A Story of the Cattle Country
by
Author of
"The Gun Brand," "The Promise," etc.
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with G. P. Putnam's Sons
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1918
By
James B. Hendryx
Fourth Printing
This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York And London
Exactly twenty minutes after young Benton dismounted from his big rangy black before the door of a low adobe saloon that fronted upon one of the narrow crooked streets of old Las Vegas, he glanced into the eyes of the thin-lipped croupier and laughed. "You've got 'em. Seventy-four good old Texas dollars." He held up a coin between his thumb and forefinger. "I've got another one left, an' your boss is goin' to get that, too—but he's goin' to get it in legitimate barter an' trade."
As the cowpuncher stepped to the bar that occupied one side of the room, a group of Mexicans who had lounged back at his entrance crowded once more about the wheel and began noisily to place their bets. He watched them for a moment before turning his attention to the heavy-lidded, flabby-jowled person who leaned ponderously against the sober side of the bar.
"Who owns this joint?" he asked truculently, as he eyed with disfavour the filthy shirt-sleeves rolled back from thick forearms, the sagging vest, and the collarless shirt-band that buried itself in a fold of the fat neck.
"I do," was the surly rejoinder. "Got any kick comin'?"
"Nary kick." The cowpuncher tossed his dollar onto the bar. "Give me a little red licker," he ordered, and grinned at the sullen proprietor as he filled his glass to the brim.
"An outfit," he confided, with slow insolence, "that'll run an eagle-bird wheel ain't got no more conscience than a hombre's got brains that'll buck one. In Texas we'd shoot a man full of little holes that 'ud try it."
"Why'n you stay in Texas, then?" growled the other.
The cowman drank his liquor and refilled the glass. "Most fat men," he imparted irrelevantly, "are plumb mindful that they're easy hit, an' consequent they're cheerful-hearted an' friendly. Likewise, they mind their own business, which is also why they've be'n let grow to onhuman proportions. But, not to seem oncivil to a stranger, an' by way of gettin' acquainted, I'll leak it out that it ain't no fault of Texas that I come away from there—but owin' only to a honin' of mine to see more of the world than what Texas affords.
"The way to see a world," I debates, "is like anythin' else—begin at the bottom an' work up. So I selects seventy-five dollars an' hits fer Las Vegas."
The fat man pocketed the dollar and replaced it with a greasy fifty-cent piece, an operation which the Texan watched with interest as he swallowed his liquor.
"They ain't nothin' like eagle-bird wheels an' snake-liniment at two bits a throw to help a man start at the bottom," he opined, and reaching for the half-dollar, tossed it to a forlorn-looking individual who lounged near the door. "Here, Greaser, lend a hand in helpin' me downward! Here's four bits. Go lay it on the wheel—an' say: I got a hunch! I played every number on that wheel except the thirteen—judgin' it to be onlucky." The forlorn one grinned his understanding, and clutching the piece of silver, elbowed into the group that crowded the roulette wheel. The cowpuncher turned once more to the surly proprietor:
"So now you see me, broke an' among evil companions, in this here God-forsaken, lizard-ridden, Greaser-loving sheep-herdin' land of sorrow. But, give me another jolt of that there pizen-fermentus an' I'll raise to heights unknown. A few more shots of that an' they ain't no tellin' what form of amusement a man's soul might incline to."
"Y'got the price?"
"I ain't got even the makin's—only an ingrowin' cravin' fer spiritual licker an' a hankerin' to see America first——"
"That hoss," the proprietor jerked a thumb toward the open door beyond which the big rangy black pawed fretfully at the street. "Mebbe we might make a trade. I got one good as him 'er better. It's that sor'l standin' t'other side of yourn."
The Texan rested an arm upon the bar and leaned forward confidentially. "Fatty," he drawled, "you're a liar." The other noted the hand that rested lightly upon the cowman's hip near the ivory butt of the six-gun that protruded from its holster, and took no offence. His customer continued: "They ain't no such horse—an' if they was, you couldn't own him. They ain't no man ever throw'd a kak on Ace of Spades but me, an' as fer sellin' him, or tradin' him—I'll shoot him first!"
A sudden commotion at the back of the room caused both men to turn toward the wheel where a fierce altercation had arisen between the croupier and the vagabond to whom the Texan had tossed his last coin.
"You'll take that er nothin'! It's more money'n y'ever see before an'——"
"Non! Non! De treize! De, w'at you call t'irten—she repe't! A'm git mor' as seex hondre dollaire—" The proprietor lumbered heavily from behind the bar and Benton noted that the thick fingers closed tightly about the handle of a bung-starter. The crowd of Mexicans thinned against the wall as the man with ponderous stealth approached to a point directly behind the excited vagabond who continued his protestations with increasing vigour. The next instant the Texan's six-gun flashed from its holster and as he crossed the room his eye caught the swift nod of the croupier.
When the proprietor drew back his arm to strike, the thick wrist was seized from behind and he was spun violently about to glare into the smiling eyes of the cowpuncher—eyes in which a steely glint flickered behind the smile, a glint more ominous even than the feel of the muzzle of the blue-black six-gun that pressed deeply into his flabby paunch just above the waistband of his trousers.
"Drop that mallet!" The words came softly, but with an ungentle softness that was accompanied by a boring, twisting motion of the gun muzzle as it pressed deeper into his midriff. The bung-starter thudded upon the floor.
"Now let's get the straight of this," continued the Texan. "Hey, you Greaser, if you c'n quit talkin' long enough to say somethin', we'll find out what's what here. You ort to look both ways when you're in a dump like this or the coyotes'll find out what you taste like. Come on, now—give me the facts in the case an' I'll a'joodicate it to suit all parties that's my way of thinkin'."
"Oui! A'm play de four bit on de treize, an' voila! She ween! Da's wan gran' honch! A'm play heem wan tam' mor'. De w'eel she spin 'roun', de leetle ball she sing lak de bee an', Nom de Dieu! She repe't! De t'irten ween ag'in. A'm reech—But non!" The man pointed excitedly to the croupier who sneered across the painted board upon which a couple of gold pieces lay beside a little pile of silver. "A-ha, canaille! Wat you call—son of a dog! T'ief! She say, 'feefty dollaire'! Dat more as seex hondre dollaire——"
"It's a lie!" cried the croupier fiercely, "the thirteen don't repeat. The sixteen win—you kin see fer yourself. An' what's more, they can't no damn Injun come in here an' call me no——"
"Hold on!" The Texan shifted his glance to the croupier without easing the pressure on the gun. "If the sixteen win, what's the fifty bucks for? His stake's on the thirteen, ain't it?"
"What business you got, hornin' in on this? It hain't your funeral. You
Texas tin-horns comes over here an' lose——"
"That'll be about all out of you. An' if I was in your boots I wouldn't go speakin' none frivolous about funerals, neither."
The smile was gone from the steel-grey eyes and the croupier experienced a sudden chilling in the pit of his stomach.
"Let's get down to cases," the cowpuncher continued. "I kind of got the Greaser into this here jack-pot an' it's up to me to get him out. He lays four bits on the thirteen—she pays thirty-five—that's seventeen-fifty. Eighteen, as she lays. The blame fool leaves it lay an' she win again—that's thirty-five times eighteen. Good Lord! An' without no pencil an' paper! We'll cut her up in chunks an' tackle her: let's see, ten times eighteen is one-eighty, an' three times that is—three times the hundred is three hundred, and three times the eighty is two-forty. That's five-forty, an' a half of one-eighty is ninety, an' five-forty is six-thirty. We'd ort to double it fer interest an' goodwill, but we'll leave it go at the reglar price. So, just you skin off six hundred an' thirty bucks, an' eighteen more, an' pass 'em acrost. An' do it pronto or somethin' might happen to Fatty right where he's thickest." The cowpuncher emphasized his remarks by boring the muzzle even deeper into the unctuous periphery of the proprietor. The croupier shot a questioning glance toward his employer.
"Shell it out! You fool!" grunted that worthy. "Fore this gun comes out my back. An', besides, it's cocked!" Without a word the croupier counted out the money, arranging it in little piles of gold and silver.
As the vagabond swept the coins into his battered Stetson the Texan gave a final twist to the six-gun. "If I was you, Fatty, I'd rub that there thirteen number off that wheel an' paint me a tripple-ought or mebbe, another eagle-bird onto it."
He turned to the man who stood grinning over his hatful of money:
"Come on, Pedro, me an' you're goin' away from here. The licker this hombre purveys will shore lead to bloodshed an' riotin', besides which it's onrespectable to gamble anyhow."
Pausing to throw the bridle reins over the horn of his saddle, the Texan linked his arm through that of his companion and proceeded down the street with the big black horse following like a dog. After several minutes of silence he stopped and regarded the other thoughtfully.
"Pedro," he said, "me an' you, fallin' heir to an onexpected legacy this way, it's fit an' proper we should celebrate accordin' to our lights. The common an' onchristian way would be to spliflicate around from one saloon to another 'till we'd took in the whole town an' acquired a couple of jags an' more or less onfavourable notoriety. Then, in a couple of days or two, we'd wake up with fur on our tongue an inch long an' our wealth divided amongst thieves. But, Pedro, such carryin's-on is ondecent an' improvident. Take them great captains of industry you read about! D'you reckon every pay-day old Andy Rockyfellow goes a rampin' down Main Street back there in Noo York, proclaimin' he's a wolf an' it's his night to howl? Not on your tintype, he don't! If he did he'd never of rose out of the rank an' file of the labourin' class, an' chances is, would of got fired out of that fer not showin' up at the corral Monday mornin'! Y'see I be'n a-readin' up on the lives of these here saints to kind of get a line on how they done it. Take that whole bunch an' they wasn't hardly a railroad nor a oil mill nor a steel factory between 'em when they was born. I got all their numbers. I know jest how they done it, an' when I get time I'm a-goin' out an' make the Guggenhimers cough up my share of Mexico an' the Rocky Mountains an' Alaska.
"But to get down to cases, as the preachers says: Old Andy he don't cantankerate none noticeable. When he feels needful of a jamboree he goes down to the bank an' fills his pockets an' a couple of valises with change, an' gum-shoes down to John D. Swab's, an' they hunt up Charley Carnage an' a couple of senators an' a rack of chips an' they finds 'em a back room, pulls off their collars an' coats an' goes to it. They ain't no kitty only to cover the needful expenses of drinks, eats, an' smokes—an' everything goes, from cold-decks to second-dealin'. Then when they've derove recreation enough, on goes their collars an' coats, an' they eat a handful of cloves an' get to work on the public again. They's a lot of money changes hands in these here sessions but it never gets out of the gang, an' after you get their brands you c'n generally always tell who got gouged by noticin' what goes up. If coal oil hists a couple of cents on the gallon you know Andy carried his valises home empty an' if railroad rates jumps—the senators got nicked a little, an' vicy versy. Now you an' me ain't captains of industry, nor nothin' else but our own soul, as the piece goes, but 'tain't no harm we should try a law-abidin' recreation, same as these others, an' mebbe after some practice we'll get to where the Guggenhimers will be figgerin' how to get the western hemisphere of North America back from us.
"It's like this. Me an' you'll stop in an' get us a couple of drinks. Then we'll hunt us up a hash-house an' put a big bate of ham an' aigs out of circulation, an' go get us a couple more drinks, an' heel ourselves with a deck of cards an' a couple bottles of cactus juice, an' hunt us up a place where we'll be ondisturbed by the riotorious carryin's-on of the frivolous-minded, an' we'll have us a two-handed poker game which no matter who wins we can't lose, like I was tellin' you, 'cause they can't no outside parties horn in on the profits. But first-off we'll hunt up a feed barn so Ace of Spades can load up on oats an' hay while we're havin' our party."
An hour later the Texan deposited a quart bottle, a rack of chips, and a deck of cards on a little deal table in the dingy back room of a saloon.
"I tell you, Pedro, they's a whole lot of fancy trimmin's this room ain't got, but it's quiet an' peaceable an' it'll suit our purpose to a gnat's hind leg." He dropped into a chair and reached for the rack of chips.
"It's a habit of mine to set facin' the door," he continued, as he proceeded to remove the disks and arrange them into stacks. "So if you got any choist just set down acrost the table there an' we'll start the festivities. I'll bank the game an' we'll take out a fifty-dollar stack an' play table stakes." He shoved three stacks of chips across the table. "Just come acrost with fifty bucks so's we c'n keep the bank straight an' go ahead an' deal. An' while you're a-doin' it, bein' as you're a pretty good Greaser, I'll just take a drink to you——"
"Greasaire, non! Me, A'm hate de damn Greasaire!"
The cowpuncher paused with the bottle half way to his lips and scrutinized the other: "I thought you was a little off colour an' talked kind of funny. What be you?"
"Me, A'm Blood breed. Ma fader she French. Ma moder she Blood Injun. A'm leeve een Montan' som'tam'—som'tam' een Canada. A'm no lak dees contrie! Too mooch hot. Too mooch Greasaire! Too mooch sheep. A'm lak I go back hom'. A'm ride for T. U. las' fall an' A'm talk to round-up cook, Walt Keeng, hees nam', an' he com' from Areezoon'. She no like Montan'. She say Areezoon' she bettaire—no fence—beeg range—plent' cattle. You goin' down dere an' git job you see de good contrie. You no com' back Nort' no more. So A'm goin' down w'en de col' wedder com' an' A'm git de job wit' ol' man Fisher on, w'at you call Yuma bench—Sacré!" The half-breed paused and wiped his face.
"Didn't you like it down Yuma Way?" Benton smiled.
"Lak it! Voila! No wataire! No snow! Too mooch, w'at you call, de leezard! Een de wintaire, A'm so Godamn hot A'm lak for die. Non! A'm com' way from dere. A'm goin' Nort' an' git me nodder job w'ere A'm git som' wataire som'tam'. Mebbe so git too mooch col' in wintaire, but, voila! Better A'm lak I freeze l'il bit as burn oop!"
The Texan laughed. "I don't blame you none. I never be'n down to Yuma but they tell me it's hell on wheels. Go ahead an' deal, Pedro."
"Pedro, non! Ma moder she nam' Moon Eye, an' ma fader she Cross-Cut
Lajune. Derefor', A'm Batiste Xavier Jean Jacques de Beaumont Lajune."
The bottle thumped upon the table top.
"What the hell is that, a name or a song?"
"Me, das ma nam'—A'm call Batiste Xavier Jean——"
"Hold on there! If your ma or pa, or whichever one done the namin' didn't have no expurgated dictionary handy mebbe they ain't to blame—but from now on, between you an' me, you're Bat. That's name enough, an' the John Jack Judas Iscariot an' General Jackson part goes in the discards. An' bein' as this here is only a two-handed game, the discards is dead—— See?"
At the end of an hour the half-breed watched with a grin as the Texan raked in a huge pile of chips.
"Dat de las'," he said, "Me, A'm broke."
"Broke!" exclaimed the cowpuncher, "you don't mean you've done lost all that there six hundred an' forty-eight bucks?" He counted the little piles of silver and gold, which the half-breed had shoved across the board in return for stack after stack of chips.
"Six-forty-two," he totalled. "Let's see, supper was a dollar an' four bits, drinks two dollars, an' two dollars for this bottle of prune-juice that's about gone already, an'—Hey, Bat, you're four bits shy! Frisk yourself an' I'll play you a showdown for them four bits." The other grinned and held a silver half dollar between his finger and thumb.
"Non! A'm ke'p dat four bit! Dat lucky four bit. A'm ponch hole in heem an' car' heem roun' ma neck lak' de medicine bag. A'm gon' back Nort'—me! A'm got no frien's. You de only friend A'm got. You give me de las' four bit. You, give me de honch to play de t'irteen. A'm git reech, an' den you mak' de bank, w'at you call, com' 'crost. Now A'm goin' back to Montan' an' git me de job. Wat de hell!"
"Where's your outfit?" asked the Texan as he carefully stowed the money in his pockets.
"Ha! Ma outfeet—A'm sell dat outfeet to git de money to com' back hom'. A'm play wan leetle gam' coon can an' voila! A'm got no money. De damn Greasaire she ween dat money an' A'm broke. A'm com' som'tam' on de freight train—som'tam' walk, an' A'm git dees far. Tomor' A'm git de freight train goin' Nort' an' som'tam' A'm git to Montan'. Eet ees ver' far, but mebbe-so A'm git dere for fall round-up. An' Ba Goss, A'm nevaire com' sout' no mor'. Too mooch hot! Too mooch no wataire! Too mooch, w'at you call, de pizen boog—mebbe-so in de bed—in de pants—in de boot—you git bite an' den you got to die! Voila! Wat de hell!"
The Texan laughed and reaching into his pocket drew out two twenty dollar gold pieces and a ten which thudded upon the table before the astonished eyes of the half-breed.
"Here, Bat, you're a damn good Injun! You're plumb squanderous with your money, but you're a good sport. Take that an' buy you a ticket to as far North as it'll get you. Fifty bucks ort to buy a whole lot of car ridin'. An' don't you stop to do no gamblin', neither—— Ain't I told you it's onrespectable an' divertin' to morals? If you don't sabe coon can no better'n what you do poker, you stand about as much show amongst these here Greasers as a rabbit in a coyote patch. It was a shame to take your money this way, but bein' as you're half-white it was up to me to save you the humiliatin' agony of losin' it to Greasers."
The half-breed pocketed the coins as the other buttoned his shirt and took another long pull at the bottle.
"Wer' you goin' now?" he asked as the cowpuncher started for the door. The man paused and regarded him critically. "First off, I'm goin' to get my horse. An' then me an' you is goin' down to the depot an' you're a-goin' to buy that there ticket. I'm a-goin' to see that you get it ironclad an' onredeemable, I ain't got no confidence in no gambler an' bein' as I've took a sort of likin' to you, I hate to think of you a-walkin' clean to Montana in them high-heeled boots. After that I'm a-goin' to start out an' examine this here town of Las Vegas lengthways, crossways, down through the middle, an' both sides of the crick. An' when that's off my mind, I'm a-goin' to begin on the rest of the world." He moved his arm comprehensively and reached for the bottle.
"You wait right here till I get old Ace of Spades," he continued solemnly when he had rasped the raw liquor from his throat. "If you ain't here when I come back I'll swallow-fork your ears with this here gat just to see if my shootin' eye is in practice. The last time I done any fancy shootin' I was kind of wild—kep' a-hittin' a little to one side an' the other—not much, only about an inch or so—but it wasn't right good shootin'."
The half-breed grinned: "A'm stay here till you com' back. A'm fin' dat you ma frien'. A'm lak' you, bien!"
When the Texan returned, fifteen minutes later, the man of many names was gone. "It's just like I said, you can't trust no gambler," he muttered, with a doleful nod of the head. "He's pulled out on me, but he better not infest the usual marts of midnight. 'Cause I'm a-goin' to start out an' take in everything that's open in this man's town, an' if I find him I'll just nachelly show him the onprincipledness of lyin' to a friend."
