CHAPTER XV
Fortunepicks her favourites strangely. While the McClintocks were away at the war Robert Dodson, incompetent and worthless, developed from a pauper to a millionaire. His was one of the sudden shifts of luck to which Virginia City was becoming used.
Most men in the camp had a trunkful of mining stock picked up here and there, a lot of it feet in wildcat concerns hawked about in exchange for meal tickets, boots, shirts, liquor, and other supplies. This was scattered so promiscuously that one could acquire reams of it without giving much in actual value for it. Dodson’s rise to affluence was a camp joke. It was said that he sold two bags of bones and a pile of kindling for a million dollars. What he actually did was to swap his ramshackle wagon and starving team for fifty feet in the Never Say Die, twenty-five feet in the Gambler’s Luck, twenty in the Mollie Macrae, and fifteen in the Road to China. He was given a quart of whisky to boot. The trade was made while Dodson was drunk, and all his saloon cronies chuckled over the way he had been sold. For all of these were stock jobbing enterprises and nothing more. None of them were doing any developing at all.
A mine adjacent to the Never Say Die and the Gambler’s Luck struck it rich. There was a sympathetic boom in mines of surrounding territory. The Never Say Die sank a shaft and ran a crosscut. This cut into a vein that appeared to be a bonanza. Half seas over again, Dodson sold out his interest in both prospects at the height of the boom. Within a week it was known that the crosscut had run into only a small pocket.
Luck pursued Dodson. It would not let him alone. He took a flyer in Ophir stock, and the Ophir soared. He invested in Crown Point and the Belcher. Both were big winners.
Presently a younger brother of the new magnate appeared on the scene to manage his interests. Ralph Dodson was a big athletic fellow with glossy black hair and small black moustache. The dark eyes were keen and cold. They roved a good deal, but it was noticeable that they came to pause whenever they fell on a good-looking woman. He had a hail-fellow-well-met manner, but there was something hard and icy in him that frustrated his jollity.
The younger brother had a powerful influence over Robert Dodson. The man pulled himself up and stopped drinking. He was of nature parsimonious, and he hung on to his fortune in spite of the parasites who fawned on him. Ralph’s cool business judgment was a factor in the rapid increase of it.
Scot McClintock returned to civil life to find that the wastrel and ne’er-do-well was an important figure in the community. He had the responsibilities that go with wealth, and these always entail a certain amount of public recognition. The bullet head of Robert Dodson might be seen among the notables at the International Hotel. His shifty yellow eyes looked down from the platform on various important occasions.
Both Scot and his brother had saved money. They had, too, a long credit at the banks and among private friends. They went into freighting on an extensive scale. They bought teams, increasing gradually the size of their business. Ore and wood contracts were their specialties.
Dan De Quille has said that the Comstock is the tomb of the forests of the Sierras. This is literally true. Already enough timber had been buried in the Lode to build a city several times as large as San Francisco was. The square-set system of timbering, invented by Philip Deidesheimer, made it possible to develop the mines to a great depth in spite of the tendency of the ground to cave. But this necessitated hauling timber from a distance. The nearer slopes of the range were already denuded.
Upon this need the McClintocks built their business. It prospered year by year, for both members of the firm were shrewd and energetic.
Vicky had remained at school in Carson when Scot moved to Virginia City. When she reached the age of sixteen Scot sent her to a young lady’s seminary at San Francisco where she could have better advantages. For a year she remained in the city at the Golden Gate.
It chanced that Hugh had not seen Vicky since the day when she first set out for school at Carson years ago. Upon the occasions of her visits to Mollie’s house he had been out of town on business. Once he had called at Miss Clapp’s to see her, but Miss Victoria happened to be up King’s Cañon gathering wild flowers.
“What’s she look like now?” Hugh asked Scot when he heard the girl was returning from San Francisco. “Must be a right sizable little girl now, I reckon. Last time I was in Sacramento I sent her a nigger toll. Here’s the letter she wrote me. I’d think they’d teach her to spell better.”
Scot read the note.
Dere Mister Santa Claws,I got the doll. Thank you very much for it. I like dolls. I am lerning speling, reading, riting, gography, numbers, grammar, and deportment. Deportment is when you say thanks to a kind gentelman for giveing you a doll. We had bluebery pie for dinner. Do you like bluebery pie? I do. Wel I must close for this time your greatful little friendVictoria Lowell.
Dere Mister Santa Claws,
I got the doll. Thank you very much for it. I like dolls. I am lerning speling, reading, riting, gography, numbers, grammar, and deportment. Deportment is when you say thanks to a kind gentelman for giveing you a doll. We had bluebery pie for dinner. Do you like bluebery pie? I do. Wel I must close for this time your greatful little friendVictoria Lowell.
