VIITHE POACHERS
One morning, as he topped the rise between the sawmill and his own station, Cavanagh heard two rifle-shots in quick succession snapping across the high peak on his left. Bringing his horse to a stand, he unslung his field-glasses, and slowly and minutely swept the tawny slopes of Sheep Mountain from which the forbidden sounds seemed to come.
“A herder shooting coyotes,” was his first thought; then remembering that there were no camps in that direction, and that a flock of mountain-sheep (which he had been guarding carefully) habitually fed round that grassy peak, his mind changed. “I wonder if those fellows are after those sheep?” he mused, as he angled down the slope. “I reckon it’s up to me to see.”
He was tired and hungry, a huge moraine lay between, and the trail was long and rough. “To catch them in the act is impossible. However,” he reflected, “they have but two trails along which to descend. One of these passes my door, and the other, a very difficult trail, leads down the South Fork. I’ll have time to get breakfast and change horses. They’ll probably wait till night before attempting to go out, anyway.”
In less than three hours he was over on the trail in the canon, quite certain that the hunters were still above him. He rode quietly up the valley, pausing often to listen and to scrutinize the landscape; but no sign of camp-fire and no further rifle-shots came, and at last he went into camp upon the trail, resolved to wait till the poachers appeared, a ward which his experience as a soldier helped him to maintain without nodding.
In these long hours his thought played about the remembrance of his last visit to the Fork and his hour with Lee. He wondered what she was doing at the moment. How charming she had looked there at Redfields’—so girlish in form, so serious and womanly of face!
He felt as never before the ineludible loneliness of the ranger’s life. Here he sat in the midst of a mighty forest with many hostile minds all about him, and it must be confessed he began to wonder whether his services to the nation were worth so much hardship, such complete isolation. The stream sang of the eternities, and his own short span of life (half gone already without any permanent accomplishment) seemed pitifully ephemeral. The guardians of these high places must forever be solitary. No ranger could rightfully be husband and father, for to bring women and children into these solitudes would be cruel.
He put all this aside—for the time—by remembering that he was a soldier under orders, and that marriage was a long way off, and so smoked his pipe and waited for the dawn, persistent as a Sioux, and as silent as a fox.
At daylight, there being still no sign of his quarry, hesaddled his horse, and was about to ride up the trail when he caught the sound of voices and the sharp click of iron hoofs on the rocks above him. With his horse’s bridle on his arm he awaited the approaching horseman, resolute and ready to act.
As the marauders rounded the elbow in the trail, he was surprised to recognize in the leader young Gregg. The other man was a stranger, an older man, with a grizzled beard, and tall and stooping figure.
“Hello Joe,” called the ranger, “you’re astir early!”
The youth’s fat face remained imperturbable, but his eyes betrayed uneasiness. “Yes, it’s a long pull into town.”
“Been hunting?” queried the ranger, still with cheery, polite interest.
“Oh no; just visiting one of my sheep-camps.”
Cavanagh’s voice was a little less suave. “Not on this creek,” he declared. “I moved your herder last week.” He walked forward. “That’s a heavy load for a short trip to a sheep-camp.” He put his hand on the pack. “I guess you’ll have to open this, for I heard two shots yesterday morning up where that flock of mountain-sheep is running, and, furthermore, I can see blood-stains on this saddle-blanket.”
Neither of the men made answer, but the old man turned an inquiring look at his young leader.
The ranger flung his next sentence out like the lash of a whip. “Open this sack or I cut the ropes!”
Gregg threw out a hand in command. “Open it up, Edwards!” he said, sullenly.
With mechanical readiness the guide alighted from his horse, loosened the cinch on the pack-horse, and disclosed the usual camp-bed.
“Put off that bedding!” insisted the ranger.
Off came the outfit, and under the tent lay the noble head of a wild ram—a look of reproach still in his splendid yellow eyes.
Cavanagh’s face hardened. “I thought so. Now heave it back and cinch up. It’s you to the nearest magistrate, which happens to be Higley, of Roaring Fork. I’ll make an example of you fellows.”
There was nothing for Gregg to say and nothing for Edwards to do but obey, for a resolute ranger with an excellent weapon of the latest and most approved angular pattern stood ready to enforce his command; and when the pack was recinched, Cavanagh waved an imperative hand. “I guess I’ll have to take charge of your guns,” he said, and they yielded without a word of protest. “Now march! Take the left-hand trail. I’ll be close behind.”
A couple of hours of silent travel brought them to the ranger’s cabin, and there he ordered a dismount.
As the coffee was boiling he lectured them briefly. “You fellows are not entirely to blame,” he remarked, philosophically. “You’ve been educated to think a game warden a joke and Uncle Sam a long way off. But things have changed a bit. The law of the State has made me game warden, and I’m going to show you how it works. It’s my duty to see that you go down the road—and down you go!”
Edwards, the guide, was plainly very uneasy, and made several attempts to reach Cavanagh’s private ear, and at last succeeded. “I’ve been fooled into this,” he urged. “I was hard up and a stranger in the country, and this young fellow hired me to guide him across the range. I didn’t shoot a thing. I swear I didn’t. If you’ll let me off, I’ll hit the trail to the West and never look back. For God’s sake, don’t take me down the road! Let me off.”
