The roll of the wheels and the rhythmic hoof-beats rapidly lessened to

the ear as Franklin drove on into the blackening night. In her own

little room Mary Ellen sat, her face where it might have been seen in

profile had there been a light or had the distant driver looked round

to see. Mary Ellen listened--listened until she could hear hoof and

wheel no more. Then she cast herself upon the bed, face downward, and

lay motionless and silent. Upon the little dresser lay a faded

photograph, fallen forward also upon its face, lying unnoticed and

apparently forgot.

CHAPTER XXV

BILL WATSON

The sheriff of Ellisville sat in his office oiling the machinery of the

law; which is to say, cleaning his revolver. There was not yet any

courthouse. The sheriff was the law. Twelve new mounds on the

hillside back of the Cottage Hotel showed how faithfully he had

executed his duties as judge and jury since he had taken up his office

at the beginning of the "cow boom" of Ellisville. His right hand had

found somewhat to do, and he had done it with his might.

Ellisville was near the zenith of its bad eminence. The entire country

had gone broad-horn. Money being free, whisky was not less so. The

bar of the Cottage was lined perpetually. Wild men from the range rode

their horses up the steps and into the bar-room, demanding to be served

as they sat in the saddle, as gentlemen should. Glass was too tempting

to the six-shooters of these enthusiasts, and the barkeeper begged the

question by stowing away the fragments of his mirror and keeping most

of his bottles out of sight. More than once he was asked to hold up a

bottle of whisky so that some cow-puncher might prove his skill by

shooting the neck off from the flask. The bartender was taciturn and

at times glum, but his face was the only one at the bar that showed any

irritation or sadness. This railroad town was a bright, new thing for

the horsemen of the trail--a very joyous thing. No funeral could check

their hilarity; no whisky could daunt their throats, long seared with

alkali.

It was notorious that after the civil war human life was held very

cheap all over America, it having been seen how small a thing is a man,

how little missed may be a million men taken bodily from the

population. Nowhere was life cheaper than on the frontier, and at no

place on that frontier of less value than at this wicked little city.

Theft was unknown, nor was murder recognised by that name, always being

referred to as a "killing." Of these "killings" there were very many.

The sheriff of Ellisville looked thoughtful as he tested the machinery

of the law. He had a warrant for a new bad man who had come up from

the Indian nations, and who had celebrated his first day in town by

shooting two men who declined to get off the sidewalk, so that he could

ride his horse more comfortably there. The sheriff left the warrant on

the table, as was his custom, this paper being usually submitted with

the corpse at the inquest. The sheriff hummed a tune as he cleaned his

revolver. He was the law.

Bill Watson, the sheriff of Ellisville, was a heavily built man,

sandy-haired, red-mustached, and solid. His legs were bowed and his

carriage awkward. He had thick, clumsy-looking fingers, whose

appearance belied their deftness. Bill Watson had gone through the

Quantrell raid in his time. It was nothing to him when he was to be

killed. Such a man is careful in his shooting, because he is careless

of being shot, having therefore a vast advantage over the desperado of

two or three victims, who does not yet accept the fact that his own

days are numbered. The only trouble in regard to this new bad man from

below was that his mental attitude on this point was much the same as

that of Sheriff Bill Watson. Therefore the sheriff was extremely

careful about the oiling of the cylinder.

The great cattle drive was at its height. Buyers from the territorial

ranges of the North and Northwest, now just beginning to open up, bid

in market against the men from the markets of the East. Prices

advanced rapidly. Men carried thousands of dollars in the pockets of

their greasy "chaps." Silver was no longer counted. There were

hardware stores which sold guns and harness-shops which sold saddles.

There were twoscore saloons which held overflow meetings, accommodating

those whom the Cottage bar would not hold. There were three

barber-shops, to which went only the very weary. The corral of the

Cottage, where the drovers stopped, was large enough to hold two

hundred horses, with comfortable space for roping, and the snubbing

post was grooved with the wear of many ropes. The central street

needed no paving, for it was worn hard as flint. Long rows of cattle

chutes lined the railroad yards, whence came continuous din of

bellowing, crowding, maddened cattle, handled with ease and a certain

exultation by men who had studied nothing but this thing. Horsemen

clattered up and down the street day and night--riding, whether drunk

or sober, with the incomparable confidence of the greatest horse

country the world has ever known. Everywhere was the bustle of a

unique commerce, mingled with a colossal joy of life. The smokes from

the dugouts and shacks now began to grow still more numerous in the

region round about, but there were not many homes, because there were

not many women. For this reason men always kill each other very much

more gladly and regularly than they do in countries where there are

many women, it appearing to them, perhaps, that in a womanless country

life is not worth the living. A few "hay ranches," a few fields even

of "sod corn," now began to show here and there, index of a time to

come, but for the most part this was yet a land of one sex and one

occupation. The cattle trade monopolized the scene. The heaps of

buffalo bones were now neglected. The long-horned cattle of the white

men were coming in to take the place of the curved-horned cattle of the

Indians. The curtain of the cattle drama of the West was now rung up

full.

The sheriff finished the cleaning of his six-shooter and tossed the

oiled rag into the drawer of the table where he kept the warrants. He

slipped the heavy weapon into the scabbard at his right leg and saw

that the string held the scabbard firmly to his trouser-leg, so that he

might draw the gun smoothly and without hindrance from its sheath. He

knew that the new bad man wore two guns, each adjusted in a similar

manner; but it was always Bill Watson's contention (while he was alive)

that a man with one gun was as good as a man with two. Sheriff Watson

made no claim to being a two-handed shot. He was a simple,

unpretentious man; not a heroic figure as he stood, his weight resting

on the sides of his feet, looking out of the window down the long and

wind-swept street of Ellisville.

Gradually the gaze of the sheriff focused, becoming occupied with the

figure of a horseman whose steady riding seemed to have a purpose other

than that of merely showing his joy in living and riding. This rider

passed other riders without pausing. He came up the street at a gallop

until opposite the office door, where he jerked up his horse sharply

and sprang from the saddle. As he came into the room he pulled off his

hat and mopped his face as far as he could reach with the corner of his

neckerchief.

"Mornin', Bill," he said.

"Mornin', Curly," said the sheriff pleasantly. "Lookin' for a doctor?

You're ridin' perty fast."

"Nope," said Curly. "Reckon it's a shade too late fer a doctor."

The sheriff was gravely silent. After a while he said, quietly:"

"Any trouble?"

"Yep. Plenty."

"Who?"

"Why, it's Cal Greathouse. You know Cal. This is his second drive.

His cows is down on the Rattlesnake bottoms now. He was camped there

two weeks, not fur from my place. Last week he goes off west a ways,

a-lookin' fer some winter range that won't be so crowded. He goes

alone. Now, to-day his horse comes back, draggin' his lariat. We

'lowed we better come tell you. O' course, they ain't no horse gettin'

away f'm Cal Greathouse, not if he's alive."

The sheriff was silent for some time, looking at his visitor straight

with his oxlike eyes. "Did Cal have much money with him?" he asked,

finally.

"Not so awful much, near's the boys can tell. Mebbe a few hundred, fer

spendin' money, like."

"Had he had any furse with ary feller down in there lately?"

"Nope, not that any one knows of. He just done went off over the

range, an' fanned out, seems like, without no special reason."

The sheriff again fell into thought, slowly chewing at a splinter.

"I'll tell you," he said at length, slowly, "I kain't very well git

away right now. You go over an' git Cap Franklin. He's a good man.

Pick up somebody else you want to go along with you, an' then you start

out on Cal's trail, near as you can git at it. You better take along

that d----d Greaser o' yourn, that big Juan, fer he kin run trail like

a houn'. You stop at all the outfits you come to, fer say fifty miles.

Don't do nothin' more'n ask, an' then go on. If you come to a outfit

that hain't seen him, an' then another outfit furder on that has seen

him, you remember the one that hain't. If you don't git no track in

fifty mile, swing around to the southeast, an' cut the main drive trail

an' see if you hear of anything that-away. If you don't git no trace

by that, you better come on back in an' tell me, an' then we'll see

what to do about it furder."

"All right, Bill," said Curly, rising and taking a chew of tobacco, in

which the sheriff joined him. "All right. You got any papers fer us

to take along?"

"Papers?" said the sheriff contemptuously. "Papers? Hell!"

CHAPTER XXVI

IKE ANDERSON

Ike Anderson was drunk--calmly, magnificently, satisfactorily drunk.

It had taken time, but it was a fact accomplished. The actual state of

affairs was best known to Ike Anderson himself, and not obvious to the

passer-by. Ike Andersen's gaze might have been hard, but it was

direct. His walk was perfectly decorous and straight, his brain

perfectly clear, his hand perfectly steady. Only, somewhere deep down

in his mind there burned some little, still, blue flame of

devilishness, which left Ike Anderson not a human being, but a skilful,

logical, and murderous animal.

"This," said Ike Anderson to himself all the time, "this is little Ike

Anderson, a little boy, playing. I can see the green fields, the

pleasant meadows, the little brook that crossed them. I remember my

mother gave me bread and milk for my supper, always. My sister washed

my bare feet, when I was a little, little boy." He paused and leaned

one hand against a porch post, thinking. "A little, little boy," he

repeated to himself.

