Clarence E. Mulford_Hopalong Cassidy 04 (8 page)

For a moment he stood still and pondered, his head too full of what
he had heard to notice that anything out of the ordinary had happened.
Although the evangelist had adopted the wrong method he had gained
more than he knew and Hopalong had something to take home with him and
wrestle out for himself in spare moments; that is, he would have had
but for one thing: As he slowly looked around for his horse he came to
himself with a sharp jerk, and hot profanity routed the germ of religion
incubating in his soul. His horse was missing! Here was a pretty mess,
he thought savagely; and then his expression of anger and perplexity
gave way to a flickering grin as the probable solution came to his mind.

"By the Lord, I never saw such a bunch to play jokes," he laughed.
"Won't they never grow up? They was watching me when I went inside an'
sneaked up and rustled my cayuse. Well, I'll get back again without much
trouble, all right. They ought to know me better by this time."

"Hey, stranger!" he called to a man who was riding past, "have you seen
anything of a skinny roan cayuse fifteen han's high, white stocking on
the near foreleg, an' a bandage on the off fetlock, Bar-20 being the
brand?"

The stranger, knowing the grinning inquisitor by sight, suspected that
a joke was being played: he also knew Dave Wilkes and that gentleman's
friends. He chuckled and determined to help it along a little. "Shore
did, pardner; saw a man leading him real cautious. Was he yourn?"

"Oh, no; not at all. He belonged to my great-great-grandfather, who left
him to my second cousin. You see, I borrowed it," he grinned, making his
way leisurely towards the general store, kept by his friend Dave, the
joker. "Funny how everybody likes a joke," he muttered, opening the door
of the store. "Hey, Dave," he called.

Mr. Wilkes wheeled suddenly and stared. "Why, I thought you was half-way
to Wallace's by now!" he exclaimed. "Did you come back to lose that lone
dollar?"

"Oh, I lost that too. But yo're a real smart cuss, now ain't you?"
queried Hopalong, his eyes twinkling and his face wreathed with good
humor. "An' how innocent you act, too. Thought you could scare me,
didn't you? Thought I'd go tearing 'round this fool town like a house
afire, hey? Well, I reckon you can guess again. Now, I'm owning up that
the joke's on me, so you hand over my cayuse, an' I'll make up for lost
time."

Dave Wilkes' face expressed several things, but surprise was dominant.
"Why, I ain't even seen yore ol' cayuse, you chump! Last time I saw it
you was on him, going like the devil. Did somebody pull you off it an'
take it away from you?" he demanded with great sarcasm. "Is somebody
abusing you?"

Hopalong bit into a generous handful of dried apricots, chewed
complacently for a moment, and replied: "'At's aw right; I want my
cayuse." Swallowing hastily, he continued: "I want it, an' I've come to
the right place for it, too. Hand it over, David."

"Dod blast it, I tell you I ain't got it!" retorted Dave, beginning
to suspect that something was radically wrong. "I ain't seen it, an' I
don't know nothing about it."

Hopalong wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Well, then, Tom or Art does,
all right."

"No, they don't, neither; I watched 'em leave an' they rode straight
out of town, an' went the other way, same as they allus do." Dave was
getting irritated. "Look here, you; are you joking or drunk, or both, or
is that animule of yourn really missing?"

"Huh!" snorted Hopalong, trying some new prunes. "'Ese prunes er purty
good," he mumbled, in grave congratulation. "I don' get prunes like 'ese
very of'n."

"I reckon you don't! They ought to be good! Cost me thirty cents a
half-pound," Dave retorted with asperity, anxiously shifting his feet.
It didn't take much of a loss to wipe out a day's profits with him.

"An' I don't reckon you paid none too much for 'em, at that," Mr.
Cassidy responded, nodding his head in comprehension. "Ain't no worms in
'em, is there?"

"Shore there is!" exploded Dave. "Plumb full of 'em!"

"You don't say! Hardly know whether to take a chance with the worms or
try the apricots. Ain't no worms in them, anyhow. But when am I going to
get my cayuse? I've got a long way to go, an' delay is costly—how much
did you say these yaller fellers cost?" he asked significantly, trying
another handful of apricots.

"On the dead level, cross my heart an' hope to die, but I ain't seen
yore cayuse since you left here," earnestly replied Dave. "If you don't
know where it is, then somebody went an' lifted it. It looks like it's
up to you to do some hunting, 'stead of cultivating a belly-ache at
my
expense.
I
ain't trying to keep you, God knows!"

