CONFLICTING CURRENTS
They were busy days in Orrville. But business rarely yielded outward
display in its citizens. Men talked more. They perhaps moved about
more--in their customary leisurely fashion. But any approach to bustle
was as foreign to the rule of the township as it would be to a colony
of aged snails in a cyclone.
It was the custom of Orrville to rise early and go to bed late. But
this by no means implies any excessive activity. On the contrary.
These spells of activity lasted just as long as their accomplishment
required. In the interim its citizens returned to a slumber little
less profound than that which supervened at night after the last
roysterer had been ejected, by force, or persuasion, from the
salubrious precincts of Ju Penrose's saloon.
Orrville was a ranching township in the northwestern corner of Montana
lying roughly some twenty miles west of the foothills of the Cathill
Mountains, which, in turn, formed a projecting spur of the main range
of the Rockies.
Orrville was the township and Ju Penrose was the pioneer of its
commerce. He was a man of keen instincts for commerce of his own
especial brand, and rejoiced in a disreputable past. He possessed a
thin, hooked nose of some dimensions, which never failed to cut a way
for its owner into the shady secrets of his neighbors. He possessed a
temper as amiable and mild as a spring lamb when the stream of
prosperity and profit flowed his way, and as vitriolic as a she-wolf in
winter, when that stream chanced to become diverted into a neighbor's
direction.
He was considered a man of some importance in the place. But this was
probably the result of the nature of his trade, which, in the eyes of
the denizens of the neighborhood, certainly possessed an advantage over
such stodgy callings as "dry goods." But besides the all-important
thirst-quenching purpose of his establishment, it had become a sort of
bureau for large and small transactions of a ranching nature, and a
resort where every sort of card game could be freely indulged in,
without regard for the limit of the stakes, and had thus gained for
itself the subsidiary title amongst its clientele of "Ju's Poker Joint."
At the moment Ju's usually busy tongue was taking a well-earned rest,
and his hawk-like visage was shrouded in a deep, contemplative repose.
His always bloodshot eyes were speculative as he surveyed the
smoke-laden scene from behind his shabby bar. The place was full of
drinkers and gamblers. The hour was past midnight. And he was
estimating silently the further spending possibilities of his
customers, and consequently considering the advisability of closing
down.
A group of three ranch hands leaned against the centre of the bar.
Their glasses were empty and none of them seemed anxious to command
their refilling. They were talking earnestly. And their voices were
unusually modulated. Just beyond these a slight, good-looking man in
chapps, with a face of particularly refined but somewhat debauched
appearance, was obviously interested in their talk, although he took no
part in it. On the other side of them, away at the far end of the bar,
leaned a solitary, tough-looking drinker, who seemed to take no
interest whatever in his surroundings. Every man in the place, the
dozen or so occupying the card tables included, was fully armed in the
customary fashion prevailing in this distant corner of the ranching
world, and it would have needed no second thought to realize that these
heavy, loaded weapons were not by any means intended for decorative
purposes.
"Wal, anyways they're a long time fixin' things," observed one of the
three at the centre of the bar, with a yawn that displayed a double row
of gleaming white teeth. "The boss guessed I'd best wait around, so it
ain't a heap o' use kickin'. I'll hev to wait till the durned
committee's through, if it takes 'em sittin' as long us a hide-bound
hen."
"It's allus that-a-way when folks gets on a committee racket, Curly,"
replied one of his friends with a sympathetic grin.
"That's just how, Dan," agreed the third. "Hot air. That's what it
is. This tarnation Vigilance stunt sets folk whisperin' among
'emselves 'bout the hell goin' to be ladled out to all cattle thieves
in general. Gives 'em visions of hangin'-bees, an' a sort o' firework
display with guns an' things, an' when they hatched out, what's the
result? Why, a waste o' hot air, an'--no checkens."
