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diff --git a/32704.txt b/32704.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1deaea4 --- /dev/null +++ b/32704.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6986 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stepsons of Light, by Eugene Manlove Rhodes + +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: Stepsons of Light + +Author: Eugene Manlove Rhodes + +Release Date: June 5, 2010 [EBook #32704] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEPSONS OF LIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + STEPSONS OF LIGHT + + BY + + EUGENE MANLOVE RHODES + + _Author of "Good Men and True," "Bransford of Rainbow + Range," "The Desire of the Moth," "West is West," etc._ + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1921 + + + + + Copyright, 1920, by + THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + + Copyright, 1921, by + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + + + + +TO MY WIFE + + + + +STEPSONS OF LIGHT + + +There are two sorts of people--those who point with pride and those +who view with alarm. They are quite right. The world will not soon +forget Parkman "of Ours." Here was a man of learning, common sense, +judgment and wide sympathies. Yet once he stumbled; the paregorical +imperative, which impels each of us to utter ignominious nonsense, +urged Francis Parkman to the like unhappiness, drove him to father +and put forth this void and singular statement: + + I have often perplexed myself to divine the various motives + that give impulse to this strange migration; but whatever + they may be, whether an insane hope of a better condition + of life, or a desire of shaking off the restraints of law + and society, or mere restlessness, certain it is that + multitudes bitterly repent the journey. + +The year was 1846; the place, Independence, in Missouri; that strange +migration was the winning of the West. Mr. Parkman viewed it with +alarm. The passage quoted may yet be found in the first chapter of +"The Oregon Trail." We, wise after the event, now point with pride to +that strange migration of our fathers. The Great Trek has lasted three +hundred years. To-day we dimly perceive that the history of America is +the story of the pioneer; that on our shifting frontiers the race has +been hammered and tempered to a cutting edge. + +That insane hope of better things--the same which beckoned on the +Israelites and the Pilgrim Fathers; restraints of law and society, +which in Egypt made the Israelite a slave, in England gave the Puritan +to the pillory and the stocks, and in this western world of ours took +the form of a hollow squire, founder by letters patent of a landed +oligarchy--so that the bold and venturesome sought homes in the +unsquired wilderness; and restlessness, that quality which marks the +most notable difference between man and sandstone. Restlessness, +shaking off restraints, insane hopes--in that cadence of ideas what is +there of haunting, echolike and familiar? Restraints of society? When +the very stones of the streets shrieked at him the name of that +town--Independence! Now we know the words that haunted us: "Life, +liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!" Never was echo clearer. +The emigrants were there in exercise of those unavoidable rights. +Not happiness, or the overtaking of happiness; the pursuit of +happiness--the insane hope of a better condition of life. + +That which perplexed Parkman looked upon, disapproving, was the +settlement of America--the greatest upbuilding of recorded time; and +the prime motive of that great migration was the motive of all +migrations--the search for food and land. They went west for food. +What they did there was to work; if you require a monument--take a +good look! + +Here is the record of a few late camp fires of the Great Trek. + + + + +I + + "Why-Why had been principally beaten about the face, and his + injuries, therefore, were slight." + --_The Romance of the First Radical._ + + "A fine face, marred by an expression of unscrupulous integrity." + --_Credit Lost._ + + +The lady listened with fluttering attention. The lady was sweet and +twenty, and the narrator--myself--was spurred to greater effort. +Suddenly a thought struck her. It was a severe blow. She sat up +straight, she stiffened her lips to primness, her fine eyes darkened +with suspicion, her voice crisped to stern inquiry. + +"I suppose, when Sunday came, you kept right on working?" + +It was an acid supposition. Her dear little nose squinched to express +some strong emotion--loving-kindness, perhaps; her dear little upper +lip curled ominous. She looked as though she might bite. + +"Kept right on working is right. We had to keep on working," I +explained. "We couldn't very well work six days gathering cattle and +then turn them all loose again on the seventh day--could we now?" + +The lady frowned. The lady sniffed. She was not one to be turned aside +by subterfuge. She leaned forward to strike, and flattened her brows +in scorn. She looked uncommonly like a rattlesnake. She said: + +"I suppose you couldn't put them in the barn-yards?" + +And I learned about readers from her. + + * * * * * + +Cattle were once grazed to the nearest railroad--say, a thousand +miles--yes, and beyond that railroad to Wyoming grass; or Montana. No +one who saw those great herds forgot them or ever quite refrained from +speech of those stirring days, to children or grandchildren. That is +why so many think--not unnaturally--that range cattle were always held +under herd. But it is a mistaken impression. Cattle do not thrive +under herd. + +Cattle on the free range--everybody's cattle--were turned loose and +mixed together. There were no fences except as deep rivers counted for +such; the Panama Canal was yet undug. Twice a year, in spring and +fall, everybody gets together to work the cattle at the rodeo, or +round-up. They brand the calves; they take into the day herd all +strays, all steers or cows to be shipped, and nothing more. From +cattle gathered each day steers and strays are cut out and thrown into +the day herd; all the others, the range cattle, are turned loose with +a vigorous shove in that direction most remote from to-morrow's +round-up. + +Again, your ranch was that land to which you had either title or +claim; its purpose was to give a water right on stream or lake or to +hold spring, well or tank. But your range was either Texas land or +Uncle Sam's land as far as your cattle would range from your various +water rights--say, twenty-five miles in each direction. Your range was +that country where you were reasonably sure your cattle would not be +stolen by strangers. + +Here was the way of the Bar Cross round-up; with slight variations it +was the way of any round-up. The Bar Cross Company, running the +biggest brand on the Jornada range, supplied one foreman, one straw +boss, three top hands and the captain of the day herd; one horse +wrangler, who herded the saddle horses by day; one night wrangler, who +herded them by night; and mounts for these eight. The Bar Cross also +furnished one red-headed cook; one chuck wagon and the chuck--chuck +being grub--and one bed wagon to haul bed rolls from camp to camp, and +also to haul wood and water between times. Item: Four mules for the +chuck wagon, and two for the bed wagon. The night wrangler drove the +bed wagon; night wranglers were not supposed to sleep. + +Other ranchmen, co-users of the Bar Cross range, sent each a man and +his mount to represent. A man with many cattle might send two or more +men; the 7 T X--next to the Bar Cross the biggest brand on the +Jornada--sent four. Each man or each two men brought tarp and bedding +on a pack horse. + +From north, south, east and west came the stray men, each with mount +and bed. Stray men stayed with the outfit as long as it pleased them. +When they were satisfied they cut out from the day herd their own +cattle, together with those of their neighbors, and drove them home. +As a usual thing, three or four would throw in and drive back +together. If by chance some man was homeward bound and alone, the Bar +Cross detailed a man to help him home; a friendly and not imprudent +custom. + +To sum up: The Bar Cross paid nine men, and provided good grub for all +comers; in return it had the help of twenty-five to forty men in +working the range; the rodeo, or round-up. + +During the weeks or months of that working, wherever some other outfit +gave a round-up--east, west, south or north--there, with mount and +bed, went either a Bar Cross man or one from some other brand of the +Jornada people, bringing back all Jornada cattle. + +A word about horses. In the fall, when grass was green and good, a +mount was eight to thirteen head. One must be gentle; he was night +horse; every man stood guard at night two and a half to three hours; +all night in case of storm. For the others, the best were cutting +horses, used afternoons, when the day's drive was worked; the poorest +were circle horses and were ridden in the forenoon, when the round-up +was made. But in the spring it is different. Grass is scant and short; +corn is fed, and four horses go to a mount; the range is worked +lightly. + +So much was needful by way of glossary and guide; so partly to avoid +such handicap as we meet in telling a baseball story to an Englishman. + +It is a singular thing that with the Bar Cross were found the top +ropers, crack riders, sure shots--not only the slickest cowmen, but +also the wisest cow ponies. Our foremen were "cowmen right," our +wranglers held the horses, our cooks would fry anything once. But you +know how it is--your own organization--firm, farm or factory--is +doubtless the best of its kind. No? You surprise me. You have missed +much--faith in others, hope for others, comradeship. + +It is laughable to recall that men of other brands disputed the +headship of the Bar Cross. Nor was this jest or bravado; the poor +fellows were sincere enough. Indeed, we thought this pathetic loyalty +rather admirable than otherwise. Such were the 101, in Colorado; the X +I T, in the Panhandle; the Block and the V V, between the Pecos and +the Front Range; the Bar W, west of the White Mountain; the V Cross T, +the John Cross, the Diamond A and the L C, west of the Rio Grande. +Even from Arizona, the T L, the Toltec Company--Little Colorado River +way--put forth absurd pretensions. + +The Bar Cross men smiled, knowing what they knew. That sure knowledge +was the foundation of the gay and holdfast spirit they brought to +confront importunate life. No man wanted to be the weak link of that +strong chain; each brought to his meanest task the earnestness that is +remarked upon when Mr. Ty Cobb slides into second base; they bent +every energy on the thing they did at the joyful time of doing it. In +this way only is developed that rare quality to which the scientific +give the name of pep or punch. Being snappy made them happy, and being +happy made them snappy; establishing what is known to philosophers as +the virtuous circle. The nearest parallel is newspaper circulation, +which means more advertising, which boosts circulation, and so onward +and upward. + +In that high eagerness of absorption, a man "working for the brand" +did not, could not, center all thoughts on self; he trusted his +fellows, counted upon them, joyed in their deeds. And to forget self +in the thought of others is for so long to reach life at its highest. + + * * * * * + +The Bar Cross had worked the northern half of the range, getting back +to Engle, the center and the one shipping point of the Jornada, with +fifteen hundred steers--finding there no cars available, no prospect +of cars for ten days to come. To take those steers to the south and +back meant that they would be so gaunted as to be unfit for shipment. + +So the wagon led on softly, drifting down to the river, to a beating +of _bosques_ for outlaw cattle and a combing of half-forgotten ridges +and pockets behind Christobal Mountain. It was a work which because of +its difficulty had been shirked for years; the river cattle mostly +came out on the plains in the rainy season, and got their just deserts +there. Waiting for cars, the outfit was marking time anyhow. Any +cattle snared on the river were pure gain. The main point was to +handle the stock tenderly. From working the _bosques_ the outfit +expected few cattle and got less.--The poets babble about the bosky +dell; _bosque_, literally translated, means "woods." Yet for this +purpose if you understand the word as "jungle," you will be the less +misled. + +Johnny Dines sat tailor-wise on his horse at the crest of a sandy +knoll and looked down at the day herd, spread out over a square mile +of tableland, and now mostly asleep in the brooding heat of afternoon. +About the herd other riders, six in all, stood at attention, black +silhouettes, or paced softly to turn back would-be stragglers. + +Of these riders Neighbor Jones alone was a Bar Cross man. He was +captain of the day herd, a fixture; for him reluctant straymen were +detailed in turn, day by day, as day herders. Johnny represented a +number of small brands in the north end of the Black Range. His face +was sparkling, all alive; he was short, slender, black-haired, +black-eyed, two and twenty. He saw--Neighbor Jones himself not +sooner--what turmoil rose startling from a lower bench to riverward; a +riot of wild cattle with riders as wild on lead and swing and point. +As a usual thing, the day's catch comes sedately to the day herd; but +this day's catch was _bosque_ cattle--renegades and desperates of a +dozen brands. + +Jody Weir, on Johnny's right, sat on the sand in the shadow of his +horses. This was not ethical; seeing him, Yoast and Ralston, leading +the riot, turned that way, drew aside to right and left, and so loosed +the charging hurricane directly at the culprit. + +Weir scrambled to saddle and spurred from under. The other riders +closed in on the day herd, stirring them up the better to check the +outlaws. Half of the round-up crew followed Yoast to the right of the +now roused and bellowing day herd, bunching them; the others followed +Ralston on Johnny's side of the herd. + +Cole Ralston was the Bar Cross foreman. Overtaking Johnny, he raised +a finger; the two drew rein and let the others pass by. Cole spoke to +the last man. + +"Spike, when they quiet down you ride round and tell all these +day-herder waddies that if any of 'em want to write letters they can +slip in to the wagon. I'm sending a man to town soon after supper." + +He turned to Johnny, laughing. + +"Them outcasts was sure snaky. We near wasted the whole bunch. Had to +string 'em out and let 'em run so they thought they was getting away +or they'd ha' broke back into the brush." + +"Two bull fights started already," observed Johnny. "Your +Sunday-School bulls are hunting up the wild ones, just a-snuffin'." + +"The boys will keep 'em a-moving," said Cole. "Dines, you ride your +own horses, so I reckon you're not drawing pay from the ninety-seven +piney-woods brands you're lookin' out for. Just turning their cattle +in a neighborly way?" + +"Someone had to come." + +"Well, then," said Cole, "how would you like a Bar Cross mount?" + +Slow red tinged the olive of Johnny's cheek, betraying the quickened +heartbeats. + +"You've done hired a hand--quick as ever I throw these cattle back +home." + +"Wouldn't Walter Hearn cut out your milk-pen brands as close as you +would?" + +"Sure! He's one of the bunch." + +"Your pay started this morning, then. Here's the lay. To-morrow we +work the herd and start the west-bound strays home. Walt can throw in +with the S S Bar man and I'll send Lon along to represent the Bar +Cross. Hiram goes to the John Cross work, at the same time helpin' +Pink throw back the John Cross stuff. So that leaves us shy a short +man. That's you. Send your horses home with Walt." + +"I'd like to keep one with me for my private." + +"All right. Leave him at the horse camp. Can't carry any idlers with +the _caballada_--makes the other horses discontented. You drift into +the wagon early, when you see the horse herd coming. I'm goin' to send +you to the horse camp to get you a mount. We'll cut out all the lame +ones and sore backs from our mounts too. I'll give you a list of fresh +ones to bring back for us. You go up to Engle after supper and then +slip out to Moongate to-morrow. We'll be loadin' 'em at Engle when you +get back. No hurry; take your time." + +He rode on. Behind him the most joyous heart between two oceans +thumped at Johnny's ribs. It is likely that you see no cause for +pride. You see a hard job for a scanty wage; to Johnny Dines it was +accolade and shoulder stroke. Johnny's life so far had been made up +all of hardships well borne. But that was what Johnny did not know or +dream; to-day, hailed man-grown, he thought of his honors, prince and +peer, not as deserved and earned, but as an unmerited stroke of good +fortune. + +The herd, suddenly roused, became vociferous with query and rumor; +drifted uneasily a little, muttered, whispered, tittered, fell quiet +again, to cheerful grazing. The fresh wild cattle, nearing the +periphery, glimpsed the dreaded horsemen beyond, and turned again to +hiding in the center. Cole and most of his riders drew away and paced +soberly campward, leaving ten herders where they found six. + +Jody Weir rode over to Johnny. + +"Old citizen," he said, "the rod tells me you are for Engle, and if I +wanted to send letters I might go write 'em. But I beat him to it. +Letter to my girl all written and ready. All I had to do was to put in +a line with my little old pencil, telling her we'd work the herd +to-morrow and start home next day. She'll be one pleased girl; she +sure does love her little Jody." + +Johnny knotted his brows in puzzlement. "But who reads your letters to +her?" he said wonderingly. + +"Now what you doin'--tryin' to slur my girl? She's educated, that +child is." + +"No; but when you said she--she liked her little Jody--why, I +naturally supposed"--Johnny hesitated--"her eyesight, you know, might +be--" + +Weir slapped his leg and guffawed. + +"Thought she was blind, did you? Well, she ain't. If she was I +wouldn't be writing this letter. Most of it is heap private and +confidential." His face took on a broad and knowing leer as he handed +over the letter. It was fat; it was face up; it bore the address: + + MR. J. D. WEIR, HILLSBORO, N. M. + +Johnny put the letter carefully in his saddle pocket. + +"Don't you think maybe you're leaving an opening for some of the +cattle to slip out?" he said, twitching his thumb toward Weir's +deserted post. + +"Let them other waddies circulate a little--lazy dogs! Won't hurt 'em +any. Cattle ain't troublin', nohow. Cole, he told me himself to slide +over and give you my letters. Darned funny if a man can't gas a little +once in a while." He gave Johnny a black look. "Say, feller! Maybe you +don't like my talk?" + +"No," said Johnny, "I don't. Not unless you change the subject. That +young lady wouldn't want you to be talking her over with any tough +you meet." + +Jody Weir checked his horse and regarded Dines with a truculent stare. +"Aw, hell! She ain't so particular! Here, let me show you the stuff +she writes, herself." His hand went to his vest pocket. "Some baby!" + +"Here! That's enough! I'm surprised at you, Jody. I never was plumb +foolish about you, but I suhtenly thought you was man enough not to +kiss and tell. That's as low-down as they ever get, I reckon." + +"You ain't got no gun. And you're too little for me to maul round--say +nothing of scaring the herd and maybe wasting a lot." + +"All that is very true--to-day. But it isn't a question of guns, just +now. I'm trying to get you to shut up that big blackguard mouth of +yours. If you wasn't such a numskull you'd see that I'm a-doin' you a +good turn." + +"You little sawed-off, bench-legged pup! I orter throw this gun away +and stomp you into the sand! Aw, what's a-bitin' you? I ain't named no +names, have I? You're crowdin' me purty hard. What's the matter, +feller? Got it in for me, and usin' this as an excuse? When'd I ever +do you any dirt?" + +"Never," said Johnny. "Get this straight: I'm not wanting any fight. +It's decency I'm trying to crowd on to you--not a fight." + +"I can't write to my girl without your say-so, hey?" + +"Now you listen! Writing to a girl, fair and above-board, is one +thing. Writing unbeknownst to her folks, with loose talk about her on +the side, is another thing altogether. It's yourself you're doing dirt +to--and to this girl that trusted you." + +Jody's face showed real bewilderment. "How? You don't know her name. +Nobody knows her name. No one knows I have more than a nodding +acquaintance with her--unless she told you!" His eyes flamed with +sudden suspicion. "You know her yourself--she told you!" + +"Jody, you put me in mind of the stealthy hippopotamus, and likewise +of the six-toed Wallipaloova bird, that hides himself under his +wing," said Dines. "I've never been in Hillsboro, and I never saw your +girl. But when you write her a letter addressed to yourself--why don't +your dad take that letter home and keep it till you come? How is she +going to get it out of the post office? She can't--unless she works in +the post office herself. Old man Seiber is postmaster at Hillsboro. +I've heard that much. And he's got a daughter named Kitty. You see now +I was telling you true--you talk too much." + +Weir's face went scarlet with rage. + +"Here's a fine how-de-do about a damn little--" + +That word was never uttered. Johnny's horse, with rein and knee and +spur to guide and goad, reared high and flung sidewise. White hoofs +flashed above Weir's startled eyes; Johnny launched himself through +the air straight at Jody's throat. Johnny's horse fell crashing after, +twisting, bestriding at once the other horse and the two locked and +straining men. Weir's horse floundered and went down, men and horses +rolled together in the sand. From first to last you might have +counted--one--two--three--four! Johnny came clear of the tangle with +Jody's six-shooter in his hand. He grabbed Jody by the collar and +dragged him from under the struggling horses. + +"We can't go on with this, Jody!" he said gravely. "You've got no +gun!" + + + + +II + + "'She is useful to us, undoubtedly,' answered Corneuse, 'but she does + us an injury by ruining us.'" + --_The Elm Tree on the Mall._ + + +The Jornada is a high desert of tableland, east of the Rio Grande. +In design it is strikingly like a billiard table; forty-five miles +by ninety, with mountain ranges for rail at east and west, broken +highlands on the south, a lava bed on the north. At the middle of each +rail and at each corner, for pockets, there is a mountain passway and +water; there are peaks and landmarks for each diamond on the rail; +for the center and for each spot there is a railroad station and +water--Lava, Engle and Upham. Roughly speaking there is road or trail +from each spot to each pocket, each spot to each spot, each pocket to +every other pocket. In the center, where you put the pin at pin pool, +stands Engle. + +Noon of the next day found Johnny nearing Moongate Pass, a deep notch +in the San Andreas Mountains; a smooth semicircle exactly filled and +fitted by the rising moon, when full and seen from Engle. Through +Moongate led the wagon road, branching at the high parks on the summit +to five springs: The Bar Cross horse camp, Bear Den, Rosebud, Good +Fortune, Grapevine. + +Johnny drove his casualties slowly up the gentle valley. On either +hand a black-cedared ridge climbed eastward, each to a high black +mountain at the head of the pass. Johnny gathered up what saddle +horses were in the pass and moved them along with his cripples. + +At the summit he came to a great gateway country of parks and cedar +mottes, gentle slopes and low rolling ridges, with wide smooth +valleys falling away to north and south; eastward rose a barrier of +red-sandstone hills. High in those red hills Johnny saw two horsemen. +They drove a bunch of horses of their own; they rode swiftly down a +winding backbone to intercept him. He held up his little herd; the two +riders slowed up in response. They came through a greenwood archway to +the little cove where Johnny waited. One was a boy of sixteen, Bob +Gifford, left in charge of the horse camp; the other a tall stranger +who held up his hand in salute. Young Bob reined up with a gay +flourish. + +"Hello, Dinesy!" He took a swift survey of Johnny's little herd and +sized up the situation. "Looks like you done signed up with the Bar +Cross." + +"Oh, _si_! Here's a list of horses Cole sent for. I don't know 'em +all, so I brought along all I saw." + +Bob took the scrap of paper. + +"Calabaza, Jug, Silver Dick--Oh, excuse me! Mr. Hales, this is Johnny +Dines. Mr. Hales is thinkin' some of buying that ornery Spot horse of +mine. Johnny, you got nigh all you need to make good your hospital +list. Now let's see. Um-m!--Twilight, Cyclone, Dynamite, Rebel, Sif +Sam, Cigarette, Skyrocket, Straight-edge, and so forth. Um! Your +mount, that bunch? Sweet spirits of nitre! Oh, cowboy! You sure got to +ride!" + +"Last man takes the leavings," said Johnny. + +"You got 'em." Bob rolled his eyes eloquently. "I'll tell a man! Two +sticks and eleven catawampouses! Well, it's your funeral. Any rush?" + +"Just so I get back to Engle to-morrow night." + +"Easy as silk, then. All them you ain't got here will be in to water +to-night or to-morrow morning, 'cept Bluebeard and Popcorn. They run +at Puddingstone Tanks, down the canyon. You and me will go get 'em +after dinner." + +"Dinner? Let's go! Got any beef, Bobby?" + +"Better'n beef. Bear meat-jerked. Make hair grow on your chest. Ever +eat any?" + +"Bear meat? Who killed a bear?" + +"Me. Little Bobby. All alone. Three of 'em. Killed three in the yard +the very first morning," said little Bobby proudly. "I heard them +snuffin' and millin' round out in the water pen in the night, but I +thought it was stock. Then they come up in the house yard. Soon as it +come day I got up to drive 'em out--and behold you, they was no stock, +but three whoppin' brown bears. So I fogged 'em. Killed all three +before they could get out of the yard." + +"Good Lord!" said Johnny. His face drooped to troubled lines. The man +Hales glanced sharply at him. + +"Heap big chief me!" prattled Bobby, unnoting. "Two bully good +skins--had to shoot the last one all to rags to kill him--and twelve +hundred pounds of good meat. Wah!" He turned to the stranger. "Well, +Mr. Hales, do you think that little old plug of mine will suit you?" + +"Oh, I reckon so. Beggars mustn't be choosers--and I sure need him. +Thirty dollars, you said?" + +"Wouldn't take a cent more. I'm not gougin' you. That's his price, +weekdays or Sunday. He don't look much, but he ain't such a bad little +hoss." + +Hales nodded. "He'll do, I guess." + +"You done bought a horse!" said Bobby. "And Johnny, he's got a mount +to make him a rep--if they don't spill him." He broke into rollicking +song: + + _They picked me up and carried me in; + They rubbed me down with a rolling pin. + "Oh, that's the way we all begin, + You're doing well," says Brown; + "To-morrow morn, if you don't die, + I'll give you another horse to try." + "Oh, can't you let me walk?" says I----_ + +Here he cocked an impish eye at Dines, observed that gentleman's +mournful face, and broke the song short. + +"What's the matter with you now, Dinesy? You can ride 'em, of course. +No trouble after you first take the edge off." + +"It isn't that," said Dines sorrowfully. "I--I--you ain't a bit to +blame, but--" + +He stopped, embarrassed. + +"What's the matter, you old fool? Spill it!" + +Johnny sighed and drew in a long breath. + +"I hate to name it, Bob--I do so. Hiram Yoast and Foamy White, the +blamed old fools, they orter told you! They'll be all broke up about +this." He looked Bob square in the eye and plunged on desperately. +"Them bears, Bobby--Hiram and Foamy had been makin' pets of 'em. +Feedin' them beef bones and such ever since last spring--had 'em +plumb gentle." + +"Hell and damnation!" + +Johnny's eyes were candid and compassionate. "Anybody would have done +just the same, Bobby. Don't you feel too bad about it. Rotten durned +shame, though. Them bears was a bushel o' fun. Jack and Jill, the two +biggest ones, they was a leetle mite standoffish and inclined to play +it safe. But the Prodigal Son, that's the least one--growed a heap +since last spring with plenty to eat that way--why, the Prodigal he'd +never met up with any man but Foamy and Hi, so he wasn't a mite leery. +Regular clown, that bear. Stand up right in front of the door, and +catch biscuit and truck the boys threw to him--loll out his little red +tongue and grin like a house afire. He was right comical. How he did +love molasses!" + +"How come them fools didn't tell me?" demanded the crestfallen hunter, +almost in tears. + +"Pretty tough luck," said Hales commiseratingly. "I killed a pet deer +once. I know just how you feel." + +"I don't know who's to break it to Hiram and Foamy," said Johnny, +grieving. "It's goin' to hurt 'em, bad! They set a heap of store by +them bears--'special the Prodigal--poor little fellow! I feel right +bad myself, and I was only here two nights. Make it all the worse for +them, being all on account of their cussed carelessness. I can't see +how you're a bit to blame. Only I do think you might have noticed your +night horse didn't make any fuss. Usual, horses are scared stiff of +bears. But they'd got plumb used to these." + +"Didn't keep up no horse that night," said Bob miserably. + +"Look here!" said Hales. "What's the use of letting them other fellows +know anything about it? Mr. Dines and me, we won't tell. This young +man can send his bearskins over east, Tularosa or somewhere, and keep +his lip buttoned up. No one need be ever the wiser. Bears change their +range whenever they get good and ready. Nobody need know but what they +just took a notion to light out." + +"Say, that's the right idea!" said Johnny, brightening. "That'll save +a heap of trouble. Boys are liable to think the round-up scared 'em +out--as might happen, easy. That ain't all either. That plan will not +only save Hi and Foamy a heap o' grief, but it won't be no bad thing +for Bob Gifford. I'll tell you honest, Bob--the Bar Cross will near +devil the life out of you if this thing ever gets out." + +"That's good dope, kid," said Hales kindly. "No use cryin' over spilt +milk." + +"Let's drop it then. I'll get rid of the bear hides." + +"That's right. Talkin' about it only makes you feel bad. Forget it. +Here, I'll give you something else to think about. You two seem to be +all right." + +Hales drew rein, with a long appraising look at the younger man. It +seemed to satisfy him; he rode a little to one side, facing a wooded +sugar-loaf hill in the middle of the rough gap leading east to +Rosebud. He waved his hand. A crackling of brush made instant answer; +high above them a horseman came from cover and picked his way down the +steep hill. + +"Friend of mine," explained Hales, returning. "He is sort of watering +at night, just now. No hanging matter--but he wouldn't have showed up +unless I waved him the O. K. And he is sure one hungry man. It's for +him I bought the horse." + +Johnny reflected a little. This was no new or startling procedure. +Besides being the most lonesome spot in a thinly settled country, with +a desert on each side, and with Engle, thirty miles, for next +neighbor, the horse camp had other advantages. It was situated in the +Panhandle of Socorro County; a long, thin strip of rough mountain, two +townships wide and five long, with Sierra County west, Dona Ana to the +south, Lincoln and Otero on the east; a convenient juxtaposition in +certain contingencies. Many gentlemen came uncommunicative to the +horse camp and departed unquestioned. In such case the tradition of +hospitality required the host to ride afield against the parting time; +so being enabled to say truly that he knew not the direction of his +guest's departure. Word was passed on; the Panhandle became well and +widely known; we all know what the lame dog did to the doctor. + +But Johnny rubbed his nose. This thing had been done with needless +ostentation; and Johnny did not like Mr. Hales' face. It was a furtive +face; the angles of the eyes did not quite match, so that the eyes +seemed to keep watch of each other; moreover, they were squinched +little eyes, and set too close to the nose; the nose was too thin and +was pinched to a covert sneer, aided therein by a sullen mouth under +heavy mustaches. Altogether Mr. Hales did not look like a man +overgiven to trustfulness. Johnny did not see any reason why Mr. +Hales' friend should not have ridden in later and with more reticence; +so he set himself to watch for such reason. + +"My friend, Mr. Smith," announced Hales, as Mr. Smith joined them. Mr. +Smith, like the others, wore belt and six-shooter; also, a rifle was +strapped under his knee. He was a short and heavy-set man, singularly +carefree of appearance, and he now inquired with great earnestness: +"Anybody mention grub?" + +"Sure," said Bobby. "Let's drift! Only a mile or so." + + _We all went to the ranch next day; + Brown augured me most all the way; + He said cowpunching was only play, + There was no work at all. + "All you have to do is ride, + It's just like drifting with the tide----" + Lord have mercy, how he lied! + He had a most horrible gall!