Longhorn Empire (7 page)

“We won’t eat to night, feller,” he muttered as he surged Smoke into the water. A moment later they were both swimming. To
Brant’s ears came the faint sound of shouts.

The cold water revived Brant somewhat, so that he was able to mount again when they reached the shallows near the south bank.
Swinging forward on the horse’s neck, he twined his fingers in Smoke’s coarse mane and held on, giving the moros his head.
Another moment and the big blue horse was speeding southward at a fast clip.

Brant rode for many miles. Finally he pushed the moros into the heart of a dense thicket, tumbled to the ground and almost
instantly was asleep.

Sunshine was streaming down and birds were singing in the bushes when Brant finally awoke. He was stiff and sore all over;
his eyes were nearly closed and his face was like a piece of raw beefsteak, but he felt greatly refreshed. With the elasticity
of youth, he had thrown off the effects of the bad beating, the exhausting swim and the miles of hard riding. As he got a
fire going and coffee on the boil, he was whistling as merrily through his cut lips as were the birds on the branches.

“Reckon that sidewinder knows he was in a wrong, too,” he chuckled. “Bet I loosened every joint in his ornery carcass when
I slammed him on the floor.”

The feel of the packets of money was as comforting as the food he consumed with ravenous appetite. Then he dried out his tobacco
in the sun and enjoyed a refreshing smoke.

“Let’s go, feller,” he told the grazing horse. “We got a long ride ahead of us still, but I’ve a notion we won’t meet up with
any more trouble. Whoever managed to get word to Doran and his hellions that we were packing all this dinero hardly had time
to get ahead of us again. We’ll make Texas okay. I’ll be glad to see the old Palo
Duro again. To heck with this Kansas and Oklahoma country! Folks don’t act nice up here.”

As he rode away from the thicket, Brant puzzled greatly as to how Doran could have known he carried Webb’s money. He was sure
that the Deadfall owner would never have taken such a chance based on mere guesswork.

“Nope, somebody must have hightailed mighty fast to get to the Crossing before I did. The question is, who? I can’t for the
life of me figure who knew what I had in mind. Reckon somebody must have overheard Webb talking to me there in the hotel lobby,
but I sure don’t call to mind anybody hanging around close right then. Oh, well, no harm done. I got a couple of black eyes
and a cut lip out of it, but I did have some fun. That hellion Doran must have put in some time in the prize ring, to learn
to swing his fists like he did. But their cute little scheme didn’t pan out as figured, so what the hell!”

Brant rode swiftly, more swiftly than he had intended during the latter part of his journey. Across the forks of the Canadian,
and across the Prairie Dog fork of the Red, with the limitless plains of the Texas Panhandle stretching on all sides, until
before him was the strange and wonderful cleft across the plains known as the Palo Duro Canyon.

The canyon, really a great sunken valley, was many miles wide and very deep. In places its rock walls were sheer, in others
they were slopes of crumbling shale and rock fall. Shadowy, mysterious, well watered, with stands of cedar and other growth,
it lay like the raw wound left in the rangeland by a random stroke of some flaming sword of vengeance. It was an ideal range
for cattle
fenced in by walls hundreds of feet high. It had offsets, such as Tule Canyon, where once more than fifty thousand head of
wild mustangs ranged. When Charles Goodnight, the great Panhandle cattle baron, settled his cows in Palo Duro Canyon, he had
to run buffalo from the range.

Brant rode along the rim of the canyon. Finally, in the distant southwest wall, he saw a dark and sinister looking opening
choked with a bristle of cedars that grew thickest along the shadowy battlements that hemmed it in. Far up the ominous gorge
a mighty spire of naked rock soared above the stony walls. Veined and ledged and turreted, it had the appearance of a great
light house standing isolated and alone, its lofty summit as devoid of life as it had been since the beginning of time.

It was a grim and even sinister formation, but to Austin Brant it was a friendly beacon welcoming the traveller home.

Brant skirted the west end of the canyon, crossed Palo Duro Creek and, just as dusk mantled the prairie in its mystic robe,
he reached the Running W ranch house.

After doing full justice to a bountiful surroundin’ Brant stood on the ranch house porch gazing across the star burned prairie;
endeavoring to envision something of the future of this vast land of wide spaces and unlimited opportunity. Unlike many of
the older cowmen who took it for granted that present conditions would always prevail, Brant sensed that changes were coming
to the grasslands, that new forces were gathering, new events were in the making.

