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[Illustration: THIS SLENDER GIRL DUMFOUNDED THEM _Frontispiece Page 41_]
CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT
BY
WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
AUTHOR OF
BRAND BLOTTERS, BUCKY O'CONNOR, MAVERICKS,
WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, A TEXAS RANGER, etc.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
D. C. HUTCHISON
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1913, by
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
Crooked Trails and Straight
CONTENTS
PART I
CURLY
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Following a Crooked Trail 9
II. Camping with Old Man Trouble 23
III. At the End of the Road 33
IV. The Cullisons 49
V. Laura London 60
VI. A Bear Trap 74
VII. Bad Medicine 84
VIII. A Rehearsed Quarrel 94
IX. Eavesdropping 110
X. "Stick to Your Saddle" 131
PART II
LUCK
I. At the Round Up Club 143
II. Luck Meets an Old Acquaintance 151
III. An Initialed Hat 157
IV. Kate Uses Her Quirt 169
V. "Ain't She the Gamest Little Thoroughbred?" 178
VI. Two Hats On A Rack 194
VII. Anonymous Letters 200
VIII. A Message in Cipher 213
IX. "The Friends of L. C. Serve Notice" 220
X. Cass Fendrick Makes a Call 233
XI. A Compromise 245
XII. An Arrest 254
XIII. A Conversation 265
XIV. A Touch of the Third Degree 270
XV. Bob Takes a Hand 282
XVI. A Clean Up 294
XVII. The Prodigal Son 312
XVIII. Cutting Trail 316
XIX. A Good Samaritan 323
XX. Loose Threads 337
CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT
PART I
CURLY
CHAPTER I
FOLLOWING A CROOKED TRAIL
Across Dry Valley a dust cloud had been moving for hours. It rolled into
Saguache at the brisk heels of a bunch of horses just about the time the
town was settling itself to supper. At the intersection of Main and La
Junta streets the cloud was churned to a greater volume and density. From
out of the heart of it cantered a rider, who swung his pony as on a half
dollar, and deflected the remuda toward Chunn's corral.
The rider was in the broad-rimmed felt hat, the gray shirt, the plain
leather chaps of a vaquero. The alkali dust of Arizona lay thick on every
exposed inch of him, but youth bloomed inextinguishably through the grime.
As he swept forward with a whoop to turn the lead horses it rang in his
voice, announced itself in his carriage, was apparent in the modeling of
his slim, hard body. Under other conditions he might have been a college
freshman for age, but the competent confidence of manhood sat easily on
his broad shoulders. He was already a graduate of that school of
experience which always holds open session on the baked desert. Curly
Flandrau had more than once looked into the chill eyes of death.
The leaders of the herd dribbled into the corral through the open gate,
and the others crowded on their heels. Three more riders followed Curly
into the enclosure. Upon them, too, the desert had sifted its white coat.
The stained withers of the animals they rode told of long, steady travel.
One of them, a red-haired young fellow of about the same age as Curly,
swung stiffly from the saddle.
"Me for a square meal first off," he gave out promptly.
"Not till we've finished this business, Mac. We'll put a deal right
through if Warren's here," decided a third member of the party. He was a
tough-looking customer of nearly fifty. From out of his leathery
sun-and-wind beaten face, hard eyes looked without expression. "Bad Bill"
Cranston he was called, and the man looked as if he had earned his
sobriquet.
"And what if he ain't here?" snarled the fourth. "Are you aiming to sit
down and wait for him?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Bad Bill answered. "Curly,
want to ride up to the hotel and ask if Mr. Dave Warren is there? Bring
him right down if he is."
"And say, young fellow, don't shout all over the place what your business
is with him," ordered the previous speaker sulkily. Lute Blackwell, a
squat heavily muscled man of forty, had the manner of a bully. Unless his
shifty eyes lied he was both cruel and vindictive.
Curly's gaze traveled over him leisurely. Not a muscle in the boyish face
moved, but in the voice one might have guessed an amused contempt. "All
right. I won't, since you mention it, Lute."
The young man cantered up the dusty street toward the hotel. Blackwell
trailed toward the windmill pump.
"Thought you'd fixed it with this Warren to be right on the spot so's we
could unload on him prompt," he grumbled at Cranston without looking
toward the latter.
"I didn't promise he'd be hanging round your neck soon as you hit town,"
Cranston retorted coolly. "Keep your shirt on, Lute. No use getting in a
sweat."
The owner of the corral sauntered from the stable and glanced over the
bunch of horses milling around.
"Been traveling some," he suggested to Bad Bill.
"A few. Seen anything of a man named Warren about town to-day?"
"He's been down here se-ve-re-al times. Said he was looking for a party
with stock to sell. Might you be the outfit he's expecting?"
"We might." Bad Bill took the drinking cup from Blackwell and drained it.
"I reckon the dust was caked in my throat an inch deep."
"Drive all the way from the Bar Double M?" asked the keeper of the corral,
his eyes on the brand stamped on the flank of a pony circling past.
"Yep."
Bad Bill turned away and began to unsaddle. He did not intend to volunteer
any information, though on the other hand he did not want to stir
suspicion by making a mystery for gossips to chew on.
"Looks like you been hitting the road at a right lively gait."
Mac cut in. "Shoulder of my bronc's chafed from the saddle. Got anything
that'll heal it?"
"You bet I have." The man hurried into the stable and the redheaded
cowpuncher winked across the back of his horse at Bill.
The keeper of the stable and the young man were still busy doctoring the
sore when Curly arrived with Warren. The buyer was a roundbodied man with
black gimlet eyes that saw much he never told. The bargain he drove was a
hard one, but it did not take long to come to terms at about one-third the
value of the string he was purchasing. Very likely he had his suspicions,
but he did not voice them. No doubt they cut a figure in the price. He let
it be understood that he was a supply agent for the rebels in Mexico.
Before the bills were warm in the pockets of the sellers, his vaqueros
were mounted and were moving the remuda toward the border.
Curly and Mac helped them get started. As they rode back to the corral a
young man came out from the stable. Flandrau forgot that there were
reasons why he wanted just now to be a stranger in the land with his
identity not advertised. He let out a shout.
"Oh you, Slats Davis!"
"Hello, Curly! How are things a-comin'?"
"Fine. When did you blow in to Saguache? Ain't you off your run some?"
They had ridden the range together and had frolicked around on a dozen
boyish larks. Their ways had suited each other and they had been a good
deal more than casual bunkies. To put it mildly the meeting was likely to
prove embarrassing.
"Came down to see about getting some cows for the old man from the
Fiddleback outfit," Davis explained. "Didn't expect to bump into friends
'way down here. You riding for the Bar Double M?"
There was a momentary silence. Curly's vigilant eyes met those of his old
side partner. What did Slats know? Had he been in the stable while the
remuda was still in the corral? Had he seen them with Bad Bill and
Blackwell? Were his suspicions already active?
"No, I'm riding for the Map of Texas," Flandrau answered evenly.
"Come on, Curly. Let's go feed our faces," Mac called from the stable.
Flandrau nodded. "You still with the Hashknife?" he asked Davis.
"Still with 'em. I've been raised to assistant foreman."
"Bully for you. That's great. All right, Mac. I'm coming. That's sure
great, old hoss. Well, see you later, Slats."
Flandrau followed Mac, dissatisfied with himself for leaving his friend so
cavalierly. In the old days they had told each other everything, had
talked things out together before many a campfire. He guessed Slats would
be hurt, but he had to think of his partners in this enterprise.
After supper they took a room at the hotel and divided the money Warren
had paid for the horses. None of them had slept for the last fifty hours
and Mac proposed to tumble into bed at once.
Bad Bill shook his head. "I wouldn't, Mac. Let's hit the trail and do our
sleeping in the hills. There's too many telephone lines into this town to
suit me."
"Sho! We made a clean getaway, and we're plumb wore out. Our play isn't to
hike out like we were scared stiff of something. What we want to do is to
act as if we could look every darned citizen in the face. Mac's sure
right," Curly agreed.
"You kids make me tired. As if you knew anything about it. I'm going to
dust _muy pronto_," Blackwell snarled.
"Sure. Whenever you like. You go and we'll stay. Then everybody'll be
satisfied. We got to split up anyhow," Mac said.
Bad Bill looked at Blackwell and nodded. "That's right. We don't all want
to pull a blue streak. That would be a dead give away. Let the kids stay
if they want to."
"So as they can round on us if they're nabbed," Blackwell sneered.
Cranston called him down roughly. "That'll be enough along that line,
Lute. I don't stand for any more cracks like it."
Blackwell, not three months out from the penitentiary, faced the other
with an ugly look in his eyes. He was always ready to quarrel, but he did
not like to fight unless he had a sure thing. He knew Bad Bill was an ugly
customer when he once got started.
"Didn't mean any harm," the ex-convict growled. "But I don't like this
sticking around town. I tell you straight I don't like it."
"Then I wouldn't stay if I were you," Curly suggested promptly. "Mac and I
have got a different notion. So we'll tie to Saguache for a day or two."
As soon as the older men had gone the others tumbled into bed and fell
asleep at once. Daylight was sifting in through the open window before
their eyes opened. Somebody was pounding on the bedroom door, which
probably accounted for Flandrau's dream that a sheriff was driving nails
in the lid of a coffin containing one Curly.
Mac was already out of bed when his partner's feet hit the floor.
"What's up, Mac?"
The eyes of the redheaded puncher gleamed with excitement. His six-gun was
in his hand. By the look of him he was about ready to whang loose through
the door.
"Hold your horses, you chump," Curly sang out "It's the hotel clerk. I
left a call with him."
But it was not the hotel clerk after all. Through the door came a quick,
jerky voice.
"That you, Curly? For God's sake, let me in."
Before he had got the words out the door was open. Slats came in and shut
it behind him. He looked at Mac, the forty-five shaking in the boy's hand,
and he looked at Flandrau.
"They're after you," he said, breathing fast as if he had been running.
"Who?" fired Curly back at him.
"The Bar Double M boys. They just reached town."
"Put up that gun, Mac, and move into your clothes immediate," ordered
Curly. Then to Davis: "Go on. Unload the rest. What do they know?"
"They inquired for you and your friend here down at the Legal Tender. The
other members of your party they could only guess at."
"Have we got a chance to make our getaway?" Mac asked.
Davis nodded. "Slide out through the kitchen, cut into the alley, and
across lots to the corral. We'll lock the door and I'll hold them here
long as I can."
"Good boy, Slats. If there's a necktie party you'll get the first bid,"
Curly grinned.
Slats looked at him, cold and steady. Plainer than words he was telling
his former friend that he would not joke with a horse thief. For the sake
of old times he would save him if he could, but he would call any bluffs
about the whole thing being a lark.
Curly's eyes fell away. It came to him for the first time that he was no
longer an honest man. Up till this escapade he had been only wild, but now
he had crossed the line that separates decent folks from outlaws. He had
been excited with liquor when he joined in this fool enterprise, but that
made no difference now. He was a rustler, a horse thief. If he lived a
hundred years he could never get away from the disgrace of it.
Not another word was said while they hurried into their clothes. But as
Curly passed out of the door he called back huskily. "Won't forget what
you done for us, Slats."
Again their eyes met. Davis did not speak, but the chill look on his face
told Flandrau that he had lost a friend.
The two young men ran down the back stairs, passed through the kitchen
where a Chinese cook was getting breakfast, and out into the bright
sunlight. Before they cut across to the corral their eyes searched for
enemies. Nobody was in sight except the negro janitor of a saloon busy
putting empty bottles into a barrel.
"Won't do to be in any hurry. The play is we're gentlemen of leisure, just
out for an amble to get the mo'ning air," Curly cautioned.
While they fed, watered, and saddled they swapped gossip with the
wrangler. It would not do to leave the boy with a story of two riders in
such a hurry to hit the trail that they could not wait to feed their
bronchos. So they stuck it out while the animals ate, though they were
about as contented as a two-pound rainbow trout on a hook. One of them was
at the door all the time to make sure the way was still clear. At that
they shaved it fine, for as they rode away two men were coming down the
street.
"Kite Bonfils," Curly called to his partner.
No explanation was needed. Bonfils was the foreman of the Bar Double M. He
let out a shout as he caught sight of them and began to run forward.
Simultaneously his gun seemed to jump from its holster.
Mac's quirt sang and his pony leaped to a canter in two strides. A bullet
zipped between them. Another struck the dust at their heels. Faintly there
came to the fugitives the sound of the foreman's impotent curses. They had
escaped for the time.
Presently they passed the last barb wire fence and open country lay before
them. It did not greatly matter which direction they followed, so long as
they headed into the desert.
"What we're looking for is a country filled with absentees," Curly
explained with a grin.
Neither of them had ever been in serious trouble before and both regretted
the folly that had turned their drunken spree into a crime. Once or twice
they came to the edge of a quarrel, for Mac was ready to lay the blame on
his companion. Moreover, he had reasons why the thing he had done loomed
up as a heinous offense.
His reasons came out before the camp fire on Dry Sandy that evening. They
were stretched in front of it trying to make a smoke serve instead of
supper. Mac broke a gloomy silence to grunt out jerkily a situation he
could no longer keep to himself.
"Here's where I get my walking papers I reckon. No rustlers need apply."
Curly shot a slant glance at him. "Meaning--the girl?"
The redheaded puncher nodded. "She'll throw me down sure. Why shouldn't
she? I tell you I've ruined my life. You're only a kid. What you know
about it?"
He took from his coat pocket a photograph and showed it to his friend. The
sweet clean face of a wholesome girl smiled at Curly.
"She's ce'tainly a right nice young lady. I'll bet she stands by you all
right. Where's she live at?"
"Waits in a restaurant at Tombstone. We was going to be married soon as we
had saved five hundred dollars." Mac swallowed hard. "And I had to figure
out this short cut to the money whilst I was drunk. As if she'd look at
money made that way. Why, we'd a-been ready by Christmas if I'd only
waited."
Curly tried to cheer him up, but did not make much of a job at it. The
indisputable facts were that Mac was an outlaw and a horse thief. Very
likely a price was already on his head.
The redheaded boy rolled another cigarette despondently. "Sho! I've cooked
my goose. She'll not look at me--even if they don't send me to the pen."
In a moment he added huskily, staring into the deepening darkness: "And
she's the best ever. Her name's Myra Anderson."
Abruptly Mac got up and disappeared in the night, muttering something
about looking after the horses. His partner understood well enough what
was the matter. The redheaded puncher was in a stress of emotion, and like
the boy he was he did not want Curly to know it.
Flandrau pretended to be asleep when Mac returned half an hour later.
They slept under a live oak with the soundness of healthy youth. For the
time they forgot their troubles. Neither of them knew that as the hours
slipped away red tragedy was galloping closer to them.
CHAPTER II
CAMPING WITH OLD MAN TROUBLE
The sun was shining in his face when Curly wakened. He sat up and rubbed
his eyes. Mac was nowhere in sight. Probably he had gone to get the
horses.
A sound broke the stillness of the desert. It might have been the
explosion of a giant firecracker, but Flandrau knew it was nothing so
harmless. He leaped to his feet, and at the same instant Mac came running
over the brow of the hill. A smoking revolver was in his hand.
From behind the hill a gun cracked--then a second--and a third. Mac
stumbled over his feet and pitched forward full length on the ground. His
friend ran toward him, forgetting the revolver that lay in its holster
under the live oak. Every moment he expected to see Mac jump up, but the
figure stretched beside the cholla never moved. Flandrau felt the muscles
round his heart tighten. He had seen sudden death before, but never had it
come so near home.
A bullet sent up a spurt of dust in front of him, another just on the
left. Riders were making a half circle around the knoll and closing in on
him. In his right mind Curly would have been properly frightened. But now
he thought only of Mac lying there so still in the sand. Right into the
fire zone he ran, knelt beside his partner, and lifted the red-thatched
head. A little hole showed back of the left ear and another at the right
temple. A bullet had plowed through the boy's skull.
Softly Flandrau put the head back in the sand and rose to his feet. The
revolver of the dead puncher was in his hand. The attackers had stopped
shooting, but when they saw him rise a rifle puffed once more. The riders
were closing in on him now. The nearest called to him to surrender. Almost
at the same time a red hot pain shot through the left arm of the trapped
rustler. Someone had nipped him from the rear.
Curly saw red. Surrender nothing! He would go down fighting. As fast as he
could blaze he emptied Mac's gun. When the smoke cleared the man who had
ordered him to give up was slipping from his horse. Curly was surprised,
but he knew he must have hit him by chance.
"We got him. His gun's empty," someone shouted.
Cautiously they closed in, keeping him covered all the time. Of a sudden
the plain tilted up to meet the sky. Flandrau felt himself swaying on his
feet. Everything went black. The boy had fainted.
When he came to himself strange faces were all around him, and there were
no bodies to go with them. They seemed to float about in an odd casual
sort of way. Then things cleared.
"He's coming to all right," one said.
"Good. I'd hate to have him cheat the rope," another cried with an oath.
"That's right. How is Cullison?"
This was said to another who had just come up.
"Hard hit. Looks about all in. Got him in the side."
