The Third Murray Leinster

by Murray Leinster

  “Well? What of it? If yuh want to know, I bumped him! Shot him! An’ I’ll do th’ same to you if yuh get fresh! Where’s yer gun?”

  “I haff no gun,” said Herman.

  “Yuh lie! Where is it?”

  “I haff no gun,” said Herman calmly. “And I do not lie. I liff separate from der world, and it is not necessary for me to lie.”

  The snarling man stepped forward until he looked down upon Herman, where he sat beside the wounded dog. Erik showed his teeth and a growl came from his throat. But he was very weak. One of Herman’s muscular hands held him quite still. The stranger looked suspiciously at the tableau, his gun ready.

  “What’s this you’re doin’?” he demanded.

  “This iss Erik, my dog,” said Herman. “Der sheepherders sometimes come to me with small lambs that maybe haff lost their mothers, or maybe they are sick. They giff them to me. And I make them well. But there has been a mountain lion which has been killing them. Erik fought to protect them, and he was badly hurt. So I am making him well also.”

  The stranger uttered a sound which was at once suspicious and derisive. He pushed open the door and went into the cabin. He was extremely alert. Herman spoke soothingly to the dog before he rose and followed.

  As he entered the door the stranger whirled swiftly, the gun muzzle again.

  “Well?” he rasped.

  “I came to tell you,” said Herman quietly, “that the food iss in that cupboard. You are hungry. I will giff it to you.”

  “Yeah?” said the thin voice malevolently. “An’ you a friend of the sheriff’s! What’d yuh put in the grub? Strychnine? You set down!”

  He rummaged in Herman’s well-stocked larder. The cabin was very small. It was specklessly clean. There was a huge Bible on a sort of desk, and though it was closed, the leaf edges had the uneven look of a book that is often read. The stranger heaped the table before him, frequently and savagely regarding Herman. He sat down, placing his weapon within instant reach of his hand. He saw the Bible and said sardonically:

  “One of those pious folks, huh?”

  “I liff separate from der world,” said Herman mildly. “There are many of us. In Canada there are fery many. We do not kill things or steal, and we try to be kind. It iss not much to do in gratefulness for der blessings all people haff.”

  The stranger stuffed his mouth again. When it was partly emptied he said malevolently:

  “I kill things! Includin’ men when needful. Like the sheriff.”

  There was a little whining sound outside the door. A feeble scratching. The stranger’s hand closed on the gun beside him.

  “That iss Erik,” said Herman soberly. “He iss worried. He does not trust you. I shall go and tell him—”

  “Set still!” snarled the stranger. “Set still!”

  Herman raised his voice.

  “Quiet, Erik! It iss all right. He iss a friend.”

  The whining ceased. The dog had not strength enough to get to his feet, but the scratchings had been his attempts to do so.

  “He iss badly hurt,” said Herman. “But he iss getting well again. It was a mountain lion which did it. A sheepman has now set a trap for him, if he should come for my lambs again. I could not set the trap myself. I hope it frightens him away.”

  The beady eyes were unpleasantly amused. The stranger ate and ate. He wolfed down an incredible quantity of food. But at last he pushed back his chair. He picked up his weapon again.

  “Now,” he said harshly, “I’ll be goin’. First I’ll see if you got anything worth takin’ along. Then I’ll pick out a horse—”

  “I haff no horse,” said Herman. “I liff separate from der world. I haff no need for a horse.”

  The stranger’s face changed. It ceased to be amused and became only threatening.

  “Fella,” he said thinly, “it’s goin’ to be too bad if you don’t find me a horse. I was ridin’ the sheriff’s. I left it plenty far back, with a broken leg. I’m goin’ to have a horse an’ you’re goin’ to find one!”

  “But,” said Herman, “I haff no horse.”

  The stranger moved toward him. He tapped Herman on the chest with the muzzle of his pistol.

  “Do you, or don’t you get me a horse?”

  Herman regarded him steadily with his very blue eyes.

  “I will show you der corral,” he said quietly. “Then maybe you will belief me. I haff no horse.”

  “You got your stock hid out, huh? Maybe yuh handle rustled stuff. Prob’ly. But you’ll show it to me, or I’ll—”

  “I will show you,” said Herman steadily, “that I haff no horse.”

  He opened the door and stood beside it, waiting for the stranger to precede him. But the smaller man snarled.

  “Get on! Yuh think I’m goin’ to let you get behind me? Get on! An’ no tricks!”

  Herman shrugged. He said gently: “You are in my house. It iss polite to let a guest go first.”

