Whispering Smith Part 36

He thought of every phase of the outcome. If Sinclair should kill him the difficulties were less. It would be unpleasant, certainly, but something that might happen any time and at any man's hands.

He had cut into the game too long ago and with his eyes too wide open to complain at this time of the possibility of an accident. They might kill each other; but if, escaping himself, he should kill Sinclair----

He came back in the silence always to that if. It rose dark between him and the woman he loved--whom he had loved since she was a child with school-girl eyes and braided hair. After he had lost her, only to find years afterward that she was hardly less wretched in her life than he in his, he had dreamed of the day when she might again be free and he free to win a love long hoped for.

But to slay this man--her husband--in his inmost heart he felt it would mean the raising of a bar as impalpable as fate, and as undying, to all his dreams. Deserved or not, whatever she should say or not say, what would she feel? How could her husband's death in that encounter, if it ever came, be other than a stain that must shock and wound her, no matter how much she should try not to see. Could either of them ever quite forget it?

Kennedy and his men were guarding the Cache. Could they be sent against Sinclair? That would be only a baser sort of murder--the murder of his friends. He himself was leader, and so looked upon; the post of danger was his.

He raised his head. Through the window came a faint light. The moon was rising, and against the inner wall of the room the straight, hard lines of the old wardrobe rose dimly. The rifles were within. He must choose.

He walked to the window and pushed the curtain aside. It was dark everywhere across the upper town, but in the distance one light burned. It was in Marion's cottage. He had chosen this room because from the window he could see her home. He stood for a few moments with his hands in his pockets, looking. When he turned away he drew the shade closely, lighted a lamp, and unlocked the wardrobe door.

Scott left the barn at half-past ten with a led horse for Whispering Smith. He rode past Smith's room in Fort Street, but the room was dark, and he jogged down to the Wickiup square, where he had been told to meet him. After waiting and riding about for an hour, he tied the horses and went up to McCloud's office. McCloud was at his desk, but knew nothing of Whispering Smith except that he was to come in before he started. "He's a punctual man," murmured Bob Scott, who had the low voice of the Indian. "Usually he is ahead of time."

"Is he in his room, do you think?" asked McCloud.

"I rode around that way about fifteen minutes ago; there was no light."

"He must be there," declared McCloud. "Have you the horses below? We will ride over and try the room again."

Fort Street back of Front is so quiet after eleven o'clock at night that a footfall echoes in it. McCloud dismounted in front of the bank building and, throwing the reins to Bob Scott, walked upstairs and back toward Smith's room. In the hallway he paused. He heard faint strains of music. They came from within the room--fragments of old airs played on a violin, and subdued by a mute, in the darkness.

Instinct stayed McCloud's hand at the door. He stood until the music ceased and footsteps moved about in the room; then he knocked, and a light appeared within. Whispering Smith opened the door. He stood in his trousers and s.h.i.+rt, with his cartridge-belt in his hand. "Come in, George. I'm just getting hooked up."

"Which way are you going to-night, Gordon?" asked McCloud, sitting down on the chair.

"I am going to Oroville. The crowd is celebrating there. It is a defi, you know."

"Who are you going to take with you?"

"n.o.body."

McCloud moved uneasily. "I don't like that."

"There will be nothing doing. Sinclair may be gone by the time I arrive, but I want to see Bob and Gene Johnson, and scare the Williams Cache coyotes, just to keep their tails between their legs."

"I'd like to kill off half a dozen of that gang."

Whispering Smith said nothing for a moment. "Did you ever have to kill a man, George?" he asked buckling his cartridge-belt.

"No. Why?"

There was no reply. Smith had taken a rifle from the rack and was examining the firing mechanism. He worked the lever for a moment with lightning-like speed, laid the gun on the bed, and sat down beside it.

"You would hardly believe, George, how I hate to go after Murray Sinclair. I've known him all my life. His folks and mine lived across the street from one another for twenty years. Which is the older?

Murray is five years older than I am; he was always a big, strong, good-looking fellow." Whispering Smith put his hands on the side of the bed. "It is curious how you remember things that happened when you were a boy, isn't it? I thought of something to-night I hadn't thought of for twenty years. A little circus came to town. While they were setting up the tent the lines for the gasolene tank got fouled in the block at the top of the centre pole. The head canvasman offered a quarter to any boy that would climb the pole and free the block. One boy after another tried it, but they couldn't climb half-way up. Then Murray sailed in. I was seven years old and Murray was twelve, and he wore a vest. He gave me the vest to hold while he went up. I felt like a king. There was a lead-pencil in one pocket, beautifully sharpened, and I showed it to the other boys. Did he make good? He always made good," said Whispering Smith gloomily. "The canvasman gave him the quarter and two tickets, and he gave one of the tickets to me. I got to thinking about that to-night. As boys, Murray and I never had a quarrel." He stopped. McCloud said nothing, and, after an interval, Smith spoke again:

"He was an oracle for all the small boys in town, and could advise us on any subject on earth--whether he knew anything about it or nothing about it made no difference. I told him once I wanted to be a California stage-robber, and he replied without an instant's hesitation that I ought to begin to practise running. I was so upset at his grasp of the subject that I hadn't the nerve to ask him why I needed to practise running to be a stage-robber. I was ashamed of appearing green and to this day I've never understood what he meant.

Whether it was to run after the stage or to run away from it I couldn't figure out. Perhaps my being too proud to ask the question changed my career. He went away for a long time, and we heard he was in the Black Hills. When he came back, my G.o.d! what a hero he was."

