“Wait a moment, Miss Henders!” cried the New Yorker. “I am a lawyer and I know how expensive litigation is. Such a case as you contemplate, and I take it for granted that you purpose taking the matter to court when you say ‘fight,’ might drag on for years, wasting the entire property in attorneys’ fees and legal expense, so that neither of you would get anything — I have seen such things happen scores of times.
“Now, let us rather compromise. We were willing to make you a gift of half the purchase price immediately on the consummation of the sale to Mr. Wainright. That offer is still open. It is extremely fair and generous and if you will take my advice you will accept it.”
“Never!” snapped Diana.
Corson and Lillian sat in silence listening to Diana’s foot- falls as she ascended the stairs. Presently they heard her door close, then the girl turned upon Corson. “You poor sucker, you!” she exclaimed. “What do you think you are, offering her a hundred and twenty-five thousand when we don’t have to give her a cent!”
“Don’t be a hog, Lill,” advised the man. “We’ll get enough, and if we can save a lot of trouble we’d better let her have the hundred and twenty-five. You can’t tell what these people out here’ll do.
“Take that Bull fellow, for instance — he’s already offered to run us out of the country if she says to. Look what he did to old man Wainright, for instance. Why, say, there are a lot of her friends here that would think no more of shooting us full of holes than they would of eating their Sunday dinners, if she just so much as hinted that she thought we were trying to do her out of anything.
“And we’ll be getting plenty, anyway — you and I get a third and Wainright gets the other third — and that mine is worth millions. Why, we could afford to give her the whole two hundred and fifty thousand dollars if she’d agree to the sale.”
“I’m not so keen as you on giving my money away,” replied Lillian.
“Your money, hell,” he replied. “You wouldn’t have anything if it wasn’t for me, and as for that measly little hundred and twenty-five thousand, why, it’ll cost us all of that to square these people around here before we get through with it — I’ve promised Colby ten thousand already, and say, speaking of Colby, I saw you two in the sitting room before supper. You got to lay off that business — you’re getting too thick with that fellow to suit me. You belong to me,” he added suddenly and fiercely.
“Oh, come on, Maurice, don’t be silly,” replied Lillian. “You told me to get him on our side. How did you suppose I was going to do it — by making faces at him?”
“Well, you don’t have to go too far. I heard you telling him what you two would do after you were married. You may be a good little actress, Lill, but that kiss you gave him looked too damn realistic to suit me. I’m not going to have you running off with him after you get your mitts on a little money.”
“Say, you don’t think I’d marry that rube, do you?” and Lillian Manill burst into peals of laughter.
Colby found Bull in the bunk-house.
“Bull,” he said, “I wish you’d ride up Belter’s tomorrer an’ see how the water’s holdin’ out.”
“Listen, Bull,” said Texas Pete, “I got the rest of it:
“An’ so we lines up at the bar, twelve or more;
The boss tries to smile, but he caint, he’s so sore.
The stranger says: ‘Pronto! you dum little runt.’
Jest then we hears someone come in at the front,
“An’ turnin’ to look we see there in the door
A thin little woman — my gosh, she was pore!
Who lets her eyes range ‘til they rest on this bloke
With funny ideas about what was a joke.
“She walks right acrost an’ takes holt o’ his ear.
‘You orn’ry old buzzard,’ she says, ‘you come here!’
He gives us a smile thet was knock-kneed an’ lame,
An’, ‘Yes, dear, I’m comin’!’ he says, an’ he came.”
13. THE NECKTIE PARTY
When Diana Henders left the dining room after hearing Corson’s explanation of her status as an heir to the estate of her father and uncle she definitely severed relations with the two whom she now firmly believed had entered into a conspiracy to rob her of her all. The following day she ate her meals in the kitchen with Wong to whom she confided her troubles. The old Chinaman listened intently until she was through, then he arose and crossed the kitchen to a cupboard, a crafty smile playing over his wrinkled, yellow countenance.
“Me fixee-me no likum,” he said, as he returned with a phial of white powder in his hand.
