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Theone business block of Wharton, a little town twenty miles north of the Cherokee-Kansas line, seemed almost deserted. Four men sat on the edge of a raised-board sidewalk midway of the block. Two others leaned against the support posts of a wooden shelter which roofed the sidewalk before a hardware store. Four horsemen clattered round the corner, their black masks furnishing a sinister contrast to the quiet village scene, and the few citizens of Wharton who chanced to be abroad witnessed the advent of the modern bandit, come to replace the road agent whose day had passed when railroad transportation superseded stage-coach travel on the overland trails.
Three of the men dropped from their saddles before the Wharton bank, two of them entering while the third stood guard before the door and the mounted man held the horses of the other three.
The man in the saddle addressed the startled spectators and his voice, although not raisedabove a conversational tone, carried the length of the silent street.
“Take it easy,” he advised. “No one’s going to get hurt unless you start acting up.”
He spoke with quiet assurance but the man on the door was of a more blustering type.
“All you cattle stand dead quiet,” he threatened. “Not a sound there! You!” he bawled as a man shifted his position; “what did I tell you about keeping quiet.”
“Keep quiet yourself,” the man on the horse advised. “You’ll stampede the lot of them with your gab.”
Those within the bank reported later that one of the inside men was silent throughout the affair, never speaking a word but instead making his wishes known by motions of his hand. His companion seemed nervous and excited.
The pair emerged from the bank and the three dismounted men swung to their saddles. As the quartet jumped their horses down the street the door of the hardware store opened and the reports of a rifle rolled forth in swift succession. The man who had held the horses lurched dizzily, sprawling forward over the saddle horn, then fell to the street as his mount jumped sidewise. The silent man set his own horse back on its haunches, seized the reins of the loose animal and leanedfrom the saddle to help the fallen man to remount. The blustering party whirled his horse and emptied his gun at the front of the store from which the concealed riflemen operated. Spectators, galvanized into action by the splintering glass of store windows, ducked hurriedly for cover. As the fallen man regained his saddle the three men rounded the corner and followed after the fourth, who had held on without slackening his speed.
Near noon of the following day Carver was well on his way toward Hinman’s range to bring back the hundred head of yearlings he had purchased in the spring. The news of the Wharton raid had been carried to the bunk house by a grub-liner the night before and Carver turned it over in his mind as he rode.
“The blustering man on the door was Noll Lassiter,” he mused. “And the silent man inside was Milt. The nervous party—I can’t place him. I’m wondering about the casual individual who held the horses. It certainly does look as if they’d cancelled the family feud.”
For Bart Lassiter’s two-day trip to Caldwell had lengthened into a week and he had not yet returned. The name of Lassiter had been whispered in connection with recent misdeeds but the raids had been frequent and at widely separatepoints. It was certain that Milt and Noll Lassiter had not participated in some of these, their whereabouts at the time having been definitely established, and there was no proof that they had been connected with any one of the numerous affairs.
Carver angled slightly westward as he reached the sand-hill country near the line. This was the poorest land in all the Strip, yet in common with better stuff it had been staked solidly on the day of the run. The majority of these sand-hill claims were destined to change hands many times before prove-up work would be completed and patents issued for the land. Carver found this country unfenced and the few homestead cabins were mainly deserted. The surface was rough and choppy, a veritable maze of dunes, some covered with tufts of tall red grass and studded with clumps of dwarfed brush and needle-leaved yucca plants. There were ridges and domes of white blow-sand, worn by the action of the wind. These stretches of sand had retarded the progress of the fire which had swept the country in late summer and the most of it was covered with grass. There were occasional flats carpeted with short, wiry salt grass. As Carver neared the edge of one of these basins he suddenly pulled up his horse and peered throughthe fringe of tall grass that graced the crest of an intermediate ridge.
“Here comes the casual party now,” he commented. “Wounded as stated in the reports, and with a posse right at his heels.”
Two hundred yards out in the flat a rider was pounding down toward the possible cover afforded by the rough country which Carver had just traversed. His left arm hung stiffly at his side and he turned in his saddle with an effort as he gazed back at a group of horsemen, some eight or ten of them, that were surging out into the far edge of the depression a mile or more behind.
As Bart crossed the low ridge he started to whirl his horse at the sight of the man posted in his line of flight, then recognized Carver and held straight on. Carver turned and rode with him, noting that Bart’s horse was almost spent.
“I’d trade mounts and let them pick me up instead. I could furnish a perfect alibi,” Carver said. “But that wouldn’t do. They’d trace the ownership of your horse.”
“Don’t let that point deter you,” Bart returned easily. “This is no horse of mine. I wouldn’t own him. I borrowed him, sort of, on the spur of the moment.”
