CHAPTER XXIII
Witha swift movement of her supple body Vicky was on her knees beside the man. She slipped an arm under his head. Icy sleet encrusted his clothes. It clung in icicles to his hair and eyebrows. It matted his lashes and small Vandyke beard.
From her throat came an astonished little cry of recognition. The man was Hugh McClintock. Over her shoulder she called to the big man at the table.
“Bring me whisky and water—please.”
He brought it, then closed the door. Awkwardly he stood above her.
“Had a hell’v a close call,” he growled sulkily. It did not suit him to entertain a second guest.
Vicky let the whisky drop between the lips. Presently Hugh opened his eyes. He smiled feebly at her. Surprise wiped out the smile. “Little Vicky,” he murmured.
“Ump-hu,” she nodded. Then, to the hulking figure behind her, the girl gave order: “Help me carry him nearer the fire. He’s ’most frozen.”
The fellow shambled forward and stooped down. As he did so his eyes fell on the face of the helpless traveller. He ripped out a savage oath. With the sweep of an arm he dragged the girl to her feet and hurled her back to the wall.
His fury struggled for expression. “Gotcha. Gotcha good an’ right. I’m gonna stomp the life outa you. Gona put my heel on yore throat an’ crack yore spine. Un’erstand?”
Victoria knew the ruffian now. A flash of memory carried her back to a day in her childhood when she had seen a horrible apelike figure standing over the prostrate body of a man from which life had just been violently ejected. She saw the same gargoyle face, the same hulking muscle-bound shoulders and long arms with hairy wrists projecting from the coat sleeves. Her memory brought her a second picture of the same incident. A smiling young fellow was lifting her gently from the ground. His hand was caressing her hair softly as he spoke. She recalled even his words. “Run right along into the wagon where yore dad is, li’l girl, an’ don’t turn yore head.”
The girl’s arm rested on a shelf, in the same position where it had fallen when she had been hurled back. Her fingers touched something cold.
“You first. Yore brother next,” the guttural voice of Dutch went on, and the horrible malice of it seemed unhuman. “I been waitin’ a mighty long time, an’ I gotcha at last. Sure have. Thought I was scared of you an’ that damned high-heeled brother o’ yourn, did you? Me, I was settin’ back an’ waitin’—waitin’ for my chance. An’ it’s come, like I knew it would. Beg. Whine like a papoose. It won’t do you no good, but go to it jest the same. Hear me—before I turn you over an’ crack yore backbone at the neck.”
His gloating was horrible. It sent chills through Victoria’s blood. Her fingers spasmodically closed—on the ivory handle of a revolver. The force of the recoil had flung her hand into contact with the revolver Dutch had tossed on the shelf a few hours earlier.
“Don’tcha hear me? Beg me to let you go. Crawl over an’ lick my boots. Maybe I’ll go easy on you like you two dern fools done with me.” A jangle of hideous laughter accompanied his words. He kicked his opponent in the side.
Hugh looked at him steadily, without a word.
“Thought you had the Injun sign on me, eh? Both of you? Well, I’ll say right here there never was a minute I was scared of either one of you—or both. Me, I’m Sam Dutch, a sure enough killer. An’ you—you’re Number Fifteen. Ole Dan Tucker’s come to git his supper, an’ he ain’t too late, neither.”
He was working himself up for murder. Soon his passion would be boiling over. Then he would strike.
One thought dominated Vicky, drove out all others. She must save Hugh McClintock. She forgot to be afraid, forgot to remember that this scoundrel was the terror of Nevada. Noiselessly she crept forward and pushed the revolver into his back just below the shoulders.
“If you move I’ll shoot you,” she said hoarsely.
The stream of curses died in the fellow’s throat. His jaw fell. Ludicrously his immature mind groped with the situation.
Three slow taps rose from the floor. Dutch gasped. Those taps had always heralded disaster for him.
Vicky drew a knife from his boot and a revolver from the belt he was wearing. She dropped them on the floor.
“Walk to the door,” she ordered. “Go outside. If you come in before I call you I’ll shoot holes in you.”
She hardly recognized her own voice. There was in it a new note. She knew that if he refused to go she would kill him as she would a wolf.
Dutch whined. “You wouldn’t drive me into the storm after I done took you in an’ fed you, miss. There can’t any one live in that blizzard. I was jest a-funnin’ about him. Jest my li’l way.”
“Go on,” she told him inexorably. “Now.”
He went. She closed the door behind him.
McClintock crept toward the fire. Vicky gathered the weapons and put them down beside her. Then she took one of his hands in hers and began to rub it to restore circulation. She worked on the other hand, on his ears, his face, his throat. She helped him to take off his boots and in spite of his protests massaged his frozen feet.