The rage had died out of Curly. In a flash he saw all that had come of
their drunken spree: the rustling of the Bar Double M stock, the
discovery, the death of his friend and maybe of Cullison, the certain
punishment that would follow. He was a horse thief caught almost in the
act. Perhaps he was a murderer too. And the whole thing had been entirely
unpremeditated.
Flandrau made a movement to rise and they jerked him to his feet.
"You've played hell," one of the men told the boy.
He was a sawed-off little fellow known as Dutch. Flandrau had seen him in
the Map of Texas country try a year or two before. The rest were strangers
to the boy. All of them looked at him out of hard hostile eyes. He was
scarcely a human being to them; rather a wolf to be stamped out of
existence as soon as it was convenient. A chill ran down Curly's spine. He
felt as if someone were walking on his grave.
At a shift in the group Flandrau's eyes fell on his friend lying in the
sand with face turned whitely to the sky he never would see again. It came
over him strangely enough how Mac used to break into a little chuckling
laugh when he was amused. He had quit laughing now for good and all. A
lump came into the boy's throat and he had to work it down before he
spoke.
"There's a picture in his pocket, and some letters I reckon. Send them to
Miss Myra Anderson, Tombstone, care of one of the restaurants. I don't
know which one."
"Send nothin'," sneered Dutch, and coupled it with a remark no decent man
makes of a woman on a guess.
Because of poor Mac lying there with the little hole in his temple Curry
boiled over. With a jerk his right arm was free. It shot out like a
pile-driver, all his weight behind the blow. Dutch went down as if a
charging bull had flung him.
Almost simultaneously Curly hit the sand hard. Before he could stir three
men were straddled over his anatomy. One of them ground his head into the
dust.
"You would, eh? We'll see about that. Jake, bring yore rope."
They tied the hands of the boy, hauled him to his feet, and set him
astride a horse. In the distance a windmill of the Circle C ranch was
shining in the morning sun. Toward the group of buildings clustered around
this two of his captors started with Flandrau. A third was already
galloping toward the ranch house to telephone for a doctor.
As they rode along a fenced lane which led to the house a girl came flying
down the steps. She swung herself to the saddle just vacated by the
messenger and pulled the horse round for a start. At sight of those coming
toward her she called out quickly.
"How is dad?" The quiver of fear broke in her voice.
"Don' know yet, Miss Kate," answered one of the men. "He's right peart
though. Says for to tell you not to worry. Don't you, either. We've got
here the mangy son of a gun that did it."
Before he had finished she was off like an arrow shot from a bow, but not
until her eyes had fallen on the youth sitting bareheaded and bloody
between the guns of his guard. Curly noticed that she had given a shudder,
as one might at sight of a mangled mad dog which had just bit a dear
friend. Long after the pounding of her pony's hoofs had died away the
prisoner could see the startled eyes of fear and horror that had rested on
him. As Curly kicked his foot out of the stirrup to dismount a light
spring wagon rolled past him. In its bed were a mattress and pillows. The
driver whipped up the horse and went across the prairie toward Dry Sandy
Creek. Evidently he was going to bring home the wounded man.
His guards put Flandrau in the bunk house and one of them sat at the door
with a rifle across his knees. The cook, the stable boy, and redheaded Bob
Cullison, a nephew of the owner of the ranch, peered past the _vaquero_ at
the captive with the same awe they would have yielded to a caged panther.
"Why, he's only a kid, Buck," the cook whispered.
Buck chewed tobacco impassively. "Old enough to be a rustler and a
killer."
Bob's blue eyes were wide with interest "I'll bet he's a regular Billy the
Kid," murmured the half-grown boy to the other lad.
"Sure. Course he is. He's got bad eyes all right."
"I'll bet he's got notches on his gun. Say, if Uncle Luck dies--" Bob left
the result to the imagination.
The excitement at the Circle C increased. Horses cantered up. Men shouted
to each other the news. Occasionally some one came in to have a look at
the "bad man" who had shot Luck Cullison. Young Flandrau lay on a cot and
stared at the ceiling, paying no more attention to them than if they had
been blocks of wood. It took no shrewdness to see that there burned in
them a still cold anger toward him that might easily find expression in
lynch law.
The crunch of wagon wheels over disintegrated granite drifted to the bunk
house.
"They're bringing the boss back," Buck announced from the door to one of
his visitors.
The man joined him and looked over his shoulder. "Miss Kate there too?"
"Yep. Say, if the old man don't pull through it will break her all up."
The boy on the bed turned his face to the wall. He had not cried for ten
years, but now he would have liked the relief of tears. The luck had
broken bad for him, but it would be the worst ever if his random shot were
to make Kate Cullison an orphan. A big lump rose in his throat and would
not stay down. The irony of it was that he was staged for the part of a
gray wolf on the howl, while he felt more like a little child that has
lost its last friend.
After a time there came again the crisp roll of wheels.
"Doc Brown," announced Buck casually to the other men in the bunk house.
There was more than one anxious heart at the Circle C waiting for the
verdict of the bowlegged baldheaded little man with the satchel, but not
one of them--no, not even Kate Cullison herself--was in a colder fear than
Curly Flandrau. He was entitled to a deep interest, for if Cullison should
die he knew that he would follow him within a few hours. These men would
take no chances with the delays of the law.
The men at the bunk house had offered more than once to look at Curly's
arm, but the young man declined curtly. The bleeding had stopped, but
there was a throb in it as if someone were twisting a red-hot knife in the
wound. After a time Doctor Brown showed up in the doorway of the men's
quarters.
"Another patient here, they tell me," he grunted in the brusque way that
failed to conceal the kindest of hearts.
Buck nodded toward Flandrau.
"Let's have a look at your arm, young fellow," the doctor ordered, mopping
his bald head with a big bandanna handkerchief.
"What about the boss?" asked Jake presently.
"Mighty sick man, looks like. Tell you more to-morrow morning."
"Do you mean that he--that he may not get well?" Curly pumped out, his
voice not quite steady.
Doctor Brown looked at him curiously. Somehow this boy did not fit the
specifications of the desperado that had been poured into his ears.
"Don't know yet. Won't make any promises." He had been examining the wound
in a businesslike way. "Looks like the bullet's still in there. Have to
give you an anesthetic while I dig it out."
"Nothin' doing," retorted Flandrau. "You round up the pill in there and
I'll stand the grief. When this lead hypodermic jabbed into my arm it
sorter gave me one of them annie-what-d'ye-call-'em--and one's a-plenty
for me."
"It'll hurt," the little man explained.
"Expect I'll find that out. Go to it."
Brown had not been for thirty years carrying a medicine case across the
dusty deserts of the frontier without learning to know men. He made no
further protest but set to work.
Twenty minutes later Curly lay back on the bunk with a sudden faintness.
He was very white about the lips, but he had not once flinched from the
instruments.
The doctor washed his hands and his tools, pulled on his coat, and came
across to the patient.
"Feeling like a fighting cock, are you? Ready to tackle another posse?" he
asked.
"Not quite." The prisoner glanced toward his guards and his voice fell to
a husky whisper. "Say, Doc. Pull Cullison through. Don't let him die."
"Hmp! Do my best, young fellow. Seems to me you're thinking of that pretty
late."
Brown took up his medicine case and went back to the house.
CHAPTER III
AT THE END OF THE ROAD
Curly's wooden face told nothing of what he was thinking. The first
article of the creed of the frontier is to be game. Good or bad, the last
test of a man is the way he takes his medicine. So now young Flandrau ate
his dinner with a hearty appetite, smoked cigarettes impassively, and
occasionally chatted with his guards casually and as a matter of course.
Deep within him was a terrible feeling of sickness at the disaster that
had overwhelmed him, but he did not intend to play the quitter.
Dutch and an old fellow named Sweeney relieved the other watchers about
noon. The squat puncher came up and looked down angrily at the boy lying
on the bunk.
"I'll serve notice right now that if you make any breaks I'll fill your
carcass full of lead," he growled.
The prisoner knew that he was nursing a grudge for the blow that had
floored him. Not to be bluffed, Curly came back with a jeer. "Much
obliged, my sawed-off and hammered-down friend. But what's the matter with
your face? It looks some lopsided. Did a mule kick you?"
Sweeney gave his companion the laugh. "Better let him alone, Dutch. If he
lands on you again like he did before your beauty ce'tainly will be
spoiled complete."
The little puncher's eyes snapped rage. "You'll get yours pretty soon, Mr.
Curly Flandrau. The boys are fixin' to hang yore hide up to dry."
"Does look that way, doesn't it?" the boy agreed quietly.
As the day began to wear out it looked so more than ever. Two riders from
the Bar Double M reached the ranch and were brought in to identify him as
the horse thief. The two were Maloney and Kite Bonfils, neither of them
friends of the young rustler. The foreman in particular was a wet blanket
to his chances. The man's black eyes were the sort that never soften
toward the follies and mistakes of youth.
"You've got the right man all right," he said to Buck without answering
Flandrau's cool nod of recognition.
"What sort of a reputation has he got?" Buck asked, lowering his voice a
little.
Kite did not take the trouble to lower his. "Bad. Always been a tough
character. Friend of Bad Bill Cranston and Soapy Stone."
Dutch chipped in. "Shot up the Silver Dollar saloon onct. Pretty near beat
Pete Schiff's head off another time."
Curly laughed rather wildly. "That's right. Keep a-coming, boys. Your turn
now, Maloney."
"All right. Might as well have it all," Buck agreed.
"I don't know anything against the kid, barring that he's been a little
wild," Maloney testified. "And I reckon we ain't any of us prize Sunday
school winners for that matter."
"Are we all friends of Soapy Stone and Bad Bill? Do we all rustle stock
and shoot up good citizens?" Dutch shrilled.
Maloney's blue Irish eyes rested on the little puncher for a moment, then
passed on as if he had been weighed and found wanting.
"I've noticed," he said to nobody in particular, "that them hollering
loudest for justice are most generally the ones that would hate to have it
done to them."
Dutch bristled like a turkey rooster. "What do you mean by that?"
The Irishman smiled derisively. "I reckon you can guess if you try real
hard."
Dutch fumed, but did no guessing out loud. His reputation was a
whitewashed one. Queer stories had been whispered about him. He had been a
nester, and it was claimed that calves certainly not his had been found
carrying his brand. The man had been full of explanations, but there came
a time when explanations no longer were accepted. He was invited to become
an absentee at his earliest convenience. This was when he had been living
across the mountains. Curly had been one of those who had given the
invitation. He had taken the hint and left without delay. Now he was
paying the debt he owed young Flandrau.
Though the role Curly had been given was that of the hardened desperado he
could not quite live up to the part. As Buck turned to leave the bunk
house the boy touched him on the arm.
"How about Cullison?" he asked, very low.
But Buck would not have it that way. "What about him?" he demanded out
load, his voice grating like steel when it grinds.
"Is he--how is he doing?"
"What's eatin' you? Ain't he dying fast enough to suit you?"
Flandrau shrank from the cruel words, as a schoolboy does from his teacher
when he jumps at him with a cane. He understood how the men were feeling,
but to have it put into words like this cut him deeply.
It was then that Maloney made a friend of the young man for life. He let a
hand drop carelessly on Curly's shoulder and looked at him with a friendly
smile in his eyes, just as if he knew that this was no wolf but a poor
lost dog up against it hard.
"Doc thinks he'll make it all right."
But there were times when Curly wondered whether it would make any
difference to him whether Cullison got well or not. Something immediate
was in the air. Public opinion was sifting down to a decision. There were
wise nods, and whisperings, and men riding up and going off again in a
hurry. There had been a good deal of lawlessness of late, for which Soapy
Stone's band of followers was held responsible. Just as plainly as if he
had heard the arguments of Dutch and Kite Bonfils he knew that they were
urging the others to make an example of him. Most of these men were well
up to the average for the milk of human kindness. They were the squarest
citizens in Arizona. But Flandrau knew they would snuff out his life just
the same if they decided it was best. Afterward they might regret it, but
that would not help him.
Darkness came, and the lamps were lit. Again Curly ate and smoked and
chatted a little with his captors. But as he sat there hour after hour,
feeling death creep closer every minute, cold shivers ran up and down his
spine.
They began to question him, at first casually and carelessly, so it seemed
to Curly. But presently he discerned a drift in the talk. They were trying
to find out who had been his partners in the rustling.
"And I reckon Soapy and Bad Bill left you lads at Saguache to hold the
sack," Buck suggested sympathetically.
Curly grew wary. He did not intend to betray his accomplices. "Wrong
guess. Soapy and Bad Bill weren't in this deal," he answered easily.
"We know there were two others in it with you. I guess they were Soapy and
Bad Bill all right."
"There's no law against guessing."
The foreman of the Bar Double M interrupted impatiently, tired of trying
to pump out the information by finesse. "You've got to speak, Flandrau.
You've got to tell us who was engineering this theft. Understand?"
The young rustler looked at the grim frowning face and his heart sank.
"Got to tell you, have I?"
"That's what?"
"Out with it," ordered Buck.
"Oh, I expect I'll keep that under my hat," Curly told them lightly.
They were crowded about him in a half circle, nearly a score of hard
leather-faced plainsmen. Some of them were riders of the Circle C outfit.
Others had ridden over from neighboring ranches. All of them plainly meant
business. They meant to stamp out rustling, and their determination had
been given an edge by the wounding of Luck Cullison, the most popular man
in the county.
"Think again, Curly," advised Sweeney quietly. "The boys ain't trifling
about this thing. They mean to find out who was in the rustling of the Bar
Double M stock."
"Not through me, they won't."
"Through you. And right now."
A dozen times during the evening Curly had crushed down the desire to beg
for mercy, to cry out desperately for them to let him off. He had kept
telling himself not to show yellow, that it would not last long. Now the
fear of breaking down sloughed from his soul. He rose from the bed and
looked round at the brown faces circled about him in the shine of the
lamps.
"I'll not tell you a thing--not a thing."
He stood there chalk-faced, his lips so dry that he had to keep moistening
them with the tip of his tongue. Two thoughts hammered in his head. One
was that he had come to the end of his trail, the other that he would game
it out without weakening.
Dutch had a new rope in his hand with a loop at one end. He tossed it over
the boy's head and drew it taut. Two or three of the faces in the circle
were almost as bloodless as that of the prisoner, but they were set to see
the thing out.
"Will you tell now?" Bonfils asked.
Curly met him eye to eye. "No."
"Come along then."
One of the men caught his arm at the place where he had been wounded. The
rustler flinched.
"Careful, Buck. Don't you see you're hurting his bad arm?" Sweeney said
sharply.
"Sure. Take him right under the shoulder."
"There's no call to be rough with him."
"I didn't aim to hurt him," Buck defended himself.
His grip was loose and easy now. Like the others he was making it up to
his conscience for what he meant to do by doing it in the kindest way
possible.
Curly's senses had never been more alert. He noticed that Buck had on a
red necktie that had got loose from his shirt and climbed up his neck. It
had black polka dots and was badly frayed. Sweeney was chewing tobacco. He
would have that chew in his mouth after they had finished what they were
going to do.
"Ain't he the gamest ever?" someone whispered.
The rustler heard the words and they braced him as a drink of whiskey does
a man who has been on a bad spree. His heart was chill with fear, but he
had strung his will not to let him give way.
"Better do it at the cottonwoods down by the creek," Buck told Bonfils in
a low voice.
The foreman of the Bar Double M moved his head in assent. "All right.
Let's get it over quick as we can."
A sound of flying feet came from outside. Someone smothered an oath of
surprise. Kate Cullison stood in the doorway, all out of breath and
panting.
She took the situation in before she spoke, guessed exactly what they
intended to do. Yet she flung her imperious question at them.
"What is it?"
They had not a word to say for themselves. In that room were some of the
most callous hearts in the territory. Not one man in a million could have
phased them, but this slender girl dumfounded them. Her gaze settled on
Buck. His wandered for help to Sweeney, to Jake, to Kite Bonfils.
"Now look-a-here, Miss Kate," Sweeney began to explain.
But she swept his remonstrance aside.
"No--No--No!" Her voice gathered strength with each repetition of the
word. "I won't have it. What are you thinking about?"
To the boy with the rope around his neck she was an angel from heaven as
she stood there so slim and straight, her dark eyes shining like stars.
Some of these men were old enough to be her father. Any of them could have
crushed her with one hand. But if a thunderbolt had crashed in their midst
it could not have disturbed the vigilantes more.
"He's a rustler, Miss Kate; belongs to Soapy Stone's outfit," Sweeney
answered the girl.
"Can you prove it?"
"We got him double cinched."
"Then let the law put him in prison."
"He shot yore paw," Buck reminded her.
"Is that why you're doing it?"
"Yes'm," and "That's why," they nodded.
Like a flash she took advantage of their admission. "Then I've got more
against him than you have, and I say turn him over to the law."
"He'd get a good lawyer and wiggle out," Dutch objected.
She whirled on the little puncher. "You know how that is, do you?"
Somebody laughed. It was known that Dutch had once been tried for stealing
a sheep and had been acquitted.
