Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "_'Tom!' she breathed. 'Tom! you do think I betrayed you
after all...'_"]
PARADISE BEND
BY
WILLIAM PATTERSON WHITE
Author of
"_Hidden Trails,_" "_The Owner of the Lazy D,_" "_Lynch Lawyers_."
FRONTISPIECE BY
RALPH PALLEN COLEMAN
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Page & Company
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
TO MY CAPE MAY COUSINS
DOROTHY, BESS, AND MARION
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Tom Loudon
II. At the Bar S
III. Shots on Pack-Saddle
IV. The Skinned Cattle
V. Their Own Deceivings
VI. Pestilent Fellows
VII. Paradise Bend
VIII. The Amazing Mackenzie
IX. Authors of Confusion
X. The Horse Thief
XI. Rocket
XII. Scotty Advises
XIII. The Dance
XIV. A Determined Woman
XV. A Hidden Trail
XVI. Kate is Helpful
XVII. Mrs. Burr Relieves Her Mind
XVIII. A Murder and a Killing
XIX. Marysville
XX. The Railroad Corral
XXI. The Judge's Office
XXII. Under the Ridge
XXIII. The Smoke of Conflict
XXIV. Before the Dawn
XXV. Trail's End
PARADISE BEND
CHAPTER I
TOM LOUDON
"And don't forget that ribbon!" called Kate Saltoun from the
ranch-house door. "And don't lose the sample!"
"I won't!" shouted Tom Loudon, turning in his saddle. "I'll get her
just like you said! Don't you worry any!"
He waved his hat to Kate, faced about, and put his horse to a lope.
"Is it likely now I'd forget?" he muttered. "We'd do more'n that for
her, wouldn't we, fellah?"
The horse, a long-legged chestnut named Ranger, turned back one ear.
He was accustomed to being questioned, was Ranger. Tom Loudon loved
him. He had bought him a five-year-old from the 88 ranch the year
before, and he would allow no one save Kate Saltoun to ride him. For
the sun and the moon, in the estimation of Tom Loudon, rose and set in
the black eyes of Kate Saltoun, the exceedingly handsome daughter of
John T. Saltoun, the owner of the great Bar S ranch.
This day Loudon was riding into Farewell for the ranch mail, and Kate
had commissioned him to do an errand for her. To serve his lady was
joy to Loudon. He did not believe that she was aware of his state of
mind. A flirt was Kate, and a charming one. She played with a man as
a cat plays with a mouse. At which pleasant sport Kate was an adept.
But Loudon realized nothing of all this. Shrewd and penetrative in his
business, where Kate was concerned he saw nothing but the obvious.
Where the trail snaked over Indian Ridge, ten miles from the ranch
house, Loudon pulled up in front of a lone pine tree. On the trunk of
the pine a notice was tacked. Which notice set forth briefly that two
hundred dollars' reward was offered for the person or persons of the
unknown miscreant or miscreants who were depleting the herds of the Bar
S and the Cross-in-a-box outfits. It was signed by Sheriff Block.
Who the miscreants were no one knew with certainty. But strange tales
were told of the 88 punchers. It was whispered that they carried
running-irons on their saddles. Certainly they displayed, when riding
the range, a marked aversion to the company of men from the other
ranches.
The remains of small fires had been found time and again in draws
bordering the 88 range, and once a fire-marked cinch-ring had been
picked up. As the jimmy and bunch of skeleton keys in a man's pocket
so are the running-iron and the extra cinch-ring under a puncher's
saddle-skirts. They indicate a criminal tendency; specifically, in the
latter case, a whole-hearted willingness to brand the cattle of one's
neighbour.
Loudon read the notice of reward, slow contempt curling his lips.
"Signs," he said, gently. "Signs----! What we need is
Vigilantes--Vigilantes an' a bale o' rope!"
He turned in his saddle and looked back over the way he had come.
Fifty miles to the south the Frying Pan Mountains lay in a cool, blue,
tumbling line.
From where Loudon sat on his horse to the Frying Pans stretched the
rolling range, cut by a thin, kinked strip of cottonwoods marking the
course of a wandering river, pockmarked with draws and shallow basins,
blotched with clumps of pine and tamarack, and humped with knolls and
sprawling hills. The meandering stream was the Lazy, and all the land
in sight, and beyond for that matter, was the famous Lazy River country
held by three great ranches, the Cross-in-a-box, the Bar S, and the 88.
