Sam, come to Chalkeye’s place soon as you get this. There we will talk over the business.You Know Who.
Sam, come to Chalkeye’s place soon as you get this. There we will talk over the business.
You Know Who.
You Know Who.
Though he did not know who, Curly thought he could give a pretty good guess both as to the author and the business that needed talking over.
Through the open door of the hotel he saw Sam approaching. Quickly he sealed the flap of the envelope again, and held it pressed against his fingers while he waited.
“A letter for you, Sam.”
Cullison tore open the envelope and read the note.
“A friend of mine has come to town and wants to see me,” he explained.
To help out his bluff, Curly sprang the feeble-minded jest on him. “Blonde or brunette?”
“I’m no lady’s man,” Sam protested, content to let the other follow a wrong scent.
“Sure not. It never is a lady,” Flandrau called after him as he departed.
But Sam had no more than turned the corner before Curly was out of a side door and cutting through an alley toward Chalkeye’s place. Reaching the back door of the saloon, he opened it a few inches and peered in. A minute later Sam opened the front screen and asked a question of the man in the apron. The bartender gave a jerk of his thumb. Sam walked toward the rear and turned in at the second private booth.
Curly slipped forward quietly, and passed unobserved into the third stall. The wall which divided one room from another was of pine boarding and did not reach the ceiling. As the eavesdropper slid to a seat a phonograph in front began the Merry Widow waltz. Noiselessly Flandrau stood on the cushioned bench with his ear close to the top of the dividing wall. He could hear a murmur of voices but could not make out a word. The record on the instrument wheezed to silence, but immediately a rag-time tune followed.
Presently the music died away. Flattened againstthe wall, his attention strained to the utmost, Curly began to catch words and phrases of the low-voiced speakers in the next compartment. His position was perilous in the extreme, but he would not leave now until he had found out what he wanted to know.
CHAPTER IXEAVESDROPPING
Out of the murmur of voices came one that Curly recognized as that of Soapy Stone, alias You Know Who.
“ ... then you’ll take the 9:57, Sam....”
After more whispering, “Yep, soon as you hear the first shot ... cover the passengers....”
The listener lost what followed. Once he thought he heard the name Tin Cup, but he could not be sure. Presently another fragment drifted to him. “...make our getaway and cache the plunder....”
The phonograph lifted up its voice again. This time it was “I love a lassie.” Before the song was finished there came the sound of shuffling feet. One of the men in the next stall was leaving. Curly could not tell which one, nor did he dare look over the top of the partition to find out. He was playing safe. This adventure had caught him so unexpectedly that he had not found time to run back to his room for his six-gun. What would happen to him if he were caught listening was not a matterof doubt. Soapy would pump lead into him till he quit kicking, slap a saddle on a broncho, and light out for the Sonora line.
As the phonograph finished unexpectedly—someone had evidently interrupted the record—the fragment of a sentence seemed to jump at Curly.
“ ... so the kid will get his in the row.”
It was the voice of Soapy, raised slightly to make itself heard above the music.
“Take care,” another voice replied, and Flandrau would have sworn that this belonged to Blackwell.
Stone, who had been sitting on the other side of the table, moved close to the paroled convict. Between him and Curly there was only the thickness of a plank. The young man was afraid that the knocking of his heart could be heard.
“ ... don’t like it,” Blackwell was objecting sullenly.
“Makes it safe for us. Besides”—Stone’s voice grated like steel rasping steel, every word distinct though very low—“I swore to pay off Luck Cullison, and by God! I’m going to do it.”
“Someone will hear you if you ain’t careful,” the convict protested anxiously.
“Don’t be an old woman, Lute.”
“ ... if you can do it safe. I owe Luck Cullison much as you do, but....”
Again they fell to whispers. The next word thatcame to Curly clearly was his own name. But it was quite a minute before he gathered what they were saying.
“Luck Cullison went his bail. I learnt it this mo’ning.”
“The son-of-a-gun. It’s a cinch he’s a spy. And me wanting you to let him in so’s he could hold the sack instead of Sam.”
“Knew it wouldn’t do, Lute. He’s smart as a whip.”
“Reckon he knows anything?”
“No. Can’t.”
