XXX
A Strong Man Armed
When the full meaning of Stanton's _coup_ had thus set itself forth interms unmistakable, Smith put his elbows on the desk and propped hishead in his hands. It was not the attitude of dejection; it was rather atrance-like rigor of concentration, with each and all of the newlyemergent powers once more springing alive to answer the battle-call. Atthe desk-end Starbuck sat with his hands locked over one knee, toodisheartened to roll a cigarette, normal solace for all woundings lessthan mortal. After a minute or two Smith jerked himself around to facethe news-bringer.
"Does Colonel Baldwin know?" he asked.
"Sure! That's the worst of it. Didn't I tell you? After he got back fromStuart's funeral he drove out to the dam, reaching the works just aheadof the trouble. When M'Graw and the posse outfit showed up, the colonelgot it into his head that the whole thing was merely another trick ofStanton's--a fake. Ginty, the quarry boss, brought the news to town. Hesays there was a bloody mix-up, and at the end of it the colonel andWilliams were both under arrest for resisting the officers."
Smith nodded thoughtfully. "Of course; that was just what was needed.With the president and the chief of construction locked up, and thewheels blocked for the next twenty-four hours, our charter will begone."
"This world and another, and then the fireworks," Starbuck threw in."With the property all roped up in a law tangle, and those stock optionsof yours due to fall in, it looks as if a few prominent citizens of theTimanyoni would have to take to the high grass and the tall timber. Itsure does, John."
"The colonel was not entirely without his warrant for putting up afight," Smith went on, after another reflective minute. "Do you know,Billy, I have been expecting something of this kind--and expecting it tobe a fake. That's why I sent Stillings to Red Butte; to keep watch ofJudge Lorching's court. Stillings was to 'phone me if Lorching issued anorder."
"And he hasn't phoned you?"
"No; but that doesn't prove anything. The order may have been issued,and Stillings may have tried to let us know. There are a good many waysin which a man's mouth may be stopped--when there are no scruples on theother side."
"Then you think there is no doubt that the court order is straight, andthat this man M'Graw is really a deputy marshal and has the law for whathe is doing?"
"In the absence of any proof to the contrary, we are obliged to believeit--or at least to accept it. But we're not dead yet.... Billy, it'srunning in my mind that we've got to go out there and clean up Mr.M'Graw and his crowd."
Starbuck threw up his hands and made a noise like a dry wagon-wheel.
"Holy smoke!--go up against the whole United States?" he gasped.
Smith's grin showed his strong, even teeth.
"Starbuck, you remember what I told you one night?--the night I draggedyou up to my rooms in the hotel and gave you a hint of the reason why Ihad no business to make love to Corona Baldwin?"
"Yep."
"Well, the time has come when I may as well fill out the blanks in thestory for you. The night I left my home city in the Middle West I wascalled down to the bank of which I was the cashier and was shown how Iwas going to be dropped into a hole for a hundred thousand dollars ofthe bank's money; a loan which I had made as cashier in the absence ofthe president, but which had been authorized, verbally, by the presidentbefore he went away."
"A scapegoat, eh? There have been others. Go on."
"It was a frame-up, all around. The loan had been made to a friend ofmine for the express purpose of smashing him--that was the president'sobject in letting it go through. Unluckily, I held a few shares of stockin my friend's company: and there you have it. Unless the presidentwould admit that he had authorized the loan, I was in for an offensethat could be easily twisted into embezzlement."
"The president stacked the cards on you?"
"He did. It was nine o'clock at night and we were alone together in thebank. He wanted me to shoulder the blame and run away; offered me moneyto go with. One word brought on another; and finally, when I dared himto press the police-alarm button, he pulled a gun on me. I hit him, justonce, Billy, and he dropped like a stone."
"Great Moses!--dead?"
"I thought he was. His heart had stopped, and I couldn't get him up.Picture it, if you can--but you can't. I had never struck a man in angerbefore in all my life. My first thought was to go straight to the policestation and make a clean breast of it. Then I saw how impossible it wasgoing to be to dodge the penitentiary, and I bolted; jumped afreight-train and hoboed my way out of town. Two days later I got holdof a newspaper and found that I hadn't killed Dunham; but I wasoutlawed, just the same, and there was a reward offered."
Starbuck was nodding soberly. "You sure have been carrying a back-loadall these weeks, John, never knowing what minute was going to be thenext. Now I know what you meant when you hinted around about this MissRich-pastures. She knows you and she could give you away if she wantedto. Has she done it, John?"
"No; but her father has. Kinzie sent one of his clerks out to the Topazto hunt up the old man. Kinzie hasn't done anything, himself, I guess;Miss Richlander told me that much; but Stanton has got hold of the endof the thread, and, while I don't know it definitely, it is practicallycertain he has sent a wire. If the Brewster police are not looking forme at this moment, they will be shortly. That brings us back to thisHigh Line knock-out. As the matter stands, I'm the one man in our outfitwho has absolutely nothing to lose. I am an officer of the company, andno legal notice has been served upon me. Can you fill out the remainderof the order?"
"No, I'll be switched if I can!"
