THE MAIL ROBBER
It was close to seven the following morning when Pop Howes and his wife
returned home. They found Slivers Hart and Jim-twin Allen finishing
their breakfast.
"Anythin' happen last night?" Pop asked eagerly.
"Nothin' a-tall," Jim replied, with his mouth full of bacon and bread.
He and Slivers had spent the night in erasing the signs of the fight.
"Then the thing didn't work?" Pop asked, and his face clouded.
"She sure did!" Allen said quickly. "I figger yuh don't have to worry
none!"
Directly after breakfast Slivers Hart started for town, and Pop went
out to inspect his mine. Mrs. Howes took Allen by the hand and led him
into the sitting room. She pointed an accusing finger at some holes in
the wall opposite the door.
"Nothin' happened last night! Then please tell me how them holes got in
that wall. Now don't lie. I know--yuh saved Pop an' me once before when
we was in Arizona, an' yuh did it ag'in last night! They are buckshot
marks, an' they was intended for Pop. Oh, Jim, Jim! Yuh are too good to
go on bein' all alone!" she ended with a sigh, and there were tears in
her eyes.
"Shucks, ma'am! Where did yuh get all the loose language at?" Allen
asked nervously and twisted his hat in his hand.
"Will there ever come a time when I kin repay yuh for what yuh have
done for Pop an' me?" she asked wistfully.
"Sure! Didn't yuh feed me pie an' let me steal some for my hosses?
Ain't we even then?"
She looked at him and shook her head. "You know, Jim, I guess you
really think that makes us even!"
"It sure does!" Allen said decisively, as he picked up his rifle.
"Ma'am, don't yuh worry--things is comin' out pretty! I'm sayin'
good-by, 'cause I don't figger on comin' back!"
"Are yuh sayin' good-by to Jack?"
"Me? Not any! After this mornin', I hopes I don't see him again for a
long time!"
"Why?"
Allen hesitated.
"'Cause if he ketches me here, he'll sure enough lock me up, an' if he
sees me afore he has time to forget things, he'll paddle the stuffin'
out of me!"
At the ludicrous seriousness on Allen's face the woman smiled. His
expression was like that of a small boy who has been caught stealing
apples. Then her heart swelled with pity. She knew him--she knew his
job of saving herself and others was not yet finished. Yet he thought
so little of his own life that his chief worry was of what Jack would
do or think.
She watched him climb the trail that led to the shelf above the gulch
and shook her head.
"Just let me ketch folks sayin' anythin' against him an' I'll empty a
pan of b'ilin' dishwater on 'em!" she said aloud.
Allen had hardly rejoined his two horses at the place where he had left
them the night before when Slivers topped the rim of the gulch and rode
toward him.
"Steve Brandon runs into the post office just after they close the mail
bag an' makes such a holler that they opens her up, an' then he insists
on droppin' a letter in personal!" Slivers reported.
"That there stage will be along pronto!" Jim Allen cried, as he deftly
tightened his cinches and swung into the saddle.
"I'm comin' with yuh!" Slivers announced.
"Not any!" Allen said positively. "Yuh know, kid, we figgered last
night that we'd sorta drift down to Texas an' square yuh so yuh could
marry that gal of yours. Yuh got to remember that Uncle Sam don't never
forget, if yuh monkey with his mail. So yuh ain't goin'!"
"You're goin'!" Slivers argued.
Allen grinned.
"Hell! There ain't nothin' I could do now that would make it worse!" he
explained cheerfully.
Slivers watched him ride down the slope toward the trail to Black Rock.
* * * * *
That morning Jack Allen tacked notices about the town. They read:
The following men will leave town before sunset.
There followed a list of ten names, and the first one was Jim-twin
Allen.
Those who are still in town after sunset will be held for
investigation and later extradited, if wanted elsewhere.
Curious crowds collected about the notices, and friends ran to warn
those whose names appeared on the list. The men named received the news
in grim silence and made no threats, but the roughs who aspired to
being bad and had not been mentioned blustered and threatened as to
what they would do if the little sheriff from Wyoming had tried to
exile them. In a town full of hard men Jack Allen had unerringly
selected the ten who were at all times dangerous, who believed in
talking with their guns rather than with their mouths.
A short time before the stage left that morning, Jack Allen walked into
the office of the jail and found Bill Tucker waiting for him.
"Yuh sent for me?" Jack Allen asked bluntly.
Bill Tucker silently handed Jack a letter. The little officer of the
law read it carefully and then eyed Tucker curiously. There was
something about the man that he could not place. Tucker should have
been elated, and he seemed frightened.
"This gent to be relied upon?" Allen asked after a pause.
The big town marshal nodded. His face seemed to have grown suddenly
flabby.
"Well," said Jack thoughtfully, "he says bluntlike that the ores
shipped from the Blue Sky Mine didn't all come from out the same hole,
so I reckon that means Baldy Kane is mixed up with these here quartz
robbers."
Bill Tucker licked his dry lips and nodded.
"Huh!" mused the little sheriff inwardly. "That's what's the matter
with him. He's scared plumb pink of Baldy! He's a hell of an officer!"
Allen thought he had found the reason for Tucker's nervousness.
Silently he mapped his campaign. "Baldy Kane is in town, an' mebbe if I
start toward Black Rock I could circle the town an' get into the gulch
an' have a look-see at his mine without any fuss!"
"Don't forget he's a killer, an' be darned sure to shoot first!" Tucker
advised, as Allen strutted out the door.
After Jack had left, Tucker wiped his face with a handkerchief and
sighed with relief. He buried his head in his hands and thought hard
for several minutes, then called his deputy and said he would not be
back until noon. Without further waste of time, the town marshal went
to the livery stable, secured his horse, and headed for the El Dorado
Mine.
