CHAPTER X
THE HORSE THIEF
Loudon, who had taken no part in the feathering, watched the departureof the sheriff with brooding eyes. He did not agree with ScottyMackenzie and the citizens of the Bend. In his estimation thepunishment had not been sufficiently drastic. Alive and in possessionof all his faculties the sheriff was a great power for evil. He wouldseek revenge.
Loudon swore softly. He was far from being a bloodthirsty man, but heregarded the killing of Block as a duty. And he did not believe inputting off till some future date what could be accomplished to-day.
"It's quite a list," he said to himself. "Block, Rufe Cutting,Blakely, an' the whole 88 outfit. An' they won't be happy till theyget me. It kind o' looks as if Blakely ain't expectin' to keep ourlittle engagement in Farewell. Block wouldn't 'a' come up here withoutBlakely sent him."
Thoughts of Blakely quite naturally induced thoughts of Pete O'Leary.Where was O'Leary? Loudon recollected that he had not seen O'Leary inthe crowd. He looked up and down the street. O'Leary was nowhere insight. His absence was a small thing in itself, but it might signify aguilty conscience. Loudon wondered.
That disreputable person, Scotty Mackenzie, approached, leading hishorse.
"Tom," said Scotty, his blue eyes twinkling, "don't look sodownhearted. He wasn't worth shootin'."
"I dunno, Scotty," replied Loudon. "It'll come to it some day, or Imiss my guess."
"Yuh'll miss it while yo're workin' for me. Block won't never come tothe Bend again, an' yuh can go the limit on that. D'juh get the mail?"
"I ain't been to the post office. Didn't have time. I've been rightbusy ever since I sifted in."
"I'll get it then. Cap'n Burr wants yuh to eat dinner at his house.I'll drift round later. Better finish up what yuh come to town forbefore yuh eat."
"I come to town to meet you."
"To meet me!" exclaimed Scotty. "Now look here, Tom, do I look like Ineed a gardeen?"
"Didn't yuh write to Doubleday," said the bewildered Loudon, "tellin'him to send me in to meet yuh here to-day an' for me to ride my ownhoss?"
"What are yuh talkin' about? Me write Doubleday! I should say not!"
"Well, all I know is Doubleday got a letter from yuh, an' it was mailedin Rocket."
"Mailed in Rocket! Why, I never was in Rocket! It's just luck mebein' here to-day. If I hadn't met Ben Burr down at the Wagonwheel Iwouldn't 'a' come for another couple o' days, mebbe."
"It's damn funny. That letter from Rocket is no dream."
"I hope Doubleday saves the letter. Well, you go on an' eat. See yuhlater."
Loudon swung into the saddle and galloped to the house of Captain Burr.On the doorsill Dorothy Burr and Pete O'Leary sat side by side. AsLoudon dismounted Miss Bunrose to meet him.
"Oh, Mr. Loudon!" she exclaimed, "I've just heard about your frightfulexperience. I wish I'd been there. I'd have enjoyed seeing themplaster up that brute of a sheriff."
"He did look kind o' odd," said Loudon. "Yore ma shore saved my life."
"Wasn't it luck Ma was down street? I usually go myself, but thismorning Mr. O'Leary came, so Ma went. We didn't know there wasanything going on till Ma came back and told us, and then it was allover. My! I'd like to have seen Ma talking to that stupid Dan Smith.The big idiot! Ma's mad yet. Oh, I forgot. Have you met Mr. O'Leary?"
"I know him," said Loudon rather ungraciously, and nodded to thegentleman in question. "I guess I'll put the little hoss in thecorral."
"Yes, do. Pa's out there. Dinner'll be ready soon."
Miss Burr returned to the doorsill, and Loudon led away Ranger. SoPete O'Leary had been spending the morning at the Burrs'! It would beinteresting to know why the engaging O'Leary had chosen to call uponthat particular morning. Was it because he did not wish to identifyhimself in any way with Sheriff Block? Was it the guilty conscience?
"Well, suh," smiled Captain Burr, who was kneeling at the feet of oneof his horses, "well, suh, it went against the grain to let thatscoundrel go in peace, didn't it?"
