Jim Bigbear was taking the first guard, and when he rode out the Cheyennes watched him go. These Indians looked fit for any kind of a scrap. We were five to their six, but aside from our six-shooters we were no better armed.
Tom and Cotton turned in, and the Indians rolled up in their blankets, but none of us was fooled. We knew they would be awake, or at least some of them would. After a while, Handy Corbin went to his blankets, and I sat alone by the fire, rifle across my knees.
It was quiet … we heard nothing but a coyote howling in the far-off distance. The cattle bedded down and seemed content. After a time I went to my blankets and turned in, but I kept a six-gun in my hand, and my rifle close by.
Cotton got up shortly before midnight, added some water to the coffee, and Tom joined him. Cotton rode out to relieve Jim, and after having his coffee, Tom went out, too. Jim idled about the fire and I went to sleep with him still there. We had agreed amongst us that either Tom or Cotton would ride up to the fire off and on during the night to sort of keep an eye on things after Jim turned in.
It was about two hours after midnight that I woke up. It was time for Handy and me to relieve the others. For a few minutes I lay still, just listening, studying the night with my ears.
From where I lay I could see the fire, which was down to red coals. There was some smoke drifting up, mingling with a mite of steam from the pot. All of a sudden I saw one of the Indians move under his blanket. He came out from under it like a snake, and he had a knife in his hand.
I don’t know what he had in mind. With an Indian, a body never knows. We had a lot of fixings around camp that an Indian could use, and to an Indian anybody not of his tribe is fair game. To his way of thinking, to stick a knife into each one of us would be a fine piece of business. But I wanted no trouble unless it was necessary, so I merely eared back the hammer of my Winchester.
That Cheyenne froze as if somebody had nailed his feet to the ground, but I just got up, easy-like and walked over to the fire, seeming to pay him no mind. He could see the hammer was back on my Winchester, and he could make his own choices.
He simply picked up a stick and began cutting some shavings to kindle up the fire, as if that had been his idea all the time … and maybe it was.
The fire began to blaze up and I poured him a cup of coffee and handed it across the fire to him—with my left hand. And he taken it, also with his left hand. I thought I glimpsed a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.
We both drank coffee, and then Corbin came up to the fire. I could tell from his eyes that he, too, had been awake. And so could the Cheyenne. If he had lifted that knife to anybody, he would have been blasted right out of his tracks by at least two rifles and well he knew it.
When daylight came the Indians rode off, and a few hours later they were back with some saddle stock. We made a swap, picking up six fresh ponies, and the Cheyennes left with us a buffalo quarter for good measure.
We shook hands, that big Cheyenne and me, and grinned at each other. Neither of us was fooled, and each of us was liking the other.
He had walked his horse some thirty yards when he turned in the saddle. “Where you go?”
“Somewhere up on the Powder.”
“That’s Cheyenne country.”
“We don’t figure to cause any trouble. We’re just going to run a few head of cattle up there. You come and see me. I’ll have a beef for you.”
They rode away, and we watched them go, and then we started our cattle again.
In the cool of the evening we came up to the red wall that Tom Hacker had told me about. We’d been taking our time, and the cattle were fat and sassy. The wall towered up above the grassy plain, barring all progress.
“You say there’s a hole in that? How far up?”
“I’m guessing,” Jim said, after studying the country and the wall, “but I’d say four, five miles north. The Middle Fork of the Powder runs through it, and it’s a big, wide hole. That’s not to say that a few riflemen couldn’t hold it if they were of a mind to. There’s water and grass in behind it … good grazing along Buffalo or Spring creeks.”
A couple of hours later we rode through the Hole-in-the-Wall and let the herd spread out a mite along the Middle Fork. It was almost dark, but we let them eat a little before we bunched them for the night.
Two days later we found the spot we were searching for, a hollow of the hills with some scattered trees and brush, and a creek that turned around under the edge of the fringing cliffs that shaded the water. It was good water, sweet and cold. There was good grass around, mostly blue grama on the flatlands and low hills, wheat-grass on the higher ridges.
We turned the herd loose in the rock-walled basin and set to work to build a cabin under the trees. Hacker, Madden, and I did most of the building, while Handy Corbin and Jim Bigbear guarded the cattle. They sometimes killed an antelope or a deer, and once in a while a bufialo. The weeks passed quickly, and there was no sign of trouble.
“You think we lost ’em?” Madden asked me.
“No,” I said, “they’ll be coming.”
“I feel that you are right,” Jim Bigbear commented soberly.
As the best hand with an axe, I notched the logs for the cabin. We could expect cold winters, and we made the cabin tight and strong, allowing no chinks, and we built a good fireplace that would take a good-size log. But every day, no matter how heavy the work load, I managed to let one rider loose to explore the country. At night we’d talk about what he’d seen during the day, and as most cowhands have a good feeling for terrain and the general lay of the land, we soon began to get a picture of what it was like around our ranch.
“We’re going to have to cut hay,” I told them, “so keep an eye out for some good meadows.”
We snaked logs out of the timber, taking the fallen stuff wherever possible, and building a stack of wood against the coming whiter. And in all that time we saw nobody at all, not even an Indian.
By the time the cool winds started to blow down off the mountains we had wood stacked near the cabin, hay stacked in the meadows, and near one of the cliffs that bordered our little basin we had built a shelter for cattle that used the wall of the cliff to keep the wind off them. We had worked hard and steady, and still no trouble.
But I was worried. Not so much by what might happen when Caxton Kelsey and LaSalle Prince found us as by thinking of Tarlton’s coming.
When we made our deal in Abilene he had said he would join us with another herd this year. That meant he’d best be getting here soon if he was coming. There was no post office within many a mile, and it seemed as if the best chance to get some news was to ride to Cheyenne, or to Fort Laramie, which was a bit closer.
Also, if he had a herd on the trail we’d best be keeping an eye out for it. All Tarlton knew was that we had come to Wyoming.
Now, that wasn’t so bad as it might sound, because cattle were so scarce in Wyoming in 1871 that word of mouth would tell him a good bit about where we’d gone. But he would never find this place without a guide.
The upshot of it was that I started thinking of riding down the trail toward Fort Laramie. The work here was caught up. Now it was mostly a matter of keeping a watch on the cattle and riding careful because of Indians, so I put it up to them. “I’m fixing to take two men along,” I said, “and you can draw cards for who’s to go.”
Corbin and Hacker won, but Hacker tossed his winning king back on the deck. “Take Cotton along,” he said. “He’s younger, and he’ll need a look at a girl before he holes in for the winter.”