Fortunately they had bunched closely, which fact became manifest when Deuce’s welcome light showed up half a mile distant. Between these two lights ranged all the other drivers, shouting and singing. They had to rely absolutely on the sight of their horses, for only near the lights could they see anything. They could hear, however, and often located the front line that way. At intervals Deuce would ride across the front with his light and Texas would pass him going the other way. Thus they kept some semblance to a straight line.

  It was slow, tedious, discouraging work, not without considerable risk, and wearing to weariness and pain. The wind blew harder and colder; the sleet cut like tiny blades. Brite had always been susceptible to cold. The hour came when his heavy gloves and coat appeared to afford no protection to the storm. He could scarcely endure to face the sleet, yet he had to do it or be run over by cattle. Necessarily the action of his horse had to be slow, seldom more than a walk, and this was not conducive to active blood circulation. Reddie Bayne stayed with him, so near that they could locate each other without yelling. When Texas or Deuce passed with the lanterns they established their positions again.

  “Hang on, drivers,” Texas shouted, cheerily. “It ain’t gettin’ no wuss an’ we shore air lucky.”

  Brite knew that if the storm increased he and no doubt others of the drivers, certainly Bender and Reddie, would find themselves in desperate straits. The cold, tooth-edged wind grew harder to bear, but evidently it did not increase in volume. Monotonously Brite beat his gloved hands, and his one ear and then the other under the collar of his coat.

  “Cheer up, Reddie; the mawnin’s aboot to bust,” yelled Ackerman, the last time he rode by.

  “It shore better come soon or I’ll bust,” replied Reddie.

  Brite peered with tear-dimmed eyes away from the herd. The blackness had grown faintly gray in that direction. He watched it, turning often. How slowly it lightened! The hour dragged with hateful slowness. But almost imperceptibly the dawn came, until all the black void changed to gray, and the gray to pale, obscured stretches of prairie and the dark wall of twisted horns and heads and legs. Soon Brite could distinguish Reddie on her horse, and then the other riders, one by one. The lanterns were extinguished, and the drivers, aided by light enough to see, made far better success of their job. They could ride at a trot, and an occasional lope, from one pressing point to another. Horses as well as riders benefited by this brisker exercise.

  Slowly the front line yielded. The mossy-horns would stop and try to graze a bit, only to be pushed on again by the surging from behind.

  Brite made sure that but for the sleet turning to rain and the wind lessening a bit the herd would have had to be abandoned until the riders could thaw out and get fresh horses.

  Daylight came broadly at last, revealing a dreary range land, and a dragging herd under a low-sailing bank of clouds, and bowed and sodden riders, stuck in their wet saddles. To turn the herd back became imperative. A day lost might mean loss of hundreds, even thousands, of cattle. Texas drove the weary riders to incredible exertions, concentrated at one end; and by hard riding, shooting to take the place of voices gone, he turned that end and the rest followed, like sheep follow a leader. Cattle and drivers then faced the north. The reluctant herd could not be driven faster than a plodding walk. Heads down, weary and hungry, the mossy-horns covered ground like snails. The horses, except Reddie Bayne’s black, were spent, and would be useless the remainder of that drive.

  * * * * *

  Some time during the afternoon Brite recognized landmarks near camp. He saw the remuda apparently intact and none the worse for the storm. Texas Joe and Ackerman left the herd bunched on a square of rich grass, and cutting out some horses they drove them into camp.

  Brite was not the last by two to ride in. Pan Handle, haggard and drawn, came after him, and finally Bender, who sagged in his saddle. He had to be lifted off his horse. Brite was not so badly frozen, but he did not recall when he had been in such a plight.

  “Wal, boss, yu rode in,” said Texas, his voice low and hoarse. He stood steaming before a hot fire. Moze was dealing out hot drinks. Brite wondered what would have been the outcome if no fire or reviving whisky had been available.

  Reddie Bayne was the only one not wet to the skin. The long slicker had saved her, and though she looked peaked and wan, she had evidently finished better than some of them.

  “Coffee — not whisky,” she whispered, huskily, as she smelled the cup Moze forced upon her.

  “Reddie, yu’re shore there,” remarked Deuce, admiringly.

