CHAPTER XXVII
JIMMIE SQUARES HIMSELF
A horseman was riding toward him upon the far bank of the Big LittleRiver where it straightened out beyond the cabin. He recognized thehorse and a moment later the rider now waving his hat to him, and knewthat it was Two-Hand Billy Comstock returning. He turned and rode slowlyto meet the officer.
"Back already, Comstock?" he called carelessly. "What luck?"
"Bully luck," grinned Comstock, replacing his hat and looking as freshand well groomed as though he were but this minute up from bed and along sleep. "First let me tell you the news." He slipped his hand intohis breast pocket and took out an envelope. "More mail for you,Thornton! You're doing a big correspondence, it seems to me!"
In spite of him a quick flush ran up to Thornton's brow. For his firstthought was that Winifred Waverly....
"Wrong guess, Buck," chuckled Comstock, his good humour seeminglyflowing from an inexhaustible source. "It's from a man."
"Who?" demanded Thornton sharply, putting out his hand.
Comstock's amusement welled up into open laughter.
"It's a prime joke of the Fates," he cried cheerfully. "Here is WilliamComstock, United States Deputy Marshal, carrying a message from no lessa person than Jimmie Clayton, jail bird, crook and murderer! A manwanted in two states!"
"Clayton!" said Thornton in amazement. "You don't mean to tell me...."
"Oh, he'd never seen me, you know. Nor I him. But then I've seen hispicture more than once and I know all about him. He's keeping low but hetook a chance on me. I was just a whiskey drummer last night, you know,and happened to let it out that I was riding this way this morning on myway to Dry Town. So Jimmie slipped me the letter! Read it."
Thornton took it, wondering. The envelope was sealed and much soiledwhere Jimmie Clayton's hand had closed the mucilaged flap. He tore itopen and read almost at a glance:
Deere buck come the same place tonight I want to put you wise. Theare issum danger to you buck. Keap your eyes open on the way. I will be therelate tonight.
j.C.
Thornton looked up to see the twinkling eyes of Two-Hand Billy Comstockwatching him.
"You had better tell me what he says," said Comstock coolly. "I don'tknow but that I should have been well within my rights to open it, eh?But I hate to open another man's private mail."
Thornton hesitated.
He must not forget that Comstock was an officer--that even now he wasupon a state errand--that it was his duty to bring such men as JimmieClayton to justice. He must not forget that Clayton had been a friend tohim--or, at least, that he had credited the crook with a feeling offriendship and the care of a friend.
True, Comstock, who seemed to know everything, had said in amatter-of-fact way that it had been Jimmie Clayton who had shot him thatnight between Juarez and El Paso. But nothing was proven. He had longthought of Clayton as a man to whom he owed a debt of gratitude, and nowwith the man, hunted as he was, his sympathy naturally went out to him,evil-doer as he knew him to be.
Evidently Comstock read what was passing in the cowboy's mind.
"I'm not asking you to squeal on him, Buck," he said quietly. "Lookhere, I could have taken him in last night if I had wanted to. I couldhave got him a week ago if I had wanted him. But I didn't want him--Idon't want him now. I'm hunting bigger game."
Still Thornton hesitated, but now his hesitation was brief. He swung hishorse around toward the cabin.
"Let's ride back, Comstock," he said shortly. "I want a good long talkwith you."
Not another word about the matter did either man say as they unsaddledor as they went up the knoll to the cabin. Not a word until thefragrance of boiling coffee and frying bacon went out to mingle with thefreshness of the new day. Then as they sat at table and Comstock beganto soak the biscuits Thornton had made in the bacon gravy, they lookedat each other, and their eyes were alike grave and equally stern.
"First thing," began Comstock, "let me finish my news. Charley Bedloewas murdered last night."
"I know."
"The devil you do? All right. Then here's something else. His brother,the Kid, they call him, swears that you killed him."
"I know," nodded Thornton as quietly as before.
Comstock made no pretence of hiding his surprise.
"I thought you had left before the shooting happened. I was all overtown; no one saw you...."
"Except the Kid. He did. He saw me outside the window through whichsomebody shot Charley."
Comstock returned his attention to his biscuit and gravy.
"I'm a failure as a news monger," he grunted. "Go on. You tell _me_."
