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Show CHAPTER X Continued 14 The 'central cotninK L?e squatted round I lie tailboard of a wagon, ghost-ly ghost-ly forms in the moonlight anil the shadows. Save for inartieulato whisperings whis-perings from this group and murmurs. Ii-nif.ving in the implication of their S'.und, from the huddled prisoners vilin'n die corral, noisy, optimistic. Cottonwood now lay under the monn-) monn-) : 1 1 1 as silent as death. Occasionally, Occasional-ly, indeed, distant footfalls resounded from the board sidewalks. They beat no longer with a cheerful staccato, hut v il.'i the determined, concerted tliump 'f marching troops. Yet everywhere in the moonlight stood the L'otted, in-d.stinet in-d.stinet forms of men wailinr; . . . (he night seemed full of devils. . . . The slight, nervous form of Mr. Or-c;; Or-c;; 1 1, walking beside the guard, slashed Into the lantern-light. The guard re-,1'orled re-,1'orled casually to the central committee, commit-tee, received n nod, vanished with the clergyman and now out from the eor-i-:.! drifted bis voice, resonant, rhythmic rhyth-mic praying. Into his prayer broke (he hysterical squalling of Red Nell. . . . I do not know by what curiosity of the human soul these sounds of comfort com-fort and despair tore away within me the last of those barriers which civilization, civili-zation, cultivation, education had built round the natural, primitive, killing savage. Something hurst in my head; and I became at one with the best and worst of this orderly mob. They were going to kill hideously, implacably. im-placably. And I, whose wrong was most of all I wanted to kill with them. At one moment, I seemed to myself an angel of justice, a rebirth of my I'urilan forefathers who smote and spared not in the name of the Lord; at another, merely the cheated, tricked lover burning for revenge on him whose touch bad polluted the unworthy unwor-thy beloved. Life and life's normal desires were over for me ... if I died valiantly before another moon, better so ... if only I got him. ... I strode hack and forth 'letween the wagons; the one moving figure in that tense, static, moonlit landscape. And then came opportunity. The circle about the wagon had risen. I stepped up to Marcus. He was bending beside a lantern to consult con-sult Ins bull's-eye watch. "An hour or so before daybreak," he said. "Better. start the cavalry." A jerk of Taylor's bead brought one of the guards to attention. There was a whispered order, a nod ; and the guard vanished. Marcus stood a little aside from the rest. And so when I asked a question drawn from me by my emotions, emo-tions, none else heard. "What's next?" I inquired. Marcus hesitated, and then: 'Ttartin' the boys out for the main perfo 'mers," he replied. "The bandits?" Marcus gave a slow, meaning nod. "I want to go, too," I said. My tongue filled a dry mouth. I heard my voice as though someone else were speaking, and it was thick. Marcus hesitated. "Well, it will be the story of the day," he said, as though finding an excuse. Then, "Shorty!" he called. "I'm sending Gilson along to report it, you know." Shorty, inspecting his side-arm, arranging ar-ranging the cartridges in his belt, looked up. , "N'o you don't !" he growled. I blazed. I found myself standing over Shorty, cursiug him with round man-oaths, challenging him, if lie had anything against me, to fight it out here and now. Whatever doubt Shorty had of nie this blast of genuine emotion seemed to dissipate. lie ignored my insults and my challenge; only regarded me critically from the shade of his hat and then, addressing Marcus, responded re-sponded : "All right, old hoss! We'll take him along. But he's got to be a d n good boy !" "Five minutes from now alley behind be-hind the Courier building keep your mouth shut if anybody asks you what you're doing. Here. Joe give this man a long gun and a belt get your horse, and rustle!" directed Marcus. We sat, our horses In the shadows, waiting; so still that now and then a long breath, drawn involuntarily from the laboring lungs of excitement, would pull my spine up stiff as though I had heard a pistol-shot. The moonlight moon-light bad begun to pale; and the inspiration in-spiration of death that announces the dawn blew from the peaks. Must we wait there for ever? The rattling lope of a horse sounded sound-ed from the roadway beyond. The rider rid-er came into sight from the sickly shadows, pulled up, fell in beside Shorty at (lie bead of the column. He was talking in a low tone but steadily, stead-ily, emphatically. I began to catch his words. "I says to him, 'You can't bluff me,' I says. 'I know what you're duin',' I says. 'I'm just watchin' you,' I says. 'No, you don't dare put me off the force,' I says. 