American Indian Weekly Vol. 1, No. 2

AMERICAN INDIAN WEEKLY

BY COLONEL SPENCER DAIR

VOL. I THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY, CLEVELAND, OHIO, U. S. A. NO. 2

Copyright, 1910, by the Arthur Westbrook Company, Cleveland, Ohio.

TRACKED TO HIS LAIR

OR

The Pursuit of the Midnight Raider

By COL. SPENCER DAIR

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS.

The Midnight Raider—A daredevil Indian chief, known as Scalping Louie, who breaks from the Indian reservation and proceeds to steal cattle and burn houses, being finally brought to his well-deserved end by a cowboy who has the assistance of an aged scout.

Sam Bowser—Owner of the Double Cross ranch, in Arizona, who is roused from bed by an eerie cry, finds a spectre hovering over his cattle corral and while he is quieting his cowboys, sees his cattle stampeded by the apparition. Starting in pursuit, he trails one bunch of cattle to a dangerous swamp in which he comes near losing his life by being sucked into a mud hole, then is nearly burned to death in a fire set to drive out the Midnight Raider and finally has the satisfaction of seeing one of his cowpunchers send the miscreant to his doom.

Sarah Bowser—His wife.

Henry Hawks—Owner of the Star and Moon ranch, whose buildings are burned by the renegade Indian chieftain. He joins with Bowser in the trailing of the raider to his lair.

Amy Hawks—His wife.

Deadshot Pete—Cowboy on Double Cross ranch, who fires the bullet that ends the raider’s life.

Sandy—Foreman on Double Cross ranch.

Pinky—Cowboy in the Double Cross outfit.

Ki Yi—Foreman on Star and Moon ranch, who helps Deadshot.

Dude—Cowboy on Star and Moon ranch.

Grouch—Cowboy on Star and Moon ranch.

Slippery Nig—Half-breed scout, with a grievance against Scalping Louie, and is called by Deadshot to run him down.

CHAPTER I.

A MIDNIGHT ALARM.

“O-u-e-e!”

Piercing and shrill, from the tense stillness of the night sounded this eerie wail.

In terrified alarm, Sam Bowser rose in his bed to his elbow.

As he remained thus, trying to decide whether the awesome shriek was a cry of distress from some human being or was an imagining of his mind, his wife awoke.

“What was that?” she gasped, excitedly.

“You heard it, too?”

“I—I thought I heard something. It sounded like the very soul being drawn from some woman. U-ugh! It makes me shiver to think of it.”

“Well, there aren’t any women nearer than thirty miles, except you, so it couldn’t be that.”

“But some one might be carrying a woman off or murdering her. Just because Amy Hawks is the nearest one we know of, doesn’t make it so there mightn’t be some poor creature being killed.”

To this, the man made no response, and together they listened intently for a repetition of the awful wail.

“Guess it must have been some coyote got kicked while he was smelling round the cattle. This is the fi——”

But the words literally stuck in Bowser’s mouth.

Again the shriek, bloodcurdling in its gruesomeness, rang out ere he could finish what he purposed to say.

This time there was no mistaking the cry.

It seemed to come from a woman in awful distress and to be close at hand.

“There’s some mischief afoot!” exclaimed the man, as, heedless of his wife’s protests, he leaped from his bed, seized his rifle and rushed to the door.

Yet, when he threw it open, there was nothing to be seen!

The silence and the darkness of the night were overwhelming—as only the silence and darkness of the plains of Arizona can be.

Sam Bowser was the owner of the Double Cross ranch. With no neighbors nearer than thirty miles, he and his wife, Sarah, lived in the home ranch house. This building faced the South. To the right, and some sixty feet distant, was the bunkhouse, where the cowpunchers lived when not on the range. To the North and between the two houses was a horse corral. Directly back of this was a second corral for the cattle, so large that it seemed more like a big pasture enclosed by barbed wire than a yard.

Only the day before had Bowser’s men driven the pick of his herds back to the home ranch in order that they might be shipped away to the great cattle markets of the Middle West.

Scarcely had the ranch owner opened the door than lights blazed in the bunkhouse, followed an instant later by the rush of the cowpunchers, as, guns in their hands, they crept cautiously from their shanty to learn the cause of the alarm.

“Steady, boys! Don’t go to shooting up the country!” warned Bowser, running across the yard to join his men.

“What did you make of it, Sam?” demanded a tall, leathery cowpuncher, who served as foreman.

“You’ve got me, Sandy. The missus ’lows it’s some woman being murdered.”

“But there ain’t any women round here,” protested another of the men, who had been christened “Pinky” by his fellows because of his fondness for decorating his saddle and bridle with anything of the color.

“That’s just what I told her,” declared the ranchman, evidently glad to learn his opinion found support. “But she ’lowed that didn’t make any difference, that one or a dozen could be brought here. I sort of had an idea, it might have been a coyote.”

“Wal, it warn’t no coyote,” drawled the third of the boys attached to the Double Cross outfit, who revelled in the title of Deadshot Pete. “I been on these plains too long not to know every tone and variation of the songs them sneaks sing.”

