The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crooked Trails and Straight, by William MacLeod Raine and D. C. Hutchison This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Crooked Trails and Straight Author: William MacLeod Raine D. C. Hutchison Release Date: October 13, 2008 [EBook #26911] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT *** Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THIS SLENDER GIRL DUMFOUNDED THEM Frontispiece Page 41 CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT BY WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE AUTHOR OF BRAND BLOTTERS, BUCKY O’CONNOR, MAVERICKS, WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, A TEXAS RANGER, etc. ILLUSTRATIONS BY D. C. HUTCHISON GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Made in the United States of America Copyright, 1913, by G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY Crooked Trails and Straight CONTENTS PART I CURLY CHAPTER PAGE I. Following a Crooked Trail 9 II. Camping with Old Man Trouble 23 III. At the End of the Road 33 IV. The Cullisons 49 V. Laura London 60 VI. A Bear Trap 74 VII. Bad Medicine 84 VIII. A Rehearsed Quarrel 94 IX. Eavesdropping 110 PART II LUCK X. “Stick to Your Saddle” 131 I. At the Round Up Club 143 II. Luck Meets an Old Acquaintance 151 III. An Initialed Hat 157 IV. Kate Uses Her Quirt 169 V. “Ain’t She the Gamest Little Thoroughbred?” 178 VI. Two Hats On A Rack 194 VII. Anonymous Letters 200 VIII. A Message in Cipher 213 IX. “The Friends of L. C. Serve Notice” 220 X. Cass Fendrick Makes a Call 233 XI. A Compromise 245 XII. An Arrest 254 XIII. A Conversation 265 XIV. A Touch of the Third Degree 270 XV. Bob Takes a Hand 282 XVI. A Clean Up 294 XVII. The Prodigal Son 312 XVIII. Cutting Trail 316 XIX. A Good Samaritan 323 XX. Loose Threads 337 Crooked Trails and Straight PART I CURLY CHAPTER I FOLLOWING A CROOKED TRAIL Across Dry Valley a dust cloud had been moving for hours. It rolled into Saguache at the brisk heels of a bunch of horses just about the time the town was settling itself to supper. At the intersection of Main and La Junta streets the cloud was churned to a greater volume and density. From out of the heart of it cantered a rider, who swung his pony as on a half dollar, and deflected the remuda toward Chunn’s corral. The rider was in the broad-rimmed felt hat, the gray shirt, the plain leather chaps of a vaquero. The alkali dust of Arizona lay thick on every exposed inch of him, but youth bloomed inextinguishably through the grime. As he swept forward with a whoop to turn the lead horses it rang in his voice, announced itself in his carriage, was apparent in the modeling of his slim, hard body. Under other conditions he might have been a college freshman for age, but the competent confidence of manhood sat easily on his broad shoulders. He was already a graduate of that school of experience which always holds open session on the baked desert. Curly Flandrau had more than once looked into the chill eyes of death. The leaders of the herd dribbled into the corral through the open gate, and the others crowded on their heels. Three more riders followed Curly into the enclosure. Upon them, too, the desert had sifted its white coat. The stained withers of the animals they rode told of long, steady travel. One of them, a red-haired young fellow of about the same age as Curly, swung stiffly from the saddle. “Me for a square meal first off,” he gave out promptly. “Not till we’ve finished this business, Mac. We’ll put a deal right through if Warren’s here,” decided a third member of the party. He was a tough-looking customer of nearly fifty. From out of his leathery sun-and-wind beaten face, hard eyes looked without expression. “Bad Bill” Cranston he was called, and the man looked as if he had earned his sobriquet. “And what if he ain’t here?” snarled the fourth. “Are you aiming to sit down and wait for him?” “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Bad Bill answered. “Curly, want to ride up to the hotel and ask if Mr. Dave Warren is there? Bring him right down if he is.” “And say, young fellow, don’t shout all over the place what your business is with him,” ordered the previous speaker sulkily. Lute Blackwell, a squat heavily muscled man of forty, had the manner of a bully. Unless his shifty eyes lied he was both cruel and vindictive. 9 10 11 Curly’s gaze traveled over him leisurely. Not a muscle in the boyish face moved, but in the voice one might have guessed an amused contempt. “All right. I won’t, since you mention it, Lute.” The young man cantered up the dusty street toward the hotel. Blackwell trailed toward the windmill pump. “Thought you’d fixed it with this Warren to be right on the spot so’s we could unload on him prompt,” he grumbled at Cranston without looking toward the latter. “I didn’t promise he’d be hanging round your neck soon as you hit town,” Cranston retorted coolly. “Keep your shirt on, Lute. No use getting in a sweat.” The owner of the corral sauntered from the stable and glanced over the bunch of horses milling around. “Been traveling some,” he suggested to Bad Bill. “A few. Seen anything of a man named Warren about town to-day?” “He’s been down here se-ve-re-al times. Said he was looking for a party with stock to sell. Might you be the outfit he’s expecting?” “We might.” Bad Bill took the drinking cup from Blackwell and drained it. “I reckon the dust was caked in my throat an inch deep.” “Drive all the way from the Bar Double M?” asked the keeper of the corral, his eyes on the brand stamped on the flank of a pony circling past. “Yep.” Bad Bill turned away and began to unsaddle. He did not intend to volunteer any information, though on the other hand he did not want to stir suspicion by making a mystery for gossips to chew on. “Looks like you been hitting the road at a right lively gait.” Mac cut in. “Shoulder of my bronc’s chafed from the saddle. Got anything that’ll heal it?” “You bet I have.” The man hurried into the stable and the redheaded cowpuncher winked across the back of his horse at Bill. The keeper of the stable and the young man were still busy doctoring the sore when Curly