THE THIEF RIVER STAGE LINE
Sleepy Cat has little to distinguish it in its casual appearance from
the ordinary mountain railroad town of the western Rockies. The long,
handsome railroad station, the eating-house, and the various
division-headquarters buildings characteristic of such towns are in
Sleepy Cat built of local granite. The yard facilities, shops, and
roundhouses are the last word in modern railroad construction, and the
division has not infrequently held the medal for safety records.
But more than these things go toward making up the real Sleepy Cat. It
is a community with earlier-than-railroad traditions. Sleepy Cat has
been more or less of a settlement almost since the day of Jim Bridger,
and its isolated position in the midst of a country of vast deserts,
far mountain ranges, and widely separated watercourses has made it
from the earliest Western days a rendezvous for hunters, trappers,
emigrants, prospectors, and adventurers--and these have all, in some
measure, left their impress on the town.
Sleepy Cat lies prettily on a high plateau north and east of the
railroad, which makes a detour here to the north to round the
Superstition Range; it is a county-seat, and this, where counties are
as large as ordinary Eastern States, gives it some political
distinction.
The principal street lies just north of the railroad, and parallels
it. A modern and substantial hotel has for some years filled the
corner above the station. The hotel was built by Harry Tenison soon
after the opening of the Thief River gold-fields. Along Main Street to
the west are strung the usual mountain-town stores and saloons, but to
the north a pretty residence district has been built up about the
court-house square. And a good water-supply, pumped from Rat River, a
brawling mountain stream that flows just south of the town, has
encouraged the care of lawns and trees.
Before de Spain had walked far he heard music from the open-air
dancing-pavilion in Grant Street. Stirred by an idle curiosity, he
turned the corner and stopped to watch the crowded couples whirling up
and down the raised platform under paper lanterns and red streamers to
the music of an automatic piano. He took his place in a fringe of
onlookers that filled the sidewalk. But he was thinking as he stood,
not of the boisterous dancing or the clumsy dancers, but of the
broken lever and the defeat at the fair-grounds. It still rankled in
his mind. While he stood thinking the music ceased.
A man, who appeared to be in authority, walked to the centre of the
dancing-floor and made an announcement that de Spain failed to catch.
The manager apparently repeated it to those of his patrons that
crowded around him, and more than once to individual inquirers who had
not caught the purport of what had been said. These late comers he
pushed back, and when the floor had been well cleared he nodded to the
boy operating the piano, and looked toward a young couple standing in
an attitude of waiting at the head of the hall.
All eyes being turned their way, de Spain's attention as well was
drawn toward them. The man was powerful in stature, and rather too
heavy, but straight as an Indian. His small, reddish face was tanned
by the sun and wind, and his manner as he stood with arms akimbo, his
hands resting on his belt, facing his partner and talking to her, had
the confidence of a man at ease with women. From the handsome hat
which, as he turned to his partner for the dance, he sent spinning
toward a table beside the piano, the soft brown shirt and flowing tie,
down to the small, high-heeled and spurred boots, he wore the
distinctive cowboy rig of the mountains, even to the heavy
hip-holster, in which his revolver was slung. He was, in fact, rather
too smartly dressed, too confident in manner to please de Spain, who
was in no mood to be pleased anyway, and who could conceive a dislike
for a man the instant he set eyes on him--and a liking as quickly. He
seemed to recall, too, that this particular fellow had crowed the
loudest when he himself forfeited the shooting-match earlier in the
day.
But de Spain, unamiable as he now was, looked with unconcealed
interest at the man's dancing partner. She, too, was browned by the
mountain sun and air--a slight, erect girl, her head well set, and a
delicate waist-line above a belted brown skirt, which just reached the
tops of her small, high, tan riding-boots. She wore a soft,
French-gray Stetson hat. Her dark-brown hair was deftly hidden under
it, but troublesome ringlets strayed about her ears as if she had not
seen a glass for hours, and these, standing first with one hand and
then the other laid against her leather belt, she put up into place,
and as if not wholly at ease with her surroundings. Instead of looking
at her partner, who talked to her while waiting, her eyes, noticeably
pretty, wandered about the platform, resting at moments on the closely
drawn lines of spectators. They reflected in their unrest the
dissatisfied expression of her face. A talkative woman standing just
in front of de Spain, told a companion that the man was Gale Morgan, a
nephew of Satterlee, laziest of the Morgans. De Spain, who never had
to look twice at any woman, at once recognized in the dancing partner
the little Music Mountain girl who had been his undoing at the target;
the woman added that Nan was, in some hazy degree, Gale's cousin.
