CHAPTER XIII HIGHBANK MAKES A DISCOVERY

At the other end of the Highbank-Gunsight trail the warm afternoon was drawing to a close and the shadows of the buildings were reaching out across the dirt streets when a dust-covered, four-horse freight wagon rolled down the steep bank across the river to an accompaniment of rattling trace chains and grinding brakes, passed the end of the ford, followed the road along the river's edge and crept out onto the big, flat-bottomed ferry which awaited it.

"On time to a tick," smiled the ferryman, poling off and shifting the lengths of the trolley ropes leading to the block which ran on the great, sagging cable overhead The current struck the side of the craft at the changed angle and sent it slowly across.

"I got an extra early start," explained Buffalo. "Got a fine load of hides."

"You young fellers are h—l on branchin' out," said the ferryman, grinning.

"Well," replied the freighter, "they was lyin' there; I only picked 'em up."

"Here we are; hold tight," laughed the boatman. He used his pole deftly and the ferry struck the bank squarely. Making it fast, he lowered the short gang-plank. "All ashore, an' good luck!"

The quartet strained and the wagon rumbled up the[165] bank and then up the road in the wide ravine, and in a few minutes struck the level at the top and entered the main street of the town.

"Brazos" Larkin, town marshal, pushed away from the Highbank bank and rolled out to the wagon, stepped on a hub and then up to the footboard, as was his custom.

"Judgin' from th' way those no-'count hosses was pullin' when they come over th' hill," he said, "I reckoned you got th' hides; but now I'm dead shore of it."

"Yep," chuckled Buffalo, "they smells good to me."

"Dodge th' Injuns all right?" asked Brazos, indulging in a time-honored jest.

"Dodged 'em ag'in," gravely nodded the driver. "Here comes th' postmaster. Hello, Jim!"

Jim Hands walked up to the wagon and alongside as it turned the corner and stopped before a frame building bearing in weather-bleached letters across its front: "Wheatley's Express." As it stopped, a tall, lean young man came out and smiled.

"Everythin' all right, Pop?" he asked.

"Right as a dollar. Can't you smell 'em?" chuckled the old man.

"Jerry," said Brazos, "I hears yo're quittin' th' office for a wagon next week?"

"I am; I wanted to swap jobs right along with Pop. Now that we're goin' to run two waggins I'll get a chance to bust out of this jail; an' Pop can still see his friends along th' trail, too. I start in a day or two."

A small group came up and joined them. In it was Rod Wilson, the liveryman; Reb Travers, the railroad[166] freight agent; and Pete Wiggins, the owner of the hotel. They all were cronies of the same vintage as the driver and formed a closed circle into which, however, they had admitted Brazos.

"Bet you didn't git a load," said Rod.

"Bet you didn't git half a load," amended Reb.

"I'll show you scoffin' mossbacks what I got," retorted Buffalo, rising to the bait. He clambered down and went to the rear of the wagon, untied the knots and threw back the canvas. As he paused to wonder how the bale had become spread out, the top skin moved up and down, and he jerked back his hand. "There's some kind of a varmint in there!" he cried in pardonable amazement.

Brazos left the group with a leap and reached for the hide as his gun slanted down on it. Giving it a quick, hard jerk, he threw it behind him and then gazed in astonishment at a pair of boots which moved energetically, while strange, strangled gurgles were heard in the wagon box. "I'm d—d!" he muttered. "What th'—who th'—how th'—" He grabbed hold of a boot and pulled heartily. It resisted and tried to kick. Following his gun under the canvas, he moved another skin and then emerged and stared at Buffalo.

"What is it?" demanded the freighter. "Who is it? How'd he git there, hey?"

"It's Wolf Forbes, blindfolded, gagged, hog-tied, an' lashed to th' box," accused Brazos. "Was you aimin' to skin him when you had more time?"

"Skin him?" indignantly retorted Buffalo. "You can't skin him; he's so tough a plough wouldn't scratch[167] his hide. How'd he git in there, an' tie hisself up like that?"

