The first instinctive thought of a man reveals innate character; those that follow, the moral that he has acquired through environment and circumstances. That Jack Payson was at bottom good man is shown by his first emotion, which was joy, and his first impulse, which was to impart the glad news to everybody, upon receiving the letter from Dick Lane telling that he was alive and soon to come home. He was in his house at the time. Bud Lane had just brought in the packet of mail from Florence, and was riding away. Jack uttered a cry of joy which brought the young man back to the door. "What is it?" asked Bud. But Jack had already had time for his damning second thought. He was stunned by the consideration that the promulgation of the news in the letter meant his loss of Echo Allen. He dissembled, though as yet he was not able to tell an outright falsehood:
"It's a letter telling me that I may expect to receive enough money in a month or so to pay off the mortgage. Now your brother's debt needn't trouble you any longer, Bud."
"Whew-w!" whistled Bud. "That's great! Where does it come from?"
"Oh, from an old friend that I lent the money to some time ago. But, say, Bud, there's another matter I want to talk with you about. You've got to shake Buck McKee. I've got it straight that he is the worst man in Arizona Territory, yes, worse than an Apache. Why, he has been with Geronimo, torturing and massacring lone prospectors, and robbing them of their gold."
"That's a damned lie, Jack Payson, and you know it!" cried the hot-headed young man. "It was Buck McKee who stood by Dick's side and fought the Apaches. And I'll stand by Buck against all the world. Everybody is in a conspiracy against him, Polly and Slim Hoover and you. Why are you so ready now to take a slanderer's word against his? You were keen enough to accept his story, when it let you out of going to Dick's rescue, and gave you free swing to court his girl. Let me see the name of the damned snake-in-the-grass that's at the bottom of all this!" And he snatched for the letter in Payson's hand.
The ranchman quickly thrust the missive into pocket. The injustice of Bud's reflections on former actions gave to his uneasy conscience just the pretext he desired for justifying his present course. His cause being weak and unworthy, he whipped up his indignation by adopting a high tone and overbearing manner, even demeaning himself by using his position as Bud's employer to crush the younger man. Indeed, at the end of the scene which ensued he well-nigh convinced himself that he had been most ungratefully treated by Bud while sincerely attempting to save the boy from the companionship of a fiend in human guise.
"No matter who told me, young man," he exclaimed; "I got it straight, and you can take it straight from me. You either give up Buck McKee or the Sweetwater Ranch. Snake-in-the-grass!" he was working himself up into false passion; "it is you, ungrateful boy, who are sinking the serpent's tooth in the hand that would have helped you. I tell you that I intended to make you foreman, though Sage-brush Charley is an older and better man. It was for Dick's sake I would have done it."
"No!" Bud burst forth; "for your guilty conscience's sake. It would have been to pay for stepping into Dick's place in the heart of a faithless girl. To hell with your job; I'm through with you!"
And, leaping on his horse, Bud rode furiously back to rejoin Buck McKee in Florence.
Jack Payson's purpose was now cinched to suppress Dick Lane's letter until Echo Allen was irrevocably joined to him in marriage. He argued with himself that she loved him, Jack Payson, yet so loyal was she by nature that if Dick Lane returned before the wedding and claimed her, she would sacrifice her love to her sense of duty. This would ruin her life, he reasoned, and he could not permit it. There was honesty in this argument, but he vitiated it by deferring to act upon the suggestion that naturally arose with it: Why, then, not take Jim Allen, Echo's father, to whom her happiness was the chief purpose in life, into confidence in regard to the matter? There will be time enough to tell the Colonel before the wedding, he thought. In the meantime something might happen to Dick,, and he may never return. He is certain not to get back ahead of his money.
After the time that the note secured by the mortgage fell due, the young ranchman had already secured two extensions of it for three months each. He arranged a third, and began negotiating for the sale of some of his cattle to take up the note at the time of payment. "I can't take the money from Dick," he thought, "even if he does owe it to me. And yet if I refuse it, it will be like buying Echo—'paying for stepping into Dick's place,' as Bud expressed it. What to do I don't know. Well, events will decide." And by this favorite reflection of the moral coward, Jack Payson marked the lowest depths of his degradation.
That afternoon Payson rode to Allen Hacienda to see Echo, and to sound her upon her feelings to Dick Lane. He wished thoroughly to convince himself that he, Jack Payson, held complete sway over her heart. Perhaps he might dare to put her love to the test, and fulfil the trust his friend had imposed on him, by giving her Dick's letter.
Payson overtook Polly riding slowly on her way home from Florence. She barely greeted him. "Has she met Bud, and has he been slurring me?" he thought. He checked his pacing horse to the half-trot, half-walk, of Polly's mount, and, ignoring her incivility, began talking to her.
"'D'yeh see Bud in Florence?"
"Yep. Couldn't help it. Him an' Buck McKee are about the whole of Florence these days."
"Too bad about Bud consorting with that rustler. I've had to fire him for it."
"Fire him? Well you ARE a good friend. Talk about men's loyalty! If women threw men down that easy you all would go to the bowwows too fast for us to bake dog-biscuit. Now, I've settled Buck McKee's hash by putting Slim Hoover wise to that tongue-slittin'. Oh, I'll bring Bud around, all right, all right, even if men that ought to be his friends go back on him."
"But, Pollykins—"
"Don't you girlie me, Jack Payson. I'm a woman, and I'm goin' to be a married one, too, in spite of all you do to Bud. Yes, sirree, bob. I've set out to make a man of him, and I'll marry him to do it if he ain't a dollar to his name. But money'd make it lots quicker an' easier. He was savin' up till he run in with Buck McKee."
A sudden thought struck Payson. Here was a way to dispose of Dick Lane's money when it came.
"All right, Mrs. Bud Lane to be. Promise not tell Bud, and through you I'll soon make good to him many times over for the foreman's wages he's lost. It's money that's coming from an enterprise that his brother and I were partners in, and Bud shall Dick's share. He's sore on me now, and I can't tell him. Besides, he'd gamble it away before he got it to Buck McKee. Bud isn't strictly ethical in regard to money matters, Polly, and you must manage the exchequer."