  “Where?”

  “I should have said heah. Shore was plumb worried aboot yu.”

  “Wal, I gotta hunch she’s a man, after all,” growled Texas, at which sally Reddie joined in the laugh on her.

  “Boys, the herd’s shiftin’ a little south,” remarked Texas, anxiously. “But I reckon we can hang them heah. Sabe, yu come with me. Deuce, send oot two men in an hour, an’ we’ll come back for grub. After thet regular guard, an’ we’ll bed down heah tonight.”

  “Wonder if any herd’s gained on us today?” asked Brite, speaking with difficulty.

  “Reckon all the drivers back lost as much as us, boss.... On second thought, dose Bender up good an’ put him to bed.” As another afterthought Texas halted as he passed Reddie beside the fire and queried, “Say, kid, yu want any orders from me?”

  “Kid! — Who air yu addressin’, Mister Jack?” retorted Reddie.

  He fixed piercing hawk eyes upon her ruddy face. “Don’t call me Jack no more.”

  “All right — Jack.”

  “I hate thet name. It reminds me of a girl who used to call me by it. She was ‘most as uppish as yu, Reddie Bayne.”

  “I just cain’t remember to say Joe — thet is, if I would get so familiar.”

  “Aw, indeed. So familiar? Yu call the rest of this ootfit by their given names. I even heahed yu call the boss Daddy.”

  “So I did... but I’d no idee I was heahed,” replied Reddie, blushing.

  “Wal, if yu cain’t be so awful familiar as to call me Joe or Tex, yu can call me Mister Shipman,” returned Texas, sarcastically.

  “Ump-umm! I like Jack best,” said Reddie, with a roguish look in her eye. Still she did not look at Texas.

  “Listen. Thet settles yu,” he flashed, with something of the ringing note in which he had addressed Wallen. “I cain’t spank yu anymore, much as yu deserve it. I ain’t hankerin’ for any more lead. But yu’ll shore call me Jack somethin’ or other before this drive ends.”

  “Somethin’ or other! What?” exclaimed Reddie, very curiously.

  “Wal, it might be Jack darlin’,” replied Texas, and wheeled away.

  The boys howled merrily. Reddie for once looked squelched. It was not the heat of the fire that added the crimson to her face. Brite caught a glimpse of her eyes before she lowered them, and they had a look of startled surprise. But her dishevelled head did not long stay drooping; it bobbed up with a toss of curls, the action of a spirited girl strange to see in one wearing rough and muddy male attire.

  “Never on this heah green earth!”

  * * * * *

  The night was long and uncomfortable, both in camp and out on guard. But the morning brought slowly clearing weather, and by the time the herd was pointed there was promise of sunshine. Wet grass and frequent pools of water made an easy day for the stock, a fact Shipman took advantage of with a long drive until dark. No droll repartee around the camp fire that night!

  Two more uneventful drives brought the outfit to Austin, the first settlement on the Trail. Brite halted to see a rancher who lived three miles or less out of town, and got disturbing news about conditions to the north. The usual run of disasters multiplied! But particularly the Colorado River, which ran by Austin, was flooded to its banks, and there would be a necessity of waiting to use the customary ford or go up the river and swim the herd. When Brite passed this information on to Texas Joe he received a reply to his liking:

  “Wal, we shore won’t hang aboot thet burg.”

  Austin, like other settlements along the Chisholm Trail, was subject to fluctuations of populace, and sometimes it was just as well for a driver not to be sociable. In the second place, cowboys usually looked upon red liquor at such places, always a deterring and uncertain factor.

  Texas gave the place a wide berth, and aimed to strike the river five miles west, where Brite’s rancher informant claimed there was a good gradual slope to point the herd across. Brite rode into Austin alone. He ate supper at a lodging-house where he had stopped before, and then went down street to call at Miller’s store. In the darkness, where so few lights flickered here and there, it was difficult to tell whether Austin was full of men or not. It appeared quiet and lonely enough. Miller, a gaunt Missourian, greeted Brite cordially, as became him toward a customer.

  “Been lookin’ for you,” he said. “How close are the herds behind?”

