CHAPTER XXXI
Theyfound Scot still defying the predictions of the doctors by hanging on to the thread of life that tied him to this world. He was asleep when the travellers arrived. Within a few minutes Hugh was in the saddle again and on the way to meet Byers and his prisoner. Before morning they had Dutch behind bars in the Carson jail.
When Hugh tiptoed in to see Scot a second time, the wounded man smiled at him reproachfully. The Colonel’s hand slid weakly along the bedspread to meet his brother’s brown palm.
“Glad you’re back safe,” he said in a low voice.
“We brought Dutch along,” Hugh said by way of explaining his absence.
A faint flash of amusement lit the drawn face. “Buck much, did he?”
“Oh, he reckoned he wouldn’t come along. Then he reckoned he would.”
Scot asked a question: “What have you been parboiling your face for?”
“Got caught in a mine fire. How are you feelin’, Scot?”
“Fine and dandy,” murmured the older brother indomitably. “Mollie’s spoiling me. Everybody’s mighty good. When I don’t feel so trifling I’ll say thank you proper.”
Mollie kissed him and said gently, “Now, you’ve talked enough.”
Business, much neglected of late, called Hugh to Virginia City. Every two or three days he ran down to Carson for a few hours. The doctors became more hopeful. The great vitality of their patient was beginning to triumph over the shock his system had endured.
Meanwhile, Scot’s political campaign had died down. If the Dodsons had been willing to let it alone, Ralph would probably have been nominated without opposition. But this was just what they could not do. They knew themselves that they had played a poor part in the contest with the McClintocks, and they were afraid that Nevada’s private judgment would be the same.
Sinister whispers passed from mouth to mouth. They found a discreet echo in the newspapers friendly to the Dodson candidacy. Scot McClintock had broken up the home of Robert Dodson. He belonged to Nevada’s past and not her present. The disgraceful affair at Carson showed him to be a desperate man, in the same class as the men Hopkins and Dutch. This was hinted in veiled language and not openly charged by the press.
It was at the Maison Borget, as good a French restaurant as could be found between New York and San Francisco, that Hugh first learned of these rumours. He had been too busy to read any newspaper except a local one.
Senator Stewart, seated alone at a small side table, called to him. The young man took the place opposite him.
“How’s the Colonel?” asked the senator.
“He’s not out of danger, but we think he’s gaining.”
“Fine. Glad to hear it. What about his campaign?”
“It seems to have dropped by the wayside, Senator.”
The big man stroked his long yellow beard. “Pity. I’d like to see him win. With these stories going around——”
“What stories?”
The senator told him. He ended with a startling question.
“Why don’t you take the stump and answer the lies, Hugh?”
“Me? I’m no orator.”
“None needed. You can talk straight, can’t you? Call a lie a lie?”
“I reckon. But it’s a game I don’t savvy, Senator. If I was going gunnin’ for statesmen I’d never snap a cap at Hugh McClintock.”
“Just hit out hard from the shoulder. Talk right out for Scot as though you were with two or three friends. Carry the war into the enemy’s camp. Show how they’ve stacked the cards against your brother.”
McClintock’s eyes blazed. “I’ll do it, Senator. I’ll give Scot a run for his white alley yet.”
He did. To every camp and town in the state he fared forth and told the story. He told it at mine shafts, in saloons, around hotel stoves, and in public meetings called for that purpose. Much to his surprise he developed a capacity for public speaking. His strength lay in the direct, forceful simplicity of what he said. He was so manifestly a sincere and honest champion that men accepted at face value what he said.
At one town Captain Palmer, who had organized the Aurora vigilance committee, introduced him in characteristic fashion.
“You see the big head on his broad shoulders. It’s up to you to decide whether there’s anything in it,” he said bluntly.
Hugh plunged straight at his subject.
“I’m here to speak for a man who lies at Carson wounded by three bullets from the revolvers of two murderers. I’m here to answer the whispers set going by the men who profit most by that attempted assassination, men who would never have the courage to say any of these things face to face with Colonel McClintock.”
He reviewed his brother’s life and tried to interpret it.
