by Dean Owen
“Fo’ a promoter yo’re a mighty pore judge of men,” he said. “I’m warnin’ you not to ride any further along that trail. Yore son can stay here, or we can tell the Herefo’d folk what you’ve tried to hand to them. Yo’re apt to look like a buzzard that’s fallen into a tar barrel after they git through with you, Keith. Trouble with you is that you’ve been bullin’ the market an’ havin’ it yore own way too long. Now you see a b’ar on the horizon, you don’t like the view.
“When we bring up stock fo’ shipment we sometimes have trouble with the longhorns. We’ve got a dehornin’ machine fo’ them. That’s yore trubble, so fur as this locality is concerned. You need dehornin’. I can find out who you sold stock to easy enough, but I don’t care to waste the time. An’ if I do there’ll be more publicity about it than you’d care fo’. Might even git back to New Yo’k. I’m givin’ you the easy end of it, Keith, ’count of Molly. You an’ me can ride into town in yore car an’ clean this all up befo’ the bank closes. We’ll leave the money with Creel of the Herefo’d National. Then you can come back an’ git yore boy.”
“I don’t remember the names. Blake took the record of them,” said Keith sullenly.
“Then we’ll have him in.”
Sandy went to the door and hailed Sam and Mormon. They came to the office escorting Blake, whose fox-face moved from side to side with furtive eyes as if he smelled a trap.
“We want the list of the folks you unloaded Molly stock to,” said Sandy.
Blake looked at his employer who sat glowering at his cigar end, licked his lips and said nothing.
“Speak up,” said Sandy.
“There’s a fine patch of prickly pear handy,” suggested Sam. “Fine fo’ restorin’ the voice. Last time we chucked a tenderfoot in there they had to peel the shirt off of him in strips.” He took the secretary by one elbow, Mormon by the other, both grinning behind his back as he shook with a sudden palsy in the belief that they meant their threat.
“Tell him, you damned fool!” grunted Keith.
“The stubs are in the car at Hereford depot,” said Blake. “In the safe.”
“Money there too? I suppose you cashed the checks?”
“I deposited them to my own account,” said Keith. “Come on, let’s get this over with since you are determined to throw away your own and your partners’ good money, to say nothing of the girl’s. She could bring suit against you, Bourke, with a good chance of winning.”
He glanced hopefully at Mormon and Sam. They kept on grinning.
“Round up that chauffeur, Sam, will you?” asked. Sandy. “Tell him we’re startin’ fo’ Herefo’d right off. You an’ me can go over those accounts of Molly’s same time we attend to the other business, Keith.”
They went outside, Blake looking anxious and a trifle bewildered, Keith throwing away his cigar and lighting a new one, his face sullen with the rage he dammed. Kate Nicholson and Miranda Bailey were on the ranch-house veranda.
“Could I ask you to mail these letters, Mr. Keith? Two of Molly’s and one of my own.” Kate Nicholson advanced toward him, the letters in hand. With a spurt of fury Keith snatched at the letters and threw them on the ground.
“To hell with you!” he shouted, his face empurpled. “You’re fired!” All of his polish stripped from him like peeling veneer, he appeared merely a coarse bully.
Sam came up the veranda in two jumps and a final leap that left him with his hands entwined in Keith’s coat collar. He whirled that astounded person half around and slammed him up against the wall of the ranch-house, rumpled, gasping, with trembling hands that lifted before the menace of Sam’s gun.
“I oughter shoot the tongue out of you befo’ I put a slug through yore head,” said Sam, standing in front of the promoter, tense as a jaguar couched for a spring, his eyes glittering, his voice packed with venom. “You git down on yo’ knees, you ring-tailed skunk, an’ apologize to this lady. Crook yo’ knees, you stinkin’ polecat, an’ crawl. I’ll make you lick her shoes. Down with you or I’ll send you straight to judgment!”
“No, Sam, Mr. Manning—it isn’t necessary,” protested Kate Nicholson. “Please.…”
Sam looked at her cold-eyed.
“This is my party,” he said. “It’ll do him good. I’ll let him off lickin’ yo’ shoes, he might spile the leather. But he’ll git them letters he chucked away, git ’em on all-fours, like the sneakin’, slinkin’, double-crossin’ coyote he is. Crook yo’ knees first an’ apologize! I’ll learn you a lesson right here an’ now. You stay right where you are, Kate. Let him come to you.”
