"Wait an' see," was the reply, and the door opened and the two defenders stepped into sight, bandaged with strips torn from their woollen shirts, the remains of which they did not bother to carry away.

"Who played that gun through th' west window?" asked Doc, angrily.

"Me!" cried Skinny, belligerently. "Why?"

"Muzzle th' talk--you can hold yore pow-wow some other time,"

interposed Hopalong. "You fellers get off this range, an' do it quick.

An' stay off, savvy?"

Meeker, his face flushed by rage and hatred for the men who had so humiliated him, climbed up on Dan's horse and Dan was helped up behind. Then Chick was helped to mount in front of his foreman and they rode down the hill, followed by Doc and Jack. The intention was to let Dan ride to the ranch after they had all got off the Bar-20 range, and send up the cook with spare horses. Just then Doc remembered that he and Jack had left their mounts below when they walked up the hill to take the house, and they went after them.

At this instant Curley was seen galloping up and he soon reported what Salem had seen. Meeker flew into a rage at this and swore that he would never give in to either foe. While Curley was learning of the fighting, Doc and his companion returned on foot, reporting that their horses had strayed, whereupon Meeker got off the horse he rode and told Doc and Chick to ride it home, Curley being despatched for mounts, while the others sat down on the ground and waited.

When Curley returned with the horses he was very much excited, crying that during his absence Salem had seen six men run off a herd of several hundred head towards Eagle and had tried to overtake them in the chuck wagon.

"G.o.d A'mighty!" cried Meeker, furiously. "Ain't I got enough, _now_!

Rustling, an' on a scale like that! Peters was right after all about th' rustling, d--n him. A whole herd! Why didn't they take th' rest, an' th' houses, an' th' whole ranch? An' Salem, th' fool, chasing 'em in th' chuck wagon! Wonder they didn't take him, too."

"I reckon he wished he had his harpoon with him," Chick snorted, the ridiculousness of Salem's action bringing a faint grin to his face, angry and wounded as he was. "He's the locoedest thing that wears pants in this section, or any other!"

"It was a sh.o.r.e fizzle all around," Meeker grumbled. "But I ain't through with that line yet--no, by th' Lord, I ain't got started yet!

But this rustling has got to be cleaned up first of all--th' line can wait; an' if we don't pay no attention to th' valley for a while they'll think we've given it up an' get off their guard."

"Sh.o.r.e!" cried Dan, whose fury had been aroused almost to madness by the sting of the bitter defeat, and who itched to kill, whether puncher or rustler it little mattered; he only wanted a vent for his rage.

"We'll parade over that south range like buzzards sighting carrion,"

Meeker continued, leading the way homeward. "I ain't a-going to get robbed all th' time!"

"Wonder if Smith did shoot Ed?" queried Dan, thoughtfully. "There was quite a spell between th' shot I heard an' us seeing him, an' he acted like he had just seen Ed. But it's tough, all right. Ed was a blamed good feller."

"Who did shoot him, then?" snapped Meeker, savagely. "There's no telling what happened out there before we got there. Here, Curley, you ain't full of holes like us--you ride up there an' get him while we go home. He's laying near that S arroyo right close to th' line--th' one we scouted through that time."

"Sh.o.r.e, I'll get him," replied Curley, wheeling. "See you later."

CHAPTER XIX

ANTONIO LEAVES THE H2

On the H2 Jim Meeker rolled and muttered in his sleep, which had been more or less fitful because of his aching groin and strained leg.

Gazing confusedly about him he sat bolt upright, swearing softly at the pain and then, realizing that he was where he should be, grumbled at the kaleidoscopic dreams that had beset him during his few hours of sleep, and glanced out of the window. Hastily dressing he strode to the kitchen door, calling his daughter as he pa.s.sed her room, and looked out. The bunk house and the corrals were beginning to loom up in the early light and the noise in the cook shack told him that Salem was preparing breakfast for the men. He did not like the looks of the low, huge, black cloud east of him and as he figured that it would not pa.s.s over the ranch houses unless the wind shifted sharply he suddenly stared at a corral and then hastened back to his room for the Colt which lay on the floor beside his bunk. He had seen a man flit past the further corral, speed across the open, and disappear behind the corral nearest to the bunk house. This ordinarily would have provoked no further thought, for his men were crazy-headed enough to do anything, but while rustling flourished, and so audaciously, and while a line war was on, it would stand prompt investigation.

