The Fighting Edge

by Raine, William MacLeod

  There came the slap of running footsteps on the sidewalk. A voice called in excitement, “They’ve killed Ferril.”

  The eyes of the Elk Creek ranchers met. They knew now what was taking place. Ferril was cashier of the Bear Cat bank.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  BEAR CAT AWAKE

  At exactly eleven o’clock Houck, Bandy Walker, and the big young cowpuncher who had ridden into town with them met at the corner of one of the freight wagons. Houck talked, the others listened, except for a comment or two. A cattleman passing them on his way to the bank recalled afterward that the low voice of the Brown’s Park man was deadly serious.

  The two big men walked into the bank. Bandy stayed with the horses. In the building, not counting the cashier and his assistant, were two or three patrons of the institution. One was Sturgis, a round little man who had recently started a drug-store in Bear Cat. He was talking to the assistant cashier. The cattleman was arranging with Ferril for a loan.

  The attention of the cattleman drifted from the business in hand. “Carryin’ a good deal of hardware, ain’t they, Gus?”

  Ferril smiled. “Most of the boys are quittin’ that foolishness, but some of ’em can’t get it out of their heads that they look big when they’re gun-toters. Kind of a kid business, looks to me.”

  The eyes of the cattleman rested on Houck. “I wouldn’t call that big black fellow a kid. Who is he?”

  “Don’t know. Reckon we’re due to find out. He’s breakin’ away from the other fellow and movin’ this way.”

  Houck observed that the big cowpuncher was nervous. The hand hitched in the sagging belt was trembling.

  “Don’t weaken, Dave,” he said in a whisper out of the corner of his mouth. “We’ll be outa town in ten minutes.”

  “Sure,” agreed the other in a hoarse murmur.

  Houck sauntered to the cage. This was a recent importation from Denver. Bear Cat was proud of it as an evidence of progress. It gave the bank quite a metropolitan air.

  He stood behind the cattleman, the wall at his back so that his broad shoulders brushed it. Jake had no intention of letting any one get in his rear.

  “Stick yore hands up!” he ordered roughly.

  The cattleman did not turn. His hands went up instantly. A half a second later those of the startled cashier lifted toward the ceiling.

  The assistant made a bad mistake. He dived for the revolver in the desk close at hand.

  Houck fired. The bank clerk dropped.

  That shot sent panic through the heart of Sturgis. He bolted for the side door. A second shot from Houck’s weapon did not stop him. A moment more, and he was on the street racing to spread the alarm.

  The leader of the bank robbers swung round on Ferril. His voice was harsh, menacing. He knew that every moment now counted. From under his coat he had drawn a gunnysack.

  “The bank money—quick. No silver—gold an’ any bills you’ve got.”

  Ferril opened the safe. He stuffed into the sack both loose and packed gold. He had a few bills, not many, for in the West paper money was then used very little.

  “No monkey business,” snarled Houck after he had stood up against the opposite wall the cattleman and the depositor who chanced to be in the bank. “This all you got? Speak up, or I’ll drill you.”

  The cashier hesitated, but the ominous hollow eye into which he looked was persuasive. He opened an inner compartment lined with bags of gold. These he thrust into the gunnysack.

  The robber named Dave tied with shaking fingers the loose end of the sack.

  “Time to go,” announced Houck grimly. “You’re goin’ with us far as our horses—all of you. We ain’t lookin’ for to be bushwhacked.”

  He lined up the bodyguard in front and on each side of himself and his accomplice. Against the back of the cattleman he pushed the end of the revolver barrel.

  “Lead the way,” he ordered with an oath.

  Houck had heard the sound of running feet along the street. He knew it was more than likely that there would be a fight before he and his men got out of town. This was not in his reckoning. The shots fired inside the bank had been outside his calculations. They had been made necessary only by the action of the teller. Jake’s plan had been to do the job swiftly and silently, to get out of town before word of what had taken place reached the citizens. He had chosen Bear Cat as the scene of the robbery because there was always plenty of money in the bank, because he owed its people a grudge, and because it was so far from a railroad.

