About a year after the killing of Bud Walton, the sheriff was engaged one day in a game of pitch in the Fashion. Order in Badger had been excellent of late. This had not been accomplished by moral suasion, although that had been a factor, but by stern and often fearless performance of duty in quelling disorders. Johnson's reputation had grown apace. He always knew the precise moment to strike, which effectually nipped many threatening feuds.
On this day, Sellers Hardin stopped his stage in front of the Fashion and inquired for the sheriff.
"Say, Lafe," he said, "there's a guy over to the Cowboys' Rest bawling his wife out powerful strong. I'd sure have smeared the road with that gen'l'man, only it weren't my business. Hey? Yes, I left 'em over there. They come off that El Paso train, the two of 'em."
"I'll step across," said the sheriff.
He threw down his cards and walked over to the rival saloon. The landlord, who had long forgiven the blow on the head and was now a staunch Johnson man, nodded at him and paused in his work of polishing glasses to point to the door of a rear room with the towel. Inside, a loud voice was raised in maudlin harangue.
"You come along now. I'll show you. You bet we'll stay here. What? I'll learn you who's boss right now. Didn't I send you your fare? Huh? And you done come ahead on the jump. But you're too good for me now all of a sudden, ain't you? I'll—"
Lafe found a man denouncing a young woman. She sat near the window, and showed no fear as she watched him storm up and down the floor, pouring out reproaches and abuse. She was pale, but perfectly collected, and she rested her chin in her palm, regarding her companion with a species of impersonal speculation. He was a florid, youthful person of very baggy clothes and with his hair parted in the middle. The shoulders of his coat projected beyond his real shoulders to an astonishing width, and he wore peg-top trousers; also, his shoes had beautiful sloping heels and flowing bows. An intense, nervous irritability kept his arms jerking about. She listened placidly.
"If you don't quit your fooling and come along with me—" he was saying, when she cautioned: "There's somebody behind you." He wheeled and beheld the sheriff.
"What's the trouble here?" Lafe asked.
"None of your business. That's what. When we want any help in a fam'ly dispute, we'll send for you."
The sheriff, by way of answer, selected a chair and placed his hat carefully on the floor.
"You're drunk," he said, with the utmost good-nature. "Let's be friendly, now, and get this thing settled."
Beyond a faint curiosity, the girl exhibited no interest in his arrival, but her companion planted himself in front of Johnson, with his feet wide apart, and made a strong effort to look threatening.
"Well, I'll be doggoned," he said. "Who're you, anyway? What do you think you're doing, butting into my private affairs this way? Ain't a man boss of his own wife? Ain't I got any rights? You get out now, before I throw you out."
"This here party," Lafe said to her in a confidential aside, "is fixing to throw me into the road. He sure will, too. You can see that sticking out all over him. What do you want that I should do?"
"You don't look very scared."
"No, ma'am. I always try to hide my feelings. Do you reckon you can handle him yourself, or will I take him along?"
"Say, you! You pay attention to—"
"Where'll you take him?" she asked.
"Look a-here, you two—"
"We've got a nice, peaceful lockup, where the rats is friendly," answered the sheriff. "He won't be lonely. There's a Mexican there right now, drunker'n he is."
She shrugged her shoulders and looked out of the window. "Suit yourself," she said.
"Say," cried the gentleman of the peg-tops, "ain't I got anything to say in this? You're getting too gay, you two. Do you hear? Ain't a man got any rights in this country? I can run my wife alone, can't I?"
"Does this here party belong to you, ma'am? Are you his wife?"
"No."
"What? You ain't? You sit there and say you ain't my wife? Why—"
"I married him, but I'm not his wife."
"Sure," said the sheriff, "I see. I don't blame you, ma'am." He put on his hat. The other was watching him doubtfully.
"You come along with me," said Lafe.
"Come along, my foot. What do you think you are, anyway?"
"That's all right. I'm sheriff here. And if I wasn't, I'd take you along. It's one of the rules of this here town that a man can't talk to his wife like you done. Understand? Get a-going, now. I'm liable to get peevish directly."
Still he hesitated. Lafe was growing angry. His rage always seemed sudden, but this was by design. In reality it was the release of long-pent and controlled passion.
Said the sheriff: "Hurry up, Harris."
"My name ain't Harris. It's Jackson."
"Jackson or Harris, it's all the same to me. You were Harris when me and Buf'lo Jim done run you out of Cananea. I reckon you ain't forgot that, have you?"
A quick glimmer of recognition showed that Mr. Harris had not. He sobered with amazing celerity.
"Where're we going?" he asked.
"You get moving first," said the sheriff, "and then we'll figure on that."
"I won't go," was the emphatic rejoinder. "No, sir; not me. Tell him to leave us alone, Hetty. I'm within my rights. And you're framing up something. I can tell."
"Say, Harris, you're fixing to get hurt awful bad." The sheriff's air was regretful. He stepped to the door and held it open, nodding at Jackson. That young man gave him a swift look and banged his hat down over his curling bang. Without even a word to the girl, who was regarding the tableau much as a spectator from a seat in the stalls, he walked out. The sheriff followed. Within a minute he stuck his head inside again to say: "I'll be back right away." She made no response.
The two walked out to the residence of Dutch Annie, Johnson a yard in advance.
Dutch Annie said: "Don't you bring that rat in here, Mr. Johnson."
She was a forceful woman, of startling precision of speech. Annie would not open the door, but surveyed the abject Harris through a crack about two inches wide. The sheriff kept the toe of his boot inside, to prevent Dutch Annie slamming it against them.
"I'm not here to make trouble for you, Annie," he hastened to say, "but just take a look at this feller. Ain't you seen him before?"
"Huh! I reckon so. He done married Sarah last year and run off and left her on my hands. Hush—best to get away quiet. If she hears he's here, there'll be no holding of Sarah."
"That's all," said Lafe, and the door banged in their faces.
"Now," he said to Harris, "you hit for foreign shores. I start shooting at forty. Quick."
This does not pretend to be an exact reproduction of the sheriff's speech, because he had an honest man's loathing and contempt for this kind of male. But it is the gist of his words. The procurer made the first hundred yards in fifteen seconds flat, so the sheriff speeded his count, lest he get out of range. The satisfaction was accorded him of dusting Jackson's heels as he ran, and Lafe repaired to the Cowboys' Rest in a better frame of mind.
"She ain't here," the landlord told him. "She's done gone."
The sheriff found her at the Fashion. "You reckon you're a married woman, I take it, ma'am?'" he inquired cheerily.
"I married him in El Paso. Yes, I had to. He'd paid my fare. Yes, I do."
"Well, you ain't," said Lafe. "He's got one wife already that I know of, that fine gen'l'man, and probably bunches more, besides."
She thought this over for a minute. There was no surprise; neither was there any of the joy he had anticipated; and no sign of reaction or tears.
"Where is she?" she asked.
"Who? This wife? Oh, over beyond. Not so very far from here. You won't never see her," was the careless reply.
Again she appeared to ponder what he said. A slight shiver was quickly repressed. At last: "So that's what he is? You reckon—"
"Where's your outfit, ma'am?" the sheriff interrupted.
"My trunk? It's here. I've taken a room."
They were in the parlor of the Fashion, one flight above the street. It was sumptuously furnished, the proprietor taking pride in his establishment—a red plush sofa, a table, three chairs, and a cottage-organ. On the wall was a chromo lithograph of a girl clinging to a wave-swept pillar of stone. This was entitled "Rock of Ages."
