CHAPTER II
A YEARLING SOLD
Three riders came galloping along the ridge towards the hunter. Atsight of his pony the grizzled cowman in the lead signed to hiscompanions and came to a sudden stop behind a clump of service-berrybushes. The others swerved in beside him, the bowlegged young puncheron the right with his hand at his hip.
"Jumping Jehosaphat!" he exulted. "We shore have got him, Mr. Knowles,the blasted--" His thin lips closed tight to shut in the oath as heturned his gaze on the lovely flushed face of the girl beside him.When his cold gray eyes met hers they lighted with a glow like that offire through ice.
"You better stay here, Miss Chuckie," he advised. "We're going to curethat rustler."
"But, Kid, what if--No, no! wait!" she cried at sight of his drawnColt's. "Daddy, stop him! The man may not be a rustler."
"You heard the shooting," answered the cowman.
"Yes, but he may have been after a deer," answered the girl, liftingher lithe figure tiptoe in the stirrups of her man's saddle to peerover the bushes.
"Deer?" rejoined the puncher. "Who'd be deer-hunting in July?"
"Then a bear. He fired fast enough," remarked the girl.
"Not much chance of that round here," said the cowman. "Still, itmight be. At any rate, Kid, this time I want you to wait for me to askquestions _before_ you cut loose."
"If he don't try any funny business," qualified the puncher.
"Course," assented Knowles. "Chuckie, you best stay back here."
"Oh, no, Daddy. There's only one man and between you and Kid--"
"_Sho!_ Come on, then, if you're set on it. Kid, you circle to theright."
The puncher wheeled his horse and rode off around the chaparral. Thegirl and Knowles, after a short wait, advanced upon the hunter. Theywere soon within a few yards of him and in plain view. His ponystopped browsing and raised its head to look at them. But the man wasstooped over, with his face the other way, and the incessant,reverberating roar of the canyon muffled the tread of their horses onthe dusty turf.
The puncher crashed through the corner of the thicket and pulled up onthe top of the slope immediately opposite the hunter. The lattersprang to his feet. The puncher instantly covered him with hislong-barreled revolver and snapped tersely: "Hands up!"
"My--ante!" gasped the hunter. "A--a road agent!"
But he did not throw up his hands. With the rash bravery ofinexperience, he dropped his knife and snatched out his automaticpistol. On the instant the puncher's big revolver roared. The pistolwent spinning out of the hunter's hand. Through the smoke of the shotthe puncher leveled his weapon.
"Put up your hands!--put them up!" screamed the girl, urging her horseforward.
The hunter obeyed, none too soon. For several moments he stood rigid,glaring half dazed at the revolver muzzle and the cool hard facebehind it. Then slowly he twisted about to see who it was had warnedhim. The girl had ridden up within a few feet.
"You--you _tenderfoot_!" she flung at him. "Are you locoed? Hadn't youany more sense than to do that? Why, if Daddy hadn't told Mr. Gowan towait--"
"You shore would have got yours, you--rustler!" snapped the puncher."It was you, though, Miss Chuckie--your being here."
"But he's not a rustler, Kid," protested the girl. "Where are youreyes? Look at his riding togs. If they're not tenderfoot, howlingtenderfoot--!"
"Just the same, honey, he's shot a yearling," said Knowles, frowningat the culprit. "Suppose you let me do the questioning."
"Ah--pardon me," remarked the hunter, rebounding from apprehension toeasy assurance at sight of the girl's smile. "I would prefer to bethird-degreed by the young lady. Permit me to salute the Queen of theOutlaws!"
He bent over the fingers of one hand to raise his silver-bandedsombrero by its high peak. It left his head--and a bullet left themuzzle of the puncher's revolver. A hole appeared low down in the sideof the sombrero.
"That'll do, Kid," ordered the cowman. "No more hazing, even if he isa tenderfoot."
"Tenderfoot?" replied Gowan, his mouth like a straight gash across hislean jaws. "How about his drawing on me--and how about your yearling?That bullet went just where it ought to 've gone with his hat down onhis head."
There was no jesting even of the grimmest quality in the puncher'slook and tone. He was very cool and quiet--and his Colt's was leveledfor another shot.
The hunter thrust up his hands as high as he could reach.
"You--you surely can't intend to murder me!" he stammered, staring fromthe puncher to the cowman. "I'll pay ransom--anything you ask! Don't lethim shoot me! I'm Lafayette Ashton--I'll pay thousands--anything! Myfather is George Ashton, the great financier!"
"New York?" queried Knowles.
"No, no, Chicago! He--If only you'll write to him!"
The girl burst into a ringing laugh. "Oh!" she cried, the moment shecould speak, "Oh, Daddy! don't you see? He really thinks we're a bunchof wild and woolly bandits!"
The hunter looked uncertainly from her dimpled face to Gowan's readyrevolver. Turning sharply about to the cowman, he caught him in areluctant grin. With a sudden spring, he placed the girl betweenhimself and the scowling puncher. Behind this barrier of safety heswept off his hat and bowed to the girl with an exaggerated display ofpoliteness that hinted at mockery.
"So it's merely a cowboy joke," he said. "I bend, not to the Queen ofthe Outlaws, but to the Princess of the Cows!"
Her dimples vanished. She looked over his head with the barest shadeof disdain in her expression.
"The joke came near to being on us," she said. "Kid, put up your gun.A tenderfoot who has enough nerve and no more sense than to draw whenyou have the drop on him, you've hazed him enough."
Gowan sullenly reloaded his Colt's and replaced it in its holster.
"That's right," said Knowles; but he turned sharply upon the offender."Look here, Mr. Ashton, if that's your name--there's still the matterof this yearling. Shooting stock in a cattle country isn't anylaughing matter."
