The rain slanted down in sheets and the broken plain, thoroughly saturated, held the water in pools or sent it down the steep sides of the arroyo, to feed the turbulent flood which swept along the bottom, foam-flecked and covered with swiftly moving driftwood. Around a bend in the arroyo, where the angry water flung itself against the ragged bulwark of rock and flashed away in a gleaming line of foam, a horseman appeared bending low in the saddle for better protection against the storm. He rode along the edge of the stream on the farther bank, opposite the steep bluff on the northern side, forcing his wounded and jaded horse to keep fetlock deep in the water which swirled and sucked about its legs. He was trying his hardest to hide his trail. Lower down the hard, rocky ground extended to the water's edge, and if he could delay his pursuers for an hour or so, he felt that, even with his tired horse, he would have more than an even chance.
But they had gained more than he knew. Suddenly above him on the top of the steep bluff across the torrent a man loomed up against the clouds, peered intently into the arroyo, and then waved his sombrero to an unseen companion. A puff of smoke flashed from his shoulder and streaked away, the report of the shot lost in the gale. The fugitive's horse reared and plunged into the deep water and with its rider was swept rapidly towards the bend, the way they had come.
“That makes the fourth time I've missed that coyote!” angrily exclaimed Hopalong as Red Connors joined him.
The other quickly raised his rifle and fired; and the horse, spilling its rider out of the saddle, floated away tail first. The fugitive, gripping his rifle, bobbed and whirled at the whim of the greedy water as shots struck near him. Making a desperate effort, he staggered up the bank and fell exhausted behind a boulder.
“Well, the coyote is afoot, anyhow,” said Red, with great satisfaction.
“Yes; but how are we going to get to him?” asked Hopalong. “We can't get the cayuses down here, an' we can't swimthatwater without them. An' if we could, he'd pot us easy.”
“There's a way out of it somewhere,” Red replied, disappearing over the edge of the bluff to gamble with Fate.
“Hey! Come back here, you chump!” cried Hopalong, running forward. “He'll get you, shore!”
“That's a chance I've got to take if I get him,” was the reply.
A puff of smoke sailed from behind the boulder on the other bank and Hopalong, kneeling for steadier aim, fired and then followed his friend. Red was downstream casting at a rock across the torrent but the wind toyed with the heavy, water-soakedreataas though it were a string. As Hopalong reached his side a piece of driftwood ducked under the water and an angry humming sound died away downstream. As the report reached their ears a jet of water spurted up into Red's face and he stepped back involuntarily.
“He's so shaky,” Hopalong remarked, looking back at the wreath of smoke above the boulder. “I reckon I must have hit him harder than I thought in Harlan's. Gee! He's wild as blazes!” he yelled as a bullet hummed high above his head and struck sharply against the rock wall.
“Yes,” Red replied, coiling the rope. “I was trying to rope that rock over there. If I could anchor to that, the current would push us over quick. But it's too far with this wind blowing.”
“We can't do nothing here 'cept get plugged. He'll be getting steadier as he rests from his fight with the water,” Hopalong remarked, and added quickly, “Say, remember that meadow back there a ways? We can make her from there, all right.”
“Yo're right; that's what we've got to do. He's sending 'em nearer every shot—Gee! I could 'most feel the wind of that one. An' blamed if it ain't stopped raining. Come on.”
They clambered up the slippery, muddy bank to where they had left their horses, and cantered back over their trail. Minute after minute passed before the cautious skulker among the rocks across the stream could believe in his good fortune. When he at last decided that he was alone again he left his shelter and started away, with slowly weakening stride, over cleanly washed rock where he left no trail.
It was late in the afternoon before the two irate punchers appeared upon the scene, and their comments, as they hunted slowly over the hard ground, were numerous and bitter. Deciding that it was hopeless in that vicinity, they began casting in great circles on the chance of crossing the trail further back from the river. But they had little faith in their success. As Red remarked, snorting like a horse in his disgust, “I'll bet four dollars an' a match he's swum down the river clean to hell just to have the laugh on us.” Red had long since given it up as a bad job, though continuing to search, when a shout from the distant Hopalong sent him forward on a run.
“Hey, Red!” cried Hopalong, pointing ahead of them. “Look there! Ain't that a house?”
“Naw; course not! It's a—it's a ship!” Red snorted sarcastically. “What did you think it might be?”
“G'wan!” retorted his companion. “It's a mission.”
“Ah, g'wan yoreself! What's a mission doing up here?” Red snapped.
“What do you think they do? What do they do anywhere?” hotly rejoined Hopalong, thinking about Johnny. “There! See the cross?”
