by Unknown
"All right. You take him first," he finally conceded harshly.
Bucky kept up the comedy. "I'll take him, Mr. Cullison. But if he tells me the truth--and if I find out it's the whole truth--there'll be nothing doing on your part. He's my prisoner. Understand that."
Metaphorically, Blackwell licked the hand of his protector. He was still standing, but his attitude gave the effect of crouching.
"I aim to do what's right, Captain O'Connor. Whatever's right. You ask me any questions."
"I want to know all about the W. & S. robbery, everything, from start to finish."
"Honest, I wish I could tell you. But I don't know a thing about it. Cross my heart, I don't."
"No use, Blackwell. If I'm going to stand by you against Mr. Cullison, you'll have to tell the truth. Why, man, I've even got the mask you wore and the cloth you cut it from."
"I reckon it must a-been some one else, Major. Wisht I could help you, but I can't."
Bucky rose. "All right. If you can't help me, I can't help you." Apparently he dismissed the matter from his mind, for he looked at his watch and turned to the cattleman. "Mr. Cullison, I reckon I'll run out and have some supper. Do you mind staying here with this man till I get back?"
"No. That's all right, Bucky. Don't hurry, I'll keep him entertained." Perhaps it was not by chance that his eye wandered to a blacksnake whip hanging on the wall.
O'Connor sauntered to the door. The frightened gaze of the prisoner clung to him as if for safety.
"Major--Colonel--you ain't a-going," he pleaded.
"Only for an hour or two. I'll be back. I wouldn't think of saying good-by--not till we reach Yuma."
With that the door closed behind him. Blackwell cried out, hurriedly, eagerly. "Mister O'Connor!"
Bucky's head reappeared. "What! Have you reduced me to the ranks already? I was looking to be a general by the time I got back," he complained whimsically.
"I--I'll tell you everything--every last thing. Mr. Cullison--he's aiming to kill me soon as you've gone."
"I've got no time to fool away, Blackwell. I'm hungry. If you mean business get to it. But remember that whatever you say will be used against you."
"I'll tell you any dog-goned thing you want to know. You've got me beat. I'm plumb wore out--sick. A man can't stand everything."
O'Connor came in and closed the door. "Let's have it, then--the whole story. I want it all: how you came to know about this shipment of money, how you pulled it off, what you have done with it, all the facts from beginning to the end."
"Lemme sit down, Captain. I'm awful done up. I reckon while I was in the hills I've been underfed."
"Sit down. There's a good dinner waiting for you at Clune's when you get through."
Even then, though he must have known that lies could not avail, the man sprinkled his story with them. The residuum of truth that remained after these had been sifted out was something like this.
He had found on the street a letter that had inadvertently been dropped. It was to Jordan of the Cattlemen's National Bank, and it notified him that $20,000 was to be shipped to him by the W. & S. Express Company on the night of the robbery. Blackwell resolved to have a try for it. He hung around the office until the manager and the guard arrived from the train, made his raid upon them, locked the door, and threw away his mask. He dived with the satchel into the nearest alley, and came face to face with the stranger whom he later learned to be Fendrick. The whole story of the horse had been a myth later invented by the sheepman to scatter the pursuit by making it appear that the robber had come from a distance. As the street had been quite deserted at the time this detail could be plausibly introduced with no chance of a denial.
Fendrick, who had heard the shouting of the men locked in the express office, stopped the robber, but Blackwell broke away and ran down the alley. The sheepman followed and caught him. After another scuffle the convict again hammered himself free, but left behind the hand satchel containing the spoils. Fendrick (so he later explained to Blackwell) tied a cord to the handle of the bag and dropped it down the chute of a laundry in such a way that it could later be drawn up. Then he hurried back to the express office and released the prisoners. After the excitement had subsided, he had returned for the money and hid it. The original robber did not know where.
Blackwell's second meeting with the sheepman had been almost as startling as the first. Cass had run into the Jack of Hearts in time to save the life of his enemy. The two men recognized each other and entered into a compact to abduct Cullison, for his share in which the older man was paid one thousand dollars. The Mexican Dominguez had later appeared on the scene, had helped guard the owner of the Circle C, and had assisted in taking him to the hut in the Rincons where he had been secreted.
Both men asked the same question as soon as he had finished.
"Where is the money you got from the raid on the W. & S. office?"
"Don't know. I've been at Fendrick ever since to tell me. He's got it salted somewhere. You're fixing to put me behind the bars, and he's the man that really stole it."
From this they could not shake him. He stuck to it vindictively, for plainly his malice against the sheepman was great. The latter had spoiled his coup, robbed him of its fruits, and now was letting him go to prison.
"I reckon we'd better have a talk with Cass," Bucky suggested in a low voice to the former sheriff.
Luck laughed significantly. "When we find him."
For the sheepman had got out on bail the morning after his arrest.