“If I thought he did——”
“Keep your shirt on, Lute. He don’t know a thing. And you get revenge on him all right. Sam will run with him and his friends while he’s here. Consequence is, when they find the kid where we leave him they’ll sure guess Curly for one of his pardners. Tell you his ticket is good as bought to Yuma. He’s a horse thief. Why shouldn’t he be a train robber, too. That’s how a jury will argue.”
Blackwell grumbled something under his breath.
Stone’s voice grated harshly. “Me too. If he crosses my trail I’m liable to spoil his hide before court meets. No man alive can play me for a sucker and throw me down. Not Soapy Stone.”
Once more the voices ran together indistinctly.It was not till Blackwell suggested that they go get a drink that Curly understood anything more of what was being said.
The outlaws passed out of the little room and strolled forward to the bar.
Curly had heard more than he had expected to. Moreover, as he congratulated himself, his luck had stood up fine. Nobody in the sunburnt territory felt happier than he did that minute when he struck the good fresh air of the alley and knew that he had won through his hazardous adventure alive.
The first thing that Flandrau did was to walk toward the outskirts of the town where he could think it out by himself. But in this little old planet events do not always occur as a man plans them. Before he reached Arroyo street Curly came plump against his old range-mate Slats Davis.
The assistant foreman of the Hashknife nodded as he passed. He had helped Curly escape less than a month before, but he did not intend to stay friendly with a rustler.
Flandrau caught him by the arm. “Hello, Slats. You’re the man I want.”
“I’m pretty busy to-day,” Davis answered stiffly.
“Forget it. This is more important.”
“Well?”
“Come along and take a walk. I got something to tell you.”
“Can’t you tell it here?”
“I ain’t going to, anyhow. Come along. I ain’t got smallpox.”
Reluctantly Davis fell in beside him. “All right. Cut it short. I’ve got to see a man.”
“He’ll have to wait.” Curly could not help chuckling to himself at the evident embarrassment of the other. The impish impulse to “devil” him had its way. “You’re a man of experience, Slats. Ever hold up a train?”
The foreman showed plainly his disgust at this foolishness. “Haven’t you sense enough ever to be serious, Curly? You’re not a kid any more. In age you’re a grown man. But how do you act? Talk like that don’t do you any good. You’re in trouble good and deep. Folks have got their eyes on you. Now is the time to show them you have quit all that hell raising you have been so busy at.”
“He sure is going good this mo’ning,” Curly drawled confidentially to the scenery. “You would never guess, would you, that him and me had raised that crop in couples?”
“That’s all right, too. I’m no sky pilot. But I know when to quit. Seemingly you don’t. I hear you’ve been up at Stone’s horse ranch. I want to tell you that won’t do you any good if it gets out.”
“Never was satisfied till I had rounded up all the trouble in sight. That’s why I mentioned this train robbery. Some of my friends are aiming to hold up one shortly. If you’d like to get in I’ll say a good word for you.”
Davis threw at him a look that drenched like ice water. “I expect you and me are traveling different trails these days, Curly. You don’t mean it of course, but the point is I’m not going to joke with you along that line. Understand?”
“Wrong guess, old hoss. I do mean it.”
Davis stopped in his tracks. “Then you’ve said too much to me. We’ll part right here.”
“It takes two to agree to that, Slats.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. One is enough. We used to be good friends, but those days are past. None of us can keep a man from being a durned fool if he wants to be one. Nor a scoundrel. You’ve got the bit in your teeth and I reckon you’ll go till there is a smash. But you better understand this. When you choose Soapy Stone’s, crowd to run with that cuts out me and other decent folks. If they have sent you here to get me mixed up in their deviltry you go back and tell them there’s nothing doing.”
“Won’t have a thing to do with them. Is that it?”
“Not till the call comes for citizens to get together and run them out of the country. Or to put them behind bars. Or to string them to a cottonwood. Then I’ll be on the job.”
He stood there quiet and easy, the look in his steady eyes piercing Curly’s ironic smile as a summer sun does mackerel clouds in a clear sky. Not many men would have had the courage to send that message to Soapy and his outfit. For Stone was not only a man killer, but a mean one at that. Since he had come back from the penitentiary he had been lying pretty low, but he brought down from the old days a record that chilled the blood.
Curly sloughed his foolishness and came to the point.
“You’re on, Slats. I’m making that call to you now.”
