AMONG THE COYOTES
Oroville once marked farthest north for the Peace River gold camps,
but with mining long ago abandoned it now marks farthest south for a
rustler's camp, being a favorite resort for the people of the Williams
Cache country. Oroville boasts that it has never surrendered and that
it has never been cleaned out. It has moved, and been moved, up stream
and down, and from bank to bank; it has been burned out and blown away
and lived on wheels: but it has never suffered the loss of its
identity. Oroville is said to have given to its river the name of
Peace River--either wholly in irony or because in Oroville there was
for many years no peace save in the river. However, that day, too, is
past, and Peace County has its sheriff and a few people who are not
habitually "wanted."
Whispering Smith, well dusted with alkali, rode up to the Johnson
ranch, eight miles southwest of Oroville, in the afternoon of the day
after he left Medicine Bend. The ranch lies in a valley watered by
the Rainbow, and makes a pretty little oasis of green in a limitless
waste of sagebrush. Gene and Bob Johnson were cutting alfalfa when
Whispering Smith rode into the field, and, stopping the mowers, the
three men talked while the seven horses nibbled the clover.
"I may need a little help, Gene, to get him out of town," remarked
Smith, after he had told his story; "that is, if there are too many
Cache men there for me."
Bob Johnson was stripping a stalk of alfalfa in his fingers. "Them
fellows are pretty sore."
"That comes of half doing a job, Bob. I was in too much of a hurry
with the round-up. They haven't had dose enough yet," returned
Whispering Smith. "If you and Gene will join me sometime when I have a
week to spare, we will go in there, clean up the gang and burn the
hair off the roots of the chapparal--what? I've hinted to Rebstock he
could get ready for something like that."
"Tell us about that fight, Gordon."
"I will if you will give me something to eat and have this horse taken
care of. Then, Bob, I want you to ride into Oroville and reconnoitre.
This is mail day and I understand some of the boys are buying postage
stamps to put on my coffin."
They went to the house, where Whispering Smith talked as he ate. Bob
took a horse and rode away, and Gene, with his guest, went back to the
alfalfa, where Smith took Bob's place on the mower. When they saw Bob
riding up the valley, Whispering Smith, bringing in the machine,
mounted his horse.
"Your man is there all right," said Bob, as he approached. "He and
John Rebstock were in the Blackbird saloon. Seagrue isn't there, but
Barney Rebstock and a lot of others are. I talked a few minutes with
John and Murray. Sinclair didn't say much; only that the railroad gang
was trying to run him out of the country, and he wanted to meet a few
of them before he went. I just imagined he held up a little before me;
maybe not. There's a dozen Williams Cache men in town."
"But those fellows are not really dangerous, Bob, though they may be
troublesome," observed Smith reflectively.
"Well, what's your plan?" blurted Gene Johnson.
"I haven't any, Gene," returned Smith, with perfect simplicity. "My
only plan is to ride into town and serve my papers, if I can. I've got
a deputyship--and that I'm going to do right away. If you, Bob, or
both of you, will happen in about thirty minutes later you'll get the
news and perhaps see the fun. Much obliged for your feed, Gene; come
down to Medicine Bend any time and I'll fill you up. I want you both
for the elk hunt next fall, remember that. Bucks is coming, and is
going to bring Brown and Henson and perhaps Atterbury and Gibbs and
some New Yorkers; and McCloud's brother, the preacher, is coming out
and they are all right--all of them."
The only street in Oroville faces the river, and the buildings string
for two or three blocks along modest bluffs. Not a soul was anywhere
in sight when Whispering Smith rode into town, save that across the
street from where he dismounted and tied his horse three men stood in
front of the Blackbird.
They watched the new arrival with languid interest. Smith walked
stiffly over toward the saloon to size up the men before he should
enter it. The middle man of the group, with a thin red face and very
blue eyes, was chewing tobacco in an unpromising way. Before Smith was
half-way across the street he saw the hands of the three men falling
to their hips. Taking care, however, only to keep the men between him
and the saloon door, Smith walked directly toward them. "Boys, have
you happened to see Gene or Bob Johnson to-day, any of you?" He threw
back the brim of his Stetson as he spoke.
"Hold your hand right there--right where it is," said the blue-eyed
man sharply.
Whispering Smith smiled, but held his hand rather awkwardly upon his
hat-brim.
"No," continued the spokesman, "we ain't none of us happened to see
Bob or Gene Johnson to-day; but we happen to seen Whispering Smith,
and we'll blow your face off if you move it an inch."