The older brother wiped a smile from his face as he looked at Hugh. The note was like the little vixen who had written it. She was having her fun with Hugh, who seemed to have forgotten that in the course of four years children of Vicky’s sex have a habit of shooting up into young ladies. A black doll! Well, Hugh had brought it on himself. Scot did not intend to spoil sport. He told a part of the truth.
“She’s a pretty good match for the black doll herself—the blackest little thing you ever saw. Hair flies wild. A good deal of long arms and legs about her. Some whirlwind when she gets started.”
“Always was that,” Hugh said. “I can imagine how she looks. Blueberry pie painted on her face when she wrote that letter probably.” He shifted the conversation to business. “Are you going down to Piodie or do you want me to go?”
Piodie was the newest camp in Nevada. Discovery of ore had just been made and a stampede for the new diggings was on. They were said to be very rich in both gold and silver. If this proved true, the handling of freight to the new camp would be profitable.
“You go, Hugh. I don’t want to leave Mollie just now.”
In the mining country camps have their little day and cease to be. They wallow in prosperity and never dream of the time when the coyote will howl in their lonesome streets. A camp which “comes back” is as rare as a pugilist who recovers a lost championship. Aurora’s star had set. The live citizens were flitting, and the big mines were pulling their pumps. The name on every tongue was Piodie.
“All right,” agreed Hugh. “I been wantin’ to have a look at that camp.”
“Take your time. No hurry. Look the ground over carefully. The business will run right along while you’re away.”
“Hope Mollie gets along fine,” Hugh said awkwardly.
The young man was now a responsible member of a business firm which handled a large trade. The days when he had ridden pony express, even the ones when he had left the army with a sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve, belonged to his adventurous past. Young as he was, Hugh served on civic committees and attended board of trade banquets. In his heart sometimes he rebelled. He did not look forward with eagerness to the day when he would be a leading citizen with an equatorial paunch. The blood of youth still sang in him a saga of untravelled trails.
Perhaps that was why he chose to ride to Piodie instead of taking a seat beside “Pony” King on the stage. It was a day of the gods as he rode up the Geiger Grade from B Street. His lungs drank in the rare air like wine. The sky was crystal clear except for a long-drawn wisp of cloud above the summit of Mt. Davidson. Below him a cañon cleft the hills, and beyond its winding gorge was a glimpse of soft-toned desert through which ran a gleaming silver ribbon edged with the green of cottonwood foliage. Far away, at the horizon edge, were white mountain barriers, the Sierras to the right, the Humboldt and the Pine Nut ranges to the east.
It was noon when he reached Reno, the new town which had just changed its name from End-of-the-Track. The Central Pacific, built the previous year, had brought Reno into existence. It was still a little village. If any one had predicted then that the day was coming when both Carson and Virginia would be displaced in importance by the little railroad station Reno, he would have been judged a poor guesser.
Hugh jogged along at the steady road gait which is neither quite a trot nor a walk. The miles fell behind him hour after hour. The sun sank into the hills and left behind it a great splash of crimson glory. This faded to a soft violet, which in turn deepened to a lake of purple as the evening shadows lengthened.
The traveller camped in the sage. He scooped out a hole in the soft sand and built in it a fire of greasewood and brush. This he kept replenished till it was full of live coals. He knew it would last till morning without fresh fuel. Supper finished, he rolled up in his blanket and found for a pillow the softest spot in the saddle.
His brain buzzed with thoughts of the old riding days when life had been an adventure and not a humdrum business. Into his memory there sang itself a chantey of the trail. He found himself now murmuring the words drowsily:
“Last night as I lay on the prairie,And looked at the stars in the sky,I wondered if ever a cowboyWould drift to that sweet by and by.Roll on, roll on,Roll on, little dogies, roll on, roll on,Roll on, roll on,Roll on, little dogies, roll on.”
“Last night as I lay on the prairie,And looked at the stars in the sky,I wondered if ever a cowboyWould drift to that sweet by and by.Roll on, roll on,Roll on, little dogies, roll on, roll on,Roll on, roll on,Roll on, little dogies, roll on.”
“Last night as I lay on the prairie,And looked at the stars in the sky,I wondered if ever a cowboyWould drift to that sweet by and by.Roll on, roll on,Roll on, little dogies, roll on, roll on,Roll on, roll on,Roll on, little dogies, roll on.”
“Last night as I lay on the prairie,
And looked at the stars in the sky,
I wondered if ever a cowboy
Would drift to that sweet by and by.
Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little dogies, roll on, roll on,
Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little dogies, roll on.”
