The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  The shades were down, partly concealing heavy wooden blinds—which were closed. And the only light in the room was that which came from a little square window high up in the side wall.

  Before Carrington could regain his balance Taylor had entered the room. He closed the door behind him, placed his back against it, locked it, and grinned felinely at the big man.

  “Your men are coming, Carrington,” he said—“hear them?” In the silence that followed his words both stood, listening to the beat of hoofs near the house. “They’ll be trying to get in here in a minute,” went on Taylor. “But before they get in I’m going to knock your head off!” And without further warning he was upon Carrington, striking bitterly.

  It seemed to Carrington that the man was endowed with a savage strength entirely out of proportion to his stature, and that he was able to start terrific, deadening blows from any angle. For though Carrington was a strong man and had had some fighting experience, he could neither evade Taylor’s blows nor stand against the impact of them.

  He went reeling around the room under the impetus of Taylor’s terrible rushes, struggling to defend himself, to dodge, to clinch, to evade somehow the fists that were flying at him from all directions. He could not get an instant’s respite in which to set himself. Three times in succession he was knocked down so heavily that the house shook with the crash of his body striking the floor, and each time when he got to his feet he tried to fight Taylor off in an endeavor to set himself for a blow. But he could not. He was knocked against the walls of the room, and hammered away from them with stiff, jolty, venomous blows that jarred him from head to heels. He tried vainly to cover up—with his arms locked about his head he crouched and tried to rush Taylor off his feet, knowing he was stronger than the other, and that his only hope was in clinching. But Taylor held him off with savage uppercuts and terrific short-arm swings that smashed his lips.

  He began to mutter in a whining, vicious monotone; twice he kicked at Taylor, and twice he was knocked down as a punishment for his foul methods. Finding his methods ineffectual, and discovering that covering his face with his arms did not materially lessen the punishment he was receiving, he began to stand up straight, taking blows in an effort to land one.

  But Taylor eluded him; Carrington’s blows did not land. Raging and muttering, roaring with impotent passion, he whipped the air with his arms, almost jerking them out of their sockets.

  Stiff and taut, his muscles accommodating themselves to every demand he made on them, and in perfect coordination with his brain—and the purpose of his brain to inflict upon Carrington the maximum of punishment for his dastardly attack on Marion Harlan—Taylor worked fast and furiously. For he heard Carrington’s three men in the next room; he heard them try the door; heard them call to Carrington.

  And then, convinced that the fight must be ended quickly, before the men should break down the door and have him at a disadvantage, Taylor finished it. He smothered Carrington with a succession of stiff-arm, straight punches that glazed the other’s eyes and sent him reeling around the room. And, at last, over in a corner near the little window, Carrington went down flat on his back, his eyes closed, his arms flung wide.

  Panting from his exertions, Taylor drew his guns and ran to one of the front windows. They opened upon the porch, and, peering through the blinds, Taylor saw one of the men standing at one of the windows, trying to peer into the room. The other two, Taylor knew, were at the door—he could hear them talking in the silence that had followed the final falling of Carrington.

  With a gun in each hand, Taylor approached the door. He was compelled to sheath one of the guns, finding that it interfered with the turning of the key in the lock; and he had sheathed it and was slowly turning the key, intending to throw the door open suddenly and take his chance with the two men on the other side of it, when he saw a shadow darken the little window above where Carrington lay.

  He wheeled quickly, saw a man’s face at the window, caught the glint of a pistol. He snapped a shot at the man, swinging his gun over his head to keep it from striking the door as he turned. But at the movement the man’s pistol roared, glass tinkling on the floor with the report. The air in the room rocked with the explosion of Taylor’s pistol, but a heavy blow on Taylor’s left shoulder, accompanied by a twinge of pain, as though a white-hot iron had suddenly been plunged through it, spoiled Taylor’s aim, and his bullet went into the ceiling. As he staggered back from the door he saw the man’s face at the window, set in a triumphant grin. Then, as Taylor flattened against the wall to steady himself for another shot, the face disappeared.

