THE SHERIFF STATES SOME FACTS
The foreman of the Star C impatiently tossed his bridle reins over the
post which stood near the sheriff's door and knocked heavily, brushing
the dust of his ride from him. Quick, heavy steps approached within the
house and the door suddenly flew open.
"Hullo, Tom!" Shields cried, shaking hands with his friend. "Come right
in--I knew you would come if we coaxed you a little."
"You don't have to do much coaxing--I can't stay away, Jim," replied Blake
with a laugh. "How do you do, Mrs. Shields?"
"Very well, Tom," she answered. "Miss Ritchie, Helen, Mary, this is Tom
Blake; Tom, Miss Ritchie and James' sisters. They are to stay with us just
as long as they can, and I'll see that it is a good, long time, too."
"How do you do?" he cried heartily, acknowledging the introduction. "I
am glad to meet you, for I've heard a whole lot about you. I hope you'll
like this country--greatest country under the sky! You stay out here a
month and I'll bet you'll be just like lots of people, and not want to
go back East again."
"It seems as though we have always known Mr. Blake, for James has written
about you so much," replied Helen, and then she laughed: "But I am not
so sure about liking this country, although very unusual things seem to
take place in it. The journey was very trying, and it seemed to get worse
as we neared our destination."
"Well, I'll have to confess that the stage-ride part of it is a drawback,
and also that Apaches don't make good reception committees. They are a
little too pressing at times."
"But, speaking seriously," responded Helen, "I have had a really
delightful time. James has managed to get me a very tame horse after
quite a long search, and I have taken many rides about the country."
"Wait 'til you see that horse, Tom," laughed the sheriff. "It's warranted
not to raise any devilment, but it can't, for it has all it can do to
stand up alone, and can't very well run away."
"I see that The Orphan delivered my message, contrary to the habits of
men," remarked the sheriff's wife as she took the guest's hat and offered
him a seat. "I spoke to James about it several days ago, and asked him to
send you word when he could, for you have not been here for a long time.
And the wonderful thing about it is that he remembered to tell The Orphan."
"Thank you," he replied, seating himself. "Yes, he delivered it all
right, it was about the second thing he said. But I just couldn't get
here any sooner, Mrs. Shields. And I was just wondering if I could get
over to-night when he told me. When he said 'apricot pie' he looked sort
of sad."
"Poor boy!" she exclaimed. "You must take him one--it was a shame to send
such a message by him, poor, lonesome boy!"
"Well, he ain't so lonesome now," laughed Blake.
Helen had looked up quickly at the mention of The Orphan's name, and the
sheriff replied to her look of inquiry.
"I sent him out to punch for Blake, Helen," he said quickly. "If he has
the right spirit in him he'll get along with the Star C outfit; if he
hasn't, why, he won't get on with anybody. But I reckon Tom will bring
out all the good in him; he'll have a fair show, anyhow."
"And you never told us about it!" cried Helen reproachfully.
"Oh, I was saving it up," laughed the sheriff. "What do you think of him,
Tom?" he asked, turning to the foreman.
"Why, he's a clean-looking boy," answered Blake. "I like his looks. He
seems to be a fellow what can be depended on in a pinch, and after all
I had heard about him he sort of took me by surprise. I thought he would
be a tough-looking killer, and there he was only a overgrown, mischievous
kid. But there is a look in his eyes that says there is a limit. But he
surprised me, all right."
"You want to appreciate that, Miss Ritchie," remarked the sheriff, smiling
broadly. "Anything that takes Tom Blake by surprise must have merit of
some kind. And he is a good judge of men, too."
"I do so hope he gets on well," she replied earnestly. "He was a perfect
gentleman when he was here, and his wit was sharp, too. And out there on
that awful plain, when he stood swaying with weakness, he looked just
splendid!"
"Pure grit, pure grit!" cried the sheriff in reply. "That's why I'm
banking on him," he added, his eyes warming as he remembered. "Any fellow
who could turn a trick like that, and who has so much clean-cut courage,
must be worth looking after. He's got a bad reputation, but he's plumb
white and square with me, and I'm going to be square with him. And when
you know all that I know about him you'll take his reputation as a
natural result of hard luck, spunk, and other people's devilment and
foolishness. But he's going to have a show now, all right."
