CHAPTER X
BY A HAIR'S BREADTH
Curtis Conrad rode to the farther side of a hill sloping gentlynortheast of the houses as the outfit was getting under way the nextmorning. He remembered having seen there a rather uncommon species ofcactus, and he thought to make sure of it in order to secure a specimenfor Lucy Bancroft's collection when next he should pass that way on ahomeward trip. Jose Gonzalez noted his action and presently, when asteer broke wildly from the herd and ran back, it was Jose who dashedafter it. But, instead of heading it off and driving it back, he somanoeuvred that he contrived to get it around the hill behind which hehad seen Conrad disappear. The superintendent was digging busily in theground with his pocket-knife, having decided to take up the plant andleave it in the house in readiness for his return journey.
Assured that the rest of the outfit was out of sight beyond the hill,Gonzalez left the steer to its own devices and galloped straight towardand behind the kneeling figure, his long knife drawn but concealedagainst his leg. Conrad's attention was engrossed in what he was doingand his thoughts were all of Lucy Bancroft, of how pleased she would beto get this rare specimen, and of how necessary it would be for him tohelp her plant it. Jose checked his horse into a walk and leanedforward, his eyes fastened on the other's back, his knife lying halfhidden in his palm. On the soft ground the hoof-beats of the horse madelittle sound and their faint, unresounding thud was masked by the noisesfrom the moving herd.
Gonzalez drew rein within a few yards of his object and lifted his arm,with the knife balanced in his hand. At that instant the steer bellowed,and Curtis leaped to his feet, on the alert at once lest something hadgone wrong with the herd. He saw the single steer and, wheeling aroundto look for others, his glance took in the Mexican, swerving his horsedown the hill and deftly returning the knife to his belt. "Are you afterthe steer, Jose?" he called. "Is that the only one loose?"
"Yes, senor. The rest are all right. This one has given me a chase, butI'll have him back right away."
"Stop a minute, Jose. Would you mind letting me use your knife? Mine'stoo short and I haven't anything else."
Gonzalez rode up, dismounted, and held out the knife with a courteoussmile. As he stood back with one leg forward, arms folded, and head heldhigh, Curtis thought him an image of dashing, picturesque, masculinecomeliness. "Jose," he said, "how did you get such skill in throwing theknife? I never saw anybody do the trick better than you did it lastnight. I shouldn't like to have you," and he smiled as he returned theweapon, "aim this thing at me as you did at that polecat."
An answering smile flashed over Jose's dark face, lighting up his eyesand showing a row of white teeth beneath his moustache. "I havepractised it much, senor. It is not easy."
The next day, Conrad, Gonzalez, and several others were gettingtogether some cattle in the foot-hills when three of the largest steersbroke away and raced wildly back toward their grazing grounds. Thesuperintendent called the Mexican to help him, and told the others totake the remainder of the cattle, with all they might find on the way,back to the day herd.
Two gallant figures they made as they galloped across the plain, thewind blowing up the wide brims of their hats, the grace and freedom ofstrength and skill in every movement of body and limb. Lariats were attheir saddle horns, and Curtis carried a six-shooter in his belt, butGonzalez had only his knife, thrust into his boot leg. They circled andheaded off the steers, which eluded and dashed past them again andagain, until presently Conrad noticed that the largest of the threeacted as a sort of leader. "Rope him, Jose," he called, "and then we canmanage the others."
As Gonzalez in response came galloping toward the animal from one side,Curtis rushed past it on the other to prevent it from getting away andgiving another chase. He glanced at the loop that came whirring throughthe air and his heart gave a bound of vexation. "The fool greaser isthrowing too far," he muttered. With an instinct of sudden peril he dugin his spurs and his horse made a quick, long leap. He whirled about intime to see the snakey noose fall on the spot whence they had jumped.
"What's the matter with you, Jose?" he shouted. "You nearly roped meinstead of the steer! Try it again." Gonzalez coiled his rope andgalloped after the steer and half an hour later the two men rode intothe round-up, driving the panting and humbled animals.
One of the younger and less experienced men, Billy Black, generallyknown as "Billy Kid," happened to lame his horse and bruise himself thatday, and was ordered to stay in camp to nurse his knee. At Rock Springs,where they made camp next day, a man who gave his name as Andy Millerrode up and asked for a job. He explained that he had been working on alittle ranch over toward Randall but had got tired of the place and waspushing for the railroad. Hampered by Billy Black's accident, Conrad wasglad of the opportunity and tested his skill with horse and rope.
"You'll do," he said. "I'm short of hands, and you can stay with usuntil we get to the railroad if you like."
The new man was stockily built, and looked strong and agile. Around thecampfire that night he won his way at once into the good graces of theother men, cracking jokes, telling stories, and roaring out cowboy songsuntil bedtime. They were so hilarious that Conrad joined their circle,smoked his after-supper pipe with them, and laughed at Miller's jokesand yarns.
