Allen returned to the edge of the clearing, where he communicated to his men the result of the conference.
“He ain’t allowing that he wants to be disturbed just now,” he told them. “And he’s too damned polite to monkey with. We’ll wait. Likely he’ll change his mind over-night.”
“Wait nothing,” growled Duncan. “Bust the door in!”
Allen grinned mildly. “Good advice,” he said quietly. “Me and my men will set here while you do the busting. Don’t imagine that we’ll be sore because you take the lead in such a little matter as that.”
“If I was the sheriff—” began Duncan.
“Sure,” interrupted Allen with a dry laugh; “if you was the sheriff. There’s a lot of things we’d do if we was somebody else. Maybe breaking down Dakota’s door is one of them. But we don’t want anyone killed if we can help it, and it’s a dead sure thing that some one would cash in if we tried any monkey business with that door. If you’re wanting to do something that amounts to something to help this game along, swap your cayuse for one of Dakota’s and hit the breeze to the Double R for grub. We’ll be needing it by the time you get back.”
Duncan had already ridden over sixty miles within the past twenty-four hours, and he made a grumbling rejoinder. But in the end he roped one of Dakota’s horses, saddled it, and presently vanished in the darkness. Allen and his men built a fire near the edge of the clearing and rolled into their blankets.
At eight o’clock the following morning, Langford appeared on the river trail, leading a pack horse loaded with provisions and cooking utensils for the sheriff and his men. Duncan, Langford told Allen while they breakfasted, had sought his bunk, being tired from the day’s activities.
“You’re the owner of the Double R?” questioned Allen.
“You and Dakota friendly?” he questioned again, noting Langford’s nod.
“We’ve been quite friendly,” smiled Langford.
“But you ain’t now?”
“Not since this has happened. We must have law and order, even at the price of friendship.”
Allen squinted a mildly hostile eye at Langford. “That’s a good principle to get back of—for a weak-kneed friendship. But most men who have got friends wouldn’t let a little thing like law and order interfere between them.”
Langford reddened. “I haven’t known Dakota long of course,” he defended. “Perhaps I erred in saying we were friends. Acquaintances would better describe it I think.”
Allen’s eye narrowed again with an emotion that Langford could not fathom. “I always had a heap of faith in Dakota’s judgment,” he said. And then, when Langford’s face flushed with a realization of the subtle insult, Allen said gruffly:
“You say Doubler’s dead?”
“I don’t remember to have said that to you,” returned Langford, his voice snapping with rage. “What I did say was that Duncan saw him killed and came to me with the news. I sent him for you. Since then my daughter has been over to Doubler’s cabin. He is quite dead, she reported,” he lied. “There can be no doubt of his guilt, if that is what bothers you,” he continued. “Duncan saw him shoot Doubler in the back with Doubler’s own rifle, and my daughter heard the shot and met Dakota coming from Doubler’s cabin, immediately after. It’s a clear case, it seems to me.”
“Yes, clear,” said Allen. “The evidence is all against him.”
Yet it was not all quite clear to Langford. To be sure, he had expected to receive news that Dakota had accomplished the destruction of Doubler, but he had not anticipated the fortunate appearance of Duncan at the nester’s cabin during the commission of the murder, nor had he expected Sheila to be near the scene of the crime. It had turned out better than he had planned, for since he had burned the agreement that he had made with Dakota, the latter had no hold on him whatever, and if it were finally proved that he had committed the crime there would come an end to both Dakota and Doubler.
Only one thing puzzled him. Dakota had been to his place, he knew that he was charged with the murder and that the agreement had been burned. He also knew that Duncan and Sheila would bear witness against him. And yet, though he had had an opportunity to escape, he had not done so. Why not?
He put this interrogation to Allen, carefully avoiding reference to anything which would give the sheriff any idea that he possessed any suspicion that Dakota was not really guilty.
“That’s what’s bothering me!” declared the latter. “He’s had time enough to hit the breeze clear out of the Territory. Though,” he added, squinting at Langford, “Dakota ain’t never been much on the run. He’d a heap rather face the music. Damn the cuss!” he exploded impatiently.