Thereupon she told him her story. Of course Lafe did not believe half of what she said, although he gave ear gravely to her direct manner of replying to his questions. The girl's self-possession and cool disregard of the extremity to which she was reduced, suggested only one explanation to his mind—ripe experience. He had never encountered these traits among ladies of domestic virtues.
Her name was Hetty Ferrier, and Miss Ferrier had exactly eleven dollars and seventy cents. She had lived in Eau Claire, but went to Chicago to make a fortune and to marry a rich, handsome youth, as girls starting out in the world invariably do. There she got a job in a department store, where they paid her four dollars and a half a week to keep soul and body together, though subsequently little consideration was shown for her soul. When she parried the assistant manager's attentions she was removed from the lace counter to the hardware department, but she did not care. Then she fell ill; for breakfast foods, wetted with watery milk and eaten in a room opening on hot, slate roofs, are not a sustaining diet when one stands all day on one's feet. So she was sent back home from the hospital. And her parents were miserably poor. Her father had borrowed the money to bring her home. She began reading advertisements again, and finally answered one of the matrimonial variety.
That was all. This man Jackson replied to her, and his letters were very nice—those of a perfect gentleman, Miss Ferrier assured the sheriff. Then he sent the money, and she journeyed to El Paso. He was not what she had expected, but he treated her decently when he met her at the train. Furthermore, he could be very amusing and "splendid company," she said; so she went through a ceremony with him. After that he went away to get tickets, and when he came back, he was drunk. She was frightened and sat up all night in a day coach, and he went to sleep in a Pullman, waking up sometimes to order the porter to tell her to go to sleep at once. When they got out, he said they would take the stage to Badger, where he had some business to transact, and then go on to Nogales.
The sheriff pressed for fuller information. Had she no friends while working in the city? Yes, she knew some of the girls, but they were always scheming for a good time, and she never had any money. The nicest ones lived at home, but not all of them. Several young men had been kind to her and had taken her to theaters. But they usually tried to get fresh, said Miss Ferrier. Some appeared to have heaps of money, but others worked for it as she did, only they spent it with princely recklessness on pay night.
There was one—she came to a full stop. Yes, she would tell him about that one, too. He was very poor. Indeed, he dressed so shabbily that the girls tittered when he called to meet her at the employés' entrance. No; he treated her all right and was always respectful. She liked him because he was very good, and different. He was a student and was working his way through college by waiting in a dining-hall. They had hoped to marry some day. Then she got sick and went home. It would have taken years, anyway. She seemed never to have regarded the prospect with much hope.
"Uh-huh!" said the sheriff, when she had finished. "And what do you aim to do now?"
"I don't know. What can I do? Get a job as waitress, I guess."
She appeared undistressed by the prospect, but it was the apathy of countless failures and physical exhaustion.
"No," he said with decision. "You're a heap too pretty for that."
"You think so?" she asked indifferently.
"You bet I do." It was Lafe Johnson who was talking now, and not the sheriff of Badger. They were alone in the parlor. He watched her for a moment. Her profile was turned to him and her attitude was one of tired acquiescence with the stress of her situation. He hitched his chair forward close to hers.
"Say," he said, lowering his voice, "you forget this here Harris and all that, and throw in with me. I'll treat you good."
"How—throw in with you?"
"Why, you know. I'll take you over to a li'l' place I've got beyond the Willows. It's right pretty. We'll—"
"I wonder," said Miss Ferrier, without a trace of resentment, "I wonder if there's more than one man on earth who isn't a brute?"
"I don't take you, ma'am."
"What difference is there between you and the others? How're you better than this fellow you ran off—this Jackson?" she demanded, with her first display of animation. "You've got nothing on him."
"Say, you quit that. Quit that right now. I don't make my living—"
"And neither do I, Mr. Johnson. So put that in your pipe and smoke it."
She jumped to her feet and went out before he could prevent her. Johnson heard the bolt of her room jerked into place, and then he went downstairs, whistling a casual air. The barkeeper brought a tried judgment to bear on these symptoms and furtively closed one eye at the proprietor.
"Humph," said Lafe, when he was outside and walking toward the cattle company's corral. "She can give any woman I ever done met up with, cards and spades at a bluff."
Yet he was seized of qualms. It was the first time in his tenure of office that the man had triumphed over the official in any respect whatsoever. He had done his work with a single eye to duty, and without prejudice; and he had done it well. Nor was he given to pursuit of this nature. The girl made a tremendous physical appeal to him, and of course all that about the assistant manager and those other fellows was pure fiction. Lafe knew women of her stamp better than that.
He was low in spirits all afternoon, and about sunset invaded the bar of the Cowboys' Rest.
"I'm going to get pickled," he announced, "not real drunk, you understand. Nothing vulgar, but just nice and quiet. Here's my gun. I reckon Badger'll run itself for a day or two."
"It's sure a-coming to you, Lafe," said the landlord. "You've been sober for a right smart spell."
In the morning he felt very rocky, for the refreshment they provide in Badger would stagger the oldest man in the world; and he could hear bands playing in unlooked-for places. So he gave over in disgust all thought of further carnival and went to the Fashion for breakfast, knowing of old that a hearty meal would set him right.
Miss Ferrier waited on him. So she had secured the job! The barkeeper told Lafe that she got it so quick it made his hair curl, and she was sure a waitress.
"She's got the rollers under the ol' man," he said. "He'll eat out of her hand. Say, business ought to pick up. Don't you reckon?"
Assuredly it did. All the unattached men of Badger developed a taste for the corncakes served at the Fashion. One of the Anvil boys happened to ride into town for a new pair of boots, and took dinner there. What he narrated on his return kept an entire outfit sleepless far into the night, planning methods of getting a day off, and it is on record that twenty-seven extra meals were served in as many days to gentlemen who smelled healthily of horse and walked to a merry jingle of spurs. Hetty treated all alike and was a paragon of waitresses. All aspired to be admirers. The majority were shy and ill at ease, given to staring at the menu with glassy, uncomprehending eyes; but there did not lack doughty ones. They lost their courage completely, however, when it came to finishing what they began, in face of her calmly amused smile.
Yet she did not come off scatheless. They were lavish in their invitations, and horses were thrust at her as gifts, like so many boxes of chocolates. She was anxious to learn to bestride a horse, and when she had acquired the knack, Hetty readily accepted several proposals for rides up the valley. Then she abruptly discontinued them; for, fired by what they had heard, her escorts grew bold. Two she repulsed successfully, and followed that up with lashings of a quirt, but the third achieved her waist and lips. He got small satisfaction for his trouble. Her chilling surrender to his kiss when she felt herself helpless, took all the eagerness of the conqueror out of him. The cowboy was miserably penitent on the way home and later announced that he would bet everything he had, inclusive of socks, that Miss Ferrier was the finest girl in town and could lay it over any lady of his acquaintance.
Evidently the feminine portion of the population did not agree with him. One was openly hostile—a Mrs. Garland. But she may not have been unprejudiced, for her maiden name had been Grace Hawes. For some reason—not unconnected with her manner of arrival in Badger—the married women fought shy of Hetty and kept their daughters rigidly aloof. She perceived this quickly enough—long before the men remarked it—and accepted it as she did everything else, with a species of passive disdain.
"What for do you let these here fellers get off them bum jokes?" said Lafe suddenly, one day at dinner. He was in high dudgeon. The sheriff was a regular boarder at the Fashion now, but seldom did he offer a word to the waitress, or she one to him.
"If it amuses them, let 'em do it. It don't hurt me," she said, unruffled.
"Yes it does, too, hurt you. Say, you'd ought to wear a high collar."