Sam fired a shot and the promoter jumped galvanically as the bullet tore through the planking of the ranch-house between his trembling knees.
“I regret, Miss Nicholson,” he commenced huskily, “that I let my temper get the better of me. I was greatly upset. In the matter of your services I was—er—doubtless hasty. It can be arranged.”
He shrank at the tap of Sam’s gun on his shoulder, wilting to his knees.
“She w’udn’t work fo’ you fo’ the time it takes a rabbit to dodge a rattler,” said Sam. “She never did work fo’ you. It was Molly’s money paid her. Kate’s goin’ to stay right here as long as she chooses an’ I.…”
Catching Kate Nicholson’s gaze, the admiring look of a woman who has never before been championed, conscious of the fact that he had blurted out her Christian name and disclosed the secret of that touch of intimacy between them, Sam grew crimson through his tan. Kate Nicholson’s face was rosy; both were embarrassed.
“Thank you, Mr. Manning,” she said. “Please let him get up, and put away your pistol.”
“Git up,” said Sam, “an’ go pick up them letters.”
Keith, humiliated before his secretary and his chauffeur, the latter gazing wooden-faced but making no attempt at interference, gathered up the envelopes and presented them, with a bow, to the governess. He had recovered partial poise and his face was pale as wax, his eyes evil.
“I’ll mail them, Miss Nicholson,” said Sandy. “Let’s go.” He took Sam aside as the car swung round and up to the porch. “I’m obliged to you, Sam,” he said. “It was sure comin’ to him an’ I’ve been havin’ hard work to keep my hands off him. I’ve a notion he’ll trail better now. If Brandon arrives befo’ we git back, look out fo’ him. Mormon’ll help you entertain.”
“Seguro,” replied Sam. “Look at Keith. He looks like a rattler with his fangs pulled. I’ll bet he c’ud spit bilin’ vitriol right now.”
“His cud ain’t jest what he most fancies, this minute,” said Sandy dryly. “Sorter bitter to chew an’ hard to swaller. Sammy,” Sandy’s voice changed to affection, his eyes twinkled, “I didn’t sabe you an’ Miss Nicholson was so well acquainted.”
Sam looked his partner in the eyes and used almost the same words for which he had just tamed Keith. But he said them with a smile.
“You go plumb to hell!”
* * * *
Creel, president of the Hereford National Bank, a banker keen at a bargain, shot out his underlip when Keith, with Sandy in attendance, tendered him the money for all shares of the Molly Mine sold in Hereford, including his own.
“You say the mine has petered out?” he asked Keith, with palpable suspicion. Keith glanced swiftly at Sandy sitting across the table from him in the little directors’ room back of the bank proper. Sandy sat sphinx-like. As if by accident, his hands were on his hips, the fingers resting on his gun butts. Keith did not actually fear gunplay, but he was not sure of what Sandy might do. Sam’s bullet, that had undoubtedly been sped in grim earnest, had unnerved him. Sandy Bourke held the winning hand.
“That is the news from my superintendent,” said Keith. “I wish I could doubt it. Under the circumstances, consulting with Mr. Bourke, who represents the majority stock, we concluded there was no other action for us to take but to recall the shares al
though the money had actually passed. Naturally, in the refunding, which I leave entirely to you, it would be wiser not to precipitate a general panic and to treat the matter with all possible secrecy.”
“Humph!” Keith’s suavity did not appear entirely to smooth down Creel’s chagrin at losing what he had considered a good thing. He smelt a mouse somewhere. “There are only two reasons for repurchasing such stock,” he said crisply. “The course you take is rarely honorable and suggests great credit. The second reason would be a strike of rich ore rather than a failure.”
“I will guarantee the failure, Creel,” said Sandy. “If, at any time, a strike is made in the Molly, I shall be glad to transfer to you personally the same amount of shares from my own holdin’s. I’ll put that in writin’, if you prefer it.”
“No,” said Creel, “it ain’t necessary.” He glumly made the retransfer. Sandy viséed Keith’s accounts and took Keith’s check for the balance, placing it to a personal account for Molly. The check was on the Hereford Bank and it practically exhausted Keith’s local resources.