Nor was he wrong in his guess. Already the change was under way. Nesters and farmers were
arriving. Cowboys were taking up spots of land and running their own brands. Soon the supremacy of the great cattle barons
would be challenged, and out of that challenge would come conflict.

Some years before, Col o nel Charles Goodnight had formed a partnership with Adair, an Irishman, who invested $375,000 as
against Good-night’s Palo Duro ranch, the JA. The Prairie Cattle Company, the Spurs, the Matadors, and other organizations
were buying land and running in great numbers of long-horns. The XIT, owned by the Capitol Syndicate, for many years the greatest
ranch in America, was in pro cess of formation. The XIT, when the deal to build the Texas State Capitol in exchange for land
grants was consummated, would consist of three million acres— “Ten Counties in Texas!”

As yet the change had little affected the region wherein lay John Webb’s Running W spread.

“But we’re due to catch it, and before long,” Brant mused as he gazed across the broad acres which Webb owned, or laid claim
to.

Brant’s first chore the following day was to visit Wes Morley of the Bar M and hand him the sum of money needed to meet his
note. Morley evinced surprise.

“What’s eatin’ that old pelican?” he demanded. “I was in no hurry for this dinero. My note isn’t due for nigh onto a month,
and I could get an extension if I needed it, I figger.”

Brant was not particularly surprised at this information. It but confirmed his suspicion that Webb had desired to get him away
from Dodge City at once.

“And he came nigh to heading me into a worse rukus,” he chuckled to himself as he rode back to the Running W. “That one has
still got me puzzled. How in blazes did Doran learn I was packing that money!”

The mystery was intriguing, but Brant had other things to think about.

“We been havin’ trouble—everybody’s been havin’ trouble,” the temporary range boss left in charge of the spread told him.
“We’ve been losin’ cows, and so has everybody else. There’s been brand blottin’ and brand alterin’, and we ain’t been able
to prove anything on anybody.”

Brant nodded, his face grave. He understood very well the situation that was developing. It was a country where a cow thief
could hole up easily and do a lucrative business in other men’s cattle. In fact, the bonanza cattle days were at hand all
over the West. It cost a dollar to drive a Texas steer to the Northern market. By the change of location, its value was increased
four dollars. With such a margin of profit, anyone could make a fortune in cows, if he could manage to get hold of enough cows.

Matching wits on the part of the range rider and the widelooper became an exciting and often dangerous game, the one endeavoring
to get evidence of guilt, the other to escape proof. Later would come the question of the relative rights of the big outfits
and the small cattlemen. This controversy would also prove profitable for the rustler, who played both ends against the middle.

“It’s them sidewinders from over New Mexico way what are responsible for most of the hell raisin’,” the range boss declared.

“Chances are,” Brant conceded. “But the home grown variety aren’t doing so bad by themselves, either, I’ve a notion. We’ve
got to do a heap of patrolling if we want to keep our beefs.”

Brant determined on some patrolling on his own account, with a particular objective in view. The following morning found
him riding north by east, toward the Bar O range. It was the spread owned by old Nate Loring, the Oklahoma cowman he had met
in the Deadfall. Brant rode at a good pace, noting the position of various bunches of cows, estimating their numbers and checking
his observations against conditions prevailing before he left for the northern drive. About mid-morning found him traversing
a section of rolling land dotted with thickets and occasional groves. To his left, some hundreds of yards distant, was a thick
bristle of growth that fringed a wide and deep gulley, its steep sides grown with grass and flowering weeds. As far as the
eye could reach it wound its uneven way across the prairie.

Smoke was taking it easy up the long slope of a rise when Brant suddenly stiffened in the saddle. From somewhere ahead came
the hard, metallic clang of a rifle shot.

Instantly Brant was very much on the alert. That abrupt burst of gunfire might mean nothing—a range rider shooting at a coyote,
perhaps—but again it might mean a good deal. With things as they were at present on the rangeland, most anything was liable
to happen.

As he listened intently for further shots, a low drumming sound reached Brant’s ears, which he quickly cata logued as the
beat of a horse’s irons on the farther side of the ridge.

