McCLINTOCK BILLS THE TOWN
Hugh’s advertisement did not appear in the _Banner_ next morning. The
editor had killed it as soon as he learned that its purpose was to annoy
Dutch. He knew several safer amusements than that. Young McClintock
might enjoy flirting with death, but as the responsible head of a family
the editor was in quite a different position.
To say that Hugh was enjoying himself is to stretch the truth. But
experience had taught him that the bold course is sometimes the least
hazardous. A line from a play he had seen at Piper’s Opera House not
long since flashed to his mind. “Out of this nettle danger, we pluck
this flower safety.” He would go through, if necessary, to a fighting
finish. The chances were that his scorn of risk would lessen it.
Accompanied by his faithful coloured bill sticker, Hugh redecorated the
town with posters.
Jim Budd came wheezing down Turkey Creek Avenue.
“You billin’ the town for a circus, Kid?” he asked, his fat paunch
shaking. And when Hugh had stepped forward to him he added a warning in
a lower voice: “Dutch is waitin’ for you in front of Dodsons’ store;
least, it looks to me like he’s aimin’ to call yore hand.”
“Any one with him?”
“Hopkins and Bob Dodson. I kinda figured they were lookout men for him.
Say, you don’t have to play a lone hand. I’d as lief sit in. Byers,
too.”
“No, Jim. My hand’s stronger if I play it alone. Much obliged, just the
same.”
Budd conceded this as a matter of principle, but he was reluctant to do
so in practice. “Well, don’t you get careless, Kid. Dutch is sudden
death with a gun. Sure is.”
Opposite Dodson & Dodson’s Emporium was the Mammoth Saloon.
“Tack one on the door, Uncle Ned,” said Hugh.
McClintock spoke without looking at the bill sticker. He was watching
three men standing in front of the store opposite. One of these hastily
retreated inside. The two who remained were Dutch and Hopkins.
The killer growled a warning. “Lay off on that bill stickin’. It don’t
go here.”
Hugh stepped across the street. He moved evenly and without haste.
“Well, well, if it ain’t Sam Dutch, chief of Virginia and Aurora, just
as big as life and as handsome. Lemme see, you were takin’ the
Candelabria stage last time I saw you.” Smilingly the young man began to
hum, “Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker.” But the smile was of the lips
only. His steely eyes held those of the big ruffian fast.
A snarling sound that might have been an oath fell from the ugly lips of
the gun-fighter. His face reflected his slow thoughts. Should he strike
now? He knew that a dozen men were waiting for the sound of a shot, that
they expected him to kill McClintock on sight. Well, he would kill him
all right—soon.
Without lifting his eyes for an instant from his enemy, Hugh gave the
old Negro the order a second time: “Nail up the bill, Uncle. Mr. Dutch
is joking. You _are_ joking, aren’t you?”
Dutch glared at Hugh furiously. He moistened his dry lips with his
tongue.
From the left boot leg McClintock drew a bowie knife. The horn handle
was marked in a peculiar way. Hugh had shown it to a dozen men, and most
of them had recognized it. One of the pleasant habits of Dutch was to
play with it threateningly before a fascinated circle of reluctant
admirers. Now the young man held it up in his left hand.
“I’m tryin’ to find an owner for this knife. Happen to know him, Mr.
Dutch?” The straight, swift probe of the eyes was cold as iron, hard as
hammered brass.
It was a call for a showdown. The men watching from the store windows,
from the saloon opposite, from the blacksmith shop below, knew that a
demand had been made on Dutch for a declaration of intentions. In the
silence which followed, men suspended their breathing. The shadow of
death hung low over the two tense figures standing out in relief.
Afterwards those present spoke of the contrast between the sullen sodden
killer and the erect, soldierly athlete facing him. The guttural snarl,
the great slouching apelike figure of the one suggested a throwback to
prehistoric days. The clear expressive eyes, the unconscious grace and
nobility of carriage, the quiet confidence of manner in the other were
products of a new land flowering to manhood.
Men breathed again. Their hearts functioned normally once more. Dutch
had chosen to dodge the challenge.
“I dunno as I know more about him than anybody else,” he had growled.