Stepping to the bar he bought a drink and a moment later swung onto the big rangy black and clattered down the street. At the edge of the town he turned and started slowly back, dismounting wherever the lights of a saloon illumined the dingy street, but never once catching a glimpse of the figure that followed in the thick blackness of the shadows. Before the saloon of the surly proprietor the cowpuncher brought his big black to a stand and sat contemplating the sorrel that stood dejectedly with ears adroop and one hind foot resting lightly upon the toe.
"So that's the cayuse Fatty wanted to trade me for Ace of Spades!" he snorted. "That dog-legged, pot-gutted, lop-eared patch of red he offers to trade to me fer Ace of Spades! It's a doggone insult! I didn't know it at the time, havin' only a couple of drinks, an' too sober to judge a insult when I seen one. But it's different now, I can see it in the dark. I'm a-goin' in there an'—an' twist his nose off an' feed it to him. But first I got to find old Bat. He's an Injun, but he's a good old scout, an' I hate to think of him walkin' all the way to Montana while some damn Greaser is spendin' my hard earned samolians that I give him for carfare. It's a long walk to Montana. Plumb through Colorado an' Wyomin' an'—an' New Jersey, or somewheres. Mebbe he's in there now. As they say in the Bible, or somewheres, you got to hunt for a thing where you find it, or something. Hold still, there you black devil you! What you want to stand there spinnin' 'round like a top for? You be'n drinkin', you doggone old ringtail! What was I goin' to do, now. Oh, yes, twist Patty's nose, an' find Bat an' shoot at his ears a while, an' make him get his ticket to New Jersey an'——
"This is a blame slow old town, she needs wakin' up, anyhow. If I ride in that door I'll get scraped off like mud off a boot."
He spurred the black and brought him up with a jerk beside the sorrel which snorted and reared back, snapping the reins with which he had been tied, and stood with distended nostrils sniffing inquiringly at Ace of Spades as the cowpuncher swung to the ground.
"Woke up, didn't you, you old stager? Y'ain't so bad lookin' when you're alive. Patty'll have to get him a new pair of bridle reins. Mebbe the whole town'll look better if it's woke up some.
"Y-e-e-e-e-o-w! Cowboys a-comin'!"
A citizen or two paused on the street corner, a few Mexicans grinned as they drew back to allow the Gringo free access to the saloon, and a swarthy figure slipped unobserved across the street and blended into the shadow of the adobe wall.
"O-o-o-o-o-h, the yaller r-o-s-e of Texas!" sang the cowpuncher, with joyous vehemence. As he stepped into the room, his eyes swept the faces of the gamblers and again he burst into vociferous song:
"O-o-o-o-o-h, w-h-e-r-e is my wanderin' b-o-y tonight?"
"Hey, you! Whad'ye think this is, a camp meetin'?"
The Texan faced the speaker. "Well, if it ain't my old college chum! Fatty, I stopped in a purpose to see you. An' besides which, by the unalien rights of the Constitution an' By-laws of this here United States of Texas, a man's got a right to sing whatever song suits him irregardless of sex or opportunity." The other glared malevolently as the cowpuncher approached the bar with a grin. "Don't bite yourself an' die of hydrophobia before your eggication is complete, which it ain't till you've learnt never to insult no Texas man by offerin' to trade no rat-tailed, ewe-necked old buzzard fodder fer a top Texas horse.
"Drop that mallet! An' don't go reachin-' around in under that bar, 'cause if you find what you're huntin' fer you're a-goin' to see fer yourself if every cloud's got a silver linin'. 'Tend to business now, an' set out a bottle of your famous ol' Las Vegas stummick shellac an' while I'm imbibin' of its umbilical ambrosier, I'll jest onscrew your nose an' feed it to the cat."
Sweat stood out upon the forehead of the heavy-paunched proprietor as with a flabby-faced grin he set out the bottle. But the Texan caught the snake-like flash of the eyes with which the man signalled to the croupier across the room. Gun in hand, he whirled:
"No, you don't, Toney!" An ugly blue-black automatic dropped to the floor and the croupier's hands flew ceilingward.
"I never seen such an outfit to be always a-reachin'," grinned the cowpuncher. "Well, if there ain't the ol' eagle-bird wheel! Give her a spin, Toney! They say you can't hit an eagle on the fly with a six-gun, but I'm willin' to try! Spin her good, 'cause I don't want no onfair advantage of that there noble bird. Stand back, Greasers, so you don't get nicked!"
As the croupier spun the wheel, three shots rang in an almost continuous explosion and the gamblers fell over each other in an effort to dodge the flying splinters that filled the powder-fogged air.
"Little black bull slid down the mountain,
L-o-n-g t-i-m-e ago!"
roared the Texan as he threw open the cylinder of his gun.
"H-e-e-e-e scraped his horn on a hickory saplin',
L-o-n-g t-i-m-e ago——"
There was a sudden commotion behind him, a swift rush of feet, a muffled thud, and a gasping, agonized grunt. The next instant the huge acetelyne lamp that lighted the room fell to the floor with a crash and the place was plunged in darkness.
"Queek, m's'u, dees way!" a hand grasped his wrist and the cowpuncher felt himself drawn swiftly toward the door. From all sides sounded the scuffling of straining men who breathed heavily as they fought in the blackness.
A thin red flame cut the air and a shot rang sharp. Someone screamed and a string of Spanish curses blended into the hubbub of turmoil.
"De hosses, queek, m's'u!"
The cool air of the street fanned the Texan's face as he leaped across the sidewalk, and vaulted into the saddle. The next moment the big black was pounding the roadway neck and neck with another, smaller horse upon which the half-breed swayed in the saddle with the ease and grace of the loose-rein rider born.
It was broad daylight when the cowpuncher opened his eyes in an arroyo deep among the hills far, far from Las Vegas. He rubbed his forehead tenderly, and crawling to a spring a few feet distant, buried his face in the tiny pool and drank deeply of the refreshing liquid. Very deliberately he dried his face on a blue handkerchief, and fumbled in his pockets for papers and tobacco. As he blew the grey smoke from his nostrils he watched the half-breed who sat nearby industriously splicing a pair of broken bridle reins.
"Did you get that ticket, Bat?" he asked, with a hand pressed tightly against his aching forehead.
The other grinned. "Me, A'm no wan' no ticket. A'm lak A'm stay wit' you, an' mebbe-so we git de job togedder."
The cowpuncher smoked for a time in silence.
"What was the rookus last night?" he asked, indifferently. Then, suddenly, his eye fell upon the sorrel that snipped grass at the end of a lariat rope near the picketed black, and he leaped to his feet. "Where'd you get that horse?" he exclaimed sharply. "It's Fatty's! There's the reins he busted when he snorted loose!"
Again the half-breed grinned. "A'm bor' dat hoss for com' 'long wit' you. Dat Fatty, she damn bad man. She try for keel you w'en you tak' de shot at de wheel. A'm com' 'long dat time an' A'm keek heem in de guts an' he roll 'roun' on de floor, an' A'm t'row de bottle of wheesky an' smash de beeg lamp an' we com' 'long out of dere." The cowpuncher tossed his cigarette away and spat upon the ground.
"How'd you happen to come in there so handy just at the right time?" he asked with a sidewise glance at the half-breed.
"Oh, A'm fol' you long tam'. A'm t'ink mebbe-so you git l'il too mooch hooch an' som'one try for do you oop. A'm p'ek in de door an' seen Fatty gon' shoot you. Dat mak' me mad lak hell, an' A'm run oop an' keek heem so hard I kin on hees belly. You ma frien'. A'm no lak I seen you git keel."
The Texan nodded. "I see. You're a damn good Injun, Bat, an' I ain't got no kick comin' onto the way you took charge of proceedin's. But you sure raised hell when you stole that horse. They's prob'ly about thirty-seven men an' a sheriff a-combin' these here hills fer us at this partic'lar minute an' when they catch us——"
The half-breed laughed. "Dem no ketch. We com' feefty mile. Dat leetle hoss she damn good hoss. We got de two bes' hoss. We ke'p goin' dey no ketch. 'Spose dey do ketch. Me, A'm tell 'em A'm steal dat hoss an' you not know nuthin' 'bout dat."
There was a twinkle in the Texan's eye as he yawned and stretched prodigiously. "An' I'll tell 'em you're the damnedest liar in the state of Texas an' North America throw'd in. Come on, now, you throw the shells on them horses an' we'll be scratchin' gravel. Fifty miles ain't no hell of a ways—my throat's beginnin' to feel kind of draw'd already."
"W'er' we goin'?" asked the half-breed as they swung into the saddles.
"Bat," said the other, solemnly, "me an' you is goin' fast, an' we're goin' a long time. You mentioned somethin' about Montana bein' considerable of a cow country. Well, me an' you is a-goin' North—as far North as cattle is—an' we're right now on our way!"
"I don't see why they had to build their old railroad down in the bottom of this river bed." With deft fingers Alice Marcum caught back a wind-tossed whisp of hair. "It's like travelling through a trough."
"Line of the least resistance," answered her companion as he rested an arm upon the polished brass guard rail of the observation car. "This river bed, running east and west, saved them millions in bridges."
The girl's eyes sought the sky-line of the bench that rose on both sides of the mile-wide valley through which the track of the great transcontinental railroad wound like a yellow serpent.
"It's level up there. Why couldn't they have built it along the edge?"
The man smiled: "And bridged all those ravines!" he pointed to gaps and notches in the level sky-line where the mouths of creek beds and coulees flashed glimpses of far mountains. "Each one of those ravines would have meant a trestle and trestles run into big money."
"And so they built the railroad down here in this ditch where people have to sit and swelter and look at their old shiny rails and scraggly green bushes and dirt walls, while up there only a half a mile away the great rolling plains stretch away to the mountains that seem so near you could walk to them in an hour."
"But, my dear girl, it would not be practical. Railroads are built primarily with an eye to dividends and—" The girl interrupted him with a gesture of impatience.
"I hate things that are practical—hate even the word. There is nothing in all the world so deadly as practicability. It is ruthless and ugly. It disregards art and beauty and all the higher things that make life worth living. It is a monster whose god is dollars—and who serves that god well. What does any tourist know of the real West—the West that lies beyond those level rims of dirt? How much do you or I know of it? The West to us is a thin row of scrub bushes along a narrow, shallow river, with a few little white-painted towns sprinkled along, that for all we can see might be in Illinois or Ohio. I've been away a whole winter and for all the West I've seen I might as well have stayed in Brooklyn."
"But certainly you enjoyed California!"
"California! Yes, as California. But California isn't the West! California is New York with a few orange groves thrown in. It is a tourist's paradise. A combination of New York and Palm Beach. The real West lies east of the Rockies, the uncommercialized, unexploited—I suppose you would add, the unpractical West. A New Yorker gets as good an idea of the West when he travels by train to California as a Californian would get of New York were he to arrive by way of the tube and spend the winter in the Fritz-Waldmore."
"I rather liked California, what little I saw of it. A business trip does not afford an ideal opportunity for sight seeing."
"You like Newport and Palm Beach, too."
The man ignored the interruption.
"But, at least, this trip has combined a good bit of business with a very big bit of pleasure. It is two years since I have seen you and——"
"And so you're going to tell me for the twenty-sixth time in three days that you still love me, and that you want me to marry you, and I'll have to say 'no' again, and explain that I'm not ready to marry anybody." She regarded him with an air of mock solemnity. "But really Mr. Winthrop Adams Endicott I think you have improved since you struck out for yourself into the wilds of—where was it, Ohio, or some place."
"Cincinnati," answered the man a trifle stiffly. The girl shuddered. "I had to change cars there once." Again she eyed him critically. "Yes, two years have made a really noticeable improvement. Do the Cincinnati newspapers always remember to use your whole name or do they dare to refer to Winthrop A. Endicott. If I were a reporter I really believe I'd try it once. If you keep on improving, some day somebody is going to call you Win."
The man flushed: "Are you never serious?" he asked.
"Never more so than this minute."
"You say you are not ready to many. You expect to marry, then, sometime?"
"I don't expect to. I'm going to."
"Will you marry me when you are ready?"
The girl laughed. "Yes, if I can't find the man I want, I think I shall. But he must be somewhere," she continued, after a pause during which her eyes centred upon the point where the two gleaming rails vanished into the distance. "He must be impractical, and human, and—and elemental. I'd rather be smashed to pieces in the Grand Canyon, than live for ever on the Erie Canal!"
"Aren't you rather unconventional in your tastes——?"
"If I'm not, I'm a total failure! I hate conventionality! And lines of least resistance! And practical things! It is the men who are the real sticklers for convention. The same kind of men that follow the lines of least resistance and build their railroads along them—because it is practical!
"I don't see why you want to marry me!" she burst out resentfully. "I'm not conventional, nor practical. And I'm not a line of least resistance!"
"But I love you. I have always loved you, and——"
The girl interrupted him with a quick little laugh, which held no trace of resentment. "Yes, yes, I know. I believe you do. And I'm glad because really, Winthrop, you're a dear. There are lots of things about you I admire. Your teeth, and eyes, and the way you wear your clothes. If you weren't so terribly conventional, so cut and dried, and matter of fact, and safe, I might fall really and truly in love with you. But—Oh, I don't know! Here I am, twenty-three. And I suppose I'm a little fool and have never grown up. I like to read stories about knights errant, and burglars, and fair ladies, and pirates, and mysterious dark oriental-looking men. And I like to go to places where everybody don't go—only Dad won't let me and—— Why just think!" she exclaimed in sudden wrath, "I've been in California for three months and I've ridden over the same trails everybody else has ridden over, and motored over the same roads and climbed the same mountains, and bathed at the same beach, and I've met everybody I ever knew in New York, just as I would have met them in Newport or Palm Beach or in Paris or Venice or Naples for that matter!"
"But why go off the beaten track where everything is arranged for your convenience? These people are experienced travellers. They know that by keeping to the conventional routes——-"
"Winthrop Adams Endicott, if you say that word again I'll shriek! Or I'll go in from this platform and not speak to you again—ever! You know very well that there isn't a traveller among them. They're just tourists—professional goers. They do the same things, and say the same things, and if they could think, they'd think the same things every place they go. And I don't want things arranged for my convenience—so there!"
Winthrop Adams Endicott lighted a cigarette, brushed some white dust from his sleeve, and smiled.
"If I were a man and loved a girl so very, very much I wouldn't just sit around and grin. I'd do something!"
"But, my dear Alice, what would you have me do? I'm not a knight errant, nor a burglar, nor a pirate, nor a dark mysterious oriental—I'm just a plain ordinary business man and——"
"Well, I'd do something—even if it was something awful like getting drunk or shooting somebody. Why, if you even had a past you wouldn't be so hopeless. I could love a man with a past. It would show at least, that he hadn't followed the line of the least resistance. The world is full of canals—but there are only a few canyons. Look! I believe we're stopping! Oh, I hope it's a hold-up! What will you do if it is?" The train slowed to a standstill and Winthrop Adams Endicott leaned out and gazed along the line of the coaches.
"There is a little town here. Seems to be some commotion up ahead—quite a crowd. If I can get this blamed gate open we can go up and see what the trouble is."
"And if you can't get it open you can climb over and lift me down. I'm just dying to know what's the matter. And if you dare to say it wouldn't be conventional I'll—I'll jump!"
A uniformed flagman, with his flag and a handful of torpedoes swung from the platform and started up the track.
"What's the trouble up in front?" asked the girl as Endicott assisted her to the ground.
"Cloud busted back in the mountains, an' washed out the trussle, an'
Second Seventy-six piled up in the river."
"Oh, a wreck?" she exclaimed. "Will we have time to go up and see it?"
"I'd say it's a wreck," grinned the trainman. "An' you've got all the time you want. We're a-goin' to pull in on the sidin' an' let the wrecker an' bridge crew at it. But even with 'em a-workin' from both ends it'll be tomorrow sometime 'fore they c'n get them box cars drug out an' a temp'ry trussle throw'd acrost."
"What town is this?"
"Town! Call it a town if you want to. It's Wolf River. It's a shippin' point fer cattle, but it hain't no more a town 'n what the crick's a river. The trussle that washed out crosses the crick just above where it empties into Milk River. I've railroaded through here goin' on three years an' I never seen no water in it to speak of before, an' mostly it's plumb dry."
The man sauntered slowly up the track as one who performs a merely nominal duty, and the girl turned to follow Endicott. "It would have been easier to walk through the train," he ventured, as he picked his way over the rough track ballast.
"Still seeking the line of least resistance," mocked the girl. "We can walk through a train any time. But we can't breathe air like this, and, see,—through that gap—the blue of the distant mountains!"
The man removed his hat and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. "It's awfully hot, and I have managed to secrete a considerable portion of the railroad company's gravel in my shoes."
"Don't mind a little thing like that," retorted the girl sweetly. "I've peeled the toes of both of mine. They look like they had scarlet fever."
Passengers were alighting all along the train and hurrying forward to join those who crowded the scene of the wreck.
"It was a narrow escape for us," said Endicott as the two looked down upon the mass of broken cars about which the rapidly falling waters of the stream gurgled and swirled. "Had we not been running an hour late this train would in all probability, have plunged through the trestle."
"Was anybody hurt?" asked the girl. The train conductor nodded toward the heap of debris.
"No'm, the crew jumped. The fireman an' head brakeman broke a leg apiece, an' the rest got bunged up a little; but they wasn't no one hurt.
"I was just tellin' these folks," he continued, "that they'll be a train along on the other side in a couple of hours for to transfer the passengers an' mail."
The girl turned to Endicott. "There isn't much to see here," she said. "Let's look around. It's such a funny little town. I want to buy something at the store. And, there's a livery stable! Maybe we can hire horses and ride out where we can get a view of the mountains."
As the two turned toward the little cluster of frame buildings, a tall, horse-faced man clambered onto the pilot of the passenger locomotive and, removing his hat, proceeded to harangue the crowd. As they paused to listen Alice stared in fascination at the enormous Adam's apple that worked, piston-like above the neckband of the collarless shirt of vivid checks.
"Ladies an' gents," he began, with a comprehensive wave of the soft-brimmed hat. "Wolf River welcomes you in our town. An' while you're amongst us we aim to show you one an' all a good time. This here desastorious wreck may turn out to be a blessin' in disguise. As the Good Book says, it come at a most provincial time. Wolf River, ladies an' gents, is celebratin', this afternoon an' evenin', a event that marks an' epykak in our historious career: The openin' of the Wolf River Citizen's Bank, a reg'lar bonyfido bank with vaults, cashier, an' a board of directors consistin' of her leadinist citizens, with the Honorable Mayor Maloney president, which I introdoose myself as.
"In concludin' I repeet that this here is ondoubtfully the luckiest wreck in the lives of any one of you, which it gives you a unpressagented chanct to see with your own eyes a hustlin' Western town that hain't ashamed to stand on her own legs an' lead the world along the trail to prosperity.
"Wolf River hain't a braggin' town, ladies an' gents, but I defy any one of you to name another town that's got more adjacent an' contigitus territory over which to grow onto. We freely admit they's a few onconsequential improvements which is possessed by some bigger an' more notorious cities such as sidewalks, sewers, street-gradin', an' lights that we hain't got yet. But Wolf River is a day an' night town, ladies an' gents, combinin' business with pleasure in just the right perportion, which it's plain to anyone that takes the trouble to investigate our shippin' corrals, four general stores, one _ho_tel, an' seven saloons, all of which runs wide open twenty-four hours a day an' is accommodated with faro, roulette, an' poker outfits fer the benefit of them that's so inclined to back their judgment with a little money.
