CHAPTER XI

Hughwrote Scot from Aurora, where the boy was filling a wood contract. He proposed that Scot join him in the new camp. The older brother declined. He could not leave the neighbourhood of Mollie till he was assured she had the strength to manage her own affairs. He had once told her he meant to be her big brother. At least he could be that.

Aurora was a gold camp in the first flush of its prosperity. The town was built in a gulch, below which lie narrow, crooked cañons. The history of the camp, in its essential aspects, parallels that of a dozen others. Its first inhabitants were hard-working prospectors, prosaic grubbers who respected each other’s rights and lent a kindly hand to the neighbour in the next-door tent. But after the “glory hole” was struck and the population began to climb came an influx of parasites—gamblers, desperadoes, and road agents. A small percentage of the population, they leavened the whole. Down Virgin Cañon, by stage or on horseback, came John Daily, James Masterson, Sam Dutch, William Buckley, and John McDowell, alias Three-Fingered Jack. They were the advance guard of a hundred others of like mind, hard-visaged “man eaters” whose trigger fingers always itched. They made Aurora sit up on its hind legs and howl.

Two rival gangs operated, one from San Francisco, the other from Sacramento. Between them they ran the town. There was a reign of lawlessness. Juries were afraid to convict. Judges and sheriffs were timid about pushing cases. Sam Dutch, king of the killers, boasted that he was chief. He was suspicious of everybody and never sat except with his back to a wall. In the evening he always saw that the curtains were down. He was for ever watching for the inevitable hour when some other bad man would challenge his supremacy and perhaps cut short his career. This suspense increased his deadliness. He could not afford to wait for an even break because he could not fathom an opponent’s mind and know just when he might elect to draw steel. Wherefore, like the rest of his kind, he killed unnecessarily without provocation. His theory was that dead men are harmless.

When Hugh knew that Dutch was in town he prepared for the trouble he foresaw. Every day he practised with his navy revolver when he was up in the hills with his woodchoppers. Every night in his cabin he carefully oiled and loaded the weapon. He, too, improvised curtains of gunny sacks for the window. When he went down Main Street he had eyes in the back of his head. For he knew that Dutch would assassinate him if possible.

Winter hangs on long at Aurora. There is no spring. The dry, torrid summer with its parching heat follows on the heels of frost. When Hugh arrived in June the cañons still held banked the winter snow. By the middle of July the gulch was a bakeshop.

It was late afternoon one sultry day when Hugh walked down the crooked business street of the town. He stopped in the shadow cast by the false front of a store.

A dog up Virgin Gulch was howling monotonously. A long, lank man, carelessly dressed, sat in a chair tilted back against the wall. One of his heels was hooked in a rung of the chair.

“If I owned a half-interest in that dog,” he drawled lazily, “I believe I’d kill my half.”

Hugh grinned and looked at the man. He had yellow hair, a great mop of it, and twinkling eyes heavily thatched by overhanging brows. He learned later that the man’s name was Sam Clemens. The world came to know him better as Mark Twain.

A bearded miner who had come out of the store gave the remark his attention. “You couldn’t do that, Sam,” he said at length. “If you did that, don’t you see you’d kill the whole dog?”

Clemens looked at the miner. “Maybe you’re right. Anyhow, the other half would be too sick to howl,” he said hopefully.

“If you owned the tail you could cut that off. Or if you owned one of the ears, say,” explained the man with the beard. “I don’t reckon your pardner could kick on that. But if you killed half the dog the rest of it would sure die. Any one can see that, Sam. You sure made a fool remark that time.”

“Yes, I can see now you’re right,” the lank man agreed. “I must be out of my head. Probably the altitude.”[9]

[9]Mark Twain afterwards made use of this in one of his books. A good many bits of his humour can be traced to the days when he was a youth in Nevada.—W. M. R.

“O’ course you could buy the other fellow’s interest in the dog and then kill it,” pursued the literal-minded one. “No objection to that, I reckon.”

“Yes, I could do that—if someone would lend me the money. But I wouldn’t, come to think of it.” Clemens brightened up till he was almost cheerful. “I’d give the dog to you, Hank.”

Attracted by the lank stranger’s dry humour, Hugh reached for a three-cornered stool and started to sit down. He changed his mind abruptly. Out of a saloon next door, named the Glory Hole from Aurora’s famous treasure lode, a big bearded man in an army coat came slouching. It was the first time Hugh had seen Sam Dutch since their meeting at the Crystal Palace.

The boy stood, slightly crouched, his right thumb hitched lightly in the pocket of his trousers. Every nerve was taut as a fiddle string. The eyes of McClintock, grown hard as quartz, did not waver a hair’s breadth.

Dutch stood in front of the saloon a moment, uncertain which way to turn. He came toward the little group before the store. Apparently he was in arrears of sleep, for a cavernous yawn spread over and wrinkled his face.

The yawn came suddenly to a period and left the man gaping, his mouth ludicrously open. Evidently he was caught by complete surprise at sight of young McClintock.

“You here!” he presently growled.

Hugh said nothing. There is strength in silence when accompanied by a cold unwinking gaze.

Dutch made a mistake. He delivered an ultimatum.

“Twenty-four hours. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to get out. If you’re here then——” The threat needed no words to complete it.

