"No man'll ever know," said the sheriff.
"Why not?"
"Because Sinclair'll be dead before he has a chance to look a jury in
the face."
There were more questions. The little crowd had got its breath again,
and the words came in volleys. The sheriff cut sharply through the
noise.
"Where's Bill Wood?"
"He's in town now."
"Charley, will you find Billy for me and ask him to slide over to my
office? Thanks! Where's Arizona and Red Chalmers?"
"They went back to the ranch."
"Be a terrible big favor if you'd go out and try to find 'em for me,
boys. Where's Joe Stockton?"
"Up to the Lewis place."
Old Shaw struck in: "You ain't makin' no mistake in picking the best
you can get. You'll need 'em for this Riley Sinclair. I've heard tell
about him. A pile!"
The very best that Woodville and its vicinity could offer, was indeed
what the sheriff was selecting. Another man would have looked for
numbers, but the sheriff knew well enough that numbers meant little
speed, and speed was one of the main essentials for the task that lay
before him. He knew each of the men he had named, and he had known them
for years, with the exception of Arizona. But the latter, coming up
from the southland, had swiftly proved his ability in many a brawl.
Bill Wood was a peerless trailer; Red Chalmers would, the sheriff felt,
be one day a worthy aspirant for the office which he now held, and Red
was the only man the sheriff felt who could succeed to that perilous
office. As for Joe Stockton, he was distinctly bad medicine, but in a
case like this, it might very well be that poison would be the antidote
for poison. Of all the men the sheriff knew, Joe was the neatest hand
with a gun. The trouble with Joe was that he appreciated his own
ability and was fond of exhibiting his prowess.
Having sent out for his assistants on the chase, the sheriff retired to
his office and set his affairs in order. There was not a great deal of
paper work connected with his position; in twenty minutes he had
cleared his desk, and, by the time he had finished this task, the first
of his posse had sauntered into the doorway and stood leaning idly
there, rolling a cigarette.
"Have a chair, Bill, will you?" said the sheriff. He tilted back in his
own and tossed his heels to the top of his desk. "Getting sort of warm
today, ain't it?"
Bill Wood had never seen the sheriff so cheerful. He sat down gingerly,
knowing well that some task of great danger lay before them.
14
All that Gaspar dreaded in Riley Sinclair had come true. The
schoolteacher drew his horse as far away as the trail allowed and rode
on in silence. Finally there was a stumble, and it seemed as if the
words were jarred out from his lips, hitherto closely compressed:
"_You_ killed Quade!"
A scowl was his answer.
But he persisted in the inquiry with a sort of trembling curiosity,
though he could see the angry emotions rise in Sinclair. The emotion of
a murderer, perhaps?
"How?"
"With a gun, fool. How d'you think?"
Even that did not halt John Gaspar.
"Was it a fair fight?"
"Maybe--maybe not. It won't bring him back to life!"
Riley laughed with savage satisfaction. Gaspar watched him as a bird
might watch a snake. He had heard tales of men who could find
satisfaction in a murder, but he had never believed that a human being
could actually gloat over his own savagery. He stared at Riley as if he
were looking at a wild beast that must be placated.
Thereafter the talk was short. Now and again Sinclair gave some curt
direction, but they put mile after mile behind them without a single
phrase interchanged. Gaspar began to slump in the saddle. It brought a
fierce rebuke from Sinclair.
"Straighten up. Put some of your weight in them stirrups. D'you think
any hoss can buck up when it's carrying a pile of lead? Come alive!"
"It's the heat. It takes my strength," protested Gaspar.
"Curse you and your strength! I wouldn't trade all of you for one ear
of the hoss you're riding. Do what I tell you!"
Without protest, without a flush of shame at this brutal abuse, John
Gaspar attempted to obey. Then, as they topped a rise and reached a
crest of a range of hills, Gaspar cried out in surprise. Sour Creek lay
in the hollow beneath them.
"But you're running straight into the face of danger!"
"Don't tell me what I'm doing. I know maybe, all by myself!"
He checked his horse and sat his saddle, eying Gaspar with such
disgust, such concentrated scorn and contempt, that the schoolteacher
winced.
"I've brought you in sight of the town so's you can go home."
"And be hanged?"
"You won't be hanged. I'll send a confession along with you. I've
busted the law once. They're after me. They might as well have some
more reasons for hitting my trail."
"But is it fair to you?" asked Gaspar, intertwining his nervous
fingers.
Sinclair heard the words and eyed the gesture with unutterable disgust.
At last he could speak.
"Fair?" he asked in scorn. "Since when have you been interested in
playing fair? Takes a man with some nerve to play fair. You've spoiled
my game, Gaspar. You've blocked me every way from the start, Cold Feet.
I killed Quade, and they's another in Sour Creek that needs killing.
That's something you can do. Go down and tell the sheriff when he
happens along and show him my confession. Go down and tell him that I
ain't running away--that I'm staying close, and that I'm going to nab
my second man right under his nose. That'll give him something to think
about."
He favored the schoolteacher with another black look and then swung out
of the saddle, throwing his reins. He sat down with his back to a
stunted tree. Gaspar dismounted likewise and hovered near, after the
fashion of a man who is greatly worried. He watched while Sinclair
deliberately took out an old stained envelope and the stub of a pencil
and started to write. His brows knitted in pain with the effort.
Suddenly Gaspar cried: "Don't do it, Mr. Sinclair!"
A slight lifting of Sinclair's heavy brows showed that he had heard,
but he did not raise his head.
"Don't do what?"
"Don't try to kill that second man. Don't do it!"
Gaspar was rewarded with a sneer.
"Why not?"
The schoolteacher was desperately eager. His glance roved from the set
face of the cowpuncher and through the scragged branches of the tree.
"You'll be damned for it--in your own mind. At heart you're a good man;
I swear you are. And now you throw yourself away. Won't you try to open
your mind and see this another way?"
"Not an inch. Kid, I gave my word for this to a dead man. I told you
about a friend of mine?"
"I'll never forget."
"I gave my word to him, though he never heard it. If I have to wait
fifty years I'll live long enough to kill the gent that's in Sour Creek
now. The other day I had him under my gun. Think of it! I let him go!"
"And you'll let him go again. Sinclair, murder isn't in your nature.
You're better than you think."
"Close up," growled the cowpuncher. "It ain't no Saturday night party
for me to write. Keep still till I finish."
He resumed his labor of writing, drawing out each letter carefully. He
had reached his signature when a low call from John Gaspar alarmed him.
He looked up to find the little man pointing and staring up the trail.