The tune of it followed in a rough way that of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” Stanza after stanza Hugh sang it softly, and each time as he came to the chorus his brain was a little less active, his eyes a little heavier.
“Roll on, roll on,Roll on, little—dogies—roll—on.”
“Roll on, roll on,Roll on, little—dogies—roll—on.”
“Roll on, roll on,Roll on, little—dogies—roll—on.”
“Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little—dogies—roll—on.”
He fell asleep with the words on his lips.
The gray of dawn was streaking the east when he awoke. After breakfast he fell again into the jog-trot of travel. The sage hills slipped behind him, and always there were others to replace the ones that had vanished. The sun crept high and became a ball of fire in the sky. Dust in yellow clouds, fine and penetrating, sifted over and into him. His eyes became irritated with it and his throat caked.
It was late afternoon when he rode down through Piodie Cañon to the flats where enterprising real estate agents were laying out suburbs of the new camp. Hugh turned in at a feed corral and swung from the saddle stiffly.
A familiar voice lifted itself in tuneless but cheerful song:
“He lived at peace with all mankind,In friendship he was true;His coat had pocket holes behind.His pantaloons were blue.”
“He lived at peace with all mankind,In friendship he was true;His coat had pocket holes behind.His pantaloons were blue.”
“He lived at peace with all mankind,In friendship he was true;His coat had pocket holes behind.His pantaloons were blue.”
“He lived at peace with all mankind,
In friendship he was true;
His coat had pocket holes behind.
His pantaloons were blue.”
Hugh grinned. “The dawggoned old-timer. I ain’t seen him since I quit ridin’,” he said aloud to himself.
“But poor old Grimes is now at rest,Nor fears misfortune’s frown;He had a double-breasted vest,The stripes ran up and down,”
“But poor old Grimes is now at rest,Nor fears misfortune’s frown;He had a double-breasted vest,The stripes ran up and down,”
“But poor old Grimes is now at rest,Nor fears misfortune’s frown;He had a double-breasted vest,The stripes ran up and down,”
“But poor old Grimes is now at rest,
Nor fears misfortune’s frown;
He had a double-breasted vest,
The stripes ran up and down,”
continued the singer from the stable.
McClintock tiptoed forward and looked in. A man of Falstaffian girth was oiling a set of harness.
“Ain’t old man Grimes wore out them blue pants yet?” asked Hugh, dropping into the free-and-easy speech of his youth.
The fat man whirled. “Hell’s hinges! If it ain’t Kid McClintock. Where did you drap from?” He fell on the young man and pounded him with his hamlike fists. “Say, I’ll bet Byers’ll be plumb tickled to see you.”
“Byers here, too?”
“Sure as you’re a foot high. That damn railroad done run us outa business. So we got this feed corral here. Didn’t you see the sign: Pony Express Corral, Budd & Byers, Props?”
“You’re sure some prop, Jim. Don’t you reckon you’re most a pillar? By jiminy, you been takin’ on flesh since I saw you.”
“Hmp! Nothin’ of the kind,” snorted Budd indignantly. “Shows what you know. I been losin’ flesh, if you want the straight goods. Pillar, shucks! If you had enough education to outfit a Piute you’d sabe that ‘Props.’ is short for Proprietors. It means we own this here place.”
Hugh registered intelligence. “Oh, I get you. Why, dad gum it, I’m a prop, my own se’f. Freighting and Contracting, McClintock & McClintock, Props.”
“Yes, I done heard you been keepin’ two jumps ahead of the wolf. I reckon that’s why you come to a good town at last.” Budd’s body shook with mirth like an immense jelly. This was his idea of repartee as was repartee.
“Isit a good camp?” asked Hugh seriously. “That’s what I came to find out.”
“Kid, it’s a sockdolager. Them hills is full of silver. All you got to do is to drive a pick in and find the ore.”
“That’s all you’ve got to do anywhere in these United States,” agreed McClintock drily. “Question is, will you find it?”
Budd began to sputter with excitement. In the West it always has been the first article of a man’s faith to believe in his town. One might have slandered the fat man’s relatives and hoped to escape alive, but for Piodie he would have fought at the drop of a hat.
“Why—why—doggone yore hide, kid, this camp’s got Virginia skinned four ways from Sunday. It’s the best ever. Ore from the grass roots. Everywhere—all ’round. Millions o’ tons of it.” He waved a fat hand expansively as he warmed to his theme. “This here town is built in the heart of nature’s storehouse, the mint where her auriferous deposits were planted when the Sierras was a hole in the ground. Son, you tie up to Piodie an’ you’ll sure do yorese’f proud.”
