CHAPTER XXV
LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY
Keller rode blithely down the piney trail while the sun flung itsbrilliant good-bye over the crotch of the mountains behind which it wasslipping. The western sky was a Turner sublimated to the _nth_ degree, athing magnificent and indescribable. The young man rode with his crispcurls bared to the light, grateful breeze that came like healing fromthe great peaks. From the joyous, unquenchable youth in him bubbledsnatches of song and friendly smiles scattered broadcast over a worldthat pleased him mightily.
He was going to see his girl, going down to the Frying Pan to take herin his arms and whirl her into the land of romance to the rhythm of thewaltz. He wanted to shout it out to the chipmunks and the quails. Everand again he broke out with a line or two of a melody he had heard oncefrom a phonograph. No matter if he did not get the words exactly. He wassure 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 ponystumbled, went down heavily with its weight on his leg. From thedarkness men surged upon him. Rough hands dragged at him. The butt of aweapon crashed down on his hat and stunned him.
He became dimly aware that his leg was free from the horse, that he wasstruggling blindly to rise against the force that clamped him down. Heknew that he reached his feet, that he was lashing out furiously withboth hands, that even as he grappled with one assailant a gleam of steelflashed across the moonlight and shot through him with a zigzag painthat blotted out the world.
As his mind swam back to consciousness through troubled waters afar-away voice came out of the fog that surrounded him.
"He's coming to, looks like. I reckon you ain't bust his head, afterall, Brad."
Vague, grinning gargoyles mocked him from the haze. Slowly these tookform. Features stood out. The masks became faces. They no longer floateddetached in space, but belonged definitely to human beings.
"It ain't our fault if you're stove up some, pardner. You're too durnedanxious to whip yore weight in wildcats," one of the men grinned.
"Right you are, Tom. He shore hits like a kicking mule," chimed in athird, nursing a cheek that had been cut open to the bone.
A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade. "Nohard feelings, friend. All in the way of business." With which he gave afinal tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner.
"I've got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect," commented the nesterquietly.
"We've got no rope on yore expectations, Mr. Keller; but this outfitdoesn't run any information bureau," answered the heavy-set, sullenfellow who had been called Brad.
There were four of them, all masked; but the ranger was sure of one ofthem, if not two. The first speaker had been Tom Dixon; the last one wasBrad Irwin, a rider belonging to the Twin Star outfit.
They helped the bound man to his horse and held a low-voicedconsultation. Three of his captors turned their horses toward the south,while Irwin took charge of Keller. With his rifle resting across thehorn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, windingamong the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory's Pass. Throughthe defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain parksbeyond.
This region was the heart of the watershed where Little Goose Creekheads. The peaks rose gaunt above them. Occasionally they glimpsed widevistas of tangled, wooded canons and hills innumerable as sea billows.Into this maze they plunged ever deeper and deeper. Daylight came, andfound them still travelling. The prisoner did not need to be told thatthis inaccessible country was the lurking place of the rustlers who hadpreyed so long upon the Malpais district. Nor did he need evidence toconnect the sinister figure behind him with the gang of outlaws who rodein and out of these silent places on their nefarious night errands whilehonest folks kept their beds.
The sun was well up to its meridian before they came through a thickclump of quaking aspens to the mouth of a gulch opening from the end ofa little mountain park. On one of the slopes of the gulch a cabinsquatted, half hidden by the great boulders and the matting of pineboughs 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 Iusually eat breakfast some before ten o'clock."
"You'll do yore eating from now on when I give the word," his guardanswered 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 brilliantconversationalist. What he had to say he growled out audibly enough, butfor the rest his opinions had to be cork-screwed out of him in surlymonosyllables.
There was a good deal of the cave man about him. The heavy, slouchingshoulders, the glare of savagery, the long, hairy arms, all had theirprimordial suggestion. Given a club and a stone ax, he might have beenset back thousands of years with no injustice to his mentality.
The man soon had a fire blazing in the stove, and from it came abreakfast of bacon, black coffee, and biscuits. He freed the hands ofthe nester and sat opposite him at the table, a revolver by the side ofhis plate for use in an emergency.
Keller smiled. "This is one of those fashionable dinners where they haveextra hardware beside the plates," he suggested.
"Get gay, and I'll blow the top of yore head off!" the cow-puncher sworewith gusto.
"Thanks. Under the circumstances, I reckon I'll not get gay. I'm in nohurry to put you in the pen, seh. Plenty of time. I'm going to need thetop 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 bossshows 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 madea guess, but he knew now that he had hit the bull's-eye with his shot inthe 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 leaveyou to settle the bill with the law."
Irwin's eyes glared angrily at his smiling ones. The unabashedimpudence, the unfluttered aplomb, but above all the uncanny prescienceof this youth disturbed him because he could not understand them.Moreover, it happened that his suspicious mind had lingered on thechance of a betrayal at the hands of his chief. For which very reason hebroke 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 amongfriends?" Keller wanted to know cheerfully.
For just an instant he thought he had gone too far. The big ruffianopposite choked over his biscuit, the while rage purpled his face. Hecaught up the revolver, and his fingers itched at the trigger.
