Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1909 — THE ROUND UP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE ROUND UP

There’s a bunch of cowpanchore in this story it will do you good to meet, and for good measure there’s Slim Hoover, sheriff, whom nobody loves because he’s a fat man. And there are other characters of the great southwest —women of charm and interest, desperadoes and soldiers — whose doings on the stage have called forth much favorable comment from the public and the critics. They are woven into a plot of dramatic interest, colored by characteristic actions and sayings of typical women and men of the land of the rattlesnake and the Gila monster, the long homed steer and the lowly, despised sheep. The incidents of the tale will hold you; the women and the men will attract you. They are different from those of other yams of the west, that is ever “ready for a fight or a frolic. ”

CHAPTER I. DOWN an old trail In the Ghost range, in northwestern Mexico, just across the Arizona border, a mounted prospector wound his way, his horse carefully picking its steps among the broken granite blocks which' had tumbled upon the ancient path from the mountain wall above. A burro followed, laden heavily with pack, bed roll, pick, frying pan and battered coffeepot, yet stepping along sure footediy as the mountain sheep that first formed the trail ages ago and whose petrified hoof prints still remain to afford footing for the scarcely larger hoofs of the pack animal. An awful stillness hung over the scene that was broken only by the click of hoofs of horse and burro upon the rocks and the clatter of the loose stones they dislodged that rolled and skipped down the mountain side. Not a breath of air was stirring, and the sun blazed down from the zenith with such fierce and direct radiation that the wayfarer needed not to observe the shadows to note Its exact position in the heavens. Singly among the broken blocks and in banks along the ledges the cactus had burst under the heat, as it were, into the spontaneous combustion of flowery flame. To the traveler pissing beside them their red blooms blazed with the irritating superfluity of a torchlight procession at noonday. The trail leads down to a flat ledge which overlooks the desert and which is the observatory whither countless generations •of mountain sheep have been wofit to resort to survey the strange world bertbatb them, with what purpose and what feelings it remains for some Imaginative writer of animal stories to inform us. From the ledge to the valley below the trail is free from obstructions and broader, more beaten and lass devious than above, indicating that it has been formed by the generations of, men toil* Ing up from the valley to the natural > watchtower on the heights. Reaching the ledge, the prospector found that what seemed from the angle above to be an irregular pile of large powlders was an artificial fortification, the highest wall being toward the mountains. Entering the inclosure, the prospector dismounted, relieved bis horse of its saddle and his burro of its pack and proceeded to prepare bis midday meat Looking for the best place where he might light a he observed in the most protected comer a flat stone marked by flit , and near It In the rocky ground a pothole, evidently formed for grinding maize. The ashes of ancient fires were scattered about end in cleaning them off his new found hearth (he man discovered a potsherd, apparently of a native olla or water jar, and a chipped fragment of flint too small to Indicate whether it had formed part of an Indian arrowhead or had dropped from an old flintlock musket I “Lucky strike!” observed the prosI'pector. "I was down to my last I match.” And, gathering some mesI quite brush for fuel and rubbing a dead I branch into tinder, he drew out a ■ knife and, rapidly * and repeatedly I striking the back of its blade with the ■ flint produced a stream of sparks, n which fell on the tinder. Blowing the I while, he started a flame. When the ■ fire was ready the man shook his can- ■ teen, “precious little drink left,” he I said. “I wish that potsherd carried I water as the flint chip does fire. How-

ever, there’s lots of cactus around here, and they’re natural water jars. My knife may get me a drink out of the desert's thorns as well as kindle a fire from its stones. And right here’s my watermelon, the bisnaga. the first one I’ve found in months!” he exclaimed, going over to the edge of the cliff, above the level of which peered the fat head of a cactus covered with spines that were barbed like a fishhook. Its short taproot was fixed in a crevice a few feet below the parapet Lying on the edge of the cliff, the man sliced off the ton of the cactus and began jabbing into its interior, breaking down the fibrous walls of the water cells, of which the top heavy plant is almost entirely composed. In a few moments he arose. “Now I can empty my canteen in the coffeepot, sure of a fresh supply of water by the time I am ready to mosey along.” He filled the pot, set it on the fire and then pressed the uncorked and .empty canteen down into the macerated interior of the bisnaga. While his coffee was boiling the prospector continued his examination of the fortification, beginning, in the manner of his kind, with the more minute “signs" and ending with what to a tourist would have been the first and only subject of observation—the view. On the inner side of the large bowlder in the wall he discerned the faint outline of a cross painted with red ocher.

