With Hoops of Steel Part 16

Wellesly laughed in an embarra.s.sed way and Ellhorn went on: "Now, just see how things turn out. There's been another war over in Las Plumas and we-all have been fightin' you and your interests and the cattle company and the Republicans for all we were worth. They arrested Emerson again on that same old murder fake, to say nothin' of me for bein' drunk and disorderly, which I sure was, and there was h.e.l.l to pay for two days. They tried to take Emerson out of town, and Tom and me held up the train they had him on. I buffaloed the engineer while they took care of Daniels and Halliday, and then we pulled our freight. And here we ride up to the ranch, fugitives from justice, just barely in time to save you-all."

Wellesly laughed. "I am very glad you did it. My only regret is that you didn't break jail several days earlier."

"I don't know whether or not you-all understand the position I take about that Whittaker case," said Mead. "I reckon likely you think I break jail every time you get me in just out of pure cussedness. But I don't. I do it because I think you-all haven't any reason but pure cussedness for puttin' me in. I consider that you haven't any right to arrest me on mere suspicion, and I shall keep on resistin' arrest and breakin' jail just as long as you fellows keep on tryin' to run me in without any proof against me. Why, you don't even know that Will Whittaker's dead! Now, Mr. Wellesly, I'll make a bargain with you."

Mead's eyes were fastened on Wellesly's with an intent look which gripped the invalid's attention. Wellesly's eyelids suddenly half closed and between them flashed out the strips of pale, brilliant gray.

"All right, go on. I must hear it before I a.s.sent."

"It is this: I won't ask you to have any evidence that I had a hand in the killing of Will Whittaker, if he is dead. But whenever you can prove that he is dead and show that he died by violence, I give you my word, and my friends here, Tom Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn, will add theirs to mine, I give you my word that I'll submit quietly to arrest and will stand trial for his murder. But unless you can do that I shall keep on fightin' you till kingdom come!"

Tuttle and Ellhorn nodded. "He's right!" they exclaimed. "We'll stick to what he says."

Wellesly considered Mead's challenge in silence for a moment. He was wondering whether this was the courage of innocence or whether it was mere bluffing audacity. It was very like the former, but he decided that it must be the latter, because he was quite convinced that Mead had killed Whittaker.

"Of course," he said, "after what you have done for me here--you have saved my life and showed me the greatest kindness and generosity--I can not allow any further proceedings to be taken against you, if I can prevent them, which is not--"

"Oh, hang all that!" Mead interrupted with a gesture of irritation. "I don't expect and don't want anything we have done just now to make any difference with your feelings toward me, or change the policy of the Fillmore Cattle Company. And I don't want it to influence the actions of the Republicans in Las Plumas, either. We didn't do it for that purpose, and I'm not buying protection for myself that way. What we did was the barest humanity."

"No, Mr. Wellesly," Nick Ellhorn broke in, "you needn't have it on your conscience that you must be grateful to us, because if we hadn't saved you the Republicans over in Plumas would have said that we killed you. We sure had to save you to save our own skins."

There was a general laugh at this, and Mead added quietly: "As it was my men who were to blame for your condition, I suppose I would have been, in a way, responsible."

Tuttle rose and began walking about uneasily. "When are we goin' to start after 'em, Nick?" he said.

"I'm ready whenever you are."

"All right. To-morrow morning, then."

Wellesly looked up in surprise. It was the first word he had heard from either of the three concerning his captors, and he was startled by the calm a.s.surance with which Tom had taken it for granted that he and Nick would "go after 'em." "You two won't go alone!" he exclaimed.

"We're enough," Tuttle replied, a grim, expectant look on his big, round face.

"You bet we are!" added Nick. "If they see Tom and me comin' they'll know they've got to give up. They've seen us shoot, and that scrub, Haney, has got some sense, though I reckon Jim would be just fool enough to get behind a rock and pop at us till we blowed his brains out."

"Oh, I say, now! This is a foolhardy scheme! Let them go, and if they come out of there alive we'll get hold of them somehow. It would be dangerous to the last degree for you two alone to attempt to bring them out across that desert."

"Don't you worry," said Nick. "We ain't 'lowing to bring 'em out."

The next morning Tuttle and Ellhorn, with two loaded pack horses, set out on their journey to the Oro Fino mountains, where they felt sure the two kidnappers would still be engaged in their hunt for the lost Winters mine. Mead had already sent word to the Fillmore ranch that Wellesly was at his house and that some one might meet them at Muletown that afternoon and carry him on to Las Plumas.

When the two men parted they looked each other in the eyes and shook hands. Wellesly began to acknowledge his debt of grat.i.tude. Mead cut him short.

"That's all right, Mr. Wellesly," he said, "but I don't want you to think for a minute that I expect this little affair to make any difference in our relations. In the cattle business I still consider you my enemy, and I propose to fight you as long as you try to prevent what I hold to be just and fair dealing between the Fillmore Company and the rest of us cattle raisers. We still stand exactly where we did before."

