by Various
"I aim ter be."
"You air, sonnie. Say, if anything happened to me, would ye watch out for Mints?"
"I wonder!"
"S'pose, fer the sake of argyment, that one o' these sons o' guns did for me--hay?"
"'Tain't likely," said Smoky scornfully. "I'd bet my boots on you every time."
"They may do fer me," said Ransom slowly, "and, if so----"
"I'll watch out for Mints," said Smoky very fervently.
* * * * *
Presently Mintie joined them and, sitting down, began to darn some stockings. Apparently she was engrossed with her work, but Smoky stared at her, noticing that her fingers trembled. Ransom smoked and said nothing. Smoky talked, trying to challenge Mintie's interest and attention, but sensible of failure. Moreover, he had nothing to talk about except bad times and bad luck. Father and daughter listened grimly, well aware that their friend and neighbour was fighting against lack of water, a sterile soil, and a "plastered" ranch.
"Why don't you quit?" Ransom asked testily.
"I ain't a quitter."
"He don't know enough to let go," said Mintie.
"I could earn good money with my uncle in Los Angeles County. He wants me."
Mintie tossed her head.
"If he wants you, the sooner you skin outer this the better."
"Uncle's well fixed," said Smoky, "and an old bach. He wants a live young man to take aholt with his ranch, and a live young woman to run the shebang. If I was married----!"
"Pity you ain't," said Mintie, without looking up.
Ransom, who had conducted his courting upon Western principles, rose up slowly and disappeared. Left alone with his beloved, the young man blushed and held his tongue.
"You think a heap o' the old man?" he hazarded, after an interminable pause.
"I do. He's a man, is Pap."
"Meanin'?"
"Anything you please."
"You mean that I ain't a man?"
Mintie laughed softly; and at that moment the old dog, lying by the hearth, got up and growled. Rebuked by Mintie, he continued growling, while the hair upon his aged back began to bristle with rage.
"Hark!" exclaimed Mintie.
They could hear voices outside. The dog barked furiously as somebody hammered hard upon the door.
"Who can it be?" said Mintie nervously.
Smoky Jack opened the door; four or five men came in. At the door opposite appeared Ransom.
"What is it?" he asked harshly. "What brings you here at this time o' night?"
The leader of the party, a tall 'Piker,' answered as curtly--
"Business."
"What business?"
"I don't talk business afore wimmenfolks."
Mintie's face was white enough now, and her lips were quivering.
"Come you here, child," said her father.
He looked at her steadily.
"You go to bed an' stay there. Not a word! An' don't worry."
Mintie hesitated, opened her mouth and closed it. Then she walked quietly out of the room.
"What brings you here?" repeated Ransom.
"Murder."
"Murder? Whose murder?"
"This afternoon," replied the 'Piker,' "Jake Farge was shot dead on your land, not a quarter of a mile from this yere house. His widder found him and come to me."
"Wal?"
"She says the shot that killed him must ha' bin fired 'bout six. She heard it, an' happened to look at the clock."
"Wal?"
"She swears that you fired it."
Smoky burst in impetuously--
"At six I kin swear that Pap was a-talkin' to me in his own corral."
The squatters glanced at each other. The 'Piker' laughed derisively.
"In love with his darter, ain't ye?"
"I am--and proud of it!"
"Them your guns?" The spokesman addressed Ransom, indicating the two rifles.
"One of 'em is mine; t'other belongs to Smoky."
The 'Piker' crossed the room, examined the rifles, opened each, and peered down the barrels. He glanced at the other squatters, and said laconically--
"Quite clean--as might be expected."
Ransom betrayed his surprise very slightly. He had just remembered that he had left an empty cartridge in his rifle, and that it was not clean.
The 'Piker' turned to him again.
"You claim that you know nothing o' this job?"
"Not a thing."
"And you?"
The big 'Piker' stared superciliously at Smoky.
"Same here," said Smoky.
The visitors glanced at each other, slightly nonplussed. The big 'Piker' swore in his beard. "We'll arrest the hull outfit," he said decidedly, "and carry 'em in to San Lorenzy."
"You ain't, the sheriff nor his deputy," said Ransom. "What d'ye mean," he continued savagely, "by coming here with this ridic'lous song and dance? There's the door. Git!"
