We were taking it easy. We had a long way to go, but the season was early, and there was no use us gettin' so far north that the gra.s.s wouldn't have come yet. The country was greenin', but it would take time. We had come up to the Jim River just below Bear Creek.

Cap an' Tyrel scouted ahead, riding into the trees to see if company waited on us, but there was n.o.body. There was fair gra.s.s on the plain and mighty good gra.s.s in the creek bottom, so we swung our herd around and bedded them down.

Swingin' along the edge of the trees, I dabbed a loop on a snag and hauled it up for the fire. Lin was already down from the wagon and picking up some flat stones he could use to set pots on.

We hadn't any chuck wagon, and grub was scarce. Leavin' Brandy with the stock, Tyrel rode down to where I sat my horse. "Saw some deer back yonder." He gestured toward the creek. "Figured I'd ride out and round up some meat."

"Sure." As he turned his mount away, I said, "Keep your eyes open for those Injuns. I think they're somewhere about."

"Maybe so." He pulled up for a moment. "Night before last a" maybe I was wrong, but I thought I smelled smoke." He let it rest for a minute, and then he said, "Tell? You know what I think? I think those Injuns are ridin' in our shadow. For protection, like."

He took out his Winchester and rode off into the trees, but what he said stayed with me. Those Indians were only a handful, and they'd seen trouble from somebody. Tyrel might be right, and they could be stayin' close to us with the idea that they'd not be attacked with us so close by.

By the time I started back for camp, the cattle had settled down. A few were still grazing on last year's gra.s.s, but most of them were full as ticks. I wasn't fooled by their good shape because I knew rough country lay ahead of us.

When I stepped down from the saddle and ground hitched my horse, the other two riders had come in and were drinkin' coffee. Gilcrist was a lean, dark man who handled a rope well and seemed to know something about stock but was obviously a gambler. He'd not had much luck getting up a game around camp because mostly when we bedded down the cattle, we were too tired to do anything but crawl into our blankets ourselves. The man traveling with him was a big, very heavy man but not fat. He was no taller than me, maybe even a mite shorter, but he was a good fifty pounds heavier, and it wasn't fat. Gilcrist called him the Ox, so we followed suit. n.o.body ever did ask him his name, as folks just didn't ask questions. Whatever somebody named you or whatever you answered to was good enough.

Just as I was stepping down from my bronc, I heard a rifle shot. "We'll have fresh meat for supper," I said.

Gilcrist glanced around. "Suppose he missed?"

"That was Tyrel. He doesn't miss."

A few minutes later, Tyrel rode into camp with the best parts of a deer. He unloaded the meat at the fire and led his horse away to strip its gear. n.o.body said anything, but when Tyrel came back into camp, I noticed Gilcrist sizing him up.

We ate, and Tyrel spoke quietly to me. "They're about, Tell. I spotted one of them watchin' me." He paused a moment. "I left them a cut of the meat."

"He see you?"

"Uh-huh. I laid it out nice and ready for him. I think they're hard up."

I turned to Gilcrist and the Ox. "When you finish', ride out and let Cap and Brandy come in."

The Ox wiped his hands on his pants. "Do the kid good to wait a mite. Teach him something."

I looked across the fire at him. "If he needs teaching, I'll teach him. You relieve him."

The Ox leaned back on his elbow. "h.e.l.l, I just got here. They can wait."

"Relieve him," I said, "now."

The Ox hesitated, then slowly got to his feet, deliberately prolonging the movements. "Oh, all right," he said. "I'll go let mama's little boy come in."

He mounted his horse and rode out. Gilcrist got to his feet, then commented, "Better go easy with him. He's a mighty mean man."

"Where I come from they're all mean if you push' them," I said. "If he stays on this job, he'll do his work."

Gilcrist looked around. "Mighty big country out here. Looks to me like a man could do what he wanted."

"Boot Hill is full of men who had that idea." Tyrel spoke casually, as if bored. "It's a big country, all right, big enough for men who are big enough."

Gilcrist mounted up and rode out, and Tyrel threw his coffee on the gra.s.s. "Looks like trouble."

"I saw it when I hired them, but who else could I get? n.o.body wanted to ride north into wild country."

"Maybe they wanted to. Maybe they had reason."

"That big one," I commented, "looks strong enough' to wra.s.sle a bull. Maybe I should save him for Logan. Logan likes his kind."

"Maybe. Maybe you won't be able to save him, Tell. Maybe he won't wait that long."

Cold winds blew down from the north, and there were occasional spitting rains. The scattered patches of snow were disappearing, however, and the trees along the river bottoms were green. There were p.u.s.s.ywillows along the bottoms, too, and patches of crocus growing near the snow.

We moved north, day after day, following the course of the James River but holding to the hills on one side or the other.

As we came down the hill into the valley where the James and Pipestem met, Tyrel rode over to where I was. "Cold," he said, meanin' the wind, "mighty cold!"