A horseman had just dropped over the crest and was winding leisurely
down toward the plain below.
"We can get behind that knoll, perhaps, before he sees us," suggested
Jig in a whisper. His suggestion met with no favor.
"You hear me talk, son," said Sinclair dryly. "That gent ain't carrying
no guns, which means that he ain't on our trail, we being figured
particularly desperate." He pointed this remark with a cold survey of
the "desperate" Jig.
"But the best way to make danger follow you, Jig, is to run away from
it. We stay put!"
He emphasized the remark by stretching luxuriously. Gaspar, however,
did not seem to hear the last words. Something about the strange
horseman had apparently riveted his interest. His last gesture was
arrested halfway, and his color changed perceptibly.
"You stay, then, Mr. Sinclair," he said hurriedly. "I'm going to slip
down the hill and--"
"You stay where you are!" cut in Sinclair.
"But I have a reason."
"Your reasons ain't no good. You stay put. You hear?"
It seemed that a torrent of explanation was about to pour from the lips
of Jig, but he restrained himself, white of face, and sank down in the
shade of the tree. There he stretched himself out hastily, with his
hands cupped behind his head and his hat tilted so far down over his
face that his entire head was hidden.
Sinclair followed these proceedings with a lackluster eye.
"When you _do_ move, Jig," he said, "you ain't so slow about it. That's
pretty good faking, take it all in all. But why don't you want this
strange gent to see your face?"
A slight shudder was the only reply; then Jig lay deadly still. In the
meantime, before Sinclair could pursue his questions, the horseman was
almost upon them. The cowpuncher regarded him with distinct approval.
He was a man of the country, and he showed it. As his pony slouched
down the slope, picking its way dexterously among the rocks, the rider
met each jolt on the way with an easy swing of his shoulders, riding
"straight up," just enough of his weight falling into his stirrups to
break the jar on the back of the mustang.
The stranger drew up on the trail and swung the head of his horse in
toward the tree, raising his hand in cavalier greeting. He was a
sunbrowned fellow, as tall as Sinclair and more heavily built; as for
his age, he seemed in that joyous prime of physical life, twenty-five.
Sinclair nodded amiably.
"Might that be Sour Creek yonder?" asked the brown man.
"It might be. I reckon it is. Get down and rest your hoss."
"Thanks. Maybe I will."
He dropped to the ground and eased and stiffened his knees to get out
the cramp of long riding. Off the horse he seemed even bigger and more
capable than before, and now that he had come sufficiently close, so
that the shadow from his sombrero's brim did not partially mask the
upper part of his face, it seemed to Sinclair that about the eyes he
was not nearly so prepossessing as around the clean-cut fighter's mouth
and chin. The eyes were just a trifle too small, a trifle too close
together. Yet on the whole he was a handsome fellow, as he pushed back
his hat and wiped his forehead dry with a gay silk handkerchief.
Sinclair noted, furthermore, that the other had a proper cowpuncher's
pride in his dress. His bench-made boots molded his long and slender
feet to a nicety and fitted like gloves around the high instep. The
polished spurs, with their spoon-handle curve, gleamed and flashed, as
he stepped with a faint jingling. The braid about his sombrero was a
thing of price. These details Sinclair noted. The rest did not matter.
"The kid's asleep?" asked the stranger, casting a careless glance at
the slim form of Jig.
"I reckon so."
"He done it almighty sudden. Thought I seen him up and walking around
when I come over the hill."
"You got good eyes," said Sinclair, but he was instantly put on the
defensive. He was heartily tired of Cold Feet Gaspar, his
peculiarities, his whims, his weaknesses. But Cold Feet was his riding
companion, and this was a stranger. He was thrown suddenly in the
position of a defender of the helpless. "That's the way with these
kids," he confided carelessly to the stranger. "They get out and ride
fast for a couple of hours. Full of ambition, they are. But just when a
growed man gets warmed up to his work; they're through. The kid's tired
out."
"Come far?" asked the stranger.
"Tolerable long ways."
Sinclair disliked questions, and for each interrogation his opinion of
the newcomer descended lower and lower. His own father had raised him
on a stern pattern. "What you mean by questions, Riley? What you can't
figure out with your own eyes and ears and good common hoss sense, most
likely the other gent don't want you to know." Thereafter he had
schooled himself in this particular point. He could suppress all
curiosity and go six months without knowing more than the nickname of a
boon companion.
"You come from Sour Creek, maybe?" went on the other.
"Sort of," replied Sinclair dryly.
His companion proceeded to dispense information on his own part so as
to break the ice.
"I'm Jude Cartwright."
He paused significantly, but Sinclair's face was a blank.
"Glad to know you, Mr. Cartwright. Mostly they call me Long Riley."
"How are you, Riley?"
They shook hands heartily. Cartwright took a place on the ground,
cross-legged and not far from Sinclair.
"I guess you don't know me?" he asked pointedly.
"I guess not."
"I'm of the Jesse Cartwright family."
Sinclair smiled blankly.
"Lucky Cartwright was my dad's name."
"That so?"
"I guess you ain't ever been up Montana way," said the stranger in
disgust which he hardly veiled.
"Not much," said Sinclair blandly.
"I wished that I was back up there. This is a hole of a country down
here."
"Hossflesh and time will take you back, I reckon."
"I reckon they will, when my job's done."
He turned a disparaging eye upon Sour Creek and its vicinity.
"Now, who would want to live in a town like that, can you tell me?"
It occurred very strongly to Riley Sinclair that Cartwright had not yet
fully ascertained whether or not his companion came from that very
town. And, although the day before, he had decided that Sour Creek was
most undesirable and all that pertained to it, this unasked
confirmation of his own opinion grated on his nerves.
"Well, they seems to be a few that gets along tolerable well in that
town, partner."
"They's ten fools for one wise man," declared Cartwright sententiously.
Sinclair veiled his eyes with a downward glance. He dared not let the
other see the cold gleam which he knew was coming into them. "I guess
them's true words."
"Tolerable true," admitted Cartwright. "But I've rode a long ways, and
this ain't much to find at the end of the trail."
"Maybe it'll pan out pretty well after all."
"If Sour Creek holds the person I'm after, I'll call it a good-paying
game."
"I hope you find your friend," remarked Riley, with his deceptive
softness of tone.
"Friend? Hell! And that's where this friend will wish me when I heave
in sight. You can lay to that, and long odds!"
Sinclair waited, but the other changed his tack at once.
"If you ain't from Sour Creek, I guess you can't tell me what I want to
know."
"Maybe not."
The brown man looked about him for diversion. Presently his eyes rested
on Cold Feet, who had not stirred during all this interval.
