FIRE! FIRE!
"Why didn't you tell me at breakfast?" demanded Swing Tunstall.
"And give it away to Jack Harpe!" said scornful Racey. "Shore, that
would 'a' been a bright thing to do now, wouldn't it?"
"What didja do with the knife?"
"Dropped it through a knothole in the wall. The only way they'll ever
get hold of it is by tearing the building down."
"Jack Harpe, if he _is_ the feller, will know you found it and try
again."
"Shore. We can't help that. One thing, we'll know before the day is
over whether it is Jack Harpe or not."
"How?"
"Remember me this morning telling you how I'd left my saddle-blanket
out all night and then going out in the corral for the same. I said it
so Jack could hear me. He did hear me, and he watched me go. He saw
me go out round the corral, and he saw me come back without the
saddle-blanket. Now anybody'd know I wouldn't leave my saddle-blanket
out behind the corral, would I?"
"Not likely."
"But a feller who'd just found a knife with blood on it in his warbags
might go out back of the corral to lose the knife, mightn't he?"
"He might."
"Well, that's what I did. Naturally, having already lost the knife
down through the knothole I couldn't lose her again. But I did the
best I could. I dug in the ground with a sharp stick, and I made a
li'l hole like, and I filled her in again, and tramped her all down
flat, and sort of half smoothed down the roughed-up ground like I was
trying to hide my tracks and what I'd been doing. Then I came away.
"Now I'm betting that if Jack Harpe is the lad tucked away that knife
in my warbags he'll go skirmishing out behind the corral to see what I
was really doing."
"Maybe." Doubtfully.
"There ain't any maybe if he's the man turned the trick. And from
where we're a-laying under this wagon we can see the back of the
corral plain as--There he comes now."
The posts of the corral were less than a hundred yards from where
Racey and Swing lay beneath a pole-propped freight wagon. From the
wagon, which was standing beyond the stage company's corral, the
ground sloped gently to the hotel corral. Racey had taken the
precaution to mask their position with a cedar bush.
Hatless he peered through the branches at the man quartering the
ground behind the hotel corral.
"He's getting close to where I made that hole," he told Swing. "Now
he's found it," he resumed as the man dropped on his knees. "Jack
Harpe all along. Ain't he the humoursome codger?"
"He shore couldn't 'a' dug up that hole already," declared Swing when
Jack Harpe jumped to his feet after a sojourn on his knees of possibly
thirty seconds' duration.
"No," assented Racey, puzzled. "He couldn't. There's an odd number,"
he added, as Jack Harpe pelted back at a brisk trot over the way he
had come. "Le's not go just yet, Swing. I have a feeling."
He was glad of this feeling when ten minutes later Jack Harpe returned
with Jake Rule and Kansas Casey. The latter carried a shovel. The
three men clustered round the spot where Racey had dug his hole.
Kansas Casey set his foot on the shovel and drove it into the ground.
Racey chuckled at the pleasant sight. What must inevitably follow
would be even pleasanter.
The deputy sheriff made the dirt fly for six minutes. Then he threw
down the shovel, pushed back his hat, and wiped his face on his
sleeve. He spoke, but his language was unintelligible. Jack Harpe said
something and picked up the shovel. He began to dig. He cast the earth
about for possibly five minutes.
"Ain't he the prairie-dog, huh?" Racey demanded, jabbing his comrade
in the ribs with stiffened thumb. "Just watch him scratch gravel."
Suddenly Jake Rule and Kansas Casey turned their backs on the
frantically labouring Jack Harpe and walked away. Jack Harpe watched
them, threw up a few more half-hearted shovelfuls, and then slammed
the implement to earth with a clatter, hitched up his pants, and
strode hurriedly after the officers.
"That proves it, I guess," said Swing.
"Naturally. She's enough for us, anyhow.---- it to ----!"
"Whatsa matter?" inquired Swing, surprised at his friend's vehemence.
"Whatsa matter? Whatsa matter? Everythin's the matter. I just happened
to think that now Bull won't be able to tell me what he was going to
to-night."
"That'so. Can't you ask the girl?"
"I can, but I ain't shore it'll do any good. Marie ain't the kind that
blats all she knows just to hear herself talk. If she wants to tell me
she will. If she don't want to, she won't. Bull was my one best bet."
