By this time the youngest of the cowboys had steadied and was thinking hard. Whispering Smith halted. In perfect order and sitting their horses as if they were riding parade, the horses ambling at a snail’s pace, the Cache riders advanced in the sunshine like one man. When Du Sang and his companions reined up, less than twelve feet separated the two lines.
In his tan shirt, Du Sang, with his yellow hair, his white eyelashes, and his narrow face, was the least impressive of the three men. The Norwegian, Seagrue, rode on the right, his florid blood showing under the tan on his neck and arms. He spoke to the cowboys from the ranch, and on the left the young fellow Karg, with the broken nose, black-eyed and alert, looked the men over in front of him and nodded to Dancing. Du Sang and his companions wore short-armed shirts; rifles were slung at their pommels, and revolvers stuck in their hip-scabbards. Whispering Smith, in his dusty suit of khaki, was the only man in either line who showed no revolver, but a hammerless or muley Savage rifle hung beside his pommel.
Du Sang, blinking, spoke first: “Which of you fellows is heading this round-up?”
“I am heading the round-up,” said Whispering Smith. “Why? Have we got some of your cattle?”
The two men spoke as quietly as school-teachers. Whispering Smith’s expression in no way changed, except that as he spoke he lifted his eyebrows a little more than usual.
Du Sang looked at him closely as he went on: “What kind of a way is this to treat anybody? To ride into a valley like this and drive a man’s cows away from his door without notice or papers? Is your name Smith?”
“My name is Smith; yours is Du Sang. Yes, I’ll tell you, Du Sang. I carry an inspector’s card from the Mountain Stock Association––do you want to see it? When we get these cattle to the Door, any man in the Cache may come forward and prove his property. I shall leave instructions to that effect when we go, for I want you to go to Medicine Bend with me, Du Sang, as soon as convenient, and the men that are with me will finish the round-up.”
“What do you want me for? There’s no papers out against me, is there?”
“No, but I’m an officer, Du Sang. I’ll see to the papers; I want you for murder.”
“So they tell me. Well, you’re after the wrong man. But I’ll go with you; I don’t care about that.”
“Neither do I, Du Sang; and as you have some friends along, I won’t break up the party. They may come, too.”
“What for?”
“For stopping a train at Tower W Saturday night.”
The three men looked at one another and laughed.
Du Sang with an oath spoke again: “The men you want are in Canada by this time. I can’t speak for my friends; I don’t know whether they want to go or not. As far as I am concerned, I haven’t killed anybody that I know of. I suppose you’ll pay my expenses back?”
“Why, yes, Du Sang, if you were coming back I would pay your expenses; but you are not coming back. You are riding down Williams Cache for the last time; you’ve ridden down it too many times already. This round-up is especially for you. Don’t deceive yourself; when you ride with me this time out of the Cache, you won’t come back.”
Du Sang laughed, but his blinking eyes were as steady as a cat’s. It did not escape Whispering Smith’s notice that the mettlesome horses ridden by the outlaws were continually working around to the right of his party. He spoke amiably to Karg: “If you can’t manage that horse, Karg, I can. Play fair. It looks to me as if you and Du Sang were getting ready to run for it, and leave George Seagrue to shoot his way through alone.”
Du Sang, with some annoyance, intervened: “That’s all right; I’ll go with you. I’d rather see your papers, but if you’re Whispering Smith it’s all right. I’m due to shoot out a little game sometime with you at Medicine Bend, anyway.”
“Any time, Du Sang; only don’t let your hand wabble next time. It’s too close to your gun now to pull right.”
“Well, I told you I was going to come, didn’t I? And I’m coming––now!”
With the last word he whipped out his gun. There was a crash of bullets. Questioned once by McCloud and reproached for taking chances, Whispering Smith answered simply. “I have to take chances,” he said. “All I ask is an even break.”