arrived with Warren. The buyer was a roundbodied man with black gimlet eyes that saw much he never told. The bargain he drove was a hard one, but it did not take long to come to terms at about one-third the value of the string he was purchasing. Very likely he had his suspicions, but he did not voice them. No doubt they cut a figure in the price. He let it be understood that he was a supply agent for the rebels in Mexico. Before the bills were warm in the pockets of the sellers, his vaqueros were mounted and were moving the remuda toward the border. Curly and Mac helped them get started. As they rode back to the corral a young man came out from the stable. Flandrau forgot that there were reasons why he wanted just now to be a stranger in the land with his identity not advertised. He let out a shout. “Oh you, Slats Davis!” “Hello, Curly! How are things a-comin’?” “Fine. When did you blow in to Saguache? Ain’t you off your run some?” They had ridden the range together and had frolicked around on a dozen boyish larks. Their ways had suited each other and they had been a good deal more than casual bunkies. To put it mildly the meeting was likely to prove embarrassing. “Came down to see about getting some cows for the old man from the Fiddleback outfit,” Davis explained. “Didn’t expect to bump into friends ’way down here. You riding for the Bar Double M?” There was a momentary silence. Curly’s vigilant eyes met those of his old side partner. What did Slats know? Had he been in the stable while the remuda was still in the corral? Had he seen them with Bad Bill and Blackwell? Were his suspicions already active? “No, I’m riding for the Map of Texas,” Flandrau answered evenly. “Come on, Curly. Let’s go feed our faces,” Mac called from the stable. Flandrau nodded. “You still with the Hashknife?” he asked Davis. “Still with ’em. I’ve been raised to assistant foreman.” “Bully for you. That’s great. All right, Mac. I’m coming. That’s sure great, old hoss. Well, see you later, Slats.” Flandrau followed Mac, dissatisfied with himself for leaving his friend so cavalierly. In the old days they had told each other everything, had talked things out together before many a campfire. He guessed Slats would be hurt, but he had to think of his partners in this enterprise. After supper they took a room at the hotel and divided the money Warren had paid for the horses. None of them had slept for the last fifty hours and Mac proposed to tumble into bed at once. 12 13 14 15 Bad Bill shook his head. “I wouldn’t, Mac. Let’s hit the trail and do our sleeping in the hills. There’s too many telephone lines into this town to suit me.” “Sho! We made a clean getaway, and we’re plumb wore out. Our play isn’t to hike out like we were scared stiff of something. What we want to do is to act as if we could look every darned citizen in the face. Mac’s sure right,” Curly agreed. “You kids make me tired. As if you knew anything about it. I’m going to dust muy pronto,” Blackwell snarled. “Sure. Whenever you like. You go and we’ll stay. Then everybody’ll be satisfied. We got to split up anyhow,” Mac said. Bad Bill looked at Blackwell and nodded. “That’s right. We don’t all want to pull a blue streak. That would be a dead give away. Let the kids stay if they want to.” “So as they can round on us if they’re nabbed,” Blackwell sneered. Cranston called him down roughly. “That’ll be enough along that line, Lute. I don’t stand for any more cracks like it.” Blackwell, not three months out from the penitentiary, faced the other with an ugly look in his eyes. He was always ready to quarrel, but he did not like to fight unless he had a sure thing. He knew Bad Bill was an ugly customer when he once got started. “Didn’t mean any harm,” the ex-convict growled. “But I don’t like this sticking around town. I tell you straight I don’t like it.” “Then I wouldn’t stay if I were you,” Curly suggested promptly. “Mac and I have got a different notion. So we’ll tie to Saguache for a day or two.” As soon as the older men had gone the others tumbled into bed and fell asleep at once. Daylight was sifting in through the open window before their eyes opened. Somebody was pounding on the bedroom door, which probably accounted for Flandrau’s dream that a sheriff was driving nails in the lid of a coffin containing one Curly. Mac was already out of bed when his partner’s feet hit the floor. “What’s up, Mac?” The eyes of the redheaded puncher gleamed with excitement. His six-gun was in his hand. By the look of him he was about ready to whang loose through the door. “Hold your horses, you chump,” Curly sang out “It’s the hotel clerk. I left a call with him.” But it was not the hotel clerk after all. Through the door came a quick, jerky voice. “That you, Curly? For God’s sake, let me in.” Before he had got the words out the door was open. Slats came in and shut it behind him. He looked at Mac, the forty-five shaking in the boy’s hand, and he looked at Flandrau. “They’re after you,” he said, breathing fast as if he had been running. “Who?” fired Curly back at him. “The Bar Double M boys. They just reached town.” “Put up that gun, Mac, and move into your clothes immediate,” ordered Curly. Then to Davis: “Go on. Unload the rest. What do they know?” “They inquired for you and your friend here down at the Legal Tender. The other members of your party they could only guess at.” “Have we got a chance to make our getaway?” Mac asked. Davis nodded. “Slide out through the kitchen, cut into the alley, and across lots to the corral. We’ll lock the door and I’ll hold them here long as I can.” “Good boy, Slats. If there’s a necktie party you’ll get the first bid,” Curly grinned. Slats looked at him, cold and steady. Plainer than words he was telling his former friend that he would not joke with a horse thief. For the sake of old times he would save him if he could, but he would call any bluffs about the whole thing being a lark. Curly’s eyes fell away. It came to him for the first time that he was no longer an honest man. Up till this escapade he had been only wild, but now he had crossed the line that separates decent folks from outlaws. He had been excited with liquor when he joined