DEATH
Before noon of the next day Buck joined the crowd which had been
growing for hours around Tully's saloon. Men gave way before him,
whispering. He was a marked man--the friend of Whistling Dan Barry.
Cowpunchers who had known him all his life now avoided his eyes, but
caught him with side glances. He smiled grimly to himself, reading
their minds. He was more determined than ever to stand or fall with
Whistling Dan that day.
There was not an officer of the law in sight. If one were present it
would be his manifest duty to apprehend the outlaws as soon as they
appeared, and the plan was to allow them to fight out their quarrel
and perhaps kill each other.
Arguments began to rise among separate groups, where the crimes
attributed to Whistling Dan Barry were numbered and talked over. It
surprised Buck to discover the number who believed the stories which
he and Haines had told. They made a strong faction, though manifestly
in the minority.
Hardly a man who did not, from time to time, nervously fumble the butt
of his six-gun. As three o'clock drew on the talk grew less and less.
It broke out now and again in little uneasy bursts. Someone would tell
a joke. Half hysterical laughter would greet it, and die suddenly,
as it began. These were all hard-faced men of the mountain-desert,
warriors of the frontier. What unnerved them was the strangeness of
the thing which was about to happen. The big wooden clock on the side
of the long barroom struck once for half-past two. All talk ceased.
Men seemed unwilling to meet each other's eyes. Some of them drummed
lightly on the top of the bar and strove to whistle, but the only
sound that came through their dried lips was a whispering rush of
breath. A grey-haired cattle ranger commenced to hum a tune, very low,
but distinct. Finally a man rose, strode across the room, shook the
old fellow by the shoulder with brutal violence, and with a curse
ordered him to stop his "damned death song!"
Everyone drew a long breath of relief. The minute hand crept on
towards three o'clock. Now it was twenty minutes, now fifteen, now
ten, now five; then a clatter of hoofs, a heavy step on the porch, and
the giant form of Jim Silent blocked the door. His hands rested on the
butts of his two guns. Buck guessed at the tremendous strength of that
grip. The eyes of the outlaw darted about the room, and every glance
dropped before his, with the exception of Buck's fascinated stare.
For he saw a brand on the face of the great long rider. It lay in no
one thing. It was not the unusual hollowness of eyes and cheeks. It
was not the feverish brightness of his glance. It was something which
included all of these. It was the fear of death by night! His hands
fell away from the guns. He crossed the room to the bar and nodded his
head at the bartender.
"Drink!" he said, and his voice was only a whisper without body of
sound.
The bartender, with pasty face, round and blank, did not move either
his hand or his fascinated eyes. There was a twitch of the outlaw's
hand and naked steel gleamed. Instantly revolvers showed in every
hand. A youngster moaned. The sound seemed to break the charm.
Silent put back his great head and burst into a deep-throated
laughter. The gun whirled in his hand and the butt crashed heavily on
the bar.
"Drink, damn you!" he thundered. "Step up an' drink to the health of
Jim Silent!"
The wavering line slowly approached the bar. Silent pulled out his
other gun and shoved them both across the bar.
"Take 'em," he said. "I don't want 'em to get restless an' muss up
this joint."
The bartender took them as if they were covered with some deadly
poison, and the outlaw stood unarmed! It came suddenly to Buck what
the whole manoeuvre meant. He gave away his guns in order to tempt
someone to arrest him. Better the hand of the law than the yellow
glare of those following eyes. Yet not a man moved to apprehend him.
Unarmed he still seemed more dangerous than six common men.
The long rider jerked a whisky bottle upside down over a glass. Half
the contents splashed across the bar. He turned and faced the crowd,
his hand dripping with the spilled liquor.
"Whose liquorin'?" he bellowed.
Not a sound answered him.
"Damn your yaller souls! Then all by myself I'll drink to--"
He stopped short, his eyes wild, his head tilted back. One by one the
cowpunchers gave back, foot by foot, softly, until they stood close to
the opposite wall of the saloon. All the bar was left to Silent. The
whisky glass slipped from his hand and crashed on the floor. In his
face was the meaning of the sound he heard, and now it came to their
own ears--a whistle thin with distance, but clear.
Only phrases at first, but now it rose more distinct, the song of the
untamed; the terror and beauty of the mountain-desert; a plea and a
threat.
The clock struck, sharp, hurried, brazen--one, two, three! Before the
last quick, unmusical chime died out Black Bart stood in the entrance
to the saloon. His eyes were upon Jim Silent, who stretched out his
arms on either side and gripped the edge of the bar. Yet even when the
wolf glided silently across the room and crouched before the bandit,
at watch, his lips grinned back from the white teeth, the man had no
eyes for him. Instead, his stare held steadily upon that open door and
on his raised face there was still the terror of that whistling which
swept closer and closer.
It ceased. A footfall crossed the porch. How different from the
ponderous stride of Jim Silent! This was like the padding step of the
panther. And Whistling Dan stood in the door. He did not fill it as
the burly shoulders of Silent had done. He seemed almost as slender as
a girl, and infinitely boyish in his grace--a strange figure, surely,
to make all these hardened fighters of the mountain-desert crouch, and
stiffen their fingers around the butts of their revolvers! His eyes
were upon Silent, and how they lighted! His face changed as the
face of the great god Pan must have altered when he blew into the
instrument of reeds and made perfect music, the first in the world.
"Bart," said the gentle voice, "go out to Satan."
