“Hey, Bull!” cried Colby again, in a friendly voice, “it’s Hal.” Still no reply. Colby pushed the door open and entered. Of all the motley crew that followed him he alone had the courage to do the thing that he was doing now. He struck a match and lighted a candle that stood on the rude table, embedded in its own grease in the cover of a baking powder can.
A brief survey of the interior showed him that it was untenanted. He extinguished the light and returned to his party where word was passed around that they were to remain quietly in hiding where they were until the quarry carte.
In the meantime a lone horseman had thrown himself from a half-spent pony in the Bar Y ranch yard and seeing a light in the cook-house had burst in upon the astonished cook. “What in all tarnation’s the matter of ye, Wildcat Bob?” he demanded.
“Where’s Bull?” asked the little old man.
“Reckon he’s over at the West Ranch — leastways there’s where he’s supposed to be, why?”
“Warn’t they a gang o’ the boys jest here lookin’ for him?”
“No.”
A burst of lurid profanity filled the room as Wildcat Bob explained just how he felt and what he thought of himself.
“They set out to lynch Bull,” he explained finally, “an’ I supposin’ o’ course thet he was here got away ahead o’ ‘em, an’ now, ding-bust my ornery of carcabs, like as not they already got him over at the West Ranch. Where’s the rest o’ the boys? Where’s Texas Pete? You don’t reckon thet critter’s with Colby, do you?”
“Not by a long shot,” replied the cook. “He’d stick up fer Bull ef he massacreed the whole durn county. So’d Shorty an’ Idaho, but they ain’t none o’ ’em here — they’s all down to Johnson’s to a dance.”
“Well,” said Wildcat Bob, “I done my best, which same ain’t no good. Ef I hed a hoss instead o’ a hunk o’ coyote fodder I’d try to git to the West Ranch in time, but I reckon they ain’t no chanct now. Howsumever I’ll do the best I kin. So-long!” and he was gone.
A half-hour later his horse fell dead a mile north of Hendersville while his rider was taking a short cut straight across country for the West Ranch. It was a warm and lurid Wildcat Bob who plodded through the dust of Hendersville’s lone thoroughfare and stopped at the veranda of The Donovan House some time later to be accosted by one of a group gathered there in semi-silent expectancy.
“The saints be praised!” exclaimed Mary Donovan. “Is it a banchee or is it not?”
“It’s worse,” said Bill Gatlin, the stage driver; “it’s Wildcat Bob - walkin’.”
“Did they git the poor b’y?” demanded Mary, whereat the little old gentleman burst forth anew with such a weird variety of oaths that Mr. Jefferson Wainright, Jr., could feel the hot flush that mounted to his ears fairly scorching his skin.
“Ef I ever gits a-hold o’ the blankety, blank, blank thet loaned me that blankety, blank, blank ewenecked, ring-boned, spavined excuse fer a cayuse I’ll cut his heart out,” announced Wildcat Bob in a high falsetto.
Finally Mary Donovan inveigled the facts from him. “Ye done well, Bob, thet ye did,” she assured him. “Shure an’ how was yese to know thet he wasn’t at the home ranch.”
“I shouldn’t think you’d care if they did hang a bandit and murderer,” declared Mr. Jefferson Wainright, Jr.
“Who in the hell told you to think, you durn dude?” screamed Wildcat Bob, reaching for his gun.
Mr. Wainright sought the greater safety of the office, tipping over his chair and almost upsetting Mary Donovan in his haste. “Don’t shoot!” he cried. “Don’t shoot! I meant no offense.”
Wildcat Bob would have followed him within, but Mary Donovan caught him around the waist and pushed him into a chair. “Be ca’m, Robert,” she soothed him.
As Diana arose to her feet after listening close to the ground for the second time she was assured by the increased loudness of the sounds she had heard that the lone rider was rapidly approaching from the northeast and in that direction she again led Captain, intending to mount once more as soon as she had reached what she considered a safe distance from the cabin and the hidden watchers encircling it. She had forged ahead for about five minutes when the way dipped into a shallow swale in which the sagebrush grew to greater size.
