"I mean a fair fight."
"You're a gunman. You been raised and trained for gunfighting. I
wouldn't have no chance!"
Sinclair controlled his scorn. "Then I'll fight left-handed. I'm a
right-handed man, Cartwright, and I'll take you with my gun in my left
hand. That evens us up, I guess."
"No, it don't!"
But with the cry on his lips, the glance of Cartwright flickered past
Sinclair. He grew thoughtful, less flabby. He seemed to be calculating
his chances as his glance rested on the window.
"All right," he whispered, a fearful eye on Sinclair, as if he feared
the latter would change his mind. "Gimme a fair break."
"I'll do it."
Sinclair shifted his gun to his left hand and turned to look at the
window which Cartwright had been watching with such intense interest.
He had not half turned, however, when a gun barked at his very ear, it
seemed, a tongue of flame spat in from the window, there was a crash of
glass, and the lamp was snuffed. Some accurate shot had cut the burning
wick out of the lamp with his bullet, so nicely placed that, though the
lamp reeled, it did not fall.
24
With the spurt of flame, Sinclair leaped back until his shoulders
grazed the wall. He crouched beside the massive chest of drawers. It
might partially shelter him from fire from the window.
There fell one of those deadly breathing spaces of silence--silence,
except for the chattering of the lamp, as it steadied on the table and
finally was still. There was a light crunching noise from the opposite
side of the room. Cartwright had moved and put his foot on a fragment
of the shattered chimney.
Sinclair studied the window. It was a rectangle of dim light, but
nothing showed in that frame. He who had fired the shot must have
crouched at once, or else have drawn to one side. He waited with his
gun poised. Steps were sounding far away in the building, steps which
approached rapidly. Voices were calling. Somewhere on the farther side
of the room Cartwright must have found the best shelter he could, and
Sinclair shrewdly guessed that it would be on the far side of the chest
of drawers which faced him.
In the meantime he studied the blank rectangle of the window. Sooner or
later the man who stood on the ledge would risk a look into the dark
interior; otherwise, he would not be human. And, sure enough, presently
the faintest shadow of an outline encroached on the solid rectangle of
faint light. Sinclair aimed just to the right and fired. At once there
was a splash of red flame and a thundering report from the other side
of the room. Cartwright had fired at the flash of Sinclair's gun, and
the bullet smashed into the chest beside Sinclair. As for Sinclair's
own bullet, it brought only a stifled curse from the window.
"No good, Riley," sang out the voice. "This wall's too thick for a
Colt."
Sinclair had flung himself softly forward on his stomach, his gun in
readiness and leveled in the direction of Cartwright. There was the
prime necessity. Now heavy footfalls rushed down the hall, and a storm
of voices broke in upon him.
At the same time Cartwright's gun spat fire again. The bullet buzzed
angrily above Sinclair's head. His own brought a yell of pain, sharp as
the yelp of a coyote.
"Keep quiet, Cartwright," ordered the man at the window. "You'll get
yourself killed if you keep risking it. Sheriff!"
His voice rose and rang.
"Blow the lock off'n that door. We got him!"
There was an instant reply in the explosion of a gun, the crash of
broken metal, the door swung slowly in, admitting a dim twilight into
the room. The light showed Sinclair one thing--the dull outlines of
Cartwright. He whipped up his gun and then hesitated. It would be
murder. He had killed before, but never save in fair fight, standing in
a clear light before his enemy. He knew that he could not kill this rat
he detested. He thought of the wrecked life of the girl and set his
teeth. Still he could not fire.
"Cartwright," he said softly, "I got you covered. Your right hand's on
the floor with your gun. Don't raise that hand!"
In the shadow against the wall Cartwright moved, but he obeyed. The
revolver still glimmered on the floor.
A new and desperate thought came to Sinclair--to rush straight for the
window, shoot down the man on the ledge, and risk the leap to the
ground. "Scatter back!" called the man on the ledge.
That settled the last chance of Sinclair. There were guards on the
ground, scattered about the house. He could never get out that way.
"Keep out of the light by the door," commanded the man at the window.
"And start shooting for the chest of drawers on the left-hand side of
the room--and aim low down. It may take time, but we'll get him!"
Obviously the truth of that statement was too clear for Sinclair to
deny it. He reviewed his situation with the swift calm of an old
gambler. He had tried his desperate coup and had failed. There was
nothing to do but accept the failure, or else make a still more
desperate effort to rectify his position, risking everything on a final
play.
He must get out of the room. The window was hopelessly blocked. There
remained the open door, but the hall beyond the door was crowded with
men.
Perhaps their very numbers would work against them. Even now they could
be heard cautiously maneuvering. They would shoot through the door in
his general direction, unaimed shots, with the hope of a chance hit,
and eventually they would strike him down. Suppose he were to steal
close to the door, leap over the bed, and plunge out among them, his
Colt spitting lead and fire.
That unexpected attack would cleave a passage for him. The more he
thought of it, the more clearly he saw that the chances of escape to
the street were at least one in three. And yet he hesitated. If he made
that break two or three innocent men would go down before his bullets,
as he sprang out, shooting to kill. He shrank from the thought. He was
amazed at himself. Never before had he been so tender of expedients. He
had always fought to win--cleanly, but to win. Why was he suddenly
remembering that to these men he was an outlaw, fit meat for the first
bullet they could send home? Had he been one of them, he would have
taken up a position in that very hall just as they were doing.
Slowly, reluctantly, fighting himself as he did it, he shoved his
revolver back into his holster and determined to take the chance of
that surprise attack, with his empty hands against their guns. If they
did not drop him the instant he leaped out, he would be among them, too
close for gunplay unless they took the chance of killing their own men.
Keeping his gaze fixed on Cartwright across the room--for the moment he
showed his intention, Cartwright would shoot--he maneuvered softly
toward the bed. Cartwright turned his head, but made no move to lift
his gun. There was a reason. The light from the door fell nearer to the
rancher than it did to Sinclair. To Cartwright he must be no more than
a shapeless blur.
A gun exploded from the doorway, with only a glint of steel, as the
muzzle was shoved around the jamb. The bullet crashed harmlessly into
the wall behind him. Another try. The sharp, stifling odor of burned
powder began to fill the room, stinging the nostrils of Sinclair.
Cartwright was coughing in a stifled fashion on the far side of the
room, as if he feared a loud noise would draw a bullet his way.
All at once there was no sound in the hotel, and, as the wave of
silence spread, Sinclair was aware that the whole little town was
listening, waiting, watching. Not a whisper in the hall, not a stir
from Cartwright across the room. The quiet made the drama seem unreal.
Then that voice outside the window, which seemed to be Sinclair's
Nemesis, cried: "Steady, boys. Something's going to happen. He's
getting ready. Buck up, boys!"
In a moment of madness Sinclair decided to rush that window and dispose
of the cool-minded speaker at all costs before he died. There, at
least, was the one man he wished to kill. He followed that impulse long
enough to throw himself sidling along the floor, so as not to betray
his real strategic position to those at the door, and he splashed two
bullets into the wall, trimming the side of the window.
Only clear, deep-throated laughter came in response.
"I told you, boys. I read his mind, and he's mad at me, eh?"
But Riley Sinclair hardly heard the mocking answer. He had glided back
behind the bed, the instant the shots were fired. As he moved, two guns
appeared for a flickering instant around the edge of the doorway, one
on each side. Their muzzles kicked up rapidly, one, two, three, four,
five, six, and each, as he fired, spread the shots carefully from side
to side. Sinclair heard the bullets bite and splinter the woodwork
close to the floor. The chest of drawers staggered with the impact.
