Edward G. Cheyney

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CAÑON

The sheep were bunched so tightly around the mouth of the caÑon that Scott had to make quite a circle to reach the rim of the cliffs. He then followed the edge of the cliffs back to the caÑon which cut back into the plateau like the mouth of a great chute fringed along the sides with aspen. The bottom of it was fairly smooth at the upper end and quite wide, narrowing rapidly and becoming rougher till it ended in the knife-like cut where it broke through the face of the cliff. There it dropped sheer to the valley three hundred feet below.

A queer sight met Scott’s astonished gaze when he peered through the screen of aspen down into the little triangular amphitheater. He had no idea of secrecy when he came down there. He had merely wanted to see what was going on and he had walked openly across the bench. It was only the presence of the sheep which had prevented him from walking straight into the mouth of the caÑon. But now that he found himself so fortunately located and found the game so well worth watching he nestled quietly down in his screen of aspens and decided to lay low.

He knew now why there were no herders with the sheep. Six men were working desperately building a fence across the mouth of the caÑon. Five of them were sheep herders and the sixth was Heth. They were cutting posts from the aspen trees, driving them rather close together, and weaving the tops of the trees between them to form a solid barricade. They had evidently been at the work for some time for the fence was more than two thirds completed. Even then Scott did not understand the significance of it all. Why should they be building a fence across there? There did not seem to be any more reason why the sheep should go down there than over the edge of the cliffs anywhere else.

The voices of the workers floated up to him and he could hear distinctly what they said. It was not long until he heard something which enlightened him on the purpose of the fence.

“This here cache was some idea, Dugan,” exclaimed one of the herders who was cutting some brush almost directly under Scott on the side of the caÑon.

“You bet,” one of the others answered admiringly. “Old Jed couldn’t find his own sheep down in here.”

So that was the idea. That was the reason all the sheep had been driven down to the cliffs and why no attempt had been made to run them over into Baxter’s district or back out the chute. They were going to hide the extras in those caÑons till the recount was over and then let them out to graze with the bunch once more. It was a clever idea and would undoubtedly have worked if Scott had not stumbled onto it.

“The question is now,” said one of the herders, “can we get enough of them in here? What do you think about it, Dugan?”

Heth answered the question. “Sure we can get them in here. We put twenty five hundred in the other pen and this one is a little larger.”

So they already had another caÑon fenced and filled. And Heth was in charge of the work. There was no longer any question of how the sheep got into the forest. Heth had let them in. Slowly Scott began to piece together the evidence. How did they know that Heth and not himself was going to count those sheep? Then he remembered how Heth had delayed things that morning and how relieved he had seemed when the telephone rang reporting the fire. And Heth had sent him on the wrong trail purposely, so that he would have time to get in all the sheep and have them well away from the chute before Scott could get back.

There his train of evidence broke for a second. Who else was in the game? How did Heth know that fire would be so promptly reported? Then he recalled that it was one of Jed Clark’s men whom Baxter had caught setting an apparently purposeless fire on that very morning. He himself had seen the traces of it. It was certainly a deep laid plot. He saw now how the cards had been stacked against him by a cunning hand and he knew now why he had taken such a violent dislike to Heth.

He wondered if his hunch to distrust Dawson was as reliable. There was certainly no evidence against him as yet. The fire had been reported to him honestly enough by the lookout and he had simply given the necessary orders. It was perfectly natural that he should have sent Scott to look after the fire and left a sheep man to look after the sheep. Moreover, Dawson was in charge of Baxter’s district also. There never had been any trouble over there and Baxter thought he was all right. The ranger also stood very high in the judgment of the supervisor, who had had years of opportunity to size him up. No, he must have been mistaken about Dawson, but he chuckled to think how well he had judged Heth.

These discoveries did not make him like Heth any better but he certainly admired his nerve. How did he know that Dawson or some of the others would not drop in there to inspect the counting of the sheep? Yes, it had certainly taken plenty of nerve and Heth seemed to have it.

In the meanwhile, the fence building was progressing rapidly. When they came to the side of the caÑon for posts or brush Scott caught an occasional remark, but the work kept them out too far most of the time. From what little he did hear he knew that they considered their plan a big success and a tremendous joke on the greenhorn patrolman from the East.

At last the fence was completed all except a narrow opening which was to serve as a gate. There was nothing more to do but drive in the sheep. The herders looked with satisfaction on their work and rested from their exertion while Heth gave the fence a final inspection. He pronounced it good and ordered them to bring in the sheep. Scott was wondering what had become of the horse he had been trailing when Heth led him out of a clump of aspen near the bottom of the caÑon. He passed almost directly under Scott and a herder who had come over there to get a coat which he had laid aside called to him, “Where is the greenhorn now, Dugan?”

Scott started at that name addressed directly to Heth. He had heard them speak to Dugan before and he had heard Heth answer to it, but he had thought that Heth was simply volunteering an answer to a question addressed to another man. Now there could be no question about it; there was no one else there. Even the man’s name was a fake. No wonder Baxter had never heard of him.

Scott itched to jump down there on them and show them where he was, but he realized now that it would be neither safe nor politic. He must let this thing go till he had counted the sheep out through the chute. Then would be the time to disclose his discovery. He could not prove anything now. He had no witnesses to what he had heard and there was no regulation to prevent the herders from penning some of their sheep up in the mouth of the caÑon if they wanted to do so. He must wait.

Dugan’s answer made him chuckle. “He’s over getting some pointers from Baxter on estimating bands of sheep.”

“He’ll go back and take some more when he gets through counting ours to-morrow,” the herder laughed.

Dugan rode through the gate and over to one side of the fence. “Drive them in now, boys,” he called. “I saw Dawson this afternoon and he said he would have Mr. Ramsey up for the recount so that we could rub it into the greenhorn right. He won’t last long after that.”

