THE LAW COMES
Douglas stopped, wheeled, stared at the woman. In her face now burned
dull anger.
“Ther’ now, ye went an’ done it,” she droned. “Wha’d ye go an’ leave
that cup ther’ for? Ye fool!”
“Are you----” He hesitated. “Is that true--what they’re saying?”
“Oh, yas, it’s true ’nough. I’m Lou Brackett,” she admitted sullenly.
“An’ jest ’cause I stop to say ‘howdy’ ye go an’ git me into this! I’m
in for it now. Cuss the luck!”
“You mean Snake will----”
“Ah, he wunt kill me--I’m too handy. He’ll only haff kill me. But
ther’”--a spark of spirit began to gleam under the black brows--“I can
git the jump onto him, knowin’ what’s a-comin’. I’ll keep the sadiron
by me, an’ when he comes I’ll----”
She paused abruptly, a new and shrewd look flitting over her face. All
at once she smiled wide and rolled her eyes at him.
“I know what we can do,” she gurgled. “Don’t ye want a good
housekeeper, mister? I hearn ye live all by yerself, an’ that ain’t no
way for no man to live. I can cook an’ sew an’ take good care o’ ye,
an’--wal, ye got me into this; now ye’d oughter look out for me.”
So taken aback was he that he stood wordless. She moved toward him. He
stepped away. A lucky thought came to him.
“I’m living with Dalton’s Death,” he solemnly stated. “You couldn’t
live there. The ha’nt walks every night, knocking on the walls and----”
“Don’t say no more!” she quavered. “I was forgittin’. Ye’re crazy,
livin’ into that house! I’d ruther stay to Snake’s.”
Inwardly congratulating himself, he sought a line of escape for
her--and found it. Up-stream the bank was thickly bushed for some
distance, and, though the voices of the children were not far off, they
sounded at a respectable distance. He pointed.
“Go up there,” he directed tersely. “Get well away and then hide in the
brush. I’ll go talk to the kids--tell them they’re cross-eyed. Oh, and
listen--if Snake acts mean ask him what he’s hanging around Nat Oaks’
so much for. If you jump on him quick enough maybe he’ll forget what he
hears about this.”
A vindictive glint crept into her eyes.
“So he’s a-pesterin’ ’round ther’, hey? I’ll fix him! I’ll----”
“Get going!”
With that he stepped out and strode up the bank. As he expected, the
children were grouped several yards away, eager to spy but afraid
to venture too near the lurking “detective.” At sight of him they
retreated, ready to flee at the slightest threatening movement. He made
none. He had a better plan.
“Well, what are you young folks jabbering about?” he chaffed them.
“Can’t a fellow take a smoke under a bridge without your getting all
excited about it?”
They dug their toes into the dust, warily watching him. He took a
lazy stride, and they gave back instantly--though they did not run.
Pausing, he ostentatiously puffed at the pipe still smouldering between
his teeth. The ensuing blue haze bore out his claim that he had been
smoking.
“What’s this I heard about Snake Sanders?” he pursued. “Snake isn’t
there.”
Behind he heard a slight splash. The woman was obeying his command.
“’Tain’t Snake!” yelped the boy who had seen them. “Snake’s woman! Lou
Brackett!”
A mocking chorus swelled out, started by those farthest back.
“Under the bridge with Loo-ou! Under the bridge with Loo-ou!”
Another boy, growing bolder, added a further taunt.
“Wait till Snake hears ’bout it! He’ll hop onto ye! Yah!”
“Yah! Under the bridge with Loo-ou!” piped the chorus.
The man’s teeth clenched on the pipe-stem, but he kept smiling.
“Hadn’t you better be sure you’re right before you start tattling
tales? What do you think Snake’ll do to you when he finds out you lied
to him? And what do you think _I’ll_ do?”
The sudden hush and scared glances around showed that the shot struck
home. None wanted to incur the wrath of Snake Sanders. But the girl
who had spied the hidden pair--a gangling creature with eyes too close
together--snapped back at him.
“’Tain’t no lie! We seen ye--me and Billy!”
“Saw me, yes. But there’s no woman under that bridge. Why do you yell
out that there is? First thing you know you’ll get yourself into
trouble.”
Another hush. The youngsters began scowling at the pair who had
screamed the news.
“She is so!” stubbornly disputed the girl. “I seen her!”
