AN INVASION OF DODGE
After Mr. Masterson killed Messrs. Wagner and Walker, who murdered his
brother Ed, the word of that bloodshed was not slow in reaching Texas.
The tale, when told throughout those cow-camps whose hundred fires
winked along the Canadian, aroused an interest the fundamental element
whereof was wrath.
The tragedy deeply displeased all Texas people of cows. The dead
gentlemen had been Texans. Mr. Masterson, on the exasperating other
hand, was an emanation of Illinois. That he was sheriff of Ford owned no
importance. That Messrs. Wagner and Walker had slain Mr. Masterson’s
brother and were killed while their hands were red was permitted to have
no weight. Cowboys are a volatile lot; they probe no question over-deep,
surely none so commonplace as a question of homicide. Wherefore, in
connection with the blinking out of Messrs. Wagner and Walker, they of
Texas chose to consider only the Texas origin of deceased. Angry with
the injured vanity of tribe, they spake evil of Mr. Masterson and nursed
vague feuds against him in their hearts.
There was a Mr. Gato, just then riding for the Turkey Track. Mr. Gato
was neither old nor reputable. He is dead now, and the ravens and
coyotes have wrangled over his ignoble bones. Other Turkey Track boys
called Mr. Gato the “Tomcat”—this latter to give his name in English.
Mr. Gato was native of the Panhandle. Twenty-three years before, his
Mexican father and Comanche mother had had a family row in selecting for
him a name. His mother desired to call him two or three Comanche
gutterals which, when hyphenated, stand for Scorpion. It was a notion
not without merit; but his Mexican father objected, hence that household
jar. The padre of their church came finally to the rescue and led the
clashing couple to “Patricio” as a compromise. The infant, howling like
a pagan, was baptised “Patricio Gato.” Next day everybody forgot all
about it as a thing of little consequence. As set forth, however, his
mates of the ranges renamed Mr. Gato the “Tomcat.” On second thought it
may be just as well to follow their example; the word will sound more
convincing to American ears.
If the Tomcat had been all Mexican or all Comanche this leaf might never
have been written. But he was half Mexican and half Comanche, and the
blend was unfortunate. The Tomcat, ignorant, vicious, furtive, savage,
was upon an intellectual level with the wolf, and of impulses as secret
and as midnight. Also, he was dominated of an inborn pride to shed
blood. He had been withheld from feeding that pride by stress of the
rickety cross in his veins; he lacked the downright courage which was
the enterprise’s first demand.
The riders of the Turkey Track were fairly aware of the Tomcat’s
congenital depravity. In regions where there is but little of the law,
as against a deal of the individual, men who would call themselves
secure must learn to estimate the folk about them. And they do. It was
common knowledge, therefore, that the Tomcat was blood-hungry. It was
likewise known that his hardihood in no sort matched his crimson
appetite. As spoke Mr. Cook—a promising youth was Mr. Cook, and one wise
of his generation:
“He’d admire to take a skelp, that Tomcat would, but he’s shy the sand.”
This was Turkey Track decision, and, since it was so, the Tomcat went
vested of no personal terrors. He was not loved, but he was not feared;
and his low standing in that community—if so sparse a thing as a
cow-camp may be thus described—of which he was a fameless unit, found
suggestion in occasional sneers of more or less broadish point, the
latter contingent on the vivacious recklessness of the author in each
instance.
The Tomcat, during their lives, had not been numbered among the friends
of Messrs. Wagner and Walker. He was not possessed of even a drinking
acquaintance with those vanished ones. Indeed, he never so much as heard
of their existence until he heard that they were dead. It is due the
Tomcat to say that this was chance and not because of any social
delicacy on the part of the ones departed.
Despite a lack of personal interest, while the Tomcat listened to the
sour comments of those spurred and broad-brimmed ones of Texas as the
story of Mr. Masterson’s pistol practice found relation, a thought took
struggling shape in the narrow fastnesses of his wit. He would ride
those two hundred northward miles to Dodge and destroy Mr. Masterson.
Throughout two seasons he had gone with the beef herds over the Jones
and Plummer trail, and, since the terminus of that thoroughfare lay in
Dodge, he knew the way.
