Book: Bar 20 Days

C >> Clarence E. Mulford >> Bar 20 Days




"No more of that!" cried Red, trying to be stern. "I'm going to stay
with you an' see things through. I'd be a fine sort of a coyote to sneak
off an' leave you for them fiends. An', besides, I can't get away; my
cayuse is hit too hard an' yourn is dead," he lied cheerfully. "An'
yo're going to get well, all right. I've seen fellers hit harder than
you are pull through."

Hopalong walked over to the prostrate man and shook hands with him. "I'm
awful glad I met you, Holden. Yo're pure grit all the way through, an'
I like to tie to that kind of a man. Don't you worry about nothing; Red
can handle this proposition, an' we'll have you in Buckskin by to-morrow
night; you'll be riding again in two weeks. So long."

He turned to Red and shook hands silently, led his horse out of the
building and mounted, glad that the moon had not yet come up, for in the
darkness he had a chance.

"Good luck, Hoppy!" cried Red, running to the door. "Good luck!"

"You bet--an' lots of it, too," groaned Holden, but he was gone. Then
Red wheeled. "Holden, keep yore eyes an' ears open. I'm going out to see
that he gets off. He may run into a--" and he, too, was gone.

Holden watched the doors and windows, striving to resist the weak, giddy
feeling in his head, and ten minutes later he heard a shot and then
several more in quick succession. Shortly afterward Red called out, and
almost immediately the Bar-20 puncher crawled in through a window.

"Well?" anxiously cried the man on the floor. "Did he make it?"

"I reckon so. He got away from the first crowd, anyhow. I wasn't very
far behind him, an' by the time they woke up to what was going on he
was through an' riding like blazes. I heard him call 'em half-breeds a
moment later an' it sounded far off. They hit me,--fired at my flash,
like I drilled one of them. But it ain't much, anyhow. How are you
feeling now?"

"Fine!" lied the other. "That Cassidy is shore a wonder--he's all right,
an' so are you. I'll never see him again, but I shore hope he gets
through!"

"Don't be foolish. Here, you finish the water in yore canteen--I picked
it up outside by yore cayuse. Then go to sleep," ordered Red. "I'll do
all the watching that's necessary."

"I will if you'll call me when you get sleepy."

"Why, shore I will. But don't you want the rest of the water? I ain't a
bit thirsty--I had all I could hold just before you came," Red remarked
as his companion pushed the canteen against him in the dark. He was
choking with thirst. "Well, then; all right," and Red pretended to
drink. "Now, then, you go to sleep; a good snooze will do you a world of
good--it's just what you need."



CHAPTER X

BUCK TAKES A HAND

Cowan's saloon, club, and place of general assembly for the town of
Buckskin and the nearby ranches, held a merry crowd, for it was pay-day
on the range and laughter and liquor ran a close race. Buck Peters,
his hands full of cigars, passed through the happy-go-lucky,
do-as-you-please crowd and invited everybody to smoke, which nobody
refused to do. Wood Wright, of the C-80, tuned his fiddle anew and swung
into a rousing quick-step. Partners were chosen, the "women" wearing
handkerchiefs on their arms to indicate the fact, and the room shook and
quivered as the scraping of heavy boots filled the air with a cloud of
dust. "Allaman left!" cried the prompter, and then the dance stopped as
if by magic. The door had crashed open and a blood-stained man staggered
in and towards the bar, crying, "Buck! Red's hemmed in by 'Paches!"

"Good God!" roared the foreman of the Bar-20, leaping forward, the
cigars falling to the floor to be crushed and ground into powder by
careless feet. He grasped his puncher and steadied him while Cowan slid
an extra generous glassful of brandy across the bar for the wounded man.
The room was in an uproar, men grabbing rifles and running out to get
their horses, for it was plain to be seen that there was hard work to be
done, and quickly. Questions, threats, curses filled the air, those
who remained inside to get the story listening intently to the jerky
narrative; those outside, caring less for the facts of an action past
than for the action to come, shouted impatiently for a start to be made,
even threatening to go on and tackle the proposition by themselves if
there were not more haste. Hopalong told in a graphic, terse manner all
that was necessary, while Buck and Cowan hurriedly bandaged his wounds.