He finished his breakfast in silence, and then again approached the door of Dakota’s cabin, knocking loudly, as before.
“I’m wanting that palaver now, Dakota,” he said coaxingly.
He heard Dakota laugh. “Have you viewed the corpse, Allen?” came his voice, burdened with mockery.
“No,” said Allen.
“You’re a hell of a sheriff—wanting to take a man when you don’t know whether he’s done anything.”
“I reckon you ain’t fooling me none,” said Allen slowly. “The evidence is dead against you.”
“What evidence?”
“Duncan saw you fixing Doubler, and Langford’s daughter met you coming from his cabin.”
“Who told you that?”
“Langford. He’s just brought some grub over.”
The silence that followed Allen’s words lasted long, and the sheriff fidgeted impatiently. When he again spoke there was the sharpness of intolerance in his voice.
“If talking to you was all I had to do, I might monkey around here all summer,” he said. “I’ve give you about eight hours to think this thing over, and that’s plenty long enough. I don’t like to get into any gun argument with you, because I know that somebody will get hurt. Why in hell don’t you surrender decently? I’m a friend of yours and you hadn’t ought to want to make any trouble for me. And them’s good boys that I’ve got over there and I wouldn’t want to see any of them perforated. And I’d hate like blazes to have to put you out of business. Why don’t you act decent and come out like a man?”
“Go and look at the corpse,” insisted Dakota.
“There’ll be plenty of time to look at the corpse after you’re took.”
There was no answer. Allen sighed regretfully. “Well,” he said presently, “I’ve done what I could. From now on, I’m looking for you.”
“Just a minute, Allen,” came Dakota’s voice. To Allen’s surprise he heard a fumbling at the fastenings of the door, and an instant later it swung open and Dakota stood in the opening, one of his six-shooters in hand.
“I reckon I know you well enough to be tolerably sure that you’ll get me before you leave here,” he said, as Allen wheeled and faced him, his arms folded over his chest as a declaration of his present peaceful intentions. “But I want you to get this business straight before anything is started. And then you’ll be responsible. I’m giving it to you straight. Somebody’s framed up on me. I didn’t shoot Doubler. When I left him he was cleaning his rifle. After I left him I heard shooting. I thought it was him trying his rifle, or I would have gone back.
“Then I met Sheila Langford on the river trail, near the cabin. She’d heard the shooting, too. She thinks I did it. You think I did it, and Duncan says he saw me do it. Doubler isn’t dead. At least he wasn’t dead when I left the doctor with him at sundown. But he wasn’t far from it, and if he dies without coming to it’s likely that things will look bad for me. But because I knew he wasn’t dead I took a chance on staying here. I am not allowing that I’m going to let anyone hang me for a thing I didn’t do, and so if you’re determined to get me without making sure that Doubler’s going to have mourners immediately, it’s a dead sure thing that some one’s going to get hurt. I reckon that’s all. I’ve given you fair warning, and after you get back to the edge of the clearing our frie
ndship don’t count any more.”
He stepped back and closed the door.
Allen walked slowly toward the clearing, thinking seriously. He said nothing to Langford or his men concerning his conversation with Dakota, and though he covertly questioned the former he could discover nothing more than that which the Double R owner had already told him. Several times during the morning he was on the point of planning an attack on the cabin, but Dakota’s voice had a ring of truth in it and he delayed action, waiting for some more favorable turn of events.
And so the hours dragged. The men lounged in the shade of the trees and talked; Langford—though he had no further excuse for staying—remained, concealing his impatience over Allen’s inaction by taking short rides, but always returning; Allen, taciturn, morose even, paid no attention to him.
The afternoon waned; the sun descended to the peaks of the mountains, and there was still inaction on Allen’s part, still silence from the cabin. Just at sundown Allen called his men to him and told them to guard the cabin closely, not to shoot unless forced by Dakota, but to be certain that he did not escape.
