Carver looked from the window of the Half Diamond H. All down the
valley were twinkling lights which denoted the presence of the homes
of early-rising settlers. Off to the east and west there were lights
resting at higher levels, these from cabins on side-hill claims on the
rising flanks of the valley. As the morning glow flooded across the
country the lights paled and the habitations themselves appeared, first
as darker blots emerging gradually from the surrounding obscurity, then
in distinct outline as the shadows lifted. Some were tiny frame cabins,
the most of them unpainted. The greater number were sod huts, some
few merely dugouts. Poor habitations these, no doubt, yet they were
homes and as circumstances permitted they would be replaced by more
pretentious ones.
The virgin stretches of the Cherokee lands had been transformed into
a solid agricultural community overnight. The run was not quite two
months past, yet even the style of expression, the customs of speech
and the topic of general conversation had experienced an alteration as
decided as the physical changes in the countryside. No more the heated
arguments over the relative merits of two cow horses but instead a less
spirited discussion concerning the desirability of Berkshires over
Durco-Jerseys. The never-ending controversy as to the superiority of
the center-fire as against the three-quarters’ rig had been supplanted
by an interchange of advice as to the seeding of crops and the proper
care of hogs. Where but a few weeks back the bronc fighters had met to
exchange bits of range gossip, housewives now visited back and forth to
exchange recipes for making jell.
Conditions had favored late plowing, a fortunate circumstance in view
of the late date of the opening, and a part of the settlers had made
every effort to seed a certain acreage to winter wheat. Carver had
not wasted a day in his endeavor to get a portion of his holdings
broken out and in shape to produce the following season. Circumstances
had favored him. Cash was a rare commodity among the majority of the
homesteaders and in lieu of it they frequently effected an exchange of
work. The spirit of coöperation was large. Homesteads must be fenced
and materials were expensive. Many could not afford such a drain upon
their finances until such time as they could harvest a crop.
Carver had supplied needy neighbors with posts and wire from the great
store he had salvaged from the line fences of the old Half Diamond H,
requiring of each man in return that he should start at once upon the
task of plowing, harrowing and drilling in winter wheat on a certain
specified acreage of Carver’s holdings. Most of the settlers had
implements of a sort. All had plows, some few possessed drills, and
what one man lacked he borrowed from his neighbor, the favor to be
later returned in like service or in labor when occasion should offer
and so all were enabled to perform the tasks which Carver required of
them in return for their fencing. He now had eight hundred acres seeded
to winter wheat, planted somewhat later than was customary but with an
even chance of making a crop.
The transformation of the unowned lands had been sweeping and complete.
One now rode between fences along section lines that would soon became
graded highways. Towns were springing up with mushroom suddenness and
country schoolhouses were in the course of construction at many points.
A picture of rural activity stretched away on all sides, yet through it
all a vague whisper of unrest persisted, as if the spirit of the old
days refused to be cast off so entirely.
The cowhands who had ridden the Strip continued to ride it. Always
there had been a surplus of riders during the winter months and these
jobless ones had grub-lined from one ranch to the next, certain of
finding a welcome and a meal at any spot where circumstance or fancy
led them. They continued to act upon this supposition, sanctioned by
long years of custom, and the settlers looked with disfavor upon these
rovers who dropped in at their cabins and expected to be fed as a
matter of course, deeming them parasites upon the community, drones who
were unwilling to work and produce; for the cowhands scornfully refused
to milk or follow a plow in return for their board. From the first they
had swarmed in upon Carver, overjoyed at finding one man of their own
sort among all this clutter of aliens,--one man who understood.
Carver had fed all comers, knowing that while they would neither milk
nor plow, they would willingly turn their hands to any task which had
been part of their regular duties with a cow outfit in the old range
days. They had stretched every foot of his fences. When there was
freighting to be done there were always willing volunteers. Some he had
sent north to Hinman’s range to bring back the fifty head of horses
he had purchased before the opening. The boys had gentled these green
colts and taught them the feel of harness. Always there were a dozen
grub-liners stopping at the bunk house overnight. Every evening Carver
recited the tasks of the following day and the men apportioned these
chores among themselves through the medium of freeze-out poker. Carver
had never cooked a meal or washed a dish since the day of the run.
He now thrust his head from the back door.
“Ho!” he called. “Roll out!”
There were sounds of instant activity from the bunk house.
Carver tapped on a door in the ranch house.
“Coming, son,” Nate Younger answered. “Be with you right off.”
The original owner of the Half Diamond H had come down to view it under
the new conditions. He had found his old room fitted up in much the
same fashion as when he had occupied it in the past. A hundred acres of
grassland, untouched by the plow, spread out before the house.
“Don’t find things so much changed right in the immediate foreground,
do you, Nate?” Carver asked.
“Not much,” said Nate. “Looks pretty much the same. It is real white of
you to reserve the old man’s room for him.”
