by Zane Grey
He bowed low with elaborate and sinuous grace. His smile revealed brilliant teeth, enhanced the brilliance of his eyes. He slowly spread deprecatory hands.
“Senoritas, I beg a thousand pardons,” he said. How strange it was for Madeline to hear English spoken in a soft, whiningly sweet accent! “The gracious hospitality of Don Carlos has passed with his house.”
Stewart stepped forward and, thrusting Don Carlos aside, he called, “Make way, there!”
The crowd fell back to the tramp of heavy boots. Cowboys appeared staggering out of the corridor with long boxes. These they placed side by side upon the floor of the porch.
“Now, Hawe, we’ll proceed with our business,” said Stewart. “You see these boxes, don’t you?”
“I reckon I see a good many things round hyar,” replied Hawe, meaningly.
“Well, do you intend to open these boxes upon my say-so?”
“No!” retorted Hawe. “It’s not my place to meddle with property as come by express an’ all accounted fer regular.”
“You call yourself a sheriff!” exclaimed Stewart, scornfully.
“Mebbe you’ll think so before long,” rejoined Hawe, sullenly.
“I’ll open them. Here, one of you boys, knock the tops off these boxes,” ordered Stewart. “No, not you, Monty. You use your eyes. Let Booly handle the ax. Rustle, now!”
Monty Price had jumped out of the crowd into the middle of the porch. The manner in which he gave way to Booly and faced the vaqueros was not significant of friendliness or trust.
“Stewart, you’re dead wrong to bust open them boxes. Thet’s ag’in’ the law,” protested Hawe, trying to interfere.
Stewart pushed him back. Then Don Carlos, who had been stunned by the appearance of the boxes, suddenly became active in speech and person. Stewart thrust him back also. The Mexican’s excitement increased. He wildly gesticulated; he exclaimed shrilly in Spanish. When, however, the lids were wrenched open and an inside packing torn away he grew rigid and silent. Madeline raised herself behind Stillwell to see that the boxes were full of rifles and ammunition.
“There, Hawe! What did I tell you?” demanded Stewart. “I came over here to take charge of this ranch. I found these boxes hidden in an unused room. I suspected what they were. Contraband goods!”
“Wal, supposin’ they are? I don’t see any call fer sech all-fired fuss as you’re makin’. Stewart, I calkilate you’re some stuck on your new job an’ want to make a big show before—”
“Hawe, stop slinging that kind of talk,” interrupted Stewart. “You got too free with your mouth once before! Now here, I’m supposed to be consulting an officer of the law. Will you take charge of these contraband goods?”
“Say, you’re holdin’ on high an’ mighty,” replied Hawe, in astonishment that was plainly pretended. “What ‘re you drivin’ at?”
Stewart muttered an imprecation. He took several swift strides across the porch; he held out his hands to Stillwell as if to indicate the hopelessness of intelligent and reasonable arbitration; he looked at Madeline with a glance eloquent of his regret that he could not handle the situation to please her. Then as he wheeled he came face to face with Nels, who had slipped forward out of the crowd.
Madeline gathered serious import from the steel-blue meaning flash of eyes whereby Nels communicated something to Stewart. Whatever that something was, it dispelled Stewart’s impatience. A slight movement of his hand brought Monty Price forward with a jump. In these sudden jumps of Monty’s there was a suggestion of restrained ferocity. Then Nels and Monty lined up behind Stewart. It was a deliberate action, even to Madeline, unmistakably formidable. Pat Hawe’s face took on an ugly look; his eyes had a reddish gleam. Don Carlos added a pale face and extreme nervousness to his former expressions of agitation. The cowboys edged away from the vaqueros and the bronzed, bearded horsemen who were evidently Hawe’s assistants.
“I’m driving at this,” spoke up Stewart, presently; and now he was slow and caustic. “Here’s contraband of war! Hawe, do you get that? Arms and ammunition for the rebels across the border! I charge you as an officer to confiscate these goods and to arrest the smuggler — Don Carlos.”