  For an instant Taylor rested against the wall, his arms outstretched along it to keep himself from falling, for the bullet which had struck him had hurt him badly. The wound was in the left shoulder, though, and high, and therefore not dangerous, yet he knew it had robbed his left arm of most of its strength—there was no feeling in the fingers that groped along the wall.

  He stepped again to the door and softly turned the key in the lock. He heard no sound in the room beyond the door, and, thinking that the men, curious over the shooting, had gone outside, he jerked the door open.

  The movement was greeted with deafening report and a smoke-streak that blinded Taylor momentarily. In just the instant before the smoke-streak Taylor had caught a glimpse of a man standing near the center of the room beyond the door, and though he was rather disconcerted by the powder-flash and the searing of his left cheek by a bullet, he let his own gun off twice in as many seconds, and had the grim satisfaction of seeing the man stagger and tumble headlong to the floor.

  Taylor peered once at the man, to see if he needed further attention, decided he did not, and ran toward the front door, which opened upon the porch.

  He was just in time to see one of Carrington’s men sticking his head around a corner of the house. It was the man who had shot him from the little window. Taylor’s gun and the man’s roared simultaneously. Taylor had missed, for the man dodged back, and Taylor staggered, for the man’s bullet had struck him in the left thigh. He leaped, though limping, toward the corner, and when almost there a pistol crashed behind him, the bullet hitting his left shoulder, near where the other had gone in, the force of it spinning him clear around, so that he reeled and brought up against a porch column where it joined the rail.

  Grimly setting himself, grinning bitterly with the realization that the men had him between them, Taylor stood momentarily, fighting to overcome the terrible weakness that had stolen over him. His knees were trembling, the house, trees, and sky were agitated in sickening convolutions, and yet when he saw the head of a man appear from around a corner of the house at his right, he snapped a shot at it, and instantly as it was withdrawn he staggered to the corner, lurching heavily as he went, and turning just as he reached it to reply to a shot sent at him from the other corner of the house.

  A smoke-spurt met him as he reeled around the corner nearest him, and his knees sagged as he aimed his gun at a blurring figure in front of him. He saw the man go down, but his own strength was spent, and he knew the last bullet had struck him in a vital spot.

  Staggering drunkenly, he started for the side of the house and brought up against it with a crash. Again, as he had done inside the house, he stretched his arms out, flattening himself against the wall, but this time the arms were hanging more limply.

  He was seeing things through a crimson haze, and raising a hand, he wiped his eyes—and could see better, though there was a queer dimness in his vision and the world was still traveling in eccentric circles.

  He saw a blur in front of him—two men, he thought, though he knew he had accounted for two of the three gunmen who had followed him to the house. Then he heard a laugh—coarse and brutal—in a voice that he knew—Carrington’s.

  With heartbreaking effort he brought up his right hand, bearing the pistol. He was trying to swing it around to bring it to bear upon one of the two dancing figures in front of him, when a crushing blow landed on
his head, and he knew one of the men had struck him with a fist. He felt his own weapon go off at last—it seemed he had been an age pressing on the trigger—and he heard a voice again—Carrington’s—saying: “Damn him; he’s shot me!” He laughed aloud as a gun roared close to him; he felt another twinge of pain somewhere around where the other twinges had come—or on the other side—he did not know; and he sank slowly, still pressing the trigger of his pistol, though not knowing whether or not he was doing any damage. And then the eccentrically whirling world became a black blur, soundless and void.

  CHAPTER XXI

  A MAN FACES DEATH

  Taylor’s last shot, when he had been automatically pressing the trigger after Carrington had struck him viciously with his fist, had brought down the last of the three men who had ambushed him. And one of his last bullets had struck Carrington, who had recovered consciousness and staggered out of the house in time to see the end of the fight. And the big man, in a black, malignant fury of hatred, was staggering toward Taylor, lifting a foot to kick him, when from the direction of the clearing in front of the house came a voice, hoarse and vibrant with a cold, deadly rage:

  “One kick an’ I blow the top of your head off!” Carrington stopped short and wheeled, to face Ben Mullarky.

