“But the cow was mad, and she tried to sing .... Thunder an’ punkins!”
He did not realize his variation on the ordinary version of his song. He had brought his warbling to a sudden finish, and stood peering out at a horseman who was riding along the edge of the farthest corral.
After a second he stepped back into the shanty, and watched through the crack of the half-open door.
“Sure’s shootin’,” he muttered, “The Chink was right. ItisWestcott.”
His ear caught a low whistle that was presently answered from quarters. Sandy remembered that he, himself, was supposed to be at the upper range. He would have been on his way there but for the defect in his cincha-strap. He stopped to consider, wondering whether he had been singing loud enough for Broome to hear him.
“That’s what comes o’ tryin’ to be aprima donna,” he muttered. “But any way I bin still long enough to make him think I’m gone, if he did hear.”
He stepped out upon the sand.
“They’s something sure goin’ on out yonder,” he said, “Sandy Larch, you’re managing this here shebang while thepatron’s away; why ain’t you eligible to a box-seat?”
A long row of outhouses and ranch buildings stretched out from the foreman’s shack to the men’s quarters, and still beyond these were two fodder-sheds. The last of these was about half full of hay. It stood at the very edge of the farther corral, and Sandy noted that Westcott had ridden up into its shade.
The foreman slipped off his jangling spurs, and keeping well in the shadow of the buildings, made his way to this shed. He went with wonderful lightness and quickness for so big a man, and was presently creeping among the hay bales.
Outside, Westcott sat his horse, while Broome leaned against the wall. Guided by the sound of their voices, Sandy worked his way along, close to the boards, until he was directly opposite them.
“What makes you think you know where the burro is?” Westcott was saying as Sandy came within hearing.
“That’smythink,” was the sulky reply. “I ain’t no way bound to tell you it, special as you say you don’t care about sittin’ in the game.”
“Oh, I didn’t really say that!” There was a curious ring of exultation in Westcott’s voice.
“I only said,” he resumed, “that I had my own ways of finding out things. I have; and I dare say I could put my hands on your burro, if I needed it in my business.”
“A heap you could,” Broome sneered. “Mebby you think you kin put your hands on Gard, too, if you need ’im in your bizness. Well, mebby you kin; an’ mebby you wouldn’t git smashed if you tried it.”
“Put my hands on him—” The lawyer’s voice was thick with emotion. “I’ve got the blasted fool between my thumb and finger now,” he said, “When I get ready, I can smash him likethat!”
Sandy Larch heard the speaker’s two palms come together.
“Not while Sandy Larch is ’round, my fine liar-at-law,”he muttered under his breath. Then he heard Broome’s incredulous grunt.
“What’s got you bug-house?” the cowboy asked, and Westcott laughed.
“Do you want to know who this fine Mister Gabriel Gard really is?” He sneered, and the listener in the shed fairly held his breath to hear.
“Do you know? You said you didn’t.”
“I just happen to,” Westcott said, deliberately. “And I know he could no more file on a claim, or on anything else in this land, than that little she-ass you seem so keen to get hold of.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” Westcott’s voice was vibrant with hate.
“Because,” he repeated, “He’s a damned state-prison convict. That’s why not!”
Inside the shed Sandy Larch’s face shone white in the gloom. Outside there was a sound of Broome’s hard breathing. Westcott’s statement seemed to have deprived the cowboy of speech.
“Do you remember Dan Lundy?” the lawyer said, and Sandy started.
“I never knowed ’im,” Broome replied. “He was a pal o’ Sandy Larch’s.”
“So? I didn’t know that. Then this here Gard won’t be so thick here when Sandy knows. But hewon’t be very thick anywhere, in the open, for that matter.” Westcott laughed.
“This fellow’s the one who did the business for Lundy,” he added.
“Killed him?”
“Knifed him in his shack. He did three years for it, and then broke jail.”
“How d’you know?”
The foreman strained his ears to listen, a look of wondering comprehension in his face.
“That’s my business,” Westcott said. “I’ve got it down in black and white. He came up to Blue Gulch when I was there, and Frank Arnold came up to take him again. That was Arnold’s last job.”
“He was drowned, I remember,” Broome spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“Either that, or this fellow that calls himself Gard did for him, as he did for Lundy. Arnold was a good man. Lord! When I think the other fellow’s hanging around here with Larch this minute—”
“He ain’t here;” Broome said. “He went off yest’day.”
“Fury! Where to?”
“I d’ know. He rode off some time in th’ afternoon. He’d lost somethin’ when we was workin’out them blame cows, an’ was mighty cut up, I heard. An’ when he couldn’t find it he went off.”
“Skipped—blast it!” Westcott seemed to consider.
“I know what he lost, all right,” he went on. “Good thing for him Sandy Larch didn’t find it. But I’ll land him all right, too ... But that ain’t the point,” the lawyer continued. “The point is this: He can’t hold that claim. There’s nothing to keep us from walking in and taking possession, if you think you can find it.”
“You bet your life I can find it,” Broome swore.
“First, though,” Westcott spoke again, “I want to go up to Phoenix. I can get the noon train. And I’m going to fix our Mister Gard—his name was Barker in those days—as he ought to be fixed. He won’t be out of reach so that the authorities can’t find him, and he won’t get away this time. Then I’ll go down to Tucson and file that claim right. Since he’s got no legal status anyone can do that. Then I’ll come back here and we’ll talk about the rest.”
“Look a’ here,” Broome interrupted, “You don’t do no filin’ till I’m erlong, or you never gits to where the pay-streak is. You’ve gotter do some work on it anyway, before you kin file legal.”
“Oh, shut up! Tellmewhat the law is?” Westcott’s tone was brutal. “You blamed fool,” hesaid, “Do you think I can’t get along without you?”
