the Riders Of High Rock (1993) (13 page)

"Got away!" Gamble said disgustedly. "We had 'em outflanked, too!"

"What about Red?" Hoppy demanded. "See him?"

The Winchester barked, then again, and they saw Red stand up and wave his hat. He had fired two shots after the departing outlaws. Their trap had backfired; two of their men were wounded and the other had taken a beating. At least three had pulled out in that final rush.

"Got away," Gamble repeated irritably.

"Let them go," Cassidy replied carelessly. "We got out of their trap and gave them a taste of trouble. Let them go and think it over. This will give them something to worry about, and we can pick up their trail again."

Connors rode up, leading Gamble's horse. Hopalong started back through the rocks after the palouse. He turned, remembering the wounded men.

"Better pick 'em up," he said, "especially the one with the broken leg. He'll have to have care or he might lose it."

The palouse nickered softly as he approached, and Hopalong smiled. "Glad to see me, boy? No more than I am to see you. That Dan Keating knew how to pick a horse."

Red was waiting for him when he returned. "We found the gent with the busted leg, but the other two took out. One of them left plenty of blood behind."

"That one got his skull grazed, Red," Hopalong replied. "He lost blood, and probably had a serious concussion. Well,

now they've gone, it's their own problem about how they get help. We're going on after the herd."

"Know where they are?" Red squinted his eyes at the sun. "Unless you do we'd better camp at Pinto Springs. We'll never get far at this hour."

Cassidy nodded. "All right, only let Gamble make the coffee. Yours always tastes like alkali mixed with sulphur."

"Mine does?" Connors growled. "What about that brown stuff you make? You never could make coffee near as good as me, Hoppy, and you know it. I could teach you plenty."

"You couldn't teach a setting hen to cluck!" Hopalong laughed, winking at Gamble. "As long as you're herding cattle you're all right, but let you get even a half-mile away from a cow herd and you couldn't drive nails into a snowbank."

He turned to Gamble again. "Come on, compadre, we'll let Red stoke up the fire while we rustle some grub. That bacon and sourdough bread is all right, but I saw some sage hens out here on the edge of the rocks. They size up better to me."

Dusk fell and the shadow of the buttes grew tall. Joe Gamble concealed the horses in a clump of brush near the springs and made his own bed close to them. Hopalong found a space in a cluster of rocks and then returned to the fire. It was blazing cheerfully, and Gamble had taken over the cooking.

"We're due west of Soldier Meadows," he commented. "That outfit must have found a way to bring the herd through Little High Rock without leavin' any tracks."

"No chance," Hopalong said. "I looked that ground over carefully. There's got to be another way. Right now what I want to know is not how they got this far, but where they went."

"What's west of here?" Red demanded. "Could they have gone that way?"

"California line's over there a ways," Gamble mused. "They might have a hangout in Surprise Valley. It's just over the mountains yonder."

"We'll take a look tomorrow." Hopalong filled his cup with coffee. "We'll start first thing in the morning."

Sim Aragon was not sitting by a fire on this night. He had heard from Jack Bolt, and Bolt's impatience irritated him. Bolt was, he decided, getting skittish. There was nothing to worry about. With Cassidy, Connors, and Gamble all trailing herd, catching up to them would be simple indeed, and once caught up, the situation could be handled with guns.

Aragon had no particular confidence in his brother Pete as a fighter. Pete was the cattleman of the crowd, and although he could handle a gun well enough, he was not in the same class as Sim or Jack Bolt. It was Pete's responsibility to get the cattle over the state line and conceal them in Wall Canyon, where they could not be found. Always before he had managed to leave no trail. They had been careful to leave none, as they wanted no suspicion directed their way, and so far they had been successful.

Sim Aragon had three men with him, all hardened outlaws. Pete would have more. Cassidy and his friends were following the herd, and he would close up on them and from there on the job would be short, not too sweet, but very effective. This country was so remote there was small chance of anybody ever finding any of the three, even if they were left to be found, and Sim Aragon had decided that they would not be. They would be killed, then dumped into one of the sinkholes or

hot springs. After that the boiling water would take care of them and no identification would be possible. So far as the world would know, the three could be said to have left the country.

He could see no flaw in the plan. Pete would close them off on the west while he came up behind with his men. They would be trapped and disposed of. It was that easy. Manuel was at his elbow--Manuel, who loved to kill. Not so very fast with a gun, but very deadly with any weapon, as vicious and tough as a Gila monster.

They moved out of Tascotal and took the road to Agate. Sourdough saw them there, and his old face was grim when they dismounted. Nobody needed to tell him that Hopalong Cassidy's number was up. He had gone off into the west after Pete Aragon, and here was Sim closing in on him. At Agate, Sim was joined by Vila, his hands much better and the hatred within him increased.

Sourdough looked across at his old enemy Mormon John when the outlaws went into the saloon. After serving them, Mormon John came to the door and Sourdough crossed the street. They stood together, not talking. Both men knew what would happen now, for these were not the first men to be followed by the Aragons into that wilderness to the west.

It was almost midnight, and the outlaws were still loafing at the saloon, when Sourdough heard the pound of approaching hoofs. A horse swung onto the street and the rider pulled up. Peering from his dark window, the old man saw the rider almost fall from his horse. The man was named Walters, and

he rode with the Aragons. His shirt was red with blood and there seemed to be a patch on the side of his head. The man pushed through the door into the saloon.

Sim Aragon turned, and his eyes glinted. "What's happened?" he demanded. "What hit you?"

"Cassidy!" Walters gasped. "Gimme a drink!" He tossed off a shot of whiskey, then swallowed. "We thought we had him trapped, but that outfit are scrappers. They busted out, wounded me, beat up Perk, and busted Cardoza's leg."

