THE HORSE THIEF
Loudon, who had taken no part in the feathering, watched the departure
of the sheriff with brooding eyes. He did not agree with Scotty
Mackenzie and the citizens of the Bend. In his estimation the
punishment had not been sufficiently drastic. Alive and in possession
of all his faculties the sheriff was a great power for evil. He would
seek revenge.
Loudon swore softly. He was far from being a bloodthirsty man, but he
regarded the killing of Block as a duty. And he did not believe in
putting off till some future date what could be accomplished to-day.
"It's quite a list," he said to himself. "Block, Rufe Cutting,
Blakely, an' the whole 88 outfit. An' they won't be happy till they
get me. It kind o' looks as if Blakely ain't expectin' to keep our
little engagement in Farewell. Block wouldn't 'a' come up here without
Blakely sent him."
Thoughts of Blakely quite naturally induced thoughts of Pete O'Leary.
Where was O'Leary? Loudon recollected that he had not seen O'Leary in
the crowd. He looked up and down the street. O'Leary was nowhere in
sight. His absence was a small thing in itself, but it might signify a
guilty conscience. Loudon wondered.
That disreputable person, Scotty Mackenzie, approached, leading his
horse.
"Tom," said Scotty, his blue eyes twinkling, "don't look so
downhearted. He wasn't worth shootin'."
"I dunno, Scotty," replied Loudon. "It'll come to it some day, or I
miss my guess."
"Yuh'll miss it while yo're workin' for me. Block won't never come to
the Bend again, an' yuh can go the limit on that. D'juh get the mail?"
"I ain't been to the post office. Didn't have time. I've been right
busy ever since I sifted in."
"I'll get it then. Cap'n Burr wants yuh to eat dinner at his house.
I'll drift round later. Better finish up what yuh come to town for
before yuh eat."
"I come to town to meet you."
"To meet me!" exclaimed Scotty. "Now look here, Tom, do I look like I
need a gardeen?"
"Didn't yuh write to Doubleday," said the bewildered Loudon, "tellin'
him to send me in to meet yuh here to-day an' for me to ride my own
hoss?"
"What are yuh talkin' about? Me write Doubleday! I should say not!"
"Well, all I know is Doubleday got a letter from yuh, an' it was mailed
in Rocket."
"Mailed in Rocket! Why, I never was in Rocket! It's just luck me
bein' here to-day. If I hadn't met Ben Burr down at the Wagonwheel I
wouldn't 'a' come for another couple o' days, mebbe."
"It's damn funny. That letter from Rocket is no dream."
"I hope Doubleday saves the letter. Well, you go on an' eat. See yuh
later."
Loudon swung into the saddle and galloped to the house of Captain Burr.
On the doorsill Dorothy Burr and Pete O'Leary sat side by side. As
Loudon dismounted Miss Bunrose to meet him.
"Oh, Mr. Loudon!" she exclaimed, "I've just heard about your frightful
experience. I wish I'd been there. I'd have enjoyed seeing them
plaster up that brute of a sheriff."
"He did look kind o' odd," said Loudon. "Yore ma shore saved my life."
"Wasn't it luck Ma was down street? I usually go myself, but this
morning Mr. O'Leary came, so Ma went. We didn't know there was
anything going on till Ma came back and told us, and then it was all
over. My! I'd like to have seen Ma talking to that stupid Dan Smith.
The big idiot! Ma's mad yet. Oh, I forgot. Have you met Mr. O'Leary?"
"I know him," said Loudon rather ungraciously, and nodded to the
gentleman in question. "I guess I'll put the little hoss in the
corral."
"Yes, do. Pa's out there. Dinner'll be ready soon."
Miss Burr returned to the doorsill, and Loudon led away Ranger. So
Pete O'Leary had been spending the morning at the Burrs'! It would be
interesting to know why the engaging O'Leary had chosen to call upon
that particular morning. Was it because he did not wish to identify
himself in any way with Sheriff Block? Was it the guilty conscience?
"Well, suh," smiled Captain Burr, who was kneeling at the feet of one
of his horses, "well, suh, it went against the grain to let that
scoundrel go in peace, didn't it?"
