CROOK MEETS CROOK
Slavens was saddling his horse before his tent, his mind still running
on the newcomer who had pitched to the south of him, evidently while he
was away. He was certain that he would have seen the tent if it had been
there before he left, for it was within plain view of the road.
Well, thought the doctor, whoever the stranger was, whatever he hoped or
expected of that place, he was welcome to, for all that Slavens envied
him. As for Slavens himself, he had run his race and won it by a nose;
and now that he was putting down the proceeds to appease what he held as
blackmail, he had no very keen regrets for what he was losing. He had
passed through that. There would be the compensation----
But of that no matter; that must come in its time and place, and if
never, no matter. He would have the ease of conscience in knowing that
he had served her, and served her well.
His horse was restive and frisky in the cool of the morning, making a
stir among the stones with its feet. Slavens spoke sharply to the
animal, bending to draw up the girth, the stirrup thrown across the
saddle.
"Now, you old scamp, I'll take this friskiness out of you in a minute,"
said he, giving the horse a slap under the belly as he reached to pull
the stirrup down.
He drew back with a start as his eyes lifted above the saddle, and his
hand dropped to the butt of the revolver which he carried so clumsily in
his belt. Hun Shanklin was standing there facing him, not above a dozen
feet away, grinning dubiously, but with what he doubtless meant for an
expression of friendliness.
The old gambler threw out his hands with a sidewise motion eloquent of
emptiness, lifting his shoulders in a quick little jerk, as if to say,
"Oh, what's the use?"
"Kind of surprised you; didn't I, Doc?" he asked, coming nearer.
"What do you want here?" demanded Slavens harshly.
"Well, not trouble," replied Shanklin lightly. "If I'd come over for
that, I guess I could 'a' started it before now."
"Yes, I suppose you could," admitted Slavens, watching him distrustfully
and feeling thankful, somehow, that the horse was between them.
"I saw you up on the hill after your horse, so I thought I'd come over
and let you know I was around," said Shanklin. "Thought I'd tell you
that I ain't holdin' any grudges if you ain't."
"I don't see where you've got any call to. I never took a crack at you
with a blackjack in the dark!"
"No, you didn't, friend," Shanklin agreed in his old easy, persuasive
way. "And I never done it to you. You owe the honorable Mr. Jerry Boyle
for the red mark you've got on your forrid there. I'll own up that I
helped him nail you up and dump you in the river; but I done it because
I thought you was finished, and I didn't want the muss around."
"Well, it will all come out on the day of reckoning, I suppose," said
Slavens, not believing a word the old scamp said.
He knew that minute, as he had known all the time, that no other hand
than Shanklin's had laid him low that night. Of this he was as certain
in his own mind as if he had seen the gambler lift hand for the blow.
Boyle had no motive for it up to that time, although he had been quick
to turn the circumstance to his advantage.
"I thought Boyle'd dickered you out of this claim before now," said
Shanklin, looking around warily.
"He's down the road here a little piece," replied Slavens testily, "in
company of another friend of yours. You could have seen his tent as you
came over if you'd looked."
"I just put up my tent last night," Shanklin explained.
Slavens took hold of his saddle-horn as if to mount, indicating by his
action that the visit should come to an end. Shanklin, who was not in
the least sensitive on the matter of social rebuffs, did not appear to
be inclined to accept the hint. He shifted his legs, thrusting one of
them forward in a lounging attitude, and dug in his trousers pockets
with his long, skinny hands.
"Well, spit it out and have it over with!" snapped Slavens, feeling that
there was something behind the man's actions to which he had not given
words.
"That was a purty good coat I left with you that night," suggested
Shanklin, looking up without the slightest stirring of humor in his dry
face.
"You're welcome to it, if that's all," said Slavens.
"That's all. I was kind of attached to that coat."
Slavens left him standing there and entered the tent, feeling that
Shanklin was as irresponsible morally as a savage. Evidently the
inconsequential matter of an attempt at murder should not be allowed to
stand between friends, according to the flat-game man's way of viewing
life. It appeared that morning as if Shanklin had no trace of malice in
him on account of the past, and no desire to pursue further his
underhanded revenge. Conscience was so little trouble to him that he
could sit at meat with a man one hour and stick a knife in his back the
next.