Kite pushed forward, rough and overbearing. "Now see here. We know what
we're doing and we know why we're doing it. This ain't any business for a
girl to mix in. You go back to the house and nurse your father that this
man shot."
"So it isn't the kind of business for a girl," she answered
scornfully. "It's work for a man, isn't it? No, not for one. For
nine--eleven--thirteen--seventeen big brave strong men to hang one poor
wounded boy."
Again that amused laugh rippled out. It came from Maloney. He was leaning
against the door jamb with his hands in his pockets. Nobody had noticed
him before. He had come in after the girl. When Curly came to think it
over later, if he had been given three guesses as to who had told Kate
Cullison what was on the program he would have guessed Maloney each time.
"Now that you've relieved your mind proper, Miss Cullison, I expect any of
the boys will be glad to escort you back to the house," Kite suggested
with an acid smile.
"What have you got to do with this?" she flamed. "Our boys took him. They
brought him here as their prisoner. Do you think we'll let you come over
into this county and dictate everything we do?"
"I've got a notion tucked away that you're trying to do the dictating your
own self," the Bar Double M man contradicted.
"I'm not. But I won't stand by while you get these boys to do murder. If
they haven't sense enough to keep them from it I've got to stop it
myself."
Kite laughed sarcastically. "You hear your boss, boys."
"You've had yore say now, Miss Kate. I reckon you better say good-night,"
advised Buck.
She handed Buck and his friends her compliments in a swift flow of
feminine ferocity.
Maloney pushed into the circle. "She's dead right, boys. There's nothing
to this lynching game. He's only a kid."
"He's not such a kid but what he can do murder," Dutch spat out.
Kate read him the riot act so sharply that the little puncher had not
another word to say. The tide of opinion was shifting. Those who had been
worked up to the lynching by the arguments of Bonfils began to resent his
activity. Flandrau was their prisoner, wasn't he? No use going off half
cocked. Some of them were discovering that they were not half so anxious
to hang him as they had supposed.
The girl turned to her friends and neighbors. "I oughtn't to have talked
to you that way, but you know how worried I am about Dad," she apologized
with a catch in her breath. "I'm sure you didn't think or you would never
have done anything to trouble me more just now. You know I didn't half
mean it." She looked from one to another, her eyes shiny with tears. "I
know that no braver or kinder men live than you. Why, you're my folks.
I've been brought up among you. And so you've got to forgive me."
Some said "Sure," others told her to forget it, and one grass widower drew
a laugh by saying that her little spiel reminded him of happier days.
For the first time a smile lit her face. The boy for whose life she was
pleading thought it was like sunshine after a storm.
"I'm so glad you've changed your minds. I knew you would when you thought
it over," she told them chattily and confidentially.
She was taking their assent for granted. Now she waited and gave them a
chance to chorus their agreement. None of them spoke except Maloney. Most
of them were with her in sympathy but none wanted to be first in giving
way. Each wanted to save his face, so that the others could not later
blame him for quitting first.
She looked around from one to another, still cheerful and sure of her
ground apparently. Two steps brought her directly in front of one. She
caught him by the lapels of his coat and looked straight into his eyes.
"You _have_ changed your mind, haven't you, Jake?"
The big Missourian twisted his hat in embarrassment. "I reckon I have,
Miss Kate. Whatever the other boys say," he got out at last.
"Haven't you a mind of your own, Jake?"
"Sure. Whatever's right suits me."
"Well, you know what is right, don't you?"
"I expect."
"Then you won't hurt this man, our prisoner?"
"I haven't a thing against him if you haven't."
"Then you won't hurt him? You won't stand by and let the other boys do
it?"
"Now, Miss Kate--"
She burst into sudden tears. "I thought you were my friend, but now I'm in
trouble you--you think only of making it worse. I'm worried to death about
Dad--and you--you make me stay here--away from him--and torment me."
Jake gave in immediately and the rest followed like a flock of sheep. Two
or three of the promises came hard, but she did not stop till each one
individually had pledged himself. And all the time she was cajoling them,
explaining how good it was of them to think of avenging her father, how in
one way she did not blame them at all, though of course they had seen it
would not do as soon as they gave the matter a second thought. Dad would
be so pleased at them when he heard about it, and she wanted them to know
how much she liked and admired them. It was quite a love feast.
The young man she had saved could not keep his eyes from her. He would
have liked to kneel down and kiss the edge of her dress and put his curly
head in the dust before her. The ice in his heart had melted in the warmth
of a great emotion. She was standing close to him talking to Buck when he
spoke in a low voice.
"I reckon I can't tell you--how much I'm obliged to you, Miss."
She drew back quickly as if he had been a snake about to strike, her hand
instinctively gathering her skirts so that they would not brush against
him.
"I don't want your thanks," she told him, and her voice was like the
drench of an icy wave.
But when she saw the hurt in his eyes she hesitated. Perhaps she guessed
that he was human after all, for an impulse carried her forward to take
the rope from his neck. While his heart beat twice her soft fingers
touched his throat and grazed his cheek. Then she turned and was gone from
the room.
It was a long time before the bunk house quieted. Curly, faint with
weariness, lay down and tried to sleep. His arm was paining a good deal
and he felt feverish. The men of the Circle C and their guests sat down
and argued the whole thing over. But after a time the doctor came in and
had the patient carried to the house. He was put in a good clean bed and
his arm dressed again.
The doctor brought him good news. "Cullison is doing fine. He has dropped
into a good sleep. He'd ought to make it all right."
Curly thought about the girl who had fought for his life.
"You'll not let him die, Doc," he begged.
"He's too tough for that, Luck Cullison is."
Presently Doctor Brown gave him a sleeping powder and left him. Soon after
that Curly fell asleep and dreamed about a slim dark girl with fine
longlashed eyes that could be both tender and ferocious.
CHAPTER IV
THE CULLISONS
Curly was awakened by the sound of the cook beating the call to breakfast
on a triangle. Buck was standing beside the bed.
"How're they coming this glad mo'ning, son?" he inquired with a grin.
"Fine and dandy," grinned back Flandrau.
So he was, comparatively speaking. The pain in his arm had subsided. He
had had a good sleep. And he was lying comfortably in a clean bed instead
of hanging by the neck from the limb of one of the big cottonwoods on the
edge of the creek.
A memory smote him and instantly he was grave again.
"How is Cullison?"
"Good as the wheat, doc says. Mighty lucky for Mr. C. Flandrau that he is.
Say, I'm to be yore valley and help you into them clothes. Git a wiggle on
you."
Buck escorted his prisoner over to the ranch mess house. The others had
finished breakfast but Maloney was still eating. His mouth was full of hot
cakes, but he nodded across at Curly in a casual friendly way.
"How's the villain in the play this mo'ning?" he inquired.
Twenty-one usually looks on the cheerful side of life. Curly had forgotten
for the moment about what had happened to his friend Mac. He did not
remember that he was in the shadow of a penitentiary sentence. The sun was
shining out of a deep blue sky. The vigor of youth flowed through his
veins. He was hungry and a good breakfast was before him. For the present
these were enough.
"Me, I'm feeling a heap better than I was last night," he admitted.
"Came pretty near losing him out of the cast, didn't we?"
"Might a-turned out that way if the stage manager had not remembered the
right cue in time."
Curly was looking straight into the eyes twinkling across the table at
him. Maloney knew that the young fellow was thanking him for having saved
his life. He nodded lightly, but his words still seemed to make a jest of
the situation.
"Enter the heroine. Spotlight. Sa-a-ved," he drawled.
The heart of the prisoner went out to this man who was reaching a hand to
him in his trouble. He had always known that Maloney was true and steady
as a snubbing post, but he had not looked for any kindness from him.
"Kite just got a telephone message from Saguache," the Bar Double M man
went on easily. "Your friends that bought the rustled stock didn't get
away with the goods. Seems they stumbled into a bunch of _rurales_
unexpected and had to pull their freight sudden. The boys from the ranch
happened along about then, claimed ownership and got possession."
"If the men bought the stock why didn't they stop and explain?" asked
Buck.
"That game of buying stolen cattle is worn threadbare. The _rurales_ and
the rangers have had their eye on those border flitters for quite some
time. So they figured it was safer to dust."
"Make their getaway?" Curly inquired as indifferently as he could. But in
spite of himself a note of eagerness crept into his voice. For if the men
had escaped that would be two less witnesses against him.
"Yep."
"Too bad. If they hadn't I could have proved by them I was not one of the
men who sold them the stock," Flandrau replied.
"Like hell you could," Buck snorted, then grinned at his prisoner in a
shamefaced way: "You're a good one, son."
"Luck has been breaking bad for me, but when things are explained----"
"It sure will take a lot of explaining to keep you out of the pen. You'll
have to be slicker than Dutch was."
Jake stuck his head in at the door. "Buck, you're needed to help with them
two-year-olds. The old man wants to have a talk with the rustler. Doc says
he may. Maloney, will you take him up to the house? I'll arrange to have
you relieved soon as I can."
Maloney had once ridden for the Circle C and was friendly with all the men
on the place. He nodded. "Sure."
A Mexican woman let them into the chamber where the wounded man lay. It
was a large sunny southeast room with French windows opening upon a long
porch. Kate was bending over the bed rearranging the pillows, but she
looked up quickly when the two men entered. Her eyes were still gentle
with the love that had been shining down from them upon her father.
Cullison spoke. "Sit down, Dick." And to his prisoner: "You too."
Flandrau saw close at hand for the first time the man who had been
Arizona's most famous fighting sheriff. Luck Cullison was well-built and
of medium height, of a dark complexion, clean shaven, wiry and muscular.
Already past fifty, he looked not a day more than forty. One glance was
enough to tell Curly the kind of man this was. The power of him found
expression in the gray steel-chilled eyes that bored into the young
outlaw. A child could have told he was not one to trifle with.
"You have begun early, young fellow," he said quietly.
"Begun what?" Curly asked, having nothing better to say.
"You know what. But never mind that. I don't ask you to convict yourself.
I sent for you to tell you I don't blame you for this." He touched the
wound in his side.
"Different with your boys, sir."
"So the boys are a little excited, are they?"
"They were last night anyhow," Curly answered, with a glimmer of a smile.
Cullison looked quickly at Maloney and then at his daughter.
"I'll listen to what you've been hiding from me," he told them.
"Oh, the boys had notions. Miss Kate argued with them and they saw things
different," the Bar Double M rider explained.
But Cullison would not let it go at that. He made them tell him the whole
story. When Curly and Maloney had finished he buried his daughter's little
hand in his big brown fist. His eyes were dancing with pride, but he gave
her not a word of spoken praise.
Kate, somewhat embarrassed, changed the subject briskly. "Now you're
talking too much, Dad. Doctor Brown said you might see him for just a few
minutes. But you're not to tire yourself, so I'll do the talking for
you."
He took his orders with the smiling submission of the man who knows his
mistress.
Kate spoke to Curly. "Father wants me to tell you that we don't blame you
for shooting at him. We understand just how it was. Your friend got
excited and shot as soon as he saw he was surrounded. We are both very
sorry he was killed. Father could not stop the boys in time. Perhaps you
remember that he tried to get you to surrender."
The rustler nodded. "Yes, I heard him holler to me to put my gun down, but
the others blazed away at me."
"And so you naturally defended yourself. That's how we understand it.
Father wants it made clear that he feels you could have done nothing
else."
"Much obliged. I've been sorry ever since I hit him, and not only on my
own account."
"Then none of us need to hold hard feelings." The girl looked at her
father, who answered her appeal with a grim nod, and then she turned again
to the young rustler a little timidly. "I wonder if you would mind if I
asked you a question."
"You've earned the right to ask as many as you like."
"It's about---- We have been told you know the man they call Soapy Stone.
Is that true?"
Flandrau's eyes took on a stony look. It was as if something had sponged
all the boyishness from his face. Still trying to get him to give away his
partners in the rustling, were they? Well, he would show them he could
take his medicine without squealing.
"Maybe it is and maybe it isn't."
"Oh, but you don't see what we mean. It isn't that we want to hurt you."
She spoke in a quick eager voice of protest.
"No, you just want me to squeal on my friends to save my own hide. Nothing
doing, Miss Cullison."
"No. You're wrong. Why are you so suspicious?"
Curly laughed bitterly. "Your boys were asking that question about Soapy
last night. They had a rope round my neck at the time. Nothing unfriendly
in the matter, of course. Just a casual interest in my doings."
Cullison was looking at him with the steel eyes that bored into him like a
gimlet. Now he spoke sharply.
"I've got an account running with Soapy Stone. Some day I'll settle it
likely. But that ain't the point now. Do you know his friends--the bunch
he trails with?"
Wariness still seemed to crouch in the cool eyes of Flandrau.
"And if I say yes, I'll bet your next question will be about the time and
the place I last saw them."
Kate picked up a photograph from the table and handed it to the prisoner.
"We're not interested in his friends--except one of them. Did you ever see
the boy that sat for that picture?"
The print was a snapshot of a boy about nineteen, a good looking handsome
fellow, a little sulky around the mouth but with a pair of straight honest
eyes.
Curly shook his head slowly. Yet he was vaguely reminded of someone he
knew. Glancing up, he found instantly the clew to what had puzzled him.
The young man in the picture was like Kate Cullison, like her father too
for that matter.
"He's your brother." The words were out before Flandrau could stop them.
"Yes. You've never met him?"
"No."
Cullison had been watching the young man steadily. "Never saw him with
Soapy Stone?"
"No."
"Never heard Stone speak of Sam Cullison?"
"No. Soapy doesn't talk much about who his friends are."
The ex-sheriff nodded. "I've met him."
Of course he had met him. Curly knew the story of how in one drive he had
made a gather of outlaws that had brought fame to him. Soapy had broken
through the net, but the sheriff had followed him into the hills alone and
run him to earth. What passed between the men nobody ever found out. Stone
had repeatedly given it out that he could not be taken alive. But Cullison
had brought him down to the valley bound and cowed. In due season the
bandits had gone over the road to Yuma. Soapy and the others had sworn to
get their revenge some day. Now they were back in the hills at their old
tricks. Was it possible that Cullison's son was with them, caught in a
trap during some drunken frolic just as Curly had been? In what way could
Stone pay more fully the debt of hate he owed the former sheriff than by
making his son a villain?
The little doctor came briskly into the room.
"Everybody out but the nurse. You've had company enough for one day,
Luck," he announced cheerily.
Kate followed Maloney and his prisoner to the porch.
"About the letters of your friend that was shot," she said to Curly.
"Doctor Brown was telling me what you said. I'll see they reach Miss
Anderson. Do you know in what restaurant she works?"
"No. Mac didn't tell me." The boy gulped to swallow an unexpected lump in
his throat. "They was expecting to get married soon."
"I--I'll write to her," Kate promised, her eyes misty.
"I'd be obliged, Miss. Mac was a good boy. Anyone will tell you that. And
he was awful fond of her. He talked about her that last night before the
camp fire. I led him into this."
"I'll tell her what you say."
"Do. Tell her he felt bad about what he had done. Bad companions got him
going wrong, but he sure would have settled down into a good man. That's
straight goods, too. You write it strong."
The girl's eyes were shiny with tears. "Yes," she answered softly.
"I ain't any Harvard A. B. Writing letters ain't my long suit. I'm always
disremembering whether a man had ought to say have went and have knew.
Verbs are the beatingest things. But I know you'll fix it up right so as
to let that little girl down easy."
"I've changed my mind. I'll not write but go to see her."
Curly could only look his thanks. Words seemed strangely inadequate. But
Kate understood the boy's unspoken wish and nodded her head reassuringly
as he left the room.
CHAPTER V
LAURA LONDON
Kite Bonfils and Maloney took Curly back to Saguache and turned him over
to Sheriff Bolt.
"How about bail?" Maloney asked.
The sheriff smiled. He was a long lean leather-faced man with friendly
eyes from which humorous wrinkles radiated.
"You honing to go bail for him, Dick?"
"How much?"
"Oh, say two thousand."
"You're on."
"What!"
A cowpuncher with fifty dollars two weeks after pay day was a rarity. No
wonder Bolt was surprised.
"It's not my money. Luck Cullison is going bail for him," Maloney
explained.
"Luck Cullison!" Maloney's words had surprised the exclamation from Curly.
Why should the owner of the Circle C of all men go bail for him?
The sheriff commented dryly on the fact. "I thought this kid was the one
that shot him."
"That was just a happenstance. Curly shot to save his bacon. Luck don't
hold any grudge."
"So I should judge. Luck gave you his check, did he?"
Bolt belonged to the political party opposed to Cullison. He had been
backed by Cass Fendrick, a sheepman in feud with the cattle interests and
in particular with the Circle C outfit. But he could not go back on his
word. He and Maloney called together on the district attorney. An hour
later Dick returned to the jail.
"It's all right, kid," he told Curly. "You can shake off the dust of
Saguache from your hoofs till court meets in September."
To Flandrau the news seemed too good for the truth. Less than twenty-four
hours ago he had been waiting for the end of the road with a rope around
his neck. Now he was free to slip a saddle on his pony Keno and gallop off
as soon as he pleased. How such a change had been brought about he did not
yet understand.
