THE SMOKE OF CONFLICT
"Found him hid right pretty in a gully," said Hockling, indicating the
extra horse.
"Yore hoss, Marvin?" queried Loudon.
Marvin nodded surlily. He had had his share of the water in the
rescuers' canteens, but he was no happier.
"It's shore providential, yore happenin' down this way," said Loudon.
"We'll do as much for you some day."
"Yo're welcome, but it ain't none providential, Tom," denied Hockling.
"Me an' Red was fixin' the corral fence at the camp when up come Kate
Saltoun on the jump an' says how yuh was standin' off six men opposite
Box Hill. 'It's them deputies!' shouts Red, an' ropes a hoss
immediate. Well, we come along, the three of us, an' that's all. It
was long range, but I think I drilled one deputy. Red creased one,
too."
"Yuh bet I did!" cried Red Kane. "I seen his arm flop when I fired."
"What's that about the three o' yuh comin' along?" said Loudon.
"Why, Kate, she was with us. She changed her saddle to one of our
fresh hosses. She wouldn't quit nohow till she heard yuh say yuh was
all right. Then she started off home. Funny, she was ridin' a 88 pony
when she struck the line-camp."
"That's odd, but it don't matter none. I'll--I'll see Kate later."
"Shore," said Hockling, wondering at the lack of warmth in Loudon's
tone. But Western etiquette forbids the questioning of another's
motives.
"Say," remarked Red, hastening to break the awkward silence, "say,
won't Block feel happy when he finds we've done ventilated his
deputies?"
"Yeah," replied Loudon, "an' the funny part of it is, they ain't got no
right to arrest me. That warrant has been pulled in."
"Yuh shore forgot to mention that last night," Hockling said,
disgustedly. "Here Red an' me have been pattin' ourselves on the back
for runnin' a blazer on the law. An' now, come to find out, them
deputies was in the wrong, an' so we only give 'em what was comin' to
'em, anyway."
"Well, you've got a nerve, you have!" exclaimed the indignant Loudon.
"Do yuh think I'm goin' round dodgin' warrants so you two jiggers can
run blazers on the sheriff?"
He made a swift movement.
"Leggo my legs!" yelled Hockling. "I got on my new pants, an' I don't
want the seat tore out! Hey, yuh idjit! Leggo!"
When order was restored and Hockling was tenderly feeling his precious
trousers, Loudon suggested that Red, the lightest man, take Marvin's
fresh pony and ride to the line-camp for food and two horses.
"Yuh'll have yore work cut out," said Red as he mounted, "to ride them
ponies bareback. We ain't even got a extra bridle."
"Don't worry none," Loudon said. "We'll make bridles an' Injun
surcingles out o' Marvin's rope, an' we'll toss for his saddle."
"How you feel, Tom?" inquired Laguerre, stretched at ease on a cot in
the Cross-in-a-box ranch house.
"Whittled to the chin," replied Loudon. "Which that pony's ridgepole
could give odds to a knife-blade on bein' sharp. We might 'a' knowed
Marvin would win the toss. His own saddle, too."
"Eet ees de las' piece o' luck she weel have for varree long tam."
"I ain't so shore about that. There's no real evidence to show that
Marvin's a rustler. 'Ceptin' Rudd, yuh can't connect any of the 88
outfit with the hoss stealin'. I know they done it. I always knowed
Sam Blakely was at the bottom of it, an' I can't prove it yet. Here's
you an' I rode from hell to breakfast an' back, an' all we've got to
show for it is Archer an' the Maxson boys--an' the hosses, o' course.
Unless I find out somethin' more soon an' sudden, I've got to take off
Marvin's hobbles. My bluff about Bill Archer's blabbin' ain't workin'
with Marvin. He's worried, an' he shows it, but he's standin' pat. I
spent a solid hour with him to-night, an' all he does is cuss an' beef
about what'll happen when Blakely finds out his range-boss has been
kidnapped. It makes me sick!"
Laguerre nodded sympathetically.
"Yuh can't tell me," continued Loudon, "that them Marysville sports was
the only ones in the hoss-stealin' deal. If they was, then why was
Pete O'Leary expectin' Sam Blakely the day I struck the Bend, an' why
was Rufe Cutting planted in the cook's job at the Flyin' M? It all
points--so far. An' the rustlin' o' the Bar S an' Cross-in-a-box
cattle--there's another mystery. Oh, it's a great life, this here
detective business!"
"Tell you w'at, Tom," Laguerre suggested, hopefully, "you un me, huh,
we weel bushwhack dees Blak'lee feller. W'at you say?"
