what he had seen a few minutes before, the tracks of two shod horses and a trail obviously made that day.
One of the horses had been carrying a very heavy man.
At a point where the trail would have brought them within sight of Orrin's camp, the two riders had suddenly turned south. Orrin followed, swinging along the trail in a wide circle. There, in the shade of some cottonwoods, one of the riders had dropped from the saddle and walked away.
The other rider had gone off to the west, leading a spare horse.
Orrin Sackett glanced off to the east where the rider had taken the spare horse and then turned in the saddle and glanced up at the plateau of the Turtles. 'I'd lay a little bet,' he muttered aloud.
He rode south, swinging in a wide circle toward the west, and in a little hollow found six head of cattle gathered around a small seep. He moved them out toward the northwest, picking up two more on the way. By the time he reached the gathering place, there were at least thirty head there, and Fleming was bringing in another.
Throughout the day, they worked, finding more and more of the scattered groups with occasionally a buffalo calf running with them. By sundown, they had gathered nearly three hundred head.
Baptiste had shifted camp farther west by a good five miles, with the Turtle Mountains still looming close on the north. He had a good fire going on some broiled buffalo steaks for all hands as well as more of his beans. He had made sourdough bread, and they ate simply but well.
The Ox was irritable and not talkative. It was obvious things had not gone as he expected.
Baptiste was wary, watchful, and kept a gun handy, not trusting the Ox.
'There's a-plenty off to the southwest,' Haney told them. 'I saw maybe fifty, sixty head in one bunch and glimpsed several other scattered bunches.
'It won't be easy,' he added. 'They're scattered wide, and there's still a good many buffalo among 'em who will stampede again at the slightest excuse. If they do, most of those damn fool cows will go right along with them.' 'We need more help,' Orrin suggested, 'but tomorrow we'll have the Ox helping us.' 'I ain't in no shape to ride,' the Ox
muttered.
'If you want to eat,' Orrin replied, 'you'll ride. You can work with me. I think we understand each other mighty well.' The Ox glared but made no comment.
'We may be able to get some help,' Shorty suggested. 'This country isn't as empty as a body might think. I came on two sets of tracks today, both of them shod horses and none of them our horses.' Orrin knew he had been shying away from the thing that must be done. He had been avoiding the site of the stampede, and he knew why. If Tell and Tyrel were dead, he did not want to know it.
Until he actually saw their bodies or some other evidence that proved them dead, he could still delude himself they were alive still.
'Tomorrow I am going over to check their last camp.' Orrin glanced at the Ox. 'You can show me where it was.' The Ox said nothing, sipping a cup of coffee, and Shorty smiled. 'Ain't much to see,' he said. 'I was over there.' They waited, and he said, 'I scouted that country some. The buffalo hit that camp goin' all out, and they just run everything right into the ground.
But I don't think anybody was in the camp.' 'What?' Orrin turned to stare. 'Then where in God's name--?' 'They were with the cattle. They were moving them when the stampede hit them.' He glanced at the Ox.
'Wasn't that what you said? You were off on the flank?' 'I was.' The Ox paused. 'It was like I said. They were here, then they were gone, and the cattle with them. I heard one man scream. I've no idea who it was.' 'Did you see any Indians?' Orrin asked.
The Ox hesitated. 'Can't say I did.
I heard whooping. I figured it was Indians, and I lit out.' 'Haney, you and Shorty continue the roundup.
The Ox and I will go over the site of the stampede before we settle down to rounding up cattle.' Orrin glanced at Baptiste. 'You stay with the carts and keep your rifle handy. Any sign of trouble everybody closes in on the carts, do you hear? We need that grub.' It was a quiet night, and before daybreak they were in the saddle. Orrin, with the Ox beside him, rode down toward the site of the stampede.
The Ox turned in his saddle to look at Orrin. 'You don't like me much, do you, Sackett?' 'No, I don't.' 'When the right time comes, I'll take pleasure in beating your head in,' the Ox said.