'I suspect too much ' " Emphatic, over-emphatic to the point of insincerity whose voice was that? , lb? pushed back Ids sombrero and the leaden light caught his face. It was Charlie Meek. Into bis monologue cut Shorty's fdiarp command : ' i'orward march !" As we emerged from the alley, rode at a sharp trot eastward toward the moonlit pinnacles of the Pyrites, I saw that Charlie Meek still rode beside Shorty, leading the column. CHAPTER XI Now, as early dawn and late moonlight moon-light began to blot out the blazing mountain stars, I looked up from my own sulphurous misery to perceive that the expedition had swung round the camp, turned the shoulder of Liverpool Liv-erpool hill, cut into the Forty-Hod road. From the single file which we had maintained on the trail, we fell without orders into double column, Shorty and Charlie Meek still leading, and, as the road began its sharp ascent, as-cent, slackened our lope to a fast walk. Then, when the posse broke into a lope on a level stretch and lost formation, I worked my fast and eager roan through the press like a jockey. When a sharp grade compelled us again to slacken oun pace, I was just behind Shorty and Charlie Meek. Charlie, as though by shallow of his old authority, seemed to be in command. com-mand. Out of the shades came that castle rock beside which I bad met Constance Con-stance Deane and kissed her so long ago ! Why, it was only a night since I bad dwelt In a fool's paradise over her; tricked myself into believing In her! And I found myself praying that I might never see another night. But the relaxing memory of her kiss would creep into my meditations, so that I closed my eyes and relived that moment. mo-ment. But the thought of her coming tainted to my arms from her cherished rogue relit the flames of my torment. Looking back as we topped a ridge, I could see that a faint, pink glow was beginning to rim the snows of the giant range behind us; and that Cottonwood Cot-tonwood Camp, a crazy pattern at the bottom of the vista,- was streaming through the violet valley-mists trails of gray smoke from breakfast fires. Another ridge, and we broke into sight of Forty-Hod creek a cabin or so and a square-fronted store beside the road, a red dump or a gray roof peeping here and there from the dwarf trees, white patches of columbine fringing a shallow gulch. Shorty and Charlie Meek pulled up, Shorty raising his hand to halt the column. "What's the new idea now?" asked Shorty, almost deferentially. "My notion that they'll make for the Ludlow Fass country," replied Charlie. "That's where they've held out before, according to police information. infor-mation. There's three trails cut out just below timberline, all toward Ludlow's. Lud-low's. First breaks south about a mile above Forty-Hod. S'pose we look into them trails for tracks. "Good idea, I guess," responded Shorty. "All right, , boys?" "Sure !" came from the nearer fringe of the posse. "Then s'pose we start," said Shorty. "Quiet now !" At a fast walk, we passed Forty-Rod. I was riding just behind Shorty, to. left of the doublets double-ts d column; I could see but dimly the saw-toothed, mustached profile of Charlie Meek. There was a nervousness, nervous-ness, a special tension, in his attitude. He was talking again ; but his voice jerked : "Bad place here. Could shoot into us, and git clean away." I saw his hand go to his pistol-scabbard, and wondered why the cowboy, riding at my right,, had pushed forward until he was opposite Charlie's saddle. "My G d what's that !" jerked out Charlie Meek, and then things hap- A "An Hour or So Before Daybreak," He Said. "Better Start the Cavalry" pened so swiftly that only long afterward after-ward 'could my mind arrange them Into the memory of an ordered event. Charlie, drawing, had (ircd three times into the forest. The first two shots came close together, the third after an interval like a single letter heard on a telegrapher's key. But hard on these two shots came two more, in the same rhythm ; and though I was looking in the other direction, I knew that this time it was Shorty who fired. My own gun-shy roun danced and sidestepped. side-stepped. I sat and curbed him by instinct in-stinct ; for my eyes were on the cowboy. cow-boy. As with one motion, lie had forced his horse up beside Charlie's, had vaulted from his saddle to the 5 By Will Irwin Copyright by Will Irwin W.N'U Service rump of Charlie's horse, had thrown the erook of his left arm about Charlie's neck, had with his right arm laid across Charlie's elbow a hooklike grip. Shorty leaped from his saddle, hung like a squat bulldog to the bits of the snorting double-loaded double-loaded horse. "The gag quick " he cried. And as my own horse shied again into the shrubbery, horsemen and footmen crowded past me. I saw Charlie, with the cowboy still hanging like a barnacle bar-nacle to his back, tumble into the roadway road-way ; saw a confused struggle in the shadows by the ground. Then Charlie '.Meek was lifted to his feet. I discounted dis-counted now; drew near. His arms were trussed behind him; his light eyes stared with inexpressible terror from a gray face; his jaws were mumbling mum-bling and slobbering over the wooden gag, as though he were trying frantically fran-tically to speak. Shorty poked a gun into his ribs. "Shut up," he said, "or you'll cash in premature. We've learned all we wanted to