Part 16

Nate Younger remarked similarly in Freel’s saloon within earshot of the two Ralstons who were refreshing themselves at the bar. In fact, the two old cowmen mentioned the matter to a number of acquaintances whom they chanced across in a variety of places throughout town and it was within an hour of noon before they took Molly out to the fair.

The girl found the fair a mixture of the old way and the new. The exhibits were those of the settlers but the sports and amusements were those of an earlier day, a condition which would prevail for many a year. Every such annual event would witness an increase of agricultural exhibits, fine stock and blooded horses as the country aged; but at fair time, too, the old-time riders of the unowned lands would come into their own again for a single day. Then would bartenders lay aside their white aprons, laborers drop their tools and officers discard their stars, donning instead the regalia of the cowboys. Gaudy shirts and angora chaps would be resurrected from the depths of ancient war bags. Once more they would jangle boots and spurs and twirl old reatas that had seen long service. The spirit of the old days would prevail for a day and a night and fairgoers would quit the exhibits to watch the bronc fighters ride ’em to a standstill, bulldog Texas longhorns and rope, bust and hog-tie rangy steers, to cheer the relay and the wild-horse races and all the rest of it; then a wild night in town, ponies charging up and down the streets to the accompaniment of shrill cowboy yelps and the occasional crash of a gun fired into the air,--then back to the white aprons and the laborer’s tools for another year.

The girl and her two old companions spent the day at the fair and in the early evening took a train to Caldwell some two hours before Freel and Wellman rode out of town. The evening’s festivities were in full swing and none observed their departure. Freel was nervous and excited.

“We’d better have sent some one else,” he said.

Wellman turned on him angrily.

“And have the thing bungled again!” he said. “Damn your roundabout planning and never doing anything yourself. If you hadn’t sent that fool over to Alvin without letting me know we’d have had it all over by now. Crowfoot told you we’d have to do it ourselves. So did I. And if you’d only waited we’d have found an opening months back but that Alvin fluke made Carver take cover and he’s never give us a chance at him since. We wouldn’t even know there was one to-night if those two old fossils hadn’t let it out accidental.”

“But maybe that talk of theirs was--” Freel began, but his companion interrupted and cut short his complaint.

“We’ve give Carver time to do just what we was to head him from doing--getting our names linked with every deal we wanted kept quiet.”

“He couldn’t prove a sentence of it in the next fifteen years,” Freel asserted.

“He’s started folks thinking--and talking,” said Wellman. “They’ll talk more every day. It’s right now or never with me!”

“But it’s too late to make out that it’s an arrest,” Freel protested. “After all that’s been said.”

“That’s what I know,” said Wellman. “So we’ll hurry it up and slip back into town. With all that fair crowd milling around, there won’t be one man that could testify we’d ever left town; and I can produce several that’ll swear positive that we’ve been there all along.”

They rode on in silence and they had not covered a distance of three miles from town when Mattison rode into the county seat at the head of a half-dozen men,--men who, incidentally, knew nothing whatever of his mission except that they had been deputized to follow wherever he led. As the marshal entered the outskirts of town a figure detached itself from the shadows. Mattison joined the man who reported in tones that did not carry to the rest of the posse.

“They’ve gone,” he informed. “I followed Freel every living minute till he and Wellman slipped out of town together a half-hour ago.”

“Sure they didn’t change their plans and come back?” Mattison asked.

“Dead sure,” the man stated positively. “Not a chance.”

Mattison led his men direct to the county jail and left them just outside the office while he entered alone. The two Ralstons occupied the place at the time.

“Where’s Freel?” the marshal demanded.

“Couldn’t say,” one of the deputies answered. “Out around town somewheres likely.” His eyes rested apprehensively on the group of men standing just outside the door. “You wanting to see him?”

“Yes. I was--somewhat,” Mattison admitted. “I surmise you all know what about.”

The Ralstons denied this.

“We’ll go out and look him up,” Mattison decided. “You two stay here. I might be wanting to question you later.”

But the Ralstons failed to tarry. Within five minutes after the marshal’s departure they set forth from town and the county was minus the services of two deputies who neglected even to hand in their resignations before quitting their posts.

A similar scene was enacted at Wellman’s hotel. The crowd in the lobby turned suddenly quiet as Mattison led his men in and inquired at the desk for Wellman. The proprietor was not to be found. The county attorney reclined in a chair at one side of the lobby and Mattison crossed over and addressed him.

“Any idea where I could locate Wellman and Freel?” he inquired.

