Emerson Mead waited until the four horsemen were within two hundred
yards of him, and then he called out a good-natured "hello." The
others checked their horses to a slow walk, and after a moment one of
them hastily shouted an answering salutation. Mead instantly called in
reply:
"I reckon you'd better stay where you are, boys. We can talk this way
just as well as any other." The others halted and he went on: "Suppose
you say, right now, whether you want anything particular."
They looked at one another, apparently surprised by this speech, and
presently the foreman said:
"We thought you must be having trouble with your cattle. Stampede on
you?"
"They're all right now. They're 'milling,' and won't give me any more
trouble. But I reckon you didn't ride up here to ask me if my cattle
had stampeded. You better talk straight just what you do want."
They hesitated again, looking at one another as if their plans had
miscarried. "They expected I'd begin poppin' at 'em and give 'em an
excuse to open out on me all at once," Mead thought. Then he called
out:
"Jim, you out here to buy some cattle? Can I sell you some of mine?"
"You know I don't want to buy cattle," Halliday replied, sulkily.
"No? Then maybe you've come to ask me if it's goin' to rain?" Mead
smilingly replied.
"I reckon you know what I want, Emerson Mead," Halliday said angrily,
as if nettled by Mead's assured, good-natured tone and manner. "You
know you're a fugitive from justice, and that it's my duty to take you
back to jail."
"Oh, then you want me!" said Mead, as if greatly surprised.
"That's what, old man!" Halliday's voice and manner suddenly became
genial. He thought Mead was going to surrender, as he had done before.
He had no desire for a battle, even four to one, with the man who had
the reputation of being the best and coolest shot in the southwest,
for he knew that he would be the first target for that unerring aim,
and he was accordingly much relieved by the absence of defiance and
anger in Mead's manner.
"You want me, do you?" said Mead, his voice suddenly becoming
sarcastic. "Is that what you've been waitin' around the Fillmore ranch
the last three weeks for? Why didn't you come straight over to my
house and say so, like a man who wasn't afraid? You want me, do you?
Well, now, what are you goin' to do about it?" There was a taunt in
Mead's tone that stirred the others to anger. Mead knew perfectly
well what his reputation was, and he knew, too, that they were afraid
of him.
"You won't surrender?"
"Whenever you've got any evidence for a warrant to stand on I'll give
myself up. I let you take me in before to stop trouble, but I won't do
it again, and you, and all your outfit, had better let me alone. I'm
not goin' to be run in on any fool charge fixed up to help the
Fillmore Company do me up. That's all there is about it, and you-all
had better turn tail and go back to camp."
While he was speaking the foreman said something to Antone Colorow,
and the man left the group and trotted away toward Mead's left as if
he were going back to camp. Without seeming to notice his departure,
Mead watched the cow-boy's actions from a corner of his eye while he
listened to Jim Halliday:
"Now, Emerson, be reasonable about this matter and give yourself up.
You know I've got to take you in, and I don't want to have any
gun-fight over it. The best thing you can do is to stand trial, and
clear yourself, if you can. That'll end the whole business."
Antone Colorow turned and came galloping back, his lariat in his hand.
Mead's revolver was still untouched in his holster, and his horse,
standing with drooping mane and tail, faced Halliday and the others.
The cow-boy came galloping through the rain from Mead's left, and so
far behind him that he could barely see the man from the corner of
his eye. He was apparently unconscious of Antone's approach as he
quietly replied to Halliday, but his fingers tightened on the bridle,
and the horse, answering a closer pressure of heel and knee, suddenly
lifted its head and stiffened its lax muscles into alertness.
"I'd hate to make you lose your job, Jim," said Mead, smiling, "but
you can't expect a fellow to let himself be arrested for nothing, just
so you can keep a soft snap as deputy sheriff. You get some evidence
against me, and then I'll go with you as quiet as any maverick you
ever saw."
As Mead spoke he was listening intently. He heard Antone's horse stop
a little way behind him, and, as the last word left his lips, the hiss
of the rope through the air. With a dig of the spurs and a sharp jerk
of the bridle the horse reared. The noose fell over Mead's head, but
his revolver was already in his hand, and with a turn as quick as a
lightning flash he swung the horse round on its hind legs in a quarter
circle and before the astounded Mexican could tighten the loop there
were two flashing reports and a bullet had crashed through each wrist.