“I ain’t sech a fool’s some,” was Broome’s retort, “I know you can’t, er you wouldn’t be here. You want me to help find the spot, an’ you know it.”
“There’s no use fighting over it,” said Westcott, more moderately; “I was going to Tucson this afternoon; but I’ll go up to Phoenix first. Mind you, now,” he added, “No funny business while I’m gone, or it’ll be a bad day for you.”
Sandy Larch heard Westcott ride away. A moment later Broome’s step sounded, returning to quarters.
The foreman waited some time before venturing out. When he did come into the light his face wore a strange, half-dazed expression.
“Well!” he finally ejaculated, “I sure got my money’s worth that time.”
He walked over to one of the corrals and stood staring with unseeing eyes at a bunch of yearlings huddled together in a corner.
“The dangnation fools!”
His exclamation seemed to afford him no relief; for presently he repeated it.
“The dangnation fools!”
“I should think,” he added, “that that there Westcott person’d wanter kick himself fer a sunbaked’dobe ape, when he finds out what he’s bound to find out, when he gets askin’ questions along o’ Phoenix.”
“The plumb fool,” he said, again. “To think he don’t know Jim Texas confessed to killin’ Dan. The pizen-snake always said he would, an’ poor old Dan was mighty foolhardy about it.
“But, God!”—his tone was full of pity—“To think that ‘Gard’ was that poor devil of a Barker! How in tunk did he ever git where he is now?”
He picked up a bit of stone and flung it at the yearlings; not because he bore them a grudge, but through sheer vexation of spirit.
“If he’d only a’ told me,” his thoughts went back to Gard. “If he’d only a’ trusted me, ’stid o’ writin’ it out fer that hell-dog to find.” He leaned upon the top-rail of the corral and sighed.
“Lord,” he said, “I’m pretty near all in. It’s too much fer Sandy!”
He could not understand Gard’s agitation over the loss of his packet, if, as he now surmised, it merely contained the papers by which Westcott had identified him. He pondered the matter for some time, and then light dawned.
“Look a’ here!” he cried. “He’s in the same boat’s Westcott! He’s bin up in the mountains ever since he made his getaway; that’s what! Fer some reason or other he’s just come down, Iwondered where in tunk he’d drifted in from. An’ he ain’t found out yet about Jim Texas.”
Silence again, while Sandy meditated upon the situation. Then another phase of it struck him.
“What’s he doin’ round here, anyway? Why ain’t he showin’ some enterprise? What’s he hangin’ round Kate Hallard for?”
He could not tell. It was the one thing about Gard that to him seemed to need explanation, and he would trust his friend without that. He was dismissing the matter when a fresh thought came.
“If hedon’tknow,” he muttered. “If he ain’t fixed his matters up, then that sneakin’ law-buzzard’s right. He can’t file any claim. They candohim, there; even if they can’t jail ’im. By the powers! That’s what they can do; an’ here I am, can’t leave the rancho!”
He groaned as this thought came home to him. He realized that he must stay at the Palo Verde: Morgan Anderson had left him in charge.
“If ’twant fer leavin’ the little gal all alone—” He stood distractedly considering.
“I don’t know enough about it anyway,” he at last exclaimed in despair. “Ah! That’s where Kate Hallard comes in.”
The words were scarcely off his lips when looking up, he gave a low whistle of surprise.
“Sure ’s beeswax,” he said, softly, unconsciouslystraightening up. “Here’s exactly where Kate Hallard comes in.”
It was in fact Mrs. Hallard, riding in from the desert, her handsome face more troubled in expression than Sandy had ever imagined it could be.
“Hello, Kate,” he called, going to meet her. “What’s up? You don’t look like you was out fer your health so to speak.”
“I ain’t.” Mrs. Hallard drew rein and looked down at the foreman.
“I ain’t out fer my health an’ I ain’t sure what I be out after,” she said, without further preamble.
“Ash Westcott was in t’ the grille this morning tryin’ to make a deal with me in a matter Mr. Gard’s been tendin’ to fer me. I wouldn’t swap no lies with him and bimeby he gets mad an’ runs off a lot o’ talk I don’t seem to get straight, but it sounded like he had Gard nailed, an’ was goin’ to do ’im dirt. Sure’s you live, Sandy, he’s meanin’ mischief. I’m worried.”
She turned her horse toward the shade, Sandy walking beside her.
“I d’ know what to do,” she continued. “Mr. Gard, he’s gone off on business o’ mine an’ I d’ know what Westcottiscookin’ up against him. I know he’s got a good-will to do him all the harm he can, though, an’ I come over to talk to you about it.”
The cow-puncher stood regarding her, intently.
“Kate,” he said, “do you know who this Gabriel Gard really is?”
She looked at him blankly, her hard face set.
“You don’t need stand me off,” he cried. “If you’re his friend you know I am, too. An’ he’s sure needin’ us both.”
He told her, with picturesque brevity, of Gard’s loss and Westcott’s find, and of the talk which he had overheard between Westcott and Broome.
“Them blamed sneakin’ coyotes is puttin’ up a cinch game on our man,” he said, when he had finished, “an’ something’s gotter be done about it. Where’s Gard gone? Is that his real name? Why ain’t he lookin’ after his matters?”
Mrs. Hallard was thinking fast. Sandy’s story had been illuminating in many ways.
“You’re dead right about one thing, Sandy,” she said. “He don’t know about Jim Texas. That’s what’s bin eatin’ ’im.”
She suddenly realized the significance of Gard’s answer to her question about Helen Anderson. He did not know that his innocence was practically established.
“Well,” Sandy demanded, “what in thunder’s he doin’ round here then? Why ain’t he tryin’ to fix things up fer himself? He’s got a’ plenty cash. He ought to be gittin’ a good lawyer an’seein’ if he can’t prove his innercence. As ’tis now, he must think he’s likely to be jugged any minit.”
