The strong, raw spirin, and the sound of the familiar voice of his foreman brought the cowboy back to consciousness, and gave him strength to speak.
`Injuns,' he said. `Stampeded the herd. They musta got old Charlie. I heard shootin' an' bumped right into 'em; think I nicked one.'
He sank back exhausted, oblivious to the tumult his information had aroused. Every man was furious, but the anger of Job Leeming exceeded them all. A shortish, choleric man, his violent outbursts of temper had made `the impatience of Job' a byword in the district. For the rest he was a square dealer and a good employer. At the moment he was almost beside himself.
`Jump to it, boys,' he cried. `Hosses an' guns for all o' yu. Cook--where's than blasted cook? Oh, here yu are. Why in 'ell don't yu come when I call yu? Rustle some grub, pronto, an' then look after Lomas. We'll get these murderin' dogs if we have to foller 'em to the Pit.'
`Shore we'll get 'em,' said Dirk. `We'll bring enough scalps to make Lucky a ha'r bridle.'
In less than fifteen minutes a dozen men were racing for the spot where the herd had been. They soon reached it, and scattered to search for the missing cowboy. It was Dirk who happened upon the huddled, prostrate form; at his call, Leeming and the others came scampering up. The foreman knelt and examined the injured man, his fingers encountering a sticky smear of blood across the forehead.
`Show a light, somebody,' he said.
The flame of several manches revealed the extent of the damage.
`Roped him an' knocked him cold with a gun,' stated Dirk. `He ain't hurt bad--his head must be made o' granite, I reckon. I'll do what I can.'
Under his ministrations the patient came to, and in a faltering voice confirmed the foreman's theory of what had taken place. `I thought the blamed sky had dropped on me,' he said. `I shore saw all the stars there is.'
Held in the saddle by another of the outfit, he was also despatched to the care of Cookie at the ranch-house, and having attended to the wants of his wounded, Leeming now felt that he was at liberty to take up his own affairs. Here a difficulty presented itself. Even in the faint light of the early dawn it was possible to see what had happened, and Dirk, who had been carefully scanning the tracks, summed up the situation.
`They've gone nor-east with a bunch o' cattle, headin' for Big Chief, an' they stampeded the rest o' the herd in the opposite direction. Chances is, they've left four times as many as they lifted. What yu aim to do about it?'
`We'll have to split,' Leeming said. `Yu take five o' the boys an' follow the 'Paches; the rest of us will round up the herd. I'd come with yu, but we can't both leave the ranch, an' yo're too darned good at readin' sign to leave behind. How many do yu figure they got?'
`Tidy bunch--near a hundred, I guess,' Dirk replied. `Means one thing--they'll travel all the slower with that lot; we oughtta come up with 'em, spite o' the start they got.'
`Shoot every one o' the durn copper-coloured thieves when yu do,' snorted the other, adding a string of lurid oaths as he turned away to commence the wearisome task of collecting the scattered herd. To describe him as an angry man would be putting it very mildly indeed. At least a week's work destroyed in a single night, and all to be done again, to say nothing of the probable loss of about five-score valuable beasts; for though he would not admit it even to himself, Job had little hope that his steers would be recovered. He knew but too well the wildness of the country, and the many hiding-places it afforded a cunning predator.
That this raid, like the one on his neighbour, was the work of Indians, he did not doubt for an instant, and with the white man's instinctive hatred for the redskin, his resentment was the greater.
Late on the afternoon of the following day the foreman of the Y Z strode into the bunkhouse with a look of malicious triumph on his face.
`Green, the Old Man wants to see yu, pronto,' he said. `The Injuns have got away with a big steal o' Frying Pan cows, an' 'Old Impatience' is up there a-raisin' Cain.'
If he expected the cowpuncher to ask for any details he was disappointed; Green simply nodded and went out. At the ranch-house he found Simon and Leeming in the big living-room, the latter pacing up and down, and evidently in a state of eruption. Simon plunged at once into the business.