In the midst of his oration a small wiry man stepped unobtrusively into the stable. Hugh deserted Budd to greet his partner.
Byers, always taciturn, broke a record and made a long speech. He said, “Glad to see you.”
CHAPTER XVI
Hughstrolled down Turkey Creek Avenue and lost himself in the crowd which filled the walks and jostled its overflow into the road. Piodie called itself a city, but it had as yet no street lights, no sewers, no waterworks, no graded roads, and no sidewalks other than a few whipsawed planks laid by private enterprise. It had, however, plenty of saloons, dance halls, and gambling houses. These advertised their wares to the world with a childlike candour, flinging shafts of light from windows and open doors upon the muddy lane between the rows of buildings.
The night was alive with the jubilant and raucous gaiety of a young mining camp. Pianos jingled and fiddles whined dance music to the accompaniment of shuffling feet. The caller’s sing-song lifted above the drone of voices.
“Alemane left. Right hand to yore pardner an’ grand right an’ left. Swing yore pardners an’ promenade you know where.”
This was punctuated by loud and joyous whoops from a dancer who had been imbibing not wisely but too well. Laughter, the rattle of chips, the clink of glasses, the hum of inaudible words, all contributed to the medley of sound rising into the starlit night.
McClintock weaved in and out, eyes and ears open to get a line on the town. It was a live camp. So much was apparent at a glance. But how much of this life was due to the money that had been brought here, how much of it to the ore which had been taken out of the Piodie mines. He met acquaintances, men he had known at Aurora and Virginia City. These introduced him to others. From them he heard fabulous stories of suddenly acquired wealth. Mike Holloway had bumped into a regular “glory hole” to-day that would make him a millionaire. The Standard Union was shipping ore assaying so much a ton that the amount had to be whispered. Compared to this town, Aurora, Dayton, Gold Hill, and Eureka were built on insignificant lodes. Hugh detected in much of this a note of exaggeration, but he knew that at bottom there was a large sediment of truth.
He went out again from the saloon where he had been gathering information and joined the floating population outside. In sex it was largely masculine. The feminine percentage was rouged and gaudily dressed.
Without any plan he drifted down Turkey Creek Avenue enjoying the raw, turbulent youth of the place. Two men were standing in the shadow of an unlighted building as he passed. McClintock did not see them. One of the men pressed the other’s arm with his hand to give a warning.
“That’s Hugh McClintock,” he whispered.
The second—a huge slouching figure with unkempt hair and beard—gave from his throat a guttural snarl. Simultaneously his hand slipped back toward his hip.
“Not right here, Dutch,” the smaller man murmured. “If you want him get him from the alley as he’s comin’ back. You can do that an’ make yore getaway back to Monument Street.”
Hugh wandered to the end of the street, unaware of the lumbering figure that followed warily on the other side of the road. The street came to an end at a sheer hill rise. Here the young man stood for several minutes enjoying the quiet of the black night. Faintly the noise of Piodie’s exuberance drifted on the light breeze. At this distance it was subdued to a harmony not unpleasant to the ear.
After a time he turned and walked slowly back toward the business section of town. He took his way leisurely. He had nothing to do but turn in at his lodging place, and the night was still young. Out in the open it was pleasanter than in a stuffy room, eight by eight.
The buildings had been put up in a haphazard fashion without much regard to the street frontage, entirely as the fancy of the owners had dictated. Hugh came to one abutting on the alley. It was a storage warehouse, and it projected almost into the street. In the lee of it the young man stopped to light a cigarette.
Something whizzed past his ear and stuck quivering in the wooden wall. In the darkness streaks of fire flamed—one, two, three. The roar of the shots, pent in the alleyway, boomed like those of a howitzer. With one swift dive of his lithe body Hugh found cover behind a dry-goods box. In transit his revolver leaped to air.
But he did not fire. He lay, crouched close against the box, listening with taut nerves for any sound that might betray the position of his enemy.
None came. Presently he peered round the corner of the box. The darkness was Stygian. The blackness of the night was emphasized by the narrowness of the alley. Somewhere in that dark pit before him the ambusher lay, unless he had crept noiselessly away.
Protected by the box, Hugh might have crawled to the corner of the building, turned it, and so escaped. But he had no thought of doing this. He meant to find out if possible who this expert knife thrower was. If he had in town an enemy who hated him enough to lie in wait to do murder it was his business to discover who the man was. First, he wanted to get the ruffian lying thirty or forty feet from him. Next, he meant to try to gain possession of the knife sticking in the wall.