Also, at those beef times he had been given glimpses of Mr. Masterson,
about the streets in his rôle of protector of the public peace. The
Tomcat did not recall Mr. Masterson as one uncommonly dangerous. He
remembered him as of middle size and a tolerant, thoughtful eye. The
Tomcat, when he thus gazed on Mr. Masterson, was somewhat thickened of
drink. Still, had Mr. Masterson been more than usually perilous, the
fact would have left some impress upon him, however steeped in rum. No;
he was convinced that Mr. Masterson was not a problem beyond his powers.
He would repair to Dodge and solve Mr. Masterson with his six-shooter.
Whenever he should return to the Panhandle, bearing Mr. Masterson’s hair
upon his bridle-rein, the Tomcat foresaw how his status as one of
iron-bound fortitude would be thereby and instantly fixed. He would be
placed in the deadly foreground with such worthies as Doc Holiday,
Shotgun Collins, Curly Bill and Soapy Smith. Poets would make verses
about him as they had about the sainted Samuel Bass, dance-hall maidens
would sing his glory in quavering quatrains. Thus dreamed the Tomcat on
the banks of the Canadian as he lay by a Turkey Track campfire, while
his comrades declaimed of Mr. Masterson and the sorrowful taking off of
Messrs. Wagner and Walker, aforesaid. It was the Tomcat’s vision of
fame; rude, bloody, criminal, but natural for the man and the day and
the land it grew among.
It was in the hot middle hours of the afternoon. The Tomcat had come
into camp bringing five cows with their unmarked offspring—this was the
spring round-up. The five cows with their bawling children were thrown
into the general bunch, which would start next day for the branding pen.
Having gotten a mouthful at the grub-wagon the Tomcat thoughtfully
walked his tired bronco towards the band of ponies which the
horse-hustler was holding in the bottom grass that bordered the
Canadian. There were eight riders with this particular outfit. Wherefore
the band of ponies counted about sixty head, for each cowboy employs
from seven to ten personal ponies in his labours and rides down three a
day.
The Tomcat’s pregnant purpose formed the night before was in no sort
abated; it had grown more clear and strong with the hours. It looked
sensibly feasible, too, as all things do when miles and weeks away. The
Tomcat was wholly decided; he would ride to Dodge and collect the hair
of the offensive Mr. Masterson. Likewise, since the idea improved upon
him pleasantly, he would start at once.
In and out among the grazing ponies wound the Tomcat. At last he
discovered what he sought. He pitched the loop of his rope over the head
of a little bay, with four black legs and an eye like the full-blown
moon.
This pony had name for speed and bottom. He had come from the ranges of
the Triangle-dot, whose ponies, as all the cow-world knows, have in them
a streak of the thoroughbred. The one roped by the Tomcat, carrying a
thirty-pound saddle and a hundred-and-fifty-pound man, could put one
hundred even miles behind him between dark and dark. He had never tasted
anything better than mother’s milk and grass and would have drawn back
and hollyhocked his nostrils at an ear of yellow corn as though that
vegetable were a rattlesnake.
As the Tomcat was shifting his saddle from the weary one to the pony
freshly caught the horse-hustler came riding out from the shadow of a
cottonwood.
“I wouldn’t be in your saddle,” observed the horse-hustler to the
Tomcat, busy over his girths, “for the price of fifty steers if Jack
Cook crosses up with you on his little Shylock hoss.” The name of the
bay pony was the name of Shakespeare’s Jew.
Upon a round-up a cowpony has two proprietors. His title, doubtless, is
vested in the ranch whose brand he wears. Body and soul, however, he
belongs to that cowboy to whom he is told off. Each boy has his string,
and any other boy would as soon think of rifling that youth’s warbags as
riding one of his ponies without permission. The pony from whose neck
still hung the detaining lariat of the Tomcat had been detailed by the
Turkey Track to the use and behoof of Mr. Cook.
“Jack said I could take him,” returned the Tomcat as he leaped into the
saddle.
This was a lie, but the horse-hustler never mistrusted. It was not that
he had faith in the veracity of the Tomcat, but he relied upon his want
of courage. Mr. Cook, while an excellent soul in the main, was prey to
restless petulances. The horse-hustler did not believe that the Tomcat
would intromit with the possessions of Mr. Cook lacking that gentleman’s
consent. When Shylock was ready the Tomcat turned his nervous muzzle
towards the north and was off at a cheerful road-gait.