Loudon smiled grimly.
"I appreciate youah feelings in the matteh, Tom," continued the
Captain. "Such a puhson should not be allowed to live. My impulse was
to shoot him, but I stayed my hand. As I may have mentioned befo', I
am growing soft-heahted. That's right, Tom, cuss away. If Block were
otheh than he is, he would shoot himself. No gentleman would care to
live afteh being tah'd and feath'ed. But Block will writhe onwa'd like
the snake he is till he is crushed once fo' all.
"Do you remembeh what I said the day you made him quit right in the
street in Fa'ewell? Well, suh, in o'deh to regain the respect of the
town he did kill a man--an inoffensive strangeh."
"Yuh might know it. He'll be a reg'lar 'Billy the Kid' before a great
while."
"Not quite. The Lincoln County young man was a wa'-eagle. Block's a
buzza'd. Tom, I'm afraid this Jeffe'son Davis hoss is developing a
wind-puff."
Loudon made no reply. He was watching an approaching rider. The
horseman passed by without a glance toward the corral and loped on into
town.
Now the road in front of the Burr house was the beginning of the trail
to the Flying M ranch, and the mounted man was none other than Rufe
Cutting. It was evident to Loudon that he had not underestimated the
cook. He resolved to seek out his would-be bushwhacker immediately.
Loudon looked quickly down at the Captain. If Burr had perceived
Loudon's absorption he gave no sign. He merely requested Loudon's
opinion of the slight swelling on Jefferson Davis's near fore.
"Yuh've got to excuse me, Cap'n," said Loudon, hastily. "I've got a
little business to attend to before I eat."
"Need any help?" inquired Burr, reaching for his Greener.
"No, thanks," replied Loudon, swiftly resaddling Ranger.
"Dinner!" called Mrs. Burr, sticking her head out of the kitchen door a
moment later. "Why, where's Tom Loudon?"
"He's gone away," grumbled her husband, regretfully eying his shotgun.
"Well, of all things! Just as dinner's ready! Don't he know he's
eatin' here? Will he be gone long?"
"He may not be away twenty minutes, and then, on the otheh hand, he may
neveh retuhn."
"Never return! What are you talkin' about, Benjamin Burr?"
"Wait and see, my love, wait and see," rejoined the Captain, and went
in to dinner.
Loudon, meanwhile, had galloped down to the corner of Main Street.
Rufe Cutting was not in sight. But his horse was standing among the
horses in front of the Jacks Up Saloon. Loudon rode across the street
and dismounted behind a freighter's wagon near the Chicago Store, where
he could not be observed from the windows of the Jacks Up. Then he
walked briskly up the street and entered the saloon.
Rufe Cutting, his scratched features cast in sullen lines, was drinking
at the bar. So were several other men. A knot of citizens in
Cutting's immediate rear were discussing the events of the morning.
Two faro tables were crowded. The Jacks Up was in full blast. With
the place crowded a gun-play was apt to result in damage to the
bystanders.
However, the choice lay with Cutting. Loudon would allow the first
move.
With this intention, Loudon edged up to the bar and called for a drink.
At the sound of his voice Cutting turned a slow head. There were two
men in between, but they were not standing close to the bar.
Loudon, watching Cutting out of his eye-corners, picked up his glass
with his left hand. Even as he did so, panic seized Cutting. His
fingers closed on his own full glass and he hurled it at Loudon's head.
Involuntarily Loudon dodged. When he recovered himself his gun was out.
The bartender promptly vanished under the bar. Men skipped and dodged
and flung themselves over tables and chairs in their anxiety to give
Loudon a clear line of fire. But Cutting had disappeared.
Two swearing men sprawling under an open rear window told the story.
In his fear-stricken efforts to escape Cutting had knocked them both
down.
Loudon and the two men, one of whom was Jim Mace and the other Dan
Smith, went through the window almost simultaneously. Both sashes went
with them to a brave accompaniment of crackling glass.