in this fool enterprise, but that made no difference now. He was a rustler, a horse thief. If he lived a hundred years he could never get away from the disgrace of it. Not another word was said while they hurried into their clothes. But as Curly passed out of the door he called back huskily. “Won’t forget what you done for us, Slats.” Again their eyes met. Davis did not speak, but the chill look on his face told Flandrau that he had lost a friend. The two young men ran down the back stairs, passed through the kitchen where a Chinese cook was getting 16 17 18 19 breakfast, and out into the bright sunlight. Before they cut across to the corral their eyes searched for enemies. Nobody was in sight except the negro janitor of a saloon busy putting empty bottles into a barrel. “Won’t do to be in any hurry. The play is we’re gentlemen of leisure, just out for an amble to get the mo’ning air,” Curly cautioned. While they fed, watered, and saddled they swapped gossip with the wrangler. It would not do to leave the boy with a story of two riders in such a hurry to hit the trail that they could not wait to feed their bronchos. So they stuck it out while the animals ate, though they were about as contented as a two-pound rainbow trout on a hook. One of them was at the door all the time to make sure the way was still clear. At that they shaved it fine, for as they rode away two men were coming down the street. “Kite Bonfils,” Curly called to his partner. No explanation was needed. Bonfils was the foreman of the Bar Double M. He let out a shout as he caught sight of them and began to run forward. Simultaneously his gun seemed to jump from its holster. Mac’s quirt sang and his pony leaped to a canter in two strides. A bullet zipped between them. Another struck the dust at their heels. Faintly there came to the fugitives the sound of the foreman’s impotent curses. They had escaped for the time. Presently they passed the last barb wire fence and open country lay before them. It did not greatly matter which direction they followed, so long as they headed into the desert. “What we’re looking for is a country filled with absentees,” Curly explained with a grin. Neither of them had ever been in serious trouble before and both regretted the folly that had turned their drunken spree into a crime. Once or twice they came to the edge of a quarrel, for Mac was ready to lay the blame on his companion. Moreover, he had reasons why the thing he had done loomed up as a heinous offense. His reasons came out before the camp fire on Dry Sandy that evening. They were stretched in front of it trying to make a smoke serve instead of supper. Mac broke a gloomy silence to grunt out jerkily a situation he could no longer keep to himself. “Here’s where I get my walking papers I reckon. No rustlers need apply.” Curly shot a slant glance at him. “Meaning—the girl?” The redheaded puncher nodded. “She’ll throw me down sure. Why shouldn’t she? I tell you I’ve ruined my life. You’re only a kid. What you know about it?” He took from his coat pocket a photograph and showed it to his friend. The sweet clean face of a wholesome girl smiled at Curly. “She’s ce’tainly a right nice young lady. I’ll bet she stands by you all right. Where’s she live at?” “Waits in a restaurant at Tombstone. We was going to be married soon as we had saved five hundred dollars.” Mac swallowed hard. “And I had to figure out this short cut to the money whilst I was drunk. As if she’d look at money made that way. Why, we’d a-been ready by Christmas if I’d only waited.” Curly tried to cheer him up, but did not make much of a job at it. The indisputable facts were that Mac was an outlaw and a horse thief. Very likely a price was already on his head. The redheaded boy rolled another cigarette despondently. “Sho! I’ve cooked my goose. She’ll not look at me—even if they don’t send me to the pen.” In a moment he added huskily, staring into the deepening darkness: “And she’s the best ever. Her name’s Myra Anderson.” Abruptly Mac got up and disappeared in the night, muttering something about looking after the horses. His partner understood well enough what was the matter. The redheaded puncher was in a stress of emotion, and like the boy he was he did not want Curly to know it. Flandrau pretended to be asleep when Mac returned half an hour later. They slept under a live oak with the soundness of healthy youth. For the time they forgot their troubles. Neither of them knew that as the hours slipped away red tragedy was galloping closer to them. CHAPTER II CAMPING WITH OLD MAN TROUBLE The sun was shining in his face when Curly wakened. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Mac was nowhere in sight. 19 20 21 22 23 Probably he had gone to get the horses. A sound broke the stillness of the desert. It might have been the explosion of a giant firecracker, but Flandrau knew it was nothing so harmless. He leaped to his feet, and at the same instant Mac came running over the brow of the hill. A smoking revolver was in his hand. From behind the hill a gun cracked—then a second—and a third. Mac stumbled over his feet and pitched forward full length on the ground. His friend ran toward him, forgetting the revolver that lay in its holster under the live oak. Every moment he expected to see Mac jump up, but the figure stretched beside the cholla never moved. Flandrau felt the muscles round his heart tighten. He had seen sudden death before, but never had it come so near home. A bullet sent up a spurt of dust in front of him, another just on the left. Riders were making a half circle around the knoll and closing in on him. In his right mind Curly would have been properly frightened. But now he thought only of Mac lying there so still in the sand. Right into the fire zone he ran, knelt beside his partner, and lifted the red-thatched head. A little hole showed back of the left ear and another at the right temple. A bullet had plowed through the boy’s skull. Softly Flandrau put the head back in the sand and rose to his feet. The revolver of the dead puncher was in his hand. The attackers had stopped shooting, but when they saw him rise a rifle puffed once more. The riders were