Scraping with'his pick beneath the rock to see If the emblem was the sign of hidden treasure or relic, be unearth ed a rattlesnake. Before it could strike with a quick fling of bis tool he sent the reptile whirling high In the air toward the precipice. But from the clump of cactus growth along the parapet arose a sahuaro. with branching arms, and against this the snake was flung. Wrapped around the thorny too bv the

An awful stillness hung over the scene. momentum of the cast, it hung, biasing and rattling with pain and hatred. The prospector looked up at the impaled rattlesnake with a smile. Reminiscences of Sunday school flashed across his mind. "Gee, I’m a regular Moses!” he ejaculated. “First 1 bring water from the face of the rock, and then I lift up the serpent in the wilderness. The year I’ve spent in the mountains and -desert seems like forty to me. and now at last I have a sight of the promised land. God. what a magnificent view!” Dropping his pick, he stretched out his arms with instinctive symbolization of the wide prospect and expression of an exile’s yearning for his native land. “Over there is God s country, sure enough," h t continued, giving the trite phrase a reverential tone which he bad not used in his first expression of ths name of Deity. “Thank him, the parallel with old Moses stops right here. Many a time I thought I would never get out of the mountains alive and that my grave would be unmarked by so much as a bowlder with a red cross upon it But now before night I’ll be back in the States and in three more days at home on the old ranch: ! promised to return in a year, and I*ll make good to the hour. I sure did hate to leave that strike, though, after all the hard luck I had been having. Sixty dollars a day and growing richer! But the last horn was blowing—no tobacco, six matches and nothing left of the

bacon but rinds. Well, tne gold tsj there, and the claim ’ll bring whatever I choose to ask for it And Echo shall have a home as good as Allen Hacienda and d ranch as fine as Bar One. Yes, It’ll be Bar None, my ranch!” Out of the sea of molten air that stretched before him. that nebulous cnaos of quivering bars and belts of • heated atmosphere which remains above the desert as a memorial of the first stage of the entire planet’s exist- ( ence, the imagination of the prospector ' created a paradise of his own. There took shape before his eyes a Mexican hacienda, larger and more beautiful even than that of Echo’s father, 'the beau ideal of a home to his limited fancy. And on the piazza in front, covered with flowering vines, there stood awaiting him the slender figure of a woman, with outstretched arms and dark eyes, tender with yearning love.

