"Yes. I know about where he is."
"Guess his boss fired him for lettin' all the sheep get killed. Guess he had to go somewhere."
The sheriff nodded. "So you were going to take a little trip yourself, were you?"
"For me boss. You ask him. He can tell you."
"I reckon when he finds out where you are he'll come in."
"And you're goin' to pinch me?"
"You're pinched."
"Well, I'm dum clost to gettin' mad. You look here! Do you think I'd be ridin' to Antelope if I done anything like shoot a man? Do you think I'd hand you me gun without sayin' a word? And if you think I didn't shoot Fadeaway, what in hell you pinchin' me for? Ain't a guy got a right to live?"
"Yes. Fadeaway had a right to live."
"Well, I sure never wanted to see him cross over. That's the way with you cops. If a fella is a Bo, he gets pinched, anyhow. If he quits bein' a Bo and goes to workin' at somethin', then he gets pinched for havin' been a Bo onct. I been livin' honest and peaceful-like and straight—and I get pinched. Do you wonder a Bo gets tired of tryin' to brace up?"
"Can't say that I do. Got to leave you now. I'll fix you up comfortable in here." And the sheriff unlocked the door leading to the one-room jail. "I'll talk it over with you in the morning. The wife and kid will sure be surprised to see me back, so I'll mosey down home before somebody scares her to death telling her I'm back in town. So-long."
Sundown sat on the narrow bed and gazed at the four walls of the room. "Wife and kid!" he muttered. "Well, I reckon he's got a right to have 'em. Gee Gosh! Wonder if he'll feed Chance!"
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SHERIFF AND OTHERS
Chance, disconsolate, wandered about Antelope, returning at last to lie before the door of the sheriff's office. The sheriff, having reestablished himself, for the nonce, in the bosom of his family, strolled out to the street. He called to Chance, who dashed toward him, then stopped with neck bristling.
The sheriff's companion laughed. "I was going to feed him," explained the sheriff.
"I know what I'd feed him," growled his companion.
"What for? He's faithful to his boss—and that's something."
The other grunted and they passed up the street. Groups of men waylaid them asking questions. As they drifted from one group to another, the friend remarked that his companion seemed to be saying little. The stout sheriff smiled. He was listening.
Chance, aware that something was wrong, fretted around the door of Sundown's temporary habitation. Finally he threw himself down, nose on outstretched paws, and gazed at the lights and the men across the way. Later, when the town had become dark and silent, the dog rose, shook himself, and padded down the highway taking the trail for the Concho. He knew that his master's disappearance had not been voluntary. He also knew that his own appearance alone at the Concho would be evidence that something had gone wrong.
Once well outside the town, Chance settled to a long, steady stride that ate into the miles. At the water-hole he leaped the closed gate and drank. Again upon the road he swung along across the starlit mesas, taking the hills at a trot and pausing on each rise to rest and sniff the midnight air. Then down the slopes he raced, and out across the levels, the great bunching muscles of his flanks and shoulders working tirelessly. As dawn shimmered across the ford he trotted down the mud-bank and waded into the stream, where he stood shoulder-deep and lapped the cool water.
Corliss, early afoot, found him curled at the front door of the ranch-house. Chance braced himself on his fore legs and yawned. Then stretching he rose and, frisking about Corliss, tried to make himself understood. Corliss glanced toward the corral, half expecting to see Sundown's horse. Then he stepped to the men's quarters. He greeted Wingle, asking him if Sundown had returned.
"No. Thought he went east."
"Chance came back, alone."
And Corliss and the cook eyed each other simultaneously and nodded.
"Loring," said Wingle.
"Guess you're right, Hi."
"Sheriff must 'a' been out of town and got back just in time to meet up with Sundown," suggested Wingle. And he seized a scoop and dug into the flour barrel.
An hour later the buckboard stood at the ranch gate. Bud Shoop, crooning a range-ditty that has not as yet disgraced an anthology, stood flicking the rear wheel with his whip:—
"Oh, that biscuit-shooter on the Santa Fé,
—Hot coffee, ham-and-eggs, huckleberry pies,—
Got every lonely puncher that went down that way
With her yella-bird hair and them big blue eyes…
"For a two-bit feed and a two-bit smile…"
The song was interrupted by the appearance of Corliss, who swung to the seat and took the reins.