Here would be a good place to remount, and with this intention crystallized she wound downward among the scattered brush toward the bottom, when, rounding a particularly high bush, she came suddenly face to face with a man leading a horse.
“Stick ’em up!” whispered the man in a low voice, presenting an evil-looking six-gun at the pit of her stomach.
“Oh, Bull!” she cried in low tones, for she would have known his voice among thousands.
“You?” he cried. “My gawd, Miss, what are you doin’ here?”
“They have come to lynch you, Bull,” she told him. “There are forty or fifty of them lying in the brush around your cabin now. They say that you held up the stage and killed Mack Harber today.”
“And you came to warn me?” His voice sounded far away, as though, groping for a truth he could not grasp, he spoke half to himself.
“You must go away, Bull,” she told him. “You must leave the country.”
He paid no attention to her words. “I seen a light flash fer a minute in the shack,” he said, “an’ so I reckoned I’d hev a look around before I come too close. Thet was why I was walkin’ when I hearn you.
I was just a-goin’ to leave Blazes here an’ go ahead an’ scout aroun’ a bit. Mount up now an’ I’ll take you home.”
“No,” she said, “you get away. I can get home all right- only I have to go to town. I’m stopping at Mary’s tonight.”
“I’ll ride with you,” he insisted.
She knew him well enough to know that he would never let her ride to town alone through the night and so she mounted as he did and together they followed the swale which ran in the general direction of Hendersville.
“You say you’re stoppin’ at Mary’s?” he asked.
“Just for tonight. I’m taking the stage for Aldea in the morning. I’m going to Kansas City to consult a lawyer. They are trying to take the property away from me, Bull,” and then she told him all that had transpired since yesterday.
“You don’t need a lawyer, Miss,” he told her. “What you need is a two-gun man, only you don’t need him, ‘cause you got one already. You go back to the ranch an’ come mornin’ there won’t be airy dude or dudess to try to put their brand on nothin’ that belongs to you.”
“Oh, Bull, don’t you understand that you mustn’t do anything like that?” she cried. “It would only make things worse than they are now. Wong wanted to poison them.”
“Good of Wong!”. interjected Bull.
“But we can’t make murderers of ourselves just because they are wicked.”
“It ain’t murder to kill a rattle-snake,” he reminded her.
“But promise me that you won’t,” she urged.
“I wouldn’t do nothin’ you didn’t want done, Miss,” he said.
They were nearing town now and could see the lights plainly, shining through the windows and doorways. “You’d better go now, Bull,” she said.
“Not ‘til I get you in town safe,” he replied.
“But I’m safe now — it is only a little way, and I’m afraid they might get you if you came in.”
“Shucks, they won’t git me now thet I know they’re after me,” he replied. “Say, Miss,” he exclaimed suddenly, “you ain’t asked me ef it was me kilt Mack.”
She drew herself up proudly. “I’ll never ask you, Bull,” she said.
“But you wouldn’t hev come out to warn me ef you’d thought it,” he suggested.
She was silent for a moment, and then: “Yes, I would, Bull,” she said in a very little voice.
He shrugged his shoulders. “As I told Pete, ef I had done it or ef I hadn’t done it, I’d say I hadn’t, so what’s the use o’ wastin’ breath; but I sh
ore appreciates what you’ve done, Miss.”
“And you will go away?” she asked.
“No,’m, I’ll stay here. I reckon you need me, Miss, from what you’ve told me, so I’ll hang around a spell. I’ll ride over to the ranch o’ nights now an’ then. Ef you happen to hear a meadow — lark settin’ up late after dark you’ll know it’s me.”
“But I’m afraid they’ll get you, Bull, if you stay in the country. They’re terribly angry,” she warned, him.
“They won’t be so keen to find me after they’re sobered up a bit,” he said, with a smile. “Colby’s the only one thet’s got the nerve to go agin’ guns singlehanded.”
“I don’t see why he hates you so,” she said. “I used to think that he liked you.”
“Then all I got to say, Miss, is thet you must be plumb blind,” said Bull.
Diana was evidently not so blind as he thought her, for she flushed deliciously.
“Now you must turn back,” she said. They were almost in town.
