Part 2

Then he turned his back to the big storekeeper and fell silent. Budd was as inscrutable as a Chinese idol. He picked up the lantern, went back to his bedroom and blew out the light. “Feel a lot easier in the conscience,” he muttered, “if I didn’t have this cussed piece o’ tin.”

He stared at the ceiling and presently was asleep. No more strange sounds from the wagons awoke him that night, and if the kitchen range creaked, he gave no notice that he was aware of it. Yet he seemed fated to be wakened by another noisy event. When gray dawn seeped into the clearing a file of excited men trooped through the house, banged at his door, and brought him up from the pillow with one trenchant question.

“Whar’s yore prisoner?”

Budd yawned and reached for his pipe. “Guess you’ll find him sleepin’ behind the counter where I tied him.”

A sarcastic rumble greeted this. “Yes we will! Of all the fool ideas! He shucked himself out o’ that rope and vamosed.”

The storekeeper’s heavy lids drooped; he fumbled with his tobacco pouch and muttered, “Y’ don’t say!”

Then he slid into his clothes and led the impromptu committee back to the storeroom. True enough, his bird had fled. The free end of the rope still was tied around a stove log, but the rest of it was slit in a dozen places. The cheese knife, which ordinarily rested on the counter, was stuck in the floor boards, mute witness of Bill’s manner of passage. Budd ruefully clucked his tongue. “Slick an’ clean. There’s a dum good six-dollar piece o’ rope made wuthless.”

“Huh--you’re a sweet deppity! Should’ve let well enough alone last night! Now what’re you goin’ to do?”

Budd picked up the knife and sliced himself a piece of the cheese. “Well, now, first I aim to eat. Then I aim to take care o’ the store. Then mebbe I’ll do a little figgerin’. Might even send word to Sher’ff McKenzie to keep a lookout at his end o’ the county. Come back later an’ I’ll tell you the rest.”

“Meanwhile,” stated one of the committee, “he’s scootin’ with four hundred dollars of this man’s hard-earned money. Turrible!”

They conferred among themselves, found Budd strangely imperturbable and went out, unsatisfied. The storekeeper cruised back and got his morning meal.

As the day wore on he found part of his duty performed for him. The more determined of the landseekers organized a posse and galloped up the road toward Bend. Around noon they came back with nothing for their efforts. A few beat into the jack pines a half mile or so and returned empty-handed. Budd, standing on his porch, gave them a few choice words of advice. “Takes an experienced hand to find anything in the brush. Not much good in yore tactics.” They chose not to give up the pursuit and after dinner again scoured the road, this time to the south. Budd was not much interested in these movements. Such time as he spent on the porch was used to keep a shrewd watch over the girl and Sam. The latter had not elected to go with the posse, but at one point in the afternoon he picked up his gun and, seeming to have a plan of his own, marched directly into the pines and was lost for the best part of an hour. The girl, who had been idling around her wagon, watched him go and after a short interval vanished up the road. She was back in a little while, coming directly to the store.

“Mr. Budd, this is dreadful! Do you suppose any one will find him? If they do, they’ll be sure to shoot.”

“That’s the portion of thieves, ain’t it?”

“But he’s not a thief!” Then she seemed to collect herself, and a color rose in her cheeks. “No, I don’t believe he did it. I don’t believe it.”

“Thought you didn’t think so much of him?”

“Oh, that! We may have been quarreling, but--but I know him to be an honest man.”

“How long’ve you known him?”

“Why, we met on the road about a week ago.” She saw a question in the storekeeper’s face and flushed again. “It doesn’t take a woman forever to judge, you know. If Bill chooses to run off, I’m sure I have no reason to worry about his affairs.” She spoke it primly, unaware that her eyes told another story. “But I’m quite sure he’d not be a sneak thief.”

The girl changed the subject abruptly and asked a question about homesteading. Budd turned to one of his never-failing stories and kept drawling away until he saw Sam duck into the clearing and make for the store. He sighed, fingered the deputy’s star on his vest and turned toward the cigar box which served as his cash till. “Storekeepin’ used to be a nice quiet trade until this boom hit me. Now I got to be a regular bookkeeper.” He was shuffling a pile of paper bills on the counter when Sam came in.

“Yore prisoner,” said he in the same lazy voice, “is a slick one. Got plumb clean.”

“Twen’y-five, thirty, forty-five,” counted Budd, thumbing the bills. “You been chasing him, too?”

“Thought I had a scent, but it petered out.” Sam’s eyes followed Budd’s pile of money. “He’s ducked. What I can’t see is why he didn’t make a stab to get his duffle and horse.”

“Eighty-nine dollars and fifty-three cents,” tabulated Budd, rumbling to himself. He made a few weird scratches with a stub pencil and thrust the money carelessly back in the cigar box. Sam watched the operation with his poker face, blandly uninterested. “Well,” continued Budd, “he’ll be caught sooner or later. They always do. Never saw a crook git far yet.”

