"His leg is broken--it's the most merciful thing I can do. And if I
try to lift him off you while he's alive he may struggle--"
"Sure thing! Go on and shoot him! I woulda done it myself if you
hadn't come along purty soon. I knowed it would be all off with us
both if we had to lay out all night, so I was going to finish us both
off, when I seen you. Thought I'd take a gambling chance till
dark--but the sun has been baking me to a crisp--"
"It's all right--I'll get you to a ranch. We'll fix you up, so don't
think about the finish." A little of the color had left Lance's face.
Shooting a horse was to him next thing to shooting a human. He had to
do it, though. There was no other way.
He took the horse by the cheek-piece of the bridle, spoke to him
gently, turned the head a little away from him so that the horse could
not look him in the eyes. "Poor old fellow, it's all I can do for
you," he muttered when he pulled his gun from the holster.
"Maybe you better do the same for me," said the man, still speaking in
the rapid tone which told of fever. "You ain't able to heave him off
me, are you?"
"Sure, I'm able to. Lie still, now, and grit your teeth, old man. It
may hurt, when I lift him off your leg. I'll raise him up and put a
rock under, and pull you out. Can you stand that?"
"Me? Hell, yes. Ain't I been standing pain since before daylight? Me,
I can stand anything if I have to!"
Yet he fainted when Lance took him by the shoulders and pulled him
free, and Lance used half the water in the canteen on the saddle in
bringing him back to consciousness. When the fellow opened his eyes,
Lance remembered that he had half a pint of whisky in his coat pocket,
and offered it to the injured one.
"Golly, that's a life-saver!" he ejaculated when he had taken two
swallows. He reached down and felt his crushed leg, grimacing at the
pain of returning circulation.
"She's busted all right. Busted _right_, if I'm any judge. And my
side--things are all busted up in there. I know it. Say, oldtimer, how
do you figure you're going to get me outa here? Do you know it's all
of ten miles to the nearest ranch? I've got a map of the whole country
in my coat pocket. I'll show yuh if you don't know. You're a stranger,
I guess. I don't recollect seeing yore horse before. I always know
horses. What's his brand?"
Lance did not say. He himself was wondering how he was going to get
the man out of there. If the fellow thought he was a stranger, all
the better. Still, it did not matter much. Already the whisky was
whipping the man's brain to quicker action, loosening his tongue that
had already been set wagging by fever.
"Think you can stand it to ride?" he asked solicitously. "I can heave
you into the saddle, if you can stand being moved. I'd ride to the
next ranch and bring a wagon--but the country's too rough. A rig
couldn't get within five miles of here."
"You're right. Not even Belle Lorrigan's buckboard could make it
across that canyon on beyond. Say, speaking of the Lorrigans--" he
hesitated, then plunged recklessly on. "I'm going to pass you some
dope I've got on that outfit. The chances are I'm done for. The way my
insides feel--and you do something for me, will you? If I cash in, you
turn in this dope. We may as well 'tend to this business right now,
before I tackle the job of riding."
Lance stood looking down at him while he fumbled in his pocket, pulled
out a small leather notebook and some papers.
"I'm a stock detective, see. My name's Burt Brownlee. I was just about
ready to turn in the dope and have the whole outfit pulled. Well, it's
all here. They been rustling right and left, see. But they're
cute--they're _damn_ cute. We been trying to work up the case on the
outside, and it seemed like somebody in the Black Rim was sending
stock out, and so I've been working on this end. Now here's the data.
I followed 'em, and I've got the dope. I know now how they work it,
and my evidence and this dope here, that can be verified later on when
the time comes, will put the whole bunch over the road, see. They're
outlaws--always have been--but they won't be by the time they get outa
the pen."
"You better keep that," Lance cut in gruffly. "Man, that's nothing you
want to be gabbling to a stranger. Shut up, and let me put you on my
horse."
"No, I want to tell yuh," Burt insisted with all the obstinacy of a
man half crazy with pain and whisky. "I want to tell yuh, and I'm
going to tell yuh! Get down here and listen. Here's a map, and here's
the brands they worked, and here's how they worked 'em. And here's the
dates."
On one knee Lance kneeled and listened, his jaws set hard together.
Fast as the man talked the thoughts of Lance flew ahead, snatched at
the significance of every detail, every bit of evidence. Some things
puzzled Burt Brownlee, but Lance knew the answer to the puzzle while
Burt talked and talked. Finally he laid his hand over the finely
traced maps that showed secret trails, unguessed, hidden little draws
where stolen stock had been concealed, all the fine threads that would
weave the net close around the Lorrigans.
