Stagecoach Page 8

  “Good,” grunted Steve. “You come with us, kid.”

  But the other tramps now stood about in a close circle. They did not like the idea of two of their compatriots getting away with such a haul, undivided.

  “Look here, Lew,” one of them said, “d’you think that we’re simps enough to let you two get away with murder like this? Shell out, you tightwad. Lemme see the color of the coin that you got off him.”

  “He had twenty dollars,” Lew said. “I’ll give you ten and Steve and me’ll take the other ten.”

  “Listen to him sing,” scoffed another. “Twenty dollars was all they got, and that’s all that they’re excited about. Twenty dollars! Look here, Steve, it ain’t gonna do.”

  “Maybe you’ll search us?” Steve asked harshly.

  “Maybe we will.”

  “Maybe you’ll be . . .”

  “Lew, drop that gun.”

  “Why, damn your heart . . .”

  “Hello!” the sleepy voice called from beneath the tree. “Bring him back here. You can’t whack up square. You have to snarl like a lot of starved dogs over one bone. Bring him back here!”

  Sullenly, but submitting to an authority too great for them to resist, Lew and Steve led Sammy Gregg back before the chief, and, stepping forth from the shadows of the tree, Sammy saw a person no other than his quondam beggar and minstrel of Munson, his gambler par excellence—Jeremy Major.

  And Jeremy Major recognized him. Aye, at the moment, that was the thing of importance. He did not hesitate an instant, but, stepping forward, he caught the hand of Sammy and shook it heartily.

  “Were you hunting for me?” he asked. “And so you ran into this crowd?”

  “The devil,” muttered Steve. “He’s a pal of the chief.”

  The chief had not waited for any explanation. His voice had an edge like a rasp as he turned to the two captors. “Everything!” he commanded sharply. “Tumble it all out and lay it in that coat of mine. And if he misses anything, I’ll come after you and let you know about it.”

  So, to the utter amazement of Sammy, nearly $300 in coin was scrupulously counted out before this odd leader, and on top of the other pile of loot, finally, the two long Colts were laid, one across the other.

  “Is that all?” asked the chief.

  “That’s everything,” said Sammy.

  “Nothing else that you want?”

  “A chance to go on my way for help . . . that’s all,” Sammy replied.

  “Sit down, then,” Jeremy Major suggested. “Sit down and let me hear about it. Because, old-timer, I owe you money, and just now I’m broke.”

  Broke? Sammy remembered the heaps and heaps of chips that had been stacked before the place of Jeremy Major not so many weeks before, and every chip had meant gold in that million-dollar game. Where had it gone? Suddenly it seemed to Sammy that his own affairs and his own losses were too small for even a pigmy to consider with interest.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Now with his money gone, Jeremy Major was chief. But chief of what? If these were thieves, who spiced little household and back-yard pilferings with occasional adventures on the broad highway, and if they called Major “chief”, nevertheless Sammy himself had heard the leader tell them that he would not touch stolen money. A strange streak of virtue in one who thought nothing of cheating at cards. But each man to his own gods and his own altars.

  “Come,” said Jeremy Major. “Sit down here with me, if you please, and let me hear the story. You were throwing away ten-dollar gold pieces when I last saw you, and now you seem rather down on your luck. What’s happened?”

  He had waved away the others. And the knaves retired, grumbling and mumbling, to sit in corners of the glade and glower savagely at their chief and his friend. Only the horse of Sammy was left standing near them, and the tall mare, glad of the good forage here, began to crop the shade-nourished grasses.

  There Sammy told his story. He put in everything, because his companion seemed bent upon hearing every scruple of the tale. He told of the first adventure, and the loss of the horses at Munson, and the encounter with Cumnor, and what tall and handsome Furness had had to say. He went on with the tale of the second disastrous expedition, the storm, and the regathering of the scattered herd, and the new stampede that had broken the spirit of himself and his two stanch allies.

