Chapter XXI
Jim Receives and Declines an Offer
From the moment that Clanton walked out of the corral and left the dead gunman lying in the dust his reputation was established. Up till that time he had been on probation. Now he was a full-fledged killer. Nobody any longer spoke of him by his last name, except those friends who still hoped he might escape his destiny. "Go-Get-'em Jim" was his title at large. Those on more familiar terms called him "Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em."
It was unfortunate for Clanton that the killing of Champa lifted him into instant popularity. Mysterious Pete had been too free with his gun. The community had been afraid of him. The irresponsible way in which he had wounded little Bud Proctor, whose life had been saved only by the courage of Lee Snaith, was the climax of a series of outrages committed by the man.
That Jim had incidentally saved Kittie McRobert from the outlaw was a piece of clean luck. Snaith came to him at once and buried the hatchet. In the war just starting, the cattleman needed men of nerve to lead his forces. He offered a place to Clanton, who jumped at the chance to get on the pay-roll of Lee's father.
"Bring yore friend Billie Prince to the store," suggested Snaith. "He's not workin' for Webb now. I can make a place for him, too."
Billie came, listened to the proposition of the grim old-timer, and declined quietly.
"Goin' to stick by Webb, are you?" demanded the chief of the opposite faction.
"Anything wrong with that? I've drawn a pay-check from him for three seasons."
"Oh, if it's a matter of sentiment."
As a matter of fact, Billie did not intend to go on the trail any more, though Webb had offered him a place as foreman of one of his herds. He had discovered in himself unsuspected business capacity and believed he could do better on his own. Moreover, he was resolved not to let himself become involved in the lawless warfare that was engulfing the territory.
It must be remembered that Washington County was at this time as large as the average Atlantic Coast State. It had become a sink for the riff-raff driven out of Texas by the Rangers, for all that wild and adventurous element which flocks to a new country before the law has established itself. The coming of the big cattle herds had brought money into the country, and in its wake followed the gambler and the outlaw. Gold and human life were the cheapest commodities at Los Portales. The man who wore a gun on his hip had to be one hundred per cent efficient to survive.
Lawlessness was emphasized by the peculiar conditions of the country. The intense rivalry to secure Government contracts for hay, wood, and especially cattle, stimulated unwholesome competition. The temptation to "rustle" stock, to hold up outfits carrying pay to the soldiers, to live well merely as a gunman for one of the big interests on the river, made the honest business of every-day life a humdrum affair.
None the less, the real heroes among the pioneers were the quiet citizens who went about their business and refused to embroil themselves in the feuds that ran rife. The men who made the West were the mule-skinners, the storekeepers, the farmers who came out in white-topped movers' wagons. For a time these were submerged by the more sensational gunman, but in the end they pushed to the top and wiped the "bad man" from the earth. It was this prosaic class that Billie Prince had resolved to join.
To that resolve he stuck through all the blood-stained years of the notorious Washington County War. He went about his private affairs with quiet energy that brought success. He took hay and grain contracts, bought a freighting outfit, acquired a small but steadily increasing bunch of cattle. Gradually he bulked larger in the public eye, became an anchor of safety to whom the people turned after the war had worn itself out and scattered bands of banditti infested the chaparral to prey upon the settlers.
This lean, brown-faced man walked the way of the strong. Men recognized the dynamic force of his close-gripped jaw, the power of his quick, steady eye, the patience of his courage. The eyes of women followed him down the street, for there was some arresting quality in the firm, crisp tread that carried the lithe, smooth-muscled body. With the passage of years he had grown to a full measure of mental manhood. It was inevitable that when Washington County set itself to the task of combing the outlaws from the mesquite it should delegate the job to Billie Prince.
The evening after his election as sheriff, Billie called at the home of Pauline Roubideau, who was keeping house for her brother. Jack Goodheart was leaving just as Prince stepped upon the porch. It had been two years now since Jack had ceased to gravitate in the direction of Lee Snaith. His eyes and his footsteps for many months had turned often toward Polly.
The gaze of the sheriff-elect followed the lank figure of the retreating man.
"I've a notion to ask that man to give up a good business to wear a deputy's star for me," he told Pauline.
"Oh, I wouldn't," she said quickly.
"Why not? He'd be a good man for the job. I want some one game—some one who will go through when he starts."
His questioning eyes rested on hers. She felt a difficulty in justifying her protest.
"I don't know—I just thought—"
"I'm waiting," said Prince with a smile.
"He wouldn't take it, would he?" she fenced.
"If it was put up to him right I think he would. Of course, it would be a sacrifice for him to make, but good citizens have to do that these days."
"He's had so much hard luck and been so long getting a start I don't think you ought to ask him." The color spilled over her cheeks like wine shaken from a glass upon a white cloth. Polly was always ardent on behalf of a friend.
"I can't help that. There's another man I have in mind, but if I don't get him it will be up to Jack."
"Will it be dangerous?"
"No more than smoking a cigarette above an open keg of powder. But you don't suppose that would keep him from accepting the job, do you?"
"No," she admitted. "He would take it if he thought he ought. But I hope you get the other man."
Billie dismissed the subject and drew up a chair beside the hammock in which she was leaning back.
"This is my birthday, Polly," he told her. "I'm twenty-four years old."
"Good gracious! What a Methuselah!"
"I want a present, so I've come to ask for it."
With a sidelong tilt of her chin she flashed a look of quick eyes at him. Her voice did not betray the pulse, of excitement that was beginning to beat in her blood.
"You've just been elected sheriff. Isn't that enough?" she evaded.
"That's a fine present to hand a man," he answered grimly. "An' I didn't notice you bubble with enthusiasm when I spoke of givin' half the glory to Goodheart."
"But I haven't a thing you'd care for. If I'd only known in time I'd have sent to Vegas and got you something nice."
"You don't have to send to Vegas for it, Polly. The present I want is right here," he said simply.
She reached out a little hand impulsively. "Billie, I believe you 're the best man I know—the very best."