Without lifting his eyes from the killer Hugh sidestepped to the middle of the road. If bullets began to fly he had no desire to endanger the bystanders.

“I’ll be here,” he said crisply. “If you feel that way, no use waiting twenty-four hours. Come a-shootin’.”

McClintock had no wish to start trouble. If he had known that Dutch was coming out of the Glory Hole he would have quietly absented himself. But the other man had forced the issue. The boy knew that any proposal to talk over the difficulty would have been regarded as a sign of weakness and would have precipitated an attack. Wherefore he had flung out his bold challenge.

The Chief of Main Street was startled. Some months since, this boy had tossed a defiance in his teeth. Before he had had time to draw a weapon two bullets had crashed into him. The psychology of a killer is peculiar. Down in the bottom of his heart he is as full of superstitions as a gambler. Dutch was no coward, though he fought like a wolf outside of the code that governed more decent men. But he was not used to men like the McClintocks. Other men, when he raved and threatened, spoke humbly and tried to wheedle him back to good humour. In the very silence with which these two faced him was something menacing and deadly that paralyzed his fury.

“Not now. Give you twenty-four hours,” the big man snarled through his beard. He used the fighting epithet, applying it to Scot McClintock. “Like yore brother did me when I was feelin’ sick an’ triflin’ an’ all stove up. Get out. Hit the trail on the jump. Or I’ll sure collect you, kid or no kid.”

“You’re wasting time,” Hugh said quietly.

The killer raved. He cursed savagely. But he did not draw his six-shooter. The man had his crafty reasons. This youngster was chain lightning on the shoot. The evidence of this was scarred on the body of Dutch. Moreover, he could probably take the boy at disadvantage later—get him from behind or when he came into a room dazed from the untempered light outside.

Spitting his warning, Dutch backed into the Glory Hole. “Not room for you’n me here both. Twenty-four hours. You done heard me.”

The red-shirted miner Hank turned beaming on McClintock. He could appreciate this, though Clemens’s humour was too much for him. “You blamed li’l’ horn toad, if you didn’t call a bluff on Dutch and make it stick.”

He used the same epithet that the desperado had just employed, but as it fell from his lips the sting of it was gone. A few years later a senator from the sagebrush state had occasion to explain away this expression on the floor of the upper house of Congress. His version of it was that this was a term of endearment in Nevada. Sometimes it was. Then, again, sometimes it was not.

Hugh made no mistake. He had won the first brush, but he knew the real battle was still to come.

CHAPTER XII

Hughwas no hero of romance, but a normal American youth whose education from childhood had fitted him to meet the emergencies that might confront him. The school of the frontier teaches self-reliance. Every man must stand alone. He is judged by the way he assays after the acid test of danger.

At the Crystal Palace Hugh had not been conscious of any fear. His brother’s life had depended upon his coolness, the smooth efficiency with which his nerves and muscles coördinated. Not until after the peril was past had he felt any hysteria, and then only because he thought he had killed a man.

The situation was different now. He had to meet alone the most notorious man killer of Nevada, not when he was strung up for action by the clash of a sudden encounter, but after a day and night of suspense in which his imagination would play him unkind tricks and show him ghastly visions. He saw pictures—horrible pictures in which Dutch loomed up a huge apelike superman towering over him as a prostrate victim. He saw himself playing the poltroon, dying, dead, every detail of the scene sharp as the lines of an etching. The little boy in him—the child that had for years been dormant—crept out and wailed with fear. Yet all the time he wore a wooden face that told no tales to curious men who watched him.

When at last he was alone Hugh did the wisest thing possible. He borrowed a page instinctively from twentieth-century psychology not then in vogue. He faced the fact that he was afraid, dragged his fears out into the open, examined them, and jeered at them.

“What’s ailin’ you, Hugh McClintock?” he demanded of himself. “Ain’t you got any sand in yore craw a-tall? Who’s Sam Dutch, anyhow? What if he has got a dozen men? Didn’t he kill half of them when they weren’t lookin’ for trouble? Didn’t he pick on four flushers who wouldn’t stand the gaff? Say he is big as all outdoors. Easier to hit, ain’t he? What do you care if he’s a wild man from Borneo and chews glass, like he claims? All men are the same size when they get behind a Colt gun.”

He oiled his revolver while he fought out his fears aloud. “Whyfor should Sam Dutch hang the Indian sign on you? He’s the same scalawag they had to carry feet first outa the Crystal Palace after you got through with him. He’s the same false alarm Scot ran outa Virginia not so long ago. He should do the frettin’, not you.”

With the thought of Scot, courage flowed back into his heart. He knew that somehow Scot would in his place face this fellow down or blot him from the map. “Trouble with you is you’re scared, Hugh. But you’re goin’ through, ain’t you? Sure. You got to. Then buck up an’ throw the scare into the other fellow.”

His mind stuck to that last thought. What were his brains for if he could not make them more useful than the craft and brutishness of Sam Dutch? His mind began to work out a practical plan of action. When he arose from the bench where he sat cleaning the revolver his eyes were bright and shining. The fear in him, which had for hours been lying like a heavy weight on his subconscious mind, no longer repressed but frankly admitted and examined, had now vanished into thin air.

