by Zane Grey
Stone shook his head as if the problem was a knotty one.
“Now here’s another reason I want to — well, keep my health. Ha ha!...My sister, nineteen years old, arrived in Flag a few weeks ago. Came to make her home in the West. With me. She’s not so well. The doctor thinks Arizona will make her strong again. So do I. Already she has begun to improve...She wasn’t very happy when she first got here. But that’s passing. Stone, she’s a lovely girl. Full of the devil — and, I’m afraid, stuck up a little — Eastern, you know, but the West will cure her of that, you bet...Now, she’s in my charge, not to say more, and even if there wasn’t a Molly Dunn to make life so sweet, I’d hate like sixty to fail my sister...So there you are, Jed Stone.”
“Thanks. You’re shore kind spoken, confidin’ in me...It’s a hell of a situation for a young man.”
“I wanted you to know exactly how I stand,” went on Traft, earnestly. “I’m not afraid of a fight. I’m afraid when I get into one I almost like it. But common sense is best. I’m down here to tell you and your outfit to get out of Yellow Jacket. I want to tell you in a decent way, and that I appreciate this range has been like your own. But business is business. You’d do the same...If you don’t move off I’ll have to try to put you off. And that’s no fair deal. The Diamond, even with Slinger Dunn, is no match for the Hash-Knife. I may still be a tenderfoot, but I’m no damn fool. A clash will mean a lot of blood spilled. I’d like to avoid it. Not only for my own sake, but for my men, and for that matter for you, too...So I’m putting it up square to you. I can raise ten thousand dollars. That’s my limit. Uncle Jim won’t help me buy anybody out. I’ll give you that to move off, fair and square, like the good fellow I believe you are.”
“Traft, I couldn’t accept your offer, nohow,” returned Stone, pacing the floor with grave face and intent eyes. He made his last move look casual, but he did not like the gleam in Croak Malloy’s pale eyes, and wanted to be within reach of the little rattlesnake. Croak did not have to be stepped upon to show his fangs. “Much obliged to you, but shore I couldn’t take the money. I’ll say, though, that Jed Stone ain’t the man to stand in the way of a young fellar like you...I’ll get out of Yellow Jacket for nothin’.”
“You will!” cried Traft, in amaze and gladness. “Well, that’s darn fine of you, Stone...Uncle Jim was right. I — I just can’t thank you enough.”
“Shore you needn’t thank me at all.”
“Gosh!—” The young man arose in relief and with shining face stepped forward to offer a hand to Stone. “Shake. I’ll always remember you as one of the big lessons the West has taught me, and already they’ve been more than a few.”
Stone gripped hands with him, with no other reply. Then Traft moved back into the sunlight, and halting at the door proceeded to roll a cigarette, in Western fashion and with deft fingers.
“It’ll be great to tell the boys. Good-day and good luck to you, Stone...And same to your men.”
If he had glanced at these men he might not have expressed such goodwill. As he struck the match and held it to the cigarette there came a ringing crack of a gun. The match vanished. A bullet thudded into the dark logs. Traft suddenly changed into a statue, his empty fingers stiff, his face blanched in a fixed consternation. Then followed another shot. The cigarette whipped out of his mouth and another bullet thudded into the wood.
“Them’s my compliments, Mister Jim Traft, junior,” croaked Malloy, in a stinging, sarcastic speech full of menace.
Slowly Traft lost his rigidity and turned his head, as if on a pivot, to fix staring eyes upon the little gunman.
“Good God! — Did you shoot that match — and cigarette?” he exclaimed, hoarsely.
“Yep. I didn’t want to see you leave without somethin’ from the rest of the Hash-Knife,” replied Croak, significantly.
“But you — you might have shot me — at least, my hand off!” expostulated Traft, the white beginning to leave his face for red.
“Me? Haw haw haw!...I hit what I shoot at, an’ you can go back an’ tell your Slinger Dunn an’ Curly Prentiss thet.”
“You — crook-faced little runt!” burst out Traft, furiously.
At this juncture Stone took a noiseless and unobtrusive step closer to the sitting Malloy.
It had chanced that of all opprobrium, of all epithets which could have been directed at Croak Malloy, the young rancher had chosen to utter the worst to inflame the gunman. His lean body vibrated as if a sudden powerful current had contracted every muscle, and his face flashed with a hideous deadly light.
