The Free Range Part 28

"First I want you to back up against that rock and keep your hands in the air until I tell you to take 'em down," said Bud, in a tone that meant business.

Stelton obeyed the command sullenly. Then Larkin, keeping him covered, picked up the Winchester and found another .45 in an extra holster thrown over the pommel of the saddle. Next he took down Stelton's rope.

Larkin was satisfied with his investigations. "Turn around and face the rock, and hold your hands out behind you!" he ordered.

With the wicked glitter of an animal at bay in his eye, Stelton did as he was told, and in a moment Larkin had him bound and helpless, and on the end of a tether. Still covering his man, he mounted Stelton's horse and told him to march ahead.

[Ill.u.s.tration: But the sheepman was not idle, and had both guns working so accurately that at last Stelton drew in his head.]

In this manner they traveled the quarter-mile to Bud's animal. There they exchanged beasts, and started on the long ride back to the sheep camp.

"What're yuh doin' this for?" stormed Stelton, at a loss to explain the sudden appearance of Larkin in Caldwell's place, but beginning to have a terrible fear.

"Don't you know?"

"No, I don't." His tone was convincing.

"Well, I'll tell you. All the rustlers are taken, and I have absolute proof that you are their leader," replied Bud coolly. "I allow old Bissell will be glad to see you when you're brought in, eh?"

Stelton laughed contemptuously.

"What proof?" he demanded.

"A note to Smithy Caldwell that he forgot to burn. He tried to swallow it when I captured him, but I saw him first."

Stelton stood the blow well and made no answer, but Larkin, watching him, saw his head drop a trifle as though he were crushed by some heavy weight.

"What're yuh goin' to do with me now?" he asked at last.

"s.h.i.+p you under guard to the Bar T ranch, where the rest have gone. Then the cattlemen can settle your case when they come back from their vacation."

For an instant it was on Stelton's tongue to blurt out what had happened two days previous, but an instinctive knowledge that Larkin would profit by the information restrained him, and he continued riding on in silence, a prey to dismal thoughts better imagined than described.

CHAPTER XX

SOMEBODY NEW TURNS UP

Utterly exhausted with his day's riding and the stress of his other labors, Bud Larkin, driving his captive, arrived at the sheep camp shortly before sundown. Faint with hunger--for he had not eaten since morning--he turned Stelton over to the eager sheepmen who rode out to meet him.

Things had gone well that day with the drive, for the animals, under pressure, had made fifteen miles. The cattle, at first hard to manage, had finally been induced to lead and flank the march, but neither they nor the sheep had grazed much.

When Larkin arrived they had just reached a stream and had been separated from the sheep that both might drink untainted water. Sims had set his night watchers, and these were beginning to circle the herd. The sheep were bedding down on a near-by rise of ground.

Larkin, having eaten, cooled and bathed himself in the stream and returned to the camp for rest. Shortly thereafter a single horseman, laden with a bulky apparatus, was seen approaching from a distance. Immediately men mounted and rode out to meet him, and returned with him to camp when he had proved himself harmless and expressed a desire to remain all night in the camp.

It was Ed Skidmore, the photographer, who had just completed a profitable day at Red Tarken's ranch, the M Square.

Larkin, who was lying on the ground, heard the excitement as the newcomer rode into camp, and got up to inspect him. Skidmore had dismounted, and had his back turned when Bud approached, but suddenly turned so that the two came face to face.

As their eyes met, both started back as though some terrible thing had come between them.

"Bud! My Heavens!" cried Skidmore, turning pale under his tan.

"Lester!" was all that Larkin said as he stared with starting eyes and sagging jaw at the man before him. Then, as one in a dream, he put out his hand, and the other, with a cry of joy, seized and wrung it violently.

For a moment the two stood thus looking amazedly at each other, while the sheepmen, suddenly stricken into silence, gazed curiously at the episode.

Then, one by one, they turned and walked away, leaving the two together.

It was Bud who found his voice first.

"What under heaven are you doing out here, Lester?" he asked at last.

"Earning a living making pictures," returned the other with a short laugh.

"It must be quite a shock to you to see me actually working."

"I can't deny it," said Bud as he smiled a bit. "But when did you come out?"

"Six months after you did."

"But why on earth didn't you let me know? I would have given you a job on the ranch."

"That's just why I didn't let you know. I didn't want a job on the ranch.

I wanted to do something for myself. I concluded I had been dependent on other people about long enough. I'm not mushy, or converted, or anything like that, Bud, but I figured that when the governor died and left me without a cent I had deserved everything I got and was a disgrace to the family and myself."

"Same with me, Lester," acknowledged Bud. "If you had only told me how you felt about things we could have struck out here together."

"And you with all the money? I guess not," and Lester spoke bitterly.

"I'd have divided with you in a minute, if you had talked to me the way you're doing now. We always used to divide things when we were kids, you know."

"That's square of you, Bud, but I really don't want the money now. I'm making a good go of my pictures; I don't owe anybody, and I haven't an enemy that I know of. What have you done with your money?"

Larkin turned around and motioned toward the thousands of sheep dotted over the hills.

"There's all my available cash. Of course there was some in securities I couldn't realize on by the terms of father's will, and if I go to the wall I can always get enough to live on out of that. But my idea is to get a living out of _this_, and just now I am in the very devil of a fix."

"How?"

Bud narrated briefly the stormy events that had led up to this final stroke by which he hoped to defeat the cowmen and save his own fortune; and as he did so he observed his brother closely.

Lester Larkin was three years younger than Bud, was smaller, and had grown up with a weak and vacillating character. The youngest child in the wealthy Larkin family, he had been spoiled and indulged until when a youth in his teens he had become the despair of them all.

Even now, despite the tanned look of health he had acquired, it could still be seen that he was by no means the strong, virile young man that Bud had become. His face was rather delicate than rugged in outline; his brown hair was inclined to curl, and his blue eyes were large and beautiful.