The once prosperous mining camp of Garlock is a name and a memory now.
Were it not that the railroad has been built in from San Pasqual a
hundred and fifty miles up country through the Mojave, Garlock would be
a memory only. But some official of the road, imbued, perhaps, with
a remnant of sentimental regret for the fast-vanishing glories of the
past, has caused to be erected beside the track a white sign carrying
the word Garlock in black letters; otherwise one would scarcely realize
that once a thriving camp stood in the sands back of this sign-board
of the past. Even in the days when the stage line operated between San
Pasqual and Keeler, Garlock had run its race and the Argonauts had moved
on, leaving the rusty wreck of an old stamp-mill, the decayed fragments
of half a dozen pine shanties and a few adobe _casas_ with the sod roofs
fallen in.
There are a few deep uncovered wells in this deserted camp, filthy with
the rotting carcasses of desert animals which have crawled down these
wells for life--and remained for death. But no human being resides in
Garlock. It is a sad and lonely place. The hills that rise back of the
ruins are scarlet with oxide of iron; in the sheen of the westering sun
they loom harsh and repellent, provocative of the thought that from
the very inception of Garlock their crests have been the arena of
murder--spattered with the blood of the hardy men who made the camp and
then deserted it.
Therefore, one would not be surprised at anything happening in
Garlock--where it would seem a wanton waste of imagination to look
forward to anything happening--yet at about noon of the day that Harley
P. Hennage looked over the rail fence into the feed corral at San
Pasqual and discovered that Bob McGraw's horse was gone, a man on a
tired horse rode up from the south, turned in through the ruined doorway
of one of the roofless tumble-down adobe houses, and concealed himself
and his horse in the area formed by the four crumbling walls.
He dismounted, unsaddled and rubbed down his dripping horse with
handfuls of the withered grasses that grew within the ruins. Next, the
man hunted through Garlock until he found an old rusty kerosene can
with a wire handle fitted through it, and to this he fastened a long
horsehair hitching rope and drew water from one of the filthy wells. The
horse drank greedily and nickered reproachfully when the man informed
him that he must cool off before being allowed to drink his fill.
For an hour the man sat on his saddle and smoked; then, after drawing
several cans of water for the horse, he spread the saddle-blanket on the
ground and poured thereon a feed of oats from a meager supply cached on
the saddle. From the saddle-bags he produced a small can of roast beef
and some dry bread, which he “washed down” with water from his canteen
while the horse munched at the oats.
Late in the afternoon the man stepped to the ruined doorway and looked
south. Three miles away a splotch of dust hung high in the still
atmosphere; beneath it a black object was crawling steadily toward
Garlock. It was the up stage from San Pasqual for Keeler, and the
stranger in Garlock had evidently been awaiting its arrival, for he
dodged back into the enclosure, saddled his horse, gathered up his few
belongings and seemed prepared to evacuate at a moment's notice. He
peered out, as the old Concord coach lurched through the sand past the
bones of Garlock, and observed the express messenger nodding a little
wearily, his eyes half closed in protest against the glare of earth and
sky.
Suddenly the express messenger started, and looked up. He had a haunting
impression that somebody was watching him--and he was not mistaken. Over
the crest of an adobe wall he saw the head and shoulders of a man.
Also he saw one of the man's hands. It contained a long blue-barreled
automatic pistol, which was pointed at him. From behind a mask fashioned
from a blue bandanna handkerchief came the expected summons:
“Hands up!”
The driver pulled up his horses and jammed down the brake. The express
messenger, surprised, hesitated a moment between an impulse to obey
the stern command and a desire to argue the matter with his sawed-off
shotgun. The man behind the wall, instantly realizing that he must be
impressive at all cost, promptly fired and lifted the pipe out of the
messenger's mouth. The latter swore, and his arms went over his head in
a twinkling.
“Don't do that again” he growled. “I know when a man's got the drop on
me.”
“I was afraid your education had been neglected” the hold-up man
retorted pleasantly. “Throw out the box! No, not you. The driver will
throw it out. You keep your hands up.”