Loudon smiled grimly.
"I appreciate youah feelings in the matteh, Tom," continued theCaptain. "Such a puhson should not be allowed to live. My impulse wasto shoot him, but I stayed my hand. As I may have mentioned befo', Iam growing soft-heahted. That's right, Tom, cuss away. If Block wereotheh than he is, he would shoot himself. No gentleman would care tolive afteh being tah'd and feath'ed. But Block will writhe onwa'd likethe snake he is till he is crushed once fo' all.
"Do you remembeh what I said the day you made him quit right in thestreet in Fa'ewell? Well, suh, in o'deh to regain the respect of thetown he did kill a man--an inoffensive strangeh."
"Yuh might know it. He'll be a reg'lar 'Billy the Kid' before a greatwhile."
"Not quite. The Lincoln County young man was a wa'-eagle. Block's abuzza'd. Tom, I'm afraid this Jeffe'son Davis hoss is developing awind-puff."
Loudon made no reply. He was watching an approaching rider. Thehorseman passed by without a glance toward the corral and loped on intotown.
Now the road in front of the Burr house was the beginning of the trailto the Flying M ranch, and the mounted man was none other than RufeCutting. It was evident to Loudon that he had not underestimated thecook. He resolved to seek out his would-be bushwhacker immediately.
Loudon looked quickly down at the Captain. If Burr had perceivedLoudon's absorption he gave no sign. He merely requested Loudon'sopinion of the slight swelling on Jefferson Davis's near fore.
"Yuh've got to excuse me, Cap'n," said Loudon, hastily. "I've got alittle business to attend to before I eat."
"Need any help?" inquired Burr, reaching for his Greener.
"No, thanks," replied Loudon, swiftly resaddling Ranger.
"Dinner!" called Mrs. Burr, sticking her head out of the kitchen door amoment later. "Why, where's Tom Loudon?"
"He's gone away," grumbled her husband, regretfully eying his shotgun.
"Well, of all things! Just as dinner's ready! Don't he know he'seatin' here? Will he be gone long?"
"He may not be away twenty minutes, and then, on the otheh hand, he mayneveh retuhn."
"Never return! What are you talkin' about, Benjamin Burr?"
"Wait and see, my love, wait and see," rejoined the Captain, and wentin to dinner.
Loudon, meanwhile, had galloped down to the corner of Main Street.Rufe Cutting was not in sight. But his horse was standing among thehorses in front of the Jacks Up Saloon. Loudon rode across the streetand dismounted behind a freighter's wagon near the Chicago Store, wherehe could not be observed from the windows of the Jacks Up. Then hewalked briskly up the street and entered the saloon.
Rufe Cutting, his scratched features cast in sullen lines, was drinkingat the bar. So were several other men. A knot of citizens inCutting's immediate rear were discussing the events of the morning.Two faro tables were crowded. The Jacks Up was in full blast. Withthe place crowded a gun-play was apt to result in damage to thebystanders.
However, the choice lay with Cutting. Loudon would allow the firstmove.
With this intention, Loudon edged up to the bar and called for a drink.At the sound of his voice Cutting turned a slow head. There were twomen in between, but they were not standing close to the bar.
Loudon, watching Cutting out of his eye-corners, picked up his glasswith his left hand. Even as he did so, panic seized Cutting. Hisfingers closed on his own full glass and he hurled it at Loudon's head.
Involuntarily Loudon dodged. When he recovered himself his gun was out.
The bartender promptly vanished under the bar. Men skipped and dodgedand flung themselves over tables and chairs in their anxiety to giveLoudon a clear line of fire. But Cutting had disappeared.
Two swearing men sprawling under an open rear window told the story.In his fear-stricken efforts to escape Cutting had knocked them bothdown.
Loudon and the two men, one of whom was Jim Mace an
d the other DanSmith, went through the window almost simultaneously. Both sashes wentwith them to a brave accompaniment of crackling glass.