"What did your men say when they saw him? Do they know who he is?" asked
Mrs. Shields anxiously.
Blake laughed: "Oh, yes, they know who he is. They ain't the talking kind
in a case like that; they won't say a word to him about what he has
done. Besides, he was under their roof, eating their food, and that's
enough for them. Of course, they were a little surprised, but not half as
much as I thought they would be. He is a man who gives a good first
impression, and the boys are all fine fellows, big-hearted, square,
clean-living and peaceful. Reputations don't count for much with them,
for they know that reputations are gossip-made in most cases. I asked
him to stay, and they haven't got no reason to object, and they won't
waste no time looking for reasons, neither. If there is any trouble at
all, it will be his own fault. Then again, they know that he is all
sand and that his gunplay is real and sudden; not that they are afraid
of him, or anybody else, for that matter, but he is the kind of a man
they like--somebody who can stand up on his own legs and give better than
he gets."
"I reckon he fills that bill, all right," laughed the sheriff. "He _can_
stand up on his own legs, and when he does he makes good. And as for
gunplay, good Lord, he's a shore wizard! I reckoned I could do things
with a gun, but he can beat me. He ain't no Boston pet, and he ain't
no city tough, not nohow. And I'd rather have him with me in a mix-up
than against me. He's the coolest proposition loose in this part of the
country at any game, and I know what I'm talking about, too."
"You promised to tell us everything about him, all you knew," reproached
Helen. "And I am sure that it will be well worth hearing."
"Well, I was saving it up 'til I could tell it all at once and when you
would all be together," he replied. "There wasn't any use of telling it
twice," he explained as he brought out a box of cigars. "These are the
same brand you sampled last time you were here," he assured his friend
as he extended the box.
"By George, that's fine!" cried the foreman, picking out the blackest
cigar he could see. "I could taste them cigars for a whole week, they
was so good. There's nothing like a good Perfecto to make a fellow feel
like he's too lucky to live."
"Oh," said Mrs. Shields. "Then you won't care for the coffee and pie and
gingerbread," she sighed. "I'm very sorry."
Blake jumped: "Lord, Ma'am," he cried hastily, "I meant in the smoking
line! Why, I've been losing sleep a-dreaming of your cooking. Every time
the cook fills my cup with his insult to coffee I feel so lonesome that
it hurts!"
"You want to look out, Tom!" laughingly warned the sheriff, "or you'll
get yourself disliked! When I don't care for Margaret's cooking I ain't
fool enough to say so, not a bit of it."
"You're a nice one to talk like that!" cried his wife. "You are just like
a little boy on baking day--I can hardly keep you out of the kitchen. You
bother me to death, and it is all I can do to cook enough for you!"
After the laugh had subsided and a steaming cup of coffee had been placed
at the foreman's elbow, Helen impatiently urged her brother to begin his
story.
He lighted his cigar with exasperating deliberateness and then laughed
softly: "Gosh! I'm getting to be a second fiddle around here. From morning
to night all I hear is The Orphan. The first thing that hits me when I
come home is, 'Have you seen The Orphan?' or, 'Have you heard anything
about him?' The worst offenders are Miss Ritchie and Helen. They pester
me nigh to death about him. But here goes:
"I reckon I'd better begin with Old John Taylor," he slowly began. "I've
been doing some quiet hunting lately, and in the course of it I ran across
Old John down in Crockettsville. You remember him, don't you, Tom? Yes,
I reckoned you wouldn't forget the man who got us out of that Apache
scrape. Well, I had a good talk with him, and this is what I learned:
"About twenty years ago a family named Gordon moved into northwestern
Texas and put up a shack in one of the valleys. There was three of them,
father, mother, and a bright little five-year-old boy, and they brought
about two hundred head of cattle, a few horses and a whole raft of
books. Gordon bought up quite a bit of land from a ranch nearby at
almost a song, and he never thought of asking for a deed--who would,
down there in those days? There wasn't a rancher who owned more than a
quarter section; you know the game, Tom--take up a hundred and sixty
acres on a stream and then claim about a million, and fight like the very
devil to hold it. We've all done it, I reckon, but there is plenty of
land for everybody, and so there is no kick. Well, he was shore lucky,
for his boundary on two sides was a fair-sized stream that never went
dry, and you know how scarce that is--a whole lot better than a gold mine
to a cattleman.