These words of Stewart’s precipitated a riot among Don Carlos and his followers, and they surged wildly around the sheriff. There was an upflinging of brown, clenching hands, a shrill, jabbering babel of Mexican voices. The crowd around Don Carlos grew louder and denser with the addition of armed vaqueros and barefooted stable-boys and dusty-booted herdsmen and blanketed Mexicans, the last of whom suddenly slipped from doors and windows and round comers. It was a motley assemblage. The laced, fringed, ornamented vaqueros presented a sharp contrast to the bare-legged, sandal-footed boys and the ragged herders. Shrill cries, evidently from Don Carlos, somewhat quieted the commotion. Then Don Carlos could be heard addressing Sheriff Hawe in an exhortation of mingled English and Spanish. He denied, he avowed, he proclaimed, and all in rapid, passionate utterance. He tossed his black hair in his vehemence; he waved his fists and stamped the floor; he rolled his glittering eyes; he twisted his thin lips into a hundred different shapes, and like a cornered wolf showed snarling white teeth.
It seemed to Madeline that Don Carlos denied knowledge of the boxes of contraband goods, then knowledge of their real contents, then knowledge of their destination, and, finally, everything except that they were there in sight, damning witnesses to somebody’s complicity in the breaking of neutrality laws. Passionate as had been his denial of all this, it was as nothing compared to his denunciation of Stewart.
“Senor Stewart, he keel my Vaquero!” shouted Don Carlos, as, sweating and spent, he concluded his arraignment of the cowboy. “Him you must arrest! Senor Stewart a bad man! He keel my vaquero!”
“Do you hear thet?” yelled Hawe. “The Don’s got you figgered fer thet little job at El Cajon last fall.”
The clamor burst into a roar. Hawe began shaking his finger in Stewart’s face and hoarsely shouting. Then a lithe young vaquero, swift as an Indian, glided under Hawe’s uplifted arm. Whatever the action he intended, he was too late for its execution. Stewart lunged out, struck the vaquero, and knocked him off the porch. As he fell a dagger glittered in the sunlight and rolled clinking over the stones. The man went down hard and did not move. With the same abrupt violence, and a manner of contempt, Stewart threw Hawe off the porch, then Don Carlos, who, being less supple, fell heavily. Then the mob backed before Stewart’s rush until all were down in the courtyard.
The shuffling of feet ceased, the clanking of spurs, and the shouting. Nels and Monty, now reinforced by Nick Steele, were as shadows of Stewart, so closely did they follow him. Stewart waved them back and stepped down into the yard. He was absolutely fearless; but what struck Madeline so keenly was his magnificent disdain. Manifestly, he knew the nature of the men with whom he was dealing. From the look of him it was natural for Madeline to expect them to give way before him, which they did, even Hawe and his attendants sullenly retreating.
Don Carlos got up to confront Stewart. The prostrate vaquero stirred and moaned, but did not rise.
“You needn’t jibber Spanish to me,” said Stewart. “You can talk American, and you can understand American. If you start a rough-house here you and your Greasers will be cleaned up. You’ve got to leave this ranch. You can have the stock, the packs and traps in the second corral. There’s grub, too. Saddle up and hit the trail. Don Carlos, I’m dealing more than square with you. You’re lying about these boxes of guns and cartridges. You’re breaking the laws of my country, and you’re doing it on property in my charge. If I let smuggling go on here I’d be implicated myself. Now you get off the range. If you don’t I’ll have the United States cavalry here in six hours, and you can gamble they’ll get what my cowboys leave of you.”
Don Carlos was either a capital actor and gratefully relieved at Stewart’s leniency or else he was thoroughly cowed by references to the troops. “Si, Senor! Gracias, Senor!” he exclaimed; and then, tu
rning away, he called to his men. They hurried after him, while the fallen vaquero got to his feet with Stewart’s help and staggered across the courtyard. In a moment they were gone, leaving Hawe and his several comrades behind.
Hawe was spitefully ejecting a wad of tobacco from his mouth and swearing in an undertone about “white-livered Greasers.” He cocked his red eye speculatively at Stewart.
“Wal, I reckon as you’re so hell-bent on doin’ it up brown thet you’ll try to fire me off’n the range, too?”
“If I ever do, Pat, you’ll need to be carried off,” replied Stewart. “Just now I’m politely inviting you and your deputy sheriffs to leave.”
“We’ll go; but we’re comin’ back one of these days, an’ when we do we’ll put you in irons.”