“Then what was it?” demanded Sandy. “Seems to me, if it was some man or woman being done to death, they’d keep up more of a continuous yelling.”

“Unless it’s too late,” commented Deadshot, significantly.

This suggestion that perhaps the gruesome wails which had roused them all from their sleep might have been the dying protests or appeals for help of some human being caused the men to become silent.

“Don’t see how we can do any good so long as we don’t hear the thing again to give us a definite idea of its direction,” remarked the ranchman, after a period of several minutes peering into the darkness and listening had been productive of neither sight nor sound. “Guess we’d better get back to our bunks and wait till daylight.”

“Reckon you’re right, Sam,” returned his foreman. “It’s either too late, as Deadshot says, or we must hear it again so’s we can get our bearings.”

But neither the owner nor the outfit of the Double Cross was destined to get any more sleep that night!

While talking, the men had been looking toward the South.

Chancing to turn so that he was facing the cattle corral, Pinky suddenly uttered an exclamation of wild fear, then clutched Sandy by the arm, wheeling him about, as he pointed Northward with trembling hand.

Amazed at such action on the part of their bunkmate, the others followed his gaze.

Apparently floating through the air, directly above the cattle corral, was a white spectre!

CHAPTER II.

THE RAID.

“Ghosties!” gasped Sandy, in a voice scarcely above a whisper.

“No wonder we couldn’t place it—but I knew it warn’t no coyote,” asserted Deadshot.

For several minutes the men gazed at the awesome thing as it flitted hither and thither.

“By the blood of my mother! But I’m glad the crittur never took it into its head to visit us on the range,” breathed Pinky.

“Same here,” chorused Sandy and Deadshot.

“It means trouble—you see if it doesn’t,” continued the latter. “The only other time I ever see anything like it was the night before the Piutes dashed down on old man Turner’s ranch and killed all but me and a low-down gambler called Crooked Joe.”

This assertion that the eerie spectre floating before their eyes was not the first one he had seen instantly claimed the ears of his companions, though they kept their gaze riveted on the apparition.

“What was that one like?” breathed Pinky.

“It was all lit up, like fire. The Piutes said it was a curse put out by their Medicine Man.”

“But how’d you manage to get away from the Injuns and escape the massacre?” inquired Sandy, in whom Deadshot’s tales of his experiences always aroused suspicion of their truthfulness.

“Me and Crooked Joe sloped as soon as the light in the sky was discovered. Mark my word, man dear, every time you sees anything in the air like ghosties, it means trouble!”

“Well, you aren’t going to get out of it this time by digging out,” broke in the ranch owner, who had been listening with increasing alarm to his cowpuncher’s story, and feared the effect it might have upon the rest of his men. “I need you all to-morrow to get the bunch to the loading station. So don’t think you can sneak off.”

“We can’t eh?” demanded Deadshot. “Who’s a going to stop me if I want to go?”

“I am, with this rifle I’ve got in my hands,” returned the owner of the ranch, calmly. “I don’t want any trouble. But I won’t stand for any of this nonsense about spirits, trouble and running away. If any one of you tries to get a pony from that corral to-night, I’ll put a shell into him. Just keep that in your heads.”

The unexpected turn of affairs had amazed the other cowboys, and, forgetting all about the spectre, they watched the ranchman and his helper.

“You kinder got the drop on me, Sam,” growled the cowpuncher, “so I ’low I’ll do just as you say. Besides, I didn’t mean nothing anyhow.”

“All right, Deadshot. No hard feelings. Let’s go over to the cattle corral and see what this white thing is.”

“What, go chasing a ghostie?” gasped Sandy, the very thought of any man daring to investigate an apparition seeming akin to sacrilege to his superstitious mind.

“Sure. Why not? It won’t eat you.”

“Well, you can go if you like. But I ain’t particular,” returned the foreman. “That ain’t any part of my job.”

The necessity for any one to go, however, was suddenly obviated.

With an abruptness that was in keeping with its coming, the spectre vanished.

“Skulls and crossbones! Did you see that? It just floated away and we looking straight at it!” moaned Sandy.

The uncanniness of the apparition’s disappearance impressed even the ranch owner, and he was wondering as to the course he should pursue to reassure his men, when Pinky whispered:

“Let’s go into the house before the blamed thing lights on us here!”

The thought that the mysterious spectre might appear face to face with them unnerved these men of the plains—men to whom danger in any tangible form was a delight—and they were on the point of dashing into their bunkhouse in utter panic when they were recalled to their normal selves.

Simultaneously with the disappearance of the spectre came a pitching and swaying among the cattle, followed instantly by terrified bellowing and the wildest confusion.

“The ghosties cast a spell on the cattle!” whimpered Sandy.

“Didn’t I say it meant trouble?” demanded Deadshot, exulting at the very evident fulfilment of his prophecy.

“Don’t stand there talking! Get your ponies and come on! We’ve got our work cut out for us! What it means I don’t know. But I do know, if we don’t steady those cattle down lively, they’ll stampede—and then we’ll have a merry time!” declared the ranchman, leading the way to the horse corral.