The eyes of the two men fastened. Those of Flandrau had quit dancing and were steady as the sun in a blue sky. Surprise, doubt, wonder, relief filled in turn the face of the other man.
“I’m listening, Curly.”
His friend told him the whole story from the beginning, just as he had been used to do in the old days. And Davis heard it without a word, taking the tale in quietly with a grim look settling, on his face.
“So he aims to play traitor to young Cullison. The thing is damnable.”
“He means to shut Sam’s mouth for good and all. That is what he has been playing for from the start, to get even with Luck. He and his gang will get away with the haul and they will leave Sam dead on the scene of the hold-up. There will be some shooting, and it will be figured the boy was hit by one of the train crew. Nothing could be easier.”
“If it worked out right.”
“Couldn’t help working out right. That’s why Soapy didn’t let me in on the proposition. To get rid of one would be no great trouble, but two—well, that’s different. Besides, I could tell he was not sure of me. Now he aims to put me on the stand and prove by me that Sam and he had a quarrel and parted company mighty sore at each other hardly a week before the hold-up. He’ll have an alibi too to show he couldn’t have been in it. You’ll see.”
“You wouldn’t think a white man could take a revenge like that on his enemy. It’s an awful thing to do in cold blood.”
“Soapy is no white man. He’s a wolf. See how slick his scheme is. At one flip of the cards he kills the kid and damns his reputation. He scores Cullisonand he snuffs out Sam, who had had the luck to win the girl Soapy fancies. The boy gets his and the girl is shown she can’t love another man than Stone.”
“Ever hear the story of French Dan?” asked Slats.
“Not to know the right of it.”
“Soapy and Dan trained together in them days and went through a lot of meanness as side pardners. One day the Arivaca stage was held up by two men and the driver killed. In the scrap one of the men had his mask torn off. It was French Dan. Well, the outlaws had been too damned busy. Folks woke up and the hills were sprinkled with posses. They ran the fellows down and hunted them from place to place. Two—three times they almost nailed them. Shots were exchanged. A horse of one of the fugitives was killed and they could not get another. Finally one dark night the outlaws were surrounded. The posse lay down in the zacaton and waited for morning. In the night one of them heard a faint sound like the popping of a cork. When mo’ning broke the hunters crept forward through the thick grass. Guess what they found.”
Curly’s answer was prompt. “Gimme a harder one. There were two men and only one horse. The only chance was to slip through the line before dayarrived. My guess is that they found French Dan with a little round hole in his skull—and that the bullet making it had gone in from behind. My guess also is that the posse didn’t find the horse and the other man, just a trail through the zacaton back into the hills.”
“Go to the head of the class. There was one man too many in that thicket for the horse. French Dan’s pardner was afraid they might not agree about who was to have the bronch for a swift getaway. So he took no chances. There’s only one man alive to-day can swear that Soapy was the man with French Dan lying in the zacaton. And he’ll never tell, because he pumped the bullet into his friend. But one thing is sure. Soapy disappeared from Arizona for nearly two years. You can pick any reason you like for his going. That is the one I choose.”
“Same here. And the man that would shoot one partner in the back would shoot another if he had good reasons. By his way of it Soapy has reasons a-plenty.”
“I’m satisfied that is his game. Question is how to block it. Will you go to the sheriff?”
“No. Bolt would fall down on it. First off, he would not believe the story because I’m a rustler myself. Soapy and his friends voted for Bolt. He would go to them, listen to their story, prove partof it by me, and turn them loose for lack of evidence. Sam would go back to Dead Cow with them, and Stone would weave another web for the kid.”
“You’ve got it about right,” Slats admitted. “How about warning Sam?”
“No use. He would go straight to Soapy with it, and his dear friend would persuade him it was just a yarn cooked up to get him to throw down the only genuwine straight-up pal he ever had.”
“Cullison then?”
“You’re getting warm. I’ve had that notion myself. The point is, would he be willing to wait and let Soapy play his hand out till we called?”
“You would have to guarantee his boy would be safe meanwhile.”
“Two of us would have to watch him day and night without Sam knowing it.”
“Count me in.”
“This is where we hit heavy traveling, Slats. For we don’t know when the thing is going to be pulled off.”
“We’ll have to be ready. That’s all.”