"We'll find him easily enough. And I rather think he'll have a good explanation, even if this fellow's story is true."
"Oh, he'll be loaded with explanations. I don't doubt that for a minute. But it will take a hell of a lot of talk to get away from the facts. I've got him where I want him now, and by God! I'll make him squeal before the finish."
"Oh, well, you're prejudiced," Bucky told him with an amiable smile.
"Course I am; prejudiced as old Wall-eyed Rogers was against the vigilantes for hanging him on account of horse stealing. But I'll back my prejudices all the same. We'll see I'm right, Bucky."
CHAPTER XV
BOB TAKES A HAND
Fendrick, riding on Mesa Verde, met Bob Cullison, and before he knew what had happened found a gun thrown on him.
"Don't you move," the boy warned.
"What does this tommyrot mean?" the sheepman demanded angrily.
"It means that you are coming back with me to the ranch. That's what it means."
"What for?"
"Never you mind what for."
"Oh, go to Mexico," Cass flung back impatiently. "Think we're in some fool moving-picture play, you blamed young idiot. Put up that gun."
Shrilly Bob retorted. He was excited enough to be dangerous. "Don't you get the wrong idea. I'm going to make this stick. You'll turn and go back with me to the Circle C."
"And you'll travel to Yuma first thing you know, you young Jesse James. What you need is a pair of leather chaps applied to your hide."
"You'll go home with me, just the same."
"You've got one more guess coming, kid. I'll not go without knowing why."
"You're wanted for the W. & S. Express robbery. Blackwell has confessed."
"Confessed that I did it?" Fendrick inquired scornfully.
"Says you were in it with him. I ain't a-going to discuss it with you. Swing that horse round; and don't make any breaks, or there'll be mourning at the C. F. ranch."
Cass sat immovable as the sphinx. He was thinking that he might as well face the charge now as any time. Moreover, he had reasons for wanting to visit the Circle C. They had to do with a tall, slim girl who never looked at him without scorn in her dark, flashing eyes.
"All right. I'll go back with you, but not under a gun."
"You'll go the way I say."
"Don't think it. I've said I'll go. That settles it. But I won't stand for any gun-play capture."
"You'll have to stand for it.
"
Fendrick's face set. "Will I? It's up to you, then. Let's see you make me."
Sitting there with his gaze steadily on the boy, Cass had Bob at a disadvantage. If the sheep owner had tried to break away into the chaparral. Bob could have blazed away at him, but he could not shoot a man looking at him with cynical, amused eyes. He could understand the point of view of his adversary. If Fendrick rode into the Circle C under compulsion of a gun in the hands of a boy he would never hear the end of the laugh on him.
"You won't try to light out, will you?"
"I've got no notion of lighting out."
Bob put up his big blue gun reluctantly. Never before had it been trained on a human being, and it was a wrench to give up the thought of bringing in the enemy as a prisoner. But he saw he could not pull it off. Fendrick had declined to scare, had practically laughed him out of it. The boy had not meant his command as a bluff, but Cass knew him better than he did himself.
They turned toward the Circle C.
"Must have been taking lessons on how to bend a gun. You in training for sheriff, or are you going to take Bucky's place with the rangers?" Fendrick asked with casual impudence, malicious amusement gleaming from his lazy eyes.
Bob, very red about the ears, took refuge in a sulky silence. He was being guyed, and not by an inch did he propose to compromise the Cullison dignity.
"From the way you go at it, I figure you an old hand at the hold-up game. Wonder if you didn't pull off the W. & S. raid yourself."
Bob writhed impotently. At this sort of thing he was no match for the other. Fendrick, now in the best of humors, planted lazily his offhand barbs.
Kate was seated on the porch sewing. She rose in surprise when her cousin and the sheepman appeared. They came with jingling spurs across the plaza toward her. Bob was red as a turkeycock, but Fendrick wore his most devil-may-care insouciance.
"Where's Uncle Luck, sis? I've brought this fellow back with me. Caught him on the mesa," explained the boy sulkily.
Fendrick bowed rather extravagantly and flashed at the girl a smiling double-row of strong white teeth. "He's qualifying for a moving-picture show actor, Miss Cullison. I hadn't the heart to disappoint him when he got that cannon trained on me. So here I am."
Kate looked at him and then let her gaze travel to her cousin. She somehow gave the effect of judging him of negligible value.
"I think he's in his office, Bob. I'll go see."
She went swiftly, and presently her father came out. Kate did not return.
Luck looked straight at Cass with the uncompromising hostility so characteristic of him. Neither of the men spoke. It was Bob who made the necessary explanations. The sheepman heard them with a polite derision that suggested an impersonal amusement at the situation.
"I've been looking for you," Luck said bluntly, after his nephew had finished.
"So I gathered from young Jesse James. He intimated it over the long blue barrel of his cannon. Anything particular, or just a pleasant social call?"
