“Don’t we meet in the dangdest places, ma’am?”
“You’re not drowned?” asked Mary half-hysterically.
“No’m, I don’t reckon so—not yet. Howdy, Mrs. Porter.”
“Well, Bill Sarg!”
Mrs. Porter was half-crying.
“Well, you!”
“What’sa matter?” queried Skeeter. “And what are you folks doin’ out
here in the wet? Where’s the train?”
“It went,” said Mrs. Porter, waving one arm down the track. “We—we
went to look into the river, I guess.”
“Well,” laughed Skeeter, shifting the weight of Freel’s body, “I had
all the looks I wanted. I jumped into the darned thing—me ’n’ the
sheriff. I dunno how he liked it. Reckon it was all right, ’cause he
slept through it all.”
“Wasn’t he shot?” asked Mrs. Porter. “Them two men was shootin’——”
“Hit him twice, I think.”
“But what was it all about?” asked Mary.
“Me,” chuckled Skeeter. “Them fellers wanted t’ take me away from
the sheriff and make a tree decoration out of me.”
“Hang yuh?” exclaimed Mrs. Porter.
“Yes’m, I suppose they had that in mind. They kinda hate
sheep-herders.”
“Was you herdin’ sheep, Skeeter Bill?”
“Nope. It was just a case of bein’ nice and handy to a sheep outfit,
and no way t’ prove a alibi. Of course them fellers ain’t
particular, Mrs. Porter. ’F they hated a laundry and caught me
washin’ m’ shirt——”
“Whop!” exploded Mrs. Porter. “Don’t drag the dirty shirts into
this, Skeeter Bill. Whatcha goin’ to do with the sheriff? ’F they
catch yuh ag’in, won’t they send yuh to the penitentiary?”
“Yes’m—’f they don’t lynch me first; but I’ve gotta get help for
the sheriff.”
“Well, yuh ain’t goin’ back to town,” declared Mrs. Porter. “You
never murdered nobody, and you’re a fool to shove your neck into a
handy rope. Vamoose while the travelin’ is wide open.”
“Uh-huh.”
Skeeter considered the idea thoughtfully.
“You can go to another country,” added Mary Leeds.
“Well, I’ve gotta get this sheriff— I know what I can do. By
cripes, I’ll pack him to Kirk’s camp and let him haul Freel t’
Crescent City. ’F I ain’t mistaken, I can travel to the right and
hit that sheep outfit dead center. You folks keep straight down the
railroad, and you’ll hit Crescent City.”
“Not me!” declared Mrs. Porter. “If you’re goin’ huntin’ for a
sheep-camp in the dark, I’m goin’ along.”
“I shall go too,” said Mary firmly.
“Whatcha goin’ to do?” grumbled Skeeter. “Two t’ one, and I’m loaded
down. It ain’t reasonable—not any; but mebbe yo’re just as well
off. It’s a —— of a trip, any old way yuh take it. C’m on. We’ve
gotta get out of this cut before we can start across-country.”
It was at least two hundred yards to where the cut opened into more
level country. Just before they reached the end of the cut a bulky
object seemed to drag itself across the rails and halted in the
center of the track.
The two women hung back, not realizing that it was a man; but
Skeeter Bill plodded on with his burden until he reached the prone
figure stretched between the rails.
“More danged cripples around here!” exclaimed Skeeter Bill, peering
down at the man. “Who are you, pardner?”
“I’m Kales,” panted the man. “Nick Kales.”
Skeeter eased his burden to the ground. “Kales, eh? I ’member you,
Kales. You said that the judge didn’t have any guts, ’cause he
didn’t hang me.”
But Kales had collapsed again and did not answer.
“Must ’a’ been one of the gang who tried to hold up the train,” said
Skeeter. “Got plugged for his trouble.”
Skeeter dug into Kales’ pockets and secured matches, which he
proceeded to light in order to examine Kales’ hurts.
“He sure got plugged,” nodded Skeeter. “I dunno how many times he
got hit, but it looks like his gun busted and tore his right hand
all to thunder. Hm-m-m!”
“Almost got enough to start a hospital,” observed Mrs. Porter.
Skeeter was searching Kales’ pockets again. In the outside pocket of
the slicker he found a full bottle of whisky. He drew out the cork
and forced some of it into the outlaw’s mouth. Kales strangled and
tried to sit up.
