Range Of Golden Hoofs Read online

  The great dog came at command. Perrier thrust out his right stirrup and Puck, raising up, placed his feet upon his master’s boot and gazed intently into the valley. Perrier continued to point. “There, Puck! There!”

  Suddenly the dog dropped down. He bayed once, his voice a roar rather than the sound made by any ordinary dog, and then he was gone. The others followed Puck, sweeping silently away like a tidal wave. Perrier reined his horse around, glanced at Dan Shea on the back of the dancing Wellington and said: “Now!”

  Dan gave rein. Instantly under him, with a grinding of hoofs against stone, Wellington bunched his mighty haunches. Down the hill they went.

  It was like nothing Dan Shea had ever experienced. The great horse flew. Dan could ride; he could sit a saddle, but never before had he ridden such a horse. They came to oak and crashed through it. Wellington did not pause or hesitate. A ditch crossed the way. They were over it. Beyond the ditch the hillside arose, steep and brush covered. They went up the hill as though it did not exist. The wind streamed by, and the blood rushed in Dan Shea’s veins, and all the wild thrill of the hunt filled him. Beside him Perrier was shouting, and Dan lifted his own voice in savage outcry, harking back across the years to the wild men who had run their game on horseback.

  The hill accomplished, Dan went down the further slope. The dogs were closer now, running silently. Beyond the dogs a great lobo wolf ran, tail curled between his legs, looking back as he ran, fangs exposed. Puck and Mab were in the lead of the pack and Dan was almost on the heels of the rearmost dog.

  The wolf dodged, turning swiftly. The dogs ran past, pell-mell, trying to turn. Dan brought his horse around, reining sharply to the right. Mab and Puck had not been fooled by the dodging. They were separated now, knowing that the end was nearly come. Puck followed the wolf while Mab cut across the circle. Dan Shea followed Mab. There, where tangent and arc met, Mab sprang in. Big as the wolf, as well armed, dog and lobo were evenly matched. Dan reined Wellington to a halt. Puck came leaping. The lobo, gallant at his death, met the two fairly but was no match for them. There was a tangle of flying bodies, a snarling, and then the wolf was stretched out and the dogs were worrying him. Dan swung down from his horse and strode forward. “Puck!” he commanded. “Down, boy!” The other dogs came piling in.

  Rock flew and clattered. Perrier, dropping down, stepped forward with his riding crop. The dogs ceased worrying the dead wolf and slunk back. Perrier bent down, straightened with the wolf’s brush in his hand and faced Dan Shea.

  “Well run, sir!” he praised. “Well run. The brush is yours, Mr Shea.”

  Dan took the brushy tail. He found that he was panting, that he felt as though he had undergone heavy exertion. “Thanks,” he said.

  Perrier’s eyes were dancing. “I’ve been master and huntsman too,” he announced. “Now I’ve found a man to ride with me. Mr Shea, I congratulate you.”

  Side by side, the dogs following, the two rode back across the hill. The horses were wet with sweat, but still Dan could feel the tremendous force, the steel springs that were beneath him. Neither man spoke until the camp was reached. Then, when they had dismounted and the silent Robert came to take the horses, Perrier faced his companion.

  “I think I understand now,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

  “Understand what?” Dan asked.

  “Why the dogs came to you last night. You’re a gentleman, Mr Shea.”

  Dan made no answer, and Perrier shook his head. “But you must be better mounted,” he continued. “That horse you have…he won’t do, Mr Shea. He won’t do at all!”

  CHAPTER SIX:

  RIDER AFOOT

  Perrier stayed at Rancho Norte for three days. Dan did not again hunt with the Englishman although Perrier pressed him to go. There was too much work, too much business for Dan Shea to attend, and he could not spare the time. He acted as his own caporal, shifting his flocks from grazing to grazing, taking supplies to the camps of his herders, attending the work. At the end of the three days Perrier departed, Robert driving the wagon that was the Englishman’s home, the spare horses following the wagon, the dogs behind the horses and Perrier, mounted on the big bay, bringing up the rear. Before he left Perrier promised to come back, and his blue eyes were warm as he made the promise. Puck and Mab, dignified as became their royal blood, accepted Dan’s parting caress, and Mab touched his hand with her tongue.

