Fifteen Western Tales, March 1954 — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

_The boy heard his father’s pounding step behind him, and then a detaining hand on his shoulder. He turned. The older man shook his head. Chip hesitated while his father mouthed the words with difficulty. | “Don't run! Apaches! Four bucks.” The youth listened, anger boiling up in him like water in a kettle. But, fear came up too! . | His father knew Apaches—with reason! Three bucks had captured him once, long ago, when Chip was only ten. They'd cut out part of his father’s tongue and crushed his throat. That was why his father was known as Whispering Buckman. It had taken him three years to learn how to talk again, and he still had difficulty although more than six years had passed. Only. his family ‘could understand his mouthings. ” “They’ ve got my horses,’ remembering his loss. = “Trail slow then,” cautioned the older man. “Slow!” he repeated waving a warn- ing finger. “Don’t catch up or get near them before sundown.” Chip slowed his pace, estimating the speed of the horses and trying to match it. The youth looked ahead; the turned stones, crushed grasses, cut and trampled sod was easy to follow. The trail swung off the ridge and made a half-circle into a wash. The thieves had worked it cleverly, drifting the horses over the ridge away from the hillside where they had grazed, then hazing them into the wash. In the soft sand, they’d trotted the horses to a safe distance, then pushed them into a distance-eating lope. Chip stepped out, running fast for an hour, tntil the little valley opened into a ®pigger one. His father was coursing slightly to‘one side, keeping to the higher country, looking ahead. — Chip, .had heard many times the story of the older man’s awful experience. How he had trailed a fleeing Apache right into argued Chip, — eas : =< ay a ise 22 as a — Se a =< - a ee —+~- = . Sa a i Sie =F z + RACE THE FIERCE WIND! “2 HOS Fa Wee ae — 53 The back-scuttliig buck had fooled his father into the ambush set by two other Apaches. There had been a terrible fight, : ending in capture—and then night-long torture. Miraculously Thad Buckman had seen an opportunity, grabbed a knife and slashed his’ way out, leaving one Apache dead, another dying. The third had ‘lost a thumb and finger. Chip thought how odd it was that in that terrible melée in which his father had fought for his life that he never lost hold of the Apache’s thumb and finger that he’d sliced off, and which now lay. dried and withered on the mantle of the fireplace in their ranch house. The youth had often heard his father jest, “The Apaches out-traded me in that set-to.” Ever since, his father had been trying to even up with the Indians, dis- — appearing for long weeks at a time, and coming home silent and satisfied with everything. E SUDDEN appearance of another wide band of horse tracks coming | into the trail Chip was following jerked him back to reality. The new trail was older, probably made the day before. Chip’s horses had made fresh tracks on top of them that morning. The youth stopped and waved to his father, who hurried down the slope to him. — The older man back-trailed a distance and came back, shaking his head. “Big horse-stealing party. Fifteen in this bunch, six of ‘em with riders.” Chip’s father pointed to the trail coming down from the north, “They’re from Anvil Rock ranch.” Then he waved to the east, the direction both bands of stolen horses had been driven. “To Sycamore Canyon. Main camp of Indians there—probably at Blue Hole.” Chip knew the place well. widened out. The creek pooled up there, ne | its banks carpeted* with lush grass. It was * a natural gathering-place for man or beast MIC IOOK<S.(COMh »a trap the wily Indians had set for him. aS 2 : Se = ()