“I can’t do that,” replied Cavanagh; but his tone was kindlier, for he perceived that the old fellow was thin, hollow-chested, and poorly clad. “You knew you were breaking the laws, didn’t you?”
This the culprit admitted. “But I was working for Sam Gregg, and when Joe asked me to go show him the trail, I didn’t expect to get cinched for killing game. I didn’t fire a shot—now that’s the God’s truth.”
“Nevertheless,” retorted Ross, “you were packing the head, and I must count you in the game.”
Edwards fell silent then, but something in his look deepened the ranger’s pity. His eyes were large and dark, and his face so emaciated that he seemed fit only for a sanitarium.
The trip to the Fork (timed to the gait of a lazy pack-horse) was a tedious eight hours’ march, and it was nearly seven o’clock when they arrived at the outskirts of the village. There had been very few words spoken by Cavanagh, and those which the prisoners uttered were not calculated to cheer the way. Joe blamed hisguide for their mishap. “You should have known how far the sound of our guns would carry,” he said.
As they were nearing the village he called out: “See here, Cavanagh, there’s no use taking me through town under arrest. I’ll cough up all we got right now. How much is the damage?”
“I can’t receive your fine,” replied Ross, “and, besides, you took your chances when you shot that sheep. You lost out, and I’m not going to let you off. This poaching must stop. You go right along with your guide.”
Again Edwards drew near, and pled in a low voice: “See here, Mr. Ranger, I have special reasons why I don’t want to go into this town under arrest. I wish you’d let me explain.”
There was deep emotion in his voice, but Ross was firm. “I’m sorry for you,” he said, “but my duty requires me to take you before a magistrate—”
“But you don’t know my case,” he replied, with bitter intensity. “I’m out ‘on parole.’ I can’t afford to be arrested in this way. Don’t you see?”
Ross looked at him closely. “Areyou telling me the truth?”
“Would you have mercy on me if I were?”
“I should be sorry for you, but I couldn’t let you go.”
“You won’t believe me, but it’s the God Almighty’s truth: I didn’t know Joe intended to kill that sheep. He asked me to show him over the pass. I had no intention of killing anything. I wish to God you would let me go!” His voice was tense with pleading.
“How about this, Gregg?” called Ross. “Your guide insists he had no hand in killing the ram?”
“He fired first, and I fired and finished him,” retorted Gregg.
“’Twas the other way,” declared Edwards. “The beast was crippled and escaping—I killed him with my revolver. I didn’t want to see him go off and die—”
“I guess that settles it,” said Cavanagh, decisively. “You take your medicine with Joe. If the justice wants to let you off easy, I can’t help it, but to turn you loose now would mean disloyalty to the service. Climb back into your saddle.”
Edwards turned away with shaking hands and unsteady step. “All right,” he said, “I’ll meet it.” He came back to say: “There’s no need of your saying anything about what I’ve told you.”
“No, you are a stranger to me. I know nothing of your life except that I found you with Joe, with this pack on your horse.”
“Much obliged,” said he, with a touch of bitter humor.
To the casual observer in a town of this character there was nothing specially noticeable in three horsemen driving a pack-horse, but to those whose eyes were keen the true relationship of the ranger to his captives was instantly apparent, and when they alighted at Judge Higley’s office a bunch of eager observers quickly collected.
“Hello Joe, what luck?” called Ballard.
“Our luck was a little too good—we caught a game warden,” replied the young scapegrace.
The ranger was chagrined to find the office of the justice closed for the day, and, turning to his captives, said: “I’m hungry, and I’ve no doubt you are. I’m going to take you into Mike Halsey’s saloon for supper, but remember you are my prisoners.” And to the little old remittance man, Sifton, who caught his eye, he explained his need of a justice and the town marshal.
“I’ll try to find the judge,” replied Sifton, with ready good-will, and at a sign from the ranger, Gregg and his herder entered the saloon.
In fifteen minutes the town was rumbling with the news. Under Ballard’s devilry, all the latent hatred of the ranger and all the concealed opposition to the Forest Service came to the surface like the scum on a pot of broth. The saloons and eating-houses boiled with indignant protest. “What business is it of Ross Cavanagh’s?” they demanded. “What call has he to interfere? He’s not a game warden.”
“Yes he is. All these rangers are game wardens,” corrected another.
“No, they’re not. They have to be commissioned by the Governor.”
“Well, he’s been commissioned; he’s warden all right.”
“I don’t believe it. Anyhow, he’s too fresh. He needs to have a halt. Let’s do him. Let’s bluff him out.”
Lee Virginia was in the kitchen superintending the service when one of the waiters came in, breathless with excitement. “Ross Cavanagh has shot Joe Gregg for killing sheep!”
Lee faced her with blanched face. “Who told you so?”
“They’re all talking about it out there. Gee! but they’re hot. Some of ’em want to lynch him.”
Lee hurried out into the dining-room, which was crowded with men and voicing deep excitement. Anger was in the air—a stormy rage, perceptible as a hot blast; and as she passed one table after another she heard ugly phrases applied to Cavanagh.
