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  “Mebbe that was the reason,” the little fellow agreed. “Whatever it was it’s turned Cherokee ag’in ’em—and that ought to be enough fer you.”

  “It is!” Little Bill exclaimed in a sudden decision. “You fetch him in, Latch. If he wants to take orders from me, he’s ridin’ with us.”

  Luther heaved himself to his feet.

  “Why, Bill, you can’t mean that!” he exclaimed sullenly. “Link had it right; we don’t want none of Cherokee. Give him all the best of it and he’s still a Jonah.”

  A glance told Little Bill that he stood alone in this difference of opinion. He met it calmly.

  “I don’t put no stock in Jonahs,” he declared without raising his voice. “That’s just a piece with Tas’s talk about the claybank bein’ bad luck. The sooner you git that sort of nonsense out of your heads the better off you’ll be. If there’s anybody here that don’t like my way of doin’ things he’s free to go; but if I’m givin’ orders, I’m a givin’ ’em. You bring Cherokee in, Latch.”

  After Shively left they continued to sit around the burned-out fire. They had shifted their position, however, until Little Bill sat alone. He was aware of it and what it meant. Conversation had died long since. It did not appear to disturb him.

  “So you’ve got it all figgered out that I’m makin’ a mistake, eh?” he queried without warning. “Appears to me it’s about time you boys began to use your heads.”

  He spoke without a trace of rancor.

  “Some of us reckon that’s what you ought to be doin’,” Luther answered.

  “That’s what I am doin’!” The red-haired one’s manner was suddenly hard as steel. “Latch will come in mighty handy. There can’t be no fault found with him. As for Cherokee—he ain’t foolin’ me for a second. He’ll double-cross us the first chance he gits.”

  “What!” several gasped in unison. They couldn’t understand him even yet.

  “You mind explainin’ yourself?” Luther asked with a flash of temper.

  “If it needs explainin’—no!" Little Bill shot back at him. “A man ain’t one thing today and somethin’ else tomorrow, and they don’t pal together unless they’re cut from the same pattern. I know Cherokee and Beaudry used to be mighty thick. I wouldn’t have to know anythin’ worse against him to put me on my guard. If you think I’d trust one any farther than I would the other, you’re plumb crazy I”

  It left them staring at him in tongue-tied surprise for a moment. Finally Link spoke.

  “Then why be yuh invitin’ him in?” he asked.

  “He’s got information we need, that’s why. If he’s really gunnin’ for Beaudry and the Sontags he can tell us a lot. It’ll be up to us to decide whether he’s lyin’ or not … Just be smart enough not to let him know what we’re thinkin’. Keep your eyes on him right along. The first crooked move he makes will be his last.”

  Chapter XII

  THEY had to give Cherokee a hand to get him down from his horse. He thanked them with a grin that showed his even, white teeth. If Latch had apprised him that there was some feeling against him in the camp, he gave no sign of it.

  “That laig is still pretty sore,” he said apologetically.

  He was tall and thin enough to be tubercular. His hair and eyes were as black as a raven’s wing. He claimed to be a quarter blood, but his features were all Indian.

  “Shuffle up some food for this man, Maverick,” Little Bill suggested.

  Cherokee thanked him with another grin and proceeded to roll a cigarette. He did it deftly. There was a catlike suppleness about him that was noticeable even in the movement of his fingers.

  “I’ve told him a few things,” Latch volunteered. He jerked his head in the Kid’s direction. “He likes the idee.”

  “Yeh, I do,” Cherokee drawled without bothering to look up, “specially if you’re settin’ yourselves for a showdown with certain parties. It runs right along with what I’ve had on my mind for a few months. I’ve been savin’ a place on my gun for a notch or two. I’ve got the gents all picked out, I don’t mind tellin’ yuh.”

  “I take it you’re referrin’ to Beaudry and Smoke,” Little Bill observed.

  “Beaudry and Smoke and the whole damn Sontag bunch!” Cherokee whipped out with sudden viciousness. “I don’t forget my grudges, not when they’re handed me by men who I thought was my friends!”

