The Rider of Golden Bar
by William Patterson White · English · Gutenberg #34826 · 551,150 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Rider of Golden Bar
Author: William Patterson White
Illustrator: Remington Schuyler
Release date: January 2, 2011 [eBook #34826]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34826
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIDER OF GOLDEN BAR ***
Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: The girl seized his stirrup to save herself from
falling. FRONTISPIECE. See page 55.]
THE RIDER OF GOLDEN BAR
BY
WILLIAM PATTERSON WHITE
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
REMINGTON SCHUYLER
TORONTO
THE RYERSON PRESS
1922
_Copyright, 1922,_
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published January, 1922
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
MY POINT O' WOODS COUSINS
LAURA, CHARLOTTE, JULIA, AND DOROTHY
By William Patterson White
THE OWNER OF THE LAZY D
LYNCH LAWYERS
HIDDEN TRAILS
PARADISE BEND
THE HEART OF THE RANGE
THE RIDER OF GOLDEN BAR
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I BILLY WINGO
II A SAFE MAN
III WHAT SALLY JANE THOUGHT
IV HAZEL WALTON
V JACK MURRAY OBJECTS
VI CROSS-PURPOSES
VII RAFE'S IDEA
VIII THE NEW BROOM
IX THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY
X A SHORT HORSE
XI THE TRAPPERS
XII THE TRAP
XIII OPEN AND SHUT
XIV WHEN THIEVES FALL OUT
XV THE BEST-LAID PLANS
XVI OBSCURING THE ISSUE
XVII WHAT HAZEL THOUGHT
XVIII THE BARE-HEADED MAN
XIX THE PERSISTENT SUITOR
XX A DISCOVERY
XXI THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S NIGHTMARE
XXII THE HUNCH
XXIII THE GUNFIGHTERS
XXIV CONTRARIETIES
XXV JONESY'S ULTIMATUM
XXVI THE FOOL-KILLER
XXVII THE LONG DAY CLOSES
THE RIDER OF GOLDEN BAR
CHAPTER ONE
BILLY WINGO
"But why don't you _do_ something, Bill?" demanded Sam Prescott's
pretty daughter.
Bill Wingo looked at Miss Prescott in injured astonishment. "Do
something?" he repeated. "What do you want me to do?"
"I don't want you to do anything," she denied with unnecessary
emphasis. "Haven't you any ambition?"
"Plenty."
"Then use it, for Heaven's sake!"
"I do. Don't I ask you to marry me every time I get a chance?"
"That's not using your ambition. That's playing the fool."
"Nice opinion of yourself you've got," he grinned.
"Never mind. You make me tired, Bill. Here you've got a little claim
and a little bunch of cows--the makings of a ranch if you'd only work.
But instead of working like a man you loaf like a--like a----"
"Like a loafer," he prompted.
"Exactly. You'd rather hunt and fish and ride the range for monthly
wages when you're broke than scratch gravel and make something of
yourself. You let your cows run with the T-Up-And-Down, and I'll bet
when Tuckleton had his spring round-up you weren't even on the job.
Were you?"
"Well, I--uh--I was busy," shamefacedly.
"Fishing over on Jack's Creek. That's how busy you were, when you
should have been looking after your property."
"Oh, Tuckleton's boys are square. Any calves they found running with
my brand, they'd run the iron on 'em all right."
"They'd run the iron on 'em all right," she repeated. "But what iron?"
"Why--mine. Whose do you suppose?"
"I don't know," she said candidly. "I'm asking you."
"Shucks, Sally Jane, those boys wouldn't do anything crooked.
Tuckleton wouldn't allow it."
"Bill, don't you ever distrust anybody?"
"Not until I'm certain they're crooked."
"I see," said the lady disgustedly. "After you wake up and find your
hide, together with the rest of your worldly possessions, hanging on
the fence, then and not till then do you come alive to the fact that
perhaps all was not right."
"Well----" began Bill.
"Don't you see by that time it's too late?" interrupted the lady.
"Aw, I dunno. I--I suppose so."
"You suppose so, do you? You suppose so. Don't you know, my innocent
William, that there are a sight more criminals outside of jail than
there are in?"
"Why, Sally Jane!" said the innocent William, scraping a fie-fie
forefinger at her. "Shame on you, shame on you, you wicked girl. I am
surprised. Such thoughts in a young maid's mind. No, I ain't either.
I always said if your pa sent you away to school you'd lose your faith
in human nature. He did; and you did. And now look at you, talking
just like a district attorney. And suspicious--I'd tell a man!"
"Oh, darn!" wailed Sally Jane. "I hate a fool!"
"So do I," concurred Bill warmly. "Tell a feller who's the fool you
hate and I'll hate him, too. One pair of haters working together might
do said fool a lot of good."
"Sometimes, Bill, my fingers simply ache to smack your long and silly
ears."
He nodded soberly. "I know. I often have the same feeling about
people. But don't let it worry you. It don't mean anything."
"Bill, can't you understand that I like you, and----"
"Easily," he grinned. "Of course you like me. So do lots of other
people. It comes natural. And that is another thing you mustn't let
worry you, Sally Jane. Just you take that liking for me and tend it
real careful. Put it on the window-sill between the pink geraniums and
water it morning, noon and night, and by and by that li'l liking will
wax strong and great and all that sort of thing, and you won't be able
to do without me. You'll have to marry me, I'm afraid, Sally Jane."
"I will, will I? And you're afraid, are you? You big, overgrown, lazy
lummox! I wouldn't marry you ever."
"I'm not so sure, but you needn't stamp your foot at me anyway. It
ain't being done this season. People slam doors instead. I'm sorry
there isn't a door near at hand. It must have been overlooked when
Linny's Hill was made."
"Bill, don't fool. This is not any joking matter. This
come-day-go-day attitude of yours is bad business. It's ruining you,
really it is."
"Drink and the devil, huh?"
"Oh, you're decent enough far as that goes. You never have been
beastly."
"I thank you, madam, for this good opinion of your humble servant."
"Shut up! I mean to say-- What I'm trying to beat into your thick
head, you simple thing, is that in this world you don't stand still.
You can't. You either go ahead or you slip back. And--you aren't
going ahead."
"If not, why not, huh? I know you mean well, Sally Jane, and----"
"And it's none of my business? Oh, I know you weren't going to say
that but you think it. You're quite right, Bill--but can't you see I'm
talking for your own good?"
"Sure, yes. My pa used to talk just like that before he'd go out
behind the corral with a breeching-strap in one hand and my ear in the
other. I've heard him many's the time. I used to hurt most unpleasant
for two-three days after, special if he'd forget which end of the strap
carried the buckle. Old times, old times. Now, I take it you were
never licked, Sally Jane. That was a mistake. You should have been--
What? You don't mean to say you're going home? And we were getting
along so nicely too. Well, if willful must, she must. I'll hold your
horse for you. Again let me offer my apologies for the lack of a door."
He sagged down on his heel and watched her ride away along the side of
Linny's Hill.
"I've often heard a woman's 'no' doesn't mean what it says," he
muttered, fishing out the makings from a vest pocket. "But Sally Jane
is so persistent with it, I dunno. I wonder if I really love her, or
do I only think I do because I can't have her? I suppose I'd feel
worse'n I do every time she turns me down if I did. Lord! she said, I
said, he said, and may Gawd have mercy on your soul!"
When his cigarette was going well he lazed over on his side, supporting
his head on a crooked arm, and gazed abroad between half-shut lids.
The view from Linny's Hill was all that could be desired. At the base
of the hill the Golden Bar-Hillsville trail, a yellow-gray ribbon
across the green, led the eye across flats and gentle rises through
shady groves of pine and cedar westward to where Golden Bar, a
collection of toy houses, each one startlingly clear and distinct in
that rarefied atmosphere, sprawled along the farther bank of Wagonjack
River.
The stream itself, a roaring river in the spring of the year, was now
but a poor thing. Shrunk to quarter-size, and fordable almost
anywhere, it flowed in sedate and midsummer fashion between its
cut-banks and miniature bluffs. Bordered throughout its length by
willows and cottonwoods, Wagonjack River meandered and wound its way
southward from the blue and hazy tumble of peaks that was the main
range of the Medicine Mountains to where the wide and pleasant reaches
of the Peace Pipe watered the southern section of the territory.
From Golden Bar to the Medicine Mountains was a long two hundred miles.
From Golden Bar to the Peace Pipe was twice that distance.
Crocker County, four hundred miles long by three hundred miles wide,
bounded on the east by the Wagonjack, ran well up into the Medicine
Mountains before giving way to Storey County. Across the river from
Crocker were two counties, of which Tom Read County was the northern
and Piegan County the southern. Shaler County ran the whole length of
the southern side of Crocker, whose western line was the boundary of
the neighboring territory.
There you have Crocker, a county three hundred miles wide by four
hundred miles long, and Golden Bar was its county seat.
Political pickings in Crocker, which pickings the neighbors called by a
much worse name, were consistently good. A small Indian reservation
lay partly in Crocker and partly in Shaler, but somehow the Crocker
citizens always secured the beef contracts. Crocker laws, provided the
suspected person or persons were friendly with the county officials,
were not administered with undue severity. Coarse work was never
tolerated, naturally; but if one were judicious and a good picker, one
could travel far and profitably. Thus it may be seen that Crocker was,
as counties go, fertile ground for easy consciences.
But, like Gallio, Bill Wingo cared for none of these things. He
watched the moving pencil-end that was Miss Prescott and her mount
descend to the trail and ride along it in the direction of Golden Bar.
Another pencil-end was riding the same trail,--away from Golden Bar.
Traveling at their present rate of speed, the riders would meet not far
from the scattering grove of cedars marking the entrance to the
low-walled draw that led to the Prescott ranch house.
Bill Wingo intently scrutinized the way-farer from Golden Bar side.
"Looks like Jack Murray's sorrel," he mused, holding the cigarette in
the corner of his mouth and rocking it up and down. "If they stop,
it's Jack."
The pencil-ends drew together at the lower end of the grove. They
stopped.
"Shucks," Mr. Wingo muttered mildly. "I never did like that man."
Said the first pencil-end to the second pencil-end, "Hello, Sally Jane."
"Morning, Jack."
"I was just a-riding to your place."
"Don't let me stop you."
"I'll ride along with you."
"It's a free country." She lifted her reins and "kissed" to her horse.
"And at times I've known you to be amusing, Jack. It's four miles to
our ranch and you'll help to brighten the weary way."
He spurred alongside and turned in his saddle to stare at her.
"Is that all I'm good for--to help pass the time?"
"What else is a man good for?"
"Don't be so flip, Sally Jane. You know----" He stopped short.
She waited a moment. Then, "I know what?"
"You know I've been loving you a long, long time," he said abruptly.
"I didn't want to tell you till I had something to offer you besides
myself. And now I've got something--Rafe Tuckleton has promised to
make me sheriff."
"I thought the voters usually decided such things," said she.
He laughed cynically. "Not in Crocker. _We_ know the better way.
Well, I've told you, Sally Jane. What do you say?"
She looked at him coolly. "What is this--a proposal?"
"Sure, I want you to marry me."
"No, you don't." There was no hint of coquetry in either her tone or
the direct gaze of her violet eyes.
He crowded his horse almost against hers and dropped a hand on top of
her hand where it lay on the saddle horn. She did not withdraw her
hand at his touch. She simply suffered it impassively.
"Don't you understand?" he said earnestly. "Don't you understand that
I love you, Sally Jane? And I want you."
Sally Jane continued to look at him.
"I understand that you want me," she told him calmly. "Why not?
You're dark and tall and thick-lipped and headstrong. I'm slim and
red-haired and my mouth is full, too--but I'm headstrong, thank Heaven.
My type appeals to your type, that's all. Appeals physically, I mean.
You'd like to possess me, but you don't love me, Jack Murray."
"I tell you----" he began passionately.
"You don't have to tell me," she said calmly. "I know."
"How do you know?"
"By your eyes."
"My eyes!"
"Your eyes. Love is something besides desire, Jack. I know that lots
of men don't think so; but women know. You bet women know. And I, for
one, don't intend to risk my happiness on a twenty-to-one-shot."
"What you talking about?" he demanded, scowling and withdrawing his
hand.
"You--and me--us. If I married you, it's twenty to one our marriage
would be unhappy. There's too much of the animal in you, Jack."
"You listen to me, Sally. I tell you I love you and I'm going to have
you."
"I said you only wanted to possess me," she observed placidly.
"Dammit, I tell you----"
"That's right, swear," she interrupted. "A man always does that when
he can't think of anything else to say."
"I'm gonna marry you," he persisted sullenly.
"If it does you any good, keep right on thinking so. It can't hurt me."
"Has Bill Wingo----" he began, but sensed his mistake and stopped--too
late.
"You mean am I in love with Billy Wingo?" she put in helpfully. "My
answer is, not at present."
"Meaning that you may be later on, I suppose."
"I didn't say so. Lord, man, haven't I a right to bestow my heart
anywhere I like? I intend to, old-timer."
"You ain't gonna marry anybody but me," he insisted stubbornly.
"There you go again. Leave the melodrama alone, can't you? This isn't
a play. It's real life."
"I said I was gonna have you and I am," he said slowly. "Neither Bill
Wingo nor anybody else is gonna get you. You were always intended for
me. You're mine, understand, mine!"
Jamming his horse against hers he pinioned both her hands with his
right, swung his left arm round her waist and crushed her gasping
against his chest. Be sure she struggled; but he was a man, and
strong. Forcing the back of the hand that confined her two hands under
her chin, he tilted her head up and backwards. Tightly she screwed up
her mouth so that her lips were invisible. Once, twice and again he
kissed her compressed mouth.
"There," he muttered, releasing her so abruptly that she almost fell
out of the saddle and only saved herself by catching the saddle horn
with both hands. "There. I've heard you boasted that no man had ever
kissed you. Well, you're kissed now and you won't forget it in a
hurry."
She settled her toes in the stirrups and faced him, her body shaking.
Her hat had fallen off, her copper-colored hair hung tousled about her
ears. Violet eyes sparkling under the black eyebrows, lips drawn back
revealing the white, even teeth--her features were a mask of rage--a
rage that seethed and boiled in her passionate heart.
Never in her life had she been so despitefully used. Had she had a
gun, she would have shot the man. But she did not have a gun--nor any
other weapon. She had even dropped her quirt somewhere.
"Oh!" she cried, striking her fists together. "Oh! I could kill you!
You dog! You beast! Faugh!" Here she wiped her mouth with the back
of her hand and wiped her hand on her horse's mane. "When I get home,"
she raved on, "I'll try to wash the touch of your mouth off with soap,
but I don't believe even ammonia will ever make my lips feel clean
again!"
He laughed. She began to cry as her rage overflowed her heart.
"When I tell my father," she sobbed, "he will kill you!"
"Here, stop crying," he directed, stretching forth an arm and leaning
toward her.
At that she came alive with startling suddenness and with a full-armed
sweep scored his cheek with her finger nails from temple to jaw.
"Don't touch me!" she squalled. "Don't touch me! When my father gets
through with you----" She left the sentence unfinished and wheeled her
horse.
But he was too quick for her and seized the bridle rein and swung her
mount back.
"Listen," he said, his voice quiet but his eyes ablaze, "don't say
anything to your father."
"Afraid now, are you?" she taunted sneeringly.
"Not for me, for him. I don't want any trouble with your pa, not any.
But if he jumps me, I'll have to defend myself. And you know your pa
was never very quick on the draw, Sally Jane. So long."
He let her bridle go and moved aside. She snatched her horse around
with a jerk and flew homeward at a gallop.
CHAPTER TWO
A SAFE MAN
"We gotta be careful," cautioned Tom Driver, the local justice of the
peace.
"Careful is our middle name," Rafe Tuckleton said reassuringly.
"I know, I know," persisted Driver. "But you can't fool all the people
all----"
"Abe Lincoln said it first," Felix Craft interrupted impatiently. "But
he didn't live in Crocker County."
"Or he wouldn't have said it, huh?" flung in Tip O'Gorman. "Don't you
fool yourself, Crafty. Tom's right. Human nature don't change any."
"I s'pose you mean give the people a square deal then," sneered Felix.
"If he does, he's crazy," said a lanky citizen named Shindle.
O'Gorman grinned a wide Irish smile. "No, I ain't crazy, but we'll
give 'em a square deal alla same."
"He is crazy," declared lank Shindle.
"A square deal," repeated O'Gorman. "A square deal--for us."
"I thought so," nodded plump Sam Larder, speaking for the first time
since the beginning of the discussion. "A square deal--for us. Let's
hear it, Tip."
O'Gorman sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. "When a dog is
hungry it ain't sensible to feed him a whole juicy steak. He'll gobble
it down an' come pesterin' round for more in five minutes. But give
him a bone and he'll gnaw and gnaw and be a satisfied dog for quite a
long while."
"What kind of a bone were you figuring on giving our dog?" inquired Tom
Driver.
"Sheriff." Thus Tip O'Gorman with finality.
Felix Craft shook a decided head.
"Guess again. Too much meat on that bone."
"Not if it's the right kind of meat," said O'Gorman blandly.
"Stop walking in the water," grunted the impatient Felix. "Say it
right out."
"A sheriff with a ring in his nose," explained O'Gorman.
"A weak sister, huh?" put in Tom Driver.
"Or words to that effect," smiled O'Gorman. "Can't you see how it is,
gents? To shove our ticket through we gotta give 'em one good man. If
we don't, the four legislators are a stand-off. We may elect them. We
may elect our three justices, county clerk and coroner. You can't tell
what will happen to them. Folks will scratch their heads this election
and they'll vote their own way. Take my word for it. And when it
comes to sheriff, folks are gonna do more than scratch their heads.
They're gonna think--hard. That's why we gotta give 'em a good man."
"One of themselves, for instance?" said plump Sam Larder, locking his
hands over his paunch.
"Sure," O'Gorman drawled. "Do that. Give 'em somebody they trust and
like for sheriff an' they'll be so busy thinkin' about electin' him
that the rest of the ticket will slide in like a greased pig through a
busted fence."
"To tell the truth. I'd more than half-promised the job to Jack
Murray," remarked Rafe Tuckleton, incidentally wondering why Jack had
not yet turned up at the meeting. "He should have been here an hour
ago."
"You half-promised it to Jack Murray, huh?" exclaimed the lank citizen
Shindle. "Lemme tell you that I was a damsight more than half-counting
on that job myself."
"Neither of your totals is the right answer, Skinny," explained
O'Gorman pleasantly. "Nominatin' either you or Jack would gorm up the
whole ticket."
"Aw, the party is strong enough to elect anybody!" protested Felix
Craft.
"Not this year," contradicted O'Gorman. "You ain't been round like I
have, Felix. I tell you I know. Gents, if we go ahead and nominate
either Skinny Shindle or Jack Murray, we'll all have to go to work."
"Who you got in mind?" queried Rafe Tuckleton.
"Bill Wingo."
Dead silence for a space. Then Rafe Tuckleton looked at Sam Larder and
whistled lowly. Sam's eyes switched to Tip.
"I don't see the connection," said Sam Larder.
"Me either," concurred Rafe.
"I should say not," Shindle declared loudly.
"I'll tell you," said Tip O'Gorman, beaming impartially upon the
assemblage. "Take Skinny Shindle. He----"
"Aw right, take me!" burst out the gentleman in question. "What about
me! What----"
"Easy, easy," cautioned Tip O'Gorman, his smile a trifle fixed. "I
ain't deaf in either ear, and besides ain't we all li'l friends
together?"
"But you said----" Skinny tried again.
"I ain't said it yet," interrupted Tip, "but I'm going to--gimme a
chance. It won't hurt. It's only the truth. Take Skinny and look at
him. He buys scrip at three times the discount anybody else does, and
there was a lot of talk about that beef contract the agent gave him."
"What of it? Folks don't have to bring scrip to me if they don't
wanna, and suppose there was chatter about the contract. It's the
government's funeral."
"It came near being the agent's," slipped in Sam Larder, with a
reminiscent grin. "Some of them feather dusters like to chased him off
the reservation when they saw the kind of cattle he gave 'em. I saw
'em. They were thinner than Skinny. No exaggeration. Absolutely."
"Well, that's all right, too," said Skinny. "A feller's got to make
money somehow. Who ever heard of giving a Injun the best of it? Not
in Crocker County, anyway."
"That's all right again, too," declared Tip. "But that last deal with
the agent was a li'l too raw. Taking that with your prices for scrip,
Skinny, has made a heap of talk. You ain't a popular idol, Skinny, not
by any means."
"Damn my popularity!" snarled the excellent Skinny. "I wanna be
sheriff."
"Like the baby wants the soap," said Tip. "Well, you'll never be happy
then, because you'll never get it."
"Lookit here, Tip----"
"You lookit here, Skinny," swiftly interjected Rafe Tuckleton. "Is
this campaign your own private affair, or is it the party's?"
"The party's, I guess," Skinny reluctantly admitted. "But I want my
share of it."
"You can have your share without being sheriff," Rafe told him.
"You'll be taken care of, don't fret. This here's a case of united we
stand, divided we tumble. Suppose any li'l thing upsets our plans, and
our ticket don't go through? What then? What happens? For one thing
you won't get the contract for furnishing the lumber for the new jail
and town hall that's gonna be built next year. And for another, that
land deal you and I put through last month will be investigated. How'd
we like that, huh?"
"Rafe's right," said Tom Driver. "This is no time for taking any
chances. It ain't a presidential year, and you can gamble there ain't
gonna be a thing to take folks' eyes off the county politics. We've
all gotta give up something for the sake of the party."
"I don't notice you givin' up anything," snapped the disgruntled
Skinny. "I seem to be the only one that loses."
"And Jack Murray," supplemented Rafe Tuckleton. "Hell's bells, Skinny,
why didn't you say something sooner? To-night's the first I ever heard
you even wanted an office. That's why I told Jack he could have it.
He's a good man, but if I'd known----"
"What difference does that make?" interrupted Skinny, bitterly. "You
couldn't give me the nomination anyway."
"You could have had another office--say county clerk."
"Wouldn't take it on a bet--not enough opportunity. Aw hell, it's a
dead horse! Let it go, Rafe. Tip, you've had a lot to say about me,
now let's hear what you got against Jack Murray."
"Yep," said Rafe Tuckleton, "let's have it. I'll have to give Jack
some reason for going back on him, and I don't see exactly----" He did
not complete the sentence.
"Speaking personal," observed Tip, again on the broad grin, "I ain't
got a thing against Jack. Him and me get along fine. But when Jack
was first deputy two years ago he managed to kill four men one time and
another."