"You mind your own business," Hetty cried hotly and flushed to the tips of her ears.
The white, white column of her neck was always bare, for she knew its beauty full as well as did anybody else and wore her dress cut low accordingly; and Mr. Johnson had noted with consuming rage that it held the rapt gaze of the diners. Indeed, she was a strapping, fine woman. Black hair, heavy black eye-brows, blue eyes and a dazzling skin—they made an unusual combination. Hetty carried herself fearlessly erect. Her figure was full but supple, and she walked as if her body held inexhaustible reserves of strength.
He said no more then, but later broke out with the stunning declaration that waiting on table was no fit job for a lady—not with a lot of lazy loafers round, especially. His proposition was that she get out of the Fashion and go to live with the Widow Brown, who was a nice, respectable woman, and would be company for her. And the sheriff would see that she got a job of some sort. Or perhaps she would like to go on a visit to Mrs. Floyd, whose husband owned the Lazy L range. He would secure her an invitation.
"You're awful kind, aren't you?" she said. "You make me think of Bessie and her fellow, you do."
Lafe intimated that these individuals were unknown to him, but he fain would hear more.
"Why, this fellow of Bessie's—Bess worked next to me at the store—he wanted to reform her, he said—Bess was really too fly."
"Well? Why shouldn't he?"
"Huh! Reform her!" said Miss Ferrier. "He only wanted to keep everybody else away."
"She's tough." Lafe assured himself of this again and again as he went home. "She's mighty tough; yes, sir. Else she couldn't talk that away. And them friends of hers. A city's a rotten place."
Of course, he, too, asked her to go riding. She thanked him, but refused.
"I'll treat you proper," he said.
"You can bank on it you will. But I won't go. No, thanks."
A silver heart he purchased for her, together with an enormously long chain, was returned without a syllable of explanation, although the gift was dispatched anonymously. The sheriff was much chagrined. Hetty did her task above criticism when he was at table, but all efforts to establish a friendlier footing met with rebuffs.
"I'll be doggoned if you ain't nicer to these here other fellers than you are to me," said Lafe, after a fortnight of this.
"Why shouldn't I be?"
"Why shouldn't—? I swan I don't know."
The admission was wrung from him slowly, and he appeared to be deep in thought during the remainder of the meal. His manner thenceforward took on a grave, distant politeness that Hetty found peculiarly galling. Meanwhile, the world wagged on about as usual.
One day he listened with a very bad grace to certain compliments paid by a puncher to Hetty. He considered them to be in execrable taste, probably because her badinage in reply lacked its usual sting. He frowned sullenly, and Mr. Johnson's reputation was such that this surly demeanor greatly disconcerted her admirer, much to Hetty's annoyance. The sheriff lingered after the others had risen from the table.
"I'll find out right now," he said determinedly.
Hetty happened to lean over his shoulder to remove some dishes. With a dexterous twist, he pinioned her arms and kissed her full on the mouth. She was quite passive under it, gazing steadily into his eyes when he paused.
"Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself," was all she said.
"I ain't complaining," he answered thickly. Yet he released her.
A bad week followed for Lafe. He was irascible, quick to snap up a word, which was foreign to him. So insulting was his behavior that the landlord of the Fashion feared he would have to shoot Lafe some day when he caught him without a gun.
The sheriff occupied a two-roomed frame shack on the edge of town. It was a cheerless hole of a place. His barn, where he kept his three horses, was inviting by comparison. Often of nights he paced the bare floor of the bedroom, and more than once the faint dawn was whitening the windows, and the cocks of all Badger were lustily heralding the sun, before he threw himself down to sleep. One evening he deposited his lantern on a chair and sat down in another beside it, and in that half-light tried to reason out the whole problem. About midnight he threw away his cigarette and prepared for bed.
"Well," he said, ruffling the sheet with his toes, "I give in. She may be worse'n ol' Dutch Annie, but I've got to have her. That's all there is to that."
He sought Hetty next evening after her work was done at the Fashion. She was standing in the rear doorway of the annex.
"I want you to marry me," he began.
"You do, do you? I suppose you think you're doing something mighty fine to ask me, don't you?" A slight color rose in her cheeks.
"Never mind what I think. I can't do without you. It must be love, I reckon, though it ain't what I thought that was. But I want you to marry me, anyhow. Will you?"
"No, I won't," she said.
"Yes, you will, too."
"I wouldn't marry you, Lafe Johnson, if you were the last man on top of earth." She turned indoors.
The sheriff went home, very quiet indeed.
Three days passed, and they were much the same as before. Then, on a sunshiny morning, the sheriff strolled back from the bar of the Fashion to glance into the dining-room, minded to seek another interview. Hetty was sitting by a window. Her face was red and streaked with tears. She was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. He tiptoed out of the place.
At dinner Lafe was very brusque and stated his wants with sharpness. After the diners had departed: "It's a wonder"—pausing to strike a match—"it's a wonder that there fine young feller of yours don't come after you. Why don't you write to him?"
"What fine fellow of mine?"
"That stoodent feller. If he thought such a heap about you, he ought for to show it. Ain't you written to him?"
"Shut up," said Hetty.
"No, but honest—"
"Do you think I could write to him after going away without a word to—to marry a man I'd never set eyes on? You make me sick."
"I don't think much of him, anyhow," he said stubbornly.
"I guess he'll be able to live that down," said Hetty.
"Where does this here party live? A stoodent, you said he was?"
"Sure"—using her handkerchief again. "He's studying at a dental school in Chicago. Here's his address."
The sheriff did not question her further, but eyed the card she produced, for a long time. That afternoon he spent three sweating hours over some sheets of blue, ruled paper, with very meager results. Here they are:
Mr. Abner Fish, Chicago, Ill.Dear Sir: I write to say there's a young lady here as seems to be in need of friends from home leastways she's powerful lonely now this here town ain't never had its teeth tended to right chief reason they never wash them I guess. Ha ha.Say if you ain't laid out any plans better come ahead and start right in here to fix them good. You can come all the way by train except sixty miles by stage the going is good unless Sellers happens to get drunk and runs his mules over the rocks and I'll be pleased to meet you at the terminus, being as I am sheriff I enclose eighty dollars for expenses which is sort of coming to you from the town and you can pay it back when you make it. Well I'll cut this out now it is very hot here.Yours respectfully,Lafe Johnson.P. S. The lady's name it is Miss Hetty Ferrier.
Mr. Abner Fish, Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir: I write to say there's a young lady here as seems to be in need of friends from home leastways she's powerful lonely now this here town ain't never had its teeth tended to right chief reason they never wash them I guess. Ha ha.
Say if you ain't laid out any plans better come ahead and start right in here to fix them good. You can come all the way by train except sixty miles by stage the going is good unless Sellers happens to get drunk and runs his mules over the rocks and I'll be pleased to meet you at the terminus, being as I am sheriff I enclose eighty dollars for expenses which is sort of coming to you from the town and you can pay it back when you make it. Well I'll cut this out now it is very hot here.
Yours respectfully,
Lafe Johnson.
P. S. The lady's name it is Miss Hetty Ferrier.
The letter mailed, Johnson took horse and crossed the Border into Sonora. He did not return for ten days and then went straight to his house. The Fashion saw him not. He ate at the Cowboys' Rest, but Hetty knew of his coming an hour after he rode down the street.
When three meals had been served and eaten without Lafe appearing, she put on her hat and went boldly to his house. It was afternoon, and Badger lay in a still, dead torpor under a cruel sky.