"No, it isn't," he thought. "It's Ike Anderson, growing up. He's

playing tag. The boy tripped him and laughed at him, and Ike Anderson

got out his knife." He cast a red eye about him.

"No, it isn't," he thought. "It's Ike Anderson, with the people

chasing him. And the shotgun. Ike's growing up faster, growing right

along. They all want him, but they don't get him. One, two, three,

five, nine, eight, seven--I could count them all once. Ike Anderson.

No mother. No sweetheart. No home. Moving, moving. But they never

scared him yet--Ike Anderson. . . . I never took any cattle!"

An impulse to walk seized him, and he did so, quietly, steadily, until

he met a stranger, a man whose clothing bespoke his residence in

another region.

"Good morning, gentle sir," said Ike.

"Good morning, friend," said the other, smiling.

"Gentle sir," said Ike, "just lemme look at your watch a minute, won't

you, please?"

Laughingly the stranger complied, suspecting only that his odd accoster

might have tarried too long over his cups. Ike took the watch in his

hand, looked at it gravely for a moment, then gave it a jerk that broke

the chain, and dropped it into his own pocket.

"I like it," said he simply, and passed on. The stranger followed,

about to use violence, but caught sight of a white-faced man, who

through a window vehemently beckoned him to pause.

Ike Anderson stepped into a saloon and took a straw from a glass

standing on the bar, exercising an exact and critical taste in its

selection. "I'm very thirsty," he remarked plaintively. Saying which,

he shot a hole in a barrel of whisky, inserted the straw, and drank

lingeringly.

"Thank you," he said softly, and shot the glass of straws off the

counter. "Thank you. Not after me." The whisky ran out over the

floor, out of the door, over the path and into the road, but no one

raised a voice in rebuke.

The blue flame burned a trifle higher in Ike Anderson's brain. He was

growing very much intoxicated, and therefore very quiet and very

sober-looking. He did not yell and flourish his revolvers, but walked

along decently, engaged in thought. He was a sandy-complexioned man,

not over five feet six inches in height. His long front teeth

projected very much, giving him a strange look. His chin was not heavy

and square, but pointed, and his jaws were narrow. His eye was said by

some to have been hazel when he was sober, though others said it was

blue, or gray. No one had ever looked into it carefully enough to tell

its colour when Ike Anderson was drunk, as he was to-day.

Ike Anderson passed by the front of the Cottage Hotel. A negro boy,

who worked about the place, was sweeping idly at the porch door,

shuffling lazily about at his employment. Ike paused and looked

amiably at him for some moments.

"Good morning, coloured scion," he said pleasantly.

"Mawnin', boss," said the negro, grinning widely.

"Coloured scion," said Ike, "hereafter--to oblige me--would you mind

whoopin' it up with yore broom a leetle faster?"

The negro scowled and muttered, and the next moment sprang sprawling

forward with a scream. Ike had shot off the heel of his shoe, in the

process not sparing all of the foot. The negro went ashy pale, and

believed himself mortally hurt, but was restored by the icy tones of

his visitor, who said, evenly and calmly:

"Coloured scion, please go over into that far corner and begin to sweep

there, and then come on over the rest of the flo'. Now, sweep!"

The negro swept as he had never swept before. Twice a bullet cut the

floor at his feet; and at last the stick of the broom was shattered in

his hand. "Coloured scion," said Ike Anderson, as though in surprise,

"yore broom is damaged. Kneel down and pray for another." The negro

knelt and surely prayed.

On all sides swept the wide and empty streets. It was Ike Anderson's

town. A red film seemed to his gaze to come over the face of things.

He slipped his revolver back into the scabbard and paused again to

think. A quiet footstep sounded on the walk behind him, and he

wheeled, still puzzled with the red film and the mental problem.

The sheriff stood quietly facing him, with his thumbs resting lightly

in his belt. He had not drawn his own revolver. He was chewing a

splinter. "Ike," said he, "throw up your hands!"

The nerves of some men act more quickly than those of others, and such

men make the most dangerous pistol shots, when they have good digestion

and long practice at the rapid drawing of the revolver, an art at that

time much cultivated. Ike Anderson's mind and nerves and muscles were

always lightning-like in the instantaneous rapidity of their action.

The eye could scarce have followed the movement by which the revolver

leaped to a level from his right-hand scabbard. He had forgotten, in

his moment of study, that with this six-shooter he had fired once at

the whisky barrel, once at the glass of straws, once at the negro's

heel, twice at the floor, and once at the broomstick. The click on the

empty shell was heard clearly at the hotel bar, distinctly ahead of the

double report that followed. For, such was the sharpness of this man's

mental and muscular action, he had dropped the empty revolver from his

right hand and drawn the other with his left hand in time to meet the

fire of the sheriff.

The left arm of the sheriff dropped. The whole body of Ike Anderson,

shot low through the trunk, as was the sheriff's invariable custom,

melted down and sank into a sitting posture, leaning against the edge

of the stoop. The sheriff with a leap sprang behind the fallen man,

not firing again. Ike Anderson, with a black film now come upon his

eyes, raised his revolver and fired once, twice, three times, four

times, five times, tapping the space in front of him regularly and

carefully with his fire. Then he sank back wearily into the sheriff's

arms.

"All right, mammy!" remarked Ike Anderson, somewhat irrelevantly.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE BODY OF THE CRIME

Hour after hour, in the heat of the day or the cool of the evening, the

giant Mexican strode on by the side of the two horsemen, sometimes

trotting like a dog, more often walking with a shambling, wide-reaching

step, tireless as any wild animal. His feet, seamed and parched into

the semblance rather of horn than of flesh and bone, were quite bare,

though now it was a time of year when the nights at least were very

cool and when freezing weather might come at any time. He was clad

lightly as ever, in torn cotton garb, and carried no bedding save a

narrow strip of native woollen fabric, woven of undyed wool and so

loose of texture that one might thrust a finger through at any point of

its scant extent. He bore no weapon save the huge knife swinging at

his belt. Fastened to the same girdle was a hide bag or pouch, half

full of parched corn, rudely pounded. Expressionless, mute, untiring,

the colossal figure strode along, like some primordial creature in whom

a human soul had not yet found home. Yet, with an intelligence and

confidence which was more than human, he ran without hesitation the

trail of the unshod horse across this wide, hard plain, where even the

eye of the cowboy could rarely discern it. Now and then the print of

the hoof might show in the soft earth of some prairie-dog burrow; then

perhaps for an hour Juan would walk on, his eye fixed apparently upon

some far-off point of the horizon as upon the ground, until finally

they would note the same hoof-print again and know again that the

instinct of the wild guide had not failed.

The Mexican was running the back trail of the horse of Cal Greathouse,

the missing ranchman, and it was very early seen that the horse had not

returned over the route taken by Greathouse when he started out. He

had gone along the valley of the Smoky River, whereas the course of the

loose animal had been along the chord of a wide arc made by the valley

of that stream, a course much shorter and easier to traverse, as it

evaded a part of that rough country known as the breaks of the Smoky, a

series of gullies and "draws" running from the table-land down to the

deep little river bed. All along the stream, at ragged intervals, grew

scattered clumps of cottonwoods and other trees, so that at a long

distance the winding course of the little river could be traced with

ease. The afternoon of the first day brought the travellers well

within, view of this timber line, but the rough country along the

stream was not yet reached when they were forced to quit the trail and

make their rough bivouac for the night.

There was a curious feeling of certainty in Franklin's mind, as they

again took saddle for the journey, that the end of the quest was not

far distant, and that its nature was predetermined. Neither he nor

Curly expected to find the ranchman alive, though neither could have

given letter and line for this belief. As for Juan, his face was

expressionless as ever. On the morning of this second day they began

to cross the great ribbon-like pathways of the northern cattle trail,

these now and then blending with the paths of the vanished buffalo.

The interweaving paths of the cattle trail were flat and dusty, whereas

the buffalo trails were cut deep into the hard earth. Already the dust

was swept and washed out of these old and unused ways, leaving them as

they were to stand for many years afterward, deep furrows marking the

accustomed journeyings of a now annihilated race.

All the wild animals of the plains know how to find their way to water,

and the deep buffalo paths all met and headed for the water that lay

ahead, and which was to be approached by the easiest possible descent

from the table-land through the breaks. Along one of these old trails

the horse had come up from the valley, and hence it was down this same

trail that Juan eventually led the two searchers for the horse's owner.

The ponies plunged down the rude path which wound among the ridges and

cut banks, and at last emerged upon the flat, narrow valley traversed

by the turbid stream, in that land dignified by the name of river.

Down to the water the thirsty horses broke eagerly, Juan following, and

lying at full length along the bank, where he lapped at the water like

a hound.

"_Que camina--onde, amigo_?" asked Curly in cowboy _patois_. "Which

way?"