While he and Maloney were sitting opposite each other at the New Orleans
Hash House waiting for a big steak with onions he asked questions.
"I don't savvy Cullison's play. Whyfor is he digging up two thousand for
me? How does he know I won't cut my stick for Mexico?"
"How do I know it?"
"Well, do you?"
Maloney helped himself to the oyster crackers to pass the time. "Sure I
do."
"How?"
"Search me. But I know you'll be here in September if you're alive and
kicking."
Flandrau persisted. "But Luck don't owe me anything, except one pill sent
promiscuous to his address. What's he going down into his jeans for? Will
you tell me that? And shove them crackers north by east. Got to fill up on
something."
"Ain't you as good a guesser as I am, Curly?"
"Well then, here's my guess. Miss Kate made him."
"I reckon maybe she influenced him. But why did she? You don't figure that
curly topknot of yours is disturbing her dreams any, do you?"
"Quit your joshing and tell me why."
"I can't tell you for sure. But here's my guess. Don't cost you a cent if
you ain't satisfied with it. First off, there was poor Mac shot by the
Circle C boys. Course Mac was a horse thief, but then he was a kid too.
That worried the little girl some. She got to thinking about brother Sam
and how he might be in the same fix one of these days as you are now. He's
on her mind a good deal, Sam is. Same way with the old man too, I reckon,
though he don't say much. Well, she decided Soapy Stone had led you astray
like he's doing with Sam. It got to worrying her for fear her brother
might need a friend some time. So she handed over her worry to the old man
and made him dig up for you."
"That's about it. Tell me what you know of Sam. Is he as white as the rest
of the family?"
"Sam is all right, but he has got off wrong foot first. He and the old man
got to kind of disagreeing, for the kid was a wild colt. Come by it
honestly from the old man too. Well, they had a row one time when Sam got
into trouble. Luck told him he never wanted to see him again. Sam lit out,
and next folks knew he was trailing with Soapy's gang. Consequence is,
Sam's hitting the toboggan for Tophet by all accounts."
"Looks like some one ought to be able to pry him loose from that bunch,"
Curly mused aloud.
Maloney grinned across at him. "You try it, son. You've always led a good
pious life. He sure would listen to you."
He had said it as a jest, but Curly did not laugh. Why not? Why shouldn't
he hunt up Sam and let him know how his folks were worrying about him?
What was to hinder him from trying to wipe out some of the big debt he
owed the Cullison family? He was footloose till September and out of a
job. For he could not go back to the Map of Texas with his hat in his hand
and a repentant whine on his lips. Why not take a hike into the hills and
round up the boy? Of course Sam might not listen to him, but he could not
tell that till he had tried. It had taken him scarcely a moment to make up
his mind. The smile had not yet died out of Maloney's eyes when he spoke.
"Damn if I don't take a crack at it."
The man on the other side of the table stared at him.
"Meaning that, are you?"
"Yep."
"Might be some lively if Soapy gets wise to your intentions," he said in a
casual sort of way.
"I don't aim to declare them out loud."
That was all they said about it at the time. The rest of the evening was
devoted to pleasure. After dinner they took in a moving picture show. The
first film was a Western melodrama and it pleased them both immensely.
"I'd be afraid to live in a country where guns popped like they do in
moving picture land," Curly drawled. "Where is it anyhow? It ain't Texas,
nor Oklahoma, nor Wyoming, nor Montana, nor any of the spots in between,
because I've been in all of them."
Maloney laughed. "Day before yesterday that's the way I'd a-talked my own
self, but now I know better. What about your little stunt? Wasn't that
warm enough for you? Didn't guns pop enough? Don't you talk about moving
pictures!"
After the picture show there were other things. But both of them trod the
narrow path, Maloney because he was used to doing so and Flandrau because
his experiences had sobered him.
"I'm on the water wagon, Dick." He grinned ruefully at his friend.
"Nothing like locking the stable after your bronc's been stole. I'd a-been
a heap better off if I'd got on the wagon a week ago."
Since their way was one for several miles Maloney and Curly took the road
together next morning at daybreak. Their ponies ambled along side by side
at the easy gait characteristic of the Southwest. Steadily they pushed
into the brown baked desert. Little dust whirls in the shape of inverted
cones raced across the sand wastes. The heat danced along the road in
front of them in shimmering waves.
Your plainsman is a taciturn individual. These two rode for an hour
without exchanging a syllable. Then Curly was moved to talk.
"Can you tell me how it is a man can get fond of so Godforsaken a country?
Cactus and greasewood and mesquite, and for a change mesquite and
greasewood and cactus! Nothing but sand washes and sand hills, except the
naked mountains 'way off with their bones sticking through. But in the
mo'ning like this, when the world's kind o' smiley with the sunshine, or
after dark when things are sorter violet soft and the mountains lose their
edges--say, would you swap it for any other country on earth?"
Maloney nodded. He had felt that emotion a hundred times, though he had
never put it into words.
At Willow Wash their ways diverged. They parted with a casual "So-long;
see you later." Curly was striking for the headwaters of Dead Cow Creek,
where Soapy Stone had a horse ranch.
He put up that night at the place of a nester in the foothills. His host
looked at him curiously when he mentioned his destination, but he did not
say anything. It was none of his business how many young fellows rode to
Soapy's ranch.
Flandrau took the trail again next morning after breakfast. About two
o'clock he reached a little park in the hills, in the middle of which, by
a dry creek, lay a ranch.
The young man at first thought the place was deserted for the day, but
when he called a girl appeared at the door. She smiled up at him with the
lively interest any ranch girl may be expected to feel in a stranger who
happens to be both young and good looking.
She was a young person of soft curves and engaging dimples. Beneath the
brown cheeks of Arizona was a pink that came and went very attractively.
Curly took off his dusty gray hat. "_Buenos tardes; senorita!_ I'll bet
I'm too late to draw any dinner."
"_Buenos, senor_," she answered promptly. "I'll bet you'd lose your
money."
He swung from the saddle. "That's good hearing. When a fellow has had his
knees clamped to the side of a bronch for seven hours he's sure ready for
the dinner bell."
"You can wash over there by the pump. There's a towel on the fence."
She disappeared into the house, and Curly took care of his horse, washed,
and sauntered back to the porch. He could smell potatoes frying and could
hear the sizzling of ham and eggs.
While he ate the girl flitted in and out, soft-footed and graceful,
replenishing his plate from time to time.
Presently he discovered that her father was away hunting strays on Sunk
Creek, that the nearest neighbor was seven miles distant, and that Stone's
ranch was ten miles farther up Dead Cow.
"Ever meet a lad called Sam Cullison?" the guest asked carelessly.
Curly was hardly prepared to see the color whip into her cheeks or to meet
the quick stabbing look she fastened on him.
"You're looking for him, are you?" she said.
"Thought while I was here I'd look him up. I know his folks a little."
"Do you know him?"
He shook his head. She looked at him very steadily before she spoke.
"You haven't met him yet but you want to. Is that it?"
"That's it."
"Will you have another egg?"
Flandrau laughed. "No, thanks. Staying up at Stone's, is he?"
"How should I know who's staying at Stone's?"
It was quite plain she did not intend to tell anything that would hurt
young Cullison.
"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. I ain't lost him any to speak of," the young
man drawled.
"Are you expecting to stop in the hills long--or just visiting?"
"Yes," Curly answered, with his most innocent blank wall look.
"Yes which?"
"Why, whichever you like, Miss London. What's worrying you? If you'll ask
me plain out I'll know how to answer you."
"So you know my name?"
"Anything strange about that? The Bar 99 is the London brand. I saw your
calves in the corral with their flanks still sore. Naturally I assume the
young lady I meet here is Miss Laura London."
She defended her suspicions. "Folks come up here with their mysterious
questions. A person would think nobody lived on Dead Cow but outlaws and
such, to hear some of you valley people tell it."
"There's nothing mysterious about me and my questions. I'm just a
lunkheaded cowpuncher out of a job. What did you think I was?"
"What do you want with Sam Cullison? Are you friendly to him? Or aren't
you?"
"Ladies first. Are _you_ friendly to him? Or aren't you?"
Curly smiled gaily across the table at her. A faint echo of his pleasantry
began to dimple the corners of her mouth. It lit her eyes and spread from
them till the prettiest face on the creek wrinkled with mirth. Both of
them relaxed to peals of laughter, and neither of them quite knew the
cause of their hilarity.
"Oh, you!" she reproved when she had sufficiently recovered.
"So you thought I was a detective or a deputy sheriff. That's certainly
funny."
"For all I know yet you may be one."
"I never did see anyone with a disposition so dark-complected as yours. If
you won't put them suspicions to sleep I'll have to table my cards." From
his pocket he drew a copy of the Saguache Sentinel and showed her a marked
story. "Maybe that will explain what I'm doing up on Dead Cow."
This was what Laura London read:
From Mesa comes the news of another case of bold and flagrant
rustling. On Friday night a bunch of horses belonging to the Bar
Double M were rounded up and driven across the mountains to this
city. The stolen animals were sold here this morning, after which the
buyers set out at once for the border and the thieves made themselves
scarce. It is claimed that the rustlers were members of the notorious
Soapy Stone outfit. Two of the four were identified, it is alleged,
as William Cranston, generally known as "Bad Bill," and a young
vaquero called "Curly" Flandrau.
At the time of going to press posses are out after both the outlaws
and the stolen horses. Chances of overtaking both are considered
excellent. All likely points and outlying ranches have been notified
by telephone whenever possible.
In case the guilty parties are apprehended the _Sentinel_ hopes an
example will be made of them that will deter others of like stamp
from a practice that has of late been far too common. Lawlessness
seems to come in cycles. Just now the southern tier of counties
appears to be suffering from such a sporadic attack. Let all good men
combine to stamp it out. The time has passed when Arizona must stand
as a synonym for anarchy.
She looked up at the young man breathlessly, her pretty lips parted, her
dilated eyes taking him in solemnly. A question trembled on her lips.
"Say it," advised Flandrau.
The courage to ask what she was thinking came back in a wave. "Then I
will. Are you a rustler?"
"That's what the paper says, don't it?"
"Are you this man mentioned here? What's his name--'Curly' Flandrau?"
"Yes."
"And you're a rustler?"
"What do you think? Am I more like a rustler than a deputy sheriff? Stands
to reason I can't be both."
Her eyes did not leave him. She brushed aside his foolery impatiently.
"You don't even deny it."
"I haven't yet. I expect I will later."
"Why do men do such things?" she went on, letting the hands that held the
paper drop into her lap helplessly. "You don't look bad. Anyone would
think----"
Her sentence tailed out and died away. She was still looking at Curly, but
he could see that her mind had flown to someone else. He would have bet a
month's pay that she was thinking of another lad who was wild but did not
look bad.
Flandrau rose and walked round the table to her. "Much obliged, Miss
Laura. I'll shake hands on that with you. You've guessed it. Course, me
being so 'notorious' I hate to admit it, but I ain't bad any more than he
is."
She gave him a quick shy look. He had made a center shot she was not
expecting. But, womanlike, she did not admit it.
"You mean this 'Bad Bill'?"
"You know who I mean all right. His name is Sam Cullison. And you needn't
to tell me where he is. I'll find him."
"I know you don't mean any harm to him." But she said it as if she were
pleading with him.
"C'rect. I don't. Can you tell me how to get to Soapy Stone's horse ranch
from here, Miss London?"
She laughed. Her doubts were vanishing like mist before the sunshine.
"Good guess. At least he was there the last I heard."
"And I expect your information is pretty recent."
That drew another little laugh accompanied by a blush.
"Don't you think I have told you enough for one day, Mr. Flandrau?"
"That 'Mr.' sounds too solemn. My friends call me 'Curly,'" he let her
know.
She remembered that he was a stranger and a rustler and she drew herself
up stiffly. This pleasant young fellow was too familiar.
"If you take this trail to the scrub pines above, then keep due north for
about four miles, you'll strike the creek again. Just follow the trail
along it to the horse ranch."
With that she turned on her heel and walked into the kitchen.
Curly had not meant to be "fresh." He was always ready for foolery with
the girls, but he was not the sort to go too far. Now he blamed himself
for having moved too fast. He had offended her sense of what was the
proper thing.
There was nothing for it but to saddle and take the road.
CHAPTER VI
A BEAR TRAP
The winding trail led up to the scrub pines and from there north into the
hills. Curly had not traveled far when he heard the sound of a gun fired
three times in quick succession. He stopped to listen. Presently there
came a faint far call for help.
Curly cantered around the shoulder of the hill and saw a man squatting on
the ground. He was stooped forward in an awkward fashion with his back to
Flandrau.
"What's up?"
At the question the man looked over his shoulder. Pain and helpless rage
burned in the deep-set black eyes.
"Nothing at all. Don't you see I'm just taking a nap?" he answered
quietly.
Curly recognized him now. The man was Soapy Stone. Behind the straight
thin-lipped mouth a double row of strong white teeth were clamped tightly.
Little beads of perspiration stood out all over his forehead. A glance
showed the reason. One of his hands was caught in a bear trap fastened to
a cottonwood. Its jaws held him so that he could not move.
The young man swung from the back of Keno. He found the limb of a
cottonwood about as thick as his forearm below the elbow. This he set
close to the trap.
"Soon as I get the lip open shove her in," he told Stone.
The prisoner moistened his dry lips. It was plain that he was in great
pain.
The rescuer slipped the toes of his boots over the lower lip and caught
the upper one with both hands. Slowly the mouth of the trap opened. Stone
slipped in the wooden wedge and withdrew his crushed wrist. By great good
fortune the steel had caught on the leather gauntlet he was wearing.
Otherwise it must have mangled the arm to a pulp.
Even now he was suffering a good deal.
"You'll have to let a doc look at it," Curly suggested.
Stone agreed. "Reckon I better strike for the Bar 99." He was furious at
himself for having let such an accident happen. The veriest tenderfoot
might have known better.
His horse had disappeared, but Curly helped him to the back of Keno.
Together they took the trail for the Bar 99. On the face of the wounded
man gathered the moisture caused by intense pain. His jaw was clenched to
keep back the groans.
"Hard sledding, looks like," Curly sympathized.
"Reckon I can stand the grief," Stone grunted.
Nor did he speak again until they reached the ranch and Laura London
looked at him from a frightened face.
"What is it?"
"Ran a sliver in my finger, Miss Laura. Too bad to trouble you," Soapy
answered with a sneer on his thin lips.
A rider for the Bar 99 had just ridden up and Laura sent him at once for
the doctor. She led the way into the house and swiftly gathered bandages,
a sponge, and a basin of water. Together she and Curly bathed and wrapped
the wound. Stone did not weaken, though he was pretty gray about the
lips.
Laura was as gentle as she could be.
"I know I'm hurting you," she said, her fingers trembling.
"Not a bit of it. Great pleasure to have you for a nurse. I'm certainly in
luck." Curly did not understand the bitterness in the sardonic face and he
resented it.
"If the doctor would only hurry," Laura murmured.
"Yes, I know I'm a great trouble. Too bad Curly found me."
She was busy with the knots of the outer wrapping and did not look up. "It
is no trouble."
"I'm too meddlesome. Serves me right for being inquisitive about your
father's trap."
"He'll be sorry you were caught."
"Yes. He'll have to climb the hill and reset it."
That something was wrong between them Curly could see. Soapy was very
polite in spite of his bitterness, but his hard eyes watched her as a cat
does a mouse. Moreover, the girl was afraid of him. He could tell that by
the timid startled way she had of answering. Now why need she fear the
man? It would be as much as his life was worth to lift a hand to hurt
her.
After the doctor had come and had attended to the crushed wrist Curly
stepped out to the porch to find Laura. She was watering her roses and he
went across the yard to her.
"I'm right sorry for what I said, Miss Laura. Once in a while a fellow
makes a mistake. If he's as big a chump as I am it's liable to happen a
little oftener. But I'm not really one of those smart guys."
Out came her gloved hand in the firmest of grips.
"I know that now. You didn't think. And I made a mistake. I thought you
were taking advantage because I had been friendly. I'm glad you spoke
about it. We'll forget it."
"Then maybe we'll be friends after all, but I sha'n't tell you what my
friends call me," he answered gaily.
She laughed out in a sudden bubbling of mirth. "Take care."
"Oh, I will. I won't even spell it."
He helped her with the watering. Presently she spoke, with a quick look
toward the house.
"There's something I want to say."
"Yes."
"Something I want you to do for me."
"I expect maybe I'll do it."
She said nothing more for a minute, then the thing that was troubling her
burst from the lips of the girl as a flame leaps out of a pent fire.
"It's about that boy he has up there." She gave a hopeless little gesture
toward the hills.
"Sam Cullison?"
"Yes."
"What about him?"
"He's bent on ruining him, always has been ever since he got a hold on
him. I can't tell you how I know it, but I'm sure---- And now he's more
set on it than ever."
Curly thought he could guess why, but he wanted to make sure. "Because you
are Sam's friend?"
The pink flooded her cheeks. "Yes."