As they left the bank a cowboy rode up on a flea-bitten roan that was lathered with sweat, sadly roweled and leg-weary. Astride of it was Wyatt, riding automatically his eyes wide-opened, red-rimmed, owlish with lack of sleep and overmuch bad liquor. Afoot he could hardly have navigated, in the saddle he seemed comparatively sober. He spurred over to the big machine as Sandy and Keith got in to return to the ranch, sweeping his sombrero low in an ironical bow.
“Evenin’, gents,” he greeted them, his voice husky, inclined to hiccough. “This here is one hell of a town, Bourke! They’ve took away my guns an’ told me to be good, they’re sellin’ doughnuts an’ buttermilk down to Regan’s old joint, popcorn an’ sody-water over to Pap Gleason’s! Me, I tote my own licker an’ they don’t take that off ’n my hip. You don’t want a good man out to the Three Star, Bourke?”
“I never saw a real good man the shape you’re in, Wyatt. Sober up an’ I’ll talk to you.”
Wyatt leaned from the saddle and held on to the side of the machine with one hand, his alcohol-varnished eyes boring into Sandy’s with the fixity of drink-madness.
“Why in hell would I sober up?” he demanded. “Plimsoll, the lousy swine, he stole my gal, God blast him! He drove me off’n the Waterline, him an’ the ones that hang with him. I’d like to see him hang. I’d like to see the eyes stickin’ out of his head an’ his tongue stickin’ out of his lyin’ jaws! I’m gettin’ even with Jim Plimsoll fo’ what he done to me.” Wyatt’s eyes suddenly ran over with tears of self-pity. “Blast him to hell!” he cried. “Watch my smoke!” He withdrew his hand and galloped up the street as Keith’s car started.
The powerful engine made nothing of the few miles between Hereford and the Three Star and it was only mid-afternoon when they arrived. Molly and Donald Keith were still absent, there was no sign of Brandon. Sandy fancied that any wait would not be especially congenial to Keith, but the promoter was firm in his determination to take away his son from the ranch. While his resentment could find no outlet, it was plain that he and his were through with any one connected with the Three Star brand.
Acting without any thought of this, save as it simmered subconsciously, Sandy rejoiced that Molly would now stay. He intended to give her open choice—there was money enough left, aside from the capital used on the Three Star, to send her back east for a completion of education. Or to pay Miss Nicholson for remaining as educator. He surmised that Sam would persuade Kate Nicholson to stay in any event. Molly, returned, appeared so much the woman, that the question of further schooling seemed superfluous to Sandy. He felt that it would to her, especially after he had told her all that had occurred since morning. That she would approve he had no doubt. Molly was true blue as her eyes. Altogether, Sandy considered the petering out of the Molly Mine far from being a disaster. And, if Molly stayed west—for keeps—?
* * * *
Keith stayed in his car, smoking, ignoring the very existence of the ranch and its people. The afternoon wore on with the sun dropping gradually toward the last quarter of the day’s march. At four o’clock one of the Three Star riders came in at a gallop, carrying double. Behind him, clinging tight, was Donald Keith, woebegone, almost exhausted, his trim riding clothes snagged and soiled, his shining puttees scuffed and scratched. He staggered as he slid out of the saddle and clung to the cantle, head sunk on arms until Sandy took him by the arm. Keith sprang from his car and came over. Sam and Mormon hurried up.
“What’s this?” demanded Keith angrily, suspicion rife in his voice.
“I picked him up three mile’ back, hoofin’ it. He was headin’ fo’ Bitter Flats but he wanted the ranch,” said the cowboy to Sandy, ignoring Keith. “We burned wind an’ leather comin’ in, seein’ Jim Plimsoll an’ some of his gang have made off with Miss Molly!”
“Where’d this happen?” demanded Sandy. “Sam, go git Pronto fo’ me an’ saddle up.”
“That’s the hell of it,” said the rider. “The pore damn fool don’t know. Plumb loco! Scared to death. Been wanderin’ round sence afore noon.”
Donald Keith sagged suddenly and Sandy picked the lad up in his arms. Weariness and fright, thirst, the changed altitude, had overtoiled his endurance. Sandy strode with him to the car and laid him on the cushions.