"I hate to hear that. You're tryin' to let me down easy."
"I'm an ungrateful little idiot. Any other girl in town would jump at the chance to say, 'Thank you, kind sir.'"
"But you can't," he said gently.
"No, I can't."
He was not sure whether there was a flash of tears in her brown eyes, but he knew by that little trick of biting the lower lip that they were not far away. She was a tender-hearted little comrade, and it always hurt her to hurt others.
Billie drew a long breath. "That's settled, too, then. I asked you once before if there was some one else. I ask you again, but don't tell me if you'd rather not."
"Yes."
"You mean there is."
Again the scarlet splashed into her cheeks. She nodded her head three or four times quickly in assent.
"Not Jim Clanton?" he said, alarmed.
A faint, tender smile flashed on her lips. "I don't think I'll tell you who he is, Billie."
He hesitated. "That's all right, Polly. I don't want to pry into yore secret. But—don't do anything foolish. Don't marry a man with the notion of reformin' him or because he seems to you romantic. You have lots of sense. You'll use it, won't you?" he pleaded.
"I'll try to use it, Billie," she promised. Then, the soft eyes shining and the color still high in her cheeks, she added impulsively: "I don't know anybody that needs some one to love him more than that poor boy does."
"Mebbeso. But don't you be that some one, Polly." He hesitated, divided between loyalty to his friend and his desire for this girl's good. His brown, unscarred hand caught hers in a firm grip. "Don't you do it, little girl. Don't you. The woman that marries Jim Clanton is doomed to be miserable. There's no escape for her. She's got to live with her heart in her throat till the day they bring his dead body back to her."
She leaned toward him, and now there was no longer any doubt that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Perhaps a woman doesn't marry for happiness alone, Billie. That may come to her, or it may not. But she has to fulfill her destiny. I don't know how to say what I mean, but she must go on and live her life and forget herself."
Prince rejected this creed flatly. "No! No! The best way to fulfill yore life is to be happy. That's what you've always done, an' that's why you've made other people happy. Because you go around singin' an' dancin', we all want to tune up with you. When I was out bossin' a freight outfit I used to think of you at night under the stars as a little Joybird. Now you've got it in that curly head of yours that you 'd ought to be some kind of a missionary martyr for the sake of a man's soul. That's all wrong."
"Is it?" she asked him with a crooked, little, wistful smile. "How about you? Do you want to be sheriff? Is it going to make you so awfully happy to spend your time running down outlaws for the good of the country? Aren't you doing it because you've been called to it and not because you like it?"
"That's different," he protested. "When the community needs him a man's got to come through or be a yellow hound. But you've got no right to toss away yore life plumb foolishly just because you've got a tender heart." Billie stopped again, then threw away any scruples he might have on the score of friendship. "Jim is goin' to be what he is to the end of the chapter. You can't change him. Nobody can. In this Washington County War he's been a terror to the other side. You know that. For such a girl as you he's outside the pale."
"I heard Jean say once that Jim had never killed a man that didn't need killing," she protested.
"That may be true, too. But it wasn't up to him to do it. It isn't only killin' either. He's on the wrong track."
The young man could say no more. He could not tell her that Clanton was suspected of rustling and that his name had been mentioned in connection with robbery of the mail. These charges were not proved. Prince himself still loyally denied their truth, though evidence was beginning to pile up against the young gunman. He had warned Clanton, and Jim had clapped him on the shoulder, laughed, and invited him to take a drink with him. This was not quite the way in which Billie felt an innocent man would receive news that he was being furtively accused of crime.
"Yes, he's going wrong," agreed Pauline. "But we can't desert him, can we? You're his best friend. You know how brave he is, how generous, how at the bottom of his heart he loves people that are fine and true. If we stand by him we'll save him yet."
The young man's common sense told him that Clanton's future lay with himself and his attitude toward his environment, but he loved the spirit of this girl's gift of faith in her friends. It was so wholly like her to reject the external evidence and accept her own conviction of his innate goodness.
"I hope yore faith will work a miracle."
"I hate the things he does more than you do, Billie. It is horrible to me that he can take human life. I don't justify him at all, even though usually he is on the right side. But in spite of everything he has done Jim is only a wild boy. And he's so splendid some ways. Any day he would give his life for you or for me or for Lee Snaith. You feel that about him, don't you?"
"Yes."
He was not satisfied to let the subject drop, but for the present it had to be postponed. For a young man and a young woman were turning in at the gate. They were a handsome pair physically. Each of them moved with the lithe grace of a young puma. Pauline rose to meet them.
"I'm glad you came, Lee. Didn't know you were in town, Jim,"
Clanton smiled. "I rode up from the Hondo to congratulate our new sheriff. Don't you let any of them outlaws escape, Billie."
Prince looked directly into his audacious eyes as he shook hands with him.
"Not if I can help it, Jim. I want you to be my chief deputy in cleanin' up the county. If you'll help me we'll make such a gather of bad men that it won't be safe for a crook to show his head here."
Pauline clapped her hands. "What a splendiferous idea! It's a great chance for you, Jim. You and Billie can do it too. I know you can."
The other young woman had recognized Prince only by a casual nod. It was her custom to ignore him as much as possible. Now her dark, velvety eyes jumped to meet his, then passed to Clanton. She recognized the significance of the moment. It was Jim's last opportunity to line up on the side of law and order. Lee, with Billie and Pauline, had stood his loyal friend against a growing public opinion. Would he justify their faith in him?
After a long silence Jim spoke. "No, I reckon not, Billie. I've got interests that will take all my time. Much obliged, old scout. I'd like to ride in couples with you like we used to do. I sure would, but I can't."
"That's all nonsense. It's no excuse at all," broke out Lee in her direct fashion. "Mr. Prince has more important affairs than you a good deal. He is dropping his to serve the people. You'll have to give a better reason than that to convince me."
