The Orphan by Clarence E. Mulford (best books to read now .txt) 📖

burn him at th’ stake! Hope they scalp him, an’ hash him, an’ saw his arms off, an’ cave his roof in! Hope they make him eat his fingers and toes! Hope––”

“You’re some hopeful to-day,” responded the sheriff. “If you like them, you better hope they don’t get him. That’s hoping real hope.”

“Wait till I get him!” the puncher repeated, grabbing for his Colt, being too enraged to notice its absence. “I’ll show him if he can tie a man up an’ leave him to choke to death, an’ starve an’ roast! I’ll show him if he can run this country like he owns it, shooting and abusing everybody he wants to!”

“All right, Sonny,” Shields laughed. “I’ll shore wait till you gets him, if I live long enough. But for your sake I shore hope you never finds him. He wouldn’t get any more reputation if he killed you, and your friends would miss you.”

“Don’t yu let that worry yu!” retorted the enraged man. “I can take care of myself in a mix-up, all right! An’ I’m going to chase after my friends an’ take a hand in th’ game, too, by God! He ain’t going to leave me high an’ dry an’ live to boast about it! But I suppose you reckon yu’ll stop me, hey?”

Shields raised both hands high in the air in denial. “I wouldn’t think of such a thing, not for the world,” he cried, laughter shaking his big frame. “You can go any place you please, only I’d take a gun if I was going after him,” he added, eyeing the empty holster. “You know, you might need it,” he was very grave in his use of the subjunctive.

The puncher slapped his hand to his thigh and then jumped high into the air: “––! ––!” he shouted. “Stole my gun! Stole my gun!” Then he paused suddenly and his face cleared. “But I’ve got something better’n a Colt on my cayuse!” he cried as he leaped toward the edge of the cañon. “An’ I’ll give him all it holds, too!” he threatened as he bumped and slid to the bottom. The sheriff took more care and time in descending and had just reached the trail when he heard a heart-rending yell, followed by a sizzling stream of throbbing profanity.

“Where’s my cayuse?” yelled the puncher as he rounded the corner of the cañon wall on a peculiar lope and hop. “Where’s my cayuse, yu law-coyote?” he shouted, temporarily out of his senses from rage. “Where’s my cayuse!” dancing up to the sheriff and shaking both fists under the laughter-convulsed face.

When the sheriff could speak, he leaned against the cañon wall for support and broke the news.

“Why, Bill Howland said as how The Orphan was riding a Cross Bar-8 cayuse–dirty brown, with a white stocking on his near front foot. It had a big scar on its neck, too.”

“Th’ d––d hoss thief!” began the puncher, but Shields kept right on talking.

“There was a dandy Cheyenne saddle,” he said, counting on his fingers, “a good gun, a pair of hobbles and a big coil of rawhide rope on the cayuse. Was they yours?”

“Was they mine! Was they mine!” his companion screamed. “My new saddle gone, my gun gone and my fine rope gone! Oh, h–l! How’ll I hunt him now? How’ll I get home? How’ll I get back to th’ ranch?” Words failed him, and he could only wave his arms and yell.

“Well, it wouldn’t hardly be worth while chasing him on foot without a gun, that’s shore,” the sheriff said, grave once more. “But you can get home all right; that’s easy.”

“How can I?” asked the puncher, eyeing the sheriff’s horse and waiting for the invitation to ride double on it.

“Why, walk,” was the reply. “It’s only about twenty miles as the crow flies–say twenty-five on the trail.”

“Walk! Walk!” cried his companion, savagely kicking at a lizard which looked out from a crevice in the rock wall. “I never walked five miles all at once in my life!”

“Well, it’ll be a new experience, and you can’t begin any younger,” replied Shields as he swung into his saddle. “It’ll do you good, too–increase your appetite.”

“I’m so hungry now I’m half starved,” replied the other. “But I’ll pay up for all this, you see if I don’t! I’ll get square with that d––d outlaw!”

“You don’t know enough to be glad you were found,” retorted the sheriff. “And if he hadn’t told Bill where to look for you, you wouldn’t have been, neither. You got off easy, Bucknell, and don’t you forget it, neither. Men have been killed for less than what you tried to do.”

The puncher wilted, for twenty-five miles in high-heeled boots, over rocks and sand, and with an empty stomach, was terrible to contemplate, and he turned to the sheriff beseechingly.

“Give me a lift, Sheriff,” he implored. “Take me up behind you–I can’t walk all the way!”