closing in on him now. The nearest called to him to surrender. Almost at the same time a red hot pain shot through the left arm of the trapped rustler. Someone had nipped him from the rear. Curly saw red. Surrender nothing! He would go down fighting. As fast as he could blaze he emptied Mac’s gun. When the smoke cleared the man who had ordered him to give up was slipping from his horse. Curly was surprised, but he knew he must have hit him by chance. “We got him. His gun’s empty,” someone shouted. Cautiously they closed in, keeping him covered all the time. Of a sudden the plain tilted up to meet the sky. Flandrau felt himself swaying on his feet. Everything went black. The boy had fainted. When he came to himself strange faces were all around him, and there were no bodies to go with them. They seemed to float about in an odd casual sort of way. Then things cleared. “He’s coming to all right,” one said. “Good. I’d hate to have him cheat the rope,” another cried with an oath. “That’s right. How is Cullison?” This was said to another who had just come up. “Hard hit. Looks about all in. Got him in the side.” The rage had died out of Curly. In a flash he saw all that had come of their drunken spree: the rustling of the Bar Double M stock, the discovery, the death of his friend and maybe of Cullison, the certain punishment that would follow. He was a horse thief caught almost in the act. Perhaps he was a murderer too. And the whole thing had been entirely unpremeditated. Flandrau made a movement to rise and they jerked him to his feet. “You’ve played hell,” one of the men told the boy. He was a sawed-off little fellow known as Dutch. Flandrau had seen him in the Map of Texas country try a year or two before. The rest were strangers to the boy. All of them looked at him out of hard hostile eyes. He was scarcely a human being to them; rather a wolf to be stamped out of existence as soon as it was convenient. A chill ran down Curly’s spine. He felt as if someone were walking on his grave. At a shift in the group Flandrau’s eyes fell on his friend lying in the sand with face turned whitely to the sky he never would see again. It came over him strangely enough how Mac used to break into a little chuckling laugh when he was amused. He had quit laughing now for good and all. A lump came into the boy’s throat and he had to work it down before he spoke. “There’s a picture in his pocket, and some letters I reckon. Send them to Miss Myra Anderson, Tombstone, care of one of the restaurants. I don’t know which one.” “Send nothin’,” sneered Dutch, and coupled it with a remark no decent man makes of a woman on a guess. Because of poor Mac lying there with the little hole in his temple Curry boiled over. With a jerk his right arm was free. It shot out like a pile-driver, all his weight behind the blow. Dutch went down as if a charging bull had flung him. Almost simultaneously Curly hit the sand hard. Before he could stir three men were straddled over his anatomy. One of them ground his head into the dust. “You would, eh? We’ll see about that. Jake, bring yore rope.” They tied the hands of the boy, hauled him to his feet, and set him astride a horse. In the distance a windmill of the Circle C ranch was shining in the morning sun. Toward the group of buildings clustered around this two of his captors started with Flandrau. A third was already galloping toward the ranch house to telephone for a doctor. 24 25 26 27 As they rode along a fenced lane which led to the house a girl came flying down the steps. She swung herself to the saddle just vacated by the messenger and pulled the horse round for a start. At sight of those coming toward her she called out quickly. “How is dad?” The quiver of fear broke in her voice. “Don’ know yet, Miss Kate,” answered one of the men. “He’s right peart though. Says for to tell you not to worry. Don’t you, either. We’ve got here the mangy son of a gun that did it.” Before he had finished she was off like an arrow shot from a bow, but not until her eyes had fallen on the youth sitting bareheaded and bloody between the guns of his guard. Curly noticed that she had given a shudder, as one might at sight of a mangled mad dog which had just bit a dear friend. Long after the pounding of her pony’s hoofs had died away the prisoner could see the startled eyes of fear and horror that had rested on him. As Curly kicked his foot out of the stirrup to dismount a light spring wagon rolled past him. In its bed were a mattress and pillows. The driver whipped up the horse and went across the prairie toward Dry Sandy Creek. Evidently he was going to bring home the wounded man. His guards put Flandrau in the bunk house and one of them sat at the door with a rifle across his knees. The cook, the stable boy, and redheaded Bob Cullison, a nephew of the owner of the ranch, peered past the vaquero at the captive with the same awe they would have yielded to a caged panther. “Why, he’s only a kid, Buck,” the cook whispered. Buck chewed tobacco impassively. “Old enough to be a rustler and a killer.” Bob’s blue eyes were wide with interest “I’ll bet he’s a regular Billy the Kid,” murmured the half-grown boy to the other lad. “Sure. Course he is. He’s got bad eyes all right.” “I’ll bet he’s got notches on his gun. Say, if Uncle Luck dies—” Bob left the result to the imagination. The excitement at the Circle C increased. Horses cantered up. Men shouted to each other the news. Occasionally some one came in to have a look at the “bad man” who had shot Luck Cullison. Young Flandrau lay on a cot and stared at the ceiling, paying no more attention to them than if they had been blocks of wood. It took no shrewdness to see that there burned in them a still cold anger toward him that might easily find expression in lynch law. The crunch of wagon wheels over disintegrated granite drifted to the bunk house. “They’re bringing the boss back,” Buck announced from the door to one of his visitors. The man joined him and looked over his shoulder. “Miss Kate there too?” “Yep. Say, if the old man don’t pull through it will break her all up.” The boy on the bed turned his face to the wall. He had not cried for ten years, but