Lonesome Town

by E. S. Dorrance and James French Dorrance

  CHAPTER XXII--BEEF ON THE HOOF

  Often the entrances to Central Park had spanned a couple of thousandmiles for Peter Pape and his "Friend Equus." Now it seemed to do as muchfor the Montana bovine. In the expanses he sighted freedom. Off thespring breeze he breathed the joy of life. More riotously tossed hishorns. Faster and harder pounded his hoofs in a fresh access of speed.

  Through the early afternoon lull, his passage was terrifying, indeed.Slow-strollers and bench-warmers suddenly became animated into recordretreat. Nursemaids shrieked as they trundled baby-carriages behindprotecting tree trunks or snatched toddlers out of danger's path. Anequestrian pair who came cantering along took the nearest bank likechamois. Fortunate was it that the season and hour were not later, whenthe great, green melting-pot would have been brimful and possibilitiesof casualty greater.

  So far, any interference along the way had served but to accelerate thesteer's stampede. The one pedestrian on the avenue who had dared seizethe snake-writhing lariat that trailed from its unyielding horn-hold hadbeen thrown to a fall on the oiled asphalt before he could snub the ropeabout a tree. A policeman on beat who had essayed the same feat fartheralong had let go in time to save himself a worse sprawl. Now the ropewas suffering a rapid curtailment as it frayed against shrubs, trees androcks.

  When Polkadot had cleared the stone wall with inches to spare, landedlightly and gone on without losing a stride, Pape turned to wave ordersfor the transplanted cowboy to spread out. Not until another day did heunderstand the disappearance of his aide--that he lay stunned at thebase of the wall where he had been thrown. Instead, he saw Irene Sturgiscoming over the top.

  A thrill caught him as she closed up with all the recklessness of acow-girl--a thrill that forced forgiveness for all the heart-wrenchingwrongs she had done him. A flashed thought of Jane brought both reliefand regret. If only she, too, had leaped to saddle and followed him--hadyielded to the impulse of interest regained or never lost! Deeds, notwords told the heart. He tried to be glad that she had thought first ofherself, yet was sorry that he did not rank before the first in action'shour.

  Polkadot's pace, however, soon outran vain regrets; caught up with hopesahead. Through the scattered trees that fringe the park and across thebridle path led the steer. Down the asphalted roadway he pounded withsuch disregard of entitled traffic that drivers reached for theiremergency brakes. A congestion of cars which forced Pape to pull upmomentarily gave the runaway a gain upon his owner-pursuer. By the timeegress was effected the big red had crossed the Mall and entered themeadow beyond.

  As acre after acre of turf unrolled ahead, the too-live-stock loosenedto the going. Pape put the pinto to an emulative gallop. Only a glanceto one side did he spare when the shrill of a whistle located the fatfigure of Pudge O'Shay, both hands and feet animated by a frenzy ofoutraged authority.

  "No Queer Questioner stops for a quail--quit your tooting at us!" Papeshouted as, far from keeping "off the grass," he urged his mount todeeper digs and an appreciable increase of speed.

  At sound of hoof-beats behind, he turned, thinking to reinstruct thepuncher. Instead, he saw that Irene, luckier than he in crossing theroad and Mall, was closing up. The red roses still clutched in herwaving hand bespoke excitement's forgetfulness.

  The steer changed his direction, although not at order of thejumping-jack in police blue. From the traverse road and out over themeadow directly toward the outlaw a second woman rider had dashed. Ashout from behind her announced a male escort who followed, but couldnot detain her. Straight on she came, a slim streak of black and whitethat blent in the color of courage. And as she came, a single-syllabledcry from before greeted her--a salute from one man's heart of fear-fullgratitude.

  "Jane!"

  Deeds, then, did speak for his self-selected one! The climactericimpulse of woman to follow her man, to do and dare for him, if need beto die with him had conquered her tutored calm in this emergency. Therepose of her face was a mask. Her spirit now dared his own. Why? Whynot? Thank God, _why not_?

  The rider behind her was Mills Harford. That Pape had seen at secondglance. But any hope of him as an active aide in recapturing therun-amuck was gainsaid by his efforts to get the girl out of the chase.He caught up with her, argued with her, tried himself to turn about hermount by force. Only at threat of her crop did he drop the graspedbridle rein.

  Pape decided if possible to draft him into service against the bovineenemy.

  "Spread out and turn the steer!" he shouted across the meadow. "Head himthis way so I can rope him."

  Harford looked around as though he had heard. Then, instead of followingdirections, he rode full tilt after the beast, brandishing his hat andshouting in _a_ manner calculated to continue the stampede.