“Echo—Echo Allen!” he murmured, fondly repeating the name. “No, not Echo Allen, but Echo Lane, for Dick Lane has redeemed bls promise and returns to claim you as his own.” As he gazed upon the shimmering heat - waves which distorted and displaced the objects within and beneath them a group of horsemen suddenly appeared to him in the distance and as suddenly vanished In thin air. “Rurales!” ejaculated Lane. “1 wonder If they are chasing Apaches. That infernal mirage gives you no Idea of distance or direction. If the red devils have got away from Crook and slipped by these greaser rangers over the border, they'll sure be making straight for the Ghost range and by this very trail. If so, I’m at the best place on it to meet them, and here I stay till the coast is clear.” Turning to the red cross on the rock, he reflected, “Perhaps, after all, it’s a case of ‘Nebo’s lonely mountain.* ’’ Lane had hardly reached this conclu slon before be found it justified by the sight of a mounted Apache in the regalia of from a bidden dip In the trail below the fortification. Lane dropped behind the parapet, evidently before he was observed, as the steadily Increasing number and loudness of the hoof beats on the rocky trail indicated to the listener. Crawling back to his horse and bur ro, he made them lie down against the upper wall and picketed them with short lengths of rope to the ground? for he foresaw that danger could come only from the mountain side. Taking his Winchester, he returned to the parapet %nd. half seated, half reclining behind it, opened fire on the unsuspecting Apaches. The leader, shot through the bead, fell from his horse, which reared and backed wildly down the trail. Other bullets must have found their billets also, but because of the confusion which ensued among the Indians the prospeCt6r was unable to tell bow many of them he had put out of action. In a flash every rider had leaped off his borse and, protecting himself by its body, was scrambling with his mount to the protecting declivity In the rear. The prospector was sorely tempted to pump his cur trldges into the group as It poured back over the rim of the hollow, but he desisted from the useless slaughter of horses alone, knowing that be could be attacked only on foot and that everyone of his slender store of cartridges must find a human mark if be would return to the States alive. “They’ve got to put me out of business before they can go on,’’ he ruminated. "An Apache is a good deal of a coward when he’s fitting for pleasure, but just corner him, and, great snakes and spittin* wildcats, what a game he does put up! I must save my cartridges, for one thing’s sure—they won’t waste any of theirs. They’re not as good shots as white men, for ammunition is too scarce with them for use in gun practice, so they won’t fire till they've got me dead to rights. Let me see. There's about a dozen left in the party, and 1 have fifteen cartridges. That’s three in reserve for my own outfit if some of t the others fall to get their men. Those I'red devils enjoy skinning an animal ; alive as much as torturing a man, and you can bet they won’t save me any bullets by shooting Nance and Jinny.” Reasoning that the Indians would , not dare to attack by way of the open trail in front and that it would take some time for them to- make the detour necessary to approach him from above, since they would have to leave their ponies below and climb on hands and knees over jutting ledges and around broken granite blocks. Lane coolly proceeded to drink his coffee 1 and sat his lunch sf hard feaadand

cold bacon rind. After he had finished he gave a lump of sugar to each of his animals and pressed his cheek with an affectionate bug against the side of his horse’s head.

"Old girl,” be said. “I’m sorry we can’t take a parting drink, for I’m afraid neither of us will reach our next water hole. But you can count on me that the red devils won’t get you.”

Then, going A his pack, he undid it and took out a double* handful of yellow nuggets and a number of canvas bags. These he deposited in the pothole and, prying up the flat stone of the flreplace, laid it over them and covered the stone with embers.

“It’s a ten to one shot that they finish me,” he reflected, “but the wages I’ve paid for by a year of hard work and absence from her side stay just as near Echo Allen as I can bring them alive and, if there’s any truth in what they say about spirits disclosing in dreams the place of buried treasure, with the chance of my getting them to her after I am dead.” Taking the useless bowlders from the edge of the cliff, but carefully, so as not to expose himself to the fire of the Apaches, he piled them on top of the upper wail in such a fashion as to form little turrets. He left an opening in each, through which he could Observe in turn each point of the compass whence danger might be expected and could fire his Winchester without exposing himself. Then he began going from post to post on a continuous round of self imposed sentinel duty. “If 1 could only climb the sahuaro.” he thought, “and fly my red shirt as a flag to let the rurales know Pre flanked the enemy, it might hurry them along in time to put a crimp In these devils before they get me. But It’ll have to be ‘bold the fort* without any *Ob, say can you see!' business. Anyhow, I’m flying the rattlesnake flag of Bunker HUI, ‘Don’t tread on me!’ Whether the rurales see It or not, I’ve saved their hides. If the Apaches bad got to this fort first, gee, how they would have crumpled up the greasers as they came along the trail!” Rendered thirsty by his exertions. Lane remembered the canteen in the blsnaga. which he had forgotten among his other preparations for defense. He cautiously reached his band over the ledge and secured the precious vessel, but as he was withdrawing it, ping, came a bullet through the canteen, knocking It out of bis band! As it fell clattering down the side of the ledge he groaned: “Good shooting! They’ve probably left their best marksman below with the ponies. No hope for escape on that side. Well, there’s some consolation in the thought that they’ll undoubtedly finish me before I get too thirsty. Glad it wasn’t my hand.” Although the period he spent waiting for the attack was less than an hour by his watch, it seemed to Ijtn« so long that be bad hopes that the rurales would appear in time to rescue him. His spirits rose with the prospect Looking about him at the walls, the fireplace and the red cross, he reflected, “I am not the first man, or even the first white man. that has withstood an attack in this place.” In imagination he constructed the history of the Tort Here, Th ages remote, a tribe of Indians, defeated and driven to the mountains, had constructed an outpost against their enemies of the plain, but these had captured the stronghold and fortified it against its former occupants. Later a band of Spanish gold seekers had made a stand here against natives whom they had roused against them by oppression. Or, perhaps, as indicated by the cross, it bad afforded refuge to the mission fathers, those heroic souls who had faced the horrors of the inferno-like desert in their saintly efforts to convert its fiendish inhabitants. With bls mind occupied by apprehensions Lane looked at the rattlesnake upon the sahuaro, whose struggles by this time had diminished to a feeble movement of the tell. “Poor old rattler!” he thought. “I wish 1 could spare a cartridge to put you out of your misery.” At length as Lane peered up the mountain side he saw a brush on a ledge a little to the left of the trail quiver as if stirred by a passing breath of wind. He aimed his Winchester through a crack in the wall at the spot, and when a moment later an Apache rose up from the ground and leaped toward the shelter of a rock below Lane fired, and the savage foil crumpling.. Like an echo of the

explosion a rifle on 'the’right spoke, and a bullet struck the rock by Lane’s head. He marked the spot whence the shot came and quickly ran to another part of the walk From here he saw the edge of an Indian’s thigh exposed by the side of the bowlder he had noted. Crack went Lane’s Winchester. The leg was suddenly withdrawn, and nt the same moment a head appearer! on the other side of the rock, as if the Indian bad stretched himself out involuntary. Crack again, and Lane had got his man. “Two shots to an Indian is expensive,” thought the prospector; “otherwise this game of tip-jack would be very interesting.”

There was a cry in the Apache tongue, and suddenly nine half naked bodies arose from behind rocks and bushes extending in an irregular crescent above the fort and rushed forward ten, fifteen and even twenty yards to the next cover. Lane did not count number or distance at the time, but he figured these out in his next period of waiting from the photograph flashed on his subconscious mind. At the time of the rush he was otherwise

occupied. Crack, crack, and two of the Indians fell dead in midcareer. Crack, and a third crawled, wounded, to the cover he had almost safely attained. Crack, and an eagle feather in the head of tbq fourth Indian shot at was cut off at the stem and fell forward on the rock behind which Its wearer bad dropped just in time to save his life. There was an answering volley from the rifles of the remaining Apaches, which was directed against the lookout of loose stones from which the prospector’s fire had come. One of the bullets penetrated the opening and plowed a furrow through Lane’s scalp.

toppling him to his knees. He scrambled quickly to his feet and, hastily pressing bis long hair back from his forehead to stanch the bleeding wound, sought the protection of the middle lookout. He congratulated himself. “Lucky, for roe they didn’t follow the first rush immediately with a second. Now 1 know to wait for their signal. Six and possibly seven of them are left, and they will storm my works in two more attempts. Here they come!” The call again sounded. Six Apaches leaped forward, and from the rock that concealed the wounded warrior a shot rang out in advance of the first discharge from Lane's Winchester. The Indian’s bullet scored the top of the turret and tilled the eyes of the man behind it with powdered stone. The prospector, already dazed by his wound, fired wildly and missed bis mark. Quickly recovering himself, be fired again and again, severely wounding two Apaches. These lay clawing the gronnd within twenty yards of the wall. The four remaining Indians were safely concealed at the same distance. protected no less by the fortification than by the loose bowlders behind which they crouched for the final spring. I jane realized the fact that his next shots to be effective must be at a downward angle and to fire them he must expose himself. “This is my finish,” be thought to himself. “Better be killed instantly than tortured. I hope all four will hit me. Goodby. Jinny”—crack went bis rifle. "Goodby. Nance” crack again.