The coat was under a sack of oats, somewhat the worse for wrinkles and
dust. Slavens gave it a shake, smoothed the heaviest of the creases with
his hand, and went out to deliver it to its owner.
Shanklin was facing the other way, in the direction of his own camp. His
attitude was in sharp contrast with the easy, lounging posture of a few
moments before. He was tense and alert, straining forward a little, his
lean body poised as if he balanced for a jump. There was a clattering on
the small stones which strewed the ground thickly there, as of somebody
approaching, but the bulk of the horse was between Slavens and the view,
as the doctor stopped momentarily in the door of the low tent.
Clearing the tent and standing upright, Slavens saw Boyle and Ten-Gallon
coming on hurriedly. They had been to Shanklin's camp evidently, looking
for him. From the appearance of both parties, there was something in the
wind.
Boyle was approaching rapidly, Ten-Gallon trailing a bit, on account of
his shorter legs perhaps, or maybe because his valor was even briefer
than his wind. Boyle seemed to be grinning, although there was no mirth
in his face. His teeth showed between his parted lips; he carried his
right arm in front, crooked at the elbow, his fingers curved.
Slavens saw that all thought of the coat had gone but of Shanklin's
mind. The old gambler did not so much as turn his head. Slavens threw
the coat across his saddle as Boyle came up.
"Well, what have you got to say to it, you dirty old thief?" demanded
Boyle, plunging into the matter as if preliminaries were not needed
between him and Shanklin.
"You seem to be doin' the talkin'," returned Shanklin with a show of
cold indifference, although Slavens saw that he watched every movement
Boyle made, and more than once in those few seconds the doctor marked
Hun's sinewy right arm twitch as if on the point of making some swift
stroke.
Boyle stopped while there was yet a rod between them, so hot with anger
that his hands were trembling.
"That don't answer me!" he growled, his voice thick in his constricted
throat. "What have you got to say to the way you double-crossed me, you
old one-eyed hellion?"
"Talk don't hurt, Jerry, unless a man talks too much," Shanklin answered
mildly. "Now, if I wanted to talk, I could mighty near talk a rope
around your little white neck. I know when to talk and when to keep
still."
"And I know how to jar you loose!" threatened Boyle.
Shanklin leaned toward the Governor's son never so little, his left hand
lifted to point his utterance, and opened upon Boyle the most withering
stream of blasphemous profanity that Slavens had ever heard. If there
ever was a man who cursed by note, as they used to say, Hun Shanklin was
that one. He laid it to Boyle in a blue streak.
"What do I owe you?" he began.
Then he swung off into the most derogatory comparisons, applications,
insulting flagellations, that man ever stood up and listened to. His
evident motive was to provoke Boyle to some hostile act, so that
twitching right arm might have the excuse for dealing out the death
which lay at its finger-ends. Every little while the torrent of abuse
broke upon the demand, "What do I owe you?" like a rock in the channel,
and then rushed on again without laying hold of the same epithet twice.
If a man were looking for a master in that branch of frontier learning,
a great opportunity was at hand.
Boyle leaned against the torrent of abuse and swallowed it, his face
losing its fiery hue, blanching and fading as if every word fell on his
senses like the blow of a whip to the back. The Governor's son watched
every muscle of Shanklin's face as if to read the gambler's intention in
his eye, while his hand, stiff-set and clawlike, hovered within three
inches of his pistol-butt.
Presently Shanklin stopped, panting like a lizard. Both men stooped a
little lower, leaning forward in their eager watchfulness. Neither of
them seemed to be conscious that the world held any other object than
his enemy, crouching, waiting, drawing breath in nostril-dilating
gasps.
Boyle moved one foot slightly, as if to steady himself for a supreme
effort. A little stone which he dislodged tumbled down the side of a
four-inch gully with a noise that seemed the sound of an avalanche. With
that alarm Shanklin's arm moved swiftly. Like a reflection in a glass,
Boyle's arm moved with it.
Two shots; such a bare margin between them that the ear scarcely could
mark the line. Then one.
Shanklin, his hands half lifted, his arms crooked at the elbow and
extended from his sides, dropped his pistol, his mouth open, as if to
utter the surprise which was pictured in his features. He doubled limply
at the knees, collapsed forward, fell upon his face.
