Uhlmann glowered at him sullenly. “You gone crazy with the heat, Jug? We’ve always been side-kicks, you and me.”
“Like you and Pete were,” the man behind the forty-five said, his voice low and ice-cold.
“Any man who says I killed Pete is a liar,” the big man blurted out. “I ain’t seen him for a week.”
“I say you killed him. This whole country says it. You were seen headed up Double Fork.”
“I went to get some money he owed me, but he wasn’t to home.”
“If he hadn’t been he would have been alive today.” Packard did not let his voice lift out of its low even register, but his words dripped with an imperative menace. “Get into that chair now, or go out in smoke.”
The leaden feet of the huge killer dragged forward. He slumped down into the chair, more like a rhinoceros than ever. The small sullen eyes, the wrinkled skin of the face hanging in heavy folds, the gross body huddled into a shapeless mass, all suggested that brutal and insensitive pachyderm.
Scarcely six inches from Uhlmann’s hairy hand the butt of a revolver pushed out from its holster. He knew that Packard had not forgotten this. The man was taunting him, gloating over his helplessness. There was mockery in the cruel eyes. They invited him to take a chance, to reach for his weapon and make a fighting finish. But the catch was that there was no chance. Jug was lightning-fast, and at that distance he could not miss. Before the big killer could fire a shot his great body would be crashing to the floor.
“Don’t be that way, Jug,” Uhlmann growled. “I came up here to figure out how I was going to get Webb. Fellow told me he and Fraser were roosting in the hills back of the Circle J R. My idea was to do the job tonight.”
“Yore idea was to slip in on me and play the same trick you did on Pete,” corrected Packard. “First rob me, then shoot me into a rag doll. You knew I was always here alone at night, so you figured it would be easy. That’s the kind of a lunkhead you are. From the moment I heard that you were on the dodge there hasn’t been a second when you could have pulled yore heavyfooted trickery on me.”
“You got me wrong, Jug.” Uhlmann brushed his coat sleeve across a perspiring forehead. “I wouldn’t do you thataway. We’ve been pals a long time, you ’n’ me. When you’ve needed help you’ve come to me, and I’ve been with you every time. Ain’t that so?”
“Water over the dam. Anything you ever did for me I paid you for. And while we’re talking about that, shell out the five hundred I gave you as advance on a job you didn’t do.”
“I aim to do it tonight, like I told you.”
“Fine,” answered Packard, with a titter. “I’ll pay you when you’ve done it. Until then I’ll keep the five hundred for you. Dig it up.”
Uhlmann made no motion to get the money. “You can’t do that to me. I’m going through with this. I don’t aim to leave until I’ve settled Webb’s hash.”
“When you do, you’ll have fifteen hundred coming to you. But I reckon I’ll make sure, Rhino.” The man’s mouth tightened. He leaned across the desk and let the end of the barrel tap gently on the wood by way of reminder. “Shell out my money, fellow.”
“If I have to light out I’ve gotta have dough,” Uhlmann pleaded. “Don’t be a hog, Jug. Five hundred is nothing to you, and I aim to earn it inside of two hours.”
The eyes of the mining man glittered. “When I pull this trigger there won’t be any questions asked by anybody. Everybody will give me the glad hand for rubbing out a mad wolf. Don’t make a mistake about this. It’s the last call.”
From a dry throat Uhlmann grunted surrender. It was in his mind that when he reached to open the money belt his fingers would tilt up the revolver and fling a bullet through the holster.
“Just stay where you’re at,” Packard ordered brusquely. “Leave yore hands on the chair arms.” He rose, walked around the desk, passed back of his prisoner’s chair, and drew the revolver from its case. “I wouldn’t want an old pal like you to commit suicide.”
The short blunt fingers of Uhlmann counted out five hundred dollars in bills and left them on the desk in front of the other man.
Packard slid the money into the open drawer and closed it. “If you really must go I won’t keep you any longer,” he said.
“Do I get my gun back? To fix Webb.”
“You have yore rifle beside the saddle.”