  As he had outlined the hold-up to his fellows in crime, it had looked like a moderately safe enterprise. But he realized now that he had probably led them into a trap. Nearly every man in Bear Cat was a big-game hunter. This meant that they were dead shots.

  Houck knew that it would be a near thing if his party got away in time. A less resolute man would have dropped the whole thing after the alarm had been given and ridden away at once. But he was no quitter. So he was seeing it out.

  The cattleman led the procession through the side door into the street.

  Sunshine warm and mellow still bathed the street, just as it had done ten minutes earlier. But there was a difference. Dave felt a shiver run down his spine.

  From the horses Bandy barked a warning. “Hurry, Jake, for God’s sake. They’re all round us.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER XL

  BIG-GAME HUNTERS AT WORK

  Bob and his partner did not rush out of the hotel instantly to get into the fray. They did what a score of other able-bodied men of Bear Cat were doing—went in search of adequate weapons with which to oppose the bank robbers. Bear Cat was probably the best-equipped town in the country to meet a sudden emergency of this kind. In every house, behind the door or hanging on the wall, was a rifle used to kill big game. In every house was at least one man who knew how to handle that rifle. All he had to do was to pick up the weapon, load it, and step into the street.

  June was in the kitchen with Chung Lung. The Reverend Melancthon Browning had just collected two dollars from Chung for the foreign missionary fund. Usually the cook was a cheerful giver, but this morning he was grumbling a little. He had been a loser at hop toy the night before.

  “Mister Blowning he keep busy asking for dollars. He tell me givee to the Lord. Gleat smoke, Lord allee timee bloke?”

  The girl laughed. The Oriental’s quaint irreverence was of the letter and not of the spirit.

  Through the swing door burst Bob Dillon. “Know where there’s a rifle, June?”

  She looked at him, big-eyed. “Not the Utes again?” she gasped.

  “Bank robbers. I want a gun.”

  Without a word she turned and led him swiftly down the passage to a bedroom. In one corner of it was a .40-.70 Marlin. From a peg above hung a cartridge belt. Bob loaded the gun.

  June’s heart beat fast. “You’ll—be careful?” she cautioned.

  He nodded as he ran out of the door and into the alley behind.

  Platt & Fortner’s was erecting a brick store building, the first of its kind in Bear Cat. The walls were up to the second story and the window frames were in. Through the litter of rubbish left by the workmen Bob picked a hurried way to one of the window spaces. Two men were crouched in another of these openings not fifteen feet from him.

  “How many of ’em?” he asked in a loud whisper.

  Blister answered from the embrasure opposite. “D-don’t know.”

  “Still in the bank, are they?”

  “Yes.”

  Some one peered out of Dolan’s through the crack of a partly opened door. Bob caught the gleam of the sun upon the barrel of a gun. A hat with a pair of eyes beneath the rim of it showed above the sill of a window in the blacksmith shop opposite. Bear Cat was all set for action.

  A man was standing beside some horses near the back door of Platt & Fortner’s. He was partially screened from Bob’s view by one of the broncos and by a freight wagon, but the young cattleman had a fleet
ing impression that he was Bandy Walker. Was he, too, waiting to get a shot at the bandits? Probably so. He had a rifle in his hands. But it struck Dillon he was taking chances. When the robbers came out of the bank they would be within thirty feet of him.

  Out of the front door of the bank a little group of men filed. Two of them were armed. The others flanked them on every side. Ferril the cashier carried a gunnysack heavily loaded.

  A man stepped out upon the platform in front of Platt & Fortner’s. From his position he looked down on the little bunch of men moving toward the horses. Bandy Walker, beside the horses, called on Houck to hurry, that they were being surrounded.

  “I’ve got you covered. Throw down yore guns,” the man on the platform shouted to the outlaws, rifle at shoulder.