“They say he was a gambler. So he was, at a time when nine tenths of the men in this state gambled hard and often. But they can’t say he wasn’t a straight gambler. There never was a crooked hair in the head of Scot McClintock. Everybody knows that.”
Without gloves he took up the charge that Scot had broken up Robert Dodson’s home. He showed that Dodson was a drunken ne’er-do-well who had smothered his own baby and had afterwards been rescued from a mob of lynchers by McClintock, that he was a wife beater and a loafer who by chance had later stumbled into a fortune, a man always without honour or principle.
“It was this same man who rode out of Carson at breakneck speed fifteen minutes after my brother had been shot down from behind, rode with the red-handed murderer Sam Dutch. It was this same man and his brother Ralph Dodson who tried to keep me and my friends from bringing Dutch back to Carson as a prisoner.
“From the beginning of this campaign they have smeared mud on the reputation of Scot. Even now, when he lies at the point of death at the hands of their hired killers, they go about hissing poisonous lies. The record of Scot McClintock is an open book. You know all his faults. They are exposed frankly to all men’s eyes. If he was wild, at least his wildness was never secret. It was a part of his gay and open-hearted youth.”
Hugh passed to his later years, to his brilliant career as a soldier, and to his public services as a citizen since the close of the war. He named Scot’s qualifications for the office he sought and concluded with an appeal for justice in the form of a vindication.
Nevada was young. It understood men like the McClintocks and it liked them. Ralph Dodson was of a type it neither knew nor wanted to know. The verdict was unmistakable. The political bosses gave way to the public demand, and Scot McClintock was nominated on the first ballot by a large majority.
Hugh took the Carson stage to carry his brother the news.
CHAPTER XXXII
Sulky,morose, sluggish as a saurian, Dutch lay in his cell and waited for deliverance. The weeks passed. The Dodsons sent him word to say nothing, that when the time came they would set him free.
He suspected them as he suspected everybody. If they failed him he meant to betray them. But the time had not come for that yet.
As he grew weary of confinement his restlessness found vent in a plan of escape. From his boot he worked the tin piece used as a stiffener for the leg. With this as a tool and a piece of a broken bed slat as material he began to shape a wooden pistol. He worked only when he knew he would be alone. The shavings that came in thin slivers from the pine he hid in the mattress upon which he slept. When the weapon was finished he rubbed it with lamp black till it took in a measure the colour of steel.
It was in the man’s temperament to be patient as an Apache when he found it to his advantage. He waited for his chance and found it when the jailer made his round one evening to see that all was secure.
The moonlight was shining through the barred window on the bed in checkered squares of light. Dutch was pacing up and down his cell when the guard appeared. He moved forward to the door.
“Gimme a chew, Hank,” he said ingratiatingly.
The killer was a sullen and vindictive prisoner. The jailer had tried to placate him, for now that Scot McClintock was getting better it would be only a question of time till Dutch would again be loose on the world.
“Sure, Sam.”
The jailer dived into his right hip pocket, found a plug of tobacco, and handed it through the grating to his prisoner.
Dutch caught the man’s wrist and twisted it down against the iron bar of the lattice. Simultaneously a pistol barrel gleamed through the opening.
“Gimme yore six-shooter. . . . Now unlock the door. Let out a squawk an’ I’ll pump lead into you.”
The jailer obeyed orders. Dutch hustled him into the cell, then tied and gagged him. He took the keys, went downstairs, unlocked the outer door, and walked into the night a free man.
He stood for a moment at the door, hesitating. Which way should he go? The first thing was to get a horse at some stable. That would be easy enough. All he had to do was to go in and ask for it. But should he go back to Piodie, try Virginia City, or cut across the Sierras to California and say good-bye to Nevada?
Before he had made up his mind which road to take his thoughts were deflected into another channel. A young woman passed on the other side of the street. He recognized her immediately. The light, resilient step, the gallant poise of the slender body identified their owner as Victoria Lowell. He was sure of it even before the moonlight fell full upon her profile.
His eyes lit with a cunning tigerish malice. Softly he padded down the street after her. There was in his mind no clear idea of what he meant to do. But he was a born bully. She was alone. He could torment her to his heart’s content.