“I want my six-gun too,” Uhlmann insisted doggedly.
The miner gave this consideration. “All right. You get it—after you are in the saddle. Let’s go.”
Uhlmann lumbered out of the room first, in obedience to a wave of his captor’s hand. He did not feel comfortable, for he knew that though sly and cautious Jug was a man who had no regard for human life. His intention might be to destroy the trapped man before he had taken a dozen steps. The big ruffian talked, his voice not under very good control. He had to fix it in Jug’s mind that he was setting out to find and kill Bob Webb.
“They’re in that old Baxter cabin—the one in the foothills back of the Circle J R. I can sneak up and get Webb sure as you’re a foot high, Jug. That will be fine for both of us.”
“If you do, I’ll send you the money, Rhino. That’s a promise.”
Hans Uhlmann did not believe he would keep it. Just now he was not interested in whether he would or not. The killer knew he had been a fool to come here. If he got away with his life he would be doing all right. As he flatfooted forward he half expected to feel a bullet tearing through the muscles of his back.
“Climb up,” Packard ordered, after they had reached the post to which the horse was hitched.
Uhlmann pulled himself heavily to the saddle. He still was not sure whether Jug was going to kill him. “Everything will be all right,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll get that fellow Webb sure.”
“I’ll believe it when I see him dead.”
Packard broke the gun and emptied the shells into his hand. He tossed them on the ground and flung the empty revolver away.
“You can pick them up after I have gone,” he said, and ran swiftly back to the office.
From a window he watched Uhlmann dismount and search the ground for the shells and the weapon. After he had apparently found them the big killer pulled himself to the back of the horse again and disappeared down the road.
Hurriedly Packard put the five hundred dollars safely away, blew out the light, and slipped out of the office. A saddled horse was waiting back of the building. A minute later he was following Uhlmann down the steep mountain trail over which ore from the mine was hauled to the plains.
34. “Till A’ the Seas Gang Dry, My Dear”
AFTER SAM WASHINGTON HAD WASHED THE PACKARD SUPper dishes he carried a pail of refuse to the gulch back of the kitchen and emptied it over the precipice that fell away for a hundred feet to the floor below. It was as he was walking back to his quarters that he caught sight of a shadowy bulk which resolved itself into a man on horseback. The rider dismounted in the darkness and moved forward to the office cautionsly.
Sam recognized the lumbering gait. The furtive visitor was Hans Uhlmann, who in the past forty-eight hours had become a fugitive from the vengeance of his neighbors. The cook had a large bump of curiosity tempered by caution. From an old leather trunk in his bedroom next to the kitchen he took a revolver and checked to make sure it was loaded. He did not know what Uhlmann was doing here but he meant to find out if he could. That his employer and this evil man had been accomplices in wickedness at times Sam was pretty sure. Hans might have come to plot with Packard, or he might want to destroy him as he had McNulty.
The door of the office was closed and all the curtains were drawn tight. Sam could neither see into the room nor hear anything that was said. It was impossible for him to tell whether this was a get-together meeting. He found out later, when Uhlmann slouched out of the room with a forty-five pointed at the small of his back.
By that time Sam was crouched in the brush at the edge of the gulch, a few yards from the s
pot where the horse of the ranchman was hitched. As Uhlmann moved through the darkness he talked, and there was something very like panic in his whining voice. He was telling Packard that Webb was in the old Baxter cabin and he would sneak up and kill him. The answer of the mine owner made clear his position. He would pay the killer after he had done the job. But it was also plain that he did not trust his hired assassin, for he kept him covered until the man was astride his horse and left him weaponless while he backed away to safety.
Sam waited in the bushes and saw both Uhlmann and Packard ride down the road, though not together. The cook was puzzled at this set-up. It was plain that Jug meant to keep an eye on Rhino. Was it to make sure the gunman would kill Bob Webb? Or was it in his mind to rub out the villain who was doing his work?