_ + +The walling hills were higher now. The canyon fell away swiftly to +downward plunge, gravel between cut banks. Just above the horse camp +it made a sharp double-S curve. Riding across a short cut of shoulder, +Bob, in the lead, held up a hand to check the others. He rode up on a +little platform to the right, from which, as pedestal, rose a great +hill of red sandstone, square-topped and incredibly steep. Bobby waved +his hat; a man on foot appeared on the crest of the red hill and +zigzagged down the steeps. He wore a steeple-crowned hat and he +carried a long rifle in the crook of his arm. + +Johnny's eyes widened. He exchanged a glance with Hales; and he +observed that Smith and Hales did not look at each other. Yet they +had--so Johnny thought--one brief glance coming to them, under the +circumstances. + +Hales pitched his voice low. + +"You was lying about them bears, of course?" + +"Got to keep boys in their place," said Johnny in the same guarded +undertone. "If them bears had really been pets do you suppose I'd ever +have opened my head about it?" + +"It went down easy." Hales grinned his admiration. "You taken one +chance though--about his night horse." + +"Not being scared, you mean? Well, he hasn't mentioned any horse +having a fit. And I reckoned maybe he hadn't kept up any night horse. +Really nothing much for him to do. Except cooking." + +"He does seem to have a right smart of company," agreed Hales. + +Bob returned with the last comer--a gaunt, brown man with a gift for +silence. + +"My friend, Mr. Jones," Bob explained gravely. "He stakes his horse +on that hilltop. Bully grass there. And quiet. He likes quiet. He +doesn't care for strangers a-tall--not unless I stand good for 'em." + +The camp--a single room, some fourteen feet by eighteen, flat roofed, +made of stone with a soapstone fireplace--was built in a fenced yard +on a little low red flat, looped about by the canyon, pleasant with +shady cedars, overhung by a red and mighty mountain at the back, faced +by a mightier mountain of white limestone. The spring gushed out at +the contact of red and white. + +The bunch of saddle horses was shut up in the water pen. Preparation +for dinner went forward merrily, not without favorable comment from +Mr. Smith for Bob's three bearskins, a proud carpet on the floor. Mr. +Jones had seen them before; Hales and Johnny kept honorable silence on +that theme. Hales and Mr. Smith set a good example by removing belt +and gun; an example followed by Bob, but by neither Johnny nor Mr. +Jones. The latter gentleman indeed had leaned his rifle in the corner +beyond the table. But while the discussion of bearskins was most +animated, Johnny caught Mr. Jones' eye, and arched a brow. Johnny +next took occasion to roll his own eye slowly at the unconscious +backs of Mr. Hales and Mr. Smith--and then transferred his gaze, very +pointedly, to the long rifle in the corner. Shortly after, Mr. Jones +rose and took a seat behind the table, with the long rifle at his +right hand. + +"Well, Mr. Bob," said Hales when dinner was over, "here's your thirty +dollars. You give Smith a bill of sale and get your pardner to witness +it. Me, I'm telling you good-by. I'm due to lead Smith's discard pony +about forty mile north to-night, and set him loose about daylight--up +near the White Oaks stage road. Thank'ee kindly. Good-by, all!" + +"Wait a minute, Toad," said Smith briskly. "I'll catch up my new +cayuse and side you a little ways. Stake him out in good grass, some +quiet place--like my pardner here." He grinned at Mr. Jones, who +smiled, attentive. "I'll hang my saddle in a tree and hoof it back +about dark. Safe enough here--all good fellows. And I sure like that +bear meat. To say nothing of being full up of myself for society." + +"We'll do the dishes," said Johnny. "Bob, you rope me up the gentlest +of my hyenas and we'll slip down to Puddingstone presently." + +"Well, good luck to you, Mr. Dines," said Hales at the door. + +"So long." + +"That horse you've got staked out, Mr. Jones," said Johnny, when the +others were catching horses, "how about him? I've got a private horse +out in the water pen. Shall we swap? Saddles too? You're a little the +biggest, but you can let out my stirrups a notch, and I can take up a +notch in yours, up on that pinnacle when I go for my new horse and +come back--about dark. That way, you might ride down the canyon with +Bob. I think maybe--if it was important--Bob might not find the horses +he wants, and might lay out to-night. And you might tell him you was +coming back to camp. But you can always change your mind, you know. +'All you have to do is ride.'" + +"This is right clever of you, young man," said Jones slowly. + +"It sure is. Your saddle any good?" + +"Better'n yours. Enough better to make up for the difference in +hosses, unless yours is a jo-darter. My hoss is tired." + +"He'll have all fall to rest up. We'd better trade hats, too. Somebody +might be watchin' from the hills." + +"Them fellows?" Jones motioned toward the water pen with the plate he +was drying. + +"Scouts, I guess. Decoy ducks. More men close, I judge. Acted like it. +You ought to know." + +"It ain't noways customary to send two men after me," said Jones. + +Johnny nodded. "You don't know about Smithy yet. Let me wise you up." +He outlined the trustfulness of Smithy. "So he was all labeled up for +an outlaw, like a sandwich man. Putting one over on Bobby--him being a +boy. Bobby fell for it. And me, just a big kid myself, what show did I +have with two big grown men smooth as all that? So they fooled me, +too. Smithy said 'Toad' once--notice? Toad Hales. I've heard of Toad +Hales. Socorro way. Big mitt man, once. Skunk--but no fighting fool. +Out for the dollar." + +"He sees some several. You're takin' right smart of a chance, young +fellow." + +"I guess I've got a right to swap horses if I want to. Hark! They're +ridin' up the canyon." + +"Well, suh, I'm right obliged to you, and that's a fact." + +"I'm not doing this for you exactly. I'm protectin' the Bar Cross. And +that's funny, too," said Johnny. "I've just barely signed up with the +outfit, and right off things begin to take place in great lumps and +gobs. More action in two days than I've seen before in two years. +Here's how I look at it: If anyone sees fit to ride up on you and +gather you on the square I've got nothing to say. But I hold no candle +to treachery. You're here under trust. I owe it to the Bar Cross--and +to you--that you leave here no worse off than you came. I don't know +what you've done. If it's mean enough, I may owe it to Johnny Dines +to go after you myself later on. But you go safe from here first. +That's my job." + +"And I'll bet you'd sure come a-snuffin'. I judge you're a right white +man, suh! But it's not so mean as all that, this time. Not even a case +of 'alive or dead.' Just 'for arrest and conviction.' So I guess +you'll be reasonably safe on the hillside. No money in killing you, or +me, or whoever brings my hoss off of that hill. And they'll be +counting on gathering you in easy--asleep here, likely." + +"That's the way I figured it--that last." + +"But how'll you square yourself with the sheriff?" + +"I'll contrive to make strap and buckle meet some way. Man dear, I've +got to!" + +"Well, then--I owe you a day in harvest. Good-by, suh. Jones, he pulls +his freight." + + * * * * * + +Johnny brought his new horse and saddle down from the red hill, +unmolested. He cut out what horses he wanted to keep in the branding +pen; turned the others loose, his new acquisition with them; and +started supper. Mr. Smith joined him at dark; but the horse hunters +did not get back. Supper followed, then seven-up and conversation. +Johnny fretted over the non-return of Gifford. + +"He talked as if he knew right where to lay his hand on them horses," +he complained. "Wish I had gone myself. Now in the morning I'll have +to be out of here at daylight. That bunch I got in the pen, I got to +take them out to grass, and wait till Bob comes--if the blame little +fool sleeps out to-night." + +"Oh, he'll be in purty quick, likely." + +"I don't know," said Johnny dejectedly. "I had to-morrow all figured +out like a timetable, and here it's all gummed up. Listen. What's that +in the yard--crunchin'? Varmints, likely. When I was here last we used +to throw out beef bones, and of nights we'd shoot through the doorway +at the noise. We got eight skunks and three coyotes and a fox and a +tub. Guess I'll try a shot now." He picked up his revolver and cocked +it. + +"Hello, the house!" said a hurried voice outside. + +"Why, it's a man!" said Johnny. He turned his gun upon Mr. Smith. +"One word and you're done," he whispered. His eye was convincing. +Smith petrified. Johnny raised his voice. "Hello, outside! You come +near getting shot for a skunk! If you want supper and shelter say +please and walk out loud like a man. I don't like your pussy-foot +ways." + +"Come out of there--one at a time--hands up!" said the voice. "We've +got you surrounded. You can't get away!" + +"On the contrary, we are behind thick walls, and you can get away if +you're right quick and immediate," said Johnny. "Inside of a minute +I'm going to empty a rifle out there on general principles. This is a +Bar Cross house. I am a Bar Cross man, where I belong, following +orders. Half a minute more!" + +"You fool! This is the sheriff's posse!" + +"I hear you say it." + +"I am the sheriff of Socorro County," said another voice, "and I +summon you to surrender." + +"I am a Bar Cross man in a Bar Cross house," repeated Johnny. "If +you're the sheriff, walk in that door on your hind legs, with your +hands up, and let us have a look at you." + +"That's Johnny Dines talking!" said a third voice. "Hello, Dines! This +is me, Bill Fewell! Say, this is the sheriff and his posse all right! +Don't you get in wrong." + +"One man may unbuckle his belt and back in at that door, hands up. If +you can show any papers for me, I surrender. While I give 'em the +quick look, the man that comes in is a hostage with my gun between his +shoulder blades. If he takes his hands down or anybody tries any funny +business, I'll make a sieve of him. Step lively!" + +"Dines, you fool," bawled the sheriff, "I got nothing against you. But +I've got a warrant for that man in there with you, and I'm going to +have him." + +"Oh!" A moment's silence. Then said Johnny, in an injured voice: "You +might ha' said so before. I've got him covered and I've taken his gun. +So now I've got one gun for him and one for the hostage. Send in one +man walking backward, hands up, warrant in his belt--and let him stop +right in the door! No mistakes. If the warrant is right you get your +man. Any reward?" + +"He's a stiff-necked piece," said Fewell. "But he'll do just what he +says. Here, give me your warrant. He won't hurt me--if you fellows +hold steady. If you don't, you've murdered me, that's all. Hey, Dines! +You stubborn long-eared Missouri mule, I'm coming, as per +instructions--me, Bill Fewell. You be careful!" + +He backed up and stood framed in the open door against the lamplight. +Johnny's hand flickered out and snatched the warrant. + +"Why, sheriff, this seems to be all right. Only he gave me a different +name. But then, he naturally would. Why, this warrant is all +shipshape. Hope I get some of that reward. Here's your man, and here +are my guns." He appeared at the door and tossed his guns down. The +sheriff crowded by, and broke into a bellow of rage. + +"You fool! You blundering idiot! This is one of my posse!" + +"What?" Johnny's jaw dropped in pained surprise. "He's a liar, then. +He told me he was an outlaw. Don't blame me!" + +"You hell-sent half-wit! Where's that other man--Jones?" + +"Oh, him? He's down the canyon, sir. He went with Bob after horses. He +hasn't got back yet, sir." + +"Dines, you scoundrel! Are you trying to make a fool out of me?" + +"Oh, no, sir! Impossible. Not at all, sir. If you and your posse will +take cover, sir, I'll capture him for you when he comes back, just as +I did this one, sir. We are always glad to use the Bar Cross house as +a trap and the Bar Cross grub for bait. As you see, sir." + +"Damn you, Dines, that man isn't coming back!" + +Johnny considered this for a little. Then he looked up with innocent +eyes. + +"Perhaps you are right, sir," he said thoughtfully. + + * * * * * + +Long since, the floods have washed out the Bar Cross horse camp, torn +away pens and flat and house, leaving from hill to hill a desolate +wash of gravel and boulders--so that no man may say where that poor +room stood. Yet youth housed there and hope, honor and courage and +loyalty; there are those who are glad it shall shelter no meaner +thing. + + + + +III + + "I do believe there shall be a winter yet in heaven--and in hell." + --_Paradise and the Periscope._ + + "Realism, _n._ The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads." + --_The Devil's Dictionary._ + + "They sit brooding on a garbage scow and tell us how bad the world + smells." + --BERTON BRALEY. + + +"Just round the block" is a phrase familiar to you. To get the same +effect in the open country you would say "thirty miles" or sixty; +and in those miles it is likely there would be no water and no +house--perhaps not any tree. Consider now: Within the borders of New +Mexico might be poured New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, +Delaware. Then drop in another small state and all of Chesapeake Bay, +and still New Mexico would not be brimful--though it would have to +be carried carefully to avoid slopping over. Scattered across this +country is a population less than that of Buffalo--half of it +clustered in six-mile ribbons along the Rio Grande and the Pecos. +Those figures are for to-day. Divide them by three, and then excuse +the story if it steps round the block. It was long ago; Plancus was +consul then. + +Some two weeks after the day when Johnny Dines went to horse camp, +Charlie See rode northward through the golden September; northward +from Rincon, pocket of that billiard table you know of. His way was +east of the Rio Grande, in the desperate twisting country where the +river cuts through Caballo Mountains. His home was beyond the river, +below Rincon, behind Cerro Roblado and Selden Hill; and he rode for a +reason he had. Not for the first time; at every farm and clearing he +was hailed with greeting and jest. + +Across the river he saw the yellow walls of Colorado, of old Fort +Thorne, deserted Santa Barbara. He came abreast of them, left them +behind, came to Wit's End, where the river gnaws at the long bare +ridges and the wagon road clings and clambers along the brown +hillside. He rode sidewise and swaying, crooning a gay little saddle +song; to which Stargazer, his horse, twitched back an inquiring ear. + + _Oh, there was a crooked man and he rode a crooked mile_---- + +Charlie See was as straight as his own rifle; it was the road he +traveled which prompted that joyful saddle song. As will be found upon +examination, that roistering ditty sorts with a joyful jog trot. It +follows that Charlie See was not riding at a run, as frontiersmen do +in the movies. It is a great and neglected truth that frontiersmen on +the frontier never ride like the frontiersmen in films. And it may be +mentioned in passing that frontiersmen on frontiers never do anything +at all resembling as to motive, method or result those things which +frontiersmen do in films. And that is the truth. + +The actual facts are quite simple and jolly. In pursuit of wild stock, +men run their horses at top speed for as short a time as may be +contrived; not to make the wild stock run faster and farther, but to +hold up the wild stock. Once checked, they proceed as soberly as may +be to the day's destination; eventually to a market. Horse or steer +comes to market in good shape or bad, as the handling has been +reckless or tender; and the best cowman is he whose herds have been +moved slowest. At exceptional times--riding with or from the sheriff, +to get a doctor, or, for a young man in April, riding a fresh horse +for a known and measured distance, speed is permitted. But the rule is +to ride slowly and sedately, holding swiftness in reserve for need. +Walk, running walk, pace, jog trot--those are the road gaits, to which +horses are carefully trained, giving most mileage with least effort. +Rack and single-foot are tolerated but frowningly. + +The mad, glad gallop is reserved for childhood and for emergencies. +Penalties, progressively suitable, are provided for the mad, glad +galloper. He becomes the object of sidelong glances and meaning +smiles; persistent, he becomes the theme of gibe and jest to flay the +skin. If he be such a one as would neither observe nor forecast, one +who will neither learn nor be taught, soon or late he finds himself +set afoot with a give-out horse; say, twenty-five miles from water. It +is not on record that wise or foolish, after one such experience, is +ever partial to the sprightly gallop as a road gait. Of thirst, as of +"eloquent, just and mightie Death," it may be truly said: "Whom none +could advise, thou hast perswaded." + +The road wound down to the bottom land for a little space. Then sang +Charlie See: + + _Oh, mind you not in yonder town + When the red wine you were fillin', + You drank a health to the ladies round + And slighted Barbara Allan?_ + +Followed a merry ditty of old days: + + _Foot in the stirrup and a hand on the horn, + Best old cowboy ever was born! + Hi, yi-yippy, yippy-hi-yi-yi, + Hi-yi-yippy-yippy-yay!_ + + _Stray in the herd and the boss said kill it, + Shot him in the ear with the handle of the skillet! + Hi, yi-yippy, yippy-hi-yi-yi, + Hi-yi-yippy-yippy-yay!_ + +That rollicking chorus died away. The wagon road turned up a sandy +draw for a long detour, to cross the high ridges far inland. +Stargazer clambered up the Drunkard's Mile, a steep and dizzy cut-off. +High on an overhang of halfway shelf, between water and sky, Stargazer +paused for breathing space. + + _The world has no place for a dreamer of dreams, + Then 'tis no place for me, it seems, + Dearie!... My dearie!_ + +Echo rang bugle-brave from cliff to cliff, pealed exulting, answered +again--came back long after, faint and far: + +"Dearie!... My dearie!" + +He looked down, musing, at the swirling black waters far below. + + _For I dream of you all the day long! + You run through the hours like a song! + Nothing's worth while save dreams of you, + And you can make every dream come true-- + Dearie! My dearie!_ + +Drunkard's Mile fell off into the valley at Redbrush and joined the +wagon road there. They passed Beck's Ferry and Beneteau's; they came +to a bridge over the _acequia madre_, the mother ditch, wide and +deep. Beyond was a wide valley of cleared and irrigated farm lands. +This was Garfield settlement. + + * * * * * + +You remember Mr. Dick and how he could not keep King Charles' head out +of his Memorial? A like unhappiness is mine. When I remember that +pleasant settlement as it really was, cheerful and busy and merry, I +am forced to think how gleefully the super-sophisticated Sons of Light +would fall afoul of these friendly folk--how they would pounce upon +them with jeering laughter, scoff at their simple joys and fears; set +down, with heavy and hateful satisfaction, every lack and longing; +flout at each brave makeshift, such as Little Miss Brag crowed over, +jubilant, when she pointed with pride: + + _For little Miss Brag, she lays much stress + On the privileges of a gingham dress-- + A-ha-a! O-ho-o!_ + +A lump comes to my throat, remembering; now my way is plain; if I +would not be incomparably base, I must speak up for my own people. +Now, like Mr. Dick, I must fly my kite, with these scraps and tags of +Memorial. The string is long, and if the kite flies high it may take +the facts a long way; the winds must bear them as they will. + +Consider now the spreading gospel of despair, and marvel at the power +of words--noises in the air, marks upon paper. Let us wonder to see +how little wit is needed to twist and distort truth that it may set +forth a lie. A tumblebug zest, a nose pinched to sneering, a slurring +tongue--with no more equipment you and I could draw a picture of +Garfield as it is done in the fashion of to-day. + +Be blind and deaf to help and hope, gay courage, hardship nobly +borne; appeal to envy, greed, covetousness; belaud extravagance and +luxury; magnify every drawback; exclaim at rude homes, simple dress, +plain food, manners not copied from imitators of Europe's idlesse; +use ever the mean and mocking word--how easy to belittle! Behold +Garfield--barbarous, uncouth, dreary, desolate, savage and forlorn; +there misery kennels, huddled between jungle and moaning waste; +there, lout and boor crouch in their wretched hovels! We have left out +little; only the peace of mighty mountains far and splendid, a gallant +sun and the illimitable sky, tingling and eager life, and the +invincible spirit of man. + +Such picture as this of Garfield _comme il faut_ is, I humbly +conceive, what a great man, who trod earth bravely, had in mind when +he wondered at "the spectral unreality of realistic books." It is what +he forswore in his up-summing: "And the true realism is ... to find +out where joy resides and give it a voice beyond singing." + +This trouble about Charles the First and our head--it started in 1645, +I think--needs looking into. + +There are circles where "adventurer" is a term of reproach, where +"romance" is made synonym for a lie, and a silly lie at that. +Curious! The very kernel and meaning of romance is the overcoming of +difficulties or a manly constancy of striving; a strong play pushed +home or defeat well borne. And it would be hard to find a man but +found his own life a breathless adventure, brief and hard, with ups +and downs enough, strivings through all defeats. + +Interesting, if true. But can we prove this? Certainly--by trying. +Mr. Dick sets us all right. Put any man to talk of what he knows +best--corn, coal or lumber--and hear matters throbbing with the +entrancing interest born only of first-hand knowledge. Our pessimists +"suspect nothing but what they do not understand, and they suspect +everything"--as was said of the commission set to judge the regicides +who cut off the head of Charles the Martyr--whom I may have mentioned, +perhaps. + +Let the dullest man tell of the thing he knows at first hand, and his +speech shall tingle with battle and luck and loss, purr for small +comforts of cakes and ale or sound the bell note of clean mirth; his +voice shall exult with pride of work, tingle and tense to speak of +hard-won steeps, the burden and heat of the day and "the bright face +of danger"; it shall be soft as quiet water to tell of shadows where +winds loiter, of moon magic and far-off suns, friendship and fire and +song. There will be more, too, which he may not say, having no words. +We prate of little things, each to each; but we fall silent before +love and death. + +It was once commonly understood that it is not good for a man +to whine. Only of late has it been discovered that a thinker is +superficial and shallow unless he whines; that no man is wise unless +he views with alarm. Eager propaganda has disseminated the glad news +that everything is going to the demnition bowwows. Willing hands pass +on the word. The method is simple. They write very long books in which +they set down the evil on the one side--and nothing on the other. That +is "realism." Whatsoever things are false, whatsoever things are +dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, whatsoever things are impure, +whatsoever things are of ill report; if there be any vice, and if +there be any shame--they think on these things. They gloat upon these +things; they wallow in these things. + +The next time you hanker for a gripping, stinging, roaring romance, +try the story of Eddystone Lighthouse. There wasn't a realist on the +job--they couldn't stand the gaff. For any tough lay like this of +Winstanley's dream you want a gang of idealists--the impractical kind. +It is not a dismal story; it is a long record of trouble, delay, +setbacks, exposure, hardship, death and danger, failure, humiliation, +jeers, disaster and ruin. Crippled idealists were common in Plymouth +Harbor. The sea and the wind mocked their labor; they were crushed, +frozen and drowned; but they built Eddystone Light! And men in other +harbors took heart again to build great lights against night and +storm; the world over, realists fare safelier on the sea for +Winstanley's dream. + +There is the great distinction between realism and reality: It is the +business of a realist to preach how man is mastered by circumstances; +it is the business of a man to prove that he will be damned first. + +You may note this curious fact of dismal books--that you remember no +passage to quote to your friends. Not one. And you perceive, with +lively astonishment, that despairing books are written by the +fortunate. The homespun are not so easily discouraged. When crows pull +up their corn they do not quarrel with Creation. They comment on the +crows, and plant more corn. + +This trouble in King Charles' head may be explained, in part, on +a closer looking. As for those who announce the bankruptcy of an +insolvent and wildcat universe, with no extradition, and who proclaim +God the Great Absconder--they are mostly of the emerged tenth. Their +lips do curl with scorn; and what they scorn most is work--and doers. +For what they deign to praise--observe, sir, for yourself, what they +uphold, directly or by implication. See if it be not a thing compact +of graces possible only to idleness. See if it be not their great and +fatal mistake that they regard culture as an end in itself, and not +as a means for service. Aristocracy? Patricians? In a world which has +known the tinker of Bedford, the druggist's clerk of Edmonton, the +Stratford poacher, backwoods Lincoln, a thousand others, and ten +thousand--a carpenter's son among them? + +Returning to the Provisional Government: Regard its members closely, +these gods _ad interim_. The ground of their depression is that +everybody is not Just like Them. They have a grievance also in the +matter of death; which might have been arranged better. It saddens +them to know that so much excellence as theirs should perish from +the earth. The skeptic is slacker, too; excusing himself from the +hardships of right living by pleading the futility of effort. + +Unfair? Of course I am unfair; all this is assumption without +knowledge, a malicious imputation of the worst possible motives, +judgment from a part. It is their own method. + +A wise word was said of late: "There are poor colonels, but no poor +regiments." It would be truer to change a word; to say that there are +poor soldiers, but no poor regiments. The gloomster picks the poorest +soldier he can find, and holds him up to our eyes as a sample. "This +is life!" says the pessimist, proud at last. "Now you see the stuff +your regiments are made of!" + +If one of these pallbearers should write a treatise on pomology he +would dwell lovingly on apple-tree borers, blight and pest and scale. +He would say no word of spray or pruning; he would scoff at the glory +of apple blossoms as the rosy illusion of romance; and he would +resolutely suppress all mention of--apples. But he would feature hard +cider, for all that; and he would revel in cankerworms. + +These blighters and borers--figuratively speaking--when the curse of +the bottle is upon them--the ink bottle--they weave ugly words to ugly +phrases for ugly books about ugly things; with ugly thoughts of ugly +deeds they chronicle life and men as dreary, sordid, base, squalid, +paltry, tawdry, mean, dismal, dull and dull again, interminably +dull--vile, flat, stale, unprofitable and insipid. No splendid folly +or valiant sin--much less impracticable idealisms, such as kindness, +generosity, faith, forgiveness, courage, honor, friendship, love; no +charm or joy or beauty, no ardors that flame and glow. They show forth +a world of beastliness and bankruptcy; they picture life as a +purposeless hell. + +I beg of you, sir, do not permit yourself to be alarmed. What you hear +is but the backdoor gossip of the world. And these people do not get +enough exercise. Their livers are torpid. Some of them, poor fellows, +are quite sincere--and some are merely in the fashion. It isn't true, +you know; not of all of us, all the time. Nothing is changed; there is +no shadow but proves the light; in the farthest world of any universe, +in the latest eternity you choose to mention, it will still be playing +the game to run out your hits; and there, as here, only the shirker +will lie down on the job. + +In the meantime, now and here, there are two things, and two only, +that a man may do with his ideals: He may hold and shape them, or +tread them under foot; ripen or rot. + +What, sir, the hills are steep, the sand heavy, the mire is +Despond-deep; for that reason will you choose a balky horse? Or will +you follow a leader who plans surrender? + +The bookshelviki have thrown away the sword before the fight. They +shriek a shameful message: "All is lost! Save yourselves who can!" + +The battle is sore upon us; true. But there is another war cry than +this. It was born of a bitter hour; it was nobly boasted, and brave +men made it good. Now, and for all time to come, as the lost and +furious fight reels by, men will turn and turn again for the watchword +of Verdun: "They shall not pass! They shall not pass!" + +Pardon the pontifical character of these remarks. They come tardy off. +For years I have kept a safe and shameful silence when I should have +been shouting, "Janet! Donkeys!" and throwing things. I will be +highbrow-beaten no longer. I hereby resign from the choir inaudible. +Modesty may go hang and prudence be jiggered; I wear Little Miss +Brag's colors for favor; I have cut me an ellum gad, and I mean to use +it on the seat of the scorner. + + * * * * * + +"Everything in Nature is engaged in writing its own history." So says +Emerson or somebody. Here is the roll call of that lonesome bit +between the Rio Grande and Caballo Mountain. Salem, Garfield, +Donahue's, Derry and Shandon; those were the hamlets of the east +side. Sound Irish, don't they? They were just what they sound like, at +first. A few Irish families, big families, half of them girls--Irish +girls; young gentlemen with a fancy to settle down settled right there +or thereabouts. That's a quick way to start settlements. There was +also a sardonic Greenhorn, to keep alive a memory of the old-time +Texans, before the fences. A hundred years older than Greenhorn was +the old Mexican outpost, San Ysidro; ruthlessly changed to Garfield +when the Mississippi Valley moved in. Transportation was the poorest +ever; this was the last-won farm land of New Mexico. + +Along with snakes, centipedes, little yellow bobcats, whisky, poker, +maybe a beef or two--there were other features worthy of note. Each +man had to be cook, housekeeper, hunter, laundryman, shoemaker, +blacksmith, bookkeeper, purchasing agent, miner, mason, nurse, doctor, +gravedigger, interpreter, surveyor, tailor, jailor, judge, jury and +sheriff. Having no sea handy, he was seldom a sailorman. + +A man who could do these things well enough to make them work might +be illiterate, but he couldn't be ignorant, not on a bet. It wasn't +possible. He knew too much. He had to do his own thinking. There was +no one else to do it for him. And he could not be wretched. He was too +busy. "We may be poor sinners, but we're not miserable"--that was a +favorite saying. When they brought in supplies or when they packed for +a long trip, they learned foresight and imagination. A right good +college, the frontier; there are many who are proud of that degree. + +It is easy to be hospitable, kindly and free-hearted in a thinly +settled country; it is your turn next, you know generosity from both +sides; the Golden Rule has no chance to get rusty. So they were +pleasant and friendly people. They learned cooperation by making wagon +roads together, by making dams and big irrigation ditches, and from +the round-ups. They lived in the open air, and their work was hard, +they had health; there were endless difficulties to overcome; +happiness had a long start and the pursuit was merry. + +There was one other great advantage--hope. They had much to hope for. +Almost everything. They wished three great wishes: Water for the +fields, safety from floods, a way to the outside world. To-day the +thick and tangled _bosques_ are cleared to smiling farms, linked by a +shining network of ditches. The floods are impounded at Engle Dam, and +held there for man's uses. A great irrigation canal keeps high and +wide, with just fall enough to move the water; each foot saved of high +level means added miles of reclaimed land under the ditch. To a +stranger's eye the water of that ditch runs clearly uphill. To hold +that high level the main ditch, which is first taken out to serve the +west side, crosses the Rio Grande on a high flume to Derry; curves +high and winding about the wide farm lands of Garfield valley; is +siphoned under the river for Hatch and Rodey, and then is siphoned +once again to the east side, to break out in the sunlight for the use +of Rincon Valley. Rough and crooked is made smooth and straight; safe +bridge and easy grade, a modern highway follows up the valley, with a +brave firefly twinkling by night, to join the great National Trail at +Engle Dam. This is what they dreamed amid sand and thorn--and their +dreams have all come true. Now who can say which was better, the +hoping or the having? + +It was pleasant enough, at least, on this day of hoping. Stargazer +shuffled by farm and farm, and turned aside at last to where, with ax +and pick and team and tackle, a big man was grubbing up mesquite +roots. Unheeded, for the big man wrought sturdily, Charlie rode close; +elbow on saddlehorn, chin on hand, he watched the work with mingled +interest and pity. + +"There," he said, and shuddered--"there, but for the grace of God, +goes Charlie See!" + +The big man straightened up and held a hand to his aching back. His +face was brown and his hair was red, his eyes were big and blue and +merry, and his big, homely, honest mouth was one broad grin. + +"Why, if it ain't Nubbins! Welcome, little stranger! Hunting saddle +horses--again?" + +"Why, no, Big Boy--I'm not. Not this time." + +Big Boy rubbed the bridge of his nose, disconcerted. "You always was +before. Not horses? Well, well! What say we go a-visitin', then?" He +squinted at the low sun. "I'll call this a day, and we'll mosey right +home to my little old shack, and wolf down a few eggs and such. Then +we'll wash our hands and faces right good, catch us up some fresh +horses out of the pasture, and terrapin up the road a stretch. Bully +big moonlight night." He began unhooking his team. + +"Fine! I just love to ride. Only came about fifty miles to-day, too." + +"I was thinkin' some of droppin' in on old man Fenderson. I ain't been +over there since last night. Coalie! You, Zip! Ged-dap!" + +"Mr. Adam Forbes," said Charlie, "I've got you by the foot!" + + * * * * * + +"Now if you was wishful of any relaxations," said Adam after supper, +"you might side me up in the feet hills to-morrow, prospectin'." + +"I might," said Charlie; "and then again I mightn't. Don't you go and +bet on it." + +Adam stropped his razor. "You know there's three canyons headin' +off from MacCleod's Tank Park? And the farthest one, that big, +steep, rough, wide, long, high, ugly, sandy, deep gash that runs +anti-gogglin' north, splittin' off these spindlin' little hills from +the main Caballo and Big Timber Mountain--ever been through that? +'Pache Canyon, we call it--though we got no license to." + +"Part way," said Charlie. Then his voice lit up with animation. "Say, +Big Chump, that's it! Them warty little hills here--that's what makes +us look down on you folks the way we do. And here I thought all along +it was because you was splay-foot farmers, and unfortunate, you know, +that way like all nesters is. But blamed if I don't think it was them +hills, all the time. We got regular old he-mountains, we have. But +these here little old squatty hills clutterin' up your back yard--why, +Adam, they ain't respectable, them hills ain't--squanderin' round +where a body might stub his toe on 'em, any time. You ought to pile +'em up, Adam. They look plumb shiftless." + +"That listens real good to me. You got more brains than people say." +Adam scraped tranquilly at cheek and chin, necessitating an occasional +pause in his speech. "Now you can see for yourself how plumb foolish +and futile a little runt of a man seems to a people that ain't never +been stunted." + +"'Seems' is a right good word," said Charlie. He blew out a smoke +ring. "You sure picked the very word you wanted, that time. I didn't +think you had sense enough." + +Adam passed an appraising finger tip over his brown cheek; he stirred +up fresh lather. + +"Yes," he said musingly, "a little sawed off sliver like you sure does +look right comical to a full-grown man. Like me. Or Hob Lull." He +paused, brush in air, to regard his guest benignantly. "I wonder if +girls feel that way too? Miss Lyn Dyer, now? Lull, he hangs round +there right smart--and he's a fine, big, upstanding man." He lathered +his face and rubbed it in. "First off, I fixed to assassinate him +quiet, from behind. You know them two girls don't hardly know where +they do live--always together, Harkey's house or Fenderson's. So I +mistrusted, natural enough, that 'twas Miss Edith he was waitin' on. +But I was mistook. Just in time to save his life from my bloody and +brutal designs he began tolling Miss Lyn to one side to look at +sunsets and books and such, givin' me a chance to buzz Miss Edith +alone. Good thing for him. That's why I'm lettin' you tag along +to-night--you can entertain Pete Harkey and Ma Fenderson and the old +man, so's they won't pester me and Hobby." + +"Like fun I will! If you fellows had any decent feeling at all you'd +both of you clear out and give me a chance." + +"Now, deary, you hadn't ought to talk like that--indeed you hadn't!" +protested Adam. "You plumb distress me. You ought to declare yourself, +feller. I'd always hate it if I was to slay you, and then find out I'd +been meddlin' with Hobby Lull's private affairs. I'd hate that--I sure +would!" + +"Well now, there's no use of your askin' me for advice." Charlie's +eyebrows shrugged, and so did his shoulders. "You'll have to decide +these things for yourself. Say, you mangy, moth-eaten, slab-sided, +long, lousy, lop-eared parallelopipedon, are you goin' to be all +night dollin' up? Let's ride!" + +"Don't blame you for bein' impatient. Hob, he's there now." Face and +voice expressed fine tolerance; Adam looked into a scrap of broken +mirror for careful knotting of a gay necktie. + +"I won't be sorry to see Hob once more, at that," observed Charlie. +"Always liked Lull. Took to him first time I ever saw him. That was +seven years ago, when I was only a kid." + +"Only a kid! Only--Great Caesar's ghost, what are you now?" + +"I'm twenty-five years old in my stocking feet. And here's how I met +up with Lull. El Paso had a big ball game on with Silver City, and +Hob, he wanted to be umpire. Nobody on either team would hear of it, +and not one of the fifteen hundred rip-roarin', howlin' fans. It was +sure a mean mess while it lasted. You see, there was a lot of money up +on the game." + +"And who umpired?" + +"Hob." + + + + +IV + + "Money was so scarce in that country that the babies had to cut their + teeth on certified checks." + --_Bluebeard for Happiness._ + + "The cauldrified and chittering truth." + --THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. + + +"As I was a-tellin' you, when I got switched off," said Adam, in the +starlit road, "I found gold dust in 'Pache Canyon nigh onto a year ago. +Not much--just a color--but it set me to thinkin'." + +"How queer!" said Charlie. + +"Yes, ain't it? You see, a long time ago, when the 'Paches were thick +about here, they used to bring in gold to sell--coarse gold, big as +rice, nearly. Never would tell where they got it; but when they wanted +anything right bad they was right there with the stuff; coarse gold. +All sorts of men tried all sorts of ways to find out where it came +from. No go." + +"Indians are mighty curious about gold," said Charlie. "Over in the +Fort Stanton country, the Mescaleros used to bring in gold that same +way--only it was fine gold, there. Along about 1880, Llewellyn, he was +the agent; and Steve Utter, chief of police; and Dave Easton, he was +chief clerk; and Dave Pelman and Dave Sutherland--three Daves--and old +Pat Coghlan--them six, they yammered away at one old buck till at last +he agreed to show them. He was to get a four-horse team, harness and +wagon, and his pick of stuff from the commissary to load up the wagon +with. They was to go by night, and no other Indian was ever to know +who told 'em, before or after--though how he proposed to account +for that wagonload of plunder I don't know. I'll say he was a +short-sighted Injun, anyway. + +"Well, they started from the agency soon after midnight. They had to +go downstream about a quarter, round a fishhook bend, on account of a +mess of wire fence; and then they turned up through a _cienaga_ on a +corduroy road, sort of a lane cut straight through the swamp, with the +_tules_--cat-tail flags, you know--eight or ten feet high on each +side. They was going single file, mighty quiet, Mister Mescalero-man +in the lead. They heard just a little faint stir in the _tules_, and +a sound like bees humming. Mister Redskin he keels over, shot full of +arrows. Not one leaf moving in the _tules_; all mighty still; they +could hear the Injun pumping up blood, glug--glug--glug! The white men +went back home pretty punctual. Come daylight they go back, police and +everything. There lays their