With Hoops of Steel

by Florence Finch Kelly

  CHAPTER XV

  Three horsemen galloped around the curve in the road that half circledthe house and the corral and the stables at Emerson Mead's ranch. Oneof them swung his hat and shouted a loud "Whoo-oo-oo-ee!" But therewas no response from the house. Doors and windows were closed and nota soul appeared in sight.

  "That's queer," said Tuttle. "What's become of Billy Haney?"

  "Boys, there's a man lyin' beside the door!" exclaimed Mead. "Somebodyis either drunk or dead!"

  They swung off their horses and rushed to the prostrate figure, whichlay almost on its face.

  "Great God, boys, it's Wellesly, and he's dying of thirst!" criedMead. "Nick, bring water, lots of it, cold from the pump! Here, Tom,help me put him in the hammock."

  They laid him in the hammock, in the cool shade of the cottonwoods,where he had slept, to his own undoing, three days before. Theymoistened his black, protruding tongue and let a few drops of the coolliquid trickle down his parched throat. They poured water carefullyover his head and neck and on his wrists, and then drenched him fromhead to foot with pailful after pailful of the fresh, cold water.

  The patient moaned and moved his head. "He's alive, boys. We'll savehim yet," said Mead.

  Through dim, half-awakened consciousness Wellesly heard the swish ofthe water as it poured over his body, and felt the cool streamstrickling down his face. He gasped and his dry, cracked lips drew backwolfishly from his teeth as he threw up his hands and seized the cupfrom which Mead was carefully pouring the water over his head. Mead'sfingers closed tightly over the handle and his arm stiffened to iron.

  "Softly, there, softly," he said in a gentle voice. "I can't let youdrink any now, because it would kill you. You shall have some soon."

  With a choking yell Wellesly half raised himself and clung to the cupwith both hands, trying to force it to his mouth. Nick Ellhorn sprangto his side and took hold of his shoulders.

  "Sure, now, Mr. Wellesly," he began, and the Irish accent was rich andstrong in his coaxing, wheedling tones, "sure, now, you don't want tobe killin' yourself, after you've held out this far. Just you-all doas we say and we'll bring you through all right. Sure, and you shallbe after havin' all the water you want, but you must take it on theoutside first. Ah, now, but isn't this shower bath nice!"

  While he talked he gently forced the patient back and as Wellesly laydown again Mead poured a little water into his mouth.

  "If he goes luny now that's the end of him," said Emerson in arepressed, tense voice. "We must not let him get excited. Nick, you'dbetter stand there and keep him quiet, if you can, and pour water overhis face and head and put a little in his mouth sometimes."

  Tuttle carried the water for their use, two pailsful at a time, andMead kept his body well drenched. Ellhorn stooped over the hammock andcontinued his coaxing talk, drawling one sentence after another withslurred r's and soft southern accents. With one hand he patted thepatient's head and shoulders and with the other he dashed water overhis face or trickled it, drop by drop, into his mouth. After a whilethey gave the half-conscious man some weak tea, took off his wetclothes and put him to bed. There they looked after him carefully,giving him frequent but small instalments of food in liquid form andan occasional swallow of water. After some hours they decided he wasout of danger and would recover without an illness. Then Nick Ellhornmounted a horse and rode away. When he returned he carried a burdentied in a gunny sack, which he suspended from the limb of a tree andcarefully drenched with water many times before he retired. The nextday he anxiously watched the bag, keeping it constantly wet and shadedand free to the breezes. And in the afternoon, with a smile curlinghis mustache almost up to his eyes, he spread before Wellesly a big,red watermelon, cold and luscious. With delight in his face andchuckling in his voice he watched the sick man eat as much as Emersonwould allow him to have, and then begged that he be given more. To getthe melon Ellhorn had ridden fifteen miles and back, to the nearestranch beyond Mead's.

  "I never saw a man look happier that you-all do right now," he said ashe watched Wellesly.

  "And you never saw anybody who felt happier than I do with this melonslipping down my throat," Wellesly responded. "I feel now as if Ishould never want to do anything but swallow wet things all the restof my life. By the way, did one of you fellows stand beside me a longtime yesterday, coaxing me to lie still?"

  "Yes," said Nick, "it was me. We had to make you keep quiet, or you'dhave gone luny because we wouldn't give you all the water you wantedto drink. It would have killed you to drink the water, and if you hadyelled and fought yourself crazy for it I reckon you'd have diedanyway."

  "ONCE HE CAME UPON HUMAN BONES, WITH SHREDS OFCLOTHING."--_p. 179_]

  "Well, I guess you saved my life, then. For if you hadn't kept mequiet I'd have fought all creation for water. The notion took hold ofme that I was a helpless baby and that my mother was beside me,turning a crank and making it rain into my mouth, and that all I hadto do was to lie still and listen to her voice and hold my mouth openso that the drops could trickle down my throat. Lord! How good theydid feel! That was how I happened to lie still so contentedly."