He listened to the drone of voices from the bunk house.
“Must be considerable of a drain on your finances to feed all the
grub-liners these days,” he said.
“Somewhat,” Carver admitted. “But I someway can’t gather courage to
shut them off. Half of them are still conversing about when work opens
up in the spring, same as they’ve always talked in winters. They don’t
realize yet that spring work won’t ever open up for their sort again.”
After breakfasting Carver rode up the trail that threaded the low
saddle in the ridge back of the house and dropped down to the
Lassiters’ claim on the far side of it. Bart, fired by the example
of those around him, had worked steadily since the day of the run.
Cowhands stopping at Carver’s place had helped Bart fence his claim.
With two of Carver’s teams he had broken out a forty-acre piece and
seeded it to winter wheat. Through the medium of the nightly poker game
in the bunk house of the Half Diamond H he had accumulated enough cash
to purchase the materials for the construction of a three-room frame
house to supplement the sod hut in which he and Molly had been living
since the run. But now his enthusiasm had waned and Carver found him
seated on a pile of new lumber, gazing moodily off across the country.
“I’m needing relaxation bad,” Bart greeted. “Why, I wouldn’t be able
to find my way around Caldwell, it’s been that long since I’ve been in
town. Isn’t it about time you’re getting that hundred head of yearlings
off Hinman’s range and bringing them down here?”
“In a few days now,” Carver admitted. “I’ll be starting up after them
before long.”
“Why don’t you send me?” Bart suggested.
“With you in charge they might increase too fast on the homeward way,”
said Carver.
“I’ll guarantee not to arrive with one extra head over the specified
number,” Bart offered. “I’ll go up and get them, just as a sort of
favor in return for many a kind deed you’ve done for me.”
“Not you,” Carver declined. “Anyway, you’ve got all your lumber on
the ground now and you want to stay on the job until you’ve built the
house. I’ll send over a few volunteers from the bunk house squad to
help you throw it up.”
“That lumber is too green to work up just yet,” Bart objected. “I’ll
rest up in town till the sap quits flowing through those boards and
they season up till a man can run a saw through ’em. The birds were
singing in those very trees last week.”
It was evident that Bart was bent upon having his vacation under any
possible excuse.
“All right--go ahead and relax,” said Carver. “Only don’t be gone too
long.”
“I’ll be drifting over to Casa and see how the County Seat ruckus is
coming on,” Bart decided. “I’ll report on the latest developments when
I come back.”
A thriving town had come into being on the site of the box car which
had once borne the name of Casa and which had been sacked and burned.
A bank and a frame hotel, two general merchandise establishments, a
hardware and implement concern, grocery stores, restaurants, saloons,
two livery barns, a drug store, barber shop and pool hall, all
glaringly new and mostly unpainted, made up the business district of
Casa, which now numbered a population of four hundred souls. Various
businesses were conducted in board-floored tents until such time as the
proprietors could secure more permanent quarters.
Casa, by virtue of both population and location, had considered
herself the logical choice for County Seat. The government appointee
charged with such locations had listened and agreed, provided only
that a personal bonus of one thousand dollars be tendered him along
with the other arguments. Graft was open and flagrant in the early
days of the Strip and communities as well as individuals paid the
price for official favors. The citizens’ council, a volunteer body of
Casa business men, had flatly refused and the locater had thereupon
designated Oval Springs, a little camp some miles to the south as
the legal center of county government. This move was destined to
precipitate one of the bitter and enduring county-seat wars for which
the West is famed. Casa was not alone in her troubles, for this was but
one of three such controversies at various points in the Strip.
The railroad had backed Casa in the feud from the first. At the time of
designation Oval Springs could boast neither a side track nor a station
and the railroad had steadfastly refused to halt its trains. The
citizens of Oval Springs had hastened to erect a large frame building
to serve as a courthouse, a second to serve as county jail, this last
edifice complete except for a few exterior touches and a coat of paint.
The steel-framed cells were already installed and the jail was open for
business. The trains still rolled through and eventually Oval Springs
took matters into their own hands and elected to make that point the
terminal from both ways by tearing up two hundred yards of track. A
stock train had been piled in a gulch, a passenger train derailed.
This last had constituted a case of obstructing the delivery of the
United States mail and Carl Mattison, appointed deputy marshal in the
post from which Freel had resigned, had been sent in with a posse to
straighten out the tangle.
Alf Wellman, who had staked his claim adjoining the present town site
of Oval Springs, had been appointed sheriff until such time as an
election could be held. It was freely stated in Casa that the sheriff
and his deputies declined to interfere with the lawless element that
sought to destroy railroad property and so force the railroad company
to halt its trains. The feud was destined to be bitter and sustained
and it was slated that another fifteen years should pass before Casa
should come into her own as the permanent seat of county affairs.
Two days after Bart’s departure he rode up to the Half Diamond H at
daylight.