Loudon landed on his knees, and was in time for a snapshot at a legsliding over a windowsill of the house next door. Before Loudon couldrise Mace and the marshal tumbled over him. The three fell in a tangleand rolled among tin cans and bottles for a space of time. When atlast, red-faced and almost breathless, they rushed the house next doorthey were stopped by an angry woman brandishing a frying-pan.
"You drunk hunkers can't come through here!" screamed the irate lady."If you an' yore fool friends want to play tag yuh can play her in thestreet! What do yuh mean by bustin' into folks' houses an' wakin' mybaby up? You idjits! She'll be bawlin' her brains out all day now!"
"We're after a hold-up!" cried Loudon with great presence of mind.
It had the desired effect.
"Why didn't yuh say so at first? Come right in."
Through the house and out of the front door they dashed. Driftingclouds of dust marked Cutting's line of flight. He was a quarter of amile distant, spurring for the ford of the Dogsoldier and the Farewelltrail. The marshal fired a futile shot. Loudon laughed and holsteredhis six-shooter.
"Look at him go!" he chuckled. "Scared stiff."
"Get yore hosses!" commanded the marshal. "Don't stand here gassin'!We'll go after him right away!"
"Oh, let him go," drawled Loudon. "He ain't worth chasin'."
"But he's a road agent, ain't he?" said Jim Mace.
"No, I just said he was," grinned Loudon. "He ain't nothin' but aright good cook, so far as I know."
"Ain't he done nothin'?" inquired the perplexed marshal.
"Only jerked a glass of whisky at me," replied Loudon. "Yuh see, Iain't right popular with him."
"From the way he's splittin' the breeze," said Jim Mace, "it looks likehe don't care for yore society none."
"I'd ought to go after him," grunted the marshal, vengefully, tenderlyfeeling a skinned elbow. "I don't mind a reg'lar gun-play, but thishere chuckin' glasses round promiscuous an' bumpin' folks over ain'tright. It's agin' law an' order. He'd ought to be arrested. Thecalaboose has been empty for a week, too."
Loudon left Jim Mace and Dan Smith explaining matters to the gatheringcrowd, and walked back to where he had left his horse. Ranger was notbehind the freighter's wagon. Loudon ran into the Chicago Store.
"Shore," said the proprietor. "I seen a feller climbin' aboard thathoss a few minutes ago. Seemed in a hurry, too. What? Yore hoss!"
The proprietor ducked under the counter for his spurs and his rifle,and Loudon hurried out. Cutting's mount, the bay he had bought fromDoubleday, was of course standing where he had been left among theother horses. Loudon threw the dropped reins over the bay's head andswung up.
"He's a hoss thief!" he shouted to Dan Smith and Jim Mace. "He gotaway on my hoss!"
Quirting and spurring, Loudon tore down the street. Before the horse'shoofs spattered the water of the ford the proprietor of the ChicagoStore and the marshal were galloping in his wake. Jim Mace and a scoreof others followed at intervals. A horse was not stolen in ParadiseBend every day. The inhabitants were bent on making the most of theiropportunity.
The bay was a good horse, but Ranger was the better, and Loudon knewit--knew, too that, unless Ranger fell down, Cutting would escape.
"Ranger's good for all day," groaned Loudon. "All day an' not strainhimself a little bit."
As the bay flashed across the top of a rise two miles beyond theDogsoldier, Loudon glimpsed two specks four miles ahead.
"Block! He's with Block!" exclaimed Loudon, and drove in the spurs.
The bay leaped madly forward and rocketed down the long slope. Ahigh-lipped swell concealed the two specks, and for a long ten minutesLoudon rode between the sides of the draw. The bay charged at thehigh-lipped swell with undiminished vigour. He was doing his levelbest, but his gait was tied in. It bore not the remotest resemblanceto Ranger's free-swinging stride. When Loudon reached the crest of theswell the specks had vanished.
He put the reins between his teeth and drew the Winchester from thescabbard under his left leg. He threw down the lever a trifle. Therewas a cartridge in the chamber.
The loading gate resisted the pressure of his thumb. There was atleast one cartridge in the magazine, but by the weight of the rifle hejudged it to be fully loaded. Loudon returned the Winchester to itsscabbard and slowed the willing little bay to a lope.