now he would have liked the relief of tears. The luck had broken bad for him, but it would be the worst ever if his random shot were to make Kate Cullison an orphan. A big lump rose in his throat and would not stay down. The irony of it was that he was staged for the part of a gray wolf on the howl, while he felt more like a little child that has lost its last friend. After a time there came again the crisp roll of wheels. “Doc Brown,” announced Buck casually to the other men in the bunk house. There was more than one anxious heart at the Circle C waiting for the verdict of the bowlegged baldheaded little man with the satchel, but not one of them—no, not even Kate Cullison herself—was in a colder fear than Curly Flandrau. He was entitled to a deep interest, for if Cullison should die he knew that he would follow him within a few hours. These men would take no chances with the delays of the law. The men at the bunk house had offered more than once to look at Curly’s arm, but the young man declined curtly. The bleeding had stopped, but there was a throb in it as if someone were twisting a red-hot knife in the wound. After a time Doctor Brown showed up in the doorway of the men’s quarters. “Another patient here, they tell me,” he grunted in the brusque way that failed to conceal the kindest of hearts. Buck nodded toward Flandrau. “Let’s have a look at your arm, young fellow,” the doctor ordered, mopping his bald head with a big bandanna handkerchief. “What about the boss?” asked Jake presently. “Mighty sick man, looks like. Tell you more to-morrow morning.” “Do you mean that he—that he may not get well?” Curly pumped out, his voice not quite steady. Doctor Brown looked at him curiously. Somehow this boy did not fit the specifications of the desperado that had been poured into his ears. “Don’t know yet. Won’t make any promises.” He had been examining the wound in a businesslike way. “Looks like the bullet’s still in there. Have to give you an anesthetic while I dig it out.” 28 29 30 31 “Nothin’ doing,” retorted Flandrau. “You round up the pill in there and I’ll stand the grief. When this lead hypodermic jabbed into my arm it sorter gave me one of them annie-what-d’ye-call-’em—and one’s a-plenty for me.” “It’ll hurt,” the little man explained. “Expect I’ll find that out. Go to it.” Brown had not been for thirty years carrying a medicine case across the dusty deserts of the frontier without learning to know men. He made no further protest but set to work. Twenty minutes later Curly lay back on the bunk with a sudden faintness. He was very white about the lips, but he had not once flinched from the instruments. The doctor washed his hands and his tools, pulled on his coat, and came across to the patient. “Feeling like a fighting cock, are you? Ready to tackle another posse?” he asked. “Not quite.” The prisoner glanced toward his guards and his voice fell to a husky whisper. “Say, Doc. Pull Cullison through. Don’t let him die.” “Hmp! Do my best, young fellow. Seems to me you’re thinking of that pretty late.” Brown took up his medicine case and went back to the house. CHAPTER III AT THE END OF THE ROAD Curly’s wooden face told nothing of what he was thinking. The first article of the creed of the frontier is to be game. Good or bad, the last test of a man is the way he takes his medicine. So now young Flandrau ate his dinner with a hearty appetite, smoked cigarettes impassively, and occasionally chatted with his guards casually and as a matter of course. Deep within him was a terrible feeling of sickness at the disaster that had overwhelmed him, but he did not intend to play the quitter. Dutch and an old fellow named Sweeney relieved the other watchers about noon. The squat puncher came up and looked down angrily at the boy lying on the bunk. “I’ll serve notice right now that if you make any breaks I’ll fill your carcass full of lead,” he growled. The prisoner knew that he was nursing a grudge for the blow that had floored him. Not to be bluffed, Curly came back with a jeer. “Much obliged, my sawed-off and hammered-down friend. But what’s the matter with your face? It looks some lopsided. Did a mule kick you?” Sweeney gave his companion the laugh. “Better let him alone, Dutch. If he lands on you again like he did before your beauty ce’tainly will be spoiled complete.” The little puncher’s eyes snapped rage. “You’ll get yours pretty soon, Mr. Curly Flandrau. The boys are fixin’ to hang yore hide up to dry.” “Does look that way, doesn’t it?” the boy agreed quietly. As the day began to wear out it looked so more than ever. Two riders from the Bar Double M reached the ranch and were brought in to identify him as the horse thief. The two were Maloney and Kite Bonfils, neither of them friends of the young rustler. The foreman in particular was a wet blanket to his chances. The man’s black eyes were the sort that never soften toward the follies and mistakes of youth. “You’ve got the right man all right,” he said to Buck without answering Flandrau’s cool nod of recognition. “What sort of a reputation has he got?” Buck asked, lowering his voice a little. Kite did not take the trouble to lower his. “Bad. Always been a tough character. Friend of Bad Bill Cranston and Soapy Stone.” Dutch chipped in. “Shot up the Silver Dollar saloon onct. Pretty near beat Pete Schiff’s head off another time.” Curly laughed rather wildly. “That’s right. Keep a-coming, boys. Your turn now, Maloney.” “All right. Might as well have it all,” Buck agreed. “I don’t know anything against the kid, barring that he’s been a little wild,” Maloney testified. “And I reckon we ain’t any of us prize Sunday school winners for that matter.” “Are we all friends of Soapy Stone and Bad Bill? Do we all rustle stock and shoot up good citizens?” Dutch shrilled. 