Antone's arms dropped on his saddle, and through the shrill din of the
mingled Spanish and English curses he shrieked at Mead came the sharp
cracking of three revolvers. Emerson Mead felt one bullet whistle
through his sleeve and one through the rim of his sombrero, as, with
the rope still on his shoulders, he whirled his horse round again
with his smoking revolver leveled at Halliday.
"Whoo-oo-oo-ee-ee!" Ellhorn's long-drawn-out yell came floating down
from the top of the hill and close on its heels the report of a
pistol.
"That was a very pretty trick, Emerson," said the foreman, in a voice
which tried hard to sound unconcerned, "even if it was my man you
played it on."
"It will be played on you if you make another break," Mead replied in
an even tone, with his revolver still leveled at Halliday. He turned
his horse slightly so that a sidewise glance up the hill showed Tom
Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn, guns in hand, both astride one horse, coming
toward them on a gallop. Tuttle's deep-lunged voice bellowed down the
slope:
"We're a-comin', Emerson! Hold 'em off! We're a-comin'!" and another
pistol ball sung through the rain and dropped beside Halliday's horse.
Mead flung the rope from his shoulders and grinned at Halliday and his
party.
"Well, what are you going to do now? Do you want to fight?"
Halliday put his gun in its holster: "I don't want any pitched battle
over this business. We'll call the game off for this morning."
"It's all right, boys," Mead yelled to his friends. "Don't shoot any
more."
"You're a fool, Emerson," Halliday went on, "or you'd give yourself
up, go down to Plumas and clear yourself,--if you can--and have this
thing over with. For we're goin' to get you yet, somehow."
Antone Colorow spurred his horse close to Mead and with all the varied
and virulent execration of which the cow-boy is capable shouted at
him:
"Yes, and if they don't get you, I will! I come after you till I get
you, and I come a-smoking every time! You won't need a trial after I
get through with you! You've done me up, but I'll get even and more
too!"
Mead listened quietly, looking the man in the eye. "Look here," he
said, "what did you reckon would happen to any man who tried to rope
me? Did you think I'd let you-all drag me into camp at your horse's
tail? I'm sorry I had to do that, but I didn't want to kill you. Here,
Jim, you fellows better tie up Antone's wrists." Mead offered his own
handkerchief to help out the bandages, and, suddenly remembering the
whisky flask in his breast pocket, took it out and told the wounded
man to finish its contents.
While this was going on Tuttle and Ellhorn rode up. The rain had
stopped, and through a rift in the eastern clouds the level, red rays
of the sun were shining. Mead met their eager, anxious faces with a
smile.
"It's all right, boys. Jim says the game's off for this morning."
Nick and Tom turned black and scowling looks on Halliday and his
party, and the deputy sheriff, manifestly nervous, rode toward them
with an exaggeratedly genial greeting:
"Howdy, boys! Put up your guns! We ain't goin' to have any gun-fight
this morning."
"How do you know we ain't?" growled Tom.
"Well, Emerson says so," he replied, with an apprehensive glance at
Mead.
"Well," said Nick, "if Emerson says so it's all right. But we've had a
devil of a ride, and we'd like to get square somehow!"
Mead laughed. "You can tally up with Jim, who's going to lose his job
because I'm too mean to let him run me in."
Tuttle and Ellhorn turned grimly joyous faces toward Halliday. "If you
want to arrest Emerson this morning," said Ellhorn, "just begin right
now! We're three to three! Come on now and try it!"
The officer edged his horse away: "I'll wait till the round-up is
over. Then you can't have the excuse that the Fillmore Company's doing
it. But I'll have him yet, and don't you forget it!"
"Just like you got him this time!" taunted Ellhorn.
Halliday turned back a red and angry face: "I'll have him," he yelled,
"if I have to kill the whole damned three of you to get him!"
A derisive shout of laughter was the only answer he received as he and
his party galloped back to camp.