“I think we’ve got ’em,” Moss said. “As I recall, there’s a hole in the river yonder where water stays on after the rest dries up. There’d be enough after a rain to water the herd.”
We left the trail and took to low ground, keeping off the sky line but staying in the same direction the trail was taking. Every now and again one of us would ride out to see if we could pick up track, and sure enough, we could.
Moss Reardon’s bronc began to act up. “Smells water,” he said grimly. “We better ride easy.”
We began to see where the grass was grazed off in the bottoms along the river. Somebody had moved a big bunch of cattle, keeping them strung out in the bottoms, which no real cattleman would do because of the trouble of working them out of the brush all the while. Only a man whose main idea was to keep a herd from view might try that.
We found a place in the river bed where there had been water, all trampled to mud by the herd, but now the water had started to seep back. We pulled up and watered our horses.
“How far do you figure?” Galloway asked.
Reardon thought a minute or two. “Not far … maybe three, four miles.”
“Maybe one of us ought to go back and warn Hawkes.”
It was coming on to sundown, and our outfit was a good ten miles back. Nobody moved. After the horses had satisfied themselves we pulled out.
“Well” – I hooked a leg around the saddlehorn – “I figure to Injun up to that layout and see how Judith is getting along. If she’s in trouble, I calculate it would be time to snake her out of there.”
“Wouldn’t do any harm to shake ’em up a mite,” Moss suggested, his hard old eyes sharpening. “Might even run off a few head.”
We swung down right there and unsaddled to rest our horses giving them a chance to graze a little.
Meanwhile we sort of talked about what we might do, always realizing we would have to look the situation over before we could decide. The general idea was that we would Injun up to their camp after things settled down and scout around. If the layout looked good we might try to get Judith away; but if not, we’d just stampede that herd, or a piece of it, and drive them over to join up with the Hawkes outfit.
All the while we weren’t fooling anybody. That outfit had acted mighty skittish, and they might be lying out for us. They had men enough to keep a good guard all the while, and still get what sleep they needed.
After a while we stretched out to catch ourselves a few minutes of sleep. Actually, that few minutes stretched to a good two hours, for we were beat.
Me, I was the first one up, as I am in most any camp. There was no question of starting a fire, for some of their boys might be scouting well out from camp.
I saddled up and then shook the others awake. Old Moss came out of it the way any old Indian fighter would, waking up with eyes wide open right off, and listening.
We mounted up and started off, riding easy under the stars, each of us knowing this might be our last ride. Lightly as we talked of what we might do, we knew we might be riding right into a belly full of lead.
It was near to midnight when we smelled their smoke, and a few minutes later when we saw the red glow of their fire. We could make out the figure of a man sitting on guard, the thin line of his rifle making a long shadow.
Chapter 7
We had come up to their camp from down wind so the horses wouldn’t get wind of us. The cattle were bedded on a wide bench a few feet above the river, most of them lying down, but a few restless ones still grazing here and there.
There would be other guards, we knew, and without doubt one was somewhere near us even now, but we sat our horses, contemplating the situation.
About midnight those cattle would rise up, stretch, turn around a few times and maybe graze for a few minutes, and then they would lie down again. That would be a good time to start them.
We figured to start the stampede so as to run the cattle north toward our boys, which would take it right through the camp Fetchen had made, or maybe just past it. And that meant that we had to get Judith out of there before the cattle started running.
The upshot of it was that I cut off from the others and swung wide, working toward the camp. I could see the red eye of the dying fire all the while. Finally I tied my horse in a little hollow surrounded by brush. It was a place where nobody was likely to stumble on the horse, yet I could find it quickly if I had to cut and run.
Leaving my rifle on the saddle, I started out with a six-shooter, a spare six-gun stuck down in my pants, and a Bowie knife. Switching boots for moccasins, which I carried in my saddlebags, I started easing through the brush and trees toward the camp.
Now, moving up on a camp of woods-wise mountain boys is not an easy thing. A wild animal is not likely to step on a twig or branch out in the trees and brush. Only a man, or sometimes a horse or cow, will do that, but usually when a branch cracks somewhere it is a man moving, and every man in that camp would know it.
Another distinctive sound is the brushing of a branch on rough clothing. It makes a whisking-whispering sound the ear can pick up. And as for smells, a man used to living in wild country is as keenly aware of smells as any wild creature is. The wind, too, made small sounds and, drawing near to the camp, I tried to move with the wind and to make no sudden clear sound.
The guard near the fire could be seen faintly through the leaves, and it took me almost half an hour to cover the last sixty feet The guard was smoking a corncob pipe and was having trouble keeping it alight. From time to time he squatted near the fire, lifting twigs to relight his pipe, and that gave me an advantage. With his eyes accustomed to the glow of the fire, his sight would be poor when he looked out into the darkness.
The camp was simple enough. Men were rolled up here and there, and off to one side I could see Judith lying in the space between Black Fetchen and Burr. At her head was the trunk of a big old cottonwood, and Fetchen lay about ten feet to one side, Burr the same distance on the other. Her feet were toward the fire, which was a good twenty feet away.
There was no way to get her without stepping over one of those men, or else somehow getting around that tree trunk. Unless . . . unless the stampede started everybody moving and for the moment they forgot about her.
It was a mighty big gamble. But I thought how out on the plains a man’s first thought is his horse, and if those horses started moving, or if the cattle started and the men jumped for their horses, there might be a minute or so when Judith was forgotten. If, at that moment, I was behind that tree trunk …
We had made no plans for such a thing, but I figured that our boys would take it for granted that I’d gotten Judith, so they would start the stampede after a few minutes. The best thing I could do would be to slip around and get back of that tree trunk, so I eased back from where I was, and when deep enough into the woods I started to circle about the camp.
But I was uneasy. It seemed to me there was something wrong, like maybe somebody was watching me, or laying for me. It was a bad feeling to have. I couldn’t see anybody or hear anything, but at the same time I wasn’t low-rating those Fetchen boys. I knew enough about them to be wary. They were such a tricky lot, and all of them had done their share of hunting and fighting.
When I was halfway to where I was going I eased up and stayed quiet for a spell, just listening. After a while, hearing no sound that seemed wrong, I started circling again. It took me a while, and I was getting scared they’d start those cattle moving before I could get back of that tree trunk.