Trouble Shooter (1974) by Louis - Hopalong 04 L'amour Read Free Book Online Page B

back in there that are hundreds of acres in extent. After we find it, what then?"
    "We'll build a good-sized corral out here," Hopalong said, "but we'll also make a fair corral back in that clearing, mostly by working the limbs of the mesquite together. Probably we can find a place that will need only a little work to keep it safe so the cattle won't stray."
    Towne chuckled. "I get it. You're figurin' to keep most of the cattle back inside so nobody will know how many you're gettin' out. Is that it?"
    Cassidy nodded. "It seems to me," he said, "that a certain
    hombre might let us get out, say, four hundred head or better. Then someone might run them off before we could begin to collect. I don't figure to let anybody know how we're fixed."
    "Good idea." Towne started to speak, then said nothing further, but when he got up and wiped his hands on a handful of grass, he said, "I'll head off toward Chimney Butte. I figure that might be a good place to look."
    "Go ahead," Hoppy said. "I'll work farther east."
    Hopalong got to his feet and glanced at Sarah Towne. "Thanks," he said, smiling. "That was the best meal I've eaten in a long time. Pike sure found a good cook when he found you."
    She flushed with pleasure. "Pike likes good food," she said. "He's a big eater, and I like that. It's no pleasure to cook for a man who picks over his food. He's like you--he never leaves anything on his plate."
    Hopalong saddled Topper again and, putting the bit between his teeth, slipped the bridle over his ears. "It's a long time since you've been in the brush, Topper," he said, "but you'll get a taste of it today."
    He went down the bank and waded the horse through the ten-foot-wide Picket Fork and up the opposite bank. The trees were thick, but he rode through them and found himself facing an impenetrable wall of brush. As he skirted it, searching for an opening, he studied the varieties he saw. Before him were thousands of acres of black chaparral, dense thickets of mingled mesquite, towering prickly pear, low-growing catclaw with its dangerous thorns that hook into the hooves of cattle or horses, and colima with its spines. Everything here had a thorn, long and dangerous, some of them poisonous, all of them needle--
    pointed. Once within these close confines, there were no landmarks, nothing but a man's own trail to guide him.
    Walls of jonco brush, all spines and ugly as sin, devil's head, and yucca; it was all here in a dense tangle. And under it moved a myriad of life-forms: rattlesnakes, javelinas, and many varieties of birds and lizards. It was a morass without water, a maze without plan, a trap that could grip and hold a man for days. Once lost, only chance could help a man escape. Even when fairly cool where there was a breeze, within the black chaparral the air was close and sweat streamed down your body, soaking your clothing. Thorns snagged at the clothes and skin. You jerked free from one thorn to be stabbed by another. Only heavy leather, hot as Hades, offered protection. This was exactly like the dreaded monte of Mexico and Texas.
    Hopalong rode slowly along that thorny rampart, alert for any opening that might allow him to enter. Twice he believed he had found what he wanted, but each time it proved to be only a deviation in the wall of brush, and there was no entry. ' As he skirted the chaparral he thought of the problem that faced him. The wild cattle of the brush country had lost all domestication. They lived for the wilderness, and he had known of cases where, when removed from the brush, the cattle simply lay down and died, refusing to be driven despite torture and beating. And they were utterly savage, fighting anything that came into their path, possessed of the speed of a deer and the agility of a panther. He who has not encountered wild cattle in their native habitat can have no idea of their nature.
    Now the wall bellied out before him, and swinging wide to skirt it, Hopalong suddenly saw a projecting corner of rock.