The pain was intense as the circulation began to be renewed in his body. He clamped his teeth to keep back the groans. He walked up and down nursing his hands and his ears. But not a sound came from his lips.
“I know it’s awful,” Vicky comforted. “But the pain’s a good sign. Soon as it’s gone you’ll be all right.”
He grinned. There was nothing to do but endure until the circulation was fully restored. He beat the back of his hands against the palms. If Dutch should grow troublesome he might need the use of his fingers shortly.
A fist beat on the door.
“Shall I let him in?” the girl asked.
Hugh picked up one of the revolvers and crooked his stiff forefinger over the trigger. He could make out to use it at a pinch.
“Yes, let him in,” he said.
Vicky took the second revolver. The knife Hugh thrust into one of his boot legs.
When the girl opened the door Dutch slouched in. He was covered from head to foot with frozen snow and sleet. His venomous eyes slanted first at McClintock, then at the young woman. The sullen impotent hatred in his heart was plain enough to send goose-quills down Vicky’s spine. She knew that if ever he were top dog it would go hard with her or Hugh.
The man poured out half a tumbler of whisky and drank it neat. He shuffled up to the fire, taking the opposite side to the one occupied by his guests. Silently he glared at them. But for the moment he could do nothing. They were armed. He was not.
Exhausted by his long battle with the storm, Hugh could hardly keep his eyes open. His worn body called for sleep. But with that wild beast crouched five feet away he dared not relax his vigilance for a moment.
Vicky whispered in his ear: “Cuddle down in the chair and sleep a while. I’ll watch him.”
Hugh shook his head. No, that would never do. At some unexpected instant the killer would fling his huge bulk on her and wrest the revolver from her hand. Much as his system craved it, Hugh rejected sleep as unsafe. He would stay awake and protect her.
But even as he was firmly resolving this his eyelids drooped. His head relaxed against the back of the chair. He made an effort to throw off the drowsiness pressing him down. It was a feeble and unsuccessful one. Presently he was sound asleep.
From the summit of Bald Knob the storm swept down with a roar. It hurled itself into the valley with screams like those of a lost soul. It beat against the hut in furious gusts, rattling the windows and shaking the door like some living monster intent on destruction. For hours its rage continued unabated.
Meanwhile, from opposite sides of the fireplace, the desperado and the girl watched each other. He had a feral cunning. It had served to keep him alive more than once when he seemed at the end of his rope. Now he piled the fuel high in the stone chimney and pretended to go to sleep.
The glow of the heat had the intended effect. It formed an alliance with Vicky’s fatigue. She, too, began to nod at last, her wariness lulled by the stertorous breathing of the big huddled figure opposite. The sense of responsibility was still active in her mind. She decided afterwards that she must have cat-napped, as drivers do on a long night trip, now and again for a few seconds at a time.
From one of these she awakened with a start. Dutch was tiptoeing toward her. Their eyes met. He crouched for the leap as her fingers busied themselves with the revolver.
The roar of the explosion filled the cabin. The weight of the plunging man flung Vicky to the floor. She lay face down, breathless, oppressed by his huge bulk. The six-shooter had gone clattering beyond her reach.
The weight lifted from her. She heard scuffling feet and heavy grunts as she recovered the weapon and fled to the wall. When she turned it was to see the butt of a six-gun rising and falling. There was a gasp, a groan, and one of the struggling figures sank down.
The one still standing was Hugh McClintock.
The man on the floor writhed painfully, turned over, and sank into quietude.
“Are you hurt?” Hugh asked Vicky.
“No. Are you?”
He shook his head. “I fell asleep. Lucky it was no worse.”
“So did I. He was creeping on me when I woke. Is—is he dead?” she asked, awed.
“No such luck. I tapped his bean with my gun.” He stooped over the prostrate man and turned him on his back. “Hello! Here’s a wound in his shoulder. You must have hit him.”
“Oh, I hope not,” Vicky cried.
She looked at the big revolver with a face of horror and threw it on the shelf where she had found it some hours earlier.
“Probably saved my life,” Hugh told her quietly. “And you haven’t killed him. He’ll be all right in a week or two. Good work, Vicky.”
“I—didn’t know what I was doing,” she sobbed. “My fingers just pressed.”
Dutch groaned.
“Best thing could have happened,” Hugh said cheerfully. “He’ll not trouble us any more. Have to dress the wound, though. If it makes you sick to——”
“It won’t,” she cried eagerly. “Let me help. What can I do?” Her reaction was toward activity. If she could help to look after the man she might forget the awful thing she had by chance escaped doing.
“Rummage through that drawer. Find clean shirts or rags. Tear one into strips,” Hugh told her.
