I had no idea who they were but had a mighty good idea they weren't friendly.

Chapter XVII.

The sun lay bright upon the land ahead and bright upon the three hors.e.m.e.n who rode to meet us.

Cap glanced around. "Good boy," he said. "Brandy's facin' the other way. So's Lin."

The Indians were behind us and to the right, concealed from the riders by the brush.

"There will be more of them," Cap said.

"There will," I agreed, and glanced at the small lake that lay ahead and to the right. It was likely they would attack from the left and try to drive us toward the lake. The three riders were too obvious.

"Howdy, boys! Huntin' for something?"

"Lookin' to buy cattle." The speaker was a big, bearded man in a buckskin coat worked with blue and red beads. He had a rifle in his hand and a fur cap.

"Sorry. These are not for sale."

"Make you a good offer?" His horse was sidling around, and I saw him throw a quick glance toward left rear.

"Not for sale, boys," I said. I rode out from the herd a little and toward the right, outflanking them a little, and I could see they didn't like it.

Cap had promptly shifted a little to the left, and I said, "Better move, boys. We're coming through!"

"Sell 'em," the big man repeated, "or we'll take them!"

"All right, Brandy!" I yelled, and he let out a whoop and started the cattle.

They were headed that way, and cattle like to go where they're pointed, so they started moving. Brandy let out another whoop, and one of the steers turned right at the nearest hors.e.m.e.n.

The sudden rush of cattle split the three riders. Two went one way and one the other, and the nearest one was coming my way, so I headed right at him. In trying to swing wide of a head-on collision, he put his horse into the soft ground at the lake's edge, and his horse floundered in the mud, his rider swearing.

Wheeling the dun, I raced along the flank of the moving cattle, heard two quick shots from behind, and saw Lin on the ground, his horse beside him; he was shooting across a fallen log.

A half-dozen riders had come from behind one of those clumps of brush, and Lin, being on the ground, had the advantage.

I saw a horse stumble and go down, pitching his rider over his head. Mud leaped in front of another rider, and his horse swerved sharply, and a third bullet had him dropping his rifle and grabbing for a mane hold as his horse went charging away, cutting across the front of the other riders.

It all happened in seconds. Two men were down, a horse running wild and the cattle charging. The big man with the beard threw up his rifle to shoot at me, but Cap burned him with a quick shot, and my bullet burned his hand. What other damage it did, I couldn't see, but I did see a splash of blood on the buckskin coat and on the saddle.

Lin was back in the saddle and riding up the flank of the small herd, and we swung the cattle past the lake and into the open toward some sand hills looming ahead.

Brandy closed in behind the herd, and we moved them out of there.

Cap Rountree closed in toward me. "Pilgrims," fie said contemptuously. "They haven't burned the powder we have."

"We were lucky. Next time, we may not get the breaks."

We pushed the cattle on, keeping a lookout on all sides. What Cap said was obviously true. The men who had attacked us were tough men and hard but not seasoned fighting men.

Any man can take a gun in hand and go out to use it, and often enough he is braver because of that gun. But fighting is like playing poker. You have to pay to learn, and you only learn with the cards in hand and money on the table. Cap and me, well, we had been through more fights in any one year of our lives than most men get in a lifetime.

Me? Well, I'd been fightin' one way or another all my life. Cap had begun as a mountain man, and he'd fought Sioux, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches, and he still had his hair.

"That youngster," Cap said, "he'll do to take along. He was almighty cool."

"So was Lin," I added. "Don't discount that heathen Chinee."

"Heathen? h.e.l.l!" Cap spat. "He knows more than both of us. Why we was talkin' the other night, and he come up with some of the d.a.m.ndest stuff you ever heard!"

We were not through with fighting, and we knew it, so we moved the cattle along faster than we should have to keep the weight on them. We wanted to get to some place where we could make a stand. We'd got by them, but they still outnumbered us, and we could expect trouble.

"Maybe we should take it to them," Cap suggested. "Discourage them. I'm a pretty good horse thief when need be."

"Good idea," I suggested, "but let's try for distance."

"How you fixed for ca'tridges?"

"Short," I said. "We've got to avoid a fight if we can."

"Wished Orrin would show up."

"Or Tyrel and the boys with those packhorses. We're going to need them, Cap. Need them bad."

Spotting a long, sandy draw, I turned the herd down it, as the sand was deep and left few tracks. There was small hope that it would help, but we needed every advantage.

Toward nightfall, we turned up another draw, crossed a gravely hill, and camped on a knoll close to a small grove. We built our fire for coffee inside the grove where the glow of the fire was hidden. The cattle, exhausted from the drive, grazed only a little before lying down.

"One man on guard," I said. "We all need rest. Stay on the ground and don't skyline yourself."

After they were settled and we had eaten, I walked out from the camp. Nothing could be seen but the darkness of the trees and brush. The cattle merged with the darkness.

While the others slept, I took count as well as I could without disturbing them. I could see fourteen cartridges in Cap's belt, eight in Brandy's. Lin had no belt but might have some in his pockets. How many were in their rifles I could not guess. My rifle was fully loaded as was my six-shooter. Nine bullets remained in my belt. We'd be lucky to survive any kind of an Indian fight or any other.

Shortly before daybreak, we drove off the hill, found a small stream, and walked the cattle in the water for over a mile. That such tactics would delay them more than a little was unlikely, yet at least some of the attackers had been greenhorns.