"Then I'll fill it for you. So far as I know--legally, youunderstand--this raid has never been authorized by the courts; at least,that is what I'm going to assume until the proper papers have beenserved on me. Therefore I am free to strike one final blow for thecolonel and his friends, and I'm going to do it, if I can dodge thepolice long enough to get action."
Starbuck's tilting chair righted itself with a crash.
"You've thought it all out?--just how to go at it?"
"Every move; and every one of them a straight bid for a secondpenitentiary sentence."
"All right," said the mine owner briefly. "Count me in."
"For information only," was the brusque reply. "You have a stake in thecountry and a good name to maintain. I have nothing. But you can tellme a few things. Are our workmen still on the ground?"
"Yes. Ginty said there were only a few stragglers who came to town withhim. Most of the two shifts are staying on to get their pay--or untilthey find out that they aren't going to get it."
"And the colonel and Williams: the marshal is holding them out at thedam?"
"Uh-huh; locked up in the office shack, Ginty says."
"Good. I shan't need the colonel, but I shall need Williams. Now anotherquestion: you know Sheriff Harding fairly well, don't you? What sort ofa man is he?"
"Square as a die, and as nervy as they make 'em. When he gets a warrantto serve, he'll bring in his man, dead or alive."
"That's all I'll ask of him. Now go and find me an auto, and then youcan fade away and get ready to prove a good, stout _alibi_."
"Yes--like fits I will!" retorted the mine owner. "I told you once,John, that I was in this thing to a finish, and I meant it. Go on givingyour orders."
"Very well; you've had your warning. The next thing is the auto. I wantto catch Judge Warner before he goes to bed. I'll telephone whileyou're getting a car."
Starbuck had no farther to go than to the garage where he had put up hisnew car, and when he got it and drove to the Kinzie Building, Smith cameout of the shadow of the entrance to mount beside him.
"Drive around to the garage again and let me try another 'phone," wasthe low-spoken request. "My wire isn't working."
The short run was quickly made, and Smith went to the garage office. Amoment later a two-hundred-pound policeman strolled up to put a hugefoot on the running-board of the waiting auto. Starbuck greeted him
as afriend.
"Hello, Mac. How's tricks with you to-night?"
"Th' tricks are even, an' I'm tryin' to take th' odd wan," said the bigIrishman. "'Tis a man named Smith I'm lookin' for, Misther Starbuck--J.Mon-tay-gue Smith; th' fi-nanshal boss av th' big ditch comp'ny. Have yeseen 'um?"
Starbuck, looking over the policeman's shoulder, could see Smith at thetelephone in the garage office. Another man might have lost his head,but the ex-cow-puncher was of the chosen few whose wits sharpen handilyin an emergency.
"He hangs out at the Hophra House a good part of the time in theevenings," he replied coolly. "Hop in and I'll drive you around."
Three minutes later the threatening danger was a danger pushed a littleway into the future, and Starbuck was back at the garage curb waitingfor Smith to come out. Through the window he saw Smith replacing thereceiver on its hook, and a moment afterward he was opening the car doorfor his passenger.
"Did you make out to raise the judge?" he inquired, as Smith climbed in.
"Yes. He will meet me at his chambers in the court-house as soon as hecan drive down from his house."
"What are you hoping to do, John? Judge Warner is only a circuit judge;he can't set an order of the United States court aside, can he?"
"No; but there is one thing that he can do. You may remember that I hada talk with him this morning at his house. I was trying then to coverall the chances, among them the possibility that Stanton would jump inwith a gang of armed thugs at the last minute. We are going to assumethat this is what has been done."
Starbuck set the car in motion and sent it spinning out of the sidestreet, around the plaza, and beyond to the less brilliantlyilluminated residence district--which was not the shortest way to thecourt-house.
"You mustn't pull Judge Warner's leg, John," he protested, breaking thepurring silence after the business quarter had been left behind; "he'stoo good a man for that."
"I shall tell him the exact truth, so far as we know it," was the quickreply. "There is one chance in a thousand that we shall come out of thiswith the law--as well as the equities--on our side. I shall tell thejudge that no papers have been served on us, and, so far as I know, theyhaven't. What are you driving all the way around here for?"
"This is one of the times when the longest way round is the shortest wayhome," Starbuck explained. "The bad news you were looking for 'hascame'. While you were 'phoning in the garage I put one policemanwise--to nothing."
"He was looking for me?"
"Sure thing--and by name. We'll fool around here in the back streetsuntil the judge has had time to show up. Then I'll drop you at thecourt-house and go hustle the sheriff for you. You'll want Harding, Itake it?"
"Yes. I'm taking the chance that only the city authorities have beennotified in my personal affair--not the county officers. It's a longchance, of course; I may be running my neck squarely into the noose. Butit's all risk, Billy; every move in this night's game. Head up for thecourt-house. The judge will be there by this time."
Two minutes beyond this the car was drawing up to the curb on themesa-facing side of the court-house square. There were two lightedwindows in the second story of the otherwise darkened building, andSmith sprang to the sidewalk.
"Go now and find Harding, and have him bring one trusty deputy with him:I'll be ready by the time you get back," he directed; but Starbuckwaited until he had seen Smith safely lost in the shadows of thepillared court-house entrance before he drove away.
The Real Man Page 30