Clarence Edward Mulford

WITH HIS SHADOW BEFORE HIM

The following morning was a quiet one in Gunsight and a stranger entering the town would have thought an epidemic of sleeping sickness had raided it, for yawns would have met him wherever he turned, and quite some headaches, the owners of which were short of temper and ugly in words. Dave dozed in his chair and his countenance was not a smiling one. He opened his eyes from time to time and fell asleep again with a scowl. Ben Dailey petulantly cursed everything his clumsy fingers bungled, and it can be said that clumsiness was not the normal condition of those digits. Art Fanning, whose hired man could run the routine affairs of the hotel as well without him, turned and tossed on his bed, finally getting up and poking his head out into the hall. Thinking he heard a noise in Nelson's room, he went to the door and hammered on it.

"House afire?" demanded Johnny, sleepily.

"No; but my head is," growled Fanning. "What you say about a bucket of roarin' strong coffee for us sinners?"

"I say yo're shoutin'. Comin' in?"

"Naw; I got to put on some clothes—an' find some socks; these here are roundin' my heels an' climbin' up my laigs. I'm shore hard on socks," he growled. Leaning over the stairs he let out a bellow, "Hey, George!"

"I'll swear he heard you," said Johnny. "Mebby th' Bar H did, too. I never saw nobody go under so quick from liquor as Big Tom an' Squint."

"Hey, George!" yelled Fanning. "Oh, they was well ribbed before they hit town. Where th'——"

"What you want?" asked a voice from below.

"What you think I want!" retorted Fanning. "Yore gran'mother's aunt? You brew us a quart of coffee apiece, and brew it my way. I been bit by a snake."

"I don't want none of that paint," objected George, surprised.

"Who said you did?" snapped Fanning. "Who cares what you want? Nelson an' I'll handle that. Jump lively or I'll shoot down th' stairs."

"Shoot, if you wants. They don't belong to me. You can shoot down th' house, if you wants!" George slammed the door with vim. "'Bit by a snake!' Bet it was a hydrophoby skunk. I'll brew him some coffee that'll stunt his growth, blast him!"

After breakfast, during which his companion found fault three times with everything in sight, Johnny wandered around and dropped in to see Jerry Poole, the harness-maker. Jerry's mouth tasted of burnt leather and alum from his night's indiscretions and he was so unendurably ugly that his visitor, twiddling his fingers at him, dodged a chunk of wax and departed, going into Dailey's.

"Hello, yoreself!" growled Dailey. He fumbled a ball of cord, dropped it, and kicked it through a window. "Now look what you done!" he yelled.

Johnny wheeled, slammed the door, and wandered to the Palace. Peering in, he assayed a test of Dave's hospitality.

"How do you feel?" he asked, loudly. "You was goin' too fast with th' juniper."

Dave straightened up, glared at him for a moment and found a more comfortable position. "You can go to Juniper, or h—l, for all I care!" he grunted, and went off to sleep again.

Johnny leaned against the wall in momentary indecision. Hearing shuffling steps, he looked up to see Two-Spot rounding the corner. His face brightened. Here was someone with whom he could talk.

"Howd'y, Ol' Timer," he said, cheerily.

"Howd'y," grunted Two-Spot, and passed into the Palace. There was a noise within, a crashing of chair legs, and a thunder of words. Two-Spot came out again in undignified haste, crossed the street in three leaps and, turning, shook his unwashed fist at Dave, Johnny, Gunsight, and Creation, and told his opinion of them all.

Johnny shook his head and went around the corner. "Pepper's th' only company fit to 'sociate with; an' a ride won't do me no harm. Reckon I'll go down an' wander around that hill between th' SV an' th' Triangle. I ain't been south of that valley yet." He looked up at the sun. "Cussed if it ain't noon already!"

While Gunsight slept or swore, the day's work was going on as usual on the SV. Arnold had finished a hurried breakfast and ridden out to the north boundary of his ranch, at that point not more than a mile from the house, to continue setting posts for a fence. His boundary ran along the foot of hills heavily covered with brush and timber and he had grown tired of turning his cattle from them. Having found several rolls of wire left by the former owner of the SV, he determined to use them and make them go as far as they would. If they reached no farther than across the Devil's Gulch section and the creek, he would be repaid for his labor.