“Just dropped by for breakfast and to report on the general situation,”
he informed. “I changed my mind after leaving the other day and dropped
down to view the new county seat. Quite an alteration in those parts
since the night you and me camped there during round-up without a house
anywheres in sight. There’s trouble brewing down there in quantities.”
“Then how did you happen to leave?” Carver inquired.
“Last night some unknown parties staged a midnight battle with the
marshal’s posse that’s guarding the relaid tracks, during which it’s
reported that one of the posse was killed and two others damaged. Under
cover of this ruckus some others succeeded in blowing up the bridge
just south of town and traffic is once more suspended.”
“And which side were you on?” Carver asked.
“I couldn’t hardly determine,” Bart confessed. “I was maybe just a
trifle lit.”
“Being one of our leading lights in that respect,” said Carver, “I
expect maybe you were.”
“As near as I can make out, I was on the side of the law,” Bart stated.
“Leastways I was in the powder squad that wrecked the bridge and the
sheriff headed the party. My participation was accidental. I saw
Wellman and another man easing out of town and I trailed them, arriving
just as they touched off the charge, so you might say I acted the rôle
of the passive spectator. The whole town boiled out and we dispersed
among the crowd. I was dead anxious to be lined up with law and order,
but with the law on both sides I couldn’t quite make out which one was
proper, so I flitted.”
“Any idea who led the fight against Mattison?” Carver asked.
“Not a guess--unless it was Freel,” Bart denied. “He’s Wellman’s head
deputy and it might have been him--only I can’t someway picture Freel
as indulging in a fracas where other folks will be shooting back at
him.”
“There’s quite a bunch of boys in the bunk house,” Carver said. “Right
after breakfast I’ll send over a bunch to help you start the house.”
“Right after breakfast I’ll be riding toward Caldwell,” said Bart. “In
proportion to the way Oval Springs has growed, I’d judge that Caldwell
would be bigger than London by now.”
“Caldwell has about a fourth the population she had three months ago,”
Carver informed.
“I’d as leave see a town that’s shrunk as one that has growed,” Bart
philosophically decided. “I’m not particular, and I’m bound to find it
filled with new interests. Just two days; then I’ll be back.”
In the early evening Carver mounted the cow trail that threaded the low
dip in the ridge between his place and Bart’s claim. As he topped it he
could see Molly coming up the hill from the cabin. They frequently met
here for a brief chat in the evenings.
“You mustn’t mind Bart’s rambling off for a few days,” he said, as the
girl joined him. “He’s stayed with it in good shape and it’s only in
the last week he’s been restless. He’ll be back on the job in a day or
two.”
He allowed his gaze to drift across the broad acreage of plowed ground
in the bottoms,--his ground, seeded to winter wheat.
“Eight hundred acres seeded to wheat,” he stated. “All put in by
trading around. I’ve got considerable of a farm, but don’t even own
one plow of my own--nor a drill. The grub-liners put up my fences and
broke all my horses to work. So far I’ve worried along without much of
an outlay of cash; not one cent paid out for labor. But I’m in debt
somewhat for seed wheat and provisions to feed the bunk house occupants
that turn up every night.”
He directed her gaze over the rich bottom land extending for five miles
down the valley to a point where the little town of Alvin had come into
being.
“The best land in this whole country,” he stated. “Every acre of it
will bring from twelve to fifteen dollars the day a man gets his
patent. I’ll buy it up piece by piece, a quarter at a time, as fast as
any party wants to sell; mortgage a part of it to buy more and turn
back every dollar that comes off of it into more land. Some day I’ll
own all that lower valley with the Half Diamond H at the head of it so
we can look out across it all from the house. I’ll follow the price up
till it touches forty and then stop buying. Then there’ll come a day
when we can stand there at the old ranch house and know that every acre
between it and the flourishing city of Alvin will be worth a hundred
dollars flat.”
As he sketched his plans she could vision thousands of acres of
ripening grain waving in the bottoms; the huge new barns of the Half
Diamond H groaning with hay and forage crops for feeding the hundreds
of sleek thoroughbred cattle with which the place was stocked. But
all that was a matter of the future and the present was sufficiently
amazing in itself.
A few months back she had resided in an isolated line camp on Turkey
Creek with no other habitation within a dozen miles. Now she was
blocked in on all sides by neighbors; Mrs. Cranston, the ample lady
who resided on the next claim below Molly’s,--and her husband was not
really a gloomy soul. He had merely been over anxious during the days
preceding the run, harassed by a haunting dread that he would not be
successful in locating a home for his family. He was in reality a
rather genial party, Molly had found. Then there was Mrs. Downing,
the hysterical lady, who was not in the least hysterical but quite
normal since Molly had nursed her through an illness brought on by the
excitement of the stampede; the Lees, with whom Mrs. Downing had been
so anxious to neighbor, had proved to be delightful neighbors indeed.
