the Rustlers Of West Fork (1951) (16 page)

Suddenly Sparr's eyes sharpened. Far out over that vast bowl of darkness was a tiny gleam, the gleam of a distant campfire. That, then, was where Cassidy and the Jordans were. Then he scowled. There was another vague and indefinite glow farther south. Was it a campfire? He could not make it out. If so, who could it be?

Unknown to Avery Sparr he was now looking upon the small fire of the Apaches which was concealed from everywhere but the heights. Later, long after he had eaten and when most of them had already rolled in their blankets, Sparr returned to the cliff edge. The fire to the south had vanished and there was a faint glow at the foot of the very cliff on which he stood! This was the fire Hopalong had started and left behind him on his night foray. Sparr shook his head, suddenly worried. Who else was down there?

He halted, stopping abruptly. Then he smiled. Of course! It was a trick to confuse him.

Trust a trailwise hombre like Cassidy to think of that!

Dawn found Hopalong lying, not behind the larger rocks that offered the greatest protection, but among some smaller rocks almost concealed by the tall grass and brush. The place apparently offered no shelter at all, yet visibility was good from where he lay and the field of fire extended across the whole of the open area before him. Moreover, he had no need to thrust his head up or around a rock, where the Indians would more than likely be expecting him.

Behind him Pamela was busy over a fire of dry wood, making coffee and warming up a little of the food they had left. Dick Jordan was sitting up, and he had a rifle across his knees. His cheeks looked hollow and his eyes were sunken, but the spirit within him was strong. Almost with the coffee came the first movement from down in the trees. Only a slight stir of grass, but Hopalong knew that an Indian had started toward him. Action had begun, or would soon begin.

He glanced warily toward the mountain trail, bathed now in the bright morning sun that had cleared the ridge to warm the crest but had not yet reached the basin where he lay. There was no movement on the trail. Unknown to him, Avery Sparr and his men were already in the basin.

Light had touched the trail before it reached the basin at all, and their descent had begun at once.

Pamela picked up her own rifle and joined them near the rocks. Hopalong glanced back at the camp. The horses were saddled and out of sight in the trees and rocks, the gear all packed and ready.

If they had to run for it they could. Hopalong nestled his rifle stock against his cheek and fitted it well back into the hollow of his shoulder. His eyes were cold and blue as they glinted along the rifle barrel.

Long before Hopalong had gone into position with his rifle, four Apaches had found the tracks made the previous night. Rightly, they had deduced they had been made during darkness, and so figured one of the three they had attacked was trying to escape. After a muttered conference the four moved off swiftly, following that trail. Before long they sighted the ghostly wisp of smoke rising from the slow-burning wood of Hoppy's decoying campfire.

Warily the Apaches halted. Instinctively they sensed something was wrong. Had the three riders they pursued come this far they must surely have gone up the trail. And while they waited, puzzling out this strange occurrence, nine horsemen were riding to the basin bottom and gathering at the trail's end before moving around the trees into sight.

The Apaches moved forward carefully. Avery Sparr, on the other side of the fire in a little hollow, also sighted the smoke. This was one of the fires he had seen the previous night, the last of the three. He swung from his horse and walked slowly forward, flanked by one of the Lydon boys. From around a tree he slowly moved his head, and his eyes caught the barest movement, a flash of brown moving flesh. An Apache!

His hand flashed for his Colt even as the Indian thrust forward his rifle, but the Colt came up spouting flame and the Indian died moving. Instantly there was a crash of guns, and Jake Lydon went down, clawing at his chest and coughing blood from a ruined lung.

At the burst of fire Hopalong, knowing his stratagem had worked, riveted his eyes on the nearest movement he had seen. With the crash of gunfire there had been a sudden end to the movement, and Hopalong gambled. Holding his rifle low, he fired into the grass. He heard the fleshy thud of the bullet, saw the Apache's head lift, and nailed it with a second shot. Two shots answered him, and instantly Pamela and Dick Jordan fired. Unwit- tingly, they had taken the same target, and the Indian died where he lay. The firing continued, and Hopalong faded back to the horses.