Hopalong glanced out of the window as he considered, and saw, entering
the saloon, the same puncher who had confessed to seeing his horse. "Hey
Dave; wait a minute!" and he dashed out of the store and made good time
towards the liquid refreshment parlor. Dave promptly nailed the covers
on the boxes of prunes and apricots and leaned innocently against the
cracker box to await results, thinking hard all the while. It looked
like a plain case of horse-stealing to him.

"Stranger," cried Hopalong, bouncing into the bar-room, "where did you
see that cayuse of mine?"

"The ancient relic of yore family was aheading towards Hoyt's Corners,"
the stranger replied, grinning broadly. "It's a long walk. Have
something before you starts?"

"Damn the walk! Who was riding him?"

"Nobody at all."

"What do you mean?"

"He wasn't being rid when I saw him."

"Hang it, man; that cayuse was stole from me!"

"Somewhat in the nature of a calamity, now ain't it?" smiled the
stranger, enjoying his contributions to the success of the joke.

"You bet yore life it is!" shouted Hopalong, growing red and then pale.
"You tell me who was leading him, understand?"

"Well, I couldn't see his face, honest I couldn't," replied the
stranger. "Every time I tried it I was shore blinded by the most awful
an' horrible neck-kerchief I've ever had the hard luck to lay my eyes
on. Of all the drunks I ever met, them there colors was—Hey! Wait a
minute!" he shouted at Hopalong's back.

"Dave, gimme yore cayuse an' a rifle—quick!" cried Hopalong from
the middle of the street as he ran towards the store. "Hypocrite
son-of-a-hoss-thief went an' run mine off. Might 'a' knowed nobody but a
thief could wear such a kerchief!"

"I'm with you!" shouted Dave, leading the way on the run towards the
corral in the rear of his store.

"No, you ain't with me, neither!" replied Hopalong, deftly saddling.
"This ain't no plain hoss-thief case—it's a private grudge. See you
later, mebby," and he was pacing a cloud of dust towards the outskirts
of the town.

Dave looked after him. "Well, that feller has shore got a big start on
you, but he can't keep ahead of that Doll of mine for very long. She can
out-run anything in these parts. 'Sides, Cassidy's cayuse looked sort
of done up, while mine's as fresh as a bird. That thief will get what's
coming to him, all right."

While Hopalong tried to find his horse, Ben Ferris pushed forward,
circling steadily to the east and away from the direction of Hoyt's
corners, which was as much a menace to his health and happiness as the
town of Grant, twenty miles to his rear. If he could have been certain
that no danger was nearer to him than these two towns, he would have
felt vastly relieved, even if his horse was not fresh. During the last
hour he had not urged it as hard as he had in the beginning of his
flight and it had dropped to a walk for minutes at a stretch. This was
not because he felt that he had plenty of time, but for the reason that
he understood horses and could not afford to exhaust his mount so early
in the chase. He glanced back from time to time as if fearing what might
be on his trail, and well he might fear. According to all the traditions
and customs of the range, both of which he knew well, somewhere between
him and Grant was a posse of hard-riding cow-punchers, all anxious and
eager for a glance at him over their sights. In his mind's eye he
could see them, silent, grim, tenacious, reeling off the miles on that
distance-eating lope. He had stolen a horse, and that meant death if
they caught him. He loosened his gaudy kerchief and gulped in fear,
not of what pursued, but of what was miles before him. His own saddle,
strapped behind the one he sat in, bumped against him with each reach of
the horse and had already made his back sore—but he must endure it for
a time. Never in all his life had minutes been so precious.

Another hour passed and the horse seemed to be doing well, much better
than he had hoped—he would rest it for a few minutes at the next water
while he drank his fill and changed the bumping saddle. As he rounded a
turn and entered a heavily grassed valley he saw a stream close at hand
and, leaping off, fixed the saddle first. As he knelt to drink he caught
a movement and jumped up to catch his mount. Time after time he almost
touched it, but it evaded him and kept up the game, cropping a mouthful
of grass during each respite.

"All right!" he muttered as he let it eat. "I'll get my drink while you
eat an' then I'll get you!"

