Books: Hopalong Cassidy\'s Rustler Round Up (BAR 20)
C >>
Clarence Edward Mulford >> Hopalong Cassidy\'s Rustler Round Up (BAR 20)
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 *END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
Etext prepared by
Andrew Heath
Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up (BAR-20)
by Clarence Edward Mulford
1906
CHAPTER I
Buckskin
The town lay sprawled over half a square mile of alkali plain, its
main Street depressing in its width, for those who were responsible
for its inception had worked with a generosity born of the knowledge
that they had at their immediate and unchallenged disposal the broad
lands of Texas and New Mexico on which to assemble a grand total of
twenty buildings, four of which were of wood. As this material was
scarce, and had to be brought from where the waters of the Gulf lapped
against the flat coast, the last-mentioned buildings were a matter of
local pride, as indicating the progressiveness of their owners.
These creations of hammer and saw were of one story, crude and unpainted;
their cheap weather sheathing, warped and shrunken by the pitiless
sun, curled back on itself and allowed unrestricted entrance to alkali
dust and air. The other shacks were of adobe, and reposed in that
magnificent squalor dear to their owners, Indians and Mexicans.
It was an incident of the Cattle Trail, that most unique and
stupendous of all modern migrations, and its founders must have been
inspired with a malicious desire to perpetrate a crime against
geography, or else they reveled in a perverse cussedness, for within a
mile on every side lay broad prairies, and two miles to the east
flowed the indolent waters of the Rio Pecos itself. The distance
separating the town from the river was excusable, for at certain
seasons of the year the placid stream swelled mightily and swept down
in a broad expanse of turbulent, yellow flood.
Buckskin was a town of one hundred inhabitants, located in the
valley of the Rio Pecos fifty miles south of the Texas-New Mexico
line. The census claimed two hundred, but it was a well-known fact
that it was exaggerated. One instance of this is shown by the name of
Tom Flynn. Those who once knew Tom Flynn, alias Johnny Redmond, alias
Bill Sweeney, alias Chuck Mullen, by all four names, could find them
in the census list. Furthermore, he had been shot and killed in the
March of the year preceding the census, and now occupied a grave in
the young but flourishing cemetery. Perry's Bend, twenty miles up the
river, was cognizant of this and other facts, and, laughing in open
derision at the padded list, claimed to be the better town in all
ways, including marksmanship.
One year before this tale opens, Buck Peters, an example for the
more recent Billy the Kid, had paid Perry's Bend a short but busy
visit. He had ridden in at the north end of Main Street and out at the
south. As he came in he was fired at by a group of ugly cowboys from a
ranch known as the C 80. He was hit twice, but he unlimbered his
artillery, and before his horse had carried him, half dead, out on the
prairie, he had killed one of the group. Several citizens had joined
the cowboys and added their bullets against Buck. The deceased had
been the best bartender in the country, and the rage of the suffering
citizens can well be imagined. They swore vengeance on Buck, his
ranch, and his stamping ground.
The difference between Buck and Billy the Kid is that the former
never shot a man who was not trying to shoot him, or who had not been
warned by some action against Buck that would call for it. He minded
his own business, never picked a quarrel, and was quiet and pacific up
to a certain point. After that had been passed he became like a raging
cyclone in a tenement house, and storm-cellars were much in demand.
"Fanning" is the name of a certain style of gun play not unknown
among the bad men of the West. While Buck was not a bad man, he had to
rub elbows with them frequently, and he believed that the sauce for
the goose was the sauce for the gander. So be bad removed the trigger
of his revolver and worked the hammer with the thumb of the "gun hand"
or the heel of the unencumbered hand. The speed thus acquired was
greater than that of the more modern double-action weapon. Six shots
in a few seconds was his average speed when that number was required,
and when it is thoroughly understood that at least some of them found
their intended bullets it is not difficult to realize that fanning was
an operation of danger when Buck was doing it.