Wellesly smiled admiringly. "Personally, I like your pluck, Mr. Mead, but, if you will pardon my saying so, I think it is very ill-advised.

I'll frankly admit that you've beaten us this year at every turn. But you can't keep up this sort of thing year after year, against the resources and organization of a big company. The most distinctive commercial feature of this period is the constant growth of big interests at the expense of smaller ones. It is something that the individual members of a big concern can't help, because it is bigger than they are. Our stock-holders will undoubtedly wish to enlarge their holdings and increase their profits, and I, being only one of a number, can have no right to put my personal feelings above their interests. You ought to see that the result is going to be inevitable in your case, just as it is everywhere else. The little fellows can't hold their own against the big ones. I am telling you all this in the most friendly spirit, and I a.s.sure you it will be to your interest to take my advice and compromise the whole matter. I'll guarantee that the Fillmore people will meet you half way, and I am sure it will cost you less in the long run."

As he listened to Wellesly the good-natured smile left Mead's face, his lips shut in a hard line, and the defiant yellow flame, the light of battle, which his friends knew to be the sign that he would fight to the death, leaped into his eyes. He stared into Wellesly's face a moment before he spoke.

"Compromise! I've got nothing to compromise! I reckon that means that you want my two water holes and grazing land that join yours! Well, you can't have them! But if you want any more fight over this cattle business you can have all you want, and whenever you want it!" And he turned on his heel and walked away. "I reckon they would like me to compromise," he said to himself. "It would be lots of money in their pockets, and holes in mine. It's a pity that a man with Wellesly's grit should be such a hog!"

Wellesly shrugged his shoulders and climbed into the carriage that was to take him to Las Plumas. "I can't help it," he thought, "if he chooses to look at it that way. I told him the truth, and I put it in the kindest way. The little fellows are sure to go down before the big ones. That is the law that governs all commerce nowadays. He is bound to be eaten up, and he ought to have sense enough to see it. He'd save himself trouble and money if he would take my advice, compromise, and get out now with what he can. He can't stop things from taking their natural course, and the more he fights the sooner he'll go under. Of course, I don't like to do anything against him, after he has saved my life, but my private sentiments can't interfere with the company's interests, and measures will have to be taken before next fall's round-up to put a stop to this whole thing. I offered the olive branch, and he refused it, and now he can have all the war he wants.

He is the head and backbone of all the opposition to us, and if we were rid of him the Fillmore Company could double its profits. I don't doubt for a minute that he killed Will Whittaker, and if we could prove it that would solve the whole matter. He said he would submit to arrest and trial if we could prove that Will died a violent death.

That means, of course, that n.o.body saw him commit the murder and that he has hid the body where he thinks it can't be found.

"Then it must be very much out of the way, where he is sure n.o.body would think of looking for it. Probably it isn't any where near the traveled road, the cattle ranges, nor the ranches in the foothills. It must be in some out of the way corner of the Fernandez plain.

Whittaker says the searching parties have been all over this part of the country, so it must be farther up toward the north. The White Sands are up that way, I remember, and if a body were buried there, deep enough, it might as well be at the bottom of the sea. Yes, I think that's a pretty good idea. Whittaker must send a searching party up to the White Sands as soon as he can get one together. If we can find that body--there's _adios_ to Emerson Mead and the fight against us. He'll have to hang or go to the penitentiary for life."

When Wellesly reached Las Plumas he found the town basking in peace and friendliness. Colonel Whittaker and Judge Harlin were enjoying a midday mint julep together over the bar of the Palmleaf saloon; John Daniels and Joe Davis were swapping yarns over a watermelon in the back room of Pierre Delarue's store, while Delarue himself was laughing gleefully at their stories, and Mrs. Harlin was a.s.sisting Mrs. Daniels in preparations for the swellest card party of the summer, which the sheriff's wife was to give that afternoon.

In the late afternoon Wellesly sat beside Marguerite Delarue on her veranda and told her the story of his abduction and of his fight, which he had come so near to losing, with the fiends of heat and thirst. He showed her the bent and b.l.o.o.d.y pin which had helped to liberate him from his captivity in the canyon and in soft and lover-like tones told her that he owed his life to her and that a lifetime of devotion would not be sufficient to express his grat.i.tude.

But he stopped just short of asking her to accept the lifetime of devotion. She was much moved and her tender blue eyes were misty with tears as she listened to the story of his sufferings. He thought he had never seen her look so sweet and attractive and so entirely in accord with his ideal of womanly sympathy. When he told her how Emerson Mead and his two friends had worked over him and by what a narrow margin they had saved him from severe illness and probably from death, her face brightened and she seemed much pleased. She asked some questions about Mead, and was evidently so interested in this part of the story that Wellesly, much to his surprise, felt a sudden impulse of personal dislike and enmity toward the big Texan. That night, as he sat at his window smoking and looking thoughtfully at the lop-sided moon rising over the Hermosa mountains, he was thinking about Marguerite Delarue and the advisability of asking her to marry him.