Al'the two shots, surmising that the prospector had shot himself and his horse, the Apaches did not wnft for the signal, but sprang forward and climbed upon the wall before Lane had had time to mount It Two of them he shot as they leaped down within the inclosure. As he reversed his Winchester to kill himself with the last cartridge he noted that the two remaining Apaches had dropped their rifles and were leaping upon him to take him alive. He brought his clubbed weapon down upon the head of one of them, crushing his skull. At the same instant Lane was borne to the ground by the other Apache, who. seizing him by the throat, began throttling him into insensibility. In desperation Lane bethought himself of the cliff arid by a mighty effort whirled over upon his captor toward the precipice. The ground sloped slightly in that direction, and the combatants rolled over and over to the very edge of the cliff, where the Indian, for the first time realizing that the prospector’s purpose was to hurl both of them to destruction, loosened his hold upon the prospector’s throat that he might use his hands to brace himself against the otherwise inevitable plunge into the valley below. In an Instant Land’s hands were at the Indian’s tin- it. and in another turn he was upperrn* d and kneeling upon bls foe at the very verge of the precipice.

Both combatants were now thoroughly exhausted. Lane concentrated all his remaining strength in throttling the savage. But just as the tense form beneath him grew lax with evident unconsciousness and the head fell Umply back, extending over the edge of the cliff, his own head was jerked violently backward by a noose cast around bis lacerated neck. When Lane recovered consciousness he found himself lying on his back, bound hand and foot by a lariat and looking up Into a grinning face that he recognized.

“Buck McKee!” he gasped. “This is certainly white of you considering the circumstances of our last meeting. Did you come with the rurales?" “No; 1 come ahead uv ’em! in fact. Dick Lane, you air jes’ a-leetle bit off in yer idees about which party I belong to. When you cussed me fer a thleviri' half breed an’ run me off the range an’ tole me to go to the Injuns, whar I belonged, I tuk yer advice. Pm what you might call the rear guard uv the outfit you’ve jes’ been havin’ yer shootin* match with—or I wuz the rear guard, fer you’ve wiped out the whole battalion, so fer as I can see. Served ’em right fer detailin’ me, the only decent shooter in the bunch, to watch the horses. I got one shot in as it wuz. Well, as the last uv the outfit I own a string of ten ponies. Alt 1 need now to set up in business

is to have some prospector who hain’t long to live leave me his leetle pile uv dust an’ nuggets an’ the claims he’s located back in the mountains. You look a leetle mite like the man. It’ll save vallible time if you make yer dear friend Buck McKee administrator uv yer estate without too much persuadin'. You had some objection oncet to my slittin’ a calf’s tongue. Well, you needn’t be seared jes’ yet. That’s the last thing I’ll do to you. Come, whar’s yer cache? 1 know you’ve got one hereabouts, fer I foun’ signs uv the dust in yer pack.”

Lane set his teeth in a flrm resolution not to say a word. The taunts of his captor were harder to bear in silence than the prospects of torture. “Stubborn, hey? Well, we’ll try a little ’Pache persuadin’.” And the renegade dragged his helpless captive up to the thorny sahuaro and bound his back against it with the dead horse's bridle. McKee searched through .Vane’s pockets until he found a match. “Last one, hey? Kinder ’propriate. Las’ drink from the old canteen, las’ ca’trldge, las’ look at the scenery an’ las’ will an’ testyment. Oh, time’s precious, but I’ll spare you enough to map out in yer mind jes’ where them claims is located. The rurales won’t be along fer an hour yet if they hain’t turned back after our other party.” McKee pulled off Lane’s boots. “It hain’t decent fer a man to die with ’em on,” he said. Tie then kindled a tire on the stone, beneath which, if be but knew it, lay the treasure he sought. He returned with a burning brand to the captive. For the first time be observed the snake impaled on the satm-