  "Nick could quiet a whole insane asylum when he gets on thatBlarneystone brogue of his," said Emerson.

  All that day they did not allow Wellesly to do much talking, but kepthim lying most of the time in the hammock, in the shade of thecottonwoods, where he slept or luxuriously spent the time slowlyswallowing the cool drinks the others brought to him.

  In the early evening of the next day, when he had sufficientlyrecovered his strength, they heard his story. He lay in the hammock,with the mountain breeze blowing across his face and a pitcher of coldtea beside him, and told them all that had happened to him from thetime he started for Las Plumas until consciousness failed him, withhis hands against the solid wall of Mead's house. The three tallTexans listened gravely, Mead and Tuttle sitting one on each side ofthe hammock and Ellhorn leaning against the tree at its foot. Theysaid nothing, but their eyes were fastened on his with the keenestinterest, and now and then they exchanged a nod or a look ofappreciation. When he finished silence fell on the group for a moment.Then Mead stretched out a sun-browned hand and shook Wellesly's.

  "I've never been a friend of yours, Mr. Wellesly," he said, "orconsidered you one of mine. But I want to say, right now, that you'vegot more grit than anybody I know in the southwest, and I'm proud tohave had the chance to save as brave a man as you are."

  Tuttle seized Wellesly's other hand and exclaimed, "That's so! That'sstraight talk! I'm with you there, Emerson!"

  Ellhorn walked up to Wellesly's side and put his hand in a brotherlyway on the invalid's arm.

  "I tell you what, Mr. Wellesly, we've fought you and the cattlecompany straight from the shoulder, and I reckon we're likely to keepon fightin' you as long as you fight us, but if you're goin' to giveus the sort of war you showed that desert--well, I reckon Emerson willneed all the help Tom and me can give him!"

  Wellesly laughed in an embarrassed way and Ellhorn went on: "Now, justsee how things turn out. There's been another war over in Las Plumasand we-all have been fightin' you and your interests and the cattlecompany and the Republicans for all we were worth. They arrestedEmerson again on that same old murder fake, to say nothin' of me forbein' drunk and disorderly, which I sure was, and there was hell topay for two days. They tried to take Emerson out of town, and Tom andme held up the train they had him on. I buffaloed the engineer whilethey took care of Daniels and Halliday, and then we pulled ourfreight. And here we ride up to the ranch, fugitives from justice,just barely in time to save you-all."

  Wellesly laughed. "I am very glad you did it. My only regret is thatyou didn't break jail several days earlier."

  "I don't know whether or not you-all understand the position I takeabout that Whittaker case," said Mead. "I reckon likely you think Ibreak jail every time you get me in just out of pure cussedness. But Idon't. I do it because I think you-all haven't any reason but purecussedness for puttin' me in.
I consider that you haven't any right toarrest me on mere suspicion, and I shall keep on resistin' arrest andbreakin' jail just as long as you fellows keep on tryin' to run me inwithout any proof against me. Why, you don't even know that WillWhittaker's dead! Now, Mr. Wellesly, I'll make a bargain with you."Mead's eyes were fastened on Wellesly's with an intent look whichgripped the invalid's attention. Wellesly's eyelids suddenly halfclosed and between them flashed out the strips of pale, brilliantgray.

  "All right, go on. I must hear it before I assent."

  "It is this: I won't ask you to have any evidence that I had a hand inthe killing of Will Whittaker, if he is dead. But whenever you canprove that he is dead and show that he died by violence, I give you myword, and my friends here, Tom Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn, will addtheirs to mine, I give you my word that I'll submit quietly to arrestand will stand trial for his murder. But unless you can do that Ishall keep on fightin' you till kingdom come!"

  Tuttle and Ellhorn nodded. "He's right!" they exclaimed. "We'll stickto what he says."

  Wellesly considered Mead's challenge in silence for a moment. He waswondering whether this was the courage of innocence or whether it wasmere bluffing audacity. It was very like the former, but he decidedthat it must be the latter, because he was quite convinced that Meadhad killed Whittaker.

  "Of course," he said, "after what you have done for me here--you havesaved my life and showed me the greatest kindness and generosity--Ican not allow any further proceedings to be taken against you, if Ican prevent them, which is not--"

  "Oh, hang all that!" Mead interrupted with a gesture of irritation. "Idon't expect and don't want anything we have done just now to make anydifference with your feelings toward me, or change the policy of theFillmore Cattle Company. And I don't want it to influence the actionsof the Republicans in Las Plumas, either. We didn't do it for thatpurpose, and I'm not buying protection for myself that way. What wedid was the barest humanity."

