by Unknown
"You stay right here, missy, till I'm through. I'm tellin' you about yore high-heeled brother. See? He was a rustler. That's what he was--a low-down thief and brand-blotter."
"Let me pass. I won't listen to you." The clear young voice was expressive of both indignation and fear.
"Not a step till I'm through tellin' you. Me, I'm Steve Gurley, the curly-haired terror of the Panhandle. When I talk, you listen. Un'erstand?"
The speech of the man was thick with drink. He had spent the night at the Bird Cage and was now on his way to the corral for his horse.
"You take Miss Ramona home. I'll tend to Gurley," said Roberts curtly to his friend. Into his eyes had come a cold rage Arthur had never before seen there.
At sight of them the bully's brutal insolence vanished. He tried to pass on his way, but the Ranger stopped him.
"Just a moment, Gurley. You're goin' with me," said Jack, ominously quiet.
White and shaken, 'Mona bit her lip to keep from weeping. She flashed one look of gratitude at her father's former line-rider, and with a little sob of relief took Ridley's offered arm.
"You got a warrant for me?" bluffed the outlaw.
At short range there is no weapon more deadly than the human eye. Jack Roberts looked at the bully and said: "Give me yore gun."
Steve Gurley shot his slant look at the Ranger, considered possibilities--and did as he was told.
"Now right about face and back-track uptown," ordered the officer.
At McGuffey's store Jack stopped his prisoner. A dozen punchers and cattlemen were hanging about. Among them was Jumbo Wilkins. He had a blacksnake whip in his hand and was teasing a pup with it. The Ranger handed over to Jumbo his guns and borrowed the whip.
Gurley backed off in a sudden alarm. "Don't you touch me! Don't you dass touch me! I'll cut yore heart out if you do."
The lash whistled through the air and wound itself cruelly round the legs of the bully. The man gave a yell of rage and pain. He lunged forward to close with Roberts, and met a driving left that caught him between the eyes and flung him back. Before he could recover the Ranger had him by the collar at arm's length and the torture of the whip was maddening him. He cursed, struggled, raved, threatened, begged for mercy. He tried to fling himself to the ground. He wept tears of agony. But there was no escape from the deadly blacksnake that was cutting his flesh to ribbons.
Roberts, sick at the thing he had been doing, flung the shrieking man aside and leaned up against the wall of the store.
Jumbo came across to him and offered his friend a drink.
"You'll feel better if you take a swallow of old forty-rod," he promised.
The younger man shook his head. "Much obliged, old-timer. I'm all right now. It was a kind of sickenin' job, but I had to do it or kill him."
"What was it all about?" asked Jumbo eagerly. The fat line-rider was a good deal of a gossip and loved to know the inside of every story.
Jack cast about for a reason. "He--he said I had red hair."
"Well, you old son of a mule-skinner, what's the matter with that? You have, ain't you?" demanded the amazed Wilkins.
"Mebbe I have, but he can't tell me so."
That was all the satisfaction the public ever got. It did a good deal of guessing, however, and none of it came near the truth.
[Footnote 5: To "take the hides off'n 'em" was the expressive phraseology in which the buffalo-hunter described his business.]
CHAPTER XXV
"THEY'RE RUNNIN' ME OUTA TOWN"
Jumbo Wilkins came wheezing into the Sunset Trail corral, where Jack Roberts was mending a broken bridle. "'Lo, Tex. Looks like you're gittin' popular, son. Folks a-comin' in fifty miles for to have a little talk with you."
The eyes of the Ranger grew intelligent. He knew Jumbo's habit of mind. The big line-rider always made the most of any news he might have.
"Friends of mine?" asked Jack casually.
"Well, mebbe friends ain't just the word. Say acquaintances. You know 'em well enough to shoot at and to blacksnake 'em, but not well enough to drink with."
"Did they say they wanted to see me?"
"A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bronc. They said they'd come to make you hard to find."
The Ranger hammered down a rivet carefully. "Many of 'em?"
"Two this trip. One of 'em used to think yore topknot was red. I dunno what he thinks now."
"And the other?"
"Carries the brand of Overstreet."
"Where are these anxious citizens, Jumbo?"
"Last I saw of 'em they were at the Bird Cage lappin' up another of the same. They've got business with Clint Wadley, too, they said."
Jack guessed that business was blackmail. It occurred to him that since these visitors had come to town to see him, he had better gratify their desire promptly. Perhaps after they had talked with him they might not have time to do their business with Wadley.
As Jumbo waddled uptown beside him, Roberts arranged the details of his little plan. They separated at the corner of the street a block from the Bird Cage. Wilkins had offered to lend a hand, but his friend defined the limit of the help he might give.
"You come in, shake hands with me, an' ask that question. Then you're through. Understand, Jumbo?"
"Sure. But I want to tell you again Overstreet is no false-alarm bad-man. He'll fight at the drop of the hat. That's his reputation, anyhow--wears 'em low an' comes a-shootin'."
"I'll watch out for him. An' I'll look for you in about three minutes."
"Me, I'll be there, son, and I wish you the best of luck."
