"I'm lookin' for you, McHale," said Cross.
"Come a-runnin'," said McHale. "Bring your friends."
He walked into the middle of the road, turned, and waited. His action attracted little attention. Coldstream was indoors, somnolent with the afternoon heat. Across the street the proprietor of the general store commented lazily to a friend:
"What's Tom McHale doin'?"
"Some fool joke. He's full of them. I reckon he wants us to ask him."
McHale called to them: "Boys, if I was you I'd move out of line of me and Bob's door."
"What did I tell you?" the wise one commented. "You bet I don't bite. I——"
Out of the door of Shiller's surged Cross, gun in hand. Uncertain where to find McHale, he glared about. Then, as he saw him standing in the middle of the road, the weapon seemed to leap to a level. Simultaneously McHale shot from the hip.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Pale-pink flashes stabbed the afternoon light. Coldstream echoed to the fusillade. Its inhabitants ran to doors and windows, streaming into the streets. One of the store windows suddenly starred. Long lines, like cracks in thin ice, appeared in it, radiating from a common centre. The proprietor and his friend, electrified, ducked and sprang for shelter. A woman screamed in fright.
Suddenly Cross staggered, turning halfway around. The deadly rage in his face changed to blank wonder. His pistol arm sagged. Then he collapsed gently, not as a tree falls, but as an overweighted sapling bends, swaying backward until, overbalanced, he thudded limply on the ground.
McHale, half crouched like a fighting animal awaiting an attack, peered with burning eyes over the hot muzzle of his gun at the prostrate figure. Swiftly he swung out the cylinder of the weapon, ejected the empty shells, refilled the chambers, and snapped it shut. Shiller's door opened. McHale covered it instantly, but it was Shiller himself.
"So you done it, did you?" he said.
"Sure," said McHale. "He comes a-shootin', and I gets him. Likewise I gets them two tillikums of his if they want it that way."
"Billy's keepin' them quiet with the pump gun," Shiller informed him. "You better get out o' town. I'll clean up your mess, darn you! Git quick. Them fellers expects some more in."
McHale nodded. "I ain't organized to stand off a whole posse with one gun. So long, Bob. I'm plumb sorry I mixed you into this. They won't like you much now."
"They don't need to," said Shiller. "Want any money? Want another gun? I got a handy little three-ought-three carbine."
"No. I'll get my own outfit. I may have to lie out for a spell. Well, I'll be movin'."
He mounted swiftly. Men crowding up to the scene of the affray stopped suddenly. Few of them had seen the like before. They shrank back, awed, from the killer. He rode down the street, gun in hand, casting swift glances right and left, ready for any attempt to stop him. There was none. He vanished in the swells of brown grasses, riding at an easy lope, as unhurried as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
CHAPTER XXIII
Tom McHale reached Chakchak, stabled his horse, made a hasty toilet, and attacked a belated supper. While he was eating with hearty appetite Casey and Wade strolled in.
"Did that freight come?" asked Casey.
"Nope," said McHale. "I got a tracer started after her."
"Anything doing in town?"
"Why, I reckon there was a leetle excitement there for a few minutes," said McHale. "Sort of an argument in front of Bob Shiller's."
Casey, from his knowledge of McHale, came to attention at once. "Well?" he asked abruptly.
"Well, it was me and this here Cross," McHale explained. "I downed him."
"In the argument?" laughed Wade, who did not comprehend. But Casey asked quickly: "Gun?"
McHale nodded.
"You did! How'd it happen? Is he dead?"
"I miss once, but three times I'm pretty near centre," McHale replied. "Course, I didn't wait to hold no inquest, but if he ain't forded Jordan's tide by now he's plumb lucky; also tough. Only thing makes me doubt it is the way he goes down. He don't come ahead on his face the way a man does when he's plugged for keeps; but he sorter sags backward, so he may have a chance. Still, I reckon she's a slim one."
Casey got the full story with half a dozen brief questions.
"Clear case of self-defence, isn't it, Wade?"
"Looks that way, if the evidence corroborates what he says," the lawyer replied. "Are you sure he shot first, Tom?"