"In concloodin' I'll say that owin' to the openin' of the bank about which I was tellin' you of, Wolf River is holdin' the followin' programme which it's free to everyone to enter into or to look on at.
"They'll be a ropin' contest, in which some of our most notorious ropers will rope, throw, an' hog-tie a steer, in the least shortness of time. The prizes fer this here contest is: First prize, ten dollars, doneated by the directors of the bank fer which's openin' this celebration is held in honour of. Second prize, one pair of pants doneated by the Montana Mercantile Company. Third prize, one quart of bottle in bond whiskey doneated by our pop'lar townsman an' leadin' citizen, Mr. Jake Grimshaw, proprietor of The Long Horn Saloon.
"The next contest is a buckin' contest, in which some of our most notorious riders will ride or get bucked offen some of our most fameous outlaw horses. The prizes fer this here contest is: First, a pair of angory chaps, doneated by the directors of the bank about which I have spoke of before. Second prize, a pair of spurs doneated by the Wolf River Tradin' Company. Third prize, a coffin that was ordered by Sam Long's wife from the Valley Outfittin' Company, when Sam had the apendiceetis of the stummick, an' fer which Sam refused to pay fer when he got well contrary to expectations.
"Both these here contests is open to ladies an' gents, both of which is invited to enter. They will also be hoss racin', fancy an' trick ridin', an' shootin', fer all of which sootable prizes has be'n pervided, as well as fer the best lookin' man an' the homliest lady an' vicy versy. Any lady or gent attendin' these here contests will be gave out a ticket good fer one drink at any saloon in town. These drinks is on the directors of the bank of which I have before referred to.
"An', ladies an' gents, in concloodin' I'll say that that hain't all! Follerin' these here contests, after each an' every lady an' gent has had time to git their drink they'll be a supper dished out at the _ho_otel fer which the directors of the bank of which you have already heard mention of has put up fifty cents a plate. This here supper is as free as gratis to all who care to percipitate an' which will incloode a speech by the Honorable Mayor Maloney, part of which I have already spoke, but will repeat fer the benefit of them that hain't here.
"Followin' the supper a dance will be pulled off in Curly Hardee's dance-hall, the music fer which will be furnished by some of our most notorious fiddlers incloodin' Mrs. Slim Maloney, wife of the Honorable Mayor Maloney, who will lead the grand march, an' who I consider one of the top pyanoists of Choteau County, if not in the hull United States. It is a personal fact ladies an' gents, that I've heard her set down to a pyano an' play Old Black Joe so natural you'd swear it was Home Sweet Home. An' when she gits het up to it, I'll promise she'll loosen up an' tear off some of the liveliest music any one of you's ever shook a leg to.
"An' now, ladies an' gents, you can transfer an' go on when the train pulls in on t'other side, or yon can stay an' enjoy yourselves amongst us Wolf River folks an' go on tomorrow when the trussle gits fixed——"
"Ye-e-e-e-o-o-w! W-h-e-e-e-e."
Bang, bang, bang! Bang, bang, bang! A chorus of wild yells, a fusillade of shots, and the thud of horses' hoofs close at hand drew all eyes toward the group of riders that, spreading fan-like over the flat that lay between the town and the railway, approached at top speed.
"The cowboys is comin'! Them's the Circle J," cried the Mayor. "Things'll lively up a bit when the T U an' the I X an' the Bear Paw Pool boys gits in." The cowboys were close, now, and the laughing, cheering passengers surged back as the horses swerved at full speed with the stirrups of their riders almost brushing the outermost rank of the crowd. A long thin rope shot out, a loop settled gently about the shoulders of the Mayor of Wolf River, and a cowhorse stopped so abruptly that a cloud of alkali dust spurted up and settled in a grey powder over the clothing of the assembled passengers.
"Come on, Slim, an' give these folks a chance to get their second wind while you let a little licker into that system of yours."
The Mayor grinned; "Tex Benton, hain't you had no bringin' up whatever? That was a pretty throw but it's onrespectable, no mor'n what it's respectable to call the Mayor of a place by his first name to a public meetin'."
"I plumb ferget myself, your Honour," laughed the cowpuncher as he coiled his rope. "Fact is, I learnt to rope mares back in Texas, an' I ain't——"
"Yip-e-i-e!"
"Ropin' mares!" The cowboys broke into a coyote chorus that drowned the laughter of the crowd.
"The drinks is on me!" sputtered the Mayor, when he was able to make himself heard. "Jest you boys high-tail over to the Long Horn an' I'll be along d'rectly." He turned once more to the crowd of passengers.
"Come on, gents, an' have a drink on me. An' the ladies is welcome, too. Wolf River is broad in her idees. We hain't got no sexual restrictions, an' a lady's got as good a right to front a bar an' nominate her licker as what a man has."
Standing beside Endicott upon the edge of the crowd Alice Marcum had enjoyed herself hugely. The little wooden town with its high fenced cattle corrals, and its row of one story buildings that faced the alkali flat had interested her from the first, and she had joined with hearty goodwill in the rounds of applause that at frequent intervals had interrupted the speech of the little town's Mayor. A born horsewoman, she had watched with breathless admiration the onrush of the loose-rein riders—the graceful swaying of their bodies, and the flapping of soft hat brims, as their horses approached with a thunder of pounding hoofs. Her eyes had sparkled at the reckless swerving of the horses when it seemed that the next moment the back-surging crowd would be trampled into the ground. She had wondered at the precision with which the Texan's loop fell; and had joined heartily in the laughter that greeted the ludicrous and red-faced indignation with which a fat woman had crawled from beneath a coach whither she had sought refuge from the onrush of thundering hoofs.
In the mind of the girl, cowboys had always been associated with motion picture theatres, where concourses of circus riders in impossible regalia performed impossible feats of horsemanship in the unravelling of impossible plots. She had never thought of them as real—or, if she had, it was as a vanished race, like the Aztec and the buffalo.
But here were real cowboys in the flesh: Open-throated, bronzed man, free and unrestrained as the air they breathed—men whose very appearance called to mind boundless open spaces, purple sage, blue mountains, and herds of bellowing cattle. Here were men bound by no petty and meaningless conventions—men the very sight of whom served to stimulate and intensify the longing to see for herself the land beyond the valley rims—to slip into a saddle and ride, and ride, and ride—to feel the beat of the rain against her face, and the whip of the wind, and the burning rays of the sun, and at night to lie under the winking stars and listen to the howl of the coyotes.
"Disgusting rowdies!" wheezed the fat woman as, dishevelled and perspiring, she waddled toward the steps of her coach; while the Mayor, his Adam's apple fairly pumping importance, led a sturdy band of thirsters recruited from among the train passengers across the flat toward a building over the door of which was fixed a pair of horns of prodigious spread. Lest some pilgrim of erring judgment should mistake the horns for short ones, or misapprehend the nature of the business conducted within, the white false front of the building proclaimed in letters of black a foot high: LONG HORN SALOON. While beneath the legend was depicted a fat, vermilion clad cowboy mounted upon a tarantula-bodied, ass-eared horse of pink, in the act of hurling a cable-like rope which by some prodigy of dexterity was made to describe three double-bows and a latigo knot before its loop managed to poise in mid-air above the head of a rabbit-sized baby-blue steer whose horns exceeded in length the pair of Texas monstrosities that graced the doorway.
"We're goin' to back onto the sidin' now," announced the conductor, "where dinner will be served in the dinin' car as ushool."
The cowboys had moved along to view the wreck and were grouped about the broken end of the trestle where they lolled in their saddles, some with a leg thrown carelessly about the horn and others lying back over the cantle, while the horses which a few moments before had dashed across the common at top speed now stood with lowered heads and drooping ears, dreaming cayuse dreams.
The engine bell was ringing monotonously and the whistle sounded three short blasts, while the passengers clambered up the steps of the coaches or backed away from the track.
"Let's walk to the side track, it's only a little way."
Alice pointed to where the flagman stood beside the open switch. Endicott nodded acquiescence and as he turned to follow, the girl's handkerchief dropped from her hand and, before it touched the ground, was caught by a gust of wind that swept beneath the coaches and whirled out onto the flat where it lay, a tiny square of white against the trampled buffalo grass.
Endicott started to retrieve it, but before he had taken a half-dozen steps there was a swift pounding of hoofs and two horses shot out from the group of cowboys and dashed at full speed, their riders low in the saddle and each with his gaze fixed on the tiny bit of white fabric. Nose and nose the horses ran, their hoofs raising a cloud of white alkali dust in their wake. Suddenly, just as they reached the handkerchief, the girl who watched with breathless interest gasped. The saddles were empty! From the madly racing horses her glance flew to the cloud of dust which concealed the spot where a moment before had lain that little patch of white. Her fingers clenched as she steeled herself to the sight of the two limp, twisted forms that the lifting dust cloud must reveal. Scarcely daring to wink she fixed her eyes upon the ground—but the dust cloud had drifted away and there were no limp, twisted forms. Even the little square of white was gone. In bewilderment she heard cries of approval and loud shouts of applause from the passengers. Once more her ears caught the sound of pounding hoofs, and circling toward her in a wide curve were the two riders, erect and firm in their saddles, as a gauntleted hand held high a fluttering scrap of white.
The horses brought up directly before her, a Stetson was swept from a thick shock of curly black hair, the gauntleted hand extended the recalcitrant handkerchief, and she found herself blushing furiously for no reason at all beneath the direct gaze of a pair of very black eyes that looked out from a face tanned to the colour of old mahogany.
"Oh, thank you! It was splendid—the horsemanship." She stammered. "I've seen it in the movies, but I didn't know it was actually done in real life."
"Yes, mom, it is. It's owin' to the horse yeh've got, an' yer cinch.
Yeh'll see a heap better'n that this afternoon right on this here flat.
An' would yeh be layin' over fer the dance tonight, mom?"
The abrupt question was even more disconcerting than the compelling directness of his gaze.
For an instant, the girl hesitated as her eyes swept from the cowpuncher's face to the brilliant scarf loosely knotted about his throat, the blue flannel shirt, the bright yellow angora chaps against which the ivory butt of a revolver showed a splotch of white, and the boots jammed into the broad wooden stirrups, to their high heels from which protruded a pair of enormously rowelled spurs inlaid with silver. By her side Endicott moved impatiently and cleared his throat.
She answered without hesitation. "Yes, I think I shall."
"I'd admire fer a dance with yeh, then," persisted the cowpuncher.
"Why—certainly. That is, if I really decide to stay."
"We'll try fer to show yeh a good time, mom. They'll be some right lively fiddlin', an' she don't bust up till daylight."
With a smile the girl glanced toward the other rider who sat with an air of tolerant amusement. She recognized him as the man called Tex—the one who had so deftly dropped his loop over the shoulders of the Mayor, and noted that, in comparison with the other, he presented rather a sorry appearance. The heels of his boots were slightly run over. His spurs were of dingy steel and his leather chaps, laced up the sides with rawhide thongs looked as though they had seen much service. The scarf at his throat, however, was as vivid as his companion's and something in the flash of the grey eyes that looked into hers from beneath the broad brim of the Stetson caused an inexplicable feeling of discomfort. Their gaze held a suspicion of veiled mockery, and the clean cut lips twisted at their comers into the semblance of a cynical, smiling sneer.
"I want to thank you, too," she smiled, "it wasn't your fault your friend——"
"Jack Purdy's my name, mom," interrupted the other, importantly.
"—that Mr. Purdy beat you, I am sure. And are you always as accurate as when you lassoed the honourable Mayor of Wolf River?"
"I always get what I go after—sometimes," answered the man meeting her gaze with a flash of the baffling grey eyes. A subtle something, in look or words, seemed a challenge. Instinctively she realized that despite his rough exterior here was a man infinitely less crude than the other. An ordinary cowpuncher, to all appearance, and yet—something in the flash of the eyes, the downward curve of the corners of the lips aroused the girl's interest. He was speaking again:
"I'll dance with you, too—if you stay. But I won't mortgage none of your time in advance." The man's glance shifted deliberately from the girl to Endicott and back to the girl again. Then, without waiting for her to reply, he whirled his horse and swung off at top speed to join the other cowpunchers who were racing in the wake of the Mayor.
Some moments later, Jack Purdy nosed his horse into the group of cayuses that stood with reins hanging, "tied to the ground," in front of the Long Horn Saloon. Beyond the open doors sounded a babel of voices and he could see the men lined two deep before the bar.
Swinging from the saddle he threw the stirrup over the seat and became immediately absorbed in the readjustment of his latigo strap. Close beside him Tex Benton's horse dozed with drooping head. Swiftly a hand whose palm concealed an open jack-knife slipped beneath the Texan's right stirrup-leather and a moment later was withdrawn as the cayuse, suspicious of the fumbling on the wrong side of the saddle, snorted nervously and sheered sharply against another horse which with an angry squeal, a laying back of the ears, and a vicious snap of the teeth, resented the intrusion. Purdy jerked sharply at the reins of his own horse which caused that animal to rear back and pull away.
"Whoa, there! Yeh imp of hell!" he rasped, in tones loud enough to account for the commotion among the horses, and slipping the knife into his pocket, entered the saloon from which he emerged unobserved while the boisterous crowd was refilling its glasses at the solicitation of a white goods drummer who had been among the first to accept the invitation of the Mayor.
Three doors up the street he entered a rival saloon where the bartender was idly arranging his glasses on the back-bar in anticipation of the inevitable rush of business which would descend upon him when the spirit should move the crowd in the Long Horn to start "going the rounds."
"Hello, Cinnabar!" The cowpuncher leaned an elbow on the bar, elevated a foot to the rail, and producing tobacco and a book of brown papers, proceeded to roll a cigarette. The bartender returned the greeting and shot the other a keen glance from the corner of his eye as he set out a bottle and a couple of glasses.
"Be'n down to the wreck?" he asked, with professional disinterestedness. The cowpuncher nodded, lighted his cigarette, and picking the bottle up by the neck, poured a few drops into his glass. "Pretty bad pile-up," persisted the bartender as he measured out his own drink. "Two or three of the train crew got busted up pretty bad. They say——
"Aw, choke off! What the hell do I care what they say? Nor how bad the train crew got busted up, nor how bad they didn't?" Purdy tapped the bar with his glass as his black eyes fixed the other with a level stare. "I came over fer a little talk with yeh, private. I'm a-goin' to win that buckin' contest—an' yer goin' to help me—sabe?"
The bartender shook his head: "I don't know how I c'n help you none."
"Well yeh will know when I git through—same as Doc Godkins'll know when I have a little talk with him. Yer both a-goin' to help, you an' Doc. Yeh see, they was a nester's gal died, a year back, over on Beaver Crick, an' Doc tended her. 'Tarford fever,' says Doc. But ol' Lazy Y Freeman paid the freight, an' he thinks about as much of the nesters as what he does of a rattlesnake. I was ridin' fer the Lazy Y outfit, an' fer quite a spell 'fore this tarford fever business the ol' man use to ride the barb wire along Beaver, reg'lar. Yeh know how loose ol' Lazy Y is with his change? A dollar don't loom no bigger to him than the side of Sugar Loaf Butte, an' it slips through his fingers as easy as a porkypine could back out of a gunnysack. Well, that there dose of tarford fever that the nester gal died of cost ol' Lazy Y jest a even thousan' bucks. An' Doc Godkins got it."
The cowpuncher paused and the bartender picked up his glass. "Drink up," he said, "an' have another. I do'no what yer talkin' about but it's jest as bad to not have enough red licker in under yer belt when y' go to make a ride as 'tis to have too much."
"Never yeh mind about the licker. I c'n reg'late my own drinks to suit me. Mebbe I got more'n a ride a-comin' to me 'fore tonight's over."
The bartender eyed him questioningly: "You usta win 'em all—buckin', an' ropin', an'——"
"Yes, I usta!" sneered the other. "An' I could now if it wasn't fer that Texas son of a ——! Fer three years hand runnin' he's drug down everything he's went into. He c'n out-rope me an' out-ride me, but he can't out-guess me! An' some day he's goin' to have to out-shoot me. I'm goin' to win the buckin' contest, an' the ropin', too. See?" The man's fist pounded the bar.
The bartender nodded; "Well, here's to you."
Once more Purdy fixed the man with his black-eyed stare. "Yes. But they's a heap more a-comin' from you than a 'here's to yeh.'"
"Meanin'?" asked the other, as he mechanically swabbed the bar.
"Meanin' that you an' Doc's goin' to help me do it. An' that hain't all. Tonight 'long 'bout dance time I want that saddle horse o' yourn an' yer sideways saddle, too. They's a gal o' mine come in on the train, which she'll be wantin', mebbe, to take a ride, an' hain't fetched no split-up clothes fer to straddle a real saddle. That sideways contraption you sent fer 'fore yer gal got to ridin' man-ways is the only one in Wolf River, an' likewise hern's the only horse that'll stand fer bein' rigged up in it."
"Sure. You're welcome to the horse an' saddle, Jack. The outfit's in the livery barn. Jest tell Ross to have him saddled agin' you want him. He's gentled down so's a woman c'n handle him all right."
"Uh, huh. An' how about the other? Y'goin' to do as I say 'bout that, too?"
The bartender opened a box behind him and selected a cigar which he lighted with extreme deliberation. "I told you onct I don't know what yer talkin' about. Lazy Y Freeman an' Doc Godkins's dirty work ain't none of my business. If you win, you win, an' that's all there is to it."
The cowpuncher laughed shortly, and his black eyes narrowed, as he leaned closer. "Oh, that's all, is it? Well, Mr. Cinnabar Joe, let me tell yeh that hain't all—by a damn sight!" He paused, but the other never took his eyes from his face. "Do yeh know what chloral is?" The man's voice lowered to a whisper and the words seemed to hiss from between his lips. The other shook his head. "Well, it's somethin' yeh slip into a man's licker that puts him to sleep."
"You mean drug? Dope!" The bartender's eyes narrowed and the corner of his mouth whitened where it gripped the cigar.
Purdy nodded: "Yes. It don't hurt no one, only it puts 'em to sleep fer mebbe it's three er four hours. I'll get some from Doc an' yer goin' to slip a little into Tex Benton's booze. Then he jest nach'lly dozes off an' the boys thinks he's spliflicated an' takes him down to the hotel an' puts him to bed, an' before he wakes up I'll have the buckin' contest, an' the ropin' contest, an' most of the rest of it in my war-bag. I hain't afraid of none of the rest of the boys hornin' in on the money—an' 'tain't the money I want neither; I want to win them contests particular—an' I'm a-goin' to."