He raised his own gun, watched one of the jumping muzzles for an
instant, and then tried a snap shot. The report of his revolver was
bitten off short by the clang of metal; there was a shouted curse from
the hallway. He had blown the gun cleanly out of the sharpshooter's
hand.
Before the amazed rumble from the hall died away, Sinclair had acted.
He shoved his weapon back in its holster, and cleared the bed with a
flying leap. From the corner of his eye, he saw Cartwright snatch up
his gun and take a chance shot that whistled close to his head, and
then Sinclair plunged into the hall.
One glimmering chance of success remained. On the side of the door
toward which he drove there were only three men in the hall; behind him
were more, far more, but their weapons were neutralized. They could not
fire without risking a miss that would be certain to lodge a bullet in
the body of one of the men before Sinclair.
Those men were kneeling, for they had been reaching out and firing low
around the door to rake the floor of the room. At the appearance of
Sinclair they started up. He saw a gun jerk high for a snap shot, and,
swerving as he leaped, he drove out with all his weight behind his
fist. The knuckles bit through flesh to the bone. There was a jarring
impact, and now only two men were before him. One of them dropped his
gun--it was he who had just emptied his weapon into the room--and flung
himself at Sinclair, with outspread arms. The cowpuncher snapped up his
knee, and the blow crumpled the other back and to the side. He sprang
on toward the last man who barred his way. And all this in the split
part of a second.
Chance took a hand against him. In the very act of striking, his foot
lodged on the first senseless body, and he catapulted forward on his
hands. He struck the legs of the third man as he fell.
Down they went together, and Sinclair lurched up from under the weight
only to be overtaken by many reaching hands from behind. That instant
of delay had lost the battle for him; and, as he strove to whirl and
fight himself clear, an arm curled around his neck, shutting off his
breath. A great weight jarred between his shoulders. And he pitched
down to the floor.
He stopped fighting. He felt his gun slipped from the holster. Deft,
strong hands jerked his arms behind him and tied the wrists firmly
together. Then he was drawn to his feet.
All this without a word spoken, only the pant and struggle of
hard-drawn breaths. Not until he stood on his feet again, with a
bleeding-faced fellow rising with dazed eyes, and another clambering up
unsteadily, with both hands pressed against his head, did the captors
give voice. And their voice was a yell of triumph that was taken up in
two directions outside the hotel.
They became suddenly excited, riotously happy. In the overflowing of
their joy they were good-natured. Some one caught up Sinclair's hat and
jammed it on his head. Another slapped him on the shoulder.
"A fine, game fight!" said the latter. It was the man with the smeared
face. He was grinning through his wounds. "Hardest punch I ever got.
But I don't blame you, partner!"
Presently he saw Sheriff Kern. The latter was perfectly cool, perfectly
grave. It was his arm that had coiled around the neck of Sinclair and
throttled him into submission.
"You didn't come out to kill, Sinclair. Why?"
"I ain't used to slaughterhouse work," said Sinclair with equal calm,
although he was panting. "Besides, it wasn't worth it. Murder never
is."
"Kind of late to come to that idea, son. Now just trot along with me,
will you?" He paused. "Where's Arizona?"
Cartwright lurched out of the room with his naked gun in his hand. Red
dripped from the shallow wound where Sinclair's bullet had nicked him.
He plunged at the captive, yelling.
"Stop that fool!" snapped the sheriff.
Half a dozen men put themselves between the outlaw and the avenger.
Cartwright straggled vainly.
"Between you and me," said Sinclair coldly to the sheriff, "I think
that skunk would plug me while I got my hands tied."
The sheriff flashed a knowing glance up at his tall prisoner's face.
"I dunno, Sinclair. Kind of looks that way."
Although Cartwright had been persuaded to restore his gun to its cover,
he passed through the crowd until he confronted Sinclair.
"Now, the tables is turned, eh? I'll take the high hand from now on,
Sinclair!"
"It's no good," said Sinclair dryly. "The gent that shot out the light
had a chance to see something before he done the shooting. And what he
seen must have showed that you're yaller, Cartwright--yaller as a
yaller dog!"
Cartwright flung his fist with a curse into the face of the cowpuncher.
The weight of the blow jarred him back against the wall, but he met the
glare of Cartwright with a steady eye, a thin trickle of crimson
running down his cut lips. The sheriff rushed in between and mastered
Cartwright's arms.
"One more little trick like that, stranger, and I'll turn you over to
the boys. They got ways of teaching gents manners. How was you raised,
anyway?"
Suddenly sobered, Cartwright drew back from dark glances on every side.
"Fellows," he said, in a shaken voice, "I forgot his hands was tied.
But I'm kind of wrought up. He tried to murder me!"
"It's all right, partner," drawled Red Chalmers, and he laid a strong
hand on the shoulder of Cartwright. "It's all right. We all allow for
one break. But don't do something like that twice--not in these parts!"
Sinclair walked beside the sheriff, while the crowd poured past him and
down the hall. When they reached the head of the stairs they found the
lighted room below filled with excited, upturned faces; at the sight of
the sheriff and his prisoner they roared their applause. The faces were
blotted and blurred by a veil of rapidly, widely waving sombreros.
The sheriff paused halfway down the stairs and held up his hand.
Sinclair halted beside him looking disdainfully over the crowd.
Instantly noise and movement ceased. It was a spectacular picture, the
stubby little sheriff and the tall, lean, wolflike man he had captured.
It seemed a vivid illustration of the power of the law over the
lawbreaker. Sinclair glanced down in wonder at Kern. It was in
character for the sheriff to make a speech. A moment later the
sheriff's own words had explained his reason for the impromptu address.
"Boys," he said, "I figure some of you has got an almighty big wish to
see Sinclair on the end of a rope, eh?"
A deep growl answered him.
"Speaking personal," went on the sheriff smoothly, "I don't see how
he's done a thing worth hanging. He took a prisoner away from me, and
he's resisted arrest. That's all. Sinclair has got a name as a killer.
Maybe he is. But I know he ain't done no killing around these parts
that's come to light yet. I'll tell you another thing. A minute ago he
could have sent three men to death and maybe come off with a free skin.
But he chose to take his chance without shooting to kill. He tried to
fight his way out with his hands sooner'n blow the heads off of gents
that never done him no harm except to get in his way. Well, boys,
that's something you don't often see. And I tell you this right now: If
they's any lynch talk around this here town, you can lay to it that
you'll have to shoot your way to Sinclair through me. And I'll be a
dead one before you reach to him."
He paused. Someone hissed from the back of the crowd, but the majority
murmured in appreciation.
"One more thing," went on the sheriff. "Some of you may think it was
great guns to take Sinclair. It _was_ a pretty good job, but they ain't
no credit coming to me. I'm up here saying that all the praise goes to
a fat friend of mine by name Arizona. If you got any free drinks, let
'em drift the way of Arizona. Hey, Arizona, step out and make a bow,
will you?"
But no Arizona appeared. The crowd cheered him, and then cheered the
generous sheriff. Kern had won more by his frankness than he could
possibly have won in half a dozen spectacular exploits with a gun.
25
The crowd swirled out of the hotel before the sheriff and his prisoner,
and then swirled back again. No use following the sheriff if they hoped
for details. They knew his silence of old. Instead they picked off the
members who had taken part in some phase of the fight, and drew them
aside. As Sinclair went on down the street, the populace of Sour Creek
was left pooled behind him. Various orators were giving accounts of how
the whole thing had happened.