Smith laughed. "I never quarrel with a man that's got the drop on me,
boys. Now, this is sudden but unexpected. Do I know any of you?" He
looked from one face to another before him, with a wide reach in his
field of vision for the three hands that were fast on three
pistol-butts. "Hold on! I've met you somewhere," he said with easy
confidence to the blue-eyed man with the weather-split lip. "Williams
Cache, wasn't it? All right, we're placed. Now what have you got in
for me?"
"I've got forty head of steers in for you," answered the man in the
middle, with a splitting oath. "You stole forty head of my steers in
that round-up, and I'm going to fill you so full of lead you'll never
run off no more stock for nobody. Don't look over there to your horse
or your rifle. Hold your hands right where they are."
"Certainly, certainly!"
"When I pull, I shoot!"
"I don't always do it, but it is business, I acknowledge. When a man
pulls he ought to shoot--very often it's the only chance he ever gets
to shoot. Well, it isn't every man gets the drop on me that easy, but
you boys have got it," continued Whispering Smith in frank admiration.
"Only I want to say you're after the wrong man. That round-up was all
Rebstock's fault, and Rebstock is bound to make good all loss and
damage."
"You'll make good my share of it right now and here," said the man
with the wash-blue eyes.
"Why, of course," assented Whispering Smith, "if I must, I must. I
suppose I may light a cigarette, boys, before you turn loose the
fireworks?"
"Light it quick!"
Laughing at the humor of the situation, Whispering Smith, his eyes
beaming with good-nature, put the finger and thumb of his right hand
into his waistcoat pocket, drew out a package of cigarette paper, and,
bantering his captors innocently the while, tore out a sheet and put
the packet back. Folding the paper in his two hands, he declared he
believed his tobacco was in his saddle-pocket, and asked leave to step
across the street to get it. The trick was too transparent, and leave
was refused with scorn and some hard words. Whispering Smith begged
the men in front of him in turn for tobacco. They cursed him and shook
their heads.
For an instant he looked troubled. Still appealing to them with his
eyes, he tapped lightly the lower outside pockets of his coat with his
fingers, shifting the cigarette paper from hand to hand as he hunted.
The outside pockets seemed empty. But as he tapped the inside breast
pocket on the left side of the coat--the three men, lynx-eyed,
watching--his face brightened. "Stop!" said he, his voice sinking to a
relieved whisper as his hand rested lightly on the treasure. "There's
the tobacco. I suppose one of you will give me a match?"
All that the three before him could ever afterward recollect--and for
several years afterward they cudgelled their brains pretty thoroughly
about that moment--was that Whispering Smith took hold of the left
lapel of his coat to take the tobacco out of the breast pocket. An
excuse to take that lapel in his left hand was, in fact, all that
Whispering Smith needed to put not alone the three men before him but
all Oroville at his mercy. The play of his right hand in crossing the
corduroy waistcoat to pull his revolver from its scabbard and throw it
into their faces was all too quick for better eyes than theirs. They
saw only the muzzle of the heavy Colt's playing like a snake's tongue
under their surprised noses, with the good-natured smile still behind
it. "Or will one of you roll a cigarette?" asked Whispering Smith,
without a break between the two questions. "I don't smoke. Now don't
make faces; go right ahead. Do anything you want to with your hands. I
wouldn't ask a man to keep his hands or feet still on a hot day like
this," he insisted, the revolver playing all the time. "You won't
draw? You won't fight? Pshaw! Then disengage your hands gently from
your guns. You fellows really ought not to attempt to pull a gun in
Oroville, and I will tell you why--there's a reason for it." He looked
confidential as he put his head forward to whisper among the
crestfallen faces. "At this altitude it is too fast work. I know you
now," he went on as they continued to wilt. "You are Fatty Filber," he
said to the thin chap. "Don't work your mouth like that at me; don't
do it. You seem surprised. Really, have you the asthma? Get over it,
because you are wanted in Pound County for horse-stealing. Why, hang
it, Fatty, you're good for ten years, and of course, since you have
reminded me of it, I'll see that you get it. And you, Baxter," said he
to the man on the right, "I know I spoke to you once when I was
inspector about altering brands; that's five years, you know. You," he
added, scrutinizing the third man to scare him to death--"I think you
were at Tower W. No? No matter; you two boys may go, anyway. Fatty,
you stay; we'll put some state cow on your ribs. By the way, are you a
detective, Fatty? Aren't you? See here! I can get you into an
association. For ten dollars, they give you a German-silver star, and
teach the Japanese method of pulling, by correspondence. Or you might
get an electric battery to handle your gun with. You can get pocket
dynamos from the mail-order houses. Sure! Read the big book!"