Without removing his elbows from the bar, Cinnabar Joe nodded toward the door: "You git to hell out o' here!" he said, quietly. "I don't set in no game with you, see? I don't want none o' your chips. Of all the God-damned low-lived——"
"If I was you," broke in the cowpuncher with a meaning look, "I'd choke off 'fore I'd got in too fer to back out." Something in the glint of the black eyes caused the bartender to pause. Purdy laughed, tossed the butt of his cigarette to the floor, and began irrelevantly: "It's hell—jest hell with the knots an' bark left on—that Nevada wild horse range is." The cowpuncher noted that Cinnabar Joe ceased suddenly to puff his cigar. "It's about seven year, mebbe it's eight," he continued, "that an outfit got the idee that mebbe Pete Barnum had the wild horse business to hisself long enough. Four of 'em was pretty rough hands, an' the Kid was headed that way.
"Them that was there knows a heap more'n what I do about what they went through 'fore they got out o' the desert where water-holes was about as common as good Injuns. Anyways, this outfit didn't git no wild horses. They was good an' damn glad to git out with what horses they'd took in, an' a whole hide. They'd blow'd in all they had on their projec' an' they was broke when they headed fer Idaho." The bartender's cigar had gone out and the cowpuncher saw that his face was a shade paler. "Then a train stopped sudden one evenin' where they wasn't no station, an' after that the outfit busted up. But they wasn't broke no more, all but the Kid. They left him shift fer hisself. Couple o' years later two of the outfit drifted together in Cinnabar an' there they found the Kid drivin' a dude-wagon. Drivin' a dude-wagon through the park is a damn sight easier than huntin' wild horses, an' a damn sight safer than railroadin' with a Colt, so when the two hard hands stops the Kid's dude-wagon in the park, thinkin' they'd have a cinch goin' through the Kid's passengers, they got fooled good an' proper when the Kid pumps 'em full of .45 pills. After that the Kid come to be know'd as Cinnabar Joe, an' when the last of the dude-wagons was throw'd out fer automobiles the Kid drifted up into the cow country. But they's a certain express company that's still huntin' fer the gang—not knowin' o' course that the Cinnabar Joe that got notorious fer defendin' his dudes was one of 'em.'"
The cowpuncher ceased speaking and produced his "makings" while the other stood gazing straight before him, the dead cigar still gripped in the corner of his mouth. The scratch of the match roused him and quick as a flash he reached beneath the bar and the next instant had Purdy covered with a six-shooter. With his finger on the trigger Cinnabar Joe hesitated, and in that instant he learned that the man that faced him across the bar was as brave as he was unscrupulous. The fingers that twisted the little cylinder of paper never faltered and the black eyes looked straight into the muzzle of the gun.
Now, in the cow country the drawing of a gun is one and the same movement with the firing of it, and why Cinnabar Joe hesitated he did not know.
Purdy laughed: "Put her down, Cinnabar. Yeh won't shoot, now. Yeh see, I kind of figgered yeh might be sort o' riled up, so I left my gun in my slicker. Shootin' a unarmed man don't git yeh nothin' but a chanct to stretch a rope."
The bartender returned the gun to its place. "Where'd you git that dope, Jack?" he asked, in a dull voice.
"Well, seein' as yeh hain't so blood-thirsty no more, I'll tell yeh. I swung down into the bad lands couple weeks ago huntin' a bunch of mares that strayed off the south slope. I was follerin' down a mud-crack that opens into Big Dry when all to onct my horse jumps sideways an' like to got me. The reason fer which was a feller layin' on the ground where his horse had busted him agin' a rock. His back was broke an' he was mumblin'; which he must of laid there a day, mebbe two, cause his tongue an' lips was dried up till I couldn't hardly make out what he was sayin'. I catched here an' there a word about holdin' up a train an' he was mumblin' your name now an' agin so I fetched some water from a hole a mile away an' camped. He et a little bacon later but he was half crazy with the pain in his back. He'd yell when I walked near him on the ground, said it jarred him, an' when I tried to move him a little he fainted plumb away. But he come to agin an' begged me fer to hand him his Colt that had lit about ten feet away so he could finish the job. I seen they wasn't no use tryin' to git him nowheres. He was all in. But his mutterin' had interested me consid'ble. I figgers if he's a hold-up, chances is he's got a nice fat cache hid away somewheres, an' seein' he hain't never goin' to need it I might's well have the handlin' of it as let it rot where it's at. I tells him so an' agrees that if he tips off his cache to me I'll retaliate by givin' him the gun. He swears he ain't got no cache. He's blow'd everything he had, his nerve's gone, an' he's headin' fer Wolf River fer to gouge yeh out of some dinero. He claims yeh collected reward on them two yeh got in the Yellowstone an' what's more the dudes tuk up a collection of a thousan' bucks an' give it to yeh besides. You was his cache. So he handed me the dope I just sprung on yeh, an' he says besides that you an' him's the only ones left. The other one got his'n down in Mexico where he'd throw'd in with some Greaser bandits."
"An' what—— Did you give him the gun?" asked the bartender.
Purdy nodded: "Sure. He' done a good job, too. He was game, all right, never whimpered nor hung back on the halter. Jest stuck the gun in his mouth an' pulled the trigger. I was goin' to bury him but I heard them mares whinner down to the water-hole so I left him fer the buzzards an' the coyotes.
"About that there chloral. I'll slip over an' git it from Doc. An' say, I'm doin' the right thing by yeh. I could horn yeh fer a chunk o' that reward money, but I won't do a friend that way. An' more'n that," he paused and leaned closer. "I'll let you in on somethin' worth while one of these days. That there thousan' that ol' Lazy Y paid Doc hain't a patchin' to what he's goin' to fork over to me. See?"
Cinnabar Joe nodded, slowly, as he mouthed his dead cigar, and when he spoke it was more to himself than to Purdy. "I've played a square game ever since that time back on the edge of the desert. I don't want to have to do time fer that. It wouldn't be a square deal nohow, I was only a Kid then an' never got a cent of the money. Then, there's Jennie over to the hotel. We'd about decided that bartendin' an' hash-slingin' wasn't gittin' us nowheres an' we was goin' to hitch up an' turn nesters on a little yak outfit I've bought over on Eagle." He stopped abruptly and looked the cowpuncher squarely in the eye. "If it wasn't fer her, by God! I'd tell you jest as I did before, to git to hell out of here an' do your damnedest. But it would bust her all up if I had to do time fer a hold-up. You've got me where you want me, I guess. But I don't want in on no dirty money from old Lazy Y, nor no one else. You go it alone—it's your kind of a job.
"This here chloride, or whatever you call it, you sure it won't kill a man?"
Purdy laughed: "Course it won't. It'll only put him to sleep till I've had a chanct to win out. I'll git the stuff from Doc an' find out how much is a dost, an' you kin' slip it in his booze."
As the cowpuncher disappeared through the door, Cinnabar Joe's eyes narrowed. "You damn skunk!" he muttered, biting viciously upon the stump of his cigar. "If you was drinkin' anything I'd switch glasses on you, an' then shoot it out with you when you come to. From now on it's you or me. You've got your hooks into me an' this is only the beginnin'." The man stopped abruptly and stared for a long time at the stove-pipe hole in the opposite wall. Then, turning, he studied his reflection in the mirror behind the bottles and glasses. He tossed away his cigar, straightened his necktie, and surveyed himself from a new angle.
"This here Tex, now," he mused. "He sure is a rantankerous cuss when he's lickered up. He'd jest as soon ride his horse through that door as he would to walk through, an' he's always puttin' somethin' over on someone. But he's a man. He'd go through hell an' high water fer a friend. He was the only one of the whole outfit had the guts to tend Jimmy Trimble when he got the spotted fever—nursed him back to good as ever, too, after the Doc had him billed through fer yonder." Cinnabar Joe turned and brought his fist down on the bar. "I'll do it!" he gritted. "Purdy'll think Tex switched the drinks on me. Only I hope he wasn't lyin' about that there stuff. Anyways, even if he was, it's one of them things a man's got to do. An' I'll rest a whole lot easier in my six by two than what I would if I give Tex the long good-bye first." Unconsciously, the man began to croon the dismal wail of the plains:
"O bury me not on the lone praire-e-e
In a narrow grave six foot by three,
Where the buzzard waits and the wind blows free,
Then bury me not on the lone praire-e-e.
Yes, we buried him there on the lone praire-e-e
Where the owl all night hoots mournfulle-e-e
And the blizzard beats and the wind blows free
O'er his lonely grave on the lone praire-e-e.
And the cowboys now as they roam the plain"——
"Hey, choke off on that!" growled Purdy as he advanced with rattling spurs. "Puts me in mind of him—back there in Big Dry. 'Spose I ort to buried him, but it don't make no difference, now." He passed a small phial across the bar. "Fifteen or twenty drops," he said laconically, and laughed. "Nothin' like keepin' yer eyes an' ears open. Doc kicked like a steer first, but he seen I had his hide hung on the fence onless he loosened up. But he sure wouldn't weep none at my demise. If ever I git sick I'll have some other Doc. I'd as soon send fer a rattlesnake." The man glanced at the clock. "It's workin' 'long to'ards noon, I'll jest slip down to the Long Horn an' stampede the bunch over here."
In the dining car of the side-tracked train Alice Marcum's glance strayed from the face of her table companion to the window. Another cavalcade of riders had swept into town and with a chorus of wild yells the crowd in the Long Horn surged out to greet them. A moment later the dismounted ones rushed to their horses, leaped into the saddles and, joined by the newcomers, dashed at top speed for perhaps thirty yards and dismounted to crowd into another saloon across whose front the word HEADQUARTERS was emblazoned in letters of flaming red.
"They're just like a lot of boys," exclaimed the girl with a smile,
"The idea of anybody mounting a horse to ride that distance!"
"They're a rough lot, I guess." Winthrop Adams Endicott studied his menu card.
"Rough! Of course they're rough! Why shouldn't they be rough? Think of the work they do—rain or shine, riding out there on the plains. When they get to town they've earned the right to play as they want to play! I'd be rough, too, if I lived the life they live. And if I were a man I'd be right over there with them this minute."
"Why be a man?" smiled Endicott. "You have the Mayor's own word for the breadth of Wolf River's ideas. As for myself, I don't drink and wouldn't enjoy that sort of thing. Besides, if I were over there I would have to forgo——"
"No pretty little speeches, please. At least you can spare me that."
"But, Alice, I mean it, really. And——"
"Save 'em for the Cincinnati girls. They'll believe 'em. Who do you think will win this afternoon. Let's bet! I'll bet you a—an umbrella against a pair of gloves, that my cavalier of the yellow fur trousers will win the bucking contest, and——"
"Our train may pull out before the thing is over, and we would never know who won."
"Oh, yes we will, because we're going to stay for the finish. Why, I wouldn't miss this afternoon's fun if forty trains pulled out!"
"I ought to be in Chicago day after tomorrow," objected the man.
"I ought to be, too. But I'm not going to be. For Heaven's sake,
Winthrop, for once in your life, do something you oughtn't to do!"
"All right," laughed the man with a gesture of surrender. "And for the rope throwing contest I'll pick the other."
"What other?" The girl's eyes strayed past the little wooden buildings of the town to the clean-cut rim of the bench.
"Why the other who rode after your handkerchief. The fellow who lassoed the honourable Mayor and was guilty of springing the pun."
The girl nodded with her eyes still on the skyline. "Oh, yes. He seemed—somehow—different. As if people amused him. As if everything were a joke and he were the only one who knew it was a joke. I could hate a man like that. The other, Mr. Purdy, hates him."
The man regarded her with an amused smile: "You keep a sort of mental card index. I should like to have just a peep at my card."
"Cards sometimes have to be rewritten—and sometimes it really isn't worth while to fill them out again. Come on, let's go. People are beginning to gather for the fun and I want a good seat. There's a lumber pile over there that'll be just the place, if we hurry."
In the Headquarters saloon Tex Benton leaned against the end of the bar and listened to a Bear Paw Pool man relate how they took in a bunch of pilgrims with a badger game down in Glasgow. Little knots of cowpunchers stood about drinking at the bar or discussing the coming celebration.
"They've got a bunch of bad ones down in the corral," someone said. "That ol' roman nose, an' the wall-eyed pinto, besides a lot of snorty lookin' young broncs. I tell yeh if Tex draws either one of them ol' outlaws it hain't no cinch he'll grab off this ride. The hombre that throws his kak on one of them is a-goin' to do a little sky-ballin' 'fore he hits the dirt, you bet. But jest the same I'm here to bet ten to eight on him before the drawin'."
Purdy who had joined the next group turned at the words.
"I'll jest take that," he snapped. "Because Tex has drug down the last two buckin' contests hain't no sign he c'n go south with 'em all." At the end of the bar Tex grinned as he saw Purdy produce a roll of bills.
"An', by gosh!" the Bear Paw Pool man was saying, "when they'd all got their money down an' the bull dog was a-clawin' the floor to git at the badger, an' the pilgrims was crowded around with their eyes a-bungin' out of their heads, ol' Two Dot Wilson, he shoves the barrel over an' they wasn't a doggone thing in under it but a——"
"What yeh goin' to have, youse?" Purdy had caught sight of Tex who stood between the Bear Paw Pool man and Bat Lajune. "I'm bettin' agin' yeh winnin' the buckin' contest, but I'll buy yeh a drink."
Tex grinned as his eyes travelled with slow insolence over the other's outfit.
"You're sure got up some colourful, Jack," he drawled. "If you sh'd happen to crawl up into the middle of one of them real outlaws they got down in the corral, an' quit him on the top end of a high one, you're a-goin' to look like a rainbow before you git back."
The other scowled: "I guess if I tie onto one of them outlaws yeh'll see me climb off 'bout the time the money's ready. Yeh Texas fellers comes up here an' makes yer brag about showin' us Montana boys how to ride our own horses. But it's real money talks! I don't notice you backin' up yer brag with no real dinero."
Tex was still smiling. "That's because I ain't found anyone damn fool enough to bet agin' me."
"Didn't I jest tell yeh I was bettin' agin' you?"
"Don't bet enough to hurt you none. How much you got, three dollars?
An' how much odds you got to get before you'll risk 'em?"
Purdy reached for his hip pocket. "Jest to show yeh what I think of yer ridin' I'll bet yeh even yeh don't win."
"Well," drawled the Texan, "seein' as they won't be only about ten fellows ride, that makes the odds somewhere around ten to one, which is about right. How much you want to bet?"
With his fingers clutching his roll of bills, Purdy's eyes sought the face of Cinnabar Joe. For an instant he hesitated and then slammed the roll onto the bar.
"She goes as she lays. Count it!"
The bartender picked up the money and ran it through. "Eighty-five," he announced, laconically.
"That's more'n I got on me," said Tex ruefully, as he smoothed out three or four crumpled bills and capped the pile with a gold piece.
Purdy sneered: "It's money talks," he repeated truculently. "'Tain't hardly worth while foolin' with no piker bets but if that's the best yeh c'n do I'll drag down to it." He reached for his roll.
"Hold on!" The Texan was still smiling but there was a hard note in his voice. "She goes as she lays." He turned to the half-breed who stood close at his elbow.
"Bat. D'you recollect one night back in Las Vegas them four bits I loant you? Well, just you shell out about forty dollars interest on them four bits an' we'll call it square for a while." The half-breed smiled broadly and handed over his roll.
"Forty-five, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty—" counted Tex, and with a five-dollar bill between his thumb and forefinger, eyed Purdy condescendingly: "I'm a-goin' to let you drag down that five if you want to," he said, "'cause you've sure kissed good-bye to the rest of it. They ain't any of your doggoned Montana school-ma'm-cayuses but what I c'n ride slick-heeled, an' with my spurs on—" he paused; "better drag down the five. You might need a little loose change if that girl should happen to get thirsty between dances."
"Jest leave it lay," retorted Purdy; "an' at that, I'll bet I buy her more drinks than what you do."
Tex laughed: "Sure. But there ain't nothin' in buyin' 'em drinks. I've bought 'em drinks all night an' then some other hombre'd step in an'——"
"I'd bet yeh on that, too. I didn't notice her fallin' no hell of a ways fer you."
"Mebbe not. I wasn't noticin' her much. I was kind of studyin' the pilgrim that was along with her."
"What's he got to do with it?"
"That's what I was tryin' to figger out. But, hey, Cinnabar, how about that drink? I'm dry as a post-hole."
"Fill 'em up, Cinnabar. I'm makin' this noise," seconded Purdy. And as the Texan turned to greet an acquaintance, he caught out of the tail of his eye the glance that flashed between Purdy and the bartender. Noticed, also out of the tail of his eye, that, contrary to custom, Cinnabar filled the glasses himself and that a few drops of colourless liquid splashed from the man's palm into the liquor that was shoved toward him. The Texan knew that Purdy had watched the operation interestedly and that he straightened with an audible sigh of relief at its conclusion. "Come on, drink up!" Purdy raised his glass as Tex faced the bar with narrowed eyes.
"What's them fellows up to?" cried Cinnabar Joe, and as Purdy turned, glass in hand, to follow his glance Tex saw the bartender swiftly substitute his own glass for the one into which he had dropped the liquid.
The next instant Purdy was again facing him. "What fellers?" he asked sharply.
Cinnabar Joe laughed: "Oh, that Bear Paw Pool bunch. Fellow's got to keep his eye peeled whenever they git their heads together. Here's luck."
For only an instant did Tex hesitate while his brain worked rapidly. "There's somethin' bein' pulled off here," he reasoned, "that I ain't next to. If that booze was doped why did Cinnabar drink it? Anyways, he pulled that stall on Purdy fer some reason an' it's up to me to see him through with it. But if I do git doped it won't kill me an' when I come alive they's a couple of fellows goin' to have to ride like hell to keep ahead of me."
He drank the liquor and as he returned the glass to the bar he noted the glance of satisfaction that flashed into Purdy's eyes.
"Come on, boys, let's git things a-goin'!" Mayor Maloney stood in the doorway and beamed good humouredly: "'Tain't every cowtown's got a bank an' us Wolf Riverites has got to do ourself proud. Every rancher an' nester in forty mile around has drove in. The flat's rimmed with wagons an' them train folks is cocked up on the lumber piles a-chickerin' like a prairie-dog town. We'll pull off the racin' an' trick ridin' an' shootin' first an' save the ropin' an' buckin' contests to finish off on. Come on, you've all had enough to drink. Jump on your horses an' ride out on the flat like hell was tore loose fer recess. Then when I denounce what's a-comin', them that's goin' to complete goes at it, an' the rest pulls off to one side an' looks on 'til their turn comes."
A six-shooter roared and a bullet crashed into the ceiling.
"Git out of the way we're a-goin' by!" howled someone, and instantly the chorus drowned the rattle of spurs and the clatter of high-heeled boots as the men crowded to the door.
"Cowboys out on a yip ti yi!
Coyotes howl and night birds cry
And we'll be cowboys 'til we die!"
Out in the street horses snorted and whirled against each other, spurs rattled, and leather creaked as the men leaped into their saddles. With a thunder of hoofs, a whirl of white dust, the slapping of quirts and ropes against horses' flanks, the wicked bark of forty-fives, and a series of Comanche-like yells the cowboys dashed out onto the flat. Once more Tex Benton found himself drawn up side by side with Jack Purdy before the girl, for whose handkerchief they had raced. Both waved their hats, and Alice smiled as she waved her handkerchief in return.