She flew to the drawer and began tossing out socks, woollen shirts, old gloves, a pipe, some “dog leg” tobacco, a pack of cards, a few ore samples, and a vest or two of fancy patterns. Near the bottom she found a cotton shirt. This she ripped up for bandages.
McClintock brought water and washed the wound. His enemy permitted it, sulky as a sore bear. The wounded man winced when Hugh tried, as gently as possible, to locate the bullet.
“Lay off o’ that,” he growled. “Doc Rogers’ll find the pill.”
“Expect you’re right about that,” Hugh agreed. “He can follow the drift better than I can. Never worked on that level before myself. Doc will sure strike the ore when he digs for it.”
Vicky passed the bandages to him as he needed them. He noticed once that the blood had washed from her face and left it colourless.
“You’d better sit down,” he said gently. “I can manage alone.”
“No,” she told him firmly. In spite of the soft pallor of the neck and throat there was a look of strength about her. He knew she would not faint. The spirit of the girl shone in her eyes.
But afterwards, when Dutch had been ordered to lie down on the cot by the window, Hugh took charge of Vicky without consulting her. He arranged three chairs in such a way that they might serve for a bed, padded them with sacks, and doubled a blanket so that the girl could lie between its folds. An old coat belonging to Ralph Dodson did well enough for a pillow. In five minutes she was breathing softly and regularly, though she had told Hugh it would be impossible for her to sleep. The firelight playing on her cheek reflected a faint and delicate colour.
When Vicky woke it was morning. A pale and wintry sunbeam stole through the window. The storm had passed. Hugh was cooking at the fireplace, his back to her. The desperado was sleeping noisily and restlessly.
She rose, flushed with embarrassment, and arranged her wrinkled and disordered skirts.
“Good mo’ning,” the young man called cheerfully without turning.
“Good morning,” she answered shyly. For the first time since she had come into the house a queer surge of timidity swept her blood. The modesty of the girl was in arms.
“Your shoes are on the hearth warming.”
“Yes,” she murmured.
He carried hot water in a basin to a summer kitchen adjoining the main cabin.
“Towel hangin’ on the nail,” he told her when he returned a moment later.
Vicky gave him a grateful look and passed into the back room. Ten minutes later she emerged flushed and radiant. The dark rebellious hair had been smoothed down. To Hugh the blue dress looked miraculously fresh and clean.
“Come an’ get it,” he called, just as he would have done to another man.
His matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation dissipated measurably her sense of alarm at the shocked proprieties. If he were not disconcerted at the intimacy into which the blizzard had plunged them, why should she be? With the good healthy appetite of youth she ate eggs, bacon, corn pone, and two flapjacks.
“When can we go?” she asked as he poured coffee into the tin cup before her.
“Soon as we’ve eaten. Some job to buck the drifts to town but we’ll make it.”
“And him?” A little lift of her head showed that Vicky’s elliptical question referred to Dutch.
“I’ll notify his friends to come and look after him.”
Hugh broke trail and Vicky followed in his steps. They travelled slowly, for in places the drifts were high. Usually the girl’s clear complexion showed little colour, but now she glowed from exercise. Once when he turned to lend her a hand through a bank of snow she shook her head gaily.
“No, I’m doing fine. Isn’t it asplendiferousday?”
It was. The sun had come out in all its glory and was driving the clouds in ragged billows toward the horizon. The snow sparkled. It was crisp and sharp beneath their feet. The air, washed clean by the tempest, filled the lungs as with wine. Not on creation’s dawn had the world looked purer or more unsullied.
Youth calls to youth. Vicky looked at Hugh with a new interest. She had always admired his clean strength, the wholesome directness of his character. To-day her eyes saw him differently. He belonged to her generation, not that of Mollie and Scot. For the first time his personality touched her own life. They could not be the same hereafter. They would have to know each other better—or not at all.
In her childhood days, when fairy tales were still possible, she had dreamed of a prince in shining silver armour, handsome as Apollo Belvedere, valiant as Lancelot, a pure and ardent young Galahad. Now, as she followed the trail breaker through the white banks, an involuntary smile touched her lips. She was wondering, in the shy daring fashion of a girl’s exploring mind, what Hugh McClintock was really like behind the mask of his physical clothing. Certainly nobody could be less like the shining knight of her dreams than he. For Hugh walked the straight plain road of life without any heroic gestures. Ralph Dodson made a far more romantic figure than Hugh. Even Scot, with his native touch of the grand manner, had more glamour for her than the younger brother.
Good old Hugh, faithful and true. She could not think of anybody she liked better.