"Here, put that stuff up. This is not getting you to a doctor, and
this can wait. Put it up."
"No, you take it. And if I don't pull through, you turn it in. You
keep it. I don't want to be found dead with that dope on _me_--you
can't tell who might get hold of it." He thrust the papers and the
book eagerly into Lance's unwilling hand.
"No-o, you can't tell who might get hold of it," Lance admitted,
biting his lip. "Well, let me take your riding outfit off this horse
and then we'll go."
While he pulled saddle and bridle off the dead horse, Burt Brownlee
talked and talked and talked. He wanted more whisky, which Lance
promised him he should have when he was ready to get on the horse. He
told further evidence against the Devil's Tooth, told how he had
followed Tom for two days only to see him later at the ranch where he
had returned while Burt had for a time lost the trail. On that trip,
he said, he would have gotten the full details of one "job" had he not
turned off to follow Tom Lorrigan.
While he worked Lance listened stoically. When he was ready to start
he led Sorry close, lifted the fellow as tenderly as he could, saw him
faint again with the pain, and somehow got him on the horse while he
was still unconscious. Burt Brownlee was a big man, but he was not of
great weight. Lance bound him to the saddle with his own riata,
revived him with a little more whisky, and started for Conley's, who
lived nearest.
It was ten miles to Conleys, as riders guessed the distance. Lance
walked and led Sorry, and tried to hold Burt Brownlee in the saddle,
and listened to his rambling talk, and gave him more whisky when he
seemed ready to die. During certain intervals when Burt seemed lucid
enough to realize his desperate condition, Lance heartened him with
assurance that they were almost there.
On the way into the canyon Burt Brownlee suffered greatly on the steep
trail, down which the horse must go with forward joltings that racked
terribly the man's crushed side. The whisky was gone; he had finished
the scanty supply at the canyon's crest, because he begged for it so
hard that Lance could not steel himself to refuse. At the bottom Lance
stopped Sorry, and put an arm around Burt. Lance's face was set
masklike in its forced calm, but his voice was very tender, with the
deep, vibrant note Mary Hope loved so ardently.
"Lean against me, old man, and rest a minute. It's pretty tough going,
but you're game. You're dead game. You'll make it. Wait. I'll stand on
this rock--now lean hard, and rest. Ho, there's no whisky--water will
have to do you, now. I've a little in my canteen, and when you've
rested--"
"I'm going," said Burt, lurching against Lance's steady strength.
"You're a white man. That Lorrigan dope--don't forget what I told
you--turn it in--"
Lance's mouth twisted with sudden bitterness. "I won't--forget," he
said. "I'll turn it--in."
"I'm--a goner. Just--stand and let me--lean--"
Lance stood, and let him lean, and with his handkerchief he very
gently dried Burt's cold, perspiring face. It seemed an endless time
that he stood there. Now and then Burt clutched him with fingers that
gripped his shoulders painfully, but Lance never moved. Once, when
Sorry turned his head and looked back inquiringly, wondering why they
did not go on, Lance spoke to the horse and his voice was calm and
soothing. But when it was all over, Lance's underlip was bleeding at
the corner where he had bitten into it.
He walked into Conley's yard an hour after that, his face drearily
impassive, a dead man lashed to the saddle. He asked for paper and a
pen, and in a firm, even handwriting he described tersely the manner
of Burt Brownlee's death, told where the dead horse and the saddle
would be found, and as an afterthought, lest there be trouble in
locating the spot, he drew a sketch of that particular part of the
Lava Beds. He signed the statement, and had the excited Conleys,
shaking man and half hysterical wife, sign also as witnesses. His
matter-of-fact treatment of the affair impressed them to the point of
receiving his instructions as though they were commands which must on
no account be disobeyed in any particular.
"I'll be back and tell the coroner. He'll want to see the horse and
saddle, perhaps. Mr. Conley, you can find them without any trouble. If
he wants an inquest, tell him I'll be on hand. Thank you, Mrs.
Conley,--no, I'll not wait for anything to eat. I'm not hungry. I must
get home. Good-by--sorry I can't do any more for you."
