the Rustlers Of West Fork (1951) (13 page)

"I'll follow," Hopalong said hastily.

"Pam, you know this country better than I do.

We're ridin' for the Mogollons. We'll try for Turkeyfeather Pass and the old Snow Creek Trail for Alma. Lead the way, an' keep movin'!" ."... All right!, He heard the sound of their horses fading into the woods and over the pine needles where they would make no sound. He slid his Winchester into his hands and lifted it to his shoulder. Then he fired five quick shots, as fast as he could work the lever on the rifle.

He knocked out the light with the first shot, smashed the door with the second, and put the third and fourth through the window, and another into the doorstep. Then he wheeled his horse and rode swiftly after the girl and her father.

Once he glanced up at the stars, It was barely past midnight. They had six hours of darkness, and six hours in which their tracks could not be easily distinguished. Pamela was setting a good pace, and once Hopalong dosed in beside the old man. "How's it, Dick? Can you make it?"

"Darned right I'll make it!" He watched Hopalong feeding shells into the rifle. "Like old times, Hoppy! It shore is! Wish Buck was with us!" "Yeah"-Hopalong Cassidy nodded, remembering other times and places-"but I'd rather have Mesquite right now. Or Johnny or even Red."

"Mesquite?" Dick Jordan scowled.

"Didn't know him. But I heard that name today."

"You what." Hopalong was incredulous. "You heard somethin" about Mesquite?" "Yeah. Had him a gun battle at Horse Springs. He killed somebody there. Didn't get the straight of it."

Hopalong moved up beside Pamela. "Know this trail?" "Yes, I know it very well. I used to ride this way when we first came out here, but I was never past the jerkys. Do you know it?" "Only hearsay. We'll just have to take a chance and trust to luck." Far behind them there were yells and shouting.

"I'll drop back. They might stumble on us, but what they'll probably do is split an' head for the fords of the two streams." He slowed his buckskin. Then he remembered. "Pam! Did yuh hear who it was Mesquite shot?"

"Mesquite? I don't know him. I never heard the name, only I did hear that Bizco was killed last night in Horse Springs."

Hopalong Cassidy dropped back, grinning.

Suddenly he felt better. It was all right to go it alone, but when there were men like Mesquite and Johnny around-well, it was better to know they were here. And Bizco was dead! Whatever had led him to tackle a curly wolf like Mesquite?

Chapter
8

THE FLIGHT INTO
THE MOGOLLONS

Several times Hopalong drew up to listen.

Inside, he was seething, but he kept his excitement under the restraint of a cold, clear mind that carefully gauged all their chances and kept his thoughts clear for swift adjustment to circumstances. The fact that the outfit had returned to the Circle J, evidently from a spree, was unfortunate. Yet if they had to come back at all, he was glad they had come back drunk. From the sounds there was much heedless rushing around, and every second counted now.

Moreover, there was a good chance that at least some of their tracks would be trampled out. His thoughts leaped ahead to the problem before him. Too experienced to sell the outlaws short, he knew it would be but a matter of a few hours until he had on their trail a bunch of the most relentless manhunters in the West. Avery Sparr would be in a rage, but he was not a man to do things without thought. He would split his forces and ride at once for the two crossings of the rivers. Finding no guard at the Middle Fork, he might assume that that had been the direction chosen. If he did, there was every chance time would be gained through his error.

As soon as they had a few more miles between them and the ranch, Hopalong would take the lead and leave tracks toward the crossing of West Fork. Then, on the first cold ground they could find, they would swing due west into that maze of mighty mountains that made up the rugged Mogollons. And then he would need every bit of his experience to lose the pursuers. That they would eventually find his true trail, he knew. Yet every hour-every minute, in fact-was another step toward escape and security. Alone, the problem of escape would still have been great, but encumbered by a crippled man and a girl, it seemed impossible.

Dark forest closed in around them, the pines a wall of blackness on either side. Their horses walked soundlessly over a thick carpet of pine needles, and at times the trail broke into the open, where stars shone brightly in the midnight blue of the heavens. The air was cool and fresh, and there was no wind. Far behind them there was still an occasional yell, but already they had some distance with which to work.