“Here, take a drink,” urged Skeeter, and succeeded in getting a
fair-sized drink down Kales’ throat.
“Feel better?”
Kales coughed and tried to get to his feet. “Hang on to yourself,”
advised Skeeter. “Take it easy until yuh feel better.”
But Kales got to his feet and clung to Skeeter, talking
incoherently.
“Can yuh walk?” asked Skeeter.
“Walk?” muttered Kales. “Walk?”
“Yeah—move your feet for’ard and back and carry yore body along at
the same time. I betcha he can,” continued Skeeter; and then to Mrs.
Porter: “Can yuh kindly help hang on to him? I reckon we’ll add him
to our collection.”
“He came here to lynch you.”
Mrs. Porter was a trifle indignant at the idea of taking Kales
along.
“Yeah, tha’s a fact,” admitted Skeeter Bill; “but he fell down on
the job. Let’s go.”
He swung the inert Freel back across his shoulder and started off
down the track, with the stumbling Kales hanging to the sleeve of
his coat and being assisted to some extent by Mrs. Porter. Bringing
up the rear came Mary Leeds, wanting to be of help to some one, but
unable to decide just where to begin.
* * * * *
Roper Bates had consumed considerable whisky that day, but had not
succeeded in getting so drunk that he forgot his plans. It was after
dark when he rode away from Crescent City, heading toward Kirk’s
sheep-camp.
The fact that a big storm was coming did not bother Roper Bates. His
mind still carried a picture of the pretty woman at the sheep-camp,
and he was sufficiently filled with liquor actually to believe that
he was going to do her a real favor by taking her away from her
plebeian husband.
The last quarter of a mile he rode in a whirl of dust while the
thunder jarred the world about him; but he was storm-proof. He
dismounted near the door, and his horse immediately moved into the
shelter of the cabin wall.
The door was not barred; so Roper Bates surged inside and shut the
door behind him. The cabin was lighted with a single lantern, which
swayed from a rafter, and it took him several moments to get his
dust-filled eyes accustomed to the dim light.
The pretty woman was sitting on the edge of the built-in bunk,
staring at him. There was some one in the bunk, who moved restlessly
and coughed dryly.
“What do you want here?” asked the woman hoarsely.
“Me?”
Roper Bates wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He did not
know what to say just then. From overhead came a crashing snap of
thunder, and the woman seemed to crouch lower on the bunk.
Successive flashes of lightning made the room bright with a white
glare.
Roper moved in a little closer and stared at the man in the bunk. He
could see the man’s face now; it was very pale.
“What’sa matter—sick?” asked Roper thickly.
The woman nodded dumbly, and turned to put her hand on the sick
man’s forehead. She turned back and repeated her question—
“What do you want here?”
“I—dunno.”
Roper Bates really did not know. Somehow he seemed to forget just
why he had come there.
“Been sick long?”
Roper jerked his head toward the sick man.
“Three days and nights,” nodded the woman. “I haven’t had any sleep,
and no one comes here.”
“Three days and nights,” parroted Roper. “You been settin’ there all
that time?”
“I haven’t slept,” she corrected him wearily.
“Nobody to help yuh?”
Roper shook his head, as if answering his own question.
“Nobody? For ——’s sake!”
He moved in close to the side of the bed and looked down at Kirk.
“He’s the sheep-herder, ain’t he?”
“Yes—and my husband,” defiantly.
“Uh-huh—your husband,” agreed Roper thoughtfully. “A sheep-herder
for a husband.”
Mrs. Kirk got up from the bunk and faced Roper Bates.
“What difference does that make?” she demanded. “We took this job
together. If he’s a sheep-herder, so am I. No matter if he does herd
sheep—he’s as good as you are.”
“Good as I am,” parroted Roper thoughtfully.
“He had to live in the hills, and there was nothing else for him to
do. We had to live.”
“Had to,” agreed Roper slowly.
“And he’s my husband,” repeated Mrs. Kirk, very near to the verge of
a breakdown, “and I love him more than anything in the world.”
Roper peered closely at her and looked at the man in the bunk.
“More ’n anythin’—in—the—world! Well, I’ll be eternally ——!”
blurted Roper.
It was beyond his comprehension; yet he could get a glimmering of
the idea.
“And nobody ever comes here,” said Mrs. Kirk bitterly. “They hate a
sheep-herder so much that nobody cares what becomes of us.”
“Ain’t it ——?” agreed Roper. “Now, ain’t it, though?”
The little cabin shook in the heavy wind, and the rain beat in
through the walls and the patched window-panes.
“Stormin’ outside,” observed Roper vacantly, and grinned at his own
wit as he added, “and some of it’s comin’ in out of the wet.”
Suddenly he turned to Mrs. Kirk.
“You ain’t scared of me, are yuh?”
“No, I am not afraid of you. Why should I be?”
Roper did not say, but studied the face of the sick man for a while
before he looked up at Mrs. Kirk.
“Yuh say yuh love him—more ’n—anythin’—even if he is a
sheep-herder?”
“God knows I do. Why do you ask me that question?”
“And yuh ain’t afraid of me?”
“Not one bit,” declared Mrs. Kirk. “What are you going to do about
it?”
“Stay and help yuh all I can, ma’am. I ain’t one of them lousy
persons which looks down upon a sheep-herder. I reckon yore husband
is quite some top-hand, when he’s up and doin’ his stuff.”
“Jim is my pal.”
“Whatcha know?” grunted Roper. “Whatcha know? Ma’am, you lay down
and take a nap, and I’ll take care of him.”
There was one home-made rocking-chair in the room, and Mrs. Kirk sat
down in it.
“I can not sleep, but it is a godsend to have some one here to talk
with,” she said wearily.
“Yes’m,” nodded Roper slowly. “Nobody ever called me that name
before, but it’s all right, I reckon.”
He slowly rolled a cigaret, and as he drew his lips across the edge
of the paper he glanced at Mrs. Kirk. She had fallen asleep, with
her head pillowed in her arm.
For a long time Roper stared at the floor, with the unlighted
cigaret between his lips. He was trying to solve a problem which has
never been answered; nor will it ever be, “Why does this woman love
this man?”
Roper studied the face of the sick man. Kirk was a very
ordinary-looking man. He was not big. Roper shook his head. It was a
problem far beyond his ken.
He sifted the tobacco out of his cigaret paper and humped over with
his chin in his hands. He had come there to take that woman away
from her undeserving husband; and here he was, acting as nurse to
that very husband.
For the better part of an hour he sat there like a statue, thinking
of things that had never entered his head before. He did not want
that woman now, and he wondered why he had ever wanted her. Where
did he ever get the idea of taking her away from her husband?
Suddenly he heard the thudding of horses’ hoofs as a body of
horsemen drew rein at the doorway. A man’s voice cursed openly—
“Git out of this, you —— sheep-herders!”
The voice aroused Mrs. Kirk, and she sat up, staring around.
Somebody stumbled over the step and grasped the door. Roper Bates
knew what it meant. The cattlemen had come to clean up the
sheep-camps.
Suddenly the door was flung open, and three men filled the doorway.
Quick as a flash Roper Bates threw up his six-shooter and fired at
the lead man, who had a Winchester rifle leveled from his shoulder.
The man seemed to spin on his heel, and the rifle discharged into
the ceiling, while the other men shot back with him as they jerked
him out of the doorway. The door swung shut behind them, and Roper
Bates’ last shot splintered the edge of it as it closed.
The room was full of powder-smoke. Mrs. Kirk had darted to the bunk
as if to try to protect her husband, while Roper Bates was
half-kneeling in the middle of the room, stuffing cartridges into
his six-shooter.
“Got me in the leg,” he grunted; “but I made ’em pay for comin’ in
without knockin’.”
He got carefully to his feet, yanked a blanket off the bed and
managed to stumble over to the window, where he flung the blanket
across the rough frame, cutting out the view from outside.
A bullet flicked in through the window and tore a slash in the
blanket, but the latter remained in place. Roper was hopping on one
foot along the wall, getting close to the door, when a man called
from without—
“—— you, we’re comin’ after yuh!”
“Come on!” challenged Roper. “Open that door and grab a harp.”
Several bullets splintered through the door following his defiance,
and one of them bit deeply into Roper’s ribs. He swayed closer to
the door, but did not waste lead in reply.
Mrs. Kirk saw that Roper had been hit hard and started toward him,
but he waved her back.
“Oh, why don’t you let them in?” she begged. “They will not hurt
you. Why do you fight for us?”
“This ain’t no job for a woman and a sick man,” he stated hoarsely,
“and it’s ’bout all I’m good fer.”
“Why did we ever come here?” said Mrs. Kirk weakly.
Roper turned his white face toward her and shook his head.
“Ma’am, I’ve asked m’self that same question. Down in Indiany, they
farm with a plow instead of a six-gun. But I never left there of my
own accord. I was only three year old, and m’ folks kinda hoodled me
along with them.”
Roper was deadly serious. He was bleeding badly and barely able to
brace himself against the log wall.
“If you don’t come out of there you’ll wish to —— yuh had!” yelled
a voice.
“And if you come in here you’ll wish t’ —— yuh hadn’t,” answered
Roper.
Another bullet splintered the door near the latch and thudded
harmlessly into the wall.
From without came the sound of earnest conversation, and a voice
called again.
“We’re goin’ to stampede your sheep, and if you ain’t out of there
when we come back we’ll dynamite your shack.”
There came the sound of horses speeding away over the wet ground.
Roper walked dizzily back to the table, where he sat down heavily in
the rocking-chair.
“We must get out of here.”
Mrs. Kirk was nervously looking around the room, as if debating just
what to save from the promised dynamiting.
“Tha’s all right,” grunted Roper dazedly. “Don’tcha worry. Them
jaspers ain’t got no dynamite; but I’m bettin’ they’ve got some
respect for a sheep-herder now.”
“But we must get to a doctor—for—you.”
“Never mind me, ma’am. Ain’t nobody worryin’ about me. I’m jist
Roper Bates, cowpuncher. Got a hole in m’ leg and one in m’ bellows,
but I’m feelin’ fine, y’ betcha—betcha.”
Roper Bates sank lower in his chair, and the heavy six-shooter fell
to the floor.
* * * * *
It was a sadly bedraggled party which picked its way through the
dark. There were no lights to guide them, no trail nor road. Skeeter
Bill, under the double burden of Kales and Freel, traveled by
instinct. Kales babbled meanngless things and wanted to lie down,
but Skeeter doled out bad whisky to him and steadied him on one
side, while Mrs. Porter guided him from the opposite side.
Through mesquite and sage they blundered along, sliding into
washouts partly filled with muddy water, falling over rocks,
crashing into brier patches, where the women left sections of their
clothes.
As in a dream Mary Leeds followed. She had no sense of direction,
and her feet had long since lost any sense of feeling. She was
reduced to a mere dumb creature, following the man she loved. Ahead
of her he struggled; a huge, queer-shaped hulk, uncomplaining,
patient.
“Ain’t you tired, Skeeter Bill?” asked Mrs. Porter.
“Years and years ago,” laughed Skeeter; “but I’m sure paralyzed now.
Mr. Kales, I wish you’d watch where yo’re puttin’ yore feet. I don’t
mind walkin’ on m’ feet, but I hate like —— t’ have you doin’ it.”
From afar came the sound of firing as the Tin Cup gang rounded up
and stampeded the sheep. Skeeter stopped and listened for a moment
and hurried on.
“I’m scared,” admitted Skeeter. “Scared that somethin’ is happenin’
to the pals.”
“Who are the pals?” panted Mrs. Porter.
“Man and his wife. He’s sick and she’s stickin’ to him.
Sheep-herder.”
Skeeter shifted his burden slightly.
“They ain’t jist husband and wife—they’re pals—bunkies,” he went
on. “_Sabe_ what I mean, Mrs. Porter?”
“I think so, Skeeter Bill.”
“Dangdest thing I ever seen,” said Skeeter. “Kinda gives a feller a
new idea of a wife. ’F a feller had a wife that was a pal t’ him—
Say, by cripes, we found the shack!”
Just beyond them loomed the outlines of the little sheep cabin, but
without a light showing.
“Lemme do the talkin’,” said Skeeter. “It ain’t safe to be a
stranger around here.”
Skeeter went close to the door and called: “Mrs. Kirk! Yoohoo! Mrs.
Kirk!”