CHAPTER XXII--A FACE IN THE STORM
An interruption--a voice as hoarse as the croak of a vulture--rose abovethe din of other voices:
"Tolley! You other fellers! Put 'em up! H'ist 'em!"
Tolley halted--it seemed in midflight. Even the gun hand of Tom Hicksrelaxed. From the other side of the room old Steve Siebert commanded thesituation--and the group of desperate men. The black muzzle of his gungaped like the mouth of a cannon. Hunt did not stand between him andTolley's crowd. The old man steadied the barrel of his weapon on theedge of the table behind which he sat and covered the bunch perfectly.
"H'ist 'em!" he said again, and as Tolley's gun clattered to the floorand Hicks thrust back his weapon into his sheath, he added: "I don't aimto mix in what ain't my business, as a usual thing. But when I see sevenskunks goin' after two boys--an' one o' them a parson and not ironeda-tall--I reckon on takin' a hand. Put 'em up!"
The ruffians obeyed. Seven pairs of hands reached for the smoke-begrimedceiling. Several startled faces appeared under the archway between thebarroom and the dance hall. One was the desert-bitten countenance ofAndy McCann. He would not have sat to drink in the same room with hisone-time partner; but Steve Siebert's voice had stung McCann to action.Steve saw him.
"Andy, you derned old rat!" Steve cried, "shut that office door and lockit. Then, just frisk them rustlers and remove their irons. There ain'tgoin' to be no shootin'. Whatever the row is, it's goin' to be settledplumb peaceful."
McCann snarled at the other old pocket-hunter like a tiger cat; but heobeyed--and not without some enjoyment of the chagrin of Tolley and hisgangsters.
"It takes us old sourdoughs to be slick," he chuckled, when he haddumped an armful of guns on an empty table. "You boys ain't dry behindthe ears yet when it comes to shootin' scrapes."
"There ain't goin' to be no shootin'," repeated Steve Siebert. "Not'nless them fellers start it with their mouths," and he grinned such atoothless grin that he almost lost his grip on the pipestem clamped inone corner of his mouth.
"Now, what's it all about? What's the row? What gal you talkin' about?Who's the feller that was killed? I'm sort o' curious."
Joe Hurley stood erect again. He laughed.
"Great saltpeter!" he exclaimed, "you certainly are a friend in need,old-timer."
"Come on," rejoined Steve. "Let's have the pertic'lars."
It was the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt who took upon himself theexplanation.
"Nell Blossom!" cried Steve. "That leetle songbird? You mean to say allthis row is over her?"
"Mr. Tolley has made the statement that Miss Blossom was the cause ofthis Beckworth's death. His horse went over the cliff into the canyon.Whether or not the man went with it----"
"He did!" cried Andy McCann, smiting his thigh resoundingly with hispalm. "By gravy! Is that what's eatin' all you fellers?"
"Say! Who's runnin' this court, I'd like to know?" demanded SteveSiebert angrily.
"Aw, shut up--you old lizard," said McCann, flaming at him. "'Tain't nocourt. It ain't nothin' like it. Put up your gun. It's all off. Dick theDevil ain't dead at all. At least he wasn't killed that time he wentover the cliff. He's Dick the Devil sure 'nough, and he's got more luckthan a hanged man."
"Just what do you mean?" Hunt asked.
"Why, we seen him--me and that old rat sittin' there with his gun, makin'goo-goo eyes. Sure! And me and him pulled Dick out of the river. He wentclean over his horse's head and landed in the river--same's a bird. Hemight have been drowned if me and that ground owl there hadn't got himout. But he never said one word about Nell Blossom bein' with him orhavin' anything to do with his comin' down that cliff. No, sir!"
"Nary a word," agreed the surprised Siebert. "Nary a word."
"What--what became of him?" stammered Hunt, a great weight lifted fromhis heart.
"He went along with me to the edge of the desert," said Siebert slowly."He dried out at my fire that night. Next morning he lit out to hit theLamberton trail. That's all I know about Dick."
"And it's more than I knowed," grunted Andy McCann. "That old rat theremight have garroted Dick for his money. But it sure wasn't Nell Blossomthat croaked Dick the Devil--if he's dead at all."
Here Hunt stepped between the two old prospectors. It looked as thoughsomebody had to separate them or there might have been a shooting, afterall!
But it was Joe Hurley who had the last word. He set up the overturnedtable and walked over to the bar.
"To show that there's no hard feelings," he drawled, "this'll be on me.Get busy, Tolley, on the right side of this bar. And hereafter, youthink twice before you say anything you're not dead sure of about NellBlossom. Somebody'd better drag Sam Tubbs out from under that table. Hedon't want to miss this."
There sounded a sudden rush of heavily shod feet outside the barroomdoor. As Hunt had expected, an angry crowd from Colorado Brown's burstin.
"Just in season, boys," Hurley continued. "All a mistake about our Nell.Tolley just proved himself to be as careless with the truth as he alwaysis. Isn't that so, Tolley?"
Tolley grunted.
* * * * *
The winter weather forecast by the return of Steve Siebert and AndyMcCann from the desert held off the next morning when Betty Hunt andNell started on their usual ride into the hills.
Nell had heard a garbled report but few of the particulars of theincident which the night before had threatened bloodshed at the GrubStake. She knew that the parson had again done something that was sureto endear him to the Passonians in general. And his courageous act hadbeen in her cause. But she had failed to learn of the disproval of DickBeckworth's reported death.