“O, Wong! No! No!” cried the girl, grasping instantly the faithful servitor’s intent. “You mustn’t do anything so horrible as that. Promise me that you won’t.”
“All lightee jest samee you say,” he replied with a shrug, and returned the phial to the cupboard.
“I’m going away tonight, Wong,” she told him, “and I want you to promise me that nothing like that will happen while I am away and that you will stay until I return. There is no one else I could trust to look after the house.”
“You clomee backee?”
“Yes, Wong, I’m going to Hendersville tonight so that I can catch the stage for Aldea in the morning. I am going to take the train for Kansas City and consult some of Dad’s friends and get them to recommend a good lawyer. You’ll take care of things for me, Wong?”
“You bletee blootee!”
That afternoon she sent for Hal Colby wid told him what Corson had said to her. Colby seemed ill at ease and embarrassed.
“I’m mighty sorry, Di, “ he said, but I don’t see what you kin do about it. If I was you I’d accept half the purchase price. They got you dead-to-rights an’ you won’t make no money fightin’ ‘em.”
“Well, I won’t accept it, and I’m surprised that you’d advise me to.”
“It’s only fer your own good, Di,” he assured her. “It ain’t Lillian’s fault that your uncle done your dad outen the property. You cain’t blame her fer wantin’ what was left to her an’ I think it was mighty pretty of her to offer to split with you.”
“I don’t,” she replied, “and I think there is something behind that offer that is not apparent on the face of it. I am going to find out, too. I’m going to Kansas City to hire a lawyer and I’ll want the buckboard and one of the men to drive me to town after supper tonight.”
“I’m plumb sorry, Di, but Corson an’ Lillian have took the buckboard to town already.”
“Then I’ll go on Captain,” she said. “Please have him saddled for me right after supper.”
She packed her traveling dress and other necessary articles in a small bag that could be tied to a saddle, leaving on her buckskin skirt and blouse for the ride to town, and after supper made her way to the corral after waiting a few minutes for Captain to be brought to the house and rather wondering why Hal had neglected to do sir.
To her surprise she discovered that Captain had not even been saddled, and was, as a matter of fact, still running in the pasture a mile from the house. She went to the bunk-house to get one of the men to catch him up, but found it deserted. Prom there she walked to the cook-house, where she found only the cook setting bread for the morrow.
“Where are all the men?” she asked.
“They’s a dance to Johnson’s tonight an’ some of ’em went there,” he told her. “The rest went to town. Idaho, Shorty an’ Pete went to the dance.”
“Where’s Hal?”
“I reckon he went to town — I ain’t seen him since this arternoon some time.”
“Did Willie go too?”
“No’m, he’s here sommers — hey, Willie! You Willie!”
Willie appeared from the outer dusk. “Oh, Willie,” said Diana, “won’t you please catch Captain up for me and saddle him?”
“You ain’t goin’ to ride tonight all alone, be you?” he asked.
“I’ve got to get to town, Willie, and Hal forg
ot to tell anyone to ride with me,” she explained.
“Well, I’ll go along with you,” said Willie. “I’ll have the hosses saddled pronto,” and off he ran.
Ten minutes later they were in the saddle and loping through the rapidly falling night toward town.
“I can’t understand how Hal happened to let all the boys go at the same time,” she said, half musingly. “It was never done before and it isn’t safe.”
“Bull wouldn’t never have done it,” said Willie. “Bull was a top-notch foreman.”
“You like Bull?” she asked.
“You bet I do,” declared Willie, emphatically; “don’t you?”
“I like all the boys,” she replied.
“Bull wouldn’t never have left you here alone at night. He set a heap o’ store by you, Miss.” Willie was emboldened to speak freely because of the darkness that would cover any sudden embarrassment he might feel if he went too far. The same darkness covered Diana’s flush — a flush of contrition that she harbored a belief in Bull’s villainy.