"That was in the line of duty," said Rafe. "They all resisted arrest."
Tip O'Gorman nodded. "I ain't denying it. And we've got Jack's word
for it besides; but the four men all had friends, and when, as you
know, each and every one of 'em turned out to be more or less innocent,
why the friends got to talking round and saying Jack was too previous.
Ain't you heard anything a-tall?"
"I've heard it said he was a _leetle_ quicker than he maybe needed to
be," conceded Rafe. "But folks always talk more or less about a
killing. It didn't strike me there was enough in it to actually keep
Jack from being elected."
"There is. They're only talking now, but nominate Jack and they'll
begin to yell."
"You must have been mighty busy these last few weeks, Tip," sneered
Skinny.
"I have," declared Tip. "Seems like I've talked with every voter in
the county. I've gone over the whole field with a finetooth comb, and
I tell you, gents, the bone for our dog is Bill Wingo. Most everybody
likes Bill. He's a damsight more popular than the opposition
candidate. Bill will get a lot of the other feller's votes, but if we
put up anybody else the other feller will get a lot of ours--and so
will the rest of his ticket."
Tip O'Gorman sat back in his chair and eyed his friends. It was
obvious that the friends were of two minds. Rafe Tuckleton, his
fingers drumming on the table, stared soberly at the floor.
"Are you sure, Tip," inquired Larder suddenly, "that Bill Wingo is the
breed of horse that will _always_ drink when you lead him to water?"
Tip O'Gorman nodded his guarantee of Mr. Wingo's pliability of
character. "Bill is too easy-going and good-natured to do anything
else."
"I'd always had an idea he was a good deal of a man," said Sam Larder.
"Oh, he'll stand the acid," Tip said. "He'll go after anybody he
thinks he oughta go after; but if we can't manage to give him the right
kind of thoughts we're no good."
"You needn't start losing flesh, Sam," slipped in Tom Driver. "Bill
would never go back on his friends. H's just a big overgrown kid,
that's all."
Rafe Tuckleton leaned back in his chair and stared dubiously at Tip
O'Gorman. "All right for Bill, but how about Tom Walton?"
"I'll bite," Tip averred blandly. "How about him?"
"Nothing, oh, nothing a-tall. Only Tom Walton has been one too many
round here for a long time."
"He does talk too much," admitted Tom Driver, his bright little eyes,
like those of an alert bird, fixed on Rafe Tuckleton.
"He's a very suspicious man," said the latter. "He like to broke Simon
Reelfoot's neck last week over a horse of his he said Simon rustled."
"Serve Simon right," said Tip promptly. "Simon's a polecat. Always
was. Felt like breaking his neck more than once myself. Good for
Walton."
"But Simon's one of our crowd," Rafe reminded him, "and he's been
mighty useful. We gotta consider his feelings."
"Oh, damn his feelings. The old screw ain't got any right to feelings."
"Yes, but there wasn't any real actual proof about the horse--only some
tracks in Simon's corral that Walton thought he recognized."
Tip quirked a quizzical mouth. "Between us, Rafe, what did Simon do
with the horse?"
"Sold him to a prospector who was leaving the country. So it couldn't
be traced."
"Good horse was it?"
"It was that chestnut young Hazel rides."
"Hazel's own pony? Lord! Man alive, Simon is worse'n a polecat. He's
a whole family of them. Why couldn't he have rustled some other horse?"
"I ain't Simon, so I can't tell you," said Rafe dryly. "But if you
don't want anything done on Simon's account, how about this: yesterday
one of my boys was shot at while he happened to be doing a li'l
business on the Walton range."
"What did your boy happen to be doing?" smiled Tip.
Rafe attempted to excuse himself and his cowboy. "It was a long-ear."
"Branding it on the Walton range?"
"Yes."
"With its mammy?"
"Yes."
"Serve the boy right." Tip gave judgment. "You and your outfit are
getting too reckless for any use, Rafe. The territory is not a
Sunday-school. You can't pick a man's pocket openly any more. It
isn't safe. And you know it isn't safe. Who was the boy and what time
of day was it?"
"Ben Shanklin; and it was round noon."
"Worse and more of it. My Gawd, Rafe, you gimme a pain!"
Sam Larder shook a fat-cheeked head. "Dangerous, Rafe; dangerous.
You've got to consider a man's feelings now more than you used to.
Haven't you told your man to always work round sunrise and sunset, and
never to shoot a calf's mammy on her owner's territory?"
"Others do, and get away with it. Besides, he didn't shoot the cow."
"He might as well have shot her," declared Tom Driver. "He got caught,
didn't he?"
"Ben didn't get caught. He made the riffle all right with two holes in
his saddle-horn and one in his cantle that tore his pants."
"What range? Did he say?"
"About fourteen hundred."
"Fourteen hundred, huh? Then he couldn't have been recognized."
"Luckily not."
"Luck is the word--for you--for us."
"Wonder who did the shooting?"
"I don't know. Ben dug out one of the bullets from his horn. It was
fifty caliber--a Sharps."
"That was Tom Walton himself," declared Tom Driver. "He's the only one
in his outfit owning a Sharps, and he won't let any one else shoot it.
'Twas Tom Walton. And don't be so positive Ben wasn't recognized,
Rafe. I hear Walton carries field glasses now."
"He _is_ getting suspicious," smiled Tip O'Gorman.
The smile stung the amiable Rafe. "He's gotta be stopped."
"How?" Thus Tip.
"There are ways," snarled Rafe.
"Of course, but it doesn't pay to be too rough. Tom has a great many
friends. We can't afford to stir up a whole kettleful of discontent.
A little care, Rafe, is all that's necessary. I think I'd impress my
men, if I were you, with the absolute necessity of being careful."
"I did tell 'em," said Rafe sullenly.
"Your telling seems to have left them cold. At least it left Ben
Shanklin. Damn his soul! I almost wish Tom Walton had got him, the
coyote! He deserves to be got, gorming up our plans thisaway."
"Well, everything turned out all right," Felix Craft tucked in hastily.
"So why worry? I'm sure Rafe's men will be more careful after this."
"I wish I was sure," grunted Tip O'Gorman. "They're a wild bunch,
every last one of 'em. I believe they just try to stir up trouble.
They're eternally getting drunk and shooting up saloons and other
places of business. People don't like it."
"Oh, boys will be boys," deprecated Rafe.
"Your boys will be dead boys if they don't watch out. Anyway, you put
the hobbles on that Ben boy, Rafe. We can't afford to have him spoil
things."
"How about having him spoil Walton?"
"And antagonize all of Walton's friends, huh? Bright, oh, very!"
"If the feller who spoiled Walton was a stranger, it would be all
right. You couldn't connect an absolute stranger with us, could you?"
"Let's hear your li'l plan," said Tip O'Gorman.
Every man of them listened intently to the Tuckletonian plan.
As plans go it was a good plan. Procuring an assassin to do the dirty
work is always a good plan. Rafe knew a gunman, named Slike, in a
neighboring territory. For two hundred and fifty dollars, according to
Rafe, Dan Slike would murder almost any one. For five hundred it was
any one, without the almost.
"Can he do it?" doubted Tom Driver.
"We all know how slow Tom Walton is on the draw," sneered Rafe. "Which
he's slower than Sam Prescott. If Slike don't plug Walton three times
before he can draw, I'll eat my shirt."
"That sounds well," said Tip O'Gorman, eyeing Rafe with frank disgust.
"But, somehow, I don't like the idea of having Walton killed."
"Whatsa matter with you?" demanded the originator of the idea. "Losing
your nerve?"
Tip O'Gorman's expression did not alter in the slightest. He gazed
upon his questioner as if the latter were a new and interesting
specimen of insect life.
"No," he said, "I don't think I'm losing my nerve. Do you think I'm
losing my nerve, Rafe?"
Rafe looked upon Tip. Tip looked upon Rafe. The others held their
respective breaths. In the room was dead silence.
"Do you, Rafe?" persisted Tip, his voice velvety smooth.
Rafe found his tongue. "No, I don't," he declared frankly. "But, I
don't see why you don't like my scheme."
"Don't you? I'll explain. Tom Walton's niece, Hazel, is the drawback.
Rubbin' out Tom would most likely put a crimp in her, sort of. She
lost her ma and pa only five years ago."
"Aw, the devil!" exclaimed Rafe Tuckleton. "We can't stop to think of
all those li'l things. We're here to make money, no matter how. Good
Gawd, Tip! We ain't----"
"Good Gawd, Rafe!" interrupted Tip. "We ain't hiring any gunman to
wipe out Tom Walton. I'm no he-angel--none of us are, I guess; but
I've known Hazel since she was a li'l squaller, and I won't sit still
and see her hurt. And that _goes_!"
Tip nodded with finality at Rafe Tuckleton. Rafe sat back on the
middle of his spine and gnawed his lower lip. His eyes were sulky.
"I don't want to see Hazel hurt either," said Skinny Shindle with an
indescribable leer, "but when it comes to a question of li'l Hazel or
us, I'm for us every time."
"You look here, Skinny," said Tip O'Gorman in a low dispassionate
voice, "what I said to Rafe, I say to you: Hands off Tom Walton."
"Oh, all right," said Skinny Shindle, "but if anything happens out of
this, don't say I didn't tell you."
"I won't say so, Skinny," Tip said good-naturedly. "I won't say a
word."
"Gentlemen," Felix Craft put in hurriedly, "let's go slow about now.
No use saying anything hasty, not a bit of use. Tip's right. None of
us want to hurt Hazel, and----"
"And we want to be damn sure we don't want to hurt Hazel," interrupted
Tip O'Gorman, his eyes fixed on Rafe Tuckleton's sullen face.
"'T'sall right, 't'sall right," said Rafe, forcing a smile. "Have it
your own way, Tip. Tom Walton's safe for all of me."
"Good enough," Tip said heartily, shooting at Rafe a glance that was
not completely trustful.
Entered then Jack Murray, wearing a set smile across his scratched
face. He nodded to the assemblage, sat down jauntily on the edge of
the table and brought out the makings.
"Well!" he said, his eyes on Rafe Tuckleton, rolling the while a
meticulous cigarette. "Well, I suppose you've got the ticket all made
up."
"Just about," nodded Rafe.
"What prize did I draw?"
"A large, round goose-egg," Skinny Shindle answered for Rafe with
malice.
"Huh!" Thus Mr. Murray, the hand he had reached upward to his hatband
coming down without the match. "You serious, Skinny?"
"I wish I thought I wasn't," was the reply.
Jack Murray turned a slow head back toward Rafe Tuckleton. "You told
me the sheriff's job was mine," he said bluntly.
"I thought it was," admitted Rafe, looking straight into his eyes.
"But we've heard some bad news, unexpected news. It seems you ain't as
popular with our citizens as you might be. We understand that you're
so little liked you wouldn't be elected in a million years."
"Who told you that?" Jack's tone was sharp.
"I did." Thus Tip O'Gorman in a tone no less sharp. "And I know what
I'm talking about, you can gamble on that."
"Tip's had his ear to the ground pretty steady," said Rafe Tuckleton.
"He knows what's on every voter's mind, and if we nominate you for
sheriff it means the defeat of the party. Listen, and I'll explain the
whole thing."
Jack Murray listened in silence. When Rafe said his last word, Jack
Murray laid his unlighted cigarette across the end of his left index
finger and teetered it slowly.
"Who you figurin' on running in my place," he drawled, his dark gaze on
the cigarette.
"Bill Wingo."
The teetering stopped. The cigarette slipped into the fork of two
fingers. The man slid to his feet.
"Bill Wingo," he repeated. "Bill Wingo, huh? Well, this is a
surprise."
Without another word he left the room, closing the door behind him very
gently.
When he had gone Tip O'Gorman threw a whimsical glance at Rafe
Tuckleton.
"I'd feel better if he'd slammed that door," said Tip O'Gorman.
CHAPTER THREE
WHAT SALLY JANE THOUGHT
"Careless child," observed Bill Wingo, coming up on the porch where
Sally Jane lay in the hammock. "You dropped your hat in the draw. I
found it this morning. Here it is. Don't move, sweet one. Of course,
if you asked me to sit down or didn't ask me I would, and if you felt
like rustling some coffee and cake, or lemonade and doughnuts, or even
just a piece of pie with a bite of cheese on the side--just a bite, not
over half a pound, I don't like cheese much--I wouldn't stop you."
"Stop calling me 'sweet one,'" Miss Prescott said crossly. "I'm not
your sweet one, or anybody else's sweet one, and I'll get you something
to fill your fat stomach, you lazy loafer, when I get good and ready.
Not before."
"Well, all right," he murmured resignedly, settling down on the stout
pine rail of the porch and fanning himself with his hat. "But I love
you just the same. What's that? Did I hear you curse or something?"
"Something. I only said damn because you make me sick. Love, love,
love, morning, noon and night! Don't men ever think of anything else?"
"Not when you're around," he told her.
"Oh, it's the very devil," admitted Sally Jane, rubbing her red mouth
with a reflective forefinger. "Am I so alluring?"
"Who has been kissing you now?" he asked idly and wondered why her face
should flame at the word. Wondered--because everybody knew Sally Jane.
On her part she wondered if he had seen what had passed in the draw the
day before, then decided instantly that he had not, else his manner
toward her would have been decidedly different.
"You haven't answered my question?" he persisted, still idly.
"Does it need one?"
"Well, no, not yet, anyway. When you're engaged to me, I'll know who's
kissing you."
"Don't be disgusting."
"No disgusting about it. I'll probably hug you, too."
"What dismal beasts men are," she said, with a mock shiver, having
regained control of her jumpy nerves. "I suppose you'd enjoy having me
sit on your knee."
"I would indeed," he told her warmly. "I think that chair there would
hold the two of us if we sat quiet--fairly quiet."
It was at this juncture that her father, Sam Prescott, came out on the
porch.
"Howdy, young Bill," said Sam. He invariably prefixed the adjective to
Bill's name. Why, no one knew. It was doubtful if he knew himself.
"'Lo, Sam," said young Bill.
"Sam," said Sally Jane from the hammock, "s'pose now a man tried to hug
you, and kiss you and make you sit on his knee, what would you do?"
"If I was you, you mean?" inquired Sam judicially. Middle-aged though
he was, he never ceased to experience a pleasurable thrill when his
daughter called him "Sam." It reminded him so much of her mother. "If
I was you," he went on, without waiting for an answer, "and the feller
which tried to make me do all those things was young Bill here, I'd do
'em. I really believe he likes you, Sally Jane."
"You think so, do you?" sighed Sally Jane, smoothing her frock down
over her ankles. "You too, Samuel? What chance has a poor girl
got--without a club?"
"I told her if she married me," spoke up Bill, "she could have jam on
Sundays and butter the rest of the week."
"There, you see, Sally Jane!" said Sam Prescott. "He'll be good and
generous. And if you asked him for a new dress now and then, or a pair
of shoes, I'll bet he wouldn't say no."
Sally Jane stubbornly shook her copper-colored head of hair. "Samuel,"
said she, "you're the only man I ever loved. Bill's all right in his
futile, thumb-handed way, but he's not my Sam. Now don't forget that
one drink is enough for a plumpish man with a beautiful daughter, and
that I want you to bring back a dozen cans of baking-powder, a dozen
bars of May Rose soap, three dozen boxes of matches, four sacks of
flour, sack of salt, sixty pounds of sugar, two papers of pins, four
spools of number forty cotton and a pail of chocolate creams. Be sure
and take the cover off and see it's a full pail, and if Nate tries to
palm off any stale stuff or hard candy on you, why just throw it in his
face and tell him I'll come in and complain in person my next trip."
"My Lord, Sally Jane," Sam exclaimed helplessly, "I can't remember all
that!"
"I know you can't," said Sally Jane calmly. "I've merely been
impressing it on you that there's a lot of errands for you to do.
You'll find a carefully written list of everything I want stuck in the
coil of the tie-rope under the seat of the buck-board. You can't miss
it when you go to tie the team."
"And Sam," she added, raising her voice to a shout, for her father had
already departed corralward, "be back by seven. I'm gonna make a lemon
pie."
Her father waved a comprehending hand and disappeared behind the
blacksmith shop.
"You see," said Billy Wingo, with a smirk of self-satisfaction, "the
male parent approves. The last obstacle is removed. Be a sport. Take
a chance. You might go farther and fare worse."
"I doubt it, William. Not that you aren't a nice boy and all that sort
of thing. However, tell sister why you seek her company this morning?"
"Oh, yes, of course, sister not being a good excuse for coming, I did
another reason. I have a fresh bale of news for her li'l pink ear.
Last night I was approached--" He paused dramatically.
"How much did he try to borrow?" Sally Jane inquired indifferently.
"Nothing like that, sweet one. The political steersmen of our fair
county rode out to my place last night and----"
"What did the old thief want?" Sally Jane brutally wished to know.
"_Steersmen_, beloved. There were two of him, and you do both old
gentlemen an injustice. They----"
"So Tip came with Rafe, did he? And you mean to tell me you didn't
even miss your watch after they'd gone? You didn't? They must be
sick, the pair of them. What did they do?"
"Offered me the nomination for sheriff!"
Sally Jane sat up abruptly, stuck her finger in her mouth, then held it
up to catch the vagrant breeze.
"The wind's still in the west," she said, making her eyes round as
saucers. "And you are still sitting there as large as life, and I'm
here alive and in my right mind!" Here she pinched her forearm. "That
hurt," she added. "I really am not dreaming. They want you for
sheriff, huh?"
"Don't 'huh' at me, Sally Jane. It ain't being done by the best people
no more. And they want me for sheriff, really."
"I wonder just how much of that really is real?"
He wrinkled his forehead at her. "Sometimes, Sally Jane, you talk most
awful puzzling."
"Those two old rascals!" she cried.
"Don't you think their intentions are honorable?"
Sally Jane's laughter was sardonic.
"Are they trying to fool me, or what?" he persisted.
"I don't know whether they're trying to fool you or not," was the
reply, "but they're trying to fool somebody, that's a cinch."
"Do you know now, Sally Jane, I was thinking something like that
myself."
She looked at him with a gleam of respect in her eyes. "I wonder if
you really have a brain after all, William. Occasionally you give out
a spark that leads one to believe that there may be a trace of
reasoning power underneath your waving hair. What makes you think they
have an ulterior motive?"
"Humanly speaking, I dunno why; but I do."
"Instinct is the white woman's burden, boy. You'd better leave it
alone. But it doesn't take any instinct to tell me that there's a man
and brother hiding in the cord-wood. To find the dark-hued
gentleman--that is the question."
"Why take the trouble?"
"Why? Listen to the man! Why? So you'll know what you're up against,
that's why."
"But I'm not up against anything," he objected mildly. "I told 'em I
didn't want the job."
"What?"
He rubbed an outraged ear. "No need to deafen me," said he.
"Deafen you?" she cried. "I could take a club to you, you fat-head!
The opportunity of a lifetime and you turn it down! Oh! I could
shriek my head off with rage! I never was so hopping in my life! The
first time an honest man is offered a political job in this county, for
the honest man to turn up his nose, is----" Words failed her. She
almost choked.
"So-o, so-o," he soothed. "Don't get so excited. Remember we are
young but once, and every outburst brings us nearer the grave. I
hadn't reached the end of my tale when you blew up and hit the ceiling.
Lemme finish, that's a good child. I told 'em I didn't want the job,
but they wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. They said for me to think
it over, and they'd be back in a couple of days and take it up with me
again."
"Bill," said Sally Jane, leaning forward, her violet eyes shining, "I'm
serious."
"I'll try to believe it," he said, regarding her with admiration. "But
just this minute you look like the most unserious thing I ever saw--and
the most beautiful. Listen, Sally Jane, I wish you'd do as I ask you.
Close your eyes and plunge right in. We'd be as happy as two pups in a
basket. Sign on the dotted line and leave the rest to me."
Which nonsense she quite properly disregarded utterly. "Bill, I want
you to take that nomination."
"But why, Sally Jane? I don't wanna be sheriff."
"Suppose I want you to?"
"But why should you want me to?"
"Isn't it enough that I ask it?"
"You flirt! You're utterly shameless! You know you can twist me all
round your li'l pink finger like a piece of string. You know I'm fool
enough to do anything you ask, and----"
"Well then, good fool," she smiled her interruption, "it's all settled.
You accept the nomination, and if you don't make things hum after
you're elected, you're not the man I take you for."
Bill slipped right off the porch rail and sat down limply on the floor.
His eye-balls rolled up. His hand fluttered over his heart. He
breathed with difficulty. "At last," he muttered. "Accepted! The
shock will be the death of me! Water! Water! With a little whisky
stirred in. Just a little. Not more than four or five fingers, or
perhaps six. No sugar."
He got to his feet slowly and reseated himself on the rail. "You won't
go back on your word, Sally Jane," he told her soberly.
"I can do lots of things you never heard of," said she. "But making
two meanings grow where only one grew before is not one of them."
"Joking aside," he said, "will you marry me if I take this sheriff job?"
"Joking aside," said she, "would you want me for a reason like that?"
"Well, no," he admitted frankly. "I'd want you to love me a lot."
"I'd make a pretty worthless wife otherwise. Honestly, Bill, I like
you a great deal, but there's something lacking. And when there's
something lacking, there's nothing to be done. Love is the greatest
thing in the world, Bill. It's what makes life worth living. And you
mustn't cheat it. If you do, you might better never have been born."
He nodded. Try as he might, he was unable to feel very badly. He
decided to give it up as a hopeless job.
"I see," he said gravely. "Sometimes, Sally Jane, I get an idea that
maybe you and me won't marry each other, after all. But no matter what
happens, I'll always be a brother to you. You can count on me."
He arose and made her a flourishing bow.
"That," said Sally Jane, with her bright smile, "takes a load off my
heart. As a sister, I know I'd fill every requirement. Be a good
brother now, and do as I ask. Be a sheriff."
"All right," said Billy Wingo. "I will."
CHAPTER FOUR
HAZEL WALTON
"Now there," said Riley Tyler, staring at the driver of a buckboard who
was tying her team in front of the Rocky Mountain store, "now there is
a girl that is pretty as a li'l red wagon, new-painted."
Billy Wingo, unmoved, continued to whittle the end of the packing case
he was sharing with Tyler. He did not even look at the girl, and she
was a very handsome girl.
"Yeah," said Billy Wingo.
"Not that I cotton to a female girl as a usual thing," resumed Riley,
"ever since a experience I had when young. I'll tell you about it some
time; maybe I better now."
