Then he rode on. At this point it was nearly four thousand feet above the level country. Within the basin it was less than six hundred feet. Within there was coolness, grass, water, and the timber. Outside there was miles of bunch-grass country dotted with occasional clumps of mesquite, cat-claw, or cholla. When he came to the trail he rode to the bottom, then skirted it toward the spot from which the rifle shots had come.
He came upon the tracks suddenly. A small-hoofed horse had come up here. He studied the trail, working along until he found the place where the horse had stood, tied to a small clump of mesquite in a hollow, invisible from the trail.
The horse had stood here for some time. He studied the brush, hoping to find some indication of the color of the horse. But if the animal had scratched itself anywhere about, he was unable to find such a place.
The rider had been a heavy man with small feet. He trailed him along to the spot from where the shots had been fired. There were no cigarette butts, no exploded shells. Yet the presence of the man was plainly indicated. And he had been here for some time.
From the spot where he had waited there was an excellent view of the trail. Looking down from the low sandhill where the unknown marksman had waited, Clay Bell felt a little chill along his spine. His mouth felt dry and he backed up, wetting his lips. How the man had failed to kill him he could not guess. From here there was an excellent field of fire. He had been almost riding into the gun. Tracks led to and from a boulder some distance off, and walking that way, he found a place which the unknown man had evidently considered as a place of ambush, but here two low trees obscured part of the trail. Yet the man had knelt there in the shadow, evidently sighting along his rifle. There in the sand, slightly damp near the boulder, was the plain print of a knee. The man had worn broadcloth trousers.
Automatically this eliminated all but a few men. Not many would be wearing such trousers across the range on a week-day. Later on, farther along the rider’s homeward trail, he found where the man had drawn up to look back along his own path. There the horse had turned under the hand of the rider. Caught in the brush were a few tail hairs. The tail had been iron-gray.
Clay Bell returned to his own horse and mounted. Only when in the saddle did the significance of what he had discovered come home to him. Yet nothing in his suspicions seemed likely, for there was no motive.
Morton Schwabe was a huge overbearing man who had been from boyhood a bully. Ranching in the country some miles from Deep Creek, he had no contact with Clay Bell except on his rare visits to town. Yet Morton Schwabe had taken a strong dislike to the quiet rancher who came and went about his business and seemed to be acquiring a respect in Tinkersville never given to himself.
There had been no trouble nor the occasion for it until Bell had stopped the big Dutchman from beating a horse. Angered, Schwabe had struck Bell. His next punch was a clean miss, but if Bell missed any at all they had been invisible punches, for Bell had promptly given him such a beating that it was three days before he could ride out of town. No man in a lifetime takes two such beatings. No man could take them.
When Jud Devitt approached Schwabe with the offer to be a Deputy U.S. Marshal he had accepted at once. For weeks he had been practicing with a pistol, a fact known only to Kesterson, who sold him ammunition, and now his chance had come and his mind was clearly made up. He would kill Clay Bell. And he would have the backing of the law.
Immensely pleased, he cleaned his gun and prepared to ride to town. He even brushed off his black coat, which he had not worn in months. He would go to town dressed as a marshal should be. He would take the papers and he would serve them.
Unaware of what had happened in Tinkersville, Clay Bell rode back up the trail to the ridge. He studied the long sweep of land, and on the trail from the opposite direction to Tinkersville he saw a faint plume of clust. It was Jud Devitt returning from Schwabe’s ranch, but Bell had no idea who the rider might be, nor what it signified.
He turned back into the now cooling depths of the woods, taking a new route back to the home ranch.
Wind murmured in the trees, bird calls came from the brush along the stream. Once he surprised a steer browsing in a quiet glade in the forest where sunlight slanted down through the columned trees. Coming out upon the rim of a plateau, he could look across the tops of the trees, across small meadows, along the winding courses of Cave Creek and Deep Creek to the far, striated shoulders of the mountains along The Notch.
Some of those firs were six or seven feet in diameter. There were sycamores down along Cave Creek that were equally thick. Those trees would never be cut off while he lived. This was his land, his home.
A branch of Cave Creek came chattering down the rocks and spilled through a long, narrow crevasse near him. He could hear it falling into a pool down in the darkness somewhere under the brush. He rode along, then drew up to look at a scuffed place down beside the stream. He could see the water from this one point, and the edge of the stream was scarred by boot prints.
Puzzled, he looked down at them. The narrow strip of sand was all of forty feet down and not easy to get at. He swung down and moved closer, then saw a place where a man might descend by stepping down upon the rocks and clinging to the branches of a sycamore. As he started down, he saw a scarred place on the bark made by a boot. Somebody else had preceded him, but not recently.
When he reached the bottom he saw a number of tracks, and under the overhang of the cliff was a sack that was bulky with its contents. Opening it, he found several chunks of what looked like ore. They were heavy and metallic. The tracks had been made within the past month—no, within the past three weeks. There had been a rain before that that would have washed them out.
Somebody had been here, working. Somebody who wanted that ore, and somebody who did not want his presence known.
Somebody who might be willing to kill to get what he wanted.
Chapter 12
Jud Devitt was immensely pleased. Morton Schwabe had accepted the appointment as Deputy Marshal and would serve the papers on Clay Bell, forcing him to open a right-of-way through Emigrant Gap and The Notch. It would be none too soon, for valuable time had been lost and already there had been requests from officials of Mexican Central for information as to when the first load of ties would be received.
He found Judge Riley at dinner with Colleen. Both looked up as he approached. For an instant it seemed there was a coolness in their manner, but this he promptly dismissed as unreasonable. He seated himself. Colleen, he realized suddenly, was even more attractive than he had believed. She was a lovely girl . . . a lovely woman.
He had been neglecting her, but business was business and this affair had given him more trouble than he expected. But now, he assured them, the trouble was all over and when the papers were served there would be nothing to keep them from logging off Deep Creek. In a short time they could move on, back to New York if they wished.
“I seem to remember you were quite sure when we came here that you’d have no trouble,” Colleen suggested, a tinge of irony in her tone. “You’re very confident.”
He waved a dismissing hand. “My boys are ready to move. Schwabe will serve the papers tomorrow.”
“Schwabe?” It was the first time Colleen had heard a mention of just who had received the appointment. “Isn’t that asking for trouble?”
Her father put down his cup. “Why do you say that?”
Devitt started to interrupt but Colleen persisted.
“There’s been trouble between Schwabe and Clay. Doctor McClean told me about it.”
Riley’s face was stern. “You said nothing of this, Jud.”
Devitt shrugged. He was irritated by Colleen’s interference in what was man’s business. She knew nothing of such things.
“A detail, Judge. Competent men aren’t to be found everywhere.”