empty bottles in the bunkhouse. The gunnie up and dared me to do something about it. I wanted to bend my iron back in shape over his head, but I can't do anything until I catch him actually breakin' the law.' The sheriff looked wistful. 'I'd sure admire to find out how fast he really is. Which I aim to do if he ever sets foot in Streeter, even if my old lady does say I'm too old to draw flies.'
Josh had been right about the weather. By the time they trotted in the Wagon corral, it was hard to find the gate because of the swirling snow.
But there was little wind and no below zero drop in temperature to announce a blizzard such as those to which they had become accustomed. It seemed that winter had vented its spleen before Christmas. When the weather continued consistently good after New Year's, Josh was worried.
'Probably have a whale of a drought the next couple of years,' he prophesied gloomily.
To Kirby each day was much like its predecessor. He didn't return to town, but immersed himself in the hardest work he could find to do. Only by crawling into bed dead tired was he able to sleep… to forget for a few hours the trouble hanging over the Wagon… the trouble that had already cost him the one girl in the world.
Josh saw her on the trips he made for supplies. He told Maria, in words intended for Kirby's ears, that she was well and busy making up the school she had missed during her bout with pneumonia.
Spring made a timid appearance at Wagon before Kirby was even aware of the changing of the seasons. He felt a shock one day when he realized that the things that usually gave him such deep pleasure were going unnoted. He tried to regain the thrill of his boyhood at the sight of long V-shaped strings of wild geese, the first shivering robins. I must be getting old, he thought, as he remembered the clear spring days when he and Jen had searched out the year's first violets and proudly carried them in for Ma's enjoyment. He was grateful, in a way, for the change of seasons brought new chores. He busied himself with the mending of fences; the new crop of calves to be attended to; and, finally, the back-breaking work of spring roundup.
Josh was jubilant over the calf crop. 'They more than make up for winter kill,' he reported. 'Wagon sure come through the winter a lot better than I thought after the first blizzard. I'm a heap worried that we'll get one of those late blue northers and lose every danged calf on the range.'
It was the spring gather that brought trouble back into focus; the trouble all knew was merely waiting for winter to blow away before laying its own pattern of misery and woe on the range. Things had been quiet since the Christmas shooting, partly because Kirby and his crew had stayed away from town and a possible encounter with Bill or his henchmen. He overheard a couple of the hands in the bunkhouse talking about a poker game that had been going on continuously in Galeyville for more than a month. They stopped when they discovered he was listening, but not before one of them had dropped the news that Bill was a part of the marathon game and was still drinking heavily. I'll find out from Burch how deep Bill has gotten into debt, he thought. But the news Josh brought crowded everything else out of his mind.
'Boss, I've been over every mile of our graze and counted every critter on it, dead or alive. And no matter how I figger, there's something wrong. Wagon is missing close to three hundred head.' He showed Kirby his tally. He was right, as Kirby realized before he checked. A part of the Wagon herd had disappeared.
The next day he sent his foreman to Streeter and then on to Galeyville. He waited, tight-lipped and silent, until Josh returned.
'Every head of cattle that has been shipped out of this range is accounted for, and our brand hasn't turned up in any stuff that has been sold. But that ain't half of it,' Josh told him. 'Every outfit I talked to has been rustled. They've all lost fifty head or more… just recent. I hate to say it, but there's a lot of talk about Bill being mixed up in the thing.'
'Has anyone braced Bill about it?' Kirby asked thoughtfully.
'I don't think so,' was the reply. 'I heard that a couple of Triangle punchers rode out to Lazy B. Bill wasn't there, but Hub Dawes ordered them off the place at gun point. They left without seein' a single steer… but that don't mean he couldn't have 'em hid away somewhere.'
Kirby was lost in thought for so long that Josh started to walk away.
'Wait a minute, Josh. I've been thinking. There isn't but one thing for us to do. We've got to search Lazy B… every foot of it. If Bill has stolen beef, we can find it. We've been riding that range all our lives. But I don't mind saying that I'm scared… of what we may find.'
