Unkempt, dusty and dirty, straggling its narrow length for a mile
along the irrigating ditch, the village of Las Plumas lay sleepily
quiet under the hot, white, brooding spring sunshine. A few
trim-looking places cuddled their yards and gardens close against the
life-giving channel, whose green banks, covered with vegetation and
shaded by trees, bisected the town. Elsewhere, naked adobe walls
flanked the dusty streets and from their stark surfaces gave back the
sunshine in a blinding glare. Here and there an umbrella tree, or a
locust, made a welcome splotch of green and shade down the length of
the barren, dusty streets, or the tiny yard of a house set back a
little from the adobe sidewalk held a few clumps of shrubs and
flowers. A half dozen cross streets sprang up among the scattered
adobe houses that dotted the edge of the plain rising to the Hermosa
mountains on the east, crossed the bridges of the irrigating ditch,
and ended in the one business street, which trailed a few closely
built blocks along the western edge of the town, near the railroad and
its depot. On one of these cross streets a yard and orchard of goodly
size extended from the ditch a block or more to the east and
surrounded a flat-roofed, square adobe house. A wide veranda, its
white pillars covered with rose and honeysuckle vines, ran around the
house, and a square of lawn, with shrubs and flowers and trees, filled
the yard. A little boy, perhaps four years old, with flaxen curls
floating about his neck, played in the shade of a fig tree beside the
veranda.
Down the dusty road which wound a white strip over the pale,
gray-green upland and merged into the street which passed this house,
a man came riding at a leisurely lope. He was tall and broad
shouldered, straight in the back and trim in the girth, and he sat his
horse with the easy, unconscious grace of a man who has lived much in
the saddle. His black sombrero shaded a dark-skinned face, tanned to a
rosy brown. An unshaven stubble of beard darkened his cheeks and a
soft, drooping, black mustache covered his lip. A constant smile
seemed lurking in the corners of his mouth and in his brown eyes. But
his face was square, firm-jawed and resolute, and had in it the look
of a man accustomed to meet men on their own ground and to ask favors
of none.
He checked his horse to a slow trot and, without turning his head,
searched with a sidewise glance the yard and veranda of the adobe
house. When he saw a flutter of pink inside a window he stopped at the
gate and called to the child:
"Hello, little Bye-Bye! Don't you want a ride?"
The child ran to the gate with a shout of welcome.
"Better ask your sister if you can come."
"Daisy! Daisy! May I go?" the boy called, running back to the porch. A
young woman in a pale pink muslin gown came out and led the child to
the gate.
"Good morning, Miss Delarue. May I take little Bye-Bye for a ride?"
The roses in her cheeks deepened as she looked up and saw the
admiration in his eyes.
"Certainly, Mr. Mead. It is very kind of you, I'm sure. But please
don't take him far."
The boy, shouting with laughter, was lifted to the saddle in front of
the rider, and the girl, smiling in sympathy with his delight, leaned
against the gate watching them. She was tall, with the broad
shoulders, deep bosom, slender waist, and clear, blooming complexion
that tell of English nativity. Her eyes were blue, the soft, dark blue
of the cornflower, and her face, a long, thin oval, was gentle and
sweet in expression. Her light brown hair, which shone with an elusive
glimmer of gold in the sunlight, was gathered on her neck in a loose,
rippling mass. She took the child from Mead's hands when they
returned, and her eyes went from the boy's laughing face to the
smiling one of the man. Then the roses deepened again and she looked
away. The man said nothing and they both waited, silent and smiling,
watching the antics of the child. Presently she turned to him again:
"Are you--do you expect to stay long in town, Mr. Mead?"
"I think--I--do not know. It will depend on business."
They were silent again, and after a moment he gravely said, "Good
morning," and rode away. He frowned and bit his lip, muttered a mild
oath under his breath, and then put spurs to his horse and rode on a
gallop up the main street. The girl glanced after him, still blushing
and smiling. Then a frown wrinkled her forehead and she said, "Well!"
under her breath with such emphasis that the child looked up at her
curiously. At that, she laughed with a little touch of embarrassment
in her manner, and, taking the boy in her arms, ran into the house.
