The Boy With the U. S. Survey Part 22

"It was Crooked Antonio who left here," he said to Doughty, as they cantered back on the homeward trail, "it appears he had been nearing trouble there and got a hint that his room was a whole lot more desirable than his company. We had trouble with him before. I'm sorry for Antonio, for he's gone so far now that Barrs will see he gets all that's coming to him."

Taking the road quietly, Wilkins and the boy reached camp just at the same time as Barrs and his a.s.sistant, save that the a.s.sistant was walking beside his horse, holding on the saddle a stranger who evidently had been wounded.

"They seem to think at Volaccio's that it must have been Crooked Antonio," said Wilkins as soon as he caught sight of the chief.

"Yes," answered Barrs, "that's who it was. Well, he's put this fellow into pretty bad shape, and it's lucky he didn't pot some of us."

"But what was it all about?" asked Roger of his companion.

"I don't know, son," was the ready reply. "Guess he was feeling a little good, any way, and then he thinks he has a grudge against the Survey over some cattle mix-up with a party that was here a couple of years ago."

"And what did this fellow have to do with it, Mr. Barrs," the boy continued, seeing that the chief was listening to Wilkins.

"Nothing at all, Doughty, so far as I can find out, except that he would make an awkward witness. You see, when Antonio shot at us, he probably thought that he had potted some one sure. Then, as he galloped away, this chap happened to be beside the trail and hearing the shot reined up, and seeing who was coming, said to him, 'What's up, Antonio?' Then the hunchback, seeing that he was recognized, gave his broncho a cut with the whip and fired. This fellow replied, but in the end Antonio got him in the knee, making a mighty painful wound."

"But will they catch him?"

"They will, unless he takes to the mountains and becomes outlawed. There are lots of those fellows around the border."

"But don't they get after them?"

"Not often. They don't do much, you know, and then if they get in trouble on the American side they skip across the line and _vice versa_, so that, as it would be pretty difficult to get both countries to take action at the same time, they are kept down by the simple method of shooting any of them at sight. You see, every one is known about here, and one of those chaps has no chance of getting away un.o.bserved."

The wounded man having been sent to the nearest town, and the incident being closed, Roger settled down quietly to the routine work of the camp. He found Barrs very willing to help him, and as the country they were surveying presented no great difficulties for the rodman, the boy was not too tired to take up with interest the theoretical and mathematical side of the work, and in a few weeks his help was a factor.

The daily round of the camp life was comparatively simple, but it made a long day. The men were called at half-past five and usually work was begun by seven o'clock. Sometimes the party took lunch along, sometimes the men returned to the camp, but little time was wasted until the evening, when a number of miles had been traversed and a host of calculations made and recorded on the plane-table by the topographer.

It was near the close of the boy's stay with the party when the camp was startled during the noon spell by a stranger, who rode in excitedly, crying:

"Is there a justice of the peace here?"

All the men looked at Barrs, who replied quietly:

"I am in charge of this government party, not a justice of the peace.

What is the trouble?"

"There was a gang came down from the mountains and shot up a ranch about three miles north. But the boys fought 'em off, and though one of the ranch hands is dead and another dying, they caught one of the gang.

They'll probably shoot him anyhow, but the old boss of the ranch wants it done legally. It don't matter much if you ain't a justice of the peace, it's just as good."

Barrs thought for a moment.

"You haven't any right to shoot that man without a trial," he said. "Of course if he was downed during the fight, that's all right and couldn't be helped. But now that it's all over, why you can't just go to work and shoot him. I'm no justice of the peace. You'll have to send him to El Paso, or somewhere."

"And who's goin' to tote him eighty miles to a railroad? I'd like to know. Not on your life. Either you come and give him a fair trial, or he'll take a short cut to the next world."

The chief of the party shrugged his shoulders.

"Well," he said, "if you put it that way, I suppose I'll have to go, that is, if it's to prevent murder being done."

So picking out three members of the party to accompany him, of whom Roger was one, Barrs rode over to the ranch. They found the man who had been caught tied to a fence-post in the blazing sun, while every one else was in the house. Barrs had the man brought in, and after the story had been told over three or four times, each in a different way, it was seen that a possible defense could have been put up. The man admitted that he was aware that the gang came to shoot up the ranch, but no one could swear that he had seen the captured man fire until shots had been exchanged, by which time, any gun-play could have been called in self-defense. The captive admitted, however, that he had shot the man who was fatally wounded, but denied the slaying of the rancher who lay dead.

A long and somewhat heated discussion followed, Barrs standing out against the application of lynch law, mainly because he felt as a representative of the government he could take no other att.i.tude, but he refused positively to take up the question of moving the prisoner to the railroad or of getting entangled in the matter in any official way. The matter was debated pro and con for a long time, and then the brother of the man who had been fatally wounded, finding that it would be difficult for him to get legal vengeance, suggested that they go back to the old rule of the plainsmen, and cut off the first and second fingers of each of the man's hands, so that he would not be able to handle trigger again. This, after considerable wrangling, was done, and the man, with blood dripping from both his mutilated hands, was set on a horse and started along the trail to pursue his fate, wherever that might lead him.