`Green,' he said. `Meet Mr. Leeming, owner of the Frying Pan. Yu heard he's been raided?'
`Blaynes just said somethin' about it; I ain't got no particulars,' replied the puncher, acknowledging the introduction by a nod at the visitor.
`Night before last it happened. Laid out two o' my outfit, an' got away with about a hundred head,' snapped Leeming. `What yu gotta say about it?'
`Tough luck,' said Green, quietly.
`Tough luck?' vociferated Leeming angrily. `Tough luck? That's a helluva note, ain't it? An' yo're the feller that's agoin' to stop the rustlin', huh? Why, it's been worse'n ever since yu took a hand. Seems to me yu ain't no more use than a busted leg.'-
The cowpuncher's face flushed through the tan, his jaws clenched, and his eyes narrowed as he listened to this tirade. Leeming, still stamping up and down the room, had completely lost control of himself, but the object of his abuse was outwardly calm.
`Yu payin' any o' my wages?' he asked.
Like a shot from a gun the simple question, which put him utterly in the wrong, knocked the irate cattleman off his balance. But he was in too vile a temper to recognise this. `What's that gotta do with it?' he stormed.
`Everythin',' replied the puncher coolly. `There's only one man who has the right to bawl me out if I don't do my work an' that's the man who pays me.'
The words were spoken evenly and without a trace of passion, but there was a deadly meaning in the low voice. Leeming stopped his perambulations and looked at him.
`Well, I'm damned if yu ain't got yore nerve,' he said. `For two bits I'd...'
Green slipped his hand into his pocket, produced the coins named and laid them on the table without a word. No challenge could have been more plainly given. Leeming's face became suffused with blood, but before he could speak, Old Simon interposed :
`That's enough,' he said brusquely. `Job, yu gotta remember that yu are in my house, an' speakin' no one o' my outfit, an' I won't stand for it nor ask him to. If yu don't ride that temper o' yores it's goin' to thow yu bad one o' these days.'
For a moment the angry man looked madder than ever and then all at once his face changed and he laughed aloud. `Sorry, Simon,' he said. `Yo're right. I'm a plain damn fool to go off the handle like this. No offence meant to either o' yu. It's my beast of a temper--can't help it--always had it--my old folks used to say that I cussed my nurse before I had any teeth. The Frying Pan boys understand--they just let me shoot off my mouth, an' laugh behind my back, damn rascals.' He looked at Green. `No hard feelin's, I hope?'
`None here,' replied the puncher, with a smile.
And indeed, the change about was so sudden and complete that it could not be otherwise than amusing. Yet one could sense that it was not in any way due to cowardice; Leeming had plenty of pluck and would have pulled his gun and shot it out with the cowboy just as cheerfully as he apologised, and Green understood this, and respected the owner of the Frying Pan the more for it.
`Well, that's all right,' said Simon, obviously relieved at the way things had come out. `Tell him about it, Job.'
Leeming told the story of the raid and Green listened in silence until he had finished. Then came a question.
`Yu say they headed north-east for Big Chief? Then they must 'a crossed the Y Z near the line-house.' He turned to Simon. `Do yu happen to know which of our boys were there night before last?'
`I asked Blaynes the same thing, an' he said Durran an' Nigger--two experienced men,' he explained to Leeming. `I've met 'em,' said Job in a non-committal tone.
`An' yore foreman lost the trail on Sandy Parlour?' pursued the cowpuncher.
`Yes, an' he's a good trailer too, but a desert an' Injuns is a strong combination.'
`Yu can cut out the redskins--they ain't nothin' to do with yore losin' cattle.'
`But my boys saw 'em, an' that arrow through Lucky's shoulder ain't no dream,' protested the cattleman.
'Green reckons it's whites pretendin' to be Injuns to razzle-dazzle us,' explained Simon. `It shore would be an