"They got along all right for a while, had a tenderfoot's luck with their
cattle, which soon began to be more than a few specks on the plain, and he
was very well satisfied with everything, except that there wasn't no
school. Old man Gordon was daffy on education, which is a good thing to
be daffy over, and he was some strong in that line himself, having been a
school teacher back East. But he took his boy in hand and taught him
all he knew, which must have been a whole lot, judging from things in
general, and the kid was a smart, quick youngster. He was plumb crazy
about two things--books and guns. He read and re-read all the books he
could borrow, and got so he could handle a gun with any man on the range.
"About five years after he had located, the ranchman from whom he bought
his range and water rights went and died. Some of the heirs, who were not
what you would call square, began to get an itching for Gordon's land,
which was improved by the first irrigation ditch in Texas. There was a
garden and a purty good orchard, which was just beginning to bear fruit.
It was pure, cussed hoggishness, for there was more land than anybody
had any use for, but they must grab everything in sight, no matter what
the cost. Trouble was the rule after that, and the old man was up against
it all the time. But he managed to hold his own, even though he did lose
a lot of cattle.
"His brand was a gridiron, which wasn't much different from the gridiron
circle brand of the big ranch. It ain't much trouble to use a running iron
through a wet blanket and change a brand like that when you know how,
and the Gridiron Circle gang shore enough knew how. Their expertness with
a running iron would have caused questions to be asked, and probably a
lynching bee, in other parts of the country, but down there they were
purty well alone. They let Gordon know that he had jumped the range,
which was just what they had done, that he didn't own it, and that the
sooner he left the country the better it would be for his health. But
he had peculiar ideas about justice, and he shore was plumb full of
grit and obstinacy. He knew he was right, that he had paid for the land,
and that he had improved it. And he had a lot of faith in the law, not
realizing that he hadn't anything to show the law. And he didn't know
that law and justice don't always mean the same thing, not by a long shot.
"Well, one day he went out looking for a vein of coal, which he thought
ought to be thereabouts, according to his books, and it ought to be close
to the surface of a fissure. He reckoned that coal of any quality would
be some better than chips and the little wood he owned, so he got busy.
But he didn't find coal, but something that made him hotfoot it to his
books. When the report came back from the assay office he knew that he
had hit on a vein of native silver, which was some better than coal.
"It didn't take long for the news to get around, though God Himself only
knows how it did, unless the storekeeper told that a package had gone
through his hands addressed to the assay office, and things began to
happen in chunks. He caught three Gridiron Circle punchers shooting his
cows, and he was naturally mad about it and just shot up the bunch before
they knew he was around. He killed one and spoiled the health of the other
two for some time to come, which naturally spelled war with a big W. Then
about this time his wife went and died, which was a purty big addition
to his troubles. As he stood above her grave, all broken up, and about
ready to give up the fight and go back East, he was shot at from cover.
He didn't much care if he was killed or not, until he remembered that he
had a boy to take care of. Then he got fighting mad all at once, all of
his troubles coming up before him in a bunch, and he got his gun and
went hunting, which was only right and proper under the circumstances."
The sheriff flecked the ashes of his cigar into a blue flower pot which
was gay with white ribbons, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
"I hate to think that it is possible to find a whole ranch of hellions
from the owner down," he continued, "but the nature of the owner picks a
dirty foreman, and a dirty foreman needs dirty men, and there you are.
That fits the case of the Gridiron Circle to a T. There was not one white
man in the whole gang," and he sat in silence for a space.
"Well, the boy, who was about fifteen years old by this time, took his
gun and went out to find his daddy, and he succeeded. He cut him down
and buried him and then went home. That night the shack burned to the
ground, the orchard was ruined and the boy disappeared. Some people said
that the kid took what he wanted and burned the house rather than to
have it profaned as a range house by the curs who murdered his dad; and
some said the other thing, but from what I know of the kid, I reckon he
did it himself.
