CHAPTER XII

Teddy’s surprise did not prevent him from going into immediate action. He had not been hurt by the bullet, which had been just low enough to draw blood and not stun him. He jumped Flash forward and swung to the left, leaning far over his saddle.

Roy, when he saw that his brother was not injured, followed. But there were no more shots.

On the other side of the herd of cattle they halted. There were a hundred cows between them and the hidden gunman, for the shot could only have come from the one direction. Thus protected, they pulled rein.

“Better slide off,” Roy said in a low voice. He dismounted, as did Teddy. “Let’s see your head.”

Teddy submitted to an inspection.

“Skin’s broken, but that’s all,” Roy pronounced, relief in his voice. “By golly! who in thunder did that?” His anger flared up suddenly. There is a feeling of helplessness about being shot at from ambush which fills one with a hot rage. “That’s the trick of a skunk! Tried to get you from the back! By golly—”

“Well, he missed,” Teddy said shortly. His lips were pressed tightly together. His eyes flashed. “If we had guns on I’d like nothing better than to do a little hunting. I know where that shot came from. Some place in that grove of trees.”

“What grove? Oh, there?” Roy pointed to a group of trees the tops of which could be seen over the backs of the cattle. Teddy nodded grimly.

“I’d take a bet on it. That’s the only place anyone could hide. Say, gun or no gun—”

He rested his hand on the saddle horn and was about to mount when Roy seized him by the arm. With Teddy’s just desire for vengeance there had arisen in Roy a more calculating mood, taking the place of his former anger. He was now the steadier of the two.

“We’ll do nothing as foolish as that, Teddy,” he said quietly. “We wouldn’t have the ghost of a chance. If I wanted to remove someone, I’d like nothing better than to have him come for me in the open, unarmed, while I was hidden and had a gun. That’s the way our friend will figure. No, not this time. We’d have to ride across that open space to reach the woods, and if there is someone there who wants to see us pushing up daisies, he’ll sure get his wish. We’ll have to let him go.”

“But—”

“I know. It’s tough. But you know we can’t do anything. Think it over.”

“You mean to say we’re going to do nothing—not even find out who fired that shot? Just go away and pretend nothing happened?”

“But, Teddy, what can we do? Now listen. I know how it feels to be shot at. In fact, it may have been me instead of you at whom that bullet was directed. We were pretty close together, you know. Well, it’s a nasty sensation, I’ll admit. Makes you want to beat up something or other. But look at things calmly. That gunman is over in that grove of trees, you say, and I think you’re right. Unless, of course, he ran when he saw that he’d missed. You and I are here without guns. Problem—to get to him without his getting to us. Do you know the answer?”

“Reckon it hasn’t any,” and Teddy grinned ruefully. “He’s got us cold, all right. Though I’d be satisfied to find out who fired that and take my chances of getting him later. However, I can at least get my hat.” He mounted, and started to ride back.

“No, you don’t, Teddy! That hat is right in line with his fire. No telling how long he’ll wait there, hoping we’ll go by again. You let that hat rest awhile.”

“And go home without it? Not for a million bucks! If I have to stay here till night I want that hat. These cows look as though they were here for the rest of the day. I’ll just stick here, behind ’em, and when it gets dark I’ll go after my Stetson.”

Roy looked at his brother with an amused smile. This was a new side to Teddy’s character, one which he had never seen before. The hat was a small item, yet Roy knew that Teddy meant exactly what he said. He would never leave without that hat.

“Well,” Roy laughed dubiously, “if you think that much of it, I guess we’ll hang around. As you say, the dogies seem to be pretty well settled, or else they might take a notion to trample that headpiece of yours to dust. We’ll wait.”

Teddy nodded, as though Roy had said exactly what he had expected him to say. The fact is, it was hard for Roy to understand this mood of his brother’s. He thought that by agreeing with him he might discover his purpose in staying. Roy could scarcely believe that Teddy would wait five or six hours simply to recover a hat.

Yet there was no more reason behind Teddy’s stubbornness than just this. It relieved him a great deal to feel that he was not giving in entirely to his hidden enemy—that he was contesting with him the supremacy of the small plot of ground that lay between the cattle and the grove of trees. If Teddy had ridden on without his hat, it would have meant that the gunman was the admitted ruler. Thus the Stetson stood for one of the vital principles of Teddy’s life—don’t give up in the face of danger.

