It had been opened. Brick slowly drew out the slip of paper, and he and
Silent read the penciled note.
Tuesday, I think. J will be on stage and will signal at first
curve. If no signal, let go. If there, J will go to Marlin,
unless trouble. Can take care of self. This is big. Meet you
in same place.
(Signed) O.
Brick and Silent looked at each other for a moment and then down at the
note. Brick folded it up and replaced it in his pocket.
“Know who Scott Martin is?” asked Silent.
Brick nodded and puffed on his cigaret.
“Bought out the old Weepin’ Tree ranch. Tall, freckled _hombre_, about
fifty years old. Ties his gun down.”
“Rides a blaze-faced bay,” added Silent. “I’ve seen him. Kinda puts the
deadwood on him, Brick. Gee cripes, a man’s a sucker to take chances on
losin’ that kind of a note.”
“Fools ain’t all dead,” grinned Brick. “In fact, I reckon, they’re right
in their prime.”
“Whatcha goin’ to do about it?”
Silent was getting anxious.
“Wait for the reward.”
“Here comes Sun-Dog’s swell-elegant sheriff, Brick.”
Brick and Silent strolled down and watched Bunty and his deputy get out
of their buggy.
“Well, I see yuh got back safe,” observed Brick.
Three Star grunted, but Bunty ignored them.
“Did yuh find any tracks in the dust?” inquired Brick, insinuating that
the officers did not get far from their buggy.
“I’d hate to have ’em follerin’ me in the snow,” stated Silent. “Betcha
they’d make me go some. Did yuh find the woman?”
“You’re loco,” declared Three Star. “Women don’t hold up stages.”
“Silent, me and you can’t lie a-tall--not and get away with it.”
Brick grew very despondent.
“Other fellers can lie and make anybody believe----”
“Wait a minute!” snapped the exasperated sheriff. “You two talk too much
and say nothin’.”
“What can yuh expect?” wailed Silent. “They took our guns and we’ve got
all excited. Nobody can talk sense when they’re excited.”
“Can you describe the robbers?” asked Bunty.
“Sure.”
Brick stepped in close to Bunty and grew very accurate in his
description.
“Medium size; mebbe a little taller. Both wore overalls, shirts and
boots and had masks on.”
“One chawed spittin’-weed,” added Silent. “Yuh ought to be able to find
him easy. Yeah, he sure did. And another thing--they all had guns.”
“You think you’re ---- smart!” snapped Bunty. “What about the woman?
You’ve told several different stories.”
“That’s right.”
Brick grew serious.
“Silent, we’ve made a awful mistake thataway. Anyway--” Brick grinned at
Bunty--“anyway, I can’t remember just what he did tell; so we’ll stick
to all of ’em.”
Bunty grunted with disgust over this ridiculous statement and went into
the office, followed by Three Star, equally disgusted, while Brick and
Silent grinned joyfully and went back up the street to the Dollar Down,
where they found Harp leaning against the bar, twanging dolefully.
“Git him away,” wailed a half-drunk cowboy from the Bar S, pointing at
Harp. “His kinda music makes me cry, and when I cry I get mean,” and
then he added meaningly, “I’ve been cryin’ quite a while now.”
Harp grinned. Just then came an interruption in the shape of three
rangy-looking greyhounds, which came frisking into the front door. They
trotted a circle around the room and then headed for Brick. Dogs always
came to Brick.
He leaned down and was immediately the center of three plunging beasts,
all seeking to get the bulk of caresses.
Brick managed to back away from them, and just then King Cleeve and Zell
Mohr came in. Mohr was carrying several fresh coyote pelts, which were
tied together. The inhabitants of the place surrounded them and Cleeve
set up the drinks.
King Cleeve was of the cool, calculating type of gambler. There was
nothing flashy about him, except that he wore an enormous yellow
sapphire ring on his left hand, and the mate to it flashed from his
necktie. He was of medium height, graceful in his movements, with the
long, tapering hands of a man who drew a living without hard labor.
His face was not unpleasant, although his eyes were shallow and his
teeth too short and even to make his smile friendly.
Just now he was wearing a flannel shirt and a pair of well-worn chaps.
“It’s the real sport,” stated Cleeve; but there was little exultation in
his voice. “Think I’ll get me some dogs.”
“Dogs run ’em down, eh?” wondered Brick. “That’s goin’ some.”
“Run ’em down all right,” assured Mohr. “Them dogs are runners.”
“Caught four of ’em, eh?” asked Brick, examining the bundle of pelts.
“Betcha them dogs had to go some. Had to shoot ’em, didn’t yuh?”