The energetic piano thumped the strains of a two-step. Gale Morgan
extended his arm toward Nan; she looked very slight at his side. But
instead of taking her position, she drew back, looking up and frowning
as she seemed to speak objectingly to Gale. De Spain saw her
hesitation without catching its import. The talkative woman near at
hand was more divining. "Lord, that Nan Morgan makes me tired," she
exclaimed to her gum-chewing companion, "ever see anything like her?
First she wouldn't dance unless the floor was cleared--Sleepy Cat
folks ain't good enough for them Music Mountain cattle thieves! And
now the music doesn't suit her. Listen to that boob of a boy trying
one piece after another to get one to suit my outlaw lady. Nerve!"
But while the impatient woman chafed the right tune was found, and
Nan Morgan's face, as she watched the manipulator of the piano,
brightened. "Faster!" she cried under her breath, taking her position
on her cousin's arm. Then, responding with a sort of fiery impatience
to her partner's guiding, she caught the rapid step of the music, and
together the two swept down the floor.
Whatever the impatience of the crowd over the finicky start, the
spectators soon showed their admiration of the dancing with
unrestrained hand-clapping, and followed with approving outcries. De
Spain, standing apart, watched Nan's flying feet, wondering how she
and her people could possibly be what they were painted, and whether
they really were so or not. Every swaying step, every agile turn
proved how sure she was of herself, and how perfectly her body
answered to every exaction of the quick movement of the dance. Gale
Morgan seemed the merest attendant for his partner, who, with
quickened pulses, gave herself up more and more to the lively call of
the music.
Once the two swung away out, near to de Spain's corner. As Nan whirled
by, de Spain, either with the infection of the music or from her
nearness to him, caught his breath. His eyes riveted themselves on her
flushed face as she passed--oblivious of his presence--and he
recalled how in the morning she had handled her rifle in the same
quick, sure way. De Spain could not dance at all; but no one could
successfully accuse him of not knowing how to handle any sort of a
gun. It was only now, as she came so very close to him for the first
time since the mortification of the morning, and he saw the smoothness
of her pink-brown cheeks, that he could ungrudgingly give her full
credit for shooting him down. He forgave her, unasked, the humiliation
she had put on him. He felt an impulse to go up to her--now that she
had stopped dancing--and congratulate her honestly, instead of
boorishly as he had done at the match, and to say, unreservedly, that
she was the better shot--indeed, one of the best he had ever seen.
But while he thought all of this he did not stir a step. The two
dancers at once disappeared, and a new and rougher party crowded out
on the floor.
"Now, isn't that a pretty bunch!" exclaimed the critical woman again.
"That's the Calabasas gang. Look at those four men with the red
neckerchiefs. Sandusky, that big fellow, with the crooked jaw--Butch,
they call him--and his jaw's not half as crooked as Sandusky himself,
either. He couldn't lie in bed straight. And Harvey Logan, with his
black hair plastered over his eyes. Why, for one drink those two
fellows would turn loose on this crowd and kill half a dozen. And
there's two of Duke Morgan's cowboys with them, boozing old Bull Page,
and that squint-eyed Sassoon--he's worse than the others, that
fellow--a fine bunch to allow in this town."