"I'll jog 'em for a while," he said as Shoop climbed beside him. "Go ahead, Bud. Don't mind me."
Shoop laughed and gestured over his shoulder. "Chance, there, is sleepin' with both fists this lovely mornin'. Wonder how Sun is makin' it?"
"We'll find out," said Corliss, shaking his head.
"Believe us! For we're goin' to town! Say, ain't you kind of offerin' Jim Banks a chance to get you easy?"
"If he wants to. If he locked Sundown up, he made the wrong move."
"It's easy!" said Shoop, gesturing toward the Loring rancho as they passed. "Goin' to bush at the water-hole to-night?"
"No. We'll go through."
Shoop whistled. "Suits me! And I reckon the team is good for it."
He glanced sideways at Corliss, who sat with eyes fixed straight ahead. The cattle-man's face was expressionless. He was thinking hard and fast, but chose to mask it.
Suddenly Shoop, who had watched him some little time, burst into song. "Suits me!" he reiterated, more or less ambiguously, by the way, for he had just concluded another ornate stanza of the "Biscuit-shooter" lyric.
"It's a real song," remarked Corliss.
"Well, now!" exclaimed Shoop. And thereafter he also became silent, knowing from experience that when Corliss had anything worth while to say, he would say it.
About noon they reached the water-hole where Corliss spent some time examining the fences and inspecting the outbuildings.
"She's in right good shape yet," commented Shoop.
"The title has reverted to the State. It's queer Loring hasn't tried to file on it."
"Mebby he's used his homestead right a'ready," suggested Shoop. "But Nell Loring could file."
They climbed back into the buckboard. Again Shoop began a stanza of his ditty. He seemed well pleased about something. Possibly he realized that his employer's attitude had changed; that he had at last awakened to the obvious necessity for doing something. As Corliss put the team to a brisk trot the foreman's song ran high. Action was his element. Inactivity tended to make him more or less cynical, and ate into his tobacco money.
Suddenly Corliss turned to him. "Bud, I'm going to homestead that ranch."
"Whoop!" cried the foreman. "First shot at the buck!"
"I'm going to put Sundown on it, for himself. He's steady and wouldn't hurt a fly."
Shoop became silent. He, in turn, stared straight ahead.
"What do you think of it?" queried Corliss.
"Nothin'. 'Cept I wouldn't mind havin' a little ole homestead myself."
Corliss laughed. "You're not cut out for it, Bud. You mean you'd like the chance to make the water-hole a base for operations against Loring. And the place isn't worth seed, Bud."
"But that water is goin' to be worth somethin'—and right soon. Loring can't graze over this side the Concho, if he can't get to water."
"That's it. If I put you on that ranch, you'd stand off Loring's outfit to the finish, I guess."
"I sure would."
"That's why I want Sundown to take it up. He'd let his worst enemy water sheep or cattle there. He won't fight, but he's loyal enough to my interests to sue Loring for trespass, if necessary."
"See you and raise you one, Jack. They'll bluf
f Sun clean off his hind feet. He won't stick."
"I'll chance it, Bud. And, besides, I need you right where you are."
"I'm sure happy!" exclaimed the irrepressible Bud, grinning.
Corliss laughed, then shook his head. "I'll tell you one thing," he said, facing his foreman. "I've been 'tending too many irons and some of 'em are getting cold. I don't want trouble with any one. I've held off from Loring because—oh—because I had a good reason to say nothing. Billy's out of it again. The coast is clear, and I'm going to give old man Loring the fight of his life."
The whoop which Shoop let out startled the team into a lunging gallop. "Go it, if you want to!" said Corliss as the buckboard swung around a turn and took the incline toward Antelope. "I'm in a hurry myself."
Nevertheless, he saved the team as they struck the level and held them to a trot. "Wise old head," was Shoop's inward comment. And then aloud: "Say, Jack, I ain't sayin' I'm glad to see you get beat up, but that bing on the head sure got you started right. The boys was commencin' to wonder how long you'd stand it without gettin' your back up. She's up. I smell smoke."
At Antelope, Shoop put up the horses. Later he joined his employer and they had supper at the hotel. Then they strolled out and down the street toward the sheriff's home. When they knocked at the door it was opened by a plump, dark-eyed woman who greeted them heartily.