  The Irishman’s eyes were blazing with wrath, and as he came forward, peering at the figures lying on the ground near the house, Carrington retreated, holding up his hands.

  “Three of ye pilin’ on one, eh?” said Mullarky as he looked down at Taylor, huddled against the side of the house. “An’ ye got him, too, didn’t ye? I’ve a domn big notion to blow the top of your head off, anny way. Ye slope, ye big limb of the divvle, or I’ll do it!”

  Mullarky watched while Carrington mounted his horse and rode up the river trail toward Dawes, and the instant Carrington was out of sight, Mullarky was down on his knees beside Taylor, taking a lightning inventory of his wounds.

  “Four of them, looks like!” he muttered thickly, his voice shaking with pity for the slack, limp, smoke-blackened figure that lay silent, the trace of a smile on its face. “An’ two of them through the shoulder!” He paused, awed. “Lord, what a shindy!”

  Then, swiftly gulping down his sympathy and his rage, Mullarky ran to his horse, which he had left at the edge of the wood when he had heard the shooting. He led the animal back to where Taylor lay, tenderly lifted Taylor in his arms, walked to the horse, and after much labor got Taylor up in front of him on the horse, Taylor’s weight resting on his legs, the man’s head and shoulders resting against him, to ease the jars of the journey.

  Then he started, traveling as swiftly as possible down the big slope toward his own house, not so very far away.

  Spotted Tail, jealously watching his master, saw him lifted to the back of the other horse. Shrewdly suspecting that all was not going well, and that his master would need him presently, Spotted Tail trotted after Mullarky.

  In this manner, with Spotted Tail a few paces in his rear, Mullarky, still tenderly carrying his burden, reached his cabin.

  He stilled Mrs. Mullarky’s hysterical questions with a short command:

  “Hitch up the buckboard while I’m gettin’ him in shape!”

  And then, while Mrs. Mullarky did as she was bidden, Mullarky carried Taylor inside the cabin, bathed his wounds, stanching the flow of blood as best he could—and came out again, carrying Taylor, and placed him in the bed of the light spring-wagon, upon some quilts—and upon a pillow that Mrs. Mullarky ran into the house to get, emerging with the reproach:

  “You’d be lettin’ him ride on them hard boards!”

  Following Mullarky’s instructions, Mrs. Mullarky climbed to the driver’s seat and sent the buckboard toward the Arrow, driving as fast as she thought she dared. And Ben Mullarky, on Spotted Tail, turned his face toward Dawes, riding as he had never ridden before.

  * * * *

  Parsons had reached the Arrow shortly after Taylor had departed for Dawes. The man had stopped at the Mullarky cabin to inquire the way from the lady, and she had frankly commented upon Parsons’ battered appearance.

  “So it was Carrington that mauled you, eh?” she said. “Well, he’s a mighty evil man—the divvle take his sowl!”

  Parsons concurred in this view of Carrington, though he did not tell Mrs. Mullarky so. He went on his way, refusing the good woman’s proffer of a horse, for he wanted to go afoot to the Arrow. He felt sure of Marion’s sympathy, but he wanted to make himself as pitiable an object as possible. And as he walked toward the Arrow he mentally dramatized the moment of his appearance at the ranchhouse—a bruised and battered figure dragging itself wearily forward, dusty, thirst-tortured, and despairing. He knew that spectacle would win the girl’s swift sympathy. The fact that the girl herself had been through almost the same experience did not affect him at all—he did not even think of it.

  And when Parsons reached the Arrow the scene was even as he had dreamed it—Marion Harlan had seen him from afar, and came running to him, placing an arm about him, helping him forward, whispering words of sympathy in his ears, so that Parsons really began to look upon himself as a badly abused martyr.

  Marion cared for him tenderly, once she got him into the ranchhouse. She bathed his bruised face, prepared breakfast for him, and later, learning from him that he had not slept during the night, she sent him off to bed, asking him as he went into the room if he had seen Ben Mullarky.

  “For,” she added, “he came here early this morning, after Mr. Taylor left, and I sent him to the big house to get some things for me.”

  But Parsons had not seen Mullarky.