A moment, fearing that the animals had, indeed, been cursed, held the cowpunchers inactive. Then, their lifelong training on the plains coming to the fore, they followed their employer and were soon racing to the terror-stricken cattle.

Their fear increasing with every moment, the animals were plunging and lowing, the crashing of their horns sounding like the barking of pistols above the dull roar of the pounding of their hoofs.

“There must be wolves in amongst ’em!” yelled Sandy, riding up close to Bowser. “It’s breaking out all over the corral, not in just one place.”

“Well, whatever it is, we’ve got to quiet the cattle, or I won’t have one fit to ship away. Get busy, boys!”

But just as the ranchman finished speaking, Pinky let out a yell.

“Look, right in the middle of the corral! The ghostie again!” he cried.

Turning their eyes in the direction indicated, the horsemen beheld the same white form seemingly floating over the heads of the cattle.

“It must be the Old Nick himself!” moaned Sandy. “There’ll be no quieting them critturs, Sam, with that thing hovering over them.”

Too well did the ranch owner realize this fact—and he also realized that unless he did something to remove the suggestion of the supernatural from the mysterious apparition, he would be unable to control either men or cattle.

Just what the thing was, he did not know. Yet, being a man of an unimaginative mind, he decided to find out.

Without saying a word of his intentions to his assistants, the owner of the Double Cross threw his rifle to his shoulder, took a hurried sight at the spectral form and pulled the trigger.

As the report rang out, the cowpunchers leaned forward in their saddles, watching the form intently.

To shoot at a ghost required more courage—in view of the traditions relating to ill-luck and curses such an act brought down upon the head of one so rash—than they possessed, and the cowboys fully expected some dire punishment to be instantly meted out to their boss.

For an intense moment, there was no apparent result from the bullet sent at the floating form.

Then a mocking laugh rent the air, and the white spectre vanished as completely as before!

“There’s more human than spook to that voice!” exclaimed Bowser.

“Skulls and crossbones! I have it! It’s a raid!” cried Sandy.

CHAPTER III.

THE RANCHMAN’S VOW.

The ranchman’s assertion that the spectre was of human invention and their foreman’s declaration that it was but a ruse to cover the raiding of the cattle, produced an instantaneous reaction upon the cowpunchers.

“By my saddle, you’re right!” assented Deadshot. “That’s what the trouble is. Somebody’s trying to lift the cattle. I’ve seen ’em started on a stampede too many times not to recognize the symptoms. And here we’ve been afraid of a spook, giving the thieving cusses just the chance they planned. Say, Sam, I wouldn’t blame you for sacking the whole kit and boodle of us!” he added, his shame and contrition evident in his voice.

“Don’t waste time being sorry, get busy and help calm the cattle!” returned his employer. “You boys ride round ’em, and get ’em to milling, if you can. I want to keep my eyes open for another sight of Mr. Spook.”

Deeply chagrined to think they had allowed such a trick to be played on them, for they realized that when the story got out, the Double Cross outfit would be the laughing stock of all the other cowmen in the region, the cowboys set about their work with a will.

But the job was too big for them!

Even before they had ridden fifty yards along the barbed wire fence, they learned that their efforts would prove fruitless.

With crashing of horns, snorting and bellowing, a bunch of the cattle dashed out onto the plains, the outlines of their bodies just visible as they plunged along.

As though this breaking away from the herd had been prearranged, other bunches raced away into the darkness.

“The fence has been cut! The fence has been cut!” roared Sandy, at the top of his lungs.

“There’s no use trying to hold the critturs. Come on back to Sam and we’ll find out what he wants us to do,” returned Deadshot.

Aware that with the cattle dashing away in all points of the compass, it was an impossible task for them to hope to round them up or even to try to hold the ones that had not already gone, Pinky and Deadshot rode back with their foreman until they came to the ranch owner.

“What’s to do?” asked Pinky, after the fact that the barbed wire fence had been cut in several places had been reported to Bowser.

“Lay for Mr. Spook!” snapped the owner of the Double Cross. “I’ll give any one of you a thousand dollars for his dead body! We’ll each of us take one side of the corral and patrol it.”

“But we haven’t got out rifles, only our six shooters,” interrupted Deadshot.

“Then ride for all your worth to the bunkhouse and get them! While you’re there, just tell the missus what’s up. Then hurry back. And say, bring some torches,” he shouted, as the thought that lights might prove useful came to him, for his man was already racing for the guns.

“That’s some trick,” muttered Sandy, while they waited. “Wonder was there more than one of ’em?”

“Sure,” asserted Pinky. “There was probably three or four of ’em working on the fence, cutting the wires, while the other played ghostie!”

This opinion of the numerical strength of the Midnight Raiders, which found ready acceptance from Bowser and Sandy, was later to be proved false, however!

They were destined to learn that the daredevil cattle thief was a lone man!

“That being the case, aren’t we wasting time trying for a shot at them?” demanded the foreman. “They probably made their getaway along with that first bunch of cattle.”