The express box dropped into the greasewood beside the trail with a
heavy metallic thud that augured a neat profit for the man behind the
wall.
“The passengers will please alight on this side of the stage, turn their
pockets inside out and deposit their coin on top of the box”
continued the road agent. “My friend with the spike beard and the gold
eye-glasses! You dropped something on the bed of the stage. Pick it up,
if you're anxious to retain a whole hide. Thank you! That pocketbook
looks fat. Now, one at a time and no crowding. Omit the jewelry. I want
cash.”
The highwayman continued to discourse affably with his victims while the
little pile of coin and bills on top of the box grew steadily. When it
was evident that the job was complete he ordered the passengers back
into the stage and addressed the driver.
“Drive right along now and remember that it's a sure sign of bad luck to
look back. I have a rifle with me and I'm considered a very fair shot up
to five hundred yards. Remember that--you with the sawed-off shotgun!”
“Good-by” replied the messenger. “See you later, I hope.”
The horses sprang to the crack of the driver's whip, and the stage
rolled north on its journey. When it was a quarter of a mile away the
man behind the wall came out into the road and shot the padlock off the
express box, transferred the fruits of his industry to his saddle-bags,
mounted and rode out of Garlock across the desert valley, headed
northeast for Johannesburg.
As he rode out into the open a rifle cracked and a bullet whined over
him. He glanced in the direction whence the sound of the shot came and
observed a man on a white horse riding rapidly toward him. The bandit
suddenly remembered that the off leader on the stage team was white.
“Old man, you're as clever as you are brave” muttered the bandit
admiringly. “You unhook the off leader while I'm monkeying with the box,
dig up a rifle and come for me riding bareback. Well, I'm not out to
kill anybody if I can help it, and my horse has had a nice rest. I'll
run for it.”
He did. The rifle cracked again and the bandit's wide-brimmed hat rose
from his head and sailed away into the sage. He looked back at it a
trifle dubiously, but he knew better than to stop to recover that hat,
in the face of such close snap-shooting. That express messenger was too
deadly--and too game; so the bandit merely spurred his horse, lay low
on his neck and swept across the desert. When he came to a little swale
between some sandhills he dipped into it, pulled up, dismounted and
waited. The sun was setting behind the gory hills now, and glinted on a
rifle which the bandit drew from a gun-boot which a broad sweat leather
half concealed. It was better shooting-light now; distances were not
quite so deceptive.
Suddenly the man on the white horse appeared on the crest of a distant
sand-hill. The outlaw, leaning his rifle across his horse's back,
sighted carefully and fired; the white horse went to his knees and his
rider leaped clear. Instantly the pursued man vaulted into his saddle
and rode furiously away. A dozen shots whipped the sage around him;
one of them notched the ear of his straining mount, but in the end the
bullets dropped short, the sun set, and through the gathering gloom the
outlaw jogged easily up the long sandy slope toward Johannesburg. It was
quite dark when he rode around the town to the north, circled through
the range back of Fremont's Peak and headed out across Miller's Dry
Lake, bound for Barstow.
As for the express messenger, he removed the bridle from his dead horse
and trudged back to the waiting coach. On the way he back-tracked the
outlaw's trail until he came to the man's hat, which he appropriated.
Donna Corblay was at the eating-house when the first down stage from
Keeler came into San Pasqual with the news of the hold-up at Garlock
the day before. The town was abuzz with excitement for an hour, when the
news became stale. After all, stage hold-ups were not infrequent in that
country, and Donna paid no particular heed to the commonplace occurrence
until the return to San Pasqual two days later of the stage which had
been robbed.
The express messenger told her the story when he came to the counter
to pay for his rib steak and coffee. He had with him at the time a
broad-brimmed gray sombrero, pinched to a peak, with a ragged hole close
to the apex of the peak.
“I wanted to show you this, Miss Corblay” he said, as he exhibited this
battered relic of the fray. “You do a pretty good trade in hats, and
it's just possible you might have handled this sombrero in the line o'
business. Ever recollect sellin' a hat to this fellow--his name's--lemme
see--his name's Robert McGraw? It's written inside the sweat-band.”
