THE SHERIFF AND OTHERS
Chance, disconsolate, wandered about Antelope, returning at last to lie
before the door of the sheriff's office. The sheriff, having
reestablished himself, for the nonce, in the bosom of his family,
strolled out to the street. He called to Chance, who dashed toward
him, then stopped with neck bristling.
The sheriff's companion laughed. "I was going to feed him," explained
the sheriff.
"I know what I'd feed him," growled his companion.
"What for? He's faithful to his boss--and that's something."
The other grunted and they passed up the street. Groups of men waylaid
them asking questions. As they drifted from one group to another, the
friend remarked that his companion seemed to be saying little. The
stout sheriff smiled. He was listening.
Chance, aware that something was wrong, fretted around the door of
Sundown's temporary habitation. Finally he threw himself down, nose on
outstretched paws, and gazed at the lights and the men across the way.
Later, when the town had become dark and silent, the dog rose, shook
himself, and padded down the highway taking the trail for the Concho.
He knew that his master's disappearance had not been voluntary. He
also knew that his own appearance alone at the Concho would be evidence
that something had gone wrong.
Once well outside the town, Chance settled to a long, steady stride
that ate into the miles. At the water-hole he leaped the closed gate
and drank. Again upon the road he swung along across the starlit
mesas, taking the hills at a trot and pausing on each rise to rest and
sniff the midnight air. Then down the slopes he raced, and out across
the levels, the great bunching muscles of his flanks and shoulders
working tirelessly. As dawn shimmered across the ford he trotted down
the mud-bank and waded into the stream, where he stood shoulder-deep
and lapped the cool water.
Corliss, early afoot, found him curled at the front door of the
ranch-house. Chance braced himself on his fore legs and yawned. Then
stretching he rose and, frisking about Corliss, tried to make himself
understood. Corliss glanced toward the corral, half expecting to see
Sundown's horse. Then he stepped to the men's quarters. He greeted
Wingle, asking him if Sundown had returned.
"No. Thought he went east."
"Chance came back, alone."
And Corliss and the cook eyed each other simultaneously and nodded.
"Loring," said Wingle.
"Guess you're right, Hi."
"Sheriff must 'a' been out of town and got back just in time to meet up
with Sundown," suggested Wingle. And he seized a scoop and dug into
the flour barrel.
An hour later the buckboard stood at the ranch gate. Bud Shoop,
crooning a range-ditty that has not as yet disgraced an anthology,
stood flicking the rear wheel with his whip:--
"Oh, that biscuit-shooter on the Santa Fé,
--Hot coffee, ham-and-eggs, huckleberry pies,--
Got every lonely puncher that went down that way
With her yella-bird hair and them big blue eyes . . .
"For a two-bit feed and a two-bit smile . . ."
The song was interrupted by the appearance of Corliss, who swung to the
seat and took the reins.
"I'll jog 'em for a while," he said as Shoop climbed beside him. "Go
ahead, Bud. Don't mind me."
Shoop laughed and gestured over his shoulder. "Chance, there, is
sleepin' with both fists this lovely mornin'. Wonder how Sun is makin'
it?"
"We'll find out," said Corliss, shaking his head.
"Believe us! For we're goin' to town! Say, ain't you kind of offerin'
Jim Banks a chance to get you easy?"
"If he wants to. If he locked Sundown up, he made the wrong move."
"It's easy!" said Shoop, gesturing toward the Loring rancho as they
passed. "Goin' to bush at the water-hole to-night?"
"No. We'll go through."
Shoop whistled. "Suits me! And I reckon the team is good for it."
He glanced sideways at Corliss, who sat with eyes fixed straight ahead.
The cattle-man's face was expressionless. He was thinking hard and
fast, but chose to mask it.
Suddenly Shoop, who had watched him some little time, burst into song.
"Suits me!" he reiterated, more or less ambiguously, by the way, for he
had just concluded another ornate stanza of the "Biscuit-shooter" lyric.
"It's a real song," remarked Corliss.
"Well, now!" exclaimed Shoop. And thereafter he also became silent,
knowing from experience that when Corliss had anything worth while to
say, he would say it.
About noon they reached the water-hole where Corliss spent some time
examining the fences and inspecting the outbuildings.
"She's in right good shape yet," commented Shoop.