Reaching the gulch, he started to work and found the task disheartening. The ravine was rocky and bowlder-strewn and he had difficulty in finding places for the posts. More than half of the morning had passed when he reached the bottom of the gulch and began to look for a place where his shovel would do more than scratch rock. After a fruitless search he abandoned the idea of digging and determined to build a cairn around the post. Taking a crowbar, he attacked the side of the gulch and sent several rocks rolling down. He was prying at a small bowlder with indifferent success when the rock under it, giving way unexpectedly in a small slide of gravel and shale, freed the bowlder suddenly and sent it crashing downward before he could get out of its way. It passed over his left leg and he dropped in agony, the leg broken below the knee. There was only one thing for him to do and he tried it, despite the excruciating pain. He had to drag himself to his horse and get into the saddle somehow. There was no way to call for help with any chance of being heard, for he did not pack a gun, believing himself safer without one. Not being able to use a six-gun well, he knew he would have no chance against men who used them as though they were an integral part of themselves; and to carry a weapon under those circumstances would be suicidal, for he then would become an armed man and have to assume the responsibilities of one.

After what seemed to be an age, he finally reached the top of the gulch, and saw his horse. Resting for a few minutes, he again dragged himself forward. The horse wheeled, pricked up its ears and stared at him in panicky fear. Snorting, the animal dashed away at top speed, the injured man calling after it in despair.

Back in the ranchhouse Margaret set the table for the noon meal. The dinner was nearly cooked when she glanced out of the window and saw her father's saddled horse standing at the corral. Going to the door, she called out that dinner was ready, well knowing her father's habit of not coming until the food was nearly spoiled. Her brother appeared from the tool shed and splashed with the wash basin, which he firmly believed was all that was necessary; but his sister, wise in the ways of boyhood, thought otherwise.

"Don't you dare to touch that towel," she warned. "If you want any dinner, wash your hands and face with soap—get them wet, anyway. Charley, for a ten-year-old boy you are hopeless!"

"An' for a twenty-year-old woman you are a nuisance," retorted Charley. "You women don't do nothing but find fault. Where's dad?"

"I don't know. When you have washed go tell him that dinner will be spoiled if he doesn't hurry."

Charley growled something, made a creditable effort at revealing his face, and departed to find his father. After a short but fruitless search, he returned and reported his failure. "Wonder where he went?" he demanded.

Margaret felt a chill of apprehension. Fears of this kind were not strangers to her, for she had felt many of them in the last two years. "Perhaps Lazy wandered home without him," she suggested. "It wouldn't be the first time. You would better saddle Pinto, and go see. Take Lazy with you."

"Go yourself."

"If you want any dinner you'd better be starting. The sooner you return, the sooner you will eat," she declared, with vexation. "You know that I cannot leave now."

"All right!" growled Charley. He slouched to the corral, saddled Pinto, caught Lazy, and loped toward the gulch.

Margaret's impatience gave way to a nameless fear as the minutes passed without sign of the "men." Going to the door again, she looked out, caught her breath, and then ran toward the corral. Her father, supported in the saddle by her brother, was riding slowly toward the house.

"Dad's broke his leg, Peggy; a big rock come down on it," said Charley, gloomily. "Help me get him into the house."

Between them they soon had him on his bed and Margaret told her brother to ride to Gunsight for the doctor.

"He won't come," groaned the injured man. "If he wouldn't come when you needed him, he won't come for me. Don't waste any time with Reed—I wouldn't have the blackguard if he would come! Charley, you'll have to make that ride to Highbank again. I hate to ask it of you, but there is nothing else to be done. Forty-five miles is too long a ride for Peggy, and besides, I need her here. Eat your dinner, sonny, and then start as soon as you can. I only hope Doctor Treadwell is sober enough to sit a horse when you get there."

"Gee, Dad! I can do it!" Charley asserted. "I did it before in five hours—I'll do it in less this time. Pinto can run all day, for she's a good little horse. Take good care of him, Sis; I'm off."