Sinclair had neither eye nor ear for them. But he looked back and up to
the western sky, with a flat-topped mountain clearly outlined against
it. There was his country, and in his country he had left Jig alone and
helpless. A feeling of utter desolation and failure came over him. He
had started with a double-goal--Sandersen or Cartwright, or both. He
had failed lamentably of reaching either one. He looked back to the
sheriff, squat, insignificant, gray-headed. What a man to have blocked
him!
"But who's this Arizona?" he asked.
"I dunno. Seems to have known you somewhere. Maybe a friend of yours,
Sinclair?"
"H'm," said the cowpuncher. "Maybe! Tell me: Was it him that was
outside the window and trimmed the light on me?"
"You got him right, Sinclair. That was the gent. Nice play he made,
eh?"
"Very pretty, sheriff. I thought I knowed his voice."
"He seems to have made himself pretty infrequent. Didn't know Arizona
was so darned modest."
"Maybe he's got other reasons," said Sinclair. "What's his full name?"
"Ain't that curious! I ain't heard of anybody else that knows it. He's
a cool head, this Arizona. Seemed to read your mind and know jest how
you'd jump, Sinclair. I would have been off combing the trails, but he
seemed to know that you'd come into town."
"I'll sure keep him in mind if I ever meet up with him," murmured
Sinclair. "Is this where I bunk?"
The sheriff had paused before a squat, dumpy building and was working
noisily at the lock with a big key. Now that his back was necessarily
toward his prisoner, two of the posse stepped up close beside Sinclair.
They had none of the sheriff's nonchalance. One of them was the man
whose head had made the acquaintance of Sinclair's knee, and both were
ready for instant action of any description.
"I'm Rhinehart," said one softly. "Keep me in mind, Sinclair. I'm him
that you smashed with your knee. Dirty work! I'll see you when you get
out of the lockup--if that ever happens!"
The voice of Sinclair was not so soft. "I'll meet you in jail or out,"
he answered, "on foot or on horseback, with fists or knife or gun. And
you can lay to this, Rhinehart: I'll remember you a pile better'n
you'll remember me!"
All the repressed savagery of his nature came quivering into his voice
as he spoke, and the other shrank instinctively a pace. In the meantime
the sheriff had succeeded in turning the rusted lock, which squeaked
back. The door grumbled on its heavy hinges. Sinclair stepped into the
musty, close atmosphere within.
"Don't look like you had much use for this here outfit," he said to the
sheriff.
The latter lighted a lantern.
"Nope," he said. "It sure beats all how the luck runs, Sinclair. We'd
had a pretty bad time with crooks around these parts, and them that was
nabbed in Sour Creek got away; about two out of three, before they was
brought to me at Woodville. So the boys got together and ponied up for
this little jail, and it's as neat a pile of mud and steel as ever you
see. Look at them bars. Kind of rusty, they look, but inside they're
toolproof. Oh, it's an up-to-date outfit, this jail. It's been a
comfort to me, and it's a credit to Sour Creek. But the trouble is that
since it was built they ain't been more'n one or two to put in it.
Maybe you can make out here for the night. Have you over to Woodville
in a couple of days, Sinclair."
He brought his prisoner into a cagelike cell, heavily guarded with bars
on all sides. The adobe walls had been trusted in no direction. The
steel lining was the strength of the Sour Creek jail. The sheriff
himself set about shaking out the blankets. When this was done, he bade
his two companions draw their guns and stand guard at the steel door to
the cell.
"Not that I don't trust you a good deal, Sinclair," he said, "but I
know that a gent sometimes takes big chances."
So saying, he cut the bonds of his prisoner, but instead of making a
plunge at the door, Sinclair merely stretched his long arms luxuriously
above his head. The sheriff slipped out of the door and closed it after
him. A heavy and prolonged clangor followed, as steel jarred home
against steel.
"Don't go sheriff," said Sinclair. "I need a chat with you."
"I'm in no hurry. And here's the gent we was talking about. Here's
Arizona!"
The sheriff had waved his two companions out of the jail, as soon as
the prisoner was securely lodged, and no sooner was this done, and they
had departed through the doorway, than the heavy figure of Arizona
himself appeared. He came slowly into the circle of the lantern light,
an oddly changed man.
His swaggering gait, with heels that pounded heavily, was gone. He
slunk forward, soft-footed. His head, usually so buoyantly erect, was
now sunk lower and forward. His high color had faded to a drab olive.
In fact, from a free-swinging, jovial, somewhat overbearing demeanor,
Arizona had changed to a mien of malicious and rather frightened
cunning. In this wise he advanced, heedless of the curious and
astonished sheriff, until his face was literally pressed against the
bars. He peered steadily at Sinclair.
On the face of the latter there had been at first blank surprise, then
a gradually dawning recognition. Finally he walked slowly to the bars.
As Sinclair approached, the fat cowpuncher drew back, with lingering
catlike steps, as if he grudged every inch of his retreat and yet dared
not remain to meet Sinclair.
"By the Eternal," said Sinclair, "it's Dago!"
Arizona halted, quivering with emotions which the sheriff could not
identify, save for a blind, intense malice. The tall man turned to the
sheriff, smiling: "Dago Lansing, eh?"
"Never heard that name," said the sheriff.
"Maybe not," replied Sinclair, "but that's the man I--"
"You lie!" cried Arizona huskily, and his fat, swift hand fluttered
nervously around the butt of the revolver. "Sheriff, they ain't nothing
but lies stocked up in him. Don't believe nothing he says!"
"Huh!" chuckled Sinclair. "Why, Kern, he's a man about eight years ago
that I--"
Pausing, he looked into the convulsed face of Arizona, who was
apparently tortured with apprehension.
"I won't go on, Dago," said Sinclair mildly. "But--so you've carried
this grudge all these days, eh?"
Arizona tossed up his head. For a moment he was the Arizona the sheriff
had known, but his laughter was too strident, and it was easy to see
that he was at a point of hysterically high tension.
"Well, I'd have carried it eighty years as easy as eight," declared
Arizona. "I been waiting all this time, and now I got you, Sinclair.
You'll rot behind the bars the best part of the life that's left to
you. And when you come out--I'll meet you ag'in!"
Sinclair smiled in a singular fashion. "Sorry to disappoint you, Dago.
But I'm not coming out. I'm going to stay put. I'm through." The other
blinked. "How come?"
"It's something you couldn't figure," said Sinclair calmly, and he eyed
the fat man as if from a great distance.
Sinclair was remembering the day, eight years ago, in a lumber camp to
the north when a shivering, meager, shifty-eyed youngster had come
among them asking for work. They had taken pity on him, those big
lumberjacks, put him up, given him money, kept him at the bunk house.
Then articles began to disappear, watches, money. It was Sinclair who
had caught the friendless stripling in the act of sleight of hand in
the middle of the night when the laborers, tired out, slept as if
stunned. And when the others would have let the cringing, weeping youth
go with a lecture and the return of his illicit spoils, it was the
stern Sinclair who had insisted on driving home the lesson. He forced
them to strip Dago to the waist. Two stalwarts held his hands, and
Sinclair laid on the whip. And Dago, the moment the lash fell, ceased
his wailing and begging, and stood quivering, with his head bent, his
teeth set and gritting, until the punishment was ended.
It was Sinclair, also, when the thing was ended, and the others would
have thrust the boy out penniless, who split the contents of his wallet
with Dago. He remembered the words he had spoken to the stripling that
day eight years before.