While scrambling up an arroya and pointing for the table-lands beyond,
the Tomcat ran into Mr. Cook, picking his way towards the outfit’s
evening camp. Mr. Cook was surprised at the picture of the Tomcat
astride his sacred Shylock. The Tomcat appeared dashed, not to say
dismayed, by the meeting.
“What be you-all doin’ on my Shylock?” demanded Mr. Cook, his hand not
at all distant from the butt of his Colt’s-45. “What be you-all doin’ on
my Shylock?” he repeated. Then, as the Tomcat was not ready with an
explanation: “If you can’t talk, make signs; an’ if you can’t make
signs, shake a bush!”
Since a threat seemed to find lodgment in the manner of the choleric Mr.
Cook, the Tomcat deemed it wise to be heard. Realising with a sigh that
mendacity would not clear the way, the Tomcat, in a cataract of
confidence, imparted to Mr. Cook his scheme of vengeance against Mr.
Masterson.
“An’ I ought to have a good pony, Jack,” pleaded the Tomcat. “I may need
it to get away on.”
When the Tomcat unfolded his plans to bring back the scalp of Mr.
Masterson, Mr. Cook first stared and then went off into a gale of
laughter. He almost forgot his valued Shylock.
“You bump off Bat Masterson!” he exclaimed. “Why, Tomcat, it needs the
sharpest hand on the Canadian for that job, needs somebody as good as
Old Tom Harris. Better go back to camp an’ sleep it off. Bat Masterson
would down you like cuttin’ kyards.”
The Tomcat, however, did not waver. Relieved when he noted the mollified
vein of Mr. Cook, he urged his claim for the Shylock pony.
“Say ‘yes,’ Jack,” said the Tomcat, “an’ I’ll be back in a month with
that Bat Masterson’s top-knot dangling from Shylock’s bits.”
“Well,” remarked Mr. Cook, giving space in the arroya for the Tomcat to
pass, “onder the circumstances you-all can have Shylock. I don’t feel
like refusin’ the last request of a dyin’ man. Ride on, an’ may your
luck break even with your nerve.”
The Tomcat went his northward path, but in the treacherous hollows of
his heart he hated Mr. Cook. The Tomcat raged for that he could not face
a white of the pure blood without turning craven to the bone. It was
that recreant cross in his veins; he knew, but couldn’t cure the defect.
He could hold his own with a Comanche, he could bully a Mexican to a
standstill, but his heart became the heart of a hare whenever the cold,
gray-eyed gaze of one of clean white strain fell across him in
hostility. Halted by the high-tempered Mr. Cook, the Tomcat had fair
melted in his saddle; and, while he gained his point and the pony, his
wolfish soul was set none the less on fire.
“If I’d had two drinks in me I’d shot it out with him,” considered the
Tomcat by way of consoling himself. “I’d have filled him as full of lead
as a bag of bullets! After I come back I’ll nacherally take a crack at
Johnny Cook. He won’t front up to me so plumb confident an’ gala after
I’ve killed Bat Masterson.”
Dodge took no absorbing interest in the Tomcat. His kind was frequent in
its causeways, and the Tomcat as a specimen owned no attributes beyond
the common save an inordinate appetite for liquor and a Ballard rifle.
He could drink more whisky than was the custom of Dodge; also, the
Ballard attracted attention in a region where every fool used a
Winchester and every wise man a Sharp’s. But neither the Tomcat’s
capacity for strong drink nor yet his rifle could hold public curiosity
for long, and within ten minutes after he strode into the Alhambra and
called for his initial drink Dodge lost concern in him and turned to its
own affairs.
The Tomcat, now he was in Dodge, seemed in little haste to search out
Mr. Masterson. This was in no wise strange; for one thing his Shylock
pony needed rest. Shylock had been put in Mr. Trask’s corral and,
gorging on alfalfa, was bravely filling out the hollows of his flanks.
The Tomcat decided that he would abide in Dodge two days before sounding
his warcry. Then, just as night was drawing, he would saddle up and hunt
the obnoxious Mr. Masterson. Upon meeting that officer the Tomcat would
shoot him down. His mission thus happily concluded, he would make a
spurring rush Panhandleward. Once on the Canadian he need not fear for
his safety.
