Lark stacked his cup and saucer in his breakfast plate, added knife,
fork and spoon as range custom had taught him to do, and reached
absently for his tobacco sack and papers. Maw was going to spoil the
kid, he thought. Already she was mystifying him with a fascinating game
of "Two-little-birds-set-on-a-hill," with bits of the inner lining of
an eggshell pasted on her fore-fingers to represent the two little
birds, and sending the kid into hilarious squeals when Jack and Jill
flew away and returned again with incomprehensible facility.
"Maw," said Lark, as he drew a match sharply along the underside of his
chair, "looks like that smallpox is about cured, right now. I'm goin'
to Smoky Ford, and I might be late gettin' back. Anybody you don't like
the looks of rides into the Basin, why, there's the shotgun loaded with
buckshot. She kicks, so hold her tight to your shoulder and pull one
trigger at a time. You'll find extra shells in my room, in the cupboard
behind the door. Don't stand fer no monkey work, Maw. The boys ain't
likely to get in with that bunch of cattle before to-morra, so it'll
be you and Jake to hold the fort; and Bud--" His eyes went to the glum
face of his handsome young nephew.
"I'll ride with you, if you're damn' fool enough to go hunting
trouble," Bud stated calmly, pushing back his chair.
"If Bat Johnson comes here again, I'll shoot him," said the boy
abruptly, ignoring Maw's little white birds while he stared across at
Lark. "He's a mean devil. Meaner 'n gran'pa. He--he goes an' tells
gran'pa everything. He's a mean old tattle-tale."
"Now, Lark," Maw began worriedly, "there ain't a mite of use in you
going to town. Them men was scared off last night. You couldn't hire
'em to come here and run the risk--"
"That's where you're fooled, Maw. They'll be back, don't you
fret--leave 'em alone. My old dad brought me up to meet trouble halfway
down the trail and shootin' as I ride. It's a good way--only way I know
anything about. The Meddalark's never learnt how to lie and dodge, Maw,
and now's a pore time to begin, looks like to me. Last night don't set
well with me; when you come to think it over, I'm the feller that's
got to live with me the closest and the longest, Maw. I'd hate to have
to live with a feller all my life that I was ashamed of." He smiled
suddenly with a boyish grin. "You see, Maw, I kinda put a spoke in
the wheel of destiny, and she's liable to bust something if she ain't
watched till she hits her stride again.
"Son, yore fightin' days are yet to come. How about some more gumdrops?
You be a good boy to-day, and mind what Maw tells you, and mebbe
there'll be a bag of candy in my pocket when I git back. You betcha."
Maw rose and stood goblinlike behind the boy's chair, her face turned
grayish under the tan.
"Larkie, I know that town better than you do. There's a mean, low-lived
bunch hanging around that I wouldn't put nothing past. If you must
go, wait till the boys come with the cattle so you can have help. Six
of you won't be any too many to face Palmer's bunch, and what saloon
loafers he can drum up in town. Lark, I _know_. I was there when that
trouble with the Willis boys come up, and I know just what that mob is
capable of when they've got somebody to stir 'em up. You wait, Larkie.
Don't go and do anything foolish, like riding to Smoky Ford to-day,
right when--" Her voice broke and she turned her back on them, wiping
her eyes surreptitiously on her apron.
"I like the way you count me," Bud cried with thin cheerfulness. "Never
mind, Maw. I can rope and throw Lark any time he gets to horning in
where he shouldn't, and I promise you that he isn't going to pull open
any hornet's nest just to see how it's made. And Lark's right about
one thing, anyway. The best thing to do, now it's pretty well known
where we stand, is to ride in and show we aren't ashamed of ourselves.
The Willis boys were afraid, Maw. They tried to run, and then when
they were caught, they begged like whipped pups. And moreover, they
were guilty as hell. Buck up, Maw." He went over and patted her on the
shoulder. "Lark isn't going to do anything you'd be ashamed of."
"If you see gran'pa," said the boy fiercely, "you tell--tell him I'm
goin' t' stay with--with you. Tell him I--I'm goin' t' kill him when I
get big."
Lark looked down at him thoughtfully, smiled a bit at Maw's shocked
expostulations, and turned to the door.
"I'll sure tell him that, son," he promised gravely. "And don't you
worry a minute about me, Maw."
Maw did worry, however. She would have worried more if she could have
seen and heard what was going on in Smoky Ford that morning. Old
Palmer--who must have been old in sin, since he was not more than
forty-five--had ridden in early with Johnson, White and two others
of similar type. He did not go to the sheriff, as a man would have
done whose cause was unassailable, but had talked in the saloons, his
listeners for the most part those men who had joined in the search for
the lost boy.