"You threatened to shoot Farge," said the 'Piker.' "An' it's my solid belief you done it in cold blood, too. We're five here, all heeled, and there's more outside. If you're innocent the sheriff'll let you off to-morrer; but, innocent or guilty, by Gosh, you're comin' with us to-night. Hold up yer hands! Quick!"
Ransom and Smoky held up their hands.
"Search 'em," commanded the 'Piker.'
This was done effectively. A Derringer doesn't take up much room in a man's pocket, but it has been known to turn the tables upon larger weapons. Ransom and Smoky, however, were unarmed; but the squatter who ran his hand over Smoky's pockets encountered a small cylinder, which he held up to the public gaze.
It was an empty cartridge.
To understand fully what this meant one must possess a certain knowledge of Western ways and sentiment. Pistols and rifles belonging to the pioneers, for example, often exhibit notches, each of which bears silent witness to the shedding of blood. The writer knew intimately a very mild, kindly old man who had a strop fashioned out of several thicknesses of Apache skins. The Apaches had inflicted unmentionable torments upon him and his, and the strop was his dearest possession. The men and women of the wilderness are primal in their loves and hates.
The big 'Piker' examined the long brass cylinder, small of bore and old-fashioned in shape. He slipped it into the Sharp rifle, and laughed grimly as he said--
"A relic!"
Ransom's face was impassive; Smoky Jack exhibited a derisive defiance. Inwardly he was cursing himself for a fool in having kept the cartridge. He had intended to throw it away as soon as he found himself outside. But from the first he had wanted Mintie's father to know that he knew! Primal again. Pap would not forget to clean his rifle at the first opportunity; and then, without a word on either side, he would realise that the man who wanted his daughter was a true friend.
We may add that the breaking of the sixth commandment in no wise affected Smoky. Jake Farge had been warned that he would be shot on sight if he made "trouble." Everybody in San Lorenzo County was well aware that it was no kind of use "foolin'" with Pap Ransom. Jake--in a word--deserved what he had got. Smoky would have drawn as true a bead upon a squatter disputing title to his land. We don't defend Mr. Short's ethics, we simply state them.
The 'Piker' said quietly--
"Anything to say, young feller?"
Smoky Jack made a gallant attempt to bluff a man who had played his first game of poker before Smoky was born.
"Yer dead right. It is a relic of a big buck I killed with that ther gun las' week. Flopped into a mare's nest, you hev!"
"That shell was fired to-day," said the 'Piker,' authoritatively. "The powder ain't dry in it. Boys,"--he glanced round at the circle of grim faces--"let's take the San Lorenzy road."
* * * * *
The squatters, reinforced by half a dozen men who had not entered the adobe, escorted their prisoners down the hill till they came to a large live oak, a conspicuous feature of the meadow beyond the creek. The moon shone at the full as she rose majestically abov
e the pines which fringed the eastern horizon. In the air was a smell of tar-weed, deliciously aromatic; and the only sounds audible were the whispering of the tremulous leaves of the cottonwoods and the tinkle of the creek on its way to the Pacific.
Smoky inhaled the fragrance of the tar-weed, and turned his blue eyes to the left, where, in the far distance, a tall pine indicated the north-west corner of his ranch. Neither he nor Ransom expected to reach San Lorenzo that night. They were setting out on a much longer journey.
Under the live oak Judge Lynch opened his court. No time was wasted. The squatters were impressed with the necessity of doing what had to be done quickly. The big 'Piker' spoke first.
"Boys, ain't it true that in this yere county there ain't bin a single man executed by the law fer murder in the first degree?"
"That's right. Not a one!"
"And if a man has a bit o' dough behind him, isn't it a fact that he don't linger overly long in San Quentin?"
"Dead sure snap."
"Boys, this is our affair. We're pore; we've neither money nor time to waste in law courts, but we've got to show some o' these fellers as is holding land as don't belong to 'em that we mean business first, last, and all the time."
There was a hoarse murmur of assent.