Boyle put his hand to his breast above his heart, pressing it hard; took
it away, turned about in his tracks as if bewildered; swayed sickly,
sank to his knees, and fell over to his side with the silent, hopeless,
huddling movement of a wild creature that has been shot in the woods.
Ten-Gallon came from behind the tent, where he had been compressing
himself into a crevice between two boulders. His face was white, and
down it sweat was pouring, drawn from the agony of his base soul. He
went to the place where Dr. Slavens knelt beside Boyle.
"Cra-zy Christmas!" gasped he, his mouth falling open. Then again:
"Cra-zy Christmas!"
Slavens had gone to Boyle first, because there was something in the
utter collapse of Shanklin which told him the man was dead. As he
stripped Boyle's clothing off to bare the wound, Slavens ordered
Ten-Gallon to go and see whether the old gambler had paid his last
loss.
"I won't touch him! I won't lay a hand on him!" Ten-Gallon refused,
drawing back in alarm.
Boyle was not dead, though Shanklin's bullet had struck him perilously
near the heart and had passed through his body. With each feeble intake
of breath blood bubbled from the blue mark, which looked like a little
bruise, on his chest.
"Well, see if you can make a fire, then, and hurry about it! Get some
water on to boil as fast as you can!" Slavens directed the nerveless
chief of police.
Ten-Gallon set about his employment with alacrity while Slavens went
over to Shanklin, turning his face up to the sky. For a little while he
stooped over Hun; then he took the gambler's coat from the saddle and
spread it over his face. Hun Shanklin was in need of no greater service
that man could render him.
Dr. Slavens took off his coat and brought out his instrument-case. He
gave Boyle such emergency treatment as was possible where the
gun-fighter lay, and then called Ten-Gallon to help take him into the
tent.
"Lord, he's breathin' through his back!" said Ten-Gallon. "He'll never
live till we git him to the tent--never in this world, Doc! I knew a
feller that was knifed in the back one time till he breathed through his
ribs that way, and he----"
"Never mind," said Slavens. "Take hold of him."
Ten-Gallon's fire burned briskly, and the water boiled. Dr. Slavens
sterilized his instruments in a pan of it, and set about to establish
the drainage for the wound upon which the slender chance of Boyle's life
depended. Boyle was unconscious, as he had been from the moment he fell.
They stretched him on the doctor's cot. With the blankets spread
underfoot to keep down the dust, the early sun shining in through the
lifted flap, Slavens put aside whatever animosity he held against the
man and went to work earnestly in an endeavor to save his life.
Ten-Gallon showed a nervous anxiety to get away. He wanted to go after
his horse; he wanted to go to Boyle's tent and get breakfast for
himself; and then he pressed the necessity of his presence in Comanche
to keep and preserve the peace. But Slavens would not permit him to quit
the tent until he could no longer be of assistance.
It was not the wounded body of Jerry Boyle that the pot-bellied peace
officer feared, but the stiffening frame of Hun Shanklin, lying out
there in the bright sun. Every time he looked that way he drew up on
himself, like a snail. At length Slavens gave him permission to leave,
charging him to telephone to Meander for the coroner the moment that he
arrived in Comanche, and to get word to Boyle's people at the earliest
possible hour.
There seemed to be nothing for Slavens to do but to forego his trip in
quest of Agnes, and sit there in the hope that she would come. Boyle
could not be left alone, and Shanklin's body must be brought up out of
the gully and covered.
This ran through his mind in erratic starts and blanks as he bent over
the wounded man, listening to his respiration with more of a humane than
professional fear that the next breath might tell him of the hemorrhage
which would make a sudden end of Boyle's wavering and uncertain life.
Ten-Gallon had been gone but a little while when Slavens heard him
clattering back in his heel-dragging walk over the rocks. He appeared
before the doctor with a lively relief in his face.
"Some people headin' in here," he announced. "Maybe they'll be of some
help to you. I hated to go and leave you here alone with that
feller"--jerking his head toward Shanklin's body--"for I wouldn't trust
him dead no more than I would alive!"
"All right," said Slavens, scarcely looking up.
Ten-Gallon appeared to be over his anxiety to leave. He waited in front
of the tent as the sound of horses came nearer.