Billie knew and Lee suspected what lay back of the spoken word. The duty of the sheriff would be to hunt down the men with whom Clanton had lately been consorting. He felt that he could not desert his friends to line up against them. Some of these were a bad lot, the riff-raff of a wild country, but this would not justify him in his own mind for using his knowledge of their habits to run them to earth.
"No, I can't talk business with you, Billie," the young fellow said decisively.
"Why can't you?" demanded Lee.
Jim Clanton smiled. "You're certainly a right persistent young lady, but by advice of counsel I decline to answer."
Chapter XXII
The Rustlers' Camp
From Live-Oaks a breakneck trail runs up the side of the mountain, drops down into the valley beyond, and twists among the hills and through cañons to the Ruidosa. In the darkness a man followed this precarious path. His horse climbed it like a cat, without the least uncertainty or doubt. Both mount and rider had covered this ground often during the Washington County War. Joe Yankie expected to continue to use it as long as he found a profit in other men's cattle.
When he had reached the summit he swung to the right, dipped abruptly into a narrow gulch, skirted a clump of junipers, and looked down upon a little basin hidden snugly in the gorge. A wisp of pungent smoke rose to his nostrils. The pony began cautiously the sharp descent. The escarpment was of disintegrated granite which rang beneath the hoofs of the animal. A pebble rolled to the edge of the bluff and dropped into the black pit below.
From the gulf a challenging voice rose. "Hello, up there!"
"It's me—Joe," answered the rider.
"Time you were gettin' here," growled the other, as yet only a voice in the darkness.
Slowly the horse slid forward to a ribbon of trail that led less precipitously to the camp.
"'Lo, Joe. Fall off an' rest," a one-armed man invited. By the light of the camp-fire he was a hard-faced, wall-eyed citizen with a jaw like a steel trap.
Yankie dismounted and straddled to the fire. "How-how; I'm heap hungry, boys. Haven't et since mornin'."
"We're 'most out of grub. Got nothin' but jerked beef an' hard-tack. How are things a-stackin', Joe?" asked a heavy-set, bow-legged man with a cold, fishy eye.
"Looks good, Dave. I'll lead the cattle to you. It'll be up to you an'
Albeen an' Dumont to make a get-away with 'em."
"Don't you worry none about that. Once I get these beeves on the trail there can't no shorthorn cattleman take 'em away from me."
"Oh, you're doin' this thing, are you?" drawled Albeen offensively. "There's been a heap of big I talk around here lately. First off, I want to tell you that when you call Homer Webb a shorthorn cattleman you've got another guess comin'. He's a sure enough old-timer. Webb knocked the bark off'n this country when it was green, an' you got to rise up early an' travel fast if you want to slip over anything on him,"
"That's whatever," agreed Yankie. "I don't love the old man a whole lot. I've stood about all from him I'm intendin' to. One of these days it's goin' to be him or me. But the old man's there every jump of the road. He knew New Mexico when Los Portales was a whistlin' post in the desert. He's fought through this war an' come through richer than when he started. If I was lookin' for an easy mark I'd sure pass up Webb."
"He's got you lads buffaloed," jeered Roush. "Webb looks like anybody else to me. I don't care if he's worth a million. If he fools with me he'll find I fog him quick."
"I've known fellows before that got all filled up with talk an' had to steam off about every so often," commented Albeen to the world at large.
"Meanin' me?"
Albeen carefully raked a live coal from the fire and pressed it down into the bowl of his pipe. The eyes in his leathery, brown face had grown hard as jade. For some time he and Dave Roush had been ready for an explosion. It could not come any too soon to suit the one-armed man.
"Meanin' you if you want to take it that way." Albeen looked straight at him with an unwinking gaze. "You're not the only man on the reservation that wears his gun low, Roush. Maybe you're a wolf for fair. I've sure heard you claim it right often. You're a two-gun man. I pack only one, seem' as I'm shy a wing. But don't git the notion you can ride me. I won't stand for it a minute."
"Sho! Dave didn't mean anything like that. Did you, Dave?" interposed
Dumont hastily. "You was just kind o' jokin', wasn't you?"
"Well, I'm servin' notice right now that when any one drops around any jokes about me bein' buffaloed, he's foolin' with dynamite. No man alive can run a sandy on me an' git away with it."
The chill eyes of Albeen, narrowed to shining slits, focused on Roush menacingly. All present understood that he was offering Devil Dave a choice. He could draw steel, or he could side-step the issue.
The campers had been playing poker with white navy beans for chips. Roush, undecided, gathered up in his fingers the little pile of them in front of him and let them sift down again to the blanket on the edge of which he sat. Some day he and Albeen would have to settle this quarrel once for all. But not to-night. Dave wanted the breaks with him when that hour came. He intended to make a sure thing of it. Albeen was one of those fire-eaters who would play into his hand by his reckless courage. Better have patience and watch for his chance against the one-armed gunman.
"I ain't aimin' to ride you any, Albeen," he said sulkily.
"Lay off'n me, then," advised the other curtly.
Roush grumbled something inaudible. It might have been a promise. It might have been a protest. Yankie jumped into the breach and began to talk.
"I couldn't git away from the old man yesterday. I think he's suspicious about me. Anyhow, he acts like he is. I came in to Live-Oaks to-night without notifyin' him an' I got to be back in camp before mornin'. Here's my plan. I've got a new rider out from Kansas for his health. He's gun-shy. I'll leave him in charge of this bunch of stock overnight on. the berrendo. He'll run like a scared deer at the first shot. Hustle the beeves over the pass an' keep 'em movin' till you come to Lost Cache."
Crouched over the blanket, they discussed details and settled them.
Yankie rose to leave and Roush followed him to his horse.
"Don't git a notion I'm scared of Albeen, Joe," he explained. "No one-armed, hammered-down little runt can bluff me for a second. When I'm good an' ready I'll settle with him, but I'm not goin' to wreck this business we're on by any personal difficulty."
"That's right, Dave," agreed the foreman of the Flying V Y. "We all understand how you feel."