"And because you won't be Soapy Stone's friend?"
She flashed a startled look at him. "How do you know?"
"Jealous, is he?"
Her face, buried in the blooms she had been cutting, was of the same tint
as the roses.
"And so he wants to hurt you through him?" Flandrau added.
"Yes. If he can drag Sam down and get him into trouble he'll pay off two
grudges at once. And he will too. You'll see. He's wily as an Indian. For
that matter there is Apache blood in him, folks say."
"What about young Cullison? Can't he make a fight for himself?"
"Oh, you know how boys are. Sam is completely under this man's influence."
Her voice broke a little. "And I can't help him. I'm only a girl. He won't
listen to me. Besides, Dad won't let me have anything to do with him
because of the way he's acting. What Sam needs is a man friend, one just
as strong and determined as Soapy but one who is good and the right sort
of an influence."
"Are you picking me for that responsible friend who is to be such a
powerful influence for good?" Curly asked with a smile.
"Yes--yes, I am." She looked up at him confidently.
"Haven't you forgotten that little piece in the _Sentinel_? How does it
go? An example had ought to be made of the desperadoes, and all the rest
of it."
"I don't care what it says. I've seen you."
"So had the editor."
She waved his jests aside. "Oh, well! You've done wrong. What of that?
Can't I tell you are a man? And I don't care how much fun you make of me.
You're good too."
Curly met her on the ground of her own seriousness. "I'll tell you
something, Miss Laura. Maybe you'll be glad to know that the reason I'm
going to the horse ranch is to help Sam Cullison if I can."
He went on to tell her the whole story of what the Cullisons had done for
him. In all that he said there was not one word to suggest such a thing,
but Laura London's mind jumped the gaps to a knowledge of the truth that
Curly himself did not have. The young man was in love with Kate Cullison.
She was sure of it. Also, she was his ally in the good cause of romance.
When Curly walked back into the house, Stone laid down the paper he had
been reading.
"I see the _Sentinel_ hints that Mr. Curly Flandrau had better be
lynched," he jeered.
"The _Sentinel_ don't always hit the bull's-eye, Soapy," returned the
young man evenly. "It thinks I belong to the Soapy Stone outfit, but we
know I haven't that honor."
"There's no such outfit--not in the sense he means," snapped the man on
the lounge. "What are your plans? Where you going to lie low? Picked a
spot yet?"
"I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on the way," Curly assured him
gaily.
Soapy frowned at him under the heavy eyebrows that gave him so menacing an
effect.
"Better come back with me to the ranch till you look around."
"Suits me right down to the ground if it does you."
Someone came whistling into the house and opened the door of the room. He
was a big lank fellow with a shotgun in his hands. "From Missouri" was
stamped all over his awkward frame. He stood staring at his unexpected
guests. His eyes, clashing with those of Stone, grew chill and hard.
"So you're back here again, are you?" he asked, looking pretty black.
Stone's lip smile mocked him. "I don't know how you guessed it, but I sure
am here."
"Didn't I tell you to keep away from the Bar 99--you and your whole cursed
outfit?"
"Seems to me you did mention something of that sort. But how was I to know
whether you meant it unless I came back to see?"
Laura came into the room and ranged herself beside her father. Her hand
rested lightly on his forearm.
"He got caught in one of your bear traps and this young man brought him
here to wait for the doctor," she explained.
"Hmp!"
The Missourian stared without civility at his guest, turned on his heel,
and with his daughter beside him marched out of the room. He could not
decently tell Stone to leave while he was under the care of a doctor, but
he did not intend to make him welcome. London was a blunt grizzled old
fellow who said what he thought even about the notorious Soapy Stone.
"We'll pull our freights right away, Curly," Stone announced as soon as
his host had gone.
The young man went to the stable and saddled Keno. While he was tightening
the cinch a shadow fell across his shoulder. He did not need to look round
to see whose it was.
"I'm so glad you're going to the horse ranch. You will look out for Sam. I
trust you. I don't know why, but I have the greatest confidence in you,"
the owner of the shadow explained sweetly.
Curly smiled blandly over his shoulder at her. "Fine! That's a good
uplifting line of talk, Miss Laura. Now will you please explain why you're
feeding me this particular bunch of taffy? What is it I'm to do for you?"
She blushed and laughed at the same time. Her hand came from behind her
back. In it was a letter.
"But I do mean it, every word of it."
"That's to be my pay for giving Master Sam his billy doo, is it?"
"How did you guess? It is a letter to Sam."
"How did I guess it? Shows I'm sure a wiz, don't it?"
She saw her father coming and handed him the letter quickly.
"Here. Take it." A spark of mischief lit her eye and the dimples came out
on her cheeks. "Good-by, _Curly_."
CHAPTER VII
BAD MEDICINE
The house at the horse ranch was a long, low L-shaped adobe structure. The
first impression Curly received was that of negligence. In places the roof
sagged. A door in the rear hung from one hinge. More than one broken pane
of glass was stuffed with paper. The same evidence of shiftlessness could
be seen on every hand. Fences had collapsed and been repaired flimsily.
The woodwork of the well was rotting. The windmill wheezed and did its
work languidly for lack of oil.
Two men were seated on the porch playing seven up. One was Bad Bill, the
other Blackwell. At sight of Curly they gave up their game.
"Hello, kid! Where did you drop from?" Cranston asked.
A muscle twitched in Flandrau's cheek. "They got Mac."
"Got him! Where? At Saguache?"
"Ran us down near the Circle C. Mac opened fire. They--killed him."
"Shot him, or----?" Curly was left to guess the other half of the
question.
"Shot him, and took me prisoner."
"They couldn't prove a thing, could they?"
"They could prove I wounded Cullison. That was enough for them. They set
out to hang me. Later they changed their minds."
"How come you here? Did you escape?"
"Nope. Friends dug up bail."
Cranston did not ask what friends. He thought he knew. Alec Flandrau, an
uncle of Curly, owned a half interest in the Map of Texas ranch. No doubt
he had come to the aid of the young scapegoat.
"I'll bet the old man was sore at having to ante," was Big Bill's
comment.
"Say, Soapy has been telling me that the Cullison kid is up here. I reckon
we better not say anything about my mixup with his folks. I'm not looking
for any trouble with him."
"All right, Curly. That goes with me. How about you, Blackwell?"
"Sure. What Sam don't know won't hurt him."
Curly sat down on the porch and told an edited story of his adventures to
them. Before he had finished a young fellow rode up and dismounted. He had
a bag of quail with him which he handed over to the Mexican cook. After he
had unsaddled and turned his pony into a corral he joined the card players
on the porch.
By unanimous consent the game was changed to poker. Young Cullison had the
chair next to Flandrau. He had, so Curly thought, a strong family
resemblance to his father and sister. "His eye jumps straight at you and
asks its questions right off the reel," the newcomer thought. Still a boy
in his ways, he might any day receive the jolt that would transform him
into a man.
The cook's "Come and get it" broke up the game for a time. They trooped to
supper, where for half an hour they discussed without words fried quail,
cornbread and coffee. Such conversation as there was held strictly to
necessary lines and had to do with the transportation of edibles.
Supper over, they smoked till the table was cleared. Then coats were
removed and they sat down to the serious business of an all night session
of draw.
Curly was not playing to win money so much as to study the characters of
those present. Bill he knew already fairly well as a tough nut to crack,
game to the core, and staunch to his friends. Blackwell was a bad lot,
treacherous, vindictive, slippery as an eel. Even his confederates did not
trust him greatly. But it was Soapy Stone and young Cullison that
interested Flandrau most. The former played like a master. He chatted
carelessly, but he overlooked no points. Sam had the qualities that go to
make a brilliant erratic player, but he lacked the steadiness and the
finesse of the veteran.
The last play before they broke up in the gray dawn was a flashlight on
Stone's cool audacity. The limit had long since been taken off. Blackwell
and Stone had been the winners of the night, and the rest had all lost
more or less.
Curly was dealing, Cranston opened the pot.
"She's cracked," he announced.
Blackwell, sitting next to him, had been waiting his turn with palpable
eagerness. "Got to boost her, boys, to protect Bill," he explained as his
raise went in.
Sam, who had drunk more than was good for him, raised in his turn. "Kick
her again, gentlemen. Me, I'm plumb tired of that little song of mine,
'Good here'."
Stone stayed. Curly did not come in.
Cranston showed his openers and laid down his hand. Blackwell hesitated,
then raised again.
"Reckon I'm content to trail along," Cullison admitted, pushing in the
necessary chips.
Soapy rasped his stubby chin, looked sideways at Sam and then at
Blackwell, and abruptly shaved in chips enough to call the raise.
"Cards?" asked Curly.
"I'll play these," Blackwell announced.
Sam called for two and Stone one.
Blackwell raised. Sam, grumbling, stayed.
"Might as well see what you've got when I've gone this far," he gave as a
reason for throwing good money after bad.
Soapy took one glance at his new card and came in with a raise.
Blackwell slammed his fist down on the table. "Just my rotten luck. You've
filled."
Stone smiled, then dropped his eyes to his cards. Suddenly he started.
What had happened was plain. He had misread his hand.
With a cheerful laugh Blackwell raised in his turn.
"Lets me out," Sam said.
For about a tenth of a second one could see triumph ride in Soapy's eyes.
"Different here," he explained in a quiet businesslike way. All his chips
were pushed forward to the center of the table.
On Blackwell's face were mapped his thoughts. Curly saw his stodgy mind
working on the problem, studying helplessly the poker eyes of his easy
placid enemy. Was Soapy bluffing? Or had he baited a hook for him to
swallow? The faintest glimmer of amusement drifted across the face of
Stone. He might have been a general whose plans have worked out to suit
him, waiting confidently for certain victory. The longer the convict
looked at him the surer he was that he had been trapped.
With an oath he laid down his hand. "You've got me beat. Mine is only a
jack high straight."
Stone put down his cards and reached for the pot.
Curly laughed.
Blackwell whirled on him.
"What's so condemned funny?"
"The things I notice."
"Meaning?"
"That I wouldn't have laid down my hand."
"Betcher ten plunks he had me beat."
"You're on." Curly turned to Soapy. "Object to us seeing your hand?"
Stone was counting his chips. He smiled. "It ain't poker, but go ahead.
Satisfy yourselves."
"You turn the cards," Flandrau said.
A king of diamonds showed first, then a ten-spot and a six-spot of the
same suit.
"A flush," exulted Blackwell.
"I've got just one more ten left, but it says you're wrong."
The words were not out of Curly's mouth before the other had taken the
bet. Soapy looked at Flandrau with a new interest. Perhaps this boy was
not such a youth as he had first seemed.
The fourth card turned was a king of hearts, the last a six of spades.
Stone had had two pair to go on and had not bettered at the draw.
Blackwell tossed down two bills and went away furious.
That night was like a good many that followed. Sam was at an
impressionable age, inclined to be led by any man whom he admired. Curly
knew that he could gain no influence over him by preaching. He had to live
the rough-and-tumble life of these men who dwelt beyond the pale of the
law, to excel them at the very things of which they boasted. But in one
respect he held himself apart. While he was at the horse ranch he did not
touch a drop of liquor.
Laura London's letter was not delivered until the second day, for, though
she had not told her messenger to give it to Sam when he was alone, Curly
guessed this would be better. The two young men had ridden down to Big
Tree spring to get quail for supper.
"Letter for you from a young lady," Flandrau said, and handed it to
Cullison.
Sam did not read his note at once, but put it in his pocket carelessly, as
if it had been an advertisement. They lay down in the bushes about twenty
yards apart, close to the hole where the birds flew every evening to
water. Hidden by the mesquite, Sam ran over his letter two or three times
while he was waiting. It was such a message as any brave-hearted,
impulsive girl might send to the man she loved when he seemed to her to
walk in danger. Cullison loved her for the interest she took in him, even
while he ridiculed her fears.
Presently the quails came by hundreds on a bee-line for the water hole.
They shot as many as they needed, but no more, for neither of them cared
to kill for pleasure.
As they rode back to the ranch, Curly mentioned that he had seen Sam's
people a day or two before.
Cullison asked no questions, but he listened intently while the other told
the story of his first rustling and of how Miss Kate and her father had
stood by him in his trouble. The dusk was settling over the hills by this
time, so that they could not see each other's faces clearly.
"If I had folks like you have, the salt of the earth, and they were
worrying their hearts out about me, seems to me I'd quit helling around
and go back to them," Curly concluded.
"The old man sent you to tell me that, did he?" Hard and bitter came the
voice of the young man out of the growing darkness.
"No, he didn't. He doesn't know I'm here. But he and your sister have done
more for me than I ever can pay. That's why I'm telling you this."
Sam answered gruffly, as a man does when he is moved, "Much obliged,
Curly, but I reckon I can look out for myself."
"Just what I thought, and in September I have to go to the penitentiary.
Now I have mortgaged it away, my liberty seems awful good to me."
"You'll get off likely."
"Not a chance. They've got me cinched. But with you it's different. You
haven't fooled away your chance yet. There's nothing to this sort of life.
The bunch up here is no good. Soapy don't mean right by you, or by any
young fellow he trails with."
"I'll not listen to anything against Soapy. He took me in when my own
father turned against me."
"To get back at your father for sending him up the road."
"That's all right. He has been a good friend to me. I'm not going to throw
him down."
"Would it be throwing him down to go back to your people?"
"Yes, it would. We've got plans. Soapy is relying on me. No matter what
they are, but I'm not going to lie down on him. And I'm not going back to
the old man. He told me he was through with me. Once is a-plenty. I'm not
begging him to take me back, not on your life."
[Illustration: HE WAS THE MADDEST MAN IN ARIZONA.]
Curly dropped the matter. To urge him further would only make the boy more
set in his decision. But as the days passed he kept one thing in his mind,
not to miss any chance to win his friendship. They rode together a good
deal, and Flandrau found that Sam liked to hear him talk about the Circle
C and its affairs. But often he was discouraged, for he made no progress
in weaning him from his loyalty to Stone. The latter was a hero to him,
and gradually he was filling him with wrong ideas, encouraging him the
while to drink a great deal. That the man had some definite purpose Curly
was sure. What it was he meant to find out.
Meanwhile he played his part of a wild young cowpuncher ready for any
mischief, but beneath his obtuse good humor Flandrau covered a vigilant
wariness. Soapy held all the good cards now, but if he stayed in the game
some of them would come to him. Then he would show Mr. Stone whether he
would have everything his own way.
CHAPTER VIII
A REHEARSED QUARREL
Because he could not persuade him to join in their drinking bouts, Stone
nicknamed Curly the good bad man.
"He's the prize tough in Arizona, only he's promised his ma not to look on
the wine when it is red," Blackwell sneered.
Flandrau smiled amiably, and retorted as best he could. It was his cue not
to take offence unless it were necessary.
It was perhaps on account of this good nature that Blackwell made a
mistake. He picked on the young man to be the butt of his coarse
pleasantries. Day after day he pointed his jeers at Curly, who continued
to grin as if he did not care.
When the worm turned, it happened that they were all sitting on the porch.
Curly was sewing a broken stirrup leather, Blackwell had a quirt in his
hand, and from time to time flicked it at the back of his victim. Twice
the lash stung, not hard, but with pepper enough to hurt. Each time the
young man asked him to stop.
Blackwell snapped the quirt once too often. When he picked himself out of
the dust five seconds later, he was the maddest man in Arizona. Like a
bull he lowered his head and rushed. Curly sidestepped and lashed out hard
with his left.
The convict whirled, shook the hair out of his eyes, and charged again. It
was a sledge-hammer bout, with no rules except to hit the other man often
and hard. Twice Curly went down from chance blows, but each time he rolled
away and got to his feet before his heavy foe could close with him.
Blackwell had no science. His arms went like flails. Though by sheer
strength he kept Flandrau backing, the latter hit cleaner and with more
punishing effect.
Curly watched his chance, dodged a wild swing, and threw himself forward
hard with his shoulder against the chest of the convict. The man staggered
back, tripped on the lowest step of the porch, and went down hard. The
fall knocked the breath out of him.
"Had enough?" demanded Curly.
For answer Blackwell bit his thumb savagely.
"Since you like it so well, have another taste." Curly, now thoroughly
angry, sent a short-arm jolt to the mouth.
The man underneath tried to throw him off, but Flandrau's fingers found
his hairy throat and tight-
[Transcriber's Note: the last line printed in the preceeding paragraph was
"tight-" and that was at a page break. The continuation was not printed at
the top of the following page. From the context, "tightened" is likely the
completed word.]
"You're killing me," the convict gasped.
"Enough?"
"Y-yes."
Curly stepped back quickly, ready either for a knife or a gun-play.
Blackwell got to his feet, and glared at him.
"A man is like a watermelon; you can't most generally tell how good he is
till you thump him," Sam chuckled.
Cranston laughed. "Curly was not so ripe for picking as you figured, Lute.
If you'd asked me, I could a-told you to put in yore spare time letting
him alone. But a fellow has to buy his own experience."
The victor offered his hand to Blackwell. "I had a little luck. We'll call
it quits if you say so."
