CHAPTER XIV
THE STAMPEDE
Along the banks of the Yellowstone, where it wended its snakelike courseto the Missouri, wandered the massive herds of the Star Circle, andaround them rode the cow waddies, the few outriders, keeping theircharges from straying, and ever watchful for the dreaded sheep, whichhad of late sprung up like buffalo grass, and, as Buck Milton expressedit, "in a country that God had made for cows."
And over the range in like peace grazed the enemy; white-fleeced, softand downy as doves, and as harmless and innocent. Of all weapons everused in warfare the strangest, these living emblems of innocence. It wasa warfare fought far from the public eye. The men who fought the cattlewere little like those bull-fighters of Spain who responded to theapplause of thousands. They acted in the dark, if they could, and forhire, and yet they may have had hearts--but those who hired them surelyhad none.
And all unconscious of coming danger the boys rode with the fewherders, or by themselves, near the wandering cattle. The storm had heldoff while twilight faded, but now the sky was cloud-curtained, and thenight fell inky black and silent save for sounds from the herd. The softthudding of hoofs, the occasional low-voiced note, possibly of a cow toits young, seemed to blend into a murmur, strange and fascinating toWhitey, commonplace and tiresome to the men of the range.
Then the storm began to send signals of its approach from air and sky.First the hushing of the wind, then the pale glares from the distant skywhere the earth's edge joined it, then the rumble of thunder, growing involume with the brighter, green flashes of the lightning--all familiarenough to Whitey, but now giving him a thrill because felt in strangesurroundings. The nervous stirring of the mass of beasts near by addedto the boy's thrill, for a coming storm was never to be taken calmly bythe hulking, helpless brutes.
And when the rush of wind and the crashing of the coming tempestsounded, and the herders were renewing their watchfulness, another stormwas breeding that they did not dream of. For over beyond, in a gully,the sheepmen were gathered. And each man carried a white garment, likethose you may have seen pictured as worn by the old raiders of theSouth--the Ku-Klux Klan. They were waiting only for the lightning tobecome blinding, the thunder to become deafening.
And when the electrical storm was at its height, you will know whathappened when those white-clad figures went among the thousands ofrange-bred beasts, guarded by a pitiful handful of men. For range cattleare accustomed to a man only when he is mounted; then he is a part ofhis horse. It is dangerous for him to go among them on foot; then he isa strange animal. Many a cowboy has dismounted, rescued a steer from themire--and had to run for his life. Thus were those white-clad figuresdoubly monstrous and terrifying to the herd.
You may have thought that the cowboy wears his revolver for protectionagainst his human enemies, but it is rather for a protection of thecattle against themselves in that strange panic known as a "stampede."Whitey and Injun, riding near the edge of the herd, and bowing againstthe fury of the storm, did not need Buck Milton's hoarse shouts ofwarning to make them swing aside. They were helpless to aid in divertingthe mass of maddened animals that swung toward them, and galloping theirhorses to a point of safety, they turned in their saddles and viewed thestrange sight.
Lighted by the almost continuous flashes of the lightning, thebellowing, thundering herd crashed by.... Far behind it, and in safety,were the white figures of the men who had caused the panic, sneaking offinto the night. They had been seen by the Star Circle riders, but therewas no time to think of them now. At the head of the herd, Whitey couldsee two men, their horses set at a mad run. Buck Milton was one, and theother a dare-devil young fellow named Tom, who was Buck's closestfriend.
And as Buck and Tom rode, Whitey could see them firing their gunsalmost in the faces of the foremost maddened steers. They were trying todivert the leaders, and thus turn the herd until it would circle in itscourse, and finally the entire mass of beasts would be running round andround, in a course known as "milling." And there Whitey learned the realuse the cowboy has for his gun.
What was going on beyond, Whitey could not see, and he could hearnothing above the uproar of the storm, and the clamor of the stampede,except the faint cracking of the guns of Tom and Buck. As Whitey heldthe almost fear-maddened Monty in check, the wild-eyed steers, withlowered heads and panting sides, sped by. At their head Whitey saw Tomswing nearer toward the leaders, then he saw Tom no more. There were twodangers to be feared in that mad race; if a steer fell, the others wouldtrip over it, and many of them would die; if a man were caught in therushing mass, it meant sure death.