  “Wal, there’s one a day or so,” replied Brite. “In a week they’ll be comin’ like buffalo.”

  “So Ross Hite reckoned.”

  “Hite. Is he heah?” asked Brite, casually.

  “Yes. He rode in a few days back,” returned Miller. “Had a bunch of mustangs he’s been sellin’ around.”

  “How many in Hite’s ootfit?”

  “Can’t say. Only couple of men, strangers to me, with him when he came in here. Didn’t he pass you on the way up?”

  “There was some ootfit went by. Aboot seven or eight, I reckon. Somebody said it was Wallen’s.”

  “Wallen? Don’t know him. Well, the more outfits comin’ the better I like it. And I ain’t curious or particular. Ha! Ha!”

  Brite left orders for a pack of supplies, tobacco for the riders and sundries for Moze, and while these were being filled he strolled out to enter Snell’s saloon. It was a big barnlike place full of yellow light, blue smoke, odor of rum, and noise. He had been in Snell’s on each drive north, and all the other times together had not totalled the number of inmates present on this occasion. Gambling games were in progress, and at one of the rude tables sat Ross Hite with other gamesters, all obsessed in their play. Brite gazed sharply to see if he recognized any of the other faces. But the light was poor and many faces were in shadow. He had not a doubt, however, that all of Wallen’s outfit were there. Cowboys, as Brite knew them, were conspicuous for their absence. The majority consisted of ragged, matured men; the minority, Mexicans and a few negroes. Brite gravitated to a corner where he was in shadow and could watch all of the gamblers and one corner of the bar. He was just curious and thought he might happen on some chance talk. Ranchers, as a rule, did not spend their evenings in gambling-halls. Nevertheless, Brite thought he knew the inveterate cattlemen well enough to identify a few present. He had been there scarcely longer than a half-hour when he was chagrined to see Roy Hallett and Ben Chandler jostling to get room at the bar. Possibly Shipman had let them off, but the probabilities were that they had ridden in without permission and expected to ride back without discovery. That was the cowboy of it.

  Chandler was red-faced and manifestly jocose, but Hallett looked more than usually somber. Drink, instead of changing him, augmented his peculiar characteristics. But he was not drunk. He had to drag Chandler away from the bar. That worthy was out to make the most of this opportunity. Hallet, however, evidently had other designs. At least he did not show the usual disposition of a cowboy free to indulge. Brite concluded that Hallett had something on his mind. They sat down at an empty table, where Hallett began a low and earnest talk with his partner. It was not pleasing for Ben to listen. More than once he essayed good-humoredly to get up, but could not escape. Then he showed indications of sullenness. Hallett was plainly trying to persuade him into something. It might have been more drinking, or gambling, or staying in town all night, but somehow Brite leaned to neither of these. Presently Ben spoke out quite clearly: “I’m —— if I’m gonna go through with it!”

  There was that in his hard look, his angry tone, which warned Brite to interrupt this colloquy. Only on the very moment he saw Ross Hite give Hallett a meaning glance, dominant and bold, though unobtrusive. Brite jerked up, transfixed and thrilling. What was this?

  Two of the gamblers left their chairs, at a significant word from Hite, and approached the bar. Whereupon the leader called to Hallett: “Want to sit in for a spell? Two-bit limit.”

  “Don’t care if I do,” replied Hallett. “Come on, Ben, le’s skin ’em.”

  “I’m rustlin’ back to camp,” declared Ben, rising.

  Hallett seized him, and pushing a fierce red face close to Ben’s he hissed something inaudible but that was none the less forceful to Brite for that. Chandler reacted with like fierceness, which led, after a short tussle, to free himself, to a lunge and a swing. He knocked Hallett flat, and then crouched, his hand on his gun. But his caution appeared needless. Hallett was not senseless, though he recovered slowly. Chandler glared from him to the gaping Hite, then wheeling, he hurried out of the saloon. Hite spoke in a low tone to one of his associates, a thick-necked, heavy-visaged man, who arose and hurried out after Chandler.