  When Perrier was gone Dan was singularly lonely. He had not been with the Englishman a great deal, and yet Perrier had afforded a certain companionship, just his presence making itself felt at Rancho Norte. But work pressed, and Dan Shea had no time for solitude as he plunged into his tasks.

  In moving the sheep over the grass Dan covered all the range of Rancho Norte. To the north El Puerto del Sol was bounded by the little stream upon which the house was located. This creek, Rito Osos, bent away toward the northeast, its headwaters in the Alforjas. As summer came and the rains held off the stream died, becoming a series of potholes in the stream bed. So, too, as the spring drought grew, the other water died; the little springs along the Alforjas, the water holes in the range, one by one emptied and turned into dry beds of cracked mud.

  There were cattle north of Rito Osos. Occasionally Dan Shea, moving his sheep, saw cows. Once or twice he saw riders in the distance, but neither cattle nor riders encroached upon the range south of the creek.

  Wary of the season, and with the knowledge of Hilario and Martin O’Connor to aid him, Dan saved the grass along the creek. Always through late May and early June the country was dry. July brought rain in the hills and refreshed the streams and the grass, but July was not yet. So utilizing the southern portion of his range, Dan gradually brought his bands toward the north where Rito Osos would furnish water and the grass he had saved would give feed to tide over the dry period. By the end of May the lambs were docked and altered and the sheep were congregated along the creek. Don Martin O’Connor, visiting his partidario at Rancho Norte, had a report of range, of water and of the position of the flocks and was well pleased.

  O’Connor did not stay the night. Dan’s house, under construction by Hilario’s cousin, was not yet ready for occupancy although the walls were going up in good fashion. O’Connor looked over the work but grinned and shook his head when Dan suggested that he stay.

  “I’ll not put you out of your bed,” O’Connor said, “an’ I’m too old to sleep on the ground with the sky for a blanket. I’ll go home.” Accordingly, he climbed into his buckboard and drove away, and Dan, watching him, remembered suddenly that he had not asked concerning Marillita. He comforted himself with the knowledge that Don Martin would have mentioned it had the girl been ill or absent and, when the patrón was out of sight, went back to work.

  The day following O’Connor’s departure Dan rode north along Rito Osos. Some eight miles from Rancho Norte he stopped his horse. Agapito Bargas, Hilario’s youngest son, should have been holding a band of sheep at this spot, but neither sheep nor Agapito were in evidence. Instead there were cattle grazing on the good grass that Dan Shea had saved. Anger, hot and sudden, filled Dan, and he rode down upon the cattle.

  Gathering them, he drove them back across Rito Osos, dry at this point, and when he had given the cows and calves a shove out upon the northern side of the creek went back and, riding to the highest point immediately available, searched the country with his eyes. Below him, perhaps a mile distant, he saw his sheep and, leaving his vantage point, Dan rode toward them.

  Agapito and his dogs were with the flock. Agapito’s camp with its hobbled burros was on a dry arroyo. Dan passed by the camp, noting its unfavorable position with a frown, and went on out to the sheep. Dismounting beside Agapito, he demanded sharply why the flock was not along Rito Osos.

  Agapito gesticulated as he talked, and his voice was shrill as he answered Dan’s question. Yesterday, Agapito said, three men, tres hombres, had ridden down upon him as he brought the sheep to water. They had cursed him and shown him guns. They ha
d ordered him to leave the water and not spoil it with his stinking sheep. Agapito was frightened. He had moved his sheep back from Rito Osos. As Agapito’s recital reached its climax Dan Shea’s scowl deepened.

  “Who were these men?” he demanded.

  Agapito spread his hands wide. They had come from the north, he answered. Vaqueros, he thought.

  “Move your band back to the creek,” Dan ordered sternly. “I’ll go and see these men.”

  Leaving Agapito uttering protests and warnings, Dan mounted and rode north.

  He crossed the creek where he had found the cattle and, striking steadily northward, left the stream. The YH ran cattle north of the creek in a country that was new to Dan. He knew it only by hearsay and he had never met Jesse Louder who owned and operated the YH.

  Traveling steadily, Dan crossed a wagon road. Surmising that the road would lead him to the YH headquarters, he turned east and followed it. Within two miles he saw smoke, and before another quarter mile was behind him he saw the buildings, the corrals and sheds of a cow outfit spread out in a draw. Dan rode down, stopped at the corral and demanded of the sleepy-eyed native who came shambling out of the barn the whereabouts of Señor Louder.

