by Max Brand
There was an explanation of the miracle. All miracles can be explained, and this explanation was that the bullet from Sammy’s lucky gun had clipped along the skull of big Furness and dropped him stunned to the ground. And, still weak from the shock, he had been unable to brace himself against even the light fury of Sammy’s attack.
Furness was down, and now Sammy was on top of him, busily knotting the cord which was to secure the wrists of this famous robber and destroyer of men. Two had gone down before him. Then here came this wisp of a man and struck him to the ground.
Oh, great was that monk who wisely invented the black powder that put the prince at the mercy of the commoner!
There beneath the trees he bound big Furness hand and foot, and then tied feet and hands together, so that he could hardly stir. After that he looked to his friends.
There was no use looking to Sid Lannister. He was dying before Sammy got to his side. He merely opened his eyes and stared vacantly into the face of Sammy Gregg, in answer to the anxious question of the latter. Then, with a stupid smile, he died.
With Cumnor it was a different matter. Two broken ribs and a badly bruised jaw were the effect of his grapple with big Furness, and now he was rallying fast.
He even succeeded in struggling to his feet, and gaining the side of Sammy he rested a long, heavy arm across the shoulders of that little warrior.
“Think of it, Sammy!” said he. “Once I was wantin’ to shoot lead into you. How was I to guess that you’d ever be out here saving my fool life and Sid’s.”
“Poor Sid is gone. Just see if that big devil is tied securely.”
“Oh, say, you could hold a ship with less. How are you, Furness?”
“Well enough,” said Furness. “And now, lads, this is a lucky strike for you. There’s more than sixty thousand dollars in my wallet there. Take it and welcome. Divide it as you please. Only let me get at that gray horse and away. I don’t mind the wound, it’s only a scratch. Quick, friends, before the others guess that—”
He was interrupted by the savagely crooning laughter of Cumnor.
“Do but listen to him, Sammy Gregg. He thinks that we have been out to hunt for buried treasure, the dog! Oh, he’s a grand man, Sammy. But a wee bit addled in the head!”
CHAPTER XXIX. SAMMY A HERO
CUMNOR WAS TOO badly battered to assist, but he could at least tell Sam Gregg what to do. The little man, by his instructions, heaped up dried brush and then a fire was lighted which he was kept busy feeding as furiously as possible.
“They ought to see that signal, if any of them are still in the mountains above us there,” said Cumnor. “And they ought to file in down here to see the game we got in the bag. ‘We’ll have some of them here before morning.”
Two of the parties were in before the night was three hours older. They had buried the men they had hunted down. And they carried with them, from each, the regular division of the spoil which the robbers must have made shortly after leaving Chadwick City. All had now been saved with the exception of one share of the loot. Of two hundred and fifty-odd thousand dollars stolen from the Chadwick bank that morning and divided among seven pockets, a little over two hundred thousand had been retaken. And the eighth share might still be reclaimed if the party of four riders had any fortune whatever as they struggled somewhere through the mountains after their prey.
Of the seven bold men who had ridden into Chadwick City so bravely and so nonchalantly that morning, four were already dead, one was hounded across the mountains on a weary horse by four active pursuers; one was a wounded prisoner; and the leader of the whole crew was in the hands of the messengers of the law. Altogether a most discouraging day for crime and for criminals!
But Sammy Gregg was the hero. They turned to him with a respect that made him want to break into laughter, and when for the tenth time someone murmured that the thing he had done had been very fine, he could stand it no longer.
“Friends,” said Sammy Gregg, “I can’t let you go on talking like this here, because it won’t do! The fact is that I was scared to death while we were chasing down the trail, just the three of us. I would as soon have gone hunting lions as I would have ridden down the trail of big Furness. Then I heard a crash. And the first thing I knew, there I was riding right straight at Cumnor and big Furness grabbing one another. I saw Cumnor broken. Then I couldn’t do anything but pull the trigger of my own gun. My horse was carrying me right in at him.
“If I hadn’t fired like that, I simply knew that I’d get a bullet in my back as I rode away. I was simply lucky in having my bullet land. And there’s the end of the story. But I hope that I’m not going to hear any more of this talk about how fine the job was. It was poor Lannister that rode in and took a bullet through the body that deserved most of the credit. Next to him, there was big Cumnor, who grappled with Furness and then lived to tell about it afterward. They get the credit, and I had the luck!”
He finished this speech with a deprecatory smile and a flush, as one by no means glad of his lack of greatness, but very eager that people should know him honestly for what he was, and not a scruple more. And he was answered by a grave silence and by curious, bright eyes fixed calmly upon him.
“Well,” said Cumnor finally, “I’ll be darned!”
“Me, too,” said another. “It seems that it was only luck, after all.”
And a third said dryly: “Seems like all anybody needed was to be there!”
