TOM MAKES A COLLECTION
The attackers drew back and gathered together for consultation. West's
anger had stirred their own smoldering resentment at the police, had
dominated them, and had brought them on a journey of vengeance. But
they had not come out with any intention of storming a defended
fortress. The enthusiasm of the small mob ebbed.
"I reckon we done bit off more'n we can chaw," Harvey Gosse murmured,
rubbing his bristly chin. "I ain't what you might call noways anxious
to have them fellows spill lead into me."
"Ten of us here. One man, an Injun, an' a breed girl over there. You
lookin' for better odds, Harv?" jeered the leader of the party.
"I never heard that a feller was any less dead because an Injun or a
girl shot him," the lank smuggler retorted.
"Be reasonable, Bully," urged Barney with his ingratiating whine. "We
come out to fix the red-coat. We figured he was alone except for Tom,
an' o' course Tom's with us. But this here's a different proposition.
Too many witnesses ag'in' us. I reckon you ain't tellin' us it's safe
to shoot up Angus McRae's daughter even if she is a métis."
"Forget her," the big whiskey-runner snarled. "She won't be a witness
against us."
"Why won't she?"
"Hell's hinges! Do I have to tell you all my plans? I'm sayin' she
won't. That goes." He flung out a gesture of scarcely restrained rage.
He was not one who could reason away opposition with any patience. It
was his temperament to override it.
Brad Stearns rubbed his bald head. He always did when he was working
out a mental problem. West's declaration could mean only one of two
things. Either the girl would not be alive to give witness or she
would be silent because she had thrown in her lot with the big trader.
The old-timer knew West's vanity and his weakness for women. From Tom
Morse he had heard of his offer to McRae for the girl. Now he had no
doubt what the man intended.
But what of her? What of the girl he had seen at her father's camp,
the heart's desire of the rugged old Scotchman? In the lightness
of her step, in the lift of her head, in speech and gesture and
expression of face, she was of the white race, an inheritor of its
civilization and of its traditions. Only her dusky color and a certain
wild shyness seemed born of the native blood in her. She was proud,
passionate, high-spirited. Would she tamely accept Bully West for her
master and go to his tent as his squaw? Brad didn't believe it. She
would fight--fight desperately, with barbaric savagery.
Her fight would avail her nothing. If driven to it, West would take
her with him into the fastnesses of the Lone Lands. They would
disappear from the sight of men for months. He would travel swiftly
with her to the great river. Every sweep of his canoe paddle would
carry them deeper into that virgin North where they could live on what
his rifle and rod won for the pot. A little salt, pemmican, and flour
would be all the supplies he needed to take with them.
Brad had no intention of being a cat's-paw for him. The older man had
come along to save Tom Morse from prison and for no other reason. He
did not intend to be swept into indiscriminate crime.
"Don't go with me, Bully," Stearns said. "Count me out. Right here's
where I head for Whoop-Up."
He turned his horse's head and rode into the darkness.
West looked after him, cursing. "We're better off without the
white-livered coyote," he said at last.
"Brad ain't so fur off at that. I'd like blame well to be moseyin' to
Whoop-Up my own self," Gosse said uneasily.
"You'll stay right here an' go through with this job, Harv," West
told him flatly. "All you boys'll do just that. If any of you's got
a different notion we'll settle that here an' now. How about it?" He
straddled up and down in front of his men, menacing them with knotted
fists and sulky eyes.
Nobody cared to argue the matter with him. He showed his broken teeth
in a sour grin.
"Tha's settled, then," he went on. "It's my say-so. My orders go--if
there's no objections."
His outthrust head, set low on the hunched shoulders, moved from right
to left threateningly as his gaze passed from one to another. If there
were any objections they were not mentioned aloud.
"Now we know where we're at," he continued. "It'll be thisaway. Most
of us will scatter out an' fire at the rocks from the front here; the
others'll sneak round an' come up from behind--get right into the
rocks before this bully-puss fellow knows it. If you get a chance,
plug him in the back, but don't hurt the Injun girl. Y' understand? I
want her alive an' not wounded. If she gets shot up, some one's liable
to get his head knocked off."
But it did not, after all, turn out quite the way West had planned it.
He left out of account one factor--a man among the rocks who had been
denied a weapon and any part in the fighting.
