CHAPTER IX
THE PILGRIM
A group of saddle-horses stood before the Headquarters saloon, and asthe Texan entered he was vociferously greeted by the twenty cowboys whocrowded the bar.
"Come on, Tex, drink up!"
"Hell'll be a-poppin' down to the wool-warehouse."
"An', time we get there we won't be able to see Sam Moore fer dust."Curly raised his glass and the cowpunchers joined in uproarious song:
"We'll string him up to a cottonwood limb An' dig his grave in under him, We'll tromp down the clods, an' we won't give a damn 'Cause he'll never kill another cow-man, Ah wi yi yippie i oo-o-!"
Without a break the Texan picked up the refrain, improvising words tofit the occasion:
"The sheriff's name, it's old Sam Moore, He's standin' down by the jail-house door With seventeen knives an' a gatlin' gun, But you bet your boots we'll make him run Ah wi yi yippie i o-o-o-!"
With whoops of approbation and a deafening chorus of yowls andcatcalls, the cowpunchers crowded through the door. A moment later thebar-room was deserted and out in the street the night air resoundedwith the sound of snorting, trampling horses, the metallic jangle ofspurs and bit chains, the creak of saddle-leather, and the terse,quick-worded observations of men mounting in the midst of the confusionof refractory horses.
"The sheriff's name, it's old Sam Moore!" roared a cowboy as he slammedinto the saddle of a skew-ball black.
"Go git him!" howled another in exact imitation of Slim Maloney.
There was a thunder of hoofs as the whole crowd, headed by Tex andCurly swept down the street and across the flat toward the impromptujail.
With a lighted lantern beside him, Sam Moore sat upon the stronglybuilt unloading platform before the warehouse door, access to which wasgained by means of a flight of six or eight plank steps at either end.Up these steps rode a couple of cowpunchers while the rest drew upsharply at the very edge of the platform. Hemmed in upon all sides thevaliant deputy glanced fearfully into the faces of the horsemen."Wha--What's up, boys? What's ailin' ye?" he managed to blurt out.
"Drop them guns an' give over the key!" commanded someone.
"Sure--sure, boys! I hain't aimin' to hurt no one. Yer all friends ofmine an' what you say goes with me."
"Friends of yourn!" roared someone menacingly; "you're a liar, Sam!You ain't never seen nary one of us before! Git that!"
"Sure, sure thing, boys, I don't know who ye be. 'Tain't none of mybusiness. I couldn't name none of you. You don't need to be scairt ofme."
"You beat it, then, an' lose yerself an' don't yer go stirrin' up norookus over to the dance, er we'll dangle you a little, too."
"Sure. I'm a-goin' now. I----"
"Fork over that key first!"
"Sure, Tex! Here it is----"
"Sure _who_!" rasped a voice close to the sheriff's ear.
"I mean--I said---- Here's the doggone key! I was thinkin' of afeller I know'd down to Wyomin'. Tex--Tex--Smith, er some such of aname it was. I mistrusted you was him, an' mebbe you be fer all Iknow. I don't savvy none of you whatever."
"Get a move on, Sam!"
"Me! I'm gone! An' you boys remember when 'lection time comes, tovote fer a sheriff that's got disgression an' common sense." And withludicrous alacrity, the deputy scrambled from the platform anddisappeared into the deep blackness of the lumber-yard.
The Texan fitted the key into the huge padlock and a moment later thedoor swung open and a dozen cowpunchers swarmed in.
"Come on, pilgrim, an' try on yer necktie!"
"We'll prob'ly have to haul down all them wool-sacks an' drag him outfrom behind 'em."
"I think not. If I am the man you want I think you will find meperfectly able to walk." The pilgrim stood leaning against one of thewooden supporting posts, and as a cowboy thrust the lantern into hisface he noted the eyes never faltered.
"Come along with us!" commanded the puncher, gruffly, as anotherstepped up and slipped the noose of a lariat-rope over his head.
"So I am to be lynched, am I?" asked the pilgrim in a matter-of-facttone, as with a cowboy on either side he was hurried across theplatform and onto a horse.
"This ain't no time to talk," growled another. "We'll give you achanct to empty yer chest 'fore we string you up."
In the moonlight the prisoner's face showed very pale, but the cow-mensaw that his lips were firmly set, and the hands that caught up thebridle reins did not falter. As the cavalcade started out upon thetrail the Texan turned back, and riding swiftly to the hotel, found Batwaiting.
"You go in to Number 11 and tell the girl you're ready to start."
"You'm mean de pilgrim's girl?"