Of these the 88 was the largest and the farthest west of the three, its
eastern line running along the high-bluffed banks of the Falling Horse,
which emptied into the Lazy some ten miles from the 88 ranch house.
East of the 88 lay the Bar S, and east of the Bar S was the
Cross-in-a-box. The two latter ranches owned the better grazing, the
more broken country lying within the borders of the 88 ranch.
Beyond the 88 range, across the Falling Horse, were the Three Sisters
Mountains, a wild and jumbled tangle of peaks and narrow valleys where
the hunter and the bear and the mountain lion lived and had their
beings. East of the Lazy River country lay the Double Diamond A and
the Hog-pen outfits; north and south stretched other ranches, but all
the ranges ended where the Three Sisters began.
Loudon swung his gaze westward, then slowly his eyes slid around and
fastened on the little brown dots that were the ranch buildings of the
Bar S. He shook his head gently and sighed helplessly.
He was thinking partly of Kate and partly of her father, the gray old
man who owned the Bar S and would believe nothing evil of his
neighbours, the hard-riding 88 boys. Loudon was morally certain that
forty cows within the last three months had transferred their
allegiance from Bar S to 88, and he had hinted as much to Mr. Saltoun.
But the latter had laughed him to scorn and insisted that only a few
cows had been taken and that the lifting was the work of independent
rustlers, or perhaps of one of the other ranches. Nevertheless, in
response to the repeated urging of his foreman, Bill Rainey, Mr.
Saltoun had joined with the Cross-in-a-box in offering a reward for the
rustlers.
Loudon was well aware of the reason for Mr. Saltoun's fatuous
blindness. That reason was Sam Blakely, the 88 manager, who came often
to the Bar S ranch and spent many hours in the company of Kate. Mr.
Saltoun did not believe that a dog would bite the hand that fed him.
But it all depends on the breed of dog. And Blakely was the wrong
breed.
"He shore is a pup," Loudon said, softly, "an' yellow at that. He'd
steal the moccasins off a dead Injun. An' Block would help him, the
cow-thief."
Then, being young, Loudon practised the road-agent's spin on the notice
of reward tacked on the pine tree, and planted three accurate bullets
in the same spot.
"Here, you! What yuh doin'?" rasped a grating voice in Loudon's
immediate rear.
Loudon turned an unhurried head. Ten yards distant a tall man,
black-bearded, of a disagreeable cast of countenance, was leaning
forward across an outcrop.
"I asked yuh what yuh was doin'?" repeated the peevish individual,
glaring at Loudon.
"I heard yuh the first time, Sheriff," replied Loudon, placidly. "I
was just figurin' whether to tell yuh I was shoein' a horse or catchin'
butterflies. Which answer would yuh like best?"
"Yuh think yo're mighty funny, Tom Loudon, but I tell yuh flat if yuh
don't go slow 'round here I'll find a quick way o' knockin' yore horns
off."
"Yuh don't say. When yuh goin' to begin?"
Loudon beamed upon the sheriff, his gun held with studied carelessness.
Sheriff Block walked from behind his breastwork, his eyes watchful, his
thumbs carefully hooked in the armholes of his vest.
"That notice ain't no target," he grunted, halting beside the pine tree.
"It is now," remarked Loudon, genially.
"It won't be no more."
"O' course not, Sheriff. I wouldn't think o' shootin' at it if you say
no. It's a right pretty piece o' readin'. Did yuh write it all
yoreself?"
The sheriff's eyes became suddenly blank and fixed. His right thumb
slowly unhooked.
"I only fired three shots," observed Loudon, the muzzle of his
six-shooter bearing on the pit of the sheriff's stomach.
The sheriff's right thumb rehooked itself hurriedly. His frame relaxed.
"Yuh shouldn't get mad over a joke," continued Loudon. "It's plumb
foolish. Been hidin' behind that rock long?"
"I wasn't hidin' behind it. I was down in the draw, an' I seen you
a-readin' the notice, an' I come up."
Loudon's gray eyes twinkled. He knew that the sheriff lied. He knew
that Block had heard his comments on Blakely and his own worshipful
person, but evidently the sheriff did not consider this an opportune
time for taking umbrage.
"So yuh come up, did yuh? Guess yuh thought it was one o' the rustlers
driftin' in to see what reward was out for him, didn't yuh? But don't
get downhearted. Maybe one'll come siftin' along yet. Why don't yuh
camp here, Sheriff? It'll be easier than ridin' the range for 'em, an'
a heap healthier. Now, Sheriff, remember what I said about gettin'
red-headed. Say, between friends, an' I won't tell even the little
hoss, who do you guess is doin' the rustlin'?"
