CHAPTER VII
SAM TARBELL'S STORY
This news, so startling, coming as it did after the strange silencethat seemed to wrap Dot and Dash in a pall, and following the talk thathad been going on the last few days concerning the sinister aspect ofthe situation, was enough to startle any one. And the boy rancherswere no exception.
"A dead man?" gasped Bud.
"Who is he?" Nort wanted to know.
"Who killed him?" was Dick's question.
To these inquiries Old Billee Dobb returned no answer. As for Yellin'Kid and Snake Purdee, they just stood in the middle of the desertedliving room of the ranch house and stared at the old puncher. Deathdid not frighten, nor was it anything new to the cowboys. Yet Billee'snews was startling.
"Let's go have a look at him," suggested Yellin' Kid, in no whitlowering his voice as he might reasonably be expected to do under thecircumstances. "Where is he? Do you know him, Billee?"
"Never saw him this side of sole leather as far as I know," answeredthe veteran. "But he's out there by the corral, and here's anotherthing. If we're going to turn our ponies loose into that same corralthe fence has got to be mended. 'Twon't hold a yearling as it is now."
"That can be 'tended to later," remarked Snake. "Let's go have a lookat this poor gazaboo you say has cashed in."
"It looks as if Death Valley was living up to its name," said Nort toBud as he and the other lads followed the men out of the silent anddeserted house.
"Can't tell yet," was Bud's rejoinder. "This may be just a naturaldeath, and somebody that has no connection with this ranch. Lots ofpassing strangers stop at our place and he may have stopped here."
"Well, even then, that doesn't say what killed him," protested Nort.
"We'll soon find out," went on Bud. "Come on."
Billee Dobb was leading the way toward his startling discovery, and amoment later the whole outfit from Diamond X came upon the body. Itlay, as Billee had said, near a corral the fence of which was much inneed of repairs. The man was a typical cowboy, with a bright redneckerchief and sheepskin chaps. His gun had fallen from the holsterand lay beside him. His horse was nowhere to be seen, and a cowboywithout a pony between his legs, or at least in his immediate vicinity,is like Hamlet with the melancholy Dane left out.
"There he is," said Billee in a low voice.
Snake and Yellin' Kid stopped in their tracks. But Bud, who, perhaps,was too young to feel any squeamishness at the proximity to death,hurried forward and knelt beside the motionless figure. Seeing whattheir chum had done, Nort and Dick started to follow. But they werehalted, when they had almost reached the man, by Bud's voice exclaiming:
"He isn't dead at all! He's breathing!"
"He is?" cried Nort.
"Sure! He isn't dead at all! Get me some water. We ought to have adoctor, but maybe we can pull him around until we can find one. Butget some water--_pronto_!"
Dick slung his canteen around, pulled out the stopper and, an instantlater, was kneeling beside Bud and the stranger. Nort helped Bud, onthe opposite side, support the man's head, which appeared to be butloosely attached to his body and the boys finally succeeded in forcinga little water between the almost lifeless lips.
"We ought to have some sort of a stimulant," said Bud as he noticed afaint flickering of the man's eyelids, as though life was strugglinghard to return to the frame it had almost decided to vacate.
"I got some aromatic ammonia in my saddle bags," said Dick. "Yourmother put it in with a lot of other medicine, thinking we might needit."
"We do, now, and mighty bad!" exclaimed Bud. "Rustle it here, Dick."
A little later the powerful heart stimulant, mixed with a little water,was being administered to the stranger, and when the fumes of it haddone their work the fluttering of his eyelids became stronger.
"He's comin' 'round," observed Billee who, with his two oldercompanions, had drawn nearer to observe what the boys were doing.
"Looks like you didn't call the turn on him after all," said Yellin'Kid, for once in his life at least lowering his voice.
"I hope I didn't," said Billee. "I'd like him to pull through. Maybehe can tell us what's wrong with Dot and Dash."
"Don't look like there was anything wrong," commented Snake, lettinghis eyes rove away from the prostrate stranger to the wide reaches ofthe ranch and the valley in which it was so snugly located. "Thisseems to be a right proper place to raise cattle. I only wish it wasmine. I'm tired of being just a puncher. I'd like to own this place.I think it's all bunk what you been tellin' us, Billee."
"You wait," was all Billee would reply. "You can't tell by squintin'at a toad how much wool there is on him, and you can't give a ranch agood name just by lookin' it over. You wait!"
By this time the ammonia had completed its work and restored toconsciousness the prostrate stranger. He was able to sit up now,without being supported by Bud and his cousins. And as he supportedhimself on one hand, while with the other he reached for his fallengun, he murmured:
"Who are you and what happened?"