He was a good rider, as all cowboys are, and was not afraid of
anything that lived. At one time he and his chums, Red Connors and
Hopalong Cassidy, had successfully routed a band of fifteen Apaches
who wanted their scalps. Of these, twelve never hunted scalps again,
nor anything else on this earth, and the other three returned to their
tribe with the report that three evil Spirits had chased them with
"wheel guns" (cannons).
So now, since his visit to Perry's Bend, the rivalry of the two
towns had turned to hatred and an alert and eager readiness to
increase the inhabitants of each other's graveyard. A state of war
existed, which for a time resulted in nothing worse than acrimonious
suggestions. But the time came when the score was settled to the
satisfaction of one side, at least.
Four ranches were also concerned in the trouble. Buckskin was
surrounded by two, the Bar 20 and the Three Triangle. Perry's Bend was
the common point for the C 80 and the Double Arrow. Each of the two
ranch contingents accepted the feud as a matter of course, and as a
matter of course took sides with their respective towns. As no better
class of fighters ever lived, the trouble assumed Homeric proportions
and insured a danger zone well worth watching.
Bar-20's northern line was C 80's southern one, and Skinny Thompson
took his turn at outriding one morning after the season's round-up. He
was to follow the boundary and turn back stray cattle. When he had
covered the greater part of his journey he saw Shorty Jones riding
toward him on a course parallel to his own and about long revolver
range away. Shorty and he had "crossed trails" the year before and the
best of feelings did not exist between them.
Shorty stopped and stared at Skinny, who did likewise at Shorty.
Shorty turned his mount around and applied the spurs, thereby causing
his indignant horse to raise both heels at Skinny. The latter took it
all in gravely and, as Shorty faced him again, placed his left thumb
to his nose, wiggling his fingers suggestively. Shorty took no
apparent notice of this but began to shout:
"Yu wants to keep yore busted-down cows on yore own side. They was
all over us day afore yisterday. I'm goin' to salt any more what comes
over, and don't yu fergit it, neither."
Thompson wigwagged with his fingers again and shouted in reply: "Yu
c'n salt all yu wants to, but if I ketch yu adoin' it yu won't have to
work no more. An' I kin say right here thet they's more C 80 cows over
here than they's Bar-20's over there."
Shorty reached for his revolver and yelled, "Yore a liar!"
Among the cowboys in particular and the Westerners in general at
that time, the three suicidal terms, unless one was an expert in
drawing quick and shooting straight with one movement, were the words
"liar," "coward," and "thief." Any man who was called one of these in
earnest, and he was the judge, was expected to shoot if he could and
save his life, for the words were seldom used without a gun coming
with them. The movement of Shorty's hand toward his belt before the
appellation reached him was enough for Skinny, who let go at long
range-and missed.
The two reports were as one. Both urged their horses nearer and
fired again. This time Skinny's sombrero gave a sharp jerk and a hole
appeared in the crown. The third shot of Skinny's sent the horse of
the other to its knees and then over on its side. Shorty very promptly
crawled behind it and, as he did so, Skinny began a wide circle,
firing at intervals as Shorty's smoke cleared away.
Shorty had the best position for defense, as he was in a shallow
coul e, but he knew that he could not leave it until his opponent had
either grown tired of the affair or had used up his ammunition. Skinny
knew it, too. Skinny also knew that he could get back to the ranch
house and lay in a supply of food and ammunition and return before
Shorty could cover the twelve miles he had to go on foot.
Finally Thompson began to head for home. He had carried the matter
as far as he could without it being murder. Too much time had elapsed
now, and, besides, it was before breakfast and he was hungry. He would
go away and settle the score at some time when they would be on equal
terms.
He rode along the line for a mile and chanced to look back. Two C 80
punchers were riding after him, and as they saw him turn and discover
them they fired at him and yelled. He rode on for some distance and
cautiously drew his rifle out of its long holster at his right leg.