know about you. In case you're mixed up in your mind, about these proceedings, let me inform you that tile 'one-two, one' signal means 'scatter out and hide,' and was fired by somebody In the posse meanin' you after the last stage robbery. And 'one-two, one-two-three' means 'all clear, git to the claim.' It was fired similar after the holdup of the Stonewall Stone-wall Jackson payroll. We were d n certain you was the party that fired it. Now we've got you, dead." The mechanical me-chanical mouthing at the gag stopped; Charlie's jaws seemed to drop and set; he sagged down onto the shoulders of the men supporting him. "And you tried to hitch the blame onto that poor fool, Chris McGrath !" concluded Shorty. He turned to the posse, now grouped about him on foot. "Steady, boys, and keep your guns quiet. I'm goiu' to repeat that signal just to make sure." He drew a second revolver; re-volver; aiming at the bole of a tree, he fanned his hammer in five shots with that same rhythm "pop-pop, pop-pop-pop !" "Now," said Shorty as the reverberations reverbera-tions died out, "leave your horses here. Hitch those that won't stand. You, Matt" this to the cowboy "you're guard to this prisoner. Bring him and his horse along. But keep to the rear so you won't show. If he tries any monkey-business, kill him. Don't anybody try to git ahead of me I've looked over the land." His eye fell on me. "You leave your horse. And you keep entirely to the rear. You ain't in this." Something of Shorty's old suspicion seemed to sharpen his black eyes as he added: "Orders is to shoot anybody who tries to spoil this per-formance." The posse shifted six-shooters to workable positions, posi-tions, drew rifles from the scabbards of their saddles and hitched their mounts to bushes. . "Come on !" cracked Shorty's voice. He turned round the thick bole of a pine, ducked between two bushes. The posse followed in single file; I, as ordered, or-dered, at the rear. Some twenty yards of tiptoeing through the sparse underbrush, under-brush, and we had taken an abrupt turn to the right on a well-defined trail. Behind me I could hear the padding of the led horse. Once Charlie's voice mumbled through the gag, and the cowboy muttered : "Shut up !" I could imagine the swift motion toward his gun. . The trail came out into an open dip. Beyond rose a low, sharp ridge, bristling with dwarf firs which topped thick underbrush. And no one was watching me. liven the cowboy Harding Hard-ing Charlie Meek had his eyes on the focus of interest. Fully realizing that I was taking a chance with my life and for the moment wholly indifferent I dipped into the underbrush at the left of the clearing, worked as quietly as I Could through it, came out at last Into a trail, evidently an offshoot of the one down which we had marched. It ran in the general direction which I wanted to follow. Suddenly, I was aware that there was no longer a hillside hill-side at my right, but the bright morning morn-ing air. I dropped at the foot of u spruce which edged the trail, crouched among its low-lying branches. In the dim light, I reflected, I must be invisible. invis-ible. I looked about me. Below lay a bowl of the mountain side, traversed by the head waters of Forty-Hod creek. At the bottom of the bowl stood a prospect hole with winch and bucket, beside a small dump of yellow earth and red rock. Instinct and the lay of the land told me that this was the center of interest, the focus of those invisible eyes along the ridge. I lay and waited five minutes perhaps, per-haps, though Jt seemed hours. The claim below lay deserted or was it? My perceptions sharpened by all hateful emotions and now by suspense, sus-pense, I felt about It a sense of life, of interior movement. Somehow it seemed inhabited, packed, a-quiver witli life. ... I could have sworn that I even heard something stirring within It. . . . How much longer must I await the beginning of that action' ac-tion' for which my hell-burned soul longed? My hand went instinctively to the revolver at my belt. Then I re membered and, remembering, cursed myself for an Inept fool that I had left my rille In its scabbard with mi horse. No matter. IX battle there was to be, I would charge in with my pistol pis-tol oc charge in naked-handed, so I got my man. And then a figure emerged slowly, cautiously, from the tangle of bushes beyond the dump. He stood a moment. mo-ment. Yes there was life in the cabin. A hand, waving a white cloth, bad been thrust from the window. The solitary figure stepped back into the bushes. A moment more, and four men emerged, walking in pairs, each pair carrying between it a box. Ami then far off to my right sounded a light shot as of a pistol, a heavier one as of a ride and there was a distant crashing of branches. I had jumped involuntarily at this sound ; but my eyes never left the four men by the dump. I .saw the leading pair straighten up, saw the nearest flash a hand toward his hip, saw the trailing pair drop the box, turn And the howl below reverberated with explosion. From the cabin, from some place near the