the Rustlers Of West Fork (1951) (11 page)

"At least we can count the bodies!" Yet his face was grave, and he remembered again the other towns where men of the old outfit had ridden together, and the troubles they had faced together, and the lead they had spent.

A man stepped from the shadows by the livery barn and stood there waiting for them. "Double y," he said.

They stopped, a little apart. "Yeah?" Mesquite replied. "I'm Leeds. Want to talk, but it's got to be fast. They catch me talkin' to you hombres an' they'd kill me quick."

"Who are "they"? An' why would they kill you?"

They moved toward him, and he drew back against the wall of the stable. "Sparr's outfit. He's got spies all over the country. That bartender, Mark.

He's one o' them. That hombre you killed, he was a Sparr gunman. Fact is"-he hesitated-"I done some work for him more'self."

"What d'you want to tell us?" Johnny asked. "An' why?" "That Cassidy feller. He done saved us all, my wife an' boy an' me. Them "Paches would have had us in another minute at best." 95

He hesitated, craning his neck to look up and down the street. "Cassidy's gone to the Circle J," he said, "an" that outfit won't never let him off alive. Not unless they figger to kill him some place else. They don't dast." "What are they doin' down there?" Nelson wanted to know. "Don't know exactly, but I figger they are out to steal that ranch from Jordan. He's all crippled up, can't walk nohow, an' he ain't got a gun. I know that much. Heerd talk around amongst them. I do know all the young stock is bein' branded with Sparr's brand, an' he seems to be gradually takin' over.

"Him an' Soper, they have give out that Sparr has a workin' partnership, give to him because Jordan was laid up. Don't you believe it! No man in his right mind would take that lobo into the same house with him, let alone in partnership! Folks are gettin' used to seein' Soper an' Sparr around, so purty quick, when Jordan sort of dies, then they'll be in the saddle. Somehow they figger to get legal title.

How, I dunno."

"You must have more reason than because Hoppy helped you for tellin' us this," Nelson interposed.

Leeds spat. "Durned right I have! I'm a poor man, you'see, an' mighty little money comes my way. I'm tryin' to git organized on my place, but it takes aplenty. Well, one o' them Sparr riders come down, the one you killed t'night, in fact. He suggested that my corral would hold a few horses mighty easy, an' that he wanted to leave some overnight. He suggested there might be a little money in it if I kept them, an' a heap of trouble if I didn't. I kept "em.

"It got worse an" worse. They got to tellin' me where to go an' when, an' my neighbors got suspicious. A man needs good neighbors, an' I seen I was doin' wrong but couldn't get out.

If 1 tell yuh this, mebbe Avery Span will git his come-uppance an' I'll be let alone."

After the man was gone, the two waited a minute or two. "That settles it!" Johnny said.

"We'll start come mornin'. his "I'm not tired," Mesquite said quietly.

"Let's camp on the trail."

Chapter
7

CR0
SS
FIRE
ON THE CIRCLE J

Hopalong cassidy had played poker with Dick Jordan, and there are few better ways of gauging a man-if one is a good poker player. As he stepped through the door, Hopalong's eyes went at once to Jordan's face, knowing he would read the answer or some of it there. That Avery Sparr would not have allowed him to enter alone if he expected Hopalong to be told anything was clear enough.

Moreover, it showed that Sparr was confident, quite confident of his power here, and his ability to force upon the Jordans obedience to his commands-if the situation was as Hopalong believed. Dick Jordan looked up, and his hard old eyes glinted. "Howdy, Hoppy! How's Buck an' the boys?"

"Fine, old-timer! You look mighty good yourself."

Hopalong had never lied with more enthusiasm. In truth, Dick Jordan was only a whisper of his once jovial, bearlike self. His huge frame was much depleted, wasted away to a great shell of bones and hide. His cheeks were sunken, and from his eyes Hopalong knew that no physical inaction, the accident, or any other physical cause had done this. For the first time in his life Jordan was helpless.