She said nothing to Betty about the incident. She had begun to shrinkfrom discussing the rougher side of the life of Canyon Pass with theparson's sister. As Joe Hurley would have expressed it, Nell Blossom wasbecoming "right gentled" through her association with Betty Hunt.
Betty herself, in Nell's company, managed to put aside those moreserious thoughts and anxieties of mind that ruffled her naturalcomposure at other times. Since the day, weeks before, when she had beenforced to wreck Joe Hurley's hope of happiness, the cloud of despondencythat overshadowed her life seemed at times greater than she could liveunder.
Nor could the Eastern girl put aside such thoughts of the Westerner asat first amazed and startled, then revealed to the honest soul of BettyHunt that the unfortunate circumstance in her past life that made itimpossible for her to make Joe happy, likewise barred her own heart fromhappiness.
Wicked as her strict upbringing made the fact seem, she had to admitthat she had fallen under the spell of Joe Hurley's generous character,that she loved him. She could not deny this discovery, although itfilled her mind with confusion. Wedded to a man she hated and in lovewith a man she could not wed!
In any event, this was a secret--like the other that so disturbedher--which under no circumstances could she confide to either her brotheror any friend. At first she felt the discovery a degrading one. Broughtup as she had been under the grim puritanism of her Aunt Prudence Mason,the idea of a married woman admitting that she loved a man other thanthe one she was married to was a sin. The idea of divorce was as foreignto her religious training as was the thought of fratricide.
She was cheerful on the surface at least when she and Nell rode out ofCanyon Pass and through the East Fork. They climbed the canyon wall onthat side by a tortuous path on which only a burro or a very sure-footedpony was safe. It was Nell, when they were once on the summit, whodiscovered the threat of a weather change.
The air was very keen. Many of the bushes by the way had shriveledduring the night as though before a furnace blast.
"Black frost," said the younger girl. "Old Steve and Andy know theirlittle book. Sam says Steve told him there was a blizzard coming. Wewon't ride far to-day, Betty."
"A blizzard? Only fancy," murmured the Eastern girl.
She was not much impressed. She had no experience--e
ven of New Englandwinter storms--to enable her to judge the nature of a storm in theseWestern mountains.
But Nell should have known better than to lead the way into a gulchwhich quite shut them in from sight of the surrounding country. Ablizzard is a chancy thing; and often the first storm of a Westernwinter is the worst of all.
They rode to a spring at which deer drank; they saw many tracks, butthere were none of the pretty creatures in sight. Birds flutteredthrough the chaparral with strange cries, and the rabbits ran back andforth as though much disturbed by domestic happenings.
"I never saw them jacks so queer acting," said Nell thoughtfully. "We'dbetter ride home, Betty."
"Why?" asked the other girl gayly. "You are not afraid they will attackus, are you?"
"Not that," and the Western-born young woman smiled. "But there'ssomething comin', I reckon--just as Steve and Andy say."
Before they rode up out of the gulch they heard something slashing likea multitude of knives through the dead leaves overhead. When they rodeout into the open they beheld the thick cloud that had almost reachedthe zenith, and out of that cloud came not snow, but ice!
Fine particles of the sharpest crystal were driven in a thick hazethrough the singing air. Nell instantly whipped off her neckcloth andtied it across her nose and mouth, warning Betty to follow her example.
"Get this in your lungs, Betty, and you'll have pneumonia as sure assure!" she shouted.
Frightened, they urged their ponies on to the beginning of the roughpath down the canyon wall. Although they were soon somewhat shelteredfrom the driving ice-storm there were bare places where the two girlssuffered the full force of the gale.
"I know a place!" cried Nell in a muffled voice. "We got to hole up tillthis stops. Come on!"
It had grown dark of a sudden. Nell pulled her pony off the path, and hepicked his way daintily to a cavity in the wall. Here an overhangingrock offered some shelter. At least, the girls were out of the steadybeat of the storm.
They dismounted and got behind the ponies, between their warm bodies andthe rock itself. If Betty was the more frightened of the two, she showedit no more than did Nell Blossom.
The air became thicker and the whine of the wind rose to a shriek whichall but drowned their voices when they tried to communicate with eachother. It was such a manifestation of the storm king as Betty Hunt hadnever seen before.
They were but a little way off the path. Suddenly both girls, in spiteof the wind, heard the clatter of shod hoofs. Another horse was comingdown the path. In a moment they dimly saw the looming figure of a manleading the animal.
"Who is it?" gasped Betty, but if Nell heard the question she did notanswer.
Nell clutched Betty's wrist for silence. The girls stared at the manbeating his way downward. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, but they couldsee the long, black, curling hair flowing from beneath it. He turned hisface toward them, and Betty beheld the keen face and heavy mustache ofthe stranger she had seen hiding from the sheriff and his posse weeksbefore near the trail to Hoskins!
The man progressed so slowly, and he was so near, that the Eastern girlcould study his features now with more certainty. There was something inthe contour of his face that reminded her of Andy Wilkenson!
Could it be he? Was it possible that this fugitive--the man the officershad accused of a crime--was the debonair Andy who had so enthralled hergirlish mind and heart back there at Grandhampton Hall?
She had not forgotten Wilkenson's observations about Crescent City.Betty had never ceased to fear that he might appear to her in this partof the great West. But here--now--and in this dramatic manner?
Much shaken, she turned to look at Nell Blossom. She suddenly realizedthat the other girl was sagging against her shoulder very strangely. Sheglanced down into Nell's muffled face.
The younger girl's eyes were closed. She was as pallid as death itself.Nell Blossom had fainted!