initial commit of ebook 10601HEADmain

2 files changed, 10354 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/10601.txt b/old/10601.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2b2509c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10601.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10354 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rangeland Avenger, by Max Brand
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Rangeland Avenger
+
+Author: Max Brand
+
+Release Date: January 5, 2004 [EBook #10601]
+Last updated: May 26, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RANGELAND AVENGER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Nick Thorp, Shon McCarley and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RANGELAND AVENGER
+
+BY MAX BRAND
+
+
+
+Originally published in 1922 in _Western Story Magazine_ under the
+title of THREE WHO PAID, written under the pseudonym of George Owen
+Baxter, and subsequently in book form under the title THE RANGELAND
+AVENGER in 1924.
+
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+
+Of the four men, Hal Sinclair was the vital spirit. In the actual labor
+of mining, the mighty arms and tireless back Of Quade had been a
+treasure. For knowledge of camping, hunting, cooking, and all the lore
+of the trail, Lowrie stood as a valuable resource; and Sandersen was
+the dreamy, resolute spirit, who had hoped for gold in those mountains
+until he came to believe his hope. He had gathered these three
+stalwarts to help him to his purpose, and if he lived he would lead yet
+others to failure.
+
+Hope never died in this tall, gaunt man, with a pale-blue eye the color
+of the horizon dusted with the first morning mist. He was the very
+spirit of lost causes, full of apprehensions, foreboding,
+superstitions. A hunch might make him journey five hundred miles; a
+snort of his horse could make him give up the trail and turn back.
+
+But Hal Sinclair was the antidote for Sandersen. He was still a boy at
+thirty--big, handsome, thoughtless, with a heart as clean as new snow.
+His throat was so parched by that day's ride that he dared not open his
+lips to sing, as he usually did. He compromised by humming songs new
+and old, and when his companions cursed his noise, he contented himself
+with talking softly to his horse, amply rewarded when the pony
+occasionally lifted a tired ear to the familiar voice.
+
+Failure and fear were the blight on the spirit of the rest. They had
+found no gold worth looking at twice, and, lingering too long in the
+search, they had rashly turned back on a shortcut across the desert.
+Two days before, the blow had fallen. They found Sawyer's water hole
+nearly dry, just a little pool in the center, with caked, dead mud all
+around it. They drained that water dry and struck on. Since then the
+water famine had gained a hold on them; another water hole had not a
+drop in it. Now they could only aim at the cool, blue mockery of the
+mountains before them, praying that the ponies would last to the
+foothills.
+
+Still Hal Sinclair could sing softly to his horse and to himself; and,
+though his companions cursed his singing, they blessed him for it in
+their hearts. Otherwise the white, listening silence of the desert
+would have crushed them; otherwise the lure of the mountains would have
+maddened them and made them push on until the horses would have died
+within five miles of the labor; otherwise the pain in their slowly
+swelling throats would have taken their reason. For thirst in the
+desert carries the pangs of several deaths--death from fire,
+suffocation, and insanity.
+
+No wonder the three scowled at Hal Sinclair when he drew his revolver.
+
+"My horse is gun-shy," he said, "but I'll bet the rest of you I can
+drill a horn off that skull before you do."
+
+Of course it was a foolish challenge. Lowrie was the gun expert of the
+party. Indeed he had reached that dangerous point of efficiency with
+firearms where a man is apt to reach for his gun to decide an argument.
+Now Lowrie followed the direction of Sinclair's gesture. It was the
+skull of a steer, with enormous branching horns. The rest of the
+skeleton was sinking into the sands.
+
+"Don't talk fool talk," said Lowrie. "Save your wind and your
+ammunition. You may need 'em for yourself, son!"
+
+That grim suggestion made Sandersen and Quade shudder. But a grin
+spread on the broad, ugly face of Lowrie, and Sinclair merely shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"I'll try you for a dollar."
+
+"Nope."
+
+"Five dollars?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"You're afraid to try, Lowrie!"
+
+It was a smiling challenge, but Lowrie flushed. He had a childish pride
+in his skill with weapons.
+
+"All right, kid. Get ready!"
+
+He brought a Colt smoothly into his hand and balanced it dexterously,
+swinging it back and forth between his eyes and the target to make
+ready for a snap shot.
+
+"Ready!" cried Hal Sinclair excitedly.
+
+Lowrie's gun spoke first, and it was the only one that was fired, for
+Sinclair's horse was gun-shy indeed. At the explosion he pitched
+straight into the air with a squeal of mustang fright and came down
+bucking. The others forgot to look for the results of Lowrie's shot.
+They reined their horses away from the pitching broncho disgustedly.
+Sinclair was a fool to use up the last of his mustang's strength in
+this manner. But Hal Sinclair had forgotten the journey ahead. He was
+rioting in the new excitement cheering the broncho to new exertions.
+And it was in the midst of that flurry of action that the great blow
+fell. The horse stuck his right forefoot into a hole.
+
+To the eyes of the others it seemed to happen slowly. The mustang was
+halted in the midst of a leap, tugged at a leg that seemed glued to the
+ground, and then buckled suddenly and collapsed on one side. They heard
+that awful, muffled sound of splintering bone and then the scream of
+the tortured horse.
+
+But they gave no heed to that. Hal Sinclair in the fall had been pinned
+beneath his mount. The huge strength of Quade sufficed to budge the
+writhing mustang. Lowrie and Sandersen drew Sinclair's pinioned right
+leg clear and stretched him on the sand.
+
+It was Lowrie who shot the horse.
+
+"You've done a brown turn," said Sandersen fiercely to the prostrate
+figure of Sinclair. "Four men and three hosses. A fine partner you are,
+Sinclair!"
+
+"Shut up," said Hal. "Do something for that foot of mine."
+
+Lowrie cut the boot away dexterously and turned out the foot. It was
+painfully twisted to one side and lay limp on the sand.
+
+"Do something!" said Sinclair, groaning.
+
+The three looked at him, at the dead horse, at the white-hot desert, at
+the distant, blue mountains.
+
+"What the devil can we do? You've spoiled all our chances, Sinclair."
+
+"Ride on then and forget me! But tie up that foot before you go. I
+can't stand it!"
+
+Silently, with ugly looks, they obeyed. Secretly every one of the three
+was saying to himself that this folly of Sinclair's had ruined all
+their chances of getting free from the sands alive. They looked across
+at the skull of the steer. It was still there, very close. It seemed to
+have grown larger, with a horrible significance. And each instinctively
+put a man's skull beside it, bleached and white, with shadow eyes.
+Quade did the actual bandaging of Sinclair's foot, drawing tight above
+the ankle, so that some of the circulation was shut off; but it eased
+the pain, and now Sinclair sat up.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said, "mighty sorry, boys!"
+
+There was no answer. He saw by their lowered eyes that they were hating
+him. He felt it in the savage grip of their hands, as they lifted him
+and put him into Quade's saddle. Quade was the largest, and it was
+mutely accepted that he should be the first to walk, while Sinclair
+rode. It was accepted by all except Quade, that is to say. That big man
+strode beside his horse, lifting his eyes now and then to glare
+remorselessly at Sinclair.
+
+It was bitter work walking through that sand. The heel crunched into
+it, throwing a strain heavily on the back of the thigh, and then the
+ball of the foot slipped back in the midst of a stride. Also the labor
+raised the temperature of the body incredibly. With no wind stirring it
+was suffocating.
+
+And the day was barely beginning!
+
+Barely two hours before the sun had been merely a red ball on the edge
+of the desert. Now it was low in the sky, but bitterly hot. And their
+mournful glances presaged the horror that was coming in the middle of
+the day.
+
+Deadly silence fell on that group. They took their turns by the watch,
+half an hour at a time, walking and then changing horses, and, as each
+man took his turn on foot, he cast one long glance of hatred at
+Sinclair.
+
+He was beginning to know them for the first time. They were chance
+acquaintances. The whole trip had been undertaken by him on the spur of
+the moment; and, as far as lay in his cheery, thoughtless nature, he
+had come to regret it. The work of the trail had taught him that he was
+mismated in this company, and the first stern test was stripping the
+masks from them. He saw three ugly natures, three small, cruel souls.
+
+It came Sandersen's turn to walk.
+
+"Maybe I could take a turn walking," suggested Sinclair.
+
+It was the first time in his life that he had had to shift any burden
+onto the shoulders of another except his brother, and that was
+different. Ah, how different! He sent up one brief prayer for Riley
+Sinclair. There was a man who would have walked all day that his
+brother might ride, and at the end of the day that man of iron would be
+as fresh as those who had ridden. Moreover, there would have been no
+questions, no spite, but a free giving. Mutely he swore that he would
+hereafter judge all men by the stern and honorable spirit of Riley.
+
+And then that sad offer: "Maybe I could take a turn walking, Sandersen.
+I could hold on to a stirrup and hop along some way!"
+
+Lowrie and Quade sneered, and Sandersen retorted fiercely: "Shut up!
+You know it ain't possible, but I ought to call your bluff."
+
+He had no answer, for it was not possible. The twisted foot was a
+steady torture.
+
+In another half hour he asked for water, as they paused for Sandersen
+to mount, and Lowrie to take his turn on foot. Sandersen snatched the
+canteen which Quade reluctantly passed to the injured man.
+
+"Look here!" said Sandersen. "We got to split up on this. You sit there
+and ride and take it easy. Me and the rest has to go through hell. You
+take some of the hell yourself. You ride, but we'll have the water, and
+they ain't much of it left at that!"
+
+Sinclair glanced helplessly at the others. Their faces were set in
+stern agreement.
+
+Slowly the sun crawled up to the center of the sky and stuck there for
+endless hours, it seemed, pouring down a fiercer heat. And the
+foothills still wavered in blue outlines that meant distance--terrible
+distance.
+
+Out of the east came a cloud of dust. The restless eye of Sandersen saw
+it first, and a harsh shout of joy came from the others. Quade was
+walking. He lifted his arms to the cloud of dust as if it were a vision
+of mercy. To Hal Sinclair it seemed that cold water was already running
+over his tongue and over the hot torment of his foot. But, after that
+first cry of hoarse joy, a silence was on the others, and gradually he
+saw a shadow gather.
+
+"It ain't wagons," said Lowrie bitterly at length. "And it ain't
+riders; it comes too fast for that. And it ain't the wind; it comes too
+slow. But it ain't men. You can lay to that!"
+
+Still they hoped against hope until the growing cloud parted and lifted
+enough for them to see a band of wild horses sweeping along at a steady
+lope. They sighted the men and veered swiftly to the left. A moment
+later there was only a thin trail of flying dust before the four. Three
+pairs of eyes turned on Sinclair and silently cursed him as if this
+were his fault.
+
+"Those horses are aiming at water," he said. "Can't we follow 'em?"
+
+"They're aiming for a hole fifty miles away. No, we can't follow 'em!"
+
+They started on again, and now, after that cruel moment of hope, it was
+redoubled labor. Quade was cursing thickly with every other step. When
+it came his turn to ride he drew Lowrie to one side, and they conversed
+long together, with side glances at Sinclair.
+
+Vaguely he guessed the trend of their conversation, and vaguely he
+suspected their treacherous meanness. Yet he dared not speak, even had
+his pride permitted.
+
+It was the same story over again when Lowrie walked. Quade rode aside
+with Sandersen, and again, with the wolfish side glances, they eyed the
+injured man, while they talked. At the next halt they faced him.
+Sandersen was the spokesman.
+
+"We've about made up our minds, Hal," he said deliberately, "that you
+got to be dropped behind for a time. We're going on to find water. When
+we find it we'll come back and get you. Understand?"
+
+Sinclair moistened his lips, but said nothing.
+
+Then Sandersen's voice grew screechy with sudden passion. "Say, do you
+want three men to die for one? Besides, what good could we do?"
+
+"You don't mean it," declared Sinclair. "Sandersen, you don't mean it!
+Not alone out here! You boys can't leave me out here stranded. Might as
+well shoot me!"
+
+All were silent. Sandersen looked to Lowrie, and the latter stared at
+the sand. It was Quade who acted.
+
+Stepping to the side of Sinclair he lifted him easily in his powerful
+arms and lowered him to the sands. "Now, keep your nerve," he advised.
+"We're coming back."
+
+He stumbled a little over the words. "It's all of us or none of us," he
+said. "Come on, boys. _My_ conscience is clear!"
+
+They turned their horses hastily to the hills, and, when the voice of
+Sinclair rang after them, not one dared turn his head.
+
+"Partners, for the sake of all the work we've done together--don't do
+this!"
+
+In a shuddering unison they spurred their horses and raised the weary
+brutes into a gallop; the voice faded into a wail behind them. And
+still they did not look back.
+
+For that matter they dared not look at one another, but pressed on,
+their eyes riveted to the hills. Once Lowrie turned his head to mark
+the position of the sun. Once Sandersen, in the grip of some passion of
+remorse or of fear of death, bowed his head with a strange moan. But,
+aside from that, there was no sound or sign between them until, hardly
+an hour and a half after leaving Sinclair, they found water.
+
+At first they thought it was a mirage. They turned away from it by
+mutual assent. But the horses had scented drink, and they became
+unmanageable. Five minutes later the animals were up to their knees in
+the muddy water, and the men were floundering breast deep, drinking,
+drinking, drinking.
+
+After that they sat about the brink staring at one another in a stunned
+fashion. There seemed no joy in that delivery, for some reason.
+
+"I guess Sinclair will be a pretty happy gent when he sees us coming
+back," said Sandersen, smiling faintly.
+
+There was no response from the others for a moment. Then they began to
+justify themselves hotly.
+
+"It was your idea, Quade."
+
+"Why, curse your soul, weren't you glad to take the idea? Are you going
+to blame it on to me?"
+
+"What's the blame?" asked Lowrie. "Ain't we going to bring him water?"
+
+"Suppose he ever tells we left him? We'd have to leave these parts
+pronto!"
+
+"He'll never tell. We'll swear him."
+
+"If he does talk, I'll stop him pretty sudden," said Lowrie, tapping
+his holster significantly.
+
+"Will you? What if he puts that brother of his on your trail?"
+
+Lowrie swallowed hard. "Well--" he began, but said no more.
+
+They mounted in a new silence and took the back trail slowly. Not until
+the evening began to fall did they hurry, for fear the darkness would
+make them lose the position of their comrade. When they were quite near
+the place, the semidarkness had come, and Quade began to shout in his
+tremendous voice. Then they would listen, and sometimes they heard an
+echo, or a voice like an echo, always at a great distance.
+
+"Maybe he's started crawling and gone the wrong way. He should have sat
+still," said Lowrie, "because--"
+
+"Oh, Lord," broke in Sandersen, "I knew it! I been seeing it all the
+way!" He pointed to a figure of a man lying on his back in the sand,
+with his arms thrown out crosswise. They dismounted and found Hal
+Sinclair dead and cold. Perhaps the insanity of thirst had taken him;
+perhaps he had figured it out methodically that it was better to end
+things before the madness came. There was a certain stern repose about
+his face that favored this supposition. He seemed much older. But,
+whatever the reason, Hal Sinclair had shot himself cleanly through the
+head.
+
+"You see that face?" asked Lowrie with curious quiet. "Take a good
+look. You'll see it ag'in."
+
+A superstitious horror seized on Sandersen. "What d'you mean, Lowrie?
+What d'you mean?"
+
+"I mean this! The way he looks now he's a ringer for Riley Sinclair.
+And, you mark me, we're all going to see Riley Sinclair, face to face,
+before we die!"
+
+"He'll never know," said Quade, the stolid. "Who knows except us? And
+will one of us ever talk?" He laughed at the idea.
+
+"I dunno," whispered Sandersen. "I dunno, gents. But we done an awful
+thing, and we're going to pay--we're going to pay!"
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+Their trails divided after that. Sandersen and Quade started back for
+Sour Creek. At the parting of the ways Lowrie's last word was for
+Sandersen.
+
+"You started this party, Sandersen. If they's any hell coming out of
+it, it'll fall chiefly on you. Remember, because I got one of your own
+hunches!"
+
+After that Lowrie headed straight across the mountains, traveling as
+much by instinct as by landmarks. He was one of those men who are born
+to the trail. He stopped in at Four Pines, and there he told the story
+on which he and Sandersen and Quade had agreed. Four Pines would spread
+that tale by telegraph, and Riley Sinclair would be advised beforehand.
+Lowrie had no desire to tell the gunfighter in person of the passing of
+Hal Sinclair. Certainly he would not be the first man to tell the
+story.
+
+He reached Colma late in the afternoon, and a group instantly formed
+around him on the veranda of the old hotel. Four Pines had indeed
+spread the story, and the crowd wanted verification. He replied as
+smoothly as he could. Hal Sinclair had broken his leg in a fall from
+his horse, and they had bound it up as well as they could. They had
+tied him on his horse, but he could not endure the pain of travel. They
+stopped, nearly dying from thirst. Mortification set in. Hal Sinclair
+died in forty-eight hours after the halt.
+
+Four Pines had accepted the tale. There had been more deadly stories
+than this connected with the desert. But Pop Hansen, the proprietor,
+drew Lowrie to one side.
+
+"Keep out of Riley's way for a while. He's all het up. He was fond of
+Hal, you know, and he takes this bad. Got an ugly way of asking
+questions, and--"
+
+"The truth is the truth," protested Lowrie. "Besides--"
+
+"I know--I know. But jest make yourself scarce for a couple of days."
+
+"I'll keep on going, Pop. Thanks!"
+
+"Never mind, ain't no hurry. Riley's out of town and won't be back for
+a day or so. But, speaking personal, I'd rather step into a nest of
+rattlers than talk to Riley, the way he's feeling now."
+
+Lowrie climbed slowly up the stairs to his room, thinking very hard. He
+knew the repute of Riley Sinclair, and he knew the man to be even worse
+than reputation, one of those stern souls who exact an eye for an
+eye--and even a little more.
+
+Once in his room he threw himself on his bed. After all there was no
+need for a panic. No one would ever learn the truth. To make surety
+doubly sure he would start early in the dawn and strike out for far
+trails. The thought had hardly come to him when he dismissed it. A
+flight would call down suspicion on him, and Riley Sinclair would be
+the first to suspect. In that case distance would not save him, not
+from that hard and tireless rider.
+
+To help compose his thoughts he went to the washstand and bathed his
+hot face. He was drying himself when there was a tap on the door.
+
+"Can I come in?" asked a shrill voice.
+
+He answered in the affirmative, and a youngster stepped into the room.
+
+"You're Lowrie?"
+
+"Yep."
+
+"They's a gent downstairs wants you to come down and see him."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"I dunno. We just moved in from Conway. I can point him out to you on
+the street."
+
+Lowrie followed the boy to the window, and there, surrounded by half a
+dozen serious-faced men, stood Riley Sinclair, tall, easy, formidable.
+The sight of Sinclair filled Lowrie with dismay. Pushing a silver coin
+into the hand of the boy, he said: "Tell him--tell him--I'm coming
+right down."
+
+As soon as the boy disappeared, Lowrie ran to the window which opened
+on the side of the house. When he looked down his hope fled. At one
+time there had been a lean-to shed running along that side of the
+building. By the roof of it he could have got to the ground unseen. Now
+he remembered that it had been torn down the year before; there was a
+straight and perilous drop beneath the window. As for the stairs, they
+led almost to the front door of the building. Sinclair would be sure to
+see him if he went down there.
+
+Of the purpose of the big man he had no doubt. His black guilt was so
+apparent to his own mind that it seemed impossible that the keen eyes
+of Sinclair had not looked into the story of Hal's broken leg and seen
+a lie. Besides, the invitation through a messenger seemed a hollow
+lure. Sinclair wished to fight him and kill him before witnesses who
+would attest that Lowrie had been the first to go for his gun.
+
+Fight? Lowrie looked down at his hand and found that the very wrist was
+quivering. Even at his best he felt that he would have no chance. Once
+he had seen Sinclair in action in Lew Murphy's old saloon, had seen Red
+Jordan get the drop, and had watched Sinclair shoot his man
+deliberately through the shoulder. Red Jordan was a cripple for life.
+
+Suppose he walked boldly down, told his story, and trusted to the skill
+of his lie? No, he knew his color would pale if he faced Sinclair.
+Suppose he refused to fight? Better to die than be shamed in the
+mountain country.
+
+He hurried to the window for another look into the street, and he found
+that Sinclair had disappeared. Lowrie's knees buckled under his weight.
+He went over to the bed, with short steps like a drunken man, and
+lowered himself down on it.
+
+Sinclair had gone into the hotel, and doubtless that meant that he had
+grown impatient. The fever to kill was burning in the big man. Then
+Lowrie heard a steady step come regularly up the stairs. They creaked
+under a heavy weight.
+
+Lowrie drew his gun. It caught twice; finally he jerked it out in a
+frenzy. He would shoot when the door opened, without waiting, and then
+trust to luck to fight his way through the men below.
+
+In the meantime the muzzle of the revolver wabbled crazily from side to
+side, up and down. He clutched the barrel with the other hand. And
+still the weapon shook.
+
+Curling up his knee before his breast he ground down with both hands.
+That gave him more steadiness; but would not this contorted position
+destroy all chance of shooting accurately? His own prophecy, made over
+the dead body of Hal Sinclair, that all three of them would see that
+face again, came back to him with a sense of fatality. Some
+forward-looking instinct, he assured himself, had given him that
+knowledge.
+
+The step upon the stairs came up steadily. But the mind of Lowrie,
+between the steps, leaped hither and yon, a thousand miles and back.
+What if his nerve failed him at the last moment? What if he buckled and
+showed yellow and the shame of it followed him? Better a hundred times
+to die by his own hand.
+
+Excitement, foreboding, the weariness of the long trail--all were
+working upon Lowrie.
+
+Nearer drew the step. It seemed an hour since he had first heard it
+begin to climb the stairs. It sounded heavily on the floor outside his
+door. There was a heavy tapping on the door itself. For an instant the
+clutch of Lowrie froze around his gun; then he twitched the muzzle back
+against his own breast and fired.
+
+There was no pain--only a sense of numbness and a vague feeling of torn
+muscles, as if they were extraneous matter. He dropped the revolver on
+the bed and pressed both hands against his wound. Then the door opened,
+and there appeared, not Riley Sinclair, but Pop Hansen.
+
+"What in thunder--" he began.
+
+"Get Riley Sinclair. There's been an accident," said Lowrie faintly and
+huskily. "Get Riley Sinclair; quick. I got something to say to him."
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+
+Riley Sinclair rode over the mountain. An hour of stern climbing lay
+behind him, but it was not sympathy for his tired horse that made him
+draw rein. Sympathy was not readily on tap in Riley's nature.
+"Hossflesh" to Riley was purely and simply a means to an end. Neither
+had he paused to enjoy that mystery of change which comes over
+mountains between late afternoon and early evening. His keen eyes
+answered all his purposes, and that they had never learned to see blue
+in shadows meant nothing to Riley Sinclair.
+
+If he looked kindly upon the foothills, which stepped down from the
+peaks to the valley lands, it was because they meant an easy descent.
+Riley took thorough stock of his surroundings, for it was a new
+country. Yonder, where the slant sun glanced and blinked on windows,
+must be Sour Creek; and there was the road to town jagging across the
+hills. Riley sighed.
+
+In his heart he despised that valley. There were black patches of
+plowed land. A scattering of houses began in the foothills and
+thickened toward Sour Creek. How could men remain there, where there
+was so little elbow room? He scowled down into the shadow of the
+valley. Small country, small men.
+
+Pictures failed to hold Riley, but, as he sat the saddle, hand on
+thigh, and looked scornfully toward Sour Creek, he was himself a
+picture to make one's head lift. As a rule the horse comes in for as
+much attention as the rider, but when Riley Sinclair came near, people
+saw the man and nothing else. Not because he was good-looking, but
+because one became suddenly aware of some hundred and eighty pounds of
+lithe, tough muscle and a domineering face.
+
+Somewhere behind his eyes there was a faint glint of humor. That was
+the only soft touch about him. He was in that hard age between thirty
+and thirty-five when people are still young, but have lost the
+illusions of youth. And, indeed, that was exactly the word which people
+in haste used to describe Riley Sinclair--"hard."
+
+Having once resigned himself to the descent into that cramped country
+beneath he at once banished all regret. First he picked out his
+objective, a house some distance away, near the road, and then he
+brought his mustang up on the bit with a touch of the spurs. Then,
+having established the taut rein which he preferred, he sent the cow
+pony down the slope. It was plain that the mustang hated its rider; it
+was equally plain that Sinclair was in perfect touch with his horse,
+what with the stern wrist pulling against the bit, and the spurs
+keeping the pony up on it. In spite of his bulk he was not heavy in the
+saddle, for he kept in tune with the gait of the horse, with that sway
+of the body which lightens burdens. A capable rider, he was so
+judicious that he seemed reckless.
+
+Leaving the mountainside, he struck at a trot across a tableland. Some
+mysterious instinct enabled him to guide the pony without glancing once
+at the ground; for Sinclair, with his head high, was now carefully
+examining the house before him. Twice a cluster of trees obscured it,
+and each time, as it came again more closely in view, the eye of Riley
+Sinclair brightened with certainty. At length, nodding slightly to
+express his conviction, he sent the pony into the shelter of a little
+grove overlooking the house. From this shelter, still giving half his
+attention to his objective, he ran swiftly over his weapons. The pair
+of long pistols came smoothly into his hands, to be weighed nicely, and
+have their cylinders spun. Then the rifle came out of its case, and its
+magazine was looked to thoroughly before it was returned.
+
+This done, the rider seemed in no peculiar haste to go on. He merely
+pushed the horse into a position from which he commanded all the
+environs of the house; then he sat still as a hawk hovering in a
+windless sky.
+
+Presently the door of the little shack opened, and two men came out and
+walked down the path toward the road, talking earnestly. One was as
+tall as Riley Sinclair, but heavier; the other was a little, slight
+man. He went to a sleepy pony at the end of the path and slowly
+gathered the reins. Plainly he was troubled, and apparently it was the
+big man who had troubled him. For now he turned and cast out his hand
+toward the other, speaking rapidly, in the manner of one making a last
+appeal. Only the murmur of that voice drifted up to Riley Sinclair, but
+the loud laughter of the big man drove clearly to him. The smaller of
+the two mounted and rode away with dejected head, while the other
+remained with arms folded, looking after him.
+
+He seemed to be chuckling at the little man, and indeed there was
+cause, for Riley had never seen a rider so completely out of place in a
+saddle. When the pony presently broke into a soft lope it caused the
+elbows of the little man to flop like wings. Like a great clumsy bird
+he winged his way out of view beyond the edge of the hilltop.
+
+The big man continued to stand with his arms folded, looking in the
+direction in which the other had disappeared; he was still shaking with
+mirth. When he eventually turned, Riley Sinclair was riding down on him
+at a sharp gallop. Strangers do not pass ungreeted in the mountain
+desert. There was a wave of the arm to Riley, and he responded by
+bringing his horse to a trot, then reining in close to the big man. At
+close hand he seemed even larger than from a distance, a burly figure
+with ludicrously inadequate support from the narrow-heeled riding
+boots. He looked sharply at Riley Sinclair, but his first speech was
+for the hard-ridden pony.
+
+"You been putting your hoss through a grind, I see, stranger."
+
+The mustang had slumped into a position of rest, his sides heaving.
+
+"Most generally," said Riley Sinclair, "when I climb into a saddle it
+ain't for pleasure--it's to get somewhere."
+
+His voice was surprisingly pleasant. He spoke very deliberately, so
+that one felt occasionally that he was pausing to find the right words.
+And, in addition to the quality of that deep voice, he had an
+impersonal way of looking his interlocutor squarely in the eye, a habit
+that pleased the men of the mountain desert. On this occasion his
+companion responded at once with a grin. He was a younger man than
+Riley Sinclair, but he gave an impression of as much hardness as Riley
+himself.
+
+"Maybe you'll be sliding out of the saddle for a minute?" he asked.
+"Got some pretty fair hooch in the house."
+
+"Thanks, partner, but I'm due over to Sour Creek by night. I guess
+that's Sour Creek over the hill?"
+
+"Yep. New to these parts?"
+
+"Sort of new."
+
+Riley's noncommittal attitude was by no means displeasing to the larger
+man. His rather brutally handsome face continued to light, as if he
+were recognizing in Riley Sinclair a man of his own caliber.
+
+"You're from yonder?"
+
+"Across the mountains."
+
+"You travel light."
+
+His eyes were running over Riley's meager equipment. Sinclair had been
+known to strike across the desert loaded with nothing more than a
+rifle, ammunition, and water. Other things were nonessentials to him,
+and it was hardly likely that he would put much extra weight on a
+horse. The only concession to animal comfort, in fact, was the slicker
+rolled snugly behind the saddle. He was one of those rare Westerners to
+whom coffee on the trail is not the staff of life. As long as he had a
+gun he could get meat, and as long as he could get meat, he cared
+little about other niceties of diet. On a long trip his "extras" were
+usually confined to a couple of bags of strength-giving grain for his
+horse.
+
+"Maybe you'd know the gent I'm down here looking for?" asked Riley.
+"Happen to know Ollie Quade--Oliver Quade?"
+
+"Sort of know him, yep."
+
+Riley went on explaining blandly "You see, I'm carrying him a sort of a
+death message."
+
+"H'm," said the big man, and he watched Riley, his eyes grown suddenly
+alert, his glance shifting from hand to face with catlike uncertainty.
+
+"Yep," resumed Sinclair in a rambling vein. "I come from a gent that
+used to be a pal of his. Name is Sam Lowrie."
+
+"Sam Lowrie!" exclaimed the other. "You a friend of Sam's?"
+
+"I was the only gent with him when he died," said Sinclair simply.
+
+"Dead!" said the other heavily. "Sam dead!"
+
+"You must of been pretty thick with him," declared Riley.
+
+"Man, I'm Quade. Lowrie was my bunkie!"
+
+He came close to Sinclair, raising an eager face. "How'd Lowrie go
+out?"
+
+"Pretty peaceful--boots off--everything comfortable."
+
+"He give you a message for me?"
+
+"Yep, about a gent called Sinclair--Hal Sinclair, I think it was."
+Immediately he turned his eyes away, as if he were striving to
+recollect accurately. Covertly he sent a side glance at Quade and found
+him scowling suspiciously. When he turned his head again, his eye was
+as clear as the eye of a child. "Yep," he said, "that was the name--Hal
+Sinclair."
+
+"What about Hal Sinclair?" asked Quade gruffly.
+
+"Seems like Sinclair was on Lowrie's conscience," said Riley in the
+same unperturbed voice.
+
+"You don't say so!"
+
+"I'll tell you what he told me. Maybe he was just raving, for he had a
+sort of fever before he went out. He said that you and him and Hal
+Sinclair and Bill Sandersen all went out prospecting. You got stuck
+clean out in the desert, Lowrie said, and you hit for water. Then
+Sinclair's hoss busted his leg in a hole. The fall smashed up
+Sinclair's foot. The four of you went on, Sinclair riding one hoss, and
+the rest of you taking turns with the third one. Without water the
+hosses got weak, and you gents got pretty badly scared, Lowrie said.
+Finally you and Sandersen figured that Sinclair had got to get off, but
+Sinclair couldn't walk. So the three of you made up your minds to leave
+him and make a dash for water. You got to water, all right, and in
+three hours you went back for Sinclair. But he'd given up hope and shot
+himself, sooner'n die of thirst, Lowrie said."
+
+The horrible story came slowly from the lips of Riley Sinclair. There
+was not the slightest emotion in his face until Quade rubbed his
+knuckles across his wet forehead. Then there was the faintest jutting
+out of Riley's jaw.
+
+"Lowrie was sure raving," said Quade.
+
+Sinclair looked carelessly down at the gray face of Quade. "I guess
+maybe he was, but what he asked me to say was: 'Hell is sure coming to
+what you boys done.'"
+
+"He thought about that might late," replied Quade. "Waited till he
+could shift the blame on me and Sandersen, eh? To hell with Lowrie!"
+
+"Maybe he's there, all right," said Sinclair, shrugging. "But I've got
+rid of the yarn, anyway."
+
+"Are you going to spread that story around in Sour Creek?" asked Quade
+softly.
+
+"Me? Why, that story was told me confidential by a gent that was about
+to go out!"
+
+Riley's frank manner disarmed Quade in a measure.
+
+"Kind of queer, me running on to you like this, ain't it?" he went on.
+"Well, you're fixed up sort of comfortable up here. Nice little shack,
+partner. And I suppose you got a wife and kids and everything? Pretty
+lucky, I'd call you!"
+
+Quade was glad of an opportunity to change the subject. "No wife yet!"
+he said.
+
+"Living up here all alone?"
+
+"Sure! Why?"
+
+"Nothing! Thought maybe you'd find it sort of lonesome."
+
+Back to the dismissed subject Quade returned, with the persistence of a
+guilty conscience. "Say," he said, "while we're talking about it, you
+don't happen to believe what Lowrie said?"
+
+"Lowrie was pretty sick; maybe he was raving. So you're all along up
+here? Nobody near?"
+
+His restless, impatient eye ran over the surroundings. There was not a
+soul in sight. The mountains were growing stark and black against the
+flush of the western sky. His glance fell back upon Quade.
+
+"But how did Lowrie happen to die?"
+
+"He got shot."
+
+"Did a gang drop him?"
+
+"Nope, just one gent."
+
+"You don't say! But Lowrie was a pretty slick hand with a gun--next to
+Bill Sandersen, the best I ever seen, almost! Somebody got the drop on
+him, eh?"
+
+"Nope, he killed himself!"
+
+Quade gasped. "Suicide?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"How come?"
+
+"I'll tell you how it was. He seen a gent coming. In fact he looked out
+of the window of his hotel and seen Riley Sinclair, and he figured that
+Riley had come to get him for what happened to his brother, Hal. Lowrie
+got sort of excited, lost his nerve, and when the hotel keeper come
+upstairs, Lowrie thought it was Sinclair, and he didn't wait. He shot
+himself."
+
+"You seem to know a pile," said Quade thoughtfully.
+
+"Well, you see, I'm Riley Sinclair." Still he smiled, but Quade was as
+one who had seen a ghost.
+
+"I had to make sure that you was alone. I had to make sure that you was
+guilty. And you are, Quade. Don't do that!"
+
+The hand of Quade slipped around the butt of his gun and clung there.
+
+"You ain't fit for a gun fight right now," went on Riley Sinclair
+slowly. "You're all shaking, Quade, and you couldn't hit the side of
+the mountain, let alone me. Wait a minute. Take your time. Get all
+settled down and wait till your hand stops shaking."
+
+Quade moistened his white lips and waited.
+
+"You give Hal plenty of time," resumed Riley Sinclair. "Since Lowrie
+told me that yarn I been wondering how Hal felt when you and the other
+two left him alone. You know, a gent can do some pretty stiff thinking
+before he makes up his mind to blow his head off."
+
+His tone was quite conversational.
+
+"Queer thing how I come to blunder into all this information, partner.
+I come into a room where Lowrie was. The minute he heard my name he
+figured I was after him on account of Hal. Up he comes with his gun
+like a flash. Afterward he told me all about it, and I give him a
+pretty fine funeral. I'll do the same by you, Quade. How you feeling
+now?"
+
+"Curse you!" exclaimed Quade.
+
+"Maybe I'm cursed, right enough, but, Quade, I'd let 'em burn me, inch
+by inch in a fire, before I'd quit a partner, a bunkie in the desert!
+You hear? It's a queer thing that a gent could have much pleasure out
+of plugging another gent full of lead. I've had that pleasure once; and
+I'm going to have it again. I'm going to kill you, Quade, but I wish
+there was a slower way! Pull your gun!"
+
+That last came out with a snap, and the revolver of Quade flicked out
+of its holster with a convulsive jerk of the big man's wrist. Yet the
+spit of fire came from Riley Sinclair's weapon, slipping smoothly into
+his hand. Quade did not fall. He stood with a bewildered expression, as
+a man trying to remember something hidden far in the past; and Sinclair
+fingered the butt of his gun lightly and waited. It was rather a
+crumbling than a fall. The big body literally slumped down into a heap.
+
+Sinclair reached down without dismounting and pulled the body over on
+its back.
+
+"Because," he explained to what had been a strong man the moment
+before, "when the devil comes to you, I want the old boy to see your
+face, Quade! Git on, old boss!"
+
+As he rode down the trail toward Sour Creek he carefully and deftly
+cleaned his revolver and reloaded the empty chamber.
+
+
+
+
+4
+
+
+Perhaps, in the final analysis, Riley Sinclair would not be condemned
+for the death of Lowrie or the killing of Quade, but for singing on the
+trail to Sour Creek. And sing he did, his voice ringing from hill to
+hill, and the echoes barking back to him, now and again.
+
+He was not silent until he came to Sour Creek. At the head of the long,
+winding, single street he drew the mustang to a tired walk. It was a
+very peaceful moment in the little town Yonder a dog barked and a
+coyote howled a thin answer far away, but, aside from these, all other
+sounds were the happy noises of families at the end of a day. From
+every house they floated out to him, the clamor of children, the deep
+laughter of a man, the loud rattle of pans in the kitchen.
+
+"This ain't so bad," Riley Sinclair said aloud and roused the mustang
+cruelly to a gallop, the hoofs of his mount splashing through inches of
+pungent dust.
+
+The heaviness of the gallop told him that his horse was plainly spent
+and would not be capable of a long run before the morning. Riley
+Sinclair accepted the inevitable with a sigh. All his strong instincts
+cried out to find Sandersen and, having found him, to shoot him and
+flee. Yet he had a sense of fatality connected with Sandersen. Lowrie's
+own conscience had betrayed him, and his craven fear had been his
+executioner. Quade had been shot in a fair fight with not a soul near
+by. But, at the third time, Sinclair felt reasonably sure that his luck
+would fail him. The third time the world would be very apt to brand him
+with murder.
+
+It was a bad affair, and he wanted to get it done. This stay in Sour
+Creek was entirely against his will. Accordingly he put the mustang in
+the stable behind the hotel, looked to his feed, and then went slowly
+back to get a room. He registered and went in silence up to his room.
+If there had been the need, he could have kept on riding for a
+twenty-hour stretch, but the moment he found his journey interrupted,
+he flung himself on the bed, his arms thrown out crosswise, crucified
+with weariness.
+
+In the meantime the proprietor returned to his desk to find a long,
+gaunt man leaning above the register, one brown finger tracing a name.
+
+"Looking for somebody, Sandersen?" he asked. "Know this gent Sinclair?"
+
+"Face looked kind of familiar to me," said the other, who had jerked
+his head up from the study of the register. "Somehow I don't tie that
+name up with the face."
+
+"Maybe not," said the proprietor. "Maybe he ain't Riley Sinclair of
+Colma; maybe he's somebody else."
+
+"Traveling strange, you mean?" asked Sandersen.
+
+"I dunno, Bill, but he looks like a hard one. He's got one of them
+nervous right hands."
+
+"Gunfighter?"
+
+"I dunno. I'm not saying anything about what he is or what he ain't.
+But, if a gent was to come in here and tell me a pretty strong yarn
+about Riley Sinclair, or whatever his name might be, I wouldn't incline
+to doubt of it, would you, Bill?"
+
+"Maybe I would, and maybe I wouldn't," answered Bill Sandersen
+gloomily.
+
+He went out onto the veranda and squinted thoughtfully into the
+darkness. Bill Sandersen was worried--very worried. The moment he saw
+Sinclair enter the hotel, there had been a ghostly familiarity about
+the man. And he understood the reason for it as soon as he saw the name
+on the register. Sinclair! The name carried him back to the picture of
+the man who lay on his back, with the soft sands already half burying
+his body, and the round, purple blur in the center of his forehead. In
+a way it was as if Hal Sinclair had come back to Me in a new and more
+terrible form, come back as an avenger.
+
+Bill Sandersen was not an evil man, and his sin against Hal Sinclair
+had its qualifying circumstances. At least he had been only one of
+three, all of whom had concurred in the thing. He devoutly wished that
+the thing were to be done over again. He swore to himself that in such
+a case he would stick with his companion, no matter who deserted. But
+what had brought this Riley Sinclair all the way from Colma to Sour
+Creek, if it were not an errand of vengeance?
+
+A sense of guilt troubled the mind of Bill Sandersen, but the obvious
+thing was to find out the reason for Sinclair's presence in Sour Creek.
+Sandersen crossed the street to the newly installed telegraph office.
+He had one intimate friend in the far-off town of Colma, and to that
+friend he now addressed a telegram.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rush back all news you have about man calling self Riley Sinclair of
+Colma--over six feet tall, weight hundred and eighty, complexion dark,
+hard look.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was enough meat in that telegram to make the operator rise his
+head and glance with sharpened eyes at the patron. Bill Sandersen
+returned that glance with so much interest that the operator lowered
+his head again and made a mental oath that he would let the Westerners
+run the West.
+
+With that telegram working for him in far-off Colma, Bill Sandersen
+started out to gather what information he could in Sour Creek. He
+drifted from the blacksmith shop to the kitchen of Mrs. Mary Caluson,
+but both these brimming reservoirs of news had this day run dry. Mrs.
+Caluson vaguely remembered a Riley Sinclair, a man who fought for the
+sheer love of fighting. A grim fellow!
+
+Pete Handley, the blacksmith, had even less to say. He also, he
+averred, had heard of a Riley Sinclair, a man of action, but he could
+not remember in what sense. Vaguely he seemed to recall that there had
+been something about guns connected with the name of Riley Sinclair.
+
+Meager information on which to build, but, having seen this man, Bill
+Sandersen said the less and thought the more. In a couple of hours he
+went back through the night to the telegraph office and found that his
+Colma friend had been unbelievably prompt. The telegram had been sent
+"collect," and Bill Sandersen groaned as he paid the bill. But when he
+opened the telegram he did not begrudge the money.
+
+
+Riley Sinclair is harder than he looks, but absolutely honest and will
+pay fairer than anybody. Avoid all trouble. Trust his word, but not his
+temper. Gunfighter, but not a bully. By the way, your pal Lowrie shot
+himself last week.
+
+
+The long fingers of Bill Sandersen slowly gathered the telegram into a
+ball and crushed it against the palm of his hand. That ball he
+presently unraveled to reread the telegram; he studied it word by word.
+
+"Absolutely honest!"
+
+It made Sandersen wish to go straight to the gunfighter, put his cards
+on the table, confess what he had done to Sinclair's brother, and then
+express his sorrow. Then he remembered the cruel, lean face of Sinclair
+and the impatient eyes. He would probably be shot before he had half
+finished his story of the gruesome trip through the desert. Already
+Lowrie was dead. Even a child could have put two and two together and
+seen that Sinclair had come to Sour Creek on a mission of vengeance.
+Sandersen was himself a fighter, and, being a fighter, he knew that in
+Riley Sinclair he would meet the better man.
+
+But two good men were better than one, even if the one were an expert.
+Sandersen went straight to the barn behind his shack, saddled his
+horse, and spurred out along the north road to Quade's house. Once
+warned, they would be doubly armed, and, standing back to back, they
+could safely defy the marauder from the north.
+
+There was no light in Quade's house, but there was just a chance that
+the owner had gone to bed early. Bill Sandersen dismounted to find out,
+and dismounting, he stumbled across a soft, inert mass in the path. A
+moment later he was on his knees, and the flame of the sulphur match
+sputtered a blue light into the dead face of Quade, staring upward to
+the stars. Bill Sandersen remained there until the match singed his
+finger tips.
+
+All doubt was gone now. Lowrie and Quade were both gone; and he,
+Sandersen, alone remained, the third and last of the guilty. His first
+strong impulse, after his agitation had diminished to such a point that
+he was able to think clearly again, was to flee headlong into the night
+and keep on, changing horses at every town he reached until he was over
+the mountains and buried in the shifting masses of life in some great
+city.
+
+And then he recalled Riley Sinclair, lean and long as a hound. Such a
+man would be terrible on the trail--tireless, certainly. Besides there
+was the horror of flight, almost more awful than the immediate fear of
+death. Once he turned his back to flee from Riley Sinclair, the
+gunfighter would become a nightmare that would haunt him the rest of
+his life. No matter where he fled, every footstep behind him would be
+the footfall of Riley Sinclair, and behind every closed door would
+stand the same ominous figure. On the other hand if he went back and
+faced Sinclair he might reduce the nightmare to a mere creature of
+flesh and blood.
+
+Sandersen resolved to take the second step.
+
+In one way his hands were tied. He could not accuse Sinclair of this
+killing without in the first place exposing the tale of how Riley's
+brother was abandoned in the desert by three strong men who had been
+his bunkies. And that story, Sandersen knew, would condemn him to worse
+than death in the mountain desert. He would be loathed and scorned from
+one end of the cattle country to the other.
+
+All of these things went through his head, as he jogged his mustang
+back down the hill. He turned in at Mason's place. All at once he
+recalled that he was not acting normally. He had just come from seeing
+the dead body of his best friend. And yet so mortal was his concern for
+his own safety that he felt not the slightest touch of grief or horror
+for dead Quade.
+
+He had literally to grip his hands and rouse himself to a pitch of
+semihysteria. Then he spurred his horse down the path, flung himself
+with a shout out of the saddle, cast open the door of the house without
+a preliminary knock, and rushed into the room.
+
+"Murder!" shouted Bill Sandersen. "Quade is killed!"
+
+
+
+
+5
+
+
+Who killed Quade? That was the question asked with the quiet deadliness
+by six men in Sour Creek. It had been Buck Mason's idea to keep the
+whole affair still. It was very possible that the slayer was still in
+the environs of Sour Creek, and in that case much noise would simply
+serve to frighten him away. It was also Buck's idea that they should
+gather a few known men to weigh the situation.
+
+Every one of the six men who answered the summons was an adept with
+fist or guns, as the need might be; every one of them had proved that
+he had a level head; every one of them was a respected citizen.
+Sandersen was one; stocky Buck Mason, carrying two hundred pounds close
+to the ground, massive of hand and jaw, was a second. After that their
+choice had fallen on "Judge" Lodge. The judge wore spectacles and a
+judicial air. He had a keen eye for cows and was rather a sharper in
+horse trades. He gave his costume a semiofficial air by wearing a
+necktie instead of a bandanna, even at a roundup. The glasses, the
+necktie, and his little solemn pauses before he delivered an opinion,
+had given his nickname.
+
+Then came Denver Jim, a very little man, with nervous hands and
+remarkable steady eyes. He had punched cows over those ranges for ten
+years, and his experience had made him a wildcat in a fight. Oscar
+Larsen was a huge Swede, with a perpetual and foolish grin. Sour Creek
+had laughed at Oscar for five years, considered him dubiously for five
+years more, and then suddenly admitted him as a man among men. He was
+stronger than Buck Mason, quicker than Denver Jim, and shrewder than
+the judge. Last of all came Montana. He had a long, sad face,
+prodigious ability to stow away redeye, and a nature as simple and kind
+and honest as a child's. These were the six men who gathered about and
+stared at the center of the floor. Something, they agreed, had to be
+done.
+
+"First it was old man Collins. That was two years back," said Judge
+Lodge. "You boys remember how Collins went. Then there was the drifter
+that was plugged eight months ago. And now it's Ollie Quade. Gents,
+three murders in two years is too much. Sour Creek'll get a name. The
+bad ones will begin to drop in on us and use us for headquarters. We
+got to make an example. We never got the ones that shot Collins or the
+drifter. Since Quade has been plugged we got to hang somebody. Ain't
+that straight?"
+
+"We got to hang somebody," said Denver Jim. "The point is--who?"
+
+His keen eyes went slowly, hungrily, from face to face, as if he would
+not have greatly objected to picking one of his companions in that very
+room.
+
+"Is they any strangers in town?" asked Larsen with his peculiar,
+foolish grin.
+
+Sandersen stirred in his chair; his heart leaped.
+
+"There's a gent named Riley Sinclair nobody ain't never seen before."
+
+"When did he come in?"
+
+"Along about dark."
+
+"That's the right time for us. You found Quade a long time dead, Bill."
+
+Sandersen swallowed. In his joy he could have embraced Larsen.
+
+"What'll we do?"
+
+"Go talk to Sinclair," said Larsen and rose. "I got a rope."
+
+"He's a dangerous-lookin' gent," declared Sandersen.
+
+Larsen replied mildly: "Mostly they's a pile more interesting when
+they's dangerous. Come on, boys!"
+
+It had been well after midnight when Mason and Sandersen got back to
+Sour Creek. The gathering of the posse had required much time. Now, as
+they filed out to the hotel, to the east the mountains were beginning
+to roll up out of the night, and one cloud, far away and high in the
+sky, was turning pink. They found the hotel wakening even at this early
+hour. At least, the Chinese cook was rattling in the kitchen as he
+built the fire. When the six reached the door of Sinclair's room,
+stepping lightly, they heard the occupant singing softly to himself.
+
+"Early riser," whispered Denver Jim.
+
+"Too early to be honest," replied Judge Lodge.
+
+Larsen raised one of his great hands and imposed an absolute silence.
+Then, stepping with astonishing softness, considering his bulk, he
+approached the door of Sinclair's room. Into his left hand slid his .45
+and instantly five guns glinted in the hands of the others. With equal
+caution they ranged themselves behind the big Swede. The latter glanced
+over his shoulder, made sure that everything was in readiness, and then
+kicked the door violently open.