The old segundo's answer showed the same fear. 'I reckon this is the first time in my life that I ever hated to do a job for Wagon. Like you, I'm scared of the move, but since it's got to be done, tonight's as good a time as any!'
'Tonight,' Kirby agreed, 'just the two of us!'
He's thorough in everything he does, Kirby thought that night as he left the house and walked across the yard where his foreman was waiting with saddled horses. Josh had saddled the black gelding for him and another black for himself. Both saddles carried Winchesters in their scabbards, and Josh had donned a dark jacket. If anyone sees us tonight he'll have to look mighty sharp, Kirby thought as they lifted their ponies into an easy lope.
Josh was the first to speak. 'The Clear's way down, Boss. I figger maybe we can ford at the place we lost them first cows and start lookin' from there.'
Kirby grunted. 'That's as good a place as any.'
They rode the Streeter trail until they were out of sight of the house, then circled back to the river flat. They traveled by the light of a new moon, but the night was clear and they had little trouble following the river trail. Josh led the way into the ford. Kirby had to flog his black gelding with the end of the reins before he would take to the water. But once he had his feet wet he wanted to run, and Kirby had to hold him back to prevent possible disaster if he should step off into a deep hole.
There were no cattle on the Lazy B side of the river. When nearly an hour's ride deep into Lazy B graze didn't disclose a single cow, Kirby's hopes began to rise, the sick fear in his stomach to subside. He was almost gay as he said to Josh, 'Looks like this is going to be a snipe hunt!'
'Mebbe. Sure hope you're right. There's one more place I'd like to see, though.'
Kirby knew at once what place he meant. At the extreme edge of the old Wagon range, nature had constructed her own corral. It was a grassy meadow, bounded on three sides by rocky slopes too steep even for wild range cattle to climb. The meadow itself was big enough to hold a sizable herd, but because it was so remote from the rest of the graze, it was seldom used except late in the summer when other grass grew scarce. The only entrance was from the river side: a narrow gap in the rocky ridge. The gap was so narrow that a juniper or spruce felled across the trail made an effective gate. The top of the ridge marked Lazy B's boundary… the old Wagon Spoke limits. Beyond lay the scrubby H Bar D, owned by Hub Dawes.
As they headed their ponies into the entrance to the meadow, they reined up short, each man acting instinctively at the sound they heard… the bawling of a cow! It came again, close at hand. 'That was no snipe, Josh!'
'We'd better go from here on foot, Boss.' He led both ponies into a small thicket. When he returned he carried two rifles, one of which he passed wordlessly over to Kirby. Carefully, feeling their way among the loose rocks of the dark gap, they worked their way to a spot overlooking the meadow. At the sight that met their eyes, Kirby felt an anger so great that it almost made him ill. Josh gave a smothered exclamation.
Spread out as far as they could see in the dim starlight, cows were bedded down in the meadow. How many they could not tell.
Josh made a sound almost as if he were retching. Then he said, 'Cover me from here. I'll slip down and see if I can read any brands.' He was lost to sight almost at once. Kirby strained his eyes to see in the uncertain light and once or twice thought that he could see a dim shadow moving in and around the cattle nearest him. He knew that there couldn't have been a guard anywhere around the critters, for Josh had been gone long enough to have been spotted. Whoever had hazed the cows into the meadow had been pretty certain that they would stay put… that there was little likelihood of a chance rider stumbling into the gather.
He waited, tension building up in him almost to the breaking point, for Josh to get back. He was on the verge of starting down the slope when Josh materialized, wraith-like, from the shadows. The foreman hunkered down beside the spot where Kirby had been squatting. His voice was chill when he said, 'Don't reckon we have to be so quiet. Don't believe there's a man in hearing distance… only cows.'
'Could you read any burns, man? Let me know what you found down there.'
'Plenty,' came the cold voice. 'Enough to hang Bill and his crew. There's hundreds of cows in that meadow… critters from every brand on the Streeter range. Couldn't see too well, but enough to guess that all the stuff that
