Copper Streak Trail Part 10

Stanley turned up a side street to the one-roomed adobe house on the edge of town that served as city headquarters for himself and Johnson. He unsaddled in the little corral; he brought a feed of corn for brown Awguan; he brought currycomb and brush and made glossy Awguan's sleek sides, turning him loose at last, with a friendly slap, to seek pasture on Cobre Hills. Then he returned to the Mountain House for the delayed supper.

Meantime Mr. Something Dewing held a hurried consultation with Mr. Mayer Zurich; and forthwith took horse again for Morning Gate Pa.s.s, slipping by dark streets from the town, turning aside to pa.s.s Hospital Springs. Where the arrest of the red pony had been effected, Dewing dismounted; below the trail, a dozen yards away, he fished Mr. Stanley Mitch.e.l.l's spur from under a p.r.i.c.kly pear; and returned in haste to Cobre.

After his supper Stanley strolled into Zurich's--The New York Store.

Unknown to him, at that hour brown Awguan was being driven back to his little home corral, resaddled--with Stanley's saddle--and led away into the dark.

Stanley exchanged greetings with the half-dozen customers who lingered at the counters, and demanded his mail. Zurich handed out two fat letters with the postmark of Abingdon, New York. While Stanley read them, Zurich called across the store to a purchaser of cigars and tobacco:

"h.e.l.lo, Wiley! Thought you had gone to Silverbell so wild and fierce."

"Am a-going now," said Wiley, "soon as I throw a couple or three drinks under my belt."

"Say, Bat, do you think you'll make the morning train? It's going on nine now."

"Surest thing you know! That span of mine can stroll along mighty peart.

Once I get out on the flat, we'll burn the breeze."

"Come over here, then," said Zurich. "I want you to take some cash and send it down to the bank by express--about eight hundred; and some checks besides. I can't wait for the stage--it won't get there till to-morrow night. I've overdrawn my account, with my usual carelessness, and I want this money to get to the bank before the checks do."

Stanley went back to his little one-roomed house. He shaved, bathed, laid out his Sunday best, re-read his precious letters, and dropped off to dreamless sleep.

Between midnight and one o'clock Bat Wiley, wild-eyed and raging, burst into the barroom of the Admiral Dewey and startled with a tale of wrongs such part of wakeful Cobre as there made wa.s.sail. At the crossing of Largo Draw he had been held up at a gun's point by a single robber on horseback; Zurich's money had been taken from him, together with some seventy dollars of his own; his team had been turned loose; it had taken him nearly an hour to catch them again, so delaying the alarm by that much.

Boots and spurs; saddling of horses; Bob Holland, the deputy sheriff, was called from his bed; a swift posse galloped into the night, joined at the last moment by Mr. Dewing, who had retired early, but had been roused by the clamor.

They came to Largo Crossing at daybreak. The trail of the robber's horse led straight to Cobre, following bypaths through the mountains. The tracks showed plainly that his coming had been by these same short cuts, saving time while Bat Wiley had followed the tortuous stage road through the hills. Halfway back a heavy spur lay in the trail; some one recognized it as Stanley Mitch.e.l.l's--a smith-wrought spur, painfully fas.h.i.+oned from a single piece of drill steel.

They came to Cobre before sunup; they found brown Awguan, dejected and sweat-streaked, standing in hip-shot weariness on the hill near his corral. In the corral Stanley's saddle lay in the sand, the blankets sweat-soaked.

Unwillingly enough, Holland woke Stan from a smiling sleep to arrest him.

They searched the little room, finding the mate to the spur found on the trail, but nothing else to their purpose. But at last, bringing Stan's saddle in before locking the house, Bull Pepper noticed a b.u.mpy appearance in the sheepskin lining, and found, between saddle skirt and saddle tree, the stolen money in full, and even the checks that Zurich had sent.

They haled Stan before the justice, who was also proprietor of the Mountain House. Waiving examination, Stanley Mitch.e.l.l was held to meet the action of the Grand Jury; and in default of bond--his guilt being a.s.sured and manifest--he was committed to Tucson Jail.

The morning stage, something delayed on his account, bore him away under guard, _en route_, most clearly, for the penitentiary.

CHAPTER VII

Mr. Peter Johnson's arrival in Morning Gate Pa.s.s was coincident with that of a very bright and businesslike sun. Mr. Johnson had made a night ride from the Gavilan country, where he had spent the better part of a pleasant week, during which he had contrived to commingle a minimum of labor with a joyous maximum of innocent amus.e.m.e.nt. The essence of these diversions consisted of attempts--purposely clumsy--to elude the vigilance of such conspirator prospectors as yet remained to neighbor him; sudden furtive sallies and excursions, beginning at all unreasonable and unexpected hours, ending always in the nothing they set out for, followed always by the frantic espionage of his mystified and bedeviled guardians--on whom the need fell that some of them must always watch while their charge reposed from his labors.

