"I'll have the law of you for this," the city man howled, uncertain which of his injuries to nurse first.
"I would," agreed the Texan. "Well, so long, if you ain't comin'."
Roberts moved back with long, easy stride to the stage. He nodded to the driver.
"All ready, Hank. The drummer ain't feelin' well. He'll stay here overnight. I reckon I'll keep my own seat outside, Sam." And Roberts swung himself up.
The old soldier climbed in, chuckling to himself. It had been the neatest piece of work he had ever seen. The big body of the cowboy had been between Ramona and her tormentor, so that she did not know what had taken place. She did know, however, that the woman-killer had been obliterated swiftly from her path.
"Did you ever see anything like the way he got shet o' that drummer?" Sam asked his neighbor in a whisper. "I'll bet that doggoned masher will be hard to find when Jack's on the map. He's some go-getter boy, Jack Roberts is."
Meanwhile Jack was flagellating himself. It was his bad luck always to be associated in the mind of Miss Wadley with violence. He had beaten up the brother whom she was now mourning. He had almost been the cause of her own death. Now a third time she saw him in the role of a trouble-maker. To her, of course, he could be nothing but a bully and a bad lot. The least he could do was to make himself as inconspicuous as possible for the rest of the journey.
Man may shuffle the pack, but when all is done woman is likely to cut the cards. The driver stopped at Tin Cup Creek to water the horses. To Jack, sitting on the box, came the cattle-drover with orders.
"The young lady has somethin' to say to you, Tex. You're to swap seats with me."
The lean, bronzed young man swung down. He had, when he wished, a wooden face that told no tales. It said nothing now of a tide of blood flushing his veins.
By a little gesture the girl indicated the seat beside her. Not till the creaking of the moving stage drowned her words did she speak. Her eyes were dilated with excitement.
"I overheard them talking in the back seat," she said. "They think there's going to be a lynching at Tascosa—that the mob is going to hang the Mexican who killed my brother. Are you going to let them do it?"
"Not in this year of our Lord, Miss Wadley," he answered evenly.
"Can you stop them?"
"That's what I draw a dollar a day for."
"You mustn't let them do it!" she cried, a little wildly. "Let the law punish him!"
"Suits me. I'll try to persuade the boys to look at it that way."
"But what can you do? You're only a boy."
With a grim little smile he paraphrased Roy Bean's famous phrase: "I'm law east of the Pecos right now, Miss Wadley. Don't you worry. The Dinsmores won't get him if I can help it."
"I might speak to my father," she went on, thinking aloud. "But he's so bitter I'm afraid he won't do anything."
"He will after I've talked with him."
Her anxious young eyes rested in his clear, steady gaze. There was something about this youth that compelled confidence. His broad-shouldered vigor, the virile strength so confidently reposeful, were expressions of personality rather than accidentals of physique.
The road dipped suddenly into a deep wash that was almost a little gulch. There was a grinding of brakes, then a sudden lurch that threw Ramona against the shoulder of the Ranger.
"The brake's done bust," she heard the ex-Confederate say.
Another violent swing flung Ramona outward. The horses were off the road, and the coach swayed ominously on two wheels. The girl caught at the Ranger's hand and clung to it. Gently he covered her hand with his other one, released his fingers, and put a strong arm round her shoulders.
Hank's whip snaked out across the backs of the wheelers. He flung at his horses a torrent of abuse. The stage reached the bottom of the wash in a succession of lurches. Then, as suddenly as the danger had come upon them, it had passed; the stage was safely climbing the opposite side of the ravine.
The Ranger's arm slipped from the shoulders of the girl. Her hand crept from under his. He did not look at her, but he knew that a shell-pink wave had washed into the wan face.
The slim bosom of the girl rose and fell fast. Already she was beginning to puzzle over the difficulties of a clear-cut right and wrong, to discover that no unshaded line of cleavage differentiates them sometimes. Surely this young fellow could not be all bad. Of course she did not like him. She was quite sure of that. He was known as a tough citizen. He had attacked and beaten brutally her brother Rutherford—the wild brother whose dissipations she had wept and prayed over, and whose death she was now mourning. Yet Fate kept throwing him in her way to do her services. He had saved her life. He had adroitly—somehow, she did not quite know in what way—rid her of an offensive fellow traveler. She had just asked a favor of him, and there was yet another she must ask.
