DESERT LAW
Away out in the night of stars and silence plodded the patient burro,
and beside him shuffled Overland Red and Billy Winthrop.
"We'll fool 'em," said Overland. "Keep joggin'. We'll be over the range
before mornin'. Then let 'em find us."
Winthrop, staggering along, felt his moral stamina crumbling within him.
"I don't know--about that. Perhaps I'll be a drag to the expedition. I'm
pretty tired."
Overland, experienced in the remorse that follows liquor on an empty
stomach, swore vigorously and picturesquely. "You'll stick! Do you
suppose I'd shake you now after you overcomin' a genuine nickel-plated
desert constable? Nix. That ain't my style. You believed me when I said
I was comin' to this particular town. It's worth somethin' to have a
fella around that believes a fella once in a while. But what I want to
know is, why you done up the constable so offhand like, not knowin'
whether I'd show up here or not?"
"Why?" And Winthrop smiled wanly. "Because I'm a perfectly harmless
little old tenderfoot." And his voice caught as he tried to laugh.
An hour of plodding through the dusk, two hours, and they were at a
water-hole near the northern hills. Overland unroped one of the packs,
made a fire, and presently had some hot coffee for his companion, who
was pretty well used up. Nature was taking inexorable toll for his
conquest of the constable.
"You take it easy and don't worry," said Overland.
Winthrop raised on his elbow and gazed at the tiny fire. "Tiger, tiger
burning bright!" he quoted.
"This here coffee'll fix you right," responded Overland Red, grinning.
"Didn't know I was a pote, did you? Now if I was a doc, I'd give you a
shot in the arm that would put you to sleep. Seein' I ain't, it's coffee
for yours."
"Do you think they will follow us?" Winthrop asked presently.
"As sure as snakes," said Overland. "And this here water-hole is the
first place they'll strike for. They'll wait till mornin' to find our
trail."
"When they do find it?"
"I'll show 'em a Mexican trick with a hole in it. You go to sleep,
pardner."
* * * * *
The moon rolled down to the rim of the world. The infinitesimal
mountain peaks rose slowly along the lower edge of the flat silver
shield, black and growing bolder in outline and size as they blotted
half, three quarters, finally all of the burnished radiance. Then along
the edge of the far range ran an instant delicate light, a light that
melted into space and was gone, leaving a palpitating glory of myriad
summer stars.
The little fire died down. The barren outland wastes slumbered in the
charitable dusk of night.
Overland, cross-legged on his blanket, smoked moodily. His thoughts
drifted out on the tide of silence to Moonstone Cañon and Collie and the
Rose Girl, Louise Lacharme. For them he planned impossibly. Of them he
dreamed absurd dreams.
Out of the flotsam of his pondering came memories of other nights such
as this, desert nights on the border ranges of old Mexico--that lost
world of his adventurous youth. Mingled with his waking dreams were the
sounds of many familiar names--Sonora, Trevino, Nueva Laredo, Nava, San
José, Las Cruces, Nogales, Yuma, San Antonio,--each a burning ember of
memory that glowed and faded while the music of silver strings and
singing girls pulsed rhythmically in the stillness--to break at last
into the querulous wailing of a lone coyote. Winthrop stirred restlessly
and muttered.
All at once the tramp realized that this easygoing young Easterner,
wealthy, unused to hardship, delicate of health, had his battle to
fight, as well. "I've knowed 'em to get over it," reflected Overland.
"She's high and dry up here on the desert, and I reckon to go where it's
higher. He's game, but he's desp'rate. He's tryin' to dodge the verdict,
which can't be did. Well, if excitement will help any, I guess he's
ridin' the right range. If he's got to pass over, he might as well go
quick. Mebby he's the best kind of a pal for this deal, after all."
Overland looked across at the muffled form. "Pardner!" he called.
Winthrop did not answer.
"Well, it saves explainin'," muttered the tramp, and he rose quietly. He
gathered the few camp-utensils together, rolled his blankets, brushed
sand over the embers of the fire, and groped stealthily toward the
burro. He roped the pack, glancing back toward the water-hole
occasionally. Winthrop slept heavily.