The feint from the front was animated enough. The attackers scattered
and from behind clumps of brush grass and bushes poured in a fire that
kept the defenders busy. Barney, with the half-breeds and the Indian
at heel, made a wide circle and crept up to the red sandstone
outcroppings. He did not relish the job any more than those behind
him did, but he was a creature of West and usually did as he was told
after a bit of grumbling. It was not safe for him to refuse.
To Tom Morse, used to Bully West and his ways, the frontal attack did
not seem quite genuine. It was desultory and ineffective. Why? What
trick did Bully have up his sleeve? Tom put himself in his place to
see what he would do.
And instantly he knew. The real attack would come from the rear. With
the firing of the first shot back there, Bully West would charge.
Taken on both sides the garrison would fall easy victims.
The constable and Onistah were busy answering the fire of the
smugglers. Sleeping Dawn was crouched down behind two rocks, the
barrel of her rifle gleaming through a slit of open space between
them. She was compromising between the orders given her and the
anxiety in her to fight back Bully West. As much as she could she kept
under cover, while at the same time firing into the darkness whenever
she thought she saw a movement.
Morse slipped rearward on a tour of investigation. The ground here
fell away rather sharply, so that one coming from behind would have to
climb over a boulder field rising to the big rocks. It took Tom only a
casual examination to see that a surprise would have to be launched by
way of a sort of rough natural stairway.
A flat shoulder of sandstone dominated the stairway from above. Upon
this Morse crouched, every sense alert to detect the presence of any
one stealing up the pass. He waited, eager and yet patient. What he
was going to attempt had its risk, but the danger whipped the blood in
his veins to a still excitement.
Occasionally, at intervals, the rifles cracked. Except for that no
other sound came to him. He could keep no count of time. It seemed to
him that hours slipped away. In reality it could have been only a few
minutes.
Below, from the foot of the winding stairway, there was a sound, such
a one as might come from the grinding of loose rubble beneath the sole
of a boot. Presently the man on the ledge heard it again, this time
more distinctly. Some one was crawling up the rocks.
Tom peered into the darkness intently. He could see nothing except the
flat rocks disappearing vaguely in the gloom. Nor could he hear again
the crunch of a footstep on disintegrated sandstone. His nerves grew
taut. Could he have made a mistake? Was there another way up from
behind?
Then, at the turn of the stairway, a few feet below him, a figure rose
in silhouette. It appeared with extraordinary caution, first a head,
then the barrel of a rifle, finally a crouched body followed by bowed
legs. On hands and knees it crept forward, hitching the weapon along
beside it. Exactly opposite Morse, under the very shadow of the
sloping ledge on which he lay, the figure rose and straightened.
The man stood there for a second, making up his mind to move on. He
was one of the half-breeds West had brought with him. Almost into his
ear came a stern whisper.
"Hands up! I've got you covered. Don't move. Don't say a word."
Two arms shot skyward. In the fingers of one hand a rifle was
clenched.
Morse leaned forward and caught hold of it. "I'll take this," he said.
The brown fingers relaxed. "Skirt round the edge of the rock there.
Lie face down in that hollow. Got a six-shooter."
He had. Morse took it from him.
"If you move or speak one word, I'll pump lead into you," the Montanan
cautioned.
The half-breed looked into his chill eyes and decided to take no
chances. He lay down on his face with hands stretched out exactly as
ordered.
His captor returned to the shoulder of rock above the trail. Presently
another head projected itself out of the darkness. A man crept up, and
like the first stopped to take stock of his surroundings.
Against the back of his neck something cold pressed.
"Stick up your hands, Barney," a voice ordered.
The little man let out a yelp. "Mother o' Moses, don't shoot."
"How many more of you?" asked Morse sharply.
"One more."
The man behind the rifle collected his weapons and put Barney
alongside his companion. Within five minutes he had added a third man
to the collection.
With a sardonic grin he drove them before him to Beresford.
"I'm a prisoner an' not in this show, you was careful to explain to
me, Mr. Constable, but I busted the rules an' regulations to collect a
few specimens of my own," he drawled by way of explanation.
Beresford's eyes gleamed. The debonair impudence of the procedure
appealed mightily to him. He did not know how this young fellow had
done it, but he must have acted with cool nerve and superb daring.