Morning came, with the sun graying the low clouds, from which fell acold drizzle; a setting drear enough for the scene the boys were towitness. A handful of gaunt men, sad but determined, their spent,drooping horses near by, stood facing a shallow grave scooped out of theprairie. Near it lay a blanket-covered figure that the dreaded stampedehad crushed into a shape of which Whitey feared to think.
As the cowboys lowered the shape into the grave, Buck Milton turned hishead away for a moment. Then he said simply, "Tom was my pardner fornine years." And again, after a pause, "And who's goin' t' tell his galover on the Little Divide?"
There seemed no need for words just then, for after their grief fortheir friend the men's faces showed the turn of thought to hismurderers, the sheepmen. Whitey never had seen the intent to kill comeinto men's faces before. It was grim, but not repulsive, for in a waythere was justice in it. And poor Tom, who yesterday had been less thana name to Whitey, had now become the central figure in a tragedy.
But no one could have told what Injun thought. He, who came of a racethat held vengeance above most things, looked on, seemingly unmoved.
Followed busy days on the Star Circle, during which Walt Lampsonprobably forgot the existence of Whitey and Injun. It was doubtful tothe boys that he even noticed them when they rode back to the ranchhouse, after the funeral of Buck's friend Tom. Whatever thoughts ofrevenge were cherished by Walt and Buck had to be held in check whilethe stampeded herds were rounded up from the many-mile radius of prairieover which they had strayed.
To do this the entire force of the Star Circle was needed. Divided intoparties the men rode north, east, south, and west for a distance ofabout twenty miles. Then they trailed round and round, in a great,narrowing circle that took in that wide radius, and as the cattle weremet, in bunches or small herds, they were gathered and driven into acommon center until they formed one great herd.
Whitey and Injun managed to go with Buck Milton's men, as Whitey likedBuck better than any of the other punchers, but the death of Tom hadleft Buck in a gloomy mood, and he spoke but little, either to the menor to the boys. The others were loud in their oaths and threats ofvengeance; Buck was silent--and somehow, Whitey could not help feelingthat Buck was the most dangerous enemy the sheepmen would have to dealwith.
This round-up lasted a full week. During it Walt Lampson had found timeto consider his course of action against the stampeders of his herd. Sowhen Whitey and Injun returned, they found that the Star Circle was tobe involved in one of the scourges of the time--a range war.
If you had been there would you have wanted to stay and see the thingout? The answer is so simple that you know what Whitey and Injun wantedto do. But Whitey knew that hardened as Walt Lampson was, he would notallow the boys to accompany the coming expedition against the sheepmen,so Injun and Whitey did what you probably would have done, and whatBr'er Rabbit did--they lay low. And Walt either forgot to send themhome, or thought that they would stay at the Star Circle while the warwas on.
For two days after the round-up nothing was done at the ranch, beyondthe oiling of guns, and consultations among the men. Walt Lampson seemedto be waiting for something. On the third night there was a meeting inthe ranch-house living-room. A meeting which Whitey and Injun attendedunseen, by the simple method of hiding. It may have been wrong tolisten, but it was worse to die, and Whitey felt that he surely wouldexpire if he didn't know what
was going on. Injun had no scruples atall.
A traveler might have thought that all trails led to the Star CircleRanch, that gloomy night, for from every point of the compass cameriders, alone, by twos, and by threes. Desperate, hard men, who had usedtheir bodily strength to conquer the elements and to build up theirherds, as mine-owners use machinery to crush the gold out of the ore.For this war of the sheep against the cattle was a common war, and itwas to be fought to a finish in that country.
So that was what Walt was waiting for, thought Whitey as he looked intothe living-room from a crack in the office door, held slightly ajar. HadWhitey been in a criminal court during the last appeal of opposingcounsel, he would have seen in the jury box no more thoughtful, set, anddetermined faces than those assembled in that ranch-house room.
The decision this court reached was: to catch the culprits and hangthem; to drive their sheep over the hills into the deepest canyons todie by thousands; to hunt out the hiding owners, and let Colt guns beboth judge and jury. Merciless and hard it seems, doesn't it? But thosewere merciless and hard days, when "only the strong survived."
