Fortunately, its position was sheltered. Wind would not bother them greatly where they were, but there would be snow and lots of it. Rafe rode out each day and several tines brought back deer or elk. The meat was jerked and stored away. Gill got the old wagon Rodney had brought from Missouri and made some repairs. It would be the easiest way to get supplies out from Painted Rock. He worked over it and soon had it in excellent shape.
On the last morning of the month, Rafe walked out to where Gill was hitching a team to the wagon.
“Looks good,” he agreed. “You’ve done a job on it, Johnny. was Gill looked pleased.
He nodded at the hubs of the wheels. “Notice ’em? No squeak!” “Well, I’ll be hanged!.” Rafe looked at the grease on the hubs. “Where’d you get the grease?” “Sort of a spring back over in the hills. I brung back a bucket of it.” Rafe Caradec looked up sharply. “Johnny, where’d you find that spring?” “Why”-Gill looked puzzled-“it’s just a sort of hole like, back over next to that mound. You know, in that bad range. Ain’t much account down there, but I was down there once and found this here spring. This stuff” works as well as the grease you buy.” “It should,” Rafe said dryly. “It’s the same stuff!” He caught up the black and threw a saddle on it. Within an hour he was riding down toward the barren knoll Gill had mentioned. What he found was not a spring, but a hole among some sparse rushes, dead and sick looking. It was an oil seepage.
Oil!
Swiftly his mind leaped ahead. This, then, could be the reason why Barkow and Shute were so anxious to acquire title to this piece of land, so anxious that they would have a man shanghaied and killed.
Caradec recalled that Bonneville had reported oil seepages on his trip through the state some forty years or so before, and there had been a well drilled in the previous decade.
One of the largest markets for oil was the patent medicine business, for it was the main ingredient in so-called British Oil. The hole in which the oil was seeping in a thick stream, might be shallow, but sounding with a six-foot stick found no bottom.
Rafe doubted if it was much deeper. Still, there would be several barrels here, and he seemed to recall some talk of selling oil for twenty dollars the barrel.
Swinging into the saddle, he turned the big black down the draw and rode rapidly toward the hills.
This could be the reason, for certainly it was reason enough. The medicine business was only one possible market, for machinery of all kinds needed lubricants. There was every chance that the oil industry might really mean something in time. If the hole was emptied, how fast would it refill? And how constant was the supply? On one point he could soon find out.
He swung the horse up out of the draw, forded the Crazy Man, and cantered up the hill to the cabin. As he reined in and swung down at the door he noticed two strange horses.
Tex Brisco stepped to the door, his face hard. “Watch it, Boss” he said sharply.
Pod Gomer’s thickset body thrust into the doorway. “Caradec,” he said calmly, “you’re under arrest.” Rafe swung down, facing him. Two horses.
Who had ridden the other one? “For what?” he demanded.
His mind was racing. The mutiny? Had they found out about that? “For killin’. Shootin’ Bonaro.” “Bonaro?” Rafe laughed. “You mean for defendin’ myself? Bonaro had a rifle in that window.
He was all set to shoot me!” Gomer nodded coolly. “That was most folks’ opinion, but it seems nobody saw him aim any gun at you. We’ve only got your say-so. When we got to askin’ around, it begun to look sort of funny like. It appears to a lot of folks that you just took that chance to shoot him and get away with it.
Anyway, you’d be better off to stand trial.” “Don’t go, Boss,” Brisco said. “They don’t ever aim to have a trial.” “You’d better not resist,” Comer replied calmly.
“I’ve got twenty Shute riders down the valley. I made “em stay back. The minute any shootin” starts, they’ll come a-runnin , and you all know what that would mean.” Rafe knew. It would mean the death of all four of them and the end to any opposition to Barkow’s plans.
Probably, that was what the rancher hoped would happen.
“Why, sure, Gomer,” Caradec said calmly.