guide with nine arrows through his midst. +And that was the end of him. + +"But that wasn't the end of the gobbling gold. Fifteen years after, +Pat Coghlan and Dave Sutherland--the others having passed on or away, +up, down, across or between--they throwed in with a lad called Durbin +or something, and between them they honey-swoggled an old Mescalero +named Falling Pine, and led him astray. It took nigh two months, but +they made a fetch of it. Old Falling Pine, he allowed to lead 'em to +the gold. + +"Now as the years passed slowly by, Lorena, the Mescaleros had got +quite some civilized; this old rooster, he held out for two thousand +plunks, half in his grimy clutch, half on delivery. He got it. And +they left Tularosa, eighteen miles below the agency, and ten miles +off the reservation, about nine o'clock of a fine Saturday night. + +"Well, sir, four miles above Tularosa the wagon road drops off the +mesa down to a little swale between a sandstone cliff and Tularosa +Creek. They turned a corner, and there was nine big bucks, wrapped up +in blankets, heads and all! There wasn't no arrows, and there wasn't +nothing said. Not a word. Those nine bucks moved up beside Falling +Pine, real slow, one at a time. Each one leaned close, pulled up a +flap of the blanket, and looked old Falling Pine in the eye, nose to +nose. Then he wrapped his blanket back over his face and faded away. +That was all. + +"It was a great plenty. The plot thinned right there. Falling Pine, he +handed back that thousand dollars advance money, like it was hot, and +he beat it for Tularosa. They wanted him to try again, to tell 'em +where the stuff was, anyhow; they doubled the price on him. He said +no--not--_nunca_--nixy--_neinte_--he guessed not--_nada_--not +much--never! He added that he was going to lead a better life from +then on, and wouldn't they please hush? And what I say unto you is +this: How did them Indians know--hey?" + +"Don't ask me," said Adam. "I've heard your story before, +Charles--only your dead Injun had thirty-five arrows for souvenirs, +'stead of nine. The big idea was, of course, that where gold is found +the white man comes along, and the Indian he has to move. But all this +is neither here nor there, especially here, though heaven only knows +what might have been under happier circumstances not under our +control, as perhaps it was, though we are all liable to make mistakes +in the best regulated families; yet perhaps I could find it in my +heart to wish it were not otherwise, as the case may be." + +"Nine arrows!" said Charlie firmly. + +"Young fellow!" said Adam severely. "Be I telling this story or be I +not? I been tryin' to relate about this may-be-so gold of mine, ever +since you come--and dad burn it, you cut me off every time. I do wish +you'd hush! Listen now! Of course there's placer gold all round +Hillsboro; most anywheres west of the river, for that matter. But +it's all fine dust--never coarse gold beyond the river--and it runs so +seldom to the ton that no Injun would ever get it. So, thinks I, why +not look in at Apache Canyon? It's the plumb lonesomest place I know, +and I don't believe anybody ever had the heart to prospect it good. So +I went up to Worden's and worked up from the lower end. + +"That was last year, and I have been prognosticatin' round, off and +on, ever since, whenever I could get away from my farmin'. I found a +trace, mostly. You can always get a color round here, and no one place +better than another. But when the rains begun this year, so I could +find water to pan with, I tried it again, higher up. And in a little +flat side draw, leadin' from between two miserable little snubby hills +off all alone, too low to send much flood water down--there I begun to +find float, plumb promisin'. I started to follow it up. You know +how--pan to right and left till the stuff fails to show, mark the edge +of the pay dirt, go on up the hill and do the like again. If the gold +you're followin' has been carried down by water the streak gets +narrower as you go up a hillside, and pay dirt gets richer as it gets +narrower. If the hill has been tossed about by the hell fires down +below, all bets is off and no rule works, not even the exceptions. +That's why they say gold is where you find it. But any time you find a +fan-shaped strip of color on a hill that looks like it might have +stayed put, or nearly so, it's worth while to follow it up. If you +find the apex of that triangle you're apt to strike a pocket that will +land you right side up with the great and good. Sometimes the apex has +done been washed away; these water courses have run quite elsewhere +other times. Oh, quite! But there's always a chance. Follow up a +narrowing color and quit one that squanders round casual. Them's the +rules. + +"Well, sir, my pay dirt took to the side of that least hill, and she +was shaping right smart like a triangle. Then my water give out. I was +usin' a little tank in the rocks--no other without packing from +MacCleod's Tank, five mile. And I had to get in my last cuttin' of +alfalfa--pesky stuff! I cached my outfit and came on home. + +"So there you are. It's been rainin' again; and I'm goin' out and try +another whirl to-morrow, hit or miss. Go snooks with you if you're a +mind to side me. What say?" + +"Why, Big Chump, you're not such a bad old hoss thief, are you? Well, +I thank you just as much, and I sure hope you'll make a ten-strike and +everything like that; but, you see, I'm busy. Tell you what, Adam--you +get Hob to go along, and I'll think about it." + +"Oh, well, maybe it's a false alarm anyway," said Adam lightly. "I've +known better things to fizzle. I get my fun, whatever happens. I can't +stay cooped up on that measly old farm all the time. I need a little +fresh air every so often. I'm a lot like Thompson's colt, that swum +the river to get a drink." + +"Don't like farmin', eh?" + +"Why, yes, I do. Beats hellin' round, same as a stack of hay beats a +stack of chips. They're right nice people here, Charlie, mighty +pleasant and friendly and plumb cheerful about the good time coming. +And every last one of 'em is here because this is the very place he +wants to be, and not because he happened to be here and didn't know +how to get away. That makes a power of difference. They're plumb +animated, these folks; if so be they ain't just satisfied any place, +they rise up and depart. So we have no grand old grouches. All the +same, I'm free to admit that I haven't quite the elbowroom I need." + +"I know just how you feel," said Charlie; "I've leased a township and +fenced it in. That's why I'm not at some round-up; all my bossies +right at home. And dog-gone if I don't feel like I was in jail. But +you people can't be making much real money, Adam--hauling over such +roads as these. It is forty miles from place to place, in here, while +out in the open it is only thirty or maybe twenty-five. That's on +account of the sand and the curly places. And then you have nothing to +do in the wintertime." + +"Well, now, it ain't so bad as you'd think--not near. We raise plenty +eggs, chickens, pork and such truck, and fruit and vegetables. Lots +of milk and butter, too; not like when we didn't have anything but +cows. Some of us have our little bunch of cattle in the foothills yet, +and fat the steers on alfalfa, and get money for 'em when we sell. But +that won't last long, I reckon. We're beginning to grow hogs on +alfalfa and fat 'em on corn, smoke 'em and salt 'em and cross 'em with +T and ship 'em to El Paso. I judge that ham, bacon and pork will be +the main crops presently. + +"Then we hurled up a grist mill since you was here, cooperative. Hob, +he got up that. And we got a good wagon road through the mountain, to +Upham. Goes up Redgate and out by MacCleod's Tank. Steepish, but no +sand; when we get a car of stuff to ship we can haul twice as much as +we can take to Rincon. We can't buy nothing at Upham, sure enough, and +sometimes have to wait for our cars. But we can have stuff shipped to +Upham from El Paso, and it's downhill coming back. Also, Hobby allows +this Upham project will ably assist Rincon to wake up and build us a +road up the valley." + +"Hobby invented this wagon road, did he?" + +"Every bit. We all chipped in to do the work. But Hob furnished the +idea. That ain't all, either. From now on, we're going to have plenty +to do, wintertimes. Mr. See, we got a factory up and ready to start. +Yessir!" + +"Easy, Big Chump! You'll strain yourself." + +"Straight goods--no joking." + +"Must be a hell of a factory!" + +"She's all right, son. A home-grown factory. You go look at her +to-morrow. Broom factory. Yessir! Every man jack of us raised a patch +of broom corn. We sell it to ourselves or buy it of ourselves, +whichever way you like it best; and anybody that wants to make brooms +does that little thing. We ship from Upham and divvy up surplus. Every +dollar's worth of broom corn draws down one dollar's share of the net +profit, and every dollar's worth of labor does just that--no more, no +less. It works out--with good faith and fair play." + +"Hob?" said Johnny. + +"That's the man." Adam Forbes let his hand rest for a moment on the +younger man's shoulder. "Charlie, you and me are all right in our +place--but there ain't goin' to be no such place much longer. I reckon +we ain't keepin' up with the times. So now you know why I wanted you +should go prospectin' with me. Birds of a feather gather no moss." + +"I judge maybe you're right. We both of us favor Thompson's colt, and +that's a fact. Well, I am glad old Hob is making good. We had as good +a chance as he did, only he had more sense." + +"Always did," said Forbes heartily. "But he ain't makin' no big sight +of money, if that's what you mean. Just making good. He's not working +for Hob Lull especially. He's working for all hands and the cook. Hob +always tries to get us to work together, like on a _'cequia_. There's +other things--a heap of 'em. We've bought a community threshing +machine. Hob has coaxed a lot of 'em into keeping bees. And he's +ribbin' us up to try a cannin' factory in a year or two, for tomatoes +and fruit. And a creamery, later. Hob is one long-headed young +people. We aim to send him to represent for us sometime." + +Charlie See laughed. "Gosh! I wish you'd hurry up about it, then." + +But there was no bitterness in his mirth. + + + + +V + + "Never pray for rain on a rising barometer." + --_Naval Regulations._ + + "Married men always make the worst husbands." + --_The Critic on the Hearth._ + + "Although, contrary to his custom, he had a lady on his knee, he + instructed the young prince in his royal duties." + --ANATOLE FRANCE. + + +Lyn Dyer lived with Uncle Dan in a little crowded house. Across the +way stood a big lonesome house; there Edith Harkey lived with Daddy +Pete. + +Pete Harkey was a gentle, quiet and rather melancholy old man; Dan +Fenderson was a fat, jolly and noisy youth of fifty. In relating other +circumstances within the knowledge of the Border it would have been in +no degree improper to have put the emphasis on the names of those +two gentlemen. But this is "another story"; it is fitting that the +youngsters take precedence; Lyn Dyer and Uncle Dan, Edith and her +father. + +Lyn Dyer--Carolyn, Lyn--had known no mother but Aunt Peg. The crowding +of the little house was well performed by Lyn's three young cousins, +Danjunior, Tomtom and Peggy. The big house had been lonesome for ten +years now. Edith's sisters and her one brother were all her seniors, +all married, and all living within eye flight; two at Hillsboro, a +scant twenty-five miles beyond the river--but the big house was not +less lonesome for that. + +The little crowded house and the big lonesome house were half way +between Garfield post office and Derry. Both homes were in Sierra +County, but they were barely across the boundary; the county line made +the southern limit of each farm. This was no chance but a choosing, +and that a pointed one; having to do with that other story of those +two old men. + +In Dona Ana County taxes were high and life was cheap. Since the +Civil War, Dona Ana had been bedeviled by the rule of professional +politicians. Sierra--aside from Lake Valley and Hillsboro--had very +little ruling and needed less; commonly enough there was only one +ticket for county officers, and that was picked by a volunteer +committee from both parties. Sierra was an American county, and took +pride that she had kept free from feuds and had no bandits within her +borders. Not that Mexicans were such evildoers. But where there was +an overwhelming Mexican vote there was a large purchasable vote; +which meant that purchasers took office. Unjust administration +followed--oppression, lawsuits and lawlessness, revenge, bloodshed, +feuds, anarchy. Result: More expense, more taxes, more bribing, more +bribers, more oppression to recoup the cost of officeholding. _Caveat +pre-emptor_--let the homesteader beware! + +That unhappy time is now past and done with. + +"Lyn! Lyn! Edith! Do come here and see what Adam Forbes has brought +in," grumbled Uncle Dan. "Another cowboy, and you just got rid of Tom +Bourbonia. It does beat all!" + +Mr. Fenderson, uttering the above complaint, stood on his porch in the +light from his open door and struck hands with two men there; after +which he slapped them violently on the back. + +"Come in!" cried Lyn from the doorway. Her eyes were shining. She +dropped a curtsy. "'Come in, come in--ye shall fare most kind!'" + +"Don't you believe Uncle Dan," said Edith. "We tried every way to make +Tommy stay over--didn't we, Lyn?" + +The story is not able to give an exact record of the next minutes. Of +the five young people--for Mr. Hobby Lull was there, as prophesied--of +the five young people, five were talking at once; and Uncle Dan, above +them all, boomed directions to Danjunior as to the horses of his +visitors. + +"Daniel! Stop that noise!" said Aunt Peg severely. "You boys come on +in the house. Mr. Charlie, I'm glad to see you." + +"Now, here!" protested Forbes. "Isn't anybody going to be glad to see +me?" + +"But, Adam, we can see you any time," explained Edith. "While Mr. +See--" + +"Her eyes went twinkle, twinkle, but her nose went 'Sniff! Sniff!'" +said Adam dolefully. "Excuse me if I seem to interrupt." + +"But Mr. See--" + +"Charlie," said See. + +"But Charlie makes himself a stranger. We haven't seen you for six +months, Mr. See." + +"Charlie," said Mr. See again. "Six months and eight days." + +Mr. Hobby Lull sighed dreamily. "Dear me! It doesn't seem over two +weeks!" + +A mesquite fire crackled in the friendly room. The night air bore no +chill; it was the meaning of that fire to be cheerful; the wide old +fireplace was the heart of the house. Adam Forbes spread his fingers +to the blaze and sighed luxuriously. + +"Charlie, when you build your house you want a fireplace like this in +every room. Hob, who's going to sell Charlie a farm?" + +"What's the matter with yours?" + +Adam appeared a little disconcerted at this suggestion. "That idea +hadn't struck me, exactly," he confessed. "But it may come to that +yet. Lots of things may happen. I might find my placer gold, say. +Didn't know I was fixing to find a gold mine, did you? Well, I am. +I wanted Charlie to go snooks with me, but he hasn't got time. Me, +I've been projectin' and pirootin' over the pinnacles after that gold +for a year now, and I've just about got it tracked to its lair. +To-morrow--" + +"Oh, gold!" said Lyn disdainfully, and wrinkled her nose. + + "_Ain't I told you a hundred times-- + Baby! + Ain't I told you a hundred times, + There ain't no money in the placer mines? + Baby!_" + +"Lyn! Wherever do you pick up such deplorable songs?" said Aunt Peg, +highly scandalized. "But she's right, Adam. The best gold is like that +in the old fable--buried under your apple trees. You dig there +faithfully and you will need no placer mines." + +White Edith turned to Charlie See. + +"If you really intend to buy a farm here you ought to be getting about +it. You might wait too long, Mr. See." + +"Charlie. Exactly what do you mean by that remark, my fair-haired +child?" + +"Here! This has gone far enough!" declared Hob. "We men have got to +stand together--or else pull stakes and go where the women cease from +troubling and the weary are at rest. Don't you let her threats get you +rattled, Charlie See. We'll protect you." + +"Silly! I meant, of course, that the Mexicans are not selling their +lands cheaply now, as they used to do." + +"Not so you could notice it," said Uncle Dan. "Those that wanted to +sell, they've sold and gone, just about all of them. What few are left +are the solid ones. Not half-bad neighbors either. Pretty good sort. +They're apt to stick." + +"Not long," said Hobby rather sadly. "They'll go, and we'll go too, +most of us. The big dam will be built, some time or other; we'll be +offered some real money. We'll grab it and drift. Strangers will take +comfort where we've grubbed out stumps. We are the scene shifters. The +play will take place later. 'Sall right; I hope the actors get a hand. +But I hate to think of strangers living--well, in this old house. Say, +we've had some happy times here." + +"Won't you please hush?" said Adam. "Why so doleful? There's more +happy times in stock. This bunch don't have to move away. Why, when I +get my gold mine in action we can all live happy ever after. +To-morrow--" + +"Hobby is right," said Aunt Peg. "Pick your words as you please, +bad luck or improvidence on the one side, thrift or greed on the +other--yes, and as many more words of praise or blame as you care +for; and the fact remains that the people who care for other things +more than they do for money are slowly crowded out by the people who +care more for money than for anything else." + +"Uncle Dan, is that why you grasping Scotchmen have crowded out the +Irish round these parts?" inquired Charlie. "McClintock, MacCleod, +Simpson, Forbes, Campbell, Monroe, Fenderson, Stewart, Buchanan--why, +say, there's a raft of you here; and across the river it is worse." + +"You touch there on a very singular thing, Mr. Charlie. Not that we +crowded out the Irish. There were only a few families, and most of +them are here yet. They happened to come first, and named the +settlements--that's all. But for the Scotch--you find more good +Scots' names to the hundred, once you strike the hills, than you will +find to the thousand on the plain country. Love of the hills is in the +blood of them; they followed the Rocky Mountains down from Canada." + +"But, Uncle Dan," said Hobby, "how did so many of them happen to be in +Canada?" + +"Scotland was a poor country and a cold country, England was rich and +warm, Canada was cold and hard. The English had no call to Canada, the +Hudson Bay Company captained their outflung posts with Scotchmen; the +easier that the Hanoverian kings, as a matter of policy, harried the +Jacobite clans by fair means and foul. You were speaking of across +the river. That is another curious matter. The California Company, +now--ruling a dozen dukedoms--California lends the name of it and +supplied the money; but the heads that first dreamed it were four long +Scottish heads. And their brand is the John Cross. Any stranger cowman +would read that brand as J Half Circle Cross. But we call it John +Cross. And why, sirs?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Hobby. "It was always the John Cross and +it never entered my head to ask why." + +"Look you there, now!" Uncle Dan held out an open palm and traced on +it with a stubby and triumphant finger. "Their fathers had served John +Company, the Hudson Bay Company! And there you are linked back with +two hundred years! 'John Company has a long arm,' they said; 'John +Company lost a good man there!' How the name began is beyond my sure +knowing; but it is in my mind that it goes back farther still, to the +East India Company, to Clive and to Madras. Lyn, you are the bookman, +I'll get you to look it up some of these--Lyn! Lyn! Charlie See! The +young devils! Now wouldn't that jar you?" + +"A fool and his honey are soon started," observed Adam. + +"We're out here, Uncle Dan; all nice and comfy. There's a moon. And +itty-bitsy stars," answered a soothing voice--Charlie See's--from the +porch. "Oodles of stars. How I wonder what they are. G'wan, Uncle +Dan--tell us about the East India Company now." + +Hobby Lull rose tragically and bestowed a withering glance upon Uncle +Dan. "You old fat fallacy with an undistributed middle--see what +you've done now! You and your John Company! Go to bed! Forbes, you +brought this man See. You go home!" + +"Overlook it this one time," urged Forbes. "Don't send us away--the +girls are going to sing. Forgive us all both, and I'll get rid of See +to-morrow." + +"Be sure you do, then. Lyn! Come here to me." + +"Don't shoot, colonel, I'll come down," said Lyn. + +Her small face was downcast and demure. Charlie See came tiptoe after +her and sidled furtively to the fire. + +"Sing, then," commanded Hobby. He brought the guitars and gave one to +each girl. + +The coals glowed on the hearth; side by side, the fair head and the +brown bent at the task of tuning. That laughing circle was scattered +long ago and it was written that never again should all those friendly +faces gather by any hearthfire--never again. It has happened so many, +many times; even to you and to me, so many, many times! But we learn +nothing; we are still bitter, and hard, and unkind--with kindness so +cheap and so priceless--as if there was no such thing as loss or +change or death. + +And because of some hours of your own, it is hoped you will not smile +at the songs of that lost happy hour. They were old-fashioned songs; +indeed, it is feared they might almost be called Victorian. Their +bourgeois simplicity carried no suggestive double meaning. + +"When other lips and other hearts"--that was what they sang, brown Lyn +and white Edith. Kirkconnel Lea they sang, and Jeanie Morrison, and +Rosamond: + + _Rose o' the world, what man would wed + When he might dream of your face instead?_ + +Folly? Perhaps. Perhaps, too, in a world where we can but love and +where we must lose, it may be no unwisdom if only love and loss seem +worth the singing. + +The swift hour passed. The last song, even as the first, was poignant +with the happy sadness of youth: + + _When my heart is sad and troubled, + Then my quivering lips shall say,_ + "_Oh! by and by you will forget me, + By and by when far away!_" + +Good-bys were said at last; Forbes and See put foot to stirrup and +rode jingling into the white moonlight; the others stood silent on the +porch and watched them go. A hundred yards down the road, Adam Forbes +drew rein. A guitar throbbed low behind them. + +"Hark," he said. + +Edith Harkey stood in the shaft of golden light from the doorway; she +bore herself like the Winged Victory; her voice thrilled across the +quiet of the moonlit night: + + "_Never the nightingale, + Oh, my dear! + Never again the lark + Thou wilt hear; + Though dusk and the morning still_ + + "_Tap at thy window-sill, + Though ever love call and call + Thou wilt not hear at all, + My dear, my dear!_" + +The sad notes melted into the sweet pagan heartbreak of the enchanted +night. They turned to go. + +"A fine girl," said Adam Forbes. "The only girl! To-morrow--" + +He fell silent; again in his heart that parting cadence knelled with +keen and intolerable sorrow. The roots of his hair prickled, ants +crawled on his spine. So tingles the pulsing blood, perhaps, when a +man is fey, when the kisses of his mouth are numbered. + +Edith went home to the big lonely house, but Lyn Dyer and Hobby Lull +lingered by the low fire. Mr. Lull assumed a dignified pose before the +fireplace, feet well apart and his hands clasped behind his back. He +regarded Miss Dyer with a twinkling eye. + +"Have you anything to say to the court before sentence is pronounced?" +he inquired with lofty judicial calm. + +Miss Dyer avoided his glance. She stood drooping before him; she +looked to one side at the floor; she looked to the other side at the +floor. The toe of her little shoe poked and twisted at a knot in the +floor. + +"Extenuating circumstances?" she suggested hopefully. + +"Name them to the court." + +"The--the moon, I guess." The inquisitive shoe traced crosses and +circles upon the knot in the flooring. "And Charlie See," she added +desperately. "Charlie has such eloquent eyes, Hobby--don't you think?" + +She raised her little curly head for a tentative peep at the court; +her own eyes were shining with mischief. The court unclasped its +hands. + +"I ought to shake you," declared Hobby. But he did not shake her at +all. + +"You're the only young man in Garfield who wears his face +clean-shaven," remarked Lyn reflectively, a little later. "Charlie +would look much better without a mustache, I think." + +He pushed her away and tipped up her chin with a gentle hand so that +he could look into her eyes. "Little brown lady with curly eyes and +laughing hair--are you quite fair to Charlie See?" + +"No," said Lyn contritely, "I'm not. I suppose we ought to tell him." + +"We ought to tell everybody. So far as I am concerned, I would enjoy +being a sandwich man placarded in big letters: 'Property of Miss Lyn +Dyer.'" + +"Why, Hobbiest--I thought it was rather nice that we had such a great +big secret all our own. But you're right--I see that now. I should +have met him at the door, I suppose, and said, 'You are merely wasting +your time, Mr. See. I will never desert my Wilkins!' Only that might +have been a little awkward, in a way, because, you see, 'Nobody asked +you to,' he said--or might have said." + +"He never told you, then?" + +"Not a word." + +"But you knew?" + +"Yes," said Lyn. "I knew." She twisted a button on his coat and spoke +with a little wistful catch in her voice. "I do like him, Hobby--I +can't help it. Only so much." She indicated how much on the nail of a +small finger. "Just a little teeny bit. But that little bit is--" + +"Strictly plutonic?" + +"Yes," she said in a small meek voice. "How did you know? He makes me +like him, Hobbiest. It--it scares me sometimes." + +"Pretty cool, I'll say, for a girl that has only been engaged a week, +if you should happen to ask me." + +"Oh, but that's not the same thing--not the same thing at all! You +couldn't keep me from liking you, not if you tried ever so hard. That +is all settled. But Charlie makes me like him. You see, he is such a +real people; I feel like the Griffin did about the Minor Canyon: 'He +was brave and good and honest, and I think I should have relished +him.'" + +Hobby held her at arm's length and regarded her quizzically. "So +young, and yet so tender?" + +"'So young, my lord, and true.'" + +"Well," said Hobby resignedly, "I suppose we'll have to quarrel, of +course. They all do. But I don't know how to go about it. What do I +say next?" + +"I might as well tell you the worst, angelest pieface. You ought +to know what a shocking horrid little creature your brown girl +really is. You won't ever tell--honest-to-goodness, +cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die?" + +"Never." + +"Say it, then." + +"Honest-to-goodness, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die." + +She buried her face on his breast. "I dreamed about him last night, +Hobby. Wasn't that queer? I hadn't thought of him before for +months--weeks, anyhow." + +"A week, maybe?" suggested Hobby. + +"Oh, more than that! Two weeks, at the very least. I--I hate to tell +you," she whispered. "I--I dreamed I liked him almost as much as I do +you!" + +"Why, you brazen little bigamist!" + +"Yes, I am--I mean, ain't I?" she assented complacently, for his arms +belied his words. "But that's not the worst, Hobbiest--that's not +nearly the dreadfulest. When I woke up I--I wrote some--some verses +about my dream. Are you awfully angry? We'll burn them together after +you read them." + +"Woman, produce those verses! I will take charge of them as 'Exhibit +A.'" + +"And then you'll beat me, please?" + +"Oh, no," said Hobby magnanimously. "That's nothing! Pish, tush! Why, +Linoleum, I feel that way about lots of girls. Molly Sullivan, now--" + +"Hobby!" + +"I always like to dream of Molly. One of the best companions to take +along in a dream--" + +"Only-est! Please don't!" + +"Well, then," said Hobby, "I won't--on one condition. It is to be +distinctly understood under no circumstances are you ever to call me +Charlie. I won't stand for it. Dig up your accursed doggerel!" + +This is what Hobby Lull read aloud, with exaggerated fervor, while Lyn +huddled by the dying fire and hid her burning face in her hands: + + _Last night I kissed you as you slept, + For all night long I dreamed of you; + Lower and low the hearth fire crept, + The embers glowed and dimmed; we two + Heard the wind rave at bolt and door + With all the world shut out and fast, + Doubted, hoped, questioned, feared no more, + And all we sought was ours at last._ + + _I do not love you, dear. I never loved you, + Grudged what I gave, a wayward tenderness; + Yet in my dream I wooed you with white arms + And lingering soft caress. + Now for all years to come I must remember, + When fires burn dim and low, + This false dear dream of mine, that stolen hour-- + Your face of long ago._ + + _I shall awaken in some midnight lonely, + I shall remember you as one apart, + How for one hour of dream I loved you only + And held you in my heart. + And you, through all the years since first you met me + Still let my memory gleam; + Oh, my old lover! Do not quite forget me! + I loved you--in my dream!_ + +Hobby cleared his throat impressively, tapped his table with the +paper, and assumed measured judicial accents. + +"This incriminating document proves--hah--hum--" + +"To the satisfaction of the court," prompted Lyn in a muffled voice. + +"To the satisfaction of the court--I thank you! To the very great +satisfaction of the court, this document, together with the barefaced +manner in which you have brought this evidence to the cognizance of +this court--it proves, little Lady Lyn, that you are compact all of +loyalty and clean honor--and the sentence of this court is, +Imprisonment for life!" + +He held out his arms, and the culprit crept gladly to prison. + + + + +VI + + "Then there was a star danc'd, and under that was I born." + --_Much Ado About Nothing._ + + +Cole Ralston rose up in a red windy dawn; he cupped his hands to his +mouth and called out lustily: "Beds!" + +All around, men roused up in the half darkness and took up the word, +laughing, as they dressed: "Beds! Beds!" + +The call meant that the wagon was to be moved to-day; that each man +was to roll bedding and tarp to a hard and tight-roped cylinder, and +was then to carry it to a stack by the bed wagon. + +The cook bent over pots and pans, an active demon by a wind-blown +fire; here already the bobtail ate their private breakfast, that they +might depart in haste to relieve the last guard--now slowly moving the +herd from the bed ground, half a mile away. + +Cole moved over where Johnny Dines was making up his bed roll. + +"Needn't hurry with that bed, Johnny," he said in an undertone. "You +move the wagon to Preisser Lake this mornin'. Besides, you may want to +hold something out of your bed. You're to slip away after dinner and +edge over towards Hillsboro. Help Hiram bring his cattle back when he +gets ready. Tell him we'll be round Aleman all this week, so he might +better come back through MacCleod's Pass. I don't know within fifty +mile where the John Cross wagon is." + +Johnny nodded, abandoning his bed making. "_Bueno, senor!_" He took a +pair of leather chaparejos from the bed, regarded them doubtfully and +threw them back. + +"Guess I won't take the chaps. Don't need them much except on the +river work, in the mesquite; and they're so cussed, all-fired hot." + +"Say, John, you won't need your mount, I reckon. Just take one horse. +Lot of our runaway horses in the John Cross pasture. You can ride +them--and take your pick for your mount when you come back. That's +all. Road from Upham goes straight west through the mountains. Once +you pass the summit you see your own country." + +"Got you," said Johnny. + +He went hotfoot to the wagon, grabbed a tin washbasin, held it under +the water-barrel faucet and made a spluttering toilet--first man, +since he had not rolled his bed. + +The bobtail rode off at a laughing gallop. Daylight grew. The horse +herd drew near with a soft drumming of trotting feet in the sand. +Johnny rustled tools from the stacked tin plates and cups; he stabbed +a mighty beefsteak with his iron fork; he added hot sour-dough +biscuit, a big spoonful of hot canned corn; he poured himself a cup of +hot black coffee, sat down on one of his own feet in the sand, and +became a busy man. + +Others joined that business. The last guard came in; the chattering +circle round the fire grew with surprising swiftness. Each, as he +finished, carried cup, plate and iron cutlery to the huge dishpan by +the chuck box, turned his night horse loose, and strode off to the +horse herd, making a noose in his rope. They made a circle round the +big horse herd, a rope from each to each by way of a corral on three +sides of it; night wrangler and day wrangler, mounted, holding down +the fourth side. Grumbling dayherders caught their horses, saddled +with miraculous swiftness and departed to take over the herd. The +bobtail was back before the roping out of horses was completed. While +the bobtail roped out their horses, Johnny and the two wranglers lured +out the four big brown mules for the chuck wagon and the two small +brown mules for the bed wagon, tied them to convenient soapweeds and +hung a nose bag full of corn on each willing brown head. Last of all +the horse wrangler caught his horse. The night wrangler was to ride +the bed wagon, so he needed no horse. + +The circle of men melted away from about the horse herd; there was a +swift saddling, with occasional tumult of a bucking rebel; the horse +herd grazed quietly away; the wranglers went to breakfast; even as +they squatted cross-legged by the fire the last horse was saddled, +the Bar Cross outfit was off to eastward to begin the day's drive, +half a dozen horses pitching enthusiastically, cheered by ironical +encouragement and advice bestowed on their riders. The sun would not +be up for half an hour yet. Forty men had dressed, rolled their beds, +eaten, roped out their day's horses in the half light from a dodging +mob of four hundred head, saddled and started. Fifty minutes had +passed since the first call of beds. The day herd was a mile away, +grazing down the long road to Preisser Lake; at the chuck box the cook +made a prodigious clatter of dish washing. + +The Bar Cross had shipped the north drive of steers from Engle; the +wagon had then wandered southward for sixty miles to Fort Selden, +there to begin the south work in a series of long zigzags across the +broad plain. This was the morrow after that day on which Charlie See +had ridden to Garfield. + +The wagon was halfway home to Engle now; camped on the central +run-off of the desert drainage system, at the northmost of the +chain of shallow wet-weather lakes--known as Red Lakes--lying east +and south from Point of Rocks Hills. Elsewhere these had been +considerable hills; ten or fifteen miles square of steepish sugar +loaves, semi-independent, with wide straits of grassy plain winding +between; but here, dumped down in the center of the plain, they seemed +pathetically insignificant and paltry against the background of mighty +hill, Timber Mountain black in the west, San Andreas gleaming +monstrous against the rising sun. + +Theoretically, the Jornada was fifty miles wide here; in reality it +was much wider; in seeming it was twice as wide. From Red Lakes as +a center you looked up an interminable dazzle of slope to the San +Andreas, up and up over a broken bench country to Timber Mountain, the +black base of it high above the level of Point o' Rocks at its highest +summit; and toward the north looked up and up and up again along a +smoother and gentler slope ending in a blank nothingness, against +which the eye strained vainly. + +Johnny sipped another cup of coffee with the wranglers; he smoked a +cigarette; he put on fresh clothing from his bed; he took his gun from +his bed and buckled the belt loosely at his waist. His toilet +completed, he rolled his bed. By this time the wranglers had +breakfasted. + +They piled the bed rolls high on the bed wagon and roped them tight +for safe riding; they harnessed and hitched the two small mules. The +night wrangler tied the reins to the dashboard and climbed to the top +of the stacked bedding. + +"You see that these mules get started, will you, Pat? I'm going to +sleep. They'll tag along after the chuck wagon if you'll start 'em +once," said the night wrangler. Discipline did not allow the night +wrangler a name. He stretched out luxuriously, his broad hat over his +face. + +Johnny and Pat--Pat was the horse wrangler--hitched the four mules to +the chuck wagon, after which Pat rounded up his scattered charges and +drove them down to the lake for water. + +All this time the red-head cook had been stowing away his +housekeeping, exactly three times as fast as you would expect three +men to do it. A good cook, a clean cook, swiftest of all cooks, +Enriquez--also despot and holy terror as a side line. Henry was the +human hangnail. It is a curious thing that all round-up cooks are +cranks; a fact which favors reflection. If it be found that cooking +and ferocity stand in the relation of cause to effect, a new light is +thrown on an old question. + +The last Dutch oven was stowed away, the lid of the chuck box snapped +shut and locked. Johnny tossed the few remaining beds up to the cook. + +"Do we fill the barrel here, Henry?" + +"No. Dees water muddy. Preisser Lake she am deep and clean. De company +ees buil' a dam dere, yes. Han' me dees lines. You Mag! Jake! Rattle +yo' hocks!" + +With creaking of harness and groaning of axle, the chuck wagon led off +on a grass-grown road winding away to the northwest, a faint track +used only by the round-up; travel kept to the old Santa Fe trail, to +the west, beyond the railroad. Johnny started the other team. +Unguided, the bed wagon jounced and bumped over grassy hummocks until +it reached the old road and turned in contentedly at the tail of the +chuck wagon. The sleeping wrangler mumbled, rolled precariously on his +high lurching bed, and settled back to sleep. + +Johnny laughed and rode ahead to help Pat. They drove the horses in a +wide detour round the slow-grazing day herd. But the chuck wagon held +the right of way over everything; when it came to pass the herd an +hour or two later, it would be for the herd to swerve aside. + +The sun was high and hot now; Preisser Hill, a thin long shadow, rose +dim above the plain; Upham tower and tank loomed high and spectral, +ahead and at the left. + +"How do I get from Upham to the river, Pat? I'm new to this country." + +"Wagon road due west to MacCleod's Pass." + +"Can't see any pass from here." + +"Naw. You slip into fold between the hills, and twist round like a +figure three. Then you come to a big open park and MacCleod's Tank. +Three draws run down from the park to the river. 