The Mexican pointed up the stream with carelessness, and they turned

thither as soon as the thirst of all had been appeased. As they

resumed the march, now along the level floor of the winding little

valley. Franklin was revolving a certain impression in his mind. In

the mud at the bank where they had stopped he had seen the imprint of a

naked foot--a foot very large and with an upturned toe, widely

spreading apart from its fellows, and it seemed to him that this track

was not so fresh as the ones he had just seen made before his eyes.

Troubled, he said nothing, but gave a start as Curly, without

introduction, remarked, as though reading his thoughts:

"Cap, I seen it, too."

"His footprint at the bank?"

"Yep. He's shore been here afore."

Neither man said more, but both grew grave, and both looked

unconsciously to their weapons. Their way now led among ragged plum

thickets, and occasional tangles of wild grapevines, or such smaller

growths as clung close to the water among the larger, ragged

cottonwoods that dotted the floor of the valley. The Mexican plunged

ahead as confidently as before, and in this tangled going his speed was

greater than that of the horses. "_Cuidado_!" (careful) "Juan," cried

Curly warningly, and the latter turned back a face inscrutable as ever.

The party moved up the valley a mile above the old buffalo ford, and

now at last there appeared a change in the deportment of the guide.

His step quickened. He prattled vaguely to himself. It seemed that

something was near. There was a solemnity in the air. Overhead an

excited crow crossed and recrossed the thin strip of high blue sky.

Above the crow a buzzard swung in slow, repeated circles, though not

joined by any of its sombre brotherhood. Mystery, expectation, dread,

sat upon this scene. The two men rode with hands upon their pistols

and leaning forward to see that which they felt must now be near.

They turned an angle of the valley, and came out upon a little flat

among the trees. Toward this open space the Mexican sprang with

hoarse, excited cries. The horses plunged back, snorting. Yet in the

little glade all Was silence, solitude. Swiftly Franklin and Curly

dismounted and made fast their horses, and then followed up the

Mexican, their weapons now both drawn.

This glade, now empty, had once held a man, or men. Here was a trodden

place where a horse had been tied to a tree. Here was the broken end

of a lariat. Here had been a little bivouac, a bed scraped up of the

scanty fallen leaves and bunches of taller grass. Here were broken

bushes--broken, how? There was the fire, now sunken into a heap of

ashes, a long, large, white heap, very large for a cowman's camp fire.

And there--

And there was it! There was some Thing. There was the reason of this

unspoken warning in the air. There lay the object of their search. In

a flash the revolvers covered the cowering figure of the giant, who,

prone upon his knees, was now raving, gibbering, praying, calling upon

long-forgotten saints to save him from this sight, "_O Santa Maria! O

Purissima! O Madre de Dios!_" he moaned, wringing his hands and

shivering as though stricken with an ague. He writhed among the

leaves, his eyes fixed only upon that ghastly shape which lay before

him.

There, in the ashes of the dead fire, as though embalmed, as though

alive, as though lingering to accuse and to convict, lay the body of

Greathouse, the missing man. Not merely a charred, incinerated mass,

the figure lay in the full appearance of life, a cast of the actual

man, moulded with fineness from the white ashes of the fire! Not a

feature, not a limb, not a fragment of clothing was left undestroyed;

yet none the less here, stretched across the bed of the burned-out

fire, with face upturned, with one arm doubled beneath the head and the

other with clinched hand outflung, lay the image, the counterpart, nay,

the identity of the man they sought! It was a death mask, wrought by

the pity of the destroying flames. These winds, this sky, the air, the

rain, all had spared and left it here in accusation most terrible, in

evidence unparalleled, incredibly yet irresistibly true!

Franklin felt his heart stop as he looked upon this sight, and Curly's

face grew pale beneath its tan. They gazed for a moment quietly, then

Curly sighed and stepped back. "Keep him covered, Cap," he said, and,

going to his horse, he loosened the long lariat.

"_Arriba_, Juan," he said quietly. "Get up." He kicked at the Mexican

with his foot as he lay, and stirred him into action. "Get up, Juan,"

he repeated, and the giant obeyed meekly as a child. Curly tied his

hands behind his back, took away his knife, and bound him fast to a

tree. Juan offered no resistance whatever, but looked at Curly with

wondering dumb protest in his eyes, as of an animal unjustly punished.

Curly turned again to the fire.

"It's him, all right," said he; "that's Cal." Franklin nodded.

Curly picked up a bit of stick and began to stir among the ashes, but

as he did so both he and Franklin uttered an exclamation of surprise.

By accident he had touched one of the limbs. The stick passed through

it, leaving behind but a crumbled, formless heap of ashes. Curly

essayed investigation upon the other side of the fire. A touch, and

the whole ghastly figure was gone! There remained no trace of what had

lain there. The shallow, incrusting shell of the fickle ash broke in

and fell, all the thin exterior covering dropping into the cavern which

it had inclosed! Before them lay not charred and dismembered remains,

but simply a flat table of ashes, midway along it a slightly higher

ridge, at which the wind, hitherto not conspiring, now toyed, flicking

away items here and there, carrying them, spreading them, returning

them unto the dust. Cal Greathouse had made his charge, and left it

with the Frontier to cast the reckoning.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE TRIAL

"Your Honour," said Franklin to the Court, "I appear to defend this

man."

The opening sentence of the young advocate might have been uttered in

burlesque. To call this a court of justice might have seemed sheer

libel. There was not the first suggestion of the dignity and solemnity

of the law.

Ellisville had no hall of justice, and the court sat at one place or

another, as convenience dictated. This being an important case, and

one in which all the populace was interested, Judge Bristol had

selected the largest available assembly room, which happened to be the

central hall of Sam Poston's livery barn. The judge sat behind a large

upturned box, which supported a few battered books. At his right the

red-nosed prosecuting attorney shuffled his papers. Along the sides of

the open hall-way, through whose open doors at each end the wind passed

freely, sat jury and audience, indiscriminately mingled. The prisoner

himself, ignorant of the meaning of all this, sat on an upturned tub,

unshackled and unguarded. Back of these figures appeared the heads of

a double row of horses. The stamp of an uneasy hoof, the steady crunch

of jaws upon the hay, with now and then a moist blowing cough from a

stall, made up a minor train of intermittent sound. Back of the seated

men others were massed, standing in the doorways. Outside the building

stood crowds, now and then increased or lessened by those who passed in

or out of the room where the court was in session. These interested

spectators were for the most part dark, sunburned men, wearing wide

hats and narrow boots with spurs. They all were armed. Leaning

against the sides of the mangers, or resting a hand upon the shoulders

of another, they gazed calmly at the bar of justice. The attitude of

Ellisville was one of sardonic calm. As a function, as a show, this

trial might go on.

The trial did go on, rapidly, without quibbling, indeed without much

regard for the formalities of the law. The jury had been selected

before Franklin made his appearance, and he was given to understand

that this jury was good enough for him, and was the one before which

this prisoner should be tried. A formal motion for the discharge of

the prisoner was overruled. Without much delay the prosecuting

attorney arose to present his charge.

"Yo' Honah," said the attorney for the State, arising and striking an

attitude learned in earlier forensic days--"yo Honah, an' gentlemen, I

rise to present to you, an' to push to the ultimate penalty of the law,

a case of the most serious, the most heinyus crime, committed by the

most desperate and dangerous criminal, that has thus far ever disturbed

the peaceful course of ouah quiet little community. There he sets

befo' you," he cried, suddenly raising his voice and pointing a

forefinger at the prisoner, who sat smiling amiably. "There he sets,

the hardened and self-confessed criminal, guilty of the foulest crime

upon the calendar of ouah law. A murderer, gentlemen, a murderer with

red hands an' with the brand of Cain upon his brow! This man, this

fiend, killed ouah fellow-citizen Calvin Greathouse--he brutally

murdered him. Not content with murder, he attempted to destroy his

body with fiah, seekin' thus to wipe out the record of his crime. But

the fiah itself would not destroy the remains of that prince of men,

ouah missin' friend an' brother! His corpse cried out, accusin' this

guilty man, an' then an' there this hardened wretch fell abjeckly onto

his knees an' called on all his heathen saints to save him, to smite

him blind, that he might no mo' see, _sleepin_' or wakin', the image of

that murdered man--that murdered man, ouah friend an' brother, ouah

_citizen_ an' friend."

The orator knew his audience. He knew the real jury. The shuffling

and whispers were his confirmation.

"Yo' Honah," began the accusing voice again, "I see him now. I see

this prisoner, this murderer, the central figger of that wild an' awful

scene. He falls upon his knees, he wrings his hands, he supplicates

high Heaven--that infinite Powah which gave life to each of us as the

one most precious gift--he beseeches Providence to breathe back again

into that cold clay the divine spark of which his red hand had robbed

it. Useless, useless! The dead can not arise. The murdered man can

remain to accuse, but he can not arise again in life, He can not again

hear the songs of birds. He can not again hear the prattle of his

babes. He can not again take a friend by the hand. He can not come to

life. The heavens do not open fo' that benef'cent end!