Suddenly he turned around in the saddle and fired twice. One of his
pursuers fell forward on the neck of his horse, and his comrade turned
to help him. Thompson wig-wagged again and rode on, reaching the ranch
as the others were finishing their breakfast.
At the table Red Connors remarked that the tardy one had a hole in
his sombrero, and asked its owner how and where he had received it.
"Had a argument with C 80 out'n th' line."
"Go `way! Ventilate enny?"
"One."
"Good boy, sonny! Hey, Hopalong, Skinny perforated C 80 this
mawnin'!"
Hopalong Cassidy was struggling with a mouthful of beef. He turned
his eyes toward Red without ceasing, and grinning as well as he could
under the circumstances managed to grunt out "Gu-," which was as near
to "Good" as the beef would allow.
Lanky Smith now chimed in as he repeatedly stuck his knife into a
reluctant boiled potato, "How'd yu do it, Skinny?"
"Bet he sneaked up on him," joshed Buck Peters; "did yu ask his
pardin, Skinny?"
"Ask nuthin'," remarked Red, "he jest nachurly walks up to C 80 an'
sez, `Kin I have the pleasure of ventilatin' yu?' an' C So he sez, `If
yu do it easy like,' sez he. Didn't he, Thompson?"
"They'll be some ventilatin' under th' table if yu fellows don't
lemme alone; I'm hungry," complained Skinny.
"Say, Hopalong, I bets yu I kin clean up C 80 all by my lonesome,"
announced Buck, winking at Red.
"Yah! Yu onct tried to clean up the Bend, Buckie, an' if Pete an'
Billy hadn't afound yu when they come by Eagle Pass that night yu
wouldn't be here eatin' beef by th' pound," glancing at the
hard-working Hopalong. "It was plum lucky fer yu that they was
acourtin' that time, wasn't it, Hopalong?" suddenly asked Red.
Hopalong nearly strangled in his efforts to speak. He gave it
up and nodded his head.
"Why can't yu git it straight, Connors? I wasn't doin' no courtin',
it was Pete. I runned into him on th' other side o' th' pass. I'd look
fine acourtin', wouldn't I?" asked the downtrodden Williams.
Pete Wilson skillfully flipped a potato into that worthy's coffee,
spilling the beverage of the questionable name over a large expanse of
blue flannel shirt. "Yu's all right, yu are. Why, when I meets yu, yu
was lost in th' arms of yore ladylove. All I could see was yore feet.
Go an' git tangled up with a two hundred and forty pound half-breed
squaw an' then try to lay it onter me! When I proposed drownin' yore
troubles over at Cowan's, yu went an' got mad over what yu called th'
insinooation. An' yu shore didn't look any too blamed fine, neither."
"All th' same," volunteered Thompson, who had taken the edge from
his appetite, "we better go over an' pay C 80 a call. I don't like
what Shorty said about saltin' our cattle. He'll shore do it, unless I
camps on th' line, which same I hain't hankerin' after."
"Oh, he wouldn't stop th' cows that way, Skinny; he was only
afoolin'," exclaimed Connors meekly.
"Foolin' yore gran'mother! That there bunch'll do anything if we
wasn't lookin'," hotly replied Skinny.
"That's shore nuff gospel, Thomp. They's sore fer mor'n one thing.
They got aplenty when Buck went on th' warpath, an they's hankerin' to
git square," remarked Johnny Nelson, stealing the pie, a rare treat,
of his neighbor when that unfortunate individual was not looking. He
had it halfway to his mouth when its former owner, Jimmy Price, a boy
of eighteen, turned his head and saw it going.
"Hi-yi! Yu clay-bank coyote, drap thet pie! Did yu ever see such a
son-of-a-gun fer pie?" he plaintively asked Red Connors, as he grabbed
a mighty handful of apples and crust. "Pie'll kill yu some day, yu
bob-tailed jack! I had an uncle that died onct. He et too much pie an'
he went an' turned green, an so'll yu if yu don't let it alone."