"No, not now," Billy made haste to say; for he had heard the story of
every single one of Tyler's love affairs at least a dozen times. "Le's
talk about somethin' pleasant. Try the weather."
"You know, just for that," trundled on Riley Tyler, "we'll go on
talking about young Hazel Walton over there. Pity she's gone in the
store. You've never taken a good look at her, have you?"
"Nor I don't want to," denied Billy with what seemed to Riley an
unnecessary heat.
"Why not? Do your eyes good. Tell you, Bill, she's got the
best-looking black hair y'ever saw."
"I saw her once or twice with her uncle," Billy admitted desperately.
"She's all you say she is and more too. Anything to please the
children. Don't you ever stop talkin', Riley?"
"Not when I got somethin' like Hazel to talk about," declared the
relentless Riley, warming to his subject. "Y'oughta notice her eyes
once, Bill. Tell you, you never saw _eyes_ till you see hers. They're
eyes, they are! Big and black and soft and eyewinkers long as a
pony's. Fact. And she ain't lost a tooth. She's still got the whole
thirty-four. You take my word for it, Bill, she's a whole lot
different from other folks."
"She's two teeth different anyway. Most generally all other folks can
crowd in their mouth are thirty-two."
"What's a tooth more or less between friends?" said the unabashed
Riley. "She's got a whole mouthful, and when she smiles she shows 'em
all."
"That's great," yawned Billy, closing his pocket-knife with a click.
"You forgot to say whether she's a good cook or not."
"She's a number one cook," Riley told him seriously. "Her coffee is
coffee, lemme tell you, and she don't fry a steak to boot-leather
neither. Not her. No. She broils it, she does. _Y'oughta_ taste her
mashed potatoes. No lumps in 'em or grit or nothin', only the mealy
old potato; and butter beets! My Gawd!"
"Mixes 'em up with the potato, huh?"
"Of course not, you jack--separate. And canned peas--separate.
Actually she cooks those peas so they're tender as fresh ones;
tenderer, by gummy! Makes her own butter, too, in a churn."
"Well, well, in a churn. I never knew they made butter thataway."
"Shut up, Bill. You ain't got any soul. I stop at Walton's for a meal
every chance I get. Y'oughta see her cookin' a meal, Bill. She rolls
her sleeves up and she's got dimples in her elbows. She's a picture,
and you can stick a pin in that."
"Why don't you marry the girl?"
"I've asked her," was the reply made without rancor. "She said, 'No
thanks.'"
"That's one thing in her favor."
"Yeah, I think--Hey! what you tryin' to do, insult me?"
"Insult you, you tarrapin? You wouldn't know it if I did."
"If I wasn't so comfortable, I'd show you something," declared Riley
Tyler, sliding farther down on the small of his long back. "But the
heat has saved your life, William. Yeah, otherwise you'd be a corpse
all bluggy in the middle of Main Street. I'm a wild wolf when I'm
riled, you can gamble-- Yonder she comes. She didn't stay long."
Billy dug the Tyler shortribs with a hard elbow. "Where's your
manners? Go over and untie the lady's team."
"Too far. She'd have 'em untied by the time I got there. Besides, I'm
too comfortable. Another thing, I'd have to get up. No, no, I'll stay
here."
Hazel Walton stepped into the buckboard, kicked the brake-lever and
swung her team like a workman. The tall near mule laid back his long
ears and planted both hind feet on the dashboard. _Smack! Smack!_
went the whip. The mule tucked his tail, shook his mean head and tried
to jump through his collar. The brake-lever shot forward under the
shove of the girl's straightened right leg. The sensible off mule
threw his head to the left to ease the hard drag on his mouth as the
girl swayed back on the near rein. The near mule, hearing the slither
of the locked wheels behind him, and with his windpipe bent like a bow
and his chin forced back to his chest, decided that fighting would
avail him nothing and quieted at once.
"Regular driver, that girl," Billy said approvingly. "It ain't every
woman can drive a pair of those big freight mules. I never knew she
was like that."
"Lots of things you dunno," Riley hastened to say. "You didn't even
know she was pretty."
Billy hopped across the sidewalk and ran out into the middle of Main
Street. The mules, hard held, slid to a halt. Billy scooped up the
package that had fallen from behind the seat and hurried up to the
buckboard.
"Your tarp's slipped a little, ma'am," said he, stowing away the
package without raising his eyes to Miss Walton, who was leaning over
the back of the seat. "I'll tie it fast."
Not till the tarpaulin was fastened to his complete satisfaction did he
look up. Then he realized that Riley Tyler had not told half the truth
about Hazel Walton's eyes. True, they were big and black and soft, but
they were deep too, deep as cool rock pools, and they looked at you
steadily with a straight look that somehow made you wish that you had
been a better boy.
Queer that he hadn't noticed this attribute before. But at none of the
two or three times he had passed the girl on Golden Bar's Main Street
had she impressed him in the least. He could not have described her to
save his life. Perhaps it was because he had not looked into her eyes
before to-day. But he wasted no time thinking about that. He kept
right on looking into her eyes.
"You don't come in town very often," was his sufficiently inane
observation.
"Not very often," said she, and smiled.
Yes, there were the teeth. And weren't they white! He didn't know
when he had seen such white teeth. And her mouth had a dimple near one
corner. Now the dimple was gone. He wished it would appear once more.
"Do it again," he found himself saying like a fool.
She wrinkled her pretty forehead at him. "What?"
"Smile," he said, with a boldness that surprised himself.
It surprised Hazel Walton, surprised her so that she jerked around to
the front, "kissed" to the mules and drove away without a word.
Billy stood quite still in the middle of Main Street, with his hat off,
and looked after her a moment. Then he pulled on the hat with a jerk
and returned to his packing case.
"What did she say to you?" Riley wanted to know.
"None of your business," was the ungracious reply.
"She left you sort of sudden," persisted Riley. "And why did you stand
still in the middle of the street and look after her so forlorn and
long?"
"I wasn't lookin' more than ten seconds," denied Billy, jarred off his
balance for once in his life.
"Shucks, I had time to roll a cigarette, and smoke it to the butt while
you stood there nailed to the earth. Yeah. Tell you, Bill, you don't
wanna let your feelings give you away so much. Bad business that is.
Somebody's bound to pick your pocket forty ways. Y'oughta play poker
more. That would teach you self-control."
"Bluh," grunted Billy. "Think you're smart, don't you?"
"I know I am," returned Riley, crossing one knee over the other and
diddling his foot up and down to the thin accompaniment of a tinkling
spur-rowel. "I got eyes, I have. I can see through a piece of glass
most generally. Oh, mush and milk, love's young dream, and when shall
we meet again."
"Aw, hell, shut up!" urged Billy, and shoved his friend off the packing
case and went elsewhere hastily.
Riley first swore, then laughed and reseated himself on the case. Jack
Murray, passing by, stopped and sneered openly. It was obvious that
Jack was in liquor.
"He don't care how much he picks on you, does he?" observed Jack.
Riley Tyler did not move hand or foot. But a subtle change took place.
Iron turning into steel undergoes such a metamorphosis. The sixth
sense of an observing old gentleman across the street and directly in
line with Jack Murray informed its owner of the sudden chill in the
air. The observing old gentleman, whose name was Wildcat Simms, oozed
backward through a doorway into the Old Hickory saloon.
"Why are you walking like a crab, Wildcat?" queried his friend the
bartender.
"Because Jack Murray is talking to Riley Tyler."
The bartender, wise in his generation, was well able to fill in the
rest for himself. He joined the old gentleman behind a window at one
side of the line of fire.
Riley Tyler, meanwhile, was fixedly regarding Jack Murray.
"Meaning?" said Riley Tyler.
Jack Murray came right out into the open. "Ain't you able to stand up
for yourself no more?"
There it was--the deliberate insult. Followed the movement so swift no
eye could follow. But Riley's gun caught. Jack Murray's didn't. When
the smoke began to wreathe upward in the windless air, Jack Murray was
calmly walking away up in the street and Riley Tyler was hunched across
the packing case. Blood was running down the boards of the packing
case and seeping through the cracks in the sidewalk.
Billy Wingo was the fourth man to reach Riley. The boy, for he was not
yet twenty-one, had been turned over on his back on the sidewalk. He
was unconscious. Samson, the Green-Front Store owner, was bandaging a
wound in Riley's neck.
"Lucky," observed Samson, "just missed the jugular."
"Where else is he shot?" queried Billy, his eyes on the blood-soaked
front of Riley's shirt.
"Right shoulder," Samson informed him.
"I heard three shots," said Billy. "Two was close together but the
last one was maybe ten seconds later."
"I only found the two holes," declared Samson.
But when Billy and another man picked up Riley to carry him to the
hotel, Billy found where the third shot had gone. It had penetrated
Riley's back on the left side, bored between two ribs, missed the wall
of the stomach by a hair and made its exit an inch above the waistband
of the trousers.
The marshal, who had seen the crowd going into the hotel, arrived as
Billy and Samson were making Riley as comfortable as possible on a cot
in one of the hotel rooms.
The marshal, whose surname being Herring was commonly called "Red,"
thrust out a lower lip as he surveyed the man on the bed.
"Even break, I hear," said the marshal.
Billy set him right at once. "You heard wrong, Red. Riley's gun
caught. I found where the sight had slipped through a crack in the
leather. Besides, Riley was plugged in the back after he was down. Do
you call that an even break?"
"Well, no," admitted Red Herring, who was inclined to be just, if being
just did not interfere with his line of duty. "Anybody see it besides
you?"
"I didn't see it a-tall. I didn't have to. I heard the shots--two
close together and one a good ten seconds later. Oh, Riley was plugged
after he was down and out, all right enough. Besides, Riley was lying
across his gun hand when he was picked up, Samson says."
"That's right," nodded Samson.
"Jack was a little previous, sort of," frowned the marshal.
"You think so," said Billy sarcastically. "Maybe you're right."
"Well, I can't do a thing," said the marshal. "I didn't see it. And
these fraycases will happen sometimes."
"Nobody's asking you to do anything," said Billy. "I'm looking after
this."
"Now don't you go pickin' a fight with anybody," urged the marshal,
instantly perceiving his line of duty. "Judge Driver is dead against
these promiscuous shootings."
"Judge Driver can go to hell," Billy said with heat. "What's this here
but a promiscuous shooting, I'd like to know? And I don't see you
arrestin' anybody for it. You said you couldn't."
"I didn't see this one, and besides Riley ain't been killed, and no
complaint has been made," defended the marshal, who was no logician.
"But where a feller says he's gonna attend to somebody, that shows
premeditation and malice aforethought, which both of 'em is against the
statute as made and provided in such cases."
"How you do run on," commented Billy.
But the Red Herring lacked a sense of humor. Heavy of soul, he frowned
heavily at Billy.
"You go slow," was his fishy advice.
"Be careful and otherwise refrain from violence," observed Billy, whose
English became better as his temper grew worse. "I grasp your point of
view," he added gravely. "But I don't like it. Not for a minute I
don't. I'll do as I think best. I'd rather, really."
"Don't you go startin' nothin' you can't finish," said the marshal,
lost in a maze of words. "I don't want to have to arrest you."
"I don't want you to have to either," Billy averred warmly. "Arrestin'
me would surely interfere with my plans. Yeah."
"A sheriff-elect had oughta set a good example," argued the marshal.
Riley Tyler rolled his head from side to side. He muttered
incoherently. The men about the cot turned to look down at him. Then
he said, speaking distinctly:
"He shot me after I was down."
Billy Wingo raised his eyes and stared at the marshal.
"How's that, umpire?" said Billy.
"He's raving," snapped the marshal.
"A man speaks the truth when he's thataway," rebuked Billy. "I'm going
to see about this."
But the marshal blocked his way. "I told you----" he began.
"Get out of my way!" directed Billy, his gray eyes ablaze.
The marshal got. After all, he had no specific orders to prevent a
meeting between Jack Murray and Billy Wingo. Let Jack look out for
himself. No doubt Rafe and sundry other of his friends would be
annoyed, but it couldn't be helped. The marshal betook himself
hurriedly to the back room of the Freedom Saloon.
Billy, coldly purposeful, made a round of the saloons first. In none
of them did he find his man or news of him. Finally, from the stage
company's hostler tending a cripple outside the company corral, he
learned that Jack had left town.
"Which he went surging off down the Hillsville trail," said the
hostler, "like he hadn't a minute to lose. He told me he was going to
Hillsville."
"Told you?" Surprisedly.
"Yes, told me, sure. 'If the marshal wants me,' says he, as he loped
past, 'tell him I've gone to Hillsville.'"
Here was an odd thing. Jack Murray knew where he stood with the powers
that were and consequently knew that the marshal would not want him for
the shooting. Yet here was Jack Murray not only leaving town hastily,
as though he feared capture, but taking pains to leave word where he
was going. The two facts did not fit. True, a gentleman seeking to
mislead possible pursuers might lie as to where he was going. In which
case such a gentleman would not take a trail like the Hillsville
trail--a trail visible from Golden Bar for almost five miles in both
directions. But if a person wished to be pursued----
"I think I can see his dust still," said the hostler helpfully,
pointing toward the spot where the Hillsville trail entered a grove of
pines five miles out.
"I think I see it too," declared Billy grimly, and went hurriedly to
the hotel for his rifle and saddle.
Hazel Walton, jogging along the homeward way, was overtaken by a
horseman. He nodded and called, "'Lo," as he galloped by. She
returned his greeting with careful courtesy. But she scowled and made
a little face after his retreating back. She did not like Jack Murray.
She never had. The man had repelled her from the moment she first set
eyes on him.
It is human nature for one to take an interest in the movement of a
person one dislikes. Hazel wondered where Jack Murray was riding so
fast. For it was a hot day. Her wonder grew when, twenty minutes
after he had passed from sight, she perceived by the hoofmarks that he
had left the trail and turned into a dry wash. She knew that the wash
led nowhere, that it was a blind alley, a cul-de-sac ending in a
rock-strewn, unclimbable slope that was the base of Block Mountain.
This wash was a good two miles beyond where the trail entered the grove
of pines five miles out of Golden Bar.
Beyond the wash the trail wound up the side of a hill. At the crest of
the hill the off mule picked up a stone. Hazel set the brake, tied the
reins to the felley of a wheel and jumped to the ground. The stone was
in a near fore, and jammed tight. After ten minutes hard hammering and
levering with her jackknife she had the stone out.
As she released the foot from between her knees and straightened her
back, her gaze swept along the back trail. She saw only sections of
trail till it passed beyond the grove of pines five miles out of town.
The grove was now three miles behind her. The wash into which Jack
Murray had ridden was distant not half a mile. The land on either side
of the wash had once been burnt over and had grown up in brush and
scraggly jack pine.
Of the pines and spruce that had once covered the ground surrounding
the wash, but one tall gray stub remained. The eye of the beholder was
naturally drawn to this salient characteristic of the landscape, She
saw more than the stub. She saw Jack Murray's horse tied to its bole.
There was something queer about the horse's head. Whereas Jack
Murray's horse when it passed her on the trail had been a sorrel of a
solid color, the head was now whitey-gray.
Hazel was not of an abnormally inquisitive nature, but that a horse's
head should change color within the space of half an hour was enough to
make any one ask questions. Ever since she and her uncle had come to
realize that some one was rustling their cattle, neither of them ever
left home without field glasses. Hazel pulled her pair from beneath
the seat cushion and focused them on the odd-looking horse.
"Why, it's a flour sack over the horse's head!" she exclaimed. "They
say a horse won't whinny if you cover his head. I wonder why Jack
doesn't want him to whinny. And _where_ is Jack?"
Two minutes later she found Jack. He was lying on his stomach in the
brush behind an outcrop. The outcrop overlooked the trail. Jack's
rifle was poked out in front of him. It was only too obvious that Jack
was also overlooking the trail. Why?
A few minutes later that question was answered by the sudden appearance
of a rider at a bend of the trail a mile back. Jack Murray must have
glimpsed the rider at the same time, for Hazel saw him snuggle down
like a hare in its form, and alter slightly the position of his rifle,
although the rider was not yet within accurate shooting range. With a
gasp she recognized the rider on the trail by his high-crowned white
hat: only one man in Golden Bar wore such a hat and that man was Billy
Wingo. Instantly she recalled what folks were saying of Jack Murray
since it had become positively known that the party nomination for
sheriff had gone to Billy Wingo, that Jack Murray "had it in" for
Billy, that he had made threats more or less vague, and that he had
taken to brooding over his fancied wrongs. She realized that the
threats had crystallized into action, and that this was an ambush.
She knew that Billy would be masked by a certain belt of trees before
he traveled another thirty yards, not to emerge into view again till he
topped a rise of ground about a thousand yards from the base of the
hill on which she stood. It was a certainty that Jack would not risk a
shot till his enemy had crossed the rise of ground. If Hazel could
only reach the top of the rise first--
Hazel popped up into the seat of the buckboard as Billy reached the
belt of trees. It has been shown that Hazel Walton was a good driver,
and she needed every atom of her skill to turn the buckboard in the
narrow trail without smashing a wheel against the rocks that some
apparently malign agency had seen fit to strew about at that particular
spot. The near mule, devil that he was, when he found that he was no
longer headed for home, stuck out his lower lip and front legs and
balked.
This was unwise of the near mule. He should have chosen a more
opportune moment. Hazel had no time to reason with him. She set her
teeth, slacked the reins, opened her jack-knife and jabbed an inch and
a half of the longer blade into the mule's swelling hip.
It is doubtful whether the recalcitrant mule ever moved faster in his
life. The forward spring he gave as the steel perforated his thick
hide almost snapped the doubletree. Hazel, her toes hooked under the
iron foot-rail, poured the leather into the off mule.
She made no attempt to guide her galloping team. She did not need to.
She barely felt their mouths, but ever she kept her whip going, and the
mules laid their bellies to the ground and flew down that hill like
frightened jack rabbits. And like a rubber ball the buckboard bounced
behind them.
Hazel knew that Jack Murray behind his outcrop must hear the thunder of
the racing hoofs, the rattle of the swooping buckboard. Half-way down
the hill she lost her hat. Promptly every hairpin she possessed lost
its grip and her hair came down. In a dark and rippling cloud it
streamed behind her.
"Keep your feet, mules!" she gritted through her locked teeth. "Keep
your feet, for God's sake!"
And they kept their footing among the rolling stones, or rather a
merciful Providence kept it for them. For that hill was commonly a
hill to be negotiated with careful regard to every bump and hollow.
Hazel's life was in jeopardy every split second, but so was another
life, and it was of this other life she was thinking. Reach that
white-hatted rider she must before he came within thousand-yard range
of the man behind the outcrop.
Within thousand-yard range, yes. Jack Murray's reputation with the
long arm was of territorial proportions. He had made in practice,
hunting and open competition almost unbelievable scores. Given
anything like a fair shot, and it would be hard if he could not hit an
object the size of Billy Wingo. All this Hazel Walton knew, and her
heart stood still at the thought. But she was of the breed that fights
to the last breath and a gasp beyond.
She breathed a little prayer, dropped her right hand on the reins ahead
of her left and turned the team around the curve at the foot of the
hill as neatly as any stage-driver could have done it. That they swung
round on a single wheel did not matter in the least. Beyond the curve
one of the front wheels struck a rock that lifted Hazel a foot in the
air and shot every single package and the tarpaulin out of the
buckboard.
And now the road passed the wash and ran straight for more than half a
mile till it disappeared over the rise of ground. Throughout the whole
distance it was under the sharpshooting rifle of the man behind the
outcrop.
As she clung to the pitching buckboard and plied the whip, she
speculated on the probability of Jack Murray firing on her. He must
realize her purpose. He had been called many things, but fool was not
one of them. He might even shoot her. She recalled dim stories of
Jack Murray's ruthlessness and grim singleness of purpose.
"Bound to get what he wants, no matter how," men had said of him.
Four hundred yards from the curve where the buckboard had so nearly
upset, a Winchester cracked in the rear. The near mule staggered,
tried to turn a somersault, and collapsed in a heap of sprawling legs
and outthrust neck. The off mule fell on top of his mate, and Hazel
catapulted over the dashboard and landed head first on top of the off
mule.
The off mule regained his feet with a snort and a lurch, in the process
throwing Hazel into a squaw bush. Dizzy and more than a little shaken,
that young woman scrambled back into the trail and feverishly set about
unhitching the mule.
She heard a yell from the direction of the outcrop above the wash.
Fingers busy with the breast-strap snap, she looked back to see a man
hurdle the outcrop and plunge toward her through the brush.
"Wait!" he bawled. "Wait!"
Her reply to this command was to spring to the tail of the mule and
shout to him to back. He backed. She twitched both trace cockeyes out
of the singletree hooks (she was using the wagon harness that day)
tossed the traces over the mule's back and ran round in front to
unbuckle the dead mule's reins.
"Halt or I shoot!"
She giggled hysterically. How could she halt when she had not yet
started? She freed the second billet, tore the reins through the
terrets, and bunched the reins anyhow in her left hand. He was a tall
mule, but she swarmed up his shoulder by means of collar and hames,
threw herself across his withers and besought him at the top of her
lungs to "Go! Go! Go!"
He went. He went as the saying is, like a bat out of hades. Hazel
slipped tailward from the withers, settled herself with knees clinging
high, and whanged him over the rump with the ends of the reins. He
hardly needed any encouragement. Her initial cry had been more than
enough.
The man in the brush stopped. He raised his rifle to his shoulder,
looked through the sights at the galloping mule, then lowered the
firearm and uttered a heartfelt oath. It had at last been borne in
upon his darkened soul that he possibly had made a mistake. Instead of
shooting the mule, in the first place, he might better have
relinquished his plan of ambush and gone his way in peace. There were
other places than Golden Bar, plenty of them, where an enterprising
young man could get along and bide his time to square accounts with his
enemy.
But the killing of the mule had fairly pushed the bridge over. It was,
not to put a nice face on it, an attack on a woman. He might just as
well have shot Hazel--better, in fact. She had undoubtedly recognized
him. Those Waltons both carried field glasses, he had heard.
"I'll get the mule anyhow," he muttered. "That'll put a crimp in her."
He dropped on one knee between two bushes, took a quick sight at the
mule's barrel six inches behind the girl's leg and pulled trigger.
Over and over rolled the mule, and over and over a short foot in
advance of his kicking hoofs rolled Hazel. Luckily she was not stunned
and she rolled clear. She scrambled to her feet and set off up the
trail as fast as her shaking legs would carry her.
"Damn her!" cursed Jack Murray, notching up his back sight. "I'd
oughta drop her! She's askin' for it, the hussy!"