And Thornton told him. Before he had finished Comstock had pushed backhis chair and was letting his coffee go cold. For Thornton had told himnot alone of what had happened at the Here's How Saloon last night, butof the work that Broderick and Pollard were doing, of all of hiscertainties and his suspicions, of the "planted" evidence he had foundin the hay loft, of the missing saddle. Only he did not mention the nameof a girl, and he remembered that Pollard was her uncle and spared himwhere he could.
"What a game! By high heaven, what a game!" Comstock pursed his lipsinto a long whistle. Then he banged his first down upon the table, hiseyes grown wonderfully bright and keen, crying softly, "I've got him,I've got him at last, and he's going to pay to the uttermost for all hehas done in the last seven years ... and before! Got him--by thunder!"
"Pollard?" asked the cowboy quickly.
"No. Not Pollard."
"Then Broderick?"
"Not Broderick."
"Bedloe?... The Kid?"
"What does his name matter? I'll give him a dozen names when the timecomes, and by heaven he's got a crime to pay for for every name he everwore!"
He grew suddenly silent and sat staring out through the open door at thedistant mountains. At last he turned back toward Thornton, his eyes veryclear, his expression placid.
"Guess why they are waiting five days more before springing their mine?"he asked abruptly.
"Yes. I figured it out a little while ago, after I found the truck in myloft. In five days it'll be the first of the month. On the first of themonth the stage from the Rock Creek Mines will be worth holding up. Itcarried in ten thousand dollars last month. At times, there has been alot more. Just as sure as a hen lays eggs, it is due to be robbed on thefirst; they'll find something here to prove I was the hold up man, andI...."
"And you go over the road for life or take a drop at the end of a rope?And they quit being badmen and buy ranches? That it?"
"That's it. It's a gamble, but...."
"But it's a damned good gamble," laughed Comstock softly. "You ought tobe sheriff, Buck."
But Buck, thinking of how blind to all this he had been so long, how noteven now would he have his eyes open were it not for a girl, longed withan intense longing for the end of this thing when she might be free togo from the house of a man like Henry Pollard, when he might be free togo to her and...
"How does it happen," he asked suddenly, "that you are not after JimmieClayton?"
"When I'm out for a big grizzily," returned Comstock, "I can't waste mytime on little brown bears! That's one thing. Another is that JimmieClayton never had a chance of getting away. If he lives ten days he'llbe nabbed, and he won't live ten days. He's shot to pieces and he's sickon top of it. I told you last night the poor devil is a fool and a toolrather than a real badman. If he's got a chance to die quietly, why lethim die outside of jail. It's all one in the end."
Thornton had always felt a sort of pity for Jimmie Clayton; it hadalways seemed to him that the poor devil was merely one of the weakervessels that go down the stream of life, borne this way and that by thecurrent that sweeps them on, with little enough chance from thebeginning, having come warped and misshapen from the hands of thepotter. And now Jimmie was about to die. Well, whether it had beenJimmie Clayton or another who had shot him that night down in Texas, hewould heed the entreaty of the letter and go to
him for the last time.
So that night, when darkness came, Thornton left Comstock at the cabinand rode out towards the mountains, towards the Poison Hole and thedugout at its side.
It was dark, but not so dark as last night, there being no clouds toblot out the stars. And the moon was slipping upward through the treesupon the mountain top when Thornton came at last to the lake. As before,he was watchful and alert. Clayton was Kid Bedloe's friend, and Claytonhad always struck him as a man in whom one could put little faith. Itwas quite in keeping with what he knew that Jimmie's note had beenwritten at the instigation of Kid Bedloe himself and that he was to beled out here where Kid Bedloe and Ed might be in waiting for him. It wasquite possible, even probable. But he thought it more than likely thatfor once Jimmie Clayton was acting in good faith.
The Jimmie Clayton whom he found alone a little after moonrise was verymuch as he had found him that other night. The fugitive lay upon thebunk in the darkness of the dugout, and only when he was assured that itwas Buck Thornton come to him did he light his stub of candle. As beforeThornton entered and closed the door after him to look down on the manwith a sharp twinge of pity.
"How're they coming, Jimmie?" he asked gently.
"Can't you see?" replied Clayton with a nervous laugh. "I'm all in,Buck. All in."
If ever a man looked to be "all in" it was poor little Jimmie Clayton.He threw back his coat for Thornton to see. There upon the side was thestain of blood hardly dry upon the shirt. His eyes were hollow, sunken,fever-filled, his cheeks unthinkably drawn, yellow-white and sickly, thehand which fell back weakly from the exertion of opening his coat showedthe bones thrust up as though they would pierce the skin.