The black nine-thousand-foot bulk of Lily Mountain loomed on their left and the shoulder of Jackson Mesa to the right. Not far ahead was the trail to the West Fork crossing. Hopalong moved the buckskin ahead and deliberately led the way into the trail. He knew that every instant on this trail was thick with danger. At any time the hard-riding pursuit might close in upon them, but he also knew that a false trail must be set, and this was the best way to do it.

His buckskin's hoofs clicked stone after they had been riding for several minutes, and off to the left stretched a white, clean ,expanse of sand rock.

This would be the logical place to leave the trail, so Hopalong did not leave. The men behind him were old hands at this game, too, having many times lost posses in close pursuit. From now on he would need every faculty, every fragment of experience, every bit of lore he had ever learned or heard of. He pushed on, and then they dipped into a sandy place and here he turned left. When they had gone a mile, he stopped them.

"Catch a breath," he said. "I'm going back to cover the trail."

He slid away into the darkness, knowing exactly what he would do. As they turned off the trail he had observed several head of cattle taking their midnight stretch near the wash where they turned off the trail. Now he rode around those cattle and started them into the wash, walking them over the sand for a hundred yards or more to destroy as much sign as he could. He had just left them when he heard a clatter of racing horses on the trail and then heard them slow up near the sandstone ledge.

"Here?" The voice was unfamiliar.

"No!" That was Mowry, furious at his second failure with Hopalong. "We'll ride on to the crossing. No chance to follow him by trail sign now. The chances are he'll run for the crossing.

Remember, he's got to get out of this stretch by crossing a river."

"He might go west," somebody hazarded a guess.

"He ain't crazy," Mowry replied sharply.

"If he went west he'd be trapped. There's only a lot of blind canyons back there and no way through that wall of mountains. No, it's got to be north or south."

"Wish Sparr was here!"

"What could he do that we ain't doin'?" Mowry was irritated by the comment. "Don't worry! We'll find that silver-haired devil!" Hoppy sat quietly, whispering to the buckskin. The riders went on by, walking their horses now. Then, when they were well past, he turned and started back up the wash, only now he rode with extreme care. The deepest sand was tiring for his horse, but also it was sure to leave no definite tracks that could be read easily. There would be evidence of something passing, but in the soft sand, where grains would fall into the hoofprmt and destroy the outline, there was small chance of any sign being left that could be identified either as to nature or time.

"Let's go," he whispered, as he rode by Dick and Pamela. d'DoWt talk$2?

Ahead and to the left loomed the raw backbone of the Jerky Mountains. Ahead of him, and upon which they soon came, lay a branch of Clear Creek that flowed north from the steep flanks of Lfiy Mountain. They reached this stream a little above its junction with the main creek and crossed there, pushing on west and a little north. The land was heavily timbered and rugged in the extreme. For a time they wound their way, with frequent changes of direction because of natural obstructions, through thick pine forest. With the ridge of the Jerkys on their left and slightly ahead and the stars above, keeping direction was no great problem. From time to time Hopalong stopped and listened, but there was no sound except the occasional hoot of an owl and the distant howl of a coyote. Before daybreak, in a hollow behind an enormous slab of rock, Hopalong drew up and swung down. Pamela slid from the saddle and went at once to her father, and between the two of them they got him from the saddle. His face was drawn but his eyes were bright and hard. They seated him on Hoppy's bedroll against tie wall of rock.

"Don't be frettin' about me, Hoppy." His voice was firm. "I'll stick it. Think only about gettin' us away. This here fresh air is what I need, although," he admitted with a wry grin, "I ain't been ridin' much lately." Working with swift and deft hands, Hoppy broke small dead branches from the lower trunks of the pines, and with these he built a quick, carefully shielded fire.

Once it was going and he had water on, he went away from it and looked back. The great slabs of rock around the camp and the pines concealed it very well.