His itching finger trembled on the trigger, but he did not pull.
Reluctantly, slowly, he lowered the Winchester and set the hammer on
safety. The drink was dying out in him. Against his will he rendered
the girl the tribute of unwilling admiration. "Whatsa use? She's got
too much nerve; but maybe I can get him still."
On her part the girl pelted on up the rise, stumbled at the top and
came down heavily, tearing her dress, bruising her knees and thoroughly
scratching the palms of her hands. But she scrambled to her feet and
went on at a hobbling run, for she saw below her, rising the grade at a
sharp trot, the rider of the white hat.
Now she was waving her arms and trying to shout a warning, though her
voice stuck in her throat and she was unable to utter more than a low
croak.
Billy Wingo pulled up at sight of the wild apparition that was Hazel
Walton. But the check was momentary. He clapped home the spurs and
hustled his horse into a gallop. He and Hazel came together literally,
forty yards below the crest. The girl seized his stirrup to save
herself from falling and burst into hysterical tears.
"Lordy, it's the girl that dropped the package!" exclaimed Billy,
dismounting in haste.
He had his arm round her waist in time to prevent her falling to the
ground. She hung limply against him, and gasped and choked and sobbed
away her varied emotions.
"There, there," he said soothingly, patting her back and, it must be
said, marveling at the length and thickness and softness and shininess
of her midnight hair. "It's all right. You're all right. You're all
right. Nothing to worry about--not a-tall. You're safe. Don't cry.
Tell me what's bothering you?"
And after a time, when she could speak coherently, she told him.
It was a disconnected narrative and spotty with gasps and gurgles, but
Billy made no difficulty of comprehending her meaning. They who can
construct history from hoofmarks in the dust do not require a clear
explanation.
When he had heard enough for a working diagram he plumped her down
behind a fortuitous stone and adjured her to lie there without moving,
which order was superfluous. She did not want to get up again--ever.
Billy stepped to his horse, dragged the Winchester from the scabbard
under the near fender and trotted to the top of the rise. Arrived at
the crest, he dropped his hat and went forward crouchingly, his rifle
at trail. Sheltering his long body behind bushes he dodged
zigzaggingly across the top of the ridge to an advantageous position
behind a wild currant bush growing beside a jagged boulder.
He lay down behind the wild currant bush and surveyed the landscape
immediately in front of him. At first he saw nothing--then two hundred
yards away on his right front a sumac suddenly developed an amazingly
thick shadow. He automatically drew a fine sight on that sumac.
The shadow of the sumac became thin. A dark objected flitted from it
to another bush. The dark object was a man's head. It was hatless.
Billy smiled and decided to wait. He understood that he was dealing
with a man who could shoot the buttons off his shirt, but on the other
hand, Billy did not think meanly of himself as a still hunter. He lay
motionless behind the currant bush and watched Jack Murray's advance.
Billy smiled pityingly. It was obvious to him that Jack Murray had
never been on a man hunt before. If he had he would have been more
careful.
"Good Gawd," Billy said to himself, "it's like taking candy from a
child."
It was destined to be even more like taking candy from a child.
Four times before the bold Jack reached the crest of the hill he
offered Billy a target he couldn't miss. And each time the latter
refrained from shooting. Somehow he was finding it difficult to shoot
an unconscious mark. If Jack had been shooting at him or had even been
aware of his presence, it would have been different. But to shoot him
now was too much like cold-blooded murder. There was nothing of the
bushwhacker in the Wingo make-up.
Suddenly at the top of the rise, Jack Murray ducked completely out of
sight.
"Must have seen the horse," thought Billy, and looked over his
shoulder. No, it was not the horse. Billy was on higher ground than
was Jack and he could not see even the tips of his mount's ears.
"It can't be my hat he sees," Billy told himself.
Evidently it was the hat, for while Billy's eyes were on the hat, a
rifle cracked where Jack Murray lay hidden and the hat jumped and
settled.
"Good thing my head ain't inside," said the wholly delighted Billy, his
eyes riveted on the smoke shredding away above the bushes on the right
front. "I wonder if he thinks he got me."
It was evident that Jack Murray was wondering too. For the crown of a
hat appeared with Jack-in-the-box unexpectedness at the right side of
the bush below the smoke. Experience told Billy that a stick was
within the crown of the hat which moved so temptingly to and fro.
Three or four minutes later, Jack Murray's hat disappeared and the
rifle again spoke.
"Another hole in my hat," Billy muttered resignedly and cuddled his
rifle stock against his cheek. "He'll wave his hat again, and then
he'll be about ready to go see if the deer is venison."
Even as he foretold, the hat appeared and was moved to and fro, and
raised and lowered, in order to draw fire. Then, peace continuing to
brood over the countryside, the hat was crammed on the owner's head and
the owner, on hands and knees, headed through the brush toward Billy's
hat.
Billy was of the opinion that Jack Murray's course would bring him
within ten feet. He was right. Jack Murray passed so close that Billy
could have reached forth his rifle and touched him with the muzzle.
Instead he waited till Jack's back was fairly toward him before he
said, "Hands up!"
Jack Murray possessed all the wisdom of his kind. He dropped his rifle
and tossed up his hands.
"Stand up. No need to turn around," resumed Billy, Riley Tyler's
six-shooter trained on the small of Jack's back. "Lower your left hand
slowly and work your belt down. You wear it loose. It'll drop easy.
And while you're doing it, if you feel like gamblin' with me, remember
that this is Riley's gun and I ain't used to it, and I might have to
shoot you three or four times instead of only once, y' understand."
Obviously Jack Murray understood. He lowered his left hand and worked
his gun-belt loose and down over his hip bone with exemplary slowness.
The shock of his capture had evaporated the last effects of the liquor.
He was cold sober and beginning to perceive the supreme folly he had
committed in shooting a woman's mount from under her.
"One step ahead," directed Billy when the gun-belt was on the ground.
"And up with that left hand."
Jack Murray, thumbs locked together over his head, stepped out of the
gun-belt. Billy went to him, rammed the six-shooter muzzle against his
spine and patted him from top to toe in search of possible hide-outs.
He found none except a pocket knife which did not cause him
apprehension.
"Le's take up the thread of our discourse," said Billy, "farther down
the hill. Walk along, cowboy, walk along."
With Billy carrying both rifles and Jack's discarded gun-belt, they
walked along downhill to where Billy's pony stood in a three-cornered
doze. It was then that Jack Murray caught sight of Hazel Walton lying
on her back behind a stone, her arms over her face. She looked
extremely limp and lifeless.
"I didn't shoot her!" cried the startled Jack.
"I know you didn't," said Billy. "The lady's restin', that's all.
We'll wait till she feels like moving."
Hazel Walton uncovered her face. There was a large and purpling lump
in the middle of her forehead, the skin of her pretty nose was
scratched, a bruise defaced one cheek bone, and one eye was slightly
black.
"Your work, you polecat," Billy declared succinctly. "You'll be
lynched for mauling her like that."
But Hazel Walton was just. She sat up, supporting herself by an arm,
and dispelled Billy's false impression. "He never touched me--and he
could have shot me if he'd wanted to."
"So kind of him not to," said Billy with sarcasm. "Who is responsible
for hurting you? Your face is bruises all over."
"Is it?" she said, with an indifference born of great weariness. "I
suppose it must be. I remember I struck on my face when he shot the
mule I was riding. He--he shot both mules."
"He'll be lynched for that, then," Billy said decisively.
"Who'll pay for the mules?" Hazel wished to know. "We needed those
mules," she added.
Billy nodded. "That's so. If he's lynched for this attack on
you--your mules--same thing if you know what I mean--you lose out on
the mules. Maybe we can fix it up."
"Sure we can," Jack Murray spoke up briskly.
"I'm not talkin' to you," pointed out Billy. "Whatever fixing up there
is to do, I'll do it. You have done about all the fixing you're gonna
do for one while. Yeah. I came out after you, Jack, to make you a
better boy, but now that we got you where you'll stand without
hitching, I can't do it. I ain't got the heart. Of course, if you
were to jump at me or something, or make a dive for your gun I'm
holding, I don't say but I'd change my mind in a hurry. I kind of wish
you had seen me back there a-lying under my currant bush. Then we'd
have had it out by this time, and I'd be going back to town for a
shovel."
"Don't you be too sure of that," snarled Jack Murray. "Just you gimme
my gun back, and I'll show you something."
"I'll bet you would," acquiesced Billy, "but I'm keeping your guns,
both of 'em. I'd feel too lonesome without 'em."
"Can't you do nothing but flap your jaw?" demanded Jack in a huff.
"I'd just as soon be downed outright as talked to death."
"But you haven't any choice in the deal," Billy told him in mild
surprise. "Not a choice. You shut up. I'll figure out what to do
with you. Y'understand, Jack, I've got to be fair to Miss Walton too.
If you're lynched she won't get paid for her team, and I can't have her
losin' a fine team of mules thisaway and not have a dime to show for
it. That would never do. Never. Lessee now. You got any money,
Jack?"
"A little."
"How much?"
"Maybe ten or twelve dollars."
"Maybe you've got more. You know you never were good at figures.
Lemme look."
He looked. From one of Jack Murray's hip pockets he withdrew a plump
leather poke that gave forth a jingling sound. A search of the inner
pocket of the vest produced a thin roll of greenbacks. But the bills
were all of large denominations.
"There," said Billy, "I knew you'd made a mistake in addition, Jack.
You count what's here, Miss Walton."
He tossed the greenbacks and the heavy poke into the lap of the girl
who was now sitting up cross-legged, her back against the rock.
"Sixteen hundred and twelve dollars and sixty-five cents," announced
Hazel a few minutes later.
"How much did your mules cost?" queried Billy.
"Five hundred and a quarter the team," was the prompt reply.
"Call it six hundred," said Billy briskly. "It's only right for you to
take something at an auction thisaway. Strip off six hundred dollars
worth of greenbacks and put them in your pocket."
"Oh, I wouldn't feel right about taking more than the regular price,"
demurred Hazel.
"No reason why you shouldn't. No reason a-tall. Jack's only paying
you for the damage he did. He's glad to pay. Ain't you, Jack?"
"I suppose so," grunted Jack.
"There, you see. Your uncle would want you to. I know he would. In
fact, he'd be a heap put out if you didn't. Those bumps of your's now.
What do you say to one hundred wheels a bump? You got three bumps and
a scratched nose. Which last counts as a bump. In round numbers that
makes four hundred dollars. One thousand dollars to you, Miss Walton."
"Here!" cried the outraged Jack Murray. "You're robbin' me! You're
takin' every nickel I got!"
"No, I ain't," denied Billy, "and don't go and get excited and put
those hands down. Don't you, now. About that money--the worst is yet
to come. Young Riley Tyler not being here to assess his own damages,
I'll assess 'em for him. You put three holes in Riley. Call it two
hundred dollars a hole. That makes six hundred dollars. Just put that
six hundred in a separate pile for Riley, Miss Walton."
"I don't mind the man paying for the mules," said Miss Walton firmly,
"but I can't take any money for my scratch or two."
Billy looked at her, decided she meant it and said:
"All right, put that four hundred with Riley's six. Riley won't mind."
"But I do!" shouted Jack Murray, his arms quivering with rage. "You
can't rob me thisaway. By Gawd----"
"Now, now," Billy cut in sharply, "no swearing. You forget Miss
Walton. You're right about the money, though. I can't rob you. Miss
Walton, dump all that money back in the poke and hand it to him. He
wants to go back to Golden Bar and be lynched."
"I got friends in Golden Bar," blustered the prisoner.
"None of 'em will be your friends after I tell 'em what you did to Miss
Walton, Jack. There's a prejudice in this country against hurting a
woman. Folks don't like it. Aw right, get a-going, feller. No, the
other way--toward Golden Bar."
A hearty groan wrenched itself from the depths of Murray's being.
"Uncle! Uncle!" he cried angrily. "Have it your own way. I don't
want to go to the Bar. Take all my money and be done with it."
"I wouldn't think of such a thing," declared Billy, "though it wouldn't
be any more than right if I did. You're getting off too easy. You'll
live to be hung yet, I'm afraid, but I can't just see my way to downing
you now and here. No, you divide the money again, Miss Walton. Six
hundred for you, a thousand for Riley and twelve dollars and sixty-five
cents tobacco money for this gentleman.-- Don't bother reaching for
the money, Jack. I'll put it in your pocket. There you are. Now,
Miss Walton, if you'll wait here while I get this citizen started--
You've got a horse somewhere, I expect, Jack. Lead the way."
"Oh, sure I saw him off all right. I don't guess he'll be back for a
while--not if he has brains. You know, I owe you a lot, Miss Walton.
You did the bravest thing I ever knew a man or woman to do. You
gambled your life to save mine. You might have been killed, you know
it? And after me getting fresh there in the street, I dunno what to
say, I don't."
He knew that he was talking too much. But in the reaction that had set
in he was so embarrassed that it hurt.
"Yeah!" he gabbled on, red to the ears, "you certainly are a wonder.
I--uh--I guess we better be getting back to town. You feel able to
ride now? My horse is gentle. Besides, I'll lead him."
It was then that reaction set in for Hazel Walton. As the strain on
her nerves eased off, everything went black before her eyes and she
keeled over sidewise in a dead faint.
CHAPTER FIVE
JACK MURRAY OBJECTS
"You hadn't oughta shot the girl's mules," said fat Sam Larder, shaking
a reproving head at disconsolate Jack Murray.
The latter endeavored to defend himself. "I was drunk."
"That's no excuse," averred Felix Craft. "You had no business picking
a fight with young Riley in the first place. He's a popular lad, that
one, and you ain't."
"He made me mad, setting there in the sun joking with that damn Bill
Wingo who's gonna be sheriff in my place. Besides, I was drunk."
"I saw the whole affair," said Sam Larder. "Bill pushed Riley off the
cracker box and you had to slur Riley about it. Fool caper."
"I never did like Riley," grumbled Jack Murray. "He's a friend of Bill
Wingo's and that's enough. I figured by downin' Riley and skippin' out
and lettin' that stage hostler know where I was going, Bill Wingo would
come pelting after and gimme a chance to settle with him all salubrious
and private on the trail somewheres."
Sam Larder bluntly called the spade by its correct name. "Bushwhack
him, you mean."
"Well, if I did, it's none of your business," snapped Jack Murray with
an evil glance.
"Then why make it our business by coming here bellyaching to me and
Craft?" Sam Larder wished to know.
"I came to you because I want my money--sixteen hundred dollars that
bandit Bill Wingo stole off me."
"He didn't say anything about any sixteen hundred," said Felix Craft,
his eyes beginning to gleam. "Tell us about it."
"Yeah," urged Sam. "Give it a name."
Jack proceeded to give it a name--several names and all profane. When
he was calmer he gave a fairly truthful account of the financial
transaction between Hazel Walton, Bill Wingo and himself.
"And I'm telling you here and now," he said in conclusion, "that six
hundred dollars is too much for that broken-down team of jacks. And a
thousand dollars for putting a few holes in Riley Tyler is plumb
ridiculous. My Gawd, he'll be out of bed in a month. Wha' t'ell you
laughin' at?"
For his hearers were laughing--laughing immoderately. They whooped,
they pounded the table, they beat each other on the back till they sank
exhausted into their chairs.
Jack demanded again to be told what they were laughing at.
"I'll leave it to anybody if this ain't the funniest thing ever
happened in the territory," declared Sam Larder, when he could speak
with coherence.
Felix Craft nodded. "Sure is. One on you all right, Jack."
"Aw, hell, you fellers can't make a monkey out of me."
"Bill Wingo seems to have done that pretty thoroughly," said Sam Larder
with a fat man's giggle.
"I'm not through with him yet," snarled Jack Murray.
"Where's your sense of humor?" grinned Felix. "If you'll take my
advice you'll walk round Bill Wingo like he was a swamp. Ain't you had
enough?"
"I want my money back!" squalled the indignant Jack.
Sam Larder kissed the tips of his plump fingers. "The money's gone.
Can't do anything about it now. Can we, Crafty?"
"Don't see how."
Jack sat up stiffly, his face red with rage. "You fellers mean to tell
me you're gonna let me be robbed of sixteen hundred dollars?"
Felix Craft spread eloquent hands. "What can we do?"
"I thought you were friends of mine," disgustedly.
"We are," Sam hastened to assure him. "If we weren't we'd have called
in the sheriff long ago."
"What's the sheriff got to do with it?"
"He's got a warrant for your arrest--for assault and battery, malicious
mischief, and assault with intent to kill. Besides, the folks
hereabout have got it in for you. I wouldn't be surprised if they hang
you--give 'em half a chance."
"I know they would, damn 'em, but as long as they don't see me they
can't lynch me, and they ain't likely to see me here in your house,
Felix. But I don't like the idea of that warrant."
"I suppose not," said Felix. "A warrant follows you all over while a
necktie party generally stays close to home. And no matter what the
present sheriff does, I got an idea Bill won't forget that warrant any
after he takes office-- Yeah, I know, cuss him out by all means, but
after all, what are you gonna do about it?"
"I didn't think he'd swear out a warrant," said Jack.
Felix tendered his mite. "There's a reward offered, too."
A warrant was bad enough, but a _reward_! Many people would be on the
lookout to earn such easy money.
Jack Murray felt an odd and sinking sensation in the region of his
stomach. "How much is it?"
"Only three thousand dollars."
"Only, huh. Only? Who's puttin' up the cash?"
"Riley Taylor put his name down for a thousand and Hazel's uncle, Tom
Walton, added six hundred, and----"
"Why, that sixteen hundred is _my own money_!" interrupted Jack Murray.
"I expect so," continued Felix. "The other fourteen hundred was made
up around the town."
"I suppose you'll tell me you fellers put it up yourselves," said the
sarcastic Mr. Murray, who did not expect any such thing.
"Sure we did," said Felix. "We had to. Bill Wingo and Sam Prescott
and Wildcat Simms brought the paper round, and we had to sign up. I'll
be out a hundred if you're caught, Sam two hundred, Tip a hundred, Rafe
the same, and that's the way it went. Even the district attorney
chipped in his ante."
Jack Murray was too horrified to speak for a minute. While he wrestled
with his thoughts Sam Larder spoke.
"You see, Jack," said he, "we had to sit in. If we hadn't, everybody
would have said we sympathized with you, and we couldn't afford
that--not with elections coming on. It would never do. Never. You
see how it is, I guess."
"Yes, I see," said Jack bitterly. "I see all right. I see you've skun
me between you. That damn reward will make me leave the territory for
a while."
"Most sensible thing you could do," declared Sam Larder warmly. "We
don't want to see you get into any trouble, Jack. You're young.
Starting somewhere else won't be a hardship for you a-tall. We'll be
sorry to lose you," he concluded thoughtfully.
"You ain't lost me yet," Jack snapped back. "I may pull out for
awhile, but I'll be back. You bet I'll be back, and when I do come
back I'll sure make Bill Wingo hard to find."
"Don't yell so loud," Sam cautioned him, "or you may have the
opportunity sooner than you want it. You hadn't oughta come here,
anyhow. You dunno whether you were seen or not."
"And you don't want to get a bad name, I expect," sneered Jack Murray.
"You expect right," Felix Craft said with candid bluntness.
"You see, we ain't been openly connected with any scandal yet,"
contributed Sam Larder, glancing at the clock, "and while it ain't
daylight yet, still--" He paused meaningly.
"You want me to drag it, huh?" growled Jack.
"We-ell, maybe you'd better," admitted Sam.
"If fifty dollars would do you any good, here it is," said Felix,
thrusting a hand into his trousers pocket.
Jack Murray spat on the floor. "T'ell with your money. I know who
ain't my friends now, all right, and you can gamble I'm a-going right
quick. See you later."
So saying, Jack Murray rose and left them. He was careful to close the
door quietly. When he was gone, Sam grinned at Felix. The latter
broke anew into laughter.
"His own money!" crowed Felix Craft. "His own money offered as a
reward! If that ain't----"
But what it was, was drowned in the bellowing cackle of Sam Larder.
Billy Wingo removed his hat and stuck a brown head round the corner of
the door jamb. "Hello, Hazel!"
"'Lo, Billy," said Hazel Walton, breaking another egg into the mixture
of sugar and shortening in the yellow bowl. "Chase that sprucy chicken
out, will you, there's a dear."
Billy did not misunderstand. He had discovered that Hazel called any
friend "dear." It was her way of showing her liking, that was all.
Nevertheless, the appellation never failed to give him a warm feeling
that felt pleasant around his heart. He shooed out the marauding and
molting Wyandotte and then sat down on the doorstep and regarded Hazel
with approving eyes.
And Hazel Walton was undoubtedly good to look at as she stood there
behind the kitchen table, stirring with a great spoon the contents of
the yellow bowl. There were dimples in her pretty elbows that matched
the one in her cheek. Billy could not see the ones in her elbows, but
he knew they were there. Her eyes were downcast. He thought he had
never seen such long lashes. The eyebrows were slim and perfect
crescents. The round chin was made for the palm of a man's hand. But
her hair,--that was what Billy admired most of all. It was so heavy
and thick. There was a bit of a wave in it, too. And it always looked
neat and tidy. There were never any "scolding locks" at the nape of
her neck, as there were on other necks that had come under his eye.
But he was not in love with her. Oh, no, not he. After his latest
turn-down by Sally Jane, he had made a resolve not to fall in love
again, ever. But there was no harm in going to see a girl. How could
there be? Quite so.
"Your uncle home?" he asked after a cigarette had been constructed and
lit.
"He'll be in for dinner," replied Hazel, with a swift flash of dark
eyes. "And there I was hoping all along you had come to see me."
"I came to see you, too."
"Me too is worse, lots worse. Shows what an afterthought I am. Life's
an awful thing for a girl."
"I'll bet it is. For you especially. This is the first time I ever
came here that some one else wasn't here ahead of me. Usually a feller
has to fight his way through a whole herd in order to say good evening
to you."
Hazel put her head on one side and looked at him demurely. "They come
to see Uncle Tom."
"Which is why they spend all their time talkin' to you."
Hazel smiled. "I feed 'em. I'm a good cook, if I do say it myself.
Stay to dinner, William?"
"Not after that," he told her firmly. "I don't want another meal here
long's I live."
"Just you let me catch you sloping out before dinner's over and done
with, and I'll never speak to you again as long as _I_ live. Besides,
I want you to go fill the waterbucket for me in about ten minutes, and
after dinner I need some help in the chicken-house, and Uncle is busy
this afternoon. So you stay and be mother's li'l helper, Bill, won't
you?"