“Hawe, if you’ve got it in that bad for me, come over here in the corral and let’s fight it out.”
“I’m an officer, an’ I don’t fight outlaws an’ sich except when I hev to make arrests.”
“Officer! You’re a disgrace to the county. If you ever did get irons on me you’d take me some place out of sight, shoot me, and then swear you killed me in self-defense. It wouldn’t be the first time you pulled that trick, Pat Hawe.”
“Ho, ho!” laughed Hawe, derisively. Then he started toward the horses.
Stewart’s long arm shot out, his hand clapped on Hawe’s shoulder, spinning him round like a top.
“You’re leaving, Pat, but before you leave you’ll come out with your play or you’ll crawl,” said Stewart. “You’ve got it in for me, man to man. Speak up now and prove you’re not the cowardly skunk I’ve always thought you. I’ve called your hand.”
Pat Hawe’s face turned a blackish-purple hue.
“You can jest bet thet I’ve got it in fer you,” he shouted, hoarsely. “You’re only a low-down cow-puncher. You never hed a dollar or a decent job till you was mixed up with thet Hammond woman—”
Stewart’s hand flashed out and hit Hawe’s face in a ringing slap. The sheriff’s head jerked back, his sombrero fell to the ground. As he bent over to reach it his hand shook, his arm shook, his whole body shook.
Monty Price jumped straight forward and crouched down with a strange, low cry.
Stewart seemed all at once rigid, bending a little.
“Say Miss Hammond, if there’s occasion to use her name,” said Stewart, in a voice that seemed coolly pleasant, yet had a deadly undernote.
Hawe did a moment’s battle with strangling fury, which he conquered in some measure.
“I said you was a low-down, drunken cow-puncher, a tough as damn near a desperado as we ever hed on the border,” went on Hawe, deliberately. His speech appeared to be addressed to Stewart, although his flame-pointed eyes were riveted upon Monty Price. “I know you plugged that vaquero last fall, an’ when I git my proof I’m comin’ after you.”
“That’s all right, Hawe. You can call me what you like, and you can come after me when you like,” replied Stewart. “But you’re going to get in bad with me. You’re in bad now with Monty and Nels. Pretty soon you’ll queer yourself with all the cowboys and the ranchers, too. If that don’t put sense into you — Here, listen to this. You knew what these boxes contained. You know Don Carlos has been smuggling arms and ammunition across the border. You know he is hand and glove with the rebels. You’ve been wearing blinders, and it has been to your interest. Take a hunch from me. That’s all. Light out now, and the less we see of your handsome mug the better we’ll like you.”
Muttering, cursing, pallid of face, Hawe climbed astride his horse. His comrades followed suit. Certain it appeared that the sheriff was contending with more than fear and wrath. He must have had an irresistible impulse to fling more invective and threat upon Stewart, but he was speechless. Savagely he spurred his horse, and as it snorted and leaped he turned in his saddle, shaking his fist. His comrades led the way, with their horses clattering into a canter. They disappeared through the gate.
* * *
When, later in the day, Madeline and Florence, accompanied by Alfred and Stillwell, left Don Carlos’s ranch it was not any too soon for Madeline. The inside of the Mexican’s home was more unprepossessing and uncomfortable than the outside. The halls were dark, the rooms huge, empty, and musty; and there was an air of silence and secrecy and mystery about them most fitting to the character Florence had bestowed upon the place.
On the other hand, Alfred’s ranch-house, where the party halted to spend the night, was picturesquely located, small and cozy, camplike in its arrangement, and altogether agreeable to Madeline.
The day’s long rides and the exciting events had wearied her. She rested while Florence and the two men got supper. During the meal Stillwell expressed satisfaction over the good riddance of the vaqueros, and with his usual optimism trusted he had seen the last of them. Alfred, too, took a decidedly favorable view of the day’s proceedings. However, it was not lost upon Madeline that Florence appeared unusually quiet and thoughtful. Madeline wondered a little at the cause. She remembered that Stewart had wanted to come with them, or detail a few cowboys to accompany them, but Alfred had laughed at the idea and would have none of it.
After supper Alfred monopolized the conversation by describing what he wanted to do to improve his home before he and Florence were married.