"Son?"
"Nope."
"Kid brother?"
"Nope."
Cartwright frowned. "Not much of nothing, I figure," he said with
marked insolence.
"Maybe not," replied Sinclair, and again he glanced down.
"He's slept long enough, I reckon," declared the brown man. "Let's have
a look at him. Hey, kid!"
Cold Feet quivered, but seemed lost in a profound sleep. Cartwright
reached for a small stone and juggled it in the palm of his hand.
"This'll surprise him," he chuckled.
"Better not," murmured Sinclair.
"Why not?"
"Might land on his face and hurt him."
"It won't hurt him bad. Besides, kids ought to learn not to sleep in
the daytime. Ain't a good idea any way you look at it. Puts fog in the
head."
He poised the stone.
"You might hit his eye, you see," said Sinclair.
"Leave that to me!"
But, as his arm twisted back for the throw, the hand of Sinclair
flashed out and lean fingers crushed the wrist of Cartwright. Yet
Sinclair's voice was still soft.
"Better not," he said.
They sat confronting each other for a moment. The stone dropped from
the numbed fingers of Cartwright, and Sinclair released his wrist.
Their characters were more easily read in the crisis. Cartwright's face
flushed, and a purple vein ran down his forehead between the eyes.
Sinclair turned pale. He seemed, indeed, almost afraid, and apparently
Cartwright took his cue from the pallor.
"I see," he said sneeringly. "You got your guns on. Is that it?"
Sinclair slipped off the cartridge belt.
"Do I look better to you now?"
"A pile better," said Cartwright.
They rose, still confronting each other. It was strange how swiftly
they had plunged into strife.
"I guess you'll be rolling along, Cartwright."
"Nope. I guess I like it tolerable well under this here tree."
"Except that I come here first, partner."
"And maybe you'll be the first to leave."
"I'd have to be persuaded a pile."
"How's this to start you along?"
He flicked the back of his hand across the lips of Sinclair, and then
sprang back as far as his long legs would carry him. So doing, the
first leap of Sinclair missed him, and when the cowpuncher turned he
was met with a stunning blow on the side of the head.
At once the blind anger faded from the eyes of Riley. By the weight of
that first blow he knew that he had encountered a worthy foeman, and by
the position of Cartwright he could tell that he had met a confident
one. The big fellow was perfectly poised, with his weight well back on
his right foot, his left foot feeling his way over the rough ground as
he advanced, always collected for a heavy blow, or for a leap in any
direction. He carried his guard high, with apparent contempt for an
attack on his body, after the manner of a practiced boxer.
As for Riley Sinclair, boxing was Greek to him. His battles had been
those of bullets and sharp steel, or sudden, brutal fracas, where the
rule was to strike with the first weapon that came to hand. This single
encounter, hand to hand, was more or less of a novelty to him, but
instead of abashing or cowing him, it merely brought to the surface all
his coldness of mind, all of his cunning.
He circled Cartwright, his long arms dangling low, his step soft and
quick as the stride of a great cat, and always there was thought in his
face. One gained an impression that if ever he closed with his enemy
the battle would end.
Apparently even Cartwright gained that impression. His own brute
confidence of skill and power was suddenly tinged with doubt. Instead
of waiting he led suddenly with his left, a blow that tilted the head
of Sinclair back, and then sprang in with a crushing right. It was poor
tactics, for half of a boxer's nice skill is lost in a plunging attack.
The second blow shot humming past Sinclair as the latter dodged; and,
before the brown man could recover his poise, the cowpuncher had dived
in under the guarding arms.
A shrill cry rose from Cold Feet, a cry so sharp and shrill that it
sent a chill down the back of Sinclair. For a moment he whirled with
the weight of his struggling, cursing enemy, and then his right hand
shot up over the shoulder of Cartwright and clutched his chin. With
that leverage one convulsive jerk threw Cartwright heavily back; he
rolled on his side, with Sinclair following like a wildcat.
But Cartwright as he fell had closed his fingers on a jagged little
stone. Sinclair saw the blow coming, swerved from it, and straightway
went mad. The brown man became a helpless bulk; the knee of Sinclair
was planted on his shoulders, the talon fingers of Sinclair were buried
in his throat.
Then--he saw it only dimly through his red anger and hardly felt it at
all--Jig's hands were tearing at his wrists. He looked up in dull
surprise into the face of John Gaspar.
"For heaven's sake," Jig was pleading, "stop!"
But what checked Sinclair was not the schoolteacher. Cartwright had
been fighting with the fury of one who sees death only inches away.
Suddenly he grew limp.
"You!" he cried. "You!"
To the astonishment of Sinclair the gaze of the beaten man rested
directly upon the face of Jig.
"Yes," Gaspar admitted faintly, "it is I!"
Sinclair released his grip and stood back, while Cartwright, stumbling
to his feet, stood wavering, breathing harshly and fingering his
injured throat.
"I knew I'd find you," he said, "but I never dreamed I'd find you like
this!"
"I know what you think," said Cold Feet, utterly colorless, "but you
think wrong, Jude. You think entirely wrong!"
"You lie like a devil!"
"On my honor."
"Honor? You ain't got none! Honor!"
He flung himself into his saddle. "Now that I've located you, the next
time I come it'll be with a gun."
He turned a convulsed face toward Sinclair.
"And that goes for you."
"Partner," said Riley Sinclair, "that's the best thing I've heard you
say. Until then, so long!"
The other wrenched his horse about and went down the trail at a
reckless gallop, plunging out of view around the first shoulder of a
hill.
15
Sinclair watched him out of sight. He turned to find that Jig had
slumped against the tree and stood with his arm thrown across his face.
It reminded him, with a curious pang of mingled pity and disgust, of
the way Gaspar had faced the masked men of Sour Creek's posse the day
before. There was the same unmanly abnegation of the courage to meet
danger and look it in the eye. Here, again, the schoolteacher was
wincing from the very memory of a crisis.
"Look here!" exclaimed Sinclair. His contempt rang in his voice. "They
ain't any danger now. Turn around here and buck up. Keep your chin high
and look a man in the face, will you?"
Slowly the arm descended. He found himself looking into a white and
tortured face. His respect for the schoolteacher rose somewhat. The
very fact that the little man could endure such pain in silence, no
matter what that pain might be, was something to his credit.
"Now come out with it, Gaspar. You double-crossed this Cartwright, eh?"
"Yes," whispered Jig.
"Will you tell me? Not that I make a business of prying into the
affairs of other gents, but I figure I might be able to help you
straighten things out with this Cartwright."