“Now be careful! Want to bet on it?” He drew a bright quarter-dollar
from a pocket and held it up. “Want to bet five cents against this
quarter that a woman’s there? Any woman at all. If you bet and lose,
though, I’ll make your teacher get the money from you or give you a
good hiding. Want to bet?”
The half-score pairs of eyes fastened wolfishly on the gleaming coin.
The boy and the girl wavered and remained silent. There might be some
trick, and the thought of a thrashing was unpleasant. As Douglas
intended, their failure to accept his dare increased the doubt in the
minds of the others.
“You don’t dare to bet,” he laughed sneeringly. “I thought not. Well,
now, just to show you you’re cross-eyed and didn’t see any woman at
all, I’ll let you look for yourselves. Come on, girls and boys. I won’t
touch you.”
Still they hung back. He drifted slowly toward the bridge, giving
Lou Brackett every possible second of time while seeming to urge the
children on. On the bridge itself he darted a side-glance up-stream.
Nobody was in sight.
“Come on!” he snapped. “I can’t stand here all day.”
A bolder spirit among the boys edged forward. In a minute all were
coming. Douglas leaned carelessly on the rail and grinned.
“Look under, everybody! I want you all to see that I’m telling it
straight. Use your own eyes.”
They tumbled down the bank, spied all around, and came up laughing
loudly at the pair of informers.
“She’s gone!” yelled the boy. “She was here but she run somewheres!”
“Where?” instantly countered Douglas. “You’ve all been watching this
bridge every minute. How could anybody come out without your seeing
him--or her? Now, you two had better go and get some glasses. Then
maybe you can tell the difference between a rock under the bridge and a
woman. If you really saw a woman, why didn’t you bet a nickel against
my quarter? Because you didn’t see any. Isn’t that right, youngsters?”
His confident argument, poor as it was, clinched the matter in the
simple minds of those who had not seen the woman there. They jeered at
the spies, who were sullenly silent just when they should have fought
back.
“All right, go on,” Douglas waved them away. “Only remember, if I hear
any more about this I’ll know who told it around, and--you may be
sorry.” This time he gave the sulky pair a hard look. “Now run along.
I want to finish my smoke without being yelled at.”
They went, still poking fun at their discredited companions. For awhile
Douglas leaned there, knowing he was watched, and that while he was the
focus of attention the woman could move farther away unobserved. Then
he knocked out his pipe and sauntered away, directing his steps up the
open road toward the schoolhouse.
“H’m! That was a sweet mess, wasn’t it?” he reflected. “Maybe that pair
of little scandal-mongers will keep their mouths shut, but I doubt it.
However, the rest of them didn’t see her, and she’s out of it with a
whole skin--if she has wit enough to get in the first word when Snake
shows up. Mister Ha’nt, up to the present you’ve been a pest, but now
you’re a friend in need; you got me out of an embarrassing corner quite
gracefully. Consider yourself thanked.”
Chuckling, he swung smoothly along between the walls of verdure
bordering the road, soon reaching a sharp turn where the road angled
off to the westward. There stood the little dun schoolhouse, now
temporarily deserted. Along both sides of the steep roadway beyond
stood small houses quite close together. At the nearest of these was a
workshop, and before it toiled an active little man surrounded by new
barrels.
Somewhat surprised by the sight of industry at this lazy noon-hour,
Douglas slowed his steps as he approached. The man was obviously a
cooper; and around one stand of staves he was deftly looping a withe
hoop and locking it tight by notches in the withe. As Douglas halted
he rapidly tapped the hoop down into position, gave the barrel a roll,
and stopped, foxily watching the stranger.
“Howdy, stranger,” he gurgled, shifting a lumpy quid in one cheek.
“Howdy. You look busy.”
“Allus busy to this time o’ year--folks needs barrels for the
apples--keeps me a-hustlin’, yessir. But lawsy, what’s the use o’
livin’ if ye don’t keep a-movin’, says I. Might’s well be a stump or a
rock, yessir. Some folks’d ruther set and spit tobacker to a rat-hole,
but not me. I’d ruther wear out than rust out--I can lay quiet a long
time when I’m dead. Ain’t that so?”
“Right as a trivet,” the blond man heartily approved, noting the keen
features and the sandy gray hair. “I’ll bet you’re a Scotch-Irishman.
Am I right?”
“Wal! Ye hit ’er right into the eye, stranger--David McCafferty--that’s
me. No slow Injun blood or Dutch into me, like some folks round
here--I’m awake, I am, yessir! Ye’re Hammerless Hampton, o’ course.
Hearn all ’bout ye, oh, yes.”