He drew the band back and displayed the name in indelible pencil.
“I lifted it off'n his head with my second shot” the messenger
explained. “He was goin' like a streak an' it was snap-shootin', or he'd
never 'a got away from me. As it was, I sent him on his way bareheaded,
and a bareheaded man is easily traced in the desert. We sent word over
to Johannesburg and Randsburg, an' somebody reported seein' a bareheaded
man ridin' around the town after dark. We have him headed off at
Barstow, and if he can't get through there, he'll have to head up into
the Virginia Dale district--and he'll last about a day up there, unless
he knows the waterholes. We'll get him, sooner or later, dead or alive.
Remember sellin' anybody by that name a hat? It might help if you had
an' could describe him. All I could see was his eyes. He was behind a
wall when he stuck us up.” “No” said Donna quietly, “I--” She paused.
She could not articulate another word. Had the express messenger been
watching her instead of the hat, he might have noticed her agitation.
Her eyes were closed in sudden, violent pain, and she leaned forward
heavily against the counter.
“Don't remember him, eh? Well, perhaps he wasn't from San Pasqual. But
I thought I'd ask you, anyhow, because if he was from this town it was
a good chance he bought this hat from you. Much obliged, just the same,”
and gathering up his change the express messenger departed to make
room for Harley P. Hennage, who was standing next in line to pay his
meal-check.
Donna opened her eyes and sighed--a little gasping sob, and turned her
quivering face to the gambler. He smiled at her, striving pathetically
to do it naturally. Instead, it was a grimace, and there was the look
of a thousand devils In his baleful eyes. For an instant their glances
met--and there were no secrets between them now. Donna moaned in her
wretchedness; she placed her arm on the cash register and bowed her head
on it, while the other little trembling hand stole across the counter,
seeking for his and the comfort which the strong seem able to impart ito
the weak by the mere sense of touch.
“Oh, Harley, Harley” she whispered brokenly, “the light's--gone out--of
the world--and I can't--cry. I--I--I can't. I can--only--suffer.”
Harley P.'s great freckled hand closed over hers and held it fast,
while with his other hand he touched her beautiful head with paternal
tenderness.
“Donnie” he said hoarsely. She did not look up. “I'm sorry you're not
feelin' well, Donnie. You're all upset about somethin', an' you ought to
go home an' take a good rest. You don't--you don't look well. I noticed
it last night. You looked a mite peaked.”
“Yes, yes” she whispered, clutching at this straw which he held out
to her, “I'm ill. I want to go home--oh, Mr. Hennage, please--take
me--home.”
Mr. Hennage turned and beckoned to one of the waitresses whose duty it
was, on Donna's days off, to take her place at the cash counter. As the
waitress started to obey his summons, the gambler turned and spoke to
Donna.
“Buck up and beat it. I can't take you home, an' neither can anybody
else. You've got to make it alone. When you get to the Hat Ranch, send
Sam Singer up to me. Remember, Donnie. Send Sam Singer up.”
He turned again to the waitress. “You'd better take charge here” he
said. “Miss Corblay's been took sick an' the pain's somethin' terrible.
I've been a-tellin' her she ought to have Doc Taylor in to look at
her. If I had the pain that girl's a-sufferin' right now I'd be in
bed, that's what I would. I'll bet a stack o' blues she got this here
potomaine poisonin'. Better run right along, Miss Donnie, before the
pain gets worse, an' I'll see Doc Taylor an' tell him to bring you down
some medicine or somethin'.”
Donna replied in monosyllables to the excited queries of the waitress,
pinned on her hat and left the eating-house as quickly as she could. She
was dry-eyed, white-lipped, sunk in an abyss of misery; for there are
agonies of grief and terror so profound that their very intensity dams
the fount of tears, and it was thus with Donna. Harley P. accompanied
her to the door of the eating-house, but he would go no further. He
realized that Donna wanted to talk with him; in a vague way he gathered
that she looked to him for some words of comfort in her terrible
predicament. Not for worlds, however, would he be seen walking with
her in public, thereby laying the foundation for “talk”; and under the
circumstances he realized the danger to her, should he even be seen
conversing with her from now on. She pleaded with him with her eyes, but
he shook his head resolutely. He had heard the news. Inadvertently he
had stumbled upon her secret, and she knew this. But she knew also that
never by word or sign or deed would Harley P. Hennage indicate that he
had heard it. It was like him to ascribe her agitation to illness, and
as she turned her heavy footsteps toward the Hat Ranch the memory of
that loving lie brought the laggard tears at last, and she wept aloud.