“After the dogs caught ’em,” nodded Mohr. “No use letting the dogs get
chawed up.”
“That’s right,” grinned Brick, fondling the lean head of a fawn-colored
hound, and immediately becoming the center of the three dogs again.
Just then Lafe Freeman drove up in front of the saloon. Tied to the
back of the buckboard was a heating-stove, which threatened to cave in
the rear of the flimsy vehicle. Lafe came in. He nodded to several of
the men.
“Hear about the robbery, Cleeve?”
Cleeve nodded.
“Yes. We met the sheriff down the street. He didn’t seem to know much
about it.”
“He wouldn’t,” said Lafe. “Yuh can’t expect him to. I think Limpy is
goin’ after ’em himself. As I came past his shack he was packin’ a
horse and he had a riding-horse saddled.”
Mohr turned from the bar and spoke to his dogs.
“Yuh got some nice dogs there,” remarked Brick.
Mohr nodded and turned to King Cleeve.
“Reckon I’ll be goin’, Cleeve. You keep them hides. As soon as I can get
them pups I’ll let yuh know.”
The crowd at the bar broke up. Brick and Silent watched Lafe swing out
of town, team on the run as usual.
“We’ll borrow a couple of horses from Wesson,” said Brick as the three
of them crossed the street.
“I’d kinda like to chase coyotes,” observed Silent.
“Go ahead,” said Brick. “Don’t let me stop yuh. At that you’d likely
catch as many as them hounds did.”
“Whatcha mean?” asked Silent quickly, but Brick did not say.
Cale Wesson let them have the pick of his stable, and as they started
down the street Limpy rode from behind the blacksmith shop, leading a
packed horse.
“Goin’ huntin’ outlaws, Limpy?” asked Brick.
Limpy squinted at Brick, glanced back up the street, where a number of
men were standing in front of the Dollar Down, and then back at Brick.
“I dunno--yet. If this danged pack-animal will git animated a little
I’ll ride as far as the forks with yuh.”
Brick swung in behind the pack-horse, and that worthy animal, knowing
the meaning of such actions, broke into a lope.
Three miles from town, at the forks of Whisperin’ Creek, Brick, Silent
and Harp waved good-by to Limpy Squires, and then swung into the low
hills of the Nine Bar Nine range.
“She-e-e was a shrinkin’ vi’let
And I loved her ten-n-n-der-lee-e-e.
I called her-r-r mine, my I-i-iodine,
But she nev-v-v-er came back to me-e-e.”
Silent’s face gradually came back to normal as he wailed the last line.
Harp Harris gave an extra doleful twang to his jew’s-harp and nodded in
appreciation.
“Yuh might like to know that Iodine ain’t a girl’s name,” remarked Brick
from where he sat on the edge of a bunk, massaging his toes, which were
encased in an all-too-tight boot.
“This one was named that,” retorted Silent.
“Iodine is a medicine.”
“So was she--good medicine, Brick.”
Silent watched Brick rubbing his toes.
“What yuh ought to do is this, Brick; massage your feet with a
meat-grinder and then pour the results into a sausage-skin. What
in ---- a feller wants to pinch----”
“Them is my feet,” stated the ungrammatical Brick.
“That there was my song,” reminded Silent, “but you took exceptions to
it.”
“Some folks takes exceptions to my music,” observed Harp.
“Not me.”
Brick shook his head seriously.
“I like it, Harp. Sounds like a dyin’ Injun with his head in a
barrel--and I hate Injuns.”
“A feller can wear a hat that’s too small, and all she does is fall
off,” stated Silent, “but when he bunches his toes inside a boot what
is three sizes too small---- Of course, if I was a tin-horn gambler or
was in love----”
Brick glared at Silent for a moment, but the pain in his foot drew his
attention away. He hooked the heel of the offending boot over the end
of the bunk and pulled his foot out, with a sigh of relief. He picked
up the boot and looked it over.
“Takes a lot of argument, but sometimes yuh show sense,” remarked
Silent. “I knowed a feller down in Wyoming who was a heap like you,
Brick. He was herdin’ sheep for a while, but he didn’t have sense
enough to herd sheep, so he----”
Silent ducked just in time to escape the thrown boot, but as he
ducked his head hit the table-top a resounding whack. He staggered
back, clutching at his forehead, dazed. He started for Brick, who was
convulsed with laughter and unable to defend himself.
“If yuh kill him I’ll never play for yuh again,” declared Harp, stepping
in front of Silent.
