The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

possibly would soon pass by. Another half mile would bring the bluff old baron to the edge of timber and up against the rim of Red Draw. At some place along that draw the trap was set. Shander had said so and there was no doubting the man's grim, ruthless sincerity on that point.

      "What of it?" Charterhouse asked himself. "Slapped three times and here I stand asking for more. A bigger damn fool never came out of the shell. Nobody's asked me to butt into this business. So why don't I roll my hoop?"

      The drumming of a woodpecker shot through the trees with a startling clarity, rousing him from all this tedious thinking. No matter how little license he had for intruding on the quarrel, he had, nevertheless, lived too long with his own code to throw it over now. His reason told him that Nickum and Nickum's adherents were in the right; Shander was certainly on the opposite side of the fence—and he had always hated the kind of outlawry Shander stood for.

      There was his answer. He would dip an oar in this muddy water and later tell Nickum to go plumb straight to hell, just for the pleasure of it. With that in mind he passed across the trail and threaded through the thickening pines. Underbrush impeded him in places and every few minutes he stopped to put an ear against the still air; presently he saw a break in the pines and he went forward on foot, to step to the very brink of Red Draw.

      At this point the trees grew up to the margin and the winding of the chasm shut off his view to the south. Retreating, he led the horse parallel to the draw for a quarter mile and again crawled back to scan the freakish slash in the earth. This time he commanded a tolerably good view and made out where the pines dwindled to open country. It was open country also across the draw, but gigantic bald-faced boulders made a sort of parapet along the rim of the farther side and shut off most of his view. Still dissatisfied, he repeated the trick of retreating and paralleling until streaks of stronger light ahead told him he was very nearly arrived at the end of shelter; the trail, moreover, was sweeping nearer him. He veered farther away from it, left his pony in the deepest thicket he could find and squatted at the brink of the canyon with tightening anticipation. Shander had mentioned the spot of ambush to be near three particular rocks; and unless his eyes betrayed him, three such rocks, standing shoulder to shoulder, commanded the far side of the draw at the exact spot where the trail shot out of the trees. Thus any man coming down from the pines would present first a head-on target for anyone behind the opposite rocks; and later an exposed flank passing by. The distance across the chasm could not be much more than twenty-five feet, which made good revolver range and deadly for a rifle bullet. Yet the ambusher would be absolutely safe, for neither horse nor man could make the leap across and the bulwark of rising rocks formed perfect concealment.

      "I believe this is the spot," Charterhouse mused. "But how am I going to find out? And I think I hear—"

      His ears picked up some stray sound from up the trail about the same time his eyes lifted to the pine tops. Those ladder-like branches invited him up to have his look-see, which he promptly accepted. With both feet off the ground, it occurred to him that the warlike Shander partisan whose horse he had so unceremoniously borrowed, had been carrying a rifle in a saddle boot; so, chuckling to himself, and restored to much better humor at the prospect of a little excitement, he dropped out of the tree and went over to get the gun.

      "This gun being used in wrong hands reminds me of a gent being caught in his own bear trap."

      Faint rumors of men talking came down the ridge. Charterhouse threw open the rifle's breech, verified the waiting shell, and closed it carefully to prevent the metallic sound from telegraphing through the still air. Carrying it back to the tree, he took the first branches with considerable exertion; at twenty feet he found a small break in the greenery that gave him a partial glance across the canyon; he thought he saw the tip of some dark figure in the stony crevices, but was not sure. The next ten feet he climbed with cat-like caution. Right above him was a full tunnel through the branches; and he poked his head around the tree like some wary chipmunk. At the far end of this sharply angled vista, sprawled full length behind an enormous stone, was a man whose shoulders were wedged into an aperture that gave him command of the trail on this side. He looked like a Mexican, but Charterhouse couldn't be sure. A hundred yards rearward in a hollow stood a waiting horse. Voices came along the trees distinctly; whereat Charterhouse turned to catch sight of Nickum's party and only saw a momentary passage of three riders. "One more'n Shander figured," he reflected. Lifting his rifle, he rested it on a branch and drew full bead on the ambusher.

      In the narrowing interval of time he debated giving the fellow a warning. He decided against it. This was war and the man had elected to kill in the meanest way known to the West. "Moreover," reflected Charterhouse, "if I sing out, he's apt to rise up and take a pot shot anyhow and run like hell, leaving me treed and openly suspected of being some help to him. No, can't be done. Good-by, brother."

      Clint had his sights true on the man and the slack of the trigger taken up. From the corner of his eye he saw Nickum, Heck Seastrom and Haggerty come into the open, single file. Haggerty's face twitched aside, staring across the draw; after that Charterhouse saw nothing but the hidden killer. His breath stopped; he squeezed. A smash of sound beat over tree and rock and the clear air rang with the splitting fragments of the echo. The ambusher jumped once, and never moved again. Haggerty had thrown himself out of the saddle to the ground and was firing point-blank at the rocks, emptying his gun with a certain heedlessness. Seastrom and Nickum were still mounted, but they had swung around and were opening up more coolly.

      "Get down!" yelled Haggerty. "He's trying to pot you! Same spot they got your son, John! Get down outa the sky!"

      "Not for any Shander rat in the world!" boomed Nickum. Heck Seastrom had fired two shots with careful intent and lowered his gun.

      "He's done," he called calmly. "I can see the front end of his rifle tipped down. Yeah, there's his head, flopped against the rock. We got him. Get up, Haggerty, you don't have to eat all the dirt off the trail."

      Haggerty rose, squinting over the canyon. He had lost his hat, and Charterhouse had a fair chance to see the sour, sullen glare of the Box M's foreman's face as it turned from point to point. "May be more of 'em," he grunted.

      "Then mebbe you had better fall on your belly again," retorted Seastrom.

      "I'll take no more of that from you!" bellowed Haggerty. He squared himself at Seastrom. "Seems to me you're taking this affair some calm. Might be a reason for it."

      "What would you judge?" drawled Seastrom.

      "Mebbe you already knew the bullet wouldn't be for you!"

      Seastrom reached for his papers indolently. "In other words, I knew this was a frame to get the boss, uh? To be plumb plain, I'm working for Box M but wearing Shander's britches?"

      "I'll let you state the case," droned Haggerty. "You do it with a slick enough tongue."

      "A-huh," Seastrom poured himself a smoke. "Brother Haggerty, you don't like me, and I don't like you. If we wasn't working for the same boss, we'd sure as fate tangle. As it is, you range louse, don't ever open your trap to me that way again or just let you try that trick gun flip you've been practicing the last year. Pull in that vinegar mug and keep still."

      "You boys," broke in Nickum sharply, "cut that out. I'll have no fighting in my outfit. What in hell makes you two so cagey? Quit spitting like a couple of puff adders. You had no call to make those remarks, Haggerty. We were just foolish to walk into the same trap my son did. It won't happen again. That piece of skunk bait missed his shot—"

      Charterhouse had meanwhile slipped quietly down the tree and ridden his horse to the edge of the trees. He cut into the conversation casually. "Mister Nickum, he never fired a shot. I plugged him from the top of that tree."

      Haggerty whirled and let his arm half-fall toward his gun butt. Nickum boomed at his foreman and stopped the threat of gun- play, himself riding between the two. His ruddy face swept Charterhouse and then tilted to the pine tips. "You shot, uh? Let's see your gun."

      Charterhouse lifted the rifle and passed it over. Nickum threw open the breech, saw the empty shell spin out, and put his nose down against the chamber. He handed it back with stiff courtesy.

      "How