Yankie, busy fastening a cinch, had his forehead pressed against the saddle and could afford a grin. He knew that the courage of a killer is largely dependent on his physical well-being. If he is cold or hungry or exhausted, his nerve is at low ebb; if life is running strong in his arteries his grit is above par. For years Roush had been drinking to excess. He had reached the point where he dared not face in the open a man like Albeen with nerves of unflawed steel. The declension of a gunman, if once it begins, is rapid and sure. One of those days, unless Roush were killed first, some mild-looking citizen would take his gun from him and kick him out of a bar-room.
The foreman traveled fast, but the first streaks of morning were already lighting the sky when he reached Rabbit Ear Creek, upon which was the Flying V Y Ranch No. 3 of which he was majordomo. He unsaddled, threw the bronco into the corral, and walked to the foreman's bunkhouse. Without undressing, he flung himself upon the bed and fell asleep at one. He awoke to see a long slant of sunshine across the bare planks of the floor.
Some one was hammering on the door. Webb opened it and put in his head just as the Segundo jumped to his feet.
"Makin' up some lost sleep, Joe?" inquired the owner of the ranch amiably.
"I been out nights a good deal tryin' to check the rustlers," answered Yankie sullenly. He had been caught asleep in his clothes and it annoyed him. Would the old man guess that he had been in the saddle all night?
"Glad to hear you're gettin' busy on that job. They've got to be stopped.
If you can't do it I'll have to try to find a man that can, Joe."
"Mebbe you think it's an easy job, Webb," retorted the other, a chip on his shoulder. "If you do it costs nothin' Mex to fire me an' try some other guy."
"I don't say you're to blame, Joe. Perhaps you're just unlucky. But the fact stands that I'm losin' more cattle on this range than at any one of my other three ranches or all of 'em put together."
"We're nearer the hills than they are," the foreman replied sulkily.
"I don't want excuses, but results, Joe. However, I came to talk about that gather of beeves for Major Strong."
Webb talked business in his direct fashion for a few minutes, then strolled away. The majordomo watched him walk down to the corral. He could not swear to it, but he was none the less sure that the Missourian's keen eye was fixed upon a sweat-stained horse that had been traveling the hills all night.
Chapter XXIII
Murder from the Chaparral
Webb was just leaving for one of his ranches lower down the river when a horseman galloped up. The alkali dust was caked on his unshaven face and the weary bronco was dripping with sweat.
The owner of the Flying V Y, giving some last instructions to the foreman, turned to listen to the sputtering rider.
"They—they done run off that bunch of beeves on the berrendo," he explained, trembling with excitement.
"Who?"
"I don't know. A bunch of rustlers. About a dozen of 'em. They tried to kill me."
Webb turned to Yankie. "You didn't leave this man alone overnight with that bunch of beeves for Major Strong?"
"Sure I did. Why not?" demanded the foreman boldly.
"We'll not argue that," said the boss curtly, "Go hunt you another job.
You'll draw yore last pay-check from the Flying V Y to-day."
"If you're loaded up with a notion that some one else could do better—"
"It's not yore ability I object to, Yankie" cut in the ranchman.
"Say, what are you insinuatin'?" snarled the segundo.
"Not a thing, Yankie. I'm tellin' you to yore face that I think you're a crook. One of these days I'm goin' to land you behind the bars at Santa Fé. No, don't make another pass like that, Joe. I'll sure beat you to it."
Wrayburn had ridden up and now asked the foreman a question about some calves.
"Don't ask me. Ask yore boss," growled Yankie, his face dark with fury.
"Don't ask me either," said Webb. "You're foreman of this ranch, Dad."
"Since when?" asked the old Confederate.
"Since right this minute. I've fired Yankie."
Dad chewed his cud of tobacco without comment. He knew that Webb would tell him all he needed to know.
"Says I'm a waddy! Says I'm a crook!" burst out the deposed foreman.
"Wish you joy of yore job, Wrayburn. You'll have one heluva time."
"You will if Yankie can bring it about," amended the cattleman. He spoke coldly and contemptuously just as if the man were not present. "I've made up my mind, Dad, that he's in cahoots with the rustlers."
"Prove it! Prove it!" demanded the accused man, furious with anger at
Webb's manner.
The ranch-owner went on talking to Wrayburn in an even voice. "I've suspected it for some time. Now I'm convinced. Yesterday mornin' I found him asleep in bed with his clothes on. His horse looked like it had been travelin' all night. I made inquiries. He went to Live-Oaks an' was seen to take the trail to the Ruidosa. Why?"
"You've been spyin' on me," charged Yankie. He was under a savage desire to draw his gun but he could not shake off in a moment the habit of subordination bred by years of service with this man.
"To let his fellow thieves know that he meant to leave a bunch of beef steers on the berrendo practically unguarded. That's why. I'd bet a stack of blues on it. You'll have to watch this fellow, Dad."
The new foreman took his cue from the boss. None the less, he meant just what he said. "You better believe I'll watch him. I've had misgivin's about him for a right smart time."
"He'll probably ride straight to his gang of rustlers. Well, he can't do us half as much harm there as here."
"I'll git you both. Watch my smoke. Watch it." With a curse the rustler swung his horse round and gave it the spur. Poison hate churned in his heart. At the bend of the road he turned and shook a fist at them both.
"There goes one good horse an' saddle belongin' to me," said Webb, smiling ruefully. "But if I never get them back it's cheap at the price. I'm rid of one scoundrel."
"I wonder if you are, Homer," mused his friend. "Maybe you'd better have let him down easy. Joe Yankie is as revengeful as an Injun."
"Let him down easy!" exploded the cattleman. "When he's just pulled off a raw deal by which I lose a bunch of forty fat three-year-olds. I ought to have gunned him in his tracks."
"If you had proof, but you haven't. It's a right doubtful policy for a man to stir up a rattler till it's crazy, then to turn it loose in his bedroom."
The Missourian turned to the business of the hour. "We'll get a posse out after the rustlers right away. Dad. I'll see the boys an' you hustle up some rifles and ammunition."
