CHAPTER XX
DEVIL'S HOLE
Sanderson took his turn standing watch with the other men. The boss ofa trail herd cannot be a shirker, and Sanderson did his full share ofthe work.
Tonight he had the midnight shift. At two o'clock he would ride backto camp, awaken his successor, and turn in to sleep until morning.
Because of the proximity of the herd to Devil's Hole an extra man hadbeen told off for the nightwatch, and Soapy and the Kid were doing dutywith Sanderson.
Riding in a big circle, his horse walking, Sanderson could see thedying embers of the camp fire glowing like a big firefly in thedistance. A line of trees fringing the banks of the river near thecamp made a dark background for the tiny, leaping sparks that were shotup out of the fire, and the branches waving in the hazy light fromcountless coldly glittering stars were weird and foreboding.
Across the river the ragged edges of the rock buttes that flanked thewater loomed somberly; beyond them the peaks of some mountains, milesdistant, glowed with the subdued radiance of a moon that was justrising.
Back in the direction from which the herd had come the ridges anddepressions stretched, in irregular corrugations, as far as Sandersoncould see. Southward were more mountains, dark and mysterious.
Riding his monotonous circles, Sanderson looked at his watch, his faceclose to it, for the light from the star-haze was very dim. He was onthe far side of the herd, toward Devil's Hole, and he was chanting therefrain from a simple cowboy song as he looked at the watch.
The hands of the timepiece pointed to "one." Thus he still had an hourto stand watch before awakening the nest man. He placed the watch is apocket, shook the reins over Streak's neck and spoke to him.
"Seems like old times to be ridin' night-watch, eh, Streak?" he said.
The words had hardly escaped his lips when there arose a commotion fromthe edge of the herd nearest the corrugated land that lay between theherd and the trail back to the Double A.
On a ridge near the cattle a huge, black, grotesque shape was clearlyoutlined. It was waving to and fro, as though it were somegiant-winged monster of the night trying to rise from the earth.Sanderson could hear the flapping noise it made; it carried to him withthe sharp resonance of a pistol shot.
"Damnation!" he heard himself say. "Some damned fool is wavin' a tarp!"
He jerked Streak up shortly, intending to ride for the point where thetarpaulin was being waved before it was too late. But as he wheeledStreak he realized that the havoc had been wrought, for the cattlenearest him were on their feet, snorting with fright--a sensation thathad been communicated to them by contact with their fellows in the mass.
At the point where the commotion had occurred was confusion. Sandersonsaw steers rising on their hind legs, throwing their forelegs high inthe air; they were bellowing their fright and charging against thesteers nearest them, frenziedly trying to escape the danger that seemedto menace them.
Sanderson groaned, for the entire herd was on the move! Near at hand adozen steers shot out of the press and lumbered past him, paying noattention to his shouts. He fired his pistol in the face of one, andthough the animal tried to turn back, frightened by the flash, thepress of numbers behind it, already moving forward, forced it again towheel and break for freedom.
Sanderson heard the sounds of pistol shots from the direction of thecamp fire; he heard other shots from the direction of the back trail;he saw the forms of men on horses darting here and there on theopposite side of the herd from where he rode.
From the left side of the herd came another rider--Soapy. He toreahead of the vanguard of running steers, shooting his pistol in theirfaces, shouting profanely at them, lashing them with his quirt.
A first batch slipped by him. He spurred his horse close toSanderson--who was trying to head off still others of the herd thatwere determined to follow the first--and cursed loudly:
"Who in hell waved that tarp?"
Sanderson had no time to answer. A score of steers bolted straight forhim, and he groaned again when he saw that the whole herd was rushingforward in a mass. A common impulse moved them; they were frenziedwith fright and terror.
It was not the first stampede that Sanderson had been in, and he knewits dangers. Yet he grimly fought with the cattle, Streak leaping hereand there in answer to the knee-pressure of his master, horse and riderlooking like knight and steed of some fabled romance, embattled with ahuge monster with thousands of legs.
Sanderson caught a glimpse of several riders tearing toward him fromthe direction of the camp, and he knew that Carter and the others weretrying to reach him in the hope of being able to stem the torrent ofrushing cattle.
But the movement had already gone too far, and the speed of thefrenzied steers was equal to the best running that Streak could do.
Sanderson saw that all effort to stop them would be hopeless, and awareof the danger of remaining at the head of the flying mass, he veeredStreak off, heading him toward the side, out of the press.