"Well?" said Lafe, standing abashed on the threshold.
"Abner Fish is coming," she announced, and that was all she could say.
"Well, I swan. That's a right good thing. He can fix teeth pretty good, can't he?"
"Yes—no—that is—he says you sent for him. Oh, Lafe."
This was a vastly different woman from the one he had known. Hetty would not look at him, but kept her gaze timidly on a knot in the door and twiddled a ribbon flaring garishly from her waist.
"Pshaw!" said the sheriff, "it's most time Badger done woke up. The doggone rascals, they never take no care of their teeth. I've been reading some about them things, Miss Ferrier, and it's most scandalous how sick people'll get if they don't watch out for their teeth. This book says—"
"Oh, Lafe."
"Do you mean to say you don't want him to come?" he asked. His hand, resting against the doorjamb, began to quiver and jerk.
"No-oo."
"God!"
Hetty was beginning to weep, which was a ridiculous thing to do under the circumstances. The proceedings subsequent to this wholly reverent ejaculation of Lafe's were too utterly idiotic for sober recital. When she had calmed, they stood behind the door, safely out of sight, and the bosom and shoulder of the sheriff's shirt were moist.
"No, I can't," Miss Ferrier was saying, in the weakest voice imaginable. "Everybody knows what a fool I was to come out here to Jackson, and they'll laugh at you. I couldn't bear that, Lafe."
"Now, that'd be horrible, wouldn't it?" he said. Then, very quietly: "I reckon I can take care of my wife, Hetty."
They were to be married in a fortnight. Hetty's preparations were of the simplest sort.
"I'll fix my hair the way you like it," she said, laughing. "That's about all I can do."
On his part, Lafe wrote to the Floyds and obtained their promise to come. Mrs. Floyd did not seem to resent this usurpation of the sheriff's affection, which establishes her rarity beyond question. Then he ordered some furniture. It was of an inexpensive kind, because he had saved nothing and had only a month's pay owing to him. The sheriff would not run into debt, having had a surfeit of its effects when a cowboy.
Of course he went to call on Hetty every night at the Widow Brown's. Occasionally he found opportunity to drop around during the day, too. Hetty had resigned as waitress, and her admirers faded away, for it is foolish to meddle with another man's girl, when that other is such an one as Lafe Johnson. And ten or eleven days sped by.
Then, about eight o'clock on an evening when the sheriff was talking to Hetty on the Widow Brown's porch, Steve Moffatt ambled into town. He dismounted quietly in front of the Fashion, walked across to the express office and stuck a six-shooter under the agent's nose. That official reasoned swiftly and decided to let him take what he could find. He was not without pluck, but he was also a very sensible man. There was only ninety dollars in the safe, and having soundly berated the agent on this account, Moffatt put it in his pocket and rode out of Badger. He left the agent bound to a chair and securely gagged.
"Tell Lafe Johnson good-by for me," Moffatt said at departure. "Give him and his girl my regards."
"Thanks," said Lafe politely, when he received them.
He saddled his horse and put a rifle in the holster. His .45 was always at his hip, concealed in a leather-lined pocket.
"I reckon we'll have to put the wedding off a few days, Hetty," he said, as he bade her good-by. "I've got to leave on the jump. There's no saying when I'll get back, either."
It was nearly midnight and very dark. Hetty toyed with his horse's mane. She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat.
"All right," she said. "Take care of yourself, Lafe."
The sheriff kissed her and set out. He entered Mexico and struck southwest. No United States officer had a right to invade Mexican territory for a criminal, nor to arrest him on Mexican soil, but Johnson was determined to catch his man first and argue this legal phase of it afterwards, with Steve safe in the calaboose at Badger. So he opened a line gate unobserved and galloped through the soft night in pursuit of Moffatt.
The days sped by and Hetty received a wire from Lafe, who was now in Cananea.
"No luck," it ran. "He's doubled back on me. Hope to pick up trail here."
But what transpired in Cananea deserves a place to itself. Even now Hetty does not like to hear any reference to the subject, and Lafe will eye her uneasily if it be mentioned.
Should a man clutch at an imaginary wire that eludes him up the wall beside his bed, and take to raving and prayer, it raises a doubt as to recent conduct and habits. Hughie MacFarlane, rancher, age thirty-seven years, did all this and many other disagreeable things, and then died.
A considerable number of his acquaintances wagged their heads and remarked that the world would survive the loss—it was noticeable that those who had partaken most freely of Hughie's bounty were foremost in this line of epitaph. Others declaimed the platitude of the mealy-mouthed, that MacFarlane had been a big-hearted fellow, his own worst enemy. Within a week after the funeral, nobody in Cananea thought much about him one way or the other, and certain lapses in his notions of enjoyment were forgotten, for where there is no jury of public opinion, men grow tolerant of human frailty, and then lax. That is our way on the Border.
So everybody promptly forgot Hughie—all except a flame-headed girl at the Hotel Carmen, who sniffed a great deal when she leaned over your shoulder to put the steak and vegetables on the table, and whose voice was wet when she inquired whether you preferred your eggs straight up or over. She was not one to tempt a man to boldness, and none had ever found her desirable; but once, on his way from the bar to the dining-room, Hughie had given her a rough, laughing embrace. That was all, on my honor; but Molly remembered and worshiped the unregenerate creature, according to her nature. Finally she became such a nuisance, with her red eyes and general dampness of face, that the proprietor discharged Molly.
"Hughie was a fine feller when he first came here," Lafe Johnson remarked, in reference to this episode, "but he got to talking Mexican too good."
With which dark assertion he reared his feet to the rail of the Hotel Carmen veranda and lazily watched the hacks careen past down the hill. Three weeks had elapsed since he started on the bandit's trail and he was apparently farther behind him than on the night Moffatt fled. After two days of close pursuit, during which Moffatt had twice doubled back, the sheriff had been able to obtain nothing better than rumors. These he followed up obstinately, and at last they led him to Cananea, where he rested, awaiting developments.
It was Sunday, and the cabs were doing a rushing business. Gentlemen of white skin, gentlemen of olive and brown, crowded into them and departed with an air of elation. Presently two cabs moved by at a parade pace. Both were loaded to the axles with bull-fighters in tawdry velvet trappings. The matador, a person who perspired like a pat of butter on a warm day, doffed his hat unceasingly to admiring friends on the sidewalk. It was very hot and the time was noon.
"I hope that fat one gets horned," said Johnson, comfortably, to his neighbor. "What? You going to the fight? I can't stand to see them ol' hosses ripped. Say, it beats me how white women can go there and sit through it. They chew gum all over the grand stand, too, them women do. If my girl—if I had a woman—"
Incoming guests cut Mr. Johnson off. They arrived off the 10.10 train—two drummers, and a lank individual, very tanned, and stiff in his clothes, who proved to be a mining engineer about to start on a prospecting trip, and a woman. She was plump and had brown hair, and her dress was of deepest mourning. That much Lafe noted as she stepped from the cab, and he took his feet down and removed the cigar from his mouth. She rustled up the steps and hurried inside without bestowing more than a flurried glance on the loungers.
Johnson was still resting there an hour later, meditating, when the landlord came out and held the screen open with a fine show of courtesy.
"Say, Lafe, I want you to shake hands with Mrs. MacFarlane," said the Hotel Carmen man. "This here lady's Hughie's wife. She wants to go out to the ranch. Mr. Johnson's sheriff of Badger, ma'am. It's like you've heard of him."
"I'll be right glad to look after you, ma'am," Johnson said soberly, shoving his chair forward.