There was Orkstrom, the big Dane whose wife toiled with him in the
field; Arnold Crosby, fresh from school, who had brought his girl bride
to share his little frame homestead shack; old Judd Armstrong and his
serene little mate. The whole countryside for miles around was peopled
with a motley assortment ranging from retired professional men to
foreigners who spoke scarcely a word of understandable English.
“You told me once the sort of quiet home life you pined for most,” he
said. “And I volunteered to set out in search of it. This is it, all
round us, just as you pictured it to me on that day in Caldwell.”
“Yes,” she said. “This is it--exactly what I’ve always been wanting.”
She watched the smoke spirals rising from a hundred cabins; the
stretches of black plowed ground enclosed by long lines of fence posts.
Far down the valley the new buildings of Alvin showed as white spots
in the waning light. The new schoolhouse in the bottoms was nearly
completed, the school in which Molly was to teach; all these evidences
of an old civilization fastening upon a raw new country and lending an
air of permanency and peace.
“We’ve found what we were looking for,” he said. “What more peaceful
scene could one find?”
But Molly, too, was aware of that vague rustle of unrest, even a froth
of lawlessness, that seemed to pervade it all; the jobless cowhands
riding their old domain; the bitter county-seat feuds in progress. Over
the line in the Territory two trains had been held up and looted. Banks
in small towns along the southern fringe of Kansas had been subjected
to a series of daring raids. The forces of the law were imperfectly
organized, frequently leagued with the lawless. Many old-time riders of
the unowned lands were living on claims and their cabins were ever open
for any of the boys who sought safety there. They asked no questions,
these men, and answered none. The Osage Hills in the Territory afforded
a safe haven for those who were hard-pressed and the way of the
transgressor was not difficult. The girl commented upon this to Carver.
“That’s only the ghost of the old days hovering over the corpse of the
unowned lands,” he said. “A passing phase. It’s only a froth, like
bubbles and trash on the surface of a deep pond when it’s stirred by
the wind.”
He waved an arm toward the peaceful rural scene unrolling all around
them. “All that is the solid, enduring part. That will last. The other
is just the last feeble rustle of the tumbleweeds we’re hearing now.
‘All tumbleweeds hail from nowhere,
Their one favorite residence;
But all are bound for the same graveyard--
Hung up in a barb-wire fence.’
“That’s the finish of all tumbleweeds, girl,” he said. “Soon or late
they get crowded into some fence corner and their travels cease. Now
me, I’m pocketed that way too, only I’ve taken root. Aren’t you about
ready to come over and ride herd on me, sort of, and see that some
strong breeze doesn’t uproot me and blow me off somewhere?”
“Not that, Don. I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry. I want to go on just as
I am for a while. It’s too perfect to disturb. You haven’t an idea how
much I’m enjoying it, visiting round with Mrs. Downing, the Cranstons
and the Lees and all the rest, exchanging recipes and listening to
all the family woes and triumphs. You wouldn’t find much excitement
in hearing for the fourth occasion just what a frightful time Johnny
Downing had when he cut his first baby teeth; or about that historical
event when Ella Cranston essayed her first barefooted venture outside
and stepped on a hornet, and what a fearful expense it’s been to
keep her in shoes ever since,--just refuses to go barefooted even in
summers, since that day, Ella does. But I positively revel in all that.
It’s been so long since I’ve had many women friends. I don’t want to
lose a minute of all this.”
“I’d contract not to spoil it for you,” he offered. “You could go right
on doing the same things you do now. Maybe I’d learn to tingle and
thrill over Johnny’s teething myself. He set them in my thumb the last
time I’m over at Downings so I take it they all come through in good
shape. Couldn’t you learn to be loving me just a trifle if you’d make a
real earnest effort?”
“A lot--without the least effort,” she frankly admitted. “Don’t you
know, Don, that every real woman is always just on the verge of loving
some tumbleweed? She doesn’t have to try loving him but to try to keep
from it. That’s the difficult part.”
“Then why not take the easy trail out?” he suggested.
“All women lean toward the wild weeds--they’ve got that in them,” she
said. “But the ones who listen to that call always pay in the end.
Oh, I don’t mean that you’d ever do anything I’d be ashamed of,” she
hastened to add. “You wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be distrust of you, but
fear for you, that would be my lot if I let myself get to caring. Don’t
you see? I’ve loved two tumbleweeds before now--Dad and Bart--and I
don’t feel quite up to loving a third. It’s a woman’s portion to sit
and wait for bad news. So let’s go on just as we are.”
Three wagons rolled up the valley and pulled into the Half Diamond H.
“There comes Thanksgiving dinner,” said Carver. “Old Nate was down
with us overnight. Likely he knew that I couldn’t afford to feed the
grub-liners indefinitely so he said he’d ride down to Alvin and send up
a bite for the boys. It appears like he’d sent it in tons; enough to
run to next August. We’ll be expecting you and Bart over for a turkey
dinner to-morrow.”
