"But you'll be at the place with the horses?"
"Yes."
"Then so long till the time comes. And--you're a brick, Jig!"
Once outside the jail, she set to work at once. As for getting the
roan, it was the simplest thing in the world. There was no one in the
stable behind the hotel, and no one to ask questions. She calmly
saddled the roan, mounted him, and rode by a wider detour to the
cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop.
Her own horse was to be for Sinclair. But before she took him, she went
into the hotel, and the first man she found on the veranda was
Cartwright. He came to her at once, shifting away from the others.
"How are things?"
"Good," said Cartwright. "Ain't you heard 'em talking?"
Here and there about the hotel, men stood in knots of three and four,
talking in low voices.
"Are they talking about _that_?"
"Sure they are," said Cartwright, relieved. "You ain't heard nothing?"
"Not a word."
"Then the thing for you to do is to keep under cover. You don't want to
get mixed up in this thing, eh?"
"I suppose not."
"Keep out of sight, honey. The crowd will start pretty soon and tear
things loose." He could not resist one savage thrust. "A rope, or a
pair of ropes, will do the work."
"Ropes?"
"One to tie Kern, and one to tie his deputy," he explained smoothly.
"Where you going now?"
"Getting their retreat ready," she whispered excitedly. "I've already
warned them where to go to get the horses."
She waved to him and stepped back into the night, convinced that all
was well. As for Cartwright, he hesitated, staring after her. After
all, if his plan developed, it would be wise for him to allow the
others to do the work of mischief. He had no wish to be actively mixed
up with a lynching party. Sometimes there were after results. And if he
had done no more than talk, there would be small hold upon him by the
law.
Moreover, things were going smoothly under the guidance of Whitey. The
pale-faced man had thrown himself body and soul into the movement. It
was a rare thing to see Whitey excited. Other men were readily
impressed. After a time, when anger had reached a certain point where
men melt into hot action, these fixed figures of men would sweep into
fluid action. And then the fates of Arizona and Sinclair would be
determined.
It pleased Cartwright more than any action of his life to feel that he
had stirred up this movement. It pleased him still more to know that he
could now step back and watch the work of ruin go on. It was like
disturbing the one small stone which starts the avalanche, which
eventually smashes the far-off forest.
So much was done, then. And now why not make sure that the very last
means of retreat for the pair was blocked? The girl went to get the
horses. And if, by the one chance in twenty, the two should actually
break out of the jail, it would remain to Cartwright to kill the horses
or the men. He did not care which.
He slipped behind the hotel and presently saw the girl come out of the
stable with her horse. He followed, skulking softly behind her until he
reached the appointed place among the cottonwoods. The trees grew tall
and thick of trunk, and about their bases was a growth of dense
shrubbery. It was a simple thing to conceal two saddled horses in a
hollow which sank into the edge of the shrubbery.
Cartwright's first desire was to couch himself in shooting distance.
Then he remembered that shooting with a revolver by moonlight was
uncertain work. He slipped away to the hotel and got a rifle ready
enough. Men were milling through the lower rooms of the hotel. The
point of discussion had long since been passed. The ringleaders had
made up their minds. They went about with faces so black that those who
were asked to join, hardly had the courage to question. There was
broad-voiced rumor growing swiftly. Something was wrong--something was
very wrong. It was like that mysterious whisper which goes through the
forest before the heavy storm strikes. Something was terribly wrong and
must be righted.
How the ringleaders had reasoned, nobody paused to ask. It was
sufficient that a score of men were saying: "The sheriff figures on
letting Sinclair and Arizona go."
A typical scene between two men. They meet casually, one man whistling,
the other thoughtful.
"What's the bad luck?" asks the whistler.
"No time for whistling," says the other.
"Say, what you mean?"
"I ask you just this," said the gloomy man, with a mystery of much
knowledge in his face: "Are gents around here going to be murdered, and
the murderers go free?"
"Well?"
"Sinclair and Arizona--that's what's up! They're going to bust loose."
"I dunno about Arizona, but Sinclair, they say, is a square shooter."
"Who told you that? Sinclair himself? He's got a rep as long as my arm.
He's a bad one, son!"
"You don't say!"
"I do say. And something has got to be done, or Sour Creek won't be a
decent man's town no more."
"Let me in." Off they went arm in arm.
Cartwright saw half a dozen little interviews of this nature, as he
entered the hotel. Men were excited, they hardly knew why. There is no
need for reason in a mob. One has only to cry, "Kill!" and the mob will
start of its own volition to find something that may be slain. Also, a
mob has no conscience and no remorse. It is the nearest thing to a
devil that exists, and it is also the nearest thing to the divine mercy
and courage. It is braver than the bravest man; it is more timorous
than the most fearful; it is fiercer than a lion, gentler than a lamb.
All these things by turns, and each one to the exclusion of all the
others.
