"Take something else, then," pressed McFadden.

Mick poured out a gla.s.s of water and set it on the bar before him; but not an observer smiled. They knew the man they were dealing with.

"All right, boys,"--McFadden's gla.s.s went up on a level with his eye, and one and all the others followed the motion,--"all right, boys!

Here's to you, Kennedy!"--mouthing the last word as though it were a hot pebble, and in unison the dozen odd hands led the way to their respective owners' mouths. There was a momentary pause; then a musical clinking, as the empty gla.s.ses returned to the board. Silence, expectant silence, returned.

"Boys,"--Mick looked from face to face intimately,--"we've got work ahead. Hoyt here reported this morning that two of the best horses on the Big B were missing. He's made a forty-mile circuit to-day, and no one has seen anything of them. You all know what that means."

Stetson turned to the foreman. "What time did you see them last, Hoyt?"

"About nine last evening."

"Sure?"

Bob's long head nodded emphatically. "Yes, one of the boys had the team out mending fence in the afternoon, and when he was through he turned them into the corral with the broncos. I'm sure they were there."

"I'm not surprised," commented Thompson, swinging on his single elbow to face the others. "It's been some time now since we've had a necktie party and it's bound to come. The wonder is it hasn't come before."

Gilbert and Grover, comparatively elderly men, said nothing, looked nothing; but upon the faces of the half-dozen cowboys there appeared distinct antic.i.p.ation. The hunt of a "rustler" appealed to them as a circus does to a small boy, as the prospect of a football game does to a college student.

Meanwhile, McFadden had been thinking. One could always tell when this process was taking place with the Scotchman, from his habit of tapping his chest with his middle finger as though beating time to the movement of his mental machinery.

"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in giving him longer. How about it?"

Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers Tom Blair?" he digressed.

"I do," said Grover.

"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke.

"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys.

"I guess we all have," added another.

Again Mick's eye, like a flashlight, pa.s.sed from man to man.

"Well," he announced, "I may be wrong, but I've got reason to believe it was Tom Blair who did the job last night, and that he's somewhere this side the river right now."

For a moment there was silence, while the idea took root.

"I supposed he was dead long ago," remarked Stetson at last.

"So did I, until a month ago--until the last time I was in town stocking up. I met a fellow there then from the country west of the river, and it all came out. Blair's been stampin' that range for a year, and they're suspicious of him. He disappears every now and then, and they think he keeps in with a gang of rustlers who have their headquarters over in the Johnson's Hole country in Wyoming. The fellow said he kept up appearances by claiming he owned a ranch on this side--the Big B. That's how we came to speak of him."

"Queer," commented Stetson, "that if it's Blair, he hasn't been around before. It's been ten years now since he disappeared, hasn't it?"

"More than that," corrected Mick. "That's another reason I believe it's him; that, and the fact that I didn't do nothin' the last time I was held up. It must be one lone rustler who's operating or there'd be more'n a couple of hosses missing. Then it must be some feller that knows the Big B, and has a particular grudge against it, or why would they have pa.s.sed the Broken Kettle or the Lone Buffalo on the west?

Morris has a whole herd, and his main hoss sheds are in an old creek-bed a mile away from the ranch-house. I tell you it's some feller who knows this country and knows me."

"I believe you're right about him being this side of the river," broke in Thompson. "When I was over after the mail two days ago there was water running on the ice; and it's been warmer since. It must be wide open in spots now. A man who knows the crossings might make it afoot, but he couldn't take a hoss over."

Mick's lone eye burned more ominously than before. "Of course he can't.

He's run into a trap, and all we've got to do is to make a spread and round him up. I'll bet a hundred to one we find him somewhere this side, waiting for a freeze." Again the half-emptied bottle came from the shelf and pa.s.sed to the end of the line. "Have another whiskey on me, boys."

They silently drank. Then grim Stetson suggested that they drink again--"to our success"; and cowboy Buck, not to be outdone, proposed another toast--"to the necktie party--after." The big bottle, empty now, dinned on the surface of the bar.

"By G.o.d! I hope we get him," flamed Grover. "He ought to be hung, anyway. He killed his wife and burned up the body, they say, before he left!"

"Someone must call for Rankin and Ben," suggested another, "Ben particularly. He ought to be there at the finish. Lord knows he's got grudge enough."

