CHAPTER XXI.

THE NEST OF THE CROW.

In the heart of the bad lands, where the Bitter Root Mountain range begins, lies the nest of the crow, one of the few remaining hide-outs which the taming West affords. It is easy of access once you know the trail whether you come from the prosperous Montana towns to the south or from the Canadian province to the north. And it is safe enough to all who have won their spurs at outlawry in either direction. A single road leads to it; although there are several trails away from it, available to those who are "in the know" and forced to make a sudden get-away.

At the entrance gulch, through which the only wagon road winds its way into the dreary upland, so well called "bad," there dwells a small rancher who finds it worth while to keep within the law. His chief source of income, on which he pays no tax, is to signal the approach of strangers, particularly officers of the State or Federal government. A flag which he can raise or lower without leaving his front porch sends the alarm to the outlaw nest. The system may be old-fashioned, but it has not yet been discarded either for the telephone or the radio. Telephone wires can be cut by a posse that really is in earnest about paying the Nest a surprise visit and radio communication is, as yet, too much of a mystery to interest these border folk as a safeguard.

It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon when Sergeant Jack rode up to the out-guard ranch house. From his previous visit to Montana he had learned enough about Crow's Nest to understand the method of safe approach. The bandage had disappeared from his forehead; written there in lines of fire was the horseshoe brand of disgrace.

Lounging, as was his wont, in a sway-backed chair built by stretching an undressed hide upon a proper arrangement of saplings, loafed the outguard--a long-nosed, lanky, unshaven mountaineer. At his feet, in half slumber, lay a couple of nondescript hounds, reputed to be efficient guardians, so far as alarm was concerned, of the entrance gulch at night. In the scraggly front yard a boy of nine or ten years was playing as best he might with no mate to make up a real game. In the open door of the shack a slovenly woman appeared, evidently the wife and mother, drawn from some household task by the noise of the horse's approach.

"Greetings and salutations, friend," was the sergeant's opening. "Is everything sitting pretty up at the Nest?" His hat was tilted low over his forehead, concealing the informative scar.

"That there all depends on who yuh are and what yuh want," returned the man on the porch without moving a muscle of his elongated frame. "I'm Doc Chase, ranchman and honest. I don't pay no attention what goes on up there. Who're yuh?"

Childress removed his Stetson, disclosing the tell-tale wound which already was beginning to look like a scar.

Chase started up in his chair, then sank back again, as though the effort was painful.

"They got yuh, eh?" he remarked. "Wonder they let yuh get away, Childress, with just a brand, considering the Strathconna Breeders has put an alive-or-dead on you."

"How did you know my name?" the sergeant demanded.

"Don't know your real name--only the one you've borrowed from somebody in the Mounted. Recognized yuh from the description on the bill and the picture. What was the matter with your gun that yuh let 'em treat yuh like a maverick?"

"They got me when I wasn't looking and I guess they didn't know about the reward. You don't seem interested in collecting it."

Doc Chase sniffed loftily. "Blood money ain't no good to no one stranger. I reckon you'll be welcome up to the Nest. Tommie!" This last was called to the boy who came quickly from his play. "Tommie, run up the flag."

"The stripes or the white one?" asked the lad.

"The white, you young idiot. Can't yuh recognize a friend when yuh see one?"

So Childress rode on into the rough country, confident that no pot-shot would be taken at him from the abundant cover on either side of the trail. Had the stars and stripes fluttered from the signal mast on the hill behind Doc Chase's cabin, he probably would not have been allowed to cover the first of the two miles that intervened without being made a target. As the flag was white, he rode safely and unchallenged into the small mountain park which so surprisingly decorated the region of mountainous despoliation.

Years before Bart Crowe, a potential outlaw, had found refuge there, liked the semi-forested location, and had taken up a homestead. Once the property was his and his debt to the law squared by the statute of limitations, he had built a log hotel and passed the word among his hard-riding, careless friends that at Crow's Nest was a sure refuge in the time of storm. The arrangement with Doc Chase had come later and was particularly designed against Prohibition raiders, since Montana sheriffs and their deputies preferred to wait until men they desired had left the "nest."

With the law's repression closing in on the better known and more respectable resorts of the state, Crowe's business had increased. A supply of liquor always available through his rum runners from the North, he had built up quite a trade with loggers from the camps in the Bitter Root forests. They could get in if they looked right to Doc Chase and stay until they had spent their earnings. If there was a tougher place in the United States than Crow's Nest--he had dropped the "e" of his own name for that of the glossy-black carrion birds which were at home among the cedars--Bart Crowe would have wondered "how come."

