by Unknown
Dud snatched a blanket from the bunk and smothered the red head. They clinched, rolled on the floor, and kicked over the chair and stool. Presently they emerged from battle feeling happier.
"No, we got to feed. Tha's the new law an' the gospel of the range," Dud continued. "Got to keep our cattle under fence in winter an' look after 'em right. Cattle-raisin' as a gamble will be a losing bet right soon. It's a business now. Am I right?"
"Sounds reasonable to me, Dud."
Bob's face was grave, but he smiled inwardly. The doctrine that his friend had just been expounding was not new to him. He had urged it on Dud during many a ride and at more than one night camp, had pointed to the examples of Larson, Harshaw, and the other old-timers. Hollister was a happy-go-lucky youth. The old hard-riding cattle days suited him better. But he, too, had been forced at last to see the logic of the situation. Now, with all the ardor of a convert, he was urging his view on a partner who did not need to be convinced.
Dillon knew that stock-raising was entering upon a new phase, that the old loose range system must give way to better care, attention to breeding, and close business judgment. The cattleman who stuck to the old ways would not survive.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
BEAR CAT ASLEEP
Bear Cat basked in the mellow warmth of Indian summer. Peace brooded over the valley, a slumberous and placid drowsiness. Outside Platt & Fortner's store big freight wagons stood close to the sidewalk. They had just come in from their long overland journey and had not yet been unloaded. A Concord stage went its dusty way down the street headed for Newcastle. Otherwise there was little evidence of activity.
It was about ten o'clock in the morning. The saloons and gambling-houses were almost deserted. The brisk business of the night had died down. Even a poker player and a faro dealer must sleep.
Main Street was in a coma. A dog lazily poked a none too inquisitive nose into its epidermis in a languid search for fleas. Past the dog went a barefoot urchin into a store for two pounds of eight-penny nails.
Three horsemen appeared at the end of the street and moved down it at the jog-trot which is the road gait of the cowpuncher. They dismounted near the back door of Platt & Fortner's and flung the bridle reins over the wheel spokes of the big freight wagons with the high sides. They did not tie the reins even in slip knots.
The riders stood for a moment talking in low voices before they separated. One went into Dolan's. He was a good-looking young fellow about twenty. A second wandered into the hotel saloon. He was not good-looking and was twice twenty. The third strolled past the bank, glanced in, turned, and walked past it a second time. He straddled, with jingling spurs, into the big store.
Tom Platt nodded casually to him. "Anything I can do for you, Houck?"
"I reckon," Houck grunted.
Platt noticed that he limped slightly. He had no feeling of friendliness toward Houck, but common civility made him inquire how the wounded leg was doing. After the Indian campaign the Brown's Park man had gone to Meeker for his convalescence. That had been two months since.
"'S all right," growled the big fellow.
"Good. Thought you kinda favored it a little when you walked."
The Brown's Park man bought a plug of chewing tobacco and a shirt.
"Guess the soldiers got the Utes corralled all right by this time. Hear anything new about that?" Platt asked by way of making conversation.
"No," Houck replied shortly. "Got an empty gunnysack I could have?"
"Sure." The storekeeper found one and a string with which to tie it.
"I'll take a slab of side meat an' a pound of ground coffee," the big man growled.
He made other purchases,--flour, corn meal, beans, and canned tomatoes. These he put in the gunnysack, tying the open end. Out of the side door he went to the horses standing by the big freight wagons. The contents of the sack he transferred to saddle-bags.
Then, without any apparent doubt as to what he was going to do next, he dropped into another store, one which specialized in guns and ammunition, though it, too, sold general supplies. He bought cartridges, both for the two forty-fives and for the rifle he carried. These he actually tested in his weapons, to make sure they fitted easily.
The proprietor attempted a pleasantry. "You're kinda garnished with weapons, stranger. Not aimin' to hold up the town, are you?"
The amiable laugh died away. The wall-eyed stranger was looking at him in bleak silence. Not an especially timid man, the owner of the place felt a chill run down his spine. That stare carried defiance, an unvoiced threat. Later, the storekeeper made of it a stock part of his story of the day's events.
"When the stranger gave me that look of his I knew right away something was doing. 'Course I didn't know what. I'll not claim I did, but I was sure there'd be a job for the coroner before night. Blister come into the store just after he left. I said to him, 'Who's that big black guy?' He says, 'Jake Houck.' 'Well,' I says, 'Jake Houck is sure up to some deviltry.'"
It is easy to be a prophet after the event. When Houck jingled out of the store and along the sidewalk to the hotel, none of the peaceful citizens he met guessed what he had in mind. None of them saw the signal which passed between him and the young fellow who had just come out of Dolan's. This was not a gesture. No words were spoken, but a message went from one to the other and back. The young puncher disappeared again into Dolan's.
