Laramie Holds the Range Part 25

I've got to be moving."

"Hold on a minute, Abe." Laramie sat down on the side of his cot, his knees spread apart, his elbows resting on them, and his hands clasped as he leaned forward, head down, to think.

"Them fellows are riding every minute," Hawk reminded him grimly.

"Let's talk this thing over," persisted Laramie.

"I'll pay you for your rifle right now," mumbled Hawk, feeling with his right hand in his trousers pocket for some gold pieces.

"Don't talk monkey stuff, Abe."

"Then don't make a monkey out of _me_," snapped Hawk. "Give me your rifle and let me go!"

"After we've talked it over."

Hawk pulled himself up out of the chair. "You blamed fool," he said brokenly. "Don't you know that bunch will track me to your door and smash us with lead or burn us up in this shack if they get here first?

Give me the rifle," he thundered, "or I'll go into the timber with this six-shooter. What do you mean? Are you going to turn yellow on me because I'm a thief?"

Laramie moved neither hand nor foot: "You're an older man than I am, Abe," he replied, without even looking up. "I can take words from you, I'd hate to take from anybody else--you know that; and you know why.

You won't talk; all right. Now I'll tell you where you get off; you're not going down to the timber--not a blamed step," he added deliberately. "Finger your six-shooter as much as you like." Laramie waved his hand with his words. "Use it on me if you like. But, by ----, Abe----" As his voice changed, he jumped to his feet, adding like lightning, "you're not going to use it on yourself!"

He sprang for Hawk, reaching with his left hand for the gun. In tigerish ferocity the two men came together. Sleepy Cat worthies had sometimes speculated on what might happen if the two men most known and most feared in the Falling Wall country, Hawk and Laramie, should ever quarrel. They met now; but in a quarrel the wildest gossip had not fancied. Reeling, feet slipping, knees and hands locking, eyes staring, no word spoken and breathing hard, the two struggled in the middle of the cooped-up room--Hawk striving to free and kill himself; Laramie determined to wrest the gun from his grasp.

It was an unequal contest. Weakened by loss of blood, Hawk was not long a match for the only man on the range who under other conditions could have stood up before him. Gradually, with the gun in his right hand, Hawk was bent backward, with Laramie's left hand slipping along the barrel closer and closer to the grip. Prolonged by the fear of further injuring the wounded man, the tempestuous effort for mastery ended when Hawk was forced to the bed and Laramie's iron fingers, closing on the gun, wrenched it from him.

Hawk was done out and Laramie without more resistance straightened him out on the bed.

"You're worse hit than you think," panted the conqueror. "I've got a scheme better than yours, if there's time to put it through. Wait till I get a couple of horses."

The clatter of a horse outside cut into his last words. Laramie instantly slipped Hawk's revolver back into his hand, picked up his own gun and holster, strapping it to his waist as he ran, crossed the room, tore up a board in the floor, s.n.a.t.c.hed a pair of rifles from their cache and hastening back to Hawk, his eyes glued all the while to the door, pushed one rifle into Hawk's hand and swung the other to his hip.

Not a word had been spoken. But preparations for a reception had been made complete and eventualities thoroughly considered. Heavy footfalls outside announced the approach of a man. The next moment the door was flung open and the intruder heard Laramie's voice in savage emphasis:

"Pitch up!"

The intruder did not, however, pitch up. It was John Lefever. He stood amazed. "For the love of G.o.d," he exclaimed, "what's broke loose?"

"Come in, John," cried Laramie, seizing his arm. "I want your horse a minute. Stay here till I get back--come, Abe, lively!"

"Where you going?" demanded Lefever, staring as he tried to collect his wits.

Laramie hurried Hawk past him: "That'll depend on the shooting, John,"

was all Laramie hastily said. "Doubleday and Van Horn have got a bunch of Texas men raiding the Falling Wall."