"The title has reverted to the State. It's queer Loring hasn't tried
to file on it."
"Mebby he's used his homestead right a'ready," suggested Shoop. "But
Nell Loring could file."
They climbed back into the buckboard. Again Shoop began a stanza of
his ditty. He seemed well pleased about something. Possibly he
realized that his employer's attitude had changed; that he had at last
awakened to the obvious necessity for doing something. As Corliss put
the team to a brisk trot the foreman's song ran high. Action was his
element. Inactivity tended to make him more or less cynical, and ate
into his tobacco money.
Suddenly Corliss turned to him. "Bud, I'm going to homestead that
ranch."
"Whoop!" cried the foreman. "First shot at the buck!"
"I'm going to put Sundown on it, for himself. He's steady and wouldn't
hurt a fly."
Shoop became silent. He, in turn, stared straight ahead.
"What do you think of it?" queried Corliss.
"Nothin'. 'Cept I wouldn't mind havin' a little ole homestead myself."
Corliss laughed. "You're not cut out for it, Bud. You mean you'd like
the chance to make the water-hole a base for operations against Loring.
And the place isn't worth seed, Bud."
"But that water is goin' to be worth somethin'--and right soon. Loring
can't graze over this side the Concho, if he can't get to water."
"That's it. If I put you on that ranch, you'd stand off Loring's
outfit to the finish, I guess."
"I sure would."
"That's why I want Sundown to take it up. He'd let his worst enemy
water sheep or cattle there. He won't fight, but he's loyal enough to
my interests to sue Loring for trespass, if necessary."
"See you and raise you one, Jack. They'll bluff Sun clean off his hind
feet. He won't stick."
"I'll chance it, Bud. And, besides, I need you right where you are."
"I'm sure happy!" exclaimed the irrepressible Bud, grinning.
Corliss laughed, then shook his head. "I'll tell you one thing," he
said, facing his foreman. "I've been 'tending too many irons and some
of 'em are getting cold. I don't want trouble with any one. I've held
off from Loring because--oh--because I had a good reason to say
nothing. Billy's out of it again. The coast is clear, and I'm going
to give old man Loring the fight of his life."
The whoop which Shoop let out startled the team into a lunging gallop.
"Go it, if you want to!" said Corliss as the buckboard swung around a
turn and took the incline toward Antelope. "I'm in a hurry myself."
Nevertheless, he saved the team as they struck the level and held them
to a trot. "Wise old head," was Shoop's inward comment. And then
aloud: "Say, Jack, I ain't sayin' I'm glad to see you get beat up, but
that bing on the head sure got you started right. The boys was
commencin' to wonder how long you'd stand it without gettin' your back
up. She's up. I smell smoke."
At Antelope, Shoop put up the horses. Later he joined his employer and
they had supper at the hotel. Then they strolled out and down the
street toward the sheriff's home. When they knocked at the door it was
opened by a plump, dark-eyed woman who greeted them heartily.
"Come right in, boys. Jim's tendin' the baby." And she took their
hats.
They stepped to the adjoining room where Sheriff Jim sat on the floor,
his coat off, while his youngest deputy, clad only in an abbreviated
essential garnished with a safety-pin, sat opposite, gravely tearing up
the evening paper and handing the pieces to his proud father, who
stuffed the pieces in his pants pocket and cheerfully asked for more.
"Election?" queried Shoop.
"And all coming Jim's way," commented Corliss.
The baby paused in his balloting and solemnly surveyed the dusty
strangers. Then he pulled a piece of paper from his father's pocket
and offered it to Shoop. "Wants me to vote, the little cuss! Well,
here goes." And, albeit unfamiliar with plump aborigines at close
range, the foreman entered into the spirit of the game and cast his
vote for the present incumbent, deputizing the "yearlin'" to handle the
matter. The yearling however, evidently thought it was time for a
recount. He gravitated to the perspiring candidate and, standing on
his hands and feet,--an attitude which seemingly caused him no
inconvenience,--reached in the ballot-box and pulling therefrom a
handful of votes he cast them ceiling-ward with a shrill laugh,
followed by an unintelligible spluttering as he sat down suddenly and
began to pick up the scattered pieces of paper.
"You're elected," announced Shoop.
And the by-play was understood by the three men, yet each maintained
his unchanged expression of countenance.