Half an hour later they saw the dust of the cowpunchers taking the trail for the berrendo.
"I'll ride down an' get Billie Prince started after 'em. I can go with his posse as a deputy," suggested the ranchman.
To save Webb's time, Dad rode a few miles with him while the cattleman outlined to him the policy he wanted pursued.
The sun was high in the heavens when they met, not far from Ten Sleep, a rider. The cattleman looked at him grimly. In the Washington County War just ended, this young fellow had been the leading gunman of the Snaith-McRobert faction. If the current rumors were true he was now making an easy living in the chaparral.
The rider drew up, nodded a greeting to Wrayburn, and grinned with cool nonchalance at Webb. He knew from report in what esteem he was held by the owner of the Flying V Y brand.
"Yankie up at the ranch?" he asked.
"What do you want with him?" demanded Webb brusquely.
"I got a message for him."
"Who from?"
Clanton was conscious of some irritation against this sharp catechism. In point of fact Billie Prince had asked him to notify Yankie that he had heard of the rustling on the berrendo and was taking the trail at once. But Go-Get-'Em Jim was the last man in the world to be driven by compulsion. He had been ready to tell Webb the message Billie had given him for Yankie, but he was not ready to tell it until the Missourian moderated his tone.
"Mebbe that's my business—an' his, Mr. Webb," he said.
"An' mine too—if you've come to tell him how slick you pulled that trick on the berrendo."
Jim stiffened at once. "To Halifax with you an' yore cattle, Webb. Do you claim I rustled that bunch of beeves last night?"
"I see you know all about it?" retorted Webb with heavy sarcasm.
"Mebbeso. I'm not askin' yore permission to live—not just yet."
Webb flushed dark with anger. "You've got a nerve, young fellow, to go up to my ranch after last night's business. Unless you want to have yore pelt hung up to dry, keep away from any of the Flying V Y ranges. As for Yankie, if you go back to yore hole you'll likely find him. I kicked the hound out two hours ago."
"Like you did me three years ago," suggested Clanton, looking straight at the grizzled cowman. "Webb, you're the high mogul here since you fixed it up with the Government to send its cavalry to back yore play against our faction. You act like we've got to knock our heads in the dust three times when we meet up with you. Don't you think it. Don't you think it for a minute. If I've rustled yore cattle, prove it. Until then padlock yore tongue, or you an' me'll mix it."
"You're threatenin' me, eh?"
"If that's what you want to call it."
"You're a killer, I'm told," flashed back Webb hotly. "Now listen to me. You an' yore kind belong in the penitentiary, an' that's where the honest folks of Washington County are goin' to send you soon. Give me half a chance an' I'll offer a reward of ten thousand dollars for you alive or dead. That's the way to get rid of gunmen."
"Is it?" Clanton laughed mockingly. "You advise the fellow that tries to collect that reward to get his life insured heavy for his widow."
If this was a boast, it was also a warning. Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em may not have been the best target shot on the border, but give him a man behind a spitting revolver as his mark and he could throw bullets with swifter, deadlier accuracy than any old-timer of them all. He did not take the time to aim; it was enough for him to look at his opponent as he fired.
The young fellow swung his horse expertly and cantered into the mesquite.
"I'll give you two months before you're wiped off the map," the cattleman called after him angrily.
At the edge of a heavy growth of brush Clanton pulled up, flashed a six-shooter, and dropped two bullets in the dust at the feet of the horses in the road. Then, with a wave of his hand, he laughed derisively and plunged into the chaparral.
Webb, stung to irritable action, fired into the cholla and the arrowweed thickets. Shot after shot he sent at the man who had disappeared in the maze.
"Let him go. Homer. You're well quit of him," urged Wrayburn.
The words were still on his lips when out of the dense tangle of vegetation rang a shot. The owner of the Flying VY clutched at his saddle-horn. A spasmodic shudder shook the heavy body and it began to sink.
Wrayburn ran to help. He was in time to catch his friend as he fell, but before he could lower the inert weight to the ground the life of Homer Webb had flickered out.
Chapter XXIV
Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em Leaves a Note
Prince and his posse were camped in a little park near the headquarters of Saco de Oro Creek when a trapper brought word to Billie of the death of Webb. The heart of the young sheriff sank at the news. It was not only that he had always liked and admired the bluff cattleman. What shocked him more was that Jim Clanton had killed him. Webb was one of the most popular ranchmen on the river. There would be an instant, widespread demand for the arrest and conviction of his slayer. Billie had taken an oath to uphold the law. His clear duty was to go out and capture Jim alive or dead.
Not for a moment did Billie doubt what he would do. He had pledged himself to blot out the "bad man," and he would go through no matter what the cost to his personal feelings.
A slow anger at Clanton burned in him. Why had he done this wanton and lawless thing? The boy he had known three years ago would never have shot down from cover a man like Webb. That he could have done it now marked the progress of the deterioration of his moral fiber. What right had he to ask those who remained loyal to him to sacrifice so often their sense of right in his favor?
The old intimacy between Billie and Jim had long since waned. They were traveling different roads these days. But though they were no longer chums their friendship endured. When they met, a warm affection lit the eyes of both. It had survived the tug of diverse interests, the intervention of long separations, the conflict born of the love of women. Would it stand without breaking this new test of its strength?
With a little nod to Goodheart the sheriff retired from the camp-fire.
His deputy joined him presently on a hillside overlooking the creek.
"I'm goin' back to Live-Oaks to-night, Jack," announced Prince. "You'd better stay here a few days an' hunt through these gulches. Since that rain yesterday there's not one chance in fifty of runnin' down the rustlers, but you might happen to stumble on the place where they've got the cattle cached."
"You're goin' down about this Webb murder?"
"Yes. I'm goin' to work out some plans. It will take some strategy to land Clanton. He's lived out in the hills for years and he knows every foot of cover in the country."
Goodheart assented. To go blindly out into the mesquite after the young outlaw would have been as futile as to reach a hand toward the stars with the hope of plucking a gold-piece from the air.
