CHAPTER VII
THE MASKED HORSEMAN.
Alma Caldwell assumed the burden of managing Nick Caldwell’s ranch. She was the only heir of the man who had been dubbed by his slayers “the king of the rustlers,” but who, as Bertram had discovered, had some prominent connection with the other side in the cattle war.
Most of the Caldwell cattle were running in the hills, mixed with the stock from other ranches in the neighborhood. Comparatively little of Nick Caldwell’s ranch was under cultivation. Like most other ranchers in that part of the State he contented himself with raising enough alfalfa for his saddle stock and a little winter feeding, in case of an unusually severe season. But for the most part it was “horseback farming” that was practiced everywhere.
Alma’s day was largely spent in the saddle. With her, as a small, but valiant, bodyguard, went young Jimmy Coyle. There was only one point of difference between the cousins, and that was Alma’s dismissal of Milton Bertram. Jimmy not only stood up for the Texan, but visited him frequently during the remainder of Bertram’s stay at Uncle Billy’s. Also it was Jimmy who came to Alma with the first news that the Texan had made good his words, and had located on a homestead.
“It’s up at the headwaters of the Roaring Fork, ’way up above Uncle Billy’s,” said Jimmy. “Milt’s got a cabin all built, and he’s took on a pardner, a cowboy named Archie Beam, from Swingley’s outfit. Beam couldn’t stand Swingley’s goins on, so he and Milt have hooked up together. They’ve got some good range right back of ’em, and Milt’s goin’ to have some cattle drove up from Texas, and I’m bettin’ they make good, right from the start.”
Alma refused to show any interest.
“I don’t see why you’re mad at Milt Bertram,” went on Jimmy. “He’s a dandy, I think. And say, I never saw anybody shoot the way he can. He’s that quick with both hands. I can see now that it was only fool luck that kept me from bein’ filled full of lead, after I had plugged him in the shoulder that time. He never asks about you, but I know he wants to hear all about what luck you’re havin’ at ranchin’. I’ve told him as much as I could about things here, specially about the cattle you’ve been losin’ lately.”
“I’m sure there are at least fifty more gone from that bunch over on Devil’s Head,” said Alma. “The other ranchers around here are sure they are losing cattle, anywhere from ten to fifty head at a time, but they can’t seem to catch any one at it.”
Alma was soon to learn, however, that Swingley was not to be content with getting cattle by means of occasional raids.
The ranchmen throughout the county were served with notice that the newly organized Cattlemen’s Association, of which Swingley was ostensibly the head, intended to put in effect a series of district round-ups. All cattle were to be gathered and inspected, and unbranded cattle, or any livestock that carried suspicious-looking brands, were to become the property of the new organization.
No sooner were the notices served than the round-ups were organized, all manned by Association men. The cow-punchers, who had made up the invading army, which was now spoken of only in terms of hatred and contempt by the small ranchmen, were scattered about in small, but aggressive, delegations, with the different round-up wagons.
Swingley himself captained the round-up outfit that combed the Powderhorn Valley, from its wide reaches on the plains, to the final ranch in the foothills.
When the riders had gathered the cattle from the vicinity of her ranch Alma was dismayed at the smallness of her herd. Fully half of Nick Caldwell’s cattle had been spirited away. Swingley, as sole judge and dictator, when the inspection of brands was going on, threw at least half of the remaining cattle into the Association’s pool.
“It’s an outrage!” protested Alma. “There’s no question about the validity of all those brands you’ve claimed.”
“You don’t know nothin’ about the cattle game, young lady,” responded Swingley callously. “Every brand I’ve claimed was made with a runnin’ iron. Nick Caldwell’s title of the ‘king of the rustlers’ was well earned. And it’d be better for all who sympathized with him if they moved out of this country, without standin’ on ceremony,” added the rustler significantly. “We’re not through with ’em yet.”
The girl did not lose the general meaning of the threat, but at first she did not get its full import. A few weeks later she learned what Swingley had meant. Immediately after the completion of the Association round-ups, which resulted in many thousands of cattle being seized from small ranchers by the big cattle interests, there began a series of assassinations which soon had the entire countryside terrorized.
One ranchman after another, who had been identified with the opposition to the big cattlemen, was shot down by a mysterious rifleman. It was apparent that the work was done by one person, yet the shootings occurred at such divergent points of the compass that it seemed impossible that a single rider could cover so much ground in such a short space of time.
Two bachelor brothers, who conducted a small ranch on one of the tributaries of the Upper Powderhorn, were shot dead, as they sat at their evening meal, the assassin firing, with deadly accuracy, through the open window. To the cabin door was attached a paper, on which was printed in rude letters: Rustlers, Beware!