“Happen to know whether Dick Maloney is here for the show?”
“Saw him this mo’ning. Luck is here too, him and his girl.”
“Good. We’ve got to have a talk with them,and it has to be on the q.t. You go back to town and find Dick. Tell him to meet us at the Del Mar, where Luck always puts up. Find out the number of Cullison’s room and make an appointment. I’ll be on El Molino street all mo’ning off and on. When you find out pass me without stopping, but tell me when we are to meet and just where.”
Curly gave Slats a quarter of an hour before sauntering back to town. As he was passing the Silver Dollar saloon a voice called him. Stone and Blackwell were standing in the door. Flandrau stopped.
Soapy’s deep-set eyes blazed at him. “You didn’t tell me it was Luck Cullison went bail for you, Curly.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“So you and him are thick, are you?”
“I’ve met him once, if that’s being thick. That time I shot him up.”
“Funny. And then he went bail for you.”
“Yes.”
“Now I wonder why.”
The eyes of the man had narrowed to red slits. His head had shot forward on his shoulders as that of a snake does. Curly would have given a good deal just then for the revolver lying on the bed of his room. For it was plain trouble wasin sight. The desperado had been drinking heavily and was ready to do murder.
“That’s easy to explain, Soapy. I shot him because I was driven to it. He’s too much of a man to bear a grudge for what I couldn’t help.”
“That’s it, is it? Does that explain why he dug up good money to turn loose a horse thief?”
“If I told you why, you would not understand.”
“Let’s hear you try.”
“He did it because I was young, just as Sam is; and because he figured that some day Sam might need a friend, too.”
“You’re a liar. He did it because you promised to sneak up to my ranch and spy on us. That’s why he did it.”
With the last word his gun jumped into sight. That he was lashing himself into a fury was plain. Presently his rage would end in a tragedy.
Given a chance, Curly would have run for it. But Soapy was a dead shot. Of a sudden the anger in the boy boiled up over the fear. In two jumps he covered the ground and jammed his face close to the cold rim of the blue steel barrel.
“I’m not heeled. Shoot and be damned, you coward. And with my last breath I’ll tell you that you’re a liar.”
Flandrau had called his bluff, though he had not meant it as one. A dozen men were in sight andwere watching. They had heard the young man tell Stone he was not armed. Public opinion would hold him to account if he shot Curly down in cold blood. He hung there undecided, breathing fast, his jaw clamped tightly.
The lad hammered home his defiance. “Drop that gun, you four-flusher, and I’ll whale you till you can’t stand.Sabe?Call yourself a bad man, do you? Time I’m through with you there will be one tame wolf crawling back to Dead Cow with its tail between its legs.”
The taunt diverted his mind, just as Curly had hoped it would. He thrust the revolver back into the holster and reached for his foe.
Then everybody, hitherto paralyzed by the sight of a deadly weapon, woke up and took a hand. They dragged the two men apart. Curly was thrust into a barber shop on the other side of the street and Stone was dragged back into the Silver Dollar.
In two minutes Flandrau had made himself famous, for he was a marked man. The last words of the straggling desperado had been that he would shoot on sight. Now half a dozen talked at once. Some advised Curly one thing, some another. He must get out of town. He must apologize at once to Stone. He must send a friend and explain.
The young man laughed grimly. “Explain nothing. I’ve done all the explaining I’m going to.And I’ll not leave town either. If Soapy wants me he’ll sure find me.”
“Don’t be foolish, kid. He has got four notches on that gun of his. And he’s a dead shot.”
The tongues of those about him galloped. Soapy was one of these Billy-the-Kid killers, the only one left from the old days. He could whang away at a quarter with that sawed-off .45 of his and hit it every crack. The sooner Curly understood that no boy would have a chance with him the better it would be. So the talk ran.
“He’s got you bluffed to a fare-you-well. You’re tame enough to eat out of his hand. Didn’t Luck Cullison go into the hills and bring him down all alone?” Flandrau demanded.
“Luck’s another wonder. There ain’t another man in Arizona could have done it. Leastways no other but Bucky O’Connor.”
But Curly was excited, pleased with himself because he had stood up to the bogey man of the Southwest, and too full of strength to be afraid.
Maloney came into the barber shop and grinned at him.
“Hello, son!”
“Hello, Dick!”
