"If you"ll do my way," continued Lee thoughtfully, "I"ll have just enough time to roll a smoke and saddle little old Climax. He"s in the stable now. You"re not afraid of my double-crossing you? Even if a smart-headed man had planned the hold-up he wouldn"t figure on a play like this. He"d think we"d have a Rocky Bender bring it out or else wait until to-morrow."
"It won"t do," she decided quickly. "I want that money here at six o"clock."
"Eighty miles," mused the horse foreman. "Six hours. That"s riding right along, but do it my way and I"ll gamble you my own string of horses--and they"re worth considerable more than a thousand--that I"ll be back, heeled, at six."
Judith, quick at decisions, looked him hard in the eye, heard his plan, and three minutes later Bud Lee, a revolver in his shirt, rode away from the ranch-house, headed toward Rocky Bend. Judith already had called up Tripp, and the veterinarian himself, leading the fastest saddle-horse he could get his hands on at brief notice, was also riding toward Rocky Bend, from the Lower End, five miles in advance of Lee at the start. He went at a gentle trot, consulting his watch now and then.
So Bud Lee, riding as once those hard, dare-devil riders rode who carried across the land the mail-bag of the Pony Express, overtook Doc Tripp and changed to a fresh horse at the end of the first fifteen miles. He swung out of his saddle, stretched his long legs, remarked lightly that it was a real fine day, and was gone again upon a fresh mount with twenty-five miles between him and Rocky Bend. The clock at the bank marked forty-three minutes after two as Lee, leaving a sweating horse at the door on Main Street, presented his check at the paying teller"s window. The money, in a small canvas bag, was ready.
"h.e.l.lo, Bud," and "h.e.l.lo, Dan"l," was the beginning and end of the conversation which ensued. Lee did not stop to count the money. He drew his belt up a hole as he went back to the door, found a fresh horse there fighting its bit and all but lifting the stable-boy off his feet, mounted and sped back along Main Street.
Judith was to send out another man leading still another fresh horse for him so that he could not fail to be back at the ranch-house by six o"clock. As Bud Lee, riding hard but never without thought for the horse which carried him, began the return trip, he drew the heavy caliber revolver from his shirt and thrust it into his belt. When he had left Rocky Bend half a dozen miles behind him and was hurrying on into the outskirts of that country of rolling hills and pine forests, his hand was never six inches from the gun-b.u.t.t.
The road wound in and out among the pines, always climbing. Lee raced on, his eyes bright and keen, watchful and suspicious of every still shadow or stirring branch. Coming up the two-mile-long Cuesta Grade, he saved his horse a little. From the top of the mountain, before he again followed a winding road back to the river"s side, he saw a horseman riding a distant ridge; the glinted upon the rider"s rifle.
"Old Carson himself," thought Lee. "Looking for the hold-up man.
Shucks! They"ll never find him this trip."
Letting his own animal out into its swinging stride as he got down to more level going, he hammered on at his clip of fifteen miles an hour.
In the thick shade of the forest, three miles before he came to the line fence of the Blue Lake ranch, he saw another horseman, this one Ed Masters, the "college kid." The young fellow"s flushed, eager face pa.s.sed in a blur as Lee shot by.
Another mile, and Bud Lee was riding through a clearing, with the tall cliffs of Squaw Creek canon looming high on his left, when suddenly and absolutely without warning, his horse screamed, gathered itself for a wild plunge, staggered, stood a moment trembling terribly, then with a low moan collapsed under him.
Lee swung out and to one side, landing clear as the big brute fell. He did not understand. He had ridden the animal hard but certainly not hard enough for this. And then he saw and his eyes blazed with anger.
He had heard no shot, nothing beyond the metallic pounding of the shod hoofs on flinty road, but there from an ugly hole in the neck the saddle-horse was pouring out its blood.
"Smokeless powder and a Maxim silencer!" muttered Lee, his eyes taking note of the ten thousand possible hiding-places on the cliff"s.
In his ears there was a little whine as a second bullet sang its way by his head. Again he sought to locate the marksman, again saw nothing but crag and precipice and brushy clump. He took time for that thing which came so hard to him, sent a bullet from his own revolver into his horse"s brain, and then slipped out of the clearing into the shelter of the pines.
"Two miles left to the border line," he estimated it. "Afoot."
Stiff from the saddle, he moved on slowly for a little. But as his muscles responded and warmed to the effort, he broke into a trotting run. Only a little now could he keep under cover; if he went on with any degree of speed he must keep to the road and the open. The thought came to him that he might lie under cover until dark. The second thought came to him that he had a.s.sured Judith that he would be back on time, and he forged ahead.
For the second time that day he heard the whine of a bullet. He thought that the shot came from the cliffs just at the head of Squaw Creek canon. But he could not be sure. There was ample protection there for a man hiding, tall brush in a hollow and three or four stunted trees, wind-twisted. He"d make the climb to-morrow and see about it. Now he"d keep right on moving. Little used to travelling save on a horse"s back he was shot through with odd little pains when at last he came to the border-line fenced and the waiting horse. Tommy Burkitt held it for him while Lee mounted.