Peering again from the door, Colt in hand, Meeker slipped out silently and ran to the corral wall as rapidly as his injuries would allow.

When he reached it he leaned close to it and waited, his gun levelled at the corner not ten feet from him. Half a minute later and without a sound a man suddenly turned it, crouching and alertly watching the bunk house and cook shack at his left, and then stopped with a jerk and reached to his thigh as he became aware that he was being watched at such close range. Straightening up and smothering an exclamation he faced the foreman and laughed, but to Meeker's suspicious ears it sounded very much forced and strained.

"No _sabe_ Anton?" asked the prowler, smiling innocently and raising his hand from the gun.

Meeker stood silent and motionless, the Colt as steady as a rock, and a heavy frown covered his face as he searched the evil eyes of his broncho-buster, whose smile remained fixed.

"No _sabe Anton_?" somewhat hastily repeated the other, a faint trace of anxiety in his voice, but the smile did not waver, and his eyes did not shift. He began to realize that it was about time for him to leave the H2, for he knew that few things grow so rapidly as suspicion. And he knew that the outfit would do very little weighing in his case.

Meeker slowly lowered his weapon and swore; he did not like the prowling any better than he did the smile and the laugh and the treacherous eyes.

"I no savvy why yo're flitting around th' scenery when you should ought to be in bed," he replied, his words ominously low and distinct.

"You've sh.o.r.e had a narrow squeak, for I came nigh on to letting drive from th' door on a gamble. An' I'll own that I'm some curious as to why yo're prowling around so early before breakfast. It ain't a whole lot like you to be out so early before grub time. What dragged you from th' bunk so d----d early, anyhow?"

Antonio rolled a cigarette to gain time, being elaborately exacting, and thought quickly for an excuse. Tossing the match in the air and letting the smoke curl slowly from his nostrils he grinned pleasantly.

"I no sleep--have bad dreams. I wake up, _uno_, _dos_ times an' teenk someteeng ees wrong. Then I ride to see. Eet ees soon light after that an' I am hungry, so I come back. Eet ees no more, at all."

"Oh, it ain't!" retorted the foreman, still frowning, for he strongly doubted the truth of what he had heard, so strongly that he almost pa.s.sed the lie. "It's some peculiar how this ranch has been shedding dreams last night, all right. However, since I had some few myself I won't say I had all there was loose. But you listen to me, an' listen good, too. When I want any scouting done before daylight I'll take care of it myself, savvy? An' if yo're any wise you'll cure yoreself of th' habit of being out nights percolating around when you ought to be asleep. You ain't acted none too wide awake lately an' yore string of cayuses has sh.o.r.e been used hard, so I want it stopped, an' stopped _sudden_; hear me? I ain't paying you to work nights an' loaf days an'

use up good cayuses riding h.e.l.l-bent for nothing. You ain't never around no more when I want you, so you get weaned of flitting around in th' night air like a whip-poor-will; you might go an' catch malaria!"

"I no been out bafo'--Juan, he tell you that ees so, _si_."

"Is that so? I sort of reckon he'd tell me anything you want him to if he thought I'd believe it. Henceforth an' hereafter you mind what _I've_ just told _you_. You might run up against some rustler what you don't know very well, an' get shot on suspicion," Meeker hazarded, but he found no change in the other's face, although he had hit Antonio hard, and he limped off to the ranch house to get his breakfast, swearing every time he put his sore leg forward, and at the ranch responsible for its condition.