Running the plan forward and back in what he called his mind, the Tomcat
reflected on his coming glorious reward! His daring manhood should be
the theme on every lip! He would be called no more the “Tomcat,” but
gain rebaptism as the “Man who downed Bat Masterson!” The girls of the
hurdy-gurdies would set his fame to music! Indeed, the Tomcat foresaw a
gorgeous picture when, returning to his native heath, he should wear
laurel as that stout one who, from the fame of Texas, had washed a stain
away. These matters ran like a millrace in the vainglorious thoughts of
the Tomcat as he loafed about the barrooms of Dodge waiting for Shylock
to recuperate and the moment of murder to ripely arrive.
On occasion the Tomcat brushed by Mr. Masterson in the narrow walks of
Dodge. But the Tomcat did not give his victim-to-be a look. There was a
steadfastness in the stare of Mr. Masterson that was as disconcerting to
the Tomcat as had been the flinty eye of Mr. Cook when the latter
brought him to bay that evening in the arroya. Wherefore when they met,
the Tomcat gazed up or down the street, but never once at Mr. Masterson,
albeit there reposed beneath his belt the whiskey whose absence he
lamented when he quailed before the overbearing Mr. Cook.
“Never mind!” gritted the Tomcat behind his teeth; “I’ll try a shot at
him if I swing for it.”
It was the day appointed by the virulent Tomcat for the downfall of Mr.
Masterson. The Tomcat programmed the slaughter for that last moment when
the setting sun should touch the hard, gray skyline. The Tomcat might
want in mental depth, but he was clear concerning the value of night as
a trail-coverer. Under the pressure of events to come, the Tomcat’s
cunning had been so far promoted that he even thought of riding out of
Dodge to the north after Mr. Masterson had been successfully
obliterated. Then, when it was dark, he could swing to the south; not
along his trail, but his direction would be thus lost to whomsoever
should pursue. A hot all-night ride should bring him to the Cimarron.
There he would be out of Kansas and into the Indian Territory, Texas and
celebration within easy fling. Now all this might have come to pass as
the slender wisdom of the Tomcat schemed it had it not been for the
unexpected.
It stood four for the hour with every honest clock in Dodge when the
Tomcat, killing time, came into the Alhambra. There, among other
attractions, he found a non-committal Mexican dealing monte.
The Tomcat cast a careless dollar on the queen, and lost. A second
dollar vanished in pursuit of its predecessor. At that the Tomcat,
holding Mexicans in cheap esteem, lifted up condemnatory voice.
“This is a robbers’ roost!” quoth the depleted Tomcat, “an’ every gent
in it is a hoss-thief!”
Mr. Kelly, proprietor of the Alhambra, was present, dozing in a chair.
The clamorous Tomcat aroused him with his uproar. It struck Mr. Kelly
that the extravagance of the Tomcat’s remark multiplied the insult it
conveyed. Without ado Mr. Kelly arose and exhaustively “buffaloed” that
individual.
When an offender is “buffaloed” he is buffeted, shoved, choked,
manhandled, and chucked into the street. Once on the sidewalk he is
kicked until justice craves no more. In this instance the Tomcat was
excessively “buffaloed,” and at the close of the ceremony crawled to the
cheap hotel wherein he had pitched his camp, there to nurse his bruises
and bind up his wounds.
No, every violator of Western ethics is not “buffaloed.” It is a method
of reproof reserved for folk who are of slight estate. When one is known
for the sandstone sort of his courage and the dignified accuracy of his
gun, he is never “buffaloed.” By his achievements he has raised himself
superior to such reprimand, just as a Sioux warrior may lift himself
above the power of tribal judges to “soldier-kill” him for misdemeanors,
by his prowess in the field. Only humble offenders are “buffaloed.”
Those whose eminence forbids the ordeal may be shot instead. When one is
too great to be “buffaloed” he is free to the gun of any man he injures.
The law has abandoned him and his hand must keep his head. That the
Tomcat was disgracefully “buffaloed” may be accepted as evidence that he
had no respectful standing in Dodge.