"Yo're all right, old hoss," he said, "but yuh can't never catch thathoss o' mine. Not in a million years. We just got to wait till hestops."
Rufe Cutting could have devised no better revenge than the stealing ofLoudon's horse. Since Loudon had owned Ranger no one save himself andKate Saltoun had ridden him. Ranger's legs were frequentlyhand-rubbed. Ranger was curried. With his fingers--no true horsemanwould dream of using the comb of commerce--Loudon frequently combedRanger's mane and tail. When a horse in the cow country is curried andcombed, that horse is a highly valued horse. Johnny Ramsay accusedLoudon of wrapping Ranger in blankets when the air was chilly, and oftaking his temperature on all occasions. Undoubtedly Loudon wassomewhat of a crank where Ranger was concerned.
And now the inconceivable had come to pass. Ranger had beenstolen--stolen almost under the very nose of his master. Loudon didnot swear. His feeling was too deeply grim for that. But he promisedhimself an accounting--a very full accounting.
Loudon rode onward at a steady lope. Before him stretched the dustyribbon of trail. Blank and bare it led between the low hills andlifted over the ridges. He saw no more specks ahead. The quarry hadoutdistanced him.
Fifteen miles out of Paradise Bend he heard a faint shout in his rear.He looked over his shoulder. A half mile distant two men weregalloping toward him. One of them waved an arm half red, half blue.
"Scotty," muttered Loudon, and checked his horse.
The two clattered up, their horses' out-blown nostrils whistling. Oneof the men was the owner of the Flying M. The other was the proprietorof the Chicago Store.
"Seen him?" demanded Scotty.
"Once," replied Loudon. "He's ridin' with Block now, but they pulledaway from me. I ain't seen 'em for over a hour."
"They're stickin' to the trail," grunted the store proprietor, whorejoiced in the name of Ragsdale, glancing at the hoof-marks in thedust.
"C'mon!" snapped Scotty Mackenzie.
Three miles farther on Ragsdale's mount began to falter.
"He's done," growled Ragsdale. "Give 'em one for me."
Ragsdale halted. Loudon and Scotty Mackenzie rode on.
"Where did yuh get that bay?" queried Scotty, eying the Flying M brandon the bay's hip.
"It was his--Cutting's," replied Loudon.
"Cutting's? Djuh mean Rufe Cutting is the hoss thief?"
"Shore! I clean forgot yuh didn't know about Cutting's quittin' hisjob."
Loudon explained the manner of the cook's departure and his subsequentactions to Mackenzie.
"An'," said Loudon, in conclusion, "I seen that feller at the 88 thattime I bought my hoss from Blakely."
"Yuh did! Are yuh shore?"
"Shore as yo're a day old. I was walkin' past the bunkhouse withBlakely, an' this fellah was out in front with his shirt off a-washin'himself, an' I seen a eagle tattooed on his chest in blue, an'underneath a heart with a R on one side an' a T on the other. Justbefore yore cook pulled his freight his shirt got tore, an' I seen hischest, an' there was the eagle an' the heart an' the two letters R anT. I knowed when I first laid eyes on him up here at the Flyin' M thatI'd seen him some'ers, but I couldn't place him till I seen thetattoo-work. It all come back to me then."
"What was his name at the 88?"
"I never knowed. I never cut his trail again down there. He wasn'tone o' the reg'lar outfit. I know all o' them."
"Did Cap'n Burr see him?"
"No, he didn't. I remember now,
when the Cap'n come this fellah wasn'tin sight, an' he didn't show up again while we was there. Cap'n Burrleft when I did."
"Cutting worked for me nigh onto a year. He's always earned his pay.Never done nothin' out of the way."
"I dunno what it means. It's all a heap mysterious--special mysteriouswhen yuh come to think o' what O'Leary asked me when I first hit theBend. 'Couldn't Sam come?' says O'Leary to me. Busts out into thestreet to say it, too, right after I'd asked yuh the way to Cap'nBurr's house."