A half-dozen men were standing before the counter talking with Lize, but Lee pushed in to inquire with white, inquiring face: “What is it all about? What has happened?”
“Nothing much,” Lize replied, contemptuously, “but you’d think a horse had been stole. Ross has nipped Joe Gregg and one of his herders for killing mountain-sheep.”
“Do you mean he shot them?”
“Yes; he took their heads.”
Lee stood aghast. “What do you mean? Whose heads?”
Lize laughed. “The sheeps’ heads. Oh, don’t be scared, no one is hurt yet!”
The girl flushed with confusion as the men roared over her blunder. “One of the girls told me Mr. Cavanagh had killed a man,” she explained. “Where is he?”
Lize betrayed annoyance. “They say he’s taking supper at Mike Halsey’s, though why he didn’t come here I don’t see. What’s he going to do?” she asked. “Won’t the marshal take the men off his hands?”
“Not without warrant from Higley, and Higley is out of town. Ross’ll have to hold ’em till Higley gets back, or else take ’em over to Chauvenet,” Lize snorted. “Old Higley! Yes, he’s been known to disappear before when there was some real work to be done.”
The girl looked about her with a sharpening realization of the fact that all these men were squarely opposed to the ranger, and rather glad to know that his guardianship of the poachers was to be rendered troublesome. She could hear on all sides bitter curses openly directed against him. How little of real manliness could be detected in these grinning or malignant faces! Ill-formed, half-developed, bestial most of them, while others, though weakly good-humored, were ready to go with whatever current of strong passion blew upon them. Over against such creatures Ross Cavanagh stood off in heroic contrast—a man with work to do, and doing it like a patriot.
She went back to her own task with a vague sense of alarm. “Certainly they will not dare to interfere with an officer in the discharge of his duties,” she thought. She was eager to see him, and the thought that he might be obliged to ride away to Chauvenet without a word to her gave her a deeper feeling of annoyance and unrest. That he was in any real danger she could not believe.
It was disheartening to Cavanagh to see how some of the most influential citizens contrived to give encouragement to the riotous element of the town. A wink, a gesture, a careless word to the proper messenger, conveyed to the saloon rounders an assurance of sympathy which inflamed their resentment to the murderous point.
The truth is, this little village, sixty miles from the railway, still retained in its dives and shanties the lingering miasma of the old-time free-range barbarism. It trailed a dark history on its legal side as well as on its openly violent side, for it had been one of the centres of the Rustler’s War, and one of the chief points of attack on the part of the cattle-barons. It was still a rendezvous for desperate and shameless characters—a place of derelicts, survivals of the days of deep drinking, furious riding, and ready gun-play.
True, its famous desperadoes were now either dead or distantly occupied; but the mantle of violence, the tradition of lawlessness, had fallen to the seedy old cow-punchers and to the raw and vulgar youths from the ill-conditioned homes of the middle West. The air of the reckless old-time range still clung rancidly in the low groggeries, as a deadly gas hangs about the lower levels of a mine. It was confessedly one of the worst communities in the State.
“Let’s run the sonovagun!” was the suggestion of several of Gregg’s friends.
The fact that the ranger was a commissioned officer of the law, and that the ram’s head had been found on the poacher’s pack, made very little difference to these irresponsible instigators to assault. It was wonderful how highly that loafing young rascal, Joe Gregg, was prized at the moment. “It’s an outrage that the son of a leading citizen should be held up in this way by one of the forestry Cossacks,” declared one of the merchants.
The discussion which took place over the bars of thetown was at the riot-heat by nine o’clock, and soon after ten a crowd of howling, whooping bad boys, and disreputable ranch-hands was parading the walks, breathing out vile threats against the ranger.
Accustomed to men of this type, Cavanagh watched them come and go at Halsey’s bar with calculating eyes. “There will be no trouble for an hour or two, but meanwhile what is to be done? Higley is not to be found, and the town marshal is also ‘out of town.’” To Halsey he said: “I am acting, as you know, under both Federal and State authority, and I call upon you as a law-abiding citizen to aid me in holding these men prisoners. I shall camp right here till morning, or until the magistrate or the marshal relieves me of my culprits.”
Halsey was himself a sportsman—a genuine lover of hunting and a fairly consistent upholder of the game laws; but perceiving that the whole town had apparently lined up in opposition to the ranger, he lost courage. His consent was half-hearted, and he edged away toward the front window of his bar-room, nervously seeking to be neutral—“to carry water on both shoulders,” as the phrase goes.
The talk grew less jocular as the drinks took effect, and Neill Ballard, separating himself from the crowd, came forward, calling loudly: “Come out o’ there, Joe! Youse a hell of a sport! Come out and have a drink!”
His words conveyed less of battle than his tone. He was, in fact, urging a revolt, and Cavanagh knew it.
Gregg rose as if to comply. The ranger stopped him. “Keep your seat,” said he. And to Ballard he warninglyremarked: “And you keep away from my prisoners.”
“Do you own this saloon?” retorted the fellow, truculently. “I reckon Halsey’s customers have some rights. What are you doing here, anyway? This is no jail.”