He mounted Sorry, pricked him into a gallop, and presently disappeared
around a bend of the trail that led in the direction of the Devil's
Tooth ranch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
HOW ONE TRAIL ENDED
Darkness falls late on the Black Rim country in midsummer. It was just
deepening from dusk when Lance rode up to the corral gate, pulled the
saddle and bridle off Sorry with swift jerks that bespoke a haste born
of high nervous tension, and strode up to the house. From the bunk
house, when he passed, came the murmur of low-keyed voices. The
outfit, then, was at home once more. From the shaded window of Belle's
bedroom a thin silver of light shone, where the blind was curled back
at the edge, but the rest of the house was dark. He went in, moving
softly, but Belle must have heard his step on the porch, for she came
out with her bedroom lamp in her hand, the other raised to impress
quiet upon him.
"Lance, honey! Where on earth have you been?" She set the lamp down on
the table and came close, putting her arms around him, her eyes
searching the impenetrable calm of his face, the veiled purpose behind
his eyes. It was the Lorrigan fighting look; she had seen it once or
twice in Tom's face and it had frightened her. She was frightened
now, but her own intrepid soul pushed back her fear.
"_Sh-sh_, honey," she whispered, though Lance had neither moved nor
spoken since she touched him. "_Sh-sh_--Mary Hope and her mother are
here, and they're both asleep. I--honey, we were so worried, when you
didn't come back. That note you sent didn't say a _thing_, and I was
afraid--And I was between the devil and the deep sea, honey. I
couldn't stay away from here, when I didn't know--and I couldn't leave
Hope there, and the women that came flocking when they heard the news
were just _cows_ for brains. And the old lady won't have a nurse and
she _wouldn't_ let me out of her sight--she keeps me singing about all
the time she's awake, or reciting poetry--Bobbie Burns, mostly, and
Scott. Would you ever _think_ she'd stand for Bobbie Burns? But I can
do it as Scotch as she can, and she likes it.
"So she wouldn't let me leave, and I couldn't stay--and I had Hugh
make up a bed in the spring wagon, and brought her over here. If you
and Hope are going to be married right away, the old lady will need to
be here, anyway. The doctor tried to talk hospital--he just _tried_.
The old lady can write now with her left hand so we can make it out,
and when he said hospital to her she--she almost swore.
"So it's all right, Lance, honey--my God, Lance, _what is it_? Have
you heard from Duke?" She broke down suddenly, and clutched him in a
way that reminded him poignantly of that dying man in the canyon. Her
whisper became sibilant, terrified. "_What is it?_ What has happened?
Lance, _tell_ me! Tom is here, and Al; they were here when we came,
to-day--"
Lance took a deep breath. Very gently he leaned and kissed her on the
forehead, reached back and pulled her hands away from his shoulders.
"It's nothing, Belle. I'm--tired. And you--you surprised me. Will it
waken them if I--clean up a little before I go to bed? I'll--be
careful." He forced his eyes, his lips, to smile at her. "Good girl,
Belle. I'm--you're a trump. Now go back to bed. Lance is on the
job--Lance won't leave again like that--he'll--settle down."
He sat down on the nearest chair and pulled off his boots. He made an
imperative gesture toward her bedroom, and Belle, giving him a
strange, searching look, went in and closed the door after her. He
gave a sigh of relief when she was gone, never dreaming how little he
had imposed upon her.
In his stocking feet he went to the kitchen, found hot water in the
teakettle, carried it to his room and shaved, cleansing his body
as well as he could from the dust of the trip without making any
sound that might disturb the sleeping invalid and Mary Hope. He
dressed himself carefully as though he were going to meet guests.
The set look was still in his face when he stood before the dresser
mirror, knotting the blue tie that harmonized best with the shirt he
wore. He pulled the tan leather belt straight, so that the plain
silver buckle was in the middle, took something off the bed and pushed
it carefully inside the waistband of his trousers, on the left side,
taking great care that its position was right to the fraction of an
inch. He took his tan Oxford shoes in his hand, pulled open his door
as quietly as any burglar could have done, stepped down upon the
ground and put on the shoes, lacing them carefully, tucking in the bow
ends fastidiously.
Then, moving very softly, he went down the path to the bunk-house,
opened the door and walked in, never dreaming that Belle was no more
than a dozen steps behind him, or that, when he closed the door, she
was standing just outside, listening.
The blood of his actress mother carried him insouciantly over the
pregnant silence that received him. He leaned negligently against the
wall beside the closed door, his arms folded, his eyebrows tilted
upward at the inner ends, his lips smiling quizzically.