As soon as it was dark Hugh slipped out of his shack and crept along the side of the gulch toward Main Street. He stopped behind a cabin of whipsawed lumber and edged forward to the back of it. The hut had one room. Except the front door there was no way of entrance but by one of the two windows. Hugh had no intention of entering. He was satisfied that Dutch would not come home till late. Probably he would bring a companion with him as a protection against the chance of being ambushed.

For five minutes Hugh worked at one window, then gave his attention to the other. After this he stole back to the edge of the gulch and busied himself among the branches of a little scrub tree which stood at the point of intersection between a small gorge and the main gulch.

Hugh’s guess had been a good one. It was close to one o’clock in the morning when Dutch returned to his cabin. With him was a companion whom Hugh, lying huddled in the sage close to the cañon’s rising slope, recognized as William Buckley, one of Sam’s boon toadies.

The man killer took no chances, at least no more than were necessary. It was quite on the cards, as he understood the business of murder, that his foe might lie in wait for him and shoot from ambush. He did not come down the road, but by way of an alley that brought him to the rear of his shanty. Quickly and stealthily the two men dodged inside. Once in, Dutch bolted the door and pulled the window blinds. Before going to bed he moved both cots so as to put them out of range of one who might crawl up to either window and take a wild shot at the place where one of the beds had been.

Dutch was slipping out of his long army coat when there came a gentle tap—tap—tap at one of the windows. The big bulk of a man stood crouched, eyes glaring, head thrust forward, every sense alert to meet the danger which threatened. He slid out of the coat and dragged a revolver from his hip.

Again there came a slow tap—tap—tap, this time on the opposite window. With incredible swiftness Dutch whirled and fired. His gun was still smoking when the tap—tap—tap, clear and measured, sounded a second time at the first window. Straight at the sound the killer flung another shot. He rushed to the window and drew back the sack used for a curtain. There was nobody at the window either alive or dead, nor was it possible for anybody to have slipped away in that second between the sound of the tapping and the moment when Dutch had torn aside the sack.

As he stood there, frightened and bewildered, there came a sound that turned his flesh to goose-quills. Down the wind was borne a sobbing scream like the wail of a lost soul. Dutch knew that no human voice had uttered that cry. It rose and fell, died down, broke out again, weird and unearthly as a banshee’s whimper.

Tiny beads of perspiration stood out on the man’s forehead. His hands shook. He had no thought but that his call from the world beyond had come, and with the blood of a dozen men on his atrophied conscience he yielded to the rising tide of terror in him.

The slow tap—tap—tap sounded a third time on the window.

The gun-fighter trembled. “Goddlemighty, Bill, I—I done got my call.”

Buckley felt none too comfortable himself, but he managed a laugh. “Sho, Sam! Nothin’ but the wind.”

“The wind can’t tap on the window for me, can it? It can’t——”

The sentence died out, for a second time the ululation of that sobbing shriek came faintly.

Dutch collapsed on a cot, covering his ears with his hands. The man was of a low order of intelligence, as full of superstition as a plantation Negro. His mind did not even seek for a rational explanation of the phenomena that startled him. He was a coward of conscience. The clock was striking twelve o’clock for him. He accepted that without debate.

With an uneasy glance at the window Buckley offered such sorry comfort as he could. “The wind plays damn queer tricks, Sam. You buck up an’ get a bottle out. We’ll play seven up for a spell.”

A high mocking laugh, thin and sinister, trembled out of the night as though in answer to Buckley’s suggestion. The two men looked at each other. Each read fear in the eyes facing his.

“It—that sounded like—like Al Morford the day I shot him,” gasped Dutch, clutching at his companion’s sleeve. “He—he was laughin’ at me when I drew on him and asked him where he’d have it.”

“You don’t want to get to thinkin’ about that now, Sam,” advised Buckley, moistening his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. “Let’s hit the grit back to the Glory Hole. We’ll feel better once we get outside of a few drinks.”

“He—said he’d come back an’ ha’nt me,” whispered the man killer abjectly. “Said it while they was takin’ his boots off, right before he passed in his checks.”

“Al Morford’s been dead an’ buried for years,” said the other man shakily. “Forget him. An’ le’s get outa here, sudden.”

Another wail soughed down from the gorge. Dutch shook like an aspen. “I—I can’t go out—there.”

“You gonna stay here all night? I ain’t.” Buckley mopped the sweat from his forehead and drew a revolver. He trod softly to the door, then turned to his companion. “Come on, Sam.”

Buckley had no mind to take the night walk alone, nor had Dutch the courage to stay without his ally. The big ruffian, his nerves a-quiver, crept after the other man.

They slipped from the cabin toward the road. A gust of wind swept the gulch, bringing with it a menacing jangle of horrible laughter. The fugitives threw away the remnant of their pride and stumbled through the sagebrush at a run. Their hearts were in their throats. When they looked back it was with the expectation of seeing hobgoblins burst from the chaparral in pursuit.

Presently Hugh McClintock stole up to the cabin and removed a tick-tack from each of the shattered windows. He cut down from the scrub pine at the mouth of the gorge a kind of æolian harp he had made out of violin strings and a soap box. The wind, whistling through this, had given out the weird wail which had shaken the nerves of Dutch. The falsetto laughter had been an histrionic effort of Hugh’s own vocal cords. It happened that just now his voice was changing.

