by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER XXIV. PEACEFUL RETURNS
That afternoon when the four-thirty-five rushed in from the parcheddesert and slid to a panting halt beside the station platform, PeacefulHart emerged from the smoker, descended quietly to the blisteringplanks, and nodded through the open window to Miss Georgie at herinstrument taking train orders.
Behind him perspired Baumberger, purple from the heat and the beer withwhich he had sought to allay the discomfort of that searing sunlight.
"Howdy, Miss Georgie?" he wheezed, as he passed the window. "Ever seesuch hot weather in your life? _I_ never did."
Miss Georgie glanced at him while her fingers rattled her key, and itstruck her that Baumberger had lost a good deal of his oily amiabilitysince she saw him last. He looked more flabby and loose-lipped thanever, and his leering eyes were streaked plainly with the red veinswhich told of heavy drinking. She gave him a nod cool enough to lowerthe thermometer several degrees, and scribbled away upon the yellow padunder her hand as if Baumberger had sunk into the oblivion her temperwished for him. She looked up immediately, however, and leaned forwardso that she could see Peaceful just turning to go down the steps.
"Oh, Mr. Hart! Will you wait a minute?" she called clearly above thepuffing of the engine. "I've something for you here. Soon as I get thistrain out--" She saw him stop and turn back to the office, and let it goat that for the present.
"I sure have got my nerve," she observed mentally when the conductorhad signaled the engineer and swung up the steps of the smoker, and thewheels were beginning to clank. All she had for Peaceful Hart in thatoffice was anxiety over his troubles. "Just held him up to pry into hisprivate affairs," she put it bluntly to herself. But she smiled at himbrightly, and waited until Baumberger had gone lumbering with ratheruncertain steps to the store, where he puffed up the steps and satheavily down in the shade where Pete Hamilton was resting after theexcitement of the past thirty-six hours.
"I lied to you, Mr. Hart," she confessed, engagingly. "I haven't a thingfor you except a lot of questions, and I simply must ask them or die.I'm not just curious, you know. I'm horribly anxious. Won't you take theseat of honor, please? The ranch won't run off if you aren't there fora few minutes after you had expected to be. I've been waiting to have alittle talk with you, and I simply couldn't let the opportunity go by."She talked fast, but she was thinking faster, and wondering if thiscalm, white-bearded old man thought her a meddlesome fool.
"There's time enough, and it ain't worth much right now," Peaceful said,sitting down in the beribboned rocker and stroking his beard in hisdeliberate fashion. "It seems to be getting the fashion to be anxious,"he drawled, and waited placidly for her to speak.
"You just about swear by old Baumberger, don't you?" she beganpresently, fiddling with her lead pencil and going straight to the heartof what she wanted to say.
"Well, I dunno. I've kinda learned to fight shy of swearing by anybody,Miss Georgie." His mild blue eyes settled attentively upon her flushedface.
"That's some encouragement, anyhow," she sighed. "Because he's thebiggest old blackguard in Idaho and more treacherous than any Indianever could be if he tried. I just thought I'd tell you, in case youdidn't know it. I'm certain as I can be of anything, that he's at thebottom of this placer-claim fraud, and he's just digging your ranch outfrom under your feet while he wheedles you into thinking he's lookingafter your interests. I'll bet you never got an injunction against thoseeight men," she hazarded, leaning toward him with her eyes sparkling asthe subject absorbed all her thoughts. "I'll bet anything he kept youfiddling around until those fellows all filed on their claims. And nowit's got to go till the case is finally settled in court, because theyare technically within their rights in making lawful improvements ontheir claims.
"Grant," she said, and her voice nearly betrayed her when she spokehis name, "was sure they faked the gold samples they must have used infiling. We both were sure of it. He and the boys tried to catch them atsome crooked work, but the nights have been too dark, for one thing, andthey were always on the watch, and went up to Shoshone in couples, andthere was no telling which two meant to sneak off next. So they have allfiled, I suppose. I know the whole eight have been up--"
"Yes, they've all filed--twenty acres apiece--the best part of theranch. There's a forty runs up over the bluff; the lower line takesin the house and barn and down into the garden where the man they callStanley run his line through the strawberry patch. That forty's mineyet. It's part uh the homestead. The meadowland is most all included.That was a preemption claim." Peaceful spoke slowly, and there was anote of discouragement in his voice which it hurt Miss Georgie to hear.
"Well, they've got to prove that those claims of theirs are lawful, youknow. And if you've got your patent for the homestead--you have gota patent, haven't you?" Something in his face made her fling in thequestion.
"Y-es--or I thought I had one," he answered dryly. "It seems now there'sa flaw in it, and it's got to go back to Washington and be rectified. Itain't legal till that's been done."