“I will, because they mustn’t see you ridin’ in with me,” he replied.
She reined in her horse and held out her hand to him. “Goodbye, Bull,” she said.
He took her slim hand in his and pressed it strongly. “Goodbye — Diana!” said Bull.
She spoke to Captain and moved off toward the little town and the man sat there in the darkness watching her retreating form until it was hidden behind a corner of The Donovan House.
14. BULL SEES COLBY
Bull turned Blazes’ head toward the northeast and rode off slowly in the direction of Coyote Canyon near the head of which there was a wild and almost inaccessible country just east of Hell’s Bend Pass. There was water there and game for himself, with year round pasture for Blazes.
As he rode he hummed a gay little air, quite unlike the grim, taciturn Bull that his acquaintances knew, for Bull was happy — happier than he had been for months.
“An’ to think,” he mused, “thet she rode out there all alone to warn me. An’ once she said to me, ‘Bull,’ says she, ‘I don’t love any man, Bull, thet way; but if ever I do he’ll know it without my tellin’ him. I’ll do something thet will prove it — a girl always does.’
“Thet’s what she says — them’s her very words. I ain’t never fergot ’em an’ I ain’t never goin’ to — even ef I don’t believe it. It was just her good heart that sent her out to warn me — she’d a-done as much fer any of the boys.”
When Diana reined in before those assembled on the veranda of The Donovan House she was greeted by a gasp of astonishment from Mary Donovan.
“Diana Henders, child!” she exclaimed. “What are ye doin’ here this time o’ night? Sure an’ l thought ye had gone back to the ranch, after hearin’ ye was in town airlier in the av’nin’.”
Diana dismounted without making any reply and tied Captain to the rail in front of the hotel. As she mounted the steps to the veranda the younger Wainright rose, politely. Corson and the elder Wainright nodded, the latter grunting gruffly. Lillian Manill pretended that she did not see her.
“I am going to stop here tonight, Mrs. Donovan,” said Diana to the proprietress, “that is if you have room for me.”
“An’ if I didn’t I’d be after makin’ it,” replied the latter.
“I wonder if you’d mind putting Captain up for me, Bob,” said Diana, turning to the Wildcat, and as the old man stepped from the veranda to comply with her request, Diana turned and entered the office, followed by Mary Donovan.
“May I have a cup of tea, Mrs. Donovan?” asked the girl. “I feel all fagged out. This evening has been like a terrible nightmare.”
“You mane about poor Bull?” asked Mary.
Diana nodded.
“They ain’t back yit,” said Mary; “but I suppose they got him, bad ‘cess to ‘em.”
Diana came close to the older woman and whispered. “They didn’t get him. I just saw him — he brought me to the edge of town.”
“Now, the Lord be praised for that!” ejaculated Mary Donovan, “for shure an’ if it’s guilty he is I’ll not be after belavin’ it at all, at all.”
“It looks pretty bad for him, Mrs. Donovan,” said Diana, “but even so I can’t believe it of him either — I won’t believe it.”
“An’ no more don’t yese, darlin’,” advised Mary Donovan, “an’ now make yersilf comfortable an’ I’ll have ye a cup o’ tay in no time.”
As her hostess left the sitting room by one doorway, Jefferson Wainright, Jr., appeared in the other which opened from the office, his hat in his hand.
“May I have just a word with you, Miss Henders?” he asked.
The girl nodded her assent, though none too cordially, and Wainright entered the little sitting room.
“I can’t begin to tell you, Miss Henders,” he commenced, after clearing his throat, “how badly I feel over this matter that Mr. Corson has explained to us. There isn’t any question, of course, about the unfairness and injustice of it; but the fact remains that the law is the law, and I don’t see how you are going to get around it by fighting them.”
“It is a matter, Mr. Wainright, that I do not care to discuss with you,” said Diana, rising.
“Wait a minute, Miss Henders,” he begged. “That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to discuss with you, though it has a bearing on it. There is a way out for you and it was that I wanted to talk over. Your father was a wealthy man — you have been accustomed to everything that money could buy in this country. To drop from affluence to penury in a single day is going to be mighty hard for you, and it is that I want to save you from.”