"Yu ought'r seed th' pie Johnny had down in Eagle Flat," murmured
Lanky Smith reminiscently. "She had feet that'd stop a stampede.
Johnny was shore loco about her. Swore she was the finest blossom that
ever growed." Here he choked and tears of laughter coursed down his
weather-beaten face as he pictured her. "She was a dainty Mexican,
about fifteen han's high an' about sixteen han's around. Johnny used
to chalk off when he hugged her, usen't yu, Johnny? One night when he
had got purty well around on th' second lap he run inter a feller jest
startin' out on his fust. They hain't caught that Mexican yet."
Nelson was pelted with everything in sight. He slowly wiped off the
pie crust and bread and potatoes. "Anybody'd think I was a busted grub
wagon," he grumbled. When he had fished the last piece of beef out of
his ear he went out and offered to stand treat. As the round-up was
over, they slid into their saddles and raced for Cowan's saloon at
Buckskin.
CHAPTER II
The Rashness of Shorty
Buckskin was very hot; in fact it was never anything else. Few people
were on the streets and the town was quiet. Over in the Houston hotel
a crowd of cowboys was lounging in the barroom. They were very quiet-a
condition as rare as it was ominous. Their mounts, twelve in all, were
switching flies from their quivering skins in the corral at the rear.
Eight of these had a large C 80 branded on their flanks; the other
four, a Double Arrow.
In the barroom a slim, wiry man was looking out of the dirty window
up the street at Cowan's saloon. Shorty was complaining, "They shore
oughter be here now. They rounded up last week." The man nearest
assured him that they would come. The man at the window turned and
said, "They's yer now.
In front of Cowan's a crowd of nine happy-go-lucky, daredevil
riders were sliding from their saddles. They threw their reins over
the heads of their mounts and filed in to the bar. Laughter issued
from the open door and the clink of glasses could be heard. They stood
in picturesque groups, strong, self-reliant, humorous, virile. Their
expensive sombreros were pushed far back on their heads and their
hairy chaps were covered with the alkali dust from their ride.
Cowan, bottle in hand, pushed out several more glasses. He kicked a
dog from under his feet and looked at Buck. "Rounded up yet?" he
inquired.
"Shore, day afore yisterday," came the reply. The rest were busy
removing the dust from their throats, and gradually drifted into
groups of two or three. One of these groups strolled over to the
solitary card table, and found Jimmy Price resting in a cheap chair,
his legs on the table.
"I wisht yu'd extricate yore delicate feet from off'n this hyar
table, James," humbly requested Lanky Smith, morally backed up by
those with him.
"Ya-as, they shore is delicate, Mr. Smith," responded Jimmy without
moving.
"We wants to play draw, Jimmy," explained Pete.
"Yore shore welcome to play if yu wants to. Didn't I tell yu when yu
growed that mustache that yu didn't have to ask me any more?" queried
the placid James, paternally.
"Call `em off, sonny. Pete sez he kin clean me out. Anyhow, yu kin
have the fust deal," compromised Lanky.
"I'm shore sorry fer Pete if he cayn't. Yu don't reckon I has to
have fust deal to beat yu fellers, do yu? Go way an' lemme alone; I
never seed such a bunch fer buttin' in as yu fellers."
Billy Williams returned to the bar. Then he walked along it until he
was behind the recalcitrant possessor of the table. While his
aggrieved friends shuffled their feet uneasily to cover his approach,
he tiptoed up behind Jimmy and, with a nod, grasped that indignant
individual firmly by the neck while the others grabbed his feet. They
carried him, twisting and bucking, to the middle of the street and
deposited him in the dust, returning to the now vacant table.
Jimmy rested quietly for a few seconds and then slowly arose,
dusting the alkali from him.