He moved faster, came abreast of her after she had turned into a dark side street. His step kept pace with hers. She looked up to see who her companion was.
A gasp of surprise broke from her throat.
His grin was a leer, hideous and menacing. “How are you, m’dear? Didn’t expect to meet up with old Sam, did you? But tickled—plumb tickled to death to see him.”
Involuntarily she quickened her step. His arm shot out and his great hand closed on her wrist. A shriek welled up inside her, but she smothered it unvoiced. The shudder that ran through her body she could not control.
He purred on: “Came to meet old Sam soon as he got out. Had to see him right away, didn’t you? Couldn’t wait a minute.”
With a twist of her forearm she tried to break away. His rough fingers crushed deeper into her soft flesh.
“You in a hurry, sweetheart?” he went on, and his heavy body shook with unholy mirth. “Afraid of old Sam’s winnin’ ways? Don’t like to trust yore feelin’s with them, I reckon.”
“Let me go,” she ordered, and her voice shook.
Instantly his mood changed. He thrust his hairy gorilla-like head close to hers. “When I get good an’ ready, missie. Think you can boss Sam Dutch, do you? Think I’ve forgot how you shot me onct when I took you in outa the storm? Think I care for yore cry-baby ways? You’ll do jest like I say.”
“I’m going home. Don’t you dare stop me.” She could not make her quavering voice quite as confident as she would have liked.
“Home. So you’re going home?” His slow thoughts struck another tangent. “Good enough. I’ll trail along an’ see you get there safe, missie. Like to say ‘How-d’ye-do’ to Colonel McClintock whilst I’m there.” His teeth uncovered in a snarl of rage.
Vicky’s fears for herself fled, swallowed up in the horror of a picture struck to life by her imagination. She saw Scot lying helpless on his bed with this ruffian gloating over him. A flash of memory carried her back to another scene. This time it was Hugh who lay at the ruffian’s mercy—Hugh spent and all but senseless, his muscles paralyzed by the cold of the blizzard that raged outside.
A week before this Scot had been moved from the hotel to a small private house put at the family’s disposal by friends who were temporarily in California. He and Mollie would be alone. She dared not lead the killer to the house. What ought she to do?
The killer now knew what was the first thing he meant to do. He would go and finish the job he had left undone some weeks earlier.
“Home it is, m’dear. Hot foot it. I got no time to waste. Where do you live?”
Her thoughts flew. Since he did not know where the house was she could mark time at least. They were close to a corner. She turned to the right.
“This way,” she said, and led him away from the house where Scot was lying in bed.
He shuffled beside her, still holding fast to her wrist. His presence was repugnant to her. The touch of his flesh made hers creep.
“You’re hurting me. Why don’t you let me go? I’ll not run away,” she promised.
“I know you’ll not—if you don’t git a chance, sweetie.” His fangs showed again in an evil grin. “If I hurt you some it ain’t a circumstance to the way you hurt me onct. I ain’t aimin’ to let you play me no tricks like you done then.”
They came to a house, set a little back from the road in a young orchard. Victoria opened the gate and they walked in. Her brain had registered an inspiration. Straight to the porch she went.
Dutch warned her. “Remember. No tricks, missie. You lead right into the room where he is an’ don’t say a word. Un’erstand?”
“Yes. You’ll promise not to hurt him?”
“My business. I got an account to settle with both them McClintocks.”
“At any rate, you won’t hurt anybody else in the house,” she said faintly. “You’ve got to promise that.”
“Suits me. I ain’t intendin’ to run wild.”
“Swear it,” she insisted.
He swore it.
Vicky, still with his hateful fingers about her wrist, opened the door and walked into the house. At her touch a second door swung. Before Dutch could recover from the surprise of what he saw, he had moved forward with the girl into a room.
A man was sitting at a desk writing. He looked up, astonished at this interruption. The man was Father Marston.
“He wants me to take him to Scot,” Vicky said simply.
Her explanation sufficed. Dutch, a many times killer, stood before him with a drawn revolver in his hand.
The minister rose. “So you brought him here instead. Well done, Vicky.”