"We'll let him pull the trap," broke in Stetson grimly.

Of a sudden above the confusion there sounded a snarl, almost like the cry of an animal. Surprised, for the moment silenced, the men turned in the direction whence it had come.

"Rankin!" It was Mick Kennedy who spoke, but it was Mick transformed.

"Rankin!" The great veins of the bartender's neck swelled; the red face congested until it became all but purple. "No! We won't go near him!

He'd put a stop to the whole thing. What we want is men, not cowards!"

A moment only the silence lasted. "All right," agreed Stetson. "Have another, boys! We'll drop Rankin!"

Anew, louder than before, broke forth the confusion. The games of a short time ago were forgotten. A heap of coin lay on the shelf behind the bar where Mick, the banker, had placed it; but winner and loser alike ignored its existence. The savage, ever so near the surface of these rough frontiersmen, had taken complete possession of them. Drop Rankin--forget civilization--ignore the slow practices of law and order!

"Come on!" someone yelled. "We're enough to do the business. To the river!"

Instantly the crowd burst through the single front door. Momentarily there followed a lull, while in the half darkness each rider found his mount. Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there pa.s.sed a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back from which came a patter, patter, patter, that grew softer and softer; until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence absolute.

It was 10:28 when they left Kennedy's place. It was 12:36 when, without having for a moment stopped their long swinging gallop, they pulled up at the "Lone Buffalo" ranch, twenty-five miles away, and the last ranch before they reached the river. The house was dark and silent as the grave at their approach; but it did not remain so long. The display of fireworks with which they illumined the night would have done credit to an Independence Day celebration. The yells which accompanied it were hair-raising as the shrieks from a band of maniacs. Instantly lights began to burn, and the proprietor himself, Grey--a long Southerner with an imperial--came rushing to the door, a revolver in either hand.

But the visitors had not waited for him. With one impulse they had ridden straight into the horse corral, had thrown off saddles and bridles from their steaming mounts, and, every man for himself, had chosen afresh from the ranch herd. Pa.s.sing out in single-file through the gate, they came upon Grey; but still they did not stop. The one word "rustler" was sufficient pa.s.sword, and not five minutes from the time they arrived they were again on the way, headed straight southwest for their long ride to the river.

Hour after hour they forged ahead. The mustangs had long since puffed themselves into their second wind, and, falling instinctively into their steady swinging lope, they moved ahead like machines. The country grew more and more rolling, even hilly. From between the tufts of buffalo gra.s.s now and then protruded the white face of a rock. Over one such, all but concealed in the darkness, Grover's horse stumbled, and with a groan, the rancher beneath, fell flat to earth. By a seeming miracle the man arose, but the horse did not, and an examination showed the jagged edge of a fractured bone protruding through the hide at the shoulder.

There was but one thing to do. A revolver spoke its message of relief, a hastily-cast lot fell to McFadden, and without a word he faced his own mount back the way they had come, a.s.sisted Grover to a place behind him, turned to wish the others good luck, and found himself already too late.

Where a minute ago they had been standing there was now but vacancy. The night and the rolling ground had swallowed the avengers up as completely as though they had never existed; and the Scotchman rode slowly back.

It was yet dark, but the eastern sky was reddening, when they reached the chain of bluffs bordering the great river. They had made their plans before, so that now without hesitating they split as though upon the edge of a mighty wedge, half to the right, half to the left, each division separating again into its individual members, until the whole, like two giant hands whereof the cowboys, half a mile apart from each other, were the fingers, moved forward until the end finger all but touched the river itself.

Still there was no pause. The details had been worked out to a nicety.

They had bent far to the south, miles farther than any man aiming at the Wyoming border would have gone, and now, having arrived at the barrier, they wheeled north again. It was getting daylight, and cowboy Pete,--in our simile the left little finger,--first to catch sight of the surface of the stream, waved in triumph to the nearest rider on his right.

"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went on down the line.

On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed them up--but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect action at any moment,--the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they sought,--for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch.

And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come to a full stop. At last the end had arrived--at last; and the rancher turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not heard a sound or caught a motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west, lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in his teeth, he spurred straight for the river.

It took him but a minute to cover the distance--a minute until, almost by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance.

Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard simultaneously a sound he knew so well,--the dull spattering impact of a bullet,--realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing pa.s.sage of a rifle-ball.