"Come right in, boys. Jim's tendin' the baby." And she took their hats.
They stepped to the adjoining room where Sheriff Jim sat on the floor, his coat off, while his youngest deputy, clad only in an abbreviated essential garnished with a safety-pin, sat opposite, gravely tearing up the evening paper and handing the pieces to his proud father, who stuffed the pieces in his pants pocket and cheerfully asked for more.
"Election?" queried Shoop.
"And all coming Jim's way," commented Corliss.
The baby paused in his balloting and solemnly surveyed the dusty strangers. Then he pulled a piece of paper from his father's pocket and offered it to Shoop. "Wants me to vote, the little cuss! Well, here goes." And, albeit unfamiliar with plump aborigines at close range, the foreman entered into the spirit of the game and cast his vote for the present incumbent, deputizing the "yearlin'" to handle the matter. The yearling however, evidently thought it was time for a recount. He gravitated to the perspiring candidate and, standing on his hands and feet,—an attitude which seemingly caused him no inconvenience,—reached in the ballot-box and pulling therefrom a handful of votes he cast them ceiling-ward with a shrill laugh, followed by an unintelligible spluttering as he sat down suddenly and began to pick up the scattered pieces of paper.
"You're elected," announced Shoop.
And the by-play was understood by the three men, yet each maintained his unchanged expression of countenance.
"You see how I'm fixed, boys," said the sheriff. "Got to stick by my constituent or he'll howl."
"We're in no hurry, Jim. Just drove into town to look around a little."
"I'll take him now," said Mrs. Jim, as she came from the kitchen drying her hands on her apron.
The elector, however, was of a different mind. He greeted his mother with a howl and a series of windmill revolutions of his arms and legs as she caught him up.
"Got mighty free knee-action," remarked Shoop. "Mebby when he's bedded down for the night you can come over to the 'Palace.'"
"I'll be right with you." And the sheriff slipped into his coat. "How you feeling, Jack?"
"Pretty good. That's a great boy of yours."
"Sure got your brand," added Shoop. "Built close to the ground like his dad."
Sheriff Banks accepted these hardy compliments with an embarrassed grin and followed his guests to the doorway.
"Good-night!" called Mrs. Jim from the obscurity of the bedroom.
"Good-night, ma'am!" from Shoop.
"Good-night!" said Corliss. "Take good care of that yearling."
"Well, now, John, as if I wouldn't!"
"Molly would come out," apologized Jim, "only the kid is—is grazin'. How's the feed holdin' out on the Concho?" which question following in natural sequence was not, however, put accidentally.
"Fair," said Corliss. "We looked for you up that way."
"I was over on the Reservation. I sent Tom up there to see after things," and the sheriff gestured toward the distant Concho. "Sent him up to-night. Let's go over to the office."
Corliss shook his head. "Don't want to see him, just now. Besides, I want to say a few things private."
"All right. There was a buyer from Kansas City dropped in to town to-day. Didn't see him, did you?"
"Cattle?"
"Uhuh."
"No. We just got in."
They turned and walked up the street, nodding to an occasional lounger, laughing and talking easily, yet each knew that their banter was a meandering current leading to something deeper which would be sounded before they separated.
Sheriff Banks suddenly stopped and slapped his thigh. "By Gum! I clean forgot to ask if you had chuck. You see that kid of mine—"
"Sure! But we put the 'Palace' two feeds to the bad," asserted Shoop.
They drifted to the hotel doorway and paused at the counter where each gravely selected a cigar. Then they clumped upstairs to Corliss's room. Jim Banks straddled a chair and faced his friends.
Shoop, excusing himself with humorous politeness, punched the pillows together and lay back on the bed which creaked and rustled beneath his weight. "These here corn-husk mattresses is apologizin'," he said, twisting around and leaning on his elbow.
"Well, Jack," said the smiling sheriff, "shoot the piece."
"Or the justice of the peace—don't matter," murmured Shoop.
Corliss, leaning forward, gazed at the end of his cigar. Then he raised his eyes. "Jim," he said quietly, "I want Sundown."
"So do I."
Corliss smiled. "You've got him, all right. What's your idea?"