"Gee, what funny big words you use, Jack! But I know what you mean; he's too free-handed. Well, he'll be savin' as a trade rat until we get our home paid for. And I'll manage the checker business when we're married. No more poker and keno for Bud. Thank you, Jack. I always knew you was square."
Polly's sincere praise of his "squareness" was the sharpest thrust possible at Payson's guilty conscience. Well, he resolved to come as near being square and level as he could. He had told half-truths to Bud and Polly; he would present the situation to Echo as a possible, though not actual, one. If Polly were wrong, and Echo loved him so much that she would break the word she had pledged to Dick Lane, then he would confess all, and they would do what could be done to make it right with the discarded lover.
Echo, observing from the window who was Polly's companion, ran out to Jack with a cry of joy. He looked meaningly at Polly. She said: "Oh, give me your bridle; I know how many's a crowd." Jack leaped to the ground and took Echo in his arms while Polly rode off with the horses to the corral, singing significantly:
"Spoon, spoon, spoon,While the dish ran away with the spoon."
Jack and Echo embraced clingingly and kissed lingeringly. "It takes a crazy old song like that to express how foolish we lovers are," said Jack. "Why, I feel that I could outfiddle the cat, outjump the cow, outlaugh the dog, and start an elopement that would knock the performance of the tableware as silly as—well, as I am talking now. I'm living in a dream—a Midsummer Night's Dream, such as you were reading to me."
"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet," quoted Echo suggestively.
Dusk was falling. From the bunk-house rose the tinkling notes of a mandolin; after a few preliminary chords, the player, a Mexican, began a love-song in Spanish. The distant chimes of Mission bells sounded softly on the evening air.
Jack and Echo sat down upon the steps of the piazza. Jack continued the strain of his thought, but in a more serious vein:
"Echo, I'm so happy that I am frightened."
"Frightened?" she asked wonderingly.
"Yes, scared—downright scared," he answered. "I reckon I'm like an Indian. An Indian doesn't believe it's good medicine to let the gods know he's big happy. For there's the Thunder Bird—"
"The Thunder Bird?"
"The evil spirit of the storm," continued Jack. "When the Thunder Bird hears a fellow saying he's big happy, he sends him bad luck—"
Echo laid her hand softly on the mouth of her sweetheart. "We won't spoil our happiness, then, by talking about it. We will just feel it—just be it."
She laid her head upon Jack's knee. He placed his arm lightly but protectingly over her shoulder. They sat in silence listening to the Mexican's song. Finally Jack bent over and whispered gently in her ear:
"Softly, so the Thunder Bird won't hear, Echo; tell me you love me; that you love only me; that you will always love me, no matter what shall happen; that you never loved, until you loved me."
Echo sat upright, with a start. "What do you mean?" she exclaimed. "Of course I love you, and you only, but the future and the past are beyond our control. Unless you know of something that is going to happen which may mar our love, your question is silly, not at all like your Mother Goose nonsense—that was dear. And as for the past, you mean Dick Lane."
"Yes, I mean Dick Lane," confessed Payson, in a subdued tone. "I am jealous of him—that is—even of his memory."
"That is not like Jack Payson. What has come over you? It is the shadow of your Thunder Bird. You know what my feeling was for Dick Lane, and what it is, for it remains the same, the only difference being that now I know it never was love. Even if it were, he is dead, and I love you, Jack, you alone. Oh, how you shame me by forcing me to speak of such things! I have tried to put poor Dick out of my mind, for every time I think of him it is with a wicked joy that he is dead, that he cannot come home to claim me as his wife. Oh, Jack, Jack, I didn't think it of you!"
And the girl laid her face within her hands on her lover's knee and burst into a fit of sobbing.
Jack Payson shut his teeth.
"Well, since I have lowered myself so far in your esteem, and since your mind is already sinning against Dick Lane, we might as well go on and settle this matter. I promise I will not mention it again. I, too, have troubles of the mind. I am as I am, and you ought to know it. I said I was jealous of Dick Lane's memory. It is more. I am jealous of Dick Lane himself. If he should return, would you leave me and go with him—as his wife?"
Again she sat upright. By a strong effort she controlled her sobbing.
"The man I admired does not deserve an answer, but the child he has proved himself to be and whom I cannot help loving, shall have it. Yes, if Dick Lane returns true to his promise I shall be true to mine."
She arose and went into the house. Payson rode homeward through the starlight resolved of tormenting doubt only to be consumed by torturing jealousy. He now had no thought of confiding in Jim Allen. He regretted that he had touched so dangerously near the subject of Dick Lane's return in talking to Bud and Polly. His burning desire was to be safely married to Echo Allen before the inevitable return of her former lover.
"Fool that I was not to ask her one more question: Would she forgive her husband where she would not forgive her lover? What will she think of me when all is discovered, as it surely will be? Well, I must take my chances. Events will decide."
On his return to Sweetwater Ranch he put the place in charge of his new foreman, Sage-brush Charlie, and went out to a hunting-cabin he had built in the Tortilla Mountains. Here he fought the problem over with his conscience—and his selfishness won. He returned, fixed in his decision to suppress Dick Lane's letter, and to go ahead with the marriage.
Riding hard into Florence from Sweetwater Ranch Bud Lane hunted up Buck McKee at his favorite gambling-joint, and, in a white heat of indignation informed him in detail of everything that had passed between Payson and himself. At once McKee inferred that the writer of the letter was none other than Dick Lane. Realizing that Payson was already informed of his villainy, and that in a very short time Dick Lane himself would make his appearance on the Sweetwater, the half-breed concluded to make a bold move while he yet retained the confidence of Bud.
"Bud," he said, "I know the man who is sendin' the money to Payson. It's Dick, your brother."
"But," stammered Bud, his brain whirling, "if that's so, you lied about the Apaches killing him you—why you—must have been the renegade, the devil who tortured prospectors."
"Why, Bud, Dick never wrote all that dime-novel nonsense about the man who stood by him to—well, not the very last, for Dick has managed somehow to pull through—probably he was saved by the Rurales that were chasin' the band that rounded us up. No, it's Payson, Jack Payson, that made up that pack of lies, just to keep you away from me, the man that was last with Dick and so may get on to Jack's game and block it."
