"He certainly don't actually despise hisself," the puncher grinned. "How many o' the tribe is there?"
"King Burdette an' three brothers--use ter be five in the family, but the Ol' Man got bumped off three-four months back; shot from cover, he was, over on War Axe Ridge. Nobody knows who done it, but the Burdettes blame the Purdies--there's allus been bad blood between 'em. If I was young Kit Purdie I'd leave the country."
"Folks would take it he was guilty," the puncher pointed out.
"Mebbe, but he'd be alive," the other said dourly. "Yu mark my words, the Burdette boys will get him."
Sudden changed the subject; he did not want to betray more than the natural curiosity of a stranger in local affairs. "What chance for a cow-wrastler around her?" he inquired.
"Middlin' slim," was the reply. "There's the Circle B --that's Burdette, the C P--Purdie's ranch, an' the Box S --a small one owned by Slype, the marshal, who's too mean to spit. Purdie is yore best bet; he's a white man."
"Yu don't recommend Burdette, huh?" the puncher smiled.
"If yo're quick with a gun an' ain't pertic'ler, yes," retorted the other. "I'm takin' it yo're honest."
"Thank you," the visitor said gravely. "Likely I'll go gravel-grubbin' for a spell; I'm told there's gold around here."
"That's so--Windy started on a gold boom, but it soon petered out. Yu can get `colour' a'most anywheres in the sand o' Thunder River, but that's all yu do get. There's fellas still pannin' an' pocket-minin' the slopes o' the valley, but they don't hardly make more'n a grub-stake."
"If they could strike the mother-lode --"
"Yu ain't the first to think o' that," Fosbee cut in. "I reckon every man in town has searched one time or another. Some claims it's up on Ol' Stormy, an' mebbe that's why " He paused suddenly. "I'm jawin' too much," he added. "See yu later, p'raps."
He turned abruptly into the house, leaving the traveller no choice but to ride on, thoughtfully considering what he had learned. Actually it did not amount to much. Fosbee did not impress him favourably--a sour, disgruntled fellow who would vent his venom on any more successful than himself, but his fear of the Burdettes was evident.
"An' I'm bettin' that boy ain't bad," the puncher mused. "O' course, his manhood is some recent"--he himself was but a few years older--"an' I expect he ain't had much experience, but I liked the look of him."
Less than half an hour brought him to the rim of a widish gully, the sloping sides of which were covered with vegetation--spruce, juniper, cactus, and tall grasses. Along the bottom ran a tiny, twisted stream fringed with willows and cottonwoods. The sight of the water made him thirsty, and he was casting about for the best place to descend when the angry crash of a rifle awoke a succession of echoes, giving the impression of a fusillade. There was but one shot, however, and a ballooning puff of smoke, a little way up the opposing incline, showed whence it came. In a flash the puncher was out of the saddle and crouching behind an outcrop of rock. A moment later he realized that he was not the target, for, from a dense mass of brush almost on the floor of the gully, a rifle spoke in reply. Two simultaneous reports from the other side followed, and leaving his horse, Sudden searched for a break in the foliage.
Meanwhile the strange duel continued, but now only two were firing, one against the other. Had the third man been wiped out? The puncher, whose sympathy had instinctively been for the weaker party, found himself hoping that this was the case. Presently he happened upon a spit of grass-covered rock which jutted out, and, by worming along it on his belly, was able to overlook the spot where the lone marksman was ensconced. Kneeling behind the prostrate trunk of a windfall, his rifle in readiness, a man dressed in the garb of the range was peering intently across the gully. For a while nothing happened, and then from the opposite slope came a single shot. Sudden saw the man below raise his rifle, but ere he could press the trigger another report rang out and he slumped down, the weapon dropping from nerveless fingers. High up on the rising ground behind the stricken fighter, smoke curled from the midst of a tree. The watcher cursed as he realized what had taken place.
"Damnation, they've outplayed him," he muttered, and scrambling back to the rim of the gully, grabbed his rifle from the saddle, and began to run in the direction from which the fatal shot had come. Before he could reach it, however, the thud of hoofs on the trail told him that he was too late. And so it proved. Hundreds of yards distant he had a momentary glimpse of a grey horse, and fired at it. He knew the shot was useless, but it relieved his feelings. He found the tree, a big spruce, the abraded trunk of which showed how the killer had climbed up to get a clear shot at his victim. Save for an empty shell, a Winchester .38, and some faint footprints, there was no further evidence. The puncher hoisted himself into the branches, and, as he had expected, found that nothing interrupted his view of the dead man.
"Pie like mother made," he said savagely. "One coyote keeps him busy while the other sneaks round an' plugs him from behind. I'd shore like to meet them hombres."
With grim, unblinking eyes he searched the valley, but beyond the frequent flash of a bird's wing no sign of life rewarded his scrutiny. Satisfied that the assassins had decamped, he dropped from the tree, and, leading his horse, began to work his way down to the scene of the tragedy. This took time, for he had often to force a passage through the tangle of undergrowth, and detours to avoid miniature precipices were necessary. So that it was nearly half an hour before he stood, hat in hand, beside what, only a short time ago, had been a human being in all the vigour of early manhood.
One thing the puncher saw at a glance--it was not, as he had suspected, young Burdette. Though about the same age, the dead man had dark hair, and the glazed eyes which stared up at the blue sky when Sudden turned the body over were a deep brown. Death had been instant, for the bullet, entering under the left shoulder-blade, had penetrated the heart. A whinny took him to a neighbouring thicket, where he found a tied pony bearing the brand C P. At the sight of this his frown deepened.
"Looks like them Burdettes has got even," he muttered; and then, "That fella Luce was ridin' a grey. Well, s'pose I'll have to take him in; can't leave the body here for the buzzards."
He draped the corpse, face downwards, across the saddle of its own pony, securing it with the lariat hanging from the horn, and then, riding his own horse and leading the other, headed into the valley, where he found a dim trail which appeared likely to take him to the town. Pacing soberly along, his thoughts naturally dwelt upon the grisly burden jolting spasmodically on the back of the other animal. That it was a corpse concerned him little--violent death was no new thing to him, but the manner in which it had been brought about put a savage set to his lips and gave the grey-blue eyes a flinty expression.
"It shore looks bad for Mister Luce," he mused. "I wouldn't 'a' said he was that sort."
It was possible that the slain man was only one of the C P outfit, but remembering what Fosbee had said, Sudden shook his head at the thought; he was only too sure that the nester had been a true prophet.
"It'll mean trouble, ol hoss," he confided to his mount --"big trouble; an' what I'm packin' in will certainly start it, but I couldn't do nothin' else."
Chapter III
WINDY, so called--according to a facetious dweller therein --because it never was, lay in the middle of a large saucer-like depression enclosed by forest-clad slopes which were themselves walled in by an oval of craggy, granite hills. At the western end of the valley towered Old Stormy, a formidable cone of ribbed and turreted rock, the source of Thunder River, which, after a tempestuous journey through the wild gorges of the mountain-side, became a wide, and, in summer, a shallow stream rolling lazily along its sandy bed to depart placidly by way of a break in the hills. The eastern limit of the valley was dominated by a tree-and scrub-covered, squat pile known as Battle Butte.