"Putting it thataway," said Bill, "what can a poor man do?" Here he
licked his lips cat fashion and added "Is that cake for dinner?"
"Of course not, you simple thing. Here it is half-past eleven and the
cake not even mixed yet. I've got a dried-peach pie though. It's
outside cooling. And there'll be fried ham, Bill, and corn
fritters--the batter's all ready in that blue bowl. Lima beans, too,
the last you'll see this year."
"I saw some young ones for another crop on the vines when I came
through the garden," said Billy, who was no farmer.
Hazel smiled pityingly. "The frost will kill 'em before they get a
chance to ripen. It can't hold off much longer. Do you realize it's
nearly October, Bill? We almost had frost last night."
"Winter's coming."
"Election will be here first. Uncle Tom says you're sure to be
elected. My, how important you'll be. Will you speak to a feller
then, Bill?"
"I might. You never can tell. Seen Riley lately?"--elaborately casual.
"Saw him last Sunday. To look at him now you'd never know he'd been
shot, would you? He's coming to dinner to-day--has some business with
Uncle Tom."
"Yeah, like the rest of 'em. Fen dubs on the chicken-house. You said
I could help you with that, remember."
Hazel nodded. "Here comes Riley now."
"No," said Billy, when Riley, having put his horse in the corral, made
as if to step over him. "You stay right here. She's busy. She
doesn't want a long, lazy lump like you clutterin' up her nice clean
kitchen. Sidown on the step next mine. I don't care how close you
sit."
"But I do," returned Riley, seating himself opposite his friend. "Last
time I sat next you I lost my tobacco. Good thing my watch wasn't on
that side."
"Shucks, that watch!" Bill said scornfully. "It was good maybe when
your grandad had it. It must have cost him two dollars easy."
"Alla same, that's a good watch." Riley returned tranquilly. "It only
loses thirty minutes a day now since I had it fixed. Say, Hazel, lemme
throw this jigger out, will you? He's only sliming round to mooch a
bid to dinner."
"I've asked him to stay," smiled Hazel, "but I don't remember saying
anything about it to you."
"You didn't. I said I was coming. Here I am. What's fairer than
that, I'd like to know? As I was sayin' before you interrupted, I saw
you out ridin' last Sunday."
"Did you?" indifferently.
"Yeah--with that nice old Samson man."
"He's not old," Hazel denied vigorously, "and anyway, he's nice."
"He gives her lollypops," Riley confided to Billy, "and sometimes as
much as half-a-pound of chalklet creams. Oh, he's a prince."
Hazel stamped a small foot. "It wasn't half-a-pound. It was--it
was--" Her voice dwindled away.
"Say a pound," offered Billy, entering into the spirit of the thing,
"and that's a generous estimate."
"Almost as generous as Samson," grinned Riley. "Hazel, go easy on the
poor old feller. He can't afford to be givin' you expensive presents
like that."
"Sure not," slipped in Billy. "Why, I don't believe Samson makes a bit
more than fifty per cent on everything he sells."
"You two think you're smart, don't you. He's a nice man, Mr. Samson
is, and he spends an evening here quite often."
"He never spends anything else," said Billy.
"Cheap wit," flung back Hazel.
"Almost as cheap as Samson," tucked in Riley.
Hazel's eyes were beginning to sparkle, and Billy seized his
opportunity. "Here, here, Riley, stop it! Don't you lemme hear you
making any more slurs against Mr. Samson. He's a friend of mine,
and----"
"Oh, you!" cried Hazel, instantly regaining her good humor. "You're as
bad as Riley, every bit. But you almost did get a rise out of me. I
don't like to hear my friends run down."
"I didn't mean it--anything," said Riley, with well-feigned humbleness.
"I like Samson, I do, the poor old good-for-nothing lump of
slumgullion."
Billy shook a sorrowful head. "Honest, Hazel, I'm ashamed of you,
robbing the grave thataway."
"I don't believe he's much over sixty, Bill," said Riley.
"Say sixty-one."
"He's forty-one, if you must know," Hazel said.
"I knew it was getting serious," mourned Billy. "They're exchanging
birthdays. We'll have to find us a new girl, Riley."
"Not me. I'm satisfied. I'll stick to the last shout and a li'l
beyond. Hazel's only fooling these other fellers. I'll make her the
best husband in four counties, and she's the girl that knows it. Don't
you, Hazel?"
"I'm not that hard up," replied the girl, with a smile that belied the
harshness of her words.
"There, you hear?" chuckled Billy. "Now you'll be good, I guess."
"If you won't have me for the twenty-fourth time hand-running, why not
take Bill here? He's a good feller, don't drink much, and he's got a
heart of gold and a brand of his own--six horses and one calf at the
last round-up. Besides, if all that ain't enough, he's gonna be our
next sheriff. What more could a girl want?"
"She'd want him to ask her first," said Hazel, not a whit put out.
Riley turned to Billy in mock surprise. "Ain't you asked her yet,
Bill? Shucks, whatsa matter with you? You make me sick, and she don't
like it either. G'on--propose. I'm with you. We all are. And she
expects it, can't you see? G'on, Tommy Tucker, sing for your supper."
But Tommy Tucker firmly refused to sing. Instead he seized the jibing
Mr. Tyler by the ankle and skidded him off the step.
"Ow-wow! You poor flap!" bawled the erstwhile humorist, who had picked
up a splinter. "Leggo my leg, or I'll roll you!"
But it was Riley Tyler who was rolled, and rolled thoroughly.
"You boys stop that!" directed Hazel, appearing in the doorway with a
bucket. "Acting just like overgrown kids! You ought to be ashamed!
Bill, I'll take that bucket of water now, and Riley, how about fetching
in an armful of wood for your auntie?"
The two men started to obey, but stopped short in their tracks.
Billy cocked a listening ear. "Wasn't that a shot?"
"Down the draw," responded Riley.
"Near the Hillsville trail," was Hazel's opinion. "There goes another,
and another."
"It's no hunter," declared Billy. "I can hear horses galloping."
Within five minutes they three saw a horse come galloping. He was
tearing up the draw. The man on his back was half-turned about in the
saddle, a rifle at his shoulder. He fired. They could not see what he
was firing at. There was a bend in the draw concealing what was behind
him.
But they could hear the galloping of the other horses quite plainly.
The drum of the racing hoofs grew louder. Three horses swept round the
bend in the draw. They were followed by two others. The pursuers
uttered a yell as they sighted the house. The pursued fired twice
without effect. There was a crackle of shots from the five horsemen.
Apparently none took effect on either the pursued or his mount.
Billy regarded the pursued's mount with critical eyes. "That horse is
about done."
"Yeah," acquiesced Riley. "Not another mile left in him."
It was but too evident that the horse was in distress. He rolled a
little in his stride. Once he stumbled. The rider caught him up with
a jerk. The man turned a desperate, determined face toward the house
in the draw ahead of him. He was not fifty yards from the house. The
draw was wide. He sheered his horse to one side. The animal
staggered, crossed his legs and turned a complete somersault. The
rider flew from the saddle, turned over in the air and struck hard on
his head and right shoulder. The horse lurched to his feet and stood
trembling. The man lay still.
The pursuing horsemen were coming along at their tightest licks, but it
was Billy and Riley Tyler who were the first to reach the fallen man.
Hazel, kilting her skirt in both hands, had run with them.
Billy stooped and turned over the sprawled-out citizen. The man, a
square-jawed youngster with a stubby brown mustache, lay breathing
heavily. His sun-burnt skin was a little white. Hazel pushed Billy to
one side and sat down beside the young fellow.
"Let me," she said quietly, and took his head in her lap. "Riley, get
me some water quick and the whisky bottle on the shelf over the
fireplace."
Riley darted toward the house.
The five riders dashed up and flung themselves from their saddles.
They were Rafe Tuckleton, Jonesy, the Tuckleton foreman, Ben Shanklin
and two more of the Tuckleton outfit. Billy faced them, his thumbs
hooked in his sagging belt.
"Caught him!" Rafe ejaculated with satisfaction, striding forward, his
men at his heels.
"He don't look shot any," said Jonesy.
"Not a hole in him," Billy told them. "He'll be all right in a minute."
Tuckleton laughed harshly. "He's due for a relapse about a minute
after that. Jonesy, get your rope. That spruce up there on the flat
will be fine."
Hazel uttered a gasp of horror.
"What do you expect to hang him for, Rafe?" demanded Billy.
"Caught him branding one of my calves," was the ugly reply. "Reason
enough?"
"I don't believe it!" cried Hazel.
"You know him?" Rafe inquired contemptuously.
"I never saw him before in my life. But he doesn't look like a
rustler. He's got a good face."
The Tuckleton outfit was moved to mirth.
"A good face!" yelped the fox-faced Ben Shanklin, slapping his leg. "A
good face! That's a fine one!"
"I expect we'll have to turn him loose, boys," Jonesy said
sarcastically, returning from his horse, and shaking out the coil of
rope.
"Oh, I guess we'll string him up all right," Rafe said with confidence.
"Don't let them, Billy!" begged Hazel.
Billy made instant decision. "'Nds up!"
Which command was backed by a six-shooter trained on the center of
Rafe's abdomen. The way the Tuckleton hands flew upward and locked
thumbs above the Tuckleton hat was gratifying. But the Tuckleton face
was empurpled with rage.
"Of course," remarked Billy, "one of you may hit me, but if I go Rafe
goes with me."
"It's all right, boys," Rafe assured his hesitating followers in a
voice thick with anger. "Lemme argue this thing."
"There'll be no hanging here," said Billy.
"You bet not!" chimed in the voice of Riley Tyler from a position
thirty yards distant on the right.
Riley had returned with the water and whisky. He had been sufficiently
thoughtful to bring with him a double-barreled shotgun. He stood, the
firearm held level with his hip, the blunt twin muzzles gaping at the
Tuckleton outfit.
"Hazel," said Riley, "I wanna borrow this shotgun for a few minutes. I
found it leaning inside the door. Ben, I wish you'd come over here and
take this water and whisky to the lady. I'm stuck here, sort of."
"You go ahead, Ben," said Billy. "Don't lemme detain you."
Ben went slowly. He plumped whisky and bucket on the ground beside
Hazel and then began to sidle casually toward the house.
"You come right back," urged Riley, gesturing with the shotgun. "The
best place for you is right beside Jonesy. He's gettin' lonesome for
you already, ain't you, Jonesy?"
Jonesy spat upon the ground. Ben slouched back to his comrades. While
this byplay had been going on, Tuckleton had been talking at Billy.
"Would you mind repeating all that?" said Billy, when Ben had rejoined
the group at Rafe's back. "I didn't catch some of it."
Tuckleton glared, his little eyes hot with rage. "I said that man's a
cow thief and we're gonna stretch him!"
"But you said that at first," pointed out Billy. "And I said 'no'
then. I haven't changed my mind."
"Since when have you been dry-nursing rustlers?" snarled Rafe.
"I don't know he's a rustler."
"I said he was, didn't I?"
"You said so, sure. But you might be mistaken."
"I don't make mistakes like that. And, anyway, all my boys here saw
him branding that calf."
"We sure did," corroborated Jonesy. "Feller had a fire all lit, and
was heating a running-iron when we jumped him."
"Did the calf have its mammy along?" was Billy's next question.
No one answered. Billy, however, did not remove his eyes from Rafe's
face. The pause was becoming almost embarrassing when the five
Tuckletonions made reply with a rush. Two of them said "Yes," and the
other three said "No."
"There seems to be a difference of opinion," said Billy. "Don't you
know whether the cow was along?"
"She wasn't along," declared Jonesy, sticking to his original assertion.
"But Rafe said she was," said Billy.
"I made a mistake," Rafe hastened to assure him.
Billy nodded in triumph. "Then you do make mistakes. I always knew
you did. Funny how you and Jonesy saw things so different and all.
Ben didn't see any cow either, and Tim Mullen and Lake did."
"Maybe I made a mistake too," said Lake sullenly, taking his cue from
his employer.
"How about you, Tim?" persisted the questioner.
Tim looked furtively from his employer to his foreman and back again
before answering.
"Speak up, Tim," directed Billy, "speak up. You did or you didn't.
Yes or no?"
"Maybe I made a mistake," was Tim Mullen's final decision.
"They seem to have come over to your point of view, Jonesy," Billy
observed dryly. "How about you? Did you make a mistake too?"
But Jonesy was not to be caught. "The cow wasn't along. I oughta
know."
"You don't need to be so fierce about it. I was just askin' questions.
If this feller had a fire and was heating a running-iron, I suppose he
had a calf handy."
"I said we caught him _with_ a calf," insisted Rafe Tuckleton.
"That's right, so you did. Was the calf hog-tied?"
"Naturally."
"And when you saw this stranger and jumped him, I suppose you came
boiling along right after him?"
"Sure did." Thus Rafe Tuckleton.
"None of you stopped anywhere, huh?"
"Why, no, of course not. It wouldn't be reasonable, would it, if we
were chasin' him, to get off and fiddle around?"
"No, it wouldn't be reasonable," admitted Billy. "Then if none of you
got off to turn the calf loose, the calf must still be there--calf,
fire and running-iron?"
Rafe looked a little blank at this. So did the others. Jonesy was the
first to recover his spirits.
"Unless somebody else turned it loose," suggested Jonesy brightly.
"But the fire and running-iron will still be there."
"Of course they will," Rafe Tuckleton declared heartily. "Of course
they will. But it just occurs to me that this man may have had a
friend with him we didn't see. And that hog-tied calf and fire and
running-iron--that last may have been a cinch ring, Bill--are evidence
that'll hang this man. Jonesy, suppose now you ride back to the fork
of that split draw south of Saddle Hill, where we saw this man's fire,
and see that nobody destroys the evidence before we get there. Ben, I
think you'd better go with Jonesy."
"No," said Billy decidedly. "Jonesy and Ben will stay right here."
"Remember," called Riley, "that this Greener is double-barreled."
"But see here--" Rafe began desperately.
"No see about it," interrupted Billy. "You'll all stay right here with
us till Tom Walton gets here."
"But suppose somebody destroys the evidence," worried Rafe.
"I don't guess they'll destroy all of it," said Billy cheerfully. "You
see, Rafe, we want to go with you to the fork of that split draw south
of Saddle Hill."
Rafe's blazing eyes were fairly murderous. His men muttered behind
him. But they made no hostile move. They realized that Rafe would
never forgive them if they did. He would not be able to.
In the meantime Hazel had been alternately bathing the senseless one's
forehead and dribbling drops of whisky between his teeth.
"He's coming round," she said suddenly.
The man opened his eyes, groaned, grunted, and sat up. He blinked his
eyes rapidly several times and smiled pleasantly at Hazel.
"That was a jolt I got," said he. "Is there whisky in the bottle?"
He took a long and healthy pull, drove in the cork with the heel of his
hand, wiped his lips and then seemed to see Rafe Tuckleton and his men
for the first time.
"I seem to remember those bandits giving me the chase of my young
life," he remarked, nodding his head. "I don't know why. I don't know
why my unknown friend with the six-shooter and my other equally unknown
friend with the scatter-gun are holding them up, but I'm glad they're
doing it. Still, why? Why all this fuss and these feathers?"
"I don't know either," replied Billy, continuing to watch Rafe
Tuckleton and his men like the proverbial hawk, "but we hope to find
out. When a couple of friends of mine get here, we aim to find out."
CHAPTER SIX
CROSS-PURPOSES
"... and my name is John Dawson," continued the stranger, "and I'm on
my way to visit my uncle at Jacksboro."
"Uncle! Jacksboro!" exclaimed Jonesy. "Pretty smooth and thin."
Tom Walton took no notice of Jonesy. "Where'd you work last?"
"Cross T in Redstone County."
Tom Walton nodded. "Turberville ranch? Left ribs cattle, left
shoulder and jaw horses?"
"No, Tasker's," corrected John Dawson. "Left hip cattle and horses, no
jaw brand."
"I know," said Tom Walton gently. "I knew it was Tasker's. I had
to--be sure."
"Whatsa use of this gassing?" demanded Rafe. "I tell you, Tom, we
caught this feller branding one of my calves, and I'll gamble he's the
boy been doing all the rustling on your range too."
"You might be right. I don't know. But he tells a straight story."
"They all do. He's a rustler. Take my word for it."
"But he said in the beginning," objected Tom, "that he never was near
that split draw."
"We saw him, I tell you!"
"All right. Soon as we eat, we'll all ride over to the draw and take a
squint at the evidence."
"What for? Ain't my word enough?"
"I don't believe in gamblin' with a man's life," said Tom smoothly.
"Better be sure than sorry," said Billy.
"I won't be sorry none to hang him, the cow thief!"
"If I had my gun I'd argue that with you," remarked the prisoner
pleasantly.
Rafe was understood to damn all creation. Oh, he was wild.
"Dinner!" called Hazel from the kitchen door.
"Too bad the sheriff ain't here," grumbled Rafe, on the way to the
house.
"It is too bad," Tom Walton flung over his shoulder. "But I sent Roy
for Sam Prescott. He'll meet us on the Hillsville trail."
Roy was the half of his outfit. The Walton ranch was a little one.
Even in big seasons Tom could not afford to employ more than three men.
In winter he let them all go. What little work there was to be done he
managed to do himself. Small rancher though he was, Tom Walton was not
a nonentity in the community. Folk trusted him. He was known to be
honest.
After dinner the whole party, excepting Hazel, took horse and rode down
the draw to the Hillsville trail. Rafe and his outfit would have
ridden to the trail at once. But Billy Wingo carefully shepherded them
from it.
"We'll keep off the trail," said Billy. "This Dawson man says he's
never been off the trail till he got chased off by you fellers. We may
want to examine that trail for tracks later."
The Tuckleton men muttered and swore, but they kept away from the
trail. Soon after the party reached the vicinity of the trail, Roy,
Sam Prescott and two of his men trotted into sight. Billy rode to meet
them and turned them from the trail before they reached the spot where
John Dawson said he had left it.
Sam Prescott listened in silence to the respective stories of Rafe
Tuckleton and John Dawson. He seemed unimpressed by either. When he
had heard all they had to say, he dismounted and examined the hoofs of
Dawson's horse. Then he and Riley, closely followed by the others,
rode along the edge of the trail scrutinizing the tracks upon its dusty
surface.
"Here's where he says he left the trail all right," observed Bill.
"You can't mistake the point of that near fore shoe. He says Tuckleton
and his boys rode at him from over yonder, but if they chased him
all-away from that split draw like they say they did, there wouldn't be
a single track here. They'd all be on the other side of those
cottonwoods."
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward said cottonwoods growing
about a hundred yards to the south.
"Let's go over yonder where he said they came from," said Sam Prescott.
They all went over yonder. There they found the tracks of five horses.
Not only that, but in a near-by depression behind some red willows they
found where five horses had stood a considerable time.
Sam Prescott picked up in turn the hoofs of every Tuckleton horse.
"These five horses were standing here at least two hours," remarked Sam
Prescott, staring at Rafe.
The latter said nothing. Really, there was nothing to say.
Led by Sam Prescott and Billy, the party followed the tracks of these
five horses back to the trail and into the draw leading to the Walton
ranch.
"You see," said Billy to Sam Prescott. "Those horses were coming on
the dead jump. It's just like Dawson says. They were chasing him."
Although Billy's voice was loud enough for all to hear, none of the
Tuckleton outfit took it upon himself to deny the statement. It may be
said that they were growing a trifle discouraged.
"Le's go to the split draw," resumed Billy, when Sam Prescott had
openly agreed with him. "Maybe we'll find that calf and the fire and
the running-iron. But I expect that fire will be out by this time."
"I guess likely." Thus Sam Prescott, and turned his horse.
But they did not find the calf and the extinct fire and the
running-iron. There was nothing in the split draw even remotely
resembling any of these.
"Come to think of it," said Rafe, weakly attempting a last defense,
"maybe it was another draw."
"Maybe it was," admitted Sam, turning to young Dawson. "Maybe it was,
but I'm satisfied it wasn't. It was a good thing for you, young
feller, that Billy Wingo and Riley Tyler were on the spot when your
horse fell."
"I know it," responded young Dawson heartily. "I'm not forgettin' it.
And maybe I can return the favor some bright and sunny day. Now if I
can have my gun, I'll just have a word or two with the man you call
Tuckleton."
"No words," said Sam Prescott firmly. "Not a word. This thing has
gone far enough. There'll be no shooting round here. Rafe and his
outfit are goin' home now, and you're riding with me back to Tom's
ranch. And to-morrow morning I'll see you off to Jacksboro. Rafe, I
don't want to hurry you----"
Rafe Tuckleton and his outfit took the hint.
"And you mean to tell me they can get away with a deal like that?"
demanded John Dawson.
Sam Prescott smiled wearily. "What could they be arrested for--always
supposing you could get the sheriff to arrest 'em, which he wouldn't."
"Well----"
"There y'are. Of course you could call it attempted assault. What's
that? Under the statute, a week in jail. And who'd convict 'em?"
Tom Walton laughed bitterly. "You don't know this county, Mr. Dawson.
Anything can happen here."
"Seemingly it can," said Mr. Dawson in frank disgust.
"You see," said Rafe, "I'd figured we'd have to find somebody to lynch
for rustlin' so that infernal Tom Walton wouldn't be suspectin' us alla
time. Shindle ran across this Dawson party in Hillsville and guessed
he'd fill the bill, he being a stranger and all."
"So Skinny rode ahead and let you know he was coming, huh?" queried Sam
Larder.
"Yeah. Oh, damn the luck! Who'd have expected Wingo and Tyler to be
at Walton's?"
"They did put a crimp in your plans, sort of," assented Larder.
"And now Tom Walton is more suspicious than ever," contributed Tip
O'Gorman.
"I can fix that Wingo, though," snarled Rafe Tuckleton. "He'll never
get elected sheriff now."
Tip smiled. "Won't he?"
"No he won't he!"
"That's just the thing will cinch his election. I'm gonna play it up
strong in the campaign."
"What! Why, he tried to show us up!"
"And succeeded in doing it, according to your tell. That's all right;
Rafe, you were a little too raw, you know. I've cautioned you about
being more careful. You wouldn't take advice and you'll have to take
your medicine--this time. I'll explain matters to Bill, where you
stand and everything. You'll find it won't happen again."
With which Tuckleton was forced to be satisfied.
That night Tip O'Gorman had a long talk with Billy Wingo. Tip did not
tell him all he knew, by any means. Such was not his custom. To
understand Tip one had to do a deal of reading between the lines. But
when Tip went home, he carried with him the belief that Billy
understood perfectly the desires and aims of the county machine and
would be a willing worker.