In the busiest part of the main street, a flat-roofed adobe house with
a narrow, covered porch forming the sidewalk in front, flanked the
street for half a block. Offices and shops of various kinds filled its
many rooms, and the open door of a saloon showed a cool and pleasant
interior. In front of this saloon Emerson Mead halted as Tuttle and
Ellhorn came out of a lawyer's office beside it. Ellhorn explained his
non-appearance at the ranch and told the story of Tuttle's capture,
over which they made jokes at his expense.
"The doctor says this is only a flesh wound," said Nick, touching his
sling-swung arm and speaking in answer to Mead's question, "and that
I can use my gun again in another week."
"I'd have been out right away, Emerson," said Tuttle, "but Nick had to
stay here for the doctor to take care of his arm, and I didn't dare
leave him alone. He was bound he'd go on a spree, and he couldn't
shoot, and the Lord knows what trouble he'd have got into. Maybe I
haven't had a time of it! I'd rather have had a fight with the
Fillmore outfit every day!"
"Yes," growled Ellhorn, "he put me to bed one night and sat on my neck
till I went to sleep. And yesterday morning he planted himself against
the door and held his six-shooter on me till I promised I wouldn't
drink all day. Lord! the week's been long enough for the
resurrection!"
"How's things at the ranch, Emerson?" asked Tuttle. "Have you had any
fightin' yet with the Fillmore outfit?"
"No, not real fightin'. I caught 'em puttin' a branded steer into one
of my herds, so they could say I stole it, about a week ago, and Will
Whittaker and I exchanged compliments over the affair."
As he spoke a tall, gray-haired man, riding a sweating horse at a hard
gallop, rushed up the street and dismounted on the opposite side. His
thin, pale face bore a look of angry excitement.
"What's the matter with Colonel Whittaker?" exclaimed Ellhorn. "He
looks as if he'd heard the devil behind him!"
Whittaker had spoken to a man in the doorway of an office bearing the
sign, "Fillmore Cattle Company," and already several others had
gathered around the two and all were listening eagerly.
"Something's happened, boys," said Mead, as they watched the group
across the way. "They told me in Muletown that Colonel Whittaker had
passed through there the day before on his way to the ranch."
Just then Miss Delarue came up the sidewalk leading the flaxen-haired
child, and as she passed the three men she smiled a pleasant
recognition to Ellhorn and Mead.
"Who's she?" Tuttle asked, gazing after her admiringly.
"Why, Frenchy Delarue's daughter!" Ellhorn answered. "Didn't you ever
see her before? That's queer. You remember Delarue, the Frenchman who
has the store up the street a-ways and loves to hear himself talk so
well. He came here two years ago with a sick wife. She was an
Englishwoman and the girl looks just like her. She died in a little
while and the daughter has taken care of the kid ever since as if she
was its mother. She's a fine girl."
"She's mighty fine lookin', anyway," Tuttle declared.
"Well, boys," said Mead, "I'm goin' to my room to slick up. If you
find out what the excitement's about, come over and tell me."
"I reckon if Emerson was rich he'd be a dude," said Ellhorn, looking
meditatively after Mead. "He keeps a room and his best duds here all
the time, and the first thing he does after he strikes town is to go
and put on a bald-faced shirt and a long-tailed coat. He don't even
stop to take a drink first."
The crowd across the street had increased, and the men who composed it
were talking in low, excited tones. As Emerson Mead walked away many
turned to look at him, and significant glances were sent over the way
to Ellhorn and Tuttle, who still stood on the sidewalk. They stopped a
man who was hurrying across the street and asked him what the
excitement was about.
"Will Whittaker has disappeared. His father thinks he's been killed.
He left the ranch a week ago to come to town and nobody's seen him
since. I'm goin' after Sheriff Daniels."