+
+Riley Sinclair was sitting on the side of his bed, tugging on a pair of
+riding boots and singing a hushed song. He interrupted himself long
+enough to look up into the muzzle of Larsen's gun. Then deliberately he
+finished drawing on the boot, singing while he did so; and, still
+deliberately, rose and stamped his feet home in the leather. Next he
+dropped his hands on his hips and considered the posse gravely.
+
+"Always heard tell how Sour Creek was a fine town but I didn't know
+they turned out reception committees before sunup. How are you, boys?
+Want my roll?"
+
+Larsen, as one who scorned to take a flying start on any man, dropped
+his weapon back in its holster. Sinclair's own gun and cartridge belt
+hang on the wall at the foot of the bed.
+
+"That sounds too cool to be straight," said the judge soberly.
+"Sinclair, I figure you know why we want you?"
+
+"I dunno, gents," said Sinclair, who grew more and more cheerful in the
+face of these six pairs of grim eyes. "But I'm sure obliged to the gent
+that give me the sendoff. What d'you want?" Drawing into the background
+Larsen said: "Open up on him, judge. Start the questions."
+
+But Sandersen was of no mind to let the slow-moving mind of the judge
+handle this affair which was so vital to him. If Riley Sinclair did not
+hang, Sandersen himself was instantly placed in peril of his life. He
+stepped in front of Sinclair and thrust out his long arm.
+
+"You killed Quade!"
+
+Riley Sinclair rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking past his accuser.
+
+"I don't think so," he said at length.
+
+"You don't think so? Don't you know?"
+
+"They was two Mexicans jumped me once. One of 'em was called Pedro.
+Maybe the other was Quade. That who you're talking about?'
+
+"You can't talk yourself out of it, Sinclair," said Denver Jim. "We
+mean business, real business, you'll find out!"
+
+"This here is a necktie party, maybe?" asked Riley Sinclair.
+
+"It is, partner," said big Larsen, with his continual smile.
+
+"Sinclair, you come over the mountains," went on Sandersen. "You come
+to find Quade. You ride down off'n the hills, and you come up to
+Quade's house. You call him out to talk to you. You're sitting on your
+horse. All at once you snatch out a gun and shoot Quade down. We know!
+That bullet ranged down. It was shot from above him, plain murder! He
+didn't have a chance!"
+
+Throwing out his facts as he saw them, one by one, there was a ring of
+conviction in his voice. The six accusing faces grew hard and set.
+Then, to their astonishment, they saw that Sinclair was smiling!
+
+"He don't noways take us serious, gents," declared the judge. "Let's
+take him out and see if a rope means anything to him. Sinclair, d'you
+figure this is a game with us?"
+
+Riley Sinclair chuckled. "Gents," he said easily, "you come here all
+het up. You want a pile of action, but you ain't going to get it off'n
+me--not a bit! I'll tell you why. You gents are straight, and you know
+straight talk when you hear it. This dead man--what's his name,
+Quade?--was killed by a gent that had a reason for killing him. Wanted
+to get Quade's money, or they was an old grudge. But what could my
+reason be for wanting to bump off Quade? Can any of you figure that
+out? There's my things. Look through 'em and see if I got Quade's
+money. Maybe you think it's a grudge? Gents, I give you my word that I
+never been into this country before this trip. How could there be any
+grudge between me and Quade? Is that sense? Then talk sense back to
+me!"
+
+His mirth had disappeared halfway through his speech, and in the latter
+part of it his voice rang sternly. Moreover he looked them in the eye,
+one by one. All of this was noted by Sandersen. He saw suddenly and
+clearly that he had lost. They would not hang this man by hearsay
+evidence, or by chance presumption.
+
+Sinclair would go free. And if Sinclair went free, there would be short
+shrift for Bill Sandersen. For a moment he felt his destiny wavering
+back and forth on a needle point. Then he flung himself into a new
+course diametrically opposed to the other.
+
+"Boys, it was me that started this, and I want to be the first to admit
+it's a cold trail. Men has been hung with less agin' them than we got
+agin' Sinclair. We know when Quade must have been killed. We know it
+tallies pretty close with the time when Sinclair came down that same
+trail, because that was the way he rode into Sour Creek. But no matter
+how facts look, nobody _seen_ that shooting. And I say this gent
+Sinclair ain't any murderer. Look him over, boys. He's clean, and I
+register a vote for him. What d'you say? No matter what the rest of you
+figure, I'm going to shake hands with him. I like his style!"
+
+He had turned his back on Riley while he spoke, but now he whirled and
+thrust out his hand. The fingers of Sinclair closed slowly over the
+proffered hand.
+
+"When it comes to the names, partner, seems like you got an edge over
+me."
+
+"Have I? I'm Sandersen. Glad to know you, Sinclair."
+
+"Sandersen!" repeated the stranger slowly. "Sandersen!"
+
+Letting his fingers fall away nervelessly from the hand of the other,
+he sighed deeply.
+
+Sandersen with a side-glance followed every changing shade of
+expression in that hard face. How could Sinclair attack a man who had
+just defended him from a terrible charge? It could not be. For the
+moment, at least, Sandersen felt he was safe. In the future, many
+things might happen. At the very least, he had gained a priceless
+postponement of the catastrophe.
+
+"Them that do me a good turn is writ down in red," Sinclair was saying;
+"and them that step on my toes is writ down the same way. Sandersen, I
+got an idea that for one reason or another I ain't going to forget you
+in a hurry."
+
+There was a grim double meaning in that speech which Sandersen alone
+could understand. The others of the self-appointed posse had apparently
+made up their minds that Sandersen was right, and that this was a cold
+trail.
+
+"It's like Sinclair says," admitted the judge. "We got to find a gent
+that had a reason for wishing to have Quade die. Where's the man?"
+
+"Hunt for the reason first and find the man afterward," said big
+Larsen, still smiling.
+
+"All right! Did anybody owe Quade money, anybody Quade was pressing for
+it?"
+
+It was the judge who advanced the argument in this solemn and dry form.
+Denver Jim declared that to his personal knowledge Quade had neither
+borrowed nor loaned.
+
+"Well, then, had Quade ever made many enemies? We know Quade was a
+fighter. Recollect any gents that might hold grudges?"
+
+"Young Penny hated the ground he walked on. Quade beat Penny to a pulp
+down by the Perkin water hole."
+
+"Penny wouldn't do a murder."
+
+"Maybe it was a fair fight," broke in Larsen.
+
+"Fair nothin'," said Buck Mason. "Don't we all know that Quade was fast
+with a gun? He barely had it out in his hand when the other gent
+drilled him. And he was shot from above. No, sir, the way it happened
+was something like this. The murderin' skunk sat on his hoss saying
+goodby to Quade, and, while they was shaking hands or something like
+that, he goes for his gun and plugs Quade. Maybe it was a gent that
+knew he didn't have a chance agin' Quade. Maybe--"
+
+He broke off short in his deductions and smote his hands together with
+a tremendous oath. "Boys, I got it! It's Cold Feet that done the job.
+It's Gaspar that done it!"
+
+They stared at Buck vaguely.
+
+"Mason, Cold Feet ain't got the nerve to shoot a rabbit."
+
+"Not in a fight. This was a murder!"
+
+"What's the schoolteacher's reason!"
+
+"Don't he love Sally Bent? Didn't Quade love her?" He raised his voice.
+"I'm a big fool for forgetting! Didn't I see him ride over the hill to
+Quade's place and come back in the evening? Didn't I see it? Why else
+would he have called on Quade?"
+
+There was a round chorus of oaths and exclamations. "The poisonous
+little skunk! It's him! We'll string him up!"
+
+With a rush they started for the door.
+
+"Wait!" called Riley Sinclair.
+
+Bill Sandersen watched him with a keen eye. He had studied the face of
+the big man from up north all during the scene, and he found the stern
+features unreadable. For one instant now he guessed that Sinclair was
+about to confess.
+
+"If you don't mind seven in one party," said Riley Sinclair, "I think
+I'll go along to see justice done. You see, I got a sort of secondhand
+interest in this necktie party."
+
+Mason clapped him on the shoulder. "You're just the sort of a gent we
+need," he declared.
+
+
+
+
+6
+
+
+Down in the kitchen they demanded a loaf of bread and some coffee from
+the Chinese cook, and then the seven dealers of justice took horse and
+turned into the silence of the long mountain trail.
+
+The sunrise had picked those mountains out of the night, directly above
+Sour Creek. Riley Sinclair regarded them with a longing eye. That was
+his country. A man could see up there, and he could see the truth. Down
+here in the valley everything was askew. Men lived blindly and did
+blind things, like this "justice" which the six riders were bringing on
+an innocent man.
+
+Not by any means had Riley decided what he would do. If he confessed
+the truth he would not only have a man-sized job trying to escape from
+the posse, but he would have to flee before he had a chance to deal
+finally with Sandersen. Chiefly he wanted time. He wanted a chance to
+study Sandersen. The fellow had spoken for him like a man, but Sinclair
+was suspicious.
+
+In his quandary he turned to sad-faced Montana and asked: "Who's this
+gent you call Cold Feet?"
+
+"He's a tenderfoot," declared Montana, "and he's queer. He's yaller,
+they say, and that's why they call him Cold Feet. Besides, he teaches
+the school. Where's they a real man that would do a schoolma'am's work?
+Living or dying, he ain't much good. You can lay to that!"
+
+Sinclair was comforted by this speech. Perhaps the schoolteacher was,
+as Montana stated, not much good, dead or alive. Sinclair had known
+many men whose lives were not worth an ounce of powder. In this case he
+would let Cold Feet be hanged. It was a conclusion sufficiently grim,
+but Riley Sinclair was admittedly a grim man. He had lived for himself,
+he had worked for himself. On his younger brother, Hal, he had wasted
+all the better and tenderer side of his nature. For Hal's education and
+advantage he had sweated and saved for a long time. With the death of
+Hal, the better side of Riley Sinclair died.
+
+The horses sweated up a rise of ground.
+
+"For a schoolteacher he lives sort of far out of town, I figure," said
+Riley Sinclair.
+
+"That's on account of Sally Bent," answered Denver Jim. "Sally and her
+brother got a shack out this way, and Cold Feet boards with 'em."
+
+"Sally Bent! That's an old-maidish-sounding name."
+
+Denver Jim grinned broadly. "Tolerable," he said, "just tolerable
+old-maidish sounding."
+
+When they reached the top of the knoll, the horses paused, as if by
+common assent. Now they stood with their heads bowed, sullen, tired
+already, steam going up from them into the cool of the morning.
+
+"There it is!"
+
+It was as comfortably placed a house as Riley Sinclair had ever seen.
+The mountain came down out of the sky in ragged, uneven steps. Here it
+dipped away into a lap of quite level ground. A stream of spring water
+flashed across that little tableland, dark in the shadow of the big
+trees, silver in the sunlight. At the back of the natural clearing was
+the cabin, built solidly of logs. Wood, water, and commanding position
+for defense! Riley Sinclair ran his eye appreciatively over these
+advantages.
+
+"My guns, I'd forgot Sally!" exclaimed the massive Buck Mason.
+
+"Is that her?" asked Riley Sinclair.
+
+A woman had come out of the shadow of a tree and stood over the edge of
+the stream, a bucket in her hand. At that distance it was quite
+impossible to make out her features, although Riley Sinclair found
+himself squinting and peering to make them out. She had on something
+white over her head and neck, and her dress was the faded blue of old
+gingham. Then the wind struck her dress, and it seemed to lift the girl
+in its current.
+
+"I'd forgot Sally Bent!"
+
+"What difference does she make?" asked Riley.
+
+"You don't know her, stranger."
+
+"And she won't know us. Got anything for masks?"
+
+"I'm sure a Roman-nosed fool!" declared Mason. "Of course we got to
+wear masks."
+
+The girl's pail flashed, as she raised it up from the stream and
+dissolved into the shadow of a big tree.
+
+"She don't seem noways interested in this here party," remarked Riley.
+
+"That's her way," said Denver Jim, arranging his bandanna to mask the
+lower part of his face from the bridge of his nose down. "She'll show
+plenty of interest when it comes to a pinch."
+
+Riley adjusted his own mask, and he did it thoroughly. Out of his vest
+he ripped a section of black lining, and, having cut eyeholes, he
+fastened the upper edge of the cloth under the brim of his hat and tied
+the loose ends behind his head. Red, white, blue, black, and polka dot
+was that quaint array of masks.
+
+Having completed his arrangements, Larsen started on at a lope, and the
+rest of the party followed in a lurching, loose-formed wedge. At the
+edge of the little tableland, Larsen drew down his mount to a walk and
+turned in the saddle.
+
+"Quick work, no talk, and a getaway," he said as he swung down to the
+ground.
+
+In the crisis of action the big Swede seemed to be accorded the place
+of leader by natural right. The others imitated his example silently.
+Before they reached the door Larsen turned again.
+
+"Watch Jerry Bent," he said softly. "You watch him, Denver, and you,
+Sandersen. Me and Buck will take care of Cold Feet. He may fight like a
+rat. That's the way with a coward when he gets cornered." Then he
+strode toward the door.
+
+"How thick is Sally Bent with this schoolteaching gent?" asked Riley
+Sinclair of Mason.
+
+"I dunno. Nobody knows. Sally keeps her thinking to herself."
+
+Larsen kicked open the door and at the same moment drew his
+six-shooter. That example was also imitated by the rest, with the
+exception of Riley Sinclair. He hung in the background, watching.
+
+"Gaspar!" called Larsen.
+
+There was a voice of answer, a man's thin voice, then the sharp cry of
+a girl from the interior of the house. Sinclair heard a flurry of
+skirts.
+
+"Hysterics now," he said into his mask.
+
+She sprang into the doorway, her hands holding the jamb on either side.
+In her haste the big white handkerchief around her throat had been
+twisted awry. Sinclair looked over the heads of Mason and Denver Jim
+into the suntanned face that had now paled into a delicate olive color.
+Her very lips were pale, and her great black eyes were flashing at
+them. She seemed more a picture of rage than hysterical fear.
+
+"Why for?" she asked. "What are you-all here for in masks, boys? What
+you mean calling for Gaspar? What's he done?"
+
+In a moment of waiting Larsen cleared his throat solemnly. "It'd be
+best we tell Gaspar direct what we're here for."
+
+This seemed to tell her everything. "Oh," she gasped, "you're not
+really _after_ him?"
+
+"Lady, we sure be."
+
+"But Jig--he wouldn't hurt a mouse--he couldn't!"
+
+"Sally, he's done a murder!"
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"Sally, will you stand out of the door?"
+
+"It ain't--it ain't a lynching party, boys? Oh, you fools, you'll hang
+for it, every one of you!"
+
+Sinclair confided to Buck Mason beside him: "Larsen is letting her talk
+down to him. She'll spoil this here party."
+
+"We're the voice of justice," said Judge Lodge pompously. "We ain't got
+any other names. They wouldn't be nothing to hang."
+
+"Don't you suppose I know you?" asked the girl, stiffening to her full
+height. "D'you think those fool masks mean anything? I can tell you by
+your little eyes, Denver Jim!"
+
+Denver cringed suddenly behind the man before him.
+
+"I know you by that roan hoss of yours, Oscar Larsen. Judge Lodge, they
+ain't nobody but you that talks about 'justice' and 'voices.' Buck
+Mason, I could tell you by your build, a mile off. Montana, you'd ought
+to have masked your neck and your Adam's apple sooner'n your face. And
+you're Bill Sandersen. They ain't any other man in these parts that
+stands on one heel and points his off toe like a horse with a sore leg.
+I know you all, and, if you touch a hair on Jig's head, I'll have you
+into court for murder! You hear--murder! I'll have you hung, every man
+jack!"
+
+She had lowered her voice for the last part of this speech. Now she
+made a sweeping gesture, closing her hand as if she had clutched their
+destinies in the palm of her hand and could throw it into their faces.
+
+"You-all climb right back on your hosses and feed 'em the spur."
+
+They stood amazed, shifting from foot to foot, exchanging miserable
+glances. She began to laugh; mysterious lights danced and twinkled in
+her eyes. The laughter chimed away into words grown suddenly gentle,
+suddenly friendly. Such a voice Riley Sinclair had never heard. It
+walked into a man's heart, breaking the lock.
+
+"Why, Buck Mason, you of all men to be mixed up in a deal like this.
+And you, Oscar Larsen, after you and me had talked like partners so
+many a time! Denver Jim, we'll have a good laugh about this necktie
+party later on. Why, boys, you-all know that Jig ain't guilty of no
+harm!"
+
+"Sally," said the wretched Denver Jim, "things seemed to be sort of
+pointing to a--"
+
+There was a growl from the rear of the party, and Riley Sinclair strode
+to the front and faced the girl. "They's a gent charged with murder
+inside," he said. "Stand off, girl. You're in the way!"
+
+Before she answered him, her teeth glinted. If she had been a man, she
+would have struck him in the face. He saw that, and it pleased him.
+
+"Stranger," she said deliberately, making sure that every one in the
+party should hear her words, "what you need is a stay around Sour Creek
+long enough for the boys to teach you how to talk to a lady."
+
+"Honey," replied Riley Sinclair with provoking calm, "you sure put up a
+tidy bluff. Maybe you'd tell a judge that you knowed all these gents
+behind their masks, but they wouldn't be no way you could _prove_ it!"
+
+A stir behind him was ample assurance that this simple point had
+escaped the cowpunchers. All the soul of the girl stood up in her eyes
+and hated Riley Sinclair, and again he was pleased. It was not that he
+wished to bring the schoolteacher to trouble, but it had angered him to
+see one girl balk seven grown men.
+
+"Stand aside," said Riley Sinclair.
+
+"Not an inch!"
+
+"Lady, I'll move you."
+
+"Stranger, if you touch me, you'll be taught better. The gents in Sour
+Creek don't stand for suchlike ways!"
+
+Before the appeal to the chivalry of Sour Creek was out of her lips,
+smoothly and swiftly the hands of Sinclair settled around her elbows.
+She was lifted lightly into the air and deposited to one side of the
+doorway.
+
+Her cry rang in the ears of Riley Sinclair. Then her hand flashed up,
+and the mask was torn from his face.
+
+"I'll remember! Oh, if I have to wait twenty years, I'll remember!"
+
+"Look me over careful, lady. Today's most likely the last time you'll
+see me," declared Riley, gazing straight into her eyes.
+
+A hand touched his arm. "Stranger, no rough play!"
+
+Riley Sinclair whirled with whiplash suddenness and, chopping the edge
+of his hand downward, struck away the arm of Larsen, paralyzing the
+nerves with the same blow.
+
+"Hands off!" said Sinclair.
+
+The girl's clear voice rang again in his ear: "Thank you, Oscar Larsen.
+I sure know my friends--and the gentlemen!"
+
+She was pouring oil on the fire. She would have a feud blazing in a
+moment. With all his heart Riley Sinclair admired her dexterity. He
+drew the posse back to the work in hand by stepping into the doorway
+and calling: "Hey, Gaspar!"
+
+
+
+
+7
+
+
+"He's right, Larsen, and you're wrong," Buck Mason said.
+
+"She had us buffaloed, and he pulled us clear. Steady, boys. They ain't
+no harm done to Sally!"
+
+"Oh, Buck, is that the sort of a friend of mine you are?"
+
+"I'm sorry, Sally."
+
+Sinclair gave this argument only a small part of his attention. He
+found himself looking over a large room which was, he thought, one of
+the most comfortable he had ever seen--outside of pictures. At the
+farther end a great fireplace filled the width of the room. The inside
+of the log walls had been carefully and smoothly finished by some
+master axman. There were plenty of chairs, homemade and very
+comfortable with cushions. A little organ stood against the wall to one
+side. No wonder the schoolteacher had chosen this for his boarding
+place!
+
+Riley made his voice larger. "Gaspar!"
+
+Then a door opened slowly, while Sinclair dropped his hand on the butt
+of his gun and waited. The door moved again. A head appeared and
+observed him.
+
+"Pronto!" declared Riley Sinclair, and a little man slipped into full
+view.
+
+He was a full span shorter, Riley felt, than a man had any right to be.
+Moreover, he was too delicately made. He had a head of bright blond
+hair, thick and rather on end. The face was thin and handsome, and the
+eyes impressed Riley as being at once both bright and weary. He was
+wearing a dressing gown, the first Riley had ever seen.
+
+"Get your hands out of those pockets!" He emphasized the command with a
+jerk of his gun hand, and the arms of the schoolteacher flew up over
+his head. Lean, fragile hands, Riley saw them to be. Altogether it was
+the most disgustingly inefficient piece of manhood that he had ever
+seen.
+
+"Slide out here, Gaspar. They's some gents here that wants to look you
+over."
+
+The voice that answered him was pitched so low as to be almost
+unintelligible. "What do they want?"
+
+"Step lively, friend! They want to see a gent that lets a woman do his
+fighting for him."
+
+He had dropped his gun contemptuously back into its holster. Now he
+waved the schoolteacher to the door with his bare hands.
+
+Gaspar sidled past as if a loaded gun were about to explode in his
+direction. He reached the door, his arms still held stiffly above his
+head, but, at the sight of the masked faces, one arm dropped to his
+side, and the other fell across his face. He slumped against the side
+of the door with a moan.
+
+It was Judge Lodge who broke the silence. "Guilty, boys. Ain't one look
+at the skunk enough to prove it?"
+
+"Make it all fair and legal, gents," broke in Larsen.
+
+Buck Mason strode straight up to the prisoner.
+
+"Was you over to Quade's house yesterday evening?"
+
+The other shrank away from the extended, pointing arm.
+
+"Yes," he stammered. "I--I--what does all this mean?"
+
+Mason whirled on his companions, still pointing to the schoolmaster.
+"Take a slant at him, boys. Can't you read it in his face?"
+
+There was a deep and humming murmur of approval. Then, without a word,
+Mason took one of Gaspar's arms and Montana took the other. Sally Bent
+ran forward at them with a cry, but the long arm of Riley Sinclair
+barred her way.
+
+"Man's work," he said coldly. "You go inside and cover your head."
+
+She turned to them with extended hands.
+
+"Buck, Montana, Larsen--boys, you-all ain't going to let it happen? He
+_couldn't_ have done it!"
+
+They lowered their heads and returned no answer. At that she whirled
+with a sob and ran back into the house. The procession moved on, Buck
+and Montana in the lead, with the prisoner between them. The others
+followed, Judge Lodge uncoiling a horribly significant rope. Last of
+all came Bill Sandersen, never taking his eyes from the face of Riley
+Sinclair.
+
+The latter was thoughtful, very thoughtful. He seemed to feel the eyes
+of Sandersen upon him, for presently he turned to the other. "What
+good's a coward to the world, Sandersen?"
+
+"None that I could see."
+
+"Well, look at that. Ever see anything more yaller?"
+
+Gaspar walked between his two guards. Rather he was dragged between
+them, his feet trailing weakly and aimlessly behind him, his whole body
+sinking with flabby terror. The stern lip of Riley Sinclair curled.
+
+"He's going to let it go through," said Sandersen to himself. "After
+all nobody can blame him. He couldn't put his own neck in the noose."
+
+Over the lowest limb of a great cottonwood Judge Lodge accurately flung
+the rope, so that the noose dangled a significant distance from the
+ground. There was a businesslike stir among the others. Denver, Larsen,
+the judge, and Sandersen held the free end of the rope. Buck Mason tied
+the hands of the prisoner behind him. Montana spoke calmly through his
+mask.
+
+"Jig, you sure done a rotten bad thing. You hadn't ought to of killed
+him, Jig. These here killings has got to stop. We ain't hanging you for
+spite, but to make an example."
+
+Then with a dexterous hand he fitted the noose around the neck of the
+schoolteacher. As the rough rope grated against Gaspar's throat, he
+shrieked and jerked against the rope end that bound his hands. Then, as
+if he realized that struggling would not help him, and that only speech
+could give him a chance for life, he checked the cry of horror and
+looked around him. His glances fell on the grim masks, and it was only
+natural that he should address himself to the only uncovered face he
+saw.
+
+"Sir," he said to Riley in a rapid, trembling voice, "you look to me
+like an honest man. Give me--give me time to speak."
+
+"Make it pronto," said Riley Sinclair coldly.
+
+The four waited, with their hands settled high up on the rope, ready
+for the tug which would swing Gaspar halfway to his Maker.
+
+"We're kind of pushed for time, ourselves," said Riley. "So hurry it
+on, Gaspar."
+
+Bill Sandersen was a cold man, but such unbelievable heartlessness
+chilled him. Into his mind rushed a temptation suddenly to denounce the
+real slayer before them all. He checked that temptation. In the first
+place it would be impossible to convince five men who had already made
+up their minds, who had already acquitted Sinclair of the guilt. In the
+second place, if he succeeded in convincing them, there would be an
+instant gunplay, and the first man to come under Sinclair's fire, he
+knew well enough, would be himself. He drew a long breath and waited.
+
+"Good friends, gentlemen," Gaspar was saying, "I don't even know what
+you accuse me of. Kill a man? Why should I wish to kill a man? You know
+I'm not a fighter. Gentlemen--"
+
+"Jig," cut in Buck Mason, "you was as good as seen to murder. You're
+going to hang. If you got anything to say make a confession."
+
+Gaspar attempted to throw himself on his knees, but his weight struck
+against the rope. He staggered back to his feet, struggling for breath.
+
+"For mercy's sake--" began Gaspar.
+
+"Cut it short, boys!" cried Buck Mason. "Up with him!"
+
+The four men at the rope reached a little higher and settled their
+grips. In another moment Gaspar would dangle in the air. Now Riley
+Sinclair made his decision. The agonized eyes of the condemned man,
+wide with animal terror, were fixed on his face. Sinclair raised his
+hand.
+
+"Wait!"
+
+The arms, growing tense for the jerk, relaxed.
+
+"How long is this going to be dragged out?" asked the judge in disgust.
+"The worst lynching I ever see, that's what I call it! They ain't no
+justice in it--it's just plain torture." "Partner," declared Riley
+Sinclair, "I'm sure glad to see that you got a good appetite for a
+killing. But it's just come home to me that in spite of everything,
+this here gent might be innocent. And if he is, heaven help our souls.
+We're done for!"
+
+"Bless you for that!" exclaimed Gaspar.
+
+"Shut up!" said Sinclair. "No matter what you done, you deserve hangin'
+for being yaller. But concerning this here matter, gents, it looks to
+me like it'd be a pretty good idea to have a fair and square trial for
+Gaspar."
+
+"Trial?" asked Buck Mason. "Don't we all know what trials end up with?
+Law ain't no good, except to give lawyers a living."
+
+"Never was a truer thing said," declared Sinclair. "All I mean is, that
+you and me and the rest of us run a trial for ourselves. Let's get in
+the evidence and hear the witness and make out the case. If we decide
+they ain't enough agin' Gaspar to hang him, then let him go. If we
+decide to stretch him up, we'll feel a pile better about it and nearer
+to the truth."
+
+He went on steadily in spite of the groans of disapproval on every
+side. "Why, this is all laid out nacheral for a courtroom. That there
+stump is for the judge, and the black rock yonder is where the prisoner
+sits. That there nacheral bench of grass is where the jury sits. Gents,
+could anything be handier for a trial than this layout?"
+
+To the theory of the thing they had been entirely unresponsive, but to
+the chance to play a game, and a new game, they responded instantly.
+
+"Besides," said Judge Lodge, "I'll act as the judge. I know something
+about the law."
+
+"No, you won't," declared Riley. "I thought up this little party, and
+I'm going to run it." Then he stepped to the stump and sat down on it.
+
+
+
+
+8
+
+
+Denver Jim was already heartily in the spirit of the thing.
+
+"Sit down on that black rock, Jig," he said, taking Gaspar to the
+designated stone as he spoke, and removing the noose from the latter's
+neck. "Black is a sign you're going to swing in the end. Jest a
+triflin' postponement, that's all."
+
+Riley placated the judge with his first appointment. "Judge Lodge," he
+said, "you know a pile about these here things. I appoint you clerk.
+It's your duty to take out that little notebook you got in your vest
+pocket and write down a note for the important things that's said.
+Savvy?"
+
+"Right," replied Lodge, entirely won over, and he settled himself on
+the grass, with the notebook on his knee and a stub of a pencil poised
+over it.
+
+"Larsen, you're sergeant-at-arms."
+
+"How d'you mean that, Sinclair?"
+
+"That's what they call them that keeps order; I disremember where I
+heard it. Larsen, if anybody starts raising a rumpus, it's up to you to
+shut 'em up."
+
+"I'll sure do it," declared Larsen. "You can sure leave that to me,
+judge." He hoisted his gun belt around so that the gun butt hung more
+forward and readier to his hand.
+
+"Denver, you're the jailer. You see the prisoner don't get away. Keep
+an eye on him, you see?"
+
+"Easy, judge," replied Denver. "I can do it with one hand."
+
+"Montana, you keep the door."
+
+"What d'you mean--door, judge?"
+
+"Ain't you got no imagination whatever?" demanded Sinclair. "You keep
+the door. When I holler for a witness you go and get 'em. And
+Sandersen, you're the hangman. Take charge of that rope!"
+
+"That ain't such an agreeable job, your honor."
+
+"Neither is mine. Go ahead."
+
+Sandersen, glowering, gathered up the rope and draped it over his arm.
+
+"Buck Mason, you're the jury. Sit down over there on your bench, will
+you? This here court being kind of shorthanded, you got to do twelve
+men's work. If it's too much for you, the rest of us will help out."
+
+"Your honor," declared Buck, much impressed, "I'll sure do my best."
+
+"The jury's job," explained Sandersen, "is to listen to everything and
+not say nothing, but think all the time. You'll do your talking in one
+little bunch when you say guilty or not guilty. Now we're ready to
+start. Gaspar, stand up!"
+
+Denver Jim officiously dragged the schoolteacher to his feet.
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"Name?" asked the bewildered Gaspar. "Why, everybody knows my name!"
+
+"Don't make any difference," announced Sinclair. "This is going to be a
+strictly regular hanging with no frills left marabout's your name?"
+
+"John Irving Gaspar."
+
+"Called Jig for short, and sometimes Cold Feet," put in the clerk.
+
+Sinclair cleared his throat. "John Irving Gaspar, alias Jig, alias Cold
+Feet, d'you know what we got agin' you? Know what you're charged with?"
+
+"With--with an absurd thing, sir."
+
+"Murder!" said Sinclair solemnly. "Murder, Jig! What d'you say, guilty
+or not guilty! Most generally, you'd say not guilty."
+
+"Not guilty--absolutely not guilty. As a matter of fact, Mr.
+Sinclair--"
+
+"Denver, shut him up and make him sit down."
+
+One hard, brown hand was clapped over Jig's mouth. The other thrust him
+back on the black rock.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury," said his honor, "you've heard the prisoner say
+he didn't do it. Now we'll get down to the truth of it. What's the
+witnesses for the prosecution got to say?"
+
+There was a pause of consideration.
+
+"Speak up pronto," said Sinclair. "Anybody know anything agin' the
+prisoner?"
+
+Larsen stepped forward. "Your honor, it's pretty generally known--"
+
+"I don't give a doggone for what's generally known. What d'you know?"
+
+The Swede's smile did not alter in the slightest, but his voice became
+blunter, more acrid. From that moment he made up his mind firmly that
+he wanted to see John Irving Gaspar, otherwise Jig, hanged from the
+cottonwood tree above them.
+
+"I was over to Shorty Lander's store the other day--"
+
+His honor raised his hand in weary protest, as he smiled apologetically
+at the court. "Darned if I didn't plumb forget one thing," he said. "We
+got to swear in these witnesses before they can chatter. Is there
+anybody got a Bible around 'em? Nope? Montana, I wished you'd lope over
+to that house and see what they got in the line of Bibles."
+
+Montana strode away in the direction of the house, and quiet fell over
+the unique courtroom. Larsen, so pleasant of face and so unbending of
+heart, was the first to speak.
+
+"Looks to me, gents, like we're wasting a lot of time on a rat!"
+
+The blond head of Cold Feet turned, and his large, dark eyes rested
+without expression upon the face of the Swede. He seemed almost
+literally to fold his hands and await the result of his trial. The
+illusion was so complete that even Riley Sinclair began to feel that
+the prisoner might be guilty--of an act which he himself had done! The
+opportunity was indeed too perfect to be dismissed without
+consideration. It was in his power definitely to put the blame on
+another man; then he could remain in this community as long as he
+wished, to work his will upon Sandersen.
+
+Sandersen himself was a great problem. If Bill had spoken up in good
+faith to save Sinclair from the posse that morning, the Riley felt that
+he was disarmed. But a profound suspicion remained with him that
+Sandersen guessed his mission, and was purposely trying to brush away
+the wrath of the avenger. It would take time to discover the truth, but
+to secure that time it was necessary to settle the blame for the
+killing. Cold Feet was a futile, weak-handed little coward. In the
+stern scheme of Sinclair's life, the death of such a man was almost
+less than nothing.
+
+"Wasting a lot of time on a rat!"
+
+The voice of Larsen fell agreeably upon the ear of his honor. Behind
+that voice came a faraway murmur, the scream of a hawk. He bent his
+head back and looked up through the limbs of the cottonwood into the
+pale blue-white haze of the morning sky.
+
+A speck drifted across it, the hawk sailing in search of prey. Under
+the noble arch of heaven floated that fierce, malignant creature!
+
+Riley Sinclair lowered his head with a sigh. Was not he himself playing
+the part of the hawk? He looked straight into the eyes of the prisoner,
+and Jig met the gaze without flinching. He merely smiled in an
+apologetic manner, and he made a little gesture with his right hand, as
+if to admit that he was helpless, and that he cast himself upon the
+good will of Riley Sinclair. Riley jerked his head to one side and
+scowled. He hated that appeal. He wanted this hanging to be the work of
+seven men, not of one.
+
+Montana returned, bringing with him a yellow-covered, red-backed book.
+"They wasn't a sign of a Bible in the house," he stated, "but I found
+this here history of the United States, with the Declaration of
+Independence pasted into the back of it. I figured that ought to do
+about as well as a Bible."
+
+"You got a good head, Montana," said his honor. "Open up to that there
+Declaration. Here, Larsen, put your hand on this and swear you're
+telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They
+ain't going to be any bum testimony taken in this court. We ain't going
+to railroad this lynching through."
+
+He caught a glistening light of gratitude in the eyes of the
+schoolteacher. Riley's own breast swelled with a sense of virtue. He
+had never before taken the life of a helpless man; and now that it was
+necessary, he would do it almost legally.
+
+Larsen willingly took the oath. "I'm going to tell the truth, the whole
+truth, and nothing but the truth, damn me if I don't! I was over to
+Shorty Lander's store the other day--"
+
+"What day?"
+
+"Hmm! Last Tuesday, I reckon."
+
+"Go on, Larsen, but gimme nothin' but the facts."
+
+"I seen Jig come into the store. 'I want to look at a revolver,'" he
+said.
+
+"'The deuce you do! What might you want to do with a revolver, Jig?'
+says Shorty. 'You mean you want a toy gun?'
+
+"I remember them words particular clear, because I didn't see how even
+a spineless gent like Jig could stand for such a pile of insult. But he
+just sort of smiled with his lips and got steady with his eyes, like he
+was sort of grieved.
+
+"'I want a gun that'll kill a man,' he says to Shorty.
+
+"Shorty and me both laughed, but, when Shorty brung out a forty-five,
+doggone me if Jig didn't buy the gun.
+
+"'Look here,' says he, 'is this the way it works?'
+
+"And he raises it up in his skinny hand. I had to laugh.
+
+"'Hold it in both hands,' says I.
+
+"'Oh,' says he, and darned if he didn't take it in both hands.
+
+"'It seems much easier to handle in this way,' says he.
+
+"But that's what I seen. I seen him buy a gun to kill a man. Them was
+his words, and I figure they're a mouthful."
+
+Larsen retired.
+
+"Damagin' evidence, they ain't no question," said Mr. Clerk severely.
+"But I can lay over it, your honor."
+
+"Blaze away, judge."
+
+Larsen took the oath. "I'm going to show you they was bad feelings
+between the prisoner and the dead man, your honor. I was over to the
+dance at the Woodville schoolhouse a couple of weeks ago. Jig was
+there, not dancing or nothing, but sitting in a corner, with all the
+girls, mostly, hanging around him. They kept hanging around looking
+real foolish at him, and Jig looks back at 'em as if they wasn't there.
+Well, it riles the boys around these parts. Quade comes up to him and
+takes him aside.
+
+"'Look here,' he says, 'why don't you dance with one girl instead of
+hogging them all?'
+
+"'I don't dance,' says Jig.
+
+"'Why do you stay if you won't dance?' asks Quade.
+
+"'It is my privilege,' says Jig, smiling in that ornery way of his,
+like his thoughts was too big for an ordinary gent to understand 'em.
+
+"'You stay an' dance an' welcome,' says Quade, 'but if you won't dance,
+get out of here and go home where you belong. You're spoiling the party
+for us, keeping all the girls over here.'
+
+"'Is that a threat?' says Jig, smiling in that way of his.
+
+"'It sure is. And most particular I want you to keep away from Sally
+Bent. You hear?'
+
+"'You take advantage of your size,' says Jig.
+
+"'Guns even up sizes,' says Quade.
+
+"'Thank you,' says Jig. 'I'll remember.'
+
+"Right after that he went home because he was afraid that Quade would
+give him a dressing. But they was bad feelings between him and Quade.
+They was a devil in them eyes of Jig's when he looked at big Quade. I
+seen it, and I knowed they'd be trouble!" Lodge then retired.
+
+"Gents," said his honor, "it looks kind of black for the prisoner. We
+know that Gaspar had a grudge agin' Quade, and that he bought a gun big
+enough to kill a man. It sure looks black for you, Gaspar."
+
+The prisoner looked steadily at Sinclair. There was something
+unsettling in that gaze.
+
+"All we got to make sure of," said the judge, "is that that quarrel
+between Gaspar and Quade was strong enough to make Gaspar want to kill
+him, and--"
+
+"Your honor," broke in Gaspar, "don't you see that I could never kill a
+man?" The prisoner stretched out his hands in a gesture of appeal to
+Sinclair.
+
+Riley gritted his teeth. Suddenly a chill had passed through him at the
+thought of the hanging noose biting into that frail, soft throat. "You
+shut up till you're asked to talk," he said, frowning savagely. "I
+think we got a witness here that'll prove that you _did_ have
+sufficient cause to make you want to get rid of Quade. And, if we have
+that proof, heaven help you. Montana, go get Sally Bent!"
+
+Gaspar started up with a ring in his voice. "No, no!"
+
+In response to a gesture from Sinclair, Denver Jim jerked the prisoner
+back onto the black rock. With blazing blue eyes, Gaspar glared at the
+judge, his delicate lips trembling with unspoken words.
+
+Sinclair knew, with another strange falling of the heart, that the
+prisoner was perfectly aware that his judge had not the slightest
+suspicion of his guilt. An entente was established between them, an
+entente which distressed Sinclair, and which he strove to destroy. But,
+despite himself, he could not get rid of the knowledge that the great
+blue eyes were fixed steadily upon him, as if begging him to see that
+justice was done. Consequently, the judge made himself as impersonal as
+possible.
+
+
+
+
+9
+
+
+Sally Bent came willingly, even eagerly. It was the eagerness of an
+angry woman who wanted to talk.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"A name you'll come to wish you'd never heard," said the girl, "if any
+harm comes to John Gaspar. Poor Jig, they won't _dare_ to touch a hair
+of your head!"
+
+With a gentle voice she had turned to Gaspar to speak these last words.
+A faint smile came on the lips of Gaspar, and his gaze was far away, as
+if he were in the midst of an unimportant dream, with Sally Bent the
+last significant part of it all. The girl flushed and turned back to
+Riley.
+
+"I asked you your name," said his honor gravely.
+
+"What right have you to ask me my name, or any other question?"
+
+"Mr. Lodge," said his honor, "will you loosen up and tell this lady
+where we come in?"
+
+"Sure," said the judge, clearing his throat. "Sally, here's the point.
+They ain't been much justice around here. We're simply giving the law a
+helping hand. And we start in today on the skunk that shot Quade. Quade
+may have had faults, but he was a man. And look at what done the
+killing! Sally, I ask you to look! That bum excuse for a man! That
+Gaspar!"
+
+Following the command, Sally looked at Gaspar, the smile of pity and
+sympathy trembling on her lips again. But Gaspar took no notice.
+
+"How dare you talk like that?" asked Sally. "Gaspar is worth all seven
+of you put together!"
+
+"Order!" said Riley Sinclair. "Order in this here court. Mr.
+Sergeant-at-arms, keep the witness in order."
+
+Larsen strode near authoritatively. "You got to stop that fresh talk,
+Sally. Sinclair won't stand for it."
+
+"Oscar Larsen," she cried, whirling on him, "I always thought you were
+a man. Now I see that you're only big enough to bully a woman. I--I
+never want to speak to you again!"
+
+"Silence!" thundered Riley Sinclair, smiting his hard brown hands
+together. "Take that witness away and we'll hang Gaspar without her
+testimony. We don't really need it--anyways."
+
+There was a shrill cry from Sally. "Let me talk!" she pleaded. "Let me
+stay! I won't make no more trouble, Mr. Sinclair."
+
+"All right," he decided without enthusiasm. "Now, what's your name?"
+
+"Sally Bent." She smiled a little as she spoke. That name usually
+brought an answering smile, particularly from the men of Sour Creek.
+But Sinclair's saturnine face showed no softening.
+
+"Mr. Clerk, swear the witness."
+
+Judge Lodge rose and held forth the book and prescribed the oath.
+
+During that interval, Riley Sinclair raised his head to escape from the
+steady, reproachful gaze of John Gaspar. Down in the valley bottom,
+Sour Creek flashed muddy-yellow and far away. Just beyond, the sun
+gleamed on the chalk-faced cliff. Still higher, the mountains changed
+between dawn and full day. There was the country for Riley Sinclair.
+What he did down here in the valleys did not matter. Purification
+waited for him among the summit snows. He turned back to hear the last
+of Sally Bent's voice, whipping his eyes past Gaspar to avoid meeting
+again that clinging stare.
+
+"Sally Bent," he said, "do you know the prisoner?"
+
+"You know I know him. John Gaspar boards with us."
+
+"Ah, then you know him!"
+
+"That's a silly question. What I want to say is--"
+
+"Wait till you're asked, Sally Bent."
+
+She stamped her foot. Quietly Sinclair compared the girl and the
+accused man.
+
+"Here's the point," he said slowly. "You knew Quade, and you knew John
+Gaspar."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You know Quade's dead?"
+
+"I've just heard it."
+
+"You didn't like him much?"
+
+"I used to like him."
+
+"Until Gaspar blew in?"
+
+"You've got no right to ask those questions."
+
+"I sure have. All right, I gather you were pretty sweet on Quade till
+Gaspar come along."
+
+"I never said so!"
+
+"Girl," pronounced Riley solemnly, "ain't it a fact that you went
+around to a lot of parties and suchlike things with Quade?"
+
+She was silent.
+
+"It's the straight thing you're giving her," broke in Larsen. "After
+Gaspar come, she didn't have no time for none of us!"
+
+"Ah!" said his honor significantly, scowling on Sally Bent. "After you
+cut out Quade, he got ugly, didn't he?"
+
+"He sure did!" said Sally. "He said things that no gentleman would of
+said to a lady."
+
+"Such as what?"
+
+"Such as that I was a flirt. And he said, I swear to it, that he'd get
+Gaspar!" She stopped, panting with excitement. "He wanted to murder
+John Gaspar!"
+
+Riley Sinclair lifted his heavy brows. "That's a pretty serious thing
+to say, Sally Bent."
+
+"But, it's the truth! And I've even heard him threaten Gaspar!"
+
+"But you tried to make them friends? You tried to smooth Quade down?"
+
+"I wouldn't waste my time on a bully! I just told John to get a gun and
+be ready to defend himself."
+
+"And he done it?"
+
+"He done it. But he never fired the gun."
+
+"What was the last time Quade seen you?"
+
+"The day before yesterday. He come up here and told me that he knew me
+and John Gaspar was going to get married, and that he wouldn't stand
+still and see the thing go through."
+
+"But what he said was right, wasn't it? Gaspar had asked you to marry
+him?"
+
+She dropped her head. "No."
+
+"What? You mean to say that Gaspar hadn't told you he loved you?"
+
+"Never! But now that John's in this trouble, I don't care if the whole
+world knows it! I love John Gaspar!"
+
+What a voice! What a lighted face, as she turned to the prisoner. But,
+instead of a flush of happiness, John Gaspar rose and shrank away from
+the outstretched hands of the girl. And he was pale--pale with sorrow,
+and even with pity, it seemed to Sinclair.
+
+"No, no," said the soft voice of Gaspar. "Not that, Sally. Not that!"
+
+Decidedly it would not do to let this scene progress. "Take away the
+witness, Montana."
+
+Montana drew her arm into his, and she went away as one stunned,
+staring at John Gaspar as if she could not yet understand the extent of
+the calamity which had befallen her. She had been worse than scorned.
+She had been rejected with pity!
+
+As she disappeared into the door of her house, Sinclair looked at the
+bowed head of John Gaspar.
+
+"Denver!" he called suddenly.
+
+"Yes, your honor."
+
+"The prisoner's hands are tied. Wipe the sweat off'n his face, will
+you?"
+
+"Sure!"
+
+With a large and brilliant bandanna Montana obeyed. Then he paused in
+the midst of his operation.
+
+"Your honor."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It ain't sweat. It's tears!"
+
+"Tears!" Riley Sinclair started up, then slumped back on his stump with
+a groan. "Tears!" he echoed, with a voice that was a groan. "John
+Gaspar, what kind of a man are you?"
+
+He turned back to the court with a frown.
+
+"Mr. Jury," he said, "look at this prisoner we got. Look him over
+considerable. I say, did you ever see a man like that? A man that ain't
+able to love a girl like Sally Bent when she just about throws herself
+at his head? Is he worth keeping alive? Look at him, and then listen to
+me. I see the whole of it, Mr. Jury."
+
+Buck Mason leaned forward with interest, glowering upon John Gaspar.
+
+"This skunk of a John Gaspar gets Sally all tied up with his sappy
+talk. Gets her all excited because he's something brand new and
+different. Quade gets sore, nacherallike. Then he comes to Gaspar and
+says: 'Cut out this soft talk to Sally, or I'll bust your head.' Gaspar
+don't love Sally, but he's afraid of Quade. He goes and gets a gun. He
+goes to Quade's house and tries to be friends. Quade kicks him out.
+Gaspar climbs back on his hoss and, while he's sitting there, pulls out
+a gun and shoots poor Quade dead. Don't that sound nacheral? He
+wouldn't marry Sally, but he didn't want another man to have her. And
+he wouldn't give up his soft berth in the house of Sally's brother. He
+knew Quade would never suspect him of having the nerve to fight. So he
+takes Quade unready and plugs him, while Quade ain't looking. Is that
+clear?"
+
+"It sure sounds straight to me," said Buck Mason.
+
+"All right! Stand up."
+
+Mason rose.
+
+"Take off your hat."
+
+The sombrero was withdrawn with a flourish.
+
+"God's up yonder higher'n that hawk, but seeing you clear, Buck. Tell
+us straight. Is Gaspar guilty or not?"
+
+"Guilty as hell, your honor!"
+
+A sigh from the prisoner. The last of life seemed to go from him, and
+Sinclair braced himself to meet a hysterical appeal. But there was only
+that slight drooping of the shoulders and declining of the head.
+
+It was an appalling thing for Sinclair to watch. He was used to power
+in men and beasts. He understood it. A cunning devil of a fighting
+outlaw horse was his choice for a ride. "The meaner they are, the
+longer they last," he used to say. He respected men of evil as long as
+they were men of action. He was perfectly at home and contented among
+men, where one's purse and life were at constant hazard, where a turned
+back might mean destruction.
+
+To him this meek surrender of hope was incomprehensibly despicable. If
+he had hesitated before, his hard soul was firm now in the decision
+that John Gaspar must die, and so leave Sinclair's own road free. With
+all suspicion of a connection between him and Quade's death gone, Riley
+could play a free hand against Sandersen. He turned a face of iron upon
+the prisoner.
+
+"Sandersen and Denver Jim, bring the prisoner before me."
+
+They obeyed. But when they reached down their hands to Gaspar's
+shoulders to drag him to his feet, he avoided them with a shudder and
+of his own free will rose and walked between them.
+
+"John Irving Gaspar," said Sinclair sternly, "alias Jig, alias Cold
+Feet--which is a fitting and proper name for you--have you got anything
+to say that won't take too long before I pronounce sentence on you?"
+
+He had to set his teeth. The sad eyes of John Gaspar had risen from the
+ground and fixed steadily, darkly upon the eyes of his judge. There was
+infinite understanding, infinite patience in that look, the patience of
+the weak man, schooled in enduring buffets. For the moment Sinclair
+almost felt that the man was pitying him!
+
+"I have only a little to say," said John Gaspar.
+
+"Speak up then. Who d'you want to give the messages to?"
+
+"To no living man," said John Gaspar.
+
+"All right then, Gaspar. Blaze away with the talk, but make it short."
+
+John Gaspar raised his head until he was looking through the stalwart
+branches of the cottonwood tree, into the haze of light above.