The Rock Springs watering-hole was in a hilly region, broken here andthere by stony gulches. The outflow from the springs ran through aravine which furrowed the hillside to its foot, turned abruptlywestward, and widened out into a goodly pool, where the cattle wadedand drank. The camp lay on the hillside above the springs, and thecattle were bunched over its brow on the other side.
Conrad wakened early and an inviting image came to him of that pool,lying still and clear in the dim gray light, untroubled by the miringhoofs of the cattle. No one else, except the Chinese cook, busy with hisbreakfast fire, seemed to be awake, and no one stirred as Curtis moveddown the hill, past the springs, and over the rise beyond. But Gonzalez,motionless in his blanket, watched his departure. And presently, whenthe cook had disappeared in the chuck-wagon, Jose rose, cast a cautiousglance over the sleeping camp, and followed Conrad, taking advantage ofoccasional boulders, clumps of mesquite, greasewood, and yucca toconceal his movements. At the springs he turned down the gulch,following its course to the basin of the drinking hole, where he hidbehind a great boulder, barely ten feet from the bank where lay theother's clothing.
With wary eyes he watched while the superintendent waded out to thedeepest part of the pool, ducked and splashed, swam a little, andpresently returned to the shore. Through the brightening air the leanand sinewy body with its swelling muscles gleamed like rose-tintedmarble below the tanned face and neck. Behind the boulder Jose crouchedcloser and drew the knife from his belt, while his body grew tense ashe watched Conrad rub himself down and put on his clothes.
"Will he never keep still a second?" Gonzalez asked himself impatiently,as he poised his knife. Curtis sat down on a flat stone and reached forhis shoes and stockings, whistling a gay little melody from the lastcomic opera he had heard in San Francisco.
A sound of shouting and the muffled noise of rushing cattle brokethrough the morning air, which had been as still and untroubled as thesurface of the pool. Conrad, his music silenced and nerves alert, facedquickly toward the camp, turning his body from the waist upward andgiving Gonzalez a fair three-quarters view of his torso.
The Mexican, ready and waiting, seized an instant of arrested motion,and sent the poised weapon straight for his heart. As it left Jose'shand, the stone on which Curtis sat, yielding to the twisting motion ofhis body, slipped under him, and he threw out his left arm to preservehis balance. He was aware of something bright cleaving the air, of asudden pain in his arm, and a stinging point in his side. But before hisbrain could realize what had happened, he saw Jose Gonzalez leap frombehind the boulder and rush toward him, befouling the air with a stringof Spanish oaths.
Conrad sprang to his feet and wheeled, with right fist ready to meet theattack, before
Jose could reach him. The Mexican flew at him with botharms outstretched, meaning to seize his throat and throttle him beforehe could comprehend his danger. Curtis saw the open guard and landed ablow on his chest which sent him staggering backward. But he returned atonce, with left arm raised in defence and right hand ready to seize theother's shirt collar and choke him senseless.
For a moment only was Conrad at a disadvantage by reason of thesuddenness of the assault. But with the knife still bedded in hisbleeding and helpless left arm, his only weapon was his right fist,which he must use for both defence and attack. The Mexican's eyes werefired with the passion of combat, and the other, ignorant of why theywere fighting, knew only, by his blanched face and set jaws, that hispurpose was deadly.
Gonzalez, after that first blow upon his chest, was wary. He dancedaround Conrad, making feints and trying to get inside his guard. ButCurtis, whose brain was working in lightning-like flashes, did not wastehis strength pounding the air. He kept his assailant eluding his feintsand jumping to escape pretended charges, thinking to wear him out inthat way. He soon saw that he was the superior in boxing skill, as wellas being both taller and heavier than his foe, and he began to feelassured of final victory, notwithstanding his useless hand and disabledarm.
Jose's effort was constantly toward Conrad's left side, and Curtisguessed that he was trying to get possession of the knife stillsticking in his arm. He knew that if Gonzalez recovered that weapon hischance of life would be small indeed. His bare feet were bleeding fromthe sharp little stones on the bank of the pool, but he was consciousneither of that nor of pain in arm or side, though the blood from hiswound was making a red streak down his shirt and trousers. But hecontinued to hear, with a kind of divided consciousness, the sound ofshouts, the rushing of cattle, and the hoofs of galloping horses. In theback of his brain he knew that there had been a stampede of the herd,and with attention absorbed in his fight for life, the thought that hewas needed at the camp spurred him on to more desperate effort.
Jose made a dash for his left side, but Curtis turned and with all hisforce sent a blow which caught the Mexican, intent on the knife, withshoulder unguarded. Gonzalez spun half round and reeled backward. Conradhad planted one foot on a rounding stone, and as he delivered the blowit slipped and sent him headlong. He was up again in an instant, barelyin time to save himself from Jose's fingers, which clutched at histhroat. But Gonzalez had got inside his guard and they gripped, the onewith one arm and the other with two, for what each felt must be thefinal struggle. The American caught Jose's left arm between their twobodies and, reaching around him, grasped the other wrist in his righthand. They swayed back and forth, Jose exerting all the strength of hismuscles to free his arms, while Conrad, gripping him close, used all theremnant of his strength to throw him down.