Antonio leaned against the corral wall and smoked, gazing off into s.p.a.ce as the foreman left him, for he had much to think about. He smiled cynically and shrugged his shoulders as he shambled to his shack, making up his mind to leave the H2 and join Shaw on the mesa as soon as he could do so, and the sooner the better. Meeker's remark about meeting strange rustlers, thieves he did not know, was very disquieting, and it was possible that things might happen suddenly to the broncho-buster of the H2. Soon emerging from his hut he walked leisurely to the fartherest corral and returned with his saddle and bridle. After holding a whispered consultation with Juan and Sanchez, who both showed great alarm at what he told them, and who called his attention to the fact that he had lost one of the big bra.s.s b.u.t.tons from the sleeve of his coat, the three walked to the cook shack for their breakfast, where, every morning, they fought with Salem.

"Here comes them Lascars again to fill their holds with white man's grub," the cook growled as he espied them. "If I was th' old man I'd maroon them, or make 'em walk th' plank. Here, _you_! Get away from that bench!" he shouted, running out of the shack. "That's _my_ grub!

If you ain't good enough to eat longside of th' crew, d----d if you can eat with th' cook! Some day I'll slit you open, tail to gills, see if I don't! Here's yore grub--take it out on th' deck an' fight for it," and Salem, mounting guard over the bench, waved a huge butcher knife at them and ordered them off. "Bilgy smelling lubbers! I'll run afoul of 'em some morning an' make shark's food out of th' whole lot!"

Meanwhile Meeker, finding his breakfast not yet ready, went to Antonio's shack and glanced in it. The bunk his broncho-buster used was made up, which struck him as peculiar, since it was well known that Antonio never made up his bunk until after supper. As he turned to leave he espied the saddle and saw that the stirrups were streaked with clay. "Now what was he doing over at th' river last night?" he soliloquized. Shrugging his shoulders he wheeled and went to the bunk house, where he stumbled over a box, whacking his shins soundly. His heartfelt and extemporaneous remarks regarding stiff legs and malicious boxes awakened Curley, who sat up and vigorously rubbed his eyes with his rough knuckles. Grunts and profanity came from the other bunks, Dan swearing with exceptional loquacity and fervor at his wounded thigh.

"Somebody'll sh.o.r.e have to lift me out like a baby," he grumbled.

"I'll get square for this, all right!"

"Aw, what you cussing about?" demanded Chick, whose arm throbbed with renewed energy when he sat up. "How'd you like to have an arm like mine so you can't use it for grub, hey?"

"You an' yore arm can--"

"What's matter, Jim?" interrupted Curley, dropping his feet to the floor and groping for his trousers. "You got my pants?" he asked Dan, whereupon Dan told him many things, ending with: "In th' name of heaven what do I want with pants on this leg! I can't get my own on, let alone yourn. Mebby Chick has put 'em on his scratched wing!" he added, with great sarcasm, whereupon Curley found them under his bunk and muttered a profane request to be told why they had crawled so far back.

"Yo're a hard luck bunch if yo're as sore as me," growled Meeker, kicking the offending box out of doors. "I cuss every time I hobble."

"Oh, I ain't sore, not a bit--I'm feeling fine," exulted Curley, putting one foot into a twisted trouser leg while he hopped recklessly about to keep his balance, Dan watching him enviously. He grabbed Chick's shoulder to steady himself and then arose from the floor to find Chick calling him every name in the language and offering to whip him with one hand if he grabbed the wounded arm again.

"Aw, what's th' matter with you!" he demanded, getting the foot through without further trouble. "I didn't stop to think, you chump!"

"Why didn't you?" snapped Chick, aggressively.

"Curley, yo're a plain, d----d nuisance--get outside where you'll have plenty of room to get that other leg in," remarked Dan.

"Not satisfied with keeping us all awake by his cussed snoring an'

talking, he goes an' _hops_ right on my bad arm!" Chick remarked. "He snores something awful, Jim; like a wagon rumbling over a wooden bridge; an' he whistles every lap."

"You keep away from _me_, you cow!" warned Doc, weighing a Colt in his hand by the muzzle. "I'll sh.o.r.e bend this right around yore face if you don't!"