"If I knowed," growled the sheriff, "his name'd be wrote on the notice."
"Would it? I was just wonderin'. Habit I got."
"Don't you fret none about them rustlers. I'll get 'em if it takes ten
years."
"Make it twenty, Sheriff. They'll keep right on electin' yuh."
"Do yuh mean to say the rustlers elected me?" exploded the sheriff.
"O' course not," chided Loudon, gently. "Now what made yuh think I
meant that?"
"Well, yuh said----" began the sheriff.
"I said 'they,'" interrupted Loudon. "You said 'rustlers'. Stay in
the saddle, Sheriff. You'll stub your toe sometime if yuh keep on
a-travellin' one jump ahead o' the hoss."
"Yo're ---- smart for a cow-punch."
"It is a cinch to fool most of 'em, ain't it--especially when yo're a
sheriff?"
Loudon's eyes were wide open and child-like in their gray blandness.
But the sheriff did not mistake his man. Block knew that if his hand
dropped, a bullet would neatly perforate his abdomen. The sheriff was
not a coward, but he had sense enough not to force an issue. He could
afford to wait.
"I'll see yuh again," said the sheriff, harshly, and strode diagonally
down the slope.
Loudon watched him until he vanished among the pines a hundred yards
below. Then Loudon touched his horse with the spur and rode on, chin
on shoulder, hands busy reloading his six-shooter. Three minutes later
Loudon saw the sheriff, mounted on his big black stallion, issue from
the wood. The great horse scrambled up the hillside, gained the trail,
and headed south.
"Bet he's goin' to the 88," said Loudon. "I'd give ten dollars to know
what Block was roostin' behind that rock for. Gawd! I shore would
admire to be Sheriff o' Fort Creek County for thirty days!"
Eleven miles from Indian Ridge he topped a rise and saw below him
Farewell's straggly street, flanked by several false-fronted saloons,
two stores, one hotel leaning slightly askew, and a few unkempt houses,
the whole encircled by the twinkling pickets of innumerable bottles and
tin cans.
He rode along the street, fetlock-deep in dust, and stopped at the
hotel corral. Freeing Ranger of the saddle and bridle, he opened the
gate and slapped the chestnut on the hip.
"Go on in, fellah," said Loudon. "Yore dinner's a-comin'."
He walked around to the front of the hotel. Under the wooden awning a
beefy, red-faced citizen was dozing in a chair tilted back against the
wall. Loudon tapped the snoring individual on the shoulder. The
sleeper awoke gaspingly, his eyes winking. The chair settled on four
legs with a crash.
"Howdy, Bill," said Loudon, gravely.
"Howdy, Tom," gurgled the other.
"Hoss in the corral an' me here, Bill. Feeds for two."
"Sure. We've done et, but you go in an' holler for Lize. She'll fix
you up."
The fat landlord waddled stableward and Loudon entered the hotel. A
partition that did not reach the ceiling divided the sleeping
apartments from the dining room. Carelessly hanging over the partition
were two shirts and someone's chaps.
The whole floor slanted, for, as has been said, the hotel leaned
sidewise. The long table in the dining room, covered with cracked and
scaling oilcloth, was held unsteadily upright by three legs and a
cracker box.
Loudon, quite untouched by this scene of shiftlessness, hooked out a
chair with his foot, dropped his hat on the floor, and sat down.
"Oh, Mis' Lainey!" he called.
A female voice, somewhat softened by distance and a closed door,
instantly began to make oration to the effect that if any lazy chunker
of a puncher thought he was to eat any food he was very much mistaken.
The door banged open. A slatternly, scrawny woman appeared in the
doorway. She was still talking. But the clacking tongue changed its
tone abruptly.
"Oh, it's you, Tom Loudon!" exclaimed the lean woman. "How are yuh,
anyway? I'm shore glad to see yuh. I thought yuh was one o' them
rousy fellers, an' I wouldn't rustle no more chuck this noon for the
likes o' them, not if they was starvin' an' their tongues was hangin'
out a foot. But yo're different, an' I ain't never forgot the time you
rode thirty mile for a doc when my young one was due to cash. No, you
bet I ain't! Now don't you say nothin'. You jest set right patient a
short spell an' I'll rustle----"
The door swung shut, and the remainder of the sentence was lost in a
muffled din of pans. Loudon winked at the closed door and grinned.
