Trouble Shooter (1974) (5 page)

"But we'll be careful," Hopalong warned.

"We will that," Towne said sincerely. "We most certainly will. Between us, Colonel Tredway is a shifty gent. He didn't get that Box T by saying his prayers reg'lar. You an' me, we've handled guns. Tredway never does, but he has men that handle 'em. Like Bill Saxx."

"I figured on him."

"You'd better," Towne replied quietly, "for Bill Saxx is good. He's good as Wes Hardin, mebby, or--Hopalong Cassidy."

There had been an instant of hesitation there. Why? Hopalong seemed not to notice. If Pike Towne had guessed who he was, it was all right. If he had not guessed, he would learn nothing by fishing.

Between the two of them they bought supplies, and bought carefully. Then they discussed the trail, and Towne returned to the bottoms to load up his wagon and start moving. Hopalong watched him go, liking the man's straightforward manner as well as his easy stride and wide shoulders. Unless he knew nothing of men, Pike Towne was one to ride the river with.

It was shadowed and still inside the Elk Horn. Hopalong stopped at a table and idly shuffled some cards, watching the few men who were around the room. He knew none of them.

Two men at the bar nearby were talking quietly. One was a bearded oldster, a man of nearly sixty with gnarled hands and thick gray hair. The old man wore miner's boots. "Yessir!" he

was saying cheerfully. "She was plumb wild around here! Many's the time I've shot deer within fifty yards o' where we stand this minute! Kilt one right out in the street one time. Only then there was only three shacks here, an' they'd been empty for a couple o' years.

"This was hangout for Ben Hardy's gang them days. Ben, he was here for a while an' he he'ped build that livery barn. He was tradin' with Injuns an' robbin' wagon trains. Made a good thing of it. Then he went back to Missouri, an' got throwed in jail.

"Had four, five mighty tough nuts along with him--Black John, a greaser name of Diego, an' a couple of sharp ones. One named Purdy, the other was Fan Harlan. They finally pulled out, it was a long while later that the freight outfit started workin' through here an' they called the place Kachina... didn't have no name till then."

Nobody said anything, and Hopalong pushed his hat back on his head and shuffled the cards idly, but with every sense alert. This old man was evidently a prospector just in out of the hills, and if anybody could give him the information he wanted, it was this man.

"Buy you a drink, old-timer," he said.

The old man turned and nodded pleasantly. "Thankee. Don't mind if you do."

"Seems like," Hopalong said as the man crossed to his table, glass in hand, "there aren't many old-timers about. I'm interested in the history around here."

The prospector sat down. "Well then, you've come to the right man, although it's too bad about Dan Crofts. Dan knew all

the old ones, even the boys that run with Hardy, an' now he's dead, killed."

"Killed?"

"Yep! Shot down like a dog! Nobody ever did find out who done it."

"Well, I'm sure you have your own stories. You must have known some of the early settlers in this area." Hopalong's suggestion was casual but inviting.

"Knowed 'em? Why, I was prospectin' in here with the first of 'em! I was here afore this feller they call Tredway come. Tredway! I got my own idears about him! I got my own idears!"

"I thought he was the first rancher in here," Hopalong suggested. "He was, wasn't he?"

"Him?" the old man scoffed. "Not by a durned sight! He was freightin' before he was ranchin'! There was three in here before him!

"Jim Turner settled on the lower Picket Fork with a bunch of cattle he brought over from Texas. Jim gave up his ranch an' went back east. Sold out to Tredway."

Hopalong hesitated. "Ever hear of Pete Melford?"

"Melford?" The old man scowled. "I do recall some such name. A Texas man, wasn't he?"

"That's right. Where was his place?"

"It was--" The old man's voice broke off sharply and he was staring at the door as if he had seen a ghost.

Hopalong turned quickly. Colonel Tredway was standing there. His face was graven as from stone, and his eyes were cold with fury. Fury, and something else--was it, could it be fear?