"You've been shot again?" demanded the cowboy.
Jimmie shook his head.
"The same ol' hole, Buck; Colt forty-five. It won't heal up, it breaksout all the time. I can't sleep with it, I can't eat, I can't setstill." He had begun manfully, but now the little whimper came backinto his voice, his shaking hand gripped Thornton's arm feebly, and hecried tremulously, "I wisht I was dead, Buck. Hones' to Gawd, I wisht Iwas dead!"
"Poor little old Jimmie," Thornton muttered just as he had muttered thewords once before, gently, pityingly. "Is there anything I can do,Jimmie."
Jimmie drew back his hand and lay still for a little, his eyes seemingunnaturally large as he turned them upwards, filled at once with a sortof defiance and an abject, cringing terror.
"Nothin'," he said a little sullenly. His eyes dropped and ran to thefingers of his hand which were plucking nervously at his coat. He partedhis lips as though he would say something else and then closed themtightly; even his eyes shut tight for a moment. Thornton watched him,waiting. It was easy to see that Jimmie Clayton had upon the tip of histongue something he wished to say, and that he hesitated ... throughfear?
"What is it, Jimmie?" Thornton asked after a while.
Jimmie lifted his head quickly, his eyes flew open with a look in themalmost of defiance as he blurted out:
"Do you know who shot you ... that time down in Juarez?"
"Was it you, Jimmie?" asked Thornton.
Jimmie's eyes grew larger; all defiance fled from them and the terrorcame back.
"You ... you think ..." he faltered. "You thought all along...."
"Was it you, Jimmie?"
The voice was soft, the eyes gentle and now a little smile accompaniedthe words. It was so easy to forget what had happened so long ago, todisregard it when one looked into this man's eyes and saw there the endof the earthly story of a man who had not been a good man because he hadnever had a chance, who had never really earned his spurs as a Westernbadman, because he was of too small calibre, who was after all a vesselthat had come imperfect from the hands of the potter. Now Jimmieanswered, his voice hushed, his eyes wide, his soul filled withwonderment:
"It was ... me, Buck!"
"Well, Jimmie, I'm sorry. But it can't be helped now, can it? And I'llforget it if you will." He looked at the worn, frail form, and knew thatComstock was right and that little Jimmie Clayton was lying in thevalley of the shadow of death. So he added, his voice very low and verygentle, "I'll even shake hands if you will, Jimmie."
Jimmie closed his eyes but not quick enough to hide the mistiness whichhad rushed into them. His breathing was irregular and heavy, its soundbeing the only sound in the dugout. He did not put out his hand.Finally, his voice steadier than it had been before, he spoke again.
"You've been square with me, Buck. I want to be square withyou.... There's a frame-up to get you. Now don't stop me an' I'll talkas fast as I can. It hurts me to talk much." He pressed a thin hand uponhis side, paused a moment, and then went on.
"I think Broderick's the man as has been putting over most of thestick-ups around here for quite some time. Him and Pollard in together.I ain't squealin' on a pal when I tell you this, neither," with a littleflash of his old defiance. "Broderick's no pal of mine. The dirty cur.He could of got me clear.... He wanted to make 'em give me up, to gitthe reward.... Their game is to make folks think you been doing thesethings, and to send you up for 'em."
He stopped to rest, but even now did not look to see what effect hiswords had upon his hearer.
"I don't know much about it," he went on after a moment. "You can findout. But I do know they stole a saddle of yours, and a horse. They'regoing to stick up the stage out of Rock Creek Mines next week; there'sgoing to be some shooting, and a horse is going to get killed. That'llbe your horse, Buck. An' it'll have your saddle on."
He had told his story. He told nothing of how he knew, and Thornton didnot press him, for he guessed swiftly that somehow the telling wouldimplicate Kid Bedloe, who was a pal... and little Jimmie Clayton was notgoing to squeal on a pal.
Half an hour after he had come to the dugout Thornton left it. ForClayton would not talk further and would not let him stay.
"I got a horse out there," he had said irritably. "I can get along. I'mgoing to move on in the morning. So long, Buck."