He said they might expect him to return by dawn of the following morning. Then, during Langford’s absence on one of his rides, he loped his pony up the river trail toward Ben Doubler’s cabin.
CHAPTER XVII
DOUBLER TALKS
After the departure of the doctor Sheila entered the cabin and closed the door, fastening the bars and drawing a chair over near the table. Doubler seemed to be resting easier, though there was a flush in his cheeks that told of the presence of fever. However, he breathed more regularly and with less effort than before the coming of the doctor, and as a consequence, Sheila felt decidedly better. At intervals during the night she gave him quantities of the medicine which the doctor had left, but only when the fever seemed to increase, forcing the liquid through his lips. Several times she changed the bandages, and once or twice during the night when he moaned she pulled her chair over beside him and smoothed his forehead, soothing him. When the dawn came it found her heavy eyed and tired.
She went to the river and procured fresh water, washed her hands and face, prepared a breakfast of bacon and soda biscuit—which she found in a tin box in a corner of the cabin, and then, as Doubler seemed to be doing nicely, she saddled her pony and took a short gallop. Returning, she entered the cabin, to find Doubler tossing restlessly.
She gave him a dose of the medicine—an extra large one—but it had little effect, quieting him only momentarily. Evidently he was growing worse. The thought aroused apprehension in her mind, but she fought it down and stayed resolutely at the sick man’s side.
Through the slow-dragging hours of the morning she sat beside him, giving him the best care possible under the circumstances, but in spite of her efforts the fever steadily rose, and at noon he sat suddenly up in the bunk and gazed at her with blazing, vacuous eyes.
“You’re a liar!” he shouted. “Dakota’s square!”
Sheila stifled a scream of fear and shrank from him. But recovering, she went to him, seizing his shoulders and forcing him back into the bunk. He did not resist, not seeming to pay any attention to her at all, but he mumbled, inexpressively:
“It ain’t so, I tell you. He’s just left me, an’ any man which could talk like he talked to me ain’t—I reckon not,” he said, shaking his head with a vigorous, negative motion; “you’re a heap mistaken—you ain’t got him right at all.”
He was quiet for a time after this, but toward the middle of the afternoon Sheila saw that his gaze was following her as she paced softly back and forth in the cabin.
“So you’re stuck on that Langford girl, are you?” he demanded, laughing. “Well, it won’t do you any good, Dakota, she’s—well, she’s some sore at you for something. She won’t listen to anything which is said about you.” The laughter died out of his eyes; they became cold with menace. “I ain’t listenin’ to any more of that sorta talk, I tell you! I’ve got my eyes open. Why!” he said in surprise, starting up, “he’s gone!” He suddenly shuddered and cursed. “In the back,” he said. “You—you—” And profanity gushed from his lips. Then he collapsed, closing his eyes, and lay silent and motionless.
Out of the jumble of disconnected sentences Sheila was able to gather two things of importance—perhaps three.
The first was that some one had told him of Dakota’s complicity in the plan to murder him and that he refused to believe his friend capable of such depravity. The second was that he knew who had shot him; he also knew the man who had informed him of Dakota’s duplicity—though this knowledge would amount to very little unless he recovered enough to be able to supply the missing threads.
Sheila despaired of him supplying anything, for it seemed that he was steadily growing worse, and when the dusk came she began to feel a dread of remaining with him in the cabin during the night. If only the doctor would return! If Dakota would come—Duncan, her father, anybody! But nobody came, and the silence around the cabin grew so oppressive that she felt she must scream. When darkness succeeded dusk she lighted the kerosene lamp, placed a bar over the window, secured the door fastenings, and seated herself at the table, determined to take a short nap.
It seemed that she had scarcely dropped off to sleep—though in reality she had been unconscious for more than two hours—when she awoke suddenly, to see Doubler sitting erect in the bunk, watching her with a wan, sympathetic smile. There was the light of reason in his eyes and her heart gave an ecstatic leap.
