'That's certainly odd, Yorky; it ain't like cow-hands to run off from a dance--they don't get so many. Hello, Bill, wantin' me?'
'Hunch is outside--Jim sent him; sez there's trouble,' the foreman said.
'Round up the boys, an' we'll be goin'.'
In ten minutes they had left Rainbow behind and were riding for the Circle Dot. Silently, and with eyes alert, they pressed on through the still, dark night. When, at length, they reached the ranch, all seemed as usual. Then Sudden's voice challenged:
'Who's there?'
Dover replied, and a shaft of light appeared as the door opened; the puncher, gun in hand, stepped out.
'Sorry to have busted in on yore fun, boys,' he said. 'The excitement's all over, I guess, but when I sent Hunch I didn't know what was afoot.' Dan asked a question. 'Rustlers. I downed a hors. They didn't get any steers.'
'Durn the luck, it would 'a' bin a good finish to have a run in with cow-thieves,' Tiny grumbled. 'Jim had the best of it after all.'
When Dover and the foreman followed Sudden into the living-room they got a shock, and had to be told the rest of the story. Dan's face fell when he saw the empty secret drawer.
'So they got it,' he said dejectedly.
Sudden grinned, reached down the file and stripped off the bills until he came to the letter. 'Like hell they did,' he replied. 'I had a feelin' someone might know o' that hidey-hole an' come for it, so I put it in the least likely place for anythin' o' value. Now we'll make shore; three of us know the contents o' that bit o' paper, so we'll--burn it.'
'Yo're right, Jim, an' I don't know how to thank you,' Dan said. 'It was a smart move.'
'Shucks,' the puncher replied, and dropped the document in the fire.
'Settles that,' Burke remarked. 'How did you get on to their plans, Jim?'
'I didn't, but I got to wonderin' why Trenton was keen on an affair which would leave the Circle Dot wide open. Some o' his fellas could show theirselves, ride here, an' get back before the dance finished; no one could prove they hadn't been in town all the time.'
'Which is how it was planned,' Dan said, and told of Yorky's discovery. 'The raid on the cattle was a fake?'
'Yeah. When Trenton learned I wasn't comin'--he had a list, yu know--they had to get me away from the ranch-house. Why, they even fired a gun in case I didn't hear 'em. Havin' played safe with the paper, I went along; yu see, there was just a chance someone was after the cows.'
'I guess you've got the straight of it,' the foreman said. 'Mebbe that dead hoss'll tell us somethin' in the mornin'.'
But this hope proved futile; on the left hip of the animal a square patch of skin had been stripped off. The marauders had not overlooked any bets, as they believed.
Chapter IX
Yorky was the proudest member of the outfit. Not only had he eclipsed them all by partnering the peerless Miss Trenton, but promotion had come to him.
'That kid was the on'y one of us to notice that them Wagon-wheel outcasts had sneaked away from the show,' Dan told his foreman. 'He goes on the pay-roll at twenty a month, an' it's up to him to make it more.'
To the surprise of the bunkhouse, the usually precocious youth accepted his good fortune modestly. 'It's mighty good o' Dan,' he said. 'I ain't wort' a dime to him, but I'm aimin' ter be.'
'That rich uncle--' Slow began.
'Aw, go an' fry snowballs,' Yorky grinned.
'Honest, I'm glad, Yorky,' Blister put in. 'I was scared we'd lose you as well as Tiny.'
'Lose me?' the boy queried. 'An' where's Tiny goin'?'
'Well, I figured las' night you'd soon be ridin' for the Wagon-wheel,' was the reply. 'An' Tiny's fixed to marry the school-marm an' help lam the kids.'
The big puncher addressed the company. 'Blister ain't a natural liar; it's just that his tongue gits ahead o' his thoughts.'
When Yorky appeared for the morning excursion, Sudden noticed, with inward satisfaction, a coiled lasso hanging from his saddle-horn.
'Ain't proposin' to hang yoreself, are yu, son?' he asked. The boy was used to his friend's sardonic humour. 'Naw,'
he replied. 'Guessed yer might larn me to t'row it. C'n yer rope?'
'Well, I'm not as good as some, but I expect I can give yu some pointers,' the puncher admitted.
When they reached the pool, and had enjoyed their swim, Yorky was instructed in the rudiments of roping, which he found to be a much more difficult art than he had imagined. Also, he was treated to an expert exhibition which caused his eyes to bulge, and filled him with an ambition to do the like. In the puncher's hands, the lariat seemed to become a live thing, obeying every twitch of the deft wrist.
'Gawd, I'd give a lot ter handle a rope like that,' Yorky said admiringly.
'Yu'll have to--a lot o' time,' Sudden told him. 'Practice, son, just practice, an' a leetle savvy--that's all yu need.' As the teacher was preparing to leave, the pupil asked, 'What will a gun cost me, Jim?'
'Probably yore life,' was the grim reply. 'Yu got enough to keep yu busy with ropin', hawg-tyin', an' learnin' to ride somethin' a bit more uncertain than Shut-eye yonder.'
'I ureter carry a gat.'
'The devil yu did? An' what was yore other name--Bill Hickok?'
'Oh, I ain't no sharp-shooter, but I was in with a hard bunch,' Yorky replied airily. 'I knows which end of a gun th' trouble comes out of.'
'It's the trouble that comes outa the other fella's yu gotta keep in mind,' Sudden warned. 'Yu leave shootin' be for a spell; get a grip o' them other things first.'
And because of his faith in this man who had done so much for him, Yorky pushed into the background his most cherished ambition, and contentedly applied himself to the task of mastering his lariat. As Sudden had hoped, the fresh, bracing air, new interests, and the revival of hope, were working wonders, and 'li'l of Noo York' was fast becoming a less glamorous memory.
It was some days later that Yorky went in search of adventure, and found it. He had not yet been raised to the dignity of being assigned a definite job, and time was more or less his own. He knew nothing of the country round, and determined to find out something about it. Particularly he wanted to seethe Wagon-wheel ranch-house, perhaps cherishing a hope of getting a glimpse of the girl who had been kind to him at the dance--kindness, until he had come West, was a rare experience. So, when Sudden had left him, he set out. Casual questions in the bunkhouse had given him the route.
'Foller th' creek, ford her at th' white stone, an' bear right,' he repeated. 'Sounds dead easy, Shut-eye, but we gotta watch out--them Wagon-wheelers is mebbe feelin' sore.'
Like the rest of the outfit, Yorky believed that a raid on the cattle had been attempted. Paddy had been sworn to silence, explaining the bump on his cranium by an invented fall over a chair in the dark, a solution which evoked ribald reflections on his sobriety.
He crossed the stream, and then headed north-east over an expanse of grass-land plentifully besprinkled with brush, which enabled him to keep under cover for the most part. The necessity for this was soon apparent, for he had gone less than a mile when a horseman swung into an aisle he was about to enter. Just in time he forced Shut-eye headlong into a thicket of thorn--to the discomfort of both of them--and waited while the rider went by.
'Flint!' the boy breathed. 'That's onct I'm lucky.'
When the man disappeared he resumed his journey, and presently, in the distance, saw what he knew must be the place he sought. The ground about it was too open to conceal a horseman, so he hid his mount in a clump of brush, dropping the reins over its head as Sudden had told him, and advanced on foot, keeping to the right, stooping and running swiftly from one bush to another.
He had got within a hundred yards of the house when two men emerged and, to his dismay, walked directly