'Pache canyon, the +biggest, runs north to nowhere; Redgate, on the left, twists round to +Garfield. Wagon road goes down Redgate. And Deadman Draw, in between, +bears due west and heap down, short and sweet. Riding?" + +"Yep. Hillsboro. The middle draw will be the one for me, then." + +By ten o'clock they watered the horse herd at Preisser Lake; the +wagons toiled far behind. Half a mile away they picked the camp site, +with a little ridge for wind-break, soapweeds to tie night horses to, +wood handy, and a nearby valley to be a bed ground for the herd; a +valley wide, open, free from brush, gully or dog holes. + +They dragged up a great pile of mesquite roots and built a fire; Pat +went to watch his horses and Johnny returned to the lake. Henry drove +the wagon into the lake, hub deep; Johnny stood on the hub and dipped +buckets of water, which he handed up for the cook to pour into the +barrel. + +While these two filled the barrel the grumbling night wrangler drove +on to the fire; when the slow chuck wagon trundled up, the night-hawk +had unharnessed his span of mules, spread his roll in the cool shade +under the bed wagon, and was already asleep. The cook tossed down the +odd beds, handed down to Johnny certain pots, pans, ovens; he jumped +down--slap, snap, clatter, flash!--the ovens were on the fire, the +chuck box open, flour in the bread pan; Henry was at his profession, +mixing bread on the table made by the open lid of the chuck box, +upheld by a hinged leg which fell into place as the lid tilted down. + +Johnny unharnessed; he unrolled a tarp which wrapped a quarter of +beef, and hung the beef on the big brake; he filled the ten-gallon +coffee kettle and took it to the fire. + +"Henry," he said cautiously, "can you let me have some cold bread and +meat--enough for night and morning? I'm for Hillsboro. Goin' to make a +dry camp beyond the river somewhere. Hillsboro's too far and Garfield +not far enough. So I don't want to stay at the settlements to-night. +I'll lay out and stake my horse, I reckon. Got to find the John Cross +wagon to-morrow, and it'll take me all my time--so I don't want to +wait for dinner." + +"Humph!" With a single motion Henry flirted a shovelful of glowing +coals from the fire; a second motion twisted a small meat oven into +place over those coals. A big spoonful of lard followed. "Rustle a can +and boil you some coffee. Open can tomatoes; pour 'em in a plate. Use +can. Ground coffee in box--top shelf. I'll have bread done for you +when coffee boils!" + +While he spoke his hands were busy. He dragged from the chuck box a +dishpan full of steaks, cut the night before. With a brisk slap he +spread a mighty steak on the chuck box lid, sprinkled it with salt, +swept it through the flour in his bread pan with precisely the +wrist-twisting motion of a man stropping a razor, and spread the +steak in the hissing lard. + +"Cook you another bimeby for night," he grunted, and emptied his +sour-dough sponge into the bread pan. A snappy cook, Henry; on +occasion he had built dinner for thirty men in thirty minutes, by the +watch, from the time the wagon stopped--bread, coffee, steak and fried +potatoes--steak and potatoes made ready for cooking the night before, +of course. Henry had not known he was being timed, either; he was +that kind of a cook. + +Johnny gave thanks and ate; he rolled a substantial lunch in a clean +flour sack and tied it in his slicker behind the saddle. He rode to +the horse herd; Pat rounded up the horses and Johnny snared his +Twilight horse for the trip. Twilight was a _grullo_; that is to +say, he was precisely the color of a Maltese cat--a sleek velvet +slaty-blue; a graceful, half-wild creature, dainty muzzled, clean +legged as a deer. Pat held Twilight by bit and bridle and made +soothing statements to him while Johnny saddled. Johnny slid into +the saddle, there was a brief hair-stirring session of bucking; then +Twilight sneezed cheerfully and set off on a businesslike trot. Johnny +waved good-by, and turned across the gray plain toward Upham. Looking +back, he saw the van of the day herd just showing up, a blur in the +southeast. + +Six miles brought him to Upham--side track, section house, low +station, windmill tower and tank; there was a deep well here. He +crossed the old white scar of the Santa Fe trail, broad, deep worn, +little used and half forgotten. A new and narrow road turned here at +right angles to the old trail and led ruler-straight to the west. +Johnny followed this climbing road, riding softly; bands of cattle +stirred uneasily and made off to left or right in frantic run or +shuffling trot. The road curved once only, close to the hills, to +round the head of a rock-walled, deep, narrow gash, square and +straight and sheer, reaching away toward Rincon, paralleling the +course of the mountains. No soft water-washed curves marked that grim +gash; here the earth crust had cracked and fallen apart; for twenty +miles that gray crack made an impassable barrier; between here and the +bare low hills was a No Man's Land. + +Midway of the twisting pass Johnny came to a gate in a drift fence +strung from bluff to bluff; here was a frontier of the Bar Cross +country. He passed the outpost hills and came out to a rolling open +park, a big square corral of cedar pickets, an earthen dam, a deep +five-acre tank of water. About this tank two or three hundred head of +cattle basked comfortably in the warm sun, most of them lying down. +They were gentle cattle; Johnny rode slowly among them without +stirring up excitement. "River cattle--nester cattle," said Johnny. +There were many brands, few of which he had seen before, though he had +heard of most of them. + +A fresh bunch of cattle topped a riverward ridge; the leaders raised +their heads, snorted, turned and fled; Twilight leaped in pursuit. +"River cattle--_bosque_ cattle--outlaws!" said Johnny. From the tail +of his eye, as Twilight thundered across the valley, Johnny was aware +of a deep gashed canyon heading in the north, of a notch in the western +rim of the saucer-shaped basin, and a dark pass at the left. The +cattle turned to the left. Johnny closed in on them, taking down his +rope from the saddle horn. Twenty head--among them one Bar Cross cow +with an unbranded calf some eight or ten months old. Johnny's noose +whirled open, he drove the spurs home and plunged into a whistling +wind. He drew close, he made his cast and missed it; Twilight swerved +aside at the very instant of the throw, the rope dragged at his legs, +he fell to frantic pitching. Johnny gathered up the rope, massaged his +refractory mount with it, brought him to reason; in time to see a dust +cloud of cattle drop into the leftward pass. Twilight flashed after. +As they dived into the pass they came to the wagon road again. + +"This is Redgate," thought Johnny. + +They careened down the steep curves, the cattle were just ahead; +Twilight swooped upon them, scattered the tailenders, drove ahead for +the Bar Cross cow and her long-ear. A low saddleback pass appeared at +the right, a winding trail led up to an overhanging promontory under +the pass; below, the wagon road made a deep cut by the base of the +hill. Distrusting the cut road as the work of man, the leaders took to +the trail. Twilight was at their heels; at the crown of the little +promontory Johnny threw again, and his rope circled the long-ear's +neck. Johnny flipped the slack, the yearling crossed it and fell +crashing; Johnny leaped off and ran down the rope, loosing the hogging +string at his waist as he ran; he gathered the yearling's struggling +feet and hog-tied them. Twilight looked on, panting but complacent. + +"Look proud, now do, you ridiculous old fool!" said Johnny. "Ain't you +never goin' to learn no sense a-tall? You old skeezicks! You've lost a +shoe, too." + +He coiled his rope and tied it to the saddle horn; from under the horn +on the other side he took a running iron, held there by a slitted +leather--an iron rod three-eighths of an inch in diameter, a foot long +and shaped like a shepherd's crook. He gathered up dead branches of +mahogany bush and made a small fire, cunningly built for a quick +draft, close beside the yearling; he thrust the hook part of the +branding iron into the hottest fire; and while it was heating he +returned to give grave reprimand and instruction to Twilight. That +culprit listened attentively, bright-eyed and watchful; managing in +some way to bear himself so as to suggest a man who looks over the top +of his spectacles while rubbing his chin with a thoughtful thumb. When +the iron was hot Johnny proceeded to put the Bar Cross brand on the +protesting yearling. Looking up, he became aware of a man riding +soberly down the canyon toward him. Johnny waved his hand and shoved +his iron into the fire for a second heating. + +The newcomer rode up the trail and halted; a big red-headed man with a +big square face and twinkling eyes. He fished for tobacco and rolled a +cigarette. + +"Thought I knew all the Bar Cross waddies. You haven't been wearin' +the crop and split very long, have you?" + +"They just heard of me lately," explained Johnny. + +"I know that Twilight horse of yours. Saw him last spring at the +round-up. Purty as a picture, ain't he?" + +"Humph! Pretty is as pretty does." Johnny returned to his branding. +"He made me miss my throw, and now I'm in the wrong canyon. I aimed to +take the draw north of here, for Hillsboro." + +The newcomer leaned on his saddle horn. + +"Deadman? Well, you could cross over through this pass if you was +right set on it. But it's a mean place on the far side--slick, smooth +rock. You might as well go on by way of Garfield now. You won't lose +but a mile or two, and you'll have fine company--me. Or--say, if +you're going that way, why can't you mail a letter for me? Then I +won't have to go at all. I'd be much obliged to you if you would. That +was all I was going for, to mail some location notices." + +"Sure I will. I kind of want to see Garfield anyhow. Never been there. +Crop and split the right. So that's done. I'll keep this piece of ear +for tally." + +The other took a large envelope from his saddle pockets and handed it +over. Dines stuck it in the bosom of his flannel shirt. + +"I ain't got no stamps. This letter'll need two, I guess. Here's the +nickel. Will you please kindly stick 'em on for me?" + +"Sure," said Dines again. He undid the yearling's legs. "Now, young +fellow, go find your mammy. Go a-snuffin'!" + +The yearling scrambled to his feet, bellowing. Johnny jerked him round +by the tail so that his nose pointed down the canyon; the newcomer +jumped his horse and shook a stirrup and slapped his thigh with his +hat; the yearling departed. + +"Well, I'll be getting on back to camp," said the newcomer. "So long! +Much obliged to you." + +"So long!" said Johnny. + +He waved his hand. The other waved answer as he took the trail. He +jogged in leisurely fashion up the canyon. Dines paused to tread out +the remaining fire, took up his branding iron by the cool end, and +rode whistling down the canyon, swinging the iron to cool it before he +slipped it to its appointed place below his saddle horn. + + + + +VII + + "May God be merciful to him and to us all." + --_The Advocate of Arras._ + + +"Better come along and share my guilty splendor," urged Adam Forbes, +toe to stirrup. + +Charlie See shook his head. "Not none. Here I rest. Gold is nothing to +me. I've got no time for frivolity. I want but little here below and +want that little now. Say, Adam--don't you never carry a gun?" + +"Naw. I take a rifle, of course, for reindeer, snow dear, dear me and +antelope--but I haven't packed a gun for two years. No need of it +here. Well, if you won't side me, you won't. I'm sorry, but you see +how it is about me going right now," said Adam, swinging into the +saddle. "The water in that little tank of mine won't last long, and +there may not be any more rains this fall. So long! You just make +yourself at home." + +"Good luck, Adam. And you might wish me the same. While you're gone, I +may want to make a little journey from bad to worse." + +Adam gathered up his lead rope. "Good luck, Charlie." But a troubled +look came to his eyes as he passed through the gate; in his heart he +thought his friend rode late and vainly from Selden Hill. + +The pack horse jogged alongside, his friendly head at Adam's knee. It +was earliest morning and they were still in the fresh cool shadow of +the low eastern hills. Farther north the enormous bulk of Timber +Mountain loomed monstrous in the sky, and there the shadows were deep +and dense, impenetrably black; there night lingered visible, brighter +than in all the wide arc to westward, bench-land and mighty hill were +drenched with sparkling sun. + +Adam rode with a pleasant jingling of spurs. He passed through +Garfield town, or town-to-be, remodeled from the old San Ysidro, the +bare and grassless Mexican _plaza_ changed to the square of a Kansas +town, by tree and hard-won turf; blacksmith shop and school, with a +little store and post office, clustered for company on one side: +business would fill up the three blank sides--like Columbus or +Cherryvale. For there is no new thing beneath the kindly sun. Not +otherwise, far from the plains of windy Troy, did Priam's son build +and copy, in the wild hills of Epirus: + + _The little Troy, the castle Pergamus, + The river Xanthus, and the Scaean gate._ + +Fringing the townlet, new gristmill and new factory stood where the +mother ditch was bridged. Beyond the bridge the roads forked. From the +right hand a steep canyon came plunging to the valley, winding dark +between red-brown hills. This canyon was Redgate; here turned the +climbing road to Upham; and Adam Forbes followed the Redgate road. + +At the summit he turned to the left across a corner of MacCleod's +Park; he crossed a whorl of low ridges at the head of Apache Canyon and +came to Hidden Tanks--a little limestone basin, now brimming with +rainwater, perhaps a dozen barrels in all. Adam had fenced this in +with a combination of stone wall and cedar brush, to keep cattle out. +He now climbed to a little low cliff near by. There he had cached his +outfit in a little cupboard of a cave, the floor of it shoulder high +to him where he stood. Here he unpacked. He added to the cache his +little store of sugar, coffee, rice, bacon and flour, all packed in +five or ten pound baking-powder cans against the ravages of mice, gray +squirrels and trade rats. The little deep cave gave protection against +larger pests and shelter from rain. He rolled up his bedding, lifted +it into the mouth of the cave and shoved it back. + +Two empty five-gallon kegs were left of his pack; he had not dared to +leave them in the cache, to fall apart in the dry and sun-parched air. +These kegs he filled at the tanks and slung on the pack saddle; with +them he made his way to the hill of his hopes. It was close by; he had +hidden there his pick, shovel and the broad shallow basin used for +panning gold. He hobbled the horses; by ten o'clock, or a little +later, he was deep in the interrupted task of a month before. + +Freakish chance had timed that interruption to halt him on the very +brink of success. Before he had taken out a dozen pans he was in rich +dirt. Noon found him shaken from the poise and mastery of years. +Abandoning the patient and systematic follow-up system, he pushed on +up the hill, sampling at random, and finding each sample richer. The +scant supply of water was nearly gone, the gold frenzy clutched at his +heart. By sighting, he roughly developed the lines showing the +probable limit of pay dirt, as marked by the monuments of his earlier +labor; he noted the intersection of those lines, and there began a +feverish panning with his remnant of water. He found gold in flakes, +in scales, in millet-seed grains--in grains like rice at last! He had +tracked down a pocket to make history with, to count time from. And +the last of his water was used. + +Adam sat down, trembling to think his find had been unprotected by the +shadow of a claim for the last month; reflected then that it had lain +unclaimed for some thousands of years, and with the reflection pulled +himself together and managed a grin at his own folly. + +He went back to his saddle. Tucked in the saddle pockets was a goodly +lunch, but he did not touch that. He untied his coat and took out two +printed location notices, several crumply sheets of blank paper and a +pencil. He filled in the blanks as the location notice of the Goblin +Gold Mine--original notice and copy. On the blank paper he wrote out +four more notices, two originals and two copies, for the Nine Bucks +Placer Claim and the Please Hush. For the Goblin Gold he wrote himself +as locator, Charles See and Howard Lull as witnesses; he reserved this +for the highest and richest claim. For the next below, Charles See was +locator, Forbes and Lull were witnesses; and the third was assigned to +Howard Lull, with See and Forbes to bear witness. + +Adam paced off the three claims adjoining each other and built a +stone monument at each corner, with a larger monument for the +location-papers at the center of each claim; the central monument of +the Goblin Gold about where he had made the last panning. And then, +even as he started to slip the first location notice in its monument, +he lifted up his eyes and saw, across the tangled ridges, three men +riding up from the deeps of Apache Canyon. + +The cool judgment that had brought him safe through a thousand dangers +was warped now by the fever and frenzy of gold lust; his canny +instinct against disaster failed him in his need. There must be no +shadow of irregularity on these claims, his hot brain reasoned; his +find was too rich for chance-taking in the matter of mythical +witnesses; yonder, by happy and unlooked for chance, were witnesses +indeed; he must have their names to his location notices, and then he +would get the copies to Hillsboro for recording at the earliest; he +would mail them in Garfield post office that very afternoon. + +He reversed his pencil and erased the names of his fictitious +witnesses; he saddled his horse and rode to intercept the three +horsemen, half a mile away now, trailing slowly across the park toward +MacCleod's Tanks. He waved them to stop. As he drew near he knew two +of the men--Jody Weir, of Hillsboro, and Big Ed Caney, a deputy +sheriff from Dona Ana County; two men he trusted not at all. Time was +he would have deemed this conjunction sinister; to-day, madness was +upon him. The third was a stranger. Each man had a blanket and a +bulging slicker tied behind his saddle. Evidently they carried rations +for several days' camping. + +"Hello, Adam!" + +"You're another--three of 'em. Got any water in those canteens? If I +was to do a piece of wishin', right now, I'd mention water first off. +This is sure one old scorcher of a day! She's a weather breeder. Rain +before morning, sure as snakes. I see thunder-heads peeping up over +the Black Range, right now." + +Caney handed over a canteen. "Drink hearty! You shore look like you'd +been working, Adam." + +Adam drank deep before replying. + +"Working is right. Prospecting. Tired of farming--need a change. Say, +I want you fellows to witness some location notices for me. Ride over +on the next ridge and I can point out where the claims lay so you can +swear to 'em--or ride over with me if you got time. I was just doing a +little forgery when I saw your dust, for I wasn't expectin' to see a +man up this way--not ever. I do reckon this is the lonesomest place in +the world." + +"Adam, meet my friend," said Jody. "Mr. Forbes, Mr. Hales. Now, Adam, +no need for us to go over to your layout, is there? We can see your +silly monuments. That's enough. No particular odds anyway, is it? I +reckon half the notices on record have ghost signatures to 'em. Just +as good as any. Nobody'll ever know the difference." + +"Sure, that's all right--but seein' you happened along so slick, I +thought I'd get your John Hancocks. Sign on the dotted line, +please--where I rubbed out my forgeries." + +"Any good, your mines?" asked Jody as they signed. + +"Might be--will be, likely enough. Just struck pay dirt to-day. Lots +of room if you want to try a whirl--all round my claims, any direction +except down." + +"Not to-day, I guess. Say, Forbes--you ain't seen any strangers this +way, have you? Mexicans, mebbe?" + +"Not any. But I just come up from the river. Hills might be full of +people, for all I know. Water all round, after these rains." + +"Look, now," said Jody. "We're doin' a little man hunt--and if you're +hangin' round here prospectin', you may be able to give us a straight +tip. Keep your eye peeled. There'll be a piece of money in it for you +if you can help us out." + +"Give it a name. But see here, Caney--this isn't Dona Ana County, you +know. You're over the line." + +"I'm not doing this official," said Caney. "Neither is Hales, here, +though he is a deputy in Socorro County. We're private cits in this +man's county--playin' a hunch. Here's the lay: There's been a heap of +stealing saddles for a business lately--saddles and other truck, but +saddles, wholesale, most particular. Got so it wasn't safe for a man +to leave a saddle on a horse at night, down round Las Cruces." + +"They got Bill McCall's saddle in Mesilla three months ago," broke in +Jody, laughing. "So Bill, he went and broke a bronc backward. Yes, +sir! Broke him to be saddled and mounted from the wrong side. Only +left-handed horse in the world, I reckon. Then Bill slips off down to +Mesilla, ties his horse in front of Isham Holt's house about dark, and +filters inside to jolly Miss Valeria. Pretty soon Bill heard a tur'ble +row outside, and when he went out he found a Mex boy rollin' round in +the street and a-holdin' both hands to his belly. Claimed he had the +cramps, he did--but that's why we're rather looking for Mexicans." + +"We figured they were a regular gang, scattered up and down, hurrying +the stuff along by relays, and likely taking it down in old Mexico to +dispose of," said Caney. "Then we hear that saddles are being missed +up in Socorro County too. So Hales and me gets our wise heads +together. Here is our hugeous hunch: This is lonesome country here, +the big roads dodge the river from San Marcial to Rincon, 'count of it +being so rough, so thieves wouldn't go by the Jornada nor yet take the +big west-side roads through Palomas or Hillsboro. No, sir. They just +about follow the other side of the river, where nobody lives, as far +down as Engle Ferry. There or thereabouts they cross over, climb up +Mescal Canyon and ooze out through the rough country east of Caballo +Mountain. Then they either come through by MacCleod's and cross the +river here again, or they keep on down below Rincon to Barela Bosque. +Maybe they save up till they get a wagonload of saddles, cover them up +with a tarp or maybe some farm truck, and drive whistlin' down the big +road to El Paso." + +"Anyhow," said Hales, "the Cattle Association has offered an even +thousand for information leading to conviction, and we're going to +watch the passes and water holes--here and at Hadley Spring and +Palomas Gap. If you help get the thousand, you help spend it. That's +right, ain't it, boys?" + +The others nodded. + +"Go with you, you mean?" + +"No. You stay here--so long as you're here anyway--while we ride up +the line. That way, one of us can go on and watch Mescal. We was one +man shy before," said Caney. "Does it go?" + +"It goes." + +"Take your silly location papers then, and we'll ride. We're going +across to have a look for tracks in Deadman first." He jerked his chin +toward a notch in the hills, halfway between the head of Apache Canyon +and the head of Redgate. "Then we'll go up by MacCleod's Tank and on +through to the Jornada and up the east side of Timber Mountain." + +"Me, I reckon I'll post my notice and then go mail the copies to the +recorder's office," said Adam. "Thank'ee, gentlemen. _Adios!_" + + * * * * * + +Jody Weir pulled up his horse behind the first hill. + +"Fellers, that man has made a strike! Didya see his face--all sweat +and dust? Adam Forbes is not the man to rustle like that in this +broiling sun unless he was worked up about something. He didn't act +natural, nohow. He drawls his talk along, as a usual thing--but to-day +he spoke up real crisp and peart. I tell you now, Forbes has found the +stuff!" + +"I noticed he didn't seem noways keen for us to go help post his +papers," said Caney. + +"Humph! I began noticin' before that," said Toad Hales. "Us signing as +witnesses--that got my eye. Usually it makes no never minds about a +witness to a mining claim. They sign up John Smith, Robinson Crusoe or +Jesse James, and let it go at that. Mighty strict and law-abiding all +of a sudden, he was! And going to record his papers the day of +discovery--when he has ninety days for it? It's got all the earmarks +of a regular old he-strike! I move we take rounders on him and go +look-see." + +"Cowboy--you done said something." + +They slipped back furtively, making a detour, riding swiftly under +cover of shielding hills; they peeped over a hill crest beyond Adam's +claims just in time to see him riding slowly away in the direction of +Redgate. + +"Gone to mail his notices to Hillsboro!" snarled Jody. "Some hurry! +Come on, you--let's look into this." + +They found pick and pan, stacked with the empty water kegs by the +location monument of the Goblin Gold; they scraped up a small pan of +dirt from one of the shallow holes of Adam's making; they poured in +water from their canteens; Caney did the washing. He poured off the +lighter dirt, he picked out the pebbles, he shook the residue with a +gentle oscillating movement; he poured the muddy water cautiously, he +shook the pan again. + +"Sufferin' tomcats!" yelled Hales. "Gold as big as wheat!" + +Caney's face went whitey-green; he completed the washing with a last +dexterous flirt and set down the pan with trembling hands. + +"Look at that!" + +Jody's eyes were popping from his head. "A pocket! Even if it plays +out in a day--a day's work would make us rich for life!" + +"Us--hell!" said Caney. "We get the crumbs and leavings. Adam Forbes +knows what he's about. He's got the cream. Outside of his claims the +whole damn mountain won't be worth hell room!" + +Jody turned his eyes slowly toward Redgate. "If we'd only known we +might have horned in. Three of us--why, sooner than lose it all and +get himself killed to boot, we might have split this fifty-fifty." + +"We'll split this thirty-thirty!" Caney sprang to his feet. "Have you +got the guts for it? Jody, this is your country--can we head him off?" + +"If he goes round by the head of Redgate Canyon--and if we don't stay +here talking--we can cut across through Deadman. There's a pass where +Deadman and Redgate bend close together. It won't be a long shot--two +hundred yards." + +"Three shots! Come on!" Hales swung on his horse. "We've all got our +rifles. Three shots! Come on!" He jabbed the spurs home. + +It was not until they had passed the park that the others overtook +Hales. + +"Here, you, Hales--don't kill your horse!" said Jody Weir. "If he +beats us to the pass we're not done yet. He'll come back to-night. He +said so." + +"You cussed fool! If he once gets those location notices in the mail +we might as well let him go. We couldn't take the chances and get by +with it." + +"That's just it," said Jody. "Hi! Caney! Ride up alongside. Slow up, +Hales! Listen, both of you. Even if he gets those papers in the mail, +the recorder need never see them. All I have to do is to say the word. +I'm on the inside--sure and safe." + +"Sure?" + +"Sure and safe. If he beats us to the gap and comes back--well, you +stop Adam's mouth and I'll be responsible for the papers. They'll +never be recorded in this world!" + +"Where's your stand-in? At Garfield?" + +"Never you mind my stand-in. That's my lookout. A letter posted at +Garfield to-night goes to Rincon by buckboard to-morrow; it lays over +in Rincon to-morrow night, goes out on the High Line to Nutt on the +nine-fifteen day after to-morrow, takes the branch line to Lake +Valley, and goes from Lake to Hillsboro by stage. It don't get to +Hillsboro till two in the afternoon, day after to-morrow. It takes as +long from Garfield to Hillsboro as from Chicago. After--after--if we +turn the trick--we can come back and post location notices for +ourselves. Then we can beat it on a bee line for Hillsboro and record +'em." + +"Aha! So it's at Hillsboro post office you're the solid Muldoon, is +it?" + +Weir's gun flashed to a level with Caney's breast. "That will be all +from you, Caney! Your next supposing along those lines will be your +last. Get me? Now or ever! Keep your mouth closed, and Adam Forbes' +mouth. That's your job." + +"Put up your gun, kid. I can't afford to be killed. I'm going to be a +howlin' millionaire. I'll say no more, but I'm not sorry I spoke. You +bein' so very earnest that way, I'm satisfied you can deliver the +goods. That is what I want to know--for I tell you now, I don't expect +to head Forbes off here. He had too much start of us--unless he +dilly-dallies along the road or is delayed." + +"If he comes back, won't he bring a gang with him? If he does we're +done," said Hales. "That's why I'm willing to kill my horse to beat +him to it. You two seem more interested in chewing the rag." + +"O, that's all right! Jody and me, we've come to a good +understanding," said Caney smoothly. Jody Weir glanced carelessly at +the back of Hales' head, his eyes wandered till they met Caney's eyes +and held steadily there for a moment; his brows arched a trifle. + +"Well, here we are," announced Jody. "We'd better make the climb +afoot. The horses are about done and they'd make too much noise +anyway--floundering about. It's all slick rock." + +They took their rifles from the saddles, they clambered up the steep +pass, they peered over cautiously. + +"Hell! There's two of them!" said Caney. "Get 'em both! Big stakes! +This is the chance of a lifetime!" + +Below them on a little shelf of promontory stood a saddled horse, a +blue horse. A yearling was hog-tied there, and a branding fire burned +beside. As they looked, a young man knelt over the yearling and +earmarked it. Close by, Adam Forbes slouched in the saddle, leaning +with both hands on the horn. He gave a letter to the young man, who +stuck it into his shirt and then went back to the yearling. He loosed +the hogging-string. The yearling scrambled to his feet, bawling +defiance, intent on battle; the young man grabbed the yearling's tail +and jerked him round till his head faced down the canyon. Adam Forbes +made a pass with his horse and slapped with his hat; the yearling +fled. + +"Wait! Wait!" whispered Jody. "I know that man! That's Johnny Dines. +Wait! Adam wants to get back and feel that gold in his fingers. Ten to +one Dines is going across the river; I can guess his business; he's +hunting for the John Cross. Adam gave him the location-papers to mail. +If Adam goes back--there's your scapegoat--Dines! He'll be the man +that killed Forbes!" + +"Friend of yours, Jody?" + +"Damn him! If they both start down the canyon, you fellows get Forbes. +I'll get Dines myself. That's the kind of friend he is. Get your guns +ready--they'll be going in a minute, one way or the other." + +"Curiously enough, I know Johnny Dines myself," muttered Hales. "Very +intelligent man, Dines. Very! I would take a singular satisfaction in +seeing young Dines hung. To that laudable end I sure hope your Mr. +Forbes will not go down the canyon." + +"Well, he won't! Didn't you see him give Dines the papers?" said +Caney. "Lay still! This is going to match up like clockwork." + +The men below waved their hands to each other in friendly fashion; +Forbes jogged lazily up the canyon; Dines stamped out the branding fire +and rode whistling on the riverward road. + +"Weir, you're dead sure you can pull the trick about the papers? All +right, then--you and Hales go over there and write out joint location +papers in the names of the three of us. Got a pencil? Yes? Burn the +old notices, and burn 'em quick. Burn his kegs and turn his hobbled +horse loose. We will bring his tools as we come back, and hide 'em in +the rocks. Any old scrap of paper will do us. Here's some old letters. +Use the backs of them. After we get to Hillsboro we'll make copies to +file." + +These directions came jerkily and piecemeal as the conspirators +scrambled down the hillside. + +"Where'll we join you?" + +Caney paused with his foot in the stirrup to give Jody Weir a black +look. + +"I'll join you, young fellow, and I'll join you at our mine. Do you +know, I don't altogether trust you? I want to see those two sets of +location papers with my two eyes before we start. So you'll have lots +of time. Don't you make no mistakes. And when we go, we go together. +Then if we happen to find Adam Forbes by the fire where he caught +young Dines stealin' a maverick of his--" + +"How'll you manage that? Forbes is halfway to the head of the canyon by +now." + +"That's your way to the left, gentlemen. Take your time, now. I'm in +no hurry and you needn't be, and our horses are all tired from their +run. And you want to be most mighty sure you keep on going. For the +next half hour nobody's going to know what I'm doing but me and +God--and we won't tell." + +Caney turned off to the right. Fifteen minutes later he met Adam +Forbes in a tangle of red hills by the head of Redgate. + +"Hi, Adam! We got 'em!" he hailed jubilantly. "Caught 'em with the +goods. Two men and five saddles. Both Mexicans." + +"They must have given you one hell of a chase, judging from your +horse." + +"They did. We spied 'em jest over the divide at the head of Deadman. +There wasn't any chance to head 'em off. We woulda tagged along out of +sight, but they saw us first. They dropped their lead horses and +pulled out--but we got close enough to begin foggin' lead at 'em in a +straight piece of canyon, and they laid 'em down." + +"Know 'em?" + +"Neither one. Old Mexico men, I judge by the talk of 'em. Hales and +Jody took 'em on down Deadman--them and the lead horses--while I come +back for you." + +"Me? Whadya want o' me?" + +"Why, you want to go down to represent for yourself. You know that odd +bit of land, grown up to brush, that you bought of Miguel Silva?" + +"Took it on a bad debt. What of it?" + +"Why, there's an old tumbledown shack on it, and they've been using +that as a store house, tha'sall. By their tell they got eighteen +assorted saddles hid there." + +"Well, I'm damned!" said Adam, turning back. "That's a blame fine +howdy-do, ain't it? How long have they been at this lay?" + +"Four or five months. More'n that south of here. But they just lately +been extendin' and branchin' out." + +"Making new commercial connections, so to speak. Any of the Garfield +_gente_ implicated?" + +"One. Albino Villa Neuva." + +Adam nodded. "Always thought he was a bad _hombre_, Albino." + +"They're going to come clean, these two," said Caney cheerfully. "We +told 'em if they'd turn state's evidence they'd probable get off +light. Reckon we're going to round up the whole gang. Say, I thought +you'd hiked on to Garfield. I started back to your little old mine, +cut into your sign, and was followin' you up." + +"Yes, I did start down all right. But I met up with a lad down here a +stretch and give him my papers and shackled on back. Damn your saddle +thieves, anyway--I sure wanted to go back and paw round that claim of +mine. My pack horse is back there hobbled, too." + +"Aw, nemmine your pack horse. He'll make out till mornin'." + +Ahead of them the wagon road was gouged into the side of an overhang +of promontory, under a saddleback pass to northward. A dim trail +curved away toward the pass. Adam's eye followed the trail. Caney's +horse fell back a step. + +"There's where I found my mail carrier," said Adam; "up on top of that +little thumb. A Bar Cross waddy, he was--brandin' a calf." + +Caney fired three times. The muzzle of his forty-five was almost +between Adam's shoulders. Adam fell sidewise to the left, he clutched +at his rifle, he pulled it with him as he fell. His foot hung in the +stirrup, his horse dragged him for a few feet. Then his foot came +free. He rolled over once, and tried to pull his rifle up. Then he lay +still with his face in the dust. + + + + +VIII + + "Look on my face. My name is Might-Have-Been-- + I am also called No-More, Too-Late, Farewell." + --_Credit Lost._ + + +"It is a hard world," sighed Charlie See. "Life is first one thing and +then it is a broom factory." + +They made a gay cavalcade of laughter and shining life, those four +young people. They had been to show Charlie over the gristmill and the +broom factory, new jewels in Garfield's crown, and now they turned +from deed to dream, rode merry for a glimpsing of to-morrow, where +Hobby Lull planned a conquest more lasting than Caesar's. Their way led +now beyond the mother ditch to lands yet unredeemed, which in the +years to come would lie under a high ditch yet to be. So they said and +thought. But what in truth they rode forth for to see was east of the +sun and west of the moon--not to be told here. Where youth rides with +youth under a singing sky the chronicle should be broad-spaced between +the lines; a double story, word and silence. To what far-off divine +event we move, there shall be no rapture keener than hoping time in +unspoiled youth. + +The embankments of the mother ditch were head-high to them as they +rode. They paused on the high bridge between the desert and the sown. +Behind lay the broad and level clearings, orchard, kempt steading and +alfalfa; a step beyond was the raw wilderness, the yucca and the sand, +dark mesquite in hummocks and mottes and clumps, a brown winding belt +between the mother ditch and the first low bench land. The air came +brisk and sweet; it rippled the fields to undulant shimmer of flashing +purple and green and gold. + +"Your _'cequia madre_ is sure brimful this evenin'," remarked the +guest. + +"Always is--when we don't need it. In dry weather she gets pretty low +enough," said Hobby. "Colorado people get the first whack at the +water, and New Mexico takes what is left. Never high water here except +at flood time. Fix that different some day. We got to fight flood and +drought now, one down, another come on. Some day we'll save the flood +water. Sure! No floods, no drought. Easy as lying! _Vamonos!