“Maybe you’re right, Sandy,” assented the ranchman. “But I’ve got a sort of hunch that spook will show himself once more.”

And the owner of the Double Cross was right—though the method chosen by the spectral raider to disclose his whereabouts was different from that which Bowser expected!

Lingering at the houses only long enough to make a hurried report to the ranchman’s wife and then to get the rifles and torches, Deadshot was soon back with his companions.

“Here, everybody take a torch and hurry to your posts,” ordered Bowser, as his man rode up. “Sandy, you go to the West side; Pinky to the North; Deadshot to the East, and I’ll take the South. Keep, your eyes peeled—and remember the thousand dollars!”

Even as he spoke, the ranchman touched a match to his torch and when the flame flared up, it threw the four men into bold relief.

“How long shall we patrol?” asked Deadshot.

“Till I wave my torch in the air. Then ride to the house. We’ll get some grub and pick up the trail as soon as it gets daylight.”

Before any of the quartet could take up the task of patrolling the cut fence, however, the cattle thief made himself known.

Bang! boomed a gun from the North.

In amazement, the cowboys wheeled.

And even as they did, a bullet whistled through the air, carrying the sombrero from Bowser’s head.

“Douse the torches! It gives ’em a line on us!” cried Deadshot in alarm, lest a second shell might find its man.

No urging did the ranch owner or any of his men need to make them obey. The shot had been too well aimed and had come too close to its mark for them to care to make targets of themselves for gunmen who could show such skill at night.

But, as they hurled the torches to the ground, the ranchman rose in his stirrups.

“You may have the drop on me now!” he roared, shaking his fist in wrathful impotence in the direction whence the shot had come. “But just wait! Nobody can steal Sam Bowser’s cattle, scare his men, shoot at him and get away with it!

“So long as there is a breath of life in my body, I’ll trail you—and I’ll run you to your lair, mark my word!”

The tone in which the owner of the Double Cross spoke, the dim outline of his tall figure as he swayed in his saddle, his arm beating the air in his fury, as he vowed revenge against the miscreants who had stampeded his cattle and tried to murder him, afforded an effect dramatic in the extreme.

Yet, scarcely had the last words left his lips than again a gun barked and a bullet “pinged” viciously as it sailed over his head!

“Man, dear, but this is too much!” hissed the ranchman. “After them, boys!

“We’ll hit their trail and stay on it till the last skulking coyote of ’em is furnishing food for the vultures!”

CHAPTER IV.

PREPARATIONS FOR PURSUIT.

As the cowboys, who knew him so well, heard the grim words uttered by the doughty ranchman, they realized that he would keep his vow of trailing the cattle thieves until he had, indeed, run them to their lair.

“We’re with you, Sam,” declared the foreman.

“That’s what!” chorused the other cowpunchers, while Deadshot added: “There can’t no bunch of cowlifters say they fooled Deadshot Pete—and got away with it!”

“But as I was a going to say,” continued Sandy, “it strikes me we ought to round up the cattle and get ’em back before we start out.”

“And let those sneaks get away while we’re doing it?” snapped the owner of the Double Cross. “I’d rather get them than all the cattle on my ranch!”

“That’s all right, Sam. I know how you feel; that is, I know how I’d feel in your place. But they can’t get away. We’ll trail ’em from Old Mex to Canada—if we have to. A few hours’ start won’t do ’em any good, consequently. So I say, what’s the use of letting the cattle run wild?”

Already the animals which still remained inside the raided corral were beginning to quiet down, the cause of their disturbance having been removed, and the reasoning of the foreman, therefore, was sound.

“Reckon Sandy’s right,” opined Pinky. “The critturs won’t run very far on such a night, and unless there are enough of the devils to follow each bunch, daylight won’t find ’em more’n a mile or so from home.”

Several minutes the ranchman sat pondering, vouchsafing no reply, while his men anxiously awaited any word or movement that would indicate their boss’s intentions.

“That’s horse sense, I suppose,” he exclaimed, at last. “But I hate to let the skulks think I care more for my cattle than for getting the first opportunity to pump them full of lead.”

“But ain’t it more businesslike to get both the cattle and them?” inquired Sandy.

“It ain’t only the business end of it—it’s the effect it will have on any other thieves who might take a flier at cutting out your critturs, that you’ve got to think of, Sam,” declared Deadshot.

“If you hit the trail without rounding up the cattle, so many cowlifters would strike for the Double Cross there wouldn’t be room for ’em on the home ranch. They’d argue as how you couldn’t chase ’em all and so some of ’em would be able to drive off a bunch of critturs—and for the value of the cattle they’d be willing to risk pursuit. On the other hand, if you first round up the cattle and then the cowlifters, getting both of them, there won’t a dirty greaser nor a renegade buck dare to lift a finger against the Double Cross outfit.”

Though this argument was crude and expressed in a roundabout way, it’s meaning was perfectly clear.