“I’ll go.” Tex started to protest, and Rafe saw Gill hurl his hat into the dust. “Give me your guns then,” Comer said, “and mount up.” “No.” Rafe’s voice was flat. “I keep my guns till I get to town. If that bunch of Shute’s starts anything, the first one I’ll kill will be you, Comer!” Pod Comer’s face turned sullen. “You ain’t goin’ to be bothered. I’m the law here. Let’s go!” “Goner,” Tex Brisco said viciously, “if anything happens to him I’ll kill you and Barkow both!” “That goes for me, too!” Gill said harshly. “And me!” Marsh put in. “I’ll get you if I have to drygulch you, Comer.- “Well, all right!” Comer said angrily. “It’s just a trial. I told ’em I didn’t think much of it, but the judge issued the warrant. was He was scowling blackly.
It was all right for them to issue warrants, but if they thought he was going to get killed for them, they were bloody well wrong!
Pod Comer jammed his hat down on his head. This was a far cry from the coal mines of Lancashire, but sometimes he wished he was back in England. There was a look in Brisco’s eyes he didn’t like.
“No,” he told himself, “he’ll be turned loose before I take a chance. Let Barkow kill his own pigeons. I don’t want these Bar M hands gunnin” for me!” The man who had ridden the other horse stepped out of the cabin, followed closely by Bo Marsh. There was no smile on the young cowhand’s face. The man was Bruce Barkow.
For an instant, his eyes met Caradec’s. “This is just a formality,” Barkow said smoothly. “There’s been some talk around Painted Rock, and a trial will clear the air a lot. Of course if you’re innocent, Caradec, you’ll be freed.” “You sure of that?” Rafe’s eyes smiled cynically. “Barkow, you hate me and you know it. If I ever leave that jail alive, it won’t be your fault.” Barkow shrugged. “Think what you want,” he said indifferently. “I believe in law and order. We’ve got a nice little community at Painted Rock, and we want to keep it that way.
Boyne had challenged you, and that was different.
Bonaro had no part in the fight.” “No use arguin that here,” Gomer protested.
“Court’s the place for that. Let’s go.” Tex Brisco lounged down the steps, his thumbs hooked in his belt. He stared at Gomer.
“I don’t like you,” he said coolly. was I don’t like you a bit. I think you’re yellow as a coyote. I think you bob every time this here Barkow says bob.” Gomer’s face whitened, and his eves shifted.
“You’ve got no call to start trouble!” he said.
“I’m doin’ my duty.” , “Let it ride,” Caradec told Tex. “There’s plenty of time.” “Yeah,” Tex drawled, his hard eyes on Gomer, “but just for luck I’m goin” to mount and trail you into town, keepin’ to the hills. If that bunch of Shute riders gets fancy, I’m goin’ to get myself a sheriff, and”-his eyes shifted-“maybe another hombre.” “Is that a threat?” Barkow asked contemptuously. “Talk is cheap.” “Want to see how cheap?” Tex prodded. His eyes were ugly and he was itching for a fight. It showed in every line of him.
“Want me to make it expensive?” Bruce Barkow was no fool. He had not seen Tex Brisco in action, yet there was something chill and deadly about the tall Texan. Barkow shrugged.
“We came here to enforce the law. Is this resistance, Caradec?” “No,” Rafe said.
“Let’s go.” The three men turned their horses and walked them down the trail toward Long Valley. Tex Brisco threw a saddle on his horse and mounted.
Glancing back, Pod Gomer saw the Texan turn his horse up a trail into the trees. He swore viciously.
Caradec sat his horse easily. The trouble would not come now. He was quite sure the plan had been to get him away and then claim the Shute riders had taken him from the law. Yet he was as sure it would not come to that now. Pod Gomer would know that Brisco’s Winchester was within range. Also, Rafe was still wearing his guns.
Rafe rode warily, lagging a trifle behind the sheriff. He glanced at Barkow, but the rancher’s face was expressionless. Ahead of them, in a tight bunch, waited the Shute riders.