"Better put it he meant to shoot first," McHale responded. "Naturally, I ain't standin' round waitin' for no sightin' shots. It comes close to an even break."
"That's good enough," Wade declared. "If his actions left no doubt of his hostile purpose in your mind you were justified in protecting yourself."
"They sure didn't," said McHale. "He's out to down me, and I know it. There ain't no Alphonse and Gaston stuff when he comes boilin' out, pullin' his gun. I just sail in to get action while I got the chance."
"Exactly," said Wade. "Well, Tom, you'll be arrested, of course. If Cross isn't dead, likely you can get bail. If he is, I'm afraid you'll have to remain in custody till the trial. I'll defend you myself, if you'll let me. Or maybe it would be better to get a man whose practice is more on the criminal side. I'll get the best there is for you."
"I'm obliged," said McHale. "I'll stand a trial all right, but I ain't figurin' on bein' arrested for a while."
"Nonsense!" said Wade. "You don't mean to resist arrest? That's foolish."
"Oh, I dunno," said McHale. "Depends on how you look at it. I ain't goin' to resist to speak of; I'm just lyin' low for a spell. I reckon I'll pack old Baldy with a little outfit, Casey. 'Bout two days from now you'll find him out by Sunk Springs if you ride that way."
"I don't get the idea."
"It's this way," McHale explained. "This Cross is one of a bad bunch. They'll be out for my scalp. They don't want no law in this. I been hearin' 'bout Cross and this old-timer, Dade. They're great tillikums, and Dade is the old he-coon of the bunch. I ain't takin' a chance on some little tin-starred deputy standin' them off. Furthermore, I figure it ain't unlikely they'll come after me some time to-night. If it was just you and me, Casey, we could stand the hand, and whatever hangin' there was would come off in the smoke. But with women on the place it wouldn't be right. So I'll just point out for a little campin' spot somewheres, and save everybody trouble. If any of these here sheriffs or deputies gets nosin' around, you tell 'em how it is. I'll come in when the signs is right, and not before. Tell them not to go huntin' me, neither, but to go ahead and get everything set for a proper trial. I'll send word when I'll be in."
Wade chuckled. "They can't arrange a trial without somebody to try, Tom."
"They'll have to make a stagger at it, or wait," McHale responded seriously.
It was dusk when he headed westward, old Baldy, lightly packed, trotting meekly at the tail of his saddle horse.
Casey, coming back from a final word with him, met Clyde strolling toward the young orchard. He fell into step.
"Nice evening."
She regarded him quizzically. "I won't ask a single question. You needn't be afraid."
"Did you think I meant to head off your natural curiosity? Not a bit of it. You want to know where Tom is going at this time of night, and why?"
"Of course I do. But I won't ask."
"You may just as well know now as later." He told her what had happened, omitting to mention McHale's real reason for leaving the ranch. Even in the darkness he could see the trouble in her eyes.
"You really mean it?" she questioned. "You mean that he has killed a man?"
"Either that or shot him up pretty badly."
"I can scarcely believe it. I like McHale; he's droll, humorous, so cheerful, so easy-going. I can't think of him as a murderer."
"Nonsense!" said Casey. "No murder about it. It was a fair gun fight—an even break. This fellow came at Tom, shooting. He had to protect himself."
"He could
have avoided it. He had time to get on his horse and ride away. But he waited."
"He did right," said Casey. "This man would have shot him on sight. It was best to settle it then and there."
"That may be so," she admitted, "but life is a sacred thing to me."
"No doubt Tom considered his own life tolerably sacred," he responded. "As an abstract proposition life may be sacred. Practically it's about the cheapest thing on earth. It persists and repeats and increases in spite of war, pestilence, and famine. The principal value of the individual life is its service to other life. Cross wasn't much good. That old Holstein over there in the corral, with her long and honourable record of milk production and thoroughbred calves, is of more real benefit to the world. You see, it was Tom or Cross. One had to go. I'm mighty glad it was Cross."