  Hallett got up and joined Hite at the gaming-table, with his hand to his face. He glowered malignantly at the door, as if he expected Chandler to come back. Hite sat shuffling the cards and talked low to Hallett. They had conversed before. Hite dealt cards all around, as if a game were in progress. But the watchful Brite saw that this was only a blind. It ended presently with Hite and Hallett going to the bar, where they drank and left the saloon.

  Brite was in a quandary. Some deviltry was stirring. He wanted to hurry out and warn Chandler that he was being followed. On the other hand, he did not care to risk encountering Hite and Hallett. Uncertainty chained him for a few moments, then, realizing that he must get out of the place he pulled his sombrero down and made a break for it. The street appeared dark and empty. The few lights accentuated the blackness. Upon walking down toward the store to call for his purchases, he caught a glimpse of Hite and Hallett crossing the flare from the open doorway. Brite slunk into the shadow off the road. The two men went by, talking low. The listener could not distinguish their words; nevertheless, their tone was subtle, calculating.

  When they had reëntered the saloon Brite went on to the hitching-rail to find his horse. He did not feel safe until he was astride in the middle of the road, headed for the upriver trail. He kept keen lookout for Chandler, to no avail. Once he thought he heard the beat of hoofs. Soon he had gained the open range out under the starlight. He had much to ponder over on the way to camp.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE ROAD OUT of Austin ended at the river, from which point a trail ran along the bank to the west. The old Colorado was in flood and that hour a magnificent sight, broadly gleaming under the stars, and rolling on in low, sullen roar. Brite had not yet in his several drives encountered such a flood as this. The herd would have to be put across, if that was humanly possible. The trail drivers’ habit was to take any risk rather than have several herds bunch together. More cattle were lost in that kind of a mix-up than in even the big stampedes. There had been instances, however, where stampedes had spelled loss of the whole herds.

  Brite had no hope of coming up with Ben Chandler. If that cowboy had gotten to his horse he would be far on the way to camp by this time. Brite had an uneasy conviction that Chandler would be late if he got there at all. And as for Hallett, the chances were that if he showed up in camp it would be at dawn. Brite was keen to impart his information to Shipman and get his angle on it. At the very least Hallett was capable of extreme disloyalty. On the face of it his action looked suspicious.

  Brite rode on, slowly over uneven places, at a trot on the long stretches. At the end of an hour or so he began to attend to the lay of the land. Camp ought to be somewhere within a mile. He had no idea where it would be, but the herd could scarcely be missed. And so it proved. He located the cattle by the bawling of cows. They were out of sight back in the gray gloom some distance from the river. A little further on Brite’s roving gaze caught the flicker of a camp fire. He rode toward that and soon reached it, to recognize the chuck-wagon.

  No one was astir. He sighted several sleepers lying dark and quiet near the wagon. On second thought he decided not to wake any of them. If he was asleep when the guard changed, it would be time enough in the morning. Brite unsaddled and let his horse go. Then finding his bed, he crawled into it and went to sleep.

  * * * * *

  Brite awoke with a start. It seemed he had not lain there more than a moment. Daylight had come. He heard the ring of an ax. But that hardly had awakened him. Rolling over to face camp, he sat up.

  Hallett sat astride his horse, his sullen countenance betraying recent signs of dissipation. Pan Handle and Deuce Ackerman stood by the fire, facing the others. Then Brite espied Texas Joe glaring at the rider. Evidently words had already been exchanged.

  “An’ where the hell have yu been?” queried Joe.

  “Rode to town last night. Didn’t mean to stay all night, but I did,” replied Hallett, coolly.

  “Yu didn’t ask me if yu could get off.”

  “Nope. I just went.”

  “Ahuh. So I see. Wal, it’ll aboot cost yu yore job,” drawled Texas.

  “Shipman, I don’t take much store in this job nohow.”

  Ackerman made a passionate gesture and stepped forward. “Roy, what’s got into yu lately?” he demanded.

  “Nothin’ ‘cept a little rye. I’m fed up on this job, Deuce. Too many steers an’ too few drivers.”

  “Why’n hell didn’t yu say so? I’m responsible for yu. I picked yu oot for this drive.”

  “Wal, yu ain’t responsible for me no more,” replied Hallett, rudely.

  “By thunder! I had a hunch yu’d — —”