FAIR EXCHANGE
ALL day alone, a stranger, almost a prisoner in Lou Gore’s little
room, Taisie Lockhart for once in her life was now almost in a condition
of hysteria. The strain and stress of the long trail journey, the
anxiety of her hazard of fortunes, the relaxation of success—and now
all these scenes and sounds of violence in combination so worked upon
her worn nerves that she no longer was herself. Lou Gore was much put to
it to comfort her, and, indeed, was glad enough to welcome Jim Nabours
and the boy Cinquo, who later in the evening came in to tell the news of
the affair at the Silver Moon. These two paused in the outer room, not
daring to ask once more to see their mistress.
“You tell her, ma’am,” said Jim Nabours. “Tell her we got Rudabaugh safe
and his gang busted wide open—three of them killed. Dan McMasters, he
taken Rudabaugh prisoner hisself in a fair stand-up fight.”
“Well, all right, all right,” responded Lou Gore; “I’ll tell her
anything. Nobody in town has had any supper yet. We can’t have no dance
now. This is the beatingest Fourth of July ever I did see. I declare,
you cowboys give me more trouble than my gamblers.
“I don’t want to be nasty to you,” she went on. “But you’ve got to keep
out of my kitchen. Here, take a couple of keys and go on upstairs and go
to bed. I declare, I am right tired my own self.”
Meekly obedient, although reluctant not to see the mistress of Del Sol
before he slept, Jim Nabours clumsily climbed the stairs, the boy close
at his heels.
“What’s wrong, Mister Jim?” asked Cinquo solicitously. “Ain’t we sold
out all right?”
“Yes,” said his foreman gruffly. “We’ve won out on the cows. But we’ve
lost out on the land. You know that trunk?”
“Shore. I do. It was always getting in the road everywheres.”
“It won’t be no more! It’s gone—lost—stole. It was worth ten times as
much as all our cows. Old Rudabaugh knows where it is, but he ain’t so
apt to tell.”
As he spoke he flung open the door of a room, one of many precisely
alike on either side of the upper hall. But he paused.
“Hello!” said he. “There’s some one in here now, and he’s gone to bed.”
The bed indeed was occupied—occupied by a long and motionless figure, a
pillow slip drawn across his face, the hands folded on the breast.
“I’ll be——” Jim Nabours halted as something caught his eye. He stepped
forward, drew back the face covering.
“Why, it’s Cal Dalhart!” said he. “He’s dead all right—but they done
told me he was buried! McCoyne told me he seen it done hisself!”
The boy came and stared down in awe at the long and motionless figure,
the white face.
“Him and Del, now——”
But Nabours took him by the arm. The two went down the stairs once more
into the office room.
“Mister,” said Nabours to the gloomy occupant, handing over his key,
“you’d better give me another room.”
“What’s the matter with the one you’ve got?” demanded the landlord of
the Drovers’ Cottage.
“Somebody in it now,” replied Nabours, “and he’s dead. They told me that
you-all got a couple of men to bury that man that got shot. Is that
right? It was Mr. McCoyne told me that. Where is he?”
Sounds of voices came through the open door. A group of men were talking
excitedly in the moonlight. The landlord summoned in one of
these—McCoyne, ubiquitous and sleepless. To him Nabours repeated his
query.
“Certainly, sir,” replied McCoyne. “I saw the two men carrying the
coffin between them. I saw them bury him as plain as I ever saw anything
in all my life! Of course, I wasn’t right out there with them. I been so
busy——”
“Well, he ain’t buried now,” said Jim Nabours. “Cal Dalhart’s up there,
upstairs.”
“Don’t that beat anything you ever heard!” exclaimed McCoyne. “It seems
like everything goes wrong unless a man does it his own self, don’t it
now?”
“You come along with me,” said Nabours, moved by a sudden thought of his
own. “You get two men—new ones. I believe them two folks that buried
Cal Dalhart is both dead theirselfs. Bring a couple of shovels. Hurry
up!”
* * * * *
A little group of men departed in the moonlight on a certain gruesome
errand. It was Jim Nabours himself who began at the loose dirt of the
mound at whose head there had been erected a little headboard: “C.
Dalhart, of Texas. Died July 4, 1867. May he rest in peace.”
“He couldn’t never rest in peace thisaway,” said Jim Nabours a half hour
later. His shovel struck something hard.
“Here, lend us a hand,” said he. “Sinker, get hold the other handle of
this trunk. It’s heavy. Huh! It’s got a half million acres of Texas land
into it!”
“And we’ve got Sim Rudabaugh over in the livery stable,” he added after
a time thoughtfully, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “This
ain’t no bad day’s work a-tall. You people go on back and bring Cal over
here and we’ll bury him right. A fair exchange ain’t no robbery.”