“Shore enough!”
“An' there's tracks at last—mighty wobbly, but tracks just the same. Them rocks couldn't go on forever. Red, I'll bet he's cashed in by this time.”
“Cashed nothing! Them fellers don't.”
“Well, if he's in that joint we might as well go back home. We won't get him, not nohow,” declared Hopalong.
“Huh! You wait an' see!” replied Red, pugnaciously.
“Reckon you never run up agin a mission real hard,” Hopalong responded, his memory harking back to the time he had disagreed with a convent, and they both meant about the same to him as far as winning out was concerned.
“Think I'm a fool kid?” snapped Red, aggressively.
“Well, you ain't nokid.”
“You letmedo the talking;I'llget him.”
“All right; an' I'll do the laughing,” snickered Hopalong, at the door. “Sic 'em, Red!”
The other boldly stepped into a small vestibule, Hopalong close at his heels. Red hitched his holster and walked heavily into a room at his left. With the exception of a bench, a table, and a small altar, the room was devoid of furnishings, and the effect of these was lost in the dim light from the narrow windows. The peculiar, not unpleasant odor of burning incense and the dim light awakened a latent reverence and awe in Hopalong, and he sneaked off his sombrero, an inexplicable feeling of guilt stealing over him. There were three doors in the walls, deeply shrouded in the dusk of the room, and it was very hard to watch all three at once.
Red was peering into the dark corners, his hand on the butt of his Colt, and hardly knew what he was looking for. “This joint must 'a' looked plumb good to that coyote, all right. He had a hell of a lot of luck, but he won't keep it for long, damn him!” he remarked.
“Quit cussing!” tersely ordered Hopalong. “An' for God's sake, throw out that damned cigarette! Ain't you got no manners?”
Red listened intently and then grinned. “Hear that? They're playing dominoes in there—come on!”
“Aw, you chump! 'Dominee' means 'mother' in Latin, which is what they speaks.”
“How do you know?”
“Hanged if I can tell—I've heard it somewhere, that's all.”
“Well, I don't care what it means. This is a frame-up so that coyote can get away. I'll bet they gave him a cayuse an' started him off while we've been losing time in here. I'm going inside an' ask some questions.”
Before he could put his plan into execution, Hopalong nudged him and he turned to see his friend staring at one of the doors. There had been no sound, but he would swear that a monk stood gravely regarding them, and he rubbed his eyes. He stepped back suspiciously and then started forward again.
“Look here, stranger,” he remarked, with quiet emphasis, “we're after that cow-lifter, an' we mean to get him. Savvy?”
The monk did not appear to hear him, so he tried another tack. “Habla Espanola?” he asked, experimentally.
“You have ridden far?” replied the monk in perfect English.
“All the way from the Bend,” Red replied, relieved. “We're after Jerry Brown. He tried to kill Johnny, an' near made good. An' I reckon we've treed him, judging from the tracks.”
“And if you capture him?”
“He won't have no more use for no side pocket shooting.”
“I see; you will kill him.”
“Shore's it's wet outside.”
“I'm afraid you are doomed to disappointment.”
“Ya-as?” asked Red with a rising inflection.
“You will not want him now,” replied the monk.
Red laughed sarcastically and Hopalong smiled.
“There ain't a-going to be no argument about it. Trot him out,” ordered Red, grimly.
The monk turned to Hopalong. “Do you, too, want him?”
Hopalong nodded.
“My friends, he is safe from your punishment.”
Red wheeled instantly and ran outside, returning in a few moments, smiling triumphantly. “There are tracks coming in, but there ain't none going away. He's here. If you don't lead us to him we'll shore have to rummage around an' poke him out for ourselves: which is it?”
“You are right—he is here, and he is not here.”
“We're waiting,” Red replied, grinning.
“When I tell you that you will not want him, do you still insist on seeing him?”
“We'll see him, an' we'll want him, too.”
As the rain poured down again the sound of approaching horses was heard, and Hopalong ran to the door in time to see Buck Peters swing off his mount and step forward to enter the building. Hopalong stopped him and briefly outlined the situation, begging him to keep the men outside. The monk met his return with a grateful smile and, stepping forward, opened the chapel door, saying, “Follow me.”
The unpretentious chapel was small and nearly dark, for the usual dimness was increased by the lowering clouds outside. The deep, narrow window openings, fitted with stained glass, ran almost to the rough-hewn rafters supporting the steep-pitched roof, upon which the heavy rain beat again with a sound like that of distant drums. Gusts of rain and the water from the roof beat against the south windows, while the wailing wind played its mournful cadences about the eaves, and the stanch timbers added their creaking notes to swell the dirge-like chorus.