So Thornton went back to his horse, wondering if, when tomorrow came,Jimmie Clayton would not indeed be moving on, moving on like little Joto the land where men will be given an even break, where they will be"given their chance." His foot was in the stirrup when he heardClayton's voice calling. He went back into the dugout. The light was outand it was very dark.
"What is it, Jimmie?" he asked.
"I was thinking, Buck," came the halting answer, "that ... if you don'tcare ... I _will_ shake hands."
Thornton put out his hand a little eagerly and his strong fingers closedtightly upon the thin nervous fingers of Jimmie Clayton. Then he wentout without speaking.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SHOW DOWN
Upon the first day of the month the stage leaving the Rock Creek Minesin the early morning carried a certain long, narrow lock-box carefullybestowed under the seat whereon sat Hap Smith and the guard. Also asingle passenger: a swarthy little man with ink-black hair plastereddown close upon a low, atavistic forehead and with small ink-black eyes.In Dry Town beyond the mountains, to which he was evidently nowreturning from the mines, he was known as Blackie, bartender of the LastChance saloon. This morning he had been abroad as early as the earliest;he seemed to take a bright interest in everything, from the harnessingof the four horses to the taking on of mail bags and boxes. In a momentwhen Hap Smith, before the mine superintendent's cabin, was rolling acigarette preparatory to the long drive, Blackie even stepped forwardbriskly and gave the guard a hand with the long, narrow lock-box.
Keen eyed and watchful as Blackie was he failed to see a man who neverlost sight of him or of the stage until it rolled out of the mining campthrough the early morning. The man, unusually tall, wearing black shaggychaps, grey soft shirt and neck-handkerchief and a large black hat,kept the stage in view from around the corner of the wood shed standingback of the superintendent's cabin. Then, swinging up to the back of arangy granite-coloured roan, he turned into the road.
"We're pla
ying to win this time, Comet," he said softly. "And, as wesaid all along, Blackie's the capper for their game. Shake a foot,Comet, old boy. Maybe at the end of a hard day's work we'll look inon ... her."
When, an hour later, the stage made its brief stop in Miller's Flat totake on mail bags Blackie was leaning out smoking a cigar and lookingabout him alertly. A lounger near the post-office door turned to watch ingreat seeming idleness. His eyes met the bartender's for a second and henodded casually.
"How's everything?" he asked in the customary inconsequential manner ofcasual acquaintanceship.
"Fine," said Blackie in a tone of equal casualness. "Couldn't bebetter."
The stranger slouched on his way, climbed into the saddle of the horsehe had left by the door, and rode off.... And Buck Thornton, from thebend in the road where he had halted Comet under a big live oak tree,noted how the horseman rode on his spurs when once he had passed fromthe sight of the stage driver.
"Taking the Red Canon trail," he marked with satisfaction. "Carrying theword to Broderick and Pollard that there's been no slip-up and that thebox is really aboard. And now.... Shake a foot, Comet; here's where weput one over on Blackie."
The man who had passed the time of day with the saloon man haddisappeared over a ridge and out of sight; Thornton consequently rodeswiftly to overtake the stage. Before the four running horses had drawnthe creaking wagon after them a half mile Hap Smith stopped his horsesin answer to the shout from behind him and stared over his shoulderwonderingly.
"What the hell ..." he began. And then with a shade of relief in histone and yet half hesitatingly, the frown still on his face as Thorntonrode close up, "It's you, is it? I thought for a minute...."
"That it was Broderick?" laughed Thornton. "You didn't think so, didyou, Blackie?"
Blackie drew back and slipped his hand covertly into his coat pocket.Thornton, giving no sign that he had seen, said briefly to Hap Smith:
"You've talked things over with Banker Templeton? And with Comstock?"
"Yes," said Hap Smith, his thick, squat figure growing tense where hesat as though with a sudden nervous bracing within. "Yes."
"And you expected me here? You will give me a free hand?"
"Yes," cried Smith ringingly. "Damn 'em, yes. Go to it, Buck!"
Thornton turned stern eyes upon Blackie.
"I can shoot twelve holes through you before you get your hand out ofyour pocket," he said crisply. "You damned stool-pigeon! Now, supposeyou pull your hand out ... _empty_! ... and stick it up high above yourhead. Think it over, Blackie, before you take any fool chances."
His left hand held Comet's reins gathered up close as he spoke; hisright rested lightly on the horn of his saddle. Blackie plainlyhesitated; a tinge of red warmed his swarthy cheek; his eyes glitteredevilly.... Then suddenly he whipped out his hand, a revolver in it....