"Looks like I was settin' back with an ace in the hole, so far," muttered Tex, audibly.
Purdy scowled: "Ace in the hole's all right sometimes. But it's the lad that trails along with a pair of deuces back to back that comes up with the chips, cashin' in time."
Slim Maloney announced a quarter-mile dash and when Purdy lined up with the starters, Tex quietly eased his horse between two wagons, and, slipping around behind the lumber-piles, rode back to the Headquarters Saloon. The place was deserted and in a chair beside a card table, with his head buried in his arms, sat Cinnabar Joe, asleep. The cowpuncher crossed the room and shook him roughly by the shoulder:
"Hey, Joe—wake up!"
The man rolled uneasily and his eyelids drew heavily apart. He mumbled incoherently.
"Wake up, Joe!" The Texan redoubled his efforts but the other relapsed into a stupor from which it was impossible to rouse him.
A man hurrying past in the direction of the flats paused for a moment to peer into the open door. Tex glanced up as he hurried on.
"Doc!" There was no response and the cowpuncher crossed to the door at a bound. The street was deserted, and without an instant's hesitation he dashed into the livery and feed barn next door whose wide aperture yawned deserted save for the switching of tails and the stamping of horses' feet in the stalls. The door of the harness room stood slightly ajar and Tex jerked it open and entered. Harness and saddles littered the floor and depended from long wooden pegs set into the wall while upon racks hung sweatpads and saddle blankets of every known kind and description. Between the floor and the lower edge of the blankets that occupied a rack at the farther side of the room a pair of black leather shoes showed.
"Come on, Doc, let's go get a drink." The shoes remained motionless. "Gosh! There's a rat over in under them blankets!" A forty-five hammer was drawn back with a sharp click. The shoes left the floor simultaneously and the head and shoulders of a man appeared above the rack.
"Eh! Was someone calling me?"
"Yeh, I was speakin' of rats——"
"My hearing's getting bad. I was fishing around for my saddle blanket.
Those barn dogs never put anything where it belongs."
"That's right. I said let's go get a drink. C'n you hear that?" Tex noted that the man's face was white and that he was eyeing him intently, as he approached through the litter.
"Just had one, thanks. Was on my way down to the flats to see the fun, and thought I'd see if my blanket had dried out all right."
"Yes? Didn't you hear me when I hollered at you in the saloon a minute ago?"
"No. Didn't know any one was in there."
"You're in a hell of a fix with your eyesight an' hearin' all shot to pieces, ain't you? But I reckon they're goin' to be the best part of you if you don't come along with me. Cinnabar Joe's be'n doped."
"Cinnabar Joe!" The doctor's surprise was genuine.
"Yes. Cinnabar Joe. An' you better get on the job an' bring him to, or they'll be tossin' dry ones in on top of you about tomorrow. Sold any drugs that w'd do a man that way, lately?"
The doctor knitted his brow. "Why let's see. I don't remember——"
"Your mem'ry ain't no better'n what your eyesight an' hearin' is, is it? I reckon mebbe a little jolt might get it to workin'." As Tex talked even on, his fist shot out and landed squarely upon the other's nose and the doctor found himself stretched at full length among the saddles and odds and ends of harness. Blood gushed from his nose and flowed in a broad wet stream across his cheek. He struggled weakly to his feet and interposed a shaking arm.
"I didn't do anything to you," he whimpered.
"No. I'm the one that's doin'. Is your parts workin' better? 'Cause if they ain't——"
"What do you want to know? I'll tell you!" The man spoke hurriedly as he cringed from the doubling fist.
"I know you sold the dope, 'cause when I told you about Cinnabar you wasn't none surprised at the dope—but at who'd got it. You sold it to Jack Purdy an' you knew he aimed to give it to me. What's more, your eyesight an' hearin' is as good as mine. You seen me an' heard me in the saloon an' you was scairt an' run an' hid in the harness room. You're a coward, an' a crook, an' a damn liar! Wolf River don't need you no more. You're a-comin' along with me an' fix Cinnabar up an' then you're a-goin' to go down to the depot an' pick you out a train that don't make no local stops an' climb onto it an' ride 'til you get where the buffalo grass don't grow. That is, onless Cinnabar should happen to cash in. If he does——"
"He won't! He won't! It's only chloral. A little strychnine will fix him up."
"Better get busy then. 'Cause if he ain't to in an hour or so you're a-goin' to flutter on the down end of a tight one. These here cross-arms on the railroad's telegraph poles is good an' stout an' has the added advantage of affordin' good observation for all, which if you use a cottonwood there's always some that can't see good on account of limbs an' branches bein' in the road——"
"Come over to the office 'til I get what I need and I'll bring him around all right!" broke in the doctor and hurried away, with the cowpuncher close at his heels.
As Mayor Maloney had said, every rancher and nester within forty miles of Wolf River had driven into town for the celebration. Farm wagons, spring wagons, and automobiles were drawn wheel to wheel upon both sides of the flat. From the vehicles women and children in holiday attire applauded the feats of the cowboys with cheers and the waving of handkerchiefs, while the men stood about in groups and watched with apparent indifference as they talked of fences and flumes.
From the top of the lumber piles, and the long low roof of the wool warehouse, the train passengers entered into the spirit of the fun gasping in horror at some seemingly miraculous escape from death beneath the pounding hoofs of the cow-horses, only to cheer themselves hoarse when they saw that the apparent misadventure had been purposely staged for their benefit.
Races were won by noses. Hats, handkerchiefs, and even coins were snatched from the ground by riders who hung head and shoulder below their horses' bellies. Mounts were exchanged at full gallop. Playing cards were pierced by the bullets of riders who dashed past them at full speed. And men emptied their guns in the space of seconds without missing a shot.
In each event the gaudily caparisoned Jack Purdy was at the fore, either winning or crowding the winner to his supremest effort. And it was Purdy who furnished the real thrill of the shooting tournament when, with a six-shooter in each hand, he jumped an empty tomato can into the air at fifteen paces by sending a bullet into the ground beneath its base and pierced it with a bullet from each gun before it returned to earth.
A half-dozen times he managed to slip over for a few words with Alice Marcum—a bit of explanation of a coming event, or a comment upon the fine points of a completed one, until unconsciously the girl's interest centred upon the dashing figure to an extent that she found herself following his every movement, straining forward when his supremacy hung in the balance, keenly disappointed when another wrested the honours from him, and jubilantly exultant at his victories. So engrossed was she in fallowing the fortunes of her knight that she failed to notice the growing disapproval of Endicott, who sat frowning and silent by her side. Failed, also, to notice that as Purdy's attentions waxed more obvious she herself became the object of many a glance, and lip to ear observation from the occupants of the close-drawn vehicles.
It was while Mayor Maloney was announcing the roping contest and explaining that the man who "roped, throw'd, an' hog-tied" his steer in the least number of seconds, would be the winner, that the girl's thoughts turned to the cowpuncher who earlier in the day had so skilfully demonstrated his ability with the lariat.
In vain her eyes sought the faces of the cowboys. She turned to Purdy who had edged his horse close beside the lumber pile.
"Where is your friend—the one who raced with you for my handkerchief?" she asked. "I haven't seen him since you both rode up in that first wild rush. He hasn't been in any of the contests."
"No, mom," answered the cowpuncher, in tones of well-simulated regret; "he's—he's prob'ly over to some saloon. He's a good man some ways, Tex is. But he can't keep off the booze."
Kicking his feet from the stirrups the man stood upright in his saddle and peered over the top of an intervening pile of lumber. "Yes, I thought so. His horse is over in front of the Headquarters. Him an' Cinnabar Joe's prob'ly holdin' a booze histin' contest of their own." Slipping easily into his seat, he unfastened the rope from his saddle, and began slowly to uncoil it.
"All ready!" called the Mayor. "Go git him!"
A huge black steer dashed out into the open with a cowboy in full pursuit, his loop swinging slowly above his head. Down the middle of the flat they tore, the loop whirling faster as the horseman gained on his quarry. Suddenly the rope shot out, a cloud of white dust rose into the air as the cow-horse stopped in his tracks, a moment of suspense, and the black steer dashed frantically about seeking an avenue of escape while in his wake trailed the rope like a long thin snake with its fangs fastened upon the frantic brute's neck. A roar of laughter went up from the crowd and Purdy turned to the girl. "Made a bad throw an' got him around the neck," he explained. "When you git 'em that way you got to turn 'em loose or they'll drag you all over the flat. A nine-hundred-pound horse hain't got no show ag'in a fifteen-hundred-pound steer with the rope on his neck. An' even if the horse would hold, the cinch wouldn't, so he's out of it."
The black steer was rounded up and chased from the arena, and once more
Mayor Maloney, watch in hand, cried "Go git him!"
Another steer dashed out and another cowboy with whirling loop thundered after him. The rope fell across the animal's shoulders and the loop swung under. The horse stopped, and the steer, his fore legs jerked from under him, fell heavily. To make his rope fast to the saddle-horn and slip to the ground leaving the horse to fight it out with the captive, was the work of a moment for the cowboy who approached the struggling animal, short rope in hand. Purdy who was leaning over his saddle-horn, watching the man's every move, gave a cry of relief.
"He's up behind! That'll fix your clock!" Sure enough, the struggling animal had succeeded in regaining his hind legs and while the horse, with the cunning of long practice, kept his rope taut, the steer plunged about to such good purpose that precious seconds passed before the cowboy succeeded in making his tie-rope fast to a hind foot, jerking it from under the struggling animal, and securing it to the opposite fore foot.
"Three minutes an' forty-three seconds!" announced the Mayor. "Git ready for the next one. . . . Go git him!"
This time the feat was accomplished in a little over two minutes and the successful cowboy was greeted with a round of applause. Several others missed their throws or got into difficulty, and Purdy turned to the girl:
"If I got any luck at all I'd ort to grab off this here contest. They hain't be'n no fancy ropin' done yet. If I c'n hind-leg mine they won't be nothin' to it." He rode swiftly away and a moment later, to the Mayor's "Go git him!" dashed out after a red and white steer that plunged down the field with head down and tail lashing the air. Purdy crowded his quarry closer than had any of the others and with a swift sweep of his loop enmeshed the two hind legs of the steer. The next moment the animal was down and the cowpuncher had a hind foot fast in the tie rope, Several seconds passed as the man fought for a fore foot—seconds which to the breathlessly watching girl seemed hours. Suddenly he sprang erect. "One minute an' forty-nine seconds!" announced the Mayor and the crowd cheered wildly.
Upon the lumber pile Alice Marcum ceased her handclapping as her eyes met those of a cowboy who had ridden up unobserved and sat his horse at almost the exact spot that had, a few moments before, been occupied by Purdy. She was conscious of a start of surprise. The man sat easily in his saddle, and his eyes held an amused smile. Once more the girl found herself resenting the smile that drew down the corner of the thin lips and managed to convey an amused tolerance or contempt on the part of its owner toward everything and everyone that came within its radius.
"If they hain't no one else wants to try their hand," began the Mayor, when the Texan interrupted him:
"Reckon I'll take a shot at it if you've got a steer handy."
"Well, dog my cats! If I hadn't forgot you! Where you be'n at? If you'd of got here on time you'd of stood a show gittin' one of them steers that's be'n draw'd. You hain't got no show now 'cause the onliest one left is a old long-geared roan renegade that's on the prod——"
Tex yawned: "Jest you tell 'em to run him in, Slim, an' I'll show you how we-all bust 'em wide open down in Texas."
Three or four cowpunchers started for the corral with a whoop and a few minutes later the men who had been standing about in groups began to clamber into wagons or seek refuge behind the wheels as the lean roan steer shot out onto the flat bounding this way and that, the very embodiment of wild-eyed fury. But before he had gone twenty yards there was a thunder of hoofs in his wake and a cow-horse, his rider motionless as a stone image in his saddle, closed up the distance until he was running almost against the flank of the frenzied renegade. There was no preliminary whirling of rope. The man rode with his eyes fixed on the flying hind hoofs while a thin loop swung from his right hand, extended low and a little back.
Suddenly—so suddenly that the crowd was still wondering why the man didn't swing his rope, there was a blur of white dust, a brown streak as the cow-horse shot across the forefront of the big steer, the thud of a heavy body on the ground, the glimpse of a man-among the thrashing hoofs, and then a mighty heaving as the huge steer strained against the rope that bound his feet, while the cowboy shoved the Stetson to the back of his head and felt for his tobacco and papers.
"Gosh sakes!" yelled Mayor Maloney excitedly as he stared at the watch in his hand. "Fifty-seven seconds! They can't beat that down to Cheyenne!"
At the words, a mighty cheer went up from the crowd and everybody was talking at once. While over beside the big steer the cowboy mounted his pony and coiling his rope as he rode, joined the group of riders who lounged in their saddles and grinned their appreciation.
"Ladies an' gents," began the Mayor, "you have jest witnessed a ropin' contest the winner of which is Tex Benton to beat who McLaughlin himself would have to do his da—doggondest! We will now conclood the afternoon's galaxity of spurious stars, as the circus bills says, with a buckin' contest which unneedless to say will conclood the afternoon's celebration of the openin' of a institoot that it's a credit to any town in reference to which I mean the Wolf River Citizen's Bank in which we invite to whose vaults a fair share of your patrimony. While the boys is gittin' ready an' drawin' their horses a couple of gents will pass amongst you an' give out to one an' all, ladies an' gents alike, an' no favorytes played, a ticket good fer a free drink in any saloon in Wolf River on the directors of the bank I have endeavoured to explain about which. After which they'll be a free feed at the _ho_tel also on the directors. Owin' to the amount of folks on hand this here will be pulled off in relays, ladies furst, as they hain't room fer all to onct, but Hank, here, claims he's got grub enough on hand so all will git a chanct to shove right out ag'in their belt. An' I might say right here in doo elegy of our feller townsman that Hank c'n set out as fillin' an' tasty a meal of vittles as anyone ever cocked a lip over, barrin', of course, every married man's wife.
"Draw your horses, boys, an' git a-goin'!"
Alice Marcum's surprise at Tex Benton's remarkable feat, after what Purdy had told her, was nothing to the surprise and rage of Purdy himself who had sat like an image throughout the performance. When the Mayor began his oration Purdy's eyes flashed rapidly over the crowd and seeing that neither Cinnabar Joe nor the doctor were present, slipped his horse around the end of the lumber pile and dashed for the doctor's office. "That damn Doc'll wisht he hadn't never double-crossed me!" he growled, as he swung from the saddle before the horse had come to a stop. The office was empty and the man turned to the Headquarters saloon. Inside were the two men he sought, and he approached them with a snarl.
"What the hell did yeh double-cross me for?" he shouted in a fury.
The doctor pointed to Cinnabar Joe who, still dazed from the effect of the drug, leaned upon the table. "I didn't double-cross you. The wrong man got the dope, that's all."
Cinnabar Joe regarded Purdy dully. "He switched glasses," he muttered thickly.
A swift look of fear flashed into Purdy's eyes. "How'n hell did he know we fixed his licker?" he cried, for well he realized that if the Texan had switched glasses he was cognizant of the attempt to dope him. Moistening his lips with his tongue, the cowpuncher turned abruptly on his heel. "Guess I'll be gittin' back where they's a lot of folks around," he muttered as he mounted his horse. "I got to try an' figger out if he knows it was me got Cinnabar to dope his booze. An' if he does—" The man's face turned just a shade paler beneath the tan—— "I got to lay off this here buckin' contest. I hain't got the guts to tackle it."
"Have you drawn your horse?" he had reached the lumber pile and the girl was smiling down at him. He shook his head dolefully.
"No, mom, I hain't a-goin' to ride. I spraint my shoulder ropin' that steer an' I just be'n over to see doc an' he says I should keep offen bad horses fer a spell. It's sure tough luck, too, 'cause I c'd of won if I c'd of rode. But I s'pose I'd ort to be satisfied, I drug down most of the other money—all but the ropin', an' I'd of had that if it hadn't of be'n fer Tex Benton's luck. An' he'll win ag'in, chances is—if his cinch holds. Here he comes now; him an' that breed. They hain't never no more'n a rope's len'th apart. Tex must have somethin' on him the way he dogs him around."
The girl followed his glance to the Texan who approached accompanied by Bat Lajune and a cowboy who led from the horn of his saddle a blaze-faced bay with a roman nose. As the three drew nearer the girl could see the mocking smile upon his lips as his eyes rested for a moment on Purdy. "I don't like that man," she said, as though speaking to herself, "and yet——"
"Plenty others don't like him, too," growled Purdy. "I'm glad he's draw'd that roman nose, 'cause he's the out-buckin'est outlaw that ever grow'd hair—him an' that pinto, yonder, that's hangin' back on the rope."
The Texan drew up directly in front of the lumber pile and ignoring Purdy entirely, raised his Stetson to the girl. The direct cutting of Purdy had been obviously rude and Alice Marcum felt an increasing dislike for the man. She returned his greeting with a perfunctory nod and instantly felt her face grow hot with anger. The Texan was laughing at her—was regarding her with an amused smile.
A yell went up from the crowd and out on the flat beyond the Texan, a horse, head down and back humped like an angry cat, was leaping into the air and striking the ground stiff-legged in a vain effort to shake the rider from his back.
"'Bout as lively as a mud turtle. He'll sulk in a minute," laughed the Texan, and true to the prophecy, the horse ceased his efforts and stood with legs wide apart and nose to the ground.
"Whoopee!"
"He's a ringtailed woozoo!"
"Thumb him!"
"Scratch him!"
The crowd laughed and advised, and the cowboy thumbed and scratched, but the broncho's only sign of animation was a vicious switching of the tail.
"Next horse!" cried the Mayor, and a horse shot out, leaving the ground before the rider was in the saddle. Straight across the flat he bucked with the cowboy whipping higher and higher in the saddle as he tried in vain to catch his right stirrup.
"He's a goner!"
"He's clawin' leather!"
To save himself a fall the rider had grabbed the horn of the saddle, and for him the contest was over.
"Come on, Bat, we'll throw the shell on this old buzzard-head. I'm number seven an' there's three down!" called the Texan.
The two swung from the saddles and the roman-nosed outlaw pricked his ears and set against the rope with fore legs braced. The cowboy who had him in tow took an extra dally around the saddle horn as the Texan, hackamore in hand, felt his way inch by inch along the taut lead-rope. As the man's hand touched his nose the outlaw shuddered and braced back until only the whites of his eyes showed. Up came the hand and the rawhide hackamore slipped slowly into place.
"He's a-goin' to ride with a hackamore!" cried someone as the Texan busied himself with the knots. Suddenly the lead-rope slackened and with a snort of fury the outlaw reared and lashed out with both forefeet. The Texan stepped swiftly aside and as the horse's feet struck the ground the loaded end of a rawhide quirt smashed against his jaw.