"Come on! Come on!" shouted the mounted crowd outside, angry, and
impatient for a start, the prancing of horses and the clinking of metal
adding to the noise. "Get a move on! _Will_ you hurry up!"

"Listen, Hoppy!" pleaded Buck, in a furore. "Shut up, you outside!" he
yelled. "You say they know that you got away, Hoppy?" he asked. "All
right--_Lanky!_" he shouted. "_Lanky!_"

"All right, Buck!" and Lanky Smith roughly pushed his way through the
crowd to his foreman's side. "Here I am."

"Take Skinny and Pete with you, an' a lead horse apiece. Strike straight
for Powers' old ranch house. Them Injuns'll have pickets out looking for
Hoppy's friends. You three get the pickets nearest the old trail through
that arroyo to the southeast, an' then wait for us. We'll come along the
high bank on the left. Don't make no noise doing it, neither, if you can
help it. Understand? Good! Now ride like the devil!"

Lanky grabbed Pete and Skinny on his way out and disappeared into the
corral; and very soon thereafter hoof-beats thudded softly in the sandy
street and pounded into the darkness of the north, soon lost to the ear.
An uproar of advice and good wishes crashed after them, for the game had
begun.

"It's Powers' old shack, boys!" shouted a man in the door to the
restless force outside, which immediately became more restless. "Hey!
Don't go yet!" he begged. "Wait for me an' the rest. Don't be a lot of
idiots!"

Excited and impatient voices replied from the darkness, vexed, grouchy,
and querulous. "Then get a move on--_whoa!_--it'll be light before we
get there if you don't hustle!" roared one voice above the confusion.
"You know what _that_ means!"

"Come on! Come on! For God's sake, are you tied to the bar?"

"Yo're a lot of old grandmothers! Come on!"

Hopalong appeared in the door. "I'll show you the way, boys!" he
shouted. "Cowan, put my saddle on yore cayuse--_pronto_!"

"Good for you, Hoppy!" came from the street. "We'll wait!"

"You stay here; yo're hurt too much!" cried Buck to his puncher, as he
grabbed up a box of cartridges from a shelf behind the bar. "Ain't you
got no sense? There's enough of us to take care of this without you!"

Hopalong wheeled and looked his foreman squarely in the eyes. "Red's
out there, waiting for me--I'm going! I'd be a fine sort of a coyote to
leave him in that hell hole an' not go back, wouldn't I!" he said, with
quiet determination.

"Good for you, Cassidy!" cried a man who hastened out to mount.

"Well, then, come on," replied Buck. "There's blamed few like you," he
muttered, following Hopalong outside.

"Here's the cayuse, Cassidy," cried Cowan, turning the animal over to
him. "_Wait_, Buck!" and he leaped into the building and ran out again,
shoving a bottle of brandy and a package of food into the impatient
foreman's hand. "Mebby Red or Hoppy'll need it--so long, an' good
luck!" and he was alone in a choking cloud of dust, peering through the
darkness along the river trail after a black mass that was swallowed up
almost instantly. Then, as he watched, the moon pushed its rim up over
the hills and he laughed joyously as he realized what its light would
mean to the crowd. "There'll be great doings when _that_ gang cuts
loose," he muttered with savage elation. "Wish I was with 'em. Damn
Injuns, anyhow!"

Far ahead of the main fighting force rode the three special-duty men,
reeling off the miles at top speed and constantly distancing their
friends, for they changed mounts at need, thanks to the lead horses
provided by Mr. Peters' cool-headed foresight. It was a race against
dawn, and every effort was made to win--the life of Red Connors hung in
the balance and a minute might turn the scale.