X
The one business block of Wharton, a little town twenty miles north
of the Cherokee-Kansas line, seemed almost deserted. Four men sat on
the edge of a raised-board sidewalk midway of the block. Two others
leaned against the support posts of a wooden shelter which roofed the
sidewalk before a hardware store. Four horsemen clattered round the
corner, their black masks furnishing a sinister contrast to the quiet
village scene, and the few citizens of Wharton who chanced to be abroad
witnessed the advent of the modern bandit, come to replace the road
agent whose day had passed when railroad transportation superseded
stage-coach travel on the overland trails.
Three of the men dropped from their saddles before the Wharton bank,
two of them entering while the third stood guard before the door and
the mounted man held the horses of the other three.
The man in the saddle addressed the startled spectators and his voice,
although not raised above a conversational tone, carried the length of
the silent street.
“Take it easy,” he advised. “No one’s going to get hurt unless you
start acting up.”
He spoke with quiet assurance but the man on the door was of a more
blustering type.
“All you cattle stand dead quiet,” he threatened. “Not a sound there!
You!” he bawled as a man shifted his position; “what did I tell you
about keeping quiet.”
“Keep quiet yourself,” the man on the horse advised. “You’ll stampede
the lot of them with your gab.”
Those within the bank reported later that one of the inside men was
silent throughout the affair, never speaking a word but instead making
his wishes known by motions of his hand. His companion seemed nervous
and excited.
The pair emerged from the bank and the three dismounted men swung to
their saddles. As the quartet jumped their horses down the street the
door of the hardware store opened and the reports of a rifle rolled
forth in swift succession. The man who had held the horses lurched
dizzily, sprawling forward over the saddle horn, then fell to the
street as his mount jumped sidewise. The silent man set his own horse
back on its haunches, seized the reins of the loose animal and leaned
from the saddle to help the fallen man to remount. The blustering party
whirled his horse and emptied his gun at the front of the store from
which the concealed riflemen operated. Spectators, galvanized into
action by the splintering glass of store windows, ducked hurriedly for
cover. As the fallen man regained his saddle the three men rounded
the corner and followed after the fourth, who had held on without
slackening his speed.
Near noon of the following day Carver was well on his way toward
Hinman’s range to bring back the hundred head of yearlings he had
purchased in the spring. The news of the Wharton raid had been carried
to the bunk house by a grub-liner the night before and Carver turned it
over in his mind as he rode.
“The blustering man on the door was Noll Lassiter,” he mused. “And the
silent man inside was Milt. The nervous party--I can’t place him. I’m
wondering about the casual individual who held the horses. It certainly
does look as if they’d cancelled the family feud.”
For Bart Lassiter’s two-day trip to Caldwell had lengthened into a week
and he had not yet returned. The name of Lassiter had been whispered in
connection with recent misdeeds but the raids had been frequent and at
widely separate points. It was certain that Milt and Noll Lassiter had
not participated in some of these, their whereabouts at the time having
been definitely established, and there was no proof that they had been
connected with any one of the numerous affairs.
Carver angled slightly westward as he reached the sand-hill country
near the line. This was the poorest land in all the Strip, yet in
common with better stuff it had been staked solidly on the day of the
run. The majority of these sand-hill claims were destined to change
hands many times before prove-up work would be completed and patents
issued for the land. Carver found this country unfenced and the few
homestead cabins were mainly deserted. The surface was rough and
choppy, a veritable maze of dunes, some covered with tufts of tall red
grass and studded with clumps of dwarfed brush and needle-leaved yucca
plants. There were ridges and domes of white blow-sand, worn by the
action of the wind. These stretches of sand had retarded the progress
of the fire which had swept the country in late summer and the most
of it was covered with grass. There were occasional flats carpeted
with short, wiry salt grass. As Carver neared the edge of one of these
basins he suddenly pulled up his horse and peered through the fringe
of tall grass that graced the crest of an intermediate ridge.
“Here comes the casual party now,” he commented. “Wounded as stated in
the reports, and with a posse right at his heels.”
Two hundred yards out in the flat a rider was pounding down toward the
possible cover afforded by the rough country which Carver had just
traversed. His left arm hung stiffly at his side and he turned in his
saddle with an effort as he gazed back at a group of horsemen, some
eight or ten of them, that were surging out into the far edge of the
depression a mile or more behind.
As Bart crossed the low ridge he started to whirl his horse at the
sight of the man posted in his line of flight, then recognized Carver
and held straight on. Carver turned and rode with him, noting that
Bart’s horse was almost spent.
“I’d trade mounts and let them pick me up instead. I could furnish a
perfect alibi,” Carver said. “But that wouldn’t do. They’d trace the
ownership of your horse.”