  Louder, the native answered, was riding, but it was almost noon and he would be back at noon. Dan tied his horse to the corral fence and sat down, leaning against the barrier. He would, he said, wait for Louder.

  Time dragged by and the sun was straight up at its zenith. Dan heard horses and voices and raised himself from beside the corral. A tall man, gaunt and with sweeping mustachios, accompanied by a shorter companion, was coming around the corner of the corral. The men stopped their horses and dismounted. Dan advanced toward them.

  “Mr Louder?” he asked.

  “I’m Louder,” the tall man said. “What do you want?”

  Dan surveyed the two men. The short rider with Louder was Buster, the drunken cowpuncher of Bendición. “I’m Shea,” Dan said curtly. “I’m running sheep on the north end of El Puerto del Sol. Yesterday three of your men came down on one of my herders and kicked him off the creek. This morning I found a bunch of YH cows using my grass. I came over to see you about it.”

  Deliberately Louder leaned his length against the fence and looked at Dan through narrow slitted eyes. Both riders were armed. Indeed, in that country it was seldom that an unarmed man was found on the range. Booted, spurred, the two cowmen made a contrast to Dan Shea. They were, they knew—as every cowman knew—the aristocracy of the range. They believed in their superiority and were arrogant in it.

  “You work for O’Connor,” Louder announced flatly. “I’ll have no truck with any man that works for him. You can pull out, Shea.”

  Anger began to lift in Dan Shea. He stared steadily at Louder. “I work for myself,” he announced. “It’s my grass that you’ve been usin’, not O’Connor’s or anybody else’s. It wasn’t O’Connor that came to talk to you, Louder. It was me.”

  Somehow that got home to the cowman. There was a small frosty twinkle in his eyes. “All right,” Louder agreed, “it was you that come. What are you goin’ to do about it, Shea?”

  “I’m going to push your cattle back on your side,” Dan answered sturdily, “and I won’t stand for you trying to run a blazer on my herders.”

  “We’re out of water.” Louder vouchsafed condescending explanation. “Your sheep stink up the holes along the creek till the cattle won’t use ’em.”

  Dan made a swift decision in his mind. He knew that Louder was right on that count; the cattle would not water where the sheep had drunk and muddied the water holes.

  “My sheep are north of Rancho Norte,” he said. “I’ll keep them there. There’s plenty of water in the creek south of the ranch. You use the south end and I’ll use the north, and we won’t come together.”

  It was a fair offer and both men knew it. But Dan Shea was a sheepman, and Louder handled cattle. Between the two stretched all the distance of the ages, the difference of the man who works on foot and the man who rides a horse. Jesse Louder would not condescend to treaty.

  “I’ll think about it,” he drawled.

  “I’ve thought about it,” Dan Shea said. “It goes like I’ve said. And the grass south of the creek is mine. Keep your cattle on your side.”

  Buster, since his advent, had scowled steadily at Dan Shea. Now he put in his oar. “You’re mighty uppity for a sheepherder,” he snapped. “I ain’t drunk today. Mebbe…”

  “Shut up, Buster.” Louder’s voice was calm. He faced Dan, and again his eyes encompassed the man. “What would you do if I didn’t keep my cows north of the creek?” he demanded levelly.

  Dan grinned. He was hot inside, filled with anger and ready to fight, but good fighting man that he was, he recognized that the time for battle was not yet.

  “If I made a threat you’d shove your cows over to see if I’d keep it.” He answered Louder’s question. “I don’t know what I’d do, Mr Louder.”

  Louder’s thin smile showed beneath his mustache. “Mebbe I’ll just shove ’em across anyhow,” he drawled. “You’ve made a big talk, Shea.”

  “I’ve made a fair proposition,” Dan answered.

  “Mebbe.”

  “I’ll leave it with you.” Dan turned toward his horse and, reaching up, untied the reins.

  These men were enemies through tradition, but Jesse Louder had been brought up in the Southwestern school of unfailing courtesy. Friend or enemy, Louder would not turn a man away at meal-time.

  “It’s dinnertime, Shea,” he said. “You’d better stay an’ see what the cook’s got.”

  “Thanks,” Dan answered, “but I’ve got to get back.”