"Can't be did, Telescope. We've got to get him the right way, so the
folks o' Sunset an' Fort Creek'll know just why he went. That goes for
his outfit an' Block an' his deputies, too. They're all in it up to
their belts. They've made Fort Creek County what it is--a place where
a straight gent has to watch himself an' what's around him all the
time. Shorty Simms killed the Sheriff o' Sunset, but Blakely an' the
88 made the killin' possible. Oh, what's the use? I'm goin' to sleep."
But Loudon did not go to sleep at once. He had too much on his mind.
From Blakely and the 88 his perplexed thoughts shifted to Kate Saltoun
and the sinful ease with which she had made a fool of him; he had
trusted her, and she had betrayed him. The daughter of a ranchman, she
had flouted the law of the range. Given the thief money, too. It was
almost incredible.
Idiot that he was, to believe for an instant that she loved him!
Knowing her of old, it served him right, he told himself. He thanked
Heaven that he did not love her, had not loved her since that day in
the Bar S kitchen.
Quite naturally then, since he was so absolutely sure of himself and
his emotions, he wondered how Rudd had had the luck to save Kate's
life. He wished that it had been himself, in order that he might have
made some small return for services rendered.
She had done a great deal for him at the Bend. She had simplified a
most complex situation by bringing to his assistance Hockling and Red
Kane. He undoubtedly owed a lot to Kate. Nevertheless, he assured
himself that her conduct in the matter of Rudd's escape had squared the
account. Of course it had. And he was glad of it. For, under the
circumstances, he would never have to see her again. The Spinning
Sister heard, and smiled--and Loudon fell asleep.
"Hey, Tom! Wake up!"
It was Jack Richie's voice that shouted, and it was Jack Richie's hand
that shook Loudon awake.
"Whatsa matter?" Loudon opened sleepy eyes.
"Yore hoss is outside. Yore hoss, Ranger, an'----"
Jack Richie was almost overset by the blanket-shedding cyclone that
whirled out of bed and through the doorway. In front of the ranch
house stood Ranger, surrounded by Richie's amazed and conjecturing
cowboys. The horse raised his wise head, cocked his ears, and nickered
softly at Loudon's approach.
"It's him," grinned Loudon. "It's the little hoss. Well, fellah, you
old tiger-eye!"
He rubbed the white spot on Ranger's nose. The horse nipped his
fingers with soft lips.
"Found him tied to the post out back o' the wagon shed," volunteered
the cook. "I thought I was seein' things."
"Funny he didn't whinner," said Loudon.
"There was a flour-sack over his head," explained the cook. "Here it
is."
"That don't tell me nothin'," Loudon said. "Everybody uses Triple X.
An' that hackamore could be just anybody's, too. Whoever brought him
shore walked in the water."
"It ain't likely possible now," observed Jack Richie, "that Rufe
Cutting could 'a' got religion or somethin'."
"It's possible, but it ain't likely," said Loudon. "Well, fellah,
c'mon an' get yuh a drink, an' then for the big feed. Yo're gone off a
good forty pounds since yuh quit me."
Later, Loudon, in company with Laguerre, visited the post where Ranger
had been tied. Laguerre closely scrutinized the ground in the vicinity.
"Hoss she been tied up six-seven hour," observed Laguerre.
"It's 'bout half-past five now. That makes it ten or eleven when he
was brought in."
"'Bout dat. Feller lead heem een. Hard to read de sign on de grass,
but eet look lak de feller not walk good een hees boot--dey too beeg,
mabbeso. Come 'long. We weel see w'ere feller she leave hees hoss."
They followed the trail a hundred yards, and then Laguerre knelt down,
his eyes searching the grass. He picked up a small stone and held it
up. The stone was sharp-cornered. It was stained a dark red.
"Feller she treep un fall on hees han's un knees," explained Laguerre.
"Lef han' heet de leetle rock, un geet cut some. Han' bleed on eet."
Laguerre rose, tossed away the stone, and proceeded to follow the
trail. He led the way to a tall pine some three hundred yards distant
from the ranch house. Even Loudon's unpractised eyes told him that a
horse had stood beneath the pine.
"Here feller she climb een de saddle un go 'way," said Laguerre. "No
use follow de trail any more."
They returned to the ranch house, Loudon wondering greatly as to the
identity of the mysterious philanthropist. In Cow Land a stolen horse
is not returned except under compulsion. While they were at dinner the
cook stuck his head through the doorway.
"Bunch o' riders a-comin' from the north," he announced, "an' they're
a-comin' some swift."
"Scotty!" exclaimed Loudon, and ran to the window.