At the farther end of the room two figures knelt and moved before the white altar, the soft light of flickering candles playing fitfully upon them and glinting from the altar ornaments, while before a rough coffin, which rested upon two pedestals, stood a third, whose rich, sonorous Latin filled the chapel with impressive sadness. “Give eternal rest to them, O Lord,”—the words seeming to become a part of the room. The ineffably sad, haunting melody of the mass whispered back from the room between the assaults of the enraged wind, while from the altar came the responses in a low, Gregorian chant, and through it all the clinking of the censer chains added intermittent notes. Aloft streamed the vapor of the incense, wavering with the air currents, now lost in the deep twilight of the sanctuary, and now faintly revealed by the glow of the candles, perfuming the air with its aromatic odor.
As the last deep-toned words died away the celebrant moved slowly around the coffin, swinging the censer over it and then, sprinkling the body and making the sign of the cross above its head, solemnly withdrew.
From the shadows along the side walls other figures silently emerged and grouped around the coffin. Raising it they turned it slowly around and carried it down the dim aisle in measured tread, moving silently as ghosts.
“He is with God, Who will punish according to his sins,” said a low voice, and Hopalong started, for he had forgotten the presence of the guide. “God be with you, and may you die as he died—repentant and in peace.”
Buck chafed impatiently before the chapel door leading to a small, well-kept graveyard, wondering what it was that kept quiet for so long a time his two most assertive men, when he had momentarily expected to hear more or less turmoil and confusion.
C-r-e-a-k!He glanced up, gun in hand and raised as the door swung slowly open. His hand dropped suddenly and he took a short step forward; six black-robed figures shouldering a long box stepped slowly past him, and his nostrils were assailed by the pungent odor of the incense. Behind them came his fighting punchers, humble, awed, reverent, their sombreros in their hands, and their heads bowed.
“What in blazes!” exclaimed Buck, wonder and surprise struggling for the mastery as the others cantered up.
“He's cashed,” Red replied, putting on his sombrero and nodding toward the procession.
Buck turned like a flash and spoke sharply: “Skinny! Lanky! Follow that glory-outfit, an' see what's in that box!”
Billy Williams grinned at Red. “Yo're shore pious, Red.”
“Shut up!” snapped Red, anger glinting in his eyes, and Billy subsided.
Lanky and Skinny soon returned from accompanying the procession.
“I had to look twice to be shore it was him. His face was plumb happy, like a baby. But he's gone, all right,” Lanky reported.
“Deader'n hell,” remarked Skinny, looking around curiously. “This here is some shack, ain't it?” he finished.
“All right—he knowed how he'd finish when he began. Now for that dear Mr. Harlan,” Buck replied, vaulting into the saddle. He turned and looked at Hopalong, and his wonder grew. “Hey,you! Yes,you! Come out of that an' put on yore lid! Straddle leather—we can't stay here all night.”
Hopalong started, looked at his sombrero and silently obeyed. As they rode down the trail and around a corner he turned in his saddle and looked back; and then rode on, buried in thought.
Billy, grinning, turned and playfully punched him in the ribs. “Getting glory, Hoppy?”
Hopalong raised his head and looked him steadily in the eyes; and Billy, losing his curiosity and the grin at the same instant, looked ahead, whistling softly.
Edwards slid off the counter in Jackson's store and glowered at the pelting rain outside, perturbed and grouchy. The wounded man in the corner stirred and looked at him without interest and forthwith renewed his profane monologue, while the proprietor, finishing his task, leaned back against the shelves and swore softly. It was a lovely atmosphere.
“Seems to me they've been gone a long time,” grumbled the wounded man. “Reckon he led 'em a long chase—had six hours' start, the toad.” He paused and then as an afterthought said with conviction: “But they'll get him—they allus do when they make up their minds to it.”
Edwards nodded moodily and Jackson replied with a monosyllable.
“Wish I could 'a' gone with 'em,” Johnny growled. “I like to square my own accounts. It's allus that way. I get plugged an' my friends clean the slate. There was that time Bye-an'-Bye went an' ambushed me—ah, the devil! But I tell you one thing: when I get well I'm going down to Harlan's an' clean house proper.”
“Yo're in hard luck again: that'll be done as soon as yore friends get back,” Jackson replied, carefully selecting a dried apricot from a box on the counter and glancing at the marshal to see how he took the remark.