"Gee-ee! Moses!" Ellhorn exclaimed, as his eyes, full of amazed
inquiry, sought Tuttle's. But amazed inquiry of like sort was all that
flashed back at him from Tuttle's mild blue orbs, and after an
instant's pause he went on: "Whew! won't hell's horns be a-tootin'
this afternoon! Confound this arm! Say, Tom, you-all go and tell
Emerson about it and I'll skate around and find out what's goin' on."
Tuttle hesitated. "You won't go to drinkin'?"
"Not this time, Tommy! There'll be excitement enough here in another
two hours without me making any a-purpose, and don't you forget it!
Things are a-goin' to be too serious for me to soak any of my wits in
whisky just now!"
"No, Nick," said Tuttle, looking at the other's helpless arm, "I
reckon I better go along with you-all, if there's likely to be any
trouble."
It was as Ellhorn predicted. Before night the town was buzzing with
excitement. Wild rumors flew from tongue to tongue, and with every
flight took new shape. Shops and offices were deserted and men
gathered in knots on the sidewalk, discussing the quarrel between the
cattlemen and Emerson Mead's possible connection with young
Whittaker's disappearance, and predicting many and varied tragic
results. All those who congregated on one side of the street scouted
the idea that the young man had been murdered, indignantly denied the
possibility of Emerson Mead's connection with his disappearance,
insisted that it was all a trick of the Republicans to throw discredit
on the Democrats, and declared that Will Whittaker would show up again
in a few days just as much alive as anybody. Nearly all the men who
had offices or stores in the long adobe building were Democrats, and
the saloon it contained, called the Palmleaf, was the place where the
men of that party congregated when any unusual excitement arose. On
the other side of the street were the offices of the Fillmore Cattle
Company, the White Horse saloon, and Delarue's store, all gathering
places for the Republican clans. There it was declared that
undoubtedly Emerson Mead had killed young Whittaker, and had come into
town to kill the father, too, that other outrages against the
Republicans would probably follow, and that the thing ought to be
stopped at once. But each party kept to its own side of the street,
and each watched the other as a bulldog about to spring watches its
antagonist.
A man, whose manner and well-groomed appearance betokened city
residence, mingled with the groups about the cattle company's office,
listening with interest to everything that was said. He himself did
not often speak, but when he did every one listened with attention. He
was of medium stature, of compact, wiry build, had large eyes of a
pale, brilliant gray, and a thin face with prominent features. He
joined Miss Delarue when she came down the street on her way home.
"You get up very sudden storms in your quiet town, Miss Delarue," he
said. "An hour ago Las Plumas was as sleepy and decorous--and dead--as
the graveyard on the hill over yonder. But a man rides up and says ten
words and, br-r-r, the whole population is agog and ready to spring at
one another's throats."
"Yes," she assented, "when I went up town a little while ago
everything was as quiet as usual. What is the excitement all about?"
"Why, they are saying that Emerson Mead has killed Will Whittaker!"
"What!"
Her face suddenly went white, and she stared at him with wide,
horrified eyes.
"It may not be true."
"Oh, I don't believe it can be true!"
He swept her face with a sudden, curious glance.
"Nobody seems to know, certainly, that Will is dead. He and Mead had a
quarrel a week ago and Mead threatened to kill him. Will left the
ranch that day to come to town, and he hasn't been seen since. Of
course, he may have changed his mind and gone off to some other part
of the range."
"Of course," she assented eagerly. "At this time of year he is very
likely to have been needed somewhere else on the range. I don't
believe he has--he is dead."
"There is much feeling about it on the street. And it seems to be
quite as much a matter of politics as a personal quarrel."
"Oh, everything is politics here, Mr. Wellesly!" said the girl. "If
the people all over the United States take as much interest in
politics as they do here, I don't see how they have found time to
build railroads and cities."
Wellesly laughed. "They don't take it the same way, Miss Delarue. Las
Plumas politics is a thing apart and of its own kind. Except in party
names, it has no connection with the politics of the states. Here it
is merely a case of 'follow your leader,' of personal loyalty to some
man who has run, or who expects to run, for office. Being so
personal, of course, it is more virulent."