He had known the waspish Mrs. Lainey and her paunchy husband since that
day when, newly come to the Lazy River country, he had met them, their
buckboard wrecked by a runaway and their one child apparently dying of
internal injuries. Though Loudon always minimized what he had done,
Mrs. Lainey and her husband did not. And they were not folk whose
memories are short.
In less than twenty minutes Mrs. Lainey brought in a steak, fried
potatoes, and coffee. The steak was fairly tough, so were the
potatoes, and the coffee required a copious quantity of condensed milk
to render it drinkable. But Loudon ate with a rider's appetite. Mrs.
Lainey, arms folded in her apron, leaned against the doorjamb, and
regaled him with the news of Farewell.
"Injun Joe got drunk las' week an' tried to hogtie Riley's bear. It
wasn't hardly worth while buryin' Joe, but they done it. Mis'
Stonestreet has a new baby. This one makes the twelfth. Yep, day
before yestiddy. Charley's so proud over it he ain't been sober since.
Slep' in the waterin'-trough las' night, so he did, an' this mornin' he
was drunk as ever. But he never did do things by halves, that Charley
Stonestreet. Ain't the heat awful? Yep, it's worse'n that. Did yuh
hear about----"
Poor, good-hearted Mrs. Lainey. With her, speech was a disease.
Loudon ate as hurriedly as he could, and fled to the sidewalk. Bill
Lainey, who had fallen asleep again, roused sufficiently to accept six
bits.
"Mighty drowsy weather, Tom," he mumbled.
"It must be," said Loudon. "So long."
Leaving the sleepy Lainey to resume his favourite occupation, Loudon
walked away. Save Lainey, no human beings were visible on the glaring
street. In front of the Palace Saloon two cow-ponies drooped. Near
the postoffice stood another, bearing on its hip the Cross-in-a-box
brand.
From the door of the postoffice issued the loud and cheerful tones of a
voice whose owner was well pleased with the world at large.
"Guess I'll get that ribbon first," said Loudon to himself, and
promptly walked behind the postoffice.
He had recognized the cheerful voice. It was that of his friend,
Johnny Ramsay, who punched cows for the Cross-in-a-box outfit. And not
for a month's pay would Loudon have had Johnny Ramsay see him
purchasing yards of red ribbon. Ramsay's sense of humour was too well
developed.
When four houses intervened between himself and the postoffice Loudon
returned to the street and entered the Blue Pigeon Store. Compared
with most Western frontier stores the Blue Pigeon was compactly neat.
A broad counter fenced off three sides of the store proper.
Behind the counter lines of packed shelves lined the walls from floor
to ceiling. Between the counter and the shelves knotted ropes, a long
arm's-length apart, depended from the rafters. Above the
canvas-curtained doorway in the rear hung the model of a black-hulled,
slim-sparred clipper.
At the jingle of Loudon's spurs on the floor the canvas curtain was
pushed aside, and the proprietor shuffled and thumped, for his left leg
was of wood, into the store. He was a red-headed man, was Mike Flynn,
the proprietor, barrel-chested, hairy-armed, and even the backs of his
ham-like hands were tattooed.
"Good aft'noon to yuh, Tom," said Mike Flynn. "'Tis a fine day--hot,
mabbe, but I've seen worse in the Horse Latitudes. An' what is it the
day?"
"Red ribbon, Mike," replied Loudon, devoutly thankful that no other
customer was in the store.
Mike glanced at the sample in Tom Loudon's hand.
"Shore, an' I have that same, width an' all," he said, and forthwith
seizing one of the knotted ropes he pulled himself hand over hand to
the top shelf.
Hanging by one hand he fumbled a moment, then lowered himself to the
floor.
"An' here yuh are!" he exclaimed. "The finest ribbon that ever come
West. Matches the bit yuh have like a twin brother. One dollar two
bits a yard."
"I'll take five yards."
"Won't yuh be needin' a new necktie now?" inquired Mike Flynn, expertly
measuring off the ribbon. "I've a fine lot in--grane ones, an' blue
ones, an' purple ones wit' white spots, an' some black ones wit' red
an' yaller figgers, not to spake o' some yaller ones wit' vi'let
horseshoes. Very fancy, thim last. God be with the ould days! Time
was when I'd not have touched yaller save wit' me foot, but 'tis so
long since I've hove a brick at an Orangeman that the ould feelin'
ain't near so strong as it was. An' here's the ribbon, Tom. About
them neckties now. They're worth seein'. One minute an' I'll delight
yore eyes."