"I've another funny story to tell you fellows," he drawled, just
before the silence became awkward. "Glad you're all here--it's too
good to keep, too good to waste on part of the outfit. I want you all
to get the kick. You'll enjoy it--being cattlemen. It's a joke that
was pulled on an outfit down in Arizona."
Like a trained monologist, he had them listening, deceived by his
smiling ease, waiting to hear the joke on the Arizona outfit. Tom and
Al, at the table with some papers before them, papers that held
figures and scribbled names, he quite overlooked. But they, too,
listened to the story, were imposed upon by that quizzical smile, by
his mimicry, by the bold, swift strokes with which he painted word
pictures which their imaginations seized upon as fast as they were
made.
It was Tom who first felt a suspicion of Lance's purpose, and shifted
his position a little, so that his right hand would be free. As he did
so, without looking toward him Lance's left fingers began tapping,
tapping the muscles of his right arm; his right hand had sagged a
little. Tom's eyebrows pulled together. Quite well he knew that pose.
He waited, listened with closer attention to the story.
Lance paused, as your skillful _raconteur_ usually does pause before
the climax. His glance went impersonally over the faces of his
audience. Most of them were leaning forward, a few were breathing
hard. They were listening, straining unconsciously to get the meaning
he withheld from them. Lance's right hand sagged another half inch,
his lips pulled sidewise in the enigmatical smile of the Lorrigans.
"I lied, of course--about the outfit this joke is on. It's really the
Devil's Tooth I'm talking about. But the kick remains, so listen,
folks, just listen.
"I'm a Lorrigan. Two of you are Lorrigans, and you know what I mean
when I say that. The rest of you had better _guess_ what I mean, if
you don't know--and guess right!
"I'm talking to you with my back against the wall--in more ways than
one. Don't think I'm fool enough not to know it. But you're listening
with your backs against another wall; I believe it is of stone,
usually, and the windows have bars. I don't think you're such fools
you fail to grasp my meaning. I'm talking--and you're going to
listen.
"What I said--well, I have the dope, you know. I know where you took
that last bunch of stolen horses, and I know the date when you turned
them over. I have a map or two--I know those secret trails you made,
that lead into that hidden little basin that the Rim has not
discovered yet. I've dope enough to indict the whole outfit on five
separate counts--and any one of them will put every man of you in the
pen for a term of years--well, from five to ten up to fifteen or
twenty--a mere detail.
"I know why Duke didn't come back. There's a yellow streak in Duke,
and he lost his nerve and drifted to parts unknown. Where, I'm not
curious to discover. It doesn't matter, so long as his destination
_remains_ unknown.
"That's the story. And now, here's the point: Others, detectives
working at the other end of the business, have an inkling of some of
this dope. They haven't got what I've got, but they may possibly get
it. They may--possibly. And if they do--wel-ll--" He smiled at them,
his eyebrows pointing his meaning, his fingers tapping, tapping on his
arm.
"You've got to quit. Now, without turning the deal you're working on,
you've got to quit. Get that. Get it right into your souls. You men
that have been hired to steal, you've got to drift. Where, does not
concern me at all. Where Duke went is good--Parts Unknown. Or if it's
to hell--why, the going is good. Never better. You'll go quicker, but
there won't be any coming back, so I advise--Parts Unknown.
"You two Lorrigans--I'm not thinking of you now as my brother and my
father--the same advice applies to you. You're Lorrigans. You'd rather
fight it out than pull out, but you won't. You'd rather kill me than
go. That's all right; I understand perfectly. But--I'm Lorrigan, too.
You'll go, or I'll kill you. Tom Lorrigan, your hand is pret-ty close
to your gun! But so is mine. You'd kill me, because I stand in the
trail you've been traveling. But you wouldn't kill me a damn bit
quicker than I'd kill _you_! I do stand in the trail--and you're
going to take another, both you Lorrigans.
"You had a debt--a bill of damages against the Black Rim. Wel-ll," he
smiled, "you've collected. Now, to-night, you write 'paid' across that
bill. You tried to be honest, and the Black Rim wouldn't give you
credit for it; they tried to frame something on you, tried to send you
'over the road' on a damned, measly charge you weren't small enough to
be guilty of. I understand. The trail ends right here. You quit. You
sit there ready to kill. But I'm just as ready as you are. You'll
quit, or _I'll kill you_!"
He waited, watching Tom. Tom, watching Lance, got up and faced him
cold-eyed, unafraid, weighing not chances, but values rather.