"It may be the sheriff," said Jack Richie, hastening to provide himself
with a Winchester.
"It's Scotty," Loudon said. "I can tell him a mile off. He's wearin'
the same shirt, red sleeve an' all."
The horsemen, some thirty men, rode up at an easy lope. Besides
Scotty, Loudon recognized Doubleday, Johnny Ramsay, Chuck Morgan, Swing
Tunstall, Giant Morton, Ragsdale, and many others.
"He's brought the whole ranch an' half the Bend," chuckled Loudon, and
then swore gently, because he suddenly remembered that there was no
evidence against Blakely.
With thirty men the 88 could be shown the error of its ways most
effectually. And now the thirty could not be used. What a waste of
good material!
The band of horsemen, bawling greetings to the group in the doorway,
jingled to a halt. Loudon stepped forward and shook Scotty's proffered
hand.
"Yuh've sure done fine," said Scotty. "Yuh've filled out just what I
said 'bout opportunity with a big O. I ain't forgettin' it, neither.
Besides Rudd now, did yuh run across anythin' touchin' Sam Blakely?"
"Not a thing," Loudon replied, "an it's no use a-goin' out to the 88
lookin' for Rudd. He's sloped. My fault he got away, too."
"That's tough, but it don't matter a heap. Yuh found the hosses an'
three o' the thieves, anyway."
"Yeah, but they ain't enough. We'd ought to get 'em all, an' as far's
I can see there ain't no chance o' gettin' 'em all."
"Don't yuh care. What yuh've done suits me. I'm satisfied."
"I ain't," said Loudon, "but I s'pose I've got to be. It makes me
sick! Lot o' work gone for nothin'. We grabbed the 88 range-boss on
the off-chance he'd chatter, but he won't say a word. He's tied up in
Jack Richie's storeroom right now."
"Blakely's range-boss, huh? Well, yuh can't hang him without proof,
Tom."
"I know that. Got to turn him loose, o' course. Did yuh see anythin'
o' Block or Blakely or that gang when yuh come through Farewell?"
"We didn't strike Farewell. We rode here the shortest way.
Why--what's the matter?"
For Loudon had ripped out an amazed oath.
"Yore rope!" exclaimed Loudon. "Where did yuh get that rope?"
"Oh, Doubleday found it down by the little corral the mornin' after him
an' the boys rode in from the Bend--after them hosses was stole."
"Why didn't yuh tell me about it then? That rope was all I needed.
Say, Johnny, djever see this rope before?"
Loudon held up the end of the rope. The holdfast was missing, and the
end had been lapped with many turns of whip-cord. Johnny squinted at
the rope's end. Jack Richie and the others crowded in.
"Yeah," said Johnny Ramsay, "now I think of it, you an' me was in Mike
Flynn's store in Farewell when Sam Blakely bought him that rope with
the whip-cord on the end. That was the day you bought a green necktie.
Shore, I remember. Blakely he asked Mike what that whip-cord was, an'
Mike called it whippin'."
"That's what he did," declared Loudon. "I noticed this whippin' jigger
special, an' I can swear to it on a stack o' Bibles a mile high. It's
the same rope all right enough."
Scotty observed that he would be consigned to everlasting damnation.
Ropes, he had supposed, were all alike.
"I knowed that rope must 'a' belonged to one o' the rustlers," said
Scotty, "but it was such a little thing that I'd forgot all about it by
the time you got back to the ranch, Tom. Blakely's rope! It's shore
amazin'."
"It sort o' settles the cat-hop, don't it?" said Loudon.
"Kind o'," Scotty said, his frosty blue eyes gleaming. "We'll wander
over to the 88 right away. I guess now we'll leave Marvin tied up yet
awhile. We'll attend to him later. Can yuh give us fresh hosses,
Jack?"
"Can I?" exclaimed Jack Richie. "Watch me. I guess me an' a few o'
the boys will ride along with yuh. Just to see fair play like."
"Say, Scotty," Loudon said, while the fresh horses were being roped, "I
hope Pete O'Leary didn't see you an' the bunch leavin' the Bend."
"He didn't," replied Scotty. "O'Leary ain't with us no more--No, not
that way. He's alive yet so far as I know. But he pulled his freight
some sudden 'bout two weeks ago. Dunno why."
"Maybe we'll see his smilin' face again pretty soon," Loudon observed,
significantly.
"Then here's hopin' it'll be in bad company," said Scotty Mackenzie.
An hour later the band, now numbering forty-two men, started for the 88
ranch. They rode northwest, intending to pass through Farewell, for it
was quite possible that Brown Jug and the gray had been taken into town.