"There's just one man I ever knowed who could do this work right," WaltLampson said. "The greatest two-handed man with a gun that ever wasborn, an' a fool jury sent him to the pen, five years ago, for brandin'a few calves."
"You mean Mart Cooley," said another ranchman. "There was only one ofhim. But he done two years at Deer Lodge, an' nobody's ever seen himsince."
"Guess again," Walt replied. "I heard o' him. He's been down in theChinook Country. An' what's more I've got word o' Mart, an' he's comin'here t'night."
Walt's words caused a sensation, and while it is subsiding I may as wellexplain that in those frontier days there was a vast stretch of mesa orprairie known as the Chinook Country, because of the unseasonable, warm,and soothing winds that blew there. You may have read Bill Jordan's taleabout these winds, in the first Injun and Whitey story. They would meltthe snow, and cause the cowmen to start out their feeding herds, only tobe caught by the northers, that brought the bitter, perishing cold, andkilled the stock by thousands. On account of this uncertain conditionthe Chinook Country was avoided in the early days, save by those wholocated there for _reasons_--which no one was ever known to question.And in this desolate place Walt Lampson had heard of Mart Cooley, andfrom there he had lured him to the Star Circle Ranch.
Whitey waited, almost breathless, for the thrill that was to come athis first sight of the "bad man" of the West; the "two-gun man" who haslong since passed into history, but was then a factor of the troubloustimes.
And you might like to hear a word or two about the ways he handled hisgun, for he had more than one way. But first, the way he didn't handleit. Ordinarily, when you are shooting at a mark with a pistol, you cockthe weapon, close one eye, and gaze along the barrel with the otheruntil the sight is in line with the mark, and, holding the pistolsteady, pull the trigger. That was what the gunman didn't do.
He sighted his weapon much as you throw a stone--by judging with hiseye. He filed off the sight, so it wouldn't catch in the holster And hedidn't use the trigger at all. That, too, could be taken off. Let us saythat he was using both guns. He drew them from their holsters withmarvelous speed. As he did so, he flipped back the hammers with histhumbs, and allowed them to fall on the cartridges, thus firing thefirst shots. The remaining shots were fired by working the hammers inthe same way, and the actions caused an up-and-down movement of theguns. Seems a funny way to fire a revolver, doesn't it? But it wasn'tfunny for the man who was in front of the bad man.
He had another way of not leveling the gun at all, but firing from hiship, the revolver being held there, and the hammer worked with thethumb. Another and very expert way was to fire from the holster, nottaking the gun out at all. This was remarkably quick and deadly.
But the strangest way of all, that was sometimes used at close quarters,was called "fanning." The gun was held at the hip, the first shot firedwith the thumb-hammer movement. The gunman spread out the thumb andfingers of his other hand, and quickly drawing them across the hammer,one after another, they fired the shots with lightning rapidity. Youwould be surprised at the speed with which shots can be fired in thisway. Try it sometime--with an empty gun.
Whitey, waiting behind the living-room door, had heard in bunk-housetalk of these various ways in which the bad man proved himself anartist with his gun--had to prove himself one, if he wanted to remainalive. But when Mart Cooley, the most deadly man of that kind in theWest, entered the living-room and faced the ranchmen, Whitey did not gethis thrill--at first. For Mart was not a very large, nor a veryfierce-looking person, as he stood sidewise to Whitey, and talked to theothers.
Not often does crime fail to leave its mark on a man. The mouth, thechin, the forehead; some feature usually shows traces of it. And whenMart Cooley turned and Whitey saw his eyes, he got his thrill. They werea hard, light, steely gray, and they looked out from lowered lids, oh,so steadily. Months of brooding in the prison had helped to hardenMart's eyes, that had needed no help in that way; brooding overimaginary wrongs, for he thought his arrest an injustice. Other men hadstolen a few cows, and got away with them, but Mart was made to suffer,and came to think himself a victim.
Out in the barren waste of the Chinook Country, lonely and gloomy, Marthad planned vengeance. But against whom? No one man could fight theGovernment. Failure was sure to come, and it meant death orworse--further imprisonment. In time Mart had come to regard allhumanity as his enemy. Thus does crime and solitude twist the mind ofman. Mart was ripe for a killing. And these men were offering him achance.