"Guess I'll go back and get that gun," muttered Overland. "I might need
two; anyway, he might wake up and plug his old friend the constable
before he knowed it. I ain't givin' a whoop for the constable, but I
don't want to see the kid get in wrong."
Then Overland, wily and resourceful in border tactics, led the burro
round the camp in a wide circle, from which he branched toward the hills
to the north. For two hours he journeyed across the starlit emptiness.
Arriving at a narrow cañon in the foothills, he picketed the burro. Then
he sat down. Why not continue with his pack and provisions? He could
camp in the fastness of the mountain country and explore it alone. He
would run less risk of capture. Winthrop was not strong. The Easterner
meant well enough, but this was the desert.
The blue of the eastern horizon grew shallower, changing to a cold thin
gray which warmed slowly to the straw color of tempering steel. The
tramp, watching the sky, shook his clenched fist at the dawn. "You, up
there!" he growled. "You didn't give me a square deal when I was down
and out that time--in Sonora. I had to crawl to it alone. But I'll show
you that I'm bigger than you. I'm goin' back to the tenderfoot and see
him through if I swing pole-high for it."
It was light when the tramp had arrived at the water-hole. He crept
behind a sharp dip in the hummocks. The crest of his hiding-place was
covered with brush. It was a natural rifle-pit affording him seclusion
and shelter.
With the sun came the faint thud of hoofs as two riders came warily up
to the water-hole. One dismounted and stooped over Winthrop. The other
sat his horse, silent, vigilant, saturnine.
"Say, where's your pal, that there Overland Red guy?" asked the
constable, shaking Winthrop awake and glaring at him with a bleared and
baleful eye.
The man on the horse frowned, considering, in the light of his
experience as a successful and still living two-gun man, that such
tactics were rather crude.
The Easterner sat up, coughed and blinked in the dawn. "Where is what?
Why, good-morning! You're up early." And his eye swept the empty camp.
So Overland Red had deserted him, after all. He might have expected as
much. "I haven't any 'pal,' as you can see. I'm out here studying insect
life, as I told you I would be, yesterday. You needn't shake me any
more. I'm awake. I can't say that I'm exactly pleased with my first
specimen."
"Oh! I'm a specimen, am I? I'm a insect, hey? Well, you're crooked, and
you just talk up quick or the calaboose for yours!"
"No. I beg your pardon--but, no. You are in no condition, this morning,
to talk with a gentleman. However, you are my guest. Have a cigar?"
The horseman's eyes twinkled. He admired the young Easterner's
coolness. Not so the constable.
"See here, you swindlin' tin-horn shell-shover, you cough up where
Overland Red is or there'll be somethin' doin'. You doped that booze
yesterday, but you can't throw no bluff like that to-day."
"I did what? Please talk slowly."
"You doped that booze you--"
Much to the constable's surprise he found himself sitting on Winthrop's
blankets and one of his eyes felt as though some one had begun to stitch
it up quickly with coarse thread.
Winthrop, smiling serenely, nodded. "Sorry to have to do it. I know I
don't look like that kind, and I'm not, but I happen to know how."
The constable got to his feet.
"I didn't doctor the brandy, as you intimated," said Winthrop. "And you
needn't finger that belt of yours. I haven't a gun with me, and I
believe it is not the thing for one man to use a gun on another when
the--er--victim happens to be unarmed."
The horseman, who had courage, admired Winthrop's attitude. He rode
between them. "Cut it out, Hicks," he said. "You're actin' locoed. Guess
you're carryin' your load yet. I'll talk to the kid. We 're losing time.
See here, stranger...."
Overland, watching and listening from his hiding-place, grinned as the
constable sullenly mounted his horse.
Winthrop politely but firmly declined to acknowledge that he had had a
companion. Overland was pleased and the riders were baffled by the young
man's subtle evasion of answering them directly.
"Size of it is, you're stung," said the man who had questioned Winthrop
last. "He's lit out, now he's done you."
To this the Easterner made no reply.