“But,” said still a fourth member of the party in the same sarcastic manner, “that don’t explain how you happened to run in at big Furness when he was on his feet.”
“He was stunned,” said Sammy, frowning as he tried to remember.
“Cumnor didn’t know that Furness was stunned. How did you know when you yelled and run in at him?”
“I was excited,” said Sammy Cregg, desperately. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
The same solemn silence greeted him. Sammy withdrew a little from his place in the circle of the firelight. The same grave, gloomy eyes followed him.
“You see what the little fool is worrying about?” said big Furness, speaking up at the same time. “He’s afraid that you’re going to make a hero out of him and that then he won’t be able to live up to that mark.”
But that explanation did not make Sammy any less wretched. He only dreaded the manner in which Anne Cosden would laugh when she heard this thing!
They left a small party in the mountains to bring the wounded Cumnor to the other wounded, friends and enemies. There they made a depot of all the provisions that they did not need and those who had been selected by lot started back on the pleasant journey to Munson.
Sammy did not wish to go. He protested that he knew a good deal about wounds and the dressing of them and that he should be detailed with the hurt men in the mountains, but they would not listen to him.
“I got to send in somebody who knows everything about what has happened,” said Cumnor, “and you’re the only man, Gregg. You got to go in and telegraph to the authorities. And I suppose that the bank over there in Chadwick City would be pretty glad if you was to wire to them, too. I think that maybe you could find out if they intend to offer any reward for the catching of the gents that walked away with their money. You run along, Sammy, and do the best you can!”
So Sammy was forced to head the party that started on for Munson. No one talked about the work of the expedition to him on the way down, and no one asked him what sort of a report he was going to make. But now and again he knew that their eyes were upon him and that they were smiling.
So, when they arrived at Munson, he went straight to the telegraph office at the railroad station and there he sent off to Chadwick the following wire:
Party under Cumnor, of Munson, overtook and fought the raiders of Furness. Four raiders killed. Thompson and Furness wounded and captured. Two hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars recaptured. One bandit escaped so far as is known at present.
This was the
legal truth, boiled down as small as possible. And Sammy, glad when that bit of duty was off his hands, started for the back room of the saloon to find out what had happened to the ruined, scorched feet of poor old Durfee in the meantime. He went around the back of the saloon to escape the notice of the men whose voices he heard in the front, and just as he got to the open back door, he heard the happy voice of Anne Cosden crying: “Who really captured big Furness?”
“Sam Gregg.”
“Nonsense!” And her laughter ran like a thrill of poison through the tormented soul of poor Sammy.
“I don’t mean that. I know that little Sammy planned the trip, and I suppose that he planned it very well, indeed! But when Furness was captured, surely there was some sort of a fight, and I want to know who were in it!”
“Well, there was Lannister. He was killed by Furness.”
“Poor Sid Lannister. He was a brave fellow.”
“Then there was Cumnor. But he was smashed up in the hands of that Furness.”
“Good heavens! What then?”
“Ma’am, there was only one left in the party that was trailin’ Furness. Only three in that party to begin with, you see, and two of ’em had gone down before big Furness before the fight really got good and started.”
“Yes? Yes? Why are you stopping? It was hand to hand, then, between Furness and the third man?”
“Yes. And the third man was Sam Gregg.”
“Are you ridiculing poor Sammy?”
“Him, I would be scared to ridicule him, ma’am, after what he’s been seen to do on this here trip. He was the brains that started things going. And he was the hand that finished off the whole job that he had planned. He shot big Furness off of his hoss. And when Furness got up, he ran in and grabbed him by the throat and knocked him down again and tied him up.”
“Good heavens!” cried Anne Cosden. “Why, I have more strength than that little—”
“Maybe you have right now, ma’am, but when he gets excited he’s apt to go sort of wild, I suppose.”
“Stuff!” cried Anne.
“But here he is himself.”
And Sammy stood at the door with a crimson face that showed that he had overheard too much of what had been said.
“Sammy,” cried the girl, “don’t think that I’ve been running you down, only they’re trying to tell me that you actually had the courage to fight hand to hand with Chester Furness. And of course I couldn’t help laughing at that!”
Sammy looked at her through a haze. His face was so hot that he felt that his hair must be scorching.
“Sammy!” cried Anne Cosden. “Do you mean to tell me that it is true, what they’ve been telling me?”
“It was all an accident, Anne,” said Sammy Gregg huskily. “You see, my horse was carrying me right in. I couldn’t do anything to defend myself except shoot, and luckily it chipped him beside the head.”
“Oh,” said Anne Cosden. “But no matter what you say, it was you who shot him off his horse? And then they said that you fought with him hand to hand.”