32 33 34 35 Maloney’s blue Irish eyes rested on the little puncher for a moment, then passed on as if he had been weighed and found wanting. “I’ve noticed,” he said to nobody in particular, “that them hollering loudest for justice are most generally the ones that would hate to have it done to them.” Dutch bristled like a turkey rooster. “What do you mean by that?” The Irishman smiled derisively. “I reckon you can guess if you try real hard.” Dutch fumed, but did no guessing out loud. His reputation was a whitewashed one. Queer stories had been whispered about him. He had been a nester, and it was claimed that calves certainly not his had been found carrying his brand. The man had been full of explanations, but there came a time when explanations no longer were accepted. He was invited to become an absentee at his earliest convenience. This was when he had been living across the mountains. Curly had been one of those who had given the invitation. He had taken the hint and left without delay. Now he was paying the debt he owed young Flandrau. Though the role Curly had been given was that of the hardened desperado he could not quite live up to the part. As Buck turned to leave the bunk house the boy touched him on the arm. “How about Cullison?” he asked, very low. But Buck would not have it that way. “What about him?” he demanded out load, his voice grating like steel when it grinds. “Is he—how is he doing?” “What’s eatin’ you? Ain’t he dying fast enough to suit you?” Flandrau shrank from the cruel words, as a schoolboy does from his teacher when he jumps at him with a cane. He understood how the men were feeling, but to have it put into words like this cut him deeply. It was then that Maloney made a friend of the young man for life. He let a hand drop carelessly on Curly’s shoulder and looked at him with a friendly smile in his eyes, just as if he knew that this was no wolf but a poor lost dog up against it hard. “Doc thinks he’ll make it all right.” But there were times when Curly wondered whether it would make any difference to him whether Cullison got well or not. Something immediate was in the air. Public opinion was sifting down to a decision. There were wise nods, and whisperings, and men riding up and going off again in a hurry. There had been a good deal of lawlessness of late, for which Soapy Stone’s band of followers was held responsible. Just as plainly as if he had heard the arguments of Dutch and Kite Bonfils he knew that they were urging the others to make an example of him. Most of these men were well up to the average for the milk of human kindness. They were the squarest citizens in Arizona. But Flandrau knew they would snuff out his life just the same if they decided it was best. Afterward they might regret it, but that would not help him. Darkness came, and the lamps were lit. Again Curly ate and smoked and chatted a little with his captors. But as he sat there hour after hour, feeling death creep closer every minute, cold shivers ran up and down his spine. They began to question him, at first casually and carelessly, so it seemed to Curly. But presently he discerned a drift in the talk. They were trying to find out who had been his partners in the rustling. “And I reckon Soapy and Bad Bill left you lads at Saguache to hold the sack,” Buck suggested sympathetically. Curly grew wary. He did not intend to betray his accomplices. “Wrong guess. Soapy and Bad Bill weren’t in this deal,” he answered easily. “We know there were two others in it with you. I guess they were Soapy and Bad Bill all right.” “There’s no law against guessing.” The foreman of the Bar Double M interrupted impatiently, tired of trying to pump out the information by finesse. “You’ve got to speak, Flandrau. You’ve got to tell us who was engineering this theft. Understand?” The young rustler looked at the grim frowning face and his heart sank. “Got to tell you, have I?” “That’s what?” “Out with it,” ordered Buck. “Oh, I expect I’ll keep that under my hat,” Curly told them lightly. They were crowded about him in a half circle, nearly a score of hard leather-faced plainsmen. Some of them were riders of the Circle C outfit. Others had ridden over from neighboring ranches. All of them plainly meant business. They meant to stamp out rustling, and their determination had been given an edge by the wounding of Luck Cullison, the most popular man in the county. “Think again, Curly,” advised Sweeney quietly. “The boys ain’t trifling about this thing. They mean to find out who was in the rustling of the Bar Double M stock.” 36 37 38 39 “Not through me, they won’t.” “Through you. And right now.” A dozen times during the evening Curly had crushed down the desire to beg for mercy, to cry out desperately for them to let him off. He had kept telling himself not to show yellow, that it would not last long. Now the fear of breaking down sloughed from his soul. He rose from the bed and looked round at the brown faces circled about him in the shine of the lamps. “I’ll not tell you a thing—not a thing.” He stood there chalk-faced, his lips so dry that he had to keep moistening them with the tip of his tongue. Two thoughts hammered in his head. One was that he had come to the end of his trail, the other that he would game it out without weakening. Dutch had a new rope in his hand with a loop at one end. He tossed it over the boy’s head and drew it taut. Two or three of the faces in the circle were almost as bloodless as that of the prisoner, but they were set to see the thing out. “Will you tell now?” Bonfils asked. Curly met him eye to eye. “No.” “Come along then.” One of the men caught his arm at the place where he had been wounded. The rustler flinched. “Careful, Buck. Don’t you see you’re hurting his bad arm?” Sweeney said sharply. “Sure. Take him right under the shoulder.” “There’s no call to be rough with him.” “I didn’t aim to hurt him,” Buck defended himself. His grip was loose and easy now. Like the others he was making it up to his conscience for what he meant to do by doing it in the kindest way possible. Curly’s senses had never been more alert. He noticed that Buck had on a red necktie that had got loose from his shirt and climbed up his neck. It had black polka dots and was badly frayed. Sweeney was chewing tobacco. He would have that chew in his mouth after they had finished what they were going to do. “Ain’t he the gamest ever?” someone whispered. The rustler heard the words and they braced him as a drink of whiskey does a man who has been on a bad spree. His heart was chill with fear, but he had strung