As they neared the town a rattle of shots came down the wind. With one
accord the forty-two drove the spurs into their mounts.
At the top of the slight rise above the little town they halted. The
windows of Bill Lainey's hotel and Piney Jackson's blacksmith shop were
banked in drifting smoke through which red tongues of flame flashed at
intervals. From the cover of boulders, wagon-bodies, the hotel corral,
and the Happy Heart Saloon, rule-working citizens were pouring lead
into the two places. Farther up the street several Winchesters in the
Blue Pigeon Store were replying to the fire from the opposite houses
and from a barn in the rear of the store.
"Sheriff Block an' his outfit are lockin' horns with some friends o'
mine, I guess," observed Loudon.
"That ain't no way for a sheriff to act," said Scotty. "Let's go down
an' tell him so. Friends o' Tom's, boys."
Loudon was already galloping down the slope. In his wake scattered
hoof-beats became a thuttering drum. Men whooping and yelling,
wild-eyed horses straining every muscle, the charge swept down upon the
besiegers of Lainey's Hotel and Jackson's blacksmith shop.
The sheriff's friends broke like a covey of quail. The rifles in the
hotel and blacksmith shop chattered like mad. Loudon headed toward the
hotel corral to whose shelter two men had retreated. But there was no
one there when he reached it.
He rode past the corral and galloped along the rear of the buildings
fronting on the street. Twice he was shot at, one bullet nicking his
horse's hip. But he contrived to reach the other end of the town
unwounded, raced across the street, and dismounted behind the sheriff's
corral. His feet had barely touched the ground when Johnny Ramsay,
Laguerre, and Chuck Morgan joined him.
"Yuh idjit!" cried Johnny. "Don't yuh know no better'n that? Don't
yuh suppose they can hit yuh at twenty yards? Yuh wasn't that far away
from the backs of them houses. Ain't yuh got no sense at all?"
"Well, they didn't hit me, an' I notice three other idjits didn't have
no better sense. Duck!"
Loudon jerked Johnny down just as a bullet gashed the side of a post
above his head. Johnny ceased talking and ran hurriedly to where Chuck
Morgan was kneeling behind a corner of the corral. Loudon joined
Laguerre at the other corner.
The four were in an excellent position. The corral commanded the rear
and one side of the sheriff's shack, the rear of the Happy Heart
Saloon, and one side of the barn in the rear of the Blue Pigeon Store.
A man ran out of the barn. Laguerre's rifle cracked. The man
stumbled, dropped, dragged himself to his hands and knees, and then
huddled down slackly. Laguerre pumped in another cartridge. The
staccato din at the other end of town was increasing. The heavy roars
of several buffalo guns punctuated the steady crackling of the
Winchesters' whip-like reports. Loudon smiled a slow smile and cuddled
his rifle-butt against his shoulder. The world was coming his way at
last.
"That sheriff wouldn't 'a' built his corral so solid," observed Loudon,
"if he'd looked ahead."
"You bet he wouldn'," said Laguerre. "Dees log ees fine. No bullet
come troo dem. Bimeby we geet Meestair Block, mebbeso."
"He may be down in the Happy Heart. There ain't been a shot from the
shack yet. He's in town all right though. His hoss and seven others
are in the corral"--Loudon peered through a crack in the logs--"I can't
see the brands. They're turned the wrong way."
"Dere ees a lot o' pony een dat corral down dere," said Laguerre.
"That's behind the Happy Heart Saloon. Lord help 'em if they try to
slide out on 'em."
_Zing-g-g_! A bullet ricochetted from a near-by boulder and hummed
above Loudon's hat.
"That came from the barn," said Loudon, firing at a gray smoke-cloud
high up on the side of the structure. "They've knocked a hole in a
board, I guess. Yep"--as the thinning smoke revealed a black
opening--"they have."
Shooting carefully and without haste, Loudon and Laguerre rendered
firing from that hole in the barn a case of suicide. From their corner
Johnny Ramsay and Chuck Morgan alternately drove questing bullets into
the barn and the rear of the Happy Heart Saloon.
The firing from the barn slackened. That from the Happy Heart
redoubled in vigour. The glass window-sashes began to fall in tinkling
rain on the ground.
"The boys must 'a' gotten into the houses across the street," said
Loudon. "They're a-firin' right through the saloon."
"She weel be dark een two hour," Laguerre remarked, irrelevantly.
"I know it. We'll have to finish up before then or they'll getaway.
Plug any, Johnny?"
"One," was the laconic reply of that expert with a rifle.