_" + +The road followed the curving ditch; their voices were tuned to +lipping water and the drone of bees. Lull pointed out the lines where +his high ditch was to run at the base of the bench land, with flume at +gully and canyon steeps. As eye and mapping hand turned toward Redgate +a man came down Redgate road to meet them; a man on a Maltese horse. +He rode briskly, poised, sure-swaying as ever bird on bough. Charlie +See warmed to the lithe youth of him. + +"There, fellow citizens," he said, "there is what I'd call a good +rider!" + +As the good rider came abreast he swept off his hat. His eyes were +merry; he nodded greeting and shook back a mop of blackest hair. The +sun had looked upon him. He checked the blue horse in his stride--not +to stop, but to slow him; he spoke to Lull in passing. + +"Garfield post office?" He jerked a thumb toward the bridge; for +indeed, seen across the ramparts of the ditch, there was small +distinction between visible Garfield and the scattered farmsteads. +"This way?" + +"Yes." + +"Just across the bridge," added Lyn. The story scorns to suppress the +truth--she smiled her dimpliest. + +"Thanks," said the stranger; and then, as he came abreast of Charlie +See: "And the road to Hillsboro? Back this way--or straight on?" + +"Straight through. Take the right hand at the post office--straight to +the ford. You'll have to swim, I reckon." + +"Yes," said the stranger indifferently. He was well beyond See and +Edith Harkey now, and the blue horse came back into the road and into +his reaching stride. "Thanks." The stranger looked back with the last +word; at the same time Miss Dyer turned her head. They smiled. + +"And they turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt!" said Mr. Lull +bitterly. + +"He had such smiling eyes," urged Lyn. + +"Ruin and destruction! See! Edith! Spread out--head her off!" Hobby +grabbed Lyn's bridle rein and led his captive away at a triumphant +trot. + +They turned aside to inspect the doubtful passage where the future +ditch must clamber and twist to cross Deadman; Hobby Lull explained, +defended, expounded; he bristled with estimates, alternative levels +and acre costs; here was the inevitable way, but yonder there was a +choosing; at that long gray point, miles away, the ditch must leave +the river to gain the needed grades. He sparkled with irresistible +enthusiasm, he overbore opposition. + +"Look here, folks!" said Hobby. "See those thunder-heads? It's +clouding up fast. It's going to rain and there's not a man in town can +stop it. I aimed to take you up and show you the place we picked to +make the ditch head, but I judge we best go home. We can see the ditch +head another day." + +"Now was I convinced or only persuaded?" Charlie See made the +grumbling demand of Edith as they set their faces homeward. + +Yet he was secretly impressed; he paused by jungle and sandy swale +or ribbed and gullied slope for admiration of orchards unplanted +and friendly homesteads yet to be; he drew rein by a pear thicket +and peered half enviously into its thorny impenetrable keeps. + +"Who lives there, Edith? That's the best place we've seen. Big +fine house and all, but it looks comfortable and homey, just the +same--mighty pleasant and friendly. And them old-fashioned flower +beds are right quaint." + +"Hollyhocks," she breathed; "and marigolds, and four o'clocks. An +old-fashioned woman lives here." + +Charlie's voice grew wistful. "I might have had a place like this just +as well as not--if I'd only had sense enough to hear and hark. Hobby +Lull brought me out here and put me wise, years ago, but I wouldn't +listen. There was a bunch of us. Hobby and--and--now who else was +it? It was a merry crowd, I can remember that. Hobby did all the +talking--but who were the others? And have they forgotten too? It was +a long time ago, before the big ditch. Oh, dear! I do wish I could +remember who was with me!" + +His voice trailed off to silence and a sigh that was only half +assumed. + +"You make it seem very real," she said, unconscious of her answering +deeper sigh. + +"Real. It is real! Look there--and there--and there!" + +"That is all Hobby's work," said Edith as her eyes followed his +pointing finger, and saw there what he saw--the city of his vision, +the courts and palaces of love. "He has the builder's mind." + +"Yes. It is a great gift." It was said ungrudgingly. "I wish I had it. +That way lies happiness. Me--I am a spectator." + +She shook her reins to go, with a last look at his phantom farmlands. +"'An' I 'a stubb'd Thurnaby waaeste.' That's what they'll put on +Hobby's tombstone." + +She lifted up her eyes from the waste places and the seeming, and let +them rest on the glowing mesas beyond the river and the long dim +ridges of misty mountain beyond and over all; and saw them in the +light that never was on sea or land. The heart of the good warm +boisterous earth called to kindred clay, "and turned her sweet blood +into wine." + +Shy happiness tinged her pale cheek with color, a tint of wild rose +and sea-shell delicacy, faint and all unnoted; he was half inattentive +to her as she rode beside him, glowing in her splendid spring, a noble +temple of life, a sanctuary ready for clean sacrifice. + +"Yes. Hobby, he's all right. Him and his likes, they put up the brains +and take the risks and do the work. But after it's all done some of +these austere men we read about, they'll ooze in and gather the +crops." + +"He doesn't miss much worth having. What may be weighed and counted +and stolen and piled in heaps--oh, yes, Hobby Lull may miss that. Not +real things, like laughter and joy and--and love, Charlie." + +Charlie See turned his head toward Redgate. She read his thought; in +her face the glow of life faded behind the white skin. But he did not +see it; nor the thread of pain in her eyes. In his thought she was +linked with Adam Forbes, and at her word he smiled to think of his +friend, and looked up to Redgate where, even then, "Nicanor lay dead +in his harness." + + * * * * * + +Pete Harkey's buckboard stood by the platform in front of the little +store, and the young people waited there for him and his marketing. + +"Mail day?" asked Charlie. + +"Nope. To-morrow is the big day." + +"We used to get it three times a week," said Lyn. "Now it's only +twice." + +"When I was a boy," said See thoughtfully, "I always wanted to rob a +stage, just once. Somehow or other I never got round to it." His brow +clouded. + +"Why, Mr. See!" + +"Charlie," said Mr. See. "Well, you needn't be shocked. Society is +very unevenly divided between the criminal and the non-criminal +classes." + +"That," said Edith, "might be called a spiral remark. Would it be +impertinent to ask you to specify?" + +"Not at all. Superfluous. See for yourself. Old Sobersides, here--you +might give him the benefit of the doubt--he's so durned practical. But +Adam and me, Uncle Dan and your Dad--there's no doubt about us, I'm +afraid. It's right quaint to see how proud those old roosters are of +the lurid past. When one of 'em gets on the peck, all you got to do is +to start relatin' how wild they used to be, and they'll be eatin' out +of your hand in no time. They ought to be ashamed of themselves--silly +old donkeys!" + +"How about the women?" asked Lyn. + +"I've never been able to make a guess. But there's so few of you out +here at the world's end, that you don't count for much, either way." + +"Lyn realizes that," said Hobby. "Here at the ragged edge of things +she knows that the men outnumber the women five to one. So she tries +to make up for it. She is a friendly soul." + +Miss Lyn Dyer ignored this little speech and harked back to the last +observation of Charlie See. "So you did manage to notice that, did +you? I'm surprised. They've amused me for years--Uncle Dan and Uncle +Pete; how mean they were, the wild old days and the chimes at +midnight! But a girl--oh, dear me, how very different! No hoydens need +apply! A notably unwild boy is reproached as a sissy and regarded with +suspicion, but a girl must not even play at being wild. 'Prunes, +prisms and potatoes!' Podsnap! Pecksniff! Turveydrop and Company! +Doesn't anyone ever realize that it might be a tame business never to +be wild at all?" + +"'Tis better to be wild and weep--" + +"Now, Hobby Lull, you hush up! The answer is, No. Catechism. A man +expects from his womankind a scrupulous decorum which he is far too +broad-minded to require from himself or his mates--charitable soul! +Laughter and applause. Cries of 'That's true!'--Anything more grossly +unfair--" + +_Rub-a-dub! Rub-a-dub! Rub-a-dub!_ + +Three men thundered over the _'cequia_ bridge. At the first drum of +furious hoofs See wheeled his horse sharply. + +"What's that? Trouble!" The three horsemen swooped from the bridge, +pounding on the beaten road. "Trouble, sure!" + +"You two girls light out of this! Ride!" said Lull. He spurred to the +open door of the store. "Pete!" he called, and turned back. + +"Adam?" said Charlie. "Something wrong up Redgate way. Adam's there, +and no one else that we know of." + +"I'm afraid so. Horse fell on him maybe--dynamite or something. Here +they come. Big Ed and Jody Weir. I don't know the third man." + +The horsemen were upon them. "Murder!" cried Caney. "Adam Forbes has +been murdered! Up in Redgate. The murderer came this way. We trailed +him to the bridge. His horse had lost a shoe." + +"Adam Forbes!" + +"Who is to tell Edith?" said Charlie See, under his breath. + +"Someone's going to hang for this. When we found him--I never had such +a shock in my life!" said Jody Weir. "Shot from behind--three times. +The powder burned his shirt. Adam never had a chance. Cold-blooded +murder. Adam was holding fast to his rifle, wrong side up, just as he +pulled it from the scabbard. That man came through here." + +"Or stopped here," amended Caney. "Might have been a Garfield man, of +course. I've heard that Forbes was tol'able arbitrary." + +"We met a stranger coming down from Redgate, something like an hour +and a half ago," said Hobby. "But if he had just killed a man, I'll +eat my hat. That man was feeling fine. Only a boy, too. Someone else +did it, I guess." + +"And he'd been riding slow. No sweat on his horse," added Charlie. + +"Couldn't have been anyone else. There wasn't any other tracks, except +the tracks of Adam's horse. They turned off south as soon as he got +out of the mouth of the canyon." + +"How'd you know it was Adam's horse?" This was Pete Harkey, at the +open door. + +"Saw where the bridle reins dragged. Say! Any you fellows comin' with +us? That man killed Forbes, I tell you--and we're goin' after him. +Only about two hours till dark--two and a half at most--and a rain +coming up. This is no time for talking. We can talk on the road." + +"Anybody stay with Adam?" asked Pete. + +"No. There was just the three of us. We came full chisel after the +murderer, hard as we could ride. Come on--get some of your men +together--let's ride," said Caney impatiently. "Get a wiggle on, can't +you? Let's find out which way he went and what he looked like. He came +here. No chance for mistake. The body was still warm." + +"I saw him! I saw him!" cackled the storekeeper. "Little man, smaller +than Charlie--and young. About twenty. Came in after you all left," he +said, addressing Lull. "Mailed a letter. Ridin' a blue horse, he +was--a _grullo_. That the man you met?" + +"Yes. But riding a blue horse doesn't prove that a man has done +murder. Nor yet mailing a letter. Or being young. We knew that man +went through Garfield. That's nothing new. He told us he was going on +to Hillsboro." + +"That was a blind, I reckon. He can turn always back, soon as he gets +out of sight," said Hales. + +"He went that way," piped the storekeeper. "Mailed a letter here, +bought a shoe and tacked it on his horse. I fished round to find out +who he was, but he put me off. Finally I asked him, p'int-blank. 'You +didn't say what your name was,' says I. 'No,' says he, 'I didn't.' And +off he went, laughing, impydent as hell!" + +"Did you notice the brand on his horse?" asked Charlie. "He passed on +our right-hand side, so we didn't see it." + +"No, I didn't. He took the Greenhorn road, and he was ridin' middlin' +slow." + +"If you had used your mouth less and your eyes more, you might have +something to tell us," sneered Hales. + +"Little man on a _grullo_ horse--that's enough for us--we're goin'!" +snapped Caney. "Say, you fellers make me plumb sick! The murderer's +getting away, and all you do is blat. We're goin', and we're goin' +now!" + +"Something tells me you won't," said Pete Harkey. + +He had mysteriously acquired a shotgun from his buckboard, and he +cocked both hammers with the word. "Not till we talk a little. +According to your tell, the killing was done in Sierra County. That's +my county, and we figure we are plenty competent to skin our own +skunks. Also, we want one good long look before we leap. You three are +the only men who can tell us anything, and we want to know what you +know, so we'll not lose time or make mistakes. We can't afford to +shoot so as to hit if it's a deer and miss if it's a mule. You fellers +are excited. What you need is a head. I'll be head. + +"You just calm down a little. I'll be getting a posse together to go +back and look into this. You can be fixing to give us some idea what's +happened. After that, these two boys can go with you. They've seen +this stranger and they'll know him on a fresh horse. All you three +know about his looks is a blue horse. I'm going up where Adam was +killed. Where was it? Don't be nervous about this gun. I never shot a +man accidentally in my life. Where was Adam killed?" + +"In Redgate. Near the upper end. We was looking--" + +"That's enough. You wait till I send for some friends of mine." Pete +raised his voice. "Girls! Ride over here! Now you folks keep still +till the girls get away. Toad Hales, is it? I've seen you before, Mr. +Hales.... Edith, you go to the mill and tell Jerome I want him. Lyn, +you go to Chuck Barefoot's and tell him to get Jim-Ike-Jones and come +here and be quick about it. Then you girls go home." + +"What is it, Uncle Pete? Adam?" said Lyn, with a quivering lip. + +"Yes, dear. Go on, now." + +"Dead?" + +"Murdered!" + +"Adam!" + +Both girls cried the name in an agony of horror and pity. Edith bent +to her horse's mane; and Lyn rode straight to Hobby Lull. + +"Oh, Hobby! Be careful--come back to me!" She raised her lips to his. +He took her in his arms and kissed her; she clung to him, shaken with +sobbing. "Oh, poor Adam!" She cried. "Poor Adam!" + +Charlie See turned away. For one heart beat of flinching his haunted +soul looked from his eyes; then with a gray courage, he set his lips +to silence. If his face was bleak--why not, for Adam, his friend? + +And Edith Harkey, on her sad errand, envied the happy dead. She, alone +of them all, had seen that stricken face. + +"Lyn, you go on," said Pete. "Get Barefoot. Then go home and find out +where your Uncle Dan is, and send him along just as fast as ever +God'll let him come." + +He turned back to the men. + +"Now, then, you fellows! Begin at the beginning. Hales, you didn't +know Adam, so you won't be so bad broke up as the others. Suppose you +tell us what you know. Wait a minute. Sam, you be saddling up a horse +for me. Now, Mr. Hales?" + +"We were looking out for that gang of saddle thieves. Went up 'Pache +Canyon. Along in the park we saw tracks where two shod horses turned +down into Redgate, and we followed them up. One of 'em had been +chasing a bunch of cattle--or so we thought, though we didn't notice +that part very close, having no particular reason for it then. We'd +looked through two-three bunches of cattle ourselves earlier, for +Jody's stuff." + +"Yes, and you had breakfast, likely--but what do I care? You get on +with your story." + +"Say, old man," said Hales in some exasperation, "if you don't want +this man caught, I'm satisfied. It's nothing to me. I didn't know +Forbes. If you want this friend of yours to get away, I'm willing to +get down and stay all night. You're pretty overbearing with your +little old shotgun." + +He made as if to dismount. + +"Oh, I wouldn't do that," said Pete mildly. "Look at your friends, +first. They're just as overborne as you are, likely--but you notice +they are not making any complaints. They know me, you see. They know +how Adam Forbes stood in Garfield, and what kind of folks live in +Garfield; and they know that whoever killed Adam is in trouble up to +his neck. You mustn't mind our little ways. However, as the witness +is peeved, we'll try another. Jody, speak up and tell us." + +"You act like we was under suspicion," sneered Hales. + +"Sure, you're under suspicion! What do you expect? Everybody's under +suspicion till we find the right man. I'm going to send word up and +down to hold all strangers. That part is all right. Hello, Jerome! You +missed most of the evidence! I'll tell you about it as we go up." + +"Now why the little gun?" said Jerome Martin, tranquilly. + +"Been holding an election. Now, Jody--your little piece." + +"There's not much to tell. We found Adam's body a little ways down the +canyon, maybe a quarter or a little more; and just this side of it we +found where a yearling had been branded, or a big calf; ashes still +warm. Looks just like this fellow had been stealing one of Adam's +calves, and Adam caught him at it." + +"But you said Adam was shot in the back at close range," objected +Charlie. "Adam Forbes wouldn't turn his back to any man, under those +circumstances. That won't work." + +"Yes, we thought of that," said Caney. "More likely he saw Adam coming +and killed him before he got to the calf--pretending to be friendly. +Anyhow, Adam's horse went off down the canyon, and the other man went +down the canyon, and we came after him. Oh, yes! His horse lost a shoe, +as we told you before--the murderer's. Must have lost it chasing +that calf. Tracks didn't show it in the soft ground in the park, +anyhow--though we didn't look very close till we found Adam. But +after he left Adam's body his tracks showed one shoe gone. That's +all. Adam's horse bore off to the left. He had a larger foot than +the other, and we could see where the bridle dragged." + +"I'll send someone to find him. You didn't hear any shots?" + +"Oh, no--we just thought maybe we'd meet up with some puncher ridin' +the range, and ask him had he seen any strangers. This gang of saddle +thieves--" + +"Yes, I know about them. Thankee, gentlemen. You can ride now. If you +catch your man beyond the river you might as well take him on to +Hillsboro. Be mighty sure to remember not to forget to be particular +to take this young man alive. We want to hang the man that killed Adam +Forbes. That's all." + +"Here, I want some cartridges," said Hobby. He leaped off and jingled +into the store. "Hi, Sam! Get me a box of forty-fives," he called. +Then to Harkey, in a guarded voice: "Pete, this looks fishy as hell! +Those ashes were warm, they said. Look what time it is now--half past +four. The way they were riding, this bunch made it from Redgate in +half an hour. We met this stranger near two hours ago. That don't hold +together. If the stranger man built that fire, the ashes would have +been cold when Caney's bunch found them. And they say there are no +other tracks. Wrong--all wrong!" + +"And all the rest of it. Son, I didn't miss a bet. Neither did Charlie +See. He looked hard at me. Save your breath. Say nothing and see +everything. You do your part and I'll do mine. I'll know more before +dark if it don't rain and rub out the tracks. Our Father which is in +Garfield hates a lie, and he's fixed up this here solar system so +there is no safe place in it for a lie. Sh-h! Here comes Caney!" He +raised his voice. "What the devil do you need of more men? Five to +one--what more do you want?" + +"Well, but we may lose track of him and want to spread out to look and +ask, while some of us go on--" + +"Where can I find drinking water?" asked Caney. + +"Back there," said Pete, pointing. Then, to Hobby: "Well, pick up +someone in Arrey, then, or on the way. I want the men round here to go +with me and look round before it gets dark. Say, Sam--you send someone +up with a wagon to bring Adam back, will you? I'm off--me and Jerome. +Tell Jones and Barefoot to come right on. Take care of my team for +me." + +He went out on the platform. Lull and Caney followed. + +"Well, so long, you fellows," said Pete. "Send word back if you find +your man. Because there's going to be a lot of irritated strangers +when we start to picking them up." + +"We had some plunder--grub and a blanket apiece tied behind our +saddles, and we dumped it, to ride light, where we found Adam--just +kept our slickers," said Caney. "Have 'em bring 'em in, will you, +Harkey?" + +"Sure," said Pete. + + + + +IX + + "This to the crowd--speak bitter, proud and high, + But simply to your friend--she loves you not!" + --_Le Bret--who scolds._ + + +The five pursuers rode swiftly, with inquiry at several farms about +the man on the blue horse. Some had seen him; some had not. He had +been riding slowly and he had kept the main road to Greenhorn. They +took the Greenhorn Island ford and found good swimming. The quarry had +passed through Donahue's an hour and a half before, taking the road to +Arrey. They pushed on furiously. See and Lull fell behind a little. + +"Say, this is a rotten deal!" said Charlie. "That man ain't running +away. Not on your life. He no more killed Adam Forbes than I did. You +know how long ago we met him. If he was the man that built that +branding fire, how does it happen the ashes were still hot when these +fellows found it? By their tell and our timing that was near three +hours later. We met him about three; if he made that fire it couldn't +have been later than two o'clock, by the looks of his horse. And he's +keeping the same steady gait, and going straight for Hillsboro, just +as he told us. We're gaining on him right along. He's not trying to +get away. Either he's innocent or he's got the devil's own nerve." + +"Innocent. Pete thinks so, too. This crowd tells a fishy story. Did +you notice how prompt Caney was to explain why they was there, and why +they went down Redgate, and why the stranger shot Adam, and how Adam +gave him a chance to shoot him in the back? Always Caney! Say, Hob, +that man was too willing by half!" + +"And that excitement. I wasn't surprised at Jody, and I don't know +this man Hales--but wouldn't you think Ed Caney had seen enough men +killed not to fight his head like that? He didn't have much use for +Adam, either. Adam backed him down once. It was kept quiet, but +Anastacio told me, on the dead. It tickled Anastacio. No, sir--those +three fellows acted like they might be wishin' to start a stampede. +I'm not satisfied a little bit." + +"A grudge? But if one of these ducks is in, they're all in. This is +something else. Or of course it may have been some other person +altogether, and these people may have merely lost their heads. Do you +reckon that placer hunt of Adam's might have had anything to do with +it? Poor old Adam! We'll find time to grieve for him after we get the +man that rubbed him out." + +"I can't hardly realize it. It won't come home to us till we've seen +him, I expect. I keep saying it over to myself--'Adam's dead'--but I +don't believe it. And only last night Edith sang that nightingale song +after him--poor kid! Say--look at that, will you? You'd think Caney +didn't dare trust us to talk together." + +Caney dropped back to them. + +"Can't you two get any action out of them horses of yourn?" he +snarled. "It'll soon be dark on us. Your horses are enough sight +fresher than ours." + +Charlie See jumped his horse up and reined him to his haunches beside +Caney, eye to eye; he cocked his hat athwart. + +"Now, Mr. Ed Caney," he said sweetly, "any time you're not just +satisfied with the way I behave you know what you can do. This place +is here and this time is now. Fly to it!" + +"Why, what's eating you, Charlie? This +spitfire-wildcat-wolf-and-my-night-to-howl thing is a new lay, isn't +it? I always gave you credit for some sense." + +"Your mistake," said Charlie. "You ride on. I don't like deputy +sheriffs much; especially deputies from Dona Ana; and most extra +special and particular, tall deputies from Dona Ana with their faces +pitted with smallpox, going by the name of Ed Caney, and butting into +my private conversation. Me and old Stargazer will be in at the +finish, and we don't need anybody to tell us how fast to go or nothing +like that at all. So what are you going to do about it?" + +"I'm going to ride on--that's what!" said Caney. "You can come along +or you can go to hell--I don't care." + +"It's a cruel world," said Charlie. "I've heard people call you a +fool, but I know better, now. Don't you worry about us not keeping +up." + +Caney drove home the spurs and drew ahead. + +They galloped into Arrey. + +Yes, they had seen a man on a blue horse. "Filled his canteen here. +Peart pair!... Which way? Oh, right up the big road to Hillsb'ro--him +singin' and the horse dancin'.... Oh, maybe half an hour ago. He +stayed here quite some time--admirin' the mountains, I judge, and +fillin' his canteen--him and Josie. Better stay to supper, you-all; +looks mighty like rain over yonder." + +They turned squarely from the river valley and pushed up the staircase +road. The track was clear and plain, three old shoes and a new one. +They climbed the first bench-land step, and saw the long gray road +blank before them in the last flame-red of sun. Swift dusk dropped +like a curtain as they climbed the next step and saw a slow black +speck far ahead in the dim loneliness. + +"Got him!" said Jody. "Here, one can trail along behind, while two of +us take the right and two go on the left, keeping cover in little +draws and behind ridges. We'll have him surrounded before he knows +we're after him. Way he's riding, we can head him off long before he +gets to the Percha." + +"Fine!" said Hobby Lull. "Fine! He rides into an ambush at dark. +Guilty--he fights of course. Innocent--of course he fights! Any man +with a bone in his spinal column would fight. First-rate scheme, +except that Charlie See and me won't have it. Innocent, it isn't +hospitable; guilty, we won't have him shot. The man that killed Adam +Forbes has got to hang." + +Leaping, Charlie See's horse whirled on a pivot and faced the others. + +"Speed up, Hobby, and tell that man we're holding all strangers, him +most of all. I'll hold this bunch. Beat it!" + +His voice was low and drawling; he barred the way with quiet steady +eyes. The storm-drenched wind blew out his saddle strings, the fringed +edges of his gauntlets, the kerchief at his neck, the long tapideros +at his feet; it beat back his hat's broad brim, Stargazer's mane +snapped loose and level; horse and man framed against coming night and +coming storm in poised wild energy, centered, strong and tense. + +"You darned little meddlesome whiffet!" snarled Jody Weir savagely, as +Lull galloped away. + +See's gun hand lay at his thigh. "Talk all you like, but don't get +restless with your hands. I'm telling you! Meddlesome? That's me. Matt +is my middle name. Don't let that worry you any. I've got three good +reasons for meddling. I know two of you, and I don't know the other +one. I don't like waylaying--and I don't like you. Besides, I love to +meddle. Always did. Everybody's business is my business. You three +birds keep still and look sulky. Be wise, now! Me and a rattlesnake +has got the same motto: You touch the button and I'll do the rest." + +Black above and furnace flame below, the tumbling clouds came rushing +from the hills with a mutter of far-off thunder. A glimmer of +twilight lingered, and sudden stars blazed across the half sky to +eastward, unclouded yet. + +Hobby Lull cupped his hands and shouted through the dusk: "Hoo-e-ee!" + +Johnny Dines halted the blue horse and answered blithely: "E-ee-hoo!" + +"Sorry," said Lull as he rode up, "but I've got to put you under +arrest." + +"Anything serious?" + +"Yes, it is. A man was killed back there to-day." + +"So you want my gun, of course. Here it is. Don't mention it. I've had +to hold strangers before now, myself." + +"It isn't quite so vague as that--and I'm sorry, too," said Lull +awkwardly. "This man was killed in Redgate Canyon and you came through +there. I met you myself." + +"Not that big red-headed chap I saw there?" + +"That's the man." + +"Hell, that's too bad. Acted like a good chap. He chinned with me a +while--caught up with me and gave me a letter to mail. Where do we +go--on or back? If you take me to the John Cross wagon to-morrow +they'll tell you I'm all right. Down on the river nobody seemed to +know where the wagon was. I'm Johnny Dines, Phillipsburg way. +T-Tumble-T brand." + +"I've heard of you--no bad report either. You live on one county line +and I'm on the other. Well, here's hoping you get safe out of the +mess. It isn't pretty. We'll take you on to Hillsboro, I guess, now +we're this close. There's a lot more of us behind, waiting. Let's go +back and get them. Then we'll go on." + +"Look now--if you're going on to Hillsboro, my horse has come a right +smart step to-day, and every little bit helps. Why don't you shoot a +few lines? They'll come a-snuffin' then, and we won't have to go +back." + +Hobby nodded. He fired two shots. + +"You ride a Bar Cross horse, I see." + +"Yes. I'm the last hand." Johnny grinned. "Hark! I hear them coming. +Sounds creepy, don't it? They're fussed. Them two shots have got 'em +guessing--they're sure burning the breeze! Say, I'm going to slip +into my slicker. Storm is right on top of us. Getting mighty black +overhead. Twilight lasts pretty quick in this country." + +Rain spattered in big drops. Wind-blown flare of stars and the last +smoky dusk and flickers of lightning made a thin greenish light. +Shadowy horsemen shaped furiously through the murk, became clear, and +reined beside them. Dines took one look at them and directed a +reproachful glance at his captor. + +"I might not have handed over my gun so nice and easy if I had known +who was with you," he remarked pleasantly. A high spot of color flamed +to his cheek. "Just for that, you are going to lose the beauties of my +conversation from now on--by advice of counsel. While you are putting +on your slickers I merely wish to make a plain brief statement and +also to call attention to one of the many mercies which crowd about +us, and for which we are so ungrateful. Mercies first: Did you ever +notice how splendidly it has been arranged that one day follows +directly after another, instead of in between? And that maybe we're +sometimes often quite sorry some day for what we did or didn't do some +other day, or the reverse, as the case may be, or perhaps the +contrary? Now the statement: I know two of you men, and I don't like +those two; and for the others, I don't like the company they keep. So +now you can all go to hell, home or Hillsboro, and take me with you, +but I'll not entertain you, not if you was bored to death. I'm done +and dumb--till I tell it to the judge." + + + + +X + + "When the high heart we magnify + And the sure vision celebrate, + And worship greatness passing by-- + Ourselves are great." + --JOHN DRINKWATER. + + +Mr. George Gwinne sprawled at his graceless ease along two chairs; he +held a long-stemmed brier-wood pipe between his bearded lips and +puffed thoughtfully. The pipestem was long of necessity; with a short +stem Mr. Gwinne had certainly set that beard alight. It was a +magnificent beard, such as you may not see in these degenerate days. +Nor did you see many such in those degenerate days, for that matter. +It was long and thick and wide and all that a beard should be; it +reached from his two big ears to below the fifth rib. It was silky and +wavy and curly, and--alas for poor human nature!--it was kempt and +kept--an Assyrian beard. Yet Mr. George Gwinne was, of all the sons of +man, unlikeliest to be the victim of vanity. His beard was a dusty red +brown, the thick poll of hair on his big square head was dusky red +brown, lightly sprinkled with frost, his big eyes were reddish brown; +and Argive Helen might have envied his brows, perfect brows in any +other setting; merely comic here--no, no, "tragic" is the word, since +all else about the man was coarse of grain and fiber, uncouth and +repulsive. + +His hands were big and awkward, and they swung from arms +disproportionately long; his feet were big and flat, his body was big +and gross, he was deep-chested and round-shouldered, his neck was a +bull's neck, his ears were big and red, his head was big and coarse +and square, his face was gnarled where it was not forested, his +chance-seen lips were big and coarse, his nose was a monstrous beak, +his voice was a hoarse deep rumble. And somewhere behind that rough +husk dwelt a knightly soul, kindly and tender and sensitive--one of +that glorious company, "who plotted to be worthy of the world." + +He had friends--yes, and they held him high--but seeming and report +held him pachyderm, and they trod upon his heart. Only to a few have +time and chance shown a glimpse of the sad and lonely spirit behind +those tired eyes--and they have walked softlier all their days for it. +This is not his story; but there will be a heavy reckoning when George +Gwinne's account goes to audit. + +Mr. Gwinne's gaze rested benignantly on a sleeping man; a young and +smallish man, very different from Mr. Gwinne in every respect, +sprightly and debonair, even in sleep, with careless grace in every +line of him, just as he had thrown himself upon the bunk. He had +removed hat and boots by way of preparation for bed, and his vest +served for a pillow. Long lashes lay on a cheek lightly tanned to +olive, but his upper forehead was startling white by contrast, where a +heavy hat had shaded it from burning suns. His hands were soft and +white; the gloved hands of a rider in his youth. The bunk, it may be +mentioned, was behind iron bars; Mr. Gwinne was chief deputy and +jailer, and the sleeper was Mr. Johnny Dines. + +Mr. Gwinne tapped out his pipe and spoke huskily: "Young feller, get +up! Can't you hear the little birds singing their praises to--" + +"Ur-rgh! Ugh! Ar-rumph-umph!" said Johnny, sitting up. + +He started a little as his eyes fell on the bars. He pulled his +shoulders together. Recollection followed puzzlement on his yet +unguarded face; he passed his fingers through his tousled hair, making +further tanglement. He looked at the absurd gigantic figure beyond the +bars, and his eyes crinkled to smiling. Then his face took on an +expression of discontent. He eyed his bed with frank distaste. + +"I say, old top--no offense, and all that, but look now--I've never +been in jail before. Is the establishment all scientific and +everything? No objectionable--er--creepers, you know?" + +"Why, you impudent young whelp! Damn your hide, I sleep here myself. +If there's a grayback in my jail I'll eat your shirt. What in time do +you mean by it, hey? Pulling my leg? You'd a heap better be studying +about your silly neck, you young devil. Come out of that, now! Nine +o'clock, past. Wish I had your conscience. Ten hours' solid sleep and +still going strong." + +"Gee, why didn't you wake me up? Are they going to hold my preliminary +trial this morning or wait till after dinner? I'm sort of interested +to see what indiscriminating evidence they've got." + +"No trial to-day," said Gwinne gruffly. "Justice of the peace is up in +the hills beyond Kingston, doin' assessments. They've gone after him, +but they won't get back till late to-night." + +"H'm!" Johnny rubbed his nose and looked searchingly at his +ridiculously small and shapely feet; he wriggled his toes. "And don't +I eat till His Honor gets back?" he inquired diffidently. + +Gwinne rose heavily and shambled to the cell. "If I let you out to eat +breakfast with me like a white man--no pranks?" + +"Nary prank," said Johnny. + +"She goes," said Gwinne. + +He unlocked the door. Johnny slipped on his high-heeled boots and +followed his jailer to the kitchen. + +"Water and washpan over there," said Gwinne, and poked fresh wood in +the fire. "Ham and eggs this A. M." He rumbled a subterranean ditty: + + _Ham-fat, ham-fat, smoking in the pan-- + There's a mighty sight of muscle on a ham-fat man._ + +Johnny sent an amused glance up and down his warden's inches. + +"You must have been raised on it, then." + +"Hog and hominy. There's a comb and brush." + +"Got a comb." Johnny fumbled comb and toothbrush from his vest, and +completed his toilet. "Haven't you had breakfast yet?" + +"Naw. I hated to wake you up, you was hitting it off so regular. And +you're the only prisoner I got now. Court's just over and the sheriff +he's gone to Santa Fe with my only boarders. Lord only knows when +he'll get back," said Mr. Gwinne parenthetically. "Jim is a good +sheriff, a mighty good sheriff--but when he gets away from home he +sees life through a glass darkly. They had him in jail, last time. So +I thought we might as well be sociable." + +"Oh! Then you're the party for me to jolly up when I want favors?" + +"No," said Gwinne regretfully, "I'm not. The justice is gone, the +sheriff's gone, and the district judge is always gone except when +court sits here. But the prosecuting attorney--he serves for the whole +district, five counties, like the judge, you know--why, by bad luck, +he's right here, a-hoppin' and a-rarin'. So I'm under orders." + +"Well, so am I. What are they? What can I do to help?" The ham sizzled +merrily. "Um-m!" said Johnny appreciatively. + +"You might set the table. I'll do the cooking to-day. If so be +you get to be a star boarder you'll have to do your share of the +cooking--though I reckon they'll want me to keep you under key if +you're bound over. Come to think, this prosecuting person would likely +kick like a green bay horse if he knew I was lettin' you mill round +foot-loose. However, he don't know. How many eggs? Hard or soft?" + +"Oh, about four--medium. We can always cook more if we have to. And +four pods of _chili_. But why has the prosecutor got it in for me? He +don't want to cinch me unless I'm guilty, does he?" + +"It isn't that, exactly. You see, it has got out that you ride for the +Bar Cross. And the Bar Cross boys got Wade's goat, some way, down in +Cruces. I don't know what they did, but he's sure on the peck, and +here's where he stands to break even. Pour the coffee. Tin cow yonder +on the shelf." + +"Oh, well--he may have a little fun coming to him," said Johnny +generously. "But let us hope, for his own sake, that he gives +me a fair shake when it comes to my trial. If the Bar Cross and +the John Cross aren't just satisfied they are capable of any +rudeness--abandoned ruffians! Say, I hope someone took care of +my Twilight horse." + +"He's all right. I put him up with Otto Gans, myself. There, she's +ready. _Sientese!