The Law-Breakers
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Title: The Law-Breakers
Author: Ridgwell Cullum
Release date: September 10, 2009 [eBook #29958]
Most recently updated: January 5, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAW-BREAKERS ***
Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
THE
LAW-BREAKERS
By RIDGWELL CULLUM
AUTHOR OF
"The Story of the Foss River Ranch," "In the Brooding
Wild," "The Way of the Strong," Etc.
With Frontispiece in Colors
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by Arrangement with GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE WAY OF THE STRONG
THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK
THE NIGHT-RIDERS
THE ONE-WAY TRAIL
THE TRAIL OF THE AXE
THE SHERIFF OF DYKE HOLE
THE WATCHERS OF THE PLAINS
[Illustration: "WHAT IS THIS MAN TO YOU?" HE DEMANDED
_The Law-Breakers._ _Frontispiece._]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I WATCHING THE LINE 1
II WHITE POINT 5
III THE HOLD-UP 11
IV AT THE FOOT OF AN AGED PINE 18
V BOUND FOR THE SOUTHERN TRAIL 25
VI THE MAN-HUNTERS 35
VII CHARLIE BRYANT 43
VIII THE SOUL-SAVERS 53
IX THE "STRAY"-HUNTER 64
X THE BROTHERS 73
XI THE UNREGENERATE 79
XII THE DISCOMFITURE OF HELEN 91
XIII LIGHT-HEARTED SOULS 100
XIV THE HOUSE OF DIRTY O'BRIEN 110
XV ADVENTURES IN THE NIGHT 120
XVI FURTHER ADVENTURES 128
XVII BILL PEEPS UNDER THE SURFACE 137
XVIII THE ARM OUTREACHING 142
XIX BILL MAKES THREE DISCOVERIES 155
XX IN THE FAR REACHES 166
XXI WORD FROM HEADQUARTERS 176
XXII MOVES IN THE GAME OF LOVE 184
XXIII STORM CLOUDS 195
XXIV THE SOUL OF A MAN 206
XXV THE BROKEN CHAIN 215
XXVI ROCKY SPRINGS HEARS THE NEWS 221
XXVII AT THE HIDDEN CORRAL 235
XXVIII A WAGER 241
XXIX BILL'S FRESH BLUNDERING 256
XXX THE COMMITTEE DECIDE 261
XXXI ANTAGONISTS 265
XXXII TREACHERY 272
XXXIII PLAYING THE GAME 278
XXXIV AN ENCOUNTER 286
XXXV ON MONDAY NIGHT 296
XXXVI STILL MONDAY NIGHT 299
XXXVII THE NIGHT TRAIL 307
XXXVIII THE FALL OF THE OLD PINE 315
XXXIX FROM THE ASHES 327
XL THE DAWN 335
THE LAW-BREAKERS
CHAPTER I
WATCHING THE LINE
There was no shade anywhere. The terrible glare of the summer sun beat
down upon the whole length of the wooden platform at Amberley. Hot as
was the dry, bracing air, it was incomparable with the blistering
intensity of heat reflected from the planking, which burned through
to the soles of the feet of the uniformed man who paced its length,
slowly, patiently.
This sunburnt, gray-eyed man, with his loose, broad shoulders,
his powerful, easy-moving limbs, seemed quite indifferent to the
irritating climatic conditions of the moment. Even the droning of the
worrying mosquitoes had no power to disturb him. Like everything else
unpleasant in this distant northwestern land, he accepted these things
as they came, and brushed them aside for the more important affairs he
was engaged upon.
He gazed out across the wide monotony of prairie with its undulating
wavelets, a tawny green beneath the scorching summer sun. He was
thinking deeply; perhaps dreaming, although dreaming had small enough
place in his busy life. His lot was a stern fight against crime, and,
in a land so vast, so new, where crime flourished upon virgin soil, it
left him little time for the more pleasant avenues of thought.
Inspector Stanley Fyles came to a halt at the eastern end of the long
platform. Miles of railroad track stretched away in a dead straight
line toward the distant, shimmering horizon. For miles ahead the road
was unbroken by a single moving object, and, after a long, keen
survey, the man abruptly turned his back upon it.
In a moment he became aware of a hollow-chested man hurrying toward
him. He was coming from the direction of the only building upon the
platform--the railroad office, or, as it was grandiloquently called,
the "booking hall."
Fyles recognized the man as the railroad agent, Huntly, who controlled
the affairs of his company in this half-fledged prairie town.
He came up in a flurry of unusual excitement.
"She's past New Camp, inspector," he cried. "Guess she's in the Broken
Hills, an' gettin' near White Point. I'd say she'd be along in an
hour--sure."
"Damn!"
For once in his life Stanley Fyles's patience gave way.
The man grinned.
"It ain't no use cussin'," he protested, with a suggestion of
malicious delight. "Y'see, she's just a bum freight. Ain't even a
'through.' I tell you, these sort have emptied a pepper box of gray
around my head. Yes, sir, there's more gray to my head by reason of
their sort than a hired man could hoe out in half a year."
"Twenty minutes ago you told me she'd be in in half an hour."
There was resentment as well as distrust in the officer's protest.
"Sure," the man responded glibly. "That was accordin' to schedule.
Guess Ananias must have been the fellow who invented schedules for
local freights."
The toe of Fyles's well-polished riding-boot tapped the superheated
platform.
His gray eyes suddenly fixed and held the ironical eyes of the other.
"See here, Huntly," he said at last, in that tone of quiet authority
which never deserted him for long. "I can rely on that? There's
nothing to stop her by the way--now? Nothing at all?"
But the agent shook his head, and his eyes still shone with their
ironical light.
"I'd say the prophet business petered out miser'bly nigh two thousand
years ago. I wouldn't say this dogone prairie 'ud be the best place
to start resurrectin' it. No, sir! There's too many chances for
that--seein' we're on a branch line. There's the track--it might give
way. You never can tell on a branch line. The locomotive might drop
dead of senile decay. Maybe the train crew's got drunk, and is
raisin' hell at some wayside city. You never can tell on a branch
line. Then there's that cargo of liquor you're yearnin' to----"
"Cut it out, man," broke in the officer sharply. "You are sure about
the train? You know what you're talking about?"
The agent grinned harder than ever.
"This is a prohibition territory----" he began.
But again Fyles cut him short. The man's irrepressible love of
fooling, half good-humored, half malicious, had gone far enough.
"Anyway you don't usually get drunk before sundown, so I guess I'll
have to take your word for it."
Then Inspector Fyles smiled back into the other's face, which had
abruptly taken on a look of resentment at the charge.
"I tell you what it is," he went on. "You boys get mighty close to
the wind swilling prohibited liquor. It's against the spirit of the
law--anyway."
But the agent's good humor warmed again under the officer's admission
of his difficulties. He was an irrepressible fellow when opportunity
offered. Usually he lived in a condition of utter boredom. In fact,
there were only two things that made life tolerable for him in
Amberley. These were the doings of the Mounted Police, and the doings
of those who made their existence a necessity in the country.
Even while weighted down with the oppressive routine of his work, it
was an inspiriting thing to watch the war between law and lawlessness.
Here in Amberley, situated in the heart of the Canadian prairie lands,
was a handful of highly trained men pitted against almost a world of
crime. Perhaps the lightest of their duties was the enforcing of the
prohibition laws, formulated by a dear, grandmotherly government in an
excess of senile zeal for the welfare of the health and morals of
those far better able to think for themselves.
The laws of prohibition! The words stuck with Mr. Huntly as they stuck
with every full-grown man and woman in the country outside the narrow
circle of temperance advocates. The law was anathema to him. Under its
influence the bettering, the purification of life in the Northwestern
Territories had received a setback, which optimistic antagonists
of the law declared was little less than a quarter of a century.
Drunkenness had increased about one hundred per cent, since human
nature had been forbidden the importation and consumption of alcohol
in any form stronger than four per cent. beer.
Huntly knew that Inspector Fyles was almost solely at work upon the
capture of contraband liquor. Also he knew, and hated the fact, that
his own duty required that he must give any information concerning
this traffic upon his railroad which the police might require.
Therefore there was an added vehemence in his reply to the officer's
warning.
"Sakes, man! What 'ud you have us do?" he cried, with a laugh that was
more than half angry. "Do you think we're goin' to sit around this
darned diagram of a town readin' temperance tracts, just because
somebody guesses we haven't the right to souse liquor? Think we're
goin' to suck milk out of a kid's feeder, just because you boys in red
coats figure that way? No, sir. Guess that ain't doin'--anyway. I'm
sousing all the liquor I can get my hooks on, an' it's all the sweeter
because of you boys. Outside my duty to the railroad company I
wouldn't raise a finger to stop a gallon of good rye comin' into town,
no, not if the penitentiary was yearnin' to swallow me right up."
Fyles's purposeful eyes surveyed the man with a thoughtful smile.
"Just so," he said coolly. "That clause about 'duty' squares the rest.
You'll need to do your duty about these things. That's all we want.
That's all we intend to have. Do you get me? I'm right here to see
that duty done. The first trip, my friend, and you won't talk of
penitentiary so--easily." The quietness with which he spoke did not
rob his words of their significance. Then he went on, just a shade
more sharply. "Now, see here. When that freight gets in I hold you
responsible that the hindmost car--next the caboose--is dropped here,
and the seals are intact. It's billed loaded with barrels of cube
sugar, for Calford. Get me? That's your duty just now. See you do it."
Huntly understood Fyles. Everybody in Amberley understood him. And the
majority recognized the deliberate purpose lying behind his calmest
assurance. The agent knew that his protest had touched the limit,
consequently there was nothing left him but to carry out instructions
to the letter. He hated the position.
His face twisted into a wry grin.
"Guess you don't leave much to the imagination, inspector," he said
sourly.
Fyles was moving away. He replied over his shoulder.
"No. Just the local color of the particular penitentiary," he said,
with a laugh.
CHAPTER II
WHITE POINT
Mr. Moss was the sole employe of the railroad company at White Point
flag station. His official hours were long. They extended round the
dial of the clock twice daily. Curiously enough, his leisure extended
to practically the same limits. The truth was, in summer, anyway, he
had no duties that could seriously claim him. Thus the long summer
days were spent chiefly among his vegetables, and the bits of flowers
at the back of the shanty, which was at once his home and his office,
in short, White Point.
Jack Huntly at Amberley grumbled at the unenlivening conditions of his
existence, but compared with those of Mr. Moss he lived in a perfect
whirlwind of gaiety.
There was no police station at White Point. There were no farms in the
neighborhood. There was not even a half-breed camp, with its
picturesque squalor, to break up the deadly drear of the surrounding
plains. The only human diversion that ever marred the calm serenity of
the neighborhood was the rare visit of some lodge of Indians, straying
from the reservation, some sixty miles to the south, on a hunting
pass.
But if White Point lacked interest from human associations its setting
at least was curiously arresting. Nature's whim was the inspiration
which had brought the station into existence. To the north, south, and
west the prairie stretched away in the distance for untold miles; but
immediately to the east quite another aspect prevailed. Here lay the
reason of White Point station.
Almost from the very foot of the walls of Mr. Moss's shanty the land
rose up with, as it were, a jolt. Great forest-clad hills reared their
torn and barren crests to enormous heights out of the dead level of
the prairie. A tumbled sea of Nature's wreckage lay strewn about
unaccountably, for a distance of something like two miles, east and
west, and double that distance from north to south. It was an oasis of
natural splendor in the heart of a calm sea of green grass.
These strange hills necessitated a watchful eye upon the railroad
track, which pierced their heart, in winter and spring. In summer
there was nothing to exercise the mind of Mr. Moss. But in winter the
track was constantly becoming blocked with snow, while during the
spring thaw there was always the dread of a "wash-out" to disturb his
nightly dreams. At such times these things kept the agent far more
alive than he cared about.
Just now, however, it was the height of summer, and no such anxieties
prevailed. Therefore Mr. Moss fell back upon the less exciting pastime
of a perspiry afternoon among his potatoes and other vegetable
luxuries.
He was hoeing the rows of potatoes with a sort of dogged determination
to find interest in the work. He believed that physical effort was the
only safety-valve for healthy feelings all too long bottled up. Even
the streaming sweat suggested to him a feeling that it was at least
hygienic, although the moist mixture of muddy consistency upon his
face, merging with the growth of three days' beard, left his
appearance something more than a blot upon the general view.
Just now he had nothing to disturb the blank of his mind. The only
possible interruption to the work in hand, of an official character,
was the passing of a local freight train. However, a local freight was
a matter of no importance whatever. It might come to-day, or it might
come to-morrow. He would signal it through in due course, after that
he didn't much care what happened to it.
The potatoes fully occupied him, and as he came to the end of each row
he took the opportunity of straightening out the crick in his back,
and gazing upon his handiwork with the look of a man who feels he has
surely earned his own admiration.
Once he varied this procedure by glancing up while still in the middle
of a row. His glance was sharp and startled. He had heard an
unaccustomed sound, distinct but distant. It seemed to him that a
horse had neighed. There came an answering neigh. It was quite
disturbing.
A long and careful scrutiny of the plains in every direction, however,
left him with a feeling of doubt. There was no horse in sight
anywhere, and the great hills adjacent offered no inducement
whatsoever for any straying quadruped. He assured himself that the
solitude of his life was rendering him fanciful, and forthwith
returned to his work.
For some time the measured stroke of his hoe clanked upon the baking
soil, and later on he paused to fill and light his pipe. He had just
cut the flakes of tobacco from his plug, and was rolling them in the
palms of his hands, when the thought occurred to him to glance at the
time. His great coin-silver timepiece pointed the hour when he felt he
might safely signal the freight train through.
Lounging round to the front of the station building he walked down the
track to the foot of the semaphore, and flung the rusty lever over.
His action expressed something of the contempt in which he held all
"local freights." Then he sauntered back to his work with his pipe
under full blast.
But his day has yet surprises in store. In half an hour's time he
received his second start. A distant rumble and grinding warned him
that the freight was approaching through the hills. He smiled at the
sound, and his smile was largely satirical. He glanced up once, but
promptly continued his work. But it was only for a few moments. The
sound which had been growing had almost died out and was being
replaced by the hammering of the cars as they closed up against each
other. The train was stopping.
He was looking up now full of interest, and one hand went up to his
head, and its fingers raked among the roots of his hair. Suddenly the
engine bell began to clang violently. There was distinctly a note of
protest in the sound. Something was wrong. He swung round and looked
at his signal. Say--was he dreaming? What on earth----? Half an hour
ago he had lowered the semaphore, at least he had set the lever over,
and now--now it was set against the train!
For a second he stared at the offending arm, then, as the bell clanged
still more violently, he dashed across the intervening space to remedy
his mistake.
But now incident crowded upon him. He was quite right. The lever was
set as it should be set. His practiced eye glanced rapidly down the
connecting rod to discover the source of the trouble, and further
amazement waited upon him. The explanation of the mystery lay before
his eyes. There at the triangular junction, where the connecting rod
linked with the down-haul of the semaphore, the bolt had fallen out,
and the whole thing was disconnected. The bolt with its screw nut and
washer were lying on the ground, where, apparently, they had fallen.
The furious clanging of the engine bell, where the head of the train
stood just in view round the bend of the track where it entered the
hills, left him no time for consideration of the mishap. The
protesting train must be passed on without further delay. Therefore,
with deft hands, he quickly readjusted the bolt, and once again set
the lever. This time the arm of the signal dropped.
It was not until these things were accomplished that he had time to
study the cause of the disconnection. Then, at once, a curious feeling
of incredulity swept over him. It was an impossibility for the thing
to have happened. The bolt fitted horizontally, and the washered nut
had full two inches to unscrew! Besides this, the whole thing was well
rusted with years of exposure. Yet the impossible had happened!
He stood gazing at the bolt with a sort of uncanny feeling stirring
within him. The engine at the head of its long string of box cars
approached. It passed him, and he heard its driver hurl some
uncomplimentary remark at him as the rattling old kettle clanked by.
Then, as the last car passed him, and rapidly grew smaller as the
distance swallowed it up, he turned back to his vegetable patch with
the mystery still unsolved.
* * * * *
The journey through the hills was nearly over, and White Point was but
a short distance ahead. The conductor and crew of the local freight
were lounging comfortably in the caboose.
The brakeman's life is full of risk and little comfort, and such
moments as these were all too few. When they came they were more than
gratefully received. Now the men were spread out in various attitudes
of repose, and, for the most part, were half asleep.
Suddenly, without the least warning, they were startled into full
wakefulness by the familiar clatter, beginning at the head of the
train and passing rapidly down its full length, as the cars closed up
on each other. The resting men knew that the locomotive was either
stopping, or had already come to a halt.
The conductor, or head brakeman, sat up with a jolt.
"Hey, you, Jack!" he cried peevishly. "Get up aloft an' get a peek
out. Say, we sure ain't goin' to get held up at a bum flag layout."
His contempt was no less for the flag station than Mr. Moss's for a
local freight.
The man addressed as "Jack" sprang alertly to the roof of the caboose.
A moment later his voice echoed through the car below him.
"Can't see a thing," he cried. "We're on the last bend, just outside
White Point. She's stopped--dead sure. Guess the flag has got us held
up." With a few added curses he clambered down into the car again.
* * * * *
As the brakeman left the roof of the caboose the enactment of a
strange scene began at the fore part of the car immediately in front
of it.
A glance down at the coupling would have revealed the cautious
appearance of a shock of rough hair covering a man's head from under
the last box car. Slowly it twisted round till a grimy, dust-covered
face was turned upward, and a pair of expectant eyes peered up at the
tops of the two cars.
Apparently the preliminary survey was satisfactory, for, in a moment,
the head was withdrawn, only to be replaced by an outstretched bare
hand and forearm. The hand reached up and caught the iron foot rail,
gripping it firmly. Then another hand appeared, and with it came the
same head again and part of a man's body. The second hand reached
toward the coupling-pin, which, with a dexterous movement, was slowly
and noiselessly removed. The pin was lowered to the length of its
chain. Then, once more the hand reached toward the coupling. This time
it seized the great iron link. This, without a moment's delay, was
lifted from its hook and noiselessly lowered till it swung suspended
from the car in front. Then both arms, head, and body vanished once
more under the car, beneath which the man must have traveled for
miles.
* * * * *
A few moments later the welcome jolting of couplings reached the crew
in the caboose, who promptly settled themselves down to await the next
call of duty. The conductor's relief at the brevity of the delay was
expressed in smiling contempt at the expense of all flag stations.
"Trust a darned outfit like that to hold you up," he cried
witheringly. "They got to act fresh, or the company 'ud get wise they
ain't no sort o' use on the line. Say----"
But he broke off listening.
The jolting had ceased. The grinding of wheels of the moving train was
plainly heard. But--the caboose remained stationary.
He leaped to his feet.
"Hell!" he cried. "What the----"
But the brakeman, Jack, was on his feet, too. With a bound he sprang
at the door of the caboose. But instantly he fell back with a cry.
Four gun muzzles were leveled at his body, and, behind them, stood the
figures of two masked men.
One of the two spoke in the slow easy drawl of the West, which lacked
nothing in conviction.
"Jest keep dead still--all o' you," he said. "Don't move--nor nothin',
or we'll blow holes through your figgers that'll cause a hell of a
draught. We ain't yearning to make no sort o' mess in this yer
caboose. But we're going to do it--'cep' you keep quite still, an'
don't worry any."
The conductor was a man of wide experience on the railroad. He had
seen many "hold-ups." So many, he was almost used to them. But without
being absolutely sure of the purpose of these men he thanked his
genius of good luck that he had not seen the "pay train" for nearly a
month. He was quite ready to obey. For all he cared the raiders could
take locomotive, train, caboose and all, provided he was left with a
whole skin.
CHAPTER III
THE HOLD-UP
Just beyond the flag station at White Point, where the forest-clad
slopes of the great hills crowded in upon the railroad track, a scene
of utter lawlessness was being silently enacted.
The spot was a lonely one, lonely with that oppressive solitude always
to be found where the great hills of ages rear their towering heads.
It was utterly cut off, too, from the outer world, by a monstrous
abutment of hill which left the track a mere ribbon, like the track of
some invertebrate, laboriously making its way through surroundings all
uncongenial and antagonistic. Yet the station was but a few hundred
yards beyond this point, where it lay open to the sweep of at least
three of the four winds of Heaven. But even so, the two places were as
effectually separated as though miles, and not yards, intervened.
No breath of air stirred the generous spruce and darkening pinewoods.
The drooping, westering sun, already athwart the barren crown of the
hill tops, left a false, velvety suggestion of twilight in the heart
of the valley, while a depressing superheat enervated all life, except
the profusion of vegetation which beautified the rugged slopes. For
the most part the stillness was profound, only the most trifling
sounds disturbing it. There was an uneasy shuffle of moving feet;
there was the occasional crisp clip of a driven axe; then, too,
weighty articles being dropped into the bottom of a heavy wagon sent
up their dull boom at long intervals.
