A HAND IN THE FUN
"What under the shining sun!" exclaimed Lounsbury, spilling ground
coffee into his boot-tops. He strode to the front of the store, the tin
scoop in his hand still held recklessly upside down. A pung was passing
the grocery--a green pung drawn by a milk-white horse. On its
quilt-padded seat were two men. Above them, as they slowly proceeded,
sagged a high board cross.
Lounsbury glanced inquiringly about him. His neighbours were also
watching the strange sight. At the windows of the bunk-house opposite,
and at the openings of other buildings near, were many faces, wide with
good-natured grins. As Lounsbury turned to the travellers again his own
mouth curved in a smile.
But, all at once, he sobered. The pung was now so far away that the
backs of the men were presented to him; and between them, projecting at
a slant over the seat, were the curved tops of a pair of crutches.
Jocular opinions of the passers-by were being freely exchanged back and
forth; he paid no heed to them. The scoop dropped from his hand and
clattered upon the floor; he let it lay. Silent and troubled, unaware of
the demands of an insistent customer, he looked after the departing
sleigh.
At last, he acted. Without waiting even to put on his cap, he started at
a run up the street. His race, bareheaded, increased the laughter of
those who were still watching. They yelled to him boisterously: "Sic'
'em, Bud!" "Sell 'em somethin', John!" "Drag 'em back an' skin 'em!" But
the storekeeper was deaf. Each yard made him more certain of the
identity of one traveller; his thoughts, as he pursued, were of him. He
gained rapidly on the pung. At the edge of the camp, in the trough of a
drift, he stopped it.
Lancaster spoke first, for Lounsbury was too spent. "Wal? wal?" he said
crabbedly.
"Excuse me," panted the other, giving, in his eagerness, only a glance
at David Bond, "excuse me, but I see you're headed from home. I
wondered--I thought maybe I could do a turn for the young ladies while
you're gone."
For a moment the section-boss did not reply. He was still smarting over
Dallas' generalship, and, if anything, was more disgusted and rebellious
than when he left the shack. So, in the brief pause, he gave ready ear
to the whispering of the yellow harpy. His lids lowered. His lip curled.
"You understand, I'm sure," Lounsbury hastened to say. "I thought they
might be alone, that----"
"Thank y'," answered Lancaster, snapping out each word; "thank y', they
_is_ alone. An' you'll oblige me a damn sight by leavin' 'em thet way."
He settled himself in his seat. "Git ap!" he said to Shadrach. The pung
slipped slowly on.
Lounsbury was too taken aback either to follow or to retreat. For a
while, he stayed where he was, busily coining forcible phrases for the
relief of his mind. As he retraced his steps, the few who saw him were
discreetly silent. For the camp knew that there were rare moments when
it was best to give him a wide berth.
The interview in the trough of the drift was so brief that David Bond
was shut out of it. But had it been longer--had he been given a chance
to speak--the result might have been the same. The section-boss had been
mute all the way to Clark's. The fact that Dallas had told him to relate
the story of the claim was the strongest reason for his not doing so.
David Bond, therefore, was left in ignorance, and had no means of
connecting the evil companion of his journey north with the fortunes of
the Lancasters. So, as they left Lounsbury behind, he even found some
censure in his heart for the storekeeper.
"You were quite right," he said, flicking Shadrach gently. "That young
man should pay no visit to your daughters while you are absent.
Yet,"--he could not refrain from putting a reproof where it seemed
due--"yet, I regret your manner of addressing him, your oath----"
Lancaster glared. "Oh, you' gran'mother's tortoise-shell cat!" he said
wrathfully. For several hours thereafter he added nothing to this.
Back in his store, Lounsbury was mixing brown sugar with white, oolong
tea with a green variety, and putting thread in the pickle-barrel.
Simultaneously, he was torturing himself: Had the section-boss left home
with no danger threatening? But--the green pung was undoubtedly bound
for Bismarck. What was it that had suddenly made him see the necessity
of attending to the claim? Along with this came self-arraignment: After
all, he should have told Lancaster that a man who claimed the
quarter-section on the peninsula had been called from Dodge City.
Lounsbury had been certain that Matthews could not reach Fort Brannon
before the spring. But it had never occurred to him that the
section-boss would leave his girls alone! Now, he vowed that if any harm
befell Dallas and Marylyn, he had only himself to blame.
He buckled on his pistol-belt and padlocked the door. "I don't care
whether the old man likes it or not," he declared aloud, "I'm going down
there."