“There’s no getting away from the fact that your reasoning is sound, Deadshot,” responded Bowser. “So we’ll wait till daylight and then round up the cattle.” Though his reluctance to abandon immediate pursuit was evidenced by his next words, as he added: “But I do hate to let a man take a shot at me—let alone two—without sending at least one shell in return.”

“If that’s all what’s worrying you, cheer up,” rejoined Pinky. “You seem to be forgetting it was you who started the game by taking a pot at the spook, when it was floating around.”

“That’s so. I didn’t think of that,” returned the owner of the Double Cross. And from the tone of his voice, his men understood that the memory had appreciably tempered his regret at being obliged to await the coming of day before picking up the trail.

Quieter and quieter were the cattle in the raided corral becoming, a sign the cowpunchers interpreted to mean that the thieves had taken their departure after the last shot. Consequently when the end of an hour brought no fresh outbreak, the ranchman ordered his men to return to the horse corral and gather together the things they would require when they took up the pursuit.

To their amazement, when they rode into the yard, there was not a light to be seen in either the home or bunkhouse.

“You don’t suppose they’ve run off with the missus, too?” suggested Pinky, in alarm.

But their anxiety as to the safety of Mrs. Bowser was allayed even as the cowboy spoke.

“Who goes there?” demanded a voice, meant to be stern, but in which there was an unmistakable tremor, from the direction of the home front door.

“It’s all right, Sarah. It’s the boys and I,” hastily replied her husband.

“Glory be! I’ve been scared almost out of my wits,” exclaimed the woman.

“Scared?” repeated the men, in surprise.

“Yes. Just after Deadshot had left, I heard some one ride into the yard. Thinking it was either him or one of you, I rushed to the door. ‘Get inside if you don’t want a bullet in your head!’ shouted a voice.”

“The fiend!” ejaculated the ranchman. “Did he shoot at you?” he asked, anxiously.

“No. I didn’t give him the chance. When I found it wasn’t any of you, I ducked down, slamming the door and then I put the lights out.”

“But what became of the lights in the bunkhouse?” inquired Sandy.

“I put them out, too,” returned Mrs. Bowser. “You see, after I got over the first surprise and scare, my nerve came back. I grabbed one of Sam’s guns, crept across the yard, extinguished the lamps and then took up my stand in the doorway, determined to take a shot at any one else who came along.”

“Thank goodness, you had the foresight to speak before shooting,” exclaimed her husband. “It was the last thing I ever thought of your being on guard.”

“Oh, I may be a ‘’fraid cat,’ but I’m no fool,” asserted the woman.

“That’s what you’re not, Sarah.”

“And there ain’t many other women with the nerve to stand watch in the dark after they’ve been threatened,” chimed in Sandy, in evident admiration of the bravery displayed by the wife of the ranch owner.

During the conversation, the men had dismounted and Pinky had relighted the lamps in the bunkhouse, which they all entered, leaving their ponies standing, ready saddled in case of emergency, by the door.

In the light of the lamps, Mrs. Bowser was able to notice for the first time that her husband was hatless, while the others all had their sombreros on.

“How’d you lose your hat, Sam?” she queried.

“Shot off,” replied the ranch owner, laconically. And then, in response to her eager inquiries, he told her all that had transpired in the cattle corral.

“Land sakes! How many of them do you suppose there were?” she asked, as the narration of the exciting incidents of the stampede, the disappearance of the mysterious spectre and the shooting was concluded.

“There must have been four or five, at least, judging from the number of openings there were in the fence,” answered Pinky, eager to take part in the conversation.

But his remark was ignored in the attention given to Deadshot.

“How many did you see riding through the yard, Mrs. Bowser?” he asked.

“Only one.”

“Which means the gang has split up,” declared Sandy.

“Oh, you can’t tell anything by that,” asserted the ranchman. “The fellow may have been cutting through to join the rest of his bunch. Just stow your saddlebags with grub, shells and cartridges, then look to your guns. We must be off with the first break of day.”

In obedience, the cowpunchers set about making their preparations for the pursuit, while the ranchman and his wife crossed the yard to their home.

With the first flush of light in the East, the Double Cross outfit rode forth to gather the strayed cattle, the majority of which they found, as Pinky had prophesied, within a few miles of the home-ranch.

Driving them back to the corral as quickly as possible, the men took stock and found they had recovered all but about fifty.

“That’s probably all the ‘lifters’ thought they could handle and make their getaway,” exclaimed Sandy.

“More likely it means there weren’t so many of the raiders as we think,” rejoined his boss. “Come on, now. We’ll pick up the trail of this bunch of fifty and see where that brings us.”

And with the promise to his wife that he would have a couple of the cowboys from Henry Hawks’ ranch come over to protect her and the cattle, the owner of the Double Cross dashed away to pick up the trail of the Midnight Raider, followed by his cowpunchers.

CHAPTER V.

ON THE TRAIL.

Having learned, when they rounded up the stampeded cattle, that the openings in the corral fence were on the Southern side, Bowser and his men rode in that direction, spreading out into a wide semicircle in order that they might cover as much territory as possible, thereby locating the more quickly the trail followed by the fifty head which had not been found.