"Game! what game?" asked Bud, bewildered.
"Why, you told me it yourself—to marry Dick's girl, and live on Dick's hard-earned money."
"But Dick borrowed the three thousand of Jack," objected Bud.
"Well, the dollars he borrowed have all gone, ain't they? And the money he's sendin' back Dick dug out of the ground by hard work, didn't he? Leastways, Payson hadn't ort 'o use the money to rope in Dick's girl. It ort 'o be kep' from him, anyhow, till Dick comes on the ground his own self. That 'u'd hold up the weddin', all right, if I know Josephine. It 'u'd be easy to steer her into refusin' to let Echo go into a mortgiged home."
Simple-minded Bud readily accepted the wily half-breed's explanations and surmises, and fell into the trap he was preparing. This was to hold up the express-agent and rob him of the money Payson was expecting, on securing which it was McKee's intention to flee the country before Dick Lane returned to denounce him. To ascertain just when the money came into the agent's hands, and to act as a cover in the robbery itself, an accomplice was needed. For this purpose no man in all the Sweetwater region was better adapted than Bud Lane. Frank and friendly with every one, he would be trusted by the most suspicious and cautious official in Pinal County. The fact that he had chosen Buck McKee as an associate had already gone far to rehabilitate this former "bad man" in the good graces of the community. Under cover of this friendship, McKee hoped to escape suspicion of any part in the homicide he contemplated. For it was murder, foul, unprovoked murder that was in the black soul of the half-breed. He intended to incriminate Bud so deeply as to put it beyond all thought that he would confess.
Young Lane, passionately loyal to his brother, was ready for anything that would delay Payson's marriage to Echo Allen. Together with the wild joy that sprang up in his heart at the thought that his brother was alive, was entwined a violent hatred against his former employer. In the fierce turbulence within his soul, generated by the meeting of these great emotions, he was impelled to enter upon a mad debauch, in which McKee abetted and joined him. Filling up on bad whisky, they rode through the streets of Florence, yelling and shooting their "guns" like crazy men. It was while they were engaged in this spectacular exhibition of horsemanship, gun-play, and vocalization that Bud's sweetheart rode into town to execute some commissions in preparation for Echo Allen's wedding. Already "blue" over the thought that her own wedding was far in the dim future, poor Polly was cast into the depths of despair and disgust by the drunken riot in which her prospective husband was indulging with her particular aversion, the cruel, calf-torturing half-breed, McKee. Thoroughly mortified, she slipped out of town by a side street, and moodily rode back to Allen Hacienda, meeting on the way, as we have seen, Jack Payson.
After the debauch was over, and the merry, mad devil of nervous excitement was succeeded by the brooding demon of nervous depression, McKee broached to Bud the idea of robbing the express-agent of the money coming to Payson. This fell in readily with the young man's revengeful mood. He unreservedly placed himself under the half-breed's orders.
In accordance with these, Bud hung about the road-station a great deal, cultivating the friends of Terrill, the agent. 'Ole Man' Terrill, as he was called, although he was a vigorous specimen of manhood on the under side of sixty, was ticket and freight agent, express-messenger, and telegraph-operator, in fact, the entire Bureau of Transportation and communication at Florence station. Bud frankly told him he was out of a job, and had, indeed, decided in view of his coming marriage, to give up horse-wrangling for some vocation of a more elevating character. So Terrill let him help about the station, chiefly in the clerical work. While so engaged, Bud learned that a package valued at three thousand dollars was expected upon a certain train. Although no consignee was mentioned, the fact that the amount tallied exactly with the sum Payson was expecting caused him to conclude it was Dick's repayment of his loan. Accordingly he informed McKee that the time they were awaiting had arrived.
Florence had grown up as a settlement about a spring of water some time before the advent of the railroad. Builders of the line got into trouble with the inhabitants, and in revenge located the station half a mile away from the spring, thinking new settlers would come to them. In this they were disappointed.
The point was an isolated one, and the station a deserted spot between trains.
Eastward and westward the single track of railroad drifted to shimmering points on the horizon. To the south dreary wastes of sand, glistening white under the burnished sun and crowned with clumps of grayish green sage-brush, stretched to an encircling rim of hills. Cacti and yucca palms broke the monotony of the roll of the plains to the uplands.
Sahuaroes towered over the low station, which was built in the style of the old Spanish missions. Its red roof flared above the purple shadows cast by its walls. In the fathomless blue above a buzzard sailed majestically down an air current, and hovered motionless over the lonely outpost of civilization.
Within the station a telegraph-sounder chattered and chirruped. 'Ole Man' Terrill was at the instrument. His duties were over for the forenoon, the east-bound express, which, with the west-bound, composed the only trains that traversed that section of the road each day, having arrived and departed a half-hour before, and he had cut in on the line to regale himself with the news of the world. But there was a dearth of thrilling events, such as his rude soul delighted in. The Apache uprising, that was feared, had not taken place. Colonel Hardie, of Fort Grant, had the situation well in hand. The Nihilists were giving their latest czar a breathing-spell. No new prize-fighter had arisen to wrest the championship of the world from John Sullivan, who had put all his old rivals 'to sleep.' 'Ole Man' Terrill proceeded to follow their example. He had been up late the night before at a poker game. His head fell forward with a jerk. Aroused by the shock, he glanced drowsily about him. Heat-waves danced before the open window. Deep silence hung over his little world. Again his eyelids closed; his head dropped, and slowly he slipped into sleep.
Tragedy was approaching him now, but not along the wire. Down an arroyo, or "draw" (the dry bed of a watercourse), that wound in a detour around the town of Florence, and debauched into the open plain near the station, crept two men in single file, each leading a horse. They were Buck McKee and Bud Lane, who had ridden north from the town that morning with the declared purpose of going to Buck's old ranch, the Lazy K. They had circled about the town, timing their arrival at the station a little after the departure of the train which was expected to bring Dick Lane's money.
