MATSON MAKES HIS GATHER
LIKE wildfire the news spread through western Wyoming that Tait and
Gilroy had been shot down in their sheep wagon by night raiders. Soon
there was no ranch so deep-hidden in the hills, no herder’s camp so
remote that the story had not been carried there. The tale was a
nine-days’ wonder, a sensation that gave zest to colourless lives. The
identity of the raiders was a mystery that promised much pleasant
gossip.
Furtive whispers of names began to be heard. That of Falkner was
mentioned first. He had made threats against Tait, and he was known to
be quarrelsome and vindictive. Then the murmured gossip took up the name
of McCoy, added shortly to it those of Cole and Silcott. It was known
that all four of the suspected men had been absent from the round-up the
night of the killing. Two of them were enemies of Tait, the others had
been mixed up in the cattle-sheep feud. By their own statements they had
all been together during the hours when the raid took place.
The gossipers had no direct evidence, but a great deal of opinion was
whispered back and forth in corrals, on porches, and in the saddle. The
sentiment was general that Tait had for a long time laid himself open to
such an end. But Gilroy was a good citizen, not turbulent, friendly to
his neighbours. His murder stirred a deep but not too loudly expressed
resentment.
Meanwhile Sheriff Matson moved about his business of gathering evidence
with relentless singleness of purpose. He, too, heard whispers and
followed them to sources. He rode up and down the country piecing this
and that together until he had a net of circumstance encircling the
guilty ones.
From one of the herders whom McCoy had saved he gathered valuable
information. The man had been awakened by the sound of firing. He had
run to the door of the wagon in time to see Gilroy shot down. Tait was
already down. The herder had been saved by one of the attackers who had
stood between him and another and prevented the second man from
murdering him. The first man had called the other one Hal. The raiders
were all masked and he had not recognized any of them.
“I ain’t lost any of them raiders, Mr. Sheriff,” the man said with a
kind of dogged weakness. “If I know too much, why someone takes a shot
in the dark at me an’ that’s the last of Johnnie Mott. No, sir, I done
told you too much already. I was plumb excited, an’ maybe I ain’t got it
jest the way it was. He mighta called the other fellow Hardy instead of
Hal.”
“He might have, but he didn’t, Mott. Keep yore mouth shut and you don’t
need to worry about gettin’ shot. I’ll look after you if you’ll stay
right here in town. You can hold down that job I got you as janitor at
the court house. Nobody’s gonna hurt you any.”
One of the whispers Matson heard took him to Dunc King. That young man
had, as usual, been talking too much. The sheriff found him at his
mother’s ranch mending a piece of broken fence.
“’Lo, Dunc. How’s everything?” the officer asked by way of greeting.
The young man looked at him with suspicion and alarm. “Why, all right, I
reckon. How’s cases with you, Sheriff?”
“I hear you had a little talk with Hal Falkner the night of the raid. Do
you remember exactly what he said to you?”
“Why, no. I don’t remember a thing about it,” the young man returned
uneasily. He knew his tongue had once more tripped him up.
“You will if you think hard, don’t you reckon? You remembered it well
enough to tell Flanders and Mrs. Henson. I’ll start you off. Falkner an’
you were discussing the reason why so many men left camp after supper.
He told you Larry Silcott had told him Tait was across the dead line
again. Recollect that?”
“Why, no. I don’t guess I do, Sheriff.”
“You’d better, Dunc, onless you want to get into mighty serious
trouble.”
“Sho! Nothing to that, Sheriff. Nothing a-tall. I might’ve got to
shootin’ off my mouth the way I sometimes do. Kinda playin’ like I was
on the inside, y’ understand.”
“Or, on the other hand, you might be trying to duck out from
responsibility, Dunc. Don’t make any mistakes, boy. You’re going to come
through with what you know.”
“But I’m tellin’ you I don’t know a thing,” the boy protested.
“Not what you told several other people. How about it, Dunc? You want to
be an accessory to this crime?”
“No, sir, an’ I ain’t aimin’ to be either. If I knew anything I’d tell
you, but I can’t tell you what I don’t know, can I?”