Mrs. MacFarlane smiled in a manner curiously shy for a widow of thirty, and murmured something to the effect that she knew Mr. Johnson had been a friend of her Hugh's. This was not strictly true, but Lafe would not have denied it to her for a herd of graded stuff. He leaned against the railing and waited patiently to learn her wishes. She had come to claim Hughie's estate and to make certain that his—grave—here she started to cry soundlessly into a handkerchief—received proper care. All this was very painful and Johnson stirred restlessly. Whenever Mrs. MacFarlane made reference to her late husband, it was always as her "boy," and the tone was one of such restrained adoration that Lafe experienced a sinking feeling beneath his vest. Listening to her—she was decently reserved and her talk escaped in snatches—he gathered that Hughie had been a great and noble man, which was an estimate of Hughie that never would have occurred to any of his acquaintances.
"The feller must have had a heap of good in him somewhere, Buf'lo," he told Shortredge that night. Jim was now engaged in the slaughtering business in Cananea. "A man can't make a woman like her care that a-way else."
"I don't know about that, Lafe. I don't know about that. I ain't so shore," said his friend. "It's most amazing how they kin forget everything when he's gone. They only remember li'l' things he done for 'em; things what a feller might do for a yallow dawg."
The trip across the mountains was a full day's drive, and Johnson was to call for Mrs. MacFarlane at dawn with a buckboard and a mule team. She kept him waiting forty minutes, but he passed the time patiently, recalling that a certain female in Badger was wont to do the same thing. This recollection brought a grin to his countenance, and may have been responsible for the solicitous manner with which he seated Mrs. MacFarlane in the vehicle. They set out at the sober gait suited to a wearing drive. The landlord, after watching them for a while, remarked thoughtfully to the barkeeper that he hoped they would find everything all right.
"Hughie ought for to have told us he was married," he said slowly. "Yes. He ought. I sure hope they'll find everything all right. She's an almighty fine woman."
The almighty fine woman settled back against the stiff leather seat and looked at the bleak wastes they were threading. Johnson eased his mules down the slopes, taking rare heed of the going. Ordinarily she would have been in terror of the perils of this climb-and-drop road, but the driver appeared to entertain no doubts and merely clucked at the hybrids or abused them in emotionless harangues. It must have begotten confidence, for she gave no more than the tiniest squeak when they shot abruptly from a shelf of rock and sped downward at a gallop, the buckboard leaping off rocks and ruts and banging at the mules' legs. There was a sharp curve at the bottom of the descent, and for a wild moment Mrs. MacFarlane wondered if it were possible he perceived this.
"The brake's done bust," said Lafe, as though the matter were scarcely worth mention.
They took the curve on two wheels, sending sand and pebbles in all directions, and he pulled the team to a halt. Then he got out, handing the reins to her, for which she beamed on him. Johnson repaired the brakes with a bit of wood and some rope, and they went forward again.
"I done told ol' Biggerstaff that this brake was no good," he said.
"I'd mention it to him again," Mrs. MacFarlane suggested mildly.
He was very grateful, too, because she forbore to grab at the reins more than once in dangerous spots. The sparkling air and the stern beauty of the mountain country they entered seemed to soothe her. Soon she was chatting vivaciously, but when the sun climbed to his strength, her lids drooped. The talk became broken and lazily intimate. Suddenly Mrs. MacFarlane sat up with a gasp.
"Why, I've just remembered. How on earth did I ever forget it? Hetty Ferrier!"
The widow pronounced Hetty's name as a magician would a talisman. Lafe went very red in the face and asked in a constrained voice whether she knew that lady.
"Know her? I guess I do. Why, Hetty and my young sister were playmates. She used to live where I come from. We heard from her and she told us—"
Mrs. MacFarlane did not state what Hetty had told them, but settled herself to study Lafe, with the privileged frankness conferred by her information. He bore the scrutiny well, giving all his attention to the mules, but he was thankful for the bumps that distracted the widow and made her clutch his elbow to avoid being thrown out.
"Isn't it funny I shouldn't have thought about you and her before? It's a small world, isn't it? Of course she told me you were sheriff of Badger. You're a very lucky man, Mr. Johnson," she said.
Lafe could find no words for the moment. At last: "You see, ma'am, her and me are fixing to get married."
"Huh!" said the widow. "Did you think I didn't know that? How is Hetty?"
"She's fine, thanks."
"I don't need to ask if she's happy?"
"Happy as the dealer in a big jackpot," said the sheriff, much pleased. The widow appeared to comprehend.
They drew near the ranch in late afternoon. The light is of a peculiar, velvety yellow then, and the mountains grow purple along their bases; farther up there are deep blue blurs; and the ragged rims show black against a glow. The widow exclaimed in rapture; then, apparently remembering her bereavement, assumed a look of sadness; and she made the last few miles of the journey in a gentle melancholy.
Nobody appeared to welcome them. A tipsy Mexican lolled in a chair on the veranda, and another was making music for him on a guitar. From time to time the man in the rocker would nod approval and command a fresh tune. Near the corrals, about twenty natives were hi-yi-ing at the breaking of a horse.
When the majordomo perceived the buckboard, he put down his cup reluctantly, placed the bottle beside the leg of the chair and came to meet them. Lafe saw at once that a fortnight of authority and freedom from restraint had played havoc with the man. Nevertheless, he greeted them suavely, and when he learned who the passenger was, cried an order over his shoulder. Three or four men ran to take the mules.
"Aren't there any whites on the place?" asked Mrs. MacFarlane uneasily.
"Hughie, he done fired them all. Pete Harris used to be boss here, but him and Hughie had words over something, and Pete got his time."
Johnson did not consider it necessary to add that the veteran Pete's antipathy to all-native labor had been responsible for this rupture with MacFarlane, and that the vaquero playing the guitar still held his job, although Pete had incontinently discharged him months before. Nor did he mention that the man with the guitar had a sister. As to that, he had heard nothing but rumors, and he was never inclined to believe half of what he heard.
Hughie's old servant, Salazar, waited on the two at supper. He had a shrewd notion that Lafe was the lady's admirer, with an eye to the property; but what booted it? All through the meal he watched Mrs. MacFarlane stolidly and addressed her as "Señorita," which was a brainy proceeding. However, he told Paula in the kitchen that she was Hughie's wife and a ravishingly beautiful woman. The girl received the intelligence with somber calm.
Twice she came out on to the veranda where they sat afterwards—once to fill the water bag; again, to draw from it. Mrs. MacFarlane asked who she was, her age, and where her mother was. She obtained evasive answers, but was too abstracted to give thought to what might have troubled her at any other time.
"She's so pretty—so awfully pretty. Are they all as beautiful as that?"
"No-oo. I should say not. Paula, she's got most of 'em hiding out in the long grass," said Lafe, without enthusiasm.
There is a quality about a southwest night that saddens, or elevates above all petty trouble, according to temperament and conditions of health. Moreover, it can make everyday worries seem trivial, which surely is a God-given thing. As the languid dust thickened, Mrs. MacFarlane grew depressed. The silence became longer and her replies punctilious. Soon she bade him good-night. The drive had made her very sleepy, she said. Johnson started down to the Mexican quarters. A dance was in progress there, and it was impossible to say to what lengths the revelers might go unless convinced that authority slept under headquarters' roof.
As he stepped down, he became aware that someone leaned against a shade-tree in the yard. It was Paula, and she was watching Mrs. MacFarlane's lighted window.
