With Hoops of Steel. Florence Finch Kelly
was to put whip to their horses, and Ellhorn sent a pistol ball whizzing past them. They replied in kind and a quick fusillade began. Tuttle rode silently beside his companion, not even drawing his six-shooter from its holster. A bullet bit into the rim of his sombrero, and he grumbled a big oath under his breath. Another nicked the ear of Ellhorn’s horse. In the wagon, the Mexican was crouched in the bottom, shooting from behind the seat, apparently taking careful aim. The tall man stood up, lashing the horses furiously. He turned, holding the reins in one hand, and with the other discharged another volley, necessarily somewhat at random. But it came near doing good execution, for one bullet went through Tuttle’s sleeve and another singed the shoulder of Ellhorn’s coat.
“Whee-ee-e!” shouted Ellhorn. “Sure, and I’ve winged him! I’ve hit the big one in the leg!”
The next moment his pistol dropped to the ground. A bullet from the Mexican’s Winchester had plowed through his right arm. Tuttle, who had not even put hand to his revolver, drew rein beside him while the other men stopped shooting and devoted all their energies to getting away as quickly as possible. Tuttle tore strips from his shirt with which to bind Ellhorn’s wound, and persuaded him to return to Las Plumas, where he could have the services of a physician.
“I guess I’ll have to, Tom,” he said regretfully. “I’d like to go after ’em and finish this job up right now. I got one into the big one, but that’s nothin’ to what they deserve. Lord! but they need to be peppered full of holes! But I can’t fight now, and you won’t, so it’s no use.”
As they rode back Tuttle said: “You say that Emerson’s up to his ears in fight? What’s it about? That cattle business?”
“Yes, that’s it. You know he’s been havin’ trouble for some time with Colonel Whittaker and the Fillmore Cattle Company, and I reckon hell’s a-popping over there by this time. Colonel Whittaker—he’s manager of the company now, and one of the stock-holders—wants to corral the whole blamed country for his range. Well, there’s Emerson Mead has had his range for the last five years, and Willet still longer, and McAlvin and Brewer, they’ve been there a long time, too, and they all say they’ve got more right to the range than the company has, because they own the water holes, and they don’t propose to be crowded out by no corporation. But I reckon they’ll have to fight for their rights if they get ’em.”
“How’s Whittaker off for men? Got anybody that can shoot?”
“You bet he has. Young Will Whittaker is mighty near as good a shot as Emerson is. He does most of the managing at their ranch headquarters, while the old man works politics over in Plumas.”
“Have they had any fights yet?”
“I haven’t seen Emerson for a month. He was over in Plumas then and he said he expected to have trouble and wanted me to come out.”
“You don’t mean to say that the Fillmore outfit is really tryin’ to drive Emerson and the rest of them out of the Fernandez mountains?”
“Well, they want to get control of the whole range for about a hundred miles, if they can. And there’s some politics mixed up in it, of course. Old Whittaker is a Republican, you know, with a lot of political schemes he wants to put through. Of course Emerson and the others are Democrats and stand in with the party, and the Colonel thinks he’ll be doing the Republicans a big service if he can break them up. Emerson expected the trouble to come to a head over the spring round-up, for Colonel Whittaker said that Emerson and McAlvin and the rest of them shouldn’t round-up with him.”
“Well, Emerson won’t stand any such nonsense as that!”
“I guess Whittaker and his cow-boys will have to flirt gravel mighty fast if they keep him from it!”
CHAPTER III
Unkempt, dusty and dirty, straggling its narrow length for a mile along the irrigating ditch, the village of Las Plumas lay sleepily quiet under the hot, white, brooding spring sunshine. A few trim-looking places cuddled their yards and gardens close against the life-giving channel, whose green banks, covered with vegetation and shaded by trees, bisected the town. Elsewhere, naked adobe walls flanked the dusty streets and from their stark surfaces gave back the sunshine in a blinding glare. Here and there an umbrella tree, or a locust, made a welcome splotch of green and shade down the length of the barren, dusty streets, or the tiny yard of a house set back a little from the adobe sidewalk held a few clumps of shrubs and flowers. A half dozen cross streets sprang up among the scattered adobe houses that dotted the edge of the plain rising to the Hermosa mountains on the east, crossed the bridges of the irrigating ditch, and ended in the one business street, which trailed a few closely built blocks along the western edge of the town, near the railroad and its depot. On one of these cross streets a yard and orchard of goodly size extended from the ditch a block or more to the east and surrounded a flat-roofed, square adobe house. A wide veranda, its white pillars covered with rose and honeysuckle vines, ran around the house, and a square of lawn, with shrubs and flowers and trees, filled the yard. A little boy, perhaps four years old, with flaxen curls floating about his neck, played in the shade of a fig tree beside the veranda.
Down the dusty road which wound a white strip over the pale, gray-green upland and merged into the street which passed this house, a man came riding at a leisurely lope. He was tall and broad shouldered, straight in the back and trim in the girth, and he sat his horse with the easy, unconscious grace of a man who has lived much in the saddle. His black sombrero shaded a dark-skinned face, tanned to a rosy brown. An unshaven stubble of beard darkened his cheeks and a soft, drooping, black mustache covered his lip. A constant smile seemed lurking in the corners of his mouth and in his brown eyes. But his face was square, firm-jawed and resolute, and had in it the look of a man accustomed to meet men on their own ground and to ask favors of none.
He checked his horse to a slow trot and, without turning his head, searched with a sidewise glance the yard and veranda of the adobe house. When he saw a flutter of pink inside a window he stopped at the gate and called to the child:
“Hello, little Bye-Bye! Don’t you want a ride?”
The child ran to the gate with a shout of welcome.
“Better ask your sister if you can come.”
“Daisy! Daisy! May I go?” the boy called, running back to the porch. A young woman in a pale pink muslin gown came out and led the child to the gate.
“Good morning, Miss Delarue. May I take little Bye-Bye for a ride?”
The roses in her cheeks deepened as she looked up and saw the admiration in his eyes.
“Certainly, Mr. Mead. It is very kind of you, I’m sure. But please don’t take him far.”
The boy, shouting with laughter, was lifted to the saddle in front of the rider, and the girl, smiling in sympathy with his delight, leaned against the gate watching them. She was tall, with the broad shoulders, deep bosom, slender waist, and clear, blooming complexion that tell of English nativity. Her eyes were blue, the soft, dark blue of the cornflower, and her face, a long, thin oval, was gentle and sweet in expression. Her light brown hair, which shone with an elusive glimmer of gold in the sunlight, was gathered on her neck in a loose, rippling mass. She took the child from Mead’s hands when they returned, and her eyes went from the boy’s laughing face to the smiling one of the man. Then the roses deepened again and she looked away. The man said nothing and they both waited, silent and smiling, watching the antics of the child. Presently she turned to him again:
“Are you—do you expect to stay long in town, Mr. Mead?”
“I think—I—do not know. It will depend on business.”
They were silent again, and after a moment he gravely said, “Good morning,” and rode away. He frowned and bit his lip, muttered a mild oath under his breath, and then put spurs