In her agony she was conscious of a feeling of gratitude to the Almighty
for His perfect workmanship in fashioning a man who was not one of the
presuming kind.
It seemed to Donna that she must have wandered long in the border-lands
of hell before eventually she reached the shelter of the adobe walls
of the Hat Ranch. Soft Wind heard her sobbing and fumbling with the
recalcitrant lock on the iron gate, and hurried toward her.
“My little one! My nestling!” she said in the Cahuilla tongue, and
forthwith Donna collapsed in the old squaw's arms. It was the first time
she had ever fainted.
When she recovered consciousness she found that she was lying fully
dressed, on her bed, at the foot of which Soft Wind and Sam Singer were
standing, gazing at her owlishly. She commenced to sob immediately,
and Sam Singer pussy-footed out of the room and fled up town to lay the
matter before Harley P. Hennage. For the second time there was a crisis
at the Hat Ranch, and Sam yielded to his first impulse, which was to
seek help where something told him help would never be withheld.
In the meantime, Harley P. Hennage had fled to the seclusion of his
room in the eating-house hotel. The disclosure of the identity of the
stage-robber had overwhelmed the gambler with anguish, and he wanted to
be alone to think the terrible affair over calmly. In the language of
his profession, the buck was clearly up to Mr. Hennage.
Twice during his eventful career the gambler had sat in poker games
where an opponent had held the dead man's hand and paid the penalty. He
recalled now the quick look of terror that had flitted across the face
of each of these men when it came to the show-down and the pot was lost
in the smoke; he endeavored to compare it with the sudden despair and
suffering that came into Donna's eyes when the express messenger drew
back the sweat-band of the outlaw's hat and showed her Bob McGraw's
private brand of ownership.
“No,” moaned Mr. Hennage, “there ain't no comparison. Them two tin-horns
was frightened o' death, but poor little Donnie is plumb fearful o'
life, an' there ain't a soul in the world can help her but me. She's got
hers, just like her mother did, an' there ain't never goin' to be no joy
in them eyes no more, unless I act, an' act lively.”
He sat down on his bed and bowed his bald head in his trembling hands,
for once more Harley P. Hennage was face to face with a great issue. He,
too, was experiencing some of the agony of a grief that could find no
outlet in tears--a three-year-old grief that could have no ending until
the end should come for Harley P.
Presently he roused and looked at his watch. He was horrified to
discover that he had just forty minutes left in which to arrange his
affairs and leave San Pasqual.
He went to the window, parted the curtains cautiously and looked out.
At the door of the post-office, a half a block down on the other side of
the street, the express messenger, with the hat still in his hand, stood
conversing with Miss Molly Pickett.
“You--miserable--old--mischief-maker” he muttered slowly, and with
hate and emphasis in every word. “You're tellin' him to see me for
information concernin' Bob McGraw, ain't you? You're tellin' him this
road agent's a friend o' mine, because I called for a registered letter
for him once, ain't you? An' now you're takin' him inside to show him
the written order Bob McGraw give me for that registered letter, ain't
you? You're quite a nice little old maid detective, ain't you, Miss
Molly? You're tellin' him that I knew the man that saved Donnie Corblay,
an' that _he_ was a friend o' mine, too, because I led his roan horse up
into the feed corral an' guaranteed the feed bill. An' everybody knows,
or if they don't they soon will, that the initials 'R. McG.' was on that
fool boy's saddle. All right, Miss Pickett! Let 'er flicker. Only them
Wells Fargo detectives don't get to ask me no questions regardin' that
girl's husband. Not a dog-gone question! If I stay in this town they'll
subpeeny me an' make me testify under oath, an' then I'll perjure myself
an' get caught at it, an' I'm too old a gambler to get caught bluffin'
on no pair. No, indeed, folks, I can't afford it, so I'm just a-goin' to
fold my tent like the Arab an' silently fade away.”