"Stop them off there a little way," ordered the doctor. "We don't want
any more dust around here than we can help."
He looked around for his hat, put it on, and went out, sleeves up, to
see that his order was enforced. Agnes was alighting from a horse as he
stepped out. A tall, slight man with a gray beard was demanding of
Ten-Gallon what had happened there.
Relief warmed the terror out of her eyes as Agnes ran forward and caught
Dr. Slavens' hand.
"You're safe!" she cried. "I feared--oh, I feared!"
A shudder told him what words faltered to name.
"It wasn't my fight," he told her.
"This is Governor Boyle," said Agnes, presenting the stranger, who had
stood looking at them with ill-contained impatience, seeing himself
quite forgotten by both of them in that moment of meeting.
"I am sorry to tell you, sir, that your son is gravely wounded," said
Dr. Slavens, driving at once to the point.
"Where is he?" asked the Governor, his face pale, his throat working as
if he struggled with anguish which fought to relieve itself in a cry.
Dr. Slavens motioned to the tent. The old man went forward, stopping
when he saw his unconscious son and the bloody clothing beside the cot.
He put his hand to his forehead and stood a moment, his eyes closed.
Then he went in and bent over the wounded man.
A sob of pity rose in Agnes' throat as she watched him and saw the pain
and affection upon his face. Presently Governor Boyle turned and walked
to the spot where Hun Shanklin's body lay. Without a word, he lifted the
coat from the gambler's face, covered it again, and turned away.
"Bad company! Bad company!" said he, sadly shaking his head. "How did it
happen, Doctor? You were here? First"--he held up his hand, as if to
check the doctor's speech--"will he live?"
"Men have recovered from worse wounds," responded the doctor. "There's a
chance for him, at least."
He related, then, the circumstance of the meeting, the brief quarrel,
and the fight, Ten-Gallon putting in a word here and there, although his
testimony was neither asked nor welcomed.
"I don't know what the cause of the quarrel was," concluded the doctor.
"Two days ago I relinquished this claim to your son. He came here
immediately and took possession."
"You--you relinquished!" exclaimed Agnes, disappointment in her voice,
reproach in her eyes.
"I am sorry that you relinquished it," said the Governor. "This brave
young woman rode all the way to my ranch--almost a hundred miles--to
save it to you. I was absent when she arrived, but I set out with her at
the earliest possible moment upon my return. We rode all night last
night, sir, changing horses in Comanche this morning."
"I am grateful to you, both of you, for the trouble and fatigue you have
undergone in my behalf. But the case, as your son urged it, sir, was
beyond temporizing. Perhaps Miss Gates has told you?"
The Governor nodded curtly, a look of displeasure on his face.
"I can't believe that Jerry meant it," he protested. "It must have been
one of his jokes."
"I am sorry, then, that my idea of humor is so widely divergent from
his!" said Dr. Slavens with deep feeling.
"Well, he's paid for it. The poor boy has paid for his indiscretion,"
said the old man sadly.
He turned away and went a little space, where he stood as if in
meditation.
"You promised me that you'd do nothing until you returned and saw me,"
Agnes charged. "And I had saved it for you! I had saved it!"
"You would have been too late," returned the doctor sharply. "The
machinery for your humiliation was already in motion. I doubt whether
even the Governor could have stopped it in another day without a great
deal of unpleasant publicity for you. Boyle meant to have this piece of
land, and he got it. That's all."
Ten-Gallon was fooling around the fire. He drew over toward the group as
the Governor came back.
"Can my son be removed from here?" the old man asked.
The doctor said that he could not, without practically throwing away his
slender chance for life.
"Do for him what you can; you seem to be a capable man, sir; you inspire
confidence in me," said the Governor, laying his hand appealingly on the
doctor's shoulder; "and if you can save him, I'll pay you twice what
this infernal claim was worth to you!"
"I've done all that can be done for him, without hope or expectation of
reward," said the doctor; "and I'll stick by him to the end, one way or
another. We can care for him here as long as this weather holds, just as
well as they could in a hospital."
"Well, as far as what this claim's worth goes," put in Ten-Gallon,
edging into the conversation, "you don't need to lose any sleep over
that."
