by Max Brand
Sammy Gregg, however, was none too content. So far all had been well enough. The rush of many horses, the creaking of much saddle leather, the oaths and the murmurs had kept up his courage to a fairly comfortable pitch. But this was now a very different matter—three riders on a trail that might be the trail of the lion—big Furness.
And when he considered that one of those riders—namely himself—was to his own knowledge perfectly incapable of handling weapons in a pinch—why, what would happen to them should it indeed prove that they were on the trail of the terrible Furness, and if he, Furness—his tired horse being pressed too hard—should turn back and strike at them?
That thought had barely formed in his mind when the wind blew faintly down the gorge through which they were riding the rattle of musketry, followed, at once, by the sound of exultant voices.
“That’s Gavvigan and his boys. He started up that way,” Cumnor said. “And by the racket they’re making, they’ve got their man . . . yes, and he may almost be big Furness himself. Would they holler like that for running down any common man? I dunno. Push on, lads. We got to do our duty like the rest of ’em. There’s where the rascal has turned to the right. We got him dodging now, and that’s a pretty good sign that he’s about played out and that he’s not far away from us. Faster, boys! Wring the last stuff out of the ponies. The last that they got in them. We don’t want to be the last of all to finish up our share of the job.”
So they spurred recklessly through the dark woods just before them, Sammy with a terrible choked feeling of fear that made it hard for him to breathe. But he dared not give a warning, for the simple reason that it would make the others see his fear so vividly. And if they saw it, what report would go down toward the town and reach, at last, to the ears of Anne Cosden?
She would not be surprised. No, for he realized bitterly that this was merely what she would expect of him—cowardice, weakness, no manhood in body or in soul. So he said nothing but watched the mad onward rush of the two riders. They had forced their way ahead of him down the narrow trail—partly by their eagerness and partly by the superiority of their horsemanship.
They were, in fact, a full five or six lengths ahead of Sammy when they swerved for an instant out of his sight around a dense clump of saplings, and in that moment the thunder burst upon them.
Sammy heard a double report, as of two guns exploding in voice and answer. Then he whirled around the corner, plucking his six-shooter out nervously. He was in time to see big Cumnor grappling with the towering form of handsome Chester Ormonde Furness, while Sid Lannister was, even now, toppling from his saddle. In a trice, under the grip of Furness, Cumnor seemed to break in two in the back—then he was flung to the ground in turn—which left Sammy about five feet from the conqueror, with a loaded revolver in his hand, which was thrust out straight at the big fellow. Moreover, his horse was rushing him straight at his enemy.
He saw the glint of steel whipped into the hand of Furness. No bullet through the body would do the business, Sammy told himself. There was too much of this man. A cannonball through the midst might not dispose of him, it seemed to Sammy. So he chose the head as his target. And, with the pistol thrust out, he strode to keep open his eyes as he pulled the trigger.
The roar of the gun and the sting of the gunpowder smoke in his nostrils and in his eyes as he rushed past gave him a stunned feeling, almost as though he had received a bullet through his own body. Then one pull was sufficient to bring up his weary horse, and, turning about quickly, Sammy blinked in wonder at the sight of three saddleless horses behind him. Three horses without masters, and one of them the mighty and famous gray whose long-reaching gallop had kept his master for so long beyond the reach of the law.
But was big Furness down? Could it be that his puny hand—his—Sammy’s—had dropped that famous chief? He got down off his horse at once. There was big Furness rising, swaying to his knees—Furness in all his hugeness of stature.
What happened in Sammy then he could not say. Propping himself upon a weak arm, Cumnor was groaning: “Your gun, kid. Use your gun on him.”
But Sammy heard the voice and not the words or their meaning. A wild, hoarse cry burst forth from his throat. Such a sound he had never made in his life before—never dreamed of. He leaped in at the giant—and, behold, the giant crumbled before him with a groan and lay helpless at his feet.
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 that was to secure the wrists of this famous robber and destroyer of men. Two had gone down before him. And 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,” he said. “Once I was wanting 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,” Furness answered. “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 Forty
Cumnor was too badly battered to assist, but he could at least tell Sammy what to do. The little man, by his instructions, heaped up dried brush, and then a fire was lit that 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,” Cumnor said. “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 that 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 around $250,000 stolen from the Chadwick bank that morning and divided among seven pockets, a little over $220,000 had been retaken. And the remaining 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 cr
iminals.
But Sammy 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,” Sammy said, “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. And 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. And then . . . I was simply lucky in having that 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. And 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,” Cumnor said finally, “I’ll be damned.”
“And 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,” Sammy explained, 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,” Sammy said desperately. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
The same solemn silence greeted him. And 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?” Furness said, 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, both 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,” Cumnor said, “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. $224,000 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. 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: “And who really captured big Furness?”
“Sammy 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 what happened.”
“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 Sammy 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 horse. 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!” Anne Cosden cried. “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,” Anne Cosden contradicted.
“But here he is himself.”
Sammy stood at the door with a crimson face that showed that he had overheard too much of what had been said.
“Sammy,” the girl said, “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,” Anne Cosden said, “do you mean to tell me that it is true . . . what they’ve been telling me?”
“It was all an accident, Anne,” Sammy said huskily. “You see . . . my horse was carrying me right in . . . I couldn’t do anything to defend myself except shoot . . . and luckily it clipped the side of his head.”
“Oh,” Anne Cosden replied. “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. And 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, say I.”
Anne Cosden, however, stood as one entranced, staring at Sammy until he ducked suddenly away through the door and was gone. “But,” she murmured 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,” a gruff voice said in answer, “when Cumnor comes in, you’ll get the details. But this there Gregg is ashamed of what he’s done. He’s afraid that somebody is gonna find out about it and laugh at him. And I wonder if he’s got you in mind.”
Chapter Forty-One
The jail that was created for the nonce in honor of Chester Ormonde Furness was simply a room in the hotel in the second story. To see that he was kept safely until he could be fetched away to another place of safeguard under the care of the federal marshal, who was at that moment traveling in the direction of Munson to take charge of the distinguished prisoner, the legs of Furness were secured with stout ropes and for a guard there was always one man sitting inside the door of his room and another man sitting just outside the same door in the hallway.
While Furness was detained, one of the former citizens of Munson was rushing west as fast as a train could carry him. And he came, among other reasons, to have the particular pleasure of giving testimony against Furness the moment that gentleman was brought to trial. The reason was that Barclay, for that was his name, had been among the victims of the industry of Furness in the days when that worthy had turned most of his attention to stealing horses on a large scale. Only three animals had been taken from Barclay, but one was a saddle mare he had had for ten years—a mare almost past the days of usefulness. But Barclay was one of the rare Western cattlemen who really loved his saddle string. And he had never forgiven the thief for this really minor robbery. Now he was coming to blacken the record of Furness as much as he possibly could, even if it required a special thousand-mile journey to accomplish his ends.
Before the train was half a day out from New York the conductor came to tell him that there was an old lady aboard the train who was bound for the same town that he was bound for.
Barclay was filled with wonder. “The same town I’m bound for?” he echoed. “Ain’t there some mistake? Not the very same town that I’m headed for. Not for old Munson?”