By this time the Mexican's eyes were gleaming with an ugly light andhis olive cheeks were flushed with anger. Whatever the purpose thathad moved him at first, Curtis saw that he was fighting now with theaboriginal rage of conflict, with the fierce hate born of the blowshe had received. He kicked wildly at the superintendent's shins andaccidentally planted the heel of his boot squarely upon the other's barefoot. Conrad's face twitched with the hurt, and with a snarling grinGonzalez lifted the other for similar purpose, forgetting shrewd tacticsof battle in the lust of giving pain to his opponent. But Curtis caughtthe momentary advantage of unstable balance and with a twist and a lungethey came down together, Conrad's left shoulder striking against a stonebeside which the Mexican fell. Thrilling with the surety of triumph,his enemy pinned to the ground, Curtis was barely conscious of asnapping in his shoulder and a sharp pain in his collar bone. With oneknee on Gonzalez's chest, he pulled the knife from his left arm, brokeit across the boulder, and threw the bloodstained pieces far out intothe pond. His assailant was at his mercy now and the heat and anger ofcombat ebbed from his veins as he looked down at the Mexican'sunresisting figure.
"You have bested me this time, Don Curtis," said Gonzalez quietly.
"Get up, Jose," replied Conrad rising, and the two men, panting fromtheir conflict, faced each other. Jose stood with his arms folded andhead erect and looked at his employer with unafraid eyes, in whichsmouldered only the traces of his recent rage. Conrad surveyed himthoughtfully for a moment before he spoke.
"Jose, what did you do it for?"
The Mexican smiled but made no reply.
"Have you got anything against me?" Conrad persisted. "Do you think I'vemistreated you or injured you in any way?"
"No, senor, I have nothing against you."
"Then what--by God, are you one of Dell Baxter's thugs? Has he sent youdown here to stick me in the back?" Impelled by the flash of suddenconviction, Conrad thrust his face close to the other's and glared intohis eyes. Gonzalez stepped back a pace and looked gravely across thehill at the reddening sky. His composed face and closely shut lipsshowed that he did not intend to answer.
"Oh, all right!" Curtis exclaimed. "I don't expect you to peach on yourpal. But I reckon I've sure struck the right trail this time. And lookhere, Jose! Was it me you were after when you stuck your knife in thatskunk?"
The Mexican's eyes fell and his black brows met in a frown. He wasthinking how much trouble this man had given him by springing up sounexpectedly that night. But for that it would all have been so easy andsimple!
"I reckon it was!" Conrad went on hotly. "And I reckon it was me insteadof the steer you rode after the next morning, with your knife ready whenI looked up. And I reckon it was me instead of the steer you tried torope when you made that remarkable miss. I've been a fool to trust adamned greaser, even when he was in plain sight. But look here, JoseGonzalez!" Conrad stopped and glared into the Mexican's sombre andinscrutable eyes. Holding his bleeding left arm in his right hand heleaned forward, head thrust out and eyes blazing.
"Just you look here, Jose Gonzalez!" he repeated. "I'm onto your littlegame now, and if I can't be a match for any greaser that ever tried tostick a man in the back, I'll deserve all I'll get! Just come on and tryit again whenever you like! Keep at work with the round-up if you wantto--I'm not going to give you your time for this. But I am going towrite to Dell Baxter that I'm onto his scheme and that the minute youmake another crack at me there'll be a bullet in your brain--and anotherin his as soon as I can get to Santa Fe to put it there, and that he'dbetter call you off if he wants to save his own skin. But if you can getme without my catching on first you're welcome, that's all!"
The rush of running cattle swept across their preoccupied ears, and bothmen turned to see a dozen steers sweep past the other end of the pondand up the hill.
"Quick, Jose! Help me head them off and turn them into the pond!" Conradexclaimed as he started off in his bare feet. His long strides coveredthe distance quickly, and with hoots and yells and waving arm he soonturned their course down the hillside toward the water. Gonzalez wasclose behind, and together they manoeuvred the frightened beasts tothe pond, where the animals forgot their panic, waded in quietly, andbegan to drink.
"Jose," said the superintendent, as he sat down at the water's edge andbegan to bathe his muddy, bleeding feet, "I shall not mention thisaffair to any one here. I'll say that a steer horned me just now. I'vebroken my collar bone, I think, and I've got this cut in my arm, andI'll have to go to Golden at once to get patched up. When I come back Iwant you to remember what I just told you about getting daylight throughyour skull if you try any of your tricks on me again. There comes RedJack after these cattle. Go and help drive them back to camp."