IX
"This to the crowd--speak bitter, proud and high, But simply to your friend--she loves you not!" --_Le Bret--who scolds._
The five pursuers rode swiftly, with inquiry at several farms aboutthe man on the blue horse. Some had seen him; some had not. He hadbeen riding slowly and he had kept the main road to Greenhorn. Theytook the Greenhorn Island ford and found good swimming. The quarry hadpassed through Donahue's an hour and a half before, taking the road toArrey. They pushed on furiously. See and Lull fell behind a little.
"Say, this is a rotten deal!" said Charlie. "That man ain't runningaway. Not on your life. He no more killed Adam Forbes than I did. Youknow how long ago we met him. If he was the man that built thatbranding fire, how does it happen the ashes were still hot when thesefellows found it? By their tell and our timing that was near threehours later. We met him about three; if he made that fire it couldn'thave been later than two o'clock, by the looks of his horse. And he'skeeping the same steady gait, and going straight for Hillsboro, justas he told us. We're gaining on him right along. He's not trying toget away. Either he's innocent or he's got the devil's own nerve."
"Innocent. Pete thinks so, too. This crowd tells a fishy story. Didyou notice how prompt Caney was to explain why they was there, and whythey went down Redgate, and why the stranger shot Adam, and how Adamgave him a chance to shoot him in the back? Always Caney! Say, Hob,that man was too willing by half!"
"And that excitement. I wasn't surprised at Jody, and I don't knowthis man Hales--but wouldn't you think Ed Caney had seen enough menkilled not to fight his head like that? He didn't have much use forAdam, either. Adam backed him down once. It was kept quiet, butAnastacio told me, on the dead. It tickled Anastacio. No, sir--thosethree fellows acted like they might be wishin' to start a stampede.I'm not satisfied a little bit."
"A grudge? But if one of these ducks is in, they're all in. This issomething else. Or of course it may have been some other personaltogether, and these people may have merely lost their heads. Do youreckon that placer hunt of Adam's might have had anything to do withit? Poor old Adam! We'll find time to grieve for him after we get theman that rubbed him out."
"I can't hardly realize it. It won't come home to us till we've seenhim, I expect. I keep saying it over to myself--'Adam's dead'--but Idon't believe it. And only last night Edith sang that nightingale songafter him--poor kid! Say--look at that, will you? You'd think Caneydidn't dare trust us to talk together."
Caney dropped back to them.
"Can't you two get any action out of them horses of yourn?" hesnarled. "It'll soon be dark on us. Your horses are enough sightfresher than ours."
Charlie See jumped his horse up and reined him to his haunches besideCaney, eye to eye; he cocked his hat athwart.
"Now, Mr. Ed Caney," he said sweetly, "any time you're not justsatisfied with the way I behave you know what you can do. This placeis here and this time is now. Fly to it!"
"Why, what's eating you, Charlie? Thisspitfire-wildcat-wolf-and-my-night-to-howl thing is a new lay, isn'tit? I always gave you credit for some sense."
"Your mistake," said Charlie. "You ride on. I don't like deputysheriffs much; especially deputies from Dona Ana; and most extraspecial and particular, tall deputies from Dona Ana with their facespitted with smallpox, going by the name of Ed Caney, and butting intomy private conversation. Me and old Stargazer will be in at thefinish, and we don't need anybody to tell us how fast to go or nothinglike that at all. So what are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to ride on--that's what!" said Caney. "You can come alongor you can go to hell--I don't care."
"It's a cruel world," said Charlie. "I've heard people call you afool, but I know better, now. Don't you worry about us not keepingup."
Caney drove home the spurs and drew ahead.
They galloped into Arrey.
Yes, they had seen a man on a blue horse. "Filled his canteen here.Peart pair!... Which way? Oh, right up the big road to Hillsb'ro--himsingin' and the horse dancin'.... Oh, maybe half an hour ago. Hestayed here quite some time--admirin' the mountains, I judge, andfillin' his canteen--him and Josie. Better stay to supper, you-all;looks mighty like rain over yonder."
They turned squarely from the river valley and pushed up the staircaseroad. The track was clear and plain, three old shoes and a new one.They climbed the first bench-land step, and saw the long gray roadblank before them in the last flame-red of sun. Swift dusk droppedlike a curtain as they climbed the next step and saw a slow blackspeck far ahead in the dim loneliness.
"Got him!" said Jody. "Here, one can trail along behind, while two ofus take the right and two go on the left, keeping cover in littledraws and behind ridges. We'll have him surrounded before he knowswe're after him. Way he's riding, we can head him off long before hegets to the Percha."