The cook scratched his woolly thatch and talked aloud to himself. “Now looky here, Sam Washington, this plumb ain’t any of yore business. Go to monkeyin’ around with these two wolves and you’ll ce’tainly buy yoreself a mess of trouble. What you wants to do is to include yoreself out.”
He continued to grumble to himself as he saddled his old white mule and took the trail after the other two. But though he chided himself, he could not keep out of the business. He had to let Miss Sandra know about the plot to murder her friend. Very likely he would be too late. If Webb was at the Baxter cabin, and if Uhlmann rode straight there, it would take only a few seconds to call the convict to the door on some excuse and riddle him with bullets.
The road ran along the rim of the cañon to the foothills. No short cut could be taken by Sam. Nor was there any chance of slipping past the men in front of him, since the trace ran along a ledge wide enough only for a wagon to pass. More than once he stopped, to make sure he was not getting too close to Packard. But no sound of hoofs in front came back to him in warning.
He came out of the cañon into the roll of low hills that stretched like waves to the valley. A path that was little more than a cow trail deflected from the main road and ran toward the ridge back of the Circle J R. Sam guessed that both of the other riders had taken this cut-off, but he by-passed it and headed straight for the ranchhouse.
He tied his mule to the corral fence and crossed the yard to the kitchen. Jim Budd was grinding coffee for breakfast. He slewed his head around and grinned at sight of his friend.
“What you doing here this time of night, fellow?”
“I gotta see Miss Sandra.”
“Wha’for?”
Sam did not intend to let anyone else steal the credit of his news, not after having ridden twelve miles to tell his story.
“Nem’ mind about that. This is impo’tant. Where is she at?”
“She’s entertaining comp’ny. You cain’t go bustin’ in on her. You tell me what you want and I’ll see——”
The mine cook turned his head to listen. From the parlor came to him the voice of a girl. She was singing, “O my luve’s like a red, red rose.”
“You go tell Miss Sandra quick—or her pappy, one, I don’ care which—that I’m here to tell some info’mation —and there ain’t no time to fool around.”
“Now, Sam, you an’ me is friends,” Jim began, with the patient manner of one arguing a case to an unreasonable child.
Sam did not listen to him. Miss Ranger was not fifteen steps from him. Her young voice came to him clear and vibrant:
“Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun,
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.”
Jim was still talking. Sam ducked past him and through the door. He ran along the passage and into the parlor. A young man was standing at the piano beside the girl, but the colored man paid no heed to him.
“Miss Sandra,” he cried, “that Uhlmann is ridin’ right now to the old Baxter cabin to shoot Bob Webb.”
The man leaning on the piano whirled round. “What’s that?” he demanded abruptly.
If his errand had been less urgent Sam might have hesitated to tell it before this unknown visitor, but under the circumstances he blurted out details. “I done heard them talkin’, Packard and Uhlmann. Jug is gonna pay him soon as he kills off Webb. I followed them down the cañon to tell you, Miss Sandra.”
“Packard is with him?” the stranger demanded.
“No, sir. Jug came down after him. Rhino doesn’t know it. Jug is checkin’ up on him, looks like.” Sam told about the miner coming out of the office on the heels of Uhlmann with a gun covering the killer.
“He doesn’t trust his hired assassin.”
“Not none. But both of them are out to get this Webb. If he is at the old Baxter shack they’ll do it.”
“This is Mr. Webb, Sam,” explained Sandra. “We’ll not forget that you took the trouble to warn us.”
Bob looked at the Negro searchingly. This might be a plant arranged by his enemies. Sandra guessed what he was thinking.
“No, Bob,” she intervened before he could speak. “Sam is our friend. Uhlmann gave him that scar on his forehead. Jim and I know he is all right.”
The troubled eyes of Webb shifted to the girl. “Stan may be in the cabin. If he is——”
He did not finish the sentence. She knew what he meant.
“You said you didn’t sleep in the cabin, but in a hill pocket somewhere back of it,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but he was reading that Dickens story you lent me when I left. He may not have gone from the cabin yet.” He added, his voice sharp with anxiety. “I’ll have to hurry.”