"What do you mean?" demanded Slavens, turning upon him sharply.
Ten-Gallon stirred the dust with his toe, stooped and picked up an empty
revolver-cartridge.
"It ain't worth that!" said he, presenting it in the palm of his hand.
"I don't know what you're driving at," said the doctor, inclined to walk
away and leave him.
"I mean that Hun Shanklin queered all of you," said Ten-Gallon. "You had
the wrong figgers, and you filed on the wrong claim!"
Pressed for an explanation of how he knew, Ten-Gallon told them that he
had been Shanklin's partner at the beginning, and that Shanklin had
deceived and cheated both him and Boyle.
"Ah, then he did double-cross my son!" cried the Governor triumphantly,
seizing this vindication for the young man's deed with avid eagerness.
"He sure did," Ten-Gallon agreed; "and he done it right! I know all
about you"--nodding to the doctor--"and what happened to you back of
that tent in Comanche that night. Shanklin had it in for you ever since
you showed up his game the night that sucker feller was goin' to put
down that wad of money. He'd been layin' for you, one way and another,
for a couple of days or so. You walked right into his hand that night."
"I seemed to," admitted Slavens with bitter recollection.
"Shanklin knew about copper in these rocks over here----"
"So it's copper?" said Slavens, unable to restrain his words.
"Copper; that's what it is," nodded Ten-Gallon. "But it ain't on this
claim, and I'll show that in a minute, too. Hun had been writin' to
Jerry about it, tryin' to git up a company to pay him for what he knew,
so they could locate the man that drawed Number One there, see? Well,
Hun, he'd known about that copper a long time; he could go to it with
his eyes shut. So he got the description of the land as soon as the
survey maps was out, and he offered to sell the location for five
thousand dollars. He had samples of the ore, and it run rich, and it
_is_ rich, richest in this state, I'm here to tell you, gentlemen.
"But Jerry wouldn't give him no five thousand for what he knew. So Hun
he got some other fellers on the string, and him and me was partners on
the deal and was goin' to split even on account of some things I knew
and was to keep under my katy.
"Well, Hun sold the figgers of that land to Jerry for five hundred
dollars in the end, and he sold it to them other fellers for the same.
When it come out that you was Number One, Doc--and us fellers knew that
in the morning of the day of the drawin', for we had it fixed with
Mong--Hun he tells Jerry that you'll never sell out for no reasonable
price.
"'We'll have to soak that feller,' he says, 'and git him out of the
way.' Jerry he agreed to it, and they had men out after you all that day
and night, but they didn't git a chance at you. Then you walked right
into old Hun's hand. Funny!" commented Ten-Gallon stopping there to
breathe.
"Very!" said the doctor, putting his hand to the tender scar on his
forehead.
He pushed back his hat and turned to the Governor.
"Very funny!" said he.
"Of course, Jerry, he was winded some when you put in your bill there
ahead of him and Peterson that morning and filed on the claim he had it
all framed up to locate the Swede feller on. Jerry telephoned over to
Comanche and found out from Shanklin how you got the numbers, and then
he laid out to start a fire under you and git you off. Well, he done it,
didn't he?"
Ten-Gallon leered up at Slavens with some of his old malevolence and
official hauteur in his puffy face.
"Go on with your story, and be careful what charges you lay against my
son!" commanded the Governor sharply.
Ten-Gallon was not particularly squelched or abashed by the rebuke. He
winked at Agnes as if to express a feeling of secret fellowship which he
held for her on account of things which both of them might reveal if
they saw fit.
"Shanklin, he closed up his game in Comanche three or four days ago and
went over to Meander," Ten-Gallon resumed. "He never had split with me
on that money he got for the numbers of this claim out of Jerry and that
other crowd. So I follered him. Yesterday morning, you know, the land
left over from locatin' them that had drawed claims was throwed open to
anybody that wanted to file on it.
"Well, the first man in the line was that old houn' that's layin' over
there with his toes turnin' cold. He filed on something, and when I
collared him about the money, he throwed me down. He said he sold the
numbers of land that didn't have no more copper on it than the palm of
his hand, and he said he'd just filed on the land that had the mines. He
showed me the papers; then he hopped his horse and come on down here."