"I remember," said Scotty, thoughtfully. "I seen him talkin' to yuh.I thought yuh knowed him. I wonder who he took yuh for?"
"One o' Blakely's outfit, o' course," replied Loudon. "It was that 88brand o' Ranger's done the trick for him like it done for you.'Couldn't Sam come?' says he. Then he says, 'It's all right. I'm PeteO'Leary!' When he seen I didn't understand him none, he got gun-shyimmediate an' wandered. An' he didn't forget me a little bit.Telescope told me that he'd been tryin' to find out if you'd hired me.One day he come out to the ranch an' stopped just long enough to sayhowdy. Wanted to make shore I was there, see? What do yuh make of it?"
"Nothin'--yet. We got to wait an' see what happens."
"Seein' what happens may be expensive. I tell yuh flat, Scotty, SamBlakely has got somethin' under the table for yuh. He's aimin' to puta crimp in yuh. Yuh can go the limit on that."
"There ain't nothin' certain about it."
"O' course there ain't. Sam ain't goin' to give himself away. I wishyou'd let me Injun 'round some an' see what's up. I think, maybe,yuh'll save money if yuh do."
"Well, I dunno----" hesitated Scotty.
"O' course," said Loudon, quickly, "Blakely's got it in for me. Butwhatever he's cookin' up for you he thought of before I ever rodenorth. My comin' north has sort of upset his plans. He knows I knowall about him, an' he wants to shut my mouth before he turns his bullloose."
"Yo're goin' to meet him in Farewell, ain't yuh? Seems to me Richiesaid somethin' about it."
"Shore I am, but what's that got to do with it?"
"Why, maybe that's the reason he wants yuh out of the way. He may nothanker after shootin' it out with yuh."
"No, Sam Blakely ain't afraid," denied Loudon. "He wouldn't object anyto meetin' me in Farewell if that was all there was to it. No, what'sworryin' him is me bein' here at the Flying M. An' it's worryin' him alot, or he'd never 'a' sent Block two hundred miles."
"Well, I dunno. Yuh may be right, Tom, but I don't just guess SamBlakely will try to put any crimps in me. He knows it would come kindo' high. Of course it's mighty puzzlin'. I don't understand it none.One thing, Blakely shore tried his best to get yuh down on the LazyRiver, an' that's why it looks to me like Block was sent to put in thelast licks."
"He was, but not the way yuh think. I could gas my head off aboutBlakely up here in the Bend, an' it wouldn't matter a ---- so long ashe was down on the Lazy. But if he left the Lazy an' come projeckin'up to the Bend, then what I'd be sayin' would count a lot. See now?"
"I see," admitted Scotty.
"Well, gimme a chance to find out what he's up to."
"No, Tom, there's too much to do at the ranch. I can't let yuh go.Yo're too good a man. I need yuh right at home. We'll wait an' seewhat happens. Then we'll know what to do."
"It may be too late then," grumbled Loudon.
"If it is, then blame me. I'm the one to lose, anyway."
"Yuh shore are."
Oh, the denseness of ranch owners! Was Scotty Mackenzie to turn outanother Saltoun?
"It's a blind trail," observed Scotty, picking up the tangled thread oftheir discourse. "Some things kind o' fit when yuh look at 'em oneway, an' then again they don't when yuh look at 'em another. Cuttingdon't fit, none whatever. All the time he worked for me, he only wentto town twice, an' the last time was six months ago. O'Leary nevercome to see him, so if somethin's up like yuh say there is, Rufe's outof it. But that won't help him none now. He'll go out if we ever comeup with him."
"If we do," supplemented Loudon.
"My idea exactly. That hoss o' yores can shore wriggle along, an' hehad a big start."
"I'm goin' through to Rocket anyhow."
"Me, too."
Till the latter half of the afternoon they kept the ponies loping.Then, slowing to a walk, they risked a short-cut and did not strike thetrail again till the sun was setting.
"Still keepin' together," announced Loudon, after one look at the trail.
"An' still hittin' the high places," said Scotty. "Them two cayusesshore have bottom. Cutting knowed a good hoss all right."