Gurley was at the bar facing the door when the Ranger walked into the Bird Cage. He had been just ready to gulp down another drink, but as his eyes fell on this youth who came forward with an elastic step the heart died within him. It had been easy while the liquor was in his brain to brag of what he meant to do. It was quite another thing to face in battle this brown, competent youth who could hit silver dollars in the air with a revolver.
His companion read in Gurley's sallow face the dismay that had attacked him. Overstreet turned and faced the newcomer. The outlaw was a short, heavy-set man with remarkably long arms. He had come from Trinidad, Colorado, and brought with him the reputation of a killer. His eyes looked hard at the red-haired youngster, but he made no comment.
Jack spoke to the bartender. He looked at neither of the bad-men, but he was very coolly and alertly on guard.
"Joe, I left my blacksnake at home," he said. "Have you got one handy?"
"Some guys are lucky, Steve," jeered Overstreet, taking his cue from the Ranger. "Because you fell over a box and this fellow beat you up while you was down, he thinks he's a regular go-getter. He looks to me like a counterfeit four-bit piece, if anybody asks you."
Jumbo Wilkins puffed into the place and accepted the Ranger's invitation to take a drink.
"What makes you so gaunted, Jack? You look right peaked," he commented as they waited for their drinks.
"Scared stiff, Jumbo. I hear two wild an' woolly bad-men are after me. One is a tall, lopsided, cock-eyed rooster, an' the other is a hammered-down sawed-off runt. They sure have got me good an' scared. I've been runnin' ever since I heard they were in town."
Gurley gulped down his drink and turned toward the door hastily. "Come, let's go, Overstreet. I got to see a man."
The Texan and the Coloradoan looked at each other with steel-cold eyes. They measured each other in deadly silence, and while one might have counted twenty the shadow of death hovered over the room. Then Overstreet made his choice. The bragging had all been done by Gurley. He could save his face without putting up a fight.
"Funny how some folks are all blown up by a little luck," he sneered, and he followed his friend to the street.
"You got 'em buffaloed sure, Jack. Tell me how you do it," demanded Jumbo with a fat grin.
"I'm the law, Jumbo."
"Go tell that to the Mexicans, son. What do you reckon a killer like Overstreet cares for the law? He figured y
ou might down him before he could gun you--didn't want to risk an even break with you."
The Ranger poured his untasted liquor into the spittoon and settled the bill. "Think I'll drop around to the Silver Dollar an' see if my birds have lit again."
At the Silver Dollar Jack found his friend the ex-Confederate doing business with another cattleman.
"I'd call that a sorry-lookin' lot, Winters," he was saying. "I know a jackpot bunch of cows when I see 'em. They look to me like they been fed on short grass an' shin-oak." His face lighted at sight of the Ranger. "Hello, brindle-haid! Didn't know you was in town."
The quick eye of the officer had swept over the place and found the two men he wanted sitting inconspicuously at a small table.
"I'm not here for long, Sam. Two genuwine blown-in-the-bottle bad-men are after my scalp. They're runnin' me outa town. Seen anything of 'em? They belong to the Dinsmore outfit."
The old soldier looked at him with a sudden startled expression. He knew well what men were sitting against the wall a few steps from him. This was talk that might have to be backed by a six-shooter. Bullets were likely to be flying soon.
"You don't look to me like you're hittin' yore heels very fast to make a get-away, Jack," he said dryly.
"I'm sure on the jump. They're no bully-puss kind of men, but sure enough terrors from the chaparral. If I never get out o' town, ship my saddle in a gunny-sack to my brother at Dallas."
"Makin' yore will, are you?" inquired Joe Johnston's former trooper.
The red-haired man grinned. "I got to make arrangements. They came here to get me. Two of 'em--bad-men with blood in their eyes." He hummed, with jaunty insolence:
"He's a killer and a hater! He's the great annihilator! He's a terror of the boundless prai-ree.
"That goes double. I'm certainly one anxious citizen. Don't you let 'em hurt me, Sam."
There was a movement at the table where the two men were sitting. One of them had slid from his chair and was moving toward the back door.
The Ranger pretended to catch sight of him for the first time. "Hello, Gurley! What's yore hurry? Got to see another man, have you?"
The rustler did not wait to answer. He vanished through the door and fled down the alley in the direction of the corral. Overstreet could do as he pleased, but he intended to slap a saddle on his horse and make tracks for the cap-rock country.
Overstreet himself was not precisely comfortable in his mind, but he did not intend to let a smooth-faced boy run him out of the gambling-house before a dozen witnesses. If he had to fight, he would fight. But in his heart he cursed Gurley for a yellow-backed braggart. The fellow had got him into this and then turned tail. The man from Colorado wished devoutly that Pete Dinsmore were beside him.
"You're talkin' at me, young fellow. Listen: I ain't lookin' for any trouble with you--none a-tall. But I'm not Steve Gurley. Where I come from, folks grow man-size. Don't lean on me too hard. I'm liable to decrease the census of red-haired guys."
Overstreet rose and glared at him, but at the same time one hand was reaching for his hat.