+
+"Our Father in Heaven," said John Gaspar, "forgive them as I forgive
+them!"
+
+Riley Sinclair, quivering under those words, looked around him upon the
+stunned faces of the rest of the court; then back to the calm of
+Gaspar. Strength seemed to have flooded the coward. At the moment when
+he lost all hope, he became glorious. His voice was soft, never rising,
+and the great, dark eyes were steadfast. A sudden consciousness came to
+Riley Sinclair that God must indeed be above them, higher than the
+flight of the hawk, robed in the maze of that lofty cloud, seeing all,
+hearing all. And every word that Gaspar spoke was damning him, dragging
+him to hell.
+
+But Riley Sinclair was not a religious man. Luck was his divinity. He
+left God and heaven and hell inside the pages of the Bible,
+undisturbed. The music of the schoolteacher's voice reminded him of the
+purling of some tiny waterfall in the midst of a mountain wilderness.
+
+"I have no will to fight for life. For that sin, forgive me, and for
+whatever else I have done wrong. Let no knowledge of the crime they are
+committing come to these men. Fierce men, fighters, toilers, full of
+hate, full of despair, full of rage, how can they be other than blind?
+Forgive them, as I forgive them without malice. And most of all, Lord
+God, forgive this most unjust judge."
+
+"Louder!" whispered Sinclair, his hand cupped behind his ear.
+
+"Amen," said John Gaspar, as his head bowed again. The fascinated posse
+seemed frozen, each man in his place, each in his attitude.
+
+"John Gaspar," said his honor, "here's your sentence: You're to be
+hanged by the neck till you're dead."
+
+John Gaspar closed his eyes and opened them again. Otherwise he made no
+move of protest.
+
+"But not," continued Sinclair, "from this cottonwood tree."
+
+A faint sigh, indubitably of relief, came from the posse.
+
+Riley Sinclair arose. "Gents," he said, "I been thinking this over.
+They ain't any doubt that the prisoner is guilty, and they ain't any
+doubt that John Gaspar is no good, anyway you look at him. But a gent
+that can put the words together like he can, ought to get a chance to
+talk in front of a regular jury. I figure we'd better send for the
+sheriff to come over from Woodville and take the prisoner back there.
+One of you gents can slide over there today, and the sheriff'll be here
+tomorrow, mostlike."
+
+"But who'll take charge of Gaspar?"
+
+"Who? Why me, of course! Unless somebody else would like the job more?
+I'll keep him right here in the Bent cabin."
+
+"Sinclair," protested Buck Mason, "you're a pretty capable sort. They
+ain't no doubt of that. But what if Jerry Bent comes home, which he's
+sure to do before night? There'd be a mess, because Jerry'd fight for
+Gaspar, I know!"
+
+"Partner," said Riley Sinclair dryly, "if it come to that, then I guess
+I'd have to fight back."
+
+It was foolish to question the power in that grave, sardonic face. The
+other men gave way, nodding one by one. Secretly each man, now that the
+excitement was gone, was glad that they had not proceeded to the last
+extremity. In five minutes they were drifting away, and all this time
+Sinclair watched the face of John Gaspar, as the sorrow changed to
+wonder, and the wonder to the vague beginnings of happiness.
+
+Suddenly he felt that he had the clue to the mystery of Cold Feet. As a
+matter of fact John Gaspar had never grown up. He was still a weak,
+dreamy boy.
+
+
+
+
+10
+
+
+The posse had hardly thrown its masks to the wind and galloped down the
+road when Sally Bent came running from the house.
+
+"I knew they couldn't," she cried to John Gaspar. "I knew they wouldn't
+dare. The cowards! I'll remember every one of them!"
+
+"Hush!" murmured Gaspar. His faint smile was for Riley Sinclair. "One
+of them is still here, you see!"
+
+With wrath flushing her face, the girl looked at Riley.
+
+"How do you dare to stay here and face me--after the things you said!"
+
+"Lady," replied Sinclair, "you mean after the things I made you say."
+
+"Just wait till Jerry comes," exclaimed Sally.
+
+At this Sinclair grew more sober.
+
+"Honey," he said dryly, "when your brother drops in, you just calm him
+down, will you? Because if him and Gaspar together was to start in
+raising trouble--well, they'd be more action than you ever seen in that
+cabin before. And, after it was all over, they'd have a dead Gaspar to
+cart over to Woodville. You can lay to that!"
+
+It took Sally somewhat aback, this confident ferociousness.
+
+"Them that brag ain't always the ones that do things," she declared.
+"But why are you staying here?"
+
+"To keep Gaspar till the sheriff comes for him."
+
+Sally grew white.
+
+"Don't you see that there's nothing to be afraid of?" asked John
+Gaspar. "See how close I came to death, and yet I was saved. Why, God
+doesn't let innocent men be killed, Sally."
+
+For a moment the girl stared at the schoolteacher with tears in her
+eyes; then she flashed at Riley a glance of utter scorn, as if inviting
+him to see what an angel upon the earth he was persecuting. But
+Sinclair remained unmoved.
+
+He informed them of the conditions of his stay. He must be allowed to
+keep John Gaspar in sight at all times. Only suspicious moves he would
+resent with violence. Sally Bent heard all of this with openly
+expressed hatred and contempt. John Gaspar showed no emotion whatever.
+
+"By heaven," declared Sinclair, when the girl had gone about some
+housework, "I'd actually think you believed that God was on your side.
+You talk about Him so familiar--like you and Him was partners."
+
+John Gaspar smiled one of his rare smiles. He had a way of looking for
+a long moment at another before he spoke. All that he was about to say
+was first registered in his face. It was easy to understand how Sally
+Bent had been entrapped by the classic regularity of those features and
+the strange manner of the schoolteacher. She lived in a country where
+masculine men were a drug on the market. John Gaspar was the pleasant
+exception.
+
+"You see," explained Gaspar, "I had to cheer Sally by saying something
+like that. Women like to have such things said. She'll be absolutely
+confident now, because she thinks I'm not disturbed. Very odd, but very
+true."
+
+"And it seems to me," said Sinclair, frowning, "that you're not much
+disturbed, Gaspar. How does that come?"
+
+"What can I do?"
+
+"Maybe you'd be man enough to try to break away."
+
+"From you? Tush! I know it is impossible. I'd as soon try to hide
+myself in an open field from that hawk. No, no! I'll give you my
+parole, my word of honor that I'll make no escape."
+
+But Sinclair struck in with: "I don't want your parole. Hang it, man,
+just do your best, and I'll do mine. You try to give me the slip, and
+I'll try to keep you from it. That's square all around."
+
+Gaspar observed him with what seemed to be a characteristic air of
+judicious reserve, very much as if he suspected a trap. A great many
+words came up into the throat of Riley Sinclair, but he refrained from
+speech.
+
+In a way he was beginning to detest John Gaspar as he had never
+detested any human being before or since. To him no sin was so great as
+the sin of weakness in a man, and certainly Gaspar was superlatively
+weak. He had something in place of courage, but just what that thing
+was, Sinclair could not tell.
+
+Curiosity drew him toward the fellow; and these weaknesses repulsed
+him. No wonder that he stared at him now in a quandary. One certainty
+was growing upon him. He wished Gaspar to escape. It would bring him
+shame in Sour Creek, but for the opinion of these men he had not the
+slightest respect. Let them think as they pleased.
+
+It came home to Riley that this was a man whose like he had never known
+before, and whom he must not, therefore, judge as if he knew him. He
+softened his voice. "Gaspar," he said, "keep your head up. Make up
+your mind that you'll fight to the last gasp. Why, it makes me plumb
+sick to see a grown man give up like you do!"
+
+His scorn rang in his voice, and Gaspar looked at him in wonder.
+
+"You'd ought to be packing yourself full of courage," went on Sinclair.
+"Here's your pal, Jerry Bent, coming back. Two agin' one, you'll be.
+Ain't that a chance, I ask you?"
+
+But Gaspar shook his head. He seemed even a little amused.
+
+"Not against a man like you, Sinclair. You love fighting, you see.
+You're made for fighting. You make me think of that hawk. All beak and
+talons, made to tear, remorseless, crafty."
+
+"That's overrating me a pile," muttered Riley, greatly pleased by this
+tribute, as he felt it to be. "If you tried, maybe you could do a lot
+yourself. You're full of nerves, and a gent that's full of nerves makes
+a first-class fighting man, once he finds out what he can do. With them
+fingers of yours you could learn to handle a gun like a flash. Start in
+and learn to be a man, Gaspar!"
+
+Sinclair stretched a friendly hand toward the shoulder of the smaller
+man. The hand passed through thin air. Gaspar had slipped away. He
+stood at a greater distance. On his face there was a strong expression
+of displeasure.
+
+Sinclair scowled darkly. "Now what d'you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean that I don't envy you," said Gaspar steadily. "I'd rather have
+the other thing."
+
+"What other thing, Jig?"
+
+Gaspar overlooked the contemptuous nickname, doubly contemptuous on the
+lips of a stranger.
+
+"You go into the world and take what you want. I'm stronger than that."
+
+"How are you stronger?" asked Riley.
+
+"Because I sit in my room, and I can make the world come to me."
+
+"Jig, I was never smart at riddles. Go ahead and clear yourself up with
+a few more words."
+
+The other hesitated--not for words, but as if he wondered if it might
+be worth while for him to explain. Never in Riley Sinclair's life had
+he been taken so lightly.
+
+"Will you follow me into the house?" asked Gaspar at length.
+
+"I'll follow you, right enough," said Sinclair. "That's my job. Lead
+on."
+
+He was brought through the living room of the cabin and into a smaller
+room to the side.
+
+Comfort seemed to fill this smaller room. Bookcases ranged along one
+wall were packed with books. The couch before the window was heaped
+with cushions. There was an easy chair with an adjustable back, so that
+one could either sit or lie in it. There was a lamp with a big
+greenish-yellow shade.
+
+"This is what I mean," murmured Jig.
+
+Riley Sinclair's bold eye roved swiftly, contemptuously. "Well, you got
+this place fixed up pretty stuffy," he answered. "Outside of that, hang
+me if I see what you mean."
+
+Cold Feet slipped into a chair and, interlacing those fingers whose
+delicacy baffled and disturbed Sinclair, stared over them at his
+companion.
+
+"I really shouldn't expect you to understand, my friend."
+
+"Friend!" Sinclair exploded. "You're a queer bird, Jig. What do you
+mean by 'friend'?"
+
+"Why not?" asked this amazing youth, and the quiet of his face
+brightened into a smile. "I'd be swinging from the end of a rope if it
+weren't for you, you know."
+
+Sinclair shrugged away this rejoinder. He trod heavily to the
+bookshelves, took up two or three random volumes, and tossed them
+heedlessly back into place.
+
+"Well, kid, you're going to be yanked out of this little imitation
+world of yours pretty pronto."
+
+"Ah, but perhaps not!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Something may happen."
+
+"What can happen?"
+
+"Just something like you, my friend."
+
+The insistence on that word irritated Riley Sinclair.
+
+"Don't call me that," he replied in his most brutal manner. "Jig, d'you
+know what a friend means?" he asked. "How d'you figure that word out?"
+
+Jig considered. "A friend is somebody you know and like and are glad to
+have around."
+
+Contempt spread on the face of Sinclair. "That's just about what I knew
+you'd say."
+
+"Am I wrong?"
+
+"Son, they ain't anything right about you, as far as I can make out.
+Wrong? You're as wrong as a yearling in a blizzard. Wrong? I should
+tell a man you're wrong! Lemme tell you what a friend is. He's the
+bunkie that guards your back in a fight; he's the man that can ask for
+your hoss or your gun or your life, no matter how bad you want 'em;
+he's the gent that trusts you when the world calls you a liar; he's the
+one that don't grin when you're in trouble, who gives a cheer when
+you're going good. With a friend you let down the bars and turn your
+mind loose like wild hosses. I take out my soul like a gun and show it
+to my friend in the palm of my hand. It's sure full of holes and
+stains, this life of mine, but my friend checks off the good agin' the
+bad, and when you're through he says: 'Partner, now I like you better
+because I know you better.'
+
+"Son, I don't know what God means very well, and I ain't any bunkie of
+the law, but I'm tolerable well acquainted with what the word 'friend'
+means. When you use it, you want to look sharp."
+
+"I really believe," Jig said, "that you would be a friend like that. I
+think I understand."
+
+"You don't, though. To a friend you give yourself away, and you get
+yourself back bigger and stronger."
+
+"I didn't know," said Jig softly, "that friendship could mean all that.
+How many friends have you had?"
+
+The big cowpuncher paused. Then he said gently at length, "One friend."
+
+"In all your life?"
+
+"Sure! I was lucky and had one friend."
+
+Cold Feet leaned forward, eagerness in his eyes. "Tell me about him!"
+
+"I don't know you well enough, son."
+
+That jarring speech thrust Jig back into his chair, as if with a
+physical hand. There, as though in covert, he continued to study
+Sinclair. Presently he began to nod.
+
+"I knew it from the first, in spite of appearances."
+
+"Knew what?"
+
+"Knew that we'd get along."
+
+"And are we getting along, Jig?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Glad of that," muttered the cowpuncher dryly.
+
+"Ah," cried John Gaspar, "you're not as hard as you seem. One of these
+days I'll prove it. Besides, you won't forget me."
+
+"What makes you so sure of that?"
+
+Jig rose from his chair and stood leaning against it, his hands dropped
+lightly into the pockets of his dressing gown. He looked
+extraordinarily boyish at that moment, and he seemed to have the
+fearlessness of a child which knows that the world has no real account
+against it. Riley Sinclair set his teeth to keep back a flood of pity
+that rose in him.
+
+"You wait and see," said Jig. He raised a finger at Sinclair. "I'll
+keep coming back into your mind a long time after you leave me; and
+you'll keep coming back into my mind. Oh, I know it!"
+
+"How in thunder do you?"
+
+"I don't know. Just because--well, how did I understand at the trial
+that you knew I was innocent, and that you would let no harm come to
+me?"
+
+"Did you know that?" asked Sinclair.
+
+Instead of answering, Jig broke into his soft, pleasant laughter.
+
+
+
+
+11
+
+
+"Laugh and be hanged," declared Sinclair. "I'm going outside. And don't
+try no funny breaks while I'm gone," he said. "I'll be watching and
+waiting when you ain't expecting." With that he was gone.
+
+At the door of the house a gust of hot wind struck him, for the day was
+verging on noon, and there seemed more heat than light in the sun. Even
+to that hot gust Sinclair jerked his bandanna knot aside and opened his
+throat gratefully. He felt as if he had been under a hard nervous
+strain for some time past. Cold Feet, the craven, the weak of hand and
+the frail of spirit, had tested him in a new way. He had been
+confronting a novel and unaccountable thing. He felt very oddly as if
+someone had been prodding into corners of his nature yet unknown even
+to himself. He tingled from the rapier touches of that last laughter.
+
+Now his eyes roamed with relief across the valley. Heat waves blurred
+the hollow and pushed Sour Creek away until it seemed a river of
+mist--yellow mist. He raised his attention out of that sweltering
+hollow to the cool, blue, mighty mountains--his country!
+
+Presently he had forgotten all this. He settled his hat on the back of
+his head and began to kick a stone before him, following it aimlessly.
+
+Someone was humming close to him, and he turned sharply to see Sally
+Bent go by, carrying a bucket. She smiled generously, and though he
+knew that she doubtless hated him in her heart and smiled for a
+purpose, he had to reply with a perfunctory grin. He stalked after her
+to the little leaping creek and dipped out a full bucket.
+
+"Thanks," said Sally, wantonly meeting his eye.
+
+As well try to soften a sphinx. Sinclair carried the dripping bucket on
+the side nearest the girl and thereby gained valuable distance. "I'm
+mighty glad it's you and not one of the rest," confided Sally, still
+smiling firmly up to him.
+
+He avoided that appeal with a grunt.
+
+"Like Sandersen, say," went on the girl.
+
+"Why not him?"
+
+"He's a bad hombre," said the girl. "Hate to have Jig in his hands.
+With you it's different."
+
+Sinclair waited until he had put down the bucket in the kitchen. Then
+he faced Sally thoughtfully.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Because you're reasonable."
+
+"Did Jig tell you that?"
+
+"And a pile more. Jig says you're a pretty fine sort. That's his
+words."
+
+The cowpuncher caressed the butt of his gun with his fingertips, his
+habitual gesture when in doubt.
+
+"Lady," he said at length, "suppose I cut this short? You think I ain't
+going to keep Cold Feet here till the sheriff comes for him?"
+
+"You see what it would mean?" she asked eagerly. "It wouldn't be a fair
+trial. You couldn't get a fair jury for Jig around Sour Creek and
+Woodville. They hate him--all the young men do. D'you know why? Simply
+because he's different! Simply because--"
+
+"Because all the girls are pretty fond of him, eh?"
+
+"You can put it that way if you want," she answered steadily enough,
+though she flushed under his stare. Then: "you'll keep that in mind,
+and you're man enough to do what you think is right, ain't you, Mr.
+Sinclair?"
+
+He shifted away from the hand which was moving toward him.
+
+"I'll tell you what," he answered. "I'm man enough to be afraid of a
+girl like you, Sally Bent."
+
+Then he saw her head fall in despair, as he turned away. When he
+reached the shimmering heat of the outdoors again, he was feeling like
+a murderer. His reason told him that Cold Feet was "yaller," not worth
+saving. His reason told him that he could save Jig only by a confession
+that would drive him, Sinclair, away from Sour Creek and his destined
+victim, Sandersen. Or he could save Jig by violating the law, and that
+also would drive him from Sour Creek and Sandersen.
+
+Suddenly he halted in the midst of his pacing to and fro. Why was he
+turning these alternatives back and forth in his mind? Because, he
+understood all at once, he had subconsciously determined that Cold Feet
+must not die!
+
+The face of his brother rose up and looked into his eyes. That was the
+friend of whom he would not speak to Jig, brother and friend at once.
+And as surely as ever ghost called to living man, that face demanded
+the death of Sandersen. He blinked the vision away.
+
+"I _am_ going nutty," muttered Sinclair. "Whether Sandersen lives or
+dies, Jig ain't going to dance at a rope's end!"
+
+Presently Sally called him in to lunch, and Riley ate halfheartedly.
+All during the meal neither Sally nor John Gaspar had more than a word
+for him, while they talked steadily together. They seemed to understand
+each other so well that he felt a hidden insult in it.
+
+Once or twice he made a heavy attempt to enter the conversation, always
+addressing his remarks to Sally Bent. He was received graciously, but
+his remarks always fell dead, and a moment later Cold Feet had picked
+up the frayed ends of his own talk and won the entire attention of
+Sally. Riley was beginning to understand why the youth of that district
+detested Cold Feet.
+
+"Always takes some soft-handed dude to make a winning with a fool
+girl," he comforted himself.
+
+He expected the arrival of Jerry Bent before nightfall, and with that
+arrival, perhaps, there would be a new sort of attack on him. Sally and
+Cold Feet were trying persuasion, but they might encourage Jerry Bent
+to attempt physical force. With all his heart Riley Sinclair hoped so.
+He had a peculiar desire to do something significant for the eyes of
+both Sally and Jig.
+
+But nightfall came, and then supper, and still no Jerry appeared.
+Afterward, Sinclair made ready to sleep in Jig's room. Cold Feet
+offered him the couch.
+
+"Beds and me don't hitch" declared Riley, throwing two or three of the
+rugs together. "I ain't particular partial to a floor, neither, but
+these here rugs will give it a sort of a ground softness."
+
+He sat cross-legged on the low pile of rugs, while he pulled off his
+boots and smoked his good-night cigarette. Jig coiled up in a big
+chair, while he studied his jailer.
+
+"But how can you go to bed so early?" he asked.
+
+"Early? It ain't early. Sun's down, ain't it? Why do they bring on
+night, except for folks to go to sleep?"
+
+"For my part the best part of the day generally begins when the sun
+goes down."
+
+With patient contempt Riley considered John Gaspar. "You look kind of
+that way," he decided aloud. "Pale and not much good with your
+shoulders. Now, what d'you most generally do with your time in the
+evening?"
+
+"Why--talk."
+
+"Talk? Huh! A fine way of wasting time for a growed-up man."
+
+"And I read, you know."
+
+"I can see by the looks of them shelves that you do. How many of them
+books might you have read, Jig?"
+
+"All of them."
+
+"I ask you, man to man, ain't they mostly somebody's idea of what life
+is?"
+
+"I suppose that's a short way of putting it."
+
+"And I ask you ag'in, what's better to take a secondhand hunch out of
+what somebody else thinks life might be, or to go out and do some
+living on your own hook?"
+
+Cold Feet had been smiling faintly up to this point, as though he had
+many things in reserve which might be said at need. Now his smile
+disappeared.
+
+"Perhaps you're right."
+
+"And maybe I ain't." Sinclair brushed the entire argument away into a
+thin mist of smoke. "Now, look here, Cold Feet, I'm about to go to
+sleep, and when I sleep, I sure sleep sound, taking it by and large.
+They's times when I don't more'n close one eye all night, and they's
+times when you'd have to pull my eyes open, one by one, to wake me up.
+Understand? I'm going to sleep the second way tonight. About eight
+hours of the soundest sleep you ever heard tell of."
+
+Jig considered him gravely.
+
+"I'm afraid," he answered, "that I won't sleep nearly as well."
+
+Riley Sinclair smiled. "Wouldn't be no ways nacheral for you to do much
+sleeping," he agreed. "Take a gent that's in danger of having his neck
+stretched, like you, and most generally he don't do much sleeping. He
+lies around awake, cussing his luck, I s'pose. Take you, now, Cold
+Feet, and I s'pose you'll be figuring on how far a hoss could carry you
+in the eight hours that I'll be sleeping. Eh?"
+
+There was a suggestive lift of the eyebrows, as he spoke, but before
+Jig had a chance to study his face, he had turned and wrapped himself
+in one of the rugs. He lay perfectly still, stretched on one side, with
+his back turned to Jig. He stirred neither hand nor foot.
+
+Outside, a door slammed heavily; Cold Feet heard the heavy voice of
+Jerry Bent and the beat of his heels across the floor. In spite of
+those noises Riley Sinclair was presently sound asleep, as he had
+promised. Gaspar knew it by the rise and fall of the arm which lay
+along Sinclair's side, also by the sound of his breathing.
+
+Cold Feet went to the window and looked out on the mountains, black and
+huge, with a faint shimmer of snow on the farthest summits. At the very
+thought of trying to escape into that wilderness and wandering alone
+among the peaks, he shuddered. He came back and studied the sleeper.
+Something about the nonchalance with which Sinclair had gone to sleep
+under the very eye of his prisoner affected John Gaspar strangely.
+Doubtless it was sheer contempt for the man he was guarding. And,
+indeed, something assured Jig that, no matter how well he employed the
+next eight hours in putting a great distance between himself and Sour
+Creek, the tireless riding of Sinclair would more than make up the
+distance.
+
+Gaspar went to the door, then turned sharply and glanced over his
+shoulder at the sleeper; but the eyes of Sinclair were still closed,
+and his regular breathing continued. Jig turned the knob cautiously and
+slipped out into the living room.
+
+Jerry and Sally beckoned instantly to him from the far side of the
+room. The beauty of the family had descended upon Sally alone. Jerry
+was a swart-skinned, squat, bow-legged, efficient cowpuncher. He now
+ambled awkwardly to meet John Gaspar.
+
+"Are you all set?" he asked.
+
+"For what?"
+
+"To start on the trail!" exclaimed Jerry. "What else? Ain't Sinclair
+asleep?"
+
+"How d'you know?"
+
+"I listened at the door and heard his breathing a long time ago.
+Thought you'd never come out."
+
+Sally Bent was already on the other side of Gaspar, drawing him toward
+the door.
+
+"You can have my hoss, Jig," she offered. "Meg is sure as sin in the
+mountains. You won't have nothing to fear on the worst trail they is."
+
+"Not a thing," asserted Jerry.
+
+They half led and half dragged Cold Feet to the door.
+
+"I'll show you the best way. You see them two peaks yonder, like a pair
+of mule's ears? You start--"
+
+"I don't know," said Jig. "It seems very difficult, even to think of
+riding alone through those mountains."
+
+Sally was white with fear. "You ain't going to throw away this chance,
+Jig? It'll mean hanging sure, if you don't run now. Ask Jerry what
+they're saying in Sour Creek tonight?"
+
+Jerry volunteered the information. "They're all wondering why you
+wasn't strung up today, when they got so much evidence agin' you. Also
+they're thinking that the boys played plumb foolish in turning you over
+to this stranger, Sinclair, to guard. But they're waiting for Sheriff
+Kern to come over from Woodville an' nab you in the morning. They's
+some that says that they won't wait, if it looks like the law is going
+to take too long to hang you. They'll get up a necktie party and break
+the jail and do their own hanging. I heard all them things and more,
+Jig."
+
+John Gaspar looked uncertainly from one to the other of his friends.
+
+"You've _got_ to go!" cried Sally.
+
+"I've got to go," admitted Cold Feet in a whisper.
+
+"I've got Meg saddled for you already. She's plumb gentle."
+
+"Just a minute. I've forgotten something."
+
+"You don't mean you're going back into that room where Sinclair is?"
+
+"I won't waken him. He's sleeping like the dead."
+
+Jig turned away from them and hurried back to his room. Having opened
+and closed the door softly, he went to a chest of drawers near the
+window and fumbled in the half-light of the low-burning lamp. He
+slipped a small leather case into the breast pocket of his coat, and
+then stole back toward the door, as softly as before. With his hand on
+the knob, he paused and looked back. For all he knew, Sinclair might be
+really awake now, watching his quarry from beneath those heavy lashes,
+waiting until his prisoner should have made a definite attempt to
+escape.
+
+And then the big man would rise to his feet as soon as the door was
+closed. The picture became startlingly real to John Gaspar. Sinclair
+would slip out that window, no doubt, and circle around toward the
+horse shed. There he would wait until his prisoner came out on Meg, and
+then without warning would come a shot, and there would be an end of
+Sinclair's trouble with his prisoner. Gaspar could easily attribute
+such cunning cruelty to Sinclair. And yet there was something untested,
+unprobed, different about the rangy fellow.
+
+Whatever it was, it kept Gaspar staring down into the lean face of
+Sinclair for a long moment. Then he went resolutely back into the
+living room and faced Sally Bent; Jerry was already waiting outdoors.
+
+"I'm not going," said Gaspar slowly. "I'll stay."
+
+Sally cried out. "Oh, Jig, have you lost your nerve ag'in? Ain't you
+got _no_ courage?"
+
+The schoolteacher sighed. "I'm afraid not, Sally. I guess my only
+courage comes in waiting and seeing how things turn out."
+
+He turned and went gloomily back to his room.
+
+
+
+
+12
+
+
+With the first brightness of dawn, Sinclair wakened even more suddenly
+that he had fallen asleep. There was no slow adjusting of himself to
+the requirements of the day. One prodigious stretching of the long
+arms, one great yawn, and he was as wide awake as he would be at noon.
+He jerked on his boots and rose, and not until he stood up, did he see
+John Gaspar asleep in the big chair, his head inclining to one side,
+the book half-fallen from his hand, and the lamp sputtering its last
+beside him. But instead of viewing the weary face with pity, Sinclair
+burst into sudden and amazed profanity.
+
+The first jarring note brought Gaspar up and awake with a start, and he
+stared in astonishment at the uninterrupted flood which rippled from
+the lips of the cowpuncher. It concluded: "Still here! Of all the
+shorthorned fatheads that I ever seen, the worst is this Gaspar--this
+Jig--this Cold Feet. Say, man, ain't you got no spirit at all?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Gaspar. "Still here? Of course I'm still
+here! Did you expect me to escape?"
+
+Sinclair flung himself into a chair, speechless with rage and disgust.
+
+"Did you think I was joking when I told you I was going to sleep eight
+hours without waking up?"
+
+"It might very well have been a trap, you know."
+
+Sinclair groaned. "Son, they ain't any man in the world that'll tell
+you that Riley Sinclair sets his traps for birds that ain't got their
+stiff feathers growed yet. Trap for you? What in thunder should I want
+you for, eh?"
+
+He strode to the window, still groaning.
+
+"There's where you'd ought to be, over yonder behind them mule ears.
+They'd never catch you in a thousand years with that start. Eight hours
+start! As good as have eight years, kid--just as good. And you've
+throwed that chance away!"
+
+He turned and stared mournfully at the schoolteacher.
+
+"It ain't no use," he said sadly. "I see it all now. You was cut out to
+end in a rope collar."
+
+Not another word could be pried from his set lips during breakfast, a
+gloomy meal to which Sally Bent came with red eyes, and Jerry Bent
+sullenly, with black looks at Sinclair. Jig was the cheeriest one of
+the party. That cheer at last brought another explosion from Sinclair.
+They stood in front of the house, watching a horseman wind his way up
+the road through the hills.
+
+"It's Sheriff Kern," said Jerry Bent. "I can tell by the way he rides,
+sort of slanting. It's Kern, right enough."
+
+Sally Bent choked, but Jig continued to hum softly.
+
+"Singin'?" asked Riley Sinclair suddenly. "Ain't you no more worried
+than that?"
+
+The voice of the schoolteacher in reply was as smooth as running water.
+"I think you'll bring me out of the trouble safely enough, Mr.
+Sinclair."
+
+"Mr. Sinclair'll see you damned before he lifts a hand for you!" Riley
+retorted savagely.
+
+He strode to his horse and expended his wrath by viciously jerking at
+the cinches, until the mustang groaned. Sheriff Kern came suddenly into
+clear view around the last turn and rode quickly up to them, a very
+short man, muscular, sweaty. He always gave the impression that he had
+been working ceaselessly for a week, and certainly he found time to
+shave only once in ten days. Dense bristle clouded the lower features
+of his face. He was a taciturn man. His greetings took the form of a
+single grunt. He took possession of John Gaspar with a single glance
+that sent the latter nervously toward his saddle horse.
+
+"I see you got this party all ready for me," said the sheriff more
+amiably to Riley Sinclair, who was watching in disgust the clumsy
+method of Jig's mounting. "You're Sinclair, I guess?"
+
+"I'm Sinclair, sheriff."
+
+They shook hands.
+
+"Nice bit of work you done for me, Sinclair, keeping the boys from
+stringing up Jig, yonder. These here lynchings don't set none too well
+on the reputation of a sheriff. I guess we're ready to start. S'long
+Sally--Jerry. Are you riding our way, Sinclair?"
+
+"I thought I'd happen along. Ain't never seen Woodville yet."
+
+"Glad to have you. But they ain't much to see unless you look twice at
+the same thing."
+
+They started down the trail three abreast.
+
+"Ride on ahead," commanded Sinclair to Jig. "We don't want you riding
+in the same line with men. Git on ahead!"
+
+John Gaspar obeyed that brutal order with bowed head. He rode
+listlessly, with loose rein, letting the pony pick its own way. Once
+Sinclair looked back to Sally Bent, weeping in the arms of her brother.
+Again his face grew black.
+
+"And yet," confided the sheriff softly, "I ain't never heard no trouble
+about this Gaspar before."
+
+"He's poison," declared Sinclair bitterly, and he raised his voice that
+it would unmistakably carry to the shrinking figure before them. "He's
+such a yaller-hearted skunk, sheriff, that it makes me ashamed of bein'
+a man!"
+
+"They's only one thing I misdoubt," said the sheriff. "How'd that sort
+of a gent ever get the nerve to murder a man like Quade? Quade wasn't
+no tenderfoot, and he could shoot a bit, besides."
+
+"Speaking personal, sheriff, I don't think he done it, now I've had a
+chance to go over the evidence."
+
+"Maybe he didn't, but most like he'll hang for it. The boys is dead set
+agin' him. First, he's a dude; second, he's a coward. Sour Creek and
+Woodville wasn't never cut out for that sort. They ain't wanted
+around."
+
+That speech made Riley Sinclair profoundly thoughtful. He had known
+well enough before this that there were small chances of Jig escaping
+from the damning judgment of twelve of these cowpunchers. The statement
+of the sheriff made the belief a fact. The death sentence of Jig was
+pronounced the moment the doors of the jail at Woodville clanged upon
+him.
+
+They struck the trail to Sour Creek and almost immediately swung off on
+a branch which led south and west, in the opposite direction from the
+creek. It was a day of high-driving clouds, thin and fleecy, so that
+they merely filtered the sunlight and turned it into a haze without
+decreasing the heat perceptibly, and that heat grew until it became
+difficult to look down at the blazing sand.
+
+Now the trail climbed among broken hills until they reached a summit.
+From that point on, now and again the road elbowed into view of a wide
+plain, and in the center of the plain there was a diminutive dump of
+buildings.
+
+"Woodville," said the sheriff. "Hey, you, Jig, hustle that hoss along!"
+
+Obediently the drooping Gaspar spurred his horse. The animal broke into
+a gallop that set Gaspar jolting in the seat, with wildly flopping
+elbows.
+
+"Look at that," said Sinclair. "Would you ever think that men could be
+born as awkward as that? Would you ever think that men would be born
+that didn't have no use in the world?"
+
+"He ain't altogether useless," decided the sheriff. "Seems as how he's
+done noble in the school. Takes on with the little boys and girls most
+amazing, and he knows how to keep even the eighth graders interested.
+But what can you expect of a gent that ain't got no more pride than to
+be a schoolteacher, eh?"
+
+Sinclair shook his head.
+
+The trail drifted downward now less brokenly, and Woodville came into
+view. It was a wretched town in a wretched landscape, far different
+from the wild hills and the rich plowed grounds around Sour Creek. All
+that came to life in the brief spring, the long summer had long since
+burned away to drab yellows and browns. A horrible place to die in,
+Sinclair thought.
+
+"Speaking of hosses, that's a wise-looking hoss you got, sheriff."
+
+"Rode him for five years," said the sheriff. "Raised him and busted him
+and trained him all by myself. Ain't nobody but me ever rode him. He
+can go so soft-footed he wouldn't bust eggs, sir, and he can turn loose
+and run like the wind. They ain't no better hoss than this that's come
+under my eye, Sinclair. Are you much on the points of a hoss?"
+
+"I use hosses--I don't love 'em," said Sinclair gloomily. "But I can
+read the points tolerable."
+
+The sheriff eyed Sinclair coldly. "So you don't love hosses, eh?" he
+said, returning distantly to the subject. It was easy to see where his
+own heart lay by the way his roan picked up its head whenever its
+master spoke.
+
+"Sheriff," explained Sinclair, "I'm a single-shot gent. I don't aim to
+have no scatter fire in what I like. They's only one man that I ever
+called friend, they's only one place that I ever called home--the
+mountains, yonder--and they's only one hoss that I ever took to much. I
+raised Molly up by hand, you might say. She was ugly as sin, but they
+wasn't nothing she couldn't do--nothing!" He paused. "Sheriff, I used
+to talk to that hoss!"
+
+The sheriff was greatly moved. "What became of her?" he asked softly.
+
+"I took after a gent once. He couldn't hit me, but he put a slug
+through Molly."
+
+"What became of the gent?" asked the sheriff still more softly.
+
+"He died just a little later. Just how I ain't prepared to state."
+
+"Good!" said the sheriff. He actually smiled in the pleasure of
+newfound kinship. "You and me would get on proper, Sinclair."
+
+"Most like."
+
+"This hoss of mine, now, has sense enough to take me home without me
+touching a rein. Knows direction like a wolf."
+
+"Could you guide her with your knees?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"And she's plumb safe with you?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"I know a gent once that said he'd trust himself tied hand and foot on
+his hoss."
+
+"That goes for me and my hoss, too, Sinclair."
+
+"Well, then, just shove up them hands, sheriff!"
+
+The sheriff blinked, as the sun flashed on the revolver in the steady
+hand of Sinclair. There was a significant little jerking up of the
+revolver. Each time the muzzle stirred, the hands of the sheriff jumped
+higher and higher until his arms were stiffly stretched. Gaspar had
+halted his horse and looked back in amazement.
+
+"I hate to do it," declared Sinclair. "Right off I sort of took to you,
+sheriff. But this has got to be done."
+
+"Sinclair, have you done much thinking before you figured this all
+out?"
+
+"Enough! If I knowed you one shade better, sheriff, I'd take your word
+that you'd ride on into Woodville, good and slow, and not start no
+pursuit. But I don't know you that well. I got to tie you on the back
+of that steady old hoss of yours and turn you loose. We need that much
+start."
+
+He dismounted, still keeping careful aim, took the rope coiled beside
+the sheriff's own saddle horn and began a swift and sure process of
+tying. He worked deftly, without undue fear or haste, and Gaspar came
+back to look on with scared eyes.
+
+"You're a fool, Sinclair," murmured the sheriff. "You'll never get shut
+of me. I'll foller you till I drop dead. I'll never forget you. Change
+your mind now, and we'll say nothing has happened. But if you keep on,
+you're done for as sure as my name is Kern. Take you by yourself, and
+you'd be a handful to catch. But two is easier than one, and, when one
+of them two is a deadweight like Gaspar, they ain't nothing to it."
+
+He finished his appeal completely trussed.
+
+"I ain't tied you on the hoss," said Sinclair. "Take note of that. Also
+I'm leaving you your guns, sheriff."
+
+"I hope you'll have a chance to see 'em come out of the holster later
+on, Sinclair."
+
+The cowpuncher took no notice of this bitterness. Gaspar, who looked
+on, was astonished by a certain deferential politeness on the part of
+the big cowpuncher.
+
+"Speaking personal, I hope I don't never have no trouble with you,
+sheriff. I like you, understand?"
+
+"Have your little joke, Sinclair!"
+
+"I mean it. I know I'm usin' you like a skunk. But I got a special
+need, and I can't take no chances. Sheriff, I tell you out of my heart
+that I'm sorry! Will you believe me?"
+
+The sheriff smiled. "The same as you'll believe me when we change
+parts, Sinclair."
+
+The big man sighed. "I s'pose it's got to be that way," he said. "But
+if you come for me, Kern, come all primed for action. It'll be a hard
+trail."
+
+"That's my specialty."
+
+"Well, sheriff, s'long--and good luck!"
+
+The sheriff nodded. "Thanks!"
+
+Pressing his horse with his knees, Kern started down the trail at a
+slow canter. Sinclair followed the retiring figure, nodding with
+admiration at the skill with which the sheriff kept his mount under
+control, merely by power of voice. Presently the latter turned a corner
+of the trail and was out of sight.
+
+"But--I knew--I knew!" exclaimed John Gaspar. "Only, why did you let
+him go on into town?" The cold glance of Sinclair rested on his
+companion. "What would you have done?"
+
+"Tied him up and left him here."
+
+"I think you would--to die in the sun!" He swung up into his saddle.
+"Now, Gaspar, we've started on what's like to prove the last trail for
+both of us, understand? By night we'll both be outlawed. They'll have a
+price on us, and long before night, Kern will be after us. For the
+first time in your soft-hearted life you've got to work, and you've got
+to fight."
+
+"I'll do it, Mr. Sinclair!"
+
+"Bah! Save your talk. Talk's dirt cheap."
+
+"I only ask one thing. Why have you done it?"
+
+"Because, you fool, I killed Quade!"
+
+
+
+
+13
+
+
+From the first there was no thought in the sheriff's mind of riding
+straight into Woodville, trussed and helpless as he was. Woodville
+respected him, and the whole district was proud of its sheriff. He knew
+that five minutes of laughter can blast the finest reputation that was
+ever built by a lifetime of hard labor. He knew the very faces of the
+men who would never let the story die, of how the sheriff came into
+town, not only without his prisoner, but tied hand and foot, helpless
+in the saddle.
+
+Without his prisoner!
+
+Never before in his twenty years as sheriff had a criminal escaped from
+his hands. Many a time they had tried, and on those occasions he had
+brought back a dead body for the hand of the law.
+
+This time he had ample excuse. Any man in the world might admit that he
+was helpless when such a fellow as Riley Sinclair took him by surprise.
+He knew Sinclair well by reputation, and he respected all that he had
+heard.
+
+No matter for that. The fact remained that his unbroken string of
+successes was interrupted. Perhaps Woodville would explain his failure
+away. No doubt some of the men knew of Sinclair and would not wonder.
+They would stand up doughtily for the prowess of their sheriff. Yet the
+fact held that he had failed. It was a moral defeat more than anything
+else.
+
+His mind was made up to remain in the mountains until he starved, or
+until he had removed those shameful ropes--his own rope! At that
+thought he writhed again. But here an arroyo opening in the ragged wall
+of a cliff caught his eye. He turned his horse into it and continued on
+his way until he saw a projecting rock with a ragged edge, left where a
+great fragment had recently fallen away.
+
+Here he found it strangely awkward and even perilous to dismount
+without his hands to balance his weight, as he shifted out of the
+stirrups. In spite of his care, he stumbled over a loose rock as he
+struck the ground and rolled flat on his back. He got up, grinding his
+teeth. His hands were tied behind him. He turned his back on the broken
+rock and sawed the ropes against it. To his dismay he felt the rock
+edge crumble away. It was some chalky, friable stuff, and it gave at
+the first friction.
+
+Beads of moisture started out on the sheriff's forehead. Hastily he
+started on down the arroyo and found another rock, with an edge not
+nearly so favorable in appearance, but this time it was granite. He
+leaned his back against it and rubbed with a short shoulder motion
+until his arms ached, but it was a happy labor. He felt the rock edge
+taking hold of the ropes, fraying the strands to weakness, and then
+eating into them. It was very slow work!
+
+The sun drifted up to noon, and still he was leaning against that rock,
+working patiently, with his head near to bursting, and perspiration,
+which he could not wipe away, running down to blind him. Finally, when
+his brain was beginning to reel with the heat, and his shoulders ached
+to numbness, the last strand parted. The sheriff dropped down to the
+ground to rest.
+
+Presently he drew out his jackknife and methodically cut the remaining
+bonds. It came to him suddenly, as he stood up, that someone might have
+seen this singular performance and carried the tale away for future
+laughter. The thought drove the sheriff mad. He swung savagely into the
+saddle and drove his horse at a dead run among the perilous going of
+that gorge. When he reached the plain he paused, hesitant between a
+bulldog desire to follow the trail single-handed into the mountains and
+run down the pair, and a knowledge that he who retreats has an added
+power that would make such a pursuit rash beyond words.
+
+A phrase which he had coined for the gossips of Woodville, came back
+into his mind. He was no longer as young as he once was, and even at
+his prime he shrewdly doubted his ability to cope with Riley Sinclair.
+With the weight of Gaspar thrown in, the thing became an impossibility.
+Gaspar might be a weakling, but a man who was capable of murder was
+always dangerous.
+
+To have been thwarted once was shame enough, but he dared not risk two
+failures with one man. He must have help in plenty from Woodville, and,
+fate willing, he would one day have the pleasure of looking down into
+the dead face of Sinclair; one day have the unspeakable joy of seeing
+the slender form of Gaspar dangling from the end of a rope.
+
+His mind was filled with the wicked pleasure of these pictures until he
+came suddenly upon Woodville. He drew his horse back to a dogtrot to
+enter the town.
+
+It was a short street that led through Woodville, but, short though it
+was, the news that something was wrong with the sheriff reached the
+heart of the town before he did. Men were already pouring out on the
+veranda of the hotel.
+
+"Where is he, sheriff?" was the greeting.
+
+Never before had that question been asked. He switched to one side in
+his saddle and made the speech that startled the mind of Woodville for
+many a day.
+
+"Boys, I've been double-crossed. Have any of you heard tell of Riley
+Sinclair?"
+
+He waited apparently calm. Inwardly he was breathless with excitement,
+for according to the size of Riley's reputation as a formidable man
+would be the size of his disgrace. There was a brief pause. Old Shaw
+filled the gap, and he filled it to the complete satisfaction of the
+sheriff.
+
+"Young Hopkins was figured for the hardest man up in Montana way," he
+said. "That was till Riley Sinclair beat him. What about Sinclair?"
+
+"It was him that double-crossed me," said the sheriff, vastly relieved.
+"He come like a friend, stuck me up on the trail when I wasn't lookin'
+for no trouble, and he got away with Gaspar."
+
+A chorus, astonished, eager. "What did he do it for?"
+
+"No man'll ever know," said the sheriff.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because Sinclair'll be dead before he has a chance to look a jury in
+the face."
+
+There were more questions. The little crowd had got its breath again,
+and the words came in volleys. The sheriff cut sharply through the
+noise.
+
+"Where's Bill Wood?"
+
+"He's in town now."
+
+"Charley, will you find Billy for me and ask him to slide over to my
+office? Thanks! Where's Arizona and Red Chalmers?"
+
+"They went back to the ranch."
+
+"Be a terrible big favor if you'd go out and try to find 'em for me,
+boys. Where's Joe Stockton?"
+
+"Up to the Lewis place."
+
+Old Shaw struck in: "You ain't makin' no mistake in picking the best
+you can get. You'll need 'em for this Riley Sinclair. I've heard tell
+about him. A pile!"
+
+The very best that Woodville and its vicinity could offer, was indeed
+what the sheriff was selecting. Another man would have looked for
+numbers, but the sheriff knew well enough that numbers meant little
+speed, and speed was one of the main essentials for the task that lay
+before him. He knew each of the men he had named, and he had known them
+for years, with the exception of Arizona. But the latter, coming up
+from the southland, had swiftly proved his ability in many a brawl.
+
+Bill Wood was a peerless trailer; Red Chalmers would, the sheriff felt,
+be one day a worthy aspirant for the office which he now held, and Red
+was the only man the sheriff felt who could succeed to that perilous
+office. As for Joe Stockton, he was distinctly bad medicine, but in a
+case like this, it might very well be that poison would be the antidote
+for poison. Of all the men the sheriff knew, Joe was the neatest hand
+with a gun. The trouble with Joe was that he appreciated his own
+ability and was fond of exhibiting his prowess.
+
+Having sent out for his assistants on the chase, the sheriff retired to
+his office and set his affairs in order. There was not a great deal of
+paper work connected with his position; in twenty minutes he had
+cleared his desk, and, by the time he had finished this task, the first
+of his posse had sauntered into the doorway and stood leaning idly
+there, rolling a cigarette.
+
+"Have a chair, Bill, will you?" said the sheriff. He tilted back in his
+own and tossed his heels to the top of his desk. "Getting sort of warm
+today, ain't it?"
+
+Bill Wood had never seen the sheriff so cheerful. He sat down gingerly,
+knowing well that some task of great danger lay before them.
+
+
+
+
+14
+
+
+All that Gaspar dreaded in Riley Sinclair had come true. The
+schoolteacher drew his horse as far away as the trail allowed and rode
+on in silence. Finally there was a stumble, and it seemed as if the
+words were jarred out from his lips, hitherto closely compressed:
+"_You_ killed Quade!"
+
+A scowl was his answer.
+
+But he persisted in the inquiry with a sort of trembling curiosity,
+though he could see the angry emotions rise in Sinclair. The emotion of
+a murderer, perhaps?
+
+"How?"
+
+"With a gun, fool. How d'you think?"
+
+Even that did not halt John Gaspar.
+
+"Was it a fair fight?"
+
+"Maybe--maybe not. It won't bring him back to life!"
+
+Riley laughed with savage satisfaction. Gaspar watched him as a bird
+might watch a snake. He had heard tales of men who could find
+satisfaction in a murder, but he had never believed that a human being
+could actually gloat over his own savagery. He stared at Riley as if he
+were looking at a wild beast that must be placated.
+
+Thereafter the talk was short. Now and again Sinclair gave some curt
+direction, but they put mile after mile behind them without a single
+phrase interchanged. Gaspar began to slump in the saddle. It brought a
+fierce rebuke from Sinclair.
+
+"Straighten up. Put some of your weight in them stirrups. D'you think
+any hoss can buck up when it's carrying a pile of lead? Come alive!"
+
+"It's the heat. It takes my strength," protested Gaspar.
+
+"Curse you and your strength! I wouldn't trade all of you for one ear
+of the hoss you're riding. Do what I tell you!"
+
+Without protest, without a flush of shame at this brutal abuse, John
+Gaspar attempted to obey. Then, as they topped a rise and reached a
+crest of a range of hills, Gaspar cried out in surprise. Sour Creek lay
+in the hollow beneath them.
+
+"But you're running straight into the face of danger!"
+
+"Don't tell me what I'm doing. I know maybe, all by myself!"
+
+He checked his horse and sat his saddle, eying Gaspar with such
+disgust, such concentrated scorn and contempt, that the schoolteacher
+winced.
+
+"I've brought you in sight of the town so's you can go home."
+
+"And be hanged?"
+
+"You won't be hanged. I'll send a confession along with you. I've
+busted the law once. They're after me. They might as well have some
+more reasons for hitting my trail."
+
+"But is it fair to you?" asked Gaspar, intertwining his nervous
+fingers.
+
+Sinclair heard the words and eyed the gesture with unutterable disgust.
+At last he could speak.
+
+"Fair?" he asked in scorn. "Since when have you been interested in
+playing fair? Takes a man with some nerve to play fair. You've spoiled
+my game, Gaspar. You've blocked me every way from the start, Cold Feet.
+I killed Quade, and they's another in Sour Creek that needs killing.
+That's something you can do. Go down and tell the sheriff when he
+happens along and show him my confession. Go down and tell him that I
+ain't running away--that I'm staying close, and that I'm going to nab
+my second man right under his nose. That'll give him something to think
+about."