McKee emerged first from the mouth of the draw. He wore a coarse flannel shirt, loosened at the throat. About his neck was a handkerchief. His riding-overalls were tucked into high boots with Spanish heels and long spurs. A Mexican hat with a bead band topped a head covered with coarse black hair, which he inherited from his Cherokee mother.
Save for the vulture floating high in air not a living thing was in sight. With the caution of a coyote, McKee crept to the station door and peered blinkingly through the open door into the room. The change from the dazzling light without to the shaded interior blinded him for a moment. He heard the heavy breathing of the sleeper before he saw him.
Returning to the mouth of the arroyo, McKee motioned to his companion to bring out the horses. When this was done, the two men cinched the saddles and made every preparation for sudden flight. Lane and the horses remained outside the station behind a freight-car on a siding, while McKee stole softly through the open door to 'Ole Man' Terrill's side.
Now, the agent used as a safe-deposit vault his inside waistcoat pocket, the lock upon which was a huge safety-pin. For further defense he carried a revolver loosely hung at his hip, and easily reached. His quickness on the draw in the hour of need, and his accuracy of aim made him a formidable antagonist.
Some men are born into the world to become its watch-dogs; others to become its wolves. The presence of a human wolf is, as it were, scented by the human watch-dog, even when the dog is asleep. McKee was known instinctively as a man-wolf to the born guardians of society; Slim Hoover, himself a high type of the man-mastiff, used to say of the half-breed: "I can smell that b'ar-grease he slicks his hair with agin' the wind. He may be out o' sight an' out of mind, when somethin' tells me 'McKee's around'; then I smell b'ar-grease, and the next thing, Bucky shows up, with his ingrasheatin' grin. It's alluz 'grease before meet, as the Sky Pilot would say."
'Ole Man' Terrill was of the watch-dog breed. Whether warned by the instinct of his kind or wakened by the scent of McKee's bear-grease, he suddenly opened his eyes. Like all men accustomed to emergencies, he was instantly in full possession of his wits, yet he pretended to be slightly confused in order to get a grasp upon the situation before greeting his visitor.
"Howdy, Buck," he said, adjusting his revolver as he swung half-round in his chair, that he might reach his weapon more readily in an emergency. "Bustin' or busted?"
"Well, I'm about even with the game," replied McKee, pulling from his pocket a bag of tobacco and papers, and deftly rolling a butterfly cigarette. "Goin' to shake it before I lose my pile. It's me for the Lazy K. Dropped in to say good-by."
Terrill, who had recently had an expensive seance with McKee at poker, remonstrated:
"Yuh ought 'o give me another chanct at yuh, Buck. Yo're goin' away with too much of my money."
"Well, 'Ole Man,' I'm likely to rob yuh of a lot more ef you ain't keerful," answered McKee.
"Yuh can't jet yeta while," said Terrill. "Dead broke."
"Aw, come off! everybody knows ye're a walkin' bank. Bet yuh got three thousan' in that inside pocket o' your'n this minute."
Terrill started at McKee's naming the exact amount he was carrying. He forgot his customary caution in his surprise. "Well, you did just hit it, shore enough. I believe ye're half-gipsy instid o' half-Injun. Jus' like yer knowin' I stood pat on four uv a kind when you had aces full, and throwin' down yer cyards 'fore I c'u'd git even with yuh. How do yuh do it, Buck?"
McKee gave a smile of cunning, inscrutable superiority. "Oh, it's jes' a power I has. 'Keen sabby,' as the Greasers say—I'm keen on the know-how. Why, I kin tell yuh more about the money. It's fer Jack Payson—"
"Now, there's whur ye're way off as a cleervoyant, Buck," said Terrill triumphantly. "Yuh guessed oncet too often, as yer old pard on the Lazy K said to the druggist. 'Peruna?' ast the druggist. 'Yep,' said yer pard. 'Beginnin' mild on a new jag?' ast the druggist a second time. 'Hell, no!' said yer pard they calls Peruna now from the in-sih-dent, 'ending up strong on an old one.' Nope, the three thousan' is county money, consigned to Sheriff Hoover. Jack Payson has jes' lef' with a package from K. C., but it wasn't money. It was a purty, gilt chair—a weddin'-present fer the gal he's go'n' to marry."
At that moment the sounder of the telegraph began clicking the call of the station. Terrill whirled about in his swivel-chair and faced the table.
McKee stood close behind him. His lips twitched nervously. His eyes narrowed as he watched every movement of the agent's big shoulders as he operated the key. At the same time the half-breed drew his revolver and covered the back of Terrill's head.
The agent completed his message and turned to continue his interrupted conversation. He found himself gazing into the muzzle of a .44, big, it seemed, as a thirteen-inch gun. "Why—what?" he stammered.
"I'm actin' jes' now as Slim's deppity," said McKee. "Unbutton an' han' that money over."
Once having his victim in his power, all the innate cruelty of the Indian blood of his maternal ancestors flashed to the surface. Terrill was at his mercy. For one desperate moment he would play with him; even torture him as his forefathers had once made miserable the last moments of a captive. He knew that unless he silenced Terrill his life must pay the forfeit. Death was the penalty of detection. The arm of the express company was long. Ultimate capture was certain. Pursued out of Arizona by the sheriff, he would be trailed through every camp and town in the far West.
With an oath, Terrill tried to rise and face his antagonist, reaching for his revolver as he did so. The butt of his weapon had caught in the arm of the chair hampering his movements.
McKee threw him roughly back into the chair.
"Throw up your han's," he cried. "Don't try that."
Up went Terrill's hands high over his head. He faced the open window. Not a sign of help was in sight.
Quickly the agent turned over in his mind various schemes to foil McKee, who now stood behind him with the muzzle of his revolver pressing into the middle of his back. Each was rejected before half-conceived.
McKee laughed sneeringly, saying: "You oughtn't to be so keerless to show where you cache your roll. Worse than a senorita with a stocking. She never keeps a whole pair when Manuel is playing faro."
Terrill made no reply. His hope of escape was slowly fading.
McKee had reached his left hand over his prisoner's shoulder to disarm Terrill, who moved slightly away from him, drawing in his feet as he did so.