The county attorney moistened his lips and disclaimed all knowledge of their whereabouts. A voice rose from the far end of the lobby, a voice which Mattison recognized as that of the man who had accosted him in the outskirts as he rode into town.

“They got out ahead of you, Colonel,” the man stated. “Your birds has flown.”

“What’s that?” Mattison asked, turning to face the informer. “How do you know?”

“Just by sheer accident,” the man reported. “I see one party holding two horses just outside of town. Another man joined him afoot. One of ’em touched off a smoke, and in the flare of the match I made out that they was Wellman and Freel. They rode west.”

“That’s downright unfortunate,” Mattison said. “But it don’t matter much. I was only wanting to see them to gather a little information they might be able to give. Another time will do just as well.”

He turned and stared absently at the county attorney and that gentleman’s florid countenance turned a shade lighter.

“Don’t matter,” the marshal repeated, rousing from his seeming abstraction. “Nothing of any importance.”

He led his men from the lobby and rode west out of town. And out in the country toward which he was heading were Carver and Bart Lassiter, both prone in the grass a few yards apart and as many from Bart’s homestead cabin.

“This is growing real tedious,” Bart stated. “Whatever leads you to suspect that they’re due to pay their call on just this particular night?”

“They won’t if you keep on talking,” Carver returned. “If you keep quiet they might.”

Bart lapsed into silence. He had already spent a long hour in his present location and would have preferred to be up and stirring about. Another twenty minutes dragged by and he was on the point of addressing Carver again when his intended utterance was cut short by a slight sound close at hand. Five more interminable minutes passed and he heard a single soft footfall a few feet away.

Two dim figures approached the house and slipped silently to the door. The night was so black that they seemed but two wavering patches that merged with the surrounding obscurity. One tested the latch and the door opened on noiseless hinges. For a space both men stood there and listened. Then one entered while the other remained at the door.

Carver spoke.

“What was you expecting to locate in there?” he asked softly.

The man in the door whirled and fired at the sound of his voice, the flash of his gun a crimson streak in the velvet black of the night. Carver shot back at the flash and Bart’s gun chimed with the report of his own. There was a second flash from the doorway but this time the crimson spurt leaped skyward for the shot was fired as the man sagged and fell forward. There was a splintering crash of breaking glass as the man inside cleared a window on the far side of the house. Bart shot twice at the dim figure that moved through the night, then rose to his feet intent upon following but Carver restrained him.

“Let him go!” he ordered. “One’s enough!”

“But just why the hell should I let Freel get away?” he demanded, pulling back from the detaining hand which Carver had clamped on his shoulder.

“It’s Wellman. Freel’s there by the door,” Carver said.

“How can you tell? It’s too black to see,” Bart insisted.

“Wellman would be the one to go in. Freel would be the one to hang back,” Carver said. “That’s why I planned for you and me to stay outside in the grass instead of waiting inside. Wellman and me used to be friends--likely would be still if it wasn’t for Freel. It makes a difference, some way. Wellman’s harmless to us from now on, outlawed for this night’s business. He’ll be riding the hills with the wild bunch till some one comes bringing him in.”

He stopped speaking to listen to the thud of many hoofs pounding down the trail from the ridge.

“Now I wonder who that will be,” he speculated.

“You know now,” Bart accused. “You always know. Whoever it is didn’t come without you had it planned in advance. But I’ll never tell what I think.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Carver advised.

Mattison reached the foot of the trail with his men.

“What’s up?” he inquired. “We’d just stopped at the Half Diamond H to ask you to put us up for the night. Nobody home. I thought I might find you here so we’d just started over when all that shooting set in and we hustled along. You two out hunting for owls?”

“Yes,” Carver said. “There’s one by the door. The other one flew out the window. Bart and I was reclining out here in the grass talking things over when the pair of them eased up to the door and one slipped on in. I asked how about it and the man in the door started to shoot. Then we did some shooting ourselves. The party there by the door is our amiable sheriff.”

“Then the one that got off is Wellman,” one of the posse spoke up. “Right from the first shot I guessed it. I’ve heard it whispered round that they was planning to get you, and when the ruckus broke I was looking to find you two dead when we got here. I’m glad they got it instead. That whole county seat bunch needs cleaning out.”

There was a chorus of assent from the posse and under its cover Carver murmured to Bart.

“So much for background,” he said.

“It’s a right queer bit of business for them two to be at,” Mattison stated. “I’ll have to put off gathering that information from Freel. You’d better saddle up and ride on into town with me, Carver, and we’ll report this affair to the county attorney. You boys bring Freel in with you. He’s likely got a horse tied round somewheres close. Scout around till you find him. Yes, we’ve been needing a change of officials at the county seat for some time and it does look like the alteration has been effected to-night.”

