'Now, boys,' interrupted Cash Polk, 'let's not fuss about what can't be helped.' He picked up a rifle from the corner and gave it to Nuney. 'You may be needing this.'
'No two-bit cowpuncher can ride me and get away with it,' Fenwick growled.
'Bill wouldn't try it,' Cash said. 'Let's get down to brass tacks. First off, these fellows can't get out of town because Chad ripped the wires loose under the hood of their car. But they will come back to sneak the car away, and we had better be there to see they don't.'
'Chad is down there watching. He'll let us know if they come.' A little man usually called Doc made the suggestion.
'Two more of you boys had better go help Chad.' Polk looked around and selected Nuney and Doc. 'Make sure if they come they stay,' he concluded softly, his beady black eyes shuttling from one to the other.
'Just what do you mean by that?' Nuney asked.
'He means to fill them full of lead — before they take yore gun away from you again,' sneered Brick.
'Nothing doing,' answered Nuney bluntly, his steady gaze on Fenwick. 'I'm no killer. In a fair fight I'll take my chance, but—'
Brick interrupted with a bitter curse. 'Can't you get it through yore thick head, you numskull, that they're fixing to put us all in the pen? We've got to blot them out — and quick.'
Nuney shook his head obstinately. 'Count me out. I won't do it.'
'It's got to be that way, Bill,' Cash said, in a voice that was almost pleading. 'I don't like it any more than you do. But we've got to stick together. These fellows butted in and asked for it. What else can we do?' He answered his own question. 'Not a thing. It's neck meat or nothing. Either these two fellows go, or the whole caboodle of us get sent up for long terms.'
A big bull-necked fellow with buck teeth rose from the bed on which he was sitting. 'Hell, we got no time to chew the fat. I'm not so choosy. I'll go with Doc' He pulled up halfway across the room, stung by suspicion. 'Why don't we all go? Do you fellows aim to sit here on yore fannies while we do the dirty work?'
'We've got to guard both roads out of town, and we have no time to lose, like Buck says.' The eyes of Polk took a quick census. There were seven of them in the room — Mullins, Fenwick, Buck, Nuney, Doc, Carlos Vallejo, and himself. The truck drivers had headed for home to have their vehicles out of the danger zone before morning. Chad made the eighth. Cash appointed Brick and Mullins to hold the road at the north end of town, while he and Nuney took the south exit. Vallejo, Buck, Doc, and Chad would cover the district in the heart of town near Stevens's car.
'You picked yoreself a soft spot, Cash,' taunted Fenwick. 'Those fellows won't try to go south, and you know it. But what's the use of gassing? Let's go get 'em.' He stopped in front of Nuney. 'I'll see you later, Mr. Quitter. There can't anybody throw me down and get away with it.'
'I'll be waiting at the gate, Brick,' promised Nuney. 'Just tell me where and when,'
They scattered in front of their hotel to cover the assignments allotted them. Carlos walked beside Nuney, of whom he was very fond. Jim had once saved him from a beating at the hands of a big drunken teamster.
'Are you going through with this, Jim?' the Mexican asked in a low voice.
'I don't know.' Nuney was troubled. This was what came of taking the first wrong step. He had not expected to be called on to do murder. Yet how could he escape it without throwing down his companions? 'I wish to God I had never let myself into a jam like this.'
'Maybe it will work out okey,' Carlos said. 'Some of the others may see them first.'
Nuney shook his head. 'We're all in it, no matter who fires the shots. Unless—'
'Vamonos,' murmured Carlos. 'Muy pronto.'
Their eyes met. 'When we reach the alley,' Nuney said.
The man Chad came forward to meet them from the alley entrance where he had been lurking. 'What's cooking?' he asked.
Polk explained to him what had occurred at the Gibson pens and the decision to which they had come. Chad was a bulky man with a brutal face in which small pale eyes were set too close. Jim Nuney thought that it would not disturb him to do murder if it served his interest.
'If they came back to town from the packing plant, they must still be here,' Chad said. 'And if they are, we finish this business tonight. Me, I do not like prison. I was in one two years. That is enough. Let us stop the clock of these meddlesome fools.'
