Mavericks by William MacLeod Raine

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Phil entered an objection. "That doesn't look to me like Brill's way.
He's not scared of any man that lives. When he squares accounts with
Keller he'll be on the job himself."

"That's so, too," admitted Yeager. "Still, I figure this is Healy's
work. Maybe he gave out there was to be no killing. He was at the ranch
himself, big as coffee, so as to be sure of his alibi."

"What does he care about an alibi? When he gets ready to go gunnin'
after Keller he won't care if the whole Malpais sees him. There's
something in this I don't _sabe_."

"There sure is. We've got to run the thing down _muy pronto_. No use
both of us going ahead without arms, Phil. My notion is this: You burn a
shuck back to the Frying Pan and round up some of our friends on the
q.t. Don't let Brill get a notion of what's in the air. Better make
straight for Gregory's Pass. I'm going to follow this trail we've cut
and see what's doing. Once I find out I'll double back to the Pass and
meet you. Bring along an extra gun for me."

"I don't reckon I will, Jim. What's the matter with me going on instead
of you? I can follow this trail good as you can. I announce right here
that I'm not going back. I've got first call on this job. Keller went
into the fire after me. I'm going to follow this trail to hell if I have
to."

Yeager tried persuasion, argument, appeal. The lad was as fixed as
Gibraltar.

"I'm not going to go buttin' in where I'm not wanted any more than you
would, Jim. I'll play this hand out with a cool head, but I'm going to
play it my ownself."

"All right. It's your say-so. I'll admit you've got a claim. But you
want to remember one thing--if anything happens to you I cayn't square
it with Phyl. Go slow, boy!"

Without more words they parted, Jim to ride swiftly back for help, and
young Sanderson to push on up the trail with his eyes glued to it. Ever
since he could swing himself to a saddle he had been a vaquero in the
cow country.

He was therefore an expert at reading the signs left by travellers. What
would have been invisible to a tenderfoot offered evidence to him as
plain as the print on a primer. Mile after mile he covered with a minute
scrutiny that never wavered.

CHAPTER XXV

LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY

Keller rode blithely down the piney trail while the sun flung its
brilliant good-bye over the crotch of the mountains behind which it was
slipping. The western sky was a Turner sublimated to the _nth_ degree, a
thing magnificent and indescribable. The young man rode with his crisp
curls bared to the light, grateful breeze that came like healing from
the great peaks. From the joyous, unquenchable youth in him bubbled
snatches of song and friendly smiles scattered broadcast over a world
that pleased him mightily.

He was going to see his girl, going down to the Frying Pan to take her
in his arms and whirl her into the land of romance to the rhythm of the
waltz. He wanted to shout it out to the chipmunks and the quails. Ever
and again he broke out with a line or two of a melody he had heard once
from a phonograph. No matter if he did not get the words exactly. He was
sure of the sentiment. So the hills flung back his lusty:

"I love a lassie,
A bonnie Hieland lassie,
She's as pure as the lily of the dell."

Disaster fell upon him like a bolt out of a June sky. His pony
stumbled, went down heavily with its weight on his leg. From the
darkness men surged upon him. Rough hands dragged at him. The butt of a
weapon crashed down on his hat and stunned him.

He became dimly aware that his leg was free from the horse, that he was
struggling blindly to rise against the force that clamped him down. He
knew that he reached his feet, that he was lashing out furiously with
both hands, that even as he grappled with one assailant a gleam of steel
flashed across the moonlight and shot through him with a zigzag pain
that blotted out the world.

As his mind swam back to consciousness through troubled waters a
far-away voice came out of the fog that surrounded him.

"He's coming to, looks like. I reckon you ain't bust his head, after
all, Brad."

Vague, grinning gargoyles mocked him from the haze. Slowly these took
form. Features stood out. The masks became faces. They no longer floated
detached in space, but belonged definitely to human beings.

"It ain't our fault if you're stove up some, pardner. You're too durned
anxious to whip yore weight in wildcats," one of the men grinned.

"Right you are, Tom. He shore hits like a kicking mule," chimed in a
third, nursing a cheek that had been cut open to the bone.

A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade. "No
hard feelings, friend. All in the way of business." With which he gave a
final tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner.

"I've got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect," commented the nester
quietly.

"We've got no rope on yore expectations, Mr. Keller; but this outfit
doesn't run any information bureau," answered the heavy-set, sullen
fellow who had been called Brad.

