by Max Brand
“What’s wrong with that?” said I.
“What’s wrong with it?” shouted the colonel. “Are we to sit here with our hands in our pockets and see the chance of a lifetime, the lifetime of a growing city, thrown away to the dogs? That’s what it means if the railroad goes to Makerville. We’ll be dwarfed and done for in the eyes of the world. I’ll be a laughing-stock — so will all of Piegan.”
He steamed up a good deal while he was talking like this, and I felt a stir of excitement, I must say.
I was about to say something about the ease with which a branch line could be run down to us from Makerville, but then I remembered how the colonel had greeted that remark earlier in the day. So I said nothing at all, but shrugged my shoulders.
“Something must be done! Something must be done!” Riggs kept repeating as he stalked up and down the room.
“There’s nothing to do, though,” said I. “That’s obvious.”
“The world would stand still if everybody felt as you do!” he shouted at me. “It’s people who attempt the impossible that make for progress in this world, and you ought to know it! You do know it, if you stop to think.”
I shrugged my shoulders again. After all, there was nothing much to answer to such an attitude of mind.
“Push on, push on,” said the colonel, getting poetic. “Excelsior! That’s the idea, and that’s the word for it. Push on, hew to the line as far as the line runs, and then keep on striking in the dark. Illumine your way with the sparks you knock out of existence.”
He would have gone on like this almost endlessly, but another thought struck him, and he paused with a groan.
“One day of grace!” he said. “If only I had a chance to think, to devise — but there’s only one day of grace!”
He flung himself into a chair and buried his face in his hands. I almost expected to hear him sobbing. But at length he looked up with a corrugated face.
“Say something!” he commanded.
“What?” said I like a fool.
“Anything!” he roared.
“Maker’s a tough one,” said I, speaking the thought in my heart.
“Tough. Too tough to break. But I’ll bend him. I’ve bent him before, and I’ll bend him again!” declared the colonel. “If only I had a little more time! But no,” he went on, arguing aloud with himself. “That’s the attitude of a dastard and a dolt. My back is against the wall. Vast odds to face. But still there may be some Napoleonic stroke. Tracy Dixon is coming. Coming where? To Makerville. That’s the curse! He must not go to Makerville! He must come here instead! It must be arranged!”
“You show me what chance there is,” said I, “unless you make him think that you’re Sid Maker, and go in his place!”
He began to make a hasty answer, but then checked himself, and remained for a moment with parted lips, staring at me, his eyes blank with distant thoughts.
He murmured at last: “Have I struck out and raised a spark that will show me my way through the darkness? Has it happened? Do I see the light?”
He got slowly out of his chair, pushing himself gingerly up with his hands, and then tiptoed across the room with a hand stretched out before him, like a boy trying to catch a butterfly.
“If I could stop Maker and get there myself!” he whispered hoarsely.
Then he whirled about on me.
“You will stop Maker. I will go on and meet the train at the end of the line!”
I laughed in his face.
“Listen to me, colonel,” said I. “You’re talking through your hat. I’ve tackled Sid Maker once, and I’ll tackle him no more. That’s flat. He’s too hot for my fingers to hold him. That’s all there is to it.”
The colonel struck his hands together. “Where shall I find lieutenants, daring men, fearless, devoted men, men after my own heart?” he cried.
He stalked up and down the room, shaking his head, and getting no apparent answer to his question. Certainly I would not be fool enough to volunteer!
No, I understood my luck when I found it, and, having managed to come off fairly well in my first encounter with Maker, I wanted no more trouble with that bulldog. I still shuddered with relief to think that I had given his wallet back to him, just as I found it, before I turned him loose.
Part of my thoughts seemed to react upon the colonel, for he broke out: “If only I’d had my hands on that wallet of his, I would have found letters, plans, correspondence. I could have pushed something through. But your infernal stubbornness, Jerry Ash, is now endangering the whole future of my city!”