"I stumbled over the step," the beaten man snarled.
"Sure. I had all the luck."
"Looked to me like you were making yore own luck, kid," Bad Bill
differed.
The paroled convict went into the house, swearing to get even. His face
was livid with fury.
"You wouldn't think a little thing like a whaling given fair and square
would make a man hold a grudge. My system has absorbed se-ve-real without
doing it any harm." Sam stooped to inspect a rapidly discoloring eye.
"Say, Curly, he hung a peach of a lamp on you."
Soapy made no comment in words, but he looked at Flandrau with a new
respect. For the first time a doubt as to the wisdom of letting him stay
at the ranch crossed his mind.
His suspicion was justified. Curly had been living on the edge of a secret
for weeks. Mystery was in the air. More than once he had turned a corner
to find the other four whispering over something. The group had
disintegrated at once with a casual indifference that did not deceive.
Occasionally a man had ridden into the yard late at night for private talk
with Stone, and Curly was morally certain that the man was the little
cowpuncher Dutch of the Circle C.
Through it all Curly wore a manner of open confidence. The furtive
whisperings did not appear to arouse his curiosity, nor did he intercept
any of the knowing looks that sometimes were exchanged. But all the time
his brain was busy with questions. What were they up to? What was it they
had planned?
Stone and Blackwell rode away one morning. To Curly the word was given
that they were going to Mesa. Four days later Soapy returned alone. Lute
had found a job, he said.
"That a paper sticking out of your pocket?" Flandrau asked.
Soapy, still astride his horse, tossed the _Saguache Sentinel_ to him as
he turned toward the stable.
"Lie number one nailed," Curly said to himself. "How came he with a
Saguache paper if he's been to Mesa?"
Caught between the folds of the paper was a railroad time table. It was a
schedule of the trains of the Texas, Arizona & Pacific for July. This was
the twenty-ninth of June. Certainly Soapy had lost no time getting the new
folder as soon as it was issued. Why? He might be going traveling. If so,
what had that to do with the mystery agitating him and his friends?
Curly turned the pages idly till a penciled marking caught his eye. Under
Number 4's time was scrawled, just below Saguache, the word Tin Cup, and
opposite it the figures 10:19. The express was due to leave Saguache at
9:57 in the evening. From there it pushed up to the divide and slid down
with air brakes set to Tin Cup three thousand feet lower. Soapy could not
want to catch the train fifteen miles the other side of Saguache. But this
note on the margin showed that he was interested in the time it reached
the water tank. There must be a reason for it.
Stone came back hurriedly from the corral, to find Curly absorbed in the
Sentinel.
"Seen anything of a railroad folder? I must a-dropped it."
"It was stuck in the paper. I notice there's liable to be trouble between
Fendrick and the cattle interests over his sheep," the reader answered
casually.
"Yep. Between Fendrick and Cullison, anyhow." Stone had reclaimed and
pocketed his time table.
Incidentally Flandrau's doubt had been converted into a lively suspicion.
Presently he took a gun, and strolled off to shoot birds. What he really
wanted was to be alone so that he could think the matter over. Coming home
in the dusk, he saw Stone and young Cullison with their heads together
down by the corral. Curious to see how long this earnest talk would last,
Curly sat down on a rock, and watched them, himself unobserved. They
appeared to be rehearsing some kind of a scene, of which Soapy was stage
director.
The man on the rock smiled grimly. "They're having a quarrel, looks
like.... Now the kid's telling Soapy to go to Guinea, and Soapy's pawing
around mad as a bull moose. It's all a play. They don't mean it. But why?
I reckon this dress rehearsal ain't for the calves in the corral."
Curly's mind was so full of guesses that his poker was not up to par that
night. About daybreak he began to see his way into the maze. His first
gleam of light was when a row started between Soapy and Cullison. Before
anyone could say a word to stop them they were going through with that
identical corral quarrel.
Flandrau knew now they had been preparing it for his benefit. Cranston
chipped in against Sam, and to keep up appearances Curly backed the boy.
The quarrel grew furious. At last Sam drove his fist down on the table and
said he was through with the outfit and was going back to Saguache.
"_Yo tambien_," agreed Curly. "Not that I've got anything against the
horse ranch. That ain't it. But I'm sure pining for to bust the bank at
Bronson's.
'Round and round the little ball goes,
Where it will land nobody knows.'
I've got forty plunks burning my jeans. I've got to separate myself from
it or make my roll a thousand."
The end of it was that both Sam and Curly went down to the corral and
saddled their ponies. To the last the conspirators played up to their
parts.
"Damned good riddance," Stone called after them as they rode away.
"When I find out I'm doing business with four-flushers, I quit them cold,"
Sam called back angrily.
Curly was amused. He wanted to tell his friend that they had pulled off
their little play very well. But he did not.
Still according to program, Sam sulked for the first few miles of their
journey. But before they reached the Bar 99 he grew sunny again.
"I'm going to have a talk with Laura while I'm so near," he explained.
"Yes, that will be fine. From the way the old man talked when I was there,
I expect he'll kill the fatted yearling for you."
"I don't figure on including the old man in my call. What's the use of
having a friend along if you don't use him? You drift in ... just happen
along, you know. I'll stay in the scrub pines up here. If the old man is
absent scenery, you wave your bandanna real industrious. If he is at home,
give Laura the tip and she'll know where to find me."
The owner of the ranch, as it happened, was cutting trail over by Agua
Caliente.
"Do you want to see him very bad, Mr. Flandrau?" asked Miss Laura
demurely.
"My friends call me Curly."
"I meant to say Curly."
"That's what I thought. No, I can't say I've lost Mr. London."
"You inquired for him."
"Hmp! That's different. When I used to come home from the swimming hole
contrary to orders, I used to ask where Dad was, but I didn't want to see
him."
"I see. Did you just come down from the horse ranch?"
"You've guessed it right."
"Then I'm sorry I can't ask you to 'light. Dad's orders."
"You've got lots of respect for his orders, haven't you?" he derided.
"Yes, I have." She could not quite make up her mind whether to laugh or
become indignant.
"Then there's no use trying to tell you the news from the ranch."
A smile dimpled her cheeks and bubbled in her eyes. "If you should tell
me, I suppose I couldn't help hearing."
"But I'm trying to figure out my duty. Maybe I oughtn't to tempt you."
"While you're making up your mind, I'll run back into the kitchen and look
at the pies in the oven."
Curly swung from the saddle, and tossed the bridle rein to the ground. He
followed her into the house. She was taking an apple pie from the oven,
but took time to be saucy over her shoulder.
"I'm not allowed to invite you into the house, sir."
"Anything in the by-laws about me inviting myself in?"
"No, that wasn't mentioned."
"Anything in them about you meeting one of the lads from the horse ranch
up on the hillside where it is neutral ground?"
"Did Sam come with you?" she cried.
"Who said anything about Sam?"
Glints of excitement danced in the brown pupils of her eyes. "He's here.
Oh, I know he's here."
"What do I get for bringing good news?"
"I didn't say it was good news."
"Sho! Your big eyes are shouting it."
"Was that the news from the horse ranch?"
"That's part of it, but there is more. Sam and Curly are on their way to
Saguache to spend the Fourth of July. Sam is going for another reason, but
I'm not sure yet what it is."
"You mean----?"
"There's something doing I don't _savez_, some big deal on foot that's not
on the level. Sam is in it up to the hocks. To throw me off the scent they
fixed up a quarrel among them. Sam is supposed to be quitting Soapy's
outfit for good. But I know better."
White to the lips, she faced him bravely. "What sort of trouble is he
leading Sam into?"
"I've got a kind of a notion. But it won't bear talking about yet. Don't
you worry, little girl. I'm going to stand by Sam. And don't tell him what
I've told you, unless you want to spoil my chance of helping him."
"I won't," she promised; then added, with quick eagerness: "Maybe I can
help you. I'm going down to Saguache to visit on the fourth. I'm to be
there two weeks."
"I'll look you up. Trouble is that Sam is hell bent on ruining himself.
Seems to think Soapy is his best friend. If we could show him different
things might work out all right."
While she climbed the hill to Sam, Curly watered his horse and smoked a
cigarette. He was not hired to chaperone lovers. Therefore, it took him
three-quarters of an hour to reach the scrub pine belt on the edge of the
park.
At once he saw that they had been having a quarrel. The girl's eyes were
red, and she was still dabbing at them with her handkerchief when he came
whistling along. Sam looked discouraged, but stubborn. Very plainly they
had been disagreeing about his line of conduct.
The two young men took the trail again. The moroseness of Sam was real and
not affected this time. He had flared up because the girl could not let
him alone about his friendship for Soapy Stone. In his heart the boy knew
he was wrong, that he was moving fast in the wrong direction. But his
pride would neither let him confess it or go back on his word to the men
with whom he had been living.
About noon the next day they reached Saguache. After they had eaten, Curly
strolled off by himself to the depot.
"Gimme a ticket to Tin Cup for this evening. I want to go by the express,"
he told the agent.
The man looked at him and grinned. "I saw you at Mesa in the bucking
broncho doings last year, didn't I?"
"Maybe you did and maybe you didn't. Why?"
"You certainly stay with the bad bronchs to a fare-you-well. If I'd been
judge you'd a-had first place, Mr. Flandrau."
"Much obliged. And now you've identified me sufficient, how about that
ticket?"
"I was coming to that. Sure you can get a ticket. Good on any train.
You're so darned active, maybe you could get off Number 4 when she is
fogging along sixty miles per. But most folks couldn't, not with any
comfort."
"Meaning that the Flyer doesn't stop?"
"Not at Tin Cup."
"Have to take the afternoon train then?"
"I reckon." He punched a ticket and shoved it through the window toward
Curly. "Sixty-five cents, please."
Flandrau paid for and pocketed the ticket he did not intend to use. He had
found out what he wanted to know. The express did not stop at Tin Cup.
Why, then, had Soapy marked the time of its arrival there? He was
beginning to guess the reason. But he would have to do more than guess.
Curly walked back to the business section from the depot. Already the town
was gay with banners in preparation for the Fourth. On the program were
broncho-busting, roping, Indian dances, races, and other frontier events.
Already visitors were gathering for the festivities. Saguache, wide open
for the occasion, was already brisk with an assorted population of many
races. Mexicans, Chinese, Indians of various tribes brushed shoulders with
miners, tourists and cattlemen. Inside the saloons faro, chuckaluck and
roulette attracted each its devotees.
Flandrau sauntered back to the hotel on the lookout for Sam. He was not
there, but waiting for him was a boy with a note for the gentleman in
Number 311.
"Kid looking for you," the clerk called to the cowpuncher.
"Are you Mr. Soapy Stone's friend, the one just down from Dead Cow creek?"
asked the boy.
Taken as a whole, the answer was open to debate. But Curly nodded and took
the note.
This was what he read:
Sam, come to Chalkeye's place soon as you get this. There we will
talk over the business.
You Know Who.
Though he did not know who, Curly thought he could give a pretty good
guess both as to the author and the business that needed talking over.
Through the open door of the hotel he saw Sam approaching. Quickly he
sealed the flap of the envelope again, and held it pressed against his
fingers while he waited.
"A letter for you, Sam."
Cullison tore open the envelope and read the note.
"A friend of mine has come to town and wants to see me," he explained.
To help out his bluff, Curly sprang the feeble-minded jest on him. "Blonde
or brunette?"
"I'm no lady's man," Sam protested, content to let the other follow a
wrong scent.
"Sure not. It never is a lady," Flandrau called after him as he departed.
But Sam had no more than turned the corner before Curly was out of a side
door and cutting through an alley toward Chalkeye's place. Reaching the
back door of the saloon, he opened it a few inches and peered in. A minute
later Sam opened the front screen and asked a question of the man in the
apron. The bartender gave a jerk of his thumb. Sam walked toward the rear
and turned in at the second private booth.
Curly slipped forward quietly, and passed unobserved into the third stall.
The wall which divided one room from another was of pine boarding and did
not reach the ceiling. As the eavesdropper slid to a seat a phonograph in
front began the Merry Widow waltz. Noiselessly Flandrau stood on the
cushioned bench with his ear close to the top of the dividing wall. He
could hear a murmur of voices but could not make out a word. The record on
the instrument wheezed to silence, but immediately a rag-time tune
followed.
Presently the music died away. Flattened against the wall, his attention
strained to the utmost, Curly began to catch words and phrases of the
low-voiced speakers in the next compartment. His position was perilous in
the extreme, but he would not leave now until he had found out what he
wanted to know.
CHAPTER IX
EAVESDROPPING
Out of the murmur of voices came one that Curly recognized as that of
Soapy Stone, alias You Know Who.
" ... then you'll take the 9:57, Sam...."
After more whispering, "Yep, soon as you hear the first shot ... cover the
passengers...."
The listener lost what followed. Once he thought he heard the name Tin
Cup, but he could not be sure. Presently another fragment drifted to him.
"...make our getaway and cache the plunder...."
The phonograph lifted up its voice again. This time it was "I love a
lassie." Before the song was finished there came the sound of shuffling
feet. One of the men in the next stall was leaving. Curly could not tell
which one, nor did he dare look over the top of the partition to find out.
He was playing safe. This adventure had caught him so unexpectedly that he
had not found time to run back to his room for his six-gun. What would
happen to him if he were caught listening was not a matter of doubt. Soapy
would pump lead into him till he quit kicking, slap a saddle on a broncho,
and light out for the Sonora line.
As the phonograph finished unexpectedly--someone had evidently interrupted
the record--the fragment of a sentence seemed to jump at Curly.
" ... so the kid will get his in the row."
It was the voice of Soapy, raised slightly to make itself heard above the
music.
"Take care," another voice replied, and Flandrau would have sworn that
this belonged to Blackwell.
Stone, who had been sitting on the other side of the table, moved close to
the paroled convict. Between him and Curly there was only the thickness of
a plank. The young man was afraid that the knocking of his heart could be
heard.
" ... don't like it," Blackwell was objecting sullenly.
"Makes it safe for us. Besides"--Stone's voice grated like steel rasping
steel, every word distinct though very low--"I swore to pay off Luck
Cullison, and by God! I'm going to do it."
"Someone will hear you if you ain't careful," the convict protested
anxiously.
"Don't be an old woman, Lute."
" ... if you can do it safe. I owe Luck Cullison much as you do, but...."
Again they fell to whispers. The next word that came to Curly clearly was
his own name. But it was quite a minute before he gathered what they were
saying.
"Luck Cullison went his bail. I learnt it this mo'ning."
"The son-of-a-gun. It's a cinch he's a spy. And me wanting you to let him
in so's he could hold the sack instead of Sam."
"Knew it wouldn't do, Lute. He's smart as a whip."
"Reckon he knows anything?"
"No. Can't."
"If I thought he did----"
"Keep your shirt on, Lute. He don't know a thing. And you get revenge on
him all right. Sam will run with him and his friends while he's here.
Consequence is, when they find the kid where we leave him they'll sure
guess Curly for one of his pardners. Tell you his ticket is good as bought
to Yuma. He's a horse thief. Why shouldn't he be a train robber, too.
That's how a jury will argue."
Blackwell grumbled something under his breath.
Stone's voice grated harshly. "Me too. If he crosses my trail I'm liable
to spoil his hide before court meets. No man alive can play me for a
sucker and throw me down. Not Soapy Stone."
Once more the voices ran together indistinctly. It was not till Blackwell
suggested that they go get a drink that Curly understood anything more of
what was being said.
The outlaws passed out of the little room and strolled forward to the
bar.
Curly had heard more than he had expected to. Moreover, as he
congratulated himself, his luck had stood up fine. Nobody in the sunburnt
territory felt happier than he did that minute when he struck the good
fresh air of the alley and knew that he had won through his hazardous
adventure alive.
The first thing that Flandrau did was to walk toward the outskirts of the
town where he could think it out by himself. But in this little old planet
events do not always occur as a man plans them. Before he reached Arroyo
street Curly came plump against his old range-mate Slats Davis.
The assistant foreman of the Hashknife nodded as he passed. He had helped
Curly escape less than a month before, but he did not intend to stay
friendly with a rustler.
Flandrau caught him by the arm. "Hello, Slats. You're the man I want."
"I'm pretty busy to-day," Davis answered stiffly.
"Forget it. This is more important."
"Well?"
"Come along and take a walk. I got something to tell you."
"Can't you tell it here?"
"I ain't going to, anyhow. Come along. I ain't got smallpox."
Reluctantly Davis fell in beside him. "All right. Cut it short. I've got
to see a man."
"He'll have to wait." Curly could not help chuckling to himself at the
evident embarrassment of the other. The impish impulse to "devil" him had
its way. "You're a man of experience, Slats. Ever hold up a train?"
The foreman showed plainly his disgust at this foolishness. "Haven't you
sense enough ever to be serious, Curly? You're not a kid any more. In age
you're a grown man. But how do you act? Talk like that don't do you any
good. You're in trouble good and deep. Folks have got their eyes on you.
Now is the time to show them you have quit all that hell raising you have
been so busy at."