There were four of them, all masked; but the ranger was sure of one of
them, if not two. The first speaker had been Tom Dixon; the last one was
Brad Irwin, a rider belonging to the Twin Star outfit.

They helped the bound man to his horse and held a low-voiced
consultation. Three of his captors turned their horses toward the south,
while Irwin took charge of Keller. With his rifle resting across the
horn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, winding
among the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory's Pass. Through
the defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain parks
beyond.

This region was the heart of the watershed where Little Goose Creek
heads. The peaks rose gaunt above them. Occasionally they glimpsed wide
vistas of tangled, wooded canons and hills innumerable as sea billows.
Into this maze they plunged ever deeper and deeper. Daylight came, and
found them still travelling. The prisoner did not need to be told that
this inaccessible country was the lurking place of the rustlers who had
preyed so long upon the Malpais district. Nor did he need evidence to
connect the sinister figure behind him with the gang of outlaws who rode
in and out of these silent places on their nefarious night errands while
honest folks kept their beds.

The sun was well up to its meridian before they came through a thick
clump of quaking aspens to the mouth of a gulch opening from the end of
a little mountain park. On one of the slopes of the gulch a cabin
squatted, half hidden by the great boulders and the matting of pine
boughs in front. Here Brad swung stiffly from the saddle.

"We'll 'light hyer," he announced.

"Time, too," returned Keller easily. "If anybody asks you, tell them I
usually eat breakfast some before ten o'clock."

"You'll do yore eating from now on when I give the word," his guard
answered surlily.

He was a big, dark man with a grouch, one who took his duties sourly.
Not by any stretch of imagination could he be considered a brilliant
conversationalist. What he had to say he growled out audibly enough, but
for the rest his opinions had to be cork-screwed out of him in surly
monosyllables.

There was a good deal of the cave man about him. The heavy, slouching
shoulders, the glare of savagery, the long, hairy arms, all had their
primordial suggestion. Given a club and a stone ax, he might have been
set back thousands of years with no injustice to his mentality.

The man soon had a fire blazing in the stove, and from it came a
breakfast of bacon, black coffee, and biscuits. He freed the hands of
the nester and sat opposite him at the table, a revolver by the side of
his plate for use in an emergency.

Keller smiled. "This is one of those fashionable dinners where they have
extra hardware beside the plates," he suggested.

"Get gay, and I'll blow the top of yore head off!" the cow-puncher swore
with gusto.

"Thanks. Under the circumstances, I reckon I'll not get gay. I'm in no
hurry to put you in the pen, seh. Plenty of time. I'm going to need the
top of my head to testify against you."

Irwin swore violently.

"For two cents I'd pump you full of holes right now," he glared.

Keller laughed, meeting him eye to eye pleasantly.

"Those aren't the orders, friend. I'm to be held here till the boss
shows up or gives the signal."

The big jaw of his captor fell from astonishment. "Who told you that?"

The prisoner helped himself to more bacon and laughed again. He had made
a guess, but he knew now that he had hit the bull's-eye with his shot in
the dark.

"Some things don't need telling. I don't have to be told, for instance,
that if things get too hot for Brill Healy he will slide out and leave
you to settle the bill with the law."

Irwin's eyes glared angrily at his smiling ones. The unabashed
impudence, the unfluttered aplomb, but above all the uncanny prescience
of this youth disturbed him because he could not understand them.
Moreover, it happened that his suspicious mind had lingered on the
chance of a betrayal at the hands of his chief. For which very reason he
broke into angry denial.

"That's a lie! Brill ain't that sort. He'd stand pat to a finish." Then,
tardily, came the instinct for caution. "And there's nothing to tell,
anyways," he finished sulkily.

"Sure. What's a little rustling and a little bank robbing among
friends?" Keller wanted to know cheerfully.

For just an instant he thought he had gone too far. The big ruffian
opposite choked over his biscuit, the while rage purpled his face. He
caught up the revolver, and his fingers itched at the trigger.

His prisoner, leaning back in the chair, held him with quiet, unwavering
eyes. "Steady! Steady!" he drawled.

"That will be about enough from you," Irwin let out through set teeth.
"You padlock that mouth of yours, mister."

Keller took his advice temporarily, but it was not in him to long
repress the spirit of adventure that bubbled in him. The temptation to
bait this bear drew him irresistibly. He could not let him alone, the
more that he sensed the danger to himself of the prods he sent home
through the thick skin.