He made a wry face and then rubbed the side of his head where a lump
was slowly growing.
"Of all the gents that I ever seen," said Sinclair softly, "I ain't
never seen none that made me want to tangle with 'em so powerful bad.
And of all the poisoned fatheads, all the mean, sneakin'
advantage-takin' skunks that ever I run up again', this gent Cartwright
is the worst. If his hide was worth a million an inch, I would have it.
If he was to pay me a hundred thousand a day, I wouldn't be his pal for
a minute." He paused. "Them, taking 'em by and large, is my sentiments
about this here Cartwright. So open up and tell me what you done to
him."
To his very real surprise the schoolteacher shook his head. "I can't do
it."
"H'm," said Sinclair, cut to the quick. "Can't you trust me with it,
eh?"
"Ah," murmured Gaspar, "of all the men in the world, you're the one I'd
tell it to most easily. But I can't--I can't."
"I don't care whether you tell me or not. Whatever you done, it must
have been plumb bad if you can't even tell it to a gent that likes
Cartwright like he likes poison."
"It was bad," said Jig slowly. "It was very bad--it was a sin. Until I
die I can never repay him for what I have done."
Sinclair recovered some of his good nature at this outburst of
self-accusation.
"I'll be hanged if I believe it," he declared bluntly. "Not a word of
it! When you come right down to the point you'll find out that you
ain't been half so bad as you think. The way I figure you is this, Jig.
You ain't so bad, except that you ain't got no nerve. Was it a matter
of losing your nerve that made Cartwright mad at you?"
"Yes. It was altogether that."
Sinclair sighed. "Too bad! I don't blame you for not wanting to talk
about it. They's a flaw in everything, Jig, and this is yours. If I was
to be around you much, d'you know what I'd do?"
"What?"
"I'd try to plumb forget about this flaw of yours: That's a fact. But
as far as Cartwright goes, to blazes with him! And that's where he's
apt to wind up pronto if he's as good as his word and comes after me
with a gun. In the meantime you grab your hoss, kid, and slide back
into Sour Creek and show the boys this here confession I've written.
You can add one thing. I didn't put it in because I knowed they
wouldn't believe me. I killed Quade fair and square. I give him the
first move for his gun, and then I beat him to the draw and killed him
on an even break. That's the straight of it. I know they won't believe
it. Matter of fact I'm saying it for you, Jig, more'n I am for them!"
It was an amazing thing to see the sudden light that flooded the face
of the schoolteacher.
"And I do believe you, Sinclair," he said. "With all my heart I believe
you and know you couldn't have taken an unfair advantage!"
"H'm," muttered Riley. "It ain't bad to hear you say that. And now trot
along, son."
Cold Feet made no move to obey.
"Not that I wouldn't like to have you along, but where I got to go,
you'd be a weight around my neck. Besides, your game is to show the
folks down yonder that you ain't a murderer, and that paper I've give
you will prove it. We'll drift together along the trail part way, and
down yonder I turn up for the tall timber."
To all this Jig returned no answer, but in a peculiarly lifeless manner
went to his horse and climbed in his awkward way into the saddle. They
went down the trail slowly.
"Because," explained the cowpuncher, "if I save my hoss's wind I may be
saving my own life."
Where the trail bent like an elbow and shot sheer down for the plain
and Sour Creek, Riley Sinclair pointed his horse's nose up to the
taller mountains, but Jig sat his horse in melancholy silence and
looked mournfully up at his companion.
"So long," said Sinclair cheerily. "And when you get down yonder, it'll
happen most likely that pretty soon you'll hear a lot of hard things
about Riley Sinclair."
"If I do--if I hear a syllable against you," cried the schoolteacher
with a flare of color, "I'll--I'll drive the words back into their
teeth!"
He shook with his emotion; Riley Sinclair shook with controlled
laughter.
"Would you do all of that, partner? Well, I believe you'd try. What I
mean to say is this: No matter what they say, you can lay to it that
Sinclair has tried to play square and clean according to his own
lights, which ain't always the best in the world. So long!"
There was no answer. He found himself looking down into the quivering
face of the schoolteacher.
"Why, kid, you look all busted up!"
"Riley," gasped Jig very faintly, "I can't go!"
"And why not?"
"Because I can't meet Jude."
"Cartwright, eh? But you got to, sooner or later."
"I'll die first."
"Would your nerve hold you up through that?"
"So easily," said Jig. There was such a simple gravity and despair in
his expression that Sinclair believed it. He grunted and stared hard.
"This Cartwright gent is worse'n death to you?"
"A thousand, thousand times!"
"How come?"
"I can't tell you."
"I kind of wish," said Sinclair thoughtfully, "that I'd kept my grip a
mite longer."
"No, no!"
"You don't wish him dead?"
Jig shuddered.
"You plumb beat me, partner. And now you want to come along with me?"
Sinclair grinned. "An outlaw's life ain't what it's cracked up to be,
son. You'd last about a day doing what I have to do."
"You'll find," said the schoolteacher eagerly, "that I can stand it
amazingly well. I'll--I'll be far, far stronger than you expect!"
"Somehow I kind of believe it. But it's for your own fool sake, son,
that I don't want you along."
"Let me try," pleaded Jig eagerly.
The other shook his head and seemed to change his mind in the very
midst of the gesture.
"Why not?" he asked himself. "You'll get enough of it inside of a day.
And then you'll find out that they's some things about as bad as
death--or Cartwright. Come on, kid!"
16
It was a weary ride that brought them to the end of that day and to a
camping place. It seemed to Jig that the world was made up of nothing
but the ups and downs of that mountain trail. Now, as the sun went
down, they came out on a flat shoulder of the mountain. Far below them
lay Sour Creek, long lost in the shadow of premature night which filled
the valley.
"Here we are, fixed up as comfortable as can be," said Sinclair
cheerily. "There's water, and there's wood aplenty. What could a gent
ask for more? And here's my country!"
For a moment his expression softened as he looked over the black peaks
stepping away to the north. Now he pointed out a grove of trees, and on
the other side of the little plateau was heard the murmur of a feeble
spring.
Riley swung down easily from the saddle, but when Jig dismounted his
knees buckled with weariness, and he slipped down on a rock. He was
unheeded for a moment by the cowpuncher, who was removing from his
saddle the quarters of a deer which he had shot at the foot of the
mountain. When this task was ended, a stern voice brought Jig to his
feet.
"What's all this? How come? Going to let that hoss stand there all
night with his saddle on? Hurry up!"