"Incredible!" exclaimed the Governor.
"It was like him," Slavens corroborated. "He was a fox."
"I was goin' to take a shot at him," bragged Ten-Gallon, "but he was too
fur ahead of me. He had a faster horse than mine; and when I got here
last night he was already located on that claim. The copper mine's over
there where the old feller's tent stands, I tell you. They ain't enough
of it on this place to make a yard of wire."
"And you carried the story of Shanklin's deception and fraud to my son,"
nodded the Governor, fixing a severe eye on Ten-Gallon, "and he sought
the gambler for an explanation?"
"Well, he was goin' to haul the old crook over the fire," admitted
Ten-Gallon, somewhat uneasy under the old man's eye.
The Governor walked away from them again in his abstracted, self-centered
way, and stood looking off across the troubled landscape. Dr. Slavens
stepped to the tent to see how the patient rested, and Ten-Gallon gave
Agnes another wink.
"Comanche's dwindlin' down like a fire of shavin's," said he. "Nobody
couldn't git hurt there now, not even a crawlin' baby."
Indignation flushed her face at the man's familiarity. But she reasoned
that he was only doing the best he knew to be friendly.
"Are you still chief of police there?" she asked.
"I'm marshal now," he replied. "The police force has been done away with
by the mayor and council."
"Well then, I still have doubt about the safety of Comanche," she
observed, turning from him.
Governor Boyle approached Ten-Gallon and pointed to Hun Shanklin's
body.
"You must do something to get that carcass out of camp right away," he
said. "Isn't there a deputy coroner at Comanche?"
"The undertaker is," said Ten-Gallon, drawing back at the prospect of
having to lay hands on the body of the man whom he feared in death as he
had feared him in life.
"Send him over here," Governor Boyle directed.
Ten-Gallon departed on his mission, and the Governor took one of the
trodden blankets from in front of the tent and spread it over Shanklin's
body, shrouding it completely. Dr. Slavens had lowered the flap of the
tent to keep the sun from the wounded man's face. When he came out,
Agnes met him with an inquiring look.
"He's conscious," said the doctor. "The blow of that heavy bullet
knocked the wind out of him for a while."
"Will he--lapse again?" asked the Governor, balancing between hope and
fear.
"It isn't likely. You may go in and speak to him now if you want to. But
he must keep still. A little exertion might start a hemorrhage."
Jerry Boyle lay upon his back, his bloodless face toward them, as they
gathered noiselessly in the door of the tent. His eyes were standing
open, great and questioning, out of his pallor, nothing but the animal
quality of bewilderment and fear in their wide stare.
Governor Boyle went in and dropped to his knees beside the cot. Dr.
Slavens followed hastily, and placed his hand on the wounded man's
breast.
"You may listen," said he; "but keep still."
"Don't even try to whisper," admonished the Governor, taking his son's
hand between his own.
"That's all right, Governor," replied the young man, his face quickening
with that overrunning little crinkling, like wind over water, which was
his peculiar gift for making his way into the hearts of women and men,
unworthy as he was.
"Be still!" commanded the old man. "I know what happened. There's
nothing to say now."
"Did I get him?" whispered Jerry, turning his head a little and looking
eagerly into his father's face.
The Governor placed his hand over his son's mouth, silencing the young
man with a little hissing sound, like a mother quieting her babe.
Agnes turned away, the disgust which she felt for this savage spirit of
the man undisguised in her face. Dr Slavens cautioned the Governor
again.
"If he says another word, you'll have to leave him," said he. "This is
one case where talk will turn out anything but cheap."
He joined Agnes, and together they walked away from the scene of
violence and death.
"You're tired to death," said he. "I'm going to take possession of
Boyle's tent down there for you, and you've got to take a long sleep.
After that we'll think about the future."
She walked on beside him, silent and submissive, interposing no
objection to his plan. They found the tent very well equipped; he
started to leave her there to her repose. She stood in the door with her
hat in her hand, her hair in disorder, dust over her dress and shoes.
"Could you send word to Smith by the stage this morning and ask him to
bring my things--tent and everything--down here?" she asked.
"Then you're not planning to go back there?" he asked, his heart jumping
with hope.
She shook her head, smiling wanly.
"I can't bear the thought of it," said she.