One chance had come to him. He knew that, if he failed, death was certain, yet he determined to take the risk in order to retrieve the slip he had made in admitting that he had money in his possession to a gambling crony; and so to keep clean his record for trustiness, of which he was so proud. This last desperate resource was an old wrestler's trick; one with which he had conquered others in the rough games of the corral.
Again Terrill moved to the right and farther under McKee, who had to extend his arm and body far beyond an upright position. Holding his revolver against Terrill handicapped the half-breed in his movements.
With a quick turn, Terrill grasped McKee's left arm, jerking it down sharply on his shoulder. With his right hand he grasped the back of his antagonist's neck, pulling his head downward and inward. Using his shoulder for a fulcrum, with a mighty heave of his legs and back he sought to toss McKee over his head.
So surprised for an instant was the cowboy by suddenness of the attack that he made no effort escape the clutches of the desperate express-agent.
His feet had left the floor, and he was swinging in the air before his finger pressed the trigger.
There was a muffled report.
The two men fell in a heap on the floor, McKee on top. Dazed and shaken, McKee scrambled to his feet. The air was pungent with odor of powder smoke. Terrill rolled over on his side, trembled convulsively, and died. He had paid the penalty for a moment's indiscretion with his life.
McKee quickly unfastened the pin and seized the roll of bills. Skimming through the package, he smiled with satisfaction to see that the most of it was in small bills, and none of them stained.
Carefully avoiding the fast-forming pool of blood which was oozing from the hole in the dead man's head, he hurried to the door.
A glance showed him the coast was clear. Running across the tracks, he joined Lane, who was waiting for him behind the freight-car with impatience. In silence they mounted their horses. For a short distance McKee led the way upon the railroad-track, in order to leave no hoof-prints, and then struck across the desert toward the hills in the south.
"Why did you shoot?" gasped Lane.
"He drew on me," snarled McKee. "It wasn't Dick's money, but you'll get half. Shut up."
The burning sun rose higher and higher. The buzzard dropped lower in the sky. The silence of death brooded over the railroad-station.
Unknown to Bud Lane and Buck McKee, who were rioting in Florence, Jack Payson had hurried up the wedding. Colonel Jim had wheedled Josephine into consenting that it should take place two months ahead of the time that had been fixed. "April is the month fer showers, Josie, an' we'll let you weep all you please."
Two weeks' notice, however, gave scant time for preparation for the important ceremony that Mrs. Allen deemed necessary. During this period the busiest spot in Arizona was the kitchen of Allen hacienda. An immense cake, big as a cheese, was the crowning effort of Josephine, who wept copiously at the thought of losing her daughter as she measured and mixed the ingredients. A layer of frosting an inch in thickness encrusted this masterpiece of the art of pastry-making. Topping the creation were manikins of a bride and bridegroom.
This climax of the bridal cake had been brought up by wagon from Tucson with more caution than if it were a month's clean-up of a paying mine. Mrs. Allen allowed no one to go near the artistic achievement. Others might look at it from afar, but at the slightest movement to get close to it, she would push the observer back, with the warning: "Keep yer dirty fingers off'n it.
"'Tain't common icin'; that's confectionary."
Enough chickens to feed a darky camp-meeting were killed for the feast. Fried, roasted, cold or minced as tamales, the dishes filled ovens and tables, and overflowed into the spring-house. Favorite recipes carried across the plains by the wives of the Argonauts met in rivalry with the dishes of the cooks of old Mexico.
Colonel Allen wandered aimlessly about the ranch, while the preparations for the feast were in progress. The women folk drove him from one favorite loafing-place to another. His advice was scorned and his wishes made a subject for jests.
Defiantly he had taken full charge of the liquid refreshments. A friendly barkeeper in Tucson, acting under his orders, had shipped him cases of champagne, a barrel of beer, and a siphon of seltzer. Why the seltzer he never could explain. Later the unlucky bottle marred the supper and nearly caused a tragedy. A guest picked it up and peered into the metal tube to see "how the durned thing worked."
As he gazed and pondered, shaking the bottle in effort to solve the mystery, he pressed the handle. The stream struck him fairly between the eyes. Shocked, surprised, and half-blinded, he pulled his gun and declared immediate war on the "sheep-herder who had put up the job on him." Allen's other supplies were of the kind taken straight in the Southwest, and were downed with a hasty gulp.
Driven from the house on the day of the wedding he took refuge on the piazza. From behind the hacienda floated dreamily on the sun-drenched air the music of guitars and mandolins played by Mexicans, practising for the dance which would follow the ceremony.
The Colonel dozed and dreamed.
Suddenly the peace of the afternoon was shattered by the wild "yip-yips" of a band of cowboys, riding up the trail. Revolver-shots punctuated their shrill cries.
Allen bounded from his chair, shaking himself like a terrier. This riotous sound was the music he longed to hear.
When the staccato beats of the ponies' hoofs ceased, he shouted: "Come on, boys, make this your home. Everything goes, and the Sweetwater outfit is always welcome."
The foreman was the first to pull up in front of the house. "Hullo, Uncle Jim!" he cried.
"Hello, Sage-brush," answered the Colonel, a broad smile illuminating his face. Holding his pipe in one hand, he licked his lips at the thought of "lickering up" without the invention of an excuse for his wife.
Then he joined in a hearty laugh with the men about the corral as he heard the grunts and stamping of a plunging mustang. A cow-pony had entered into the spirit of the occasion and was trying to toss his rider over his head.
Fresno was the victim of the horse's deviltry.
His predicament aroused wild shouts of mirth and sallies of the wit of the corral.
"Hunt leather, Fresno, or he'll buck you clean over the wall," shouted Sage-brush.
"Grab his tail," yelled Show Low, with a whoop.
"All over," was the chorus, as Fresno, with a vicious jab of his spurs and a jerk of the head, brought the animal into subjection.
"Come right in, boys!" called Allen. "Let the Greasers take the hosses."
With shrill shouts, whoops, and much laughter the guests crowded about the ranchman.
