The prisoner was the first to answer. “Just in time, ma’am. The boys are stagin’ an entertainment. They’re fixin’ to hang me. If you’ll accept an invite from the hangee I’ll be glad to have you stay an’—”
“Hanging him? What for? What’s he done?”
Tom Reeves found his voice. “He’s the fellow done dirt to the li’l’ Tolliver girl, ma’am. We’ve had a kinda trial an’—”
“Fiddlesticks!” interrupted the woman. She swept the group with an appraising eye. “I’m surprised to see you in this, Larson. Thought you had more sense. Nobody would expect anything better of these flyaway boys.”
The owner of the Wagon Rod brand attempted defense, a little sheepishly. “What would you want us to do, Mollie? This fellow treated the girl outrageous. She’s liable to die because—”
“Die! Nonsense! She’s not going to die any more than this Houck is.” She looked the Brown’s Park man over contemptuously with chill, steady eyes. “He’s a bad egg. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings any if you rode him outa town on a rail, but I’m not going to have you-all mixed up in a lynching when there’s no need for it.”
Larson stole a look around the circle of faces. On the whole he was glad Mrs. Gillespie had come. It took only a few minutes to choke the life out of a man, but there were many years left in which one might regret it.
“O’ course, if you say Miss Tolliver ain’t dangerous sick, that makes a difference,” he said.
“Don’t see it,” Tom Reeves differed. “We know what this fellow aimed to do, an’ how he drove her to the river to escape him. If you ask me, I’ll say—”
“But nobody’s askin’ you, Tom,” Mollie cut into his sentence sharply. “You’re just a fool boy chasin’ cows’ tails for thirty dollars a month. I’m not going to have any of this nonsense. Bear Cat’s a law-abidin’ place. We’re all proud of it. We don’t let bad-men strut around an’ shoot up our citizens, an’ we don’t let half-grown punchers go crazy an’ start hangin’ folks without reason. Now do we?” A persuasive smile broke out on the harsh face and transformed it. Every waif, every under-dog, every sick woman and child within fifty miles had met that smile and warmed to it.
Reeves gave up, grinning. “I ain’t such a kid either, Mrs. Gillespie, but o’ course you got to have yore way. We all know that. What d’ you want us to do with this bird?”
“Turn him over to Simp an’ let him put the fellow in the jail. There’s just as good law right here as there is anywhere. I’d hate to have it go out from here that Bear Cat can’t trust the officers it elects to see justice done. Don’t you boys feel that way too?”
“Can’t we even ride him outa town on a rail? You done said we might.”
Mrs. Gillespie hesitated. Why not? It was a crude and primitive punishment, but it would take drastic treatment to get under the hide of this sneering bully who had come within an ace of ruining the life of June Tolliver. The law could not touch him. He had not abducted her. She had gone of her own volition. Unfulfilled intentions are not criminal without an overt act. Was he to escape scot free? She had scoffed at the idea that June might die. But in her heart she was not so sure. The fever was growing on her. It would be days before the crisis was reached.
“Will you promise, honest injun, not to kill or maim him, not to do anything that will injure him permanent?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’ll jes’ jounce him up some.”
“All agree to that?”
They did.
“Will you go along with the boys, Jim?” She smiled. “Just to see they’re not too—enthusiastic.”
The owner of the Wagon Rod said he would.
Mollie nodded. “All right, boys. The quicker the sooner.”
Fifteen minutes later Jake Houck went out of town on a rail.
* * *
CHAPTER XV
A SCANDAL SCOTCHED
Before the door of the room opened Tolliver heard the high-pitched voice of his daughter.
“If you’d only stood up to him, Bob—if you’d shot him or fought him ... lemme go, Jake. You got no right to take me with you. Tell you I’m married.... Yes, sir, I’ll love, honor, an’ obey. I sure will—in sickness an’ health—yes, sir, I do....”
The father’s heart sank. He knew nothing about illness. A fear racked him that she might be dying. Piteously he turned to the doctor, after one look at June’s flushed face.
“Is she—is she—?”