"Undoubtedly," he owned to himself, "I think more of her than I usually do of women, because I never before cared a hang what their feelings were toward other men. I must have been mistaken in thinking there was anything between her and Mead. Her heart is as fresh as her face, and I can go in and take it, and feel there have been no predecessors, if I want to. Do I want to? I don't know. She's handsome and she's got a stunning figure. Her feet aren't pretty, but they would look better if she didn't wear such clumsy shoes. Well, I'd see that she didn't. She seems to be sweet and gentle and sympathetic, and the sort of woman that would be absorbed in her husband and his interests. She's overfond of flattery, moral, mental and physical.

Gets that from Frenchy, I suppose, for you can start him strutting like a rooster any time with a dozen words. But that isn't much of a fault in a wife, after all, for if a fellow can only remember about it it's the easiest way in the world to keep a woman happy. Well, I'll think about it. There are no rivals in the field, and it will be time enough to decide when I make my next visit to Las Plumas."

The next day he went to tell Marguerite good-bye and sat talking with her a long time upon her veranda. Las Plumas had noticed the frequency of his calls at the Delarue house on his last trip to the town, and when it saw him there again two days in succession it felt sure that a love story was going on under the roses and honeysuckles. The smoke of the engine which carried him away had scarcely melted on the horizon before people were saying to one another that it would be a splendid match and what a fine thing it was for Marguerite Delarue that so rich a man as Wellesly had fallen in love with her.

Judge Harlin at once drove out to Emerson Mead's ranch in order that he might learn, from Mead's own lips, exactly what had happened to Wellesly and what sort of a compact Mead had made with him concerning the finding of Will Whittaker's body. They sat under the trees discussing Wellesly's character, after Mead had told the whole story down to their parting at Muletown.

"By the way," said Harlin, "they are saying, over in town, that Wellesly is stuck on Frenchy Delarue's daughter, and that they are to be married next fall. She is a stunning pretty girl, and as good as she is pretty, but it seems to me rather odd for Wellesly to come down here to get a wife. He's the sort of man you would expect to look for money and position in a wife, rather than real worth."

CHAPTER XVI

When Thomson Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn reached the little canyon in the Oro Fino mountains they saw that the two would-be kidnappers must have been there since Wellesly's departure for three of the four horses were quietly grazing, with hobbled feet, beside the rivulet. They speculated upon what the absence of the fourth horse might mean while they staked their own beasts and started on the trail of the two men.

Up the larger canyon a little way they saw buzzards flying low and heavily.

"That looks as if one of 'em was dead," said Nick.

"It would be just like the scrubs," Tom grumbled, "for both of 'em to go and die before we get a pop at 'em. I want to see the color of their hair just once. Confound their measly skins, they might have got Emerson into a worse sc.r.a.pe than this Whittaker business."

They were both silent for some moments, watching the buzzards as they swooped low over some dark object on the floor of the canyon. As they came nearer they saw that the dead thing on which the birds were feeding was the missing horse.

"They killed it for meat," said Nick, pointing to a clean cut which had severed one hind leg from the body.

"Yes, and not so very long ago, either," Tom a.s.sented, "or the buzzards wouldn't have left this much flesh on it, and it would be dried up more."

"Say, Tom, they brought this beast up here to kill it, and they sure wouldn't have brought it so far away if they had wanted the meat down there in that canyon. They must have changed camp."

"Then there's water higher up. They're in here yet, Nick, and we'll find 'em. We must keep our eyes and ears peeled, so they can't get the first pop."

They picked their way carefully up the canyon, watching the gorge that lengthened beyond them and the walls that towered above their heads, listening constantly for the faintest sounds of human voice or foot, speaking rarely and always in a whisper. The floor of the canyon was strewn with boulders large and small, and its sides rose above them in rugged, barren, precipitous cliffs. Nowhere did they see the slightest sign of vegetation to relieve the wilderness of sand and rock and barren walls. Not even a single gra.s.s blade thrust a brave green head between forbidding stones. Above them was a sky of pure, brilliant blue, and around them was the gray of the everlasting granite. Except for the sound of their own footsteps, the canyon was absolutely silent. There was no call of animals one to another, or twitter of birds, or whirr of feathered wings, or piping of insects. Now and then a slender, graceful lizard darted silently out of the suns.h.i.+ne to hide beneath a stone, and far behind them in the canyon the buzzards wheeled in low, awkward flights above the carca.s.s of the dead horse. But aside from these no living creature was to be seen.

The sun shone squarely down upon the canyon and the baking heat between its narrow walls would have dazed the brains and shaken the knees of men less hardy and less accustomed to the fierce, pounding suns.h.i.+ne of the southwest. Tuttle stole several inquiring glances at Nick's face. Then he stopped and cast a searching look all about them, carefully scanning the canyon before and behind them and its walls above their heads. He looked at Nick again and then threw another careful glance all about. He coughed a little, came close to Nick's side, wiped the sweat from his face, and finally spoke, hesitatingly, in a half whisper: