THE SUNDAY MURDER
Banks's _posse_, leaving Medicine Bend before daybreak, headed
northwest. Their instructions were explicit: to scatter after crossing
the Frenchman, watch the trails from the Goose River country and
through the Mission Mountains, and intercept everybody riding north
until the _posse_ from Sleepy Cat or Whispering Smith should
communicate with them from the southwest. Nine men rode in the party
that crossed the Crawling Stone Sunday morning at sunrise with Ed
Banks.
After leaving the river the three white-capped Saddles of the Mission
range afford a landmark for more than a hundred miles, and toward
these the party pressed steadily all day. The southern pass of the
Missions opens on the north slope of the range into a pretty valley
known as Mission Springs Valley, and the springs are the head-waters
of Deep Creek. The _posse_ did not quite obey the instructions, and
following a natural instinct of safety five of them, after Banks and
his three deputies had scattered, bunched again, and at dark crossed
Deep Creek at some distance below the springs. It was afterward known
that these five men had been seen entering the valley from the east at
sundown just as four of the men they wanted rode down South Mission
Pass toward the springs. That they knew they would soon be cut off, or
must cut their way through the line which Ed Banks, ahead of them, was
posting at every gateway to Williams Cache, was probably clear to
them. Four men rode that evening from Tower W through the south pass;
the fifth man had already left the party. The four men were headed for
Williams Cache and had reason to believe, until they sighted Banks's
men, that their path was open.
They halted to take counsel on the suspicious-looking _posse_ far
below them, and while their cruelly exhausted horses rested, Du Sang,
always in Sinclair's absence the brains of the gang, planned the
escape over Deep Creek at Baggs's crossing. At dusk they divided: two
men lurking in the brush along the creek rode as close as they could,
unobserved, toward the crossing, while Du Sang and the cowboy Karg,
known as Flat Nose, rode down to Baggs's ranch at the foot of the
pass.
At that point Dan Baggs, an old locomotive engineer, had taken a
homestead, got together a little bunch of cattle, and was living
alone with his son, a boy of ten years. It was a hard country and too
close to Williams Cache for comfort, but Dan got on with everybody
because the toughest man in the Cache country could get a meal, a feed
for his horse, and a place to sleep at Baggs's, without charge, when
he needed it.
Ed Banks, by hard riding, got to the crossing at five o'clock, and
told Baggs of the hold-up and the shooting of Oliver Sollers. The news
stirred the old engineman, and his excitement threw him off his guard.
Banks rode straight on for the middle pass, leaving word that two of
his men would be along within half an hour to watch the pass and the
ranch crossing, and asking Baggs to put up some kind of a fight for
the crossing until more of the _posse_ came up--at the least, to make
sure that nobody got any fresh horses.
The boy was cooking supper in the kitchen, and Baggs had done his
milking and gone back to the corral, when two men rode around the
corner of the barn and asked if they could get something to eat. Poor
Baggs sold his life in six words: "Why, yes; be you Banks's men?"
Du Sang answered: "No; we're from Sheriff Coon's office at Oroville,
looking up a bunch of Duck Bar steers that's been run somewhere up
Deep Creek. Can we stay here all night?"
They dismounted and disarmed Baggs's suspicions, though the condition
of their horses might have warned him had he had his senses. The
unfortunate man had probably fixed it in his mind that a ride from
Tower W to Deep Creek in sixteen hours was a physical impossibility.
"Stay here? Sure! I want you to stay," said Baggs bluffly. "Looks to
me like I seen you down at Crawling Stone, ain't I?" he asked of
Karg.
Karg was lighting a cigarette. "I used to mark at the Dunning ranch,"
he answered, throwing away his match.
"That's hit. Good! The boy's cooking supper. Step up to the kitchen
and tell him to cut ham for four more."
"Four?"
"Two of Ed Banks's men will be here by six o'clock. Heard about the
hold-up? They stopped Number Three at Tower W last night and shot
Ollie Sollers, as white a boy as ever pulled a throttle. Boys, a man
that'll kill a locomotive engineer is worse'n an Indian; I'd help skin
him."
"The hell you would!" cried Du Sang. "Well, don't you want to start in
on me? I killed Sollers. Look at me; ain't I handsome? What you going
to do about it?"
Before Baggs could think Du Sang was shooting him down. It was
wanton. Du Sang stood in no need of the butchery; the escape could
have been made without it. His victim had pulled an engine throttle
too long to show the white feather, but he was dying by the time he
had dragged a revolver from his pocket. Du Sang did the killing alone.
At least, Flat Nose, who alone saw all of the murder, afterward
maintained that he did not draw because he had no occasion to, and
that Baggs was dead before he, Karg, had finished his cigarette. With
his right arm broken and two bullets through his chest, Baggs fell on
his face. That, however, did not check his murderer. Rising to his
knees, Baggs begged for his life. "For God's sake! I'm helpless,
gentlemen! I'm helpless. Don't kill me like a dog!" But Du Sang,
emptying his pistol, threw his rifle to his shoulder and sent bullet
after bullet crashing through the shapeless form writhing and
twitching before him until he had beaten it in the dust soft and flat
and still.