"All right," replied the schoolteacher, but his voice quaked with
weariness, and the cinch knot, drawn taut by the powerful hand of Jerry
Bent, refused to loosen. He struggled with it until his fingers ached,
and his panicky breath came in gasps of nervous excitement.
Presently he was aware of the tall, dark form of Sinclair behind him,
his saddle slung across his arm.
"By guns," muttered Sinclair, "it ain't possible! Not enough muscle to
untie a knot? It's a good thing that your father can't see the sort of
a son that he turned out. Lemme at that!"
Under his strong fingers the knot gave by magic.
"Now yank that saddle off and put it yonder with mine."
Jig pulled back the saddle, but when the full weight jerked down on him
he staggered, and he began to drag the heavy load.
"Hey," cut in the voice of the tyrant, "want to spoil that saddle, kid?
Lift it, can't you?"
Gaspar obeyed with a start and, having placed it in the required
position, turned and waited guiltily.
"Time you was learning something about camping out," declared the
cowpuncher, "and I'll teach you. Take this ax and gimme some wood,
pronto!"
He handed over a short ax, heavy-headed and small of haft.
"That bush yonder! That's dead, or dead enough for us."
Plainly Jig was in awe of that ax. He carried it well out from his
side, as if he feared the least touch against his leg might mean a cut.
Of all this, Riley Sinclair was aware with a gradually darkening
expression. He had been partly won to Jig that day, but his better
opinion of the schoolteacher was being fast undermined.
With a gloomy eye he watched John Gaspar drop on his knees at the base
of the designated shrub and raise the ax slowly--in both hands! Not
only that, but the head remained poised, hung over the schoolteacher's
shoulder. When the blow fell, instead of striking solidly on the trunk
of the bush, it crashed futilely through a branch. Riley Sinclair drew
closer to watch. It was excusable, perhaps, for a man to be unable to
ride or to shoot or to face other men. But it was inconceivable that
any living creature should be so clumsy with a common ax.
To his consummate disgust the work of Jig became worse and worse. No
two blows fell on the same spot. The trunk of the little tree became
bruised, but even when the edge of the ax did not strike on a branch,
at most it merely sliced into the outer surface of the wood and left
the heart untouched. It was a process of gnawing, not of chopping. To
crown the terrible exhibition, Jig now rested from his labors and
examined the palms of his hands, which had become a bright red.
"Gimme the ax," said Sinclair shortly. He dared not trust himself to
more speech and, snatching it from the hands of Cold Feet, buried the
blade into the very heart of the trunk. Another blow, driven home with
equal power and precision on the opposite side, made the tree shudder
to its top, and the third blow sent it swishing to the earth.
This brought a short cry of admiration and wonder from the
schoolteacher, for which Sinclair rewarded him with one glance of
contempt. With sweeping strokes he cleared away the half-dead branches.
Presently the trunk was naked. On it Riley now concentrated his attack,
making the short ax whistle over his shoulders. The trunk of the shrub
was divided into handy portions as if by magic.
Still John Gaspar stood by, gaping, apparently finding nothing to do.
And this with a camp barely started!
It was easier to do oneself, however, than to give directions to such
stupidity. Sinclair swept up an armful of wood and strode off to the
spot he had selected for the campfire, near the place where the spring
water ran into a small pool. A couple of big rocks thrown in place
furnished a windbreak. Between them he heaped dead twigs, and in a
moment the flame was leaping.
As soon as the fire was lighted they became aware that the night was
well nigh upon them. Hitherto the day had seemed some distance from its
final end, for there was still color in the sky, and the tops of the
western mountains were still bright. But with the presence of fire
brightness, the rest of the world became dim. The western peaks were
ghostly; the sky faded to the ashes of its former splendor; and Jig
found himself looking down upon thick night in the lower valleys. He
saw the eyes of the horses glistening, as they raised their heads to
watch. The gaunt form of Sinclair seemed enormous. Stooping about the
fire, enormous shadows drifted above and behind him. Sometimes the
light flushed over his lean face and glinted in his eyes. Again his
head was lost in shadow, and perhaps only the active, reaching hands
were illuminated brightly.
He prepared the deer meat with incomprehensible swiftness, at the same
time arranging the fire so that it rapidly burned down to a firm,
strong, level bed of coals, and by the time the bed of coals were
ready, the meat was prepared in thick steaks to broil over it.
In a little time the rich brown of the cooking venison streaked across
to Jig. He had kept at a distance up to this time, realizing that he
was in disgrace. Now he drifted near. He was rewarded by an amiable
grin from Riley Sinclair, whose ugly humor seemed to have vanished at
the odor of the broiling meat.
"Watch this meat cook, kid, will you? There's something you can do that
don't take no muscle and don't take no knowledge. All you got to do is
to keep listening with your _nose_, and if you smell it burning, yank
her off. Understand? And don't let the fire blaze. She's apt to flare
up at the corners, you see? And these here twigs is apt to burn
through--these ones that keep the meat off'n the coals. Watch them,
too. And that's all you got to do. Can you manage all them things at
once?"
Jig nodded gravely, as though he failed to see the contempt.
"I seen a fine patch of grass down the hill a bit. I'm going to take
the hosses down there and hobble 'em out." Whistling, Sinclair strode
off down the hill, leading the horses after him.
The schoolteacher watched him go, and when the forms had vanished, and
only the echo of the whistling blew back, he looked up. The last life
was gone from the sunset. The last time he glanced up, there had been
only a few dim stars; now they had come down in multitudes, great
yellow planets and whole rifts of steel-blue stars.
He took from his pocket the old envelope which Sinclair had given him,
examined the scribbled confession, chuckling at the crude labor with
which the writing had been drawn out, and then deliberately stuffed the
paper into a corner of the fire. It flamed up, singeing the cooking
meat, but John Gaspar paid no heed. He was staring off down the hill to
make sure that Sinclair should not return in time to see that little
act of destruction. An act of self-destruction, too, it well might turn
out to be.
As for Sinclair, having found his pastureland, where the grass grew
thick and tall, he was in no hurry to return to his clumsy companion.
He listened for a time to the sound of the horses, ripping away the
grass close to the ground, and to the grating as they chewed. Then he
turned his attention to the mountains. His spirit was easier in this
place. He breathed more easily. There was a sense of freedom at once
and companionship. He lingered so long, indeed, that he suddenly became
aware that time had slipped away from him, and that the venison must be
long since done. At that he hurried back up the slope.
He was hungry, ravenously hungry, but the first thing that greeted him
was the scent of burning meat. It stopped him short, and his hands
gripped involuntarily. In that first burst of passion he wanted
literally to wring the neck of the schoolteacher. He strode closer. It
was as he thought. The twigs had burned away from beneath the steak and
allowed it to drop into the cinders, and beside the dying fire, barely
illuminated by it, sat Jig, sound asleep, with his head resting on his
knees.