Back at camp he found Pamela hastily slicing some bacon from a slab put into the bag by the old Mexican cook.

The earth was slightly damp and it was chill.

Walking about, Hoppy gathered more sticks, watching Dick Jordan without seeming to do so. Without doubt the man was very tired. The months of lying in bed or sitting in the chair had taken their toll, and the ride had been a hard one. Mentally, Cassidy calculated the time. There was small chance of any successfully organized pursuit until daylight. Yet it would not do to depend on that trail being concealed. Somewhere even the best of woodsmen must fail in that attempt. All he could hope to do was to gain time. And there was little of that. At a guess they were but ten miles from the ranch by a direct line. They had ridden at least five miles farther than that, but by day the followers might come much faster. Eating now, they would rest only a few minutes and then push on.

There was both water and grass here and the horses were making the most of both. With luck, if Dick could hold out, they need not stop again for three or four hours, and then but briefly.

Already they were in very rough country that offered many avenues of possible retreat, and these might confuse the men sent out by Avery Sparr, but starting with their coming move, they must use every stratagem to confuse the pursuit.

Already the sky was faintly gray, and the spires of the pines etched a dark fringe along the sky all about them. The small fire blazed cheerfully, and the wood crackled. Hopalong leaned back on an elbow, watching the girl, smelling the faint, aromatic pine smoke and the stronger, richer smell of bacon frying.

Firelight danced shadows on the fiat face of the rock, and Dick Jordan leaned back, his strong-boned face relaxed and at rest, with the firelight glistening on cheekbones and brow, leaving a deep shadow on one cheek and temple. The light caught tiny gleams from the shells in his gunbelt and found highlights in the worn black of the polished leather holsters. Tired now, and half asleep, Jordan showed his age, and Hopalong stirred restlessly, worried about the old man. Pamela was suddenly up and taking coffee and a plate to her father.

Dick awakened, and- he smiled quickly, but Hoppy knew the smile did not fool Pamela, who realized only too well how tired her father must be. Hopalong watched her with curious eyes.

Not too many women had entered his life, for it had been a life of hoof and horns, of guns, saddles, and the hard ways of the frontier. Pamela was somehow strange even while familiar. There was only the ghost of the girl he remembered and to whom he had told stories. Now she was self-possessed and sure. Young she might be, but at eighteen on the frontier a girl was a woman, and many a girl was married at siccteea.

" She was slender and tall, but beautifully shaped, and her rough, sun-faded wool shirt showed the ripe roundness of her bosom and the beauty of her arms and shoulders. Her face was brown from sun and wind, and the sun had picked a few freckles from her skin.

She seemed to become aware of his study and turned suddenly to smile at him, and Hopalong was strangely embarrassed. She arose at once and handed him coffee, then a plate with bacon and a few beans. "We'd better eat them all," she said;

"no use carrying that jar." "Yeah, the lighter the better. Know anything about this country west of here?"

"No." Her voice was low and the tone rounded "I've heard a few things from friendly Indians.

There's a mesa beyond Iron Creek, and the pass you mentioned is this side of there. But we'll be safe nowhere until Avery Sparr is dead."

"1ft about Soper?"

"He's worse. I don't know why I say that, either. It's an 123 impression you get after a while. At first I liked him. I believed he would help us, but sometimes I would surprise him looking at me, or at my father, and something in the way he looked gave me the shudders."

"Outside they like him. Thatcher thought he was all right."

"They don't know him." She considered what she had said, then added, frowning: "I shouldn't say that, for I don't know him either, not the least bit. I think that's what frightens me."

"Where did Sparr find him? They don't fit together, somehow. Span's western. Soper is not."

"I don't know. But Soper knows a lot. I think he is a college man. He talks very well when he wishes to, and he can be very much the gentleman." Hopalong got to his feet and went after the horses. When he came back Pamela had already put out the fire, and gathering those sticks only partly burned she arried them off a short distance and scraped sand over them, hiding them from sight. With care, Hopalong worked over the site of the ampfire, spending precious time in concealing its remains as well as possible.