'The feet is pretty well tore up,' says I, 'and down to the quick, but I've seen them tore up just as bad on the rocks when they come down out of the mountains.'
You sabe what that meant, don't you? You see, a rustler will take a cow and hobble her, or lame her so she can't follow, and then he'll take her calf a long ways off and brand it with his iron. Of course, if we was to see a calf of one brand followin' of a cow with another, it would be just too easy to guess what had happened.
We rode on mighty thoughtful. There couldn't be much doubt that cattle rustlers was at work. The sleepers they had ear-marked, hopin' that no one would discover the lack of a brand. Then, after the calf was weaned, and quit followin' of his mother, the rustler would brand it with his own iron, and change its ear-mark to match. It made a nice, easy way of gettin' together a bunch of cattle cheap.
But it was pretty hard to guess off-hand who the rustlers might be. There were a lot of renegades down towards the Mexican line who made a raid once in a while, and a few oilers [2] livin' near had water holes in the foothills, and any amount of little cattle holders, like this T 0 outfit, and any of them wouldn't shy very hard at a little sleeperin' on the side. Buck Johnson told us all to watch out, and passed the word quiet among the big owners to try and see whose cattle seemed to have too many calves for the number of cows.
[2] 'Oilers' - Greasers - Mexicans.
The Texas outfit I'm tellin' you about had settled up above in this Double R canon where I showed you those natural corrals this morning. They'd built them a 'dobe, and cleared some land, and planted a few trees, and made an irrigated patch for alfalfa. Nobody never rode over his way very much, 'cause the country was most too rough for cattle, and our ranges lay farther to the southward. Now, however, we began to extend our ridin' a little.
I was down towards Dos Cabesas to look over the cattle there, and they used to send Larry up into the Double R country. One evenin' he took me to one side.
'Look here, Jed,' says he, 'I know you pretty well, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm all new at this cattle business - in fact, I haven't been at it more'n a year. What should be the proportion of cows to calves anyhow?'
'There ought to be about twice as many cows as there're calves,' I tells him.
'Then, with only about fifty head of grown cows, there ought not to be an equal number of yearlin's?'
'I should say not,' says I. 'What are you drivin' at?'
'Nothin' yet,' says he.
A few days later he tackled me again.
'Jed,' says he, 'I'm not good, like you fellows are, at knowin' one cow from another, but there's a calf down there branded T 0 that I'd pretty near swear I saw with an X Y cow last month. I wish you could come down with me.'
We got that fixed easy enough, and for the next month rammed around through this broken country lookin' for evidence. I saw enough to satisfy me to a moral certainty, but nothin' for a sheriff; and, of course, we couldn't go shoot up a peaceful rancher on mere suspicion. Finally, one day, we run on a four-months' calf all by himself, with the T 0 iron onto him - a mighty healthy lookin' calf, too.
'Wonder where HIS mother is!' says I.
'Maybe it's a 'dogie,'' says Larry Eagen - we calls calves whose mothers have died 'dogies.'
'No,' says I, 'I don't hardly think so. A dogie is always under size and poor, and he's layin' around water holes, and he always has a big, sway belly onto him. No, this is no dogie; and, if it's an honest calf, there sure ought to be a T 0 cow around somewhere.'
So we separated to have a good look. Larry rode up on the edge of a little rimrock. In a minute I saw his hoss jump back, dodgin' a rattlesnake or somethin', and then fall back out of sight. I jumped my hoss up there tur'ble quick, and looked over, expectin' to see nothin' but mangled remains. It was only about fifteen foot down, but I couldn't see bottom 'count of some brush.
'Are you all right?' I yells.
'Yes, yes!' cries Larry, 'but for the love of God, get down here as quick as you can.'
I hopped off my hoss and scrambled down somehow.
'Hurt?' says I, as soon as I lit.
'Not a bit - look here.'
There was a dead cow with the Lazy Y on her flank.
'And a bullet-hole in her forehead,' adds Larry. 'And, look here, that T 0 calf was bald-faced, and so was this cow.'
'Reckon we found our sleepers,' says I.
So, there we was. Larry had to lead his cavallo down the barranca to the main canon. I followed along on the rim, waitin' until a place gave me a chance to get down, too, or Larry a chance to get up. We were talkin' back and forth when, all at once, Larry shouted again.
'Big game this time,' he yells. 'Here's a cave and a mountain lion squallin' in it.'
I slid down to him at once, and we drew our six-shooters and went up to the cave openin', right under the rim-rock. There, sure enough, were fresh lion tracks, and we could hear a little faint cryin' like woman.
'First chance,' claims Larry, and dropped to his hands and knees at the entrance.
'Well, damn me!' he cries, and crawls in at once, payin' no attention to me tellin' him to be more cautious. In a minute he backs out, carryin' a three-year-old goat. 'We seem to he in for adventures to-day,' says he. 'Now, where do you suppose that came from, and how did it get here?'
'Well,' says I, 'I've followed lion tracks where they've carried yearlin's across their backs like a fox does a goose. They're tur'ble strong.'
'But where did she come from?' he wonders.
'As for that,' says I, 'don't you remember now that T 0 outfit had a yearlin' kid when it came into the country?'
'That's right,' says he. 'It's only a mile down the canon. I'll take it home. They must be most distracted about it.'
So I scratched up to the top where my pony was waitin'. It was a tur'ble hard climb, and I 'most had to have hooks on my eyebrows to get up at all. It's easier to slide down than to climb back. I dropped my gun out of my holster, and she went way to the bottom, but I wouldn't have gone back for six guns. Larry picked it up for me.
So we went along, me on the rim-rock and around the barrancas, and Larry in the bottom carryin' of the kid.
By and by we came to the ranch house, stopped to wait. The minute Larry hove in sight everybody was out to once, and in two winks the woman had that baby. Thy didn't see me at all, but I could hear, plain enough, what they said. Larry told how he had found her in the cave, and all about the lion tracks, and the woman cried and held the kid close to her, and thanked him about forty times. Then when she'd wore the edge off a little, she took the kid inside to feed it or somethin'.
'Well,' says Larry, still laughin', 'I must hit the trail.'
'You say you found her up the Double R?' asks Hahn. 'Was it that cave near the three cottonwoods?'
'Yes,' says Larry.
'Where'd you get into the canyon?'
'Oh, my hoss slipped off into the barranca just above.'
'The barranca just above,' repeats Hahn, lookin' straight at him.
Larry took one step back.
'You ought to be almighty glad I got into the canyon at all,' says he.
Hahn stepped up, holdin' out his hand.
'That's right,' says he. 'You done us a good turn there.'
Larry took his hand. At the same time Hahn pulled his gun and shot him through the middle.
It was all so sudden and unexpected that I stood there paralysed.
Larry fell forward the way a man mostly will when he's hit in the stomach, but somehow he jerked loose a gun and got it off twice. He didn't hit nothin', and I reckon he was dead before he hit the ground. And there he had my gun, and I was about as useless as a pocket in a shirt!
No, sir, you can talk as much as you please, but the killer is a low-down ornery scub, and he don't hesitate