In Powers' old ranch house the night dragged along slowly to the grim
watcher, and the man huddled in the corner stirred uneasily and babbled,
ofttimes crying out in horror at the vivid dreams of his disordered
mind. Pacing ceaselessly from window to window, crack to crack, when
the moon came up, Mr. Connors scanned the bare, level plain with anxious
eyes, searching out the few covers and looking for dark spots on the
dull gray sand. They never attacked at night, but still--. Through the
void came the quavering call of a coyote, and he listened for the reply,
which soon came from the black chaparral across the clearing. He knew
where two of them were hiding, anyhow. Holden was muttering and tried
to answer the calls, and Red looked at him for the hundredth time that
night. He glanced out of the window again and noticed that there was a
glow in the eastern sky, and shortly afterwards dawn swiftly developed.

Pouring the last few drops of the precious water between the wounded
man's parched and swollen lips, he tossed the empty canteen from him and
stood erect.

"Pore devil," he muttered, shaking his head sorrowfully, as he realized
that Holden's delirium was getting worse all the time. "If you was all
right we could give them wolves hell to dance to. Well, you won't
know nothing about it if we go under, an' that's some consolation." He
examined his rifle and saw that the Colt at his thigh was fully loaded
and in good working order. "An' they'll pay us for their victory, by
God! They'll pay for it!" He stepped closer to the window, throwing the
rifle into the hollow of his arm. "It's about time for the rush; about
time for the game--"

There was movement by that small chaparral to the south! To the east
something stirred into bounding life and action; a coyote called
twice--and then they came, on foot and silently as fleeting shadows,
leaning forward to bring into play every ounce of energy in the slim,
red legs. Smoke filled the room with its acrid sting. The crashing of
the Winchester, worked with wonderful speed and deadly accuracy by the
best rifle shot in the Southwest, brought the prostrate man to his
feet in an instinctive response to the call to action, the necessity of
defence. He grasped his Colt and stumbled blindly to a window to help
the man who had stayed with him.

On Red's side of the house one warrior threw up his arms and fell
forward, sprawling with arms and legs extended; another pitched to one
side and rolled over twice before he lay still; the legs of the third
collapsed and threw him headlong, bunched up in a grotesque pile
of lifeless flesh; the fourth leaped high into the air and turned a
somersault before he struck the sand, badly wounded, and out of the
fight. Holden, steadying himself against the wall, leaned in a window
on the other side of the shack and emptied his Colt in a dazed
manner--doing his very best. Then the man with the rifle staggered back
with a muttered curse, his right arm useless, and dropped the weapon to
draw his Colt with the other hand.

Holden shrieked once and sank down, wagging his head slowly from side
to side, blood oozing from his mouth and nostrils; and his companion,
goaded into a frenzy of blood-lust and insane rage at the sight, threw
himself against the door and out into the open, to die under the clear
sky, to go like the man he was if he must die. "Damn you! It'll cost you
more yet!" he screamed, wheeling to place his back against the wall.

The triumphant yells of the exultant savages were cut short and turned
to howls of dismay by a fusillade which thundered from the south where a
crowd of hard-riding, hard-shooting cow-punchers tore out of the thicket
like an avalanche and swept over the open sand, yelling and cursing, and
then separated to go in hot pursuit of the sprinting Apaches. Some stood
up in their stirrups and fired down at a slant, making a short, chopping
motion with their heavy Colts; others leaned forward, far over the necks
of their horses, and shot with stationary guns; while yet others, with
reins dangling free, worked the levers of blue Winchesters so rapidly
that the flashes seemed to merge into a continuous flame.

"Thank God! Thank God--an' Hoppy!" groaned the man at the door of the
shack, staggering forward to meet the two men who had lost no time in
pursuit of the enemy, but had ridden straight to him.

"I was scared stiff you was done fer!" cried Hopalong, leaping off his
horse and shaking hands with his friend, whose hand-clasp was not as
strong as usual. "How's Holden?" he demanded, anxiously.

"He passed. It was a close--" began Red, weakly, but his foreman
interposed.

"Shut up, an' drink this!" ordered Buck, kindly but sternly. "We'll do
the talking for a while; you can tell us all about it later on. Why,
_hullo_!" he cried as Lanky Smith and his two happy companions rode up.
"Reckon you must 'a' got them pickets."