"Th' wall-eyed piruts," he muttered, and then scratched his head for a
way to "play hunk." As he gazed sorrowfully at the saloon he heard a
snicker from behind him. He, thinking it was one of his late
tormentors, paid no attention to it. Then a cynical, biting laugh
stung him. He wheeled, to see Shorty leaning against a tree, a
sneering leer on his flushed face. Shorty's right hand was suspended
above his holster, hooked to his belt by the thumb-a favorite position
of his when expecting trouble.
"One of yore reg'lar habits?" he drawled.
Jimmy began to dust himself in silence, but his lips were compressed
to a thin white line.
"Does they hurt yu?" pursued the onlooker.
Jimmy looked up. "I heard tell that they make glue outen cayuses,
sometimes," he remarked.
Shorty's eyes flashed. The loss of the horse had been rankling in
his heart all day.
"Does they git yu frequent?" he asked. His voice sounded hard.
"Oh, `bout as frequent as yu lose a cayuse, I reckon," replied Jimmy
hotly.
Shorty's hand streaked to his holster and Jimmy followed his lead.
Jimmy's Colt was caught. He had bucked too much. As he fell Shorty ran
for the Houston House.
Pistol shots were common, for they were the universal method of
expressing emotions. The poker players grinned, thinking their victim
was letting off his indignation. Lanky sized up his hand and remarked
half audibly, "He's a shore good kid."
The bartender, fearing for his new beveled, gilt-framed mirror, gave
a hasty glance out the window. He turned around, made change and
remarked to Buck, "Yore kid, Jimmy, is plugged." Several of the more
credulous craned their necks to see, Buck being the first. "Judas!" he
shouted, and ran out to where Jimmy lay coughing, his toes twitching.
The saloon was deserted and a crowd of angry cowboys surrounded their
chum-aboy. Buck had seen Shorty enter the door of the Houston House
and he swore. "Chase them C 80 and Arrow cayuses behind the saloon,
Pete, an' git under cover.
Jimmy was choking and he coughed up blood. "He's shore- got me. My-
gun stuck," he added apologetically. He tried to sit up, but was not
able and he looked surprised. "It's purty- damn hot-out here," he
suggested. Johnny and Billy carried him in the saloon and placed him
by the table, in the chair he had previously vacated. As they stood up
he fell across the table and died.
Billy placed the dead boy's sombrero on his head and laid the
refractory six-shooter on the table. "I wonder who th' dirty killer
was." He looked at the slim figure and started to go out, followed by
Johnny. As he reached the threshold a bullet zipped past him and
thudded into the frame of the door. He backed away and looked
surprised. "That's Shorty's shootin'-he allus misses `bout that much."
He looked out and saw Buck standing behind the live oak that Shorty
had leaned against, firing at the hotel. Turning around he made for
the rear, remarking to Johnny that "they's in th' Houston." Johnny
looked at the quiet figure in the chair and swore softly. He followed
Billy. Cowan, closing the door and taking a buffalo gun from under the
bar, went out also and slammed the rear door forcibly.
CHAPTER III
The Argument
Up the street two hundred yards from the Houston House Skinny and Pete
lay hidden behind a bowlder. Three hundred yards on the other side of
the hotel Johnny and Billy were stretched out in an arroyo. Buck was
lying down now, and Hopalong, from his position in the barn belonging
to the hotel, was methodically dropping the horses of the besieged, a
job he hated as much as he hated poison. The corral was their death
trap. Red and Lanky were emitting clouds of smoke from behind the
store, immediately across the street from the barroom. A buffalo gun
roared down by the plaza and several Sharps cracked a protest from
different points. The town had awakened and the shots were dropping
steadily.
Strange noises filled the air. They grew in tone and volume and then
dwindled away to nothing. The hum of the buffalo gun and the sobbing
pi-in-in-ing of the Winchesters were liberally mixed with the sharp
whines of the revolvers.
