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There were six men in the little cavalcade at the base of the cliff, searching for tracks. The rider found them there. Jim Morton calmly sitting his horse and watching with interested eyes, but lending no aid to the men who tracked his friend, and there were Pete Daley, Blackie, Chuck Benson and Burt Stoval. Farther along were other groups of riders.
The man worked a hard-ridden horse and he was yelling before he reached them. He raced up and slid his horse to a stop, gasping, “Call it off! It wasn’t him!”
“What?” Daley burst out. “What did you say?”
“I said . . . it wa’n’t Bodine! We got our outlaw this mornin’ out east of town! Mary Bodine spotted a man hidin’ in the brush below Wenzel’s place, an’ she come down to town. It was him, all right. He had the loot on him, an’ the stage driver identified him!”
Pete Daley stared, his little eyes tightening. “What about the sheriff?” he demanded.
“He’s pullin’ through.” The rider stared at Daley. “He said it was his fault he got shot. His an’ your’n. He said if you’d kept your fool mouth shut nothin’ would have happened, an’ that he was a another fool for not lettin’ you get leaded down like you deserved!”
Daley’s face flushed, and he looked around angrily like a man badly treated. “All right, Benson. We’ll go home.”
“Wait a minute.” Jim Morton crossed his hands on the saddle horn. “What about Nat? He’s out there in the desert an’ he thinks he’s still a hunted man. He’s got no water. Far’s we know, he may be dead by now.”
Daley’s face was hard. “He’ll make out. My time’s too valuable to chase around in the desert after a no-account hunter.”
“It wasn’t too valuable when you had an excuse to kill him,” Morton said flatly.
“I’ll ride with you, Morton,” Benson offered.
Daley turned on him, his face dark. “You do an’ you’ll hunt you a job!”
Benson spat. “I quit workin’ for you ten minutes ago. I never did like coyotes.”
He sat his horse, staring hard at Daley, waiting to see if he would draw, but the rancher merely stared back until his eyes fell. He turned his horse.
“If I were you,” Morton suggested, “I’d sell out an’ get out. This country don’t cotton to your type, Pete.”
Morton started his horse. “Who’s comin’?”
“We all are.” It was Blackie who spoke. “But we better fly some white. I don’t want that salty Injun shootin’ at me!”
It was near sundown of the second day of their search and the fourth since the holdup, that they found him. Benson had a shirt tied to his rifle barrel, and they took turns carrying it.
They had given up hope the day before, knowing he was out of water, and knowing the country he was in.
The cavalcade of riders were almost abreast of a shoulder of sandstone outcropping when a voice spoke out of the rocks. “You huntin’ me?”
Jim Morton felt relief flood through him. “Huntin’ you peaceful,” he said. “They got their outlaw, an’ Larrabee owes you no grudge.”
His face burned red from the desert sun, his eyes squinting at them, Nat Bodine swung his long body down over the rocks. “Glad to hear that,” he said. “I was some worried about Mary.” “She’s all right.” Morton stared at him. “What did you do for water?”
“Found some. Neatest tinaja in all this desert.”
The men swung down and Benson almost stepped on a small, red spotted toad.
“Watch that, Chuck. That’s the boy who saved my life.” “That toad?” Blackie was incredulous. “How d’ you mean?” “That kind of toad never gets far from water. You only find them near some permanent seepage or spring. I was all in, down on my hands and knees, when I heard him cheeping.
“It’s a noise like a cricket, and I’d been hearing it sometime before I remembered that a Yaqui had told me about these frogs. I hunted, and found him, so I knew there had to be water close by. I’d followed the bees for a day and a half, always this way, and then I lost them. While I was studyin’ the lay of the land, I saw another bee, an’ then another. All headin’ for this bunch of sand rock. But it was the toad that stopped me.”
They had a horse for him, and he mounted up. Blackie stared at him. “You better thank that Morton,” he said dryly. “He was the only one was sure you were in the clear.”
“No, there was another,” Morton said. “Mary was sure. She said you were no outlaw, and that you’d live. She said you’d live through anything.” Morton bit off a chew, then glanced again at Nat. “They were wonderin’ where you make your money, Nat.”
“Me?” Bodine looked up, gri
“That toad,” he said emphatically, “goes home to Mary an’ me. Our place is green an’ mighty purty, an’ right on the edge of the desert, but with plenty of water. This toad has got him a good home from here on, and I mean a good home!”
RIDING FOR THE BRAND
CHAPTER ONE: The Lone Wrecked Wagon
He had been watching the covered wagon for more than an hour. There was no movement, no sound. The bodies of two of the animals that had drawn the wagon lay in the grass, plainly visible. Farther away, almost two miles, stood a lone buffalo bull, black against the gray distance.
Nothing moved near the wagon, but Jed Ashbury had lived too long in Indian country to risk his scalp on appearances, and an Indian could lie ghost-still for hours on end. He had no intention of taking a chance, stark naked, and without weapons.
Two days before he had been stripped to the hide by Indians and forced to run the gauntlet, but he had run better than they had dreamed, and had escaped with only a few minor wounds.
Now, miles away, he had reached the limit of his endurance. Despite little water, and less food, he was still in good traveling shape except for his feet. They were lacerated and swollen, and caked with dried blood.
Finally, he started to move warily, taking advantage of every bit of cover, and moving steadily nearer the wagon. When he was no more than fifty feet away he settled in the grass and studied the situation.
Here was the scene of an attack. Evidently the wagon had been alone, and the bodies of two men and a woman lay stretched on the prairie.
Clothing, papers, and cooking utensils were scattered, evidence of hasty looting. Yet Jed saw relief for himself. Whatever the dreams of these people, they were finished now, another sacrifice to the westward march of empire. And they would not begrudge him the things he needed.
Rising, he moved cautiously up to the wagon, a tall, powerfully muscled young man, unshaven and untrimmed.
He avoided the bodies. Oddly, they were not mutilated, which was unusual. The men still wore their boots, and as a last resort, he would take a pair of them. First, he must look over the wagon.
Whatever Indians had looted the wagon had done so hurriedly. The wagon was in the wildest state of confusion, but in the bottom of a big trunk he found a fine black broadcloth suit. Also a new pair of handworked leather boots, a woolen shirt, and several white shirts.
“Somebody’s Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes,” he muttered. “Hadn’t better try them boots now, the way my feet’s swole.”
He found some clean underwear, and got into the clothes, pulling on the woolen shirt. When he was dressed he got water from a half-empty barrel and bathed his feet, then bandaged them with strips of clean white cloth torn from a freshly laundered dress.
His feet felt better then, and as the boots were a size larger than he wore, he tried them. There was some discomfort, but he decided to wear them.
With a shovel that was tied to the side of the wagon he dug a shallow grave, laid the three bodies in it side by side, covered them, and said a hasty prayer. Then he returned to the wagon. The savages had made only a hasty search, and there might be something they had overlooked that would help him.