“Don’t let that point deter you,” Bart returned easily. “This is no
horse of mine. I wouldn’t own him. I borrowed him, sort of, on the spur
of the moment.”
“But the saddle,” Carver insisted.
“Goes with the horse,” said Bart. “You’re not up to yourself or you’d
recognize that it ain’t my outfit.”
“All right. Let’s switch. Quick!” Carver ordered. “Duck up that coulee
to the left and keep on the grass where it won’t leave any tracks,” he
advised, when the change had been effected. “Push him hard and hold to
the bottoms.”
Carver veered off to the right. He had covered something over half a
mile when the posse sighted him as he crossed a low ridge. For another
three miles he maintained a lead, then rode out on to a high point of
ground and halted his weary mount. The posse had fanned out over a
half-mile front to guard against their quarry’s doubling back through
the choppy breaks. One after another of the man-hunters sighted the
solitary figure on the ridge and headed for the spot. Carver turned and
regarded the first two that approached. They pulled their horses to
a walk, allowing time for another pair of riders to draw in from the
right.
“Sit tight there,” one man called. “No queer stuff now!”
“Where did all this delegation spring from?” Carver demanded.
The sheriff reached the spot and assumed command.
“You, Ben, get his gun,” he ordered and one of the four crowded his
horse closer to Carver’s and reached to remove his gun from its holster.
The sheriff reigned over a Kansas county and his jurisdiction did not
extend to the Strip, a fact which had not deterred him from crossing
the line with his posse when hot after his man. The men were regarding
their catch with some doubt.
“Was that buzzard wearing chaps?” one man asked of the others.
Carver grinned and answered the query as if it had been directed at him.
“I couldn’t say as to the style of his pants,” he returned. “But his
headgear was black.”
“It was for a fact,” one of the posse testified, eyeing Carver’s
battered gray hat.
“What’s all this?” the sheriff demanded. “What about a black hat?”
He too was studying Carver’s apparel.
“This fellow’s not dressed the same,” he admitted. “But the horse looks
like the one he was up on.”
“It’s the selfsame horse he was straddling,” said Carver. “He’s got a
better one under him now.”
“Did you trade?” the sheriff demanded.
“No, he did,” said Carver.
“Speak up! Get it out quick,” the officer ordered.
“I was off prospecting around on foot,” Carver explained. “As I
sauntered back I observed this crow-bait standing where my horse had
been. I caught one brief glimpse of a black hat through the grass on a
ridge and knew that the party under it was making off with my horse.
I crawled this old wreck and took in behind him. Never did see him
again--which isn’t surprising in view of the fact that he’s up in the
middle of the best horse in three States. That was one good horse of
mine. I’ll back him against any mount in these parts. That miscreant
made a good trade. One time during round-up last summer that pony
packed me seventy miles in one day and wasn’t even breathing hard.”
“Oh, damn your horse and its virtues,” the sheriff interrupted. “We’ll
take you along, anyway. How do I know you wasn’t planted out here to
help him make a get-away?”
“You don’t,” Carver admitted. “For all you know, why he might have sent
me word about whatever misdeed he was planning, stating the exact spot
where your posse would jump him and outlining his route of escape from
there on, so’s I could be posted just where his horse would play out
and he’d be needing a fresh one.”
The officer frowned at this absurd line of deduction and Carver grinned
at his discomfiture. The three additional members of the posse, having
ridden well off toward the left, had now sighted the group on the ridge
and were approaching the spot.
“If you want me for exhibit A in the evidence I don’t mind going
along,” Carver added.
The three additional members of the posse rode up and two of them
greeted Carver by name.
“Whenever did you elect to turn outlaw?” one man asked. “Sho! We’ve
snarled things up,” he added. “Carver wasn’t into this mess.”
“Do you know this party?” the sheriff inquired.
“Do I?” the man laughed. “If I had a dollar for every one I’ve borrowed
off him I’d pay half of ’em back.”
Carver’s name was known to the sheriff. It was certain that he could be
found if his testimony was needed later.
“No use holding you,” he said to Carver. “He’s made a clean get-away.
I’m a little off my range--no authority here in the Strip; but I wasn’t
going to let the line stop me when we was right on his heels.”
“Why were you wanting him?” Carver asked. He raised his eyebrows in
evident surprise as the officer gave the details of the Wharton hold-up
and announced that the man they had hunted was the wounded one of the
quartet.
“They holed up somewheres till dark but we got word they’d headed down
this way in the night,” the officer explained. “Likely this fellow was
feeling sick and had to hide out. He’d spotted us riding into the sand
hills and was just climbing his horse to make a run for it when we
sighted him over a mile ahead. He’d posted himself on a ridge so’s he
could watch all ways. He’s up on your fresh horse and miles off by now.
No use for us to go on. I’ll send word to Oval Springs to the sheriff
there that he’s down in this country.”