"_But_, yo' Honah, the heavens will open! They will send down a bolt

o' justice. Nay, they would send down upon ouah heads a forked

messenger o' wrath it we should fail to administer justice, fail to do

that juty intrusted into ouah hands! There sets the man! There he is

befo' you! His guilt has been admitted. Answer me, gentlemen, what is

ouah juty in this case? Shall we set this incarnate fiend free in the

lan' again--shall we let him come clear o' this charge--shall we turn

him loose again in ouah midst to murder some other of ouah citizens?

Shall we set this man free?" His voice had sunk into a whisper as he

spoke the last words, leaning forward and looking into the faces of the

jury. Suddenly he straightened up, his clinched hand shaken high above

his head.

"No!" he cried. "No! I say to you, ten thousand times no! We are a

people quiet an' law-abidin'. We have set ouah hands to the conquest

o' this lan'. We have driven out the savages, an' we have erected heah

the vine an' fig tree of a new community. We have brought hither ouah

flocks an' herds. We shall not allow crime, _red_-handed an'

_on_-rebuked, to stalk through the quiet streets of ouah law-abidin',

moral town! This man shall not go free! Justice, yo' Honah, justice,

gentlemen, is what this community asks. An' justice is what it is

a-goin' to have. Yo' Honah, an' gentlemen, I yiel' to the statement o'

the defence."

Franklin rose and looked calmly about him while the buzzing of comment

and the outspoken exclamations of applause yet greeted the speech of

the prosecutor. He knew that Curly's thoughtless earlier description

of the scene of the arrest would in advance be held as much evidence in

the trial as any sworn testimony given in the court. Still, the

sentiment of pity was strong in his heart. He resolved to use all he

knew of the cunning of the law to save this half-witted savage. He

determined to defeat, if possible, the ends of a technical justice, in

order to secure a higher and a broader justice, the charity of a divine

mercy. As the lawyer, the agent of organized society, he purposed to

invoke the law in order to defeat the law in this, the first trial, for

this, the first hostage ever given to civilization on the old cattle

range. He prayed to see triumph an actual justice and not the old

blind spirit of revenge. He realized fully how much was there to

overcome as he gazed upon the set faces of the real jury, the crowd of

grim spectators. Yet in his soul there sprang so clear a conviction of

his duty that he felt all fogs clear away, leaving his intelligence

calm, clear, dispassionate, with full understanding of the best means

to obtain his end. He knew that argument is the best answer to oratory.

"Your Honour, and gentlemen of the jury," he began, "in defending this

man I stand for the law. The representative of the State invokes the

law.

"What is that law? Is it violence for violence, hatred for unreasoning

hate? Is that the law? Or is the love of justice, the love of fair

play, at the heart of the law? What do you say? Is it not right for

any man to have a fair chance?

"I yield to no man in my desire to see a better day of law and order in

this town. We are two years old in time, but a century old in

violence. Is it merely your wish that we add one more grave to the

long rows on our hillsides? Is that your wish? Do you want a trial,

or do you wish merely an execution? Gentlemen, I tell you this is the

most important day in the history of this town. Let us here make our

stand for the law. The old ways will no longer serve. We are at the

turning of the road. Let us follow the law.

"Now, under the law you must, in order to prove the crime of murder, be

able to show the body of the victim; you must show that murder has

really been done. You must show a motive, a reason. You must show, or

be prepared to show, when required, a mental responsibility on the part

of the accused. All these things you must show by the best possible

testimony, not by what you think, or what you have heard, but by direct

testimony, produced here in this court. You can't ask the accused man

to testify against himself. You can't ask me, his counsel, to testify

against him. Hence there is left but one witness who can testify

directly in this case. There is not one item of remains, not one bone,

one rag, one shred of clothing, not one iota of evidence introduced

before this honourable court to show that the body of Calvin Greathouse

was ever identified or found. There is no corpus delicti. How shall

you say that this missing man has been murdered? Think this thing

over. Remember, if you hang this man, you can never bring him back to

life.

"There must be some motive shown for the supposition of such an act as

murder. What motive can be shown here? Certainly not that of robbery.

The horse of the missing man came back alone, its lariat dragging, as

we shall prove. It had not been ridden since the lariat was broken.

You all know, as we shall prove, that this man Juan was never known to

ride a horse. We shall prove that he walked sixty miles, to the very

spot where the horse had been tied, and that he scorned to touch a

horse on his whole journey. He wanted no horse. He stole no horse.

That was no motive. There has been no motive shown. Would a criminal

lead the officers of the law to the very spot where he had committed

his crime? Had this been theft, or murder, would this man have taken

any one directly and unhesitatingly to that spot? I ask you this.

"To be subject to the law, as you very well know, a man must be morally

responsible. He must know right and wrong. Even the savage Indians

admit this principle of justice. They say that the man of unsound mind

is touched by the hand of the Great Spirit. Shall we be less merciful

than they? Look at this smiling giant before you. He has been touched

by the hand of the Almighty. God has punished him enough.

"I shall show to you that when this man was a child he was struck a

severe blow upon the head, and that since that time he has never been

of sound mind, his brain never recovering from that shock, a blow which

actually broke in a portion of his skull. Since that time he has had

recurrent times of violent insanity, with alternating spells of what

seems a semi-idiocy. This man's mind never grew. In some ways his

animal senses are keen to a remarkable degree, but of reason he has

little or none. He can not tell you why he does a thing, or what will

happen provided that he does thus or so. This I shall prove to you.

"I therefore submit to you, your Honour, and to you, gentlemen of the

jury, two distinct lines of defence which do not conflict, and which

are therefore valid under the law. We deny that any murder has been

committed, that any motive for murder has been shown, that any body of

the crime has been produced. And alternatively we submit that the

prisoner at the bar is a man of unsound mind and known to be such, not

responsible for his acts, and not in any wise amenable to the capital

features of the law. I ask you, gentlemen of the jury, you who hold

this man's life in your hands, are you going to hang a man for murder

when it is not shown a murder has been done? And would you hang a man

who is more ignorant than a child of right and wrong? Is that fair

play? Gentlemen, we are all here together, and one of us is as good as

another. Our ambitions are the same. We stand here together for the

best interests of this growing country--this country whose first word

has always been fair play. Now, is it your already formed wish to

punish this man? I say, no. I say, first give him his chance."

As Franklin ceased and seated himself the silence was again broken by a

rising buzz of conversation. This was proving really a very

interesting show, this trial. It must go on yet a little further.

"By jinks," said one cow-puncher, "that's right. That fellow Juan is

_loco_, an' you all done knowed that, always."

"He ain't so d----n _loco_ but what he could kill a man, all right,"

said another,

"Sure. Cal Greathouse was worth sever'l o' this Greaser," remarked

another.

"I don't see how you c'n hang him legal," said a judicial voice.

"To h----l with this new-fangled law," growled a rough answer from near

the door. "Are we dependin' on this here new way o' takin' care of

fellers that kills too many folks? If the Greaser done it, he's

guilty, an' that settles it. Hangin's too good for a feller that'll

kill a man in camp, an' then try to burn him up."

"That's right!" "Sure!" "That's the talk!" were the many replies

greeting this comment.

"Order, order, gentlemen!" called the judge from the bench, pounding on

the box before him.

"Call William Haskins," said the prosecuting attorney, standing up,

with his hands in his pockets.

"William Haskins, William Haskins, William Haskins! Come into Court!"

cried out the clerk from his corner of the store box. No immediate

response was made. Some one nudged Curly, who started up.

"Who--me?" he said.

"Is your name William Haskins?" asked the judge.

"Reckon _so_," said Curly. "My folks used to call me that. I usually

go under the road brand o' Curly, though." He took his seat on a stool

near the store box, was sworn, with his hat on, and the prosecuting

attorney began the examination.

"What is your name?"

"Why, Curly."

"What is your occupation?"

"What?"

"How do you make your living?"

"Punchin' cows. Not that I 'low it's any o' yore d----d business."

"Where do you reside?"

"Where do I live?"

"Yes."

"Well, now, I don't know. My folks lives on the Brazos, an' I've been

drivin' two years. Now I taken up a claim on the Smoky, out here. I

'low I'll go North right soon, to Wyoming maybe."

"How old are you?"

"Oh, I don't know; but I 'low about twenty-four or twenty-five, along

in there."

"Where were you last Wednesday?"

"What?"

"Were you one of the _posse_ sent out to search for Cal Greathouse?"

"Yep; me and Cap Franklin, there."

"Who else?"

"Why, Juan, there, him. He was trailin' the hoss for us."

"Where did you go?"

"About sixty miles southwest, into the breaks of the Smoky."

"What did you find?"

"We found a old camp. Hoss had been tied there, and broke its lariat.

Bushes was broke some, but we didn't see no blood, as I know of."

"Never mind what you didn't see."

"Well, now--"

"Answer my question."

"Now, say, friend, you don't want to get too gay."

"Answer the question, Mr. Haskins," said the Court.

"Well, all right, judge; I'll do it to oblige you. The most we saw was

where a fire had been. Looked like a right smart fire. They was

plenty o' ashes layin' there."

"Did you see anything in the ashes?"

"What business is it o' yourn?"

"Now, now," said the Court, "you must answer the questions, Mr.

Haskins."

"All right, judge," said Curly. "Well, I dunno hardly what we did see

any mor'n what I tole all the boys when we first brought Juan in. I

tole you all."