De Spain had excellent ears. He had heard of these Calabasas men--of
Sandusky and of the little fellow, Logan. They had much more than a
local reputation as outlaws; they were known from one end of the
Superstition Range to the other as evil-doers of more than ordinary
ruthlessness. De Spain, from force of habit, studied every detail of
their make-up. Both showed more than traces of drink, and both
securing partners joined rudely in the dancing. It had become second
nature to de Spain to note even insignificant details concerning men,
and he took an interest in and remarked how very low Logan carried his
gun in front of his hip. Sandusky's holster was slung higher and
farther back on the side. Logan wore a tan shirt and khaki. Sandusky,
coatless, was dressed in a white shirt, with a red tie, and wore a
soiled, figured waistcoat fastened at the bottom by a cut-glass
button.
The Sleepy Cat gossip commented on how much money these men had been
spending all day. She wondered aloud, reckless apparently of
consequences, who had been robbed, lately, to provide it. Her
companion scolded her for stirring up talk that might make trouble;
averred she didn't believe half the stories she heard; asserted that
these men lived quietly at Calabasas, minding their own affairs. "And
they're kind to poor folks, too." "Sure," grimaced the obdurate one,
"with other people's money." De Spain had no difficulty in placing the
two women. One was undoubtedly the wife of a railroad man, who hated
the mountain outlaws, and the other was, with equal certainty, a town
sympathizer with slandered men, and the two represented the two
community elements in Sleepy Cat.
De Spain, discontented, turning again into Main Street, continued on
toward the Thief River stage barn. He knew an old Scotch Medicine Bend
barnman that worked there, a boyhood friend; but the man, McAlpin, was
out. After looking the horses over and inspecting the wagons with a
new but mild curiosity, awakened by Jeffries's proposal, de Spain
walked back toward the station. He had virtually decided not to take
the job that Jeffries painted as so attractive, and resolved now to
take the night train back to Medicine Bend. Medicine Bend was his
home. He knew every man, woman, and child in the town. Before the
tragic death of his father, his mother had lived there, and de Spain
had grown up in the town and gone to school there. He was a railroad
man, anyway--a modest trainmaster--and not eager for stage-line
management.
The prospect of reducing the Sinks to a law-and-order basis at his own
proper risk could not be alluring to the most aggressive of
law-and-order men--and de Spain was not aggressive. Yet within a
moment of his sensible decision he was to be hurried by a mere
accident to an exactly contrary fate.
As he passed Grant Street again he encountered a party on horseback
heading for the river bridge. Trotting their horses leisurely, they
turned the corner directly in front of de Spain. There were five in
the company. Three of the men were riding abreast and a little ahead.
Of these, the middle horseman was a spare man of forty years, with a
black military hat, and a frankly disreputable air. His face was drawn
up into a one-sided smile, marked by a deep, vertical wrinkle running
up, close to his nose, from the corner of his mouth almost to the
inner corner of his eye. Satt Morgan's smile was habitual and lessened
his stern aspect. At his right rode his cousin, Duke Morgan, older,
shorter, and stouter. His square, heavy-jawed, smooth-shaven face was
lighted by hard, keen eyes, and finished by an uncompromising chin.
Duke was the real head of the clan, of which there were numerous
branches in the Superstition Mountains, all looking with friendliness
or enmity to the Morgans of Morgan's Gap.
The yellow-haired man riding on the left, with a red face and
red-lidded, squinting eyes, was in stature something between the two
Morgans, and about the age of the elder cousin. His shoulders
slouched, and he showed none of the blood of his companions. But this
man, David Sassoon, the Calabasas gambler, quondam cowboy, and chronic
brawler, stood in some way close to the different Morgans, and was
reputed to have got each of them, at different times, out of more than
one troublesome affair, either by sheer force of arms, or through his
resourceful cunning.
These men were followed by a younger man riding with a very young
woman. De Spain knew none of the front-rank men, but he knew well Nan
Morgan and her dancing partner.
They were talking together, and Nan seemed from her manner at odds
with her companion. He appeared to be trying to laugh the situation
off when he caught sight of de Spain pausing for them to pass. Gale's
face lighted as he set eyes on him, and he spoke quickly to Nan. De
Spain could not at first hear his words, but he needed no ears to
interpret his laugh and the expression on his face. Nan, persistently
importuned, looked around. She saw de Spain, much closer, it would
seem, than she had expected to see a man looking directly at her, and
her eyes rested on him only a moment. The substance of her cousin's
words she apparently had not caught, and he repeated them in a louder
voice: "There's your handsome Medicine Bend gunman!"