"Oh, if you put it that way——"
"That's the way to put it. Of course, we aren't sure that he's more than shot up a little. Still, knowing what Tom can do with a gun, I'm inclined to think that Cross is all same good Indian."
For some moments they walked in silence. It was rapidly becoming dark. A heavy bank of cloud, blue-black in the waning light, was slowly climbing into the northwestern sky, partially obscuring the last tints of the sunset. The wind had ceased. The air was hot, oppressive, laden with the scents of dry earth. Sounds carried far in the stillness. The stamp of a horse in a stall, the low, throaty notes of a cow nuzzling her calf, the far-off evening wail of a coyote—all seemed strangely near at hand, borne by some telephonic quality in the atmosphere.
"How still it is!" said Clyde. "One can almost feel the darkness descending."
"Electrical storm coming, I fancy. No such luck as rain."
"I don't suppose it affects you," she remarked, "but out here when night comes I feel lonely. And yet that's scarcely the right word. It's more a sense of apprehension, a realization of my own unimportance. The country is so vast—so empty—that I feel dwarfed by it. I believe I'm afraid of the big, lonely land when the darkness lies on it. Of course, you'll laugh at me."
"No," he assured her. "I know the feeling very well. I've had it myself, not here, but up where the rivers run into the Polar Sea. The vastness oppressed. I wanted the company of men and to see the things man had made. I was awed by the world lying just as it came from the hand of God. The wilderness seemed to press in on me. That's what drives men mad sometimes. It isn't the solitude or the loneliness exactly. It's the constant pressure of forces that can be felt but not described."
"I think I understand."
"The ordinary person wouldn't. There are no words to express some things."
"I'm glad of it; I don't want the things I feel the most cheapened by words."
"Something in that," he agreed. "Words are poor things when one really feels. Providence seems to have arranged that we should be more or less tongue-tied when we feel the most."
"Is that the case?"
"I think so—with men, at any rate. It's especially so with most of us in affairs of love and death."
"But some men make love very well, you know," she smiled.
"I defer to your experience," he laughed back.
"Oh, my experience!" She made a wry face. "And what do you know of my experience?"
"Less than nothing. But from some slight observation of my fellow men I am aware that a very pretty and wealthy girl is in a position to collect experience of that kind faster than she can catalogue it."
"Perhaps she doesn't want to do either."
"Referring further to my fellow man, I beg to say that her wishes cut very little ice. She will get the experience whether she wants it or not."
"Accurate observer! Are you trying to flatter me?"
"As how?"
"Do you think me pretty?"
"Even in the darkness——"
"Be serious. Do you?"
"Why, of course I do. I never saw a prettier girl in my life."
"Cross your heart?"
"Honest Injun—wish I may die!"
"Oh, well," said Clyde, "that's something. That's satisfactory. I'm glad to extract something of a complimentary nature at last. You were far better when I met you at the Wades'. You did pay me a compliment, and you asked me for a rose. Please, sir, do you remember asking a poor girl for a rose?"
"I have it still."
"Truly?" A little throb of pleasure shot through her and crept into her voice. "And you never told me!"
"I was to keep it as security. That was the bargain."
"But how much nicer it would be to say that you kept it because I gave it to you. Are you aware that I made an exception in your favour by doing so?"
"I thought so at the time," said Casey. "I expected a refusal. However, I took a chance."
"And won. Are you sure that you have the rose still? And where among your treasures do you keep it?"
He hesitated.
"You don't know where it is! That's just like a man. For shame!"
"You're wrong," Casey said quietly. "I keep it with some little things that belonged to my mother."
She put out her hand impulsively. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "I—I beg your pardon!"
His strong fingers closed on hers. She did not withdraw her hand. He leaned forward to look into her upraised eyes in the growing darkness.
"That seemed the proper place to keep it. I value your friendship very much—too much to presume on it. We are at opposite ends of the world—I'm quite aware of that. When this little holiday of yours is over you'll go back to your everyday life and surroundings, and I don't want you to take with you one regret or unpleasant memory."
"I don't know what I shall take," she replied gravely. "But I'm not at all sure that I shall go back."
