Ironheart

From behind the cover of a huge boulder on the steep hillside a man watched a car labor up the grade and give up. He trained field-glasses on the occupants. From his throat there came a sound like the snarl of a wild animal. He had recognized the driver and the girl in the tonneau.

Out of a hip pocket he drew an automatic revolver. His teeth bared like the fangs of a wolf. Not once did his eyes lift from the driver and the young woman with him until they disappeared round a bend in the road above.

He rose and stretched his cramped limbs, then moved cautiously down the hill slope to the car. A child was in the back seat playing with a puppy.

“Mamma’s gotta go to town an’ buy Baby Fifi some shoes wif silver buckles ’n’ a new blue dress ’n’ free pair of stockings. ’N’ while she’s gone, you better bee-have or Mamma’ll have to spank you good when she gets back,” the little girl advised.

At the sound of footsteps she looked up.

The gay make-believe fled her face. Surrounded by love though she had always been, some instinct told her that this man represented for her the opposite of it. She felt a sudden imperative desire to call to her father.

“Wot’s yer name?” the man asked.

“Ruth Reed.”

“That Clint Reed yer dad?”

She told him he was.

The man’s teeth showed like fangs. “Wot luck! We’re pals, him an’ me. I’ll take yer along with old Cig.”

“I don’ wantta go. I want my daddy,” Ruth announced promptly.

His grin widened. It was an evil thing to see.

“He’ll want you, too, a while before he gets yer,” he jeered.

He opened the door of the tonneau and stood on the running-board. “Come here, kid,” he ordered.

Ruth shrank back to the farther side of the car. “You go ’way. I’ll call my daddy.”

He caught her by the frock and dragged her forward. “Cut out that stuff, missie. When Cig says to step lively, why, you get a hop on yer. See?”

She began to scream. He clapped a dirty hand over the child’s mouth and turned to climb the mountainside with her in his arms.

Ruth kicked fiercely, impelled by terror. His right arm tightened on the struggling legs. The tramp climbed fast. He had to get over the summit before Reed came back or he would be in trouble.

At an altitude of a mile and a half the breath comes short when a strain is put on the lungs and heart. Cig panted as he struggled up the rock-strewn slope. The weight in his arms dragged him down. More than once he slipped on the dry grass and just recovered himself without stumbling. Before he reached the divide, he was hot and exhausted.

But he dared not stop to rest. Once, near the crest, he turned for an instant to make sure he had not been seen. His eyes swept the road anxiously. Nobody was in sight.

Ruth twisted her mouth free and began to shriek. He clamped his hand over her lips again with an oath. It was all he could do to stagger with her over the rocky brow.

Here, for the moment, he was safe. With the sleeve of his coat he wiped the perspiration out of his eyes and from his face.

A saddled horse was tied to a stunted pine not far away. He dragged the child to it, mounted, and hauled her up in front of him. A moment, and the hoofs of the cowpony rang out as they struck the stony rubble.

Cig had never been on a horse till recently. It could not be claimed that he really knew how to ride now. But he could stick on if the animal was gentle. The ways of the West were not his ways. He could not walk out a mile from the cabin where he was staying and not get lost, unless he followed familiar trails. For he was up in the high lands of the Rockies, in a district broken with ravines of twisted pines and jutting rock outcroppings. Each hill and draw and gorge looked to him just like its neighbor.

Cig rode into a small cañon the entrance of which was well concealed by a growth of young quaking asps. Through these he pushed to a cabin on the edge of the grove.

He dropped the child to the ground and swung down.

“You take me back to my daddy,” she sobbed.

“Nix on that stuff. Old Cig’s gonna keep yer right here with him. I’ll learn Clint Reed how safe it is to beat me up like his men done.”

“I wantta go to my daddy. You take me to my daddy,” the child wailed.

The hobo picked up a switch lying on the ground. “Youse stop whinin’. Hear me? I’ll not have it!” he snarled.