Hopalong made conversation easily, and in a few casual glances assayed the room. It contained no weapons nor anything that might be used as a weapon. There was no way out except through the door, for the windows here were high above the ground. It would be impossible to get in or out of this room save through the door by which he had entered "Hear you got yourself a partner, Dick. This Sparr a good man"... Ear For the space of two minutes there was no reply. Silence hung suspended in the room, and Hopalong could almost feel the impulses in conflict here. Much of what he did not know he was guessing from the vantage point of his old friendship for Dick Jordan. He knew the great love the man had possessed for his wife and for his daughter, who was not only all a daughter could be, but the living image of the girl he had married so long ago. Danger to her would be fought in every way.

"Yeah, Sparr's a good man." Jordan spoke quietly, and, so far as it went, honestly.

"He knows cattle, an' he knows men." In this last Cassidy believed he detected bitterness.

"Soper goin' to be a partner too?"

A spasm contracted the old man's face and for an instant a living, fierce hatred blazed in his eyes. "No! No, he's not! Where'd you get that idea?" "Oh, just surmisin'!" Hopalong stretched his legs. "Buck wants to pay you for the cattle, Dick."

"You bring the money?" From Jordan's attitude Hopalong decided Jordan was actually hoping he had not.

"Not with me," Hopalong said cautiously, "but I-was Jordan spoke hastily, as if to interrupt. "All right, if he ain't got it now, he ain't got it." Then he added, more quietly, "If anything happens to me, I want my daughter to get that money, an' if anything happens to her, you an' Buck keep it."

"Nothin'," Hopalong said flatly, leaning slightly forward, "is goin' to happen to Pamela-or to you. Take that from me. Dick" comhe leaned forward-"what are you doin' with Sparr on this place? The man's a killer and an outlaw!"

Jordan sighed deeply and refused to meet Hopalong's eyes. "A man can hire who he likes," he muttered, "an' sell out to who he likes. You would do me a favor, Hoppy, if you would straddle your hoss an' ride back to Buck.

Then stay there. Pam an' me," he said painfully, "have our own problems. We got to work them out ourselves."

Cassidy got to his feet slowly. "Dick," he said sincerely, "I ain't doin' a particle of good, sittin' here like this, but I promise you, like it or not, I ain't leavin'! I aim to stay right here until things are straightened out an' you are on your feet again."

There was a gleam in the old man's eyes, and Pamela came quickly to Hoppy. "Oh, if-to [*thorn]

"Don't say it." Hopalong hitched his gunbelts a little. "I ain't so dumb. That old frazzle top of a dad o' yours never was a poker player. He never bluffed me in his life. Ever' time he tried to make like he was holdin' a full house, I knowed it was a mighty small pair[*thorn] Hopalong put his hand on the latch. "So long. I'll be back."

"Hoppy"-Pamela caught his hand-"be careful!"

He chuckled. "I said I'd be back, didn't I?"

He started to open the door, then closed it again.

He turned and looked at Pamela. "Can your dad straddle a hoss-if he had to?" She hesitated, then nodded. "Yes, Hoppy, if he had to, and I think he'd love to."

Hopalong walked slowly across the intervening room. They had told him nothing, or less than nothing, but that they were held prisoner here, he knew. Obviously each one feared to do anything to incur the anger of Avery Sparr for fear that that anger would be vented on the other. Pamela believed she was protecting her father, and he believed he was protecting her. Yet, studying the situation, Hopalong could see no flaws in Span's plan had not he, Hopalong Cassidy, drifted into the game. Sparr looked up quickly as he came through the door, Soper more lazily. "Ain't the man he used to be, is he?" Sparr said, leaning back in his hide-covered chair. "Puny run-down."

"Yeah," Hopalong agreed, "only a shell."

"You pay him for that stock?" Span asked casually. "Huh? Oh no, not t'day." Hopalong was equally casual. "Didn't bring the money out because I had some stops to make. I cached it."

Hopalong could scarcely repress a grin at the expression on Avery Spans face. Fifteen thousand in cold cash was a nice item, and knowing the big gunman's greed, he could understand how his mouth must have watered when he heard of it. Now he dared not kill Hopalong without chancing the entire loss of the moneysomething he was neither ready nor willing to do. Yet he wanted Hopalong dead.

