THE RUSTLER
The following day Hollis rode to town over the Dry Bottom trail. Had he
followed a perfectly natural inclination he would have taken the Coyote,
for it would have brought him to the Hazelton cabin. But he succeeded in
forcing himself to go the other way, arguing that Nellie and her brother
might wish to be alone to consider the great good fortune that had come
upon them.
And so they did, though had Hollis appeared to them this morning as they
sat upon the porch he would have been assured of a royal welcome.
Indeed, during the early morning hours Nellie had cast many furtive,
expectant glances down the Coyote trail. When eight o'clock came and
Hollis did not appear she gave him up.
The dawn found her kneeling beside her brother's bed.
"Ed!" she said, leaning over him, waking him, her eyes alight with joy;
"Ed, he says you can be cured!"
He struggled and sat up, rubbing his eyes.
"Gosh, sis!" he said in an awed voice. "Then it's true! I was afraid I'd
been dreaming!"
"It is no dream," she returned ecstatically; "it is reality--beautiful
reality! Wasn't it simply _great_ of him to take such an interest
in us?"
"Us?" grinned Ed, noting her crimson, happy face. "Well, mebbe he did it
for _us_," he added subtly, "but I take it I've got a right to have
another opinion on that."
She fled from him without answering and a little later he heard her
singing as she prepared breakfast. After the meal Ed made a short trip
out into the basin to look after his cattle and then returned to the
cabin. Sitting on the porch he and Nellie devoted several hours to a
grave discussion of the situation. They discovered that it had a serious
side.
In the first place there was the dangerous nature of the operation. Here
Ed laughed away his sister's fears by assuring her that he had an
excellent constitution and that since the fall from the pony had not
killed him he was in no danger from the knife. If Nellie entertained any
doubt of this she wisely remained silent, though Ed could see that she
was not entirely reassured. He swept away her last objection to this
forbidding feature when he told her that he preferred taking the risk to
living in constant dread of a recurrence of an acute attack of his
malady--such as he had experienced when he had attacked Hollis in
Devil's Hollow.
There were many other things to be discussed--chiefly the care of the
cattle and the cabin during his absence in Chicago. He would not listen
to her suggestion to accompany him--he would prefer to have her remain
at the cabin. Or he would try to arrange with Hollis for her to stay at
the Circle Bar. There she would have Mrs. Norton for a companion, and
she might ride each day to the cabin. He was certain that Hollis would
arrange to have his men care for the cattle. He assured her that he
would settle that question with Hollis when the latter passed the cabin
that night on his return to the Circle Bar. Of course Hollis would take
the Coyote trail to-night, he insinuated, grinning hugely at the blushes
that reached her face.
But Hollis did not pass the cabin that night. He had taken the Dry
Bottom trail on his return to the Circle Bar.
He had accomplished very little that day on account of the heat--and a
certain vision that had troubled him--taking his mind off his work and
projecting it to a little cabin in a small basin, to a porch where sat a
girl--the girl of his vision. She had voluntarily kissed him. Had it
been all on account of gratitude? Of course--though--Well, memory of the
kiss still lingered and he was willing to forgive her the slight lapse
of modesty because he had been the recipient.
There had been one interesting development in Dry Bottom during the day.
All day the town had swarmed with ranch owners who had come in to the
court house to list their cattle for taxation and register their brands.
Shortly after noon Ben Allen had dropped into the _Kicker_ office
with the news that every owner in the county with the exception of
Dunlavey had responded to the law's demands.
To Hollis's inquiry regarding the course he would pursue in forcing
Dunlavey to comply with the law, Allen remarked with a smile that there
was "plenty of time." He had had much experience with men of the
Dunlavey type.
Potter and Hollis exchanged few words during the ride to the Circle Bar.
The heat--the eternal, scorching, blighting heat--still continued; the
dust had become an almost unbearable irritation. During the trip to the
ranch the two men came upon an arroyo over which Hollis had passed many
times. At a water hole where he had often watered his horse they came
upon several dead steers stretched prone in the green slime. The water
had disappeared; the spring that had provided it had dried and there was
nothing to tell of it except a small stretch of damp earth, baking in
the sun. The steers were gaunt, lanky creatures, their hides stretched
tight as drum-heads over their ribs, their tongues lolling out, black
and swollen, telling mutely of their long search for water and their
suffering. Coyotes had been at work on them; here lay a heap of bare
bones; there a skull glistened in the white sunlight.