“Comin’ fast,” he muttered. “Sounds like some jigger has places to go. Here he comes!”

Over the crest of the rise appeared a small bay horse, materializing against the skyline as if jerked up by unseen strings.
Down the sag it scudded, as if blown before the wind. It was not headed straight for the Running W foreman but was veering
sharply to the west.

“What in blazes?” Brant asked himself. “If that jigger doesn’t pull up, he’ll find himself at the bottom of that draw with
a busted neck. Wonder what he’s runnin’ from?”

On came the fleeing rider, hunched over in the saddle. Suddenly Brant swore aloud. He had caught a glimpse of tossing, wind-blown
curls back of the bay’s head.

“For the love of Pete!” he exclaimed, “A girl!” His voice let loose in a stentorian roar—

“Look out! Pull up! Want to bust your neck?”

The rider of the bay apparently did not hear him, or if she did she took no heed.
Brant swore again. His voice rang out, urgent, compelling—

“Trail, Smoke, trail!”

The great moros shot forward, angling to the left in obedience to the pressure of the rein on his neck. His irons beat a drumroll
of sound from the hard earth. He slugged his head above the bit. His legs drove backward like steel pistons as he fairly poured
his long body over the ground. Brant let out another shout of warning. But the girl on the bay did not slacken speed. The
bay, apparently frantic with fright, sped on blindly, straight for the ominous fringe of growth that bordered the unseen gulch.

Brant was also headed for the gulch. The
course of the two riders formed a triangle, its apex the bristle of low brush. Brant’s eyes narrowed. He twisted the split
reins together and dropped them on Smoke’s neck. He saw now that the girl was sawing frantically at the bay’s bridle, and
getting no results.

“Hellion’s got the bit in his teeth,” Brant muttered, “and he’s scared blind loco about something. This is going to be close.”

On raced the moros, without slackening speed, as the growth and the lip of the draw seemed to fairly leap toward them. Brant
gripped Smoke’s swelling barrel hard with his thighs. He rammed his feet deep into the stirrups. The bay was almost within
arms’ reach now, and almost to the first straggle of brush. Brant caught a glimpse of the girl’s face, a white blur beneath
her flying hair. Brant rose in his stirrups. Then he hurled himself sideways as shifted metal glinted in the sunlight.

There was a flash of fire, the roar of a shot. Brant gasped as a bullet burned its way along his ribs. He lunged forward, knocking
the gun up even as the girl pulled trigger a second time. The slug fanned his face as the gun went spinning through the air.
And just as the bay hit the brush with a crackling crash, Brant wound an arm about the girl’s waist and jerked her from the
saddle. The bay horse, with an almost human scream, went over the lip of the gorge and hurtled downward.

The girl struck at Brant with little fists, clawed at his face with her nails.

“Stop it, you hellcat!” he bellowed as Smoke hit the brush like a tornado, cleared the lip of the gorge in a great bound and
came down on the slope on bunched hoofs.

By a miracle of agility, the blue horse kept his footing. Down the dizzy slope he scudded, apparently walking on empty air
most of the time. Brant crushed the struggling girl against his breast with a force that squeezed most of the breath out of
her body. Brant seized the bridle from Smoke’s neck and steadied him. Smoke went over a bench like a flickering blue sunbeam,
sailed through the air and landed on the slope a dozen feet farther down with a jolt that nearly drove Brant’s spine through
the top of his head.

“Settin’ on his tail,” Smoke took the last score of yards in a blaze of glory and a cloud of dust. An avalanche of loosened
pebbles and boulders went along with him. They hit the bottom of the gorge together. The boulders kept going for some distance.
Smoke skittered to a slithering halt and stood snorting and blowing.

Brant loosened his grip on the gasping girl. He glared down at her, his temper not improved by the sting of the bullet sear
along the ribs and the uncomfortable warm stickiness that accompanied it.

“What’s the big notion?” he demanded wrathfully. “I risk getting myself scattered all over the prairie to save you from getting
your neck busted and you throw at me and try to claw my eyes out. I—”

Abruptly he ceased speaking. He stared incredulously at the piquant little face that seemed to be all great terrified blue
eyes.

“He—heck and blazes!” he exclaimed. “I know you. You’re the girl I saw in the Deadfall, up at Doran’s Crossing on the Cimarron!”