"You ain't had much luck out here in the West, kid, but stay around. Go
south. Learn to ride a hoss. They's nothing that puts heart and honesty
in a man like a good hoss. Don't go back to your city. You'll turn into
a snake there. Stay out here and practice being a man, will you? Get
the feel of a Colt. Fight your way. Keep your mouth shut and work with
your hands. And don't brag about what you know or what you've done.
That's the way to get on. You got the markings in you, son. You got
grit. I seen it when you was under the whip, and I wish I had the doing
of that over again. I made a mistake with you, kid. But do what I've
told you to do, and one of these days you'll meet up with me and beat
me to the draw and take everything you got as a grudge out on me. But
you can't do it unless you turn into a man."
Dago had listened in the most profound silence, accepted the money
without thanks, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. In the
sleek-faced man before him, Sinclair could hardly recognize that
slender fellow of the lumber camp. Only the bright and agile eyes were
the same; that, and a certain telltale nervousness of hand. The color
was coming back into his face.
"I guess I've done it," Arizona was saying. "I guess we're squared up,
Sinclair."
"Yep, and a balance on your side."
"Maybe, maybe not. But I've followed your advice, Long Riley. I've
never forgot a word of it. It was printed into me!"
He made a significant, short gesture, as if he were snapping a whip,
and a snarl of undying malice curled his lips.
"As long as you live, Sinclair," he added. "As long as you live, I'll
remember."
Even the sheriff shuddered at that glimpse into the black soul of a
man; Sinclair alone was unmoved.
"I reckon you've barked enough, Arizona," he suggested. "S'pose you
trot along. I got to have words with my friend, the sheriff."
Arizona waved his fat hand. He was recovering his ordinary poise, and
with a smiling good night to the sheriff, he turned away through the
door.
"Nice, friendly sort, eh?" remarked Sinclair the moment he was alone
with Kern.
"I still got the chills," said the sheriff. "Sure has got a wicked pair
of eyes, that Arizona."
Kern cast an apprehensive glance at the closed door, yet, in spite of
the fact that it was closed, he lowered his voice.
"What in thunder have you done to him, Sinclair?"
"About eight years ago--" began Sinclair and then stopped short.
"Let it go," he went on. "No matter what Arizona is today, he's sure
improved on the gent I used to know. What's done is done. Besides, I
made a mistake that time. I went too far with him, and a mistake is
like borrowed money, sheriff. It lays up interest and keeps
compounding. When you have to pay back what you done a long time ago,
you find it's a terrible pile. That's all I got to say about Arizona."
Sheriff Kern nodded. "That's straight talk, Sinclair," he said softly.
"But what was it you wanted to see me about?"
"Cold Feet," said Sinclair.
At once the sheriff brightened. "That's right," he said hurriedly. "You
got the right idea now, partner. Glad to see you're using hoss sense.
And if you gimme an idea of the trail that'll lead to Cold Feet, I can
see to it that you get out of this mess pretty pronto. After all, you
ain't done no real harm except for nicking Cartwright in the arm, and I
figure that he needs a little punishment. It'll cool his temper down."
"You think I ought to tell you where Cold Feet is?" asked Sinclair
without emotion.
"Why not?"
"Him and me sat around the same campfire, sheriff, and ate off'n the
same deer."
At this the sheriff winced. "I know," he murmured. "It's hard--mighty
hard!" He continued more smoothly: "But listen to me, partner. There's
twenty-five-hundred dollars on the head of Cold Feet. Why not come in?
Why not split on it? Plenty for both of us; and, speaking personal, I
could use half that money, and maybe you could use the other half just
as well!"
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Sinclair, "I'll give you the layout
for finding Cold Feet. Ride west out of Sour Creek and head for a
flat-topped mountain. On the shoulder just under the head of the peak
you'll find Cold Feet. Go get him!"
The sheriff caught his breath, then whirled on his heel. The sharp
voice of Sinclair called him back.
"Wait a minute. I ain't through. When you catch Cold Feet you go after
him without guns."
"How come?"
"Because you might hurt him, and he can't fight, sheriff. Even if he
was to pull a gun, he couldn't hit nothing with it. He couldn't hit the
ground he's standing on with a gun."
Sheriff Kern scratched his head.
"And when you get him," went on Sinclair, "tell him to go back and take
up his life where he left off, because they's no harm coming to him."
"Great guns, man! No harm coming to him with a murder to his count and
a price on his head?"
"I mean what I say. Break it to him real gentle."
"And who pays for the killing of Quade?"
Sinclair smiled. He was finding it far easier to do it than he had ever
imagined. The moment he made the resolve, his way was smoothed for him.
"I pay for Quade," he said quietly.
"What d'you mean?"
"Because I killed him, sheriff. Now go tell Cold Feet that his score is
clean!"
26
Toward the flat-topped mountain, with the feeling of his fate upon him,
Bill Sandersen pushed his mustang through the late evening, while the
darkness fell. He had long since stopped thinking, reasoning. There was
only the strong, blind feeling that he must meet Sinclair face to face
and decide his destiny in one brief struggle.
So he kept on until his shadow fell faintly on his path before him,
long, shapeless, grotesque. He turned and saw the moon coming up above
the eastern mountains, a wan, sickly moon hardly out of her first
quarter, and even in the pure mountain air her light was dim.
But it gave thought and pause to Sandersen. First there was the
outcropping of a singular superstition which he had heard long before
and never remembered until this moment: that a moon seen over the left
shoulder meant the worst of bad luck. It boded very ill for the end of
this adventure.
Suppose he were able only partially to surprise the big cowpuncher from
the north, and that there was a call for fighting. What chance would he
have in the dim and bewildering light of that moon against the surety
of Sinclair who shot, he knew, as other men point the finger
--instinctively hitting the target? It would be a mere butchery,
not a battle.
Sending his mustang into a copse of young trees, he dismounted. His
mind was made up not to attempt the blow until the first light of dawn.
He would try to reach the top of the flat-crested mountain well before
sunup, when there would be a real light instead of this ghostly and
partial illumination from the moon.
Among the trees he sat down and took up the dreadful watches of the
night. Sleep never came near him. He was turning the back pages of his
memory, reviewing his past with the singular clearness of a man about
to die. For Sandersen had this mortal certainty resting upon his mind
that he must try to strike down Sinclair, and that he would fail. And
failure meant only one alternative--death. He was perfectly confident
that this was the truth. He knew with prophetic surety that he would
never again see the kind light of the sun, that in a half-light, in the
cold of the dawn, a bullet would end his life.
What he saw in the past was not comforting. A long train of vivid
memories came up in his mind. He had accomplished nothing. In the total
course of his life he had not made a man his friend, or won the love of
a woman. In all his attempts to succeed in life there had been nothing
but disastrous failures, and wherever he moved he involved others in
his fall. Certainly the prospecting trip with the three other men had
been worse than all the rest, but it had been typical. It had been he
who first suggested the trip, and he had rounded the party together and
sustained it with enthusiasm.
It had been he who led it into the mountains and across the desert. And
on the terrible return trip he knew, with an abiding sense of guilt,
that he alone could have checked the murderous and cowardly impulse of
Quade. He alone could have overruled Quade and Lowrie; or, failing to
overrule them he should at least have stayed with the cripple and
helped him on, with the chance of death for them both.
When he thought of that noble opportunity lost, he writhed. It would
have gained the deathless affection of Hal Sinclair and saved that
young, strong life. It would have won him more. It would have made
Riley Sinclair his ally so long as he lived. And how easy to have done
it, he thought, looking back.
Instead, he had given way; and already the result had been the death of
three men. The tale was not yet told, he was sure. Another death was
due. A curse lay on that entire party, and it would not be ended until
he, Sandersen, the soul of the enterprise, fell.