"What's that?" cried Swing, raising himself on an elbow.
"That" was the noise of a tumult in Farewell Main Street. There were
shouts and yells and screams. Above all, screams. Racey and Swing
hurried to the street. When they reached it the shouts and yells had
subsided, but the screams had not. If anything they were louder than
before. They issued from the mouth of Marie, whom Jake Rule, Kansas
Casey, and four other men were taking to the calaboose. They were
doing their duty as gently as possible, and Marie was making it
as difficult for them as possible. She was as mad as a teased
rattlesnake, and not a man of her six captors but bore the marks of
fingernails, or teeth, or heels.
She had, it appeared, attacked without warning and with a derringer,
Jack Harpe as he was walking peacefully along the sidewalk in front
of the Starlight. Only by good luck and a loose board that had turned
under the girl's foot as she fired had Mr. Harpe been preserved from
sudden death.
"That's shore tough," Racey said to their informant. "I'm goin' right
away now and get me a hammer and some nails and fix that loose board."
"You better not let Jack Harpe hear you say that," cautioned the
other.
"If you want something to do, suppose now you tell him," was Racey's
instant suggestion.
Racey's tone was light, but his stare was hard. The other man went
away.
"Fire! Fire!" shrilled young Sam Brown Galloway, bouncing out of his
father's store, and jumping up and down in the middle of Main Street.
"The jail's afire! The jail's afire!"
Men added their shouts to his childish squalls and ran toward the
jail. Racey and Swing trundled along the sidewalk together. "She's
afire, all right," said Racey. "Lookit the smoke siftin' through the
window at the corner."
The smoke was followed by a vicious lash of flame that whipped up the
side of the building and set the eaves alight. The glass of another
window fell through the bars with a tinkle. A billow of smoke rushed
forth. Smoke was seeping through cracks at the back of the building.
"My Gawd!" exclaimed Racey, as a shriek rent the air. "The girl's in
there!"
He had for the moment forgotten that Marie was incarcerated in the
jail. But Kansas Casey had not forgotten. Racey, having picked up a
handy axe, raced round to the back only to find the deputy unlocking
the back door. A burst of smoke as he flung open the door assailed
their lungs. Choking, holding their breath, both men dashed into the
jail. Kansas unlocked the girl's cell.
"You shore took yore time about comin'," drawled Marie. "I didn't know
but what I'd be burned up with the rest of the jail. You big lummox!
You don't have to bust my wrist, do you? Go easy, or I'll claw yore
face off!"
Once outside they were immediately surrounded by the townsfolk. Most
of them were laughing. But Jake Rule was not laughing.
"Good joke on you, Jake," grinned a friend. "Burned herself out on
you, didn't she?"
"You can't keep a good man down," shouted another.
"Never let the baby play with matches," advised a third.
"Get pails, gents!" shouted Rule. "We gotta put it out. Where's a
pail? Who--"
"Aw, let 'er burn," said Galloway. "Hownell you gonna put it out?
She's all blazin' inside. You couldn't put it out with Shoshone
Falls."
"The wind's blowin' away from town," contributed Mike Flynn. "Nothin'
else'll catch. Besides, we been needing a new calaboose for a long
time. You done us a better turn than you think, Marie."
"If you say I set the jail afire, Mike Flynn," cried Marie, "Yo're a
liar by the clock."
"You set it afire," said the sheriff, sternly. "You'll find it a
serious business setting a jail afire."
"Prove I done it, then!" squalled Marie. "Prove it, you slab-sided
hunk! Yah, you can't prove it, and you know it!"
To this the sheriff made no reply.
"We gotta put her somewhere till the Judge gets sober," he said,
hurriedly. "Guess we'll put her in yore back room, Mike."
"Guess you won't," countered Mike. "They ain't any insurance on my
place, and I ain't taking no chances, not a chance."
"There's the hotel," suggested Kansas Casey.
"You don't use my hotel for no calaboose," squawked Bill Lainey.
"Nawsir. Not much. You put her in yore own house, Jake. Then if she
sets you afire, it's your own fault. Yeah."