"Mebby you can tell that to a jury," retorted Brazos, slying winking at the dumfounded group. "However, unless we want to call on a coroner's jury first, we better git him out," and, slipping the gun into its holster, he plunged back under the canvas.

Pete Wiggins was the first of the group to recover. "After all these years we done found you out!" he exulted.

"What's wrong?" demanded Jerry, from the office.

"Yore Pop is bringin' in hide on th' hoof," declared Reb.

"Kidnappin' innercent punchers like Wolf Forbes," accused Pete.

"Cuss it!" snorted Buffalo. "What I want you fools to tell me is how he got there?"

"You can't slip out that way," asserted Rod.

They listened to what Brazos was saying under the canvas. "Tied up four ways from th' Jack," he announced. "Rolled up in a stinkin' hide, he was, all but his head an' arms. Cuss me! this is somethin' new to me; an' I reckoned I'd been up ag'in' everythin' in human cussedness. How fur did he come this way?"

"How in h—l do I know!" blazed Buffalo, his thin chin whiskers bobbing pugnaciously. "I didn't even know he was there!"

"You can't never tell," said a voice back in the crowd. "Sometimes it comes out in a man when he's even older'n Buffalo. Reckon it's th' breed."

"I'll show you what's in my breed!" shouted the[168] freighter, pushing into the press. "Let me git a-holt of th' skunk as said that an'—an'—an'—" he faltered.

Pete grabbed him and pulled him back again. "None of that!" he warned. "You stay right here till we find out more about this!"

"Startin' a passenger business, too, I reckon," said the same voice. "Bein' an old hand on th' cattle trail he knowed a herd will often foller if one cow crosses a river."

"He got so used to skinnin' buffalers that he's itchin' to try it on a human," said another. "I says he shows spunk, pickin' Wolf to try it on."

"There's tricks in all trades," said Jim Hands.

"'Cept freightin'," laughed Jerry.

"Somebody pass in a knife," requested Brazos. "Mine's in my other pants where it allus is when I wants it. My sacred cow! I'm near choked! Them hides must be full of maggots." Receiving the knife he soon backed out. "Phew! An' hot! Now, as I pull him out, some of you grab holt under him so he won't drop. Don't try to stand him up; he can't do that for all th' money in th' country. Here he comes; stand by!"

Ready hands went under the puncher as he appeared, and lowered him to the ground. Wolf could not speak; he could not even move his jaw; but there was nothing the matter with his eyes and they served as points of concentration for his rage. They almost sparked.

"Jerry, get a bottle of liquor," ordered Brazos. "Get it sudden, too. Reb, you an' some of th' others[169] rub his arms an' laigs. He ain't nowhere near goin' to die, but he's in bad shape, temporary."

Jerry appeared with a bottle of brandy and Brazos poured a thin trickle of it into the open mouth. When a fourth of it was used he started to rub the jaw muscles, whereat the eyes sparked furiously and the gurgling became more emphatic.

"He says he likes that," chuckled the marshal, "but he likes this better," and he gave another dose of brandy. "You can't kill these fellers," he remarked, rubbing the jaws with rhythmic strokes. "They're steel, rubber, an' rawhide—tough as hickory knots. In administerin' a stimulant"—he paused, liked the words, and repeated them: "In administerin' a stimulant, as I says before, you got to consider what effect it will have on a liquor-drinkin' patient. This here feller looks like he was used to it, so we'll give him all six chambers. There ain't no harm in gettin' a man drunk, not if it's good for him, an' if I was him I'd ruther be drunk than sober when th' blood starts a-flowin' ag'in. Dose Number Three—it's fetchin' him; an' he ain't coughed once. Didn't I tell you he was brought up on it?"

Buffalo, holding back his laughter with all his will, shook his fist at the prostrate puncher.