“Could you give me a drink of water, ma’am?” he said, in the voice that she knew well.
She sprang to the pail, to find that it contained very little. She had lifted it, and was about to unfasten the door, intending to go to the river to procure fresh water, when Doubler’s voice arrested her.
“There’s some water there—I can hear it splashin’: It’ll do well enough just now. I don’t want much. You can get some fresh after a while. I want to talk to you.”
She placed the pail down and went over to him, standing beside him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“How long have you been here? I knowed you was here all the time—I kept seein’ you, but somehow things was a little mixed. But I know that you’ve been here quite a while. How long?”
“This is the second night.”
“You found me layin’ there—in the door. I dropped there, not bein’ able to go any further. I felt you touchin’ me—draggin’ me. There was someone else here, too. Who was it?”
“The doctor and Dakota.”
“Where’s Dakota now?”
“At his cabin, I suppose. He didn’t stay here long—he left right after he brought the doctor. I imagine you know why he didn’t stay. He was afraid that you would recognize him and accuse him.”
“Accuse him of what, ma’am?”
“Of shooting you.”
He smiled. “I reckon, ma’am, that you don’t understand. It wasn’t Dakota that shot me.”
“Who did, then?” she questioned eagerly. “Who?”
“Duncan.”
“Why—why—” she said, sitting suddenly erect, a mysterious elation filling her, her eyes wide with surprise and delight, and a fear that Doubler might have been mistaken—“Why, I saw Dakota on the river trail just after you were shot.”
“He’d just left me. He hadn’t been gone more than ten minutes or so when Duncan rode up—comin’ out of the timber just down by the crick. Likely he’d been hidin’ there. I was cleanin’ my rifle; we had words, and when I set my rifle down just outside the shack, he grabbed it an’ shot me. After that I don’t seem to remember a heap, except that someone was touchin’ me—which must have been you.”
“Oh!” she said. “I am so glad!”
She was thinking now of Dakota’s parting words to her the night before on the crest of the slope above the river,—of his words, of the truth of his statement denying his guilt, and she was glad that she had not spoken some of the spitef
ul things which had been in her mind. How she had misjudged him!
“I reckon it’s something to be glad for,” smiled Doubler, misunderstanding her elation, “but I reckon I owe it to you—I’d have pulled my freight sure, if you hadn’t come when you did. An’ I told you not to be comin’ here any more.” He laughed. “Ain’t it odd how things turn out—sometimes. I’d have died sure,” he repeated.
“You are going to live a long while,” she said. And then, to his surprise, she bent over and kissed his forehead, leaving his side instantly, her cheeks aflame, her eyes alight with a mysterious fire. To conceal her emotion from Doubler she seized the water pail.
“I will get some fresh water,” she said, with a quick, smiling glance at him. “You’ll want a fresh drink, and your bandages must be changed.”
She opened the door and stepped down into the darkness.
There was a moon, and the trail to the river was light enough for her to see plainly, but when she reached the timber clump in which Doubler had said Duncan had been hiding, she shuddered and made a detour to avoid passing close to it. This took her some distance out of her way, and she reached the river and walked along its bank for a little distance, searching for a deep accessible spot into which she could dip the pail.
The shallow crossing over which she had ridden many times was not far away, and when she stooped to fill the pail she heard a sudden clatter and splashing, and looked up to see a horseman riding into the water from the opposite side of the river.
He saw her at the instant she discovered him, and once over the ford he turned his horse and rode directly toward her.
After gaining the bank he halted his pony and looked intently at her.
“You’re Langford’s daughter, I reckon,” he said.
“Yes,” she returned, seeing that he was a stranger; “I am.”
“I’m Ben Allen,” he said shortly; “the sheriff of this county. What are you doing here?”
“I am taking care of Ben Doubler,” she said; “he has been—”
“Then he ain’t dead, of course,” said Allen, interrupting her. It seemed to Sheila that there was relief and satisfaction in his voice, and she peered closer at him, but his face was hidden in the shadow of his hat brim.
The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Page 173