"Right there and then things began to happen that hurt the ease and safety
of the Gridiron Circle. Cows were found dead all over the range--juglars
cut in every case. Three of their punchers were found dead in one
week--a .5O-caliber Sharps had done it. A regular reign of terror began
and kept the outfit on the nervous jump all the time. They searched and
trailed and searched and swore, and if one of them went off by himself
he was usually ready to be buried. Ten experienced, old-time cowmen were
made fools of by a fifteen-year-old kid, who was never seen by anybody
that lived long enough to tell about it. When he got hungry, he just
killed another cow and had a porterhouse steak cooked between two others
over a good fire. He ate the middle steak, which had all the juices of
the two burned ones, and threw the others away. Three meals a day for six
months, and one cow to a meal, was the order of things on the ranges of
the Gridiron Circle. He had plenty of ammunition, because every dead
puncher was minus his belt when found and his guns were broken or gone;
and early in the game the boy had made a master stroke: he raided the
storehouse of the ranch one night and lugged away about five hundred
rounds of ammunition in his saddle bags, with a couple of spare Colts and
a repeating Winchester of the latest pattern, and he spoiled all the
rest of the guns he could lay his hands on. Humorous kid, wasn't he,
shooting up the ranch with its own guns and cartridges?
"Finally, however, after the news had spread, which it did real quick, a
regular lynching party was arranged, and the U-B, which lay about sixty
miles to the east, sent over half a dozen men to take a hand. Then the
Gridiron Circle had a rest, but while the gang was hunting for him and
laying all sorts of elaborate traps to catch him, the boy was over on
the U-B, showing it how foolish it had been to take up another man's
quarrel. By this time the whole country knew about it, and even some
Eastern papers began to give it much attention. One of the punchers of
the Gridiron Circle, when he found a friend dead and saw the tracks of
the kid in the sand, swore and cried that it was 'that d----n Orphan'
who had done it, and the name stuck. He had become an outlaw and was
legitimate prey for any man who had the chance and grit to turn the
trick. For ten years he has been wandering all over the range like a
hunted gray wolf, fighting for his life at every turn against all kinds of
odds, both human and natural. And I reckon that explains why he is accused
of doing so much killing. He has been hunted and forced to shoot to
save his own life, and a gray wolf is a fighter when cornered. I know
that I wouldn't give up the ghost if I could help it, and neither would
anybody else."
"Oh, it is a shame, an awful shame!" cried Helen, tears of sympathy in her
eyes. "How could they do it? I don't blame him, not a bit! He did right,
terrible as it was! And only a boy when they began, too! Oh, it is awful,
almost unbelievable!"
"Yes, it is, Sis," replied Shields earnestly. "It ain't his fault, not
by any manner or means--he was warped." And then he added slowly: "But Tom
and I will straighten him out, and if some folks hereabouts don't like it,
they can shore lump it, or fight."
"Tell me how you met him, Jim," requested Blake in the interval of
silence. "I've heard some of it, second-handed, or third-handed, but I'd
like to have it straight."
"Well," the sheriff continued, "when he came to these parts I didn't
know anything about him except what I had heard, which was only bad. He
had a nasty way of handling his gun, a hair-trigger and a nervous finger
on his gun, and he had a distressing way of using one cow to a meal, so
I got busy. I didn't expect much trouble in getting him. I knew that he
was only a youngster and I counted on my fifty years, and most of them
of experience, getting him. Being young, I reckoned he would be foolhardy
and hasty and uncertain in his wisdom; but, Lord! it was just like trying
to catch a flea in the dark. He was here, there and everywhere. While
I was down south hunting along his trail he would be up north objecting
to the sheep industry in ingenious ways and varying his bill of fare
with choice cuts of lamb and mutton. And by the time I got down south he
would be--God only knows where, I didn't. I could only guess, and I
guessed wrong until the last one. And then it was the toss of a coin
that decided it.