The youngster went home to bed and to sleep. Meanwhile Dutch, to restore his weakened self-esteem and courage, drank heavily through the night.

In the morning Hugh made his few preparations. He wrote a letter to his father and another to Scot. He ate a good breakfast. He examined carefully his revolver and a sawed-off shotgun loaded with slugs.

By way of back alleys he reached the Glory Hole and slipped through the back entrance to a small table in the darkest corner of the saloon. Except for the bartender Hugh was almost alone in the place. Two men, their feet on the rail, were discussing the bonanza in Last Chance Hill. They were comparing the merits of the Real Del Monte and the Wide West, both of which mines were producing very rich ore. Occasionally somebody else drifted in and out again.

The bartender looked curiously at the young fellow with the sawed-off shotgun on the table in front of him. He was a little puzzled to know what to do. He did not want to intrude in anybody’s private affairs, but he did not want any trouble in the Glory Hole. Perhaps this youngster was going hunting and had agreed to meet someone here.

The attendant drifted that way on pretense of wiping a table with a towel.

“Serve you anything?” he asked casually.

“No, thanks.”

“Waitin’ for someone?”

“Yes.”

“Can I take care of the gun till yore friend gets here?”

“Thanks. It’s no trouble.”

“Live here?”

“Yes. Wood contract for the Real Del Monte.”

The young stranger’s manner was so matter of fact that the bartender’s suspicions, not very strong, were lulled to rest. It was not likely, anyhow, that this boy with the golden down on his cheeks could be looking for trouble.

There came an irruption of patrons and the man with the apron became busy. Then another group swept into the place. There were five of them. In the van was Dutch. Hugh recognized Buckley, Daily, and Three-Fingered Jack. They took noisily a table close to the one where Hugh sat.

Daily, about to sit down, gripped the back of his chair hard and stared at the man behind the sawed-off shotgun. He did not take his seat. Instead, out of one corner of his mouth, he dropped a word of warning to Dutch. Then, as though moved by a careless impulse to speak to the bartender, he sauntered to the front of the room.

Dutch slewed round his head and looked at Hugh. Neither of them spoke a word. The killer was not drunk. He was in that depressed state of mind which follows heavy drinking after the stimulus has died down. One glance was enough to make clear to him his carelessness. By the crook of a finger his foe could fill him full of buckshot.

The ticking of a clock behind the bar was the only sound in the room. The gun-fighters with Dutch dared not rise to slip out of the line of fire for fear McClintock might misunderstand the movement and blaze away.

Hugh broke the silence. “If any of you gentlemen have business elsewhere Mr. Dutch and I will excuse you.”

All of them, it appeared, had matters needing their attention. They moved swiftly and without delay.

Dutch begged for his life. His ugly face was a yellowish-green from fear. “I was jes’ a-foolin’, young fellow. I didn’t aim to hurt you none. Only a li’l’ joke. Ole Sam don’t bear no grudge. Le’s be friends.”

The man with the shotgun said nothing. With the tip of his forefinger he tapped slowly three times on the wooden top of the table.

The bad man gave a low moan of terror. He had no thought but that he had come to the end of the passage. His brain was too paralyzed to permit him to try to draw his revolver. Nemesis was facing him.

“Hands on the table,” ordered Hugh.

The big hands trembled up and fell there. Abjectly Dutch pleaded for the mercy he had never given another man. He would leave camp. He would go to Mexico. He would quit carrying a gun. Any terms demanded he would meet.

Hugh sat in a corner with his back to the wall. He was protected by his position from any attack except a frontal one, in case the companions of Dutch moved to come to his rescue. They had, in point of fact, no such intention. Though Dutch belonged to their gang, he had always been an obnoxious bully. He was a quarrelsome, venomous fellow, and more than once had knifed or shot those of his own crowd. Nobody liked him, least of all those who had accepted him as leader.

Three-Fingered Jack leaned back with his elbows hitched on the bar and grinned cynically as he listened to the whining of the huge ruffian.

“He claims to be a man-eater, Sam does,” he whispered to Daily. “Calls himself Chief of Main Street. Fine. We’ll let him play his own hand. He sure wouldn’t want us interferin’ against a kid. All night I’ve listened to his brags about what all he’d do to this McClintock guy. Now I’m waitin’ to see him do it.”

“What’s eatin’ the kid?” demanded Daily, also in a whisper. “Why don’t he plug loose with the fireworks? You can’t monkey with Sam. First thing he knows he won’t know a thing, that kid won’t. He’ll be a sure enough corpus delinqui.”

But Hugh took no chances. He knew what he was waiting for. Thirty minutes by the watch he held the desperado prisoner. When Dutch got restless he tapped the table three times with his finger tip, and the man began to sweat fear again. The big bully never knew at what moment the boy might crook his finger.

“You’re goin’ on a journey,” Hugh explained at last. “You’re takin’ the stage outa town. The Candelabria one is the first that leaves. So you’re booked for a seat in it. And you’re not buyin’ a return trip ticket. Understand?”

Dutch understood humbly and gratefully. His gratitude was not to this fool of a boy whom he meant to destroy some day, but to the luck which was bringing him alive out of the tightest hole he had ever been in.