Loudon landed on his knees, and was in time for a snapshot at a leg
sliding over a windowsill of the house next door. Before Loudon could
rise Mace and the marshal tumbled over him. The three fell in a tangle
and rolled among tin cans and bottles for a space of time. When at
last, red-faced and almost breathless, they rushed the house next door
they were stopped by an angry woman brandishing a frying-pan.
"You drunk hunkers can't come through here!" screamed the irate lady.
"If you an' yore fool friends want to play tag yuh can play her in the
street! What do yuh mean by bustin' into folks' houses an' wakin' my
baby up? You idjits! She'll be bawlin' her brains out all day now!"
"We're after a hold-up!" cried Loudon with great presence of mind.
It had the desired effect.
"Why didn't yuh say so at first? Come right in."
Through the house and out of the front door they dashed. Drifting
clouds of dust marked Cutting's line of flight. He was a quarter of a
mile distant, spurring for the ford of the Dogsoldier and the Farewell
trail. The marshal fired a futile shot. Loudon laughed and holstered
his six-shooter.
"Look at him go!" he chuckled. "Scared stiff."
"Get yore hosses!" commanded the marshal. "Don't stand here gassin'!
We'll go after him right away!"
"Oh, let him go," drawled Loudon. "He ain't worth chasin'."
"But he's a road agent, ain't he?" said Jim Mace.
"No, I just said he was," grinned Loudon. "He ain't nothin' but a
right good cook, so far as I know."
"Ain't he done nothin'?" inquired the perplexed marshal.
"Only jerked a glass of whisky at me," replied Loudon. "Yuh see, I
ain't right popular with him."
"From the way he's splittin' the breeze," said Jim Mace, "it looks like
he don't care for yore society none."
"I'd ought to go after him," grunted the marshal, vengefully, tenderly
feeling a skinned elbow. "I don't mind a reg'lar gun-play, but this
here chuckin' glasses round promiscuous an' bumpin' folks over ain't
right. It's agin' law an' order. He'd ought to be arrested. The
calaboose has been empty for a week, too."
Loudon left Jim Mace and Dan Smith explaining matters to the gathering
crowd, and walked back to where he had left his horse. Ranger was not
behind the freighter's wagon. Loudon ran into the Chicago Store.
"Shore," said the proprietor. "I seen a feller climbin' aboard that
hoss a few minutes ago. Seemed in a hurry, too. What? Yore hoss!"
The proprietor ducked under the counter for his spurs and his rifle,
and Loudon hurried out. Cutting's mount, the bay he had bought from
Doubleday, was of course standing where he had been left among the
other horses. Loudon threw the dropped reins over the bay's head and
swung up.
"He's a hoss thief!" he shouted to Dan Smith and Jim Mace. "He got
away on my hoss!"
Quirting and spurring, Loudon tore down the street. Before the horse's
hoofs spattered the water of the ford the proprietor of the Chicago
Store and the marshal were galloping in his wake. Jim Mace and a score
of others followed at intervals. A horse was not stolen in Paradise
Bend every day. The inhabitants were bent on making the most of their
opportunity.
The bay was a good horse, but Ranger was the better, and Loudon knew
it--knew, too that, unless Ranger fell down, Cutting would escape.
"Ranger's good for all day," groaned Loudon. "All day an' not strain
himself a little bit."
As the bay flashed across the top of a rise two miles beyond the
Dogsoldier, Loudon glimpsed two specks four miles ahead.
"Block! He's with Block!" exclaimed Loudon, and drove in the spurs.
The bay leaped madly forward and rocketed down the long slope. A
high-lipped swell concealed the two specks, and for a long ten minutes
Loudon rode between the sides of the draw. The bay charged at the
high-lipped swell with undiminished vigour. He was doing his level
best, but his gait was tied in. It bore not the remotest resemblance
to Ranger's free-swinging stride. When Loudon reached the crest of the
swell the specks had vanished.
He put the reins between his teeth and drew the Winchester from the
scabbard under his left leg. He threw down the lever a trifle. There
was a cartridge in the chamber.
The loading gate resisted the pressure of his thumb. There was at
least one cartridge in the magazine, but by the weight of the rifle he
judged it to be fully loaded. Loudon returned the Winchester to its
scabbard and slowed the willing little bay to a lope.