Grabbing a chunk of meat, and stuffing his pockets with bread, Charley dashed out of the house, climbed into the saddle, and rode off. "Come on, Pinto!" he pleaded. "It's goin' to be a long, hard wait for dad!"

Fording the river, he took the slope of the hill beyond at a walk and, reaching the crest, shot down the other side. Soon he came to a better trail, where the Triangle punchers rode when they went out to their north line. He had not gone far along it before he saw a horseman ahead of him, and when the rider turned and looked back, Charley felt a thrill of fear. It was Squint Farrell.

Squint was still going home from Gunsight and he was not yet sober. Worse than that, he was in a savage mood. When his outfit had started for the ranch, in the early, dark hours of the morning, he had fallen behind them, stupid with drink. At the end of one of his spells of mental oblivion he suddenly realized that he was alone, and urged his horse forward in hope of overtaking his friends. If left to itself the animal would have followed the trail to the ranch; but in his sodden frame of mind the rider knew better. "G'wan!" he ordered, pulling savagely on the reins, and barely managing to ride out the ensuing bucking. "Where you—goin'? I'm boss of this—here outfit an' I'm goin' home. I'll—point this here herd. G'wan!" The result was that when day broke and Squint aroused himself and looked around he had no idea of where he was. "It's further'n I reckoned," he muttered. "Don't care: I'm goin' to sleep." He dismounted, made the horse fast to a sapling, and soon was asleep. When he awakened he looked around in bewilderment and began to take note of his surroundings. Mounting his horse, he rode around and finally got his bearings. He was miles east of the ranchhouse and, with a savage burst of profanity, he turned the horse and started for home. As he crossed the SV-Triangle trail he heard the rapid drumming of a horse's hoofs and, drawing rein, waited to see who it was.

"Wonder if he got lost, too?" he muttered, and then the hard-riding horseman turned the corner and shot into the narrow defile. "Cussed if it ain't that brat from th' SV!" he exclaimed, and became instantly though hazily suspicious. "Here, you!" he shouted. "What you doin' on this range? Where you goin' so fast?" He turned his horse across the narrow trail, effectually blocking it. "You speak up, an' don't give me none o' yore lip! Where you goin'?" He reached for the pinto's bridle, but missed it as Charley pulled the pony back on its haunches and backed away.

"I'm going to Highbank for the doctor; dad's broken his leg," answered the boy, trying to get past.

"Oh, are you?" snarled Squint "Wish he'd busted his neck! Go 'round an' git on th' trail where you oughter; you can't cross this ranch."

"You don't belong to it," argued the boy. "This is the Triangle; and I haven't got time to go back now. Please, Mr. Farrell, let me past I can't waste any time!"

"Can't you?" sneered Squint "I say yo're goin' 'round th' way you should. G'wan, now! Turn 'round, an' d—d quick, before I does it for you! D—d brat!"

"Please, Mr. Farrell," pleaded the boy. "Let me past. Dad's suffering, and I've got to hurry."

"'Please, Mr. Farrell,'" mimicked Squint, savagely. "You goin' to do what I say?" he demanded, drawing his Colt and waving it menacingly. "I got a notion not to let you go at all, no way. You turn that cayuse, an' move fast. Hear me?"

In his desperation Charley forgot his fear. There was only one way to save the precious miles, and he took it. The sides of the defile were steep, and studded with bowlders, but he dug his heels into the pony's sides and sent him scrambling like a goat up the left-hand bank. He was ten feet above Squint before that surprised individual realized what had occurred; but with the realization came a burst of drunken rage. The heavy gun chopped down and flamed. Pinto rose straight up on his quivering hind legs, stood poised for an instant, and then crashed backward and rolled down to the trail, his rider barely having time to throw himself from the saddle.

"Now you can hoof it!" shouted Squint, brandishing the gun. "Next time you'll listen, an' do what yo're told. G'wan home, now!"

"D—n you!" blazed Charley, groping his way down the bank, and kneeling at the side of the little horse. Realizing what was at stake, he flung himself down on the dead pony and sobbed as though his heart would break.

