CLAY APPOINTS HIMSELF CHAPERON
As he traveled east Clay began to slough the outward marks of his
calling. He gave his spurs to Johnnie before he left the ranch. At
Tucson he shed his chaps and left them in care of a friend at the
Longhorn Corral. The six-gun with which he had shot rattlesnakes he
packed into his suitcase at El Paso. His wide-rimmed felt hat flew off
while the head beneath it was stuck out of a window of the coach
somewhere south of Denver. Before he passed under the Welcome Arch in
that city the silk kerchief had been removed from his brown neck and
retired to the hip pocket which formerly held his forty-five.
The young cattleman began to flatter himself that nobody could now tell
he was a wild man from the hills who had never been curried. He might
have spared himself the illusion. Everybody he met knew that this
clean-cut young athlete, with the heavy coat of tan on his good-looking
face, was a product of the open range. The lightness of his stride,
the breadth of the well-packed shoulders, the frankness of the steady
eyes, all advertised him a son of Arizona.
It was just before noon at one of the small plains towns east of Denver
that a girl got on the train and was taken by the porter to a section
back of Clay Lindsay. The man from Arizona noticed that she was
refreshingly pretty in an unsophisticated way.
A little later he had a chance to confirm this judgment, for the
dining-car manager seated her opposite him at a table for two. When
Clay handed her the menu card she murmured "Thank you!" with a rush of
color to her cheeks and looked helplessly at the list in her hand.
Quite plainly she was taking her first long journey.
"Do I have to order everything that is here?" she presently asked shyly
after a tentative and furtive glance at her table companion.
Clay felt no inclination to smile at her naivete. He was not very much
more experienced than she was in such things, but his ignorance of
forms never embarrassed him. They were details that seemed to him to
have no importance.
The cowpuncher helped her fill the order card. She put herself
entirely in his hands and was willing to eat whatever he suggested
unbiased by preferences of her own. He included chicken salad and ice
cream. From the justice she did her lunch he concluded that his choice
had been a wise one.
She was a round, soft, little person with constant intimations of a
childhood not long outgrown. Dimples ran in and out her pink cheeks at
the slightest excuse. The blue eyes were innocently wide and the
Cupid's-bow mouth invitingly sweet. The girl from Brush, Colorado, was
about as worldly-wise as a plump, cooing infant or a fluffy kitten, and
instinctively the eye caressed her with the same tenderness.
During the course of lunch she confided that her name was Kitty Mason,
that she was an orphan, and that she was on her way to New York to
study at a school for moving-picture actresses.
"I sent my photograph and the manager wrote back that my face was one
hundred per cent perfect for the movies," the girl explained.
It was clear that she was expecting to be manufactured into a film star
in a week or two. Clay doubted whether the process was quite so easy,
even with a young woman who bloomed in the diner like a rose of the
desert.
After they had finished eating, the range-rider turned in at the
smoking compartment and enjoyed a cigar. He fell into casual talk with
an army officer who had served in the Southwest, and it was three hours
later when he returned to his own seat in the car.
A hard-faced man in a suit of checks more than a shade too loud was
sitting in the section beside the girl from Brush. He was making talk
in an assured, familiar way, and the girl was listening to him shyly
and yet eagerly. The man was a variation of a type known to Lindsay.
That type was the Arizona bad-man. If this expensively dressed fellow
was not the Eastern equivalent of the Western gunman, Clay's experience
was badly at fault. The fishy, expressionless eyes, the colorless
face, the tight-lipped jaw, expressed a sinister personality and a
dangerous one. Just now a suave good-humor veiled the evil of him, but
the cowpuncher knew him for a wolf none the less.
Clay had already made friends with the Pullman conductor. He drifted
to him now on the search for information.
"The hard-faced guy with the little girl?" he asked casually after the
proffer of a cigar. "The one with the muscles bulging out all over
him--who is he?"
"He comes by that tough mug honestly. That's Jerry Durand."
"The prize-fighter?"
"Yep. Used to be. He's a gang leader in New York now. On his way
back from the big fight in 'Frisco."
"He was some scrapper," admitted the range-rider. "Almost won the
championship once, didn't he?"
"Lost on a foul. He always was a dirty fighter. I saw him the time he
knocked out Reddy Moran."
"What do you mean gang leader?"
"He's boss of his district, they say. Runs a gambling-house of his
own, I've heard. You can't prove it by me."
When Lindsay returned to his place he settled himself with a magazine
in a seat where he could see Kitty and her new friend. The very
vitality of the girl's young life was no doubt a temptation to this
man. The soft, rounded throat line, the oval cheek's rich coloring so
easily moved to ebb and flow, the carmine of the full red lips: every
detail helped to confirm the impression of a sensuous young creature,
innocent as a wild thing of the forests and as yet almost as
unspiritual. She was a child of the senses, and the man sitting beside
her was weighing and appraising her with a keen and hungry avidity.