"He sure is going good this mo'ning," Curly drawled confidentially to the
scenery. "You would never guess, would you, that him and me had raised
that crop in couples?"
"That's all right, too. I'm no sky pilot. But I know when to quit.
Seemingly you don't. I hear you've been up at Stone's horse ranch. I want
to tell you that won't do you any good if it gets out."
"Never was satisfied till I had rounded up all the trouble in sight.
That's why I mentioned this train robbery. Some of my friends are aiming
to hold up one shortly. If you'd like to get in I'll say a good word for
you."
Davis threw at him a look that drenched like ice water. "I expect you and
me are traveling different trails these days, Curly. You don't mean it of
course, but the point is I'm not going to joke with you along that line.
Understand?"
"Wrong guess, old hoss. I do mean it."
Davis stopped in his tracks. "Then you've said too much to me. We'll part
right here."
"It takes two to agree to that, Slats."
"That's where you're wrong. One is enough. We used to be good friends, but
those days are past. None of us can keep a man from being a durned fool if
he wants to be one. Nor a scoundrel. You've got the bit in your teeth and
I reckon you'll go till there is a smash. But you better understand this.
When you choose Soapy Stone's, crowd to run with that cuts out me and
other decent folks. If they have sent you here to get me mixed up in their
deviltry you go back and tell them there's nothing doing."
"Won't have a thing to do with them. Is that it?"
"Not till the call comes for citizens to get together and run them out of
the country. Or to put them behind bars. Or to string them to a
cottonwood. Then I'll be on the job."
He stood there quiet and easy, the look in his steady eyes piercing
Curly's ironic smile as a summer sun does mackerel clouds in a clear sky.
Not many men would have had the courage to send that message to Soapy and
his outfit. For Stone was not only a man killer, but a mean one at that.
Since he had come back from the penitentiary he had been lying pretty low,
but he brought down from the old days a record that chilled the blood.
Curly sloughed his foolishness and came to the point.
"You're on, Slats. I'm making that call to you now."
The eyes of the two men fastened. Those of Flandrau had quit dancing and
were steady as the sun in a blue sky. Surprise, doubt, wonder, relief
filled in turn the face of the other man.
"I'm listening, Curly."
His friend told him the whole story from the beginning, just as he had
been used to do in the old days. And Davis heard it without a word, taking
the tale in quietly with a grim look settling, on his face.
"So he aims to play traitor to young Cullison. The thing is damnable."
"He means to shut Sam's mouth for good and all. That is what he has been
playing for from the start, to get even with Luck. He and his gang will
get away with the haul and they will leave Sam dead on the scene of the
hold-up. There will be some shooting, and it will be figured the boy was
hit by one of the train crew. Nothing could be easier."
"If it worked out right."
"Couldn't help working out right. That's why Soapy didn't let me in on the
proposition. To get rid of one would be no great trouble, but two--well,
that's different. Besides, I could tell he was not sure of me. Now he aims
to put me on the stand and prove by me that Sam and he had a quarrel and
parted company mighty sore at each other hardly a week before the hold-up.
He'll have an alibi too to show he couldn't have been in it. You'll see."
"You wouldn't think a white man could take a revenge like that on his
enemy. It's an awful thing to do in cold blood."
"Soapy is no white man. He's a wolf. See how slick his scheme is. At one
flip of the cards he kills the kid and damns his reputation. He scores
Cullison and he snuffs out Sam, who had had the luck to win the girl Soapy
fancies. The boy gets his and the girl is shown she can't love another man
than Stone."
"Ever hear the story of French Dan?" asked Slats.
"Not to know the right of it."
"Soapy and Dan trained together in them days and went through a lot of
meanness as side pardners. One day the Arivaca stage was held up by two
men and the driver killed. In the scrap one of the men had his mask torn
off. It was French Dan. Well, the outlaws had been too damned busy. Folks
woke up and the hills were sprinkled with posses. They ran the fellows
down and hunted them from place to place. Two--three times they almost
nailed them. Shots were exchanged. A horse of one of the fugitives was
killed and they could not get another. Finally one dark night the outlaws
were surrounded. The posse lay down in the zacaton and waited for morning.
In the night one of them heard a faint sound like the popping of a cork.
When mo'ning broke the hunters crept forward through the thick grass.
Guess what they found."
Curly's answer was prompt. "Gimme a harder one. There were two men and
only one horse. The only chance was to slip through the line before day
arrived. My guess is that they found French Dan with a little round hole
in his skull--_and that the bullet making it had gone in from behind_. My
guess also is that the posse didn't find the horse and the other man, just
a trail through the zacaton back into the hills."
"Go to the head of the class. There was one man too many in that thicket
for the horse. French Dan's pardner was afraid they might not agree about
who was to have the bronch for a swift getaway. So he took no chances.
There's only one man alive to-day can swear that Soapy was the man with
French Dan lying in the zacaton. And he'll never tell, because he pumped
the bullet into his friend. But one thing is sure. Soapy disappeared from
Arizona for nearly two years. You can pick any reason you like for his
going. That is the one I choose."
"Same here. And the man that would shoot one partner in the back would
shoot another if he had good reasons. By his way of it Soapy has reasons
a-plenty."
"I'm satisfied that is his game. Question is how to block it. Will you go
to the sheriff?"
"No. Bolt would fall down on it. First off, he would not believe the story
because I'm a rustler myself. Soapy and his friends voted for Bolt. He
would go to them, listen to their story, prove part of it by me, and turn
them loose for lack of evidence. Sam would go back to Dead Cow with them,
and Stone would weave another web for the kid."
"You've got it about right," Slats admitted. "How about warning Sam?"
"No use. He would go straight to Soapy with it, and his dear friend would
persuade him it was just a yarn cooked up to get him to throw down the
only genuwine straight-up pal he ever had."
"Cullison then?"
"You're getting warm. I've had that notion myself. The point is, would he
be willing to wait and let Soapy play his hand out till we called?"
"You would have to guarantee his boy would be safe meanwhile."
"Two of us would have to watch him day and night without Sam knowing it."
"Count me in."
"This is where we hit heavy traveling, Slats. For we don't know when the
thing is going to be pulled off."
"We'll have to be ready. That's all."
"Happen to know whether Dick Maloney is here for the show?"
"Saw him this mo'ning. Luck is here too, him and his girl."
"Good. We've got to have a talk with them, and it has to be on the q.t.
You go back to town and find Dick. Tell him to meet us at the Del Mar,
where Luck always puts up. Find out the number of Cullison's room and make
an appointment. I'll be on El Molino street all mo'ning off and on. When
you find out pass me without stopping, but tell me when we are to meet and
just where."
Curly gave Slats a quarter of an hour before sauntering back to town. As
he was passing the Silver Dollar saloon a voice called him. Stone and
Blackwell were standing in the door. Flandrau stopped.
Soapy's deep-set eyes blazed at him. "You didn't tell me it was Luck
Cullison went bail for you, Curly."
"You didn't ask me."
"So you and him are thick, are you?"
"I've met him once, if that's being thick. That time I shot him up."
"Funny. And then he went bail for you."
"Yes."
"Now I wonder why."
The eyes of the man had narrowed to red slits. His head had shot forward
on his shoulders as that of a snake does. Curly would have given a good
deal just then for the revolver lying on the bed of his room. For it was
plain trouble was in sight. The desperado had been drinking heavily and
was ready to do murder.
"That's easy to explain, Soapy. I shot him because I was driven to it.
He's too much of a man to bear a grudge for what I couldn't help."
"That's it, is it? Does that explain why he dug up good money to turn
loose a horse thief?"
"If I told you why, you would not understand."
"Let's hear you try."
"He did it because I was young, just as Sam is; and because he figured
that some day Sam might need a friend, too."
"You're a liar. He did it because you promised to sneak up to my ranch and
spy on us. That's why he did it."
With the last word his gun jumped into sight. That he was lashing himself
into a fury was plain. Presently his rage would end in a tragedy.
Given a chance, Curly would have run for it. But Soapy was a dead shot. Of
a sudden the anger in the boy boiled up over the fear. In two jumps he
covered the ground and jammed his face close to the cold rim of the blue
steel barrel.
"I'm not heeled. Shoot and be damned, you coward. And with my last breath
I'll tell you that you're a liar."
Flandrau had called his bluff, though he had not meant it as one. A dozen
men were in sight and were watching. They had heard the young man tell
Stone he was not armed. Public opinion would hold him to account if he
shot Curly down in cold blood. He hung there undecided, breathing fast,
his jaw clamped tightly.
The lad hammered home his defiance. "Drop that gun, you four-flusher, and
I'll whale you till you can't stand. _Sabe?_ Call yourself a bad man, do
you? Time I'm through with you there will be one tame wolf crawling back
to Dead Cow with its tail between its legs."
The taunt diverted his mind, just as Curly had hoped it would. He thrust
the revolver back into the holster and reached for his foe.
Then everybody, hitherto paralyzed by the sight of a deadly weapon, woke
up and took a hand. They dragged the two men apart. Curly was thrust into
a barber shop on the other side of the street and Stone was dragged back
into the Silver Dollar.
In two minutes Flandrau had made himself famous, for he was a marked man.
The last words of the straggling desperado had been that he would shoot on
sight. Now half a dozen talked at once. Some advised Curly one thing, some
another. He must get out of town. He must apologize at once to Stone. He
must send a friend and explain.
The young man laughed grimly. "Explain nothing. I've done all the
explaining I'm going to. And I'll not leave town either. If Soapy wants me
he'll sure find me."
"Don't be foolish, kid. He has got four notches on that gun of his. And
he's a dead shot."
The tongues of those about him galloped. Soapy was one of these
Billy-the-Kid killers, the only one left from the old days. He could whang
away at a quarter with that sawed-off .45 of his and hit it every crack.
The sooner Curly understood that no boy would have a chance with him the
better it would be. So the talk ran.
"He's got you bluffed to a fare-you-well. You're tame enough to eat out of
his hand. Didn't Luck Cullison go into the hills and bring him down all
alone?" Flandrau demanded.
"Luck's another wonder. There ain't another man in Arizona could have done
it. Leastways no other but Bucky O'Connor."
But Curly was excited, pleased with himself because he had stood up to the
bogey man of the Southwest, and too full of strength to be afraid.
Maloney came into the barber shop and grinned at him.
"Hello, son!"
"Hello, Dick!"
"I hear you and Soapy are figuring on setting off some fireworks this
Fourth."
It did Curly good to see him standing there so easy and deliberate among
the excitable town people.
"Soapy is doing the talking."
"I heard him; happened to be at the Silver Dollar when they dragged him
in."
Maloney's eyebrows moved the least bit. His friend understood. Together
they passed out of the back door of the shop into an alley. The others
stood back and let them go. But their eyes did not leave Curly so long as
he was in sight. Until this thing was settled one way or the other the
young rustler would be one of the most important men in town. Citizens
would defer to him that had never noticed him before. He carried with him
a touch of the solemnity that is allowed only the dead or the dying.
Back to the hotel the two ran. When Curly buckled on his revolver and felt
it resting comfortably against his thigh he felt a good deal better.
"I've seen Slats Davis," Maloney explained. "He has gone to find Luck, who
is now at the Del Mar. At least he was an hour ago."
"Had any talk with Slats?"
"No. He said you'd do the talking."
"I'm to wait for him on El Molino street to learn where I'm to meet
Cullison."
"That won't do. You'd make too tempting a target. I'll meet him instead."
That suited Curly. He was not hunting trouble just now, even though he
would not run away from it. For he had serious business on hand that could
not take care of itself if Soapy should kill him.
Nearly an hour later Maloney appeared again.
"We're to go right over to the Del Mar. Second floor, room 217. You are to
go down El Molino to Main, then follow it to the hotel, keeping on the
right hand side of the street. Slats will happen along the other side of
the street and will keep abreast of you. Luck will walk with me behind
you. Unless I yell your name don't pay any attention to what is behind
you. Soon as we reach the hotel Slats will cross the road and go in by the
side door. You will follow him a few steps behind, and we'll bring up the
rear casually as if we hadn't a thing to do with you."
"You're taking a heap of pains, seems to me."
"Want to keep you from getting spoilt till September term of court opens.
Didn't I promise Bolt you would show up?"
They moved down the street as arranged. Every time a door opened in front
of him, every time a man came out of a store or a saloon, Curly was ready
for that lightning lift of the arm followed by a puff of smoke. The news
of his coming passed ahead of him, so that windows were crowded with
spectators. These were doomed to disappointment. Nothing happened. The
procession left behind it the Silver Dollar, the Last Chance, Chalkeye's
Place and Pete's Palace.
Reaching the hotel first, Davis disappeared according to program into the
side door. Carly followed, walked directly up the stairs, along the
corridor, and passed without knocking into Room 217.
A young woman was sitting there engaged with some fancy work. Slender and
straight, Kate Cullison rose and gave Curly her hand. For about two
heartbeats her fingers lay cuddled in his big fist. A strange stifling
emotion took his breath.
Then her arm fell to her side and she was speaking to him.
"Dad has gone to meet you. We've heard about what happened this morning."
"You mean what didn't happen. Beats all how far a little excitement goes
in this town," he answered, embarrassed.
Her father and Maloney entered the room. Cullison wrung his hand.
"Glad to see you, boy. You're in luck that convict did not shoot you up
while he had the chance. Saguache is sure buzzing this mo'ning with the
way you stood up to him. That little play of yours will help with the jury
in September."
Curly thanked him for going bail.
Luck fixed his steel-spoked eyes on him. "By what Dick tells me you've
more than squared that account."
Kate explained in her soft voice. "Dick told us why you went up to Dead
Cow creek."
"Sho! I hadn't a thing to do, so I just ran up there. Sam's in town with
me. We're rooming together."
"Oh, take me to him," Kate cried.
"Not just now, honey," her father said gently. "This young man came here
to tell us something. Or so I gathered from his friend Davis."
Flandrau told his story, or all of it that would bear telling before a
girl. He glossed over his account of the dissipation at the horse ranch,
but he told all he knew of Laura London and her interest in Sam. But it
was when he related what he had heard at Chalkeye's place that the
interest grew most tense. While he was going over the plot to destroy
young Cullison there was no sound in the room but his voice. Luck's eyes
burned like live coals. The color faded from the face of his daughter so
that her lips were gray as cigar ash. Yet she sat up straight and did not
flinch.
When he had finished the owner of the Circle C caught his hand. "You've
done fine, boy. Not a man in Arizona could have done it better."
Kate said nothing in words but her dark longlashed eyes rained thanks upon
him.
They talked the situation over from all angles. Always it simmered down to
one result. It was Soapy's first play. Until he moved they could not. They
had no legal evidence except the word of Curly. Nor did they know on what
night he had planned to pull off the hold-up. If they were to make a
complete gather of the outfit, with evidence enough to land them in the
penitentiary, it could only be after the hold-up.
Meanwhile there was nothing to do but wait and take what precautions they
could against being caught by surprise. One of these was to see that Sam
was never for an instant left unguarded either day or night. Another was
to ride to Tin Cup and look the ground over carefully. For the present
they could do no more than watch events, attracting no attention by any
whispering together in public.
Before the conference broke up Kate came in with her protest.
"That's all very well, but what about Mr. Flandrau? He can't stay in
Saguache with that man threatening to kill him on sight."
"Don't worry about me, Miss Kate;" and Curly looked at her and blushed.
Her father smiled grimly. "No, I wouldn't, Kate. He isn't going to be
troubled by that wolf just now."
"Doesn't stand to reason he'd spoil all his plans just to bump me off."
"But he might. He forgot all about his plans this morning. How do we know
he mightn't a second time?"
"Don't you worry, honey. I've got a card up my sleeve," Luck promised.
CHAPTER X
"STICK TO YOUR SADDLE"
The old Arizona fashion of settling a difference of opinion with the
six-gun had long fallen into disuse, but Saguache was still close enough
to the stark primeval emotions to wait with a keen interest for the crack
of the revolver that would put a period to the quarrel between Soapy Stone
and young Flandrau. It was known that Curly had refused to leave town,
just as it was known that Stone and that other prison bird Blackwell were
hanging about the Last Chance and Chalkeye's Place drinking together
morosely. It was observed too that whenever Curly appeared in public he
was attended by friends. Sometimes it would be Maloney and Davis,
sometimes his uncle Alec Flandrau, occasionally a couple of the Map of
Texas vaqueros.
It chanced that "Old Man" Flandrau, drifting into Chalkeye's Place, found
in the assembled group the man he sought. Billie Mackenzie, grizzled owner
of the Fiddleback ranch, was with him, and it was in the preliminary pause
before drinking that Alec made his official announcement.
"No, Mac, I ain't worrying about that any. Curly is going to get a square
deal. We're all agreed on that. If there's any shooting from cover
there'll be a lynching _pronto_. That goes."
Flandrau, Senior, did not glance at the sullen face of Lute Blackwell
hovering in the background but he knew perfectly well that inside of an
hour word would reach Soapy Stone that only an even break with Curly would
be allowed.
The day passed without a meeting between the two. Curly grew nervous at
the delay.