  But he went out the door ahead of the other man. He paused beside the bandaged dog to stroke him soothingly. There was a look of anxiety in the dog’s eyes. “It iss all right, Erik. Be quiet.”

  He marched away from the cabin, a squat and powerful figure with the erect bearing of one who is not afraid. The stranger followed him.

  They marched past a little garden, invincibly neat, in which Herman’s vegetables grew thriftily. They passed the well with its sweep—all in excellent repair. A miniature tableland rose ten feet, with steep and rocky sides.

  “This,” said Herman, “is where I keep my lambs. I put them here so that no wild thing can come at them. But there is one mountain lion which has found a way. It is the same way I use.”

  He swung himself up, his powerful arms helping. The stranger said harshly:

  “Don’t try to get outa sight so’s you can run!”

  Herman reached the top. He moved to one side and looked calmly down.

  “You should be careful,” he observed steadily. “Der footing iss bad.”

  “You stand where I can see yuh,” said the stranger savagely, “or I’ll hunt yuh down an’—”

  Herman folded his arms. The stranger scrambled up, watching him in an odd mixture of contempt and apprehension. He needed his hands to climb. He holstered his weapon and watched Herman the more closely, the more suspiciously.

  And then there was a sudden, vicious snap! and the thud of iron upon leather. The stranger staggered. He looked down.

  A steel trap, a double-spring steel trap, had closed upon his right leg.

  He shook all over with his rage. His eyes were those of a maniac. His words were thick and blurred.

  “I’m going to kill yuh for that!” he panted. “Kill yuh—kill—”

  “And you will die,” said Herman soberly, “of starfation. I warned you to take care. And now you cannot get out of der trap by yourself. But I can let you loose. I will do it.”

  The stranger choked upon his rage. His hand shook as he snatched his gun from the holster. But he looked. And he could not depress the springs himself. Standing upright in the steel jaws he might, just possibly, get one of the springs down far enough to loosen the spiteful grip on one side. But this was a double-spring trap. He could not possibly release both. One of them he could not even reach to put his weight on.

  His eyes flashed along the chain. This trap had been set to catch a mountain lion, by a sheepman who was a friend to Herman. The chain was strong. Bullets would not break it. And its end was fastened to an iron wedge driven deep into the roots of a four-inch sapling. It was not possible to pull it out. It was not possible to release the springs. It was not possible to get free.

  “Come here,” said the thin voice of the stranger, in a very horrible calm. “Come here an’ let me outa this trap. Else I’ll kill yuh now!”

  “And you will die,” said Herman
quietly. “It iss not my doing. Der mountain lion was killing my lambs. It wounded my dog. So a friend set der trap, which I could not do. No one will come here for a long time. Maybe two weeks. Maybe a month. Maybe,” he added honestly, “it will be only a week, but I cannot promise that.”

  “I tell yuh,” panted the stranger, “I’ll kill yuh! Come here an’ let me loose!” His gun bore upon Herman, twelve feet away. Herman did not flinch. His blue, calm eyes did not even flash. His voice was untroubled.

  “You would kill me anyway,” he said gently. “I will let you loose when you t’row away der gun. And der knife. I t’ink you haff a knife. When you t’row them away I will let you loose and I will bandage der leg and giff you food.” Herman sat down quietly, twelve feet away.

  “You would shoot me if I mofed to go away,” he said quietly, “so I stay. I loosen der trap when you t’row away der gun and knife.”

  The stranger suddenly holstered the weapon.

  “If yuh get up or start crawlin’ off,” he cried desperately, “I’ll kill yuh no matter what happens t’ me! An’ don’t think I ain’t watchin’ you!”

  He drew out a knife with a four-inch blade and tried to saw at the metal. It was tempered glass-hard, and his knife blade turned and became impossibly dull.

  He stood still, moaning a little. His leg was already swelling. Herman’s forehead wrinkled.

  “T’row away der gun,” he said urgently. “Let me loosen der trap! You are a bad man, but it iss not good to see you suffer.”

  “I’ll kill yuh!” panted the stranger desperately. “When I’m loose I’ll—”

  He gasped threats at Herman and sweat stood out on his face. It was nearly an hour, now, and his leg throbbed unbearably. His hands shook. Then suddenly he became filled with a horrible resolution and tried to drag his leg free, regardless of injury and of pain.

  Herman winced for him. But the stranger whimpered and stood shuddering, his nerves shattered. The trap held more tightly still. He whimpered again. Then he drew his gun once more.