Miss Georgie half rose from her chair, and dropped back despairingly."Who found that mistake?" she demanded. "Baumberger?"
"Y-es, Baumberger. He thought we better go over all the papersourselves, so the other side couldn't spring anything on us unawares,and there was one paper that hadn't been made out right. So it had to befixed, of course. Baumberger was real put out about it."
"Oh, of course!" Miss Georgie went to the window to make sure of thegentleman's whereabouts. He was still sitting upon the store porch, andhe was just in the act of lifting a tall, glass mug of beer to his grossmouth when she looked over at him. "Pig!" she gritted under her breath."It's a pity he doesn't drink himself to death." She turned and facedPeaceful anxiously.
"You spoke a while ago as if you didn't trust him implicitly," shesaid. "I firmly believe he hired those eight men to file on your land. Ibelieve he also hired Saunders to watch Grant, for some reason--perhapsbecause Grant has shown his hostility from the first. Did you knowSaunders--or someone--has been shooting at Grant from the top ofthe bluff for--well, ever since you left? The last shot clipped hishat-brim. Then Saunders was shot--or shot himself, according to theinquest--and there has been no more rifle practice with Grant for thetarget."
"N-no, I hadn't heard about that." Peaceful pulled hard at his beard sothat his lips were drawn slightly apart. "I don't mind telling yuh," headded slowly, "that I've got another lawyer working on the case--Black.He hates Baumberger, and he'd like to git something on him. I don'twant Baumberger should know anything about it, though. He takes it forgranted I swallow whole everything he says and does--but I don't. Not bya long shot. Black'll ferret out any crooked work."
"He's a dandy if he catches Baumberger," Miss Georgie averred, gloomily."I tried a little detective work on my own account. I hadn't any right;it was about the cipher messages Saunders used to send and receiveso often before your place was jumped. I was dead sure it was oldBaumberger at the other end, and I--well, I struck up a mild sort offlirtation with the operator at Shoshone." She smiled deprecatingly atPeaceful.
"I wanted to find out--and I did by writing a nice letter or two;we have to be pretty cute about what we send over the wires," sheexplained, "though we do talk back and forth quite a lot, too. There wasa news-agent and cigar man--you know that kind of joint, where theysell paper novels and magazines and tobacco and such--getting Saunders'messages. Jim Wakely is his name. He told the operator that he andSaunders were just practicing; they were going to be detectives, hesaid, and rigged up a cipher that they were learning together so theywouldn't need any codebook. Pretty thin that--but you can't prove itwasn't the truth. I managed to find out that Baumberger buys cigars andpapers of Jim Wakely sometimes; not always, though."
Miss Georgie laughed ruefully, and patted her pompadour absent-mindedly.
"So all I got out of that," she finished, "was a correspondence I couldvery well do without. I've been trying to quarrel with that operatorever since, but he's so dar
ned easy-tempered!" She went and looked outof the window again uneasily.
"He's guzzling beer over there, and from the look of him he's had a gooddeal more than he needs already," she informed Peaceful. "He'll burstif he keeps on. I suppose I shouldn't keep you any longer--he's lookingthis way pretty often, I notice; nothing but the beer-keg holds him, Iimagine. And when he empties that--" She shrugged her shoulders, and satdown facing Hart.
"Maybe you could bribe Jim Wakely into giving something away," shesuggested. "I'd sure like to see Baumberger stub his toe in this deal!Or maybe you could get around one of those eight beauties you've gotcamping down on your ranch--but there isn't much chance of that; heprobably took good care to pick clams for that job. And Saunders," sheadded slowly, "is eternally silent. Well, I hope in mercy you'll be ableto catch him napping, Mr. Hart."
Peaceful rose stiffly,--and took up his hat from where he had laid it onthe table.
"I ain't as hopeful as I was a week ago," he admitted mildly. "Put ifthere's any justice left in the courts, I'll save the old ranch. My wifeand I worked hard to make it what it is, and my boys call it home. Wecan't save it by anything but law. Fightin' would only make a badmatter worse. I'm obliged to yuh, Miss Georgie, for taking such aninterest--and I'll tell Black about Jim Wakely."
"Don't build any hopes on Jim," she warned. "He probably doesn't knowanything except that he sent and received messages he couldn't read anysense into."
"Well--there's always a way out, if we can find it. Come down and seeus some time. We still got a house to invite our friends to." He smileddrearily at her, gave a little, old-fashioned bow, and went over tojoin Baumberger--and to ask Pete Hamilton for the use of his team andbuckboard.
Miss Georgie, keeping an uneasy vigil over everything that moved in thebarren portion of Hartley which her window commanded, saw Pete get upand start listlessly toward the stable; saw Peaceful sit down to wait;and then Pete drove up with the rig, and they started for the ranch.She turned with a startled movement to the office door, because she feltthat she was being watched.