'Afraid we must,' Polk agreed, with his usual apparent reluctance. 'We'd better be going, Jim.'
'I told you I wasn't in this, Cash,' Nuney said. 'That still goes.'
'But you can't desert now.' Polk's voice was shrill with anxiety. He did not like the job set him. A cold, sinking feeling had settled in his stomach. 'We're trapped and have to fight our way out, every last one of us.'
'Carlos and I don't go for murder, and that is what this is,' Nuney answered. 'This is where we beat it.'
'Not on yore life, you rat!' Chad cried. 'You'll stay with us, dead or alive.'
His revolver jumped out, a fraction of a second before the rifle of Nuney. Swiftly Polk's hands closed on the hairy wrist of Chad. 'For God's sake, don't!' he screamed, flinging his weight on the man's arm to push it down. 'We'll settle this later. Just now we've got to get Stevens.'
Carlos stood beside his friend, an automatic in his fingers. 'Si — si, Chad. Take it easy, amigo,' he warned.
'We're not going to rat on you,' Nuney explained. 'We're getting out of the country. What's the sense of getting deeper into trouble? It would be smart for all of you to take it on the lam for Mexico.'
Polk was still struggling to hold the wrist of Chad when Nuney and Carlos backed into the alley and ran.
CHAPTER 30
A Better Mouse Trap
AS HAL DROVE down the hill from the Hunter place, Arnold gave an exclamation of annoyance.
'I left the rifle we took from Mullins standing in the hall,' he said. 'Clean forgot it when we went to the garage the back way.'
'Hope we won't need it, Ranny,' his friend said. 'What I crave is peace and plenty of it. My idea of heaven just now is a round-the-clock sleep in a comfortable bed.'
They had decided to head north for Tucson, but abruptly Hal changed his mind. Just before he struck the main highway, he caught sight of two men ducking from the pavement to cover back of some bushes on a lawn. Hal swung the wheel to the right and headed in the opposite direction. One of the men was Brick Fenwick.
A bullet struck a back wheel fender and caromed off to lodge in the trunk of a cottonwood. A second missed Arnold's neck by inches.
'Get your head down,' Hal snapped.
'They must have men posted ahead of us,' Arnold said. 'Do we give her the gas and try to run the gantlet?'
On each side of them was a solid block of stores. At the next intersection they could turn right or left and get off the main business street. But if they did this, the road would not take them out of town, since it ran only through the residence district.
Already they could see men racing toward them. Arnold became aware that the car was losing speed rapidly.
'What's the matter?' he asked.
'Engine not getting any gas.' Hal glanced at the register. 'Tank empty.'
He cut to the left and jammed on the hand brake. They flung themselves out of the car and ran down the side street. Halfway down the block were some lots filled with used automobiles. Arnold bolted through the gate to find cover. An old sedan carried a sign chalked on its windshield,' For Sale, $250.' He tried to wrench open the door, but found it locked. They crouched between two lumbering limousines of ancient vintage.
The lots were enclosed by high adobe walls on three sides. A plank fence was the front boundary. Back of the rear wall stood a rooming house which faced the adjoining street. One glance showed that there was no exit except the one through which they had come.
'This looks like one of the better mouse traps,' Hal drawled. 'I hope too many men won't beat a path to the door this morning.'
It was odd, Arnold
thought later, that with danger pressing so closely there should jump to his mind a memory of old football games when Hal would drop whimsical remarks as he was being dragged up from the mud with the ball after half the opposing team had tackled him.
By craning forward, Hal could see four or five men gathered around the car at the intersection. Raised voices came to him.
'They ran down this street!' one cried.
'No time for them to reach the next corner,' another answered. 'They must be in the used car lot.'
There was the slap of running feet. Another man joined the group.
'We've got 'em cornered,' the first speaker told him. 'They can't get away.'
A derisive laugh followed. Fenwick, Hal guessed. A moment later he knew he was right. 'If you've got them sewed up so nice, go in and collect them, Ed,' his gibing voice suggested.