  "No, Mr. Wellesly," Nick Ellhorn broke in, "you needn't have it onyour conscience that you must be grateful to us, because if we hadn'tsaved you the Republicans over in Plumas would have said that wekilled you. We sure had to save you to save our own skins."

  There was a general laugh at this, and Mead added quietly: "As it wasmy men who were to blame for your condition, I suppose I would havebeen, in a way, responsible."

  Tuttle rose and began walking about uneasily. "When are we goin' tostart after 'em, Nick?" he said.

  "I'm ready whenever you are."

  "All right. To-morrow morning, then."

  Wellesly looked up in surprise. It was the first word he had heardfrom either of the three concerning his captors, and he was startledby the calm assurance with which Tom had taken it for granted that heand Nick would "go after 'em." "You two won't go alone!" he exclaimed.

  "We're enough," Tuttle replied, a grim, expectant look on his big,round face.

  "You bet we are!" added Nick. "If they see Tom and me comin' they'llknow they've got to give up. They've seen us shoot, and that scrub,Haney, has got some sense, though I reckon Jim would be just foolenough to get behind a rock and pop at us till we blowed his brainsout."

  "Oh, I say, now! This is a foolhardy scheme! Let them go, and if theycome out of there alive we'll get hold of them somehow. It would bedangerous to the last degree for you two alone to attempt to bringthem out across that desert."

  "Don't you worry," said Nick. "We ain't 'lowing to bring 'em out."

  The next morning Tuttle and Ellhorn, with two loaded pack horses, setout on their journey to the Oro Fino mountains, where they felt surethe two kidnappers would still be engaged in their hunt for the lostWinters mine. Mead had already sent word to the Fillmore ranch thatWellesly was at his house and that some one might meet them atMuletown that afternoon and carry him on to Las Plumas.

  When the two men parted they looked each other in the eyes and shookhands. Wellesly began to acknowledge his debt of gratitude. Mead cuthim short.

  "That's all right, Mr. Wellesly," he said, "but I don't want you tothink for a minute that I expect this little affair to make anydifference in our relations. In the cattle business I still consideryou my enemy, and I propose to fight you as long as you try to preventwhat I hold to be just and fair dealing between the Fillmore Companyand the rest of us cattle raisers. We still stand exactly where we didbefore."

  Wellesly smiled admiringly. "Personally, I like your pluck, Mr. Mead,but, if you will pardon my saying so, I think it is very ill-advised.I'll frankly admit that you've beaten us this year at every turn. Butyou can't keep up this sort of thing year after year, against theresources and organization of a big company. The most distinctivecommercial feature of this period is the constant growth of biginterests at the expense of smaller ones. It is something that theindividual members of a big concern can't help, because it is biggerthan they are. Our stock-holders will undoubtedly wish to enlargetheir holdings and increase their profits, and I, being only one of anumber, can have no right to put my personal feelings above theirinterests. You ought to see that the result is going to be inevitablein your case, just as it is everywhere else. The little fellows can'thold their own against the big ones. I am telling you all this in themost friendly spirit, and I assure you it will be to your interest totake my advice and compromise the whole matter. I'll guarantee thatthe Fillmore people will meet you half way, and I am sure it will costyou less in the long run."

  As he listened to Wellesly the good-natured smile left Mead's face,his lips shut in a hard line, and the defiant yellow flame, the lightof battle, which his friends knew to be the sign that he would fightto the death, leaped into his eyes. He stared into Wellesly's face amoment before he spoke.

  "Compromise! I've got nothing to compromise! I reckon that means thatyou want my two water holes and grazing land that join yours! Well,you can't have them! But if you want any more fight over this cattlebusiness you can have all you want, and whenever you want it!" And heturned on his heel and walked away. "I reckon they would like me tocompromise," he said to himself. "It would be lots of money in theirpockets, and holes in mine. It's a pity that a man with Wellesly'sgrit should be such a hog!"

  Wellesly shrugged his shoulders and climbed into the carriage that wasto take him to Las Plumas. "I can't help it," he thought, "if hechooses to look at it that way. I told him the truth, and I put it inthe kindest way. The little fellows are sure to go down before the bigones. That is the law that governs all commerce nowadays. He is boundto be eaten up, and he ought to have sense enough to see it. He'd savehimself trouble and money if he would take my advice, compromise, andget out now with what he can. He can't stop things from taking theirnatural course, and the more he fights the sooner he'll go under. Ofcourse, I don't like to do anything against him, after he has saved mylife, but my private sentiments can't interfere with the company'sinterests, and measures will have to be taken before next fall'sround-up to put a stop to this whole thing. I offered the olivebranch, and he refused it, and now he can have all the war he wants.He is the head and backbone of all the opposition to us, and if wewere rid of him the Fillmore Company could double its profits. I don'tdoubt for a minute that he killed Will Whittaker, and if we couldprove it that would solve the whole matter. He said he would submit toarrest and trial if we could prove that Will died a violent death.That means, of course, that nobody saw him commit the murder and thathe has hid the body where he thinks it can't be found.