+
+He favored the schoolteacher with another black look and then swung out
+of the saddle, throwing his reins. He sat down with his back to a
+stunted tree. Gaspar dismounted likewise and hovered near, after the
+fashion of a man who is greatly worried. He watched while Sinclair
+deliberately took out an old stained envelope and the stub of a pencil
+and started to write. His brows knitted in pain with the effort.
+Suddenly Gaspar cried: "Don't do it, Mr. Sinclair!"
+
+A slight lifting of Sinclair's heavy brows showed that he had heard,
+but he did not raise his head.
+
+"Don't do what?"
+
+"Don't try to kill that second man. Don't do it!"
+
+Gaspar was rewarded with a sneer.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+The schoolteacher was desperately eager. His glance roved from the set
+face of the cowpuncher and through the scragged branches of the tree.
+
+"You'll be damned for it--in your own mind. At heart you're a good man;
+I swear you are. And now you throw yourself away. Won't you try to open
+your mind and see this another way?"
+
+"Not an inch. Kid, I gave my word for this to a dead man. I told you
+about a friend of mine?"
+
+"I'll never forget."
+
+"I gave my word to him, though he never heard it. If I have to wait
+fifty years I'll live long enough to kill the gent that's in Sour Creek
+now. The other day I had him under my gun. Think of it! I let him go!"
+
+"And you'll let him go again. Sinclair, murder isn't in your nature.
+You're better than you think."
+
+"Close up," growled the cowpuncher. "It ain't no Saturday night party
+for me to write. Keep still till I finish."
+
+He resumed his labor of writing, drawing out each letter carefully. He
+had reached his signature when a low call from John Gaspar alarmed him.
+He looked up to find the little man pointing and staring up the trail.
+A horseman had just dropped over the crest and was winding leisurely
+down toward the plain below.
+
+"We can get behind that knoll, perhaps, before he sees us," suggested
+Jig in a whisper. His suggestion met with no favor.
+
+"You hear me talk, son," said Sinclair dryly. "That gent ain't carrying
+no guns, which means that he ain't on our trail, we being figured
+particularly desperate." He pointed this remark with a cold survey of
+the "desperate" Jig.
+
+"But the best way to make danger follow you, Jig, is to run away from
+it. We stay put!"
+
+He emphasized the remark by stretching luxuriously. Gaspar, however,
+did not seem to hear the last words. Something about the strange
+horseman had apparently riveted his interest. His last gesture was
+arrested halfway, and his color changed perceptibly.
+
+"You stay, then, Mr. Sinclair," he said hurriedly. "I'm going to slip
+down the hill and--"
+
+"You stay where you are!" cut in Sinclair.
+
+"But I have a reason."
+
+"Your reasons ain't no good. You stay put. You hear?"
+
+It seemed that a torrent of explanation was about to pour from the lips
+of Jig, but he restrained himself, white of face, and sank down in the
+shade of the tree. There he stretched himself out hastily, with his
+hands cupped behind his head and his hat tilted so far down over his
+face that his entire head was hidden.
+
+Sinclair followed these proceedings with a lackluster eye.
+
+"When you _do_ move, Jig," he said, "you ain't so slow about it. That's
+pretty good faking, take it all in all. But why don't you want this
+strange gent to see your face?"
+
+A slight shudder was the only reply; then Jig lay deadly still. In the
+meantime, before Sinclair could pursue his questions, the horseman was
+almost upon them. The cowpuncher regarded him with distinct approval.
+He was a man of the country, and he showed it. As his pony slouched
+down the slope, picking its way dexterously among the rocks, the rider
+met each jolt on the way with an easy swing of his shoulders, riding
+"straight up," just enough of his weight falling into his stirrups to
+break the jar on the back of the mustang.
+
+The stranger drew up on the trail and swung the head of his horse in
+toward the tree, raising his hand in cavalier greeting. He was a
+sunbrowned fellow, as tall as Sinclair and more heavily built; as for
+his age, he seemed in that joyous prime of physical life, twenty-five.
+Sinclair nodded amiably.
+
+"Might that be Sour Creek yonder?" asked the brown man.
+
+"It might be. I reckon it is. Get down and rest your hoss."
+
+"Thanks. Maybe I will."
+
+He dropped to the ground and eased and stiffened his knees to get out
+the cramp of long riding. Off the horse he seemed even bigger and more
+capable than before, and now that he had come sufficiently close, so
+that the shadow from his sombrero's brim did not partially mask the
+upper part of his face, it seemed to Sinclair that about the eyes he
+was not nearly so prepossessing as around the clean-cut fighter's mouth
+and chin. The eyes were just a trifle too small, a trifle too close
+together. Yet on the whole he was a handsome fellow, as he pushed back
+his hat and wiped his forehead dry with a gay silk handkerchief.
+
+Sinclair noted, furthermore, that the other had a proper cowpuncher's
+pride in his dress. His bench-made boots molded his long and slender
+feet to a nicety and fitted like gloves around the high instep. The
+polished spurs, with their spoon-handle curve, gleamed and flashed, as
+he stepped with a faint jingling. The braid about his sombrero was a
+thing of price. These details Sinclair noted. The rest did not matter.
+
+"The kid's asleep?" asked the stranger, casting a careless glance at
+the slim form of Jig.
+
+"I reckon so."
+
+"He done it almighty sudden. Thought I seen him up and walking around
+when I come over the hill."
+
+"You got good eyes," said Sinclair, but he was instantly put on the
+defensive. He was heartily tired of Cold Feet Gaspar, his
+peculiarities, his whims, his weaknesses. But Cold Feet was his riding
+companion, and this was a stranger. He was thrown suddenly in the
+position of a defender of the helpless. "That's the way with these
+kids," he confided carelessly to the stranger. "They get out and ride
+fast for a couple of hours. Full of ambition, they are. But just when a
+growed man gets warmed up to his work; they're through. The kid's tired
+out."
+
+"Come far?" asked the stranger.
+
+"Tolerable long ways."
+
+Sinclair disliked questions, and for each interrogation his opinion of
+the newcomer descended lower and lower. His own father had raised him
+on a stern pattern. "What you mean by questions, Riley? What you can't
+figure out with your own eyes and ears and good common hoss sense, most
+likely the other gent don't want you to know." Thereafter he had
+schooled himself in this particular point. He could suppress all
+curiosity and go six months without knowing more than the nickname of a
+boon companion.
+
+"You come from Sour Creek, maybe?" went on the other.
+
+"Sort of," replied Sinclair dryly.
+
+His companion proceeded to dispense information on his own part so as
+to break the ice.
+
+"I'm Jude Cartwright."
+
+He paused significantly, but Sinclair's face was a blank.
+
+"Glad to know you, Mr. Cartwright. Mostly they call me Long Riley."
+
+"How are you, Riley?"
+
+They shook hands heartily. Cartwright took a place on the ground,
+cross-legged and not far from Sinclair.
+
+"I guess you don't know me?" he asked pointedly.
+
+"I guess not."
+
+"I'm of the Jesse Cartwright family."
+
+Sinclair smiled blankly.
+
+"Lucky Cartwright was my dad's name."
+
+"That so?"
+
+"I guess you ain't ever been up Montana way," said the stranger in
+disgust which he hardly veiled.
+
+"Not much," said Sinclair blandly.
+
+"I wished that I was back up there. This is a hole of a country down
+here."
+
+"Hossflesh and time will take you back, I reckon."
+
+"I reckon they will, when my job's done."
+
+He turned a disparaging eye upon Sour Creek and its vicinity.
+
+"Now, who would want to live in a town like that, can you tell me?"
+
+It occurred very strongly to Riley Sinclair that Cartwright had not yet
+fully ascertained whether or not his companion came from that very
+town. And, although the day before, he had decided that Sour Creek was
+most undesirable and all that pertained to it, this unasked
+confirmation of his own opinion grated on his nerves.
+
+"Well, they seems to be a few that gets along tolerable well in that
+town, partner."
+
+"They's ten fools for one wise man," declared Cartwright sententiously.
+
+Sinclair veiled his eyes with a downward glance. He dared not let the
+other see the cold gleam which he knew was coming into them. "I guess
+them's true words."
+
+"Tolerable true," admitted Cartwright. "But I've rode a long ways, and
+this ain't much to find at the end of the trail."
+
+"Maybe it'll pan out pretty well after all."
+
+"If Sour Creek holds the person I'm after, I'll call it a good-paying
+game."
+
+"I hope you find your friend," remarked Riley, with his deceptive
+softness of tone.
+
+"Friend? Hell! And that's where this friend will wish me when I heave
+in sight. You can lay to that, and long odds!"
+
+Sinclair waited, but the other changed his tack at once.
+
+"If you ain't from Sour Creek, I guess you can't tell me what I want to
+know."
+
+"Maybe not."
+
+The brown man looked about him for diversion. Presently his eyes rested
+on Cold Feet, who had not stirred during all this interval.
+
+"Son?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"Kid brother?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+Cartwright frowned. "Not much of nothing, I figure," he said with
+marked insolence.
+
+"Maybe not," replied Sinclair, and again he glanced down.
+
+"He's slept long enough, I reckon," declared the brown man. "Let's have
+a look at him. Hey, kid!"
+
+Cold Feet quivered, but seemed lost in a profound sleep. Cartwright
+reached for a small stone and juggled it in the palm of his hand.
+
+"This'll surprise him," he chuckled.
+
+"Better not," murmured Sinclair.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Might land on his face and hurt him."
+
+"It won't hurt him bad. Besides, kids ought to learn not to sleep in
+the daytime. Ain't a good idea any way you look at it. Puts fog in the
+head."
+
+He poised the stone.
+
+"You might hit his eye, you see," said Sinclair.
+
+"Leave that to me!"
+
+But, as his arm twisted back for the throw, the hand of Sinclair
+flashed out and lean fingers crushed the wrist of Cartwright. Yet
+Sinclair's voice was still soft.
+
+"Better not," he said.
+
+They sat confronting each other for a moment. The stone dropped from
+the numbed fingers of Cartwright, and Sinclair released his wrist.
+Their characters were more easily read in the crisis. Cartwright's face
+flushed, and a purple vein ran down his forehead between the eyes.
+Sinclair turned pale. He seemed, indeed, almost afraid, and apparently
+Cartwright took his cue from the pallor.
+
+"I see," he said sneeringly. "You got your guns on. Is that it?"
+
+Sinclair slipped off the cartridge belt.
+
+"Do I look better to you now?"
+
+"A pile better," said Cartwright.
+
+They rose, still confronting each other. It was strange how swiftly
+they had plunged into strife.
+
+"I guess you'll be rolling along, Cartwright."
+
+"Nope. I guess I like it tolerable well under this here tree."
+
+"Except that I come here first, partner."
+
+"And maybe you'll be the first to leave."
+
+"I'd have to be persuaded a pile."
+
+"How's this to start you along?"
+
+He flicked the back of his hand across the lips of Sinclair, and then
+sprang back as far as his long legs would carry him. So doing, the
+first leap of Sinclair missed him, and when the cowpuncher turned he
+was met with a stunning blow on the side of the head.
+
+At once the blind anger faded from the eyes of Riley. By the weight of
+that first blow he knew that he had encountered a worthy foeman, and by
+the position of Cartwright he could tell that he had met a confident
+one. The big fellow was perfectly poised, with his weight well back on
+his right foot, his left foot feeling his way over the rough ground as
+he advanced, always collected for a heavy blow, or for a leap in any
+direction. He carried his guard high, with apparent contempt for an
+attack on his body, after the manner of a practiced boxer.
+
+As for Riley Sinclair, boxing was Greek to him. His battles had been
+those of bullets and sharp steel, or sudden, brutal fracas, where the
+rule was to strike with the first weapon that came to hand. This single
+encounter, hand to hand, was more or less of a novelty to him, but
+instead of abashing or cowing him, it merely brought to the surface all
+his coldness of mind, all of his cunning.
+
+He circled Cartwright, his long arms dangling low, his step soft and
+quick as the stride of a great cat, and always there was thought in his
+face. One gained an impression that if ever he closed with his enemy
+the battle would end.
+
+Apparently even Cartwright gained that impression. His own brute
+confidence of skill and power was suddenly tinged with doubt. Instead
+of waiting he led suddenly with his left, a blow that tilted the head
+of Sinclair back, and then sprang in with a crushing right. It was poor
+tactics, for half of a boxer's nice skill is lost in a plunging attack.
+The second blow shot humming past Sinclair as the latter dodged; and,
+before the brown man could recover his poise, the cowpuncher had dived
+in under the guarding arms.
+
+A shrill cry rose from Cold Feet, a cry so sharp and shrill that it
+sent a chill down the back of Sinclair. For a moment he whirled with
+the weight of his struggling, cursing enemy, and then his right hand
+shot up over the shoulder of Cartwright and clutched his chin. With
+that leverage one convulsive jerk threw Cartwright heavily back; he
+rolled on his side, with Sinclair following like a wildcat.
+
+But Cartwright as he fell had closed his fingers on a jagged little
+stone. Sinclair saw the blow coming, swerved from it, and straightway
+went mad. The brown man became a helpless bulk; the knee of Sinclair
+was planted on his shoulders, the talon fingers of Sinclair were buried
+in his throat.
+
+Then--he saw it only dimly through his red anger and hardly felt it at
+all--Jig's hands were tearing at his wrists. He looked up in dull
+surprise into the face of John Gaspar.
+
+"For heaven's sake," Jig was pleading, "stop!"
+
+But what checked Sinclair was not the schoolteacher. Cartwright had
+been fighting with the fury of one who sees death only inches away.
+Suddenly he grew limp.
+
+"You!" he cried. "You!"
+
+To the astonishment of Sinclair the gaze of the beaten man rested
+directly upon the face of Jig.
+
+"Yes," Gaspar admitted faintly, "it is I!"
+
+Sinclair released his grip and stood back, while Cartwright, stumbling
+to his feet, stood wavering, breathing harshly and fingering his
+injured throat.
+
+"I knew I'd find you," he said, "but I never dreamed I'd find you like
+this!"
+
+"I know what you think," said Cold Feet, utterly colorless, "but you
+think wrong, Jude. You think entirely wrong!"
+
+"You lie like a devil!"
+
+"On my honor."
+
+"Honor? You ain't got none! Honor!"
+
+He flung himself into his saddle. "Now that I've located you, the next
+time I come it'll be with a gun."
+
+He turned a convulsed face toward Sinclair.
+
+"And that goes for you."
+
+"Partner," said Riley Sinclair, "that's the best thing I've heard you
+say. Until then, so long!"
+
+The other wrenched his horse about and went down the trail at a
+reckless gallop, plunging out of view around the first shoulder of a
+hill.
+
+
+
+
+15
+
+
+Sinclair watched him out of sight. He turned to find that Jig had
+slumped against the tree and stood with his arm thrown across his face.
+It reminded him, with a curious pang of mingled pity and disgust, of
+the way Gaspar had faced the masked men of Sour Creek's posse the day
+before. There was the same unmanly abnegation of the courage to meet
+danger and look it in the eye. Here, again, the schoolteacher was
+wincing from the very memory of a crisis.
+
+"Look here!" exclaimed Sinclair. His contempt rang in his voice. "They
+ain't any danger now. Turn around here and buck up. Keep your chin high
+and look a man in the face, will you?"
+
+Slowly the arm descended. He found himself looking into a white and
+tortured face. His respect for the schoolteacher rose somewhat. The
+very fact that the little man could endure such pain in silence, no
+matter what that pain might be, was something to his credit.
+
+"Now come out with it, Gaspar. You double-crossed this Cartwright, eh?"
+
+"Yes," whispered Jig.
+
+"Will you tell me? Not that I make a business of prying into the
+affairs of other gents, but I figure I might be able to help you
+straighten things out with this Cartwright."
+
+He made a wry face and then rubbed the side of his head where a lump
+was slowly growing.
+
+"Of all the gents that I ever seen," said Sinclair softly, "I ain't
+never seen none that made me want to tangle with 'em so powerful bad.
+And of all the poisoned fatheads, all the mean, sneakin'
+advantage-takin' skunks that ever I run up again', this gent Cartwright
+is the worst. If his hide was worth a million an inch, I would have it.
+If he was to pay me a hundred thousand a day, I wouldn't be his pal for
+a minute." He paused. "Them, taking 'em by and large, is my sentiments
+about this here Cartwright. So open up and tell me what you done to
+him."
+
+To his very real surprise the schoolteacher shook his head. "I can't do
+it."
+
+"H'm," said Sinclair, cut to the quick. "Can't you trust me with it,
+eh?"
+
+"Ah," murmured Gaspar, "of all the men in the world, you're the one I'd
+tell it to most easily. But I can't--I can't."
+
+"I don't care whether you tell me or not. Whatever you done, it must
+have been plumb bad if you can't even tell it to a gent that likes
+Cartwright like he likes poison."
+
+"It was bad," said Jig slowly. "It was very bad--it was a sin. Until I
+die I can never repay him for what I have done."
+
+Sinclair recovered some of his good nature at this outburst of
+self-accusation.
+
+"I'll be hanged if I believe it," he declared bluntly. "Not a word of
+it! When you come right down to the point you'll find out that you
+ain't been half so bad as you think. The way I figure you is this, Jig.
+You ain't so bad, except that you ain't got no nerve. Was it a matter
+of losing your nerve that made Cartwright mad at you?"
+
+"Yes. It was altogether that."
+
+Sinclair sighed. "Too bad! I don't blame you for not wanting to talk
+about it. They's a flaw in everything, Jig, and this is yours. If I was
+to be around you much, d'you know what I'd do?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I'd try to plumb forget about this flaw of yours: That's a fact. But
+as far as Cartwright goes, to blazes with him! And that's where he's
+apt to wind up pronto if he's as good as his word and comes after me
+with a gun. In the meantime you grab your hoss, kid, and slide back
+into Sour Creek and show the boys this here confession I've written.
+You can add one thing. I didn't put it in because I knowed they
+wouldn't believe me. I killed Quade fair and square. I give him the
+first move for his gun, and then I beat him to the draw and killed him
+on an even break. That's the straight of it. I know they won't believe
+it. Matter of fact I'm saying it for you, Jig, more'n I am for them!"
+
+It was an amazing thing to see the sudden light that flooded the face
+of the schoolteacher.
+
+"And I do believe you, Sinclair," he said. "With all my heart I believe
+you and know you couldn't have taken an unfair advantage!"
+
+"H'm," muttered Riley. "It ain't bad to hear you say that. And now trot
+along, son."
+
+Cold Feet made no move to obey.
+
+"Not that I wouldn't like to have you along, but where I got to go,
+you'd be a weight around my neck. Besides, your game is to show the
+folks down yonder that you ain't a murderer, and that paper I've give
+you will prove it. We'll drift together along the trail part way, and
+down yonder I turn up for the tall timber."
+
+To all this Jig returned no answer, but in a peculiarly lifeless manner
+went to his horse and climbed in his awkward way into the saddle. They
+went down the trail slowly.
+
+"Because," explained the cowpuncher, "if I save my hoss's wind I may be
+saving my own life."
+
+Where the trail bent like an elbow and shot sheer down for the plain
+and Sour Creek, Riley Sinclair pointed his horse's nose up to the
+taller mountains, but Jig sat his horse in melancholy silence and
+looked mournfully up at his companion.
+
+"So long," said Sinclair cheerily. "And when you get down yonder, it'll
+happen most likely that pretty soon you'll hear a lot of hard things
+about Riley Sinclair."
+
+"If I do--if I hear a syllable against you," cried the schoolteacher
+with a flare of color, "I'll--I'll drive the words back into their
+teeth!"
+
+He shook with his emotion; Riley Sinclair shook with controlled
+laughter.
+
+"Would you do all of that, partner? Well, I believe you'd try. What I
+mean to say is this: No matter what they say, you can lay to it that
+Sinclair has tried to play square and clean according to his own
+lights, which ain't always the best in the world. So long!"
+
+There was no answer. He found himself looking down into the quivering
+face of the schoolteacher.
+
+"Why, kid, you look all busted up!"
+
+"Riley," gasped Jig very faintly, "I can't go!"
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Because I can't meet Jude."
+
+"Cartwright, eh? But you got to, sooner or later."
+
+"I'll die first."
+
+"Would your nerve hold you up through that?"
+
+"So easily," said Jig. There was such a simple gravity and despair in
+his expression that Sinclair believed it. He grunted and stared hard.
+
+"This Cartwright gent is worse'n death to you?"
+
+"A thousand, thousand times!"
+
+"How come?"
+
+"I can't tell you."
+
+"I kind of wish," said Sinclair thoughtfully, "that I'd kept my grip a
+mite longer."
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"You don't wish him dead?"
+
+Jig shuddered.
+
+"You plumb beat me, partner. And now you want to come along with me?"
+Sinclair grinned. "An outlaw's life ain't what it's cracked up to be,
+son. You'd last about a day doing what I have to do."
+
+"You'll find," said the schoolteacher eagerly, "that I can stand it
+amazingly well. I'll--I'll be far, far stronger than you expect!"
+
+"Somehow I kind of believe it. But it's for your own fool sake, son,
+that I don't want you along."
+
+"Let me try," pleaded Jig eagerly.
+
+The other shook his head and seemed to change his mind in the very
+midst of the gesture.
+
+"Why not?" he asked himself. "You'll get enough of it inside of a day.
+And then you'll find out that they's some things about as bad as
+death--or Cartwright. Come on, kid!"
+
+
+
+
+16
+
+
+It was a weary ride that brought them to the end of that day and to a
+camping place. It seemed to Jig that the world was made up of nothing
+but the ups and downs of that mountain trail. Now, as the sun went
+down, they came out on a flat shoulder of the mountain. Far below them
+lay Sour Creek, long lost in the shadow of premature night which filled
+the valley.
+
+"Here we are, fixed up as comfortable as can be," said Sinclair
+cheerily. "There's water, and there's wood aplenty. What could a gent
+ask for more? And here's my country!"
+
+For a moment his expression softened as he looked over the black peaks
+stepping away to the north. Now he pointed out a grove of trees, and on
+the other side of the little plateau was heard the murmur of a feeble
+spring.
+
+Riley swung down easily from the saddle, but when Jig dismounted his
+knees buckled with weariness, and he slipped down on a rock. He was
+unheeded for a moment by the cowpuncher, who was removing from his
+saddle the quarters of a deer which he had shot at the foot of the
+mountain. When this task was ended, a stern voice brought Jig to his
+feet.
+
+"What's all this? How come? Going to let that hoss stand there all
+night with his saddle on? Hurry up!"
+
+"All right," replied the schoolteacher, but his voice quaked with
+weariness, and the cinch knot, drawn taut by the powerful hand of Jerry
+Bent, refused to loosen. He struggled with it until his fingers ached,
+and his panicky breath came in gasps of nervous excitement.
+
+Presently he was aware of the tall, dark form of Sinclair behind him,
+his saddle slung across his arm.
+
+"By guns," muttered Sinclair, "it ain't possible! Not enough muscle to
+untie a knot? It's a good thing that your father can't see the sort of
+a son that he turned out. Lemme at that!"
+
+Under his strong fingers the knot gave by magic.
+
+"Now yank that saddle off and put it yonder with mine."
+
+Jig pulled back the saddle, but when the full weight jerked down on him
+he staggered, and he began to drag the heavy load.
+
+"Hey," cut in the voice of the tyrant, "want to spoil that saddle, kid?
+Lift it, can't you?"
+
+Gaspar obeyed with a start and, having placed it in the required
+position, turned and waited guiltily.
+
+"Time you was learning something about camping out," declared the
+cowpuncher, "and I'll teach you. Take this ax and gimme some wood,
+pronto!"
+
+He handed over a short ax, heavy-headed and small of haft.
+
+"That bush yonder! That's dead, or dead enough for us."
+
+Plainly Jig was in awe of that ax. He carried it well out from his
+side, as if he feared the least touch against his leg might mean a cut.
+Of all this, Riley Sinclair was aware with a gradually darkening
+expression. He had been partly won to Jig that day, but his better
+opinion of the schoolteacher was being fast undermined.
+
+With a gloomy eye he watched John Gaspar drop on his knees at the base
+of the designated shrub and raise the ax slowly--in both hands! Not
+only that, but the head remained poised, hung over the schoolteacher's
+shoulder. When the blow fell, instead of striking solidly on the trunk
+of the bush, it crashed futilely through a branch. Riley Sinclair drew
+closer to watch. It was excusable, perhaps, for a man to be unable to
+ride or to shoot or to face other men. But it was inconceivable that
+any living creature should be so clumsy with a common ax.
+
+To his consummate disgust the work of Jig became worse and worse. No
+two blows fell on the same spot. The trunk of the little tree became
+bruised, but even when the edge of the ax did not strike on a branch,
+at most it merely sliced into the outer surface of the wood and left
+the heart untouched. It was a process of gnawing, not of chopping. To
+crown the terrible exhibition, Jig now rested from his labors and
+examined the palms of his hands, which had become a bright red.
+
+"Gimme the ax," said Sinclair shortly. He dared not trust himself to
+more speech and, snatching it from the hands of Cold Feet, buried the
+blade into the very heart of the trunk. Another blow, driven home with
+equal power and precision on the opposite side, made the tree shudder
+to its top, and the third blow sent it swishing to the earth.
+
+This brought a short cry of admiration and wonder from the
+schoolteacher, for which Sinclair rewarded him with one glance of
+contempt. With sweeping strokes he cleared away the half-dead branches.
+Presently the trunk was naked. On it Riley now concentrated his attack,
+making the short ax whistle over his shoulders. The trunk of the shrub
+was divided into handy portions as if by magic.
+
+Still John Gaspar stood by, gaping, apparently finding nothing to do.
+And this with a camp barely started!
+
+It was easier to do oneself, however, than to give directions to such
+stupidity. Sinclair swept up an armful of wood and strode off to the
+spot he had selected for the campfire, near the place where the spring
+water ran into a small pool. A couple of big rocks thrown in place
+furnished a windbreak. Between them he heaped dead twigs, and in a
+moment the flame was leaping.
+
+As soon as the fire was lighted they became aware that the night was
+well nigh upon them. Hitherto the day had seemed some distance from its
+final end, for there was still color in the sky, and the tops of the
+western mountains were still bright. But with the presence of fire
+brightness, the rest of the world became dim. The western peaks were
+ghostly; the sky faded to the ashes of its former splendor; and Jig
+found himself looking down upon thick night in the lower valleys. He
+saw the eyes of the horses glistening, as they raised their heads to
+watch. The gaunt form of Sinclair seemed enormous. Stooping about the
+fire, enormous shadows drifted above and behind him. Sometimes the
+light flushed over his lean face and glinted in his eyes. Again his
+head was lost in shadow, and perhaps only the active, reaching hands
+were illuminated brightly.
+
+He prepared the deer meat with incomprehensible swiftness, at the same
+time arranging the fire so that it rapidly burned down to a firm,
+strong, level bed of coals, and by the time the bed of coals were
+ready, the meat was prepared in thick steaks to broil over it.
+
+In a little time the rich brown of the cooking venison streaked across
+to Jig. He had kept at a distance up to this time, realizing that he
+was in disgrace. Now he drifted near. He was rewarded by an amiable
+grin from Riley Sinclair, whose ugly humor seemed to have vanished at
+the odor of the broiling meat.
+
+"Watch this meat cook, kid, will you? There's something you can do that
+don't take no muscle and don't take no knowledge. All you got to do is
+to keep listening with your _nose_, and if you smell it burning, yank
+her off. Understand? And don't let the fire blaze. She's apt to flare
+up at the corners, you see? And these here twigs is apt to burn
+through--these ones that keep the meat off'n the coals. Watch them,
+too. And that's all you got to do. Can you manage all them things at
+once?"
+
+Jig nodded gravely, as though he failed to see the contempt.
+
+"I seen a fine patch of grass down the hill a bit. I'm going to take
+the hosses down there and hobble 'em out." Whistling, Sinclair strode
+off down the hill, leading the horses after him.
+
+The schoolteacher watched him go, and when the forms had vanished, and
+only the echo of the whistling blew back, he looked up. The last life
+was gone from the sunset. The last time he glanced up, there had been
+only a few dim stars; now they had come down in multitudes, great
+yellow planets and whole rifts of steel-blue stars.
+
+He took from his pocket the old envelope which Sinclair had given him,
+examined the scribbled confession, chuckling at the crude labor with
+which the writing had been drawn out, and then deliberately stuffed the
+paper into a corner of the fire. It flamed up, singeing the cooking
+meat, but John Gaspar paid no heed. He was staring off down the hill to
+make sure that Sinclair should not return in time to see that little
+act of destruction. An act of self-destruction, too, it well might turn
+out to be.
+
+As for Sinclair, having found his pastureland, where the grass grew
+thick and tall, he was in no hurry to return to his clumsy companion.
+He listened for a time to the sound of the horses, ripping away the
+grass close to the ground, and to the grating as they chewed. Then he
+turned his attention to the mountains. His spirit was easier in this
+place. He breathed more easily. There was a sense of freedom at once
+and companionship. He lingered so long, indeed, that he suddenly became
+aware that time had slipped away from him, and that the venison must be
+long since done. At that he hurried back up the slope.
+
+He was hungry, ravenously hungry, but the first thing that greeted him
+was the scent of burning meat. It stopped him short, and his hands
+gripped involuntarily. In that first burst of passion he wanted
+literally to wring the neck of the schoolteacher. He strode closer. It
+was as he thought. The twigs had burned away from beneath the steak and
+allowed it to drop into the cinders, and beside the dying fire, barely
+illuminated by it, sat Jig, sound asleep, with his head resting on his
+knees.
+
+For a moment Sinclair had to fight with himself for control. All his
+murderous evil temper had flared up into his brain and set his teeth
+gritting. At length he could trust himself enough to reach down and set
+his heavy grip on the shoulder of the sleeper.
+
+Even in sleep Jig must have been pursued by a burdened consciousness of
+guilt. Now he jerked up his head and stammered up to the shadowy face
+of Sinclair.
+
+"I--I don't know--all at once it happened. You see the fire--"
+
+But the telltale odor of the charring meat struck his nostrils, and his
+speech died away. He was panting with fear of consequences. Now a new
+turn came to the fear of Cold Feet. It seemed that Riley Sinclair's
+hand had frozen at the touch of the soft flesh of Jig's shoulder. He
+remained for a long moment without stirring. When his hand moved it was
+to take Jig under the chin with marvelous firmness and gentleness at
+once and lift the face of the schoolteacher. He seemed to find much to
+read there, much to study and know. Whatever it was, it set Jig
+trembling until suddenly he shrank away, cowering against the rock
+behind.
+
+"You don't think--"
+
+But the voice of Sinclair broke in with a note in it that Jig had never
+heard before.
+
+"Guns and glory--a woman!"
+
+It came over him with a rush, that revelation which explained so many
+things--everything in fact; all that strange cowardice, and all that
+stranger grace; that unmanly shrinking, that more than manly contempt
+for death. Now the firelight was too feeble to show more than one
+thing--the haunted eyes of the girl, as she cowered away from him.
+
+He saw her hand drop from her breast to her holster and close around
+the butt of her revolver.
+
+Sinclair grew cold and sick. After all, what reason had she to trust
+him? He drew back and began to walk up and down with long, slow
+strides. The girl followed him and saw his gaunt figure brush across
+the stars; she saw the wind furl and unfurl the wide brim of his hat,
+and she heard the faint stir and clink of his spurs at every step.
+
+There was a tumult in the brain of the cowpuncher. The stars and the
+sky and the mountains and wind went out. They were nothing in the
+electric presence of this new Jig. His mind flashed back to one
+picture--Cold Feet with her hands tied behind her back, praying under
+the cottonwood.
+
+Shame turned the cowpuncher hot and then cold. He allowed his mind to
+drift back over his thousand insults, his brutal language, his cursing,
+his mockery, his open contempt. There was a tingle in his ears, and a
+chill running up and down his spine.
+
+After all that brutality, what mysterious sense had told her to trust
+to him rather than to Sour Creek and its men?
+
+Other mysteries flocked into his mind. Why had she come to the very
+verge of death, with the rope around her neck rather than reveal her
+identity, knowing, as she must know, that in the mountain desert men
+feel some touch of holiness in every woman?
+
+He remembered Cartwright, tall, handsome, and narrow of eye, and the
+fear of the girl. Suddenly he wished with all his soul that he had
+fought with guns that day, and not with fists.
+
+
+
+
+17
+
+
+At length the continued silence of the girl made him turn. Perhaps she
+had slipped away. His heart was chilled at the thought; turning, he
+sighed with relief to find her still there.
+
+Without a word he went back and rekindled the fire, placed new venison
+steaks over it, and broiled them with silent care. Not a sound from
+Jig, not a sound from the cowpuncher, while the meat hissed, blackened,
+and at length was done to a turn. He laid portions of it on broad,
+white, clean chips which he had already prepared, and served her. Still
+in silence she ate. Shame held Sinclair. He dared not look at her, and
+he was glad when the fire lost some of its brightness.
+
+Now and then he looked with wonder across the mountains. All his life
+they had been faces to him, and the wind had been a voice. Now all this
+was nothing but dead stuff. There was no purpose in the march of the
+mountains except that they led to the place where Jig sat.
+
+He twisted together a cup of bark and brought her water from the
+spring. She thanked him with words that he did not hear, he was so
+intent in watching her face, as the firelight played on it. Now that he
+held the clue, everything was as plain as day. New light played on the
+past.
+
+Turning away, he put new fuel on the fire, and when he looked to her
+again, she had unbelted the revolver and was putting it away, as if she
+realized that this would not help her if she were in danger.
+
+When at length she spoke it was the same voice, and yet how new! The
+quality in it made Sinclair sit a little straighter.
+
+"You have a right to know everything that I can tell you. Do you wish
+to hear?"
+
+For another moment he smoked in solemn silence. He found that he was
+wishing for the story not so much because of its strangeness, but
+because he wanted that voice to run on indefinitely. Yet he weighed the
+question pro and con.
+
+"Here's the point, Jig," he said at last. "I got a good deal to make up
+to you. In the first place I pretty near let you get strung up for a
+killing I done myself. Then I been treating you pretty hard, take it
+all in all. You got a story, and I don't deny that I'd like to hear it;
+but it don't seem a story that you're fond of telling, and I ain't got
+no right to ask for it. All I ask to know is one thing: When you stood
+there under that cotton wood tree, with a rope around your neck, did
+you know that all you had to do was to tell us that you was a woman to
+get off free?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"And you'd sooner have hung than tell us?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Sinclair sighed. "Maybe I've said this before, but I got to say it
+ag'in: Jig, you plumb beat me!" He brushed his hand across his
+forehead. "S'pose it'd been done! S'pose I had let 'em go ahead and
+string you up! They'd have been a terrible bad time ahead for them
+seven men. We'd all have been grabbed and lynched. A woman!"
+
+He put the word off by itself. Then he was surprised to hear her
+laughing softly. Now that he knew, it was all woman, that voice.
+
+"It wasn't really courage, Riley. After you'd said half a dozen words I
+knew you were square, and that you knew I was innocent. So I didn't
+worry very much--except just after you'd sentenced me to hang!"
+
+"Don't go back to that! I sure been a plumb fool. But why would you
+have gone ahead and let that hanging happen?"
+
+"Because I had rather die than be known, except to you."
+
+"You leave me out."
+
+"I'd trust you to the end of everything, Riley."
+
+"I b'lieve you would, Jig--I honest believe you would! Heaven knows
+why."
+
+"Because."
+
+"That ain't a reason."
+
+"A very good woman's reason. For one thing you've let me come along
+when you know that I'm a weight, and you're in danger. But you don't
+know what it means if I go back. You can't know. I know it's wrong and
+cowardly for me to stay and imperil you, but I _am_ a coward, and I'm
+afraid to go back!"
+
+"Hush up," murmured Sinclair. "Hush up, girl. Is they anybody asking
+you to go back? But you don't really figure on hanging out here with me
+in the mountains, me having most of the gents in these parts out
+looking for my scalp?"
+
+"If you think I won't be such an encumbrance that I'll greatly endanger
+you, Riley."
+
+"H'm," muttered Sinclair. "I'll take that chance, but they's another
+thing."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It ain't exactly nacheral and reasonable for a girl to go around in
+the mountains with a man."
+
+She fired up at that, sitting straight, with the fire flaring suddenly
+in her face through the change of position.
+
+"I've told you that I trust you, Riley. What do I care about the
+opinion of the world? Haven't they hounded me? Oh, I despise them!"
+
+"H'm," said the cowpuncher again.
+
+He was, indeed, so abashed by this outbreak that he merely stole a
+glance at her face and then studied the fire again.
+
+"Does this gent Cartwright tie up with your story?"
+
+All the fire left her. "Yes," she whispered.
+
+He felt that she was searching his face, as if suddenly in doubt of
+him.
+
+"Will you let me tell you--everything?"
+
+"Shoot ahead."
+
+"Some parts will be hard to believe."
+
+"Lady, they won't be nothing as hard to believe as what I've seen you
+do with my own eyes."
+
+Then she began to tell her story, and she found a vast comfort in
+seeing the ugly, stern face of Sinclair lighted by the burning end of
+his cigarette. He never looked at her, but always fixed his stare on
+the sea of blackness which was the lower valley.
+
+"All the trouble began with a theory. My father felt that the thing for
+a girl was to be educated in the East and marry in the West. He was
+full of maxims, you see. 'They turn out knowledge in cities; they turn
+out men in mountains,' was one of his maxims. He thought and argued and
+lived along those lines. So as soon as I was half grown--oh, I was a
+wild tomboy!"
+
+"Eh?" cut in Sinclair.
+
+"I could really do the things then that you'd like to have a woman do,"
+she said. "I could ride anything, swim like a fish in snow water,
+climb, run, and do anything a boy could do. I suppose that's the sort
+of a woman you admire?"
+
+"Me!" exclaimed Riley with violence. "It ain't so, Jig. I been revising
+my ideas on women lately. Besides, I never give 'em much thought
+before."
+
+He said all this without glancing at her, so that she was able to
+indulge in a smile before she went on.
+
+"Just at that point, when I was about to become a true daughter of the
+West, Dad snapped me off to school in the East, and then for years and
+years there was no West at all for me except a little trip here and
+there in vacation time. The rest of it was just study and play, all in
+the East. I still liked the West--in theory, you know."
+
+"H'm," muttered Riley.
+
+"And then, I think it was a year ago, I had a letter from Dad with
+important news in it. He had just come back from a hunting trip with a
+young fellow who he thought represented everything fine in the West. He
+was big, good-looking, steady, had a large estate. Dad set his mind on
+having me marry him, and he told me so in the letter. Of course I was
+upset at the idea of marrying a man I did not know, but Dad always had
+a very controlling way with him. I had lost any habit of thinking for
+myself in important matters.
+
+"Besides, there was a consolation. Dad sent the picture of his man
+along with his letter. The picture was in profile, and it showed me a
+fine-looking fellow, with a glorious carriage, a high head, and oceans
+of strength and manliness.
+
+"I really fell in love with that picture. To begin with, I thought that
+it was destiny for me, and that I had to love that man whether I wished
+to or not. I admitted that picture into my inmost life, dreamed about
+it, kept it near me in my room.
+
+"And just about that time came news that my father was seriously ill,
+and then that he had died, and that his last wish was for me to come
+West at once and marry my chosen husband.
+
+"Of course I came at once. I was too sick and sad for Dad to think much
+about my own future, and when I stepped off the train I met the first
+shock. My husband to be was waiting for me. He was enough like the
+picture for me to recognize him, and that was all. He was tall and
+strong enough and manly enough. But in full face I thought he was
+narrow between the eyes. And--"
+
+"It was Cartwright!"
+
+"Yes, yes. How did you guess that?"
+
+"I dunno," said Sinclair softly, "but when that gent rode off today,
+something told me that I was going to tangle with him later on. Go on!"
+
+"He was very kind to me. After the first moment of disappointment--you
+see, I had been dreaming about him for a good many weeks--I grew to
+like him and accept him again. He did all that he could to make the
+trip home agreeable. He didn't press himself on me. He did nothing to
+make me feel that he understood Dad's wishes about our marriage and
+expected me to live up to them.
+
+"After the funeral it was the same way. He came to see me only now and
+then. He was courteous and attentive, and he seemed to be fond of me."
+
+"A fox," snarled Sinclair, growing more and more excited, as this
+narrative continued. "That's the way with one of them kind. They play a
+game. Never out in the open. Waiting till they win, and then acting the
+devil. Go on!"
+
+"Perhaps you're right. His visits became more and more frequent.
+Finally he asked me to marry him. That brought the truth of my position
+home to me, and I found all at once that, though I had rather liked him
+as a friend, I had to quake at the idea of him as a husband."
+
+Sinclair snapped his cigarette into the coals of the fire and set his
+jaw. She liked him in his anger.
+
+"But what could I do? All of the last part of Dad's life had been
+pointed toward this one thing. I felt that he would come out of his
+grave and haunt me. I asked for one more day to think it over. He told
+me to take a month or a year, as I pleased, and that made me ashamed. I
+told him on the spot that I would marry him, but that I didn't love
+him."
+
+"I'll tell you what he answered--curse him!" exclaimed Sinclair.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Through the years that was comin', he'd teach you to love him."
+
+"That was exactly what he said in those very words! How did you guess
+that?"
+
+"I'll tell you I got a sort of a second sight for the ways of a snake,
+or an ornery hoss, or a sneak of a man. Go on!"
+
+"I think you have. At any rate, after I had told him I'd marry him, he
+pressed me to set the date as early as possible, and I agreed. There
+was only a ten-day interval.
+
+"Those ten days were filled. I kept myself busy so that I wouldn't have
+a chance to think about the future, though of course I didn't really
+know how I dreaded it. I talked to the only girl who was near enough to
+me to be called a friend.
+
+"'Find a man you can respect. That's the main thing,' she always said.
+'You'll learn to love him later on.'
+
+"It was a great comfort to me. I kept thinking back to that advice all
+the time."
+
+"They's nothing worse than a talky woman," declared Sinclair hotly. "Go
+on!"
+
+"Then, all at once, the day came. I'll never forget how I wakened that
+morning and looked out at the sun. I had a queer feeling that even the
+sunshine would never seem the same after that day. It was like going to
+a death."
+
+"So you went to this gent and told him just how you felt, and he let
+your promise slide?"
+
+"No."
+
+Sinclair groaned.
+
+"I couldn't go to him. I didn't dare. I don't imagine that I ever
+thought of such a thing. Then there were crowds of people around all
+day, giving me good wishes. And all the time I felt like death.
+
+"Somehow I got to the church. Everything was hazy to me, and my heart
+was thundering all the time. In the church there was a blur of faces.
+All at once the blur cleared. I saw Jude Cartwright, and I knew I
+couldn't marry him!"
+
+"Brave girl!" cried Sinclair, his relief coming out in almost a shout.
+"You stopped there at the last minute?"
+
+"Ah, if I had! No, I didn't stop. I went on to the altar and met him
+there, and--"
+
+"You weren't married to him?"
+
+"I was!"
+
+"Go on," Sinclair said huskily.
+
+"The end of it came somehow. I found a flood of people calling to me
+and pressing around me, and all the time I was thinking of nothing but
+the new ring on my finger and the weight--the horrible weight of it!
+
+"We went back to my father's house. I managed to get away from all the
+merrymaking and go to my room. The minute the door closed behind me and
+shut away their voices and singing into the distance, I felt that I had
+saved one last minute of freedom. I went to the window and looked out
+at the mountains. The stars were coming out.
+
+"All at once my knees gave way, and I began to weep on the window sill.
+I heard voices coming, and I knew that I mustn't let them see me with
+the tears running down my face. But the tears wouldn't stop coming.
+
+"I ran to the door and locked it. Then someone tried to open the door,
+and I heard the voice of my Aunt Jane calling. I gathered all my nerve
+and made my voice steady. I told her that I couldn't let anyone in,
+that I was preparing a surprise for them.
+
+"'Are you happy, dear?' asked Aunt Jane.
+
+"I made myself laugh. 'So happy!' I called back to her.
+
+"Then they went away. But as soon as they were gone I knew that I could
+never go out and meet them. Partly because I had no surprise for them,
+partly because I didn't want them to see the tear stains and my red
+eyes. Somehow little silly things were as big and as important as the
+main thing--that I could never be the real wife of Jude Cartwright. Can
+you understand?"
+
+"Jig, once when I had a deer under my trigger I let him go because he
+had a funny-shaped horn. Sure, it's the little things that run a gent's
+life. Go on!"
+
+"I knew that I had to escape. But how could I escape in a place where
+everybody knew me? First I thought of changing my clothes. Then another
+thing--man's clothes! The moment that idea came, I was sure it was the
+thing. I opened the door very softly. There was no one upstairs just
+then. I ran into my cousin's room--he's a youngster of fifteen--and
+snatched the first boots and clothes that I could find and rushed back
+to my own room.
+
+"I jumped into them, hardly knowing what I was doing. For they were
+beginning to call to me from downstairs. I opened the door and called
+back to them, and I heard Jude Cartwright answer in a big voice.
+
+"I turned around and saw myself in the mirror in boy's clothes, with my
+face as white as a sheet, my eyes staring, my hair pouring down over my
+shoulders. I ran to the bureau and found a scissors. Then I hesitated a
+moment. You don't dream how hard it was to do. My hair was long, you
+see, below my waist. And I had always been proud of it.
+
+"But I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and cut it off with great
+slashes, close to my head. Then I stood with all that mass of hair
+shining in my hand and a queer, light feeling in my head.
+
+"But I felt that I was free. I clamped on my cousin's hat--how queer it
+felt with all that hair cut off! I bundled the hair into my pocket,
+because they mustn't dream what I had done. Then someone beat on the
+door.
+
+"'Coming!' I called to them.
+
+"I ran to the window. The house was built on a slope, and it was not a
+very long drop to the ground, I suppose. But to me it seemed
+neck-breaking, that distance. It was dark, and I climbed out and hung
+by my hands, but I couldn't find courage to let go. Then I tried to
+climb back, but there wasn't any strength in my arms.
+
+"I cried out for help, but the singing downstairs must have muffled the
+sound. My fingers grew numb--they slipped on the sill--and then I fell.
+
+"The fall stunned me, I guess, for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I
+saw the stars and knew that I was free. I started up then and struck
+straight across country. At first I didn't care where I went, so long
+as it was away, but when I got over the first hill I made up a plan.
+That was to go for the railroad and take a train. I did it.
+
+"There was a long walk ahead of me before I reached the station, and
+with my cousin's big boots wobbling on my feet I was very tired when I
+reached it. There were some freight cars on the siding, and there was
+hay on the floor of one of them. I crawled into the open door and went
+to sleep.
+
+"After a while I woke up with a great jarring and jolting and noise. I
+found the car pitch dark. The door was closed, and pretty soon, by the
+roar of the wheels under me and the swing of the floor of the car, I
+knew that an engine had picked up the empty cars.
+
+"It was a terrible time for me. I had heard stories of tramps locked
+into cars and starving there before the door was opened. Before the
+morning shone through the cracks of the boards, I went through all the
+pain of a death from thirst. But before noon the train stopped, and the
+car was dropped at a siding. I climbed out when they opened the door.
+
+"The man who saw me only laughed. I suppose he could have arrested me.
+
+"'All right, kid, but you're hitting the road early in life, eh!'
+
+"Those were the first words that were spoken to me as a man.
+
+"I didn't know where I should go, but the train had taken me south, and
+that made me remember a town where my father had lived for a long
+time--Sour Creek. I started to get to this place.
+
+"The hardest thing I had to do was the very first thing, and that was
+to take my ragged head of hair into a barber shop and get it trimmed. I
+was sure that the barber would know I was a girl, but he didn't
+suspect.
+
+"'Been a long time in the wilds, youngster, eh?' was all he said.
+
+"And then I knew that I was safe, because people here in the West are
+not suspicious. They let a stranger go with one look. By the time I
+reached Sour Creek I was nearly over being ashamed of my clothes. And
+then I found this place and work as a schoolteacher. I think you know
+the rest." She leaned close to Sinclair. "Was I wrong to leave him?"
+
+Sinclair rubbed his chin. "You'd ought to have told him straight off,"
+he said firmly. "But seeing you went through with the wedding--well,
+take it all in all, your leaving of him was about the rightest thing I
+ever heard of."
+
+Quiet fell between them.
+
+"But what am I going to do? And where is it all going to end?" a small
+voice inquired of Sinclair at last.
+
+"Roll up in them blankets and go to sleep," he advised her curtly. "I'm
+figuring steady on this here thing, Jig."
+
+Jig followed that advice. Sinclair had left the fire and was walking up
+and down from one end of the little plateau to the other, with a
+strong, long step. As for the girl, she felt that an incalculable
+burden had been shifted from her shoulders by the telling of this tale.
+That burden, she knew, must have fallen on another person, and it was
+not unpleasant to know that Riley Sinclair was the man.
+
+Gradually the sense of strangeness faded. As she grew drowsy, it seemed
+the most natural thing in the world for her to be up here at the top of
+the world with a man she had; known two days. And, before she slept,
+the last thing of which she was conscious was the head of Sinclair in
+the broad sombrero, brushing to and fro across the stars.