“But the saddle,” Carver insisted.
“Goes with the horse,” said Bart. “You’re not up to yourself or you’d recognize that it ain’t my outfit.”
“All right. Let’s switch. Quick!” Carver ordered. “Duck up that coulee to the left and keep on the grass where it won’t leave any tracks,” he advised, when the change had been effected. “Push him hard and hold to the bottoms.”
Carver veered off to the right. He had covered something over half a mile when the posse sighted him as he crossed a low ridge. For another three miles he maintained a lead, then rode out on to a high point of ground and halted his weary mount. The posse had fanned out over a half-mile front to guard against their quarry’s doubling back through the choppy breaks. One after another of the man-hunters sighted the solitary figure on the ridge and headed for the spot. Carver turned and regarded the first two that approached. They pulled their horses to a walk, allowing time for another pair of riders to draw in from the right.
“Sit tight there,” one man called. “No queer stuff now!”
“Where did all this delegation spring from?” Carver demanded.
The sheriff reached the spot and assumed command.
“You, Ben, get his gun,” he ordered and one of the four crowded his horse closer to Carver’s and reached to remove his gun from its holster.
The sheriff reigned over a Kansas county and his jurisdiction did not extend to the Strip, a fact which had not deterred him from crossing the line with his posse when hot after his man. The men were regarding their catch with some doubt.
“Was that buzzard wearing chaps?” one man asked of the others.
Carver grinned and answered the query as if it had been directed at him.
“I couldn’t say as to the style of his pants,” he returned. “But his headgear was black.”
“It was for a fact,” one of the posse testified, eyeing Carver’s battered gray hat.
“What’s all this?” the sheriff demanded. “What about a black hat?”
He too was studying Carver’s apparel.
“This fellow’s not dressed the same,” he admitted. “But the horse looks like the one he was up on.”
“It’s the selfsame horse he was straddling,” said Carver. “He’s got a better one under him now.”
“Did you trade?” the sheriff demanded.
“No, he did,” said Carver.
“Speak up! Get it out quick,” the officer ordered.
“I was off prospecting around on foot,” Carver explained. “As I sauntered back I observed this crow-bait standing where my horse had been. I caught one brief glimpse of a black hat through the grass on a ridge and knew that the party under it was making off with my horse. I crawled this old wreck and took in behind him. Never did see him again—which isn’t surprising in view of the fact that he’s up in the middle of the best horse in three States. That was one good horse of mine. I’ll back him against any mount in these parts. That miscreant made a good trade. One time during round-up last summer that pony packed me seventy miles in one day and wasn’t even breathing hard.”
“Oh, damn your horse and its virtues,” the sheriff interrupted. “We’ll take you along, anyway. How do I know you wasn’t planted out here to help him make a get-away?”
“You don’t,” Carver admitted. “For all you know, why he might have sent me word about whatever misdeed he was planning, stating the exact spot where your posse would jump him and outlining his route of escape from there on,so’s I could be posted just where his horse would play out and he’d be needing a fresh one.”
The officer frowned at this absurd line of deduction and Carver grinned at his discomfiture. The three additional members of the posse, having ridden well off toward the left, had now sighted the group on the ridge and were approaching the spot.
“If you want me for exhibit A in the evidence I don’t mind going along,” Carver added.
The three additional members of the posse rode up and two of them greeted Carver by name.
“Whenever did you elect to turn outlaw?” one man asked. “Sho! We’ve snarled things up,” he added. “Carver wasn’t into this mess.”
“Do you know this party?” the sheriff inquired.
“Do I?” the man laughed. “If I had a dollar for every one I’ve borrowed off him I’d pay half of ’em back.”
Carver’s name was known to the sheriff. It was certain that he could be found if his testimony was needed later.
“No use holding you,” he said to Carver. “He’s made a clean get-away. I’m a little off my range—no authority here in the Strip; but I wasn’t going to let the line stop me when we was right on his heels.”
“Why were you wanting him?” Carver asked. He raised his eyebrows in evident surprise as the officer gave the details of the Wharton hold-up and announced that the man they had hunted was the wounded one of the quartet.
“They holed up somewheres till dark but we got word they’d headed down this way in the night,” the officer explained. “Likely this fellow was feeling sick and had to hide out. He’d spotted us riding into the sand hills and was just climbing his horse to make a run for it when we sighted him over a mile ahead. He’d posted himself on a ridge so’s he could watch all ways. He’s up on your fresh horse and miles off by now. No use for us to go on. I’ll send word to Oval Springs to the sheriff there that he’s down in this country.”
“Any idea who he might be?” Carver inquired. “Anyone along the line get a look at him?”