His manner was so threatening that the sobs stuck in her throat. She shivered with dread, while she tried to fight back the expression of it.

“I—I want my sister Betty an’ my daddy,” she whimpered.

“Cut it out!” he ordered from a corner of his mouth.

Ruth flung herself to the ground and gave way to a passionate outbreak of grief and terror. The violence of her emotion shook the small body of the little girl.

Cig took a step toward her, switch in hand. He stopped. A sound had reached him. Something was moving in the quaking asps.

Two men emerged along the winding trail. They were on horseback. The one riding in front was Jake Prowers, the other Don Black.

The tramp waved a hand at them. “Woilcome to our city,” he called, grinning toward them. “An’ look who’s here.”

Prowers pulled up. “What the jumpin’ Jehosaphat!” he exclaimed.

“I got lonesome, so I brought back comp’ny for myself,” explained Cig. It was plain that he was proud of himself.

“Where’d you get her?” asked Black.

“Down above Elk Creek?”

“Was she lost?”

“Lost!” The tramp snickered. “Not so you could notice it none. She was sittin’ in a car waitin’ for Clint Reed an’ that high-heeled goil of his to come back.”

“But—what’s she doing here?” inquired Black, still in the dark.

“Why, I brought her.”

“What for?”

Cig sneered contempt. “Ain’t you got any brains under that big lid you wear? I brought her because she’s Clint Reed’s kid, an’ I ain’t squared my account with him. See?”

Any one watching closely would have seen a change in Black’s eyes. Something hard and steely passed into them. “What you aimin’ to do with her?” he asked quietly.

“Ain’t made up my mind. Mebbe I never will give her back. Mebbe I’ll stick that bird Reed for a ransom. No can tell.”

“So?” Black swung from the saddle and lounged forward in the bandy-legged, high-heeled fashion of the range rider. “I’ll do a li’l guessin’ my own self. Mebbe I’ll take her right back to Clint p.d.q.”

The eyes of the crook narrowed. “Say, where d’youse get that stuff, fellow? When was youse elected king o’ Prooshia?”

“What kind of an outfit do you figure this is?” the range rider asked. “Think we’re makin’ war on kids, do you? Well, we’re not.”

“Who asked youse to butt in on my business?” Cig crouched, snarling, a menace and a threat. “That ain’t supposed to be safe for black-headed guys, I’ll tell the world.”

“Not yore business any more’n mine. We’re in this together. I’ll tell you right now you can’t pull a play like that an’ get away with it.”

“Can’t I?” The New Yorker’s lip curled in a sneer. “Says you.”

“Says I.” Black’s steady gaze did not waver a thousandth part of an inch.

Cig spoke to Prowers, jerking the thumb of his left hand toward the cowpuncher. “What’s eatin’ this black bird? He claims to be sore at this Reed guy, same as we are. He ain’t above stampedin’ cattle onto sleepin’ men and croakin’ ’em. Mebbe he’s yellow an’ gettin’ ready to rap to the bulls. Mebbe—”

The quid of tobacco stood out in Black’s cheek like a marble. His jaws had stopped moving. He, too, addressed the old cattleman.

“Call off this wolf of yore’s, Jake, onless you want him sent to Kingdom Come. Nobody can tell me I’m yellow without a come-back,” he said in a low, even voice.

Prowers had been watching them both, curious, vigilant, small intent eyes sweeping from one to the other as the quarrel progressed. Now he spoke, curtly, first to the homesteader, then to the crook.

“Don’t pull yore picket pin, Don. That’ll be enough, Cig. I don’t need any demonstration.”

Black did not for an instant relax his rigid wariness. “Tha’s what I’m waitin’ to find out, Jake. He said I was yellow an’ gettin’ ready to squeal.”

“Back water, you,” the ranchman ordered Cig.

Cig hesitated, still defiant. “I ain’t lookin’ for no trouble—”

“So, of course, you’ll tell Don there’s nothin’ to what you said, that you was a li’l’ het up under the collar.”

