Oh-You Tex

by Raine, William MacLeod

  The cowboy's shoulder pinned the little man against the bolted door. One hand gave a quick wrench to the wrist of the right arm and the revolver clattered to the puncheon floor. The two hands of the jailer, under pressure, came together. Round them the rope wound swiftly.

  "I've got you, Yorky. No use strugglin'. I don't want to start that misery in yore shoulder," warned Jack.

  The little saddler, tears of mortification in his eyes, relaxed from his useless efforts. Jack had no intention of humiliating him and he proceeded casually to restore his self-respect.

  "You made a good fight, Yorky,—a blamed good fight. I won out by a trick, or I never could 'a' done it. Listen, old-timer. I plumb had to play this low-down trick on you. Homer Dinsmore saved Miss Wadley from the 'Paches. He treated her like a white man an' risked his life for her. She's my friend. Do you reckon I'd ought to let him hang?"

  "Whyn't you tell me all that?" complained the manhandled jailer.

  "Because you're such a tender-hearted old geezer, Yorky. Like as not you would 'a' thrown open the door an' told me to take him. You had to make a fight to keep him so they couldn't say you were in cahoots with me. I'm goin' to jail for this an' I don't want comp'ny."

  Jack trussed up his friend comfortably with the slack of the rope so that he could move neither hands nor feet.

  From the nail upon which the two keys hung the jail-breaker selected one. He shot back the bolts of the inner door and turned the key.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XLIV

  DINSMORE GIVES INFORMATION

  The inner room was dark, and for a moment Jack stood blinking while his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom.

  A voice growled a question at him. "What do you want now, Mr. Grandstander?"

  "I want you."

  "What for?"

  "You'll find out presently. Come along."

  For a moment Dinsmore did not move. Then he slouched forward. He noticed that the Ranger was not armed. Another surprise met him when he stepped into the outer room. The jailer lay on the floor bound.

  The outlaw looked quickly at Roberts, a question in his eyes. Jack unlocked his handcuffs. They had been left on him because the jail was so flimsy.

  "My rifle an' six-shooters are on the shelf there, Dinsmore. A horse packed with grub is waitin' outside for you. Make for the short-grass country an' cross the line about Deaf Smith County to the Staked Plains. I reckon you'll find friends on the Pecos."

  "Yes?" asked Dinsmore, halfway between insolence and incredulity.

  "That's my advice. You don't need to take it if you don't want to."

  "Oh, it listens good to me. I'll take it all right, Mr. Ranger. There are parties in Mexico that can use me right now at a big figure. The Lincoln County War is still goin' good." The bad-man challenged Roberts with bold eyes. "But what I'm wonderin' is how much Clint Wadley paid you to throw down Cap Ellison."

  The anger burned in Jack's face. "Damn you, Dinsmore, I might 'a' known you'd think somethin' like that. I'll tell you this. I quit bein' a Ranger at six o'clock this evenin', an' I haven't seen or heard from Wadley since I quarreled with him about you."

  "So you're turnin' me loose because you're so fond of me. Is that it?" sneered the outlaw.

  "I'll tell you just why I'm turnin' you loose, Dinsmore. It's because for twenty-four hours in yore rotten life you were a white man. When I was sleepin' on yore trail you turned to take Miss Wadley back to the A T O. When the 'Paches were burnin' the wind after you an' her, you turned to pick her up after she had fallen. When you might have lit out up the cañon an' left her alone, you stayed to almost certain death. You were there all the time to a fare-you-well. From that one good day that may take you to heaven yet, I dragged you in here with a rope around yore neck. I had to do it, because I was a Ranger. But Wadley was right when he said it wasn't human. I'm a private citizen now, an' I'm makin' that wrong right."

  "You'd ought to go to Congress. You got the gift," said Dinsmore with dry irony. Five minutes earlier he had been, as Roberts said, a man with a rope around his neck. Now he was free, the wide plains before him over which to roam. He was touched, felt even a sneaking gratitude to this young fellow who was laying up trouble for himself on his account; and he was ashamed of his own emotion.

  "I'll go to jail; that's where I'll go," answered Jack grimly. "But that's not the point."

  "I'll say one thing, Roberts. I didn't kill Hank. One of the other boys did. It can't do him any harm to say so now," muttered Dinsmore awkwardly.

  "I know. Overstreet shot him."

  "That was just luck. It might have been me."

  Jack looked straight and hard at him. "Will you answer me one question? Who killed Rutherford Wadley?"

  "Why should I?" demanded the bad-man, his eyes as hard and steady as those of the other man.

  "Because an innocent man is under a cloud. You know Tony didn't kill him. He's just been married. Come clean, Dinsmore."

  "As a favor to you, because of what you're doin' for me?"

  "I'm not doin' this for you, but to satisfy myself. But if you want to put it that way—"

  "Steve Gurley shot Ford because he couldn't be trusted. The kid talked about betrayin' us to Ellison. If Steve hadn't shot him I would have done it."