Under orders from Hugh the bartender disarmed Dutch. Still covered by the shotgun, the sullen dethroned chief climbed into the stage that was about to leave.

From a saloon farther down the street a Negro’s mellow voice was lifted in song:

“Ole Dan and I, we did fall out,An’ what you t’ink it was about?He tread on my corn an’ I kick him on de shin,An’ dat’s de way dis row begin.So git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,You’re too late to come to supper.”

“Ole Dan and I, we did fall out,An’ what you t’ink it was about?He tread on my corn an’ I kick him on de shin,An’ dat’s de way dis row begin.

“Ole Dan and I, we did fall out,

An’ what you t’ink it was about?

He tread on my corn an’ I kick him on de shin,

An’ dat’s de way dis row begin.

So git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,You’re too late to come to supper.”

So git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,

Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,

You’re too late to come to supper.”

A crowd had gathered on the street. It watched with eagerness the taming of this bad man. In the old fighting West nobody was more despised than a cowed “man-eater.” The good citizen who went about his business and made no pretensions held the respect of the community. Not so the gunman whose bluff had been called.

On the outskirts of the crowd a quiet man—he was Captain J. A. Palmer and he had nerves of steel—took up the chorus of the song derisively. Others began to hum it, at first timidly, then more boldly:

“Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,You’re too late to come to supper.”

“Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,

Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,

You’re too late to come to supper.”

Before the last verse the song was going with a whoop. Nearly everybody present had sidestepped Dutch. Many had gone in fear of his vicious, erratic temper. It was a great relief to see him humiliated and driven away.

Dutch looked neither to the right nor to the left. He sat hunched in his seat, head down and teeth clenched. At any moment the demonstration might turn into a lynching bee now that Aurora had lost its fear of him.

The stage rolled away in a cloud of dust.

Hugh turned, to find himself facing Captain Palmer.

“Don’t you know better than to let Sam Dutch get away alive after you’ve got the drop on him?” Palmer asked.

“I couldn’t kill him in cold blood.”

“Hmp! He’d have killed you that way, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes. But I’m no murderer.”

Palmer looked the youth over with a new respect. “Shoot straight?”

“I’m a pretty good shot.”

“Kill if you had to?”

“Yes.”

“Young fellow, I want you. What you doing now?”

“Wood contract.”

“Finish it. Then come see me. We want a shotgun messenger to ride with the stage. Got to stop these hold-ups. Big pay and little work.”

Hugh smiled. “Guaranteed as a nice safe job, is it?”

“Safe as running Sam Dutch out of town,” Palmer answered, meeting the smile with another.

Young McClintock shook his head. “Got another job waiting—one with Uncle Sam.”

“Going to join the army?”

“Yes.”

The Captain nodded. “Good enough. Your country has first call. Go to it, boy.”

CHAPTER XIII

Aletterfrom Scot delayed Hugh for a time from carrying out his intention of joining the army. The older brother wrote that he had been offered a commission and was anxious to get to the front, but that certain matters were just now keeping him in town. He did not mention that he was waiting till Mollie closed out her little business and moved to Carson, where she would be free of her husband’s interference.

The news that his brother was going into the army gave the boy a thrill. He had given his ardent hero worship to Scot. He felt, as many others did, too, that there were thwarted qualities of leadership in Scot that might yet make of him a Broderick. Between him and a big future there was no obstacle but the wilful wildness of the man. He had everything that made for success except stability of purpose.

What a soldier he would be. What an officer under whom to serve! Scot would make an ideal cavalry chief. Young McClintock wrote back at once that he would join his brother whenever he was ready to leave. He wanted, if possible, to serve in his company.

The departure of Sam Dutch from Aurora did not put an end to lawlessness there, though it undoubtedly heartened the good people and prepared the way for the drastic law-and-order programme which followed.

The Last Chance mines were producing amazingly. There seemed no end to the riches in sight. Money was easy, and the rough element flocked to the town from California and the other Nevada camps. The Sacramento and San Francisco gangs ran wild and killed and maimed each other at will, but so long as they let good citizens alone for the most part, no efficient check was put upon them. The town went its busy, turbulent, happy-go-lucky way. It sunk shafts, built business blocks, established a company of home guards known as the Esmeralda Rangers, and in general made preparations for a continued prosperity that was never to end. Two daily newspapers supplied the eight thousand inhabitants with the news of the world as it came in over the wire.

The ebb and flow of the tide of battle from the great centres where the armies of Lee, Meade, Grant, Buell, and Bragg struggled reached this far-off frontier and drew a line of cleavage between the fiery Southerners and the steadfast Northerners who made up the population. Nevada had been made a territory and the fight was on for statehood. President Lincoln backed the party which demanded admission. The reasons were both political and financial. Later, Abraham Lincoln said that Nevada, through the treasures of gold and silver which it poured to the national capital, had been worth a million men to the Union cause.

His wood contract finished, Hugh took temporarily a place with the express company as shotgun messenger. The job was a very dangerous one. Hold-ups were frequent, and the messenger did not get or expect an even break. In the narrow twisting cañons below the town it was easy to lie in ambush and surprise the stage as it carried bullion from the mines.