The moon grew old in the west. Then he took the saddle again and rode,
brooding, up the trail, his horse stumbling over the stones as the
animal grew wearier in the climb.
And then, keeping his gaze fastened above him, he saw the outline of
the crests grow more and more distinct. He looked behind. In the east
the light was growing. The whole horizon was rimmed with a pale glow.
Now his spirits rose. Even this gray dawn was far better than the
treacherous moonlight. A daylight calm came over him. He was stronger,
surer of himself. Impatiently he drew out his Colt and looked to its
action. The familiar weight added to his self-belief. It became
possible for him to fight, and being possible to fight, it was also
possible to conquer.
Presently he reached a bald upland. The fresh wind of the morning
struck his face, and he breathed deep of it. Why could he not return to
Sour Creek as a hero, and why could he not collect the price on the
head of Riley Sinclair?
The thought made him alert, savage. A moment later, his head pushing up
to the level of the shoulder of the mountain, he saw his quarry. In the
dimness of that early dawn he made out the form of a sleeper huddled in
blankets, but it was enough. That must be Riley Sinclair. It could not
be another, and all his premonitions were correct.
Suddenly he became aware that he could not fail. It was impossible! As
gloomy as he had been before, his spirits now leaped to the heights. He
swung down from the saddle, softly, slowly, and went up the hill
without once drawing his eyes from that motionless form in the
blankets.
Once something stirred to the right and far below him. He flashed a
glance in that direction and saw that it was a hobbled horse, though
not the horse of Sinclair; but that mattered nothing. The second horse
might be among the trees.
Easing his step and tightening the grip on his revolver, he drew
closer. Should he shoot without warning? No, he would lean over the
sleeper, call his name, and let him waken and see his death before it
came to him. Otherwise the triumph would be robbed of half of its
sweetness.
Now he had come sufficiently near to make out distinctly that there was
only one sleeper. Had Sinclair and Cold Feet separated? If so, this
must be Sinclair. The latter might have the boldness to linger so close
to danger, but certainly never Cold Feet, even if he had once worked
his courage to the point of killing a man. He stepped closer, leaned,
and then by the half-light made out the pale, delicate features of the
schoolteacher.
For the moment Sandersen was stunned with disappointment, and yet his
spirits rose again almost at once. If Sinclair had fled, all the
better. He would not return, at least for a long time, and in the
meantime, he, Sandersen, would collect the money on the head of Cold
Feet!
With the Colt close to the breast of Jig, he said: "Wake up, Cold
Feet!"
The girl opened her eyes, struggled to sit up, and was thrust back by
the muzzle of the gun, held with rocklike firmness in the hand of
Sandersen.
"Riley--what--" she muttered sleepily and then she made out the face of
Sandersen distinctly.
Instantly she was wide awake, whiter than ever, staring. Better to take
the desperado alive than dead--far better. Cold Feet would make a show
in Sour Creek for the glorification of Sandersen, as he rode down
through the main street, and the men would come out to see the prize
which even Sheriff Kern and his posse had not yet been able to take.
"Roll over on your face."
Cold Feet obeyed without a murmur. There was a coiled rope by the
cinders of the fire. Sandersen cut off a convenient length and bound
the slender wrists behind the back of the schoolteacher. Then he jerked
his quarry to a sitting posture.
"Where's Sinclair gone?"
To his astonishment, Cold Feet's face brightened wonderfully.
"Oh, then you haven't found him? You haven't found him? Thank
goodness!"
Sandersen studied the schoolteacher closely. It was impossible to
mistake the frankness of the latter's face.
"By guns," he said at last, "I see it all now. The skunk sneaked off in
the middle of the night and left you alone here to face the music?"
Jig flushed, as she exclaimed: "That's not true. He's never run away in
his life."
"Maybe not," muttered Sandersen apprehensively. "Maybe he'll come back
ag'in. Maybe he's just rode off after something and will be back."
At once the old fear swept over him. His apprehensive glance flickered
over the rocks and trees around him--a thousand secure hiding places.
He faced the schoolteacher again.
"Look here, Jig: You're charged with a murder, you see? I can take you
dead or alive; and the shot that bumped you off might bring Sinclair
running to find out what'd happened, and he'd go the same way. But will
you promise to keep your mouth shut and give no warning when Sinclair
heaves in sight? Take your pick. It don't make no difference to me, one
way or the other; but I can't have the two of you on my hands."
To his surprise Jig did not answer at once.
"Ain't I made myself clear? Speak out!"
"I won't promise," said Cold Feet, raising the colorless face.
"Then, by thunder, I'll--"
In the sudden contorting of his face she saw her death, but as she
closed her eyes and waited for the report and the tear of the bullet,
she heard him muttering: "No, they's a better way."
A moment later her mouth was wrenched open, and a huge wadded bandanna
was stuffed into it. Sandersen pushed her back to the ground and tossed
the blanket over her again.
"You ain't much of a man, Jig, but as a bait for my trap you'll do
tolerable well. You're right: Sinclair's coming back, and when he
comes, I'll be waiting for him out of sight behind the rock. But listen
to this, Jig. If you wrastle around and try to get that gag out of your
mouth, I ain't going to take no chances. Whether Sinclair's in sight or
not, I'm going to drill you clean. Now lie still and keep thinking on
what I told you. I mean it all!"
With a final scowl he left her and hurried to the rock. It made an
ideal shelter for his purposes. On three sides, the rock made a thick
and effectual parapet. A thousand bullets might splash harmlessly
against that stone; and through crevices he commanded the whole sweep
of the mountainside beneath them. The courage which had been growing in
Sandersen, now reached a climax. Below him lay the helpless body of one
prize--from a distance apparently a sound and quiet sleeper, though
Sandersen could see the terrified glint of Jig's eyes.
But he forgot that a moment later, when he saw the form of a horseman
break out of covert from the trees farther down the mountain and
immediately disappear again. Sinclair? He studied the barrel of the
revolver, but the horseman appeared no more in the brightening and
misty dawn. It was only after a long pause that there issued from the
trees, not Riley Sinclair, but the squat, thick form of Arizona!
27
Behind the sheriff's apprehensive glance there had been reason. True
the door had closed upon Arizona, and the door was thick. But the
moment Arizona had passed through the door, he clapped his ear to the
keyhole and listened, holding his breath, for he was certain that the
moment his back was turned the shameful story of his exploits in the
lumber camp eight years before would come out for the edification of
Kern. If so, it meant ruin for him. Arizona was closed to him; all this
district would be closed by the story of his early light-fingeredness.
He felt as if he were being driven to the wall. Consequently he
listened with set teeth to the early questions of the sheriff; then he
breathed easier, still incredulous, when he heard Sinclair refuse to
tell the tale.
Still he lingered, dreading that the truth might out, and so heard the
talk turn to a new channel--Cold Feet. Cold Feet meant many things to
Sour Creek; to Arizona, the schoolteacher meant only one
thing--twenty-five-hundred dollars. And Arizona was broke.
To his hungry ear came the tidings: "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll
give you the layout for finding Cold Feet. Ride west out of Sour Creek
and head for a flat-topped mountain. On the shoulder just under the
head you'll find Cold Feet. Go get him!"
To Arizona it seemed as if this last injunction were personal advice.
He waited to hear no more; if he had paused for a moment he might have
learned that the hope of twenty-five hundred was an illusion and a
snare. He saw the bright vision of a small fortune placed in his hands
as the result of a single gunplay. He had seen the schoolteacher. He
knew by instinct that there was no fighting quality in Jig. And the
moment he heard the location it was as good as cash in his pocket, he
was sure.