"Shore we did! Stalked 'em on our bellies, didn't we, Skinny?" modestly
replied Mr. Smith, the roping expert of the Bar-20. "Ropes an' clubbed
guns did the rest. Anyhow, there was only two anywhere near the trail."

"We didn't see you," responded the foreman, tying the knot of a bandage
on Mr. Connors' arm. "An' we looked sharp, too."

"Reckon we was hunting for more; we sort of forgot what you said about
waiting for you," Mr. Smith replied, grinning broadly.

"An' you've got a good memory now," smiled Mr. Peters.

"We didn't find no more, though," offered Mr. Pete Wilson, with grave
regret. "An' we looked good, too. But we got Red, an' that's the whole
game. Red, you old son-of-a-gun, you can lick yore weight in powder!"

"It's too bad about Holden," muttered Red, sullenly.



CHAPTER XI

HOPALONG NURSES A GROUCH

After the excitement incident to the affair at Powers' shack had died
down and the Bar-20 outfit worked over its range in the old, placid way,
there began to be heard low mutterings, and an air of peevish discontent
began to be manifested in various childish ways. And it was all caused
by the fact that Hopalong Cassidy had a grouch, and a big one. It
was two months old and growing worse daily, and the signs threatened
contagion. His foreman, tired and sick of the snarling, fidgety,
petulant atmosphere that Hopalong had created on the ranch, and
driven to desperation, eagerly sought some chance to get rid of the
"sore-thumb" temporarily and give him an opportunity to shed his
generous mantle of the blues. And at last it came.

No one knew the cause for Hoppy's unusual state of mind, although there
were many conjectures, and they covered the field rather thoroughly; but
they did not strike on the cause. Even Red Connors, now well over all
ill effects of the wounds acquired in the old ranch house, was forced to
guess; and when Red had to do that about anything concerning Hopalong he
was well warranted in believing the matter to be very serious.

Johnny Nelson made no secret of his opinion and derived from it a great
amount of satisfaction, which he admitted with a grin to his foreman.

"Buck," he said, "Hoppy told me he went broke playing poker over in
Grant with Dave Wilkes and them two Lawrence boys, an' that shore
explains it all. He's got pack sores from carrying his unholy licking.
It was due to come for him, an' Dave Wilkes is just the boy to deliver
it. That's the whole trouble, an' I know it, an' I'm damned glad they
trimmed him. But he ain't got no right of making _us_ miserable because
he lost a few measly dollars."

"Yo're wrong, son; dead, dead wrong," Buck replied. "He takes his
beatings with a grin, an' money never did bother him. No poker game that
ever was played could leave a welt on him like the one we all mourn, an'
cuss. He's been doing something that he don't want us to know--made a
fool of hisself some way, most likely, an' feels so ashamed that he's
sore. I've knowed him too long an' well to believe that gambling had
anything to do with it. But this little trip he's taking will fix him
up all right, an' I couldn't 'a' picked a better man--or one that I'd
rather get rid of just now."

"Well, lemme tell you it's blamed lucky for him that you picked him to
go," rejoined Johnny, who thought more of the woeful absentee than he
did of his own skin. "I was going to lick him, shore, if it went on
much longer. Me an' Red an' Billy was going to beat him up good till he
forgot his dead injuries an' took more interest in his friends."

Buck laughed heartily. "Well, the three of you might 'a' done it if
you worked hard an' didn't get careless, but I have my doubts. Now look
here--you've been hanging around the bunk house too blamed much lately.
Henceforth an' hereafter you've got to earn your grub. Get out on that
west line an' hustle."

"You know I've had a toothache!" snorted Johnny with a show of
indignation, his face as sober as that of a judge.

"An' you'll have a stomach ache from lack of grub if you don't earn yore
right to eat purty soon," retorted Buck. "You ain't had a toothache in
yore whole life, an' you don't know what one is. G'wan, now, or I'll
give you a backache that'll ache!"

"Huh! Devil of a way to treat a sick man!" Johnny retorted, but he
departed exultantly, whistling with much noise and no music. But he was
sorry for one thing: he sincerely regretted that he had not been present
when Hopalong met his Waterloo. It would have been pleasing to look
upon.