Thus reasoned Mr. Hennage. Both by nature and professional training he
was more adept in the science of deduction than most men, and while he
had never seen Donna's marriage license he firmly believed that she had
been married. He had looked for the publication of the license in the
Bakersfield papers. Not having seen it, Mr. Hennage was not disturbed.
He understood that Donna, planning to keep on at the eating-house,
desired her marriage to remain a secret for the present, and Bob had
doubtless arranged to have the record of the issuance of the license
“buried.” The fact that Friar Tuck had disappeared from the feed corral
on the very night of Donna's return to San Pasqual was to Mr. Hennage
prima facie evidence that Bob McGraw had returned with her. Donna had
gone to the Hat Ranch while Bob had saddled and ridden north. At least,
since he had come from the north, Mr. Hennage deduced that to the north
he would return. Garlock lay a hard thirty-five miles from San Pasqual,
and it seemed reasonable to presume that Bob had stopped there for
water, rested until the stage came along and then robbed it.
However, there was one weak link in this apparently powerful chain of
evidence. The stage driver and the express messenger both reported the
bandit to be mounted on a bay mustang. At close quarters the horse had
been, concealed behind the wall with the upper half of his face showing.
Well, Bob McGraw's horse was a light roan--a very light roan, with
almost bay ears and head, and at a distance, and in certain lights
and in the excitement of the hold-up, he might very easily have been
mistaken for a bay. Many a bay horse, when covered with alkali dust and
dried sweat, has been mistaken for a roan.
In addition there was the evidence of the automatic pistol! Few men in
that country carried automatics, for an automatic was a weapon too new
in those days to be popular, and the residents of the Mojave still clung
to tradition and a Colt's.45. The bandit had shown himself peculiarly
expert in the use of his weapon, having shot the pipe out of the
messenger's mouth, merely to impress that unimpressionable functionary.
It would have been like Bob McGraw, who carried an automatic and was a
dead shot, to show off a little!
However, an alibi might very easily discount all this circumstantial
evidence, were it not for the fact that there could be no alibi for
Bob McGraw, for beyond doubt he must have been in the neighborhood of
Garlock that very day. Then there was the hat, with his name in it; also
the report that one of the passengers who knew him had recognized the
bandit as Bob McGraw.
“Alibi or no alibi, he'll get twenty years in San Quentin on that
evidence” mourned Harley P. “Oh, Bob, you infernal young rip, if you was
as hard up as all that, why didn't you come to me? Why didn't you trust
old Harley P. Hennage with your worries! I'd 'a seen you through. But
you wouldn't trust me--just went to work an' married that good girl,
an' then pulled off a job o' road work to support her. Oh, Bob, you dog,
you've broke her heart an' she'll go like her mother went.”
He clenched his big fists and punched the air viciously, in unconscious
exemplification of the chastisement he would mete to Bob McGraw when he
met him again.
“It ain't often I make a mistake judgin' a man” he muttered piteously,
“but I've sure been taken in on this feller. I thought he'd stand the
acid--by God! I thought he'd stand it. An' at that there's heaps o' good
in the boy! He must 'a been just desperate for money, an' the notion to
rob the stage come on him all in a heap an' downed him before he knew.
Great Grief! That misfortunate girl! He'll never come back, an' if
they trace him to her she'll die o' shame. Whiskered bob-cats, I never
thought o' that. She'll have to get out too!”
The gambler had a sudden thought. Donna could do two things. She could
leave San Pasqual, or she could stand pat! If she said nothing, not a
soul could befoul her by linking her name to that of a stage-robber, She
_must_ stand pat! There was but one channel through which the news that
Bob McGraw had been harbored at the Hat Ranch could possibly filter.
People might _think_ what they pleased, but they could never _prove,_
provided Doc Taylor remained discreet. Therefore it behooved Mr. Hennage
to see Doc Taylor immediately. That possible leak must be plugged at
once.