"'T'so, Dan," agreed Curly, with easy decision. "The boss is too near
relative of a fancy gentleman for to hand out the sort o' dope rustlers
need. If us boys had the job we'd fix things quick. You'd see this
bum gang kicking air at the end of a rope 'fore Ju, here, had time to
dope out four fingers of rotgut at the expense of the house."
He leered across at the unsmiling face of the saloon-keeper. Ju
permitted himself to be drawn.
"Nothin' doin', Curly." A solemn shake of the head set his walrus
moustache flapping. Then he drew a cigar from a top vest pocket and
bit the end through, brushing his moustache aside to discover a place
in which to deposit it in his mouth. "I'd sure hate to dope out any
rotgut on you boys. Y'see, I sure got your health at heart. I kind o'
love you fellers to death. I'd hate to see you sufferin' at my hands.
Guess I was raised Christian."
"Was you?"
Curly's sarcasm achieved the laugh intended, and, as a result of his
satisfaction, he flung his last half-dollar on the dingy bar.
"Make that into three drops of liver souse, an' hand us a smile, Ju.
Your face is sure killin' trade."
Ju rolled his cigar across his mouth under the curtain of moustache,
lit it, and proceeded to push an uncorked bottle across to his
customers.
"Guess it ain't a bad proposition handin' you boys a smile. Smiles
allus happen easy on foolish faces. Seein' I ain't deaf I been
listenin' to your talk, an' I ain't made up my mind if you're as bright
as you're guessin', or if you're the suckers your talk makes you out.
Seein' I don't usual take chances, I'll put my dollars on the sucker
business. I've stood behind this darned old bar fer ten years, an' I
guess for five of 'em I've listened to talk like yours--from fellers
like you." He removed the bottle from which the three men had helped
themselves to liberal "four fingers," and eyed their glasses askance.
"Now, you're worritin' over this lousy Lightfoot gang. So was the
others. So's everybody bin fer five years. An' fer five years this
same lousy Lightfoot gang has just been helpin' 'emselves to the cattle
on the ranches around here--liberal. Same as youse fellers have helped
yourselves out o' this bottle. An', durin' that time, I ain't heard
tell of one o' them boys who's been spoilin' to hang 'em all doin' a
thing. Not a thing, 'cep' it's lap up whisky to keep up a supply o'
hot air.
"Wal," he proceeded, in his biting fashion, as he thrust the bottle on
the shelf and began wiping glasses with a towel that looked to be
decomposing for want of soap, "them lousy rustlers is still running
their play in the district jest wher', when, an' how they darn please.
See? You, Curly, are kickin' because your boss Dug McFarlane is too
much of a gentleman. Wal, if I know a man from a seam-squirrel, I'd
sure say Dug's got more savee in his whiskers than you got dirt--which
is some. If I got things right, this night's sittin's goin' to put
paid to the Lightfoot gang's account. I'd be glad to say the same of
one or two scores three bums have lately run up right here."
The offensiveness of his manner left the men quite undisturbed. The
place would have been strange to them without it. They accepted it as
part of the evening's entertainment. But the allusion to the Vigilance
Committee's efforts brought them into attitudes of close attention. It
drew the attention, too, of the cattleman with the refined features,
and, equally, that of the tough-looking individual at the far end of
the bar.
"What are they goin' to do?" demanded Dan urgently.
Ju puffed aggravatingly at his cigar.
"Do?" he echoed at last, gazing distantly at the card players across
the room. "Why, what any bunch of savee should ha' done five years
ago. Put out a great reward."
Curly snorted in disdain.
"See, I tho't it was to be a big play."
"You allus was bright," sneered Dan. "How's that goin' to fix the
Lightfoot crowd?"
"How?" Ju's contempt always found an outlet in the echo of an
opponent's interrogation. "Say, Dan, how old are you? Twenty?"
"That ain't nuthin' to you," the cowpuncher retorted, with a gesture of
hot impatience.