Back and forth they dashed, peering through the lessening darkness for some sight of the missing animals and straining their ears for a distant bellow or sound that would give an idea to their whereabouts. And as the light grew stronger and stronger, they were finally able to scan the grass for the wide course where the cattle had trampled it in their flight.

Several times, one or another of the searchers thought they had found the trail, only to learn, after following it for a few minutes, that it had been made by one of the bunches of steers they had driven back.

Such was the position of the men that Deadshot was on the extreme right, or Western, end of the line, while Pinky, Sandy and the owner of the raided ranch stretched away toward the East, in the order named.

As an hour of daylight went by without the discovery of the track, the cowmen began to realize that the pursuit of the cattlelifters would be no easy task, judging from the manner in which they had managed to conceal the trail of fifty odd steers.

The realization, however, only made them the more determined to pick up their track, and they settled down to the work grimly.

At first they had ridden to and fro, rising now and again in their stirrups to survey the plains about them.

Finding this method of no avail, the ranchman rode over to Sandy and ordered him to begin and systematically ride back and forth, advancing about three hundred yards at each turn, telling him to pass the word to Pinky, who would, in turn, inform the cowboy on the extreme West.

“If we can’t pick up the trail within five miles, we’ll try the same tactics to the West and then to the North and East. A man can’t put fifty steers in his pocket and carry ’em off. The trail’s round here somewhere—and it’s up to us to get busy and find it!” snapped Bowser, as he whirled his pony and started back.

Before the new order could be communicated by Sandy to Deadshot, however, the latter suddenly rose in his stirrups and waved his arms wildly. But, failing to attract the attention of his companions, he whipped out his six-shooters and fired three times.

The barking of the guns produced the desired effect.

Wheeling their ponies, the others beheld their comrade waving his hands to them in signal to ride to him.

“Have you found ’em?”

“Can you see ’em?”

“Did you shoot at any one?”

These questions were shouted at the cowboy who had resorted to such startling methods to attract the attention of his fellows.

“Do you think I’d be sitting here, waiting for you all to come up if I’d sighted the cattle or fired at any one?” demanded the cowpuncher, with fine scorn.

“Then what have you brought us over here for?” demanded the owner of the Double Cross, his anger rising as he began to suspect some trick on the part of his cowman.

“Now, don’t get het up, Sam,” chuckled Deadshot, with a calmness that exasperated his bunkmates. “I ain’t seen the cattle, as I said, but I’ve found their trail.”

“Where, man?” asked Pinky.

Ere the cowpuncher, who was enjoying to the full the whetting of the other’s curiosity, could reply, however, the men rode up to him.

There, stretching away as far as their eyes could see, was a lane, some twenty feet wide, where the fleeing cattle had trampled the grass down as cleanly as though the path through the waving mesquite had been cut.

“Say, they certainly was going some,” exclaimed Sandy, surveying the trail intently. “There must have been at least four or five lifters at their heels to make them steers hit it up like that.”

“Well, don’t sit there on your pony, arguing,” cut in the ranchman. “Get down and search the ground for horse-hoof tracks. Deadshot, you’ve always been bragging how all-fired clever you were at picking out trails, now show us if you can produce.”

This calling upon their comrade to “make good” in the matter which formed his favorite topic for bragging, brought smiles to the faces of the other cowboys, and they sat back in their saddles preparatory to awaiting the result of Deadshot’s scouting.

But their delight in the situation was rudely banished.

“Don’t sit there like a bunch of tenderfeet waiting for a guide to drum up some game,” snapped Bowser. “Get down and see if you can’t beat Deadshot to it. You want to remember there’s such critturs as the Injuns call ‘heap talk’ men.”

The owner of the raided ranch was not the one, however, to leave all the work to his men, and even as he spoke, he slipped from his saddle and was soon crawling about on his hands and knees, peering at the trampled grass, now and then pushing it aside as he scanned the ground intently.

Spurred to action by the stinging words of their boss, the three cowpunchers were doing the same thing, and for several minutes the only sound audible was the panting of the ponies as they strove to recover their wind after their hard run.

“Must have been a shoeless broncho,” grumbled Pinky, as no imprints of a horse’s hoof rewarded his search.

“What did you expect, cavalry horses?” grunted Deadshot, contemptuously. “You mark my word, before we round up this gang of cowlifters, we’ll know we’ve been on the trail!”

“For once, you’re talking sense,” grinned Sandy.

And chafing one another good-naturedly, the cowboys continued their careful examination.

The task, however, of discovering any tracks of ponies in the trampled and cloven-hoof cut ground proved too great for the powers of the plainsmen and at last they abandoned the attempt.

“It’s no use wasting any more time,” declared the ranchman straightening up. “After all, it doesn’t make any difference how many of the sneaks there were. Whether their band numbers two or a dozen, we’re going to get them! We’ve found their trail, that’s the main thing.”

Chagrined to think he had not been able to “make good” on his oft-repeated assertions of his ability to track anything that went on legs, Deadshot was finally obliged to mount his pinto and ride after the others, who had mounted as soon as their boss had called the search off, and were following the well-defined trail through the grass.