"Watch the men he trains with. Keep an eye on the Elephant Corral an' check up on him when he rides in to Los Portales. Spot the tendejon at Point o' Rocks where he has a hang-out. Unless he has left the country he'll show up one of these days."
"That's what I think, Jack, an' I'm confident he hasn't gone. He has a reason for stayin' here."
Goodheart could have put a name to the reason. It was a fair enough reason to have held either him or the sheriff under the same circumstances.
"How about a reward? He trains with a crowd I'd hate to trust farther than I could throw a bull by the tail. Some of 'em would sell their own mothers for gold."
"I'll get in touch with Webb's family an' see if they won't offer a big reward for information leading to the arrest of the murderer."
Within the week every crossroads store in the county had tacked to it a placard offering a reward of five thousand dollars for the man who had killed Homer Webb.
No applications for it came in at first.
"Wait," said Goodheart, smiling. "More than one yellow dog has licked its jaws hungrily before that poster. Some dark night the yellowest one will sneak in here to see you."
On the main street of Los Portales one evening Billie met Pauline
Roubideau. She came at him with a direct frontal attack.
"I've had a letter from Jim Clanton."
The sheriff did not ask her where it was post-marked. He did not want any information from Polly as to the whereabouts of her friend.
"You're one ahead of me then. I haven't," answered Prince.
"He says he didn't do it."
"Do what?"
"Shoot Mr. Webb. And I know he didn't if he says he didn't."
The grave eyes of the young man met hers. "But Dad Wrayburn was there. He saw the whole affair."
Pauline brushed this aside with superb faith. "I don't care. Jim never lied to me in his life. I know he didn't do it—and it makes me so glad."
The young man envied her the faith that could reject evidence as though it did not exist. The Jim Clanton she had once known would not have lied to her. Therefore the Jim Clanton she knew now was worthy of perfect trust. If there was any flaw in that logic the sweet and gallant heart of the girl did not find it.
But Billie had talked with Dad Wrayburn. He had ridden out and gone over the ground with a fine-tooth comb. Webb had been killed by a bullet from a forty-four. Of his own knowledge Prince knew that Clanton was carrying a weapon of this caliber only three hours before the killing. There was no escape from the conviction of the guilt of his friend.
The sheriff walked back to the hotel where he was staying. On the way his mind was full of the young woman he had just left. He had never liked her better, never admired her more. But, somehow—and for the first time he realized it—there was no longer any sting in the thought of her. He did not have to fight against any unworthy jealousy because of her interest in Clanton. Of late he had been very busy. It struck him now that his mind had been much less preoccupied with the thought of her than it used to be. He supposed there was such a thing as falling out of love. Perhaps he was in process of doing that now.
Bud Proctor, a tall young stripling, met Prince on the porch of the hotel.
"Buck Sanders was here to see you, sheriff," the boy said.
Since the days when he had been segundo of the Snaith-McRobert outfit Sanders had declined in the world. Like many of his kind he had taken to drink, become bitten with the desire to get rich without working, and operated inconspicuously in the chaparral with a branding iron. Much water had poured down the bed of the Pecos in the past three years. The disagreement between him and Clanton had long since been patched up and they had lately been together a great deal.
Prince went up to his room, threw off his coat, and began to prepare some papers he had to send to the Governor. He was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Sanders opened at the sheriff's invitation, shoved in his head, looked around the room warily, and sidled in furtively. He closed the door.
"Mind if I lock it?" he asked.
The sheriff nodded. His eyes fixed themselves intently on the man. "Go as far as you like."
The visitor hung his hat over the keyhole and moved forward to the table.
His close-set eyes gripped those of the sheriff.
"What about this reward stuff?" he asked harshly.
An instant resentment surged up in Billie's heart. He knew now why this fellow had come to see him secretly. It was his duty to get all the information he could about Clanton. He had to deal with this man who wanted to sell his comrade, but he did not relish the business.
"You can read, can't you, Sanders?" he asked ungraciously.
"Where's the money?" snarled his guest.
"It's in the bank."
"Sure?"
From his pocket-book Billie took a bank deposit slip. He put it on the table where the other man could look it over.
"Would a man have to wait for the reward until Clanton was convicted?" the traitor asked roughly.
"A thousand would be paid as soon as the arrest was made, the rest when he was convicted," said Prince coldly.
"Will you put that in writin', Mr. Sheriff?"
The chill eyes of the officer drilled into those of the rustler. He drew a pad toward him and wrote a few lines, then shoved the tablet of paper toward Sanders. The latter tore off the sheet and put it in his pocket.
Sanders spoke again, abruptly. "Understand one thing, Prince. I don't have to take part in the arrest. I only tell you where to find him."
"And take me to the spot," added the sheriff, "I'll do the arrestin'."
"Whyfor must I take you there if I tell you where to go?"
"You want a good deal for your white alley, Sanders," returned the other contemptuously. "I'm to take all the chances an' you are to drag down the reward. That listens good. Nothin' to it. You'll ride right beside me; then if anything goes wrong, you'll be where I can ask you questions."
"Do you think I'm double-crossin' you? Is that it?" flushed the ex-foreman of the Lazy S M.
"I don't know. It might be Clanton you're double-crossin', or it might be me," said the sheriff with cynical insolence. "But if I'm the bird you've made a poor choice. In case we're ambushed, you'll be in nice, easy reach of my gun."
"Do I look like a fool?" snapped Sanders. "I'm out for the dough. I'm takin' you to Clanton because I need the money."
"Mebbeso. You won't need it long if you throw me down." Then abruptly, the sheriff dropped into the manner of dry business. "Get down to tacks, man. Where is Clanton's hang-out?"
Buck sat down and drew a sketch roughly on the tablet. "Cross the river at Blazer's Ford, cut over the hills to Ojo Caliente, an' swing to the east. He's about four miles from Round Top in an old dugout. Maybe you've heard of Saguaro Cañon. Well, he's holed up in a little gulch runnin' into it."