Ramona put off her request to the last moment. At Tascosa she left her purse in the stage seat and discovered it after the coach had started to the barn.
"My purse. I left it in the seat," she cried.
The announcement was made to the world at large, but it was intended for a particular pair of ears set close to a small head of wavy, sun-reddened hair. The owner of them ran to the stage and recovered the purse. By the time he reached Ramona, the rest of the party were inside the post-office.
She thanked him, then looked at him quickly with an effect of shy daring.
"You travel a good deal, don't you—about the country?"
"Considerable."
"I—I wonder if—" She took courage from his friendly smile. "I'm worried about Mr. Ridley—for fear something has happened to him."
"You mean an accident?" he asked gently.
"I don't know." Her cheeks flew color-signals of embarrassment. "My father was harsh to him. He's very sensitive. I feel—sort of responsible. He might do something foolish."
"I don't reckon he will. But I'll sure keep an eye out for him."
She gave him her little hand gratefully, then remembered what he had done to her brother and withdrew it hastily from his grip. In another moment she had passed into the post-office and left him alone.
There was no timber in the Panhandle. The first man ever hanged in the short-grass country was suspended from a propped-up wagon-tongue. [3]
* * *
CHAPTER XIII
"ONLY ONE MOB, AIN'T THERE?"
After Miss Wadley had disappeared in the post-office a man touched Roberts on the shoulder.
"Where are the Rangers I sent for?" he asked.
"Here I am, Snark."
"You didn't come alone?"
"Captain Ellison was out of town. The rest of the force was away on assignment. I couldn't reach any of 'em."
The deputy sheriff broke out in excited annoyance. "All right! I wash my hands of it. They can lynch the Mexican soon as they've a mind to. Let 'em go to it. Here I send for a company of Rangers, an' one kid shows up. What in Mexico can you do alone?"
"I wouldn't say alone. You're here, Snark."
"I'm not goin' to lift a hand—not a hand."
"Sure it's necessary? What makes you think they're goin' to lynch Alviro?"
"They don't make any bones of it. Everybody knows it. The Dinsmore gang is in town stirrin' up feelin'. You might as well have stayed away. There's not a thing you can do."
"I reckon mebbe we can figure a way to save Tony," answered the Ranger easily.
The deputy voiced his impatience. "Yore talk sounds plumb foolish to me. Don't you get it? We're not dealin' with one or two men. Half the town is in this thing."
"I promised Tony there would be nothin' of that sort."
"You can't handle a mob all by yoreself, can you?" asked Snark sarcastically. "There's only one of you, I reckon."
The little flicker in the Ranger's eye was not wholly amusement. "There's goin' to be only one mob, too, ain't there?" he drawled.
"You can't slip him out unnoticed, if that's yore idee. They've got watchers rou
nd the jail," the deputy went on.
"I shan't try."
"Then you'll let 'em hang him?"
"Oh, no!"
"What in hell do you mean to do, then?"
Roberts told him, in part. The deputy shook his head vehemently.
"Can't be done. First place, you can't get Wadley to do it. He won't lift a hand to stop this hangin'. Second place, he couldn't stop it if he wanted to. Folks in Tascosa ain't a bit gun-shy, an' right now they've got their necks bowed. An' this Dinsmore gang—they'll eat you alive if you get in their way."
"Mebbeso. You can't always be sure. I've got one card up my sleeve I haven't mentioned to you."
"If you want my opinion—"
The Ranger cut him off short. "I don't, Snark. Not right now. I'm too busy to listen to it. I want to know just one thing of you. Will you have the horses right where I want 'em when I want 'em?"
"You're the doc," acknowledged the deputy grudgingly. "They'll be there, but just the same I think it's a fool play. You can't get away with it."