Each wore his holiday clothes; new handkerchiefs were knotted about their necks. Fresno had stuck little American flags in the band of his hat, the crown of which he had removed. "I want head-room for the morning after," he had said.
Show Low's chaps were conspicuously new, and his movements were heralded by the creaking of unsoftened leather.
Last of the band was Parenthesis, short, bow-legged, with a face tanned and seamed by exposure.
The cowboys ran stiffly, toeing slightly inward. Long hours in the saddle made them apparently awkward and really ungraceful when on the ground.
They greeted Allen with hearty enthusiasm, slapping him on the back, poking him in the ribs, and swinging him from one to the other, with cries of: "Howdy, Uncle Jim!"
"Howdy, Sage-brush? Hello, Fresno! Waltz right in, Show Low. Glad to see you all!" cried Allen, as he, in turn, brought his hand down with ringing slaps upon shoulder and back. Meantime Parenthesis hopped about the outer edge of the ring, seeking an entrance. Failing to reach his host, he crowed: "How de doddle do," to attract his attention.
Allen broke from the ring. Grasping Parenthesis by the hand, he said: "I'm tolerable, thankee, Parenthesis. Where's Jack?—didn't he come over with you?"
"What! the boss? Ain't he got here yet?" asked the foreman. Tall and lean, with hardened muscles, Sage-brush Charley was as lithe as a panther on horseback. His first toy had been a rope with which, as a toddler, he had practised on the dogs and chickens about the ranch-yard. He could not remember when he could not ride. Days on the round-up, hours of watching the sleeping herd in the night-watch, had made him quiet and self-contained in his dealings with men. His eyes looked out fearlessly on the world. All of his life he had handled cattle. Daily facing dangers on the long drives or in the corral, he schooled himself to face emergencies. Acquiring self-control, he was trusted and admired. When Lyman, the old foreman of the Sweetwater resigned, Jack Payson promoted Sage-brush, although next to Bud Lane he was at the time the youngest man in the outfit. He made his employer's interests his own. At the mention of Payson's name he always became attentive. With a shade of anxiety he awaited Allen's answer.
"No," replied the ranchman, looking from one of his guests to the other.
"Why, he started three hours ahead of us!" explained Parenthesis.
With a challenging note in his tones, as if his word was disputed, the host answered: "Well, he ain't showed up."
The little group had become silent. Arizona was in a period of unrest. Rumors of another Apache uprising were growing stronger each day. Then Payson was successful, and, therefore, despised by less fortunate men ever eager for a quarrel.
After a moment's thought Sage-brush brushed aside his fears and brightened up his comrades with the remark: "Mebbe he rid over to Florence station to get a present for Miss Echo. He said somethin' about gettin' an artickle from Kansas City."
"Mebbe so," agreed Allen, eager to cast out any forebodings. "It's time," he continued, "he wuz turnin' up, if this weddin's to be pulled off by the clock."
"Has the Sky Pilot got here yet?" asked Sage-brush.
"No," replied Allen. "He's started, though. There's one thing sartin, we can't tighten up the cinches till the bridegroom gits here."
The absence of Jack Payson and the failure of the minister to arrive aroused the suspicions of Sage-brush. Coming closer to Allen, he smiled knowingly, and, speaking in a confidential tone, asked:
"Say, Jim, they ain't figgerin' on gittin' away on the sly-like, are they?"
Show Low interrupted with the explanation: "You see, we're goin' to decorate the wagon some."
The suggestion that any one connected with Allen Hacienda would ride in anything on wheels, except the driver of the chuck-wagon out on round-up, aroused the indignation of the old cattleman. For him the only use to which a wheeled vehicle drawn by a horse should be put was to haul materials that could not be packed on a horse.
"They ain't using any wagon!" he fairly shouted; "they're goin' away in the leather."
The idea of carrying out the traditions of the horse in Pinal County even to a wedding-journey tickled the boys immensely.
Slapping one another on the back and nodding their heads in approbation, they shouted: "That's the ticket. Hooray!"
"This ain't no New York idea, where the bride and groom hits the life-trail in a hired hack," cried Fresno.
Allen's feelings apparently were not yet fully soothed. Turning to Sage-brush, he said: "Wheels don't go in my family. Why, her ma and me were married on hossback. The preacher had to make a hurry job of it, but it took."
"Hush, now," was Parenthesis' awed comment.
"For her pop was a-chasin' us, and kept it up for twenty miles after the parson said 'Amen.'"
"Did he ketch you?" asked Fresno, with great seriousness.
"He sure did," answered Allen, with a twinkle in his eye, "an' thanked me for takin' Josephine off his hands."
The boys laughed. The joke was upon themselves, as they had expected to hear a romantic story of earlier days.
When the laughter had subsided, Show Low suggested: "If we can't decorate the wagon, let's put some fixin's on the ponies."
The proposal was received with more whoops, shouting, and yipping. They waltzed about the smiling rancher.
"That's what!" cried Sage-brush enthusiastically.
Allen grew sarcastic, remarking: "I reckon you-all must have stopped some time at the water-tank."
Renewed laughter greeted this sally.
"This is my first wedding," explained Sage-brush, rather apologetically.
"I want to know!" exclaimed Allen, in surprise.
"I'm tellin' you. I never seed a weddin' in all my life," replied Sage-brush, as seriously as if he was denying a false accusation of a serious crime. "Mother used to tell me about her'n, an' I often wisht I had been there."
Fresno shouted with amusement. He had Sage-brush rattled. The coolest man on the ranch was flustered by the mere thought of attending a wedding-ceremony.
"He's plum locoed over this one. Ain't you, Sage-brush?" he drawled tauntingly.
Sage-brush took his jibing in the best of humor. It was a holiday, and they were with people of their own kind. Had a stranger been present the remarks would have been resented bitterly. On this point cowboys are particularly sensitive. In the presence of outsiders they are silent, answering only in monosyllables, never leading in any conversation, and if any comment is necessary they make it indirectly.
"Well, I ain't no society-bud like you are," laughed Sage-brush. The others joined with him in his merriment over Fresno's discomfiture. "Weddin's ain't so frequent where I come from as they is in Californy."