"Ain't it? Wal, mebbe it ain't," Ju agreed imperturbably. "But y'see
it takes years an' years gettin' the value o' dollars right. I allow
ther's folks guesses dollars talks. Wal, I'm guessin' they just
_holler_. Make the wad big enough and ther' ain't nuthin' you can't
buy from a wheat binder to a royal princess with a crown o' jools. The
only thing you're li'ble to have trouble over is the things Natur'
fancies handin' you fer--nix. That an' hoss sense. That's pretty well
the world to-day, no matter what the sky-pilots an' Sunday-school
ma'ams dope out in their fancy literature. I know. You offer ten
thousand dollars for the hangin' of Lightfoot's gang, an', I say right
here, there ain't a feller in it from Lightfoot--if there is sech a
feller--down, who wouldn't make a grab at that wad by givin' the rest
of the crowd away. Makes you think, don't it? Sort o' worries them
empty think tanks o' yours."
But Ju's satisfaction received an unexpected shaking.
"Some wind," observed the slim, lonely drinker, in the blandest fashion.
Ju was round on him in a flash, his walrus moustache bristling.
"I'm listening," he said, with a calmness which belied his attitude.
The other set his glass down on the counter with a bump.
"If you're listening," he said, "you have probably understood what I
said. You're talking through a fog of cynicism which seems to obscure
an otherwise fairly competent intellect. You've plundered so many
innocents in your time by purveying an excessive quantity of bluestone
disguised under the name of alcohol that your overweening conceit has
entirely distorted your perspective till you fancy that your own dregs
of human nature constitute the human nature of all the rest of the
world, who would entirely resent being classed as your fellows. In a
word you need physic, Ju."
The speaker laughed amiably, and his smile revealed the weakness which
was pointed by the signs of debauchery in his good-looking face. Ju
eyed him steadily. The offense of his words was mitigated by his
manner, but Ju resented the laugh which went round the entire room at
his expense.
"See here, Bob Whitstone," he began, abandoning his glass wiping and
supporting himself on his counter, with his face offensively thrust in
his opponent's direction, "I ain't got the langwidge you seem to have
lapped up with your mother's milk. I don't guess any sucker paid a
thousand dollars a year for my college eddication so I could come out
here and grow a couple of old beeves and spend my leisure picklin' my
food depot in a low down prairie saloon. Therefor' I'll ask you to
excuse me if I talk in a kind o' langwidge the folks about here most
gener'ly understan'. Guess you think you know some. Maybe you figger
to know it all. Wal, get this. When you get back home jest stand in
front of a fi' cent mirror, if you got one in your bum shanty, an' get
a peek at your map, an' ask yourself--when you studied it well--if I
couldn't buy you, body an' soul, fer two thousand dollars--cash. I'd
sure hate slingin' mud at any feller's features, much less yours,
who're a good customer to me, but you're comin' the highbrow, an' you
got notions of honor still floatin' around in your flabby thinkin'
department sech as was handed you by the guys who ran that thousand
dollar college. Wal, ef you'll look at yourself honest, an' argue with
yourself honest, you'll find them things is sure a shadder of the past
which happened somew'eres before you tasted that first dose o' prairie
poison which has since become a kind o' habit. It ain't no use in
getting riled, Bob, it ain't no use in workin' overtime on that college
dictionary o' yours to set me crawlin' around among the spit boxes.
Fac's is fac's. Ken you hand me a list o' the things you--you who
ain't got two spare cents to push into the mission box, an' who'd
willingly sleep in a hog pen if it weren't for a dandy wife who'd got
no more sense than to marry you--wouldn't do if I was to hand you out a
roll of ten thousand dollars right now--cash? Tcha! You think. I
know."
He turned away in a wave of contemptuous disgust. And as he did so a
harsh voice from the other end of the bar held him up.
"What about me, Ju?"
The tough-looking prairie man made his demand with a laugh only a shade
less harsh than his speaking voice.
Ju stood. His desperate, keen face was coldly still as he regarded the
powerful frame of his challenger. Then his retort came swift and
poignant.
"You, Sikkem? You'd allus _give_ yourself away. Get me?"