The young man was no match for the sheriff. Before Matson had left the
place he knew all that King did.
Forty-eight hours later the sheriff with a posse rode up to the Circle
Diamond Ranch. Rowan McCoy was sitting on the porch oiling a gun. The
first glance told him that Matson had two prisoners, the second that
they were Falkner and Silcott.
Matson swung from the saddle and came up the steps to the porch.
“I’ve got bad news for you, Mac,” he said bluntly. “You’re under
arrest.”
The cattleman did not bat an eye. “What for?” he asked evenly.
“For killing Gilroy and Tait.”
“The damn fool’s going around arrestin’ everybody he knows, Mac,” broke
in Falkner.
McCoy observed that Falkner was hand-cuffed and that Silcott was not.
He asked the sheriff a question. “Do I understand that you’ve arrested
Hal an’ Larry for this, too?”
“Yes, Mac. Larry behaved sensible an’ promised not to make any trouble,
so I aim to be as easy on him as I can. Falkner had other notions. He
tried to make a gun play.”
“You takin’ us to Wagon Wheel, Aleck?”
“Yes.”
“You have a warrant for my arrest?”
The officer showed the warrant and Rowan glanced over it.
“All right,” said McCoy. “I’ll saddle up an’ be ready in a jiffy.”
“No need for that, Mac. Fact is, I’m not quite ready to start. Got a
little more business to do first. If you don’t mind I’ll make the Circle
Diamond my headquarters for a few hours,” Matson proposed amiably.
The owner of the ranch answered pleasantly but perhaps with a touch of
sarcasm. “Anything you say, Aleck. If yore boys are here at dinner time
I expect Mrs. Stovall can fix you-all up.”
“Sure, Mac, an’ if he needs horses or guns probably you can lend him a
few,” Falkner added with an oath. “An’ maybe a puncher or two to join
his damned posse.”
“No use gettin’ annoyed, Hal,” the ranch owner said quietly. “This looks
like a silly business to us, but Aleck has to make his play. He’s not
arrestin’ us for pleasure. I reckon he thinks he’s got some evidence, or
maybe he wants to scare us into thinkin’ he has some so he can pick up
something against someone else.”
“You’ll find I’ve got evidence aplenty, Mac,” the sheriff answered
mildly. “No hard feelings, you understand. All in the way of business.
Have I got yore word if I don’t put the cuffs on you that you’ll go with
me to Wagon Wheel quietly?”
“Yes. We’re not desperadoes, Aleck. We are just plain hill ranchmen. If
you’d just mentioned it we’d have come in without any posse to guard
us.”
“H’mp!” The sheriff made no other comment. He glanced at Falkner by way
of comment on McCoy’s criticism. “I’m leavin’ three of the boys here,
Mac. Be back here myself in a few hours, I reckon. If I don’t get back
I’ve arranged for you to make a start for town about two o’clock. That
agreeable to you?”
“Any time that suits you,” McCoy answered.
The sheriff was back within the specified time limit. He brought with
him Rogers and Yerby. From a remark he dropped later McCoy learned that
Cole had been arrested earlier in the day at Wagon Wheel.
“You are makin’ quite a gather, Aleck,” said Rogers. “There are several
other ranchmen up here you’ve overlooked. How about them?”
“I’ve got all I want for the present, Brad,” the sheriff replied.
His manner was not reassuring, nor was the fact that he had picked out
and arrested just the six men who had been engaged in the night raid.
Silcott, temperamentally volatile, was plainly downhearted. McCoy
manœuvred so that he rode beside him when they took the road.
“Don’t you worry, Larry,” the older man said in a cheerful voice, but
one so low that it carried only to the ears of the man it addressed. “He
can’t make his case stick, if we all stand pat on our story.”
“I’m not worried, Mac, but he must know something or he wouldn’t be
arresting us. That’s a cinch.”
“He knows a little, an’ guesses a lot more, an’ figures probably that
there’s a quitter among us. That’s where his case will break down. All
we’ve got to do is to keep mum. In a week or so we’ll be ridin’ the
range again.”
“Yes,” agreed Larry, but without conviction.