Kate Hallard’s eyes flashed.
“Hedoesthink so,” she cried. “He’s afraid of it, too. That I know. An’ bein’ afraid, here’s what the man does.”
She leaned from the saddle and looked Sandy in the eyes.
“He somehow gits hold of a deed o’ Sam Hallard’s, to that Modesta range Sam bought just ’fore he was killed. I give that deed to Arnold to record, an’ Mr. Gard ain’t said nothin’ to me, but I figure he an’ Arnold was together when the cloudburst come that gits Arnold. He got Frank’s coat, someway, an’ that deed was in the pocket. I d’ know where he’s bin all this time, but I know one thing. He ain’t bin in no wickedness.”
“Bet your life not,” Sandy assented. “Drive erlong, Kate.”
“Well: the deed’s bin lost these two years, an’ that devil, Westcott, he found it out, an’ he done me out’n the prop’ty. Oh! He’s a side-winder, fer sure!”
“That’s no lie,” was Sandy’s comment.
“It’s plain ’s day,” Mrs. Hallard went on. “You say he’s got a’ plenty cash.Iknow he could light out from here an’ go where he couldlive like a lord. He’s got that much a’ plenty. But ’stid o’ that he comes back here to this God-forsaken place; an’ what for? Why to help me. He must a’ tracked over half the territory to find me an’ gimme back that deed; an’ when he finds how things stands he settles down here to see I git my rights. With this thing a’ hangin’ over him, so far’s he knows, he’s gone back where he was known, to try ’n’ find a feller that witnessed the transfer....”
Kate Hallard was all but sobbing with excitement and fear.
“Lord above us,—if they is any!” she gasped. “They ain’t never a man like that. He’s pure angel!”
“Naw; he ain’t that, quite,” Sandy said, swallowing hard. “He’s man enough to need that gold-mine in his business, one o’ these days, an’ he stands to git robbed o’ that, I’m afraid.”
“How can they touch it? He’s an innercent man.”
“Yes; but he’s a criminal yet, in the eyes o’ the law, if he ain’t bin pardoned an’ cleared. So his notice an’ filin’ ain’t legal.”
“Hell!” he exclaimed, and begged pardon next instant. “I wish I was in Prescott,” he added.
“What would you do in Prescott?” Mrs. Hallard asked, eagerly.
“Do? I’d see the Gov’nor; git them papers made out, an’ scoot fer Tucson an’ bring that there filin’ up to date.”
“Heavens an’ earth! Kin anybody do that fer ’im?”
“Sure.”
“Then look here, Sandy Larch:I’mgoin’ to Prescott.”
“You?”
“Yes, me; why not? You say anybody kin see the Gov’nor fer ’im. Well: they ain’t many people knows Dave Marden much better ’n I did once. I rather reckon he’d do ’s much fer me ’s fer you.”
There was a deeper hue in the speaker’s cheek than even excitement had touched it to: but the foreman did not notice it.
“Bully fer you Kate!” he cried. “I’m inclined to think well o’ that scheme o’ your’n.”
“I’ll have to hustle if I’m goin’ to git away to-day.” Mrs. Hallard was practical and alert at once. “I guess I can skip back an’ git ready to catch the night train. That’ll get me to Prescott in the morning.”
“Westcott, he’s just gone up on the noon run,” Sandy explained. “He’ll be goin’ on to Phoenix I reckon.”
“Lord! I don’t wanter see him. I’m glad Icouldn’t get that train if I tried.” Mrs. Hallard was already riding away.
“So long, Sandy!” she cried, over her shoulder. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good luck to you!” Sandy waved his big cowboy hat.
“Kate’ll fetch it I reckon,” he muttered, turning toward the sheds. “But now who’d a’ thunk we’d a’ fixed it up that a’way? Gosh-hemlock! What funny things you see when you ain’t got a gun!”
Kate Hallard, meantime, was thinking of many things as she rode back to Sylvania. The tide of old memories was at flood as she thought of the man whom she was going to see in Gard’s behalf. She had spoken truly when she told Sandy Larch she had once known the Governor well. How well, was a matter that lay deep in her heart, a part of her hard, sordid, unprotected girlhood, dead and buried now these thousand years, it seemed to her. Something within her that she had thought was dead with it shrank from the encounter of the morrow, but cowardice was not one of the woman’s weaknesses. She set her shoulders squarely at the memory of what Gard was braving for her.
“They’s one thing sure,” she said, half aloud. “Dave’ll do anythingcanbe done. I reckon Ican bank on that. He wa’ n’t a bad sort in the old days.”
The road ran along the edge of an ancient lake, now a sea of sand, and for many years, in the new order, the great rodeo ground of the region. The entrance was yet marked by two big posts, one of which bore a great yellow-and-black poster, such as the Salvation Army puts up through the desert wastes, seeking to turn the plainsman’s thoughts to higher things.
Beneath the poster, on the sand, a bull-snake and a burrowing owl fraternized comfortably at the mouth of the hole that was their common dwelling. Above it a carrion crow perched, cawing dismally at the scene. The poster itself was sun-bleached and weather-worn, peppered with the bullets of passing cowboys who had taken jocular shots at it, and beaten by the blown desert-sand, but still legible. Kate Hallard had seen many of its kind; had passed this very one on her way out that morning. She glanced at it now.
“FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH ON HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH—” The rest was obliterated.
In her softened mood the words held her attentionas they had never before done. She checked her horse to read them again.
“I d’ know much about it,” she murmured. “The desert’s always been a mighty handy place fer perishin’; if theywasa God, now, an’ He was int’rested enough to give us a few more folks like this here Gabriel Gard, I guess mebby believin’ ’d come handier, too.”
She rode on again, still thinking of Gard.