Lying carelessly on the bed with his head on his arm, or perhaps sitting
astride a chair with his hands crossed on the back support, he would
smile with childlike innocence and sent his barbs in gayly. And Irwin,
murder in his dull brain, would glare at him like a maniac.

"Now would be a good time to blow off the top of my cocoanut," the
nester suggested more than once to the infuriated cave man. "I'm
allowing, you know, to send you to Yuma as soon as I get out of this.
Nothing like grabbing your opportunity by the forelock."

"And when are you expecting to get out of here?" his guard demanded
huskily.

Keller waved his hand with airy persiflage. "No exact information
obtainable, my friend. Likely to-day. Maybe not till to-morrow. The one
dead-sure point is that I'll make my getaway at the right time."

"There's one more dead-sure point--that I'm going to blow holes in you
at the right time," retorted the other.

"Like to bet on which of us is a true prophet?"

Brad relapsed into black, sulky silence.

The hours followed each other, and still nobody came to relieve the
guard. Keller could not understand the reason for this, any more than
he could fathom an adequate one for his abduction. There was of course
something behind it--something more potent than mere malice. If the
intention had been merely to kill him, the thing could have been done
without all this trouble. But though he searched his brain for an
explanation, he could not find one that satisfied.

The answer came to him later in the day. In the middle of the afternoon
a horse pounded up the draw to the cabin. Irwin went to the door, his
eye still on his prisoner, except for a swift glance at the newcomer.

"How's yore five-thousand-dollar beauty, Brad?" inquired a voice that
the nester recognized.

"Finer than silk, boss."

The rider swung from the saddle, trailed his rein, and came with
jingling spurs into the cabin.

"Good evening, Mr. Keller," he said with derisive respect.

The nester, lying sideways on the bed with his head on his hand, nodded
a greeting.

"I didn't know you and Mr. Irwin had doubled up and were bunkies,"
continued the jubilant voice. "When did you-all patch up the
partnership?"

"About eight o'clock last night, Mr. Healy," returned the prisoner,
eying him coolly. "And of course I knew it would be a surprise to you
when you learned it."

"Expecting to stay long with him?"

"He seems right hospitable, but I don't reckon I'll outstay my welcome."

Healy laughed, with mockery and not amusement. "Brad's such a pressing
host there's no telling when he'll let you go."

He was as malevolent as ever, but it was plain to be seen that he was
riding high on a wave of triumph. Affairs were plainly going to his
liking.

"The way I heard it you were expected down at the Frying Pan last night.
Changed yore mind about going, I reckon," he went on insolently.

"I reckon."

"Had business that detained you, maybe."

"You're a good guesser."

"Folks were right anxious down there, according to the say-so that
reached me."

Keller's cool eye measured him in silence, at which his enemy laughed
contemptuously and turned on his heel.

Healy drew his confederate to one side of the room and held a whispered
talk with him. Apparently he did not greatly care whether his foe caught
the drift of it or not, for occasionally his voice lifted enough so that
scraps of sentences reached the man lounging on the bed.

"--close to two hundred head--by the Mimbres Pass--the boys are
ce'tainly pushing the drive--out of danger by midnight--wait for the
signal before you turn him loose----"

"So-long, Mr. Keller. I cayn't spare the time to stay longer with you,"
their owner jeered.

"Just a moment, Mr. Healy. I want to know why you are keeping me here."

The man grinned. "Am I keeping you here, seh? Looks to me like it was
Brad that's a-keeping you. Make a break for a getaway, and I'll not do a
thing to you. Course I cayn't promise what Brad won't do. He's such a
plumb anxious host."

"You're his brains. What you tell him to do he does. I hold you
responsible for this!"

"You don't say!"

"And right now I'll add, for all the devilment that has been going on in
these parts for years. You've about reached the end of your rope,
though."

"I'll bet dollars to doughnuts you reach the end of one inside of
forty-eight hours, Mr. Rustler," flashed back Healy.

And with an evil, significant grin he was gone. They heard the sound of
retreating hoofs die in the distance.