Bat Lajune removed the saddle from the Texan's horse and stepped forward with the thick felt pad which Tex, with a hand in the cheek-strap of the hackamore, brushed along the outlaw's sides a few times and then deftly threw over the animal's back. The horse, braced against the rope, stood trembling in every muscle while Bat brought forward the saddle with the right stirrup-leather and cinch thrown back over the seat. As he was about to hand it to the Texan he stopped suddenly and examined the cinch. Then without a word carried it back, unsaddled his own horse, and taking the cinch from his saddle exchanged it for the other.
"Just as easy to switch cinches as it is drinks, ain't it, Bat?" grinned Tex.
"Ba Goss! Heem look lak' Circle J boun' for be wan man short," replied the half-breed, and the girl, upon whom not a word nor a move had been lost, noticed that Purdy's jaw tightened as the Texan laughed at the apparently irrelevant remark.
The outlaw shuddered as the heavy saddle was thrown upon his back and the cinch ring deftly caught with a loop of rope and made fast.
Out on the flat number four, on the pinto outlaw, had hit the dirt, number five had ridden through on a dead one, and number six had quit his in mid-air.
"Next horse—number seven!" called the Mayor. The cowboy who had the broncho in tow headed out on the flat prepared to throw off his dallies and two others, including Purdy, rode forward quirt in hand, to haze the hate-blinded outlaw from crashing into the wagons. With his hand gripping the cheek-strap, Tex turned and looked straight into Purdy's eyes.
"Go crawl under a wagon an' chaw a bone," he said in a low even voice, "I'll whistle when I want you." For an instant the men's glances locked, while the onlookers held their breath. Purdy was not a physical coward. The insult was direct, uttered distinctly, and in the hearing of a crowd. At his hip was the six-gun with which he had just won a shooting contest—yet he did not draw. The silence was becoming painful when the man shrugged, and without a word, turned his horse away. Someone laughed, and the tension broke with a hum of low-voiced conversation.
"Next horse, ready!"
As the crowd drew back Alice Marcum leaned close to Purdy's ear.
"I think it was splendid!" she whispered; "it was the bravest thing I ever saw." The man could scarcely believe his ears.
"Is she kiddin' me?" he wondered, as he forced his glance to the girl's face. But no, she was in earnest, and in her eyes the man read undisguised admiration. She was speaking again.
"Any one of these," she indicated the crowd with a sweep of her gloved hand, "would have shot him, but it takes a real man to preserve perfect self-control under insult."
The cowpuncher drew a long breath. "Yes; mom," he answered; "it was pretty tough to swaller that. But somehow I kind of—of hated to shoot him." Inwardly he was puzzled. What did the girl mean? He realized that she was in earnest and that he had suddenly become a hero in her eyes. Fate was playing strangely into his hands. A glitter of triumph flashed into his eyes, a glitter that faded into a look of wistfulness as they raised once more to hers.
"Would you go to the dance with me tonight, mom? These others—they don't git me right. They'll think I didn't dast to shoot it out with him."
The girl hesitated, and the cowpuncher continued. "The transfer train's pulled out an' the trussle won't be fixed 'til mornin', you might's well take in the dance."
Beside her Endicott moved uneasily. "Certainly not!" he exclaimed curtly as his eyes met Purdy's. And then, to the girl, "If you are bound to attend that performance you can go with me."
"Oh, I can go with you, can I?" asked the girl sweetly. "Well thank you so much, Winthrop, but really you will have to excuse me. Mr. Purdy asked me first." There was a sudden flash of daring in her eyes as she turned to the cowpuncher. "I shall be very glad to go," she said; "will you call for me at the car?"
"I sure will," he answered, and turned his eyes toward the flats. This was to be his night, his last on the Wolf River range, he realized savagely. In the morning he must ride very far away. For before the eyes of all Wolf River he had swallowed an insult. And the man knew that Wolf River knew why he did not shoot.
Out on the flat the Texan was riding "straight up" amid a whirl of white dust.
"Fan him, Tex!"
"Stay with him!"
The cries of the cowboys cut high above the chorus of yelling applause as the furious outlaw tried every known trick to unseat the rider. High in the air he bucked, swapping ends like a flash, and landing with all four feet "on a dollar," his legs stiff as jack-pine posts. The Texan rode with one hand gripping the hackamore rope and the other his quirt which stung and bit into the frenzied animal's shoulders each time he hit the ground. In a perfect storm of fury the horse plunged, twisted, sunfished, and bucked to free himself of the rider who swayed easily in the saddle and raked him flank and sides with his huge rowelled spurs.
"Stay a long time!"
"Scratch him, Tex!" yelled the delighted cowpunchers.
Suddenly the yells of appreciation gave place to gasps even from the initiated, as the rage-crazed animal leaped high into the air and throwing himself backward, crashed to the ground squarely upon his back. As the dust cloud lifted the Texan stood beside him, one foot still in the stirrup, slashing right and left across the struggling brute's ears with his braided quirt. The outlaw leaped to his feet with the cowboy in the saddle and the crowd went wild. Then with the enthusiasm at its height, the man jerked at his hackamore knot, and the next moment the horse's head was free and the rider rode "on his balance" without the sustaining grip on the hackamore rope to hold him firm in his saddle. The sudden loosening of the rawhide thongs gave the outlaw new life. He sunk his head and redoubled his efforts, as with quirt in one hand and hackamore in the other the cowboy lashed his shoulders while his spurs raked the animal to a bloody foam. Slower and slower the outlaw fought, pausing now and then to scream shrilly as with bared teeth and blazing eyes he turned this way and that, sucking the air in great blasts through his blood-dripping nostrils.
At last he was done. Conquered. For a moment he stood trembling in every muscle, and as he sank slowly to his knees, the Texan stepped smiling from the saddle.
"Sometime, Slim," he grinned as he reached for his tobacco and papers, "if you-all can get holt of a horse that ain't plumb gentle, I'll show you a real ride."
All about was the confusion attendant to the breaking-up of the crowd. Men yelled at horses as they hitched them to the wagons. Pedestrians, hurrying with their tickets toward the saloons, dodged from under the feet of cowboys' horses, and the flat became a tangle of wagons with shouting drivers.
Alice Marcum stood upon the edge of the lumber-pile with the wind whipping her skirts about her silk stockings as the Texan, saddle over his arm, glanced up and waved, a gauntleted hand. The girl returned the greeting with a cold-eyed stare and once more found herself growing furiously angry. For the man's lips twisted into their cynical smile as his eyes rested for a moment upon her own, shifted, lingered with undisguised approval upon her silk stockings, and with devilish boldness, returned to her own again. Suddenly his words flashed through her brain. "I always get what I go after—sometimes." She recalled the consummate skill with which he had conquered the renegade steer and the outlaw broncho—mastered them completely, and yet always in an off-hand manner as though the thing amused him. Never for a moment had he seemed to exert himself—never to be conscious of effort. Despite herself the girl shuddered nervously, and ignoring Endicott's proffer of assistance, scrambled to the ground and hastened toward her coach.
A young lady who possessed in a high degree a very wholesome love of adventure, Alice Marcum coupled with it a very unwholesome habit of acting on impulse. As unamenable to reason as she was impervious to argument, those who would remonstrate with her invariably found themselves worsted by the simple and easy process of turning their weapons of attack into barriers of defence. Thus when, an hour later, Winthrop Adams Endicott found her seated alone at a little table in the dining-car he was agreeably surprised when she greeted him with a smile and motioned him into the chair opposite.
"For goodness' sake, Winthrop, sit down and talk to me. There's nothing so stupid as dining alone—and especially when you want to talk to somebody." As Endicott seated himself, she rattled on: "I wanted to go to that preposterous supper they are going to 'dish up' at the hotel, but when I found they were going to separate the 'ladies and gents' and feed them in relays, I somehow lost the urge. The men, most of them, are interesting—but the women are deadly. I know just what it would be—caught snatches of it from the wagons during the lulls—preserves, and babies, and what Harry's ma died of. The men carry an atmosphere of unrestraint—of freshness——"
Endicott interrupted her with a nod: "Yes," he observed, dryly, "I believe that is the term——"
"Don't be guilty of a pun, Winthrop. At least, not a slangy one. It's quite unsuited to your style of beauty. But, really, wasn't it all delightful? Did you ever see such riding, and shooting, and lassoing?"
"No. But I have never lived in a country where it is done. I have always understood that cowboys were proficient along those lines, but why shouldn't they be? It's their business——"
"There you go—reducing everything to terms of business! Can't you see the romance of it—what it stands for? The wild free life of the plains, the daily battling with the elements, and the mastery of nerve and skill over blind brute force and fury! I love it! And tonight I'm going to a real cowboy dance."
"Alice!" The word carried a note of grave disapproval. "Surely you were not serious about attending that orgy!"
The girl stared at him in surprise. "Serious! Of course I'm serious! When will I ever get another chance to attend a cowboy dance—and with a real cowboy, too?"
"The whole thing is preposterous! Perfectly absurd! If you are bound to attend that affair I will take you there, and we can look on and——"
"I don't want to look on. I want to dance—to be in it all. It will be an experience I'll never forget."
The man nodded: "And one you may never cease to regret. What do you know of that man? Of his character; of his antecedents? He may be the veriest desperado for all you know."
The girl clapped her hands in mock delight: "Oh, wouldn't that be grand! I hadn't thought of that. To attend a dance with just a plain cowboy doesn't fall to every girl's lot, but one who is a cowboy and a desperado, too!" She rolled her eyes to express the seventh heavendom of delight.
Endicott ignored the mockery. "I am sure neither your mother nor your father——"
"No, neither of them would approve, of course. But really, Winthrop, I'm way past the short petticoat stage—though the way they're making them now nobody would guess it. I know it's improper and unconventional and that it isn't done east of the Mississippi nor west of the Rocky Mountains. But when in Rome do as the roamers do, as someone has said. And as for Mr. Purdy," she paused and looked Endicott squarely in the eyes. "Do you know why he didn't shoot that disgusting Tex when he insulted him?"
Endicott nodded. "Yes," he answered. "Because he was afraid to."
Colour suffused the girl's face and she arose abruptly from the table. "At least," she said haughtily, "you and Wolf River are thoroughly in accord on that point."
As the man watched her disappear through the doorway he became aware that the fat woman who had sought refuge under the coach was staring at him through her lorgnette from her seat across the aisle.
"Young man, I believe you insulted that girl!" she wheezed indignantly.
"You should be a detective, madam. Not even a great one could be farther from the truth," he replied dryly, and rising, passed into the smoking compartment of his Pullman where he consumed innumerable cigarettes as he stared out into the gathering night.
Seated in her own section of the same Pullman, Alice Marcum sat and watched the twilight deepen and the lights of the little town twinkle one by one from the windows. Alone in the darkening coach the girl was not nearly so sure she was going to enjoy her forthcoming adventure. Loud shouts, accompanied by hilarious laughter and an occasional pistol shot, floated across the flat. She pressed her lips tighter and heartily wished that she had declined Purdy's invitation. It was not too late, yet. She could plead a headache, or a slight indisposition. She knew perfectly well that Endicott had been right and she wrong but, with the thought, the very feminine perversity of her strengthened her determination to see the adventure through.
"Men are such fools!" she muttered angrily. "I'll only stay a little while, of course, but I'm going to that dance if it is the last thing I ever do—just to show him that—that—" her words trailed into silence without expressing just what it was she intended to show him.
As the minutes passed the girl's eyes glowed with a spark of hope. "Maybe," she muttered, "maybe Mr. Purdy has forgotten, or—" the sentence broke off shortly. Across the flat a rider was approaching and beside him trotted a lead-horse upon whose back was an empty saddle. For just an instant she hesitated, then rose from her seat and walked boldly to the door of the coach.
"Good evenin', mom," the cowboy smiled as he dismounted to assist her from the steps of the coach.
"Good evening," returned the girl. "But, you needn't to have gone to the trouble of bringing a horse just to ride that little way."
"'Twasn't no trouble, mom, an' he's woman broke. I figured yeh wouldn't have no ridin' outfit along so I loant a sideways saddle offen a friend of mine which his gal usta use before she learnt to ride straddle. The horse is hern, too, an' gentle as a dog. Here I'll give yeh a h'ist." The lead-horse nickered softly, and reaching up, the girl stroked his velvet nose.
"He's woman broke," repeated the cowboy, and as Alice looked up her eyes strayed past him to the window of the coach where they met Endicott's steady gaze.
The next moment Purdy was lifting her into the saddle, and without a backward glance the two rode out across the flat.
The girl was a devoted horsewoman and with the feel of the horse under her, her spirits revived and she drew in a long breath of the fragrant night. There was a living tang to the air, soft with the balm of June, and as they rode side by side the cowboy pointed toward the east where the sharp edge of the bench cut the rim of the rising moon. Alice gasped at the beauty of it. The horses stopped and the two watched in silence until the great red disc rose clear of the clean-cut sky-line.
About the wreck torches flared and the night was torn by the clang and rattle of gears as the great crane swung a boxcar to the side. The single street was filled with people—women and men from the wagons, and cowboys who dashed past on their horses or clumped along the wooden sidewalk with a musical jangle of spurs.
The dance-hall was a blaze of light toward which the people flocked like moths to a candle flame. As they pushed the horses past, the girl glanced in. Framed in the doorway stood a man whose eyes met hers squarely—eyes that, in the lamplight seemed to smile cynically as they strayed past her and rested for a moment upon her companion, even as the thin lips were drawn downward at their corners in a sardonic grin.
Unconsciously she brought her quirt down sharply, and her horse, glad of the chance to stretch his legs after several days in the stall, bounded forward and taking the bit in his teeth shot past the little cluster of stores and saloons, past the straggling row of houses and headed out on the trail that wound in and out among the cottonwood clumps of the valley. At first, the girl tried vainly to check the pace, but as the animal settled to a steady run a spirit of wild exhilaration took possession of her—the feel of the horse bounding beneath her, the muffled thud of his hoofs in the soft sand of the trail, the alternating patches of moonlight and shadow, and the keen tang of the night air—all seemed calling her, urging her on.
At the point where the trail rose abruptly in its ascent to the bench, the horse slackened his pace and she brought him to a stand, and for the first time since she left the town, realized she was not alone. The realization gave her a momentary start, as Purdy reined in close beside her; but a glance into the man's face reassured her.
"Oh, isn't it just grand! I feel as if I could ride on, and on, and on."
The man nodded and pointed upward where the surface of the bench cut the sky-line sharply.
"Yes, mom," he answered respectfully. "If yeh'd admire to, we c'n foller the trail to the top an' ride a ways along the rim of the bench. If you like scenes, that ort to be worth while lookin' at. The dance won't git a-goin' good fer an hour yet 'til the folks gits het up to it."
For a moment Alice hesitated. The romance of the night was upon her. Every nerve tingled, with the feel of the wild. Her glance wandered from the rim of the bench to the cowboy, a picturesque figure as he sat easily in his saddle, a figure toned by the soft touch of the moonlight to an intrinsic symbolism of vast open spaces.
Something warned her to go back, but—what harm could there be in just riding to the top? Only for a moment—a moment in which she could feast her eyes upon the widespread panorama of moonlit wonder—and then, they would be in the little town again before the dance was in full swing. In her mind's eye she saw Endicott's disapproving frown, and with a tightening of the lips she started her horse up the hill and the cowboy drew in beside her, the soft brim of his Stetson concealing the glance of triumph that flashed from his eyes.
The trail slanted upward through a narrow coulee that reached the bench level a half-mile back from the valley. As the two came out into the open the girl once more reined her horse to a standstill. Before her, far away across the moonlit plain the Bear Paws loomed in mysterious grandeur. The clean-cut outline of Miles Butte, standing apart from the main range, might have been an Egyptian pyramid rising abruptly from the desert. From the very centre of the sea of peaks the snow-capped summit of Big Baldy towered high above Tiger Ridge, and Saw Tooth projected its serried crown until it seemed to merge into the Little Rockies which rose indistinct out of the dim beyond.
The cowboy turned abruptly from the trail and the two headed their horses for the valley rim, the animals picking their way through the patches of prickly pears and clumps of low sage whose fragrant aroma rose as a delicate incense to the nostrils of the girl.
Upon the very brink of the valley they halted, and in awed silence
Alice sat drinking in the exquisite beauty of the scene.
Before her as far as the eye could see spread the broad reach of the Milk River Valley, its obfusk depths relieved here and there by bright patches of moonlight, while down the centre, twisting in and out among the dark clumps of cottonwoods, the river wound like a ribbon of gleaming silver. At widely scattered intervals the tiny lights of ranch houses glowed dull yellow in the distance, and almost at her feet the clustering lights of the town shone from the open windows and doors of buildings which stood out distinctly in the moonlight, like a village in miniature. Faint sounds, scarcely audible in the stillness of the night floated upward—the thin whine of fiddles, a shot now and then from the pistol of an exuberant cowboy sounding tiny and far away like the report of a boy's pop-gun.
The torches of the wrecking crew flickered feebly and the drone of their hoisting gears scarce broke the spell of the silence.
Minutes passed as the girl's eyes feasted upon the details of the scene.
"Oh, isn't it wonderful!" she breathed, and then in swift alarm, glanced suddenly into the man's face. Unnoticed he had edged his horse close so that his leg brushed hers in the saddle. The hat brim did not conceal the eyes now, that stared boldly into her face and in sudden terror the girl attempted to whirl her horse toward the trail. But the man's arm shot out and encircled her waist and his hot breath was upon her cheek. With all the strength of her arm she swung her quirt, but Purdy held her close; the blow served only to frighten the horses which leaped apart, and the girl felt herself dragged from the saddle.
In the smoking compartment of the Pullman, Endicott finished a cigarette as he watched the girl ride toward the town in company with Purdy.
"She's a—a headstrong little fool!" he growled under his breath. He straightened out his legs and stared gloomily at the brass cuspidor. "Well, I'm through. I vowed once before I'd never have anything more to do with her—and yet—" He hurled the cigarette at the cuspidor and took a turn up and down the cramped quarters of the little room. Then he stalked to his seat, met the fat lady's outraged stare with an ungentlemanly scowl, procured his hat, and stamped off across the flat in the direction of the dance-hall. As he entered the room a feeling of repugnance came over him. The floor was filled with noisy dancers, and upon a low platform at the opposite end of the room three shirt-sleeved, collarless fiddlers sawed away at their instruments, as they marked time with boots and bodies, pausing at intervals to mop their sweat-glistening faces, or to swig from a bottle proffered by a passing dancer. Rows of onlookers of both sexes crowded the walls and Endicott's glance travelled from face to face in a vain search for the girl.
A little apart from the others the Texan leaned against the wall. The smoke from a limp cigarette which dangled from the corner of his lips curled upward, and through the haze of it Endicott saw that the man was smiling unpleasantly. Their eyes met and Endicott turned toward the door in hope of finding the girl among the crowd that thronged the street.
Hardly had he reached the sidewalk when he felt a hand upon his arm, and turned to stare in surprise into the dark features of a half-breed,—the same, he remembered, who had helped the Texan to saddle the outlaw. With a swift motion of the head the man signalled him to follow, and turned abruptly into the deep shadow of an alley that led along the side of the livery bam. Something in the half-breed's manner caused Endicott to obey without hesitation and a moment later the man turned and faced him.