But Kennedy had said there was no such thing as an even break with Whispering Smith. A few men in a generation amuse, baffle, and mystify other men with an art based on the principle that the action of the hand is quicker than the action of the eye. With Whispering Smith the drawing of a revolver and the art of throwing his shots instantly from wherever his hand rested was pure sleight-of-hand. To a dexterity so fatal he added a judgment that had not failed when confronted with deceit. From the moment that Du Sang first spoke, Smith, convinced that he meant to shoot his way through the line, waited only for the moment to come. When Du Sang’s hand moved like a flash of light, Whispering Smith, who was holding his coat lapels in his hands, struck his pistol from the scabbard over his heart and threw a bullet at him before he could fire, as a conjurer throws a vanishing coin into the air. Spurring his horse fearfully as he did so, he dashed at Du Sang and Karg, leaped his horse through their line and, wheeling at arm’s length, shot again. Bill Dancing jumped in his saddle, swayed, and toppled to the ground. Stormy Gorman gave a single whoop at the spectacle and, with his two cowboys at his heels, fled for life.
Wheeling at arm’s length, shot again.
More serious than all, Smith found himself among three fast revolvers, working from an unmanageable horse. The beast tried to follow the fleeing cowboys, and when faced sharply about showed temper. The trained horses of the outlaws stood like statues, but Smith had to fight with his horse bucking at every shot. He threw his bullets as best he could first over one shoulder and then over the other, and used the last cartridge in his revolver with Du Sang, Seagrue, and Karg shooting at him every time they could fire without hitting one another.
It was not the first time the Williams Cache gang had sworn to get him and had worked together to do it, but for the first time it looked as if they might do it. A single chance was left to Whispering Smith for his life, and with his coat slashed with bullets, he took it. For an instant his life hung on the success of a trick so appallingly awkward that a cleverer man might have failed in turning it. If his rifle should play free in the scabbard as he reached for it, he could fall to the ground, releasing it as he plunged from the saddle, and make a fight on his feet. If the rifle failed to release he was a dead man. To so narrow an issue are the cleverest combinations sometimes brought by chance. He dropped his empty revolver, ducked like a mud-hen on his horse’s neck, threw back his leg, and, with all the precision he could summon, caught the grip of his muley in both hands. He made his fall heavily to the ground, landing on his shoulder. But as he keeled from the saddle the last thing that rolled over the saddle, like the flash of a porpoise fin, was the barrel of the rifle, secure in his hands. Karg, on horseback, was already bending over him, revolver in hand, but the shot was never fired. A thirty-thirty bullet from the ground knocked the gun into the air and tore every knuckle from Karg’s hand. Du Sang spurred in from the right. A rifle-slug like an axe at the root caught him through the middle. His fingers stiffened. His six-shooter fell to the ground and he clutched his side. Seagrue, ducking low, put spurs to his horse, and Whispering Smith, covered with dust, rose on the battle-field alone.
Hats, revolvers, and coats lay about him. Face downward, the huge bulk of Bill Dancing was stretched motionless in the road. Karg, crouching beside his fallen horse, held up the bloody stump of his gun hand, and Du Sang, fifty yards away, reeling like a drunken man in his saddle, spurred his horse in an aimless circle. Whispering Smith, running softly to the side of his own trembling animal, threw himself into the saddle, and, adjusting his rifle sights as the beast plunged down the draw, gave chase to Seagrue.
* * *
CHAPTER XXXI
THE DEATH OF DU SANG
Whispering Smith, with his horse in a lather, rod
e slowly back twenty minutes later with Seagrue disarmed ahead of him. The deserted battle-ground was alive with men. Stormy Gorman, hot for blood, had come back, captured Karg, and begun swearing all over again, and Smith listened with amiable surprise while he explained that seeing Dancing killed, and not being able to tell from Whispering Smith’s peculiar tactics which side he was shooting at, Gorman and his companions had gone for help. While they angrily surrounded Karg and Seagrue, Smith slipped from his horse where Bill Dancing lay, lifted the huge head from the dust, and tried to turn the giant over. A groan greeted the attempt.
“Bill, open your eyes! Why would you not do as I wanted you to?” he murmured bitterly to himself. A second groan answered him. Smith called for water, and from a canteen drenched the pallid forehead, talking softly meanwhile; but his efforts to restore consciousness were unavailing. He turned to where two of the cowboys had dragged Karg to the ground and three others had their old companion Seagrue in hand. While two held huge revolvers within six inches of his head, the third was adjusting a rope-knot under his ear.