"How, Hagar, and Viney, and Lucy," she greeted languidly when she sawthe three squaws sidle closer, and reached for a bag of candy for them.
Hagar's greasy paw stretched out greedily for the gift, and placed it injealous hiding beneath her blanket, but she did not turn to go, asshe most frequently did after getting what she came for. Instead, shewaddled boldly into the office, her eyes searching cunningly everycorner of the little room. Viney and Lucy remained outside, passivelywaiting. Hagar twitched at something under her blanket, and held out herhand again; this time it was not empty.
"Ketchum sagebrush," she announced laconically. "Mebbyso yo' like forbuy?"
Miss Georgie stared fixedly at the hand, and said nothing. Hagar drew itunder her blanket, held it fumbling there, and thrust it forth again.
"Ketchum where ketchum hair," she said, and her wicked old eyes twinkledwith malice. "Mebbyso yo' like for buy?"
Miss Georgie still stared, and said nothing. Her under lip was caughttightly between her teeth by now, and her eyebrows were pulled closetogether.
"Ketchum much track, same place," said Hagar grimly. "Good Injun makeumtrack all same boot. Seeum Good Injun creep, creep in bushes, all timeMan-that-coughs be heap kill. Yo' buy hair, buy knife, mebbyso me notell me seeum Good Injun. Me tell, Good Injun go for jail; mebbysokillum rope." She made a horrible gesture of hanging by the neck.Afterward she grinned still more horribly. "Ketchum plenty mo' dolla, meno tell, mebbyso."
Miss Georgie felt blindly for her chair, and when she touched it shebacked and sank into it rather heavily. She looked white and sick, andHagar eyed her gloatingly.
"Yo' no like for Good Injun be killum rope," she chuckled. "Yo' all timethinkum heap bueno. Mebbyso yo' love. Yo' buy? Yo' payum much dolla?"
Miss Georgie passed a hand slowly over her eyes. She felt numb, and shecould not think, and she must think. A shuffling sound at the door madeher drop her hand and look up, but there was nothing to lighten heroppressive sense of danger to Grant. Another squaw had appeared, wasall. A young squaw, with bright-red ribbons braided into her shiningblack hair, and great, sad eyes brightening the dull copper tint of herface.
"You no be 'fraid," she murmured shyly to Miss Georgie, and stoppedwhere she was just inside the door. "You no be sad. No trouble come GoodInjun. I friend."
Hagar turned, and snarled at her in short, barking words which MissGeorgie could not understand. The young squaw folded her arms inside herbright, plaid shawl, and listened with an indifference bordering closelyon contempt, one would judge from her masklike face. Hagar turned fromberating her, and thrust out her chin at Miss Georgie.
"I go. Sun go 'way, mebbyso I come. Mebbyso yo' heart bad. Me ketchummuch dolla yo', me no tellum, mebbyso. No ketchum, me tell sheriff mansGood Injun all time killum Man-that-coughs." Turning, she waddled out,jabbing viciously at the young squaw with her elbow as she passed, andspitting out some sort of threat or command--Miss Georgie could not tellwhich.
The young squaw lingered, still gazing shyly at Miss Georgie.
"You no be 'fraid," she repeated softly. "I friend. I take care. Notrouble come Good Injun. I no let come. You no be sad." She smiledwistfully, and was gone, as silently as moved her shadow before her onthe cinders.
Miss Georgie stood by the window with her fingernails making little redhalf-moons in her palms, and watched the three squaws pad out of sighton the narrow trail to their camp, with the young squaw following after,until only a black head could be seen bobbing over the brow of the hill.When even that was gone, she turned from the window, and stood for along minute with her hands pressed tightly over her face. She wastrying to think, but instead she found herself listening intently to themonotonous "Ah-h-CHUCK! ah-h-CHUCK!" of the steam pump down the track,and to the spasmodic clicking of an order from the dispatcher to thepassenger train two stations to the west.
When the train was cleared and the wires idle, she went suddenly to thetable, laid her fingers purposefully upon the key, and called up herchief. It was another two hours' leave of absence she asked for "onurgent business." She got it, seasoned with a sarcastic reminder thather business was supposed to be with the railroad company, and that shewould do well to cultivate exactness of expression and a taste for herduties in the office.
She was putting on her hat even while she listened to the message, andshe astonished the man at the other end by making no retortwhatever. She almost ran to the store, and she did not ask Pete for asaddle-horse; she just threw her office key at him, and told him she wasgoing to take his bay, and she was at the stable before he closed themouth he had opened in amazement at her whirlwind departure.