Whatever may be said to the contrary, there are few more humiliating
moments in a man’s life than when he learns that some other person has
supplanted him in the affections of his adored one. And it was the
Girl’s knowledge of this, together with her desire to spare the feelings
of her two old admirers,--for in her nature there was ever that
thoughtfulness of others which never permitted her to do a mean thing to
anyone,--that had caused her to flee so precipitously from the room.
But painful as was their humiliation as they stood in silence, gazing
with saddened faces at the door through which the Girl had gone out,
their cup of bitterness was not yet full. The next moment the Sheriff,
his lips curled inscrutably, said mockingly:
“Well, boys, the right man has come at last. Take your medicine,
gentlemen.”
His words cut Sonora to the quick, and it was with difficulty that he
braced himself to hear the worst.
“Who’s the man?” he inquired gruffly.
The Sheriff’s eyes fastened themselves upon him; at length with deadly
coldness he drawled out:
“Johnson’s the man.”
All the colour went out of Sonora’s face, while his lips ejaculated:
“Gol A’mighty!”
“You lie!” blazed Trinidad in the next breath, and made a quick movement
towards the Sheriff.
But Rance was not to be denied. Seeing Nick advancing towards them he
called upon him to verify his words; but that individual merely looked
first at one and then the other and did not answer, which silence
infuriated Sonora.
“Why, you tol’ me...?” he said with an angry look in his eye.
“Tol’ you, Sonora? Why he tol’ me the same thing,” protested Trinidad
with an earnestness that, at any other time, would have sent his
listeners into fits of laughter.
This was too much for Sonora; he flew into a paroxysm of rage.
“Well, for a first-class liar...!”
“You bet!” corroborated Trinidad, relapsing, despite his anger, into his
pet phrase.
For some minutes the dejected suitors continued in this strain, now
arguing and then condoling with one another, the boys, meanwhile,
proceeding to clear the school-room of the benches, casks and planks,
lifting or rolling them back into place as if they were made of paper.
All of a sudden Sonora’s face cleared perceptibly. Turning swiftly to
the Sheriff, who sat tilted back in a chair before the fire, he said
with unexpected cheerfulness of voice:
“Why, Johnson’s dead. He got away, an’--”
“Yes, he got away,” remarked Rance, dully, shaking the ashes from his
cigar, which answer, together with the peculiar look which Sonora saw on
the other’s face, made him at once suspicious that something was being
held back from them which they had a right to know. It came about,
therefore, that, with a hasty movement towards the Sheriff, his eyes
glaring, his voice husky, Sonora demanded:
“Jack Rance, I call on you as Sheriff for Johnson! He was in your
county.”
Instantly the cry was taken up by the others, but it was Trinidad who,
shaking his fist in Rance’s face, supplemented:
“You hustle up an’ run a bridle through your p’int o’ teeth or your boom
for re-election’s over, you lily-fingered gambler!”
But the Sheriff did not move a muscle, though after a moment he answered
coolly:
“Oh, I don’t know as I give a damn...!” Which reply, to say the least,
was somewhat disconcerting to the men who had surrounded him and were
eyeing him threateningly.
“No talk--we want Johnson,” insisted Trinidad, hotly.
“We want Johnson,” echoed the crowd in low, tense voices, their fists
clenched.
And still Rance did not waver, but calmly puffing away at his long,
black cigar he looked blankly into space. Presently a voice outside
calling, “Boys!” sounded throughout the room and brought him back to
actuality. He sat straight up in his chair while Nick, shifting uneasily
about on his feet, muttered:
“Why, that’s Ashby!”
“Oh, if--” began the Sheriff and stopped. The next instant the Wells
Fargo Agent, a cool, triumphant look on his face, stood framed in the
doorway. With a hasty movement towards him Rance asked tensely: “Did you
get him?”
The answer came back, almost before the question was asked:
“Yes--we’ve got him.”
“Not Johnson?” demanded Sonora, truculently.
“Yes, Johnson,” affirmed the Wells Fargo Agent with a hard laugh, his
eyes the while upon Handsome, who, unaided, was lifting a heavy cask to
a bench near by.
“Not alive?” questioned Trinidad, unwilling to trust his own ears.
“You bet!” was Ashby’s sententious confirmation, at which pandemonium
broke loose, Nick alone appearing dejected and morose-looking. For his
love and devotion to the Girl were too genuine to permit of his taking
any part whatsoever in what he believed was opposed to her happiness. On
the other hand, Rance, as may be inferred, was inwardly rejoicing,
though when he perceived that Nick was eyeing him steadily he was
careful to lower his eyes lest the little barkeeper should see the
triumph shining beneath them. And, finally, unable to bear Nick’s
scrutiny any longer, he explained with a feeble attempt at self-defence:
“Well, I didn’t do it, Nick, I didn’t do it.” But a moment later, his
face hard and set, he added: “Now he be damned! There’s an end of
Johnson!”
The words were hardly out of his mouth, however, than Johnson, his arms
bound, followed by the Deputy, strode into the room with the courage of
one who has long faced death, and stood before the men who glared at him
with fire in their eyes and murder in their hearts.
“How do you do, Mr. Johnson. I think, Mr. Johnson, five minutes will do
for you.” Rance gave to the words a peculiar accent and inflection, but
this caused the prisoner to look even more composed and calm than
before; he returned crisply:
“I think so.”
“So this is the gentleman the Girl loves?” Sonora’s face wore a cruel
grin as he stood with arms folded leering at the prisoner.
The biting humour of the thought appealed to Rance, and he smiled grimly
to himself.
“That’s the gentleman”--he was saying when a voice outside broke in upon
his words with:
“Nick! Boys! Boys!”