"Correct the witness, your Honour," said Franklin.

"Answer only the questions, Mr. Haskins," said the Judge.

"Very well," said the prosecutor; "what did you see? Anything like a

man's figure?"

"We object!" said Franklin, but Curly answered: "Well, yes, it did look

like a feller a-layin' there. But when we touched it--"

"Never mind. Did the prisoner see this figure?"

"Shore."

"What did he do?"

"Well, he acted plumb _loco_. He gets down an' hollers. '_Madre de

Dios_!' he hollers. I 'low he wuz plenty scared."

"Did he look scared?"

"I object," cried Franklin.

"S'tained," said the judge.

"'Ception," said the prosecuting attorney.

"Well, what did the prisoner say or do?"

"Why, he crawls aroun' an' hollers. So we roped him, then. But

say--"

"Never mind."

"Well, I was--"

"Never mind. Did you--"

"Shore! I foun' the end o' the lariat tied to a tree."

"But did you--"

"Yes, I tole you! I foun' it tied. End just fits the broke end o' the

lariat onto the saddle, when the hoss come back. Them hide ropes ain't

no good."

"Never mind--"

"If ever they onct got rotten--"

"Never mind. Was that Greathouse's rope?"

"Maybe so. Now, them hide ropes--"

"Never mind about the hide ropes. I want to know what the prisoner

did."

"Well, when we roped him he didn't make no kick."

"Never mind. He saw the figure in the ashes?"

"What do you know about it?--you wasn't there."

"No, but I'm going to make you tell what was there."

"You are, huh? Well, you crack yer whip. I like to see any feller

make me tell anything I don't want to tell."

"That's right, Curly," said some one back in the crowd. "No bluff

goes."

"Not in a hundred!" said Curly.

"Now, now, now!" began the judge drowsily. The prosecuting attorney

counselled of craftiness, at this juncture, foreseeing trouble if he

insisted. "Take the witness," he said abruptly.

"Cross-'xamine, d'fence," said the judge, settling back.

"Now, Curly," said Franklin, as he took up the questioning again,

"please tell us what Juan did after he saw this supposed figure in the

ashes."

"Why, now, Cap, you know that just as well as I do."

"Yes, but I want you to tell these other folks about it."

"Well, of course, Juan acted plenty _loco_--you know that."

"Very well. Now what, if anything, did you do to this alleged body in

the ashes?"

"'Bject! Not cross-examination," cried the State's attorney.

"M' answer," said the judge.

"What did I do to it?" said Curly. "Why, I poked it with a stick."

"What happened?"

"Why, it fell plumb to pieces."

"Did it disappear?"

"Shore it did. Wasn't a thing left."

"Did it look like a man's body, then?"

"No, it just looked like a pile o' ashes."

"Bore no trace or resemblance to a man, then?"

"None whatever."

"You wouldn't have taken it for a body, then?"

"Nope. Course not."

"Was any part of a body left?"

"Nary thing."

"Any boot, hat, or bit of clothing?"

"Not a single thing, fur's I c'd see."

"That's all," said Franklin.

"Re-direct, Mr. Prosecutor?" said the Court. This was Greek to the

audience, but they were enjoying the entertainment.

"Pass the re-direct," said the State's attorney confidently.

"Do you wish to recall this witness, Mr. Franklin?" asked the Court.

"Yes, if your Honour please. I want to take up some facts in the

earlier life of the prisoner, as bearing upon his present mental

condition."

"Very well," said the judge, yawning. "You may wait a while, Mr.

Haskins."

"Well, then, Curly," said Franklin, again addressing himself to his

witness, "please tell us how long you have known this prisoner."

"Ever since we was kids together. He used to be a _mozo_ on my pap's

ranch, over in San Saba County."

"Did you ever know him to receive any injury, any blow about the head?"

"Well, onct ole Hank Swartzman swatted him over the head with a

swingletree. Sort o' laid him out, some."

"'Bject!" cried the State's attorney, but the judge yawned "M' go on."

"Did he act strangely after receiving that blow?"

"Why, yes; I reckon you would yerself. He hit him a good lick. It was

fer ridin' Hank's favourite mare, an' from that time to now Juan ain't

never been on horseback since. That shows he's _loco_. Any man what

walks is _loco_. Part o' the time, Juan, he's _bronco_, but all the

time he's _loco_."

"He has spells of violence?"

"Shore. You know that. You seen how he fit that Injun--"

"Oh, keep him to the line," protested the prosecutor.

"We won't take up that just now, Curly," said Franklin.

"Well, this here shorely is the funniest layout I ever did see," said

Curly, somewhat injured. "A feller can't say a d----d thing but only

jest what you all want him to say. Now, say--"

"Yes, but--" began Franklin, fearing that he might meet trouble with

this witness even as the prosecutor had, and seeing the latter smiling

behind his hand in recognition of this fact.

"Now, say," insisted Curly, "if you want something they ain't none o'

you said a word about yet, I'll tell you something. You see, Juan, he

had a sister, and this here Cal Greathouse, he--"

"I object, yo' Honah! I object!" cried the State's attorney, springing

to his feet. "This is bringin' the dignity o' the law into ridicule,

sah! into ridicule! I object!"

"Er, ah-h-h!" yawned the judge, suddenly sitting up, "'Journ court, Mr.

Clerk! We will set to-morrow mornin' at the same place, at nine

o'clock.--Mr. Sheriff, take charge of the prisoner.--Where is the

sheriff, Mr. Clerk?"

"Please the Court," said the prosecuting attorney, "Sheriff Watson is

not here to-day. He is lyin' sick out to his ranch. He was injured,

yo' Honah, in arrestin' Ike Anderson, and he has not yet recovered."

"Well, who is in charge of this prisoner?" said the Court. "There

ought to be some one to take care of him."

"I reckon I am, Judge," said Curly. "He is sort o' stayin' with me

while Bill's under the weather."

"Well, take him in charge, some one, and have him here in the morning."

"All right, judge," said Curly quietly, "I'll take care of him."

He beckoned to Juan, and the giant rose and followed after him, still

smiling and pleased at what to him also was a novel show.

It was three o'clock of the afternoon. The thirst of a district Judge

had adjourned the district court. Franklin's heart sank. He dreaded

the night. The real court, as he admitted to himself, would continue

its session that night at the Cottage bar, and perhaps it might not

adjourn until a verdict had been rendered.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE VERDICT

There came over the town of Ellisville that night an ominous quiet.

But few men appeared on the streets. Nobody talked, or if any one did

there was one subject to which no reference was made. A hush had

fallen upon all. The sky, dotted with a million blazing stars, looked

icy and apart. A glory of moonlight flooded the streets, yet never was

moon more cold.

Franklin finished his dinner and sat down alone for a time in the great

barren office of the depot hotel where he made his home. The

excitement of the trial, suspended at its height, was now followed by

reaction, a despondency which it was hard to shake off. Was this,

then, the land of his choice? he thought. And what, then, was this

human nature of which men sung and wrote? He shook himself together

with difficulty.

He went to his room and buckled on his revolver, smiling grimly as he

did so at the thought of how intimately all law is related to violence,

and how relative to its environment is all law. He went to

Battersleigh's room and knocked, entering at the loud invitation of

that friend.

"Shure, Ned, me boy," said Battersleigh, "ye've yer side arms on this

evenin'. Ye give up the profission of arms with reluctance. Tell me,

Ned, what's the campaign fer the evenin'?"

"Well," said Franklin, "I thought I'd step over and sit awhile with

Curly this evening. He may be feeling a little lonesome."

"Quite right ye are, me boy," said Battersleigh cheerfully. "Quite

right. An' if ye don't mind I'll just jine ye. It's lonesome I am

meself the night."

Battersleigh busied himself about his room, and soon appeared arrayed,

as was Franklin himself, with a revolver at his belt.

"Shure, Ned, me boy," he said, "an officer an' a gintleman should

nivver appear abroad without his side arms. At laste, methinks, not on

a night like this." He looked at Franklin calmly, and the latter rose

and grasped the hand of the fearless old soldier without a word. The

two strolled out together down the street in the direction of the

shanty where Curly was keeping his "prisoner."

At this place they saw a few men sitting outside the door, calmly

smoking--among these Sam, the liveryman, a merchant by name of Chapman,

and a homesteader who was known as One-eyed Pennyman. Inside the

house, playing cards with Curly, were four other men. Franklin noticed

that they all were armed. They all appeared, from their story, to have

just dropped in to pass a little time with Curly. From time to time

others dropped in, most of them remaining outside in the moonlight,

sitting on their heels along the porch, talking but little, and then

mentioning anything but the one subject which was uppermost in every

one's mind. Yet, though nothing was said, it might well be seen that

this little body of men were of those who had taken the stand for law

and order, and who were resolved upon a new day in the history of the

town.