Three minutes later the gambler strolled into the drugstore.
“How” he saluted.
“Hello, Hennage.”
“What's new?”
“Nothing much. What do you think about that hold-up at Garlock?”
“Pretty bold piece o' work, Doc. Do they know who did it?”
“Fellow named McGraw. And as near as I can make out, Hennage, it's the
same fellow I attended that time down at the Hat Ranch.”
“It is” Mr. Hennage agreed quietly. “At least, I believe it is. That's
what I called to see you about, Doc. Have you said anything to anybody?”
“No--not yet. I wasn't quite certain, and I figured on talking it over
with you before I gave Wells Fargo & Company the quiet tip to watch the
Hat Ranch for their man.”
“Good enough! But they'll be around asking you questions, Doc. Don't
worry about that. They won't wait for you to come to them. Ah' when they
come to you, Doc, you don't know nothin'. _Comprende?_”
“But McGraw robbed the stage--”
“He didn't kill nobody, Doc. He wasn't blood-thirsty. He shot the horse
when he might have shot the messenger. Now, let's be sensible, Doc.
Sometimes a feller can accomplish more in this world by keepin' his
mouth shut than he can by tellin' every durned thing he knows. Now,
as near as I can learn, this outlaw gets away with about four thousand
dollars. If the passengers an' the express company get their money back,
they'll be glad to let it go at that, an' I'll buy 'em a new padlock for
the express box. This is the young feller's first job, Doc--I'm certain
o' that. He ain't _bad_--an' besides, I've got a special interest in
him. Now, listen here, Doc; I've got a pretty good idea where he's gone
to hole up until the noise dies down, an' I'm goin' after him myself.
I'll make him give up the swag an' send it back; then I'll get him out
of the country an' let him start life all over again somewhere else.
He's a young feller, Doc, an' it ain't right to kick him when he's down.
He oughter be lifted up an' given a chance to make good.”
Doc Taylor shook his head dubiously. He realized that Harley P.'s
plan was best, and in his innermost soul he commended it as a proper
Christian course. But he also remembered to have heard somewhere that
godless men like Harley P. Hennage and the outlaw McGraw had a habit of
being friendly and faithful to each other in just such emergencies--a
sort of “honor among thieves” arrangement, and despite Mr. Hennage's
kindly words, Doc Taylor doubted their sincerity. In fact, the whole
thing was irregular, for even after the return of the stolen money
the bandit would still owe a debt to society--and moreover, the worthy
doctor was the joint possessor, with Harley P. Hennage, of an astounding
secret, the disclosure of which would make him the hero of San Pasqual
for a day at least.
“I can't agree to that, Hennage” he began soberly.
“It doesn't look right to me to let a stage-robber go scot-free--”
“Well, I tell you, Doc,” drawled Mr. Hennage serenely, “it'd better
look right to you, an' damned quick at that. You seem to think I'm here
a-askin' a favor o' you. Not much. I never ask favors o' no man. I'm
just as independent as a hog on ice; if I don't stand up I can set
down. I run a square game myself an' I want a square game from the other
fellow. Now, Doc, you just so much as say 'Boo' about this thing, an' by
the Nine Gods o' War I'll kill you. D'ye understand, Doc? I'll kill you
like I would a tarantula. An' when they come to ask you the name o' the
man you 'tended at the Hat Ranch you tell 'em his name is--lemme
see, now--yes, his name is Roland McGuire. That's a nice name, an' it
corresponds to the initials on the saddle.”
Doc Taylor looked into the gambler's hard face, which was thrust close
to his. The mouth of the worst man in San Pasqual was drawn back in a
half snarl that was almost coyote-like; his small deep-set eyes bespoke
only too truly the firmness of purpose that lay behind their blazing
menace. For fully thirty seconds those terrible eyes flamed, unblinking,
on Doc Taylor; then Mr. Hennage spoke.
“Now, what is his name goin' to be, Doc?”
“Roland McGuire” said Doc Taylor, and swallowed his Adam's apple twice.
“Bright boy. Go to the head o' the class an' don't forget to remember to
stick there.”