"You see how I'm fixed, boys," said the sheriff. "Got to stick by my
constituent or he'll howl."
"We're in no hurry, Jim. Just drove into town to look around a little."
"I'll take him now," said Mrs. Jim, as she came from the kitchen drying
her hands on her apron.
The elector, however, was of a different mind. He greeted his mother
with a howl and a series of windmill revolutions of his arms and legs
as she caught him up.
"Got mighty free knee-action," remarked Shoop. "Mebby when he's bedded
down for the night you can come over to the 'Palace.'"
"I'll be right with you." And the sheriff slipped into his coat. "How
you feeling, Jack?"
"Pretty good. That's a great boy of yours."
"Sure got your brand," added Shoop. "Built close to the ground like
his dad."
Sheriff Banks accepted these hardy compliments with an embarrassed grin
and followed his guests to the doorway.
"Good-night!" called Mrs. Jim from the obscurity of the bedroom.
"Good-night, ma'am!" from Shoop.
"Good-night!" said Corliss. "Take good care of that yearling."
"Well, now, John, as if I wouldn't!"
"Molly would come out," apologized Jim, "only the kid is--is grazin'.
How's the feed holdin' out on the Concho?" which question following in
natural sequence was not, however, put accidentally.
"Fair," said Corliss. "We looked for you up that way."
"I was over on the Reservation. I sent Tom up there to see after
things," and the sheriff gestured toward the distant Concho. "Sent him
up to-night. Let's go over to the office."
Corliss shook his head. "Don't want to see him, just now. Besides, I
want to say a few things private."
"All right. There was a buyer from Kansas City dropped in to town
to-day. Didn't see him, did you?"
"Cattle?"
"Uhuh."
"No. We just got in."
They turned and walked up the street, nodding to an occasional lounger,
laughing and talking easily, yet each knew that their banter was a
meandering current leading to something deeper which would be sounded
before they separated.
Sheriff Banks suddenly stopped and slapped his thigh. "By Gum! I
clean forgot to ask if you had chuck. You see that kid of mine--"
"Sure! But we put the 'Palace' two feeds to the bad," asserted Shoop.
They drifted to the hotel doorway and paused at the counter where each
gravely selected a cigar. Then they clumped upstairs to Corliss's
room. Jim Banks straddled a chair and faced his friends.
Shoop, excusing himself with humorous politeness, punched the pillows
together and lay back on the bed which creaked and rustled beneath his
weight. "These here corn-husk mattresses is apologizin'," he said,
twisting around and leaning on his elbow.
"Well, Jack," said the smiling sheriff, "shoot the piece."
"Or the justice of the peace--don't matter," murmured Shoop.
Corliss, leaning forward, gazed at the end of his cigar. Then he
raised his eyes. "Jim," he said quietly, "I want Sundown."
"So do I."
Corliss smiled. "You've got him, all right. What's your idea?"
"Well, if anybody else besides you asked me, Jack, they'd be wasting
time. Sundown is your man. I don't know anything about him except he
was a Hobo before he hit the Concho. But I happen to know that he was
pretty close to the place where Fadeaway got his, the same day and
about the same time. I've listened to all the talk around town and it
hasn't all been friendly to you. You can guess that part of it."
"If you want me--" began Corliss.
"No." And the sheriff's gesture of negation spread a film of cigar-ash
on the floor. "It's the other man I want."
"Sundown?" asked Shoop, sitting up suddenly.
"You go to sleep, Bud," laughed the sheriff. "You can't catch me that
easy."
Shoop relaxed with the grin of a school-boy.
"I'll go bail," offered Corliss.
"No. That would spoil my plan. See here, Jack, I know you and Bud
won't talk. Loring telephoned me to look out for Sundown. I did.
Now, Loring knows who shot Fadeaway, or I miss my guess. Nellie Loring
knows, too. So do you, but you can't prove it. It was like Fade to
put Loring's sheep into the cañon, but we can't prove even that, now.
I'm pretty sure your scrap with Fade didn't have anything to do with
his getting shot. You ain't that kind."
"Well, here's my side of it, Jim. Fadeaway had it in for me for firing
him. He happened to see me talking to Nellie Loring at Fernando's
camp. Later we met up on the old Blue Trail. He said one or two
things that I didn't like. I let him have it with the butt of my
quirt. He jerked out his gun and hit me a clip on the head. That's
all I remember till the boys came along."
