With Hoops of Steel

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

The soft, muffling dusk settled slowly downward from the darkening blue sky and little by little smothered the weird gleam that rose from the gray-white plain. Away toward the east a range of mountains gloomed faintly, rimming the distance. Another towered against the western horizon. Cactus clumps and bunches of mesquite and greasewood blotted the whitely gleaming earth. In and out among these dark spots a man was slowly riding. Now and then he leaned forward and looked keenly through the growing darkness as though searching for some familiar landmark. The horse lagged across the heavy sand, with drooping head and ears. The rider patted its neck with a buckskin gloved hand and spoke cheerily to the tired animal:

“Hot and tired, ain’t you, old fellow? You want your supper and a big drink of water. Well, you oughtn’t to have wandered off the road while I was asleep. Now, I sure reckon we’ve got to bunk on a sand heap to-night and wait till daylight to find out where we are.”

Again he peered through the dusk, and a little ray of light came glimmering from far away toward the right. He knew that it must come from either a ranch house or a camp-fire.

“I don’t remember any ranch as far up toward the White Sands as that seems to be,” he thought. “It must be a camp-fire. We don’t know whose it is, old pard, but we’re goin’ to take chances on it.”

He rode on in silence, the bridle lying loosely on the horse’s neck. All the senses of the plainsman were on the alert, his ears were strained to catch the faintest sound that might come from the direction of the fire, while his eyes alternately swept the darkened plain and fastened themselves on the light. His horse pricked up its ears and gave a loud whinny, which was answered in kind from the direction of the fire. Presently the man shouted a loud “hello,” but there was no reply. “That’s queer!” he thought. “My voice ought to carry that far, sure!” He waited a few moments, listening intently, then, drawing in a deep breath, he sent out another long, loud call that bellowed across the plain and sank into the far darkness. Still there was no reply, but when his horse neighed again there was instant response. The animal had quickened its pace and with head up and ears bent forward was rapidly lessening the distance between them and the light. The rider could see that it was a camp-fire, and soon could distinguish the flickering of the flames, but, in the illuminated circle around it there was no sign of human beings nor shadow of moving life. He drew rein and again sent a full lunged, far-reaching “hello-o-o” across the distance. The moon, just showing a silver edge above the mountain tops, threw a faint glimmer of light across the plain, making visible the nearest clumps of bushes.

“I guess that would mighty near wake a dead man. If there’s anybody alive around that camp they sure heard me this time,” he thought, as he looked and listened with straining eyes and ears. But there was no movement about the fire, and another whinny was the only sound that came from its direction. “Mighty queer!” was his inward comment, as his hand sought the revolver which hung by his side, while a light pressure of spurs started his horse forward again. Suddenly there was a swift rustle of the bushes beside him.

“Stop! Throw up your hands!”

A man had sprung from a tall clump of mesquite, and the traveler saw the faint light reflected from a gun barrel pointed straight at his breast. He stopped his horse, but did not respond to the other summons; instead, his fingers closed quickly over the butt of his revolver.

“Throw up your hands, or I’ll blow a hole through you!”

“Well, the drop’s yours, stranger, so here goes,” and the traveler’s hands went straight above his head.

“That’s better! Now, what do you want here?”

“I saw your camp-fire and I reckoned I might get some water for my horse and some supper for myself.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Thomson Tuttle.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Attendin’ to my own affairs and lettin’ other people’s alone.”

“You allowed just now it was my drop.” There was a note of warning in the man’s voice....