THE NEST OF THE CROW.
In the heart of the bad lands, where the Bitter Root Mountain range
begins, lies the nest of the crow, one of the few remaining hide-outs
which the taming West affords. It is easy of access once you know
the trail whether you come from the prosperous Montana towns to the
south or from the Canadian province to the north. And it is safe
enough to all who have won their spurs at outlawry in either
direction. A single road leads to it; although there are several
trails away from it, available to those who are "in the know" and
forced to make a sudden get-away.
At the entrance gulch, through which the only wagon road winds its
way into the dreary upland, so well called "bad," there dwells a
small rancher who finds it worth while to keep within the law. His
chief source of income, on which he pays no tax, is to signal the
approach of strangers, particularly officers of the State or Federal
government. A flag which he can raise or lower without leaving his
front porch sends the alarm to the outlaw nest. The system may be
old-fashioned, but it has not yet been discarded either for the
telephone or the radio. Telephone wires can be cut by a posse that
really is in earnest about paying the Nest a surprise visit and radio
communication is, as yet, too much of a mystery to interest these
border folk as a safeguard.
It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon when Sergeant Jack rode
up to the out-guard ranch house. From his previous visit to Montana
he had learned enough about Crow's Nest to understand the method of
safe approach. The bandage had disappeared from his forehead;
written there in lines of fire was the horseshoe brand of disgrace.
Lounging, as was his wont, in a sway-backed chair built by stretching
an undressed hide upon a proper arrangement of saplings, loafed the
outguard--a long-nosed, lanky, unshaven mountaineer. At his feet, in
half slumber, lay a couple of nondescript hounds, reputed to be
efficient guardians, so far as alarm was concerned, of the entrance
gulch at night. In the scraggly front yard a boy of nine or ten
years was playing as best he might with no mate to make up a real
game. In the open door of the shack a slovenly woman appeared,
evidently the wife and mother, drawn from some household task by the
noise of the horse's approach.
"Greetings and salutations, friend," was the sergeant's opening. "Is
everything sitting pretty up at the Nest?" His hat was tilted low
over his forehead, concealing the informative scar.
"That there all depends on who yuh are and what yuh want," returned
the man on the porch without moving a muscle of his elongated frame.
"I'm Doc Chase, ranchman and honest. I don't pay no attention what
goes on up there. Who're yuh?"
Childress removed his Stetson, disclosing the tell-tale wound which
already was beginning to look like a scar.
Chase started up in his chair, then sank back again, as though the
effort was painful.
"They got yuh, eh?" he remarked. "Wonder they let yuh get away,
Childress, with just a brand, considering the Strathconna Breeders
has put an alive-or-dead on you."
"How did you know my name?" the sergeant demanded.
"Don't know your real name--only the one you've borrowed from
somebody in the Mounted. Recognized yuh from the description on the
bill and the picture. What was the matter with your gun that yuh let
'em treat yuh like a maverick?"
"They got me when I wasn't looking and I guess they didn't know about
the reward. You don't seem interested in collecting it."
Doc Chase sniffed loftily. "Blood money ain't no good to no one
stranger. I reckon you'll be welcome up to the Nest. Tommie!" This
last was called to the boy who came quickly from his play. "Tommie,
run up the flag."
"The stripes or the white one?" asked the lad.
"The white, you young idiot. Can't yuh recognize a friend when yuh
see one?"
So Childress rode on into the rough country, confident that no
pot-shot would be taken at him from the abundant cover on either side
of the trail. Had the stars and stripes fluttered from the signal
mast on the hill behind Doc Chase's cabin, he probably would not have
been allowed to cover the first of the two miles that intervened
without being made a target. As the flag was white, he rode safely
and unchallenged into the small mountain park which so surprisingly
decorated the region of mountainous despoliation.
Years before Bart Crowe, a potential outlaw, had found refuge there,
liked the semi-forested location, and had taken up a homestead. Once
the property was his and his debt to the law squared by the statute
of limitations, he had built a log hotel and passed the word among
his hard-riding, careless friends that at Crow's Nest was a sure
refuge in the time of storm. The arrangement with Doc Chase had come
later and was particularly designed against Prohibition raiders,
since Montana sheriffs and their deputies preferred to wait until men
they desired had left the "nest."
With the law's repression closing in on the better known and more
respectable resorts of the state, Crowe's business had increased. A
supply of liquor always available through his rum runners from the
North, he had built up quite a trade with loggers from the camps in
the Bitter Root forests. They could get in if they looked right to
Doc Chase and stay until they had spent their earnings. If there was
a tougher place in the United States than Crow's Nest--he had dropped
the "e" of his own name for that of the glossy-black carrion birds
which were at home among the cedars--Bart Crowe would have wondered
"how come."
Before the main structure of the small settlement--a log building of
considerable size--Childress dropped rein on his cayuse and entered.