  "Then it must be very much out of the way, where he is sure nobodywould think of looking for it. Probably it isn't any where near thetraveled road, the cattle ranges, nor the ranches in the foothills. Itmust be in some out of the way corner of the Fernandez plain.Whittaker says the searching parties have been all over this part ofthe country, so it must be farther up toward the north. The WhiteSands are up that way, I remember, and if a body were buried there,deep enough, it might as well be at the bottom of the sea. Yes, Ithink that's a pretty good idea. Whittaker must send a searching partyup to the White Sands as
soon as he can get one together. If we canfind that body--there's _adios_ to Emerson Mead and the fight againstus. He'll have to hang or go to the penitentiary for life."

  When Wellesly reached Las Plumas he found the town basking in peaceand friendliness. Colonel Whittaker and Judge Harlin were enjoying amidday mint julep together over the bar of the Palmleaf saloon; JohnDaniels and Joe Davis were swapping yarns over a watermelon in theback room of Pierre Delarue's store, while Delarue himself waslaughing gleefully at their stories, and Mrs. Harlin was assistingMrs. Daniels in preparations for the swellest card party of thesummer, which the sheriff's wife was to give that afternoon.

  In the late afternoon Wellesly sat beside Marguerite Delarue on herveranda and told her the story of his abduction and of his fight,which he had come so near to losing, with the fiends of heat andthirst. He showed her the bent and bloody pin which had helped toliberate him from his captivity in the canyon and in soft andlover-like tones told her that he owed his life to her and that alifetime of devotion would not be sufficient to express his gratitude.But he stopped just short of asking her to accept the lifetime ofdevotion. She was much moved and her tender blue eyes were misty withtears as she listened to the story of his sufferings. He thought hehad never seen her look so sweet and attractive and so entirely inaccord with his ideal of womanly sympathy. When he told her howEmerson Mead and his two friends had worked over him and by what anarrow margin they had saved him from severe illness and probably fromdeath, her face brightened and she seemed much pleased. She asked somequestions about Mead, and was evidently so interested in this part ofthe story that Wellesly, much to his surprise, felt a sudden impulseof personal dislike and enmity toward the big Texan. That night, as hesat at his window smoking and looking thoughtfully at the lop-sidedmoon rising over the Hermosa mountains, he was thinking aboutMarguerite Delarue and the advisability of asking her to marry him.

  "Undoubtedly," he owned to himself, "I think more of her than Iusually do of women, because I never before cared a hang what theirfeelings were toward other men. I must have been mistaken in thinkingthere was anything between her and Mead. Her heart is as fresh as herface, and I can go in and take it, and feel there have been nopredecessors, if I want to. Do I want to? I don't know. She's handsomeand she's got a stunning figure. Her feet aren't pretty, but theywould look better if she didn't wear such clumsy shoes. Well, I'd seethat she didn't. She seems to be sweet and gentle and sympathetic, andthe sort of woman that would be absorbed in her husband and hisinterests. She's overfond of flattery, moral, mental and physical.Gets that from Frenchy, I suppose, for you can start him struttinglike a rooster any time with a dozen words. But that isn't much of afault in a wife, after all, for if a fellow can only remember about itit's the easiest way in the world to keep a woman happy. Well, I'llthink about it. There are no rivals in the field, and it will be timeenough to decide when I make my next visit to Las Plumas."

  The next day he went to tell Marguerite good-bye and sat talking withher a long time upon her veranda. Las Plumas had noticed the frequencyof his calls at the Delarue house on his last trip to the town, andwhen it saw him there again two days in succession it felt sure thata love story was going on under the roses and honeysuckles. The smokeof the engine which carried him away had scarcely melted on thehorizon before people were saying to one another that it would be asplendid match and what a fine thing it was for Marguerite Delaruethat so rich a man as Wellesly had fallen in love with her.

  Judge Harlin at once drove out to Emerson Mead's ranch in order thathe might learn, from Mead's own lips, exactly what had happened toWellesly and what sort of a compact Mead had made with him concerningthe finding of Will Whittaker's body. They sat under the treesdiscussing Wellesly's character, after Mead had told the whole storydown to their parting at Muletown.

  "By the way," said Harlin, "they are saying, over in town, thatWellesly is stuck on Frenchy Delarue's daughter, and that they are tobe married next fall. She is a stunning pretty girl, and as good asshe is pretty, but it seems to me rather odd for Wellesly to come downhere to get a wife. He's the sort of man you would expect to look formoney and position in a wife, rather than real worth."