The muffled echo of a shot. The racing pony drew well toward the head of the stampede. He felt the steady surge of its muscles, and he thought of the cinches he had drawn so tight. Well enough, so long as the horse kept its feet out of a gopher hole.
The storm maintained its fury. They had gone miles from camp. Of a sudden Tom saw a jagged fragment of the herd break off, then he was surrounded and riding neck and neck with a racing shadow, feeling the touch of a horn against his stirrup. He drew his gun and fired point-blank, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Pile up, you brutes, pile up!"
On and on he raced. It seemed many hours, it may have been many hours. But he was well ahead and he had company. Quagmire's bullfrog croak came to him at intervals, like the sounding of a foghorn. More shots, more wild incantations. His pony raced down a hollow, up the farther side; the rhythmic jolting of its hoofs lost a beat, the animal stumbled, caught the stride, and pounded on.
"Good boy. This is no place to die."
Gradually, as the time passed, Tom detected a lessening of speed, a kind of faltering among the cattle, a raggedness in their hitherto compact formation. Instantly, he slackened his own pace until he rode abreast of the lead steers. The other punchers along the vanguard likewise had discovered this and were crowding together. Guns flashed in the blackness, voices rose shrill and profane. Tom ranged abreast a steer and pressed against it, sheering it off from a straight course. He heard Quagmire's rumbling cry of encouragement "Now she goes! Swing 'em—swing 'em!"
They swung, brute following brute in a giant circle. More men rode in, shoving against the swirling wall of flesh. The circle dwindled, the herd milled around and around; they fell from a gallop to a shambling trot and presently that trot declined to a walk. Mischief still swayed the more unregenerate, but the fright had worn off, the flight was checked. The stampede was over.
It was a smaller herd by half. Cattle were strung out the many intervening miles, but there was nothing to do but wait the miserable night through. Thus the crew wearily stood guard, wet and tired and uneasy. Rider came abreast rider, establishing identity.
"Where's Mex?"
"Dunno. Last I knew he was 'way back. Had a slow horse. Don't 'spect he could keep up with this hell on wheels. That Carolina over yonder?"
"Yeh, him an' me stuck together."
One by one they mustered. The names of the absentees were repeated in gruffer accents. "That you, Billy?"
"Nope. Billy was last man from camp."
"No, sir, he was right aside me up until ten minutes ago."
"Well, he's all right."
"Shore—shore. Prob'ly trailin' some strays. Show up by daylight."
Somebody began to sing:
"Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie,
In a grave six foot by three..."
It was protested instantly. They were jaded, and an uneasy fear rode each of them. "What fool is that? Lord a'mighty, shut up! Cow critters don't deserve no melody tonight."
The crest of the storm had passed some little while ago; the rain lessened. Thunder echoed from a remote distance, and it seemed to be getting lighter. And so the hours dragged by, the Circle G crew sodden to the skin, riding weary paths in the trampled earth, and every now and then one of them would announce discovery of another member, only to be contradicted. Talk came in shorter spurts. Silence grew the more prolonged, though on occasion there was a crackling rapid-fire exchange of comment. Anything to relieve the tedium.
"What started this cussed party, anyhow?"
"Somebody spit over the wrong shoulder, I reckon."
"Yo' ain't funny, Baldy. Say, did anybody hear a sorter yippy- yip about ten seconds before it happened?"
"Ask Joe Priest. He was on circle then."
"I oughter been out there singin' bass," opined Quagmire, riding into the conversation. "It never would of happened. Tom—hey, Tom."
"Present and accounted for," drawled Tom.
Quagmire drew alongside and his arm rested on Tom's shoulder. "Knew yo' was ridin' with me. But I kinda lost yo' fo' a piece and I..." But he was not given to sentiment. That was as far as he would go.
Tom swore at him. "You galoot, I'm riding a good horse."
"Sho'. An' the good Lord was watchin' yo' too. Else yo' pony wouldn't he'ped none."
The squealing of the chuck-wagon wheels announced Old Mose's approach. He had smelled them out somehow and was coming on the dead run. How or where he had found his horses no one knew. His falsetto voice assailed them.
"Ain' yo' boys got nuthin' else to do but run offen the earth? Gittin' sho'ly tough when doctor has to foller with the grub."
The rain still fell, and there wasn't a dry twig within twenty miles. But the cook knew his business. Presently a fire twinkled directly under the wagon bed, shielded from the downpour. When it had grown enough to threaten the vehicle, Old Mose drove clear of it, threw on the coffee pot, and in ten minutes hailed them. "Come an' wa'm yo' gizzards."
The first gray beam of false dawn crept out of the cast. In a half hour it was light enough to take stock and recount noses. Nothing was said for a good five minutes, and in the end it was Major Bob who brusquely broke the silence. "Guess Billy's out followin' a stray bunch. We'll look. Quagmire, Tom, Joe Priest—you—Carolina—light out that way. Rest of you spread."
They strung to the four corners of the gray and sodden morning. Tom galloped directly back upon the trail—the broad trail flailed by the stampeding herd. The mark of ruin was on the earth, the grass churned into the mud, here and there a cow that had gone down in the rush. Tom rode steadily, tired clear to his bones. Drab tendrils of rain hung raggedly from the dark sky; it would be a sullen day.
Of a sudden he came to a coulee half awash with water. And he stopped dead, his eyes fastened there. Then he turned, pulled his revolver and shot thrice, spacing each shot. The extended riders swung and converged toward him. Those tarrying at the chuck wagon sprang to saddle and came on the dead run. Tom waited until they had assembled before pointing to the coulee.
"Pony threw him, I guess. Must've been tangled in the herd. Never had a Chinaman's chance."
Billy—the skeptic Billy who forever liked to contradict Quagmire—was sprawled in the coulee's bottom, half covered with water and mud, arms outflung, face down. And it was Quagmire who first got from his horse and descended. Somebody broke back for the chuck wagon, returning with a pair of shovels. And while the rain sluiced over the earth the crew stood grimly about as the grave was dug and Billy lifted into it. It was a hard silence to break, a difficult place to say what had to be said. When the last shovel of earth had been tamped down, Major Bob took off his hat.
"If anybody wants to say a prayer, let him do it. I reckon nobody wants to, though. Well, men have got to die, and men have got to be buried. Where is a better place than here? We'll see the boy again, make no doubt of that. It's the same story for us all. The candle burns strongly, but the candle burns fast."
Quagmire's voice rose angrily. "Well, Billy was a good gent—a good gent! Put another shovel o' dirt on that grave, Red. He shore was a good gent. He'll ride in marble halls! Dammit, Red, put another shovel o' earth on that grave! It's awful cold this mornin'!"
V. MURDER IN THE