+
+
+
+
+18
+
+
+With a bang the screen door of Sheriff Kern's office had creaked open
+and shut four times at intervals, and each man, entering in turn with a
+"Howdy" to the sheriff, had stamped the dust out of the wrinkles of his
+riding boots, hitched up his trousers carefully, and slumped into a
+chair. Not until the last of his handpicked posse had taken his place
+did the sheriff begin his speech.
+
+"Gents," he said, "how long have I been a sheriff?"
+
+"Eighteen to twenty years," said Bill Wood. "And it's been twenty years
+of bad times for the safecrackers and gunmen of these parts."
+
+"Thanks," said the sheriff hastily. "And how many that I've once put my
+hands on have got loose?"
+
+Again Bill Wood answered, being the senior member.
+
+"None. Your score is exactly one hundred percent, sheriff."
+
+Kern sighed. "Gents," he said, "the average is plumb spoiled."
+
+It caused a general lifting of heads and then a respectful silence. To
+have offered sympathy would have been insulting; to ask questions was
+beneath their dignity, but four pairs of eyes burned with curiosity.
+The least curious was Arizona. He was a fat, oily man from the
+southland, whose past was unknown in the vicinity of Woodville, and
+Arizona happened to be by no means desirous of rescuing that past from
+oblivion. He held the southlander's contempt for the men and ways of
+the north. His presence in the office was explained by the fact that he
+had long before discovered it to be an excellent thing to stand in with
+the sheriff. After this statement from Kern, therefore, he first
+glanced at his three companions, and, observing their agitation, he
+became somewhat stirred himself and puckered his fat brows above his
+eyes, as he glanced back at Kern.
+
+"You've heard of the killing of Quade?" asked the sheriff.
+
+"Yesterday," said Red Chalmers.
+
+"And that they got the killer?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"It was a gent you'd never have suspected--that skinny little
+schoolteacher, Gaspar."
+
+"I never liked the looks of him," said Red Chalmers gloomily. "I always
+got to have a second thought about a gent that's too smooth with the
+ladies. And that was this here Jig. So he done the shooting?"
+
+"It was a fight over Sally Bent," explained the sheriff. "Sandersen and
+some of the rest in Sour Creek fixed up a posse and went out and
+grabbed Gaspar. They gave him a lynch trial and was about to string him
+up when a stranger named Sinclair, a man who had joined up with the
+posse, steps out and holds for keeping Gaspar and turning him over to
+me, to be hung all proper and legal. I heard about all this and went
+out to the Bent house, first thing this morning, to get Gaspar, who was
+left there in charge of this Sinclair. Any of you ever heard about
+him?"
+
+A general bowing of heads followed, as the men began to consider, all
+save Arizona, who never thought when he could avoid it, and positively
+never used his memory. He habitually allowed the dead past to bury its
+dead.
+
+"It appears to me like I've heard of a Sinclair up to Colma," murmured
+Bill Wood. "That was four or five years back, and I b'lieve he was
+called a sure man in a fight."
+
+"That's him," muttered the sheriff. He was greatly relieved to know
+that his antagonist had already achieved so comfortable a reputation.
+"A big, lean, hungry-eyed gent, with a restless pair of hands. He come
+along with me while I was bringing Gaspar, but I didn't think nothing
+about it, most nacheral. I leave it to you, boys!"
+
+Settling themselves they leaned forward in their chairs.
+
+"We was talking about hosses and suchlike, which Sinclair talked
+uncommon slick. He seemed a knowing gent, and I opened up to him, but
+in the middle of things he paws out his Colt, as smooth as you ever
+see, and he shoves it under my nose."
+
+Sheriff Kern paused. He was wearing gloves in spite of the fact that he
+was in his office. These gloves seem to have a peculiarly businesslike
+meaning for the others, and now they watched, fascinated, while the
+sheriff tugged his fingers deeper into the gloves, as if he were
+getting ready for action. He cleared his throat and managed to snap out
+the rest of the shameful statement.
+
+"He stuck me up, boys, and he told Jig to beat it up the trail. Then he
+backed off, keeping me covered all the time, until he was around the
+hill. The minute he was out of sight I follered him, but when it come
+into view, him and Gaspar was high-tailing through the hills. I didn't
+have no rifle, and it was plumb foolish to chase two killers with
+nothing but a Colt. Which I leave it to you gents!"
+
+"Would have been crazy, sheriff," asserted Red Chalmers.
+
+"I dunno," sighed Arizona, patting his fat stomach reminiscently. "I
+dunno. I guess you was right, Kern."
+
+The others glared at him, and the sheriff became purple.
+
+"So I come back and figured that I'd best get together the handiest
+little bunch of fighting men I could lay hands on. That's why I sent
+for you four."
+
+Clumsily they made their acknowledgements.
+
+"Because," said Kern, "it don't take no senator to see that something
+has got to be done. Sour Creek is after Gaspar, and now it'll be after
+Sinclair, too. But they got clear of me, and I'm the sheriff of
+Woodville. It's up to Woodville to get 'em back. Am I right?"
+
+Again they nodded, and the sheriff, growing warmer as he talked,
+snatched off a glove and mopped his forehead. As his arm fell, he noted
+that Arizona had seen something which fascinated him. His eyes followed
+every gesture of the sheriff's hand.
+
+"Is that the whole story?" asked Arizona.
+
+"The whole thing," declared Kern stoutly, and he glared at the man from
+the southland.
+
+"Because if it's anything worse," said Arizona innocently, "we'd ought
+to know it. The honor of Woodville is at stake."
+
+"Oh, it's bad enough this way," grumbled Joe Stockton, and the sheriff,
+hastily restoring his glove, grunted assent.
+
+"Now, boys, let's hear some plans."
+
+"First thing," said Red Chalmers, rising, "is for each of us to pick
+out the best hoss in his string, and then we'll all ride over to the
+place where they left and pick up the trail."
+
+"Not a bad idea," approved Kern.
+
+There was a general rising.
+
+"Sit down," said Arizona, who alone had not budged in his chair.
+
+Without obeying, they turned to him.
+
+"Was that the Morris trail, Kern?" asked Arizona.
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Well, you ain't got a chance of picking up the trail of two hosses out
+of two hundred."
+
+In silence they received the truth of this assertion. Then Joe Stockton
+spoke. He was not exactly a troublemaker, but he took advantage of
+every disturbance that came his way and improved it to the last
+scruple.
+
+"Sinclair comes from Colma, according to Bill, and Colma is north. Ride
+north, Kern, and the north trail will keep us tolerable close to
+Sinclair. We can tend to Gaspar later on--unless he's a pile more
+dangerous'n he looks."
+
+"Yes, Sinclair is the main one," said the sheriff. "He's more'n a
+hundred Gaspars. Boys, the north trail looks good to me. We can pick up
+Gaspar later on, as Joe Stockton says. Straight for Colma, that's where
+we'll strike."
+
+"Hold on," cut in Arizona.
+
+Patently they regarded him with disfavor. There was something blandly
+superior in Arizona's demeanor. He had a way of putting forth his
+opinions as though it were not the slightest effort for him to
+penetrate truths which were securely veiled from the eyes of ordinary
+men.
+
+Now he looked calmly, almost contemptuously upon the sheriff and the
+rest of the posse.
+
+"Gents, has any of you ever seen this Jig you talk about ride a hoss?"
+
+"Me, of course," said the sheriff.
+
+"Anything about him strike you when he was in a saddle?"
+
+"Sure! Got a funny arm motion."
+
+"Like he was fanning his ribs with his elbows to keep cool?" went on
+Arizona, grinning.
+
+The sheriff chuckled.
+
+"Would you pick him for a good hand on a long trail?"
+
+"Never in a million years," said the sheriff. "Is he?"
+
+Kern seemed to admit his inferiority by asking this question. He bit
+his lip and was about to go on and answer himself when Arizona cut in
+with: "Never in a million years, sheriff. He couldn't do twenty miles
+in a day without being laid up."
+
+"What's the point of all this, Arizona?"
+
+"I'll show you pronto. Let's go back to Sinclair. The other day he was
+one of a bunch that pretty near got Gaspar hung, eh?"
+
+"Yep."
+
+"But at the last minute he saved Jig?"
+
+"Sure. I just been telling you that."
+
+Their inability to follow Arizona's train of thought irritated the
+others. He literally held them in the palm of his hand as he developed
+his argument.
+
+"Why did he save Jig?" he went on. "Because when Gaspar was about to
+swing, they was something about him that struck Sinclair. What was it?
+I dunno, except that Jig is tolerable young looking and pretty
+helpless, even though you say he killed Quade."
+
+"Say he killed him?" burst out the sheriff. "It was plumb proved on
+him."
+
+"I'd sure like to see that proof," said the man from the southland.
+"The point is that Sinclair took pity on him and kept him from the
+noose. Then he stays that night guarding him and gets more and more
+interested. This Jig has got a pile of education. I've heard him talk.
+Today you come over the hills. Sinclair sees Woodville, figures that's
+the place where Jig'll be hung, and he loses his nerve. He sticks you
+up and gets Jig free. All right! D'you think he'll stop at that? Don't
+he know that Jig's plumb helpless on the trail? And knowing that, d'you
+think he'll split with Jig and leave the schoolteacher to be picked up
+the first thing? No, sir, he'll stick with Jig and see him through."
+
+"Well, all the better," snapped the sheriff. "That's going to make our
+trail shorter--if what you say turns out true."
+
+"It's true, well enough. Sinclair right now is camping somewhere in the
+hills near Sour Creek, waiting for things to quiet down before he hits
+the out-trail with this Gaspar."
+
+"He wouldn't be fool enough for that," grumbled the sheriff.
+
+"Fool? Has any one of you professional man hunters figured yet on
+hunting for 'em near Sour Creek? Ain't you-all been talking long
+trails--Colma, and what not?"
+
+They were crushed.
+
+"All you say is true, if Sinclair saddles himself with the tenderfoot.
+Might as well tie so much lead around his neck."
+
+"He'll do it, though," said Arizona carelessly. "I know him."
+
+It caused a new focusing of attention upon him, and this time Arizona
+seemed to regret that he stood in the limelight.
+
+"You know him?" asked Joe Stockton softly.
+
+The bright black eyes of the fat man glittered and flickered from face
+to face. He seemed to be gauging them and deciding how much he could
+say--or how little.
+
+"Sure, I drifted up to this country one season and rode there. I heard
+a pile about this Sinclair and seen him a couple of times."
+
+"How good a man d'you figure him to be with a gun?" asked the sheriff
+without apparent interest.
+
+"Good enough," sighed Arizona. "Good enough, partner!"
+
+Presently the sheriff showed that he was a man capable of taking good
+advice, even though he could not stamp it as his own original device.
+
+"Boys," he said, "I figure that what Arizona has said is tolerable
+sound. Arizona, what d'you advise next?"
+
+"That we go to Sour Creek pronto--and sit down and wait!"
+
+A chorus of exclamations arose.
+
+Arizona grew impatient with such stupidity. "Sinclair come to Sour
+Creek to do something. I dunno what he wants, but what he wants he
+ain't got yet, and he's the sort that'll stay till he does his work."
+
+"I've got in touch with the authorities higher up, boys," declared
+Kern. "Sinclair and Gaspar is both outlawed, with a price on their
+heads. Won't that change Sinclair's mind and make him move on?"
+
+"You don't know Sinclair," persisted Arizona. "You don't know him at
+all, sheriff."
+
+"Grab your hosses, boys. I'm following Arizona's lead."
+
+Pouring out of the door in silence, the omniscience of Arizona lay
+heavily upon their minds. Inside, the sheriff lingered with the wise
+man from the southland.
+
+"If I was to get in touch with Colma, Fatty, what d'you think they'd be
+able to tell me about your record up there?"
+
+The olive skin of Arizona became a bleached drab.
+
+"I dunno," he said rather thickly, and all the while his little black
+eyes were glittering and shifting. "Nothing much, Kern."
+
+His glance steadied. "By the way, when you had your glove off a while
+ago I seen something on your wrist that looked like a rope gall, Kern.
+If I was to tell the boys that, what d'you figure they'd think about
+their sheriff?"
+
+It was Kern's turn to change color. For a moment he hesitated, and then
+he dropped a hand lightly on Arizona's shoulder.
+
+"Look here, Arizona," he muttered in the ear of the fat man, "what you
+been before you hit Woodville I dunno, and I don't care. I figure we
+come to a place where we'd both best keep our mouths shut. Eh?"
+
+"Shake," said Arizona, and they went out the door, almost arm in arm.
+
+
+
+
+19
+
+
+For Jude Cartwright the world was gone mad, as he spurred down the
+hills away from Sinclair and the girl. It was really only the second
+time in his life that he had been thwarted in an important matter. To
+be sure he had been raised roughly among rough men, but among the
+roughest of them, the repute of his family and the awe of his father's
+wide authority had served him as a shield in more ways than Jude
+himself could realize. He had grown very much accustomed to having his
+way.
+
+All things were made smooth for him; and when he reached the age when
+he began to think of marriage, and was tentatively courting half a
+dozen girls of the district, unhoped-for great fortune had fairly
+dropped into his path.
+
+The close acquaintance with old Mervin in that hunting trip had been
+entirely accidental, and he had been astounded by the marriage contract
+which Mervin shortly after proposed between the two families.
+Ordinarily even Jude Cartwright, with all his self-esteem, would never
+have aspired to a star so remote as Mervin's daughter. The miracle,
+however, happened. He saw himself in the way to be the richest man on
+the range, the possessor of the most lovely wife.
+
+That dream was first pricked by the inexplicable disappearance of the
+girl on their marriage day. He had laid that disappearance to foul
+play. That she could have left him through any personal aversion never
+entered his complacent young head.
+
+He went out on the quest after the neighboring district had been combed
+for his wife, and he had spent the intervening months in a ceaseless
+search, which grew more and more disheartening. It was only by chance
+that he remembered that Mervin had lived for some time in Sour Creek,
+and only with the faintest hope of finding a clue that he decided to
+visit that place. In his heart he was convinced that the girl was dead,
+but if she were really hiding it was quite possible that she might have
+remembered the town where her father had made his first success with
+cattle.
+
+Now the coincidence that had brought him face to face with her, stunned
+him. He was still only gradually recovering from it. It was totally
+incredible that she should have fled at all. And it was entirely beyond
+the range of credence that modest Elizabeth Mervin should have donned
+the clothes of a man and should be wandering through the hills with a
+male companion.
+
+But when his wonder died away, he felt little or no pity for his wife.
+The pang that he felt was the torture of offended pride. Indeed, the
+fact that he had lost his wife meant less to him than that his wife had
+seen him physically beaten by another man. He writhed in his saddle at
+the memory.
+
+Instantly his mind flashed back to the details of the scene. He
+rehearsed it with himself in a different role, beating the cowpuncher
+to a helpless pulp of bruised muscle, snatching away his wife. But even
+if he had been able to do that, what would the outcome be? He could not
+let the world know the truth--that his wife had fled from him in horror
+on their marriage day, that she had wondered about in the clothes of a
+man, that she was the companion of another man. And if he brought her
+back, certainly all these facts would come to light. The close-cropped
+hair alone would be damning evidence.
+
+He framed a wild tale of abduction by villains, of an injury, a
+sickness, a fever that forced a doctor to cut her hair short. He had no
+sooner framed the story than he threw it away as useless. With all his
+soul he began to wish for the only possible solution which would save
+the remnants of his ruined self-respect and keep him from the peril of
+discovery. The girl must indubitably die!
+
+By the time he came to this conclusion, he had struck out of the hills,
+and, as his horse hit the level going and picked up speed, the heart of
+Jude Cartwright became lighter. He would get weapons and the finest
+horse money could buy in Sour Creek, trail the pair, take them by
+surprise, and kill them both. Then back to the homeland and a new life!
+
+Already he saw himself in it, his name surrounded with a glamour of
+pathetic romance, as the sad widower with a mystery darkening his past
+and future. It was an agreeable gloom into which he fell. Self-pity
+warmed him and loosened his fierceness. He sighed with regret for his
+own misfortunes.
+
+In this frame of mind he reached Sour Creek and its hotel. While he
+wrote his name in the yellowed register he over-heard loud conversation
+in the farther end of the room. Two men had been outlawed that
+day--John Gaspar, the schoolteacher who killed Quade, and Riley
+Sinclair, a stranger from the North.
+
+Paying no further attention to the talk, he passed on into the general
+merchandise store which filled most of the lower story of the hotel.
+There he found the hardware department, and prominent among the
+hardware were the gun racks. He went over the Colts and with an expert
+hand took up the guns, while the gray-headed storekeeper advanced an
+eulogium upon each weapon. His attention was distracted by the entrance
+of a tall, painfully thin man who seemed in great haste.
+
+"What's all this about Cold Feet, Whitey?" he asked. "Cold Feet and
+Sinclair?"
+
+"I dunno, Sandersen, except that word come in from Woodville that
+Sinclair stuck up the sheriff on his way in with Jig, and Sinclair got
+clean away. What could have been in his head to grab Jig?"
+
+"I dunno," said Sandersen, apparently much perturbed. "They outlawed
+'em both, Whitey?"
+
+There was an eagerness in this question so poorly concealed that
+Cartwright jerked up his head and regarded Sandersen with interest.
+
+"Both," replied Whitey. "You seem sort of pleased, Sandersen?"
+
+"I knowed that Sinclair would come to a bad end," said Sandersen more
+soberly.
+
+"Why, I thought they said you cottoned to him when the boys was
+figuring he might have had something to do with Quade?"
+
+"Me? Well, yes, for a minute. But out at the necktie party, Whitey, I
+kept watching him. Thinks a lot more'n he says, and gents like that is
+always dangerous."
+
+"Always," replied Whitey.
+
+"But it's the last time Sinclair'll show his face in Sour
+Creek--alive," said Sandersen.
+
+"If he does show his face alive, it'll be a dead face pronto. You can
+lay to that."
+
+Sandersen seemed to turn this fact over and over in his mind, with
+immense satisfaction.
+
+"And yet," pursued the storekeeper, "think of a full-grown man breaking
+the law to save such a skinny little shrimp of a gent as Jig? Eh? More
+like a pretty girl than a boy, Jig is."
+
+Cartwright exclaimed, and both of the others turned toward him.
+
+"Here's the gun for me," he said huskily, "and that gun
+belt--filled--and this holster. They'll all do."
+
+"And a handy outfit," said Whitey. "That gun'll be a friend in need!"
+
+"What makes you think they'll be a need?" asked Cartwright, with such
+unnecessary violence that the others both stared. He went on more
+smoothly: "What was you saying about a girl-faced gent?"
+
+"The schoolteacher--he plugged a feller named Quade. Sinclair got him
+clean away from Sheriff Kern."
+
+"And what sort of a looking gent is Sinclair? Long, brown, and pretty
+husky-looking, with a mean eye?"
+
+"You've named him! Where'd you meet up with him?"
+
+"Over in the hills yonder, just where the north trail comes over the
+rise. They was sitting down under a tree resting their hosses when I
+come along. I got into an argument with this Sinclair--Long Riley, he
+called himself."
+
+"Riley's his first name."
+
+"We passed some words. Pretty soon I give him the lie! He made a reach
+for his gun. I told him I wasn't armed and dared him to try his fists.
+He takes off his belt, and we went at it. A strong man, but he don't
+know nothing about hand fighting. I had him about ready to give up and
+begging me to quit when this Jig, this girl-faced man you talk
+about--he pulls a gun and slugs me in the back of the head with it."
+
+Removing his sombrero he showed on the back of his head the great welt
+which had been made when he struck the ground with the weight of
+Sinclair on top of him. It was examined with intense interest by the
+other two.
+
+"Dirty work!" said Sandersen sympathetically.
+
+The storekeeper said nothing at all, but began to fold up a bolt of
+cloth which lay half unrolled on the counter.
+
+"It knocked me cold," continued Cartwright, "and when I come to, they
+wasn't no sign nor trace of 'em."
+
+Buckling on the belt, he shoved the revolver viciously home in the
+holster.
+
+"I'll land that pair before the posse gets to 'em, and when I land 'em
+I won't do no arguing with fists!"
+
+"Say, I call that nerve," put in the storekeeper, with patent
+admiration in his eyes, while he smoothed a fold of the cloth. "Running
+agin' one gent like Sinclair is bad enough--let alone tackling two at
+once. But you'd ought to take out a big insurance on your life, friend,
+before you take that trail. It's liable to be all out-trail and no
+coming back."
+
+A great deal of enthusiasm faded from Cartwright's face.
+
+"How come?" he asked briefly.
+
+"Nothing much. But they say this Sinclair is quite a gunfighter, my
+friend. Up in his home town they scare the babies by talking about
+Sinclair."
+
+"H'm," murmured Cartwright. "He can't win always, and maybe I'll be the
+lucky man."
+
+But he went out of the store with his head thoughtfully inclined.
+
+"Think of meeting up with them two all alone and not knowing what they
+was!" sighed Sandersen. "He's lucky to be alive, I'll tell a man."
+
+Whitey grinned.
+
+"Plenty of nerve in a gent like that," went on Sandersen, his pale blue
+eyes becoming dreamy. "Get your gat out, will you, Bill?"
+
+Bill Sandersen obliged.
+
+"Look at the butt. D'you see any point on it?"
+
+"Nope."
+
+"Did you look at that welt on the stranger's head?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Did you see a little cut in the middle of the welt?"
+
+"Come to think of it, I sure did."
+
+"Well, Sandersen, how d'you make out that a gun butt would make a cut
+like that?"
+
+"What are you driving at, Whitey?"
+
+"I'm just discounting the stranger," said Whitey. "I dunno what other
+talents he's got, but he's sure a fine nacheral liar."
+
+
+
+
+20
+
+
+It was some time before Riley Sinclair interrupted his pacing and,
+turning, strode over to the dim outlines of the sleeping girl. She did
+not speak, and, leaning close above her, he heard her regular
+breathing.
+
+Waiting until he was satisfied that she slept, he began to move
+rapidly. First, with long, soft steps he went to his saddle, which was
+perched on a ridge of rock. This he raised with infinite care,
+gathering up the stirrups and the cinches so that nothing might drag or
+strike. With this bundle secured, he once more went close to the figure
+of the sleeper and this time dropped on one knee beside her. He could
+see nothing distinctly by the starlight, but her forehead gleamed with
+one faint highlight, and there was the pale glimmer of one hand above
+the blankets.
+
+For the moment he almost abandoned the plan on which he had resolved,
+which was no less than to attempt to ride into Sour Creek and return to
+the girl before she wakened in the dawn. But suppose that he failed,
+and that she wakened to find herself alone in the mountain wilderness?
+He shuddered at the idea, yet he saw no other issue for her than to
+attempt the execution of his plan.
+
+He rose hastily and walked off, letting his weight fall on his toes
+altogether, so that the spurs might not jingle.
+
+Even that brief rest had so far refreshed his mustang that he was
+greeted with flattened ears and flying heels. These efforts Sinclair
+met with a smile and terrible whispered curses, whose familiar sound
+seemed to soothe the horse. He saddled at once, still using care to
+avoid noise, and swung steeply down the side of the mountain. On the
+descending trail, he could cut by one half the miles they had traversed
+winding up the slope.
+
+Recklessly he rode, giving the wise pony its head most of the time, and
+only seeing that it did not exceed a certain speed, for when a horse
+passes a certain rate of going it becomes as reckless as a drunken man.
+Once or twice they floundered onto sheer gravel slides which the
+broncho took by flinging back on its haunches and going down with
+stiffly braced forelegs. But on the whole the mustang took care of
+itself admirably.
+
+In an amazingly short time they struck the more placid footing of the
+valley, and Sinclair, looking up, could not believe that he had been so
+short a time ago at the top of the flat-crested mountain.
+
+He gave little time to wondering, however, but cut across the valley
+floor at a steady lope. From the top of the mountain the lights of Sour
+Creek were a close-gathered patch, from the level they appeared as a
+scattering line. Sinclair held straight toward them, keeping away to
+the left so as to come onto the well-beaten trail which he knew ran in
+that direction. He found it and let the mustang drop back to a steady
+dogtrot; for, if the journey to Sour Creek was now a short distance,
+there would be a hard ride back to the flat-topped mountain if he
+wished to accomplish his business and return before the full dawn. He
+must be there by that time, for who could tell what the girl might do
+when she found herself alone. Therefore he saved the cattle pony as
+much as possible.
+
+He was fairly close to Sour Creek, the lights fanning out broader and
+broader as he approached. Suddenly two figures loomed up before him in
+the night. He came near and made out a barelegged boy, riding without a
+saddle and driving a cow before him. He was a very angry herdsman, this
+boy. He kept up a continual monologue directed at the cow and his
+horse, and so he did not hear the approach of Riley Sinclair until the
+outlaw was close upon him. Then he hitched himself around, with his
+hand on the hip of his old horse, swaying violently with the jerk of
+the gait. He was glad of the company, it seemed.
+
+"Evening, mister. You ain't Hi Corson, are you?"
+
+"Nope, I ain't Hi. Kind of late driving that cow, ain't you?"
+
+The boy swore with shrill fluency.
+
+"We bought old Spot over at the Apwell place, and the darned old fool
+keeps breaking down fences and running back every time she gets a
+chance. Ain't nothing so foolish as a cow."
+
+"Why don't your dad sell her for beef?"
+
+"Beef?" The boy laughed. "Say, mister, I'd as soon try to chew leather.
+They ain't nothing but bones and skin and meanness to old Spot. But
+she's a good milker. When she comes in fresh she gives pretty nigh onto
+four gallons a milking."
+
+"Is that so!"
+
+"Sure is! Hard to milk, though. Kick the hat right off'n your head if
+you don't watch her. Never see such a fool cow as old Spot! Hey!"
+
+Taking advantage of this diversion in the attention of her guardian,
+Spot had ambled off to the side of the road. The boy darted his horse
+after her and sent her trotting down the trail, with clicking hoofs and
+long, sweeping steps that scuffed up a stifling dust.
+
+"Ain't very good to heat a milker up by running 'em, son," reproved
+Sinclair.
+
+"I know it ain't. But it wouldn't make me sorry if old Spot just
+nacherally dropped down dead--she gives me that much trouble. Look at
+her now, doggone her!"
+
+Spot had turned broadside to them and waited for the boy to catch up
+before she would take another forward step.
+
+"You just coming in to Sour Creek?"
+
+"Yep, I'm strange to this town."
+
+"Well, you sure couldn't have picked a more fussed-up time."
+
+"How come?"
+
+"Well, you hear about the killing of Quade, I reckon?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"You ain't? Where you been these days?"
+
+"Oh, yonder in the hills."
+
+"Chipping rocks, eh? Well, Quade was a gent that lived out the norm
+trail, and he had a fuss with the schoolteacher over Sally Bent, and
+the schoolteacher up and murders Quade, and they raise a posse and go
+out to hang Gaspar, the teacher, and they're kept from it by a stranger
+called Sinclair; when the sheriff comes to get Gaspar and hang him
+legal and all, that Sinclair sticks up the sheriff and takes Gaspar
+away, and now they're both outlawed, I hear tell, and they's a price on
+their heads."
+
+The lad brought it out in one huge sentence, sputtering over the words
+in his haste.
+
+"How much of a price?"
+
+"I dunno. It keeps growing. Everybody around Woodville and Sour Creek
+is chipping in to raise that price. They sure want to get Gaspar and
+Sinclair bad. Gaspar ain't much. He's a kind of sissy, but Sinclair is
+a killer--and then some."
+
+Sinclair raised his head to the black, solemn mountains. Then he looked
+back to his companion.
+
+"Why, has he killed anybody lately?"
+
+"He left one for dead right today!"
+
+"You don't mean it! He sure must be bad."
+
+"Oh, he's bad, right enough. They was a gent named Cartwright come into
+town today with his head all banged up. He'd met up with Gaspar and
+Sinclair in the hills, not knowing nothing about them. Got into an
+argument with Sinclair, and, not being armed, he had it out with fists.
+He was beating up Sinclair pretty bad--him being a good deal of a
+man--when Gaspar sneaks up and whangs him on the back of the head with
+the butt of his Colt. They rode off and left him for dead. But pretty
+soon he wakes up. He comes on into Sour Creek, rarin' and tearin' and
+huntin' for revenge. Sure will be a bad mess if he meets up with
+Sinclair ag'in!"
+
+"Reckon it had ought to be," replied Sinclair. "Like to see this gent
+that waded into two outlaws with his bare fists."
+
+"He's a man, right enough. Got a room up in the hotel. Must have a pile
+of money, because he took the big room onto the north end of the hotel,
+the room that's as big as a house. Nothin' else suited him at all. Dad
+told me."
+
+"I ain't got nothing particular on hand," murmured Sinclair. "Maybe I
+can get in on this manhunt--if they ain't started already."
+
+The boy laughed. "Everybody in town has been trying to get in on that
+manhunt, but it ain't any use. Sheriff Kern has got a handpicked
+posse--every one a fightin' fool, Dad says. Wish you luck, though. They
+ain't starting till the morning. Well, here's where I branch off.
+S'long! Hey, Spot, you old fool, git along, will you?"
+
+Sinclair watched the youngster fade into the gloom behind the ambling
+cow, then he struck on toward Sour Creek; but, before he reached the
+main street, he wound off to the left and let his horse drift slowly
+beyond the outlying houses.
+
+His problem had become greatly complicated by the information from the
+boy. He had a double purpose, which was to see Cartwright in the first
+place, and then Sandersen, for these were the separate stumbling blocks
+for Jig and for himself. For Cartwright he saw a solution, through
+which he could avoid a killing, but Sandersen must die.
+
+He skirted behind the most northerly outlying shed of the hotel,
+dismounted there, and threw the reins. Then he slipped back into the
+shadow of the main building. Directly above him he saw three dark
+windows bunched together. This must be Cartwright's room.
+
+
+
+
+21
+
+
+It seemed patent to Bill Sandersen, earlier that afternoon, that fate
+had stacked the cards against Riley Sinclair. Bill Sandersen indeed,
+believed in fate. He felt that great hidden forces had always
+controlled his life, moving him hither and yon according to their
+pleasure.
+
+To the dreamy mind of the mystic, men are accidents, and all they
+perform are the dictates of the power and the brain of the other world.
+
+Sandersen could tell at what definite moments hunches had seized him.
+He had looked at the side of the mountain and suddenly felt, without
+any reason or volition on his part, that he was impelled to search that
+mountainside for gold-bearing ore. He had never fallen into the habit
+of using his reason. He was a wonderful gambler, playing with singular
+abandon, and usually winning. It mattered not what he held in his hand.
+
+If the urge came to him, and the surety that he was going to bet, he
+would wager everything in his wallet, all that he could borrow, on a
+pair of treys. And when such a fit was on him, the overwhelming
+confidence that shone in his face usually overpowered the other men
+sitting in at the game. More than once a full house had been laid down
+to his wretched pair. There were other occasions when he had lost the
+very boots he wore, but the times of winning naturally overbalanced the
+losses in the mind of Bill. It was not he who won, and it was not he
+who lost. It was fate which ruled him. And that fate, he felt at
+present, had sided against Riley Sinclair.
+
+A sort of pity for the big cowpuncher moved him. He knew that he and
+Quade and Lowrie deserved death in its most terrible form for their
+betrayal of Hal Sinclair in the desert; and nothing but fate, he was
+sure, could save him from the avenger. Fate, however, had definitely
+intervened. What save blind fate could have stepped into the mind of
+Sinclair and made him keep Cold Feet from the rope, when that hanging
+would have removed forever all suspicion that Sinclair himself had
+killed Quade?
+
+Another man would have attributed both of those actions to common
+decency in Sinclair, but Sandersen always hunted out more profound
+reasons. In order to let the fact of his own salvation from Sinclair's
+gun sink more definitely into his brain, he trotted his horse into the
+hills that afternoon. When he came back he heard that the posse was in
+town.
+
+To another it might have seemed odd that the posse was there instead of
+on the trail of the outlaws. But Sandersen never thought of so
+practical a question. To him it was as clear as day. The posse had been
+brought to Sour Creek by fate in order that he, Sandersen, might enlist
+in its ranks and help in the great work of running down Sinclair, for,
+after all, it was work primarily to his own interest. There was
+something ironically absurd about it. He, Sandersen, having committed
+the mortal crime of abandoning Hal Sinclair in the desert, was now
+given the support of legal society to destroy the just avenger of that
+original crime. It was hardly any wonder that Sandersen saw in all this
+the hand of fate.
+
+He went straight to the hotel and up to the room which the sheriff had
+engaged. Cartwright was coming out with a black face, as Sandersen
+entered. The former turned at the door and faced Kern and the four
+assistants of the sheriff.
+
+"I'll tell you what you'll do, you wise gents," he growled. "You'll
+miss him altogether. You hear?"
+
+And then he stamped down the hall.
+
+Sandersen carefully removed his hat as he went in. He was quite aware
+that Cartwright must have been just refused a place on the posse, and
+he did not wish to appear too confident. He paid his compliments to the
+bunch, except Arizona, to whom he was introduced. The sheriff
+forestalled his request.
+
+"You've come for a job in the posse, Bill?"
+
+Hastily Sandersen cut in before the other should pronounce a final
+judgment.
+
+"I don't blame you for turning down Cartwright," he said. "A gent like
+that who don't know the country ain't much use on the trail, eh?"
+
+"The point is, Bill, that I got all the men I need. I don't want a
+whole gang."
+
+"But I got a special reason, sheriff. Besides a tolerable fast hoss
+that might come in handy for a chase, I sling a tolerable fast gun,
+sheriff. But beyond that all, I got a grudge."
+
+"A grudge?" asked the sheriff, pricking his ears.
+
+"So did Cartwright have a grudge," cut in Arizona dryly.
+
+Perhaps after all, Sandersen felt, fate might not be with him in this
+quest for Sinclair. He said earnestly: "You see, boys, it was me that
+raised the posse that run down Cold Feet in the first place. It was me
+that backed up Sinclair all the way through the trail, and I feel like
+some of the blame for what happened is coming to me. I want to square
+things up and get a chance at Sinclair. I want it mighty bad. You know
+me, Kern. Gimme a chance, will you?"
+
+"Well, that sounds like reason," admitted the sheriff. "Eh, boys?"
+
+The posse nodded its general head, with the usual exception of Arizona,
+who seemed to take a particular pleasure in diverging from the
+judgments of the others.
+
+"Just a minute, gents," he said. "Don't it strike you that they's
+something the same with Cartwright and Sandersen? Both of 'em in
+particular anxious to cut in on this party; both of 'em has grudges.
+Cartwright said he didn't want no share of the money if you caught
+Gaspar and Sinclair. Is that right for you, too, Sandersen?"
+
+"It sure is. I want the fun, not the coin," said Sandersen.
+
+"Boys," resumed Arizona, "it rounds up to this: Sinclair came down here
+to Sour Creek for a purpose."
+
+Sandersen began to listen intently. He even dreaded this fat man from
+the southland.
+
+"I dunno what this purpose was," went on Arizona, "but mostly when a
+gent like Sinclair makes a trip they's a man at the far end of
+it--because this ain't his range. Now, if it's a man, why shouldn't it
+be one of these two, Cartwright or Sandersen, who both pack a grudge
+against Sinclair? Sinclair is resting somewhere up yonder in them
+hills. I'm sure of that. He's waiting there to get a chance to finish
+his business in Sour Creek, and that business is Cartwright or
+Sandersen, I dunno which. Now, I'm agin' taking in Sandersen. When
+we're private I'll tell you my reason why."
+
+There was something of an insult in this speech and the tall man took
+instant offense.
+
+"Partner," he drawled, "it looks to me like them reasons could be spoke
+personal to me. Suppose you step outside and we talk shop?"
+
+Arizona smiled. It took a man of some courage and standing to refuse
+such an invitation without losing caste. But for some reason Arizona
+was the last man in the world whom one could accuse of being a coward.
+
+"Sandersen," he said coldly, "I don't mean to step on your toes. You
+may be as good a man as the next. The reasons that I got agin' you
+ain't personal whatever, which they're things I got a right to think,
+me being an officer of the law for the time being. If you hold a grudge
+agin' me for what I've said, you and me can talk it over after this
+here job's done. Is that square?"
+
+"I s'pose it's got to be," replied Sandersen. "Gents, does the word of
+your fat friend go here?"
+
+Left to themselves, the posse probably would have refused Arizona's
+advice on general principles, but Arizona did not leave them to
+themselves.
+
+"Sure, my word goes," he hastened to put in. "The sheriff and all of us
+work like a closed hand--all together!"
+
+There was a subtle flattery about this that pleased the sheriff and the
+others.
+
+"Reckoning it all in all," said sheriff, "I think we better figure you
+out, Sandersen. Besides they ain't anything to keep you and Cartwright
+and the rest from rigging up a little posse of your own. Sinclair is up
+yonder in the hill waiting--"
+
+Suddenly he stopped. Sandersen was shaken as if by a violent ague, and
+his face lost all color, becoming a sickly white.
+
+"And we're going to find him by ourselves. S'long Sandersen, and thanks
+for dropping in. No hard feelings, mind!"
+
+To this friendly dismissal Sandersen returned no answer. He turned away
+with a wide, staring eye, and went through the doorway like a man
+walking in a dream. Arizona was instantly on his feet.
+
+"You see, boys?" he asked exultantly. "I was right. When you said
+Sinclair was waiting up there in the hills, Sandersen was scared. I was
+right. He's one of them that Sinclair is after, and that's why he
+wanted to throw in with us!"
+
+"And why the devil shouldn't he?" asked the sheriff.
+
+"For a good reason, sheriff, reason that'll save us a pile of riding.
+We'll sit tight here in Sour Creek for a while and catch Sinclair right
+here. D'you know how? By watching Cartwright and Sandersen. As sure as
+they's a sky over us, Sinclair is going to make a try at one of 'em.
+They both hate him. Well, you can lay to it that he hates 'em back. And
+a man that Sinclair hates he's going to get sooner or later--chiefly
+sooner. Sheriff, keep an eye on them two tonight, and you'll have
+Sinclair playing right into your hands!"
+
+"Looks to me," muttered Red Chalmers, "like you had a grudge agin'
+Cartwright and Sandersen, using them for live bait and us for a trap."
+
+"Why not?" asked Arizona, sitting down and rubbing his fat hands, much
+pleased with himself. "Why not, I'd like to know?"
+
+In the meantime Bill Sandersen had gone down to the street, still with
+the staring eyes of a sleep walker. It was evening, and from the open
+street he looked out and up to the mountains, growing blue and purple
+against the sky. He had heard Hal Sinclair talk about Riley and Riley's
+love for the higher mountains. They were "his country." And a great
+surety dropped upon him that the fat man of the posse had been right.
+Somewhere in those mountains Sinclair was lurking, ready for a descent
+upon Sour Creek.
+
+Now Sandersen grew cold. All that was superstitious in his nature took
+him by the throat. The fate, which he had felt to be fighting with him,
+he now was equally sure was aligned against him. Otherwise, why had the
+posse refused to accept him as a member? For only one reason: He was
+doomed to die by the hand of Riley Sinclair, and then, no doubt, Riley
+Sinclair would fall in turn by the bullets of the posse.
+
+The shadows were pouring out of the gorges of the western mountains,
+and night began to invade the hollow of Sour Creek. Every downward step
+of those shadows was to the feverish imagination of Sandersen a
+forecast of the coming of Sinclair--Sinclair coming in spite of the
+posse, in spite of the price upon his head.
+
+In the few moments during which Sandersen remained in the street
+watching, the tumult grew in his mind. He was afraid. He was mortally
+in terror of something more than physical death, and, like the cornered
+rat, he felt a sudden urge to go out and meet the danger halfway. A
+dozen pictures came to him of Sinclair slipping into the town under
+cover of the night, of the stealthy approach, of the gunplay that would
+follow. Why not take the desperate chance of going out to find the
+assailant and take him by surprise instead?
+
+The mountains--that was the country of Sinclair. Instinctively his eye
+fell and clung on the greatest height he could see, a flat-topped
+mountain due west of Sour Creek. Sandersen swung into his saddle and
+drove out of Sour Creek toward the goal and into the deepening gloom of
+the evening.
+
+
+
+
+22
+
+
+In the darkness beneath the north windows of the hotel, Sinclair
+consulted his watch, holding it close until he could make out the dim
+position of the hands against the white dial. It was too early for
+Cartwright to be in bed, unless he were a very long sleeper. So
+Sinclair waited.
+
+A continual danger lay beside him. The kitchen door constantly banged
+open and shut, as the Chinese cook trotted out and back, carrying
+scraps to the waste barrel, or bringing his new-washing tins to hang on
+a rack in the open air, a resource on which he was forced to fall back
+on account of his cramped quarters.
+
+But the cook never left the bright shaft of light which fell through
+the doorway behind and above him, and consequently he could not see
+into the thick darkness where Sinclair crouched only a few yards away;
+and the cowpuncher remained moveless. From time to time he looked up,
+and still the windows were black.
+
+After what seemed an eternity, there was a flicker, as when the wick of
+a lamp is lighted, and then a steady glow as the chimney was put on
+again. That glow brightened, decreased, became an unchanging light. The
+wick had been trimmed, and Cartwright was in for the evening.
+
+However, the cook had not ceased his pilgrimages. At the very moment
+when Sinclair had straightened to attempt the climb up the side of the
+house, the cook came out and crouched on the upper step, humming a
+jangling tune and sucking audibly a long-stemmed pipe. The
+queer-smelling smoke drifted across to Sinclair; for a moment he was on
+the verge of attempting a quick leap and a tying and gagging of the
+Oriental, but he desisted.
+
+Instead, Sinclair flattened himself against the wall and waited.
+Providence came to his assistance at that crisis. Someone called from
+the interior of the house. There was an odd-sounding exclamation from
+the cook, and then the latter jumped up and scurried inside, slamming
+the screen door behind him with a great racket.
+
+Sinclair raised his head and surveyed the side of the wall for the last
+time. The sill of the window of the first floor was no higher than his
+shoulders. The eaves above that window projected well out, and they
+would afford an excellent hold by which he could swing himself up. But
+having swung up, the great problem was to obtain sufficient purchase
+for his knee to keep from sliding off before he had a chance to steady
+himself. Once on the ledge of those eaves, he could stand up and look
+through any one of the three windows into the room which, according to
+the boy, Cartwright occupied.
+
+He lifted himself onto the sill of the first window, bumping his nose
+sharply against the pane of the glass.
+
+Then began the more difficult task. He straightened and fixed his
+fingers firmly on the ledge above him, waiting until his palm and the
+fingertips had sweated into a steady grip. Then he stepped as far as
+possible to one side and sprang up with a great heave of the shoulders.
+
+But the effort was too great. He not only flung himself far enough up,
+but too far, and his descending knee, striving for a hold, slipped off
+as if from an oiled surface. He came down with a jar, the full length
+of his arms, a fall that flung him down on his back on the ground.
+
+With a stifled curse he leaped up again. It seemed that the noise of
+that fall must have resounded for a great distance, but, as he stood
+there listening, no one drew near. Someone came out of the front door
+of the hotel, laughing.
+
+The cowpuncher tried again. He managed the first stage of the ascent,
+as before, very easily, but, making the second effort he exceeded too
+much in caution and fell short. However, the fall did not include a
+toppling all the way to the ground. His feet landed softly on the sill,
+and, at the same time, voices turned the corner of the building beside
+him. Sinclair flattened himself against the pane of the lower window
+and held his breath. Two men were beneath him. Their heads were level
+with his feet. He could have kicked the hats off their heads, without
+the slightest trouble.
+
+It was a mystery that they did not see him, he thought, until he
+recalled that all men, at night, naturally face outward from a wall. It
+is an instinct. They stood close together, talking rather low. The one
+was fairly tall, and the other squat. The shorter man lighted a
+cigarette. The match light glinted on an oily, olive skin, and so much
+of the profile as he could see was faintly familiar. He sent his memory
+lurching back into far places and old times, but he had no nerve for
+reminiscence. He recalled himself to the danger of the moment and
+listened to them talking.
+
+"What's happened?" the taller man was saying.
+
+"So far, nothing," grunted the other.
+
+"And how long do you feel we'd ought to keep it up?"
+
+"I dunno. I'll tell you when I get tired."
+
+"Speaking personal, Fatty, I'm kind of tired of it right now. I want to
+hit the hay."
+
+"Buck up, buck up, partner. We'll get him yet!"
+
+Now it flashed into the mind of Sinclair that it must be a pair of
+crooked gamblers working on some fat purse in the hotel, come out here
+to arrange plans because they failed to extract the bank roll as
+quickly as they desired. Otherwise, there could be no meaning to this
+talk of "getting" someone.
+
+"But between you and me," grumbled the big man, "it looked from the
+first like a bum game, Fatty."
+
+"That's the trouble with you, Red. You ain't got any patience. How does
+a cat catch a mouse? By sitting down and waiting--maybe three hours.
+And the hungrier she gets, the longer she'll wait and the stiller
+she'll sit. A man could take a good lesson out'n that."
+
+"You always got a pile of fancy words," protested the big man.
+
+Sinclair saw Fatty put his hand on the shoulder of his companion.
+Plainly he was the dominant force of the two, in spite of his lack of
+height.
+
+"Red, as sure as you're born, they's something going to happen this
+here night. My scars is itching, Red, and that means something."
+
+Again the mind of Sinclair flashed back to something familiar. A man
+who prophesied by the itching of his scars. But once more the danger of
+the moment made his mind a blank to all else.
+
+"What scars?" asked Red.
+
+"Scratches I got when I was a kid," flashed the fat man. "That's all."
+"Oh," chuckled Red, plainly unconvinced. "Well, we'll play the game a
+little longer."
+
+"That's the talk, partner. I tell you we got this trap baited, and it's
+_got_ to catch!"
+
+Presently they drifted around the corner of the building and out of
+sight. For a moment Sinclair wondered what that trap could be which the
+fat man had baited so carefully. His mind reverted to his original
+picture of a card game. Cheap tricksters, sharpers with the cards, he
+decided, and with that decision he banished them both from his mind.
+
+There was no other sign of life around him. All of Sour Creek lived in
+the main street, or went to bed at this hour of the early night. The
+back of the hotel was safe from observance, except for the horse shed,
+and the back of the shed was turned to him. He felt safe, and now he
+turned, settled his fingers into a new grip on the eaves, and made his
+third attempt. It succeeded to a nicety, his right knee catching
+solidly on the ledge.
+
+He got a fingertip hold on the boards and stood up. Straightening
+himself slowly, he looked into the room through a corner of the window
+pane.
+
+Cartwright sat with his back to the window, a lamp beside him on the
+table, writing. He had thrown off his heavy outer shirt, and he wore
+only a cotton undershirt. His heavy shoulders and big-muscled arms
+showed to great advantage, with the light and sharp shadows defining
+each ridge. Now and then he lifted his head to think. Then he bent to
+his writing again.
+
+It occurred to Sinclair to fling the window up boldly, and when
+Cartwright turned, cover him with a gun. But the chances, including his
+position on the ledge, were very much against him. Cartwright would
+probably snatch at his own gun which lay before him in its holster on
+the table, and whirling he would try a snap shot.
+
+The only other alternative was to raise the window--and that with
+Cartwright four paces away!
+
+First Sinclair took stock of the interior of the room. It was larger
+than most parlors he had seen. There was a big double bed on each side
+of it. Plainly it was intended to accommodate a whole party, and
+Sinclair smiled at the vanity of the man who had insisted on taking
+"the best you have." No wonder Sour Creek knew the room he had rented.
+
+In the corner was a great fireplace capable of taking a six-foot log,
+at least. He admired the massive andirons, palpably of home manufacture
+in Sour Creek's blacksmith shop. It proved the age of the building. No
+one would waste money on such a fireplace in these days. A little stove
+would do twice the work of that great, hungry chimney. There were two
+great chests of drawers, also, each looking as if it were built up from
+the floor and made immovable, such was its weight. The beds, also, were
+of an ancient and solid school of furniture making.
+
+To be sure, everything was sadly run down. On the floor the thin old
+carpet was worn completely through at the sides of the beds. Both
+mirrors above the chest of drawers were sadly cracked, and the table at
+which Cartwright sat, leaned to the right under the weight of the arm
+he rested on it.
+
+Having thus taken in the details of the battle ground, Sinclair made
+ready for the attack. He made sure of his footing on the ledge, gave a
+last glance over his shoulder to see that no one was in sight, and then
+began to work at the window, moving it fractions of an inch at a time.
+
+
+
+
+23
+
+
+When the window was half raised--the work of a full ten
+minutes--Sinclair drew his revolver and rested the barrel on the sill.
+He continued to lift the sash, but now he used his left hand alone, and
+thereby the noises became louder and more frequent. Cartwright
+occasionally raised his head, but probably he was becoming accustomed
+to the sounds.
+
+Now the window was raised to its full height, and Sinclair prepared for
+the command which would jerk Cartwright's hands above his head and make
+him turn slowly to look into the mouth of the gun. Weight which he
+could have handled easily with a lurch, became tenfold heavier with the
+slowness of the lift; eventually both shoulders were in the room, and
+he was kneeling on the sill.
+
+Cartwright raised his hands slowly, luxuriously, and stretched. It was
+a movement so opportune that Sinclair almost laughed aloud. He twisted
+his legs over the sill and dropped lightly on the floor.
+
+"No noise!" he called softly.
