Bar-20 Days by Clarence E. Mulford (best black authors TXT) đ
- Author: Clarence E. Mulford
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âNext,â suggested Pete, expectantly.
Tim tossed his Colt over the edge. âHereâs another,â he swore, following the weapon. He was grabbed and bound in a trice.
âWhen may we expect you, Mr. Duke?â asked Johnny, looking up.
âPresently, friend, presently. I want toâ_wow_!â he finished, and lost no time in his descent, which was meteoric. âThat fellerâll kill somebody if he ainât careful!â he complained as Pete tied his hands behind his back.
âYou wait till daylight anâ see,â cheerily replied Pete as the three were led off to join their friends in the corral.
There was no further action until the sun arose and then Hopalong hailed the house and demanded a parley, and soon he and Boggs met midway between the shack and the line.
âWhat dâyou want?â asked Boggs, sullenly.
âWant you to stop this farce so I can go on with my drive.â
âWell, I ainât holding you!â exploded the 4X foreman.
âOh, yes; but you are. I canât let you anâ yore men out to hang on our flanks anâ worry us; anâ I donât want to hold you in that shack till you all die of thirst, or come out to be all shot up. Besides, I canât fool around here for a week; I got business to look after.â
âDonât you worry about us dying with thirst; that ainât worrying us none.â
âI heard different,â replied Hopalong, smiling. âThem fellers in the corral drank a quart apiece. See here, Boggs; you canât win, anâ you know it. Yoâre not bucking me, but the whole range, the whole country. Itâs a fight between conditionsâthe fence idea agin the open range idea, anâ open trails. The fence will lose. You closed a drive trail thatâs âmost as old as cow-raising. Will the punchers of this part of the country stand for it? Suppose you lick us,âwhich you wonâtâcan you lick all the rest of us, the JD, Wallaceâs, Double-Arrow, C-80, Cross-O-Cross, anâ the others! Thatâs just what it amounts to, anâ you better stop right now, before somebody gets killed. You know what that means in this section. Yoâre six to our eight, you ainât got a drink in that shack, anâ you dasnât try to get one. You canât do a thing agin us, anâ you know it.â
Boggs rested his hands on his hips and considered, Hopalong waiting for him to reply. He knew that the Bar-20 man was right but he hated to admit it, he hated to say he was whipped.
âAre any of them six hurt?â he finally asked.
âOnly scratches anâ sore heads,â responded Hopalong, smiling. âWe ainât tried to kill anybody, yet. Iâm putting that up to you.â
Boggs made no reply and Hopalong continued: âI got six of yore twelve men prisoners, anâ all yore cayuses are in my hanâs. Iâll shoot every animal before Iâll leave âem for you to use against me, anâ Iâll take enough of yore cows to make up for what I lost by that fence. Youâve got to pay for them dead cows, anyhow. If I do let you out youâll have to road-brand me two hundred, or pay cash. My herd ainât worrying meâ itâs moving all the time. Itâs through that other fence by now. Anâ if I have to keep my outfit here to pen you in or shoot you off I can send to the JD for a gang to push the herd. Donât make no mistake: yoâre getting off easy. Suppose one of my men had been killed at the fenceâwhat then?â
âWell, what do you want me to do?â
âStop this foolishness anâ take down them fences for a mile each side of the trail. If Buck has to come up here the whole thingâll go down. Road-brand me two hundred of yore three-year-olds. Now as soon as you agree, anâ say that the fightâs over, it will be. You canât win out; anâ whatâs the use of having yore men killed off?â
âI hate to quit,â replied the other, gloomily.
âI know how that is; but yoâre wrong on this question, dead wrong. You donât own this range or the trail. You ainât got no right to close that old drive trail. Honest, now; have you?â
âYou say them six ainât hurt?â
âNo moreân I said.â
âAnâ if I give in will you treat my men right?â
âShore.â
âWhen will you leave.â
âJust as soon as I get them two hundred three-year-olds.â
âWell, I hate a quitter; but I canât do nothing, nohow,â mused the 4X foreman. He cleared his throat and turned to look at the house. âAll right; when you get them cows you get out of here, anâ donât never come back!â
Hopalong flung his arm with a shout to his men and the other kicked savagely at an inoffensive stick and slouched back to his bunk house, a beaten man.