Dropping into a chair, Cassidy reached for the steaming coffeepot and filled his cup. Some doughnuts were on the table, and he helped himself and began to eat, drinking coffee. "Start back t'night," he said, "around about half an hour from now. I'll stick around Horse Springs until the boys get here."

"Have to talk to the old man about that stock," Sparr objected uneasily. "Nothin' was said to me about sellin' any. You' say some o' your boys are already out here?"

"Should be," Hopalong Red.

"Ain't heard nothin' of them," Sparr interposed. "Mebbe they strayed off." "Yeah, that could be." Hopalong tried his coffee and then broke another doughnut. "They sure like to hunt rustlers. Those two"-his blue eyes were innocent "would rather hunt rustlers than eat, an" both of them are good feeders.

"Ever hear," he asked conversationally, "about the time Mesquite started after the gang that dry-gulched me?" He chuckled. "He'd killed eight out of twelve before I could get back into a saddle. He can read sign like an Injun, an' he trailed that slick horse thief Shanghai all over the country. The old sidewinder couldn't shake him, either, an' finally Mesquite cornered him an' brought him in. He was a good man, a deputy sheriff for a white. The only trouble that Mesquite ever had was gettin' prisoners back alive."

Avery Sparr shifted irritably in his chair, but Soper was listening with interest. He had his own plans, and fighting did not enter them. Not that he was averse to bloodshed if no other way could be found, but he had laid his own plans well, plans that would be much better carried out if Hopalong Cassidy and Avery Sparr eliminated each other. The fewer in at the payoff the better, and while he had made his own arrangements for conducting the elimination proceedings, nevertheless a few gun battles would eliminate not only some of those who might insist on a share, but also considerable expense.

Sparr thought of something that had not occurred to him since Hopalong's arrival. "Say"-he turned abruptly-"you sure come up on us quick outside.

Which way did you come? From Thatcher's?"

Hopalong shrugged. "I came in from the north.

I'd decided to go back across Circle J range an' look over some of that young stuff, so when I started back for this place I crossed the Middle Fork a couple o' miles west o'

Canyon Creek. Seen a shack there," he added, lying cheerfully, "an' there was a hombre inside fast asleep."

Actually, it was the south from which he had come and across the head of West Fork and the Whitewater. It would do no harm to create a little friction among the members of the Sparr outfit, and some discontent. "Come all the way from Thatcher's?" Sparr demanded suspiciously. "Uh-uh. Spent the night on Circle J's north range. Near Double Spring." The places mentioned were carefully catalogued in his mind from the information culled from the old cowhand's talk on the T Bar. Yet as he talked he was thinking of what might be done. From where he sat the corrals could be seen. Two horses from there, and his own. It might be done. The risk lay in how much Dick Jordan could stand, and Hopalong was willing to bet there was enough fight in the old man to keep him-in the saddle for some rough and wicked miles. It was upon that fight he was planning to gamble. It would do no good to take them back to Thatcher's even if he got them away from the Circle J. Despite the fact that Sim Thatcher's place was admirably situated for defense, and built for it, the T Bar was too far away over country too easy to cover. If escape was to be made, and he intended to start nothing that could be avoided until Dick and his daughter were safely away, it would have to be into those mountains to the west. It was all unknown country, and he might run them into a box canyon from which escape would be impossible, yet he knew terrain, even if not this particular area, and he had an idea that he could find a way through to hit that trail to Alma. A lot would depend on obtaining a head start and getting into the hills past Lily Mountain. After that he would have to depend on his own skill in covering their trail and in every trick he could think of to escape pursuit, for without Dick Jordan and his daughter all of Sparr's schemes must fall through.

He arose finally. "Glad to have met you," he said, grinning at Sparr, "and Mister Soper.

Maybe we'll get together again sometime. 0' course," he said mildly, absently, "if you're still here when I bring the boys after that young stock, we'll see yuh." He looked up, grinning.

"Some o' the boys would sure like to meet you, Sparr."

He was at the door before he stopped again, and why he said what he did then he never knew, except that it often pays to keep an enemy confused as to how much you know and what you are implying. "By the way"-his blue eyes went from Sparr to Soper com"... Ei of you know a tinhorn named Goff?" Sparr frowned, but Soper's head came up sharply.