_" The jailer seated himself opposite the guest. +"No butter. You'll have to excuse me." + +"Butter, hell. Whadya think I am--an incubator kid? Say, there's a few +old vets here in Hillsboro that used to know my dad--me, too, when I +was a little shaver, some of them. Spinal Maginnis, George Perrault, +Kayler, Nick Galles and Preisser. H'm, let me see--and Jake Blun, +Mabury and Page. Could you manage me a palaver with some one or two of +'em after breakfast?" + +"Pleasure first, pain afterwards," growled Gwinne. "You eat a few +lines while I hold high discourse to you about the good and great. +District attorneys, now. Us being a territory thataway, district +attorneys are appointed by the President--allee same like our judges +and U. S. marshals and clerks of the court. All of 'em are appointed +for four years, the same being the President's term. Presidents being +so constituted by a wise and beneficent Providence, they appoint men +from states where said men and their friends, if any, vote for +President, and not from our humble midst. 'Cause why? We're not +allowed to vote. More coffee?" + +Johnny held his cup. Gwinne took up his discourse. + +"Also, and moreover, they appoint politicians. We will not pursue this +painful subject further except to add that, New Mexico being what and +where it is, these appointees, while they might be first-class men and +seldom were--they were always tenth-rate politicians. Because +politicians rated higher than tenth-rate demanded something better. +Yes. When Grover was in, they all came from Missouri, and they wasn't +so bad but what they might have been worse, with proper care. And now +they're all from darkest Injianny; a doubtful state. Something else, +too. Even when they was well-meaning--which often was guessable--why, +they're not our people. We have our little ways and they have their +own little ways, and they're not the same little ways; and they rule +us by their little ways. That's bad. To judge a man by the standards +of another time and place is prejudging, and that means oppression, +and oppression breeds riots in hell. That is how most trouble starts, +I reckon--not understanding, prejudging. Men don't naturally like to +press down. They'd a heap rather comfort and help--if they could just +see the way clear. Helping someone out of a tight is just about the +pleasantest thing a man can do. But these people Uncle Sam sends here +to manage us, they don't think our thoughts and they don't speak our +tongue. They ask for brick and we bring them mortar; they ask for +bread and we rock 'em to sleep. That's the way I look at it. Won't you +coincide with me?" + +"Why, yes," said Johnny, "now that you mention it--I don't care if I +do." + +The jailer eyed his captive with painful distrust. Then he sighed +heavily. + +"Flippant and inattentive! A bad mark. Nine more demerits and you'll +be suspended." He rose and went to a closet and returned with a bottle +and glasses. "A long drop and a quick finish!" + +"Wishing you the same!" said Johnny Dines. The glasses clinked +together. + +"So you be advised and don't waive examination," resumed Gwinne. "Wade +will want you to do that. Don't you listen to Wade. You make your +fight to-morrow. Old Andy Hinkle, the J. P., he's a homespun. When +he hits a drill he hits her with all his carcass, from the ground up, +and when he goes a-judging, justice is what he wants. His habit and +disposition is real earnest and he mostly brings back what he goes +after. You could rake all hell with a fine-tooth comb and not find a +worse man to try you--if you killed Adam Forbes. If you did kill him +you're goin' to lose your shadow soon--and there's your fortune told, +right now." + +"It is my thinking that I will make old bones yet, and tell tales in +the chimney corner. Now you sit back and smoke while I wash up," said +Johnny, gathering up the dishes. "I gotta ingratiate myself with you, +you know. Go on, now--tell us some more. And how about me having a +confidential with my friends?" + +"That's just it. I was a-preparing of your mind, so you wouldn't be +disappointed too much. This prosecuting person, Wade--he done +instructed me not to let you see anyone except your lawyer." + +"Lawyer, hell! What do I want of a lawyer?" + +"Oh! Then you claim to be innocent, do you?" Gwinne's silken brows +arched in assumed astonishment. + +"Well, I hope so!" said Johnny indignantly. "If I was claiming to be +guilty, why confab with my friends? Say, this is one raw deal if a +fellow can't get an even break." + +"Wade claims you might frame up something. He was particularly anxious +the John Cross shouldn't hear of it until after your preliminary. +Undue influence and all that." + +"Frame up my foot! I didn't kill that man and I reckon I can prove it +if I have any chance to know what evidence they're going to bring +against me." Again that angry spot glowed on the clear olive of his +cheek. "How can I study it over when I don't know what's happened or +what is said to have happened? I'll have to go to trial in the +dark--no chance to cipher on what's what, like I would if I had a +chance to thresh it out with my friends." + +"Well," said Gwinne gently, "what's the matter with me?" + +"So that's all?" said Gwinne, after Dines had told his story. "Sure of +it?" + +"Absolutely. He rode up while I was branding my long-ear. He gave me a +letter to mail and gassed while he smoked a cig, and wandered back the +way he came, while I oozed away down the canyon. No more, no less. Said +he was prospecting, he did--or did he?" Johnny reflected; remembering +then that Forbes in giving him a letter to mail had mentioned location +notices. "Yes, he did." + +With the words another memory came into his mind, of the trouble with +Jody Weir on day herd--about another letter, that was. This memory--so +Johnny assured himself--flashed up now because Weir was one of his +five accusers. No--there were only three accusers, as he understood it +from the talk of the night before; three accusers, five to arrest him. +Yet only one had come actually to make the arrest. Queer! + +"Now," said Johnny, "it's your turn." + +He curled a cigarette and listened. Early in the recital he rubbed his +nose to stimulate thought; but later developments caused him to +transfer that attention to his neck, which he stroked with caressing +solicitude. Once he interrupted. + +"I never stole a calf in a bare open hillside, right beside a wagon +road, never in my whole life," he protested indignantly. "As an +experienced man, does that look reasonable to you?" + +"No, it don't," said Gwinne. "But that's the story. Adam was found +close by your fire--shot in the back and dragged from the stirrup; +shot as he rode, so close up that his shirt took fire. And no one rode +in Redgate yesterday, but you, and those three, and Adam Forbes." + +"Yes. That might very well be true," said Johnny. + +"It is true. They wouldn't dare tell it that way if it wasn't true. +Tracks show for themselves. And they knew that good men would be +reading those tracks." + +The prisoner rose and walked a little before he made answer. When he +spoke at last it was in a more serious tone. + +"You see, I've got inside information. I know several things you +don't know, that give a different meaning to all this evidence and all +these tracks." + +"Well," said Gwinne, "you need it. A horse's track leads from the dead +man to Garfield--a track that lacks one shoe." + +"My horse had lost a shoe," said Johnny. + +"Yes. You tacked one on him at Sam Gray's store. But that is not the +worst. The worst is that there are three of them and only one of you." +Johnny felt of his neck again, delicately. "By your tell there isn't +any man in the world to help out your bare word. If you have any fresh +dope, spill it." + +"I happen to be in a position to state certainly, at first hand, +something which modifies the other evidence," said Dines slowly and +confidentially. "I happen to know positively that I didn't murder that +man. That's exclusive. You only hear me say it--but I know it. So you +mustn't be hurt if I'm not convinced. If the horse tracks say I'm the +killer--the tracks are wrong, that's all. Or wrongly read. You will be +best served if you either accept the full assurance of my guilt, and +so base your deductions on that, or else accept my innocence as sure, +and read sign with that in mind. It gets you nowhere to fit those +tracks to both theories. Such evidence will fit in with the truth to +the last splinter, like two broken pieces of one stick. It won't fit +exactly with any lie, not the cleverest; there'll be a crack here, a +splinter left over there, unaccountable. For instance, if my accusers +are right, the dead man's horse went down Redgate ahead of me; my +tracks will be on top of his wherever we took the same trail." + +"Exactly. That's what they say. They might have been mistaken. It is +hard and stony ground." + +"They may have been mistaken, yes. Someone else will see those tracks. +Now you listen close. Listen hard. If it turns out that Jody Weir and +his two pardners, coming down Redgate on a run to give the alarm, rode +over and rubbed out all tracks made by my horse and the dead man's +horse, wherever they crossed each other--then that's another mistake +they made. For when I left Forbes there were only two fresh tracks in +the canyon--tracks of two fresh-shod horses going up the canyon, +keeping to the road, and made yesterday. I'm sorry they didn't take me +back to Garfield. I would have liked a peek at those tracks myself." + +"But it rained, and it rained hard." + +Johnny felt of his neck again. + +"She sure did," he agreed. "Started just as this man Lull picked me, +like fruit on the bough. I forgot that. Well, anyway, if this Garfield +place is half human, then a slew of men went up Redgate Canyon before +the rain. There must have been some live ones in the bunch." + +"I wouldn't worry about that none if I was you," said the jailer. "I +know Garfield, and I know old Pete Harkey, and he was taking the lead. +If Adam's horse came down the canyon after you did, he'll know it. And +if your track and the other were carefully ridden out where they +crossed--why, old Pete will see that, too." + +Johnny raised his hand. "That's what he will see! Hold that idea +tight--squeeze it! If I am innocent, those tracks were ridden out and +spoiled, till Adam Forbes' horse went one way and mine another." + +"Well, then--Pete Harkey'll see that, too; he will think about it once +and twice. Don't you worry. Jerome Martin and Jim-Ike-Jones went +along, too, and old man Fenderson, maybe. They'll see. That's what +they're going for." + +"Hearsay evidence is no good in court. So I'm going to prophesy in +writing--with you to witness and swear to the time of it--that all +tracks this side of the murdered man are muddled. That written +prophecy may not be evidence, but it will make the judge scratch his +head." + +"As much as to say--" + +"Exactly. Someone killed Adam Forbes. You don't want to forget that. +If it wasn't me--who was it? Well, let me tell you something. It was a +mean man. Now you keep still a little, while I think over the meanest +man I've seen lately." + +Johnny rolled another smoke; and when it was alight he spoke again. + +"Curious, when we come to think of it, but the meanest things a man +can do is what he does with his mouth. To kiss and tell, for instance; +betrayal under trust. We go to church and hear about the crucifixion. +We have no hatred for the hands that drove the nails or the soldier +who stood guard--scarcely for the fanatics who hounded the innocent to +a shameful death. Our loathing is for Judas Iscariot, who betrayed +with a kiss." + +Gwinne eyed his captive benevolently. + +"Good land of Goshen, son--what on earth has all this got to do with +the price of hemp?" + +"Everything to do with it. Demand for hemp is going to fluctuate +violently if I can swing the deal I have in mind," replied Johnny, +with spirit. "I was just thinking about two traitors I know." + +In a prolonged silence Mr. Gwinne rumpled his beard and refilled his +pipe. + +"The two Garfield men and the other three did not seem to be agreeing +very well," he said at last. "Lull--he's the one who arrested you--he +went back to Garfield last night. Couldn't sleep, he said, and they'd +be wanting to know in Garfield. The other one, See, the least one, he +was round here soon this morning wanting to talk it up with you. He +was real feverish about the quarantine." + +Johnny cocked his head impishly and looked sidelong at the jailer. + +"Just what was the big idea for sending one man to arrest me?" + +"They didn't say." + +"And why were they all crosswise with each other, like jackstraws?" + +"They didn't tell me that either." + +"You're allowed three guesses." + +Gwinne puffed unhurriedly at his pipe, and after some meditation +delivered himself of a leisurely statement between puffs. + +"About a year ago, near as I can remember, this man Caney--Big Ed +Caney--deputy sheriff in Dona Ana--did you know that? Thought not. +Well, he went out beyond Hatch with a warrant for a fellow. He found +another man--old Mexican sheep herder--cut down on him with a rifle +and ordered him to throw 'em up. The old Mexican was scared or else he +remembered something, I don't know which; he was perfectly innocent of +this particular charge, whatever it was; they caught the other man +later. Anyhow the old gentleman made a dash for his gun--it was +leaning up against a tree not far away. And Caney killed him." + +"So you think maybe Caney wanted to start something. Ambush, maybe? So +I'd go after my gun?" + +"I don't know anything about what Caney wanted to do or didn't want to +do. All I know is--he didn't." + +"And the Garfield boys wouldn't stand for it?" persisted Johnny. + +"Lull and Charlie See won't stand for any crooked work--if it's them +you mean. Lull was the only Garfield man. Charlie See is from Dona +Ana, where they grow good and bad, same as they do here." + +"Yes. I see. I know Jody and Toad Hales, myself. I met Lull and See +yesterday evenin', just out of Garfield. Say, Mr. Gwinne, could you +rustle me a razor?" + +"I can too. Anything else on your mind?" + +"Why, no. Only I wish I knew where the John Cross outfit is holding +forth, and when they are likely to get word about me being in a tight. +They may hear to-day, and it may be a week." + +"They're up beyond Hermosa, somewhere at the head of Cuchillo Creek. +And I shouldn't much wonder if they heard about you to-day sometime." +Mr. Gwinne looked through the window at the visible wedge of +Hillsboro, wavy low hills and winding streets; looked with long and +lingering interest, and added irrelevantly: "I knew your father." + + * * * * * + +Late that afternoon a heavy knock came at the outer door of the jail. +Gwinne hustled his prisoner into a cell and answered the call. + +He was greeted at the door by Aloys Preisser, the assayer, a +gay-hearted old Bavarian--the same for whom, in his youth, Preisser +Hill was named--and by Hobby Lull. Hobby's face was haggard and drawn; +there were dark circles under his eyes. + +"We want to settle a bet," announced Hobby, "and we're leaving it +to you. I say that Robin Hood knocked out the Proud Sheriff of +Nottingham, and Preisser claims it was a draw. How about it?" + +"Hood got the decision on points," said Gwinne soberly. + +"There! What did I tell you, you old hunk of Limburger?" Hobby Lull +laid hands delicately upon his adversary's short gray beard and tugged +it with deferential gentleness. The unresisting head wagged sedately +to and fro. "Take that, you old bug hunter!" said Hobby, and stood +back, waiting. + +The assayer became statuesque. + +"You see, Mister Deputy? He has assauldt gommitted, and you a witness +are. With abusive language!" + +"The wienerwurst is yet to come," observed Lull, in a voice sepulchral +and ominous. + +"With threats also, and insults--abandoned ruffian! Desperate! +Catiline! Officer--do your duty! I make demand of you. Dake dot mon +into gustody!" Preisser's eyes were dancing as he fought down a grin. + +Mr. Gwinne regarded the impassioned disputants with grave eyes. + +"You are under arrest, Mr. Lull," he said with somber official +severity. "Can you give bail?" + +"Not one red cent." + +"Come in, then." + +Lull followed through the door. Turning, he smiled back at the little +assayer. Preisser winked. + +"I'll have to lock you up, you know," said Gwinne. "District attorney +particularly desired that no one should hold communication with Dines, +over yonder." He locked Lull in a cell; forgetfully leaving the key in +the lock. "Don't try to shout across to Dines, now," he warned. "I'll +hear you. Well, I'll be meanderin' along to the kitchen and starting +supper." + +Hobby reached through the bars and turned the key. He went over to +Johnny's cell. + +"Well, Dines, how goes it? You don't look much downhearted." + +"I'm not," said Johnny. "I'm sorry about the dead man, of course. But +I didn't know him, and you can't expect me to feel like you do. I'm +right as rain--but I can't say as much for you. You look like you'd +been dragged through a knothole." + +"No sleep. I went back to Garfield, made medicine, and hurried back +here. Seventy-five miles now, after a day's work and not much sleep +the night before. I thought you'd be having your prelim, you see, or +I'd have waited over. Didn't know that Judge Hinkle was out of town." + +"Any news?" + +"Yes," said Hobby, "there is." + +He held out his hand. Johnny took it, through the bars. + +"You don't think I killed your friend, then?" + +"I know you didn't. But, man--we can't prove it. Not one scrap of +evidence to bring into court. Just a sensing and a hunch--against a +plain, straight, reasonable story, with three witnesses. You are It." + +"Now you can't sometimes most always ever tell," said Johnny. +"Besides, you're tired out. Get you a chair and tell it to me. I've +been asleep. Also, you and I have had some few experiences not in +common before our trails crossed yesterday. I may do a little sensing +myself. Tell it to me." + +"Well, after Caney's crowd told us Adam was killed in Redgate, Uncle +Pete and a bunch went up there hotfoot. They found everything just +about as Caney told it. There was your track, with one shoe gone, and +Adam's horse with the bridle dragging--till he broke it off--" + +"And where those two tracks crossed," interrupted Johnny, "those +fellows had ridden over the trail till you couldn't tell which was on +top." + +Hobby stared. + +"How did you know that? Uncle Pete was all worked up over it. I never +heard him so powerful before, on any subject." + +"You're tired out, so you can't see straight," said Johnny. "Also, I +know that when I came down Redgate there were no fresh tracks heading +this way. If those three men killed Forbes and want to saw it off on +me--then they confused that trail on purpose. If they didn't kill +Forbes, and muddled the tracks that way, they're half-wits. And +they're not half-wits. Go on." + +"They found poor old Adam and your fire. They pushed on ahead to read +all the sign they could before dark. Up in the park there'd been a +heap of riding back and forth. Just at dark they found where a bunch +of cattle had been headed and had gone over the divide into Deadman +and gone on down. Then the rain came--and the rest is mud." + +"Yes. It rained. There was a little low gap to the north from where I +branded my calf. If anybody had been there making tracks--those cattle +would blot 'em out." Johnny began to laugh. "Look, _amigo_--all this +dope seems fairly reasonable and nightmareish, turn about, as we see +it across thirty miles and twenty-four hours--but it is a safe guess +that some folks didn't sleep much last night. They know all about it, +and I reckon when they got to thinking it over it seemed to them like +the whole story was printed in letters a mile high. Scared? I guess +yes. I'd hate to trade places with 'em right now. And before it +rained--oh, mamma! I bet they was tickled to see that rain! Well, go +on. Proceed. Give us some more." + +"The further I go the less you'll like it," said Lull. "Pete and +his hand-picked posse stayed up there and scattered out at daylight, +for general results. They found one of Adam's cows with a big +fresh-branded calf--branded yesterday. Dines, you're up against +it--hard! It's going to look black to any jury. That calf carried your +brand--T-Tumble-T!" + +"'Hellfire and damnation--make my bed soon!'" said Johnny. "The boy +stood on the burning deck, With neither high nor low! The Sons of +Zeruiah!... Ho, warder! Pull up the drawstring! Let the portcrayon +fall! Melt down the largess, fling out the pendulum to the breeze, and +howl the battle cry of Dines!" + +Hobby's gaunt features relaxed to a laugh. + +"You silly ass! And the rope on your very neck! And what is the battle +cry of Dines, if I may ask?" + +"Only two out!" said Johnny Dines. He flung up his head; his hawk's +face was beautiful. + +"Good boy!" said Hobby Lull. "Good boy! You never shot Adam +Forbes--not in the back. You hold your mouth right. It isn't so bad, +Dines. I wanted to see how you'd take it. I know you now. There's more +to come. You live a long way from here, with roughs and the river +between. We've never seen any of your cattle. But we looked you up in +the brand book. Your earmark is sharp the right, underslope the left. +That yearling's ears are marked sharp the left, underslope the right. + +"Yes. And I knew that without looking at the brand book," said Johnny. +"They've overplayed their hand. Any more?" + +"One thing more. Nothing to put before a jury--but it fits with a +frame-up. This morning, Uncle Pete scouted round beyond where they +quit the trail at dark. He found locations where Weir and Caney and +Hales struck rich placer yesterday. A big thing--coarse gold. It was +natural enough that they didn't tell us. For that matter, they +mentioned prospecting along with their saddle-thieves' hunt. You +heard 'em tell Gwinne about the saddle thieves last night. But--Adam +Forbes was prospecting too. That's what he went up there for. Caney, +Weir and Hales--any one of them has just the face of a man to turn +lead into gold. There's a motive for you--a possible motive." + +"More than possible. Let me think!" Johnny nursed his knee. He saw +again the cool dark windings of Redgate, the little branding fire, the +brushy pass low above him--where a foe might lurk--himself and Forbes, +clear outlined on the hillside, the letter Forbes had given him. + +"H'm!" he said. "H'm! Exactly!" With a thoughtful face, he chanted a +merry little stave: + + _The soapweed rules over the plain, + And the brakeman is lord of the train, + The prairie dog kneels + On the back of his heels, + Still patiently praying for rain._ + +"Say, Mr. Lull, isn't it a queer lay to have the county seat inland, +not on the railroad at all, like Hillsboro?" + +"That's easy. Hillsboro was the county seat before there was any +railroad." + +"Oh--that way? And how do you get your mail at Garfield? Does that +come from Hillsboro?" + +"No. Hillsboro is the closest post office, but our mail goes to +Rincon. There's the river, you see, and no bridge. A letter takes two +days and a hundred miles to get from Garfield to Hillsboro--and it's +only twenty-five miles straight across in low water." + +"I see," said Johnny. + +Again he visioned the scene on the hillside, the fire, Adam Forbes, +the location papers he was to mail; he remembered Toad Hales and his +attempted betrayal of the horse camp guest; he remembered Jody Weir's +letter to Hillsboro, and how it was to be delivered. Jody Weir--and +the girl in Hillsboro post office--steady, Johnny--steady, boy! Even +so, Jody Weir could keep those location papers from reaching the +recorder! + +The whole black business became clear and sure to him. And in that +same flaming moment he knew that he could not clear himself by shaming +this light lady--that he had never seen or known. To shield her fault +or folly, he must take his chance. He looked up and spread out his +hands. + +"No go, Mr. Lull!" he said cheerfully. "Much obliged to you--and here +is gear enough for a cuckoo clock, but I can't make it tick. Surmise +and suspicion. Not one fact to lay hands on. Something may come out in +the trial, of course. Looks like both ends against the middle, don't +it? When dry weather keeps you poor and a rain hangs you? Tough luck! +Alas, poor Johnny! I knew him well!" + +So far his iron fortunes had brought him--to the shadow of the +gallows. There, beset with death and shame, with neck and name on the +venture, he held his head high, and kept his honor spotless. Well +done, Johnny Dines! Well played, our side! + + * * * * * + +There is somewhat which must be said here. Doubtless it is bad +Art--whatever that means--but it is a thing to be done. It is charged +to me that I suppress certain sorry and unsavory truths when I put +remembered faces to paper--that I pick the best at their best, and +shield with silence their hours of shame and weakness--these men I +loved. Well--it is true. I take my own risk by that; but for them, it +is what they have deserved. It is what Johnny Dines did for Kitty +Seiber. + + * * * * * + +"Well, that's about all," said Hobby. "Uncle Pete is still skirmishing +round. Adam had a tame tank somewhere close by, and Pete thinks he may +find some more light on the case, there or somewheres else. If you +don't think of anything more I guess I'll go down to the Gans Hotel +and sleep a day or two. Nobody knows where See is. He may be +asleep--and then again he may be up to some devilment." + +"From what I could hear a while ago," said Johnny, grinning hugely, "I +thought you were a prisoner." + +"I am," said Hobby. + +He went to a window at the end of the big hall and looked out. +Hillsboro is generously planned, and spreads luxuriously over more +hills than Rome. This is for two reasons: First, there was plenty of +room, no need to crowd; second, and with more of the causative +element, those hills were rich in mineral, and were dotted thick with +shaft and tunnel between the scattered homes. + +Several shafts were near the jail. On the nearest one Mr. Preisser +diligently examined the ore dump. Hobby whistled. Mr. Preisser looked +up. Hobby waved his hat. Preisser waved back and started toward the +jail. Hobby returned to his cell and locked himself in. Mr. Preisser +thundered at the jail door. + +"Well?" said Gwinne, answering the summons. + +"I have been thinking about the criminal, Lull," said Mr. Preisser, +beaming. "Considering his tender years and that he is nod fully +gompetent and responsible mentally--I have decided nod to bress the +charge against him. You may let him go, now." + +"Oh, very well," said Gwinne. + +He went to the cell--without remark concerning the key in the +lock--and set the prisoner free. His face kept a heavy seriousness; +there was no twinkle in his eye. Assailant and victim went arm in arm +down the hill. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Charlie See came softly to Hillsboro jail through the velvet +night. He did not come the front way; he came over the hill after a +wearisome detour. He approached the building on the blind side, +cautiously as any cat, and crouched to listen in the shadow of the +wall. After a little he began a slow voyage of discovery. At the rear +of the building a broad shaft of light swept out across the hill. This +was the kitchen. See heard Gwinne's heavy tread, and the cheerful +splutterings of beefsteak. Then he heard a dog within; a dog that +scratched at the door with mutter and whine. + +"Down, Diogenes!" growled Gwinne; and raised his voice in a roaring +chorus: + + "_And he sunk her in the lonesome lowland low-- + And he sunk her in the lowland sea!_" + +Charlie retraced his steps to the corner and the friendly shadows. He +crept down the long blank side of the jail, pausing from time to time +to listen; hearing nothing. He turned the corner to the other end. A +dim light showed from an unwindowed grating. The investigator stood on +a slope and the window place was high. Reaching up at full stretch, he +seized the bars with both hands, stepped his foot on an uneven stone +of the foundation, and so pulled himself up to peer in--and found +himself nose to nose with Johnny Dines. + +The prisoner regarded his visitor without surprise. + +"Good evening," he observed politely. + +"Good eve--Oh, hell! Say, I ought to bite your nose off--you and your +good evening! Look here, fellow--are you loose in there?" + +"Oh, yes. But the outer door's locked." + +"Well, by gracious, you'd better be getting to thunder out of this! +You haven't a chance. You're a gone goose. You ought to hear the talk +I've heard round town. They're going to hang you by the neck!" + +"Well, why not--if I did that?" inquired Johnny, reasonably enough. +They spoke in subdued undertones. + +"But I know damn well you didn't do it." + +The rescuer spoke with some irritation; he was still startled. Johnny +shook his head thoughtfully. + +"The evidence was pretty strong--what I heard of it, anyhow." + +"I guess, by heck, I know a frame-up when I see it. Say, what the hell +are you talking about? You wild ass of the desert! Think I got nothing +to do but hang on here by my eyelashes and argue with you? One more +break like that and down goes your meat house--infernal fool! Listen! +There's a mining shaft right over here--windlass with a ratchet wheel +and a pawl. I can hook that windlass rope on these bars and yank 'em +out in a jiffy. If the bars are too stubborn I'll strain the rope +tight as ever I can and then pour water on it. That'll fetch 'em; +won't make much noise, either, I judge. Not now--your jailer man will +be calling you to supper in a minute. Maybe we'd better wait till he +goes to sleep--or will he lock you up? Fellow, what you want to do is +go. You can make Old Mexico to-morrow. I'll side you if you say so. +I've got nothing to keep me here." + +"Now ain't that too bad--and I always wanted to go to Mexico, too," +said Johnny wistfully. "But I reckon I can't make it this riffle. You +see, this old rooster has treated me pretty white--not locked me up, +and everything. I wouldn't like to take advantage of it. Come to think +of it, I told him I wouldn't." + +"Well, say!" Charlie stopped, at loss for words. "I get your idea--but +man, they'll hang you!" + +"I'm sorry for that, too," said Johnny regretfully. "But you see how +it is. I haven't any choice. Much obliged, just the same." Then his +face brightened. "Wait! Wait a minute. Let me think. Look now--if +Gwinne locks me up in a cell, bimeby--why, you might come round and +have another try, later on. That will be different." + +"I'll go you once on that," returned the rescuer eagerly. "Which is +your cell?" + +"Why, under the circumstances it wouldn't be just right to tell +you--would it, now?" said the prisoner, doubtfully. "I reckon you'll +have to project round and find that out for yourself." + +"Huh!" snorted Charlie See. + +"Of course if I make a get-away it looks bad--like admitting the +murder. On the other hand, if I'm hanged, my friends would always hate +it. So there we are. On the whole, I judge it would be best to go. +Say, Gwinne'll be calling me to chuck. Reckon I better beat him to it. +You run on, now, and roll your hoop. I'll be thinking it over. +G'night!" + +His face disappeared from the embrasure. Charlie See retired +Indian-fashion to the nearest cover, straightened up, and wandered +discontentedly down the hill to Hillsboro's great white way. + + + + +XI + + "We retired to a strategic position prepared in advance." + --_Communiques of the Crown Prince._ + + +Charlie See was little known in the county seat. It was not his +county, to begin with, and his orbit met Hillsboro's only at the +intersection of their planes. Hillsboro was a mining town, first, last +and at all intervening periods. Hillsboro's "seaport," Lake Valley, +was the cowman's town; skyward terminus of the High Line, twig from a +branch railroad which was itself a feeder for an inconsiderable spur. +The great tides of traffic surged far to north and south. This was a +remote and sheltered backwater, and Hillsboro lay yet twelve miles +inland from Lake Valley. Here, if anywhere, you found peace and quiet; +Hillsboro was as far from the tumult and hurly-burly as a corner of +Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street. + +Along the winding way, where lights of business glowed warm and +mellow, feverish knots and clusters of men made a low-voiced buzzing; +a buzzing which at See's approach either ceased or grew suddenly +clear to discussion of crossroads trivialities. From one of these +confidential knots, before the Gans Hotel, a unit detached itself +and strolled down the street. + +"Howdy, Mr. See," said the unit as Charlie overtook it. "Which way +now?" + +"Oh, just going round to the hardware store to get a collar button." + +"You don't know me," said the sauntering unit. "My name is Maginnis." + +"I withdraw the collar button," said Charlie. He slowed his step and +shot a glance at the grizzled face beside him. Who's Who in Cowland +has a well-thumbed page for Spinal Maginnis. "What's your will?" + +"You arrested young Dines?" + +"In a way, yes. I was with the bunch." + +"It is told of you by camp fires," said Maginnis, "that you'll do to +take along. Will you come?" + +"With you, yes. Spill it." + +"For me. To do what I can't do for myself. You arrested Johnny Dines, +or helped; so you can go where I'm not wanted. Notice anything back +yonder?" He jerked his head toward the main street. + +"Well, I'm not walking in my sleep this bright beautiful evening. +Whispering fools, you mean?" + +"Exactly. Some knaves, too. But fools are worse always, and more +dangerous. This town is all fussed up and hectic about the Forbes +killing. Ugly rumors--Dines did this, Dines did that, Dines is a red +hellion. I don't like the way things shape up. There's a lot of +offscourings and riffraff here--and someone is putting up free whisky. +It's known that I was a friend of this boy's father, and it is +suspected that I may be interested in his father's son. But you--can't +you find out--Oh, hell, you know what I want!" + +"Sure I do. You're afraid of a mob, with a scoundrel back of it. +Excuse me for wasting words. You're afraid of a mob. I'm your man. +Free whisky is where I live. Me for the gilded haunts of sin. Any +particular haunt you have in mind?" + +"Sure I have. No need to go to The Bank. Joe is a pretty decent old +scout. You skip Joe's place and drop in at The Mermaid. Where they +love money most is where trouble starts." + +"Where will I report to you?" + +"You know Perrault's house?" + +"With trees all round, and a little vineyard? Just below the jail? +Yes." + +"You'll find me there, and a couple more old residenters. Hop along, +now." + +The Mermaid saloon squatted in a low, dark corner of Hillsboro--even +if the words were used in the most literal sense. + +Waywardly careless, Hillsboro checkered with alternate homes and +mines the undulations of a dozen low hills; an amphitheater girdled +by high mountain walls, with a central arena for commercial gladiators. +Stamp mills hung along the scarred hillsides, stamp mills exhibiting +every known variety of size and battery. In quite the Athenian manner, +courthouse, church and school crowned each a hill of its own, +and doubtless proved what has been so often and so well said of +our civilization. At any rate the courthouse cost more than the +school--about as much more as it was used less; and the church steeple +was such as to attract comment from any god. The school was less +imposing. + +This was a high, rainy country. The frontier of the pines lay just +behind and just above the town, on the first upward slopes. The desert +levels were far below. Shade trees, then, can grow in Hillsboro; do +grow there by Nature and by artifice, making a joyous riot of visible +song--in the residential section. Industrial Hillsboro, however, +held--or was held?