Jack asked a question. "Where am I most likely to find Wadley?"
"At McGuffey's store. It's a block this-a-way and a block that-a-way." He indicated directions with his hand.
Wadley was not among those who sat on the porch of the general store known as McGuffey's Emporium. He had just gone to his sister's house to meet his daughter Ramona, of whose arrival he had received notice by a boy. Roberts followed him.
In answer to the Ranger's "Hello, the house!" the cattleman came out in his shirt-sleeves.
Jack cut straight to business.
"I've come to see you about that Mexican Alviro, Mr. Wadley. Is it true they're goin' to lynch him?"
The hard eyes of the grizzled Texan looked full at Roberts. This young fellow was the one who had beaten his son and later had had the impudence to burn as a spill for a cigarette the hundred-dollar bill he had sent him.
"Whyfor do you ask me about it?" he demanded harshly.
"Because you've got to help me stop this thing."
The cattleman laughed mirthlessly. "They can go as far as they like for me. Suits me fine. Hangin' is too good for him. That's all I've got to say."
Already he had refused the pleadings of his daughter, and he had no intention of letting this young scalawag change his mind.
"Are you sure this Mexican is guilty—sure he's the man who killed yore son, Mr. Wadley?"
"He's as guilty as hell."
"I don't think it. Hasn't it ever struck you as strange that yore son was killed an' yore messenger Ridley held up the same night, an' that the two things happened not many miles from each other?"
"Of course it has. I'm no fool. What of it?"
"I've always thought the same men did both."
"Young fellow, have you ever thought that Ridley never was held up, that it was a fake robbery pulled off to deceive me? Where is Ridley? He lit out mighty sudden when he saw how I took it. He couldn't even tell me where the hold-up happened. I never did hit the trail of the robbers."
"It wasn't a fake. I can prove that."
"I'm here to be shown," said the cattleman skeptically.
"But first about Tony. It looks bad for him on the surface. I'll admit that. But—"
"Don't talk to me about my boy's murderer, Roberts!" cried Wadley, flushing angrily. "I'll not do a thing for him. I'll help those that aim to do justice on him."
"He didn't kill yore son."
"What! Didn't you arrest him yoreself for it?"
"When I arrested him, I didn't believe he had done it. I know it now. He's my star witness, an' I knew he would skip across the border if I let him out."
"You can't convince me, but let's hear yore fairy tale. I got to listen, I reckon."
Jack told his story in few words. He explained what he had found at the scene of the murder and how he had picked up the trail of the three horsemen who had followed Rutherford to the place of his death. He had back-tracked to the camp of the rendezvous at the rim-rock, and he had found there corroborative evidence of the statement Tony Alviro had made to him.
"What was it he told you, and what did you find?"
The big cattleman looked at him with a suspicion that was akin to hostility. His son had been a ne'er-do-well. In his heart Wadley was not sure he had not been worse. But he was ready to fight at the drop of the hat any man who dared suggest it. He did not want to listen to any evidence that would lead him to believe ill of the son who had gone wrong.
"Tony admits all the evidence against him. He did follow Rutherford intendin' to kill him. But when he saw yore son strike straight across country to the cap-rock, he trailed him to see where he was goin'. Alviro had heard stories."
"You can't tell me anything against my boy. I won't stand for it," broke out the tortured father.
The Ranger looked straight at him. "I'm goin' to tell you no harm of him except that he kept bad company," he said gently. "I reckon you know that already."
"Go on," commanded the father hoarsely.
"Tony followed him to the rim-rock, an' on the way they jumped up the camper, though Alviro did not know it. At the rim-rock Rutherford met two men. Presently another man joined them."
"Who were they?"
"Alviro isn't dead sure. He climbed up to a rock bluff back of them, but it was still dark an' he couldn't make them out. Pretty soon Rutherford found out they had a sack of gold. He must have found out where they got it, too."
Underneath the deep tan of his cheeks the old-timer whitened. "So you're tryin' to tell me that my boy was one of the gang that robbed my messenger! An' you're askin' me to believe it on the word of a greaser with a rope around his neck. Is that it?"