His shrewd look dwelt a minute on the gun. Then he shot a wary glance
around. His next remark came in a hoarse whisper.
“Uncle Eb told me ’bout ye. Fine old feller, Uncle Eb. Been to see him
yit?”
“No. Haven’t seen him since the line storm. I’ve been rambling around.
Why?”
“Wal, go an’ see him now, if ye ain’t got nothin’ else onto yer hands.
He’d oughter be to home pretty quick--he went out bee-huntin’ to-day
early. Soon’s ye see him tell him Davy says this: there’s two strangers
a-snoopin’ round--come in from the Gap this mornin’--I seen ’em slide
into the brush down yender by the schoolhouse, an’ they ain’t come
back. Jest tell him that. He’ll know what I mean.”
Douglas turned, looked at the road behind, let his eyes rove in the
direction the strangers must have taken, and found himself looking at
the wall of Dickie Barre--where Steve probably was hiding. He scowled
and unconsciously shifted his gun. A subdued chuckle brought his glance
back to David, who now was agrin.
“Guess ye think like I do, Hammerless,” he added with a swift wink.
“Anyways, if ye see Uncle Eb ’fore I do, tell him. I been hopin’ he
might come back along o’ here, but nobody knows where he’ll travel to
when he gits a-goin’.”
“Which is his house?”
“’Bout haff a mile ’long--on the left, beyend the second turn--yeller
house facin’ Dickabar--the onliest yeller house on the _left_ side o’
the road. G’by.”
He dived at his work again, with a back jerk of the head to urge his
messenger on. Douglas swung away with long strides.
At the other houses along his way faces looked out from windows as
he passed and heads jutted from doorways when he had gone by, but he
did not see them. His gaze ranged ahead, seeking a yellow house on
the left. His thoughts were a complex of puzzlement over McCafferty’s
cryptic last utterances and of worriment for Steve. He did not reflect
on the fact that Steve was an escaped convict: he thought of him only
as a hunted victim of the machinations of Snake Sanders and as the
wild young sweetheart of Marion, and he resented the coming of men who
might be human bloodhounds trailing the unlucky youth. And, though he
wondered why honest Uncle Eb should need a warning of the presence of
those newcomers, he dismissed the enigma with the guess that this was
only a part of the “underground telegraph” system of the Traps, whereby
its citizens, good or bad, learned news which might or might not
concern them vitally.
Though he did not realize it, he was responding to his environment. The
mysterious undercurrent of things unseen, half-guessed--of whispers
and winks and silences--of secret movements in the jungly brush and
the labyrinth of stones--was eddying around his straightforward nature
and deflecting him into the channel where, in time, he might become
an integral part of the walled-in stream of life revolving about the
bowl. Whether he should ride on the surface of that stream, whether he
should float below it like a submerged snag, whether he should suddenly
drop to the bottom and be forever lost, only time could tell. But the
current was working, and he was drifting with it unawares.
Less than a month ago, as Douglas Hampton, newspaperman, he had had a
friendly nod and a smile for every blue-coated patrolman he happened
to meet. In his own neighborhood he had known personally every “cop,”
and some of the plain-clothes “dicks” as well; and many a time in
the dead hours of night, when his own work was done and policemen had
little to do but patrol vacant beats, he had stood long in some shadowy
corner and yarned with a lonesome guardian of the law. “A fine bunch
of fellows,” had been his opinion of them then. Yet now, as Hammerless
Hampton, his mental reaction to the hint of the arrival of man-trackers
was instinctively hostile; hostile, though he himself still was almost
universally regarded as a detective. Yes, he was drifting.
But he was not to drift long. The time was close at hand when, in his
own mind at least, he must align himself with or against the forces
of the law. In fact, every stride he took was narrowing the distance
between him and that decision. When he turned into the little dooryard
of the only yellow house on the left, he was within ear-shot of the
growling voice of the Law. And when he tramped noisily up the steps and
looked through the open door at the top he looked squarely into the
eyes of the Law itself.
Beyond that door stood three men. One, his hat askew on his silvery
hair, was Uncle Eb. The other two, beefy, red-faced, regarding the
newcomer with cold eyes, were obviously outsiders. The civilian
clothing and blunt-toed shoes, the chilled-steel stare, the untanned
hands hovering on a level with the lowest buttons of their vests, the
significant bump bulging the coat of the nearer man--over the right
rear pocket--all told the same tale to Hampton’s quick survey.
There was no guesswork about it this time. The Law was in the Traps.