  Houck’s revolver flashed into the air. He fired across the shoulder of the man whom he was using as a screen. The rifleman on the store porch sat down suddenly, his weapon clattering to the ground.

  “Another of ’em,” Houck said aloud with a savage oath. “Any one else lookin’ for it?”

  Walker moved forward with the horses. Afraid that general firing would begin at any moment, Ferril dropped the sack and ran for the shelter of the wagons. His flight was a signal for the others who had been marshaled out of the bank. They scattered in a rush for cover.

  Instantly Houck guessed what would follow. From every side a volley of bullets would be concentrated on him and his men. He too ran, dodging back into the bank.

  He was not a tenth part of a second too soon. A fusillade of shots poured down. It seemed that men were firing from every door, window, and street corner. Bandy Walker fell as he started to run. Two bullets tore through his heart, one from each side. The big cowpuncher never stirred from his tracks. He went down at the first volley. Five wounds, any one of which would have been mortal, were later found in his body and head.

  All told, the firing had not lasted as long as it would take a man to run across a street. Bear Cat had functioned. The bank robbers were out of business.

  The news spread quicker than the tongue could tell it. From all directions men, women, and children converged toward the bank. In the excitement the leader of the bandits was forgotten for a minute or two.

  “What about the third fellow?” a voice asked.

  The question came from Dud Hollister. He had reached the scene too late to take any part in the battle, much to his chagrin.

  “Went into the bank,” Blister said. “I s-saw him duck in just before the shooting began.”

  The building was surrounded and rushed. Houck was not inside. Evidently he had run out of the back door and made for the willows by the river. A boy claimed that he had seen a man running in that direction.

  A crowd of armed men beat the willows on both banks for a distance of a mile both up and down the stream wherever there was cover. No trace of the outlaw could be found. Posses on horseback took up the search. These posses not only rode up and down the river. They scoured the mesa on the other bank all day. When night fell Houck was still at large.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XLI

  IN A LADY’S CHAMBER

  The drama of the hold-up and of the retribution that had fallen upon the bandits had moved as swiftly as though it had been rehearsed. There had been no wasted words, no delay in the action. But in life the curtain does not always drop at the right moment. There was anticlimax in Bear Cat after the guns had ceased to boom. In the reaction after the strain the tongues of men and women were loosened. Relief expressed itself in chatter. Everybody had some contributing incident to tell.

  Into the clatter Dud Hollister’s voice cut sharply. “Some one get Doc Tuckerman, quick.”

  He was bending over the wounded man on the platform, trying to stop the flow of blood from a little hole in the side.

  Mollie stepped toward him. “Carry Art into the hotel. I’ll have a bed ready for him time you get there. Anybody else hurt?”

  “Some one said Ferril was shot.”

  “No. He’s all right. There he is over there by the wagons. See? Lookin’ after the gold in the sack.”

  Blister came to the door of the bank in time to hear Mollie’s question. “McCray’s been s-shot—here in the bank.”

  “Bring him in too,” ordered Mollie.

  The wounded men were given first aid and carried into the hotel. There their wounds were dressed by the doctor.

  In the corridor outside Bob and his partner met June coming out of one of the rooms where the invalids had been taken. She was carrying a towel and some bandages.

  “Got to get a move on me,” Dud said. “I got in after the fireworks were over. Want to join Blister’s posse now. You comin’, Bob?”

  “Not now,” Dillon answered.

  He was white to the lips. There was a fear in his mind that he might be going to disgrace himself by getting sick. The nausea had not attacked him until the shooting was over. He was much annoyed at himself, but the picture of the lusty outlaws lying in the dust with the life stricken out of them had been too much.

  “All right. I’ll be hustlin’ along,” Dud said, and went.

  Bob leaned against the wall.

  June looked at him with wise, understanding mother-eyes. “It was kinda awful, wasn’t it? Gave me a turn when I saw them lying there. Must have been worse for you. Did you—hit ..?”