Beyond the open door he found a long bar, its wood unpolished and
with no brass rail for impatient feet, at which half a dozen men were
drinking. Two wore the vividly-colored Mackinaws of lumberjacks and
the calk studded boots that went with the same; two were in riding
clothes of balloon-trousered cut; a fifth was dressed in the height
of Helena fashion and the sixth he recognized from description as
Bart Crowe himself. Behind the rough bar, a pasty youth with
plastered hair was polishing glasses. The only difference between
him and the bartenders of the pre-Volstead era was the fact that he
wore a flannel shirt instead of a white jacket, but under the collar
of that shirt blazed a crimson tie with a more-or-less diamond
accompaniment.
No one paid particular attention to the newcomer, although seven
covert glances certainly were directed his way. They had known that
someone was coming, as reported by the flag. It was up to him to
make the first overture.
Childress glanced at the group, as though seeking a familiar face,
and he nodded to the man so easily recognized as the proprietor. He
still wore his hat, pulled down over his eyes.
Then he crossed to as strange a bulletin board as ever an outlaw camp
boasted. The freshest and most prominent "Wanted" placard held his
entire attention, as it was the first time he had seen it since he
had ordered a few of them printed and privately and particularly
distributed by his friend the sheriff of Bison County, Montana.
Below a reasonably good likeness of himself appeared with the usual
flare of the small-town printer:
$1,000 REWARD
DEAD or ALIVE
This amount will be paid by the
undersigned for the capture in any
form of
JACK CHILDRESS
wanted for horse stealing. Has
taken name of Mounted Police
officer and may wear uniform.
And there followed a description that was more or less accurate.
Childress spent several minutes studying this poster; then he crossed
to the bar.
"Pen and ink," he requested.
The bartender looked startled; the drinkers glanced up.
"Don't serve 'em usually; would you have 'em with or without?"
Childress started a long reach over the bar, which the drink-mixer
avoided. Then, evidently, he got a glance-of-eye order from Bart
Crowe; set out a bottle of ink and a scratchy pen. "We don't cash no
checks up here, mister," he asserted, not to be denied a last fling.
The sergeant took the bottle in one hand, the pen in the other and
crossed to the board. There he traced a horseshoe on the brow of the
half-tone presentment of himself. When he had finished and returned
the pen and ink, he swept off his hat and addressed the group at the
bar.
"Now, gents, that poster looks something like me," he said casually.
"If anyone of you needs a thousand dollars reward----"
He waited. The others stared--stared most fixedly at the horseshoe
scar upon his forehead, in that outlaw camp a royal badge.
"Be yourself, son!" The admonition came from Bart Crowe. "Step up
and name your poison--one's as bad as the other."
"You don't mind the brand, then?" Childress demanded.
"Hell, no!" said Crowe.
With that the sergeant walked over to the bulletin board and pulled
down the poster which he had arranged to have posted against himself.
"That's a go," he said. "What'll you all have."
While they were having--mostly "another of the same"--Childress
stepped to the swinging door of the back room where a tin-piano and a
"fiddle" were making music for some sort of a dance. Several women
were there--best not described. They rented cabins from Crowe for a
profession that is older than the oldest. The two-piece orchestra
blared, and the two couples on the floor seemed to dance until one of
the women, a brunette slightly beyond the life she obviously was
leading, caught sight of the stranger in the doorway. At once she
let go the big lumberjack who was trying to follow her through the
steps of a waltz.
"Here's my man at last!" she cried and quit her rough-shod partner
cold.
"Not me," said Childress, trying to back out.
But he was not quick enough. The woman insisted that he dance with
her, insisted even to the point of laying violent hands upon him.
The group at the bar saw the attack and applauded.
"Better give in afore you offend the lady," advised one of his newly
made acquaintances--the one with the pegleg. "Delores Doleroso
drives a wicked knife and gen'ally gits what she thinks she wants."
"Come on, you big, beautiful horse thief," urged Delores. "I just
love to waltz with a man what's wanted dead-or-alive." She turned to
the two-piece "orchestra." "Start that number over!" she commanded.
None of them paid any particular attention to the Swede logger who
had been ditched in the midst of a dance for which he already had
paid. The mackinaw-clad giant stood mid-floor, rocking his huge
frame backward and forward on the calks that studded the soles of his
boots. The while he clawed at a blond-bushed chin, his sky-blue eyes
shooting dangerous fires.
Although not in the least interested in the dark-eyed dance hall girl
who had drafted him as partner, Childress could not be rough with a
woman. Since she would not be shaken off gently, there seemed
nothing to do but to dance with her. A skillful "stepper," despite
infrequent indulgence, he swung her out upon the floor from which all
but the deserted logger had retired.
From the Swede came a snarl. "You tank you can steal my girl--Sven
Larsen's girl!" was his shout in bellicose basso. "I finish you
now--once for sure."
On top of the threat came swift advance which left Childress no doubt
that he was in for a fight.