As stated, after he had been “buffaloed” the Tomcat withdrew to cure his
aches while Mr. Kelly modified his own fatigues with three fingers of an
Old Jordan which he kept especially for himself. The Tomcat had been so
deeply “buffaloed” that he did not move from his blankets for two days.
Thereby the taking off of Mr. Masterson was deferred. Indeed, the
current of the Tomcat’s blood-desires found itself deflected. When he
again crept forth, his ambition to kill Mr. Masterson had been
supplanted by a vengeful wish to murder Mr. Kelly.
No one should marvel at this. Mr. Masterson, according to the Tomcat,
had injured only the Texas public. Mr. Kelly had come more nearly home
with injuries personal to the limping Tomcat himself. All men prefer a
private to a public interest. It was but nature moving when the wronged
Tomcat, forgetting Mr. Masterson, for whose hair he had come so far, now
gave himself heart and soul to how he might best spill the life of Mr.
Kelly.
After mature study, when now he was again abroad, the Tomcat could
devise nothing better than to pull up his pony in front of the Alhambra
at the hour of eight in the evening and attempt, from the saddle, to pot
Mr. Kelly with the Ballard. The Tomcat banged away with the Ballard all
he knew, but the enterprise went astray in double fashion. The Tomcat
missed Mr. Kelly by a wide foot; also, he killed a girl whose mission it
had been to dance and sing in the Alhambra for public gratification.
Shylock jumped sidewise at the flash, and the Tomcat, whose seat in the
saddle had not been strengthened by his troubles, was thrown upon his
head. Before he might recover the Dodge populace had piled itself above
him, and the Tomcat was taken captive by twenty hands at once. He would
have been lynched, only Mr. Masterson charged into the press. With the
Tomcat held fast in one fist Mr. Masterson drew his six-shooter with the
other and established therewith a zone of safety. Since Mr. Wright, who
acted as alcalde, was at leisure, Mr. Masterson haled the Tomcat
instantly before him.
If one were writing fiction, one from this point would find open
sailing. One would have nothing more difficult to do than empanel a
jury, convict and swing off the Tomcat. In this relation, however, there
opens no such gate of escape. One must record a temporary good fortune
that fell to the share of the Tomcat.
The Tomcat, somewhat a-droop, was brought into the presence of Mr.
Wright, alcalde. Before a word might be said, a fusillade of pistol
shots split the evening into splinters at the far end of the street. Two
gentlemen were disagreeing; the dispute, audible to all in Dodge,
aroused the liveliest curiosity. There befell a general stampede, every
man rushing towards the forum where debate was being waged.
So universal was that sentiment of curiosity that it even swept the
careful Mr. Masterson from his official feet. He forgot for the nonce
the Tomcat. He recovered himself only to learn that the Tomcat was gone.
Our furtive one had slipped away in the hurly-burly, and since
Shylock—who had been left saddled in the street—was also absent, the
assumption obtained that the two had departed together and were already
overhauling the distant Panhandle at the rate of fifteen miles the hour.
Disgruntled by what he looked upon as his own gross neglect Mr.
Masterson threw a hurried saddle onto the best horse in Dodge and
flashed southward after the Tomcat.
Mr. Masterson was twenty minutes behind the hurrying Tomcat. Laid flat
on the ground and measured, those twenty minutes, in the swallow-like
instance of Shylock, would mean seven miles. Mr. Masterson cursed as he
remembered this and considered how a stern chase is never a short chase.
For all that Mr. Masterson was resolved, dead or alive, to have his man
again.
“I’ll get him,” said Mr. Masterson, “if I have to swing and rattle with
him from Dodge to the Rio Grande!”
Mr. Masterson had an advantage over the Tomcat. He knew the country as a
beggar knows his dish. At the end of the first three miles he struck
into a short cut to the left. His design was to outride the Tomcat and
cut him off at the ford of the Medicine Lodge.
Once in the side trail Mr. Masterson, like a good rider, disposed
himself in the saddle so as to save his horse; the latter—big and
rangy—uncoupled into that long, swinging gallop which carries the
farthest because it is the easiest of gaits.
“It is the foxy thing to head this party off,” communed Mr. Masterson as
he swept along. “Once I’m in his front he ought to be sure. A flying man
never looks ahead.”