+
+The arms of Cartwright became frozen in their position above his head.
+He turned slowly, with little jerky movements, as though he had to
+fight to make himself look. And then he saw Sinclair.
+
+"Keep 'em up!" commanded the cowpuncher, "and get out of that chair,
+real soft and slow. That's it!"
+
+Without a word Cartwright obeyed. There was no need of speech, indeed,
+for a score of expressions flashed into his face.
+
+"Go over and lock the door."
+
+He obeyed, keeping his arms above his head, all the way across the
+room, while Sinclair jerked the new Colt out of its holster and tossed
+it on the farthest bed. In the meantime Cartwright lingered at the door
+for a moment with his hand on the key. No doubt he fought, for the
+split part of a second, with a wild temptation to jerk that door open
+and leap into the safety of the hall. Sinclair read that thought in the
+tremor of the big man's body. But presently discretion prevailed.
+Cartwright turned the key and faced about. He was a deadly gray, and
+his lips were working.
+
+"Now," he began.
+
+"Wait till I start talking," urged Sinclair. "Come over here and sit
+down. You're too close to the door to suit me, just now. This is a pile
+better."
+
+Cartwright obeyed quietly. Sitting down, he locked his hands nervously
+about one knee and looked up with his eyes to Sinclair.
+
+"I come in for a quiet talk," said Sinclair, dropping his gun into the
+holster.
+
+That movement drew a sudden brightening of the eyes of Cartwright, who
+now straightened in his chair, as if he had regained hope.
+
+"Don't make no mistake," said Sinclair, following the meaning of that
+change accurately. "I'm pretty handy with this old gun, partner. And on
+you, just now, they ain't any reason why I should take my time or any
+chances, when it comes to shooting."
+
+Unconsciously Cartwright moistened his white lips, and his eyes grew
+big again.
+
+"Except that the minute you shoot, you're a dead one, Sinclair."
+
+"Me? Oh, no. When a gun's heard they'll run to the room where the
+shot's been fired. And when they get the lock open, I'll be gone the
+way I come from." Sinclair smiled genially on his enemy. "Don't start
+raising any crop of delusions, friend. I mean business--a lot."
+
+"Then talk business. I'll listen."
+
+"Oh, thanks! I come here about your wife."
+
+He watched Cartwright wince. In his heart he pitied the man. All the
+story of Cartwright's spoiled boyhood and viciously selfish youth were
+written in his face for the reading of such a man as Sinclair. The
+rancher's son had begun well enough. Lack of discipline had undone him;
+but whether his faults were fixed or changeable, Sinclair could not
+tell. It was largely to learn this that he took the chances for the
+interview.
+
+"Go on," said Cartwright.
+
+"In the first place, d'you know why she left you?"
+
+An anguish came across Cartwright's face. It taught Sinclair at least
+one thing--that the man loved her.
+
+"You're the reason--maybe."
+
+"Me? I never seen her till two days ago. That's a tolerable ugly thing
+to say, Cartwright!"
+
+"Well, I got tolerable ugly reasons for saying it," answered the other.
+
+The cowpuncher sighed. "I follow the way you drift. But you're wrong,
+partner. Fact is, I didn't know Cold Feet was a girl till this
+evening."
+
+Cartwright sneered, and Sinclair stiffened in his chair.
+
+"Son," he said gravely, "the worst enemies I got will all tell you that
+Riley Sinclair don't handle his own word careless. And I give you my
+solemn word of honor that I didn't know she was a girl till this
+evening, and that, right away after I found it out, I come down here to
+straighten things out with you if I could. Will you believe it?"
+
+It was a strange study to watch the working in the face of
+Cartwright--of hope, passion, doubt, hatred. He leaned closer to
+Sinclair, his big hands clutched together.
+
+"Sinclair, I wish I could believe it!"
+
+"Look me in the eye, man! I can stand it."
+
+"By the Lord, it's true! But, Sinclair, have you come down to find out
+if I'd take her back?"
+
+"Would you?"
+
+The other grew instantly crafty. "She's done me a pile of wrong,
+Sinclair."
+
+"She has," said the cowpuncher. He went on gently: "She must of cut
+into your pride a lot."
+
+"Oh, if it was known," said Cartwright, turning pale at the thought,
+"she'd make me a laughing stock! Me, old Cartwright's son!"
+
+"Yep, that'd be bad." He wondered at the frank egoism of the youth.
+
+"I leave it to you," said Cartwright, settling back in his chair.
+"Something had ought to be done to punish her. Besides, she's a weight
+on your hands, and I can see you'd be anxious to get rid of her quick."
+
+"How d'you aim to punish her?" asked Sinclair.
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Sure! Kind of a hard thing to do, wouldn't it be?"
+
+Cartwright's eyes grew small. "Ways could be found." He swallowed hard.
+"I'd find a heap of ways to make her wish she'd died sooner'n shame
+me!"
+
+"I s'pose you could," said Sinclair slowly. He lowered his glance for a
+moment to keep his scorn from standing up in his eyes. "But I've heard
+of men, Cartwright, that'd love a woman so hard that they'd forgive
+anything."
+
+"The world's full of fools," said the rich rancher. He stabbed a stern
+forefinger into the palm of his other hand. "She's got to do a lot of
+explaining before I'll look at her. She's got to make me an accounting
+of every day she's spent since I last seen her at--"
+
+"At the wedding?" asked Sinclair cruelly.
+
+Cartwright writhed in the chair till it groaned beneath his uneasy
+weight. "She told you that?"
+
+"Look here," went on Sinclair, assuming a new tone of frank inquiry.
+"Let's see if we can't find out why she left you?"
+
+"They ain't any reason--just plain fool woman, that's all."
+
+"But maybe she didn't love you, Cartwright. Did you ever think of
+that?"
+
+The big man stared. "Not love me? Who _would_ she love, then? Was they
+anybody in them parts that could bring her as much as I could? Was they
+anybody that had as good a house as mine, or as much land, or as much
+cattle? Didn't I take her over the ground and show her what it amounted
+to? Didn't I offer her her pick of my own string of riding horses?"
+
+"Did you do as much as that?"
+
+"Sure I did. She wouldn't have lacked for nothing."
+
+"You sure must have loved her a lot," insinuated Sinclair. "Must have
+been plumb foolish about her."
+
+"Oh, I dunno about that. Love is one thing that ain't bothered me none.
+I got important interests, Sinclair. I'm a business man. And this here
+marriage was a business proposition. Her dad was a business man, and he
+fixed it all up for us. It was to tie the two biggest bunches of land
+together that could be found in them parts. Anyway"--he grinned--"I got
+the land!"
+
+"And why not let the girl go, then?"
+
+"Why?" asked Cartwright eagerly. "Who wants her? You?"
+
+"Maybe, if you'd let her go."
+
+"Not in a thousand years! She's mine. They ain't no face but hers that
+I can see opposite to me at the table--not one! Besides, she's mine,
+and I'm going to keep her--after I've taught her a lesson or two!"
+
+Sinclair wiped his forehead hastily. Eagerness to jump at the throat of
+the man consumed him. He forced a smile on his thin lips and
+persistently looked down.
+
+"But think how easy it'd be, Cartwright. Think how easy you could get a
+divorce on the grounds of desertion."
+
+"And drag all this shame into the courts?"
+
+"They's ways of hushing these here things up. It'd be easy. She
+wouldn't put up no defense, mostlike. You'd win your case. And if
+anybody asked questions, they'd simply say she was crazy, and that you
+was lucky to get rid of her. They wouldn't blame you none. And it
+wouldn't be no disgrace to be deserted by a crazy woman, would it?"
+
+Cartwright drew back into a shell of opposition. "You talk pretty hot
+for this."
+
+"Because I'm telling you the way out for both of you."
+
+"I can't see it. She's coming back to me. Nobody else is going to get
+her. I've set my mind on it!"
+
+"Partner, don't you see that neither of you could ever be happy?"
+
+"Oh, we'd be happy enough. I'd forgive her--after a while."
+
+"Yes, but what about her?"
+
+"About her? Why, curse her, what right has she got to be considered?"
+
+"Cartwright, she doesn't love you."
+
+The bulldog came into the face of Cartwright and contorted it. "Don't
+she belong to me by law? Ain't she sworn to--"
+
+"Don't" said Sinclair, as if the words strangled him. "Don't say that,
+Cartwright, if you please!"
+
+"Why not? You put up a good slick talk, Sinclair. But you don't win. I
+ain't going to give her up by no divorce. I'm going to keep her. I
+don't love her enough to want her back, I hate her enough. They's only
+one way that I'd stop caring about--stop fearing that she'd shame me.
+And that's by having her six feet underground. But you, Sinclair, you
+need coin. You're footloose. Suppose you was to take her and bring her
+to--"
+
+"Don't!" cried Sinclair again. "Don't say it, Cartwright. Think it over
+again. Have mercy on her, man. She could make some home happy. Are you
+going to destroy that chance?"
+
+"Say, what kind of talk is this?" asked the big man.
+
+"Now," said Sinclair, "look to your own rotten soul!"
+
+The strength of Cartwright was cut away at the root. The color was
+struck out of his face as by a mortal blow. "What d'you mean?" he
+whispered.
+
+"You don't deserve a man's chance, but I'm going to give it to you. Go
+get your gun, Cartwright!"
+
+Cartwright slunk back in his chair. "Do you mean murder, Sinclair?"
+
+"I mean a fair fight."
+
+"You're a gunman. You been raised and trained for gunfighting. I
+wouldn't have no chance!"
+
+Sinclair controlled his scorn. "Then I'll fight left-handed. I'm a
+right-handed man, Cartwright, and I'll take you with my gun in my left
+hand. That evens us up, I guess."
+
+"No, it don't!"
+
+But with the cry on his lips, the glance of Cartwright flickered past
+Sinclair. He grew thoughtful, less flabby. He seemed to be calculating
+his chances as his glance rested on the window.
+
+"All right," he whispered, a fearful eye on Sinclair, as if he feared
+the latter would change his mind. "Gimme a fair break."
+
+"I'll do it."
+
+Sinclair shifted his gun to his left hand and turned to look at the
+window which Cartwright had been watching with such intense interest.
+He had not half turned, however, when a gun barked at his very ear, it
+seemed, a tongue of flame spat in from the window, there was a crash of
+glass, and the lamp was snuffed. Some accurate shot had cut the burning
+wick out of the lamp with his bullet, so nicely placed that, though the
+lamp reeled, it did not fall.
+
+
+
+
+24
+
+
+With the spurt of flame, Sinclair leaped back until his shoulders
+grazed the wall. He crouched beside the massive chest of drawers. It
+might partially shelter him from fire from the window.
+
+There fell one of those deadly breathing spaces of silence--silence,
+except for the chattering of the lamp, as it steadied on the table and
+finally was still. There was a light crunching noise from the opposite
+side of the room. Cartwright had moved and put his foot on a fragment
+of the shattered chimney.
+
+Sinclair studied the window. It was a rectangle of dim light, but
+nothing showed in that frame. He who had fired the shot must have
+crouched at once, or else have drawn to one side. He waited with his
+gun poised. Steps were sounding far away in the building, steps which
+approached rapidly. Voices were calling. Somewhere on the farther side
+of the room Cartwright must have found the best shelter he could, and
+Sinclair shrewdly guessed that it would be on the far side of the chest
+of drawers which faced him.
+
+In the meantime he studied the blank rectangle of the window. Sooner or
+later the man who stood on the ledge would risk a look into the dark
+interior; otherwise, he would not be human. And, sure enough, presently
+the faintest shadow of an outline encroached on the solid rectangle of
+faint light. Sinclair aimed just to the right and fired. At once there
+was a splash of red flame and a thundering report from the other side
+of the room. Cartwright had fired at the flash of Sinclair's gun, and
+the bullet smashed into the chest beside Sinclair. As for Sinclair's
+own bullet, it brought only a stifled curse from the window.
+
+"No good, Riley," sang out the voice. "This wall's too thick for a
+Colt."
+
+Sinclair had flung himself softly forward on his stomach, his gun in
+readiness and leveled in the direction of Cartwright. There was the
+prime necessity. Now heavy footfalls rushed down the hall, and a storm
+of voices broke in upon him.
+
+At the same time Cartwright's gun spat fire again. The bullet buzzed
+angrily above Sinclair's head. His own brought a yell of pain, sharp as
+the yelp of a coyote.
+
+"Keep quiet, Cartwright," ordered the man at the window. "You'll get
+yourself killed if you keep risking it. Sheriff!"
+
+His voice rose and rang.
+
+"Blow the lock off'n that door. We got him!"
+
+There was an instant reply in the explosion of a gun, the crash of
+broken metal, the door swung slowly in, admitting a dim twilight into
+the room. The light showed Sinclair one thing--the dull outlines of
+Cartwright. He whipped up his gun and then hesitated. It would be
+murder. He had killed before, but never save in fair fight, standing in
+a clear light before his enemy. He knew that he could not kill this rat
+he detested. He thought of the wrecked life of the girl and set his
+teeth. Still he could not fire.
+
+"Cartwright," he said softly, "I got you covered. Your right hand's on
+the floor with your gun. Don't raise that hand!"
+
+In the shadow against the wall Cartwright moved, but he obeyed. The
+revolver still glimmered on the floor.
+
+A new and desperate thought came to Sinclair--to rush straight for the
+window, shoot down the man on the ledge, and risk the leap to the
+ground. "Scatter back!" called the man on the ledge.
+
+That settled the last chance of Sinclair. There were guards on the
+ground, scattered about the house. He could never get out that way.
+
+"Keep out of the light by the door," commanded the man at the window.
+"And start shooting for the chest of drawers on the left-hand side of
+the room--and aim low down. It may take time, but we'll get him!"
+
+Obviously the truth of that statement was too clear for Sinclair to
+deny it. He reviewed his situation with the swift calm of an old
+gambler. He had tried his desperate coup and had failed. There was
+nothing to do but accept the failure, or else make a still more
+desperate effort to rectify his position, risking everything on a final
+play.
+
+He must get out of the room. The window was hopelessly blocked. There
+remained the open door, but the hall beyond the door was crowded with
+men.
+
+Perhaps their very numbers would work against them. Even now they could
+be heard cautiously maneuvering. They would shoot through the door in
+his general direction, unaimed shots, with the hope of a chance hit,
+and eventually they would strike him down. Suppose he were to steal
+close to the door, leap over the bed, and plunge out among them, his
+Colt spitting lead and fire.
+
+That unexpected attack would cleave a passage for him. The more he
+thought of it, the more clearly he saw that the chances of escape to
+the street were at least one in three. And yet he hesitated. If he made
+that break two or three innocent men would go down before his bullets,
+as he sprang out, shooting to kill. He shrank from the thought. He was
+amazed at himself. Never before had he been so tender of expedients. He
+had always fought to win--cleanly, but to win. Why was he suddenly
+remembering that to these men he was an outlaw, fit meat for the first
+bullet they could send home? Had he been one of them, he would have
+taken up a position in that very hall just as they were doing.
+
+Slowly, reluctantly, fighting himself as he did it, he shoved his
+revolver back into his holster and determined to take the chance of
+that surprise attack, with his empty hands against their guns. If they
+did not drop him the instant he leaped out, he would be among them, too
+close for gunplay unless they took the chance of killing their own men.
+
+Keeping his gaze fixed on Cartwright across the room--for the moment he
+showed his intention, Cartwright would shoot--he maneuvered softly
+toward the bed. Cartwright turned his head, but made no move to lift
+his gun. There was a reason. The light from the door fell nearer to the
+rancher than it did to Sinclair. To Cartwright he must be no more than
+a shapeless blur.
+
+A gun exploded from the doorway, with only a glint of steel, as the
+muzzle was shoved around the jamb. The bullet crashed harmlessly into
+the wall behind him. Another try. The sharp, stifling odor of burned
+powder began to fill the room, stinging the nostrils of Sinclair.
+Cartwright was coughing in a stifled fashion on the far side of the
+room, as if he feared a loud noise would draw a bullet his way.
+
+All at once there was no sound in the hotel, and, as the wave of
+silence spread, Sinclair was aware that the whole little town was
+listening, waiting, watching. Not a whisper in the hall, not a stir
+from Cartwright across the room. The quiet made the drama seem unreal.
+
+Then that voice outside the window, which seemed to be Sinclair's
+Nemesis, cried: "Steady, boys. Something's going to happen. He's
+getting ready. Buck up, boys!"
+
+In a moment of madness Sinclair decided to rush that window and dispose
+of the cool-minded speaker at all costs before he died. There, at
+least, was the one man he wished to kill. He followed that impulse long
+enough to throw himself sidling along the floor, so as not to betray
+his real strategic position to those at the door, and he splashed two
+bullets into the wall, trimming the side of the window.
+
+Only clear, deep-throated laughter came in response.
+
+"I told you, boys. I read his mind, and he's mad at me, eh?"
+
+But Riley Sinclair hardly heard the mocking answer. He had glided back
+behind the bed, the instant the shots were fired. As he moved, two guns
+appeared for a flickering instant around the edge of the doorway, one
+on each side. Their muzzles kicked up rapidly, one, two, three, four,
+five, six, and each, as he fired, spread the shots carefully from side
+to side. Sinclair heard the bullets bite and splinter the woodwork
+close to the floor. The chest of drawers staggered with the impact.
+
+He raised his own gun, watched one of the jumping muzzles for an
+instant, and then tried a snap shot. The report of his revolver was
+bitten off short by the clang of metal; there was a shouted curse from
+the hallway. He had blown the gun cleanly out of the sharpshooter's
+hand.
+
+Before the amazed rumble from the hall died away, Sinclair had acted.
+He shoved his weapon back in its holster, and cleared the bed with a
+flying leap. From the corner of his eye, he saw Cartwright snatch up
+his gun and take a chance shot that whistled close to his head, and
+then Sinclair plunged into the hall.
+
+One glimmering chance of success remained. On the side of the door
+toward which he drove there were only three men in the hall; behind him
+were more, far more, but their weapons were neutralized. They could not
+fire without risking a miss that would be certain to lodge a bullet in
+the body of one of the men before Sinclair.
+
+Those men were kneeling, for they had been reaching out and firing low
+around the door to rake the floor of the room. At the appearance of
+Sinclair they started up. He saw a gun jerk high for a snap shot, and,
+swerving as he leaped, he drove out with all his weight behind his
+fist. The knuckles bit through flesh to the bone. There was a jarring
+impact, and now only two men were before him. One of them dropped his
+gun--it was he who had just emptied his weapon into the room--and flung
+himself at Sinclair, with outspread arms. The cowpuncher snapped up his
+knee, and the blow crumpled the other back and to the side. He sprang
+on toward the last man who barred his way. And all this in the split
+part of a second.
+
+Chance took a hand against him. In the very act of striking, his foot
+lodged on the first senseless body, and he catapulted forward on his
+hands. He struck the legs of the third man as he fell.
+
+Down they went together, and Sinclair lurched up from under the weight
+only to be overtaken by many reaching hands from behind. That instant
+of delay had lost the battle for him; and, as he strove to whirl and
+fight himself clear, an arm curled around his neck, shutting off his
+breath. A great weight jarred between his shoulders. And he pitched
+down to the floor.
+
+He stopped fighting. He felt his gun slipped from the holster. Deft,
+strong hands jerked his arms behind him and tied the wrists firmly
+together. Then he was drawn to his feet.
+
+All this without a word spoken, only the pant and struggle of
+hard-drawn breaths. Not until he stood on his feet again, with a
+bleeding-faced fellow rising with dazed eyes, and another clambering up
+unsteadily, with both hands pressed against his head, did the captors
+give voice. And their voice was a yell of triumph that was taken up in
+two directions outside the hotel.
+
+They became suddenly excited, riotously happy. In the overflowing of
+their joy they were good-natured. Some one caught up Sinclair's hat and
+jammed it on his head. Another slapped him on the shoulder.
+
+"A fine, game fight!" said the latter. It was the man with the smeared
+face. He was grinning through his wounds. "Hardest punch I ever got.
+But I don't blame you, partner!"
+
+Presently he saw Sheriff Kern. The latter was perfectly cool, perfectly
+grave. It was his arm that had coiled around the neck of Sinclair and
+throttled him into submission.
+
+"You didn't come out to kill, Sinclair. Why?"
+
+"I ain't used to slaughterhouse work," said Sinclair with equal calm,
+although he was panting. "Besides, it wasn't worth it. Murder never
+is."
+
+"Kind of late to come to that idea, son. Now just trot along with me,
+will you?" He paused. "Where's Arizona?"
+
+Cartwright lurched out of the room with his naked gun in his hand. Red
+dripped from the shallow wound where Sinclair's bullet had nicked him.
+He plunged at the captive, yelling.
+
+"Stop that fool!" snapped the sheriff.
+
+Half a dozen men put themselves between the outlaw and the avenger.
+Cartwright straggled vainly.
+
+"Between you and me," said Sinclair coldly to the sheriff, "I think
+that skunk would plug me while I got my hands tied."
+
+The sheriff flashed a knowing glance up at his tall prisoner's face.
+
+"I dunno, Sinclair. Kind of looks that way."
+
+Although Cartwright had been persuaded to restore his gun to its cover,
+he passed through the crowd until he confronted Sinclair.
+
+"Now, the tables is turned, eh? I'll take the high hand from now on,
+Sinclair!"
+
+"It's no good," said Sinclair dryly. "The gent that shot out the light
+had a chance to see something before he done the shooting. And what he
+seen must have showed that you're yaller, Cartwright--yaller as a
+yaller dog!"
+
+Cartwright flung his fist with a curse into the face of the cowpuncher.
+The weight of the blow jarred him back against the wall, but he met the
+glare of Cartwright with a steady eye, a thin trickle of crimson
+running down his cut lips. The sheriff rushed in between and mastered
+Cartwright's arms.
+
+"One more little trick like that, stranger, and I'll turn you over to
+the boys. They got ways of teaching gents manners. How was you raised,
+anyway?"
+
+Suddenly sobered, Cartwright drew back from dark glances on every side.
+
+"Fellows," he said, in a shaken voice, "I forgot his hands was tied.
+But I'm kind of wrought up. He tried to murder me!"
+
+"It's all right, partner," drawled Red Chalmers, and he laid a strong
+hand on the shoulder of Cartwright. "It's all right. We all allow for
+one break. But don't do something like that twice--not in these parts!"
+
+Sinclair walked beside the sheriff, while the crowd poured past him and
+down the hall. When they reached the head of the stairs they found the
+lighted room below filled with excited, upturned faces; at the sight of
+the sheriff and his prisoner they roared their applause. The faces were
+blotted and blurred by a veil of rapidly, widely waving sombreros.
+
+The sheriff paused halfway down the stairs and held up his hand.
+Sinclair halted beside him looking disdainfully over the crowd.
+Instantly noise and movement ceased. It was a spectacular picture, the
+stubby little sheriff and the tall, lean, wolflike man he had captured.
+It seemed a vivid illustration of the power of the law over the
+lawbreaker. Sinclair glanced down in wonder at Kern. It was in
+character for the sheriff to make a speech. A moment later the
+sheriff's own words had explained his reason for the impromptu address.
+
+"Boys," he said, "I figure some of you has got an almighty big wish to
+see Sinclair on the end of a rope, eh?"
+
+A deep growl answered him.
+
+"Speaking personal," went on the sheriff smoothly, "I don't see how
+he's done a thing worth hanging. He took a prisoner away from me, and
+he's resisted arrest. That's all. Sinclair has got a name as a killer.
+Maybe he is. But I know he ain't done no killing around these parts
+that's come to light yet. I'll tell you another thing. A minute ago he
+could have sent three men to death and maybe come off with a free skin.
+But he chose to take his chance without shooting to kill. He tried to
+fight his way out with his hands sooner'n blow the heads off of gents
+that never done him no harm except to get in his way. Well, boys,
+that's something you don't often see. And I tell you this right now: If
+they's any lynch talk around this here town, you can lay to it that
+you'll have to shoot your way to Sinclair through me. And I'll be a
+dead one before you reach to him."
+
+He paused. Someone hissed from the back of the crowd, but the majority
+murmured in appreciation.
+
+"One more thing," went on the sheriff. "Some of you may think it was
+great guns to take Sinclair. It _was_ a pretty good job, but they ain't
+no credit coming to me. I'm up here saying that all the praise goes to
+a fat friend of mine by name Arizona. If you got any free drinks, let
+'em drift the way of Arizona. Hey, Arizona, step out and make a bow,
+will you?"
+
+But no Arizona appeared. The crowd cheered him, and then cheered the
+generous sheriff. Kern had won more by his frankness than he could
+possibly have won in half a dozen spectacular exploits with a gun.
+
+
+
+
+25
+
+
+The crowd swirled out of the hotel before the sheriff and his prisoner,
+and then swirled back again. No use following the sheriff if they hoped
+for details. They knew his silence of old. Instead they picked off the
+members who had taken part in some phase of the fight, and drew them
+aside. As Sinclair went on down the street, the populace of Sour Creek
+was left pooled behind him. Various orators were giving accounts of how
+the whole thing had happened.
+
+Sinclair had neither eye nor ear for them. But he looked back and up to
+the western sky, with a flat-topped mountain clearly outlined against
+it. There was his country, and in his country he had left Jig alone and
+helpless. A feeling of utter desolation and failure came over him. He
+had started with a double-goal--Sandersen or Cartwright, or both. He
+had failed lamentably of reaching either one. He looked back to the
+sheriff, squat, insignificant, gray-headed. What a man to have blocked
+him!
+
+"But who's this Arizona?" he asked.
+
+"I dunno. Seems to have known you somewhere. Maybe a friend of yours,
+Sinclair?"
+
+"H'm," said the cowpuncher. "Maybe! Tell me: Was it him that was
+outside the window and trimmed the light on me?"
+
+"You got him right, Sinclair. That was the gent. Nice play he made,
+eh?"
+
+"Very pretty, sheriff. I thought I knowed his voice."
+
+"He seems to have made himself pretty infrequent. Didn't know Arizona
+was so darned modest."
+
+"Maybe he's got other reasons," said Sinclair. "What's his full name?"
+
+"Ain't that curious! I ain't heard of anybody else that knows it. He's
+a cool head, this Arizona. Seemed to read your mind and know jest how
+you'd jump, Sinclair. I would have been off combing the trails, but he
+seemed to know that you'd come into town."
+
+"I'll sure keep him in mind if I ever meet up with him," murmured
+Sinclair. "Is this where I bunk?"
+
+The sheriff had paused before a squat, dumpy building and was working
+noisily at the lock with a big key. Now that his back was necessarily
+toward his prisoner, two of the posse stepped up close beside Sinclair.
+They had none of the sheriff's nonchalance. One of them was the man
+whose head had made the acquaintance of Sinclair's knee, and both were
+ready for instant action of any description.
+
+"I'm Rhinehart," said one softly. "Keep me in mind, Sinclair. I'm him
+that you smashed with your knee. Dirty work! I'll see you when you get
+out of the lockup--if that ever happens!"
+
+The voice of Sinclair was not so soft. "I'll meet you in jail or out,"
+he answered, "on foot or on horseback, with fists or knife or gun. And
+you can lay to this, Rhinehart: I'll remember you a pile better'n
+you'll remember me!"
+
+All the repressed savagery of his nature came quivering into his voice
+as he spoke, and the other shrank instinctively a pace. In the meantime
+the sheriff had succeeded in turning the rusted lock, which squeaked
+back. The door grumbled on its heavy hinges. Sinclair stepped into the
+musty, close atmosphere within.
+
+"Don't look like you had much use for this here outfit," he said to the
+sheriff.
+
+The latter lighted a lantern.
+
+"Nope," he said. "It sure beats all how the luck runs, Sinclair. We'd
+had a pretty bad time with crooks around these parts, and them that was
+nabbed in Sour Creek got away; about two out of three, before they was
+brought to me at Woodville. So the boys got together and ponied up for
+this little jail, and it's as neat a pile of mud and steel as ever you
+see. Look at them bars. Kind of rusty, they look, but inside they're
+toolproof. Oh, it's an up-to-date outfit, this jail. It's been a
+comfort to me, and it's a credit to Sour Creek. But the trouble is that
+since it was built they ain't been more'n one or two to put in it.
+Maybe you can make out here for the night. Have you over to Woodville
+in a couple of days, Sinclair."
+
+He brought his prisoner into a cagelike cell, heavily guarded with bars
+on all sides. The adobe walls had been trusted in no direction. The
+steel lining was the strength of the Sour Creek jail. The sheriff
+himself set about shaking out the blankets. When this was done, he bade
+his two companions draw their guns and stand guard at the steel door to
+the cell.
+
+"Not that I don't trust you a good deal, Sinclair," he said, "but I
+know that a gent sometimes takes big chances."
+
+So saying, he cut the bonds of his prisoner, but instead of making a
+plunge at the door, Sinclair merely stretched his long arms luxuriously
+above his head. The sheriff slipped out of the door and closed it after
+him. A heavy and prolonged clangor followed, as steel jarred home
+against steel.
+
+"Don't go sheriff," said Sinclair. "I need a chat with you."
+
+"I'm in no hurry. And here's the gent we was talking about. Here's
+Arizona!"
+
+The sheriff had waved his two companions out of the jail, as soon as
+the prisoner was securely lodged, and no sooner was this done, and they
+had departed through the doorway, than the heavy figure of Arizona
+himself appeared. He came slowly into the circle of the lantern light,
+an oddly changed man.
+
+His swaggering gait, with heels that pounded heavily, was gone. He
+slunk forward, soft-footed. His head, usually so buoyantly erect, was
+now sunk lower and forward. His high color had faded to a drab olive.
+In fact, from a free-swinging, jovial, somewhat overbearing demeanor,
+Arizona had changed to a mien of malicious and rather frightened
+cunning. In this wise he advanced, heedless of the curious and
+astonished sheriff, until his face was literally pressed against the
+bars. He peered steadily at Sinclair.
+
+On the face of the latter there had been at first blank surprise, then
+a gradually dawning recognition. Finally he walked slowly to the bars.
+As Sinclair approached, the fat cowpuncher drew back, with lingering
+catlike steps, as if he grudged every inch of his retreat and yet dared
+not remain to meet Sinclair.
+
+"By the Eternal," said Sinclair, "it's Dago!"
+
+Arizona halted, quivering with emotions which the sheriff could not
+identify, save for a blind, intense malice. The tall man turned to the
+sheriff, smiling: "Dago Lansing, eh?"
+
+"Never heard that name," said the sheriff.
+
+"Maybe not," replied Sinclair, "but that's the man I--"
+
+"You lie!" cried Arizona huskily, and his fat, swift hand fluttered
+nervously around the butt of the revolver. "Sheriff, they ain't nothing
+but lies stocked up in him. Don't believe nothing he says!"
+
+"Huh!" chuckled Sinclair. "Why, Kern, he's a man about eight years ago
+that I--"
+
+Pausing, he looked into the convulsed face of Arizona, who was
+apparently tortured with apprehension.
+
+"I won't go on, Dago," said Sinclair mildly. "But--so you've carried
+this grudge all these days, eh?"
+
+Arizona tossed up his head. For a moment he was the Arizona the sheriff
+had known, but his laughter was too strident, and it was easy to see
+that he was at a point of hysterically high tension.
+
+"Well, I'd have carried it eighty years as easy as eight," declared
+Arizona. "I been waiting all this time, and now I got you, Sinclair.
+You'll rot behind the bars the best part of the life that's left to
+you. And when you come out--I'll meet you ag'in!"
+
+Sinclair smiled in a singular fashion. "Sorry to disappoint you, Dago.
+But I'm not coming out. I'm going to stay put. I'm through." The other
+blinked. "How come?"
+
+"It's something you couldn't figure," said Sinclair calmly, and he eyed
+the fat man as if from a great distance.
+
+Sinclair was remembering the day, eight years ago, in a lumber camp to
+the north when a shivering, meager, shifty-eyed youngster had come
+among them asking for work. They had taken pity on him, those big
+lumberjacks, put him up, given him money, kept him at the bunk house.
+
+Then articles began to disappear, watches, money. It was Sinclair who
+had caught the friendless stripling in the act of sleight of hand in
+the middle of the night when the laborers, tired out, slept as if
+stunned. And when the others would have let the cringing, weeping youth
+go with a lecture and the return of his illicit spoils, it was the
+stern Sinclair who had insisted on driving home the lesson. He forced
+them to strip Dago to the waist. Two stalwarts held his hands, and
+Sinclair laid on the whip. And Dago, the moment the lash fell, ceased
+his wailing and begging, and stood quivering, with his head bent, his
+teeth set and gritting, until the punishment was ended.
+
+It was Sinclair, also, when the thing was ended, and the others would
+have thrust the boy out penniless, who split the contents of his wallet
+with Dago. He remembered the words he had spoken to the stripling that
+day eight years before.
+
+"You ain't had much luck out here in the West, kid, but stay around. Go
+south. Learn to ride a hoss. They's nothing that puts heart and honesty
+in a man like a good hoss. Don't go back to your city. You'll turn into
+a snake there. Stay out here and practice being a man, will you? Get
+the feel of a Colt. Fight your way. Keep your mouth shut and work with
+your hands. And don't brag about what you know or what you've done.
+That's the way to get on. You got the markings in you, son. You got
+grit. I seen it when you was under the whip, and I wish I had the doing
+of that over again. I made a mistake with you, kid. But do what I've
+told you to do, and one of these days you'll meet up with me and beat
+me to the draw and take everything you got as a grudge out on me. But
+you can't do it unless you turn into a man."
+
+Dago had listened in the most profound silence, accepted the money
+without thanks, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. In the
+sleek-faced man before him, Sinclair could hardly recognize that
+slender fellow of the lumber camp. Only the bright and agile eyes were
+the same; that, and a certain telltale nervousness of hand. The color
+was coming back into his face.
+
+"I guess I've done it," Arizona was saying. "I guess we're squared up,
+Sinclair."
+
+"Yep, and a balance on your side."
+
+"Maybe, maybe not. But I've followed your advice, Long Riley. I've
+never forgot a word of it. It was printed into me!"
+
+He made a significant, short gesture, as if he were snapping a whip,
+and a snarl of undying malice curled his lips.
+
+"As long as you live, Sinclair," he added. "As long as you live, I'll
+remember."
+
+Even the sheriff shuddered at that glimpse into the black soul of a
+man; Sinclair alone was unmoved.
+
+"I reckon you've barked enough, Arizona," he suggested. "S'pose you
+trot along. I got to have words with my friend, the sheriff."
+
+Arizona waved his fat hand. He was recovering his ordinary poise, and
+with a smiling good night to the sheriff, he turned away through the
+door.
+
+"Nice, friendly sort, eh?" remarked Sinclair the moment he was alone
+with Kern.
+
+"I still got the chills," said the sheriff. "Sure has got a wicked pair
+of eyes, that Arizona."
+
+Kern cast an apprehensive glance at the closed door, yet, in spite of
+the fact that it was closed, he lowered his voice.
+
+"What in thunder have you done to him, Sinclair?"
+
+"About eight years ago--" began Sinclair and then stopped short.
+
+"Let it go," he went on. "No matter what Arizona is today, he's sure
+improved on the gent I used to know. What's done is done. Besides, I
+made a mistake that time. I went too far with him, and a mistake is
+like borrowed money, sheriff. It lays up interest and keeps
+compounding. When you have to pay back what you done a long time ago,
+you find it's a terrible pile. That's all I got to say about Arizona."
+
+Sheriff Kern nodded. "That's straight talk, Sinclair," he said softly.
+"But what was it you wanted to see me about?"
+
+"Cold Feet," said Sinclair.
+
+At once the sheriff brightened. "That's right," he said hurriedly. "You
+got the right idea now, partner. Glad to see you're using hoss sense.
+And if you gimme an idea of the trail that'll lead to Cold Feet, I can
+see to it that you get out of this mess pretty pronto. After all, you
+ain't done no real harm except for nicking Cartwright in the arm, and I
+figure that he needs a little punishment. It'll cool his temper down."
+
+"You think I ought to tell you where Cold Feet is?" asked Sinclair
+without emotion.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Him and me sat around the same campfire, sheriff, and ate off'n the
+same deer."
+
+At this the sheriff winced. "I know," he murmured. "It's hard--mighty
+hard!" He continued more smoothly: "But listen to me, partner. There's
+twenty-five-hundred dollars on the head of Cold Feet. Why not come in?
+Why not split on it? Plenty for both of us; and, speaking personal, I
+could use half that money, and maybe you could use the other half just
+as well!"
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Sinclair, "I'll give you the layout
+for finding Cold Feet. Ride west out of Sour Creek and head for a
+flat-topped mountain. On the shoulder just under the head of the peak
+you'll find Cold Feet. Go get him!"
+
+The sheriff caught his breath, then whirled on his heel. The sharp
+voice of Sinclair called him back.
+
+"Wait a minute. I ain't through. When you catch Cold Feet you go after
+him without guns."
+
+"How come?"
+
+"Because you might hurt him, and he can't fight, sheriff. Even if he
+was to pull a gun, he couldn't hit nothing with it. He couldn't hit the
+ground he's standing on with a gun."
+
+Sheriff Kern scratched his head.
+
+"And when you get him," went on Sinclair, "tell him to go back and take
+up his life where he left off, because they's no harm coming to him."
+
+"Great guns, man! No harm coming to him with a murder to his count and
+a price on his head?"
+
+"I mean what I say. Break it to him real gentle."
+
+"And who pays for the killing of Quade?"
+
+Sinclair smiled. He was finding it far easier to do it than he had ever
+imagined. The moment he made the resolve, his way was smoothed for him.
+
+"I pay for Quade," he said quietly.
+
+"What d'you mean?"
+
+"Because I killed him, sheriff. Now go tell Cold Feet that his score is
+clean!"
+
+
+
+
+26
+
+
+Toward the flat-topped mountain, with the feeling of his fate upon him,
+Bill Sandersen pushed his mustang through the late evening, while the
+darkness fell. He had long since stopped thinking, reasoning. There was
+only the strong, blind feeling that he must meet Sinclair face to face
+and decide his destiny in one brief struggle.
+
+So he kept on until his shadow fell faintly on his path before him,
+long, shapeless, grotesque. He turned and saw the moon coming up above
+the eastern mountains, a wan, sickly moon hardly out of her first
+quarter, and even in the pure mountain air her light was dim.
+
+But it gave thought and pause to Sandersen. First there was the
+outcropping of a singular superstition which he had heard long before
+and never remembered until this moment: that a moon seen over the left
+shoulder meant the worst of bad luck. It boded very ill for the end of
+this adventure.
+
+Suppose he were able only partially to surprise the big cowpuncher from
+the north, and that there was a call for fighting. What chance would he
+have in the dim and bewildering light of that moon against the surety
+of Sinclair who shot, he knew, as other men point the finger
+--instinctively hitting the target? It would be a mere butchery,
+not a battle.
+
+Sending his mustang into a copse of young trees, he dismounted. His
+mind was made up not to attempt the blow until the first light of dawn.
+He would try to reach the top of the flat-crested mountain well before
+sunup, when there would be a real light instead of this ghostly and
+partial illumination from the moon.
+
+Among the trees he sat down and took up the dreadful watches of the
+night. Sleep never came near him. He was turning the back pages of his
+memory, reviewing his past with the singular clearness of a man about
+to die. For Sandersen had this mortal certainty resting upon his mind
+that he must try to strike down Sinclair, and that he would fail. And
+failure meant only one alternative--death. He was perfectly confident
+that this was the truth. He knew with prophetic surety that he would
+never again see the kind light of the sun, that in a half-light, in the
+cold of the dawn, a bullet would end his life.
+
+What he saw in the past was not comforting. A long train of vivid
+memories came up in his mind. He had accomplished nothing. In the total
+course of his life he had not made a man his friend, or won the love of
+a woman. In all his attempts to succeed in life there had been nothing
+but disastrous failures, and wherever he moved he involved others in
+his fall. Certainly the prospecting trip with the three other men had
+been worse than all the rest, but it had been typical. It had been he
+who first suggested the trip, and he had rounded the party together and
+sustained it with enthusiasm.
+
+It had been he who led it into the mountains and across the desert. And
+on the terrible return trip he knew, with an abiding sense of guilt,
+that he alone could have checked the murderous and cowardly impulse of
+Quade. He alone could have overruled Quade and Lowrie; or, failing to
+overrule them he should at least have stayed with the cripple and
+helped him on, with the chance of death for them both.
+
+When he thought of that noble opportunity lost, he writhed. It would
+have gained the deathless affection of Hal Sinclair and saved that
+young, strong life. It would have won him more. It would have made
+Riley Sinclair his ally so long as he lived. And how easy to have done
+it, he thought, looking back.
+
+Instead, he had given way; and already the result had been the death of
+three men. The tale was not yet told, he was sure. Another death was
+due. A curse lay on that entire party, and it would not be ended until
+he, Sandersen, the soul of the enterprise, fell.
+
+The moon grew old in the west. Then he took the saddle again and rode,
+brooding, up the trail, his horse stumbling over the stones as the
+animal grew wearier in the climb.
+
+And then, keeping his gaze fastened above him, he saw the outline of
+the crests grow more and more distinct. He looked behind. In the east
+the light was growing. The whole horizon was rimmed with a pale glow.
+
+Now his spirits rose. Even this gray dawn was far better than the
+treacherous moonlight. A daylight calm came over him. He was stronger,
+surer of himself. Impatiently he drew out his Colt and looked to its
+action. The familiar weight added to his self-belief. It became
+possible for him to fight, and being possible to fight, it was also
+possible to conquer.
+
+Presently he reached a bald upland. The fresh wind of the morning
+struck his face, and he breathed deep of it. Why could he not return to
+Sour Creek as a hero, and why could he not collect the price on the
+head of Riley Sinclair?
+
+The thought made him alert, savage. A moment later, his head pushing up
+to the level of the shoulder of the mountain, he saw his quarry. In the
+dimness of that early dawn he made out the form of a sleeper huddled in
+blankets, but it was enough. That must be Riley Sinclair. It could not
+be another, and all his premonitions were correct.
+
+Suddenly he became aware that he could not fail. It was impossible! As
+gloomy as he had been before, his spirits now leaped to the heights. He
+swung down from the saddle, softly, slowly, and went up the hill
+without once drawing his eyes from that motionless form in the
+blankets.
+
+Once something stirred to the right and far below him. He flashed a
+glance in that direction and saw that it was a hobbled horse, though
+not the horse of Sinclair; but that mattered nothing. The second horse
+might be among the trees.
+
+Easing his step and tightening the grip on his revolver, he drew
+closer. Should he shoot without warning? No, he would lean over the
+sleeper, call his name, and let him waken and see his death before it
+came to him. Otherwise the triumph would be robbed of half of its
+sweetness.
+
+Now he had come sufficiently near to make out distinctly that there was
+only one sleeper. Had Sinclair and Cold Feet separated? If so, this
+must be Sinclair. The latter might have the boldness to linger so close
+to danger, but certainly never Cold Feet, even if he had once worked
+his courage to the point of killing a man. He stepped closer, leaned,
+and then by the half-light made out the pale, delicate features of the
+schoolteacher.
+
+For the moment Sandersen was stunned with disappointment, and yet his
+spirits rose again almost at once. If Sinclair had fled, all the
+better. He would not return, at least for a long time, and in the
+meantime, he, Sandersen, would collect the money on the head of Cold
+Feet!
+
+With the Colt close to the breast of Jig, he said: "Wake up, Cold
+Feet!"
+
+The girl opened her eyes, struggled to sit up, and was thrust back by
+the muzzle of the gun, held with rocklike firmness in the hand of
+Sandersen.
+
+"Riley--what--" she muttered sleepily and then she made out the face of
+Sandersen distinctly.
+
+Instantly she was wide awake, whiter than ever, staring. Better to take
+the desperado alive than dead--far better. Cold Feet would make a show
+in Sour Creek for the glorification of Sandersen, as he rode down
+through the main street, and the men would come out to see the prize
+which even Sheriff Kern and his posse had not yet been able to take.
+
+"Roll over on your face."
+
+Cold Feet obeyed without a murmur. There was a coiled rope by the
+cinders of the fire. Sandersen cut off a convenient length and bound
+the slender wrists behind the back of the schoolteacher. Then he jerked
+his quarry to a sitting posture.
+
+"Where's Sinclair gone?"
+
+To his astonishment, Cold Feet's face brightened wonderfully.
+
+"Oh, then you haven't found him? You haven't found him? Thank
+goodness!"
+
+Sandersen studied the schoolteacher closely. It was impossible to
+mistake the frankness of the latter's face.
+
+"By guns," he said at last, "I see it all now. The skunk sneaked off in
+the middle of the night and left you alone here to face the music?"
+
+Jig flushed, as she exclaimed: "That's not true. He's never run away in
+his life."
+
+"Maybe not," muttered Sandersen apprehensively. "Maybe he'll come back
+ag'in. Maybe he's just rode off after something and will be back."
+
+At once the old fear swept over him. His apprehensive glance flickered
+over the rocks and trees around him--a thousand secure hiding places.
+He faced the schoolteacher again.
+
+"Look here, Jig: You're charged with a murder, you see? I can take you
+dead or alive; and the shot that bumped you off might bring Sinclair
+running to find out what'd happened, and he'd go the same way. But will
+you promise to keep your mouth shut and give no warning when Sinclair
+heaves in sight? Take your pick. It don't make no difference to me, one
+way or the other; but I can't have the two of you on my hands."
+
+To his surprise Jig did not answer at once.
+
+"Ain't I made myself clear? Speak out!"
+
+"I won't promise," said Cold Feet, raising the colorless face.
+
+"Then, by thunder, I'll--"
+
+In the sudden contorting of his face she saw her death, but as she
+closed her eyes and waited for the report and the tear of the bullet,
+she heard him muttering: "No, they's a better way."
+
+A moment later her mouth was wrenched open, and a huge wadded bandanna
+was stuffed into it. Sandersen pushed her back to the ground and tossed
+the blanket over her again.
+
+"You ain't much of a man, Jig, but as a bait for my trap you'll do
+tolerable well. You're right: Sinclair's coming back, and when he
+comes, I'll be waiting for him out of sight behind the rock. But listen
+to this, Jig. If you wrastle around and try to get that gag out of your
+mouth, I ain't going to take no chances. Whether Sinclair's in sight or
+not, I'm going to drill you clean. Now lie still and keep thinking on
+what I told you. I mean it all!"
+
+With a final scowl he left her and hurried to the rock. It made an
+ideal shelter for his purposes. On three sides, the rock made a thick
+and effectual parapet. A thousand bullets might splash harmlessly
+against that stone; and through crevices he commanded the whole sweep
+of the mountainside beneath them. The courage which had been growing in
+Sandersen, now reached a climax. Below him lay the helpless body of one
+prize--from a distance apparently a sound and quiet sleeper, though
+Sandersen could see the terrified glint of Jig's eyes.
+
+But he forgot that a moment later, when he saw the form of a horseman
+break out of covert from the trees farther down the mountain and
+immediately disappear again. Sinclair? He studied the barrel of the
+revolver, but the horseman appeared no more in the brightening and
+misty dawn. It was only after a long pause that there issued from the
+trees, not Riley Sinclair, but the squat, thick form of Arizona!
+
+
+
+
+27
+
+
+Behind the sheriff's apprehensive glance there had been reason. True
+the door had closed upon Arizona, and the door was thick. But the
+moment Arizona had passed through the door, he clapped his ear to the
+keyhole and listened, holding his breath, for he was certain that the
+moment his back was turned the shameful story of his exploits in the
+lumber camp eight years before would come out for the edification of
+Kern. If so, it meant ruin for him. Arizona was closed to him; all this
+district would be closed by the story of his early light-fingeredness.
+He felt as if he were being driven to the wall. Consequently he
+listened with set teeth to the early questions of the sheriff; then he
+breathed easier, still incredulous, when he heard Sinclair refuse to
+tell the tale.
+
+Still he lingered, dreading that the truth might out, and so heard the
+talk turn to a new channel--Cold Feet. Cold Feet meant many things to
+Sour Creek; to Arizona, the schoolteacher meant only one
+thing--twenty-five-hundred dollars. And Arizona was broke.
+
+To his hungry ear came the tidings: "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll
+give you the layout for finding Cold Feet. Ride west out of Sour Creek
+and head for a flat-topped mountain. On the shoulder just under the
+head you'll find Cold Feet. Go get him!"
+
+To Arizona it seemed as if this last injunction were personal advice.
+He waited to hear no more; if he had paused for a moment he might have
+learned that the hope of twenty-five hundred was an illusion and a
+snare. He saw the bright vision of a small fortune placed in his hands
+as the result of a single gunplay. He had seen the schoolteacher. He
+knew by instinct that there was no fighting quality in Jig. And the
+moment he heard the location it was as good as cash in his pocket, he
+was sure.
+
+There was only one difficulty. He must beat out the sheriff. To that
+end he hurried to the stable behind the hotel, broke all records for
+speed in getting the saddle on his roan mare, and then jogged her
+quietly out of town so as to rouse no suspicions. But hardly was he
+past the outskirts, hardly crediting his good luck that the sheriff
+himself was not yet on the way, than he touched the flanks with his
+spurs and sent the mare flying west.
