CHAPTER II
THE NESTER
With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-officeto the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate itself whilewaiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it had sat formany years, had heard evidence, passed judgment, condemned or acquitted.For at this store the Malpais country bought its ammunition, itstobacco, and its canned goods; and on this porch its opinions had sifteddown to convictions. From this common meeting ground the gossip ofCattleland was scattered far and wide.
Weaver filled the doorway while he drew on his gauntlets. He was theowner of the Twin Star outfit, the biggest cattle company in thatcountry. Nearly twenty years ago, while still a boy of eighteen, he hadbegun in a small way. The Malpais had been a wild and lawless placethen, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held hisown ruthlessly by adroit manipulation, shrewd sense, and implacabledaring. Some outfits he had bought out; others he had driven away. Thosethat survived were at a respectable distance from him. Only thesettlers in the hills remained to trouble him. He had come to be the bigman of the district, dominating its social, business, and politicalactivities.
"What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek?" he askedcurtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle.
"That's the way Jim Budd's telling it, Mr. Weaver. Another nesterhomesteaded there," old Joe Yeager answered casually, chewing tobaccowith a noncommittal air.
"Fine! There'll soon be a right smart settlement up near the headwatersof the creeks, I shouldn't wonder. The cow business is getting to be amighty profitable one when you don't own any," Buck said dryly.
The others laughed, but with small merriment. They were either smallcattle owners themselves or range riders whose living depended on thebusiness, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operatedso boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers. Mostof them disliked Buck extremely for his overbearing ways. But they didnot usually tell him so. On this particular subject, too, they joinedhand with him.
"You're dead right, Mr. Weaver. It ce'tainly must be stopped."
The man who spoke rolled a cigarette and lit it. Like the rest he was inthe common garb of the plains. The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shinyleather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter ofcourse as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under anuntempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows.He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther,reckless and yet wary.
"We'll have rustling as long as we have nesters, Brill," Buck told him.
"If that's the case we'll serve notice on the nesters to get out," Healyreplied.
Buck grinned. Indomitable fighter though he was, he had been unable toroll back the advancing tide of settlement. Here and there homesteadershad taken up land and had brought in small bunches of cattle. Most ofthese were honest men, others suspected rustlers. But Buck's fiat hadnot sufficed to keep them out. They had held stoutly to their ownand--he suspected--a good deal more than their own. Calves had beenbranded secretly and cows killed or driven away.
"Go to it, Brill," Weaver jeered. "I'm wishing you all the luck in theworld."
He touched his pony with the spur and swept up the road in a cloud ofwhite dust.
Not till he had disappeared did conversation renew itself languidly, forSeven Mile Ranch was lying under the lethargy of a summery sun.
"I expect Buck's got the right of it," volunteered a brawny youth knownas Slim. "All you got to do is to take up a claim near a couple of bigoutfits with easy brands, then keep your iron hot and industrious.There's sure money in being a nester."
Despite the soft drawl of his voice, he spoke with bitterness, as didthe others. Every day the feeling was growing stronger that the rustlingmust be stopped if they were going to continue to run cattle. Thethieves had operated with a boldness and a shrewdness that fairlyoutwitted the ranchers. Enough horses and cattle had been driven acrossthe line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the establishedranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the ownersfaced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Onceor twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leaderof the outlaws had saved the men by the most daring strategy.
Healy, until lately foreman of the Twin Star outfit, had organized theranchmen as a protective association. In this he had represented Weaver,himself not popular enough to cooeperate with the other ranchmen. OnceBrill had led the pursuit of the rustlers and had come back furious froma long futile chase. For among the cattle being driven across to Sonorawere five belonging to him.
Other charges also lay against the hill outlaws. A stage had been robbedwith a gold shipment from the Diamond Nugget mine. A cattleman had beenheld up and relieved of two thousand dollars, just taken as part paymentfor a sale of beef steers. The sheriff of Noches County, while tryingto arrest a rustler, had been shot dead in his tracks.
Brill Healy leaned forward, gathered the eyes of those present, andlowered his voice to a whisper. "Boys, this thing has got to stop. I'vesent for Bucky O'Connor. If anybody can run the coyotes to earth he can.Anyhow, that's the reputation he's got."
Yeager nodded. "Good for you, Brill. He's ce'tainly got an A-one rep. asa cattle detective, and likewise as a man hunter. When is he coming?"
"He writes that he's got a job on hand that will keep him busy a coupleof weeks, anyhow. After that we'll hear from him. I'm going to dropeverything else, if necessary, and stay right with him on this job tillhe finishes it right," Healy promised.
"Now you're shoutin', Brill. Here, too. It's money in our pocket to stopthis thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin'around till we're stole blind," assented Slim.
"It won't cost us anything. Buck, he pays the freight. The waddies havebeen hitting him right hard lately and he figures it will be up to himto clean them out. Course we expect help from you boys when we call onyou."