Squint kneed his horse forward. "Don't you cuss me!" he warned. "Don't you do it, you brat! Serves you right: now you can hoof it!" He urged his horse into a lope and rode down the trail, arguing with himself, and finally burst into uproarious laughter at the trick he had played.

Johnny, riding as quietly as possible along the side of the big hill, just below and south of the SV-Triangle boundary, looking for rebranded cattle and other signs of range deviltry, pulled up short at the sound of a distant shot. It fitted in very nicely with his suspicious frame of mind and, thinking that he might catch some one red-handed in some of the things he had been searching for, he sent Pepper tearing down the slope and arrived at the trail shortly after Squint had departed. Rounding a turn, he saw the defile and the pitiful scene it held, and he pulled Pepper to her haunches and leaped from the saddle.

"Well, sonny," he said, cheerfully, "yo're in tough luck, but cryin'—" then he saw the wound in the horse and his eyes narrowed. "Who shot that cayuse?" he demanded.

Charley told him between sobs.

"Tell me all about it," demanded Johnny, but when the tale was half over he sprang into the saddle and started down the trail at top speed. "Stay there, sonny," he shouted over his shoulder. At the speed he was making he did not have to ride long before he caught sight of his quarry and he loosened his rope, shook it free, and leaned forward in the saddle.

Squint, still arguing, had a Colt in his upraised, waving hand, and was making so much noise with his mouth, and was so interested in and spellbound by his own eloquence that he failed to hear the rolling hoofs behind him until too late. As he turned, the sailing loop dropped over his upraised arm, tightened and pulled him from his horse which, slowing down, soon stopped and fell to grazing. Squint landed on his back, the gun exploding and flying from his hand, his sombrero going to the other side. Johnny came up along the taut rope, swung down, and scooped up the gun, and then released the lariat, recoiling it for future use. Squint opened his eyes, considerably more sober than he had been for twelve hours, and sat up, dazed and angry.

"What th'—" he began.

"Shut yore face!" snapped Johnny. "Pick up yore hat an' hoof it to yore cayuse. You was headed wrong, so I stopped you. Move rapid, or I'll provide some dance music!"

Squint tried his legs and arms, found them still to be working, and sullenly plodded to his horse. Mounting, he surrendered his rifle in compliance to orders, and then loped back the way he had come, Johnny riding one length in his rear.

"Squint," said his captor in a hard, level voice, "if you give me the least excuse I'll blow you apart. I've seen some mangy humans, but I never run across a two-laigged polecat like you. I hate to tell you anythin' that'll save yore life, an' I'm hopin' you'll forget it. I'll tell you just once: You behave yoreself like you never did before, an' move lively when I speak. Keep looking ahead! You don't have to look around to hear, do you?"

Squint preserved an unbroken silence and soon they reached the scene of his outrage and stopped. Johnny ordered him to ride on for a hundred feet.

"That's him, Mister!" excitedly cried Charley. "That's th' big bum!"

"I agree with you, buddy," answered Johnny. "Now you tell me all of it, over again." He listened in grave silence until the pitiful tale was told and then pointed to Pepper's back, behind him. "Climb up, sonny. Squint an' me are passin' close to yore house an' we'll take you as far as we can. You don't mind walkin' a few miles, do you?"

"But I can't go!" protested Charley. "I got to go to Highbank for th' doctor. I only hope he ain't drunk when I get there."

"How you goin'?" quizzically demanded Johnny.

"Don't know; but that don't make no difference—I just got to go, somehow! Mebby I could take Squint's horse," he suggested, emboldened by desperation.

Johnny shook his head. "You don't never want to ride a Bar H cayuse; 'tain't healthy. But, say, bud, we don't have to go to Highback at all—we can get th' Doc at Gunsight. You been eatin' loco weed?"

"He won't come," said the boy, whispering, and looking at Squint.

"Did you ask him?" asked Johnny in a low voice, taking the cue.

"No; but he wouldn't come when Peggy was sick—an' dad says to get Dr. Treadwell from Highbank."

"He wouldn't come when—when Peggy was sick?" demanded Johnny.

