Guardians of the Sage by Harry Sinclair Drago Page A

baby.”
    It took him several minutes to place the body across his saddle bow. He knew beyond doubt that the Bar S had someone watching the fiat.
    â€œReb knows that come sunup we’d make some effort to find the boy,” he told himself. “Ten to one I’ll draw lead before I get across the creek.”
    The rock, known locally as the monument—it was a shaft of granite ten feet in diameter and at least forty feet high—loomed out of the shadows. to his right. Montana moved toward it, leading his horse.
    He reached it safely. The creek bottom was only ten to twelve feet below him.
    â€œBetter get across right away,” he thought, “and take a chance on making it.”
    He edged around the rock and was about to pick his way down to the bottom when he found four men stretched out on their rifles at his feet.
    They were even more surprised than he. Two of them he recognized: Johnny Lefleur and Ike Sweet. Before they could throw their guns into position, he had them covered.
    â€œWell, I’ll be damned!” Johnny Lefleur exclaimed. “Where in all hell did you come from?”
    â€œJust back away from your guns and start picking stars,” Montana ordered. “You boys have got awfully careless since I used to know you.”
    He kicked their rifles off the ledge. A fifth gun rested against the rock. Five thirty-thirty’s and only four men! He knew the fifth man could not be far away.
    â€œNow you got anything else on you?” he asked. Johnny had a forty-five in his holster. Jim tossed it after the rifles. He was about to speak when a movement behind him warned him, too late, that he had lost the play.
    â€œI guess it’s your turn to elevate,” a voice rasped. Montana didn’t have to turn to identify the other. It was Reb. He was almost as incensed at his own men as at Montana.
    â€œFine bunch,” he sneered. “You’ll live to a ripe old age, bein’ careful that-a-way!”
    â€œAw, we heard him comin’,” Johnny Lefleur protested. “We thought it would be you.”
    â€œYeah?” Reb taunted. “You believe in Santa Claus, too, don’t you?” The red-haired one took a step forward. Jim could feel something boring into his back. “You can drop that gun,” Reb advised.
    Montana obliged by flinging it into the creek bottom.
    â€œI said to drop it!” Reb thundered. “What’s the idea?” He told Johnny to slip down and recover their rifles.
    His perturbation tended to confirm what Montana was thinking. His eyes were inscrutable in the cold light of dawn. Seemingly without purpose he shifted around on his feet so that he could catch Reb’s reflection on the big silver concho that adorned the skirt of his saddle. It was like gazing into a convex mirror.
    What he saw there made his blood run warm. Reb was not armed! He had stuck him up with nothing more formidable than his finger.
    Montana repressed his start of satisfaction and stood with hands raised.
    â€œThe crowd you’re trailin’ with took an awful chance in sending you over here,” Reb went on. “But I reckon men who’ll send kids out to do their fightin’ will stoop to most any thin’.”
    â€œIf that was true, I’d feel as you do about it,” Jim replied. “But I tried to stop those boys last night. So did that lad’s father. They wouldn’t have it that way. It takes a pretty raw deal to steam boys up so they’ll ride out in the night willing to get killed to help their folks.” Jim shook his head sadly as his eyes strayed to Gene’s lifeless body. “But only seventeen, Reb—and wiped out like that!”
    â€œDon’t get teary about it!” Reb muttered. “I got two men on the way to Wild Horse with slugs in ’em. It’s a long, rocky road, and the fact that a bunch of boys did the trick won’t make it any easier for them. Now you