"I don't understand."
"Suppose," she said, "suppose that you were a moderately rich man, in good health, young, without business or profession, without any special talent; and that your friends—your social circle—were very much like yourself. Suppose that your life was spent in clubs, country houses, travel—that you had nothing on earth to do but amuse yourself, nothing to look forward to but repetitions of the same amusement. What would become of you?"
"To be perfectly truthful," he replied, "I should probably go to the devil."
"The correct answer," said Clyde gravely. "I am going to the devil. Oh, I'm strictly conventional. I mean that I'm stagnating utterly—mentally, morally, and physically. I'm degenerating. My life is a feminine replica of the one I suggested to you. I'm wearied to death of it—of killing time aimlessly, of playing at literature, at charity, at uplifting people who don't want to be uplifted. And there's nothing different ahead. Must I play at living until I die?"
"But you will marry," he predicted. "You will meet the right man. That will make a difference."
"Perhaps I have met him."
"Then I wish you great happiness."
"And perhaps he doesn't care for me—in that way."
"The right man would. You're not hard to fall in love with, Clyde."
"Am I not—Casey?" She smiled up at him through the dark, a little tremor in her voice. She felt his fingers tighten on hers like bands of steel, crushing them together, and she was conscious of a strange joy in the pain of it.
"You know you are not!" he said tensely. "I could——" He broke off abruptly.
"Then why don't you?" she murmured softly.
"Why not?" he exclaimed. "I'd look pretty, wouldn't I, a busted land speculator, falling in love with you! I've some sense of the fitness of things. But when you look at me like that——"
He stooped swiftly and kissed her, drawing her to him almost fiercely. "Oh, girl!" he said, "why did you tempt me? I've forgotten what was due you as my guest. I've forgotten all that I've been remembering so carefully for weeks. Now it's over. Some day the right man will tell you how he loves you."
"I am waiting," she whispered, "for the 'right man' to tell me now!"
"Why," he exclaimed incredulously, "you don't mean——"
The answer to this question was in the nature of an unqualified negative, and extended over half an hour. But Casey retained many of his scruples. He could not, he insisted, live on her money. If he went broke, as seemed likely, he must have time to get a fresh stake. Clyde waived this point, having some faith in Jim Hess. Of this, however, she said nothing to him.
"We had better go," she said at last. "It is quite dark. Kitty will wonder where we are."
"Shall you tell her? Better."
"Not to-night, anyway. She—you see——"
"She'd jolly you, you mean. Of course. But We may as well have it over."
"Not to-night," Clyde repeated. She was uncomfortably conscious of her confidences to Kitty Wade, made without much thought.
They approached the house from the rear, passing by the kitchen, whence issued the sound of voices.
"Let's take a peep at Feng's company?" Casey suggested.
The kitchen was built apart from the house, but attached to it by a covered way. Standing in the outer darkness, they could look in through the open window without risk of being seen, and were close enough to overhear every word.
Feng was resting from the labours of the day, sitting smoking on the kitchen table. Facing him, a pipe between his wrinkled lips, sat old Simon. His face was expressionless, but his eyes, black, watchful, were curiously alert.
"What foh you come, Injun?" Feng demanded. "Wantee glub? Injun all time hiyu eat, all same hobo tlamp. S'pose you hungly me catch some muckamuck. Catch piecee blead, catch col' loast beef—loast moosmoos!"
"You catchum," Simon agreed. "Casey—where him stop?"
"Casey!" Feng's features expanded in a grin. "Him stop along gal—tenas klootchman, you savvy. Go walkee along gal. P'laps, bimeby, two, tlee hou', him come back."
Simon grunted gutturally. "Ya-as," he drawled.
"Hiyu lich gal," Feng proceeded. "Have hiyu dolla'. You bet. She one hiyu dam' plitty gal, savvy?"
"Hush!" Clyde whispered, as Casey would have put an end to this risky eavesdropping. "I didn't think that Feng had such good taste. I'm getting compliments from everybody to-night. I'm really flattered. I want to hear some more."
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