This complaint was so childish that I merely smiled at it, and my smile infuriated him. He glared at me, started to speak, changed his mind, and, planting himself in front of me, he said solemnly:
“Jerry, you’re my luck, and the luck of Piegan. Outside of you, where is our good fortune? Nowhere! You are our man, the man of the hour. And now, Jerry, you turn your back on us. I’m surprised. It saddens me to think of this. I’m not prepared for it. Any other man, yes — but not you!”
I could see perfectly, of course, that the old deceiver was flattering me; but, still, what he said was mildly amusing and pleasant to hear. It lulled me in an odd way. It put me at ease. It made me feel stronger. Sidney Maker, for one thing, no longer seemed such a whale of a man.
“Colonel,” said I, “I’m not going to have a thing to do with it. That’s flat. And you can see for yourself that there’s no way short of murder of stopping Maker. And even murder wouldn’t stop the rest of the people of his town from showing Tracy their city and its prospects. Copper ore is something that he probably knows a bit about.”
“Who talks of murder?” said the colonel angrily. “I talk of delay, not of murder. I talk of delay — putting brakes on that stage which goes to meet the train — waylaying the vehicle in the pass, and there — I don’t know what — running off with the horses, perhaps, and —
“Look, my lad, and try to see,” he continued, suddenly running at me and clutching me. “They could get through the journey in one day, but they won’t try to. They’ll take their time, because they’ll want to have their animals fresh in order to give Dixon a decent journey back the day after. Isn’t it clear to you? That night, when they camp in the hills, you slip in on them, sweep away their horses, leave them stranded — and the next morning it is Colonel Riggs, sir, who meets Tracy Dixon and conducts him to Piegan, the queen of this valley, and convinces him—”
I hardly heard what else he was saying. A vicious excitement had hold of me, and I began to conceive of that scene as he had painted it. I wanted nothing to do with it, but still I felt with a sinking heart that I was entrapped.
CHAPTER XXX. THE FINAL PLANS
WELL, OF COURSE, the colonel had his way with me. The moment he saw that I was giving in to his idea somewhat, he renewed the pressure, and in no time I was beginning to enter into the spirit of his plan.
It was not so impossible, either. That is to say, my part of the plan was not so impossible. It looked as though it might be very humanly feasible to stop the cortege from Makerville and tie it up long enough to make it late in arriving to meet Tracy Dixon, the great.
After that, how the colonel was to succeed in persuading Mr. Dixon, no matter how smooth and oily his tongue, I could not see. That was his share of the affair.
But you know that the greater the difficulty, the more intriguing is the problem, always, and so it was on this day. In a few moments I was poring with the colonel over maps of the trail — our trail toward the advancing railroad, and the trail from Makerville toward it.
It was not the line from which I had staged in. As a matter of fact, that line was never likely to push up through the mountain passes as far as our valley. But the Q. & O. line had been working for some time to the north. It was driving for new territory, and Tracy Dixon was laying down hundreds of miles of track at a venture. The time was to come when his name was no longer one to conjure with, and when he was to be tottering in his high, imp
erial position as a railroad magnate. But before the end of his career he saw himself vindicated. The West vindicated him. It made the desert blossom where he had dared to lay down his tracks. It ripped open the mountains and found rich ores to ship on his lines. And along the course of his roads it turned crossroads into villages, villages into towns, towns into bright, flourishing cities.
However, all of this was in the future, and what mattered now was that the Q.&O. was king where Piegan and Makerville stood. We wanted the Q.&O. And the colonel had his idiotic plan for getting it.
“Colonel,” I said finally, “it may be that I’ll have the luck to stop Maker and his men, because I dare say that they won’t be expecting us on their trail this time. But I don’t want to be present when you tell your flock of lies to Tracy Dixon and try to persuade him that you’re Sid Maker from Makerville, and then that Piegan is better than Makerville, anyway!”
The colonel laughed.
“It would make you sweat and blush a good deal to be around while I was talking to him like that, wouldn’t it?” said he.