Durand took the girl in to dinner with him and they sat not far from
Lindsay. Kitty was lost to any memory of those about her. She was
flirting joyously with a sense of newly awakened powers. The man from
Graham County, Arizona, felt uneasy in his mind. The girl was flushed
with fife. In a way she was celebrating her escape from the narrow
horizon in which she had lived. It was in the horoscope of her
temperament to run forward gayly to meet adventure, but when the man
opposite her ordered wine and she sipped it reluctantly with a little
grimace, the cowpuncher was of opinion that she was likely to get more
of this adventure than was good for her. In her unsophistication
danger lay. For she was plainly easily influenced, and in the beat of
her healthy young blood probably there was latent passion.
They left the diner before Clay. He passed them later in the vestibule
of the sleeper. They were looking out together on the moonlit plain
through which the train was rushing. The arm of the man was stretched
behind her to the railing and with the motion of the car the girl
swayed back slightly against him.
Again Clay sought the smoking compartment and was led into talk by the
officer. It was well past eleven when he rose, yawned, and announced,
"I'm goin' to hit the hay."
Most of the berths were made up and it was with a little shock of
surprise that his eyes fell on Kitty Mason and her new friend, the
sleek black head of the man close to her fair curls, his steady eyes
holding her like a charmed bird while his caressing voice wove the
fairy tale of New York to which she yielded herself in strange delight.
"Don't you-all want yo' berth made up, lady?"
It was the impatient porter who interrupted them. The girl sprang up
tremulously to accept.
"Oh, please. Is it late?" Her glance swept down the car and took in
the fact that her section alone was not made up. "I didn't know--why,
what time is it?"
"Most twelve, ma'am," replied the aggrieved porter severely.
She flashed a look of reproach at her companion and blushed again as
she fled with her bag to the ladies' dressing-room. As for the man,
Lindsay presently came on him in the smoking-room where he sat with an
unlit cigar between his teeth and his feet on a chair. Behind
half-shuttered lids his opaque eyes glittered with excitement. Clearly
he was reviewing in his mind the progression of his triumph. Clay
restrained a good, healthy impulse to pick a row with him and go to the
mat with the ex-prize-fighter. But after all it was none of his
business.
The train was rolling through the cornfields of the Middle West when
the Arizonan awoke. He was up early, but not long before Kitty Mason,
who was joined at once by Durand.
"Shucks! Nothin' to it a-tall," the range-rider assured himself.
"That li'l' girl sure must have the number of this guy. She's flirtin'
with him to beat three of a kind, but I'll bet a dogie she knows right
where she's at."
Clay did not in the least believe his own argument. If he had come
from a city he would have dismissed the matter as none of his business.
But he came from the clean Southwest where every straight girl is under
the protection of every decent man. If she was in danger because of
her innocence it was up to him to look after her. There was no more
competent man in Graham County than Clay Lindsay, but he recognized
that this was a delicate affair in which he must move warily.
On his way to the diner at noon the range-rider passed her again. She
was alone for the moment and as she leaned back her soft round throat
showed a beating pulse. Her cheeks were burning and her starry eyes
were looking into the future with a happy smile.
"You pore little maverick," the man commented silently.
The two had the table opposite him. As the wheels raced over a culvert
to the comparative quiet of the ballasted track beyond, the words of
the man reached Clay.
". . . and we'll have all day to see the city, kid."
Kitty shook her head. There was hesitation in her manner, and the man
was quick to make the most of it. She wanted to stay, wanted to skip a
train and let this competent guide show her Chicago. But somewhere,
deep in her consciousness, a bell of warning was beginning to ring.
Some uneasy prescience of trouble was sifting into her light heart.
She was not so sure of her fairy tale, a good deal less sure of her
prince.
A second time the song of the rails lifted from a heavy, rumbling bass
to a lighter note, and again a snatch of words drifted across the diner.
". . . the time of your young life, honey."
The girl was crumbling a bread ball with her fingers as a vent to her
restless excitement. The heavy hand of the man moved across the table
and rested on hers. "And it won't cost you a cent, girlie," the New
Yorker added.
But the long lashes of the girl lifted and her baby-blue eyes met his
with shy reproach. "I don't think I ought," she breathed, color
sweeping her face in a vivid flame.
"You should worry," he scoffed.
The chant of the wheels rose again, increased to a dull roar, and
deadened the sound of all talk. But Lindsay knew the girl was
weakening. She was no match for this big, dominant, two-fisted man.
The jaw of the cowpuncher set. This child was not fair game for a man
like Durand. When Clay rose to leave the diner he knew that he meant
to sit in and take a hand.
Either the Limited was ahead of its time schedule or the engineer had
orders to run into the city very slowly. The train was creeping
through the thickly settled quarter where the poorer people are herded
when Clay touched Durand on the shoulder.
"Like to see you a moment in the vestibule," he said in his gentle
voice.
The eyes of the two men met and the gambler knew at once that this man
and he were destined to be enemies. Some sixth sense of safety,
cultivated by a lifetime of battle, flashed him sure warning of this.