"Well, if anybody else besides you asked me, Jack, they'd be wasting time. Sundown is your man. I don't know anything about him except he was a Hobo before he hit the Concho. But I happen to know that he was pretty close to the place where Fadeaway got his, the same day and about the same time. I've listened to all the talk around town and it hasn't all been friendly to you. You can guess that part of it."
"If you want me—" began Corliss.
"No." And the sheriff's gesture of negation spread a film of cigar-ash on the floor. "It's the other man I want."
"Sundown?" asked Shoop, sitting up suddenly.
"You go to sleep, Bud," laughed the sheriff. "You can't catch me that easy."
Shoop relaxed with the grin of a school-boy.
"I'll go bail," offered Corliss.
"No. That would spoil my plan. See here, Jack, I know you and Bud won't talk. Loring telephoned me to look out for Sundown. I did. Now, Loring knows who shot Fadeaway, or I miss my guess. Nellie Loring knows, too. So do you, but you can't prove it. It was like Fade to put Loring's sheep into the cañon, but we can't prove even that, now. I'm pretty sure your scrap with Fade didn't have anything to do with his getting shot. You ain't that kind."
"Well, here's my side of it, Jim. Fadeaway had it in for me for firing him. He happened to see me talking to Nellie Loring at Fernando's camp. Later we met up on the old Blue Trail. He said one or two things that I didn't like. I let him have it with the butt of my quirt. He jerked out his gun and hit me a clip on the head. That's all I remember till the boys came along."
"You didn't ride as far as the upper ford, that day?"
"No. I told Fadeaway I wanted him to come back with me and talk to Loring. I was pretty sure he put the sheep into the cañon."
"Well, Jack, knowing you since you were a boy, that's good enough for me."
"But how about Sundown?"
"He stays. How long do you think I'll hold Sundown before Nell Loring drives into Antelope to tell me she can like as not prove he didn't kill Fade?"
"But if you
know that, why do you hold him?"
"To cinch up my ideas, tight. Holding him will make talk. Folks always like to show off what they know about such things. It's natural in 'em."
"New Mex. is a comf'table-sized State," commented Shoop from the bed.
"And he was raised there," said the sheriff. "He's got friends over the line and so have I. Sent 'em over last week."
"Thought Sun was raised back East?" said Shoop, again sitting up.
Corliss smiled. "Better give it up, Bud."
"Oh, very well!" said Shoop, mimicking a grande dame who had once stopped at Antelope in search for local color. "Anyhow, you got to set a Mexican to catch a Mexican when he's hidin' out with Mexicans." With this bit of advice, Shoop again relapsed to silence.
"Going back to the Concho to-morrow?" queried Banks.
"No. Got a little business in town."
"I heard Loring was due here to-morrow." The sheriff stated this casually, yet with intent. "I was talking with Art Kennedy 'bout two hours ago—"
"Kennedy the land-shark?" queried Shoop.
"The same. He said something about expecting Loring."
Bud Shoop had never aspired to the distinction of being called a diplomat, but he had an active and an aggressive mind. With the instinct for seizing the main chance by its time-honored forelock, he rose swiftly. "By Gravy, Jack! I gone and left them things in the buckboard!"
"Oh, they'll be all right," said Corliss easily. Then he caught his foreman's eye and read its meaning. His nod to Shoop was all but imperceptible.
"I dunno, Jack. I'd hate to lose them notes."
"Notes?" And the sheriff grinned. "Writing a song or starting a bank, Bud?"
"Song. I was composin' it to Jack, drivin' in." And the genial Bud grabbed his hat and swept out of the room.
Long before he returned, Sheriff Jim had departed puzzling over the foreman's sudden exit until he came opposite "The Last Chance" saloon. There he had an instant glimpse of Bud and the one known as Kennedy leaning against the bar and conversing with much gusto. Then the swing-door dropped into place. The sheriff smiled and putting two and two together found that they made four, as is usually the case. He had wanted to let Corliss know that Loring was coming to Antelope and to let him know casually, and glean from the knowledge anything that might be of value. Sheriff Banks knew a great deal more about the affairs of the distant ranchers than he was ordinarily given credit for. He had long wondered why Corliss had not taken up the water-hole homestead.
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