Who, then, were they? There had been no attempt of which I knew to steal our cattle. They seemed more interested in stopping or delaying us.

Leaving the water, we found where a herd of buffalo had pa.s.sed and followed in their tracks, losing our trail in theirs.

We watered that night in the Qu'Appelle River. It had been named, so we heard, because an Indian, dropping down the river in a canoe, thought he heard a call from the bank. He waited, listening, then called out himself. There was no reply, so he went on, but since then it has been the Who Calls River. At least that was the story Kootenai Brown told me one night by the fire.

Cap and me looked for cart tracks but found none. There could be other carts, of course, but we knew ours had not pa.s.sed.

We crossed the river where there were no bluffs and bedded our few cattle on the far bank. It was not a good place, and Cap grumbled a good bit.

Wolves prowled close around the camp, and we did not wish to attract attention by firing a shot. Several times, we took flaming sticks from the fire and charged at them, but they soon came back.

Between mosquitoes, sand flies, and wolves, we had little sleep. When morning came, I was up early and in a bad mood. There was little to eat, and n.o.body talked much.

There was crisp gra.s.s and sand with occasional swamps. Several times steers went into the swamps to escape the flies, and we had to throw a loop around their horns and drag them out. It made n.o.body any happier. By the time nightfall arrived, I was almost hoping for a fight, being that irritable.

Yet it was pretty country. There were bluebells and wild roses everywhere and a few small tiger lilies growing here and there. At one place, we came upon acres of bluebells.

In camp, Brandy sat opposite me nursing a cup of coffee, one of the last we'd have if Orrin didn't find us.

"What month is it?" Brandy said. "I lost track of the days. Now I'm not even sure of the month."

"June," I replied, and the thought made me no happier. Time was a getting on, and we'd a far piece to go before snow fell, and at the end we had to find our way through mountains we didn't know and where trails were, we had heard, mighty few.

Looking at the cattle gave me no pleasure. They'd started out in fine shape, but due to long drives and the necessity to keep moving, they'd lost weight.

We had seen no buffalo or even an antelope for days. "We can always kill a beef," Cap suggested.

"We may have to," I said.

Come to think of it, Cap was looking gaunt himself, and Brandy, too. Lin, he never seemed to change, grub or no. His leg, despite the fall, was better.

"We'll lay up tomorrow," I suggested. "Maybe we can catch us a mess of fish."

The horses, too, were in bad shape. The rest, little as it was, would do them good, and they did not have to worry about food. There was gra.s.s enough to pasture half the stock in Canada.

It was almighty hot. We let the stock feed, and we let them drink. When we moved on, there was going to be none too much water.

Cap was the fisherman amongst us. Him and Lin. Both of them caught a mess of fish, but Brandy and me couldn't catch cold.

We had fish for supper, and we had fish for breakfast, and nothing tasted any better, seasoned a mite with wild garlic.

We were riding out to start the cattle when I saw our Indian friends. One of them rode up to where we were with a chunk of fresh venison. We took a look at each other and got down from the saddle and broiled and ate it right on the spot.

Little Bear waited, and then he said, "White man comes."

"A white man? Where?"

"I see him, alone."

Something about his manner bothered me. It seemed he wanted to tell me more than he knew how, but he just said, "He ride here."

"You mean he's coming here?"

"He comes here. He rides here."

Cap got up and wiped his hands on his chaps. "I think he's tryin' to tell you this gent rides for you."

We looked back toward the river. "Let him come on," I said. "We've miles to go."

We started them out and hadn't gone fifty yards when we saw a lone buffalo calf. When he saw us, he bawled.

"Lost his ma," Cap said. "Shall we take him along?"

"Why not?"

Cap rode wide and started the calf toward the herd. He did not take to being driven, but the herd had its attractions. Finally, he galloped off and joined the cattle.

We were a good half mile into the sand hills under a blistering sun when the rider caught up with us. We heard him coming, and I turned in the saddle.

"Well," Cap said, "we can use every hand we can get."

He should have been having a hard time of it, but he didn't look like hard times. He looked fat and sa.s.sy like he'd been eating mighty well. He rode up and said, "Howdy! I've missed you boys!"

It was Gilcrist.

Chapter XVIII.

"You come out alive," Gilcrist said.

"All of us," I said. "Where've you been?"

"Huntin' for you. Livin' off the country."

"Must've been good country," Cap commented.

Gilcrist turned sharply, but Cap's features were bland and innocent. Gilcrist turned back to me. "Lost some cattle, I see. Ain't much use in goin' on with this little bunch."

"Beef is beef," I said. "I never knew a mining camp to turn down good beef cattle."

He started to speak, then changed his mind. He turned his mount to ride away, and I watched him drop back to where Lin was riding.

"Notice that?" I said to Cap. "He never asked about the Ox. You'd think a man would at least want to know what happened to his partner."

"Maybe he knows," Cap commented. "Maybe he knows just a whole lot that we don't. If that man's been livin' off the country, he's the luckiest hunter I ever did see."

They rode on for a short distance, and Cap said, "He's right about the cattle, though. What are all of us doin' drivin' this little ol' bunch of cows? Even sayin' they need beef, this is a mighty small bunch."

"We taken a contract to deliver beef," I Said, "and we're going to deliver beef if there's only one cow left when we get there, but I've a hunch we'll have a sight more.