"Somebody up on the cliffs, head of the canon," panted Lee at Tommy"s amazed expression when Lee came running into sight. "Killed my horse.
Go after him, Tommy. Tell the other boys." And on he went, pounding out the last fifteen miles, the canvas bag beating safely against his side.
Judith, in the courtyard, watched him ride in. She looked swiftly at him from the watch on her wrist. Her eyes brightened. It lacked seven minutes to six. As Bud dropped the canvas bag into her hands she flashed at him the most wonderful, radiant smile that the long horseman had ever seen. She gripped his lean, brown hand hard in hers.
"Bud, you"re a brick!" she cried.
Mrs. Langworthy had just come out with Hampton, Trevors, and the major.
Judith turned from Lee to Trevors but managed to keep half an eye on Mrs. Langworthy.
"You see, it"s pay-day with us, Mr. Trevors," she said quietly. "And when pay-day comes we pay our men at six o"clock in spite of h.e.l.l and high water!"
Bud Lee, leading his horse away, turned for a word. "A man killed a horse for me to-day," he said very gently, and his eyes rested steadily upon Trevors. "If I ever get him, or the man who put him up to it, I"m going to get him right."
IX
THE OLD TRAIL
On the Blue Lake Ranch there was more than one man ready to scoff at the idea of a robbery like this one, frank enough to voice the suspicion: "It"s just a stall for time!" So much had last week"s rumor done for them, preparing them to expect something that would set aside the customary monthly pay-day. But when they had seen Charlie Miller"s bruised head and heard his story; when they had sat on their horses and looked down at the animal which had been shot under Bud Lee, they were silent. And, besides, when long after dark they came in behind Carson from a fruitless quest, their pay was ready for them as formerly, in gold and silver.
Major Langworthy imbibed an unusually large number of c.o.c.ktails and long before noon of the following day had suggested that the ranch be put immediately under military law, hinting that a military-mustached gentleman be appointed commanding general of the Blue Lake forces, and forming within his own mind the picture of himself in the office, revolver on table, c.o.c.ktail at elbow, directing the manoeuvres from this point of vantage, not to say safety. Mrs. Langworthy ruffled her feathers and sniffed when Judith"s name was mentioned. It was perfectly clear to her that all the ruffians of the West would be quick to take the advantage arising from the ridiculous condition of a rowdy girl a.s.suming men"s pantaloons.
"I am rather inclined to think, mama," said Marcia, "that you don"t do Judith justice."
Trevors, with little to say to any one, took his departure in the forenoon, extracting from Hampton the promise to ride over and see the lumber-camp some day soon.
Judith, held at the office by a lot of first-of-the-month details, did not get away until close to eleven o"clock that morning. Then she rode swiftly down the river, a purpose of her own in mind. At the store she stopped for a sympathetic word with Charlie Miller who had long ago forgotten his own hurt in his grief and anger that he had lost her thousand dollars for her.
"What"s a thousand dollars, Charlie?" she laughed at him. "We"ll lose and make many a thousand before the year dies."
Just below the Lower End settlement she came upon Doc Tripp. He was in one of the quarantine hog-corrals, his sleeves rolled up, a puzzled look of worry puckering his boyish face.
"What"s up, Doc?" asked Judith.
"Don"t know, Judy. That"s what gets my mad up. Just performed an autopsy on one of your Poland-China gilts."
"Found it dead?" asked Judith.
"Killed it," grunted Tripp. "Sick. Half dozen more are off their feed and don"t look right. A man"s always afraid of the cholera. And,"
stubbornly, "I won"t believe it! There"s been no chance of infection; why, there"s not an infected herd this side of the Bagley ranch, sixty miles the other side of Rocky Bend, a clean hundred miles from here.
But, just the same, I"m taking temperatures this morning and having my herders cut out all the dull-looking ones and break the herds up."
"Not getting nerves? Are you, Doc?" And Judith spurred on down the valley.
Before she came to the spot where Bud Lee"s horse had been shot she came upon Lee himself. A rifle across his arm, he was looking up at the cliffs of Squaw Creek canon.
"Well, Lee," she said, "what do you make of it?"
He showed no surprise at seeing her and answered slowly, that far-away look in his eyes as though he were alone still and speaking simply to Bud Lee.
"Using smokeless powder nowadays is a handy thing for a man shooting under cover," he said. "Then rig up your gun with a silencer and get off at fair range, half a mile and up, with a telescope sight, and it"s real nice fun picking folks off!"
"All of that spells preparation," suggested Judith.
He nodded. When he offered no further remark but sat staring up at the cliffs, Judith asked:
"What else have you learned by coming back down here? Anything?"
"There were two men, anyway. I"d guess, three. The one who stuck up Charlie and then drifted while the drifting was good. Then the two other jaspers that tried to wing me."