His prisoner, leaning back in the chair, held him with quiet, unwaveringeyes. "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 longrepress the spirit of adventure that bubbled in him. The temptation tobait this bear drew him irresistibly. He could not let him alone, themore that he sensed the danger to himself of the prods he sent homethrough the thick skin.
Lying carelessly on the bed with his head on his arm, or perhaps sittingastride a chair with his hands crossed on the back support, he wouldsmile 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," thenester sug
gested more than once to the infuriated cave man. "I'mallowing, 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 demandedhuskily.
Keller waved his hand with airy persiflage. "No exact informationobtainable, my friend. Likely to-day. Maybe not till to-morrow. The onedead-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 youat 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 theguard. Keller could not understand the reason for this, any more thanhe could fathom an adequate one for his abduction. There was of coursesomething behind it--something more potent than mere malice. If theintention had been merely to kill him, the thing could have been donewithout all this trouble. But though he searched his brain for anexplanation, he could not find one that satisfied.
The answer came to him later in the day. In the middle of the afternoona horse pounded up the draw to the cabin. Irwin went to the door, hiseye still on his prisoner, except for a swift glance at the newcomer.
"How's yore five-thousand-dollar beauty, Brad?" inquired a voice thatthe nester recognized.
"Finer than silk, boss."
The rider swung from the saddle, trailed his rein, and came withjingling 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, noddeda 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 thepartnership?"
"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 youwhen 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 pressinghost 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 wasriding high on a wave of triumph. Affairs were plainly going to hisliking.
"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 thatreached me."
Keller's cool eye measured him in silence, at which his enemy laughedcontemptuously and turned on his heel.
Healy drew his confederate to one side of the room and held a whisperedtalk with him. Apparently he did not greatly care whether his foe caughtthe drift of it or not, for occasionally his voice lifted enough so thatscraps of sentences reached the man lounging on the bed.
"--close to two hundred head--by the Mimbres Pass--the boys arece'tainly pushing the drive--out of danger by midnight--wait for thesignal 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 wasBrad that's a-keeping you. Make a break for a getaway, and I'll not do athing to you. Course I cayn't promise what Brad won't do. He's such aplumb anxious host."
"You're his brains. What you tell him to do he does. I hold youresponsible for this!"
"You don't say!"
"And right now I'll add, for all the devilment that has been going on inthese 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 offorty-eight hours, Mr. Rustler," flashed back Healy.
And with an evil, significant grin he was gone. They heard the sound ofretreating hoofs die in the distance.
But his visit had told the prisoner two things. A hurried wholesaledrive of rustled cattle was being made across the line into Sonora, andit was being done in such a way as to fasten the suspicion of it uponthe nester who had not appeared at the dance and had not been seen sincethat time. The irony of the thing was superb in its audacity. Healy andhis friends would get the profit from the stolen cattle, and they wouldvisit the punishment for the crime upon him. Evidence would be cookedup of course, and the retribution would be so swift that his friendswould not be able to save him. This time his enemy would take nochances. He would be wiped out like a troublesome insect. The thing wasdiabolic in the simplicity of its cleverness.
Keller watched his jailer now like a hawk. He was ready to take thefirst chance that offered, no matter how slight a one it seemed. But theman was vigilant and wary. He never let his hand wander a foot from thehandle of the weapon he carried.
Silently Irwin cooked a second meal. They sat down to it opposite eachother, 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 properlygrateful," the nester told his vis-a-vis. "Some folks might kick becausethe me-an'-you wasn't more varied, but I ain't that kind. You're doingyour 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 getbacon and coffee and biscuits. For supper there's a variety. This timeit is biscuits and coffee and bacon. To-morrow I reckon----"
Keller stopped halfway in his sentence, but took up his drawling commentagain instantly. Only an added sparkle in his eyes betrayed the changethat 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 thewindow casement and two eyes had looked in and met his. They belonged toPhil Sanderson.
Never had the brain of the prisoner been more alert. While his garruloustongue ran aimlessly on, he considered ways and means. The boy held upempty hands to show him that he was unarmed. The nester did not by theflicker of an eyelash betray the presence of a third party to the man attable with him. Nevertheless his chatter became from that momentaddressed to two listeners. To one it meant nothing in particular. Tothe other it was pregnant with meaning.
"No, seh. Some might complain because you ain't better provided withgrub and fixings, but what I say is _to make out the best we can withwhat we've got_," the slow, drawling voice continued. "Some folks cayn'tget along unless things are up to the Delmonico standard. That's plumbfoolishness. Reminds me of a friend of mine that happened on a grizzlyonct while he was cutting trail.
"Not expecting to meet Mr. Bear, he didn't have any gun along. Mr. Bearwas surely on the wah-path that day. He made a bee line for my friend toget better acquainted. Nothing like presence of mind. That cow-punchergot his rope coiled in three shakes of a maverick's tail, his pintobucking for fair to make his getaway. The rope drapped over Mr. Bear'shead just as the puncher and the hawss separated company.