The desperado ripped out a violent oath. “Make a fool of Sam Dutch, will you?”
His fingers moved up to the fleshy part of the girl’s forearm and tightened. She could not keep back a cry of pain.
Marston stepped forward. He had served through the war as a chaplain and the spirit of a soldier was in him.
“Hands off, Dutch!”
The teeth of the bad man ground together audibly. “You sittin’ in, Parson?” he asked in a thick, furious voice.
“Yes. Take your hands off her.”
The gaunt gray-eyed preacher faced the killer’s rage and overmatched it. He had both moral courage and the physical to back it.
“Where’s Scot McClintock?” demanded Dutch.
“We’ll take that up when you’ve turned Miss Lowell loose.”
“By God, you’re not runnin’ this.”
“Get your hand away.”
The bully felt that he either had to kill this man or do as he said. He dare not shoot him down. Father Marston was too well beloved in Nevada. His was one of those staunch souls which commanded an immense respect. Back of him now the gunman felt the whole weight of civilized opinion in the state. It was a spiritual power too potent to be ignored.
The fingers loosened from Vicky’s arm and fell away.
“Where’s McClintock at?” the man with the revolver asked again hoarsely.
“First tell me this. What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in prison where you belong?”
“Because I broke out. Tha’s why.”
“Then I’ll give you a piece of advice. Get out of town. Now. Quick as you can hit the road.”
“I’m askin’ you where McClintock’s at, Parson.”
Again the eyes of the two battled.
“Sam Dutch, your name stands in this country for murder, treachery, drunkenness, and all other evils known to man. You’re as black-hearted a villain as ever I knew. If you’ve got one redeeming trait I don’t know what it is. Now, listen. You’re going to get out of town now. Right away. You’re not going to murder Scot McClintock. You’ll walk with me straight to Doc Benton’s stable. You’ll arrange with him for a horse. And you’ll drop into the saddle and light a shuck out of Carson.” The voice of the preacher rang harsh. It carried conviction, but Dutch wanted to know what was back of this edict.
“Who says I’ll do all that?” he sneered.
“I say it. If you don’t I’ll rouse the town and hang you in front of the jail. That’s a promise made before God, Dutch. I’ll keep it, so help me.”
The killer’s mind dodged in and out cunningly and could find no way of escape. He dared not kill Marston. He dared not let him go out and rouse the town against him. Though he was armed and Marston was without a weapon, it was he who was defenceless and the preacher who held him covered.
The bad man threw up his hands. “All right. You got me, Parson. I’ll light a shuck, but God help you if I ever get you right. I’ll sure fix you so you’ll never do me another meanness.”
The preacher stood before him straight as a sycamore.
“My life is in God’s hand, Sam Dutch. You strut across the stage of life, poor braggart, and think yourself mighty powerful. You’re no more than a straw in the wind. His eye is on you, man. You can’t lift a finger without His permission. And in His scripture He has said a word about you. ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ And again, ‘All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ That’s His plain promise, Dutch. I tell you that your hour is close. It’s at hand. Repent and flee from the wrath to come.”
Marston had the orator’s gift of impressive speech. As he faced the killer, hand lifted in a gesture of prophecy, eyes flashing the fire of his conviction, Vicky felt a shiver run over her. The preacher was, so she felt for the moment, a messenger of destiny pronouncing doom upon a lost soul. In the light of what so swiftly followed she was to recall many times his burning and passionate prediction.
Dutch sneered, to cover the chill that passed through him. “The bullet ain’t moulded yet that can kill Sam Dutch,” he bragged.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Atthe gate Father Marston stopped. “You run along home, Vicky,” he said. “I’ll drop in after a while and see how the Colonel is.”
The girl hesitated. “Hadn’t I better go with you?” she said. It was not necessary for her to say in words that she was afraid to leave the chaplain alone with Dutch. All three of them understood it.
Marston laughed, rather grimly. “No, child. Mr. Dutch and I understand each other first rate. We’ll get along fine. See you later.”
She left them, reluctantly. The men took a side street that led toward Benton’s stable. Dutch was anxious to be gone from Carson. The preacher’s words had filled him with foreboding. He would not feel easy until the dust of the capital had long been shaken from his horse’s hoofs.