"It's the climate," answered Fresno, with a broad grin.
"So you ain't never been at a weddin'?" asked Allen, who was looking for another opening to have more fun with Sage-brush.
Again the cowboy became serious and confessed: "Nope; I've officiated at several plain killin's, an' been chief usher at a lynchin', but this yere's my first weddin', an' I'm goin' to turn loose some and enjoy it."
Sage-brush grinned in anticipation of the good times that he knew lay in store for him at the dance.
"You're fixed up as if you was the main attraction at this event," said Allen, looking Sage-brush over carefully and spinning him around on his heel.
"Ain't I mussed up fine?" answered Sage-brush.
"You're the sure big turkey," interrupted Parenthesis.
"Served up fine, with all the trimmin's," laughed Fresno, taking another jab at his friend.
Their sport was broken up for the time being by the appearance of Polly at the door of the ranch-house. "Hello, boys," she shouted, with the fascinating cordiality of the Western girl, wherein the breath of the plains, the purity of the air, and the wholesomeness of life is embraced in a simple greeting and the clasp of a hand.
The cowboys took off their hats, and made elaborate bows to the young woman. "Howdy, Miss Polly!" they cried.
"You sure do look pert," added Sage-brush, with what he considered his most winning smile. Fresno snickered and hastily brushed back the hair from his forehead.
"Where's Jack?" she asked the two men, who at once ranged themselves one on each side of her.
"He did not start with the boys," explained Allen. "He'll be along soon, Polly."
"Well, now when it comes to lookers, what's the matter with Polly Hope?" exclaimed Sage-brush slyly.
Glances of admiration were cast at the girl, who was dressed simply and plainly in a little white gown which Mrs. Allen had made for her for the wedding. Polly's youth, good nature, and ability to take care of herself made her a favorite on the ranch.
She had no need of defenders, but if an occasion should arise that Polly required a knight, there were a score of guns at her service at an hour's notice.
"Looks like a picture from a book," said Fresno, hoping to win back the ground he had lost by Sage-brush's openly expressed admiration.
Polly was flattered by the comments and the glances of the boys, which expressed their approval of her appearance more loudly than spoken words. She pretended, however, to be annoyed. "Go 'long," she said. "Where's Bud Lane? Didn't you give him his invite?"
The boys turned from one to the other with feigned glances of disgust at being slighted by Polly for an absent one. The one-sided courtship of Bud and Polly was known up and down the valley, and indefinite postponement of their wedding-day was one of the jests of the two ranches.
"Oh, we sent it on to him at Florence. He'll git it in time, if he ain't gone to the Lazy K with Buck McKee," said Sage-brush; then, turning to the other cowboys, he added in an aggrieved tone: "Polly ain't got no eyes for no one excep' Bud."
Polly stepped to Allen's side, and, laying her head on his shoulder, said: "Ain't I?" Allen patted the girl's head. He was very fond of her, looking upon her as another daughter.
Polly smiled back into his face, and then, with a glance at the cowboys, said: "Say, Uncle Jim, there's some bottles to be opened."
The invitation was an indirect one, but all knew what it meant, and started for the house.
"Root-beer," added Polly mischievously; "the corks pull awful hard."
Allen glanced at her in feigned alarm.
"What do you want to do—stampede the bunch?"
Before she could answer, the approach of a horse attracted the attention of the group.
"There's Jack, now!" cried Sage-brush, in tones which plainly showed his relief; "no, it ain't," he added reflectively, "he rode his pacin' mare, and that's a trottin' horse."
The cry of the rider was heard quieting his mount. Allen recognized the voice. "It's Slim Hoover," he cried.
Polly clapped her hands, and said mischievously to Sage-brush: "Now you'll see me makin' goo-goo eyes to somebody besides Bud Lane. I ain't a-going to be the only girl in Pinal County Slim Hoover ain't set up to."
"An' shied off from," added Sage-brush, a little nettled by Polly's overlooking him as a subject for flirtation. "But what's Slim doin' over this way?"
"Come to Jack's weddin', of course," replied Polly, adding complacently: "And probably projectin' a hitch-up of his own."
Slim ran around the corner of the house directly into the crowd, who seized him before he could recover from his surprise, and proceeded to haze him, to their intense delight and the Sheriff's embarrassment, for he knew that Polly was somewhere near, enjoying his discomfiture. Polly waited until her victim was fully ready for her particular form of torture. The reception of the cowboys was crude to her refined form of making the fat Sheriff uncomfortable.
With the velvety cruelty of a flirt she held out her hand, saying: "Hello, Slim."
The Sheriff flushed under his tan. The red crept up the back of his neck to his ears. He awkwardly took off his hat. With a bow and a scrape he greeted her: "Howdy, Miss Polly, howdy." Meantime he shook her hand until she winced from the heartiness of the grip.
"What's the news?" she asked, as she slowly straightened out her fingers one by one.
"There's been a killin' over Florence way," announced the Sheriff, putting on his hat and becoming an officer of the law with duty to perform.
"Who is the misfortunate?" asked Sage-brush, as they gathered about Hoover and listened intently.
Murder in Arizona was a serious matter, and punishment was meted out to the slayer or he was freed by his fellow citizens. Far from courts of justice and surrounded by men to whom death was often merely an incident in a career of crime, the settlers were forced to depend upon themselves to keep peace on the border. They acted quickly, but never hastily. Judgment followed quickly on conviction. Their views were broad, and rarely were their decisions wrong.
"'Ole Man' Terrill," replied the Sheriff. "Happened about ten this mornin'. Some man caught him alone in the railroad-station and blowed his head half-off."
"Do tell!" was Allen's exclamation.
"Yep," continued the Sheriff. "He must have pulled a gun on the fellow. He put up some sort of a fight, as the room is some mussed up."
"Robbery?" queried Polly, with wide-open eyes.
"That's what!" answered Slim, turning to her. "He had three thousan' dollars pinned in his vest—county money for salaries. You know how he toted his wad around with him, defyin' man or the devil to get it 'way from him? Well, some one who was both man an' devil was too much for him."
"Who found him?"