The sound of the hill men's voices died down. The concealed men could see them in a huddle, too far away for a revolver to carry accurately. Two men separated from the group and disappeared behind the store buildings. Another left, to go in the opposite direction. The enemy was surrounding them. Polk was probably sending riflemen into the alley opposite the lots. He might have thought, too, of the rooming house, from the upper windows of which the victims could be picked off neatly. Just now there was no indiscriminate firing. No doubt Cash did not want to arouse the town until it was too late for rescuers to save the trapped men. Since he was cautious and sly rather than bold, he would want to finish the job and get away without being recognized.
'We might make a dash across the road for the alley,' Arnold said,' and reach the other end of it before we are cut off.'
Hal shook his head. 'We'd never make it to the alley. That fellow with the rifle standing by our car would cut one of us down at least, maybe both.'
Daylight was driving away the darkness of night, a fact that brought the besieged no comfort. The minutes dragged. It would not be long before the snipers opened on them. The outlaws dared not wait a moment after they were set to attack.
A man was moving up the alley toward them.
'If I hadn't left that Winchester at Hunter's we could pick him off,' Arnold said regretfully.
A rifle's whine broke the silence. The bullet struck one of the limousines. They shifted their positions to get better protection.
'Kindness of the fellow in the alley,' Hal commented, his grin none too cheerful. 'It's like shooting fish in a bathtub.'
'Look!' Arnold cried. 'A fellow in the window.'
Hal's eyes lifted to the upper story of the rooming house back of them. A man with a rifle was standing in an open window, a rifle in his hands. He was not fifty yards from them, and he had a clean shot at his prey. The man was Bill Nuney.
'This is where one of us goes on a long journey,' Hal said.
The crack of the rifle sounded from the window. Hal's astonished eyes met those of his friend. Nuney had not fired at them, but at the man in the alley.
'Get out of there, Chad, or I'll drill you full of holes,' Nuney shouted.
The gunman in the alley shook a fist at him and cursed. 'A rat like I told you,' he shouted back.
'Never mind that now,' Nuney warned. 'Light out, or get plugged.'
Chad fired at the figure in the window and the bullet tore through the woodwork of the frame just above Nuney's head. The answering shot came almost as an echo. Chad dropped the weapon and caught at his leg. He sank down back of a barrel fifteen feet distant from the rifle.
The face and torso of a Mexican showed at a window near the one where Nuney stood. 'My friend Carlos,' the cowboy called to those in the lot below. 'We had a bust-up with the other boys.'
Chad was slowly beating a retreat down the alley. He hung on to his leg and limped as he walked.
'What a break!' Arnold said. 'Never bumped into anything like this before in my life.'
'We'll not forget this, Bill,' Hal promised, raising his voice to be heard. 'When we get out of this, stick around with us till we have talked it over. You and your friend too.'
'Okey! I judge we had better leave town together and separate later,' Nuney laughed. 'Bet you never shook a present off the Christmas Tree more welcome than this one.'
Hunter's car moved very slowly down the street toward the battle zone. Some men were in the rear pushing it. Hal and Ranny fired at their legs. It stopped. The head of Cash Polk appeared cautiously at a corner of the intersection.
'Come on back, Brick,' he called. 'Bill Nuney has done shot Chad. He's in the window of that hotel, and soon as he can see you he'll cut loose.'
Brick's two assistants ran back to the main street. Brick followed, pouring out a stream of profanity.
'We've gotta light out!' Polk cried shrilly. 'Folks are up around the pool hall with guns. Gather the boys, Ed. And tell them to get a move on them before we're cut off.'
Hal heard the sound of running and shouting men, the snort of a car, and presently the roar of it racing down the street. He called up to Nuney, 'Meet you at the corner.' Arnold and he walked back to the main street, where they were presently joined by Nuney and Vallejo.
The lank cowpuncher laughed. 'This sure seems to be our night for adventure. No use me going over to the Solomon Islands or New Guinea with the Marines. I can get all the gun-fighting I want right here.'
'How did you happen to be up in that hotel so pat?' Hal asked.
'When we heard the first shooting, we knew they were after you,' Nuney explained. 'We hung around and heard someone say you were in that lot. So we walked into the rooming house, up two flights of stairs, and into an empty room overlooking yore hiding place.'