Salazar was not on hand at breakfast, having contracted a sickness in the head during a dispute at the ball. Paula brought in the dishes. She fixed her solemn, round eyes on Mrs. MacFarlane and Johnson could read a questioning in their limpid steadiness. Once she spoke sharply. He gave a curt answer and appeared perturbed.
"What does she want?" asked Hughie's widow.
"Nothing, ma'am. It ain't anything."
"She looks angry," Mrs. MacFarlane persisted.
"No-oo. She says the toast is burned. That's all."
"Nonsense. The toast's delicious," said the widow.
They went on with the meal. Hanging above the sideboard was a portrait of Hughie. It was a wretched thing in crayon, framed in wide gilt of sumptuous design, but the drawing had been a gift to MacFarlane from a friend in the cow business, and accordingly he had allotted it a place of honor. The widow saw this at breakfast for the first time. Hughie's face wore a simper, but the likeness must have recalled him in tender moods, for two large tears gathered on her cheeks and slid slowly downward.
Paula, entering with fried eggs, noted the direction of her gaze and saw, also, the tears splash on the widow's plate. Mrs. MacFarlane was extracting a handkerchief from her sleeve and she smiled wanly at the girl to intimate that the matter of the toast really did not weigh in the least. It was kindly meant, but Paula failed altogether to understand. She dropped the platter and began to jabber. It is of no importance what she said. At her first words Johnson jumped up, but she pushed him back into his seat and cried names at Hughie's widow it was lucky that good lady knew not the meaning of. She crooked her fingers under Mrs. MacFarlane's nose, and when the widow tried, in her astonishment and indignation, to rise from the table, Paula seized a plate. Lafe pinned her arms. There was a tremendous to-do for a few minutes, with Paula shrilling and tugging.
After the first shock, the widow regarded the girl's struggles without apprehension. Lafe contrived to drag Paula from the room. In the kitchen, her access of rage evaporated swiftly, and she sobbed, her face buried in her arms against the wall. Johnson returned, panting.
"Now," Mrs. MacFarlane said steadily, "I want to know what this means."
This was natural enough, and Lafe had been thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life. He began an elaborate dissertation on standards along the Border—how different they were to those back east. It was in his mind to persuade the widow that men were apt to depart from the charted paths when removed from the compelling force of an established moral sentiment. That would give him a chance to lead up to Hughie's backsliding by easy stages.
Such was his plan. It might have worked smoothly with any other woman, or done by a man of readier wit. But as he looked into Mrs. MacFarlane's face, the affair assumed a different aspect to Lafe. He could not tear down the image of Hughie she had builded and kneeled to during eleven years. There came a tremor in his voice and his speech trailed off into weak incoherencies. He paused, braced himself and started again.
"That's better," said Mrs. MacFarlane, very white, and deadly quiet. "That sounds more manly."
Once squared away to his task, Johnson did it well. He showed an amazing aptitude for lying. Looking the outraged widow straight in the eye, he lied—lied gloriously—so that, as she heard him, Mrs. MacFarlane gradually shrank back. She appeared to expand and grow taller in her contempt—to Lafe she seemed to fill the room—but when he deftly added a picturesque touch about Paula deluding herself with the suspicion that Mrs. MacFarlane and himself were much too friendly—he told her this with a savage zest—the widow exclaimed, "The very idea! Oh, the creature!"
"And you were Hughie's friend?" she remarked when he had ended. Of course, that was the monstrous side of this affair.
"Well, you see, ma'am, him and me—"
"And Hetty Ferrier!"
Now, Lafe had forgotten Hetty in all this. Had Mrs. MacFarlane been a wiser woman, she might have read a different story from his eyes in that instant.
"It's my duty to tell her, Mr. Johnson," Mrs. MacFarlane went on, sustained by that sense of moral obligation which overtakes us all in dealing with our friends' private affairs.
"It ain't right, ma'am," said Lafe. "It ain't proper that a girl should hear such things."
"Ho, indeed!" the widow sniffed. "It isn't, hey? We'll see about that. I suppose Hetty's a baby? And let a sweet girl like her marry a man like you?"
"You aim to tell her, Miz MacFarlane?"
"I certainly shall."
"Wait. Hold on a minute," he begged.
"There's nothing you can say, Mr. Johnson. I won't listen. Good-by. It won't be necessary for you to drive me back. I will get Salazar. No, I don't want to hear anything more. I won't listen. I've heard too much already. That will do, please. Let me by."
She swept past him as though marching on a citadel, and Johnson withdrew, limp and wretched. Indeed, he looked and felt, at the moment, the thing Mrs. MacFarlane thought he was. There obtains a notion that an innocent man's innocence will shine from his face like the sun breaking through clouds. It is a comfortable thought. The facts, however, are that he is very likely to show much bewilderment under sudden accusation, whereas the hardy scoundrel will summon up the most blighting wrath when brought face to face with his misdoings.
Hughie's widow retired to her room, where, with a photograph of Hughie on the table in front of her, she had a long cry. Then she sat down and wrote to Hetty Ferrier, lest she be swerved from her high purpose by subsequent happenings, or neglect it through bad memory. Salazar received orders to hitch the team to take her back to town, and the majordomo promised that Paula would be sent back to her mother, who lived on the far side of Tepitate. Her conscience serene, Mrs. MacFarlane gave the majordomo some money for the girl, which the majordomo pocketed against a holiday in the city. As he intended to marry Paula some day, it may be that he regarded this as dowry and consequently his own. Then the widow drove back to the Hotel Carmen, and a week later boarded the train for the homeward journey.
Johnson departed the ranch like a sneak-thief, keeping well off the trail for fear he should be overtaken by Mrs. MacFarlane and further humiliated by a blank stare. He wanted to take counsel of Buffalo Jim, who now lived in Cananea, as I have said, among drying hides and the fresh carcasses of steers. If you follow a road out of this city—the wood haulers use it, for the most part, with their laden burros—you will descend a mesa by wide sweeps and run slap against a slaughter house. There are corrals and stables also, and a thousand carrion crows will acknowledge your coming by a reluctant lifting of wings. Here Lafe's friend resided and slew thirty head daily for beef. Perhaps his occupation contributed to the study of human problems—killing things is a serious business—at any rate, Buffalo really knew all that a man may know in this life.
He took an extremely pessimistic view of Johnson's prospects. Of course, the girl would believe Mrs. MacFarlane. That was only natural. A woman might stick to a man through every crime in the calendar against his fellow men, and still hold faith in him; but when another woman entered into the plot, it was time for a new deal; he was as good as done for, then. Thus spake Buffalo Jim. He advised Lafe, however, to write Hetty without delay. By so doing, he might forestall the widow and prepare the young lady.
"It'll sort of give the widow woman your dust," he explained, "and then she's liable to make a bad throw."
Accordingly, Johnson went to the Hotel Carmen and sat himself down at a desk in a corner. He chose some neatly ruled paper and dipped the pen; everything in due order. After that he coughed and consumed some minutes in staring fixedly at the blank sheets. He had no heart for this task. Resolute in all the crises of his man's life, this was beyond him.
Then he began to write, the pen scratching and sputtering over the page. The sentences opened with firmness and precision, but gradually slanted towards the lower corner. First his spurs bothered him, and he took them off. Next, his neckerchief became sticky and he untied it and left his shirt collar open.
"If you keep a-writing much more, Lafe, you'll be naked," said the landlord critically.
Some cowboys passed through and invited Johnson to join them, but he shook them off. At last it was finished.