  Courtesy had been offered as was commanded. Too, it had been refused, as etiquette dictated. Louder said: “Suit yourself,” without inflection, and Dan Shea, leading his horse away from the corral, mounted and, not looking back, rode south.

  For the next two days Dan patrolled the creek, watching the grass on his side of the stream, keeping his sheep east of the house as he had offered. On the third day, riding out just after sunup, he found a little bunch of cows, about fifty head, on the south side of the creek, and they were not five miles east of his headquarters. It was apparent then to Dan Shea that Louder had not taken his offer; that Louder, with the contempt of the cowman for the sheepman, was infringing on Dan’s grass.

  Dan had made an offer to Louder and he had also made some fighting talk. If he let this go he was licked. It was up to Dan to back his talk or get out. The latter idea did not enter his mind. Anger seethed in him as he threw the fifty head of cows together. Louder wanted the grass south of the creek. All right. Dan would give him plenty of that grass. Instead of pushing the cattle back across the creek and turning them loose there, Dan fell in behind them and drove southeast, toward the rugged canyons of the Alforjas. There was grass in the Alforjas, but there was no water at this season. Dan planned to put the YH cows that had been thrown on his grass some fifteen miles up in the Alforjas. Then Louder could look for them if he wanted to.

  Within fifteen minutes of his decision Dan had the cows gathered and strung out and was pushing right along behind them. South of Rito Osos the country rolled away, a bench land, higher than the stream and bisected by small canyons that cut down through the bench to carry floodwater to the creek. Dan Shea and the cattle entered one of these small folds, Dan behind the cows. He was in the canyon and the cattle were climbing the slope when, from above and to the right, a rifle sounded. Dan’s horse, hit behind the shoulder, the bullet striking in through the front jockey of the saddle, staggered and went down, and Dan had barely time enough to throw himself clear before the horse struck the ground.

  Momentarily Dan Shea was dazed by the fall. He lay where he had fallen, his head swimming. Then he pulled himself up, a movement that saved his life. There was a sharp spang of sound, and gravel leaped from where his body had rested, while a bullet ricocheted away, whining. On the hill to the right a puff of smoke went
up and drifted away on the wind.

  Dan Shea dropped and rolled to his horse. The horse had fallen on his left side, and the butt of Dan’s Sharps was upthrust on the right side of the saddle. Lying flat against the dead horse, Dan reached for the Sharps and possessed himself of the rifle.

  The Sharps was a .45-.110, a relic of the days when Dan Shea had hunted buffalo. It weighed some twelve pounds, and there was a peep sight on the tang of the action. Dan pushed the peep sight up, cocked the Sharps and, squirming around so that he could rest the barrel on the horse’s flank, sent a five-hundred-grain slug up the hillside. Rock spurted up from the base of a yucca clump; the smoke drifted off, and Dan peered over his barricade.

  The hillside was lifeless. Dan slid another shell into the greasy, smoking breech of the Sharps and waited.

  He was not in a very good spot. Immobilized because of the death of his horse, down below his hidden attacker, he was open to assault from three directions. The man who had shot at him could shift north or south; he could even circle and get to the east. Any one of those movements would expose Dan and make his position untenable. All of these things Dan knew and could not alter. The cows had moved off up the canyon and were grazing unconcernedly on the slopes. The sun was getting higher and hotter, and all across the canyon quiet prevailed.

  There was not much hope of rescue. Dan’s pastores were with his herds and none were close. Had they been, he might have had some help for, save for Agapito, the men with the sheep were good sturdy citizens who would hold their own in almost any company. It looked like a tight spot to Dan Shea as he stared at the hillside above him.

  Detecting small motion toward his right, Dan pulled the gun around. He wanted a target. Give him a glimpse of a man through his sights and he would be satisfied. The motion proved to be caused by a small bird that flitted out of a yucca and flew away, and Dan grunted. Distinctly it was his move and, equally distinctly, a move might be disastrous. There was not too much patience in Dan Shea. This was not his kind of fight. He preferred action. Cautiously he gathered himself. He would bob up and drop down. Up on the hill the man might have unsteady nerves. A hasty shot would at least locate Dan’s assailant. That the same hasty shot might put a period to the fight did not enter Dan Shea’s mind. He came up like a jack-in-the-box, appearing momentarily above the body of the horse and then, equally swift, dropped into concealment again.