“We’ve got to help him out o’ this.” A dull flush crept up to her hair and her black eyes suddenly filled with unfamiliar tears.
“Go to Dave Marden fer him—” she cried, “Lord! I’d go to the Old Nick himself to help him, an’ that’s the truth!”
CHAPTER X
“Upon my word, Kate! Upon my word: this is the biggest surprise I’ve had since I came down with the mumps last New Year’s!”
The Governor of Arizona sprang up from his big desk chair and crossed the room as Mrs. Hallard came into his private office. His manner was cordial, the more so, perhaps, that it was tinged with a nervousness of which he was uneasily aware. If Mrs. Hallard was aware of this nervousness, she made no sign. Her own manner was strangely quiet.
“It’s the biggest kind of a surprise,” the Governor said, again. “I could hardly believe it when they brought in your name.”
He established his visitor in a big arm-chair, and seated himself opposite her, his face a little in the shadow.
“Why,” said he, “I haven’t seen you, Kate, since—” He paused, abruptly.
“It’s a long time since you seen me, Dave; that’s straight,” Mrs. Hallard said, “But I’m mighty glad you ain’t fergot me.”
“Forgotten you!” Governor Marden’s tone was reproachful.
“Do you think ten years is enough to forget friends in?” he demanded. “Why—” with a laugh,—“even a political memory’s longer than that, Kate.”
There was silence for a moment, and silence was the last thing the Governor desired at that time.
“I never heard where you went after Ed’s death,” he said, tentatively.
“You wouldn’t a’ bin likely to,” was the reply. “I moved round considerable after that.”
“So? How’s the world used you, on the whole? Pretty prosperous?”
“Up an’ down. I ain’t so awful prosperous; but I ain’t complainin’ neither. I’m alive, an’ what I am, workin’ fer my livin’ an’ neither better nor worse ’n some other folks.” Mrs. Hallard spoke lightly, and her tone was non-committal.
“I’ll bet you aren’t any worse than other folks,” the Governor said, with bluff good-will. “You were always better than ninety-nine hundredths of the men, Kate,” he added, “while as for the women—”
Kate Hallard interrupted him.
“Don’t you bother about them, Dave,” said she,“I ain’t matchin’ myself up with no women. It don’t pay.”
She laughed, a hard little sound, and a dull flush went up to the Governor’s hair.
“You might, for a fact, though, my girl,” he persisted, half sullenly. “There’s lots of women with straight-laced ideas that I wouldn’t trust half so quick. Unlace their ideas a little and they’d go to the devil so quick you’d never catch ’em. The lacing’s all that holds them.”
Mrs. Hallard made no reply; her companion sat regarding her, but seeing, instead of the woman before him, the quick, handsome girl of a dozen years earlier. Old “Soaker” Lally’s daughter had been in her teens when first he knew her, handsome as they made ’em, he thought, now, remembering. And he had been a young fool—and worse—but not wholly a villain; not that.
“I—I’d have made things right, Kate, if you hadn’t sent me off,” he said, lamely, speaking out of old memories.
“Yes,” the woman flashed, “an’ we’d a’ had a nice little hell all to ourselves, after.”
The man demurred.
“Yes we would!” she went on, “Iknow. First place, Dave—I didn’t sense it then, but I have since—we didn’t neither of us really care. We was only hot-blooded young fools that thoughtwe did.... Anyhow: it’s sleepin’ dogs now,” she added, conclusively. “Best let ’em lie. You done more ’n most men would, I’ll say that much, when you wanted to marry me—but I saved you that, anyhow,” with another laugh; “I’d a’ looked sweet, wouldn’t I? tryin’ to make good as Governor’s lady?”
“You’d make good at anything you undertook, Kate,” Marden insisted, sturdily.
“Maybe so: but thank my stars I know, yet, when I ain’t got the hand to stack up on. What a man wants in a wife, Dave, is a woman ’t can chaperon his daughter when he gits one.”
Mrs. Hallard hesitated a moment, her voice softening. “I never had no watchin’ over, myself,” she said, “I wouldn’t a’ stood fer’t from the old man, an’ my mother died when I was a kid; but a girl needs it: an’ it takes the right sort o’ woman to give it.”
“That’s nothing here nor there, though,” she went on, in her wonted tone; “Ed Hallard married me with his eyes open, an’ I was a good straight wife to ’im.”
“That’s just what I say,” Marden repeated. “I’d back you to be a good straight anything you undertook. That’s your nature. I’m not passing you any bouquets, my girl. You were always as straight as a man.”
Mrs. Hallard laughed, with cynical good humor.
“Lord, sonny!” she cried. “If them ain’t bouquets, be a little easy with whatever ’t is you do call ’em. Admirin’ the men as I do, such is some overpowerin’.”
Governor Marden flushed again, and edged away from ground that he felt to be precarious.
“Look here,” he said, “What do you mean by saying you’re working for your living? Is that a figure of speech? Ed Hallard ought to have left you well fixed. I heard he sold that claim of his for a good round sum. Didn’t he do right by you, Kate?”
“He meant to. He thought he did. I’ll tell you about that later.” Mrs. Hallard waved a hand in careless dismissal of her own matters.
“Dave,” she began, earnestly, “I want a favor off you.”
Governor Marden was alert in an instant.
“Anything I can do for you, ‘for old sake’s sake,’” he answered.
“This ain’t any old sake’s sake,” was her answer. “It’s just fair play an’ justice.”
“Ah! That’s different. Fair play and justice are complicated things to meddle with.” The governor shook his head.
“You bet I’m learnin’ that,” was Mrs. Hallard’s reply. “But they ain’t nothin’ much complicatedabout this business. It oughter be plain cuttin’ out an’ ridin’ off.”
“Were n’t you District Attorney when Dan Lundy was killed, Dave?” she asked, suddenly.