When Gene and Bob Johnson rode into town, Whispering Smith was sitting
in a chair outside the Blackbird, still chatting with Filber, who
stood with his arms around a hitching-post, holding fast a mail-order
house catalogue. A modest crowd of hangers-on had gathered.
"Here we are, Gene," exclaimed Smith to the deputy sheriff. "I was
looking for steers, but some calves got into the drive. Take him
away."
While the Johnsons were laughing, Smith walked into the Blackbird. He
had lost thirty minutes, and in losing them had lost his quarry.
Sinclair had disappeared, and Whispering Smith made a virtue of
necessity by taking the upsetting of his plans with an unruffled face.
There was but one thing more, indeed, to do, and that was to eat his
supper and ride away. The street encounter had made so much talk in
Oroville that Smith declined Gene Johnson's invitation to go back to
the house. It seemed a convenient time to let any other ambitious
rustlers make good if they were disposed to try, and Whispering Smith
went for his supper to the hotel where the Williams Cache men made
their headquarters.
There was a rise in the atmospheric pressure the moment he entered the
hotel office door, and when he walked into the dining-room, some
minutes later, the silence was oppressive. Smith looked for a seat.
The only vacant place chanced to be at a table where nine men from the
Cache sat busy with ham and eggs. It was a trifle awkward, but the
only thing to do was to take the vacant chair.
The nine men were actively engaged with knives and forks and spoons
when Whispering Smith drew out the empty chair at the head of the
table; but nine pairs of hands dropped modestly under the table when
he sat down. Coughing slightly to hide his embarrassment and to keep
his right hand in touch with his necktie, Whispering Smith looked
around the table with the restrained air of a man who has bowed his
head and resolved to ask the blessing, but wants to make reasonably
sure that the family is listening. A movement at the other tables,
among the regular boarders of the hostelry, was apparent almost at
once. Appetites began to fail all over the dining-room. Whispering
Smith gave his order genially to the confused waitress:
"Bring me two eggs--one fried on one side and one on the other--and
coffee."
There was a general scraping of chairs on the floor as they were
pushed back and guests not at the moment interested in the bill of
fare started, modestly but firmly, to leave the dining-room. At
Whispering Smith's table there were no second calls for coffee. To
stimulate the eating he turned the conversation into channels as
reassuring as possible. Unfortunately for his endeavor, the man at the
far end of the table reached for a toothpick. It seemed a pleasant way
out of the difficulty, and when the run on toothpicks had once begun,
all Whispering Smith's cordiality could not check it. Every man
appeared to want a toothpick, and one after another of Whispering
Smith's company deserted him. He was finally left alone with a
physician known as "Doc," a forger and a bigamist from Denver. Smith
tried to engage Doc in medical topics. The doctor was not alone
frightened but tipsy, and when Smith went so far as to ask him, as a
medical man, whether in his opinion the high water in the mountains
had any direct connection with the prevalence of falling of the spine
among old "residenters" in Williams Cache, the doctor felt of his head
as if his brain were turning turtle.
When Whispering Smith raised his knife ostentatiously to bring out a
feature of his theory, the doctor raised his knife higher to admit the
force of it; and when Whispering Smith leaned his head forward
impressively to drive home a point in his assertion, the doctor
stretched his neck till his face grew apoplectic. Releasing him at
length from the strain, Whispering Smith begged of the staring
maid-servant the recipe for the biscuit. When she came back with it he
sat all alone, pouring catsup over his griddle-cakes in an abstracted
manner, and it so flurried her that she had to go out again to ask
whether the gasolene went into the dough or under it.
He played out the play to the end, but when he rode away in the dusk
his face was careworn. John Rebstock had told him why Sinclair dodged:
there were others whom Sinclair wanted to meet first; and Whispering
Smith was again heading on a long, hard ride, and after a man on a
better horse, back to the Crawling Stone and Medicine Bend. "There's
others he wants to see first or you'd have no trouble in talking
business to-day. You nor no other man will ever get him alive." But
Whispering Smith knew that.
"See that he doesn't get you alive, Rebstock," was his parting retort.
"If he finds out Kennedy has got the Tower W money, the first thing he
does will be to put the Doxology all over you."