"I COULDA LOVED THIS LITTLE GIRL"
A chill wind that hurried over Bear Top ahead of the dawn brought Swan
and Jack clattering up the trail that dipped into Spirit Canyon.
Warfield rose stiffly from the one-sided warmth of the fire and walked
a few paces to meet him, shrugging his wide shoulders at the cold and
rubbing his thigh muscles that protested against movement. Much riding
upon upholstered cushions had not helped Senator Warfield to retain the
tough muscles of hard-riding Bill Warfield. The Senator was
saddle-sore as well as hungry, and his temper showed in his blood-shot
eyes. He would have quarrelled with his best-loved woman that morning,
and he began on Swan.
Why hadn't he come back down the gulch yesterday and helped track the
girl, as he was told to do? (The senator had quite unpleasant opinions
of Swedes, and crazy women, and dogs that were never around when they
were wanted, and he expressed them fluently.)
Swan explained with a great deal of labour that he had not thought he
was wanted, and that he had to sleep on his claim sometimes or the law
would take it from him, maybe. Also he virtuously pointed out that he
had come with Yack before daylight to the canyon to see if they had
found Miss Hunter and gone home, or if they were still hunting for her.
"If you like to find that jong lady, I put Yack on the trail quick," he
offered placatingly. "I bet you Yack finds her in one-half an hour."
With much unnecessary language, Senator Warfield told him to get to
work, and the three tightened cinches, mounted their horses and
prepared to follow Swan's lead. Swan watched his chance and gave Lone
a chunk of bannock as a substitute for breakfast, and Lone, I may add,
dropped behind his companions and ate every crumb of it, in spite of
his worry over Lorraine.
Indeed, Swan eased that worry too, when they were climbing the pine
slope where Al had killed the grouse. Lone had forged ahead on John
Doe, and Swan stopped suddenly, pointing to the spot where a few bloody
feathers and a boot-print showed. The other evidence Jack had eaten in
the night.
"Raine's all right, Lone. Got men coming. Keep your gun handy," he
murmured and turned away as the others rode up, eager for whatever news
Swan had to offer.
"Something killed a bird," Swan explained politely, planting one of his
own big feet over the track, which did not in the least resemble
Lorraine's. "Yack! you find that jong lady quick!"
From there on Swan walked carefully, putting his foot wherever a print
of Al's boot was visible. Since he was much bigger than Al, with a
correspondingly longer stride, his gait puzzled Lone until he saw just
what Swan was doing. Then his eyes lightened with amused appreciation
of the Swede's cunning.
"We ought to have some hot drink, or whisky when we find that girl,"
Hawkins muttered unexpectedly, riding up beside Lone as they crossed an
open space. "She'll be half-dead with cold--if we find her alive."
Before Lone could answer, Swan looked back at the two and raised his
hand for them to stop.
"Better if you leave the horses here," he suggested. "From Yack I know
we get close pretty quick. That jong lady's horse maybe smells these
horse and makes a noise, and crazy folks run from noise."
Without objection the three dismounted and tied their horses securely
to trees. Then, with Swan and Jack leading the way, they climbed over
the ridge and descended into the hollow by way of the ledge which
Skinner had negotiated so carefully the night before. Without the dog
they never would have guessed that any one had passed this way, but as
it was they made good progress and reached the nearest edge of the
spruce thicket just as the sun was making ready to push up over the
skyline.
Jack stopped and looked up at his master inquiringly, lifting his lip
at the sides and showing his teeth. But he made no sound; nor did
Swan, when he dropped his fingers to the dog's head and patted him
approvingly.
They heard a horse sneeze, beyond the spruce grove, and Warfield
stepped forward authoritatively, waving Swan back. This, his manner
said plainly, was first and foremost his affair, and from now on he
would take charge of the situation. At his heels went Hawkins, and
Swan sent an oblique glance of satisfaction toward Lone, who answered
it with his half-smile. Swan himself could not have planned the
approach more to his liking.
The smell of bacon cooking watered their mouths and made Warfield and
Hawkins look at one another inquiringly. Crazy young women would
hardly be expected to carry a camping outfit. But Swan and Lone were
treading close on their heels, and their own curiosity pulled them
forward. They went carefully around the thicket, guided by the pungent
odour of burning pine wood, and halted so abruptly that Swan and Lone
bumped into them from behind. A man had risen up from the campfire and
faced them, his hands rising slowly, palms outward.
"Warfield, by----!" Al blurted in his outraged astonishment. "Trailing
me with a bunch, are yuh? I knew you'd double-cross your own
father--but I never thought you had it in you to do it in the open.
Damn yuh, what d'yuh want that you expect to get?"
Warfield stared at him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him
at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back
with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked
back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he
smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it on
his face.
"I think I know the play you're making, but it won't get you anything,
Bill Warfield. You think I slipped up--and you told me not to let my
foot slip; said you'd hate to lose me. Well, you're the one that
slipped, you damned, rotten coward. I was watching out for leaks. I
stopped two, and this one----"
He glanced down at Lorraine, who sat beside the fire, a blanket tied
tightly around her waist and her ankles, so that, while comfortably
free, she could make no move to escape.
"I was fixing to stop _her_ from telling all she knew," he added
harshly. "By to-night I'd have had her married to me, you damned fool.
And here you've blocked everything for me, afraid I was falling down on
my job!
