by Zane Grey
“If you’re not Kinney, how come you with this hawss? He stole it from a barn in Fort Lincoln last night. That’s known,” said the leader, Duffield.
The imperilled man thought of the girl bing toward the border with her brother and the remembrance padlocked his tongue.
“Take me to the proper authorities and I’ll answer questions. But, I’ll not talk here. What’s the use? You don’t believe a word I say.”
“You spoke the truth that time,” said one.
“If you ever want to do any explaining now’s the hour,” added another.
“I’ll do mine later, gentlemen.”
They looked at each other and one of them spoke.
“It will be too late to explain then.”
“Too late?”
Some inkling of the man’s hideous meaning seared him and ran like an ice-blast through him.
“You’ve done all the meanness you’ll ever do in this world. Poor Dave Long is the last man you’ll ever kill. We’re going to do justice right now.”
“Dave Long! I never heard of him,” the prisoner repeated mechanically. “Good God, do you think I’m a murderer?”
One of the men thrust himself forward. “We know it. Y’u and that hellish partner of yours shot him while he was locking the gate. But y’u made a mistake when y’u come to Fort Lincoln. He lived there before he went to be a guard at the Arizona penitentiary. I’m his brother. These gentlemen are his neighbors. Y’u’re not going back to prison. Y’u’re going to stay right here under this cottonwood.”
If the extraordinary menace of the man appalled Neill he gave no sign of it. His gray eye passed from one to another of them quietly without giving any sign of the impotent tempest raging within him.
“You’re going to lynch me then?”
“Y’u’ve called the turn.”
“Without giving me a chance to prove my innocence?”
“Without giving y’u a chance to escape or sneak back to the penitentiary.”
The thing was horribly unthinkable. The warm mellow afternoon sunshine wrapped them about. The horses grazed with quiet unconcern. One of these hard-faced frontiersmen was chewing tobacco with machine-like regularity. Another was rolling a cigarette. There was nothing of dramatic effect. Not a man had raised his voice. But Neill knew there was no appeal. He had come to the end of the passage through a horrible mistake. He raged in bitter resentment against his fate, against these men who stood so quietly about him ready to execute it, most of all against the girl who had let him sacrifice himself by concealing the vital fact that her brother had murdered a guard to effect his escape. Fool that he had been, he had stumbled into a trap, and she had let him do it without a word of warning. Wild, chaotic thoughts crowded his brain furiously.
But the voice with which he addressed them was singularly even and colorless.
“I am a stranger to this country. I was born in Tennessee, brought up in the Panhandle. I’m an irrigation engineer by profession. This is my vacation. I’m headed now for the Mal Pais mines. Friends of mine are interested in a property there with me and I have been sent to look the ground over and make a report. I never heard of Kinney till to-day. You’ve got the wrong man, gentlemen.”
“We’ll risk it,” laughed one brutally. “Bring that riata, Tom.”
Neill did not struggle or cry out frantically. He stood motionless while they adjusted the rope round his bronzed throat. They had judged him for a villain; they should at least know him a man. So he stood there straight and lithe, wide-shouldered and lean-flanked, a man in a thousand. Not a twitch of the well-packed muscles, not a quiver of the eyelash nor a swelling of the throat betrayed any fear. His cool eyes were quiet and steady.
“If you want to leave any message for anybody I’ll see it’s delivered,” promised Duffield.
“I’ll not trouble you with any.”
“Just as you like.”
“He didn’t give poor Dave any time for messages,” cried Tom Long bitterly.
“That’s right,” assented another with a curse.
It was plain to the victim they were spurring their nerves to hardihood.
“Who’s that?” cried one of the men, pointing to a rider galloping toward them.
The newcomer approached rapidly, covered by their weapons, and flung himself from his pony as he dragged it to a halt beside the group.
“Steve Fraser,” cried Duffield in surprise, and added, “He’s an officer in the rangers.”
“Right, gentlemen. Come to claim my prisoner,” said the ranger promptly.
“Y’u can’t have him, Steve. We took him and he’s got to hang.”
The lieutenant of rangers shook his dark curly head.
“Won’t do, Duffield. Won’t do at all,” he said decisively. “You’d ought to know law’s on top in Texas these days.”
Tom Long shouldered his way to the front. “Law! Where was the law when this ruffian Kinney shot down my poor brother Dave? I guess a rope and a cottonwood’s good enough law for him. Anyhow, that’s what he gits.”
Fraser, hard-packed, lithe, and graceful, laid a friendly hand on the other’s shoulder and smiled sunnily at him.
“I know how you feel, Tom. We all thought a heap of Dave and you’re his brother. But Dave died for the law. Both you boys have always stood for order. He’d be troubled if he knew you were turned enemy to it on his account.”
“I’m for justice, Steve. This skunk deserves death and I’m going to see he gits it.”
“No, Tom.”
“I say yes. Y’u ain’t sitting in this game, Steve.”
“I reckon I’ll have to take a hand then.”
The ranger’s voice was soft and drawling, but his eyes were indomitably steady. Throughout the Southwest his reputation for fearlessness was established even among a population singularly courageous. The audacity of his daredevil recklessness was become a proverb.