As he raised his gun Stone kicked his arm up. The gun went off as it flew into the air. Malloy let out a bellow of rage and pain, and leaped erect, holding his numbed arm.
“Croak, I reckoned you’d done shootin’ enough for one day,” said Stone, coolly.
The little outlaw had no time to reply. Traft sprang at him and in three bounds reached him. He was like a whirlwind. One swift hand fastened in Malloy’s shirt and swung him off his feet. The other, doubled into a big fist, swung viciously the other way round. But it missed Malloy’s head by an inch. He flung the outlaw, who went staggering over the floor to crash into the door. Traft, light and quick as a cat, was again upon him, even before he could fall, which he surely was going to do. Traft gave him a terrific slap alongside the face, which banged his head against the door. Then he held him there.
“You dirty — little snake!” panted Traft. “You may be a good shot — but you’re a damned yellow — coward.”
A hard blow from Traft’s right sent Malloy’s head with sodden thump against the door post. The outlaw swayed forward, only to meet Traft’s left swing, which hurtled him through the doorway, out on the ground, where he rolled clear over and lay still.
Traft stood on the threshold, glaring out. Then he stepped back, produced another cigarette and match. His fingers shook so he could hardly light the cigarette. His ruffled hair stood up like a mane. Presently he turned, to give Stone another thrill. It was something for the outlaw to look again into furious blazing honest eyes.
“Reckon I was a little previous,” he said, in a voice that rang. “All the same, Stone, I’m wishing you good luck.”
As he swept out the door Malloy appeared to be attempting to get up, emitting a strange kind of grunt. He was on his hands and knees, back to the cabin. Traft stuck out a heavy boot and gave him a tremendous shove. The little outlaw plunged face forward and slid into the brush.
Stone stood in the doorway and watched Traft’s lithe, erect, forceful figure disappear in the trees. Then he laid a humorous and most satisfying gaze upon Malloy. And he muttered, “Somebody will croak for this, an’ I hope it’s Malloy.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
JIM TRAFT DID not pause in his rapid stride until he had passed through the walled gateway which permitted egress from Yellow Jacket to the rough brakes of the basin below. Then he slowed up along the brawling brook, waiting to compose himself before he arrived at camp. The fire and tumult within him did not soon die down. “Gosh!” he ejaculated. “I get worse all the time...I’m going to kill somebody, some day — sure as the Lord made little apples.” And thoughtful review of the experience he had just passed through in the old Yellow Jacket cabin made him correct his exclamation by adding, “if I don’t get killed myself.”
He reached the wall and flung himself down in a sunny spot surrounded by green on three sides and dominated by the cracked and caverned cliff. If he was compelled to leave Arizona he would always remember it and cherish it by pictures in mind of this marvellous Yellow Jacket country. If the Tonto Basin, the Cibeque Valley, and especially the Diamond Mesa, across which he had built the now famous drift fence, had fascinated him, what had this wilderness of canyon and forest done? It brought into expression some deep, long-latent force of joy. Hours he had spent alone like this, not worrying over some problem, nor dreaming of Molly — which happened often enough — but not thinking of anything at all. It was a condition of mind Jim had not inqui
red into, because he realised it was pure happiness, and he feared an analysis would dispel it. And the enchantment fastened down strong upon him, so that it alternated with a serious consideration of what he had just passed through at the outlaw camp.
“I’ve made another blunder,” he soliloquised, regretfully. “Stone proved to be a decent fellow, as Uncle Jim vowed he was...But Stone is not all of the Hash-Knife. Whew!...That little hatchet-faced ruffian! — Sure he scared me, and I reckon I wasn’t in any danger from his playful bullets. But, my God! when I cursed him — if Stone hadn’t kicked his arm up I’d be dead now!...That was Croak Malloy, sure as hops. Reckon I’ll remember his face. And any of them. Sure a hard crowd!...They’ll probably buck against Stone about leaving Yellow Jacket. But he struck me as a man who’d be dangerous to cross...Anyway, I made a good impression on him...I’ll put the matter up to the boys and see what they say.”