The Texan frowned and swore under his breath: "She ain't the pilgrim'sgirl, yet--by a damn sight! You take her an' the pack horse an' hitdown the river an' cut up through old man Lee's horse ranch onto thebench. Then hit for Snake Creek crossin' an' wait for me."
The half-breed nodded, and the Texan's frown deepened as he leanedcloser. "An' you see that you get her through safe an' sound or I'llcut off them ears of yours an' stake you out in a rattlesnake den tothink it over." The man grinned and the frown faded from the Texan'sface. "You got to do me a good turn, Bat. Remember them four bits inLas Vegas!"
"A'm tak' de girl to Snake Creek crossin' a'right; you'm don' need forbe 'fraid for dat."
The cowpuncher whirled and spurred his horse to overtake the cowboyswho, with the prisoner in charge, were already well out upon the trail.
In front of the hotel the half-breed watched the flying horseman untilhe disappeared from sight.
"A'm wonder if dat girl be safe wit' him, lak' she is wit' me--_bien_.A'm t'ink mebbe-so dat damn good t'ing ol' Bat goin' long. If she damnfine girl mebbe-so Tex, he goin' mar' her. Dat be good t'ing. But, byGar! if he don' mar' her, he gon' leave her 'lone. Me--A'm lak' datTex fine, lak' me own brudder. He got de good heart. But w'en hedrink de hooch, den A'm got for look after him. He don' care wan damn'bout nuttin'. Dat four bit in Las Vegas, dats a'right. A'm fink'bout dat, too. But, by Gar, it tak' more'n four bit in Las Vegas formak' of Bat let dat girl git harm."
An atmosphere of depression pervaded the group of riders as they woundin and out of the cottonwood clumps and threaded the deep coulee thatled to the bench. For the most part they preserved an owlish silence,but now and then someone would break into a low, weird refrain and theothers would join in with the mournful strain of "The Dying Cowboy."
"Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie-e-e, Where the coyote howls and the wind blows free."
Or the dirge-like wail of the "Cowboy's Lament":
"Then swing your rope slowly and rattle your spurs lowly, And give a wild whoop as you carry me along: And in the grave throw me and roll the sod o'er me, For I'm only a cowboy that knows he's done wrong."
"Shall we take him to Lone Tree Coulee?" asked one. Another answereddisdainfully.
"Don't you know the lone tree's dead? Jest shrivelled up an' diedafter Bill Atwood was hung onto it. Some augers he worn't guilty. Butit's better to play safe, an' string up all the doubtful ones, then yerbound to git the right one onct in a while."
"Swing over into Buffalo Coulee," commanded Tex. "There's a bunch ofcottonwoods just above Hansen's old sheep ranch."
"We'll string him up to a cottonwood limb An' dig his grave in under him----"
"Shut up!" ordered Curly, favouring the singer with a scowl. "Any onewould think you was joyous-minded, which this here hangin' a man isplumb serious business, even if it hain't only a pilgrim!"
He edged his horse in beside the Texan's. "He don't seem tore up withterror, none. D'you think he's onto the racket?"
Tex shook his head, and with his eyes on the face of the prisoner whichshowed very white in the moonlight, rode on in silence.
"You mean you think he's jest nach'ly got guts--an' him a pilgrim?"
"How the hell do I know what he's got?" snapped the other. "Can
't youwait till we get to Buffalo?"
Curly allowed his horse to fall back a few paces. "First time I everknow'd Tex to pack a grouch," he mused, as his lips drew into a grin."He's sore 'cause the pilgrim hain't a-snifflin' an' a-carryin'-on an'tryin' to beg off. Gosh! If he turns out to be a reg'lar hand, an'steps up an' takes his medicine like a man, the joke'll be on Tex. Theboys never will quit joshin' him--an' he knows it. No wonder he'ssore."
The cowboys rode straight across the bench. Song and conversation hadceased and the only sounds were the low clink of bit chains and thesoft rustle of horses' feet in the buffalo grass. At the end of anhour the leaders swung into an old grass-grown trail that led bydevious windings into a deep, steep-sided coulee along the bottom ofwhich ran the bed of a dried-up creek. Water from recent rains stoodin brackish pools. Remnants of fence with rotted posts sagging fromrusty wire paralleled their course. A dilapidated cross-fence barredtheir way, and without dismounting, a cowboy loosened the wire gate andthrew it aside.
A deserted log-house, windowless, with one corner rotted away, and thesod roof long since tumbled in, stood upon a treeless bend of the drycreek. Abandoned implements littered the dooryard; a rusted hay rakewith one wheel gone, a broken mower with cutter-bar drunkenly erect,and the front trucks of a dilapidated wagon.