But Thornton, for all of the handicap, fired first. His own right handwent its swift, sure way to the gun swinging loose in its holster underhis left arm pit; he jabbed it forward even as he swung himself to oneside in the saddle, and fired. The revolver slipped from Blackie's handand clattered down to the bed of the wagon while Blackie, crying outchokingly, his face going white with fear, clutched at his shoulder andgave up the fight.
With scant time allowed in their plans to waste on such as Blackie hewas made to lie down in the bottom of the wagon, his wrists bound, hiswound very rudely bandaged, his body screened from any chance view bythe boxes and mail bags and a handkerchief jammed into his mouth. Withinten minutes Hap Smith was clattering on, his and the guard's mouths andeyes grim and hard, and Thornton had again dropped behind, just out ofsight around the first bend in the road.
"And now, my boy," muttered Hap Smith to his friend the guard, "keepboth eyes peeled and your trigger-finger free. Hell's goin' to pop inconsiderable less'n no time."
Nor was the stage driver unduly pessimistic. Half an hour after Blackiehad gone down among boxes and bags the lumbering vehicle thundered intoone of the many deep gorges through which the narrow road wound. Herewas a sharp turn and a bit of steep grade to take on the run if thestage were to keep to schedule time. But suddenly and with a curse fromSmith and a sharp exclamation from the guard, Hap slammed on his brake.A newly fallen pine tree, three feet thick, lay across the road.
The guard's rifle was ready in his hands; in a flash Hap Smith haddropped his reins so that they were held only by the ring caught overthe little hook at the back of the seat and had whipped out his own bigugly revolver. His eyes ran this way and that; in his soul he knew wellenough that no mere bit of chance had thrown the obstruction across hisway. But never a head nor an arm nor a rifle barrel rewarded his look.Until, suddenly, heralded by a curt shouted command, a man rode out intothe open road from the mouth of a canon.
"Don't be a fool, Smith! Take a little look-around first!"
It was a voice eminently cool and steady and insolent. Though his gunrose slowly Hap Smith heeded the note of arrogance and, with a hardfinger crooking to the trigger, looked about him again. And this timenot in vain. Yonder, from across the top of a boulder, a rifle barrelbore unwaveringly upon the breadth of his chest; ten feet higher up onthe mountainside where there was a pile of granite rocks and a handfulof scrub brush, a second rifle gave its sinister silent warning; twoother guns looked forth from the other side of the road ... in all, atleast five armed men....
Hap Smith's eyes went back to the man sitting his horse in the middle ofthe road, just across the fallen pine tree. A tall, powerfully built mandressed quite as Hap Smith and the guard had been told to expect: black,shaggy chaps, grey shirt and neck-handkerchief; broad black hat; redbandana across his face with wide slits for the eyes. And yet both ofthe men in the stage stared and were on the verge of uncertainty; hadthey not been prepared both would have sworn that it was Buck Thorntonon Buck Thornton's horse; and later they would, no doubt, have sworn toBuck Thornton's saddle.
Five to two, seemed the odds, with all of the highwaymen saving the onebold figure screened from view and so holding the advantage of position.And yet, for once, the odds were not what they seemed.
For now there came abruptly, and utterly with no sign of warning, theanswer to the last big play of Ben Broderick and Henry Pollard and therest. Into the road out of the same canon from which the masked man onthe horse had come now rode two more men, side by side and with athunderous racket of pounding hoofs beating at rocky soil, their headsup, their faces unhidden, their eyes hard and bright and their righthands lifted a little. Two-Hand Billy Comstock and Buck Thornton, comeat the top speed of a swinging gallop to alter the odds and take a hand.And as Thornton's horse's hoofs struck in the dust of the road and themasked rider swung about, startled in the moment of his supreme arrogantconfidence, it looked to those who saw as if there came Buck Thornton onone big grey horse racing down upon another Buck Thornton on that biggrey's mate. With but a hundred yards between them....
"Pull the rag off your face, Broderick!" shouted Thornton savagely.
And oddly enough Ben Broderick, with a swift realization that a bandanahiding his face now could no longer befriend him and might flap acrosshis eyes at a time when he should see straight and quick, yanked itaway. And with the same gesture, he jerked his lifted gun down andstarted firing, straight at Thornton.