The white alkali trail spoke hard and loud beneath the horse’s
hoof-irons. There was a veil of cloud across the face of the sky. Then
the west wind put it aside and the moon and the big stars looked down. A
coyote punctuated the stillness with its staccato song. A jackrabbit
jumped up and went bustling ahead, never leaving the paper-white streak
of trail that seemed to fascinate it. At last, breath gone and wholly
pumped, it had just instinctive sense enough to wabble a yard to one
side and escape being run down by the galloping horse. A band of
antelope brushed across in front like startled shadows. Mr. Masterson
was not to be engaged by these earmarks of the hour and place; he must
reach the Medicine Lodge in advance of the Tomcat. Lifting his horse to
the work Mr. Masterson coaxed it through trail-devouring hours. Then
there came an interference.
It was midnight by the shining word of the moon when a low roaring,
distant and muffled, like the beat of a million drums, broke on Mr.
Masterson. It was up the wind and from the west.
“What!” exclaimed Mr. Masterson aloud, and he pulled up his horse to
listen. “It’s a good ways off as yet,” he continued. “It must be a
hummer to send its word so far.” Then, patting his horse’s neck: “My
sympathies will be all with you, old boy, when it reaches us.”
Over in the northwest a cloud came suddenly up with the swiftness of a
drawn curtain. One by one it shut out like a screen the stars and the
moon. Mr. Masterson was on the ground in the puff of an instant.
“It’ll detain him as much as it does me,” thought Mr. Masterson, whose
mind ran always on his quarry.
Mr. Masterson took a pair of hopples from the saddle and fastened the
fore fetlocks of his horse. Then he stripped off the saddle.
“I’ll leave you the blanket,” remarked Mr. Masterson, “but I’m going to
need the saddle for myself.”
Mr. Masterson crouched upon the ground, making the saddle a roof to
cover his head, the skirts held tight about his shoulders by the girths.
The roar grew until from a million drums it improved to be a million
flails on as many threshing-floors. Mr. Masterson clawed the
saddleskirts tight as with a swish and a swirl the hailstorm was upon
him. The round hailstones beat upon the saddle like buckshot. They
leaped and bounded along the ground. They showed of a size and hardness
to compare with those toys meant for children’s games.
Saved by the saddle, Mr. Masterson came through without a mark. His
horse, with nothing more defensive than a square of saddle-blanket, had
no such luck. Above the drumming of the hailstones Mr. Masterson might
hear that unfortunate animal as, torn by mixed emotions of pain,
amazement and indignation, it bucked about the scene in a manner that
would have done infinite grace to a circus. A best feature of the
hailstorm was that it did not last five minutes; it passed to the south
and east, and its mutterings grew fainter and more faint with every
moment.
The storm over, Mr. Masterson caught up his horse, which seemed much
subdued of spirit by what it had gone through. As gently as might be—to
humour the bruises—he recinched the heavy saddle in its place.
“Better keep you moving now, old boy,” quoth Mr. Masterson, “it’ll take
the soreness out. You needn’t shout about it,” he concluded, as the
sorely battered horse gave a squeal of pain; “a hailstone isn’t a
bullet, and it might have been worse, you know.”
Again Mr. Masterson stretched southward, and again the moon and stars
came out to light the way. The storm had drawn forth the acrid
earth-smells that sleep in the grass-roots on the plains. To mix with
these, it brought a breath from the pine-sown Rockies four hundred miles
away. These are the odours which soak into a man and make him forever of
the West.
It was broad day when Mr. Masterson rode down to the lonely ford of the
Medicine Lodge. He sighed with relief as his hawk-eye showed him how no
one had passed since the storm.
“I’m in luck!” said he.
Mr. Masterson hoppled his horse and set that tired animal to feed among
the fresh green of the bottom. Then he unslung a pair of field-glasses,
which he wore for the good of his office, and sent a backward glance
along the trail. Rod by rod he picked it up for miles. There was no one
in sight; he had come in ample time.
“I had the best of him ten miles by that cut-off,” ruminated Mr.
Masterson.
Then Mr. Masterson began to wish he had something to eat. He might have
found a turkey in the brush-clumps along the Medicine Lodge. He might
have risked the noise of a shot, being so far ahead. But Mr. Masterson
did not care to eat a turkey raw and he dared not chance a smoke; the
Tomcat would have read the sign for miles and crept aside. Mr. Masterson
drew his belt tighter by a hole and thought on other things than
breakfast. It wouldn’t be the first time that he had missed a meal, and
with that thought he consoled himself. It is an empty form of
consolation, as one who tries may tell.