"Think yo're smart, hey?" he demanded fiercely. "But I want my pay! Nobody can steal a ride with me without payin'. I want five dollars. You hear me? Five dollars! These fools act like they think it's a joke, but I ain't swallerin' it; no, sir! How do I know you didn't plan this all out, an' get yore friends to help you beat an old man out of his fare? There you was,[170] snug in my skins, like a tick in a cow's hair, layin' there for forty miles, snickerin' at me! You wouldn't pay, an' ride alongside me, up in th' dust an' th' heat; but you got poked away on them soft hides, out of th' dust an' th' sun, takin' it easy while I was drivin' them four wild hosses for forty miles! Dozin' off, mebby, while I was doin' all th' work. I don't see no joke." He choked, controlled himself, and shouted: "But you can't do it! I want my pay! An' what will folks say up in Gunsight when they hears about you?"

"Oh, Lord!" yelled Pete. "What will they say? It'll never be forgot!"

"Life must be pleasant," said Reb, "livin' with that outfit! There's allus somethin' to pass away th' time. I reckon they must 'a' saved up a long time for this feller."

"Can you imagine what he's been through today?" asked Pete, his imagination becoming active. "It was plain, common h—l!"

Buffalo suddenly let out a whoop, draped himself on a wheel and burst into laughter, and when he could get control of himself he looked around at his audience. "Fellers," he groaned, "it wasn't his outfit! It was them Double X fellers. There was four of 'em in Gunsight last night, an' they was feelin' good. They've got th' nerve to tackle a joke like this, too; an' there ain't no love lost between them two ranches. When I was goin' into th' hotel after puttin' up my team, I heard a lot of laughin' in Dave's saloon, an' I remembers some of them Double X fellers howlin' 'bout a kidnapin'. That's it! They done it! An' I tell you it[171] took nerve, tacklin' this two-gun man for a joke! It won't be no joke when he gits back—there'll be killin's over this. But, killin' or no killin', I can't help it—Oh! Ho! Ho! Oh! Ho! Ho! An' me settin' up there, drivin' like a dodderin' old fool, with this feller tied up in them odorous skins! Wolf Forbes, two-gun badman of th' Bar H! Oh! Ho! Ho! There'll be killin's; but I got to laugh—Oh, Lordy! Lordy! Lordy!"

"Forty mile! Forty mile!" senselessly repeated one man, weaving around, stepping on everyone in his path. "Forty mile! Forty mile!"

"Playin' mummy on a pile of stinkin' hides!" cried another.

"Tied up like a—like a—I dunno what!"

"Bouncin' an' jouncin' under that tarp on a day like this!"

"Forty mile" came around again, chanting his passwords, stumbled over Reb and flopped, still chanting.

Brazos held up the bottle, and put it down again, not daring to give the last dose for fear of spilling it, and rocked back and forth on his haunches: "Wrapped in a stinkin' hide—forty mile—mummy—oh, my sacred cow!"

"Forty mile" gasped and sat up. The bottle took his eye, and his hand took the bottle. Putting it back empty he slowly arose; and when last seen he was trying to walk on both sides of the street at once, still chanting his lay.

Wolf stirred, tried to get up and, falling, rolled over.

"'Oot 'ell out ah th'," he muttered. "No dah 'an." He desisted, since he could not pronounce labials, and[172] tried his arms and legs. They responded somewhat but there was great uncertainty about them.

Brazos wiped his eyes, picked up the bottle, looked at it and then around at the crowd, and arose. "Come on, boys; give me a hand. In another hour he'll be petrified. After which, I'm takin' a drink—two of 'em—three of 'em! I needs it bad."

The cronies picked Buffalo off the wheel. "Give us a hand, ol' kidnapper," ordered Reb. "We'll lug him into Pete's. Come on—git a-holt, all as can find room."

A procession formed, with a line of dogs acting as skirmishers, and tramped to Pete Wiggins' Highbank hotel and bar, into which all but the small boys and dogs disappeared. And a stranger entering Highbank later that night would have carried away a very unfavorable impression about the sobriety of its citizens. And had he seen the innocent and unassuming cause of it all he would have marveled how a man could get so drunk, and live. And for a day or two Wolf did not draw a sober breath, but staggered, when he was able to walk, from place to place, muttering dire threats and drinking steadily while his money lasted. There is no telling where a periodical drinker will stop when once he gets started—and he had been started on more than a pint of brandy.