--to the flintier hills, bleak and bare and brown, +where the big smelter overhung and dominated the north. The steep +narrow valley of the Percha divided Hillsboro rather equally between +the good and the goats. + +There was also the inevitable Mexican quarter--here, as ever, +Chihuahua. But if Hillsboro could claim no originality of naming, she +could boast of something unique in map making. The Mexican suburb ran +directly through the heart of the town. Then the Mexican town was the +old town? A good guess, but not the right one. The effective cause +was that the lordly white man scorned to garden--cowmen and miners +holding an equally foolish tradition on this head; while the humble +_paisano_ has gardened since Scipio and Hasdrubal; would garden in +hell. So the narrow bottom lands of the creek were given over to truck +patches and brown gardeners; tiny empires between loop and loop of +twisting water; black loam, pay dirt. It is curious to consider that +this pay dirt will be fruitful still, these homes will still be homes, +a thousand years after the last yellow dross has been sifted from the +hills. + +So much for the town proper. A small outlying fringe lay below the +broad white wagon road twisting away between the hills in long curves +or terraced zigzags to the railhead. Here a flat black level of glassy +obsidian shouldered across the valley and forced the little river to +an unexpected whirling plunge where the dark box of the Percha led +wandering through the eastern barrier of hills; and on that black +cheerless level huddled the wide, low length of The Mermaid, +paintless, forbidding, shunning and shunned. Most odd to contemplate; +this glassy barren, nonproducing, uncultivated and unmined, waste and +sterile, was yet a better money-maker than the best placer or the +richest loam land of all Hillsboro. Tellurian papers please copy. + +The Mermaid boasted no Jonson, and differed in other respects from The +Mermaid of Broad Street. Nor might it be reproached with any insidious +allure, though one of the seven deadly arts had been invoked. Facing +the bar, a startled sea maid turned her head, ever about to plunge to +the safety of green seas. The result was not convincing; she did not +look startled enough to dive. But perhaps the artist had a model. +Legend says the canvas was painted to liquidate a liquor bill, which +would explain much; it is hard paying for a dead horse. It had once +been signed, but some kindly hand had scraped the name away. In +moments of irritation Hillsboro spoke of The Mermaid as "The Dive." + +"Johnny Dines--yah! Thought he could pull that stuff and get away with +it," said Jody Weir loudly. "Fine bluff, but it got called. Bankin' +on the cowmen to stick with him and get him out of it." + +The Mermaid bar was crowded. It was a dingy place and a dingy crew. +The barkeeper had need for all his craft and swiftness to give +service. The barkeeper was also the owner--a tall man with a white +bloodless face, whiter for black brows like scars. The gambling hall +behind was lit up but deserted. The crowd was in too ugly a mood for +gambling. They had been drinking bad liquor, much too much for most of +them; headed by Weir, Caney and Hales, seconded by any chance buyer, +and followed up by the Merman, who served a round on the house with +unwonted frequency. + +Jody pounded on the bar. + +"Yes, that's his little scheme--intimidation. He's countin' on the +cowboys to scare Hillsboro out--him playin' plumb innocent of +course--knowin' nothin', victim of circumstances. Sure! 'Turn this +poor persecuted boy loose!' they'll say. 'You got nothin' on him.' Oh, +them bold bad men!" + +"That don't sound reasonable, Jody," objected Shaky Akins. "Forbes +was a cowman. You're a cowman yourself." + +"Yes--but I saw. These fellers'll hear, and then they'll shoot +off their mouths on general principles, not knowing straight up +about it; then they'll stick to what they first said, out of plumb +pig-headedness. One thing I'm glad of: I sure hope Cole Ralston likes +the way his new man turned out." + +"Dines and Charlie See favor each other a heap. Not in looks so much," +said Shaky, "but in their ways. I used to know Charlie See right well, +over on the Pecos. He was shortstop on the Roswell nine. He couldn't +hit, and he couldn't field, and he couldn't run bases--but oh, people, +how that man could play ball!" + +"Nonsense. They're not a bit alike. You think so, just because they're +both little." + +"I don't either. I think so because they're both--oh my!" + +"I don't like this man See, either," said Caney. "I don't like a hair +of his head. Too damn smart. Somebody's going to break him in two +before he's much older." + +"Now listen!" said Shaky Akins, without heat. "When you go to break +Charlie See you'll find he is a right flexible citizen--any man, any +time, anywhere." + +"Well," said Hales, "all this talking is dry work. Come up, boys. This +one is on me." + +"What will it be, gentlemen?" inquired the suave Merman. "One Scotch. +Yes. Three straights. A highball. Three rums. One gin sling. Make it +two? Right. Next? Whisky straight. And the same. What's yours, Mr. +Akins?" + +"Another blond bland blend," said Shaky. "But you haven't answered my +question, Jody. Why should cowmen see this killing any different from +anyone else? Just clannishness, you think?" + +"Because cowmen can read sign," said Charlie See. He stood framed in +the front door: he stepped inside. + +The startled room turned to the door. There were nudges and whispers. +Talking ceased. There had been a dozen noisy conversations besides the +one recorded. + +"Reading tracks is harder to learn than Greek, and more interesting," +said Charlie. "Cattlemen have always had to read sign, and they've +always had to read it right--ever since they was six years old. What +you begin learning at six years old is the only thing you ever learn +good. So cowmen don't just look and talk. They see and think." + +He moved easily across the room in a vast silence. Caney's eyes met +those of the Merman barkeeper. The Merman's bloodless and sinister +face made no change, but he made a change in the order. + +"Step up, Mr. See," said the Merman. "This one's on me. What will it +be?" + +"Beer," said Charlie. He nodded to the crowd. "Howdy, boys! Hello, +Shaky--that you?" + +He lined up beside Shaky; he noted sly sidelong glances and furtive +faces reflected in the blistered mirror behind the bar. + +"Sure is. Play you a game of pool--what?" + +"All set?" demanded Caney from the other end of the bar. "Drink her +down, fellers! Here's to the gallows tree!" + +"Looks like a good season for fruit," said Charlie. A miner laughed. + +Shaky drained his glass. "Come on, pool shark." He hooked his arm in +Charlie's and they went back to the big hall. Part of the crowd +drifted after them. + +There was only one pool table, just beyond the door. Down one side +were ranged tables for monte, faro, senate and stud. On the other side +the bar extended beyond the partition and took up twenty feet of the +hall, opposite the pool table. On the end of the bar were ranged +generous platters of free lunch--shrimps, pretzels, strips of toasted +bread, sausages, mustard, pickles, olives, crackers and cheese. Behind +it was a large quick-lunch oil stove, darkened now. Beyond that was +a vast oak refrigerator with a high ornamental top reaching almost +to the ceiling. Next in order was a crap table and another for +seven-and-a-half. A big heater, unused now, shared the central space +with the pool table. Between these last two was a small table littered +with papers and magazines. Two or three men sat there reading. + +"Pretty quiet to-night?" said Charlie, nodding his chin at the sheeted +games. + +"Yes. Halfway between pay days. Don't pay to start up," said Shaky +carelessly. "At that, it is quieter than usual to-night." + +They played golf pool. + +"It is not true that everyone who plays golf pool goes goopy," +remarked Charlie at the end of the first game. "All crazy men play +golf pool, of course. But that is not quite the same thing, I hope. +Beware of hasty deductions--as the bank examiner told the cashier. +Let's play rotation." + +Jody Weir stuck his head through the doorway. "Hey, you! I'm buying. +Come have a drink!" + +Most of the loungers rose and went forward to the bar. The men at the +reading table did not move; possibly they did not hear. One was an +Australian, a simple-faced giant, fathoms deep in a Sydney paper; his +lips moved as he read, his eye glistened. + +"Let's go up to the hotel," said Akins. "This table is no good. They +got a jim dandy up there. New one." + +"Oh, this is all right," said Charlie. "I'll break. Say, Shaky, you've +seen my new ranch. What'll you give me for it, lock, stock and barrel, +lease, cattle and cat, just as she lays, everything except the saddle +stock? I'm thinking some about drifting." + +"That's a good idea--a fine idea," said Shaky. He caught Charlie's +eye, and pointed his brows significantly toward the barroom. "Where +to?" + +"Away. Old Mex, I guess. Gimme a bid." + +Shaky considered while he chalked his cue. Then he shook his head. + +"No. Nice place--but I wouldn't ever be satisfied there.... Mescaleros +held up a wagon train there in 1879--where your pasture is now, +halfway between your well and Mason's Ranch. Killed thirteen men and +one woman. I was a kid then, living at Fort Selden. A damn fool took +me out with the burial party, and I saw all those mutilated bodies. I +never got over it. That's why I'm Shaky Akins." + +"Why, I thought--" began See uncomfortably. + +"No. 'Twasn't chills. I'm giving it to you straight. I hesitated about +telling you. I've never told anyone--but there's a reason for telling +you--now--to-night. I lost my nerve. I'm not a man. See, I've dreamed +of those people ten thousand times. It's hell!" + +Weir's head appeared at the door again; his face was red and hot. + +"You, See! Ain't you comin' out to drink?" + +"Why, no. We're playing pool." + +"Well, I must say, you're not a bit--" + +"I know I'm not a bit," said See placidly. "That's no news. I've been +told before that I'm not a bit. You run on, now. We're playing pool." + +The face withdrew. There was a hush in the boisterous mirth without. +Then it rose in redoubled volume. + +"Come up to the hotel with me," urged Shaky, moistening his lips. "I +got a date with a man there at ten. We can play pool there while I'm +waiting." + +"Oh, I'll stay here, I guess. I want to read the papers." + +"You headstrong little fool," whispered Akins. "Their hearts is +bad--can't you see? Come along!" Aloud he said: "If you get that ball +it makes you pool." + +The door from the barroom opened and two men appeared. One, a heavy +man with a bullet head much too small for him, went to the free lunch; +the other, a dwarfish creature with a twisted sullen face, walked to +the Australian and shook him by the shoulder. + +"Come on, Sanders. Say good night to the library. You're a married man +and you don't want to be in this." His voice had been contemptuously +kind so far; but now he snarled hatred. "Hell will be popping here +pretty quick, and some smart Aleck is going to get what's coming to +him. Oh, bring your precious 'pyper,' if you want to. Sim won't mind. +Come along--Larriken!" + +The big man followed obediently. + +"Part of that is good," observed Shaky Akins. "The part where he said +good night. I'm saying it." + +He made for the back door. The other man at the reading table rose and +followed him. + +"Good night, Shaky. Drop me a post hole, sometime," said Charlie. + +The bullet-head man, now eating toast and shrimps, regarded See with +a malicious sneer. See rummaged through the papers, selected a copy +of The Black Range, and seated himself sidewise on the end of the +billiard table; then laying the paper down he reached for the triangle +and pyramided the pool balls. + +The swinging door crashed inward before a vicious kick. Caney stalked +in. His pitted face was black with rage. Weir followed. As the door +swung to there was a glimpse of savage eager faces crowded beyond. + +Caney glared across the billiard table. + +"We're not good enough for you to drink with, I reckon," he croaked. + +Charlie laid aside the triangle. The free lunch man laughed +spitefully. "Aren't you?" said Charlie, indifferently. + +Caney raised his voice. "And I hear you been saying I was a gallows +bird?" + +Charlie See adjusted a ball at the corner of the pyramid. Then he gave +to Caney a slow and speculative glance. + +"Now that I take a good look at you--it seems probable, don't it?" + +"Damn you!" roared Caney. "What do you mean?" + +"Business!" + +No man's eye could have said which hand moved first. But See was the +quicker. As Caney's gun flashed, a pool ball struck him over the +heart, he dropped like a log, his bullet went wide. A green ball +glanced from Jody's gun arm as it rose; the cartridge exploded +harmlessly as the gun dropped; Weir staggered back, howling. He struck +the swinging door simultaneously with the free-lunch man; and in that +same second a battering-ram mob crashed against it from the other +side. Weir was knocked sprawling; the door sagged from a broken hinge. +See crouched behind the heavy table and pitched. Two things happened. +Bullets plowed the green cloth of the table and ricocheted from the +smooth slate; bushels of billiard balls streamed through the open door +and thudded on quivering flesh. Flesh did not like that. It squeaked +and turned and fled, tramping the fallen, screaming. Billiard balls +crashed sickeningly on defenseless backs. In cold fact, Charlie See +threw six balls; at that close range flesh could have sworn to sixty. +Charlie felt rather than saw a bloodless face rise behind the bar; he +ducked to the shelter of the billiard table as a bullet grooved the +rail; his own gun roared, a heavy mirror splintered behind the bar: +the Merman had also ducked. Charlie threw two shots through the +partition. At the front, woodwork groaned and shattered as a six-foot +mob passed through a four-foot door. Charlie had a glimpse of the +crouching Merman, the last man through. For encouragement another +shot, purposely high, crashed through the transom; the Merman escaped +in a shower of glass. + +"How's that, umpire?" said Charlie See. + +The business had been transacted in ten seconds. If one man can cover +a hundred yards in ten seconds how many yards can forty men make in +the same time? + +"Curious!" said Charlie. "Some of that bunch might have stood up to a +gun well enough. But they can't see bullets. And once they turned +tail--good night!" + +He slipped along the rail to the other end of the table, his gun +poised and ready. Caney sprawled on the floor in a huddle. His mouth +was open, gasping, his eyes rolled back so that only the whites were +visible, his livid face twitched horribly. See swooped down on Caney's +gun and made swift inspection of the cylinder; he did the like by +Weir's, and then tiptoed to the partition door, first thrusting his +own gun into his waistband. The barroom was empty; only the diving +Mermaid smiled invitation to him. See turned and raced for the back +door. Even as he turned a gust of wind puffed through the open front +door and the wrecked middle door; the lamps flared, the back door +slammed with a crash. + +With the sound of that slamming door, a swift new thought came to +See. He checked, halted, turned back. He took one look at the +unconscious Caney. Then he swept a generous portion of free lunch into +his hat and tossed it over the crowning woodwork of the ten-foot +refrigerator, with the level motion of a mason tossing bricks to his +mate. Caney's revolver followed, then Weir's and his own. He darted +behind the bar and confiscated a half-filled bottle of wine, the +appetizing name of which had won his approving notice earlier in the +evening. He stepped on a chair beside the refrigerator, leaped up, +caught the oaken edge of it, swung up with a supple twist of his +strong young body, and dropped to the top of the refrigerator, safe +hidden by the two-foot parapet of ornamental woodwork. + +A little later two men sprang together through the front door; a +sloe-eyed Mexican and the dwarfish friend of the Australian giant. +They leaped aside to left and right, guns ready; they looked into the +gambling hall; they flanked the bar, one at each end, and searched +behind it. + +Then the little man went to the door and called out scornfully: "Come +in, you damn cowards! He's gone!" + +Shadowy forms grew out of the starlight, with whistlings, answered +from afar; more shadows came. + +"Is Caney dead?" inquired a voice. + +"Hell, I don't know and I don't care!" answered the little man +truculently. "I had no time to look at Caney, not knowing when that +devil would hop me. See for yourself." + +The crowd struggled in--but not all of them. Weir came in groaning, +his face distorted with pain as he fondled his crippled arm. The +Merman examined Caney. "Dead, nothing," he reported. "Knocked out. +He won't breathe easy again for a week. Bring some whisky and a +pail of water. Isn't this fine? I don't think! Billiard table +ruined--plate-glass mirror shot to pieces--half a dozen men crippled, +and that damned little hell hound got off scot-free!" + +"You mention your men last, I notice," sneered the little man. "Art +Price has got three of his back ribs caved in, and Lanning needs a +full set of teeth--to say nothing of them run over by the stampede. +Jiminy, but you're a fine bunch!" + +They poured water on Caney's head, and they poured whisky down Caney's +throat; he gasped, spluttered, opened his eyes, and sat up, assisted +by Hales and the Merman. + +"Here--four of you chaps carry Caney to the doc," ordered the Merman. +"Take that door--break off the other hinge. Tell doc a windlass got +away from him and the handle struck him in the breast. Tell him that +he stopped the ore bucket from smashing the men at the bottom--sob +stuff. Coach Caney up, before you go in. He's not so bad--he's coming +to. Fresh air will do him good, likely. Drag it, now." + +"Say, Travis, I didn't see you doin' so much," muttered one of the +gangsters as Caney was carried away, deathly sick. He eyed the little +man resentfully. "Seems to me like you talk pretty big." + +The little man turned on him in a fury. + +"What the hell could I do? Swept up in a bunch of blatting bull calves +like that, and me the size I am? By the jumping Jupiter, if I could +have got the chance I would 'a' stayed for one fall if he had been the +devil himself, pitchfork, horns and tail! As it was, I'm blame well +thankful I wasn't stomped to death." + +"All this proves what I was telling you," said Hales suavely. "If you +chaps intend to stretch Johnny Dines, to-night's the only time. If one +puncher can do this to you"--he surveyed the wrecked saloon with a +malicious grin--"what do you expect when the John Cross warriors get +here? It's now or never." + +"Never, as far as I'm concerned," declared the bullet-headed man of +the free lunch. "I'm outclassed. I've had e-nough! I'm done and I'm +gone!" + +"Never for me too. And I'm done with this pack of curs--done for all +time," yelped the little man. "I'm beginning to get a faint idea of +what I must look like to any man that's even half white. Little See is +worth the whole boiling of us. For two cents I'd hunt him up and kiss +his foot and be his Man Friday--if he'd have me. I begin to think +Dines never killed Forbes at all. Forbes was shot in the back, and +Shaky Akins says Dines is just such another as Charlie See. And Shaky +would be a decent man himself if he didn't have to pack soapstones. +I'll take his word for Dines. As sure as I'm a foot high, I've a good +mind to go down to the jail and throw in with Gwinne." + +"You wouldn't squeal, Travis?" pleaded the Merman. "You was in this as +deep as the rest of us, and you passed your word." + +"Yes, I suppose I did," agreed the little man reluctantly. Then he +burst into a sudden fury. "Damn my word, if that was all! Old Gwinne +wouldn't have me--he wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole. I've kept +my word to scum like you till no decent man will believe me under +oath." He threw up his hands with a tragic gesture. "Oh, I've played +the fool!" he said. "I have been a common fool!" + +He turned his back deliberately to that enraged crew of murderers and +walked the length of the long hall to the back door. From his hiding +place above the big refrigerator Charlie See raised his head to peer +between the interstices and curlicues of the woodwork so he might +look after this later prodigal. Charlie was really quite touched, and +he warmed toward the prodigal all the more because that evildoer had +wasted no regret on wickedness, but had gone straight to the root of +the matter and reserved his remorse for the more serious offense. This +was Charlie's own view in the matter of fools; and he was tolerant of +all opinion which matched his own. But Charlie did not wear a +sympathetic look; he munched contentedly on a cheese sandwich. + +"Never mind Travis," said the Merman. "Let him go. The little fool +won't peach, and that's the main thing. I'm going after Dines now, if +we did make a bad start. There's plenty of us here, and I can wake up +two of my dealers who will stand hitched. And that ain't all. A bunch +from the mines will drop down for a snifter at eleven o'clock, when +the graveyard shift goes on and they come off. I'll pick out those I +can trust. Some of 'em are tough enough to suit even Travis--though I +doubt if they'd take any kinder to pool balls than you boys did--not +till they got used to 'em. I don't blame you fellows. Billiard balls +are something new." + +"We want to get a move on, before the moon gets up," said Weir. + +"Oh, that's all right! Lots of time. We'll stretch Mr. Dines, moonrise +or not," said the Merman reassuringly. "But we'll meet the night shift +at the bridge as they come off, and save a lot of time. Let's see +now--Ames, Vet Blackman, Kroner, Shaw, Lithpin Tham--" + +On the refrigerator, Charlie See put by his lunch. He fished out a +tally book and pencil and began taking down names. + + * * * * * + +Charlie See raced to Perrault's door a little before eleven. He +slipped in without a summons, he closed the door behind him and leaned +his back against it. The waiting men rose to meet him--Perrault, +Maginnis, Preisser, and a fourth, whom Charlie did not know. + +"Come on to the jail, Maginnis! The gang have closed up the Mermaid +and they are now organizing their lynchin' bee. We've just time to +beat 'em to it!" + +"How many?" asked Perrault, reaching up for a rifle. + +"You don't go, Perrault. This is no place for a family man." + +"But, Spinal--" + +"Shut up! No married man in this. Nor you, Preisser. You're too old. +Mr. See, this is Buck Hamilton. Shall we get someone else? Shaky +Akins? Where's Lull?" + +"Lull is asleep. Let him be. Worn out. Akins is--we've no time for +Akins. Here's a plenty--us three, the jailer and Dines. Jailer all +right, is he?" + +"Any turn in the road. Do you usually tote three guns, young feller?" + +"Two of these are momentums--no, mementos," said Charlie. "I've been +spoiling the Egyptians. Spoiled some six or eight, I guess--and a +couple more soured on the job. That'll keep. Tell you to-morrow. Let's +go!" + +"Vait! Vait!" said Preisser. "Go by my place--I'll gome vith you so +far--science shall aid your brude force. Perrault and me, you say, ve +stay here. Ve are not vit to sed in der vorevront of battles--vat? +Good! Then ve vill send to represend us my specimens. I haf two lufly +specimens of abblied psygology, galgulated to haf gontrolling +influence vith a mob at the--ah, yes!--the zoological moment! You vill +see, you vill say I am quide righdt! Gome on!" + + * * * * * + +"And they aim to get here sudden and soon?" Mr. George Gwinne smiled +on his three visitors benevolently. "That's good. We won't have long +to wait. I hate waiting. Bad for the nerves. Well, let's get a wiggle. +What you got in that box, Spinal? Dynamite?" + +Spinal grinned happily. + +"Ho! Dynamite? My, you're the desprit character, ain't you? Dynamite? +Not much. Old stuff, and it shoots both ways. We're up-to-date, we +are. This here box, Mr. Gwinne--we have in this box the last straw +that broke the camel's back. Listen!" + +He held up the box. Gwinne listened. His smile broadened. He sat down +suddenly and--the story hates to tell this--Mr. Gwinne giggled. It was +an unseemly exhibition, particularly from a man so large as Mr. +Gwinne. + +"Going to give Dines a gun?" inquired Hamilton. + +Mr. Gwinne wiped his eyes. "No. That wouldn't be sensible. They'd +spring a light on us, see Dines, shoot Dines, and go home. But they +don't want to lynch us and they'll hesitate about throwing the first +shot. We'll keep Dines where he is." + +He led the way to Johnny's cell. The conversation had been low-voiced; +Johnny was asleep. Gwinne roused him. + +"Hey, Johnny! When is your friend coming to break you out?" + +"Huh?" said Johnny. + +"If he shows up, send him to the back door, and I'll let him in. We're +going to have a lynchin' bee presently." + +"Why, that was me!" said Charlie. + +"Oh, was it? Excuse me. I didn't recognize your voice. You was +speakin' pretty low, you see. I was right round the corner. Dog heard +you, and I heard the dog. Well, that's too bad. We could use another +good man, right now." Mr. Gwinne spoke the last words with some +annoyance. "Well, come on--let's get everything ready. You fellows had +better scatter round on top of the cells. I reckon the iron is thick +enough to turn a bullet. Anyhow, they can't see you. I'll put out the +light. I'm going to have a devil of a time to keep this dog quiet. +I'll have to stay right with him or he'll bark and spoil the effect." + +"They're coming," announced Spinal Maginnis, from a window. "Walkin' +quiet--but I hear 'em crossin' the gravel." + +"By-by, Dinesy," said See. "I've been rolling my warhoop, like you +said." + +The jail was dark and silent. About it shadows mingled, scattered, and +gathered again. There was a whispered colloquy. Then a score of +shadows detached themselves from the gloom. They ranged themselves in +a line opposite the jail door. Other shadows crept from either side +and took stations along the wall, ready to rush in when the door was +broken down. + +A low whistle sounded. The men facing the door came forward at a walk, +at a trot, at a run. They carried a huge beam, which they used as a +battering ram. As they neared the door the men by the jail wall +crowded close. At the last step the beam bearers increased their pace +and heaved forward together. + +Unlocked, unbolted, not even latched, the door flung wide at the first +touch, and whirled crashing back against the wall; the crew of the +battering ram, braced for a shock, fell sprawling across the +threshold. Reserves from the sides sprang over them, too eager to note +the ominous ease of that door forcing, and plunged into the silent +darkness of the jail. + +They stiffened in their tracks. For a shaft of light swept across the +dark, a trembling cone of radiance, a dancing light on the clump of +masked men who shrank aside from that shining circle, on a doorway +where maskers crowded in. A melancholy voice floated through the +darkness. + +"Come in," said Gwinne. "Come in--if you don't mind the smoke." + +The lynchers crowded back, they huddled against the walls in the +darkness beyond that cone of dazzling light. + +"Are you all there?" said Gwinne. His voice was bored and listless. +"Shaw, Ellis, Clark, Clancy, Tucker, Woodard, Bruno, Toad Hales--" + +"I want Sim!" announced Charlie See's voice joyously. "Sim is mine. +Somebody show me which is Sim! Is that him pushin' back toward the +door?" + +A clicking sound came with the words, answered by similar clickings +here and there in the darkness. + +"Tom Ross has got Sim covered," said the unhurried voice of Spinal +Maginnis. "You and Hiram Yoast be sure to get that big fellow in +front. I got my man picked." + +A chuckle came from across the way. "You, Vet Blackman! Remember what +I told you? This is me--Buck Hamilton. You're my meat!" + +"Oh, keep still and let me call the roll," complained Gwinne's +voice--which seemed to have shifted its position. "Kroner, Jody Weir, +Eastman, Wiley, Hover, Lithpin Tham--" + +The beam of light shifted till it lit on the floor halfway down the +corridor; it fell on three boxes there. + +From the outer box a cord led up through the quivering light. This +cord tightened now, and raised a door at the end of the box; another +cord tilted the box steeply. + +"Look! Look! Look!" shrieked someone by the door. + +Two rattlesnakes slid squirming from the box into that glowing +circle--they writhed, coiled, swayed. _Z-z-z--B-z-z-zt!_ The light +went out with a snap. + +"Will you fire first, gentlemen of the blackguards?" said Gwinne. + +Someone screamed in the dark--and with that scream the mob broke. +Crowding, cursing, yelling, trampling each other, fighting, the +lynchers jammed through the door; they crashed through a fence, they +tumbled over boulders--but they made time. A desultory fusillade +followed them; merely for encouragement. + + + + +XII + +"Ostrich, _n._ A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature +has denied the hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have +seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working +pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, +the ostrich does not fly." + --_The Devil's Dictionary._ + + "Fare you well: + Hereafter, in a better world than this, + I shall desire more love and knowledge of you." + --_As You Like It._ + + +Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade paced a narrow beat on the matted floor. +Johnny Dines, shirt-sleeved, in the prisoners' box, leaned forward in +his chair to watch, delighted. Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade was +prosecuting attorney, and the mat was within the inclosure of the +court room, marked off by a wooden rail to separate the law's +machinery from the materi--That has an unpleasant sound. To separate +the taxpayer from--No, that won't do. To separate the performers from +the spectators--that is much better. But even that has an offensive +sound. Unintentionally so; groping, we near the heart of the mystery; +the rail was to keep back the crowd and prevent confusion. That it has +now become a sacramental barrier, a symbol and a sign of esoteric +mystery, is not the rail's fault; it is the fault of the people on +each side of the rail. Mr. Wade had been all the long forenoon +examining Caney and Weir, and was now searching the deeps of his mind +for a last question to put to Mr. Hales, his last witness. Mr. Wade's +brow was furrowed with thought; his hands were deep in his own +pockets. Mr. Wade's walk was leisurely important and fascinating to +behold. His foot raised slowly and very high, very much as though +those pocketed hands had been the lifting agency. When he reached the +highest point of each step his toe turned up, his foot paused, and +then felt furtively for the floor--quite as if he were walking a rope, +or as if the floor might not be there at all. The toe found the floor, +the heel followed cautiously, they planted themselves on the floor and +took a firm grip there; after which the other foot ventured forward. +With such stealthy tread the wild beast of prey creeps quivering to +pounce upon his victim. But Mr. Wade never leaped. And he was not +wild. + +The court viewed Mr. Wade's constitutional with some impatience, but +Johnny Dines was charmed by it; he felt a real regret when Mr. Wade +turned to him with a ferocious frown and snapped: "Take the witness!" + +Mr. Wade parted his coat tails and sat down, performing that duty with +the air of a sacrament. Johnny did not rise. He settled back +comfortably in his chair and looked benevolently at the witness. + +"Now, Mr. Hales, about that yearling I branded in Redgate canyon--what +color was it?" + +Mr. Wade rose, indignant. + +"Your honor, I object! The question is irrelevant, incompetent and +immaterial. Aside from its legal status, such a question is foolish +and absurd, and an insult to the court." + +"Why, now, I didn't object to any of your foolish and absurd questions +all morning." Johnny's eyes widened with gentle reproach. "I let you +ask all the questions you wanted." + +Mr. Wade's nose twisted to a triumphant sneer. + +"'He who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client!'" + +"I didn't want to take any unfair advantage," explained Johnny. + +"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the court. + +"You gallows meat!" snarled Wade. "You dirty--" + +Johnny shook his head in a friendly warning. "He means you, too," he +whispered. + +The gavel fell heavily. The court rose up and the court's eyes +narrowed. + +"This bickering has got to stop! It is disgraceful. I don't want to +see any more of it. Mr. Wade, for that last remark of yours you ought +to pay a heavy fine, and you know it very well. This prisoner is being +tried for murder. That does not make him a murderer. Your words were +unmanly, sir." + +"May it please the court," said Wade, white faced and trembling with +rage, "I acknowledge myself entirely wrong, and I beg the court's +pardon. I own that I was exasperated. The prisoner insulted me +grossly." + +"You insulted him first. You have been doing it right along. You +lawyers are always browbeating witnesses and prisoners. You get 'em +where they can't talk back and then you pelt 'em with slurs and hints +and sneers and insults. You take a mean advantage of your privileged +position to be overbearing and arrogant. I've watched you at it. I +don't think it is very sporting to say in the court room what you +wouldn't dare say on the street. But when someone takes a whack at +you--wow! that's different! Then you want the court to protect you." +He paused to consider. + +The justice of the peace--Judge Hinkle, Andy Hinkle--was a slim, +wizened man, brown handed, brown faced, lean and wrinkled, with +thin gray hair and a thin gray beard and faded blue eyes, which could +blaze blue fire on occasion. Such fire, though a mild one, now died +away from those old eyes, and into them crept a slightly puzzled +expression. He looked hard at Mr. Wade and he looked hard at Mr. +Dines. Then he proceeded. + +"Mr. Wade, this court--Oh, let's cut out the court--that makes me +tired! 'This court fines you twenty-five dollars for contempt of +court.' How would that sound?" + +Wade managed a smile, and bowed, not ungracefully. "It would sound +unpleasant--perhaps a little severe, sir." + +The court twinkled. "I was only meaning how silly it seemed to a plain +man for him to have to refer to himself as the court. I'm not going to +fine you, Mr. Wade--not this time. I could, of course, but I won't. It +would be unfair to lecture you first and then fine you. Besides, there +is something else. You have had great provocation and I feel compelled +to take that into consideration. Your apology is accepted. I don't +know who began it--but if you have been insulting the prisoner it is +no less true that the prisoner has been aggravating you. I don't know +as I ever saw a more provoking man. I been keepin' an eye on him--his +eyebrows, the corners of his eyes, the corners of his mouth, his +shoulder-shrugging, and his elbows, and his teeth and his toes. Mr. +Wade, your moldy old saw about a fool for a client was never more +misplaced. This man can out talk you and never open his mouth. I'd +leave him alone if I was you--he might make a fool of you." + +Johnny half opened his mouth. The judge regarded him sternly. The +mouth closed hastily. Johnny dimpled. The judge's hammer fell with a +crash. + +"I give you both fair notice right now," said Judge Hinkle, "if you +start any more of this quarreling I'm goin' to slap on a fine that'll +bring a blister." + +Johnny rose timidly and addressed the court. + +"Your Honor, I'm aimin' to 'tend strictly to my knittin' from now +on. But if I should make a slip, and you do have to fine me--couldn't +you make it a jail sentence instead? I'm awful short of money, Your +Honor." + +He reached behind him and hitched up the tail of his vest with both +hands, delicately; this accomplished, he sank into his chair, raised +his trousers gently at the knee and gazed about him innocently. + +"My Honor will be--" + +The judge bit the sentence in two, leaving the end in doubt; he +regarded the prisoner with baleful attention. The prisoner gazed +through a window. The judge beckoned to Mr. Gwinne, who sat on the +front seat between See and Hobby Lull. Mr. Gwinne came forward. The +judge leaned across the desk. + +"Mr. Gwinne, do you feed this prisoner well?