Jim Budd was in the doorway. Sandra turned to him. “Get the boys in the bunkhouse. Tell them to saddle fast.” To Webb she said: “I wish father were at home. But anyhow there are five of the boys in the bunkhouse. They won’t keep you waiting more than a few minutes.”
“I can’t wait for them.” His eyes were quick with excitement. “Tell them to follow soon as they are saddled.”
“It won’t be more than five minutes,” she pleaded.
“Five minutes is as long as five hours sometimes.” He took her by the arms to move her out of the way. As he looked down at her the harshness died out of his face. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be careful.”
She did not trust his promise. He would be careful only if recklessness was not necessary to save his friend. His hard steely eyes had softened for the moment, but she knew that when he reached the battle zone the safety of Stan Fraser would be his first thought.
“If you all rode together,” she urged, and did not get a chance to finish.
He kissed her, smiling into her troubled eyes. The assurance he gave her had nothing to do with his danger, at least not on the surface. His words came lightly, as if in jest, but she knew how much he meant them. “ ‘Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,’ ” he said with cheerful nonchalance.
Spinning her gently out of the way, he strode from the room.
35. Stan Writes a Note
FRASER GREW TIRED OF READING. THIS FELLOW DICKENS was all right, but he sure was a word-slinger. The folks who read Dombey and Son must have had more time to burn than a sheepherder. He yawned deeply, stretched, and looked at his watch. A quarter to ten. Time for all honest people, except lovers, to turn in for sleep. Since Bob was one of the exceptions, he probably would not leave the Circle J R for hours yet. When a man was with the right girl sleep was something he had no use for.
Stan grinned. That young chump was getting a break at last, after a helluva lot of lean years. Uhlmann was a fugitive. With evidence piling up against Packard as it was, looked like he might go to the pen instead of Bob. On top of that young Webb had won the nicest and best-looking girl in the county. Good goings for a convict with a price on his head.
The old-timer blew out the light and sauntered from the cabin. A young moon rode a sky of scudding clouds and at the edge of these stars peeked out. Sam untied the horse he had left at a post and stood at sharp attention. He had heard the hoof of another horse strike a ston
e. A bullet whistled past his ear.
“Holy mackerel!” he grunted, and vaulted to the saddle.
A leaden slug punged into the adobe wall back of him. He lifted the cow pony to a canter, his body low on the animal’s neck, and reined his mount sharply to the left, to put the building between him and the rifleman. At the back of the house he pulled up and reached for the Winchester in the scabbard beside the saddle.
Another gun sounded. “Two gents hunting,’’ he said aloud, and started for an arroyo fifty yards away.
The pony staggered, lost its footing, and plunged to the ground, badly wounded by the last shot. Fraser landed on his shoulder and was for a moment stunned. He heard a triumphant yelp. It was too late now to get the rifle. He ran for the arroyo. Fortunately the moon had gone under a cloud. Though one of his attackers fired again, he reached the arroyo safely. Up this he raced to a boulder pile below the rim rock of the ridge.
Among the rocks was a scatter growth of cholla and prickly pear. Fraser realized that if he lay crouched here he would neutralize the advantage held by the attackers. Their rifles would be of no more use than revolvers at short range, and they would have to creep up close to dig him out from the rocks. Lucky for him it was a night battle. If it had been in the day-time one could have held the exit from the arroyo while the other rode up to the rim rock and picked him off from above.
What worried Stan was not his own situation but that of his friend. In thirty minutes, or an hour, or maybe two, Bob Webb would come along anticipating no danger and ride into an ambush. By a near miracle Fraser had escaped the first blast, but the killers would make sure of their victim next time.
Stan was trapped. He could not climb the sheer rock wall behind him, nor could he expose himself on either rim of the arroyo, for the clouds had been swept away and the moon shone bright over the desert. But he might be able to give Bob a warning, at a considerable risk to himself, by firing shots at intervals. If he could keep this up long enough, Bob would hear and be on the alert.
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