  “You was never over particular about choosin’ yore friends,” Maverick muttered as he hovered over the fire. The bluntness and unfriendliness of the remark were without effect on Cherokee.

  “You’re dead right there,” he drawled. “I used to think if a man was on the level with his pals that it didn’t matter what else he was. But I’m learnin’. Somethin’ will be done about it, too, whether I tag along with you boys or go it alone.”

  “That’s for you to decide,” said Little Bill. “I’d like to know your answer.”

  “I’d give it to you in a second if I thought I could hold up my end. But you see the shape I’m in. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much good to you.”

  Cherokee could not have said anything better calculated to improve their opinion of him. An immediate evidence of better feeling was reflected in Maverick’s tone as he told the Kid to come and get it.

  “It ain’t much,” he said, “but you’ll find it fillin’.”

  Cherokee did not have to be asked a second time.

  “See him put it away!” Latch chuckled. “I tell yuh he’s as tough as bull hide. Three, four days from now he’ll be as sassy as ever.”

  “But that’ll be three or four days,” Cherokee said between mouthfuls. “I understood you to say that these boys was movin’ right away. If that’s the case they may be throwin’ lead by this time tomorrow. I take it they know where to look for the Sontags.”

  It called for an answer and Luther and the others waited for Little Bill to voice it.

  “It is a fact we are pullin’ away from here this afternoon,” said he, “but we’re just goin’ to take it easy and drift up to the Kansas line. The Sontags don’t figger in our plans until we finish a little business we got ahead of us.”

  Cherokee’s answer was a wide grin. Whether he was pleased or relieved it was impossible to tell, for his grin was a tell-nothing parting of the lips that left his swart face an inscrutable mask.

  “That sounds suspiciously like business with a bank,” he remarked flippantly.

  “I reckon it’ll git to that,” Little Bill snapped out, his tone sharp enough to be a rebuke. “I aim to go over the line by myself. The rest will hide out somewhere. I may be gone a day or two. When I git back we’ll know what we’re goin’ to do.”

  “If Jake Creek is in the general direction you’re headin’ for,” Latch spoke up, “we won’t have no trouble about keepin’ under cover and gittin’ some grub. We can go to Reb Leflett’s ranch. I’ve done business with him. He’ll take us in and we can make a deal for a hoss or two.”

  “That’ll work out all right,” Bill said thoughtfully. He spoke as though his plans were more definite than he cared to say. “I know just about where Leflett’s place is located. If we leave here in the next hour we ought to be on Jake Creek soon after sun up.”

  “Easy enough!” Latch assured him.

  Little Bill turned to the Kid.

  “What have yuh got to say to that, Cherokee? Is it too much ridin’ for yuh?”

  “I can make it as far as the creek, all right,” the latter replied readily. “I know Latch is dead set on throwin’ in with you boys. Suppose I trail along with you as far as Leflett’s place. If my laig ain’t right by the time you’re ready to pull out from there, why, just leave me behind. That ought to work out about right for all of us.”

  Again he had said the right thing. No one could find fault with what he proposed.

  They smoked another cigarette or two and then began to break camp. Traveling as light as they were it was the work of only a few minutes.

  In single file they headed north
. Save for Latch and Cherokee they were a sober-faced lot. It was a journey such as none of the others had ever set out on. The crashing climax it was to reach, with their lives hostage to its success or failure, was still miles and days away, but as they left the springs behind their thoughts ran ahead of them. The possibilities of that brief half an hour or less that must elapse between the time they rode into some town and dashed out, clutched at them. Their minds held in a vise, they lived over every second of it.

  It left them tight-lipped, short of speech and sharp tempered. If they came to a rise or a stretch of open country, one rode ahead and the rest held back until they knew the way was clear. They saw no one, but their trained eyes warned them that they often crossed trails that were less than a day old.

  Toward sunset they reached a tiny creek. Even Latch knew of no name for it. They watered their horses and drank their fill. Maverick had nothing better to offer them than a meager helping of beans and a cold flapjack apiece. They did not risk a fire.