Billy sat looking up at the ceiling for quite a long time after Tip was
gone. Finally he laughed silently.
"Tip, you're an old scoundrel," he said aloud, "but I can't help liking
you, just the same. I hope I don't have to step too hard on your toes."
CHAPTER SEVEN
RAFE'S IDEA
"Tell you what, Jonesy," said Rafe, "this ranch needs a mistress."
Jonesy laughed as at a pleasantry and continued to talk of the
mischance in the matter of young Dawson.
"I mean it," interrupted Rafe, wagging his head. "I'm tired of living
single."
"Well," said Jonesy, "you can always get some petticoat to live with
you for a while."
"I don't mean a floozie. I mean a sure-enough lady like."
"Oh, one of _them_, huh? I dunno, Rafe. I married a good woman once,
and take it from me they sure cramp a feller's style."
"It depends on the woman. There are women and women. If a feller is
careful who he picks, he don't run a bad chance. Me, I got my eye on
young Hazel Walton."
Jonesy looked his astonishment. "Her?"
"Why not?"
"After this Dawson business?"
"Why not?"
"She wouldn't look at you."
"Don't you fool yourself. Why wouldn't she look at me, I'd like to
know? I got money. She could wear good clothes and have help in the
kitchen. What more could a woman want?"
Jonesy shook his head. "This Dawson business has queered you there,
and you can bet on it."
"Oh, that's easy explained--to her."
"H-m-m-m, well, maybe so. I dunno, she looks to me like one girl who
knows her own mind. And there's Tom Walton who don't like us, either.
You gotta think of all these things."
"I have. The more I think of it, the more I think she'll do."
"Funny you never noticed it before. She's been around with her uncle
several years now."
"I never even gave her more'n a short look till I seen her holding that
Dawson man's head in her lap, and then stickin' up for him the way she
did. I tell you, she looked mighty handsome."
"She's a lot younger than you."
"What's a few years between man and wife? Besides, I ain't so old. I
ain't forty yet."
"You will be next year, and I'll bet she ain't twenty yet."
"She'll last all the longer."
It was mid-morning next day, when Hazel was making butter, that a rap
sounded on the kitchen door.
"Come in," she called continuing to turn steadily the handle of her box
churn.
It was Rafe Tuckleton who opened the door and walked in. Hazel's eyes
narrowed at sight of the man. Rafe Tuckleton! What on earth did he
want?
"Uncle's out," she said shortly.
"I didn't come to see him," explained Rafe, with a smile he strove to
make ingratiating. "I came to see you."
"I don't know what you can want to see me about."
"I have my reasons," said Rafe vaguely.
Hat in hand, he started to sidle to a chair.
"Don't they have any doors where you live?" Hazel inquired sharply.
"Oh," Rafe wheeled hastily and closed the door. He set a trifle to the
young lady's account. He was not accustomed to being talked to this
way. The snip!
He gained the chair at last, sat down, crossed his legs and crowned a
sharp and bony knee with his hat.
"Yeah," he intoned, pulling one horn of his crescent-shaped mustache.
"I come to see you." It never occurred to him to offer to turn the
churn-handle for her. In his estimation women were made for the
especial comfort and delectation of men. Why put oneself out? Quite
so.
Hazel continued to turn the handle in silence.
"Makin' butter?" was Rafe's next remark.
"Not at all," Hazel replied sweetly. "I'm washing blankets."
As humor it was not subtle. But neither was the man subtle. He
laughed aloud and slapped his knee.
"Pretty good. Got a tongue in your head, ain't you?"
Again he pulled his mustache and favored her with what he conceived to
be a most fetching leer. He succeeded in making her yearn to hurl the
churn at him.
"You've seen me," she said suddenly, raising her dark eyes to his face.
"Why not move right along?"
"That's all right," he said easily. "You're only mad at me account of
that business the other day. Nothing at all, that wasn't. Just a li'l
mistake. We all make them. You mustn't hold it against me."
"But I do hold it against you!" she cried vehemently. "You tried to
murder him!"
Rafe raised a bland hand, palm outward. "Not a-tall. You've got it
all wrong. I might have known you would. Women never do get things
straight."
"I got this straight all right, and you might as well know I haven't a
bit of use for you, and I don't want you in my kitchen. So there!"
"Now listen, li'l girl," he said persuasively. "You don't understand
me a-tall, I tell you. I may look hard--a rough diamond but I'm the
pure quill underneath, and I like you."
Hazel was so surprised that she stopped churning. She stared at him,
saucer-eyed, her mouth open.
Rafe nodded his head at her. "Yeah, I like you. I have liked you
a-uh-long time. And I've got a proposition to make you. How'd you
like to marry me?"
Hazel's expression registered immediate distaste. "I wouldn't like.
Not for a minute. No."
Rafe considered it necessary to explain matters more fully. "I mean
marry me all regular and go to live at my ranch. You wouldn't have to
work hard. You could have the washin' done and have help in the
kitchen. I'm a mighty easy feller to get along with too, once you get
to know me."
"I don't want to get to know you!" Hazel had resumed her churning, but
her negation was no less decisive.
"I'd be good to you. Give you all the dresses and fixings you want--in
reason. Say, I'd even have one of these cabinet organs packed in for
you. New furniture, too--in reason. I'll be generous. I've got
money, and I'd sure be willing to spend it on a girl like you."
"You needn't bother."
He removed his, hat from his knee, uncrossed his legs and dropped the
hat on the floor. He propped his hands on his knees and surveyed her,
his head on one side.
"You don't know what you're refusing," he told her. "Marry me and you
won't have to work like this. Nawsir. I'm a rich man, I am. Here,
let's talk it over."
He rose to his feet and came toward her. She promptly reached behind
her and possessed herself of the singing kettle.
"If you touch me," she said hysterically, "I'll douse you with boiling
water!"
"There, there," he said, with a light laugh, "I didn't mean to scare
you. Set the kettle down, there's a good girl."
But the good girl had other ideas. "You get out of here. I don't want
you around."
Her show of temper caused his own to flare up. "There's no use for you
to get mad. None a-tall. You act like I'd insulted you instead of
doing you a honor."
At which her sense of humor came to her rescue and she laughed in his
face. He picked up his hat and faced her, scowling.
"I ain't mad," he told her. "Not a bit. It don't pay to get mad with
a woman. But I want you to know I'm comin' back for another answer. I
ain't satisfied you mean 'no.' And, anyway, I want you, and I'm gonna
have you. That's all there is to it. You think it over."
He nodded stiffly, still scowling, and started toward the door, but
paused with his hand on the latch. When he turned and came back to the
table, she instantly retreated to the stove and laid her hand on the
kettle.
"You needn't go to pick up that thing," he said, both fists clenched on
the tabletop. "I ain't gonna hurt you. I want to know something.
Billy Wingo comes here, doesn't he?"
"He comes--yes. Why not?"
"You like him?"
"What's that to you?"
"Do you like him?"
"He's a friend of mine."
"A girl don't flush up that way over a friend. I know. And I've
heard, too. They say you like Bill Wingo a lot. They say you were
going with Nate Samson till you met Bill. Is that right?"
"It's none of your business."
"Lemme tell you something, young lady. Don't you think for a minute
that Bill Wingo feller can give you one tenth what I can. Just because
he was elected sheriff last week don't signify. Yours truly is the dog
with the brass collar around here, and don't you forget it. You marry
Bill, and you'll regret it."
"If I marry you, I'll regret it,--that's sure."
"Not a bit of it. I'm ace-high in the county now, and I'll go higher
in the territory. You can't keep me down. I'll make money, more'n you
can shake a stick at. You needn't think you'll have to live on a ranch
all your life. Within three years after you marry me I'll take
you--yes, I'll take you to Hillsville to live where you can see folks
all you want. You know Hillsville has almost three thousand people.
You wouldn't be lonesome there. I----"
"It's no use talking," she interrupted, taking care not to remove her
fingers from the kettle. "I wouldn't marry you or anybody else of your
crowd, not if he was the last man on earth."
"'My crowd!' What's the matter with my crowd?"
"Your crowd! Yes, I'd ask, I would! What do you suppose I mean? The
gang that runs this county, that's what I mean! The gang that has a
finger in every crooked land deal and cattle deal, the gang that cheats
the Indians on the government contracts. Yes, and if it hadn't been
for your gang and for what they've done to the morals of Crocker
County, you wouldn't have dared to try and lynch young John Dawson the
way you did! Let _me_ tell you something: The new sheriff will show
you a thing or two. _He_ is honest!"
"Is that so? Honest, is he? You know who elected him, don't you?
_We_ did, and we own him, body and soul and roll. He'll sit up and
talk when we tell him to, and he will lie down and go to sleep when we
tell him to; and if he don't, he's mighty liable to run into a spell of
bad health. Not that we'll want him to do anything he shouldn't. Not
us." Thus Rafe Tuckleton, realizing his temper had carried him away
and he had said too much by half, thinking it well to right matters if
he could, continued hurriedly:
"Those cattle deals you spoke of and the government contracts weren't
crooked a-tall. Just straight business, but of course the fellers we
got 'em away from are riled up and bound to talk. Naturally,
naturally. But don't you get the notion in your head that everything
wasn't all right. Everything was perfectly straight and aboveboard,
you bet. Shucks, of course it was. I could explain it to you mighty
easy, but it would take a lot of time and whatsa use? Politics ain't
for women, or business either, for that matter. You better forget what
you've heard about our crowd. It's just a pack of jealous lies, that's
all, and if you'll tell me the name of who told you anything out of the
way about us, I'll make him hard to find."
"I know what I know," said the stubborn Miss Walton. "You can't fool
me! Not for a minute! And I've listened to you long enough! You get
out of here and don't you come back! Flit!"
She swung the kettle from the stove. Rafe Tuckleton sprang back two
yards. His temper had again gained the ascendancy. He was so mad he
could have beaten her to a frazzle. But there was not a club handy,
and moreover the lady had, by way of reinforcing the kettle, slipped a
butcher knife from the table drawer.
"All right," gritted Rafe, and turned around from the door to shake his
fist at her. "I'll get you, you li'l devil! You needn't think for a
minute you can get away from me by marrying some one else. I don't
give a damn whether it's Bill Wingo or who it is! Within a week after
you get married, you'll be a widow! A widow, y'understand! I'll show
you!"
He went out, slamming the door. Hazel made haste to run around the
table and drop the bar in place. Then she went to the window and
watched the man cross to the cottonwoods where he had tied his horse.
She uttered a sharp "Oh!" of disgust as he jerked at the horse's mouth
and made the animal rear. He brought it down by kicking it in the
stomach.
"What a beast!" muttered she, with a shudder. "What a cruel beast that
man is."
Not till Rafe rode away, quirting his mount into a wild gallop, did she
return to her churning. She found the butter had come, and she removed
the elmwood dasher and poured off the buttermilk. She put the butter
into a long bowl full of water and began to wash and knead it, but not
with her accustomed briskness. She was thinking of what Rafe Tuckleton
had said. He would come again, the brute. She did not want him to.
He had made her afraid.
She shivered a little as she poured off the water in the bowl and
refilled it from the water bucket behind the door. She had no desire
to marry anybody yet. She supposed she would some time, of course.
All girls did eventually. But he would have to be some nice boy she
loved. She guessed yes.
At that very moment a certain nice boy was riding up the draw toward
the Walton ranch. He met Rafe Tuckleton riding away. Rafe gave him a
nasty look. The nice boy smiled sweetly and pulled his horse across
the trail. "Why all the hurry-scurry this bright and summer day?"
It was not a bright and summer day. It was late fall, the clouds were
lowering darkly and there was more than a hint of winter in the air.
Rafe Tuckleton pulled up with a jerk and a slide. "What do you want?"
"I don't know yet," was the reply, delivered with still smiling lips
but accompanied by a look as chilling as the day. "You been at
Walton's?"
"Yep, I have. Not that it's any of your business."
"Maybe you're right. Let's go back and make sure."
Rafe's blazing rage was so augmented by this naive suggestion that his
native prudence was almost overcome by the sharp impulse to argue the
matter. But almost is not quite. His coat was buttoned, and his
six-shooter was under his coat. Bill Wingo's six-shooter was likewise
under its owner's coat, but the coat was unbuttoned and--Rafe recalled
another day, a day when he had held his hands above his head while the
muzzle of Wingo's gun gaped at his abdomen. That had been a quick draw
on the part of Billy Wingo. Uncommonly quick. What happened once may
happen again. This is logic.
The logician spat upon the ground. "Because you're elected sheriff
now, you needn't think that you can boss everybody in the county."
"But I ain't trying to boss anybody," denied Bill. "I'm only askin' a
favor of you, only a li'l favor. And I'm hoping you'll see it that
way. I don't _want_ any trouble with you, Rafe," he added, "or with
anybody else."
Rafe hesitated. He stared into Bill's eyes. Bill stared back. Rafe
did his best to hold his eyes steady. But there was something about
that gray gaze, something that seemed to bore deep down into that place
where his sinful soul lived and had its being. The Tuckleton eyes
wavered, veered, came back, clung an instant, then looked away over the
landscape.
"Turn your horse, Rafe," said Billy Wingo in a soft voice.
Rafe Tuckleton turned his horse. They rode back to the Walton ranch in
silent company. Dismounting at the door, Billy was careful to keep his
horse between Rafe and himself.
Billy looked across the saddle at Rafe. "You better knock at the door,
feller."
With extremely bad grace, Rafe obeyed. Following the knock, a window
curtain was pulled aside and Hazel looked out. She nodded and smiled
at Billy. The curtain dropped. Billy heard the grating of the bar as
it was withdrawn from the iron staples. The door had been barred,
then. Why? Was Rafe indeed the qualified polecat Billy had half-way
suspected him of being when he meet him hurrying away from the Walton
ranch? But Hazel's smile had been natural as ever. Bill took comfort
in that fact.
The door opened. Hazel stood wiping her damp hands on her apron.
"'Lo, Hazel," said Bill. "Everything all right?"
Hazel smiled again. She _did_ have beautiful teeth. There was the
fetching dimple too.
"Why, of course everything's all right," she told him. "Why wouldn't
it be?"
Bill noticed that she did not look at Rafe Tuckleton.
"Here's Mr. Tuckleton," said he.
"I see him," shortly.
"And--you're--sure--everything's--all--right?" Bill drawled in a
lifeless voice.
"Of course I'm sure."
"And--you're--sure everything--has--been--all--right--all day?"
Hazel nodded. "Of course it has. Won't you come in, Billy--before the
kitchen gets all cold?"
"I'll put the li'l horse under the shed first. He's kinda warm. Rafe,
don't lemme detain you. You seemed all in a rush when I met you."
Rafe Tuckleton lingered not.
Billy Wingo led his mount under the shed and returned to the house.
Hazel was pouring off the washing water when he entered the kitchen.
"What made you bring Tuckleton back?" she asked pouring fresh water
over the butter.
"I met him coming away from here, and I didn't like the way he looked.
I thought maybe--" He let it go at that.
"He was here for a while," said Hazel, bringing her bowl to the table
and beginning again to knead the yellow mass of butter. "I don't like
that man."
Billy was at the table instantly. "Look here, Hazel----"
"Look here, Billy," she mimicked, lifting calm black eyes to his face.
"Don't you go fussbudgeting. I'm quite capable of managing my
admirers."
"Admirers! Him!" gasped Wingo.
"He proposed to me. I turned him down."
"Shows your good sense," said Billy, going over to the chair lately
vacated by Rafe Tuckleton and sitting down. "But I'd like to know what
he's thinking of, the old jake."
Her amused eyes sought his. "Am I such a poor match as that?"
"You know what I mean," he grumbled. "He's got no right proposing to
you, no right a-tall. Why, he's old enough to be your father."
"So he is. Do you know, I never thought of that?"
"You're foolin' now," grunted Billy. "Tell you, Hazel, what you want
is some young feller with property and all his teeth."
"I don't want anybody," she declared, "young or otherwise. Billy,
you're sheriff now--" she continued, changing the subject.
"Not yet," he interrupted. "I don't take office till the first of the
year."
She nodded. "I understand. And I want to ask you a question.
It's--it's--you will say it's none of my business, I expect."
"Anything's your business you want to ask questions about. Fly at it."
"Who elected you sheriff, Billy?"
He regarded her in some surprise. "The voters."
"I know, but who manages the voters?"
"You mean the party machine?"
"That's it. Well now, Bill, suppose the machine put a man in office,
would he have to do what the machine told him?"
"He would, if he was that kind of a man."
She straightened and gave him a level look. "Billy, they say the gang
that runs this county elected you sheriff."
"Who's they--Rafe Tuckleton?"
"Never mind who. What I want to know is do you have to do what that
gang tells you to do?"
"I don't have to. Has anybody been saying I'd have to?"
"I--you hear rumors sometimes, Billy. Will you have a free hand, then?"
"So far as my powers extend, I will," he said.
"And you'll use it?"
"I'll use it," curiously.
"Is--is that quite safe?"
"Safe?"
"Safe to antagonize the gang?"
"It may not be safe for the gang."
Hazel raised a great gob of butter in her two hands and squeezed it out
slowly between her fingers. "Couldn't you give 'em their way, sort of?
Not in everything. I don't mean that. But just enough to keep 'em
good-natured?"
His curiosity changed to blank amazement. "You know what you're
asking, I suppose," he said coldly. "I thought you didn't like Rafe
Tuckleton?"
"I hate him," was her simple statement. "But I--I'm afraid."
"Afraid? How afraid?"
"Afraid for you."
"Why for me?"
"Because--oh, it's so hard to explain!" she almost wailed. "You
misunderstand me so. You think I'm asking favors on their account!"
He believed he detected a sob in her voice. This would never do.
Couldn't have Hazel crying.
"If you'd only explain," he suggested soothingly.
"Well," she said, her hands busy in the butter, "Sally Jane Prescott
was over here yesterday, and she said what a darn good thing your
election was for Crocker County; how you'd reform it and all that, and
how you'd surely put out of business the gang that's running it now. I
agreed with her, of course, but I never really realized till--till
later what it might mean to you."
She paused. He awaited her pleasure. After a minute's silence she
continued.
"You see, Billy, you've been pretty nice to me--uncle and me. And
you've come to be sort of a--sort of a friend--kind of and--and I--we
don't want to see you hurt," she finished with a rush.
"So that's the reason you think I'd better go easy on the gang."
"It will be safer. You don't have to be too open about it. You can
arrest the people the gang doesn't care anything about."
"That would be hard on the people, I should say."
"It's better than running into danger all the time. I tell you, Billy,
as true as I stand here this minute, if you try to fight the gang, you
won't last out your term."
She clasped her hands and regarded him piteously. When a pretty girl
clasps her hands and regards you piteously, what are you going to do?
Right. You can't help yourself, can you? Neither could Billy.
But when he had kissed her three times on the mouth she pushed him away
and cried distractedly. "You mustn't! You mustn't! You don't know
what you're doing!"
"Oh, yes, I do," he assured her and seized her buttery hands. "We'll
be married to-morrow!"
At which she whipped her hands from his grasp and put the table between
them. "No! Go over there and sit down!"
"I won't! I love you! And you love me!"
"I don't," she stormed.
"What did you kiss me back for then?" he demanded triumphantly. "You
did! You know you did! I felt you!"
This was true. But she continued to keep the table between them,
despite his efforts to come around to her side.
"You go over there and sit down--please!" she begged. "Please, please,
pretty please!"
He went slowly. He sat down. He stretched his long legs out in front
of him and teetered his heels on the rowels of his spurs.
"Look here, Hazel," he complained, for he was feeling most ill-used, "I
don't understand this a-tall. You lemme kiss you three times and then
you shove me away, and when I ask you to marry me, you run behind the
table. What did you let me kiss you for if you don't love me?"
"I couldn't help myself. You were so quick."
"You kissed me back, too. Don't forget that."
"It was a mistake, all a mistake. You don't love me."
"You don't know a thing about it. I do love you. And you love me, you
know you do."
But by this time she had regained complete control of herself. "I
don't know anything of the kind. Let's forget it."
As if he could forget the pressure of her soft lips! Why, for another
such kiss he would cheerfully have fought a grizzly. For that's the
kind of a kiss it was.
He shook his head. "I can't forget."
Her poor heart almost choked her at the words. She wanted him to kiss
her again, and keep on kissing her till she told him to stop. How
wonderful that would be! But she stifled the desire with an effort of
will that turned her cheeks white.
"You must forget," she told him, her chin wobbling.
"Tell me you don't love me, and I'll do my best."
"I don't--" she began and paused. To save her life she could not tell
this man the contrary of what every fiber of her being was proclaiming.
She could not. She compromised. "I don't know," she said tightly. "I
don't know."
"But I know," objected Billy. "You just give me a----"
"No," she interrupted, "don't plague me, Billy, please don't.
Just--just don't ask me again, that's all."
"Is there anybody else?" he demanded.
She shook her head. "No one."
"Then I've got a chance."
But at this she took fright anew. "You mustn't think of it! You
mustn't! I can't marry you now, Billy."
"Now? All right, some other time."
He stooped over as though to pick up something from the floor.
Apparently he overbalanced himself, for he fell forward on his hands
and knees. When he picked himself up he was within arm's length of
Hazel. He reached out two triumphant arms and swept her against him.
A bare instant she struggled desperately. Then with a sigh she relaxed
and put up her mouth to be kissed.
"There, there," he said later, his lips pressed against her hair, "I
knew it would be all right once you let yourself go."
She lifted her body slightly in his arms. "Tell me you love me,
dearest."
Then when he told her, she asked, "How much? More than anything else
in the world? Are you sure?"
What ridiculous questions. Of course he was sure.
"Then you'll do anything I ask, won't you? Promise?"
She raised her head from his shoulder. "Promise?" she repeated, her
warm lips on his.
Even as her arms tightened about his neck, he felt a tightening at his
heart. And the latter was not a pleasant tightening. What did she
mean? He loved her. God, how he loved her dark loveliness, but--what
was she driving at?
"I can't promise till you tell what you want me to do."
"No, say you promise. Say it, say it."
But he would not, and she tried a new angle. "If I tell you, will you
promise?"
"After you've told me," he persisted.
She sat up straight at this and took his face between her two arm palms.
"Billy, you know I love you, don't you?"
Looking into her eyes how could he doubt it.
She resumed. "You know I wouldn't ask you to do anything that wasn't
for your own good, yet you won't promise the first promise I ever asked
you to make."
