Crooked Trails and Straight, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  CAMPING WITH OLD MAN TROUBLE

  The sun was shining in his face when Curly wakened. He sat up and rubbedhis eyes. Mac was nowhere in sight. Probably he had gone to get thehorses.

  A sound broke the stillness of the desert. It might have been theexplosion of a giant firecracker, but Flandrau knew it was nothing soharmless. He leaped to his feet, and at the same instant Mac came runningover the brow of the hill. A smoking revolver was in his hand.

  From behind the hill a gun cracked--then a second--and a third. Macstumbled over his feet and pitched forward full length on the ground. Hisfriend ran toward him, forgetting the revolver that lay in its holsterunder the live oak. Every moment he expected to see Mac jump up, but thefigure stretched beside the cholla never moved. Flandrau felt the musclesround his heart tighten. He had seen sudden death before, but never had itcome so near home.

  A bullet sent up a spurt of dust in front of him, another just on theleft. Riders were making a half circle around the knoll and closing in onhim. In his right mind Curly would have been properly frightened. But nowhe thought only of Mac lying there so still in the sand. Right into thefire zone he ran, knelt beside his partner, and lifted the red-thatchedhead. A little hole showed back of the left ear and another at the righttemple. A bullet had plowed through the boy's skull.

  Softly Flandrau put the head back in the sand and rose to his feet. Therevolver of the dead puncher was in his hand. The attackers had stoppedshooting, but when they saw him rise a rifle puffed once more. The riderswere closing in on him now. The nearest called to him to surrender. Almostat the same time a red hot pain shot through the left arm of the trappedrustler. Someone had nipped him from the rear.

  Curly saw red. Surrender nothing! He would go down fighting. As fast as hecould blaze he emptied Mac's gun. When the smoke cleared the man who hadordered him to give up was slipping from his horse. Curly was surprised,but he knew he must have hit him by chance.

  "We got him. His gun's empty," someone shouted.

  Cautiously they closed in, keeping him covered all the time. Of a suddenthe plain tilted up to meet the sky. Flandrau felt himself swaying on hisfeet. Everything went black. The boy had fainted.

  When he came to himself strange faces were all around him, and there wereno bodies to go with them. They seemed to float about in an odd casualsort of way. Then things cleared.

  "He's coming to all right," one said.

  "Good. I'd hate to have him cheat the rope," another cried with an oath.

  "That's right. How is Cullison?"

  This was said to another who had just come up.

  "Hard hit. Looks about all in. Got him in the side."

  The rage had died out of Curly. In a flash he saw all that had come oftheir drunken spree: the rustling of the Bar Double M stock, thediscovery, the death of his friend and maybe of Cullison, the certainpunishment that would follow. He was a horse thief caught almost in theact. Perhaps he was a murderer too. And the whole thing had been entirelyunpremeditated.

  Flandrau made a movement to rise and they jerked him to his feet.

  "You've played hell," one of the men told the boy.

  He was a sawed-off little fellow known as Dutch. Flandrau had seen him inthe Map of Texas country try a year or two before. The rest were strangersto the boy. All of them looked at him out of hard hostile eyes. He wasscarcely a human being to them; rather a wolf to be stamped out ofexistence as soon as it was convenient. A chill ran down Curly's spine. Hefelt as if someone were walking on his grave.

  At a shift in the group Flandrau's eyes fell on his friend lying in thesand with face turned whitely to the sky he never would see again. It cameover him strangely enough how Mac used to break into a little chucklinglaugh when he was amused. He had quit laughing now for good and all. Alump came into the boy's throat and he had to work it down before hespoke.

  "There's a picture in his pocket, and some letters I reckon. Send them toMiss Myra Anderson, Tombstone, care of one of the restaurants. I don'tknow which one."

  "Send nothin'," sneered Dutch, and coupled it with a remark no decent manmakes of a woman on a guess.

  Because of poor Mac lying there with the little hole in his temple Curryboiled over. With a jerk his right arm was free. It shot out like apile-driver, all his weight behind the blow. Dutch went down as if acharging bull had flung him.

  Almost simultaneously Curly hit the sand hard. Before he could stir threemen were straddled over his anatomy. One of them ground his head into thedust.

  "You would, eh? We'll see about that. Jake, bring yore rope."

  They tied the hands of the boy, hauled him to his feet, and set himastride a horse. In the distance a windmill of the Circle C ranch wasshining in the morning sun. Toward the group of buildings clustered aroundthis two of his captors started with Flandrau. A third was alreadygalloping toward the ranch house to telephone for a doctor.

  As they rode along a fenced lane which led to the house a girl came flyingdown the steps. She swung herself to the saddle just vacated by themessenger and pulled the horse round for a start. At sight of those comingtoward her she called out quickly.

  "How is dad?" The quiver of fear broke in her voice.

  "Don' know yet, Miss Kate," answered one of the men. "He's right peartthough. Says for to tell you not to worry. Don't you, either. We've gothere the mangy son of a gun that did it."