Not more than a few weeks after the Bar-20 drive outfit returned to the ranch a solitary horseman pushed on towards the trail they had followed, bound for Buckskin and the Bar-20 range. His name was Tex Ewalt and he cordially hated all of the Bar-20 outfit and Hopalong in particular. He had nursed a grudge for several years and now, as he rode south to rid himself of it and to pay a long-standing debt, it grew stronger until he thrilled with anticipation and the sauce of danger. This grudge had been acquired when he and Slim Travennes had enjoyed a duel with Hopalong Cassidy up in Santa Fe, and had been worsted; it had increased when he learned of Slimâs death at Cactus Springs at the hands of Hopalong; and, some time later, hearing that two friends of his, âSlipperyâ Trendley and âDeaconâ Rankin, with their gang, had âgone outâ in the Panhandle with the same man and his friends responsible for it, Tex hastened to Muddy Wells to even the score and clean his slate. Even now his face burned when he remembered his experiences on that never-to-be-forgotten occasion. He had been played with, ridiculed, and shamed, until he fled from the town as a place accursed, hating everything and everybody. It galled him to think that he had allowed Buck Petersâ momentary sympathy to turn him from his purpose, even though he was convinced that the foremanâs action had saved his life. And now Tex was returning, not to Muddy Wells, but to the range where the Bar-20 outfit held sway.
Several years of clean living had improved Tex, morally and physically. The liquor he had once been in the habit of consuming had been reduced to a negligible quantity; he spent the money on cartridges instead, and his pistol work showed the results of careful and dogged practice, particularly in the quickness of the draw. Punching cows on a remote northern range had repaid him in health far more than his old game of living on his wits and other peopleâs lack of them, as proved by his clear eye and the pink showing through the tan above his beard; while his somber, steady gaze, due to long-held fixity of purpose, indicated the resourcefulness of a perfectly reliable set of nerves. His low-hung holster tied securely to his trousers leg to assure smoothness in drawing, the restrained swing of his right hand, never far from the well-worn scabbard which sheathed a triggerless Coltâs âFrontierââthese showed the confident and ready gun-man, the man who seldom missed. âFrontiersâ left the factory with triggers attached, but the absence of that part did not always incapacitate a weapon. Some men found that the regular method was too slow, and painstakingly cultivated the art of thumbing the hammer. âThumbingâ was believed to save the split second so valuable to a man in argument with his peers. Tex was riding with the set purpose of picking a fair fight with the best six-shooter expert it had ever been his misfortune to meet, and he needed that split second. He knew that he needed it and the knowledge thrilled him with a peculiar elation; he had changed greatly in the past year and now he wanted an âeven breakâ where once he would have called all his wits into play to avoid it. He had found himself and now he acknowledged no superior in anything.
On his way south he met and talked with men who had known him, the old Tex, in the days when he had made his living precariously. They did not recognize him behind his beard, and he was content to let the oversight pass. But from these few he learned what he wished to know, and he was glad that Hopalong Cassidy was where he had always been, and that his gun-work had improved rather than depreciated with the passing of time. He wished to prove himself master of The Master, and to be hailed as such by those who had jeered and laughed at his ignominy several years before. So he rode on day after day, smiling and content, neither under-rating nor over-rating his enemyâs ability with one weapon, but trying to think of him as he really was. He knew that if there was any difference between Hopalong Cassidy and himself that it must be very slightâperhaps so slight as to result fatally to both; but if that were so then it would have to work out as it saw fit âhe at least would have accomplished what many, many others had failed in.
In the little town of Buckskin, known hardly more than locally, and never thought of by outsiders except as the place where the Bar-20 spent their spare time and money, and neutral ground for the surrounding ranches, was Cowanâs saloon, in the dozen years of its existence the scene of good stories, boisterous fun, and quick deaths. Put together roughly, of crude materials, sticking up in inartistic prominence on the dusty edge of a dustier street; warped, bleached by the sun, and patched with boards ripped from packing cases and with the flattened sides of tin cans; low of ceiling, the floor one huge brown discoloration of spring, creaking boards, knotted and split and worn into hollows, the unpretentious building offered its hospitality to all who might be tempted by the scrawled, sprawled lettering of its sign. The walls were smoke-blackened, pitted with numerous small and clear-cut holes, and decorated with initials carelessly cut by men who had come and gone.
Such was Cowanâs, the best patronized place in many hot and dusty miles and the Mecca of the cowboys from the surrounding ranches. Often at night these riders of the range gathered in the humble building and told tales of exceeding interest; and on these occasions one might see a row of ponies standing before the building, heads down and quiet. It is strange how alike cow-ponies look in the dim light of the stars. On the south side of the saloon, weak, yellow lamp light filtered through the dirt on the window panes and fell in distorted patches on the plain, blotched in places by the shadows of the wooden substitutes for glass.
It was a moonlight night late in the fall, after the last beef round-up was over and the last drive outfit home again, that two cow-ponies stood in front of Cowanâs while their owners lolled against the bar and talked over the latest sensationâthe fencing in of the West Valley range, and the way Hopalong Cassidy and his trail outfit had opened up the old drive trail across it. The news was a month old, but it was the last event of any importance and was still good to laugh over.
âBoys,â remarked the proprietor, âI want you to meet Mr. Elkins. He
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