The Trail Horde Part 21

When Lawler returned to the Circle L ranchhouse he found that Mary had gone East, to school. She had left for Willets on the second day following Lawler's departure; and Mrs. Lawler had already received two letters from her. Mrs. Lawler watched her son keenly when she told him that Joe Hamlin had brought a letter stating that Hamlin was to be permitted to take a number of mixed cattle from the Circle L--and that he had driven away one hundred. She smiled gently when she told Lawler that on the day before her departure Mary had visited Ruth Hamlin--had spent the whole day with her, and had come home, mysteriously delighted.

Ruth had given up the school.

"Mary loves her, Kane," said Mrs. Lawler. And she smiled again when she saw a flush reach Lawler's face.

Lawler intended to ride to the Hamlin cabin this morning. It was the third day following his arrival at the ranch; and until now he had had no time for anything except to attend to the many details of work that had been neglected during his absence.

There were still three thousand head of cattle on the Circle L range--the men had held them in the valley for a time during his absence on the trail, but the gra.s.s had grown spa.r.s.e, and the herd was now grazing on the big plain beyond the northern slope of the valley.

During the time he had been home the outfit had been busy. The Circle L had a dozen line camps--little adobe cabins scattered over the range, occupied during the winter by Circle L cowboys whose duty it was to guard the cattle against the aggressions of timber wolves, rustlers, cold, and starvation.

For two days the chuck-wagon had been sent rattling to the various line camps, stocking them with supplies against the winter. As the weather was threatening the hoodlum wagon had been pressed into service this morning; and all the men, with the exception of the blacksmith--who was working diligently in his shop near the corral; and two punchers--Davies and Harris, who had been a.s.signed to Number One camp--were away with the two wagons.

Davies and Harris had not been able to resist the lure of "town." The prosperity that had descended upon them had made them restless, and the night before they had importuned Lawler to permit them to spend "one more night in town before holin' up for the winter."

Lawler had consented; and now he was wis.h.i.+ng that he hadn't. For when he emerged from the ranchhouse this morning he saw a dark cloud bank far in the north, moving southward on the chill wind.

The herd, he knew, was somewhere on the big level beyond the slope of the valley, in the vicinity of Number One line camp. It was an isolated section, off the trail that led to town--a section of featureless level near a big break in the valley. The break opened upon another big level that stretched southward for a hundred miles. In other days Luke Lawler had lost many cattle here; they had drifted through the break by hundreds, with a blizzard behind them; and had been swallowed by the great waste.

Two years before--aware of the previous losses--Lawler had erected a wire fence across the big break, extending from a craggy mountain wall on the western end, to a sheer b.u.t.te that marked the end of the break, eastward.

Lawler had sent Red King to the crest of the valley on his way to the Hamlin cabin, when he noted that the cloud bank in the north had grown denser, nearer. The wind had increased in velocity, and he had to lean against it as he rode; and it was so cold and raw that he drew his heavy cap down over his eyes to s.h.i.+eld them, and drew over his mouth the heavy woolen scarf he wore around his neck.

He rode on a short distance, casting troubled glances into the north. He found himself wondering if Davies and Harris had gone to the line camp.

If they hadn't, and a storm broke, the herd on the big level was in danger.

He brought Red King to a halt. The big horse pranced, whistling eagerly.

He champed on the bit, tossed his head, raising it finally and staring straight into the north.

"You see it too, eh, King?" said Lawler. "Well, we can't take that chance; we'll have to go to the camp."

He headed Red King down into the valley again, where the bitter wind did not strike them, riding westward rapidly.

It was noon before Lawler and Red King had traveled half the distance to the line camp. A dull, gray haze was sweeping southward. It mingled with the southern light and threw a ghostly glare into the valley, making distance deceptive, giving a strange appearance to the landmarks with which Lawler and the horse were familiar.

Lawler increased Red King's pace. He saw that the storm was nearer than he had thought, and he would have to work fast to get the cattle headed into the valley before it broke.

The distance from the Circle L ranchhouse to the big plain near the line cabin was about fifteen miles, and the trail led upward in a long, tiresome rise. Yet Red King struck the level with a reserve strength that was betrayed by the way he fought for his head as he saw the level stretch before him. He was warmed up--he wanted to run.

But Lawler drew him down in an effort to locate the herd before he started toward it.

Man and horse made a mere blot on the yawning expanse of land that stretched away from them in all directions. A lone eagle in the sky or a mariner adrift on a deserted sea could not have seemed more isolated than Lawler and Red King. In this limitless expanse of waste land horse and rider were dwarfed to the proportion of atoms. The yawning, aching, stretching miles of level seemed to have no end.

Several miles into the north Lawler saw the herd. Directly westward, at a distance of about a mile, he saw the line cabin. No smoke was issuing from the chimney; and so far as he could discern, there were no men with the cattle.

Harris and Davies had overstayed. That knowledge might have been responsible for the grim humor in Lawler's eyes; but the rigidness of his body and the aggressive thrust to his chin were caused by knowledge of a different character. The storm was about to break.

The sun was casting a dull red glow through the gray haze. It was blotted out as he looked. Southward from the horizon ends extended a broad sea of s.h.i.+mmering, glittering sky that contrasted brilliantly to the black, wind-whipped clouds that had gathered in the north. Fleecy gray wisps, detached from the heavy, spreading ma.s.s northward, were scurrying southward, streaking the s.h.i.+mmering brilliance and telling of the force of the wind that drove them.