"Yo're all right, old hoss," he said, "but yuh can't never catch that
hoss o' mine. Not in a million years. We just got to wait till he
stops."
Rufe Cutting could have devised no better revenge than the stealing of
Loudon's horse. Since Loudon had owned Ranger no one save himself and
Kate Saltoun had ridden him. Ranger's legs were frequently
hand-rubbed. Ranger was curried. With his fingers--no true horseman
would dream of using the comb of commerce--Loudon frequently combed
Ranger's mane and tail. When a horse in the cow country is curried and
combed, that horse is a highly valued horse. Johnny Ramsay accused
Loudon of wrapping Ranger in blankets when the air was chilly, and of
taking his temperature on all occasions. Undoubtedly Loudon was
somewhat of a crank where Ranger was concerned.
And now the inconceivable had come to pass. Ranger had been
stolen--stolen almost under the very nose of his master. Loudon did
not swear. His feeling was too deeply grim for that. But he promised
himself an accounting--a very full accounting.
Loudon rode onward at a steady lope. Before him stretched the dusty
ribbon of trail. Blank and bare it led between the low hills and
lifted over the ridges. He saw no more specks ahead. The quarry had
outdistanced him.
Fifteen miles out of Paradise Bend he heard a faint shout in his rear.
He looked over his shoulder. A half mile distant two men were
galloping toward him. One of them waved an arm half red, half blue.
"Scotty," muttered Loudon, and checked his horse.
The two clattered up, their horses' out-blown nostrils whistling. One
of the men was the owner of the Flying M. The other was the proprietor
of the Chicago Store.
"Seen him?" demanded Scotty.
"Once," replied Loudon. "He's ridin' with Block now, but they pulled
away from me. I ain't seen 'em for over a hour."
"They're stickin' to the trail," grunted the store proprietor, who
rejoiced in the name of Ragsdale, glancing at the hoof-marks in the
dust.
"C'mon!" snapped Scotty Mackenzie.
Three miles farther on Ragsdale's mount began to falter.
"He's done," growled Ragsdale. "Give 'em one for me."
Ragsdale halted. Loudon and Scotty Mackenzie rode on.
"Where did yuh get that bay?" queried Scotty, eying the Flying M brand
on the bay's hip.
"It was his--Cutting's," replied Loudon.
"Cutting's? Djuh mean Rufe Cutting is the hoss thief?"
"Shore! I clean forgot yuh didn't know about Cutting's quittin' his
job."
Loudon explained the manner of the cook's departure and his subsequent
actions to Mackenzie.
"An'," said Loudon, in conclusion, "I seen that feller at the 88 that
time I bought my hoss from Blakely."
"Yuh did! Are yuh shore?"
"Shore as yo're a day old. I was walkin' past the bunkhouse with
Blakely, an' this fellah was out in front with his shirt off a-washin'
himself, an' I seen a eagle tattooed on his chest in blue, an'
underneath a heart with a R on one side an' a T on the other. Just
before yore cook pulled his freight his shirt got tore, an' I seen his
chest, an' there was the eagle an' the heart an' the two letters R an
T. I knowed when I first laid eyes on him up here at the Flyin' M that
I'd seen him some'ers, but I couldn't place him till I seen the
tattoo-work. It all come back to me then."
"What was his name at the 88?"
"I never knowed. I never cut his trail again down there. He wasn't
one o' the reg'lar outfit. I know all o' them."
"Did Cap'n Burr see him?"
"No, he didn't. I remember now, when the Cap'n come this fellah wasn't
in sight, an' he didn't show up again while we was there. Cap'n Burr
left when I did."
"Cutting worked for me nigh onto a year. He's always earned his pay.
Never done nothin' out of the way."
"I dunno what it means. It's all a heap mysterious--special mysterious
when yuh come to think o' what O'Leary asked me when I first hit the
Bend. 'Couldn't Sam come?' says O'Leary to me. Busts out into the
street to say it, too, right after I'd asked yuh the way to Cap'n
Burr's house."