Carver rode off with the marshal.

“Thanks for going to all that bother,” Carver said. “I’m indebted a lot.”

“It just evens that score,” said the marshal. “And the whole thing worked out nice. It’ll make a clean sweep in Oval Springs. Wellman won’t show up any more. I’ll venture to predict that the two Ralstons will have vanished from these parts before morning and the county attorney is scared into a state of palpitation right now. He’ll attend to all the necessary formalities to see that you’re given honorable mention instead of a trial.”

“Then after we’ve finished with him I’ll take the night train for Caldwell and loaf around a few days,” Carver announced. “I haven’t traveled to any extent for some time.”

It was nearly morning when the train pulled into Caldwell.

“No use to go to bed now,” Carver decided. “I’ll find some of the boys and set up.”

The Silver Dollar, now conducted in the rear of a cigar store which had been fashioned across the front of the building since the old, wide-open days had become a thing of the past in Caldwell, was still operated as an all-night place of amusement. But Carver found that its grandeur had vanished, the whole atmosphere of the place was different. There were a dozen men in the place, but of them all Carver saw not one of the riders that had been wont to forgather here.

He drew a tarnished silver coin from his pocket.

“Here’s where I got you and right here is where I leave you,” he said. “You’ve sewed me up for one year now and I’m about to get shut of you before you cinch me for another. We’ll spend you for a drink to the boys that used to gather here. Back to your namesake, little silver dollar.”

As he crossed to the bar he glanced at the swinging side door that led into the adjoining restaurant. It opened and a girl stood there, motioning him to join her. He followed her outside. Two horses stood at a hitch rail down the street.

“Come on, Don; we’re going home,” she said. Then, as he seemed not quite to understand, “Didn’t Bart tell you?”

“No,” he said. “Whatever it was, Bart didn’t tell me.”

“Then I’ll tell you myself on the way home,” she promised.

She linked an arm through his and moved toward the two horses at the hitch rail.

“Tell me now,” he insisted, halting and swinging her round to face him. “You can’t mean--but I must be reading my signs wrong, some way.”

“You’re reading them right,” she corrected. “All those outside things don’t matter. I know that now. We’re going home, Don, just you and me. That’s all that counts.”

He had a swift, uneasy vision of the occurrences of the night just past.

“But you haven’t heard--,” he commenced.

“Oh, yes; I’ve heard,” she interrupted. “The news was telephoned up here and was spread all over Caldwell before you even took the train from Oval Springs. That doesn’t matter either. Hinman phoned to Mattison at the hotel and found that you were coming. That’s how I knew and why I was waiting up. I’ve rented those two horses so we could ride instead of taking a train to Oval Springs. I’d rather, wouldn’t you?”

“We’ll start in just one minute, Honey,” he said. “But first--”

She looked the length of the street and nodded, for there was no one abroad.

Some miles out of Caldwell the girl pulled up her horse where the road crossed the point of a hill.

“You remember?” she asked.

“I won’t forget,” he said.

For it was from this same point that they had watched the last of the herds of the big cow outfits held in the quarantine belt awaiting shipment, the riders guarding them, the trail herds moving up from the south, while over across had been that solid line of camps where the settlers were waiting to come in.

“We saw the sun set on the old days here,” she said. “Let’s watch it rise on the new.”

For as far as they could see the lights were flashing from the windows of early-rising settlers. A boy was calling his cows. A rooster crowed triumphant greeting to the red-gray streaks that were showing in the east. There came a flapping of wings as a flock of turkeys descended from their perch on the ridgepole of a barn, then their querulous yelping as the big birds prospected for food in the barn lot.

“It’s different,” he said.

Then, from the road below them, came the clatter of hoofs and riotous voices raised in song; a few wild whoops and a gun fired in the air.

“The last few of the tumbleweeds, rattling their dry bones to impress the pumpkins,” Carver said.

The words of the song drifted to them.

I’m a wild, wild rider And an awful mean fighter, I’m a rough, tough, callous son-of-a-gun. I murder some folks quick And I kill off others slow; It’s the only way I ever take my fun.

The girl’s thoughts drifted back to the big Texan who had led the stampede and then presented his claim to another. She leaned over and rested a hand on Carver’s arm.

“I’m very much contented right now, Don,” she said. “But so terribly sorry for the poor tumbleweeds that have been crowded out.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.