Part 4

“There you go again,” grunted Indigo. “The habit o’ receivin’ trouble has sorter grown on you. Look what they did! Why, it bruises a man’s instincks. It shore does. It makes me so mad I could fry aigs on my bald spot! If they’s got to be a lot of furniture busted, why not mosey over an’ bust some o’ their furniture for a change?”

Silence. Indigo shook his head. “Yore thinkin’ they’re too many. Shucks. I stood off that daggone town by myself once. Don’t tell me you can’t pulverize Big Elk.” He waited for this to penetrate, seeing here and there a glimmer of heat. Of a sudden he struck the bar with his fist. “Tomorra I’d like fifteen men to ride out a ways with me. We’ll set a deadline. When they try to cross it we’ll give ’em an education in manners. I’m drinkin’ with those fifteen. Who are the said gents?”

A yell went to the roof. Collectively, Jingle Bell moved toward the mahogany. Indigo nodded, noting from the corner of his eye that Gabe Wales alone stood back. He beckoned the man. “You--come here. Yore goin’. Oh, yes you are!”

* * * * *

Beyond noon of the following day, Jingle Bell men rode across the prairie; the distance to Big Elk was approximately twelve miles, the riding a piece of hot and sultry business. For part of the way it was a rolling land, then it fell into a series of pot holes and broken arroyos scattered with ancient rubble. To left and right were miniature bluffs! Indigo’s attention was immediately drawn to them and he turned to a near man. “Henry, you strike off there an’ see what’s to be seen.”

“It’s all dum foolishness,” grunted Gabe Wales. “They won’t be comin’. And we can’t go into Big Elk by daylight.”

“Don’t worry none, Albert,” murmured Indigo. “I’ll satisfy yore cravin’ for lead candy.”

“My name,” snapped Gabe Wales, “ain’t Albert.”

“What an awful mistake yore mammy made.”

Henry, the flanker, was about five hundred yards removed when he wheeled and came racing back. Indigo stood in his saddle, to find dust kicking up along the western horizon; a compact body of horsemen advanced at the trot. Indigo pointed to a small depression directly ahead that would serve as a line of defense. “There’s our deadline. Now we’ll give these boys lessons in geography.”

The men of Jingle Bell raced for shelter, dropped to the ground and, at Indigo’s order, spread out. Big Elk’s partisans came forward at redoubled speed and Indigo’s green eyes flickered with a rare joy. “Now, take it easy. Aim low--we ain’t awful mad. Not yet. Let ’em see the dust kickin’ up. That provokes mature reflection.”

* * * * *

A burst of shots shattered the sultry silence of the prairie. Streamers of sand flicked across the earth, considerably short of the charging party. It didn’t hurt anybody, but Indigo saw them flinch. He warned his men a second time. “Keep it low. We don’t want blood, we want to educate ’em. Now--let ’em eat more gravel!”

The sputter of gunfire spread along the arroyo’s rim. This time the sand sprayed beneath the traveling hoofs; and then the Big Elk party swept down into a depression less than fifty yards removed. Dust billowed high, as if from ponies stopping on their haunches. Nor did Big Elk’s cavalry rise and come on. They had taken shelter. Stetsons bobbed up and down.

Indigo nodded to his companions. “Petey an’ Ort, snuggle up to yore rifles. Lay a little dirt down their necks.”

The two gentlemen designated went to work with pleasure and alacrity. Indigo saw a riffle of dust rise beside an exposed Stetson; saw that Stetson drop like a plummet. “Not too close, Ort. Just sorter close.”

Indigo, however, forgot that he was as plain as any bull’s eye target. In a moment he toppled backward into the arroyo with his eyes full of sand and a weird string of words in his mouth. The Big Elk contingent had returned compliments. Gabe Wales grinned surreptitiously, at which Indigo asked the man why he didn’t go live in Big Elk if he liked those folks so well. Gabe muttered something that Indigo didn’t hear. For the military chieftain of Jingle Bell saw a figure rise and drop away over to the south of both lines. It looked as if a flanking move was in progress. Crouching, Indigo raced along the arroyo, past his men, and a good hundred yards farther. The arroyo made a gradual turn, approaching nearer the depression in which the Big Elk party was stationed. Now and then Indigo hooked his chin over the parapet, at intervals catching sight of the Stetson still going south. Each time he ducked back and ran parallel, until the sound of firing grew fainter and he lost sight of his men. Coming to a shallow stretch, he discovered a convenient boulder ten yards removed and made for it on his stomach. The Stetson bobbed up again; Indigo put a shot over there and reached the rock’s substantial shelter. A bullet promptly came back to him, as close as any bullet could reach without turning corners. Indigo swore mellifluously. “The gent means business. Oh well----”

He stuck out his hat, and immediately lost a piece of the brim. “I give him credit for good shootin’,” was Indigo’s wrathful observation. “But if he’s pickin’ on me----”

He was diverted by the sight of the Big Elk cavalcade spurring out of their stronghold, in full retreat. A few shots burst across the still air--then they were gone, with Indigo trying to count them and thus reassure himself no trickery was in the air. “I guess they got the lesson. Well, by golly!”

* * * * *

For no sooner had the representatives of Big Elk abandoned the scene, than the Jingle Bell party followed suit, riding with equal rapidity in the opposite direction. It looked to Indigo almost as if his companions had developed a chill. Such haste was unseemly, and he expressed himself to that effect. “Now it’s a private argument. That gent is a persistent cuss. Why don’t he go home?” Almost immediately Indigo conceived the idea of taking a roundabout pasear and catching his man by surprise. He retreated from the rock, crawled along the depression and traveled some fifty yards before sighting a cluster of rocks ahead. With commendable alacrity he made for this shelter. But when not quite ten yards away, the hungry aperture of a gun barrel popped into his face, grasped by a set of lean fingers. A Stetson rose up, and Joe Breedlove’s familiar features confronted him. “Well--uh----” wheezed Indigo.

Joe’s face was coated with dust, it was Joe’s fighting face, grim and flinty. But that expression remained but a moment. A light sparkled deep in the blue eyes and of a sudden Indigo felt extremely guilty. Joe always made him feel guilty in a situation like this.

“Picture of a man keepin’ out of trouble,” murmured Joe gravely.

Indigo defended himself hotly. “Don’t look like yore doin’ needlework, either. Did you happen to ventilate my sky piece?”

“I guess so. It must’ve been yore artillery that breezed me, likewise.”

“Good gosh!” said Indigo, a trifle shaky. “Le’s smoke.”

They manufactured their cigarettes in complete silence. Joe was matchlessly serene; presently he began to smile. “Old Home week. I’ll bet you organized this picnic, Indigo.”

“Say, that was a fine ruckus you boys staged las’ night in Jingle Bell!”