The frigidity of the saloon-keeper's manner was over-powering. The man
called Sikkem was unequal in words to such a challenge. A flush slowly
dyed his lean cheeks, and an angry depression of the brows suggested
something passionate and forceful. Just for a moment many eyes glanced
in his direction. The saloon-keeper was steadily regarding him. There
was no suggestion of anger in his attitude, merely cat-like
watchfulness. Their eyes met. Then the cloud abruptly lifted from
Sikkem's brow, and he laughed with unsmiling, black eyes. The
saloon-keeper rinsed a glass and unconcernedly began to wipe it.
The incident was allowed to pass. But it was the termination of the
discussion, a termination which left Ju victor, not because of the
rightness of his views, but because there was no man in Orrville
capable of joining issue with him in debate with any hope of success.
Action rather than words was the prevailing feature with these people,
and, in his way, Ju Penrose was equal, if not superior, not only in
debate, but in the very method these people best understood.
A moment later Sikkem took his departure.
* * * * * *
It was well past midnight when the last man turned out of Ju's bar.
But the crowd had not yet scattered to their various homes. They were
gathered in a small, excited cluster gaping up at a big notice pasted
on the weather-boarding of the saloon-keeper's shack. Ju himself was
standing in their midst, right in front of the notice, which had been
indited in ink, evidently executed with a piece of flat wood. He was
holding up a lantern, and every eye was carefully, and in many
instances laboriously, studying the text inscribed.
It was a notice of reward. A reward of ten thousand dollars for
information leading to the capture of the gang of cattle thieves known
as the "Lightfoot gang." And it was signed by Dug McFarlane on behalf
of the Orrville Rancher's Vigilance Committee.
"Guess Ju knowed after all," somebody observed, in a confidential tone
to his neighbor.
But Ju's ears were as long and sharp as his tongue. He flashed round
on the instant, his lantern lowered from the level of the notice board.
There was a sort of cold triumph in his manner as his eyes fell upon
the speaker.
"Know'd?" he cried sharply. "Ain't 'knowin'' my business? Psha!" His
contempt was withering. Then his manner changed back to the triumph
which the notice had inspired. "Say, it's a great piece of money. It
surely is some bunch. Ten thousand dollars! Gee! His game's up.
Lightfoot's as good as kickin' his heels agin the breezes. He's played
his hand, an'--lost."
And somehow no one seemed inclined to add to his statement. Nor, which
was much more remarkable, contradict it. Now that these men had seen
the notice with their own eyes the force of all Ju had so recently
contended came home to them. There was not one amongst that little
gathering who did not realize the extent of the odds militating against
the rustlers. Ten thousand dollars! There was not a man present who
did not feel the tremendous power of such a reward.
The gathering melted away slowly, and finally Bob Whitstone was left
alone before the gleaming sheet of paper, with Ju standing in his
doorway. The lantern was at his feet upon the sill. His hands were
thrust in the tops of his shabby trousers. He was regarding the
"gentleman" rancher meditatively, and his half burnt cigar glowed under
the deep intake of his powerful lungs.
"It's a dandy bunch, Bob, eh?" he demanded presently, in an ironical
tone. "Guess I'd come nigh sellin' my own father fer--ten thousand
dollars. An' I don't calc'late I'd get nightmare neither." Then he
drew a deep breath which suggested regret. "But--it ain't comin' my
way. No. Not by a sight." Then, after a watchful pause, he
continued: "I'm kind o' figgerin' whose way. Not mine, or--yours. Eh,
Bob? We could do with it. Pity, ain't it?"
Bob turned. His eyes sought the face in the shadow of the doorway.
"I'm no descendant of Judas," he said coldly.
"No. But--Judas didn't sell a gang of murdering cattle rustlers. That
ain't Judas money."
"Maybe. But it's blood money all the same."
"Mighty bad blood that oughter be spilt."
Bob turned away. His gaze wandered out westward. Then his eyes came
slowly back to the man in the door-way.