“Not one,” the sheriff denied. “He’s in the clear as far as identity is concerned. Nobody’s set eyes on him from the time they rode out of Wharton till we jumped him this morning—excepting the man who reported that he’d seen four men ride this way after night. That crippled shoulder may give him away. We’ll be riding on back. I’ll want that horse you’re on so we cantrace its ownership. May get it on him that way.”
“I’ll nurse him along over to Engle’s place on Slate Creek,” Carver offered. “Engle will lend me a horse to ride home.”
When Carver reached the home ranch a man waited there to inform him that Carl Mattison desired his presence in Oval Springs.
“Tell him I’ll be with him between now and to-morrow noon,” Carver instructed the messenger.
Bart Lassiter rode up to the house an hour before dark. Carver had expected him to wait until after nightfall before riding in and had planned to intercept him before he reached the house.
“Why didn’t you lay out somewhere under cover till it was dark?” he demanded. “Any of the neighbors see you straddling my horse?”
“A few of ’em, likely,” Bart returned. “What if they did? I was half starved and got dead sick of waiting out there in the creek bottoms.”
Carver took him into the house and dressed the wounded shoulder. It proved to be a clean hole, the ball having passed through the fleshy parts without touching a bone. Bart spoke but seldom while the wound was being dressed. He seemedgloomy and morose, his usual carefree outlook entirely lacking for the time.
“It was the devil’s own luck, getting jumped just when I did,” he stated at last.
“Your bad luck set in prior to that,” Carver returned. “It started when you met Noll and Milt.”
Bart nodded, then suddenly gazed at Carver in surprise.
“But how did you know I’d met them?” he asked. “I didn’t have time to tell you back there where we changed mounts.”
“It wasn’t hard to guess,” Carver said.
“Then you must know Noll better than I do, if you guessed that,” said Bart. “I didn’t think the poison hound would shoot me down without a word.”
“What?” Carver asked. “Noll, you say! D’you mean he shot you?”
“No other,” Bart affirmed. “The four of them rode up on me before I knew they were anywheres within fifty miles.”
“What four?” Carver inquired.
“Milt, Noll and Freel,” Bart informed. “I don’t know who the fourth was. Didn’t hear his voice. I was afoot and looking for my horse when they came riding along. I couldn’t see who they were but Noll was talking to Freel andI knew their voices. They were riding in front. I asked ’em to raise another horse and save me a twenty-mile walk and they halted without a word at the sound of my voice. Then Noll shot. He cut down on me twice more after I hit the ground. One shot was close enough to fill my right ear full of sand. Milt jumped his horse against Noll’s, cussing him meanwhile, and they was off at a run before I could pick myself up.”
Carver was conscious of a vague sense of relief coupled with knowledge of previous deductions gone astray.
“Where were you yesterday?” he asked.
“Sleeping in the house you once owned in Caldwell, with my horse in the shed out behind,” Bart informed. “It’s untenanted now so I entered by the simple process of breaking a window. I recall that it had been a wild night in Caldwell and was near daylight when I went to bed. It was equally near dark when I waked. The festivities had palled on me and I was ready to go home so I rode out of town.”
“But how did you happen to be way off to the south?” Carver asked.
Bart’s moroseness was dissipated by a grin, the scowl which had stamped his face vanishing before the advent of some happy recollection.
“I had two pints in the saddle pockets formedicinal uses. After taking one of them it occurred to me what a nice thing it would be to surprise you by bringing down those yearlings of yours so I headed for Hinman’s west place. After taking the other I evidently dismounted thereabouts for a nap; and after napping I couldn’t locate my horse. I’d left the reins looped on the horn, likely, and he headed for home. While I was hunting round for him I heard folks riding toward me and angled to cut their trail and get help, like I told you. Instead I got shot. Then I rambled on afoot for a couple of miles and arrived at a house. Some one is making a late evening call and has left his horse tied outside, so I borrowed the old wreck and headed toward home. I was feeling faint-like and weak, so I tied him up to a plum bush and slept. I made another start about daylight and then got off for a rest. It was then I see a dozen or so riders surging down on me. With half the county out on the hunt thataway it come to me that maybe my motives in borrowing the critter had been misunderstood so I made a break to escape.”
Carver leaned back in his chair and laughed, swayed by a mixture of irritation and relief.
“Could you, by any off chance, prove that youwere asleep in Caldwell yesterday and didn’t ride out till dark?” he asked.
“Positively not,” Bart stated. “No one will ever know who entered that ex-house of yours by way of the window. My tracks are well covered.”
“Which is unfortunate in this particular instance,” Carver remarked. “You’ve stepped into it up to the armpits. I had been wondering how to help you avoid serving ten years for something you did. Now I’m wondering if you won’t get twenty years for something you didn’t. Did you happen to hear of the little event up in Wharton?”