Then at an early hour they all retired.
Madeline’s deep slumbers were disturbed by a pounding upon the wall, and then by Florence’s crying out in answer to a call:
“Get up! Throw some clothes on and come out!”
It was Alfred’s voice.
“What’s the matter?” asked Florence, as she slipped out of bed.
“Alfred, is there anything wrong?” added Madeline, sitting up.
The room was dark as pitch, but a faint glow seemed to mark the position of the window.
“Oh, nothing much,” replied Alfred. “Only Don Carlos’s rancho going up in smoke.”
“Fire!” cried Florence, sharply.
“You’ll think so when you see it. Hurry out. Majesty, old girl, now you won’t have to tear down that heap of adobe, as you threatened. I don’t believe a wall will stand after that fire.”
“Well, I’m glad of it,” said Madeline. “A good healthy fire will purify the atmosphere over there and save me expense. Ugh! that haunted rancho got on my nerves! Florence, I do believe you’ve appropriated part of my riding-habit. Doesn’t Alfred have lights in this house?”
Florence laughingly helped Madeline to dress. Then they hurriedly stumbled over chairs, and, passing through the dining-room, went out upon the porch.
Away to the westward, low down along the horizon, she saw leaping red flames and wind-swept columns of smoke.
Stillwell appeared greatly perturbed.
“Al, I’m lookin’ fer that ammunition to blow up,” he said. “There was enough of it to blow the roof off the rancho.”
“Bill, surely the cowboys would get that stuff out the first thing,” replied Alfred, anxiously.
“I reckon so. But all the same, I’m worryin’. Mebbe there wasn’t time. Supposin’ thet powder went off as the boys was goin’ fer it or carryin’ it out! We’ll know soon. If the explosion doesn’t come quick now we can figger the boys got the boxes out.”
For the next few moments there was a silence of sustained and painful suspense. Florence gripped Madeline’s arm. Madeline felt a fullness in her throat and a rapid beating of her heart. Presently she was relieved with the others when Stillwell declared the danger of an explosion needed to be feared no longer.
“Sure you can gamble on Gene Stewart,” he added.
The night happened to be partly cloudy, with broken rifts showing the moon, and the wind blew unusually strong. The brightness of the fire seemed subdued. It was like a huge bonfire smothered by some great covering, penetrated by different, widely separated points of flame. These corners of flame flew up, curling in the wind, and then died down. Thus the scene was constantly changing from dull light to
dark. There came a moment when a blacker shade overspread the wide area of flickering gleams and then obliterated them. Night enfolded the scene. The moon peeped a curved yellow rim from under broken clouds. To all appearances the fire had burned itself out. But suddenly a pinpoint of light showed where all had been dense black. It grew and became long and sharp. It moved. It had life. It leaped up. Its color warmed from white to red. Then from all about it burst flame on flame, to leap into a great changing pillar of fire that climbed high and higher. Huge funnels of smoke, yellow, black, white, all tinged with the color of fire, slanted skyward, drifting away on the wind.
“Wal, I reckon we won’t hev the good of them two thousand tons of alfalfa we was figgerin’ on,” remarked Stillwell.
“Ah! Then that last outbreak of fire was burning hay,” said Madeline. “I do not regret the rancho. But it’s too bad to lose such a quantity of good feed for the stock.”
“It’s lost, an’ no mistake. The fire’s dyin’ as quick as she flared up. Wal, I hope none of the boys got risky to save a saddle or blanket. Monty — he’s hell on runnin’ the gantlet of fire. He’s like a hoss that’s jest been dragged out of a burnin’ stable an’ runs back sure locoed. There! She’s smolderin’ down now. Reckon we-all might jest as well turn in again. It’s only three o’clock.”
“I wonder how the fire originated?” remarked Alfred. “Some careless cowboy’s cigarette, I’ll bet.”
Stillwell rolled out his laugh.
“Al, you sure are a free-hearted, trustin’ feller. I’m some doubtin’ the cigarette idee; but you can gamble if it was a cigarette it belonged to a cunnin’ vaquero, an’ wasn’t dropped accident-like.”
“Now, Bill, you don’t mean Don Carlos burned the rancho?” ejaculated Alfred, in mingled amaze and anger.