"But, I say," replied the hunter, "I didn't know it was your cow,really I didn't."
"Doesn't make any difference whose brand was on the calf. Even if ithad been a maverick--"
"But that's it!" interrupted Ashton. "I didn't see the brand--onlyglimpses of the beast in the chaparral. I thought it a deer untilafter it fell and I came up to look."
"You shore did," jeered Gowan. "That's why you was hurrying to yankoff the hide. No chance of proving a case on you with the brand downin Deep Canyon."
"Indeed no," replied Ashton, drawing a trifle closer to the girl'sstirrup. "You are quite wrong--quite. I was dressing the animal totake it to my camp. Because I had mistaken it for a deer was no reasonwhy I should leave it to the coyotes."
"What business you got hunting deer out of season?" questionedKnowles.
"Pardon me, but are you the game warden?" asked Ashton, with asupercilious smile.
"Never you mind about that," rejoined the cowman. "Just you answer myquestion."
Ashton shrugged, and replied in a bored tone: "I fail to see that itis any of your affair. But since you are so urgent to learn--I preferto enjoy my sport before the rush of the open season."
"Don't you know it's against the law?" exclaimed the girl.
"Ah--as to that, a trifling fine--" drawled the hunter, againshrugging.
"Humph!" grunted Knowles. "A fine might get you off for deer. Shootingstock, though, is a penitentiary offense--when the criminal is luckyenough to get into court."
"Criminal!" repeated Ashton, flushing. "I have explained who I am. Myfather could buy out this entire cattle country, and never know it.I'll do it myself, some day, and turn the whole thing into a gamepreserve."
"When you do," warned Gowan, "you'd better hunt a healthier climate."
"What we're concerned with now," interposed Knowles, "is thisyearling."
"The live or the dead one, Daddy?" asked the girl, her cheeksdimpling.
"What d'you--Aw--_haw! haw! haw!_--The live or th
e dead one! Catchthat, Kid? The live or the dead one! _Haw! haw! haw!_"
The cowman fairly roared with laughter. Neither of the young menjoined in his hilarious outburst. Gowan waited, cold and unsmiling.Ashton stiffened with offended dignity.
"I told you that the shooting of the animal was unintentional," hesaid. "I shall settle the affair by paying you the price usually askedfor veal."
"You will?" said the cowman, looking down at the indignant tenderfootwith a twinkle in his mirth-reddened eyes. "Well, we don't usuallysell veal on the range. But I'll let you have this yearling at cutletprices. Fifty dollars is the figure."
"Why, Daddy," interrupted the girl, "half that would be--"
"On the hoof, yes; but he's buying dressed veal," broke in the cowman,and he smiled grimly at the culprit. "Fifty dollars is cheap for adeer hunter who goes round shooting up the country out of season. Hecan take his choice--pay for his veal or make a trip to the countyseat."
"That's talking, Mr. Knowles," approved Gowan. "We'll corral him atStockchute in that little log calaboose. He'll have a peach of a timetalking the jury out of sending him up for rustling."
"This is an outrage--rank robbery!" complained Ashton. "Of course youknow I will pay rather than be inconvenienced by an interruption ofmy hunting." He thrust his slender hand into his pocket, and drew itout empty.
"Dead broke!" jeered Gowan.
Ashton shrugged disdainfully. "I have money at my camp. If that is notenough to pay your blackmail, my valet has gone back to the railwaywith my guide for a remittance of a thousand dollars, which must havecome on a week ago."
"Your camp is at the waterhole on Dry Fork," stated Knowles. "Saw abig smoke over there--tenderfoot's fire. Well, it's only five miles,and we can ride down that way. We'll go to your camp."
"Ye-es?" murmured Ashton, his ardent eyes on the girl. "Miss--er--Chuckie,it is superfluous to remark that I shall vastly enjoy a cross-countryride with you."
"Oh, really!" she replied.
Heedless of her ironical tone, he turned a supercilious glance onKnowles. "Yes, and at the same time your papa and his hired man cantake advantage of the opportunity to deliver my veal."
"What's that?" growled the cowman, flushing hotly.
But the girl burst into such a peal of laughter that his scowl relaxedto an uncertain smile.
"Well, what's the joke, honey?" he asked.
"Oh! oh! oh!" she cried, her blue eyes glistening with mirthfultears. "Don't you see he's got you, Daddy? You didn't sell him hismeat on the hoof. You've got to dress and deliver his cutlets."
"By--James!" vowed Gowan. "Before I'll butcher for such a knock-kneedtenderfoot I'll see him, in--"
"Hold your hawsses, Kid," put in Knowles. "The joke's on me. You go onand look for that bunch of strays, if you want to. But I'm not goingto back up when Chuckie says I'm roped in."
Gowan looked fixedly at Ashton and the girl, swore under his breath,and swung to the ground. He came down beside the calf with thewaddling step of one who has lived in the saddle from early childhood.Knowles joined him, and they set to work on the calf without payingany farther heed to the tenderfoot.
Ashton, after fastidiously wiping his hands on a wisp of grass, placedhis hunting knife in his belt and his rifle in its saddle sheath. Henext picked up his pistol, but after a single glance at the sideplate, smashed in by Gowan's first shot, he dropped the ruined weaponand rather hurriedly mounted his pony.
The girl had faced away from the partly butchered carcass. As Ashtonrode around alongside, her pony started to walk away. Instead ofreining in, she glanced demurely at Ashton, and called over hershoulder: "Daddy, we'll be riding on ahead. You and Kid have thefaster hawsses."
"All right," acquiesced Knowles, without pausing in his work.
Gowan said nothing; but he glanced up at the jaunty back of thetenderfoot with a look of cold enmity.