"You leavin' town too, Mr. Overstreet?" inquired the Ranger.
"What's it to you? I'll go when I'm ready."
"'We shall meet, but we shall miss you--there will be one vacant chair,'" murmured the young officer, misquoting a song of the day. "Seems like there's nothin' to this life but meetin' an' partin'. Here you are one minute, an' in a quarter of an hour you're hittin' the high spots tryin' to catch up with friend Steve."
"Who said so? I'll go when I'm good an' ready," reiterated the bad-man.
"Well, yore bronc needs a gallop to take the kinks out of his legs. Give my regards to the Dinsmores an' tell 'em that Tascosa is no sort of place for shorthorns or tinhorns."
"Better come an' give them regards yore own self."
"Mebbe I will, one of these glad mo'nin's. So long, Mr. Overstreet. Much obliged to you an' Steve for not massacreein' me."
The ironic thanks of the Ranger were lost, for the killer from Colorado was already swaggering out of the front door.
The old Confederate gave a whoop of delight. "I never did see yore match, you doggoned old scalawag. You'd better go up into Mexico and make Billy the Kid[6] eat out of yore hand. This tame country is no place for you, Jack."
Roberts made his usual patient explanation. "It's the law. They can't buck the whole Lone Star State. If he shot me, a whole passel of Rangers would be on his back pretty soon. So he hits the trail instead." He turned to Ridley, who had just come into the Silver Dollar. "Art, will you keep cases on Overstreet an' see whether he leaves town right away?"
A quarter of an hour later Ridley was back with information.
"Overstreet's left town--lit out after Gurley."
The old Rebel grinned. "He won't catch him this side of the cap-rock."
[Footnote 6: Billy The Kid was the most notorious outlaw of the day. He is said to have killed twenty-one men before Sheriff Pat Garrett killed him at the age of twenty-one years.]
CHAPTER XXVI
FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
Mr. Peter Dinsmore was of both an impulsive and obstinate disposition. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. Somewhere he had heard that if a man desired his business well done, he must do it himself. Gurley had proved a poor messenger. Peter would call upon Clint Wadley in person and arrange an armistice.
He had another and a more urgent reason for getting to town promptly. A jumping toothache had kept him awake all night. After he reached Tascosa, Dinsmore was annoyed to find that Dr. Bridgman had ridden down the river to look after the fractured leg of a mule-skinner.
"Isn't there any one else in this condemned burg can pull teeth?" he demanded irritably of the bartender at the Bird Cage.
"There certainly is. Buttermilk Brown is a sure-enough dentist. He had to take to bull-whackin' for to make a livin', but I reckon he's not forgot how. You'll probably find him sleepin' off a hang-over at the Four-Bit Corral."
This prophecy proved true, but Dinsmore was not one to let trifles turn him aside. He led the reluctant ex-dentist to a water-trough and soused his head under the pump.
"Is that a-plenty?" he asked presently, desisting from his exercise with the pump-handle.
Buttermilk sputtered a half-drowned assent. His nerves were still jumpy, and his head was not clear, but he had had enough cold water. Heroic treatment of this sort was not necessary to fit him for pulling a tooth.
They adjourned to the room where Buttermilk had stored his professional tools. Dinsmore indicated the back tooth that had to come out. The dentist peered at it, inserted his forceps and set to work. The tooth came out hard, but at last he exhibited its long prongs to the tortured victim.
"We get results," said Buttermilk proudly.
"How much?" asked Pete.
It happened that the dentist did not know his patient. He put a price of five dollars on the job. Dinsmore paid it and walked with Buttermilk to the nearest saloon for a drink.
Pete needed a little bracer. The jumping pain still pounded like a piledriver at his jaw. While the bartender was handing him a glass and a bottle, Dinsmore caressed tenderly the aching emptiness and made a horrible discovery. Buttermilk Brown had pulled the wrong tooth.
Considering his temperament, Pete showed remarkable self-restraint. He did not slay Buttermilk violently and instantly. Instead he led him back to the room of torture.
"You pulled the wrong tooth, you drunken wreck," he said in effect, but in much more emphatic words. "Now yank out the right one, and if you make another mistake--"
He did not finish the threat, but it is possible that Buttermilk understood. The dentist removed with difficulty the diseased molar.
"Well, we're through now," he said cheerfully. "I don't know as I ought to charge you for that last one. I'll leave that to you to say."
"We're not quite through," corrected the patient. "I'm goin' to teach you to play monkey-shines with Pete Dinsmore's teeth." He laid a large re
volver on the table and picked up the forceps. "Take that chair, you bowlegged, knock-kneed, run-down runt."
Buttermilk protested in vain. He begged the bad-man for mercy with tears in his eyes.
"I'm goin' to do Scripture to you, and then some," explained Dinsmore. "It says in the Bible a tooth for a tooth, but I aim to pay good measure."
The amateur dentist pulled four teeth and played no favorites. A molar, a bicuspid, a canine, and an incisor were laid in succession on the table.
Buttermilk Brown wept with rage and pain.
"Four times five is twenty. Dig up twenty dollars for professional services," said Pete.