The outlaws worked swiftly, but without apparent haste. The success of
their efforts depended upon rapidity of execution, that and the most
exact care for the detail of their organization. Provided these things
were held foremost in their minds there was small enough chance of
interruption. Had not the train, with its all unconscious driver,
passed upon its rumbling way toward Amberley? Had not all suspicion
been lulled in the mind of the bucolic agent, who was even now
laboriously expending a maximum of energy for a minimum return of
culinary delicacies in his vegetable patch? What was there to
interfere? Nothing. These men well knew that except for the flag
station there was not a habitation within ten miles, and the
ruggedness of the hills barred them to every form of traffic except
the irresistible impulse of railroad enterprise.
Three men carried out the work of unloading the box car, while the two
others held the train crew at bay. All were masked with one exception,
and he, from his evident authority and mode of dress, was obviously
the leader of the gang.
He was a slight, dark man, of somewhat remarkable refinement of
appearance. He was good looking, and almost boyish in the lack of hair
upon his face. But this was more than counterbalanced by the
determined set of his features, and the keen, calculating glance of
his eyes. The latter, particularly, were darkly luminous and lit with
an expression of lawless exhilaration as the work proceeded. Compared
with his fellows, who were of the well-known type of ruffian, in whom
the remoter prairie lands abound, he looked wholly out of place in
such a transaction. His air was that of a town-bred man, and his
clothing, too, suggested a refinement of tailoring, particularly the
rather loose cord riding breeches he affected. The others, masked as
they were, with their coatless bodies, and loose, unclean shirts,
their leather chapps, and the guns they wore upon their hips--well,
they made an exquisite picture of that ruffianism which bows to no law
of civilization, but that which they carry in the leather holsters
hanging at their waists.
The trackside was strewn with disemboweled whitewood barrels. The
wreckage was grotesque. The ground was strewn in every direction with
a litter of white cube sugar, like the wind-swept drifts of a summer
snowfall. Barrels were still being dragged out of the car and dropped
roughly to the ground, where the sharp stroke of an axe ripped out the
head, revealing within the neatly packed keg of spirit, embedded so
carefully in its setting of sugar. The cargo had been well shipped by
men skilled in the subtle art of contraband. It was billed, and the
barrels were addressed, to a firm in Calford whose reputation for
integrity was quite unimpeachable. Herein was the cunning of the
smugglers. The sugar barrels were never intended to reach Calford.
They were not robbing the consignees in this raid upon the freight
train. They were simply possessing themselves, in unorthodox fashion,
of an illicit cargo that belonged to their leader.
Fifteen kegs of spirit had been removed and bestowed in the wagon.
There were still five more to complete the tally.
The leader, in easy tones, urged his men to greater speed.
"Get a hustle, boys," he said, in a deep, steady voice, while he
strove with his somewhat delicate hands to lift a keg into the wagon.
The effort was too great for him single-handed, and one of his
assistants came to his aid.
"There's no time to spare," he went on a moment later, breathing hard
from his exertion. "Maybe the loco driver'll whistle for brakes." He
laughed with a pleasant, half humorous chuckle. "If that happens,
why--why I guess the train'll be chasing back on its tracks to pick up
its lost tail."
He spoke with a refined accent of the West. The man nearest him
guffawed immoderately.
"Gee!" he exclaimed delightedly. "This game's a cinch. Guess Fyles'll
kick thirteen holes in himself when that train gets in."
"Thirteen?" inquired the leader smilingly.
"Sure. Guess most folks reckon that figure unlucky."
The third man snorted as he shouldered a keg and moved toward the
Wagon.
"Holes? Thirteen?" he cried, as he dropped his burden into the
vehicle. Then he hawked and spat. "When that blamed train gets around
Amberley he'll hate hisself wuss'n a bank clerk with his belly awash
wi' boardin' house wet hash."
Again came the leader's dark smile. But he had nothing to add.
Presently the last keg was hoisted into the wagon. The leader of the
enterprise sighed.
It was a sigh of pent feeling, the sigh of a man laboring under great
stress. Yet it was not wholly an expression of relief. If anything,
there was regret in it, regret that work he delighted in was finished.
One of the men was removing his mask, and he watched him. Then, as the
face of the man who had been concealed under the car was revealed, he
signed to him.
"Get busy on the wagon," he said.
The man promptly mounted to the driving seat, and gathered up the
reins.
"Hit the south trail for the temporary cache," the leader went on.
"Guess we'll need to ride hard if Fyles is feeling as worried as you
fellows--hope."
The man winked abundantly.
"That's all right, all right. He'll need to hop some when we get busy.
Ho, boys!" And he chirrupped his horses out of the shallow cutting,
and the wagon crushed its way into the smaller bush.
The leader stood for a moment looking after it. Then he turned to the
other man, still awaiting orders.
"Get the other boys' horses up," he said sharply. "Then stand by on
horseback, and hold the train crew while they tumble into the saddle.
Then make for the cache."
The man hurried to obey. There were no questions asked when this man
gave his orders. Long experience had taught these men that there was
no necessity to question. Hardy ruffians as they were they knew well
enough that if they had the bodies for this work, he had a head that
was far cleverer even than that of Inspector Fyles himself.
Meanwhile the leader had moved out into the center of the track, and
his eyes were turned westward, toward the bend round the great hill.
They were pensive eyes, almost regretful, and somehow his whole face
had changed from its look of daring to match them. The exhilaration
had gone out of it; the command, even the determination had merged
into something like weakness. His look was soft--even tender.
He stood there while the final details of his enterprise were
completed. He heard the horses come up; he heard the two men clamber
from the caboose and get into the saddle. Then, at last, he turned,
and moved off the track.
Once more the old look of reckless daring was shining in his luminous
eyes. He dashed off into the bush to mount his horse, leaving his
softer mood somewhere behind him--in the West.
There was a clatter and rattle of speeding hoofs, which rapidly died
out. Then again the hills returned to their brooding silence.
The withdrawal of the outlaws was the cue for absurd activity on the
part of the train crew. A whirlwind of heated blasphemy set in, which
might well have scorched the wooden sides of the car. They cursed
everybody and everything, but most of all they cursed the bucolic
agent at White Point.
Then came a cautious reconnoitering beyond the door. This was promptly
followed by a pell-mell dash for the open. In a moment they were
crowding the trackside, staring with stupid eyes and mouths agape at
the miniature snowfall of sugar, and the wreckage of whitewood
barrels.
The conductor was the first to gather his scattered faculties.
"The lousy bums!" he cried fiercely. Then he added, with less ferocity
and more regret, "The--lousy--bums!"
A moment later he turned upon his comrades in the aggrieved fashion of
one who would like to accuse.
"'Taint no use in gawkin' around here," he cried sharply. "We're up
agin it. That's how it is." Then his face went scarlet, as a memory
occurred to him. "Say, White Point's around the corner. And that's
where we'll find that hop-headed agent--if he ain't done up. Anyways,
if he ain't--why, I guess we'll just set him playin' a miser-arey over
his miser'ble wires, that'll set 'em diggin' out a funeral hearse and
mournin' coaches in that dogasted prairie sepulcher--Amberley."
* * * * *
Mr. Moss was disentangling the crick in his back for the last time
that day. His stomach had forced on him the conviction that his
evening meal was a necessity not lightly to be denied.
His back eased, he shouldered his hoe and moved off toward his shanty
with the dispirited air of the man who must prepare his own meal. As
he passed the lean-to, where his kindling and fuel were kept, he flung
the implements inside it, as though glad to be rid of the burden of
his labors. Then he passed on round to the front of the building with
the lagging step of indifference. There was little enough in his life
to encourage hopeful anticipation.
At the door he paused. Such was his habit that his eyes wandered to
the track which had somehow become the highway of his life, and he
glanced up and down it. The far-reaching plains to the west offered
him too wide a focus. There was nothing to hold him in its breadth of
outlook. But as his gaze came in contact with the frowning crags to
the east, a sudden light of interest, even apprehension, leaped into
his eyes. In a moment he became a creature transformed. His bucolic
calm had gone. The metamorphosis was magical.
In one bound he leaped within the hut. Then, in a moment, he was back
at the door again, his tensely poised figure filling up the opening.
His powerful hands were gripping his Winchester, and he stood ready.
The farmer in him had disappeared. His eyes were alight with the
impulse of battle.
Along the track, from out of the hills, ran four unkempt human
figures. They were rushing for the flag station, gesticulating as they
came. In the loneliness of the spot there was only one interpretation
of their attitude for the waiting man.
Mr. Moss's voice rang out violently, and caught the echo of the hills.
"What in hell----?" he shouted, raising the deadly Winchester swiftly
to his shoulder. "Hold up!" he went on, "or I'll let daylight into
some of you."
The effect of this challenge was instantaneous and almost ludicrous.
The oncoming figures stopped, and nearly fell over each other in their
haste to thrust their hands above their heads. Then the eager, anxious
shout of the gray-headed brakeman came back to him.
"Fer Gawd's sake don't shoot!" he cried, in terrified tones. "We're
the train crew! The freight crew! We bin held up! Say----!"
But the lowering of the threatening gun saved him further explanation
at such a distance.
The light of battle had entirely died out of Mr. Moss's eyes, but it
was the brakeman's uniform, rather than his explanation, that had
inspired the white flag of peace.
The man came hastily up.
"What the----?" began the agent. But he was permitted to proceed no
further.
The angry eyes of the brakeman snapped, and his blasphemous tongue
poured out its protesting story as rapidly as his stormy feelings
could drive him. Then, with an added violence, he came to his final
charge of the agent himself.
"What in hell did you flag us for?" he cried. "You, on this bum
layout? Do you stand in with these 'hold-ups'? I tell you right here
this thing's goin' to be just as red-hot for you as I can make it.
That train was flagged _without official reason_," he went on with
rising heat. "Get me? An' you're responsible."
Having delivered himself of his threat, he assumed the hectoring air
which the moral support of his companions afforded him.
"Now, you just start right in and get busy on the wires. You can just
hammer seven sorts of hell into your instruments and call up Amberley
quick. You're goin' to put 'em wise right away. Macinaw! When I'm done
with this thing you're goin' to hate White Point wuss'n hell, an' wish
to Gawd they'd cut 'flag station' right out o' the conversation of the
whole durned American continent."
Mr. Moss had listened in a perfect daze. It was his blank acceptance
of the brakeman's hectoring which had so encouraged that individual.
But now that all had been told, and the man's harsh tones ceased to
disturb the peace of their surroundings, his mind cleared, and hot
resentment leaped to his tongue.
He sat down at his instrument and pounded the key, calling up
Amberley; and as the Morse sign clacked its metallic, broken note he
verbally replied to his accuser.
"You've talked a whole heap that sounds to me like hot air," he cried,
with bitter feeling. "Maybe you're old, so it don't amount to
anything. As for your bum freight it was late--as usual. It wasn't my
duty to pass it through till you shouted for signals. There ain't any
schedule for bum freights. When they're late it's up to them."
But for all Mr. Moss's contempt, and righteous indignation, the
brakeman's charge had had its effect. Well enough he remembered the
disjointed connecting rod, and he wondered how these "hold-ups" had
contrived it under his very nose. In his own phraseology, he felt
"sore." But his ill humor was not alone due to the brakeman's abuse.
He was thinking of something far more vital. He knew well enough that
his explanation would never satisfy the heads of his department. Then,
too, always hovering somewhere in the background, was the, to him,
sinister figure of Inspector Fyles of the Mounted Police.
CHAPTER IV
AT THE FOOT OF AN AGED PINE
Waiting for word from the agent, Huntly, Inspector Fyles had retreated
to the insignificant wooden shack which served the police as a Town
Station in Amberley. It consisted of two rooms and a loft in the pitch
of the roof. Its furniture was reduced to a minimum, and everything,
except the loft above where the two troopers and the corporal in
charge slept, was a matter of bare boards and bare wooden chairs.
The officer sat in the smaller inner room where the telephone was
close to his hand, while the non-commissioned officer and his men
occupied the outer room.
Fyles faced the window with his hard Windsor chair close beside the
office table. His elbow rested upon its chipped and discolored
surface, and his chin was supported on the palm of his hand. Just now
his busy thoughts were free to wander whithersoever they listed. This
was an interim of waiting, when all preparations were made for the
work in hand, and there was nothing to do but await developments. So
used was he to this work of seizing contraband spirits that its
contemplation had not power enough to quicken one single beat of his
pulse. And in this, too, he displayed that wondrous patience which was
so much a part of his nature.
Stanley Fyles's reputation in these wild regions was decidedly unique.
Scarcely a day passed but what some strenuous emergency arose
demanding quick thought and quicker action, where life, frequently his
own, hung in the balance. Yet the most strenuous of them found him
always easy, always deliberate, and, as his subordinates loved to
declare, he always managed to "beat the game by a second."
There were people outside, civilians, who confidently and
contemptuously declared him to be a bungler; a patient, hard-working
bungler. These were the men who saw few of his successes, and always
contrived to smell out his failures. These people were those who had
no understanding of the difficulties of a handful of men pitted
against a country eaten up with every form of criminal disease. There
were others, again, who insisted that far more crime slipped through
his well "oiled" hands than ever was held by them. These were the
people who sneered at his reputation for stern discipline, and
declared it to be a mere pose to cover his tracks, while he patiently
piled up a fortune through the shady channels of "graft." A small
minority admitted his ability, but averred that his patience erred on
the side of slackness, which was one of the causes that the flood of
prohibited liquor in the country showed no abatement.
Nevertheless, one and all admitted his patience, whether it was in
bungling, in harvesting his graft, or whether it was a form of
slackness. Nor could they help doing so, for patience, a wonderful
purposeful patience, was his greatest characteristic. Every other
feature of his personality was subservient to it, and so it was that
the most hardened criminals began at once a nervous scrutiny of their
tracks the moment the news reached them that the lean nose of Stanley
Fyles had caught their scent.
Those who knew Fyles best ignored the patience which caught the public
mind so readily. They saw something more beneath it, something much
more to their liking. His patience only masked a keen, swift-moving,
scheming brain, packed to the uttermost with a wonderful instinct for
detection. He worked on no rule-of-thumb method as so many of his
comrades did. He was the fortunate possessor of an imagination, and,
long since, he had learned its value in his crusade against crime.
But this man was by no means a mere detection machine. He was full of
ambition. Police work was merely serving its purpose in his scheme of
things. He saw advancement in it--advancement in the right direction.
In five years he had raised himself from the lowest rung of the police
ladder to a commissioned rank, and from this rank he knew he could
reach out in any of the directions in which he required to proceed.
There were several directions in which his ambitious eyes gazed. There
were politics, with their multifarious opportunities for fortune and
place. There was the land, crying aloud of the fortunes lying hidden
within its bosom. There was official service upon higher planes, from
which so many names were drawn to fill the roll of fame to be handed
down to an adoring posterity. He was not yet thirty years of age, and
he felt that any one of these things lay well within the focus his
present position presented.
But the time for his next move was not yet; and herein was the real
man. In his mind there were still purposes which required complete
fulfilment before that further upward movement began. It was the more
human side of the man dictating its will upon him, that will which can
never be denied when once it rouses from its slumbers amid the living
fires which course through the veins of healthy manhood.
Just now, as he leaned back in his unyielding chair, luxuriating in a
comfort which only a man as hard as he could have extracted from it,
the hot, living fires were stirring in his veins. His mind had gone
back to a picture, one of the many pictures which so often held him in
his scant leisure, that represented the first waking of those dormant
fires of manhood.
The scene was a memory forming the starting point of a long series of
other pictures, which aways came with a rush, changing and changing
with kaleidoscopic rapidity till they developed into a stream of
swiftly flowing thought.
It was the picture of a quaint, straggling prairie village, half
hidden in the multi-hued foliage of a deep valley, as viewed from his
saddle where his horse stood upon the shoulder of land which dropped
away at his feet. It was one of those wondrous fairy scenes with which
the prairie, in her friendlier moods, delights to charm the eye.
Perhaps "mock" would better express her whim, for many of these fair
settlements in the days of the Prohibition Laws were veritable
sepulchers of crime, only whitewashed by the humorous mood of nature.
Ten yards below him an aged pine reared its hoary, time-worn head
toward the gleaming azure of a noonday summer sky. It was a landmark
known throughout the land; it was the landmark which had guided him to
this obscure village of Rocky Springs. It had been in his eye all the
morning as he rode toward it, and as he drew near curiosity had
impelled him to leave the trail he was on and examine more closely
this wonderful specimen of a far, far distant age.
But his inspection was never fully made. Instead, his interest was
abruptly diverted to that which he beheld reposing beneath its
shadow. A girl was sitting, half reclining, against the dark old
trunk, with a sewing basket at her side, and a perfect maze of white
needlework in her lap.
She was not sewing, however, as he drew near. She was gazing out over
the village below, with a pair of eyes so deep and darkly beautiful
that the man caught his breath. Just for one unconscious moment
Stanley Fyles had followed the direction of her gaze, then his own
eyes came back to her face and riveted themselves upon it.
She was very, very beautiful. Her hair was abundant and dark. Yet it
was quite devoid of that suggestion of great weight so often found in
very dark hair. There was a melting luster in the velvet softness of
her deeply fringed eyes. Her features were sufficiently irregular to
escape the accusation of classic form, and possessed a firmness and
decision quite remarkable. At that moment the solitary horseman
decided in his mind that here was the most beautiful creature he had
ever looked upon.
She was dressed in a light summer frock, through the delicate texture
of which peeped the warm tint of beautifully rounded arms and
shoulders. She was hatless, too, in spite of the summer blaze. To his
fired imagination she belonged to a canvas painted by some old master
whose portrayals suggested a strength and depth of character rarely
seen in life. Even the beautiful olive of her complexion suggested
those southern climes whence alone, he had always been led to believe,
old masters hailed.
To him it was the face of a woman whose heart and mind were crowding
with a yearning for something--something unattainable. Such was her
look of strength and virility that he almost regretted them, fearing
that her character might belie her wondrous femininity.
But in a moment he had denial forced upon him. The girl turned slowly,
and gazed up into his face with smiling frankness. Her eyes took him
in from his prairie hat to his well-booted feet. They passed swiftly
over his dark patrol jacket, with its star upon its shoulder, and down
the yellow stripe of his riding breeches. There was nothing left him
but to salute, which he did as her voice broke the silence.
"You're Inspector Stanley Fyles?" she said, with a rising inflection
in her deep musical voice.
The man answered bluntly. He was taken aback at the unconventional
greeting.
"Yes----" He cleared his throat in his momentary confusion. Then he
responded to her still smiling eyes. "And--that's Rocky Springs?" he
inquired, pointing down the valley. The information was quite
unnecessary.
The girl nodded.
"Yes," she said, "a prairie village that's full of everything
interesting--except, perhaps, honesty."
The man smiled broadly.
"That's why I'm here."
The girl laughed a merry, rippling laugh.
"Sure," she nodded. "We heard you were coming. You're going to fix a
police station here, aren't you?" Then, as he nodded, her smile died
out and her eyes became almost earnest. "It's surely time," she
declared. "I've heard of bad places, I've read of them, I guess. But
all I've heard of, or read of, are heavens of righteousness compared
with this place. Look," she cried, rising from the ground and reaching
out one beautifully rounded arm in the direction of the nestling
houses, amid their setting of green woods, with the silvery gleam of
the river peeping up as it wound its sluggish summer way through the
heart of the valley. "Was there ever such a mockery? The sweetest
picture human eyes could rest on. Fair--far, far fairer than any
artist's fancy could paint it. It's a fit resting place for everything
that's good, and true, and beautiful in life, and--and yet--I'd say
that Rocky Springs, very nearly to a man, is--against the law."
For a moment Fyles had no reply. He was thinking of the charm of the
picture she made standing there silhouetted against the green slope of
the far side of the valley. Then, as she suddenly dropped her arm, and
began to gather up the sewing she had tumbled upon the ground when she
stood up, he pulled himself together. He beamed an unusually genial
smile.
"Guess there are things we police need to be thankful for, and places
like Rocky Springs are among 'em," he said, cheerfully. "I'd say if it
wasn't for your Rocky Springs, and its like, we should be chasing
around as uselessly as hungry coyotes in winter. The Government
wouldn't fancy paying us for nothing."
By the time he had finished speaking the girl's work was gathered in
her arms.
"That's the trail," she said abruptly, pointing at the path which
Fyles had left for his inspection of the tree. "It goes right on down
to the saloon. You see," she added slyly, "the saloon's about the most
important building in the town. Good-bye."
Without another word she walked off down the slope, and, in a moment,
was lost among the generous growth of shrubs.
This was the scene to which his mind always reverted. But there were
others, many of them, and in each this beautiful girl's presence was
always the center of his focus. He had seen and spoken to her many
times since then, for his duty frequently took him into the
neighborhood of that aged pine. But in spite of her frankness at their
first meeting she quickly proved far more elusive than he would have
believed possible, and consequently his intimacy with her had
progressed very little.
The result was a natural one. The man's interest in her was still
further whetted, till, in time, he finally realized that the long
anticipated move upwards, which he was preparing for, could no longer
be made--alone.