"Smallpox, my eye!" Palmer cried thickly. "There ain't a case in the
country. It was my son's boy that they had hid away in that room--and
us all huntin' the hills for him! It's like the Meddalark--an outlaw
bunch if ever there was one. Look at old man Larkin! If ever a man
deserved stringin' up, he did. And Lark and that kid nephew ain't any
better. Stealin' calves from me right along--and now they take the boy
and hide him away in a room--" There was a great deal of the same kind
of talk, for Palmer was not the man to let anything slip away from him.
Smoky Ford men should have stopped to wonder why Palmer the
tight-fisted was buying whisky for every man that joined the listening
group around him. It never had happened before that any one could
remember, nor was it likely to happen again. But men do not as a rule
stop to ask why, when the bartender is busy and makes no sign that
he expects pay for every filled glass. Palmer's money was good that
morning; he had a grievance and the men who had turned out to search
for a lost child discovered that Palmer was a human kinda cuss, after
all, and that it looked as if a crime had been committed boldly, in
broad daylight. Then Bat Johnson artfully crystallized the growing
sentiment born of whisky and Palmer's loud-mouthed denunciations.
"Hell, if it was a horse that was stole, that p'ticular Meddalark bunch
would be busted up in short order. Being a kid that's made 'way with--"
he stopped there to empty his glass "--why, mebby we oughta let 'em get
away with it. Some places, though, folks count humans worth as much as
horses, anyway."
"Damn' right," a Palmer man muttered. "I'm goin' t' ride up river,
t'night, and ask how about it. Bat an' me figures we c'n clean out that
nest by our lonely, an' git the kid back. Rest of you folks better pull
the blankets over your heads t'night er you might hear shootin'."
"Rope beats that," suggested another, his tongue thickened by what had
been poured over it.
Two or three grunted approval--a bit uncertainly, because in normal
times they liked the Meadowlark outfit, Lark himself in particular, and
they did _not_ like Palmer.
"Better send the sheriff after the kid," one level-headed cowpuncher
advised. "Lark just done it fer a josh, most likely."
"Yeah, better send the sheriff up there," some one agreed.
"Sheriff ain't here," said Palmer shortly. The crowd was colder on
the scent than he liked. Had he known it, there had been hints among
the searchers that the boy was better off in the hills than with his
grandfather, and that he had probably run away. Which proves that they
were human enough in their mental reactions if left alone.
He presently left that saloon and wandered into another, and there
were plenty of half-drunken men by that time who would follow him for
the free drinks that were in it. By noon the crowd was convinced that
stealing a child is as serious a crime as stealing a horse and that the
punishment should be as swift and sure. And it is a fact that when men
dealt with the crime of horse-stealing they did not stop to inquire
whether the owner had been kind to the beast. A horse was a horse, and
stealing was stealing. So the Meadowlark outfit was declared outlaw,
and at least fifty men prepared to stage a lynching that night in
Meadowlark Basin.
They were making the last sinister plans and electing a captain of the
mob--Palmer, of course--when Lark rode into town and down the road that
was called a street, Bud's right stirrup swinging close to his left
one. A man crossing the street to a saloon gave them a startled glance
and dived inside bearing all the earmarks of one who is about to spill
a mouthful of amazing news.
"Right there's the bee tree," Lark observed under his breath, and rode
after him. The half door was still swinging when Lark's horse pushed in
with a snort of distaste for the job, and Lark himself ducked his tall
hat crown under the casing.
"Howdy, folks," he cried cheerful greeting. "Come on down to the
Chester House, will you? I've got something to tell you--and I want
Palmer there, particular. Fetch him along--I see he's here. Missed him
at the ranch." He began backing out again. "If you please," he added
carefully, as a polite afterthought.
Outside, he headed for the next saloon, looked in and found no one
there but the bartender. Him he beckoned with a crooked finger, and
rode on to the next, with Bud beside him and the mob hurrying curiously
at his heels. Lark's restless eyes darted to Bud's right hand that
fumbled the butt of his six-shooter thrust within his belt, and he
grinned and shook his head.
"Don't think you'll need it, m' son," he said softly, as they reached
the little hotel with the high platform in front, and he swung his
horse to meet the crowd. There was no smile now on his lips, and his
eyes were steady except for the light that flickered deep within.
"All right, folks. Just put Palmer up in front here, will you? I've got
a message for him that I promised to deliver."
"Ransom, eh?" Palmer's teeth showed under his lifted lip. "You're crazy
to come here and stick your neck in the noose--"
"You shut up, will you?" Lark's voice was so quiet that men in the
rear crowded forward to hear what he was saying. "I'll do the talking
for a minute. No, the boy you been hunting sent you a message. He said
to tell you that he was going to stay with me, and that when he's big
enough, he's going to kill you." Lark paused. "I think he'll do it,
Palmer. There's good stuff in that kid and he won't forget." He lifted
his eyes to the crowd behind Palmer.