“It’s the Girl!” cried Nick in dismay, at the same time rushing over to
the door to intercept her; while Ashby, desirous of preventing any
communication between the Girl and the prisoner took up a position
between them--unnecessary precautions, since the Girl had no intention
of re-entering the room, but wished merely to say that she had forgotten
that it was recess and that the boys might have one drink.
At the sound of her voice Johnson paled. He listened to her retreating
steps, then turning towards Nick he asked him to lock the door.
“Why, the devil...!” objected the Sheriff, angrily.
“Please,” urged the prisoner with such a look of entreaty in his eyes
that Nick could not find it in his heart to deny him, and went forthwith
to the door and locked it.
“Why, you--” began Sonora with a hurried movement towards the prisoner.
“You keep out of this, Sonora,” enjoined the Sheriff, coming forward to
take a hand in the proceedings. “I handle the rope--pick the tree....”
“Then hurry ...” said Sonora, impatiently, while Trinidad interposed
with his usual, “You bet!”
“One moment,” said the prisoner as the miners started to go out; and,
strange to relate, the Sheriff ordered the men to halt. Turning once
more to the prisoner, he said:
“Be quick--what is it?”
“It is true,” began the unfortunate road agent in an even, unemotional
voice, “that I love the Girl.”
At these words Rance’s arms flew up threateningly, while a mocking smile
sprang to his lips.
“Well, you won’t in a minute,” he reminded him grimly.
The taunt brought no change of expression to the prisoner’s face or
change of tone in his voice as he went on to say that he did not care
what they did to him; that he was prepared for anything; and that every
man who travelled the path that he did faced death every day for a drink
of water or ten minutes’ sleep, concluding calmly:
“You’ve got me and I wouldn’t care but for the Girl.”
“You’ve got just three minutes!” A shade almost of contempt was in
Sonora’s exclamation.
“Yes...!” blazed Trinidad.
There was an impressive silence; then in a voice that trembled
strangely between pride and humility Johnson continued:
“I don’t want her to know my end. Why, that would be an awful thought
for her to go on with all her life--that I died out there--near at hand.
Why, boys, she couldn’t stay here after that--she couldn’t....”
“That’s understood,” replied Rance, succinctly.
“I’d like her to think,” went on the prisoner, with difficulty choking
back the tears, “that I got away clear and went East and changed my way
of living. So you just drag me a good ways from here before you--” He
stopped abruptly and began to swallow nervously. When he spoke again it
was with a perceptible change of manner. “And when I don’t write and she
never hears why she will say, ‘he’s forgotten me,’ and that will be
about enough for her to remember, because she loved me before she knew
what I was--and you can’t change love in a minute.”
All the while Johnson had been speaking the Sheriff’s jealousy had been
growing steadily until, finally, turning upon the other with a
succession of oaths he struck him a fierce blow in the face.
“I don’t blame you,” returned the prisoner without a trace of malice in
his voice. “Strike me again--strike me--one death is not enough for me.
Damn me--I wish you could.... Oh, why couldn’t I have let her pass! I’m
sorry I came her way--but it’s too late now, it’s too late....”
Rance, not in the least affected by what the prisoner had been saying,
asked if that was his last word.
Johnson nodded.
Trinidad, simultaneously with his nod, snapped his finger, indicating
that the prisoner’s time was up.
“Dep!” called the Sheriff, sharply.
The Deputy came forward and took his prisoner in charge.
“Good-bye, sir!” said Nick, who was visibly affected.
“Good-bye!” returned the prisoner, briefly. “You tell the Girl--no, come
to think of it, Nick, don’t say anything....”
“Come on, you!” ordered Happy.
Whereupon with a shout and an imprecation the men removed en masse to
the door.
“Boys,” intervened Nick at this juncture, rushing into their midst,
“when Alliger was hanged Rance let ’im see his sweetheart. I think,
considerin’ as how she ain’t goin’ to see no more o’ Mr. Johnson here,
an’ knowin’ the Girl’s feelin’s--well, I think she ought to have a
chance to--”
Nick was not allowed to finish, for instantly the men were up in arms
raising a most vigorous objection to his proposal; but, notwithstanding,
Nick, evidently bent upon calling the Girl, started for the door.
“No,” objected Rance, obstinately.
The road agent took a step forward and, turning upon the Sheriff with a
desperately hopeless expression upon his face, he said:
“Jack Rance, there were two of us--I’ve had my chance. Inside of ten
minutes I’ll be dead and it will be all your way. Couldn’t you let me--”
He paused, and ended almost piteously with: “Oh, I thought I’d have the
courage not to ask, but, Oh, couldn’t you let me--couldn’t you--”
Once more Nick intervened by shrewdly prevaricating:
“Here’s the Girl, boys!”
But this ruse of Nick’s met with no greater success than his previous
efforts, for Rance, putting his foot down heavily upon the stove, voiced
a vigorous protest.
“All right,” said the prisoner, resignedly. Nevertheless, his face
reflected his disappointment. Turning now to Nick he thanked him for his
efforts in his behalf.
“You must excuse Rance,” remarked the little barkeeper with a
significant look at the Sheriff, “for bein’ so small a man as to deny
the usual cour-tesies, but he ain’t quite himself.”
Weary of their cavilling, for he believed that in the end the Sheriff
would carry his point, and determined to go before his courage failed
him, Johnson made a movement towards the door. Speaking bravely, though
his voice trembled, he said:
“Come, boys--come.”
But, odd as it may seem, Nick’s words had taken root.
“Wait a minute,” Rance temporised.
The prisoner halted.
“I don’t know that I’m so small a man as to deny the usual courtesies,
since you put it that way,” continued Rance. “I always have extended
them. But we’ll hear what you have to say--that’s our protection. And it
might interest some of us to hear what the Girl will have to say to you,
Mr. Johnson--after a week in her cabin there may be more to know than--”