The wolf turned and slipped from the room. It was a little thing, but,
to the men who saw it, it was terrible to watch an untamed beast obey
the voice of a man.
Still with that light, panther-step he crossed the barroom, and now he
was looking up into the face of the giant. The huge long rider loomed
above Dan. That was not terror which set his face in written lines--it
was horror, such as a man feels when he stands face to face with the
unearthly in the middle of night. This was open daylight in a room
thronged with men, yet in it nothing seemed to live save the smile of
Whistling Dan. He drew out the two revolvers and slipped them onto the
bar. They stood unarmed, yet they seemed no less dangerous.
Silent's arms crept closer to his sides. He seemed gathering himself
by degrees. The confidence in his own great size showed in his face,
and the blood-lust of battle in his eyes answered the yellow light in
Dan's.
Dan spoke.
"Silent, once you put a stain of blood on me. I've never forgot the
taste. It's goin' to be washed out today or else made redder. It was
here that you put the stain."
He struck the long rider lightly across the mouth with the back of
his hand, and Silent lunged with the snarl of a beast. His blow spent
itself on thin air. He whirled and struck again. Only a low laughter
answered him. He might as well have battered away at a shadow.
"Damnation!" he yelled, and leaped in with both arms outspread.
The impetus of his rush drove them both to the floor, where they
rolled over and over, and before they stopped thin fingers were locked
about the bull neck of the bandit, and two thumbs driven into the
hollow of his throat. With a tremendous effort he heaved himself from
the floor, his face convulsed.
He beat with both fists against the lowered head of Dan. He tore at
those hands. They were locked as if with iron. Only the laughter, the
low, continual laughter rewarded him.
He screamed, a thick, horrible sound. He flung himself to the floor
again and rolled over and over, striving to crush the slender,
remorseless body. Once more he was on his feet, running hither and
thither, dragging Dan with him. His eyes swelled out; his face
blackened. He beat against the walls. He snapped at the wrists of Dan
like a beast, his lips flecked with a bloody froth.
That bull-dog grip would not unlock. That animal, exultant laughter
ran on in demoniac music. In his great agony the outlaw rolled his
eyes in appeal to the crowd which surrounded the struggling two. Every
man seemed about to spring forward, yet they could not move. Some had
their fingers stiffly extended, as if in the act of gripping with
hands too stiff to close.
Silent slipped to his knees. His head fell back, his discoloured
tongue protruding. Dan wrenched him back to his feet. One more
convulsive effort from the giant, and then his eyes glazed, his body
went limp. The remorseless hands unlocked. Silent fell in a shapeless
heap to the floor.
Still no one moved. There was no sound except the deadly ticking of
the clock. The men stared fascinated at that massive, lifeless figure
on the floor. Even in death he was terrible. Then Dan's hand slid
inside his shirt, fumbled a moment, and came forth again bearing a
little gleaming circle of metal. He dropped it upon the body of Jim
Silent, and turning, walked slowly from the room. Still no one moved
to intercept him. Passing through the door he pushed within a few
inches of two men. They made no effort to seize him, for their eyes
were upon the body of the great lone rider.
The moment Dan was gone the hypnotic silence which held the crowd,
broke suddenly. Someone stirred. Another cursed beneath his breath.
Instantly all was clamour and a running hither and thither. Buck
Daniels caught from the body of Jim Silent the small metal circle
which Dan had dropped. He stood dumbfounded at the sight of it, and
then raised his hand, and shouted in a voice which gathered the others
swiftly around him. They cursed deeply with astonishment, for what
they saw was the marshal's badge of Tex Calder. The number on it was
known throughout the mountain-desert, and seeing it, the worst of
Dan's enemies stammered, gaped, and could not speak. There were more
impartial men who could. In five minutes the trial of Whistling Dan
was under way. The jury was every cowpuncher present. The judge was
public opinion. It was a grey-haired man who finally leaped upon the
bar and summed up all opinion in a brief statement.
"Whatever Whistlin' Dan has done before," he said, "this day he's done
a man-sized job in a man's way. Morris, before he died, said enough to
clear up most of this lad's past, particular about the letter from Jim
Silent that talked of a money bribe. Morris didn't have a chance to
swear to what he said, but a dying man speaks truth. Lee Haines had
cleared up most of the rest. We can't hold agin Dan what he done in
breakin' jail with Haines. Dan Barry was a marshal. He captured Haines
and then let the outlaw go. He had a right to do what he wanted as
long as he finally got Haines back. And Haines has told us that when
he was set free Barry said he would get him again. And Barry did get
him again. Remember that, and he got all the rest of Silent's gang,
and now there lies Jim Silent dead. They's two things to remember. The
first is that Whistlin' Dan has rid away without any shootin' irons on
his hip. That looks as if he's come to the end of his long trail. The
second is that he was a bunkie of Tex Calder, an' a man Tex could
trust for the avengin' of his death is good enough for me."
There was a pause after this speech, and during the quiet the
cowpunchers were passing from hand to hand the marshal's badge which
Calder, as he died, had given to Dan. The bright small shield was a
more convincing proof than a hundred arguments. The bitterest of
Dan's enemies realized that the crimes of which he was accused were
supported by nothing stronger than blind rumour. The marshal's badge
and the dead body of Jim Silent kept them mute. So an illegal judge
and one hundred illegal jurymen found Whistling Dan "not guilty."
Buck Daniels took horse and galloped for the Cumberland house with the
news of the verdict. He knew that Whistling Dan was there.