The second hand of his watch ticked away the minutes. The large hand moved from the figures III to IV, crept on to V, passed the half-hour mark. Hugh did not know how long he lay there. His guess would have been hours. He began to think that the other man had made an escape.
On hands and knees, the barrel of his revolver clenched between his strong white teeth, McClintock crawled round the box, hugging the wall closely as he moved. His advance was noiseless, slow, so careful that it was punctuated with a dozen stops to listen. Someone was beating a drum down the street and the sound of it deadened any closer stir. He calculated that this was an advantage as well as a drawback. If he could not hear the other man, then it followed that the other man could not hear him.
Plank by plank he followed the wall, each motion forecast and executed so deliberately that it could not betray him. In the dense darkness he could see nothing, but he estimated he must be close to the knife in the wall.
He rose to his knees, still without a sound. His hand groped for the hilt of the bowie. It closed on—a thick hairy wrist.
“Goddamighty!” a startled voice screamed, and the wrist was jerked swiftly away.
Hugh’s brain functioned instantly. The owner of the knife, moved by the same desire as himself, had crept forward to recover it.
McClintock plunged, head down and arms wide. His full weight back of the drive, he crashed into the retreating enemy and flung him backward.
The marching years had developed Hugh. His stringiness was gone. He was a large man, tall and straight, with hard-packed muscles. No wildcat of the Sierras was more lithe and supple than he. But as he struggled with this ruffian, now on top, now underneath, their legs thrashing wildly as each tried to pin the other down, McClintock knew that the fellow with whom he grappled was bigger than he, thicker through the body, broader across the shoulders.
They whirled over and over. Thick thighs clamped themselves to Hugh’s waist. Huge fingers closed on his throat. He threw up an arm, and at the same time a jagged bolt of pain shot through it. In the flesh of the biceps the blade of a bowie sheathed itself.
His breath shut off, the warm blood welling from his arm, Hugh gave a desperate heave of his body and flung the man astride of him forward and to the left. He spun round with pantherish swiftness and launched himself at the bulk of energy gathering itself for another attack.
They went down together, Hugh on top. His wounded arm pinned down the wrist with the knife. The assassin felt for McClintock’s eye socket with his thumb and gouged at it. The niceties of civilized warfare had no place in this conflict with a primordial brute. Dodging the thumb, Hugh found his mouth pressed against the forearm he held captive. The strong teeth that had been carrying the revolver until the two had come to grips closed on the tendons of the hairy arm. The man underneath gave a yell of pain. His fingers relaxed and opened. The handle of the bowie slipped away from them.
With his free arm the gunman tried to drag out a revolver. Hugh’s fist, hard as knotted pine, drove savagely into the bearded face. It struck again and again, with the crushing force of a pile driver. Grunting with pain, the murderer covered up to escape punishment. He was lying cramped against the wall in such a way that he could not get at his six-shooter.
The man bellowed with rage and thrashed about to avoid that flailing fist. His boot heel found a purchase against the wall and he used it to pry himself out of the corner into which he had been flung.
The fighters rolled out from the building, for the moment free of each other. A flying boot struck Hugh in the forehead and dazed him. He scrambled to his feet. His foe was legging it down the alley with all the grace of a bear in a hurry to get away.
McClintock started to pursue, then changed his mind abruptly. The man was armed and he was not. If he should run him down the ruffian would turn and murder him. At least he had written his John Hancock on the fellow’s face and would know him again if he saw him soon.
The victor quartered over the ground. Presently he found his revolver and the bowie knife that had slashed his arm. He slid the revolver into its holster and the knife into his boot leg. From the alley he stepped back to the street.
The drum was still booming. He guessed that the affray had not taken more than five minutes from start to finish.
For the first time he became aware of a throbbing pain in his arm. When he pulled up his sleeve he saw that it was soggy with blood. The sight of the long jagged wound affected him oddly. He leaned against a hitching post for support, overcome by a faintness which surged over him.
He laughed grimly. “Blood beginnin’ to scare you at this late date,” he said to himself aloud. This brought him a touch of sardonic amusement. He had passed through three big pitched battles of the war, half-a-dozen skirmishes, and had been slightly wounded twice.
For first aid he tied a handkerchief around the wound as best he could, using his free hand and his teeth to make the knot. Ten minutes later he was in the office of a doctor.
“You’re lucky,” the doctor said. “Knife ploughed along close to the surface. Didn’t strike an artery. How’d you come to do it?”
“I didn’t do it. The other fellow did. With this.” Hugh pulled the bowie from his boot leg.
After he had dressed the wound the doctor examined the murderous-looking knife. He handed it back to Hugh with a dry comment.
“Did I say you were lucky? That’s a weak word for it. You must carry the left hind foot of a graveyard rabbit caught in the dark of the moon. How did he come to leave that knife behind?”
“He didn’t explain why. I kinda gathered he was in a hurry. Probably had an engagement down the street.”
The doctor’s keen eyes took in the strong grave face, the splendid figure, the imperturbable composure of the patient. It occurred to him that a Sierra grizzly would be no more dangerous than this man if he were aroused to action.
“Did you kill him?” he asked hesitantly.
“Not this time,” McClintock answered quietly.
When he left, the doctor’s gaze followed him out of the office. He wondered who this light-stepping Hermes could be. In his years of practice he had never met a finer specimen of humanity, judged on a physical basis of health, strength, and coördination of nerves and muscle.
CHAPTER XVII
Hughwas feeding his horse next morning when a voice moved wheezily toward him as its owner passed through the stable into the corral.
“Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,We ne’er shall see him more,”
“Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,We ne’er shall see him more,”
“Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,We ne’er shall see him more,”
“Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,
We ne’er shall see him more,”
Budd informed the world at large by way of announcing his arrival.
“When’s the funeral, Jim?” asked McClintock. “I’ll be there if it’s soon. Like to be right sure he’s buried. Don’t mind pilin’ a big flat rock on top o’ that single-breasted coat my own se’f.”
The fat man looked at him severely. “Young fella, I been hearin’ about you. Met up with Doc Rogers. Says you got all cut up. How about it?”
“Doc Rogers ought to know.”
“Was it serious?”
“I’d say it was serious. Cost me twenty-five dollars.”
“Rogers ain’t no two-bit man,” Budd explained with pride. “Piodie is sure one high tariff town. Nothing cheap about it.”
“Here’s where he’s gettin’ ready to stick me on my feed bill,” Hugh mentioned to his buckskin.
“Not on yore tintype. Yore money’s no good at the Pony Express Corral, Kid.”
“Much obliged to Budd & Byers, Props.”
“Sho, we’ll quit business when we can’t feed a friend’s bronc onct in a while. Say, was you much hurt, Kid? An’ how come it? Never knew you to go hellin’ around askin’ for trouble.”
“No, an’ you never will. I sure wasn’t askin’ for this.”
Byers had joined them. He nodded silently to Hugh.
“Who did it?” asked Budd.
“Wish you’d tellmethat, Jim. He didn’t leave his name.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Hefeltlike a ton of bricks when he landed on me. I don’ know how he looked. It was darker than the inside of Jonah’s whale.”
“Tell it to us,” urged Budd.
Hugh told the story of the attack on him.
“An’ you don’t know who the scalawag was?” asked the fat man when he had finished.
“I don’tknow. I’ve got a guess—several of ’em.”
“For instance?”
“Is Sam Dutch living here?”
“Yep. He’s the handy man of the Dodsons—camp bouncer, killer, mine jumper, general all-round thug.”
“The Dodsons are the big moguls here, seems to me from what I hear.”
“They come clost to it—own the Standard Union and the Katie Brackett, have a controllin’ interest in both stamp mills, run the stage line an’ the Mammoth saloon.”
“And the big store, Dodson & Dodson. They own that, I reckon.”
“Yep, an’ the building it’s in. Fact is, they’ve got title to half the lots in town.”
“They’re a sweet pair.”
“Sure are. Run the politics, too. The sheriff’s their property. The job’s worth twenty thousand a year, an’ they elected him. Course he’s good an’ grateful. Why shouldn’t he be?”
“So Dutch carries the Dodson brand, does he?”
“He does their dirty work.”
“And his own, too.”
“Sure.”
“I’ve a notion Mr. Dutch has my autograph stamped on his face this glad mo’ning,” drawled Hugh.
“Sorry to hear that. It’ll mean trouble unless you leave.”
“That’s what he told me at Aurora,” Hugh answered quietly.
“I heard about that. You’ve got his number. So has yore brother. Makes it worse. You’ll get no even break from him. It’ll be like last night. A shot outa the dark. Only next time he won’t miss.”
“I’m not sure it was Dutch. I was one of the vigilance committee at Aurora. We ran a bunch of thugs from town. Might be any one of that gang. Or someone may have took me for Scot. He has enemies, of course.”
“An’ you’re the spittin’ image of him, Kid. That last is one good guess.”
“Whoever he was he left his card behind him.” Hugh stooped and drew from his boot leg a bowie knife with a horn handle. Upon the lower part of the horn had been filed fourteen little notches. “This was the sticker he flung at me. He was in a hurry and didn’t take it with him when he vamosed.”
Byers examined the knife and spoke for the first time.
“Dutch claims fourteen.”