The horsemen rode away, following the circle of burro tracks toward the
hills. Winthrop watched them, wondering what had become of his
companion. He could hardly believe that the tramp had deserted him, yet
the evidence was pretty plain. Even his revolver was gone, and his belt
and cartridges. Winthrop yawned. He was hungry. There was no food. But
there was water. He walked toward the water-hole.
"Stand still--and listen," said a voice.
Winthrop jumped back, startled and trembling. The voice seemed to come
from the water-hole at his feet.
"Over here--this way," the voice said.
Winthrop smiled. If it were a disembodied spirit talking, it was no
other than the spirit of Overland Red. The accent was unmistakable. The
Easterner glanced round and observed a peculiar something behind the
brush edging the rise beyond the water-hole.
"It's me," said Overland, still concealed. "Thought I quit you, eh? Are
them fellas out of sight yet?"
"No. They're still in sight. They are too far to see anything, though."
"And you can see them all right, son? That don't figure out correct."
Winthrop laughed. "That's so. Where's the burro?"
"He's hid--right in plain sight up a little arroyo."
"Won't they find him, and confiscate him and the things?"
"Not on your life! 'T ain't exactly healthy, even for constables, to go
round confiscatin' outfits they don't know who's connected with. They
can't say for sure that burro and stuff is mine. They'll look it over
and leave it right there."
"But why did you come all the way back here?" asked Winthrop.
"Seein' they's lots of time, I'll explain. If I had kep' on goin', they
would 'a' trailed me, and mebby got a crack at me in them hills. They
are two to one, and they could get me at night. Now they'll either give
it up, or spot my back tracks and find me here. That's all."
"Perhaps that won't be all," ventured Winthrop, walking toward the ridge
where Overland lay concealed.
The tramp grinned up at him. "Mebby not, pardner. You was tellin'
Sweeney Orcutt back in Los Angeles that you wanted to get up against the
real thing. I reckon you bought the right ticket this trip."
"Will they--will there be any shooting?" asked the Easterner.
"Not if I can help it," replied Overland. "I borrowed your gun on the
chance of it. 'Course, if they get sassy, why, they's no tellin' what
will happen. I'm mighty touchy about some things. But listen! I'm actin'
as your travelin' insurance agent, pro temperly, as the pote says, which
means keepin' your temper. If they do spot me, and get foolish enough to
think that I got time to listen to any arguments against my rights as a
free and unbranded citizen of the big range, why, you drop and roll
behind the first sand-hill that is a foot high. After the smoke blows
away, I'll be dee-lighted to accept your congratulations."
"I guess you mean business," said Winthrop, becoming serious. "I'm game,
but isn't there any other way out of it?"
"Not for me, son. What chance would I have with the whole desert town to
swear against me? They're after the gold, and they reckon to scare me
into tellin' where it is. I'm after that same gold, and I don't reckon
to be bluffed off by a couple of pikers like them."
"The dark one, the man on the bay horse, seemed to be a pretty
capable-looking individual," said Winthrop.
"Glad you noticed that. You're improvin'. He is a capable gent. He's a
old two-gun man. Did you see how he had his guns tied down low so they
would pull quick. Nothin' fancy about him, but he's good leather. The
other one don't count."
"What shall I do when they come back?"
"You jest go to studyin' bugs or rattlesnakes or tarantulas or
somethin'. Make a bluff at it. If they ask you anything, answer 'em nice
and polite, _and so I can hear_. A whole pile depends on my keepin' up
with the talk. I'll figure from what they say, or don't say."
"They seem to be turning. They've stopped. One of them is down on the
ground looking at something. Now he's up again. They're riding back,"
said Winthrop.
"They cut my back trail," said Overland, snuggling down behind the
brush. "You go and set down by the water-hole and find a bug to study."
"Are you going to fight?"
"Not if it can be helped. Otherwise--till me wires are down and me lamps
are out. She's desert law out here. They seems to be some chance for a
argument about who's goin' to be judge. I'm out for the job myself. I
reckon to throw about fifteen votes--they's six in your gun and nine in
the automatic. The election is like to be interestin' and close."
"I wish I could help," said the Easterner.