  And at last, when the morning was nearly gone, and Marion saw a horse-drawn vehicle approaching the Arrow from the direction of Dawes, she ran out, thinking Ben Mullarky had brought her “things” in his buckboard. But it was not Ben who was coming, but Mrs. Mullarky. The lady’s face was very white and serious, and when the girl came close and she saw the look on the good woman’s face, she halted in her tracks and stood rigid, her own face paling.

  “Why, Mrs. Mullarky, what has happened?”

  “Enough, deary.” Mrs. Mullarky waved an eloquent hand toward the rear of the buckboard, and slowly approaching, the girl saw the huddled figure lying there, swathed in quilts.

  She drew her breath sharply, and with pallid face, swaying a little, she walked to the rear of the buckboard and stood, holding hard to the rim of a wheel, looking down at Taylor’s face with its closed eyes and its ghastly color.

  She must have screamed, then, for she felt Mrs. Mullarky’s arms around her, and she heard the lady’s voice, saying: “Don’t, deary; he ain’t dead, yet—an’ he won’t die—we won’t let him die.”

  She stood there by the buckboard for a time—until Mrs. Mullarky, running to one of the outbuildings, returned with Bud Hemmingway. Then, nerved to the ordeal by Bud’s businesslike methods, and the awful profanity that gushed from his clenched teeth, she helped them carry Taylor into the house.

  They took Taylor into his own room and laid him on the bed; a long, limp figure, pitifully shattered, lying very white and still.

  The girl stayed in the room while Mrs. Mullarky and Bud ran hither and thither getting water, cloths, stimulants, and other indispensable articles. And during one of their absences the girl knelt beside the bed, and resting her head close to Taylor’s—with her hands stroking his blackened face—she whispered:

  “O Lord, save him—save him for—for me!”

  CHAPTER XXII

  LOOKING FOR TROUBLE

  Before night the Arrow outfit, led by Bothwell, the range boss, came into the ranchhouse. For the news had reached them—after the manner in which all news travels in the cow-country—by word of mouth—and they had come in—all those who could be spared—to determine the truth of the rumor.

  There were fifteen of them, rugged, capable-looking fellows; and despite the doctor’s objections, they filed singly, though noiselessly, into Taylor’s room and silently looked d
own upon their “boss.” Marion, watching them from a corner of the room, noted their quick gulps of pity, their grim faces, the savage gleams that came into their eyes, and she knew they were thinking of vengeance upon the men who had wrought the injury to their employer.

  Bothwell—big, grim, and deliberate of manner—said nothing as he looked down into his chief’s face. But later, outside the house, listening to Bud Hemmingway’s recital of how Taylor had been brought to the ranchhouse, Bothwell said shortly:

  “I’m takin’ a look!”

  Shortly afterward, followed by every man of the outfit who had ridden in with him, Bothwell crossed the big basin and sent his horse up the long slope to the big house.

  Outside they came upon the bodies of the two men with whom Taylor had fought. And inside the house they saw the other huddled on the floor near a door in the big front room. Silently the men filed through the house, looking into all the rooms, and noting the wreck and ruin that had been wrought. They saw the broken glass of the little window through which one of Carrington’s men had fired the first shot; they noted the hole in the ceiling—caused by a bullet from Taylor’s pistol; and they saw another hole in the wall near the door beside which Taylor had been standing just before he had swung the door open.

  “Three of them—an’ Carrington—accordin’ to what Bud says,” said Bothwell. “That’s four.” He smiled bitterly. “They got him all right—almost, I reckon. But from the looks of things they must have had a roarin’ picnic doin’ it!”

  Not disturbing anything, the entire outfit mounted and rode swiftly down the Dawes trail, their hearts swelling with sympathy for Taylor and passionate hatred for Carrington, “itching for a clean-up,” as one sullen-looking member of the outfit described his feelings.

  But there was no “clean-up.” When they reached Dawes they found the town quiet—and men who saw them gave them plenty of room and forebore to argue with them. For it was known that they were reckless, hardy spirits when the mood came upon them, and that they worshiped Taylor.