"Peavey!" Tredway's voice was sharp. "I've been wanting to see you. Fellow here last week said he was planning to kill you."

The old man was astonished. "Kill me? Why? I ain't never harmed nobody. Never at all!"

"Come with me," Tredway said. "I'll tell you about it." He glanced over at Hopalong. "You'll excuse us, Cameron?"

The two disappeared out the back door, and Hopalong scowled. Tredway had appeared in a hurry. Had someone told him that Peavey was talking around town? Had he overheard anything of what Peavey had told Hopalong?

Regardless of that, Peavey had known Melford, although apparently the memory was none too clear. Had Tredway come a few minutes later, the old man might have remembered.

Hopalong turned to the door and went out. Before the Mansion House stood Cindy Blair. Automatically his feet turned that way. She saw him coming, and hesitated. "Have you seen Rig?" she asked anxiously. "I haven't seen him in hours, and his horse isn't in the barn."

"No, I haven't. He may be out scouting around to see what he can find."

"That's what I'm afraid of. Rig takes all this so much to heart. He feels that he has failed me, that somebody is deliberately trying to discourage us and get us out of the country, and he worries about my being so nearly broke. I'm afraid he'll do something desperate."

"I doubt it," Cassidy reassured her. "He's mighty sensible, miss." Despite his words, he was worried, remembering Rig's urge to do battle on the previous day. "He hesitated yesterday

when I suggested it. I hope he believes he can do more for you by staying out of trouble."

Her lips tightened and her eyes flashed. "Rig wasn't doing any harm!"

"I know what you mean," Hopalong agreed, "but see it from their viewpoint. Some strangers come into the country and start looking over his choicest range with a view toward claiming it as their own. What would you do?"

"It is the best range?"

"It sure is! The PM, if it was there, lay between the Box T and the Picket Fork. That's the best water around here, and there is lots of it. This has been a dry year, but the stream is flowing now with a fair head of water. Frankly, Miss Blair, the sale value of the Box T doesn't amount to anything at all without that range."

He hesitated. "I'm going to work for him."

Her eyes widened, then narrowed suddenly. "For who? For Colonel Tredway?"

"I'm going to get some steers out of the breaks across the Picket Fork. My outfit's moving in there now, and I think before this business is over I may learn a lot more about him than he expects."

She was silent, thinking it over. Could she trust him? After all, what did they know about him? And why should he help?

"Naturally," she said, "you'll do what is necessary for you. Maybe you can help us from there." But there was no hope in her voice, and there was a coolness.

Did she believe he had sold out? Hopalong Cassidy looked at her and shook his head. "Don't get any foolish notions. I've

taken this job to help you all right, but I need the money, too, and it's a job I can do. If you come out that way, we'll be camped north of the Picket Fork near the Chimney Butte trail."

They parted, and he walked down to the livery stable to visit Topper. The hostler looked up as he walked through the door. "Some horse you got there, mister. Sure purty."

'Topper's the best," Hopalong agreed. "I've never seen another like him."

'That's what the Colonel said. He was just in here."

"Alone?" Hopalong asked quickly.

"Yeah. He's mostly alone. The Colonel's all right, but he ain't sociable."

What had become of Peavey? Swiftly Hopalong turned and left the stable. A quick look in the door of the Elk Horn proved the old prospector was not there. Nor was he at the Mansion House or the general store.

"Ain't seen him." The swamper at the Mansion House was explicit. "Maybe he went to the Wells, Fargo office. He had a little gold on him."

He had not been seen at the Wells, Fargo office since the previous day.

Worried now, Hopalong wheeled and started back along the street. And then he saw the crowd gathering at the back of the hotel. Dodging around a passing wagon, Hopalong ran down the alleyway between the buildings and stopped.

Peavey lay on his back on the ground, and one glance was enough. He was quite dead.