"Stranger," pronounced Billee, who, by common consent seemed to be thespokesman, "we can answer the first part of your question but not thelast. All we know is we arrived here to find you--er--stretched outlike you was takin' a sleep." Billee had a certain delicacy aboutmentioning death, now that the man was so evidently alive.
"As for us, we're from Mr. Merkel's ranch--Diamond X--and we're senthere to take charge of Dot and Dash. You may have heard of us and youmay not."
"Oh, yes, I've heard of you," was the somewhat unexpected answer. "Infact I was waiting for you to come to take charge."
"Then you aren't a stranger here?" asked Bud.
"Well, I been here a few days, that's all. I was Mr. Barter's foremanup to the time he quit, and sold out, so he told me. He asked me tostay here and turn the place over to the new owner. Merkel--yes,that's the name. I was away when the deal went through."
"I have the papers here," said Bud, reaching for the documents in hispocket.
"'Tain't necessary. I'll take your word for it, my boy. And now thatyou're in charge I'm going to vamoose. I've had full and plenty."
He struggled to his feet, plainly showing how weak he was, swayedunsteadily for a moment and then staggered to a bench on the shady sideof the bunk house not far from the corral.
"If I could have another nip of whatever that was you gave me--" hemurmured.
Bud gave him the remainder of the ammonia and it brought a tinge ofcolor to the tanned and leathery cheeks of the puncher.
"I guess I can light out now," he went on. "Have you seen my pony--oh,I forgot--he's dead. Well----"
He looked at the untenanted corral and then to the bunch of tetheredanimals the outfit from Diamond X had brought with them.
"Look here!" exclaimed Bud. "Do you mind telling us what happened? Wehave heard strange stories about this ranch and don't know whether ornot to believe them. We found you stretched out and----"
"Sort of took me for dead; didn't you?" asked the man.
Now that he had given the opening Billee had no hesitation in replying:
"We sure thought you had cashed in."
"Well, I nearly did," said the man. "I believe I would have been deadin a short time if you hadn't come along. My horse is dead, I'm sureof that. And how I managed to drag myself here after he collapsedunder me is more than I know. But I did, hoping I might get some help.Then I passed out. That's all I know until I found myself sitting upand drinking camphor water."
"'Tisn't camphor," said Bud. "It's aromatic ammonia."
"Oh," murmured the man. "Well, sort of tasted like the old camphorbottle my mother used when she got faint. However, I'm much obliged.And, now that you're in possession I'll be traveling on. Only--myhorse----"
He was as lost without a steed as a sailor would be without a ship, andhe was plainly at a loss how to proceed.
"Look here!" broke in Bud, who,
as the representative of his fathercould speak with some authority, "we can't let you go this way. In thefirst place you're not fit to travel on, and, in the second place wewant to hear your story. After that maybe we can fix you up with apony if you want to leave."
"I'll tell you my story all right," said the man, readily enough. "Andthanks for the loan of a horse. As for staying here--after whathappened--I guess I don't feel much like it."
"What happened?" asked Dick, eagerly.
"Lots of things, but the main one was that I nearly passed out onaccount of some deviltry. But I'd better begin at the beginning."
"'Twould seem the most sensible way," said Old Billee. "In the firstplace what's your name?"
"Sam Tarbell," was the answer.
In an instant Bud, Dick and Nort exchanged glances. Like a flash cameto them the memory of the warning paper, signed with the initials S.T.They would fit this man's name--Sam Tarbell.
But if Billee, Snake and Yellin' Kid thought of this coincidence theydid not remark upon it.
"Sam Tarbell; eh?" murmured Billee. "I used to know a feller of thatname once. Only he was Bill Tarbell. I don't reckon he could 'a' beenyour brother; could he?"
Sam Tarbell shook his head.
"I never had a brother," he answered. "Well, as I was saying, I beenacting as foreman for Mr. Barter a few days back, and when he sold outI agreed to stay and deliver the ranch to the new owners."
"What became of Tim Dolan, who was foreman, and all the otherpunchers?" asked Snake. "Takes more'n a foreman, which you say you arenow, to run a shebang like this. What happened to them?"
"Well," said Sam slowly, "some died and the rest, including Dolan, litout and that left me. Dolan was foreman, like you said, but hevamoosed in a hurry and I almost cashed in when----"
He suddenly interrupted his story to gaze off across the level plain.The others, following his glance, saw riding along an old man on asomewhat ancient steed. He was an old man with a white beard andflowing, white locks, and as he glimpsed him Sam exclaimed:
"There's the old man now!"