“It would,” said I.
“Ah, Jerry,” said he, “you’re one of the men of action. You don’t understand that conversation, also, has its Waterloos, and its Austerlitzes, too. But one of these days you’ll learn — you’ll learn, if you watch me closely enough, and listen to me.”
He grinned at me in a peculiar way, and then he added quietly: “It’s just about half of this battle to have persuaded you to come into this with me.”
“Let that go,” said I. “Let’s make the final plans. I don’t suppose that you want me to tackle this scheme alone, do you?”
“You can take all the men you want,” said he.
“And what about the cost of horses, and such?” said I, smiling at him.
“Come, come,” snorted Riggs. “Why go back so far into our early history? I know you now, my lad, and everything that you want is yours long before you ask for it. You know that!”
Well, I didn’t entirely believe him — but almost.
He tried to throw a spur into me again.
“If that railroad comes through the town, you know what you get, Jerry?”
“Make it good, colonel,” said I.
“Tut, tut,” said he. “I understand perfectly well what a risk you’re taking in this business, bearding the man-eaters of Makerville. But it will be worth your while. It will make an independent man of you, I say! You have six lots, among the best in town. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make it sixteen lots. Ten more for you. And right clustering around your first holdings. Those lots are going to skyrocket in value when people guess that the railroad intends to tap our city. You’re going to be able to get rid of those big, wide, deep, central lots for anywhere from five to twenty-five thousand dollars apiece!”
“Twenty-five thousand apiece?” said I. “Come, come, colonel. You don’t ask me to believe that sort of talk, do you?”
“I tell you seriously that I mean it,” said he. “You’ve never seen town fever at work, but I tell you that it drives men just as mad as the gold fever. I’ve seen thousands of dollars bid into tens and twenties of thousands for a patch of land where not a stick of timber had yet been put up — a dream city, pure and simple!”
I made a quick calculation. The price would not have to be twenty-five thousand apiece. Six or seven apiece would do for me.
As I thought about that possibility of picking up a fortune — with clean hands — my mind went back to Betty Cole. What would she think of such a deal? Would she consider that my hands were clean?
Only the danger of the thing had stopped me before this, but now I said to the colonel: “What about it, Colonel Riggs? What will be thought of me if I stop Maker and his men? Won’t I be put down as the worst sort of a border ruffian?”
“Ha!” cried the colonel. “You? Put down as a border ruffian? I should like to hear that term applied to you in Piegan! I should only like to hear it dreamed of by any fool in this town. He would be torn to bits!”
“That’s not the point,” said I. “I’ve been rough enough in my day, but”
“Ah, lad,” said the colonel, “don’t dwell on your past. Forget it. You’re not asked about your past out here. You’re only asked about your future! I know that you’ve had your ups and downs in earlier times. But we’ll wash you clean of any stains”
“Oh, quit it, colonel, will you?” said I.
“What’s the matter, my boy?” said he.
“Drop that salvation manner, please,” I answered. “I’m only wondering what law-abiding people will think of such a job — even if I manage to work it through. If I’m killed — that will serve me right. If I win through, then I’m simply a successful ruffian.”
“Whatever happens,” said the colonel, “to Piegan you’re a flawless hero.”
“It may seem strange to you,” said I, “but just for the moment I’m not thinking of Piegan.”
He actually smiled. His sense of humor was generally fairly near the surface, I must admit.
“Look here, Jerry,” he said. “I’ll tell you the straight of it. If you win, you’ll be Piegan’s idol. You’re that already. If you lose, you’ll still be the idol here. To the world outside, for the young men, you’ll be a hero, too — a fellow they envy and admire. For the older men and women you’ll be a plain nuisance, worthy of a penitentiary sentence — or worse! But the point that counts is the girls, I take it. Am I right, my lad?”
I said nothing, but stared at him. Perhaps my color mounted a little, for I remember that the width of his grin increased.