These were the thoughts occupying him now as he stared out through the
dusty window at the scattered houses which lined Amberley's main
street. These were the thoughts which conjured on his bronzed, strong
features, that pleasant half-smile of satisfaction. He wanted her very
much. He wanted her so much that all impulse to rush headlong and make
her his was thrust aside. He must wait--wait with the same patience
which he applied to all that which was important in his life, and,
when opportunity offered, when the moment was ripe, he would make the
great effort upon which he knew so much of his future happiness
depended.
Thus he was dreaming on pleasantly, hopefully, and yet not without
doubts, when a sharp knock at his door banished the last vestige of
romance from his mind. In an instant he was on his feet, alert and
waiting.
"Come!"
His summons was promptly answered, and the tall figure of the corporal
stood framed in the doorway.
"Well?"
The question came with the sharp ring of authority.
"It's Huntly, sir," the man explained briefly. "He's got a message.
There's been a 'hold-up' of the freight, just beyond White Point. The
'jumpers' have dropped off the two hindermost cars and held the crew
prisoners. Seems the train was flagged on the bend out of the hills
and then allowed to pass. While it was standing the cars were cut
loose. Then the train came on without them. She's in sight now.
Huntly's outside."
The Inspector gave no sign while his subordinate talked. His eyes were
lowered at a point of interest on the floor. At the conclusion of the
man's brief outline he glanced up.
"Has Huntly got the message with him?"
"Yes, sir."
Fyles made a move, and the other stepped back to let him pass out.
The agent was waiting in the outer office. His eyes were wide with
excitement.
"Well? Where's the message?" the officer demanded.
Huntly thrust a paper into his hand.
"It just came through."
Fyles took it, and his strong brows drew together as he read the long
story of the "hold-up" which the man had taken down from his
instrument.
A deep silence prevailed while the officer read the news which so
completely frustrated all his plans.
At last he looked up. Favoring the man Huntly with one inquiring
glance, he turned to the corporal.
"It says here the brakeman heard the leader tell his men to make for
the south trail. That was either bluff--or a mistake. They sometimes
make mistakes, and that's how we get our chances. The south trail is
the road into Rocky Springs. Rocky Springs is twenty-two miles from
White Point. They've probably had an hour's start with a heavily
loaded wagon. Rocky Springs is twenty-six from here by trail. Good.
Say, tell the boys to get on the move quick. They'll strike the south
trail about seven miles northeast of Rocky Springs. If they ride hard
they should cut them off, or, any way, hit their trail close behind
them."
"Yes, sir."
As Fyles turned back to the inner room and picked up the telephone,
ignoring the still waiting agent, the corporal hurried away.
In a moment the telephone bell rang out and the officer was speaking.
"Yes, sir, Fyles. Yes, at the Town Station. I'm coming up to barracks
right away. It's most important. I must see you. The whisky-runners
have--doubled on us."
CHAPTER V
BOUND FOR THE SOUTHERN TRAIL
Three uniformed men rode hard across the tawny plains. They rode
abreast. Their horses were a-lather; their lean sides tuckered, but
their gait remained unslackening. It was a gait they would keep as
long as daylight lasted.
Sergeant McBain's horse kept its nose just ahead of the others. It was
as though the big, rawboned animal appreciated its rider's rank.
Quite abruptly the non-commissioned officer raised an arm and pointed.
"Yon's the Cypress Hills, boys," he cried. "See, they're getting up
out of the heat haze on the skyline. We're heading too far south."
He spoke without for a moment withdrawing the steady gaze of his hard
blue eyes.
One of the troopers answered him.
"Sure, sergeant," he agreed. "We need to head away to the left."
The horses swung off the line, beating the sun-scorched grass with
their iron-shod hoofs with a vigor that felt good to the riders.
The bronzed faces of the men were eager. Their widely gazing eyes were
alert and watchful. They were trailing a hot scent, a pastime as well
as a work that was their life. They needed no greater incentive to put
forth the best efforts of bodily and mental energies.
The uniform of these riders of the western plains was unassuming.
Their brown canvas tunics, their prairie hats, their black, hard
serge breeches, with broad, yellow stripes down the thighs, possessed
a businesslike appearance not to be found in a modern soldier's
uniform. These things were for sheer hard service.
The life of these men was made up of hard service. It was demanded of
them by the Government; it was also demanded of them by the conditions
of the country. Lawlessness prevailed on these fair, sunlit plains;
lawlessness of man, lawlessness of Nature. Between the two they were
left with scarce a breathing space for those comforts which only found
existence in dreams that were all too brief and transitory.
Nominally, these men were military police, yet their methods were far
enough removed from all matters martial. Theirs it was to obey orders,
but all similarity ended there. Each man was left free to think and
act for himself. Brief orders, with little detail, were hurled at him.
For the rest his superiors demanded one result--achievement. A crime
was committed; a criminal was at large; information of a contemplated
breach of the peace was to hand. Then go--and see to it. Investigate
and arrest. The individual must plan and carry out, whatever the odds.
Success would meet with cool approval; failure would be promptly
rewarded with the utmost rigor of the penal code governing the force.
The work might take days, weeks, months. It mattered not. Nor did it
matter the expense, provided success crowned the effort. But with
failure resulting--ah, there must be no failure. The prestige of the
force could not stand failure, for its seven hundred men were required
to dominate and cleanse a territory in which half a dozen European
countries could be comfortably lost.
Presently Sergeant McBain spoke again. His steady eyes were still
fixed upon the horizon.
"Say, that's her," he said. "There she is. Coming right up like a mop
head. That's the pine at Rocky Springs. Further away to the left
still, boys."
He turned his horse, and the race against time was continued.
Somewhere ahead, on the southern trail, a gang of whisky smugglers
were plying their trade. Inspector Fyles had said, "Go, and--round
them up."
The odds were all against these men, yet no one considered the
matter. Each, with eyes and brain alert, was ready to do all of which
human effort was capable.
Now that definite direction over those wastes of grass had been
finally located, the sergeant, a rough, hard-faced Scot, relaxed his
vigilance. His mind drifted to the purpose in hand, and a dry humor
lit his eyes.
"Eh, man, but it's a shameful waste, spilling good spirit," he said,
addressing no one in particular. "Governments are always
prodigal--except with pay."
One of the troopers sniggered.
"Guess we could spill some of it, sergeant," he declared meaningly.
"Spill it!" The sergeant grinned. "That isn't the word, boy. Spill
don't describe the warm trickle of good liquor down a man's throat.
Say, I mind----"
The other trooper broke in.
"Fyles 'ud spill champagne," he cried in disgust. "A man like that
needs seeing to."
The sergeant shook his head.
"Fyles would spill anything or anybody that required spilling, so he
gets his nose to windward of the game. He's right, too, in this
God-forgotten land. If we didn't spill, we'd be right down and out,
and our lives wouldn't be worth a second's purchase. No, boys, it
breaks our hearts to spill--but we got to do it--or be spilt
ourselves."
The man shook his reins and bustled the great sorrel under him. The
animal's response was a lengthening of stride which left his
companions hard put to it to keep pace.
The brief talk was closed. It had been a moment of relaxed tension.
Now, once more, every eye was fixed on the shimmering skyline. They
were eagerly looking out for the southern trail.
Half an hour later its yellow, sandy surface lay beneath their feet,
an open book for the reading.
All three leaped from the saddle and began a close examination of it,
while their sweating horses promptly regaled themselves with the ripe,
tufty grass at the trail side.
Sergeant McBain narrowly scrutinized the wheel tracks, estimating the
speed at which the last vehicle to pass had been traveling. The
blurred hoofmarks of the horses warned him they had been driven hard.
"We're behind 'em, boys," he declared promptly, "an' their gait says
they're taking no chances."
Further down the trail one of the troopers answered him:
"There's four saddle horses with 'em," he said thoughtfully. "Two
shod, and two shod on the forefeet only. Guess, with the teamster,
that makes five men. Prairie toughs, I'd guess."
The sergeant concurred, while they continued their examination.
Then the third man exclaimed sharply--
"Here!" he cried, picking something up at the side of the trail.
The others joined him at once.
He was quietly tearing open a half-burned cigarette, the tobacco
inside of which was still moist.
"Prairie toughs don't smoke _made_ cigarettes around here. It's a
Caporal. Get it? That's bought in a town."
"Ay," said McBain quickly. "Rocky Springs, I'd say. It's the Rocky
Springs gang, sure as hell. It's the foulest hole of crime in the
northwest. Come on, boys. We need to get busy."
Two minutes later a moving cloud of dust marked their progress down
the trail in the direction of Rocky Springs. Presently, however, the
dust subsided. The astute riders of the plains were giving no chances
away; they had left the tell-tale trail and rode on over the grass at
its edge.
* * * * *
The westering sun was low on the horizon. The air was still. Not a
cloud was visible anywhere in the sky. The world was silent. The
drowsing birds, even, had finished their evensong.
Low bush-grown hills lined the trail where it entered the wide valley
of Leaping Creek, which, six miles further on, ran through the heart
of the hamlet of Rocky Springs.
It was a beauty spot of no mean order. The smaller hills were broken
and profuse, with dark woodland gorges splitting them in every
direction, crowded with such a density of foliage as to be almost
impassable. Farther on, as the valley widened and deepened, its aspect
became more rugged. The land rose to greater heights, the lighter
vegetation gave way to heavier growths of spruce and blue gum and
maple. These too, in turn, became sprinkled with the darker and
taller pines. Then, as the distance gained, a still further change met
the eye. Vast patches of virgin pine woods, with their mournful,
tattered crowns, toned the brighter greens to the somber grandeur of
more mountainous regions.
The breathless hush of evening lay upon the valley. There was even a
sense of awe in the silence. It was peace, a wonderful natural peace,
when all nature seems at rest, nor could the chastened atmosphere of a
cloister have conveyed more perfectly the sense of repose.
But the human contradiction lay in the heart of the valley. It was the
abiding place of the hamlet of Rocky Springs, and Rocky Springs was
accredited with being the very breeding ground of prairie crime.
Just now, however, the chastened atmosphere was perfect. Rocky
Springs, so far away, was powerless to affect it. Even the song of the
tumbling creek, which coursed through the heart of the valley, was
powerless to awaken discordant echoes. Its music was low and soft. It
was like the drone of the stirring insects, part of that which went to
make up the atmosphere of perfect peace.
The sun dropped lower in the western sky. A velvet twilight seemed to
rise out of the heart of the valley. Slowly the glowing light vanished
behind a bluff of woodland. In a few minutes the trees and undergrowth
were lit up as though a mighty conflagration were devouring them. Then
the fire died down, and the sun sank.
But as the sun sank, a low, deep note grew softly out of the distance.
For a time it blended musically with the murmuring of the bustling
creek and the wakeful insect life. Then it dominated both, and its
music lessened. Its note changed rapidly, so rapidly that its softer
tone was at once forgotten, and only the harshness it now assumed
remained in the mind. Louder and harsher it grew till from a mere
rumble it jumped to a rattle and clatter which suggested speed,
violence, and a dozen conflicting emotions.
Almost immediately came a further change, and one which left no doubt
remaining. The clatter broke up into distinct and separate sounds. The
swift beat of speeding hoofs mingled with the fierce rattle of light
wheels, racing over the surface of a hard road.
All sense of peace vanished from the valley. Almost it seemed as if
its very aspect had changed. A sense of human strife had suddenly
possessed it, and left its painful mark indelibly set upon the whole
scene.
The climax was reached as a hard driven team and wagon, escorted by
four mounted men, precipitated themselves into the picture. They came
over the shoulder of the valley and plunged headlong down the
dangerous slope, regardless of all consequences, regardless both of
life and limb. The teamster was leaning forward in his seat, his arms
outstretched, grasping a rein in each hand. He was urging his horses
to their utmost. In his face was that stern, desperate expression that
told of perfect cognizance of his position. It said as plainly as
possible, however great the danger he saw before him, it must be
chanced for the greater danger behind.
Two of the horsemen detached themselves from the escort and remained
hidden behind some bush at the shoulder of the hill. They were there
to watch the approach to the valley. The others kept pace with the
racing vehicle as the surefooted team tore down the slope.
Rocking and swaying and skidding, the vehicle seemed literally to
precipitate itself to the depths below, and, as the horses, with necks
outstretched and mouths beginning to gape, with ears flattened and
streaming flanks, reached the bottom, the desperate nature of the
journey became even more apparent. There was neither wavering nor
mercy in the eyes of the teamster and his escort as they pressed on
down the valley.
One of the escort called sharply to the teamster.
"Can we make it?" he shouted.
"Got to," came back the answer through clenched jaws. "If we got
twenty minutes on the gorl darned p'lice they won't see us for dust.
Heh!"
The man's final exclamation came as one of his horses stumbled. But he
kept the straining beast on its legs by the sheer physical strength of
his hands upon the reins. The check was barely an instant, but he
picked up the rawhide whip lying in the wagon and plied it
mercilessly.
The exhausted beasts responded and the vehicle flew down the trail,
swaying and yawing the whole breadth of the road. The dust in its wake
rose up in a dense cloud. Into this the escort plunged and quickly
became lost to view behind the bush which lined the sharply twisting
trail.
Faster and faster the horses sped under the iron hand of the teamster,
till distance took hold of the clatter and finally diminished it to a
rumble. In a few minutes even the rising cloud of dust, like smoke
above the tree tops, thinned and finally melted away, and so, once
more, peace returned to the twilit valley.
* * * * *
A wagon was lumbering slowly toward Rocky Springs. It was less than a
mile beyond the outskirts of the village, and already an occasional
flash of white paint through the trees revealed the sides of some
outlying house in the distance ahead.
The horses were dejected-looking creatures, and their flanks were
streaked with gray lines of caking sweat. They were walking, and the
teamster on the wagon sat huddled down in the driving seat, an
exquisite picture of unclean ease.
He was a hard-faced, unwashed creature, whose swarthy features were
ingrained with sweat and dirt. He was clad in typical prairie costume,
his loose cotton shirt well matching the unclean condition of his
face. One cheek was bulging with a big chew of tobacco, while the
other sank in over the hollows left by absent back teeth.
He certainly was unprepossessing. Even his contented smile only added
to the evil of his expression. His contentment, however, was by no
means his whole atmosphere. In fact, it was rather studied, for his
eyes were alight and watchful with the furtive watchfulness so easy to
detect in those of partial color. They suggested that his ears, too,
were no less alert, and now and again this suggestion received
confirmation in the quick turn of the head in a direction which said
plainly he was listening for any unusual sound from behind him.
One of these turns of the head remained longer than usual. Then, with
quite a sharp movement of the body, he swung one of the great pistols
hanging at his waist, so that its barrel rested across his thigh, and
its butt was ready to his hand. Then, with a malicious chuckle, he
took a firmer grip of his reins, and his jaded horses raised their
drooping heads.
The object of his change of attitude quickly became apparent, for, a
few moments later, the distant sound of hoof-beats, far behind him,
echoed through the still valley.
He checked his horses still more, and it became evident that he wished
those who were behind him to come up before he reached the village.
The smile on his evil face became more humorous, and he spat out a
stream of tobacco juice with great enjoyment.
The sounds grew louder, and he turned about and peered down the
darkening valley. There was nothing and no one in sight yet amid the
woodland shadows. Only the clatter of hoofs was growing with each
moment. He finally turned back and resettled himself. His attitude now
became one of even more studied indifference, but his gun remained
close to his hand.
The sounds behind him were drawing nearer. His tired horses pricked
their ears. They, too, seemed to become interested. The pursuers came
on. They were less than a hundred yards behind. In a few moments they
were directly behind. Then the man lazily turned his head. For some
moments he stared stupidly at the three uniformed figures who had
descended upon him. Then he suddenly sat up and brought his horses to
a standstill. The policemen were surrounding his wagon.
Sergeant McBain was abreast of him on one side, one trooper drew up
his horse at the other side, while the third came to a halt at the
rear of the wagon and peered into it.
"Evenin', sergeant," cried the teamster, with deliberate cheeriness.
"Makin' Rocky Springs?"
McBain's hard blue eyes looked straight into the half-breed's face. He
was endeavoring to fix and hold those dark, furtive eyes. But it was
not easy.
"Maybe," he said curtly.
Then he glanced swiftly over the outfit. The sweat-streaked horses
interested him. The nature of the wagon. Then, finally, the contents
of the wagon covered with a light canvas protection against the dust.
"Where you from?" he demanded peremptorily.
"Just got through from Myrtle," replied the man, quite undisturbed by
the other's manner.
"Fourteen miles," said McBain sharply. "Guess your plugs sweated
some. What's your name, and who do you work for?"
"Guess I'm Pete Clancy, an' I'm Kate Seton's 'hired' man. Been across
to Myrtle for fixin's for her."
"Fixings?"
The sergeant's eyes at last compelled the other's. There was something
like insolence in the way Pete Clancy returned his stare. There was
also humor.
"Sure," he returned easily. "Guess you'll find 'em in the wagon ef you
raise that cover. There's one of them fakes fer sewin' with. There's a
deal o' fancy canned truck, an' say, the leddy's death on notions. Get
a peek at the colors o' them silk duds. On'y keep dirty hands off'n
'em, or she'll cuss me to hell for a fust-class hog."
McBain signed to the trooper at the rear of the wagon and the man
stripped the cover off. The first thing the officer beheld was a
sewing machine in its shining walnut case. Beside this was an open
packing case filled with canned fruits and meats, and a large supply
of groceries. In another box, packed under layers of paper, were
materials for dressmaking, and a roll of white lawn for other articles
of a woman's apparel.
With obvious disgust he signed again to the trooper to replace the
cover. Then Clancy broke in.
"Say," he cried ironically, "ain't they dandy? I tell you, sergeant,
when it comes to fancy things, women ha' got us skinned to death.
Fancy us wearin' skirts an' things made o' them flimsies! We'd fall
right through 'em an' break our dirty necks. An' the colors, too.
Guess they'd shame a dago wench, an' set a three-year old stud bull
shakin' his sides with a puffic tempest of indignation. But when it
comes to canned truck, well, say, prairie hash ain't nothin' to it,
an' if I hadn't been raised in a Bible class, an' had the feel o' the
cold water o' righteousness in my bones, I'd never ha' hauled them all
this way without gettin' a peek into them cans. I----"
"Cut it out, man," cried the officer sharply. "I need a straight word
with you. Get me? Straight. Your bluff'll do for other folks. You
haven't been to Myrtle. You come from White Point, where you helped
hold up a freight. You ran a big cargo of liquor in this wagon, which
is why your plugs are tuckered out. You've cached that liquor in this
valley, at the place you gathered up this truck. I don't say you
aren't 'hired man' to Miss Seton in Rocky Springs, but you're playing
a double game. You fetched her goods and dumped 'em at the cache, only
to pick 'em up when you were through with your other game."
The man laughed insolently.
"Gee! I must be a ter'ble bad feller, sergeant," he cried. "Me, as was
raised in a Bible class." His eyes twinkled as he went on. "An' I done
all that? All that you sed, sergeant? Say, I'm a real bright feller.
Guess I'll get a drink o' that liquor, won't I? It 'ud be a bum
trick----"
The sergeant's eyes snapped.
"You'll get the penitentiary before we're through with you. You and
the boys with you. We've followed your trail all the way, and that
trail ends right here. We're wise to you----"
"But you ain't wise where the liquor's cached," retorted the man with
a chuckle.
Then he looked straight into the officer's eyes.
"Say," he cried with his big laugh. "You can talk penitentiary till
you're sick. Ther' ain't no liquor in my wagon, an' if there ever has
been any, as you kind o' fancy, it's right up to you to locate it, and
spill it, an' not set right there keepin' me from my work."
As he finished speaking, with elaborate display, he shook his reins
and shouted at his horses, which promptly moved on.
As the wagon rolled away he turned his head and spoke over his
shoulder.
"You can't spill canned truck an' sewin' machines, sergeant," he
called back derisively. "That penitentiary racket don't fizz nothin'.
Guess you best think again."
The officer's chagrin was complete. It was the start the outlaws had
had that had beaten him. This was the wagon; this was one of the men.
Of these things he was convinced. There were others in it, too, but
they----. He turned to his troopers.
"I'd give a month's pay to get bracelets on that feller," he said with
a grin that had no mirth in it. Then he added grimly, as he gazed
after the receding wagon: "And I'm a Scotchman."
CHAPTER VI
THE MAN-HUNTERS
The girl's handsome face was turned toward the valley below her. She
was staring with eyes of dreaming, half regretful, yet not without a
faint light of humor, at the nestling village in the lap of the
woodlands, which crowded the heart of the valley, where the silvery
thread of river wound its way.
The wide foliage of the maple tree, beneath which she sat, sheltered
her bare head from the burning noonday sun. And here, so high up on
the shoulder of the valley, she felt there was at least air to
breathe.
The book on the ground beside her had only just been laid there; its
pages, wide open, had been turned face downward upon the dry,
grassless patch surrounding the tree trunk.