CHAPTER XXIV
Jim Buddhad picked up a new song. Much to the relief of his sore-tried wife, he occasionally monotoned it in place of the Grimes catalogue of virtues and clothing.
Vicky could hear him in the kitchen singing it now.
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,Grief cannot drive him away.He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never findA better friend than old dog Tray.”
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,Grief cannot drive him away.He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never findA better friend than old dog Tray.”
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,Grief cannot drive him away.He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never findA better friend than old dog Tray.”
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,
Grief cannot drive him away.
He’s gentle and he’s kind,
And you’ll never, never find
A better friend than old dog Tray.”
Oddly enough the words hummed themselves into Vicky’s musings. She was standing before the mirror putting the finishing touches to a very attractive picture, a picture of lovely youth, warm, vital, piquant. Miss Vicky was expecting a caller, and though she hadn’t any desire to dazzle this particular admirer—if he were an admirer, for she hadn’t made sure of that yet—she did not choose to be so ungrateful as to neglect any of the natural advantages with which a kind Providence had endowed her.
She murmured the fat man’s refrain:
“He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never findA better friend than——”
“He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never findA better friend than——”
“He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never findA better friend than——”
“He’s gentle and he’s kind,
And you’ll never, never find
A better friend than——”
Mrs. Budd poked her head into the room. “Hugh McClintock,” she announced. “In the parlour.”
“Here to see me?” asked Miss Lowell, just as though she had not known he was coming.
“I kinda gather that notion. Anyhow, he asked for you. Were you dollin’ up for me an’ Jim?”
“I’ll be right down, tell him.”
“I would, dearie. He’s ce’tainly wearin’ out the rim of his hat makin’ it travel in circles.”
After which shot Mrs. Budd puffed downstairs and read the riot act mildly to Jim for having tracked mud into her immaculate kitchen.
If Hugh was embarrassed it was because of the nature of his mission this evening. He had plenty of native dignity, but he knew nothing of the thought processes of young women going-on-eighteen. Would they take well-meant advice in the same spirit in which it was given? He did not know, but he intended to find out.
Indirectly Vicky gave him a lead. “I’ve just had a letter from Mollie. What do you think? Scot’s going to run for secretary of state.”
“Made up his mind to run, has he? Knew he was thinkin’ about it. Wonder if anybody else is goin’ after the Republican nomination.”
“Yes,” said the girl quietly.
Hugh looked a surprised question at her.
“Mr. Ralph Dodson is going to run,” she continued.
He let that sink in for a moment. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s liable to open up the old sore.”
“Do you think it will?” she asked anxiously.
“Not unless the Dodsons make it a personal fight.”
“I don’t think Ralph would do that.”
“You know him pretty well?” He put his comment with the rising inflection.
“Yes. That is, he comes to see me.” Vicky’s chin was up ever so little. She sensed McClintock’s hostility. “I like him.”
“Do you? Can’t say I do. I don’t trust him.”
“Doyouknow him well?”
“No, and I don’t want to.”
The girl laughed. “You remind me of what Charles Lamb says in one of his essays. We were reading it in school. Or maybe it was an anecdote about him the teacher told us. Anyhow, he said he didn’t like a certain man. A friend asked him if he knew him. ‘Of course I don’t,’ Lamb said. ‘If I did I’d like him. That’s why I don’t want to know him.’ Is it like that with you?”
He considered this gravely. “Maybe so. I’m prejudiced against him on account of his brother.”
“But that’s no fair,” the girl cried quickly.
“And because of two or three things I’ve known him do.”
“What things?” she demanded.
Hugh did not care to discuss with Vicky the man’s amours. He shifted ground. “He’s selfish through and through. Thinks only of himself.”
The girl’s eyes sparkled. “When you say that it just shows how little you know him. He’s the most generous man I ever met.”
“He’s good lookin’, and he’s hail fellow enough. That’s not what I mean.”
“And it’s not what I mean,” she retorted, her temper beginning to rise. “Two or three months ago he did the bravest thing I ever saw—risked his life for hours in a caved tunnel, to save the life of a ragged little boy. Was that selfish? Was that thinking only of himself?”
“He’s game. He’ll go through,” admitted Hugh. “I didn’t mean that way.”
Her stormy eyes challenged him. “Then just whatdoyou mean?”
Hugh flushed. He did not find it possible to tell her explicitly just what he did mean. It was bad enough for him to be violating the masculine instinct against exposing another man to one of the opposite sex. He could not draw a bill of particulars about Dodson before an innocent girl. Moreover, what he had heard of the man’s escapades was merely town gossip—true enough, he felt sure, but not evidence that could be held good before an ardent young advocate like Vicky.
“He’s not very scrupulous some ways,” he said lamely.
“What ways?”