“O-o-o-oh, mama mine!” choked Brick. “If it hadn’t been for that table
he’d ’a’ dropped his head on the floor!”
“By cripes, yuh must think that’s funny!” howled Silent. “If yuh do
you’ve got another think comin’.”
“Nobody told yuh to hammer the table with your head.”
Silent groaned and massaged his forehead. Finally he grinned and said:
“Well, are we goin’ to town, Brick? Thousand dollars ain’t much, but it
helps a lot in these stingy times.”
“Funny that the Whippoorwill don’t raise that ante,” remarked Brick,
pulling on his old boots. “The county never lost nothin’, but still
they offers a thousand.”
* * * * *
It was three days after the robbery, but no one had found the slightest
trace of the bandits. Conjectures were rife as to the contents of the
iron box. The superintendent of the Whippoorwill mine refused to issue
any statement of the amount, and beyond the probable value, based on
Limpy’s estimate of the weight, there was nothing to show the extent of
the haul.
And Limpy had disappeared. Whether on the track of the bandits or on
personal business, no one knew. Limpy had been very brief in his
statements, and outside of his first words to the sheriff, had not
mentioned the woman. No one except Silent, Lafe, Brick and Limpy
actually knew what happened at the hold-up.
Brick and Silent had not been to Marlin since the day of the robbery,
but Harp had made the trip each day, gathering the latest gossip. Harp
had no idea of why they wanted first news of the reward, but it was
easier to ride to Marlin and loaf around than it was to work on the
ranch. If the Nine Bar Nine wanted to pay him for loafing in town,
fine. And besides it gave him a chance to learn a lot of new tunes on
his harp.
Brick and Silent had deliberated on letting Harp in on the proposition.
Harp was a square-shooter. He was fast with a gun and a top rider. They
finally decided to let Harp in on their secret.
As they rode away from the ranch Brick told Harp and let him read the
note.
“Well, ----!” drawled Harp delightedly. “She’s a dead open and shut.
Let’s go and arrest him.”
“Him!” snorted Brick. “We seen three, and from this note it looks like
four. One of them initials, I reckon it’s J, stands for the female.
We’ll kinda investigate this here Martin, but for gosh sake use a little
sense, will yuh? We ain’t got a danged thing except this letter.”
At the scene of the hold-up they swung off the grade and rode down to
the pine thicket. The stage was still there, but Freeman had hired Joe
Le Blanc to haul the wagon to his shop at Marlin City.
Brick dismounted and walked down from the stage until he reached a
point where the top of the stage was barely visible. Then he searched
the ground. Suddenly he grunted and picked up an empty .45-70 cartridge
shell. Silent and Harp looked at it.
“World is full of .45-70’s,” stated Silent.
Brick nodded and examined the cartridge. To all appearances it was an
ordinary cartridge shell. No one except a gun crank would give it a
second glance. Brick turned it around in his fingers, feeling of it
carefully.
To all appearances the cartridge was old. It was spotted with verdigris
and scratched as if it had been handled considerably.
Brick noted this. In a country where there was much use for
rifle-shooting it seemed strange that any man would have an old
cartridge in his possession. A hold-up man would rarely take a chance
of using an old cartridge in a repeating rifle--or in any gun for that
matter.
Brick examined the butt of this shell, and noted that it was slightly
swollen. The firing-pin of the rifle had dented the primer near the top,
fairly cutting into the brass rim of the cartridge. Brick glanced at the
others.
“Likely the one they shot past my head,” grinned Silent. “Reckon I’m
lucky to be able to look calmly upon that ca’tridge-shell.”
Brick dropped the shell into his pocket and got back on his horse.
“He’s thinkin’,” observed Silent. “That shell means a lot to him, Harp.
Shouldn’t be afraid to bet that he knows them bandits’ ancestors by
their first name by now.”
“Sure,” nodded Harp. “Betcha he even knows it was fired in a .45-70.”
Brick turned in his saddle and grinned at Harp.
“I might fool yuh on the way I’d bet.”
“And,” observed Silent, “they send ’em to the loco lodge for thinkin’
they’re somethin’ that they ain’t.”
Brick led them straight through the main street of Marlin City. Bunty
Blair was standing in front of the Dollar Down, and when he saw them
he sauntered over toward the hitch-rack as if to meet them when they
rode up; but they never even looked at him as they rode past.
“That’s high-tonin’ the law,” grinned Silent, watching Bunty from the
corner of his eye. “Mister Blair likely was wishful to ask questions.
Believe me, cowboys, we’ll hookum cow on this deal. When we turn our
prisoners over to the law we’ll take receipt.”