“That'll be done before then,” Edwards said crisply, with the air of a man who has just settled a doubt. “They won't be back much before to-morrow if he headed for the country I think he did. I'm going down to the Oasis an' tell that gang to clear out of this town. They've been here too long now. I never had 'em dead to rights before, but I've got it on 'em this time. I'd 'a' sent 'em packing yesterday only I sort of hated to take a man's business away from him an' make him lose his belongings. But I've wrastled it all out an' they've got to go.” He buttoned his coat about him and pulled his sombrero more firmly on his head, starting for the door. “I'll be back soon,” he said over his shoulder as he grasped the handle.
“You better wait till you get help—there's too many down there for one man to watch an' handle,” Jackson hastily remarked. “Here, I'll go with you,” he offered, looking for his hat.
Edwards laughed shortly. “You stay here. I do my own work by myself when I can—that's what I'm here for, an' I can do this, all right. If I took any help they'd reckon I was scared,” and the door slammed shut behind him.
“He's got sand a plenty,” Jackson remarked. “He'd try to push back a stampede by main strength if he reckoned it was his duty. It's his good luck that he wasn't killed long ago—I'd'a' been.”
“They're a bunch of cowards,” replied Johnny. “As long as you ain't afraid of 'em, none of 'em wants to start anything. Bunch of sheep!” he snorted. “Didn't Jerry shoot me through his pocket?”
“Yes; an' yo're another lucky dog,” Jackson responded, having in mind that at first Johnny had been thought to be desperately wounded. “Why, yore friends have got the worst of this game; they're worse off than you are—out all day an' night in this cussed storm.”
While they talked Edwards made his way through the cold downpour to Harlan's saloon, alone and unafraid, and greatly pleased by the order he would give. At last he had proof enough to work on, to satisfy his conscience, for the inevitable had come as the culmination of continued and clever defiance of law and order.
He deliberately approached the front door of the Oasis and, opening it, stepped inside, his hands resting on his guns—he had packed two Colts for the last twenty-four hours. His appearance caused a ripple of excitement to run around the room. After what had taken place, a visit from him could mean only one thing—trouble. And it was entirely possible that he had others within call to help him out if necessary.
Harlan knew that he would be the one held responsible and he ceased wiping a glass and held the cloth suspended in one hand and the glass in the other. “Well?” he snapped, angrily, his eyes smouldering with fixed hatred.
“Mebby you think it's well, but it's going to be a blamed sight better before sundown to-morrow night,” evenly replied the marshal. “I just dropped in sort of free-like to tell you to pack up an' get out of town before dark—load yore wagon an' vamoose; an' take yore friends with you, too. If you don't—” he did not finish in words, for his tightening lips made them unnecessary.
“What!” yelled Harlan, red with anger. He placed his hands on the bar and leaned over it as if to give emphasis to his words. “Mepack up an' git!Meleave this shack! Who's going to pay me for it, hey?Meleave town! You drop out again an' go back to Kansas where you come from—they're easier back there!”
“Well, so far I ain't found nothing very craggy 'round here,” retorted Edwards, closely watching the muttering crowd by the bar. “Takes more than a loud voice an' a pack of sneaking coyotes to send me looking for something easier. An' let me tell you this:Youstay away from Kansas—they hangs people like you back there. That's whatever. You pack up an' git out of this town or I'll start a burying plot with you on yore own land.”
The low, angry buzz of Harlan's friends and their savage, scowling faces would have deterred a less determined man; but Edwards knew they were afraid of him, and the men on whom he could call to back him up. And he knew that there must always be a start, there must be one man to show the way; and each of the men he faced was waiting for some one else to lead.
“You all slip over the horizon before dark to-night, an' it's dark early these days,” he continued. “Don't get restless with yore hands!” he snapped ominously at the crowd. “I means what I say—you shake the mud from this town off yore boots before dark—before that Bar-20 outfit gets back,” he finished meaningly.
Questions, imprecations, and threats filled the room, and the crowd began to spread out slowly. His guns came out like a flash and he laughed with the elation that comes with impending battle. “The first man to start it'll drop,” he said evenly. “Who's going to be the martyr?”
“Iwon'tleave town!” shouted Harlan. “I'll stay here if I'm killed for it!”
“I admire yore loyalty to principle, but you've got damned little sense,” retorted the marshal. “You ain't no practical man.Keep yore hands where they are!”—his vibrant voice turned the shifting crowd to stone-like rigidity and he backed slowly toward the door, the poor light gleaming dully from the polished blue steel of his Colts. Rugged, lion-like, charged to the finger tips with reckless courage and dare-devil self-confidence, his personality overflowed and dominated the room, almost hypnotic in its effect. He was but one against many, but he was the master, and they knew it; they had known it long enough to accept it without question, and the training now stood him in good stead.
For a moment he stood in the open doorway, keenly scrutinizing them for signs of danger, his unwavering guns charged with certain death and his strong face made stronger by the shadows in its hollows. “Before dark!”—and he was gone.
He left behind him deep silence, which endured for several moments.
“By the Lord, Iwon't!” cried Harlan, still staring at the door.
The spell was broken and a babel of voices filled the room, threats mingling with excuses, hot, vibrant, profane. These men were not cowards all the way through, but only when face to face with the master. They had flourished in a way by their wits alone on the same range with the outfits of the C-80 and the Double-Arrow, for individually they were “bad,” and collectively they made a force of no mean strength. Edwards had landed among them like a thunderbolt and had proved his prowess, and they still held him in awesome respect. His reckless audacity and grim singleness of purpose had saved him on more than one occasion, for had he wavered once he would have been shot down without mercy. But gradually his enforcement of hampering laws became more and more intolerable, and their subordinated spirits were nearly on the point of revolt. When he faced them they resumed their former positions in relation to him—but once out of his sight they plotted to destroy him. Here was the crisis: it was now or never. They could not evade his ultimatum—it was obey or fight.
Submission was not to be thought of, for to flee would be to lose caste, and the story of such an act would follow them wherever they went, and brand them as cowards. Here they had lived, and here they would stay if possible, and to this end they discussed ways and means.
“Harlan's right!” emphatically announced Laramie Joe. “We can't pull out and have this foller us.”
“We should have started it with a rush when he was in here,” remarked Boston, regretfully.
Harlan stopped his pacing and faced them, shoving out a bottle of whiskey as an aid to his logic.
“That chance is past, an' I don't know but what it is a good thing,” he began. “He was primed an' looking fer trouble, an' he'd shore got a few of us afore he went under. What we want is strategy—that's the game. You fellers have got as much brains as him, an' if we thrash this thing out we can find a way to call his play—an' get him! No use of any of us getting plugged 'less we have to. But whatever we do we've got to start it right quick an' have it over before that Bar-20 gang comes back. Harper, you an' Quinn go scouting—an' don't take no guns with you, neither. Act like you was hitting the long trail out, an' work back here on a circle. See how many of his friends are in town. While you are gone the rest of us will hold a pow-wow an' take the kinks out of this game. Chase along, an' don't waste no time.”
“Good!” cried Slivers Lowe emphatically. “There's blamed few fellers in town now that have any use for him, for most of them are off on the ranges. Bet we won't have more than six to fight, an' there's that many of us here.”
The scouts departed at once and the remaining four drew close in consultation.
“One more drink around and then no more till this trouble is over,” Harlan said, passing the bottle. The drinks, in view of the coming drought and the thirsty work ahead, were long and deep, and new courage and vindictiveness crept through their veins.
“Now here's the way it looks to me,” Harlan continued, placing the bottle, untasted by himself, on the floor behind him. “We've got to work a surprise an' take Edwards an' his friends off their guard. That'll be easy if we're careful, because they think we ain't looking for fight. When we get them out of the way we can take Jackson's store an' use one of the other shacks and wait for the Bar-20 to ride in. They'll canter right in, like they allus do, an' when they get close enough we'll open the game with a volley an' make every shot tell. 'T won't last long, 'cause every one of us will have his man named before they get here. Then the few straddlers in town, seeing how easy we've gone an' handled it'll join us. We've got four men to come in yet, an' by the time the C-80 an' Double-Arrow hears about it we'll be fixed to drive 'em back home. We ought to be over a dozen strong by dark.”
“That sounds good, all right,” remarked Slivers, thoughtfully, “but can we do it that easy?”
“Course we can! We ain't fools, an' we all can shoot as well as them,” snapped Laramie Joe, the most courageous of the lot. Laramie had taken only one drink, and that a small one, for he was wise enough to realize that he needed his wits as keen as he could have them.
“We can do it easy, if Edwards goes under first,” hastily replied Harlan. “An' me an' Laramie will see to that part of it. If we don't get him, you all can hit the trail an' we won't be sore about it. That is, unless you are made of the stuff that stands up an' fights 'stead of running away. I reckon I ain't none mistaken in any of you. You'll all be there when things get hot.”
“You can bet the shackIwon't do no trail-hitting,” growled Boston, glancing at Slivers, who squirmed a little under the hint.