It was a battle of the two hotels and what they represented. Over at

the great barroom of the Cottage there was at the same time assembled a

much larger gathering, composed chiefly of those transient elements

which at that time really made up the larger portion of the population

of the place--wide-hatted men, with narrow boots and broad belts at

which swung heavy, blued revolvers with broad wooden butts--a

wild-looking, wild-living body of men, savage in some ways, gentle in

others, but for the most part just, according to their creed. The long

bar was crowded, and outside the door many men were standing along the

wide gallery. They, too, were reticent. All drank whisky, and drank

it regularly. Up to ten o'clock the whisky had produced no effect.

The assembly was still engaged in deliberation, drinking and thinking,

calmly, solemnly.

At ten o'clock a big Texan raised his glass high above his head and

smashed it upon the bar.

"Law an' order be damned!" said he. "What kind o' law an' order is it

to let a murderin' Greaser like that come clear? Which of us'll be the

next he'd kill?"

There was no answer. A sigh, a shiver, a little rustling sound passed

over the crowd.

"We always used ter run our business good enough," resumed the Texan.

"What need we got o' lawyers now? Didn't this Greaser kill Cal?

Crazy? He's just crazy enough to be mean. He's crazy so'st he ain't

safe, that's what."

The stir was louder. A cowman motioned, and the barkeeper lined the

whole bar with glasses, setting out six bottles of conviction.

"Curly means all right," said one voice. "I know that boy, an' he's

all right."

"Shore he's all right!" said the first voice, "an' so's Bill Watson all

right. But what's the use?"

"_Loco_, of course the Greaser's _loco_," broke in another speaker.

"So's a mad dog _loco_. But about the best thing's to kill it, so'st

it's safer to be roun'."

Silence fell upon the crowd. The Texan continued. "We always did," he

said.

"Yes," said another voice. "That's right. We always did."

"Curly'll never let him go," said one irrelevantly. "Seems to me we

better sen' this Greaser off to the States, put him in a 'sylum, er

somethin'."

"Yes," said the tall Texan; "and I like to know ef that ain't a blame

sight worse'n hangin' a man?"

"That's so," assented several voices. And indeed to these men, born

and bred in the free life of the range, the thought of captivity was

more repugnant than the thought of death.

"The lawyer feller, he ain't to blame," said one apologetically. "He

made things look right plain. He ain't no fool."

"Well, I don't know as he helt no aidge over ole Claib Benson," said

another argumentatively. "Claib puts it mighty powerful."

"Yes, but," said the other eagerly, "Claib means fer hangin' by the

Co'te."

"Shore," said a voice. "Now, I'm one o' the jury, but I says in my own

min', ef we convict this yer man, we got to hang him right away anyway,

'cause we ain't got no jail, an' we kain't afford no guard to watch him

all the time. Now, he'd have to be hung right away, anyhow." This

half apologetically.

"What do most o' you fellers on the jury think? Does this here crazy

business go with you all?"

"Well, kin savvy," replied the juror judicially. "Some o' the boys

think it a leetle tough to hang a feller fer a thing he kain't remember

and that he didn't never think was no harm. It don't look like the

Greaser'd take any one right to where he would shore be convicted, ef

he had of made this here killin'."

"Well," said a conservative soothingly, "let's wait till to-morrer.

Let's let the Co'te set another day, anyhow."

"Yes, I reckon that's right; yes, that's so," said others; "we'd better

wait till to-morrer."

A brief silence fell upon the gathering, a silence broken only by

tinklings or shufflings along the bar. Then, all at once, the sound of

an excited voice rose and fell, the cry of some one out upon the

gallery in the open air. The silence deepened for one moment, and then

there was a surge toward the door.

Far off, over the prairie, there came a little flat, recurrent sound,

or series of sounds, as of one patting his fingers softly together. It

fell and rose and grew, coming rapidly nearer, until at length there

could be distinguished the cracking and popping of the hoofs of running

horses. The sound broke into a rattling rumble. There came across the

still, keen night a wild, thin, high, shrilling yell, product of many

voices.

"It's the Bar O outfit, from the Brazos, coming in," said some one.

The crowd pressed out into the air. It opened and melted slightly.

The crowd at Curly's shanty increased slightly, silently. Inside,

Curly and his friend still played cards. The giant prisoner lay asleep

upon the floor, stretched out on his thin native wool mattress, his

huge bulk filling half the floor.

The rattle of many hoofs swept up to the door of the Cottage, where the

restive, nervous horses were left standing while the men went in, their

leader, a stocky, red-mustached man, bearing with him the rope which he

had loosened from his saddle. Having drunk, the leader smote upon the

bar with a heavy hand.

"Come along, men," he called out, "The quicker we hang that d----d

Greaser the better it will be. We done heard there was some sort o'

trial goin' on here in town over this. We cowmen ain't goin' to stand

no such foolishness. This Greaser killed Cal Greathouse, an' he's got

to hang."

He moved toward the door, followed by many silently, by others with

steps that lagged. "Well, you see--" began one man.

"To h----l with all that!" said the newcomer, turning upon him fiercely.

"We don't need no cowards!"

"No, that ain't it," resumed the first man, "but we got to respeck the

Co'te--fust Co'te ever did set here, you see. The fellers, some of

'em, thinks--some o' the _jury_ thinks--that the feller's too crazy fer

to hang."

"Crazy be d----d! We're goin' to hang him, an' that settles it. Law

an' order kin take care of it afterward."

All the time they were shifting toward the door. Outside the band of

cattlemen who had just ridden in, fresh from the trail, and with but a

partial knowledge of the arguments that had been advanced in this

court, for which they had but small respect at best, settled the

immediate question in an instant. As though by concert they swung into

saddle and swept off up the street in a body, above the noise of their

riding now breaking a careless laugh, now a shrill yell of sheer joyous

excitement. They carried with them many waverers. More than a hundred

men drew up in front of the frail shelter over which was spread the

doubtful aegis of the law.

Fifty men met them. The lights went out in the house in an instant,

and in front of the door there swept a dark and silent cordon. The

leader of the invaders paused, but went straight forward.

"We want that man!" he said.

There was no answer. The line in front of the door darkened and

thickened. Finally the figure of the young lawyer appeared, and he

said calmly, sternly:

"You know very well you can't have him."

"We don't know nothin' o' the sort. We want him, an' we're goin' to

have him. We don't want no one else, an' we won't make no trouble, but

we're goin' to take the Mexican. Git out the road!"

A second figure stood by the side of Franklin, and this man was

recognised by the leader. "Aw, now, Curly, what d----d foolishness is

this here? Bring him out."

"You know I won't, Jim," said Curly, simply. "We're tryin' him on the

square. You ain't the Co'te. I kain't give him to no one but the

Co'te."

"We _are_ the Co'te!" came the hot reply. "The Co'te that runs this

range fer hoss-thieves an' murderers. Now, see here, Curly, we're all

your friends, an' you know it, but that feller has got to hang, an'

hang to-night. Git out the way. What's the matter with you?"

"They ain't nothin' the matter with me," said Curly slowly, "'ceptin' I

done said I wouldn't give this man up to no man but the Co'te. A lot

o' us fellers, here in the settlement, we 'lowed that the law goes here

now."

Silence fell for an instant, then from the rear of the party there came

pushing and crowding and cries of "Burn the house--drive him out!"

There was a rush, but it was met by a silent thickening of the line at

the point assailed. Men scuffled with men, swearing and grunting,

panting hard. Here and there weapons flashed dully, though as yet no

shot was fired. Time and again Franklin raised his voice. "Men,

listen to me!" he cried. "We promise you a fair trial--we promise--"

"Shut up!" cried the leader, and cries of "No talking!" came from the

crowd. "Give him up, or we'll clean you all out!" cried another voice,

angrily. The rushers toward the house grew closer, so that assailants

and besiegers were now mingled in a fighting, swearing mass.

"You're no cowman, Curly," cried one voice, bitterly, out of the black

shifting sea in front of the house.

"You're a d----d liar!" cried Curly in reply, "whoever says that to me!

I'm only a-keepin' of my word. You kain't clean us out. I'll shoot

the livin' soul out o' any man that touches that door! This here is

the jail, an' I'm the deppity, and, by ----! you'll not have my

prisoner!"

"Quite right, me man," said a cool voice at Curly's side, and a hand

fell on his shoulder as a tall form loomed up in the crowd. "There's

good matayrial in you, me bully. Hould yer position, an' be sure that

Batty's with you, at the laste. Fair play's a jule, an' it's fair play

we're goin' to have here."

Backed by a crowd of men whose resolution was as firm as their own,

these three fell back in front of the door. Franklin felt his heart

going fast, and knew that more was asked of him here than had ever been

upon the field of battle; yet he was exultant at the discovery that he

had no thought of wavering. He knew then that he had been proved.

With equal joy he looked upon the face of Curly, frowning underneath

the pushed-back hat, and upon that of Battersleigh, keen-looking,

eager, as though about to witness some pleasurable, exciting thing.

Yet he knew the men in front were as brave as they, and as desperately

resolved. In a moment, he reflected, the firing would begin. He saw

Curly's hands lying lightly upon the butts of his revolvers. He saw

Battersleigh draw his revolver and push with the side of the barrel

against the nearest men as though to thrust them back. He himself

crowded to the fore, eager, expectant, prepared. One shot, and a score

of lives were done, and dark indeed would be this night in Ellisville.