“Halsey has given me the privilege of holding my prisoners here till the justice is found. It isn’t my fault that the town is without judge or jail.” He was weakened by the knowledge that Halsey had only half-consented to aid justice; but his pride was roused, and he was determined upon carrying his arrest to its legitimate end. “I’m going to see that these men are punished if I have to carry them to Sulphur City,” he added.
“Smash the lights!” shouted some one at the back.
Here was the first real note of war, and Ross cried out sharply: “If a man lifts a hand toward the light I’ll cut it off!”
There was a stealthy movement in the crowd, and leaping upon the counter a reckless cub reached for the lamp.
Cavanagh’s revolver shattered the globe in the fellow’s very palm. “Get down from there!” he commanded.
The crowd surged back against the front door, several drawn weapons shining in their hands. Some of the faces were a-grin, others were thrust forward like the heads of snakes, their eyes glittering with hate.
It is an appalling moment to a man of discernment when he looks into the faces of his fellows and hears only the laugh of the wolf, the hiss of the snake, the snarl of the tiger. At the moment Cavanagh despised with ameasureless contempt the entire commonwealth and its long-established school of violence; but fixing his thought on his far-away chief, he lost all fear. His voice was perfectly calm as he said: “I am wearing the uniform of the Federal service, and the man that interferes with me will feel the vengeance of the Federal arm. You can get me, but I’ll get some of you at the same time, and the department will get the rest.”
The mob had not found its leader. It hesitated and blustered but did not strike, and eventually edged out of the door and disappeared; but the silence which followed its retreat was more alarming to the ranger than its presence. Some slyer mischief was in these minds. He feared that they were about to cut the electric-light wires, and so plunge him into darkness, and to prepare for that emergency he called upon the bartender (Halsey having vanished) for a lamp or a lantern.
The fellow sullenly set about this task, and Ross, turning to Gregg, said: “If you’ve any influence with this mob, you’d better use it to keep them out of mischief, for I’m on this job to the bitter end, and somebody’s going to be hurt.”
Gregg, who seemed quite detached from the action and rather delighted with it, replied: “I have no influence. They don’t care a hang about me; they have it in for you, that’s all.”
Edwards remained silent, with his hat drawn low over his eyes. It was evident that he was anxious to avoid being seen and quite willing to keep out of the conflict; but with no handcuffs and the back door of the saloonunguarded, Ross was aware that his guard must be incessant and alertly vigilant. “Where are the law-abiding citizens of the town?” he asked of Sifton, who remained in the saloon.
The dry little whisp of manhood had some spark of life in him, for he said: “In their beds, the cowardly hounds!”
“They must know that this gang of hobos is threatening me.”
“Certainly they do; but they don’t intend to endanger their precious hides. They would be well pleased to have you disabled.”
It was incredible! Low as his estimate of the Fork had been, Cavanagh could not believe that it would sit quietly by and see an officer of the State defeated in his duty. “Such a thing could not happen under the English flag,” he said, and at the moment his adopted country seemed a miserable makeshift. Only the thought of Redfield and the chief nerved him for the long vigil. “The chief will understand if it comes up to him,” he said.
Lize Wetherford came hurrying in, looking as though she had just risen from her bed. She was clothed in a long red robe, her grizzled hair was loose, her feet were bare, and she carried a huge old-fashioned revolver in her hand. Her mouth was stern.
Stopping abruptly as she caught sight of Ross standing in the middle of the floor unhurt, she exclaimed: “There you are! Are you all right?”
“As a trivet,” he replied.
She let her gun-hand relax. “What was the shooting?”
“A little bluff on my part.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“No.”
She was much relieved. “I was afraid they’d got you. I came as quick as I could. I was abed. That fool doctor threw a chill into me, and I’ve been going to roost early according to orders. I didn’t hear your gun, but Lee did, and she came to tell me. They’re hell-roaring down the street yet. Don’t let ’em get behind you. If I was any good I’d stay and help. Where’s Mike?” She addressed the tender at the bar.
“I don’t know. Gone home, I guess.”
“Sneaked, has he?”
“So far as I know the only law-upholding citizen in the place, barring yourself, is Sifton,” said Ross, indicating the Englishman, who stood as if cold, pressing his hands together to hide their trembling.
Lize perceived the irony of this. “Two Britishers and two women! Well, by God, this is a fine old town! What you going to do—hold your men here all night?”
“I don’t see any other way. Halsey turned the place over to me—but—” He looked about him suspiciously.
“Bring ’em into my place. Lee has had new locks put on our doors; they’ll help some.”
“I don’t like to do that, Mrs. Wetherford,” he replied, with greater respect than he had ever shown her before. “They may attack me there.”
“All the better; I’ll be on hand to help—but they’re less likely to boil in on you through a locked door.”
“But your daughter? It will alarm her.”
“She’ll be in the other house, and, besides, she’d feel easier if you are in my place. She’s all wrought up by the attack on you.”
Ross turned to his prisoners. “Follow Mrs. Wetherford and—eyes front!”
“You needn’t worry about me,” said Joe, “I won’t run.”
“I don’t intend to give you a chance,” replied Ross.
Edwards seemed to have lost in both courage and physical stature; he slouched along with shuffling step, his head bent and his face pale. Ross was now profoundly sorry for him, so utterly craven and broken was his look.
