Stepsons of Light Part 20

"There! What did I tell you, you old hunk of Limburger?" Hobby Lull laid hands delicately upon his adversary's short gray beard and tugged it with deferential gentleness. The unresisting head wagged sedately to and fro. "Take that, you old bug hunter!" said Hobby, and stood back, waiting.

The a.s.sayer became statuesque.

"You see, Mister Deputy? He has a.s.sauldt gommitted, and you a witness are. With abusive language!"

"The wienerwurst is yet to come," observed Lull, in a voice sepulchral and ominous.

"With threats also, and insults--abandoned ruffian! Desperate!

Catiline! Officer--do your duty! I make demand of you. Dake dot mon into gustody!" Preisser's eyes were dancing as he fought down a grin.

Mr. Gwinne regarded the impa.s.sioned disputants with grave eyes.

"You are under arrest, Mr. Lull," he said with somber official severity. "Can you give bail?"

"Not one red cent."

"Come in, then."

Lull followed through the door. Turning, he smiled back at the little a.s.sayer. Preisser winked.

"I'll have to lock you up, you know," said Gwinne. "District attorney particularly desired that no one should hold communication with Dines, over yonder." He locked Lull in a cell; forgetfully leaving the key in the lock. "Don't try to shout across to Dines, now," he warned. "I'll hear you. Well, I'll be meanderin' along to the kitchen and starting supper."

Hobby reached through the bars and turned the key. He went over to Johnny's cell.

"Well, Dines, how goes it? You don't look much downhearted."

"I'm not," said Johnny. "I'm sorry about the dead man, of course. But I didn't know him, and you can't expect me to feel like you do. I'm right as rain--but I can't say as much for you. You look like you'd been dragged through a knothole."

"No sleep. I went back to Garfield, made medicine, and hurried back here. Seventy-five miles now, after a day's work and not much sleep the night before. I thought you'd be having your prelim, you see, or I'd have waited over. Didn't know that Judge Hinkle was out of town."

"Any news?"

"Yes," said Hobby, "there is."

He held out his hand. Johnny took it, through the bars.

"You don't think I killed your friend, then?"

"I know you didn't. But, man--we can't prove it. Not one sc.r.a.p of evidence to bring into court. Just a sensing and a hunch--against a plain, straight, reasonable story, with three witnesses. You are It."

"Now you can't sometimes most always ever tell," said Johnny.

"Besides, you're tired out. Get you a chair and tell it to me. I've been asleep. Also, you and I have had some few experiences not in common before our trails crossed yesterday. I may do a little sensing myself. Tell it to me."

"Well, after Caney's crowd told us Adam was killed in Redgate, Uncle Pete and a bunch went up there hotfoot. They found everything just about as Caney told it. There was your track, with one shoe gone, and Adam's horse with the bridle dragging--till he broke it off--"

"And where those two tracks crossed," interrupted Johnny, "those fellows had ridden over the trail till you couldn't tell which was on top."

Hobby stared.

"How did you know that? Uncle Pete was all worked up over it. I never heard him so powerful before, on any subject."

"You're tired out, so you can't see straight," said Johnny. "Also, I know that when I came down Redgate there were no fresh tracks heading this way. If those three men killed Forbes and want to saw it off on me--then they confused that trail on purpose. If they didn't kill Forbes, and muddled the tracks that way, they're half-wits. And they're not half-wits. Go on."

"They found poor old Adam and your fire. They pushed on ahead to read all the sign they could before dark. Up in the park there'd been a heap of riding back and forth. Just at dark they found where a bunch of cattle had been headed and had gone over the divide into Deadman and gone on down. Then the rain came--and the rest is mud."

"Yes. It rained. There was a little low gap to the north from where I branded my calf. If anybody had been there making tracks--those cattle would blot 'em out." Johnny began to laugh. "Look, _amigo_--all this dope seems fairly reasonable and nightmareish, turn about, as we see it across thirty miles and twenty-four hours--but it is a safe guess that some folks didn't sleep much last night. They know all about it, and I reckon when they got to thinking it over it seemed to them like the whole story was printed in letters a mile high. Scared? I guess yes. I'd hate to trade places with 'em right now. And before it rained--oh, mamma! I bet they was tickled to see that rain! Well, go on. Proceed. Give us some more."