The governor started, glancing quickly at his interrogator. Then he was silent for a moment, staring thoughtfully at a map of Arizona on the wall back of Mrs. Hallard’s chair.
“Lord; that’s what I was!” he finally said with a sigh. “I don’t like to talk about it,” he added.
“Why not?”
“From your bringing the matter up I guess you know why not,” Marden frowned, as over some painful memory. “I reckon you’ve got some idea how it was,” he continued. “I did my duty as I saw it; but we bagged the wrong man, and I’ve never been able to feel happy about it.”
“Then it was true about Jim Texas confessin’?”
“Yes. He confessed when he was dying, but it didn’t do the other poor fellow any good. He was dead already.” The governor sighed again.... “I told you justice and fair play were ticklish things to handle,” he said.
“But he ain’t dead.”
“Who ain’t?”
“The other fellow. He wasn’t killed when Frank Arnold was.”
Governor Marden sat silent, his eyes questioninghis visitor. Kate Hallard explained, briefly. The governor touched a bell, and his secretary appeared. The latter had been Marden’s clerk in his district attorney days.
“Seth,” the official said, in a voice that rang with suppressed excitement. “You remember the Lundy case, don’t you? Whatever became of Barker, who went up for it?”
The secretary considered.
“Why, yes,” he began, “he broke jail.” His auditors nodded.
“I remember about it,” he went on, “because of Jim Texas, and what came after. He got away to some place in the mountains, and then he was re-arrested. A deputy-sheriff went down on information from Ash Westcott—”
“What’s that?” Mrs. Hallard’s tone was explosive.
“Who d’you say?” she demanded.
“Ashley Westcott,” the secretary repeated. “He’s—”
Kate Hallard interrupted again, her eyes blazing.
“I know who he is,” she flashed. “He’s the same cur-dog that’s tryin’ to down ’im again. He’s the same—oh, D—Governor Marden, you was askin’ why Ed Hallard didn’t leave me better fixed. Well: here’s why—”
The story came pouring out at white heat, while the two men listened, now and then exchanging significant glances.
“In the name of heaven, Kate,” the governor said, when Mrs. Hallard paused for breath, “why didn’t you come and tell me of this deviltry? We’d have stopped Westcott’s game so quick he’d never have known he chipped into it.”
“I didn’t know any better,” the woman said, bitterly. “I don’t know as I’d a’ come here with it; but if I hadn’t bin an ignorant fool I’d a’ knowed I could do something; but I never did till Mr. Gard told me.”
“You say this chap calls himself Gard? Is that his real name, or Barker? What makes you think he’s the same man?”
“Only what Westcott said—that Sandy Larch heard. He must a’ found something that put ’im wise.”
“It looks that way,” the governor said. “Westcott’s no fool, knave though he is. And do you know, Kate—he’s laying his lines to be the next District Attorney! It looked, till you came in and told us this, as if he’d led his line clean to Washington. Didn’t it, Seth?”
The secretary gave a grunt. Governor Marden turned again to Mrs. Hallard. “We’ll meet his game this time,” he said. “See him and go himabout a thousand better. You’ve done me a big favor, Kate. What’s the one you want done?”
“I want Mr. Gard’s pardon fixed up,” his visitor said, promptly. “That’s what I come for. I want the papers fixed up right, an’ then I wanter know if they ain’t some way to put a cinch on that there claim.”
“Sure there is,” was the reply. “The pardon’s dead easy; only it’ll have to be Barker’s pardon. Seth, you fix up the papers will you, and I’ll sign right off.
“Glory be!” The governor heaved a mighty sigh as the secretary went back to his own room. He got up and took a turn about the office, throwing back his shoulders with an air of relief.
“That thing’s weighed on me,” he exclaimed. “You don’t know what mistakes like that mean to a man. It’s been a dead weight, sometimes.”
He turned, quickly, and took down a volume of mining-law.
“I suppose,” he said, after pouring over its pages for some moments, “yes, I guess Westcottcoulddo something about that. I don’t know as he’d dare try, when he finds out the truth, but it’s best not to take any risks with a ‘sarpint’ like that, and I’m going to have Unricht go down to Tucson with you, Kate, and fix the whole matter right. There’stime enough to get a night train if you want to—” He looked at his watch.
“That’s just what I do,” she replied, promptly.
“All right, then.” The governor turned. Unricht had come in with a document ready for the official signature.
“I wasn’t sure,” the secretary said, “so I stopped to look it up in the testimony. Maybe you remember, Governor,” he went on, “that Barker claimed at the trial that he had retained Westcott and paid him a big fee. He hadn’t any more money to pay a lawyer; so the court appointed him one.”
The governor was signing the paper.
“By gum!” he exclaimed, looking up, “I do seem to remember. Sounded like a cock-and-bull story then. Westcott had left town, you know.
“But say, friends:” he straightened up and looked from one to the other of his auditors,—“the desert’s got a beauteous lot of poison citizens,” he said, “what with tarantulas, and sidewinders, and ground-rattlers, and Gila monsters, and hydrophobia skunks; but it don’t breed anything more poisonous than a man, when heispoison.”
He threw down his pen and handed the paper he had signed to Mrs. Hallard.
“That’s done,” he said, gleefully. “Unricht,can you fix it to go down to Tucson to-night, and do a little business for me to-morrow?”
The secretary consulted his calendar and decided that he could arrange for the expedition. It was agreed that Mrs. Hallard and he should meet at the station in time for the evening train. “About that matter of your own, Kate,” the governor said, as Mrs. Hallard was leaving, “I shouldn’t wonder if your Mr. Barker-Gard was equal to fixing Westcott; but if either of you need any help you call on David Marden. Now don’t you forget!”