"You hont you 'oman?" Endicott nodded impatiently and the half-breed continued: "She gon' ridin' wit Purdy." He pointed toward the winding trail. "Mebbe-so you hur' oop, you ketch." Without waiting for a reply the man slipped the revolver from his holster and pressed it into the astonished Endicott's hand, and catching him by the sleeve, hurried him to the rear of the stable where, tied to the fence of the corral, two horses stood saddled. Loosing one, the man passed him the bridle reins. "Dat hoss, she damn good hoss. Mebbe-so you ride lak' hell you com' long in tam'. Dat Purdy, she not t'ink you got de gun, mebbe-so you git chance to kill um good." As the full significance of the man's words dawned upon him Endicott leaped into the saddle and, dashing from the alley, headed at full speed out upon the winding, sandy trail. On and on he sped, flashing in and out among the clumps of cottonwood. At the rise of the trail he halted suddenly to peer ahead and listen. A full minute he stood while in his ears sounded only the low hum of mosquitoes and the far-off grind of derrick wheels.
He glanced upward and for a moment his heart stood still. Far above, on the rim of the bench, silhouetted clearly against the moonlight sky were two figures on horseback. Even as he looked the figures blended together—there was a swift commotion, a riderless horse dashed from view, and the next moment the sky-line showed only the rim of the bench.
The moon turned blood-red. And with a curse that sounded in his ears like the snarl of a beast, Winthrop Adams Endicott tightened his grip upon the revolver and headed the horse up the steep ascent.
The feel of his horse labouring up the trail held nothing of exhilaration for Endicott. He had galloped out of Wolf River with the words of the half-breed ringing in his ears: "Mebbe-so you ride lak' hell you com' long in tam'!" But, would he "com' long in tam'"? There had been something of sinister portent in that swift merging together of the two figures upon the sky-line, and in the flash-like glimpse of the riderless horse. Frantically he dug his spurless heels into the labouring sides of his mount.
"Mebbe-so you kill um good," the man had said at parting, and as Endicott rode he knew that he would kill, and for him the knowledge held nothing of repugnance—only a wild fierce joy. He looked at the revolver in his hand. Never before had the hand held a lethal weapon, yet no slightest doubt as to his ability to use it entered his brain. Above him, somewhere upon the plain beyond the bench rim, the woman he loved was at the mercy of a man whom Endicott instinctively knew would stop at nothing to gain an end. The thought that the man he intended to kill was armed and that he was a dead shot never entered his head, nor did he remember that the woman had mocked and ignored him, and against his advice had wilfully placed herself in the man's power. She had harried and exasperated him beyond measure—and yet he loved her.
The trail grew suddenly lighter. The walls of the coulee flattened into a wide expanse of open. Mountains loomed in the distance and in the white moonlight a riderless horse ceased snipping grass, raised his head, and with ears cocked forward, stared at him. In a fever of suspense Endicott gazed about him, straining his eyes to penetrate the half-light, but the plain stretched endlessly away, and upon its surface was no living, moving thing.
Suddenly his horse pricked his ears and sniffed. Out of a near-by depression that did not show in the moonlight another horse appeared. It, too, was riderless, and the next instant, from the same direction sounded a low, muffled cry and, leaping from his saddle, he dashed toward the spot. The sage grew higher in the depression which was the head of a branch of the coulee by means of which the trail gained the bench, and as he plunged in, the head and shoulders of a man appeared above a bush. Endicott was very close when the man pushed something fiercely from him, and the body of a woman crashed heavily into the sage. Levelling the gun, he fired. The shot rang loud, and upon the edge of the depression a horse snorted nervously. The man pitched forward and lay sprawled grotesquely upon the ground and Endicott saw that his extended hand grasped a revolver.
Dully he stared at the thing on the ground at his feet. There was a movement in the scrub and Alice Marcum stood beside him. He glanced into her face. And as her eyes strayed from the sprawling figure to meet his, Endicott read in their depths that which caused his heart to race madly. She stepped toward him and suddenly both paused to listen. The girl's face turned chalk-white in the moonlight. From the direction of the coulee came the sound of horses' hoofs pounding the trail!
Bat Lajune grinned into the dark as the galloping cow-horse carried Endicott out upon the trail of Purdy and the girl. "A'm t'ink dat wan good job. Mebbe-so de pilgrim keel Purdy, bien! Mebbe-so Purdy keel de pilgrim, den de sheriff ketch Purdy an' she got for git hang—dat pret' good, too. Anyhow, Tex, she don' got for bodder 'bout keel Purdy no mor'. Tex kin keel him all right, but dat Purdy she damn good shot, too. Mebbe-so she git de drop on Tex. Den afterwards, me—A'm got to fool 'roun' an' keel Purdy, an' mebbe-so A'm hang for dat, too. Wat de hell!"
A man rode up to the corral and tied his horse to the fence. The half-breed drew into the shadow. "Dat Sam Moore," he muttered. "She dipity sher'ff, an' she goin' try for git 'lect for de beeg sher'ff dis fall. Mebbe-so she lak' for git chanct for 'rest som'one. A'm goin' see 'bout dat." He stepped to the side of the man, who started nervously and peered into his face.
"Hello, Bat, what the devil you doin' prowlin' around here? Why hain't you in dancin'?"
The half-breed shrugged: "Me, A'm no lak' for dance mooch. She don' do no good. Anyhow, A'm hont 'roun' for fin' you. A'm t'ink mebbe-so you better com' 'long wit' me."
"Come along with you! What's on yer mind?" Suddenly the man straightened: "Say, look a here, if you're up to helpin' Tex Benton pull off any gag on me, you've picked the wrong hand, see!"
The other shook his head vigorously: "Non! Tex, she goin' in de dance-hall. She don' know nuthin' 'bout w'at A'm know."
"What you drivin' at? Come on, spit 'er out! I hain't a-goin' to fool 'round here all night an' miss the dancin'."
Bat stepped closer: "Two mans an' wan 'oman gon' up de trail. A'm t'ink som'one goin' for git keel. Mebbe-so we better gon' up an' see 'bout dat."
"You're crazy as hell! The trail's free, hain't it? What business I got hornin' in on 'em? I come to town for to take in the dance, an' I'm a-goin' to. Besides it's a good chanct to do a little 'lectioneerin'." Once more Bat shrugged, and turning away, began to untie his horse.
"Four Ace Johnson, over 'crost de riv', she dipity sher'ff, too. A'm hear she goin' run for de beeg sher'ff, nex' fall. A'm gon' over an' see if she no lak' to go 'long an' mak' de arres' if som'ting happen. Mebbe-so w'en de votin' tam' com' 'long de men lak' for hav' Choteau County sher'ff w'at kin mak' de arres' better as de sher'ff w'at kin dance good. Voila!" Without so much as a glance toward the other, he slipped into his saddle and started slowly down the alley. Before he reached the street Moore's horse pushed up beside him.
"Where's this here outfit?" he growled, with a glance toward the dance-hall lights, "an' what makes you think they's a-goin' to be gun-fightin'?"
"A'm t'ink dey ain' so far," replied the half-breed as he swung into the trail at a trot. And although the impatient deputy plied him with a volley of questions the other vouchsafed no further information. Midway of the ascent to the bench the two drew rein abruptly. From above, and at no great distance, rang the sound of a shot—then silence. The deputy glanced at the half-breed: "Hey, Bat," he whispered, "this here's a dangerous business!"
"Mebbe-so Choteau County lak' to git de sher'ff w'at ain' so mooch scairt."
"Scairt! Who's scairt? It hain't that. But I got a wife an' nine kids back there in the mountains, an' I'm a-goin' to deputize you."
The half-breed shot him a look of sudden alarm: "Non! Non! Better
I lak' I ponch de cattle. You ke'p de nine wife an' de kid!"
"You hain't got no more sense than a reservation Injun!" growled the deputy. "What I mean is, you got to help me make this here arrest!"
The half-breed grinned broadly: "Me,—A'm de, w'at you call, de posse, eh? Bien! Com' on 'long den. Mebbe-so we no ketch, you no git 'lect for sher'ff."
At the head of the trail the deputy checked his galloping mount with a jerk and scrutinized the three riderless horses that stood huddled together. His face paled perceptibly. "Oh, Lord!" he gasped between stiffening lips: "It's Tex, an' Jack Purdy, an' they've fit over Cinnabar Joe's gal!"
He turned wrathfully toward Bat. "Why'n you tell me who it was up here, so's I could a gathered a man's-size posse?" he demanded. "Whichever one of them two has shot up the other, they hain't goin' to be took in none peaceable. An' if they've killed one of each other a'ready, he ain't goin' to be none scrupulous about pottin' you an' me. Chances is, they've got us covered right now. 'Tain't noways percautious to go ahead—an' we don't dast to go back! Bat, this is a hell of a place to be—an' it's your fault. Mebbe they won't shoot a unarmed man—here Bat, you take my gun an' go ahead. I'll tell 'em back there how you was game to the last. O-O-o-o-o! I got a turrible cramp in my stummick! I got to lay down. Do your duty, Bat, an' if I surmise this here attact, which I think it's the appendeetus, I'll tell 'em how you died with yer boots on in the service of yer country." The man forced his six-shooter into the half-breed's hand and, slipping limply from his saddle to the ground, wriggled swiftly into the shadow of a sage bush.
Bat moved his horse slowly forward as he peered about him. "If Purdy keel de pilgrim, den A'm better look out. He don' lak' me nohow, 'cause A'm fin' out 'bout dat cinch. Better A'm lak' Sam Moore, A'm git de 'pendeceet in my belly for li'l w'ile." He swung off his horse and flattening himself against the ground, advanced cautiously from bush to bush. At the edge of the depression he paused and stared at the two figures that huddled close together a few feet ahead. Both were gazing toward the trail and in the moonlight he recognized the face of the pilgrim. With a smile of satisfaction the half-breed stood erect and advanced boldly.
"You com' in tam', eh?" he asked, as with a nod Endicott stepped toward him and handed him the revolver.
"Yes, just in time. I am deeply grateful to you."
"Eh?" The other's brows drew together.
"I say, I thank you—for the gun, and for telling me——"
"Ha, dat's a'right. W'er' Purdy?" The girl shuddered, as Endicott pointed to the ground at some little distance away. The man advanced and bent over the prostrate form.
"Ba goss!" he exclaimed with a glance of admiration. "You shoot heem after de draw! Nom de Dieu! You good man wit' de gun! Wer' you hit heem?"
Endicott shook his head. "I don't know. I saw him, and shot, and he fell." The half-breed was bending over the man on the ground.
"You shoot heem on he's head," he approved, "dat pret' good place." He bent lower and a sibilant sound reached the ears of Endicott and the girl. After a moment the man stood up and came toward them smiling. "A'm fin' out if she dead," he explained, casually. "A'm speet de tobac' juice in he's eye. If she wink she ain' dead. Purdy, she don' wink no mor'. Dat damn good t'ing."
Again Alice Marcum shuddered as Endicott spoke: "Can you find our horses?" he asked. "I must go to town and give myself up."
"Oui, A'm git de hoss' a'right. Better you tak' 'em an' skeep off. A'm git on dat posse an' you bet we no ketch. A'm lak' you fine."
"No! No!" Endicott exclaimed. "If I have killed a man I shall stand trial for it. I won't sneak away like a common murderer. I know my act was no crime, let the decision of the jury be what it may."
The half-breed regarded him with a puzzled frown. "You mean you lak' fer git arres'?" he asked in surprise.
"Why, of course! I—" the other interrupted with a laugh.
"A'right. Dat de kin' Sam Moore she lak' fer arres'. Sam, she layin' back here a ways. She dipity sher'ff, an' we'n we com' on dem hoss', Sam she git to fink 'bout he's wife an' kids. He don' fink 'bout dem mooch only w'en he git dronk, or git scairt. Den he lov' 'em lak' hell, an' he grab de beeg belly-ache, so dey don' got for feel sorry 'bout heem gittin' keel."
Slipping his own gun into its holster, the half-breed turned and walked toward the spot where he had left the deputy, and as he walked he threw open the cylinder of the officer's gun and removed the cartridges.
"Sam!" he called sharply. Cautiously a head raised from behind a sage bush. "How long you t'ink dat tak' you git well? Wan man he lak' for git arres' w'en you git time."
"Shut up! Don't talk so loud! D'you want to git us killed? Which one got it?"
"Purdy. De pilgrim shoot heem 'cause he run off wit' he's girl."
"Pilgrim! What pilgrim! An' what girl? Ain't that Tex Benton's horse, an' Cinnabar Joe's——?"
"Uh-huh, A'm bor' heem Tex boss for ketch Purdy. An', Ba goss, he shoot heem on he's head after Purdy draw'd!"
Moore stared aghast. "What? A pilgrim done that? Not on yer life! He may look an' act like a pilgrim but, take it from me, he's a desperate character if he got Purdy after he draw'd. It's worser than if it was Tex. He might of took pity on us, knowin' about the fambly. But a stranger, an' one that kin git a man like Jack Purdy! O-o-o-o, my stummick! Bat, I'm 'fraid I'm a-passin' away! These spells is a-killin' me—an' what'll become of the woman an' the kids?"
The half-breed grinned: "Mebbe-so you kin' pass back agin, Sam. He ain' got no gun."
Sam Moore ceased to writhe, and sat abruptly erect. "Ain't got no gun!" he exclaimed. "What did he shoot Purdy with?"
"My gun. He giv' it back to me. A'm bor' heem dat gun li'l while ago."
The deputy sprang to his feet. "Quick, now, Bat!" he roared loudly. "You slip these irons on him, an' I'll catch up the horses. Don't take no chances!" He tossed the half-breed a pair of hand-cuffs, and started after his own horse. "Kill him if he makes a crooked move. Tell him you're actin' under my authority an' let him understand we're hard men to tamper with—us sheriffs. We don't stand fer no foolin'."
In Curly Hardee's dance-hall Tex Benton leaned against the wall and idly watched the couples weave in and out upon the floor to the whining accompaniment of the fiddles and the clanging piano.
Apparently the cowboy's interest centred solely upon the dancers, but a close observer would have noticed the keen glance with which he scanned each new arrival—noticed too, that after a few short puffs on a cigarette the man tossed it to the floor and immediately rolled another, which is not in the manner of a man with a mind at ease.
The Texan saw Endicott enter the room, watched as the man's eyes swept the faces of dancers and spectators, and smiled as he turned toward the door.
"Three of us," mused the cowboy, with the peculiar smile still twisting the corners of his lips, "Purdy, an' me, an' the pilgrim. Purdy's work's so coarse he'll gum his own game, an' that's where I come in. An' the pilgrim—I ain't quite figgered how he stacks up." The cowpuncher glanced at his watch. "It's time they showed up long ago. I wonder what's keepin' em." Suddenly he straightened himself with a jerk: "Good Lord! I wonder if—— But no, not even Purdy would try that. Still, if he knows I know he tried to dope me he'll be figgerin' on pullin' his freight anyhow, an'—" The man's lips tightened and, elbowing his way to the door he stepped onto the street and hurried to the Headquarters saloon. Cinnabar Joe was behind the bar, apparently none the worse for his dose of chloral, and in answer to a swift signal, followed the Texan to the rear of the room.
"Does Purdy know I'm wise to his dope game?"
The bartender nodded: "Yes, I told him you must of switched the glasses."
"I saw him leadin' your horse rigged up with your side-saddle acrost the flats awhile back."
Again the bartender nodded: "He borrowed the outfit fer a gal of his'n he said come in on the train. Wanted to take her fer a ride."
"Where'd they go?" The words whipped viciously.
"Search me! I've had my hands full to keep track of what's goin' on in here, let alone outside."
Without a word the Texan stepped out the back door and hastened toward the horse corral behind the livery stable. Circling its fence to the head of the alley, he stared in surprise at the spot where he and Bat Lajune had tied their horses. The animals were gone, and cursing the half-breed at every step, he rushed to the street, and catching up the reins of a big roan that stood in a group of horses, swung into the saddle and headed out onto the trail.
"Women are fools," he muttered savagely. "It beats hell what even the sensible ones will fall for!"
At the up-bend of the trail he halted abruptly and listened. From the shadows of the coulee ahead came the sound of voices and the soft scraping of horses' feet. He drew the roan into a cottonwood thicket and waited.
"Somethin' funny here. Nobody ever come to a dance ridin' at a walk," he muttered, and then as the little cavalcade broke into the bright moonlight at a bend of the trail, his eyes widened with surprise. In front rode Bat Lajune with Purdy's horse snubbed to his saddle-horn, and immediately following him were the girl and Endicott riding side by side. Tex saw that the girl was crying, and that Endicott's hands were manacled, and that he rode the missing horse. Behind them rode Sam Moore, pompously erect, a six-shooter laid across the horn of his saddle, and a scowl of conceited importance upon his face that would have evoked the envy of the Kaiser of Krautland. The figure appealed to the Texan's sense of humour and waiting until the deputy was exactly opposite his place of concealment, he filled his lungs and leaned forward in his saddle.
"Y-e-e-e-o-w!" The sound blared out like the shrill of doom. The officer's six-shooter thudded upon the ground, his hands grasped the horn of the saddle, his spurs dug into his horse's flanks and sent the animal crashing between the girl and Endicott and caused Purdy's horse to tear loose from the half-breed's saddle-horn.
"Stand 'em off, Bat!" shrieked the deputy as he shot past, "I'm a-goin' fer help!" and away he tore, leaning far over his horse's neck, with Purdy's horse, the stirrups lashing his sides, dashing madly in his wake.
A moment later Tex pushed his mount into the trail where the girl, drawn close to Endicott, waited in fearful expectation. The half-breed met him with a grin.
Rapidly, with many ejaculations interspersing explosive volleys of half-intelligible words, Bat acquainted the Texan with the progress of events. The cowpuncher listened without comment until the other had finished. Then he turned to Endicott.
"Where'd you learn to shoot?" he asked abruptly.
"I never learned. Until tonight I never had a pistol in my hand."
"You done damned well—to start out with," commented the Texan dryly.
"But, oh, it's horrible!" sobbed the girl, "and it's all my fault!"
"I reckon that's right. It looks like a bad mix-up all around."
"Oh, why didn't you tell me what a beast he was? You knew all the time. And when you insulted him I thought you were horrid! And I thought he was so noble when he refrained from shooting you."
"No. He wasn't noble, none noticeable—Purdy wasn't. An' as for me tellin' you about him—answer me square: Would you have believed me?"
The girl's eyes fell before his steady gaze.
"No," she faltered, "I wouldn't. But isn't there something we can do?
Some way out of this awful mess?"
The Texan's eyes flashed a glint of daring. He was thinking rapidly. Endicott moved his horse closer to the cowboy. "Can't you manage to get her away—onto a train some place so she can avoid the annoyance of having to testify at the trial, and submit to the insulting remarks of your sheriff?"
The girl interrupted him: "Winthrop Adams Endicott, if you dare to even think such a thing—I'll never speak to you again! Indeed he won't take me away or put me on any train! I got you into this, and I won't budge one inch until you get out of it. What do I care for a little annoyance—and as for the sheriff, I'll say 'boo' at him in the dark and he'll die."