Only a few feet away another girl, slight and fair-haired, was nimbly
plying her needle upon a pile of white lawn, as to the object of which
there could be small enough doubt. She was working with the care and
obvious appreciation which most women display toward the manufacture
of delicate underclothing.
As her companion laid her book aside and turned toward the valley, the
pretty needlewoman raised a pair of gray, speculative eyes. But almost
at once they dropped again to her work. It was only for a moment,
however. She reached the end of her seam and began to fold the
material up, and, as she did so, her eyes were once more raised in the
direction of her sister, only now they were full of laughter.
"Kate," she said, in a tone in which mirth would not be denied, "do
you know, it's five years to-day since we first came to Rocky Springs?
Five years." She breathed a profound sigh, which was full of mockery.
"You were twenty-three when we came. You are twenty-eight now, and I
am twenty-two. We'll soon be old maids. The folks down there," she
went on, nodding at the village below, "will soon be speaking of us as
'them two old guys,' or 'them funny old dears, the Seton sisters.'
Isn't it awful to think of? We came out West to find husbands for
ourselves, and here we are very nearly--old maids."
Kate Seton's eyes wore a responsive twinkle, but she did not turn.
"You're a bit of a joke, Hel," she replied, in the slow musical
fashion of a deep contralto voice.
"But I'm not a joke," protested the other, with pretended severity.
"And I won't be called 'Hel,' just because my name's Helen. It--it
sounds like the way Pete and Nick swear at each other when they've
been spending their pay at Dirty O'Brien's. Besides, it doesn't alter
facts at all. It won't take much more climbing to find ourselves right
on the shelf, among the frying pans and other cooking utensils.
I'm--I'm tired of it--I--really am. It's no use talking. I'm a woman,
and I'd sooner see a pair of trousers walking around my house than
another bunch of skirts--even if they belong to my beloved sister.
Trousers go every time--with me."
Kate withdrew her gaze from the village below and looked into her
sister's pretty face with smiling, indulgent eyes.
"Well?" she said.
The other shook her fair head. Her eyes were still laughing, but their
expression did not hide the seriousness which lay behind them.
"It's not 'well' at all," she cried. She drew herself up from the
ground into a kneeling position, which left her sitting on the heels
of shoes that could never have been bought in Rocky Springs. "Now,
listen to me," she went on, holding up a warning finger. "I'm just
going to state my case right here and now, and--and you've got to
listen to me. Five years ago, Kate Seton, aged twenty-three, and her
sister, Helen Seton, were left orphans, with the sum of two thousand
dollars equally divided between them. You get that?"
Her sister nodded amusedly. "Well," the girl went on deliberately.
"Kate Seton was no ordinary sort of girl. Oh, no. She was most
_un_ordinary, as Nick would say. She was a sort of headstrong girl
with an absurd notion of woman's independence. I--I don't mean she was
masculine, or any horror like that. But she believed that when it came
to doing the things she wanted to do she could do them just as well,
and deliberately, as any man. That she could think as well as any man.
In fact, she didn't believe in the superiority of the male sex over
hers. The only superiority she did acknowledge was that a man could
ask a woman to marry, while the privilege of asking a man was denied
to Kate's sex. But even in acknowledging this she reserved to herself
an alternative. She believed that every woman had the right to make a
man ask her."
The patient Kate mildly protested. "You're making me out a perfectly
awful creature," she said, without the least umbrage. "Hadn't I better
stand up for the--arraignment?"
But her sister's mock seriousness remained quite undisturbed.
"There's no necessity," she said, airily. "Besides, you'll be tired
when I'm through. Now listen. Kate Seton is a very kind and lovable
creature--really. Only--only she suffers from--notions."
The dark-eyed Kate, with her handsome face so full of decision and
character, eyed her sister with the indulgence of a mother.
"You do talk, child," was all she said.
Helen nodded. "I like talking. It makes me feel clever."
"Ye--es. People are like that," returned the other ironically. "Go
on."
Helen folded her hands in her lap, and for a moment gazed
speculatively at the sister she knew she adored.
"Well," she went on presently. "Let us keep to the charge. Five years
ago this spirit of independence and adventure was very strong in Kate
Seton. Far, far stronger than it is now. That's by the way. Say,
anyhow, it was so strong then that when these two found themselves
alone in the world with their money, it was her idea to break through
all convention, leave her little village in New England, go out west,
and seek 'live' men and fortune on the rolling plains of Canada. The
last part of that's put in for effect."
The girl paused, watching her sister as she turned again toward the
valley below.
With a sigh of resignation Helen was forced to proceed. "That's five
years--ago," she said. Then, dropping her voice to a note of pathos,
and with the pretense of a sob: "Five long years ago two lonely girls,
orphans, set out from their conventional home in a New England
village, after having sold it out--the home, not the village--and
turned wistful faces toward the wild green plains of the western
wilderness, the home of the broncho, the gopher, and the merciless
mosquito."
"Oh, do get on," Kate's smile was good to see.
"It's emotion," said Helen, pretending to dab her eyes. "It's emotion
mussing up the whole blamed business, as Nick would say."
"Never mind Nick," cried her sister. "Anyway, I don't think he swears
nearly as much as you make out. I'll soon have to go and get the
Meeting House ready for to-morrow's service. So----"
"Ah, that's just it," broke in Helen, with a great display of triumph
in her laughing eyes. "Five years ago Kate Seton would never have said
that. She'd have said, 'bother the old Meeting House, and all the old
cats who go there to slander each other in--in the name of religion.'
That's what she'd have said. It's all different now. Gone is her love
of adventure; gone is her defiance of convention; gone is--is her
independence. What is she now? A mere farmer, a drudging female,
spinster farmer, growing cabbages and things, and getting her
manicured hands all mussed up, and freckles on her otherwise handsome
face."
"A successful--female, spinster farmer," put in Kate, in her deep,
soft voice.
Helen nodded, and there was a sort of helplessness in her admission.
"Yes," she sighed, "and that's the worst of it. We came to find
husbands--'live' husbands, and we only find--cabbages. The
man-hunters. That's what we called ourselves. It sounded--uncommon,
and so we used the expression." Suddenly she scrambled to her feet in
undignified haste, and shook a small, clenched fist in her sister's
direction. "Kate Seton," she cried, "you're a fraud. An
unmitigated--fraud. Yes, you are. Don't glare at me. 'Live' men!
Adventure! Poof! You're as tame as any village cat, and just
as--dozy."
Kate had risen, too. She was not glaring. She was laughing. Her dark,
handsome face was alight with merriment at her sister's characteristic
attack. She loved her irresponsible chatter, just as she loved the
loyal heart that beat within the girl's slight, shapely body. Now she
came over and laid a caressing hand upon the girl's shoulder. In a
moment it dropped to the slim waist about which her arm was quickly
placed.
"I wish I could get cross with you, Helen," she said happily. "But I
simply--can't. You know you get very near the mark in your funny
fashion--in some things. Say, I wonder. Do you know we have more than
our original capital in the bank? Our farm is a flourishing concern.
We employ labor. Two creatures that call themselves men, and who
possess the characters of--hogs, or tigers, or something pretty
dreadful. We can afford to buy our clothes direct from New York or
Montreal. Think of that. Isn't that due to independence? I admit the
villagy business. I seem to love Rocky Springs. It's such a whited
sepulcher, and its inhabitants are such blackguards with great big
hearts. Yes, I love even the unconventional conventions of the place.
But the spirit of adventure. Well, somehow I don't think that has
really gone."
"Just got mired--among the cabbages," said Helen, slyly. Then she
released herself from her sister's embrace and stood off at arm's
length, assuming an absurdly accusing air. "But wait a moment, Kate
Seton. This is all wrong. I'm making the charge, and you're doing all
the talking. There's no defense in the case. You've--you've just got
to listen, and--accept the sentence. Guess this isn't a court of
men--just women. Now, we're man-hunters. That's how we started, and
that's what I am--still. We've been five years at it, with what
result? I'll just tell you. I've been proposed to by everything
available in trousers in the village--generally when the 'thing' is
drunk. The only objects that haven't asked me to marry are our two
hired men, Nick and Pete, and that's only because their wages aren't
sufficient to get them drunk enough. As for you, most of the boys sort
of stand in awe of you, wouldn't dare talk marrying to you even in the
height of delirium tremens. The only men who have ever had courage to
make any display in that direction are Inspector Fyles, when his duty
brings him in the neighborhood of Rocky Springs, and a dypsomaniac
rancher and artist, to wit, Charlie Bryant. And how do you take it?
You--a man-hunter? Why, you run like a rabbit from Fyles. Courage?
Oh, dear. The mention of his name is enough to send you into
convulsions of trepidation and maidenly confusion. And all the time
you secretly admire him. As for the other, you have turned yourself
into a sort of hospital nurse and temperance reformer. You've taken
him up as a sort of hobby, until, in his lucid intervals, he takes
advantage of your reforming process to acquire the added disease of
love, which has reduced him to a condition of imbecile infatuation
with your charming self."
Kate was about to break in with a laughing protest, but Helen stayed
her with a gesture of denial.
"Wait," she cried, grandly. "Hear the whole charge. Look at your
village life, which you plead guilty to. You, a high-spirited woman of
independence and daring. You are no better than a sort of hired
cleaner to a Meeting House you have adopted, and which is otherwise
run by a lot of cut-throats and pirates, whose wives and offspring are
no better than themselves. You attend the village social functions
with as much appreciation of them as any village mother with an
unwashed but growing family. You gossip with them and scandalize as
badly as any of them, and, in your friendliness and charity toward
them, I verily believe, for two cents, you'd go among the said
unwashed offspring with a scrub-brush. What--what is coming to you,
Kate? You--a man-hunter? No--no," she went on, with a hopeless shake
of her pretty head, "'tis no use talking. The big, big spirit of early
womanhood has somehow failed you. It's failed us both. We are no
longer man-hunters. The soaring Kate, bearing her less brave sister in
her arms, has fallen. They have both tumbled to the ground. The early
seed, so full of promise, has germinated and grown--but it's come up
cabbages. And--and they're getting old. There you are, I can't help
it. I've tripped over the agricultural furrow we've ploughed, and----.
There!"
She flung out an arm dramatically, pointing down at the slight figure
of a man coming toward them, slowly toiling up the slope of the
valley.
"There he is," she cried. "Your artist-patient. Your dypsomaniac
rancher. A symbol, a symbol of the bonds which are crushing the brave
spirits of our--ahem!--young hearts."
But Kate ignored the approaching man. She had eyes only for the bright
face before her.
"You're a great child," she declared warmly. "I ought to be angry. I
ought to be just mad with you. I believe I really am. But--but the
cabbage business has broken up the storm of my feelings. Cabbage? Oh,
dear." She laughed softly. "You, with your soft, wavy hair, dressed as
though we had a New York hairdresser in the village. You, with your
great gray eyes, your charming little nose and cupid mouth. You, with
your beautiful new frock, only arrived from New York two days ago, and
which, by the way, I don't think you ought to wear sprawling upon
dusty ground. You--a cabbage! It just robs all you've said of, I won't
say truth, but--sense. There, child, you've said your say. But you
needn't worry about me. I'm not changed--really. Maybe I do many
things that seem strange to you, but--but--I know what I'm doing. Poor
old Charlie. Look at him. I often wonder what'll be the end of him."
Kate Seton sighed. It seemed as though there were a great depth of
motherly tenderness in her heart, and just now that tenderness was
directed toward the man approaching them.
But the lighter-minded Helen was less easily stirred. She smiled
amusedly in her sister's direction. Then her bright eyes glanced
swiftly down at the man.
"If all we hear is true, his end will be the penitentiary," she
declared with decision.
Kate glanced round quickly, and her eyes suddenly became quite hard.
"Penitentiary?" she questioned sharply.
Helen shrugged.
"Everybody says he's the biggest whisky smuggler in the country,
and--and his habits don't make things look much--different. Say, Kate,
O'Brien told me the other day that the police had him marked down.
They were only waiting to get him--red-handed."
The hardness abruptly died out of Kate's eyes. A faint sigh, perhaps
of relief, escaped her.
"They'll never do that," she declared firmly. "Everybody's making a
mistake about Charlie. I'm--sure. With all his failings Charlie's no
whisky-runner. He's too gentle. He's too--too honest to descend to
such a traffic."
Suddenly her eyes lit. She came close to Helen, and one firm hand
grasped the soft flesh of the girl's arm, and closed tightly upon it.
"Say, child," she went on, in a deep, thrilling tone, "do you know
what these whisky-runners risk? Do you? No. Of course you don't. They
risk life as well as liberty. They're threatened every moment of their
lives. The penalty is heavy, and when a man becomes a whisky-runner he
has no intention of being taken--alive. Think of all that, and see
where your imagination carries you. Then think of Charlie--as we know
him. An artist. A warm-hearted, gentle creature, whose only sins
are--against himself."
But the younger girl's face displayed skepticism.
"Yes--as we know him," she replied quickly. "I've thought of it while
he's been giving me lessons in painting, when I've watched him with
you, with that wonderful look of dog-like devotion in his eyes, while
hanging on every word you uttered. I've thought of it all. And always
running through my mind was the title of a book I once read--'Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.' You are sure, and I--I only wonder."
Kate's hand relaxed its hold upon her sister's arm. Her whole
expression changed with a suddenness which, had she observed it, must
have startled the other. Her eyes were cold, very cold, as she
surveyed the sister to whom she was so devoted, and who could find it
in her heart to think so harshly of one whom she regarded as a sick
and ailing creature, needing the utmost support from natures morally
stronger than his own.
"You must think as you will, Helen," she said coldly. "I know. I know
Charlie. I understand the gentle heart that guides his every action,
and I warn you you are wrong--utterly wrong. Everybody is wrong, the
police--everybody."
She turned away and moved a few steps down the slope toward the
approaching figure.
CHAPTER VII
CHARLIE BRYANT
As Kate stood out from the shadow of the trees, the man approaching,
looking up, beheld her, and his dark eyes gladdened with a smile of
delight. His greeting came up to her on the still air in a tone
thrilling with warmth and deep feeling.
"Ho, Kate," he cried, in his deeply musical voice. "I saw you and
Helen making this way, and guessed I'd just get around."
He was breathing hard as he came up the hill, his slight figure was
bending forward with the effort of his climb. Kate watched him, much
as an anxious mother might watch, with doubtful eyes, some effort of
her ailing child. He reached her level and stood breathing heavily
before her.
"I was around watching the boys at work down there on the new church,"
he went on. His handsome boyish face was flushing. The delicate,
smooth, whiskerless skin was almost womanish in its texture, and
betrayed almost every emotion stirring behind it. "Allan Dy came along
with my mail. When I'd read it I felt I had to come and tell you the
news right away. You see, I had to tell someone, and wanted you--two
to be the first to hear it."
Kate's eyes were full of a smiling tender amusement at the
ingenuousness of the man. Helen was looking on with less tenderness
than amusement. He had not come to tell her the news--only Kate. The
Kate whom she knew he worshipped, and who was the only rival in his
life to his passionate craving for drink.
She surveyed the man now with searching eyes. What was it that
inspired in her such mixed feeling? She knew she had a dislike and
liking for him, all in the same moment. There was something
fascinating about him. Yes, there certainly was. He was darkly
handsome. Unusually so. He had big, soft, almost womanish eyes, full
of passionate possibilities. The delicate moulding of his features was
certainly beautiful. They were too delicate. Ah, that was it. They
were womanish. Yes, he was womanish, and nothing womanish in a man
could ever appeal to the essentially feminine heart of Helen. His
figure was slight, but perfectly proportioned, and quite lacking in
any suggestion of mannish strength. Again the thought of it brought
Helen a feeling of repugnance. She hated effeminacy in a man. And yet,
how could she associate effeminacy with a man of his known character?
Was he not the most lawless of this lawless village? Then there was
his outward seeming of gentleness. Yes, she had never known him
otherwise, even in his moments of dreadful drunkenness, and she had
witnessed those frequently enough during the past few years.
The whole personality of the man was an enigma to her. Nor was it
altogether a pleasant enigma. She felt that somehow there was an ugly
streak in him which her sister had utterly missed, and she only half
guessed at. Furthermore, somehow in the back of her mind, she knew
that she was not without fear of him.
In spite of Kate's denial, when the man came under discussion between
them, her conviction always remained. She knew she liked him, and she
knew she disliked him. She knew she despised him, and she knew she
feared him. And through it all she looked on with eyes of amusement at
the absurd, dog-like devotion he yielded to her strong, reliant,
big-hearted, handsome sister.
"What's your news, Charlie?" she demanded, as Kate remained silent,
waiting for him to continue. "Good, I'll bet five dollars, or you
wouldn't come rushing to us."
The man turned to her as though it were an effort to withdraw his gaze
from the face of the woman he loved.
"Good? Why, yes," he said quickly. "I'd surely hate to bring you two
anything but good news." Then a shadow of doubt crossed his smiling
features. "Maybe it won't be of much account to you, though," he went
on, almost apologetically. "You see, it's just my brother. My big
brother Bill. He's coming along out here to--to join me. He--he wants
to ranch, so--he's coming here, and going to put all his money into my
ranch, and suggests we run it together." Then he laughed shortly. "He
says I've got experience and he's got dollars, and between us we ought
to make things hum. He's a hustler, is Bill. Say, he's as much sense
as a two-year-old bull, and just about as much strength. He can't see
the difference between a sharp and a saint. They're all the same to
him. He just loves everybody to death, till they kick him on the
shins, then he hits out, and something's going to break. He's just the
bulliest feller this side of life."
Kate was still smiling at the man's enthusiasm, but she had no answer
for him. It was Helen who did the talking now, as she generally did,
while Kate listened.
"Oh, Charlie," Helen cried impulsively, "you will let me see him,
won't you? He's big--and--and manly? Is he good looking? But then he
must be if he's your--I'm just dying to see this Big Brother Bill,"
she added hastily.
Charlie shook his head, laughing in his silent fashion.
"Oh, you'll see him all right. This village'll just be filled right up
with him." Then his dark eyes became serious, and a hopeless shadow
crept into them. "I'm glad he's coming," he went on, adding simply,
"maybe he'll keep me straight."
Kate's smile died out in an instant. "Don't talk like that Charlie,"
she cried almost sharply. "Do you know what your words imply? Oh, it's
too dreadful, and--and I won't have it. You don't need anybody's
support. You can fight yourself. You can conquer yourself. I know it."
The man's eyes came back to the face he loved, and, for a moment, they
looked into it as though he would read all that which lay hidden
behind.
"You think so?" he questioned presently.
"I'm sure; sure as--as Fate," Kate cried impulsively.
"You think that all--all weakness can be conquered?"
Kate nodded. "If the desire to conquer lies behind it."
"Ah, yes."
The man's eyes had become even more thoughtful. There was a look in
them which suggested to Helen that he was not wholly thinking of the
thing Kate had in her mind.
"If the desire to conquer is there," he went on, "I suppose the
habits--diseases of years, even--could be beaten. But--but----"
"But what?" Kate's demand came almost roughly.
Charlie shrugged his slim shoulders. "Nothing," he said. "I--I was
just thinking. That's all."
"But it isn't all," cried Kate, in real distress.
Helen saw Charlie smile in a half-hearted fashion. For some moments
his patience remained. Then, as Kate still waited for him to speak,
his eyes abruptly lit with the deep fire of passion.
"Why? Why?" he cried suddenly. "Why must we conquer and fight with
ourselves? Why beat down the nature given to us by a power beyond our
control? Why not indulge the senses that demand indulgence, when, in
such indulgence, we injure no one else? Oh, I argue it all with
myself, and I try to reason, too. I try to see it all from the
wholesome point of view from which you look at it, Kate. And I can't
see it. I just can't see it. All I know is that the only thing that
makes me attempt to deny myself is that I want your good opinion. Did
I not want that I should slide down the road to hell, which I am told
I am on, with all the delight of a child on a toboggan slide. Yes, I
would. I surely would, Kate. I'm a drunkard, I know. A drunkard by
nature. I have not the smallest desire to be otherwise, from any moral
scruple. It's you that makes me want to straighten up, and you only.
When I'm sober I'd be glad if I weren't. And when I'm not sober I'd
hate being otherwise. Why should I be sober, when in such moments I
suffer agonies of craving? Is it worth it? What does it matter if
drink eases the craving, and lends me moments of peace which I am
otherwise denied? These are the things I think all the time, and these
are the thoughts which send me tumbling headlong--sometimes. But I
know--yes, I know I am all wrong. I know that I would rather suffer
all the tortures of hell than forfeit your--good will."
Kate sighed. She had no answer. She knew all that lay behind the man's
passionate appeal. She knew, too, that he spoke the truth. She knew
that the only reason he made any effort at all was because his
devotion to herself was something just a shade stronger than this
awful disease with which he was afflicted.
The hopelessness of the position for a moment almost overwhelmed her.
She knew that she had no love--love such as he required--to give him
in return. And when that finally became patent to him away would go
the last vestige of self-restraint, and his fall would be headlong.