Rapidly Mike Flynn stumped around to the other side of the room, pulled
down several long boxes and deftly laid them, covers off, on the
counter. Loudon did need a new necktie. What man in love does not?
He passed over the yellow ones with violet horseshoes so strongly
recommended by Mike Flynn, and bought one of green silk.
"Yo're a lad after me own heart, Tom Loudon," said Mike Flynn, wrapping
the necktie. "Grane's best when all's said an' done. The colour of
ould Ireland, God bless her. An' here comes Johnny Ramsay."
Loudon hastily stuffed his purchases inside his flannel shirt, and in a
careless tone asked for a box of forty-five calibre cartridges. He
turned just in time to ward off the wild rush of Johnny Ramsay, who
endeavoured to seize him by the belt and waltz him round the store.
"Wow! Wow!" yelled Johnny. "How's Tommy? How's the boy? Allemane
left, you old bronc buster!"
"Quit it, you idjit!" bawled Loudon, the crushing of ribbon and necktie
being imminent.
Ramsay stepped back and prodded Loudon's breast with an inquiring
finger.
"Paddin'," he said, solemnly. "Tryin' to give yoreself a chest, ain't
yuh, you old bean-pole? Ouch!"
For Loudon had dug a hard knuckle into his friend's left side, and it
was Ramsay's turn to yell. From behind the counter Mike Flynn beamed
upon them. He liked them well, these careless youngsters of the range,
and their antics were a source of never-ending amusement.
Entered then a tall, lean man with black hair, and a face the good
looks of which were somewhat marred by a thin-lipped mouth and sharp,
sinister eyes. But for all that Sam Blakely, the manager of the 88
ranch, was a very handsome man. He nodded to the three, his lips
parting over white teeth, and asked Mike Flynn for a rope.
"Here's yore cartridges, Tom," called Mike, and turned to the rear of
the store.
Loudon picked up his box of cartridges, stuffing them into a pocket in
his chaps.
"Let's irrigate," he said to Ramsay.
"In a minute," replied his friend. "I want some cartridges my own
self."
The two sat down on the counter to wait. Blakely strolled across to
the open boxes of neckties.
"Cravats," he sneered, fingering them.
"An' ---- fine ones!" exclaimed Mike Flynn, slamming down the coil of
rope on the counter. "Thim yaller ones wit' vi'let spots now, yuh
couldn't beat 'em in New York. An' the grand grane ones. Ain't they
the little beauts? I just sold one to Tom Loudon."
"Green shore does suit some people," said the 88 manager, coldly.
Loudon felt Johnny Ramsay stiffen beside him. But Loudon merely smiled
a slow, pleasant smile.
"Hirin' any new men, Sam?" he inquired, softly, his right hand cuddling
close to his belt.
"What do yuh want to know for?" demanded Blakely, wheeling.
"Why, yuh see, I was thinkin' o' quittin' the Bar S, an' I'd sort o'
like to get with a good, progressive outfit, one that don't miss any
chances."
Loudon's voice was clear and incisive. Each word fell with the
precision of a pebble falling into a well. Mike Flynn backed swiftly
out of range.
"What do yuh mean by that?" demanded Blakely, his gaze level.
"What I said," replied Loudon, staring into the other's sinister black
eyes. "I shore do hate to translate my words."
For a long minute the two men gazed steadily at each other. Neither
made a move. Blakely's hand hung at his side. Loudon's hand had not
yet touched his gun-butt. But Blakely could not know that, for
Loudon's crossed knees concealed the position of his hand.
Loudon was giving Blakely an even chance. He knew that Blakely was
quick on the draw, but he believed that he himself was quicker.
Blakely evidently thought, so too, for suddenly he grunted and turned
his back on Loudon.
"What's that?" inquired Blakely, pointing a finger at one end of the
rope.
"What--oh, that!" exclaimed Mike. "Sure, that's what a seaman calls
whippin'. The holdfast was missin', an' the rope was beginning' to
unlay, so I whipped the end of it. 'Twill keep the rope from frayin'
out, do yuh mind. An' it's the last rope I have in stock, too."
Loudon, watching Blakely's hands, saw that what Mike Flynn called
whipping was whip-cord lapped tightly a dozen turns or so round the end
of the rope. Blakely, without another word, paid for the rope, picked
it up, and departed, head high, sublimely indifferent to the presence
of Loudon. Mike Flynn heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief.
"Praise be!" he ejaculated. "I'd thought to lose a customer a minute
back." Then, recollecting himself, he added quickly, "What was that
yuh said about cartridges, Johnny?"