A wailing note came from the north, a sighing vague with a portent of force; a whisper of unrest, a promise of fury. Far in the north, its blackness deepening with distance, stretched the menace, arousing awe with its magnitude.

Nature seemed to know what impended, for on the vast level where the storm would have a clear sweep the dried gra.s.s, bronzed by the searing autumn sun, was rustling as it bent far southward; the hardy sage bowed reluctantly to the fitful blasts, and the scraggly, ugly yucca resentfully yielded to the unseen force.

A wide, shallow gully ran northwestward from a point near Red King, almost in a straight line toward the herd. Lawler urged the big horse into the gully and rode hard. The distance was several miles, but when Red King came to the gully end he flashed out of it like a streak of red flame. He was drawn down, instantly, however, snorting and pawing impatiently, while Lawler s.h.i.+elded his eyes with his hands and again scanned the country.

He saw the herd; and as he watched it began to move. There were no men near the cattle.

They started slowly, seemingly reluctant to leave the level. They moved sullenly, closely ma.s.sed, their heads lowered, their tails drooping. The wind, now beginning to carry a vicious note with its whine, drove a heavy dust cloud against them, warning them. The wind was icy, giving the cattle a foretaste of what was to come. And mingling with the dust were fine, flinty snow particles that came almost horizontally against their rumps, stinging them, worrying them. They increased their pace, and soon were running with a swinging, awkward stride, straight toward the wire fence, several miles distant.

If they saw Lawler they gave no sign, for they went lumbering on, snorting and bawling their apprehension.

Lawler was about to start Red King toward them, when he noted movement on the level a little northwestward from the cattle. Peering intently, he saw two hors.e.m.e.n racing southward, a little distance ahead of the cattle, parallel with them.

At first Lawler was certain the men were Davies and Harris, and he smiled, appreciating their devotion to duty. But when he saw them race past the cattle, not even halting to head them in the right direction--which would have been slightly eastward, so that they would enter the valley before reaching the fence--he frowned, wheeled Red King sharply, and sent him back into the gully from which he had emerged.

"They're strangers, King," he said, shortly to the horse as the latter fled headlong down the gully toward the point from which he had started; "Davies and Harris wouldn't leave the herd with that norther coming on."

The big horse made fast time down the gully. He brought Lawler to a point near the fence where it crossed the gully at about the instant the two riders were dismounting some distance away.

Lawler rode out of the gully and brought Red King to a halt. There was no danger that the two men would discover him, for all objects in the vicinity were rapidly being blotted out by the dancing smother of dust that was riding the north wind. Lawler was to the north of the men, slightly eastward, and they could not have faced the smother of dust to look toward him.

Lawler could dimly see the herd moving toward the fence; he could see the men plainly; and as he watched them his eyes narrowed. The big horse leaped with the word he caught from his rider's lips, racing lightly with the wind toward the fence where the men were working.

Lawler's approach was noiseless, for all sound was engulfed in the steady, roaring whine of the storm. Neither of the two men, working at the fence, heard Lawler as he brought the big horse to a halt within half a dozen paces of them.

The taller of the two, plying a pair of wire-nippers, completed his work at a fence post and turned to leap toward another. The movement brought him against the muzzle of Lawler's horse. He halted jerkily, retreated a step, and looked up, to see Lawler looking at him from behind the muzzle of the big pistol that had leaped into his hand.

There was no word spoken--none could be heard at the moment. What followed was grim pantomime, with tragedy lurking near.

The tall man held his position. He had tentatively extended his right hand, the fingers spread, clawlike. Now the hand was going upward, accompanied by the other. When the man had stepped backward to escape a collision with Lawler's horse, the wind had whipped his hat from his head. He now stood there, his hair waving to the vicious whims of the gale, veiling his eyes and he not daring to lower his hands to brush it away.

The shorter man, too, had a.s.sumed a statuesque pose. He had turned when he had noted his companion's startled movement, and he, too, had seen an apparition that had sent his hands swiftly upward.

The big horse stood motionless, his back to the wind. He did not move as Lawler leaped from his back--smoothly, quickly, his eyes alert, his muscles tensed for violent action.

The men stood rigid while Lawler jerked their pistols from their holsters and tossed them into the dust waves that danced and swirled around them. The short man was catapulted against the tall one with a viciousness that staggered both; and then they heard Lawler's voice, sharp and penetrating, above the shrieking of the wind:

"Those cattle will be here in five minutes! If you don't have that fence repaired before then, you drift with them, hoofing it!"

In the allotted time they repaired the fence, working with breathless energy, while Lawler stood near, the menacing gun in hand, a saturnine smile wreathing his face.

When the herd reached the fence there was no break in it. More--where the break had been were three men on horses who took instant charge, easing the cattle down along the fence, heading them eastward toward the shelter they were sure to find if they kept going.

The three men followed the cattle for a mile--until they were going straight and fast toward the home ranch. Then Lawler, smiling with bitter humor, motioned the men toward the back trail.

They seemed to know what was demanded of them. They wheeled their horses, sending them into the billowy white smother that was now coming in a gigantic wave toward them.

The southern light had gone. A dense blackness, out of which roared a gale that robbed them of their breath, struck them. The snow was hurled against them like a sand blast, biting deep, blinding them.

It took them more than an hour to travel the distance that lay between the point at which they had cut the fence, and the line cabin. And when they reached a windbreak near the structure the two men rode behind it, silent, thankful.