Lefever, gazing stunned at Hawk, talked as if he saw nothing. "I know all about that," he cried. "Man alive, that's what I'm here for. Hold on, can't you?"

"Not now. Stick around till I get back."

Lefever caught his breath in time to fire one more question:

"What about Abe?"

"He's not coming back. Scout around down along the creek, John, so you can see those fellows when they ride in. Hold 'em as long as you can and for G.o.d's sake keep 'em out of this cabin--there's blood on everything."

CHAPTER XIX

LEFEVER RECEIVES THE RAIDERS

Laramie knew Lefever to be quite equal to the highly particular job he had a.s.signed to him and that John would give his best to it. Hardly thirty minutes later, the raiders rode out of the timber along the creek. Van Horn stopped his pack for a word of warning:

"Look to your guns," he said harshly. "You can guess most o' you what you'll be up against, if there's trouble at this joint." Leaving the creek, the party rode out on a rarely used trail that, Stone told them, led to Laramie's cabin. They followed this for some distance, keeping two men ahead as they had done in the early morning. These two men, reaching the bench, which at that point had been cut sharply away by a flood, halted. The main party riding up the hill debouched on level ground at the crest and joined their scouts. Half a mile to their right stood Laramie's cabin. The bench land lying in front of it was as smooth as a table and covered with mountain blue stem. Out of the level ground, a hundred yards from the edge of the bench where Doubleday's party had halted, rose a huge and solitary fragment of rock.

Beside this rock stood a large man facing the intruders; slung over his left forearm he carried a rifle and his right hand he held well out toward them with its open palm raised in the air. The raiders understood the signal; it warned them to advance no farther.

"What's that fat buck doing up in this country?" asked Van Horn, angrily.

"Who is it?" demanded Doubleday.

"John Lefever," returned Van Horn, greatly nettled. "What are you doing here?" he bellowed at the unwelcome sentinel.

John pointed a stubby forefinger at Van Horn and returned a perfectly intelligible retort: "That's not the first question, Harry; that's the second question," he yelled. "What are you doing here?"

This was not in all respects a question easy to answer. But Van Horn was resourceful: "We're on our way down the creek, John. Rode up from the bottom to see Jim Laramie a minute."

"Just a friendly call," a.s.sented John. "Well, how about sidearms," he shouted, "and how many of you are there?"

Van Horn looked around him: "Why, maybe a dozen, I reckon, John. You know most everybody here."

"How many of you are there want to see Jim a minute, Harry?" asked Lefever, calm but conveniently close to the rock and quite conscious of the delicacy of his position should shooting begin.

There was some exchange of talk before the question was answered: "Look here, Lefever," roared Doubleday huskily; "what the h.e.l.l's all this fuss about?"

"Why, it's like this, Barb," returned Lefever, nothing abashed. "When I seen you crossing down there at the forks I thought maybe you'd lost your Bibles in the creek. That's the way you acted. But when I seen you and Harry Van Horn and Tom Stone loading your rifles in the timber, I reckoned you must be comin' up to ask Jim to run for sheriff on the cattle ticket."

Sarcasm could hardly convey more defiance and contempt. The riders realized they had been watched and that deception was useless; Van Horn was furiously angry. "Look here, Lefever," he called out, short and sharp.

"I'm looking right there, Harry," yelled Lefever irreverently. "With a bunch of mugs like that on the horizon I sure wouldn't dare look anywhere else!"

"These boys won't stand any more fooling," roared Doubleday.

"I wouldn't either, Barb, if you'd got me into this sc.r.a.pe as deep as you've got them," was the retort.

Nothing less than violent outbursts of profanity served now. And these proceeding to a climax of strength and rapidity, gradually subsided as such outbursts do and the two sides started to argue all over again.

After much parley and protestations of peaceful intent, provided they were treated fair, Doubleday and Van Horn were allowed to ride up to the rock, but not to dismount. "Now," suggested Lefever to the two, "talk just plain business."