  Jeremy Major listened to this tale with a wandering eye that often roved above the head of his friend and rested on the branches of the great pine above them, as though he were more interested, by far, in the squirrel that scampered there than in the words of Sammy Gregg.

  “So,” Sammy concluded, “I have told you the whole story, because you asked for it. And now I’ll ride on into the town to get another pair of ’punchers to help us out, if I can.” He stood up, and Jeremy shook his head.

  “But look here,” Jeremy said, “I don’t see that five men will have a better chance to head that wild herd than three would have. It seems to me that what you need is a fast horse that can carry a rider around the herd faster than they can run away from him.”

  Sammy Gregg smiled a wan smile. “That mare,” he said, “is about as fast as any horse you could get. But she can’t head the mustangs unless she’s within a few yards of the head of them at the start of their run. And even when she does get in front of them, they simply try to run her down.”

  “Well,” murmured Jeremy sympathetically, “I’ll show you a horse that they won’t run down. Hello, Clancy. Come here, you fat, worthless loafer, and let the gentleman see you. Hey, Clancy!”

  In answer to this somewhat peevish call a glimmering black form slid out from the shadows and stood before Sammy Gregg with an inquisitive eye upon his master. And the sunlight scattering through the branches of the tree tossed a random pattern of brightest, deepest gold over the black satin of the stallion’s coat. And Sammy Gregg, who was only beginning to know enough about horses to form a picture in his mind of an ideal—Sammy Gregg, staring at this black monster, with a new vision, understood why the stallion as he stood could be worth more than the value of all the four wild mustangs that had been driven to him across the Río Grande—worth more than the four hundred could ever fetch if they were delivered even in far-off Crumbock, where the labor of the mines used up horseflesh hungrily every day.

  “I’m going to ride back with you,” Jeremy Major explained, “and try to help you to drive those mustangs north. Not that I’m much of a fellow when it comes to handling mustangs. But Clancy, here, is. He has a way of handling them that would surprise you.”

  “Partner,” said Sammy, filled with awe, “I can’t afford to pay you what you’re worth.”

  “Thirty a month,” Major said, “will do for me. You start on out of the ravine and I’ll catch up with you. I have to say a few words to the boys before I leave them.”

  Sammy obeyed gladly enough, and with every step that the tall mare struggled up the side of the ravine, it seemed to Sammy that his heart was raised that much higher in hope. So he came to the level going above and let the mare canter briskly away. Back there toward the south, Gonzalez and Pedro were doing their best to come on traces of the herd. How long would it be before the rider of the black horse arrived?

  A scant half hour, and here he was, swinging across the plain beside him. And how lazily the big black went. Now there is a peculiar vanity in every man that makes him think that the horse he is riding can run a little faster than any other horse in the world—at least for a little distance. And Sammy, who had felt the tall mare take wings under him more than once, could not help slackening the reins a little. She stretched away at close to full speed instantly.

  “We might as well travel while we have a good surface . . . without prairie dog holes, you know,” Sammy said by way of explanation, and he turned to look back at the rider of the stallion. No, here was the black horse at his side. Galloping how easily—no, simply floating along, wind-blown, above the ground. For each of those tremendous bounds advanced the bi
g animal the length of a long room and yet he seemed merely to flick the ground with his hoofs in passing. There was no lurch of straining shoulders. There was no pounding of hoofs. But like a racing shadow the monster flew across the plain. Not freely, either, but with the hand of the master fixed on the reins, and keeping a stiff grip upon the stallion’s head, lest he might rocket away toward the horizon and leave the poor mare hopelessly and foolishly behind him.

  Sammy was in deep chagrin. But joy took the place of shame at once. How would this black giant round up the herd of the flying mustangs when they attempted to scatter away across the plains? Aye, there was not long to wait for that.

  They reached Pedro and Gonzalez in another hour or so—the mare foaming with her effort—the black untouched by his gallop. And Sammy saw the cunning eyes of the Mexicans flash wide in a stare of wonder as they surveyed Clancy.