“Well, I'm glued to the crowd; you can't lose me, fellers,” Slivers remarked, re-crossing his legs uneasily. “Are we going to begin it from here?”
“We ought to spread out cautions and surround Jackson's, or wherever Edwards is,” Laramie Joe suggested. “That's my—”
“Yo're right! Now you've hit it plumb on the head!” interrupted Harlan, slapping Laramie heartily across the back. “What did I tell you about our brains?” he cried, enthusiastically. He had been on the point of suggesting that plan of operations when Laramie took the words out of his mouth. “I'd never thought of that, Laramie,” he lied, his face beaming. “Why, we've got 'em licked to a finish right now!”
“Thisisa hummer of a game,” laughed Slivers. “But how about the Bar-20 crowd?”
“I've told you that already,” replied the proprietor.
“You bet it's a hummer,” cried Boston, reaching for the whiskey bottle under cover of the excitement and enthusiasm.
Harlan pushed it away with his foot and raised his clenched fist. “Do you wonder I didn't think of that plan?” he demanded. “Ain't I been too mad to think at all? Hain't I seen my friends treated like dogs, an' made to swaller insults when I couldn't raise my hand to stop it? Didn't I see Jerry Brown chased out of my place like a wild beast? If we are what we've been called, then we'll sneak out of town with our tails atween our laigs; but if we're men we'll stay right here an' cram the insults down the throats of them that made 'em! If we'remenlet's prove it an' make them liars swaller our lead.”
“My sentiments an' allus was!” roared Slivers, slapping Harlan's shoulder.
“We're men, all right, an' we'll show 'em it, too!”
At that instant the door opened and four guns covered it before it had swung a foot.
“Put 'em down—it's Quinn!” exclaimed the man in the doorway, flinching a bit. “All right, Jed,” he called over his shoulder to the man who crowded him. After Quinn came Big Jed and Harper brought up the rear. They had no more than shaken the water from their sombreros when the back door let in Charley Rich and his two companions, Frank and Tom Nolan. While greetings were being exchanged and the existing conditions explained to the newcomers, Harper and Quinn led Harlan to one side and reported, the proprietor smiling and nodding his head wisely. And while he listened, Slivers surreptitiously corralled the whiskey bottle and when the last man finished with it there was nothing in it but air.
“Well, boys,” exclaimed Harlan, “things are our way. Quinn, here, met Joe Barr, of the C-80, who said Converse an' four other fellers, all friends of Edwards, stopped at the ranch an' won't be back home till the storm stops. Harper saw Fred Neil going back to his ranch, so all we've got to figger on is the marshal, Barr, an' Jackson, an' they're all in Jackson's store. Lacey might cut in, since he'd sell more liquor if I went under, but he can't do very much if he does take a hand. Now we'll get right at it.” The whole thing was gone over thoroughly and in detail, positions assigned and a signal agreed upon. Seeing that weapons were in good condition after their long storage in the cellar, and that cartridge belts were full, the ten men left the room one at a time or in pairs, Harlan and Laramie Joe being the last. And both Harlan and Laramie delayed long enough to take the precaution of placing horses where they would be handy in case of need.
Joe Barr laughingly replied to Johnny Nelson's growled remarks about the condition of things in general and tried to soothe him, but Johnny was unsoothable.
“An' I've been telling him right along that he's got the best of it,” complained Jackson in a weary voice. “Got a measly hole through his shoulder—good Lord! if it had gone a little lower!” he finished with a show of exasperation.
“An' ain't I been telling you all along that it ain't the measly hole in my shoulder that's got me on the prod?” retorted Johnny, with more earnestness than politeness. “But why couldn't I go with my friends after Jerry an' get shot later if I had to get it at all? Look what I'm missing, roped an' throwed in this cussed ten-by-ten shack while they're having a little excitement.”
“Yo're missing some blamed nasty weather, Kid,” replied the marshal. “You ain't got no kick coming at all. Why, I got soaked clean through just going down to the Oasis.”
“Well, I'm kicking, just the same,” snapped Johnny. “An' furthermore, I don't see nobody big enough to stop me, neither—did you all get that?”
The rear door opened and Fred Neal looked in. “Hey, Barr; come out an' gimme a hand in the corral. Busted my cinch all to pieces half a mile out—an' how the devil it ever busted like that is—” the door slammed shut and softened his monologue.