"After a while he began to get more daring, and when I say more daring I
mean an open game with no limit. He began to prove my ideas about his age
making him reckless, though he was cautious enough, to be sure. One day,
not long ago, he had a run-in with two sheepmen out by the U bend of the
creek, who had driven their herds up on Cross Bar-8 land and over the
dead-line established by the ranch. They must have taken him for some
Cross Bar-8 puncher and thought he was going to kick up a fuss about the
trespass, or else they recognized him. Anyway, when I got on the scene
they were ready to be planted, which I did for them. Then I went after
him on a plain trail north--and almost too plain to suit me, because it
looked like it had been made plain as an invitation. He had picked out
the softest ground and left plenty of good tracks. But I was some mad
and didn't care much what I run into. I thought he had driven the whole
blasted herd of baa-baas over that high bank and into the creek, for the
number of dead sheep was shore scandalous.
"I followed that cussed trail north, east, south, west and then all
over the whole United States, it seemed to me. And it was always
growing older, because I had to waste time in dodging chaparrals and
things like that that might hold him and his gun. I went picking my
way on a roundabout course past thickets of honey mesquite and cactus
gardens, over alkali flats and everything else, and the more I fooled
about the madder I got. I ain't no real, genuine fool, and I've had
some experience at trailing, but I had to confess that I was just a
plain, ordinary monkey-on-a-stick when stacked up against a kid that was
only about half my age, because suddenly the plainness of the trail
disappeared and I was left out on the middle of a burning desert to
guess the answer as best I could. I knew what he had done, all right,
but that didn't help me a whole lot. Did you ever trail anybody that used
padded-leather footpads on his cayuse's feet, and that went on a
walk, picking out the hardest ground? No? Well, I have, and it's no cinch.
"I got tired of chasing myself back to the same place four times out of
five, and I reckons that it wouldn't be very long before he had made his
circle and got me in front of him. It ain't no church fair to be hunting
a mad devil like him under the best conditions, and it's a whole lot
less like one when he gets behind you doing the same thing. I didn't
know whether he had swung to the north or south, so I tossed up a coin
and cried heads for north--and it was tails. I cut loose at a lope and
had been riding for some time when I saw something through an opening
in the chaparrals to the east of me, and it moved. I swung my glasses
on it, and I'm blamed if it wasn't an Apache war party bound north.
They were about a mile to the east of me, and if they kept on going
straight ahead they would run across my trail in about three hours,
for it gradually worked their way. I ducked right then and there and
struck west for a time, turning south again until I hit the Cimarron
Trail, which I followed east. Well, as I went around one side of the
chaparral six mad Apaches went around the other, and they hit my trail
too soon to suit me. I heard a hair-raising yell and lit out in the
direction of Chattanooga as hard as I could go, with a hungry chorus a
mile behind me.
"I had just passed that freak bowlder on the Apache Trail when the man I
was looking for turned up, and with the drop, of course. We reckoned that
two was needed to stop the war-paints, which we did, him running the game
and doing most of the playing. I felt like I was his honored guest whom
he had invited to share in the festivities. He had plenty of chances to
nail me if he wanted to, and he had chipped in on a game that he didn't
have to take cards in; and to help me out. He could have let them get
me and they would have thought that I had done all the injury and that
there wasn't another man on the desert. But he didn't, and I began to
think he wasn't as bad as he was painted."
Then he told of the trouble between The Orphan and Jimmy of the Cross
Bar-8, and of the rage which blossomed out on the ranch.
"That shore settled it for the Cross Bar-8. They wanted lots of gore, and
they got it, all right, when he played five of their punchers against
the very war party he had sent north to meet me, while I was chasing him.
That war party must have found something to their liking, wandering about
the country all that time."
Blake interrupted him: "War party that he sent north to meet you?" he
asked in surprise. "How could he do that?"
"That's just what I said," replied Shields, and then he explained about
the arrow. "Any man who could stack a deck like that and use one danger to
wipe out another ain't going to get caught by an outfit of lunkheads--by
George! if he didn't work nearly the same trick on the Cross Bar-8 crowd!
Oh, it's great, simply great!"
The foreman slapped his knee enthusiastically: "Fine! Fine!" he exulted.