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"About what, now, for instance?" + +"Oh--beefsteak, ham and eggs, _enchilados_, canned stuff--most +anything." + +"Mr. Gwinne, if I told you to put this prisoner on a strict ration, +would you obey orders?" + +"I certainly would." + +"That's all," said the judge. "Thank you. Mr. Dines, you may go on +with the case. The witness may answer the question. Objection +overruled. State your question again, Mr. Dines." + +"Mr. Hales, will you tell His Honor what color was the calf I branded +in Redgate Canyon, day before yesterday, about two o'clock in the +afternoon?" + +"I don't know," answered Hales sulkily. + +"Oh! You didn't see it, then?" + +"No." + +"Then you are not able to state that it was a calf belonging to Adam +Forbes?" + +"No." + +Johnny's eyes sought the window. "Nor whether it was a calf or a +yearling?" + +"Of course not." + +"Did you see me brand the calf?" + +"I did not!" Hales spat out the words with venomous emphasis. Johnny +was unmoved. + +"Will you tell the court if the brand I put on this heifer calf or +bull yearling was my brand or Adam Forbes' brand?" + +The gavel fell. + +"Objection!" barked Wade. + +"Sustained. The question is improperly put. The witness need not +answer it. The counsel for the defense need not continue along these +lines. I am quite able to distinguish between evidence and surmise, +between a stated fact and unfair suggestion." + +"Does Your Honor mean to insinuate--" + +"Sit down, Mr. Wade! Sit down! My Honor does not mean to insinuate +anything. My Honor means to state that you have been trying to throw +dust in my eyes. My Honor wishes to state that you should never have +been allowed to present your evidence in any such shape, and if the +prisoner had been represented by a competent lawyer you would not have +been allowed--" + +The judge checked himself; his face fell; he wheeled his chair slowly +and glared at the prisoner with awful solemnity. "Dines! Is that why +you made no objections? So the prosecuting attorney would queer +himself with this court by attempting unfair tactics? Answer me, sir!" + +"But is it likely, Your Honor, that I could see ahead as far as that?" + +"Humph!" snorted His Honor. He turned back to the prosecuting +attorney. "Mr. Wade, I am keeping cases on you. Your questions have +been artfully framed to lead a simple old man astray--to bewilder him +until he is ready to accept theory, surmise and suggestion as +identical with a statement of facts or statements purporting to be +facts. I'm simple and old, all right--but I never did learn to lead." + +Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade sprang to his feet. + +"Your Honor, I protest! You have been openly hostile to the +prosecution from the first." + +"Ah!" said the judge mildly. "You fear my remarks may unduly influence +my decision--is that it? Calm yourself, Mr. Wade. I cannot say that I +blame you much, however. You see, I think United States, and when I +have to translate into the customary idiomcies of the law I do a bum +job." He turned his head and spoke confidentially to the delighted +court room. "Boys, it's gettin' me!" he said. "Did you hear that +chatter I put out, when all I wanted to say was that I still knew +sugar from salt and sawdust from cornmeal--also, in any case of +extreme importance, as hereinbefore mentioned, and taking in +consideration the fine and subtle nuisances of delicate thought, as +it were, whereas, being then and there loaded with shot and slugs, I +can still tell a hawk from a handsaw. Why, I'm getting so I talk +that jargon to my jackass when I wallop him over the place made and +provided on him, the said jackass, with a _curajo_ pole! I'll tell you +what--the first man I catch voting for me next year I'm going to pat +him over the head with a pickhandle. You may proceed with the case, +Mr. Dines." + +"This is an outrage!" bawled the furious and red-faced prosecutor. +"This is an outrage! An outrage! These proceedings are a mockery! This +whole trial is a travesty on justice!" + +The gavel banged down. + +"This court is now adjourned," announced Judge Hinkle. + +He leaned back in his chair and sighed luxuriously. He took out a pair +of steel-rimmed spectacles and polished them; he held them poised +delicately in one hand and beamed benevolently on the crowded court +room. + +"We have had a very trying forenoon," observed Mr. Hinkle blandly. +"Perhaps some of us are ruffled a little. But I trust that nothing +which has happened in this court room will cause any hard feeling of a +lasting character. And I strongly advise that under no circumstances +will any of you feel impelled to take any man and put his head under a +pump, and pump on his head." The gavel rapped smartly. "This court +will now come to order! Mr. Dines, as I remarked before recess, you +will now proceed with the case." + +"I'll not detain you long, Mr. Hales," said Johnny. "I didn't bother +to cross-examine the previous witnesses"--he smiled upon Caney and +Weir--"because they are suffering from the results of an accident. In +the mines, as I hear. Mining is a dangerous business. Very. Sometimes +a man is just one-sixteenth of a second slow--and it gets him trouble. +I understand, Mr. Hales, that you three gentlemen were together when +you found the murdered man?" + +"Yes." + +"You had been prospecting together?" + +"Prospecting, and looking for saddle thieves." + +"Did you find the saddle thieves?" + +"No; I told you once." + +"No," said Johnny; "you told Mr. Wade. Find any mines?" + +"Yes." + +"Good prospect?" + +"I think so." + +"Um--yes." Johnny hesitated, and fell silent. Hales fidgeted. "And the +murdered man," began Johnny slowly, and stopped. Hales heaved a sigh +of relief. Johnny darted a swift glance at the judge. "And the +murdered man had been shot three times?" + +"Three times. In the back." + +"The shots were close together?" + +"Yes. My hand would have covered all three." + +"Sure of that?" + +"Positive." + +"In your opinion, these shots had been fired at close range?" + +An interruption came. Four men trooped into the door, booted and +spurred; three of the John Cross men--Tom Ross, Frank Bojarquez, Will +Foster; with Hiram Yoast, of the Bar Cross: four fit to stand by +Caesar. A stir ran through the court room. They raised their hands to +Johnny in grave salute; they filed to a bench together. + +Johnny repeated the question: "You say, Mr. Hales, that these three +shots had been fired at close range?" + +"The dead man's shirt was burned. The gun must have been almost +between his shoulder blades." + +"Was there any blood on Forbes' saddle?" + +"I didn't see Forbes' saddle," growled Hales; "or Forbes' horse." + +"Oh, yes. But in your opinion, Forbes was riding when he was killed?" + +"In my opinion, he was." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"We found the tracks where Forbes was dragged, twenty feet or so, +before his foot come loose from the stirrup, and blood in the track +all the way. I told all this before." + +"So you did, so you did. Now about these wounds. Did the path of the +bullets range up or down from where they entered the body?" + +"Down." + +"Sure of that?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you examine the body?" + +"How else would I know? Of course I did." + +"Show the court, on your own body, about where the wounds were +located." + +"They went in about here"--indicating--"and come out about here." + +"Thank you. Then the shots passed obliquely through the body, entering +behind, somewhere near the left shoulder blade, and coming out at a +point slightly lower, and under the right breast?" + +"About that, yes." + +"All indicating that the murderer rode at his victim's left hand, and +a little behind him, when these shots were fired?" + +"I think so, yes." + +"And that the gun muzzle must have been a little higher than the +wounds made by the entering bullets, because the bullets passed +through the body with a slightly downward trend?" + +"That is right." + +"How big was the murdered man?" + +"He was a very large man." + +"Very heavy or very tall?" + +"Both, I should say. It is hard to judge a dead man's height. He was +very heavily built." + +"You lifted him?" + +"I turned him over." + +"How tall was he, would you say?" + +"I tell you, I don't know." Hales was visibly more impatient with each +question. + +"Of course you don't know. But you can make a guess. Come, give the +court your estimate." + +"Not less than six feet, I should say. Probably more." + +"Did you see Adam Forbes' horse--no, you told us that. But you saw my +horse when you arrested me?" + +"Yes." + +"Was my horse a small horse or a large one?" + +"A small one." + +Johnny rose and strolled to the window. + +"Well, about how high?" + +"About fourteen hands. Possibly an inch more." + +"Would you know my horse again?" + +"Certainly." + +"So you could swear to him?" + +"Yes." + +"What color was he?" + +"A _grullo_--a very peculiar shade of _grullo_--a sleek glossy, +velvety blue." + +"Was he thin or fat?" + +"Neither. Smooth--not fat." + +"Did you notice his brand?" + +"Of course." + +"Describe it to the court." + +"He was branded K I M on the left hip." + +"On which side did his mane hang?" + +"On the left." + +"Thank you. Now, Mr. Hales, would you describe me as a large man or a +small one?" + +Hales looked an appeal to the prosecutor. + +"I object to that question--improper, irrelevant, incompetent and +immaterial. And that is not all. This man, this man Dines, is arguing +the case as he goes along, contrary to all rule." + +"I like it that way," observed the judge placidly. "If he makes his +point as the evidence is given, I'm not likely to miss any bets, as I +might do if he waited for the summing up." + +"I objected to the question," snapped the prosecutor. "I demand your +ruling." + +"Has the defense anything to offer? That question would certainly seem +to be superfluous on the face of it," said the court, mildly. + +"Your Honor," said Johnny, "I want to get this down on the record in +black and white. Someone who has never seen me may have to pass on +this evidence before we get done. I want that person to be sure of my +size." + +"Objection overruled." + +"Please describe me--as to size--Mr. Hales." + +"A very small man," answered Hales sulkily. + +"In your opinion, when I shot Adam Forbes did I stand on my saddle? Or +could I have inflicted a wound such as you have described by simply +kneeling on my saddle--" + +"I object!" + +"--if Adam Forbes rode a horse big enough to carry his weight, and I +rode a horse fourteen hands high?" + +Wade leaped to his feet and flung out his hands. "I object!" he +shrilled. + +"Objection sustained. The question is most improper. I shall instruct +myself to disregard it in making my decision." + +"That's all," said Johnny Dines; and sat down. + +"Any more witnesses for the prosecution, Mr. Wade?" + +"No, sir. The prosecution rests." + +The judge turned back to Johnny. "Witnesses for the defense?" + +"Call my horse," said Johnny Dines. + +"Your Honor, I object! This is preposterous--unheard of! We will admit +the height of this accursed horse as being approximately fourteen +hands, if that is what he wants to prove. I ask that you keep this +buffoon in order. The trial has degenerated into farce-comedy." + +"Do you know, Mr. Wade, I seem to observe some tragic elements in this +trial," observed Hinkle. "I am curious to hear Mr. Dines state his +motive in making so extraordinary a request from the court." + +"He's trying to be funny!" + +"No," said the judge; "I do not think Mr. Dines is trying to be funny. +If such is his idea, I shall find means to make him regret it. Will +you explain, Mr. Dines? You are entitled to make a statement of what +you expect to prove." + +Johnny rose. + +"Certainly. Let me outline my plan of defense. I could not call +witnesses until I heard the evidence against me. Now that I have heard +the evidence, it becomes plain that, except for a flat denial by +myself, no living man can speak for me. I was alone. When I take the +stand presently, I shall state under oath precisely what I shall now +outline to you briefly. + +"On the day in question I was sent by Cole Ralston to Hillsboro to +execute his orders, as I will explain in full, later. I came through +MacCleod's Park, started up a Bar Cross cow and her unbranded +yearling, and I caught the yearling at the head of Redgate. While I +was branding it, a big man--I have every reason to believe that this +man was Adam Forbes--came down the canyon. He rode up where I was +branding the yearling, talked to me, smoked a cigarette, gave me a +letter to mail, and went back the way he came. I went to Garfield. My +horse had lost a shoe, as the witnesses have stated. I nailed on a +fresh shoe in Garfield, and came on. I was arrested about dark that +night while on the road to Hillsboro. That is all my story. True or +false, I shall not vary from it for any cross-examination. + +"I shall ask Your Honor to consider that my story may be true. I shall +ask Your Honor to consider that if my story is true no man may speak +for me. I saw no other man between Upham and the Garfield +ditch--twenty-five miles. + +"You have heard the prosecution's theory. It is that I was stealing a +calf belonging to the dead man--branding it; that he caught me in the +act, and that I foully murdered him. If I can prove the first part of +that theory to be entirely false; if I can demonstrate that even if I +killed Adam Forbes I certainly did not kill him in the manner or for +the motive set forth by the theory of the prosecution--then you may +perhaps believe my unsupported statement as to the rest of it. And +that is what I can do, if allowed the opportunity. I cannot, by +myself, now or at any other time, absolutely prove my statement to be +true. I can and will prove the theory of the prosecution to be +absolutely false. To do that I rely upon myself--not upon my +statement, but upon myself, my body, so much flesh and blood and bone, +considered as an exhibit in this case, taken in connection with all +known or alleged facts; on myself and my horse; on Adam Forbes' dead +body and on the horse Adam Forbes rode that day; on the Bar Cross +yearling I branded day before yesterday, a yearling that I can +describe in detail, a yearling that can be found and must be found, a +yearling that will be found following a Bar Cross cow. I have no +fancy to be hanged by a theory. I demand to test that theory by facts. +I demand that my horse be called to testify to the facts." + +"Mr. Gwinne, you may call the prisoner's horse," said the justice. +"Spinal, you may act as the court's officer while Gwinne is gone." + +"His name is Twilight," added Johnny, "and he is over at the Gans +stables." + +"I protest! Your Honor, I protest against such unmitigated folly," +stormed Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade, in a hot fury of exasperation. +"You are making a mockery of the law! There is no precedent on record +for anything like this." + +"Here's where we make a new precedent, then," observed the court +cheerfully. "I have given my instructions, and I'd be willing to place +a small bet on going through with my folly. I don't know much about +the law, but the people who put me here knew I didn't know much about +the law when they elected me--so I guess they aimed to have me get at +the rights of things in my own way." He twisted his scanty beard for a +moment; his faded blue eyes peered over the rims of his glasses. "Not +that it would make any great difference," he added. + +A little wearied from the strain of focalized effort, Johnny looked +out across the blur of faces. Hobby Lull smiled at him, and Charlie +See looked hardihood like his own. There were other friendly faces, +many of them; and beyond and above them all shone the faces of his +straining mates, Hiram and the three John Cross men. + +"Judge, may I speak to the prisoner?" asked Hiram Yoast. He tugged at +a grizzled foretop. + +"You may." + +"Old-timer," said Hiram, "we didn't hear of you till late last night. +We had moved on from Hermosa. That's all, Your Honor. Thank you." + +"Will the learned counsel for the defense outline the rest of his +program?" inquired the judge, with respectful gentleness. + +"He will," said Johnny. "I'll have to ask you to continue the case +until to-morrow, or maybe later--till I can get some of the Garfield +men who can swear to the size of the horse Adam Forbes rode. Then I +want--" + +Charlie See rose. + +"I offer my evidence. I slept with Adam Forbes the night before he was +killed; and I saw him start. He rode a big horse." + +"Thank you," said Johnny. "I'll call you after a while. Get yourself a +reserved seat inside here. I knew Adam Forbes rode a big horse, and I +can describe that horse--if Adam Forbes was the man I met in Redgate, +which I've never doubted. A big blaze-faced bay with a Heart-Diamond +brand. This way." He traced on the wall a heart with an inscribed +diamond. "But I want to call the men who brought in Adam Forbes. I +want to question them about all the tracks they saw, before it rained. +So you see, Your Honor, I'll have to ask for a continuation. I can't +afford to be hanged to save the county a little money." + +"You'll get your continuation." + +"But that isn't all. That yearling I branded--he was from the river +_bosques_, for he had his tail full of sand burs, and the bunch he +was with was sure snaky. His mammy's a Bar Cross cow and he's a Bar +Cross bull--and so branded by me. He'll be back with her by this +time. He had all the Hereford markings, just about perfect. His mammy +wasn't marked so good. She had a bald face and a line back, all right, +and white feet and a white belly. But one of her stockings was +outsize--run clear up her thigh--and she had two big white spots on +her ribs on the nigh side. I didn't see the other side. And one of +her horns drooped a little--the right one. I would like to have you +appoint a commission to bring them into court, or at any rate to +interview them and get a statement of facts." + +"That's reasonable," said the judge. "Application granted." He called +to Tom Ross. "Tom, that's your job. You and your three peelers find +that Bar Cross cow--objection overruled--and that bull yearling. Mr. +Clerk, you may so enter it, at the charge of Sierra County." + +Wade was on his feet again. + +"But, Your Honor," he gasped, "those men are the prisoner's especial +friends!" + +"Exactly. That's why they'll find that calf. Results are what I'm +after, and I don't care a hang about methods." He frowned. "Look here, +Mr. Wade--am I to understand that you want this prisoner convicted +whether he's guilty or not?" + +"No, no, certainly not. But why appoint those four men in particular? +There is always the possibility of collusion." + +Judge Hinkle's face became bleak and gray. He rose slowly. The court +room grew suddenly still. Hinkle walked across the little intervening +space and faced the prosecutor. + +"Collision, perhaps you mean," he said. His quiet, even voice was +cutting in its contempt. "What do you think this is--a town full of +thugs? I want you to know that those four men stand a damn sight +higher in this community than you do. Sit down--you're making an +indecent exposure of your soul!" + +As he went back to his desk, an oldish man came to the door and caught +Hobby Lull's eye. He beckoned. Hobby rose and went to the door. They +held a whispered council in the anteroom. + +Judge Hinkle busied himself with the papers on his desk for a moment. +When he looked up his face had regained its wonted color. + +"Here comes Gwinne with the horse," announced Hobby Lull from the +anteroom. + +"Mr. Dines, how does your client propose to question that horse, if I +may ask?" inquired the judge. + +"I propose to prove by my horse," said Johnny, "that though I may have +murdered this man I certainly did not shoot him while I was riding +this horse. And I depend on the evidence of the prosecution's +witnesses"--he smiled at the prosecution's witnesses--"to establish +that no one rode in Redgate that day except me--and them! If the court +will appoint some man known to be a rider and a marksman, and will +instruct him to ride my horse by the courthouse windows, we can get +this testimony over at once. It has been shown here that I carried a +.45. Set up a box out there where we can see from the windows; give +your man a gun and tell him to ride as close as he likes and put three +shots in that box. If he hits that box more than once--" + +"Gun-shy?" said Judge Hinkle. + +"Watch him!" said Johnny rapturously. + +The judge's eye rested on Mr. Wade with frank distaste. + +"We will now have another gross instance of collusion," he announced. +"I will call on Frank Bojarquez to assist the court." + +Francisco Bojarquez upreared his straight length at the back of the +hall. + +"Excuse, please, if I seem to tell the judge what he is to do. +But what Mistair Wade says, it is true a little--or it might seem +true to estrangers. For us in Hillsboro, frien's togethair, eet +does not mattair; we know. But because the worl' ees full of +estrangers--theenk, Judge Hinkle, eef it is not bes' that it ees not a +great frien' of the preesoner who is to examine that horse--what? That +no estranger may have some doubts? There are so many estrangers." + +"Humph! There is something in that." The justice scratched his ear. +"Very well. George Scarboro, stand up. Are you acquainted with this +prisoner?" + +"No, sir." + +"You are one of the Arizona Rangers?" + +"I am." + +"Slip your saddle on that blue horse. You know what you have to do?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Scarboro departed, and half the court room went with him. Five minutes +later he rode the Twilight horse, prancing daintily, under the +courthouse windows. The windows were lined with faces. Johnny, the +judge and Wade had a window to themselves, within the sacred railing. +But Spinal Maginnis did not look from any window. Spinal was looking +elsewhere--at Caney, Weir and Hales. + +The ranger wore a loose and sagging belt; his gun swung low on his +thigh, just at the reach of his extended arm. As he came abreast of +the destined box Scarboro's arm flashed down and up. So did Twilight. + +A pistol shot, a long blue streak, and a squeal of anguish ascended +together, hopelessly mingled and indiscriminate, spurning the spinning +earth. It launched toward outer space in a complex of motion upward, +sidewise, forward and inside out, shaming the orbit of the moon, +nodes, perturbations, apsides, syzygies and other symptoms too +luminous to mention; but perhaps apogee and acceleration were the most +prominent. A clatter, a pitch, an agonized bawl, a sailing hat, a dust +cloud, a desperate face above it, with streaming hair; the marvel fell +away down the hill and left a stunned silence behind. And presently a +gun came down. + +"Do you want to cross-examine the witness?" inquired Johnny. + +Wade threw up his hands. + +"Well!" he said. "Well!" His jaw dropped. He drew Johnny aside and +whispered, "See here, damn you--did you kill that man?" + +"No, I didn't," whispered Johnny. "But you keep it dark. It's a dead +secret." + +The roaring crowd came in with laughter and shouts. As they found +seats and the tumult quieted Johnny addressed the judge. + +"Shall I take the stand now, Your Honor, or wait till after dinner? +It's late, I know--but you'd believe me better right now--" + +"Wait a minute, Andy!" + +A man rose in the crowd--a tall old man with a melancholy face--the +same who had summoned Hobby Lull to the door. + +"Why, hello, Pete! I didn't see you come!" said the judge. + +"That's funny, too. I have been here half an hour. You're getting old, +Andy--getting old!" + +"Oh, you go to thunder! Say, can you straighten up this mess?" + +"I can help, at least--or so I believe. I was with the search party." + +"Well, who calls this witness--the defense or the prosecution?" +inquired the court. + +"Oh, let me call myself--as the friend of the court, _amicus curiae_, +just as they used to do in England--do yet, for all I know. I've not +heard your evidence--though I saw some just now, outside. But I've got +a few facts which you may be able to fit in somewhere. I don't know +the defendant, and am not for or against the prosecutor or for anybody +or anything except justice. So I'll take it kindly if you'd let me +tell my story in my own way--as the friend of justice. I'll get over +the ground quicker and tell it straighter. If anyone is not satisfied +they can cross-examine me afterwards, just as if I had been called by +one side or the other." + +Judge Hinkle turned to Wade. "Any objections?" + +"No," said Wade. "I guess justice is what we all want--results, as you +said yourself." + +He was a subdued man. His three witnesses stirred uneasily, with +sidelong glances. Spinal Maginnis kept a corner of his eye on those +witnesses. + +"Suits me," said Johnny. + +"I got to get me a drink," whispered Caney, and rose, tiptoeing. But +Maginnis rose with him. + +"Sit down, Mr. Caney," he said. "You look poorly. I'll fetch you some +water." + +Pete Harkey took the stand and was duly sworn. He crossed his legs and +addressed the judge. + +"Well, we went up in Redgate, Dan Fenderson and I and a bunch. We +thought there was no use of more than one coming here to-day, because +we all saw just the same things." + +Hinkle nodded. "All right, Pete. Tell us about it." + +"Well, now, Andy--Your Honor--if it's just the same to everybody, +I'll skip the part about the tracks and finding Adam until +cross-examination. It's just going over the same old ground again. +I've been talking to Hobby, and we found everything just about as you +heard it from these boys." His eye shifted toward the witness bench. +"All except one little thing about the tracks, and that was done after +the murder, and might have been happen-so. And I was wanting to hurry +up and get back to Garfield to-night. We're going to bury Adam at +sundown." + +"All right, Pete. But we'll cross-examine you--if not to-day, then +to-morrow. It pays to work tailings, sometimes." + +"That's queer, too. I was just coming to that--in a way. Mining. Adam +went up there to prospect for gold--placer gold. When the big rain +came, the night he was killed, all tracks were washed out, of course. +We hadn't got far when dark came--and then the rain. But yesterday I +went combing out the country to look for Adam's outfit of camp stuff, +and also to see if perhaps he had found any claims before he was +killed. And I found this." + +He handed to the judge a small paper packet, folded and refolded, and +wrapped round with a buckskin string. The judge opened it. + +"Coarse gold!" he said. "Like the Apache gold in the seventies! Pete, +you've got a rich mine if there's much of this." + +"It is rich dirt," said Pete. "I got that from less than a dozen pans. +But it is not my mine." + +"How so?" + +"I got home late last night. This morning I looked in all the pockets +in the clothes Adam was wearing. Here is what I found in his vest." He +handed to Hinkle a small tobacco sack, rolled to a tiny cylinder. + +"The same kind of gold--big as rice!" said Hinkle. "So Adam Forbes +found this?" + +Caney's hand crept under his coat. + +"Judge for yourself. I found three claims located. Three. But no name +of Adam Forbes to any notice. One claim was called the 'Goblin +Gold--'" + +Charlie See rose up as if he were lifted by the hair of his head. "The +other names, Pete! Not the locators. The claims--give me the names of +the other two claims!" + +"'Nine Bucks' was one--and the 'Please Hush.'" + +Charlie turned and took one step, his tensed weight resting on the +balls of his feet, his left arm lashed out to point. All eyes turned +to the witness bench--and two witnesses looked at one. + +"_Caney!_" thundered Charlie See. + +Leaping, Caney's arm came from his coat. See's hand was swifter, +unseen. In flashes of fire and smoke, Caney, even as he leaped up, +pitched forward on his face. His arm reached out on the floor, holding +a smoking gun, and See's foot was on the gun. + +A dozen men had pulled down Toad Hales and Jody Weir. Gwinne's gun was +out. + +"Stand back! The next man over the rails gets it!" Maginnis jumped +beside him. The shouting crowd recoiled. + +"Sit down! Sit down, everybody!" shouted the judge. He pounded on his +desk. "Bojarquez! Ross! Foster! Come up here. I make you deputies. Get +this crowd out or get order." + +The deafening turmoil stopped as suddenly as it had begun. + +"Gwinne, arrest those two men for the murder of Adam Forbes," ordered +Hinkle. + +"Well, gee-whiz, I'd say they was under arrest now. Here, gimme them." +He reached down and handcuffed Weir and Hales together. "How's Caney, +Dines? Dead?" + +Johnny knelt by the fallen man. "Dead as a door nail. Three shots. Did +he get you anywhere, See?" + +"No. He was just one-sixteenth of a second too late." Charlie See +looked hard at the cylinder of his gun. He had fired only two shots. +"Pete, it's a wonder he didn't hit you. You was right in line." + +"I wasn't there," said Pete dryly. "Not when the bullets got there. +Not good enough." + +Gwinne and Maginnis took the two prisoners to jail, by the back door. + +"Now for a clearing up," said Judge Hinkle. "You seem to have inside +information, Mr. See. Suppose you tell us about it?" + +"No chance for a mistake, judge. I had a long talk with Adam the night +before, about a lost gold mine at Mescalero. And three of the phrases +that we used back and forth--it seems he picked them out to name his +find. 'Goblin Gold.' I used the word 'gobbling' gold--joking, you +know. And the story was about 'nine bucks'; and it wound up with an +old Mescalero saying 'Won't you please hush?' It wasn't possible that +those three names had reached the papers Pete found, except through +the dead man's mind. Adam called these three men to witness for him, +likely. Then they killed him for his mines. They destroyed his +location papers, but they kept the names. Easier than to make up new +ones. That'll hang 'em." + +"Sounds good. But how are you going to prove it? Suppose they get a +good lawyer and stick to their story? They found a mine, and you got +in a shooting match with Caney. That don't prove anything." + +"Well, I'll bet I can prove it," said Johnny Dines. "Ten to one, that +letter Forbes gave me to mail was his location papers. He seemed keen +about it." + +"Did he say anything about location papers? Was the letter addressed +to the recorder?" demanded Pete. + +"Look now!" said Johnny. "If this theory of See's is correct, and if +that really was location papers in the letter I mailed--why, that +letter won't get here till two o'clock this afternoon, whether it is +the location papers or what. And the postmaster and the recorder are +both here in this court room, judge. Gwinne was pointing out everybody +to me, before you called court. So they can mosey along down to the +post office together--the postmaster and the recorder. And when that +letter comes you'll know all about it." + +"Ah, that reminds me," said the judge--"the case of the Territory of +New Mexico vs. John Dines is now dismissed. This court is now +adjourned. John Dines, I want to be the first to congratulate you." + +"Thanks, Judge.--Hiram," said Johnny, "Cole told me to report to you. +He said I was to go to the John Cross pasture and pick me a mount from +the runaways there." + +"But, Johnny, you can't ride those horses," said Bojarquez. + +Johnny flushed. "Don't you believe it, old hand. You're not the only +one that can ride." + +Bojarquez spread out his hands. "But bareback? Where ees your saddle? +And the Twilight horse? The bridle, he ees broke. Scarb'ro's in +Chihuahua by now." + +"Dinner's on me," said Johnny. + +Charlie See drew Johnny aside and spoke to him in confidence. + +"How does it happen you know so pat just when a letter gets to +Hillsboro when it is posted in Garfield?" + +"A letter? Oh--Hobby Lull, he told me." + +"Yes, yes. And what was the big idea for keeping still about that +letter while they wove a rope to your neck?" + +"Why, my dear man," said Johnny, "I can't read through a sealed +envelope." + +Charlie sniffed. "You saw a good many things mighty clear, I notice, +but you overlooked the one big bet--like fun you did! Caney and Weir +and Hales--don't you suppose they knew that letter was on the way? And +that it was never to reach the recorder?" + +"Since you are so very shrewd," said Johnny, "I sometimes wonder that +you are not shrewder still." + +"And keep my mouth shut? That's how I shall keep it. But I just wanted +you to know. You may be deceiving me, but you're not fooling me any. +Keep your secret." + +"Thank you," said Johnny, "I will." + +"Good boy. All the same, Hobby and I will be up at the post office. +And I know now what we'll find in that letter you mailed. We'll find +Adam's location papers, with them three murderers for witness." + +And they did. They found something else too; a message from beyond the +grave that in his hour of fortune their friend did not forget his +friends. + +They buried Adam Forbes at sundown of that day. No thing was lacking; +his friends and neighbors gathered together to bid him Godspeed; there +were love and tears for him. And of those friends, three were all road +stained and weary; they had ridden hard from Hillsboro for that +parting; Lull and Charlie See and old Pete. It was to one of these +that all eyes were turned when the rude coffin was lowered into the +grave. + +"Pete?" said Jim-Ike-Jones. + +And old Pete Harkey stepped forth and spoke slowly, while his faded +old eyes looked past the open grave and rested on the hills beyond. + +"More than at any other time we strive to center and steady our +thoughts, when we stand by the loved and dead. It is an effort as vain +as to look full and steadily at the blinding sun. I can tell you no +thing here which you do not know. + +"You all knew Adam Forbes. He was a simple and kindly man. He brought +a good courage to living, he was all help and laughter, he joyed in +the sting and relish of rushing life. Those of you here who were most +unfriends to him will not soon forget that gay, reckless, +tender-hearted creature. + +"You know his faults. He was given to hasty wrath, to stubbornness and +violence. His hand was heavy. If there are any here who have been +wronged by this dead man--as I think most like--let the memory of it +be buried in this grave. It was never his way to walk blameless. He +did many things amiss; he took wrong turnings. But he was never too +proud to turn back, to admit a mistake or to right his wrongdoing. He +paid for what he broke. + +"For the rest--he fed the hungry, helped the weak, he nursed the sick +and dug graves for the dead. Now, in his turn, it is fitting and just +that no bought hand dug this grave, but that his friends and his foes +did him this last service, and called pleasant dreams to his long +sleep. + +"We have our dear dreams, too. It can do no harm to dream that +somewhere down the skies that brightness and fire and light still +flames--but not for us. + +"It is written that upon Mars Hill the men of Athens built an altar +'to the Unknown God.' It was well builded; and with no misgiving we +leave our friend to the care--and to the honor--of the Unknown God." + +He stood back; and from the women who wept came one who did not weep, +dry-eyed and pale; whose pitying hand dropped the first earth into the +grave. + +"Stardust to Stardust," said Edith Harkey. + + * * * * * + +That night Pete Harkey stood by the big fireplace of the big lonesome +house. + +"Shall I light the fire, Edith?" + +"Not to-night, father." + +In the dimness he groped for a chair; he took her on his knee, her +arms clung fast. + +"Is it well with you, Edith?" + +Then, in the clinging dusk she dared the truth at last; to ears that +did not hear. For his thought was with the dead man. She knew it well; +yet once to tell her story--only once! Her voice rang steady, prouder +than any pride: "I have loved Greatheart. It is well with me." + +"Poor little girl," he said. "Poor little girl!" The proud head sought +his breast and now her tears fell fast. + + * * * * * + +And far away, Charlie See rode south through the wizard twilight. +There was no singing now. For at the world's edge some must fare +alone; through all their dreams one unforgotten face--laughing, and +dear, and lost. + + THE END + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, +every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and +intent. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Stepsons of Light, by Eugene Manlove Rhodes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEPSONS OF LIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 32704.txt or 32704.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/7/0/32704/ + +Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +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. 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