The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  "You're at the hotel--where you'll be looked after right, dearie." Mrs. Gillespie looked up. "Some one get Doc Tuckerman. An' you, Tom, hustle Peggie and Chung Lung outa their beds if they're not up. There's a fire in my room. Tell her to take the blankets from the bed an' warm 'em. Tell Chung to heat several kettles o' water fast as he can. Dud, you come along an' carry her to the stove in the lobby. The rest o' you'll stay right here."

  Mollie did not ask any questions or seek explanation. That could wait. The child had been through a terrible experience and must be looked after first.

  From the lobby Dud presently carried June into the bedroom and departed. A roaring fire was in the stove. Blankets and a flannel nightgown were hanging over the backs of chairs to warm. With the help of the chambermaid Peggie, the landlady stripped from the girl the frozen dress and the wet underclothes. Over the thin, shivering body she slipped the nightgown, then tucked her up in the blankets. As soon as Chung brought the hot-water jugs she put one at June's feet and another close to the stomach where the cold hands could rest upon it.

  June was still shaking as though she never would get warm. A faint mist of tears obscured her sight. "Y-you're awful good to me," she whispered, teeth chattering.

  The doctor approved of what had been done. He left medicine for the patient. "Be back in five minutes," he told Mrs. Gillespie outside the room. "Want some stuff I've got at the office. Think I'll stay for a few hours and see how the case develops. Afraid she's in for a bad spell of pneumonia."

  He did not leave the sick-room after his return until morning. Mollie stayed there, too. It was nearly one o'clock when Blister Haines knocked gently at the door.

  "How's the li'l' lady?" he asked in his high falsetto, after Mollie had walked down the passage with him.

  "She's a mighty sick girl. Pneumonia, likely."

  "Tell doc not to let her die. If he needs another doctor some of us'll h-hustle over to Glenwood an' g-get one. Say, Mrs. Gillespie, I reckon there's gonna be trouble in town to-night."

  She said nothing, but her blue eyes questioned him.

  Blister's next sentence sent her moving toward the saloon.

  CHAPTER XIII

  BEAR CAT ASKS QUESTIONS

  A man bow-legged into Gillespie's and went straight to the bar. "Gimme a drink--something damned hot," he growled.

  He was a big, broad-shouldered fellow, hook-nosed, with cold eyes set close. Hair and eyebrows were matted with ice and a coat of sleet covered his clothes. Judging from voice and manner, he was in a vile humor.

  A young fellow standing near was leaning with his back against the bar, elbows resting on it. One heel was hooked casually over the rail.

  "Anything been seen of a strange girl in town to-night?" the newcomer asked. "She ain't right in her head an' I was takin' her to her dad's place when she slipped away. I'm worried about her, out in this storm."

  The cowpuncher looked at him coldly, eye to eye. "I'd say you got a license to be. If she's lost out to-night she's liable to be frozen to death before mo'ning."

  "Yes," agreed Houck, and his lids narrowed. What did this young fellow mean? There was something about his manner both strange and challenging. If he was looking for a fight, Houck knew just where he could be accommodated.

  "In which case--"

  The puncher stopped significantly.

  "In which case--?" Houck prompted.

  "--it might be unlucky for the guy that took her out an' lost her."

  "What's yore name, fellow?" Jake demanded.

  "Fellow, my name's Dud Hollister," promptly answered the other. "D'you like it?"

  "Not much. Neither it nor you."

  Houck turned insolently back to the bar for his drink.

  Mike was stirring into the glass of liquor cayenne pepper which he was shaking from a paper. He was using as a mixer the barrel of a forty-five.

  The salient jaw of Houck jutted out. "What monkey trick are you tryin' to play on me?" he asked angrily.

  "You wanted it hot," Mike replied, and the bartender's gaze too was cold and level.

  It seemed to the former rustler that here was a second man ready to fasten a quarrel on him. What was the matter with these fellows anyhow?

  Another puncher ranged himself beside Hollister. "Who did this bird claim he was, Dud?" he asked out loud, offensively.

  "Didn't say. Took that li'l' bride out in this storm an' left her there. Expect he'll be right popular in Bear Cat."

  Houck smothered his rage. This was too serious to be settled by an explosion of anger and an appeal to arms.

  "I tell you she hid whilst I was openin' a gate. I been lookin' for her six hours. Thought maybe she'd come to town. My idee is to organize a search party an' go out after her. Quick as we can slap saddles on broncs an' hit the trail."

  Fragments of the facts had drifted out to the boys from the sick-room.

  Dud tried an experiment. "Where'll we hunt for her--up toward Piceance?"

  Houck deliberated before answering. If he were to tell the truth--that she had escaped from him in the hills nine miles down the river--these men would know he had been lying when he said he was taking June to her father. If he let the search party head toward Piceance, there would be no chance for it to save the girl. The man was no coward. To his credit, he told the truth.