dump, from the woodpile, streaks of red flame laced the dawn. One of the leading pair went down with the slow motion of a toppling building; be fell across the box as limply as a bag of old clothes. The other dropped his handle and spun half way round before he pitched onto his face. Behind him, a man was flopping flop-ping on the ground. A scattering burst of fire from the ridge to my right, where my fellows of the posse lay concealed, and he was still; I could even hear between reverberations reverbera-tions the hollow sound of the bullets siriking his flesh. ... It was over, and I had not acted, only stood aside, an inert spectator. . . . Or was It over? Only three bodies lay down there by the stream. And the posse was charging. They came scrambling down the ridge, weapons at ready. Two or three stopped by the fallen men, turned them over. The rest crashed uphill through the bushes. One of the trailing pair must have acted more quickly than the other leaped into the bushes at the sound of the first shot, got away. . . . And still I crouched under the spruce tree, shame and self-pity added to my inner hell. With all the rest, she had sapped my manhood from me. . . the moment of action had come and I had not even drawn my pistol to fire. . . . Others had taken my revenge. Footsteps, .quick, stealthy were coming along the trail to my left. As by reflex motion, I leaped suddenly through the branches; leaped face to face with the man I had come for, the young, spruce man whom I had shadowed to my misery last night. It was still the dusky dawn there among the trees, but I knew him. His wide black hat shaded his face, but I knew him. Recognition and action came together in the Instant while bis hand was starting toward his hip. Only, I acted not according to my plan, but on instinct. I never thought of my gun. I fought as I had been taught to fight on the field at Harvard, Har-vard, in the rough, primitive football of those days. I dove at him in a high tackle, into which I put all my desires de-sires of violence engendered by that night. My embrace caught him about the arms, pinned them; my rush carried car-ried us to the ground with him underneath. under-neath. He was smaller than I by thirty thir-ty pounds; yet the moment I touched him, I had a sense that he was electric elec-tric with nervous strength. An instant, in-stant, so, we struggled in desperate silence. Then I felt him wilt in my grasp, go limp. I raised my head, looked into his face. He was my man but I knew that already. His eyes had closed. I began to relax my bold, and his hand whipped like a striking snake at my belt. He had my gun with the quickness of fear, of excitement, excite-ment, of hate, I grt his wrist, threw my body across him to hold him down, twisted his hand backward until he dropped It. But he was struggling like tied cat now, and what with the timberline altitude, the sleepless night, mv hours of emotion, the false energy that had electrified my first attack was going fast. I managed, however, to grip his left hand as it began struggling strug-gling toward bis own belt; and so with him spread-eagled under me, I put all the breath I had left into a yell for help. Welcome footsteps pattered pat-tered from both directions. He quit struggling and : "Murder! He's killing me!" he cried. "He lies don't let him get away grab him!" I panted. That member of the posse who came, first up the trail I did not know, and to this day I have never Identified him. But whoever he was, he had discretion and experience. He kicked away the fallen revolver, drew his weapon from its holster, stood covering us both. Gasping, as I gave ground, a demand that tbev secure my adversary also, I was hauled upright. A dizzy rush of blood blinded and deafened me for a moment. When my faculties cleared, I heard the voice of Shorty exploding in tones of admiration : "Bully for you, kid! You sure got him !" I was aware that I stood sup- 1 J l' 1C 1 I Dove at Him In a High Tackle, Into Which I Put All My Desire of Violence Vio-lence Engendered by That Night. ported on either side, that I was fac-' ing my captive. The nostrils of his fine, firm nose were distending as he fought for breath, his complexion was changing momently from a flush of exertion to a pallor; yet his carriage was debonair, deb-onair, his green-gray eyes even challenging, chal-lenging, insolent. Then be spoke; and though the breath puffed between words, his voice gave an effect of poise, of calm. "What is this all about?" he asked. "Haven't you gentlemen made a mistake?" mis-take?" There came a growl of indignant muttering from the posse. Shorty was first to find consecutive speech. "Two d d bad mistakes," he said. "It was necessary to do a little shtoot-in' shtoot-in' just when you fellows come out in front of the cabin or we'd have got you all alive. And somebody missed you." "You've captured the wrong man, gentlemen," replied my unknown enemy. ene-my. "I was coming down tho road when I heard the shooting and " "You can tell all that to the Judge!" snapped Shorty. (TO 13B CONTINUED.) |