his will not to let him give way. “Better do it at the cottonwoods down by the creek,” Buck told Bonfils in a low voice. The foreman of the Bar Double M moved his head in assent. “All right. Let’s get it over quick as we can.” A sound of flying feet came from outside. Someone smothered an oath of surprise. Kate Cullison stood in the doorway, all out of breath and panting. She took the situation in before she spoke, guessed exactly what they intended to do. Yet she flung her imperious question at them. “What is it?” They had not a word to say for themselves. In that room were some of the most callous hearts in the territory. Not one man in a million could have phased them, but this slender girl dumfounded them. Her gaze settled on Buck. His wandered for help to Sweeney, to Jake, to Kite Bonfils. “Now look-a-here, Miss Kate,” Sweeney began to explain. But she swept his remonstrance aside. “No—No—No!” Her voice gathered strength with each repetition of the word. “I won’t have it. What are you thinking about?” To the boy with the rope around his neck she was an angel from heaven as she stood there so slim and straight, her dark eyes shining like stars. Some of these men were old enough to be her father. Any of them could have crushed her with one hand. But if a thunderbolt had crashed in their midst it could not have disturbed the vigilantes more. “He’s a rustler, Miss Kate; belongs to Soapy Stone’s outfit,” Sweeney answered the girl. “Can you prove it?” “We got him double cinched.” “Then let the law put him in prison.” “He shot yore paw,” Buck reminded her. “Is that why you’re doing it?” 40 41 42 “Yes’m,” and “That’s why,” they nodded. Like a flash she took advantage of their admission. “Then I’ve got more against him than you have, and I say turn him over to the law.” “He’d get a good lawyer and wiggle out,” Dutch objected. She whirled on the little puncher. “You know how that is, do you?” Somebody laughed. It was known that Dutch had once been tried for stealing a sheep and had been acquitted. Kite pushed forward, rough and overbearing. “Now see here. We know what we’re doing and we know why we’re doing it. This ain’t any business for a girl to mix in. You go back to the house and nurse your father that this man shot.” “So it isn’t the kind of business for a girl,” she answered scornfully. “It’s work for a man, isn’t it? No, not for one. For nine—eleven—thirteen—seventeen big brave strong men to hang one poor wounded boy.” Again that amused laugh rippled out. It came from Maloney. He was leaning against the door jamb with his hands in his pockets. Nobody had noticed him before. He had come in after the girl. When Curly came to think it over later, if he had been given three guesses as to who had told Kate Cullison what was on the program he would have guessed Maloney each time. “Now that you’ve relieved your mind proper, Miss Cullison, I expect any of the boys will be glad to escort you back to the house,” Kite suggested with an acid smile. “What have you got to do with this?” she flamed. “Our boys took him. They brought him here as their prisoner. Do you think we’ll let you come over into this county and dictate everything we do?” “I’ve got a notion tucked away that you’re trying to do the dictating your own self,” the Bar Double M man contradicted. “I’m not. But I won’t stand by while you get these boys to do murder. If they haven’t sense enough to keep them from it I’ve got to stop it myself.” Kite laughed sarcastically. “You hear your boss, boys.” “You’ve had yore say now, Miss Kate. I reckon you better say good-night,” advised Buck. She handed Buck and his friends her compliments in a swift flow of feminine ferocity. Maloney pushed into the circle. “She’s dead right, boys. There’s nothing to this lynching game. He’s only a kid.” “He’s not such a kid but what he can do murder,” Dutch spat out. Kate read him the riot act so sharply that the little puncher had not another word to say. The tide of opinion was shifting. Those who had been worked up to the lynching by the arguments of Bonfils began to resent his activity. Flandrau was their prisoner, wasn’t he? No use going off half cocked. Some of them were discovering that they were not half so anxious to hang him as they had supposed. The girl turned to her friends and neighbors. “I oughtn’t to have talked to you that way, but you know how worried I am about Dad,” she apologized with a catch in her breath. “I’m sure you didn’t think or you would never have done anything to trouble me more just now. You know I didn’t half mean it.” She looked from one to another, her eyes shiny with tears. “I know that no braver or kinder men live than you. Why, you’re my folks. I’ve been brought up among you. And so you’ve got to forgive me.” Some said “Sure,” others told her to forget it, and one grass widower drew a laugh by saying that her little spiel reminded him of happier days. For the first time a smile lit her face. The boy for whose life she was pleading thought it was like sunshine after a storm. “I’m so glad you’ve changed your minds. I knew you would when you thought it over,” she told them chattily and confidentially. She was taking their assent for granted. Now she waited and gave them a chance to chorus their agreement. None of them spoke except Maloney. Most of them were with her in sympathy but none wanted to be first in giving way. Each wanted to save his face, so that the others could not later blame him for quitting first. She looked around from one to another, still cheerful and sure of her ground apparently. Two steps brought her directly in front of one. She caught him by the lapels of his coat and looked straight into his eyes. “You have changed your mind, haven’t you, Jake?” The big Missourian twisted his hat in embarrassment. “I reckon I have, Miss Kate. Whatever the other boys say,” he got out at last. “Haven’t you a mind of your own, Jake?” “Sure. Whatever’s right suits me.” “Well, you know what is right, don’t you?” “I expect.” 