“Well, I’m going to advertise it in the paper and give the owner a chance to reclaim his property,” McClintock said grimly.
“Won’t that be a call for a showdown?” Budd asked gravely.
“I aim to call for one. Then I’ll know Mr. Pig Sticker is sittin’ on the other side of the table from me an’ ain’t pluggin’ me in the back.”
“If he stands for a showdown.”
“If he stands for one. If he don’t, well, I’ll call his bluff that he’s chief of Piodie, anyhow.”
“You sure want to pack a good gun handy, then.”
Byers nodded agreement. The simple direct way always suited him.
The fat man glanced at his partner before he changed the subject. “We had a talk yestiddy after you left, Kid, me’n Dan. We’re locatin’ a bunch of claims on Bald Knob. Looks to us like a good chance. The stampeders are all headed over Antelope Hill way, but there ain’t no reason why there shouldn’t be ore acrost the valley, too. Anyhow, we’re gonna take a crack at it. A bird in the hand gathers no moss, as the old sayin’ ain’t. We had a notion to ask you to go in with us. Needs three to handle the thing, account of claim jumpers in case we make a strike. But I don’t reckon now you’d want to stay here permanent.”
“Why not?”
“This climate ain’t suitable for you. Too many gunmen who don’t like the colour of yore hair. I reckon there are seven or eight of them birds you helped run outa Aurora, let alone Dutch. Irish Tom is in our midst, as the old sayin’ is, and Vance and that mule-skinner Hopkins. It’s a cinch they don’t waste any time loving Kid McClintock.”
“If you’ve got a proposition that looks good to me, you can forget the quick-on-the-trigger gang. I’m not the only Aurora vigilante in town. Last night I met several. The gunmen won’t look for trouble on that account. We might start something again.”
“We’ll sure talk turkey if you feel that way. What say we ride up Bald Knob, an’ if you like the lay of the land, we’ll make our locations?”
“Suits me fine.”
Few people can live in a new and prosperous mining camp without catching the contagion of the speculator. The magic word, whether it be gold, silver, or oil, sets the blood afire with the microbe of unrest. Just beyond reach of the hand lies a fortune. The opportunity of a lifetime is knocking at the door. All the spirit of adventure in one leaps to the risk. Sedate caution seems a dull-spirited jade at such a time.
Hugh was no exception to the rule. As he had passed to and fro among the miners in the saloons and gaming halls last night the stories to which he had listened quickened his blood.
He was ready for a hazard of new fortunes as soon as he could shake the dice.
CHAPTER XVIII
Hughdropped into the office of the PiodieBannerand paid for an advertisement in the paper and for two hundred and fifty posters set with display type.
The editor glanced over the copy. “I can get the bills out this afternoon. The ad will appear in the morning.”
The sheet of paper handed in by McClintock bore no evidence of being loaded with dynamite. Upon it was printed roughly with a pencil this notice:
FOUNDIn the Alley between Turkey Creek AvenueAnd Monument Street(At the Sacramento Storage Warehouse)ONE BOWIE KNIFE WITH FOURTEEN NOTCHESOwner Can Have Same By Claiming and Proving TitleTo PropertyApply To Hugh McClintock
FOUND
In the Alley between Turkey Creek Avenue
And Monument Street
(At the Sacramento Storage Warehouse)
ONE BOWIE KNIFE WITH FOURTEEN NOTCHES
Owner Can Have Same By Claiming and Proving Title
To Property
Apply To Hugh McClintock
The owner of the printing plant looked the copy over a second time. “ ’Course, I’m not here to turn business away, Mr. McClintock, but—well, are the dodgers necessary? Wouldn’t the ad in the paper be enough?”
“Maybe so. But I want to be sure the owner sees it. I reckon I’ll take the bills, too,” Hugh said easily.
He hired an old coloured man to tack up the bills on buildings, fences, and posts. To make sure that they were in conspicuous places Hugh went along himself. He also made arrangements with saloon keepers and gambling house owners by which he was allowed to have the posters put on the walls of these resorts. His manner was so matter of fact that not one of his innocent accomplices suspected there was more behind the advertisement than appeared on the face of it.
“Fourteen notches. Looks like it might be Sam Dutch’s bowie you found, stranger,” one bartender suggested. “This camp sure howls, but I reckon it ain’t got many fourteen notchers. Only one far as I know.”
“If the knife belongs to Mr. Dutch he can have it by applying for it,” Hugh said mildly.
“I expect he can have ’most anything he wants in this man’s town if he sure enough asks for it,” the man in the apron grinned.