He shook his head. "I can't."
"All right, I'll have to tell you then, Billy. I've heard
things--about your job. I've heard that if you don't do exactly as the
gang says you'll be kuk-killed. Oh, not exactly in those words, but I
know what was meant. No, I shan't tell you where I heard it. It
doesn't matter anyway. It was bad enough when you--I thought you were
just a friend, but now--now when you're just everything to me, I
cuc-can't bear to have you run any risks. Suppose something happens to
you, what would I do? I'd die, I think. I'd want to, anyway."
At which he tried to kiss away her fears, but these were too
deep-rooted for any such old-fashioned remedy as that to be of any
avail.
"No, no, don't!" she protested, holding his head away by main force.
"Not now. I'm not through yet. Listen. You'll fight the gang, I know
you will."
He nodded a slow head. "I've got to. That's why I took the job of
sheriff."
"I knew it," she said sadly. "But you can resign, can't you?"
"I could, but I won't."
"Not if I ask you to?"
"I can't. It would be lying down without a fight, and I've never done
that yet. They'd say I was afraid of 'em."
"What does it matter what they say? You'll have me. We'll be
together."
He put up a hand and stroked the tumbled waves of her black hair. "You
wouldn't love me if I did a thing like that. You'd know I wasn't doing
right."
She shook his face between her hands with gentle earnestness. "Yes, I
would! I would! I know I would! Everything you do is just right! It
would be right if you did it! Don't you see? What does anything
matter so long as we have each other? Why do you have to risk your
life? Oh, take me away, beloved, take me away and I'll marry you
to-morrow!"
Because of what he did then, you'll say he did not love her. But he
did, heart and soul and body, he loved her. Yet he put her resolutely
from him and held her off at the full stretch of his arms. "There's
more to this than you've told me," said he shrewdly. "You're scared.
You're scared bad, but it isn't only the thought of the gang that
scares you. There's something else. What is it?"
At first she would not tell him. He argued with her.
Finally she surrendered. "If you marry me and stay here, you'll be
killed."
He threw back his head and laughed. "Is that all that's worrying you?
We'll be married to-morrow, like I said."
"No, we won't--unless you take me away at once. No, don't kiss me. I
mean it."
"Who told you I'd be killed?"
"I won't tell you."
"Tell me, and I'll make him come here and take back everything he said."
But the recollection of what Rafe Tuckleton and his outfit had almost
succeeded in doing to John Dawson was too fresh in her mind. She did
not dare tell Billy who had told her. She knew right well that if she
did it would simply mean that her lover would be killed the sooner.
The odds against him were great enough as it was.
She shook her head. Her eyes were bright with pure terror. "I can't
tell you!" she whispered in agony of spirit. "I can't!"
"Was it Rafe?"
"I can't tell you!" twisting her head to escape his eyes.
"It _was_ Rafe!"
"It wasn't Rafe!" she lied wearily. "It doesn't matter who it was.
Oh, boy, boy, I don't dare marry you if you stay here. And I want to
marry you, dear heart. I love you so! I love you! Oh, let's go away
where we can be happy together! Why won't you be sensible and take the
easiest way out?"
"God knows I would if I could, but I've got to play the hand out. I
can't back down because there may be a li'l danger. You know I can't,
and down deep you don't want me to. Listen. When you saw Jack Murray
was out to bushwhack me, what did you do? Did you take the easiest way
out and go on about your business, or did you jump right in and risk
your life to save mine?"
"That was different," said she piteously, realizing that her cause was
lost, but fighting to the last. "I did it for you. I'd be willing to
die for you any time. Boy! I love you so hard, nothing else matters!
Nothing! I'd lie, steal, cheat and fight for you! Oh, I'm shameless,
shameless! But that's the way I love you! Why can't you give up
everything for me the way I would for you and take me away and marry
me?"
He was more than a little shaken. He had to summon all his resolution
to withstand her pleadings. But he did more. He got upon his feet and
thrust her down into his place in the chair and held her there with one
hand for all she struggled might and main to wind her arms again around
his neck.
"Listen to me," he said in a voice that trembled. "You don't know what
you are asking me to do. If I did it, I'd be a dog, and I won't be a
dog even for your sake. Marry me now and we'll see it through, you and
I together."
She shook her head. "I--I can't," she whispered, and added with most
human logic, "I don't believe you love me!"
At which he was moved to wrath. "It's you that don't love me! You
listen here! I've asked you for the last time to marry me! You turned
me down for some fool notion that isn't worth a hill of beans. All
right, let it go at that. If ever you change your mind, you'll have to
come to me and put your arms around my neck and tell me I was right to
stick it out and you were wrong to want me not to. And if you don't do
it, you're not the girl I took you for, and I wouldn't look at you with
a telescope!"
She sat speechless. Without another word he stooped, swept his hat
from the floor and went out. And, it must be said to his discredit, he
slammed the door behind him.
A long five minutes Hazel was staring wide-eyed at the door. But he
did not come back. She crept to the window. He was riding away down
the draw. He did not look back. He passed out of sight around the
bend. Hazel slid quietly to the floor and, her face buried in her
hands, began to cry as if her heart would break.
For her little world had been shattered and she was left disconsolate
among the fragments. Her man did not understand.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE NEW BROOM
Tip O'Gorman sat comfortably near the red-hot stove. The wind and the
snow were blustering outdoors. It was what the people you yearn to
kill call a bracing day in January. Actually the weather was such that
the well-known brass monkey would have been frostbitten in at least one
ear.
"It's a good old world." Tip sighed luxuriously and wiggled the toes
of his roomy slippers.
Entered then one who changed the pleasing aspect of the good old world.
Judge Driver slammed the door behind him and untied the comforter that
held the hat to his head. He removed the hat and buffalo coat, hung
both on pegs behind the door, sat down and glared at Tip O'Gorman.
"You've done it now," exclaimed Judge Driver.
"What particular thing have you on your mind?" Tip queried equably.
"The sheriff you were so set on having elected! Oh, yes, says you, put
in an honest man. Give the dear people a bone to chew on. And we took
your advice and gave 'em their bone. And now look at the damn thing."
"What's happened to the sheriff?"
"Not a thing. I wish something would. It's what's happening to us
that bothers me. Your fine li'l love of a sheriff is appointing his
own deputies."
"The law gives him that privilege."
"You don't understand. I had picked two deputies for him to
appoint--good safe men. You know that part was left to me, and I fixed
on Johnson and Kenealy. This morning I mentioned their names to the
new sheriff. 'I thank you kindly for your good intentions,' says Bill,
or words to that effect, 'but I have already decided to appoint Shotgun
Shillman and Riley Tyler.'"
"What?"
"I'd say what! I'd say hell, I would! Ain't it nice, ain't it funny,
ain't it a pretty state of affairs? And what are you going to do about
it?"
"Has he appointed 'em yet?"
"They're sworn in by now. He said he was expecting 'em any minute when
I left."
"Shillman's the nearest," said Tip, glancing out of the partly frosted
window pane, "and he lives forty miles away. I wouldn't count on those
boys being appointed to-day. The storm may have kept 'em away."
"No such luck," growled the judge. "They're appointed, all right
enough."
"Think so if it makes you happy," Tip said with a grin. "You're always
such a pessimist."
"Here!" snarled the judge. "Don't you try to ride me, Tip. Say right
out what you mean."
"I did," smiled Tip. "However----"
"Huh," snorted the judge, and put his feet on the table and began to
pull at his lower lip.
"Shotgun Shillman and Riley Tyler," murmured Tip musingly. "Hum-m-m!"
"Can't you think of anything to do but buzz like a bee?" demanded the
irritated judge.
"There's lots of things you can learn from bees," protested Tip
O'Gorman. "Maybe they do buzz some, but they gather lots of honey."
"We'll gather lots of honey, won't we?" snapped the other. "Both
Shotgun and Riley are absolutely honest."
"And sharp--infernal sharp. Don't forget that."
"You take it easy."
"Spilt milk. We've overlooked a bet, that's all."
"Oh, that's all is it? I tell you it won't be all. I've got a hunch."
"Don't be superstitious. Politics is no place to play hunches."
"Apparently it isn't even a place to play common sense," said the
judge. "If it hadn't been for you and your advice, we wouldn't be in
this fix. You got us in. Now you get us out."
"You make me sick, Tom. You're getting to be a regular old granny. I
tell you there is no rat in the hole. Suppose Bill does appoint two
honest deputies. There is still Bill, isn't there? What are two
deputies going to do against Bill's orders? And Bill will do what I
tell him. Oh, yes, he will. You needn't shake your head. I can
manage Bill Wingo."
"I wish I could be sure of that," worried the judge.
"You can be, old-timer, you can be. I'll manage Bill as per invoice,
so you just bed your mind down and give it a rest. The bottle's in
that cupboard, water's in the kettle, sugar's on the table, lemons in
that box. Help yourself, make punch and be happy. Make enough for
two, while you're about it. Your punch always did taste better than
mine. I never could mix one to taste anything like. Lord knows how
you do it. It's a gift. I hear you had a long run of luck at Crafty's
last night."
Et cetera, words with end and amen. Tip O'Gorman was a skilful
scoundrel. He knew precisely how far to go and he rarely employed a
shovel. For even the dullest have a wit flash now and then.
He soon had the jurist purring.
To Billy Wingo that evening came Tip O'Gorman; a bluff, hearty,
good-hearted Tip; a Tip that told funny stories and was a good listener
himself and laughed at the right place. You've heard it all before
doubtless and know the method: "A chair for Mr. Dugan. He owns the
stockyards. His pockets are full of greenbacks. Let him win as much
as he can and don't forget to tell Patsy to be waiting for him at the
corner with the lead pipe when he goes out."
The old, old game, you see. Shabby, moth-eaten through and through,
fairly obvious; but it works--most of the time.
"That's fine whisky, Bill," observed Tip, cupping an affectionate hand
ground his glass. "No, no, tempt me not, brother. I know when to
stop, if I am old and sinful. A pleasant fire, a comfortable room, a
hot drink, and a cold and winter's night. What more can a man want?"
"What indeed?" said Billy politely. Inwardly he thought, "What the
devil does he want?"
You will perceive that the game was not running true to form. For it
to be successful, the victim must not become a prey to low suspicion.
"Sworn in your deputies yet?" Tip made casual inquiry.
"Not yet. Storm might have kept 'em away."
Then all was not lost. Tip began to feel a mental glow. He had been
counting on the storm.
"Have you appointed 'em?" he put the dread question.
"Sure thing."
"Who are they?"
"Shotgun Shillman and Riley Tyler."
"Oh, yes. Good men, both of 'em, but----"
Tip O'Gorman fell silent. He toyed with his glass.
Billy Wingo regarded him slantwise. That "but." "Yes?"
"But," continued Tip O'Gorman, "I know of better men."
"Yeah?" Rising inflection and a cocked eyebrow.
"Yeah."
"For instance?"
"Johnson and Kenealy."
"Why Johnson and Kenealy? Why not Shillman and Riley?"
"Shillman and Riley never have done anything for the party. Johnson
and Kenealy have."
"What have Johnson and Kenealy done for the party?"
"For one thing, they have always voted right."
"That is one thing, but not a large thing. Other men have voted right
too--frequently. Some too frequently; if you know what I mean."
"Politics, my dear fellow, is not child's play. We do what we must to
win. But it doesn't pay to look a gift horse in the mouth too closely.
He may bite." Tip O'Gorman stared at the new sheriff.
The latter smiled a long, slow smile. "There are muzzles," said Bill
Wingo.
Tip dismissed this with a wave of his hand. "Too big a horse and too
many teeth," said he.
"Ah!" murmured Billy Wingo.
"Come, come, Bill, you're no fool. You know what I'm after. You know
what you owe the party. Johnson and Kenealy must be taken care of."
"Must," observed Billy, "is the hardest word in the dictionary."
"Sometimes it means the most," declared Tip O'Gorman. "This is one of
those times."
"Ah!"
There it was again, that irritating monosyllable. For the first time
Tip O'Gorman began to experience a doubt.
"We expect you to appoint Johnson and Kenealy," he said bluntly.
"And if I don't?"
"Oh, you will--after you've thought it over."
"I thought it over after Judge Driver came to me. And I decided not
to. I prefer my own men."
"Johnson and Kenealy will be your own men."
"That is a question." Billy sat back in his chair and made a church
roof and a steeple with the fingers of his two hands. He raised lazy
gray eyes to Tip's face. "That is a question," he repeated. "They may
be my men and then again--" He ceased speaking, leaving the sentence
unfinished. The church steeple became a gallows. "You see, I can't
risk it," drawled Billy.
Tip O'Gorman carefully set his glass down on the table. "You must," he
remarked softly.
"As I said before," murmured Billy, his drawl drawlier than ever, "must
is a hard, hard word. But I'll tell you what I'll do, Tip," he
continued in a louder, more cheerful tone. "You show me what 'musts'
in the statutes apply to the sheriff's office, and I'll obey every last
one of 'em. When I took office, I made oath to obey and support the
laws, you know."
He smiled at Tip. The latter smiled back. "Lookit here, Bill," he
said in his best and most fatherly fashion, "I like you----"
"I suppose that was why I was elected," interrupted Billy.
"Partly," was the brazen reply. "But there were other reasons, of
course. We needed a good man to win, a man that was on the level, an
honest man, a----"
"Not a crooked man, or a dishonest man, or a pink man, or even a man
with purple spots. So you elected me. I'll take it as a compliment.
Go on."
"A straight man doesn't throw down his friends," said Tip O'Gorman.
"Sure not," declared Billy warmly. "He'd be a pup if he did. I agree
with you, Tip. We won't fight over that."
"You're throwing us down," insisted Tip.
"Now, we're getting down to carpet tacks," said Billy. "But who are
'us'?"
"The party."
"The party?"
"The party."
"But the party and my friends are not necessarily the same thing."
"We elected you."
"That doesn't make you my friends. Understand me, Tip, there are a lot
of folks in the party I like and admire--a lot of 'em. But the folks I
like and admire don't come to me and give me orders, and my friends
don't either. Not that you've been giving me any orders, Tip. You
wouldn't do such a thing."
"It's all right to ride me," said Tip, without losing for a minute his
amiable smile, "but you might better leave off the spurs."
"I ain't riding anything to-day," averred Billy. "There's the bowl.
Dip you out another glassful."
Tip O'Gorman did not accept the invitation. "I wish I could make you
understand," he said slowly, crossing his legs and clasping both hands
around a plump knee. "This is a serious matter, Bill."
"Sure it is," asserted Billy. "You're serious. I'm serious. He, she
or it is serious. Outside of that, it's a fine, large evening."
"Lookit here, Bill, what's your game?"
"Game? What game are you talking about?"
"What do you want? What are you after, anyway?"
Billy made swimming motions with his arms and hands. "Paddle out,
paddle out. You're over my head and getting deeper."
"Are you trying to give me the double-cross?" inquired Tip.
"Now why should I do a fool thing like that?"
"I don't know. I'm asking."
"What makes you think I'm giving you the double-cross?"
"The first favor I ever asked of you--the appointment of these two men."
"When I was elected, then, it wasn't intended I should have a free
hand?"
"Free hand? Of course, of course." Tip was beginning to find the
atmosphere oppressive. He passed a handkerchief across his beaded brow.
Observing which, Billy said affectionately, "It is hot in here. Shall
I open a window?"
"Nemmine a window," Tip said. "Think a shake, Bill. Is it wise?"
"Wise?"
"You know what I mean."
"Not I," denied the cheerful Bill.
"You can't buck the party."
"There ain't no such word, but just for the sake of argument, why can't
I?"
"It has been done, but----"
"Where are the snows of yesteryear, huh?"
Tip nodded. "Something like that."
"If I don't appoint your men and do appoint mine, what particular form
of devilment would the party feel called upon to put on me?"
"Devilment," grinned Tip. "You don't know us."
"Backward and forward, sideways and from the bottom up. Don't you fool
yourself I don't know you. I been looking over the situation a long
time. It's been a liberal education."
"So that's it," murmured Tip. "Driver told me, but I didn't believe
him."
"The judge sometimes tells the truth."
Tip O'Gorman sighed. He thought he saw what he would have to do. And
he didn't want to do it. It meant one more mouth to feed, and one more
finger in the pie.
"You understand, Bill," said he, "that it was always intended you
should have your share."
"Nothing was ever said to me about any share," said Billy truthfully.
"We occasionally prefer to leave something to the imagination."
"It beats leaving it to the taxpayer," smiled Billy.
"Sure, sure."
"But my share you were speaking of, Tip," prompted Bill. "What is this
share--large, small or indifferent?"
"That depends," replied O'Gorman cadgily.
"On the weather, or some one's generosity?"
Was there mirth or something sinister in the gray eyes? Tip O'Gorman
couldn't be sure. But Lord, there was no cause for apprehension. He'd
been making himself unnecessary worry. Bill Wingo was too easy-going
and good-natured to hold out on the boys. He was just making a play
for his legitimate share. That was only right. Not that Tip had
intended in the beginning that Bill should have his legitimate share.
These politicians!
"You see, Bill, it's thisaway," said Tip. "Some years the party makes
more than other years, and----"
"And the years it makes the most," insisted Bill, "are the years I make
the most. Is that it?"
"You get the general idea."
"But not the general idea of what I get," persisted the strangely
obtuse sheriff. "What is the minimum I can expect?"
Tip did not relish being pinned down to cases in this fashion. He
preferred generalities.
"The minimum," repeated Tip.
"And the maximum," suggested Bill. "I might as well know all the
horrible details."
"From three to five thousand dollars," said Tip, watching his
_vis-a-vis_ closely.
Said _vis-a-vis_ looked disappointed. "Small change," he remarked
coldly. "Who gets the other nickle?"
"Your salary is two thousand," Tip told him reproachfully, "and three
to five thousand above that makes five to seven thousand. What more do
you want?"
"Whatever's right," declared the amazing Mr. Wingo.
"That's right--what I told you."
"What did the last sheriff get?"
"I told you it varied."
"I know you told me. Tell me again."
Tip O'Gorman shifted his position in the chair. He was being baited.
He realized it now. A slow anger rose in his breast. But an admixture
of dismay in the anger kept it from boiling over.
He continued to temporize. "Your slice will be worth while, well worth
while. Leave it to us. You can trust me."
"Can I? I wonder."
"Meaning?" O'Gorman's face was cold as his heart was hot.
"I wonder. I do it now and then. Habit, I suppose. No harm in it, is
there?"
"Lookit here, you don't doubt me, do you?"
"Unhand me, Jack Dalton! I may be poor--I may starve to death, but I
will never be an old man's plaything. Better death than
dishonor-rur-rur. Don't be so melodramatic, Tip. Who am I to doubt
you? You? What a question!"
The fingers with which Billy Wingo then proceeded to make a cigarette
were steady and sure in every movement. Billy licked the length of the
white roll, smoothed it down and twisted one end. Tip O'Gorman did not
know what to make of him. Or rather he thought he knew too well, which
frequently amounts to the same thing.
"You'd better trust me," rumbled Tip.
"Be reasonable, Tip. You ask for trust and you give me a stone."
"A stone?"
"What else is three to five thousand bucks, I'd like to know. I'm no
child, man. I've got my growth, and I've put away childish things,
including all-day suckers."
"You must take me for one."
"Not you, not in a million years. But--" Mr. Wingo paused and looked
up at the ceiling. His lips moved. He muttered of figures and sums.
Tip O'Gorman awaited his pleasure. What else was there to do?
"I think between nine and ten thousand is nearer the correct amount for
li'l me," Billy said at last.
"What?" screeched Tip, fairly jarred off his balance at last.
Billy made his position plain. "Say ten thousand in round numbers."
"Ten thousand devils!"
"Not devils--dollars."
"You're crazy!"
"It's the least you can do," insisted Billy.
Tip O'Gorman made an odd noise in his throat. After making which, a
dog would have bitten Mr. Wingo. Tip may have been a bad old man, but
he was not a dog. He really dissembled his foamingly murderous rage
very well indeed.
"I'll have to see the rest of the boys," said Tip O'Gorman, and he
actually smiled.
"Why, no," contradicted Billy. "You won't. Why should you? Rafe and
you are the dogs with the brass collars in Crocker County, and you wear
more brass than Rafe, when you come right down to it. What you say
usually goes without question."
"I never said ten thousand for a sheriff before," protested Tip.
"There's nothing like establishing a precedent. Don't be hidebound.
This is the newer generation, and advanced age, you know; one that's
advanced by jumps, if you could only be brought to realize it."
Tip held up an arresting hand. "Don't joke," he said. "I realize what
the blessed age is doing, but doubling the ante this way is more than a
jump--it's a mighty wild leap."
"It can be done," Billy said placidly. "What are impossibilities
to-day become realities to-morrow. Q.E.D. P.D.Q."
Tip O'Gorman raised plump hands to the level of his ears. "I didn't
think when I proposed you for sheriff," he remarked earnestly, "that I
was proposing a road agent too. Oh, you burglar! I do admire a hawg.
Yes, sir. But what can a feller do? Ten thousand goes. About those
deputies--I don't suppose you'll have any objections, now that you've
got what you want, to appointing Johnson and Kenealy?"
"Oh, yes, indeed I have--plenty. No Johnson and no Kenealy. Shillman
and Tyler. Yes."
"No. You've got to earn that ten thousand."
"Bribery and corruption, Tip, is a serious crime."
"Bosh! You listen to me, young feller. We're buying you, body, soul
and roll, with that ten thousand cases! You've got to do as we say.
Hells bells, what do you think you are?"
"A stranger in a strange land. Damn strange, too. Tip, you're an old
scoundrel!"
Tip O'Gorman's hand halted half-way to his armpit.
"No, no, Tip, not that," Billy warned him, keeping turned on the other
man's stomach the gun that had suddenly appeared from nowhere. "Don't
turn rusty in here. The carpet is new and so is the furniture. Go a
li'l slow, or a li'l slower, whichever appeals to you."
Tip locked his hands behind his head. "Be sensible, Bill," said he
calmly. "You can't hope to buck us, if that's your idea. You can't."
"Can't I? We'll see."
"What can one man do?" contemptuously.
"One-two-three. Three men. Three men can do a lot. Yep. I've seen
it done."
"Have you?"
"I have. But I want to be fair to you, Tip. You'll notice I haven't
removed your gun. I'll return mine where it came from--behind the
waistband of my pants. Now turn your wolf loose."
But Tip O'Gorman merely smiled. "I thank you kindly," said he. "You
mean well; but as you say, the carpet and the furniture are new. It
would be a pity to spoil both them and the evening."