Jake Rule scratched his head. It was patent that he did not quite know
what to do. Came then Dolan, the local justice of the peace. Dolan's
hair was plastered well over his ears and forehead. Dolan was pale
yellow of countenance and breathed strongly through his nose. He
looked not a little sick. He pawed a way through the crowd and cast a
bilious glance at Marie.
He inquired of Jake Rule as to the trouble and its cause. On being
told he convened court on the spot. Judge Dolan agreed with Mike
Flynn that the burning of the jail was a trivial matter requiring no
official attention. For was not Dolan's brother-in-law a carpenter and
would undoubtedly be given the contract for a new jail. Quite so.
"You can't prove anything about this jail-burning," he told Jake Rule
and the assembled multitude, "but this assault on Jack Harpe is a cat
with another tail. It was a lawless act and hadn't oughta happened.
Marie, yo're a citizen of Farewell, and you'd oughta take an interest
in the community instead of surging out and trying to massacre a
visitor in our midst, a visitor who's figuring on settlin' hereabouts,
I understand. Gawd knows we need all the inhabitants we can get, and
it's just such tricks as yores, Marie, that discourages immigration."
Here Judge Dolan frowned upon Marie and thumped the palm of his hand
with a bony fist. Marie stood first on one leg and then on the other
and hung her head down. Since her raving outburst at the time of her
arrest she had cooled considerably. It was evident that she was now
trying to make the best of a bad business.
"Marie," resumed Judge Dolan, and cleared his throat importantly, "why
did you shoot at Mr. Jack Harpe?"
"He insulted me," Marie replied without a quiver.
"I ain't ever said a word to her," countered Jack Harpe. "I don't even
know the girl."
The judge turned back to Marie. "Have you any witnesses to this
insult?" he queried.
"Nary a witness." Marie shook her brown head.
"Y' oughta have a witness. She's yore word against his. Where did this
insult take place?"
"At my shack. He come there early this mornin'."
"That's a lie!" boomed Jack Harpe.
"Which will be about all from you!" snapped Judge Dolan, vigorously
pounding his palm.
"What did he say to you?" was the judge's next question.
"I'd rather not tell," hedged Marie.
"Well, of course, you don't have to answer," said the judge,
gallantly. "But alla same, Marie, you hadn't oughta used a gun on him.
It--it ain't ladylike. Nawsir. Don't you do it again or I'll send you
to Piegan City. Ten dollars or ten days."
"What?" Thus Jack Harpe, astonished beyond measure.
"Ten dollars or ten days," repeated Judge Dolan. "Taking a shot at you
is worth ten dollars but no more. It don't make any difference whether
you came here to invest money or not, you wanna go slow round the
women."
"But I didn't even say howdy to her," protested Jack Harpe.
"She says different. You leave her alone."
Public opinion, which at first had rather favoured Jack Harpe, now
frowned upon him. He shouldn't have insulted the girl. No, sir, he had
no business doing that. Be a good thing if he was arrested for it,
perhaps. What a virtuous thing is public opinion.
"I ain't got a nickel, Judge," said Marie. "You'll have to trust me
for it till the end of the week."
"I'll pay her fine," nipped in Racey, glad of an opportunity to annoy
Jack Harpe. "Here y' are, Judge. Ten dollars, you said."
It was a few minutes after he had eaten dinner that Racey Dawson
presented himself at the door of Kansas Casey's shack. The door was
open. Racey stood in the doorway and leaned the shovel against the
wall of the room.
"You forgot yore shovel, Kansas," he said, gently, "or Jack Harpe did.
Same thing, and here it is."
Kansas had the grace to look a trifle shamefaced. "Somebody said you'd
buried that knife--" he began, and stopped.
"Yep, I know, Jack Harpe," smiled Racey. "Li'l Bright Eyes is shore a
friend of mine. Only I wouldn't bank too strong on what he says about
me."
"I ain't," denied the deputy.
"Another thing, Kansas," drawled Racey, "did you ever stop to think
how come he knowed so much about that knife? And did you ask him if he
was the gent left that paper in Jake's office? And going on from that
did you ask him why he didn't come out flat footed at first and say
what he thought he knowed instead of waiting till after you'd searched
my room? You don't have to answer, Kansas, only if I was you I'd think
it over, I'd think it over plenty. So long."