"You didn't ride as far as the upper ford, that day?"
"No. I told Fadeaway I wanted him to come back with me and talk to
Loring. I was pretty sure he put the sheep into the cañon."
"Well, Jack, knowing you since you were a boy, that's good enough for
me."
"But how about Sundown?"
"He stays. How long do you think I'll hold Sundown before Nell Loring
drives into Antelope to tell me she can like as not prove he didn't
kill Fade?"
"But if you know that, why do you hold him?"
"To cinch up my ideas, tight. Holding him will make talk. Folks
always like to show off what they know about such things. It's natural
in 'em."
"New Mex. is a comf'table-sized State," commented Shoop from the bed.
"And he was raised there," said the sheriff. "He's got friends over
the line and so have I. Sent 'em over last week."
"Thought Sun was raised back East?" said Shoop, again sitting up.
Corliss smiled. "Better give it up, Bud."
"Oh, _very_ well!" said Shoop, mimicking a _grande dame_ who had once
stopped at Antelope in search for local color. "Anyhow, you got to set
a Mexican to catch a Mexican when he's hidin' out with Mexicans." With
this bit of advice, Shoop again relapsed to silence.
"Going back to the Concho to-morrow?" queried Banks.
"No. Got a little business in town."
"I heard Loring was due here to-morrow." The sheriff stated this
casually, yet with intent. "I was talking with Art Kennedy 'bout two
hours ago--"
"Kennedy the land-shark?" queried Shoop.
"The same. He said something about expecting Loring."
Bud Shoop had never aspired to the distinction of being called a
diplomat, but he had an active and an aggressive mind. With the
instinct for seizing the main chance by its time-honored forelock, he
rose swiftly. "By Gravy, Jack! I gone and left them things in the
buckboard!"
"Oh, they'll be all right," said Corliss easily. Then he caught his
foreman's eye and read its meaning. His nod to Shoop was all but
imperceptible.
"I dunno, Jack. I'd hate to lose them notes."
"Notes?" And the sheriff grinned. "Writing a song or starting a bank,
Bud?"
"Song. I was composin' it to Jack, drivin' in." And the genial Bud
grabbed his hat and swept out of the room.
Long before he returned, Sheriff Jim had departed puzzling over the
foreman's sudden exit until he came opposite "The Last Chance" saloon.
There he had an instant glimpse of Bud and the one known as Kennedy
leaning against the bar and conversing with much gusto. Then the
swing-door dropped into place. The sheriff smiled and putting two and
two together found that they made four, as is usually the case. He had
wanted to let Corliss know that Loring was coming to Antelope and to
let him know casually, and glean from the knowledge anything that might
be of value. Sheriff Banks knew a great deal more about the affairs of
the distant ranchers than he was ordinarily given credit for. He had
long wondered why Corliss had not taken up the water-hole homestead.
Corliss was in bed when Shoop swaggered in. The foreman did a few
steps of a jig, flung his hat in the corner, and proceeded to undress.
"Did you see Kennedy?" yawned Corliss.
"Bet your whiskers I did! Got the descriptions in my pocket. You owe
me the price of seven drinks, Jack, to say nothin' of what I took
myself. Caught him at 'The Last Chance' and let on I was the pore
lonely cowboy with a sufferin' thirst. Filled him up with
'Look-out-I'm-Comin'' and landed him at his shack, where he dug up them
ole water-hole descriptions, me helpin' promiscus. He kind o' bucked
when I ast him for them papers. Said he only had one copy that he was
holdin' for another party. And I didn't have to strain my guesser any,
to guess who. I told him to saw off and get busy quick or I'd have him
pinched for playin' favorites. Guess he seen I meant business, for he
come acrost. She toots for Antelope six-forty tomorrow mornin'. This
is where I make the grand play as a homesteader, seein' pore Sundown's
eatin' on the county. Kind o' had a hunch that way."
"We'll have to nail it quick. If you file you'll have to quit on the
Concho."
"Well, then, I quit. Sinker is right in line for my bunk. Me for the
big hammer and the little ole sign what says: 'Private property! Keep
off! All trespassers will be executed!' And underneath, kind o'
sassy-like, 'Bud Shoop, proprietor.'"