Read Online Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 07 - Sudden Rides Again(1938) by Oliver Strange - Free Book Online

runnin’ into hot lead any minute.”
                 “How come?” Sudden demanded. “We’ll be on our own range.”
                 “Yeah,
but that scum in Hell City figure it belongs to them,
an’ act accordin’.”
                 “Meanin’?”
                 “One
of our boys—Tim Jellis—was wiped out an’ two more wounded less’n three months
back doin’ the very thing we’ve bin sent to do,” Frosty explained. “Rustlers? Yeah, an’ wearin’ the devil’s own brand.”
                 “Why
not build a line-house an’ have a coupla men stay out there allatime?”
                 “We
tried it, but the durned place catched fire an’ burned down—green wood at
that.”
                 They
had left the open range and were traversing a sandy waste broken only by
patches of scrub and bunchgrass. In front of them the ground rose gradually
towards a range of barren hills, the slopes of which were gashed by steep-sided
gorges. Sagebrush, mesquite, and an occasional juniper were the only trees;
here and there a giant cactus flung wide its arms as though to bar their
progress. Frosty pointed to the grey, forbidding heights ahead of them.
                 “Somewheres
in there is Hell City,” he informed.
                 “Too far for a visit?”
                 “No,
too dangerous,” was the reply. “Also, we got work to d Hullo, what’s that
mean?”
                 Sudden
followed the levelled finger; less than a mile away a tiny column of smoke was
spiralling into the clear air, and then came a faint bellow.
                 “Damnation!”
Frosty swore. “They’re swappin’ brands right under our noses. C’mon.”
                 He
dragged his Winchester from the sheath under the fender of his saddle, and was
about to spur his pony when Sudden interposed:
                 “Wait,
we’ll take a peek at these hombres first; that smoke might be there for us to
see.”
                 Crouching
in their saddles and keeping, when possible, under cover of the scrub, they
rode to within a couple of hundred yards of the telltale fire. Here they left
the horses and stole forward on foot until they reached the mouth of a shallow
gully, the wall on one side of which afforded an excellent view. One glance
told the story. Two riders were holding a bunch of twenty steers, from’ which a
third was clumsily roping and dragging one at a time to the fire, where another
pair awaited it. One of these, when the animal had been thrown, tied it, and
his companion, drawing a glowing iron from the embers, bent over the prostrate
beast. The pungent smell of burning hair assailed the nostrils of the watchers.
                 “This
is a trap we mighty near ran our fool heads right into,” Sudden said. “On’y them two at the fire know anythin’ ‘bout cattle. They were
waitin’ for us, an’ where’s the other jasper?”
                 He
pointed to three saddled ponies standing apart. The spiteful crack of a rifle,
the bullet from which perforated the crown of his hat, provided the answer. A
spreading puff of smoke from the higher ground on the other side of the gully completed
their information. Sudden flattened himself behind a slight upward slope and
swore when a second shot hummed past his ears.
                 “Hell’s
bells, he’s above us an’ we can’t see him,” he said. “But we can stop the
brand-blottin’.”
                 He
pressed the trigger as he spoke and the man with the iron spun round and
dropped. His companion was already running when Frosty fired and whooped when
the target stumbled and pitched headlong, to move no more. At the first shot,
the three with the herd abandoned their charge and spurred their mounts up the
gully, leaving their look-out to fend for himself . A
steady stream of lead showed