered confidentially.

"Quarrelin'? What about?"

"Oh, I dunno. They act like they're sore as a boil at each other. Honest,
I thought they was goin' to mix it yesterday. I breezed up wit' a bottle
an' they kinda cooled off."

"Doble drunk?"

"Nope. Fact is, they'd trimmed a Greeley boob and was rowin' about the
split. Miller he claimed Doble held out on him. I'll bet he did too."

Dave did not care how much they quarreled or how soon they parted after
he had got back his horse. Until that time he preferred that they would
give him only one trail to follow instead of two.

The cowpuncher made it his business to loaf on Larimer Street for the
rest of the day. His beat was between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets,
usually on the other side of the road from the Klondike Saloon.

About four o'clock his patience was rewarded. Miller came rolling along
in a sort of sailor fashion characteristic of him. Dave had just time to
dive into a pawnbroker's shop unnoticed.

A black-haired, black-eyed salesman came forward to wait on him. The
puncher cast an eye helplessly about him. It fell on a suitcase.

"How much?" he asked.

"Seven dollars. Dirt sheap, my frient."

"Got any telescope grips?"

The salesman produced one. Dave bought it because he did not know how to
escape without.

He carried it with him while he lounged up and down the sidewalk waiting
for Miller to come out of the Klondike. When the fat gambler reappeared,
the range-rider fell in behind him unobserved and followed uptown past
the Tabor Opera House as far as California Street. Here they swung to the
left to Fourteenth, where Miller disappeared into a rooming-house.

The amateur detective turned back toward the business section. On the way
he dropped guiltily the telescope grip into a delivery wagon standing in
front of a grocery. He had no use for it, and he had already come to feel
it a white elephant on his hands.

With the aid of a city directory Dave located the livery stables within
walking distance of the house where Miller was staying. Inspired perhaps
by the nickel detective stories he had read, the cowboy bought a pair of
blue goggles and a "store" collar. In this last, substituted for the
handkerchief he usually wore loosely round his throat, the sleuth nearly
strangled himself for lack of air. His inquiries at such stables as he
found brought no satisfaction. Neither Miller nor the pinto had been seen
at any of them.

Later in the evening he met Henry B. West at the St. James Hotel.

"How's that business of yore's gettin' along, boy?" asked the cattleman
with a smile.

"Don' know yet. Say, Mr. West, if I find a hawss that's been stole from
me, how can I get it back?"

"Some one steal a hawss from you?"

Dave told his story. West listened to a finish.

"I know a lawyer here. We'll ask him what to do," the ranchman said.

They found the lawyer at the Athletic Club. West stated the case.

"Your remedy is to replevin. If they fight, you'll have to bring
witnesses to prove ownership."

"Bring witnesses from Malapi! Why, I can't do that," said Dave,
staggered. "I ain't got the money. Why can't I just take the hawss?
It's mine."

"The law doesn't know it's yours."

Dave left much depressed. Of course the thieves would go to a lawyer, and
of course he would tell them to fight. The law was a darned queer thing.
It made the recovery of his property so costly that the crooks who stole
it could laugh at him.

"Looks like the law's made to protect scalawags instead of honest folks,"
Dave told West.

"I don't reckon it is, but it acts that way sometimes," admitted the
cattleman. "You can see yoreself it wouldn't do for the law to say a
fellow could get property from another man by just sayin' it was his.
Sorry, Sanders. After all, a bronc's only a bronc. I'll give you yore
pick of two hundred if you come back with me to the ranch."

"Much obliged, seh. Maybe I will later."

The cowpuncher walked the streets while he thought it over. He had no
intention whatever of giving up Chiquito if he could find the horse. So
far as the law went he was in a blind alley. He was tied hand and foot.
That possession was nine points before the courts he had heard before.

The way to recover flashed to his brain like a wave of light. He must get
possession. All he had to do was to steal his own horse and make for the
hills. If the thieves found him later--and the chances were that they
would not even attempt pursuit if he let them know who he was--he would
force them to the expense of going to law for Chiquito. What was sauce
for the goose must be for the gander too.