"The further I go the less you'll like it," said Lull. "Pete and his hand-picked posse stayed up there and scattered out at daylight, for general results. They found one of Adam's cows with a big fresh-branded calf--branded yesterday. Dines, you're up against it--hard! It's going to look black to any jury. That calf carried your brand--T-Tumble-T!"

"'h.e.l.lfire and d.a.m.nation--make my bed soon!'" said Johnny. "The boy stood on the burning deck, With neither high nor low! The Sons of Zeruiah!... Ho, warder! Pull up the drawstring! Let the portcrayon fall! Melt down the largess, fling out the pendulum to the breeze, and howl the battle cry of Dines!"

Hobby's gaunt features relaxed to a laugh.

"You silly a.s.s! And the rope on your very neck! And what is the battle cry of Dines, if I may ask?"

"Only two out!" said Johnny Dines. He flung up his head; his hawk's face was beautiful.

"Good boy!" said Hobby Lull. "Good boy! You never shot Adam Forbes--not in the back. You hold your mouth right. It isn't so bad, Dines. I wanted to see how you'd take it. I know you now. There's more to come. You live a long way from here, with roughs and the river between. We've never seen any of your cattle. But we looked you up in the brand book. Your earmark is sharp the right, underslope the left.

That yearling's ears are marked sharp the left, underslope the right.

"Yes. And I knew that without looking at the brand book," said Johnny.

"They've overplayed their hand. Any more?"

"One thing more. Nothing to put before a jury--but it fits with a frame-up. This morning, Uncle Pete scouted round beyond where they quit the trail at dark. He found locations where Weir and Caney and Hales struck rich placer yesterday. A big thing--coa.r.s.e gold. It was natural enough that they didn't tell us. For that matter, they mentioned prospecting along with their saddle-thieves' hunt. You heard 'em tell Gwinne about the saddle thieves last night. But--Adam Forbes was prospecting too. That's what he went up there for. Caney, Weir and Hales--any one of them has just the face of a man to turn lead into gold. There's a motive for you--a possible motive."

"More than possible. Let me think!" Johnny nursed his knee. He saw again the cool dark windings of Redgate, the little branding fire, the brushy pa.s.s low above him--where a foe might lurk--himself and Forbes, clear outlined on the hillside, the letter Forbes had given him.

"H'm!" he said. "H'm! Exactly!" With a thoughtful face, he chanted a merry little stave:

_The soapweed rules over the plain, And the brakeman is lord of the train, The prairie dog kneels On the back of his heels, Still patiently praying for rain._

"Say, Mr. Lull, isn't it a queer lay to have the county seat inland, not on the railroad at all, like Hillsboro?"

"That's easy. Hillsboro was the county seat before there was any railroad."

"Oh--that way? And how do you get your mail at Garfield? Does that come from Hillsboro?"

"No. Hillsboro is the closest post office, but our mail goes to Rincon. There's the river, you see, and no bridge. A letter takes two days and a hundred miles to get from Garfield to Hillsboro--and it's only twenty-five miles straight across in low water."

"I see," said Johnny.

Again he visioned the scene on the hillside, the fire, Adam Forbes, the location papers he was to mail; he remembered Toad Hales and his attempted betrayal of the horse camp guest; he remembered Jody Weir's letter to Hillsboro, and how it was to be delivered. Jody Weir--and the girl in Hillsboro post office--steady, Johnny--steady, boy! Even so, Jody Weir could keep those location papers from reaching the recorder!

The whole black business became clear and sure to him. And in that same flaming moment he knew that he could not clear himself by shaming this light lady--that he had never seen or known. To s.h.i.+eld her fault or folly, he must take his chance. He looked up and spread out his hands.

"No go, Mr. Lull!" he said cheerfully. "Much obliged to you--and here is gear enough for a cuckoo clock, but I can't make it tick. Surmise and suspicion. Not one fact to lay hands on. Something may come out in the trial, of course. Looks like both ends against the middle, don't it? When dry weather keeps you poor and a rain hangs you? Tough luck!

Alas, poor Johnny! I knew him well!"

So far his iron fortunes had brought him--to the shadow of the gallows. There, beset with death and shame, with neck and name on the venture, he held his head high, and kept his honor spotless. Well done, Johnny Dines! Well played, our side!