“That’s right,” assented Sam. He turned to the girl. “Care to amble around and scare up an appetite?”

“Yes,” said she.

Her eyes were likewise fixed on the cigar box. A swift look went to Budd. He was slivering off another piece of cheese, intent on the process. So the two walked out and circled around the wagons.

The storekeeper put the cigar box on the counter, ransacked the shelves for writing paper and sat down to compose a rather long letter. He was not a rapid penman, and before he had finished night once more was upon the clearing with the fires sending their veering tongues of flame to the black sky. He went back to the kitchen, got something to eat, and sat down for a long, dark study over the tip of his cigar. Alternately he chuckled and frowned.

“That girl,” said he, “is shore a case. Been playin’ Sam agin’ Bill to even up a quarrel, and now she’s turrible sorry. Jest like what a woman’d do.” He looked down at the star and was acutely displeased. “This thing shore sets on my mind. Ef I was jest an ordinary citizen it wouldn’t be sech a risky experiment; bein’ an officer makes my conscience troubled, and that’s a fact.”

He went to the front door and swung his lantern idly to and fro, passing a glance at the wagons in which most of the landseekers were now asleep. Then he turned back, still swinging the light so that any one looking through the open portal might see him, and passed to the kitchen. There he blew out the lantern, turned about, and tiptoed to the front room. He took up the blanket, wrapped it around him and sat down behind the counter with his back to the shelves and his revolver in his hand. Presently he dozed off and dreamed of his boyhood in Pennsylvania.

He seemed, after a time, to have trouble with his dream. It was winter and he was skating with his young companions on the ice. There was a crack in the middle of the pond and a danger sign pointing from it. But he felt as if he could safely dare that sign, so he skated to the very edge and turned away. He had been too bold. There was a sharp cracking of the ice and--he woke with both eyes fixed upward. The illusion of cracking ice had been made by a loose board creaking under a weight. Budd took a firmer grip on his gun and breathed softly. Again the board registered protest; not a loud sound, but enough to tell the storekeeper that the bait in his trap found a willing stalker. Something very slight swept over the counter surface and struck the cigar box with an audible tick. Budd made out a dark, moving shadow in the gloom. He hoisted his body with surprising celerity and quickly snapped the revolver forward.

“Freeze right in yore tracks,” he commanded. “Hands above yore haid. Hurry now!”

The command was not obeyed. Budd, peering closely, saw the intruder’s weapon arm streak downward. He moved aside and shook his head under the stunning crash of gun fire. A little finger of orange-blue momentarily flashed in his face. He jumped, and again the room shook under heavy echoes. The intruder let out a great breath of air as if he had been punched in the stomach, pawed at the counter and seemed to dissolve; first the gun struck the floor; then the body collapsed, muttering, “Got me, you sly ol’ fox.”

All was still. Then the wagons came to life and a few landseekers ran up to the store; a lantern swung and winked.

Budd lighted his own lantern and bent over the intruder. It was the man he had supposed--Sam, his long body sprawled awkwardly on the boards, his face white and wholly without expression, staring toward the storekeeper. He was dead. In falling he had pulled the cigar box with him, whose contents of greenbacks now scattered over the floor.

The landseekers crowded into the room, and the assembled lanterns made a great light. It was a story too plain to need explanation, and in the silence Budd ventured his mild explanation.

“I knew it was this feller all the time, and not Bill,” said he. “But I wasn’t plumb shore. So I arranged to let Bill escape and baited my trap with the money in the cigar box. Sam saw it and sprung the trap, shore enough.”

“Why’d you let the other fella go?” inquired one.

Budd smiled and pushed through to the porch. He expanded his lungs and bellowed at the pine trees. “Oh, Bill! She’s all settled!” Then he made further explanations. “I don’t _know_ that he’s hereabouts, but I’m figgerin’ so. He ain’t the kind to run off ’thout tryin’ to clear his name, and I guessed he’d try to catch Sam in the act o’ cachin’ the money somewheres in the woods, or else raisin’ the cache.”

Footsteps thumped on the porch, and Bill, drenched with the night dew and tousle-haired, came up. “You old son of a gun,” said he. “You’re purty shrewd. I figgered you’d make a play like that. Saw it in yore face last night.” He held out his hand for a cigarette. “When mornin’ comes I’ll show you where Sam hid the four hundred dollars. I was in the brush an’ saw him go to the place this afternoon. That’s when all the boys were threshin’ the thicket for me. Shucks, don’t you know it’s a hard job to ketch an old hand in the brush?”

There was a call from the porch; a woman’s urgent command. “Bill!”

Bill grinned. “Reckon she’s been tryin’ to clear me, too. Tried to foller Sam this afternoon, but got lost and ran plump into me.”

“Still mad, is she?” asked Budd.

Bill passed him a wink and elbowed his way out of the room.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the February 13, 1926 issue of _Western Story Magazine_.]