If Jed Stone did really keep his word and abandon Yellow Jacket, how that would simplify the big task there! Jim would put the boys to cutting, peeling, and dragging pine logs down to the site where he wanted to erect a wonderful house. He had meant to clean up that ragged brushy end of Yellow Jacket, but after seeing it he had changed his mind. He would not even tear down the old log cabin where the Hash-Knife outfit had held forth so long. In time this cabin would become a relic of Arizona’s range days. It would take all winter to cut the logs, rip-saw the boards, split the shingles, and pack in the accessories for the ranch-house Jim had planned.
If Stone moved off peacefully and took his men — about whom Jim was most dubious — then it would be possible for Jim to go back to Flag for Christmas. What a thrilling idea! It warmed him into a genial glow. But another thought followed swiftly — the cowboys of his outfit would go back to Flag also. And that would be terrible. He groaned when he recalled the Thanksgiving dinner and dance which his Uncle Jim had given in honour of Gloriana May Traft. It had been a marvellous occasion, attended by everybody in or around Flagerstown, and something about which the cowboys raved more and more as time passed. Or it was Gloriana about whom they raved! What havoc that purple-eyed, white-faced girl had wrought! She had looked like a princess — and had flirted like a — a — Jim did not know what. She had even enticed Slinger Dunn to dance — a feat Molly avowed was without parallel. And she had showed open preference for handsome Curly Prentiss, which fact had gone to the head of this erstwhile gay and simple cowboy. He had made life for Bud and Cherry, not to mention the others, almost insupportable. Yet it all — the whole situation following that unforgettable dance — was so deliciously funny. All except the stunned look of Molly’s eyes — as Jim recalled it! Molly had not been jealous, She, too, had been carried away by Gloriana’s lovely face and charming personality. But there was something wrong with Molly. And Jim had been compelled to leave Flag almost before he realised that the advent of his sister had brought about some strange change in Molly’s happiness.
Jim had only to recall the last moments he had spent with Molly, her betrayal of self, her utter devotion, and her passionate love, to which she was gradually surrendering. These sufficed here, as they had before in moments of gloom, to lift him buoyantly to the skies again.
At last he got up and wended a devious way toward camp, preoccupied and tranquil. He was so absent-minded that when Slinger Dunn appeared as if by magic, right out of the green wall of foliage, he sustained a violent shock that was not all thrill.
“You darned Injun!” he ejaculated, in relief, “always scaring me stiff.”
“Howdy, Boss. I reckon you spend a heap of time heah-aboots — sittin’ in the sun,” replied Dunn.
There was no help for it — Jim could not leave camp or approach it, or hide, or in any way escape the vigilance of this backwoodsman. It rather pleased Jim, who recognised in it a protective watchfulness. His cowboys were always concerned, sometimes unduly, when he was absent. And the acquisition of Slinger Dunn to the outfit had been hailed with loud acclaim.
Slinger leaned on his rifle and regarded Jim with eyes like Molly’s, only darker and piercing as the points of daggers. He was bareheaded, as he went usually, and his long hair almost lay upon his shoulders. He wore buckskin, which apparel singularly distinguished him from the cowboys. In his backwoods way Slinger was fastidious, or so it seemed. His simple woodsman’s costume partook of the protective hue of foliage and rock, according to which furnished a background.
“Jim, you look sorta worried,” he observed.
“Huh! Small wonder, Slinger.”
“How’d Jed treat you?”
“Fine. He’s a good fellow, even if he is an outlaw.”
“Shore I reckoned you’d like Jed. But I was skeered of Croak Malloy, an’ thet slippery greaser sheepherder.”
“I didn’t get a line on the Mexican you called Sonora. But, Slinger, I formed the acquaintance of Mister Malloy, croak and gun and all. I did!...Wait till we reach camp. I don’t want to have to tell it twice...How are the boys? I swear I’m afraid to leave them alone these days.”
“Hell to pay,” grinned Slinger, showing his white teeth, and his black eyes had a gleam of fun.
“Now what?” demanded Jim, perturbed. “Curly busted Bud one on the nose.”
“Oh!...Is that all?”
“Wal, it shore was enough, leastways for Bud.”
“Aw, they’re pards, the best of friends. They worship each other, even if they do scrap all the time. What was it about this time?”
“Somethin’ aboot Gloriana’s laigs,” drawled Slinger.
“Wh — hat!” exclaimed Jim, astounded and furious.
