CHAPTER I_Ironheart

IRONHEART

WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

AUTHOR OF

MAN-SIZE, TANGLED TRAILS,

THE FIGHTING EDGE, ETC.

[Illustration]

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

ARTHUR CHAPMAN

“But somehow when he’s gone, you think a heap

About his virtues--how he’s square and true;

If more come stringin’ in they’d make it cheap--

This friendship thing--and spoil it all for you.”

CONTENTS

I. TURFING IT 3

II. “DE KING O’ PROOSHIA ON DE JOB” 8

III. ONE OF THE LOST LEGION 15

IV. BETTY RIDES 19

V. TUG IS “COLLECTED” 31

VI. “NOTHING BUT A GAY-CAT ANYHOW” 35

VII. TUG SAYS, “NO, THANK YOU” 43

VIII. A RIFT IN THE LUTE 48

IX. UNDER FIRE 55

X. “ONE SQUARE GUY” 65

XI. MR. NE’ER-DO-WELL 72

XII. “IS THIS BIRD A PRISONER, OR AIN’T HE?” 80

XIII. A JOB 85

XIV. ONE BAD HOMBRE MEETS ANOTHER 89

XV. THE HOMESTEADER SERVES NOTICE 98

XVI. THE STAMPEDE 105

XVII. HIS PICTURE IN THE PAPER 111

XVIII. A HOT TRAIL 116

XIX. CAPTAIN THURSTON K. HOLLISTER 122

XX. A CLASH 130

XXI. IRREFUTABLE LOGIC 142

XXII. A STERN CHASE 147

XXIII. OUT OF THE BLIZZARD 157

XXIV. “COME ON, YOU DAMN BUSHWHACKER” 166

XXV. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 174

XXVI. BLACK IS SURPRISED 182

XXVII. THE MAN WITH THE BLEACHED BLUE EYES 189

XXVIII. BETTY HAS HER OWN WAY 196

XXIX. A CHILD OF IMPULSE 202

XXX. FATHOMS DEEP 209

XXXI. BETTY MAKES A DISCOVERY 214

XXXII. WITHOUT RHYME OR REASON 224

XXXIII. THE BLUEBIRD ALIGHTS AND THEN TAKES WING 230

XXXIV. BORN THAT WAY 237

XXXV. BIRDS OF A FEATHER 246

XXXVI. A STORMY SEA 252

XXXVII. HOLD THE FORT 262

XXXVIII. BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT 269

XXXIX. THE TURN OF A CROOKED TRAIL 277

XL. BETTY DISCOVERS WHY SHE IS YOUNG 284

IRONHEART

CHAPTER I

TURFING IT

A thin wisp of smoke drifted up from the camp at the edge of the wash.

It rose languidly, as though affected by the fact that the day was

going to be a scorcher. Already, though the morning was young, a fiery

sun beat down on the sand so that heat waves shimmered in the air.

Occasionally a spark from the crackling cottonwood limbs was caught by

a dust whirl and carried toward the field of ripe wheat bordering the

creek.

Of the campers there were three, all of the genus tramp, but each a

variant. They represented different types, these desert trekkers.

The gross man lying lazily under the shade of a clump of willows might

have stepped straight out of a vaudeville sketch. He was dirty and

unkempt, his face bloated and dissipated. From his lax mouth projected

an English brier pipe, uncleansably soiled. His clothes hung on him

like sacks, wrinkled and dusty, but not ragged. He was too good a hobo

to wear anything torn or patched. It was his boast that he could get

another suit for the asking any time he needed one.

“I’m a blowed-in-the-glass stiff,” he bragged now. “Drilled from Denver

to ’Frisco fifteen times, an’ never was a stake man or a shovel bum.

Not for a day, ’boes. Ask any o’ the push about old York. They’ll

give it to youse straight that he knows the best flops from Cincie to

Phillie, an’ that no horstile crew can ditch him when he’s goin’ good.”

York was a hobo pure and simple. It was his business in life. For

“stew-bums” and “gay-cats,” to use his own phraseology, he had a

supreme contempt. His companions were amateurs, from his point of view

non-professionals. Neither of them had any pride in turfing it, which

is the blanket stiff’s expression for taking to the road. They did not

understand York’s vocabulary nor the ethics that were current in his

craft.

Yet the thin, weasel-faced man with the cigarette drooping from his

mouth was no amateur in his own line. He had a prison face, the

peculiar distortion of one side of the mouth often seen in confirmed

criminals. His light-blue eyes were cold and dead. A film veiled them

and snuffed out all expression.

