Bertrand W. Sinclair

“ As it was, Charlie rode north alone. There had been a time when he never left that ranch in the valley without a rifle under his stirrup leather. When Buck Walters’ shadow lay like a menace across that range a man needed to be armed. But for a long time the Winchester carbine had reposed in Charlie’s bed, except when he occasionally hunted antelope or wolves. ”

“ And after breakfast, as he and Rock stood on the porch, Charlie looked out over the valley with a touch of regret. Four years is a long time, and just that period had elapsed since Rock Holloway came jogging across Lonesome Prairie, to look his first on the silver band of the Marias, to find himself faced at this very ranch with a tragic emergency. And now, Charlie reflected, Rock had a wife and a son and three thousand cattle and a ranch that was a tiny kingdom in itself. They had fought side by side against high-handed thieves. Charlie had drifted, and Rock had taken root. ”

“ A man’s business, unless he was on the pay roll of an outfit, was entirely his own. Rock knew that Charlie didn’t turn in his tricks without a reason. But he knew better than to inquire that reason if Shaw didn’t volunteer it. He watched Charlie ride, leading his pack horse, up the north bank of the Marias, some time later, with a certain amount of unsatisfied curiosity and a feeling that he should perhaps be riding alongside that fair-haired youth. And if Rock had known what worked in Charlie Shaw’s mind, he would have mounted and followed him. ”

“ Rock said. “We had a wild time here once, Charlie, and it looked like a tough game. Then we got organized, and it has been smooth as silk. I suppose there is always somebody who hasn’t got anything, cooking up a scheme for getting something for nothing.”
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked him bluntly.
“We’re shy about a hundred head of beef this fall,” Rock told him.
Charlie didn’t need the significance of that explained to him. He was a range rider, born to the business. He recalled those sun-dried hides in the grass. The Seventy-seven was losing cattle—beef cattle, too. ”

“ Charlie jogged on. A couple a day. If that camp didn’t consume at least fifteen hundred pounds of beef per diem, he was a poor judge of appetites. Beef was the cheapest food in the country. Men who worked ten hours a day behind plow and scraper could eat like the vikings of old. Two scraggy cows a day? Hardly.
Two miles south in a convenient hollow he picketed his horses. The rest of that day he lay low, keeping a more or less casual watch from a grassy rise. Nothing like a wagon arrived or departed. When dusk fell again, he packed his outfit and rode back to the construction camp. ”

“ He mounted the other horse and hazed his prisoner down the draw until he picked up his own outfit. Then he headed straight for the Marias, riding fast. Riders on fresh horses could beat that wagonload of stolen beef to the railroad camp. The Seventy-seven round-up would just about be camped at the ranch. It was a little closer to the Seventy-seven than to Rock Holloway’s, and Charlie felt that it would really be a lot of responsibility off his shoulders if he delivered his prisoner and his information straight to the hands of Elmer Duffy. ”

“ No serious-minded man ever has a high opinion of light-minded youth, and Charlie had been the play boy of the Seventy-seven all that summer—a competent enough range rider, with no proper sense of responsibility, according to Elmer. ”

“ Three-year-old beef steers were netting forty dollars in Chicago; cows about thirty. A fair three-year-old would dress six or seven hundred pounds; a cow four or five hundred. At three cents they would bring about eighteen and fifteen dollars respectively. Charlie had named those prices to the contractor as a bait, and if he hadn’t caught a fish, he had at least got a nibble that quickened his pulse. No rancher would sell beef for half what it would bring in the open market. If that railroad camp got beef at anywhere near that price, it was stolen beef. ”

“ With the fellow’s own reata he tied both wrists securely behind his back.
“Next time you sew a man in a cowhide and figure to dump him in a burning coal seam to roast alive,” Charlie said, “you’d better search him to make sure he hasn’t got a gun in a Texas holster under his armpit. And try to remember that green hide stretches quite a lot if a man has any strength in his arms, and he has an hour or so to work it loose.” ”

“ Rock replied. “But the trouble is they have so many cattle they would not miss any unless the loss was heavy; whereas we know within a few head how many calves we should brand and how many beef we should ship. We are shy almost one fourth of our beef cattle, and that is too big a whack at us. I don’t know what to think.”
“It’s aggravatin’, all right,” Charlie said. “By gosh, y’know, I think it would be a good thing to make a round of them gradin’ camps on Lonesome Prairie. Let’s do it, Rock, you an’ me.” ”