"Fell," somebody said. "Seen him myself. I was cutting up a log when he came to the window. Had his hands on the sill

an' he leaned out a mite too far. Grabbed at the sill, but fell then an' lit right on his head. Must've busted his neck."

Hopalong knelt beside the old man. There was a cut on his head, and Hopalong parted the old man's gray hair so all could see. The blood around the wound was dried.

Nobody said anything except the first speaker. "I don't care. I seen him fall!" he insisted stubbornly.

Hopalong got to his feet, saying nothing. The one man around who could have helped him was dead.

Chapter
3

When the dawn came, the sky was a crimson glory slashed by the pale darts of cloud, gold-tipped from the rising sun. The mountains were purple still, and in their shadow darkness lay thick upon the land. Hopalong moved out, and beneath him he felt the coil and movement of Topper's powerful muscles as the horse cantered, eager for the trail.

The range lay wide before them and the road was good, for this was the way that led to the Box T. North of the T, the trail was rarely used except at roundup time when the chuck wagons crossed it. From there on to the Picket Fork, his way would be guided by the towering Chimney Butte that marked the canyon that lay on the far side of the pear forest.

Here the range was already dry and parched, there was little grass, and the marks of cattle hooves were all over the land where the browsing animals had sought food in vain. A verse from Isaiah that he remembered from his childhood came now

to his mind. The hay is withered away, the grass faileth, there is no green thing.

But there was green. He had seen it when he first met Rig Taylor. There was green grass thick along the Picket Fork on the old PM range. Tredway needed that land badly. It would not be surprising if he would steal or kill to keep it. Pete Melford had disappeared and Hopalong was convinced, without knowing how it had been done, that Tredway was responsible for the death of Peavey. A man who falls from a window does not have the blood dried upon his scalp. The old man had been struck sometime before, then pushed from the darkening window within sight of witnesses.

Topper shied at a dark bush and Hopalong slapped him playfully on the neck. "Cut it out, boy. You're not fooling anybody."

The white horse bobbed his head and tugged at the bit. Hopalong's eyes studied the wide range and saw in the distance the roofs of the Box T buildings. By now Pike Towne should be nearing the Picket Fork and well past the Tredway ranch.

More and more his eyes studied the range. It had been badly overgrazed, overgrazed to the point where a little more might ruin it for good. Now the cattle had evidently been moved north toward where the PM Ranch may have once stood, for he saw none at all on this dead or dying grass. Still, the land showed every sign of being overloaded, a condition not too uncommon in the early days of fencing, when cattlemen were still used to the old ways of free range.

Just what was Tredway's financial situation? It might be important to know that. Was he actually getting these cattle out

of the brush because he had nothing else worth shipping? It would also be important to know what cattle the man had shipped in the past.

Facing the end of the trail as he rode into the yard at the Box T was the ranch house, a long, low building with a wide veranda fronting it. To the right was the bunkhouse and to the left the stables, toolshed, and blacksmith shop. Behind the barn but in sight were the horse corrals.

The only man in sight sat smoking on the steps of the bunk-house. As the sound of the horse's hooves came to him, he turned sharply, then got to his feet as he recognized Hopalong. He spoke sharply over his shoulder and moved slightly out of the way as Vin Carter showed in the doorway.

Carter stared for a minute and then walked down the steps. "You huntin' trouble?" he demanded. "I told you to stay off this place!"

'Tour boss thinks different," Hopalong replied calmly. "I'm working on this spread."

Carter's eyes glinted. "Well then, that puts you under my orders!"

Hopalong smiled cheerfully, shoving his hat back from the faded white scar on his brow. Mildly amused, he looked at Carter. There was innate viciousness in the man, and if he avoided trouble with him, he would be fortunate. "Sorry, Carter, I'm under nobody's orders. I'm contracting. I'm getting cattle out of the pear forest for Tredway."

Carter stared, then he laughed. "Why, you fool! Nobody can get them cows out of there! You ever tried to use a rope in brush so thick you can barely push a way through the thinnest parts?