"Fine evening. Fine, large evening, Tige. Stars is awful big tonight. Been a sort of a hot day, but she's a nice breeze right now. Yessir, Tige, we got a good quiet place to live."
Tige resisted his pressure and broke into a vicious growl. A voice near by muttered, "Keep that brute quiet or I'll strangle him, Bowlus."
Bowlus relaxed at the sound of the voice. The sinister silence was broken, his senses made contact with reality. Moreover, he knew the fellow. Out of the vast gallery of tones he had catalogued and stored away he took the rather high-pitched, immature voice of Curly and matched it with the present talk. It fitted.
"Lord sakes," he muttered, "you scared me." And for diplomatic reasons he went artlessly on. "Kind of upsets a blind gent like me to be disturbed by a stranger after dark."
"Don't know who I am, uh?"
"I can scarcely see daylight, let alone a face in the dark."
Curly advanced. Bowlus saw the flicker of a hand passing in front of his eyes, but kept his head very still. "I always wondered just bow blind you was," grumbled Curly. "I seen too many tricks in my life to be took to camp. But I reckon you're really sightless."
"Blind as a bat. I reckon you might be hungry. Most riders coming my way are. Step in and I'll toss a can o' beans for you—"
Curly interrupted. "Anybody around here, old man?"
"Just me and my dog."
Curly whistled softly. In another moment Bowlus made out riders sifting through the trees. Curly had edged into the cabin for a look. He came out again and walked off, softly giving orders to somebody. Then he returned and laid a hand on Bowlus' shoulder, pressing down hard. "You tell me the truth, old buzzard, or I'll take pleasure in laying my gun across that brittle skull of yours. I'd do it, too, savvy? Nobody around these woods, uh?"
"It's been awful quite today," said old Bowlus. "I ain't talked to a soul."
"Hear anything? Don't lie!"
Bowlus, from the tone of the outlaw's voice, visualized Curly leaning forward wolfishly, half-inclined to strike. So he decided on half-truth and spoke softly. "I think a spread o'men passed along the trail a spell before dark."
"Which way?"
"Towards Angels."
"Heard anything since—any brush rattle, any gear squeak, horses, or like that? Has your dog been uneasy. Smell anything in the wind?"
"Not till you come," said Bowlus. "But—" and he affected sudden mystery, "that bunch didn't seem to come back from Angels."
A long silence. Men were moving with sibilant swiftness about the clearing. Curly had gone off once more and Bowlus thought he was rid of the man. But the renegade was like a cat, evading even Bowlus' preternaturally sharp ears; without warning he was back, grumbling, "I don't trust you, not for a minute. When I see a stray horse on the landscape, I want to kill him or put him in my string. Same applies to you. Maybe you're a harmless duffer, but on the other hand you might be bait. Don't say anything, don't move outside of your cabin tonight. I'm watching this place all the time. If I—"
Bowlus waited patiently. He felt them ease off into the woods and it appeared as if the meadow was free of their presence again. His dog alternately lay stiffly silent or rose to growl. Somewhere in the high ground he caught the snap of a bough.
"Trap," he decided. "But who set it, Box M or Curly? Looks to me as if Box M had done such, for Curly acted like he smelled a rat. What brought him over? This ain't his country. I'd like to know what them shots meant this morning."
The breeze grew sharper; the man's old bones protested the cramped position he had so long held. Rising, he pushed the dog inside the house and followed, closing the door. Match in hand, he forebore striking it. A light would only bring grief on his head. Better to wait in the cold. Sit and wait, for sleep was not to be this blood-scented night.
"Tige, if I only had sight—"
Then he drew a great sigh and leaned against the wall. A single shot sent up a muffled echo amid the trees above the clearing. After this was a short lull, a breathless suspense as if the creatures of the earth were cringing away from man's sinister folly. It was only a moment. Another shot sounded, waking somewhere a swift reply. A ragged fusillade developed to the west of the cabin, sagged in strength and threatened to die out. The parties yonder were sparring for advantage, uncertain of each other's location and strength, shifting rapidly, swinging about the fringe of the meadow. A lone rider raced down from the ridge and cut in front of the cabin, slinging a bullet into the door as he passed. Bowlus heard the smack of the slug in the wall and deliberately sat down on the floor.
"Tige, you come here. Lay behind me. That's right—lay flat."
Curly seemed to have found a point of attack, for the gunplay strengthened wickedly farther southward where the Angels Dead Man trail came up from the desert. No longer was the firing sporadic or aimless. Detonations ran into each other wickedly like corn popping; one wild halloo floated back to the meadow. Bowlus listened eagerly. "Must be twenty-thirty men in that play," he reflected. "Don't appear to me as if the trap worked."
His attention swung to the north side of the meadow, picking up the drive of another outfit galloping recklessly through the trees. Presently they were in the meadow, flashing by the house single file, a long line of them with leather squealing and a single voice rising above the noise of advance. "Swing out and come abreast. Fitz, you haul over and hold the right end of our front. West more—and come on!"
"Charterhouse," grunted Bowlus. "I knowed he had a good character first time I heard him talk. Now, Curly, you damn hound! Sit still, Tige, I ain't talking to you."
Bowlus was too thoroughly a Box M man to stay silent any longer, so he got up and went to the door. There was a touch of powder smell in the breeze that called him to battle and he gripped the casing with his gnarled fingers, swearing bitterly. Charterhouse's party was temporarily absorbed in this mystery. But within a minute or two Bowlus caught the swelling echoes as they pitched back to him. The fight became more grimly intense, more voices rose, and the doubling fury of the fire weltered through the trees. They had ceased moving and were in a stand-to conflict. So much he could determine by the steady spat and crack reverberating from the same location. Like men rooted in one spot and jolting each other with blind anger. Sooner or later somebody had to give way; energy and bullets lasted only about so long. Bowlus' practised ears detected a faltering presently and another shifting. Part of the echoes came from a more remote angle of the trees, guns blasted away from wider vantage points. The engagements turned fitful, firing died. A pair of horsemen raced toward the cabin, wheeled around it. Bowlus dropped to the earth as they thundered by. Lead passed over him, shattering his window. He heard them breathing hard, heard them muttering back imprecations, heard them fleeing east into the open prairie.
"Curly's men," exulted Bowlus. "They took a hiding, by gosh!"
Bowlus started to rise, then scuttled to another side of the cabin and flattened in the deeper darkness. A whole party swept back from the south, turned into the clearing and halted. Scouts broke away, searching around.
Charterhouse's voice called anxiously. "Bowlus."
Bowlus rose and felt his way back to the front. "Give 'em a drubbing, did you?"
He heard a mutter of relief. More men were coming from the scene of battle. Somebody coughed. Bowlus recognized the cause of it with pity. He also picked up Heck Seastrom's usually easy- going tones cold with rage. "The buzzards will pay this bill in full before we get through, boys. Take Lee in and put him on Bowlus' bunk. As for Pink, ain't no use. He's done."
"Bowlus, I'm relieved to see you. Curly make any threats?"
"Yeah, but nothing else. You whipped him?"
"Not