Suddenly the climax came. The door was thrust irresistibly open, not

from without, but from within. Stooping, so that his head might clear

its top, the enormous figure of Juan, the Mexican, appeared in the

opening. He looked out, ignorant of the real reason of this tumult,

yet snuffing conflict as does the bear not yet assailed. His face,

dull and impassive, was just beginning to light up with suspicion and

slow rage.

A roar of anger and excitement rose as the prisoner was seen standing

there before them, though outlined only by the dim light of the sky.

Every man in the assailing party sprang toward the building. The cries

became savage, beastlike. It was no longer human beings who contended

over this poor, half-witted being, but brutes, less reasonable than he.

Juan left the door. He swept Franklin and Curly and Battersleigh aside

as though they were but babes. It was his purpose to rush out, to

strike, to kill. It was the moment of opportunity for the leader of

the assailants. The whistle of a rope cut the air, and the noose

tightened about the giant's neck with instant grip. There was a surge

back upon the rope, a movement which would have been fatal for any

other man, which would have been fatal to him, had the men got the rope

to a horse as they wished, so that they might drag the victim by

violence through the crowd.

But with Juan this act was not final. The noose enraged him, but did

not frighten or disable him. As the great bear of the foothills, when

roped by the horseman, scorns to attempt escape, but pulls man and

horse toward him by main force, so the giant savage who was now thus

assailed put forth his strength, and by sheer power of arm drew his

would-be captors to him, hand over hand. The noose about his own neck

he loosened with one hand. Then he raised his hand and let it fall.

The caster of the rope, his collar bone broken and his shoulder blade

cracked across, fell in a heap at his feet as the swaying crowd made

way. Once again there was silence, one moment of confusion,

hesitation. Then came the end.

There came, boring into the silence with horrible distinctness, the

sound of one merciful, mysterious shot. The giant straightened up

once, a vast black body towering above the black mass about him, and

then sank gently, slowly down, as though to curl himself in sleep.

There was a groan, a roar, a swift surging of men, thick, black, like

swarming bees. Some bent above the two prone figures. Others caught

at the rope, grovelling, snarling.

They were saved the last stage of their disgrace. Into the crowd there

pressed the figure of a new-comer, a hatless man, whose face was pale,

whose feet were unshod, and who bore one arm helpless in a dirty sling

which hung about his neck. Haggard and unkempt, barefooted, half-clad

as he had stumbled out of bed at his ranch six miles away, Bill Watson,

the sheriff, appeared a figure unheroic enough. With his broken arm

hanging useless and jostled by the crowd, he raised his right hand

above his head and called out, in a voice weak and halting, but

determined:

"Men, go--go home! I command you--in the name--of the law!"

BOOK IV

THE DAY OF THE PLOUGH

CHAPTER XXX

THE END OF THE TRAIL

The Cottage Hotel of Ellisville was, singularly enough, in its palmy

days conducted by a woman, and a very good woman she was. It was

perhaps an error in judgment which led the husband of this woman to

undertake the establishment of a hotel at such a place and such a time,

but he hastened to repair his fault by amiably dying. The widow, a

large woman, of great kindness of heart and a certain skill in the care

of gunshot wounds, fell heiress to the business, carried it on and made

a success of it. All these wild range men who came roistering up the

Trail loved this large and kind old lady, and she called them all her

"boys," watching over the wild brood as a hen does over her chickens.

She fed them and comforted them, nursed them and buried them, always

new ones coming to take the places of those who were gone. Chief

mourner at over threescore funerals, nevertheless was Mother Daly's

voice always for peace and decorum; and what good she did may one day

be discovered when the spurred and booted dead shall rise.

The family of Mother Daly flourished and helped build the north-bound

cattle trail, along which all the hoof marks ran to Ellisville. There

was talk of other cow towns, east of Ellisville, west of it, but the

clannish conservatism of the drovers held to the town they had chosen

and baptized. Thus the family of Mother Daly kept up its numbers, and

the Cottage knew no night, even at the time when the wars of the cowmen

with the railroad men and the gamblers had somewhat worn away by reason

of the advancing of the head of the rails still farther into the Great

American Desert.

There was yet no key to the Cottage bar when there came the

unbelievable word that there was no longer a buffalo to be found

anywhere on the range, and that the Indians were gone, beaten, herded

up forever. Far to the north, it was declared, there were men coming

in on the cow range who had silver-mounted guns, who wore gold and

jewels, and who brought with them saddles without horns! It was said,

however, that these new men wanted to buy cows, so cows were taken to

them. Many young men of Mother Daly's family went on up the Trail,

never to come back to Ellisville, and it was said that they were paid

much gold, and that they stole many cows from the men who had

silver-mounted guns, and who wore strange, long knives, with which it

was difficult to open a tin can.

Mother Daly looked upon this, and it was well. She understood her old

boys and loved them. She was glad the world was full of them. It was

a busy, happy, active world, full of bold deeds, full of wide plans,

full of men. She looked out over the wide wind-swept plains, along the

big chutes full of bellowing beeves, at the wide corral with its scores

of saddled Nemeses, and she was calm and happy. It was a goodly world.

It was upon one day that Mother Daly looked out upon her world; upon

the next day she looked again, and all the world was changed. Far as

the eye could reach, the long and dusty roadway of the cows lay silent,

with its dust unstirred. Far, very far off, there was approaching a

little band of strange, small, bleating, woolly creatures, to whose

driver Mother Daly refused bed and board. The cattle chutes were

silent, the corral was empty. At the Cottage bar the keeper had at

last found a key to the door. Up and down the Trail, east and west of

the Trail, all was quiet, bare, and desolate. At some signal--some

signal written on the sky--all the old life of Ellisville had taken up

its journey into a farther land, into another day. The cowman, the

railroad man, and the gambling man had gone, leaving behind them the

wide and well-perforated Cottage, the graveyard with its double street,

the cattle chutes with well-worn, hairy walls.

Now there came upon the face of the country faint scars where wheels

had cut into the hard soil, these vagrant indices of travel not

pointing all one way, and not cut deep, as was the royal highway of the

cattle, but crossing, tangling, sometimes blending into main-travelled

roads, though more often straying aimlessly off over the prairie to end

at the homestead of some farmer. The smokes arose more numerously over

the country, and the low houses of the settlers were seen here and

there on either hand by those who drove out over the winding wagon ways

in search of land. These new houses were dark and low and brown, with

the exception that each few miles the traveller might see a small frame

house painted white. Sometimes, in the early morning, there might be

seen wandering toward these small white houses, no man knew whence,

small groups of little beings never before seen upon the range. At

nightfall they wandered back again. Sometimes, though rarely, they

needed to turn aside from the straight line to go about the corner of a

fence. Sometimes within such fences there might be seen others of

these dirty, bleating creatures which Mother Daly hated. Here and

there over the country were broken rows of little yellow, faded trees

struggling up out of the hard earth. The untiring wheels of windmills

could be seen everywhere at their work.

Here and there at the trodden, water holes of the broken creeks there

lay carcasses of perished cattle, the skin dried and drawn tight over

the bones; but on the hillsides near by grazed living cattle, fatter

and more content to feed than the wild creatures that yesterday clacked

and crowded up the Trail. Now, it is known of all men that cattle have

wide horns, broad as the span of a man's arms; yet there were men here

who said they had seen cattle whose horns were no longer than those of

the buffalo, and later this thing was proved to be true.

Mother Daly knew, as all persons in the past knew, that by right the

face of the plains was of one colour, unbroken; gray-brown in summer,

white in winter, green in the spring. Yet now, as though giants would

play here some game of draughts, there came a change upon the country,

so that in squares it was gray, in squares green. This thing had never

been before.

In the town of Ellisville the great heap of buffalo bones was gone from

the side of the railroad track. There were many wagons now, but none

brought in bones to pile up by the railway; for even the bones of the

buffalo were now gone forever.

Mother Daly looked out upon the Cottage corral one day, and saw it

sound and strong. Again she looked, and the bars were gone. Yet

another day she looked, and there was no corral! Along the street, at

the edge of the sidewalks of boards, there stood a long line of

hitching rails. Back of these board sidewalks were merchants who lived

in houses with green blinds, and they pronounced that word "korrawl!"

The livery barn of Samuel Poston grew a story in stature, and there was

such a thing as hay--hay not imported in wired bales. In the little

city there were three buildings with bells above them. There was a

courthouse of many rooms; for Ellisville had stolen the county records

from Strong City, and had held them through Armageddon. There were

large chutes now at the railway, not for cattle, but for coal. Strange

things appeared. There was a wide, low, round, red house, full of car

tracks, and smoke, and hammer blows, and dirt, and confusion; and from

these shops came and went men who did an unheard-of thing. They worked

eight hours a day, no more, no less! Now, in the time of Man, men

worked twenty-four hours a day, or not at all; and they did no man's

bidding.