"You thought I was talking hot air just now--about a man's price. You
didn't like it. Well, when I find myself with a price I hope I shan't
live to be paid it. That's all."
The man in the doorway shook his head. Then he spoke slowly,
deliberately. And somehow much of the sharpness had gone out of his
tone, and the hard glitter of his steely eyes had somehow become less
pronounced.
"Oh, I guess I got your meanin' right, fer all yer thousand dollar
langwidge. Sure, I took you right away. But--it don't signify a cuss
anyways. Guess you was born a gentleman, Bob, which I wa'an't. An'
because you was born an' raised that-a-way you'd surely like to kep
right hold o' the notion that folks ken still act as though they'd been
weaned on talk of honor an' sichlike. I sez kep a holt on that notion.
Grip it tight, an' don't never let go on it. Grab it same as you would
the feller that's yearnin' fer your scalp. If you lose your grip that
tow-colored scalp of yours'll be raised sure, an' every penicious
breeze that blows 'll get into your think depot and hand you every sort
of mental disease ther' ain't physic enough in the world to cure.
Guess that's plumb right. It don't cut no ice what I think. A feller
like me jest thinks the way life happens to boost him. Y'see, I ain't
had no thousand dollar eddication to make me see things any other ways.
Life's a mighty tough proposition an' it can't be run on no schedule,
an' each feller's got to travel the way he sees with his own two eyes.
If he's got the spectacles of a thousand dollar eddication he's an
a'mighty lucky feller, an' I'm guessin' they'll help him dodge a whole
heap o' muck holes he'd otherwise bury his silly head in. So hang on,
boy. Grip them darn fool notions so they ain't got a chance. If you
let go--wal, you'll get a full-sized peek into a pretty fancy sort o'
hell wher' ther' ain't any sort o' chance o' dopin' your visions out o'
sight with Ju Penrose's belly wash. So long."
Ju picked up his lantern and turned back into his bar, closing and
securing his door behind him. Then, with keen anticipation and
enjoyment, he approached his till and proceeded to count his day's
takings.
* * * * * *
Bob Whitstone unhitched his horse from Ju's tying post. He swung
himself into the saddle and rode away,--away toward his outland home
under the starlit roof of the plains. It was an almost nightly journey
with him now, for the saloon habit had caught him in its toils, and was
already holding him firmly.
His mood was not easy. He resented Ju Penrose. He resented all men of
his type. He knew him for a crook. He believed he possessed no more
conscience than any other habitual criminal. But his resentment was
the weak echo of an upbringing which had never intended him for such
association, and, in spite of it, the man's personality held him, and
its strength dominated him.
His way took him out across an almost trackless waste of rich
grass-land. Somewhere out there, hidden away at the foot of the
Cathills, lay his homestead, and the wife for whom he had abandoned all
that his birth had entitled him to. During the past two years he had
learned truly all that he had sacrificed for the greatest of all dreams
of youth.
But these things, for the moment, were not in his mind. Only Penrose.
Ju Penrose, whom he had learned to detest and despise out of the
educated mind that was his. The man's final homily was entirely lost
upon Bob. Such was his temper that only the gross outrages against the
precepts of his youth remained. He only heard the hateful, detestable
cynicism, brutally expressed. It was something curious how he only
took note of these things, and missed the rough solicitude of Ju's
final admonishment. But he was young and weak, and a shadow of
bitterness had entered his life, which, at his age, should have found
no place in it.
The miles swept away under his horse's hoofs. Already the township,
that sparse little oasis of shelter in a desert of grass-land, lay lost
behind him in the depths of some hidden trough in the waves of the
prairie ocean, The great yellow disc of the moon had cut the horizon
and lit his tracks, but its light was still unrevealing and only added
charm to the blaze of summer jewels which adorned the soft velvet of
the heavens.
He glanced back. But almost instantly his eyes were turned again
ahead. The night scene of these plains was too familiar to him to
excite interest. To him there were simply miles intervening between
him and the slumbers he was seeking. The prairie, for all its
beauties, spelt toilful days and bitter disappointment for him.