VIIITHE SECOND ATTACK
Lee was waiting on the porch of the hotel, tense with excitement, straining her ears and eyes to see what was taking place.
The night had started with a small sickle of moon, but this had dropped below the range, leaving the street dark, save where the lights from the windows of the all-night eating-houses and saloons lay out upon the walk, and, while she stood peering out, the sound of rancorous howling and shrill whooping came to her ears with such suggestion of ferocity that she shivered.
Every good and honorable trait seemed lost out of her neighbors. She saw the whole country but as a refuge for criminals, ungovernable youths, and unsexed women—a wilderness of those who had no regard for any code of morals which interfered with their own desires. Her memories of the past freshened as she listened. In such wise she had shuddered, as a child, while troops of celebrating cowboys rode up and down the streets. In such wise, too, the better (and more timid) element of the town had put out their lights and retired, leaving their drunken helots and the marshal to fight it out in vague tumult.
A few of the hotel guests had gone to bed, but the women were up, excited and nervous, starting at every fresh outburst of whooping, knowing that their sons or husbands were out in the street “to see the fun,” and that they might meet trouble.
At last Lee discerned her mother returning from Halsey’s, followed by three men. Withdrawing from the little porch whereon she had been standing, she reentered the house to meet her mother in the hall. “Where is Mr. Cavanagh?” she asked.
“Out in the dining-room. You see, Mike Halsey is no kind o’ use. He vamoosed and left Ross down there alone, with his two prisoners and the lights likely to be turned out on him. So I offered the caffy as a calaboose. They are sure in for a long and tedious night.”
Lee was alarmed at her mother’s appearance. “You must go to bed. You look ghastly.”
“I reckon I’d better lie down for a little while, but I can’t sleep. Ross may need me. There isn’t a man to help him but me, and that loafer Ballard is full of gall. He’s got it in for Ross, and will make trouble if he can.”
“What can we do?”
“Shoot!” replied Lize, with dry brevity. “I wouldn’t mind a chance to plug some of the sweet citizens of this town. I owe them one or two.”
With this sentence in her ears, Lee Virginia went to her bed, but not to slumber. Her utter inability either to control her mother’s action or to influence that of the mob added to her uneasiness.
The singing, shouting, trampling of the crowd went on, and once a group of men halted just outside her window, and she heard Neill Ballard noisily, drunkenly arguing as to the most effective method of taking the prisoners. His utterances, so profane and foul, came to her like echoes from out an inferno. The voices were all at the moment like the hissing of serpents, the snarling of tigers. How dared creatures of this vile type use words of contempt against Ross Cavanagh?
“Come on, boys!” urged Ballard, his voice filled with reckless determination. “Let’s run him.”
As they passed, the girl sprang up and went to her mother’s room to warn her of the threatened attack.
Lize was already awake and calmly loading a second revolver by the light of the electric bulb.
“What are you doing?” the girl asked, her blood chilling at sight of the weapon.
“Hell’s to pay out there, and I’m going to help pay it.” A jarring blow was heard. “Hear that! They’re breaking in—” She started to leave the room.
Lee stopped her. “Where are you going?”
“To help Ross. Here!” She thrust the handle of a smaller weapon into Lee’s hand. “Ed Wetherford’s girl ought to be able to take care of herself. Come on!”
With a most unheroic horror benumbing her limbs, Lee followed her mother through the hall. The sound of shouts and the trampling of feet could be heard, and she came out into the restaurant just in time to photograph upon her brain a scene whose significance was at once apparent. On a chair between his two prisoners,and confronting Ballard at the head of a crowd of frenzied villains, stood the ranger, a gleaming weapon in his hand, a look of resolution on his face.
What he had said, or what he intended to do, she did not learn, for her mother rushed at the invaders with the mad bravery of a she-bear. “Get out of here!” she snarled, thrusting her revolver into the very mouth of the leader.
They all fell back in astonishment and fear.
Ross leaped to her side. “Leave them to me!” he said. “I’ll clear the room.”
“Not on your life! This is my house. I have the right to smash the fools.” And she beat them over the heads with her pistol-barrel.
Recognizing that she was minded to kill, they retreated over the threshold, and Ross, drawing the door close behind them, turned to find Lee Virginia confronting Edwards, who had attempted to escape into the kitchen. The girl’s face was white, but the eye of her revolver stared straight and true into her prisoner’s face.
With a bound Ross seized him and flung him against the wall. “Get back there!” he shouted. “You must take your medicine with your boss.”
The old fellow hurriedly replaced his ragged hat, and, folding his arms, sank back into his chair with bowed head, while Lize turned upon Joe Gregg. “What the devil did you go into this kind of deal for? You knew what the game laws was, didn’t you? Your old dad is all for State regulation, and here you are breaking a State law. Why don’t you stand up for the code like a sport?”
Joe, who had been boasting of the smiles he had drawn from Lee, did not relish this tongue-lashing from her mother, but, assuming a careless air, he said, “I’m all out of smokes; get me a box, that’s a good old soul.”
Lize regarded him with the expression of one nonplussed. “You impudent little cub!” she exclaimed. “What you need is a booting!”