  Before he had finished she was off like an arrow shot from a bow, but notuntil her eyes had fallen on the youth sitting bareheaded and bloodybetween the guns of his guard. Curly noticed that she had given a shudder,as one might at sight of a mangled mad dog which had just bit a dearfriend. Long after the pounding of her pony's hoofs had died away theprisoner could see the startled eyes of fear and horror that had rested onhim. As Curly kicked his foot out of the stirrup to dismount a lightspring wagon rolled past him. In its bed were a mattress and pillows. Thedriver whipped up the horse and went across the prairie toward Dry SandyCreek. Evidently he was going to bring home the wounded man.

  His guards put Flandrau in the bunk house and one of them sat at the doorwith a rifle across his knees. The cook, the stable boy, and redheaded BobCullison, a nephew of the owner of the ranch, peered past the _vaquero_ atthe captive with the same awe they would have yielded to a caged panther.

  "Why, he's only a kid, Buck," the cook whispered.

  Buck chewed tobacco impassively. "Old enough to be a rustler and akiller."

  Bob's blue eyes were wide with interest "I'll bet he's a regular Billy theKid," murmured the half-grown boy to the other lad.

  "Sure. Course he is. He's got bad eyes all right."

  "I'll bet he's got notches on his gun. Say, if Uncle Luck dies--" Bob leftthe result to the imagination.

  The excitement at the Circle C increased. Horses cantered up. Men shoutedto each other the news. Occasionally some one came in to have a look atthe "bad man" who had shot Luck Cullison. Young Flandrau lay on a cot andstared at the ceiling, paying no more attention to them than if they hadbeen blocks of wood. It took no shrewdness to see that there burned inthem a still cold anger toward him that might easily find expression inlynch law.

  The crunch of wagon wheels over disintegrated granite drifted to the bunkhouse.

  "They're bringing the boss back," Buck announced from the door to one ofhis visitors.

  The man joined him and looked over his shoulder. "Miss Kate there too?"

  "Yep. Say, if the old man don't pull through it will break her all up."

  The boy on the bed turned his face to the wall. He had not cried for tenyears, but now he would have liked the relief of tears. The luck hadbroken bad for him, but it would be the worst ever if his random shot wereto make Kate Cullison an orphan. A big lump rose in his throat and wouldnot stay down. The irony of it was that he was staged for the part of agray wolf on the howl, while he felt more like a little child that haslost its last friend.

  After a time there came again the crisp roll of wheels.
br />   "Doc Brown," announced Buck casually to the other men in the bunk house.

  There was more than one anxious heart at the Circle C waiting for theverdict of the bowlegged baldheaded little man with the satchel, but notone of them--no, not even Kate Cullison herself--was in a colder fear thanCurly Flandrau. He was entitled to a deep interest, for if Cullison shoulddie he knew that he would follow him within a few hours. These men wouldtake no chances with the delays of the law.

  The men at the bunk house had offered more than once to look at Curly'sarm, but the young man declined curtly. The bleeding had stopped, butthere was a throb in it as if someone were twisting a red-hot knife in thewound. After a time Doctor Brown showed up in the doorway of the men'squarters.

  "Another patient here, they tell me," he grunted in the brusque way thatfailed to conceal the kindest of hearts.

  Buck nodded toward Flandrau.

  "Let's have a look at your arm, young fellow," the doctor ordered, moppinghis bald head with a big bandanna handkerchief.

  "What about the boss?" asked Jake presently.

  "Mighty sick man, looks like. Tell you more to-morrow morning."

  "Do you mean that he--that he may not get well?" Curly pumped out, hisvoice not quite steady.

  Doctor Brown looked at him curiously. Somehow this boy did not fit thespecifications of the desperado that had been poured into his ears.

  "Don't know yet. Won't make any promises." He had been examining the woundin a businesslike way. "Looks like the bullet's still in there. Have togive you an anesthetic while I dig it out."

  "Nothin' doing," retorted Flandrau. "You round up the pill in there andI'll stand the grief. When this lead hypodermic jabbed into my arm itsorter gave me one of them annie-what-d'ye-call-'em--and one's a-plentyfor me."

  "It'll hurt," the little man explained.

  "Expect I'll find that out. Go to it."

  Brown had not been for thirty years carrying a medicine case across thedusty deserts of the frontier without learning to know men. He made nofurther protest but set to work.

  Twenty minutes later Curly lay back on the bunk with a sudden faintness.He was very white about the lips, but he had not once flinched from theinstruments.

  The doctor washed his hands and his tools, pulled on his coat, and cameacross to the patient.

  "Feeling like a fighting cock, are you? Ready to tackle another posse?" heasked.

  "Not quite." The prisoner glanced toward his guards and his voice fell toa husky whisper. "Say, Doc. Pull Cullison through. Don't let him die."

  "Hmp! Do my best, young fellow. Seems to me you're thinking of that prettylate."

  Brown took up his medicine case and went back to the house.