There was only one difficulty. He must beat out the sheriff. To that
end he hurried to the stable behind the hotel, broke all records for
speed in getting the saddle on his roan mare, and then jogged her
quietly out of town so as to rouse no suspicions. But hardly was he
past the outskirts, hardly crediting his good luck that the sheriff
himself was not yet on the way, than he touched the flanks with his
spurs and sent the mare flying west.
In the west the moon was dropping behind the upper ranges, as he rode
through the foothills; when he began to climb the side of the mountain,
the dawn began to grow. So much the better for Arizona. But, knowing
that he had only Cold Feet to deal with, he did not adopt all the
caution of Sandersen on the same trail. Instead he cut boldly straight
for the shoulder of the mountain, knowing what he would find there on
his arrival. In the nearest grove he left his horse and then walked
swiftly up to the level. There the first thing that caught his eyes was
the form wrapped in the blanket. But the next thing he saw was the pale
glimmer of the dawn on the barrel of a revolver. He reached for his own
gun, only to see, over the rock above him, the grinning face of
Sandersen arise.
"Too late, Arizona," called the tall man. "Too late for one job,
partner, but just in time for the next!"
Arizona cursed softly, steadily, through snarling lips.
"What job?"
"Sinclair! He's gone, but he'll be back any minute. And it'll need us
both to down him, Arizona. We'll split on Sinclair's reward."
Disgust and wrath consumed Arizona. Without other answer he strode to
the prostrate form, slashed the rope and tore the handkerchief from
between the teeth of Cold Feet. The schoolteacher sat up, gasping for
breath, purple of face.
"Leave him be!" cried Sandersen, his voice shrill with anger. "Leave
him be! He's the bait, Arizona, and we're the trap that'll catch
Sinclair."
But Arizona cursed again bitterly. "Leave that bait lie till the sun
burns it up. You'll never catch Sinclair with it."
"How come?"
From around the rock Sandersen appeared and walked down to the fat man.
"Because Sinclair's already caught."
If he had expected the tall man to groan with disappointment, there was
a surprise in store for him. Sandersen exclaimed shrilly for joy.
"Sinclair took! Took dead, then!"
"Dead? Why?"
"You don't mean he was taken alive?"
"Yes, I sure do! And I done the figuring that led up to him being
caught."
The slender form of Jig rose before them, trembling.
"It isn't true! It isn't true! There aren't enough of you in Sour Creek
to take Riley Sinclair!"
"Ain't it true?" asked Arizona. "All right, son, you'll meet him pronto
in the Sour Creek jail, unless the boys finish their party of the other
day and string you up before you get inside the jail."
This brought a peculiar, low-pitched moan from Cold Feet.
"Cheer up," said Sandersen. "You ain't swinging yet awhile."
"But he's hurt! If he's alive, he's terribly wounded?"
Arizona beat down the appealing hand with a brutal gesture.
"No, he ain't particular hurt. Just his neck squashed a bit where the
sheriff throttled him. He didn't fight enough to get hurt, curse him!"
Frowning, Sandersen shook his head. "He's a fighting man, Arizona, if
they ever was one."
It seemed that everything infuriated the fat man.
"What d'you know about it, Lanky?" he demanded of Sandersen. "Didn't I
run the affair? Wasn't it me that planted the whole trap? Wasn't it me
that knowed he'd come into town for you or Cartwright?"
"Cartwright!" gasped Jig.
"Sure! We nailed him in Cartwright's room, just the way I said we
would. And they laughed at me, the fools!"
He might have gathered singular inferences from the lowered head of Jig
and the soft murmur: "I might have known--I might have known he'd try
for me."
"And I might have had the pleasure of drilling him clean," said
Arizona, harking back to it with savage pleasure, "but I shot out the
light. I wanted him to die slow, and before the end I wanted to pry his
eyes open and make him see my face and know that it was me that done
for him! That was what I wanted. But he turned yaller and wouldn't
fight."
"He wouldn't kill," said Jig coldly. "But for courage--I laugh at you,
Arizona!"
"Easy," scowled the cowpuncher. "Easy, Jig. You ain't behind the bars
yet. You're in reach of my fist, and I'd think nothing of busting you
in the face. Shut up till I talk to you."
The misty eyes of Sandersen brightened a little and grew hard. There
was a great deal of fighting spirit in the man, and his easy victory of
that morning had roused him to a battling pitch.
"Looks to me like you ain't running this here party, Arizona," he said
dryly. "If there are any directions to give Cold Feet, I'll give 'em.
It was me that took him!"
No direct answer could Arizona find to this true statement, and, as
always when a man is at a loss for words, his temper rose, and his
fists clenched. For the first time he looked at Sandersen with an eye
of savage calculation. He had come to hope of a tidy little fortune. He
had found it snatched out of his hand, and, as he measured Sandersen,
his heart rose. Twenty-five-hundred dollars would fairly well equip him
in life. The anger faded out of his eyes, and in its place came the
cold gleam of the man who thinks and calculates. All at once he began
to smile, a mirthless smile that was of the lips only.
"Maybe you're right, Sandersen, but I'm thinking you'd have to prove
that you took Cold Feet.'
"Prove it?"
"Sure! The boys wouldn't be apt to believe that sleepy Sandersen woke
up and took Cold Feet alive."
Instantly the gorge of Sandersen rose, and he began to see red.
"Are you out to find trouble, Fatty?"
The adjective found no comfortable lodging place in the mind of
Arizona.
"Me? Sure I ain't. I'm just stating facts the way I know 'em."
"Well, the facts you know ain't worth a damn."
"No?"
It was growing clearer and clearer to the fat man that between him and
twenty-five-hundred dollars there stood only the unamiable figure of
the long, lean cowpuncher. He steadied his eye till a fixed glitter
came in it. He hated lean men by instinct and distrusted them.
"Sure they ain't. How you going to get around the fact that I did take
Cold Feet?"
"Well, Sandersen, you see that they's twenty-five-hundred dollars
hanging on the head of this Cold Feet?"
"Certainly! And I see ten ways of spending just that amount."
"So do I," said Arizona.
"You do?"
"Partner, you've heard me talk!"
"Arizona, you're talking mighty queer. What d'ye mean?"
"Now, suppose it was me that brought in Cold Feet, who'd get the
money?"
"Why, you that brought him in?"
"Yep, me. And suppose I brought him in with two murders charged to him
instead of one."
"I don't foller you. What's the second murder, Fatty?"
"You!"
Sandersen blinked and gave back a little. Plainly he was beginning to
fear that the reason of Arizona was unbalanced.
He shook his head.
"I'll show you how it'll be charged to Cold Feet," said the fat man.
Taking the cartridge belt of Jig he shook the revolver out of the
holster and pumped a shot into the ground. The sharp crack of the
explosion roused no echo for a perceptible space. Then it struck back
at them from a solid wall of rock, almost as loud as it had been in
fact. Off among the hills the echo was repeated to a faint whisper.
Arizona dropped the revolver carelessly on the ground.
"Fatty, you've gone nutty," said Sandersen.
"I'll tell you a yarn," said Arizona.
Sandersen looked past him to the east. The light was growing rapidly
about the mountains. In another moment or so that sunrise which he had
been looking forward to with such solemn dread, would occur. He was
safe, of course, and still that sense of impending danger would not
leave him. He noted Jig, erect, very pale, watching them with intense
and frightened interest.