Hugh was lucky. His stage was “stuck up” once, but it chanced that no bullion was on board. On another occasion he was wounded in an attempt at robbery and left one of the bandits lying in the road with a load of buckshot in him. His own wound was slight. People began to say that he bore a charmed life. The boy’s reputation for gameness was growing.

Bob Howland, a nephew of the territorial governor, Nye, was city marshal. He asked young McClintock to be his deputy.

“We’re going to clean up this town and I need help. You’ll sure have a merry time.”

Hugh declined. “No, I’m going into the army right away, soon as I hear from Scot. I’ll stick with the stage till then.”

Hugh had occasion next day to go into the Glory Hole to speak with a man. He saw Bob Howland talking to the girl dealing faro. The marshal walked across the floor and joined McClintock.

He was smiling. “Come outside,” he said quietly.

They strolled out together. “Jimmy Sayres was killed this morning by Johnny Rogers,” Howland explained. “You know Rogers is working for Johnson on his ranch at Smith’s Valley. Jimmy and a couple of other bummers were passing through Wellington Station and picked up a good saddle horse belonging to Johnson. Johnny buckled on his Colt’s navy and hit the trail after them. Seems he caught up with them near Sweetwater Station. They fired at him. He got busy right then, and Sayres quit taking any interest in the proceedings. The other two thieves broke for the willows. Johnny took the horse back with him. Good work, I say.”

“Sayres is one of the San Francisco gang. Isn’t that likely to make trouble? The gang will be out for revenge.”

“Captain Palmer has served notice on them to lay off Johnny Rogers. If they don’t we’ll organize a branch of the vigilantes, as they did at Virginia not long since.”

“Then it’s a showdown?”

“It’s a showdown.”

It was observable that the gang began to draw together from that day. Minor differences of opinion in its members were sunk in the common need of a united front. Daily, Masterson, Buckley, Vance, McDowell, Carberry, and their followers could be seen swaggering in groups. Their attitude was defiant. It would not have surprised Aurora to learn any morning that Palmer or Rogers had been shot down.

The vengeance of the gunmen fell instead on Johnson, the rancher who had sent Rogers to get back the stolen horse. He was warned not to show his face in Aurora. The ranchman disregarded the threat and came to town each week to sell his produce. He made the trip once too often. His body was found one morning lying in the street. During the night he had been murdered.

Hugh was standing in front of the Novacovich building when he heard of the killing. The man who told him whispered a word in his ear. Instantly the express messenger walked to his cabin. He drew out a sawed-off shot gun from beneath the bed and passed down Main Street to the Wingate building.

Already forty or fifty men were present, the pick of the town. More were pouring in every minute. Captain Palmer was the leader. As Hugh looked from his cold stern face to those of the grim men about him he knew that a day of judgment had come.

An organization of vigilantes was completed in a few minutes. There was no debate, no appeal from the decision of the chair. These citizens meant business. They were present to get results swiftly and efficiently. The men were divided into companies with captains. One group was sent to take charge of the Armoury, where the weapons of the Esmeralda Rangers were kept.

Palmer checked off a list of gunmen to be arrested. This commission was given to Hugh. He divided his company into groups and set about finding the men whose names he had on the list.

Most of the desperadoes were taken completely by surprise. They were captured in bed after being aroused from sleep. Hugh himself broke down the door of Jack Daily’s room after the man had refused to open it.

The two faced each with a revolver in his hand. Daily saw other men at the head of the stairs back of McClintock.

“What’s all this row about?” he asked.

“W. R. Johnson was killed in the night. You’re wanted, Jack,” the young man answered.

“Killed, was he? Well, he had it comin’,” jeered the gunman. “You’ve heard about the pitcher that went once too often to the well, I reckon.”

“We’ve heard about that pitcher, Jack. Have you?” asked Hugh significantly.

Daily tried to carry things off with a swagger. “Been elected sheriff overnight, young fellow, in place of Francis?”

“Just a deputy. Drop that gun.”

The desperado hesitated. Then, with a forced laugh, he tossed his revolver upon the bed. “You’re feelin’ yore oats since Dutch showed a yellow streak, McClintock.”

Buckley had escaped and the sheriff sent a posse after him. Two or three men on the list were in hiding and could not at once be found, but the gather in the net of the vigilantes was a large one. Later in the day Buckley was brought to town. He had been found skulking in a prospect hole.

There was a disposition at first on the part of some to let the machinery of the law take its course rather than try the prisoners before a people’s court. The leaders of the movement yielded to this sentiment so far as to allow a preliminary hearing in the office of Justice Moore.

At this hearing Vance, one of the gang whose name somehow had not been included on the list, had the hardihood to appear. He blustered and bullied, though he was warned to remain silent. Presently, just as he was reaching for a revolver, one of the citizens’ posse wounded him in the arm.

Captain Palmer, on behalf of the vigilantes, at once brushed aside the formalities of the law and organized a people’s court. He did not intend to let the guilty men intimidate the court that was to try them, nor to permit them to escape by means of technicalities.

About a dozen men were tried. They were brought before the court and examined separately. The evidence showed conclusively that Daily, Buckley, Masterson, and McDonald had murdered Johnson. The four were convicted and sentenced to be hanged as soon as the carpenters could build a gallows. Carberry, known as “Irish Tom,” escaped the extreme penalty by one vote. That deciding vote was cast by Hugh McClintock. Carberry and his companions, shaky at the knees and with big lumps in their throats, were dizzy with joy at the sentence of banishment passed upon them. They would have emigrated to Timbuctoo to escape “the stranglers,” as they called the vigilantes.