Whispering Smith became interested. “Hold on!” said he mildly, “what is loose? What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to hang these fellows,” answered Stormy, with a volley of hair-raising imprecations.
“Oh, no! Just put them on horses under guard.”
“That’s what we’re going to do,” exclaimed the foreman. “Only we’re going to run ’em over to those cottonwoods and drive the horses out from under ’em. Stand still, you tow-headed cow-thief!” he cried, slipping the noose up tight on George Seagrue’s neck.
“See here,” returned Whispering Smith, showing some annoyance, “you may be joking, but I am not. Either do as I tell you or release those men.”
“Well, I guess we are not joking very much. You heard me, didn’t you?” demanded Stormy angrily. “We are going to string these damned critters up right here in the draw on the first tree.”
Whispering Smith drew a pocket-knife and walked to Flat Nose, slit the rope around his neck, pushed him out of the circle, and stood in front of him. “You can’t play horse with my prisoners,” he said curtly. “Get over here, Karg. Come, now, who is going to walk in first? You act like a school-boy, Gorman.”
Hard words and a wrangle followed, but Smith did not change expression, and there was a backdown. “Have you fellows let Du Sang get away while you were playing fool here?” he asked.
“Du Sang’s over the hill there on his horse, and full of fight yet,” exclaimed one.
“Then we will look him up,” suggested Smith. “Come, Seagrue.”
“Don’t go over there. He’ll get you if you do,” cried Gorman.
“Let us see about that. Seagrue, you and Karg walk ahead. Don’t duck or run, either of you. Go on.”
Just over the brow of the hill near which the fight had taken place, a man lay below a ledge of granite. The horse from which he had fallen was grazing close by, but the man had dragged himself out of the blinding sun to the shade of the sagebrush above the rock––the trail of it all lay very plain on the hard ground. Watching him narrowly, Smith, with his prisoners ahead and the cowboys riding in a circle behind, approached.
“Du Sang?”
The man in the sagebrush turned his head.
Smith walked to him and bent down. “Are you suffering much, Du Sang?”
The wounded man, sinking with shock and internal hemorrhage, uttered a string of oaths.
Smith listened quietly till he had done; then he knelt beside him and put his hand on Du Sang’s hand. “Tell me where you are hit, Du Sang. Put your hand to it. Is it the stomach? Let me turn you on your side. Easy. Does your belt hurt? Just a minute, now; I can loosen that.”
“I know you,” muttered Du Sang thickly. Then his eyes––terrible, rolling, pink eyes––brightened and he swore violently.
“Du Sang, you are not bleeding much, but I’m afraid you are badly hit,” said Whispering Smith. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Get me some water.”
A creek flowed at no great distance below the hill, but the cowboys refused to go for water. Whispering Smith would have gone with Seagrue and Karg, but Du Sang begged him not to leave him alone lest Gorman should kill him. Smith canvassed the situation a moment. “I’ll put you on my horse,” said he at length, “and take you down to the creek.”
He turned to the cowboys and asked them to help, but they refused to touch Du Sang.
Whispering Smith kept his patience. “Karg, take that horse’s head,” said he. “Come here, Seagrue; help me lift Du Sang on the horse. The boys seem to be afraid of getting blood on their hands.”
With Whispering Smith and Seagrue supporting Du Sang in the saddle and Karg leading the horse, the cavalcade moved slowly down to the creek, where a tiny stream purled among the rocks. The water revived the injured man for a moment; he had even strength enough, with some help, to ride again; and, moving in the same halting order, they took him to Rebstock’s cabin. Rebstock, at the door, refused to let the sinking man be brought into the house. He cursed Du Sang as the cause of all the trouble. But Du Sang cursed him with usury, and, while Whispering Smith listened, told Rebstock with bitter oaths that if he had given the boy Barney anything but a scrub horse they never would have been trailed. More than this concerning the affair Du Sang would not say, and never said. The procession turned from the door. Seagrue led the way to Rebstock’s stable, and they laid Du Sang on some hay.