“Yuh can’t figure on chicken stew by lookin’ at a nest full of aigs,”
reminded Brick. “We’re goin’ to be danged lucky to find out who done
it, and then we’ll likely earn a lot more than a thousand dollars
landin’ ’em. We know there was two men and a woman, which makes it
equal to about five men.”
“How do yuh figure thataway?” asked Harp.
“That’s right, Harp--you never seen that woman.”
* * * * *
The Weeping Tree ranch was what might be termed a derelict. The ranch
had changed hands numberless times, and it appeared that each new owner
had added a room or two to the rambling ranch-house until it had grown
to be almost a complete rectangle, in the center of which grew a gnarled
weeping-willow tree.
The old tumble-down barn also had many angles, and from the number of
pole corrals it appeared that each owner had had a pet idea of corral
construction. The ranch-house had no protection from the elements,
and it appeared that each addition had shrunk away from its neighbor
until it was almost possible to look between all the additions to the
original ranch-house.
Smoke was drifting from the stove-pipe, or rather one of the
stove-pipes, when the three cowboys rode into the rectangle and
dismounted.
“Whatcha goin’ to say to him?” asked Silent.
“Party call,” grinned Brick.
“Independent party,” chuckled Harp, remembering the recent election.
They started away from their horses, but stopped. A woman was singing:
“Oh! Ye’ll tak’ the high-road and I’ll tak’ the low-road,
And I’ll be in Scotland a-fore ye,
But me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.”
The words ceased, but the rich throaty contralto hummed the chorus of
the old Scotch song once more. Brick Davidson’s mother had been
Scotch--and she had sung this same song to him. It had been years since
Brick had heard it, and it brought back a rush of memories--memories of
a sweet-faced woman who used to cuddle him in her arms and call him
“laddie o’ mine.”
Brick was not sentimental, but just now he found himself, hat in hand,
staring down at the ground. He glanced at his companions. Harp was
staring at the open door, mouth open. Silent had stepped back against
his horse and was standing with his arms folded and eyes closed.
Brick’s eyes switched back to the door just as the owner of the voice
appeared. For a moment she did not see them--her eyes seemingly looking
far away. Then she gave a start of surprize.
She was not beautiful. Her face was tanned, her hair a tumbled brown
mass, and a smudge of black discolored one of her cheeks. The faded
blue-calico dress, the dejected attitude, might have made her a
pathetic figure; but she was too tall, too visibly healthy to be
pathetic.
“Ma’am,” said Brick softly, “yuh got a beauty-spot.”
Her hand went slowly to her cheek and a smile flashed across her face.
“I’ve been trying to fix that darned stove-pipe. When I get it level the
stove won’t stand up, and when I get the stove level the pipe won’t fit.
Know anything about stoves?”
“I’m a expert on ’em,” stated Silent.
“Not saggin’ ones,” corrected Brick. “I’m the sag expert.”
There was a three-cornered rush for the doorway, but Brick was the first
one inside.
Some time, in the dim and distant past, this stove might have had four
legs; but now it rested its four corners on a stone, two bricks, an old
kettle and a block of wood. The rusty pipe, of odd lengths, made several
angles before entering the tin-protected hole in the roof.
The three cowboys surrounded the stove and examined it carefully. The
section of pipe which connected to the top of the stove had been freshly
cut, but Silent did not note this trifling detail.
“The ---- fool that cut this must ’a’ been cross-eyed,” he declared. “No
wonder it won’t fit when the stove’s level.”
“I’m not much of a mechanic,” admitted the girl soberly.
“Aw-w-w,” choked Silent, coloring to the roots of his hair. “Aw, I can
see where yuh made the mistake, ma’am; one of the corners was saggin’.
Anybody’d make the same mistake.”
Brick removed the offending section of pipe and proceeded to ruin his
pet pocketknife in cutting the pipe square across, while Silent and
Harp shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
“She’s a small world, ma’am,” declared Silent, “but I ain’t never met
yuh before. I’m Melville Slade. Folks calls me Silent ’cause I never
have much to say. This one here is Harp Harris. The pipe-cutter over
there is named Brick Davidson.”
“Harp ain’t my right name, ma’am.”
Harp said that much and then took a deep breath, like a man who had
been under water a long time--or was getting ready to go under. Then
he finished breathlessly--
“I was christened Cadwallader Jones Harris, ma’am.”
Harp beamed with joy over his disclosure.
“I’d stick to Harp if I was you,” grunted Brick. “Sayin’ your full name
sounds like fallin’ over a door-step and hitting your head on a chair.”