“—but I ain’t duckin’ it either. I’m willing to eat what I said, but he can’t dictate about the kid. See?”

The cattleman’s light eyes stabbed bleakly at the man. “You ain’t playin’ a lone hand, Cig. Don’s right about it. We’re all in this. An’ another thing. Don’t you forget for a minute that you’ll do as I say, you an’ Don both.”

Black looked at his employer with a kind of fierce resentment. He had followed this man a good many years, not to his own good. There had been times when he had been close to a break with him, but Prowers held for him a sinister attraction. He never had liked him, yet could not escape his influence.

“What about the kid? I’m standin’ pat on that, Jake,” he said sullenly.

The old cattleman reflected. By nature he had in him a vein secretive and malignant. The thought of striking at Clint Reed through his little girl was not repellent to him. But he had lived fifty years in the West and knew its standards. The thing that Cig had done, unless it were promptly repudiated by him, would make Paradise Valley and the adjoining mountains buzz like a hornets’ nest. His allies would fall away from him instantly.

“You’ll take the kid back home to Clint, Don,” Prowers said. “You’ll tell him we sent her back soon as we found she had been taken. An’ that’s all you’ll tell him. No mention of Cig here. Understand?”

Black’s jaws began to move again regularly and evenly. “Suits me,” he agreed. “When do I go?”

“Why, the sooner the quicker.”

The instinct of a child as to grown-ups is not always sound, but Ruth knew which of these three was her friend. She had run to Black and caught him by the coat, screening herself behind him. His hand rested on the soft flaxen hair gently. Don was a bad hombre, a hard, tough citizen. But something tugged at his heart now. He knew that if it had been necessary bullets would have stabbed the air to save the little girl who had put herself under his protection.

“Don’t forget, Don. Turn her over to Clint with my compliments. An’ you brought her home soon as we found her. No explanations. Let him take it or leave it.”

Black nodded. “I getcha. It’ll be thataway.”

After he had swung to the saddle he lifted the child to the back of the horse. She was still sobbing.

“Don’cha, honey,” he soothed. “I’m takin’ you right home to yore paw. That bad man ain’t ’a’ gonna hurt you none.”

He rode out of the cañon and across the hills. Nobody knew this country better than Black. All his life he had ridden it. Following the path of least resistance, he deflected many times from the airline that led to the Diamond Bar K; but none could have traveled a shorter distance to reach it.

Within the hour he was jogging down into Paradise Valley.

A cloud of dust in the distance caught his eye. It was moving swiftly along a road toward him.

“Some folks in a powerful hurry,” he murmured aloud, and guessed at once the reason for their haste.

His fingers closed for an instant on the butt of a revolver to make sure there would be no hitch in the draw in case of need.

As the riders drew near, he held up the palm of his hand to stop them. He counted eight. Clint Reed and Lon Forbes were in the lead. Betty was among the others.

“I reckon I got here what you want, Clint,” Black said evenly.

He lowered Ruth from the saddle and she ran to her father. Clint swung down and caught her into his arms with a sound in his throat that was like a dry sob. He murmured broken endearments while he fondled her.

“Oh, daddy, my daddy!” Ruth wailed.

Betty swung from the saddle and ran to them. Clint passed the child to her. They clung together, Betty crooning little love words of happiness. “Ruthie—Ruthie—darling—precious!”

Between hugs and kisses Ruth explained. “A bad man tooked me ’way ’way off on a horse ’n’ we rode ’n’ we rode. ’Nen anuvver man comed ’n’ said he’d bring me home, ’n’ he did bring me, the nice man did.”

Reed strode across the road to the man who had brought back his child. “I’ll hear your story, Black,” he said sternly.

“I don’t reckon I’ve got any story to tell, Clint—none in particular. She was lost. I found her an’ brought her back. Ain’t that enough?”

“No. Where did you find her? Who took her?”

“Nothin’ doing on that witness-stand stuff,” the other answered. “Jake Prowers an’ me was lookin’ for strays up on Elk Creek when we found her. Jake told me to tell you here she was with his compliments. That’s all I know.”