As he swung through the camp on his way to the corral, he saw one of Old
Michael's helpers coming toward him, picking his steps in the slush. The
man motioned, and held out a white something. It was an envelope, grimy
and unaddressed.
Lounsbury ripped it open and pulled out a written sheet.
"der mr lunsbery [ran the note] mathuse com las nite in a
quere outfit with a krazy preecher the preecher i think is
at the landcasters but the other sunuvagun is her i hav a i
on him prity kold wether river sollid."
It was partly through the generous employment of his imagination that
the storekeeper was able to make out the scrawl, which, though not
signed, he knew to be the pilot's. That same imagination enabled him to
bring up numberless disturbing--almost terrible--pictures.
The astonished helper gazed after him as he went tearing away in the
direction of the horse-herd. "By jingo!" he grumbled; "twenty miles--and
he didn't even say treat!"
Soon Lounsbury's favorite saddler, urged on by a quirt, was kicking up a
path across the crusted drifts that Shadrach had so recently surmounted.
As the storekeeper cantered swiftly forward, a new question presented
itself to him: Was the "preacher" in league with Matthews, and so was
carrying the section-boss out of the way? He decided negatively. He had
given only a glance to Lancaster's companion, but that, together with
the passing glimpse from the store, had shown him a venerable man whose
piercing eyes held a pious light. He was no scoundrel confederate. He
was plainly but a brave, perhaps a fanatic and foolhardy, apostle in the
wilderness, and his calling had kept Matthews from confiding in him.
While Lounsbury thus alternately tortured and eased his mind, he had
passed the sombre clump of cottonwoods where the Indian dead were
lashed, and was fast covering the miles that lay between the burial
boughs and Fort Brannon.
* * * * *
When the ten minutes he had allotted were past, Matthews made a great
show of putting away his watch and took a last pull at the whisky flask.
The bottle disposed of, he walked down the drift to the warped door and
rapped a staccato. No answer was returned. Again, he rapped, and more
imperatively than before. Again, no answer. He pushed back his hat and
applied an ear to the hole through which had hung the lifting-string of
the latch. Then he heard long, unfrequent sobs, like those of a child
who, though almost asleep, is yet sorrowing. Between the sobs,
punctuating them fiercely, sounded the prolonged sucking-in of breath.
"Might as well stop y' bawlin' an' squallin'," he called through the
latch-hole. "Time's up!"
Getting no reply, as before, he altered his tactics. First, shading his
face with his slim fingers, he looked in. He could not see the girls.
Dallas was close to the door and beyond the limit of his vision. So was
Marylyn, who, helpless with fright, half knelt, half lay, against her
sister. What he could see was--from the south window--the gaudy Navajo
blankets forming two partitions of Lancaster's bedroom, and, nearer, two
partly filled sacks, some harnesses and the seat of a wagon. The other
window afforded a better view. "Looks mighty comfortable," he said as he
contemplated it. There was a hearth with its dying fire; in front of it
were circling benches and a thick buffalo-skin rug; above was a mantel,
piled with calico-covered books; a freshly scrubbed table stood in the
farther corner beneath a dish-cupboard, which was made of a dry goods
box; to the left of this--high up on the log wall--were a couple of
pegs.
It was these that finally riveted Matthews' attention and brought him to
a temporary halt. "Got th' gun down!" he exclaimed. On finding that
Lancaster was gone, he had decided not to produce a weapon. Now,
however, he quickly felt for one and dropped on all fours. "That biggest
gal 'd no more mind pumpin' lead into me than nothin'," he declared,
wagging his head wisely. "I could tell that by the shine in her eyes."
He crawled around the corner.
Behind the lean-to, he came to several conclusions: It would be useless
to try to get in by either window; both were high and small; the best
spot for an attack was the door. Unless he was hard pressed, he must not
shoot; women were concerned, and the fort or Clark's might be stirred
to unreasonable retaliation in their name; for example, there was that
poor devil of a cow-puncher at Dodge who had been riddled simply for
slapping his wife.... Obviously, the shack must be occupied without the
shedding of blood. But what of his safety? "I'll jus' have t' chance
it," he said, and hunted for something to use as a battering-ram.
Not a pole, not even a piece of board, could he find. A scarcity of fuel
before Squaw Charley began furnishing it had led to the burning of every
odd bit of timber. Disgruntled, but not discouraged, Matthews crawled
back to the front of the cabin and closely examined the door. "I thought
so!" he declared joyfully when he was done. Rain and snow had swelled
the thick boards of which it was built. But through the narrow cracks
between these, he saw that the transverse pieces on the inside, like the
four without, were only slender battens. "If I can git some of them
cleats off," he said, "I can bust in."