Before the main structure of the small settlement--a log building of considerable size--Childress dropped rein on his cayuse and entered. Beyond the open door he found a long bar, its wood unpolished and with no brass rail for impatient feet, at which half a dozen men were drinking. Two wore the vividly-colored Mackinaws of lumberjacks and the calk studded boots that went with the same; two were in riding clothes of balloon-trousered cut; a fifth was dressed in the height of Helena fashion and the sixth he recognized from description as Bart Crowe himself. Behind the rough bar, a pasty youth with plastered hair was polishing glasses. The only difference between him and the bartenders of the pre-Volstead era was the fact that he wore a flannel shirt instead of a white jacket, but under the collar of that shirt blazed a crimson tie with a more-or-less diamond accompaniment.

No one paid particular attention to the newcomer, although seven covert glances certainly were directed his way. They had known that someone was coming, as reported by the flag. It was up to him to make the first overture.

Childress glanced at the group, as though seeking a familiar face, and he nodded to the man so easily recognized as the proprietor. He still wore his hat, pulled down over his eyes.

Then he crossed to as strange a bulletin board as ever an outlaw camp boasted. The freshest and most prominent "Wanted" placard held his entire attention, as it was the first time he had seen it since he had ordered a few of them printed and privately and particularly distributed by his friend the sheriff of Bison County, Montana. Below a reasonably good likeness of himself appeared with the usual flare of the small-town printer:

$1,000 REWARD

DEAD or ALIVE

This amount will be paid by the undersigned for the capture in any form of

JACK CHILDRESS

wanted for horse stealing. Has taken name of Mounted Police officer and may wear uniform.

And there followed a description that was more or less accurate.

Childress spent several minutes studying this poster; then he crossed to the bar.

"Pen and ink," he requested.

The bartender looked startled; the drinkers glanced up.

"Don't serve 'em usually; would you have 'em with or without?"

Childress started a long reach over the bar, which the drink-mixer avoided. Then, evidently, he got a glance-of-eye order from Bart Crowe; set out a bottle of ink and a scratchy pen. "We don't cash no checks up here, mister," he asserted, not to be denied a last fling.

The sergeant took the bottle in one hand, the pen in the other and crossed to the board. There he traced a horseshoe on the brow of the half-tone presentment of himself. When he had finished and returned the pen and ink, he swept off his hat and addressed the group at the bar.

"Now, gents, that poster looks something like me," he said casually. "If anyone of you needs a thousand dollars reward----"

He waited. The others stared--stared most fixedly at the horseshoe scar upon his forehead, in that outlaw camp a royal badge.

"Be yourself, son!" The admonition came from Bart Crowe. "Step up and name your poison--one's as bad as the other."

"You don't mind the brand, then?" Childress demanded.

"Hell, no!" said Crowe.

With that the sergeant walked over to the bulletin board and pulled down the poster which he had arranged to have posted against himself. "That's a go," he said. "What'll you all have."

While they were having--mostly "another of the same"--Childress stepped to the swinging door of the back room where a tin-piano and a "fiddle" were making music for some sort of a dance. Several women were there--best not described. They rented cabins from Crowe for a profession that is older than the oldest. The two-piece orchestra blared, and the two couples on the floor seemed to dance until one of the women, a brunette slightly beyond the life she obviously was leading, caught sight of the stranger in the doorway. At once she let go the big lumberjack who was trying to follow her through the steps of a waltz.

"Here's my man at last!" she cried and quit her rough-shod partner cold.

"Not me," said Childress, trying to back out.

But he was not quick enough. The woman insisted that he dance with her, insisted even to the point of laying violent hands upon him. The group at the bar saw the attack and applauded.

"Better give in afore you offend the lady," advised one of his newly made acquaintances--the one with the pegleg. "Delores Doleroso drives a wicked knife and gen'ally gits what she thinks she wants."

"Come on, you big, beautiful horse thief," urged Delores. "I just love to waltz with a man what's wanted dead-or-alive." She turned to the two-piece "orchestra." "Start that number over!" she commanded.

None of them paid any particular attention to the Swede logger who had been ditched in the midst of a dance for which he already had paid. The mackinaw-clad giant stood mid-floor, rocking his huge frame backward and forward on the calks that studded the soles of his boots. The while he clawed at a blond-bushed chin, his sky-blue eyes shooting dangerous fires.

Although not in the least interested in the dark-eyed dance hall girl who had drafted him as partner, Childress could not be rough with a woman. Since she would not be shaken off gently, there seemed nothing to do but to dance with her. A skillful "stepper," despite infrequent indulgence, he swung her out upon the floor from which all but the deserted logger had retired.

From the Swede came a snarl. "You tank you can steal my girl--Sven Larsen's girl!" was his shout in bellicose basso. "I finish you now--once for sure."

On top of the threat came swift advance which left Childress no doubt that he was in for a fight.