In the meantime, though events of that fairly rough and ready character were happening about them constantly down in that wild Pecos country, the party itself was singularly free from mishaps. Roger, however, had a narrow escape from what might have been a serious accident, the peril occurring in a very simple manner. He was galloping along at a fair speed when he saw immediately in front of him a couple of bad patches of low bisnaga cactus. The boy turned his mule sharply, when the animal put his foot in a hole and Roger went flying over his head, shooting not more than a couple of feet above those barbed spines, and striking the ground just beyond them. Barrs was seriously alarmed, and showed great relief on finding that the boy was unhurt.

"One of my men," he said, "once fell from his horse in just some such way as you did, and put out one hand--on which he chanced to have no glove--as though to save himself, and he went down with his whole weight on one hand into a bisnaga cactus. I took one hundred and thirty spines out of his hand."

"And was he permanently injured?" said Roger, realizing that he himself might have been very seriously hurt.

"Not a bit of it," was the reply. "He was back at work in about four days, and within two weeks after his hand had bothered him very little.

But he certainly had scars enough afterward."

About a week after this narrow escape, Barrs told Roger that in a day or two the work on the quadrangle they were engaged on would be completed and that they would upstake two days later and strike for the next section to the westward, where the first mapping of the contour had yet to be made. Then Barrs turned to Roger.

"I don't quite know," he said, "whether that letter you brought me means that you are to stay as long as you like, or as long as I want you, or what. You have not received a recall, of course, but as for the next few weeks, we will simply be getting a general view of the country, I shall not need an extra man, and I think you ought to report in Was.h.i.+ngton. If you are really going to Alaska next year, I don't know what time they intend to start, and you ought to have a rest first. Don't think I'm driving you away, but it is better so, that is, if Rivers is really going to take you as you seem to think."

"As I hope," the boy corrected.

"Well, as you hope, then. You ought to be in pretty good trim for it, Doughty; you've had a fairly wide experience, and you don't seem to have grown thin under it. What's more, I've taught you a few of the things you will need to know in the theoretical side of the work, so that you can be some help to a topographic a.s.sistant, and Ma.s.seth has given you a start in geology. So, I think the best thing I can do is to give you a letter to Mr. Herold, and wish you good luck on your journey."

This farewell message, the boy thought, would be his last word in the Pecos country, but riding in to Marfa, the town on the railroad nearest to the point where the camp had broken up, he found great excitement. So far as he could gather, it was the winding up of a feud which had begun some two or three months before.

The prisoner, it seemed, some months ago had been shot in the knee by a man who was almost a stranger to him, and as a result of the shot had become paralyzed from the waist down. The man who had shot him had got away. Whereupon the wounded man, certain that the would-be murderer must return to his home some time, had rigged up a little tent in a cactus grove near the man's house, and although semi-paralyzed, had lain there for seven weeks, waiting for the time when his foe should pa.s.s along the trail. At last, late one evening, he heard horse's hoofs, and looking out, saw his enemy approaching. As he pa.s.sed, the half-paralyzed man emptied his revolver almost at point-blank distance, and the other dropped from his horse, dead.

The story was so like scores of others that Roger had heard that he paid no special attention until the words "Crooked Antonio" struck his ears, and on inquiry, learned that this was the man who had been killed.

Immediately the boy forced himself into the little adobe building, and found that the case was going hard against the prisoner because he could not give any reason why "Crooked Antonio" had become his enemy and shot at him in the first place. It made a sensation when Roger spoke from the spectators.

"Please your honor," he said, "I know something about this case," and the crowd gave way for him. Then, showing his credentials, he told the story of the manner in which Crooked Antonio had fired into the Survey tent, and later had shot at the prisoner to remove a possible witness.

It was the only point needed, and as it was obvious that Crooked Antonio had been killed, the prisoner could not be acquitted. He was found guilty and fined one cent, that justice might be done, and five minutes later Roger was receiving the effusive thanks of the erstwhile prisoner.

"Well," said Roger to himself, as they parted, "helping a chap to his liberty isn't such a bad record to leave as your last act in the Pecos country."

CHAPTER XII

THE ALASKAN TRIP BEGUN

It seemed to Roger that he was years older when he entered the gray portals of the Geological Survey building in Was.h.i.+ngton and walked past the big relief models on the wall, to face what he felt to be the crucial question in his career--whether his season's work in the Survey would merit his acceptance by Rivers for the Alaskan trip. He found his official superior, Mr. Herold, engaged, and so went in to thank his friend Mitchon for the interest that he had shown and the kindly letters he had written.

It seemed quite home-like to him, entering once more the offices of the Geological Survey, and he spent a pleasant half-hour chatting over his experiences, his later excitements in the Pecos country arousing special interest. He was about to go when his friend stopped him with a gesture.

"Wait till I come back," he said.

A few minutes later he returned, saying:

"The Director would like to see you for a moment." The boy looked up with surprise, and the secretary continued rea.s.suringly, "There's nothing to be scared about, I don't think you'll consider it bad news."