“We got a full table. Better ride away and forget it,” said another.
“That ain’t what I’m paid for, Jack,” returned Fraser good-naturedly. “Better turn him over to me peaceable, boys. He’ll get what’s coming to him all right.”
“He’ll get it now, Steve, without any help of yours. We don’t aim to allow any butting in.”
“Don’t you?”
There was a flash of steel as the ranger dived forward. Next instant he and the prisoner stood with their backs to the cottonwood, a revolver having somehow leaped from its scabbard to his hand. His hunting-knife had sheared at a stroke the riata round the engineer’s neck.
“Take it easy, boys,” urged Fraser, still in his gentle drawl, to the astonished vigilantes whom his sudden sally had robbed of their victim. “Think about it twice. We’ll all be a long time dead. No use in hurrying the funerals.”
Nevertheless he recognized battle as inevitable. Friends of his though they were, he knew these sturdy plainsmen would never submit to be foiled in their purpose by one man. In the momentary silence before the clash the quiet voice of the prisoner made itself heard.
“Just a moment, gentlemen. I don’t want you spilling lead over me. I’m the wrong man, and I can prove it if you’ll give me time. Here’s the key to my room at the hotel in San Antonio. In my suit-case you’ll find letters that prove—”
“We don’t need them. I’ve got proof right here,” cut in Fraser, remembering.
He slipped a hand into his coat pocket and drew out two photographs. “Boys, here are the pictures and descriptions of the two men that escaped from Yuma the other day. I hadn’t had time to see this gentleman before he spoke, being some busy explaining the situation to you, but a blind jackass could see he don’t favor either Kinney or Struve, You’re sure barking up the wrong tree.”
The self-appointed commi
ttee for the execution of justice and the man from the Panhandle looked the prison photographs over blankly. Between the hard, clean-cut face of their prisoner and those that looked at them from the photographs it was impossible to find any resemblance. Duffield handed the prints back with puzzled chagrin.
“I guess you’re right, Steve. But I’d like this gentleman to explain how come he to be riding the horse one of these miscreants stole from Maloney’s barn last night.”
Steve looked at the prisoner. “It’s your spiel, friend,” he said.
“All right. I’ll tell you some facts. Just as I was coming down from the Roskruge range this mo’ning I was held up for my team. One of these fellows—the one called Kinney—had started from Fort Lincoln on this roan here, but he was wounded and broke down. There was some gun-play, and he gave me this scratch on the cheek. The end of it was that he took my team and left me with his worn-out bronc. I plugged on all day with the hawss till about three mebbe, then seeing it was all in I unsaddled and picketed. I lay down and dropped asleep. Next I knew the necktie-party was in session.”
“What time was it y’u met this fellow Kinney?” asked Long sharply.
“Must have been about nine or nine-thirty I judge.”
“And it’s five now. That’s eight hours’ start, and four more before we can cut his trail on Roskruge. By God, we’ve lost him!”
“Looks like,” agreed another ruefully.
“Make straight for the Arivaca cut-off and you ought to stand a show,” suggested Fraser.
“That’s right. If we ride all night, might beat him to it.” Each of the five contributed a word of agreement.
Five minutes later the Texan and the ranger watched a dust-cloud drifting to the south. In it was hidden the posse disappearing over the hilltop.
Steve grinned. “I hate to disappoint the boys. They’re so plumb anxious. But I reckon I’ll strike the telephone line and send word to Moreno for one of the rangers to cut out after Kinney. Going my way, seh?”
“If you’re going mine.”
“I reckon I am. And just to pass the time you might tell me the real story of that hold-up while we ride.”
“The real story?”
“Well, I don’t aim to doubt your word, but I reckon you forgot to tell some of it.” He turned on the other his gay smile. “For instance, seh, you ain’t asking me to believe that you handed over your rig to Kinney so peaceful and that he went away and clean forgot to unload from you that gun you pack.”
The eyes of the two met and looked into each other’s as clear and straight as Texas sunshine. Slowly Neill’s relaxed into a smile.
“No, I won’t ask you to believe that. I owe you something because you saved my life—”
“Forget it,” commanded the lieutenant crisply.
“And I can’t do less than tell you the whole story.”
He told it, yet not the whole of it either; for there was one detail he omitted completely. It had to do with the cause for existence of the little black-and-blue bruise under his right eye and the purple ridge that seamed his wrist. Nor with all his acuteness could Stephen Fraser guess that the one swelling had been made by a gold ring on the clenched fist of an angry girl held tight in Larry Neill’s arms, the other by the lash of a horsewhip wielded by the same young woman.
CHAPTER III
A DISCOVERY
The roan, having been much refreshed by a few hours on grass, proved to be a good traveller. The two men took a road-gait and held it steadily till they reached a telephone-line which stretched across the desert and joined two outposts of civilization. Steve strapped on his climbing spurs and went up a post lightly with his test outfit. In a few minutes he had Moreno on the wire and was in touch with one of his rangers.