“I didn’t heah Bud. But you could have heahed Curly a mile. He roared like a mad bull. An’ I near died laffin’. I’ll shore have fun tellin’ Gloriana aboot it.”
“Oh, the — you will?” queried Jim, constrainedly. Slinger was an entirely new element in the Diamond outfit and assuredly an unknown quantity. He was naive to the point of doubt, and absolutely outspoken. “Better tell me first.”
It appeared, presently, that Bud Chalfack, as frank and innocent in his cowboy way as Slinger was in his backwoods fashion, had been talking about Gloriana’s pretty feet, ankles, and so on, much to Curly’s disgust. And when Bud nonchalantly added that Gloriana was not wholly blind to the grace and beauty of her nether extremities Curly had taken offence. He could allow no insult to his young lady friend from the East, and despite Bud’s protest he punched him on the nose.
Jim held himself in until he reached camp. He did not know whether to explode with wrath or glee. But the incident might prove to have advantages. Gloriana had upset the outfit; and Jim had found himself at a loss to combat the situation. He grasped at straws.
The camp site, assuredly the most beautiful Jim had seen, was in a break of the wall, where a little brown brook ran, crystal clear over stones and between grassy banks. A few lofty silver spruces lorded it over an open glade, which the sun touched with gold. Huge blocks of cliff had fallen and rolled out. Boulders as large as houses stood half-hidden by pines. Ferns and amber trailing vines coloured the rock wall behind. Camp paraphernalia lay around in picturesque confusion that suited the lounging cowboys.
Jim stalked toward the boys. He must maintain tremendous dignity and make all possible use of this opportunity. Curly got up, his fine face flushing, and made a halfhearted advance, which he checked. Jim divined that this young man was not sure of his stand. Bud sat apart, disconsolate, and nursing a bloody nose.
“What’s this Slinger tells me?” Jim demanded, in a loud voice. “You insulted my sister?”
“Aw no, Boss. Honest t’Gawd I never did,” burst out Bud, in distress.
“Is Slinger a liar, then?”
“Yes he is, dog-gone-it, if he says so,” retorted Bud.
“And Curly slugged you for nothing?”
“Not egzactly nuthin’, Boss,” replied Bud. “I — I did say somethin’, but I meant nuthin’.”
“Bud Chalfack, did you dare to speak of my
sister’s legs — here in this camp of low-down cowboys?” demanded Jim, as he leaned over to jerk Bud to his feet.
“Aw, Jim. Fer Heaven’s sake — listen,” begged Bud. “Shore I — I said somethin’, but it was compliment an’ no insult.”
Jim placed a boot behind Bud and tripped him, spread him on the grass, and straddling him, lifting a big menacing fist.
“Aw, Jim, don’t hit me. I got enough from Curly. An’ he cain’t hit as hard as you.”
“I’ll smash your wagging jaw!”
“I’m sorry, Boss. I — I was jest excited, an’ talkin’ aboot how pretty Miss Gloriana is. An’ I reckon I was jest seein’ if I could rile Curly. It shore did...I swear I didn’t mean nuthin’. An’ I apologise.”
“What’d you say?” demanded Jim, his fist still uplifted.
“Aw, I forget. It wasn’t nuthin’ atall.”
“Curly, come here,” called Jim, sharply, and as the red-faced cowboy advanced reluctantly Jim went on: “Since you had the gall to constitute yourself my sister’s champion you can tell me just what this blackguard did say. Don’t you dare lie!”
Curly seemed to be in a worse predicament than Bud, though for no apparent cause, unless it was Jim’s great displeasure. He did not look like the chivalrous defender of a young girl. But presently he got it out, thereby acquainting Jim with the exact words and nature of Bud’s offence. Jim could have shrieked with glee, though he acted the part of an avenging Nemesis. Curly was the deceitful one who had taken advantage of Bud’s ravings; and Bud was the innocent victim, scored terribly by Jim’s wrath and a dereliction he could not quite understand.
“Ahuh. So this is the kind of a cowboy you are,” shouted Jim, raising his fist higher. “I’ll beat you good, Bud Chalfack...Do you crawfish? Do you take it back?”
“No — damn’ if I do!” cried Bud, righteous anger rising out of his grief. “You can beat all you want. What I said I said, an’ I’ll stick to it...Cause it’s true, Jim Traft.”