ground.
“Snead, hold up!” Coleman called. “There’s somethin’ ain’t right about this!”
Suddenly Coleman and Snead saw why the rustler they were advancing toward was so brazen. He wasn’t alone. At least six others were wearing a patch of yellow at their necks.
“Damn!” The challenge in Snead’s voice was replaced by a tone of apprehension. “It’s the Yellow Kerchief Gang!”
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” Coleman shouted.
The two cowboys wheeled their horses about, and the hunters became the hunted. The seven outlaws started after them, firing as they rode hard across the open distance separating Coleman and Snead from the rustlers.
The two men galloped away, pursued by the rustlers. Hitting William’s Creek in full stride, sand and silver bubbles flew up in a sheet of spray sustained by the churning action of the horses’ hooves until huge drops began falling back like rain.
Coleman pointed to an island in the middle of the stream. “Snead, they’re goin’ to run us down! Let’s try and make a stand there. It’s our only chance!” Fear gave enough volume to his voice so he was easily heard.
The two cowboys brought their steeds to a halt. Dismounting, they took what shelter they could find behind the large rock that dominated the island. The rustlers held up at the edge of the creek.
“How many bullets you got?” Coleman asked.
“Four,” Snead said.
“Just four? You got ’ny in your belt?”
“No, just these four is all I got. How many you got?”
“Five.”
“That ain’t very many,” Snead said.
“It’ll have to do.”
“Son of a bitch! Here they come!”
The countryside exploded with the sound of gunfire when the Yellow Kerchief riders opened up on the two Frewen cowboys. The first several bullets whizzed harmlessly over their heads or raised sparks as they hit the rocky ground, then careened off into empty space, echoing and reechoing in a cacophony of whines and shrieks.
At first, Coleman and Snead entertained a hope that the rustlers, who had missed so far, would become frustrated and ride away, leaving them unharmed. Then, three more men wearing yellow scarves rode up to join the other seven. A furious gunfight broke out between the rustlers and the cowboys, but the rustlers were expending bullets at a ratio of twenty to one over the two cowboys. The odds, not only in terms of men, but of available bullets were just too great. Within a matter of minutes, the two cowboys had been killed and the rustlers returned to their task of stealing cattle.
Frewen had two dozen cowboys working for him, living in two bunkhouses behind the big house. Called Frewen Castle, it was a huge, two-story edifice constructed of logs. The cowboys ate in the cookhouse and when everyone gathered for the supper meal that evening, they noticed Coleman and Snead had not returned.
“They weren’t plannin’ on stayin’ out there all night, were they?” Jeff Singleton asked.
“No, they were comin’ back,” Burt Rawlings said. “Me ’n Snead was goin’ to ride into town tonight after supper.”
“Well, where are they?”
“I think something must have happened to ’em,” Burt said.
Burt and Jeff went to see Myron Morrison to tell him of their concern. The foreman agreed to send several cowboys out to look for Coleman and Snead.
When the cowboys reached the range the first thing they noticed was that there were no cattle.
“Whoa, this ain’t right,” Burt said. “There’s supposed to cattle here. I know, ’cause we moved at least fifteen hundred head up here last week. Where are they?”
“You don’t think—” One of the other cowboys paused in mid-sentence.
“Don’t think what?” Burt asked.
“You don’t think Coleman and Snead run off with the cows, do you?”
“Maybe you could tell me just where in the hell they would go with them?”
“To Logan and the Yellow Kerchief Gang, maybe?”
“No,” Burt insisted. “They wouldn’t do that.”
“Well somethin’ has happened to the cattle.”
“Right now I’m more concerned about what happened to Coleman and Snead than I am about what happened to the cows. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“Look! Ain’t that Snead’s horse?”
The four cowboys hurried over to the horse, which made no attempt to run from them. When they got closer they saw that the horse had been shot.
“Damn! Look at this,” Jeff said.
“Looks like he come from that way, from the crick.” Burt pointed toward the creek.
Jeff took the wounded horse’s reins and led it as they rode toward William’s Creek. They saw Coleman’s horse