His surly voice took on a whine. It was his way of attempting to propitiate fate. “I got a bad name, Parson, an’ so folks don’t feel right to me. Lemme say that there’s a heap of worse men than Sam Dutch. I’ve shot men sure enough, but I ain’t ever shot one that wasn’t better dead. Most folks don’ know that. They think I go round killin’ to see ’em kick. Well, I don’t. Live an’ let live would be my motto, if gunmen would only lemme alone. But you know yorese’f how it is, Parson. They git to thinkin’ if they can bump off Sam Dutch they’ll be chief. So they come lookin’ for trouble, an’ I got to accommodate ’em.”
A man came down the street walking as though he loved it. His stride rang out sharp in the still night. He was singing softly the words of a trail song:
“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——”
“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——”
“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——”
“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——”
Marston’s heart lost a beat. He felt rather than saw the figure of the man at his side grow tense as it crouched. Steel flashed in the moonlight. The preacher struck at a hair-matted wrist as the gun roared.
The singer stopped in his tracks. With incredible quickness he dragged out a revolver and fired. The chaplain thrust Dutch from him and stepped back into the road out of the direct line of fire.
The boom of the forty-fives seemed continuous while the short sharp flashes stabbed the darkness.
A man groaned and clutched at his breast. He sank down, still firing. On his knees, supporting the weight of his body with the palm of his hand thrust against the ground, Dutch emptied his revolver, ferocious as a wounded grizzly. From his throat there issued a sound that was half a sob and half a snarl of rage.
The thunder of the guns died. The singer moved forward, warily, his gaze fastened on the huge huddled figure slowly sinking lower. One glance had been enough to tell him that Marston was not an enemy. Therefore he concentrated his attention on the centre of danger.
Marston ran to the fallen man and knelt down beside him. He tore open the coat and vest. A single look was sufficient. Three bullets had torn into the great barrel-like trunk of his body. One had pierced the right lung. A second had struck just below the heart. The third had raked from right to left through the stomach.
“Take my boots off,” gasped the desperado.
The chaplain knew that Dutch was aware he had been mortally wounded. This request showed it. The Western gunman wanted always to be without his boots on when he died.
Father Marston eased his head while Hugh McClintock removed the boots.
A gargoyle grin was on the face of the bad man. He meant to “die game,” after the manner of his kind.
“You sure rang a bull’s eye, Parson, when you pulled them Bible texts on me. At that, maybe I’d ’a’ fooled you if you hadn’t spoiled my aim that first shot.”
“You realize——”
“—that I got more’n I can carry? Sure do.”
Marston forgot that this man was the worst desperado Nevada had ever known. He remembered only that the soul of Sam Dutch, a poor erring human being, was about to meet its Maker.
“His mercy endureth for ever. Repent. Repent and be saved,” he exhorted earnestly.
“Too late, Parson,” Dutch answered feebly. “I’m a—dyed-in-the-wool sinner—an’ I’m—hittin’ the trail—for hell.”
“It’s never too late. ‘While the light holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.’ That’s you, Sam.”
“That’s sure me, but—I don’t reckon—I’ll——”
His body stiffened suddenly, then relaxed limply. He was dead.
The two men rose and looked at each other. Hugh spoke first.
“I had to do it, Father. It was Dutch or me.”
“Yes, you had to do it.”
“He didn’t give me any choice. Came a-shootin’ before I knew even who he was.”
“I saw what he was doing just in time to hit his arm.”
“I reckon that saved me. You were that quick. I can’t thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Hugh. Thank God.” He looked soberly down at the dead man. “There, but for His grace, lies Hugh McClintock.”
“Yes,” agreed Hugh solemnly.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Theroom with the bullet hole in the swing door at the Ormsby House had become a place of pilgrimage. The proprietor of the hotel and its patrons pointed it out with pride to strangers and told the story of how Scot McClintock, left for dead, had come to life by sheer will power and killed one of the murderers through the door without even seeing him.