From the house of Casey he went to the shack of Marie. He found the
girl cooking her dinner quite as if attempts at murder, dead men,
and jailburning were matters of small moment. But if her manner
was placid, her eyes were not. They were bright and hard, and they
flickered stormily upon him when she lifted her gaze from the pan of
frying potatoes and saw who it was standing in the doorway.
"I'm obliged to you," she said, calmly, "for payin' my fine. You ran
away so quick this mornin' you didn't gimme any chance to thank you.
I'll pay you back soon's I get paid come Saturday."
Racey stared reproachfully. He shifted his weight from one
uncomfortable foot to the other. "I didn't come here about the fine,"
he told her. "I--" He stopped, uncertain whether to continue or not.
"If you didn't come about the fine it must be something else
important," said she, insultingly. "I shore oughta be set up, I
suppose. So far it's always been me that's had to make all the moves."
"'Moves?'" repeated Racey, frankly puzzled.
"Moves," she mimicked. "Didn't you ever play checkers? Oh, nemmine,
nemmine! Don't take it to heart. I don't mean nothin'. Never did.
C'mon in an' set. Take a chair. That one. What do you want? Down
feller, down!"
The command was called forth by the violent entry of the yellow dog
which, remembering Racey as a friend, flung itself upon him with
whines and tail-waggings.
"He's all right," said Racey, rubbing the rough head. "I just thought
I'd ask you what you knew about Jack Harpe."
Marie's narrowed eyes turned dark with suspicion. "Whadda you know
about me an' Jack Harpe?" she demanded.
"Not as much as I'd like to know," was his frank reply.
"I ain't talkin'." Shortly.
"Now, lookit here--" he began, wheedlingly.
She shook her head at him. "S'no use. I don't tell everything I know."
"Then you do know something about Jack Harpe?"
"I didn't say I did."
"You didn't. But--"
"That's what the goat done to the stone wall. Look out you don't bust
yore horns, too."
"Meanin'?"
"Meanin' you'll knock 'em off short before you get anything out o' me
I don't want to tell you. And I tell you flat I ain't talkin' over
Jack Harpe with you."
"Scared to?" he hazarded, boldly.
"You can give it any name you like. Pull up a chair. Dinner's most
ready. They's enough for two."
Despite the fact that he had just dined at the hotel he accepted her
invitation in the hope that she could be persuaded to talk. And after
dinner he smoked several cigarettes with her--still hoping. Finally,
finding that nothing he could say was of any avail to move her, he
took up his hat and departed.
"Don't go away mad," she called after him.
"I ain't," he denied, and went on, her mocking laughter ringing in his
ears.
After Racey was gone out of sight Marie turned back into her little
house. There was no laughter on her lips or in her eyes as she sat
down in a chair beside the table and stared across it at the chair in
which Racey had been sitting.
"He's a nice boy," she whispered under her breath, after a time. "I
wish--I wish--"
But what it was she wished it is impossible to relate, for, instead of
completing the sentence, she hid her face in her hands and began to
cry.
Early next morning Racey Dawson and Swing Tunstall rode out of town by
the Marysville trail. They were bound for the Bar S and a job.
* * * * *
"What have you been drinkin', Racey?" demanded Mr. Saltoun, winking at
his son-in-law and foreman, Tom Loudon.
The latter did not return the wink. He kept a sober gaze fastened on
Racey Dawson.
Racey was staring at Mr. Saltoun. His eyes began to narrow. "Meanin'?"
he drawled.
"Now don't go crawlin' round huntin' offense where none's meant,"
advised Mr. Saltoun. "But you know how it is yoreself, Racey. Any gent
who gets so full he can't pick out his own hoss, and goes weaving off
on somebody else's is liable to make mistakes other ways. You gotta
admit it's possible."
The slight tinge of red underlying Racey's heavy coat of tan
acknowledged the corn. "It's possible," he admitted.
Mr. Saltoun saw his advantage and seized it. "S'pose now this is
another mistake?"
"Tell you what I'll do," said Racey. "You said you had jobs for a
couple of handsome young fellers like us. Aw right. We go to work. We
ride for you six months for nothing."
