Jim Receives and Declines an Offer
From the moment that Clanton walked out of the corral and left the dead
gunman lying in the dust his reputation was established. Up till that
time he had been on probation. Now he was a full-fledged killer. Nobody
any longer spoke of him by his last name, except those friends who still
hoped he might escape his destiny. "Go-Get-'em Jim" was his title at
large. Those on more familiar terms called him "Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em."
It was unfortunate for Clanton that the killing of Champa lifted him into
instant popularity. Mysterious Pete had been too free with his gun. The
community had been afraid of him. The irresponsible way in which he had
wounded little Bud Proctor, whose life had been saved only by the courage
of Lee Snaith, was the climax of a series of outrages committed by the
man.
That Jim had incidentally saved Kittie McRobert from the outlaw was a
piece of clean luck. Snaith came to him at once and buried the hatchet.
In the war just starting, the cattleman needed men of nerve to lead his
forces. He offered a place to Clanton, who jumped at the chance to get on
the pay-roll of Lee's father.
"Bring yore friend Billie Prince to the store," suggested Snaith. "He's
not workin' for Webb now. I can make a place for him, too."
Billie came, listened to the proposition of the grim old-timer, and
declined quietly.
"Goin' to stick by Webb, are you?" demanded the chief of the opposite
faction.
"Anything wrong with that? I've drawn a pay-check from him for three
seasons."
"Oh, if it's a matter of sentiment."
As a matter of fact, Billie did not intend to go on the trail any more,
though Webb had offered him a place as foreman of one of his herds. He
had discovered in himself unsuspected business capacity and believed he
could do better on his own. Moreover, he was resolved not to let himself
become involved in the lawless warfare that was engulfing the territory.
It must be remembered that Washington County was at this time as large as
the average Atlantic Coast State. It had become a sink for the riff-raff
driven out of Texas by the Rangers, for all that wild and adventurous
element which flocks to a new country before the law has established
itself. The coming of the big cattle herds had brought money into the
country, and in its wake followed the gambler and the outlaw. Gold and
human life were the cheapest commodities at Los Portales. The man who
wore a gun on his hip had to be one hundred per cent efficient to
survive.
Lawlessness was emphasized by the peculiar conditions of the country. The
intense rivalry to secure Government contracts for hay, wood, and
especially cattle, stimulated unwholesome competition. The temptation to
"rustle" stock, to hold up outfits carrying pay to the soldiers, to live
well merely as a gunman for one of the big interests on the river, made
the honest business of every-day life a humdrum affair.
None the less, the real heroes among the pioneers were the quiet citizens
who went about their business and refused to embroil themselves in the
feuds that ran rife. The men who made the West were the mule-skinners,
the storekeepers, the farmers who came out in white-topped movers'
wagons. For a time these were submerged by the more sensational gunman,
but in the end they pushed to the top and wiped the "bad man" from the
earth. It was this prosaic class that Billie Prince had resolved to join.
To that resolve he stuck through all the blood-stained years of the
notorious Washington County War. He went about his private affairs with
quiet energy that brought success. He took hay and grain contracts,
bought a freighting outfit, acquired a small but steadily increasing
bunch of cattle. Gradually he bulked larger in the public eye, became an
anchor of safety to whom the people turned after the war had worn itself
out and scattered bands of banditti infested the chaparral to prey upon
the settlers.
This lean, brown-faced man walked the way of the strong. Men recognized
the dynamic force of his close-gripped jaw, the power of his quick,
steady eye, the patience of his courage. The eyes of women followed him
down the street, for there was some arresting quality in the firm, crisp
tread that carried the lithe, smooth-muscled body. With the passage of
years he had grown to a full measure of mental manhood. It was inevitable
that when Washington County set itself to the task of combing the outlaws
from the mesquite it should delegate the job to Billie Prince.
The evening after his election as sheriff, Billie called at the home of
Pauline Roubideau, who was keeping house for her brother. Jack Goodheart
was leaving just as Prince stepped upon the porch. It had been two years
now since Jack had ceased to gravitate in the direction of Lee Snaith.
His eyes and his footsteps for many months had turned often toward Polly.
The gaze of the sheriff-elect followed the lank figure of the retreating
man.
"I've a notion to ask that man to give up a good business to wear a
deputy's star for me," he told Pauline.