In Scot’s actions there had always been a quality which distinguished them from those of other men. He had the gift of the heroic touch—somehow struck from men’s imaginations a spark of fire. His gaiety and spirit, the sunny grace of his bearing, made for romance.
The affair at the Ormsby House capped the climax. It bordered on the Homeric. To be taken at advantage by the two most redoubtable killers of the West, to be shot through and through and left for dead, and to take immediate vengeance on one of them under almost impossible circumstances was a combination of dramatic effect so unusual as to pinnacle even Colonel McClintock.
But it had remained for Hugh to write the last act of the drama. He found men looking at him with a new respect. Even old friends showed a slight deference. It was not only that he had killed in a duel the terrible Dutch, though this in itself was a sufficient exploit. The manner in which justice had at last found the killer satisfied men’s sense of fitness. The story was told everywhere, and with a touch of awe, that Father Marston had prophesied to Dutch the swift avengement of God. On the heel of that prediction the lightnings had flamed from Hugh McClintock’s revolver.
That Hugh had been the instrument of justice was felt to be especially meet. He had dragged back to Carson, from the pit of hell where he had been buried, the attempted murderer of his brother. He had struck with such deadly accuracy that any one of the three bullets flung by him would have been fatal.
Without intention on his part, Hugh’s subsequent conduct increased the respect in which he was held. He refused to be lionized, declined even to tell the story of the killing except to the coroner’s jury. Inevitably there began to rise a legend of the prowess of the McClintocks which cast a spell over romantic minds.
The immediate result was that Scot was elected secretary of state by the largest majority in the history of Nevada. When he was sworn into office the management of the firm’s business devolved wholly upon Hugh. The Virginia & Truckee railroad was partly completed. Within a few years fifty or sixty trains a day would be twisting to and fro over the most tortuous bit of track in the United States. The McClintocks saw the handwriting on the wall and began to reduce the number of their teams, ore wagons, and freight outfits.
From Piodie came a telegram to Hugh. It was signed by Jim Budd, newly elected sheriff of that county:
The Ground Hog is on a rampage. Big strike. Come at once.
The Ground Hog is on a rampage. Big strike. Come at once.
Hugh found Piodie buzzing with excitement. The strike on Bald Knob aroused keen interest because this was a new field. There had been a good deal of development work done there, but the Ground Hog strike was the first worth-while one that had been made. Prospectors stampeded for the scene and located every unoccupied inch for miles. The wiser heads besieged the owners of claims on the Knob for leases.
Byers drove Hugh out to Bald Knob, and the two looked over the Ground Hog together. If the assays that had been made held good in general, they estimated that from ten to fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of ore had been raised within the week from the shaft. Afterwards Hugh visited the claims held by himself, Scot, and Vicky, to make sure that the assessment work had been properly done. He knew that if there was any excuse for it whatever somebody would jump these claims. He decided that the best thing to do would be to get leasers on the properties as soon as possible, for if possession is not nine points of the law it is at least one or two points.
“I want to tell you that yore claims would have been jumped before this,” Sheriff Budd told Hugh later with a wise nod of his head, “if it hadn’t been that you McClintocks are such darned go-getters nobody wanted to take a chance.”
“How about Miss Lowell’s claim?” asked Hugh.
“Well, she’s done a heap of work on it. I don’t reckon any one could hardly get away with it, her bein’ so popular here, too, an’ a lone, defenceless girl at that. Piodie would be liable to rare up on its hind laigs an’ say, ‘Hands off!’ But it’s different with you an’ Scot. Someone with guts is apt to jump them claims any minute.”
Hugh dropped around to the schoolhouse that afternoon to walk home with the lone girl who was popular. He found her administering corporal punishment vigorously to a red-headed youth who promised with sobs never to do it again. She was not at that moment at all popular with red-head Hugh judged, and she did not look exactly defenceless.
At sight of her visitor Miss Lowell went red as a flame. She did not often use the switch, and when she did she regarded it as a confession of failure to handle the case wisely. It was embarrassing to be caught in the rôle of a stormy Amazon. It seemed to her that Hugh was always getting glimpses into the unlovely and vixenish side of her character. Yet she knew she had whipped the boy only after forcing herself to do it.
