There was a snap to his voice now that jerked Bud into obedience.
Sullenly, he shouldered the buck and they moved down the slope to the
trail along the river. Turning stealthily once or twice, Bud found the
deputy’s Colt muzzle covering him almost as if it possessed a mind of
its own, no matter how the deputy seemed to stare. In Bud there began
to grow a very real respect for this lean, brown ex-Ranger. He was
such a one as Bud himself.
Moving leisurely, because of Bud’s burden and the deputy’s high-heeled
boots, they came after a couple of miles to the dooryard of Ben Lingo’s
ranch house--and not once had Bud glimpsed the slightest chance of
escape.
As he let the buck slip to the ground, for an instant Bud saw--framed in
a window--Sudie May’s white face, the hazel eyes widened as she stared.
Then it vanished and in the doorway appeared Mrs. Lingo. Her beady old
eyes gleamed malevolently at sight of Bud and the deer.
“Well!” she cackled. “If ’tain’t that Bud Ranger! Never heard, I reckon,
about Herefords havin’ white faces. Just got all mixed up an’----”
Suddenly she whirled upon the silent deputy:
“Where’s Brother? Brother Ranger? Didn’t you get him, too? Oh, you dumb
nitwit! You missed this fellow’s brother? Why, they trail together all
time. Any idiot’d have known that! You just wait, Mr. Hawkins; the
judge’ll have a few things to say to you. You----”
“Excuse _me_, Mis’ Lingo!” the deputy interrupted her stiffly, with
lean cheeks reddening. “If the judge has got anything at all to say
to me, he can shore say it. Anybody can say anything they want to
say. I’ll listen. O’ course, if I don’t like it----”
“Somebody lookin’ fer me?” came a level, drawling voice from the house
behind Mrs. Lingo.
“It’s that Bud Ranger!” shrilled Mrs. Lingo, whirling upon Old Ben.
“I thought you was still up the hill. Bud killed a buck this mornin’
an’ Hawkins catched him--somehow. But he never catched Brother! I
told him----”
“Excuse _me_, Mis’ Lingo!” Hawkins interrupted her once more. “It’s sort
o’ more officiallike if a peace officer makes his own report. Keeps the
record a lot straighter, too, lots o’ times----”
“We’ll look into the business, Sally, don’t you worry!”
There was no change in Ben Lingo’s broad, red face as he turned small,
round blue eyes upon Bud Ranger.
“We just come in over the back trail,” he explained to Hawkins. “Bring
the prisoner into the front room, will you? We’ll hold court there.”
With face grim-set, Bud preceded the deputy into the familiar
room--where in the days before the feud he and Sudie May had sat so
many, many times. As if his thought of the girl were infectious
that----
“Where’s Sudie May, Sally?” inquired Ben Lingo. “No, no! Needn’t mind
huntin’ her. I got somethin’ to tell her, that’s all. Find her after
while.”
He rolled out, was gone for perhaps five minutes. By his bearing--which
was all that one might ever judge by--he was thoughtful when he returned
to the “court room.” Bud shot at him a half-curious, half-defiant stare.
Then the _clip-clop_ of shod hoofs in the dooryard drew Bud’s eyes
mechanically to the front window. He stiffened, where he sat upon the
piano bench.
Past the window rode Sudie May on her black pony--the very pony which
Bud had gentled for her a year before, taking vast pride in his work,
putting into the taming of the little black outlaw all that he knew of
horse-breaking.
Nor rode the girl alone, now. Her companion--if Bud might trust his
brief view of the man--was none other than the too-smooth-tongued,
too-handsome, “Slim” Thorne, Ben Lingo’s foreman. Bud had cut him out
a year ago. Sudie May had promised faithfully, months before, that she
would never be alone with him again. It _might_ have been one of the
punchers, but Bud had no illusions. He thought he knew Slim Thorne’s
gaudy silk shirt, his Stetson, entirely too well.
Sudie May was headed upriver, pushing the black pony to a swift jog
trot. Her expression, from the one brief glimpse Bud had had of it,
appeared by no means so troubled or sad. It should have been, with
him sitting there in her father’s courtroom, waiting to be convicted
and slammed the limit. It seemed to Bud that her face had been oddly
intent, as she stared straight ahead--at Slim Thorne.
Bud swore viciously under his breath. There was no light in the
brilliant sunshine. There was a bad taste in his mouth, as in other
days when he had tanked up on Bart Black’s bootleg. The days before
Sudie May had straightened him out, waked ambition and hope in him,
with the simple declaration that she cared--cared enough to marry
him.
Sullenly, he turned back to face the room like a trapped animal. He was
ready for anything, however desperate. Ready to snatch Hawkins’ long,
blue six-gun and start hell popping there in the quiet room. Entered
now that portly Easterner whom Bud had marked in the Lingo dooryard, as
he and Brother crouched on the ridge above the Ruidoso’s canyon.
He was a flabby-bodied, pig-eyed “foreigner” in blue-serge coat,
gaberdine riding breeches, and shiny tan boots with ridiculous little
brass spurs. He was fat-faced, too, this foreigner, and he had an
arrogant trick of thrusting out his swollen chin as if in contempt of
the whole world. Instinctively, Bud hated him. He found a savage
pleasure in wondering just how far his hard, bony fist would sink
into that jellylike paunch.
“What’s this? What’s this, Lingo?” boomed the foreigner, with that
note in his voice that told his expectation--certainty, rather--of a
quick, respectful answer. “Holding court, eh? Well, well! What’s the
charge? Who’s this--ah--character?”
“Just a plain violation o’ the game laws, Mr. Carter,” Ben Lingo
explained in his level, emotionless drawl. “Hawkins, here--you know
Hawkins--is surveyin’ the lines in that west section I’m sellin’ you.
He caught this boy a-butcherin’ a buck----”
“Butchering a buck! On _my_ land!” Ferociously, Carter whirled upon Bud,
who returned his glare with pawnbroker’s interest. “The rascal! He looks
a tough customer, all right! Killing my deer. Why----”
Somehow, he managed to make it clear that his ownership of the land made
the offense far more serious than it could possibly have been otherwise.
“_Your_ deer!” snarled Bud, jerked from the silence he had intended to
maintain. “Who the hell gave ’em to you? Your deer! Suppose you figure
to round ’em up ever’ spring an’ brand ’em? Ah, the devil!”
“Order in the court! Order in the court!” Ben Lingo rapped with his
knuckles upon the center table. “Order in the court!”
His red face was without change; he looked neither at Bud nor the
foreigner, but instead stared blankly at the white-washed adobe wall.
But there was a telltale twitching of the throat muscles. Bud began to
wonder just how popular this Carter might be, on the Lingo Ranch.