“Were you christened Brick?” asked the girl.
“His name’s Donald Campbell Davidson,” chanted Harp. “I know, ’cause I
seen it on a letter.”
Brick grinned at her.
“I am Jean Martin,” said the girl simply.
“Jean Martin?”
Brick almost dropped the pipe.
“How do yuh spell it--with a G?”
“No, with a J. J-e-a-n.”
Brick came back to the stove and fitted the pipe, while Silent and Harp
watched him. It fitted. Brick wiped his hands on his chaps and smiled at
her.
“I reckon she’ll work now, ma’am.”
“Thank you so very much. I never could have fixed it, because I am such
a poor mechanic.”
She looked at Silent as she finished; but Silent was looking at a
Winchester hanging on a pair of deer-horns on the wall.
“You and your dad goin’ to run the ranch?” asked Brick.
“We--we hope to, Mr. Davidson.”
“Kinda hard for one man to run a place,” observed Harp.
“There will be three of us. Jack Oliver has been with us a long time,
but he isn’t here yet because he stopped to pick up some stock.”
“Well,” said Brick slowly, “I reckon we’ll drift along, ma’am. Just
stopped to say howdy.”
Jean shook hands with them and stood in the doorway, waving a farewell
as they rode away.
* * * * *
None of the three men spoke for a while, and then Harp remarked--“She
ought to have a new stove.”
Neither of the others disputed his assertion. Silent spurred up beside
Brick.
“Lemme look at that letter again, Brick.”
He read it through and handed it back to Brick.
“Kinda fits,” he muttered. “J and O. Watcha know about that, Brick?”
“All we’ve gotta do--” began Harp, but Brick whirled in his saddle.
“Do what?” he snapped.
“We-e-ll, whatcha think, Brick?”
“Lemme think, will yuh?”
“Let me think,” grinned Silent. “Betcha forty dollars, Harp, that he’s
thinkin’ right around one thing--she sure can sing.”
“Like an angel,” said Harp seriously. “Honest to grandma, I ain’t never
heard no song like that in my life. Wonder if she’d sing if a feller
asked her?”
“What caliber was that Winchester carbine hangin’ on the wall?” asked
Brick.
“Forty-five-seventy,” said Harp. “I gotta good look at it. Model 1886,
open sights.”
“Sure?”
“You’re danged right I’m sure, but that don’t spell nothin’, Brick. This
here country is full of .45-70’s.”
“I’m glad it was a .45-70.”
Silent turned in his saddle and stared at Brick.
“Yuh are, are yuh?” he exploded. “Well, now lemme tell yuh somethin’,
cowboy; don’t yuh try to hang deadwood on that lady.”
“A thousand dollars is a lot of money,” mused Brick.
“I ain’t so danged miserly as all that,” grunted Harp. “Forty a month
and feed ain’t so much, but yuh can live on it.”
“That would mean three hundred and thirty-three dollars apiece,” stated
Brick seriously. “Take a long time to save up that much, if yuh don’t
drink much and don’t gamble.”
“What’s time?” snorted Silent. “That ain’t nothin’; is it, Harp?”
“Not in my life, Silent. Whatcha laughin’ at, Brick?”
“Thinkin’ what a lot of danged fools the lady has made of us three.”
They rode into Marlin and left their horses at the tie-rack near the
sheriff’s office. A group of men were standing in front of the general
store--a group that seemed strangely interested in the three cowboys.
Bunty Blair was one of the group, and now he left it and came down
toward his office to meet the three.
Bunty stopped as if undecided. Then he pointed toward the door of his
office and said--
“Let’s go inside and have a little talk.”
“What’s the main idea?” asked Brick wonderingly, glancing from Bunty to
the crowd in front of the store.
“Come inside and I’ll tell yuh--all three of yuh.”
The three cowboys glanced at each other and then followed Bunty into the
office. He shut the door and faced them.
“Limpy Squires was murdered.”
Brick squinted at Bunty.
“When?”
“The day of the hold-up. Shot in the back.”
The cowboys exchanged glances. Limpy had never been popular with them,
but who would shoot the inoffensive old crippled stage-driver? Limpy had
an acrid tongue, but no one ever took exceptions to his talk--rather
they were amused at his flow of profanity. Bunty straightened some
papers on his desk and continued:
“He left here with you fellers. ‘Topaz’ Tyler was coming here from
Silverton when he found him. Limpy had been dead all this time, lyin’
just off the road near the forks. Topaz brought the word back, and we
went out after him. We found both horses, but the pack had come
loose.”