  They had a hot trail, by this time, and by midafternoon, they sighted the herd—or at least a wing of it. Clancy was off at once. No fencing about to slip past them. He ran straight up on them, and while the three other riders pounded along far, far to the rear, vainly striving to keep up, they saw Jeremy Major go crashing through the herd.

  “But now that he is in front of them, what will he do . . . one man?” Gonzalez asked darkly. For Gonzalez knew horses, and particularly Gonzalez knew that herd.

  He was answered quickly enough. They saw the mustangs bunch rapidly together, while the shining stallion glimmered back and forth before them like a waved sword. That whole section of the herd abruptly turned and headed north again, and it had been managed in a trice—all in a trice. And only one sound had come to the ears of the rearward three as, in wonder, they spurred to the side to clear the path for the truant ponies—and that sound was the high-pitched neigh of an angry stallion.

  “Do you hear?” Gonzalez gasped. “He makes his horse talk to them. Who is this man?”

  That was not all. Through the rest of the afternoon the black horse and his rider ranged freely toward the south and east, and while Sammy and Pedro strove to steady the redeemed portion of the herd toward the north, Gonzalez dropped to the rear to pick up the sections of tired ponies as Major sent them flying in with the stormy neighing of the black horse ringing in their rear. The whole assembly was completed by the dusk. They counted heads, then, and found that the last stampede had cost them forty mustangs. Still there were two hundred and fifty ponies to take north, and at a good price all might still be well with Sammy Gregg. Except that the time was pressing, and the end of the six months drew daily closer and closer.

  But the daily drive became a different thing, after this. A thunderstorm caught them on the very next morning, but when the herd strove to race westward away from the flying rain, away from the ripping lightning, the black stallion was before them, ranging swiftly back and forth. And much as the herd might dread the wrath of the elements, they seemed to dread the wrath of Clancy even more. For presently their flight was checked, and they turned cringingly back to face the wind-driven rain.

  “This thing,” Gonzalez said somberly, “was never seen before. And I think that we shall never see it again. See how the black devil goes for them . . . hello! Has he taken the head off that one?”

  This as a fine, cream-colored horse showed a nasty pair of heels at the head of Clancy. But only to have the black bound up with him, and take him by the arched crest of the neck in his teeth and shake him as a cat shakes a rat. The frightened pony screamed with pain and terror, and his cry made the last of the rebels turn, shuddering, into the rain. They knew their master and his handiwork now.

  “And yet,” Gonzalez said, “I have seen the same thing. Now that I remember, I have seen a stallion turn his herd straight back into a sandstorm . . . to get them away from the danger of men that lay in front. But those were wild horses. And this . . . it is very strange.”

  “But beautiful,” Pedro added. “He has saved us two hundred miles of riding, this morning, with his work.”

  Aye, and the next day they saw the black stallion drive two hundred and fifty terrified mustangs straight at the railroad track, even while a train of cars was thundering across the desert.

  What time they made across the rest of the desert, and then over the foothills, while the mountains turned from blue to brown before them.

  “If we pass Munson with no trouble,” Sammy suggested. “But I think that that is the chief place of the horse thieves.”

  “We’ll do our best,” said Major. “But they’re not human if they don’t attempt to run this herd away. A quarter of a thousand mustangs . . . and prime good ones, too.”

  They did attempt it. But Sammy and the two Mexicans saw little of the effort. They only knew that it was made in full daylight by half a dozen masked men. They saw, from the rear, how the riders came storming down a ravine that they filled with their shouting. Only the black stallion was near enough to check them, and, to the bewilderment of Sammy and his two Mexicans, Jeremy Major charged straight at the enemy, gun in hand—a bullet for every stride of the black horse. Then one of the strangers ducked sharply over his saddle horn. They saw another slide sidewise to the ground. And then the rest whirled and rushed away for safety toward the head of the mountains.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The fallen man was not dead. But he had a broken shoulder from the fall and a bullet through the base of his neck, breaking the collar bone.