A few miles farther on they came upon one of the punchers from the
Circle Y with a calf thrown over the saddle in front of him. He was
driving several gaunt, drooping cattle toward the Rabbit-Ear. The calf
bellowed piteously at sight of Hollis and Potter. The puncher hailed
them.
"You're Hollis, of the Circle Bar, ain't you?" he said when the latter
had spurred his pony close to him. At Hollis's nod he grinned
ironically. "Hot!" he said, coming quickly to the universal topic of
conversation; "I reckon this wouldn't be called hot in some places--in
hell, for instance. Say," he said as he saw Hollis's lips straighten,
"to-morrow the ten days is up. Mebbe it'll be hotter then. The damned
skunk!"
Of course he referred to Dunlavey--the latter's threat to drive all
foreign cattle from the Rabbit-Ear had been carried far and wide by
riders--the whole country knew of it. There had been much condemnation
and some speculation, but there was nothing to be done until after the
tenth day. Even then much depended upon Hollis's attitude. Would he make
war upon Dunlavey in defense of the men who had refused aid to his
father in time of need?
Hollis was still of the opinion that Dunlavey would not attempt to carry
out his threat. He smiled at the malevolent expression in the puncher's
eyes.
"Somehow," he said quietly, "I have always been able to distinguish
between empty boast and determination. Dunlavey has done some foolish
things, no doubt, and is doing a foolish thing in defying the law, but I
don't anticipate that he will do anything quite so rash as to further
antagonize the small owners."
The puncher sat erect and laughed harshly. "You don't?" he inquired in
an over-gentle, polite voice. "Mister Hollis," he added, as the latter
looked quickly at him, "you ain't heard nothin' from the Circle Bar
to-day, I reckon?"
Hollis's answer was negative. The Circle Y man's face grew suddenly
serious. "You ain't! Well, then, that's the reason you're talkin' so.
The last I heard from the Circle Bar was that Norton an' some of your
men had captured one of Dunlavey's men--Greasy--rebrandin' some Circle
Bar steers an' was gettin' ready to string him up. I reckon mebbe you'd
call that doin' somethin'!"
Hollis straightened. He had suddenly forgotten the heat, the dust, and
the problem of water.
"How long ago did you hear this?" he demanded sharply.
"'Bout an hour ago," returned the Circle Y man. "I was rustlin' up these
strays down in the basin an' headin' them toward the crick when I runs
plum into a man from the Three Bar outfit. He was plum excited over it.
Said they'd ketched Greasy down by the Narrows sometime after noon
an'----"
But the Circle Y man finished to the empty air for Hollis's pony had
leaped forward into a cloud of dust, running desperately.
The Circle Y man sat erect, startled. "Well, I'll be----" he began,
speaking to Potter. But the printer was following his chief and was
already out of hearing. "Now what do you suppose----" again began the
Circle Y man, and then fell silent, suddenly smitten with the
uselessness of speech. He yelled at his gaunt steers and shifted the
calf in front of him to a more comfortable position. Then he proceeded
on his way. But as he rode his lips curled, his eyes narrowed, and
speech again returned to him. "Now why in hell would a man get so damned
excited over hearin' that someone was goin' to string up a measly
rustler?"
The interrogation remained unanswered. The Circle Y man continued on his
way, watching the fast disappearing dust clouds on the Circle Bar trail.
When Hollis reached the Circle Bar ranchhouse there was no one about. He
rode up to the front gallery and dismounted, thinking that perhaps
Norton would be in the house. But before he had crossed the gallery Mrs.
Norton came to the door. She was pale and laboring under great
excitement, but instantly divined Hollis's errand.
"They've taken him down to the cottonwood" she told Hollis, pointing
toward the grove in which Hollis had tried the six-shooter that Norton
had given him the first day after his arrival at the ranch. "They are
going to hang him! Hurry!"
Hollis was back in the saddle in an instant and racing his pony down
past the bunk house at break-neck speed. He urged the little animal
across an intervening stretch of plain, up a slight rise, down into a
shallow valley, and into the cottonwood, riding recklessly through the
trees and urging the pony at a headlong pace through the
underbrush--crashing it down, scaring the rattlers from their
concealment, and startling the birds from their lofty retreats.
For ten minutes he rode as he had never ridden before. And then he came
upon them. They stood at the base of a fir-balsam, whose gnarled limbs
spread flatly outward--three Circle Bar men, a half dozen from the
various outfits whose herds grazed his range, and the rustler--Greasy--a
rope knotted about his neck, standing directly under one of the
out-spreading limbs of the tree, his head bowed, but his face wearing a
mocking, defiant grin. The rope had been thrown over the limb and
several men were holding it, preparatory to drawing it taut. Norton was
standing near, his face pale, his lips straight and grim with
determination. Apparently Hollis had arrived just in time.