Unricht and Mrs. Hallard went straight to the proper office, on their arrival in Tucson next morning, and the secretary saw to it that Gard’s claim was correctly refiled, and the matter put in unassailable shape. This done, they sought the St. Augustine, where Kate was to wait for the forenoon train to Bonesta.
“I’ll have to leave you a little while before it goes,” Unricht was saying, as they stood in what had been the vestibule of the old church. “My own train is earlier—”
“Sh—hush—”
Mrs. Hallard drew her companion back into the slender shelter of a great pillar. “Look over there,” she whispered, and Unricht glanced in the direction indicated.
Westcott had just come into the building andstepped up to the desk. He was making some inquiry about the next train south, and the watchers had a good look at him.
His face was livid, and drawn into an expression of concentrated rage. He looked like a venomous creature of the desert, and as he crossed the office and ascended the two or three steps to the great dining-room, his step was wavering and uncertain.
“And he don’t drink,” Unricht whispered to Mrs. Hallard. “I know that. He’s just drunk with rage.”
“But I don’t wanter go down on the same train with him,” Mrs. Hallard whispered back. “I should be scared o’ my life.”
Unricht reassured her. “He wouldn’t really hurt you,” he said, “but I don’t blame you for wanting to dodge him. I shouldn’t wonder if he was going down to see you, though. He must know he’s in a pretty pickle if he can’t make terms with you. Maybe you’d better see him now, while I’m along,” he suggested.
Mrs. Hallard demurred. “I’d rather get home,” she said. “Mr. Gard may be there.”
“All right,” was the reply. “I’ll telephone Larch you’re getting the afternoon train.”
They slipped out and went to another hotel, thereby missing Gard, who presently came in from up the territory, eager to get back to Sylvania, and report to Mrs. Hallard.
CHAPTER XI
Westcott’s state of mind, miserable as it was, would have been more unenviable still had he known that Gard was on the train with him during the journey to Bonesta. The lawyer was hurrying to Sylvania to secure another interview with Kate Hallard in the absence of her champion. He reasoned that she could not yet have heard from Gard, whose quest in the north, he surmised, had something to do with her business.
He was still puzzled to understand why a man like Gard should have prepared such a statement as was contained in the packet which he had found on the desert. In the light of what he himself had just learned, it seemed as if he must have known that it was unnecessary. The paper bore no date, and he finally concluded that it must have been written at some time before Gard had learned of Jim Texas’ confession. Westcott himself had not known of this before going north on this trip. He had been willing to forget the whole business oncehe was sure that Barker had disappeared forever. Now he was in a white rage at the position in which he found himself.
He had been in too great haste, after learning the facts of Gard’s innocence, to think further of the mining claim. When Mrs. Hallard and Unricht saw him in the St. Augustine he had just come in from the north. He spent no time in Tucson, looking up records which he took for granted Gard had already made right. He was sure that the latter’s first act upon returning to civilization would be to put his own affairs into secure shape. Only in some such way was it possible for a mind like Westcott’s to understand a man’s willingly remaining in a position which must otherwise seem to him perilous, for the sake of seeing right done to a woman like Mrs. Hallard. He realized, too, with a horrible sense of being trapped, that he himself was in Gard’s power.
How that power would be used he felt no doubt. The man was probably only making sure of his ground. He would have his case clear before he struck, and no one knew, better than Ashley Westcott, how clear that case could be made. He had reckoned absolutely upon the loss of that deed, and upon Kate Hallard’s helplessness and ignorance; and the stolen property now stood on record in his own name.
The sweat started upon his forehead as he told over in his mind the motives that would inevitably impel a man in Gard’s position to seek revenge upon him. No wonder the fellow had taken this business up. No wonder he had not been tempted to make a deal with him. Westcott flinched inwardly, as he remembered his own fatuous proposition that morning at the Palo Verde. How Gard must have been laughing at him, behind that grave face. The matter stood out before him in the fierce light of his own hatred; he could conceive of no other feeling actuating his enemy.
Any way he looked at it, the man was bound to be meditating his ruin. Through the whirl of Westcott’s thoughts ran but one slender thread of hope. If he could see Kate Hallard he might effect a compromise with her. When last he saw her he had been sure that he had Gard in his power. He had boasted to her that he meant to crush the fellow; to show her what a helpless creature she had trusted. She had laughed at his threats, but there had been anxiety under her laughter. He had seen that as he departed, exulting. Perhaps he could work that line with her again. He would see; hemustsee!
If he could not arrange with her there was nothing for him to do but to run for it. He might be able to realize on the property before gettingaway; a cattleman up north was even then considering its purchase. In any case, Kate Hallard failing him, he must get out of Arizona; get out of the country, even, if Gard’s hatred still pursued him. To stay, after this, spelled jail.
At the word Gard’s face came up before him as it had looked that night in Blue Gulch, and the horror of it set him shivering. Remorse was no part of his emotion; he felt only a sense of impotent regret at the shattering of his plans, and a blind hatred of Gard as the cause of his undoing. He cursed him in his heart as he sat staring out upon the desert landscape slipping past the car window.
Its desolation added to his horror, and his fury. It was a hellish place, working its own infernal way with men whom fate forced to dwell in it; but he had worked, and planned, and striven there; he had seen his dear ambition coming within reach of his hand. Now he saw himself hunted like a jack-rabbit from the scene of all his hopes and desires.
And there was Helen. He believed that he had stood a chance there. And he had meant, once he was out of this snarl, to live straight. With her to help him he could go far. Arizona would be a state some day. There were big possibilities ahead. He writhed in his seat at the thought, and cursed Gabriel Gard anew for plotting his downfall.
The horse that he had ridden to Bonesta several days before had been sent back to Sylvania; so Westcott went up to the outfitting town in the tri-weekly stage which was waiting at the train. This fact enabled Gard the better to keep out of the lawyer’s sight. His own horse was in the Bonesta stable.