There was a gleam of approval in the eyes of the Texan as his lips twisted into their peculiar cynical smile. "Spunky little devil," he thought to himself. "There's a chance to pull a play here somewhere that'll make me solid with her all right. I got to have time to think." Aloud he said: "Just you leave things to me. I'll get a line on what's what. But you both got to do as I say, an' no augerin' about it neither. It looks from here as if things could be straightened out if someone don't go to work an' ball the jack. An' as for Sam passin' insultin' remarks no more—he won't. Here he comes now with about half Wolf River for a posse." The cowboy turned to Endicott: "You go 'long with 'em an' lay low 'til you hear from Bat, there, or me. Then you do as we say, an' don't ask no questions."
The rumble of horses' feet sounded from the direction of the little town and the Texan whispered to Bat: "Find out where they lock him up. An' when the excitement dies down you find me. I ain't a-goin' to lose sight of her—see." The half-breed grinned his understanding and Tex swung his horse in close beside the girl and awaited the coming of the posse.
With a yell the onrushing cowboys whom the deputy had recruited from the dance-hall spied the little group and, thundering up at full gallop, formed a closely packed circle about them. Recognizing the deputy who was vociferously urging his horse from the rear, Tex forced his way through the circle and called him aside.
"Say, Sam," he drawled, in a tone that caused the deputy's hair to prickle at its roots; "about some an' sundry insultin' remarks you passed agin' the lady, yonder——"
"No, I never——"
"That'll be about all the lyin' you need to do now. An' just let this sink in. You can lock up the pilgrim where you damn please. But the lady goes to the hotel. If you aim to hold her as a witness you can appoint a guard—an' I'm the guard. D'you get me? 'Cause if there's any misunderstandin' lingerin' in them scrambled aigs you use fer brains, I'll just start out by tellin' the boys what a hell of a brave arrest you pulled off, an' about the nervy stand you made agin' odds to guard your prisoners when I yipped at you from the brush. Then, after they get through havin' their fun out of you, I'll just waste a shell on you for luck—see?"
"Sure, Tex, that sounds reasonable," the other rattled on in evident relief. "Fact is, I be'n huntin' fer you ever sense I suspicioned they'd be'n a murder. 'If I c'd only find Tex,' I says to myself, I says, 'he'd be worth a hull posse hisself.' Jest you go ahead an' night-herd the lady. I'll tell her myself so's it'll be official. An' me an' the rest of the boys here, we'll take care of the pilgrim, which he ain't no pilgrim at all, but a desperate desperado, or he couldn't never have got Jack Purdy the way he done."
The Texan grinned and, forcing his horse through the crowd, reached the girl's side where he was joined a few moments later by the deputy. Despite her embarrassing situation Alice Marcum could scarce restrain a smile at the officer's sudden obsequious deference. Stetson in hand, he bowed awkwardly. "Excuse me, mom, but, as I was goin' on to say in reference of any remarks I might of passed previous, I found out subsequent I didn't mean what I was sayin', which I misunderstood myself complete. But as I was goin' on to say, mom, the State of Montany might need you fer a witness in this here felonious trial, so if you'll be so kind an' go to the _ho_tel along of Tex here whom he's the party I've tolled off fer to guard you, an' don't stand no monkey business neither. What I mean is," he hastened to add, catching a glance from the Texan's eye, "don't be afraid to ask fer soap or towels if there hain't none in yer room, an' if yer cold holler fer an extry blanket er two. The State's a-payin' fer it, an' yer board, too, an' if they don't fill you up every meal you set up a yell an' I'll see 't they do." The deputy turned abruptly away and addressed the cowboys: "Come on, boys, let's git this character under lock an' key so I kin breathe easier."
Even Endicott joined in the laugh that greeted the man's words and, detaining a cowpuncher to ride on either side of the prisoner, the officer solemnly led the way toward town.
As the horses traversed the two miles of winding trail, Alice Marcum glanced from time to time at the Texan who rode silently at her side. The man's face was grave and he seemed entirely oblivious to her presence. Only once did she venture to speak to him.
"I suppose I ought to thank you, Mr.——"
"Tex'll do," supplied the man, without even the courtesy of a glance.
"—for the very changed attitude of the sheriff, and for the fact that I am to be lodged in the hotel instead of the jail."
The girl thought the Texan's lips drew into their peculiar smile, but he gave no further evidence of having heard and rode on in silence, with his attention apparently fixed upon the tips of his horse's ears. At the edge of town the crowd, with Endicott in its midst, swerved toward the railroad and the girl found herself alone with her jailer. She drew up her horse sharply and glanced back toward the prisoner.
"This way," said a voice close beside her; "we'll go to the hotel, I guess there's enough of 'em to see that the pilgrim gets locked up safe."
"But I—I want to speak to him. To tell him——"
"Never mind what you want to tell him. It'll keep, I reckon."
At the door of the wooden hotel the cowpuncher swung from his horse. "You wait here a minute; I'll go fetch Jennie. She's prob'ly over to the dance. She'll fix you up with a room an' see that you get what you want."
"But my bag?"
"Yer what?"
"My bag—with all my things in it. I left it in the car."
"Oh, yer war-bag! All right, I'll get that after I've got Jennie cut out an' headed this way."
He stepped into the dance-hall next door and motioned to a plump, round-faced girl who was dancing with a young cowboy. At the conclusion of the dance the girl laughingly refused to accompany her partner to the bar, and made her way toward the Texan.
"Say, Jennie," the man said, after drawing her aside; "there's a girl over to the hotel and I want you to go over an' fix her up with a room. Give her Number 11. It's handy to the side door."
The girl's nose went up and the laughing eyes flashed scornfully. "No, you don't, Tex Benton! What do you think I am? An' what's more, you don't pull nothin' like that around there. That hotel's run decent, an' it's goin' to stay decent or Hank can get someone else fer help. They's some several of the boys has tried it sence I be'n there but they never tried it but onct. An' that goes!" The girl turned away with a contemptuous sniff.
"Jennie!" The Texan was smiling. "This is a little different case, I reckon."
"They're all different cases," she retorted. "But everything's be'n tried from a sister come on a unexpected visit, to slippin' me five—Cinnabar Joe tended to that one's case hisself, an' he done a good job, too. So you might's well save yer wind 'cause there ain't nothin' you can think up to say that'll fool me a little bit. I ain't worked around hotels fer it's goin' on six years fer nothin', an' I wouldn't trust no man—cowboys an' drummers least of all."
"Listen, Jennie, I ain't tryin' to tell you I wouldn't. Only this time, I ain't. If I was, don't you suppose I've got sense enough not to go to you to help me with it?" The girl waited with all outward appearance of skepticism for him to proceed. "This girl went ridin' with Jack Purdy—he borrowed the side-saddle from Cinnabar——"
"Did Cinnabar loan him that saddle fer any such——?"
"Hold on, now, Cinnabar don't know nothin' about it. Purdy wants to borrow his side-saddle an' Joe says sure."
"He might of know'd if Purdy wanted it, it wasn't fer no good. You're all bad enough, goodness knows, but he was the worst of the lot. I hate Purdy an' you bet he cuts a big circle when he sees me comin'."
"Well, he won't no more," answered the Texan dryly. "Purdy's dead."
"Dead!"
"Yes. He took a pilgrim's girl out on the bench an' the pilgrim got wise to it an' dug out after 'em. Got there just in time an' took a shot at Purdy an' got him."
"Land sakes! I'm glad he did! If they was a few more pilgrims like him that would get about half the rest of you, maybe the others would turn decent, or take to the brush."
The Texan laughed. "Anyway Purdy's dead, an' they've got the pilgrim locked up, an' the girl's held fer a witness, an' I told Sam Moore I'd take a shot at him if he locked her up wherever he's goin' to lock up the pilgrim—in the wool-warehouse I reckon. Anyhow, he told her to go to the hotel an' specified me fer a guard."
"Oh, he did, did he? Well jest you wait 'til I get my hat. I guess maybe she'll be safer with two guards." With a meaning look the girl hurried away and a moment later returned and followed the Texan from the room.
"Why was you so anxious she was to have Number 11, if what you've told me is on the level?" she asked, as they approached the hotel.
"I don't know, yet, exactly. But I've got a hunch they'll be somethin' doin' a little later."
"Uh-huh, an' I'll be right there when it's doin', too. An' you can bet your last blue one on that!"
Alice Marcum swung unassisted to the ground as the two approached. And as she glanced into the wide, friendly eyes of the girl she felt deeply grateful to the Texan for bringing a woman. Then the woman was speaking: "Come right along in the house. I'm Jennie Dodds, an' I'll see't you get settled comfortable. Tex, he told me all about it. Land sakes! I bet you feel proud! Who'd a thought any pilgrim could a got Jack Purdy! Where's your grip?"
"Gosh! I plumb forgot!" exclaimed the cowboy, and started for his horse. "I'll be back with yer war-bag in a minute." A few moments later, he returned to the hotel carrying a leather bag.
"I'm goin' to kind of slip around among the boys a bit. I've be'n doin' some thinkin' an maybe we can figger a way out. I don't quite like the way things is shapin' up. I'll be wantin' most likely to see you in a while——"
"We'll both be here," interrupted Jennie. "Both of us. We'll be in
Number 11."
Outside the hotel the Texan paused to roll and light a cigarette, and as he blew the smoke from his lungs, he smiled cynically.
"Purdy's work was so damn coarse he got just what was comin' to him. There's only me an' the pilgrim, now—an' it's me an' him for it. I ain't plumb got the girl sized up yet. If she's straight—all right. She'll stay straight. If she ain't—— They say everything's fair in love an' war, an' bein' as it's my deal the pilgrim's got to go up against a stacked deck. An' if things works out right, believe me, he's a-goin' to know he's be'n somewhere by the time he gets back—if he ever does get back."
For the third time that evening he entered the dance-hall and avoiding the dancers made his way leisurely toward the bar that ran along one side of the room.
"Hello, Tex, ain't dancin'? Say, they're tellin' how a pilgrim killed
Jack Purdy. Yes, an' they got him locked up down in the
wool-warehouse. What's yourn?" The cowboy ranged himself beside the
Texan.
"A little red liquor, I reckon." The men poured their drinks and the
Texan glanced toward the other: "You ain't mournin' none over Purdy,
Curly?"
"Who, me?" the man laughed. "Not what you c'd notice, I ain't. An' they's plenty others ain't, too. I don't hear no lamentations wailin' a-bustin' in on the festchivities. It was over the pilgrim's girl. They say how Purdy tried to——"
"Yes, he did. But the pilgrim got there first. I been thinkin', Curly. It's plumb shameful for to hold the pilgrim for doin' what one of us would of had to do sooner or later. Choteau County has stood for him about as long as it could, an' a damn sight longer than it ought to. His work was gettin' so rotten it stunk, I could tell you about a sage-brush corral an' some runnin'-iron work over on the south slope——"
"Yes," broke in the other, "an' there's a hell of a lot of I X an' Bear
Paw Pool cows that show'd up, brandin' time, 'thout no calves."
The Texan nodded: "Exactly. Now, what I was goin' on to say: The grand jury don't set for a couple or three months yet. An' when they do, they'll turn the pilgrim loose so quick it'll make yer head swim. Then, there's the girl. They'll hold her for a witness—not that they'd have to, 'cause she'll stay on her own hook. Now what's the use of them bein' took down to Benton an' stuck in jail? Drink up, an' have another."
"Not none," agreed Curly, as he measured out his liquor to an imaginary line half-way up the glass. "But how'd you figger to fix it?"
"Well," answered the Texan, as his lips twisted into their peculiar smile; "we might get the right bunch together an' go down to the wool-warehouse an' save the grand jury the trouble."
The other stared at him in amazement: "You mean bust him out?"
Tex laughed: "Sure. Lord! Won't it be fun seein' Sam Moore puttin' up a scrap to save his prisoner?"
"But, how'd we git away with him? All Sam w'd do is git a posse an' take out after him an' they'd round him up 'fore he got to Three-mile. Or if we went along we'd git further but they'd git us in the end an' then we'd be in a hell of a fix!"
"Your head don't hurt you none, workin' it that way, does it?" grinned Tex. "I done thought it all out. We'll get the boys an' slip down to the warehouse an' take the pilgrim out an' slip a noose around his neck an' set him on a horse an' ride out of town a-cussin' him an' a-swearin' to lynch him. He won't know but what we aim to hang him to the first likely cottonwood, an' we'll have a lot of fun with him. An' no one else won't know it, neither. Then you-all ride back an' pertend to keep mum, but leak it out that we done hung him. They won't be no posse hunt for him then an' I'll take him an' slip him acrost to the N. P. or the C. P. R. an' let him go. It's too good a chanct to miss. Lordy! Won't the pilgrim beg! An' Sam Moore—he'll be scairt out of a year's growth!"
"But, the girl," objected Curly.
"Oh, the girl—well, they'll turn her loose, of course. They ain't nothin' on her except for a witness. An' if they ain't no prisoner they won't need no witness, will they?"
"That's right," assented the other. "By gosh, Tex, what you can't think up, the devil wouldn't bother with. That's sure some stunt. Let's get the boys an' go to it!"
"You get the boys together. Get about twenty of the live ones an' head 'em over to the Headquarters. I'll go hunt up a horse for the pilgrim an' be over there in half an hour."
Curly passed from man to man, whom he singled out from among the dancers and onlookers, and the Texan slipped unobserved through the door and proceeded directly to the hotel. On the street he met Bat.
"De pilgrim, she lock up in de woolhouse an' Sam Moore she stan' 'long de door wit two revolver an' wan big rifle."
"All right, Bat. You look alive now, an' catch up Purdy's horse an' see that you get a good set of bridle reins on him, an' find the girl's horse an' get holt of a pack-horse somewheres an' get your war-bag an' mine an' our blankets onto him, an' go down to the store an' get a couple more pairs of blankets, an' grub enough fer a week for four, an' get that onto him, an' have all them horses around to the side door of the hotel in twenty minutes, or I'll bust you wide open an' fill your hide with prickly pears."
The half-breed nodded his understanding and slipped onto his horse as the Texan entered the hotel. Passing through the office where a coal-oil lamp burned dimly in a wall-bracket, he stepped into the narrow hallway and paused with his eyes on the bar of yellow light that showed at the bottom of the door of Number 11.
"Most any fool thing would do to tell the girl. But I've got to make it some plausible to put it acrost on Jennie. I'm afraid I kind of over-played my hand a little when I let her in on this, but—damn it! I felt kind of sorry for the girl even if it was her own fool fault gettin' into this jack-pot. I thought maybe a woman could kind of knock off the rough edges a little. Well, here goes!" He knocked sharply, and it was a very grave-faced cowboy who stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "I've be'n doin' quite some feelin' out of the public pulse, as the feller says, an' the way things looks from here, the pilgrim is sure in bad. You see, the jury is bound to be made up of cow-men an' ranchers with a sheep-man or two mixed in. An' they're all denizens that Choteau County is infested with. Now a stranger comin' in that way an' kind of pickin' one of us off, casual, like a tick off'n a dog's ear, it won't be looked on with favour——"
Jennie interrupted, with a belligerent forefinger wagging almost against the Texan's nose: "But that Jack Purdy needed killin' if ever any one did. He was loose an'——"
"Yes," broke in Tex, "he was. I ain't here to pronounce no benediction of blessedness on Purdy's remains. But, you got to recollect that most of the jury, picked out at random, is in the same boat—loose, an' needin' killin', which they know as well as you an' me do, an' consequent ain't a-goin' to establish no oncomfortable precedent. Suppose any pilgrim was allowed to step off'n a train any time he happened to be comin' through, an' pick off a loose one? What would Choteau County's or any other county's he-population look like in a year's time, eh? It would look like the hair-brush out here in the wash-room, an' you could send in the votin' list on a cigarette paper. No, sir, the pilgrim ain't got a show if he's got to face a jury. There's only one way out, an' there's about fifteen or twenty of the boys that's willin' to give him a chance. We're a-goin' to bust him out of jail an' put him on a horse an' run him up some cottonwood coulee with a rope around his neck."
Alice Marcum, who had followed every word, turned chalk-white in the lamplight as she stared wide-eyed at the Texan, with fingers pressed tight against her lips, while Jennie placed herself protectingly between them and launched into a perfect tirade.
"Hold on, now." Both girls saw that the man was smiling and Jennie relapsed into a warlike silence. "A rope necktie ain't a-goin' to hurt no one as long as he keeps his heft off'n it. As I was goin' on to say, we'll run him up this coulee an' a while later the boys'll ride back to town in the same semmey-serious mood that accompanies such similar enterprises. They won't do no talkin' an' they won't need to. Folks will naturally know that justice has be'n properly dispensed with, an' that their taxes won't raise none owin' to county funds bein' misdirected in prosecutin' a public benefactor—an' they'll be satisfied. The preacher'll preach a long sermon condemnin' the takin' of human life without due process of law, an' the next Sunday he'll preach another one about the onchristian shootin' of folks without givin' 'em a chanct to repent—after they'd drawed—an' he'll use the lynchin' as a specimen of the workin's of the hand of the Lord in bringin' speedy justice onto the murderer.
"But they ain't be'n no lynchin' done. 'Cause the boys will turn the prisoner over to me an' I'll hustle him acrost to the N. P. an' let him get out of the country."
Alice Marcum leaped to her feet: "Oh, are you telling me the truth? How do I know you're not going to lynch him? I told him I'd stay with him and see him through!"
The Texan regarded her gravely: "You can," he said after a moment of silence. "I'll have Bat take you to Snake Creek crossing an' you can wait there 'til I come along with the pilgrim. Then we'll cut through the mountains an' hit down through the bad lands an'——"
"No you don't, Tex Benton!" Jennie was facing him again. "You're a smooth one all right. How long would it take you to lose the pilgrim there in the bad lands, even if you don't lynch him, which it ain't no cinch you ain't a-goin' to—then where would she be? No, sir, you don't pull nothin' like that off on me!"
"But I want to go!" cried Alice. "I want to be near him, and I'm not afraid."
The girl regarded her for a moment in silence. "I should think you'd had enough of cowpunchers for one night. But if you're bound to go I ain't got no right to hold you. I'd go along with you if I could, but I can't."
"I'm not afraid," she answered as her eyes sought the Texan's. "I've learned a lot in the past few hours."
"I guess you ain't learnt enough to hurt you none," retorted Jennie, with a trace of acid in her tone. "An' you'll learn a lot more 'fore you hit the N. P., or my name ain't Jennie Dodds. If you're bound to go you can take my outfit. I guess Tex'll see that my horse comes back, anyhow."
The cowpuncher grinned: "Thanks, Jennie, I'm right proud to know you think I wouldn't steal your horse." Once more he turned to the girl. "When the half-breed comes for you, you go with him. I've got to go on with the boys, now." Abruptly he left the room, and once more paused in the hall before passing through the office. "She's game, all right. An' the way she can look at a fellow out of those eyes of hers—— By God! Purdy ought to be'n killed!"