Ute Peak Country by Lauran Paine

Author:Lauran Paine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2019-03-18T17:46:08+00:00

Chapter Eleven

It was 5:00 a.m. and not quite sunup yet when Lex and Red came hiking up to the cabin. Miggs wasn’t there; he was up the canyon, looking after the horses, but he saw them and called softly before they awakened McCoy and Beverly Shafter with their knocking.

They went to where Jack stood, waiting. While still fifty feet off, Red Morton said from a worried face: “Fred’s gone.”

Miggs looked blankly from one cowboy to the other. “Gone. What d’you mean gone?”

“He didn’t bed down last night. When Lex and I left the cabin, we never thought to go an’ look at his blanket roll. We just naturally figured he was sleepin’.”

“But he wasn’t,” put in Lex Murphy. “And this morning we could see that his blankets hadn’t been slept in at all.”

Something triggered alarm in Jackson Miggs. He turned without another word, went hiking out where Tolman’s animals were, and counted them. One horse was not there. He went over where the pack outfits and saddles were hanging and counted those, also.

Evidently this had not occurred to the pair of cowboys, for now Red Morton stepped over, flicked a dangling rope, and said: “Hell, yes, Lex, he’s ridden off somewhere. This is where he hung his rig yesterday when we come on back from shaggin’ that Holt outfit.”

Whatever Murphy’s comment might have been, he didn’t get a chance to voice it.

Jackson Miggs said roughly: “Saddle up, boys. Saddle up an extra pair of horses for Frank and me. Be fast about it.”

Miggs was already striding rapidly toward the cabin before Morton and Murphy completely understood. He entered the cabin, went over and shook McCoy awake, made a motion for Frank to be silent, and told McCoy about Fred Brian’s disappearance.

Frank sat up, ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, ran bent fingers through his awry hair, and fixed Miggs with a watery glare. “He hasn’t been took off, too, has he? Why would Holt want a big …?”

“Wake up,” snapped Miggs, fighting to keep his voice low enough not to awaken Beverly behind her partition. “Of course no one took him, Frank. Shake the cobwebs out of your skull, will you? He’s gone over to settle with Holt.”

McCoy sat abruptly upright. “Alone, Jack?”

Miggs said impatiently: “Get dressed. Lex and Red are saddling up for the lot of us. Fetch your guns and hurry outside.”

McCoy tumbled out of bed, reached for his trousers, which were across the back of a nearby chair, jumped into them, and groped around under the bunk for his boots.

Jack went back outside. He had his long-barreled rifle, his six-gun holstered to his hip, and his big knife. He needed nothing more and took nothing more.

Murphy and snub-nosed Red Morton passed along toward Miggs from their cow camp. They, too, had six-guns, but their other supporting weapons were the ubiquitous Winchester carbines of cattlemen. This gun, one of the best short-range guns of its kind, was almost indestructible, but it could not, within a

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