Someone—perhaps the sheriff, perhaps some friend of the condemned men—wired Governor Nye for help to save the gunmen. The Governor sent a telegram to his nephew. The wire read:

It is reported here that Aurora is in the hands of a mob. Do you need any assistance?

Bob Howland sent a prompt message back. It read:

Everything quiet here. Four men will be hanged in fifteen minutes.

The gallows had been built on the summit of the hill in the centre of North Silver Street. There, before the people whose laws they had mocked for so long, the four killers paid the penalty of their crimes.

Young McClintock, in charge of the company which guarded the gallows, was bloodless to the lips. He felt faint and greatly distressed. There was something horrible to him in this blotting out from life of men who had no chance to make a fight for existence. If a word of his could have saved them he would have said it instantly. But in his heart he knew the sentence was just. It meant the triumph of law and order against violence. Killers and gunmen would no longer dominate the camp and hold it in bondage to fear. Honest citizens could go about their daily business in security.

CHAPTER XIV

Thepink of apple blossoms was in Mollie’s cheeks, the flutter of a covey of quails in her blood. At the least noise her startled heart jumped. Sometimes it sang with a leaping joy beyond control. Again it was drenched with a chill dread. The Confederacy had made its last grand gesture at Appomattox. A million men and more were homeward bound. Scot McClintock had written that to-day, on his way back to Virginia City from the front, he would stop off at Carson for a few hours.

She was afraid to meet him. In the hour when they had talked over their decision she had begged him never to see her again, to put her out of his mind as though he had never met her. The fear lurked in the hinterland of her mind that perhaps he had done this. He had been a soldier, busy with the work given him to do, rising step by step by the force of his personality. Was it likely he still cherished the wild love, fruition of which had been denied them?

Mollie had always pushed far back into her secret consciousness the sweet memories of Scot that had persisted. It had been a matter of duty. Her code bound her to the view that she could not be the wife of one man, though in name only, and at the same time love another even in the secret recesses of her soul. Yet it was never hidden from her that she loved Scot. No power within her could change that. All she could do was to flog herself because of it.

And to-day he was coming back, covered with honour and glory. Was she going to meet a stranger or the ardent friend who had brought colour into her life?

Into the house burst a girl, shining in the radiance and clean strength of her young teens. She was slim and straight and dark, and in her eager face glowed a wonderful colour that came and went as the flame of her emotions quickened or died. With a whirlwind rush of her supple body she launched herself on her sister.

“Oh, Mollie—Mollie darling,” she cried. “It’s been thelongesttime since I saw you. What made you stay so long up in Virginia? And who did you see there? Tell me all abouteverything.”

A soft flame beat into the older sister’s cheeks. Victoria’s enthusiasm was always a tonic for her.

“I’ve had a letter from—from Colonel McClintock,” she said. “He expects to pass through Carson this morning.”

Vicky hugged her again. “Oh, goody, goody! Threewhackingcheers for our colonel.” It was characteristic of her speech that stressed words stood out like telegraph poles on a railroad track.

“He’s not our colonel,” reproved Mollie gently.

“He’s mine,” answered Vicky. “Isn’t he my guardian? And doesn’t he send me thebestpresent every Christmas? He likes you, too. Think I don’t know, Sis?”

Mollie’s startled eyes fastened to those of Vicky. She was always being surprised by the acute observation of this helter-skelter youngster. Of course she couldn’t know, but——

“Why don’t you marry him, now you’ve got a divorce?” the child rushed on with the ruthless innocence of her age.

The colour poured into Mollie’s cheeks. “How you talk!” she gasped. “About things you know nothing about. He—Colonel McClintock—has been a good friend to us. You mustn’t get foolish notions.”

“They’renotfoolish.” She had Mollie in her arms once more. “Why don’t you marry him, dearest? I would. I’d snap him up. ’N him a hero—decorated for bravery, like theEnterprisesaid.”

Mollie’s eyes fell. “You mustn’t talk that way,” she breathed tremulously. “You’re only a girl, and you don’t know anything about it.”

“But I just do,” triumphed Vicky. “You think you’d stand in his way orsomep’nnow he’s a big officer. Or you think——”

“I think your imagination is too active, dear,” Mollie countered drily. “You haven’t the least reason to think there is anything but friendship between me and Colonel McClintock.”

Vicky caught her by the shoulders. “Sister Mollie, can you tell me, honest Injun, that you don’t love him?”

The gaze of Mollie wavered before the steady searching eyes of inexorable youth.

“Or that he doesn’t care for you?” Vicky went on.

There was a mist of tears in Mollie’s eyes. “How do I know? I haven’t seen him for years. Maybe he doesn’t—any longer——”

The girl protested vigorously. “Don’t you know him better’n that? Ofcoursehe does. You’ll see.”

The pent-up secret of Mollie’s heart came out tremulously. “I sent him away. I told him to forget me. Men don’t remember always—like we women do.”