“He — he got up off the ground. I was a little excited. However, he was badly stunned, and so there was no danger from him at all. And that’s all there is to it, Anne. For heaven’s sake, let’s talk about something else.”
“We talk about nothin’ else,” shouted a strong voice, the voice of old Durfee from the bed. “It was Sammy Gregg that bottled up them seven spiders that chewed me all up. God bless you, Sammy, says I!”
Anne Cosden, however, stood as one entranced, staring at little Sammy until he ducked suddenly away through the door and was gone.
“But,” murmured Anne in a troubled voice, “then it means that he really, after all, is not just — it means that he really is a good deal of a hero!”
“Ma’am,” said a gruff voice in answer, “when Cumnor comes in you’ll get the details. But this here Gregg is ashamed of what he’s done. He’s afraid that somebody is gunna find out about it and laugh at him. And I wonder if he’s got you in mind!”
Sammy Gregg took his troubles off to the dark of the night, to commune with them in silence.
When he returned, he made no rejoinder to the hails which he received beyond a single terse word, and so he passed on down the street, a lonely form. He entered the hotel and passed wearily by a big hulk of a man — Rendell.
“Son,” said Rendell, “did you ever hear of the old proverb: ‘Nothing ventured,nothing get?’”
Little Sammy Gregg turned around upon his heel. “Now what do you mean by that?” he barked out.
“I mean what I say,” said Rendell.
“But why should you say it to me?”
“Think it over, son, and you’ll see! You ain’t so darned mysterious as maybe you would like to think you are!”
With this, he hobbled out of the hotel and left Gregg standing blinking behind him, with his thin hands hanging helplessly at his sides.
Then, turning a bright crimson, he hastened out of the hotel and rushed to the back of the saloon and tapped softly at the door which opened upon the room where the injured Durfee was still kept.
In answer to his tap, the door was opened at once, and tall Anne Cosden towered above him. The red in his face became more fiery still.
“Anne,” he whispered, “I just came to see how — how — Hobo Durfee might be this evening.”
And Anne, who had seemed to stand there quite expectant a moment before, now sagged wearily against the side of the door.
“Oh, he’s all right, I suppose,” she said. “I wish that somebody would ask how I felt once in a while.”
“But Anne, how do you feel?”
“Tired!” groaned Anne.
“I expect you are,” said Sammy.
“Tired of all the men in the world!” groaned Anne Cosden. “They’re all such fools!”
Sammy Gregg groaned. Then he blurted out: “Anne, I love you! Will you marry me?”
“I’ve been an idiot,” said Anne.
Then there was nothing more said just then. Sammy looked foolishly happy, and Anne was radiant.
THE END
The Sheriff Rides (1928)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER ONE
AT TIMBERLINE, JOHN Signal paused. Before him, the pass narrowed to a gorge, dark and silent as a throat of iron; behind him, the slope dipped and folded like a sea heaped up by some prodigious wind until it descended to the green of the valley, far off and quiet as standing water. By shading his eyes and peering, he could discern that glimmer of green clearly in spite of the blue mist of distance; and clear as a streak of quicksilver he made out th
e face of the river. Where the bright mark divided, there was the village which had been home to him. He never would see it again!
At that thought, John Signal made his face as stern and as hard as the black cliffs before him; young Westerners refuse to melt with emotion, and Signal was only twenty-two! But he wondered, now, why he never before had appreciated the beauty of the white streets of the town, smoking with dust at every touch of the wind, or the narrow gardens on either side; and in his memory all the houses looked like the faces of dear friends, and all the hours of his life seemed to cling about those buildings, like plants rooted in rich mold. Suppose that he went back to face them, and rode to the sheriff’s office and gave himself up?
He turned his horse about with a sudden twitch of the reins, but, so doing, he noticed how much thinner the gelding was across the shoulders, how much sharper the ridge of the neck. All the sleekness of the pasture fat had evaporated in the labor of lifting his rider from that far-off gleam of water to this upland. Should all that labor be wasted? Besides, if he returned, his friends would look at one another and smile, and say that John Signal’s nerve had failed in the great pinch. They would point out that it had often happened before; the hero of the school yard and the vacant lot and the bunkhouse grew soft of heart when real danger came.
Thinking of the town itself, John Signal was about to rush back in surrender. Thinking of the people in it, he became grimly resolute and turned the gelding back toward the throat of the pass.
He was on the verge of timberline, which ran along the deeply incised profile of the mountains like a water mark — a stain left, as it were, by the lower atmosphere, with its fogs and vapors and climbing mists. He, like some amphibious creature, for the first time was lifting his head and shoulders from the deep and breathing the pure air of the upper region. This thought pleased John Signal, and he turned and re-turned it in his mind, like a toy. Sometimes a metaphor is like a pack, bending the back; sometimes it is like a sword in the hand. The boy, much heartened, looked about him with a smile.