For a moment Sinclair had to fight with himself for control. All his
murderous evil temper had flared up into his brain and set his teeth
gritting. At length he could trust himself enough to reach down and set
his heavy grip on the shoulder of the sleeper.
Even in sleep Jig must have been pursued by a burdened consciousness of
guilt. Now he jerked up his head and stammered up to the shadowy face
of Sinclair.
"I--I don't know--all at once it happened. You see the fire--"
But the telltale odor of the charring meat struck his nostrils, and his
speech died away. He was panting with fear of consequences. Now a new
turn came to the fear of Cold Feet. It seemed that Riley Sinclair's
hand had frozen at the touch of the soft flesh of Jig's shoulder. He
remained for a long moment without stirring. When his hand moved it was
to take Jig under the chin with marvelous firmness and gentleness at
once and lift the face of the schoolteacher. He seemed to find much to
read there, much to study and know. Whatever it was, it set Jig
trembling until suddenly he shrank away, cowering against the rock
behind.
"You don't think--"
But the voice of Sinclair broke in with a note in it that Jig had never
heard before.
"Guns and glory--a woman!"
It came over him with a rush, that revelation which explained so many
things--everything in fact; all that strange cowardice, and all that
stranger grace; that unmanly shrinking, that more than manly contempt
for death. Now the firelight was too feeble to show more than one
thing--the haunted eyes of the girl, as she cowered away from him.
He saw her hand drop from her breast to her holster and close around
the butt of her revolver.
Sinclair grew cold and sick. After all, what reason had she to trust
him? He drew back and began to walk up and down with long, slow
strides. The girl followed him and saw his gaunt figure brush across
the stars; she saw the wind furl and unfurl the wide brim of his hat,
and she heard the faint stir and clink of his spurs at every step.
There was a tumult in the brain of the cowpuncher. The stars and the
sky and the mountains and wind went out. They were nothing in the
electric presence of this new Jig. His mind flashed back to one
picture--Cold Feet with her hands tied behind her back, praying under
the cottonwood.
Shame turned the cowpuncher hot and then cold. He allowed his mind to
drift back over his thousand insults, his brutal language, his cursing,
his mockery, his open contempt. There was a tingle in his ears, and a
chill running up and down his spine.
After all that brutality, what mysterious sense had told her to trust
to him rather than to Sour Creek and its men?
Other mysteries flocked into his mind. Why had she come to the very
verge of death, with the rope around her neck rather than reveal her
identity, knowing, as she must know, that in the mountain desert men
feel some touch of holiness in every woman?
He remembered Cartwright, tall, handsome, and narrow of eye, and the
fear of the girl. Suddenly he wished with all his soul that he had
fought with guns that day, and not with fists.
17
At length the continued silence of the girl made him turn. Perhaps she
had slipped away. His heart was chilled at the thought; turning, he
sighed with relief to find her still there.
Without a word he went back and rekindled the fire, placed new venison
steaks over it, and broiled them with silent care. Not a sound from
Jig, not a sound from the cowpuncher, while the meat hissed, blackened,
and at length was done to a turn. He laid portions of it on broad,
white, clean chips which he had already prepared, and served her. Still
in silence she ate. Shame held Sinclair. He dared not look at her, and
he was glad when the fire lost some of its brightness.
Now and then he looked with wonder across the mountains. All his life
they had been faces to him, and the wind had been a voice. Now all this
was nothing but dead stuff. There was no purpose in the march of the
mountains except that they led to the place where Jig sat.
He twisted together a cup of bark and brought her water from the
spring. She thanked him with words that he did not hear, he was so
intent in watching her face, as the firelight played on it. Now that he
held the clue, everything was as plain as day. New light played on the
past.
Turning away, he put new fuel on the fire, and when he looked to her
again, she had unbelted the revolver and was putting it away, as if she
realized that this would not help her if she were in danger.
When at length she spoke it was the same voice, and yet how new! The
quality in it made Sinclair sit a little straighter.
"You have a right to know everything that I can tell you. Do you wish
to hear?"
For another moment he smoked in solemn silence. He found that he was
wishing for the story not so much because of its strangeness, but
because he wanted that voice to run on indefinitely. Yet he weighed the
question pro and con.
"Here's the point, Jig," he said at last. "I got a good deal to make up
to you. In the first place I pretty near let you get strung up for a
killing I done myself. Then I been treating you pretty hard, take it
all in all. You got a story, and I don't deny that I'd like to hear it;
but it don't seem a story that you're fond of telling, and I ain't got
no right to ask for it. All I ask to know is one thing: When you stood
there under that cotton wood tree, with a rope around your neck, did
you know that all you had to do was to tell us that you was a woman to
get off free?"
"Of course."
"And you'd sooner have hung than tell us?"
"Yes."
Sinclair sighed. "Maybe I've said this before, but I got to say it
ag'in: Jig, you plumb beat me!" He brushed his hand across his
forehead. "S'pose it'd been done! S'pose I had let 'em go ahead and
string you up! They'd have been a terrible bad time ahead for them
seven men. We'd all have been grabbed and lynched. A woman!"
He put the word off by itself. Then he was surprised to hear her
laughing softly. Now that he knew, it was all woman, that voice.
"It wasn't really courage, Riley. After you'd said half a dozen words I
knew you were square, and that you knew I was innocent. So I didn't
worry very much--except just after you'd sentenced me to hang!"
"Don't go back to that! I sure been a plumb fool. But why would you
have gone ahead and let that hanging happen?"
"Because I had rather die than be known, except to you."
"You leave me out."
"I'd trust you to the end of everything, Riley."
"I b'lieve you would, Jig--I honest believe you would! Heaven knows
why."
"Because."
"That ain't a reason."
"A very good woman's reason. For one thing you've let me come along
when you know that I'm a weight, and you're in danger. But you don't
know what it means if I go back. You can't know. I know it's wrong and
cowardly for me to stay and imperil you, but I _am_ a coward, and I'm
afraid to go back!"
"Hush up," murmured Sinclair. "Hush up, girl. Is they anybody asking
you to go back? But you don't really figure on hanging out here with me
in the mountains, me having most of the gents in these parts out
looking for my scalp?"
"If you think I won't be such an encumbrance that I'll greatly endanger
you, Riley."
"H'm," muttered Sinclair. "I'll take that chance, but they's another
thing."
"Well?"