By daybreak next morning the sheriff's posse was in the saddle. In addition to Sanders, who rode beside Billie unarmed, Goodheart and two special deputies made up the party.
The sun was riding high when they reached Ojo Caliente. The party bore eastward, following a maze of washes, arroyos, and gorges. It was well into the afternoon when the informer ventured a suggestion.
"We're close enough. Better light here an' sneak forward on foot," the man said gruffly.
As he swung from the horse Billie smiled grimly. He had a plan of his own which he meant to try. Buck Sanders might not like it, but he was not in a position to make any serious objection.
They crept forward to a rim rock above a heavily wooded slope. A tongue-shaped grove ran down close to the edge of a narrow gulch.
Prince explained what he meant to do. "We'll all snake down closer. When I give the word you'll go forward alone, Sanders, an' call Jim out. Ask him to come forward an' look at yore bronco's hoof. That's all you'll have to do."
Sanders voiced a profane and vigorous protest. "Have you forgot who this guy is you're arrestin'? Go-Get-'Em Jim is no tenderfoot kid. He's chain lightnin' on the shoot. If he suspects me one steenth part of a second, that will be long enough for him to gun me good."
"He'll not have a chance. We'll have him covered all the time."
"Say, we agreed you was goin' to make this arrest, not me."
"I'll make it. All you've got to do is to call him out."
"All!" shrieked Sanders. "You know damned well I'm takin' the big risk."
"That's the way I intended it to be," the sheriff assured him coolly.
"You're to get the reward, aren't you?"
The rustler balked. He polluted the air with low, vicious curses, but in the end he had to come to time.
They slipped through the grove till they could see on the edge of the ravine a dug-out. Prince flashed a handkerchief as a signal and Sanders rode down in the open skirting the timber. He swung from the saddle and shouted a "Hello, in the house!"
No answer came. Buck called a second and a third time. He waited, irresolute. He could not consult with Prince. At last he moved toward the house and entered. Presently he returned to the door and waved to the sheriff to come forward.
Very cautiously the posse accepted the invitation, but every foot of the way Billie kept the man covered.
Sanders ripped out a furious oath. "He's done made his get-away. Some one must 'a' warned him."
He held out to Prince a note scrawled on a piece of wrapping-paper. It was in Clanton's pell-mell, huddled chirography:—
Sorry I can't stay to entertain you, Billie. Make yourself at home. Bacon and other grub in a lard can by the creek. Help yourself.
Crack Sanders one on the bean with your six-gun on account for me.
JIMMIE-GO-GET-'EM.
Chapter XXV
The Mal-Pais
Billie Prince laughed. The joke was on him, but he was glad of it. As sheriff of Washington County it had been his duty to accept any aid that might come from the treachery of Sanders; but as a friend of Jim Clanton he did not want to win over him by using such weapons.
"Tickled to death, ain't you?" snapped the ex-foreman sourly. "Looks to me like you didn't want to make this arrest, Mr. Sheriff. Looks to me like some one else has been doin' some double-crossin' besides me."
"Naturally you'd think that," cut in Goodheart dryly. "The facts probably are that Go-Get-'Em Jim, knowin' his friends pretty well, had you watched, found out you called on the sheriff, an' guessed the rest. He's not a fool, you know."
"That's right. Git ready an alibi," Sanders snarled.
Casually Goodheart picked up the piece of wrapping-paper upon which the note had been written. He read aloud the last sentence.
"'Crack Sanders one on the bean with your six-gun on account for me.' Seems to me if I was you, Buck, I'd alibi myself down the river into Texas as quick as I could jog a bronco along. But, of course, I don't know yore friend Go-Get-'Em as well as you do. Mebbe you'll be able to explain it to him. Tell him you were hard up an' needed the money."
The eyes of the rustler flashed from Goodheart to the sheriff. They were full of sinister suspicion. Had these men arranged to deliver him into the hands of Clanton? Was he himself going to fall into the pit he had dug?
"Gimme back my gun an' I'm not afraid of him or any of you," he bluffed.
"You'll get yore gun when we reach Los Portales," Prince told him. "I left it in my office."
"I ain't goin' to Los Portales."
"All right. Leave yore address and I'll send the gun by the buckboard driver."
All the baffled hate and cupidity of Sanders glared out of his wolfish face. "I'll let you know later where I'm at."
He straddled out of the house, pulled himself astride the waiting horse, and rode up the hill. Presently he disappeared over the crest.
"Much obliged, Jack," said Prince, smiling. "Exit Mr. Buck Sanders from New Mexico. Our loss is Texas's gain. Chalk up one bad man emigrated from Washington County."
"He's sure goin' to take my advice," agreed the lank deputy. A little chuckle of amusement escaped from his throat. "To the day of his death he'll think we sent word to Go-Get-'Em Jim. I'll bet my next pay-check against a dollar Mex that he forgets to send you that address."
Billie availed himself of the invitation of Clanton to make himself at home. He and his posse spent the night in the dug-out and returned to Los Portales next day. For the better part of a week he was detained there on business, after which he took the stage to Live-Oaks.
News was waiting for Prince at the county seat that led him for a time to forget the existence of Clanton. The buckboard driver from El Paso reported the worst sand-storm he had ever encountered. It had struck him a mile or two this side of the Mal-Pais, as the great lava beds in the Tularosa Basin are commonly called. He had unhitched the horses, overturned the buckboard, and huddled in the shelter of the bed. There he had lain crouched for ten hours while the drifting sand, fine as powder, blotted out the world and buried him in drifts. He was an old plainsman, tough as leather, and he had weathered the storm safely. A full day late he staggered into Live-Oaks a sorry sight.
The news that shook Live-Oaks into swift activity had to do with Lee Snaith. Just before the storm hit him the buckboard driver had met her riding toward the Mal-Pais.