He knelt by the stream again and drank long and deep. As he paused for
breath something made him leap up and to one side, reaching for his
Colt at the same instant. His fingers found only leather and he swore
fiercely as he remembered—he had sold the Colt for food and kept the
rifle for defence. As he faced the rear a horseman rounded the turn and
the fugitive, wheeling, dashed for the stolen horse forty yards away,
where his rifle lay in its saddle sheath. But an angry command and the
sharp hum of a bullet fired in front of him checked his flight and he
stopped short and swore.

"I reckon the jig's up," remarked Mr. Cassidy, balancing the up-raised
Colt with nicety and indifference.

"Yea; I reckon so," sullenly replied the other, tears running into his
eyes.

"Well, I'm damned!" snorted Hopalong with cutting contempt. "Crying like
a li'l baby! Got nerve enough to steal my cayuse, an' then go an'
beller like a lost calf when I catch you. Yo're a fine specimen of a
hoss-thief, I don't think!"

"Yo're a liar!" retorted the other, clenching his fists and growing red.

Mr. Cassidy's mouth opened and then clicked shut as his Colt swung down.
But he did not shoot; something inside of him held his trigger finger
and he swore instead. The idea of a man stealing his horse, being caught
red-handed and unarmed, and still possessed of sufficient courage to
call his captor a name never tolerated or overlooked in that country!
And the idea that he, Hopalong Cassidy, of the Bar-20, could not shoot
such a thief! "Damn that sky pilot! He's shore gone an' made me loco,"
he muttered, savagely, and then addressed his prisoner. "Oh, you ain't
crying? Wind got in yore eyes, I reckon, an' sort of made 'em leak a
little—that it? Or mebby them unholy green roses an' yaller grass on
that blasted fool neck-kerchief of yourn are too much for
your
eyes,
too!"

"Look ahere!" snapped the man on the ground, stepping forward, one fist
upraised. "I came nigh onto licking you this noon in that gospel sharp's
tent for making fun of that scarf, an' I'll do it yet if you get any
smart about it! You mind yore own business an' close yore fool eyes if
you don't like my clothes!"

"Say! You ain't no cry-baby after all. Hanged if I even think yo're a
real genuine hoss-thief!" enthused Mr. Cassidy. "You act like a twin
brother; but what the devil ever made you steal that cayuse, anyhow?"

"An' that's none of yore business, neither; but I'll tell you, just the
same," replied the thief. "I had to have it; that's why. I'll fight
you rough-an'-tumble to see if I keep it, or if you take the cayuse an'
shoot me besides: is it a go?"

Hopalong stared at him and then a grin struggled for life, got it, and
spread slowly over his tanned countenance. "Yore gall is refreshing!
Damned if it ain't worse than the scarf. Here, you tell me what made you
take a chance like stealing a cayuse this noon—I'm getting to like you,
bad as you are, hanged if I ain't!"

"Oh, what's the use?" demanded the other, tears again coming into his
eyes. "You'll think I'm lying an' trying to crawl out—an' I won't do
neither."

"
I
didn't say
you
was a liar," replied Hopalong. "It was the other
way about. Reckon you can try me, anyhow; can't you?"

"Yes; I s'pose so," responded the other, slowly, and in a milder tone
of voice. "An' when I called you that I was mad and desperate. I was
hasty—you see, my wife's dying, or dead, over in Winchester. I was
riding hard to get to her before it was too late when my cayuse stepped
into a hole just the other side of Grant—you know what happened. I shot
the animal, stripped off my saddle an' hoofed it to town, an' dropped
into that gospel dealer's layout to see if he could make me feel any
better—which he could not. I just couldn't stand his palaver about
death an' slipped out. I was going to lay for you an' lick you for the
way you acted about this scarf—had to do something or go loco. But when
I got outside there was yore cayuse, all saddled an' ready to go. I
just up an' threw my saddle on it, followed suit with myself an' was
ten miles out of town before I realized just what I'd done. But the
realizing part of it didn't make no difference to me—I'd 'a' done
it just the same if I had stopped to think it over. That's flat, an'
straight. I've got to get to that li'l woman as quick as I can, an' I'd
steal all the cayuses in the whole damned country if they'd do me any
good. That's all of it—take it or leave it. I put it up to you. That's
yore cayuse, but you ain't going to get it without fighting me for it!
If you shoot me down without giving me a chance, all right! I'll cut a
throat for that wore-out bronc!"