The fellow meant to make trouble of some kind. The former
near-champion of the ring had not the least idea what about or in what
way. Nor did he greatly care. He had supreme confidence in his
ability to look after himself. It was one factor of the stock in trade
that had made him a dominant figure in the underworld of New York. He
was vain enough to think that if it came to the worst there were few
men living who could best him in a rough-and-tumble fight. Certainly
no hill-billy from Arizona could do it.
No man had ever said that Jerry Durand was not game. He rose promptly
and followed the Westerner from the car, swinging along with the light,
catlike tread acquired by many pugilists.
The floor of the vestibule had been raised and the outer door of the
car opened. Durand found time to wonder why.
The cowpuncher turned on him with an abrupt question. "Can you swim?"
The eyes of the ward boss narrowed. "What's that to you?" he demanded
truculently.
"Nothin' to me, but a good deal to you. I'm aimin' to drop you in the
river when we cross."
"Is that so?" snarled Durand. "You're quite a joker, ain't you? Well,
you can't start somethin' too soon to suit me. But let's get this
clear so we'll know where we're at. What's ailin' you, rube?"
"I don't like the color of yore hair or the cut of yore clothes,"
drawled Lindsay. "You've got a sure-enough bad eye, and I'm tired of
travelin' in yore company. Let's get off, me or you one."
In the slitted eyes of the Bowery graduate there was no heat at all.
They were bleak as a heavy winter morn. "Suits me fine. You'll not
travel with me much farther. Here's where you beat the place."
The professional lashed out suddenly with his left. But Clay was not
at the receiving end of the blow. Always quick as chain lightning, he
had ducked and clinched. His steel-muscled arms tightened about the
waist of the other. A short-arm jolt to the cheek he disregarded.
Before Durand had set himself to meet the plunge he found himself
flying through space. The gambler caught at the rail, missed it,
landed on the cinders beside the roadbed, was flung instantly from his
feet, and rolled over and over down an incline to a muddy gully.
Clay, hanging to the brass railing, leaned out and looked back. Durand
had staggered to his feet, plastered with mud from head to knees, and
was shaking furiously a fist at him. The face of the man was venomous
with rage.
The cowpuncher waved a debonair hand and mounted the steps again. The
porter was standing in the vestibule looking at him with amazement.
"You throwed a man off'n this train, mistah," he charged.
"So I did," admitted Clay, and to save his life he could not keep from
smiling.
The porter sputtered. This beat anything in his previous experience.
"But--but--it ain't allowed to open up the cah. Was you-all havin'
trouble?"
"No trouble a-tall. He bet me a cigar I couldn't put him off."
Clay palmed a dollar and handed it to the porter as he passed into the
car. The eyes of that outraged official rolled after him. The book of
rules did not say anything about wrestling-matches in the vestibule.
Besides, it happened that Durand had called him down sharply not an
hour before. He decided to brush off his passengers and forget what he
had seen.
Clay stopped in front of Kitty and said he hoped she would have no
trouble making her transfer in the city. The girl was no fool. She
had sensed the antagonism that had flared up between them in that
moment when they had faced each other five minutes before.
"Where's Mr. Durand?" she asked.
"He got off."
"But the train hasn't stopped."
"It's just crawlin' along, and he was in a hurry."
Her gaze rested upon an angry bruise on his cheek. It had not been
there when last she saw him. She started to speak, then changed her
mind.
Clay seated himself beside her. "Chicago is a right big town, I
reckon. If I can help you any, Miss Kitty, I'd be glad to do what I
can."
The girl did not answer. She was trying to work out this puzzle of why
a man should get off before the train reached the station.
"I'm a stranger myself, but I expect I can worry along somehow," he
went on cheerfully.
"Mr. Durand didn't say anything to me about getting off," she persisted.
"He made up his mind in a hurry. Just took a sudden notion to go."
"Without saying anything about his suitcases?"
"Never mentioned 'em."
"You didn't have--any trouble with him?" she faltered.
"Not a bit," he told her genially. "Sorry our tickets take us by
different roads to New York. Maybe we'll meet up with each other
there, Miss Kitty."
"I don't understand it," she murmured, half to herself. "Why would he
get off before we reach the depot?"
She was full of suspicions, and the bruise on the Westerner's cheek did
not tend to allay them. They were still unsatisfied when the porter
took her to the end of the car to brush her clothes.
The discretion of that young man had its limits. While he brushed the
girl he told her rapidly what he had seen in the vestibule.
"Was he hurt?" she asked breathlessly.
"No 'm. I looked out and seen him standin' beside the track j'es'
a-cussin' a blue streak. He's a sho-'nough bad actor, that Jerry
Durand."
Kitty marched straight to her section. The eyes of the girl flashed
anger.
"Please leave my seat, sir," she told Clay.
The Arizonan rose at once. He knew that she knew. "I was intendin' to
help you off with yore grips," he said.
She flamed into passionate resentment of his interference. "I'll
attend to them. I can look out for myself, sir."
With that she turned her back on him.