Dear Friend:How are you?I am sitting in a room it is a big room and a lot of loafers keep coming and going but genrally coming.This is to say I am well and doing fine I hope you are well and doing fine. Say a lady met up with me here a few days ago who said she knew you ain't that a hot one to spring on me sudden. She is a right nice lady though she don't care a heap what I think I reckon she as good as toald me I was a bad egg. Perhaps I am a bad egg how about it.She said she was going to write to you. I done the best that I could and it don't seem fair it ain't right that you should hear what she said she was going to write to you and besides it was all a stall and wasn't true but you musn't tell that to Mrs. MacFarlane because it would make her feel bad. Hughie he was a friend of mine but Hughie wasn't of no account in some ways for he spoke Mex too good now when a man gets that twist on his r's and begins to hang around with the natives its time to take a new hand all round because he ain't satisfied with his color no more. No sirree it don't do to talk the lingo to good and I make them speak my language which will improve their morals if they only had some to improve that was what ailed Hughie but she must not know and so you be careful. I hope I have made it all clear.The heat is fierce to-day I am going to take a little drink when this is finished I don't take them often only a few with Buffalo Jim and some of the boys. Do you remember the call down you done give me about that. Ha ha that was sure a dandy.How is it back there in Badger Old Lee is there likely ain't he. Give him my regards the Widow Brown must be there too give her my regards. Fred Hall and I used to be thicker than thieves give him my regards. Say tell him to smoke up and let out a roar of some kind.There is not much round here to tell you about Cal and Tim tangled and Tim is under doc's care he's pretty sore. I done told you about them before. Jerry's wife done run off and Jerry is scared to death she'll come back but perhaps she wont. I told him to hope for the best because he cant do nothing more than that.Say you'll think I'm trying for to write you a book but I wanted to get this thing about Mrs. Mac straight so you'd understand. There's a lot a feller would like to say that he don't like to say you know how that is and a lot of loafers hanging round trying to guy you. But a feller thinks a lot sometimes.Cattle in good shape and prices right but we need rain bad. I got to go south to find Steve Moffatt right soon perhaps he ain't where I think he is but will take a chance.Well you must have laid down for a sleep by this time and wonder when I'm going to cut this out I have written so much. Don't you pay no attention to what Mrs. MacFarlane says though she is a right nice lady and I ain't got no hard feelings one way or the other. Well its about time I quit this well good-bye. I'd like mighty well to hear how you are. I'll bet you're looking fine.Yours truly,Lafe Johnson.
Dear Friend:
How are you?
I am sitting in a room it is a big room and a lot of loafers keep coming and going but genrally coming.
This is to say I am well and doing fine I hope you are well and doing fine. Say a lady met up with me here a few days ago who said she knew you ain't that a hot one to spring on me sudden. She is a right nice lady though she don't care a heap what I think I reckon she as good as toald me I was a bad egg. Perhaps I am a bad egg how about it.
She said she was going to write to you. I done the best that I could and it don't seem fair it ain't right that you should hear what she said she was going to write to you and besides it was all a stall and wasn't true but you musn't tell that to Mrs. MacFarlane because it would make her feel bad. Hughie he was a friend of mine but Hughie wasn't of no account in some ways for he spoke Mex too good now when a man gets that twist on his r's and begins to hang around with the natives its time to take a new hand all round because he ain't satisfied with his color no more. No sirree it don't do to talk the lingo to good and I make them speak my language which will improve their morals if they only had some to improve that was what ailed Hughie but she must not know and so you be careful. I hope I have made it all clear.
The heat is fierce to-day I am going to take a little drink when this is finished I don't take them often only a few with Buffalo Jim and some of the boys. Do you remember the call down you done give me about that. Ha ha that was sure a dandy.
How is it back there in Badger Old Lee is there likely ain't he. Give him my regards the Widow Brown must be there too give her my regards. Fred Hall and I used to be thicker than thieves give him my regards. Say tell him to smoke up and let out a roar of some kind.
There is not much round here to tell you about Cal and Tim tangled and Tim is under doc's care he's pretty sore. I done told you about them before. Jerry's wife done run off and Jerry is scared to death she'll come back but perhaps she wont. I told him to hope for the best because he cant do nothing more than that.
Say you'll think I'm trying for to write you a book but I wanted to get this thing about Mrs. Mac straight so you'd understand. There's a lot a feller would like to say that he don't like to say you know how that is and a lot of loafers hanging round trying to guy you. But a feller thinks a lot sometimes.
Cattle in good shape and prices right but we need rain bad. I got to go south to find Steve Moffatt right soon perhaps he ain't where I think he is but will take a chance.
Well you must have laid down for a sleep by this time and wonder when I'm going to cut this out I have written so much. Don't you pay no attention to what Mrs. MacFarlane says though she is a right nice lady and I ain't got no hard feelings one way or the other. Well its about time I quit this well good-bye. I'd like mighty well to hear how you are. I'll bet you're looking fine.
Yours truly,
Lafe Johnson.
Lafe was master of a loose and flowing hand, which had served him faithfully on cattle tallies—he was not called upon to make written reports as sheriff—but made a bulky letter. He dropped this missive, with many misgivings, into a box, and then took horse for the south. We will not follow him, because ten days of fourteen hours in the saddle and a steady diet of beans and tortillas and coffee will grow monotonous to a refined taste. Moreover, tracking down a thief cannot be of any interest to us of larger effort.
In good time the sheriff returned, but of Moffatt he had found no trace. Immediately upon arrival, he inquired at the telegraph office for messages, expecting that Haverty would have wired him further information from Badger. The man behind the counter listened with a far-away expression and then assured him sadly that there was nothing. Lafe went away in doubt and returned next morning, insisting that the telegrapher had made a mistake; a letter received from Haverty spoke of a wire sent the day of his departure. The official shrugged his shoulders at this display of bull-headed persistence, so typically American, and asked him once again for his name. Then, still pensive, he thumbed over a pile of flimsy.
"Johnsing, you said?"
"Sure. Johnson. That's me. I done told you that a thousand times."
"Ah, yes. Here are two," said the telegrapher, and very deliberately he smoothed out the messages and delivered them.
The first dealt with dates of Moffatt's appearances on the Border, so far as Haverty had been able to learn them. They were nothing but unconfirmed rumors, and Lafe skimmed over it. The other was unsigned and he read it several times, the copper hue of his face deepening.
"Don't worry. Nobody can lie to me about you."
"Don't worry. Nobody can lie to me about you."
He thrust this message into his shirt pocket and forgot all about the reproof he had rehearsed for the telegrapher's benefit. Very jauntily he exhibited the slip to Buffalo Jim at the slaughter house. That worthy butcher eyed it gravely, and grunted.
"She's a daisy," he said, after mature consideration, vaguely aware that Lafe expected him to say something appropriate.
"You're damn whistlin'," said Lafe. "What'd I tell you, Buf'lo? She'd never believe nothing against me."
"Yes, sir, she's a daisy," Buffalo repeated. "It's like she just tore up that widow woman's letter and was as sarcastic as hell."
As Jim said this, he winked at one of the wagon horses. Then he went leisurely to work again on a piece of harness he was patching.
"All the same, Lafe," he admonished, "you'd better figure on her throwing that up to you again. The woman never breathed that wouldn't. Hey? You mark my words—the first row you have, Hetty'll hand you one about Paula, first crack out of the box."
"You don't know her."
"No, I don't," said Buffalo Jim, "but I've knowed a heap of others."
The sheriff, rather crestfallen, was obliged to return to Badger without Moffatt. Having lost all trace of him, he was suspicious that the gunfighter would strike unexpectedly from another direction; perhaps in Badger itself, relying on Johnson's absence. His acquaintance with Moffatt had been short, but sufficient to persuade Lafe that he was most to be feared when nobody knew his whereabouts.