"The cold facts are these," continued the speaker. "We all know that Ransom and Jake Farge hev had trouble over the claim that Farge staked out inside o' Ransom's fence; an' we know that Ransom has no more right to the land he fenced than the coyotes that run on it. For twenty years he's enjoyed the use of what isn't his'n, an' I say he'd oughter be thankful. Anyways, we come down to the events of yesterday and to-day. Yesterday he tole Jake that he'd shoot him on sight if he, Jake, come on to the land which Uncle Sam says is his. Do you deny that?"
"That's 'bout what I tole him," drawled Ransom.
"To-day Jake was shot dead like a dog by somebody who was a-waitin' for him, hidden in the brush. The widder, pore soul, suspicioning trouble, follered Jake, and found him with a bullet plumb through his heart. She heard the shot, and she swore that it come from Ransom's side o' the fence. And she knows and we know that there isn't a man 'twixt Maine and Californy with a grudge agen Jake, always exceptin' this yere Ransom."
"That's so," growled the Court.
"Boys, Jake was murdered with a bullet of small bore--not with a bullet outer a Winchester, sech as most of us carry. Whar did that ther bullet come from, boys?"
"Outer a Sharp rifle."
"Jest so. Who fired it? Mebbe we'll never know that. But we know this. 'Twas fired by one o' these yere men. One was and is accessory to t'other. The boy admits he's sweet on Ransom's gal; an' mebbe he did this dirt to win her. And he swears that Pap was in his corral at six. That's a lie or it ain't, as may be. If he was in the corral, t'other wasn't. Boys--I won't detain ye any longer. Those in favour of hangin' Thomas Ransom an' John Short here and now hold up their hands!"
The men present held up their hands. One or two of the more bloodthirsty held up both hands.
"That'll do. Those in favour of takin' the prisoners to San Lorenzy hold up their hands. Nary a hand! Prisoners ye've bin tried by yer feller-men, and found guilty o' murder in the first degree. Have ye anything to say?"
Smoky answered huskily: "Nothin', 'cept that I'm not guilty."
"An' you, Mr. Ransom?" said the 'Piker,' with odd politeness.
"I've a lot ter say," drawled the old man. "Seemingly murder has been done, but Smoky here never done it; nor did I. I fired at a buck an' missed it. There ain't overly much o' the fool in me, but there's enough to make me hate ownin' up to a clean miss. When I got to the corral this evening, Smoky had bin there an hour or so at least. He arst me if I'd killed a buck and said he'd heard a shot. Wal, I lied, but I saw that he suspicioned me. Afterwards, I reckon he'd a look at the old gun, and found the shell in it. He must ha' got it into his fool head that he was God's appointed instrument to save me. He's as innercent as Mary's little lamb, and so am I."
The squatters gazed at each other in stupefaction. Not a man present but could lie fearlessly on occasion, but not with such consummate art as this.
"Anything more ter say?" inquired the 'Piker.'
"Wal, there's this: I tole Jake Farge that I'd shoot him on sight, and I'm mighty glad that someone else has saved me the trouble. You mean to do me up; I see that plain. I hated yer comin' into a country that won't support a crowd, and I've made things hot for more'n one of ye. But I wasn't thinkin' o' land when I warned Jake Farge not to set foot on my ranch."
"What was you thinkin' of?"
"Of my Mintie. That feller--a married man--has bin after her--and some of you know it. She kin take keer of herself can my Mints, but some things is a man's business. I meant to shoot him, but I didn't. I'm glad the low-down cuss is dead, but the bullet that stopped his crawlin' to my gal never come outer my rifle. Now string me up, and be derned to ye, but let this young feller go back to look after my daughter. That's all."
He faced them with a derisive smile upon his weather-beaten face.
Obviously, the Court was impressed, but the fact remained that Jake Farge was dead, and that someone must have killed him.
"What d'ye say, boys?"
"I say he's lyin'," observed a squatter, whom Thomas Ransom had discovered ear-marking an unbranded calf.
"Smoky knows that Pap done it," remarked another.
This bolt went home. Smoky's face during the preceding five minutes had been worth studying. He was quite sure that the old man was lying, and upon his ingenuous countenance such knowledge, illuminated by admiration and amazement, was duly inscribed.
"Pap's yarn is too thin," said a gaunt Missourian.
"It's thin as you air," said Ransom contemptuously. "Do you boys think that I'd spring so thin a tale on ye, if it wasn't true?"
