It was some days later that Yorky went in search of adventure, and found it. He had not yet been raised to the dignity of being assigned a definite job, and time was more or less his own. He knew nothing of the country round, and determined to find out something about it. Particularly he wanted to seethe Wagon-wheel ranch-house, perhaps cherishing a hope of getting a glimpse of the girl who had been kind to him at the dance--kindness, until he had come West, was a rare experience. So, when Sudden had left him, he set out. Casual questions in the bunkhouse had given him the route.
"Foller th' creek, ford her at th' white stone, an' bear right," he repeated. "Sounds dead easy, Shut-eye, but we gotta watch out--them Wagon-wheelers is mebbe feelin' sore."
Like the rest of the outfit, Yorky believed that a raid on the cattle had been attempted. Paddy had been sworn to silence, explaining the bump on his cranium by an invented fall over a chair in the dark, a solution which evoked ribald reflections on his sobriety.
He crossed the stream, and then headed north-east over an expanse of grass-land plentifully besprinkled with brush, which enabled him to keep under cover for the most part. The necessity for this was soon apparent, for he had gone less than a mile when a horseman swung into an aisle he was about to enter. Just in time he forced Shut-eye headlong into a thicket of thorn--to the discomfort of both of them--and waited while the rider went by.
"Flint!" the boy breathed. "That's onct I'm lucky."
When the man disappeared he resumed his journey, and presently, in the distance, saw what he knew must be the place he sought. The ground about it was too open to conceal a horseman, so he hid his mount in a clump of brush, dropping the reins over its head as Sudden had told him, and advanced on foot, keeping to the right, stooping and running swiftly from one bush to another.
He had got within a hundred yards of the house when two men emerged and, to his dismay, walked directly towards the tree behind which he was hiding. He looked round, but there was no cover he could hope to reach without being seen. His eyes went upward; the tree was a cottonwood, thickly foliaged. With a bound he managed to grasp the lowest branch and, panting with the unusual exertion, climbed to the crotch above. Since he could only see below through one small opening, he judged he was safe so long as he stayed quiet.
"If I bark, I'm a goner," he murmured, and instantly a violent desire to do this very thing assailed him. Smothering it, he bent down to listen, for they had stopped beneath him. Garstone opened the conversation.
"Well, Bundy, why have you brought me out here?"
"Because it's quiet, an' to ask you one plain question: Are you at the Wagon-wheel to help Trenton, or to help yoreself?"
"What the hell do you mean? How dare you-- "Easy, Mister Garstone," the foreman cut in. "Puttin' on frills ain't apt to pay in these parts where "one man is as good as another, 'cept with a six-shooter. Now mebbe yo're fast with a gun--I don't know--but I'm tellin' you that I am--damned fast."
"Are you trying to pick a quarrel with me?" Garstone asked.
"No, I want you to talk to me as man to man, an' not as a boss to a dawg who works for him," Bundy returned sourly.
"I am here to help Trenton, and in doing so, I hope for some advantage to myself. Does that satisfy you?"
"It's a law-sharp's answer. I'll put it plainer: are you prepared to sit in at a game what'll help you, but not Trenton?" Yorky, easing a cramped leg, made a slight rustling. Apparently the foreman must have glanced up, for the trembling boy heard Garstone say, "Birds," and add with a laugh, "Hope they don't forget their manners." After a moment's pause, he answered the question. "It would depend, of course, on what the game meant--to me."
"Half the Circle Dot, or around twenty-five thousand bucks, as we might decide," Bundy said coolly.
"You may deal me a hand," the big man replied. "If I like the cards, I'll play; if not, I'll keep my mouth shut."
"Good enough. Well, here's the layout; with forty thousand we could buy the Circle Dot an' run it ourselves, or sell it to Zeb for fifty thousand."
"Marvellous! Not suggested by our talk with Trenton, of course." His tone betrayed disgust and disappointment.
"All that jaw suggested to me was that we'd be fools to help another fella to a wad o' coin we could have ourselves," Bundy replied.
"And, of course, you know where to find the money?"
The foreman was losing his patience. "The mistake you make, Garstone, is to think eveyone else a blasted fool," he said. "Shore I know; what'd be the sense in talkin' if I didn't?"
"That makes all the difference. Go ahead."
"The cash will be on the ten-fifteen from Washout tomorrow mornin', consigned to the bank at the Bend. It will be a small train, just the engine, one coach, an' a baggage-car, containing the coin."
"Coin? You mean bills, with the numbers known," Garstone commented. "Too dangerous."
"Part of it'll be paper, but by an--oversight--the list o' numbers will be missin'--at the other end; that'll cost us a thousand. The rest will be in gold. There'll on'y be the engine-driver, his mate, one conductor, and the baggage-man to deal with. Three of us oughta be able to handle it."
"Three? Who's the other?"
"Flint. He gits a thousand too--that's arranged."
"So we lose two thousand?"
"What did you expect, money for nothin'?" Bundy asked, his voice pregnant with contempt.
"Oh, all right. What's your plan?"
"Ten mile short o' the Bend the line runs through a thick patch o' brush an' pine. One o' the trees dropped across the metals will stop the train. You cover the driver while Flint an' me take up the collection--we'll have to skin the passengers too an' make it look like a reg'lar hold-up. O' course, we cut the wires first."
"My size is rather outstanding," Garstone objected.
"We'll all be masked, an' dressed in range-rig, nobody'd reckernize you. I'll borrow Jupp's duds--he's about yore build --an' havin' strained a leg at the dance"--this with a wink--"he ain't usin' 'em."
"Well, it certainly sounds feasible," Garstone admitted. "Feasible?" the foreman echoed ironically. "Why, it's cash for just stoopin' down."
"Not much of a stoop for you, perhaps, but it's a hell of a one for me, Chesney Garstone," was the reply. "However, the opportunity is there, and must be taken advantage of. By the way, what did Zeb expect to find at the Circle Dot?"
"I dunno--paper o' some sort, but they failed, so Flint couldn't tell me anythin'. Trenton's got some scheme for raisin' the wind, but he's pretty tight-mouthed 'bout it."
"We'll help him," Garstone smiled. "The more money he has, the higher price he can pay for the Circle Dot. How did you get on to this, Bundy?"
"I ain't sayin'," the foreman replied. "You can take it the facts is correct; that's all as matters."
They moved away, and it was not until--peering between carefully-parted branches--he saw them vanish among the buildings, did the boy dare to move his stiffened limbs. Dropping to the ground, and bent double, he scurried from cover to cover, and, after what seemed to him an age, reached his pony.
"Us fer home, Shut-eye," he gasped, as he scrambled into the saddle. "An' we ain't losin' no time neither, git me?"
Following Sudden's instructions, he had taken note of landmarks likely to assist him in finding his way back, and presently came almost in sight of the ford over the Rainbow. Here he received a fright--a horse was splashing its way through the water. He was heading for the nearest shelter when a soft voice called, and he saw that the rider was Miss Trenton.
"Why, Yorky," she smiled, as she cantered up. "Were you running away from me?"
"I hadn't seen yer--on'y heard th' hoss," he explained. "It mighter bin--anyone."
"But surely none of our riders would harm you?" she said. "I b'long to th' Circle Dot outfit--that'd be enough."