"Now folks, lemme just tell you a few little things. I know my
limit--you've got me dead to rights. I ain't complaining about that; a
man in my game expects to get his, some day. But I ain't going to let
the man go that paid me my wages and a bonus of five hundred dollars
for every man I killed that he wanted outa the way.
"Hawkins knows that's a fact. He's foreman of the Sawtooth, and he
knows the agreement. I've got to say for Hawkins that aside from
stealing cattle off the nesters and helping make evidence against some
that's in jail, Hawkins never done any dirty work. He didn't have to.
They paid _me_ for that end of the business.
"I killed Fred Thurman--this girl, here, saw me shoot him. And it was
when I told Warfield I was afraid she might set folks talking that he
began to get cold feet. Up to then everything was lovely, but Warfield
began to crawfish a little. We figured--_we_ figured, emphasise the
_we_, folks,--that the Quirt would have to be put outa business. We
knew if the girl told Brit and Frank, they'd maybe get the nerve to try
and pin something on us. We've stole 'em blind for years, and they
wouldn't cry if we got hung. Besides, they was friendly with Fred.
"The girl and the Swede got in the way when I tried to bump Brit off.
I'd have gone into the canyon and finished him with a rock, but they
beat me to it. The girl herself I couldn't get at very well and make
it look accidental--and anyway, I never did kill a woman, and I'd hate
it like hell. I figured if her dad got killed, she'd leave.
"And let me tell you, folks, Warfield raised hell with me because Brit
Hunter wasn't killed when he pitched over the grade. He held out on me
for that job--so I'm collecting five hundred dollars' worth of fun
right now. He did say he'd pay me after Brit was dead, but it looks
like he's going to pull through, so I ain't counting much on getting my
money outa Warfield.
"Frank I got, and made a clean job of it. And yesterday morning the
girl played into my hands. She rode over to the Sawtooth, and I got
her at Thurman's place, on her way home, and figured I'd marry her and
take a chance on keeping her quiet afterwards. I'd have been down the
Pass in another two hours and heading for the nearest county seat.
She'd have married me, too. She knows I'd have killed her if she
didn't--which I would. I've been square with her--she'll tell you
that. I told her, when I took her, just what I was going to do with
her. So that's all straight. She's been scared, I guess, but she
ain't gone hungry, and she ain't suffered, except in her mind. I don't
fight women, and I'll say right now, to her and to you, that I've got
all the respect in the world for this little girl, and if I'd married
her I'd have been as good to her as I know how, and as she'd let me be.
"Now I want to tell you folks a few more things about Bill Warfield.
If you want to stop the damnest steal in the country, tie a can onto
that irrigation scheme of his. He's out to hold up the State for all
he can get, and bleed the poor devils of farmers white, that buys land
under that canal. It may look good, but it ain't good--not by a damn
sight.
"Yuh know what he's figuring on doing? Get water in the canal, sell
land under a contract that lets him out if the ditch breaks, or
something so he _can't_ supply water at any time. And when them poor
suckers gets their crops all in, and at the point where they've got to
have water or lose out, something'll happen to the supply. Folks, I
_know_! I'm a reliable man, and I've rode with a rope around my neck
for over five years, and Warfield offered me the same old five hundred
every time I monkeyed with the water supply as ordered. He'd have done
it slick; don't worry none about that. The biggest band of thieves he
could get together is that company. So if you folks have got any
sense, you'll bust it up right now.
"Bill Warfield, what I've got to say to you won't take long. You
thought you'd make a grand-stand play with the law, and at the same
time put me outa the way. You figured I'd resist arrest, and you'd
have a chance to shoot me down. I know your rotten mind better than
you do. You wanted to bump me off, but you wanted to do it in a way
that'd put you in right with the public. Killing me for kidnapping
this girl would sound damn romantic in the newspapers, and it wouldn't
have a thing to do with Thurman or Frank Johnson, or any of the rest
that I've sent over the trail for you.
"Right now you're figuring how you'll get around this bawling-out I'm
giving you. There's nobody to take down what I say, and I'm just a
mean, ornery outlaw and killer, talking for spite. With your pull you
expect to get this smoothed over and hushed up, and have me at a
hanging bee, and everything all right for Bill! Well----"
His eyes left Warfield's face and went beyond the staring group. His
face darkened, a sneer twisted his lips.
"Who're them others?" he cried harshly. "Was you afraid four wouldn't
be enough to take me?"
The four turned heads to look. Bill Warfield never looked back, for
Al's gun spoke, and Warfield sagged at the knees and the shoulders, and
he slumped to the ground at the instant when Al's gun spoke again.
"That's for you, Lone Morgan," Al cried, as he fired again. "She
talked about you in her sleep last night. She called you Loney, and
she wanted you to come and get her. I was going to kill you first
chance I got. I coulda loved this little girl. I--could----"
He was down, bleeding and coughing and trying to talk. Swan had shot
him, and two of the deputies who had been there through half of Al's
bitter talk. Lorraine, unable to get up and run, too sturdy of soul to
faint, had rolled over and away from him, her lips held tightly
together, her eyes wide with horror. Al crawled after her, his eyes
pleading.
"Little Spitfire--I shot your Loney--but I'd have been good to you,
girl. I watched yuh all night--and I couldn't help loving yuh.
I--couldn't----" That was all. Within three feet of her, his face
toward her and his eyes agonising to meet hers, he died.