"Things were doing right sudden then. My friend grabbed the end of thatrope and twisted it round and round a young live oak. Then he rememberedan 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 wasto being choked. You better believe Mr. Puncher was hitting that trailright 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 aimingto show you that _if my friend hadn't happened to have a rope along hewould have been in a bad fix_. But, you notice, he used his brains, _anda rope did just as well as a gun_."
The eyes just above the window casing disappeared. Brad a
ttended to thebusiness in hand, which was that of getting away with bacon and biscuitswhile he kept an eye on the man opposite. His prisoner also did justiceto his supper, to his flow of conversation, and to the window behind theunconscious jailer.
In that open window were presently framed again the head and shouldersof young Sanderson. Irwin pushed back his chair to get some more coffee,and the picture in the frame shot instantly down. The guard, his coffeecup, and his revolver went to the stove and returned. Phil reappearedat 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 strugglingman. Brad's arms were entangled in the rope, but one leg shot out andhurled back the nester. But before he could free himself from the tautloop 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 andsupple. He knew every trick of the wrestling game, whereas the other wasclumsy and muscle-bound. By main strength the older man got to his feetagain. Over went the table as they surged against it.
A chair, stamped into kindling, was hurled aside by the force of theirimpact. The stove rocked, and the bed collapsed as the locked figurescrashed down upon it. The ranger, twisting as they fell, landed on topand his fingers instantly found the throat of his foe. SimultaneouslyPhil 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 wascompletely exhausted and they nearly so did he give up and lie quiet.All three of them panted heavily, the allies lying across his chest andlegs. The nester managed to draw the loop taut about Irwin's neck andinsert his knuckles so that he could use them as a tourniquet ifnecessary.
"Gather up the other end of the rope, loop it, and tie his feettogether," the nester ordered, getting his sentence out in fragmentaryjerks.
Phil did so, deftly and expertly, after which, in spite of renewedstruggles, they tied the hands of their prisoner behind his back.
"Looks like a cyclone had hit the room," said the boy, glancing at thedebris.
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 thesettlement we'll notify his friends, though I reckon they'll find himwithout any help from us."
In order to make sure they went over the knots again, tightening themhere and there. The revolver and the rifle of the bound man theyappropriated. The nester's horse was in a little corral back of thehouse. He saddled, and shortly the two were on the back trail. Phil knewthe country as a golfer knows his links. To him Keller put the questionin 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. Seethat 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 forme?"
"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 tostand with honest men or thieves. Healy's gang is rustling a bunch ofcows gathered at the round-up. They're heading for Mimbres Pass. I'mgoing 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 yousomething. 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 nightbefore."
Keller nodded. "I had figured it out that way."
"But that ain't all. Once when I was cutting trail in the hills--musthave been about six months before that time--I happened on Brill drivinga 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 haveme turn and join him. But I kept on the way I was going, and just by amiracle my pony almost stumbled over a dead cow lying in the brush. Thatset me thinking. That night I rode over to Healy's and asked anexplanation.
"He had one ready. Some one else must have killed the cow. He found thecalf wandering about alone, and branded it. Somehow his story didn'tquite satisfy me, but I wasn't ready then to think him a coyote. I likedhim--always had. And it flattered me that he had picked me out to be hisbest friend. So I said nothing, and figured it out that he was on thesquare. Of course I knew he was reckless and wild, but I didn't like himany the less for that. I reckon nobody ever accused him of not beinggame."
"Hardly," smiled Keller. "He'll stand the acid that way."
"The thing that stuck in my craw was his lying about seeing you on thenight of the bank robbery. He said you were riding the roan with whitestockings. Later we found out that couldn't be true. Then I knew Jim wastelling the truth about you being with him in the hills at the time. Itkind of sifted to me by degrees that you were a white man and he was askunk."
"And then?"
"Then we had it out one day. He had his reason for wanting to stand wellwith me. I reckon you know what it is."
"I know his reason. No man could have a better. I reckon I've a right tothink so, Phil, because she has promised to marry me."
The boy shook hands with him impulsively. "I'm right glad to hearit--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 hadone or two tiffs, mostly about you and Phyl. He saw I was changed towardhim, and he wanted to know why. I let him have it straight, and sincethen we haven't been friends."
"I'm glad of that. It makes plain sailing for me. He's got to be rundown and caged, Phil. Healy is at the head of all this rustling that hasbeen troubling the Malpais country. His gang stuck up the Diamond Nuggetstage, killed Sheriff Fowler, and robbed the Noches Bank."
"How could he have robbed the bank when he was seen fifty miles fromthere not two hours afterward?"
Keller briefly explained his theory then pushed on at once to his plans.
"I'm going to make straight for the Mimbres Pass while you go back andrustle help. I'll try to keep them from getting through the Pass untilyou close in on them behind."
"That don't look good to me. How do I know how long it will be before Ican gather the boys together or find Jim and his outfit? You might bemassacred before I got back."
"A man has to take his fighting chance."
"Then let me take mine. We'll hold the pass together. I'll bet we can.Don't you reckon?"
"What use would you be without a rifle? No, Phil, you'll have to bringup the reinforcements. That's the best tactics."
Sanderson protested eagerly, but in the end was overborne. They turnedtheir backs upon each other, one headed for the Mimbres and the otherfor the trail that ran down to the Malpais country.