A day after this double murder the county was thrilled by the news that Fred Hersekorn, a prosperous ranchman in another part of the valley, had been shot, as he was riding home after a trip to Wild Horse. The ranchman was murdered almost at the door of his home. His wife, who had rushed to the yard at the sound of the shot, had found her husband shot through the head. It was dusk, but she descried a horseman riding across the prairie, on the opposite side of the road. The rider turned with a defiant wave of the hand, and the woman saw that he wore a black mask, covering the upper part of his face.
On a tree beside the driveway leading to the ranchman’s house was found a sign similar to that posted on the cabin of the assassin’s victims on the Upper Powderhorn.
The countryside was terrorized, the feeling of helplessness being intensified because the sheriff was notoriously indifferent to anything that was not to the best interests of the big cattlemen. Men were afraid to meet on the main-traveled roads. When a traveler saw another traveler approaching there was a mutual survey at long distance. Then, to make assurance doubly sure, each horseman usually made a detour. Men did not stir outdoors unless they were armed. Curtains were put up at ranch house windows that had never previously known such obstructions to the light.
In spite of the fact that hundreds of ranchmen were searching for and laying traps for him, night and day, the visitations of the masked horseman went on. Arson was added to his crimes, as he burned the ranch of a newcomer on Lone Lake Mesa, after shooting the homesteader, as the others had been shot. Again men examined the mysterious square of paper, with its poorly printed message of warning.
Milton Bertram and Arch Beam, on the headwaters of the Roaring Fork, the stream which later on foamed past the naturalist’s cabin, felt that only extreme vigilance could save them from being victims of the assassin. They went cautiously about their work each day and seldom exposed themselves to fire from the points of attack that covered their cabin, without first making reconnaissance.
They felt that their caution was not misplaced, when, on two occasions, they found pony tracks in the thickets that commanded unobstructed views of their homestead.
“That feller is a real rifleman, whoever he might be,” observed Arch Beam. “He never shoots until he has his man well covered. But some day he’s goin’ to slip up, and a better man than he will do the shootin’ first.”
“I hope that time isn’t far off, Arch,” returned Bertram. “There’s no use fooling around in the open with an enemy like that, a man who won’t even give you as much warning as a rattlesnake gives before he strikes. He’d simply add you to his victims, as easily as you might mark up another point on a billiard string. A man like that has to be caught off his guard. He knows there are plenty of men looking for him in the open, and that’s why he’s not going to be caught there.”
“Where are you goin’ to get him, then?” asked Archie doubtfully.
“I don’t say I’m going to get him,” responded Bertram. “But whoever does get him will probably land his game in some totally unexpected place. Wild Horse wouldn’t be a bad place to look. I think I’ll drift around there a little more than I have been.”
Bertram followed out the hint he dropped to his partner. He rode to Wild Horse, where he had seldom been seen since he and Archie had taken up their homestead.
Wild Horse was typical of the towns of the frontier. Most of its one-story business houses were spread along both sides of a broad street. There were a few general stores, two banks, a hotel, several restaurants, and numerous saloons and gambling places. All were prosperous, and, while the sun might cease to illumine Wild Horse at evening, there was plenty of light there, of an artificial kind, till well along toward the next daybreak.
The topic of conversation in Wild Horse, as everywhere else, was the work of the masked horseman. But here the comments were a little more guarded, on account of the feeling that some inside ring of the cattle interests was prompting the assassinations, and Wild Horse was headquarters of those interests, which fact Swingley did not allow to be forgotten for a moment.
Bertram had hardly seated himself in the hotel restaurant before Swingley saw him and came over to his table. “Milt,” he said, “you’re too good a man to be wastin’ your young years on a hopeless homestead proposition like the one you’ve got. If you’ve come up here, prepared to listen to reason and to throw in with us again, I can put you where you’ll be on the road to a fortune in the cow game.”
“I’m glad it’s the cow game and not making go-devils,” said the young Texan, as he poured his coffee with a steady hand.
Swingley smiled saturninely. “I’ve got it figgered out what’s turned you wrong,” he said. “When you first agreed to go along with us you didn’t have any particular idee of kickin’ over the traces, did you?”
“Maybe not.”
“Well, you met this girl, and then you got some foolish idees in your head. As a matter of fact the killin’ of Nick Caldwell wasn’t nothin’ for you to be sore about, as Nick deserved what he got. It is true he was good enough to that stepdaughter of his, who took his name, and who looked on him as a father. But he was the leader of the rustler crowd.”
“I don’t know whether he was or not,” replied the Texan, with a keen glance at Swingley. “I’ve sort of drawn some conclusions of my own to the effect that Caldwell was really a power with the cattle interests, though maybe only a little inside circle knew what he was doing. He might have had a falling out with a big man in that inside circle. Maybe that other man was jealous of Nick’s power.