Before they entered Hendersville they became aware that something unusual was going on in town. They could hear the hum of excited voices above which rose an occasional shout, and as they rode into the single street they saw a hundred figures surging to and fro before Gum’s Place. A man stood on the veranda of the saloon haranguing the crowd.
“This business has gone fer enough,” he was saying as Diana and Willie paused at the outskirts of the crowd. “It’s high time we put a end to it. You all knows who’s a — Join’ it as well as I do. What we orter do is ride out ‘n git him tonight — they’s a bunch o’ cottonwoods where he is right handy an’ we got plenty o’ ropes in the cow-country. Who’s with me?”
Two score voices yelled in savage assurance of their owners’ hearty cooperation.
“Then git your broncs,” cried the speaker, “an’ we’ll go after him an’ git him!”
Diana saw that the orator was Hal Colby. She turned to one of the men who was remaining as the majority of the others hastened after their ponies.
“What is it all about?” she asked. “What has happened?”
The man looked up at her, and as he recognized her, pulled off his hat awkwardly. “Oh, it’s you, Miss Henders! Well, you see, the stage was held up ag’in today an’ Mack Harber was kilt — it was his first trip since he was wounded that time. It was the first trip, too, since Bull quit guardin’ the gold, an’ a lot o’ the fellers has got it in their heads thet it’s Bull as done it.
“‘Tain’t no sech thing!” cried a little old man, near-by, “‘tain’t Bull.”
The speaker was Wildcat Bob. “I don’t like to think so neither,” said the first man; “but it shore looks bad fer him — the fellers is all bet up. There ain’t one in thet crowd but what would lynch his grin — maw ef he had another drink, an’ they sure hev had plenty — Gum’s bee settin’ ’em up in there fer a couple hours on the house. Never did see Gum so plumb liberal.”
“He’s aimin’ to get someone else to go after The Black Coyote,” said Wildcat Bob, “or he wouldn’t be so doggone liberal with his rot-gut — he couldn’t git up enough nerve ef he drunk a whole distillery.”
“You think they really intend to lynch Bull?” asked the girl.
“They ain’t no two ways about it, Miss,” said the man she had first accosted. “They’re aimin’ to do it an’ I reckon they will. You see they’re pretty sore. Mack tried to put up a little fight an’ this Black Coyote feller bored him plumb between the eyes. Then he takes the gold, cuts all the bosses loose from the stage an’ vamooses. Thet’s why we didn’t hear oil it ‘til just a bit ago, cause they didn’t have no way to git to town only hoofin’ it.”
Already the avenging mob was gathering. I hey came whooping, reeling in their saddles. Not one of them, sober, would have gone out after the ex-foreman of the Bar Y, but, drunk, they forget. ‘ heir fear of him, and Diana knew that they would carry out their purpose.
They were going to lynch Bull! It seemed incredible, and yet, could she blame there? Knowing him as she did she had herself half admitted the truth of the rumor of his guilt before, this, the latest outrage, that seemed to fix the responsibility beyond peradventure of a doubt. For the six weeks that Bull had guarded the bullion there had been no holdup, and now on the very first stage day after he had been relieved the depredations had been renewed.
She recalled the fact that he had been seen with Gregorio on the very afternoon of a previous holdup; she recalled the blood upon his shirt that same day — the day that Mary Donovan had fired upon the bandits; she thought of the bag of gold dust that he had displayed at the bunk-house. There seemed no possible avenue of escape from a belief in his guilt.
The yelling avengers were milling around in a circle in front of Gum’s Place, firing off their guns, cursing, shouting. The sheriff appeared on the veranda and raised his hand for silence.
“Ah’m sheriff yere,” he said. “an as an ahm of the law Ah cain’t permit yo-all to go fen to lynch nobody, but Ah can an’ do invite yo-all in to hev a drink on the house befo’ yo go.”
There was a wild shout of approval and a scramble for room at the tie rail. Those who lost out rode their ponies into the saloon, and as the last of them disappeared, Diana. who had lost sight of Willie in the jostle and excitement of the past few minutes, turned her pony about and rode back in the direction from which she had come.