+
+In the west the moon was dropping behind the upper ranges, as he rode
+through the foothills; when he began to climb the side of the mountain,
+the dawn began to grow. So much the better for Arizona. But, knowing
+that he had only Cold Feet to deal with, he did not adopt all the
+caution of Sandersen on the same trail. Instead he cut boldly straight
+for the shoulder of the mountain, knowing what he would find there on
+his arrival. In the nearest grove he left his horse and then walked
+swiftly up to the level. There the first thing that caught his eyes was
+the form wrapped in the blanket. But the next thing he saw was the pale
+glimmer of the dawn on the barrel of a revolver. He reached for his own
+gun, only to see, over the rock above him, the grinning face of
+Sandersen arise.
+
+"Too late, Arizona," called the tall man. "Too late for one job,
+partner, but just in time for the next!"
+
+Arizona cursed softly, steadily, through snarling lips.
+
+"What job?"
+
+"Sinclair! He's gone, but he'll be back any minute. And it'll need us
+both to down him, Arizona. We'll split on Sinclair's reward."
+
+Disgust and wrath consumed Arizona. Without other answer he strode to
+the prostrate form, slashed the rope and tore the handkerchief from
+between the teeth of Cold Feet. The schoolteacher sat up, gasping for
+breath, purple of face.
+
+"Leave him be!" cried Sandersen, his voice shrill with anger. "Leave
+him be! He's the bait, Arizona, and we're the trap that'll catch
+Sinclair."
+
+But Arizona cursed again bitterly. "Leave that bait lie till the sun
+burns it up. You'll never catch Sinclair with it."
+
+"How come?"
+
+From around the rock Sandersen appeared and walked down to the fat man.
+
+"Because Sinclair's already caught."
+
+If he had expected the tall man to groan with disappointment, there was
+a surprise in store for him. Sandersen exclaimed shrilly for joy.
+
+"Sinclair took! Took dead, then!"
+
+"Dead? Why?"
+
+"You don't mean he was taken alive?"
+
+"Yes, I sure do! And I done the figuring that led up to him being
+caught."
+
+The slender form of Jig rose before them, trembling.
+
+"It isn't true! It isn't true! There aren't enough of you in Sour Creek
+to take Riley Sinclair!"
+
+"Ain't it true?" asked Arizona. "All right, son, you'll meet him pronto
+in the Sour Creek jail, unless the boys finish their party of the other
+day and string you up before you get inside the jail."
+
+This brought a peculiar, low-pitched moan from Cold Feet.
+
+"Cheer up," said Sandersen. "You ain't swinging yet awhile."
+
+"But he's hurt! If he's alive, he's terribly wounded?"
+
+Arizona beat down the appealing hand with a brutal gesture.
+
+"No, he ain't particular hurt. Just his neck squashed a bit where the
+sheriff throttled him. He didn't fight enough to get hurt, curse him!"
+
+Frowning, Sandersen shook his head. "He's a fighting man, Arizona, if
+they ever was one."
+
+It seemed that everything infuriated the fat man.
+
+"What d'you know about it, Lanky?" he demanded of Sandersen. "Didn't I
+run the affair? Wasn't it me that planted the whole trap? Wasn't it me
+that knowed he'd come into town for you or Cartwright?"
+
+"Cartwright!" gasped Jig.
+
+"Sure! We nailed him in Cartwright's room, just the way I said we
+would. And they laughed at me, the fools!"
+
+He might have gathered singular inferences from the lowered head of Jig
+and the soft murmur: "I might have known--I might have known he'd try
+for me."
+
+"And I might have had the pleasure of drilling him clean," said
+Arizona, harking back to it with savage pleasure, "but I shot out the
+light. I wanted him to die slow, and before the end I wanted to pry his
+eyes open and make him see my face and know that it was me that done
+for him! That was what I wanted. But he turned yaller and wouldn't
+fight."
+
+"He wouldn't kill," said Jig coldly. "But for courage--I laugh at you,
+Arizona!"
+
+"Easy," scowled the cowpuncher. "Easy, Jig. You ain't behind the bars
+yet. You're in reach of my fist, and I'd think nothing of busting you
+in the face. Shut up till I talk to you."
+
+The misty eyes of Sandersen brightened a little and grew hard. There
+was a great deal of fighting spirit in the man, and his easy victory of
+that morning had roused him to a battling pitch.
+
+"Looks to me like you ain't running this here party, Arizona," he said
+dryly. "If there are any directions to give Cold Feet, I'll give 'em.
+It was me that took him!"
+
+No direct answer could Arizona find to this true statement, and, as
+always when a man is at a loss for words, his temper rose, and his
+fists clenched. For the first time he looked at Sandersen with an eye
+of savage calculation. He had come to hope of a tidy little fortune. He
+had found it snatched out of his hand, and, as he measured Sandersen,
+his heart rose. Twenty-five-hundred dollars would fairly well equip him
+in life. The anger faded out of his eyes, and in its place came the
+cold gleam of the man who thinks and calculates. All at once he began
+to smile, a mirthless smile that was of the lips only.
+
+"Maybe you're right, Sandersen, but I'm thinking you'd have to prove
+that you took Cold Feet.'
+
+"Prove it?"
+
+"Sure! The boys wouldn't be apt to believe that sleepy Sandersen woke
+up and took Cold Feet alive."
+
+Instantly the gorge of Sandersen rose, and he began to see red.
+
+"Are you out to find trouble, Fatty?"
+
+The adjective found no comfortable lodging place in the mind of
+Arizona.
+
+"Me? Sure I ain't. I'm just stating facts the way I know 'em."
+
+"Well, the facts you know ain't worth a damn."
+
+"No?"
+
+It was growing clearer and clearer to the fat man that between him and
+twenty-five-hundred dollars there stood only the unamiable figure of
+the long, lean cowpuncher. He steadied his eye till a fixed glitter
+came in it. He hated lean men by instinct and distrusted them.
+
+"Sure they ain't. How you going to get around the fact that I did take
+Cold Feet?"
+
+"Well, Sandersen, you see that they's twenty-five-hundred dollars
+hanging on the head of this Cold Feet?"
+
+"Certainly! And I see ten ways of spending just that amount."
+
+"So do I," said Arizona.
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Partner, you've heard me talk!"
+
+"Arizona, you're talking mighty queer. What d'ye mean?"
+
+"Now, suppose it was me that brought in Cold Feet, who'd get the
+money?"
+
+"Why, you that brought him in?"
+
+"Yep, me. And suppose I brought him in with two murders charged to him
+instead of one."
+
+"I don't foller you. What's the second murder, Fatty?"
+
+"You!"
+
+Sandersen blinked and gave back a little. Plainly he was beginning to
+fear that the reason of Arizona was unbalanced.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I'll show you how it'll be charged to Cold Feet," said the fat man.
+
+Taking the cartridge belt of Jig he shook the revolver out of the
+holster and pumped a shot into the ground. The sharp crack of the
+explosion roused no echo for a perceptible space. Then it struck back
+at them from a solid wall of rock, almost as loud as it had been in
+fact. Off among the hills the echo was repeated to a faint whisper.
+Arizona dropped the revolver carelessly on the ground.
+
+"Fatty, you've gone nutty," said Sandersen.
+
+"I'll tell you a yarn," said Arizona.
+
+Sandersen looked past him to the east. The light was growing rapidly
+about the mountains. In another moment or so that sunrise which he had
+been looking forward to with such solemn dread, would occur. He was
+safe, of course, and still that sense of impending danger would not
+leave him. He noted Jig, erect, very pale, watching them with intense
+and frightened interest.
+
+"Here's the story," went on the fat man. "I come out of Sour Creek
+hunting for Cold Feet. I came straight to this here mountain. Halfway
+up the side I hear a shot. I hurry along and soft-foot on to this
+shoulder. I see Cold Feet standing, over the dead body of Sandersen.
+Then I stick up Cold Feet and take him back to Sour Creek and get the
+reward. Won't that be two murders on his head?"
+
+The thin Swede rubbed his chin. "For a grown man, Fatty, you're doing a
+lot of supposing."
+
+"I'm going to turn it into fact," said Arizona.
+
+"How?"
+
+"With a chunk of lead! Pull your gun, you lanky fool!"
+
+It seemed to Jig, watching with terrible interest, that Sandersen
+stared not at Arizona, as he went for his gun, but beyond the stubby
+cowpuncher--far behind and into the east, where the dawn was growing
+brighter, losing its color, as sunrises do, just before the rising of
+the sun. His long arm jerked back, the revolver whipped into his hand,
+and he stiffened his forearm for the shot.
+
+All that Jig saw, with eyes sharpened, so that each movement seemed to
+be taking whole seconds, was a sneering Arizona, waiting till the last
+second. When he moved, however, it was with an almost leisurely flip of
+the wrist. The heavy Colt was conjured into his hand. With graceful
+ease the big weapon slipped out and exploded before Sandersen's
+forefinger had curled around the trigger.
+
+Out of the hand of the Swede slipped the gun and clanged unheeded on
+the ground at his feet. She saw a patch of red spring up on his breast,
+while he lurched forward with long, stiff strides, threw up his hands
+to the east, and pitched on his face. She turned from the dead thing at
+her feet.
+
+The white rim of the sun had just slid over the top of a mountain.
+
+
+
+
+28
+
+
+She dropped to her knees, and with a sudden, hysterical strength she
+was able to turn him on his back. He was dead. The first glimpse of his
+face told her that. She looked up into the eyes of the murderer.
+
+Arizona was methodically cleaning his gun. His color had not changed.
+There was a singular placidity about all his movements.
+
+"I just hurried up what was coming to him," said Arizona coolly, as he
+finished reloading his Colt. "Sinclair was after him, and that meant he
+was done for."
+
+Oddly enough, she found that she was neither very much afraid of the
+fat man, nor did she loathe him for his crime. He seemed outside of the
+jurisdiction of the laws which govern most men.
+
+"You said Sinclair is in jail."
+
+"Sure, and he is. But they don't make jails strong enough in these
+parts to hold Sinclair. He'd have come out and landed Sandersen, just
+as he's going to come out and land Cartwright. What has he got agin'
+Cartwright, d'you know?"
+
+Oh, it was incredible that he could talk so calmly with the dead man
+before him.
+
+"I don't know," she murmured and drew back.
+
+"Well, take it all in all," pursued Arizona, "this deal of mine is
+pretty rotten, but you'd swing just the same for one murder as for two.
+They won't hang you no deader, eh? And when they come to look at it,
+this is pretty neat. Sandersen wasn't no good. Everybody knowed that.
+But he had one thing I wanted--which was you and the twenty-five
+hundred that goes with the gent that brings you into Sour Creek. So, at
+the price of one bullet, I get the coin. Pretty neat, I say ag'in."
+
+Dropping the revolver back into the holster he patted it with a
+caressing hand.
+
+"There's your gun," went on Arizona, chuckling. "It's got a bullet
+fired out of it. There's Sandersen's gun with no bullet fired, showing
+that, while he was stalking you, you shot and drilled him. Here's my
+gun with no sign of a shot fired. Which proves that I just slid in here
+and stuck you up from behind, while you were looking over the gent
+you'd just killed."
+
+He rubbed his hands together, and bracing himself firmly on his stubby
+legs, looked almost benevolently on Jig.
+
+Not only did she lose her horror of him, but she gained an impersonal,
+detached interest in the workings of his mind. She looked on him not as
+a man but as a monster in the guise of a man.
+
+"Two deaths," she said quietly, "for your money. You work cheaply,
+Arizona."
+
+Jig's criticism seemed to pique him.
+
+"How come?"
+
+"Sandersen's death by your bullet, and mine when I die in the law. Both
+to your account, Arizona, because you know I'm innocent."
+
+"I know it, but a hunch ain't proof in the eyes of the law. Besides, I
+don't work so cheap. Sandersen was no good. He ain't worth thinking
+about. And as for you, Jig, though I don't like to throw it in your
+face, as a schoolteacher you may be all right, but as a man you ain't
+worth a damn. Nope. I won't give neither of you a thought--except for
+Sinclair."
+
+"Ah?"
+
+"Him and you have been bunkies, if he ever should find out what I done,
+he'd go on my trail. Maybe he will anyway. And he's a bad one to have
+on a gent's trail."
+
+"You fear him?" she asked curiously, for it had seemed impossible that
+this cold-blooded gunman feared any living thing.
+
+He rolled a cigarette meditatively before he answered.
+
+"Sure," he said, "I fear him. I ain't a fool. It was him that started
+me, and him that gave me the first main lessons. But I ain't got the
+nacheral talent with a gun that Sinclair has got."
+
+Nodding his head in confirmation, his expression softened, as with the
+admiration of one artist for a greater kindred spirit.
+
+"The proof is that they's a long list of gunfights in Sinclair's past,
+but not more deaths than you can count on the fingers of one hand. And
+them that he killed was plumb no good. The rest he winged and let 'em
+go. That's his way, and it takes an artist with a gun to work like
+that. Yep, he's a great man, curse him! Only one weak thing I ever hear
+of him doing. He buckled to the sheriff and told him where to find
+you!"
+
+Scratching a match on his trousers, the cowpuncher was amazed to hear
+Jig cry: "You lie!"
+
+He gaped at her until the match singed his fingers. "That's a tolerable
+loud word for a kid to use!"
+
+Apparently he meditated punishment, but then he shrugged his shoulders
+and lighted his cigarette.
+
+"Wild horses couldn't have dragged it out of him!" Jig was repeating.
+
+"Say," said the fat man, grinning, "how d'you know _I_ knew where you
+was?"
+
+Like a blow in the face it silenced her. She looked miserably down to
+the ground. Was it possible that Sinclair had betrayed her? Not for the
+murder of Quade. He would be more apt to confess that himself, and
+indeed she dreaded the confession. But if he let her be dragged back,
+if her identity became known, she faced what was more horrible to her
+than hanging, and that was life with Cartwright.
+
+"Which reminds me," said Arizona, "that the old sheriff may not wait
+for morning before he starts after you. Just slope down the hill and
+saddle your hoss, will you?"
+
+Automatically she obeyed, wild thoughts running through her mind. To go
+back to Sour Creek meant a return to Cartwright, and then nothing could
+save her from him. Halfway to her saddle her foot struck metal, her own
+gun, which Arizona had dropped after firing the bullet. Was there not a
+possibility of escape? She heard Arizona humming idly behind her.
+Plainly he was entirely off guard.
+
+Bending with the speed of a bird in picking up a seed, she scooped up
+the gun, whirling with the heavy weapon extended, her forefinger
+curling on the trigger. But, as she turned, the humming of Arizona
+changed to a low snarl. She saw him coming like a bolt. The gun
+exploded of its own volition, it seemed to her, but Arizona had swerved
+in his course, and the shot went wild.
+
+The next instant he struck her. The gun was wrenched from her hand, and
+a powerful arm caught her and whirled her up, only to hurl her to the
+ground; Arizona's snarling, panting face bent over her. In the very
+midst of that fury she felt Arizona stiffen and freeze; the snarling
+stopped; his nerveless arm fell away, and she was allowed to stagger to
+her feet. She found him staring at her with a peculiar horror.
+
+"Murdering guns!" whispered Arizona.
+
+Now she understood that he knew. She saw him changed, humbled, disarmed
+before her. But even then she did not understand the profound meaning
+of that moment in the life of Arizona.
+
+But to have understood, she would have had to know how that life began
+in a city slum. She would have had to see the career of the sneak thief
+which culminated in the episode of the lumber camp eight years before.
+She would have had to understand how the lesson from the hand of big
+Sinclair had begun the change which transformed the sneak into the
+dangerous man of action. And now the second change had come. For
+Arizona had made the unique discovery that he could be ashamed!
+
+He would have laughed had another told him. Virtue was a name and no
+more to the fat man. But in spite of himself those eight years under
+free skies had altered him. He had been growing when he thought he was
+standing still. When the eye plunges forty miles from mountain to
+mountain, through crystal-clear air, the mind is enlarged. He had lived
+exclusively among hard-handed men, rejoicing in a strength greater than
+their own. He suddenly found that the feeble hand from which he had so
+easily torn the weapon a moment before, had in an instant acquired
+strength to make or break him.
+
+All that Jig could discern of this was that her life was no longer in
+danger, and that her enemy had been disarmed. But she was not prepared
+for what followed.
+
+Dragging off his hat, as if he acted reluctantly, his eyes sank until
+they rested on the ground at her feet.
+
+"Lady," he said, "I didn't know. I didn't even dream what you was."
+
+
+
+
+29
+
+
+Gradually she found her breath and greater self-possession.
+
+"You mean I'm free?" she asked him. "You won't make me go into Sour
+Creek?"
+
+His face twisted as if in pain. "Make you?" he asked violently. "I'd
+blow the head off the first one that tried to make you take a step."
+
+Suddenly it seemed to her that all this was ordered and arranged, that
+some mysterious Providence had sent this man here to save her from
+Sandersen and all the horror that the future promised, just as Sinclair
+had saved her once before from a danger which he himself had half
+created.
+
+"I got this to say," went on Arizona, struggling for the words. "Looks
+to me like you might have need of a friend to help you along, wherever
+you're going." He shook his thick shoulders. "Sure gives me a jolt to
+think of what you must have gone through, wandering around here all by
+yourself! I sure don't see how you done it!"
+
+And all this time the man whom Arizona had killed, was lying face up to
+the morning, hardly a pace behind him! But she dared not try to analyze
+this man. She could only feel vaguely that an ally had been given her,
+an ally of strength. He, too, must have sensed what was in her mind.
+
+"You'll be wanting this, I reckon."
+
+Returning the Colt to her, he slowly dragged his glance from the ground
+and let it cross her face for a fleeting instant. She slipped the gun
+back into its holster.
+
+"And now suppose we go down the hill and get your hoss?"
+
+Evidently he was painfully eager to get the dead man out of sight. Yet
+he paused while he picked up her saddle.
+
+"They'll be along pretty pronto--the sheriff and his men. They'll take
+care of--him."
+
+Leading the way down to her hobbled horse he saddled it swiftly, while
+she stood aside and watched. When he was done he turned to her.
+
+"Maybe we better be starting. It wouldn't come in very handy for Kern
+to find us here, eh?"
+
+Obediently she came. With one hand he held the stirrup, while the other
+steadied her weight by the elbow, as she raised her foot. In spite of
+herself she shivered at his touch. A moment later, from the saddle, she
+was looking down into a darkly crimsoned face. Plainly he had
+understood that impulse of aversion, but he said nothing.
+
+There was a low neigh from the other side of the hill in answer to his
+soft whistle, and then out of the trees came a beautifully formed roan
+mare, with high head and pricking ears. With mincing steps she went
+straight to her master, and Jig saw the face of the other brighten. But
+he was gloomy again by the time he had swung into the saddle.
+
+"Now," he said, "where away?"
+
+"You're coming with me?" she asked, with a new touch of alarm. She
+regretted her tone the moment she had spoken. She saw Arizona wince.
+
+"Lady," he said, "suppose I come clean to you? I been in my time about
+everything that's bad. I ain't done a killing except squarely. Sinclair
+taught me that. And you got to allow that what I done to Sandersen was
+after I give him all the advantage in the draw. I took even chances,
+and I give him better than an even break. Ain't that correct?"
+
+She nodded, fascinated by the struggle in his face between pride and
+shame and anger.
+
+"Worse'n that," he went on, forcing out the bitter truth. "I been
+everything down to a sharp with the cards, which is tolerable low. But
+I got this to say: I'm playing clean with you. I'll prove it before I'm
+done. If you want me to break loose and leave you alone, say the word,
+and I'm gone. If you want me to stay and help where I can help, say the
+word, and I stay and take orders. Come out with it!"
+
+Gathering his reins, he sat very straight and looked her fairly and
+squarely in the eye, for the first time since he had discovered the
+truth about Cold Feet. In spite of herself Jig found that she was drawn
+to trust the fat man. She let a smile grow, let her glance become as
+level and as straight as his own. She reined her horse beside his and
+stretched out her hand.
+
+"I know you mean what you say," said Jig. "And I don't care what you
+have been in the past. I _do_ need a friend--desperately. Riley
+Sinclair says that a friend is the most sacred thing in the world. I
+don't ask that much, but of all the men I know you are the only one who
+can help me as I need to be helped. Will you shake hands for a new
+start between us?"
+
+"Lady," said the cowpuncher huskily, "this sure means a lot to me. And
+the--other things--you'll forget?"
+
+"I never knew you," said the girl, smiling at him again, "until this
+moment."
+
+"Oh, it's a go!" cried Arizona. "Now try me out!"
+
+Jig saw his self-respect come back to him, saw his eye grow bright and
+clear. Arizona was like a man with a new "good resolution." He wanted
+to test his strength and astonish someone with his change.
+
+"There is one great thing in which I need help," she said.
+
+"Good! And what's that?"
+
+"Riley Sinclair is in jail."
+
+"H'm," muttered Arizona. "He ain't in on a serious charge. Let him stay
+a while." Stiffening in the saddle he stared at her. "Does Sinclair
+know?"
+
+"What?" asked the girl, but she flushed in spite of herself.
+
+"That you ain't a man?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+For a moment he considered her crimson face gloomily. "You and Sinclair
+was sort of pals, I guess," he said at length.
+
+Faintly she replied in the affirmative, and her secret was written as
+clearly as sunlight on her face. Yet she kept her eyes raised bravely.
+
+As for Arizona, the newborn hope died in him, and then flickered back
+to an evil life. If Sinclair was in his way, why give up? Why not
+remove this obstacle as he had removed others in his time. The hurrying
+voice of the girl broke in on his somber thoughts.
+
+"He went to Sour Creek to help me as soon as he found out that I was
+not a man. He put himself in terrible danger there on my account."
+
+"Did Cartwright have something to do with you and him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+But Arizona made no effort to read her riddle.
+
+She went on: "Now that he has been taken, I know what has happened. To
+keep me out of danger he told--"
+
+"That you're a woman?"
+
+"No, he wouldn't do that, because he knows that is the last thing in
+the world that I want revealed. But he's told them that he killed
+Quade, and now he's in danger of his life."
+
+"Let's ride on," said Arizona. "I got to think a pile."
+
+She did not speak, while the horses wound down the steep side of the
+mountain. Mile after mile rose behind them. The sun increased in power,
+flashing on the leaves of the trees and beginning to burn the face with
+its slanting heat. Now and then she ventured a side-glance at Arizona,
+and always she found him in a brown study. Vaguely she knew that he was
+fighting the old battle of good and evil in the silence of the morning.
+Finally he stopped his horse and turned to her again.
+
+They were in the foothills by this time, and they had drawn out from
+the trees to a little level space on the top of a rise. The morning
+mist was thinning rapidly in the heart of the hollow beneath them. Far
+off, they heard the lowing of cows being driven into the pasture land
+after the morning milking, and they could make out tiny figures in the
+fields.
+
+"Lady," Arizona was saying to her, "they's one gent in the world that
+I've got an eight-year-old grudge agin'. I've swore to get him sooner
+or later, and that gent is Riley Sinclair. Make it something else, and
+I'll work for you till the skin's off my hands. But Sinclair--" He
+stopped, studying her intently. "Will you tell me one thing? How much
+does Sinclair mean to you."
+
+"A great deal," said the girl gently. "But if you hate him, I can't ask
+you."
+
+"He's a hard man," said Arizona, "and he's got a mean name, lady. You
+know that. But when you say that he means a lot to you, maybe it's
+because he's taken a big chance for you in Sour Creek and--"
+
+She shook her head. "It's more than that--much more."
+
+"Well, I guess I understand," said Arizona.
+
+Burying the last of his hopes, Arizona looked straight into the sun.
+
+"Eight years ago he was a better man than I am," said he at length.
+"And he's a better man still. Lady, I'm going to get Riley Sinclair
+free!"
+
+
+
+
+30
+
+
+As Arizona had predicted, Sheriff Kern was greatly tempted not to start
+on the hard ride for the mountains before morning, and finally he
+followed his impulse. With the first break of the dawn he was up, and a
+few minutes later he had taken the trail alone. There was no need of
+numbers, for that matter, to tell a single man that he no longer need
+dread the law. But it was only common decency to inform him of the
+charge, and Kern was a decent sort.
+
+He was thoughtful on the trail. A great many things had happened to
+upset the sheriff. The capture of Sinclair, take it all in all, was an
+important event. To be sure, the chief glory was attributable to the
+cunning of Arizona; nevertheless, the community was sure to pay homage
+to the skill of the sheriff who had led the party and managed the
+capture.
+
+But now the sheriff found himself regretting the capture and all its
+attendant glory. Not even a personal grudge against the man who had
+taken his first prisoner from him, could give an edge to the sheriff's
+satisfaction, for, during the late hours of the preceding night he had
+heard from Sinclair the true story of the killing of Quade; not a
+murder, but a fair fight. And he had heard more--the whole unhappy tale
+which began with the death of Hal Sinclair in the desert, a story which
+now included, so far as the sheriff knew, three deaths, with a promise
+of another in the future.
+
+It was little wonder that he was disturbed. His philosophy was of the
+kind that is built up in a country of horses, hard riding, hard work,
+hard fighting. According to the precepts of that philosophy, Sinclair
+would have shirked a vital moral duty had he failed to avenge the
+pitiful death of his brother.
+
+The sheriff put himself into the boots of the man who was now his
+prisoner and facing a sentence of death. In that man's place he knew
+that he would have taken the same course. It was a matter of necessary
+principle; and the sheriff also knew that no jury in the country could
+allow Sinclair to go free. It might not be the death sentence, but it
+would certainly be a prison term as bad as death.
+
+These thoughts consumed the time for the sheriff until his horse had
+labored up the height, and he came to the little plateau where so much
+had happened outside of his ken. And there he saw Bill Sandersen, with
+the all-seeing sun on his dead eyes.
+
+For a moment the sheriff could not believe what he saw. Sandersen was,
+in the phrase of the land, "Sinclair's meat." It suddenly seemed to him
+that Sinclair must have broken from jail and done this killing during
+the night. But a moment's reflection assured him that this could not
+be. The mind of the sheriff whirled. Not Sinclair, certainly. The man
+had been dead for some hours. In the sky, far above and to the north,
+there were certain black specks, moving in great circles that drifted
+gradually south. The buzzards were already coming to the dead. He
+watched them for a moment, with the sinking of the heart which always
+comes to the man of the mountain desert when he sees those grim birds.
+
+It was not Sinclair. But who, then?
+
+He examined the body and the wound. It was a center shot, nicely
+placed. Certainly not the sort of shot that Cold Feet, according to the
+description which Sinclair had given of the latter's marksmanship,
+would be apt to make. But there was no other conclusion to come to.
+Cold Feet had certainly been here according to Sinclair's confession,
+and it was certainly reasonable to suppose that Cold Feet had committed
+this crime. The sheriff placed the hat of Sinclair over his face and
+swung back into his saddle; he must hurry back to Sour Creek and send
+up a burial party, for no one would have an interest in interring the
+body in the town.
+
+But once in the saddle he paused again. The thought of the
+schoolteacher having killed so formidable a fighter as Sandersen stuck
+in his mind as a thing too contrary to probability. Moreover the
+sheriff had grown extremely cautious. He had made one great failure
+very recently--the escape of this same Cold Feet. He would have failed
+again had it not been for Arizona. He shuddered at the thought of how
+his reputation would have been ruined had he gone on the trail and
+allowed Sinclair to double back to Sour Creek and take the town by
+surprise.
+
+Dismounting, he threw his reins and went back to review the scene of
+the killing. There were plenty of tracks around the place. The gravel
+obscured a great part of the marks, and still other prints were blurred
+by the dead grass. But there were pockets of rich, loamy soil, moist
+enough and firm enough to take an impression as clearly as paper takes
+ink. The sheriff removed the right shoe from the foot of Sandersen and
+made a series of fresh prints.
+
+They were quite distinctive. The heel was turned out to such an extent
+that the track was always a narrow indentation, where the heel fell on
+the soft soil. He identified the same tracks in many places, and,
+dismissing the other tracks, the sheriff proceeded to make up a trail
+history for Sandersen.
+
+Here he came up the hill, on foot. Here he paused beside the embers of
+the fire and remained standing for a long time, for the marks were
+worked in deeply. After a time the trail went--he followed it with
+difficulty over the hard-packed gravel--up the side of the hill to a
+semicircular arrangement of rocks, and there, distinct in the soil, was
+the impression of the body, where the cowpuncher had lain down. The
+sheriff lay down in turn, and at once he was sure why Sandersen had
+chosen this spot. He was defended perfectly on three sides from
+bullets, and in the meantime, through crevices in the rock, he
+maintained a clear outlook over the whole side of the hill.
+
+Obviously Sandersen had lain down to keep watch. For what? For Cold
+Feet, of course, on whose head a price rested. Or, at least, so
+Sinclair must have believed at the time. The news had not yet been
+published abroad that Cold Feet had been exculpated by the confession
+of Sinclair to the killing of Quade.
+
+So much was clear. But presently Sandersen had risen and gone down the
+hill again, leaving from the other side of the rock. Had he covered
+Cold Feet when the latter returned to his camp, having been absent when
+Sandersen first arrived? No, the tracks down the hill were leisurely,
+not the long strides which a man would make to get close to one whom he
+had covered with a revolver from a distance.
+
+Reaching the shoulder of the mountain, Kern puzzled anew. He began a
+fresh study of the tracks. Those of Cold Feet were instantly known by
+the tiny size of the marks of the soles. The sheriff remembered that he
+had often wondered at the smallness of the schoolteacher's feet. Cold
+Feet was there, and Sandersen was dead. Again it seemed certain that
+Cold Feet had been guilty of the crime, but the sheriff kept on
+systematically hunting for new evidence. He found no third set of
+tracks for some time, but when he did find them, they were very
+clear--a short, broad foot, the imprint of a heavy man. A fat man,
+then, no doubt. From the length of the footprint it was very doubtful
+if the man were tall, and certainly by the clearness of the
+indentation, the man was heavy. The sheriff could tell by making a
+track beside that of the quarry.
+
+A second possibility, therefore, had entered, and the sheriff felt a
+reasonable conviction that this must be the guilty man.
+
+Now he combed the whole area for some means of identifying the third
+man who had been on the mountainside. But nothing had been dropped
+except a brilliant bandanna, wadded compactly together, which the
+sheriff recognized as belonging to Sandersen. There was only one
+definite means of recognizing the third man. Very faint in the center
+of the impression made by his sole, were two crossed arrows, the sign
+of the bootmaker.
+
+The sheriff shook his head. Could he examine the soles of the boots of
+every man in the vicinity of Sour Creek, even if he limited his inquiry
+to those who were short and stocky? And might there not be many a man
+who wore the same type of boots?
+
+He flung himself gloomily into his saddle again, and this time he
+headed straight down the trail for Sour Creek.
+
+At the hotel he was surrounded by an excited knot of people who wished
+to know how he had extracted the amazing confession from Riley
+Sinclair. The sheriff tore himself away from a dozen hands who wished
+to buttonhole him in close conversation.
+
+"I'll tell you gents this," he said. "Quade was killed because he
+needed killing, and Sinclair confessed because he's straight."
+
+With that, casting an ugly glance at the lot of them, he went back into
+the kitchen and demanded a cup of coffee. The Chinese cook obeyed the
+order in a hurry, highly flattered and not a little nervous at the
+presence of the great man in the kitchen.
+
+While Kern was there, Arizona entered. The sheriff greeted him
+cheerfully, with his coffee cup balanced in one hand.
+
+"Arizona," he said, "or Dago, or whatever you like to be called--"
+
+"Cut the Dago part, will you?" demanded Arizona. "I ain't no ways
+wishing to be reminded of that name. Nobody calls me that."
+
+Kern grinned covertly.
+
+"I s'pose," said Arizona slowly, "that you and Sinclair had a long yarn
+about when he knew me some time back?"
+
+The sheriff shook his head.
+
+"Between you and me," he said frankly, "it sounded to me like Sinclair
+knew something you mightn't want to have noised around. Is that
+straight?"
+
+"I'll tell you," answered the other. "When I was a kid I was a fool
+kid. That's all it amounts to."
+
+Sheriff Kern grunted. "All right, Arizona, I ain't asking. But you can
+lay to it that Sinclair won't talk. He's as straight as ever I seen!"
+
+"Maybe," said Arizona, "but he's slippery. And I got this to say: Lemme
+have the watch over Sinclair while he's in Sour Creek, or are you
+taking him back to Woodville today?"
+
+"I'm held over," said the sheriff.
+
+He paused. Twice the little olive-skinned man from the south had
+demonstrated his superiority in working out criminal puzzles. The
+sheriff was prone to unravel the new mystery by himself, if he might.
+
+"By what?"
+
+"Oh, by something I'll tell you about later on," said the sheriff. "It
+don't amount to much, but I want to look into it."
+
+Purposely he had delayed sending the party to bury Sandersen. It would
+be simply warning the murderer if that man were in Sour Creek.
+
+"About you and Sinclair," went on the sheriff, "there ain't much good
+feeling between you, eh?"
+
+"I won't shoot him in the back if I guard him," declared Arizona. "But
+if you want one of the other boys to take the jog, go ahead. Put Red on
+it."
+
+"He's too young. Sinclair's get him off guard by talking."
+
+"Then try Wood."
+
+"Wood ain't at his best off the trail. Come to think about it, I'd
+rather trust Sinclair to you--that is, if you make up your mind to
+treat him square."
+
+"Sheriff, I'll give him a squarer deal than you think."
+
+Kern nodded.
+
+"More coffee, Li!" he called.
+
+Li obeyed with such haste that he overbrimmed the cup, and some of the
+liquid washed out of the saucer onto the floor.
+
+"Coming back to shop talk," went on the sheriff, as Li mopped up the
+spilled coffee, mumbling excuses, "I ain't had a real chance to tell
+you what a fine job you done for us last night, Arizona."
+
+Arizona, with due modesty, waved the praise away and stepped to the
+container of matches hanging beside the stove. He came back lighting a
+cigarette and contentedly puffed out a great cloud.
+
+"Forget all that, sheriff, will you?"
+
+"Not if I live to be a hundred," answered the sheriff with frank
+admiration.
+
+So saying, his eye dropped to the floor and remained there, riveted.
+The foot of Arizona had rested on the spot where the coffee had fallen.
+The print was clearly marked with dust, except that in the center,
+where the sole had lain, there was a sharply defined pair of crossed
+arrows!
+
+A short, fat, heavy man.
+
+The sheriff raised his glance and examined the bulky shoulders of the
+man. Then he hastily swallowed the rest of his coffee.
+
+Yet there might be a dozen other short, stocky men in town, whose boots
+had the same impression. He looked thoughtfully out the kitchen window,
+striving to remember some clue. But, as far as he could make out, the
+only time Arizona and Sandersen had crossed had been when the latter
+applied for a place on the posse. Surely a small thing to make a man
+commit a murder!
+
+"If you gimme the job of guarding Sinclair," said Arizona, "I'd sure--"
+
+"Wait a minute," cut in the sheriff. "I'll be back right away. I think
+that was MacKenzie who went into the stable. Don't leave till I come
+back, Arizona."
+
+Hurriedly he went out. There was no MacKenzie in the stable, and the
+sheriff did not look for one. He went straight to Arizona's horse. The
+roan was perfectly dry, but examining the hide, the sheriff saw that
+the horse had been recently groomed, and a thorough grooming would soon
+dry the hair and remove all traces of a long ride.
+
+Stepping back to the peg from which the saddle hung, he raised the
+stirrup leather. On the inside, where the leather had chafed the side
+of the horse, there was a dirty gray coating, the accumulation of the
+dust and sweat of many a ride. But it was soft with recent sweat, and
+along the edges of the leather there was a barely dried line of foam
+that rubbed away readily under the touch of his fingertip.
+
+Next he examined the bridle. There, also, were similar evidences of
+recent riding. The sheriff returned calmly to the kitchen of the hotel.
+
+"And your mind's made up?" asked Arizona.
+
+"Yes," said the sheriff. "You go in with Sinclair."
+
+"Go _in_ with him?" asked Arizona, baffled.
+
+"For murder," said the sheriff. "Stick up your hands, Arizona!"
+
+
+
+
+31
+
+
+Even though he was taken utterly by surprise, habit made Arizona go for
+his own gun, as the sheriff whipped out his weapon. But under those
+conditions he was beaten badly to the draw. Before his weapon was half
+out of the holster, the sheriff had the drop.
+
+Arizona paused, but, for a moment, his eyes fought Kern, figuring
+chances. It was only the hesitation of an instant. The battle was lost
+before it had begun, and Arizona was clever enough to know it. Swiftly
+he turned on a new tack. He shoved his revolver back into the holster
+and smiled benevolently on the sheriff.
+
+"What's the new game, Kern?"
+
+"It ain't new," said the sheriff joylessly. "It's about the oldest game
+in the world. Arizona, you sure killed Sandersen."
+
+"Sandersen?" Arizona laughed. "Why, man, I ain't hardly seen him more
+than once. How come that I would kill him?"
+
+"Get your hands up, Arizona."
+
+"Oh, sure." He obeyed with apparent willingness. "But don't let anybody
+see you making this fool play, sheriff."
+
+"Maybe not so foolish. I'll tell you why you killed him. You're broke,
+Arizona. Ten days ago Mississippi Slim cleaned you out at dice. Well,
+when Sinclair told me where Cold Feet was, you listened through the
+door, but you didn't stay to find out that Jig wasn't wanted no more.
+You beat it up to the mountain, and there you found Sandersen was ahead
+of your time. You drilled Sandersen, hoping to throw the blame on Cold
+Feet. Then you come down, but on the way Cold Feet gives you the slip
+and gets away. And that's why you're here."
+
+Arizona blinked. So much of this tale was true that it shook even his
+iron nerve. He managed to smile.
+
+"That's a wild yarn, sheriff. D'you think it'll go down with a jury?"
+
+"It'll go down with any jury around these parts. What's more, Arizona,
+I ain't going to rest on what I think. I'm going to find out. And, if I
+send down to the south inquiring about you, I got an idea that I'll
+find out enough to hang ten like you, eh?"
+
+Once more Arizona received a vital blow, and he winced under the
+impact. Moreover, he was bewildered. His own superior intelligence had
+inclined him to despise the sheriff, whom he put down as a fellow of
+more bulldog power than mental agility. All in a moment it was being
+borne in upon him that he had underrated his man. He could not answer.
+His smooth tongue was chained.
+
+"Not that I got any personal grudge agin' you," went on the sheriff,
+"but it's gents like you that I'm after, Arizona, and not one like
+Sinclair. You ain't clean, Arizona. You're slick, and they ain't
+elbowroom enough in the West for slick gents. Besides, you got a bad
+way with your gun. I can tell you this, speaking private and
+confidential, I'm going to hang you, Arizona, if there's any way
+possible!"
+
+He said all this quietly, but the revolver remained poised with
+rocklike firmness. He drew out a pair of manacles.
+
+"Stand up, Arizona."
+
+Listlessly the fat man got up. He had been changing singularly during
+the last speech of the sheriff. Now he dropped a hand on the edge of
+the table, as if to support himself. The sheriff saw that hand grip the
+wood until the knuckles went white. Arizona moistened his colorless
+lips.
+
+"Not the irons, sheriff," he said softly. "Not them!"
+
+If it had been any other man, Kern would have imagined that he was
+losing his nerve; but he knew Arizona, had seen him in action, and he
+was certain that his courage was above question. Consequently he was
+amazed. As certainly as he had ever seen them exposed, these were the
+horrible symptoms of cowardice that make a brave man shudder to see.
+
+"Can't trust you," he said wonderingly. "Wouldn't trust you a minute,
+Arizona, without the irons on you. You're a bad actor, son, and I've
+seen you acting up. Don't forget that."
+
+"Sheriff, I give you my word that I'll go quiet as a lamb."
+
+A moment elapsed before Kern could answer, for the voice of Arizona had
+trembled as he spoke. The sheriff could not believe his ears.
+
+"Well, I'm sorry, Arizona," he said more gently, because he was
+striving to banish this disgusting suspicion from his own mind. "I
+can't take no chances. Just turn around, will you. And keep them hands
+up!"
+
+He barked the last words, for the arms of Arizona had crooked suddenly.
+They stiffened at the sharp command of the sheriff. Slowly, trembling,
+as if they possessed a volition of their own hardly controlled by the
+fat man, those hands fought their way back to their former position,
+and then Arizona gradually turned his back on the sheriff. A convulsive
+shudder ran through him as Kern removed his gun and then seized one of
+the raised hands, drew it down, and fastened one part of the iron on
+it. The other hand followed, and, as the sheriff snapped the lock, he
+saw a singular transformation in the figure of his captive. The
+shoulders of Arizona slouched forward, his head sank. From the erect,
+powerful figure of the moment before, he became, in comparison, a
+flabby pile of flesh, animated by no will.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked the sheriff. "You ain't lost your nerve,
+have you, Fatty?"
+
+Arizona did not answer. Kern stepped to one side and glanced at the
+face of his captive. It was strangely altered. The mouth had become
+trembling, loose, uncertain. The head had fallen, and the bright, keen
+eyes were dull. The man looked up with darting side-glances.
+
+The sheriff stood back and wiped a sudden perspiration from his
+forehead. Under his very eyes the spirit of this gunfighter was
+disintegrating. The sheriff felt a cold shame pour through him. He
+wanted to hide this man from the eyes of the others. It was not right
+that he should be seen. His weakness was written too patently.
+
+Kern was no psychologist, but he knew that some men out of their
+peculiar element are like fish out of water. He shook his head.
+
+"Walk out that back door, will you?" he asked softly.
+
+"We ain't going down the street?" demanded Arizona.
+
+"No."
+
+"Thanks, sheriff."
+
+Again Kern shuddered, swallowed, and then commanded: "Start along,
+Arizona."
+
+Slinking through the door, the fat man hesitated on the little porch
+and cast a quick glance up and down.
+
+"No one near!" he said. "Hurry up, sheriff."
+
+Quickly they skirted down behind the houses--not unseen, however. A
+small boy playing behind his father's house raised his head to watch
+the hurrying pair, and when he saw the glitter of the irons, they heard
+him gasp. He was old enough to know the meaning of that. Irons on
+Arizona, who had been a town hero the night before! They saw the
+youngster dart around the house.
+
+"Blast him!" groaned Arizona. "He'll spread it everywhere. Hurry!"
+
+He was right. The sheriff hurried with a will, but, as they crossed the
+street for the door of the jail, voices blew down to them. Looking
+toward the hotel, they saw men pouring out into the street, pointing,
+shouting to one another. Then they swept down on the pair.
+
+But the sheriff and his prisoner gained the door of the jail first, and
+Kern locked it behind him. His deputy on guard rose with a start, and
+at the same time there was a hurried knocking on the door and a clamor
+of voices without. Arizona shrank away from that sound, scowling over
+his shoulder, but the sheriff nodded good-humoredly.
+
+"Take it easy, Arizona. I ain't going to make a show of you!"
+
+"Sure, that's like you, sheriff," said a hurried, half-whining voice.
+"You're square. I'll sure show you one of these days now I appreciate
+the way you treat me!"
+
+Kern was staggered. It seemed to him that a new personality had taken
+possession of the body of the fat man. He led the way past his gaping
+deputy. The jail was not constructed for a crowd. It was merely a
+temporary abiding place before prisoners were taken to the larger
+institution at Woodville. Consequently there was only one big cell. The
+sheriff unlocked the door, slipped the manacles from the wrists of
+Arizona, and jabbed the muzzle of a revolver into his back!
+
+The last act was decidedly necessary, for the moment his wrists were
+released from the grip of the steel, Arizona twitched halfway round
+toward the sheriff. The scrape of the gunmuzzle against his ribs,
+however, convinced him. Over his shoulder he cast one murderous glance
+at the sheriff and then slouched forward into the cell.
+
+"Company for you, Riley," said the sheriff, as the tall cowpuncher
+rose.
+
+The other's back was turned, and thereby the sheriff was enabled to
+pass a significant gesture and look to Sinclair. With that he left
+them. In the outer room he found his deputy much alarmed.
+
+"You ain't turned them two in together?" he asked. "Why, Sinclair'll
+kill that gent in about a minute. Ain't it Arizona that nailed him?"
+
+"Sinclair will play square," Kern insisted, "and Arizona won't fight!"
+
+Leaving the other to digest these mysterious tidings, the sheriff went
+out to disperse the crowd.
+
+In the meantime Sinclair had received the newcomer in perfect silence,
+his head raised high, his thin mouth set in an Ugly line--very much as
+an eagle might receive an owl which floundered by mistake onto the same
+crag, far above his element. The eagle hesitated between scorn of the
+visitor and a faint desire to pounce on him and rend him to pieces.
+That glittering eye, however, was soon dull with wonder, when he
+watched the actions of Arizona.
+
+The fat man paused in the center of the cell, regarded Sinclair with a
+single flash of the eyes, and then glanced uneasily from side to side.
+That done, he slipped away to a corner and slouched down on a stool,
+his head bent down on his breast.
+
+Apparently he had fallen into a profound reverie, but Sinclair found
+that the eyes of Arizona continually whipped up and across to him. Once
+the newcomer shifted his position a little, and Sinclair saw him test
+the weight of the stool beneath him with his hand. Even in the cell
+Arizona had found a weapon.
+
+Gradually Sinclair understood the meaning of that glance and the
+gesture of the sheriff, as the latter left; he read other things in the
+gray pallor of Arizona, and in the fallen head. The man was unnerved.
+Sinclair's reaction was very much what that of the sheriff had been--a
+sinking of the heart and a momentary doubt of himself. But he was
+something more of a philosopher than Kern. He had seen more of life and
+men and put two and two together.
+
+One thing stared him plainly in the face. The Arizona who skulked in
+the corner had relapsed eight years. He was the same sneak thief whom
+Sinclair had first met in the lumber camp, and he knew instinctively
+that this was the first time since that unpleasant episode that Arizona
+had been cornered. The loathing left Sinclair, and in its place came
+pity. He had no fondness of Arizona, but he had seen him in the role of
+a strong man, which made the contrast more awful. It reminded Sinclair
+of the wild horse which loses its spirit when it is broken. Such was
+Arizona. Free to come and go, he had been a danger. Shut up helplessly
+in a cell, he was as feeble as a child, and his only strength was a
+sort of cunning malice. Sinclair turned quietly to the fat man.
+
+"Arizona," he said, "you look sort of underfed today. Bring your stool
+a bit nearer and let's talk. I been hungry for a chat with someone."
+
+In reply Arizona rolled back his head and for a moment glared
+thoughtfully at Sinclair. He made no answer. Presently his glance fell,
+like that of a dog. Sinclair shivered. He tried brutality.
+
+"Looks to me, Arizona, as though you'd lost your nerve."
+
+The other moistened his lips, but said nothing.
+
+"But the point is," said the tall cowpuncher, "that you've given up
+before you're beaten."
+
+Riley Sinclair's words brought a flash from Arizona, a sudden lifting
+of the head, as if he had not before thought of hoping. Then he began
+to slump back into his former position, without a reply. Sinclair
+followed his opening advantage at once.
+
+"What you in for?"
+
+"Murder!"
+
+"Great guns! Of whom?"
+
+"Sandersen."
+
+It brought Sinclair stiffly to his feet. Sandersen! His trail was
+ended; Hal was avenged at last!
+
+"And you done it? Fatty, you took that job out of my hands. I'm
+thanking you. Besides, it ain't nothing to be downhearted about.
+Sandersen was a skunk. Can they prove it on you?"
+
+The need to talk overwhelmed Arizona. It burst out of him, not to
+Sinclair, but rather at him. His shifting eyes made sure that no one
+was near.
+
+"Kern is going to send south for the dope. I'm done for. They can hang
+me three times on what they'll learn, and--"
+
+"Shut up," snapped Sinclair. "Don't talk foolish. The south is a
+tolerable big place to send to. They don't know where you come from.
+Take 'em a month to find out, and by that time, you won't be at hand."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Because you and me are going to bust out of this paper jail they got!"
+
+He had not the slightest hope of escape. But he tried the experiment of
+that suggestion merely to see what the fat man's reaction would be. The
+result was more than he could have dreamed. Arizona whirled on him with
+eyes ablaze.
+
+"What d'you mean, Sinclair?"
+
+"Just what I say. D'you think they can keep two like us in here? No,
+not if you come to your old self."
+
+The need to confide again fell on Arizona. He dragged his stool nearer.
+His voice was a whisper.
+
+"Sinclair, something's busted in me. When them irons grabbed my arms
+they took everything out of me. I got no chance. They got me cornered."
+
+"And you'll fight like a wildcat to the end of things. Sure you will!
+Buck up, man! You think you've turned yaller. You ain't. You're just
+out of place. Take a gent that's used to a forty-foot rope and a pony,
+give him sixty feet on a sixteen-hand hoss, and ain't he out of place?
+Sure! He looks like a clumsy fool. And the other way around it works
+the same way. A trout may be a flash of light in water, but on dry land
+he ain't worth a damn. Same way with you, Fatty. While you got a free
+foot you're all right, but when they put you behind a wall and say
+they're going to keep you there, you darned near bust down. Why?
+Because it looks to you like you ain't got a chance to fight back. So
+you quit altogether. But you'll come back to yourself, Arizona. You--"
+
+Arizona raised his hand. He was sitting erect now, drinking in the
+words of Sinclair, as if they were air to a stifling man. His face
+worked.
+
+"Why are you doing this for me, Sinclair--after I landed you here?"