'What made you take a hand in the fight?' Arnold asked. He was puzzled. Certainly these rustlers, whom he had been trying to hound into prison, could have no love for them.
'I'm doggoned if I know.' Nuney scratched his curly poll to find an answer. 'Except that I don't hold with murder. These birds had kinda dragged me and Carlos into one, and we sort of figured it was up to us to stop their game if we could, seeing that we knew it might be our turn next.' His boyish face showed for a moment lines of worry. 'This puts me in a jam. I'm joining up with the Marines next week. Where do I get off now? If there is a charge of rustling hanging over me, they won't take me in, I reckon.'
Arnold thought that could be got around. It was not likely the case against the rustlers would come to a head before he was inducted. After he was in the service, they could probably get the charge against him dropped on account of the help he had given them.
Some men were coming down the street. One of them called to them, 'Any of you boys hurt?'
'None of us, Mr. Hunter,' Arnold answered. 'One of the rustlers got shot in the leg by one of our friends.'
'You had friends?' the banker asked.
'A couple of men from the Soledad Valley jumped in to help us.' Arnold introduced Nuney and Vallejo. 'Without them we would have been goners.'
Hunter explained his presence. 'My daughter told me there was no gas in the car and that worried me. When I heard shooting, I called up the police and some friends. We armed and met at the hotel.'
'That was what scared the rustlers off,' Hal said. 'They had to get out without being identified.'
'Well, all's well that ends well,' the banker said tritely. 'I'm glad the Wild West Show is over without casualties.'
'If you don't count Chad's punctured leg, señor,' Carlos amended, with a flash of white teeth shown in a wide smile.
Hal admitted that he was a good deal relieved himself. There had been a few minutes, he suggested, when even Lloyd's would not have quoted an insurance rate on him and Arnold.
'Well, it's all over now,' one of the town policemen said cheerfully.
The eyes of Arnold and Stevens met. The officer's assurance would have been a comforting one if they could have believed it.
CHAPTER 31
Sheriff Elbert Rides into the Hills
When confronted with the evidence that he had been buying s
tolen stock, Jubal L. Gibson looked surprised and shocked. At once he passed the buck to Tick Black, who had represented the alleged owners of the beef stuff. He showed his books, and as Arnold had guessed there was no appearance of crooked dealing visible. The price that showed on them was a fair one. Before purchasing the shipments Gibson had satisfied himself that the brands were recorded at the State House. Edward Mullins owned the Circle X and Brick Fenwick the O B in a Box. Black had shown him bills of sale from both of these men. Why should he suspect any chicanery from a reputable citizen like Mr. Black?
Arnold made no comment on this explanation. He said bluntly, 'We want two or three of the hides carrying the Mullins brand.'
Gibson was very sorry, but all of them had been sent to the tannery.
'Give us an order on the tannery for them,' Arnold continued. 'And don't telephone to the manager before we get there.'
The meat packer was hurt that Mr. Arnold could think him capable of doing such a thing. Of course he would cooperate with them in every way possible.
The hides obtained at the tannery showed plainly that the original brands had been altered at a later period. This had been done skillfully enough to pass a casual inspection, but under the microscope the additions stood out clearly.
Arnold felt that he had evidence enough to warrant an arrest. Both Nuney and Vallejo flatly declined to support the theft charges against their former associates, but Hal was of opinion that if they could capture Mullins and put pressure on him he would turn state's witness.
With very little hope of success, Sheriff Elbert led a posse into the hills to arrest half a dozen of the rustlers known to be Black's men. He knew that, before he could get within miles of the men wanted, outposts would carry back to them word to hide themselves in the Rabbit Ear Gorge country. What he anticipated came to pass. When he rode up to the Double B ranch, he found the owner of it sitting on the porch poring over the Fair Play Banner.
Tick Black inspected the posse with a sly wintry smile. There were six of them. He recognized Tom Wall, Arnold, and Casey of the Seven Up and Down.
'Nice of my old friends to come up on my birthday to wish me happy returns,' he said, not disguising the sarcasm. 'But how come my dear pal Stevens isn't with you? Don't tell me he is minding his own business for a change.'
Who Wants to Live Forever? Page 15