"Sure. We'll all be with you till the cows come home, Brill," nodded onelittle fellow called Purdy. He was looking at a dust patch rising fromthe Bear Creek trail, and slowly moving toward them. "What's the name ofthis new nester, Jim?"
Budd, by way of being a curiosity on the range, was a fat man with abig double chin. He was large as well as fat, and, by queer contrast,the voice that came from that mountain of flesh was a small falsettoscarce above a whisper.
"Didn't hear his name. Had no talk with him. Hear he is called Keller,"he said.
"What's he look like?"
"You-all can see for yourself. This here's the gent rolling a tail thisway."
The little cloud of dust had come nearer and disclosed as its source arider on a rangy roan with four white-stockinged feet. Drawing up infront of the porch, the man swung himself easily from the saddle andglanced around.
"Evening, gentlemen," he said pleasantly.
Some nodded grimly, some growled an acknowledgment of his greeting. Butthe lack of cordiality, the presence of hostility, could not be doubted.The young man stood at supple ease before them, one hand resting on hiship and the other on the saddle. He let his unabashed gaze travel fromone to another, understood perfectly what those expressionless eyes ofstone were telling him, and, with a little laugh of light derision,trailed debonairly into the store.
"Any mail for Larrabie Keller?" he inquired of the postmistress.
The girl at the window glanced incuriously at him and turned to look.When she pushed his letter through the grating he met for an instant aflash of dark eyes from a mobile face which the sun and superb healthhad painted to a harmony of gold and russet, with the soft glow of pinkpushing through the tan. The unexpectedness of the picture magnetizedhis gaze. Admiration, frank and human, shone from the steel-gray eyesthat had till now been only a mask. Beneath his steady look she flushedindignantly and withdrew from the window.
Convicted of rudeness, the last thing he had meant, Keller returned tothe
porch and leaned against the door jamb while he opened his letter.His appearance immediately sandbagged conversation. Stony eyes werefocused upon him incuriously, with expressionless hostility.
He noted, however, an exception. Another had been added to the group, alad of about eighteen, slim and swarthy, with the same dark look ofpride he had seen on the face at the stamp window. It was easy to guessthat they were brother and sister, very likely twins, though he found inthe boy's expression a sulky impatience lacking in hers. Perhaps the ladneeded the discipline that life hammers into those who want to be a lawunto themselves.
With an insolence extremely boyish, the lad turned to Healy. "I'm forrunning out a few of these nesters. We've got more than we can use, Ireckon. The range is overstocked now--both with them and cows. Come abad year and half of our cattle will starve."
There was a moment of surcharged silence. Phil Sanderson had voiced thegrowing feeling of them all, but he had flung it out as a starkchallenge before the time was ripe. It was one thing to resent thecoming of settlers; it was quite another to set themselves openlyagainst the law that allowed these men to homestead the natural parks inthe hills.
Brill Healy laughed. "The fat's in the fire now, sure enough. Just thesame, I back your play, Phil."
He turned recklessly to the man in the doorway. "You may tell yourfriends up on Bear Creek that we own this range and mean to hold it. Wedon't aim to let our cattle be starved, and we don't aim to lie downbefore rustlers. Understand?"
The nester smiled, but there was no gayety in his eyes. They met thoseof the cattleman with a grip of steel, and measured strength with him.Each knew the other would go the limit before Keller made quiet answer:
"I think so."
And with that he dismissed the subject and his unfriendly audience. Withperfect ease, he read his letter, pocketed it, and whistled softly as heimpassively took stock of the scenery. Apparently he had wiped PublicOpinion from his map, and was interested only in the panorama beforehim.
Seven Mile Ranch lay rooted at the desert terminus among the foothills,a gateway between the mountains and the Malpais Plain. Below was ashimmering stretch of sand and cactus tortured beneath a blazing sun.Into that caldron with its furnace-cracked floor the sun had poureditself torridly for countless eons. It was a Sahara of mirage anddesolation and death.
To the left was a flat-topped mesa eroded to fantastic mockery of somebastioned fort. In the round-topped hills behind it was Noches, fiftymiles away. Beyond lay the tangle of hills, rising to the saw-toothedrange now painted with orange and mauve and a hint of deepening purple.For dusk was already slipping down over the peaks.
"Mail's been open half an hour, boys," Phyllis announced through theopen window.
They dropped in to the store, as noisy as schoolboys, but withaldeferential. It was clear the young postmistress reigned a queen amongthe younger ones, but a queen that deigned to friendship with hersubjects. Some of them called her Miss Sanderson, one or two of themPhyllie.
Among these last was Healy, who appeared on very good terms with herindeed. He appointed himself a sort of master of ceremonies, and handedto each man his mail with appropriate jocular comments designed toembarrass the recipient. He knew them all, and his hits were greetedwith gay laughter. To the man standing in the doorway with his back tothem, they seemed all one happy family--and himself a rank outsider. Hetrailed down the steps and swung himself to the saddle. As he loped awaythe sound of her warm, clear laughter floated after him.