.aro, writhing still, but feebly. "Hello, lole rattler!’’, he exclaimed. ‘Here’s isomethin* to stir you up.” And he tossed the brand upon the top of the -cactus. Taking another burning stick from the fire, he applied it to the soles of his victim’s feet. Lane writhed and groaned under the excruciating torture, but uttered no word or cry. McKee brought other brands and began piling them about Ms captive’s feet. In the meantime the sahuaro had caught fire at the top and was burning down through the interior. A thin column of smoke rose straight above it in the still air. The rurales in the valley below, who had reached the beginning of the ascending trail and were on the point of giving up the pursuit, saw the smoke and inferred that the Apaches, either through overconfidence or because of their superstitious fear of the mountains, which they supposed Inhabited by spirits, had camped on the edge of the valley and were signaling to their other party. Accordingly the Mexicans renewed the chase with increased vigor. As McKee bent over his captive’s feet, piling against them the burning ends of sticks, the rattlesnake on the sahuaro, incited by the fire above, struggled free from the impaling thorns by a desperate effort and dropped on the back of the half breed. It

struck its fangs into his neck. McKee, springing up with an energy that scattered the sticks be was piling, tore the reptile loose, hurled it upon the ground and stamped it into Then he picked up one of the brands and with it cauterized the wound. AB the while he was cursing volubly—the snake, himself and even Dick Lade, who was now lying in a dead faint caused by the torture.

“Curse such a prospector! Not a drop of whisky in his outfit! I’d slit his tongue fer him if he wasn’t already done fer. 1 must keep movin’, movin’, or I’m a dead man. I must bustie along to the mountains, leadin’ my horse. Up there I'll'find yarbs to cure snake bite that my Cherokee grandmother showed me. The rurales will have to get the other ponies, but some day I’ll come back after Lane’s cache.” A half hour later the Mexican guards appeared upon the scene and unbound Lane’s unconscious form from the sahuaro, which the fire had consumed to within a foot of his bowed head. They deluged his face and back and bathed his tortured feet with the contents of their canteens and brought him back to life, but, alas, not to reason. *

Six months later there limped out of Chihuahua hospital a discharged patient, wry necked, crook backed, with drawn features and hair and beard streaked with gray. It was Dick Lane restored to his old physical strength, so far as the distortion of his spine caused by his torture permitted, and to the full possession of his mental faculties. He mounted one of the captured ponies and rode off with the proceeds of the sales of the others in his pocket to purchase provisions for a return to his prospecting. Before plunging into the wilderness he wrote a letter:

Chihuahua. Mexico. Mr. John Payson. Sweetwater Ranch. Florence. Ari*., U. 8. A.: Dear Jack—l have been sick and out of my head in the hospital here for the last six months. Just about the time you all were expecting me home I had a run in with the Apaches. And who do you think was with them? Buck McKee, the half breed that I ran off the range two years ago for tongue slitting. After I had done for all the rest he got me, and—well, the story’s too long to write. I rather think McKee has made off with the gold I had cached just before the fight. I’m going back to see, and If he did I’ll hustle arbund to find a buyer for one of my claims. I don’t want to sell my big mine. Jack. I tell you I struck it rich! But that story can wait till I get back. Your loan can’t, though, so expect to receive 13,000 by express some time before I put in an appearance. I hope you got the mortgage renewed at the end of the year. If. my failure to show up then has caused you trouble, you'll forgive me. old fellow, I know, under the circumstances. I’ll make it up to you. I owe ypu everything. You’re the best friend a man ever had. That's why I'm writing to you instead of to Uncle Jim, for I want you to do me another friendly service. Just break it gently to Echo Allen that I’m alive and well, though pretty badly damaged by that renegade and tell her that It wasn’t my fault I wasn’t home •njtbfi-dax. I niPTniaeiL She’ll, fnrgiv<-m-TKow, and" Be paflenT awhile"fimJSf. It’s ail for her sake I’m staying away. Give her the letter I Inclose. Your old bunkie, DfCK LANK (To be Continued)

The leader, shot through the head, fell from his horse.

Lane writhed and groaned.