“Would you listen to that!” snorted Barr in an injured tone. “Didn't I go an' tell him near a month ago that his cussed cinch wouldn't hold no better'n a piece of wet paper?” His complaint added materially to the atmosphere of sullen discontent pervading the room. “An' now I gotter go out in this rain an'—” the slam of the door surpassed anything yet attempted in that line of endeavor. Jackson grabbed a can of corn as it jarred off the shelf behind him and directed a pleasing phrase after the peevish Barr.
“Say, won't somebody please smile?” gravely asked Edwards. “I never saw such a happy, cheerful bunch before.”
“I might smile if I wasn't so blamed hungry,” retorted Johnny. “Doesn't anybody ever eat in this town?” he asked in great sarcasm. “Mebby a good feed won't do me no good, but I'm going to fill myself regardless. An' after that, if the grub don't shock me to death, I'm shore going to trim somebody at Ol' Sledge—for two bits a hand.”
“If I could play you enough hands at that price I could sell out an' live high without working,” grinned Jackson, preparing to give the reckless invalid all he could eat. “That's purty high, Kid; but I just feel real devilish, an' I'm coming in.”
“An' I'll go over to my shack, get some money, an' bust the pair of you,” laughed Edwards, again buttoning his coat and going towards the door. “Holy Cats! A log must 'a' got jammed in the sluice-gate up there,” he muttered, scowling at the black sky. “It's coming down harder'n ever, but here goes,” and he stepped quickly into the storm.
Jackson paused with a frying pan in his hands and looked through the window after the departing marshal, and saw him stagger, stumble forward, then jerk out his guns and begin firing. Hard firing now burst out in front and Jackson, cursing angrily, dropped the pan and reached for his rifle—to drop it also and sink down, struck by the bullet which drilled through the window. Johnny let out a yell of rage, grabbed his Colt, and ran to the door in time to see Edwards slowly raise up on one elbow, fire his last shot, and fall back riddled by bullets.
Jackson crawled to his rifle and then to the side window, where he propped his back against a box and prepared to do his best. “It was shore a surprise,” he swore. “An' they went an' got Edwards before he could do anything.”
“They did not!” retorted Johnny. “He—” the glass in the door vibrated sharply and the speaker, stepping to one side out of sight, with a new and superficial wound, opened fire on the building down the street. Two men were lying on the ground across the street—these Edwards had shot—and another was trying to drag himself to the shelter of a building. A man sprinted from an old corral close by in a brave and foolhardy attempt to save his friend, and Johnny swore because he had to fire twice at the same mark.
The rear door crashed open and shut as Barr, closely followed by Neal, ran in. They had been caught in the corral but, thanks to Harlan's whiskey, had managed to hold their own until they had a chance to make a rush for the store.
“Where's the marshal?” cried Barr, catching sight of Jackson. “Are you plugged bad?” he asked, anxiously.
“Well, I ain't plugged a whole lotgood!” snapped Jackson. “An' Edwards is dead. They shot him down without warning. We're going to get ours, too—these walls don't stop them bullets. How many out there?”
“Must be a dozen,” hastily replied Neal, who had not remained idle. Both he and Barr were working like mad men moving boxes and barrels against the walls to make a breastwork capable of stopping the bullets which came through the boards.
“I reckon—I'm bleeding inside,” Jackson muttered, wearily and without hope. “Wonder how—long we—can hold out?”
“We'll hold out till we're good an' dead!” replied Johnny, hotly. “They ain't got us yet an' they'll pay for it before they do. If we can hold 'em off till Buck an' the rest come back we'll have the pleasure of seeing 'em buried.”
“Oh, I'll get you next time!” assured Barr to an enemy, slipping a fresh cartridge into the Sharps and peering intently at a slight rise on the muddy plain. “You shoot like yo're drunk,” he mumbled.
“But what is it all about, anyhow?” asked Neal, finding time for an immaterial question. “Who are they?—can't see nothing but blurs through this rain!”
“Yes; what's the game?” asked Barr, mildly surprised that he had not thought of it before.
“It's that Oasis gang,” Johnny responded. He fired, and growled with disappointment. “Harlan's at the head of it,” he added.
“Edwards—told Harlan to—get out of—town,” Jackson began.
“An' to take his gang with him,” Johnny interposed quickly to save Jackson from the strain. “They had till dark. Guess the rest. Oh, youcoyote!” he shouted, staggering back. There was a report farther down the barricade and Neal called out, “I got him, Nelson; he's done. How are you?”
“Mad! Mad!” yelled Johnny, touching his twice-wounded shoulder and dancing with rage and pain. “Right in the same place! Oh, wait!Wait!Hey, gimme a rifle—I can't do nothing with a Colt at this range; my name ain't Hopalong,” and he went slamming around the room in hot search of what he wanted.