While the outfit blessed the proposed lease of range that took him out
of their small circle for a time, Hopalong rode farther and farther
into the northwest, frequently lost in abstraction which, judging by its
effect upon him, must have been caused by something serious. He had not
heard from Dave Wilkes about that individual's good horse which had been
loaned to Ben Ferris, of Winchester. Did Dave think he had been killed
or was still pursuing the man whose neck-kerchief had aroused such
animosity in Hopalong's heart? Or had the horse actually been returned?
The animal was a good one, a successful contender in all distances from
one to five miles, and had earned its owner and backers much money--and
Hopalong had parted with it as easily as he would have borrowed five
dollars from Red. The story, as he had often reflected since, was as old
as lying--a broken-legged horse, a wife dying forty miles away, and a
horse all saddled which needed only to be mounted and ridden.

These thoughts kept him company for a day and when he dismounted before
Stevenson's "Hotel" in Hoyt's Corners he summed up his feelings for the
enlightenment of his horse.

"Damn it, bronc! I'd give ten dollars right now to know if I was a
jackass or not," he growled. "But he was an awful slick talker if he
lied. An' I've got to go up an' face Dave Wilkes to find out about it!"

Mr. Cassidy was not known by sight to the citizens of Hoyt's Corners,
however well versed they might be in his numerous exploits of wisdom and
folly. Therefore the habitues of Stevenson's Hotel did not recognize him
in the gloomy and morose individual who dropped his saddle on the floor
with a crash and stamped over to the three-legged table at dusk and
surlily demanded shelter for the night.

"Gimme a bed an' something to eat," he demanded, eyeing the three men
seated with their chairs tilted against the wall. "Do I get 'em?" he
asked, impatiently.

"You do," replied a one-eyed man, lazily arising and approaching him.
"One dollar, now."

"An' take the rocks outen that bed--I want to sleep."

"A dollar per for every rock you find," grinned Stevenson, pleasantly.
"There ain't no rocks in _my_ beds," he added.

"Some folks likes to be rocked to sleep," facetiously remarked one of
the pair by the wall, laughing contentedly at his own pun. He bore all
the ear-marks of being regarded as the wit of the locality--every hamlet
has one; I have seen some myself.

"Hee, hee, hee! Yo're a droll feller, Charley," chuckled Old John
Ferris, rubbing his ear with unconcealed delight. "That's a good un."

"One drink, now," growled Hopalong, mimicking the proprietor, and
glaring savagely at the "droll feller" and his companion. "An' mind that
it's a good one," he admonished the host.

"It's better," smiled Stevenson, whereat Old John crossed his legs and
chuckled again. Stevenson winked.

"Riding long?" he asked.

"Since I started."

"Going fur?"

"Till I stop."

"Where do you belong?" Stevenson's pique was urging him against the
ethics of the range, which forbade personal questions.

Hopalong looked at him with a light in his eye that told the host he had
gone too far. "Under my sombrero!" he snapped.

"Hee, hee, hee!" chortled Old John, rubbing his ear again and nudging
Charley. "He ain't no fool, hey?"

"Why, I don't know, John; he won't tell," replied Charley.

Hopalong wheeled and glared at him, and Charley, smiling uneasily, made
an appeal: "Ain't mad, are you?"

"Not yet," and Hopalong turned to the bar again, took up his liquor
and tossed it off. Considering a moment he shoved the glass back again,
while Old John tongued his lips in anticipation of a treat. "It is
good--fill it again."

The third was even better and by the time the fourth and fifth had
joined their predecessors Hopalong began to feel a little more cheerful.
But even the liquor and an exceptionally well-cooked supper could not
separate him from his persistent and set grouch. And of liquor he had
already taken more than his limit. He had always boasted, with truth,
that he had never been drunk, although there had been two occasions when
he was not far from it. That was one doubtful luxury which he could not
afford for the reason that there were men who would have been glad to
see him, if only for a few seconds, when liquor had dulled his brain and
slowed his speed of hand. He could never tell when and where he might
meet one of these.