The ranger addressed himself to Lee. “I want to thank you for a very opportune intervention. I didn’t know you could handle a gun so neatly.”
She flushed with pleasure. “Oh yes, I can shoot. My father taught me when I was only six years old.”
As she spoke, Ross caught the man Edwards studying them with furtive glance, but, upon being observed, he resumed his crouching attitude, which concealed his face beneath the rim of his weather-worn hat. It was evident that he was afraid of being recognized. He had the slinking air of the convict, and his form, so despairing in its lax lines, appealed to Lee with even greater poignancy than his face. “I’m sorry,” she said to him, “but it was my duty to help Mr. Cavanagh.”
He glanced up with a quick sidewise slant. “That’s all right, miss; I should have had sense enough to keep out of this business.” He spoke with difficulty, and his voice was hoarse with emotion.
Lize turned to Lee. “The Doc said ‘no liquor,’ but I guess here’s where I draw one—I feel faint.”
Ross hurried to her side, while young Gregg tendered a handsome flask. “Here’s something.”
Lize put it away. “Not from you. Just reach undermy desk, Ross; you’ll find some brandy there. That’s it,” she called, as he produced a bottle. Clutching it eagerly, she added: “They say it’s poison, but it’s my meat to-night.”
She was, in truth, very pale, and her hands were trembling in a weakness that went to her daughter’s heart. Lee admired her bravery, her manlike readiness of action, but her words, her manner (now that the stress of the battle was over), hurt and shamed her. Little remained of the woman in Lize, and the old sheep-herder eyed her with furtive curiosity.
“I was afraid you’d shoot,” Lize explained to Ross, “and I didn’t want you to muss up your hands on the dirty loafers. I had the right to kill; they were trespassers, and I’d ‘a’ done it, too.”
“I don’t think they intended to actually assault me,” he said, “but it’s a bit discouraging to find the town so indifferent over both the breaking of the laws and the doings of a drunken mob. I’m afraid the most of them are a long way from law-abiding people yet.”
Joe, who did not like the position in which he stood as respecting Lee, here made an offer of aid. “I don’t suppose my word is any good now, but if you’ll let me do it I’ll go out and round up Judge Higley. I think I know where he is.”
To this Lize objected. “You can’t do that, Ross; you better hold the fort right here till morning.”
Lee was rather sorry, too, for young Gregg, who bore his buffeting with the imperturbable face of the heroes of his class. He had gone into this enterprise with muchthe same spirit in which he had stolen gates and misplaced signs during his brief college career, and he was now disposed (in the presence of a pretty girl) to carry it out with undiminished impudence. “It only means a fine, anyway,” he assured himself.
Cavanagh did not trust Gregg, either, and as this was the first time he had been called upon to arrest men for killing game out of season, he could not afford to fail of any precaution. Tired and sleepy as he was, he must remain on guard. “But you and your daughter must go to bed at once,” he urged.
Lize, under the spur of her dram, talked on with bitter boldness. “I’m going to get out o’ this town as soon as I can sell. I won’t live in it a minute longer than I have to. It used to have men into it; now they’re only hobos. It’s neither the old time nor the new; it’s just a betwixt and between, with a lot o’ young cubs like Joe Gregg pretendin’ to be tough. I never thought I’d be sighin’ for horse-cars, but these rowdy chumps like Neill Ballard give me a pain. Not one of ’em has sand enough to pull a gun in the open, but they’d plug you from a dark alley or fire out of a crowd. It was different in the old days. I’ve seen men walk out into that street, face each other, and open fire quiet as molasses. But now it’s all talk and blow. Themenhave all grown old or got out.”
To this Gregg listened with expressionless visage, his eyes dreamily fixed on Lee’s face; but his companion, the old herder, seemed to palpitate with shame and fear. And Ross had the feeling at the moment that in this ragged, unkempt old hobo was the skeleton of one ofthe old-time heroes. He was wasted with drink and worn by wind and rain, but he was very far from being commonplace. “Here they come again!” called Lize, as the hurry of feet along the walk threatened another attack. Ross Cavanagh again drew his revolver and stood at guard, and Lize recovering her own weapon took a place by his side.
With the strength of a bear the new assailant shook the bolted door. “Let me in!” he roared.
“Go to hell!” replied Lize, calmly.
“It’s dad!” called young Gregg. “Go away, you chump.”
“Let me in or I’ll smash this door!” retorted Gregg.
“You smash that door, old Bullfrog,” announced Lize, “and I’ll carry one of your lungs away. I know your howl—it don’t scare me. I’ve stood off one whole mob to-night, and I reckon I’m good for you. If you want to get in here you hunt up the judge of this town and the constable.”
After a pause Sam called, “Are you there, son?”
“You bet he is,” responded Lize, “and here he’ll stay.”
Joe added: “And you’d better take the lady’s advice, pop. She has the drop on you.”
The old rancher muttered a fierce curse while Ross explained the situation. “I’m as eager to get rid of these culprits as any one can be, but they must be taken by proper authority. Bring a writ from the magistrate and you may have them and welcome.”
Gregg went away without further word, and Lize said: “He’ll find Higley if he’s in town; and heisintown, for I saw him this afternoon. He’s hiding out to save himself trouble.”
Lee Virginia, with an understanding of what the ranger had endured, asked: “Can’t I get you something to eat? Would you like some coffee?”
“I would, indeed,” he answered, and his tone pleased her.
She hurried away to get it while Cavanagh disposed his prisoners behind a couple of tables in the corner. “I guess you’re in for a night of it,” he remarked, grimly. “So make yourselves as comfortable as you can. Perhaps your experience may be a discouragement to others of your kind.”
Lee returned soon with a pot of fresh coffee and some sandwiches, the sight of which roused young Gregg to impudent remark. “Well, notice that! And we’re left out!” But Edwards shrank into the shadow, as if the light hurt him.
Ross thanked Lee formally, but there was more than gratitude in his glance, and she turned away to hide her face from other eyes. Strange place it was for the blooming of love’s roses, but they were in her cheeks as she faced her mother; and Lize, with fresh acknowledgment of her beauty, broke out again: “Well, this settles it. I’m going to get out of this town, dearie. I’m done. This ends the cattle country for me. I don’t know how I’ve put up with these yapps all these years. I’ve been robbed and insulted and spit upon just long enough. I won’t have you dragged into this mess. I ought to have turned you back the day you landed here.”
The old man in the corner was listening, straining his attention in order to catch every word she uttered, and Ross again caught a gleam in his eyes which puzzled him. Before he had time to turn his wonder over in his mind they all caught the sound of feet along the walk, but this time the sound was sedate and regular, like the movement of police.
Both prisoners rose to their feet as Cavanagh again stood alert. The feet halted; a sharp rap sounded on the door.
“Who’s there?” demanded Lize.
“The law!” replied a wheezy voice. “Open in the name of the law!”
“It’s old Higley,” announced Lize. “Open the door, Ross.”
“Come in, Law,” she called, ironically, as the justice appeared. “You look kind of mice-eaten, but you’re all the law this blame town can sport. Come in and do your duty.”
Higley (a tall man, with a rusty brown beard, very much on his dignity) entered the room, followed by a short, bullet-headed citizen in a rumpled blue suit with a big star on his breast. Behind on the sidewalk Ballard and a dozen of his gang could be seen. Sam Gregg, the moving cause of this resurrection of law and order, followed the constable, bursting out big curses upon his son. “You fool,” he began, “I warned you not to monkey with them sheep. You—”
Higley had the grace to stop that. “Let up on the cuss-words, Sam; there are ladies present,” said he, noddingtoward Lee. Then he opened upon Cavanagh. “Well, sir, what’s all this row? What’s your charge against these men?”
“Killing mountain sheep. I caught them with the head of a big ram upon their pack.”
“Make him show his commission,” shouted Gregg. “He’s never been commissioned. He’s no game warden.”
Higley hemmed. “I—ah—Oh, his authority is all right, Sam; I’ve seen it. If he can prove that these men killed the sheep, we’ll have to act.”
Cavanagh briefly related how he had captured the men on the trail. “The head of the ram is at the livery barn with my horse.”
“How about that?” asked Higley, turning to Joe.
“I guess that’s right,” replied the insolent youth. “We killed the sheep all right.”
Higley was in a corner. He didn’t like to offend Gregg, and yet the case was plain. He met the issue blandly. “Marshal, take these men into custody!” Then to Ross: “We’ll relieve you of their care, Mr. Cavanagh. You may appear to-morrow at nine.”
It was a farcical ending to a very arduous thirty-six-hour campaign, and Ross, feeling like a man who, having rolled a huge stone to the top of a hill, has been ordered to drop it, said, “I insist on the maximum penalty of the law, Justice Higley, especially for this man!” He indicated Joe Gregg.
“No more sneaking, Higley,” added Lize, uttering her distrust in blunt phrase. “You put these men through or I’ll make you trouble.”
Higley turned, and with unsteady solemnity saluted. “Fear not my government, madam,” said he, and so made exit.
After the door had closed behind them, Cavanagh bitterly complained. “I’ve delivered my prisoners over into the hands of their friends. I feel like a fool. What assurance have I that they will ever be punished?”
“You have Higley’s word,” retorted Lize, with ironic inflection. “He’ll fine ’em as much as ten dollars apiece, and confiscate the head, which is worth fifty.”
“No matter what happens now, you’ve done your duty,” added Lee Virginia, with intent to comfort him.
Lize, now that the stress of the battle was over, fell a-tremble. “I reckon I’ll have to go to bed,” she admitted. “I’m all in. This night service is wearing.”
Ross was alarmed at the sudden droop of her head. “Lean on me,” he said, “it’s my turn to be useful.”
She apologized. “I can’t stand what I could once,” she confessed, as he aided her into the hotel part of the building. “It’s my nerve—seem’s like it’s all gone. I go to pieces like a sick girl.”
She did, indeed, resemble the wreck of a woman as she lay out upon her bed, her hands twitching, her eyes closed, and Ross was profoundly alarmed. “You need the doctor,” he urged. “Let me bring him.”
“No,” she said, huskily, but with decision, “I’m only tired—I’ll be all right soon. Send the people away; tell ’em to go to bed.”