“If there’s anything I despise, it’s hunger,” said Mr. Masterson. He was
a desperate fork at table.
Mr. Masterson lay out of view and kept his glasses on a strip five miles
away, where the trail ribboned over a swell. There, in the end, he found
what he sought; he made out the Tomcat, a bobbing speck in the distance.
Mr. Masterson put aside his glasses and planted himself where he would
do the most good. While concealed he still commanded the approach to the
ford. To give his presence weight Mr. Masterson had his sixteen-pound
buffalo gun.
“As I remember this party,” soliloquised Mr. Masterson, “I don’t reckon
now he’s got sense enough to surrender when he’s told. And when I think
of that little lady dead in Dodge I don’t feel like taking many chances.
I’ll hail him, and if he hesitates, the risk is his.”
Thirty minutes had come and gone since Mr. Masterson, through his
glasses, followed the Tomcat down the far-off slope. Shylock, staunch as
whalebone though he was, had found the clip a killer. He was not
covering ground as in the beginning. There they were at last, the weary
pony and the hunted man, both showing the wear and tear of pace.
Ballard ready on his hip, the Tomcat, giving a nervous over-shoulder
look, brought Shylock to a walk. The broken pony came stumbling down to
the ford. Mr. Masterson, with his mighty buffalo gun, aroused himself
for official business.
“Drop that rifle!” said Mr. Masterson.
It was like a bolt from the blue to the spent and shaken Tomcat. He
caught his breath in a startled way. Then, despair standing in the stead
of courage, he tossed the Ballard into his left hand and fired,
point-blank, at Mr. Masterson’s face where it showed above the bank. The
bullet tossed the dust a yard to the left. Mixed bloods and Indians at
their best are but poor hands with a rifle, and the Tomcat was at his
worst.
With the crack of the Ballard came the bellow of the Sharp’s. The great
bullet, which would have torn its way through the vitals of a
buffalo-bull at eight hundred yards, brought the Tomcat whirling from
the saddle like a stricken wild duck. What with sheer weariness and an
inadvertent yank at the Spanish bits as the Tomcat went overboard, poor
Shylock crossed his tired forelegs, tripped, blundered, and fell. He
came down on the Tomcat; in the scramble to get to his feet Shylock fell
upon the Tomcat again.
Mr. Masterson slipped another cartridge into the buffalo gun. Then he
warily approached the Tomcat, muzzle to the fore, finger on the trigger.
A dying man will sometimes pull a six-shooter with the last flicker of
his failing strength, and snatch a vengeance as he quits the earth.
Mr. Masterson seized the Tomcat by the shoulders and dragged him from
under Shylock—still heaving and plunging to regain his feet. There was
no call for a second look; the experienced Mr. Masterson could tell by
the ash-colour struggling through the brown that the death-draw was on
the Tomcat at the very moment.
The Tomcat, hiccoughing and bleeding, lay on the short stiff grass and
rolled a hateful eye on his executioner. Mr. Masterson, thinking on the
girl who died in Dodge, gave back a look as hateful. And this, in the
midst of the lonesome plains, is what these two spoke to one
another—these, the slayer and the slain, to show how bald is truth!
“You blank-blanked-blankety-blank! you ought to have made a better shot
than that!” said the Tomcat. “Well, you blank-blanked murderer, I did
the best I could,” said Mr. Masterson.
Mr. Masterson, as he walked his horse over the hill upon which he had
first beheld the coming of the Tomcat, halted and looked back. Shylock
of the empty saddle nosed up to Mr. Masterson’s horse in a friendly way.
Five miles to the south, on the banks of the Medicine Lodge, a raven
wheeled and stooped. Away to the west a coyote yelped; another yelped an
answer, and then another. Mr. Masterson shrugged his wide shoulders. The
coyote by daylight makes gruesome melody.
“The ground was too hard to dig a grave,” said Mr. Masterson, as he
turned his horse’s head again towards Dodge, “even if I’d had the tools.
Besides, I wasn’t elected undertaker, but sheriff.”