McClintock felt himself being driven into a blind alley. He could not go on, nor could he turn back.
“I wouldn’t want a sister of mine to know him too well,” was the best he could do by way of explanation.
“That’s merely an expression of a personal feeling,” she flashed. “And since I’m not your sister it does not weigh with me. You come here and attack my friend. You say he’s selfish and—unscrupulous. I ask for facts to back what you’ve said.”
Though he had been put helplessly in the wrong, Hugh felt that he was right at bottom. Vicky had no business to have this fellow on the list of her friends. He tried to break from the logic of the position into which she had forced him by an appeal to their old friendship.
“I used to have a little partner named Vicky Lowell. We did not see much of each other, but we were tillicums. Oughtn’t I to warn her when I see her going with the wrong kind of man?”
“And oughtn’t I to ask you toproveto me he’s the wrong kind? Or must I take it for granted and give up any of my friends if you happen not to fancy them?”
“I tell you he isn’t right—not right for a girl like you to know.”
“You admit yourself you’re prejudiced.”
“Not about that. If you’ll let me, I’ll call his hand for a showdown. Let him prove to me he’s been slandered and I’ll——”
Vicky exploded. “If you dare, Hugh McClintock! Did Scot appoint you deputy guardian of me? Do you think I can’t look after myself? Do you think you can come here and slander my friends——?” She broke off, white with anger.
He gave up, with a helpless lift of his hands. “I made a mistake. Sorry. I believe every word I’ve said, but I reckon I blundered somehow. I meant the best ever, Vicky, but—oh, well, you can’t see it my way. I’ll say good-evenin’.”
Hugh rose. He offered his strong brown hand and with it a smile that asked for forgiveness.
She hesitated. Her anger at him was not yet spent.
From the next room came Jim Budd’s wheezy refrain, tuneless and monotonous:
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,Grief cannot drive him away.He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never findA better friend than old—dog—Tray.”
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,Grief cannot drive him away.He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never findA better friend than old—dog—Tray.”
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,Grief cannot drive him away.He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never findA better friend than old—dog—Tray.”
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,
Grief cannot drive him away.
He’s gentle and he’s kind,
And you’ll never, never find
A better friend than old—dog—Tray.”
“Just old dog Tray,” Hugh said, and his smile was a little wistful. “A faithful old blunderer, but after all an honest friend.”
Vicky relented on swift impulse and gave him her hand. “All right—old dog Tray. But I warn you that you’ll have grief enough to drive you away if you behave like this again.”
“I’ll come back even though you throw stones at me,” he said, and this time his grin was gay. “Maybe I’ll bark again at yore friends and maybe I won’t. We’ll see.”
“Take my advice and don’t,” she warned.
“You didn’t take mine.”
“And that’s only half of it. I’m not going to,” the girl flung back, looking at him with a flash of mischief in her eyes.
“Well, I can’t help that. It’s good medicine.” He added a suggestion: “Tell Dodson that I warned you against him if you like.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked.
“I don’t want to feel underhanded about it. I’d rather you did tell him.”
“Well, I won’t,” she said with decision. “What kind of a girl do you think I am?”
“If you want me to tell you how nice a girl I think you are——”
“Now—now,” she protested, laughing. “That’s not what old dog Trays are for.”
“Thought you asked me,” he replied with deep innocence.
“First you were Mr. Goodman to me. Then you were Santa Claus. Then Mr. Hugh McClintock. Now you’re old dog Tray. I wonder what you’ll be next,” she queried.
For a flash their eyes met before the mask fell. She drew back, startled; then decided that she had been mistaken. For in that beat of time it seemed to her that his soul had answered her question and told her what he meant to be to her next.
Of course, she had imagined it.
CHAPTER XXV
Itwas generally recognized that the Republicans would carry the state that year. The war was still so near that it would have a determining influence on thousands of voters. The chief local interest centred in the race for the nomination of the dominant party for secretary of state.
This was due to several factors. Chief of these was the fight between two candidates of outstanding personality, a fight which rapidly developed into a bitter one. Scot McClintock was still the most picturesque figure in Nevada, though he had left behind him his wild escapades and his gay irresponsibility. The mining camps were yet full of the rumour of his adventures. In any assembly his good looks, charm, and qualities of leadership made him a marked figure. His audacity and courage fitted the time and the place. Men tremendously admired him because they saw in him what they would like to be themselves.
The character of Ralph Dodson made no appeal to men’s affections. He was too cold and calculating, his ambition too ruthless. But they recognized his strength. He would travel a long way in the world.
The big mining interests supported Dodson. Scot was too much a tribune of the people to suit them. At any time he might embarrass the mine owners by some quixotic gesture inspired by his sense of justice.