"Huh?" Mr. Saltoun and Tom Loudon stared their astonishment.
"Oh, the cat's got more of a tail than that," said Racey. "You don't
pay us a nickel for those six months _provided_ what I said will
happen, don't happen. If it does happen like I say, you pay each of us
two hundred large round simoleons per each and every month."
"Come again," said Mr. Saltoun, wrinkling his forehead.
Racey came again as requested.
"Six months is a long time" frowned Mr. Saltoun. "If I lose--"
"But I dunno what I'm talkin' about," pointed out Racey. "I make
mistakes, you know that. And you were so shore nothin' was gonna
happen. Are you still shore?"
"Well--" hesitated Mr. Saltoun.
"If you take us up you stand to be in the wages of two punchers for
six months. That's four hundred and eighty dollars. Almost five
hundred dollars. Of course, it's a chance. What ain't, I'd like to
know? But yo're so shore she's gonna keep on come-day-go-day like
always, that I'd oughta have odds."
"Five to one," mused Mr. Saltoun, pulling at the ends of his gray
mustache.
"And fair enough--seeing that nothing is going to happen."
"I wouldn't do it," put in Tom Loudon. "These trick bets are unlucky."
"Oh, I dunno," said Mr. Saltoun, running true to form in that he
rarely took kindly to advice. "Looks like a good chance to get six
months' work out of two men for nothing."
"Looks like a good chance to lose twenty-four hundred dollars,"
exclaimed Tom Loudon, wrathfully.
"My Gawd, Tom," said Mr. Saltoun, cocking a grizzled eyebrow, "you
don't mean to tell me you think they's any chance a-tall of Racey's
winning this bet, do you?"
"They's just about ten times more chance for him to win than to lose."
"Tom, do you ever see any li'l pink lizards with blue tails an' red
feet? I hear that's a sign, too."
"Aw right, have it yore own way," said Tom Loudon with every symptom
of disgust. "Only don't say I didn't warn you."
"Gawd, Tom, y' old wet blanket, yo're always a-warnin' me. I never see
such a feller."
"Aw right, I said. Aw right. But when yo're a-writin' out a check
for twenty-four hundred dollars, just remember how I always told you
somebody was gonna horn in here some day and glom half the range."
"Laugh," said Mr. Saltoun. "Yo're shore the jokin'est feller, Tom
Loudon. Even Racey and his partner are laughing."
"I should think they would," Tom Loudon returned, savagely. "I'd
laugh, too, if I stood to win twenty-four hundred in six months."
Mr. Saltoun shook a whimsical head at Racey Dawson. "Whatsa use?" he
asked, sorrowfully. "Whatsa use?"
* * * * *
"You was too easy with him," declared Swing, as he and Racey were
unsaddling at the Bar S corral. "You could 'a' stuck him for three
hundred a month just as easy."
Racey shook a decided head. "No, there's a limit even to Old Salt's
stubbornness. I know him better'n you do ... Aw, what you kicking
about? We've got enough coin in our overalls to last out six months if
you don't drink too much."
"If I don't drink too much, hey! If _I_ don't drink too much! Which I
like that. Who's--"
"Racey," interrupted Tom Loudon, who had approached unperceived, "this
is a fine way to treat yore friends."
"What's bitin' you?"
"You hadn't oughta take advantage of Old Salt thisaway."
"And why not? What's wrong with the bet? Fair bet. Leave it to
anybody."
"Shore, shore, but alla same, Racey, you'd oughta gone a li'l easy.
Twenty-four hundred dollars--"
"What's the dif? You won't have to pay it."
"'Tsall right, but I didn't think it of you, damfi did. You know how
Old Salt is--always certain shore he's right, and you took advantage."
"Shore I took advantage," Racey acquiesced, amiably. "I got sense, I
have. Alla same, he'd never 'a' taken me up if you hadn't slipped in
yore li'l piece of advice for him not to. That was a bad play, Tom.
You might know he'd go dead against you. But I ain't complaining, not
me. Nor Swing ain't, either. We'll thank you for yore helping hand to
our dying day."
"I guess you will," Tom Loudon said, ruefully. "When you get through
here, Racey, you and Swing come on over to the wagon shed. I wanna
sift through this Jack Harpe business once more."