The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

both animals a bait of oats. In the morning he would be at this again. And he still had not solved the problem of roping. He could not expect Teodoro to come to his aid a second time. He started slowly back to the bunkhouse.
    “ Señor —?”
    Drew raised his wet head from the bunkhouse basin and reached out for a sacking towel. “Yes?”
    León sat on a near-by bunk. “I have thought of something—”
    “Sounds as if it might be important,” Drew commented.
    “ Don Cazar, he has offered money—a hundred dollars in gold—to have off the Range that killer pinto stud. But that one, he is like the Apache; he is not to be caught.”
    “Can’t someone pick him off with a rifle?”
    “Perhaps. Only that has also been tried several times, señor . My father, he thought he had killed him only two months ago. But the very next week did not the pinto come to steal mares from the bay manada ? It must have been that he was only creased. No, he is a diablo , and he hides in the rocks where he cannot easily be seen. But there is a plan I have thought of—” León hesitated, and Drew guessed he was about to make a suggestion which he believed might meet with disapproval.
    “And this plan of yours?” Why had León come to him with it? Surely young Rivas had better and closer friends at the Stronghold. Why approach a newcomer?
    “That pinto—he is a fighter; he likes to fight. He will not allow another stud on the ground heclaims.”
    Drew was beginning to understand. Wild ones were sometimes trapped by a belled mare staked out to draw them in. But a stud to catch a fighting stud was another plan altogether.
    “You would offer him a fight?”
    “ Sí , but not a real fight. Just allow him to believe that there would be one. Pull him so out of hiding in the rocks—”
    “Using what stud for bait?”
    “ Señor Juanito—he said a stud that would fight too, like Shiloh.”
    “Shiloh!” Drew wadded the towel in his fist and pitched it across the room. “Shiloh!”
    León must have read something of Drew’s blazing anger in his face, for the Mexican’s mouth went a little slack and his hand came up in an involuntary gesture as if to ward off a blow.
    “It is a good plan!” His boy’s voice was thin in protest against Drew’s expression.
    “It is a harebrained, dangerous scheme,” began Drew; then he switched to a question. “Did Johnny Shannon suggest using Shiloh for bait, or was that your idea?”
    “ Señor Juanito—he said one must have a good horse, a fighter. But such a horse would not be hurt. We would wait with rifles and shoot the pinto quickly before he attacked. There would be no harm to Shiloh, none at all. Señor Juanito said that. Only a trick to get the diablo where we could shoot. Maybe—” Leon’s eyes dropped, a flush rose slowly on his brown cheeks—“maybe it was very foolish. But when Señor Juanito told it, it sounded well.”
    “Did he tell you to ask me about it?”
    The flush darkened. “He did not say so, señor . But one wouldnot do such a thing without permission. Also, you should be one of the hunters, no? How else could we go?”
    “Well, there won’t be any huntin’ of that kind, León. Trinfan knows what he’s doin’, and I don’t think that pinto is goin’ to be runnin’ loose—or alive—much longer.”
    Drew pulled a clean shirt over his head. What kind of game was Johnny Shannon trying to play? Apparently he had almost talked León into using Shiloh as bait in this fool stunt. Had he expected the kid to take the horse without Drew’s knowledge? Or for some reason had he wanted León to spill this? A trick to get Shiloh out of the Stronghold? But why?
    He buckled on his gun belt, settled the twin holsters comfortably. Shannon—what and why, he repeated silently. Nothing sorted out in his mind. Drew only felt a prickle of uneasiness which began between his shoulder blades and ran a chill down his spine, as if rifle sights were on him.
    But Shannon did not return to the Stronghold, and Drew was kept busy at the corrals from dawn to dusk. In a month of hard work it was easy to forget what might only be fancies.
    There was an invigorating crispness in the air, and the dun gelding the Kentuckian rode savored the breeze as a desert dweller savors water. Drew was indulgent with his mount’s skittishness as they pounded along at the tail of the horse herd bound for Tubacca.
    From a rocky point well before them there was a flash of light. Jared Nye, on