Shields looked at the sun, which was nearing the western horizon, and thought for a minute. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I hadn’t ought to help you a step, not a single, solitary step, and you know it. You tried your best to run against me. You tried to hold me up there by the corral, and then after I had warned you not to go out for The Orphan you went right ahead. Now you’re asking me to help you out of your trouble, to make good for your fool stupidity. But I’ll take you as far as the end of the cañon–no, I’ll take you on to the ford, and then you can do the rest on foot. That’ll leave you ten or a dozen miles. Get aboard.”

CHAPTER VIII
“A TIMBER WOLF IN HIS OWN COUNTRY”

WHEN The Orphan said good-by to Bill he sat quietly in his saddle for a minute watching the departing stage and wondered how it was that he had the decency to avoid a fight with the cowboys in the presence of the women. Then Helen’s words came to him and he smiled at the idea of peace when he would have to fight the outfit before sundown. The heat of the sun on his bare head recalled him from his mental wanderings and he wheeled abruptly and galloped along the trail to where he remembered that a tiny, blood-stained handkerchief lay in the dust and sand. Soon he espied it and, swinging over in the saddle, deftly picked it up and regained his upright position, his head reeling at the effort. Unfolding it he examined the neat “H” done in silk in one corner and smiled as he put it in his chaps pocket where he kept his extra ammunition.

“Peace and war in one pocket,” he muttered, grinning at his cartridges’ new and unusual companion.

Then he espied a Winchester near a fallen brave, and he procured it as he had the handkerchief. Describing an arc he picked up another, discarding it after he had emptied the magazine, for ammunition was what he wanted. Two Winchesters were all right, but three were too many. As he threw it from him he glanced through a slight opening in the chaparral and saw the outfit approach the stage. Then he galloped to where his sombrero lay, picked it up and turned to the south for the Cimarron Trail. When thoroughly screened by the chaparral he pushed on with the swinging lope which his horse could maintain for hours, and which ate up distance in an astonishing manner. He had lost time in going for his sombrero and the handkerchief, and every minute before nightfall was precious. His thoughts now bent to the problem of how either to elude or ambush his pursuers, and the Winchesters bespoke his forethought, for up to six hundred yards they were not a pleasant proposition to face. If he eluded the cowboys in the darkness he was morally certain that they would take up his trail at dawn, and what distance he had gained would be at the expense of the freshness of his horse. While he would average ten miles an hour through the night, their mounts, freshened by a night’s rest, might cut down his gain before the nightfall of the next day.

One of the Winchesters worked loose from its lashings and started to slide toward the ground. He quickly grasped it and made it secure, smiling at the number of rifles he had had and lost during the past three weeks.

“Funny how this country has been shedding Winchesters lately,” he mused. “There was the five I got by the big bowlder, which I lost playing tag with that d––d Cross Bar-8 gang, and here’s two more, and I just left three what I didn’t want. Well, they’re real handy for stopping a rush, and I reckons that’s what I’m up against this time. If I can find a likely spot for a scrap before dark I may stop that gang in bang-up style, d––n them.”

Half an hour later he caught sight of a moving body of horsemen to the southeast of him and his glasses enabled him to make them out.

“’Paches!” he exclaimed, and then he smiled grimly and continued on his way toward them, taking care to keep himself screened from their sight by rises and chaparrals. His first thought had been of danger, but now he laughed at the cards fate had put in his hand, for he would use the Indians to great advantage later on.

He counted them and made their number to be twenty-two, which accounted for the five warriors who had pursued the stage coach. The odds were fine and he laughed joyously, recklessly: “All is fair in love and war,” he muttered savagely.

Before the Indians had come upon the scene he had been alone to face five angry and vengeful men, and whom he had every reason to believe were at least fair fighters. Had the positions been reversed they would not have hesitated to make use of any stratagem to save themselves–and here were two contingents, both of which would take his life at the first opportunity. He felt no distaste at the game he was about to play; on the other hand, it pleased him immensely to know that he was superior in intellect to his enemies. They both wanted blood, and they should have it. If they found too much, well and good–that was their lookout. And no less pleasing was the knowledge that he had sent them north and that now he could make use of them. He wondered what they had been doing for the last three weeks and why they were still in that part of the country, but he did not care, for they were where he wanted them to be.

“Twenty-two mad Apaches on the warpath against five cow-wrastlers!” he exulted. “More than four to one, and just aching to get square on somebody! That Cross Bar-8 gang will have something to weep about purty d––n soon! And I shore hope they don’t get tired and quit chasing me.”

He stopped and waited when he had gained a screened position from where he could look back over his trail, and he had not long to wait, for soon he saw five cowboys galloping hard in his direction. Another look to the southeast showed him that the war party was now riding slowly toward him, not knowing of his presence, and they would arrive at his cover at about the same time the cowboys would come up. Neither the Indians nor the cowboys knew of the proximity of the other, while The Orphan could see them both. He glanced at the thicket to the west of him and saw