He was no more anxious to encounter Westcott than the latter was to meet him. He had seen him at the Tucson station in time to seek another car from the one in which the attorney seated himself, and now he had but to keep out of view until the lumbering stage swung up the road with his foe on board.
Gard had found his man, and had in his pocket Sawyer’s affidavit to having taken the acknowledgment of the Hallard deed. He had learned, too, that this deed ante-dated the one of record to Westcott’s client. This personage, he had ascertained, was a mere tool of the attorney’s. The actual holder of the property was Westcott himself.
He was greatly troubled, on arriving at Sylvania, to find that Mrs. Hallard had gone away. He tortured his mind for an explanation of her sudden journey. He was afraid that she had been again misled by Westcott. If the lawyer reallyhadfound that lost packet there was no predictingthe uses to which he might put it in making representations to Mrs. Hallard.
Sing Fat could give him no information beyond the fact that Mrs. Hallard had ridden out to the Palo Verde, returning in “one velly big hully-up,” to prepare for a journey to Prescott. He could not tell when she would return.
Gard pondered the matter in sorry perplexity. He could not fathom the mystery, but he feared—everything. He dreaded what might have taken place at the Palo Verde. What had taken Mrs. Hallard there? What had Sandy Larch been told? What did Miss Anderson believe?
The last was the question of his deepest thought. He was not fearful for himself, of anything that might come. The doubts and the temptations of the situation had all been settled in his mind. He had learned stern lessons in solitude, and he brought them sternly to bear in this exigency. This thing had been given to him, Gabriel Gard, to carry through. Whatever might come to him as one human being did not count. It was the life of the world that counted, and to see justice done was just now, for him, a part of that life. If payment seemed to fall upon him, who was he, that he could not bear his burden? Neither his courage nor his purpose faltered before the outlook.
But that Helen Anderson should believe of himthe things he was sure that Westcott would try to make her believe, was more than his reason told him need be borne. The mastering desire of his soul at this moment was that she should believe in him; that she should know the truth from his own lips before she judged him. The vague plan that had suggested itself to him on the way up now took definite shape. He resolved to ride out to the Palo Verde; to see Helen if possible, and get her to listen to the whole story. She should believe him, if there was any power in truth to make its impress upon a true nature.
“Sheistrue,” he told himself, recalling her clear, candid eyes, her fine, fearless spirit. “She will believe me. She must believe me. Oh, God, help memakeher believe me! It’s all I ask!”
He had no intention of putting his fate to further test. When he should be free; able to hold up his head without shame among men; then the right to speak would be his. Then he would lay his life at her feet. It was hers. But now, he would have given his last drop of blood just to know that she knew, and that she believed him.
He left Mrs. Hallard’s papers, securely sealed, in Sing Fat’s care, seeing them put in a place of safety before he turned away to where he had put up his horse.
The animal was still feeding; for himself Gardhad forgotten the need of food. He hesitated, loth to take the creature out.
“Goin’ far?” the stable man asked.
“Out to the Palo Verde,” was the reply.
“Better take one o’ our broncs, then,” the man jerked a thumb in the direction of a flea-bitten roan standing in its stall.
“That un’ll take you out there all right,” he said, “tho’ he ain’t no shucks of a goer.”
“He’ll do,” and the roan was brought out and saddled. A man who had slunk from the stable when Gard came in lingered unseen at the head of the alley to see him ride away.
“Gwan,” he jeered in drunken exultation as horse and rider passed up the street; “go it while ye can; yer time’s a comin’ my fine, pious jail-bird. Here’s where yer wings is goin’ to be clipped sure’s my name’s Thad Broome!”
The cow-puncher had come into town breathing out wrath against Sandy Larch, with whom he had had words. He was foregathering with certain chosen companions, and had already succeeded in getting well on the road to drunkenness. He was headed for Jim Bracton’s with his friends when the quartette met Westcott, fresh from an effort to pump Sing Fat regarding Mrs. Hallard’s whereabouts.
Sing Fat had been non-committal. He knewthat the lawyer was not in the good graces of his mistress, and so, being a Chinaman, he had little that was definite to tell him. Westcott was in a white rage when he was hailed by Broome, too drunk now to be discreet.
He answered the cow-puncher’s surprised greeting shortly, but Broome was not to be put off. He was in a condition to attach importance to his own personality, and he followed Westcott, who was walking away from the town, too furious to endure contact with humanity. The puncher’s companions trailed after.
Out beyond the edge of the settlement the lawyer turned, enraged.
“What in hell are you following me for, Broome?” he snapped, savagely.
“Wanter word wi’ you, Misher Weshcott,” the fellow said, thickly.
“What about? Why aren’t you on the range? What are you hanging around here for?” The questions followed one another with a jerk.
Broome burst into a tirade of profanity, the burden of which was that he would take no bossing from Sandy Larch. He had defied the latter and had been given his time.
“So you got yourself fired,” Westcott commented in a slow rage. “You’re an even bigger blasted fool than I thought you could be.”
Broome blustered, drunkenly. Did Westcott think he was going to stand any lip from Sandy Larch when he had a fortune in sight?
“Fortune—hell!” Westcott’s fury broke bounds.
“What you’ve got in sight,” he said, hoarsely, “is an asylum for damned fools; or else a hemp necktie and a short drop. One or the other’s yours all right.”
The cow-puncher stared, stupidly.
“Gwan,” he said, “Whatcher givin’ us? Gard ain’t made no drift; he’s just now gone out to the Palo Verde; I seen ’im.”
Westcott was startled.
“What has he gone out there for?” he demanded.
“How ’n hell do I know,” was the reply. “When we goin’ t’ land ’im?”