There were no windows in the hotel now. Raw furrows in the bleached
wood showed yellow, and splinters mysteriously sprang from the
casings. The panels of the door were producing cracks and the cheap
door handle flew many ways at once. An empty whisky keg on the stoop
boomed out mournfully at intervals and finally rolled down the steps
with a rumbling protest. Wisps of smoke slowly climbed up the walls
and seemed to be waving defiance to the curling wisps in the open.
Pete raised his shoulder to refill the magazine of his smoking rifle
and dropped the cartridges all over his lap. He looked sheepishly at
Skinny and began to load with his other hand.
"Yore plum loco, yu are. Don't yu reckon they kin hit a blue shirt
at two hundred?" Skinny cynically inquired. "Got one that time," he
announced a second later.
"I wonder who's got th' buffalo," grunted Pete. "Mus' be Cowan," he
replied to his own question and settled himself to use his left hand.
"Don't yu git Shorty; he's my meat," suggested Skinny.
"Yu better tell Buck-he ain't got no love fer Shorty," replied Pete,
aiming carefully.
The panic in the corral ceased and Hopalong was now sending his
regrets against the panels of the rear door. He had cut his last
initial in the near panel and was starting a wobbly "H" in its
neighbor. He was in a good position. There were no windows in the rear
wall, and as the door was a very dangerous place he was not fired at.
He began to get tired of this one-sided business and crawled up on
the window ledge, dangling his feet on the outside. He occasionally
sent a bullet at a different part of the door, but amused himself by
annoying Buck.
"Plenty hot down there?" he pleasantly inquired, and as he received
no answer he tried again. "Better save some of them cartridges fer
some other time, Buck."
Buck was sending 45-70's into the shattered window with a precision
that presaged evil to any of the defenders who were rash enough to try
to gain the other end of the room.
Hopalong bit off a chew of tobacco and drowned a green fly that was
crawling up the side of the barn. The yellow liquid streaked downward
a short distance and was eagerly sucked up by the warped boards.
A spurt of smoke leaped from the battered door and the bored
Hopalong promptly tumbled back inside. He felt of his arm, and then,
delighted at the notice taken of his artistic efforts, shot several
times from a crack on his right. "This yer's shore gittin' like home,"
he gravely remarked to the splinter that whizzed past his head. He
shot again at the door and it sagged outward, accompanied by the thud
of a falling body. "Pies like mother used to make," he announced to
the loft as he slipped the magazine full of .45-70'S. "An' pills like
popper used to take," he continued when he had lowered the level of
the water in his flask.
He rolled a cigarette and tossed the match into the air,
extinguishing it by a shot from his Colt.
"Got any cigarettes, Hoppy?" said a voice from below.
"Shore," replied the joyous puncher, recognizing Pete; "how'd yu git
here?"
"Like a cow. Busy?"
"None whatever. Comin' up?"
"Nope. Skinny wants a smoke too."
Hopalong handed tobacco and papers down the hole. "So long."
"So long," replied the daring Pete, who risked death twice for a
smoke.
The hot afternoon dragged along and about three o'clock Buck held up
an empty cartridge belt to the gaze of the curious Hopalong. That
observant worthy nodded and threw a double handful of cartridges, one
by one, to the patient and unrelenting Buck, who filled his gun and
piled the few remaining ones up at his side. "Th' lives of mice and
men gang aft all wrong," he remarked at random.
"Th' son-of-a-gun's talkin' Shakespeare," marveled Hopalong.
"Satiate any, Buck?" he asked as that worthy settled down to await his
chance.
"Two," he replied, "Shorty an' another. Plenty damn hot down here,"
he complained. A spurt of alkali dust stung his face, but the hand
that made it never made another. "Three," he called. "How many,
Hoppy?"
"One. That's four. Wonder if th' others got any?"
"Pete said Skinny got one," replied the intent Buck.
"Th' son-of-a-gun, he never said nothin' about it, an' me a fillin'
his ornery paws with smokin'." Hopalong was indignant.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15