Steve Yeager Part 13

"Looks that way," agreed the American.

Returning to the village, Steve observed a bunch of cattle a hundred yards from the trail. A Mexican lad, half asleep, was herding them.

Immediately a devouring curiosity took hold of the cowpuncher. He wanted to see the brand on those cattle. It struck him that the shortest way was the quickest. He borrowed the field-gla.s.ses of Pasquale.

As he lowered the gla.s.ses after looking through them, Yeager laughed.

"Funny how things come out. In this country cattle are like chips in a poker game. They ain't got any home, I reckon."

"Meaning, senor?" suggested the insurgent chief.

"Meaning that less than a week ago I paid a perfectly good check of the Lunar Company for that bunch of steers. We did aim to use them in some roundup sets, but I expect you've got another use for them."

"Si, senor."

"Hope Harrison held you up for a good price," suggested the American casually.

Pasquale showed his teeth in a grin. "He was some anxious to unload in a hurry--had to take the market he could find handy."

"Looks like he was afraid the goods might spoil on his hands," Steve commented dryly.

"Maybeso. I didn't ask any questions and he didn't offer any explanations. Fifteen gold on the hoof was what I agreed to pay. Were you in on this with Harrison?"

"I was and I wasn't. Me, I drove that bunch 'most forty miles, then he held me up and took the whole outfit from me."

Pasquale saw he had made a mistake and promptly lied. "It wasn't Harrison I got them from at all--just wanted to see what you'd say."

"Well, they didn't cost me a red cent. You're welcome to 'em as far as I'm concerned. Slow elk suits me fine. I'll help you eat them while I'm here, and that will be a week anyhow."

"You're a good sport, Yeager, as you Gringos say. We'll get along like brothers. Not so?"

The revolutionary chief was an incessant card-player. He had a greasy pack out as soon as they reached camp. Steve was invited to take a hand, also Ramon Culvera and a fat, bald-headed Mexican of fifty named Ochampa. Culvera, playing in luck, won largely from his chief, who accepted his run of ill fortune grouchily. Pasquale had been a peon in his youth, an outlaw for twenty years, and a czar for three. He was as much the subject of his own unbridled pa.s.sions as is a spoiled and tyrannous child. Yeager, studying him, was careful to lose money with a laugh to the old despot and equally careful to see that the chips came back to him from Ochampa's side of the table.

The cowpuncher knew fairly well the political rumors that were afloat in regard to the situation in northern Mexico. Pasquale as yet was dictator of the revolutionary forces, but there had been talk to the effect that Ramon Culvera was only biding his time. Other ambitious men had aspired to supplant Pasquale. They had died sudden, violent deaths. Ramon had been a great favorite of the dictator, but it was claimed signs were not lacking to show that a rupture between them was near. Watching them now, Yeager could well believe that this might be true. Culvera was suave, adroit, deferential as he raked in his chief's gold, but the irritability of the older man needed only an excuse to blaze.

A blue-denim trooper came into the room and stood at attention.

Pasquale nodded curtly.

"Senor Harrison to see the general," said the private in Spanish.

A chill ran down the spine of the American. This was the last place in the world that he wanted to meet Chad Harrison. A swift vision of himself standing with his back to a wall before a firing line flashed into his brain.

But he was in for it now. He knew that the ex-prizefighter would denounce him. A daredevil spirit of recklessness flooded up in his heart. A smile both gay and sardonic danced in his eyes. Thus does untimely mirth in the hour of danger drive away a sober, prayerful gravity from the mien of such light-hearted sons of nature as Stephen Yeager.

CHAPTER X

A NIGHT VISIT

Harrison stood blinking in the doorway, having just come out from the untempered sunlight in the street. He shook hands with the general, with Culvera, and then his glance fell upon the American.

"Fine glad day, ain't it?" Yeager opened gayly. "Great the way friends meet in this little old world."

"What are you doing here?" demanded the prizefighter, his chin jutting forward and down.

"Me! I'm losing my wad at stud. Want to stake me?"

Harrison turned to Pasquale. "Know who he is? Know anything about him, general?"

"Only what he has told me, senor."

"And that is?"

"That he worked for the moving-picture company at Los Robles, that he is out of a job, and that he wants to try the revolutionary game, as you Americans say."

"Don't you believe it. Don't believe a word of it," broke out Harrison stormily. "He's a spy. That's what he is."

Smiling, Steve cut in. "What have I come to spy about, Harrison?"

"You told Threewit that you thought General Pasquale had those cattle.

You may deny it, but--"

"Why _should_ I deny it?" Yeager turned genially to the insurgent chief.

"_You_ don't deny it, do you, general?"

Pasquale laughed. He liked the cheek of this young man. "I deny nothing and I admit nothing." He swept his hand around in a gesture of indifference. "My vaqueros herd cattle I have bought. Possibly rustlers sold them to me. Maybeso. I ask no questions."

"Nor I," added Yeager promptly. "At least, not many. I eat the beef and find it good. You ought to have got a good price for a nice fat bunch like that, Harrison."

"What d'you mean by that?" The man's fists were clenched. The rage was mounting in him.

"Forget it, Harrison! You've quit the company. You're across the line and among friends. No use keeping up the bluff. I know who held me up.

If I'm not hos-tile about it, you don't need to be."

The prizefighter flung at him the word of insult that no man in the fighting West brooks. Before Steve could speak or move, Pasquale hammered the table with his heavy, hairy fist.

"Maldito!" he roared. "Is it so you talk to my friends in my own house, Senor Harrison?"

The rustler, furious, turned on him. But even in his rage he knew better than to let his pa.s.sion go. The insurgent chief was more dangerous than dynamite in a fire. Purple with anger, Harrison choked back the volcanic eruption.

"Friend! I tell you he's a spy, general. This man killed Mendoza. He's here to sell you out."

The sleek black head of Culvera swung quickly round till his black eyes met the blue ones of Yeager. He flung his hand straight out toward the Anglo-Saxon.

"Mil diablos! What a dolt I am. It's the very man, and I've been racking my brain to think where I met him before."

Yeager laughed hardily. "I've got a better memory, senor. Knew you the moment I set eyes on you, though it was some smoky when we last met."