+
+"Because I made a man out of you once," answered the tall man evenly,
+"and I ain't going to see you backslide. Why, Arizona, you're one of
+the fastest-thinkin', quickest-handed gents that ever buckled on a gun,
+and here you are lying down like a kid that ain't never faced trouble
+before. Come alive, man. You and me are going to bust this ol' jail to
+smithereens, and when we get outside I'll blow your head off if I can!"
+
+Riley's words had carried Arizona with him. Suddenly an olive-skinned
+hand shot out and clutched his own bony, strong fingers. The hand was
+fat and cold, but it gripped that of Riley Sinclair with a desperate
+energy.
+
+"Sinclair, you mean it? You'll play in with me?"
+
+"I will--sure!"
+
+He had to drag the words out, but after he had spoken he was glad. New
+life shone in the face of Arizona.
+
+"A man with you for a partner ain't done, Sinclair--not if he had a
+rope around his neck. Listen! D'you know why I come in town?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"To get you out."
+
+"I believe you, Arizona," lied Sinclair.
+
+"Not for your sake--but hers."
+
+Sinclair's face suddenly went white.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The girl!" whispered Arizona. "I cached her away outside of town to
+wait for--us! Sinclair, she loves you."
+
+Riley Sinclair sat as one stunned and dragged the hat from his head.
+
+
+
+
+32
+
+
+Through the branches of the copse in which she was hidden, the girl saw
+the sun descend in the west, a streak of slowly dropping fire. And now
+she became excited.
+
+"As soon as it's dark," Arizona had promised, "I'll make my start. Have
+your hoss ready. Be in the saddle, and the minute you see us come down
+that trail out of Sour Creek, be ready to feed your hoss the spur and
+join us, because when we come, we'll come fast. Don't make no mistake.
+If you ride too slow we'll have to ride slow, too, and slow ridin'
+means gunplay on both sides, and gunplay means dead men, because the
+evenin' is a pile worse nor the dark for fooling a man's aim. You'll
+see me and Sinclair scoot along that there road, with the gang yellin'
+behind us!"
+
+Having made this farewell speech, he waved his hand and, with a smile
+of confidence, jogged away from her. It was the beginning of a dull day
+of waiting for her, yet a day in which she dared not altogether relax
+her vigilance, because at any time the break might come, and Arizona
+might appear flying down the trail with the familiar tall form of
+Sinclair beside him. Wearily she waited until sundown.
+
+With the coming of dusk she wakened suddenly and became tinglingly
+alert. The night spread rapidly down out of the mountains. The color
+faded, and the sudden chill of the high altitude settled about her. Her
+hands and her feet were cold with the fear of excitement.
+
+Into the gathering gloom she strained her eyes; toward Sour Creek she
+strained her ears, starting at every faint sound of a man's shout or
+the barking of a dog, as if this might be the beginning of the uproar
+that would announce the escape.
+
+Something swung on to the road out of the end of the main street. She
+was instantly in the saddle, but, by the time she reached the edge of
+the copse, she found it to be only a wagon filled with singing men
+going back to some nearby ranch. Then quiet dropped over the valley,
+and she became aware that it was the utter dark.
+
+Arizona had failed! That knowledge grew more surely upon her with every
+moment. His intention must have been guessed, for she could not imagine
+that slippery and cold-minded fellow being thwarted, if he were left
+free to work as he pleased toward an object he desired. She could not
+stay in the grove all night. Besides, this was the critical time for
+Riley Sinclair. Tomorrow he would be taken to the security of the
+Woodville jail, and the end would be close. If anything were done for
+him, it must be before morning.
+
+With this thought in mind she rode boldly out of the trees and took the
+road into town, where the lights of the early evening had turned from
+white to yellow, as the night deepened. Sour Creek was hardly a mile
+away when a rattling in the dark announced the approach of a buckboard.
+She drew rein at the side of the trail. Suddenly the wagon loomed out
+at her, with two down-headed horses jogging along and the loose reins
+swinging above their backs.
+
+"Halloo!" called Jig.
+
+The brakes ground against the wheels, squeaking in protest. The horses
+came to a halt so willing and sudden that the collars shoved halfway up
+their necks, and the tongue of the wagon lurched beyond their noses.
+
+"Whoa! Evening, there! You gimme a kind of a start, stranger."
+
+Parodying the dialect as well as she was able, Jig said: "Sorry,
+stranger. Might that be Sour Creek?"
+
+"It sure might be," said the driver, leaning through the dark to make
+out Jig. "New in these parts?"
+
+"Yep, I'm over from Whiteacre way, and I'm aiming for Woodville."
+
+"Whiteacre? Doggone me if it ain't good to meet a Whiteacre boy. I was
+raised there, son! Joe Lunids is my name."
+
+"I'm Texas Lou," said the girl.
+
+There was a subdued chuckle from the darkness.
+
+"You sound kind of young for a name like that, kid. Leastwise, your
+voice is tolerable young."
+
+"I'm old enough," said Jig aggressively.
+
+"Sure, sure," placated the other. "Sure you are."
+
+"Besides," she went on, "I wanted a name that I could grow up to."
+
+It brought a hearty burst of laughter from the wagon.
+
+"That's a good one, Texas. Have a drink?"
+
+She set her teeth over the refusal that had come to her lips and,
+reining near, reached out for the flask. The driver passed over the
+bottle and at the same time lighted a match for the apparent purpose of
+starting his cigarette. But Jig nodded her head in time to obscure her
+face with the flopping brim of her sombrero. The other coughed his
+disappointment. She raised the bottle after uncorking it, firmly
+securing the neck with her thumb. After a moment she lowered it and
+sighed with satisfaction, as she had heard men do.
+
+"Thanks," said Jig, handing back the flask. "Hot stuff, partner."
+
+"You got a tough throat," observed the rancher. "First I ever see that
+didn't choke on a swig of that. But you youngsters has the advantage of
+a sound lining for your innards."
+
+He helped himself from the flask, coughed heavily, and then pounded
+home the cork.
+
+"How's things up Whiteacre way?"
+
+"Fair to middlin'," said Jig. "They ain't hollering for rain so much as
+they was."
+
+"I reckon not," agreed the rancher.
+
+"And how's things down Sour Creek way?" asked Jig.
+
+"Trouble busting every minute," said the other. "Murder, gun scrapes,
+brawls in the hotel--to beat anything I ever see. The town is sure
+going plumb to the dogs at this rate!"
+
+"You don't say! Well, I heard something about a gent named Quade being
+plugged."
+
+"Him? He was just the beginning--just the start! Since then we had a
+man took away from old Kern, which don't happen once in a coon's age.
+Then we had a fine fresh murder right this morning, and the present
+minute they's two in jail on murder charges, and both are sure to
+swing!"
+
+Jig gasped. "Two!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yep. They was a skinny schoolteacher named--I forget what. Most
+general he was called Cold Feet, which fitted. They thought he killed
+Quade account of a girl. But a gent named Sinclair up and confessed,
+and he is waiting for the rope. And then a sheriff all by himself
+grabbed Arizona for the murder of Sandersen. Oh, times is picking up
+considerable in Sour Creek. Reminds me of twenty years back before Kern
+come on the job and cleaned up the gunfighters!"
+
+"Two murders!" repeated the girl faintly. "And has Arizona confessed,
+too?"
+
+"Not him! But the sheriff has enough to give him a hard run. I got to
+be drifting on, son. Take my advice and head straight for Woodville.
+You lack five years of being old enough for Sour Creek these days!" He
+called his farewell, threw off the brake and cursed the span of horses
+into their former trot.
+
+As for Jig, she waited until the scent of alkali dust died away, and
+the rattle of the buckboard was faint in the distance. Then she turned
+her horse back toward Sour Creek and urged it to a steady gallop,
+bouncing in the saddle.
+
+There seemed a fatality about her. On her account Sinclair had thrown
+his life in peril, and now Arizona was caught and held in the same
+danger. Enough of sacrifices for her; her mind was firm to repay some
+of these services at any cost, and she had thought of a way.
+
+With that gloomy purpose before her, her ordinary timidity disappeared.
+It was strange to ride into Sour Creek, and she passed in review among
+the rough men of the town, constantly fearful that they might pierce
+her disguise. She had trained herself to a long stride and a swaggering
+demeanor, and by constant practice she had been able to lower the pitch
+of her voice and roughen its quality. Yet, in spite of the constant
+practice, she never had been able to gain absolute self-confidence.
+Tonight, however, there was no fear in her.
+
+She went straight to the hotel, threw the reins, and walked boldly
+through the door into a cluster of men. They yelled at the sight of
+her.
+
+"Jig, by guns! He's come in! Say, kid, the sheriff's been looking for
+you."
+
+They swerved around her, grinning good-naturedly. When a person has
+been almost lynched for a crime another has committed, he gains a
+certain standing, no matter what may be the public opinion of his
+courage. The schoolteacher had become a personage. But Jig met their
+smiles with a level eye.
+
+"If the sheriff's looking for me," she said, "tell him I have a room in
+the hotel. He can find me here."
+
+Pop shook hands before he shoved the register toward her. "My kids will
+sure be glad to see you safe back," he said. "And I'm glad, too, Jig."
+
+Nodding, she turned to sign her name in the bold, free hand which she
+had cultivated. She could feel the crowd staring behind her, and she
+could hear their murmurs. But she was not nervous. It seemed that all
+apprehension had left her.
+
+"Where's Cartwright?" she asked.
+
+"Sitting in a game of poker."
+
+"Hello, Buddy!" she called to a redheaded youngster. "Go in and tell
+Cartwright that I'm waiting for him in my room, will you?"
+
+"Ain't no use," said Pop, staring at this new and more masculine Jig.
+"Cartwright is all heated up about the game. And he's lost enough to
+get anybody excited. He won't come. Better go in there if you want to
+see him."
+
+"I'll try my luck this way," said Jig coldly. "Run along, Buddy."
+
+Buddy obeyed, and Jig went up the stairs to her room.
+
+"What come over him?" asked the crowd, the moment Cold Feet was out of
+sight. "Looks like he's growed up in a day!"
+
+"He's gone through enough to make a man of him," answered Pop. "Never
+can tell how a kid will turn out."
+
+But in her room Jig had sunk into a chair, dropped her elbows on the
+table, and buried her face in her hands, trying to steady her thoughts.
+She heard the heavy pounding of feet on the stairs, a strong tread in
+the hall that made the flooring of the old building quiver, and then
+the door was flung open, slammed shut, and the key turned in the lock.
+Cartwright set his shoulders against the door, as though he feared she
+would try to rush past him. He stared at her, with a queer admixture of
+fear, rage, and astonishment.
+
+"So I've got you at last, eh? I've got you, after all this?"
+
+Curiously she stared at him. She had dreaded the interview, but now
+that he was before her she was surprised to find that she felt no fear.
+She examined him as if from a distance.
+
+"Yes," she admitted, "you have me. Will you sit down?"
+
+"I need room to talk," he said, swaggering to the table. He struck his
+fist on it. "Now, to start with, what in thunder did you mean by
+running away?"
+
+"We're leaving the past to bury the past," she said. "That's the first
+concession you have to make."
+
+He laughed, his laughter ending with a choked sound. "And why should
+_I_ make concessions?"
+
+Jig watched the veins of fury swell in his forehead, watched calmly,
+and then threw her sombrero on the bed and smoothed back her hair,
+still watching without a change of expression. It seemed as if her calm
+acted to sober him, and the passing of her hand across the bright,
+silken hair all at once softened him. He sank into the opposite chair,
+leaning far across the table toward her.
+
+"Honey, take you all in all, you're prettier right here in this man's
+outfit that I ever see you--a pile prettier!"
+
+For a moment she closed her eyes. The sacrifice which she intended was
+becoming harder, desperately hard to make.
+
+"I'm going to take you back and forgive you," said Cartwright,
+apparently blind to what was going on in her mind. "I ain't one to
+carry malice. You keep to the line from now on, and we'll get along
+fine. But you step crooked just once more, and I'll learn you a pile of
+things you never even dreamed could happen!"
+
+To her it seemed that he stood in a shaft of consuming light that
+exposed every shadowy nook and cranny of his nature, and the
+narrow-minded meanness that she saw, startled her.
+
+"What you do afterward with me is your own affair," she said. "It's
+about the present that I've come to bargain."
+
+"Bargain?"
+
+"Exactly! Do what I ask, and I go back and act as your wife. If you
+refuse, I walk out of your life forever."
+
+He could not speak for a moment. Then he exploded.
+
+"It's funny. I could almost laugh hearing you chatter crazy like this.
+Don't you think I got a right to make my own wife come home with me,
+now that I've found her? Wouldn't the law stand behind me?"
+
+"You can force me to come," she admitted quietly, "but if you do, I'll
+let the whole truth be known that I ran away from you. Can your pride
+stand that, Jude?"
+
+He writhed. "And how'll you get around that, even if I don't make you,
+and you come back of your own free will?"
+
+"Somehow I'll manage. I'll find a story of how I was carried away by
+half a dozen men who had come to loot the upper rooms of the house,
+while the wedding party was downstairs. I'll find a story that will
+wash."
+
+"Yes, I think you will," said Cartwright, breathing heavily. "I sure
+think you will. You was always a clever little devil, I know! But a
+bargain! I'd ought to--" He checked himself. "But I'm through with the
+black talk. When I get you back on the ranch I'll show you that you can
+be happy up there. And when you get over your fool notions, you'll be a
+wife to be proud of. Now, honey, tell me what you want?"
+
+"I want you to save the lives of two men. They're both in jail--on my
+account. And they're both charged with murder. You know whom I mean."
+
+Cartwright rose out of his chair.
+
+"Sinclair!" he groaned. "Curse him! Sinclair, ag'in, eh? What's they
+between you two?"
+
+Her answer smothered his fury again. It was pain that was giving her
+strength.
+
+"Jude, if you really want me to go back with you, don't ask that
+question. He has treated me as an honorable man always treats a
+woman--he tried to serve me."
+
+"Serve you? By coming here trying to kill me?"
+
+"He may have thought I wished to be free. He didn't tell me what he was
+going to do."
+
+"That's a lie." He stopped, watching her white face. "I don't mean
+that, you know. But you ain't actually asking me to get Sinclair out of
+jail? Besides, I couldn't do it!"
+
+"You could easily. Moreover, it's to your interest. It will take a
+strong jail to hold him, and if he breaks away, you know that he's a
+dangerous man. He hates you, Jude, and he might try to find you. If he
+did--"
+
+She waved her hand, and Cartwright followed the gesture with great,
+fascinated eyes, as if he saw himself dissolving into thin air.
+
+"I know; he's a desperado, right enough, this Sinclair. Ain't I seen
+him work?" He shuddered at the memory.
+
+"But get him out of the jail, Jude, and that will be ended. He'll be
+your friend."
+
+"Could I trust him?"
+
+"Don't you think Riley Sinclair is a man to be trusted?"
+
+"I dunno." He lowered his eyes. "Maybe he is."
+
+"As for Arizona," she went on, "the same thing holds for him."
+
+"Yes; if I could get one out, I could get two. But how can I do it?
+This Sheriff Kern is a fighting idiot, and loves a gunplay. I ain't no
+man-killer, honey."
+
+"But you're rich, Jude."
+
+"Tolerable. They may be one or two has more than me, around these
+parts."
+
+"And money buys men!"
+
+"Don't it, though?" said Jude, expanding. "Why, when they found that I
+was a spender they started in hounding me. One gent wanted me to help
+him on a mortgage--only fifty bucks to meet a payment. And they's half
+a dozen would mortgage their souls if I'd stake 'em to enough
+downstairs to get them into a crap game, or something."
+
+"Then let them have the money they need. Why, it wouldn't be more than
+a hundred dollars altogether."
+
+"A hundred is a hundred. Why should I throw it away on them bums?"
+
+"Because after you've done it, you'll have a dozen men who'll follow
+you. You'll have a mob."
+
+"Sure! But what of that? Expect me to lead an attack on a jail, eh?
+Throw my life away? By guns, I think you'd like that!"
+
+"You don't have to lead. Just give them the money they need and then
+spread the word around that Riley Sinclair is really an honorable man
+who killed Quade in a fair fight. I know what they thought of Quade. He
+was a bully. No one liked him. Tell them it's a shame that a man like
+Sinclair should die because he killed a big, hulking cur such as Quade.
+They'll listen--particularly if they have your money. I know these men,
+Jude. If they think an injustice is being done, they'll risk their
+necks to right it! And if you work on them in the right way, you can
+have twenty men who'll risk everything to get Riley out. But there
+won't be a risk. If twenty men rush the jail, the guards will simply
+throw down their guns and give up."
+
+"Well, I wonder!" muttered Cartwright.
+
+"I'm sure of it, Jude. Do you think a deputy will let himself be killed
+simply to keep a prisoner safely? They won't do it!"
+
+"You don't know this Kern!"
+
+"I _do_ know him, and I know that he's human. I've seen him beaten once
+already."
+
+"By Sinclair! You keep coming back to him!"
+
+"Jude, if you do this thing for me," she said steadily, "I'll go back
+with you. I don't love you, but if I go back I'll keep you from a great
+deal of shameful talk. I'm sorry, truly, that I left. I couldn't help
+it. It was an impulse that--took me by the throat. And if I go back
+I'll honestly try to make you a good wife."
+
+She faltered a little before that last word, and her voice fell. But
+Jude Cartwright was wholly fascinated by the color in her face, and the
+softness of her voice he mistook for a sudden rise of tenderness.
+
+"They's only one thing I got to ask--you and Sinclair--have you ever--I
+mean--have you ever told him you're pretty fond of him--that you love
+him?" He blurted it out, stammering.
+
+Certainly she knew that her answer was a lie, though it was true in the
+letter.
+
+"I have never told him so," she said firmly. "But I owe him a great
+debt--he must not die because he's a gentleman, Jude."
+
+All the time she was speaking, he watched her with ferret sharpness,
+thinking busily. Before she ended he had reached his decision.
+
+"I'm going to raise that mob."
+
+"Jude!"
+
+What a ring in her voice! If he had been in doubt he would have known
+then. No matter what she said, she loved Riley Sinclair. He smiled
+sourly down on her.
+
+"Keep your thanks. You'll hear news of Sinclair before morning." And he
+stalked out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+33
+
+
+Cartwright went downstairs in the highest good humor. He had been
+convinced of two things in the interview with his wife: The first was
+that she could be induced to return to him; the second was that she
+loved Riley Sinclair. He did not hate her for such fickleness. He
+merely despised her for her lack of brains. No thinking woman could
+hesitate a moment between the ranches and the lumber tracts of
+Cartwright and the empty purse of Riley Sinclair.
+
+As for hatred, that he concentrated on the head of Sinclair himself. He
+had already excellent reasons for hating the rangy cowpuncher. Those
+reasons were now intensified and given weight by what he had recently
+learned. He determined to raise a mob, but not to accomplish his wife's
+desires. What she had said about the weakness of jails, the strength of
+Sinclair, and the probability that once out he would take the trail of
+the rancher, appealed vigorously to his imagination. He did not dream
+that such a man as Sinclair would hesitate at a killing. And, loving
+the girl, the first thing Sinclair would do would be to remove the
+obstacle through the simple expedient of a well-placed bullet.
+
+But the girl had not only convinced him in this direction, she had
+taught him where his strength lay, and she had pointed a novel use for
+that strength. He went to work instantly when he entered the big back
+room of the hotel which was used for cards and surreptitious drinking.
+A little, patient-faced man in a corner, who had been sucking a pipe
+all evening and watching the crap game hungrily, was the first object
+of his charity. Ten dollars slipped into the pocket of the little
+cowpuncher brought him out of his chair, with a grin of gratitude and
+bewilderment. A moment later he was on his knees calling to the dice in
+a cackling voice.
+
+Crossing the room, Cartwright picked out two more obviously stalled
+gamblers and gave them a new start. Returning to the table, he found
+that the game was lagging. In the first place he had from the start
+supplied most of the sinews of war to that game. Also, two disgruntled
+members had gone broke in his absence, through trying to plunge for the
+spoils of the evening. They sat back, with black faces, and watched him
+come.
+
+"We're getting down to a small game," said the gray-headed man who was
+dealing.
+
+But Cartwright had other ideas. "A friend's a friend," he said
+jovially. "And a gent that's been playing beside me all evening I
+figure for a friend. Sit in, boys. I'll stake you to a couple of
+rounds, eh?"
+
+Gladly they came, astonished and exchanging glances.
+
+Cartwright had made a sour loser all the game. This sudden generosity
+took them off balance. It let in a merciful light upon the cruel
+criticism which they had been leveling at him in private. The pale man,
+with the blond eyelashes and the faded blue eyes, who had been
+dexterously stacking the cards all through the game, decided at that
+moment that he would not only stop cheating, but he would even lose
+some of his ill-gotten gains back into the game; only a sudden rush of
+unbelievable luck kept him from executing his generous and silent
+promise.
+
+This pale-faced man was named Whitey, from the excessive blondness of
+his hair and his pallor. He was not popular in Sour Creek, but he was
+much respected. A proof of his ingenuity was that he had cheated at
+cards in that community for five years, and still he had never been
+caught at his work. He was not a bold-talking man. In fact he never
+started arguments or trouble of any kind; but he was a most dexterous
+and thoroughgoing fighter when he was cornered. In fact he was what is
+widely known as a "finisher." And it was Whitey whom Cartwright had
+chosen as the leader of the mob which he intended raising. He waited
+until the first shuffle was in progress after the hand, then he began
+his theme.
+
+"Understand the sheriff is pretty strong for this Sinclair that
+murdered Quade," he said carelessly.
+
+"'Murder' is a tolerable strong word," came back the unfriendly answer.
+"Maybe it was a fair fight."
+
+Cartwright laughed. "Maybe it was," he said.
+
+Whitey interrupted himself in the act of shoving the pack across to be
+cut. He raised his pale eyes to the face of the rancher. "What makes
+you laugh, Cartwright?"
+
+"Nothing," said Jude hastily. "Nothing at all. If you gents don't know
+Sinclair, it ain't up to me to give you light. Let him go."
+
+Nothing more was said during that hand which Whitey won. Jude,
+apparently bluffing shamelessly, bucked him up to fifty dollars, and
+then he allowed himself to be called with a pair of tens against a full
+house. Not only did he lose, but he started a laugh against himself,
+and he joined in cheerfully. He was aware of Whitey frowning curiously
+at him and smiling faintly, which was the nearest that Whitey ever came
+to laughter. And, indeed, the laugh cost Cartwright more than money,
+but it was a price--the price he was paying for the adherence of
+Whitey.
+
+"What about this Sinclair?" asked the man with the great, red, blotchy
+freckles across his face and the back of his neck, so that the skin
+between looked red and raw. "You come from up north, which is his
+direction, too. Know anything about him? He looks like pretty much of a
+man to me, and the sheriff says he's a square shooter from the word
+go."
+
+"Maybe he is," said Cartwright. "But I don't want to go around digging
+the ground away from nobody's reputation."
+
+"Whatever he's got, he won't last long," said Whitey definitely. "He'll
+swing sure."
+
+It was Cartwright's opening. He took advantage of it dexterously,
+without too much haste. He even yawned to show his lack of interest.
+
+"Well, I got a hundred that says he don't hang," he observed quietly
+and looked full at Whitey across the table. It was a challenge which
+the gambling spirit of the latter could not afford to overlook.
+
+"Money talks," began Whitey, then he checked himself. "Do you _know_
+anything, Cartwright?"
+
+"Sure I don't," said Jude in the manner of one who has abundant
+knowledge in reserve. "But they say that the sheriff and Sinclair have
+become regular bunkies. Don't do nothing hardly but sit and chin with
+each other over in the jail. Ever know Kern to do that before?"
+
+They shook their heads.
+
+"Which is a sign that Sinclair may be all right," said the sober
+Whitey.
+
+"Which is a sign that he might have something on the sheriff," said
+Jude Cartwright. "I don't say that he _has_, mind you, but it looks
+kind of queer. He yanked a prisoner away from the sheriff one day, and
+the next day he's took for murder. Did the sheriff have much to do with
+his taking? No, he didn't. By all accounts it was Arizona that done the
+taking, planning and everything. And after Sinclair is took, what does
+the sheriff do? He gets on the trail of Arizona and has him checked in
+for murder of another gent. Maybe Arizona is guilty, maybe he ain't.
+But it kind of looks as if they was something between Sinclair and
+Kern, don't it?"
+
+At this bold exposition of possibilities they paused.
+
+"Kern is figured tolerable straight," declared Whitey.
+
+"Sure he is. That's because he don't talk none and does his work.
+Besides, he's a killer. That's his job. So is Sinclair a killer. Maybe
+he did fight Quade square, but Quade ain't the only one. Why, boys,
+this Sinclair has got a record as long as my arm."
+
+In silence they sat around the table, each man thinking hard. The
+professional gunman gets scant sympathy from ordinary cowpunchers.
+
+"Now I dropped in at the jail," said the man of the great freckles,
+"and come to think about it, I heard Sinclair singing, and I seen him
+polishing his spurs."
+
+"Sure, he's getting ready for a ride," put in Cartwright.
+
+There was a growl from the others. They were slowly turning their
+interest from the game to Cartwright.
+
+"What d'you mean a ride?"
+
+"Got another hundred," said Cartwright calmly, "that when the morning
+comes it won't find Sinclair in the jail."
+
+At once they were absolutely silenced, for money talks in an eloquent
+voice. Deliberately Cartwright counted out the two stacks of shimmering
+twenty-dollar gold pieces, five to a stack.
+
+"One hundred that he don't hang; another hundred that he ain't in the
+jail when the morning comes. Any takers, boys? It had ought to be easy
+money--if everything's square."
+
+Whitey made a move, but finally merely raised his hand and rubbed his
+chin. He was watching that gold on the table with catlike interest. A
+man _must_ know something to be so sure.
+
+"I'd like to know," murmured the man of the freckles disconnectedly.
+
+"Well," said Cartwright, "they ain't much of a mystery about it. For
+one thing, if the sheriff was plumb set on keeping them two, why didn't
+he take 'em over to Woodville today, where they's a jail they couldn't
+bust out of, eh?"
+
+Again they were silenced, and in an argument, when a man falls silent,
+it simply means that he is thinking hard on the other side.
+
+"But as far as I'm concerned," went on Cartwright, yawning again, "it
+don't make no difference one way or another. Sour Creek ain't my town,
+and I don't care if it gets the ha-ha for having its jail busted open.
+Of course, after the birds have flown, the sheriff will ride hard after
+'em--on the wrong trail!"
+
+Whitey raised his slender, agile, efficient hand.
+
+"Gents," he said, "something has got to be done. This man Cartwright is
+giving us the truth! He's got his hunch, and hunches is mostly always
+right."
+
+"Speak out, Whitey," said the man with the freckles encouragingly. "I
+like your style of thinking."
+
+Nodding his acknowledgments, Whitey said:
+
+"The main thing seems to be that Sinclair and Arizona is old hands at
+killing. And they had ought to be hung. Well, if the sheriff ain't got
+the rope, maybe we could help him out, eh?"
+
+
+
+
+34
+
+
+The moment her husband was gone, Jig dropped back in her chair and
+buried her face in her arms, weeping. But there is a sort of sad
+happiness in making sacrifices for those we love, and presently Jig was
+laughing through her tears and trembling as she wiped the tears away.
+After a time she was able to make herself ready for another appearance
+in the street of Sour Creek. She practiced back and forth in her room
+that exaggerated swagger, jerked her sombrero rakishly over one eye,
+cocked up her cartridge belt at one side, and swung down the stairs.
+
+She went straight to the jail and met the sheriff at the door, where he
+sat, smoking a stub of a pipe. He gaped widely at the sight of her,
+smoke streaming up past his eyes. Then he rose and shook hands
+violently.
+
+"All I got to say, Jig," he remarked, "is that the others was the ones
+that made the big mistake. When I went and arrested you, I was just
+following in line. But I'm sorry, and I'm mighty glad that you been
+found to be O.K."
+
+Wanly she smiled and thanked him for his good wishes.
+
+"I'd like to see Sinclair," she said.
+
+Kern's amiability increased.
+
+"The best thing I know about you, Jig, is that you ain't turning
+Sinclair down, now that he's in trouble. Go right back in the jail. Him
+and Arizona is chinning. Wait a minute. I guess I got to keep an eye on
+you to see you don't pass nothing through the bars. Keep clean back
+from them bars, Jig, and then you can talk all you want. I'll stay here
+where I can watch you but can't hear. Is that square?"
+
+"Nothing squarer in the world," said Jig and went in.
+
+She left the sheriff grinning vacantly into the dark. There was a
+peculiar something in Jig's smile that softened men.
+
+But when she stepped into the sphere of the lantern light that spread
+faintly through the cell, she was astonished to see Arizona and
+Sinclair kneeling opposite each other, shooting dice with abandon and
+snapping of the fingers. They rose, laughing at the sight of her, and
+came to the bars.
+
+"But you aren't worried?" asked Jig. "You aren't upset by all this?"
+
+It was Arizona who answered, a strangely changed Arizona since his
+entrance into the jail.
+
+"Look here," he said gaily, "why should we be worryin'? Ain't we got a
+good sound roof over our heads, with a set of blankets to sleep in?"
+
+He smiled at tall Sinclair, then changed his voice.
+
+"Things fell through," he said softly, glancing at the far-off shadowy
+figure of the sheriff. "Sorry, but we'll work this out yet."
+
+"I know," she answered. She lowered her voice to caution. "I'm only
+going to stay a moment to keep away suspicions. Listen! Something is
+going to happen tonight that will set you both free. Don't ask me what
+it is. But, among those cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop, I'm
+going to have two good horses saddled and ready for you. One will be
+your roan, Arizona. And I'll have a good horse for you, Riley. And when
+you're free start for those horses."
+
+Sinclair laid hold on the bars with his big hands and pressed his face
+close to the iron, staring at her.
+
+"You ain't coming along with us?" he asked.
+
+"I--no."
+
+"Are you going to stay here?"
+
+"Perhaps! I don't know--I haven't made up my mind."
+
+"Has Cartwright--"
+
+She broke away from those entangling questions. "I must go."
+
+"But you'll be at the place with the horses?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then so long till the time comes. And--you're a brick, Jig!"
+
+Once outside the jail, she set to work at once. As for getting the
+roan, it was the simplest thing in the world. There was no one in the
+stable behind the hotel, and no one to ask questions. She calmly
+saddled the roan, mounted him, and rode by a wider detour to the
+cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop.
+
+Her own horse was to be for Sinclair. But before she took him, she went
+into the hotel, and the first man she found on the veranda was
+Cartwright. He came to her at once, shifting away from the others.
+
+"How are things?"
+
+"Good," said Cartwright. "Ain't you heard 'em talking?"
+
+Here and there about the hotel, men stood in knots of three and four,
+talking in low voices.
+
+"Are they talking about _that_?"
+
+"Sure they are," said Cartwright, relieved. "You ain't heard nothing?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"Then the thing for you to do is to keep under cover. You don't want to
+get mixed up in this thing, eh?"
+
+"I suppose not."
+
+"Keep out of sight, honey. The crowd will start pretty soon and tear
+things loose." He could not resist one savage thrust. "A rope, or a
+pair of ropes, will do the work."
+
+"Ropes?"
+
+"One to tie Kern, and one to tie his deputy," he explained smoothly.
+"Where you going now?"
+
+"Getting their retreat ready," she whispered excitedly. "I've already
+warned them where to go to get the horses."
+
+She waved to him and stepped back into the night, convinced that all
+was well. As for Cartwright, he hesitated, staring after her. After
+all, if his plan developed, it would be wise for him to allow the
+others to do the work of mischief. He had no wish to be actively mixed
+up with a lynching party. Sometimes there were after results. And if he
+had done no more than talk, there would be small hold upon him by the
+law.
+
+Moreover, things were going smoothly under the guidance of Whitey. The
+pale-faced man had thrown himself body and soul into the movement. It
+was a rare thing to see Whitey excited. Other men were readily
+impressed. After a time, when anger had reached a certain point where
+men melt into hot action, these fixed figures of men would sweep into
+fluid action. And then the fates of Arizona and Sinclair would be
+determined.
+
+It pleased Cartwright more than any action of his life to feel that he
+had stirred up this movement. It pleased him still more to know that he
+could now step back and watch the work of ruin go on. It was like
+disturbing the one small stone which starts the avalanche, which
+eventually smashes the far-off forest.
+
+So much was done, then. And now why not make sure that the very last
+means of retreat for the pair was blocked? The girl went to get the
+horses. And if, by the one chance in twenty, the two should actually
+break out of the jail, it would remain to Cartwright to kill the horses
+or the men. He did not care which.
+
+He slipped behind the hotel and presently saw the girl come out of the
+stable with her horse. He followed, skulking softly behind her until he
+reached the appointed place among the cottonwoods. The trees grew tall
+and thick of trunk, and about their bases was a growth of dense
+shrubbery. It was a simple thing to conceal two saddled horses in a
+hollow which sank into the edge of the shrubbery.
+
+Cartwright's first desire was to couch himself in shooting distance.
+Then he remembered that shooting with a revolver by moonlight was
+uncertain work. He slipped away to the hotel and got a rifle ready
+enough. Men were milling through the lower rooms of the hotel. The
+point of discussion had long since been passed. The ringleaders had
+made up their minds. They went about with faces so black that those who
+were asked to join, hardly had the courage to question. There was
+broad-voiced rumor growing swiftly. Something was wrong--something was
+very wrong. It was like that mysterious whisper which goes through the
+forest before the heavy storm strikes. Something was terribly wrong and
+must be righted.
+
+How the ringleaders had reasoned, nobody paused to ask. It was
+sufficient that a score of men were saying: "The sheriff figures on
+letting Sinclair and Arizona go."
+
+A typical scene between two men. They meet casually, one man whistling,
+the other thoughtful.
+
+"What's the bad luck?" asks the whistler.
+
+"No time for whistling," says the other.
+
+"Say, what you mean?"
+
+"I ask you just this," said the gloomy man, with a mystery of much
+knowledge in his face: "Are gents around here going to be murdered, and
+the murderers go free?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Sinclair and Arizona--that's what's up! They're going to bust loose."
+
+"I dunno about Arizona, but Sinclair, they say, is a square shooter."
+
+"Who told you that? Sinclair himself? He's got a rep as long as my arm.
+He's a bad one, son!"
+
+"You don't say!"
+
+"I do say. And something has got to be done, or Sour Creek won't be a
+decent man's town no more."
+
+"Let me in." Off they went arm in arm.
+
+Cartwright saw half a dozen little interviews of this nature, as he
+entered the hotel. Men were excited, they hardly knew why. There is no
+need for reason in a mob. One has only to cry, "Kill!" and the mob will
+start of its own volition to find something that may be slain. Also, a
+mob has no conscience and no remorse. It is the nearest thing to a
+devil that exists, and it is also the nearest thing to the divine mercy
+and courage. It is braver than the bravest man; it is more timorous
+than the most fearful; it is fiercer than a lion, gentler than a lamb.
+All these things by turns, and each one to the exclusion of all the
+others.
+
+Now the thunderclouds were piling on the horizon, and Cartwright could
+feel the electricity in the air. He went to Pop.
+
+"I got to have a rifle."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"You know," said Cartwright significantly.
+
+The hotelkeeper nodded. He brought out an old Winchester, still mobile
+of action and deadly. With that weapon under his arm, Cartwright
+started back, but then he remembered that there were excellent chances
+of missing even with a rifle, when he was shooting through the shadows
+and by the treacherous moonlight. It would be better, far better, to
+have his horse with him. Then, if he actually succeeded in wounding one
+or both of them, he could run his victim down, or, perhaps, keep up a
+steady fire of rifle shots from the rear, that would bring half the
+town pouring out to join in the chase.
+
+So he swung back to the stables, saddled his horse, trotted it around
+in a comfortably wide detour, and, coming within sound distance of the
+cottonwoods behind the blacksmith shop, he dismounted and led his horse
+into a dense growth of shrubbery. That close approach would have been
+impossible without alarming the girl, had it not been for a stiff wind
+blowing across into his face, completely muffling the noise of his
+coming. In the bushes he ensconced himself safely. Only a few yards
+away he kept his eye on the opening among the cottonwoods, behind which
+the girl and the two horses moved from time to time, growing more and
+more visible, as the moon climbed above the horizon mist.
+
+He tightened his grip on the rifle and amused himself with drawing
+beads on stumps and bright bits of foliage, from time to time. He must
+be ready for any sort of action if the two should ever appear.
+
+While he waited, sounds reached his ear from the town, sounds eloquent
+of purpose. He listened to them as to beautiful music. It was a low,
+distinct, and continuous humming sound. Voices of men went into it, low
+as the growl of an angered dog, and there was a background of slamming
+doors, and footsteps on verandas. Sour Creek was mustering for the
+assault.
+
+
+
+
+35
+
+
+Now that sound had entered the jail, and it had a peculiar effect. It
+was like that distant murmuring of the storm which walks over the
+treetops far away. It made the sheriff and his two prisoners lift their
+heads and look at one another in silence, for the sheriff was most
+unprofessionally tilted back in a chair, with his feet braced against
+the bars of the cell, while he chatted with his bad men about men,
+women, and events. The sheriff had a distinct curiosity to learn how
+Arizona had recovered so suddenly from his "blue funk."
+
+Unquestionably the fat man had recovered. His voice was as steady now
+as any man's, and the old, insolent glitter was in his eyes. He squared
+his shoulders and blew his smoke straight at the face of the sheriff,
+as he talked. What caused it, the sheriff could not tell, this
+rehabilitation of a fighting man, but he connected the influence of
+Sinclair with the change.
+
+By this time Sinclair himself was the more restless of the two. While
+Arizona sat at ease on the bunk, the tall man ranged up and down the
+cell, with long, noiseless steps, turning quickly back and forth beside
+the bars. He had spent his nervous energy cheering up Arizona, until
+the latter was filled with a reckless, careless courage. What would
+happen Arizona could not guess, but Sinclair had assured him that
+something _would_ happen, and he trusted implicitly to the word of his
+tall companion. Sooner or later he would learn that they were hopeless,
+and Sinclair dreaded the breakdown which he knew would follow that
+discovery.
+
+In his heart Sinclair knew that there would be no hope, no chance. The
+girl, he felt, had been swept off her feet with some absurd dream of
+freeing them. For his own part he had implicit faith in the strength of
+the toolproof steel of the bars on the one hand, and the gun of the
+sheriff on the other. As long as they held, they would keep their
+prisoners. The key to freedom was the key to the sheriff's heart, and
+Sinclair was too much of a man to whine.
+
+He had come to the end of his trail, and that was evident in the
+restlessness of his walking to and fro. The love of the one thing on
+earth that he cared for was his, according to Arizona, and there was
+nothing to make the fat man lie. It seemed to Riley Sinclair that, at
+the very moment he had set his hands upon priceless gold, the treasure
+was crumbling to dead sand. He had lost her by the very thing that won
+her.
+
+In the midst of his pacing he stopped and lifted his head, just as the
+sheriff and Arizona did the same thing. The far-off murmur hummed and
+moaned toward them, gathering strength. Then the sheriff pushed back
+his chair and went to the front of the jail. They heard him give
+directions to his deputy to find out what the murmuring meant. When
+Kern returned he was patently worried.
+
+"Gents," he said, "I've heard that same sort of a sound twice before,
+and it means business." None of the three spoke again until the door
+of the jail was burst open, and the deputy came on them, running.
+
+"Kern," he gasped, as he reached the sheriff, "they're coming."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Every man in Sour Creek. They tried to get me with 'em. I told 'em I'd
+stay and then slipped off. They want both of these. They want 'em bad.
+They're going to fight to get 'em!"
+
+"Do they want to grab Arizona and Sinclair?" asked the sheriff, with
+surprising lack of emotion. "Don't think they're guilty?"
+
+"You're wrong. They think they're sure guilty, and they're going to
+lynch 'em."
+
+He whispered this, but his panting made the words louder than he
+thought. Sinclair heard; and by the shudder of Arizona, he knew that
+his companion had heard as well.
+
+Now came the low-pitched voice of the sheriff: "Are you with me, Pat?"
+
+The deputy receded. "Why, man, you ain't going to fight the whole
+town?"
+
+"I'd fight the whole town," said the sheriff smoothly, "but I don't
+need you with me. You're through, partner. Close the door soft when you
+go out!"
+
+Pat made no argument, offered no sentimental protest of devotion. He
+was glad of any excuse, and he retreated at once. After him went the
+sheriff, and Sinclair heard the heavy door of the jail locked. Kern
+came back, carrying a bundle. Outside, the murmuring had increased at a
+single leap to a roar. The rush for the jail was beginning.
+
+Arizona shrank back against the wall, his little eyes glaring
+desperately at Sinclair, his last hope in the emergency. But Sinclair
+looked to the sheriff. The bundle in the arms of the latter unrolled
+and showed two cartridge belts, with guns appended. Next, still in
+silence, the sheriff unlocked the door to the cell.
+
+"Sinclair!"
+
+The tall cowpuncher leaped beside him. Arizona skirted away to one side
+stealthily.
+
+"None of that!" commanded Kern. "No crooked work, Arizona. I'm giving
+you a fighting chance for your lives."
+
+Here he tossed a gun and belt to Sinclair. The latter without a word
+buckled it on.
+
+"Now, quick work, boys," said the sheriff. "It's going to be the second
+time in my life that prisoners have got away and tied me up.
+Understand? They ain't going to be no massacre if I can help it. Gents
+like Sinclair don't come in pairs, and he's going to have a fighting
+chance. Boys, tie me up fast and throw me in the corner. I'll tell 'em
+that you slugged me through the bars and got the keys away. You hear?"
+
+As he spoke he threw Arizona a gun and belt, and the latter imitated
+Sinclair in buckling it on. But the fat man then made for the door of
+the cell. Outside the rush reached the entrance to the jail and split
+on it. The voices leaped into a tumult.
+
+"By thunder," demanded Arizona, "are you going to wait for _that_?"
+
+"You want Kern to get into trouble?" asked Sinclair. "Grab this end and
+tie his ankles, while I fix his hands."
+
+Frantically they worked together.
+
+"Are you comfortable, sheriff?"
+
+He lay securely trussed in a corner of the passageway.
+
+"Dead easy, boys. Now what's your plan?"
+
+"Is there a back way out?"
+
+"No way in or out but the front door. You got to wait till they smash
+it. There they start now! Then dive out, as they rush. They won't be
+expecting nothing like that. But gag me first."
+
+Hastily Sinclair obeyed. The door of the jail was shaking and groaning
+under the attack from without, and the shouts were a steady roar. Then
+he hurried to the front of the little building. Arizona was already
+there, gun in hand, watching the door bulge under the impact. Evidently
+they had caught up a heavy timber, and a dozen men were pounding it
+against the massive door. Sinclair caught the gun arm of his companion.
+
+"Fatty," he said hastily, "gunplay will spoil everything. We got to
+take 'em by surprise. Fast running will save us, maybe. Fast shooting
+ain't any good when it's one man agin' fifty, and these boys mean
+business."
+
+Arizona reluctantly let his gun drop back in its holster. He nodded to
+Sinclair. The latter gave his directions swiftly, speaking loudly to
+make his voice carry over the roar of the crowd.
+
+"When the door goes down, which it'll do pretty pronto, I'll dive out
+from this side, and you run from the other side, straight into the
+crowd. I'll turn to the right, and you turn to the left. The minute
+you're around the corner of the building shoot back over your shoulder,
+or straight into the air. It'll make 'em think that you've stopped and
+are going to fight 'em off from the corner. They'll take it slow, you
+can bet. Then beat it straight on for the cottonwoods behind the
+blacksmith shop."
+
+"They'll drop us the minute we show."
+
+"Sure, we got the long chance, and nothing more. Is that good enough
+for you?"
+
+He was rewarded in the dimness by a glint in the eyes of Arizona, and
+then the fat man gripped his hand.
+
+"You and me agin' the world."
+
+In the meantime the door was bulging in the center under blows of
+increasing weight. A second battering ram was now brought into play,
+and the rain of blows was unceasing. Still between shocks, the door
+sprang back, but there was a telltale rattle at every blow. Finally, as
+a yell sprang up from the crowd at the sight, the upper hinge snapped
+loudly, and the door sagged in. Both timbers were now apparently swung
+at the same moment. Under the joint impact the door was literally
+lifted from its last hinge and hurled inward. And with it lunged the
+two battering rams and the men who had wielded them. They tumbled
+headlong, carried away by the very weight of their successful blow.
+
+"Now!" called Sinclair, and he sprang with an Indian yell over the
+heads of the sprawling men in the doorway and into the thick of the
+crowd.
+
+Half a dozen of the drawn guns whipped up at the sight, but no one
+could make sure in the half-light of the identity of the man who had
+dashed out. Their imaginations placed the two prisoners safely behind
+the bars inside. Before they could think twice, a second figure leaped
+through the doorway and passed them in the opposite direction.
+
+Then they awakened to the fact, but they awakened in confusion. A dozen
+shots blazed in either direction, but they were wild, snapshots of men
+taken off balance.
+
+Two leaps took Sinclair through the thick of the astonished men before
+him. He came to the scattering edges and saw a man dive at him. The
+cowpuncher beat the butt of his gun into the latter's face and sped on,
+whipping around the corner of the little jail, with bullets whistling
+after him.
+
+His own gun, as he leaped out of sight, he fired into the ground, and
+he heard a similar shot from the far side of the building. Those two
+shots, as he had predicted, checked the pursuers one vital second and
+kept them milling in front of the jail. Then they spilled out around
+the corners, each man running low, his gun ready.
+
+But Sinclair, deep in the darkness of the tree shadows behind the jail,
+was already out of sight. He caught a glimpse of Arizona sprinting
+ahead of him for dear life. They reached the cottonwoods together and
+were greeted by a low shout from the girl; she was running out from the
+shelter, dragging the horses after her.
+
+Arizona went into his saddle with a single leap. Sinclair paused to
+take the jump, with his hand on the pommel, and as he lifted himself up
+with a jump, a gun blazed in point-blank range from the nearest
+shrubbery.
+
+There was a yell from Arizona, not of pain, but of rage. They saw his
+gun glistening in his hand, and, swerving his horse to disturb the aim
+of the marksman, his weapon's first report blended with the second shot
+from the bushes, a tongue of darting flame. Straight at the flash of a
+target Arizona had fired, and there was an answering yell. Out of the
+dark of the shrubbery a great form leaped, with a grotesque shadow
+beneath it on the moon-whitened ground.
+
+"Cartwright!" cried Sinclair, as the big man collapsed and became a
+shapeless, inanimate black heap.
+
+Straight ahead Arizona was already spurring, and Sinclair waved once to
+the white face of Jig, then shot after his companion, while the trees
+and shrubbery to their left emitted a sudden swarm of men and barking
+guns.
+
+But to strike a rapidly moving object with a revolver is never easy,
+and to strike by the moonlight is difficult indeed. A dangerous flight
+of slugs bored the air around the fugitives for the first hundred yards
+of their flight, but after that the firing ceased, as the men of Sour
+Creek ran for their horses.
+
+Straight on into the night rode the pair.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+One year had made Arizona a little plumper, and one year had drawn
+Riley Sinclair more lean and somber, when they rode out on the shoulder
+of a flat-topped mountain and looked down into the hollow, where the
+late afternoon sun was already sending broad shadows out from every
+rise of ground. Sour Creek was a blur and a twinkle of glass in the
+distance.
+
+"Come to think of it," said Arizona, "it's just one year today. Riley,
+was it that that brung you back here, and me, unknowing?"
+
+The tall man made no answer, but shaded his eyes to peer down into the
+valley, and Arizona made no attempt to pursue the conversation. He was
+long since accustomed to the silences of his traveling mate. Seeing
+that Sinclair showed no disposition either to speak or move, he left
+the big cowpuncher to himself and started off through the trees in
+search of game. The sign of a deer caught his eye and hurried him on
+into a futile chase, from which he returned in the early dark of the
+evening. He was guided by the fire which Sinclair had kindled on the
+shoulder, but to his surprise, as he drew nearer, the fire dwindled,
+very much as if Riley had entirely forgotten to replenish it with dry
+wood.
+
+A year of wild life had sharpened the caution of Arizona. That neglect
+of his fire was by no means in keeping with the usual methods of
+Sinclair. Before he came to the last spur of the hill, Arizona
+dismounted and stole up on foot. He listened intently. There was not a
+sound of anyone moving about. There was only an occasional crackle of
+the dying fire. When he came to the edge of the shoulder, Arizona
+raised his head cautiously to peer over.
+
+He saw a faintly illumined picture of Riley Sinclair, sitting with his
+hat off, his face raised, and such a light in his face that there
+needed no play of the fire to tell its meaning. Beside him sat a girl,
+more distinct, for she was dressed in white, and the fire gleamed and
+curled and modeled her hair and cast a highlight on her chin, her
+throat, and her hand in the brown hand of Sinclair.
+
+Arizona winced down out of sight and stole back under the trees.
+
+"Doggone me," he said to his horse, "they both remembered the day."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rangeland Avenger, by Max Brand
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RANGELAND AVENGER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10601.txt or 10601.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/6/0/10601/
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Nick Thorp, Shon McCarley and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/10601.zip b/old/10601.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..10c3188
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10601.zip