Hugh did not relax the thrust of his eyes. “No? Thought maybe you did. I
found it at the storage warehouse, corner of the alley, up the avenue.
Didn’t leave it there?”
Dutch did not answer at once. Inside, he surged with murderous impulse.
He might beat this fellow McClintock to the draw. He had always boasted
that he wanted no more than an even break with any man alive. Well, he
had it here.
“Who says I left it there?” he demanded.
“I’m asking if you did.”
The killer’s right hand hung motionless. A weight paralyzed his will.
These McClintocks had the Indian sign on him. Deep in him a voice
whispered that if he accepted the challenge he was lost. Better wait and
get this fellow right when he had no chance.
“No-o.” To Dutch it seemed that the husky monosyllable was dragged out
of him by some external force.
Tauntingly the cold voice jeered him. “Not you, then, that bushwhacked
me in the alley and tried to shoot me in the back? Wouldn’t do that,
would you, Dutch? Got all yore fourteen on the level, of course.”
“I aim to—to give every man a show,” the gunman muttered.
“Good of you. Then it couldn’t have been you that threw this knife at me
and tried to gun me. It was dark. I couldn’t make out his face, but I
left the marks of my fist on it a-plenty.”
Now that it seemed there was to be no gun-play the watchers had come
into the open. A battery of eyes focussed on the hammered face of Dutch.
Cut lips, a black eye, purple weals on the forehead, and swollen cheeks
told of recent punishment.
“I fell down a prospect hole,” the bad man mentioned.
A bark of laughter, quickly smothered, met this explanation. Dutch
glared round angrily.
“That prospect hole must have landed on you hard,” Hugh told him grimly.
“Take my advice. _Don’t fall down any more._ Next time the shaft might
shoot a hole through you.”
“I ain’t scared of you none. You can’t run on me,” Dutch growled
sulkily, to save his face. “One o’ these days I’m liable to get tired of
you and feed you to the buzzards.”
“Yes, I know you’re chief here, same as you were at Virginia and Aurora.
But just to show there’s no hard feelings you’ll help Uncle Ned tack up
that poster, won’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Again Dutch’s sullen eyes battled and were beaten. “I don’t have to,” he
flung out rebelliously.
“Not at all,” Hugh mocked. “But out of good will you’ll do it.”
The ruffian shuffled across the road, snatched a bill from the old
Negro, and with a hammer drove a tack through the middle of it.
Out of the Mammoth walked a big well-dressed man without a hat. He had
black glossy hair and a small black moustache. In his manner and bearing
was that dominance which comes to those who are successful. With a
glance he took in the situation.
“Tear that bill down, Dutch,” he said crisply.
The bad man looked at him, then at McClintock.
Hugh laughed. “You hear yore master’s voice, Dutch.”
Dutch ripped the bill down and tore it into a dozen pieces. Released
from the mastery that had held him, he broke into savage furious oaths.
At a word from the black-eyed man he would have fought it out with his
enemy.
But Ralph Dodson did not speak the word. His frowning attention was
fixed on Hugh.
“Mr. McClintock, the Mammoth is owned by me and my brother. If we want
bills on the walls we’ll put them there. Understand?” he demanded
arrogantly.
Hugh bowed, almost as mockingly and as gracefully as Scot himself could
have done it. “Quite. My fault, Mr. Dodson. I’ll explain. This knife was
sheathed two nights ago in my arm. A scoundrel waited for me in a dark
alley and tried to murder me.”
“Interesting, no doubt, but not my business,” retorted Dodson curtly.
“So I’m puttin’ up posters to find the owner of the knife.”
“Not here. You can’t put ’em up here.”
“Not necessary. Everybody here knows who owns the knife—or rather who
did own it. It’s mine now, unless someone claims it. That all right with
you, Dutch?”
The killer said nothing, but he said it with bloodshot, vindictive
eyes—eyes in which hate and fear and cunning and the lust to kill
struggled for victory.
Hugh turned on his heel and walked away, the sound of his footsteps
sharp and ringing. Not once did he look back to see whether the murderer
he had discredited would shoot him in the back.
Yet he was glad when he was out of range. Experiments in the psychology
of a killer might easily be carried too far.