  A half-circle of hostile faces hemmed him in, for the word had spread that this was the man who had carried off June Tolliver. He was the focus of a dozen pairs of eyes. Among the cattlemen of the Old West you will still look into many such eyes, but never among city dwellers will you find them. Blue they are for the most part or gray-blue, level, direct, unfearing; quiet and steady as steel, flinging no flags of flurry, tremendously sure of themselves. They can be very likable eyes, frank and kind, with innumerable little lines of humor radiating from the corners; or they can be stern and chill as the Day of Judgment.

  Jake Houck found in them no gentleness. They judged him, inexorably, while he explained.

  "Where was you takin' her?" asked Larson, of the Wagon Rod outfit.

  In spite of his boldness, of the dominating imperiousness by means of which he had been used to ride roughshod over lesser men, Houck felt a chill sensation at his heart. They were too quiet--too quiet by half.

  "We was to have been married to-day," he said surlily. "This Dillon boy got her to run off with him. He was no good. I rode hell-for-leather into town to head 'em off."

  Blister brought him back to the question of the moment. "An' you were t-takin' her--?"

  "To Brown's Park."

  "Forcin' her to go. Was that it?" Hollister broke in.

  "No, sir. She went of her own accord."

  "Asked you to take her there, mebbe?"

  "None o' yore damn business."

  "How old is she, Mr. Houck?" Larson questioned.

  "I dunno."

  "I do. Sixteen coming Christmas," said Dud. "Dillon told me."

  "An' how old are you, Mr. Houck?" the quiet, even voice of the owner of the Wagon Rod pursued.

  "I d'no as that's got anything to do with it, but I'm forty-three," Jake retorted defiantly.

  "You meant to live with her?"

  "I meant to treat her right," was the sullen reply.

  "But livin' with her, an' her another man's wife."

  "No, sir. That fake marriage with Dillon don't go. She was promised to me." He broke out suddenly in anger: "What's eatin' you all? Why don't you go out an' help me find the girl? These whatfors an' whyfors can wait, I reckon."

  Blister dropped a bomb. "She's found."

  "Found!" Houck stared at the fat man. "Who found her? Where? When?"

  "Coupla hours ago. Here in this r-room. Kinda funny how she'd swim the river a night like this an' walk eight-ten miles barefoot in the snow, all to get away from you, an' her goin' with you of her own accord."

  "It wasn't eight miles--more like six."

  "Call it six, then. Fact is, Mr. Houck, she was mighty scared of you--in a panic of terror
, I'd say."

  "She had no call to be," the Brown's Park settler replied, his voice heavy with repressed rage. "I'm tellin' you she wasn't right in her head."

  "An' you was takin' advantage of that to make this li'l' girl yore--to ruin her life for her," Hollister flung back.

  In all his wild and turbulent lifetime Jake Houck had never before been brought to task like this. He resented the words, the manner, the quiet insistence of these range men. An unease that was not quite fear, but was very close to it, had made him hold his temper in leash. Now the savage in him broke through.

  "You're a bunch of fool meddlers, an' I'm through explainin'. You can go to hell 'n' back for me," he cried, and followed with a string of crackling oaths.

  The eyes of the punchers and cattlemen met one another. No word was spoken, but the same message passed back and forth a score of times.

  "I expect you don't quite understand where you're at, Mr. Houck," Larson said evenly. "This is mighty serious business for you. We aim to give you a chance to tell yore story complete before we take action."

  "Action?" repeated Houck, startled.

  "You're up against it for fair," Reeves told him. "If you figure on gettin' away with a thing like that in a white man's country you've sure got another guess comin'. I don't know where you're from or who you are, but I know where you're going."

  "D-don't push on the reins, Tom," the justice said. "We aim to be reasonable about this, I reckon."

  "Sure we do." Dud countered with one of Blister's own homely apothegms. "What's the use of chewin' tobacco if you spit out the juice? Go through, I say. There's a cottonwood back of the kitchen."

  "You're fixin' for to hang me?" Houck asked, his throat and palate gone suddenly dry.

  "You done guessed it first crack," Tom nodded.

  "Not yet, boys," protested Haines in his whispering falsetto. "I reckon we'd ought to wait an' see how the girl comes out."

  "Why had we?" demanded a squat puncher from the Keystone. "What difference does it make? If ever any one needed stringin' up, it's the guy here. He's worse than Douglas or any other Injun ever was. Is it yore notion we'd oughta sit around with our hands in our pockets, Blister, while reptiles like this Houck make our girls swim the river at night an' plough barefoot through snowstorms? I ain't that easy-dispositioned myself."

  "Shorty's sure whistlin'. Same here," another chap-clad rider chipped in.

  "An' here."

  Blister dropped into the background inconspicuously and vanished. He appeared to be in a minority of one, not counting Houck, and he needed reënforcements.

  "We'll hear what Mr. Houck has to say before we pass judgment," Larson said.

  But Houck, looking into the circle of grim faces that surrounded him, knew that he was condemned. Nothing that he could say would make any difference. He shrugged his heavy shoulders.

  "What's the use? You've done made up yore minds."

  He noticed that the younger fellows were pressing closer to him. Pretty soon they would disarm him. If he was going to make a fight for his life, it had to be now. His arm dropped to his side, close to the butt of the revolver he carried.

