Collection 1986 - The Trail To Crazy Man (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page A

been nobody around.”
    During the three days that followed the trip to Painted Rock, Rafe Caradec scouted the range. There were a lot of Bar M cattle around, and most of them were in fairly good shape. His own cattle were mingling freely with them. The range would support many more head than it carried, however, and toward the upper end of Long Valley was almost untouched. There was much good grass in the mountain meadows, also, and in several canyons south of the Crazy Man.
    Johnny Gill and Bo Marsh explained the lay of the land as they knew it.
    “North of here,” Gill said, “back of Painted Rock, and mostly west of there, the mountains rise up nigh onto nine thousand feet. Good huntin’ country, some of the best I ever seen. South, toward the end of the valley, the mountains thin out. There’s a pass through to the head of Otter Creek, and that country west of the mountains is good grazin’ land and nobody much in there yet. Injuns got a big powwow grounds over there.
    “Still further south, there’s a long red wall, runnin’ pretty much north and south. Only one entrance in thirty-five miles. Regular hole in the wall. A few men could get into that hole and stand off an army, and if they wanted to hightail it, they could lose themselves in that back country.”
    Rafe scouted the crossing toward the head of Otter Creek and rode down the creek to the grasslands below.
    This would be good grazing land, and mentally he made a note to make some plans for it.
    ____________
    H E RODE BACK to the ranch that night, and when he was sitting on the stoop after the sun was down, he looked around at Tex Brisco. “You been over the trail from Texas?” he asked.
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Once aboard ship you was tellin’ me about a stampede you had. Only got back about sixteen hundred head of a two-thousand-head herd. That sort of thing happen often?”
    Tex laughed. “Shucks, yes! Stampedes are regular things along the trail. You lose some cattle, you maybe get more back, but there’s plenty of maverick stock runnin’ on the plains south of the Platte—all the way to the Canadian, as far as that goes.”
    “Reckon a few men could slip over there and round up some of that stock?”
    Brisco sat up and glanced at Rafe. “Sure could. Wild stuff, though, and it would be a man-sized job.”
    “Maybe,” Caradec suggested, “we’ll try and do it. It would be one way of gettin’ a herd pretty fast, or turnin’ some quick money.”
    They were days of hard, driving labor. Always, one man stayed at the cabin keeping a sharp lookout for any of the Shute or Barkow riders. Caradec knew they would come, and when they did come they would be riding with only one idea in mind—to get rid of him.
    In the visit to Painted Rock he had laid his cards on the table, and they had no idea how much he knew or what his story of Charles Rodney could be. Rafe Caradec knew Barkow was worried, and that pleased him. Yet while the delayed attack was a worry, it was also a help.
    There was some grumbling from the hands, but he kept them busy cutting hay in the meadows and stacking it. Winter in this country was going to be bad—he needed no weather prophet to tell him that—and he had no intention of losing a lot of stock.
    In a canyon that branched off from the head of Crazy Man, he had found a warm spring. There was small chance of it freezing, yet the water was not too hot to drink. In severe cold it would freeze, but otherwise it would offer an excellent watering place for his stock. They made no effort to bring hay back to the ranch, but stacked it in huge stacks back in the canyons and meadows.
    There had been no sign of Indians, and Rafe avoided their camp. Yet once when he did pass nearby, there was no sign of them. It seemed as if they had moved out and left the country.
    Then one night he heard a noise at the corral and the snorting of a horse. Instantly he was out of bed and had his boots on when he heard Brisco swearing in the next room.