  "But not in the back," said Jack.

  "No need o' that. I could 'a' gunned him any time in a fair fight. We followed him, an' before I could stop him Gurley fired."

  The line-rider turned to the jailer. "You heard what he said, Yorky."

  "I ain't deef," replied the little saddler with sulky dignity. His shoulder was aching and he felt very much outraged.

  "Ford Wadley was a bad egg if you want to know. He deserved just what he got," Dinsmore added.

  "I don't care to hear about that. Yore horse is waitin', Dinsmore. Some one might come along an' ask inconvenient whyfors. Better be movin' along."

  Dinsmore buckled the belt round his waist and picked up the rifle.

  "Happy days," he said, nodding toward Jack, then turned and slouched out of the door.

  A moment, and there came the swift clatter of hoofs.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XLV

  RAMONA DESERTS HER FATHER

  Arthur Ridley, seated on the porch between Clint Wadley and Ramona, was annoying one and making himself popular with the other. For he was maintaining, very quietly but very steadily, that Jack Roberts had been wholly right in refusing to release Dinsmore.

  "Just as soon as you lads get to be Rangers you go crazy with the heat," said the cattleman irritably. "Me, I don't go down on my ham bones for the letter of the law. Justice! That's what I aim for to do. I don't say you boys haven't got a right to sleep on Dinsmore's trail till you get him. That's yore duty. But out here in Texas we'd ought to do things high, wide, an' handsome. Roberts, by my way of it, should have shook Homer's hand. 'Fine! You saved 'Mona's life. Light a shuck into a chaparral pronto. In twelve hours I'm goin' to hit the trail after you again.' That's what he had ought to have said."

  "You're asking him to be generous at the expense of the State, Mr. Wadley. Jack couldn't do that. Dinsmore's liberty wasn't a gift of his to give. He was hired by the State—sent out to bring in that particular man. He hadn't any choice but to do it," insisted Arthur.

  Ramona sat in the shadow of the honeysuckle vines. She did not say anything and Ridley could not see her face well. He did not know how grateful she was for his championship of his friend. She knew he was right and her heart throbbed gladly because of it. She wanted to feel that she and her father were wrong and had done an injustice to the man she loved.

  Captain Ellison came down the walk, his spurs jingling. In spite of his years the little officer carried himself jauntily, his wide hat tilted at a rakish angle. Just now he was worried.

  As soon as he knew the subject of conversation, he plunged in, a hot partisan, eager for battle. Inside of two minutes he and Wadley were engaged in one of their periodical semi-quarrels.

&
nbsp; "You're wrong, Clint," the Captain announced dogmatically. "You're wrong, like you 'most always are. You're that bullheaded you cayn't see it. But I'm surprised at you, 'Mona. If Jack had been a private citizen, you wouldn't needed to ask him to turn loose Dinsmore. But he wasn't. That's the stuff my Rangers are made of. They play the hand out. The boy did just right."

  "That's what you say, Jim. You drill these boys of yours till they ain't hardly human. I'm for law an' order. You know that. But I don't go out of my head about them the way you do. 'Mona an' I have got some sense. We're reasonable human bein's." To demonstrate his possession of this last quality Clint brought his fist down on the arm of the chair so hard that it cracked.

  From out of the darkness Ramona made her contribution in a voice not quite steady.

  "We're wrong, Dad. We've been wrong all the time. I didn't see it just at first, and then I didn't want to admit it even to myself. But I'm glad now we are." She turned to Captain Ellison a little tremulously. "Will you tell him, Uncle Jim, that I want to see him?"

  "You're a little gentleman, 'Mona. I always said you were." The Captain reached out and pressed her hand. "I'll tell him when I see him. No tellin' when that'll be. Jack resigned to-day. He's got some fool notion in his head. I'm kinda worried about him."

  The girl's heart fluttered. "Worried? What ... what do you think he's going to do?"

  The Captain shook his head. "Cayn't tell you, because I don't know. But he's up to somethin'. He acted kinda hard an' bitter."

  A barefooted negro boy called in from the gate. "Cap'n Ellison there, sah?"

  He brought a note in and handed it to the officer of Rangers. The Captain ripped open the envelope and handed the sheet inside to Ramona.

  "Run along in an' read it for me, honey. It's too dark to see here."

  The girl ran into the house and lit a lamp. The color washed out of her face as she read the note.

  Come up to the hotel and arrest me, Captain. I held up Yorky, took his keys, and freed Dinsmore.

  Jack Roberts

  Then, in jubilant waves, the blood beat back into her arteries. That was why he had resigned, to pay the debt he owed Homer Dinsmore on her account. He had put himself within reach of the law for her sake. Her heart went out to him in a rush. She must see him. She must see him at once.

  From the parlor she called to Captain Ellison. "You'd better come in and read the note yourself, Uncle Jim. It's important."

  It was so important to her that before the Captain of Rangers was inside the house, she was out the back door running toward the hotel as fast as her lithe limbs could carry her. She wanted to see Jack before his chief did, to ask his forgiveness for having failed him at the first call that came upon her faith.