"It ain't exactly nacheral and reasonable for a girl to go around in
the mountains with a man."
She fired up at that, sitting straight, with the fire flaring suddenly
in her face through the change of position.
"I've told you that I trust you, Riley. What do I care about the
opinion of the world? Haven't they hounded me? Oh, I despise them!"
"H'm," said the cowpuncher again.
He was, indeed, so abashed by this outbreak that he merely stole a
glance at her face and then studied the fire again.
"Does this gent Cartwright tie up with your story?"
All the fire left her. "Yes," she whispered.
He felt that she was searching his face, as if suddenly in doubt of
him.
"Will you let me tell you--everything?"
"Shoot ahead."
"Some parts will be hard to believe."
"Lady, they won't be nothing as hard to believe as what I've seen you
do with my own eyes."
Then she began to tell her story, and she found a vast comfort in
seeing the ugly, stern face of Sinclair lighted by the burning end of
his cigarette. He never looked at her, but always fixed his stare on
the sea of blackness which was the lower valley.
"All the trouble began with a theory. My father felt that the thing for
a girl was to be educated in the East and marry in the West. He was
full of maxims, you see. 'They turn out knowledge in cities; they turn
out men in mountains,' was one of his maxims. He thought and argued and
lived along those lines. So as soon as I was half grown--oh, I was a
wild tomboy!"
"Eh?" cut in Sinclair.
"I could really do the things then that you'd like to have a woman do,"
she said. "I could ride anything, swim like a fish in snow water,
climb, run, and do anything a boy could do. I suppose that's the sort
of a woman you admire?"
"Me!" exclaimed Riley with violence. "It ain't so, Jig. I been revising
my ideas on women lately. Besides, I never give 'em much thought
before."
He said all this without glancing at her, so that she was able to
indulge in a smile before she went on.
"Just at that point, when I was about to become a true daughter of the
West, Dad snapped me off to school in the East, and then for years and
years there was no West at all for me except a little trip here and
there in vacation time. The rest of it was just study and play, all in
the East. I still liked the West--in theory, you know."
"H'm," muttered Riley.
"And then, I think it was a year ago, I had a letter from Dad with
important news in it. He had just come back from a hunting trip with a
young fellow who he thought represented everything fine in the West. He
was big, good-looking, steady, had a large estate. Dad set his mind on
having me marry him, and he told me so in the letter. Of course I was
upset at the idea of marrying a man I did not know, but Dad always had
a very controlling way with him. I had lost any habit of thinking for
myself in important matters.
"Besides, there was a consolation. Dad sent the picture of his man
along with his letter. The picture was in profile, and it showed me a
fine-looking fellow, with a glorious carriage, a high head, and oceans
of strength and manliness.
"I really fell in love with that picture. To begin with, I thought that
it was destiny for me, and that I had to love that man whether I wished
to or not. I admitted that picture into my inmost life, dreamed about
it, kept it near me in my room.
"And just about that time came news that my father was seriously ill,
and then that he had died, and that his last wish was for me to come
West at once and marry my chosen husband.
"Of course I came at once. I was too sick and sad for Dad to think much
about my own future, and when I stepped off the train I met the first
shock. My husband to be was waiting for me. He was enough like the
picture for me to recognize him, and that was all. He was tall and
strong enough and manly enough. But in full face I thought he was
narrow between the eyes. And--"
"It was Cartwright!"
"Yes, yes. How did you guess that?"
"I dunno," said Sinclair softly, "but when that gent rode off today,
something told me that I was going to tangle with him later on. Go on!"
"He was very kind to me. After the first moment of disappointment--you
see, I had been dreaming about him for a good many weeks--I grew to
like him and accept him again. He did all that he could to make the
trip home agreeable. He didn't press himself on me. He did nothing to
make me feel that he understood Dad's wishes about our marriage and
expected me to live up to them.
"After the funeral it was the same way. He came to see me only now and
then. He was courteous and attentive, and he seemed to be fond of me."
"A fox," snarled Sinclair, growing more and more excited, as this
narrative continued. "That's the way with one of them kind. They play a
game. Never out in the open. Waiting till they win, and then acting the
devil. Go on!"
"Perhaps you're right. His visits became more and more frequent.
Finally he asked me to marry him. That brought the truth of my position
home to me, and I found all at once that, though I had rather liked him
as a friend, I had to quake at the idea of him as a husband."
Sinclair snapped his cigarette into the coals of the fire and set his
jaw. She liked him in his anger.
"But what could I do? All of the last part of Dad's life had been
pointed toward this one thing. I felt that he would come out of his
grave and haunt me. I asked for one more day to think it over. He told
me to take a month or a year, as I pleased, and that made me ashamed. I
told him on the spot that I would marry him, but that I didn't love
him."
"I'll tell you what he answered--curse him!" exclaimed Sinclair.
"What?"
"Through the years that was comin', he'd teach you to love him."
"That was exactly what he said in those very words! How did you guess
that?"
"I'll tell you I got a sort of a second sight for the ways of a snake,
or an ornery hoss, or a sneak of a man. Go on!"
"I think you have. At any rate, after I had told him I'd marry him, he
pressed me to set the date as early as possible, and I agreed. There
was only a ten-day interval.
"Those ten days were filled. I kept myself busy so that I wouldn't have
a chance to think about the future, though of course I didn't really
know how I dreaded it. I talked to the only girl who was near enough to
me to be called a friend.
"'Find a man you can respect. That's the main thing,' she always said.
'You'll learn to love him later on.'
"It was a great comfort to me. I kept thinking back to that advice all
the time."
"They's nothing worse than a talky woman," declared Sinclair hotly. "Go
on!"
"Then, all at once, the day came. I'll never forget how I wakened that
morning and looked out at the sun. I had a queer feeling that even the
sunshine would never seem the same after that day. It was like going to
a death."
"So you went to this gent and told him just how you felt, and he let
your promise slide?"
"No."
Sinclair groaned.
"I couldn't go to him. I didn't dare. I don't imagine that I ever
thought of such a thing. Then there were crowds of people around all
day, giving me good wishes. And all the time I felt like death.
"Somehow I got to the church. Everything was hazy to me, and my heart
was thundering all the time. In the church there was a blur of faces.
All at once the blur cleared. I saw Jude Cartwright, and I knew I
couldn't marry him!"
"Brave girl!" cried Sinclair, his relief coming out in almost a shout.
"You stopped there at the last minute?"
"Ah, if I had! No, I didn't stop. I went on to the altar and met him
there, and--"
"You weren't married to him?"
"I was!"
"Go on," Sinclair said huskily.