Scot went out into the camps and the agricultural valleys to make a personal campaign. If he had been dealing with the voters individually he could have made a runaway race of it. But delegates to conventions, then as now, were under the influence of leaders, who in turn took orders from the men who financed the campaign. He was under a tremendous handicap because he had only an individual following to oppose a party machine.
Yet he made headway, and so fast that his opponent became alarmed. Dodson came out in theEnterprisewith a savage attack on his rival in which he accused him of being an ex-gambler and a bawdy-house brawler. Scot kept his temper and made no counter charges. From the stump he replied that at least he had always been a square gambler. His fighting record, he said carelessly, must take care of itself.
Vicky met Ralph Dodson on the Avenue at Piodie while the campaign was at its height. She fired point blank a charge at him.
“I read what you said in theEnterpriseabout Scot.”
He laughed a little, but his eyes watched her warily. “You’d think once in a while some newspaper reporter would get a story right,” he said easily.
“Oh! Wasn’t it true that you said it?” Her level gaze met his steadily.
“I was annoyed, and I said something. Don’t remember just what. Certainly I didn’t intend to insult any of your family.”
“Then you’ll deny it in the paper?”
“Is it quite worth-while? Everybody knows what newspapers are—how they’re keen to make everything one says sensational.”
“If you don’t deny it people will think you said it.”
“We-ell, in a political campaign men get excited. It doesn’t greatly matter what folks say—just part of the game, you know.”
“Is it part of the game to tell lies about a good man?” she asked flatly.
He threw up his hands gaily. “I surrender at discretion. Will a note to theEnterprisecorrecting the error suit your Majesty?”
“You’re not doing it for me,” she told him, her dark eyes shining. “You’re doing it because it’s the fair thing.”
“Hang the fair thing,” he answered, laughing. “I’m doing it for Miss Victoria Lowell.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” She dimpled to a smile. “Because I’m against you and for Scot in this fight.”
“Then I’ll give up the race,” he mocked. “I think you ought at least to be neutral.”
Dodson played his hand under cover after that. He saw that McClintock was kept under a steady fire of newspaper attack and that none of it could be traced to him. No paper dared make any reference to the origin of the trouble between Colonel McClintock and the Dodsons, but hired assassins of reputation whispered evil stories in which the names of Mollie and Scot appeared. These became so numerous that at last Scot in a speech full of eloquence and fierce indignation referred to the traducers of his wife as snakes in the grass who dared not come into the open for fear of having the life trampled out of them.
The bitterness grew, became acute. Robert Dodson, still full of venom and hatred, whispered in the ears of killers. The word was passed around quietly that McClintock might be shot down any time. Friends came to warn him. They carried the word to Hugh, who dropped his business at once and joined Scot at Austin. From this time the younger man, in spite of the Colonel’s good-humoured protest, travelled over the state with his brother as a lookout.
At Carson the killers struck.
Scot had addressed an enthusiastic meeting, at which he had been heckled by supporters of Dodson and had turned upon them with such witty scorn that they had slipped out of the hall discomfited. With Hugh beside him the speaker had returned to the Ormsby House. The younger brother was putting up at the house of a friend. He left Scot in his room ready to undress.
But when the colonel felt in his waistcoat pocket for a cigar he found none. He stepped down to the barroom to get one. Baldy Green, the old stage driver, was sitting by the office stove. The two fell into talk and Scot sat down to smoke his cigar with the old-timer.
A man whom Scot did not know lounged into the office and out again. In the darkness outside he whispered to two men. One of them was the ex-mule-skinner Hopkins, a dyed-in-the-wool bad man; the other was Sam Dutch.
The hotel office had three doors. One opened from the street, a rear one led to the rooms, the third was a double swing door separating the office from the bar. Scot’s chair was so placed that he faced the entrance from the street and the bar. His back was half-turned to the rear one.
The stage driver was talking. “You betcha, Colonel. If us old-timers had the say-so we’d elect you by a mile. Sure would. That slick scalawag Dodson, why he—he——”
Scot’s first warning came from Baldy’s consternation. His eyes popped out. They were staring at some apparition in the back of the room. The words of his sentence stuck in the roof of his mouth. Almost simultaneously came the click McClintock knew from of old.
He whirled in the chair dragging at his revolver. It caught on his coat. Two bolts of lightning flamed. The crash of heavy thunder filled the room. Scot sagged in his seat, the curly head falling forward heavily on the chest. From his slack fingers the revolver dropped.
Again the guns boomed. Another jagged knife thrust of pain went through and through Scot’s body.
“Got him. Got him good, Sam,” an exultant voice announced hoarsely through the smoke.