"That fellow has got brains, plenty of them! And he'll make use of them
to the good of this country, too, before we get through with him."
Shields continued: "After he sic'd the chumps of the Cross Bar-8 on the
Apaches he shore raised the devil on the ranch and I was asked to go out
and run things, which I did, or rather thought I would do. Charley and I
and the two Larkin boys laid out on the plain all night, covered up with
sand, waiting for him to show up between us and the windows--and the first
thing I saw in the morning was Helen's flower pot here--it used to be
Margaret's--setting up on top of a pile of sand under my very nose where
he had stuck it while I waited for him--and blamed if he hadn't signed
his name in the sand at its base!" He suddenly turned to his sister:
"Tell Tom about him calling on you while I was waiting for him out on
the ranch, Helen."
Helen did so and the way she told it caused the women to look keenly at
her.
Blake laughed heartily: "Now, don't that beat all!" he cried.
"It don't beat this," responded the sheriff, turning again to Helen. "Tell
him about the stage coach, Sis."
"Well, I don't know much about the first part of it," she replied. "All I
remember is a terrible ride --oh, it was awful!" she cried, shuddering as
she remembered the tortures of the Concord. "But when we stopped and
after I managed to get out of the coach I saw the driver carrying a man on
his shoulders and coming toward us. He laid his burden down and revived
him--and he was a young man, and covered with blood." Then she paused:
"He was real nice and polite and didn't seem to think that he had done
anything out of the ordinary. Then we went on and he left us."
The sheriff laughed and leveled an accusing finger at her:
"You have left out a whole lot, Sis," he said affectionately. "Helen acted
just like the thoroughbred she is, Tom," he continued. "I guess Bill told
you all about it, for he's aired it purty well. Why, she even lost her
gold pin a-helping him!" and he grinned broadly.
Helen shot him a warning glance, but it was too late; Mary suddenly sat
bolt upright, her expression one of shocked surprise.
"Helen Shields!" she cried, "and I never thought of it before! How could
you do it! Why, that horrid man will show your pin and boast about it to
everybody! The idea! I'm surprised at you!"
"Tut, tut," exclaimed Shields. "I reckon that pin is all right. He might
find it handy some day to return it, it'll be a good excuse when he gets
on his feet. And I'd hate to be the man to laugh at it, or try to take it
from him. Now, come, Mary, think of it right; it was the first kind act
he had known since he lost his daddy. And that pin is one of my main
stand-bys in this game. I believe that he'll be square as long as he
has it."
"Well, I don't care, James," warmly responded Mary. "It was _not_ a modest
thing to do when she had never seen him before, and he her brother's
enemy and an outlaw!"
"How could I have fastened the bandage, sister dear?" asked Helen, her
complexion slightly more colored than its natural shade. "It was so very
little to do after all he had done for us!"
"Well, Tom and I have some business to talk over, so we'll leave you
to fight the matter out among yourselves," the sheriff said, arising.
"Come to my room, Tom, I want to talk over that ranch scheme with you.
You bring the coffee pot and the cigars and I'll juggle the pie and
gingerbread," he laughed as he led the way.
"Oh, Tom!" hastily called Mrs. Shields after good-nights had been said,
and just before the door closed; "I promised you a dinner for your boys
when Helen and Mary came, and if you think you can spare them this coming
Sunday I will have it then."
"Thank you, Mrs. Shields," earnestly responded Blake, turning on the
threshold. "It is awful good of you to put yourself out that way, and you
can bet that the boys will be your devoted slaves ever after. If you
must go to that trouble, why, Sunday or any day you may name will do for
us. Gosh, but won't they be tickled!" he exulted as he pictured them
feasting on goodies. "It'll be better than a circus, it shore will!"
"Why, it's no trouble at all, Tom," she replied, smiling at being able
to bring cheer to a crowd of men, lonely, as she thought. "And you will
arrange to have The Orphan with them, won't you?"
"I most certainly will," he heartily replied. "It'll do wonders for him."
He glanced quickly at Helen, but she was busily engaged in threading a
needle under the lamp shade.
"Good night, all," he said as he closed the door.