The Sagebrusher by Emerson Hough (first ebook reader txt) 📖

sack, a piece of rope near the burned barn.

"I'll ride down the valley," said he after the two had eaten in silence. "Wait till I ride down to Jensen's. He'll come along."

"Well, hurry back," said the new Sim, with a resolution and decision in his voice which surprised his neighbor. "I can't very well go off alone. Send word down to the dam. We got to clean out this gang."

"Yes," replied Wid, "they'd better look out who's working on the dam. It ain't all soldiers. You can't tell a thing about where this is going to run to—they might blow out the dam, for all you can tell. They ain't up in there for no good,—after the timber, likely. I wonder how many there is of them."

"I don't care how many there is," said Sim Gage simply.

Early as Gardner was, he was not the only traveler on the road. As he approached Nels Jensen's gate he saw below that place on the road the light of a car traveling at speed.

He slid off his horse, tied the animal, and stood, rifle in hand, directly in front of the approaching vehicle.

"Halt!" he cried, and flung up his left hand high, the rifle held in his right, under his arm pit.

It was no enemy who now slowed down the car and cut out the lights. A voice not unfamiliar called out, "What's wrong with you, man? What do you want? You trying to hold me up?"

"Is that you, Doc? No one passes here. What are you doing up here?" Wid walked up to the edge of the car.

"I'm on a call, that's what I'm doing up here," replied Doctor Barnes. "Have you heard anything about an accident up on the Reserve?"

"Accidents a-plenty, right around here. I don't know nothing about the Reserve. Who told you?"

"A man, last night late. Said there was a man hurt up in the timber camp, for me to go up fast as I could. Tree fell on him. They left him up there alone, because they couldn't bring him out."

"That so?" commented Wid Gardner grimly.

—"So that elected me, you see. Every time I try to get a night's sleep, here comes some damn sagebrusher and wants me to come out and cure his sick cow, or else mamma's got a baby, or a horse has got in the wire, or papa's broke a leg, or something. Damn the country anyhow! I wish I'd never seen it. I'm a doctor, yes, but I'm the Company doctor, and I don't have to run on these fool trips. But of course I do," he added, smiling sunnily after his usual fashion. "So I come along here. And you hold me up. What do you want?"

"I want you to wait and come in and see Nels Jensen with me, Doc," said Wid Gardner. "Hell's to pay."

"What's wrong?" Doctor Barnes' face grew graver.

"We don't know what. When Sim and me come home, some one had been here when we was gone. Sim's barn is burned, and all his hay, and all mine, and my house—I haven't got lock, stock nor barrel left of my ranch, and nothing to make a crop with."

"What do you think?" asked Doctor Barnes gravely.

"We don't know what to think. It's like enough a hold-on from that old Industrial work—they been threatening all down the valley, since times are hard and wages fell a little after the war work shut down. There was some hay burned down below there. Folks said it was spontaneous combustion, or something—said it got hot workin' in the stacks. I ain't so sure now. It's them old ways. As if they ever got anything by that!"

Dr. Barnes puckered his lips into a long whistle. "I wonder if there's any two and two to put together in this thing!" said he. "I came up here to get that poor devil out of the woods. But who can tell what in the merry hell has really happened up there?"

"We got to go and see," said Wid Gardner. "You know that woman?"

The doctor nodded.

"She's gone too. Whoever it was took her off in a car from up at the head of Sim Gage's lane."

Doctor Barnes got down out of the car, and the two walked through Nels Jensen's gate. Jensen was afoot, ready for the day's work. He agreed that one of his boys would carry the news to the Company dam.

"Better give us a little something to eat along with us, Karen," he said to his wife. He took down his rifle, and looked inquiringly at Doctor Barnes. "Have you got an extra gun?" asked the latter. Jensen nodded, finding the spare piece near at hand.

Very little more was said. They all walked out into the morning, when the red ball of the sun was coming up above the misty valley.

"Go on ahead in the car," said Wid. "I'll bring my horse."

They met at Sim Gage's half-burned home. Sim himself hobbled out, rifle under one arm and the little Airedale under the other, the latter wriggling and barking in his delight. The purr of a good motor was soon under them. In a few moments they were out of Sim Gage's lane and along the highway as far as the point where the Tepee Creek trail turned off into the mountains.

"Wait here, Doc," said Wid, "Sim and me want to have a look—we know the track of that car that done the work down here."

But when they bent over the trail, they saw that it was different from what it had been when they left it the night before! Wid cursed aloud, and Sim Gage joined him heartily.

"It's wiped out," said Sim. "Some one's been over this trail since last night. This car ain't got no busted tire."

"That may be the very man that came down and called me!" exclaimed Doctor Barnes.

"I heard him when he went down the road," nodded Nels Jensen—"last night. I'll bet that's the same car. I'll bet it come down out of the mountains."

They passed on up the creek valley toward the Reserve far more rapidly than the weaker car of Big Aleck had climbed the same grade the day previous, but the main body of the forest lay three thousand feet above the valley floor, and the ascent was so sharp that at times they were obliged to stop in order to allow the engine to cool.