“Hello! This you, Ferguson? This is Fraser. No, Fraser—Lieutenant Fraser. Yes. How many of the boys can you get in touch with right away? Two? Good. I want you to cover the Arivaca cut-off. Kinney is headed that way in a rig. His sister is with him. She is not to be injured under any circumstances. Understand? Wire me at the Mal Pais mines to-morrow your news. By the way, Tom Long and some of the boys are headed down that way with notions of lynching Kinney. Dodge them if you can and rush your man up to the Mal Pais. Good-bye.”
“Suppose they can’t dodge them?” ventured Neill after Steve had rejoined him.
“I reckon they can. If not—well, my rangers are good boys; I expect they won’t give up a prisoner.”
“I’m right glad to find you are going to the Mal Pais mines with me, lieutenant. I wasn’t expecting company on the way.”
“I’ll bet a dollar Mex against two plunks gold that you’re wondering whyfor I’m going.”
Larry laughed. “You’re right. I was wondering.”
“Well, then, it’s this way. What with all these boys on Kinney’s trail he’s as good as rounded up. Fact is, Kinney’s only a weak sister anyhow. He turned State’s witness at the trial, and it was his testimony that convicted Struve. I know something about this because I happened to be the man that caught Struve. I had just joined the rangers. It was my first assignment. The other three got away. Two of them escaped and the third was not tried for lack of sufficient evidence. Now, then: Kinney rides the rods from Yuma to Marfa and is now or had ought to be somewhere in this valley between Posa Buena and Taylor’s ranch. But where is Struve, the hardier ruffian of the two? He ain’t been seen since they broke out. He sure never reached Ft. Lincoln. My notion is that he dropped off the train in the darkness about Casa Grande, then rolled his tail for the Mal Pais country. Your eyes are asking whys mighty loud, my friend; and my answer is that there’s a man up there mebbe who has got to hide Struve if he shows up. That’s only a guess, but it looks good to me. This man was the brains of the whole outfit, and folks say that he’s got cached the whole haul the gang made from that S. P. hold-up. What’s more, he scattered gold so liberal that his name wasn’t even mentioned at the trial. He’s a big man now, a millionaire copper king and into gold-mines up to the hocks. In the Southwest those things happen. It doesn’t always do to look too closely at a man’s past.
“We’ll say Struve drops in on him and threatens to squeak. Mebbe he has got evidence; mebbe he hasn’t. Anyhow, our big duck wants to forget the time he was wearing a mask and bending a six-gun for a living. Also and moreover, he’s right anxious to have other folks get a chance to forget. From what I can hear he’s clean mashed on some girl at Amarillo, or maybe it’s Fort Lincoln. See what a twist Strove’s got on him if he can slip into the Mal Pais country on the q. t.”
“And you’re going up there to look out for him?”
“I’m going in to take a casual look around. There’s no telling what a man might happen onto accidentally if he travels with his ear to the ground.”
The other nodded. He could now understand easily why Fraser was going into the Mal Pais country, but he could not make out why the ranger, naturally a man who lived under his own hat and kept his own counsel, had told him so much as he had. The officer shortly relieved his mind on this point.
“I may need help while I’m there. May I call on you if I do, seh?”
Neill felt his heart warm toward this hard-faced, genial frontiersman, who knew how to judge so well the timbre of a casual acquaintance.
“You sure may, lieutenant.”
“Good. I’ll count on you then.”
So, in these few words, the compact of friendship and alliance was sealed between them. Each of them was strangely taken with the other, but it is not the way of the Anglo-Saxon fighting man to voice his sentiment. Though each of them admired the stark courage and the flawless fortitude he knew to dwell in the other, impassivity sat on their faces like an ice-mask. For this is the hall-mark of the Southwest, that a man must love and hate with the same unchanging face of iron, save only when a woman is in co
nsideration.
They were to camp that night by Cottonwood Spring, and darkness caught them still some miles from their camp. They were on no road, but were travelling across country through washes and over countless hills. The ranger led the way, true as an arrow, even after velvet night had enveloped them.
“It must be right over this mesa among the cottonwoods you see rising from that arroyo,” he announced at last.
He had scarcely spoken before they struck a trail that led them direct to the spring. But as they were descending this in a circle Fraser’s horse shied.
“Hyer you, Pinto! What’s the matter with—”
The ranger cut his sentence in two and slid from the saddle. When his companion reached him and drew rein the ranger was bending over a dark mass stretched across the trail. He looked up quietly.
“Man’s body,” he said briefly.
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
Neill dismounted and came forward. The moon-crescent was up by now and had lit the country with a chill radiance. The figure was dressed in the coarse striped suit of a convict.
“I don’t savvy this play,” Fraser confessed softly to himself.
“Do you know him?”
“Suppose you look at him and see if you know him.”
Neill looked into the white face and shook his head.
“No, I don’t know him, but I suppose it is Struve.”
From his pocket the ranger produced a photograph and handed it to him.
“Hyer, I’ll strike a match and you’ll see better.”
The match flared up in the slight breeze and presently went out, but not before Neill had seen that it was the face of the man who lay before them.
“Did you see the name under the picture, seh?”
“No.”
Another match flared and the man from the Panhandle read a name, but it was not the one he had expected to see. The words printed there were “James Kinney.”