“Any idea who he might be?” Carver inquired. “Anyone along the line get
a look at him?”
“Not one,” the sheriff denied. “He’s in the clear as far as identity
is concerned. Nobody’s set eyes on him from the time they rode out of
Wharton till we jumped him this morning--excepting the man who reported
that he’d seen four men ride this way after night. That crippled
shoulder may give him away. We’ll be riding on back. I’ll want that
horse you’re on so we can trace its ownership. May get it on him that
way.”
“I’ll nurse him along over to Engle’s place on Slate Creek,” Carver
offered. “Engle will lend me a horse to ride home.”
When Carver reached the home ranch a man waited there to inform him
that Carl Mattison desired his presence in Oval Springs.
“Tell him I’ll be with him between now and to-morrow noon,” Carver
instructed the messenger.
Bart Lassiter rode up to the house an hour before dark. Carver had
expected him to wait until after nightfall before riding in and had
planned to intercept him before he reached the house.
“Why didn’t you lay out somewhere under cover till it was dark?” he
demanded. “Any of the neighbors see you straddling my horse?”
“A few of ’em, likely,” Bart returned. “What if they did? I was half
starved and got dead sick of waiting out there in the creek bottoms.”
Carver took him into the house and dressed the wounded shoulder. It
proved to be a clean hole, the ball having passed through the fleshy
parts without touching a bone. Bart spoke but seldom while the wound
was being dressed. He seemed gloomy and morose, his usual carefree
outlook entirely lacking for the time.
“It was the devil’s own luck, getting jumped just when I did,” he
stated at last.
“Your bad luck set in prior to that,” Carver returned. “It started when
you met Noll and Milt.”
Bart nodded, then suddenly gazed at Carver in surprise.
“But how did you know I’d met them?” he asked. “I didn’t have time to
tell you back there where we changed mounts.”
“It wasn’t hard to guess,” Carver said.
“Then you must know Noll better than I do, if you guessed that,” said
Bart. “I didn’t think the poison hound would shoot me down without a
word.”
“What?” Carver asked. “Noll, you say! D’you mean he shot you?”
“No other,” Bart affirmed. “The four of them rode up on me before I
knew they were anywheres within fifty miles.”
“What four?” Carver inquired.
“Milt, Noll and Freel,” Bart informed. “I don’t know who the fourth
was. Didn’t hear his voice. I was afoot and looking for my horse when
they came riding along. I couldn’t see who they were but Noll was
talking to Freel and I knew their voices. They were riding in front.
I asked ’em to raise another horse and save me a twenty-mile walk and
they halted without a word at the sound of my voice. Then Noll shot. He
cut down on me twice more after I hit the ground. One shot was close
enough to fill my right ear full of sand. Milt jumped his horse against
Noll’s, cussing him meanwhile, and they was off at a run before I could
pick myself up.”
Carver was conscious of a vague sense of relief coupled with knowledge
of previous deductions gone astray.
“Where were you yesterday?” he asked.
“Sleeping in the house you once owned in Caldwell, with my horse in the
shed out behind,” Bart informed. “It’s untenanted now so I entered by
the simple process of breaking a window. I recall that it had been a
wild night in Caldwell and was near daylight when I went to bed. It was
equally near dark when I waked. The festivities had palled on me and I
was ready to go home so I rode out of town.”
“But how did you happen to be way off to the south?” Carver asked.
Bart’s moroseness was dissipated by a grin, the scowl which had stamped
his face vanishing before the advent of some happy recollection.
“I had two pints in the saddle pockets for medicinal uses. After
taking one of them it occurred to me what a nice thing it would be to
surprise you by bringing down those yearlings of yours so I headed for
Hinman’s west place. After taking the other I evidently dismounted
thereabouts for a nap; and after napping I couldn’t locate my horse.
I’d left the reins looped on the horn, likely, and he headed for home.
While I was hunting round for him I heard folks riding toward me and
angled to cut their trail and get help, like I told you. Instead I got
shot. Then I rambled on afoot for a couple of miles and arrived at a
house. Some one is making a late evening call and has left his horse
tied outside, so I borrowed the old wreck and headed toward home. I
was feeling faint-like and weak, so I tied him up to a plum bush and
slept. I made another start about daylight and then got off for a rest.
It was then I see a dozen or so riders surging down on me. With half
the county out on the hunt thataway it come to me that maybe my motives
in borrowing the critter had been misunderstood so I made a break to
escape.”
Carver leaned back in his chair and laughed, swayed by a mixture of
irritation and relief.
“Could you, by any off chance, prove that you were asleep in Caldwell
yesterday and didn’t ride out till dark?” he asked.
“Positively not,” Bart stated. “No one will ever know who entered that
ex-house of yours by way of the window. My tracks are well covered.”
“Which is unfortunate in this particular instance,” Carver remarked.