Arrived in town and refreshed, Lafe went straight to Dutch Annie. Nobody in the community was especially predisposed toward Moffatt except a few hangers-on at the Fashion who had enjoyed his largess, and a lady known as Picnic Kate. Picnic Kate lived with Dutch Annie. Her name suffices to describe her, and as persons who have no nice friends are unworthy our consideration, I will let her case rest there. However, the sheriff had a shrewd notion that if anybody knew, or was apt to learn, anything concerning Moffatt, Picnic was the individual.
"I ain't saw him since him and you had that run-in up at the Fashion," said Kate.
The sheriff was convinced she was lying, but merely nodded.
Hetty welcomed him back with some shyness. It puzzled Johnson until he recalled the date, and then he looked troubled.
"Hetty," said he, "we've got to put off the wedding again. We can't be married yet."
"Why not?"
The sheriff gave a short laugh. "I don't want you a widow as soon as you're a wife."
"What's the matter, Lafe? What do you talk that way for? A widow?"
"Moffatt's somewhere around here, I'll swear," said the sheriff. "Jeff Thomas sent me a letter to-day—here, look. He says Steve swears he'll get me."
"Well?"
They were standing in the front room of the Widow Brown's. Lafe sat down and tried to talk naturally, preferring not to take cognizance of the probing of Hetty's eyes.
"You see, hon, Steve is the last of the ol' tough bunch. I'll get him. It'll only take a few days—something's sure to break right away—don't look so scared, hon—we'll be married in a month, I bet you."
Hetty looked down at him like a queen of tragedy in a ten-twenty-thirty tent show performance. She said slowly: "No, we won't. I've got a feeling we won't ever be married."
"Pshaw!" said Johnson. "Don't talk like that."
"But I feel like that."
"Women always get ideas like that of yours in their heads. If somebody looks cross at a feller, they can see a funeral with all his friends sending Gates Ajar wreaths. No, ma'am. I ain't ready for mine yet awhile."
"Why don't you throw it all up?" she asked abruptly.
"You mean my job? Resign? Quit being sheriff?"
"Yes, I do. Oh, you're bound to get killed some day. And for heaven's sake, what is there in it? If things go right—well, that's what they're supposed to do, anyhow. But if things go wrong, you get blamed." Hetty spun around to the window when she saw Lafe's expression of amazement. She gazed out at the ugly, huddled nakedness of Badger, and there was loathing in her eyes.
"The place ain't fit for a human to live in."
"You won't have to stay here long, hon," the sheriff reminded her.
"But anything's apt to happen before that. We've put it off twice already."
"Once," Lafe corrected.
He rose and stood before her. She kept her face averted, but did not withdraw her hand when he took it. At last he said: "You'd have me quit? You'd have me back down when they—all these here people—done put me in just because they thought I was the best man to clean up this here place? I don't believe it. Not for a minute, Hetty. It ain't like you."
"Gunmen aren't the only toughs in this town," she said darkly.
"I don't take you, ma'am. Oh, you mean—them?" He pointed to the outskirts of Badger, to the red, tinned roof of Dutch Annie's abode.
"Yes, I do," said Hetty, flushing.
The subject was dropped for the time and they fell to discussing furniture for the house in Hope Cañon. Then, as he bade her good-night, Lafe remarked in a casual voice, as though the step were routine: "I'll do that, too."
"Do what?"
"Clear out that crowd. There'll be an awful howl all around town, but I'll do it."
He had gone a hundred yards when she called him back.
"Oh, Lafe."
"What is it?" he asked, returning.
"That poor creature—Sarah—you remember Jackson?"
"I thought we agreed not to say nothing about that feller."
"Yes, but—well, I might—you'll look after her, won't you, Lafe?"
"Sure. They'll be all right. Don't you worry. Good-night."
He was very serious as he took his way homeward. What he planned to do amounted to a moral revolution in Badger, and there would assuredly be an outcry and a tremendous to-do. True, the town had been purged before. Once, in the hottest of the hot weather, driven to frenzy by Brother Ducey's exhortations—he was a genius in choosing the purgatorial months for his vivid pictures of a living hell—a crowd of citizens had rushed from the meeting, and, surging across the sand-flats to the establishment of Dutch Annie's predecessor, had ousted the merry sisters in the dark of the night. But, as is usual in such cases, reaction from their zeal was swift and far-reaching. Dutch Annie came and flourished; and when the citizens of Badger elected Johnson sheriff, no mention of this cancer in the body social was made in the program of reform.
Lafe now reflected on these things from a new view-point. His conclusion was: "It ain't decent. Hetty's got the rights of this, I reckon."
To many aspects of their Border life, he had given scant thought. Where much that ought to be viewed with horror is tolerated as an established factor in communal life by law-abiding people, a man tends to become complaisant of laxity. Many evils existing in Badger had never struck the sheriff as such, simply because they had always been; but he was learning. Little glimpses of Hetty's healthy outlook on things shook his own code of conduct to its spine and filled him with a species of awe.
"Let 'em roar," he said firmly. "It'll be a mighty fine wedding present for her. Besides, it'll make Steve wild."
The sheriff was an execrable politician, else he would have proceeded differently. Had he possessed the sagacity of a ward leader, how he would have corralled the reform vote by going at his task with beating of drums and a fanfare of announcements. Lafe took quite another method. He paid a call, in a spirit approaching friendliness, and after some vehement protests, he departed with a promise extracted.
Dutch Annie was as good as her word. Next day a little company of pilgrims boarded the stage, bound for the railway. They looked sadly worn in the glare of sunlight, in spite of extravagant efforts with the rouge pot and the powder rag, but they put a brave face on the situation and exchanged badinage with a few choice spirits gathered to witness the departure.
"Well, so long, Lafe," said Dutch Annie, who was a just woman, according to her lights. "It was right mean, but I reckon you had to do it. And you've acted the gen'l'man, which is more'n I can say for a lot of loafers in this here town."
Sellers cracked his long whip, the mules lurched against their collars and the stage rattled away. This was the last that Badger ever saw of Dutch Annie.
So quietly had the feat been accomplished that the town really did not awake to the fact until they had gone. Then criticism broke out.
"I suppose you'd call it the right thing, looked at in a large way, Lafe," ventured the landlord of the Cowboys' Rest in mild protest. "It's more religious, in course. But you'd ought to have thunk of some of the boys."
Others assumed a violent tone, but these excoriations were delivered where the sheriff did not hear them. Consequently they hurt neither him nor those who made them. They held that he had exceeded his duties and powers; his job was to do what was bidden in the by-laws to preserve order, not to regulate the private morals of everybody in the town. Man alive, first thing one knew, Johnson would be breaking up card play, and it wouldn't be safe for a man to shake dice with a barkeep for the drinks. Jake Taylor, who had once been a miner, and who had now joined the leisure classes through inclination rather than fortune, talked freely of the referendum and recall.
The sheriff was fully aware of what was being said. Yet it gave him a new sense of power to feel, also, back of his act, the support of the better element. They arrayed themselves with him unostentatiously, for fear of ruptures that might work harm to business. Nevertheless, he knew their support could be counted on. Indeed, Turner and other substantial men of the place hastened to assure the sheriff that he had done a brave thing. Not a word of it did he breathe to Hetty, but when he called for her to go walking the following night, she was waiting for him at the gate, and when Johnson saw her smile of understanding and confidence, he knew he would not repent, whatever might befall.