A hulking figure slouched forward cautiously. The victim lay huddled in the chair motionless, both hands empty of weapons. No sign of life showed in the lax body.
“Always said I’d git him.” Dutch broke into a storm of oaths. He reversed his revolver and struck the fallen head savagely with the butt.
“We’d better make a getaway,” the other man said hurriedly. “This ain’t no healthy place for us.”
The gorilla-man struck again and broke the hammer of his revolver.
“Out this way,” he said, and pushed through the swinging doors to the bar.
The heavy blows had beaten McClintock down so that he slid from the chair. The doctor who attended him afterwards said that the effect of them was temporarily to act as a counter-shock to the bullet wounds. His senses cleared and his hand found the revolver. He was cocking it as the second assassin vanished through the swing doors.
Scot concentrated his strength and energy, focussing every ounce of power left in him to do the thing in his mind. With his left hand as a support he raised the six-shooter and fired through the swing door. Then, inch by inch, he crawled forward to the barroom entrance, shoved the door open with his shoulder, and tried again to lift the forty-five. It was not in his ebbing forces to raise the heavy weapon from the floor.
But there was no need to use it again. The mule-skinner Hopkins lay face down on the floor, arms flung wide. Scot’s shot through the swing door had killed him instantly.
Baldy knelt beside his friend. “Did they get you, old-timer?” he asked, his voice shaking.
“I’m still kicking. Send for Hugh,” the wounded man gasped.
Half an hour later Hugh stood beside the bedside of his brother. Scot’s face was bloodless to the lips. He was suffering a good deal and was very weak. The doctor had told Hugh that he would not live till morning.
“I’m going—to—make it,” Scot said faintly.
“Wire—for—Mollie. Tell her—not to—worry.”
Mollie came down from Virginia. She reached Carson by daybreak. Scot was still living, still holding his own, though the doctors held out no hope of recovery. At the end of forty-eight hours he was in a high fever, but his strength was unabated. The fever broke. He came out of it weak but with the faint, indomitable smile of the unconquered on his face.
His hand pressed Mollie’s softly. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I’ll make it sure,” he promised.
The tears welled into her eyes. His courage took her by the throat and choked her, for the doctors still gave her no encouragement.
“Yes,” she whispered, and tried to keep the sob out of her voice.
“What’s a li’l’ thing like three bullets among one perfectly good man?” he asked whimsically.
“You’re not to talk, the doctor says,” she reproved.
“All right. Where’s Hugh?”
“He left yesterday to ’tend to some business.”
“What business?” A frown of anxiety wrinkled his pale forehead.
“He didn’t say.”
“Where did he go?”
“I didn’t ask him. He said he’d be back to-day or to-morrow, one.”
Scot thought this over, still with a troubled face. He guessed what this important business was that had called Hugh from his bedside at such a critical time. But he did not hint to Mollie his suspicion.
“When he comes back will you let me know right away, Honey? Or if he wires?”
“Yes. Now you must stop talking and take this powder.”
The smile that was a messenger to carry her all his love rested in his eyes. “I’ll be good, Mollie.”
He took the medicine and presently fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXVI
While Hughwas still at the bedside of his brother he began to make arrangements for the thing he meant to do. Already he knew that Sam Dutch had left town. Word had come to him that two horsemen in a desperate hurry had clattered down the street from Doc Benton’s stable. They had disappeared in the darkness. But the man who had seen them go had not recognized the companion of Dutch. Nor could he tell whether the riders had turned off Carson Street into King’s Cañon road, had swung to the right along the foothills road, or had held to a straight course toward Reno.
The news of the outrage spread fast. Friends of the McClintocks poured into the Ormsby House by scores to see if there was anything they could do. Among them were the Governor, a Justice of the Supreme Court, half-a-dozen state senators and representatives, and the sheriff of the county.
It was characteristic of Hugh that even in the anguish he felt at seeing his brother stricken from lusty health by the bullets of assassins his mind worked with orderly precision. When he thought of the murderers a cold, deadly anger possessed him, but if possible he meant his vengeance to come within the law.
“There’s one thing you can do, Phil,” he said to the sheriff. “Swear me in as a special deputy. I’m goin’ out to get Dutch.”
“To bring him back here, you mean?” asked the officer.
McClintock’s eyes were inscrutable. “Of course.”
“Now, looky here, son, that’s our job,” the sheriff remonstrated. “I’m gonna git that fellow. He’s run on the rope too long. You stay right here with Scot.”
“No. I want Dutch. He’s mine. Hands off till I can leave Scot, Phil.”
The sheriff argued, but he could not move the grim-faced man from his purpose. At last he gave way with a shrug of his shoulders. A wilful man must have his way.