Scott smiled when he thought what a jar their plans for his disgrace were going to get. Then his forehead wrinkled in wonder. If Dugan had seen Dawson this afternoon as he said, it must have been Dawson’s horse which he tracked from the chute over to the ridge. It looked as though the ranger must know what was going on.

Dugan had started to ride away when one of the herders called after him, “Has Jed seen Dawson yet about that reservoir?”

“No,” Dugan shouted back, “but Dawson promised to ’phone me to-night and say where he would meet him.” Dugan rode rapidly away toward the chute and the herders prepared to pack the sheep into the enclosure.

Scott watched the proceedings with interest. It was his business to learn as much as possible about handling sheep and this looked like a good opportunity. Moreover he could not get out of there now without being seen and secrecy had become important.

One of the herders walked out to the sheep, picked out an old bellwether and led her quietly down toward the caÑon. Scott had expected a great deal of excitement, but the old sheep walked along peaceably enough and all the others streamed along behind. The leader once inside the others crowded eagerly to get through. One of the herders stood beside the gate and made a rough estimate as they rushed past.

In half an hour the caÑon was filled with a seething mass of nearly three thousand sheep. The brush gate was dropped into place and the cache was complete. Dugan had over-estimated the size of the caÑon. They were packed in so tightly that some of them were forced far down into the neck of the caÑon within twenty feet of the valley below. The herders had taken the precaution to block that narrow opening with a pile of brush but the sheep seemed to know that it was there and instinctively crowded away from it.

The excessive crowding and the excitement of the sheep outside that could not get through the gate made those inside nervous. They milled around restlessly, crowding now in this direction and now in that. It seemed to Scott that some of them must inevitably be trampled to death. There was a perfect bedlam of noises.

At last the herders with the aid of the dogs finally succeeded in driving those outside the fence away and the excitement subsided a little. Fortunately the bands were headed east along the open bench and did not go back into the timber where they would have seen Jed. One of the herders stayed behind to see how the prisoners would behave.

Scott was beginning to wonder how he could get out of there without being seen when he saw one of the other herders coming back. The two consulted together for a moment but the noise of the sheep made it impossible for Scott to hear anything. The newcomer then came over to the end of the fence next to Scott, scrambled over it and began working his way along the side of the caÑon on top of the talus slope at the foot of the wall. It was uncertain footing. Stones rolled from under his feet and frightened the already excited sheep. Little groups began bolting this way and that and piling up their neighbors.

The man was almost directly under Scott before his purpose became apparent. It was only another case of a forgotten coat. The man was swearing volubly at the slippery talus. He put on the coat for easier carrying and started crawling back. Twice he slipped and only saved himself from tobogganing down into the sheep by the aid of a friendly stump. The third time he braced his foot against a large bowlder. The shale under the bowlder crunched ominously for a second. The bowlder trembled, slid a few feet with the sliding shale and then rolled bounding down into the mass of frightened sheep.

The crazed animals struggled madly to get away, they only succeeded in piling up on those immediately around them. Scott shut his eyes as the great bowlder crashed relentlessly into the writhing mass. The cries of the injured animals put terror into the rest and they milled around wildly, trampling each other down, and scrambling over the backs of others.

Suddenly the mass surged down the caÑon and two or three on the lower edge, maddened with fright, dashed over the pile of brush and disappeared over the edge of the cliff.

Even the thought of an injured animal had always seemed horrible to Scott. The sight of a starving cow he had once seen had haunted him for days. Now the thought of those poor animals dashed to pieces on the rocks below made a great lump rise in his throat. The sight that followed sickened him.

No sooner had those three sheep disappeared over the edge of that pile of brush than the others streamed madly after them. The first rush swept the brush pile over the edge and that great mass of sheep poured after it. They crowded into the narrow neck of the caÑon as though it had been a stable door and plunged over the edge of the cliff without the slightest hesitation.

Scott lay in his little clump of aspens paralyzed with horror. His body and limbs seemed to turn to ice, he could not move them. He wanted to cry out to the herders who could not see what was happening from where they were. He wanted to look away from that awful sight, but he could neither shout nor turn his head. He just stared with glassy eyes and horror in his heart.

The herders could not see past the neck of the caÑon from where they were, but they knew sheep and with the first wild rush down the caÑon they realized what was taking place. They scrambled madly along the edges of the caÑon, fighting their way toward that narrow pass. Desperately they tried to stem that fatal tide. They might as well have tried to push back the tide of the ocean. One of them was nearly swept over the edge by the living stream. Rapidly and inevitably the big band sifted through that narrow pass like the sands of the hour glass.

Only a hundred of them were left. The men made a last frantic effort to head them off. They succeeded in turning them for a second, but only for a second. The bewildered sheep stopped for an instant, made a wild rush and disappeared after the others. One of the herders dived desperately into the bunch and succeeded in catching a small ewe. She struggled violently and the herder, exhausted by his exertions, lost his hold. The ewe seemed dazed at first and trotted a few steps up the caÑon, but she quickly got her bearings and dashed wildly over the cliff.

The two herders lay alone on the trampled floor of the little caÑon, exhausted, dazed by the sudden tragedy which had befallen them, and gazed despairingly at each other.

Scott felt like a man coming out of a trance. He passed his hand absently over his eyes. His forehead was clammy with a cold perspiration. He felt sick. Not a sound came from the valley below. The silence of death in the little caÑon seemed uncanny after the pandemonium of the moment before. He could not think, he had no plan; he did not know where he was going; he just had a wild desire to get away from that loathsome place.

Shudderingly he backed out of that little clump of aspen and staggered blindly toward the forest.