  Whether he had misunderstood through ignorance of range practice or wasdeliberately attempting to make more serious the predicament of one forwhom he had that day shown such cordial dislike, Pape had no time toponder. He swung Polkadot into an oblique course on the chance ofpreventing the runaway's escape into that roughest cross-section of thepark which begins just north of the Seventy-second-Street "parallel."

  The syncopated patter of hoofs just behind him told that Irene, too, hadswerved and was carrying on. Ahead, Jane urged her mount after Harfordand his ill-conceived move.

  For several minutes the four-party pursuit pounded over the keep-offmeadow, whose grass was being held in reserve against the hot waves ofnext summer, when it would be thrown open to furnish cool green couchesfor thousands of tenement swelterers. So unseemly was the interruptionas to draw gapes of amazement from such onlookers as held the borderwalks and bellows of command from outraged policemen.

  The pinto's full-speed-ahead was reminiscent in terms of motion ofHellroaring days and deeds. With full realization of what the man-masterexpected of him, he winged across intervening spaces like a compacttornado. Pape unlimbered his lariat for a throw calculated to bring downthe red for hog-tying.

  While passing Jane, he shouted an order that she pull up and keep out ofthe scrimmage likely to attend the fight's finish. A dozen rods fartheron and almost within rope reach, he called to Harford.

  "Out of the way--I'm going to hang my string on him!"

  "What's that?"

  The real-estater, who was showing superb riding form, turned in hissaddle and leaned to listen, as though he had not heard. But he scarcelycould have failed to see the noose over Pape's head circling rounder andfaster with his onward rush. His next move was unaccountable. As theMontanan's rope slithered suddenly straight ahead from an aim calculatedto pick up the steer's hind hoof for a fall, the Gothamite spurred hismount and cut directly across it. The throw fell short, borne out ofline by the body of Harford's black thoroughbred. In the moment lost tofree it from entanglement the steer took to the rocks with the agilityof a mountain goat.

  At last Pape whipped his gun from its under-coat holster. Infuriated bythis second exhibition of what was either extreme stupidity ordeliberate malice, he was tempted to throw down on the human rather thanthe splendid Queer Question specimen, now well up the height, which hehad wished to take alive.

  But he did not press the trigger. Although a steer more or less wasincidental in his life and cruelty to animals was not to be weighed inthe same scales with the catastrophes possible in a continuance of thestampede, second thought had advised the improbability of inflicting avital wound in that huge body with a revolver shot from the rear.Anything short of a _coup de grace_ would serve only to increasepotential dangers.

  Through the untangling and winding of his rope the Westerner voiced nocomplaint of Harford's interference, but his face went chalk-whitebeneath its burn and his jaw set hard. His one direct glance readtriumph in the New Yorker's grin and decided him to finish the battlebegun on the Sturgis front steps whenever and wherever he could sparethe time. Just now----

  "Wait for me here--all of you," he commanded the three.

  Straightway he put Polkadot to the height.

  There is
an abruptness and complexity about the upheaval of primary rockmarking the park's center that has been of advantage to renegades sincethat great playground's inception in the late 50's. Although lately mostof the caves have been electric-lighted and railings placed on the moredangerous cliff-edge paths, there remain dribbling recesses and shadowyspaces between trap-rock bowlders which suggest hide-outs. This physicalcondition now favored the Queer Question outlaw; enabled him todisappear from sight before Pape had resumed the chase.

  The painted pony, used to rocky going about the borders of the homeranch, did not hesitate over essay of the goat trail into the park'srough heart taken by the red. In the upward scramble, his rider shiftedweight in the saddle according to the conformation. Ultimately, if bydevious ways, they gained the highest point in Manhattan'seight-hundred-forty acre "paradise"--the snub-nosed pinnacle that liesoff Seventy-ninth Street.

  Drawing rein, Pape rose in the stirrups and scanned the upturned region.From near to far, until his gaze encompassed the bench-studded walks andauto-crowded roadways on its skirts, he noted all details. So remindfulof his own Yellowstone in physical features was this tamedwild-wood--and yet so different!

  Within its comparatively cramped quarters more love--as that emotion isknown to park-habitues--than he had seen in the whole vast West was ondisplay. The turfed stretches were safety-razored, rather than allowedto grow nature's full beards. The only furred creatures inevidence--except chipmunks and squirrels--were worn about the shouldersof fair bipeds instead of prowling on four feet, uncured, through theunderbrush. From the steel framework of a new sky-scraper that rose likea fire-stripped forest on the east to the turreted peaks of a range ofapartment houses on the west, the scene invited comparison in detail.

