With Hoops of Steel Read online

  CHAPTER VII

  Emerson Mead's ranch house was a small, white, flat-roofed adobebuilding, with cottonwood trees growing all about it, and the waterfrom a spring on the hillside beyond, flowing in a little rill pastthe kitchen door. Inside, on the whitewashed walls, hung the skins ofrattlesnakes, coyotes, wild cats, the feet, head and spread wings ofan eagle, and some deer heads and horns. There were also some coloredposters and prints from weekly papers. A banjo stood in one corner ofthe dining room, while guns and revolvers of various kinds andpatterns and belts heavy with cartridges hung against the walls orsprawled in corners.

  The cook and housekeeper was a stockily built, round-faced Englishman,whom Mead had found stranded in Las Plumas. He had been put off theoverland train at that place because the conductor had discovered thathe was riding on a scalper's ticket. Mead had taken a liking to theman's jovial manner, and, being in need of a cook, had offered him theplace. The Englishman, who said his name was Bill Haney, had acceptedit gladly and had since earned his wage twice over by the care he tookof the house and by the entertainment he afforded his employer. Forhe told many tales of his life in many lands, enough, had they allbeen true, to have filled the years of a Methuselah to overflowing.Mead did not believe any of his stories, and, indeed, stronglysuspected that they were told for the purpose of throwing doubt uponany clue to his past life which he might inadvertently give.Good-natured and jovial though he was in face and talk and manner,there was a look at times in his small, keen, dark eyes which Mead didnot like.

  As Haney bustled about getting a fresh breakfast for the three men hesaid to Mead, "It's mighty lucky you've come 'ome, sir. There's beenmerry 'ell 'erself between our boys and the Fillmore boys, and they'relikely to be killin' each other off at Alamo Springs to-day. They 'adshots over a maverick yesterday, and the swearin' they've been doin''ad enough fire and brimstone in it to swamp 'ell 'erself."

  Haney's conversation contained frequent reference to the abode of lostspirits, and always in the feminine gender. Mead asked him once why healways spoke of "hell" as "her," and he replied:

  "Well, sir, accordin' to my reckonings, 'ell is a woman, or two women,or a thousand of 'em, accordin' as a man 'as made it, and bein' femaleit 'as to be called 'er."

  As the three men mounted fresh horses after a hasty breakfast, NickEllhorn said to Mead:

  "Emerson, you're in big luck that that confounded thug in the kitchenhasn't cut your throat yet."

  "Oh, he won't do anything to me," Mead replied, smiling. "I reckonlikely he is a thug, or a crook of some sort, but he won't do me anyharm."

  "Don't you be too sure, Emerson," said Tuttle, looking concerned."It's the first time I've ever seen him, but I don't think I'd like tohave him around me on dark nights."

  "He is a good cook and he keeps the house as neat and clean as a womanwould. He won't try to do anything to me because I'm not big enoughgame. He knows I never keep money at the ranch, and that I haven't gotvery much, any way. Besides, he's seen me shoot, and I don't think hewants to run up against my gun."

  They were hurrying to Alamo Springs, a watering place which Meadcontrolled farther up in the Fernandez mountains, where they arrivedjust in time to stop a pistol fight between the cow-boys of theopposing interests, half-a-dozen on each side, who had quarreledthemselves into such anger that they were ready to end the wholematter by mutual annihilation.

  Mead found that the round-up had progressed slowly during his absence.There had been constant quarreling, occasional exchange of shots, andunceasing effort on each side to retard the interests of the other.The Fillmore Company had routed the cow-boys of the small cattlemen,Mead's included, and for the last two days had prevented them fromjoining in the round-up. Mead found his neighbors and their and hisemployees disorganized, angry, and determined on revenge. Accompaniedby Tuttle and Ellhorn, he galloped over the hills all that day and thenext, visiting the camps on his own range and on the ranges of hisneighbors who were leagued with him in the fight against the FillmoreCattle Company. He smoothed down ruffled tempers, inquired into thejustice of claims, gave advice, issued orders, and organized all theinterests opposed to the cattle company into a compact, determinedbody.

  After those two days there was a change in the way affairs were going,and the allied cattlemen began to win the disputes which wereconstantly coming up. There were not many more attempts to prevent theround-up from being carried on in concert, but there was no lesseningof the bad temper and the bad words with which the work was done. Eachside constantly harassed and defied the other, and each constantlyaccused the other of all the cattle-crimes known to the raisers ofhoofed beasts. The mavericks were an unfailing source of quarrels.According to the Law of the Herds, as it is held in the southwest,each cattleman is entitled to whatever mavericks he finds on his ownrange, and none may say him nay. But the leagued cattle growers andthe Fillmore people struggled valiantly over every unbranded calf theyfound scurrying over the hillsides. Each side accused the other ofdriving the mavericks off the ranges on which they belonged, and the_vaqueros_ belonging to each force declared that they recognized astheir own every calf which they found, no matter where or on whoserange it chanced to be, and they branded it at once with small saddleirons if the other side did not prevent the operation.

  Mead was the leader of his side, and, guarded always by his twofriends, rode constantly over the ranges, helping in the bunching,cutting-out and branding of the cattle, giving orders, directing themovements of the herds and deciding quarrels. Colonel Whittaker cameout from Las Plumas, and was as active in the management of theFillmore Company's interests as was Emerson Mead for those of hisfaction. Ellhorn and Tuttle would not allow Mead to go out of theirsight. They rode with him every day and at night slept by his side. Ifhe protested that he was in no danger, Ellhorn would reply:

  "You-all may not need us, but I reckon you're a whole heap less likelyto need us if we're right with you in plain view."

  And so they saw to it that they and their guns were never out of"plain view." And, possibly in consequence, for the reputation of thethree as men of dare-devil audacity and unequalled skill with rifleand revolver was supreme throughout that region, wherever the threetall Texans appeared the battle was won. The maverick was given up,the quarrel was dropped, the brand was allowed, and the accusationdied on its maker's lips if Emerson Mead, Tom Tuttle and Nick Ellhornwere present or came galloping to the scene.

  The look of smiling good nature seldom left Mead's face, but his lipswere closely shut in a way that brought out lines of doggedresolution. He was determined that the cattle company should recognizeas their right whatever claims he and his neighbors should make.Tuttle and Ellhorn talked over the situation with him many times, andthey were as determined as he, partly from love of him and partly fromlust of fight, that the cattle company should be vanquished andcompelled to yield whatever was asked of it. But they took thesituation less seriously than did Mead, looking upon the whole affairas something of a lark well spiced with the danger which they enjoyed.

  Ellhorn heard one day that Jim Halliday was at the Fillmore ranchhouse, and they decided at once that his business was to lay handsupon Mead. It was also rumored that several people from Las Plumas hadbeen riding over the Fernandez plain and the foothills of theFernandez mountains trying to find Will Whittaker's body or some clueto his disappearance. The three friends learned that all these peoplehad been able to discover was that he had left the ranch on themorning of his disappearance with a _vaquero_, a newly hired man whohad just come out of the Oro Fino mountains, where he had beenprospecting, in the hope of making another stake. A man had seen themdriving down through the foothills, but after that all trace of themwas lost. Old Juan Garcia and his wife, past whose house the roadwould have taken them, had been away, gathering firewood in the hills,but Amada, their daughter, had been at home all day, and she declaredshe had seen nothing of them, and that she did not think they couldhave gone past without her seeing them. It was accordingly argued thatwhatever had h
appened must have taken place not far from the junctionof the main road with the road which led to Emerson Mead's ranch, andall that region was searched for traces of recent burial.