"Trick horse, huh?" the foreman sneered.
"Yeah," its owner replied. "One of 'em is pretendin' to lose his footin' on a slope; yu did oughta see him do that."
He cinched his saddle, got up, and sat watching the battle between Cactus and its master. "Want any help?" he asked solicitously.
Frosty did not, and said so, with emphasis. "This chunk o' mischief has gotta learn I'm boss," he gritted.
Presently he was ready and they loped away. The look Lagley sent after them was the reverse of pleasant. "An' I shore hope them fellas got my message," he muttered.
Turvey strolled up. "They make a fine pair, ridin' side by side, don't they?" he queried, his eyes full of malice.
"They'd be just as fine lyin' side by side," Lagley retorted.
Turvey's bent shoulders went up. "I don't give a damn either way, but I would like to find that black hess."
"An' be pitched into hell the first time yu straddled him."
"Don't think it, Steve; I ain't so easy got rid of," was the meaning reply.
The foreman scowled, saddled his own beast, and rode to the ranch-house to report the day's work he had set in motion.
"What have you done with the new man?" Keith enquired. "Sent him an' Homer to look at the northern boundary. We've bin losin' cattle there lately."
"Lately?" repeated the rancher scornfully. "You speak as if it were something new."
"That's the roughest part o' the range," Lagley reminded. "Steers are bound to stray."
"Especially with riders behind them--riders who are allowed a free hand."
"We lost one man an' had two others crippled out there," the foreman protested. "Yu ain't forgettin' that?"
"I am not likely to, with the bill still unpaid," Keith said bitterly.
Meanwhile, the two cowboys were heading steadily northwards. The first few miles, over the open, rolling grassland, were covered in silence. Then Frosty spoke.
"Didn't I tell yu we'd git the worst job?"
"What's the matter with it? Routin' out strays ain't so much."
"It is when there's a chance o' runnin' into hot lead any minute."
"How come?" Sudden demanded. "We'll be on our own range."
"yeah, but that scum in Hell City figure it belongs to them, an' act accordin'."
"Meanin'?"
"One of our boys--Tim Jellis--was wiped out an' two more wounded less'n three months back doin' the very thing we've bin sent to do," Frosty explained. "Rustlers? Yeah, an' wearin' the devil's own brand."
"Why not build a line-house an' have a coupla men stay out there allatime?"
"We tried it, but the durned place catched fire an' burned down--green wood at that."
They had left the open range and were traversing a sandy waste broken only by patches of scrub and bunchgrass. In front of them the ground rose gradually towards a range of barren hills, the slopes of which were gashed by steep-sided gorges. Sagebrush, mesquite, and an occasional juniper were the only trees; here and there a giant cactus flung wide its arms as though to bar their progress. Frosty pointed to the grey, forbidding heights ahead of them.
"Somewheres in there is Hell City," he informed.
"Too far for a visit?"
"No, too dangerous," was the reply. "Also, we got work to d Hullo, what's that mean?"
Sudden followed the levelled finger; less than a mile away a tiny column of smoke was spiralling into the clear air, and then came a faint bellow.
"Damnation!" Frosty swore. "They're swappin' brands right under our noses. C'mon."
He dragged his Winchester from the sheath under the fender of his saddle, and was about to spur his pony when Sudden interposed:
"Wait, we'll take a peek at these hombres first; that smoke might be there for us to see."
Crouching in their saddles and keeping, when possible, under cover of the scrub, they rode to within a couple of hundred yards of the tell-tale fire. Here they left the horses and stole forward on foot until they reached the mouth of a shallow gully, the wall on one side of which afforded an excellent view. One glance told the story. Two riders were holding a bunch of twenty steers, from' which a third was clumsily roping and dragging one at a time to the fire, where another pair awaited it. One of these, when the animal had been thrown, tied it, and his companion, drawing a glowing iron from the embers, bent over the prostrate beast. The pungent smell of burning hair assailed the nostrils of the watchers.
"This is a trap we mighty near ran our fool heads right into," Sudden said. "On'y them two at the fire know anythin' 'bout cattle. They were waitin' for us, an' where's the other jasper?"
He pointed to three saddled ponies standing apart. The spiteful crack of a rifle, the bullet from which perforated the crown of his hat, provided the answer. A spreading puff of smoke from the higher ground on the other side of the gullycompleted their information. Sudden flattened himself behind a slight upward slope and swore when a second shot hummed past his ears.
"Hell's bells, he's above us an' we can't see him," he said. "But we can stop the brand-blottin'."
He pressed the trigger as he spoke and the man with the iron spun round and dropped. His companion was already running when Frosty fired and whooped when the target stumbled and pitched headlong, to move no more. At the first shot, the three with the herd abandoned their charge and spurred their mounts up the gully, leaving their look-out to fend for himself. A steady stream of lead showed that he was still attending to business.
"He's behind that big stone on the point," Sudden decided. "First, we'll set him afoot." A thought came. "Any chance o' them others circlin' round an' takin' a hand in the game?"
"Not one," Frosty assured. "Thisyer gorge is 'bout three mile long an' the sides is straight up."
A couple of bullets into the ground beneath their feet sent the ponies careering wildly out across the plain, and the hidden rustler expressed his opinion of the proceeding with a miniature hurricane of lead which tore up the ground all round the cowboys.
"I'm suspectin' he ain't fond o' walkin'." Sudden remarked, adding grimly, "Well, mebbe he won't have any to do. See that rock to the right o' the one he's usin'? The face slopes back towards him an' there's just a chance a slug might angle off in his direction. Let's try her out."
They made the experiment, painstakingly bespattering the stone Sudden had pointed out. The unknown replied vigorously, but the two men had dug themselves in and he did no damage. From time to time, a jeering shout commented upon what the utterer evidently regarded as poor marksmanship. Then one of these was cut short by an oath and the bombardment from the boulder ceased. For a while they waited, suspecting a ruse, and then Sudden cautiously pushed his empty hat into sight; no shot came.
"We might 'a' got him, or mebbe he's slipped away," he said. He rose to his feet and nothing happened. "We'll take a look."
They descended to the floor of the gully, where the body of the brand-blotter sprawled unnaturally by the fire, the running-iron still clutched in his hand. A few yards away was his assistant, and both had ceased to breathe. They were Mexicans of the peon class, and on the breast of each was Satan's sign, the little red imp. Sudden drew his knife and cut the stitches which secured the symbol.
"Get the other," he told Frosty. "Might come in useful one time."
They climbed laboriously to the top of the bluff, only to find the boulder which had sheltered the enemy deserted. The ground behind it was littered with cigarette stubs and empty shells, while the other stone was splashed with the marks of their bullets.
"We scared him out, anyways," Frosty decided.
Sudden was staring at a red stain some paces away; there were others further on, with zigzagging footprints and an uneven furrow which might well have been made by a trailed rifle-butt. He did not follow them.