"Come on!" he called in a low voice. "In the saddle! You first, Dick!" Springing his horse into the lead, he led them at a lope down through the trees toward the trail he had found. Whether or not the cleft in the rock was an outlet to the basin he did not know, but they were in no position to wait. Behind him the gunfire continued, but at a slower rate. The buckskin scrambled up the talus slope, then over the ridge and into the slight hollow behind. Without hesitation the horse turned into the narrow space in the rock and Hopalong slowed it down.

The opening into which he had ridden was no more than twelve feet wide and the rock on each side was smooth as glass. At one time water had roared through here, polishing these walls until not even an ant could have found a foothold on their sheer expanse.

The floor of the cleft was hard-packed sand after the first hundred yards or so, and the passage through which they rode widened a few feet, then narrowed until their boots brushed the wall on either side. Then it widened again, and here there was an open space of perhaps an acre in extent with some grass and one lone tree.

Hopalong drew up and turned in the saddle, looking at Dick Jordan. "How you makin' it, old-timer?" he asked, grinning. Yet even as he grinned his eyes inspected the older man carefully.

The limits of the crippled man's endurance must soon be reached, for, tough as he was, he could not stand much of this. Even staying in the saddle was an effort.

Now firing could not be heard. A stalemate, or the end of the fight? "I'm all right." Jordan glared at him. "How you makin' it? Don't worry about Pam an' me. Long as you can sit in a saddle, I can, b'lieve me! No Bar 20 or Double y hand was ever as tough as a Circle J rider!"

Hopalong chuckled. "Why, you wall-eyed galoot! The best man you ever had wouldn't have been fit to drive a Bar 20 calf wagon!"

"Huh!" Jordan snorted. "Lanky waseabest hand, an' we taught him all he knowed on the Circle J!"

Hopalong chuckled. "Why, Lanky always said he left the J because that bunch of gristle-heeled old-timers was so lazy they wouldn't move camp for a prairie fire! He got tired of doin' all the work over there, so he came to a good outfit!"

"When you two stop fussing, you might tell me where we go from here." Pamela gestured at the steep-walled bowl in which they stood. "Maybe we've lost them, but we can't stay here always."

Hopalong had been letting his own eyes search the sheerwalled area in which they had stopped. No outlet was visible. To all appearances they were trapped once more, only worse. De- spite the looks of the place, he did not believe it, for the trail down which they had come had been well used, even if long since. There were no evidences here of anyone who had stopped for long. And there was no reason for coming to such a place. Whoever had come in had gone out, and by another route.

"Give your horses a rest," he said quietly. "Just let "em browse for a while, but don't get down."

He walked his horse around the bowl, finding no tracks here that could be followed until he reached the far side near the lone aspen tree and a huge clump of manzanita. The tree was scarred and torn, the bark ripped, and even some of the wood torn from the trunk. Claw marks on the tree reached as high as eight feet above the ground On the lower part of the tree it was plastered with mud and hair.

Attracted by his examination, Pamela had fol- lowed him to the tree.

"What is it, Hoppy?" She spoke softly, as though awed by the silence of the lonely place or by the height of the towering walls. "Bear tree. No bear will ever pass it without signin" his mark on it.

Generations of "em go to the same tree, an" they reach as high up as they can reach. This bunch has been mostly grizzlies."

"How can you tell?"

"Size, for one thing." He indicated a track on the ground. "Claw marks for another. Grizzly has longer claws than any other bear. All five toes plainly marked too. That ain't usual with black bears."

He turned and walked away slowly, scanning the ground. Finally he pointed at a dark tunnel into the manzanita. "There's our trail. Let's go."

A double-rutted track pointed the way into the brush, and they followed, bending low in the saddle to stay under the branches and leaves. What they found then was a continuation of the cleft from which they had come, but this one started back into the mountain, trending southwest, while the former cleft had run due north and south and they had followed it going north. Yet before they had gone many yards the trail made an elbow and they started back, now riding northwest. The cleft widened suddenly into a high-walled canyon and on one side there was a mound of talus at the foot of the cliff.

