Part 16 (1/2)

”Squatter don't let sunset find you here,” he read.

”It's about that time now,” he observed, squinting over his shoulder.

”It'd be a mistake to leave evidence like that around.” He tore down the sign and worked it into firewood with an axe. ”Now they can't do nothing to us for drifting in here by error,” he remarked to his companions. ”It wouldn't be fair.”

While four of them slept the other two remained awake, rousing a second pair after a three-hour period. In the morning the three wagons lumbered on. Near sunset they pa.s.sed another sign where the Three Bar road branched off to the left. Tiny pulled up the mules.

”Uproot that little beauty, Russet,” he advised. ”We're getting close to home.”

The carrot-haired guard descended and threw his weight against the sign, working it from side to side until the posts were loosened in the ground, pried it up and loaded it on the wagon.

”Quick work, Russ,” the big man complimented. ”For a little sawed-off runt, you're real spry and active.” He clucked to the mules and they settled steadily into the collars and moved on to the Three Bar. As they rolled up the lane the freighters could see the chuck wagon drawn up before the house, the remuda milling round the big pasture lot and a number of men moving among the buildings. The calf round-up was over.

The Three Bar men viewed the freighters curiously as they swung the mule teams in front of the blacksmith shop, noted the rifle in the hands of each guard and the second one in easy reach of each driver.

They knew what this portended.

The freighters had stripped off the wagon-sheet lashed across the top of each load and the Three Bar men moved casually toward the wagons, curious to view the contents.

”You boys get to knowing each other,” Harris said. ”These mule-skinners will be hanging out at the Three Bar from now on.”

The short man, known as Russet, removed his hat and scratched his head reflectively as he studied the first move in unloading his wagon.

Moore promptly uncovered his own head and revealed his brilliant red shock of hair, his freckled face breaking into a genial grin.

”h.e.l.lo, you red-hot little devil,” he greeted. ”I'm glad some one has turned up with redder hair than mine. Brother--shake!”

Russ looked him over carefully.

”Don't you claim no relations.h.i.+p with me, you sorrel hyena,” he said.

”I won't stand it for a holy second. Get a move on and help me s.n.a.t.c.h off this load.”

All down the line the Three Bar men were getting acquainted with the freighters, introductions effected in much the same manner as that between Russet and Moore. A thousand pounds of oats were tossed from the top of the first wagon and when the concealing sacks were cleared away there were three heavy plows showing underneath, the s.p.a.ces between them filled with s.h.i.+ning coils of fence wire. The second load consisted of a dismantled drill, a crate of long-handled shovels, and more barbed wire; the third held a rake and a mowing machine, more wire, kegs of fence staples and a dozen forks.

”The Three Bar will be the middle point of a cyclone,” Moore prophesied as he viewed the implements. ”Just as soon as this leaks out.”

”We fetched our cyclone openers with us,” Russ a.s.sured him. ”Let her buck.”

From the cook-shack door the girl viewed these preparations, then turned her eyes to the flat and visioned it with a carpet of rippling hay.

There was a clatter of hoofs and a rattling of gravel as five hors.e.m.e.n put their sure-footed mounts down the steep slope two hundred yards back of the house and followed along the fence of the corral. The five Brandons had cut across the shoulder of the mountain. The girl wondered at this visit as she heard Lafe Brandon, the father and head of the tribe, ask Harris to put them up for the night.

An hour later Harris and Lafe came to her door and she let them in.

”The Brandons are riding down to file on a quarter apiece,” Harris said. ”Art quit the wagon below their place as we came in and told the rest that we're going to farm the Three Bar.”

”Then you're doing the same?” she asked Lafe with sudden hope that her brand would have company in the move.

Old man Brandon shook his head.

”Not right off,” he said. ”Until we see how you folks pan out. We can't fix to handle it the way you do. We're filing to protect ourselves before some nester outfit turns up at our front door.”