  It had been necessary to help Cherokee out of his saddle again. He had not complained during the long ride.

  “How are you makin’ it?” Little Bill asked, as he sat down beside him.

  “Oh, I’ll make it all right,” the Kid answered. “You don’t have to hold back on my account.”

  For all his words, his face had a drawn look that said plainly enough that he was racked with pain.

  Little Bill had been watching him furtively for the last two or three miles, for he had sensed an undue alertness in Cherokee. Now that they were out of the saddle and had had a bite to eat, the others had stretched out comfortably on the ground. But not the Kid. He sat up stiffly and his black eyes were seldom still. It called for an explanation.

  Bill began to ask himself questions. His eyes narrowed unconsciously as an answer flashed in his brain.

  “It can’t be nothin’ else,” he told himself. “I’ll have to run a bluff to prove it, but I’m goin’ to risk it.”

  He turned to Cherokee.

  “Be cooler this evenin’,” he said; “that’ll brace yuh up a little. It might ease yuh some if yuh got your boot off while we’re restin’ here. Just stretch your leg out a little and I’ll get it off.”

  His tone was solicitous, but he was not concerned about the Kid’s leg. As he would have grabbed the boot, Cherokee drew his leg away.

  “No!” he jerked out sharply. “This ain’t no place to be takin’ off your boots! If you know where you are you know that’s a fact.”

  Little Bill dissembled his satisfaction.

  “Well, I don’t know the name of this creek, but I know where I am, all right,” he laughed. He was stretching the truth considerably. He proceeded to an even wilder surmise. “We ought to be a few miles east of the Black Grocery.”

  “You’re within less than three miles of it!” Cherokee came back. “That’s too damn close for a man with only one laig under him!”

  The others were listening intently now, their attention riveted on the Kid. Most of them had heard vague, unsubstantiated rumors to the effect that, when in the Strip, the Sontags never strayed far from Black Grocery—a two-story frame building, with a barn across the way, set down out in the open on what had once been a cut-off for the old La Junta trail, winding up from New Mexico. Until Cherokee had spoken, not one of them, save Latch Shively, had any reason to believe that they were within forty miles of the place.

  Only the creaking of saddle leather and the swishing of the horses’ tails as they fought the flies broke the silence that had fallen like a blanket on Link, Luther and the others.

  “Well, I ain’t gettin’ excited about that,” Little Bill declared, still angling for information. He even essayed a yawn to express his utter boredom. “The Son-tags may have the run of things around the Grocery. I reckon their women are there—Grat’s girl and one or two others. Outside of them and a few hill-billies and nesters who manage to pick a livin’ off Smoke’s bunch you won’t find no one there. You ought to be smart enough to know that. You been knockin’ around long enough.”

  “Yeh?” Cherokee queried, angry in an instant. Being a blood, ridicule was something he could not stand. Finding an affront to his dignity in Little Bill’s words, he was quick to take exception to it—just as the former expected. “Maybe you know more about this than me,” the Kid was driven to sneer.

  “I know that Smoke’s too cagy to hang out there after all the talk there’s been about the place,” Bill answered sharply, his tone as contemptuous as Cherokee’s. He was deliberately trying to exasperate the Kid now, in his quest for information. “Smoke wouldn’t take no chance of bein’ jumped that-a-way. I tell you if yuh had a lick of sense you’d know it!”

  “Jump him, eh?” Cherokee burst out fiercely. “Since you’re so sure it can be done why don’t you try it yourself? You won’t get beyond that low ridge off there to the west before you’ll be stopped—and you’ll be stopped cold!” His eyes had narrowed to slits. “If anybody’s bein’ thick around here it’s you! I thought you knew what you was doin’, but I’m damned if I ain’t changin’ my mind!”