The two boys picketed their ponies near a bush, and sat down about two hundred yards from the cattle. Now and then a cow would leave the herd and trot toward them, but seeing they made no motion, it would trot back again. There was no danger from these Durhams, even to a man on foot. The sun was too warm, the air too pleasant, to waste energy on the pursuit of human beings.

The cattle moved slowly, when they did move, to find new grazing spots, and the boys had no trouble in keeping behind them. An hour in one place, then a shift, when the ponies were led to the new resting place, and Teddy and Roy again threw themselves on the ground and talked. Roy made no mention of the ridiculous course of conduct they were following. He was wise enough to let a thing rest when he could not understand it.

The hat had fallen quite a distance back, but Teddy had the spot marked. The day grew colder as the sun approached the horizon. Gradually the mountains took on that blueish tint that heralds the twilight. The moon arose, a pale, washed-out circlet in the azure sky. As the day darkened, the moon became brighter, and when it finally shone, an incandescent orb, Teddy arose. Night had come.

“Now,” he said casually, “I’ll get my hat.” Roy stared at him curiously.

“Going to ride over or walk?”

“Walk. I know just where it is, and I might miss it on horseback. You stay here and watch the ponies, will you? Too bad we didn’t get in any fence repairing, but we can do that to-morrow.”

He sauntered off, a strange figure in the moonlight. The cattle were some distance off now, and this was fortunate, for Durhams do not like men on foot near them at night.

Now Teddy was directly in front of the grove of trees, and he halted to gaze at them steadily. If anyone were there, waiting, this should draw the fire. It was not quite so foolhardy a proceeding as it appeared. The light was very poor and the distance too great for accurate shooting. For a moment the boy stood there, then moved on. Not a sound disturbed the stillness of the night. There was no sign of life in the grove of trees.

The hat was lying where it had fallen, near a bush. It looked like a mound of white sand as Teddy approached. He picked it up, dusted it off, felt with his finger the bullet hole, then clapped it on his head and started back. A voice, low, distinct, came to his ears, and he dropped to the ground with the limpness and suddenness of a man whose legs have turned to water.

The voice came from the group of trees. It was hard, as a whiphandle is hard, and was applying itself to the scourging of someone.

“You’re still a fool, I see! A skunk I can stand. A fool isn’t even worth killin’—his hide’s no good. Understand?”

“But Jerry, you told me—”

Jerry! That was it! Jerry Lefton! That’s who the speaker was! He and—

“I told you,” the voice went on “not to try anything without me or Bill with you! Just because you’re known as Mob Jamisson, bad man, you think you can’t miss, hey? Well, here’s one you missed, and it’s going to mean plenty of trouble for us, too! Even if you did plug one of ’em, what about the other? He’d get away sure, an’ the fat would be in the fire. It is, anyhow, I guess. They know we’re after ’em now. Before they only suspected it. Mob, I could crease you myself for this!”

“Aw, lay off!” The voice was raised in anger. Mob had evidently come to the limit of his endurance. “You’ll crease nobody! Get that? An’ you won’t bawl me out no more, either! If there’s any creasin’ to be done, I’ll do it! I’m a partner in this scheme, same as you are. If I got an idea that I think is a good one, I can try it, I reckon.”

“You’d better let me or Bill look over your ideas for you,” Jerry Lefton said dryly. “If you were alone I wouldn’t care what you did. You could hang yourself for all of me. But the way things are fixed now, if the rope goes around your neck it goes around ours too. Me, I don’t like that kind of a necktie. You hear me?”

“I hear you,” Jamisson growled. “I bungled, I admit it. But I thought I could get that fool easy. Must have been a bum cartridge. Well, the next time you want a thing done you’ll do it yourself. I had—”

The voices grew indistinct as the men moved on. An isolated word would come back to Teddy, then the tones ceased altogether. Still the boy lay there, thinking.

“Jerry Lefton and Mob Jamisson,” he muttered slowly. “Now we’re out in the open. The cards are on the table. He wanted to kill me—and Roy—because we suspect what they are up to. Uh-huh.”

He got to his feet and settled the hat more firmly on his head. Carefully, quietly, he walked back. Roy was waiting for him.

“Got it, hey? Bet you had a hard time to find it. I should have gone to you. Golly, I was afraid you’d got lost!”

“No, I didn’t get lost,” Teddy answered musingly. “And I didn’t have a hard time to find the hat,” he added. “I knew just where it was.”

“You did? Then what in thunder—”

“Roy, you haven’t got a spare badge, have you?”

“Huh? What’s that? What kind of a badge?”

“A detective badge.” Teddy chuckled. “I just joined your force.”