Banks's men came up within an hour to find the ranch-house deserted.
They saw a lantern in the yard below, and near the corral gate they
found the little boy in the darkness, screaming beside his father's
body. The sheriff's men carried the old engineman to the house; others
of the _posse_ crossed the creek during the evening, and at eleven
o'clock Whispering Smith rode down from the south pass to find that
four of the men they were after had taken fresh horses, after killing
Baggs, and passed safely through the cordon Banks had drawn around the
pass and along Deep Creek. Bill Dancing, who had ridden with Banks's
men, was at the house when Whispering Smith arrived. He found some
supper in the kitchen, and the tired man and the giant ate together.
Whispering Smith was too experienced a campaigner to complain. His
party had struck a trail fifty miles north of Sleepy Cat and followed
it to the Missions. He knew now who he was after, and knew that they
were bottled up in the Cache for the night. The sheriff's men were
sleeping on the floor of the living-room when Smith came in from the
kitchen. He sat down before the fire. At intervals sobs came from the
bedroom where the body lay, and after listening a moment, Whispering
Smith got stiffly up, and, tiptoeing to still the jingle of his spurs,
took the candle from the table, pushed aside the curtain, and entered
the bedroom.
The little boy was lying on his face, with his arm around his father's
neck, talking to him. Whispering Smith bent a moment over the bed,
and, setting the candle on the table, put his hand on the boy's
shoulder. He disengaged the hand from the cold neck, and sitting down
took it in his own. Talking low to the little fellow, he got his
attention after much patient effort and got him to speak. He made him,
though struggling with terror, to understand that he had come to be
his friend, and after the child had sobbed his grief into a strange
heart he ceased to tremble, and told his name and his story, and
described the two horsemen and the horses they had left. Smith
listened quietly. "Have you had any supper, Dannie? No? You must have
something to eat. Can't you eat anything? But there is a nice pan of
fresh milk in the kitchen."
A burst of tears interrupted him. "Daddie just brought in the milk,
and I was frying the ham, and I heard them shooting."
"See how he took care of you till the last minute, and left something
for you after he was gone. Suppose he could speak now, don't you think
he would want you to do as I say? I am your next friend now, for you
are going to be a railroad man and have a big engine."
Dannie looked up. "Dad wasn't afraid of those men."
"Wasn't he, Dannie?"
"He said we would be all right and not to be afraid."
"Did he?"
"He said Whispering Smith was coming."
"My poor boy."
"He is coming, don't be afraid. Do you know Whispering Smith? He is
coming. The men to-night all said he was coming."
The little fellow for a long time could not be coaxed away from his
father, but his companion at length got him to the kitchen. When they
came back to the bedroom the strange man was talking to him once more
about his father. "We must try to think how he would like things done
now, mustn't we? All of us felt so bad when we rode in and had so much
to do we couldn't attend to taking care of your father. Did you know
there are two men out at the crossing now, guarding it with rifles?
But if you and I keep real quiet we can do something for him while the
men are asleep; they have to ride all day to-morrow. We must wash his
face and hands, don't you think so? And brush his hair and his beard.
If you could just find the basin and some water and a towel--you
couldn't find a brush, could you? Could you, honestly? Well! I call
that a good boy--we shall have to have you on the railroad, sure. We
must try to find some fresh clothes--these are cut and stained; then I
will change his clothes, and we shall all feel better. Don't disturb
the men; they are tired."
They worked together by the candle-light. When they had done, the boy
had a violent crying spell, but Whispering Smith got him to lie down
beside him on a blanket spread on the floor, where Smith got his back
against the sod wall and took the boy's head in his arm. He waited
patiently for the boy to go to sleep, but Dan was afraid the murderers
would come back. Once he lifted his head in a confidence. "Did you
know my daddy used to run an engine?"
"No, I did not; but in the morning you must tell me all about it."
Whenever there was a noise in the next room the child roused. After
some time a new voice was heard; Kennedy had come and was asking
questions. "Wake up here, somebody! Where is Whispering Smith?"
Dancing answered: "He's right there in the bedroom, Farrell, staying
with the boy."
There was some stirring. Kennedy talked a little and at length
stretched himself on the floor. When all was still again, Dannie's
hand crept slowly from the breast of his companion up to his chin, and
the little hand, feeling softly every feature, stole over the strange
face.
"What is it, Dannie?"
"Are you Whispering Smith?"
"Yes, Dannie. Shut your eyes."
At three o'clock, when Kennedy lighted a candle and looked in, Smith
was sitting with his back against the wall. The boy lay on his arm.
Both were fast asleep. On the bed the dead man lay with a handkerchief
over his face.