  To the listening men the drift of this conversation had become increasingly ominous. Their faces stony, they waited, making no move to interfere. This was Little Bill’s quarrel, and they felt he could handle it, but not understanding his purpose, fully half of them held him to be in the wrong, for there was a ring of truth to what Cherokee had said that could not be denied. But the Kid was questioning Bill’s leadership now, and they fully expected the red-haired one to take up the challenge. Instead, he said apologetically:

  “Well, if a man can prove I’m wrong I’m always willin’ to draw in my horns.”

  “I can prove it!” Cherokee said raspingly. “We’ve been spotted already—or what do you make of that column of smoke off there to the southwest? If it ain’t a signal fire I’m crazy! I’ll bet you my saddle it’ll be answered directly!”

  Little Bill whirled to study the spiral of smoke rising from the ridge, and the sudden concern stamped on his face was not feigned. Whatever satisfaction he felt over what he had got out of the Kid was more than offset for the time being by his anxiety as he saw the signal answered from a point directly west of them.

  “You were right and I was wrong!” he exclaimed.

  “I’ll say I was!” Cherokee ground out. “Throw me on that piece of crow bait I’m ridin’ and we’ll fan it out of here! It ain’t goin’ to be healthy along this creek in half an hour!”

  He extended a hand in Latch’s direction, but the latter ignored it.

  “Say, you never told me you had a slant like this on the Sontags,” Latch muttered accusingly. His watery old eyes were as cold as ice.

  “It’s never been safe to say too much about ’em!” Cherokee answered defiantly. “But I’m tellin’ yuh now!”

  “Come on,” Bill broke in, “this argument’s gone far enough! We’re ridin’!”

  The ridge swung around to the north ahead of them. To avoid it, they took to the low hills to the east. Cherokee did not hold them back. He could ride with the best of them, and suffering though he was, he gave proof of it now.

  The sun had dropped below the horizon before they pulled up to look back. Below them, far to the rear, they saw a band of horsemen.

  “They pulled up too,” Little Bill observed. “Reckon they know they can’t overhaul us. Like as not they think we’re a posse of marshals.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Cherokee jeered. “They’ve had a pair of glasses on us; they know who’s ridin’ in this bunch. We’re stickin’ together now whether we like it or not.”

  Chapter XIII

  IT WAS just breaking day when they got their first glimpse of the willows that lined Jake Creek. On Latch’s advice they kept well above the stream until they reached a high pasture, well hidden in the hills on the western bank.

  “This is it,” said Latch. “The house is down below among the cottonwoods.”

  The place was not much in
the way of a ranch; Leflett had found an easier way of making a living than raising beef. A cautious, close-lipped man, who never let his right hand know what the left was doing, he was continually being commissioned by the minor gangs and lone wolves who infested the Strip to transact business for them that they were in no position to do themselves. Corn almost raised itself in the black soil in the creek bottom. Under the bluffs he had a still. For customers—they came to the door. Nothing could have been easier. So, one way or another, he did well enough for himself, though he often had to wait for his pay and seldom hesitated to advance money of his own to the strange brood that gathered under his roof. They could properly be considered bad risks, but they paid Leflett.

  Little Bill and Latch told him what they wanted. A deal was made with a minimum of conversation.

  “You can lay out up on the bluffs,” he told them. “I got a shack up there that will hold you. I’ll fix you up with some grub and see what I can do about a couple good broncs.”

  “We ain’t got no money,” Bill reminded him.

  “That’ll be all right,” Leflett answered. “I don’t know you boys, but if Latch says it’s okay, that’s enough. I’ll take a look at this boy’s leg while you’re gone. See if I can’t have him fixed up by the time you git back.”

  That evening Little Bill crossed the creek and rode into Kansas. By midnight he was far enough east to be in country through which the old Sawbuck outfit had often trailed beef south into Oklahoma. After locating a landmark or two he was able to determine exactly where he was.

  “We can turn north here, Six-gun,” he said to the gelding. “We’ve still got a long ride ahead of us.”

  He set a course that he held for the rest of the night. When he came to a crossroads store or small settlement he did not attempt to circle around it. To avoid suspicion he had left his rifle with Luther. He wore his .45’s openly; but there was nothing in that to excite comment in a country where nine men out of ten went armed.