“Where do you reckon the cowlifters are headed, Deadshot?” asked Bowser, as the man overtook them.

Determined not to venture another opinion not founded on good grounds, the cowpuncher stood up in his saddle and scanned the horizon ahead and to the right and left.

“Course, there ain’t no way of saying for certain,” he began, “but, from what I know of cowlifters’ little ways and the lay of these here plains——”

“Oh, cut it short! We ain’t no pleasure party being toted round on a ‘rubberneck’ expedition,” growled Pinky. “If you’ve got any idea, out with it.”

“As I was saying, from my knowledge of the tricks of cattle raiders and these plains,” repeated Deadshot, ignoring the interruption of his bunkmate, “I should say the lifters were headed for the Sangammon bottoms. They ain’t more than forty mile away, and there’s swamps in there with grass high enough to hide an elephant.”

With various comments, the others received this suggestion of the destination of the Midnight Raider, but no one ventured an open contradiction.

“I reckon you’ve hit the mark this time, Deadshot,” finally declared the ranch owner. “Though I’d hoped the devils might have headed for the old Indian catacombs, over in the Haunted Valley. It would be an all-fired sight easier to rout them out from the tombs than from the Sangammon swamps—and not so dangerous to us. A man’s liable to strike a mudhole and be sucked under before his pals could find him.”

“Perhaps Deadshot ain’t right,” suggested Pinky, to whom his boss’ words brought up unexpected dangers.

But none of the others offered any comment, and in silence, each man absorbed in his own thoughts, the quartet, bound on their mission of revenge, swept along over the trampled trail.

CHAPTER VI.

THE AVENGERS ARE DELAYED.

After an hour’s hard riding, the avengers came upon the body of a steer lying in the trail.

The sight of the beast’s carcass seemed to madden the owner of the Double Cross ranch.

“Look at that steer!” he yelled. “Never was a better beef grazed the plains! And here it lies, dead from being driven to death! Curse the fiends! I’ll make them suffer for raiding my cattle and then running them to death! After them, boys, don’t dally to examine, the steer!”

“Easy, Sam, easy,” returned Sandy. “We’ll get ’em, don’t worry. But it won’t do any harm to look at the crittur. A few minutes won’t make any difference, and we can tell from the heat of the body about how far the lifters are ahead of us.”

Scarce a moment after the foreman had voiced this suggestion was it before Deadshot was on the ground.

Still smarting under the sarcasm of his boss over his failure to pick out the horse tracks when they struck the trail, the cowboy had no sooner gained the side of the prostrate steer than he was upon the mesquite. And, even as Sandy spoke, with skilled hands, he was running over the hide.

Eagerly the others awaited his verdict as to the time the animal had been lying there.

But Deadshot spoke never a word.

“Well?” snapped his master, unable to restrain his impatience when several minutes had passed and the cowboy had not voiced his opinion.

“The body’s cold, Sam. But it ain’t stone cold.”

“Which means we’ve got some tall riding to do if we expect to overhaul the ornery cusses before they lose themselves in the swamp,” commented Pinky.

“That shows how much you know,” retorted the ranchman. “We’re a good twenty mile from the home corral, which is about half way to the bottoms, according to Deadshot, and the steer is cold. Consequently, the rest of the bunch must have passed here a good six hours ago. No man, unless he had wings, could overtake the cowlifters before they reached Sangammon, eh, Sandy?”

“Reckon you’ve got it about right, Sam,” returned his foreman. “The raiders had all of six hours start, and judging from the condition of this steer, here, they’re running the critturs to the limit. If that animal ain’t thirty pound poorer than when he left the corral, I don’t know anything about cattle.”

“Then you think we haven’t gained on them?” demanded Bowser, anxiously.

“None to speak of.”

“And, what’s more, we won’t be able to cut down enough of their lead to make it worth while to kill our ponies trying to,” interposed Deadshot. “Sandy’s telling it straight when he says the devils are running the steers for all they can. If we don’t come across more than half of them before we get to the swamps, I’ll miss my guess.”

A moment the ranchman pondered over these opinions.

“That being the case, then, there’s no use of keeping to the trail,” he finally exclaimed.

“Why not?” demanded the others, surprised at the words as they remembered their boss’s vow.

“Because we’ve got to go over to Henry Hawks’ and get him to send some of his men to guard Sarah and what’s left of my cattle in the corral.”

“And if you’ll take my advice, you’ll get old Hen to join us with a couple or so of his boys,” asserted Deadshot. “Rounding up these lifters ain’t going to be any child’s play—especially when they’re hiding in the swamps!”

“Righto,” rejoined Bowser. “The more of us, the better. Come on, every jump we take along this trail now is leading us farther from the Star and Moon. By striking for it now, we ought to reach Hen’s in time for dinner.”

Accordingly, the avengers abandoned for the time being the trail made by the cattle thieves, and, turning their ponies straight for the South, set out to obtain protection for the lone woman left on the Double Cross home ranch and reinforcements to their own numbers, that they might the more quickly run the miscreants to cover.