"There's wood along the river," I said, "and we'll rest up for a couple of days. It's needful that Orrin have time. No tellin' whether he'll find the men we need or not."

"Wish we could get rid of them two." Tyrel gestured toward the Ox and Gilcrist. "I just don't cotton to them."

"Nor me," I said, "an'old Cap is keepin' his mouth shut, but it's hard."

Turning to look at him, I said, "Tye, all day I've been thinkin' of the mountains back home. Must be I'm gettin' old or something, but I keep thinkin' of how it was back home with ma sittin' by the fire workin' on her patchwork quilt. Night came early in the winter months, and lookin' out the window a body could see pa's lanterns making patterns on the snow as he walked about. He'd be doin' the last of the ch.o.r.es, but when he came in, he always brought an armful of wood for the wood box."

"I recall," Tyrel said. "We sure spent some time climbin' around those mountains! All the way from Chunky Gal to Roan Mountain. I mind the time Orrin got lost over to Huggins h.e.l.l and was plumb out of sight for three days."

"I wasn't there then. I'd already slipped along the mountains and over the Ohio to join up with the Union."

"Nolan went t'other way. He rode down to Richmond and joined the Confederacy. We had people on both sides."

"It was that kind of a war," I commented, and changed the subject. "When we were talkin' about who'd been to the north, I clean forgot the drive I made right after the war. Went up the Bozeman Trail into Montana. I didn't stay no longer than to get myself turned around and headed back, although it was a different trail I rode on the return.

"It was on the way up I got my first taste of the Sioux. They're a rough lot, Tyrel. Don't you take them light."

Tyrel chuckled suddenly. "Tell? You mindful of an old friend of yours? The one we called Highpockets?"

"You mean Haney? Sure. Odd you should speak of him. Last time I heard tell of him, he was headed north."

"Mind the time he went to the sing over at Wilson's Cove? He fell head over heels for some visitin' gal from down in the Sequatchie and went at it, knuckle and skull, with some big mule skinner.

"I remember he come back, and he got out what he used to call his 'reevolver', and he said, 'That ol' boy's give me trouble, so I'm a gonna take my ol' reevolver an' shoot some meat off his bones.' He done it, too."

We rounded up our steers in the almost flat bottom of that valley and let them graze on the stand of last year's gra.s.s. There was green showin' all about, but mostly what they could get at was cured on the stem. There was water a-plenty, and this seemed like a good time to rest up a mite.

Cap killed a buffalo, a three-year old cow, on the slope above the river, so we had fresh meat. The boys bunched the cattle for night, and Cap said, "We'd best start lookin' for windy hills for campin'. The way I hear it, up north where there's all those rivers, lakes, and such, there's mosquitoes like you wouldn't believe. Eat a man alive, or a horse."

"Mosquitoes?" I said. "h.e.l.l, I've seen mosquitoes. Down on the Sulphur a" "

"Not like the ones they have up north," Cap said. "You mind what I say, Tell. When you hear stories of them, you'll swear they're lies. Well, they ain't. You leave a horse tied out all night and chances are he'll be dead by morning."

Me, I looked over at him, bat he wasn't smiling. Whether he knew what he was talkin' about, I didn't know, but he wasn't funnin'. He was downright serious.

There were mosquitoes there on the Pipestem, but we built a smudge, and it helped some. n.o.body talked much, but we lazed about the fire, takin' our turn at watching over the cattle. The remuda we kept in close to camp where we could all more or less keep an eye on it. What Indians wanted most of all was horses, and without them we'd be helpless.

A time or two, I walked out under the stars, away from the campfire and what talk there was, just to listen.

There was no sound but the cattle stirring a mite here and there, rising or lying down, chewing their cuds, occasionally standing up to graze a bit. It was still early.

Later, when I was a-horseback on the far side of the herd, I thought I caught a whiff of wood smoke that came from a different direction than our fire. Well, if they were riding in our shadow, they were no bother, and it was all right with us.

Gave a body a kind of restful feeling, just knowing he wasn't alone out there.

This was a lovely valley, already turning green with springtime, but it was a valley in a great wide open country where we rode alone, where we had no friends, and if trouble came, we'd have to handle it all by our lonesome. There wasn't going to be anybody coming to help.

Not anybody at all.

Chapter IV.

For two days, we rested where the Pipestem met the James, holding the cattle on the gra.s.s at the edge of the woods and gathering fallen limbs and dead brush for firewood.

"Pleasant place," Tyrel said. "I hate to leave."

Gilcrist glanced over at me. "We pulling out?"

"Just before daybreak. Get a good night's sleep."

Gilcrist finished his coffee and got up. "Come on, Ox, let's relieve mama's boy and the old man."

Tyrel glanced at me, and I shrugged. Lin straightened up from the fire, fork in hand. The Ox caught his expression. "Something you don't like, yellow boy?"