In the middle of the afternoon, at which hour he first daily appeared to the world, Sam Dutch slouched down town with a story already prepared to account for his battered face. The tale he meant to tell was that in the darkness he had fallen into a prospect hole and cut his cheeks, forehead, and lips on the sharp quartz he had struck.
On a telegraph pole near the end of Turkey Creek Avenue a poster caught his eye. He read it with mixed emotions. The predominating ones were rage, a fury of hate, and an undercurrent of apprehension. He tore the bill down and trampled it in the mud under his feet.
Half a minute later he saw a second bill, this time on the side of a store. This, too, he destroyed, with much explosive language. Between Rawhide Street and the Porphyry Lode saloon he ripped down three more notices of the finding of a bowie knife with fourteen notches. When he stopped at the bar and ordered a brandy sling the man was dangerous as a wounded grizzly.
The bartender chatted affably. He was in the habit of saying that he had not lost any quarrels with gunmen and he did not intend to find any.
“Fine glad day, Mr. Dutch. Nice change from Monday. Hotter’n hell or Yuma then, I say.”
The bad man growled.
“I was sure enough spittin’ cotton. Went up the gulch with T. B. Gill. Creek’s dry as a cork leg. Good rain wouldn’t hurt none,” the young fellow went on.
“ ’Nother’fthesame,” snarled Dutch, his voice thick with uncontrollable fury.
The bartender made a mental comment. “Sore’s a toad on a hot rock this mo’ning.” He tried another subject, with intent to conciliate. “Young fellow in a while back and wanted to hang up a bill. I said, ‘Sure, hop to it.’ Ain’t lost any hog stickers myse’f, but maybe some other gent——”
Dutch glared round, found the bill with his eyes, and dragged out a navy revolver. Three bullets crashed through the poster and the wall back of it. The killer whirled and flung the fourth shot at the man behind the bar.
But that garrulous youth was fleeing wildly for safety. He had no intention whatever of being Number Fifteen. Between him and the back door was a table. He took it in his stride with all the ease of a champion hurdler. Down the alley he went like a tin-canned cur with a mob of small boys behind.
Inside of ten minutes Piodie knew that Sam Dutch was on the warpath again and that no man who did not want a permanent home on Boot Hill would be wise to mention posters or bowie knives to him. Piodie made a good many guesses as to the truth of the situation. Something had taken place that the town knew nothing about. The poster, Dutch’s battered face, his rage, and the absence of his bowie knife from its accustomed sheath in the man’s boot, all bore some relation to the mystery.
“Who is this Hugh McClintock, anyhow?” asked a citizen newly arrived from Ohio. “Anybody know anything about him?”
Irish Tom Carberry grinned. He was at the post office getting his mail when the innocent question drifted to him. He looked at the stranger. “Sam Dutch knows him. So do I. We know him domn well.”
He gave no further information, but after he had gone another former resident of Aurora whispered advice to the Ohioan. “Better not be so curious in public, friend.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s liable to be a killin’ before night. Don’t you see McClintock has served notice on Dutch that he can’t be chief of Piodie while he’s here? It’s up to Sam to make good or shut up.”
“All I asked was——”
“We done heard what you asked. It ain’t etiquette in Nevada to ask questions unless you aim to take a hand in the play. You ain’t declarin’ yoreself in, are you?”
“Bet your boots I’m not. None of my business.”
“You said something that time.” The former Aurora man walked away.
The man from the Western Reserve looked after him resentfully. “This is the darndest place. I ask a question, and you’d think I’d made a break of some kind. Is there any harm in what I said? I leave it to any of you. Is there?” he asked querulously.
Jim Budd drew him aside and explained. “Hell’s bells, man, don’t be so inquisitive! I knew a fellow lived to be a hundred onct ’tendin’ to his own business. But I’ll tell you who Hugh McClintock is, since yore system is so loaded with why-fors and who-is-hes. The Kid’s the man that ran Dutch outa the Esmeralda country. He’s the man whose vote saved Irish Tom from being hanged when the stranglers got busy at Aurora. He’s the shotgun messenger who bumped off Black Hank Perronoud when he held up the Carson stage. No gamer man ever threw leg over leather. I’d oughta know, for he rode pony express for me two years through the Indian country.”
“Are he and Dutch going to fight?”
“Great jumpin’ Jehosophat, how do I know?” rasped the fat man irritably. “I’m no tin god on wheels, an’ I ain’t no seventh son of a seventh son. If I was I’d go locate me a million-dollar minepronto. You know the layout well as I do. Do yore own guessin’, an’do it private.”
Dutch whispered a word in the ears of his satellites Vance and Hopkins later in the day. Those two gentlemen made together a tour of the town and tore down all the bills McClintock had tacked up.