"The end of it came somehow. I found a flood of people calling to me
and pressing around me, and all the time I was thinking of nothing but
the new ring on my finger and the weight--the horrible weight of it!
"We went back to my father's house. I managed to get away from all the
merrymaking and go to my room. The minute the door closed behind me and
shut away their voices and singing into the distance, I felt that I had
saved one last minute of freedom. I went to the window and looked out
at the mountains. The stars were coming out.
"All at once my knees gave way, and I began to weep on the window sill.
I heard voices coming, and I knew that I mustn't let them see me with
the tears running down my face. But the tears wouldn't stop coming.
"I ran to the door and locked it. Then someone tried to open the door,
and I heard the voice of my Aunt Jane calling. I gathered all my nerve
and made my voice steady. I told her that I couldn't let anyone in,
that I was preparing a surprise for them.
"'Are you happy, dear?' asked Aunt Jane.
"I made myself laugh. 'So happy!' I called back to her.
"Then they went away. But as soon as they were gone I knew that I could
never go out and meet them. Partly because I had no surprise for them,
partly because I didn't want them to see the tear stains and my red
eyes. Somehow little silly things were as big and as important as the
main thing--that I could never be the real wife of Jude Cartwright. Can
you understand?"
"Jig, once when I had a deer under my trigger I let him go because he
had a funny-shaped horn. Sure, it's the little things that run a gent's
life. Go on!"
"I knew that I had to escape. But how could I escape in a place where
everybody knew me? First I thought of changing my clothes. Then another
thing--man's clothes! The moment that idea came, I was sure it was the
thing. I opened the door very softly. There was no one upstairs just
then. I ran into my cousin's room--he's a youngster of fifteen--and
snatched the first boots and clothes that I could find and rushed back
to my own room.
"I jumped into them, hardly knowing what I was doing. For they were
beginning to call to me from downstairs. I opened the door and called
back to them, and I heard Jude Cartwright answer in a big voice.
"I turned around and saw myself in the mirror in boy's clothes, with my
face as white as a sheet, my eyes staring, my hair pouring down over my
shoulders. I ran to the bureau and found a scissors. Then I hesitated a
moment. You don't dream how hard it was to do. My hair was long, you
see, below my waist. And I had always been proud of it.
"But I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and cut it off with great
slashes, close to my head. Then I stood with all that mass of hair
shining in my hand and a queer, light feeling in my head.
"But I felt that I was free. I clamped on my cousin's hat--how queer it
felt with all that hair cut off! I bundled the hair into my pocket,
because they mustn't dream what I had done. Then someone beat on the
door.
"'Coming!' I called to them.
"I ran to the window. The house was built on a slope, and it was not a
very long drop to the ground, I suppose. But to me it seemed
neck-breaking, that distance. It was dark, and I climbed out and hung
by my hands, but I couldn't find courage to let go. Then I tried to
climb back, but there wasn't any strength in my arms.
"I cried out for help, but the singing downstairs must have muffled the
sound. My fingers grew numb--they slipped on the sill--and then I fell.
"The fall stunned me, I guess, for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I
saw the stars and knew that I was free. I started up then and struck
straight across country. At first I didn't care where I went, so long
as it was away, but when I got over the first hill I made up a plan.
That was to go for the railroad and take a train. I did it.
"There was a long walk ahead of me before I reached the station, and
with my cousin's big boots wobbling on my feet I was very tired when I
reached it. There were some freight cars on the siding, and there was
hay on the floor of one of them. I crawled into the open door and went
to sleep.
"After a while I woke up with a great jarring and jolting and noise. I
found the car pitch dark. The door was closed, and pretty soon, by the
roar of the wheels under me and the swing of the floor of the car, I
knew that an engine had picked up the empty cars.
"It was a terrible time for me. I had heard stories of tramps locked
into cars and starving there before the door was opened. Before the
morning shone through the cracks of the boards, I went through all the
pain of a death from thirst. But before noon the train stopped, and the
car was dropped at a siding. I climbed out when they opened the door.
"The man who saw me only laughed. I suppose he could have arrested me.
"'All right, kid, but you're hitting the road early in life, eh!'
"Those were the first words that were spoken to me as a man.
"I didn't know where I should go, but the train had taken me south, and
that made me remember a town where my father had lived for a long
time--Sour Creek. I started to get to this place.
"The hardest thing I had to do was the very first thing, and that was
to take my ragged head of hair into a barber shop and get it trimmed. I
was sure that the barber would know I was a girl, but he didn't
suspect.
"'Been a long time in the wilds, youngster, eh?' was all he said.
"And then I knew that I was safe, because people here in the West are
not suspicious. They let a stranger go with one look. By the time I
reached Sour Creek I was nearly over being ashamed of my clothes. And
then I found this place and work as a schoolteacher. I think you know
the rest." She leaned close to Sinclair. "Was I wrong to leave him?"
Sinclair rubbed his chin. "You'd ought to have told him straight off,"
he said firmly. "But seeing you went through with the wedding--well,
take it all in all, your leaving of him was about the rightest thing I
ever heard of."
Quiet fell between them.
"But what am I going to do? And where is it all going to end?" a small
voice inquired of Sinclair at last.
"Roll up in them blankets and go to sleep," he advised her curtly. "I'm
figuring steady on this here thing, Jig."
Jig followed that advice. Sinclair had left the fire and was walking up
and down from one end of the little plateau to the other, with a
strong, long step. As for the girl, she felt that an incalculable
burden had been shifted from her shoulders by the telling of this tale.
That burden, she knew, must have fallen on another person, and it was
not unpleasant to know that Riley Sinclair was the man.
Gradually the sense of strangeness faded. As she grew drowsy, it seemed
the most natural thing in the world for her to be up here at the top of
the world with a man she had; known two days. And, before she slept,
the last thing of which she was conscious was the head of Sinclair in
the broad sombrero, brushing to and fro across the stars.
18
With a bang the screen door of Sheriff Kern's office had creaked open
and shut four times at intervals, and each man, entering in turn with a
"Howdy" to the sheriff, had stamped the dust out of the wrinkles of his
riding boots, hitched up his trousers carefully, and slumped into a
chair. Not until the last of his handpicked posse had taken his place
did the sheriff begin his speech.
"Gents," he said, "how long have I been a sheriff?"
"Eighteen to twenty years," said Bill Wood. "And it's been twenty years
of bad times for the safecrackers and gunmen of these parts."
"Thanks," said the sheriff hastily. "And how many that I've once put my
hands on have got loose?"
Again Bill Wood answered, being the senior member.
"None. Your score is exactly one hundred percent, sheriff."