She knew his early story, and it was a pitiful one. She knew he was
born of good parents, rich parents, in New York, that he was well
educated. He had been brought up to become an artist, and therein had
lain the secret of his fall. In Paris, and Rome, and other European
cities, he had first tasted the dregs of youthful debauchery, and
disaster had promptly set in. Then, after his student days, had come
the final break. His parents abandoned him as a ne'er-do-well, and,
setting him up as a rancher in a small way, had sent him out west,
another victim of that over-indulgence which helps to populate the
fringes of civilization.
The moment was a painful one, and Helen was quick to perceive her
sister's distress. She came to her rescue with an effort at lightness.
But her pretty eyes had become very gentle.
She turned to the man who had just taken a letter from his pocket.
"Tell us some more about Big Brother Bill," she said, with the
pretense of a sigh. Then, with a little daring in her manner: "Do you
think he'll like me? Because if he don't I'll sure go into mourning,
and order my coffin, and bury me on the hillside with my face to the
beautiful east--where I come from."
The man's moment of passionate discontent had passed, and he smiled
into the girl's questioning eyes in his gentle fashion.
"He'll just be crazy about you, Helen," he said. "Say, when he gets
his big, silly blue eyes on to you in that swell suit, why, he'll just
hustle you right off to the parson, and you'll be married before you
get a notion there's such a whirlwind around Rocky Springs."
"Is he--such a whirlwind?" the girl demanded with appreciation.
"He surely is," the man asserted definitely.
Helen sighed with relief. "I'm glad," she said. "You see, a
whirlwind's a sort of summer storm. All sunshine--and--and well, a
whirlwind don't suggest the cold, vicious, stormy gales of the folks
in this village, nor the dozy summer zephyrs of the women in this
valley. Yes, I'd like a whirlwind. His eyes are blue, and--silly?"
Charlie smiled more broadly as he nodded again. "His eyes are blue.
And big. The other's a sort of term of endearment. You see, he's my
big brother Bill, and I'm kind of fond of him."
Helen laughed joyously. "I'm real glad he's not silly," she cried.
"Let's see. He's big. He's got blue eyes. He's good looking.
He's--he's like a whirlwind. He's got lots of money." She counted the
attractions off on her fingers. "Guess I'll sure have to marry him,"
she finished up with a little nod of finality.
Kate turned a flushed face in her direction.
"For goodness sake, Helen!" she cried in horror.
Helen's gray eyes opened to their fullest extent.
"Why, whatever's the matter, Kate?" she exclaimed. "Of course, I'll
have to marry Big Brother Bill. Why, his very name appeals to me. May
I, Charlie?" she went on, turning to the smiling man. "Would you like
me for--a--a sister? I'm not a bad sort, am I, Kate?" she appealed
mischievously. "I can sew, and cook, and--and darn. No, I don't mean
curse words. I leave that to Kate's hired men. They're just dreadful.
Really, I wasn't thinking of anything worse than Big Brother Bill's
socks. When'll he be getting around? Oh, dear, I hope it won't be
long. 'Specially if he's a--whirlwind."
Charlie was scanning the open pages of his letter.
"No. Guess he won't be long," he said, amusedly. "He says he'll be
right along here the 16th. That's the day after to-morrow."
Helen ran to her sister's side, and shook her by the arm.
"Say, Kate," she cried, her eyes sparkling with pretended excitement.
"Isn't that just great? Big Brother Bill's coming along day after
to-morrow. Isn't it lucky I've just got my new suits? They'll last me
three months, and by the time I have to get my fall suits he'll have
to marry me." Then the dancing light in her eyes sobered. "Now, where
shall we live?" she went on, with a pretense of deep consideration.
"Shall we go east, or--or shall we live at Charlie's ranch? Oh, dear.
It's so important not to make any mistake. And yet--you see, Charlie's
ranch wants some one _capable_ to look after it, doesn't it? It's kind
of mousy. Big Brother Bill is sure to be particular--coming from the
east."
Her audience were smiling broadly. Kate understood now that her
irresponsible sister was simply letting her bubbling spirits overflow.
Charlie had no other feelings than frank amusement at the girl's
gaiety.
"Oh, he's most particular," he said readily. "You see, he's accustomed
to Broadway restaurants."
Helen pulled a long face.
"I'm afraid your shack wouldn't make much of a Broadway restaurant."
She shook her head with quaint solemnity. "Guess I never could get you
right. Here you run a ranch, and make quite big with it, yet you never
eat off a china plate, or spread your table with anything better than
a newspaper. True, Charlie, you've got me beaten to death. Why, how
you manage to run a ranch and make it pay is a riddle that 'ud put the
poor old Sphinx's nose plump out of joint. I----"
Kate suddenly turned a pair of darkly frowning eyes upon her sister.
"You're talking a whole heap of nonsense," she declared severely.
"What has the care of a home to do with making a ranch pay?"
Helen's eyes opened wide with mischief.
"Say, Kate," she cried with a great air of patronage, "you have a
whole heap to learn. Big Brother Bill's coming right along from
Broadway, with money and--notions. He's just bursting with them.
Charlie's a prosperous rancher. What does B. B. B. expect? Why, he'll
get around with fancy clothes and suitcases and trunks. He'll dream of
rides over the boundless plains, of cow-punchers with guns and things.
He'll have visions of big shoots, and any old sport, of a
well-appointed ranch house, with proper fixings, and baths, and swell
dinners and servants. But they're all visions. He'll blow in to Rocky
Springs--he's a whirlwind, mind--and he'll find a prosperous rancher
living in a tumbled-down shanty that hasn't been swept this side of
five years, a blanket-covered bunk, and a table made of packing cases
with the remains of last week's meals on it. That's what he'll find.
Prosperous rancher, indeed. Say, Charlie," she finished up with fine
scorn, "you know as much about living as Kate's two hired men, and
dear knows they only exist." Suddenly she broke out into a rippling
laugh. "And this is what my future husband is coming to. It's--it's an
insult to me."
The girl paused, looking from one to the other with dancing eyes. But
the more sober-minded Kate slipped her arm about her waist and began
to move down the hill.
"Come along, dear," she said. "I must get right on down to the
Meeting House. I--have work to do. You would chatter on all day if I
let you."
In a moment Helen was all indignant protest.
"I like that. Say, did you hear, Charlie? She's accusing me, and all
the time it's you doing the talking. But there, I'm always
misjudged--always. She'll accuse me of trying to trap your
brother--next. Anyway, I've got work to do, too. I've got to be at
Mrs. John's for the new church meeting. So Kate isn't everybody. Come
along."
Helen's laughter was good to hear as she dashed off in an attempt to
drag her elder sister down the hill at a run. The man looked on
happily as he kept pace with them. Helen was always privileged. Her
sister adored her, and the whole village of Rocky Springs yielded her
a measure of popularity which made her its greatest favorite. Even the
women had nothing but smiles for her merry irresponsibility, and, as
for the men, there was not one who would not willingly have sacrificed
even his crooked ways for her smile.
Halfway down to the village Charlie again reverted to his news.
"Helen put the rest of it out of my head," he said, and his manner of
speaking had lost the enjoyment of his earlier announcement. "It's
about the police. They're going to set a station here. A corporal and
two men. Fyles is coming, too. Inspector Fyles." His eyes were
studying Kate's face as he made the announcement. Helen, too, was
looking at her with quizzical eyes. "It's over that whisky-running a
week ago. They're going to clean the place up. Fyles has sworn to do
it. O'Brien told me this morning."
For some moments after his announcement neither of the women spoke.
Kate was thinking deeply. Nor, from her expression, would it have been
possible to have guessed the trend of her thoughts.
Helen, watching her, was far more expressive. She was thinking of her
sister's admiration for the officer. She was speculating as to what
might happen with Fyles stationed here in Rocky Springs. Would her
beautiful sister finally yield to his very evident admiration, or
would she still keep that barrier of aloofness against him? She
wondered. And, wondering, there came the memory of what Fyles's coming
would mean to Charlie Bryant.
To her mind there was no doubt but that the law would quickly direct
its energies against him. But she was also wondering what would happen
to him should time, and a man's persistence, finally succeed in
breaking down the barrier Kate had set up against the officer. Quite
suddenly this belated news assumed proportions far more significant
than the coming of Big Brother Bill.
Her tongue could not remain silent for long, however. Something of her
doubt had to find an outlet.
"I knew it would come sooner or later," she declared hopelessly.
She glanced quickly at Charlie, across her sister, beside whom he was
walking. The man was staring out down at the village with gloomy eyes.
She read into his expression a great dread of this officer's coming to
Rocky Springs. She knew she was witnessing the outward signs of a
guilty conscience. Suddenly she made up her mind.
"What--ever is to be done?" she cried, half eagerly, half fearfully.
"Say, I just can't bear to think of it. All these men, men we've
known, men we've got accustomed to, even--men we like, to be herded to
the penitentiary. It's awful. There's some I shouldn't be sorry to see
put away. They're scallywags, anyway. They aren't clean, and they chew
tobacco, and--and curse like railroaders. But they aren't all
like--that--are they, Kate?" She paused. Then, in a desperate appeal,
"Kate, I'd fire your two boys, Nick and Pete. They're mixed up in
whisky-running, I know. When Stanley Fyles gets around they'll be
corralled, sure, and I'd hate him to think we employed such men. Don't
you think that, Charlie?" she demanded, turning sharply and looking
into the man's serious face.
Then, quite suddenly, she changed her tone and relapsed into her less
responsible manner, and laughed as though something humorous had
presented itself to her cheerful fancy.
"Guess I'd have to laugh seeing those two boys doing the chores around
a penitentiary for--five years. They'd be cleaner then. Guess they get
bathed once a week. Then the funny striped clothes they wear. Can't
you see Nick, with his long black hair all cut short, and his vulture
neck sticking out of the top end of his clothes, like--like a thread
of sewing cotton in a darning needle? Wouldn't he look queer? And the
work, too! Say, it would just break his heart. My, but they get most
killed by the warders. And then for drink. Five years without tasting
a drop of liquor. No--they'd go mad. Anybody would. And all for the
sake of making a few odd dollars against the law. I wouldn't do it. I
wouldn't do it, not if I'd got to starve--else."
The man made no answer. His eyes remained upon the village below, and
their expression had become lost to the anxious Helen. She was talking
at him. But she was thinking not of him so much as her sister. She
knew how much it would mean to Kate if Charlie Bryant were brought
into direct conflict with the police. So she was offering her warning.
Kate turned to her quietly. She ignored the reference to her hired
men. She knew at whom her sister's remarks were directed. She shook
her head.
"Why worry about things, Sis?" she said, in her deliberate fashion.
"Lawbreakers need to be cleverer folks than those who live within the
law. I guess there won't be much whisky run into Rocky Springs with
Fyles around, and the police can do nothing unless they catch the boys
at it. You're too nervous about things." She laughed quietly. "Why,
the sight of a red coat scares you worse than getting chased by a
mouse."
The sound of Kate's voice seemed to rouse Charlie from his gloomy
contemplation of the village. He turned his eyes on the woman at his
side--and encountered the half-satirical smile of hers--which were as
dark as his own.
"Maybe Helen's right, though," he said. "Maybe you'd do well to fire
your boys." He spoke deliberately, but with a shade of anxiety in his
voice. "They're known whisky-runners."
Kate drew Helen to her side as though for moral support. "And what of
the other folks who are known--or believed--to be whisky-runners--with
whom we associate. Are they to be turned down, too? No, Charlie," she
went on determinedly, "I stand by my boys. I'll stand by my friends,
too. Maybe they'll need all the help I can give them. Then it's up to
me to give it them. Fyles must do his duty as he sees it. Our duty is
by our friends here, in Rocky Springs. Whatever happens in the crusade
against this place, I am against Fyles. I'm only a woman, and, maybe,
women don't count much with the police," she said, with a confident
smile, "but such as I am, I am loyal to all those who have helped me
in my life here in Rocky Springs, and to my--friends."
The man drew a deep breath. Nor was it easy to fathom its meaning.
Helen, eyeing her well-loved sister, could have thrown her young arms
about her neck in enthusiasm. This was the bold sister whom she had so
willingly followed to the western wilds. This was the spirit she had
deplored the waning of. All her apprehensions for Charlie Bryant
vanished, merged in a newly awakened confidence, since her brave
sister was ready to help and defend him.
She felt that Fyles's coming to Rocky Springs was no longer to be
feared. Only was it a source of excitement and interest. She felt that
though, perhaps, he might never have met his match during the long
years of his duties as a police officer, he had yet to pit himself
against Rocky Springs--with her wonderful sister living in the
village.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SOUL-SAVERS
Helen parted from her sister at the little old Meeting House. But
first she characteristically admonished her for offering herself a
sacrifice on the altar of the moral welfare of a village which reveled
in every form of iniquity within its reach. Furthermore, she threw in
a brief homily on the subject of the outrageous absurdity of turning
herself into a sort of "hired woman" in the interests of a sepulcher
whose whitewash was so obviously besmirched.
With the departure of the easy-going Kate, Charlie Bryant suddenly
awoke to the claims of the work at his ranch. He must return at once,
or disaster would surely follow.
Helen smiled at his sudden access of zeal, and welcomed his going
without protest. Truth to tell, she never failed to experience a
measure of relief at the avoidance of being alone with him.
Left to herself she moved on down toward the village without haste.
Her enthusiasm for the new church meeting at the house of Mrs. John
Day, who was the leading woman in the village, and, incidentally, the
wife of its chief citizen, who also owned a small lumber yard, was of
a lukewarm character. She had much more interest in the building
itself, and the motley collection of individuals in whose hands its
practical construction lay.
She possessed none of her sister's interest in Rocky Springs. Her
humor denied her serious contemplation of anything in it but the
opposite sex. And even here it frequently trapped her into pitfalls
which demanded the utmost exercise of her ready wit to extricate her
from. No, serious contemplation of her surroundings would have
certainly bored her, had it been possible to shadow her sunny nature.
Fortunately, the latter was beyond the reach of the sordid life in the
midst of which she found herself, and she never failed to laugh her
merry way to those plains of delight belonging to an essentially happy
disposition.
As she walked down the narrow trail, with the depths of green woods
lining it upon either hand, she remembered how beautiful the valley
really was. Of course, it was beautiful. She knew it. Was she not
always being told it? She was never allowed to forget it. Sometimes
she wished she could.
Down the trail a perfect vista of riotous foliage opened out before
her eyes. There, too, in the distance, peeping through the trees, were
scattered profiles of oddly designed houses, possessing a wonderful
picturesqueness to which they had no real claims. They borrowed their
beauty from the wealth of the valley, she told herself. Like the
people who lived in them, they had no claims to anything bordering on
the refinements or virtues of life. No, they were mockeries, just as
was the pretense of virtue which inspired the building of the new
church by a gathering of men and women, who, if they had their
deserts, would be attending divine service within the four walls of
the penitentiary.
She laughed. Really it was absurdly laughable. Life in this wonderful
valley was something in the nature of a tragic farce. The worst thing
was that the farce of it all could only be detected by the looker-on.
There was no real farce in these people, only tragedy--a very painful
and hideous tragedy.
On her way down she passed the great pine which for years had served
as a beacon marking the village. It was higher up on the slope of the
valley, but its vast trunk and towering crest would not be denied.
Helen gazed up at it, wondering, as many times she had gazed and
wondered before. It was a marvelous survival of primæval life. It was
so vast, so forbidding. Its torn crown, so sparse and weary looking,
its barren trunk, too, dark and forbidding against the dwarfed
surroundings of green, were they not a fit beacon for the village
below? It suggested to her imagination a giant, mouldering skeleton of
some dreadfully evil creature. How could virtue maintain in its
vicinity?
She laughed again as she thought. She knew there was some weird old
legend associated with it, some old Indian folklore. But that left no
impression of awe upon her laughter-loving nature.
Farther on the new church came into view. It was in the course of
construction, and at once her attention became absorbed. Here was a
scene which thoroughly appealed to her. Here was movement, and--life.
Here was food for her most appreciative observation.
It was a Church. Not a Meeting House. Not even a Chapel. She felt
quite sure, had the villagers had their way, it would have been called
a Cathedral. There was nothing half-hearted about these people. They
recognized the necessity of giving their souls a lift up, with a view
to an after life, and they meant to do it thoroughly.
They had no intention of mending their ways. They had no thought of
abandoning any of their pursuits or pleasures, be they never so
deplorable. But they felt that something had better be done toward
assurance of their futures. A Meeting House suggested something too
inadequate to meet their special case. It was right enough as far as
it went, but it didn't go far enough. They realized the journey might
be very long and the ultimate destination uncertain. A Chapel had its
claims in their minds, but Church seemed much stronger, bigger, more
powerful to help them in those realms of darkness to which they must
all eventually descend. Of course, Cathedral would have been _the_
thing. With a cathedral in Rocky Springs they would have felt certain
of their hereafter. But the difficulties of laying hands on a bishop,
and claiming him for their own, seemed too overwhelming. So they
accepted Church as being the best they could do under the
circumstances.
Quite a number of men were standing idly around the structure,
watching others at work. It was a weakness of the citizens of Rocky
Springs to watch others work. They had no desire to help. They rarely
were beset with any desire to help anybody. They simply clustered
together in small groups, chewing tobacco, or smoking, and, to a man,
their hands were indolently thrust into the tops of their trousers,
which, in every case, were girdled with a well-laden ammunition belt,
from which was suspended at least one considerable revolver.
There was no doubt in Helen's mind but that these weapons were loaded
in every chamber, and the thought set her merry eyes dancing again.
These men wanted a church, and were there to see they had it. Woe
betide--but, was there ever such a gathering of unclean, unholy
humanity? She thought not.
Helen knew that every man and woman in the village had had some voice
in the erection of the new church. There was not a citizen--they all
possessed the courtesy title of "citizens"--in Rocky Springs, who had
not contributed something toward it. Those who had wherewithal to give
in money or kind, had given. Those who had nothing else to give gave
their labor. She guessed the present onlookers had already done their
share of giving, and were now there to see that their less fortunate
brethren did not attempt to shirk their responsibilities.
For a moment, as the girl drew near, she abandoned her study of the
men for a rapid survey of the building itself, and, in a way, it held
her flattering attention. As yet there was no roof on it, but the
walls were up, and the picturesqueness of the design of the building
was fully apparent. Then she remembered that Charlie Bryant had
designed the building, and somehow the thought lessened her interest.
The whole thing was constructed of lateral, raw pine logs, carefully
dovetailed, with the ends protruding at the angles. There was no great
originality of design, merely the delightful picturesqueness which
unstripped logs never fail to yield. She knew that every detail of the
building was to be carried out in the same way. The roof, the spire,
the porches, even the fence which was ultimately to enclose the
churchyard.
Then the inside was to be lined throughout with polished red pine.
There was not a brick or stone to be used in the whole construction,
except in the granite foundations, which did not appear above ground.
The lumber was hewn in the valley and milled in John Day's yard. The
entire labor of hauling and building was to be done by the citizens of
Rocky Springs. The draperies, necessary for the interior, would be
made by the busy needles of the women of the village, and the
materials would be supplied by Billy Unguin, the dry goods
storekeeper. As for the stipend of the officiating parson, that would
be scrambled together in cash and kind from similar sources.
The church was to be a monument, a tribute to a holy zeal, which the
methods of life in Rocky Springs denied. Its erection was an attempt
to steal absolution for the sins of its citizens. It was the pouring
of a flood of oil upon the turbulent waters of an after life which
Rocky Springs knew was waiting to engulf its little craft laden with
tattered souls. It was a practical bribe to the Deity its people had
so long outraged, were still outraging, and had every intention of
continuing to outrage.
Helen's merry eyes glanced from group to group of the men, until they
finally came to rest upon an individual standing apart from the rest.
She walked on toward him.
He was a forbidding-looking creature, with a hard face, divided in its
expression between evil thoughts and a malicious humor. His general
appearance was much that of the rest of the men, with the exception
that he made no display of offensive weapons. It was not this,
however, that drew Helen in his direction, for she well enough knew
that, in fact, he was a perfect gunpark of concealed firearms. She
liked him because he never failed to amuse her.
"Good morning, Dirty," she greeted him cheerfully, as she came up,
smiling into his bearded face.
Dirty O'Brien turned. In a moment his wicked eyes were smiling. With
an adept twist of the tongue his chew of tobacco ceased to bulge one
cheek, and promptly distended the other.
"Howdy," he retorted, with as much amiability as it was possible for
him to display.
The girl nodded in the direction of the other onlookers.
"It's wonderful the interest you all take in the building of this
church."
"Int'rest?" The man's eyes opened wide. Then a gleam of scorn replaced
the surprise in them. "Guess you'd be mighty int'rested if you was
sittin' on a roof with the house afire under you, an' you just got a
peek of a ladder wagon comin' along, an' was guessin' if it 'ud get
around in time."
Helen's eyes twinkled.
"I s'pose I should," she admitted.
"S'pose nuthin'." The saloonkeeper laughed a short, hard laugh. "It's
dead sure. But most of them boys are feelin' mighty good. You see, the
ladders mostly fixed for 'em. I'd say they reckon that fire's as good
as out."