But his visit had told the prisoner two things. A hurried wholesale
drive of rustled cattle was being made across the line into Sonora, and
it was being done in such a way as to fasten the suspicion of it upon
the nester who had not appeared at the dance and had not been seen since
that time. The irony of the thing was superb in its audacity. Healy and
his friends would get the profit from the stolen cattle, and they would
visit the punishment for the crime upon him. Evidence would be cooked
up of course, and the retribution would be so swift that his friends
would not be able to save him. This time his enemy would take no
chances. He would be wiped out like a troublesome insect. The thing was
diabolic in the simplicity of its cleverness.

Keller watched his jailer now like a hawk. He was ready to take the
first chance that offered, no matter how slight a one it seemed. But the
man was vigilant and wary. He never let his hand wander a foot from the
handle of the weapon he carried.

Silently Irwin cooked a second meal. They sat down to it opposite each
other, Keller facing the open window. While his jailer plied the knife,
his revolver again lay on the oilcloth within reach.

"While I'm your guest and eating at your expense, I want to be properly
grateful," the nester told his vis-a-vis. "Some folks might kick because
the me-an'-you wasn't more varied, but I ain't that kind. You're doing
your best, and nobody could do more."

"The which?" asked Irwin puzzled.

"The me-an'-you. It's French for just plain grub. For breakfast we get
bacon and coffee and biscuits. For supper there's a variety. This time
it is biscuits and coffee and bacon. To-morrow I reckon----"

Keller stopped halfway in his sentence, but took up his drawling comment
again instantly. Only an added sparkle in his eyes betrayed the change
that had suddenly wiped out his indolence and left him tense and alert.
For while he had been speaking a head had slowly raised itself above the
window casement and two eyes had looked in and met his. They belonged to
Phil Sanderson.

Never had the brain of the prisoner been more alert. While his garrulous
tongue ran aimlessly on, he considered ways and means. The boy held up
empty hands to show him that he was unarmed. The nester did not by the
flicker of an eyelash betray the presence of a third party to the man at
table with him. Nevertheless his chatter became from that moment
addressed to two listeners. To one it meant nothing in particular. To
the other it was pregnant with meaning.

"No, seh. Some might complain because you ain't better provided with
grub and fixings, but what I say is _to make out the best we can with
what we've got_," the slow, drawling voice continued. "Some folks cayn't
get along unless things are up to the Delmonico standard. That's plumb
foolishness. Reminds me of a friend of mine that happened on a grizzly
onct while he was cutting trail.

"Not expecting to meet Mr. Bear, he didn't have any gun along. Mr. Bear
was surely on the wah-path that day. He made a bee line for my friend to
get better acquainted. Nothing like presence of mind. That cow-puncher
got his rope coiled in three shakes of a maverick's tail, his pinto
bucking for fair to make his getaway. The rope drapped over Mr. Bear's
head just as the puncher and the hawss separated company.

"Things were doing right sudden then. My friend grabbed the end of that
rope and twisted it round and round a young live oak. Then he remembered
an appointment and lit out, Mr. Bear after him on the jump. _Muy pronto_
that grizzly came up awful sudden. The more he jerked the nearer he was
to being choked. You better believe Mr. Puncher was hitting that trail
right willing in the meanwhile."

"You talk too much with yore mouth," growled Irwin.

"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races. I was just aiming
to show you that _if my friend hadn't happened to have a rope along he
would have been in a bad fix_. But, you notice, he used his brains, _and
a rope did just as well as a gun_."

The eyes just above the window casing disappeared. Brad attended to the
business in hand, which was that of getting away with bacon and biscuits
while he kept an eye on the man opposite. His prisoner also did justice
to his supper, to his flow of conversation, and to the window behind the
unconscious jailer.

In that open window were presently framed again the head and shoulders
of young Sanderson. Irwin pushed back his chair to get some more coffee,
and the picture in the frame shot instantly down. The guard, his coffee
cup, and his revolver went to the stove and returned. Phil reappeared
at the window, his rope coiled for action. It slid gracefully forward,
dropped over the head of Brad, and was instantly jerked tight.

Keller vaulted across the table, and flung himself upon the struggling
man. Brad's arms were entangled in the rope, but one leg shot out and
hurled back the nester. But before he could free himself from the taut
loop his prisoner was upon him again and had borne him to the ground.

Of the two, Irwin was far the more powerful, Keller the more agile and
supple. He knew every trick of the wrestling game, whereas the other was
clumsy and muscle-bound. By main strength the older man got to his feet
again. Over went the table as they surged against it.