"What about Pete?"

"Him and the others, they rode back to the herd. Cassidy was at Pinto Springs when I left."

Sim Aragon's face was ugly. "We leave at daylight," he said. "And then we'll settle that hombre's hash."

Chapter
12

Cattle Tracks
.

K
nee in the saddle, Hopalong Cassidy turned to watch Red mount up. Joe Gamble kicked sand over the remnants of their fire and then swung into the leather. The sky was gray only along the horizon, and here in the shadow of the butte it was still dark. Somewhere far off a sage hen called softly, and the palouse pawed impatiently at the ground, eager to be going.

Moving off, Hopalong led the way, scouting at once for tracks. The fleeing outlaws had headed southward yesterday-- or had it been a little to the west?

"There's a big boxed valley southwest of us," Gamble suggested. "It has two creeks in it, Fox and Cottonwood. I don't know how much water they carry, if any at all. I was in there once when there was water, all right, but that could have been temporary."

"We'll try it," Hopalong decided. "They might not run right for the herd, anyway. By now they know we can read sign, so they may try to lead us astray. Where's the opening?"

"You can't see it from here," Gamble explained. "We ride southeast towards that big point of rock, then west."

To left and right the mountains lifted high and the valley grew narrower as they rode forward. Then it widened out, and they swung westward. A careful search of the boxed valley brought no results. No tracks could be found except those of an occasional lone steer or a group of two or three. While following one of these trails just on chance, Hopalong said suddenly, "You know, I've figured this out, I think."

"What's that?" Red demanded. "Must be mighty simple if you figured it out."

Hopalong shrugged. "It's simple enough. All the way along I've been trying to decide how they managed to get that herd out of High Rock Canyon. I still don't know just where it was done, but I do know how it was done. When they hit some of that sand back there where the tracks weren't well defined, they kept one part of the herd moving, then took the rest off into a branch canyon on the real trail to where they were going.

"Then as they moved along they let first one steer and then another fall behind or trail off by himself until the herd had dwindled to nothing. By bunching a few cattle and getting them to mill a little, they could make some of that trail look like a big herd had come over it. Later, when they had time, they could pick up those strays. Some of them would probably head back towards the main herd, anyway."

"But where could they get out of High Rock?" Gamble was puzzled. "I didn't see any tracks to speak of in Little High Rock."

"That's right," Hopalong agreed, "but that Yellow Rock Canyon could have been investigated more thoroughly. If there was a trail out of there to the west, that would be the likely spot. Anyway, I'd bet a good coon hide they came this way."

"Could be," Red agreed. "Maybe you aren't so dumb as I

thought, Hoppy. It could be under that hair of yours you've really got some brains."

Hopalong drew up, his eyes scanning the mountainside before them. "There's a trail to high ground," he said. "Let's take it. If we get up high enough we may be able to see over a lot of country."

A switchback trail led up the steep cedar-covered mountainside. There were no tracks here and this was evidently a long-unused trail, but obviously it had led to somewhere. Pausing to let their horses rest, Hopalong looked back down the trail at the thin green thread of Cottonwood and Fox creeks. Even from this height, which often gave visibility to trails unseen on the valley floors, nothing was visible that could have been made by a cattle herd.

"Wonder how Gibson's gettin' along?" Gamble wondered. "Think they'll make any trouble for him?"

"I doubt it," Hopalong said, although he was more worried than he wanted to confess. "Sue is with him, and you know what bothering a woman means in this country. It's not often you'll get even a bad man to lay a hand on a woman or endanger one."

"Gillespie with him?" Gamble asked.

"He should be. He left me to go back."

"I'd feel better," Red muttered, "if I knew where Sim Ara-gon was. They nearly got me once, and I want my chance at them."

"You'll get it," Hopalong said. "They won't quit now. They have too much at stake."

They started on, letting the horses take their own pace. The hill grew steeper, and once they had to dismount and roll a boulder off the mountainside. It went crashing down, hit a rock ledge, and bounded far out into space before rolling on. They

were now almost eight thousand feet up, and a half mile higher than the valley that lay below them. The air was clear and fresh, and the sun not yet hot.

They reached the top and paused again, their eyes sweeping a broad plateau. Ahead was a peak that towered some distance above them. Far and away to the westward the distant mountain ranges lost themselves in a purple mist, giving the impression of a vast basin that lay between. Hopalong Cassidy sat his horse and looked with care at that country. Those distant ranges were in California. A man having a herd over there would be reasonably safe from the law. State lines were beginning to make a lot of difference--especially if that man had a good reputation on his own side of the line. Thinking that over, Hopalong remembered their conversation of the previous day and the suggestion that the thief might be building an honest-looking herd somewhere over there.

"You ever been over in there, Gamble?"

"No. Heard some about it, though. There's a grand big valley on the California side. Surprise Valley, they call it. Some forty-niner named it when they came through the mountains and saw it there. Mighty purty, I hear. Sometimes there's lakes in it, although mostly they are dry. Anyway, there's lots of good grass and some water. Farther west there's more."

"Where was Fandango Pass?"

"Not far from here. Named it for a party of forty-niners who had a dance to celebrate their crossing of the mountains. While they were doin' the fandango the Injuns came down on 'em and wiped them out."

Hopalong led the way across the plateau. They were riding north now, but the way west seemed blocked off. There was rugged terrain that fell away for three or four miles and then appeared to end in a steep declivity. There might be a way

down, but their present trail was leading them north, and that should enable them to cut the rustlers' path soon.

At noon they camped at the foot of a smooth, black-faced rock and ate quickly. There was water here, and they refilled their canteens from the flowing spring while the horses drank from a pool.