The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

went winging by. He was lost, and he knew it. His hands rose.

      "Step this way," grunted Denver. "Turn around. Stand fast." His free hand shot out and ripped the man's gun from its holster. He tucked it behind his own belt. The outlaw jeered him with a sudden revival of spirit.

      "A hell of a lot of good this'll do yuh."

      "You're lucky to be out of what's comin'. Anybody else around here?"

      "Think I'd tell if they was?" growled the outlaw.

      "Just a catamount of wheels, ain't you," reflected Denver. "Walk over to the fire where I can see you."

      The outlaw obeyed. He had a strange face, and Denver commented on it. "Another slick-eared gun fanner from other parts. Redmain must have a young army."

      "Big enough to whip the tar outa you, once ever yuh tackle it," stated the outlaw coolly.

      "We'll have a chance to find out soon enough," said Denver. "But you'll have no part in the fun."

      "The Sundown jail won't hold me," challenged the outlaw.

      "Your ticket don't read that far," was Denver's laconic answer. This stopped the outlaw dead. His teeth clicked together, and the bones of his face sprang against the tightening skin.

      "So that's yore style, uh?" he muttered.

      "You seem to like the life. So don't bellyache over your pay. Come on, Lyle. He's alone."

      Bonnet came swiftly around the fire. "We better get organized, Dave. How about shakin' this specimen down?"

      "Where'd Redmain go?" demanded Denver, shooting the question at the outlaw.

      "I ain't sayin'."

      "You've got a bare chance of escapin' the rope," Denver warned him. "Talk up. Where'd he go?"

      "I'll take my funeral and be damned to you! I don't squawk in the first place, and in the second place I'd never expect no mercy from Black Dave Denver even if I did tell. You take a long run and jump for yoreself."

      "My-my," said Bonnet. "How would you like a belt in the mug? It might loosen your thoughts some."

      The outlaw stood sullenly defiant. Denver brooded over him. "Who told Redmain that Leverage came across the Henry trail tonight lookin' for him?"

      The outlaw flung up his head and laughed ironically. "Mebbe you'd like to know what Redmain knows. I'll say—" Out of the south came a sputter of shots. Denver cursed and raised his gun to the sky, letting go a single bullet. Again the night wind bore down echoes of trouble. This time the firing rose strongly sustained. The outlaw wrenched himself backward, yelling.

      "There's yore answer, damn yuh! We'll do what we please in this country afore we're through!"

      "What the devil!" snapped Bonnet, staring at Denver.

      "Leverage," said the latter with an electric bitterness, "has run into a trap." He fired again, threw out the weapon's cylinder, and replaced the spent cartridges. Going to the outlaw's horse, he untied the rope, and shook the loop over the man. The outlaw protested. "Good God, don't tear me apart with that string!"

      Denver's men swarmed over the clearing. Hank Munn charged up to the fire, leading the horses of Bonnet and Denver. Denver beckoned the man. "You—take this buzzard we've caught and herd him back to my ranch. Tell the boys to keep him."

      "Why bother—"

      "You've got your walkin' papers," said Denver, stepping into his saddle. Without warning he spurred into the timber. He fell upon a trail and righted himself; the horse labored mightily. He came to the summit and for a moment groped his way clumsily through brushy underfooting. The horse saved him the necessity of search, kicked clear, and reached a broader pathway. So he lined out to the southward with his men strung behind; Bonnet's urgent call to close up was echoed still farther back by Hominy Hogg.

      This was not the side of Yellow Hill with which he was very familiar. He knew the terrain only in the sense that every rider of cattleland has a rough contour map in his head of whatever lies within fifty or a hundred miles of home range. His sense of direction told him he traveled in a parallel line with the Henry trail, which ran somewhere off in the eastern blackness; his ears told him he was headed into the drawn-out fight yonder to the south.

      The firing came clearer, swelling to a pitched volume and dying off to scattered volleys. From the changing tempo Denver almost was able to see the fight—the sudden locking of forces, the milling and the swirling, the abrupt buckling into shelter, and the stealthy groping for advantage in the pitch- black night. Redmain had timed his maneuvers perfectly. He could only have done so through clear information as to the parties moving against him. The fact that he had left a fire burning and rode away to begin a pitched engagement was proof of it. Plainly Leverage had moved into a trap and was now fighting for his life. Leverage was an honest man, a plugger. But never for a minute could he match the tricky touch-and-go brilliance of Lou Redmain. It wasn't in the cards.

      He was coursing down a long and straight grade. Lyle Bonnet drew up, neck and tail, and shouted, "It ain't far now! I think they're scrappin' near Peachey's Burn! If we keep on like this we'll smack right into a crossfire! How about drawin' up just before we hit it?"

      Denver stiffened in his seat. All the while his straining ears had been fastened to the sharp echoes; it came to him with a shock that he was listening into a queer lull. The firing had ceased. The gloom of the trail widened into a gray circle. Bonnet called again. "This is that old hermit's clearin'. We're only a half mile—"

      The little clearing spilled over with sound. Horsemen smashed out from yonder side. Denver cried, "Pull up!" and was surrounded by his own men as they drove out of the trail. A gun's shattering blast beat into his group. Denver shouted. "Leverage—stop shootin'!" And from the growing mass of riders emerged a challenge. "To hell with Leverage!" Followed by a pour of lead.

      "Redmain!" yelled Denver and spurred his horse. "Spread out—let 'em have it!"

      "Come and get it, Denver!"

      It was mad, riotous confusion. He was jammed elbow and elbow with his own men; Redmain's riders plunged on. He saw them shifting rapidly across the cleared area; he opened a point-blank fire, crying a warning. "Spread out—spread out!" Outlaw and posse raced around the fringes of the meadow. Every man was on his own, and in the center a dozen of them had met in a wicked hand-to-hand encounter. He thought he heard Redmain, but wasn't sure. Dann's bellow was too barbaric to be missed. He hauled his pony out of the whirl and cut across.

      "Come on, D Slash! Follow me!"

      Right on the heels of the challenge a rider shot from the massed and weaving figures and drove into him. The belch of powder covered his face. He veered aside, firing at the bobbing target. There was a yell, a terrible guttering of breath; rider and horseman alike disappeared into the mêlée. Denver plunged on, feeling his men behind. But the target he aimed for had shifted. Shifted and given ground. Dann bellowed again, deeper in the woods; and like phantoms Redmain's men slipped away through the trees. Hominy Hogg spurred past Denver.

      "I know this trail!" he bawled. "Come on!"

      Denver heard Dann again, a few yards to the left; he galloped between the clustered pine trunks and rammed a turning rider. An arm reached out, slashed down, missed his head by an inch and struck into his thigh with the barrel of a gun. He clamped the gun in his left hand, beat back with his own weapon, and heard a bone snap. His antagonist gasped and tried to fight clear. Both horses pitched. Denver crooked his right elbow about a sagging head and dragged the man bodily from the saddle; his left hand ripped the fellow's weapon clear, and at that point he let the man fall and spurred away.

      The encounter had taken no more than two or three minutes, but in that space of time both the pursued and the pursuers were far ahead. Denver fought through the brush, ran into a fresh deadfall whose branches would not let him pass over, and swung to skirt it. Still he found no trail. An occasional shot drummed back. Riders were drifting all over the country. Presently the horse seemed to find a clear pathway and went along it. Denver considered himself being pulled