The interest of the onlookers was purely passive. They displayed none
of the enthusiasm one might have expected in men who considered that
the safety of their souls was assured. Helen remarked upon the fact.
"Their enthusiasm's wonderful," she declared, with a satirical laugh.
"Do you think they'll ever be able to use swear words again?"
Dirty O'Brien grinned till his discolored teeth parted the hair upon
his face.
"Say, I don't reckon to set myself up as a prophet at most things," he
replied, "but I'd like to say right here, the fixin' of that all-fired
chu'ch is jest about the limit fer the morals of this doggone city.
Standin' right here I seem to sort o' see a vision o' things comin' on
like a pernicious fever. I seem to see all them boys--good boys, mind
you, as far as they go--only they don't travel more'n 'bout an
inch--lyin', an' slanderin', an' thievin', an' shootin', an'--an'
committin' every blamed sin ever invented since Pharo's daughter got
busy makin' up fairy yarns 'bout them bulrushes----"
"I don't think you ought to talk like that," Helen protested hastily.
"There's no necessity to make----"
But Dirty O'Brien was not to be denied. He promptly cut her short
without the least scruple.
"No necessity?" he cried, with a sarcasm that left the girl
speechless. "How in hell would you have me talk standin' around a
swell chu'ch like that? I tell you what, Miss Helen, you ain't got
this thing right. Within a month this durned city'll all be that
mussed up with itself an' religion, the folks'll grow a crop o' wings
enough to stock a chicken farm, an' the boys'll get scratchin' around
for worms, same as any other feathered fowl. They'll get that out o'
hand with their own glory, they'll get shootin' up creation in the
name of religion by way o' pastime, and robbin' the stages an'
smugglin' liquor fer the fun o' gettin' around this blamed church an'
braggin' of it to the parson. Say, if I know anything o' the boys, in
a week they'll be shootin' craps with the parson fer his wages, an',
in a month, they'll set up tables around in the body o' the chu'ch so
they ken play 'draw' while the old man argues the shortest cut to
everlastin' glory. You ain't got the boys in this city right, miss.
Indeed, you ain't. Chu'ch? Why they got as much notion how to act
around a chu'ch as an unborn babe has of shellin' peanuts. Folks needs
eddicatin' to a chu'ch like that. Eddicatin'? An' that's a word as
ain't a cuss word, and as the boys of this yer city ain't wise to."
"It seems rather hopeless, doesn't it?" said Helen, stifling a violent
inclination to laugh outright.
Dirty O'Brien was less scrupulous. He laughed with a vicious snort.
"Hopeless?--well, say, hopeless ain't a circumstance. Guess you've
never seen a 'Jonah-man' buckin' a faro bank run by a Chinaman sharp?"
Helen shook her head while the saloonkeeper spat out his chew of
tobacco with all the violence of his outraged feelings.
"He surely is a gilt-edged winner beside it," he finally admitted
impressively, before clipping off a fresh chew from his plug with his
strong teeth.
Helen turned away, partly to hide the laugh that would no longer be
denied, and partly to watch the approach of a team of horses hauling a
load of logs. In a moment swift anger shone in her pretty eyes.
"Why!" she cried, pointing at them. "Look, Dirty! That's our team; and
Pete Clancy is driving it."
The man followed the direction in which she was pointing.
"Sure," he agreed indifferently.
"Sure? Of course it's sure," retorted Helen sharply; "but
what--what--impertinence!"
Dirty O'Brien saw nothing remarkable in the matter, and his face
displayed a waning interest.
"Don't he most gener'ly drive your team?" he inquired without
enthusiasm.
"Of course he does. But he's s'posed to be right out in the hay
sloughs--cutting. I heard Kate tell him this morning."
O'Brien's eyes twinkled, and a deep chuckle came from somewhere in the
depths of his beard.
"Ken you beat it?" he inquired, with cordial appreciation. "Do you get
his play?"
"Play?" The girl turned a pair of angry, bewildered eyes upon her
companion. "Impertinence!"
The man nodded significantly.
"Sure. Them two scallywags of yours ain't got nothin' to give to the
building of the chu'ch. Which means they'll need to get busy workin'
on it. Guess work never did come welcome to Mister Peter Clancy and
Nick. They hate work worse'n washin'--an' that's some. Guess they
borrowed your team to do a bit o' haulin', which--kind o' squares
their account. They're bright boys."
"Bright? They're impertinent rascals and--and--oh!"
Helen's exasperation left her almost speechless.
"Which is mighty nigh a compliment to them," observed the man.
But Helen's sense of humor utterly failed her now.
"It's--too bad, Dirty," she cried. "And poor Kate thinks they're out
cutting our winter hay. I begged of her only this morning to 'fire'
them both. I'm--I'm sure they're going to get us into trouble
when--when the police come here. I hate the sight of them both. Last
time Pete got drunk he--he very nearly asked me to marry him. I
believe he would have, only I had a bucket of boiling water in my
hand."
Again came the man's curious chuckle.
"It won't be you folks they get into trouble," he declared
enigmatically. "An' I guess it ain't goin' to be 'emselves, neither.
But when the p'lice get hot after 'em, why, they'll shift the
scent--sure."
Helen's eyes had suddenly become anxious.
"You mean--Charlie Bryant," she half whispered.
The man nodded.
"Sure. An' anybody else, so--_they_ get clear." O'Brien's eyes
hardened as they contemplated the distant teamster. "Say," he went on,
after a brief pause, "there are some low-down bums in this city.
There's Shorty Solon, the Jew boy. He's wanted across the border fer
shootin' up a bank manager, and gettin' off with the cash. Ther's
Crank Heufer, the squarehead stage robber, shot up more folks, women,
too, in Montana than 'ud populate a full-sized city. Ther's Kid
Blaney, the faro sharp, who broke penitentiary in Dakota twelve months
back. Ther's Macaddo, the train 'hold-up,' mighty badly wanted in
Minnesota. Ther's Stormy Longton, full of scalps to his gun, a bad man
by nature. Ther's Holy Dick, over there," he went on, pointing at a
gray-bearded, mild-looking man, sitting on a log beside a small group
of lounging spectators. "He owes the States Government seven good
years for robbing a church. Ther's Danny Jarvis and Fighting Mike,
both of 'em dodgin' the law, an' would shoot their own fathers up fer
fi' cents. It's a dandy tally of crooks, but they ain't a circumstance
beside them two boys of yours. They're bred bad 'uns, an' they
couldn't play even the crook's game right. I'd sure say they'd be a
fortune to Fyles, when he gets busy cleaning up this place. They'd
give Satan away if they see things gettin' busy their way."
The anxiety deepened in Helen's eyes as the man denounced the two men
who were her sister's hired help. She knew that all he said of them
was true. She had known it for months. Now she was thinking of Charlie
Bryant and Kate. If Fyles ever got hold of Charlie it would break poor
Kate's heart.
"You think they'd give--any one away?"
The man shook his head.
"I don't think. Guess I know." Then, after a pause, he went on,
speaking rapidly and earnestly. "See here, Miss Helen, I don't hold no
brief fer nobody but myself, an' I guess that brief needs a hell of a
piece of studyin' right. There's things in it I don't need to shout
about, and anyway I don't fancy Fyles's long nose smudging the ink on
it. You an' Miss Kate are jest about two o' the most wholesome bits
o' women in this township, an' there ain't many of us as wouldn't fix
ourselves up clean an' neat to pay our respec's to either of you. Wal,
Miss Kate's got a hell of a notion for that drunken bum, Charlie
Bryant. That bein' so, tell her to keep a swift eye on her two boys.
They're in with him, sure, an' they'll put him away if it suits 'em.
Savee? Tell her I said so--since Fyles is goin' to butt in around
here. I don't want to see Charlie Bryant in a stripe soot,
penitentiary way. I need him. An' I need the liquor he runs."
The man turned away abruptly. He had broken the unwritten law of Rocky
Springs, where it was understood that no man spoke of another man's
past, or questioned his present doings, or even admitted knowledge of
them. But like all the rest of the male portion of Rocky Springs, he
possessed a soft spot in his vicious heart for the two sisters, who,
in the mire of iniquity which flooded the township, contrived a clean,
wholesome living out of the soil, and were womanly enough to find
interest, and even pleasure, in their sordid surroundings. Now, he
hurried off down to his saloon, much in the manner of a man who fears
the consequences of feelings which have been allowed to run away with
him.
Left to herself, Helen only remained long enough to pass a few cheery
greetings with the rest of the onlookers; then she, too, took her
departure.
For some moments she certainly was troubled by the direct warning of a
man like Dirty O'Brien. With all the many criminal attainments of the
other citizens of Rocky Springs, she knew him to be the shrewdest man
in the place. A warning from him was more than significant. What
should she do? Tell her sister? Certainly she would do that, but she
felt it to be well-nigh useless. Kate was the gentlest soul in the
world. She was the essence of kindliness, of sympathy, of loyalty to
her friends, but she was determined to a degree. She saw always with
her own eyes, and would go the way she saw.
Had she not warned her herself before? Had she not endeavored to
persuade her a dozen times? It was all quite useless. Kate was
something of an enigma, a contradiction. For all her gentleness Helen
knew she could be as hard as iron.
Finally, with a sigh, she dismissed the matter from her mind until
such time as opportunity served. Meanwhile she must put in an
appearance at Mrs. John Day's house. Mrs. John Day was the social
pivot of Rocky Springs, and, to disobey her summons, Helen knew would
be to risk a displeasure which would find reflection in every woman in
the place.
That was a catastrophe she had no desire to face. It was enough for
her to remember that she had imprisoned herself in such a place. She
had no desire to earn the ill-will of the wardresses.
She laughed to herself. But she really felt that it was very dreadful
that her life must be passed among these people. She wanted to be
free--to live all these good years of her life. She wanted to attend
parties, and--and dances among those people amid whom she had been
brought up. She craved for the society of cultured folks--of men. Yes,
she admitted it, she wanted all those things which make a young girl's
life enjoyable--theatres, dances, skating, hockey and--and, yes,
flirtations. Instead of those things what had she--what was she? That
was it. What was she? She had been planted in the furrows of life a
decorative flower, and some terrible botanical disaster had brought
her up a--cabbage.
She laughed outright, and in the midst of her laugh, looking out
across the valley, she beheld her sister leaving the Meeting House,
which stood almost in the shadow of the great pine, far up on the
distant slope.
Her laugh sobered. Her thoughts passed from herself to Kate with a
feeling which was almost resentment. Her high-spirited,
adventure-loving, handsome sister. What of her? It was terrible. So
full of promise, so full of possibilities. Look at her. She was clad
in a big gingham apron. No doubt her beautiful, artistic hands were
all messed up with the stains of scrubbing out a Meeting House, which,
in turn, right back to the miserable Indian days, had served the
purposes of saloon, a trader's store, the home of a bloodthirsty
badman, and before that goodness knows what. Now it was a house of
worship for people, beside whom the scum of the earth was as the froth
of whipped cream. It was--outrageous. It was so terrible to her that
she felt as if she must cry, or--or laugh.
The issue remained in doubt for some moments. Then, just as she
reached the pretentious portals of Mrs. John Day's home, her real
nature asserted itself, and a radiant smile lit her pretty face as she
passed within.
CHAPTER IX
THE "STRAY"-HUNTER
The real man is nearest the surface after a long period of idle
solitude.
So it was with Stanley Fyles, riding over the even, sandy trail of the
prairies which stretched away south of the Assiniboine River. His
sunburnt face was sternly reposeful, and in his usually keen gray eyes
was that open staring light which belongs to the man who gropes his
way over Nature's trackless wastes, and whose mind is ever asking the
question of direction. But there was no question of such a nature in
his mind now. His look was the look of habit, when the call of the
trail is heard.
He sat his horse with the easy grace of a man whose life is mostly
spent in the saddle. His loose shoulders and powerful frame swayed
with that magical rhythm which gives most ease to both horse and
rider. His was the seat of a horseman whose poise is the poise of
perfect balance rather than the set attitude of the riding school.
The bit hung lightly in the horse's mouth, but lightly as the reins
were held in the man's hand there was a firmness and decision in the
feeling of them that communicated the necessary confidence between
horse and rider.
Stanley Fyles was as nearly a perfect horseman as the prairie could
produce.
Just now the man beneath the officer's habit was revealed. His
military training was set aside, perhaps all thought of it had been
left behind with his uniform, and just the "man" was reassumed with
the simple prairie kit he had adopted for the work in hand.
To look at him now he might have been a ranch hand out on the work of
the spring round-up. He was dressed in plain leather chapps over his
black cloth riding breeches, and, from his waist up, his clothing was
a gray flannel shirt, over which he wore an open waistcoat of ordinary
civilian make. About his neck was tied a silk handkerchief of modest
hue, and about his waist was strapped a revolver belt. The only
visible detail that could have marked him as a police officer was the
glimpse of military spurs beneath his chapps.
His thoughts and feelings as he covered the dreary miles of grass were
of a conflicting nature, and, roaming at will, they centered, as
thoughts so roaming will center, chiefly upon those things which
concerned his most cherished ambitions.
At first a feeling of something bordering on anxious resentment pretty
fully occupied him. There was still in his mind the memory of an
interview he had had with his immediate superior, Superintendent
Jason, just before the time of his setting out. It had been an
uncomfortable half-hour spent listening to the sharp criticisms of his
chief, whose mind was saturated with the spirit of his official
capacity, almost to the exclusion of common sense.
Superintendent Jason was still angry at the manner in which the great
whisky-running coup had been effected, and of the manner in which the
perpetrators of it had slipped through the official fingers. He blamed
everybody, and particularly Inspector Fyles, in whose hands the case
had been placed.
Nor had he been wholly appeased by the inspector's final offer. Goaded
by the merciless pin-prick of his superior's tongue, Fyles had finally
offered to set out for Rocky Springs, the place, both were fully
agreed, whence the trouble emanated, and bring all those concerned in
the smuggling to book.
At first Jason had been inclined to sneer, nor was it until Fyles
unfolded something of his scheme that he began to take it seriously.
Finally, however, the younger man had had his way, and the necessary
permission was granted. Then the superintendent dealt with the matter
as the cold discipline of police methods demanded.
Fyles remembered his words well. They meant far more to him than they
expressed. They were full of a cold threat, which, to a man of his
experience, could not be mistaken.
The picture remained in his mind for many a long day. It was doubtful
if he would ever forget it. It was a moment of crisis in his official
life, a crisis when it became necessary to back himself against all
odds--or ultimately sacrifice his position.
He was standing beside the superintendent, and both men were bending
over one of those secret official charts of the district surrounding
Rocky Springs. They were alone in Jason's bare, even mean office.
Fyles's long, firm forefinger was pointing along a trail, and his
sharp, incisive words were explaining something of his convictions as
his finger moved. The other was listening without interruption. At
last, as the quiet, confident tones ceased, the superintendent
straightened himself up, and his small, quick-moving, dark eyes shot
their gleam of cold authority into his companion's.
"It's up to you," he said, with a callous upraising of his shoulders.
"You've talked a good deal to me here, and you've made your talk sound
right. But talk doesn't put these men in the penitentiary. You've made
a mess of this job so far. Guess it's up to you to make good. You've
got your chance now. See you don't miss it. The authorities don't
stand for two mistakes on one job, not even when they're made by
Inspector Fyles. You get me? You've _got_ to make good."
Fyles left the office fully aware that sentence had been passed on
him, just as surely as though he had stood before the Commissioner, a
prisoner.
Thus, at the outset of his journey, his feelings had been scarcely
pleasant, but, as the distance between him and headquarters increased,
his confidence and sense of responsibility returned, and the shadow of
threat retreated into the background. His plans were carefully laid,
and all the support he could need was arranged for. This time the work
before him was no mere capture of whisky-runners, but to make all
whisky-running, as associated with Rocky Springs, impossible, and to
break up the gang who had for so long defied the law. Yes, he felt
confident in the result, and, as the long miles were put behind him,
his thoughts wandered into more pleasant channels.
Rocky Springs certainly offered him inducement. And curiously enough
he found himself wondering how much he was influenced by that
inducement in accepting the odds against him in cleaning up the place,
and dusting the cobwebs of crime from its corners.
Kate Seton. He had not seen her for something running into weeks. The
thought that he was to renew an acquaintance, which, though almost
slight, still had extraordinary power to hold him, was a delightful
one. Sometimes he had found himself wondering at the phenomenon of her
attraction for him. But he was incapable of analyzing his feelings
closely. His life had been spent on these fringes of civilization so
long, and the generality of the women he had come into contact with
had been so much a part of the life of the country, that their appeal
had been weakened almost to the vanishing point.
Then here, in Rocky Springs, where he might reasonably expect to find
only the dregs of society, he suddenly discovered a woman obviously
belonging to an utterly different and more cultured life. A woman of
uncommon beauty and distinction; a woman, who, to his mind, fulfilled
some essentially mannish ideal, an ideal that, in idle moments, had
stolen in upon a wholly reposeful mind. A woman who----
But the thread of his pleasant reflections was suddenly broken, and
his mechanically watchful eyes warned him that a horseman was riding
along the trail ahead of him, and that he was rapidly overtaking this
stranger.
In a moment all other interests were forgotten. To the solitary rider
of the plains a fellow-creature ever becomes a matter of considerable
moment. In Fyles's case he possessed the added interest of a possible
giver of information.
As he gently urged his horse to lengthen its stride, his keen eyes
took in the details of the man's figure, and the points of the horse
he was riding. The man was of unusual stature, so unusual, in fact,
that his horse, although a big raking creature, became dwarfed under
him. Even from that distance the officer obtained a suggestion of fair
hair beneath the brim of the prairie hat, which was tilted forward at
an unusual angle. The great square shoulders of the stranger were clad
in a tweed jacket, and, from what he could make out, he wore no
chapps.
Just for a moment Fyles guessed he might be some farmer, and the tweed
jacket suggested he was out to pay a visit to friends. Then, quite
abruptly, he changed his mind, and further increased his pace. He had
detected the city-fashioned top-boots the man was wearing.
Without further speculation he pressed on to overtake the stranger,
whom, presently, he saw turn round and look back. Evidently he had
become aware of the approach. Equally evidently he either welcomed or
resented the intrusion upon his solitude. For he reined in his horse,
and waited for the officer to come up.
The greeting between the men was widely different. The stranger's face
was abeam with smiling good nature. His big blue eyes were wide with
frank welcome.
"I've been just bursting with a painful longing for the sight of a
living man with two arms and two legs, and anything else that goes to
make up a human companion," he said delightedly. "Say, how far do you
guess a fellow could ride by himself without needing to be sent into a
home to be looked after?"
Fyles's manner was more guarded. The police officer was uppermost in
him now, but he smiled a certain cordiality at the other's frankly
unconventional greeting.
"That mostly depends on how many things there are chasing around in
his brain-box to keep the works busy," he said gently.
The stranger's smile broadened into a laugh.
"That don't offer much hope," he replied dryly. "I've been riding
around this eternal grass for nigh a week. God knows where I haven't
been during that time. Nobody ever did brag about the ideas I've got
in my head, not even my mother, and any I have got have just been
chewed right up to death till there isn't a blamed thing left to chew.
For the past ten miles I've been reviewing the attractions of every
nursing home I've ever heard of, with a view to becoming an inmate. I
think I've almost decided on one I know of in Toronto. You see there
are a few human beings there."
Fyles's eyes had taken in the stranger from head to foot. Even the
horse did not escape his closest attention. He recognized this man as
being a stranger in the country. He was obviously direct from some
eastern city, though not aggressively so. Furthermore, the beautiful
chestnut horse he was riding was no prairie-bred animal, and
suggested, in combination with the man's general get-up, the
possession of ample means.
"A week riding about--trying to find yourself?"
Fyles's question was one of amused speculation.
"Sure," the man nodded, with a buoyant amusement in his eyes. "That,
and finding some forgotten hole of a place called Rocky Springs."
Fyles lifted his reins and his horse moved on.
"We'd best ride together. I'm going to Rocky Springs, and--you've
certainly hit the trail at last."
The fair-haired giant jumped at the suggestion, and even his horse
seemed to welcome the companionship, for it ambled on in the
friendliest manner by the side of the police horse.
"How did you manage to--lose yourself?" Fyles inquired presently. "Did
you start out from Amberley?"
The stranger's look of chagrin was almost comical. He shook his head.
"That's where I ought to've started from," he said. Then he shrugged
his great shoulders. "Here, I'll tell you. I come from down East, and
I'm on my way to join a brother of mine at Rocky Springs. He's a
rancher. Sort of artist, too. His name's Charlie Bryant. My name's
Bill--Bill Bryant. Well, I ought to have got off at Black Cross, and
changed trains for the Amberley branch. Instead of that I was sleeping
peacefully in the car and went right on to a place called Moosemin.
Well, some torn fool told me if I got off at Moosemin I would get
across country to Amberley, and thus get on to the Rocky Springs road.