"Do you think there is likely to be any violence this time?" she
asked, with a tremor of anxiety in her voice.
"There is violent talk already. I heard more than one man say that
Mead ought to be lynched"--he was watching her face as he talked--"and
his two friends, Ellhorn and Tuttle, along with him. There is a great
deal of feeling against Mead, and the general idea seems to be that he
is an inveterate cattle thief, and that the country would be better
off without him."
She turned an indignant face and flashing eyes upon him and opened her
mouth to reply. Then she blushed a little, caught her breath, and
asked him if he thought her father was in any danger. When Wellesly
left her he said to himself: "That's an unusually fine girl. Handsome,
too. Or she would be if she didn't wear English shoes and walk like an
elephant. She seems to be interested in Emerson Mead, but old Delarue
certainly wouldn't permit anything serious. He's too ardently on our
side, or thinks he is, the old French windbag, though he's never even
been naturalized. I'll see her again while I'm here and find out if
there is anything between them. It might have some consequence for us
if there is. I wish the Colonel hadn't got the company so mixed up in
their political quarrels. But there may be an advantage in it, after
all, for I guess it will furnish the easiest way of getting rid of
those one-horse outfits. The old man's got the upper hand now, and as
long as he keeps it we'll be all right."
Marguerite Delarue stood on her veranda looking after Wellesly as he
walked away. "What a nice looking man he is," ran her thoughts. "He is
interesting to talk with, too. The people here may be just as good as
he is, but--well, at least, he isn't tongue-tied."
Ellhorn and Tuttle met Emerson Mead as he stepped from his room,
freshly shaven and clad in black frock coat and vest, gray trousers
and newly polished shoes. As he listened to Ellhorn's account of the
sudden storm that was already shaking the little town from end to end,
a yellow light flashed in his brown eyes and there came into them an
intent, defiant look, the look of battle, like that in the eyes of a
captured eagle. He went back into the room, buckled on a full
cartridge belt, and transferred his revolver from his waistband to its
usual holster.
"Now, boys," said Mead, "we'll go back up town and have a drink, and
I'll talk with Judge Harlin about this matter."
The three friends walked leisurely up Main street, talking quietly
together, and apparently unconscious of any unusual disturbance.
Except that their eyes were restless and alert and that Mead's glowed
with the yellow light and the defiant look, they showed no sign of
the excitement they felt. They were all three of nearly the same age,
they were all Texan born and bred, and for many years had been the
closest of friends. Each one stood six feet and some inches in his
stockings, and their great stature, broad shoulders, deep chests and
sinewy figures marked them for notice, even in the southwest, the land
of tall, well-muscled men.
Thomson Tuttle was the tallest and by far the heaviest of the three--a
great, blond giant, with the round, frank, sincere face of an
overgrown school-boy, glowing with the red tan which fair skins take
on in the hot, dry air of the southwest. From this red expanse a pair
of serious blue eyes looked out, while a short, tawny mustache covered
his lip, and auburn hair curled in close rings over his head. It was
never necessary for Thomson Tuttle to do any swearing, for the colors
that dwelt in his face kept up a constant profanity. There was a
strain of German blood in him--his mother had come from Germany in her
childhood--which showed in his impassive countenance and in the open,
serious directness of his mental habit.
Ellhorn was the handsome one of the three friends. He was straight,
slender, long of limb, clean of muscle, and remarkably quick and
graceful in his movements. His regular features were clear-cut and his
dancing eyes were bright and black and keen. His sweeping black
mustache curled up at the ends in a wide curve that shaded a dimple
in each cheek. He was as proud of the fact that both of his maternal
grandparents had been born in Ireland as he was that he himself was a
native of Texas. The vigorous Celtic strain, that in the clash of
nationalities can always hold its own against any blood with which it
mingles, had dowered him well with Celtic characteristics. A trace of
the brogue still lingered in his speech, along with the slurred r's
and the soft drawl of his southern tongue, while his spontaneous
rebellion under restraint and his brilliant disregard of the
consequences of his behavior were as truly Celtic as was the
honey-sweet persuasiveness with which he could convince his friends
that whatever he had done had been exactly right and the only thing
possible. He was all Irish that wasn't Texan, and all Texan that
wasn't Irish, and everybody he knew he either loved or hated, and was
ready, according to his feeling, either to do anything for, or to "do
up" on a moment's notice.
