PART II
THE TWO GUN MAN
CHAPTER ONE
THE CATTLE RUSTLERS
Buck Johnson was American born, but with a black beard and a dignity ofmanner that had earned him the title of Senor. He had drifted intosoutheastern Arizona in the days of Cochise and Victorio and Geronimo.He had persisted, and so in time had come to control the water--andhence the grazing--of nearly all the Soda Springs Valley. His troubleswere many, and his difficulties great. There were the ordinaryproblems of lean and dry years. There were also the extraordinaryproblems of devastating Apaches; rivals for early and ill-defined rangerights--and cattle rustlers.
Senor Buck Johnson was a man of capacity, courage, directness ofmethod, and perseverance. Especially the latter. Therefore he hadsurvived to see the Apaches subdued, the range rights adjusted, hiscattle increased to thousands, grazing the area of a principality.Now, all the energy and fire of his frontiersman's nature he had turnedto wiping out the third uncertainty of an uncertain business. He foundit a task of some magnitude.
For Senor Buck Johnson lived just north of that terra incognita filledwith the mystery of a double chance of death from man or the flamingdesert known as the Mexican border. There, by natural gravitation,gathered all the desperate characters of three States and tworepublics. He who rode into it took good care that no one should ridebehind him, lived warily, slept light, and breathed deep when once hehad again sighted the familiar peaks of Cochise's Stronghold. No oneprofessed knowledge of those who dwelt therein. They moved, mysteriousas the desert illusions that compassed them about. As you rode, theranges of mountains visibly changed form, the monstrous, snaky,sea-like growths of the cactus clutched at your stirrup, mock lakessparkled and dissolved in the middle distance, the sun beat hot andmerciless, the powdered dry alkali beat hotly and mercilessly back--andstrange, grim men, swarthy, bearded, heavily armed, with red-rimmedunshifting eyes, rode silently out of the mists of illusion to look onyou steadily, and then to ride silently back into the desert haze.They might be only the herders of the gaunt cattle, or again they mightbelong to the Lost Legion that peopled the country. All you could knowwas that of the men who entered in, but few returned.
Directly north of this unknown land you encountered parallel fencesrunning across the country. They enclosed nothing, but offered a checkto the cattle drifting toward the clutch of the renegades, and anobstacle to swift, dashing forays.
Of cattle-rustling there are various forms. The boldest consists quitesimply of running off a bunch of stock, hustling it over the Mexicanline, and there selling it to some of the big Sonora ranch owners.Generally this sort means war. Also are there subtler means, gradingin skill from the re-branding through a wet blanket, through the craftyrefashioning of a brand to the various methods of separating the cowfrom her unbranded calf. In the course of his task Senor Buck Johnsonwould have to do with them all, but at present he existed in a state ofwarfare, fighting an enemy who stole as the Indians used to steal.
Already he had fought two pitched battles and had won them both. Hiscattle increased, and he became rich. Nevertheless he knew thatconstantly his resources were being drained. Time and again he and hisnew Texas foreman, Jed Parker, had followed the trail of a stampededbunch of twenty or thirty, followed them on down through the SodaSprings Valley to the cut drift fences, there to abandon them. For, asyet, an armed force would be needed to penetrate the borderland. Oncehe and his men bad experienced the glory of a night pursuit. Then, atthe drift fences, he had fought one of his battles. But it wasimpossible adequately to patrol all parts of a range bigger than someEastern States.
Buck Johnson did his best, but it was like stopping with sand theinnumerable little leaks of a dam. Did his riders watch toward theChiricahuas, then a score of beef steers disappeared from Grant's Passforty miles away. Pursuit here meant leaving cattle unguarded there.It was useless, and the Senor soon perceived that sooner or later hemust strike in offence.
For this purpose he began slowly to strengthen the forces of hisriders. Men were coming in from Texas. They were good men, addictedto the grass-rope, the double cinch, and the ox-bow stirrup. SenorJohnson wanted men who could shoot, and he got them.
"Jed," said Senor Johnson to his foreman, "the next son of a gun thatrustles any of our cows is sure loading himself full of trouble. We'llhit his trail and will stay with it, and we'll reach hiscattle-rustling conscience with a rope."
So it came about that a little army crossed the drift fences andentered the border country. Two days later it came out, and mightypleased to be able to do so. The rope had not been used.
The reason for the defeat was quite simple. The thief had run hiscattle through the lava beds where the trail at once became difficultto follow. This delayed the pursuing party; they ran out of water,and, as there was among them not one man well enough acquainted withthe country to know where to find more, they had to return.
"No use, Buck," said Jed. "We'd any of us come in on a gun play, butwe can't buck the desert. We'll have to get someone who knows thecountry."
"That's all right--but where?" queried Johnson.
"There's Pereza," suggested Parker. "It's the only town down near thatcountry."
"Might get someone there," agreed the Senor.
Next day he rode away in search of a guide. The third evening he wasback again, much discouraged.
"The country's no good," he explained. "The regular inhabitants 're aset of Mexican bums and old soaks. The cowmen's all from north anddon't know nothing more than we do. I found lots who claimed to knowthat country, but when I told 'em what I wanted they shied like a colt.I couldn't hire 'em, for no money, to go down in that country. Theyain't got the nerve. I took two days to her, too, and rode out to aranch where they said a man lived who knew all about it down there.Nary riffle. Man looked all right, but his tail went down like therest when I told him what we wanted. Seemed plumb scairt to death.Says he lives too close to the gang. Says they'd wipe him out sure ifhe done it. Seemed plumb SCAIRT." Buck Johnson grinned. "I told himso and he got hosstyle right off. Didn't seem no ways scairt of me. Idon't know what's the matter with that outfit down there. They'replumb terrorised."
That night a bunch of steers was stolen from the very corrals of thehome ranch. The home ranch was far north, near Fort Sherman itself,and so had always been considered immune from attack. Consequentlythese steers were very fine ones.
For the first time Buck Johnson lost his head and his dignity. Heordered the horses.
"I'm going to follow that -- -- into Sonora," he shouted to Jed Parker."This thing's got to stop!"
"You can't make her, Buck," objected the foreman. "You'll get held upby the desert, and, if that don't finish you, they'll tangle you up inall those little mountains down there, and ambush you, and massacreyou. You know it damn well."
"I don't give a --" exploded Senor Johnson, "if they do. No man canslap my face and not get a run for it."
Jed Parker communed with himself.
"Senor," said he, at last, "it's no good; you can't do it. You got tohave a guide. You wait three days and I'll get you one."
"You can't do it," insisted the Senor. "I tried every man in thedistrict."
"Will you wait three days?" repeated the foreman.
Johnson pulled loose his latigo. His first anger had cooled.
"All right," he agreed, "and you can say for me that I'll pay fivethousand dollars in gold and give all the men and horses he needs tothe man who has the nerve to get back that bunch of cattle, and bringin the man who rustled them. I'll sure make this a test case."
So Jed Parker set out to discover his man with nerve.