"You're in bad on this W. & S. robbery. I reckoned you would be safer in jail till it's cleared up."
"You still sheriff, Mr. Cullison? Somehow I had got a notion you had quit the job."
"I'm an interested party. There's new evidence, not manufactured, either."
"Well, well!"
"We'll take the stage into town and see what O'Connor says--that is, if you've got time to go." Luck could be as formal in his sarcasm as his neighbor.
"With such good company on the way I'll have to make time."
The stage did not usually leave till about half past one. Presently Kate announced dinner. A little awkwardly Luck invited the sheepman to join them. Fendrick declined. He was a Fletcherite, he informed Cullison ironically, and was in the habit of missing meals occasionally. This would be one of the times.
His host hung in the doorway. Seldom at a loss to express himself, he did not quite know how to put into words what he was thinking. His enemy understood.
"That's all right. You've satisfied the demands of hospitality. Go eat your dinner. I'll be right here on the porch when you get through."
Kate, who was standing beside her father, spoke quietly.
"There's a place for you, Mr. Fendrick. We should be very pleased to have you join us. People who happen to be at the Circle C at dinner time are expected to eat here."
"Come and eat, man. You'll be under no obligations. I reckon you can hate us, just as thorough after a square meal as before. Besides, I was your guest for several days."
Fendrick looked at the young mistress of the ranch. He meant to decline once more, but unaccountably found himself accepting instead. Something in her face told him she would rather have it so.
Wherefore Cass found himself with his feet under the table of his foe discussing various topics that had nothing to do with sheep, homestead claims, abductions, or express robberies. He looked at Kate but rarely, yet he was aware of her all the time. At his ranch a Mexican did the cooking in haphazard fashion. The food was ill prepared and worse served. He ate only because it was a necessity, and he made as short a business of it as he could. Here were cut roses on a snowy tablecloth, an air of leisure that implied the object of dinner to be something more than to devour a given quantity of food. Moreover, the food had a flavor that made it palatable. The rib roast was done to a turn, the mashed potatoes whipped to a flaky lightness. The vegetable salad was a triumph, and the rice custard melted in his mouth.
Presently a young man came into the dining room and sat down beside Kate. He looked the least in the world surprised at sight of the sheepman.
"Mornin', Cass," he nodded
"Morning, Curly," answered Fendrick. "Didn't know you were riding for the Circle C."
"He's my foreman," Luck explained.
Cass observed that he was quite one of the family. Bob admired him openly and without shame, because he was the best rider in Arizona; Kate seemed to be on the best of terms with him, and Luck treated him with the offhand bluffness he might have used toward a grown son.
If Cass had, in his bitter, sardonic fashion, been interested in Kate before he sat down, the feeling had quickened to something different before he rose. It was not only that she was competent to devise such a meal in the desert. There was something else. She had made a home for her father and cousin at the Circle C. The place radiated love, domesticity, kindly good fellowship. The casual give and take of the friendly talk went straight to the heart of the sheepman. This was living. It came to him poignantly that in his scramble for wealth he had missed that which was of far greater importance.
The stage brought the two men to town shortly after sundown. Luck called up O'Connor, and made an appointment to meet him after supper.
"Back again, Bucky," Fendrick grinned at sight of the ranger. "I hear I'm suspected of being a bad hold-up."
"There's a matter that needs explaining, Cass. According to Blackwell's story, you caught him with the goods at the time of the robbery, and in making his getaway he left the loot with you. What have you done with it?"
"Blackwell told you that, did he?"
"Yes."
"Don't doubt your word for a moment, Bucky, but before I do any talking I'd like to hear him say so. I'll not round on him until I know he's given himself away."
The convict was sent for. He substantiated the ranger reluctantly. He was so hemmed in that he did not know how to play his cards so as to make the most of them. He hated Fendrick. But much as he desired to convict him, he could not escape an uneasy feeling that he was going to be made the victim. For Cass took it with that sarcastic smile of his that mocked them all in turn. The convict trusted none of them. Already he felt the penitentiary walls closing on him. He was like a trapped coyote, ready to snarl and bite at the first hand he could reach. Just now this happened to belong to Fendrick, who had cheated him out of the money he had stolen and had brought this upon him.
Cass heard him out with a lifted upper lip and his most somnolen
t tiger-cat expression. After Blackwell had finished and been withdrawn from circulation he rolled and lit a cigarette.
"By Mr. Blackwell's say-so I'm the goat. By the way, has it ever occurred to you gentlemen that one can't be convicted on the testimony of a single accomplice?" He asked it casually, his chair tipped back, smoke wreaths drifting lazily ceilingward.
"We've got a little circumstantial evidence to add, Cass." Bucky suggested pleasantly.
"Not enough--not nearly enough."
"That will be for a jury to decide," Cullison chipped in.