Lin merely glanced at him and returned to his work.

The Ox hesitated, glancing over at me where I sat with my coffee cup in my hands; then he went to his horse, mounted, and followed Gilcrist.

"If we weren't short-handed," I said to Tyrel, "he'd get his walkin' papers right now."

"Sooner or later," Tyrel agreed. Then he added, "The other one fancies himself with a gun."

By first light, we were headed down the trail, climbing out of the valley and heading north. A few miles later, I began angling off to the northwest, and by sundown we had come up with the Pipestem again.

The herd was trail broke now, and the country was level to low, rolling hills. We saw no Indians or any tracks but those of buffalo or antelope. The following day, we put sixteen miles behind us.

Each night, just shy of sundown, Tyrel, Cap, or I would scout the country around. Several times, we caught whiffs of smoke from another campfire, but we made no effort to seek them out Short of sundown on the third day, after our rest, I killed a buffalo, and the Ox came up to lend a hand. I never did see a buffalo skinned out faster or meat cut and trimmed any better. I said as much.

"Pa was a butcher, and I growed up with a knife in hand. Then I hunted buffalo on the southern plains."

"Take only the best cuts," I said, "an' leave the rest"

He was bent over, knife in hand. He turned his head to look at me. "Leave it? For varmints?"

"There's some Indians close by, and they're having a bad time of it. Leave some for them."

"Injuns? h.e.l.l, let 'em rustle their own meat. What d' we care about Injuns?"

"They're hungry," I said, "and their best hunter is wounded and laid up."

Obviously, he believed me crazy. "I never knew an Injun worth the powder it took to kill him."

"Back in the mountains," I said, "I knew quite a few. Generally speakin', they were good folks."

"We had trouble with them a time or two and they're good, tough fightin' men. I've also hunted and trapped with them, slept in their lodges. They are like everybody else. There's good an' bad amongst them."

We left some meat on the buffalo hide, and I stuck a branch in the ground and tied a wisp of gra.s.s to it. Not that they'd need help findin' it Come daylight, when we moved out with the cattle, I took a look, and every last bit of meat was gone, and the hide, also. I counted the tracks of a boy and two women. They'd have read the sign and would know that meat was left a-purpose.

With Cap ridin' point, the cattle strung out along the trail, and I rode drag. Tyrel was off scoutin' the country. Pipestem Creek was east of us now, and the country was getting a mite rougher. Maybe it was my imagination. Off on the horizon, far ahead and a hair to the west I could see the top of a b.u.t.te or hill.

By noontime, that b.u.t.te was showing strong and clear. It was several hundred feet high and covered with timber. When Tyrel came back to the drag, I rode ahead to talk to Cap.

"Heard of that place," he said. "They call it the Hawk's Nest There's a spring up yonder a" good water."

After a bit, he added, "Big lake off to the north. Maybe a mite east, Devils Lake, they call it. Got its name, they say, from a party of Sioux who were returning victorious from a battle with the Chippewa. Owanda, the Sioux medicine man, had warned them not to make the attack, but they were young bucks, eager for battle and reputation, and they didn't listen.

"Their folks were watching from the sh.o.r.e, saw them coming far out on the lake, and could tell from the scalps on the lifted lances that they'd been victorious.

"Well, some say that night came down. It had been dusk when they were sighted. Night came, but the war party didn't. That day to this, n.o.body's seen hide nor hair of them. Devils in the lake, the Injuns say."

"Owanda must have been really big medicine after that" I commented.

"You can bet he was. But the way I hear it, he was one of the most powerful of all medicine men. Lot of stories about him. First I heard of him was from the Cheyenne."

Cap went on to his flank position, and I took over the point riding well out in front studying the country as we moved. Wherever possible, I held the herd down off the skyline. We didn't want to get in the bottoms and among the trees but at least as low as we could move while handling the cattle. There were Indians about and if they did not know of us now, they would very soon, but I wanted to attract as little attention as possible.

At the same time, I was studying our future. The gra.s.s was growing, and soon it would be high enough for grazing. Until then, the cattle would be eating last year's gra.s.s. We were getting a jump on the season, and that was why we were not pushing along. We had to stall until the gra.s.s was up.

By that time, we should have met with Orrin and his Red River carts. Or so we hoped.

Westward the drive was long. The camp for which we were headed was in rugged mountain country, and we had to make it before the snow started falling. Once the gra.s.s was up and we had Orrin with us, we'd have to push hard, even at the risk of losing flesh from those steers.

Tyrel and me, we didn't even have to talk to know what the other one was thinking. It was almost that way with Cap.

Gilcrist and the Ox were worrisome men. Tyrel was right when he said Gilcrist fancied himself with a gun, and while I'd never wanted the reputation of gunfighter, a reputation both Tyrel and me had, I kind of wished now Gilcrist knew something about us. Might save trouble.