"You mean we'll go outdoors then?"
"_We_ will not, but _I_ will. You will stay here and, I hope, enjoy
one good night's rest."
"One, huh? Do I hear you say one? I do. I get your meaning, thank
you. So good of you. Don't get up. I would a tale unfold. Did you
ever hear the story of Benjy and the bear. No? This is it. Benjy was
out hunting one day and it happened the bear was out hunting too. For
the bear was hungry, and the bear saw Benjy before Benjy saw the bear.
And after the dust had cleared away and all, the bear was bulgy and the
bulge was Benjy."
"Huh," snorted Tip O'Gorman, "what does that prove?"
"It proves that it's better to be the bear than Benjy. At least,
that's the way it looks to a man up a tree. I made up my mind some
time ago that if I got tangled up in a situation like that I'd be the
bear and not Benjy."
Tip O'Gorman stared with an odd expression at Billy Wingo. "You _have_
changed," he remarked with conviction. "I wonder----"
"Give it a name," begged Billy, when Tip failed to complete the
sentence.
Mr. O'Gorman shook his bullet head. "No, I got other fish to fry."
He got up heavily and began to pull on his overcoat.
When he was gone, Billy Wingo crossed the room unhurriedly and barred
the door. He threw a quick glance at the blankets nailed across the
windows ostensibly to keep out the drafts. All tight. No one could
look in.
"All right, boys," he said in a conversational tone. "You can come out
now."
The door of an inner room opened. Two men emerged. One was a long,
lean citizen with a long, lean face barred by a heavy grizzled
mustache. The other was shorter, of equally lean build, and
considerably younger. The older man was Shotgun Shillman, the younger
was Riley Tyler.
In Riley's hand was a thin block of paper. A pencil stuck up behind
his ear.
"Did you get it all?" queried Billy, sitting down in his chair and
hunching it close to the table.
"Most of it," Riley replied. "All the important part, especially where
he tried to buy you up. Gee, you've got him now. Send him over the
road any time."
"But it's only Tip," said Billy, taking the block of paper from Riley
and riffling through the scribbled leaves.
"Arresting him would sure throw a heap scare into the others," Riley
grinned.
"And that is what I want to avoid," said Billy. "There's no use in
scaring off the flock by downing one bird. We'll just file away Tip
O'Gorman's remarks for future reference. We can afford to wait.
Where's that Bible? I'll swear you boys in right away."
CHAPTER NINE
THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY
It was the next day that Arthur Rale, the district attorney, called on
the new sheriff. He was a heavy-jowled, heavy-handed, heavy-bodied
individual, with black hair, close-set eyes, and, what was curiously at
variance with those heavy jowls, a long and pointed nose.
Billy Wingo was expecting the district attorney to pay him a visit.
For Shotgun Shillman had been told that Tip O'Gorman, Rafe Tuckleton
and Judge Driver had spent the morning closeted with that gentleman.
Billy Wingo was cleaning a Winchester when the district attorney
knocked and entered.
"Si'down, Arthur," invited Bill, indicating a chair with the barrel of
the rifle.
The district attorney returned the salutation gruffly. Billy smiled
sweetly down at the rifle stock he was hand-rubbing. Mr. Rale stamped
his feet, hung up his hat and coat and sat down heavily in the chair.
Resting both fists on his knees, he fixed Billy with a hard eye.
"What's this I hear?" he wished to hear.
"I dunno," said truthful William.
"I hear you've appointed Shillman and Tyler deputies," Rale said
accusingly.
"Seems to me I _have_ done something like that," admitted Billy.
"You've got to cancel their appointments."
"Got to?"
"Got to."
"I must be gettin' deaf," drawled Billy. "Seems like I heard you say
got to."
"You heard me right," declared Rale, with a vicious snap of strong,
white teeth. "You cancel those appointments and put in Johnson and
Kenealy instead."
"Everybody seems to want those two fellers," said Billy, wagging a
puzzled head. "I don't understand it."
The district attorney leaned forward. His broad, flat face was
venomous in its expression.
"Look here," he said harshly, "you like Hazel Walton, don't you?"
Whang! In that confined space the crash of the gun was deafening. The
district attorney, coughing in the smoke, picked up himself and his
chair from the ground. He had fallen over backward at the shot, struck
the back of his head and now his actions were purely mechanical.
"Dazed you like, didn't it?" Billy queried in a soft voice. "You did
hit pretty hard. Luck is with you to-day. I'll bet if you went down
to Crafty's, you'd bust the bank and Crafty's heart."
Rale did not take the palpable hint. He sat down again and looked
uncertainly at Billy Wingo. He had courage, this district attorney,
the species of courage, you understand, that to function properly must
have a shade the better of the break, that bets always on a sure thing
and never on an uncertainty.
Rale had been knocked off balance mentally and physically. He did the
wrong thing.
"You tried to murder me," he blurted out.
Billy shook a solemn head. "You're mistaken. If I'd tried to murder
you, I'd have done it. Accidents will happen, though, even to the most
careful fellers. Yeah. You were speaking of the Waltons, Arthur. I
didn't quite catch what you said."
He gazed expectantly at the district attorney. It seemed to the latter
that the barrel of the rifle was in a line with the third button of his
vest. Certainly the muzzle looked as large as a mine opening. Was the
rifle cocked? Billy Wingo's large hand covered the breech. Billy
moved the large hand a trifle. Yes, the rifle was cocked. The
district attorney's eyes strayed downward. At Billy's feet was a spent
shell.
"Look here," said Rale, "if that shot was an accident, why did you flip
in a fresh cartridge?"
"How do you know I worked the lever?" demanded Billy.
"Because the spent shell's on the floor between your feet."
"You've been reading those detective stories again. Arthur. It would
look mighty bad for me if you were to pass out in here to-night.
You're a big man and a heavy man. And the ground is frozen harder than
rock. Bet I'd have to use a pick. I hope, Arthur, you're not thinking
of doing anything to make me use a pick."
Billy had uttered these sinister words in a mild and plaintive tone.
The expression of his countenance was even milder and more plaintive.
The district attorney found it difficult to believe that he had heard
aright. Yet he had heard the report of the rifle aright. There could
be no mistake about that.
The district attorney sat rigidly erect. He cleared his throat. He
wished his heart would stop pounding so hard. Odd, too, that it should
seem to have moved out of its usual position to another that was
already occupied by his windpipe. Breathing and speaking were rendered
difficult. Quite so.
He cleared his throat again. "Wingo," he said, "are you threatening
me?"
"Threatening you?" Billy said in a shocked tone. "Certainly not.
Wouldn't think of such a thing."
The district attorney tried again. "Wingo, I don't know what to do
with you. I----"
"Don't do anything," suggested Billy. "I'd feel better about it, too."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, I would. I've got a new job here, Arthur, and I guess it will
keep me busy--busy enough, anyway. And how am I going to swing it and
do justice to the taxpayers, if well-meaning fellers like you are alla
time experimentin' with me?"
"Wingo," said the district attorney sternly, "stop this tomfoolery!
Instantly! You have played the buffoon long enough."
"All right," smiled Billy. "I'll be good."
"That's better. Much better. Keep to that tone and we'll get along,
we'll get along."
Again the district attorney cleared his throat.
"Lord, Lord," thought Billy Wingo, "what a foolish thing this man is!"
The district attorney picked up the thread of his discourse. "We can't
have you upsetting our plans in any way, Wingo. We can't have it, and
we won't have it. I order you to immediately cancel the appointments
of Shillman and Tyler and appoint instead Johnson and Kenealy. Do you
understand?"
"Yes," said Billy in a weary voice, "I understand. I understand
perfectly. You can go now."
"I'll go when I have your answer."
"Your mistake. You're going now."
So saying, Billy arose, lowered the hammer of his rifle to the safety
notch and laid the weapon on the table. Then he raised himself on
tiptoe and stretched luxuriously. His arms came down slowly. He
turned a surprised gaze upon the district attorney.
"Haven't you started yet?" he said briskly. "Come, come, get a-going."
Even as he spoke he leaped with cat-like agility upon the district
attorney where he sat in his chair and wrenched the right arm of that
surprised gentleman around behind his back. With his left hand,
despite the struggles and protesting roars of the captive, he removed a
six-shooter from a shoulder holster and a derringer from a vest pocket.
"You must be scared of some one," observed Billy Wingo, as the
derringer followed the six-shooter to a place on the table. "Arise,
pushing your stomach ahead of you, and depart in peace."
But the district attorney was averse to departing that way. "You will
regret this outrage!" he bellowed, his ripe cheeks and the veins in his
neck swollen with passion.
"So will you," said Billy, twisting the man's arm ever so slightly.
"You are in a serious position. If you'd only realize it, and be
reasonable, we'd all be happier. I don't want to break your
arm--unless I have to. Observe, Mr. Man, how easily I could do it."
So saying, he pushed the district attorney's arm somewhat farther up
his back. The district attorney groaned. Billy eased the pressure.
The district attorney began to curse. Billy, boosting him with his
knee, assisted him toward the door.
With his left hand Billy withdrew the bar from the staple, opened the
door, swung his right foot and kicked the district attorney out into a
snowdrift. After him Billy tossed his coat and cap. Then he closed
the door and shoved the bar into place.
"And that's that," said Billy Wingo.
CHAPTER TEN
A SHORT HORSE
"You took your own time about coming," grunted Rafe Tuckleton.
Dan Slike crossed his knees and stared at Rafe and Skinny Shindle. "I
always take my own time," said he, in a voice as blank and
expressionless as his ice-blue eyes. "Why hurry?"
"Because you should have hurried," nagged Rafe. "Y'oughta come when I
wrote you last summer. This Tom Walton has gone on living all fall,
and here it is January and he ain't dead yet."
"That's tough," sympathized Mr. Slike and wagged a belying foot.
Skinny Shindle, looking somewhat worried, went to the door, opened it
and looked out into the short hall. Satisfied that the breed cook was
busy in the kitchen, he closed the door and returned to his chair.
"It's worse'n that. Tom ain't the only li'l job I want you to attend
to. There's the sheriff, Billy Wingo."
"That will be extra."
"Extra?"
"You haven't any idea I'm gonna do two jobs for the price of one, have
you?"
"Well----"
"Well, nothin'. I ain't in the business for my health, you can gamble
on that. If you're looking for charity, you're roping at the wrong
horse."
"No, no, nothing like that," Rafe hastened to say. "I'll do whatever's
right and fair. You can trust me."
Dan Slike shook a slow head. An amused twinkle lightened those blank
eyes. "Oh, yes," he said. "I'm almost sure I can trust you. Yeah.
Almost."
"What do you mean?" blustered Rafe Tuckleton.
"Folks I talk to don't generally need any dictionary," said Slike.
"Huh," grunted Rafe, content to let it go at that. "Anyway, you'll be
well paid."
"I didn't come alla way from the Jornada just to hear you say I'd be
well paid. Your 'well paid' and my 'well paid' might be two different
things. Sometimes you and I don't talk the same language."
Rafe Tuckleton considered a moment. "Five hundred dollars apiece for
Tom and the sheriff," said he, looking at Slike from beneath lowered
eyebrows.
"We'll bargain for 'em separately," said Slike. "One thousand for Tom,
payable in advance."
"No," denied Rafe. "Too much."
"Aw right," assented Slike cheerfully. "I'll be pulling my freight for
New Mexico to-morrow. What you gonna have for dinner?"
"Let's talk it over. One thousand dollars is a lot of money for a li'l
job like rubbing out Tom Walton."
"If it's a li'l job, why don't you attend to it yourself?"
"Oh, I can't. Impossible. Why, man, consider my position."
"Sure, I understand. You'd rather live than have Tom Walton kill you.
Don't know that I blame you, Rafe. You always were a sensible jasper."
Slike's eyes dwelt on Rafe's face with tolerant contempt. The red
color of Rafe's leathery cheeks was not entirely due to the heat of the
cannon-ball stove. No.
"I'm not a gunfighter," disclaimed Rafe quickly. "Never was. That's
your job."
"And I am a gunfighter. Always was. And it's my job. And I intend to
get my price for my job. One thousand in advance, or the deal's off."
"I'm not a rich man," protested Rafe. "I lack ready money. So does
Mr. Shindle here. Say five hundred now and the rest in the spring."
"I know how rich you are," said Slike. "And I can make a fair guess
how you and Mr. Shindle stand for ready money. You can raise the
thousand without too much trouble, I guess. Anyhow, it goes."
"You drive a hard bargain."
"A man in my business can't afford to be squeamish." As Slike spoke
his eyes narrowed.
"But----"
"No buts. You want Walton killed----"
"Sh-h! Not so loud," cautioned Skinny Shindle. "Removed is a better
word than killed, anyway."
"Aw, hell," sneered Dan Slike, "you make me sick. I've got no use for
a jigger that don't call a cow by its right name. I dunno the first
thing about removing. But I'll kill anybody you say. I ain't a bit
particular. Not a bit." Here Slike bent on Skinny Shindle the full
measure of a most baleful regard.
The strangely squeamish Shindle strove manfully to stare down the other
man, but dropped his eyes within the minute. This appeared to please
Mr. Slike. He smiled crookedly and turned his attention to Tuckleton.
"Rafe," said he, "my time is money. I can't stand here higgle-hoggling
with you from hell to breakfast. One thousand, or you get somebody
else to do the job."
"I suppose I'll have to do as you say," Rafe grumbled. "And the same
amount for the sheriff."
"Not-a-tall," denied Slike. "Not a-tall. Do you think I'm gonna rub
out a sheriff for a thousand cases? You must have mush for a brain!
Killing a rancher is a short hoss, but a sheriff is another breed of
cat. Besides, he's got two deputies, to say nothing of the feelings of
the county. Killing this sheriff for you means I gotta leave the
county on the jump. Do you think I'm gonna run the risk of being
lynched for a measly thousand dollars? If you do, take another think.
Take two of 'em! Me, I'll take two thousand for your man."
"Two thousand dollars for simply shooting a sheriff?"
"Again lemme remark that if the business was as simple as you say it
is, you'd do it yourself. Two thousand in advance."
"But that's three thousand in all."
"You're a wonder at arithmetic. I make three thousand too."
"But look here, Dan, we----"
"I'm looking," interrupted Slike, "and three thousand dollars is all I
can see. You gotta expect to pay for your mistakes, Rafe. If you
didn't want to have this sheriff hold office, what did you elect him
for? You told me your political outfit was responsible."
"How could we tell he'd turn out this way? We took it for granted he'd
do what the party wanted, and the first card out of the box he appoints
his own deputies."
"Good men with a gun?"
"Both of 'em," Rafe nodded absently.
"Wingo's no slouch himself," Shindle supplied without thinking.
"And that's the kind of bunch you want me to go up against for a
thousand dollars!" exclaimed Dan Slike. "You fellers sure have your
nerve!"
Slike teetered his chair back on two legs and laughed loudly, but
without cheer. Rafe and Skinny found themselves somewhat chilled by
the sardonic merriment. They looked one upon the other. Slike caught
the look and laughed anew.
"You're a fine pair," he said loudly, "a fine pair. Letting a
two-by-four sheriff run you. Ha-ha, it's a joke!"
"You go slow, you hear!" directed Skinny Shindle.
Dan Slike's eyes slid round to survey Skinny. "Me go slow?" he
drawled, "Who'll make me? You? Not you or Rafe either. Wanna know
why? Because I'm the best man in the room, that's why. Wanna argue
the matter?"
Apparently neither Skinny nor Rafe cared to argue. At least they made
no audible reply to the challenge.
Dan Slike nodded a satisfied head. "Now that's settled, let's go back
to business. About that three thousand--yes or no?"
Skinny looked at Rafe. Rafe looked at Skinny. Skinny shook his head.
Rafe nodded his. Dan Slike, missing nothing of the byplay, smiled
delightedly. His thin lips curled into a crooked sneer.
"There seems to be a difference of opinion," said Dan Slike. "Give it
a name."
"Three thousand is too much," averred Skinny Shindle.
"You'll only have to pay half of it," said Rafe.
"But this payment in advance--I don't like it," objected Skinny Shindle.
Dan Slike's boots came down from the table. They came down with a
certain amount of speed, yet curiously enough they made not the
slightest noise as soles and heels struck the floor. Dan Slike's chair
creaked as his body turned ever so slightly sidewise.
"Shindle," said he softly, "you ain't thinking I wouldn't keep my part
of the bargain if I take your money, are you?"
"No, oh, no," Skinny reassured him hastily. "Of course you would."
"This being so," pursued Dan Slike, "what's the difference whether you
pay me now or later?"
"Why, none," admitted Skinny, finding himself fairly cornered. "None
whatever. I--we will pay you what you ask."
"Spoken like a li'l man," fleered Dan Slike, and switched his gaze to
Tuckleton's face. "Second the motion, Rafe?"
"On one condition."
"Let's have it?"
"You finish both jobs within thirty days."
"No, not thirty days, old-timer, nor yet forty-five. Sixty."
"Thirty."
"Sixty days from to-night and the three thousand dollars, half gold,
half bills, in my pocket by noon to-morrow."
"Oh, hell, all right!" Rafe cried, tossing up helpless hands. "Come
around here to-morrow noon and get your money."
Dan Slike nodded. "Guess I'll be going, Rafe--No, nemmine dinner, I
ain't hungry now."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE TRAPPERS
"It's the women make half the trouble in the world," mused young Riley
Tyler, who had received the mitten from his girl of the period, the
restaurant waitress, and was a misogynist in consequence.
"You're wrong," said Shotgun Shillman. "They make all of it."
"All?"
"All. And not only that--they make all the good, too. Yep, Riley, you
can put down a bet there ain't a thing happens to a feller--good, bad
or indifferent--that you won't find a woman at the bottom of it. A
good man goes to hell or heaven--it depends on the woman."
"That's right, dead right," corroborated young Riley.
"Those fatal blondes!" grinned Shotgun; for the waitress was decidedly
of that type.
"They're all deceivers," muttered Riley Tyler, reddening to his ear
tips.
"Ain't it the truth!" said Shotgun Shillman. "They can lie to you with
a straighter face than a government mule. Like that jail lady in the
Bible who put the kybosh on a feller named Scissors by nailing his head
to the kitchen floor with a railroad spike. Yeah, her. Hugging him
she was ten minutes before using the hammer. Oh, that's their best
bet; kiss you with one hand and cut your throat with the other."
"That's news," said Riley Tyler. "Where I come from the gent kisses
with his mouth, and if he has to cut your throat he uses the butcher
knife."
"Did that hasher do all those things?" Shotgun asked instantly.
Riley made believe not to hear. Shotgun chuckled.
"Billy's coming back," observed the latter, gazing through the window.
"Where did he go?"
"Walton's, he said."
"I thought he liked Hazel Walton."
"He likes 'em all." Thus Riley, thinking of the scornful waitress who
did not like him. "'Lo, Bill, remember to wipe your feet on the mat.
Li'l paddies all cold?"
"She's a-thawing," replied Billy Wingo, kicking the snow from his
boots. "But I need a large, long, hot drink alla same. Where is that
bottle?"
When the bottle and the three glasses had been returned to their
appointed place between the horse liniment and the spare handcuffs,
Riley moved listlessly to the front window and drummed on the pane.
"Oh, the devil," Riley groaned. "Here's work for li'l boys. As if
there wasn't enough to do in summer."
"Good thing to-day's a chinook," remarked Shillman, without interest.
Billy joined Riley at the window. "Looks like Simon Reelfoot. It's
Simon's horse, anyway. It is Simon. I can see his long nose."
Riley squinted at the approaching man. "I wonder what he wants."
"I thought maybe I'd ask him when he comes in," said Billy.
"I would," observed Riley. "That'll show you're interested in your
job. It'll please Simon, too. He'll think you've got his interests at
heart. After that shall I kick him out, or will you let Shotgun bite
him?"
For Simon Reelfoot was not well thought of by the more decent portion
of the community. Men that put money out at high interest and are
careless of their neighbors' property usually aren't. It was said of
him that he still had the first nickel that he ever earned. Certainly
he was not a generous person. Three women, at one time and another,
had been unlucky enough to marry him. Each wife died within two years
of her marriage--murdered by her husband. Not in such a way, however,
that the law could take its proper course and hang Simon by the neck
till he was dead. The murders were done in a perfectly legal manner
and all above-board--overwork and undernourishment. The two in
conjunction will kill anything that lives and breathes. So Simon, if
not a murderer, was at least an accomplice before and after the fact.
A cheerful creature, indeed. There were no children.
Something of all that Simon was and stood for passed through Riley
Wingo's mind as he stood with Riley at the window.
"He always keeps his horses in good condition," said Billy.
"He does--the skunk!" acquiesced Riley.
"Stop calling a honest citizen names," directed Shotgun Shillman. "Mr.
Reelfoot is an upright man. I don't believe he'd rob a child or steal
the pennies off a dead baby's eyes. I don't believe he would--if any
one was looking."
Simon Reelfoot rode up, tied his horse on the lee of the building--he
was always tender of his stock--and entered.
"Howdy," he said glumly. "Cold day."
"If you'd wear something besides that relic of the days of '61 you
wouldn't find it such a cold day," observed the straightforward Shotgun.
At which allusion to his ratty old blue army overcoat Simon's upper lip
lifted. It might almost be said that he snarled silently.
"Feller as poor as I am can't afford to buy buffalo coats," he declared
in the grumbling rumble so oddly at variance with his build. For he
was a little clean-shaven man, this Simon Reelfoot, with a hatchet face
and the watery peering eyes of the habitual drunkard.
"Yeah," he grumbled, staring from one to another of the three officers
with open disapproval. "I ain't got money to buy buffalo coats. I
have to work to earn my living, I do. I ain't got time to sit on my
hunkers around a hot stove come-day-go-day a-taking the county's money
for doing nothin'."
"Which will be just about all from you, Reelfoot," Billy Wingo
suggested sharply.
"Oh, you can't scare me," said Simon, shaking a lowering and dogged
head. "I say what I think, and if folks don't like it they know what
they can do."
"Of course, Reelfoot," pursued Billy, with his most pleasant smile,
"folks naturally know what they can do. But you don't guess now it
gives a feller any pleasure to squash every spider, caterpillar,
hoptoad or snail he runs across. And-- But I don't know that I ever
saw any snails in this part of the county. Suppose now we hold it down
to spiders, caterpillars and hoptoads. Yeah. Why kill 'em? Yeah
again. Why put the kibosh on you, Mr. Reelfoot, just because you make
me think of a hoptoad?
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