From Hide and Horn (A Floating Outfit Book Number 5) by J.T. Edson

figured—which
he’d have to be comes to a point—’
    ‘ Is he always like this?’ Goodnight
groaned.
    ‘ You’re seeing him at one of his better
times,’ Dusty assured his uncle.
    ‘ Anyways,’ the Kid continued, after
giving a lofty sniff. ‘Seems like Chisum’d been to Throckmorton,
with them Mineral Wells steers and left again—trail bossing a drive
for some dudes who’d been around town for a spell.’
    ‘ Did you see the dudes?’
    ‘ Nope, Colonel, they’d pulled out afore
I got there.’
    ‘ Where was Chisum driving to?’ asked
Dusty, although he could guess at the answer.
    ‘ Out to Fort Sumner. He’d left two days
afore I got there, the dudes followed him later.’
    ‘ Damn it to hell, Dustine!’ Goodnight
barked. ‘You know what this means?’
    ‘ Yes, sir. Chisum’s got near on a
week’s head start on us.’
    ‘ It means a heap more than that. Chisum
knows that trail as well as I do. He can stick to a route we’ll
have to follow and make sure that everything’s spoiled after he’s
passed and afore we reach it. We’ll never beat him to
Sumner.’
    Dusty and the Kid exchanged
glances which showed their complete agreement with Goodnight’s
coldly logical summa tion of the situation. With Chisum so far in the lead, they
could not hope to push their herd fast enough to pass and beat him
to their destination. Nor would Chisum hesitate to use foul means
to slow them down. Unscrupulous he might be, but he was also a
master cattleman and would know ways to effectively hinder a
following trail drive. However, Dusty, the Kid and Goodnight sprang
from stock which did not mildly admit defeat. So they gave thought
to how they might still beat Chisum to Fort Sumner despite his
advantages.
    ‘ I near on went after Chisum and gave
him a mite of trouble collecting his herd after the stompede,’ the
Kid remarked.
    ‘ Which stompede?’ Dusty
ejaculated.
    ‘ The one I was going to start,’ the Kid
said calmly. ‘Only I figured you white folks’d likely not think I
was playing fair. And that I’d best make speed to tell Colonel
Charlie what I’d learned.’
    ‘ Damned Pehnane,’ Dusty grunted.
‘You’d be better hunting buffalo with—’
    ‘ Hey though!’ interrupted the Kid,
coming as close as the other two had ever seen to showing emotion.
‘If Chisum’s using your trail, Colonel, he’ll be going up the Clear
Fork of the Brazos and across to the headwaters of the Pecos, won’t
he?’
    ‘ That’s the trail Oliver Loving and I
blazed,’ Goodnight admitted bitterly. ‘And, knowing Chisum, that’s
the way he’ll go.’
    ‘ Only
you allus went up it earlier in the year,’ the Kid went
on.
    ‘ We did!’ Goodnight breathed, beginning
to guess what the dark youngster was leading up to.
    ‘ And you never had any Injun trouble
between the Clear Fork and the Pecos?’
    ‘ Not on that stretch.’
    ‘ Only this’s the time of
the year when the Kweharehnuh xi be making their big buffalo and
antelope hunting,’ the Kid went on. ‘If I know them, which I figure
I do, they’ll not take kind to having a damned great herd of cattle
drove through their hunting grounds.’
    ‘ That’s for sure,’ Dusty
agreed. ‘Which only makes things worse for us. Even if he manages
to sneak his cattle through, Chisum’ll make good and sure that
the Kweharehnuh’re all riled up by the time we get there.’
    ‘ So why go?’ said the Kid.
    ‘ Because there’s only one other way,’
Goodnight explained. ‘And it’d take us a damned sight longer to
head south and circle around the Staked Plains. We’d still not get
to Sumner on time.’
    The Kid’s face was as gently
innocent as a church-pew full of well-behaved choirboys and his
voice mild as he said, ‘I wasn’t figuring on going ’round the Staked
Plains.’

Chapter Five – Bad As It Is, It’s Our Only
Chance
    For a long moment neither Dusty nor Goodnight
spoke. Taken any way a man looked at it, the Kid had made a