The tax upon their ponies incurred by galloping through the tall grass and sagebrush was greater than in following the cattle track and, in consequence, their speed was less. Notwithstanding that handicap, however, they made fairly good time, and the sun was directly overhead when they cantered into the yard of the Star and Moon home ranch.

At the sound of the rapid hoofbeats, Mrs. Hawks came to the door.

“Well, Sam Bowser, if I’m not glad to see you,” she exclaimed, cordially, as soon as she made out the identity of the riders. “Put your ponies in the corral and come right in. You’re just in time for dinner. I guess I’ve got enough, if I haven’t, I can mighty soon get it. I’m——”

Believing that the woman’s volubility would soon wear itself out, Bowser had waited for her to pause of her own accord. But when, after extending her hearty invitation for the riders to come in and eat, she started on a fresh tack, the ranchman decided to interrupt.

“Isn’t Hen home?” he asked, the failure of the man to appear suggesting the far from welcome idea.

“No. He and the boys have been gone three days driving in the cattle for shipping. I expect him back this afternoon, though. He said it wouldn’t be more than three days at the longest.” Then, noting the look of disappointment that her words brought to her neighbor’s face, she asked hastily: “There isn’t anything wrong, is there? Nothing’s happened to Sarah?”

“Sarah’s all right; at least, she was when we left at daybreak. But some ornery cowlifters got into my home corral last night and made off with fifty head.” And briefly he told Mrs. Hawks the uncanny circumstances of the raid.

With eyes growing bigger at each word, the good woman listened to the account of the mysterious spectre.

“Sakes alive! and you’ve left Sarah alone with that thing liable to drop in on her any minute?” she exclaimed, in consternation. “If I were she, I wouldn’t stay there by myself a minute. No, sir, not a single minute. It isn’t fair of you to make her, Sam. I’d just like to see Henry Hawks leave me alone under such conditions.”

This vigorous scolding for failure to afford protection to his wife shamed the owner of the Double Cross, and hot flushes glowed beneath his weather-tanned face as he strove to excuse himself.

“That’s just what I came over here for,” he stammered. “I wanted Hen to let me have a couple of his boys so’s I could use mine to trail the raiders.”

“It makes no difference what you intended to do,” declared Mrs. Hawks. “You men are all alike. You seem to think that we women can take care of ourselves, no matter what happens. And, as though it weren’t enough to make us live way out in the plains, you go and leave us whenever you feel like it. If I were Sarah, I’d let you know what I thought of such treatment, especially with a spook hanging about.”

“Well, thank goodness, you’re not Sarah,” muttered Bowser under his breath, though aloud he said: “To tell the truth, Amy, I was so riled up over being tricked the way I was that the only thing I thought of was getting on the lifters’ trail. But, after what you’ve said, I see it wasn’t just right toward Sarah.

“Pinky, cut out one of Hen’s ponies from the corral and ride back to the ranch just as fast as you can travel. Remember, I shall ask how long it took you when I get home,” he added, noting the look of disappointment and anger that spread over his cowboy’s face at the instructions.

But Pinky knew that orders were orders, especially when delivered by the owner of the Double Cross ranch, and, without any ado, wheeled his pony, rode over to the corral, picked out one of the Star and Moon bronchos and without as much as a glance toward his grinning bunkmates, dashed from the yard.

Yet, to himself, the cowboy was telling in no uncertain words or polite language what he thought of “meddling old women.” And, so many were his ideas upon the subject, that he was still intent upon expressing his opinion when he reined into the yard of the Double Cross, some three hours later.

CHAPTER VII.

THE MYSTERIOUS SPECTRE REAPPEARS.

Even the delicious dinner Mrs. Hawks set before her neighbor did not reconcile him to the unexpected delay caused in his plans by the absence of the owner of the Star and Moon. Moreover, he realized that there was reason for the sharp reprimand he had received on account of his lack of thought for the safety of his wife—and this realization did not tend to mollify his ill-humor.

Noting this and fearing that she had, perhaps, said too much, Mrs. Hawks sought to make amends.

“You mustn’t take what I said about leaving Sarah too hard, Sam,” she exclaimed, contritely. “But, being left alone on the ranch is my sore point, and I’m so accustomed to taking Hen to task for it, that I don’t always stop to think what I’m saying. Of course, I know you were all cut up about your cattle—which is no more than natural—and I reckon Sarah has been alone so often she won’t mind, especially as it’s the daytime. If it was night, now, it would be different.”

“It certainly would be,” returned Bowser, with emphasis. “I had no idea of leaving Sarah alone. I told you that. It’s Hen’s being away that upset my calculations. What time did you say you expected him back?”

“During the afternoon. That is, to-day is the third day he’s been gone and he said it wouldn’t take longer than three days to round up the cattle, they’re on the near range, you know, and drive them in.” And then, woman like, she began to borrow trouble, adding: “You don’t suppose that spook could have made any trouble for him, do you?”