Maybe Nick had some information about the other man’s crookedness. Anyway, the other man figured that Nick had to go. So there wasn’t any powder spared in getting him when the chance opened up.”
Swingley turned pale with rage, but he choked back his inclination to denounce Bertram.
“Do you mean to say that I was mixed up in any deal with Nick Caldwell?” he demanded.
“I said it looked as if some other man was, that man being in the confidence of the cattle interests,” responded the Texan coolly. “I didn’t say it was you, but it might have been. Do you want me to spring any documentary evidence I might have?”
“Do you mean you’ve got letters, papers of any kind?” Here a note of anxiousness crept into Swingley’s voice.
“You had it right the first time. There are some letters of interest, and I want to tell you to quit your high-handed persecutions in this county, or they’re going to be made public.”
“That girl’s turned ’em over to you, if there is anything of the sort,” said Swingley, his face working convulsively, his voice thick with anger and fear.
“The girl has had nothing to do with it,” responded Bertram. “But she’s one of the people around here that you’ve got to let alone from now on.”
“I’ll let nobody alone,” said Swingley, liquor and his anger getting the better of his tongue. “There ain’t enough left of her herd now for her to make a living with, but there’s worse in store for her, if she don’t clear out of the country. As for you, you’re a marked man, and you won’t be safe till you’re on the other side of the mountains.”
“Better not have me marked too plainly, Swingley,” observed the Texan. “I’m not fool enough to carry those letters on me, you know. I’ve left them where they’re sure to come to light if I’m killed. So call off the man who’s been prowling around our cabin lately, and tell him to pack his guns elsewhere. Speaking of gunmen, there’s Tom Hoog looking for you.”
Swingley looked around, just as Hoog came through the doors leading from the hotel office to the restaurant.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “Hoog’s been around all the afternoon. Here I am, Tom,” he called to his retainer. Then, as Hoog beckoned to him, Swingley rose and added:
“I’ve been talkin’ kinda strong, Milt, because I’ve had a little more liquor than common. I ain’t given that way as a rule, so fergit what I’ve been sayin’. Think over that offer I’ve made you. It’s good as gold, and all you’ve got to do is reach out your hand and get a fortune. I’ll have you set up in an ideal grazin’ country, with a smackin’ big herd of your own, inside of a month.”
“I wouldn’t take any range, nor run any cows that came to me by way of you and Hoog, if the cattle were all prize-winners, and the grass on the range was belly-deep, all the year round, and the weather was always June,” replied the Texan.
Swingley turned, as if to make a heated answer, but Hoog’s voice came insistently: “Ace, come here. Here’s news!”
The cattleman joined Hoog, and the two walked through the swinging door together. Every one else had gone out of the room but Bertram. He rose, troubled in mind about the threat Swingley had made concerning Alma. He turned cold at the thought that some harm might come to her.
“I never thought it, not even of such scoundrels as these!” he muttered. “Women have always been safer in the West than anywhere else in the world. Perhaps they’re going to strike at her in some way that I hadn’t thought of.”
With his mind full of plans for the protection of Alma, Bertram left a coin on the table for the waitress and walked slowly toward the hat-rack for his battered, high-crowned felt. He intended to go right to the ranch, to tell the girl that this foolishness on her part had to stop, that her safety was now the prime consideration, and that he himself intended to enlist as a personal guard, until these troubles were over.
The Texan’s reflections were broken in upon by confused voices from the hotel lobby and the barroom just beyond. He stepped through the swinging doors and almost ran into the hotel clerk, white-faced with excitement.
“Ain’t that the limit!” said the clerk, as Bertram stopped him with a query. “Such a kid, too! Didn’t you know about it? Young Jimmy Caldwell was found shot this morning. Another masked-horseman job. Some say the kid’s dead, but the latest word is that he’s alive at Uncle Billy’s place, and that he may live.”
As the clerk vanished, to spread the news to the rest of the hotel help, Bertram stood a moment in thought. Then the significance of one of Swingley’s remarks came to him, full force.
“By all the gods!” he exclaimed, slapping his leather-clad thigh. “Swingley was careful to tell me that Hoog had been around here all the afternoon. It was an alibi he was parroting. That’s slip number one. The rest will follow fast.”
Walking swiftly to the barroom the Texan drove his arm against the swinging doors and opened them with a bang. Facing the inquiring crowd he stood looking for Swingley and Hoog. The cowboy’s attitude was tense, and his hands were close to the butts of the guns that showed low on his hips.
Swingley and his lieutenant were gone. Turning as suddenly as he had entered the Texan strode out of the hotel and flung himself on his horse.
As he sped toward the foothills, the rage, which had prompted him to kill at sight, died out of his heart, and it was succeeded by a cold determination to bring retribution to those who had committed this new crime. With such retribution would come proofs, which would satisfy others as well as himself, that justice had not miscarried.