“Shut up!” Westcott almost screamed the words in the intensity of his nervous pain. “You can’t touch Gard, you blasted donkey,” he added; “he’s made himself solid with the law. He’s pardoned all right.”
“Pardoned!” Broome’s jaw dropped. “Did he bring away enough fer that in them two bags?” he gasped.
Westcott made no reply and the cow-puncher turned to his fellows.
“Now wha’ d’ye think o’ that?” he roared, “You know this here Gard, Jim. He’s that dod-gasted sawney that butted in when you was teachin’ old Joe Papago the things he most needed to know that night up to the ‘Happy Family.’”
“I guess I know ’im all right, damn ’im,” snarled the one addressed. “He done me out ’n a good thing that time. I stood to win—”
“Done ye! Call that doin’ ye?” Broome snarled. “He done me out ’n more ’n he did you. Thousands o’ dollars he’s robbed me of.”
“Aw, pull ’er in easy Broome,” interrupted one of the others, coming close. “You never had a thousand in yer life.”
“Ye lie! I had my eyes on the richest vein in Arizona, an’ this feller lit on me an’ nearly killed me when he found I’d seen it. He chased me out ’n it!”
“I’d pot any man tried that on me,” the other said. “Where in tunk was yer gun?”
“Where ’t is now,” Broome growled, “an’ that’s none o’ your business. I’ll git ’im yet. He’s a murderer an’ a thief, an’ I’ll git ’im yet.”
“An’ hang for it.” This man spoke for the first time. “He ain’t worth it.”
“Not on your life would I hang fer ’t,” was Broome’s reply. “I tell ye the man’s a murderer an’ a thief anyhow; an’ as fer his bein’ worth it, Itell ye that claim he’s hanging onto’s got a million in plain sight.”
“An’ to think of it,” he went on, dolorously, “that I had my two hands on them bags, an’ hefted ’em, an’ saw their color.”
“Pity you didn’t smell of them while you were about it,” sneered Westcott. “It’s about all the good you’ll ever get of the stuff.”
“Is it, eh,” Broome turned on him in maudlin rage.
“It’s all I’ll ever git with any help o’ your’n,” he raged, “but I kin do a thing er two yet, off ’n my own bat. By God! Just you lemme git my two hands on the feller ’n I’ll twist his windpipe good ’n’ plenty!”
He gasped for breath, tearing at the band of his shirt.
“I’ll kill ’im,” he swore. “D’ye think I’ll let ’im live when he’s took the bread out o’ my mouth like he done?”
Westcott regarded him with narrowed eyes.
“You’d be a blasted fool to stand it,” he said, speaking very low, “any set of men are fools to let another man ride over them; but they’re bigger fools if they don’t keep their mouths shut.”
“That’s so,” one of the men commented. “You fellers wanter look out. This here Gard you’re talkin’ about’s a stranger to me, an’ I d’ know all he’s done, but such talk’s plumb dangerous.”
He shook his head with drunken gravity.
“Wha’d you wanter kill ’im for?” he asked of Broome.
“I tell ye he’s a damned murderer,” was the reply. “He’d oughter be killed.”
“Is that right?” The man who did not know Gard turned to Westcott with a profoundly judicial air.
“Why ain’t he hung then?” he went on. “How d’you know he’s guilty?”
Westcott hesitated, considering. He did not look at the questioner.
“I saw the whole story written out in his own hand,” he finally said, with a curious glitter in his half-veiled eyes. “I’ve just been up north trying to have him arrested,” he continued. “Broome here knows that; but I found the matter’d been patched up.”
“Hell! That ain’t no ways right.” The speaker steadied himself, and regarded the lawyer severely.
“They ain’t no justice in that,” he resumed. “Murder’s murder; an’ the punishment for murder’s hanging. I d’mand t’ know why he ain’t hung?”
“You’ll have to answer your own question,” was the quiet reply. “What are you going to do about that?”
“I know what I’d do about it,” Broome spokethis time. “I’d hang ’im myself, quick’s that,” snapping his fingers, “if I got the chance.”
“Lynching’s gone out of style,” sneered Westcott. “We’re law-abiding in Arizona now.”
“Law be damned,” Broome blustered. “Lynching’s too good fer ’im; but it’d serve, I guess.”
The word passed from one to another of the drunken group. The men looked at one another, and fell into a confused discussion.
“Did you say you saw that there confession in his own handwrite?” the stranger presently turned to ask of Westcott, but the lawyer had already hurried away.
“Don’t you worry none about that,” Broome answered for him, with an oath. “I tell ye, Hickey, I know what I’m talkin’ about. The man’s an escaped jail-bird that was in fer murder. He’s dodged the law, but hell! he ain’t dodged Thad Broome yet!”
The talk went on among the men, but Westcott was not there to hear it. He had seen to it that he should not be, and was well on his way back to town.
He had not put the idea into their heads, he told himself. Nor was it likely that anything would come of their drunken vaporings.
But if anything should—His heart was beating excitedly, and his breath came quick as the possibilities of the situation hammered at his brain.
“Curse the fellow,” he muttered. “The very devil himself is always sending him my way. Well, whatever happens to him this trip he’s brought it upon himself.”
He walked on, his thoughts growing more definite.
“Nothing can be proved against me,” they ran. “I can’t be supposed to know what a lot of drunken punchers are likely to do. The fool ought to have been careful how he interfered with them.
“Still, if anythingshouldhappen,” caution suggested, “I may as well be away from here.”
He glanced at his watch.
“Too late for the afternoon train,” he reflected. “But there’s the mixed freight at nine-thirty. I might ride over to the junction and get Billy Norton to stop that for me. I’ll do that. Plenty of time after supper. Yes: that is what I will do.”
He did not continue his walk, but sought the little hotel and shut himself into his room, explaining to the friendly proprietor that he was dead tired, and wanted to make up lost sleep.