"Where were they? And how did you get 'em without a six-shooter?"
"They was driftin' up the pass to say 'How-d'you-do?' from the back
stairway. I borrowed a gun from one o' them. I asked 'em to come along
with me and they reckoned they would."
The booming of a rifle echoed in the rocks to the left. From out of
them Jessie McRae came flying, something akin to terror in her face.
"I've shot that West. He tried to run in on me and--and--I shot him."
Her voice broke into an hysterical sob.
"Thought I told you to keep out of this," the constable said. "I seem
to have a lot of valuable volunteer help. What with you and friend
Morse here--" He broke off, touched at her distress. "Never mind about
that, Miss McRae. He had it coming to him. I'll go out and size up the
damage to him, if his friends have had enough--and chances are they
have."
They had. Gosse advanced waving a red bandanna handkerchief as a flag
of truce.
"We got a plenty," he said frankly. "West's down, an' another of the
boys got winged. No use us goin' on with this darned foolishness.
We're ready to call it off if you'll turn Morse loose."
Beresford had walked out to meet him. He answered, curtly. "No."
The long, lank whiskey-runner rubbed his chin bristles awkwardly. "We
'lowed maybe--"
"I keep my prisoners, both Morse and Barney."
"Barney!" repeated Gosse, surprised.
"Yes, we've got him and two others. I don't want them. I'll turn 'em
over to you. But not Morse and Barney. They're going to the post with
me for whiskey-running."
Gosse went back to the camp-fire, where the Whoop-Up men had carried
their wounded leader. Except West, they were all glad to drop the
battle. The big smuggler, lying on the ground with a bullet in his
thigh, cursed them for a group of chicken-hearted quitters. His anger
could not shake their decision. They knew when they had had enough.
The armistice concluded, Beresford and Morse walked over to the
camp-fire to find out how badly West was hurt.
"Sorry I had to hit you, but you would have it, you know," the
constable told him grimly.
The man snapped his teeth at him like a wolf in a trap. "You didn't
hit me, you liar. It was that li'l' hell-cat of McRae. You tell her
for me I'll get her right for this, sure as my name's Bully West."
There was something horribly menacing in his rage. In the jumping
light of the flames the face was that of a demon, a countenance
twisted and tortured by the impotent lust to destroy.
Morse spoke, looking steadily at him in his quiet way. "I'm servin'
notice, West, that you're to let that girl alone."
There was a sound in the big whiskey-runner's throat like that of
an infuriated wild animal. He glared at Morse, a torrent of abuse
struggling for utterance. All that he could say was, "You damned
traitor."
The eyes of the younger man did not waver. "It goes. I'll see you're
shot like a wolf if you harm her."
The wounded smuggler's fury outleaped prudence. In a surge of
momentary insanity he saw red. The barrel of his revolver rose
swiftly. A bullet sang past Morse's ear. Before he could fire again,
Harvey Gosse had flung himself on the man and wrested the weapon from
his hand.
Hard-eyed and motionless, Morse looked down at the madman without
saying a word. It was Beresford who said ironically, "Talking about
those who keep faith."
"You hadn't oughta of done that, Bully," Gosse expostulated. "We'd
done agreed this feud was off for to-night."
"Get your horses and clear out of here," the constable ordered. "If
this man's able to fight he's able to travel. You can make camp
farther down the creek."
A few minutes later the clatter of horse-hoofs died away. Beresford
was alone with his prisoners and his guests.
Those who were still among the big rocks came forward to the
camp-fire. Jessie arrived before the others. She had crept to the camp
on the heels of Beresford and Morse, driven by her great anxiety to
find out how badly West was hurt.
From the shadows of a buffalo wallow she had seen and heard what had
taken place.
One glance of troubled curiosity she flashed at Morse. What sort of
man was this quiet, brown-faced American who smuggled whiskey in to
ruin the tribes, who could ruthlessly hold a girl to a bargain that
included horsewhipping for her, who for some reason of his own fought
beside the man taking him to imprisonment, and who had flung defiance
at the terrible Bully West on her behalf? She hated him. She always
would. But with her dislike of him ran another feeling now, born of
the knowledge of new angles in him.
He was hard as nails, but he would do to ride the river with.