Nan, glancing again toward de Spain, seemed aware that he heard. She
looked away. De Spain tightened up with a rage. The blood rushed to
his face, the sarcasm struck in. If the birthmark could have deepened
with humiliation it would have done so at the instant of the cold
inspection of the girl's pretty eyes. But he cared less for Nan's
inspection, cold as it was, than for the jibe of her satisfied cousin.
Not content, Gale, calling ahead to the others, invited their
attention to the man on the street corner. De Spain felt minded to
hurl an insult at them in a body. It would have been four to
one--rather awkward odds even if they were mounted--and there was a
woman. But he only stood still, returning their inspection as
insolently as silence could. Each face was faithfully photographed and
filed in his memory, and his steady gaze followed them until they
rode down the hill and clattered jauntily out on the swaying
suspension bridge that still crosses the Rat River at Grant Street,
and connects the whole south country--the Spanish Sinks, the Thief
River gold-fields, the saw-toothed Superstition Range, Morgan's Gap,
and Music Mountain with Sleepy Cat and the railroad.
De Spain, walking down Grant Street, watched the party disappear among
the hills across the river. The encounter had stirred him. He already
hated the Morgans, at least all except the blue-eyed girl, and she, it
was not difficult to divine from her expression, was, at least,
disdainful of her morning rival.
Reaching the station platform while still busy with his thoughts, de
Spain encountered Jeffries and Lefever.
"When are you coming up to take my job, Henry?" demanded the
superintendent without any parley.
"I am not coming up," announced de Spain bluntly.
"Not coming up, eh? All right, we'll find somebody that will come up,"
retorted Jeffries. "John," he added, "wire Medicine Bend to send
Farrell Kennedy here in the morning to see me."
"What's the reason that fellow sticks so close to Medicine Bend?"
demanded Jeffries, when Lefever joined him later in his office.
"Don't ask me," frowned Lefever perplexed. "Don't ask me. Henry is odd
in some ways. You can't tell what's going on inside that fellow's head
by looking at the outside of it." Jeffries grunted coldly at this bit
of wisdom. "I'll tell you what I should think--if I had to think:
Henry de Spain has never found out rightly who was responsible for the
death of his father. He expects to do it, sometime; and he thinks
sometime he's going to find out right there in Medicine Bend."
While they were talking the train was pulling out for Medicine Bend
with de Spain on board.
It was a tedious ride, and de Spain was much too engaged with his
thoughts to sleep. The Morgans were in his head, and he could not be
rid of them. He recalled having been told that long ago some of these
same Morgans lived on the Peace River above his father's ranch. Every
story he had ever heard of their wild lives, for they were men sudden
in quarrel and reckless of sequel, came back to his mind. He wondered
what sort of a young girl this could be who lived among them--who
_could_ live among them--and be what she seemed at a glance to be--a
fawn among mountain-wolves.
It was late when he reached Medicine Bend, and raining--a dismal
kind of a night. Instead of going to his room, just across the
street from the station, he went up-stairs and sat down with the
train-despatchers. After an hour of indecision, marked by alternative
fits of making up and unmaking his mind, he went, instead of going to
bed, into the telegraph-room, where black-haired Dick Grady sat at a
key.
"How about the fight to-night at Sleepy Cat?" Grady asked at once.
"What fight?" demanded de Spain perfunctorily.
"The Calabasas gang got to going again up there to-night. They say one
of the Morgans was in it. Some town, that Sleepy Cat, eh, Henry?"
"What Morgan was in it?"
"Gale Morgan. A lot of stuff came in on it an hour ago. Was there
anything started when you left?"
"I didn't hear of anything," responded de Spain. But his indifference
to the subject was marked.
"What's the matter?" demanded the operator. "Aren't you well
to-night?"
"Perfectly."
"Sleepy?"
De Spain roused himself. "Dick, have you got a Sleepy Cat wire open?"
"What do you want?"
"Tell Jeffries I'll take that Thief River stage job."