Afterward, when Bear Cat began to assemble its recollections of the events prior to the dramatic climax, it was surprising how little that was authentic could be recalled. Probably a score of people noted casually the three strangers. Houck was recognized by three or four, Bandy Walker by at least one. The six-foot youngster with them was known by nobody who saw him. It was learned later that he had never been in the town before. The accounts of how the three spent the hour between ten and eleven are confusing. If they met during that time it was only for a moment or two while passing. But it is certain that Bandy Walker could not have been both in the blacksmith shop and at Platt & Fortner's five minutes before eleven. The chances are that some of the town people, anxious to have even a small part in the drama, mixed in their minds these strangers with others who had ridden in.
Bob Dillon and Dud Hollister dropped from their saddles in front of the hotel at just eleven o'clock. They had ridden thirty miles and stood for a moment stretching the cramp out of their muscles.
Dud spoke, nodding his head to the right. "Look what's here, Sure-Shot. Yore friend Bandy--old, tried, an' true."
Walker was trailing his high-heeled boots through the dust across the street from Dolan's toward the big store. If he saw Bob he gave no sign of knowing him.
The two friends passed into the hotel. They performed the usual rites of internal and external ablutions. They returned to the bar, hooked their heels, and swapped with Mike the news of the day.
"Hear Larson's bought the K T brand. Anything to it?" asked Dud.
"Paid seven thousand down, time on the balance," Mike said. "How you lads makin' it on Elk?"
"Fine. We got the best preëmptions on the river. Plenty of good grass, wood an' water handy, a first-class summer range. It's an A1 layout, looks like."
"At the end of nowhere, I reckon," Mike grinned.
"The best steers are on the edge of the herd," Dud retorted cheerfully. "It's that way with ranches too. A fellow couldn't raise much of a herd in Denver, could he?"
A sound like the explosion of a distant firecracker reached them. It was followed by a second.
It is strange what a difference there is between the report of one shot and another. A riotous cowpuncher bangs away into the air to stress the fact that he is a live one on the howl. Nobody pays the least attention. A bullet flies from a revolver barrel winged with death. Men at the roulette wheel straighten up to listen. The poker game is automatically suspended, a hand half dealt. By some kind of telepathy the players know that explosion carries deadly menace.
So now the conversation died. No other soun
d came, but the two cattlemen and the bartender were keyed to tense alertness. They had sloughed instantly the easy indolence of casual talk.
There came the slap of running footsteps on the sidewalk. A voice called in excitement, "They've killed Ferril."
The eyes of the Elk Creek ranchers met. They knew now what was taking place. Ferril was cashier of the Bear Cat bank.
CHAPTER XXXIX
BEAR CAT AWAKE
At exactly eleven o'clock Houck, Bandy Walker, and the big young cowpuncher who had ridden into town with them met at the corner of one of the freight wagons. Houck talked, the others listened, except for a comment or two. A cattleman passing them on his way to the bank recalled afterward that the low voice of the Brown's Park man was deadly serious.
The two big men walked into the bank. Bandy stayed with the horses. In the building, not counting the cashier and his assistant, were two or three patrons of the institution. One was Sturgis, a round little man who had recently started a drug-store in Bear Cat. He was talking to the assistant cashier. The cattleman was arranging with Ferril for a loan.
The attention of the cattleman drifted from the business in hand. "Carryin' a good deal of hardware, ain't they, Gus?"
Ferril smiled. "Most of the boys are quittin' that foolishness, but some of 'em can't get it out of their heads that they look big when they're gun-toters. Kind of a kid business, looks to me."
The eyes of the cattleman rested on Houck. "I wouldn't call that big black fellow a kid. Who is he?"
"Don't know. Reckon we're due to find out. He's breakin' away from the other fellow and movin' this way."
Houck observed that the big cowpuncher was nervous. The hand hitched in the sagging belt was trembling.
"Don't weaken, Dave," he said in a whisper out of the corner of his mouth. "We'll be outa town in ten minutes."
"Sure," agreed the other in a hoarse murmur.
Houck sauntered to the cage. This was a recent importation from Denver. Bear Cat was proud of it as an evidence of progress. It gave the bank quite a metropolitan air.
He stood behind the cattleman, the wall at his back so that his broad shoulders brushed it. Jake had no intention of letting any one get in his rear.
"Stick yore hands up!" he ordered roughly.
The cattleman did not turn. His hands went up instantly. A half a second later those of the startled cashier lifted toward the ceiling.
The assistant made a bad mistake. He dived for the revolver in the desk close at hand.
Houck fired. The bank clerk dropped.
That shot sent panic through the heart of Sturgis. He bolted for the side door. A second shot from Houck's weapon did not stop him. A moment more, and he was on the street racing to spread the alarm.
The leader of the bank robbers swung round on Ferril. His voice was harsh, menacing. He knew that every moment now counted. From under his coat he had drawn a gunnysack.
"The bank money--quick. No silver--gold an' any bills you've got."