Bob Scott knocked at the door and Whispering Smith opened it. "Tired of waiting, Bob? Well, I guess I'm ready. Is the moon up? This is the rifle I'm going to take, Bob. Did Wickwire have a talk with you? He's all right. Suppose you send him to the mouth of Little Crawling Stone to watch things a day or two. They may try to work north that way or hide in the wash."

Walking down to the street, Whispering Smith continued his suggestions.

"And by the way, Bob, I want you to pa.s.s this word for me up and down Front Street. Sinclair has his friends in town and it's all right--I know them and expect them to stay by him. I expect Murray's friends to do what they can for him. I've got my friends and expect them to stay by me. But there is one thing that I will not stand for on any man's part, and that is hiding Sinclair anywhere in Medicine Bend. You keep him out of Medicine Bend, Bob; will you do it? And remember, I will never let up on the man who hides him in town while this fight is on. There are good reasons for drawing the line on that point, and there I draw it hard and fast. Now Bob and Gene Johnson were at Oroville when you left, were they, Bob?" He was fastening his rifle in the scabbard. "Which is deputy sheriff this year, Bob or Gene? Gene--very good." He swung into the saddle.

"Have you got everything?" murmured Scott.

"I think so. Stop! I'm riding away without my salt-bag. That would be a pretty piece of business, wouldn't it? Take the key, Bob. It's hanging between the rifles and the clock. Here's the wardrobe key, too."

There was some further talk when Scott came back with the salt, chiefly about horses and directions as to telephoning. Whispering Smith took up a notch again in his belt, pulled down his hat, and bent over the neck of his horse to lay his hand a moment in McCloud's. It was one o'clock. Across the foothills the moon was rising, and Whispering Smith straightening up in the saddle wheeled his horse and trotted swiftly up the street into the silent north.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

AMONG THE COYOTES

Oroville once marked farthest north for the Peace River gold camps, but with mining long ago abandoned it now marks farthest south for a rustler's camp, being a favorite resort for the people of the Williams Cache country. Oroville boasts that it has never surrendered and that it has never been cleaned out. It has moved, and been moved, up stream and down, and from bank to bank; it has been burned out and blown away and lived on wheels: but it has never suffered the loss of its ident.i.ty. Oroville is said to have given to its river the name of Peace River--either wholly in irony or because in Oroville there was for many years no peace save in the river. However, that day, too, is past, and Peace County has its sheriff and a few people who are not habitually "wanted."

Whispering Smith, well dusted with alkali, rode up to the Johnson ranch, eight miles southwest of Oroville, in the afternoon of the day after he left Medicine Bend. The ranch lies in a valley watered by the Rainbow, and makes a pretty little oasis of green in a limitless waste of sagebrush. Gene and Bob Johnson were cutting alfalfa when Whispering Smith rode into the field, and, stopping the mowers, the three men talked while the seven horses nibbled the clover.

"I may need a little help, Gene, to get him out of town," remarked Smith, after he had told his story; "that is, if there are too many Cache men there for me."

Bob Johnson was stripping a stalk of alfalfa in his fingers. "Them fellows are pretty sore."

"That comes of half doing a job, Bob. I was in too much of a hurry with the round-up. They haven't had dose enough yet," returned Whispering Smith. "If you and Gene will join me sometime when I have a week to spare, we will go in there, clean up the gang and burn the hair off the roots of the chapparal--what? I've hinted to Rebstock he could get ready for something like that."

"Tell us about that fight, Gordon."

"I will if you will give me something to eat and have this horse taken care of. Then, Bob, I want you to ride into Oroville and reconnoitre.

This is mail day and I understand some of the boys are buying postage stamps to put on my coffin."

They went to the house, where Whispering Smith talked as he ate. Bob took a horse and rode away, and Gene, with his guest, went back to the alfalfa, where Smith took Bob's place on the mower. When they saw Bob riding up the valley, Whispering Smith, bringing in the machine, mounted his horse.

"Your man is there all right," said Bob, as he approached. "He and John Rebstock were in the Blackbird saloon. Seagrue isn't there, but Barney Rebstock and a lot of others are. I talked a few minutes with John and Murray. Sinclair didn't say much; only that the railroad gang was trying to run him out of the country, and he wanted to meet a few of them before he went. I just imagined he held up a little before me; maybe not. There's a dozen Williams Cache men in town."

"But those fellows are not really dangerous, Bob, though they may be troublesome," observed Smith reflectively.

"Well, what's your plan?" blurted Gene Johnson.

"I haven't any, Gene," returned Smith, with perfect simplicity. "My only plan is to ride into town and serve my papers, if I can. I've got a deputys.h.i.+p--and that I'm going to do right away. If you, Bob, or both of you, will happen in about thirty minutes later you'll get the news and perhaps see the fun. Much obliged for your feed, Gene; come down to Medicine Bend any time and I'll fill you up. I want you both for the elk hunt next fall, remember that. Bucks is coming, and is going to bring Brown and Henson and perhaps Atterbury and Gibbs and some New Yorkers; and McCloud's brother, the preacher, is coming out and they are all right--all of them."

The only street in Oroville faces the river, and the buildings string for two or three blocks along modest bluffs. Not a soul was anywhere in sight when Whispering Smith rode into town, save that across the street from where he dismounted and tied his horse three men stood in front of the Blackbird.