“I hear you and Soapy are figuring on setting off some fireworks this Fourth.”
It did Curly good to see him standing there soeasy and deliberate among the excitable town people.
“Soapy is doing the talking.”
“I heard him; happened to be at the Silver Dollar when they dragged him in.”
Maloney’s eyebrows moved the least bit. His friend understood. Together they passed out of the back door of the shop into an alley. The others stood back and let them go. But their eyes did not leave Curly so long as he was in sight. Until this thing was settled one way or the other the young rustler would be one of the most important men in town. Citizens would defer to him that had never noticed him before. He carried with him a touch of the solemnity that is allowed only the dead or the dying.
Back to the hotel the two ran. When Curly buckled on his revolver and felt it resting comfortably against his thigh he felt a good deal better.
“I’ve seen Slats Davis,” Maloney explained. “He has gone to find Luck, who is now at the Del Mar. At least he was an hour ago.”
“Had any talk with Slats?”
“No. He said you’d do the talking.”
“I’m to wait for him on El Molino street to learn where I’m to meet Cullison.”
“That won’t do. You’d make too tempting a target. I’ll meet him instead.”
That suited Curly. He was not hunting troublejust now, even though he would not run away from it. For he had serious business on hand that could not take care of itself if Soapy should kill him.
Nearly an hour later Maloney appeared again.
“We’re to go right over to the Del Mar. Second floor, room 217. You are to go down El Molino to Main, then follow it to the hotel, keeping on the right hand side of the street. Slats will happen along the other side of the street and will keep abreast of you. Luck will walk with me behind you. Unless I yell your name don’t pay any attention to what is behind you. Soon as we reach the hotel Slats will cross the road and go in by the side door. You will follow him a few steps behind, and we’ll bring up the rear casually as if we hadn’t a thing to do with you.”
“You’re taking a heap of pains, seems to me.”
“Want to keep you from getting spoilt till September term of court opens. Didn’t I promise Bolt you would show up?”
They moved down the street as arranged. Every time a door opened in front of him, every time a man came out of a store or a saloon, Curly was ready for that lightning lift of the arm followed by a puff of smoke. The news of his coming passed ahead of him, so that windows were crowded with spectators. These were doomed to disappointment.Nothing happened. The procession left behind it the Silver Dollar, the Last Chance, Chalkeye’s Place and Pete’s Palace.
Reaching the hotel first, Davis disappeared according to program into the side door. Carly followed, walked directly up the stairs, along the corridor, and passed without knocking into Room 217.
A young woman was sitting there engaged with some fancy work. Slender and straight, Kate Cullison rose and gave Curly her hand. For about two heartbeats her fingers lay cuddled in his big fist. A strange stifling emotion took his breath.
Then her arm fell to her side and she was speaking to him.
“Dad has gone to meet you. We’ve heard about what happened this morning.”
“You mean what didn’t happen. Beats all how far a little excitement goes in this town,” he answered, embarrassed.
Her father and Maloney entered the room. Cullison wrung his hand.
“Glad to see you, boy. You’re in luck that convict did not shoot you up while he had the chance. Saguache is sure buzzing this mo’ning with the way you stood up to him. That little play of yours will help with the jury in September.”
Curly thanked him for going bail.
Luck fixed his steel-spoked eyes on him. “By what Dick tells me you’ve more than squared that account.”
Kate explained in her soft voice. “Dick told us why you went up to Dead Cow creek.”
“Sho! I hadn’t a thing to do, so I just ran up there. Sam’s in town with me. We’re rooming together.”
“Oh, take me to him,” Kate cried.
“Not just now, honey,” her father said gently. “This young man came here to tell us something. Or so I gathered from his friend Davis.”
Flandrau told his story, or all of it that would bear telling before a girl. He glossed over his account of the dissipation at the horse ranch, but he told all he knew of Laura London and her interest in Sam. But it was when he related what he had heard at Chalkeye’s place that the interest grew most tense. While he was going over the plot to destroy young Cullison there was no sound in the room but his voice. Luck’s eyes burned like live coals. The color faded from the face of his daughter so that her lips were gray as cigar ash. Yet she sat up straight and did not flinch.
When he had finished the owner of the Circle C caught his hand. “You’ve done fine, boy. Not a man in Arizona could have done it better.”
Kate said nothing in words but her dark longlashed eyes rained thanks upon him.
They talked the situation over from all angles. Always it simmered down to one result. It was Soapy’s first play. Until he moved they could not. They had no legal evidence except the word of Curly. Nor did they know on what night he had planned to pull off the hold-up. If they were to make a complete gather of the outfit, with evidence enough to land them in the penitentiary, it could only be after the hold-up.
Meanwhile there was nothing to do but wait and take what precautions they could against being caught by surprise. One of these was to see that Sam was never for an instant left unguarded either day or night. Another was to ride to Tin Cup and look the ground over carefully. For the present they could do no more than watch events, attracting no attention by any whispering together in public.
Before the conference broke up Kate came in with her protest.
“That’s all very well, but what about Mr. Flandrau? He can’t stay in Saguache with that man threatening to kill him on sight.”
“Don’t worry about me, Miss Kate;” and Curly looked at her and blushed.
Her father smiled grimly. “No, I wouldn’t, Kate. He isn’t going to be troubled by that wolf just now.”
“Doesn’t stand to reason he’d spoil all his plans just to bump me off.”
“But he might. He forgot all about his plans this morning. How do we know he mightn’t a second time?”
“Don’t you worry, honey. I’ve got a card up my sleeve,” Luck promised.
CHAPTER X“STICK TO YOUR SADDLE”
The old Arizona fashion of settling a difference of opinion with the six-gun had long fallen into disuse, but Saguache was still close enough to the stark primeval emotions to wait with a keen interest for the crack of the revolver that would put a period to the quarrel between Soapy Stone and young Flandrau. It was known that Curly had refused to leave town, just as it was known that Stone and that other prison bird Blackwell were hanging about the Last Chance and Chalkeye’s Place drinking together morosely. It was observed too that whenever Curly appeared in public he was attended by friends. Sometimes it would be Maloney and Davis, sometimes his uncle Alec Flandrau, occasionally a couple of the Map of Texas vaqueros.
It chanced that “Old Man” Flandrau, drifting into Chalkeye’s Place, found in the assembled group the man he sought. Billie Mackenzie, grizzled owner of the Fiddleback ranch, was with him, and it was in the preliminary pause before drinking that Alec made his official announcement.
“No, Mac, I ain’t worrying about that any. Curlyis going to get a square deal. We’re all agreed on that. If there’s any shooting from cover there’ll be a lynchingpronto. That goes.”
Flandrau, Senior, did not glance at the sullen face of Lute Blackwell hovering in the background but he knew perfectly well that inside of an hour word would reach Soapy Stone that only an even break with Curly would be allowed.
The day passed without a meeting between the two. Curly grew nervous at the delay.
“I’m as restless as a toad on a hot skillet,” he confessed to Davis. “This thing of never knowing what minute Soapy will send me his leaden compliments ain’t any picnic. Wisht it was over.”
“He’s drinking himself blind. Every hour is to the good for you.”
Curly shrugged. “Drunk or sober Soapy always shoots straight.”
Another day passed. The festivities had begun and Curly had to be much in evidence before the public. His friends had attempted to dissuade him from riding in the bucking broncho contest, but he had refused to let his name be scratched from the list of contestants.
A thousand pair of eyes in the grandstand watched the boy as he lounged against the corral fence laughing and talking with his friends. A dozen people were on the lookout for the approach ofStone. Fifty others had warned the young man to be careful. For Saguache was with him almost to a man.
Dick Maloney heard his voice called as he was passing the grandstand, A minute later he was in the Cullison box shaking hands with Kate.
“Is—is there anything new?” she asked in a low voice.
Her friend shook his head. “No. Soapy may drift out here any minute now.”
“Will he——?” Her eyes finished the question.
He shook his head. “Don’t know. That’s the mischief of it. If they should meet just after Curly finishes riding the boy won’t have a chance. His nerves won’t be steady enough.”
“Dad is doing something. I don’t know what it is. He had a meeting with a lot of cattlemen about it—— I don’t see how that boycansit there on the fence laughing when any minute——”
“Curly’s game as they make ’em. He’s a prince, too. I like that boy better every day.”
“He doesn’t seem to me so——wild. But they say he’s awfully reckless.” She said it with a visible reluctance, as if she wanted him to deny the charge.
“Sho! Curly needs explaining some. That’s all. Give a dog a bad name and hang him. That saying is as straight as the trail of a thirsty cow. The kid got off wrong foot first, and before he’d hardlytook to shaving respectable folks were hunting the dictionary to find bad names to throw at him. He was a reprobate and no account. Citizens that differed on everything else was unanimous about that. Mothers kinder herded their young folks in a corral when he slung his smile their way.”
“But why?” she persisted. “What had he done?”
“Gambled his wages, and drank some, and, beat up Pete Schiff, and shot the lights out of the Legal Tender saloon. That’s about all at first.”
“Wasn’t it enough?”
“Most folks thought so. So when Curly bumped into them keep-off-the-grass signs parents put up for him he had to prove they were justified. That’s the way a kid acts. Half the bad men are only coltish cowpunchers gone wrong through rotten whiskey and luck breaking bad for them.”
“Is Soapy that kind?” she asked, but not because she did not know the answer.
“He’s the other kind, bad at the heart. But Curly was just a kid crazy with the heat when he made that fool play of rustling horses.”
A lad made his way to them with a note. Kate read it and turned to Dick. Her eyes were shining happily.
“I’ve got news from Dad. It’s all right. Soapy Stone has left town.”
“Why?”
“A dozen of the big cattlemen signed a note and sent it to Stone. They told him that if he touched Curly he would never leave town alive. He was given word to get out of town at once.”
Maloney slapped his hand joyously on his thigh. “Fine! Might a-known Luck would find a way out. I tell you this thing has been worying me. Some of us wanted to take it off Curly’s hands, but he wouldn’t have it. He’s a man from the ground up, Curly is. But your father found a way to butt in all right. Soapy couldn’t stand out against the big ranchmen when they got together and meant business. He had to pull his freight.”
“Let me tell him the good news, Dick,” she said, eagerly.
“Sure. I’ll send him right up.”
Bronzed almost to a coffee brown, with the lean lithe grace of youth garbed in the picturesque regalia of thevaquero, Flandrau was a taking enough picture to hold the roving eye of any girl. A good many centered upon him now, as he sauntered forward toward the Cullison box cool and easy and debonair. More than one pulse quickened at sight of him, for his gallantry, his peril and his boyishness combined to enwrap him in the atmosphere of romance. Few of the observers knew what a wary vigilance lay behind that careless manner.
Kate gathered her skirts to make room for him beside her.
“Have you heard? He has left town.”
“Who?”
“Soapy Stone. The cattlemen served notice on him to go. So he left.”
A wave of relief swept over the young man. “That’s your father’s fine work.”
“Isn’t it good?” Her eyes were shining with gladness.
“I’m plumb satisfied,” he admitted. “I’m not hankering to shoot out my little difference with Soapy. He’s too handy with a six-gun.”
“I’m so happy I don’t know what to do.”
“I suppose now the hold-up will be put off. Did Sam and Blackwell go with him?”
“No. He went alone.”
“Have you seen Sam yet?”
“No, but I’ve seen Laura London. She’s all the nice things you’ve said about her.”
Curly grew enthusiastic, “Ain’t she the dandiest girl ever? She’s the right kind of a friend. And pretty—with that short crinkly hair the color of ripe nuts! You would not think one person could own so many dimples as she does when she laughs. It’s just like as if she had absorbed sunshine and was warming you up with her smile.”
“I see she has made a friend of you.”
“You bet she has.”
Miss Cullison shot a swift slant glance at him. “If you’ll come back this afternoon you can meet her. I’m going to have all those dimples and all that sunshine here in the box with me.”
“Maybe that will draw Sam to you.”
“I’m hoping it will. But I’m afraid not. He avoids us. When they met he wouldn’t speak to Father.”
“That’s the boy of it. Just the same he feels pretty bad about the quarrel. I reckon there’s nothing to do but keep an eye on him and be ready for Soapy’s move when he makes it.”
“I’m so afraid something will happen to Sam.”
“Now don’t you worry, Miss Kate. Sam is going to come out of this all right. We’ll find a way out for him yet.”
Behind her smile the tears lay close. “You’re thebestfriend. How can we ever thank you for what you’re doing for Sam?”