"Folks, that little kid has got welts all over him, just about, where
Palmer quirted him. He's between eight and nine years old, just the age
when a boy plays the hardest and grows the fastest--and when I seen
him he was out in the field following a heavy drag around (or trying
to) and the team he had to handle was the kind you need a pitchfork to
go in the stall with 'em. The black lammed out with his heels while I
was there talkin' to the kid, and the gray was wallin' his eyes and
watchin' for a chance. Palmer loves that boy, don't you think? He
ought to have him back. Must save him a dollar a day, and don't cost
as much to feed a kid as it does a man; not that kid, anyway. You can
count his ribs as far as you can see him, when his shirt's off. Starved
him, Palmer did. And beat him till--" Lark stopped and swallowed and
blinked, and the crowd moved uneasily and sent sidelong glances at one
another.
"So the kid will carry some of them marks till he grows up, and he
ain't likely to forget. He'll kill Palmer as sure as God made little
apples, if Palmer ain't killed already by the time the kid's growed
up t' be a man. Palmer's got that to look forward to. But that's the
kid's game, and I wouldn't for the world get in and spoil it for him.
I hope Palmer lives with that in mind--that the kid he beat raw is
growin' fast as he can and lookin' forward to the time when he can kill
the devil that used him so.
"But, as I say, that's the kid's game. What I come after Palmer for is
to put the Meddalark brand on him with my quirt. I never did try to
draw that bird on a man's hide, but I'll never start younger, and I
feel like I'm artist enough to mark this damn' long-ear, till the kid
can get around to beef him. I been lookin' at the marks on the kid's
back, so I've got them to go by. Palmer, don't make me kill you! I'd
hate to cheat the kid like that."
Lark, easing himself to one side in the saddle, ready to dismount
swiftly, halted Palmer's incipient flight as if he had caught him by
the collar.
"All right, Lark. I've got him covered," snapped Bud, just behind him,
"Go to it." He spurred forward. "Give me your bridle reins," he added
matter-of-factly.
On the ground, quirt in hand, Lark advanced upon Palmer, who tried
to shrink into the crowd and was shoved back into the open space as
unhesitatingly as if these men had not been drinking his whisky and
absorbing his viewpoint since morning. Palmer staggered under the
impetus of the shove, and Lark caught him expertly by the collar,
yanked his coat off, grabbed again and went to work, punctuating the
swish and thud of the quirt by words that bit into the soul of the man
like acid.
"Drop that gun!" This was Bud, cutting short Bat Johnson's half-formed
determination to do murder. "This is no shooting match--unless some
fool like you makes it so." Upon the close-packed, staring crowd Bud
was calmly riding herd, Lark's horse dancing at the end of his reins
and lashing out at any man who pressed forward. Strange as it might
have seemed to those who had watched the slow forming of the mob idea,
the strongest sentiment in that crowd was irritation against Bud, who
blocked their view of the show. Men darted to the hotel platform and
scrambled up to a vantage point, eager to miss no vicious cut of that
flailing quirt.
Palmer, on his knees, begged for mercy. It was pitiable, nauseating, to
hear how he wept and pleaded under the blows.
"Did you quit beating the kid when he cried?" Lark's voice was
merciless, his eyes aglare with rage.
"He'll kill you for that," a man told Lark soberly when it was all
over, and Palmer had slunk away with his shoulders bent and bloody,
mouthing curses and threats. "You'll need a bullet-proof back from now
on. Come have a drink."
"No--thank you just the same." Lark lifted a hand, stared dully at the
way it was trembling, and wiped the beads of perspiration off his face.
"I--the kid is waiting for some candy I promised him." He reached out a
groping hand for the reins Bud was offering, and mounted like a man who
is very, very tired. "I--guess we'd better be goin'. Maw'll be worried."
"And so," Bud remarked thoughtfully, when they had ridden a mile down
the trail toward the Meadowlark, thirty-five miles away, "you've
stopped a lynching party, marked the back of the richest and meanest
man in the country for life, staked yourself to a feud that will keep
you guessing from now on, and annexed another responsibility in the
form of a boy you'll feel you've got to educate same as you did me.
Lark, you damned fool, you're the kind of man King Arthur would have
been proud of."
"Hunh?" Larked glanced up from tightening the scanty string on the
lumpy bag of candy that was too big to go in his pocket and so must be
carried for thirty-five miles in his hand. "Talk United States, darn
you; I ain't ridin' the range fer no king!"