“There ain't—no more—Johnny,” feebly called Jackson, raising slightly to ease himself. “You can have—my gun purty—soon. I won't be able—to use it—much longer.”
“Why don't Buck an' Hoppy hurry up!” snarled Johnny.
“Be a long time—mebby,” mumbled Jackson, his trembling hands trying to steady the rifle. “They're all—around us.Ah, missed!” he intoned hoarsely, trying to pump the lever with unobeying hands. “I can't last—much—” the words ceased abruptly and the clatter of the rifle on the floor told the story.
Johnny stumbled over to him and dragged him aside, covering the upturned face with his own sombrero, and picked up the rifle. Rolling a barrel of flour against the wall below the window he fixed himself as comfortably as possible and threw a shell into the chamber.
“Now, you coyotes; you paymeforthat!” he gritted, resting the gun on the window sill and holding it so he could work it with one hand and shoulder.
“Wonder how them pups ever pumped up enough courage to cut loose like this?” queried Neal from behind his flour barrel.
“Whiskey,” hazarded Barr. “Harlan must 'a' got 'em drunk. An' that's three times I've missed that snake. Wish it would stop raining so I could see better.”
“Why don't you wish they'd all drop dead? Wish good when you wish at all: got as much chance of having it come true,” responded Neal, sarcastically. He smothered a curse and looked curiously at his left arm, and from it to the new, yellow-splintered hole in the wall, which was already turning dark from the water soaking into it. “Hey, Joe; we need some more boxes!” he exclaimed, again looking at his arm.
“Yes,” came Johnny's voice. “Three of 'em—five of 'em, an' about six feet long an' a foot deep. But if my outfit gets here in time we'll want more'n a dozen.”
“Say! Lacey's firing now!” suddenly cried Barr. “He's shooting out of his windy. That'll stop 'em from rushing us! Good boy, Lacey!” he shouted, but Lacey did not hear him in the uproar.
“An' he's worse off than we are, being alone,” commented Neal. “Hey! One of us better make a break for help—my ranch's the nearest. What d'ye say?”
“It's suicide; they'll get you before you get ten feet,” Barr replied with conviction.
“No; they won't—the corral hides the back door, an' all the firing is on this side. I can sneak along the back wall an' by keeping the buildings atween me an' them, get a long ways off before they know anything about it. Then it's a dash—an' they can't catch me. But can you fellers hold out if I do?”
“Two can hold out as good as three—go ahead,” Johnny replied. “Leave me some of yore Colt cartridges, though. You can't use 'em all before you get home.”
“Don't stop fer that; there's a shelfful of all kinds behind the counter,” Barr interposed.
“Well, so long an' good luck,” and the rear door closed, and softly this time.
“Two hours is some wait under the present circumstances,” Barr muttered, shifting his position behind his barricade. “He can't do it in less, nohow.”
Johnny ducked and looked foolish. “Missed me by a foot,” he explained. “He can't do it in two—not there an' back,” he replied. “The trail is mud over the fetlocks. Give him three at the least.”
“They ain't shooting as much as they was before.”
“Waiting till they gets sober, I reckon,” Johnny replied.
“If we don't hear no ruction in a few minutes we'll know he got away all right,” Barr soliloquized. “An' he's got a fine cayuse for mud, too.”
“Hey, why can't you do the same thing if he makes it?” Johnny suddenly asked. “I can hold her alone, all right.”
“Yo're a cheerful liar, you are,” laughed Barr. “But canyouride?”
“Reckon so, but I ain't a-going to.”
“Why, webothcan go—it's a cinch!” Barr cried. “Come on!”
“Lord!—an' I never even thought of that! Reckon I was too mad,” Johnny replied. “But I sort of hates to leave Jackson an' Edwards,” he added, sullenly.
“But they're gone! You can't do them no good by staying.”
“Yes; I know. An' how about Lacey chipping in on our fight?” demanded Johnny. “I ain't a-going to leave him to take it all. You go, Barr; it wasn't yore fight, nohow. You didn't even know what you was fighting for!”
“Huh! When anybody shoots at me it's my fight, all right,” replied Barr, seating himself on the floor behind the breastwork. “I forgot all about Lacey,” he apologized. At that instant a tomato can wentspang!and fell off the shelf. “An' it's too late, anyhow; they ain't a-going to let nobody else get away on that side.”
“An' they're tuning up again, too,” Johnny replied, preparing for trouble. “Look out for a rush, Barr.”