"You'd kill me, would you!" he asked, his voice matching the drawl of
Lance.
"Sure, I'd kill you!" Lance smiled back.
Eyes on a level, the two stared at each other, smiling that deadly,
Lorrigan smile, the smile of old Tom Lorrigan the killer.
"You would, all right," Tom said. Then his stiffened muscles relaxed.
A twinkle came into his eyes. "If you're game enough to do that, kid,
by God, I'm game enough to quit!"
Lance unfolded his arms, reached out with his open right hand and met
Tom's hand in a close grip. "That's the stuff, dad! I knew you had it
in you--I knew it!"
Outside the door, Belle hugged her six-shooter to her breast and
leaned against the wall, her knees shaking under her. "Thank God! Oh,
thank God a Lorrigan can be bigger than all the Lorrigan blood that's
in him!" she whispered. "Oh, Lance, honey--oh, thank God!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE MAKING OF NEW TRAILS
At the corral, that time-honored conference ground of all true range
men, the three Lorrigans leaned their backs against the rails and
talked things over in true range style: laconic phrases that stated
their meaning without frills or mental reservations, and silences that
carried their thoughts forward to the next utterance.
"Al can take the outfit and drift," said Tom, as though he were
discussing some detail of the round-up. "He knows where--and they can
scatter, I'll give 'em a horse apiece as a--a kinda bonus. I'll have
to stay, looks like. Fall round-up's coming on."
"Wel-ll," said Lance, throwing an arm over a rail and drumming with
his fingers, "I was raised on round-ups. I don't suppose I've
forgotten all about it. You might turn the management over to me for a
year or so, and take a trip. Belle needs it, dad. I think I could keep
things riding along, all right."
"Sounds kinda like you had that idea for a joker up your sleeve," Al
observed meaningly. "Are you plumb sure of that dope, Lance?"
Lance removed his arm from the corral rail, and reached into his
pocket. "I didn't think you had it in you, Al, to be that big a fool.
But since you've said it, here's the dope. Take it, dad. I said I'd
turn it in, but I didn't say who'd receive it. The stock detective
that's been camping on your trail for the last few weeks was killed on
the Lava Beds to-day. I found him. He's at Conley's, now, waiting for
the coroner. You might ride over, Al, and see for yourself. And on the
way, you might ride up the Slide trail and take a look around the
Tooth. You'll see signs where he's watched the ranch from up there.
And you can go on down and find where he camped several times at
Cottonwood Spring.
"The coroner won't get on the job before to-morrow or next day, and it
will take a little time, I suppose, for Brownlee's employers to wake
up and wonder what became of the evidence he was sent to collect.
You'll have, perhaps, a week in which to make your getaway. They're
waiting outside the Rim for the evidence this Burt Brownlee was
collecting, so that they could make one big clean-up.
"I'm not setting myself up as a judge, or anything like that--but--well,
the going's good, right now. It may not be so good if you wait."
He lighted a match and held it up so that Tom could glance at the
maps and skim the contents of the memorandum book. By the blaze of the
match Lance's face still looked rather hard, determined to see the
thing through.
"You'd better burn that stuff, dad. And in the morning--how would
it be if we went to town and got the legal end of my new job
straightened out! I'll want a Power of Attorney. You may be gone
for some time. I suppose you know," he added, "that Mary Hope and
I are going to be married. So you and Belle can take a trip
somewhere. They say it's worth while going down to the big cattle
country in the Argentine--South America, you know."
Tom did not reply. He had lighted a second match and was studying
attentively the data in Burt Brownlee's book. The third match told him
enough to convince him. He gave a snort when darkness enveloped them
again.
"I sharpened my pencil pretty darn fine when I made out my bill
against the Black Rim a few years ago--and by the humpin' hyenas,
these figures here kinda go to show I overcharged 'em. Some. Not so
damn much, either, if you look at my side. Better get up the horses,
Al, and you'n the boys take the trail. The kid's right. The goin's
dern good, right now. Better'n what it will be."
In the scuffed sand before the corral gate Tom made a small fire, with
a few crumpled papers and one small book, which he tore apart and
fed, leaf by leaf, to the flames. The light showed him grimly smiling,
when he tilted his head and looked up at Lance who watched him.
"So you'n the Douglas kid is figuring on getting hitched! Well, don't
ever try to eye her down like you done to yore dad. She'll brain yuh,
likely--if you wait long enough for her to make up her mind."