“Git some water,” he ordered Keith. “We’ve got no licker on the ranch. Here’s one of the times Prohibition an’ me don’t hitch.”
Keith bent, opened a shallow drawer beneath the seat and produced a silver flask. He unscrewed the top and poured some liquor into it. It was Scotch whisky of a pre-war vintage. The aroma of the stuff dissolved in the rare air, vaguely scenting it. The nose of the wooden-faced chauffeur wrinkled. Sandy raised the boy’s head and lifted the whisky to his pallid lips, gray as his face where the flesh matched the powdery alkali that covered it.
“Pinch his nose,” he said to Keith. “He’s breathin’ regular. Stroke his throat soon as I git the stuff back of his teeth. So. Now then.”
The cordial trickled down and Donald’s eyes opened. Almost immediately color came back into his cheeks and lips and he tried to sit up. Sandy helped him.
“Now, sonny,” he said. “Tell us about it. How’d this happen an’ where? An’ when, if you can place that?”
Donald nodded.
“Just a second,” he whispered and closed his eyes. They were bright when he raised the lids again.
“Whisky got me going,” he said. “I’d have given a whole lot for that flask two or three hours ago, Dad.”
“Never mind the whisky, where did you leave Molly?” demanded Sandy.
“I don’t know just where. I wasn’t noticing just which way we rode. She did the leading. I don’t know how I ever got back.”
“Didn’t she tell you where you were makin’ fo’?”
“She didn’t name it. It was a little lake in some cañon where Molly said there used to be beavers.”
“Beaver Dam Cañon,” said Sandy exultantly. “You left here ’bout seven. How fast did you trail?”
“We walked the horses most of the time. It was all up-hill. And I looked at my watch a little before it happened. It was a quarter of eleven. Molly said we’d be there by noon.”
“Where were you then? What kind of a place? Near water?”
“We’d just crossed a stream.”
“Willer Crick, runs out of Beaver Dam Lake. You c’udn’t foller that up, ’count of the falls. Now, jest what happened?”
“We saw some men ahead of us. Molly wondered who they could be. Then they disappeared. We were riding in a pass and two of them showed again, coming out of the trees ahead of us. One of them, on a big black horse, held up his hand.”
“Jim Plimsoll!”
“Yes. Molly recognized him and she spoke to him to get out of the trail. It was brush and cactus either side of us and we’d have ha
d to crowd in. Grit was trailing us. Plimsoll wouldn’t move. I heard more horses back of us and I turned to look. Two more men were coming up behind. They had rifles. So did the man with Plimsoll. He had a pistol under his vest. We couldn’t go back very well and I could see from the way Plimsoll grinned that he was going to be nasty. Molly spurred Blaze on and cut at Plimsoll with her quirt. He grabbed her hand with his left. Grit sprang up at him and he got out his gun from the shoulder sling and shot him.”
“Shot the dawg? Hit him?”
“Yes, in the leg. He fired at him again, but Grit got into the brush.”
“Jest what were you doin’ all the time?” Sandy knew the lad was a tenderfoot, knew he would have been small use on such an occasion, but the thought of Grit rising to the rescue, falling back shot, brought the taunt.
“The two men behind told me to throw up my hands,” said young Keith, his face reddening. “What could I do?”
“Nothin’, son. You c’udn’t have done a thing. Go on.”
“Plimsoll twisted Molly’s wrist so that the quirt fell to the ground. The man who was with him tossed his rope over her and they twisted it round her arms. I had the muzzle of a rifle poked into my ribs. They made me get off my horse. And they made me walk back along the trail. They fired bullets each side of me and laughed at me when I dodged. They told me if I looked back they’d shoot my damned head off.” Donald’s eyes were filled with tears of self-pity and the remembrance of his helpless rage. “They kept firing at me until I’d passed the stream. I hid in the willows, but I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t even see the men who had been firing at me.
“I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t rescue Molly without a horse. I only had a revolver against their rifles and I’m not much of a shot. I tried to get back here but it was hard to find the way. I knew it was east but the sun was high and I wasn’t sure which way the shadows lay. I was all in when your man found me.”
“All right, my son. Keith, I’m goin’ to borrow that flask of yores. Might need it.”