  “If yuh don’t come let me loose,” he cried hoarsely, “I’ll kill yuh even if I starve! I can kill yuh! I killed other men! The sheriff’s only one I killed. Come here an’ loosen this thing or I’ll break yer legs an’ arms with bullets—”

  “And stay in der trap,” said Herman soberly. “If you t’row away der knife and gun I let you loose.”

  “An’ turn me over t’ be hung!”

  “No. I liff separate from der world,” said Herman more soberly still. “I am sorry for you. I will bandage der leg and giff you more food. You can go or stay, as you choose.”

  Sweat poured down the stranger’s face now. He was a pitiable sight. But sheer blasphemy poured from his lips.

  * * * *

  It was half an hour more before, half screaming because of his shattered nerves, he flung the revolver at Herman, and the knife after it.

  Herman stood erect. He picked up the two weapons. He slid down the ten-foot rise to the valley bottom. And the stranger cursed him despairingly for his seeming broken faith. But Herman went sturdily on to the well. He dropped the two deadly things into it. He went on to the house while the stranger shouted hoarsely after him. He stopped to stroke Erik, the dog, whimpering upon the blankets he was too weak to rise from. He vanished into the house.

  The stranger was weeping, broken, when Herman came out again. He had bits of rope, and bandage, and bottles in his pocket. He climbed up beside the stranger. He put the rope in loops about the springs. He put short sticks in the loops and twisted them. The springs contracted. The steel jaws loosened reluctantly. They fell away. The stranger stood wavering upon his feet.

  Herman picked him up and carried him carefully down to the level ground. He gave him water to drink and, sober-faced, took the boot off the injured leg. He was astonishingly gentle as he did so. He cut away clothing about the wounds. He dabbed cotton in fluid from one of the bottles.

  “This will hurt,” he said regretfully. “I am sorry. But it has to be.”

  He swabbed the wounds with antiseptic. He soaked more cotton in other, soothing liquids. He bandaged the injured leg.

  “You should not try to walk,” he said soberly, “but it can be done. If you wish to stay, I will giff you hospitality.”

  The stranger said exhaustedly:

  “I—gotta go on. There’s a posse after me. I had a long start, but I—I gotta go on.”

  Herman nodded.

  “I liff separate from der world,” he said. “I haff nothing to do with that. You cannot put on your own boot again. I giff you one of mine. I giff you food. But I haff no horse.”

  * * * *

  Twenty minutes later, the stranger limped away from the cabin. Herman frowned uneasily after him as he vanished into the timber which clambered halfway up the mountainside. He stroked his dog absently. He heaved a puzzled, unhappy sigh.

  For an hour he sat beside Erik, the dog, who gazed up at him with unwinking, adoring eyes. When Herman looked at him, he wagged his tail gently. But Herman did not speak.

  At the end of an hour he heard a shot, very far away. There was silence for a long time after. Then a clatter of hoofs. Again, and nearer. A grim cavalcade of horsemen—half a dozen of them—rode into view and up to the cabin. One of them nodded to Herman.

  “Seen anybody lately?” he asked. “Short fella with a mean eye. On foot. He shot the sheriff in the back an’ rid off on the sheriff’s horse. Broke its leg a coupla miles back an’ left it. Didn’t even have the decency to shoot it. We did.”

  Herman said slowly:

  “I could not tell you anything. It iss not my affair. I liff separate from der world.”

  Somebody pointed to the ground.

  “His tracks! Just like we saw ’em before!”

  The leader of the cavalcade frowned. Then he said:

  “Herman, just one question an’ we’ll take your word for it. You haven’t hidden him?”

  “No,” said Herman slowly, “I haff not hidden him.”

  The horsemen scattered. Then a yell. They had found the trail again. They started to follow it. They went up into the timber that clambered halfway up the mountainside. It was the right trail.

  Herman sat beside his dog. He stroked absently. Mountains reared serenely toward the sky. There was no other human habitation within forty miles. The dog’s name was Erik and he lay on Herman’s own blankets, with bandages about his body. The bandages covered raking wounds a mountain lion had given him when he fought to protect Herman’s lambs. He looked unblinkingly up at Herman.

  “Erik,” said Herman’s troubled voice. “I fear I haff been bad. Violence iss always bad, and I haff tried to liff separate from der world. But if I had let him kill me, as he would haff done, you would haff died. There would haff been nobody to giff you food or make you well again. So I did what I did. But I am fery much afraid I haff been bad.…”

  The dog wagged his tail gently. He liked to hear Herman talk.