He said: “As for the girls, they’ll shake their heads and gasp over you, Jerry. They’ll smell fire and brimstone, and see sparks around you. But American girls don’t marry haloes, my boy. Never forget that. They like to have their hands full. Remember that!”
Suddenly what he said lifted a weight from my mind.
I shrugged my shoulders and asked him what was next. What men could I have?
“Anything you want,” said he.
I thought it over.
“Slim Jim Earl and Dan Loftus rode with me before. They’re good lads, and they have a certain amount of faith in me. Then I want a good trailer and a practiced horse thief. There’s only one people in the world who are perfect horse thieves, and they’re the Indians, I understand. Well, I’ve seen a long, lean half-breed around the town. Can I put any trust in him?”
“You can trust a half-breed just half as far as you can a full breed,” said the colonel sententiously. “I know the man you mean. It’s Charlie Butcher. Charlie the Butcher, they call him. He has a pretty black reputation, son.”
“I don’t particularly want a white reputation for horse stealing,” said I.
“That’s true,” said the colonel. “Although I generally feel that I want good men even for bad jobs! Well, well, well! We are moving on. That’s three men for you. Who else?”
I had a sudden thought.
Poor young Steven Cole had to stay near me for a time in Piegan. He had to redeem himself in the eyes of the town if he could, and therefore he would never have a much better opportunity than this of riding in the company which was advancing for the forlorn hope of the town.
I named him.
“That young man from the East — the dude?” snapped the colonel.
“He’s more than a dude,” said I. “I have hopes of him.”
“You’re wrong,” thundered the colonel, smashing his hand down on the table. “I make a prophecy right here. I swear that if you include that young puppy you will ruin the expedition — you will ruin everything.”
Well, I simply pulled myself up and stared.
“I’m going to take him. I’ve made up my mind,” said I.
“Then I wash my hands of the job!” shouted the colonel.
“All right,” said I, “we’ve just wasted a lot of time and imagination for nothing.”
As I got to the door he overtook me.
�
��Tell me,” he said. “Do you really mean it? You really want to take that worthless fellow along?”
“I’ve got to take him,” I said.
“Take him, then, and confound you!” said the colonel furiously. “Go and round up your party. Better make it seven or eight in all. There may be fighting. There’s almost sure to be fighting. So get yourself some men who know how to use a rifle!”
CHAPTER XXXI. THE HALF-BREED
WHEN I FOUND myself squarely embarked upon one of the colonel’s missions again I swore a good deal, and wondered how in the world he had managed to turn the trick with me. However, the thing had been done, and there I was in the trap. So I went out to make all the preparations I could.
I found Slim Jim Earl and Dan Loftus together. Since their Makerville exploit, they had always been together, and I’m sure that they never had been able to spend a cent in the town. For them, drinks were free at every bar, and food and room cost them nothing in the hotel. Besides, they were pointed out and admired a good deal. When I found them, I thought they looked pretty seedy.
“Look here, boys,” said I. “Do we ride together again on a little job?”
“What kind of a job?” asked Dan.
“Any job is better than Piegan,” said Slim Jim, making a face.
“You’re whisky-soaked,” said Dan. “But I’m not. I could use another week of the stuff.”
However, they both agreed that they would go with me. They asked no questions, either. Only, when I said that there would be a hundred dollars apiece for their time for two days, Dan pulled up his belt a couple of notches.
“There’s going to be hell popping again, is there?” said he.
But that question answered itself. Who gets fifty dollars a day for anything inside the law? At least, what puncher on the range gets it?
Then I looked up Harry. That young fellow was as clean as a whistle. The town was treating him pretty well, too, since he had pulled down on the detective, Richardson, in such handsome style. The youngster was considered one of our rising citizens, you might say. But he let that all go, and paid no attention to it. He simply laughed at Piegan and at its drinks. A good, steady job was what he wanted, with a dash of fun thrown in. That was what he told me on this day.