He dropped into a chair by a card table and, baffling all attempts
to engage him in conversation, reviewed his troubles in a mumbled
soliloquy, the liquor gradually making him careless. But of all the
jumbled words his companions' diligent ears heard they recognized and
retained only the bare term "Winchester"; and their conjectures were
limited only by their imaginations.

Hopalong stirred and looked up, shaking off the hand which had aroused
him. "Better go to bed, stranger," the proprietor was saying. "You
an' me are the last two up. It's after twelve, an' you look tired and
sleepy."

"Said his wife was sick," muttered the puncher. "Oh, what you saying?"

"You'll find a bed better'n this table, stranger--it's after twelve an'
I want to close up an' get some sleep. I'm tired myself."

"Oh, that all? Shore I'll go to bed--like to see anybody stop me! Ain't
no rocks in it, hey?"

"Nary a rock," laughingly reassured the host, picking up Hopalong's
saddle and leading the way to a small room off the "office," his
guest stumbling after him and growling about the rocks that lived in
Winchester. When Stevenson had dropped the saddle by the window and
departed, Hopalong sat on the edge of the bed to close his eyes for just
a moment before tackling the labor of removing his clothes. A crash and
a jar awakened him and he found himself on the floor with his back
to the bed. He was hot and his head ached, and his back was skinned
a little--and how hot and stuffy and choking the room had become!
He thought he had blown out the light, but it still burned, and
three-quarters of the chimney was thickly covered with soot. He was
stifling and could not endure it any longer. After three attempts he
put out the light, stumbled against his saddle and, opening the window,
leaned out to breathe the pure air. As his lungs filled he chuckled
wisely and, picking up the saddle, managed to get it and himself through
the window and on the ground without serious mishap. He would ride
for an hour, give the room time to freshen and cool off, and come back
feeling much better. Not a star could be seen as he groped his way
unsteadily towards the rear of the building, where he vaguely remembered
having seen the corral as he rode up.

"Huh! Said he lived in Winchester an' his name was Bill--no, Ben
Ferris," he muttered, stumbling towards a noise he knew was made by a
horse rubbing against the corral fence. Then his feet got tangled up in
the cinch of his saddle, which he had kicked before him, and after great
labor he arose, muttering savagely, and continued on his wobbly way.
"Goo' Lord, it's darker'n cats in--_oof_!" he grunted, recoiling from
forcible contact with the fence he sought. Growling words unholy he felt
his way along it and finally his arm slipped through an opening and he
bumped his head solidly against the top bar of the gate. As he righted
himself his hand struck the nose of a horse and closed mechanically over
it. Cow-ponies look alike in the dark and he grinned jubilantly as he
complimented himself upon finding his own so unerringly.

"Anything is easy, when you know how. Can't fool me, ol' cayuse," he
beamed, fumbling at the bars with his free hand and getting them down
with a fool's luck. "You can't do it--I got you firs', las', an' always;
an' I got you good. Yessir, I got you good. Quit that rearing, you ol'
fool! Stan' still, can't you?" The pony sidled as the saddle hit its
back and evoked profane abuse from the indignant puncher as he risked
his balance in picking it up to try again, this time successfully. He
began to fasten the girth, and then paused in wonder and thought deeply,
for the pin in the buckle would slide to no hole but the first. "Huh!
Getting fat, ain't you, piebald?" he demanded with withering sarcasm.
"You blow yoreself up any more'n I'll bust you wide open!" heaving
up with all his might on the free end of the strap, one knee pushing
against the animal's side. The "fat" disappeared and Hopalong laughed.
"Been learnin' new tricks, ain't you? Got smart since you been
travellin', hey?" He fumbled with the bars again and got two of them
back in place and then, throwing himself across the saddle as the horse
started forward as hard as it could go, slipped off, but managed to save
himself by hopping along the ground. As soon as he had secured the grip
he wished he mounted with the ease of habit and felt for the reins.
"G'wan now, an' easy--it's plumb dark an' my head's bustin'."

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