Wherein then should be discovered its charms?
Again his mind settled itself upon the events of the evening. Price?
Price? Every man, he had been told, had his price. Every man and
woman. He uttered a sound. It might have been a laugh, but it lacked
mirth. It startled his alert horse. It almost seemed to startle the
quiet night itself. What was his price? All he knew about price was
its payment. He had only been called upon to pay. And he had paid!
My God, he had paid! All that had been his. All the wealth, the
comfort, the luxury and prospects which had been his in his wealthy
father's home, had been the price he had paid for the right, which was
the right of every man, to choose for himself, and to take to himself
and to wife, the woman who seemed to him to be the one creature in the
world who could yield him the happiness which alone was worth while.
This talk of a man's price only enraged him the more. He viciously
detested Ju Penrose, and all such creatures who walked the world.
Well, the reward was out. Time would show. If it failed to find the
Judas he would remind Ju. Oh, yes, he would remind him. He would wait
his time for the reminder. He would wait till the saloon was full, and
then--then he would open out his batteries. Men were of----
What was that?
He had pulled his horse up with a swift tightening of his hand. Now
the beast stood with head erect, and pricked ears firmly thrust
forward. Its head was turned southward, and the gush of its distended
nostrils warned its rider that his question was shared by a creature
whose instincts were even more acute, here, on the prairie, than those
of its human master.
Bob bent down in the saddle the better to obtain the silhouette of the
sky-line. The sound which had held him came up on the southern night
breeze. It was a low murmur, or rumble, and, to his accustomed ears,
it suggested the speeding of hoofs over the green clad earth. He
waited for many moments, but the sound only increased. There was no
doubt left in his mind now. None at all.
He sat up again and glanced swiftly about him. The moonlight had
increased, and a silver sheen threw up the surrounding scene into
indistinct relief. Beyond, to his right, he detected a small patch of
scrub and spruce, and, without a second thought, he made for it.
A minute later he was out of the saddle beside his horse, screened from
view of the plains by a belt of bush. He secured his horse and moved
to the fringe of his shelter. Here he took up a position facing south,
and his view of the plains beyond became uninterrupted.
He knew what was coming. Instinct warned him. Perhaps even it was the
wish fathering his belief. He felt it was a certainty that the
rustlers were out pursuing their depredations with their customary
unchallenged daring. Who, he wondered, was the present victim, and
what was the extent of the raid?
He had not long to wait. The sound grew. It lost its distant
continuity and became broken into the distinct hoof beats of large
numbers. Furthermore, by the sound of it, they would pass right across
his front. He had been wise in seeking cover. Had he remained----
But speculation gave way before the interest of movement. Now the
silhouette of the sky-line was dancing before his eyes. In the
moonlight he could clearly make out the passing of a driven herd. It
came on, losing itself in the shadows of a distant trough. Again it
appeared. More distinct now. He whistled under his breath. They were
coming from the direction of Dug McFarlane's and it was a large herd.
They were traveling northwest, which would cut into the hills away to
the north of his homestead. They----
But they were almost abreast of him now, and he heard the voices of men
urging and cursing. Lower he dropped toward the earth the better to
ascertain the numbers. But his estimate was uncertain. There were
moments when the herd looked very large. There were moments when it
looked less. He felt that a conservative estimate would be one hundred
perhaps, and some eight or ten men driving them.
They were gone as they had come, lumbering rapidly, and as they passed
northward the southern breeze carried the sound away. It died out
quickly, and for minutes longer than was needed he stood listening,
listening. Then, at last, he turned back to his horse.
In the two years of his sojourn on the land it was the first time he
had witnessed the operation of the Lightfoot gang, and it left a deep
impression upon his mind. A great resentment rose up in him. It was
the natural temper of a man who is concerned, in however small a
degree, in the cattle industry. And his anger urged him to a greater
speed for home, and a greater sympathy for the man who was prepared to
accept the Judas money offered for the lives of this gang of criminals.