Now the thunderclouds were piling on the horizon, and Cartwright could
feel the electricity in the air. He went to Pop.
"I got to have a rifle."
"What for?"
"You know," said Cartwright significantly.
The hotelkeeper nodded. He brought out an old Winchester, still mobile
of action and deadly. With that weapon under his arm, Cartwright
started back, but then he remembered that there were excellent chances
of missing even with a rifle, when he was shooting through the shadows
and by the treacherous moonlight. It would be better, far better, to
have his horse with him. Then, if he actually succeeded in wounding one
or both of them, he could run his victim down, or, perhaps, keep up a
steady fire of rifle shots from the rear, that would bring half the
town pouring out to join in the chase.
So he swung back to the stables, saddled his horse, trotted it around
in a comfortably wide detour, and, coming within sound distance of the
cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop, he dismounted and led his horse
into a dense growth of shrubbery. That close approach would have been
impossible without alarming the girl, had it not been for a stiff wind
blowing across into his face, completely muffling the noise of his
coming. In the bushes he ensconced himself safely. Only a few yards
away he kept his eye on the opening among the cottonwoods, behind which
the girl and the two horses moved from time to time, growing more and
more visible, as the moon climbed above the horizon mist.
He tightened his grip on the rifle and amused himself with drawing
beads on stumps and bright bits of foliage, from time to time. He must
be ready for any sort of action if the two should ever appear.
While he waited, sounds reached his ear from the town, sounds eloquent
of purpose. He listened to them as to beautiful music. It was a low,
distinct, and continuous humming sound. Voices of men went into it, low
as the growl of an angered dog, and there was a background of slamming
doors, and footsteps on verandas. Sour Creek was mustering for the
assault.
35
Now that sound had entered the jail, and it had a peculiar effect. It
was like that distant murmuring of the storm which walks over the
treetops far away. It made the sheriff and his two prisoners lift their
heads and look at one another in silence, for the sheriff was most
unprofessionally tilted back in a chair, with his feet braced against
the bars of the cell, while he chatted with his bad men about men,
women, and events. The sheriff had a distinct curiosity to learn how
Arizona had recovered so suddenly from his "blue funk."
Unquestionably the fat man had recovered. His voice was as steady now
as any man's, and the old, insolent glitter was in his eyes. He squared
his shoulders and blew his smoke straight at the face of the sheriff,
as he talked. What caused it, the sheriff could not tell, this
rehabilitation of a fighting man, but he connected the influence of
Sinclair with the change.
By this time Sinclair himself was the more restless of the two. While
Arizona sat at ease on the bunk, the tall man ranged up and down the
cell, with long, noiseless steps, turning quickly back and forth beside
the bars. He had spent his nervous energy cheering up Arizona, until
the latter was filled with a reckless, careless courage. What would
happen Arizona could not guess, but Sinclair had assured him that
something _would_ happen, and he trusted implicitly to the word of his
tall companion. Sooner or later he would learn that they were hopeless,
and Sinclair dreaded the breakdown which he knew would follow that
discovery.
In his heart Sinclair knew that there would be no hope, no chance. The
girl, he felt, had been swept off her feet with some absurd dream of
freeing them. For his own part he had implicit faith in the strength of
the toolproof steel of the bars on the one hand, and the gun of the
sheriff on the other. As long as they held, they would keep their
prisoners. The key to freedom was the key to the sheriff's heart, and
Sinclair was too much of a man to whine.
He had come to the end of his trail, and that was evident in the
restlessness of his walking to and fro. The love of the one thing on
earth that he cared for was his, according to Arizona, and there was
nothing to make the fat man lie. It seemed to Riley Sinclair that, at
the very moment he had set his hands upon priceless gold, the treasure
was crumbling to dead sand. He had lost her by the very thing that won
her.
In the midst of his pacing he stopped and lifted his head, just as the
sheriff and Arizona did the same thing. The far-off murmur hummed and
moaned toward them, gathering strength. Then the sheriff pushed back
his chair and went to the front of the jail. They heard him give
directions to his deputy to find out what the murmuring meant. When
Kern returned he was patently worried.
"Gents," he said, "I've heard that same sort of a sound twice before,
and it means business." None of the three spoke again until the door
of the jail was burst open, and the deputy came on them, running.
"Kern," he gasped, as he reached the sheriff, "they're coming."
"Who?"
"Every man in Sour Creek. They tried to get me with 'em. I told 'em I'd
stay and then slipped off. They want both of these. They want 'em bad.
They're going to fight to get 'em!"
"Do they want to grab Arizona and Sinclair?" asked the sheriff, with
surprising lack of emotion. "Don't think they're guilty?"
"You're wrong. They think they're sure guilty, and they're going to
lynch 'em."
He whispered this, but his panting made the words louder than he
thought. Sinclair heard; and by the shudder of Arizona, he knew that
his companion had heard as well.