CHAPTER XXIII
PREPARATIONS TO FLIT
The next morning Stamford was again disappointed: the cowpunchers had not returned. He walked on from the cook-house to Pink Eye's corral, to see by daylight what had seemed so incredible in the light of the moon. On the way back he saw the Bulkeleys driving to the north-west; they were not crossing the river that day.
Carrying a lunch, he set off for the river skirting far out on the prairie that he might reach the canyon unseen far above where the Professor was working. Arrived at last in the cover of the upper cliffs, he hurried on.
The hidden valley interested him. There he knew, lay the solution of some of the ranch mysteries. The stampede of the night before was significant, for the H-Lazy Z herds never ranged there. The cattle, he decided, were on their way to the raft and the hidden valley.
As he approached the valley he could hear the dogs barking continuously but without excitement. He discovered that the valley was lively with cowboys, the members he knew best of the H-Lazy Z outfit. They were moving about the fringes of the herd, carefully avoiding a bunch that kept to itself in a far corner of the valley. From its ragged and wild appearance Stamford took it to be the addition of the night before. The others the cowboys drove on foot to the eastern end of the valley, where a temporary barricade crossed from cliff to cliff, forming a corral at the base of the only exit. Then three of them disappeared, coming into view again on their horses from behind concealing crags. At a word from Dakota the two dogs that had been all the time slinking close to his heels bounded up to the ledge beside the shack and lay down, their eyes still fixed on Dakota. The mounted cowboys gradually worked the new bunch toward the corral.
Evidently the cattle were being collected at the exit for immediate removal.
About the shack Bean Slade was acting as temporary cook. The others, when all the cattle were in the corral, grouped together, rolling cigarettes. Dakota seated himself on a rock and whistled to the dogs, which came madly bounding down the steps.
There was no suggestion of furtiveness. Stamford began to think he had come on one of the ordinary feeding grounds of the ranch herds.
To get a better view behind the crags, he crept farther up the stream and lower on the cliff—crept into the muzzle of a revolver. Behind the muzzle was Cockney Aikens' determined eye.
"So it's you, Stamford?" he sneered. "That investigative mind of yours is bound to get you into trouble sooner or later. I wonder it wasn't sooner. It strikes me you're acting strangely about the H-Lazy Z for a guest."
Stamford flushed, partly because he knew the charge to be true, though not in the way Cockney imagined. Almost as much for Cockney's sake as for his own had he undertaken to clear up the mystery of Corporal Faircloth's death; more for Cockney's sake had he chosen the H-Lazy Z for his investigations. He bristled with indignation.
"If you're not as guilty as you make yourself appear——"
"A guest with a sense of decency would at least have consulted his host."
"And if you're guilty," Stamford continued, "I don't care a damn whether you resent it or not."
Cockney examined him with puzzled but admiring eyes.
"I wonder if you'd be so foolhardy if Dakota was at this end of the gun. I'm not going to shoot. I'm still your host."
"No, you're not, Cockney Aikens. From this moment I'm no longer your guest." He unstrapped the lunch and tossed it at Cockney's feet. "I suppose you'll let me get my suit-case?"
Cockney thoughtfully returned the gun to his belt.
"If you'll take the advice of one who knows at last all you don't understand, you'll keep so strictly out of this that you'll forget all you've heard and seen. You don't carry a gun—you wouldn't be dangerous if you did. Yet there's going to be shooting before this is cleared up ... and when there's shooting among men who handle guns like we do, there's apt to be blood.... This is the second time I've found it necessary to warn you. Next time will be too late."
He crept away to a lower level and left Stamford wondering what it was all about.
Across in the valley Dakota had gathered his companions about him, except Bean, who was still working about the shack. Evidently they were engrossed in a discussion of the utmost importance, for several were gesticulating, and Dakota was listening judicially. Now and then their eyes went furtively to the shack where Bean was. Through the open door Stamford could dimly see Bean watching them stealthily through the window. After a time Dakota broke from the group and climbed the steps to the shack.
In a few minutes he and Bean reappeared on the ledge, Dakota arguing violently, Bean sullen. Dakota started angrily down the steps, but Bean stood a moment on the ledge, looking thoughtfully across the river at the very spot where Stamford was lying. Then he, too, dropped to the valley.
Dakota was striding down toward the river. As he crossed one of the little streams that bubbled from the falls in the cliff he stopped abruptly and bent over the ground. An excited gesticulation brought his companions on the run, and together they stooped over Dakota's discovery. The Professor had crossed the streams there, Stamford remembered, and the ground would be soft. Hastily scattering, the cowboys searched the valley.
It was long before Alkali, poking about close to the river, came on a second track, and they clustered about it, gesticulating, excited, voluble. Stamford leaned far from his hiding-place in his excitement, and Muck Norsley, wheeling suddenly, examined the cliff all about him. But the distance was too great, the muddle of broken rock too confusing; and Stamford scarcely breathed during the scrutiny. When it was over he sank to cover, and perspiration broke out over him.
Dakota and his friends continued their search up the eastern slope from the valley, pausing now and then as if over further disturbing evidence. They climbed upward to the great rock on which Cockney and the Professor had stood, mounting from below by means of a rope. For a time they worked about its base, then it rolled back and the upward path was clear.
As the horses toiled up the steep ascent, Stamford noticed that a rifle hung from every saddle. When they had passed, the rock rolled back again, shutting in the valley, and only the cattle in the corral and the dogs remained.
Stamford commenced his rough trail back down the river, always keeping to cover. Only two definite ideas were in his mind: to escape notice, and to reach the Bulkeleys to borrow their team for the journey to the Double Bar-O. His work at the H-Lazy Z was ended—and it was a failure. Almost he could find it in him to regret that he had lost his temper with Cockney.