The horses, too, were in bad shape. The rest, little as it was, would do them good, and they did not have to worry about food. There was grass enough to pasture half the stock in Canada.
It was almighty hot. We let the stock feed, and we let them drink. When we moved on, there was going to be none too much water.
Cap was the fisherman amongst us. Him and Lin. Both of them caught a mess of fish, but Brandy and me couldn’t catch cold.
We had fish for supper, and we had fish for breakfast, and nothing tasted any better, seasoned a mite with wild garlic.
We were riding out to start the cattle when I saw our Indian friends. One of them rode up to where we were with a chunk of fresh venison. We took a look at each other and got down from the saddle and broiled and ate it right on the spot.
Little Bear waited, and then he said, “White man comes.”
“A white man? Where?”
“I see him, alone.”
Something about his manner bothered me. It seemed he wanted to tell me more than he knew how, but he just said, “He ride here.”
“You mean he’s coming here?”
“He comes here. He rides here.”
Cap got up and wiped his hands on his chaps. “I think he’s tryin’ to tell you this gent rides for you.”
We looked back toward the river. “Let him come on,” I said. “We’ve miles to go.”
We started them out and hadn’t gone fifty yards when we saw a lone buffalo calf. When he saw us, he bawled.
“Lost his ma,” Cap said. “Shall we take him along?”
“Why not?”
Cap rode wide and started the calf toward the herd. He did not take to being driven, but the herd had its attractions. Finally, he galloped off and joined the cattle.
We were a good half mile into the sand hills under a blistering sun when the rider caught up with us. We heard him coming, and I turned in the saddle.
“Well,” Cap said, “we can use every hand we can get.”
He should have been having a hard time of it, but he didn’t look like hard times. He looked fat and sassy like he’d been eating mighty well. He rode up and said, “Howdy! I’ve missed you boys!”
It was Gilcrist.
Chapter XVIII
“You come out alive,” Gilcrist said.
“All of us,” I said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Huntin’ for you. Livin’ off the country.”
“Must’ve been good country,” Cap commented.
Gilcrist turned sharply, but Cap’s features were bland and innocent. Gilcrist turned back to me. “Lost some cattle, I see. Ain’t much use in goin’ on with this little bunch.”
“Beef is beef,” I said. “I never knew a mining camp to turn down good beef cattle.”
He started to speak, then changed his mind. He turned his mount to ride away, and I watched him drop back to where Lin was riding.
“Notice that?” I said to Cap. “He never asked about the Ox. You’d think a man would at least want to know what happened to his partner.”
“Maybe he knows,” Cap commented. “Maybe he knows just a whole lot that we don’t. If that man’s been livin’ off the country, he’s the luckiest hunter I ever did see.”
They rode on for a short distance, and Cap said, “He’s right about the cattle, though. What are all of us doin’ drivin’ this little ol’ bunch of cows? Even sayin’ they need beef, this is a mighty small bunch.”
“We taken a contract to deliver beef,” I Said, “and we’re going to deliver beef if there’s only one cow left when we get there, but I’ve a hunch we’ll have a sight more.
“Where’s Tyrel? Where’s Orrin? Those boys are somewhere, and if they’re alive, they’ll have some stock. I’d bet on it.”
“Orrin now, he’s turned lawyer, but he can still read more’n law books. He can read sign. He’s comin’ along a trail where he knows we’re supposed to be. He’s going to be lookin’ for sign, and he will learn as much from what he doesn’t see as what he does. If he doesn’t find cattle sign where he expects to find it, he will start hunting for it.”
“Orrin’s a good hand on a trail, and he will know as much of what happened as if we’d left a written-out guide for him.”
“What we’ve got to study on is what’s wrong at the other end? What happened to Logan? Why can’t he help himself? Who’s threatening to hang him? What’s he need the cattle for?”
“Seems plain enough,” Cap said. “If he can’t help himself, he must be sick, hurt, or in jail. Knowin’ something of Logan, I’d say he’s in jail. He’s too mean and tough to be hurt.”
“You may be right. Some of those Clinch Mountain boys are rough. Nice folks, but don’t start nothing unless you want trouble.”
“What’s he need the cattle for?”
“God only knows! The folks up there need them for beef, that’s plain enough. They’ve probably hunted the country until all the game’s been killed off or fled, and minin’ men have to eat.”
“You thought about gettin’ cattle in over the trails?” Cap asked. “You an’ me, we’ve covered some rough country, but mostly we just walked or rode over it. We never tried to move no cattle along those trails.”
“There’s trails up yonder where if a man makes a misstep, he can fall for half a mile. Same thing goes for a cow.”
We were in the sand hills now, and water was scarce. Somewhere ahead of us was the elbow of the Saskatchewan or what the Indians called “The River That Turns.” The cattle began to labor to get through the sand; at times, some of them stopped, ready to give up. We found no water, and the heat was almost unbearable.
Cap came to me, mopping his brow. “We got to find water, Tell. We’ve got too few horses, and they’re about played out. On a drive like this, we should have three or four horses per man, at least.”
“I wish we had them.”
All day they struggled through the sand hills, and only as dark was closing in did they find a small lake that was not brackish. Many of the cattle walked belly deep in the water to drink.
Lin had a fire going when they bunched the cattle on a nearby flat. Leaving Cap and Brandy with the cattle, I headed in for camp with Gilcrist riding along. The boys had done a great job with the cattle, and they deserved credit. Even Gilcrist had done his part, and I said so.
He glanced at me. “Didn’t know you noticed.”
“I don’t miss much,” I said. “You did your share.”
“You’ve got some good hands.”
“Cap’s worth two of any of the rest of us. He’s forgotten more than the rest of us will ever know.”
They were pulling up at camp, and as I swung down, Gilcrist asked, “You serious about goin’ all the way through?”
“Never more serious.”
“You’ll never make it, Sackett. Nobody’s ever taken cattle into that country. Nobody can.”
A moment there, I stopped, my hands on the saddle, and I looked across it at him. “There’s some folks who hope we won’t make it, and they want to keep us from making it, but they don’t know what they’re up against.”
“Maybe you don’t.”
“We had a run-in with some of that outfit. Let me tell you something, Gilcrist. If they want to stop us, they ought to stop sending a bunch of tenderfeet to do it. Just because a man can shoot, it doesn’t turn him into a fightin’ man. If we had started to fight back, there wouldn’t be a man of that bunch alive. It scares me to think what would happen if that bunch of thugs happened to run into a war party of Blackfeet!”
Gilcrist dismounted. He started to speak, then changed his mind. Walking along, I picked up sticks for the fire, then walked around gathering what fuel I could.
Lin glanced at me when I dropped the fuel. “The Indian boy came in. He says there is somebody following us. A big outfit.”
Lin was picking up the western lingo. He started slicing meat into a pan for frying, and he said, “The Indians had not seen the outfit, just heard them and seen their dust.”
“Dust?”
“A lot of it.”
Gilcrist came in and sat down. “You say somebody was coming?”
“Indians,” I told him. “Somebody saw some Indians.”
I surely wasn’t lying about that. How much he’d heard, I didn’t know. Soon the boys started coming in.
Gilcrist was looking across the fire at me. “I’d no idea you were the Sackett who rode with the Sixth. They used to say you were good with a gun.”