“You and Jake found her?”

“Yessir. Didn’t I tell you that twict?”

“Was she alone?”

“There was a guy with her, but I didn’t know him. He lit out.”

“What kind of lookin’ fellow?”

“Why, I didn’t see him right close.” The quid of tobacco stuck out in the homesteader’s cheek. He watched Reed closely, jaws motionless.

“You’re not a good liar, Black. You know a lot more than you’re telling,” the owner of the Diamond Bar K accused. “I’m gonna have it out of you, man, if I have to tear it from your throat.”

Black’s figure stiffened. “Try any funny business with me, an’ I’ll show you where to head in at, Clint,” he said quietly.

“Why don’t you ask the kid?” Forbes said in an aside to his employer. “Black didn’t steal her. A blind man could see that.”

“He knows who did.”

“Sure, an’ he’s hell-bent not to tell. You won’t get it outa him. I know Don.”

“It’s some of Jake Prowers’s work.”

“I don’t think it, Clint.” The foreman turned to Ruth. “Who was it took you outa the automobile, honey?”

“A man. He was gonna whip me wiv a great big stick, like he said Daddy did him.”

“What? Whip you, like—” Lon stopped to wrestle with and overthrow a thought. “Why, dog-gone my hide, it’s that tramp Daniels has been lookin’ for.”

Clint fired questions at Black like shots out of a machine gun. “Was he a small man? Lean? Town clothes? Talk outa the corner of his mouth? A rat-faced fellow? Fingers cigarette-stained?”

Black shook his head. “You’ve sure enough got me there, Clint. I only seen him at a distance, but seemed like he was a big husky guy. Yes, I’m ’most sure he was. Big as the side of a barn.”

“Did he seem big to you, Ruthie?” Lon asked gently.

“Umpha!” She nodded her head vigorously. “He was a nawful man, ’n’ he said he’d whip me like Daddy did him.”

“Talk like this, honey?” Lon drew down a corner of his mouth and spoke out of it. “‘De king o’ Prooshia on de job.’”

Her curls danced violently up and down with acquiescence.

The foreman turned to Reed. “He’s sure enough the same bird. Where’s he been keepin’ himself at, you reckon?”

“Jake Prowers could tell us that,” his employer replied grimly.

This suggested another question to Forbes. “Listen, honey Ruth. This here bad man—did him an’ Black here act kinda like they was friends?”

“They had a fuss,” she said.

“What about?” her father asked.

“’Bout me. The bad man said I wasn’t comin’ home to Daddy, ’n’ he said I was too. They had a nawful fuss.”

“The bad man an’ Black here?”

She nodded. “’N’ he tooked me on his horse ’n’ broughted me.”

Forbes drew aside his friend and spoke low. “Looks like he’s got it on you, Clint. Here’s about the size of it, the way I figure it. This scalawag Cig’s hidin’ out in the hills. Jake Prowers is likely lookin’ after him. Well, he steals Ruth, an’ Don here bumps into him whilst he’s makin’ his getaway. They have a rumpus, an’ Don brings her home. He acted pretty near like a white man, seems to me. ’Course, he ain’t gonna give away this tramp if he’s one of Prowers’s push. That wouldn’t be hardly reasonable to expect.”

“No, I reckon not,” admitted Reed.

“You got no kick at Black. Hadn’t been for him I’ll bet Ruth wouldn’t ’a’ been here a-tall. Point is, that with him there Jake and this Cig couldn’t put over any shenanigan.”

The owner of the Diamond Bar K stepped across to the homesteader. “Take it all back, Don. I’m mightily obliged to you for bringing my li’l’ girl home. If I ever get a chance—”

Black interrupted. “Oh, that’s all right. What do you take me for, anyhow? I ain’t any Apache. Why wouldn’t I bring a kid home when I find her lost? You birds make me tired.”

He nodded brusquely, wheeled his horse, and rode away.