"What's that?" said Sim Gage after a time, when they had been on their way perhaps an hour up the winding cañon, and had paused for the time. "Smoke? That ain't no camp fire—it's more."

They made one or two more curves of the road and then got confirmation. A long, low blanket of smoke was drifting off down the valley to the right, settling in a gray-blue cloud along the mountain side. The wind was from left to right, so that the smoke carried free of the trail.

"She's a-fire, boys!" exclaimed Wid. "We better git out of here while we can."

"We ain't a-going to do nothing of the sort," said a quiet voice. Wid Gardner turned to look into the face of Sim Gage. "We're a-going right on up ahead."

Wid Gardner looked at Doctor Barnes. The latter made his answer by starting the car once more. Although they did not know it, they now were approaching their journey's end. They could not as yet see the swift advance of the fire from tree to tree, because the wind as yet was no stronger than the gentle air of morning; could not as yet hear any roar of the flames. But they saw that now, on these mountain slopes before them, one of the most valuable timber bodies in the state was passing into destruction.

"God damn their souls!" said Wid Gardner fervently. "Wasn't it enough what they done to us already?"

"Go on, Doc." It was Sim's voice. Wid Gardner knew perfectly well what drove Sim Gage on.

But the car soon came to a sudden halt. A couple of hundred yards on ahead lay an open glade. At the left of the trail stood a great wall tent.

In an instant, every man was out of the car, the three ranchmen, like hounds on the scent, silently trotting off, taking cover from tree to tree. A few moments, and the four of them, rifles at a ready, had surrounded the tent. As they closed in, they all heard a high, clear voice—one they would not have suspected Sim Gage to have owned—calling out: "Throw up your hands, in there!" Actually, Sim Gage was leader!

There came an exclamation in a hoarse and broken voice. "Who are you? Don't shoot—I surrender."

"How many are there of you?" inquired Doctor Barnes.

"It's me—Big Aleck—I'm shot—I'm dying— Help!—Who is it?"

"Come out, Aleck!" called the high and resolute voice of Sim Gage—"Come on out!"

"I can't come out. I'm shot, I tell you."

Then Sim Gage did what ordinarily might not have been a wise thing to do. Without pause he swept aside the tent flap with the barrel of his rifle, and stepped in, quickly covering the prostrate figure that lay on the bloody blankets before him.

Big Aleck was able to do more than move. He raised one hand, feebly, imploring mercy.

"Come out, damn you!" said Sim Gage, his hand at the dollar of the crippled man. He dragged his prisoner out into the light and threw him full length,—mercilessly—upon the needle-covered sand.

The crippled man began to weep, to beg. It was small mercy he saw as he looked from face to face.

"That's my man," exclaimed Doctor Barnes. "But it's not any accident with a tree. That's gun shot!"

"Who done that work down below?" demanded Sim of the prostrate man. "Where is she? Tell me!" His voice still rang high and imperative.

Big Aleck shivered where he lay. Now he too saw the flames on ahead in the woods.

"Who set that fire?" demanded the Doctor suddenly. "Whose work was that?"

"It was sabcats!" said Big Aleck, frightened into an ingenious lie. "They was in here. I'm the government foreman. I don't know how they got in or got out. They must of set a 'clock' somewhere for to start it."

"Who do you mean—sabcats?" demanded Doctor Barnes. The other three stood coldly and implacably staring at the crippled man.

"I caught them in here—I'm in charge of this work, you see. I tried to stop them. They shot me and left me here. They said they'd send a doctor."

"I'm the doctor," replied the medical man, who stood looking at him. "Where is that woman?"

Big Aleck rolled his head. "I don't know. I don't know nothing. I'm shot—I'm going to die."

"We've got to get out," said Doctor Barnes. "Boys, shall we get him into the car?"

"No!" said Sim Gage, sharply. "I won't ride with him. Where is she?" He stepped close up to Big Aleck, pushing in front of the others. "You know. Damn you, tell me!"

"Keep him away!" yelled Big Aleck. "He's going to kill me!" He tried to get on his elbows, his hands and knees, but could not, broken down as he was. He was abject—an evil man overtaken by an evil fate.

"Where is she?" repeated Sim Gage. "Tell me!"

"I tell you I don't know. She ran off, that way."

"That's the car that brung her up!" said Wid Gardner, motioning toward the ragged tire of the rear wheel. "See that tire, Sim? That's the car! She's been here."

"Go see if you can git the trail, Wid," said Sim Gage to his friend. "Quick!"

Sim himself passed for a moment, hurriedly, to the car which had brought his party up. He had left the little dog tied there, but now heard it whining, and stopped to loosen it. It ran about, barking. Head down, Sim Gage stumbled off, following a trail which he half thought he saw, but he lost it on the pine needles, and came back, bitter of heart, once more to face the man who lay helpless on the ground—the man who now he knew