  “No.” He was humiliated at the confession. “I didn’t fire a shot. Couldn’t, somehow. Everybody was blazin’ away at ’em. That’s the kind of nerve I’ve got,” he told her bitterly.

  In her eyes the starlight flashed. “An’ that’s the kind I love. Oh, Bob, I wouldn’t want to think you’d killed either of those poor men, an’ one of them just a boy.”

  “Some one had to do it.”

  “Yes, but not you. And they didn’t have to brag afterward about it, did they? That’s horrible. Everybody going around telling how they shot them. As if it was something to be proud of. I’m so glad you’re not in it. Let the others have the glory if they want it.”

  He tried to be honest about it. “That’s all very well, but they were a bad lot. They didn’t hesitate to kill. The town had to defend itself. No, it was just that I’m such a—baby.”

  “You’re not!” she protested indignantly. “I won’t have you say it, either.”

  His hungry eyes could not leave her, so slim and ardent, all fire and flame. The sweetness of her energy, the grace of the delicate lifted throat curve, the warmth and color of life in her, expressed a spirit generous and fine. His heart sang within him. Out of a world of women she was the one he wanted, the lance-straight mate his soul leaped out to meet.

  “There’s no one like you in the world, June,” he cried. “Nobody in all the world.”

  She flashed at him eyes of alarm. A faint pink, such as flushes the sea at dawn, waved into her cheeks and throat.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said hurriedly. “Mollie’ll be expectin’ me.”

  She was off, light-footed as Daphne, the rhythm of morning in her step.

  All day she carried with her the treasure of his words and the look that had gone with them. Did he think it? Did he really and truly believe it? Her exaltation stayed with her while she waited on table, while she nursed the wounded men, while she helped Chung wash the dishes. It went singing with her into her little bedroom when she retired for the night.

  June sat down before the small glass and looked at the image she saw there. What was it he liked about her? She studied the black crisp hair, the dark eager eyes with the dusky shadows under them in the slight hollows beneath, the glow of red that stained the cheeks below the pigment of the complexion. She tried looking at the reflection from different angles to get various effects. It was impossible for her not to know that she was good to look at, but she had very little vanity about it. None the less it pleased her because it pleased others.

  She let down her long thick hair and combed it. The tresses still had the old tendency of her childhood to snarl un
less she took good care of them. From being on her feet all day the shoes she was wearing were uncomfortable. She slipped them off and returned to the brushing of the hair.

  While craning her neck for a side view June saw in the glass that which drained the blood from her heart. Under the bed the fingers of a hand projected into view. It was like her that in spite of the shock she neither screamed nor ran to the door and cried for help. She went on looking at her counterfeit in the glass, thoughts racing furiously. The hand belonged to a man. She could see that now plainly, could even make out a section of the gauntlet on his wrist. Who was he? What was he doing here in her room?

  She turned in the chair, deliberately, steadying her voice.

  “Better come out from there. I see you,” she said quietly.

  From under the bed Jake Houck crawled.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XLII

  A WALK IN THE PARK

  June was the first to speak. “So you’re here. You didn’t get away.”

  “I’m here,” Houck growled. “No chance for a getaway. I ran out the back door of the bank an’ ducked into the hotel. This was the first door I come to, an’ I headed in.”

  She was not afraid of him. The power he had once held over her was gone forever. The girl had found resources within herself that refused him dominance. He was what he always had been, but she had changed. Her vision was clearer. A game and resourceful bully he might be, but she knew one quiet youth of a far finer courage.

  “They’re lookin’ for you along the river,” she said.

  The muscles of his jaw hardened. “They’d better hope they don’t find me, some of ’em,” he bragged.

  “So had you,” she said significantly.

  He took her meaning instantly. The temper of Bear Cat was on edge for a lynching. “Did they die, either o’ those fellows I shot?” the bandit demanded.

  “Not yet.”