  He was too late. Hollister jumped for his wrist and at the same time Mike flung himself across the bar and garroted him. He struggled fiercely to free himself, but was dragged down to the floor and pinioned. Before he was lifted up his hands were tied behind him.

  Unobserved, the front door of the barroom had opened. An ice-coated figure was standing on the threshold.

  Houck laughed harshly. "Come right in, Tolliver. You'll be in time to take a hand in the show."

  The little trapper's haggard eyes went round in perplexity. "What's the trouble?" he asked mildly.

  "No trouble a-tall," answered the big prisoner hardily. "The boys are hangin' me. That's all."

  CHAPTER XIV

  HOUCK TAKES A RIDE

  Tolliver rubbed a hand uncertainly over a bristly chin. "Why, what are they doin' that for, Jake?"

  "Are you the Tolliver girl's father?" asked Larson.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then we got bad news for you. She's sick."

  "Sick?" the trapper's lips trembled.

  "A mighty sick girl. This man here--this Houck, if that's what he calls himself--took her away from the young fellow she'd married and started up to Brown's Park with her. Somehow she gave him the slip, swam the river, an' came back to town barefoot through the snow. Seems she lost her shoes while she was crossin' the Blanco."

  The color washed away beneath the tan of the father's face. "Where's she at?"

  "Here--at the hotel. Mrs. Gillespie an' Doc Tuckerman are lookin' after her."

  "I'd like to go to her right away."

  "Sure. Dud, you know where the room is. Take Mr. Tolliver there."

  "Pete." Houck's voice was hoarse, but no longer defiant. In this little man, whom he had always bullied and dominated, whose evil genius he had been, lay his hope of life. "Pete, you ain't a-going to leave yore old pardner to be hanged."

  Tolliver looked bleakly at him. The spell this man had woven over him twenty-odd years ago was broken forever. "I'm through with you, Jake," he said.

  "You ain't intendin' to lift a hand for me?"

  "Not a finger."

  "Won't you tell these men howcome it I rode down to Bear Cat after June?"

  The Piceance Creek man's jaw tightened. His small eyes flashed hate. "Sure, I'll tell 'em that. About two-three weeks ago Houck showed up at my place an' stayed overnight. I knew him when we was both younger, but I hadn't seen him for a long time. He took a notion to my June. She didn't want to have a thing to do with him, but he bullied her, same as he did me. June she found out he knew something about me, an' she was afraid to make him mad. I reckon finally he got some kinda promise outa her. He had some business at Meeker, an' he was comin' back to the ranch yestiddy. Then he aimed to bring her here to get married."

  He was looking steadily at Houck. Pete had found at last the courage to defy him. He could tell anything he liked about the escape from Cañon City.

  "I was away all day lookin' over my traps an' fixin' them up. When I reached home I found two notes. I got 'em here somewheres." Tolliver fumbled in his coat pockets, but did not find them. "One was from June. She said she was runnin' away to marry the Dillon boy. The other was from Jake Houck. He'd got to the house before I did, found her note to me, an' lit out after her. Soon's I could run up a horse I hit the trail too."

  "Threw me down, eh, Pete?" Houck said bitterly. "Well, there's two can play at that."

  Tolliver did not flinch. "Go to it, soon as you've a mind to. I don't owe you a thing except misery. You wrecked my life. I suffered for you an' kept my mouth padlocked. I was coyote enough to sit back an' let you torment my li'l' girl because I was afraid for to have the truth come out an' hurt her. I'd ought to have gone after you with a forty-five. I'm through. They can't hang you any too soon to suit me. If they don't--an' if my June don't get well--I'll gun you sure as God made li'l' apples."

  He turned and walked out of the room with Dud Hollister.

  In the passage they met Mollie Gillespie and Blister Haines. The first words the landlady heard were from Houck.

  "No, sir, I've got nothing to say. What'd be the use? You've made up yore minds to go through with this thing. A fool could see that. Far as Tolliver goes, I reckon I'll go it alone an' not do any beefin' about him. He threw me down hard, but he was considerable strung up about June. Wouldn't do any good for me to tell what I know."

  "Not a bit," assented Reeves. "Might as well game it out."

  Houck's hard, cold eye looked at him steadily. "Who said anything about not gaming it out? If you're expectin' me to beg an' crawl you've got hold of the wrong man. I'm a damned tough nut an' don't you forget it. Whenever you're ready, gents."

  From the door Mrs. Gillespie spoke. "What's all this?"

  She became at once the center of attention. The punchers grouped around Houck were taken by surprise. They we
re disconcerted by this unexpected addition to the party. For though Mrs. Gillespie led an irregular life, no woman on the river was so widely loved as she. The mother of Bear Cat, the boys called her. They could instance a hundred examples of the goodness of her heart. She never tired of waiting on the sick, of giving to those who were needy. It was more than possible she would not approve the summary vengeance about to be executed upon the Brown's Park man.

  The prisoner was the first to answer. "Just in time, ma'am. The boys are stagin' an entertainment. They're fixin' to hang me. If you'll accept an invite from the hangee I'll be glad to have you stay an'--"