“Out of her head, Mr. Tolliver.”
“I mean—will she—?”
“Can’t promise you a thing yet. All we can do is look after her and hope for the best. She’s young and strong. It’s pretty hard to kill anybody born an’ bred in these hills. They’ve got tough constitutions. Better take a chair.”
Tolliver sat down on the edge of a chair, nursing his hat. His leathery face worked. If he could only take her place, go through this fight instead of her. It was characteristic of his nature that he feared and expected the worst. He was going to lose her. Of that he had no doubt. It would be his fault. He was being punished for the crimes of his youth and for the poltroonery that had kept him from turning Jake out of the house.
June sat up excitedly in bed and pointed to a corner of the room. “There he is, in the quaking asps, grinnin’ at me! Don’t you come nearer, Jake Houck! Don’t you! If you do I’ll—I’ll—”
Dr. Tuckerman put his hand gently on her shoulder. “It’s all right, June. Here’s your father. We won’t let Houck near you. Better lie down now and rest.”
“Why must I lie down?” she asked belligerently. “Who are you anyhow, mister?”
“I’m the doctor. You’re not quite well. We’re looking after you.”
Tolliver came forward timorously. “Tha’s right, June. You do like the doctor says, honey.”
“I’d just as lief, Dad,” she answered, and lay down obediently.
When she was out of her head, at the height of the fever, Mrs. Gillespie could always get her to take the medicine and could soothe her fears and alarms. Mollie was chief nurse. If she was not in the room, after June had begun to mend, she was usually in the kitchen cooking broths or custards for the sick girl.
June’s starved heart had gone out to her in passionate loyalty and affection. No woman had ever been good to her before, not since the death of her aunt, at least. And Mollie’s goodness had the quality of sympathy. It held no room for criticism or the sense of superiority. She was a sinner herself, and it was in her to be tender to others who had fallen from grace.
To Mollie this child’s innocent trust in her was exquisitely touching. June was probably the only person in the world except small children who believed in her in just this way. It was not possible that this faith could continue after June became strong enough to move around and talk with the women of Bear Cat. Though she had outraged public opinion all her life, Mollie Gillespie found herself tugged at by recurring impulses to align herself as far as possible with respectability.
For a week she fought against the new point of view. Grimly she scoffed at what she chose to consider a weakness.
“This is a nice time o’ day for you to try to turn proper, Mollie Gillespie,” she told herself plainly. “Just because a chit of a girl goes daffy over you, is that any reason to change yore ways? You’d ought to have a lick o’ sense or two at yore age.”
But her derision was a fraud. She was tired of being whispered about. The independent isolation of which she had been proud had become of a sudden a thing hateful to her.
She went to Larson as he was leaving the hotel dining-room on his next visit to town.
“Want to talk with you. Come outside a minute.”
The owner of the Wagon Rod followed.
“Jim,” she said, turning on him abruptly, “you’ve always claimed you wanted to marry me.” Her blue eyes searched deep into his. “Do you mean that? Or is it just talk?”
“You know I mean it, Mollie,” he answered quietly.
“Well, I’m t
ired of being a scandal to Bear Cat. I’ve always said I’d never get married again since my bad luck with Hank Gillespie. But I don’t know. If you really want to get married, Jim.”
“I’ve always thought it would be better.”
“I’m not going to quit runnin’ this hotel, you understand. You’re in town two-three days a week anyhow. If you like you can build a house here an’ we’ll move into it.”
“I’ll get busy pronto. I expect you want a quiet wedding, don’t you?”
“Sure. We can go over to Blister’s office this afternoon. You see him an’ make arrangements. Tell him I don’t want the boys to know anything about it till afterward.”
An hour later they stood before Justice Haines. Mollie thought she detected a faint glimmer of mirth in his eye after the ceremony. She quelled it promptly.
“If you get gay with me, Blister—”
The fat man’s impulse to smile fled. “Honest to goodness, Mrs. Gillespie—”
“Larson,” she corrected.
“Larson,” he accepted. “I w-wish you m-many happy returns.”