“It is very kind of you, I am sure,” she told him, “but I cannot see how you, of all people, can help me, for your own father is a party to this whole transaction.”
“I think you are a bit hard on him,” he said. “You surely cannot blame him for wanting to drive as good a bargain as possible — he is, first and last, a business man.”
Diana only shrugged her shoulders.
“Now, as I said,” continued Mr. Wainright, “there is a way for you to continue to have, not only the luxuries you have been accustomed to, but many more, and at the same time to retain the Bar Y Ranch.”
She looked up at him questioningly. “Yes!” she said, “and how?”
“By marrying me, Miss Henders. You know I love you. You know there is nothing I would not do for you. There is no sacrifice that I would not willingly and gladly make for you. I would die for you, dear girl, and thank God for the chance.”
Diana Henders’ lip curled in scorn. “It seems to me that I heard you make that very assertion once before, Mr. Wainright, and in those self-same words — the night before you ran away, like the coward you are, and left us at the mercy of the Apaches.
“If you had half the courage that you have effrontery, the lion would appear a mouse by comparison. Please, never mention the subject to me again, nor is there any reason why you should ever address me upon any subject. Good night!”
“You’ll regret this,” he cried as he was leaving the room. “You’ll see if you don’t. You might have had one friend, and a good one, on your side — now you haven’t any. We’ll strip you to the last cent for this, and then you’ll marry some ignorant, unwashed cow-puncher and raise brats in a tumble-down shack for the rest of your life — that’s what you’ll do!”
“An do yuh know what you’ll do?” demanded a squeaky voice behind him.
Jefferson Wainright, Jr., turned to see Wildcat Bob glaring at him from the center of the office floor. The young man turned a sickly hue and glanced hurriedly for an avenue of escape, but the Wildcat was between him and the outer doorway and was reaching for one of his terrible guns.
With a half-stifled cry Wainright sprang into the sitting room and ran to Diana. Seizing her he whirled the girl about so that she was between him and the Wildcat’s weapon.
“My God, Miss Henders, don’t let him shoot me! I’m unarmed — it would be murder. Save me! Save m
e!”
His screams brought his father, Corson, Lillian Manill and Mary Donovan to the room, where they saw the younger Wainright kneeling in abject terror behind Diana’s skirts.
“What’s the meanin’ of all this?” yelled the elder Wainright.
“Your son insulted me — he asked me to marry him,” said Diana. “Let him go, Bob,” she directed the Wildcat.
“Gosh-a-mighty, Miss!” exclaimed the old man in an aggrieved tone, “yuh don’t mean it, do yuh? Why, I just ben honin’ fer a chanct to clean up this here whole bunch o’ tin- horns an’ now that I got an excuse it don’t seem right to let it pass. By cracky, it ain’t right! ‘Tain’t moral, that’s what it ain’t!”
“Please, Bob — I’ve got trouble enough — let him go.”
Slowly Wildcat Bob returned his gun to its holster, shaking his head mournfully, and Jefferson Wainright, Jr., arose and sneaked out of the room. As his party returned to the veranda the young man’s father was growling and spluttering in an undertone, but Wildcat Bob caught the words “law” and “sheriff.”
“What’s thet?” he demanded in his high falsetto.
The elder Wainright cringed and stepped rapidly through the doorway. “Nothin’,” he assured the Wildcat. “I didn’t calc’late to say nothin’ at all.”
It was almost morning when the weary and now sobered members of the necktie party returned to town. Gum Smith and several others, among whom was Wildcat Bob, met them in the street.
“Git him?” demanded the sheriff.
“No,” replied Colby, “an’ I don’t savvy it neither — someone must o’ put him wise; but I got some evidence,” and he drew a worn leather pouch from his shirt. “Here’s one o’ the bullion bags that was took from the stage yesterday — I found it under his blankets. He may o’ ben there an’ saw us comin’, but thet ain’t likely ‘cause we snuck up mighty keerful — someone must o’ put him wise.”
“Ah wondeh who-all it could o’ ben,” wondered Gum Smith.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 564