Afterward they got a cot under him. With surprising vitality he talked a long time to Whispering Smith, but at last fell into a stupor. At nine o’clock that night he sat up. Ed Banks and Kennedy were standing beside the cot. Du Sang became delirious, and in his delirium called the name of Whispering Smith; but Smith was at Baggs’s cabin with Bill Dancing. In a spasm of pain, Du Sang, opening his eyes, suddenly threw himself back. The cot broke, and the dying man rolled under the feet of the frightened horses. In the light of the lanterns they lifted him back, but he was bleeding slowly at the mouth, quite dead.
The surgeon, afterward, found two fatal wounds upon him. The first shot, passing through the stomach, explained Du Sang’s failure to kill at a distance in which, uninjured, he could have placed five shots within the compass of a silver dollar. Firing for Whispering Smith’s heart, he had, despite the fearful shock, put four bullets through his coat before the rifle-ball from the ground, tearing at right angles across the path of the first bullet, had cut down his life to a question of hours.
Bill Dancing, who had been hit in the head and stunned, had been moved back to the cabin at Mission Spring, and lay in the little bedroom. A doctor at Oroville had been sent for, but had not come. At midnight of the second day, Smith, who was beside his bed, saw him rouse up, and noted the brightness of his eyes as he looked around. “Bill,” he declared hopefully, as he sat beside the bed, “you are better, hang it! I know you are. How do you feel?”
“Ain’t that blamed doctor here yet? Then give me my boots. I’m going back to Medicine Bend to Doc Torpy.”
In the morning Whispering Smith, who had cleansed and dressed the wound and felt sure the bullet had not penetrated the skull, offered no objection to the proposal beyond cautioning him to ride slowly. “You can go down part way with the prisoners, Bill,” suggested Whispering Smith. “Brill Young is going to take them to Oroville, and you can act as chairman of the guard.”
Before the party started, Smith called Seagrue to him. “George, you saved my life once. Do you remember––in the Pan Handle? Well, I gave you yours twice in the Cache day before yesterday. I don’t know how badly you are into this thing. If you kept clear of the killing at Tower W I will do what I can for you. Don’t talk to anybody.”
* * *
CHAPTER XXXII
McLOUD AND DICKSIE
News of the fight in Williams Cache reached Medicine Bend in the night. Horsemen, filling in the gaps between telephones leading to the north country, made the circuit c
omplete, but the accounts, confused and colored in the repeating, came in a cloud of conflicting rumors. In the streets, little groups of men discussed the fragmentary reports as they came from the railroad offices. Toward morning, Sleepy Cat, nearer the scene of the fight, began sending in telegraphic reports in which truth and rumor were strangely mixed. McCloud waited at the wires all night, hoping for trustworthy advices as to the result, but received none. Even during the morning nothing came, and the silence seemed more ominous than the bad news of the early night. Routine business was almost suspended and McCloud and Rooney Lee kept the wires warm with inquiries, but neither the telephone nor the telegraph would yield any definite word as to what had actually happened in the Williams Cache fight. It was easy to fear the worst.
At the noon hour McCloud was signing letters when Dicksie Dunning walked hurriedly up the hall and hesitated in the passageway before the open door of his office. He gave an exclamation as he pushed back his chair. She was in her riding-suit just as she had slipped from her saddle. “Oh, Mr. McCloud, have you heard the awful news? Whispering Smith was killed yesterday in Williams Cache by Du Sang.”
McCloud stiffened a little. “I hope that can’t be true. We have had nothing here but rumors; perhaps it is these that you have heard.”
“No, no! Blake, one of our men, was in the fight and got back at the ranch at nine o’clock this morning. I heard the story myself, and I rode right in to––to see Marion, and my courage failed me––I came here first. Does she know, do you think? Blake saw him fall from the saddle after he was shot, and everybody ran away, and Du Sang and two other men were firing at him as he lay on the ground. He could not possibly have escaped with his life, Blake said; he must have been riddled with bullets. Isn’t it terrible?” She sobbed suddenly, and McCloud, stunned at her words, led her to his chair and bent over her.
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