"No. They had a quarrel, but yore son bluffed 'em out. They gave the gold to him. He saddled an' rode away with it. On his way back to town he was murdered. So he never got a chance to turn it back to you."
The father of the man who had been killed drew a long, sobbing breath of relief. His clenched fists slowly opened.
"Tony saw all this, did he?"
"Not all of it. Day was comin' on, an' he couldn't follow Rutherford right away. Before he got goin' the three men saddled. They trailed along after yore son, an' Tony a mile or so behind 'em. After awhile he heard a shot. He took his time investigatin', because he didn't want to stop any bullets himself. At the foot of Battle Butte he found Rutherford. He had been shot from behind an' flung over the bluff."
The face of the cattleman twitched. "If I can lay my hands on the man or men that did it—"
"Mebbe you can, if you'll give me time. I checked up Tony's story, an' everywhere there was evidence to back it. He had no rifle with him, but I picked up a shell back of some rocks a hundred yards from where yore son must have been standin' when he was shot. The shell came from a '73. I back-tracked to the night-camp, an' it was just like Tony had said. Four men had been there. One left before the others. You could see the signs where they had trailed him. Once or twice they missed his tracks an' found 'em again. Same way with the single man followin' them. He had taken short-cuts too. Sometimes he blotted out the hoofprints of the three in front, so I know he was not ahead of 'em."
"You think the Dinsmores did this, Jack?"
"I want more evidence before I say so publicly. But Tony didn't. Here's another point in his favor. If Tony shot him on the bluff an' flung the body over, why did he have to go down below an' look at it? No need a-tall of that. No; Tony went down to make sure who it was that had been killed. Soon as he knew that he guessed he would be accused of it, an' he lit out for No Man's Land. I found him there three weeks later."
The cattleman apologized after a fashion for some hard things he had said and thought about his former employee. "I don't spend any of my time likin' yore style, Roberts. You're too high-heeled for me. But I'll say this for you: Ellison picked a good man when he got you. You're a straight-up rider, an' you'll do to take along. What's yore programme?"
He told it. The cattleman looked at him
with increased respect. He gave a short, barking laugh.
"If it was anybody else I'd say it was crazy, but you're such a doggoned hellion of a go-getter mebbe you can put it over."
"Looks to me like a good bet," said Roberts mildly.
"Well, I an' my friends will be right there if we're needed. I'll see you through. Can't afford to have my best witness strung up to a wagon-tongue yet awhile."
They talked over the details; then the Ranger started for the jail, and the cattleman breezed around to give a little tip to some reliable friends. Wadley was quite of a mind with Roberts. There was going to be no lynching at Tascosa if he could help it.
* * *
CHAPTER XIV
JACK SERVES NOTICE
Jack Roberts liked to get his information first hand. On his way to the jail he deflected, passed up the wide, dusty main street, and stopped at a log "hogan" made of bois d'arc timber and cedar from the brakes. Across the front of it was printed roughly a sign:
THE SILVER DOLLAR
The Ranger took a little hitch at his guns to make sure they would slide easily from the holsters in case of need, then strolled into the saloon, a picture of negligent indifference.
A tall man, lank as a shad, was master of ceremonies. Steve Gurley was in high feather. He was treating the crowd and was availing himself of his privilege as host to do the bulk of the talking. His theme was the righteousness of mob law, with particular application to the case of Tony Alviro. He talked loudly, as befits one who is a leader of public opinion.
Some wandering of attention in his audience brought him to a pause. He turned, to see the Ranger leaning indolently against the door-jamb. Jack was smiling in the manner of one quietly amused.
"Who invited you here?" demanded Gurley, taken aback, but unwilling to show it.
"Me, I just dropped in to hear yore big talk. Reminds me of old Geronimo. Like you, he gets all filled up with words about every so often and has to steam off. Go ahead, Gurley. Don't let me interrupt you. Make heap oration."
Oh-You Tex Page 7