43 44 45 46 “Then you won’t hurt this man, our prisoner?” “I haven’t a thing against him if you haven’t.” “Then you won’t hurt him? You won’t stand by and let the other boys do it?” “Now, Miss Kate—” She burst into sudden tears. “I thought you were my friend, but now I’m in trouble you—you think only of making it worse. I’m worried to death about Dad—and you—you make me stay here—away from him—and torment me.” Jake gave in immediately and the rest followed like a flock of sheep. Two or three of the promises came hard, but she did not stop till each one individually had pledged himself. And all the time she was cajoling them, explaining how good it was of them to think of avenging her father, how in one way she did not blame them at all, though of course they had seen it would not do as soon as they gave the matter a second thought. Dad would be so pleased at them when he heard about it, and she wanted them to know how much she liked and admired them. It was quite a love feast. The young man she had saved could not keep his eyes from her. He would have liked to kneel down and kiss the edge of her dress and put his curly head in the dust before her. The ice in his heart had melted in the warmth of a great emotion. She was standing close to him talking to Buck when he spoke in a low voice. “I reckon I can’t tell you—how much I’m obliged to you, Miss.” She drew back quickly as if he had been a snake about to strike, her hand instinctively gathering her skirts so that they would not brush against him. “I don’t want your thanks,” she told him, and her voice was like the drench of an icy wave. But when she saw the hurt in his eyes she hesitated. Perhaps she guessed that he was human after all, for an impulse carried her forward to take the rope from his neck. While his heart beat twice her soft fingers touched his throat and grazed his cheek. Then she turned and was gone from the room. It was a long time before the bunk house quieted. Curly, faint with weariness, lay down and tried to sleep. His arm was paining a good deal and he felt feverish. The men of the Circle C and their guests sat down and argued the whole thing over. But after a time the doctor came in and had the patient carried to the house. He was put in a good clean bed and his arm dressed again. The doctor brought him good news. “Cullison is doing fine. He has dropped into a good sleep. He’d ought to make it all right.” Curly thought about the girl who had fought for his life. “You’ll not let him die, Doc,” he begged. “He’s too tough for that, Luck Cullison is.” Presently Doctor Brown gave him a sleeping powder and left him. Soon after that Curly fell asleep and dreamed about a slim dark girl with fine longlashed eyes that could be both tender and ferocious. CHAPTER IV THE CULLISONS Curly was awakened by the sound of the cook beating the call to breakfast on a triangle. Buck was standing beside the bed. “How’re they coming this glad mo’ning, son?” he inquired with a grin. “Fine and dandy,” grinned back Flandrau. So he was, comparatively speaking. The pain in his arm had subsided. He had had a good sleep. And he was lying comfortably in a clean bed instead of hanging by the neck from the limb of one of the big cottonwoods on the edge of the creek. A memory smote him and instantly he was grave again. “How is Cullison?” “Good as the wheat, doc says. Mighty lucky for Mr. C. Flandrau that he is. Say, I’m to be yore valley and help you into them clothes. Git a wiggle on you.” Buck escorted his prisoner over to the ranch mess house. The others had finished breakfast but Maloney was still eating. His mouth was full of hot cakes, but he nodded across at Curly in a casual friendly way. 47 48 49 50 “How’s the villain in the play this mo’ning?” he inquired. Twenty-one usually looks on the cheerful side of life. Curly had forgotten for the moment about what had happened to his friend Mac. He did not remember that he was in the shadow of a penitentiary sentence. The sun was shining out of a deep blue sky. The vigor of youth flowed through his veins. He was hungry and a good breakfast was before him. For the present these were enough. “Me, I’m feeling a heap better than I was last night,” he admitted. “Came pretty near losing him out of the cast, didn’t we?” “Might a-turned out that way if the stage manager had not remembered the right cue in time.” Curly was looking straight into the eyes twinkling across the table at him. Maloney knew that the young fellow was thanking him for having saved his life. He nodded lightly, but his words still seemed to make a jest of the situation. “Enter the heroine. Spotlight. Sa-a-ved,” he drawled. The heart of the prisoner went out to this man who was reaching a hand to him in his trouble. He had always known that Maloney was true and steady as a snubbing post, but he had not looked for any kindness from him. “Kite just got a telephone message from Saguache,” the Bar Double M man went on easily. “Your friends that bought the rustled stock didn’t get away with the goods. Seems they stumbled into a bunch of rurales unexpected and had to pull their freight sudden. The boys from the ranch happened along about then, claimed ownership and got possession.” “If the men bought the stock why didn’t they stop and explain?” asked Buck. “That game of buying stolen cattle is worn threadbare. The rurales and the rangers have had their eye on those border flitters for quite some time. So they figured it was safer to dust.” “Make their getaway?” Curly inquired as indifferently as he could. But in spite of himself a note of eagerness crept into his voice. For if the men had escaped that would be two less witnesses against him. “Yep.” “Too bad. If they hadn’t I could have proved by them I was not one of the men who sold them the stock,” Flandrau replied. “Like hell you could,” Buck snorted, then grinned at his prisoner in a shamefaced way: “You’re a good one, son.” “Luck has been breaking bad for me, but when things are explained——” “It sure will take a lot of explaining to keep you out of the pen. You’ll have to be slicker than Dutch was.” Jake stuck his head in at the door. “Buck, you’re needed to help with them two-year-olds. The old man wants to have a talk with the rustler. Doc says he may. Maloney, will you take him up to the house? I’ll arrange to have you relieved soon as I can.” Maloney had once ridden for the C...