Ferril opened the safe. He stuffed into the sack both loose and packed gold. He had a few bills, not many, for in the West paper money was then used very little.
"No monkey business," snarled Houck after he had stood up against the opposite wall the cattleman and the depositor who chanced to be in the bank. "This all you got? Speak up, or I'll drill you."
The cashier hesitated, but the ominous hollow eye into which he looked was persuasive. He opened an inner compartment lined with bags of gold. These he thrust into the gunnysack.
The robber named Dave tied with shaking fingers the loose end of the sack.
"Time to go," announced Houck grimly. "You're goin' with us far as our horses--all of you. We ain't lookin' for to be bushwhacked."
He lined up the bodyguard in front and on each side of himself and his accomplice. Against the back of the cattleman he pushed the end of the revolver barrel.
"Lead the way," he ordered with an oath.
Houck had heard the sound of running feet along the street. He knew it was more than likely that there would be a fight before he and his men got out of town. This was not in his reckoning. The shots fired inside the bank had been outside his calculations. They had been made necessary only by the action of the teller. Jake's plan had been to do the job swiftly and silently, to get out of town before word of what had taken place reached the citizens. He had chosen Bear Cat as the scene of the robbery because there was always plenty of money in the bank, because he owed its people a grudge, and because it was so far from a railroad.
As he had outlined the hold-up to his fellows in crime, it had looked like a moderately safe enterprise. But he realized now that he had probably led them into a trap. Nearly every man in Bear Cat was a big-game hunter. This meant that they were dead shots.
Houck knew that it would be a near thing if his party got away in time. A less resolute man would have dropped the whole thing after the alarm had been given and ridden away at once. But he was no quitter. So he was seeing it out.
The cattleman led the procession through the side door into the street.
Sunshine warm and mellow still bathed the street, just as it had done ten minutes earlier. But there was a difference. Dave felt a shiver run down his spine.
From the horses Bandy barked a warning. "Hurry, Jake, for God's sake. They're all round us."
CHAPTER XL
BIG-GAME HUNTERS AT WORK
Bob and his partner did not rush out of the hotel instantly to get into the fray. They did what a score of other able-bodied men of Bear Cat were doing--went in search of adequate weapons with which to oppose the bank robbers. Bear Cat was probably the best-equipped town in the country to meet a sudden emergency of this kind. In every house, behind the door or hanging on the wall, was a rifle used to kill big game. In every house was at least one man who knew how to handle that rifle. All he had to do was to pick up the weapon, load it, and step into the street.
June was in the kitchen with Chung Lung. The Reverend Melancthon Browning had just collected two dollars from Chung for the foreign missionary fund. Usually the cook was a cheerful giver, but this morning he was grumbling a little. He had been a loser at hop toy the night before.
"Mister Blowning he keep busy asking for dollars. He tell me givee to the Lord. Gleat smoke, Lord allee timee bloke?"
The girl laughed. The Oriental's quaint irreverence was of the letter and not of the spirit.
Through the swing door burst Bob Dillon. "Know where there's a rifle, June?"
She looked at him, big-eyed. "Not the Utes again?" she gasped.
"Bank robbers. I want a gun."
Without a word she turned and led him swiftly down the passage to a bedroom. In one corner of it was a belt. Bob loaded the gun.
June's heart beat fast. "You'll--be careful?" she cautioned.
He nodded as he ran out of the door and into the alley behind.
Platt & Fortner's was erecting a brick store building, the first of its kind in Bear Cat. The walls were up to the second story and the window frames were in. Through the litter of rubbish left by the workmen Bob picked a hurried way to one of the window spaces. Two men were crouched in another of these openings not fifteen feet from him.
"How many of 'em?" he asked in a loud whisper.
Blister answered from the embrasure opposite. "D-don't know."
"Still in the bank, are they?"
"Yes."
Some one peered out of Dolan's through the crack of a partly opened door. Bob caught the gleam of the sun upon the barrel of a gun. A hat with a pair of eyes beneath the rim of it showed above the sill of a window in the blacksmith shop opposite. Bear Cat was all set for action.
A man was standing beside some horses near the back door of Platt & Fortner's. He was partially screened from Bob's view by one of the broncos and by a freight wagon, but the young cattleman had a fleeting impression that he was Bandy Walker. Was he, too, waiting to get a shot at the bandits? Probably so. He had a rifle in his hands. But it
struck Dillon he was taking chances. When the robbers came out of the bank they would be within thirty feet of him.
Out of the front door of the bank a little group of men filed. Two of them were armed. The others flanked them on every side. Ferril the cashier carried a gunnysack heavily loaded.
A man stepped out upon the platform in front of Platt & Fortner's. From his position he looked down on the little bunch of men moving toward the horses. Bandy Walker, beside the horses, called on Houck to hurry, that they were being surrounded.
"I've got you covered. Throw down yore guns," the man on the platform shouted to the outlaws, rifle at shoulder.