“I’ve told Tommie time and again he mustn’t bully the little boys. I’ve talked it all over with him and argued with him. But he’s a perverse little imp. To-day he had three small chaps crying. He practically defied me. When I threatened to whip him he said he’d like to see me try it. After that I had to do it.” Vicky sighed, close to tears herself. “He’s the only child in school I haven’t got along with. Most of them like me.”
“Of course they do, and so does Tommie,” Hugh told her confidently. “It’s just his way of making you pay attention to him. Probably he’s in love with you.”
“Well, he won’t be any more,” the young teacher said, laughing regretfully.
“Oh, yes, he will. He’ll like you-all the better. He’ll be glad he’s found his boss. I know Tommie’s kind. You’ve taken just the right course with him. Some boys have to be appealed to once vigorously through the cuticle. Now you’ll have no more trouble with him.”
“I hope you’re right.” Vicky changed the subject. They were walking home together along a path that led to the main street of the town. “Isn’t it splendiferous news about the Ground Hog? I’m so glad you’ve made a strike.”
“I wanted to speak with you about that. There’s some danger of our claims being jumped—not the Ground Hog, but those on which we have been doing only assessment work. Byers and I looked over yours. I don’t see how yours can be in any danger. You’ve done too much developing. But you can never be sure.”
“I’ve paid out nearly three hundred dollars for wages,” she said quickly.
“Yes, I know. Did you take receipts?”
“No, I didn’t. Ought I?”
“Better get ’em. What are your plans?”
“A dozen people have been around to ask me for leases. I hardly know what to do. What do you think?”
“The more men you get working there the better. You can’t afford to pay wages, so you’d better sign a lease. I wouldn’t give it to a single person, but to two or three in partnership. Tie ’em up tight. Have a good lawyer make the papers out, so that there isn’t anything left in doubt. Be sure you get the proper terms.”
“And good leasers,” she suggested.
“Yes, that’s important.”
“Will you go with me when we’re arranging the lease?” she asked, a little shyly.
“Glad to, of course.”
They talked of Scot and his recovery to health, of Mollie’s joy in her baby, and of young Alexander Hugh himself, who was developing wonderful intelligence, if the letters of his mother were worthy of credence.
In front of the Mammoth Saloon they met Ralph Dodson. He bowed, and Hugh answered his bow stiffly. Since the attempt on his brother’s life and the subsequent political campaign, McClintock did not pretend to anything but contempt for those of the name of Dodson. He acknowledged the salute only because he was with Vicky.
The girl flushed angrily. “We’re not friends any more, but he keeps that smile of his working just the same,” she told Hugh. “I told him what I thought of the way they fight. He pretended to be amused, but he was furious when I asked him not to speak to me when we met. He’s really more dangerous than his brother.”
“Yes, because he’s far abler.”
Mrs. Budd met them at the front door and hustled Hugh quickly into the house. “I’ve just had a message from Jim. There’s a warrant out for your arrest. It’s for killin’ Sam Dutch, I expect. Who ever heard the like? But Jim’s got to serve it, he says. So I’m to hide you in the attic. When he comes he’ll look for you and won’t find you.”
“What’s the use? If they’ve got a warrant out for me they’ll get me sooner or later. The verdict of the coroner’s jury was that Dutch came to his death at the hands of God. It’s some trick. They can’t make it stick.”
“That’s what Jim says. It’s a trick. Irish Tom told him there is something in the air. He doesn’t know just what. But the Dodsons are back of it. So Jim says for you to lie low and see what happens.”
“All right, Mrs. Budd. We’ll let Jim run this,” Hugh said. “I’m in the hands of my friends, like the willin’ candidates for office say they are.”
“Supper’ll be ready in a little. I’ll have Bennie watch the road so as to give you time to get upstairs if any one comes. I expect you’re hungry.”
“I’m always hungry when Mrs. Budd gives me an invitation to eat,” he answered, smiling. “She’s the best cook in Nevada, and a two-bit restaurant doesn’t draw me a-tall on those glad occasions.”
It was on the tip of Mrs. Budd’s sharp tongue to say that the company at her table might have something to do with that, but since she was manœuvring to bring about a certain match between two young people present she refrained from comment.