The grass thickened and there was brush, but by following the double-rutted bear track they traveled swiftly. Obviously an ancient, long-used trail, it wound around boulders and fallen logs but kept a fairly general direction. Twice they found fallen trees ripped open by bears hunting for grubs. Then suddenly the narrow canyon ended and they emerged in the open with a creek lying across their trail at least a half mile ahead.

Side by side they started across it. Dick Jordan was not talking, but his face was grim as he sat his saddle. Once he permitted himself a faint grin. "I ain't pullin' leather, Hoppy, so keep movin'. Whoever won that scrap back there will be on our trail."

"This is the Turkeyfeather, the way I've got it figured," Hoppy said, "an' north of us is supposed to lay Iron Creek. We'll head that way an' try to follow it for a while. Then we cross some canyons an' hit the Snow Creek trail somewhere beyond."

Dick Jordan glanced around, studying the sky shrewdly. "We got another reason to hurry," he said quietly. "It's goin' to snow."

Hopalong felt a chill within him. All day he had felt it coming, but had hoped that he was mistaken.

It was early for snow, yet they were very high here, and they must go yet higher in crossing the top of the Mogollons. All day he had been trying to convince himself that he was mistaken about that feeling in the air.

He took the lead now and moved on rapidly across uneven, tree-dotted terrain. Then into a dark forest, out of it, and they were on the edge of Iron Creek. Fording the creek, they struck a dim trail. "This meets the Snow Creek trail," he told them. "It wilt be faster goin' now."

Now he was watching the back trail again, for he knew they would be pursued, and he was only uncertain as to when that pursuit would catch up. The trail was climbing now, and steadily. The sun that had greeted them shortly after daybreak had disappeared while they were following the trail through the cleft, and now the sky was a dull, even expanse of gray. A cool wind touched his cheek, and he scowled, suddenly worried. If a storm was coming, their situation could not be worse. They still had high mountains and a ride that would take them the better part of another day at least.

As the crow flies it was probably less than thirty miles; by trail it was considerably farther, andwitha crippled man- He pushed on, stopping only briefly at a spring on the hill near Iron Creek Mesa. Something touched his cheek, and he glanced up quickly. Snowflakes! His whole body seemed stilled by apprehension. They had more than thirty miles to go without heavy coats over a high mountain pass in the face of a snowstorm. And neither food nor shelter anywhere along the trail!

Chapter
10

APACHE BAIT
HITS CIRCLE J

The fight in the basin had not ended quickly, but had dragged on indecisively until the Apaches abandoned the field. Just when this took place Avery Sparr did not know. There had been eight Apaches alive when the fighting started and Sparr had nine men including himself. However, Sparr did not know the number of Indians he faced, and he fought, after a fast start, with considerable caution. Sparr had killed the first Indian he had seen, but in almost the same instant had lost Jake Lydon.

Hopalong's stratagem was apparent at once. The mystery of the unused fire was explained, and Sparr guessed correctly that a trail had been laid out by Cassidy to lead the Apaches toward him. Knowing that while they fought, Hopalong was making his getaway in safety, Sparr was furious. Outgeneraled, he nevertheless settled down to whipping the Apaches, and finally succeeded. At least three more Indians had gone down, but he had two wounded men of his own.

It was then that he showed his own generalship.

"Tony," he said, turning to Cuyas, who had suffered a flesh wound, "take Hank an' start back. Push your horses, kill "em if necessary, but get to the Circle J an" to Soper. Tell him to rush men to Alma to head off Cassidy an' the Jordans. By usin' relays of horses from the ranches along the way they can make it.

"When they get to Alma they can get more men there from Moralles, an' make a quick check to see if Hopalong's got to town. If he hasn't, cover every trail out of the mountains, but concentrate on Deep River an' the Silver Creek trail. I don't think he could get to the last, but he might, so take no chances. Tell him to get all three-no nonsense. Get rid of "em! The men doin" the actual killin' get a hundred extra each, an' five hundred for Cassidy."