Tiring at last of this pastime, observing also that his playfellows grew irritable and desperate, Mr. Johnson had sagely concluded that his entertainment palled. Caching most of his plunder and making a light pack of the remainder, he departed, yawning, taking trail for Cobre in the late afternoon of the day preceding his advent in Morning Gate.

He perched on the saddle, with a leg curled round the horn; he whistled the vivacious air of Tule, Tule Pan, a gay fanfaronade of roistering notes, the Mexican words for which are, for considerations of high morality, best unsung.

The pack-horses paced down the trail, far ahead, with s.n.a.t.c.hed nibblings at convenient wayside tufts of gra.s.s.

Jackson Carr, freighter, was still camped at Hospital Springs. He lifted up his eyes as this careless procession sauntered down the hills; and, rising, intercepted its coming at the forks of the trail, heading the pack-horses in toward his camp. He walked with a twisting limp, his blue eyes were faded and pale, his bearded face was melancholy and sad; but as he seated himself on a stone and waited for Johnson's coming, some of the sadness pa.s.sed and his somber face lit up with unwonted animation.

"Howdy, Pete! I heard yuh was coming. I waited for yuh."

Pete leaped from his horse and gripped the freighter's hand.

"Jackson Carr, by all that's wonderful! Jack, old man! How is it with you?"

Jackson Carr hesitated, speaking slowly:

"Sally's gone, Pete. She died eight years ago. She had a hard life of it, Pete. Gay and cheerful to the last, though. Always such a brave little trick..."

His voice trailed off to silence. It was long before Pete Johnson broke upon that silence.

"We'll soon be by with it, Jack. Day before yesterday we was boys together in Uvalde an' Miss Sally a tomboy with us. To-morrow will be no worse, as I figure it." He looked hard at the hills. "It can't be all a silly joke. That would be too stupid! No jolthead made these hills. It's all right, I reckon.... And the little shaver? He was only a yearlin'

when I saw him last. And I haven't heard a word about you since."

"Right as rain, Bobby is. Goin' on ten now. Of course 'tain't as if he had his mother to look after him; but I do the best I can by him. Wish he had a better show for schoolin', though. I haven't been prosperin'

much--since Sally died. Seems like I sorter lost my grip. But I aim to put Bobby in school here when it starts up, next fall. I am asking you no questions about yourself, Pete, because I have done little but ask questions about you since I first heard you were here, four or five days ago."

"By hooky, Jack, I never expected to see you again. Where you been all these years? And how'd you happen to turn up here?"

"Never mind me, Pete. Here is too much talk of my affairs and none of yours. Man, I have news for your ear! Your pardner's in jail."

"Ya-as? What's he been doin' now?"

"Highway robbery. He got caught with the goods on. Eight or nine hundred."

"The little old skeesicks! Who'd have thought it of him?" said Pete tolerantly. Then his face clouded over. "He might have let me in on it!"

he complained. "Jack, you lead me to your grub pile and tell me all about it. Sounds real interestin'. Where's Bob? He asleep yet?"

"Huh! Asleep?" said Carr with a sniff that expressed fatherly pride in no small degree.

"Not him! Lit out o' here at break o' day--him and that devil horse of his, wrangling the work stock. He's a mighty help to me. I ain't very spry on my pins since--you know."

To eke out the words he gave an extra swing to his twisted leg. They came to a great freight wagon under a tree, with tackle showing that it was a six-horse outfit.

"Here we are! 'Light down and unsaddle, Petey, and we'll take off the packs. Turn your horses loose. Bobby'll look out for them when he comes.

No need to hobble. There! Wash up? Over yonder's the pan. I'll pour your coffee and one for myself. I've eaten already. Pitch in!"

Pete equipped himself with tinware and cutlery, doubled one leg under and sat upon it before the fire. From the ovens and skillets on the embers Pete heaped his plate with a savory stew, hot sourdough bread, fried rabbit, and canned corn fried to a delicate golden brown. Pete took a deep draught of the unsweetened hot black coffee, placed the cup on the sand beside him, and gathered up knife and fork.

From the farther side of the fire Carr brought another skillet, containing jerky, with onions and canned tomatoes.

"From the recipe of a n.o.bleman in the county," he said.

"Now, then," said Pete, "tell it to me."