A steer had escaped from the corral and was galloping down the track in front of the grandstand with its tail up. The young man’s eyes followed the animal absently as he answered in a low voice.
“Do you reckon I have forgot how a girl took a rope from my neck one night? Do you reckon I ever forget that?”
“It was nothing. I just spoke to the boys.”
“Or that I don’t remember how the man I had shot went bail for a rustler he did not know?”
“Dick knew you. He told us about you.”
“Could he tell you any good about me? Could he say anything except that I was a worthless no-’count——?”
She put her hand on his arm and stopped him. “Don’t! I won’t have you say such things about yourself. You were just a boy in trouble.”
“How many would have remembered that? But you did. You fought good for my life that night. I’ll pay my debt, part of it. The whole I never could pay.”
His voice trembled in spite of the best he could do. Their eyes did not meet, but each felt the thrill of joy waves surging through their veins.
The preliminaries in the rough riding contest took place that afternoon. Of the four who won the right to compete in the finals, two were Curly Flandrau and Dick Maloney. They went together to the Cullison box to get the applause due them.
Kate Cullison had two guests with her. One was Laura London, the other he had never seen. She was a fair young woman with thick ropes of yellow hair coiled round her head. Deep-breasted and robust-loined, she had the rich coloring of the Scandinavian race and much of the slow grace peculiar to its women.
The hostess pronounced their names. “Miss Anderson, this is Mr. Flandrau. Mr. Flandrau—Miss Anderson.”
Curly glanced quickly at Kate Cullison, who nodded. This then was the sweetheart of poor Mac.
Her eyes filled with tears as she took the young man’s hand. To his surprise Curly found his throat choking up. He could not say a word, but she understood the unspoken sympathy. They sat together in the back of the box.
“I’d like to come and talk to you about—Mac. Can I come this evening, say?”
“Please.”
Kate gave them no more time for dwelling on the past.
“You did ride so splendidly,” she told Curly.
“No better than Dick did,” he protested.
“I didn’t say any better than Dick. You both did fine.”
“The judges will say you ride better. You’ve got first place cinched,” Maloney contributed.
“Sho! Just because I cut up fancy didoes on a horse. Grandstand stunts are not riding. For straight stick-to-your-saddle work I know my boss, and his name is Dick Maloney.”
“We’ll know to-morrow,” Laura London summed up.
As it turned out, Maloney was the better prophet.Curly won the first prize of five hundred dollars and the championship belt. Dick took second place.
Saguache, already inclined to make a hero of the young rustler, went wild over his victory. He could have been chosen mayor that day if there had been an election. To do him justice, Curly kept his head remarkably well.
“To be a human clothes pin ain’t so much,” he explained to Kate. “Just because a fellow can stick to the hurricane deck of a bronch without pulling leather whilst it’s making a milk shake out of him don’t prove that he has got any more brains or decency than the law allows. Say, ain’t this a peach of a mo’ning.”
A party of young people were taking an early morning ride through the outskirts of the little city. Kate pulled her pony to a walk and glanced across at him. He had taken off his hat to catch the breeze, and the sun was picking out the golden lights in his curly brown hair. She found herself admiring the sure poise of the head, the flat straight back, the virile strength of him.
It did not occur to her that she herself made a picture to delight the heart. The curves of her erect tiger-lithe young body were modeled by nature to perfection. Radiant with the sheer pleasure of life, happy as God’s sunshine, she was a creature vividly in tune with the glad morning.
“Anyhow, I’m glad you won.”
Their eyes met. A spark from his flashed deep into hers as a star falls through the heavens on a summer night. Each looked away. After one breathless full-pulsed moment she recovered herself.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if——?”
His gaze followed hers to two riders in front of them. One was Maloney, the other Myra Anderson. The sound of the girl’s laughter rippled back to them on the light breeze.
Curly smiled. “Yes, that would be nice. The best I can say for her—and it’s a whole lot—is that I believe she’s good enough for Dick.”
“And the best I can say for him is that he’s good enough for her,” the girl retorted promptly.
“Then let’s hope——”
“I can’t think of anything that would please me more.”
He looked away into the burning sun on the edge of the horizon. “I can think of one thing that would please me more,” he murmured.
She did not ask him what it was, nor did he volunteer an explanation. Perhaps it was from the rising sun her face had taken its swift glow of warm color.