The Texan's eyes rested sombrely upon the remnant of a rocking-horse,still hitched by bits of weather-hardened leather to a child'swheelbarrow whose broken wheel had once been the bottom of a woodenpail--and he swore, softly.
Up the creek he could see the cottonwood grove just bursting into leafand as they rounded the corner of a long sheep-shed, whose soggy strawroof sagged to the ground, a coyote, disturbed in his prowling amongthe whitening bones of dead sheep, slunk out of sight in a weed-patch.
Entering the grove, the men halted at a point where the branches ofthree large trees interlaced. It was darker, here. The moonlightfiltered through in tiny patches which brought out the faces of the menwith grotesque distinctness and plunged them again into blackness.
Gravely the Texan edged his horse to the side of the pilgrim.
"Get off!" he ordered tersely, and Endicott dismounted.
"Tie his hands!" A cowboy caught the man's hands behind him andsecured them with a lariat-rope.
The Texan unknotted the silk muffler from about his neck and folded it.
"If it is just the same to you," the pilgrim asked, in a voice thatheld firm, "will you leave that off?"
Without a word the muffler was returned to its place.
"Throw the rope over that limb--the big one that sticks out this way,"ordered the Texan, and a cowpuncher complied.
"The knot had ort to come in under his left ear," suggested one, andproceeded to twist the noose into place.
"All ready!"
A dozen hands grasped the end of the rope.
The Texan surveyed the details critically:
"This here is a disagreeable job," he said. "Have you got anything tosay?"
Endicott took a step forward, and as he faced the Texan, his eyesflashed. "Have I got anything to say!" he sneered. "Would you haveanything to say if a bunch of half-drunken fools decided to take thelaw into their own hands and hang you for defending a woman against thebrutal attack of a fiend?" He paused and wrenched to free his handsbut the rope held firm. "It was a wise precaution you took when youordered my hands tied--a precaution that fits in well with this wholedamned cowardly proceeding. And now you ask me if I have anything tosay!" He glanced into the faces of the cowboys who seemed to beenjoying the situation hugely.
"I've got this to say--to you, and to your whole bunch of grinninghyenas: If you expect me to do any begging or whimpering, you are infor a big disappointment. There is one request I am going to make--andthat you won't grant. Just untie my hands for ten minutes and stand upto me bare-fisted. I want one chance before I go, to fight you, or anyof you, or all of you! Or, if you are afraid to fight that way, giveme a pistol--I never fired one until tonight--and let me shoot it outwith you. Surely men who swagger around with pistols in their belts,and pride themselves on the use of them, ought not to be afraid to takea chance against a man who has never but once fired one!" There was anawkward pause and the pilgrim laughed harshly: "There isn't an ounce ofsporting blood among you! You hunt in packs like the wolves youare--twenty to one--and that one with a rope around his neck and hishands tied!"
"The odds is a little against you," drawled the Texan. "Where mightyou hail from?"
"From a place where they breed men--not curs."
"Ain't you afraid to die?"
"Just order your hounds to jerk on that rope and I'll show you whetheror not I am afraid to die. But let me tell you this, you damnedmurderer! If any harm comes to that girl--to Miss Marcum--may thecurse of God follow every last one of you till you are damned in afiery hell! You will kill me now, but you won't be rid of me. I'llhaunt you every one to your graves. I will follow you night and daytill your brains snap and you go howling to hell like maniacs."
Several of the cowboys shuddered and turned away. Very deliberatelythe Texan rolled a cigarette.
"There is a box in my coat pocket, will you hand me one? Or is itagainst the rules to smoke?" Without a word the Texan complied, and ashe held a match to the cigarette he stared straight into the man'seyes: "You've started out good," he remarked gravely. "I'm justwonderin' if you can play your string out." With which enigmaticalremark he turned to the cowboys: "The drinks are on me, boys. Jerk offthat rope, an' go back to town! An' remember, this lynchin' come offas per schedule."
Alone in the cottonwood grove, with little patches of moonlightfiltering through onto the new-sprung grass, the two men faced eachother. Without a word the cowboy freed the prisoner's hands.
"Viewin' it through a lariat-loop, that way, the country looks betterto a man than what it really is," he observed, as the other stretchedhis arms above his head.
"What is the meaning of all this? The lynching would have been anatrocious injustice, but if you did not intend to hang me why shouldyou have taken the trouble to bring me out here?"
"'Twasn't no trouble at all. The main thing was to get you out of WolfRiver. The lynchin' part was only a joke, an' that's on us. You bein'a pilgrim, that way, we kind of thought----"
"A what?"