Maybe he was right enough, if the feller getting off had got any horse
sense. But I guess they forgot to hand any out my way. Anyhow, I kind
of took to the idea. Guessed I'd make a break that way and get used to
the country. So I just bought the best horse I could find in the town
from the worst thief that ever dodged penitentiary, and since then
have spent seven whole days getting on intimate terms with every blade
of grass in the country, and trying to convince various settlers that
I wasn't a murderer or horse thief, and didn't want to shoot 'em in
their beds, but just needed food and sleep, all of which I was ready
to pay for at any fancy prices they liked to ask. How I eventually got
here I don't know, and haven't a desire to know, and I'll stake my
oath you won't find any two people in the country with the same ideas
of direction. And I want to say that I hate grass worse than poison,
and as for sun it's an abomination. Horse riding's overrated, and
tailors don't know a thing about making pants that are comfortable
riding. I could write a book on the subject of boils and saddle
chafes, and when I get off this blamed saddle I don't intend to sit
down for a week. I think a rancher's life is just the dandiest thing
to read about I ever knew, and beans--those things the shape of an
immature egg and as hard as rocks--are most nourishing; and I don't
think I shall need nourishing ever again. Also the West is the
greatest country ever forgotten by God or men, but the remark applies
only to its size. The best thing I know of, just now, is a full-sized
human being going the same way I am."
Bill Bryant finished up with a great laugh of the happiest good
nature, which quite robbed Fyles of his last shadow of aloofness. No
one could have looked into the man's humorously smiling eyes, or
listened to the frank admissions of his own blundering, and felt it
necessary to entertain the least question as to his perfect honesty.
Fyles accepted the introduction in the spirit in which it was made.
"My name's Fyles--Stanley Fyles," he said cordially. "Glad to meet
you, Mr. Bryant."
"Bill Bryant," corrected the other, grasping and wringing the
policeman's proffered hand with painful cordiality. "That's a good
name--Fyles," he went on, releasing the other's hand. "Suggests all
sorts of things--nails, chisels--something in the hardware line. Good
name for this country, too." Then his big blue eyes scanned the
officer's outfit. "Rancher?" he suggested.
Fyles smiled, shaking his head.
"Hardly a--rancher," he deprecated.
"Ah. I know. Cowpuncher. You're dressed that way. I've read about 'em.
Chasing cattle. Rounding 'em up. Branding, and all that sort of thing.
Fine. Exciting."
Fyles shook his head again.
"My job's not just that, either," he said, his smile broadening. "You
see, I just round up 'strays,' and send 'em to their right homes. I'm
out after 'strays' now."
Bill nodded with ready understanding.
"I get it," he cried. "They just break out in spring, and go chasing
after fancy grass. Then they get lost, or mussed up with ether cattle,
and--and need sorting out. Must be a mighty lonesome job--always
hunting 'strays.'"
Inspector Fyles's eyes twinkled, but his sunburned face remained
serious.
"Yes, I'd say it's lonesome--at times. You see, it isn't easy locating
their tracks. And when you do locate 'em maybe you've got a long piece
to travel before you come up with 'em. They get mighty wild running
loose that way, and, hate being rounded up. Some of 'em show fight,
and things get busy. No, it's not dead easy--and it doesn't do making
mistakes. Guess a mistake is liable to snuff your light out when
you're up against 'strays.'"
A sudden enthusiasm lit Bill Bryant's interested eyes.
"That sounds better than ranching," he said quickly. "You see, I've
lived a soft sort of life, and it kind of seems good to get upsides
with things. I've got a notion that it's better to hand a feller a
nasty bunch of knuckles, square on the most prominent part of his
face, than taking dollars out of him to pay legal chin waggers. That's
how I've always felt, but living in luxury in a city makes you act
otherwise. I've quit it though, now, and, in consequence, I'm just
busting to hand some fellow that bunch of knuckles." He raised one
great clenched fist and examined it with a sort of mild enthusiasm.
"I'm going to ranch," he went on simply, while the police officer
surveyed him as he might some big, boisterous child. "My brother's got
a ranch at Rocky Springs. He's done pretty well, I guess--for an
artist fellow. He's making money--oh, yes, he's making good money, and
seems to like the life.
"The fact is," he went on eagerly, "Charlie was a bit of a bad
boy--he's a dandy good fellow, really he is; but I guess he got gay
when he was an art student, and the old man got rattled over it and
sent him along out here to raise cattle and wheat. Well, when dad died
he left me most of his dollars. There were plenty, and it's made me
feel sick he forgot Charlie's existence. So I took a big think over
things. You see it makes a fellow think, when he finds himself with a
lot of dollars that ought to be shared with another fellow.
"Well, I don't often think hard," he went on ingenuously. "But I did
that time, and it's queer how easy it is to think right when you
really try--hard. Guess you don't need to think much in your work--but
maybe sometimes you'll have to, and then you'll find how easy it
comes."
He turned abruptly in the saddle and looked straight into the
officer's interested face. His eyes were alight, and he emitted a
deep-throated guffaw.
"Say," he went on, "it came to me all of a sudden. It was in the
middle of the night. I woke up thinking it. I was saying it to myself.
Why not go out West? Join Charlie. Put all your money into his ranch.
Turn it into a swell affair, and run it together. That way it'll seem
as if you were doing it for yourself. That way Charlie'll never know
you're handing him a fortune. Can you beat it?" he finished up
triumphantly.
Stanley Fyles had not often met men in the course of his sordid work
with whom he really wanted to shake hands. But somehow this great,
soft-hearted, simple giant made him feel as he had never felt before.
He abruptly thrust out a hand, forgetful of the previous handshakes he
had endured, and, in a moment, it was seized in a second vice-like
grip.
"It's fine," he said. Then as an afterthought: "No, you can't beat
it."
The unconscious Bill beamed his satisfaction.
"That's how I thought," he said enthusiastically. "And I'll be mighty
useful to him, myself, too--in a way. Don't guess I know much about
wheat or cattle, but I can ride anything with hair on it, and I've
never seen the feller I couldn't pound to a mush with the gloves on.
That's useful, seeing Charlie's sort of small, and--and mild."
Suddenly he pointed out ahead. "What's that standing right up there?
See, over there. A tree--or--something."
Fyles abruptly awoke to their whereabouts. Bill Bryant was pointing at
the great pine marking Rocky Springs.
"That's the landmark of Rocky Springs," he told him. This stranger had
so interested and amused him that he had quite lost reckoning of the
distance they had ridden together.
"I don't see any town," complained his companion.
"It's in the valley. You see, that tree is on the shoulder of the
valley of Leaping Creek."
Bill's eyes widened.
"Oh, that's a valley, eh? And Charlie's ranch is down below. I see."
The man's eyes became thoughtful, and he relapsed into silence as they
drew on toward the aged signpost. He was thinking--perhaps hard--of
that brother whom he had not seen for years. Maybe, now that the time
had come for the meeting, some feeling of nervousness was growing.
Perhaps he was wondering if he would be as welcome as he hoped. Had
Charlie changed much? Would his coming be deemed an impertinence?
Charlie had not answered his letter. He forgot his brother had not had
time to answer his impulsive epistle.
As they drew near the valley his eyes lost their enthusiastic light.
His great, honest face was grave, almost to the point of anxiety.
Fyles, watching him furtively, observed every change of expression,
and the meaning of each was plain enough to him. He, too, was
wondering about that meeting. It would have interested him to have
witnessed it. He was thinking about that brother in Rocky Springs. He
knew him slightly, and knew his reputation better, and, in
consequence, the two words "drunkard" and "crook" drifted through his
mind, and left him regretfully wondering. Somehow he felt sorry,
inexpressibly sorry, for this great big babe of a man whom he found
himself unusually glad to have met.
CHAPTER X
THE BROTHERS
The valley of Leaping Creek gaped at Bill Bryant's feet and the man's
ready delight bubbled over.
"Say," he demanded of his guide, "and this is where my brother's ranch
is? Gee," he went on, while Fyles nodded a smiling affirmative, "it
surely is the dandiest ditch this side of creation. It makes me want
to holler."
As Fyles offered no further comment they rode on down the hill in
silence, while Bill Bryant's shining eyes drank in the beauties which
opened out in every direction.
The police officer, by virtue of his knowledge of the valley, led the
way. Nor was he altogether sorry to do so. He felt that the moment for
answering questions had passed. Any form of cross-examination now
might lead him into imparting information that might hurt this
stranger, and he had no desire to be the one to cast a shadow upon his
introduction to the country he intended to make his home.
However, beyond this first expression of delight, Bill Bryant made no
further attempt at speech. Once more doubt had settled upon his mind,
and he was thinking--hard.
Ten minutes later the village came into view. Then it was that Bill
was abruptly aroused from his somewhat troubled thought. They were
just approaching the site of the new church, and sounds of activity
broke the sylvan peace of the valley. But these things were of a
lesser interest. A pedestrian, evidently leaving the neighborhood of
the new building, was coming toward them along the trail. It was a
girl--a girl clad in a smart tailored costume, which caught and held
the stranger's most ardent attention.
She came on, and as they drew abreast of her, just for one brief
instant the girl's smiling gray eyes were raised to the face of the
stranger. The smile was probably unconscious, but it was nevertheless
pronounced. In a moment, off came Bill's hat in a respectful salute,
and only by the greatest effort could he refrain from a verbal
greeting. Then, in another moment, as she passed like a ray of April
sun, he had drawn up beside his guide.
"Say," he cried, with a deep breath of enthusiasm, "did you get that
pretty girl?" Then with a burst of impetuosity: "Are they all like
that in--this place? If so, I'm surely up to my neck in the valley of
Leaping Creek. Who is she? How did she get here? I'll bet a thousand
dollars to a bad nickel this place didn't raise her."
The officer's reply to the volley of questions came with
characteristic directness.
"That's Miss Seton, Miss Helen Seton, sister of the one they
call--Kate. They're sort of farmers, in a small way. Been here five
years."
"Farmers?" Bill's scorn was tremendous. "Why, that girl might have
stepped off Broadway, New York, yesterday. Farmers!"
"Nevertheless they _are_ farmers," replied Fyles, "and they've been
farming here five years."
"Five years! They've been here five years, and that girl--with her
pretty face and dandy eyes--not married? Say, the boys of this place
need seeing to. They ought to be lynched plumb out of hand."
Fyles smiled as he drew his horse up at the point where the trail
merged into the main road of the village.
"Maybe it's not--their fault," he said dryly.
But Bill's indignation was sweeping him on.
"Then I'd like to know whose it is."
Fyles laughed aloud.
"Maybe she's particular. Maybe she knows them. They surely do need
lynching--most of 'em--but not for that. When you know 'em better
you'll understand."
He shrugged his shoulders and pointed down the trail, away from the
village.
"That's your way," he went on, "along west. Just keep right along the
trail for nearly half a mile till you come to a cattle track on the
right, going up the hill again."
Then he shifted the direction of his pointing finger to a distant
house on the hillside, which stood in full view.
"The track'll take you to that shanty there, with the veranda facing
this way. That's Charlie Bryant's place, and, unless I'm mistaken,
that's your brother standing right there on the veranda looking out
this way. For a rancher--he don't seem busy. Guess I'm going right on
down to the saloon. I'll see you again some time. So long."
The police officer swung his horse round, and set off at a sharp
canter before Bill could give expression to any of the dozen questions
which leaped to his lips. The truth was Fyles had anticipated them,
and wished to avoid them.
* * * * *
Charlie Bryant was standing on the veranda of his little house up on
the hillside. He was watching with eyes of anxious longing for the
sight of a familiar figure emerging from a house, almost as diminutive
as his own, standing across the river on the far side of the valley.
There was never any question as to the longing in his dark eyes when
they were turned upon the house of Kate Seton, but the anxiety in them
now was less understandable.
It was his almost constant habit to watch for her appearance leaving
her home each morning. But to-day she had remained invisible. He
wondered why. It was her custom to be abroad early, and here it was
long past mid-day, and, so far, there had been no sign of her going.
He wondered was she ill. Helen had long since made her appearance. He
knew well enough that the new church building, and the many other
small activities of the village, usually claimed Helen's morning. That
was the difference, one of the many differences between the sisters.
Helen must always be a looker on at life--the village life. Kate--Kate
was part of it.
He sighed, and a look of almost desperate worry crossed his dark,
good-looking face. His thoughts seemed to disturb him painfully. Ever
since he had heard of Inspector Fyles's coming to the village a sort
of depression had settled like a cloud upon him--a depression he could
not shake off. Fyles was the last man he wished to see in Rocky
Springs--for several reasons.
He was reluctantly about to turn away, and pass on down to his
corrals, which were situated on the slope beside the house. There was
work to be done there, some repairs, which he had intended to start
early that morning. They had been neglected so long, as were many
things to do with his ranch.
With this intention he moved toward the end of the veranda, but his
progress was abruptly arrested by the sight of two horsemen in the
distance making their way down toward the village. For awhile he only
caught odd glimpses of them through the trees, but at last they
reached the main road of the village, and halted in full, though
somewhat distant, view of his house.
In a moment the identity of one of the men became certain in his mind.
In spite of the man's civilian clothing he recognized the easy poise
in the saddle of Inspector Fyles. He had seen him so many times at
comparatively close range that he was sure he could not be mistaken.
The sight of the police officer banished all his interest in the
identity of the second horseman. A dark look of bitter, anxious
resentment crept into his eyes, and all the mildness, all the
gentleness vanished out of his expressive features. They had suddenly
grown hard and cold. He knew that trouble was knocking at the door of
Rocky Springs. He knew that his own peace of mind could never be
restored so long as the shadow of Stanley Fyles hovered over the
village.
Presently he saw the two horsemen part. Fyles rode on down toward the
village while the other turned westwards, but the now hot eyes of the
watching man followed only the figure of the unwelcome policeman until
it was lost to view beyond the intervening bush.
As the officer disappeared the rancher made a gesture of fierce anger.
"Kate, Kate," he cried, raising his clenched fists as though about to
strike the unconscious horseman, "if I lose you through him,
I'll--I'll kill him."
Now he hurried away down to the corrals with the air of a man who is
endeavoring to escape from himself. He suddenly realized the necessity
of a vent for his feelings.
But his work had yet to suffer a further delay. He had scarcely
reached the scene of operations when the sound of galloping hoofs
caught and held his attention. He had quite forgotten the second
horseman in his bitter interest in the policeman. Now he remembered
that he had turned westward, which was in the direction of his ranch.
The sounds were rapidly approaching up the track toward him. His eyes
grew cold and almost vicious as he thought. Was this another of the
police force? The force to which Fyles belonged?
He stood waiting at the head of the trail. And the look in his eyes
augured ill for the welcome of the newcomer.
The sounds grew louder. Then he heard a voice, a somewhat familiar
voice. It was big, and cheerful, and full of a cordial good humor.
"By Judas! he was a thief, and an outrageous robber, but you can go,
my four-footed monument to a blasted rogue's perfidy. Five hundred
good dollars--now, at it for a final spurt."
Charlie Bryant understood. The man was talking to his horse. Had he
needed evidence it came forthwith, for, with a rush, at a headlong
gallop, a horseman dashed from amid the bushes and drew up with a jolt
almost on top of him.
"Charlie!"
"Bill! Good old--Bill!"
The greetings came simultaneously. The next instant Big Brother Bill
flung out of the saddle, and stood wringing his brother's hand with
great force.
"Gee! It's good to see you, Charlie," he cried joyously.
"Good? Why, it's great, and--and I took you for one of the damned
p'lice."
Charlie's face was wreathed in such a smile of welcome and relief,
that all Big Brother Bill's doubts in that direction were flung
pell-mell to the winds.
Charlie caught something of the other's beaming enthusiasm.
"Why, I've been expecting you for days, old boy. Thought maybe you'd
changed your mind. Say, where's your baggage? Coming on behind? You
haven't lost it?" he added anxiously, as Bill's face suddenly fell.
"I forgot. Say, was there ever such a tom-fool trick?" Bill cried,
with a great laugh at his own folly. "Why, I left it checked at
Moosemin--without instructions."
Charlie's smiling eyes suddenly widened.
"Moosemin? What in the name of all that's----?"
"I'll have to tell you about it later," Bill broke in hastily. "I've
had one awful journey. If it hadn't been for a feller I met on the
road I don't know when I'd have landed here."
Charlie nodded, and the smile died out of his eyes.
"I saw him. You certainly were traveling in good company."
Bill nodded, towering like some good-natured St. Bernard over a
mild-eyed water spaniel.
"Good company's a specialty with me. But I didn't come alongside any
of it, since I set out to make here 'cross country from Moosemin on
the advice of the only bigger fool than myself I've ever met, until I
ran into him. Say, Charlie, I s'pose its necessary to have a deal of
grass around to run a ranch on?"
Charlie's eyes lit with the warmest amusement. This great brother of
his was the brightest landmark in his memory of the world he had said
good-bye to years ago.
"You can't graze cattle on bare ground," he replied watchfully. "Why?"
Bill's shoulders went up to the accompaniment of a chuckle.
"Nothing--only I hate grass. I seem to have gone over as much grass
in the last week as a boarding-house spring lamb. But for that feller,
I surely guess I'd still be chasing over it, like those 'strays' he
spends his life rounding-up."
A quick look of inquiry flashed in the rancher's eyes.
"Strays?" he inquired.
Bill nodded gravely. "Yes, he's something in the ranching line. Rounds
up 'strays,' and herds 'em to their right homes. His name's
Fyles--Stanley Fyles."
Just for an instant Charlie's face struggled with the more bitter
feelings Fyles's name inspired. Then he gave way to the appeal of a
sort of desperate humor, and broke into an uncontrolled fit of
laughter.
Bill looked on wondering, his great blue eyes widely open. Then he
caught the infection, and began to laugh, too, but without knowing
why.
After some moments, however, Charlie sobered and choked back a final
gurgle.
"Oh, dear!" he exclaimed. "You've done me a heap of good, Bill. That's
the best laugh I've had in weeks. That fellow a rancher?
Fyles--Stanley Fyles a--rancher? Well, p'raps you're right. That's his
job all right--rounding up 'strays,' and herding 'em to their right
homes. But the 'strays' are 'crooks,' and their homes the
penitentiary. That's Inspector Stanley Fyles, of the Mounted Police,
and just about the smartest man in the force. He's come out here to
start his ranching operations on Rocky Springs, which has the
reputation of being the busiest hive of crooks in Western Canada.
You're going to see things hum, Bill--you've just got around in time."
CHAPTER XI
THE UNREGENERATE
Later in the afternoon the two brothers found themselves seated on the
veranda talking together, as only devoted relationship will permit
after years of separation.
They had just returned from a brief inspection of the little ranch for
Bill's edification. The big man's enthusiasm had demanded immediate
satisfaction. His headlong nature impelled him to the earliest
possible digestion of the life he was about to enter. So he had
insisted on a tour of inspection.
The inspection was of necessity brief. There was so little to be seen
in the way of an outward display of the prosperity his elder brother
claimed. In consequence, as it proceeded, the newcomer's spirits fell.
His radiant dreams of a rancher's life tumbled about his big
unfortunate head, and, for the moment, left him staggered.
His first visit was to the barn, where Kid Blaney, his brother's
ranchman, was rubbing down two well saddle-marked cow-ponies, after
his morning out on the fences. It was a crazy sort of a shanty, built
of sod walls with a still more crazy door frame, and a thatched roof
more than a foot thick. It was half a dug-out on the hillside, and
suggested as much care as a hog pen. The floor was a mire of
accumulations of manure and rotted bedding, and the low roof gave the
place a hovelish suggestion such as Bill could never have imagined in
the breezy life of a rancher, as he understood it.
There were one or two other buildings of a similar nature. One was
used for a few unhealthy looking fowls; another, by the smell and
noise that emanated therefrom, housed a number of pigs. Then there was
a small grain storehouse. These were the buildings which comprised the
ranch. They were just dotted about in the neighborhood of the house,
at points most convenient for their primitive construction.
The corrals, further down the slope, offered more hope. There were
three of them, all well enough built and roomy. There was one with a
branding "pinch," outside which stood a small hand forge and a number
of branding irons. At the sight of these things Bill's spirit
improved.
When questioned as to pastures and grazing, Charlie led him along a
cattle track, through the bush up the slope, to the prairie level
above. Here there were three big pastures running into a hundred acres
or more, all well fenced, and the wire in perfect order. Bill's
improving spirits received a further fillip. The grazing, Charlie told
him, lay behind these limits upon the open plains, over which the
newcomer had spent so much time riding.
"You see, Bill," he said, half apologetically, "I'm only a very small
rancher. The land I own is this on which the house stands, and these
pastures, and another pasture or two further up the valley. For
grazing, I simply rent rights from the Government. It answers well
enough, and I only have to keep one regular boy in consequence. Spring
and fall I hire extra hands for round-up. It pays me better that way."
Bill nodded with increasing understanding. His original dreams had
received a bad jolt, but he was beginning a readjustment of focus.
Besides, his simple mind was already formulating fresh plans, and he
began to talk of them with that whole-hearted enthusiasm which seemed
to be the foundation of his nature.
"Sure," he said cordially. "And--and you've done a big heap, Charlie.