"Oh, I wouldn't," she said quickly.
"Why not? He'd be a good man for the job. I want some one game--some one
who will go through when he starts."
His questioning eyes rested on hers. She felt a difficulty in justifying
her protest.
"I don't know--I just thought--"
"I'm waiting," said Prince with a smile.
"He wouldn't take it, would he?" she fenced.
"If it was put up to him right I think he would. Of course, it would be a
sacrifice for him to make, but good citizens have to do that these days."
"He's had so much hard luck and been so long getting a start I don't
think you ought to ask him." The color spilled over her cheeks like wine
shaken from a glass upon a white cloth. Polly was always ardent on behalf
of a friend.
"I can't help that. There's another man I have in mind, but if I don't
get him it will be up to Jack."
"Will it be dangerous?"
"No more than smoking a cigarette above an open keg of powder. But you
don't suppose that would keep him from accepting the job, do you?"
"No," she admitted. "He would take it if he thought he ought. But I hope
you get the other man."
Billie dismissed the subject and drew up a chair beside the hammock in
which she was leaning back.
"This is my birthday, Polly," he told her. "I'm twenty-four years old."
"Good gracious! What a Methuselah!"
"I want a present, so I've come to ask for it."
With a sidelong tilt of her chin she flashed a look of quick eyes at him.
Her voice did not betray the pulse, of excitement that was beginning to
beat in her blood.
"You've just been elected sheriff. Isn't that enough?" she evaded.
"That's a fine present to hand a man," he answered grimly. "An' I didn't
notice you bubble with enthusiasm when I spoke of givin' half the glory
to Goodheart."
"But I haven't a thing you'd care for. If I'd only known in time I'd have
sent to Vegas and got you something nice."
"You don't have to send to Vegas for it, Polly. The present I want is
right here," he said simply.
She reached out a little hand impulsively. "Billie, I believe you 're the
best man I know--the very best."
"I hate to hear that. You're tryin' to let me down easy."
"I'm an ungrateful little idiot. Any other girl in town would jump at the
chance to say, 'Thank you, kind sir.'"
"But you can't," he said gently.
"No, I can't."
He was not sure whether there was a flash of tears in her brown eyes, but
he knew by that little trick of biting the lower lip that they were not
far away. She was a tender-hearted little comrade, and it always hurt her
to hurt others.
Billie drew a long breath. "That's settled, too, then. I asked you once
before if there was some one else. I ask you again, but don't tell me if
you'd rather not."
"Yes."
"You mean there is."
Again the scarlet splashed into her cheeks. She nodded her head three or
four times quickly in assent.
"Not Jim Clanton?" he said, alarmed.
A faint, tender smile flashed on her lips. "I don't think I'll tell you
who he is, Billie."
He hesitated. "That's all right, Polly. I don't want to pry into yore
secret. But--don't do anything foolish. Don't marry a man with the notion
of reformin' him or because he seems to you romantic. You have lots of
sense. You'll use it, won't you?" he pleaded.
"I'll try to use it, Billie," she promised. Then, the soft eyes shining
and the color still high in her cheeks, she added impulsively: "I don't
know anybody that needs some one to love him more than that poor boy
does."
"Mebbeso. But don't you be that some one, Polly." He hesitated, divided
between loyalty to his friend and his desire for this girl's good. His
brown, unscarred hand caught hers in a firm grip. "Don't you do it,
little girl. Don't you. The woman that marries Jim Clanton is doomed to
be miserable. There's no escape for her. She's got to live with her heart
in her throat till the day they bring his dead body back to her."
She leaned toward him, and now there was no longer any doubt that her
eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Perhaps a woman doesn't marry for
happiness alone, Billie. That may come to her, or it may not. But she has
to fulfill her destiny. I don't know how to say what I mean, but she must
go on and live her life and forget herself."
Prince rejected this creed flatly. "No! No! The best way to fulfill yore
life is to be happy. That's what you've always done, an' that's why
you've made other people happy. Because you go around singin' an'
dancin', we all want to tune up with you. When I was out bossin' a
freight outfit I used to think of you at night under the stars as a
little Joybird. Now you've got it in that curly head of yours that you 'd
ought to be some kind of a missionary martyr for the sake of a man's
soul. That's all wrong."