She looked at him suspiciously and grunted “Hmp!”
* * *
CHAPTER XVI
BLISTER AS DEUS EX MACHINA
Blister Haines found an old pair of chaps for Bob Dillon and lent him a buckskin bronco. Also, he wrote a note addressed to Harshaw, of the Slash Lazy D, and gave it to the boy.
“He’ll put you to ridin’, Ed will. The rest’s up to you. D-don’t you forget you’re made in the l-likeness of God. When you feel like crawlin’ into a hole s-snap that red haid up an’ keep it up.”
Bob grew very busy extricating a cockle burr from the mane of the buckskin. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, Mr. Haines,” he murmured, beet red.
“Sho! Nothin’ a-tall. I’m always lookin’ for to get a chance to onload advice on some one. Prob’ly I was meant to be a grandma an’ got mixed in the shuffle. Well, boy, don’t weaken. When in doubt, hop to it.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll try.”
“Don’t w-worry about things beforehand. Nothin’s ever as bad as you figure it’s goin’ to be. A lickin’ don’t last but a few minutes, an’ if you get b-busy enough it’s the other fellow that’s liable to absorb it. Watch that r-rampageous scalawag Dud Hollister an’ do like he does.”
“Yes, sir.”
“An’ don’t forget that every m-mornin’ begins a new day. Tha’s all, son.”
Bob jogged down the road on this hazard of new fortune.
It chanced that Dud was still in town. Blister found him and half a dozen other punchers in front of the hotel.
“Betcha! Drinks for the crowd,” the justice heard him say.
“Go you,” Reeves answered, eyes dancing. “But no monkey business. It’s to be a straight-away race from the front of the hotel clear to the blacksmith shop.”
“To-day. Inside of ten minutes, you said,” Shorty of the Keystone reminded Hollister. “An’ this Sunday, you recollect.”
Dud’s gaze rested on a figure of a horseman moving slowly up the road toward them. The approaching rider was the Reverend Melanchthon T. Browning, late of Providence, Rhode Island. He had come to the frontier to teach it the error of its ways and bring a message of sweetness and light to the unwashed barbarians of the Rockies. He was not popular. This was due, perhaps, to an unfortunate manner. The pompous little man strutted and oozed condescension.
“W-what’s up?” asked Blister.
“Dud’s bettin’ he’ll get the sky pilot to race him from here to Monty’s place,” explained Reeves. “Stick around. He’ll want to borrow a coupla dollars from you to buy the drinks.”
It was Sunday afternoon. The missionary was returning from South Park, where he had been conducting a morning service. He was riding Tex Lindsay’s Blue Streak, borrowed for the occasion.
“What deviltry you up to now, Dud?” Blister inquired.
“Me?” The young puncher looked at him with a bland face of innocence. “Why, Blister, you sure do me wrong.”
Dud sauntered to the hitching-rack, easy, careless, graceful. He selected a horse and threw the rein over its head. The preacher was just abreast of the hotel.
The puncher swung to the saddle and brought the pony round. A wild whoop came from his throat. The roan, touched by a spur, leaped to a canter. For an instant it was side by side with Blue Streak. Then it shot down the road.
Blue Streak was off in an eyeflash. It jumped to a gallop and pounded after the roan. The Reverend Melancthon T. Browning was no rider. His feet lost the stirrups. A hymn-book went off at a wild tangent. Coat-tails flew into the air. The exponent of sweetness and light leaned forward and clung desperately to the mane, crying, “Whoa! Stop! Desist!”
But Blue Streak had no intention of desisting as long as the roan was in front. Tex Lindsay’s horse was a racer. No other animal was going to pass it. The legs of the dark horse stretched for the road. It flew past the cowpony as though the latter had been trotting. The Reverend Melancthon stuck to the saddle for dear life.
At the blacksmith shop Dud pulled up. He rode back at a road gait to the hotel. His companions greeted him with shouts of gayety.
“Where’s the parson?” some one asked.
“Between here an’ ’Frisco somewheres. He was travelin’ like he was in a hurry when I saw him last. Who pays for the drinks?”