Say, how much did dad start you out with? Five thousand dollars? Yes,
I remember, five thousand, and our mother gave you another two
thousand five hundred. It was all she had. She'd saved it up in years.
It wasn't much to turn bare land into a money-making proposition,
specially when you'd had no experience. But we're going to alter all
that. We're going to own our grazing, if it can be bought. Yes, sir,
we're going to own a lot more, and I've got nearly one hundred
thousand dollars to do it with. We're going to turn these barns into
barns, and we're going to run horses as well as cattle. We're going to
grow wheat, too. That's the coming game. All the boys say so down
East--that is, the real bright boys. We're just going to get busy, you
and me, Charlie. We're going to have a deed of partnership drawn up
all square and legal, and I'm going to blow my stuff in it against
what you've got already, and what you know. That's what I'm here for."
By the aid of his big voice and aggressive bulk Bill strove to conceal
his obvious desire to benefit his brother under an exterior of strong
business methods. And he felt the result to be all he could desire. He
told himself that a man of Charlie's unbusiness-like nature was quite
easy to impress. When it came to a proper understanding of business he
was much his brother's superior.
Charlie, however, was in no way deceived, but such was his regard for
this simple-minded creature that his protest was of the mildest.
"Of course we could do a great deal with your money, Bill, but--but
it's all you've got, and----"
His protest was hastily thrust aside.
"See here, Charlie, boy, that's right up to me," Bill cried, with a
buoyant laugh. "I'm out here to ranch. That's what I've come for,
that's what I've worn my skin to the bone for on the most outrageously
uncomfortable saddle I've ever thrown a leg over. That's why I took
the trouble to keep on chasing up this place when my brain got plumb
addled at the sight of so much grass. That's why I didn't go back to
find the feller--and shoot him--for advising me to get off at Moosemin
instead of hitting back on my tracks for the right place to change
trains. You see, maybe I haven't all the horse sense in some things
you have, but I've got my back teeth into the idea of this ranching
racket, and my dollars are going to talk all they know. I tell you,
when my mind's made up, I can't be budged an inch. It's no use your
trying. I know you, Charlie. You're scared to death I'll lose my
money--well, I'm ready to lose it, if things go that way. Meanwhile,
I've a commercial proposition. I'm out to make good, and I'm looking
for you to help me."
Charlie looked into the earnest, good-natured face with eyes that read
deep down into the open heart beneath. A great regret lay behind them,
a regret which made him hate and despise himself in a way he had never
felt before. He was thinking whither his own follies had driven him;
he was thinking of his own utter failure as a man, a strong,
big-principled man. He was wondering, too, what this kindly soul would
think and feel when he realized how little he was changed from the
contemptible creature his father had turned out of doors, and when he
finally learned of the horrors of degradation his life really
concealed.
He had no alternative but to acquiesce before the strong determination
of his brother, and though his words were cordial, his fears, his
qualms of conscience underlying them, were none the less.
So they came back to the house, and finally foregathered on two
uncomfortable, rawhide-seated, home-made chairs, while Bill enlarged
upon his plans. It was not until these were completely exhausted that
their talk drifted to more personal matters. Then it was that Charlie
himself opened up the way, with a bitter reference to the reasons
that saved him from completely going under when their father shipped
him out to this forlorn spot to regenerate.
He talked earnestly, leaning forward in his chair. His delicate hands
were tightly clasped, as his eyes gazed out across the valley at a
spot where Kate Seton's house stood beyond the river.
Bill sat listening. He wanted Charlie to talk. He wanted to learn all
those little things, sometimes even very big things, which can only be
read between the lines when the tongue runs on unguardedly. He knew
his brother's many weaknesses, and it was his ardent desire to
discover those signs of betterment and strengthening he fondly hoped
had taken place in the passing of years.
He lolled back with the luxury of an utterly saddle-weary man. His
heavy bent pipe hung loosely from the corner of his mouth. His big
blue eyes were steady and earnest.
"Yes," Charlie went on, after a moment's thought, "I'm glad, mighty
glad, I came here when I did." He gave a short mirthless laugh. "I
doubt if my satisfaction is inspired by any moral scruple," he added
hastily, as the other nodded. "Say, can you understand how I feel when
I say I believe all moral scruple has somehow decayed, rotted, died in
me? I don't mean that I don't want to be decent. I do; but that's
because decency appeals to me from some sort of artistic feelings
which have survived the wreck I made of life years ago. No, moral
scruples were killed stone dead when I was chasing through Europe
hunting Art, searching for it with eyes too young to gaze upon
anything more beautiful than a harsh life of strict discipline.
"Now I have to follow inclinations that have somehow got the better of
all the best qualities in me. That's how I'm fixed now. And, queer as
it may seem, that's been my salvation--if you can call it salvation.
When I first came here I was ready to drift any old way. I did drift
into every muck-hole that appealed to me. I didn't care. As I said,
moral scruples were dead in me. Then this same self-indulgence did me
a good turn. The only good turn it's ever done me."
The eyes gazing across the valley grew very soft.
"Say, Bill," he began again, after a brief, reflective pause, "I came
here, and--and found a woman. The greatest, the best woman God ever
created. She was strong, big-spirited, beautiful. She'd come out here
to earn a living with her sister. She'd left the East for no better
reason than her big spirit of independence, and a desire to live
beyond the narrow confines of convention. Say, I think I went crazy
about that woman."
The man was smiling very softly. All Bill's senses were alert. His
slow brain was groping for the subtle comprehension which he felt was
needed for a full understanding.
"That woman came near to saving me--from myself," Charlie went on,
with a tenderness he was unaware of. "And it was through that very
weakness of self-indulgence. I love her that bad it's bigger than
anything else in my life. Say, I'd rather have her good opinion,
and--and liking--than anything in life. It's more to me than any of
those desires that have always claimed me. But there are times when
even her influence isn't quite big enough. There are times when even
she can't hold me up. There are things back of my head I can't
beat--even through her--at times. That's why I say she's come near
saving me. Not quite--but near.
"Bill, guess you can't understand. Guess no one can. I fight, fight,
fight. She fights, too. She fights without knowing it, too, because
always in my mind is a picture of her handsome face, and eyes of
disapproval. That picture wins most times--but not always. Wait till
you see Kate, Bill, then you'll understand. I just love her to
death--and that's all there is to it. She only likes me. She'll never
feel for me same as I do for her. How can she?--I'm--but I guess you
know what I am. Everybody who knows me knows that I'm a hopeless
drunkard."
The man's final admission came without any self-pity or bitterness. It
is doubtful if there was any shame in him at the acknowledgment. Bill
marveled. He could not understand. He tried to picture himself making
such an admission, and to estimate his feelings at it. Shame,
unutterable shame, was all he could think of, and his good-natured
face flushed with shame for his brother, who had somehow so squandered
all his better feelings.
Charlie saw the flush, and the tenderness died out of his eyes. He
shook his head.
"Don't feel that way about it," he cried bitterly. "I'm not worth it.
Besides, I can't stand it from--you. Only--from Kate. I know what
you're thinking. You're bound to think that way. You were born with a
man's body--a big, strong man's body. I was born weak and puny. I was
born all wrong. I don't say it in excuse. I merely state a fact. Look
at me beside you, both children of the same parents. I'm like a woman,
I can't even grow the hair of a man on my face. My mother reveled in
what she regarded as the artistic beauty of my features, my hands"--he
held out his thin hands with their long tapering fingers--"and my love
for all those softer things of life that should only be found in
female nature. She gloried in those things and fostered them. She did
her best, all unknowingly, bless her, to kill the last vestige of
manhood in me. And all the time it was crying out, crying out
bitterly. It was growing stronger and stronger, as my physique
remained undeveloped. Finally it became too great to withstand. Then,
when it turned loose, I was without power to check it. My moral
strength was not equal to the tide, and all my passions swayed me
whithersoever they chose. Again I say this is no excuse; it is merely
fact as I see it. I was powerless to resist temptation. The woman who
once looses her hold on her moral nature can never recover herself.
That is nature--her nature--and, by the curse of fate, it is also
mine."
For the moment Bill had no answer. He sat with his eyes averted. All
his affection for his erring brother was uppermost, all his sympathy
and pity. But he dared not display them. All that Charlie had said was
true. His whole appearance was effeminate. He was a man without the
physical support belonging to his sex. As he said, he was left
powerless by nature and upbringing to fight a man's battle on the
plains of moral integrity. His fall had been drink, with its
accompanying vices, and Bill realized now, after five years' absence,
how hopeless his brother's reformation had become. If his love for
this woman could not save him, then surely nothing on earth could. For
Bill, in his simple fashion, believed that such an appeal was above
all in its claims upon any real man.
He groped for something to say, for something that might show Charlie
that his affection remained utterly unaltered, but he had no great
cleverness, and the right thing refused to come to his aid. As the
silence lengthened between them his groping thoughts took their own
course, which led him to the name, "Kate," which the other had used.
He remembered he had heard it that day once before.
"Kate?" he inquired lamely. "Kate--who?"
"Kate Seton."
In an instant Bill's whole attitude underwent a change. He sat up,
and, removing his pipe, dashed the charred ashes from its bowl.
"Why, that's the sister of--Helen Seton."
Charlie nodded, his eyes lighting with a sharp question.
"Sure. But--you don't know--Helen?"
Bill's face beamed.
"Met her on the trail," he cried triumphantly. "No end of a pretty
girl. Gray eyes and fair hair. Might have been walking on Broadway,
New York--from her style. Fyles told me about her."
"Fyles?"
Charlie's eyes suddenly darkened with resentment. He rose abruptly
from his chair, and began to pace the veranda. Then he halted, and
looked coldly down into his brother's eyes.
"What did he say?" he demanded shortly.
Bill's eyes answered him with question for question.
"Just told me who Helen was. Said she had a sister--Kate. Said they
were farmers--of a sort. Said they'd been here five years. Why?"
Charlie ignored the question.
"That's all?" he demanded.
"Sure." Bill nodded.
Then the hardness died out of Charlie's eyes to be replaced once more
by his usual gentle smile.
"I'm glad. You see, I don't want him--around Kate. Say----" he
hesitated. Then he moved toward the door of the house. "Guess I'll get
supper. I forgot, you must be starving."
* * * * *
Kate Seton had spent the whole morning at home. The work of her little
farm had claimed her. She had been out with her two disreputable boys
around the grain, now rapidly turning from its fresh green to that
delicate tint of yellow so welcome to the farmer. It was a
comparatively anxious time, for the cattle grazing at large upon the
prairie loved the sweet flavor of the growing grain, and had no
scruples at breaking their way through the carelessly constructed
barbed wire fencing, and wrecking all that came within their reach.
The fences needed "top railing," and Kate could not trust the work to
her two men without supervision. So she spent the morning in their
company.
After the mid-day meal, as soon as Helen had left the house on a
journey to Billy Unguin's drapery store, she sat herself down at a
small bureau in their kitchen-parlor and drew a couple of books,
suspiciously like account books, from one of its locked drawers, and
settled herself for an hour's work upon them.
The room, though not large, was comfortable. It was full of odd,
feminine knick-knacks contrived by Helen's busy hands. The walls were
dotted with a number of unframed water colors, also the work of the
younger of the two women. There were three comfortable rockers, so
dear to the heart of the women of the country. Besides these, there
was a biggish dining table, and, in one corner of the room, beside a
china and store cupboard, a square iron cook stove stood out, on which
a tin kettle of water was pleasantly simmering.
It was a homely room which had been gradually furnished into its
present atmosphere of comfort by two pairs of busy hands, and both
Kate and Helen loved it far more, in consequence, than if it had borne
the hall-mark of lavish expenditure.
But Kate, as she sat before her bureau, had no thought of these things
just now. She was anxious to complete her work before Helen returned.
It was always impossible to deal with figures while her sister was in
the room. And her figures now needed careful attention.
She opened her books, and soon her busy pen was at work. From a pocket
in her underskirt she drew a number of papers, and these she carefully
sorted out.
Having arranged them to her satisfaction the task of entering figures
in her book was resumed. Finally she performed the operation of many
sums, the accurate working out of which took considerable time and
pains. Then, from the same pocket, she drew a bundle of notes which
she carefully counted and checked by the figures in the books.
This work completed she sat back idly in her chair with a thoughtful,
ironical smile in her dark eyes, and the holder of her pen poised in
the grip of her even white teeth.
She was thinking pleasantly, with a half humorous vein running through
her thought. She was dreaming, day-dreaming, of many things dear to
her woman's heart. Now and again her look changed. Now a quick flash
leaped into her slumberous eyes, only to die out almost immediately,
hidden under that softer gleam which had so much humor in it. At
another time a grave look replaced all other expression; then, again,
a quick frown would occasionally mar the fair, smooth brow. But always
the dominating note of humorous thoughtfulness would return, as if
this were her chief characteristic.
Her day-dreaming did not last long, however. It was abruptly
dispelled, as such moods generally are. The sound of hurrying feet
brought a quick look that was one almost of anxiety into her usually
confident eyes. With one comprehensive movement she scrambled her
books and papers together and heaped them into the still open drawer.
Then she gathered up the money, and flung it in after the other
things.
As the door burst open and Helen ran into the room, her eyes bright
with excitement, and her breathing hurried and short from her run,
Kate was in the act of locking the drawer.
Helen halted as she came abreast of the table, and her dancing eyes
challenged her sister.
"At your Bluebeard's chamber again, Kate?" she cried, in mock
reproval. Then she raised a warning finger. "One of these days--mind,
one of these days, I surely will have a duplicate key made and get a
peek into that drawer, which you never open in my presence. I believe
you're carrying on an intrigue with some man. Maybe it's full of
letters from--Dirty O'Brien."
Kate straightened herself up laughing.
"Dirty O'Brien? Well, he's all sorts of a sport anyway, and I like
'sports,'" she said lightly.
Helen took up the challenge.
"'Sports'? Why, yes, there are plenty of 'sports'--of a kind--in this
place. I'll have to see if I can find one who can make skeleton keys.
I'd surely say that sort of 'sport' should be going round the village
all right, all right."
She nodded her threat at her sister, who was in no way disconcerted.
She only laughed.
"What's brought you back on the run?" she inquired.
"Why, what d'you s'pose?"
Kate shrugged, still smiling.
"I'd say the only thing that could fix you that way was a--man."
"Right. Right in once. A man, Kate, not a mouse," Helen declared,
"although I allow they're both motive forces calculated to set me
running. The only thing is, one attracts, and the other repels. This
is distinctly a matter of attraction."
"Who's the man?" demanded the practical Kate, with a look of real
interest in her handsome eyes.
"Why, Big Brother Bill, of course, the man I promised you all I'd
marry."
Helen suddenly dashed at her sister and caught her by the arm in
pretended excitement.
"I've seen him, Kate, seen him!" she cried. "And--and he raised his
hat to me. He's big--ever so big, and he's got the loveliest, most
foolish blue eyes I've ever seen. That's how I knew him. Say, and when
I saw him with Inspector Fyles, I remembered what Charlie said about
him having no sense, and I had to laugh, and I think he thought I was
grinning at him, and that's why he raised his hat to me. It seemed so
comical--looked just as if he was being brought in charge of a
policeman for fear he'd lose himself, and would never find himself
again. He's surely a real live man, and I've fallen in love with him
right away, and, if you don't find something to send me up to see
Charlie about right away, I'll--I'll go crazy--or--or faint, or do
something equally foolish."
Kate's amusement culminated in a peal of laughter. She knew Helen so
well, and was so used to her wild outbursts of enthusiasm, which
generally lasted for five minutes, finally dying out in some whimsical
admission of her own irresponsibility.
She promptly entered into the spirit of the thing.
"Let's see," she cried, gazing thoughtfully about the room, while
Helen still clung to her arm. "An excuse--an excuse."
"No, no," cried the impetuous Helen. "Not an excuse. I never make any
excuse for wanting to be in a man's company. Besides----"
"Hush, child," retorted Kate. "How can I think with you chattering?
I've got to find you an excuse for going across to Charlie's place.
Now what shall it be? I know," she cried, suddenly darting across the
room, followed by the clinging Helen. "I've got it."
"Got what?" cried the other, with difficulty retaining her hold.
"Why, the excuse, of course," cried Kate, grabbing up two books from a
chair under the window. "Here, I promised to send these to Charlie
days ago. That's it," she went on. "Take these, and," she added
mischievously, "I'll write a note telling him to be sure and introduce
you to Big Brother Bill, as you're dying to--to make love to him!"
"Don't you dare, Kate Seton, don't you ever dare," cried Helen
threateningly. "I'll shoot you clean up to death with one of your own
big guns if you do. I never heard such a thing, never. How dare you
say I want to make love to him? I--I don't think I even want to see
him now--I'm sure I don't. Still, I'll take the books up if
you--really want Charlie to have them. You see, I sure don't mind what
I do to--to help you out."
Kate's eyes opened wide. Then, in a moment, she stood convulsed.
"Well, of all the sauce," she cried. "Helen, you're a perfect--imp.
Now for your pains you shan't take those books till after supper."
Helen's merry eyes sobered, and her face fell.
"Kate--I----"
"No," returned the other, with pretended severity. "It's no use
apologizing. It's too late. After supper."
Helen promptly left her side, and, with a laugh, ran to the wall where
a pair of revolvers were hanging suspended from an ammunition belt.
She seized one of the weapons by the butt, and was about to withdraw
it from its holster. But, in a flash, Kate was at her side.
"Don't Helen!" she cried, in real alarm. "Let go of that gun. They're
both loaded."
Helen withdrew her hand in a panic, her pretty face blanching.
"My, Kate!" she cried horrified. "They're--loaded?"
The other nodded.
"Whatever do you keep them loaded for? I--I never knew. You--you
wouldn't dare to--use them?"
Kate's dark eyes were smiling, but the smile was forced.
"Wouldn't I?" she said, with a curious set to her firm lips. Then she
added in a lighter tone: "They're all that stand between us and--the
ruffians of Rocky Springs."
For a moment Helen looked into her sister's eyes as though searching
for something she had lost.
"I--I thought you'd changed, Kate," she said at last, almost
apologetically. "I thought you'd forgotten all--that. I--thought you'd
become a sort of 'hired girl' in this village. Guess I'll have to wait
until after supper--seeing you want me to."
CHAPTER XII
THE DISCOMFITURE OF HELEN
It was well past six o'clock in the evening when the two brothers
completed the discussion of their future plans. It had been a great
day for Bill. A day such as one may look forward to in long
anticipatory moments of dreaming, but the ultimate realization of
which often falls so desperately short of the anticipation. In the
present instance, however, no such calamity had befallen. He felt that
his weary journeyings, with their many discomforts and trials, had not
proved vain. Many of his hopes had been fully realized.
The unselfishness of the man was supreme. He wanted nothing for
himself, but the delight of sharing in the life of his less fortunate
brother, and changing the course of that fortune into the happier
channels wherein his own lay. And Charlie seemed to accept the
position. He certainly offered no opposition, and, if his manner of
acceptance was undemonstrative, even to an excess of reserve, at least
it was sufficiently cordial to satisfy the unsuspicious mind of Big
Brother Bill.
Had the big man's wide, blue eyes been less ready to accept all they
beheld, had his mind been more versed in the study of human nature,
and those shadowy, inexpressible feelings glancing furtively out of
eyes intended only to express carefully controlled thoughts, then Bill
must have detected reluctance in his brother. There were moments, too,
when only a half-heartedness found vent in the man's verbal acceptance
of his brother's proposals, which should have been significant, and
certainly invited investigation.
But even if he observed these things Bill undoubtedly misread them. He
had no reason to doubt that his presence, and all his enthusiastic
plans were welcome, and so he was left blinded to any other feelings
on the part of his brother than those which he verbally expressed.
That Charlie delighted in his presence there could be no doubt, but as
to those other things, well, a close observer might well have been
forgiven had he felt sorry for the bigger man's single-minded
generosity. To the end Bill felt confident, and remained quite
undisturbed.
There were still fully two hours of daylight left when Charlie finally
rose from his seat upon the veranda.
He smiled down at the big figure of the brother he so affectionately
regarded.
"We'll need to set about getting your baggage sent through from
Moosemin to-morrow," he said. Then he added with a quizzical gleam in
his eyes: "Guess you've got the checks all right?"
Bill nodded with profound gravity, and dived into one of his pockets.
"Sure," he replied, dragging forth a bunch of metal discs on a strap.
"Five pieces."
"Good." Charlie nodded. His brother's unconsciousness amused him.
Then, after a moment, his gaze drifted across the valley, and came to
rest on the little home of the Setons, and he went on reflectively, "I
need to get around a piece before dark," he said. Then with an
unmistakable question in his dark eyes: "Maybe you'll fancy a walk
around--meantime?"
Bill's eyes lit good humoredly.
"Which means I'm not wanted," he said with a laugh.
Then he, too, rose. He stretched himself like some great contented
dog.
"I've a notion to get a peek at the village," he said. "I'll call
along down at the saloon and hunt Fyles up. Guess I owe him a drink
for--finding me."
At the mention of Fyles's name a curious
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