"Here's the story," went on the fat man. "I come out of Sour Creek
hunting for Cold Feet. I came straight to this here mountain. Halfway
up the side I hear a shot. I hurry along and soft-foot on to this
shoulder. I see Cold Feet standing, over the dead body of Sandersen.
Then I stick up Cold Feet and take him back to Sour Creek and get the
reward. Won't that be two murders on his head?"
The thin Swede rubbed his chin. "For a grown man, Fatty, you're doing a
lot of supposing."
"I'm going to turn it into fact," said Arizona.
"How?"
"With a chunk of lead! Pull your gun, you lanky fool!"
It seemed to Jig, watching with terrible interest, that Sandersen
stared not at Arizona, as he went for his gun, but beyond the stubby
cowpuncher--far behind and into the east, where the dawn was growing
brighter, losing its color, as sunrises do, just before the rising of
the sun. His long arm jerked back, the revolver whipped into his hand,
and he stiffened his forearm for the shot.
All that Jig saw, with eyes sharpened, so that each movement seemed to
be taking whole seconds, was a sneering Arizona, waiting till the last
second. When he moved, however, it was with an almost leisurely flip of
the wrist. The heavy Colt was conjured into his hand. With graceful
ease the big weapon slipped out and exploded before Sandersen's
forefinger had curled around the trigger.
Out of the hand of the Swede slipped the gun and clanged unheeded on
the ground at his feet. She saw a patch of red spring up on his breast,
while he lurched forward with long, stiff strides, threw up his hands
to the east, and pitched on his face. She turned from the dead thing at
her feet.
The white rim of the sun had just slid over the top of a mountain.
28
She dropped to her knees, and with a sudden, hysterical strength she
was able to turn him on his back. He was dead. The first glimpse of his
face told her that. She looked up into the eyes of the murderer.
Arizona was methodically cleaning his gun. His color had not changed.
There was a singular placidity about all his movements.
"I just hurried up what was coming to him," said Arizona coolly, as he
finished reloading his Colt. "Sinclair was after him, and that meant he
was done for."
Oddly enough, she found that she was neither very much afraid of the
fat man, nor did she loathe him for his crime. He seemed outside of the
jurisdiction of the laws which govern most men.
"You said Sinclair is in jail."
"Sure, and he is. But they don't make jails strong enough in these
parts to hold Sinclair. He'd have come out and landed Sandersen, just
as he's going to come out and land Cartwright. What has he got agin'
Cartwright, d'you know?"
Oh, it was incredible that he could talk so calmly with the dead man
before him.
"I don't know," she murmured and drew back.
"Well, take it all in all," pursued Arizona, "this deal of mine is
pretty rotten, but you'd swing just the same for one murder as for two.
They won't hang you no deader, eh? And when they come to look at it,
this is pretty neat. Sandersen wasn't no good. Everybody knowed that.
But he had one thing I wanted--which was you and the twenty-five
hundred that goes with the gent that brings you into Sour Creek. So, at
the price of one bullet, I get the coin. Pretty neat, I say ag'in."
Dropping the revolver back into the holster he patted it with a
caressing hand.
"There's your gun," went on Arizona, chuckling. "It's got a bullet
fired out of it. There's Sandersen's gun with no bullet fired, showing
that, while he was stalking you, you shot and drilled him. Here's my
gun with no sign of a shot fired. Which proves that I just slid in here
and stuck you up from behind, while you were looking over the gent
you'd just killed."
He rubbed his hands together, and bracing himself firmly on his stubby
legs, looked almost benevolently on Jig.
Not only did she lose her horror of him, but she gained an impersonal,
detached interest in the workings of his mind. She looked on him not as
a man but as a monster in the guise of a man.
"Two deaths," she said quietly, "for your money. You work cheaply,
Arizona."
Jig's criticism seemed to pique him.
"How come?"
"Sandersen's death by your bullet, and mine when I die in the law. Both
to your account, Arizona, because you know I'm innocent."
"I know it, but a hunch ain't proof in the eyes of the law. Besides, I
don't work so cheap. Sandersen was no good. He ain't worth thinking
about. And as for you, Jig, though I don't like to throw it in your
face, as a schoolteacher you may be all right, but as a man you ain't
worth a damn. Nope. I won't give neither of you a thought--except for
Sinclair."
"Ah?"
"Him and you have been bunkies, if he ever should find out what I done,
he'd go on my trail. Maybe he will anyway. And he's a bad one to have
on a gent's trail."
"You fear him?" she asked curiously, for it had seemed impossible that
this cold-blooded gunman feared any living thing.
He rolled a cigarette meditatively before he answered.
"Sure," he said, "I fear him. I ain't a fool. It was him that started
me, and him that gave me the first main lessons. But I ain't got the
nacheral talent with a gun that Sinclair has got."
Nodding his head in confirmation, his expression softened, as with the
admiration of one artist for a greater kindred spirit.
"The proof is that they's a long list of gunfights in Sinclair's past,
but not more deaths than you can count on the fingers of one hand. And
them that he killed was plumb no good. The rest he winged and let 'em
go. That's his way, and it takes an artist with a gun to work like
that. Yep, he's a great man, curse him! Only one weak thing I ever hear
of him doing. He buckled to the sheriff and told him where to find
you!"
Scratching a match on his trousers, the cowpuncher was amazed to hear
Jig cry: "You lie!"
He gaped at her until the match singed his fingers. "That's a tolerable
loud word for a kid to use!"
Apparently he meditated punishment, but then he shrugged his shoulders
and lighted his cigarette.
"Wild horses couldn't have dragged it out of him!" Jig was repeating.
"Say," said the fat man, grinning, "how d'you know _I_ knew where you
was?"
Like a blow in the face it silenced her. She looked miserably down to
the ground. Was it possible that Sinclair had betrayed her? Not for the
murder of Quade. He would be more apt to confess that himself, and
indeed she dreaded the confession. But if he let her be dragged back,
if her identity became known, she faced what was more horrible to her
than hanging, and that was life with Cartwright.
"Which reminds me," said Arizona, "that the old sheriff may not wait
for morning before he starts after you. Just slope down the hill and
saddle your hoss, will you?"
Automatically she obeyed, wild thoughts running through her mind. To go
back to Sour Creek meant a return to Cartwright, and then nothing could
save her from him. Halfway to her saddle her foot struck metal, her own
gun, which Arizona had dropped after firing the bullet. Was there not a
possibility of escape? She heard Arizona humming idly behind her.
Plainly he was entirely off guard.
Bending with the speed of a bird in picking up a seed, she scooped up
the gun, whirling with the heavy weapon extended, her forefinger
curling on the trigger. But, as she turned, the humming of Arizona
changed to a low snarl. She saw him coming like a bolt. The gun
exploded of its own volition, it seemed to her, but Arizona had swerved
in his course, and the shot went wild.
The next instant he struck her. The gun was wrenched from her hand, and
a powerful arm caught her and whirled her up, only to hurl her to the
ground; Arizona's snarling, panting face bent over her. In the very
midst of that fury she felt Arizona stiffen and freeze; the snarling
stopped; his nerveless arm fell away, and she was allowed to stagger to
her feet. She found him staring at her with a peculiar horror.
"Murdering guns!" whispered Arizona.
Now she understood that he knew. She saw him changed, humbled, disarmed
before her. But even then she did not understand the profound meaning
of that moment in the life of Arizona.
But to have understood, she would have had to know how that life began
in a city slum. She would have had to see the career of the sneak thief
which culminated in the episode of the lumber camp eight years before.