For half an hour Cavanagh remained in the room waiting to see if the doctor’s services would be required,but at the end of that time, as she had apparently fallen asleep, he rose and tiptoed out into the hall.
Lee followed, and they faced each other in such intimacy as the shipwrecked feel after the rescue. The house was still astir with the feet of those to whom the noises of the night had been a terror or a lure, and their presence, so far from being a comfort, a protection, filled the girl’s heart with fear and disgust. The ranger explained the outcome of the turmoil, and sent the excited folk to their beds with the assurance that all was quiet and that their landlady was asleep.
When they were quite alone Lee said: “You must not go out into the streets to-night.”
“There’s no danger. These hoodlums would not dare to attack me.”
“Nevertheless, you shall not go!” she declared. “Wait a moment,” she commanded, and reentered her mother’s room.
As he stood there at Lize Wetherford’s door, and his mind went back over her brave deed, which had gone far to atone for her vulgarity, his respect for her deepened. Her resolute insistence upon law showed a complete change of front. “There is more good in her than I thought,” he admitted, and it gave him pleasure, for it made Lee Virginia’s character just that much more dependable. He thrilled with a new and wistful tenderness as the girl opened the door and stepped out, close beside him.
“Her breathing is quieter,” she whispered. “I think she’s going to sleep. It’s been a terrible night! Youmust be horribly tired. I will find you some place to sleep.”
“It has been a strenuous campaign,” he admitted. “I’ve been practically without sleep for three nights, but that’s all in my job. I won’t mind if Higley will ‘soak’ those fellows properly.”
She looked troubled. “I don’t know what to do about a bed for you; everything is taken—except the couch in the front room.”
“Don’t trouble, I beg of you. I can pitch down anywhere. I’m used to hard beds. I must be up early to-morrow, anyway.”
“Please don’t go till after breakfast,” she smiled, wanly, “I may need you.”
He understood. “What did the doctor say?”
“He said mother was in a very low state of vitality and that she must be very careful, which was easy enough to say. But how can I get her to rest and to diet? You have seen how little she cares for the doctor’s orders. He told her not to touch alcohol.”
“She is more like a man than a woman,” he answered.
She led the way into the small sitting-room which lay at the front of the house, and directly opposite the door of her own room. It was filled with shabby parlor furniture, and in one corner stood a worn couch. “I’m sorry, but I can offer nothing better,” she said. “Every bed is taken, but I have plenty of blankets.”
There was something delightfully suggestive in being thus waited upon by a young and handsome woman, and the ranger submitted to it with the awkward grace ofone unaccustomed to feminine care. The knowledge that the girl was beneath him in birth, and that she was considered to be (in a sense) the lovely flower of a corrupt stock, made the manifest innocency of her voice and eyes the more appealing. He watched her moving about the room with eyes in which a furtive flame glowed.
“This seems a long way from that dinner at Redfield’s, doesn’t it?” he remarked, as she turned from spreading the blankets on the couch.
“It is another world,” she responded, and her face took on a musing gravity.
Then they faced each other in silence, each filled with the same delicious sense of weakness, of danger, reluctant to say good-night, longing for the closer touch which dawning love demanded, and yet—something in the girl defended her, defeated him.
“You must call me if I can be of any help,” he repeated, and his voice was tremulous with feeling.
“I will do so,” she answered.
Still they did not part. His voice was very tender as he said, “I don’t like to see you exposed to such experiences.”
“I was not afraid—only for you a little,” she answered.
“The Redfields like you. Eleanor told me she would gladly help you. Why do you stay here?”
“I cannot leave my mother.”
“I’m not so sure of your duty in that regard. She got on without you for ten years. You have a right to consider yourself. You don’t belong here.”
“Neither do you,” she retorted.
“Oh yes, I do—at least, the case is different with me; my work is here. It hurts me to think of going back to the hills, leaving you here in the midst of these wolves.”
He was talking now in the low, throbbing utterance of a man carried out of himself. “It angers me to think that the worst of these loafers, these drunken beasts, can glare at you—can speak to you. They have no right to breathe the same air with one like you.”
She did not smile at this; his voice, his eyes were filled with the gravity of the lover whose passion is not humorous. Against his training, his judgment, he was being drawn into closer and closer union with this daughter of violence, and he added: “You may not see me in the morning.”
“You must not go without seeing my mother. You must have your breakfast with us. It hurt us to think you didn’t come to us for supper.”
Her words meant little, but the look in her eyes, the music in her voice, made him shiver. He stammered: “I—I must return to my duties to-morrow. I should go back to-night.”
“You mustn’t do that. You can’t do that. You are to appear before the judge.”
He smiled. “That is true. I’d forgotten that.”
Radiant with relief, she extended her hand. “Good-night, then. You must sleep.”
He took her hand and drew her toward him, then perceiving both wonder and fear in her eyes, he conqueredhimself. “Good-night,” he repeated, dropping her hand, but his voice was husky with its passion.
Tired as he was, the ranger could not compose himself to sleep. The memory of the girl’s sweet face, the look of half-surrender in her eyes, the knowledge that she loved him, and that she was lying but a few yards from him, made slumber impossible. At the moment she seemed altogether admirable, entirely worthy to be won.