Emerson Mead's stronger and more sober intelligence harked back to New
England, whence his mother had come in her bridal days, and although
the Puritan characteristics showed less plainly in his nature than she
wished, having been much warmed and mellowed by their transplantation
to southern soil, no Puritan of them all could have outdone this tall
Texan in dogged adherence to what he believed to be his rights. His
mother had kept faith with the land of her nativity, and as part of
her worship from afar at the shrine of its great sage had given his
name to her only son. By virtue of his stronger character and better
poised intelligence, Emerson Mead had always been the leader of the
three friends. Tuttle yielded unquestioning obedience to "Emerson's
judgment," and, if Emerson were not present, to what he imagined that
judgment would be. Ellhorn, in whose nature dwelt the instinctive
rebellion of the Irish blood, was less loyal in this respect, but not
a whit behind in the whole-heartedness with which he threw himself
into his friend's service. For years they had taken share and share
alike in one another's needs, and whenever one was in trouble the
other two rushed to his help. Together they had gone through the usual
routine of southwestern occupations. They had prospected together, had
herded cattle together, together they had battled their way through
sudden quarrels and fore-planned gunfights, and together, with
official warrants in their pockets, had helped to keep the peace in
riotous frontier towns. Some years before, they had gone into
partnership in the cattle business, on the ranch which Mead still
owned. But Tuttle and Ellhorn had tired of it, had sold their interest
to Mead, and ever since, as deputy United States marshals, had upheld
the arm of the law in its contests with the "bad men" of the frontier.
All three men were known far and wide for the marvelous quickness and
accuracy with which they could handle their guns.
Main street was lined, in the vicinity of the two saloons, with knots
of men who talked in excited, repressed tones, as though they feared
to be overheard. These knots constantly broke up and reformed as men
hurried from one to another, but there was no crossing the street.
Each party kept to its own side, the Democrats on the east and the
Republicans on the west, and each constantly watched the other. The
women had all disappeared from Main street, gone scuttling home like
fowls, rushing to cover from a hailstorm, and the whole town was in a
state of strained expectancy, waiting for the battle to begin. When
the three friends came walking leisurely down the street, there were
nods and meaning glances on the Republican side and excited whispers
of "There they are!" "They are ready for work!" "That's what they are
all here together for!" "We'd better get ready for them!"
On the Democratic side of the street it was declared that this was a
scheme of the cattle company to get Mead away from his ranch, so they
could do as they liked at the round-up, and that the Republicans had
planned the whole story of Will Whittaker's disappearance in order
that they might arrest Mead, kill him if he resisted, and inaugurate a
general slaughter of the Democrats if they should come to his help.
The three friends went at once to the office of Judge Harlin, who was
Mead's lawyer, and Harlin and Mead had a long conference in private,
while Ellhorn and Tuttle talked on the sidewalk with the changing
groups of men. Beyond the surprised inquiry which each had darted into
the eyes of the other when they were first told of Whittaker's
disappearance, neither Tom Tuttle nor Nick Ellhorn had said a word to
each other, or exchanged a meaning look, as to the possibility of
Mead's guilt. They did not know whether or not he had killed the
missing man, and, except as a matter of curiosity, they did not
particularly care. If he had, they knew that either of them would have
done the same thing in his place. Whatever he might have done, he was
their friend and in trouble, and they would have put on belts and guns
and rushed to his assistance, even though they had known they would be
dropped in their tracks beside him.