"You can--by keepin' your nerve," replied Overland. Then he rolled a
cigarette and lay smoking and gazing at the sky. Winthrop watched the
approaching horsemen. Presently he got up and sauntered to the
water-hole.
The tramp lay curled like a snake behind the mound. He drew Winthrop's
gun from its holster and inspected it, shaking his head as he slid it
back again. "She's new and will pull stiff. That means she'll throw to
the right. Well, I got the little Gat. to open up the show with."
William Stanley Winthrop, despite his resolution, found that his hands
trembled and that his heart beat chokingly. He wanted to shout, to run
out toward the horsemen, to do anything rather than sit stupidly silent
by the water-hole.
The two riders loped up. The constable dismounted. "Nothin' doin'," he
said, stooping to drink.
"No. Nothing doing," echoed the man on horseback.
"That," muttered Overland Red, squirming a little higher behind the
bushes, "was intended for me. I know that tone. It means there's a hell
of a lot doin'. Well, I'm good and ready." And he lifted both of his
red, hairy hands to the edge of the hole and both his hands were
"filled."
About then the man on the pony began to ride out from the water-hole in
a wide circle. The constable came from the spring. Overland noticed that
he kept Winthrop between himself and the sage on the ridge. "That
settles it," Overland swiftly concluded. "They're on. I'm right sad to
have to do it."
The heavy, space-blunted report of the circling horseman's gun--and
Overland calmly spat out the sand that flitted across his lips. The
rider had ventured a shot and had ridden behind a ridge instantly.
Winthrop exclaimed at these strange tactics.
"He seen a jack run in there," explained the constable, leering.
"This here's gettin' interestin'," mumbled Overland as the constable
unholstered his gun and sauntered toward the ridge. "I got to get the
gent on the cayuse. The other one don't count."
The rider had appeared from behind the ridge. Slowly Overland raised
his right hand. Then the old fighting soul of Jack Summers, sheriff of
Abilene, rebelled. "No! Dam' if I'll ambush any white man." And he
leaped to his feet. "Overland Limited!" he shouted, and with his
battle-cry came the quick tattoo of shots. The horseman wavered, doubled
up, and pitched forward to the sand.
Overland Red dropped and rolled to one side as the constable's gun
boomed ineffectually. The tramp lay still.
A clatter of empty stirrups, the swish of a horse galloping past, and
silence.
Slowly the constable approached Overland's prostrate figure. "Time's up
for you!" he said, covering the tramp with his gun.
"Water!" groaned Overland.
"Water, eh? Well, crawl to it, you rat!"
Winthrop, his heart thumping wildly, followed the constable. So this was
desert law? No word of warning or inquiry, but a hail of shots, a
riderless horse,--two men stretched upon the sand and the burning sun
swinging in a cloudless circle above the desolate silence.
"You seem to kind of recognize your friend now," sneered the constable.
That was too much for Winthrop's overstrung nerves. His pulses roared in
his ears. With a leap he seized the constable's gun and twisted at it
with both hands. There was an explosion, and Winthrop grinned savagely,
still struggling. With insane strength he finally tore the gun from the
other's grasp. "You're the only coward in this affair," he gasped, as he
levelled the gun at the constable. That officer, reading danger in
Winthrop's eye, discreetly threw up his hands.
"Good!" exclaimed Overland, sitting up suddenly. "That was risky, but it
worked out all right. I had a better plan. You go set down, Billy. I'll
see this gent safe toward home."
Winthrop laughed hysterically. "Why, you--you--you're a joke!" he cried.
"I thought--"
"So did the little man with the pie-pan pinned on his shirt," said
Overland. "You keep his gun. I got to see how bad the other gent's hit."
An hour later the constable of the desert town led his pony toward the
railroad. On the pony was his companion, with both arms bandaged. He
leaned forward brokenly, swaying and cursing. "I'll--get him, if it
takes--a thousand years," he muttered.
"I reckon it'll take all of that," growled the constable. "You can have
all you want of his game, Saunders,--I'm through."
Out by the water-hole, Overland turned to Winthrop. "I'm glad you
enjoyed the performance," he said, grinning. "We've opened the pot and
the best man rakes her down. She's desert law from now to the finish."