“Cig” he called himself, and the name sufficed. On the road surnames

were neither asked for nor volunteered. York had sized him up three

days before when they had met at Colorado Springs, and he had passed on

his verdict to the third member of the party.

“A river rat on a vac--hittin’ the grit for a getaway,” he had

whispered.

His guess had been a good one. Cig had been brought up on the East

River. He had served time in the penitentiaries of three States and

expected to test the hospitality of others. Just now he was moving

westward because the East was too hot for him. He and a pal had done a

job at Jersey City during which they had been forced to croak a guy.

Hence his unwilling expedition to the Rockies. Never before had he

been farther from the Atlantic than Buffalo, and the vast uninhabited

stretches of the West bored and appalled him. He was homesick for the

fetid dumps of New York.

The corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer. “Wot’ell would any one want

to cross this Gawd-forsaken country fifteen times for unless he was

bughouse?”

“If you read the papes you’d know that travel is a lib’ral ejucation.

Difference between a man an’ a tree is that one’s got legs to move

around with. You ginks on the East Side act like you’re anchored to the

Batt’ry an’ the Bowery. Me, I was born there, but I been batterin’ on

the road ever since I was knee-high to a duck. A fellow’s got to throw

his feet if he wants to learn,” York announced dogmatically.

There was obvious insult in Cig’s half-closed eyes. “’S at what learned

you all youse know?” he asked.

“Don’t get heavy, young feller,” advised the blanket stiff. “I’ve knew

guys to stay healthy by layin’ off me.”

The young man cooking breakfast barked a summons. “Come an’ get it.”

The tramps moved forward to eat, forgetting for the moment their

incipient quarrel. Into tin cups and plates the cook poured coffee

and stew. In his light clean build, slender but well-packed, was the

promise of the athlete. His movements disappointed this expectation.

He slouched, dragging the worn shoes through the cracks of which the

flesh was visible. Of the three, he was the only one that was ragged.

The coat he wore, which did not match the trousers, was at the last

extremity.

One might have guessed his age at twenty-three or four. If it had

not been for the sullen expression in the eyes and the smoldering

discontent of the face, he might have been good-looking. The reddish

hair was short, crisp, and curly, the eyes blue as the Colorado summer

sky above, the small head well-shaped and beautifully poised on the

sloping column of the neck.

Yet the impression he made on observers was not a pleasant one. His

good points were marred by the spirit that found outlet in a sullen

manner that habitually grudged the world a smile. He had the skin

pigment of the blond, and in the untempered sun of the Rockies should

have been tanned to a rich red-brown. Instead, the skin was clammily

unhealthy. The eyes were dulled and expressionless.

York ate wolfishly, occasionally using the sleeve of his coat for a

napkin. He talked, blatantly and continuously. Cig spoke only at rare

intervals, the cook not at all. Within the silent man there simmered a

nausea of disgust that included himself and all the universe in which

he moved.

In the underworld caste rules more rigidly than in upper strata of

society. The sense of superiority is everywhere an admission of

weakness. It is the defense of one who lives in a glass house. Since

all of these men were failures, each despised the others and cherished

his feeling that they were inferior.

“You ’boes turf it with York an’ you’ll always have plenty o’ punk and

plaster,” the old tramp swaggered. “Comes to batterin’ I’m there with

bells on.”

Translated into English, he meant that if they traveled with him they

would have bread and butter enough because he was a first-class beggar.

“To hear youse chew the rag you’re a wiz, ain’t you?” Cig jeered. “I

ain’t noticed you diggin’ up any Ritz-Carlton lunches a guy can write

home about. How about it, Tug?”

The cook grunted.

“Me, I can tell a mark far as I can see him--know whether he’s good

for a flop or a feed,” York continued. “Onct I was ridin’ the rods into

Omaha--been punchin’ the wind till I was froze stiff, me ’n’ a pal

called Seattle. Shacks an’ the con tried to ditch us. Nothin’ doing. We

was right there again when the wheels began to move. In the yards at

Omaha we bumps into a gay-cat--like Tug here. He spills the dope that

the bulls are layin’ for us. Some mission stiff had beefed on me. No

guy with or without brass buttons can throw a scare into old York. No

can do. So I says to Seattle, says I--”

York’s story died in his throat. He stood staring, mouth open and chin

fallen.

Two men were standing on the edge of the bluff above the bed of the

creek. He did not need a second look to tell him that they had come to

make trouble.