  Altogether, it was a nasty mess. They could not take him forty-five miles to Munson. They could not remain with him, until the wounds were healed.

  “We’ll give you your choice,” Sammy said to him sternly. “Tell me who was leading that gang and you go free, old son. And we leave you enough chuck, besides, to keep you going here until your pals come back for you. But if you won’t tell, you can stay here and starve.”

  The fellow had the assurance to laugh in their faces, as though he knew well enough that they could not be as good as their promises. “I’ll tell you what, though,” he said. “The gent that leads the gang is man enough to make the lot of you sweat for what you’ve done today.”

  And Sammy Gregg snapped at him: “Is his name Chester O. Furness?”

  The eyes of the wounded man widened. “Are you crazy?” he gasped. “But I’ve talked enough, and you get no more out of me.”

  They left him enough provisions to see him through, of course, but they did it grudgingly, and then they started on for the last and most arduous part of the trail—the final hundred miles to the Crumbock mines.

  They had two hundred and forty-five mustangs when they began that climb. They reached the mines with two hundred and twenty-eight.

  But though they were gaunt of belly now, oh, how they were needed at the mines. All that walked upon four legs, indeed, was welcomed there at Crumbock. There were even ox teams moiling and toiling slowly up toward the mines, grunting along the hard grades. And they had horses of every description. And somebody had brought in a troop of Spanish jennies to pack in provisions. For the Crumbock lode opened in the sheer side of a mountain ridge, with a host of other ridges gathered around it on either side. As someone had said, Nature had put the gold here and then started building fences. And what fences they were.

  The day was to come when graded roads, at a cost of many millions, would be driven through the heart of those mountains, but that day was far off and for the present the teamsters had to be content with jumping the fences. Up and down the steep-faced mountains, winding in and out among enormous boulders, the wagons wound their way. And the result was that almost one in three of the draft animals were lamed with every trip. The teamsters had to start out with extra spans hitched behind their wagons to splice into the teams to take the places of those who fell by the way.

  Nothing but the iron leg and the iron hoof of a mule could stand that labor, and where were they to get mules? They were rarer than diamonds, and almost as precious. And, in the meantime, horseflesh was at a premium. The very news of the coming of the herd was eno
ugh to cause a welcome to pour out in advance. Half a dozen eager buyers found Sammy on the way down the hillside, and when they heard that the price was $75 a head, he found his sales so swift that by the time he got to the bottom of the gulch, he was minus a hundred head of livestock and $7,500 in pocket.

  “Buck up that price to eighty-five dollars a throw,” Major advise. And the thing was done.

  But it made no difference. Teamsters were clearing enough in a single round trip to pay for horses and wagons and all, and leave a neat little wad of money over and above. What difference did $10 a head make to them?

  Sammy drew back from the hustling and left the Mexicans to handle the deal. And sitting in the saddle beside Jeremy Major, he said: “I got to tell you what that dust cloud and the things inside of it mean to me. It means that I’m going to be able to buy a home, and buy happiness inside of the home, too.”

  The lazy brown eyes of Jeremy Major turned slowly toward him. “Can you do that?” he asked mildly. “Can you buy happiness? I suppose you mean a wife, by that?”

  When the idea was presented thus bluntly to Sammy, he hardly knew how to answer, and Major seemed to feel his embarrassment, for he changed the subject abruptly. “Tell me one thing,” he said. “What made you ask if Furness were the leader of the horse thieves? Because of what happened to you in Munson?”

  “Because,” Sammy answered, “I thought I saw a gray horse in the crowd that looked like the horse that Furness was riding when I saw him in Munson.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “It was a fine, big, upstanding gray, with big dark dapples all over it. There might be others just like it, but one of the horses in that outfit looked mighty like it to me.”

  Major began to whistle a soft little tune. “We’ll have to have another look at Munson,” he said, grinning. “Things seem to be looking up around there. There goes the last of your mustangs, Gregg.”