At this they wriggled uneasily. The 'Piker,' with some experience of fickle crowds, said peremptorily--
"The old man done it, and the young 'un knows he done it. They're jest two of a kind. Those in favour of hangin' 'em both hold up their hands. One hand apiece will do."
Slowly, inexorably, the hands went up. The judge pronounced sentence--
"Ye've five minutes. Say yer prayers, if ye feel like it."
The simple preparations were made swiftly. Two raw-hide lariats were properly adjusted. The prisoners looked on with the stoical indifference of Red Indians. It might have been said of the pair that neither had known how to live, but each knew how to die.
"Ready?" said the 'Piker.'
"Hold on!" replied a high-pitched voice.
The crowd turned to behold Mintie. She had crawled up silently and stealthily. But now she stood upright, her small head thrown back, her eyes glittering in the moonlight.
"Got a rope fer me?" she asked. "I've heard everything."
Nobody answered. The girl laughed; then she said slowly--
"I shot Jake Farge--with this."
She threw a small revolver at the 'Piker,' who picked it up. "I killed him at five this afternoon. I knew that if I didn't do it Pap would, and that you'd hang him. Jake came after me agen an' agen, an' each time I warned him. To-day he came fer the last time. He was half- crazy, and I had to kill the beast to save myself. I did it, and"-- she looked steadfastly at Smoky Jack--"I ain't ashamed of it, neither. There's only one man in all the world can make love to me. I never knowed that I keered for him till to-night."
She pointed at Smoky, who remarked deprecatingly--
"I allus allowed you was a daughter o' the Golden West."
"If you ain't goin' to hang me," said Mintie, "don't you think you'd better skip?"
She laughed scornfully, and the men, without a word, skipped. Smoky, his hands loosed, seized Mintie in his arms, as the moon slipped discreetly behind a cloud.
Contents
OLD MAN BOBO'S MANDY
By Horace Annesley Vachell
Old man Bobo was the sole survivor of a once famous trio. Two out of the three, Doc Dickson
and Pap Spooner, had passed to the shades, and the legend ran that when their disembodied spirits reached the banks of Styx, the ruling passion of their lives asserted itself for the last time. They demurred loudly, impatiently, at the exorbitant fee, ten cents, demanded by Charon.
"We weigh light," said Pap Spooner, "awful light! Call it, mister, fifteen cents for the two!"
"Ten cents apiece," replied the ferryman, "or three for a quarter."
Thereupon the worthy couple seated themselves in Cimmerian darkness, and vowed their intention of awaiting old man Bobo.
"He'll soon be along," they remarked. "He must be awful lonesome."
But the old gentleman kept them out of Hades for full five years.
He lived alone with his grand-daughter and a stable helper in the tumble-down adobe just to the left of the San Lorenzo race track. The girl cooked, baked, and washed for him. Twice a week she peddled fruit and garden stuff in San Lorenzo. Of these sales her grandsire exacted the most rigorous accounting, and occasionally, in recognition of her services, would fling her a nickel. The old man himself rarely left home, and might be seen at all hours hobbling around his garden and corrals, keenly interested in his own belongings, halter-breaking his colts, anxiously watching the growth of his lettuce, counting the oranges, and beguiling the fruitful hours with delightful calculation.
"It's all profit," he has often said to me. "We buy nothin' an' we sell every durned thing we raise."
Then he would chuckle and rub together his yellow, wrinkled hands. Ajax said that whenever Mr. Bobo laughed it behooved other folk to look grave.
"Mandy's dress costs something," I observed.
"Considerable,--I'd misremembered that. Her rig-out las' fall cost me the vally o' three boxes o' apples--winter pearmains!"
"She will marry soon, Mr. Bobo."
"An' leave me?" he cried shrilly. "I'd like to see a man prowlin' around my Mandy--I'd stimilate him. Besides, mister, Mandy ain't the marryin' kind. She's homely as a mud fence, is Mandy. She ain't put up right for huggin' and kissin'."
"But she is your heiress, Mr. Bobo."
"Heiress," he repeated with a cunning leer. "I'm poor, mister, poor. The tax collector has eat me up--eat me up, I say, eat me up!"