“You’ve stepped into it up to the armpits. I had been wondering how
to help you avoid serving ten years for something you did. Now I’m
wondering if you won’t get twenty years for something you didn’t. Did
you happen to hear of the little event up in Wharton?”
“I’ve heard of the place,” said Bart. “But I thought it was against the
rules for anything to ever happen there. What did?”
Carver told him and Bart nodded as he listened. The black frown once
more stamped his face.
“And we know who it was,” Bart said. “But I hope they don’t get caught.
Noll might get sent up for twenty years--which span of time I’d find
tedious waiting for him to get out again. I’d hate awfully to shoot him
in the courtroom or through the bars. My fancy runs toward killing him
somewheres outdoors, so I better get started before he’s apprehended.”
Carver knew that Bart meant exactly what his statement intimated. The
breach in the Lassiter family was now irreparable but its operation
might prove to be even more detrimental to Bart than the influence
which his half-brothers had exercised over him in the old days when
they had all trailed together.
“You’re never clear of one mess before you’re into another,” Carver
commented. “Damn Noll! Forget him. Think what it would mean to Molly to
have a shooting in the family.”
“There’s been one shooting in the family within the past few hours. She
despises Noll and thinks considerable of me. Why should she feel worse
about my shooting him than about his taking that shot at me?” Bart
logically contended.
“Ask her,” Carver returned. “I’ll send you home now before some of
the boys roll in and start remarking broadcast about your being shot
through the shoulder. I have to ride over to Oval Springs sometime soon
and if you don’t keep that crippled shoulder under cover meantime, so’s
the neighbors won’t get to speculating about your case, why I’ll up and
jail you myself just to keep you out of trouble.”
Bart faced him gravely.
“There’s not much in this life I wouldn’t do for you,” he said. “I’d
ride on into Washington and loot the Mint if you was needing pin
money. If you had an enemy I’d assassinate him just to save you the
trouble. You’ve used me white. But there’s some things that just have
to be done. This here is one. I’m out to get Noll. He’s had it coming
all his life. The day Noll passes out I’ll put myself under your orders
and never stray outside my homestead fence for a solid year except when
you say the word. I’ll give you a guarantee to that effect.”
An hour after Bart’s departure Carver was saddling a fresh horse in the
corral when a voice called to him from the edge of it.
“What’s the trouble, Honey?” he inquired, resting his arms on the top
bar of the corral gate and facing Molly Lassiter across it.
“Don! Don’t let Bart go out after Noll,” she said. “Before I have time
to thank you for helping him out this morning I’m asking you to do
something else;” she essayed a laugh which ended in a sob. “But don’t
let him do this. Can’t you think of some way? I never knew him to be in
this mood before. He’s so quiet about it that I know he means to do it.”
“Likely it will wear off before morning,” Carver encouraged, but he
knew that morning would find Bart in the selfsame mood. Only years
would suffice to alter the determination he had read in Bart’s face an
hour past. “He’ll forget it in a day or two.”
He spoke unconcernedly to reassure the girl for she was nearer the
breaking point than he had ever seen her. Her habitual self-control had
broken down.
“You know he’ll never forget,” she said. “But I can’t have that--a
shooting between brothers--don’t you see? Not that Noll really is a
brother; but people will always think of it that way. I wish something
had happened to Noll before I ever saw him--just for what he’s done to
Dad and Bart. I’m wicked enough to wish him dead; he should be; he’s
not fit to live. But Bart mustn’t do it. He’d never live it down.”
She spoke disjointedly, her voice high-pitched and unnatural. Carver
vaulted the corral bars and laid an arm about her shoulders.
“Sho! That’ll all pass off,” he said easily. “Bart wouldn’t--not after
he’d thought it over. He’s excited about it now.”
She knew that he spoke only to quiet her fears, that he himself lacked
the convictions which he expressed.
“He’s not excited,” she insisted. “He’s thought it all over now and
made his decision. Oh, anything but that. It’s the one worst thing I
can think of. There must be some way. Honestly, Don, I couldn’t stand
that after all the other things the name of Lassiter has been linked
with.”
“Then we’ll put a stop to it,” he said. “We’ll just fix it so he can’t.”
She noted the change in his voice. He was no longer speaking merely to
reassure her. This knowledge exerted a quieting effect. She someway
had vast confidence that Carver would find a way out. Bart’s quiet
insistence had terrified her but Carver had thought of some means to
dissuade him.
“I’ll be riding on into Oval Springs now,” he said. “Meantime you put
your mind at ease.” He drew her to him and when she made a motion of
dissent he gave her shoulders a little shake. “Right now,” he insisted
a trifle roughly, and she lifted her face to him.
“You promise you won’t let him?” she implored.
He stood looking down at her with a queer little smile.
“Rest easy,” he said. “I’ll take a contract to that effect.”
He dropped the corral bars and a moment later she watched him ride off
through the night toward Oval Springs.