“I’ve heard of the place,” said Bart. “But I thought it was against the rules for anything to ever happen there. What did?”
Carver told him and Bart nodded as he listened. The black frown once more stamped his face.
“And we know who it was,” Bart said. “But I hope they don’t get caught. Noll might get sent up for twenty years—which span of time I’d find tedious waiting for him to get out again. I’d hate awfully to shoot him in the courtroom or through the bars. My fancy runs toward killing him somewheres outdoors, so I better get started before he’s apprehended.”
Carver knew that Bart meant exactly what hisstatement intimated. The breach in the Lassiter family was now irreparable but its operation might prove to be even more detrimental to Bart than the influence which his half-brothers had exercised over him in the old days when they had all trailed together.
“You’re never clear of one mess before you’re into another,” Carver commented. “Damn Noll! Forget him. Think what it would mean to Molly to have a shooting in the family.”
“There’s been one shooting in the family within the past few hours. She despises Noll and thinks considerable of me. Why should she feel worse about my shooting him than about his taking that shot at me?” Bart logically contended.
“Ask her,” Carver returned. “I’ll send you home now before some of the boys roll in and start remarking broadcast about your being shot through the shoulder. I have to ride over to Oval Springs sometime soon and if you don’t keep that crippled shoulder under cover meantime, so’s the neighbors won’t get to speculating about your case, why I’ll up and jail you myself just to keep you out of trouble.”
Bart faced him gravely.
“There’s not much in this life I wouldn’t do for you,” he said. “I’d ride on into Washington and loot the Mint if you was needing pin money.If you had an enemy I’d assassinate him just to save you the trouble. You’ve used me white. But there’s some things that just have to be done. This here is one. I’m out to get Noll. He’s had it coming all his life. The day Noll passes out I’ll put myself under your orders and never stray outside my homestead fence for a solid year except when you say the word. I’ll give you a guarantee to that effect.”
An hour after Bart’s departure Carver was saddling a fresh horse in the corral when a voice called to him from the edge of it.
“What’s the trouble, Honey?” he inquired, resting his arms on the top bar of the corral gate and facing Molly Lassiter across it.
“Don! Don’t let Bart go out after Noll,” she said. “Before I have time to thank you for helping him out this morning I’m asking you to do something else;” she essayed a laugh which ended in a sob. “But don’t let him do this. Can’t you think of some way? I never knew him to be in this mood before. He’s so quiet about it that I know he means to do it.”
“Likely it will wear off before morning,” Carver encouraged, but he knew that morning would find Bart in the selfsame mood. Only years would suffice to alter the determination he hadread in Bart’s face an hour past. “He’ll forget it in a day or two.”
He spoke unconcernedly to reassure the girl for she was nearer the breaking point than he had ever seen her. Her habitual self-control had broken down.
“You know he’ll never forget,” she said. “But I can’t have that—a shooting between brothers—don’t you see? Not that Noll really is a brother; but people will always think of it that way. I wish something had happened to Noll before I ever saw him—just for what he’s done to Dad and Bart. I’m wicked enough to wish him dead; he should be; he’s not fit to live. But Bart mustn’t do it. He’d never live it down.”
She spoke disjointedly, her voice high-pitched and unnatural. Carver vaulted the corral bars and laid an arm about her shoulders.
“Sho! That’ll all pass off,” he said easily. “Bart wouldn’t—not after he’d thought it over. He’s excited about it now.”
She knew that he spoke only to quiet her fears, that he himself lacked the convictions which he expressed.
“He’s not excited,” she insisted. “He’s thought it all over now and made his decision. Oh, anything but that. It’s the one worst thing Ican think of. There must be some way. Honestly, Don, I couldn’t stand that after all the other things the name of Lassiter has been linked with.”
“Then we’ll put a stop to it,” he said. “We’ll just fix it so he can’t.”
She noted the change in his voice. He was no longer speaking merely to reassure her. This knowledge exerted a quieting effect. She someway had vast confidence that Carver would find a way out. Bart’s quiet insistence had terrified her but Carver had thought of some means to dissuade him.
“I’ll be riding on into Oval Springs now,” he said. “Meantime you put your mind at ease.” He drew her to him and when she made a motion of dissent he gave her shoulders a little shake. “Right now,” he insisted a trifle roughly, and she lifted her face to him.
“You promise you won’t let him?” she implored.
He stood looking down at her with a queer little smile.
“Rest easy,” he said. “I’ll take a contract to that effect.”
He dropped the corral bars and a moment later she watched him ride off through the night toward Oval Springs.