Dave's tramp had carried him across the Platte into North Denver. On his
way back he passed a corral close to the railroad tracks. He turned in to
look over the horses.

The first one his eyes fell on was Chiquito.

CHAPTER XIII

FOR MURDER

Dave whistled. The pony pricked up its ears, looked round, and came
straight to him. The young man laid his face against the soft, silky
nose, fondled it, whispered endearments to his pet. He put the bronco
through its tricks for the benefit of the corral attendant.

"Well, I'll be doggoned," that youth commented. "The little pinto sure is
a wonder. Acts like he knows you mighty well."

"Ought to. I trained him. Had him before Miller got him."

"Bet you hated to sell him."

"You _know_ it." Dave moved forward to his end, the intention to get
possession of the horse. He spoke in a voice easy and casual. "Saw Miller
a while ago. They're talkin' about sellin' the paint hawss, him and
his pardner Doble. I'm to saddle up and show what Chiquito can do."

"Say, that's a good notion. If I was a buyer I'd pay ten bucks more after
you'd put him through that circus stuff."

"Which is Miller's saddle?" When it was pointed out to him, Dave examined
it and pretended to disapprove. "Too heavy. Lend me a lighter one, can't
you?"

"Sure. Here's three or four. Help yourself."

The wrangler moved into the stable to attend to his work.

Dave cinched, swung to the saddle, and rode to the gate of the corral.
Two men were coming in, and by the sound of their voices were quarreling.
They stepped aside to let him pass, one on each side of the gate, so
that it was necessary to ride between them.

They recognized the pinto at the same moment Dave did them. On the heels
of that recognition came another.

Doble ripped out an oath and a shout of warning. "It's Sanders!"

A gun flashed as the pony jumped to a gallop. The silent night grew noisy
with shots, voices, the clatter of hoofs. Twice Dave fired answers to the
challenges which leaped out of the darkness at him. He raced across the
bridge spanning the Platte and for a moment drew up on the other side to
listen for sounds which might tell him whether he would be pursued. One
last solitary revolver shot disturbed the stillness.

The rider grinned. "Think he'd know better than to shoot at me this far."

He broke his revolver, extracted the empty shells, and dropped them to
the street. Then he rode up the long hill toward Highlands, passed
through that suburb of the city, and went along the dark and dusty road
to the shadows of the Rockies silhouetted in the night sky.

His flight had no definite objective except to put as much distance
between himself and Denver as possible. He knew nothing about the
geography of Colorado, except that a large part of the Rocky Mountains
and a delectable city called Denver lived there. His train trip to it had
told him that one of its neighbors was New Mexico, which was in turn
adjacent to Arizona. Therefore he meant to get to New Mexico as quickly
as Chiquito could quite comfortably travel.

Unfortunately Dave was going west instead of south. Every step of the
pony was carrying him nearer the roof of the continent, nearer the passes
of the front range which lead, by divers valleys and higher mountains
beyond, to the snowclad regions of eternal white.

Up in this altitude it was too cold to camp out without a fire and
blankets.

"I reckon we'll keep goin', old pal," the young man told his horse. "I've
noticed roads mostly lead somewheres."

Day broke over valleys of swirling mist far below the rider. The sun rose
and dried the moisture. Dave looked down on a town scattered up and down
a gulch.

He met an ore team and asked the driver what town it was. The man looked
curiously at him.

"Why, it's Idaho Springs," he said. "Where you come from?"

Dave eased himself in the saddle. "From the Southwest."

"You're quite a ways from home. I reckon your hills ain't so uncurried
down there, are they?"

The cowpuncher looked over the mountains. He was among the summits, aglow
in the amber light of day with the many blended colors of wild flowers.
"We got some down there, too, that don't fit a lady's boodwar. Say, if I
keep movin' where'll this road take me?"

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