“ If he had read the sign right, first at the burning coal seam and now here, some enterprising persons were collecting a lot of easy money. Charlie knew how Rock Holloway felt about such things. No man likes to have his pocket picked. It is poor satisfaction merely to know how the picking is done. Charlie suspected that Rock felt very much as old Elmer Duffy had felt when he blew up over the hides in the grass, only he sympathized with Rock, and he still held that old Elmer had no business to insult him. ”

“ Grading camps offered none of the hospitality the range afforded. No casual wayfarer got anything there unless he paid his way. They were there to build a grade for the Great Northern, for the profit of the contractors, and it was a grubby, driving business.
Charlie ate his supper by the fire, watched the men and teams string in at six o’clock. It was a big camp. He estimated four hundred men. Four hundred men ate a lot of beef. And two other camps drew supplies from there. He looked at the camp and at the grazing herd, and then he did a lot of thinking. ”

“ Here and there in the range country there was always some one who coveted his neighbor’s ox, just as in more highly organized communities light-fingered folk always seek to filch goods that other men have accumulated by legitimate enterprise and honest industry.
If a man could not enjoy the fruits of his labor, he would know the reason why. ”

“ And Charlie felt a little keyed up, a little expectant. If he were lucky he might have the laugh on Elmer Duffy at last. For things had assumed a different aspect since he learned that the TL was losing beef wholesale. On that was based the idea that had popped suddenly into Charlie’s mind—an idea too far-fetched to divulge to Rock Holloway. Some one had begun to steal cattle again, where none had dared, after the private war that wiped out Buck Walters and his crowd. ”

“ Duffy declared, embellishing his statement with an earnest oath. “And I suppose all a man can expect when he finds that a bunch of thieves is loose on the range is for featherheads like you to make a joke of it. If it was your cattle that’d been killed, you’d sing a different tune.”
Charlie Shaw’s laughing mouth shut in a tight line.
“I would, Elmer,” he said quietly. “I’d keep my mouth shut and go after ’em. I wouldn’t waste my breath cussin’.”
“You wouldn’t waste your breath cussin’!” Elmer exploded. “No! All you c’n waste is the outfit’s time an’ your money at poker. ”

“ Lightning seldom strikes twice in the same place, but thieves frequently do, especially range thieves. It was this conviction that sent Charlie loping away southward in the dark.
Twenty-five miles is no great matter to fresh horses. Charlie swung in on the Benton-Sweet Grass Trail, held it till he was abreast of the burning coal seam, then turned straight east. ”

“ If I had to depend on boneheads like you to protect the outfit’s interests, the Seventy-seven would go to hell in two seasons. Josh—that’s all you know how to do.”
Charlie took a step toward him. He was tall and slim, older in years and experience than his boyish face told, and his merry blue eyes suddenly ceased to be merry.
“Don’t get too personal in your remarks, Elmer,” he warned. “I might get serious myself.”
“Personal! Personal!” Duffy bellowed. “Say, lemme tell you somethin’.”
As an offset to his unfortunate disposition, Elmer Duffy had a reasonable amount of common sense ”

“ Up in the Sweet Grass, where he and Rock Holloway had fought a battle with organized thieves, there were now many ranches, small and large. A wagon trail ran between the Sweet Grass and Fort Benton—a trail which crossed the Marias halfway between the TL and the Seventy-seven. The single wagon track Charlie followed angled off until it merged with the Sweet Grass Trail. It was lost in these twin ruts. Wagons came and went daily on that road. One wheel track is as another. ”

“ Yet men cast away at sea in open boats win to a landfall by day or night. Men cross the plains when night spreads her ebony wings and do not miss their destination. Each has his own resources of location and direction ”

“ I rounded up your thieves, while you were runnin’ around in circles, cussin’ the luck. If you feel that you’re under any obligation to me, forget it. I did that little job for nothin’, just to show you I could.
“And,” he concluded, “as far as that hard winter thing is concerned, I was born in El Paso. I come up the trail when it was a tough proposition. I’m twenty-six years old, an’, by Judas priest, I ain’t never died a winter yet!” ”