"A pilgrim, or tenderfoot, or greener or chechako, or counter-jumper,owin' to what part of the country you misfit into. We thought youwouldn't have no guts, an' we'd----"
"Any what?"
The Texan regarded the other hopelessly. "Oh hell!" he muttereddisgustedly. "Can't you talk no English? Where was you raised?"
The other laughed. "Go on, I will try to follow you."
"I can't chop 'em up no finer than one syllable. But I'll shorten upthe dose sufficient for your understandin' to grasp. It's this way:D'you know what a frame-up is?"
Endicott nodded.
"Well, Choteau County politics is in such a condition of onwee that ahangin' would be a reg'lar tonic for the party that's in; which it'skind of bogged down into an old maid's tea party. Felonioustakin's-off has be'n common enough, but there hasn't no hangin'sresulted, for the reason that in every case the hangee has got friendsor relations of votin' influence. Now, along comes you without novotin' connections an' picks off Purdy, which he's classed amongsthuman bein's, an' is therefore felonious to kill. There ain't nothin'to it. They'd be poundin' away on the scaffold an' testin' the ropewhile the trial was goin' on. Besides which you'd have to linger in acrummy jail for a couple of months waitin' for the grand jury to set onyou. A few of us boys seen how things was framed an' we took theliberty to turn you loose, not because we cared a damn about you, butwe'd hate to see even a snake hung fer killin' Purdy which his folksdone a wrong to humanity by raisin' him.
"The way the thing is now, if the boys plays the game accordin' toHoyle, there won't be no posses out huntin' you 'cause folks will allthink you was lynched. But even if they is a posse
or two, which thechances is there will be, owin' to the loosenin' effect of spiritoriouslicker on the tongue, which it will be indulged in liberal when thatbunch hits town, we can slip down into the bad lands an' lay low for awhile, an' then on to the N. P. an' you can get out of the country."
Endicott extended his hand: "I thank you," he said. "It is certainlywhite of you boys to go out of your way to help a perfect stranger. Ihave no desire to thrust my neck into a noose to further the ends ofpolitics. One experience of the kind is quite sufficient."
"Never mind oratin' no card of thanks. Just you climb up into themiddle of that bronc an' we'll be hittin' the trail. We got quite someridin' to do before we get to the bad lands--an' quite some after."
Endicott reached for the bridle reins of his horse which was croppinggrass a few feet distant.
"But Alice--Miss Marcum!" With the reins in his hand he faced theTexan. "I must let her know I am safe. She will think I have beenlynched and----"
"She's goin' along," interrupted the Texan, gruffly.
"Going along!"
"Yes, she was bound to see you through because what you done was on heraccount. Bat an' her'll be waitin' for us at Snake Creek crossin'."
"Who is Bat?"
"He's a breed."
"A what?"
"Wait an' see!" growled Tex. "Come on; we can't set here 'til you geteducated. You'd ought to went to school when you was young."
Endicott reached for a stirrup and the horse leaped sidewise with asnort of fear. Again and again the man tried to insert a foot into thebroad wooden stirrup, but always the horse jerked away. Round andround in a circle they went, while the Texan sat in his saddle androlled a cigarette.
"Might try the other one," he drawled, as he struck a match. "Don'tyou know no better than to try to climb onto a horse on the right-handside? You must of be'n brought up on G-Dots."
"What's a G-Dot?"
"There you go again. Do I look like a school-marm? A G-Dot is anInjun horse an' you can get on 'em from both sides or endways. Comeon; Snake Creek crossin' is a good fifteen miles from here, an' webetter pull out of this coulee while the moon holds."
Endicott managed to mount, and gathering up the reins urged his horseforward. But the animal refused to go and despite the man's utmostefforts, backed farther and farther into the brush.
"Just shove on them bridle reins a little," observed the Texan dryly."I think he's swallerin' the bit. What you got him all yanked in for?D'you think the head-stall won't hold the bit in? Or ain't his mouthcut back far enough to suit you? These horses is broke to be rode witha loose rein. Give him his head an' he'll foller along."
A half-mile farther up the coulee, the Texan headed up a ravine thatled to the level of the bench, and urging his horse into a longswinging trot, started for the mountains. Mile after mile they rode,the cowboy's lips now and then drawing into their peculiar smile as,out of the corner of his eye he watched the vain efforts of hiscompanion to maintain a firm seat in the saddle. "He's game, though,"he muttered, grudgingly. "He rides like a busted wind-mill an' it mustbe just tearin' hell out of him but he never squawks. An' the way hetook that hangin'---- If he'd be'n raised right he'd sure made sometough hand. An' pilgrim or no pilgrim, the guts is there."
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