Vicky took active charge of the campaign. “I’ll tell you what, Sister Mollie. You put on that blue-print dress, the one with the flowered pattern—an’ lemme fix your hair—an’ when you see him forget every single thing except how glad you are to see him.”

Light-footed and swift, Vicky moved about the room making ready for the transformation of her sister. She was a girl given at times to silences, but just now she was voluble as a magpie. Her purpose was to divert Mollie’s thoughts from herself for the present.

After the flowered dress had been donned and the soft thick hair arranged to Vicky’s satisfaction, that young lady stood back and clapped her hands. “Come into the parlour and look at the sweetest and prettiest thing in Carson,” she cried, catching her sister’s hand and dragging her forward. “If Colonel McClintock doesn’t think you’rejust dear, it’ll be because he’s gone blind.”

Mollie took one look in the glass, then caught at the sideboard to steady herself. For a voice from the doorway answered Vicky’s prophecy.

“He does think so, just as he always has.”

Scot came across the room in three long strides and swept Mollie into his arms. The breath of life flooded her cheeks and flung out a flag of joy. Her soldier had come home from the wars. He still wanted her.

“You’ve heard,” she cried.

“That the courts have freed you. Of course.”

Mollie wept happy tears through which smiles struggled. Vicky, dominated by a sense of delicacy, regretfully withdrew and left them to talk the murmurous disjointed language of lovers that has come down from Adam and Eve in the garden. Fifteen minutes later she poked her head back into the room and coughed discreetly.

“Vicky, when can you have my girl ready?” Scot demanded.

“Ready for what?” she asked.

But she knew for what. Her face sparkled. The slim body wriggled with excitement, as a happy, expectant puppy does.

“For the wedding, of course.”

“In twenty minutes,” answered Vicky promptly.

“Good. I met Father Marston at the Ormsby House when the stage came in. I’ll be back in time.”

Mollie protested, blushing. She had no clothes. She did not think she wanted to be married in such a hurry. Proper arrangements must be made. Vicky and Scot brushed her excuses aside peremptorily.

In his blue uniform McClintock strode down the street, the sword still swinging at his side. He knew where to find Father Marston, who was chaplain of the legislature, now in special session.

Delavan Marston was a character. Rough and rugged, he struck straight from the shoulder. His tastes and habits were liberal. He liked a good cigar and a good glass of wine. Generally he was called Father Marston, though he was a Protestant.

He rose, tall and gaunt, to open the assembly with prayer, just as Scot came into the hall. The soldier listened to a remarkable petition. A member of the legislature had been complaining because the chaplain’s prayers were too long.

“And they don’t get practical results,” the member had added. “If they’d make the rock in my tunnel any softer or the water in my ditch more plentiful I’d favour ’em. But they look to me like a waste of time.”

A kind friend had reported the grumbler’s words to Marston. This morning he made his petition short enough and direct enough.

“O Lord,” he prayed sonorously, “we ask Thee to remember in particular one of our number. Make the rock in his tunnel as soft as his head and the water in his ditch as plentiful as the whisky he daily drinks. Amen.”

McClintock stopped the parson on his way out of the building.

Father Marston swept the handsome figure from head to foot with his grim eyes. He was very fond of Scot McClintock, but he disapproved of many of his actions. He was the only man alive except old Alexander McClintock who dared tell him so.

“Colonel, that uniform is an honour to any living man. They tell me you’ve not disgraced it in the army. That’s right. I’d expect you to be a good soldier. But there are soldiers of peace, sir. They have their battles to fight, too. Isn’t it about time you quit hellin’ around and set this country round here a good example? Folks like and admire you. The Lord knows why. They set a heap o’ store by you. They’ll be disappointed if you go back to dealing faro.”

Scot gave him his frank disarming smile. “I’ll not disappoint them in that particular way, Father. Hugh and I are going into business together as soon as he is discharged from the army. Tell you-all about that later. Right now I want you to marry me.”

“Who to?”

“To Mrs. Dodson.”

“A divorced woman.”

Scot met him eye to eye. “Yes, sir.”

“I don’t believe in divorces, Colonel.”

“There are divorces and divorces, Father. Do you know anything about Robert Dodson and Mollie Dodson?”

“Know ’em both. She’s a good woman. The less said about him the better, I reckon. Maybe she’s entitled to a good husband. Looks thataway to me. I’ll marry you. If it’s a sin the Lord will have to charge it against me. When do you want to be married?”

“Now. Soon as I can get a license. Meet you at her house in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll be there on time, sir.”

Father Marston was waiting when Scot reached the house with the license.

Vicky came into the parlour, slim and straight as a half-grown boy. She drew her heels together and lifted a hand to her rebellious black hair. “Colonel, I have to report that the bride is ready.”

To Vicky it seemed that all Mollie’s troubles would now melt in the warm sunshine of happiness. She could not understand the reason for the tremulous mist of tears in her sister’s soft eyes while she made the responses. After the ceremony she flung herself into Mollie’s arms and kissed her rapturously.

“I always wanted a sure enough prince for you, Mollie,” she whispered. “And now you’ve got him. Don’t you dare not to be happy now.”

Mollie nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat. She did not know whether happiness was to be her portion or not. All she was sure of was that she could walk through life beside the man she loved. And that, just now, was all she asked.

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