A chair, stamped into kindling, was hurled aside by the force of their
impact. The stove rocked, and the bed collapsed as the locked figures
crashed down upon it. The ranger, twisting as they fell, landed on top
and his fingers instantly found the throat of his foe. Simultaneously
Phil came to his assistance.

Even then, taken at an advantage, with two much younger men against him,
the big jailer fought to the finish like a bear. Not till he was
completely exhausted and they nearly so did he give up and lie quiet.
All three of them panted heavily, the allies lying across his chest and
legs. The nester managed to draw the loop taut about Irwin's neck and
insert his knuckles so that he could use them as a tourniquet if
necessary.

"Gather up the other end of the rope, loop it, and tie his feet
together," the nester ordered, getting his sentence out in fragmentary
jerks.

Phil did so, deftly and expertly, after which, in spite of renewed
struggles, they tied the hands of their prisoner behind his back.

"Looks like a cyclone had hit the room," said the boy, glancing at the
debris.

Larrabie laughed. "He's the most willing mixer I ever saw."

"What are you going to do with him?"

"We'll leave him tied right where he is. When we get down into the
settlement we'll notify his friends, though I reckon they'll find him
without any help from us."

In order to make sure they went over the knots again, tightening them
here and there. The revolver and the rifle of the bound man they
appropriated. The nester's horse was in a little corral back of the
house. He saddled, and shortly the two were on the back trail. Phil knew
the country as a golfer knows his links. To him Keller put the question
in his mind:

"How far is the Mimbres Pass from here, and in what direction?"

The younger man looked at him in surprise. "A dozen miles, I reckon. See
that cleft over there? That's the Mimbres."

His friend drew rein and looked with level eyes at him.

"Phil, it's come to a show-down! Are you for Brill Healy or are you for
me?"

"I'm through with Brill."

"Dead sure of that?"

"Dead sure. Why?"

"Because you've got to make your choice to-night whether you're going to
stand with honest men or thieves. Healy's gang is rustling a bunch of
cows gathered at the round-up. They're heading for Mimbres Pass. I'm
going to stop them if I can."

"I'm with you, Larry."

"Good! I was sure of you, Phil."

The boy flushed, but his eyes did not waver. "I want to tell you
something. That day we most caught you over the dead cow of the C.O.
outfit Brill was carrying Phyl's knife. I had lent it to him the night
before."

Keller nodded. "I had figured it out that way."

"But that ain't all. Once when I was cutting trail in the hills--must
have been about six months before that time--I happened on Brill driving
a calf still bleeding from the brand he had put on it.

"I didn't think anything of that, but I noticed he was anxious to have
me turn and join him. But I kept on the way I was going, and just by a
miracle my pony almost stumbled over a dead cow lying in the brush. That
set me thinking. That night I rode over to Healy's and asked an
explanation.

"He had one ready. Some one else must have killed the cow. He found the
calf wandering about alone, and branded it. Somehow his story didn't
quite satisfy me, but I wasn't ready then to think him a coyote. I liked
him--always had. And it flattered me that he had picked me out to be his
best friend. So I said nothing, and figured it out that he was on the
square. Of course I knew he was reckless and wild, but I didn't like him
any the less for that. I reckon nobody ever accused him of not being
game."

"Hardly," smiled Keller. "He'll stand the acid that way."

"The thing that stuck in my craw was his lying about seeing you on the
night of the bank robbery. He said you were riding the roan with white
stockings. Later we found out that couldn't be true. Then I knew Jim was
telling the truth about you being with him in the hills at the time. It
kind of sifted to me by degrees that you were a white man and he was a
skunk."

"And then?"

"Then we had it out one day. He had his reason for wanting to stand well
with me. I reckon you know what it is."

"I know his reason. No man could have a better. I reckon I've a right to
think so, Phil, because she has promised to marry me."

The boy shook hands with him impulsively. "I'm right glad to hear
it--and I want to say they don't make girls any better than Phyl."

"That's not news to me. I have known it since the first time I saw her."

Sanderson returned to the order of the day. "Well, Brill and I had had
one or two tiffs, mostly about you and Phyl. He saw I was changed toward
him, and he wanted to know why. I let him have it straight, and since
then we haven't been friends."

"I'm glad of that. It makes plain sailing for me. He's got to be run
down and caged, Phil. Healy is at the head of all this rustling that has
been troubling the Malpais country. His gang stuck up the Diamond Nugget
stage, killed Sheriff Fowler, and robbed the Noches Bank."

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