“All right, son, I’ll swear you in if you’ll promise to bring Dutch back to Carson providin’ you git him.”
“I promise that.”
“Alive,” the sheriff added.
“Alive,” agreed Hugh, meeting him eye to eye.
Baldy Green showed his teeth in a mirthless grin. “A few of us here in town’ll guarantee that if you bring him alive he won’t go away alive.”
The officer turned on him angrily. “That’s a fine way to talk, Baldy. You hold yore lines tighter. Monkey with my prisoner an’ I’ll show you a scatter gun that throws buckshot all over Carson.”
Meanwhile Hugh kept the wires hot with messages. He telegraphed friends at Virginia, Reno, Piodie, and Genoa, asking for news of the fugitives. His suspicion fastened on Robert Dodson as the man who was riding with Dutch. He knew the man had been in town earlier in the day, and he could not through his friends locate him here now. The night travellers might make for Virginia, where Dutch could lie hidden in one of the Dodson mines till the excitement was past. Or they might be making for Genoa with the intention of crossing the Sierras to California. More likely still they were headed for Piodie, where the sheriff, the law machinery, and the town bad men were all friendly to the Dodson interests. So Hugh reasoned it out.
The sheriff shook his head. “Don’t look to me like Dodson would mix himself up with Dutch now. Maybe he hired him to do this killing. I don’t say he did. I don’t know. But it ain’t reasonable that he’d give himself away by ridin’ hellamile outa town with him.”
“Ralph Dodson wouldn’t, but you can’t tell what his brother might do. My notion is he didn’t intend to go, but afterwards lost his nerve and wouldn’t stick it out here alone.”
“That’d be like Bob Dodson,” Baldy confirmed. “He’s got a sure enough rabbit heart.”
None of the answers to his telegrams brought Hugh the message he hoped for. The fugitives had not been seen at Virginia, Genoa, or Reno, though it was quite possible they might have reached or passed through any of these places unnoticed. He decided to play what would nowadays be called a hunch. The natural place for them to go was Piodie, and it was there he meant to look for them.
The doctors gave him no hope for Scot, but they now believed that his remarkable vitality would keep him alive several days. Hugh arranged to keep in touch with Baldy Green by wire. Now that the railroad was in operation he could get back to town within a few hours if an emergency call came for him.
He rode down to Reno and there boarded the Overland. A couple of hours later he left it at a small way station and engaged a saddle horse. He guessed that if the fugitives had gone to Piodie they would leave watchers to report on any strangers who might come to town. Therefore, four miles out of Piodie he left the road, took a cow trail that swung round Bald Knob, and dropped down a little gulch that led to the back of the Pony Express Corral, and under cover of dusk slipped into the stable.
Byers was there alone. “How’s Scot?” he asked.
“Bad,” said Hugh, and his haggard face twitched. “Doctor don’t think he’ll make it. What about Dutch?”
“Got in last night.”
“Dodson with him?”
The small man nodded. He was always parsimonious of words.
“Know where he is now?”
“At the Katie Brackett. Rode right out there.”
Hugh knew that this meant his enemies were playing it safe. The Katie Brackett was owned and controlled by the Dodsons. Here they were on home territory, surrounded by adherents. If a sheriff’s posse appeared on the road leading to the mine Dutch would be safely underground in one of the levels long before it reached the shaft house. There he would be as secure as a needle in a haystack. Even if the sheriff elected to search the mine, the bad man could play hide and seek with the posse in a hundred stopes, drifts, and crosscuts.
“Ralph Dodson in town?”
“No. Virginia.”
This was one piece of good news. With the younger mine owner absent he would have one less enemy to contend with, and the most dangerous of the three. For Ralph was game, audacious, and brainy. It would hardly have been possible to get the killer out of Piodie with young Dodson running the campaign for him.
“I’m goin’ up after him,” Hugh said quietly.
“With that gang round him?”
“Maybe I’ll catch him alone.”
“And maybe not.” Byers stepped to the wall and took down from a peg a belt to which was attached a revolver. He strapped on the belt.
“No, Dan,” Hugh told him. “I’m playin’ a lone hand. My only chance is to lie low and surprise Dutch before he knows I’m within a hundred miles.”
“Hmp! What if he surprises you?”
“I’ll be Number Sixteen. But he won’t. I’m goin’ to take him back to Carson.”
There was a sound of feet moving at a shuffling run. A man burst through the doorway and stopped at sight of them. The runner was Jim Budd. For a few moments he stood panting, unable to find his breath for speech.
“What’s up, Jim?” asked Hugh.
The fat man wheezed out an answer. “H-hell to pay! The Katie Brackett’s afire, an’ the day shift’s down in her, caught in a drift.”