Orrin smiled. 'Don't talk like a fool, man. You couldn't whip one side of me, and away down inside you know it.' The Ox was not amused. 'Nobody ever whipped me,' he said, 'and nobody can.' 'Keep that thought. I want you to have it when I prove you wrong.' Orrin drew up, looking over the terrain before them. The shallow valley, if such it might be called, sloped away toward the south. The earth was still torn by charging hoofs. He glanced around, taking in the situation. The Ox stared at it, then looked away. 'You know, Ox,' Orrin said quietly, 'you're a liar. Your whole story is a tissue of lies, from start to finish. Now where's your partner?' The Ox stared at him, an ugly expression in his eyes. 'I don't know what you're talkin' about, but you just called me a liar.' 'That's right. I did call you a liar.' He put up a hand. 'Now don't be a damned fool and go for your gun. I'm a whole lot faster than you and a much better shot, and you'd be dead before you cleared leather.
'You boys bought yourselves a packet, d'you know that? If you're going to try to get away with something, why don't you pick on some greenhorns?' The Ox was wary. He did not believe Orrin Sackett was faster than he, but neither did he want to be mistaken. It was a simple case.
If he was wrong, he was dead.
'My brothers, William Tell and Tyrel, are two of the fastest men alive when it comes to handling six-shooters. I'm only a shade less good.
'Just a moment ago, I had a notion to let you go ahead and draw so I could kill you.' The Ox stared at him. 'Then why didn't you if you're so fast?' Orrin smiled. 'Because I'd miss the pleasure of whipping you with my fists,' he said. Orrin rested both hands on the pommel of his saddle. 'You see, Ox, you've always been big, you've always been strong, you've always been able to either frighten or outmuscle anybody whose trail you crossed. So the truth is, you've never really had to learn to fight. You've never had to get up after being knocked down. You've never had to wipe the blood out of your eyes so you could see enough to keep fighting.
'You're not really a fighter, Ox, you're just a big, abnormally strong man who has had it all his own way for too long.' The Ox smiled. 'Maybe I don't have to know how to fight,' he said. 'I just take hold and squeeze, and they scream. You can hear the bones break, Sackett. I will hear yours break.' Orrin looked around again. 'Now where were you when the stampede started?' The Ox pointed across the plain. 'Over there.
Tyrel Sackett was riding drag. That's why I am sure he is dead.' 'What d'you mean?' 'They hit us on the flank, more than halfway back, and there was no way Tyrel could get out of there.' 'Then I've misunderstood. I didn't know it was that way.' Orrin paused. 'What kind of a horse was Tye riding?' 'It was that line-back dun he favored. I remember that because he let Brandy--' 'Who?' 'The kid--Isom Brand was his name. We called him Brandy. He wasn't much. Some farm kid they taken up with. Anyway, I remember Tyrel rode the dun because he let Brandy have that little black.' Orrin was thinking. If Tyrel was on the dun, there was a chance. That line-back dun was a cutting horse and as quick on his feet as a cat.
If any horse alive could get out of the way of that stampede, it would be the dun.
For an hour he rode back and forth across the grassy plain where the herd had been when the buffalo came. He found the remnants of a body churned into earth, but there was no way of telling who it had been.
By nightfall, working farther and farther to the west and south, they had rounded up nearly five hundred head, among them the old brindle steer who had been the leader of the herd.
'One more day,' he said by the fire that night.
'Just one more day, and then we leave. We've no more time.' 'I wonder,' the Ox said, 'what become of the Indians? The ones who were, as Tell put it, ridin' in our shadow?' Orrin reached for the coffee pot and filled his cup, then several others. He put the pot down and looked across the fire at the Ox. 'Something new has been added,' he said pleasantly.
'What Indians?' The Ox explained. 'Tell, he left meat for them a time or two. I never saw them myself.
I don't reckon he did, either.' 'That dead man?' Shorty asked. 'Could he have been an Indian?' 'No, he was a white man. He was wearing boots. We found the heels.' It had to be one of them. Which one?
Chapter XIV
Orrin Sackett was a careful man. He knew what he had to do, and he wanted to be about it, although, even