"I did myself. Went over around noon after the money. Didn't stop to go back to town fer a posse. Trail was already too cold. Could tell it was a man that rode a pacin' horse."
His auditors looked at each other, striving to remember who of their acquaintance rode a pacing horse. Sage-brush Charley shook his head. "Nobody down this way, 'ceptin', of course, the boss, rides a pacer. Must be one of the Lazy K outfit, I reckon."
"Most likely," said the Sheriff; "he struck out south, probably to throw me off scent. Then he fell in with two other men, and this balled me up. I lost one of the tracks, but follered the other two round Sweetwater Mesa, till I came where they rode into the river. Of course I couldn't follow the trail any farther at that p'int, so, bein' as I was near Uncle Jim's, I rode over fer help to look along both banks an' pick up the trail wherever it comes out of the river. Sorry I must break up yer fun, boys, but some o' yuh must come along with me. Duty's duty. I want Sage-brush, anyhow, as I s'pose I can't ask fer Jack Payson."
Sage-brush pulled a long face. At any other time he would have jumped at the chance of running to earth the dastardly murderers of his old friend Terrill. But in the matter of this, his first experience a wedding, he had tickled his palate so long with the sweets of anticipation that he could not bear to forgo the culminating swallow of realization.
"I don't see why I shouldn't be let off as well as Jack," he grumbled; "our cases are similar. You see it's my first weddin'," explained the foreman to the sheriff.
The other cowboys howled with delight. The humor of the situation caught their fancy, and they yelled a chorus of protestation in Hoover's ears. In this Colonel Allen joined.
"Don't spile the weddin'," he pleaded. "This event has already rounded up the Sweetwater outfit fer yuh, an' saved yuh more time than you'll lose by waitin' till it's over. Then we'll all jine yuh."
Hoover commanded silence, and, rolling a cigarette, gravely considered the proposition. He realized that the murderers should be followed up at once, but that if he forced the cowboys by the legal power exercised to forego the pleasure they had been anticipating so greatly, they would not be so keen in pursuit as if they had first "given the boss his send-off." The considerations being equal, or, as he put it, "hoss an' hoss," it seemed to him wise to submit to Allen's proposition, backed as it was by the justice of his plan that the occasion of the wedding had already saved valuable time in assembling the posse. He assented, therefore, but, to maintain the dignity of his office and control of the situation, with apparent reluctance.
"Well, hurry up the sacreements an' ceremonies, then, an' the minute the preacher ties the knot, every man uv yuh but Jack an' the parson an' Uncle Jim gits on his boss an' folluhs me. I'll wait out in the corral."
At this there was another storm of expostulation, led this time by Allen. Of course Hoover was to come to the wedding, and be its guest of honor. "You shall be the first to wish Jack and Echo lucky," said Allen. "That means you'll be the next one to marry."
The ruddy-faced Sheriff blushed to the roots of his auburn hair.
"Much obliged, but I ain't fixed up fer a weddin'," and he looked down at his travel-stained breeches tucked in riding-boots white with alkali-dust, and felt of his buttonless waistcoat and gingham shirt open at the throat, with the bandanna handkerchief his neck in lieu of both collar and tie.
Polly assured him that he would do very well as he was, that for her part she "wouldn't want no better-dressed man than he to be present at her wedding, not even the feller she was goin' to be hitched up to;" whereat Slim Hoover was greatly set at ease.
Polly was bounding up the piazza steps to tell Echo of the accession to her party, when Hoover held up his hand. A terrifying suggestion had flashed through his mind.
"Hold on a minute!" he exclaimed, and, turning to Allen, he asked anxiously: "Does this yere guest of honor haf to kiss the bride?"
The question was so foreign to the serious topic which had just been under discussion that everyone laughed in relief of the nervous tension.
Allen's fun-loving nature at once bubbled to the surface. With an air of assumed anger he said to the Sheriff: "Of course; every guest has to do it." Then, turning to the cowboys, he asked: "Is there any one as holds out strong objection to kissin' my daughter?"
"Not me," laughed Sage-brush, "I'm here to go the limit."
"I'm an experienced kisser, I am," said Parenthesis, "I don't lose no chance at practise."
"I'll take two, please," simpered Fresno.
Show Low interrupted the general sally which followed this remark, saying: "I strings my chips along with Fresno."
"Slim's afraid of females!" drawled Polly provokingly.
"Oh, thunder!" exclaimed Slim to Polly. "No, I ain't, nothin' of the sort. I'm a peaceful man, I am. I never likes to start no trouble."
"Get out, what's one kiss?" laughed Allen.
"I've seen a big jack-pot of trouble opened by chippin' in just one kiss," wisely remarked the Sheriff.
Sage-brush, at this point, announced decisively: "The bride has got to be kissed."
Slim tried to break through the group and enter the house, thinking that by making such a move he would divert their attention, and that in the excitement of the wedding he could avoid kissing the bride, an ordeal which to him was more terrible than facing the worst gun-fighter in Arizona.
"I deputize you to do the kissin' for me," he said to Parenthesis, who had laid his hand shoulder to detain him.
"No, siree," the cowboy replied. "Every man does his own kissin' in this game." Slim half-turned as if undecided. Suddenly he turned on his heel, started for the corral. "I'll wait outside," he shouted.
"No, you don't!" cried his companions. He turned to face a semicircle of drawn revolvers. He looked from one man to another, as if puzzled what move to make next. Allen was annoyed by the sheriff's actions, taking it as an insult that he would not kiss his daughter, although he had started to twit the Sheriff in the beginning.
"You ain't goin' to insult me and mine that way. No man sidesteps kissin' one of my kids," he said angrily.
Slim was plaintively apologetic: "I ain't kissed a female since I was a yearlin'."
"Time you started," snapped Polly.
"You kiss the bride, or I take it pussenel," said Allen, thoroughly aroused.
"Well, if you put it that way, I'll do it," gasped Slim, in desperation.
The agreement restored the boys to their good nature.
"You will have to put blinders on me, though, and back me up," cautioned Hoover.
"We'll hog-tie you and sit on your head," laughed Sage-brush, as the guests entered the house.