With a horn-handle knife he pried up the end of a batten until he could
get his fingers beneath it. Then he pulled, and it came away. A light
strip from side to side marked where it had been. Three times more he
pried and pulled, and the outer transverse pieces lay on the snow. For
the rest of his job Matthews had to depend on his shoulders.
Putting his knife in his pocket, he backed to the top of the nearest
drift. There he gathered himself together and, with a defiant grunt,
hurled himself headlong at the door. As it bent with the force of the
impact, a shriek rang out. Well satisfied, Matthews retreated and flung
himself forward a second time. The door cracked ominously; the inside
bolt rattled in its sockets. Anticipating a speedy entrance, Matthews
warmed to his task. And each time he fell upon the barrier, a weak moan
from within swelled to a cry of mortal terror.
And then--a few feet behind him, a voice interrupted--a well-modulated
voice, in an amused, ironical tone. "Well," it said slowly, "I hope
you're enjoying yourself."
Matthews whirled and reached for a weapon. He was too late. As he swung
it forward, the single eye of a revolver held his. Beyond was Lounsbury.
A queer tremor ran around the storekeeper's mouth. His nostrils swelled,
and he wrinkled his forehead. "Sorry," he said drily, "but it's my
bead."
Sheer surprise, together with a lack of breath, made the other dumb.
"Drop your gun," bade Lounsbury.
Matthews' right hand loosed its hold. His revolver fell, and slid,
spinning, to the bottom of the drift.
"Now I know all you want to say," said Lounsbury. "That this claim is
yours, that your six months ain't up, that Lancaster's jumped it, and so
on. But that won't excuse what you've tried to do--break into this house
while these young women are alone. Besides, you haven't the ghost of a
right to this land. So you'll oblige me by keeping off it from now on."
Matthews found his tongue. "Who in hell are you?" he demanded coolly.
"Who am I?" repeated the storekeeper, smiling down the revolver barrel.
"Why, I'm St. George, and you're the dragon." He raised his voice.
"Miss Lancaster!" he called. "Miss Lancaster!"
A face appeared at a window, then a second. There were more cries, but
not of fear. The sash was pushed open. Dallas and Marylyn, the younger
girl still clinging to the elder, looked out.
"It's all right," said the storekeeper, not taking his eyes from the
enemy. "I'm here."
Dallas could not answer. But Marylyn, though exhausted, was fully alive
to their rescue. Her eyes, wide and tearful, were fixed upon Lounsbury.
"Oh, we're afraid!" she cried plaintively; "pa's gone, and we're
afraid!"
"You needn't be, any more," he said reassuringly.
Matthews, under his breath, was cursing the self-contained man in the
saddle. Enraged at the storekeeper's interference, hot with
disappointment, he saw himself stood up like a tenderfoot. But his
caution prevailed. A certain expression in Lounsbury's eyes, a certain
square set to his jaw--the very cues that guided the cattle-camp--made
him cautious.
"Look a-here," he said to Lounsbury, assuming a conciliatory manner.
"Let's talk as one gent to another. These ladies is your friends. So
far, so good. But I has my rights, and I can prove that I slep' on this
quarter-section three times and----"
Lounsbury's face darkened. He was lightly ironical no longer. He urged
his mount forward. "Don't argue with me, you infernal blackguard," he
said. "You can prove anything you want to by a lot of perjuring,
thieving land-grabbers. Don't I know 'em! If you filed on this claim you
were hired to do it. You hadn't an idea of settling, or building a
home. You did it for speculating purposes--nothing else. And the law, I
happen to know, is dead against that. You're a shark. But your game
won't work. These folks are going to stay in this shack and on this
Bend. _And you be mighty careful you don't make 'em any trouble!_"
"I'll git a Bismarck lawyer," declared Matthews.
"Yes, and we'll tar and feather the shyster. What's more, I'll head a
bunch of Clark's boys, and we'll wipe Shanty Town off the face of the
earth."
Matthews raised his shoulders and put his tongue in his cheek. "You're
mighty interested in these ladies, seems t' me," he said insinuatingly.
The slur did not escape the storekeeper. It determined him to parley no
further. "Hoist your hands!" he commanded.
Matthews obeyed. His fingers were twitching.
The next command was curt. "Mosey!"
The other moved away. When he was beyond pistol range, he produced his
second revolver and waved it above his head. "You jus' wait!" he
shouted. "You jus' wait! I'll fix y'!"
Lounsbury returned him a mocking salute.