The streets of Ellisville were many. They doubled and crossed. There

was a public square hedged about with trees artificially large. For

each vanishing saloon there had come a store with its hitching rack for

teams. The Land Office was yet at Ellisville, and the rush of settlers

was continuous. The men who came out from the East wore wide hats and

carried little guns; but when they found the men of Ellisville wearing

small, dark hats and carrying no guns at all, they saw that which was

not to be believed, and which was, therefore, not so written in the

literary centres which told the world about the Ellisvilles. Strangers

asked Ellisville about the days of the cattle drive, and Ellisville

raised its eminently respectable eyebrows. There was a faint memory of

such a time, but it was long, long ago. Two years ago! All the world

had changed since then. There had perhaps been a Cottage Hotel. There

was perhaps a Mrs. Daly, who conducted a boarding-house, on a back

street. Our best people, however, lived at the Stone Hotel. There

were twelve lawyers who resided at this hotel, likewise two ministers

and their wives. Six of the lawyers would bring out their wives the

following spring. Ministers, of course, usually took their wives with

them.

Ellisville had thirty business houses and two thousand inhabitants. It

had large railway shops and the division offices of the road. It had

two schoolhouses (always the schoolhouse grew quickly on the Western

soil), six buildings of two stories, two buildings of three stories and

built of brick. Business lots were worth $1,800 to $2,500 each. The

First National Bank paid $4,000 for its corner. The Kansas City and

New England Loan, Trust, and Investment Company had expended $30,000 in

cash on its lot, building, and office fixtures. It had loaned three

quarters of a million of dollars in and about Ellisville.

Always the land offered something to the settler. The buffalo being

gone, and their bones being also gone, some farmers fell to trapping

and poisoning the great gray wolves, bringing in large bales of the

hides. One farmer bought half a section of land with wolf skins. He

had money enough left to buy a few head of cattle and to build a line

of fence. This fence cut at right angles a strange, wide, dusty

pathway. The farmer did not know what he had done. He had put

restraint on that which in its day knew no pause and brooked no

hindrance. He had set metes and bounds across the track where once

rolled the wheels of destiny. He had set the first fence across the

Trail!

The stranger who asked for the old, wild days of Ellisville the Red was

told that no such days had ever been. Yet stay: perhaps there were

half a dozen men who had lived at Ellisville from the first who could,

perhaps, take one to the boarding-house of Mrs. Daly; who could,

perhaps, tell something of the forgotten days of the past, the days of

two years ago, before the present population of Ellisville came West.

There was, perhaps, a graveyard, but the headstones had been so few

that one could tell but little of it now. Much of this, no doubt, was

exaggeration, this talk of a graveyard, of a doubled street, of

murders, of the legal killings which served as arrests, of the

lynchings which once passed as justice. There was a crude story of the

first court ever held in Ellisville, but of course it was mere libel to

say that it was held in the livery barn. Rumour said that the trial

was over the case of a negro, or Mexican, or Indian, who had been

charged with murder, and who was himself killed in an attempt at

lynching, by whose hand it was never known. These things were

remembered or talked about by but very few, these the old-timers, the

settlers of two years ago. Somewhere to the north of the town, and in

the centre of what was declared by some persons to be the old cattle

trail, there was reputed to be visible a granite boulder, or perhaps it

was a granite shaft, supposed to have been erected with money

contributed by cattlemen at the request of Mrs. Daly, who kept the

boarding-house on a back street. Some one had seen this monument, and

brought back word that it had cut upon its face a singular inscription,

namely:

JUAN THE LOCO,

THE END OF THE TRAIL.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE SUCCESS OF BATTERSLEIGH

One morning when Franklin entered his office he found his friend

Battersleigh there before him, in full possession, and apparently at

peace with all the world. His tall figure was reclining in an office

chair, and his feet were supported by the corner of the table, in an

attitude which is called American, but which is really only masculine,

and quite rational though unbeautiful. Battersleigh's cloak had a

swagger in its very back, and his hat sat at a cocky angle not to be

denied. He did not hear Franklin as he approached the door, and the

latter stood looking in for a moment, amused at Battersleigh and his

attitude and his song. When quite happy Battersleigh always sang, and

very often his song was the one he was singing now, done in a low

nasal, each verse ending, after the vocal fashion of his race, with a

sudden uplift of a sheer octave, as thus:

"I-I-I-'d dance li-i-i-ke a fa-a-a-iree-ee-ee,

For to see ould Dunlear-e-e-_e-e-e_!

I-I-I-'d think twi-i-i-ice e-e-e-r-r I-I-I-'d lave it,

For to be-e-e-e-e a drag-_o-o-n_."

Franklin chuckled at the reminiscent music as he stepped in and said

good morning. "You seem in fine fettle this morning, friend," said he.

"Very fine, for an old man."

Battersleigh squared around and looked at him soberly. "Ned," said he,

"ye're a dethractor of innycince. Batty ould! Listen to me, boy!

It's fifty years younger I am to-day than when I saw ye last. I'm

younger than ye ivver saw me in all your life before."

"And what and where was the fountain?" said Franklin, as he seated

himself at his desk.

"The one fountain of all on earth, me boy--Succiss--succiss! The two

dearest things of life are Succiss and Revinge. I've found thim both.

Shure, pfwhat is that gives one man the lofty air an' the overlookin'

eye, where another full his ekil in inches fears to draw the same

breath o' life with him? Succiss, succiss, me boy! Some calls it

luck, though most lays it to their own shupayrior merit. For Batty, he

lays it to nothin' whativver, but takes it like a philosopher an' a

gintleman."

"Well, I suppose you don't mind my congratulating you on your success,

whatever it may be," said Franklin, as he began to busy himself about

his work at the desk. "You're just a trifle mysterious, you know."

"There's none I'd liever have shake me by the hand than yoursilf, Ned,"

said Battersleigh, "the more especially by this rayson, that ye've

nivver believed in ould Batty at all, but thought him a visionary

schamer, an' no more. Didn't ye, now, Ned; on your honour?"

"No," said Franklin stoutly. "I've always known you to be the best

fellow in the world."

"Tut, tut!" said Battersleigh. "Ye're dodgin' the issue, boy. But

pfwhat wud ye say now, Ned, if I should till ye I'd made over tin

thousand pounds of good English money since I came to this little town?"

"I should say," said Franklin calmly, as he opened an envelope, "that

you had been dreaming again."

"That's it! That's it!" cried Battersleigh. "Shure ye wud, an' I knew

it! But come with me to bank this mornin' an' I'll prove it all to ye."

Something in his voice made Franklin wheel around and look at him.

"Oh, do be serious, Battersleigh," said he.

"It's sayrious I am, Ned, I till ye. Luk at me, boy. Do ye not see

the years droppin' from me? Succiss! Revinge! Cash! Earth holds no

more for Batty. I've thim all, an' I'm contint. This night I retire

dhrunk, as a gintleman should be. To-morrow I begin on me wardrobe.

I'm goin' a longish journey, lad, back to ould England. I'm a

long-lost son, an' thank God! I've not been discovered yit, an' hope

I'll not be fer a time.

"I'll till ye a secret, which heretofore I've always neglicted to

mintion to anybody. Here I'm Henry Battersleigh, agent of the

British-American Colonization Society. On t'other side I might be

Cuthbert Allen Wingate-Galt. An' Etcetera, man; etcetera, to God knows

what. Don't mintion it, Ned, till I've gone away, fer I've loved the

life here so--I've so enjoyed bein' just Batty, agent, and so forth!

Belave me, Ned, it's much comfortabler to be merely a' And-so-forth

thin it is to be an' Etcetera. An' I've loved ye so, Ned! Ye're the

noblest nobleman I ivver knew or ivver expict to know."

Franklin sat gazing at him without speech, and presently Battersleigh

went on.

"It's a bit of a story, lad," said he kindly. "Ye see, I've been a

poor man all me life, ye may say, though the nephew of one of the

richest women in the United Kingdom--an' the stingiest. Instid of

doin' her obvayus juty an' supportin' her nephew in becomin' station,

she marries a poor little lordlet boy, an' forsakes me entirely.

Wasn't it hijjus of her? There may have been raysons satisfyin' to her

own mind, but she nivver convinced me that it was Christian conduct on

her part. So I wint with the Rile Irish, and fought fer the Widdy. So

what with likin' the stir an' at the same time the safety an' comfort

o' the wars, an' what with now an' thin a flirtashun in wan colour or

another o' the human rainbow, with a bit of sport an' ridin' enough to

kape me waist, I've been in the Rile Irish ivver since--whin not

somewhere ilse; though mostly, Ned, me boy, stone broke, an' ownin' no

more than me bed an' me arms. Ye know this, Ned."

"Yes," said Franklin, "I know, Battersleigh. You've been a proud one,"

"Tut, tut, me boy; nivver mind. Ye'll know I came out here to make me

fortune, there bein' no more fightin' daycint enough to engage the

attention of a gintleman annywhere upon the globe. I came to make me

fortune. An' I've made it. An' I confiss to ye with contrition, Ned,

me dear boy, I'm Cubberd Allen Wiggit-Galt, Etcetera !"

After his fashion Franklin sat silent, waiting for the other's speech.

"Ned," said Battersleigh at length, "till me, who's the people of the

intire worrld that has the most serane belief in their own

shupayriority?"