She would have had to understand how the lesson from the hand of big
Sinclair had begun the change which transformed the sneak into the
dangerous man of action. And now the second change had come. For
Arizona had made the unique discovery that he could be ashamed!
He would have laughed had another told him. Virtue was a name and no
more to the fat man. But in spite of himself those eight years under
free skies had altered him. He had been growing when he thought he was
standing still. When the eye plunges forty miles from mountain to
mountain, through crystal-clear air, the mind is enlarged. He had lived
exclusively among hard-handed men, rejoicing in a strength greater than
their own. He suddenly found that the feeble hand from which he had so
easily torn the weapon a moment before, had in an instant acquired
strength to make or break him.
All that Jig could discern of this was that her life was no longer in
danger, and that her enemy had been disarmed. But she was not prepared
for what followed.
Dragging off his hat, as if he acted reluctantly, his eyes sank until
they rested on the ground at her feet.
"Lady," he said, "I didn't know. I didn't even dream what you was."
29
Gradually she found her breath and greater self-possession.
"You mean I'm free?" she asked him. "You won't make me go into Sour
Creek?"
His face twisted as if in pain. "Make you?" he asked violently. "I'd
blow the head off the first one that tried to make you take a step."
Suddenly it seemed to her that all this was ordered and arranged, that
some mysterious Providence had sent this man here to save her from
Sandersen and all the horror that the future promised, just as Sinclair
had saved her once before from a danger which he himself had half
created.
"I got this to say," went on Arizona, struggling for the words. "Looks
to me like you might have need of a friend to help you along, wherever
you're going." He shook his thick shoulders. "Sure gives me a jolt to
think of what you must have gone through, wandering around here all by
yourself! I sure don't see how you done it!"
And all this time the man whom Arizona had killed, was lying face up to
the morning, hardly a pace behind him! But she dared not try to analyze
this man. She could only feel vaguely that an ally had been given her,
an ally of strength. He, too, must have sensed what was in her mind.
"You'll be wanting this, I reckon."
Returning the Colt to her, he slowly dragged his glance from the ground
and let it cross her face for a fleeting instant. She slipped the gun
back into its holster.
"And now suppose we go down the hill and get your hoss?"
Evidently he was painfully eager to get the dead man out of sight. Yet
he paused while he picked up her saddle.
"They'll be along pretty pronto--the sheriff and his men. They'll take
care of--him."
Leading the way down to her hobbled horse he saddled it swiftly, while
she stood aside and watched. When he was done he turned to her.
"Maybe we better be starting. It wouldn't come in very handy for Kern
to find us here, eh?"
Obediently she came. With one hand he held the stirrup, while the other
steadied her weight by the elbow, as she raised her foot. In spite of
herself she shivered at his touch. A moment later, from the saddle, she
was looking down into a darkly crimsoned face. Plainly he had
understood that impulse of aversion, but he said nothing.
There was a low neigh from the other side of the hill in answer to his
soft whistle, and then out of the trees came a beautifully formed roan
mare, with high head and pricking ears. With mincing steps she went
straight to her master, and Jig saw the face of the other brighten. But
he was gloomy again by the time he had swung into the saddle.
"Now," he said, "where away?"
"You're coming with me?" she asked, with a new touch of alarm. She
regretted her tone the moment she had spoken. She saw Arizona wince.
"Lady," he said, "suppose I come clean to you? I been in my time about
everything that's bad. I ain't done a killing except squarely. Sinclair
taught me that. And you got to allow that what I done to Sandersen was
after I give him all the advantage in the draw. I took even chances,
and I give him better than an even break. Ain't that correct?"
She nodded, fascinated by the struggle in his face between pride and
shame and anger.
"Worse'n that," he went on, forcing out the bitter truth. "I been
everything down to a sharp with the cards, which is tolerable low. But
I got this to say: I'm playing clean with you. I'll prove it before I'm
done. If you want me to break loose and leave you alone, say the word,
and I'm gone. If you want me to stay and help where I can help, say the
word, and I stay and take orders. Come out with it!"
Gathering his reins, he sat very straight and looked her fairly and
squarely in the eye, for the first time since he had discovered the
truth about Cold Feet. In spite of herself Jig found that she was drawn
to trust the fat man. She let a smile grow, let her glance become as
level and as straight as his own. She reined her horse beside his and
stretched out her hand.
"I know you mean what you say," said Jig. "And I don't care what you
have been in the past. I _do_ need a friend--desperately. Riley
Sinclair says that a friend is the most sacred thing in the world. I
don't ask that much, but of all the men I know you are the only one who
can help me as I need to be helped. Will you shake hands for a new
start between us?"
"Lady," said the cowpuncher huskily, "this sure means a lot to me. And
the--other things--you'll forget?"
"I never knew you," said the girl, smiling at him again, "until this
moment."
"Oh, it's a go!" cried Arizona. "Now try me out!"
Jig saw his self-respect come back to him, saw his eye grow bright and
clear. Arizona was like a man with a new "good resolution." He wanted
to test his strength and astonish someone with his change.
"There is one great thing in which I need help," she said.
"Good! And what's that?"
"Riley Sinclair is in jail."
"H'm," muttered Arizona. "He ain't in on a serious charge. Let him stay
a while." Stiffening in the saddle he stared at her. "Does Sinclair
know?"
"What?" asked the girl, but she flushed in spite of herself.
"That you ain't a man?"
"Yes."
For a moment he considered her crimson face gloomily. "You and Sinclair
was sort of pals, I guess," he said at length.
Faintly she replied in the affirmative, and her secret was written as
clearly as sunlight on her face. Yet she kept her eyes raised bravely.
As for Arizona, the newborn hope died in him, and then flickered back
to an evil life. If Sinclair was in his way, why give up? Why not
remove this obstacle as he had removed others in his time. The hurrying
voice of the girl broke in on his somber thoughts.
"He went to Sour Creek to help me as soon as he found out that I was
not a man. He put himself in terrible danger there on my account."
"Did Cartwright have something to do with you and him?"
"Yes."
But Arizona made no effort to read her riddle.
She went on: "Now that he has been taken, I know what has happened. To
keep me out of danger he told--"
"That you're a woman?"
"No, he wouldn't do that, because he knows that is the last thing in
the world that I want revealed. But he's told them that he killed
Quade, and now he's in danger of his life."
"Let's ride on," said Arizona. "I got to think a pile."
She did not speak, while the horses wound down the steep side of the
mountain. Mile after mile rose behind them. The sun increased in power,
flashing on the leaves of the trees and beginning to burn the face with
its slanting heat. Now and then she ventured a side-glance at Arizona,
and always she found him in a brown study. Vaguely she knew that he was
fighting the old battle of good and evil in the silence of the morning.
Finally he stopped his horse and turned to her again.
They were in the foothills by this time, and they had drawn out from
the trees to a little level space on the top of a rise. The morning
mist was thinning rapidly in the heart of the hollow beneath them. Far
off, they heard the lowing of cows being driven into the pasture land
after the morning milking, and they could make out tiny figures in the
fields.
"Lady," Arizona was saying to her, "they's one gent in the world that
I've got an eight-year-old grudge agin'. I've swore to get him sooner
or later, and that gent is Riley Sinclair. Make it something else, and
I'll work for you till the skin's off my hands. But Sinclair--" He
stopped, studying her intently. "Will you tell me one thing? How much
does Sinclair mean to you."
"A great deal," said the girl gently. "But if you hate him, I can't ask
you."
"He's a hard man," said Arizona, "and he's got a mean name, lady. You
know that. But when you say that he means a lot to you, maybe it's
because he's taken a big chance for you in Sour Creek and--"