"Fine!" said Hobby Lull. "Fine! He rides into an ambush at dark.Guilty--he fights of course. Innocent--of course he fights! Any manwith a bone in his spinal column would fight. First-rate scheme,except that Charlie See and me won't have it. Innocent, it isn'thospitable; guilty, we won't have him shot. The man that killed AdamForbes has got to hang."
Leaping, Charlie See's horse whirled on a pivot and faced the others.
"Speed up, Hobby, and tell that man we're holding all strangers, himmost of all. I'll hold this bunch. Beat it!"
His voice was low and drawling; he barred the way with quiet steadyeyes. The storm-drenched wind blew out his saddle strings, the fringededges of his gauntlets, the kerchief at his neck, the long tapiderosat his feet; it beat back his hat's broad brim, Stargazer's manesnapped loose and level; horse and man framed against coming night andcoming storm in poised wild energy, centered, strong and tense.
"You darned little meddlesome whiffet!" snarled Jody Weir savagely, asLull galloped away.
See's gun hand lay at his thigh. "Talk all you like, but don't getrestless with your hands. I'm telling you! Meddlesome? That's me. Mattis my middle name. Don't let that worry you any. I've got three goodreasons for meddling. I know two of you, and I don't know the otherone. I don't like waylaying--and I don't like you. Besides, I love tomeddle. Always did. Everybody's business is my business. You threebirds keep still and look sulky. Be wise, now! Me and a rattlesnakehas got the same motto: You touch the button and I'll do the rest."
Black above and furnace flame below, the tumbling clouds came rushingfrom the hills with a mutter of far-off thunder. A glimmer oftwilight lingered, and sudden stars blazed across the half sky toeastward, unclouded yet.
Hobby Lull cupped his hands and shouted through the dusk: "Hoo-e-ee!"
Johnny Dines halted the blue horse and answered blithely: "E-ee-hoo!"
"Sorry," said Lull as he rode up, "but I've got to put you underarrest."
"Anything serious?"
"Yes, it is. A man was killed back there to-day."
"So you want my gun, of course. Here it is. Don't mention it. I've hadto hold strangers before now, myself."
"It isn't quite so vague as that--and I'm sorry, too," said Lullawkwardly. "This man was killed in Redgate Canyon and you came throughthere. I met you myself."
"Not that big red-headed chap I saw there?"
"That's the man."
"Hell, that's too bad. Acted like a good chap. He chinned with me awhile--caught up with me and gave me a letter to mail. Where do wego--on or back? If you take me to the John Cross wagon to-morrowthey'll tell you I'm all right. Down on the river nobody seemed toknow where the wagon was. I'm Johnny Dines, Phillipsburg way.T-Tumble-T brand."
"I've heard of you--no bad report either. You live on one county lineand I'm on the other. Well, here's hoping you get safe out of themess. It isn't pretty. We'll take you on to Hillsboro, I guess, nowwe're this close. There's a lot more of us behind, waiting. Let's goback and get them. Then we'll go on."
"Look now--if you're going on to Hillsboro, my horse has come a rightsmart step to-day, and every little bit helps.
Why don't you shoot afew lines? They'll come a-snuffin' then, and we won't have to goback."
Hobby nodded. He fired two shots.
"You ride a Bar Cross horse, I see."
"Yes. I'm the last hand." Johnny grinned. "Hark! I hear them coming.Sounds creepy, don't it? They're fussed. Them two shots have got 'emguessing--they're sure burning the breeze! Say, I'm going to slipinto my slicker. Storm is right on top of us. Getting mighty blackoverhead. Twilight lasts pretty quick in this country."
Rain spattered in big drops. Wind-blown flare of stars and the lastsmoky dusk and flickers of lightning made a thin greenish light.Shadowy horsemen shaped furiously through the murk, became clear, andreined beside them. Dines took one look at them and directed areproachful glance at his captor.
"I might not have handed over my gun so nice and easy if I had knownwho was with you," he remarked pleasantly. A high spot of color flamedto his cheek. "Just for that, you are going to lose the beauties of myconversation from now on--by advice of counsel. While you are puttingon your slickers I merely wish to make a plain brief statement andalso to call attention to one of the many mercies which crowd aboutus, and for which we are so ungrateful. Mercies first: Did you evernotice how splendidly it has been arranged that one day followsdirectly after another, instead of in between? And that maybe we'resometimes often quite sorry some day for what we did or didn't do someother day, or the reverse, as the case may be, or perhaps thecontrary? Now the statement: I know two of you men, and I don't likethose two; and for the others, I don't like the company they keep. Sonow you can all go to hell, home or Hillsboro, and take me with you,but I'll not entertain you, not if you was bored to death. I'm doneand dumb--till I tell it to the judge."