As Jack-twin Allen left town, he pulled his horse to a walk to escape
the dust of the Black Rock stage that was just ahead of him. About
three miles from town he swung his horse off the trail and climbed up
the bank of the gulch. Two faint reports of a Colt floated to his ears.
He remained undecided for a moment. If it had been rifle fire, he would
have ignored it as shots from some hunter, but this, he was sure, was a
short gun.
"Some gent practicin' on rabbits, I reckon. Still, it can't be more
than a mile down the trail, an' I ain't in no hurry. Won't have to be
back in town afore sunset, to see if them gents has left as ordered.
Guess I'll take a look!"
His horse slid down the shelving side of the gulch, and once more he
trotted along the trail to Black Rock. He did not hurry--he was simply
following a sort of routine duty in investigating those shots. The hill
flattened and then turned sharply into a narrow cut. Jack Allen gave an
oath and spurred forward. At the farther end of the cut was the stage,
with several men trying to straighten out the tangled horses.
"What's up?" Jack snapped.
Old Bill and the three passengers turned and stared at him for a moment
before replying.
"Holdup!" one of them explained at last.
"Did yuh recognize him?" Allen asked sharply. "Which way did he go?"
He had to wait for an answer. Here was a situation altogether uncommon.
Each of the men waited for the other to reply.
"It was Jim," Old Bill finally blurted. "He didn't make no attempt to
disguise himself. He headed north!"
Jack-twin Allen's face went white, and he stared unbelievingly at the
man. Then his face changed, grew stern, and his mouth became hard. He
circled north until he found his brother's trail and began to follow it
grimly.
"He's only pretendin'!" Old Bill said.
"Not any!" came a reply. "Them twins ain't human. Jack is set on law,
an' Jim on justice, an' there ain't nothin' they won't do to get what
they think is right!"
Jack Allen's mind was bitter, as he followed Jim's trail. Why had Jim
done this thing? As a sort of dare? No, he knew that was not the
answer. Then why? Some fool idea of learning something from a letter?
That was it. But the fool must be taught that Uncle Sam's mail is
sacred. Jack Allen fought a bitter battle with himself as he rode
through those winding hills. He cared more for Jim than for anything
else in the world--save the law! He found his outlaw brother's trail
easy to follow. No attempt had been made to throw off possible pursuit
by a false scent.
"He's in a hurry now. He'll try his stuff later. He's sure enough
circling back to the gulch," Jack Allen told himself.
It was well past noon when the Wyoming sheriff suddenly pulled his
horse to a sliding stop and led it into the shelter of some brush. He
tied it and then began to crawl between the clumps of sage. He breasted
a slight hill. Not twenty yards away he saw Jim sorting the mail from
an open mail bag at his feet Jack crouched lower and crawled ten yards
nearer, then sprang upright. His gun was in his hand, as he called:
"Put 'em up, Jim, or, by Heaven, I'll shoot!"
Jim Allen turned his head and stared at his brother, then slowly raised
his hands. In one of them was a packet of letters.
Jack Allen picked his way through the brush toward Jim. But he was
forced to keep his eyes on his brother, and one of his extra-high heels
betrayed him. He slipped and nearly fell. During the second when Jack's
eyes were off him, Jim's hand moved with incredible swiftness, and the
little packet of letters was jammed into a fissure of the rock on which
he was sitting.
"Come on, Jim, drop your belts!" Jack ordered when he had recovered his
balance.
Jim loosened his belts and allowed his holstered guns to drop to the
ground. While Jack was gathering the scattered letters together, Jim
thought hard. Jack must not find the letters he had hidden. He was sure
one of them contained the proof he needed. Suddenly the freckle-faced
outlaw laughed aloud.
"Jack, yuh sure is a hell of a gun fighter. When yuh slipped, I could
have potted yuh easy!" he taunted.
Jack Allen started, but made no reply.
"I was so darn sure yuh was stalkin' about town tryin' to make yourself
tall that I got a bit careless," Jim continued.
"What fool idea did you have when yuh done this?" Jack said angrily.
"Hell, I was playin' a joke on yuh!" said Jim, with a taunting grin.
"Yuh won't think it a joke much longer! Damn yuh! I could have let most
things pass, but yuh robbed the United States mails an' you're goin'
back with me!" Jack hastily closed the mail sack. He hooked Jim's two
gun belts over the pommel of the outlaw's saddled gray and then swung
into the saddle.
"Yuh climb onto that nag I rode," Jack ordered.
"'Fraid I'll run for it?" his twin asked sneeringly.
Then the two started back toward town. Jim sighed with relief.
"He's sure sore an' mad at me," he muttered to himself. "But if I
hadn't riled him, he would sure have seen them letters stickin' out
behin' that rock! I'll tell him some day--afore they hang me! They'll
sure search me in jail--so why did I bring along these here letters?"
While Jack had been busy with the horses, Jim had seized the moment to
cram the letters into his pocket. But he knew he would be searched at
the jail.
For want of a better hiding place, therefore, he thrust them into one
of the empty saddlebags on Jack's horse!
The slanting rays of the sun hanging over the peaks of the Bear's-foot
Mountains were again hitting the piles of old cans and bottles, as the
two brothers rode into town. Jim's face seemed aged, and Jack's hard.
People stared at them in wonder. Like a flash the news spread about the
town.
"Jack Allen is locking up his brother, Jim, as a mail robber!"
Jack thrust Jim into one of the strongest cells in the Goldville jail
and locked the door. He departed without a word.