Prince arrived to find the town upside down with the confusion of preparation. Swiftly he brought order out of the turmoil. He organized the rescue party, assigned leaders to the divisions, saw that each man was properly outfitted, and mapped off the territory to be covered by each posse. Outwardly he was cool, efficient, full of hopeful energy. But at his heart Billie felt an icy clutch of despair. What chance was there for Lee, caught unsheltered in the open, when the wiry, old Indian fighter, protected by his wagon, had barely won through alive?
Every horse in Live-Oaks that could be ridden was in the group that melted into the night to find Lee Snaith. Every living soul left in the little town was on the street to cheer the rescuers.
The sheriff divided his men. Most of them were to spend the night, and if necessary the next day and night, in combing the sand desert east of the Mal-Pais. Here Lee had last been seen, and here probably she had wandered round and round until the storm had beaten her down. It took little imagination to vision the girl, flailed by the sweeping sand, bewildered by it, choked at every gasping breath, hopelessly lost in the tempest.
Yet some bell of hope rang in Billie's breast. She might have reached the lava. If so, there was a chance that she might be alive. For though the wind had sweep enough here, the fine dust-sand of the alluvial plain could not be carried so densely into this rock-sea. Perhaps she had slipped into a fissure and found safety.
For fifty miles this great igneous bed stretches, a rough and broken sea of stone, across the thirsty desert. Its texture is like that of slag from a furnace. Once, in the morning of the world, it flowed from the crater along the line of least resistance, a vitreous river of fire. In a great molten mass it swept into the valleys, crawling like a great snake here and there, pushing fiery tongues into every crevice of the hills.
The margin of its flow is a cliff or steep slope varying in height from a few feet to that of a good-sized tree. Between the silt plain and the general level of its bed rises a terrace. In front of it Prince stopped and distributed the men he had reserved to search the lava bed. He gave definite, peremptory orders.
"We'll keep about two hundred yards apart. Every twenty minutes each of you will fire his revolver. If any of you find Miss Snaith or any evidence of her, shoot three times in rapid succession. Each of you pass the signal down the line by firing four shots. Those who hear the three shots go in as fast as you can to the rescue. The others—those farther away, who hear the four shots only—will turn an' work back to the plain, continuing to fire once every twenty minutes. Do exactly as I tell you, boys. If you don't, some one will be lost an' may never get out alive. If any one of you gets out of touch with the rest of us, stay right where you are till mornin', then come out by the sun."
The horses were left in charge of a Mexican boy. The surface of the deposit is so broken that even a man on foot has difficulty in traversing it. Prince crawled forward from the terrace up the rough slope of the cliff which at this point bounded it. At the top of the rim he rose and came face to face with another man.
"A good deal like frozen hell, Billie," the other said casually.
"Where did you come from?" demanded the sheriff, amazed.
Jim Clanton laughed grimly. "I've been with yore party half an hour. Why shouldn't I be here when Lee Snaith is lost?"
"You were hiding in Live-Oaks?"
"Mebbeso. Anyway, I'm here. I'll take the right flank, Billie."
"Do you think there's a chance, Jim?" The voice of Prince shook with emotion. It was the first sign of distress he had given.
Clanton reflected just a moment before he answered. "I think there's just a chance. She saved our lives once, Billie. If she's alive we'll find her, you an' me."
"By God, yes." Prince turned away. He could not talk about it without breaking down.
In the stress of a great shock Billie had made a vital discovery. The most important thing that would ever come to him in life was to find Lee Snaith alive. How blind he had been! He could see her now in imagination, as in reality he had seen her a hundred times, moving in the sun-pour with elastic tread, full-throated and deep-chested, athrob with life in every generous vein. How passionately she had loved things brave and true! How anger had flamed up in her like fire among tow at meanness and hypocrisy. Surely all the beauty of her person, the fineness of her character, could not be blotted out so wantonly. If there was any economy in his world God would never permit waste like that.
He wanted her. His soul cried out for her. and stormily he prayed that he might find her alive and well, that the chance might still be given him to tell her how much he loved her.
Sometimes he covered small distances where the flow structure was comparatively smooth, broken only by minor irregularities. Again he came to abrupt pits, deep caverns, tumbled heaps of broken slabs, or jagged chunks of lava twisted into strange shapes. No doubt the volcanic flow had hardened to a crust on top, cracked, and sunk into the furnace below. This process must have gone on indefinitely.
He crept from slab to slab, pulled himself across chasms, worked slowly forward in the darkness. At intervals he fired and listened for an answer. Occasionally there drifted to him the sound of a shot from one of the other searchers. As the hours passed and brought to him no signal that the girl had been found, his hopes ebbed. It was very unlikely that she could have wandered so far into the bad lands as this.
He shuddered to think of her alone in this vast tomb of death. Suppose she were here and they never found her. Suppose she were asleep when he passed, worn out by terror and exhaustion. His voice grew hoarse from shouting. Sometimes, when the thought of her fate would become an agony to him, he could hardly keep his shout from rising to a scream.
Billie struck a match and looked at his watch. It was five minutes past three. A faint gray was beginning to sift into the sky. He had been nearly seven hours in the Mal-Pais. Out in God's country the world would soon be shaking sleep from its eyes. In this death zone there was neither waking nor sleeping. "Frozen hell," Clanton had called it. Prince shuddered.
The flare of the match had showed him that he was standing close to the edge of a fissure. In the darkness he could not see to the bottom of it.
A faint breath of a whimper floated to him. He grew rigid, every nerve taut. He dared not let himself believe it could be real. Of course he was imagining sounds. Presently, no doubt, he would hear voices. In this devil's caldron a man could not stay quite sane.
Again, as if from below his feet, was lifted a strangled, little sob.
"Lee!" he called huskily with what was left of his voice.
Something in the cavern moved. By means of outcropping spars of rock he lowered himself swiftly.
The darkness was Stygian. He struck another match.
From the gloom beyond the space lit by the small flame came the rustle of something stirring. The match burned out. He lit another and groped forward. His foot struck an impediment.
He looked down into the startled eyes and white face of Lee Snaith.