care how, but get him here unharmed. Understand?”
“Mr. Drew, you can start figurin’ what you want to say to him now. I’ll get him here—safe! And then Sally—”
“If money will buy her you’ll have me behind you when you bid.”
“When shall I start?”
“Now.”
“So-long, then.”
He rose and passed hastily from the room, leaning forward from the hips like a man who is making a start in a foot-race.
Straight up the stairs he went to his room, for the foreman lived in the big house of the rancher. There he took a quantity of equipment from a closet and flung it on the bed. Over three selections he lingered long.
The first was the cartridge belt, and he tried over several with conscientious care until he found the one which received the cartridges with the greatest ease. He could flip them out in the night, automatically as a pianist fingers the scale in the dark.
Next he examined lariats painfully, inch by inch, as though he were going out to rope the stanchest steer that ever roamed the range. Already he knew that those ropes were sound and true throughout, but he took no chances now. One of the ropes he discarded because one or two strands in it were, or might be, a trifle frayed. The others he took alternately and whirled with a broad loop, standing in the centre of the room. Of the set one was a little more supple, a little more durable, it seemed. This he selected and coiled swiftly.
Last of all he lingered—and longest—over his revolvers. Six in all, he set them in a row along the bed and without delay threw out two to begin with. Then he fingered the others, tried their weight and balance, slipped cartridges into the cylinders and extracted them again, whirled the cylinders, examined the minutest parts of the actions.
They were all such guns as an expert would have turned over with shining eyes, but finally he threw one aside into the discard; the cylinder revolved just a little too hard. Another was abandoned after much handling of the remaining three because to the delicate touch of Nash it seemed that the weight of the barrel was a gram more than in the other two; but after this selection it seemed that there was no possible choice between the final two.
So he stood in the centre of the room and went through a series of odd gymnastics. Each gun in turn he placed in the holster and then jerked it out, spinning it on the trigger guard around his second finger, while his left hand shot diagonally across his body and “fanned” the hammer. Still he could not make his choice, but he would not abandon the effort. It was an old maxim with him that there is in all the world one gun which is the best of all and with which even a novice can become a “killer.”
He tried walking away, whirling as he made his draw, and levelling the gun on the door-knob. Then without moving his hand, he lowered his head and squinted down the sights. In each case the bead was drawn to a centre shot. Last of all he weighed each gun; one seemed a trifle lighter—the merest shade lighter than the other. This he slipped into the holster and carried the rest of his apparatus back to the closet from which he had taken it.
Still the preparation had not ended. Filling his cartridge belt, every cartridge was subject to a rigid inspection. A full half hour was wasted in this manner. Wasted, because he rejected not one of the many he examined. Yet he seemed happier after having made his selection, and went down the stairs, humming softly.
Out to the barn he went, lantern in hand. This time he made no comparison of horses but went directly to an ugly-headed roan, long of leg, vicious of eye, thin-shouldered, and with hips that slanted sharply down. No one with a knowledge of fine horse-flesh could have looked on this brute without aversion. It did not have even size in its favour. A wild, free spirit, perhaps, might be the reason; but the animal stood with hanging head and pendant lower lip. One eye was closed and the other only half opened. A blind affection, then, made him go to this horse first of all.
No, his greeting was to jerk his knee sharply into the ribs of the roan, which answered with a grunt and swung its head around with bared teeth, like an angry dog. “Damn your eyes!” roared the hoarse voice of Steve Nash, “stand still or I’ll knock you for a goal!”
The ears of the mustang flattened close to its neck and a devil of hate came up in its eyes, but it stood quiet, while Nash went about at a judicious distance and examined all the vital points. The hoofs were sound, the backbone prominent, but not a high ridge from famine or much hard riding, and the indomitable hate in the eyes of the mustang seemed to please the cowpuncher.
It was a struggle to bridle the beast, which was accomplished only by grinding the points of his knuckles into a tender part of the jowl to make the locked teeth open.
In saddling, the knee came into play again, rapping the ribs of the brute repeatedly before the wind, which swelled out the chest to false proportions, was expelled in a sudden grunt, and the cinch whipped up taut. After that Nash dodged the flying heels, chose his time, and vaulted into the saddle.
The mustang trotted quietly out of the barn. Perhaps he had had his fill of bucking on that treacherous, slippery wooden floor, but once outside he turned loose the full assortment of the cattle-pony’s tricks. It was only ten minutes, but while it lasted the cursing of Nash was loud and steady, mixed with the crack of his murderous quirt against the roan’s flanks. The bucking ended as quickly as it had begun, and they started at a long canter over the trail.
CHAPTER XII
THE FIRST DAY
Mile after mile of the rough trail fell behind him, and still the pony shambled along at a loose trot or a swinging canter; the steep upgrades it took at a steady jog and where the slopes pitched sharply down, it wound among the rocks with a faultless sureness of foot.
Certainly the choice of Nash was well made. An Eastern horse of blood over a level course could have covered the same distance in half the time, but it would have broken down after ten miles of that hard trail.
Dawn came while they wound over the crest of the range, and with the sun in their faces they took the downgrade. It was well into the morning before Nash reached Logan. He forced from his eye the contempt which all cattlemen feel for sheepherders.
“I s’pose you’re here askin’ after Bard?” began Logan without the slightest prelude.
“Bard? Who’s he?”
Logan considered the other with a sardonic smile.
“Maybe you been ridin’ all night jest for fun?”
“If you start usin’ your tongue on me, Logan you’ll wear out the snapper on it. I’m on my way to the A Circle Y.”
“Listen; I’m all for old man Drew. You know that. Tell me what Bard has on him?”
“Never heard the name before. Did he rustle a couple of your sheep?”
Logan went on patiently: “I knew something was wrong when Drew was here yesterday but I didn’t think it was as bad as this.”
“What did Drew do yesterday?”
“Came up as usual to potter around the old house, I guess, but when he heard about Bard bein’ here he changed his mind sudden and went home.”
“That’s damn queer. What sort of a lookin’ feller is this Bard?”
“I don’t suppose you know, eh?” queried Logan ironically. “I don’t suppose the old man described him before you started, maybe?”
“Logan, you poor old hornless maverick, d’you think I’m on somebody’s trail? Don’t you know I’ve been through with that sort of game for a hell of a while?”
“When rocks turn into ham and eggs I’ll trust you, Steve. I’ll tell you what I done to Bard, anyway. Yesterday, after he found that Drew had been here and gone he seemed sort of upset; tried to keep it from me, but I’m too much used to judgin’ changes of weather to be fooled by any tenderfoot that ever used school English. Then he hinted around about learnin’