Just beyond the last house she turned abruptly to the left — the Bar Y ranch lay to the right — urged Captain into a lope and started off through the darkness toward the west. Presently she struck a well-defined trail and then with a word and a touch of her spurs she sent Captain into a run. Swiftly the wiry animal sprang through the night while the beating of his mistress’s heart kept time to the rapid fall of his unshod hoofs.
What was she doing? Was she mad? A dozen times Diana Henders repeated those questions to herself, but the only answer was a monotonous cadence that beat upon her brain, reasonless, to the accompaniment of Captain’s flying hoofs:
They shall not kill him! They shall not kill him! They shall not kill him!
Constantly she listened for sounds of the coming of the lynching party, though she knew that she had sufficient start to outdistance them completely, even had Captain not been the fleet and powerful runner that he was. It. was ten miles to the West Ranch from
Hendersville and Captain made it in thirty minutes that night.
Diana threw herself from the saddle at the gate and crawled through the bars, leaving Captain on wide-stretched feet and with nose to ground blowing after his hard run, knowing that he would not move from the spot for some time. She hastened to the darkened cabin and pounded on the door.
“Bull!” she cried. “Bull!” but there was no answer. Then she opened the door and entered, fumbling around for a table she found it and matches, striking one. The cabin, a one-room affair, was empty. Her ride for nothing! Bull was away, but they would hide in the brush and wait for him to come back and then they would shoot him down in cold blood, and he would never have a chance for his life. If she only knew where he had gone, she might ride out and meet him; but she did not know.
Wait! There was one chance! If he was The Black Coyote he would doubtless come in from the north or the northeast, for in the latter direction lay Hell’s Bend, the scene of his many holdups.
But it wasn’t Bull — it couldn’t be Bull — Bull, of all the men in the world, could never have robbed her, or killed her messenger.
Slowly she returned to Captain, standing with heaving sides and dilated nostrils. The animal staggered a bit as she mounted, but at a touch of the rein he turned and walked out into the sagebrush toward the north. She rode for a quarter of a mile and then she reined in her mount and called the man’s name aloud.
There was no reply and she turned to the east and rode in that direction for a while, now and then calling “Bull!” her voice sounding strange and uncanny in her own ears. In the dist
ance a coyote yapped and wailed.
She turned and rode west to a point beyond the cabin and then back again, establishing a beat where she might hope to intercept the returning Bull before he reached the danger of the ambush. At intervals she called his name aloud, and presently she halted frequently to listen for the coming of the lynchers.
It was a matchless Arizona night. The myriad stars blazing in the blue-black vault of infinite space cast their radiance softly upon vale and height, relieving the darkness with a gentle luminosity that rendered distant objects discernible in mass, if not in form, and because of it Diana saw the black bulk of the approaching horsemen while they were yet a considerable distance away, and, seeing them, dared not call Bull’s name aloud again.
The mob rode silently now — a grim and terrible shadow creeping through the darkness to lay bloody hands upon its prey. A quarter of a mile from the cabin it halted while its members dismounted and, leaving a few to hold the horses, the balance crept stealthily’ forward on foot.
Diana, too, had dismounted, knowing that she would be less conspicuous thus, and was leading Captain over a circuitous trail toward the north and east. The girl knelt and placed an ear to the ground.
Faintly, as though at a great distance, she heard the rhythmic pounding of a horse’s hoofs. He was coming — loping through the night, Bull was coming - all unconscious of what awaited him there in the darkness. He was riding to his death. She hastened forward a short distance and listened again. If the sounds should be plainer now she would be sure that he was coming from the northeast.
The self-appointed posse crept toward the cabin and according to a general plan imparted to them by Colby, separated into two sections and surrounded it, finally worming their way close in on hands and knees, taking advantage of the cover of the sage to shield them from the sight of the man they believed to be there, then Colby arose and walked boldly to the door. Knocking, he called Bull’s name aloud. There was no response.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 563
