The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine
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rushed from what had once been his face.
Welsh took one look at the tortured man, and with a crack over the head from the butt of his pistol, rendered him unconscious and stilled his blood-curdling agonies. Then he walked over to the cowmen.
"Anybody got the makin's?" he asked. "One o' them punchers spilt mine out o' my pocket last time."
Nonchalantly he showed the clean rent on the left side of his flannel shirt, just over his heart, where his pocket had been.
Somebody handed up the paper and tobacco, and he rolled a cigarette, tossing the materials back to Chuck Durstine, who sauntered up, examining his gun curiously.
Durstine, from his appearance, had no right to be alive. His cheek bled where a bullet had grazed him, his left arm was scratched, and there were three holes in his clothes. His revolver was so hot he could hardly hold it.
When they had finished their smoke they started back to their shelter, the middle rock of the enclosure.
"Well, good-by, boys," said Jimmie. "I allow it's pretty near my turn an' Chuck's."
"Good-by!" came the chorus from the owners, all of whom had pleaded steadily with the two to give up the unequal struggle. These men were hard and brave men, and they appreciated genuine grit as nothing else in the world, for it was a great factor in their own make-up.
"I'll tell yuh this, Jimmie," called out Beef Bissell, whose conceptions had been undergoing a radical change for the last two hours, "if you an' Chuck are sheepmen, I take off my hat to yuh, that's all! I never seen better fighters anywhere."
"Yuh ought to see us when we ain't dry-nursin' a dozen cattle-owners," retorted Welsh, amid a great guffaw of laughter.
Suddenly again sounded the roar of the galloping horses.
"Well, so-long, boys!" yelled Chuck, his voice barely audible.
"So-long."
The chorused response was cut short by the spitting of weapons. Chuck faced to the left, Welsh to the right. Both pumped two guns as fast as they could. Presently Chuck dropped one and leaned against the rock, his face distorted, but the other gun going. Jimmie felt a stab of fire, and found his weight all resting on one foot. Dropping their pistols, they drew others from holsters and fought on.
A bullet furrowed Chuck's scalp, and the blood blinded him so that he could not shoot. He stepped out from behind the rock, "fanning" one gun and clearing his eyes with the other hand. Three bullets hit him at once, and he dropped dead, firing three shots before he reached the ground.
He had scarcely fallen when Welsh's other leg and both arms were broken, and he tumbled in a heap just as the last of the charging cowboys swept past. When they had gone there was a moment's silence. Then:
"Hello, anybody!" called Speaker.
There was a pause.
"Hello!" came a muffled voice. "Come an' git me. I cain't fight no more." And with a great shout the owner of the Circle Arrow outfit ran to where Jimmie Welsh, the indomitable, lay helpless, disabled by six bullets, but still full of fight.
"Stick me up on that wall, Billy," he said faintly, "an' put a gun in each hand. I can't shoot 'em, but them punchers'll think I can and finish me."
"You go to Hell!" remarked Speaker joyfully.
"Don't call yore ranch names," admonished Jimmie with a grin, and fainted.
CHAPTER XIX
AN INDIAN COULEE
By four o'clock in the morning the fifteen hundred head of cattle had crossed the ford of the Big Horn and were bedded down on the other side. When this hazardous business had been completed, Bud Larkin ordered the sheep brought up and kept on the eastern bank among the cool grass of the bottoms.
The captive rustlers, under guard, were being held until daylight, when, it had been decided, they would be taken to the almost deserted Bar T ranch, and kept there until further action could be determined on in regard to them.
When dawn finally came Bud looked at the stolid faces of the men, and recognized most of them as having belonged to the party that had so nearly ended his earthly career. He called them by their names, and some of them grinned a recognition.
"Hardly expected to meet yuh again," said one amiably. "Thought it might be t'other side of Jordan, but not this side of the Big Horn."
"That's one advantage of raising sheep," retorted Bud. "Mine are so well trained they stampede in time to save my life. You fellows ought to have joined me in the business then."
"Wisht we had," remarked another gloomily. "'Tain't so hard on the neck in the end."
Bud wondered at the hardihood of a man who, facing sure death, could still joke grimly about it.
Directly after breakfast the rustlers were mounted on their horses, with their arms tied behind them, and, under a guard of six men, started on their journey to the Bar T. In charge of the outfit was a gray-haired sheep-owner from Montana, and to his care Bud entrusted a long letter to Juliet that he had added to day by day with a pencil as opportunity offered.
It was such a letter as a lonely girl in love likes to get, and Bud's only thought in sending it was to prove that she was ever in his mind, and that he was still safe and well.
Weary and sleepless, Bud then prepared for the ordeal with Stelton. From Sims, who seemed to know the country thoroughly, he learned that Indian Coulee was almost thirty miles south-east, and could be distinguished by the rough weather-sculpture of an Indian head on the butte that formed one side of the ravine.
Lest there be a misunderstanding, it should be said here that this was the second day after the battle of Welsh's Butte, as it came to be known. The first day the punchers had been busy burying the dead and attending to the numerous things to which such an occasion gives rise. It was on the morning of this day that Stelton, giving as an excuse his urgent desire to return to the Bar T, had ridden away, commanding his cowboys to remain and do their portion of the work.
Late in the afternoon he had met Smithy Caldwell in a secret place, and given him a note to the leader of the band of rustlers. This Caldwell, with his usual tricky foresight, did not deliver, giving the message by word of mouth, and keeping the piece of paper as evidence in case Stelton should turn against him.
Stelton, anxious to hear how the commencement of the drive fared before returning to the Bar T ranch, camped in the hills that night, and moved on to Indian Coulee the next morning to await the messenger.
Just previous to starting on the long ride, Larkin called Sims to him.
"Now, I'll tell you why I want these cows," he said. "We've got to rush the sheep up the range. As soon as I'm gone start 'em, but surround the sheep with a line of cows, and keep a good bunch ahead. From a distance it will look like a cattle-drive, and may serve to throw the punchers off the track if they're anywhere in sight."
"By Michaeljohn! That's a good idea!" exclaimed Sims; "but I don't allow either of them will feed much."
"Let 'em starve, then; but keep 'em moving," said Bud. "We win or bust on this effort. Fact is, we've got to keep those cows anyhow, to return them to their owners if possible, and you might as well make some good use of them."
Mike Stelton, meanwhile, who had often used the place as a rendezvous before, went into the usual shady spot, dropped the reins over his horse's head, and lay down.
Stelton's heart was at peace, for the sheepmen he considered defeated at every angle. Jimmie Welsh, half dead and delirious, was on his way to the Circle Arrow ranch under Billy Speaker's care. Consequently, it was impossible that Bud Larkin should know anything of the battle at Welsh's Butte.
Larkin would go on about his plans, dreaming the cowmen still in captivity, and the pursuing punchers on a false trail, Stelton calculated. Then he chuckled at the surprise in store for the ambitious sheepmen, for the remaining cowboys under Beef Bissell had already begun to talk of a war of extermination and revenge.
When