"I'm as restless as a toad on a hot skillet," he confessed to Davis. "This
thing of never knowing what minute Soapy will send me his leaden
compliments ain't any picnic. Wisht it was over."
"He's drinking himself blind. Every hour is to the good for you."
Curly shrugged. "Drunk or sober Soapy always shoots straight."
Another day passed. The festivities had begun and Curly had to be much in
evidence before the public. His friends had attempted to dissuade him from
riding in the bucking broncho contest, but he had refused to let his name
be scratched from the list of contestants.
A thousand pair of eyes in the grandstand watched the boy as he lounged
against the corral fence laughing and talking with his friends. A dozen
people were on the lookout for the approach of Stone. Fifty others had
warned the young man to be careful. For Saguache was with him almost to a
man.
Dick Maloney heard his voice called as he was passing the grandstand, A
minute later he was in the Cullison box shaking hands with Kate.
"Is--is there anything new?" she asked in a low voice.
Her friend shook his head. "No. Soapy may drift out here any minute now."
"Will he----?" Her eyes finished the question.
He shook his head. "Don't know. That's the mischief of it. If they should
meet just after Curly finishes riding the boy won't have a chance. His
nerves won't be steady enough."
"Dad is doing something. I don't know what it is. He had a meeting with a
lot of cattlemen about it---- I don't see how that boy _can_ sit there on
the fence laughing when any minute----"
"Curly's game as they make 'em. He's a prince, too. I like that boy better
every day."
"He doesn't seem to me so----wild. But they say he's awfully reckless."
She said it with a visible reluctance, as if she wanted him to deny the
charge.
"Sho! Curly needs explaining some. That's all. Give a dog a bad name and
hang him. That saying is as straight as the trail of a thirsty cow. The
kid got off wrong foot first, and before he'd hardly took to shaving
respectable folks were hunting the dictionary to find bad names to throw
at him. He was a reprobate and no account. Citizens that differed on
everything else was unanimous about that. Mothers kinder herded their
young folks in a corral when he slung his smile their way."
"But why?" she persisted. "What had he done?"
"Gambled his wages, and drank some, and, beat up Pete Schiff, and shot the
lights out of the Legal Tender saloon. That's about all at first."
"Wasn't it enough?"
"Most folks thought so. So when Curly bumped into them keep-off-the-grass
signs parents put up for him he had to prove they were justified. That's
the way a kid acts. Half the bad men are only coltish cowpunchers gone
wrong through rotten whiskey and luck breaking bad for them."
"Is Soapy that kind?" she asked, but not because she did not know the
answer.
"He's the other kind, bad at the heart. But Curly was just a kid crazy
with the heat when he made that fool play of rustling horses."
A lad made his way to them with a note. Kate read it and turned to Dick.
Her eyes were shining happily.
"I've got news from Dad. It's all right. Soapy Stone has left town."
"Why?"
"A dozen of the big cattlemen signed a note and sent it to Stone. They
told him that if he touched Curly he would never leave town alive. He was
given word to get out of town at once."
Maloney slapped his hand joyously on his thigh. "Fine! Might a-known Luck
would find a way out. I tell you this thing has been worying me. Some of
us wanted to take it off Curly's hands, but he wouldn't have it. He's a
man from the ground up, Curly is. But your father found a way to butt in
all right. Soapy couldn't stand out against the big ranchmen when they got
together and meant business. He had to pull his freight."
"Let me tell him the good news, Dick," she said, eagerly.
"Sure. I'll send him right up."
Bronzed almost to a coffee brown, with the lean lithe grace of youth
garbed in the picturesque regalia of the _vaquero_, Flandrau was a taking
enough picture to hold the roving eye of any girl. A good many centered
upon him now, as he sauntered forward toward the Cullison box cool and
easy and debonair. More than one pulse quickened at sight of him, for his
gallantry, his peril and his boyishness combined to enwrap him in the
atmosphere of romance. Few of the observers knew what a wary vigilance lay
behind that careless manner.
Kate gathered her skirts to make room for him beside her.
"Have you heard? He has left town."
"Who?"
"Soapy Stone. The cattlemen served notice on him to go. So he left."
A wave of relief swept over the young man. "That's your father's fine
work."
"Isn't it good?" Her eyes were shining with gladness.
"I'm plumb satisfied," he admitted. "I'm not hankering to shoot out my
little difference with Soapy. He's too handy with a six-gun."
"I'm so happy I don't know what to do."
"I suppose now the hold-up will be put off. Did Sam and Blackwell go with
him?"
"No. He went alone."
"Have you seen Sam yet?"
"No, but I've seen Laura London. She's all the nice things you've said
about her."
Curly grew enthusiastic, "Ain't she the dandiest girl ever? She's the
right kind of a friend. And pretty--with that short crinkly hair the color
of ripe nuts! You would not think one person could own so many dimples as
she does when she laughs. It's just like as if she had absorbed sunshine
and was warming you up with her smile."
"I see she has made a friend of you."
"You bet she has."
Miss Cullison shot a swift slant glance at him. "If you'll come back this
afternoon you can meet her. I'm going to have all those dimples and all
that sunshine here in the box with me."
"Maybe that will draw Sam to you."
"I'm hoping it will. But I'm afraid not. He avoids us. When they met he
wouldn't speak to Father."
"That's the boy of it. Just the same he feels pretty bad about the
quarrel. I reckon there's nothing to do but keep an eye on him and be
ready for Soapy's move when he makes it."
"I'm so afraid something will happen to Sam."
"Now don't you worry, Miss Kate. Sam is going to come out of this all
right. We'll find a way out for him yet."
Behind her smile the tears lay close. "You're the _best_ friend. How can
we ever thank you for what you're doing for Sam?"
A steer had escaped from the corral and was galloping down the track in
front of the grandstand with its tail up. The young man's eyes followed
the animal absently as he answered in a low voice.
"Do you reckon I have forgot how a girl took a rope from my neck one
night? Do you reckon I ever forget that?"
"It was nothing. I just spoke to the boys."
"Or that I don't remember how the man I had shot went bail for a rustler
he did not know?"
"Dick knew you. He told us about you."
"Could he tell you any good about me? Could he say anything except that I
was a worthless no-'count----?"
She put her hand on his arm and stopped him. "Don't! I won't have you say
such things about yourself. You were just a boy in trouble."
"How many would have remembered that? But you did. You fought good for my
life that night. I'll pay my debt, part of it. The whole I never could
pay."
His voice trembled in spite of the best he could do. Their eyes did not
meet, but each felt the thrill of joy waves surging through their veins.
The preliminaries in the rough riding contest took place that afternoon.
Of the four who won the right to compete in the finals, two were Curly
Flandrau and Dick Maloney. They went together to the Cullison box to get
the applause due them.
Kate Cullison had two guests with her. One was Laura London, the other he
had never seen. She was a fair young woman with thick ropes of yellow hair
coiled round her head. Deep-breasted and robust-loined, she had the rich
coloring of the Scandinavian race and much of the slow grace peculiar to
its women.
The hostess pronounced their names. "Miss Anderson, this is Mr. Flandrau.
Mr. Flandrau--Miss Anderson."
Curly glanced quickly at Kate Cullison, who nodded. This then was the
sweetheart of poor Mac.
Her eyes filled with tears as she took the young man's hand. To his
surprise Curly found his throat choking up. He could not say a word, but
she understood the unspoken sympathy. They sat together in the back of the
box.
"I'd like to come and talk to you about--Mac. Can I come this evening,
say?"
"Please."
Kate gave them no more time for dwelling on the past.
"You did ride so splendidly," she told Curly.
"No better than Dick did," he protested.
"I didn't say any better than Dick. You both did fine."
"The judges will say you ride better. You've got first place cinched,"
Maloney contributed.
"Sho! Just because I cut up fancy didoes on a horse. Grandstand stunts are
not riding. For straight stick-to-your-saddle work I know my boss, and his
name is Dick Maloney."
"We'll know to-morrow," Laura London summed up.
As it turned out, Maloney was the better prophet. Curly won the first
prize of five hundred dollars and the championship belt. Dick took second
place.
Saguache, already inclined to make a hero of the young rustler, went wild
over his victory. He could have been chosen mayor that day if there had
been an election. To do him justice, Curly kept his head remarkably well.
"To be a human clothes pin ain't so much," he explained to Kate. "Just
because a fellow can stick to the hurricane deck of a bronch without
pulling leather whilst it's making a milk shake out of him don't prove
that he has got any more brains or decency than the law allows. Say, ain't
this a peach of a mo'ning."
A party of young people were taking an early morning ride through the
outskirts of the little city. Kate pulled her pony to a walk and glanced
across at him. He had taken off his hat to catch the breeze, and the sun
was picking out the golden lights in his curly brown hair. She found
herself admiring the sure poise of the head, the flat straight back, the
virile strength of him.
It did not occur to her that she herself made a picture to delight the
heart. The curves of her erect tiger-lithe young body were modeled by
nature to perfection. Radiant with the sheer pleasure of life, happy as
God's sunshine, she was a creature vividly in tune with the glad morning.
"Anyhow, I'm glad you won."
Their eyes met. A spark from his flashed deep into hers as a star falls
through the heavens on a summer night. Each looked away. After one
breathless full-pulsed moment she recovered herself.
"Wouldn't it be nice if----?"
His gaze followed hers to two riders in front of them. One was Maloney,
the other Myra Anderson. The sound of the girl's laughter rippled back to
them on the light breeze.
Curly smiled. "Yes, that would be nice. The best I can say for her--and
it's a whole lot--is that I believe she's good enough for Dick."
"And the best I can say for him is that he's good enough for her," the
girl retorted promptly.
"Then let's hope----"
"I can't think of anything that would please me more."
He looked away into the burning sun on the edge of the horizon. "I can
think of one thing that would please me more," he murmured.
She did not ask him what it was, nor did he volunteer an explanation.
Perhaps it was from the rising sun her face had taken its swift glow of
warm color.
PART II
LUCK
CHAPTER I
AT THE ROUND UP CLUB
A big game had been in progress all night at the Round Up Club. Now the
garish light of day streamed through the windows, but the electric cluster
still flung down its yellow glare upon the table. Behind the players were
other smaller tables littered with cigars, discarded packs, and glasses
full or empty. The men were in their shirt sleeves. Big broad-shouldered
fellows they were, with the marks of the outdoors hard-riding West upon
them. No longer young, they were still full of the vigor and energy of
unflagging strength. From bronzed faces looked steady unwinking eyes with
humorous creases around the corners, hard eyes that judged a man and his
claims shrewdly and with good temper. Most of them had made good in the
land, and their cattle fed upon a thousand hills.
The least among them physically was Luck Cullison, yet he was their
recognized leader. There was some innate quality in this man with the
gray, steel-chilled eyes that marked him as first in whatever company he
chose to frequent. A good friend and a good foe, men thought seriously
before they opposed him. He had made himself a power in the Southwest
because he was the type that goes the limit when aroused. Yet about him,
too, there was the manner of a large amiability, of the easy tolerance
characteristic of the West.
While Alec Flandrau shuffled and dealt, the players relaxed. Cigars were
relit, drinks ordered. Conversation reverted to the ordinary topics that
interested Cattleland. The price of cows, the good rains, the time of the
fall roundup, were touched upon.
The door opened to let in a newcomer, a slim, graceful man much younger
than the others present, and one whose costume and manner brought
additional color into the picture. Flandrau, Senior, continued to shuffle
without turning his head. Cullison also had his back to the door, but the
man hung his broad-rimmed gray hat on the rack--beside an exactly similar
one that belonged to the owner of the Circle C--and moved leisurely
forward till he was within range of his vision.
"Going to prove up soon on that Del Oro claim of yours, Luck?" asked
Flandrau.
He was now dealing, his eyes on the cards, so that he missed the
embarrassment in the faces of those about him.
"On Thursday, the first day the law allows," Cullison answered quietly.
Flandrau chuckled. "I reckon Cass Fendrick will be some sore."
"I expect." Cullison's gaze met coolly the black, wrathful eyes of the man
who had just come in.
"Sort of put a crimp in his notions when you took up the canyon draw,"
Flandrau surmised.
Something in the strained silence struck the dealer as unusual. He looked
up, and showed a momentary confusion.
"Didn't know you were there, Cass. Looks like I put my foot in it sure
that time. I ce'tainly thought you were an absentee," he apologized.
"Or you wouldn't have been talking about me," retorted Fendrick acidly.
The words were flung at Flandrau, but plainly they were meant as a
challenge for Cullison.
A bearded man, the oldest in the party, cut in with good-natured reproof.
"I shouldn't wonder, Cass, but your name is liable to be mentioned just
like that of any other man."
"Didn't know you were in this, Yesler," Fendrick drawled insolently.
"Oh, well, I butted in," the other laughed easily. He pushed a stack of
chips toward the center of the table. "The pot's open."
Fendrick, refused a quarrel, glared at the impassive face of Cullison, and
passed to the rear room for a drink. His impudence needed fortifying, for
he knew that since he had embarked in the sheep business he was not
welcome at this club, that in fact certain members had suggested his name
be dropped from the books. Before he returned to the poker table the drink
he had ordered became three.
The game was over and accounts were being straightened. Cullison was the
heavy loser. All night he had been bucking hard luck. His bluffs had been
called. The others had not come in against his strong hands. On a straight
flush he had drawn down the ante and nothing more. To say the least, it
was exasperating. But his face had showed no anger. He had played poker
too many years, was too much a sport in the thorough-going frontier
fashion, to wince when the luck broke badly for him.
The settlement showed that the owner of the Circle C was twenty-five
hundred dollars behind the game. He owed Mackenzie twelve hundred,
Flandrau four hundred, and three hundred to Yesler.
With Fendrick sitting in an easy chair just across the room, he found it a
little difficult to say what otherwise would have been a matter of
course.
"My bank's busted just now, boys. Have to ask you to let it stand for a
few days. Say, till the end of the week."
Fendrick laughed behind the paper he was pretending to read. He knew quite
well that Luck's word was as good as his bond, but he chose to suggest a
doubt.
"Maybe you'll explain the joke to us, Cass," the owner of the Circle C
said very quietly.
"Oh, I was just laughing at the things I see, Luck," returned the younger
man with airy offense, his eyes on the printed sheet.
"Meaning for instance?"
"Just human nature. Any law against laughing?"
Cullison turned his back on him. "See you on Thursday if that's soon
enough, boys."
"All the time you want, Luck. Let mine go till after the roundup if you'd
rather," Mackenzie suggested.
"Thursday suits me."
Cullison rose and stretched. He had impressed his strong, dominant
personality upon his clothes, from the high-heeled boots to the very
wrinkles in the corduroy coat he was now putting on. He bad enemies, a
good many of them, but his friends were legion.
"Don't hurry yourself."
"Oh, I'll rustle the money, all right. Coming down to the hotel?" Luck was
reaching for his hat, but turned toward his friends as he spoke.
Without looking again at Fendrick, he led the way to the street.
The young man left alone cursed softly to himself, and ordered another
drink. He knew he was overdoing it, but the meeting with Cullison had
annoyed him exceedingly. The men had never been friends, and of late years
they had been leaders of hostile camps. Both of them could be overbearing,
and there was scarcely a week but their interests overlapped. Luck was
capable of great generosity, but he could be obstinate as the rock of
Gibraltar when he chose. There had been differences about the ownership of
calves, about straying cattle, about political matters. Finally had come
open hostility. Cass leased from the forestry department the land upon
which Cullison's cattle had always run free of expense. Upon this he had
put sheep, a thing in itself of great injury to the cattle interests. The
stockmen had all been banded together in opposition to the forestry
administration of the new regime, and Luck regarded Fendrick's action as
treachery to the common cause.
He struck back hard. In Arizona the open range is valuable only so long as
the water holes also are common property or a private supply available.
The Circle C cattle and those of Fendrick came down from the range to the
Del Oro to water at a point where the canyon walls opened to a spreading
valley. This bit of meadow Luck homesteaded and fenced on the north side,
thus cutting the cattle of his enemy from the river.
Cass was furious. He promptly tore down the fence to let his cattle and
sheep through. Cullison rebuilt it, put up a shack at a point which
commanded the approach, and set a guard upon it day and night. Open
warfare had ensued, and one of the sheepherders had been beaten because he
persisted in crossing the dead line.
Now Cullison was going to put the legal seal on the matter by making final
proof on his homestead. Cass knew that if he did so it would practically
put him out of business. He would be at the mercy of his foe, who could
ruin him if he pleased. Luck would be in a position to dictate terms
absolutely.
Nor did it make his defeat any more palatable to Cass that he had brought
it on himself by his bad-tempered unneighborliness and by his overreaching
disposition. A hundred times he had blacknamed himself for an arrant fool
because he had not anticipated the move of his enemy and homesteaded on
his own account.
He felt that there must be some way out of the trap if he could only find
it. Whenever the thought of eating humble pie to Luck came into his mind,
the rage boiled in him. He swore he would not do it. Better a hundred
times to see the thing out to a fighting finish.
Taking the broad-rimmed gray hat he found on the rack, Cass passed out of
the clubhouse and into the sun-bathed street.