“I do, you darned ol’ Piute,” shouted Reeves joyously. “I never will forget how the sky pilot’s coat-tails spread. You could ’a’ played checkers on ’em. D’you reckon we’d ought to send a wreckin’ crew after Melancthon T. Browning?”
“Why, no. The way he was clamped to that Blue Streak’s back you couldn’t pry him loose with a crowbar.”
“Here he c-comes now,” Blister announced.
When the home missionary reached the hotel he found a grave and decorous group of sympathizers.
“I was surely right careless, sir, to start thataway so onexpected,” Dud apologized. “I hope you didn’t get jounced up much.”
“Some one had ought to work you over for bein’ so plumb wooden-haided, Dud,” the puncher from the Keystone reproved him. “Here was Mr. Browning ridin’ along quiet an’ peaceable, figurin’ out how he could improve us Rio Blanco savages, an’ you come rip-rarin’ along an’ jar up all his geography by startin’ that fool horse of his’n.”
Dud hung his head. “Tha’s right. It was sure enough thoughtless of me,” he murmured.
The preacher looked at the offender severely. He did not yet feel quite equal to a fitting reprimand. “You see the evil effects of letting that vile stuff pass your lips. I hope this will be a lesson to you, young man. If I had not kept my presence of mind I might have been thrown and severely injured.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Dud in a small, contrite voice.
“Makin’ the preacher race on Sunday, too,” chided Reeves. “Why, I shouldn’t wonder but what it might get out an’ spread scandalous. We’ll all have to tell folks about it so’s they’ll get the right of it.”
Melancthon squirmed. He could guess how the story would be told. “We’ll say no more about it, if you please. The young man is sorry. I forgive him. His offense was inadvertent even though vexatious. If he will profit by this experience I will gladly suffer the incommodious ride.”
After the missionary had gone and the bet been liquidated, Blister drew Hollister to one side. “I’m guessin’ that when you get back to the ranch you’ll find a new rider in the bunkhouse, Dud.”
The puncher waited. He knew this was preliminary matter.
“That young fellow Bob Dillon,” explained the fat man.
“If you’re expectin’ me to throw up my hat an’ shout, Blister, I got to disappoint you,” Dud replied. “I like ’em man-size.”
“I’m p-puttin’ him in yore charge.”
“You ain’t either,” the range-rider repudiated indignantly.
“To m-make a man of him.”
“
Hell’s bells! I’m no dry nurse to fellows shy of sand. He can travel a lone trail for all of me.”
“Keep him kinda encouraged.”
“Why pick on me, Blister? I don’t want the job. He ain’t there, I tell you. Any fellow that would let another guy take his wife away from him an’ not hang his hide up to dry—No, sir, I got no manner o’ use for him. You can’t onload him on me.”
“I’ve been thinkin’ that when you are alone with him some t-time you’d better devil him into a fight, then let him whale the stuffin’ outa you. That’ll do him a l-lot of good—give him confidence.”
Hollister stared. His face broke slowly to a grin. “I got to give it to you, Blister. I’ll bet there ain’t any more like you at home. Let him lick me, eh? So’s to give him confidence. Wallop me good an’ plenty, you said, didn’t you? By gum, you sure enough take the cake.”
“Won’t hurt you any. You’ve give an’ took plenty of ’em. Think of him.”
“Think of me, come to that.”
“L-listen, Dud. That boy’s what they call c-c-constitutionally timid. There’s folks that way, born so a shadow scares ’em. But he’s s-s-sensitive as a g-girl. Don’t you make any mistake, son. He’s been eatin’ his h-heart out ever since he crawled before Houck. I like that boy. There’s good s-stuff in him. At least I’m makin’ a bet there is. Question is, will it ever get a chance to show? Inside of three months he’ll either win out or he’ll be headed for hell, an’ he won’t be travelin’ at no drift-herd gait neither.”
“Every man’s got to stand on his own hind laigs, ain’t he?” Hollister grunted. He was weakening, and he knew it.
The Fighting Edge Page 9