"No, sir; he said he'd treat cows an' horses, but he wouldn't sling a leg across a saddle if the whole SV was dying."

Johnny sat up very straight. "Climb up here, sonny. I'll get th' doctor for you—I can get to Highbank on this cayuse so quick you'd be surprised. First, I'll take you nearer home. Pronto, buddy! Yo're holdin' up th' drive. That's th' way; up you come!" He picked up the reins. "Squint," he called, "lead th' way, an' don't stay too close. We travel along th' foot of th' hill, on th' other side, goin' east after we get there."

"That ain't th' way to Highbank," said the boy.

"I know," replied Johnny. "When you grow up an' ride around th' country as long as I have, you'll find there's lots of ways gettin' to places. I'll have th' doctor at yore house by ten o'clock tonight, which is some hours before you could get him there. Now, don't you tell anybody who it was that helped you out. Plumb forget what me an' Pepper looked like. An' one thing more—if you say anything about what happened to that drunken coyote ahead, be sure an' tell 'em that he wasn't goin' to be killed, an' that they'll do th' stranger a great favor if they says nothin' about th' whole thing to nobody, nobody at all. Will you do that?"

"Shore, Mister," assured Charley. "Ain't he gettin' pretty far ahead?"

"Not as far as I'm hopin' he'll try to get. But he's got a most unpleasant memory, he don't forget nothin'—not nothin' you tell him."

Reaching the edge of the valley, they turned east and soon afterward Johnny checked his horse. "Here's where you get down, buddy. I hate to make you hoof it, but it won't be near as hard as ridin' down to Highbank an' back. Tell your sister to look for th' doctor at ten o'clock: I can't get him there any sooner. So-long, buddy."

"Thanks, Mister, but my name's Charley. I'm Charley Arnold."

"Glad to meet you, Charley," gravely replied Johnny. "I'll see you again some day, I hope. So-long, an' don't forget nothin'."

"No, sir. Thank you."

Johnny pushed forward until he was close behind his prisoner. "Hit it up, you!" he ordered. "Nice, easy lope; I ain't got all day, if I'm goin' to Highbank. That's something else I owe you for, you coyote. An' I'll have to wear out my cayuse, an' come back on a strange one. Oh, if you'll only make a break, or give me half an excuse to throw lead!"

The trail grew slowly but steadily worse, and when they finally reached the bottom of a long, rough slope Johnny ordered a halt.

"I figger we're twenty miles from Gunsight, near as I can judge," he said, "which leaves only ten to Rawlins. Get off that cayuse. You heard me. Yes; get off! Now, any man as shoots a fine little pinto pony an' tells a kid to walk, ought to do some of that walkin' hisself. Rawlins is ten miles; it's twenty to th' Triangle, an' with a lot of hills, an' a bad trail. Also, there's my six-guns. If I ever hear of you comin' back, or see you this side of Rawlins I'll get you. I want to make that plain. If it's th' last thing I do on earth, I'll—get—you! I ain't got no love for th' SV, but h—l ain't good enough for th' man that'll shoot a fine hoss to keep a kid from gettin' a doctor. Thinkin' as mebby you forgot last night, I'll give you another sample of my gunplay." He jerked out a gun and a hole appeared in the crown of Squint's hat. "When I say I'll get you, you know what it means. Turn around, an' keep yore shadow before you. Vamoose!"

Watching the hurrying Squint until satisfied that he intended to keep on in the right direction, Johnny turned back, leading the Bar H horse. He had watched the animal closely while driving Squint, and believed it to be in good enough condition to answer the demand he wished to make upon it. He could tell better when he got back to the SV range, in a certain woody draw near the main trail. This point was reached at dusk and he examined the horse, nodded his head, and picketed the animal to a tree with Squint's lariat. The two hours would do wonders for it. Leaving the Bar H horse, he led his own farther back in the draw and tied it to a tree with his lariat. Returning to Squint's mount, he took the slicker from behind the saddle and unrolled it, picking up the worn gloves which rolled out of it. Finishing his preparations, he went on a reconnaissance on foot, smiled as he saw the dim light in the Doc's house, and quickly returned to the horse.