"I remember," said Scotty, thoughtfully. "I seen him talkin' to yuh.
I thought yuh knowed him. I wonder who he took yuh for?"
"One o' Blakely's outfit, o' course," replied Loudon. "It was that 88
brand o' Ranger's done the trick for him like it done for you.
'Couldn't Sam come?' says he. Then he says, 'It's all right. I'm Pete
O'Leary!' When he seen I didn't understand him none, he got gun-shy
immediate an' wandered. An' he didn't forget me a little bit.
Telescope told me that he'd been tryin' to find out if you'd hired me.
One day he come out to the ranch an' stopped just long enough to say
howdy. Wanted to make shore I was there, see? What do yuh make of it?"
"Nothin'--yet. We got to wait an' see what happens."
"Seein' what happens may be expensive. I tell yuh flat, Scotty, Sam
Blakely has got somethin' under the table for yuh. He's aimin' to put
a crimp in yuh. Yuh can go the limit on that."
"There ain't nothin' certain about it."
"O' course there ain't. Sam ain't goin' to give himself away. I wish
you'd let me Injun 'round some an' see what's up. I think, maybe,
yuh'll save money if yuh do."
"Well, I dunno----" hesitated Scotty.
"O' course," said Loudon, quickly, "Blakely's got it in for me. But
whatever he's cookin' up for you he thought of before I ever rode
north. My comin' north has sort of upset his plans. He knows I know
all about him, an' he wants to shut my mouth before he turns his bull
loose."
"Yo're goin' to meet him in Farewell, ain't yuh? Seems to me Richie
said somethin' about it."
"Shore I am, but what's that got to do with it?"
"Why, maybe that's the reason he wants yuh out of the way. He may not
hanker after shootin' it out with yuh."
"No, Sam Blakely ain't afraid," denied Loudon. "He wouldn't object any
to meetin' me in Farewell if that was all there was to it. No, what's
worryin' him is me bein' here at the Flying M. An' it's worryin' him a
lot, or he'd never 'a' sent Block two hundred miles."
"Well, I dunno. Yuh may be right, Tom, but I don't just guess Sam
Blakely will try to put any crimps in me. He knows it would come kind
o' high. Of course it's mighty puzzlin'. I don't understand it none.
One thing, Blakely shore tried his best to get yuh down on the Lazy
River, an' that's why it looks to me like Block was sent to put in the
last licks."
"He was, but not the way yuh think. I could gas my head off about
Blakely up here in the Bend, an' it wouldn't matter a ---- so long as
he was down on the Lazy. But if he left the Lazy an' come projeckin'
up to the Bend, then what I'd be sayin' would count a lot. See now?"
"I see," admitted Scotty.
"Well, gimme a chance to find out what he's up to."
"No, Tom, there's too much to do at the ranch. I can't let yuh go.
Yo're too good a man. I need yuh right at home. We'll wait an' see
what happens. Then we'll know what to do."
"It may be too late then," grumbled Loudon.
"If it is, then blame me. I'm the one to lose, anyway."
"Yuh shore are."
Oh, the denseness of ranch owners! Was Scotty Mackenzie to turn out
another Saltoun?
"It's a blind trail," observed Scotty, picking up the tangled thread of
their discourse. "Some things kind o' fit when yuh look at 'em one
way, an' then again they don't when yuh look at 'em another. Cutting
don't fit, none whatever. All the time he worked for me, he only went
to town twice, an' the last time was six months ago. O'Leary never
come to see him, so if somethin's up like yuh say there is, Rufe's out
of it. But that won't help him none now. He'll go out if we ever come
up with him."
"If we do," supplemented Loudon.
"My idea exactly. That hoss o' yores can shore wriggle along, an' he
had a big start."
"I'm goin' through to Rocket anyhow."
"Me, too."
Till the latter half of the afternoon they kept the ponies loping.
Then, slowing to a walk, they risked a short-cut and did not strike the
trail again till the sun was setting.
"Still keepin' together," announced Loudon, after one look at the trail.
"An' still hittin' the high places," said Scotty. "Them two cayuses
shore have bottom. Cutting knowed a good hoss all right."