None of the men moved from their places when Hollis dismounted, but all
looked at him as though expecting him to express approval of what they
were about to do. Several lowered their gaze with embarrassment when
they saw that he did not approve.
"What is all this about, Norton?" he asked, speaking to the latter, who
had stepped forward and now stood beside Greasy. Whatever excitement had
resulted from the sudden discovery that his men had captured a rustler
and were about to hang him, together with the strain of his hard ride to
the cottonwood, had disappeared, and Hollis's voice was quiet as he
addressed his range boss.
Norton smiled grimly. "We were roundin' up a few strays just the other
side of the Narrows this morning, and Ace and Weary were workin' down
the river. In that little stretch of gully just the other side of the
Narrows they came upon this sneak brandin' two of our beeves through a
piece of wet blanket. He'd already done it an' so we ketched him with
the goods. It's the first time we've ever been able to lay a hand on one
of Dunlavey's pluguglies, an' we was figgerin' on makin' an example of
him."
Hollis met Norton's grim gaze and smiled. "I want to thank you--all of
you, for guarding my interests so zealously," he said. "There is no
doubt that this man richly deserves hanging--that is, of course,
according to your code of ethics. I understand that is the way things
have been done heretofore. But I take it none of you want to make me
appear ridiculous?"
"Sure not," came several voices in chorus.
Hollis laughed. "But you took the surest way of making me appear so," he
returned.
He saw Norton's face flush and he knew that the latter had already
grasped the significance of his words. But the others, simpler of mind,
reasoning by no involved process, looked at him, plainly puzzled. He
would have to explain more fully to them. He did so. When he had shown
them that in hanging the rustler he would be violating the principle
that he had elected to defend, they stood before him abashed, thoroughly
disarmed. All except Ace. The poet's mind was still active.
"I reckon you might say you didn't know nothin' about us hangin' him?"
he suggested.
"So I might," returned Hollis. "But people would not think so. And there
is my conscience. It wouldn't be such a weight upon it--the hanging of
this man; I believe I would enjoy standing here and watching him stretch
your rope. But I would not be able to reconcile the action with the
principle for which I am fighting. I believe none of you men would trust
me very much if I advocated the law one day and broke it the next. The
application of this principle would be much the same as if I stole a
horse to-day and to-morrow had you arrested for stealing one."
"That's so," they chorused, and fell silent, regarding him with a new
interest.
"But what are you goin' to do with the cuss?" queried one man.
"We have a sheriff in Dry Bottom, I expect?" questioned Hollis.
Grins appeared on the faces of several of the men; the prisoner's face
lighted.
"Oh, yes," said one; "I reckon Bill Watkins is the sheriff all right."
"Then we'll take him to Bill Watkins," decided Hollis.
The grins on the faces of several of the men grew. Norton laughed.
"I reckon you ain't got acquainted with Bill yet, Hollis," he said.
"Bill owes his place to Dunlavey. There has never been a rustler
convicted by Watkins yet. I reckon there won't ever be any
convicted--unless he's been caught stealin' Dunlavey's cattle. Bill's
justice is a joke."
Hollis smiled grimly. He had learned that much from Judge Graney. He did
not expect to secure justice, but he wished to have something tangible
upon which to work to force the law into the country. His duty in the
matter consisted only in delivering the prisoner into the custody of the
authorities, which in this case was the sheriff. The sheriff would be
held responsible for him. He said this much to the men. There was no
other lawful way.
He was not surprised that they agreed with him. They had had much
experience in dealing with Dunlavey; they had never been successful with
the old methods of warfare and they were quite willing to trust to
Hollis's judgment.
"I reckon you're just about right," said one who had spoken before.
"Stringin' this guy up would finish him all right. But that wouldn't
settle the thing. What's needed is to get it fixed up for good an' all."
"Correct!" agreed Hollis; "you've got it exactly. We might hang a dozen
men for stealing cattle and we could go on hanging them. We've got no
right to hang anyone--we've got a law for that purpose. Then let us make
the law act!"
The prisoner had stood in his place, watching the men around him, his
face betraying varying emotions. When it had been finally agreed to take
him to Dry Bottom and deliver him over to the sheriff he grinned
broadly. But he said nothing as they took the rope from around his neck,
forced him to mount a horse and surrounding him, rode out of the
cottonwood toward the Circle Bar ranchhouse.