"Is it?" she asked him with a crooked, little, wistful smile. "How about
you? Do you want to be sheriff? Is it going to make you so awfully happy
to spend your time running down outlaws for the good of the country?
Aren't you doing it because you've been called to it and not because you
like it?"
"That's different," he protested. "When the community needs him a man's
got to come through or be a yellow hound. But you've got no right to
toss away yore life plumb foolishly just because you've got a tender
heart." Billie stopped again, then threw away any scruples he might have
on the score of friendship. "Jim is goin' to be what he is to the end of
the chapter. You can't change him. Nobody can. In this Washington County
War he's been a terror to the other side. You know that. For such a girl
as you he's outside the pale."
"I heard Jean say once that Jim had never killed a man that didn't need
killing," she protested.
"That may be true, too. But it wasn't up to him to do it. It isn't only
killin' either. He's on the wrong track."
The young man could say no more. He could not tell her that Clanton was
suspected of rustling and that his name had been mentioned in connection
with robbery of the mail. These charges were not proved. Prince himself
still loyally denied their truth, though evidence was beginning to pile
up against the young gunman. He had warned Clanton, and Jim had clapped
him on the shoulder, laughed, and invited him to take a drink with him.
This was not quite the way in which Billie felt an innocent man would
receive news that he was being furtively accused of crime.
"Yes, he's going wrong," agreed Pauline. "But we can't desert him, can
we? You're his best friend. You know how brave he is, how generous, how
at the bottom of his heart he loves people that are fine and true. If we
stand by him we'll save him yet."
The young man's common sense told him that Clanton's future lay with
himself and his attitude toward his environment, but he loved the spirit
of this girl's gift of faith in her friends. It was so wholly like her to
reject the external evidence and accept her own conviction of his innate
goodness.
"I hope yore faith will work a miracle."
"I hate the things he does more than you do, Billie. It is horrible to me
that he can take human life. I don't justify him at all, even though
usually he is on the right side. But in spite of everything he has done
Jim is only a wild boy. And he's so splendid some ways. Any day he would
give his life for you or for me or for Lee Snaith. You feel that about
him, don't you?"
"Yes."
He was not satisfied to let the subject drop, but for the present it had
to be postponed. For a young man and a young woman were turning in at the
gate. They were a handsome pair physically. Each of them moved with the
lithe grace of a young puma. Pauline rose to meet them.
"I'm glad you came, Lee. Didn't know you were in town, Jim,"
Clanton smiled. "I rode up from the Hondo to congratulate our new
sheriff. Don't you let any of them outlaws escape, Billie."
Prince looked directly into his audacious eyes as he shook hands with
him.
"Not if I can help it, Jim. I want you to be my chief deputy in cleanin'
up the county. If you'll help me we'll make such a gather of bad men that
it won't be safe for a crook to show his head here."
Pauline clapped her hands. "What a splendiferous idea! It's a great
chance for you, Jim. You and Billie can do it too. I know you can."
The other young woman had recognized Prince only by a casual nod. It was
her custom to ignore him as much as possible. Now her dark, velvety eyes
jumped to meet his, then passed to Clanton. She recognized the
significance of the moment. It was Jim's last opportunity to line up on
the side of law and order. Lee, with Billie and Pauline, had stood his
loyal friend against a growing public opinion. Would he justify their
faith in him?
After a long silence Jim spoke. "No, I reckon not, Billie. I've got
interests that will take all my time. Much obliged, old scout. I'd like
to ride in couples with you like we used to do. I sure would, but I
can't."
"That's all nonsense. It's no excuse at all," broke out Lee in her direct
fashion. "Mr. Prince has more important affairs than you a good deal.
He is dropping his to serve the people. You'll have to give a better
reason than that to convince me."
Billie knew and Lee suspected what lay back of the spoken word. The duty
of the sheriff would be to hunt down the men with whom Clanton had
lately been consorting. He felt that he could not desert his friends to
line up against them. Some of these were a bad lot, the riff-raff of a
wild country, but this would not justify him in his own mind for using
his knowledge of their habits to run them to earth.
"No, I can't talk business with you, Billie," the young fellow said
decisively.
"Why can't you?" demanded Lee.
Jim Clanton smiled. "You're certainly a right persistent young lady, but
by advice of counsel I decline to answer."