Hugh did very well on steak, roast wild duck, potatoes, home-made bread, honey, and dried-apple pie. It is probable that he did not enjoy himself less because a young woman sat opposite him whose dark eyes flashed soft lights of happiness at him and whose voice played like sweet music on his heart.
Mrs. Budd was urging on him another piece of pie when Bennie ran in with news.
“Dad’s comin’ down the road with two other men,” he shouted in a lifted key of youthful excitement.
Hugh retired to the garret.
Sheriff Budd came wheezing into the house followed by his deputies. “Seen anything of Hugh McClintock?” he asked his wife.
“Where would I see him? I haven’t been out of the house,” his plump helpmate answered tartly.
“Well, I got to search the house. Some folks seem to think he’s here.”
“What’s he done?” asked Vicky.
“Why, he kidnapped that good kind citizen Sam Dutch, a man who hadn’t murdered but fourteen or fifteen people, and who never packed more’n two guns an’ a pig-sticker at one time,” the sheriff said dryly. “Such lawlessness sure ought to be punished severe. I’d say send this McClintock fellow to Congress or somethin’ like that. Make a sure enough example of him.”
Jim waddled into the dining room. His eye fell on the devastation of the supper table. If he noticed the extra plate at the table he made no comment upon it. Neither did the deputies. The sheriff had hand-picked them carefully. Little Bennie followed, wriggling with excitement. Up to date this was the big adventure of his young life.
Jim’s eyes asked a question of his wife and received an answer. He learned from the wireless that had passed between them that his instructions had been carried out.
“Look through the kitchen and the hen house, boys,” the sheriff gave orders. “Then we’ll move upstairs. I don’t reckon he could be here without Mrs. Budd knowin’ it. But the way to make sure is to look.”
They presently trooped upstairs. While the deputies were searching the bedrooms Budd puffed up to the garret. In order to establish his identity he sang a solo:
“Old dog Tray ever faithfulGrief cannot drive him away.He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never——”
“Old dog Tray ever faithfulGrief cannot drive him away.He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never——”
“Old dog Tray ever faithfulGrief cannot drive him away.He’s gentle and he’s kind,And you’ll never, never——”
“Old dog Tray ever faithful
Grief cannot drive him away.
He’s gentle and he’s kind,
And you’ll never, never——”
The sheriff opened the door of the attic and stepped in. Hugh was straddling a chair with his elbows across the back of it. He grinned at his friend.
“I’d talk about being faithful if I was you, Jim,” he murmured lazily. “Here you’ve deserted that good old friend Grimes whose coat was so unusual it buttoned down before and——”
Budd shut the door hurriedly. “No use tellin’ the boys you’re here. What they don’t know won’t hurt them none.”
“True enough. What’s up, Jim? Why all this hide-and-go-seek business?”
“I dunno what’s up, but somethin’s gonna be pulled off. The Dodsons want you locked up in the calaboose while the fireworks are on. If they want you in, we want you out. That’s how I figure it.”
“Why not oblige ’em and put me in jail? Then they’ll be easy in their minds an’ start in on their programme. You can fix it so I escape when I’m needed.”
But Budd had opinions of his own on that point. “No, sir, I don’t aim to let any prisoners break outa my jail if I can help it. While I’m sheriff I’ll be a sure enough one. Onct you git behind the bars you’re my prisoner an’ I’m an officer sworn to keep you there. But now I’m old Jim Budd an’ you’re Kid McClintock.”
This seemed to Hugh a distinction without a difference, but he understood that to Budd it made the line of cleavage between what was the square thing and what was not. He did not attempt to argue with him.
“All right. Have it yore own way, old-timer.”
The sheriff went downstairs and reported to his men that they would go down and search the corral stable for the man they wanted.
“Some of us ce’tainly would have seen him if he’d been in this house,” he concluded.
One of the deputies, who was rolling a cigarette, grinned down at the makings. It chanced that he had heard voices in the attic.
“Some of us sure would,” he agreed affably. “Me, I ain’t lost McClintock awful bad anyhow.”