"He didn't, neither!" denied Chuck Morgan. "I got him. Johnny was
loadin' his rifle at the time the feller cashed. Johnny couldn't hit a
flock o' barn doors flyin' low--not with his rifle."
"Oh, couldn't I, huh?" yapped Johnny Ramsay. "Well, if I hadn't 'a'
got him you'd be a-lyin' there right quiet an' peaceful with yore hat
over yore face. I hit what I aim at. I ain't been shootin' holes in
boards like some people."
At this juncture the door of the Happy Heart opened a crack, and Johnny
and Chuck forgot their argument at once. The door closed abruptly, the
wood near the knob gashed and scarred by several bullets.
"This is gettin' monotonous," said Loudon. "I thought there'd be
action this side an' there ain't a bit. The barn has gone to sleep.
I'm goin' into the sheriff's shack. I'll bet it's empty."
"Dey geet you from the barn, mabbeso," Laguerre suggested.
"No, they won't--not if yuh keep 'em away from that hole."
Loudon laid his rifle down, pulled his hat firmly over his ears, and
raced toward the shack, jerking out his revolvers as he ran. He
reached the door of the shack without a shot having been fired at him.
Fully aware that death might be awaiting his entry, he drove his
shoulder against the door and burst it open. He sprang across the
doorsill and halted, balancing on the balls of his feet.
Save for the loud ticking of an alarm clock there was no sound in the
shack. The door of the front room stood open. Through the doorway
Loudon glimpsed a broken chair, and beside it, where the floor sagged,
a pool of blood. Loudon walked into the front room.
His eyes beheld a scene of the wildest disorder. There had been a
fierce fight in that front room. On his back on the floor, his legs
under the table, lay Sheriff Block, his black beard reddened with blood
from a wound in the cheek. One hand gripped the butt of a six-shooter
and the other clutched the breast of his flannel shirt. There were two
bullet-holes in the sheriff's chest.
Across the base of the closed front door lay the body of Rufe Cutting.
He had been literally cut to pieces. Only his face was unmarked.
Otherwise he was a ghastly object. From beneath his body oozy runlets
of blood had centred in the pool beside the chair.
Propped up against the side wall, his legs outstretched, sat a
stranger. Blood spotted and stained the floor about him. He had been
shot in the legs and the chest. Across his knees lay a Winchester.
Beside him a long knife, red from hilt to point, was stuck upright in
the floor. The stranger's chin was on his breast, a bloody froth
flecked his lips. So positive was Loudon that the stranger was dead,
that, when the man jerked his head upright, he jumped a full yard
backward. Weakly the wounded man plucked at his Winchester, his dull
eyes fixed on Loudon. The latter ran to his side.
"It's all right, stranger," cried Loudon, "I'm a friend."
At this assurance the stranger ceased in his effort to raise his rifle.
"Water," he muttered, faintly, "water."
In a corner stood a bucket and a tin dipper. Loudon scooped up a
dipperful and held it to the man's lips. He drank chokingly, and half
the water spilled out on his shirt.
"Stranger," muttered the wounded man, "I'm goin' away from here in a
hurry. Pull off my boots, will yuh?"
Loudon complied with the request. The removal of the boots must have
cruelly hurt the wounded legs, but the man did not even groan.
"That's better," muttered the man, when the boots were off. "I was
hopin' I wouldn't have to cash with 'em on. Who's yore friend?"
Loudon whirled, for his nerves were on edge, and Laguerre, who had
entered without a sound, only saved himself from death by a cat-like
leap to one side. As it was, Loudon's bullet missed him by the veriest
fraction of an inch. Loudon shamefacedly holstered his weapon.
"My fault," said Laguerre, calmly. "Nex' time eet ees bes' I speak
firs', yes. Who ees de man?"
"I dunno. Who are yuh, stranger?"
"Did yuh kill him?" queried the stranger, his eyes beginning to film
over.
"No, he's a friend, too. Can't yuh tell yore name?"
"I'm Tom Hallaway," was the thickly uttered response. "Rufe Cutting
killed my brother Jim an' stole his pinto hoss. Block was with
Cutting, an' helped him. I got 'em both. I said I'd cut Rufe's heart
out--an' I sure--done it. Gimme a--drink."
But before the water came Tom Hallaway's head fell forward, and he died.
"Look here," said Laguerre, who had looked out of the window opposite
Tom Hallaway.
Loudon went to the window. Beneath it two dead men were sprawled.
Their stiffened fingers clutched six-shooters.
"They drilled him through the window," said Loudon, "an' he got 'em
both."
Laguerre nodded solemnly.
"Brave man, dat Tom Hallaway," said Telescope Laguerre.