  She caught up with the colored boy as he went whistling up the road. The little fellow took a message for her into the hotel while she waited in the darkness beside the post-office. To her there presently came Roberts. He hesitated a moment in front of the store and peered into the shadows. She had not sent her name, and it was possible that enemies had decoyed him there.

  "Jack," she called in a voice that was almost a whisper.

  In half a dozen long strides he was beside her. She wasted no time in preliminaries.

  "We were wrong, Dad and I. I told Uncle Jim to tell you to come to me ... and then your note to him came. Jack, do you ... still like me?"

  He answered her as lovers have from the beginning of time—with kisses, with little joyous exclamations, with eyes that told more than words. He took her into his arms hungrily in an embrace of fire and passion. She wept happily, and he wiped away her tears.

  They forgot time in eternity, till Ellison brought them back to earth. He was returning from the hotel with Wadley, and as he passed they heard him sputtering.

  "Why did he send for me, then, if he meant to light out? What in Sam Hill—?"

  Jack discovered himself to the Captain, and incidentally his sweetheart.

  "Well, I'll be doggoned!" exclaimed Ellison. "You youngsters sure beat my time. How did you get here, 'Mona?"

  Clint made prompt apologies. "I was wrong, boy. I'd ought to know it by this time, for they've all been dinnin' it at me. Shake, an' let's make a new start."

  In words it was not much, but Jack knew by the way he said it that the cattleman meant a good deal more than he said. He shook hands gladly.

  "Looks to me like Jack would make that new start in jail," snapped the Captain. "I don't expect he can go around jail-breaking with my prisoners an' get away with it."

  "I'll go to jail with him, then," cried 'Mona quickly.

  "H'mp!" The Ranger Captain softened. "It wouldn't be a prison if you were there, honey."

  Jack slipped his hand over hers in the semi-darkness. "You're whistlin', Captain."

  "I reckon you 'n' me will take a trip down to Austin to see the Governor, Jim," Wadley said. "Don't you worry any about that prison, 'Mona."

  The girl looked up into the eyes of her lover. "We're not worrying any, Dad," she answered, smiling.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XLVI

  LOOSE THREADS

  The Governor had been himself a cattleman. Before that he had known Ellison and Wadley during the war. Therefore he lent a friendly ear to the tale told him by his old-time friends.

  Clint did most of the talking, one leg thrown across the arm of a leather-bound chair in the library of the Governor's house. The three men were smoking. A mint julep was in front of each.

  The story of Jack Roberts lost nothing in the telling. Both of the Panhandle men were now partisans of his, and when the owner of the A T O missed a point the hawk-eyed little Captain was there to stress it.

  "That's all right, boys," the Governor at last broke in. "I don't doubt he's all you say he is, but I don't see that I can do anything for him. If he's in trouble because he deliberately helped a murderer to escape—"

  "You don't need to do a thing, Bob," interrupted Wadley. "That's just the point. He's in no trouble unless you make it for him. All you've got to do is shut yore eyes. I spent three hours with a pick makin' a hole in the jail wall so as it would look like the prisoner escaped. I did a real thorough job. Yorky, the jailer, won't talk. We got that all fixed. There'll be no trouble a-tall unless you want the case against Jack pushed."

  "What was the use of comin' to me at all, then? Why didn't you boys keep this under your hats?" the Governor asked.

  Wadley grinned. "Because of Jim's conscience. You see, Bob, he fills his boys up with talk about how the Texas Rangers are the best police force in the world. That morale stuff! Go through an' do yore duty. Play no favorites an' have no friends when you're on the trail of a criminal. Well, he cayn't ignore what young Roberts has done. So he passes the buck to you."

  The Governor nodded appreciation of Ellison's difficulty. "All right, Jim. You've done your duty in reporting it. Now I'll forget all about it. You boys go home and marry those young people soon as they're ready."

  The Panhandle cattleman gave a whoop. "That'll be soon as I can draw up partnership papers for me 'n' Jack as a weddin' present for him an' Mona."

  * * *

  They were married at Clarendon. All the important people of the Panhandle attended the wedding, and it was generally agreed that no better-looking couple ever faced the firing line of a marriage ceremony.

  There was a difference of opinion as to whether the ex-line-rider deserved his good luck. Jumbo Wilkins was one of those who argued mightily that there was no luck about it.

  "That doggoned Tex wore his bronc to a shadow waitin' on Miss 'Mona an' rescuin' her from trouble. She plumb had to marry him to git rid of him," he explained. "I never saw the beat of that boy's gall. Six months ago he was ridin' the line with me. Now he's the segundo of the whole outfit an' has married the daughter of the boss to boot."

  Jumbo was on hand with a sack of rice and an old shoe when the bride and groom climbed into the buckboard to drive to the ranch. His admiration found vent in one last shou
t as the horses broke into a run:

  "Oh, you Tex! Let 'em go, son!"

  THE END

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