  But Pape had no time for detail except the one of a live dash of sorrel.The vital greens of grass and trees were rife, the deep blues of lakes,the silver of sunlight on the distances and the more mysterious regalpurple of shadows. So far as concerned any splash of tabasco red,however, he might better have been seeking a maverick on the outreachesof Hellroaring.

  Twice had he shifted his point of survey when he was rewarded by suddensight of the steer upon a rhododendron covered mound, not more than acity block away. Unconcernedly the long-horn trotted onto the scene,glanced about, then slowed to a walk and began to browse. The hope ofrecapturing the fine creature uninjured before he injured othersre-awoke in Pape. A cautious approach, a forward swish of rope, aforceful reaction-- Unless luck all lay with his too rampant escutcheon,the chapter might be closed.

  But luck this afternoon seemed to favor quadrupeds. Just as Polkadotslithered toward the green mound--just as, almost, he had borne hisman-mate within roping distance, he chanced to misplace a topply bowlderand sent it crashing down the side of a rock-ribbed gorge, on its waysounding an alarm above the plash of a rainbowed waterfall. Again thesteer was off. Again the bone-risking pursuit for man and beast was on.

  Around hillocks, hurdling bowlders, dodging cones and knobs that weretoo slippery for climbing, ran the race. Once the brute leadermiscalculated the space between a striped maple and a pignut hickory;for a moment was caught and held in a vise-like grip. But before hispursuer could close in, he had managed to wriggle free, shy only somefew tufts of short hair, with no loss of determination to retain thefreedom so energetically won.

  Bellowing as if in self-congratulation, the steer bore away in anuntried direction--one that led up a second summit almost as high as the"top of the park." That this already was preempted by a group of busybeings and a couple of two-wheeled tool cars of the miniature Noah's Arksort used by highway contractors, did not concern the runaway. The redflag that waved above one of the supply wagons as a warning of blastingpowder, however, did. With lowered head he charged, scattering theworkers in as many directions as they numbered.

  Pape did not stop to consider the danger of an explosion should thesteer ram into the explosive. He spurred forward, his rope againcircumscribing his head, ready for a throw the moment opportunityoffered.

  But the red took no chances of so soon ending his lively afternoon.Having learned to beware of enemies vehicular through his earlier impactagainst that Columbus Circle trolley, he dodged between the carts andbore off to the westward.

  Pape, in his following rush across the butte-top, glimpsed a face thatalmost caused him to draw rein. Distorted by surprise and annoyance wasthe expression of the man crouched behind the powder cart, but notenough so to mask one of the hirelings of the Lauderdale enemy.

  And the trees then whispering on the breeze-swept height were poplars!No time to stop to count them--no attention to spare for speculation asto whether the roar of a menagerie-imprisoned Nubian would carry thatfar. Nevertheless, the concentration of the rider, if not the pace ofhis mount, slackened somewhat through the continued pursuit of theirwide-horned quarry.

  "And a bunch of beef shall lead them," paraphrased Pape close to one ofDot's obligingly back-waggled ears.

  An hour before he had assured Jane Lauderdale that his steer, as well ashe, was at her service. Now that vicarious promise had beenredeemed--the beef-brute sure had served her! The opposition party,probably with the stolen cryptogram in hand, had decided on thisparticular butte top as the likeliest location of treasure buried byeccentric grand-sires and were getting underway some larger scheme ofexcavation. And he, in pursuit of his too-live-stock, was started onanother pursuit of Swinton Welch and his crew.

  Pape felt keen to turn in deed, as well as thought. Despite the red'sservice rendered, he breathed a prayer that something would happen tothe beast--anything drastic enough to end his career as pace setter tothe queerest of questioners.

  Answer to this prayer came with the unexpectedness which all afternoonhad been marked--an answer decisive as the bluff-edge ahead. In hishead-down rush the excited animal had not seen until too late theprecipice that marked trail's end. With a conclusive back flop inmidair, he disappeared.

  Hot on his hoofs, just out of rope reach, pounded Polkadot. But he, withsuper-instinct, sensed the drop in time to swerve on the shale of thebrink. Frantically he then began a struggle to overcome its shift.

  A lake lapped the bottom of the void--one of the several that add theirquiet blues and rippling whites to the color scheme of the park and of aSunday furnish exercise for as many enthusiastic "crab-catchers" asthere are flat-bottomed row boats to rent. Pape saw it from cliff'sedge. He did not shiver--time for that if they went down. Flinging fromthe saddle, he spread his length upon the ground, digging in with toesand elbows to increase the weight of the drag made by his body. Asdetermined to save his equine pal as himself, he threw all the strengthof his arms into a steady pull upon the reins.