As he rode he caught a glimpse of Soapy. The latter had the samenotion that was in Sanderson's mind, for he was leaning over his pony'smane, riding hard to get out of the path taken by the herd.
Sanderson pulled Streak up slightly, watching Soapy until he wascertain the latter would reach the edge, then he gave Streak the reinsagain.
The pause, though, robbed Sanderson of his chance to escape. He hadbeen cutting across the head of the herd at a long angle when watchingSoapy, and had been traveling with the cattle also; and now he saw thatthe big level was behind him, that he and the cattle were in anever-narrowing valley which led directly into the neck of Devil's Hole.
Sanderson now gave up all hope of reaching the side, and devoted hisattention to straight, hard riding. There were a few steers ahead ofhim, and he had a faint hope that if he could get ahead of them hemight be able to direct their course through Devil's Hole and thusavert the calamity that threatened.
Grimly, silently, riding as he had never ridden before, he urged Streakforward. One by one he passed the steers in his path, and just beforehe reached the entrance to Devil's Hole he passed the foremost steer.
Glancing back as Streak thundered through the neck of the Hole,Sanderson saw Soapy coming, not more than a hundred yards behind.Soapy had succeeded in getting clear of the great body of steers, butthere were a few still running ahead of him, and he was ridingdesperately to pass them.
Just as Sanderson looked back he saw Soapy's horse stumble. Herecovered, ran a few steps and stumbled again. This time he went toone knee. He tried desperately to rise, fell again, and went down,neighing shrilly in terror.
Sanderson groaned and tried to pull Streak up. But the animal refusedto heed the pull on the reins and plunged forward, unheeding.
There would have been no opportunity to save Soapy, even if Streak hadobeyed his master. The first few steers at the head of the massswerved around the fallen man and his horse, for they could see him.
The thousands behind, though, running blindly, in the grip of thenameless terror that had seized them, saw nothing, heeded nothing, andthey swept, in a smother of dust, straight over the spot where Soapyand his horse had been.
White-lipped, catching his breath in gasps over the horror, Sandersonagain turned his back to the herd and raced on. The same accidentmight happen to him, but there was no time to pick and choose his trail.
Behind him, with the thundering noise of a devastating avalanche, theherd came as though nothing had happened. The late moon that had beentouching the peaks of the far mountains now lifted a rim over them,flooding the world with a soft radiance. Sanderson had reached thecenter of the trail, through Devil's Hole, before he again looked back.
What he saw caused him to pull Streak up with a jerk. The head of theherd had burst through the entrance to the Hole, and, opening fanlike,had gone headlong into the quicksand.
Fascinated with the magnitude of the catastrophe, Sanderson paid noattention to the few steers that
went past him, snorting wildly; he satrigid on his horse and watched the destruction of the herd.
A great mass of steers had gone into the quicksand at the very edge ofthe Hole; they formed a foothold for many others that, forced on by theimpetus of the entire mass, crushed them down, trampled them furtherinto the sand, and plunged ahead to their own destruction.
It was a continually recurring incident. Maddened, senseless,unreasoning in their panic, the mass behind came on, a sea of tossinghorns, a maelstrom of swirling, blinding dust and heaving bodies intothe mire; the struggling, enmeshed bodies of the vanguard forming aliving floor, over which each newcomer swept to oblivion.
Feeling his utter helplessness, Sanderson continued to watch. Therewas nothing he could do; he was like a mere atom of sand on a seashore,with the storm waves beating over him.
The scene continued a little longer. Sanderson saw none of the men ofthe outfit. The dust died down, settling like a pall over the neck ofthe Hole. A few steers, chancing to come straight ahead through theneck of the Hole, and thus striking the hard, narrow trail that ranthrough the center, continued to pass Sanderson. They were still inthe grip of a frenzy; and at the far end of the Hole he saw a number ofthem bogged down. They had not learned the lesson of the firstentrance.
At length it seemed to be over. Sanderson saw one steer, evidentlywith some conception of the calamity penetrating its consciousness,standing near him on the trail, moving its head from side to side andsnorting as it looked at its unfortunate fellows. The animal seemed tobe unaware of Sanderson's presence until Streak moved uneasily.
Then the steer turned to Sanderson, its red eyes ablaze. As though itblamed him for the catastrophe, it charged him. Sanderson drew hispistol and shot it, with Streak rearing and plunging.
Roars of terror and bellows of despair assailed Sanderson's ears fromall directions. Groans, almost human, came from the mired mass on bothsides of the trail. Hundreds of the cattle had already sunk fromsight, hundreds were sucked partly down, and other hundreds--thousands,it seemed--were struggling in plain view, with only portions of theirbodies under.
Still others--the last to pour through the throat of the gorge--wereclambering out, using the sinking bodies of others to assist them;Sanderson could see a few more choking the far end of the Hole.
How many had escaped he did not know, nor care. The dramatic finish ofSoapy was vivid, and concern for the other members of the outfit wasuppermost in his mind.
He rode the back trail slowly. The destruction of his herd had notoccupied ten minutes, it seemed. Dazed with the suddenness of it, andwith a knowledge of what portended, he came to the spot where Soapy'shorse had stumbled and looked upon what was left of the man. His facedead white, his hands trembling, he spread his blanket over the spot.He had formed an affection for Soapy.
Mounting Streak, he resumed his ride toward the camp. A dead silencefilled the wide level from which the stampede had started--a silenceexcept for the faint bellowing that still reached his ears from thedirection of the Hole.
Half a mile from where he had found the pitiable remnants of Soapy hecame upon Carter. The range boss was lying prone on his back, his bodyapparently unmarred. His horse was standing near him, grazing. Carterhad not been in the path of the herd.
What, then, had happened to him?
Sanderson dismounted and went to his knees beside the man. At first hecould see no sign of anything that might have caused death--for Carterwas undoubtedly dead--and already stiffening! Then he saw a red patchstaining the man's shirt, and he examined it. Carter had been shot.Sanderson stood up and looked around. There was no one in sight. Hemounted Streak and began to ride toward the camp, for he felt thatCarter's death had resulted from an accident. One explanation was thata stray bullet had killed Carter--in the excitement of a stampede themen were apt to shoot wildly at refractory steers.
But the theory of accident did not abide. Halfway between Carter andthe camp Sanderson came upon Bud. Bud was lying in a huddled heap. Hehad been shot from behind. Later, continuing his ride to camp,Sanderson came upon the other men.
He found the Kid and the cook near the chuck wagon, Sogun and Andy werelying near the fire, whose last faint embers were sputtering feebly;Buck was some distance away, but he, too, was dead!
Sanderson went from one to the other of the men, to make a finalexamination. Bending over Sogun, he heard the latter groan, and in aninstant Sanderson was racing to the river for water.
He bathed Sogun's wound--which was low on the left side, under theheart, and, after working over him for five or ten minutes, giving himwhisky from a flask he found in the chuck wagon, and talking to the manin an effort to force him into consciousness, he was rewarded by seeingSogun open his eyes.
Sogun looked perplexedly at Sanderson, whose face was close.
There was recognition in Sogun's eyes--the calm of reason was swimmingin them.
He half smiled. "So you wriggled out of it, boss, eh? It was aclean-up, for sure. I seen them get the other boys. I emptied my gun,an' was fillin' her again when they got me."
"Who?" demanded Sanderson sharply.
"Dale an' his gang. They was a bunch of them--twenty, mebbe. I heardthem while I was layin' here. They thought they'd croaked me, an' theywasn't botherin' with me.
"One of them waved a blanket--or a tarp. I couldn't get what it was.Anyway, they waved somethin' an' got the herd started. I heard themtalkin' about seein' Soapy go under, right at the start. An' you.Dale said he saw you go down, an' it wasn't no use to look for you.They sure played hell, boss."
Sanderson did not answer.
"If you'd lift my head a little higher, boss, I'd feel easier, mebbe,"Sogun smiled feebly. "An' if it ain't too much trouble I'd like alittle more of that water--I'm powerful thirsty."
Sanderson went to the river, and when he returned Sogun was stretchedout on his back, his face upturned with a faint smile upon it.
Sanderson knelt beside him, lifted his head and spoke to him. ButSogun did not answer.
Sanderson rose and stood with bowed head for a long time, looking downat Sogun. Then he mounted Streak and headed him into the moonlit spacethat lay between the camp and the Double A ranchhouse.
It was noon the next day when Sanderson returned with a dozen Double Amen. After they had labored for two hours the men mounted their horsesand began the return trip, one of them driving the chuck wagon.
All of the men were bitter against Dale for what had happened, andseveral of them were for instant reprisal.
But Sanderson stared grimly at them.
"There ain't any witnesses," he said, "not a damned one! My word don'tgo in Okar. Besides, it's my game, an' I'm goin' to play her a lonehand--as far as Dale is concerned."
"You goin' to round up what's left of the cattle?" asked a puncher.
Sanderson answered shortly: "Not any. There wasn't enough left to makea fuss about, an' Dale can have them."