Of the five rifles trained upon those in the stage not a one was silentnow. Hap Smith jumped to his feet and fired as fast as he could work thetrigger; the man at his side leaped down into the road, crouched at thewagon wheel and poured shot after shot into the brush whence he had seenthe muzzles of two guns. Before Ben Broderick's pistol had broken thesilence Buck Thornton had fired from the hip; and Two-Hand BillyComstock, his reins on his saddle horn, was freshening his right to histitle, firing with one gun after the other in regular, mechanicalfashion.
Hap Smith was the first man down; he toppled, steadied himself, firedagain and collapsed, sliding down against the dash board and thence tothe ground. His horses had plunged, leaped and in
a tangle of strainingharness tugged this way and that a moment and then with the stagejerking and toppling after them went down over a six-foot bank and intothe thicket of willows along the creek bed. With them went Blackie, hisface showing a moment, grey with fear....
Hap Smith, alive simply because the trampling horses had whirled theother way, lifted himself a half dozen inches from the road bed,struggled with his gun and fainted.... The guard saw a head exposed frombehind a tree and sent a 30-30 rifle ball crashing through it; on theinstant another bullet from another quarter compacted with his own bodyand he went down, shot through the shoulder....
Thornton's eyes were for Ben Broderick alone. And, it would seem,Broderick's for Thornton. But in their expressions there was nothing ofsimilarity; in Thornton's was a stern readiness to mete out punishmentwhile from Broderick's there looked forth a sudden furtiveness, afeverish desire for escape.
Broderick had never drawn to himself the epithet of coward. But now heknew what he was doing, where wisdom pointed and what was his onechance. There was still a good fifty yards between him and the man whorode down upon him, a long shot for a revolver when the horses whichboth men bestrode were rearing and plunging wildly. Broderick bentforward suddenly, whirled his horse, drove his spurs deep into thegrey's sides and in a flash had cleared the fallen log, shot around thebend in the road and, taking his desperate chance with all of the cooldefiance of danger which was a part of the man, sent his mount leapingdown the steepening bank, into the willow thicket and on across.Shouting mightily and wrathfully, after him came Buck Thornton. ButBroderick had the few yards' headstart and, for the moment his destinywas with him. Thornton saw only a thicket of willows wildly disturbed asBroderick went threshing through them and knew that for the present atleast Broderick was beyond pursuit.
Swinging about angrily he rode back to join Comstock. Already the battlethere in the canon was over, the smell of powder was gone from the stillair, the last reverberating echo of a shot had died away. And in theroad lay three men, two of them severely wounded while the other wasalready dead. Stooping over this man, a queer look in his eyes, stoodComstock.
"I hankered to bring him in alive," he muttered. "But, after all it'sjust as well. And it had to be him or me."
"Pollard?" asked Thornton quickly. But Comstock shook his head. ThenThornton, riding close, looking down from the saddle, saw the whiteupturned face. This time as his eyes came back to Comstock, Comstocknodded.
"Cole Dalton, sheriff," he said gravely. "Yes. And he's the man I cameall this way to gather in, Buck. I've been after him for seven years,never guessing until lately that he was out here working the old HenryPlummer game of sheriff and badman at the same time. He's kept undercover, that being always his way; you'd never have thought that Pollard,Broderick, Bedloe were all tools.... But, I got him, Buck. At last."
A moment only Thornton stared incredulously. Then his shoulders twitchedas though this was a matter which could not concern him at present andhe had other things to think of.
"Pollard?" he asked shortly.
"Over yonder." Comstock nodded toward the patch of brush on themountainside. "Shot through the head."
"And the others? One was the Kid, wasn't it?..."
But now the Kid answered for himself. He rose to his knees among thestunted manzanita bushes not twenty steps from them and for a momentknelt there, his big bulky body wavering as he tried to bring his rifleto rest at his shoulder, his eyes peering out wildly from a bloodsmeared face. But his gesture was awkward and slow and uncertain; hewas too badly hurt to shoot straight or quick, and Thornton, swift andsure and yet merciful withal, was before him. The Kid's rifle clatteredto the ground; the Kid's left arm, the bone broken, dropped uselessly tohis side. He tried to steady the gun with his one good arm alone, but itshook hopelessly. He dropped it and turned bloodshot eyes on Thornton.
"Damn you," he said tonelessly. "Better do a clean job, youwhite-livered coward, or I'll see you hang yet for killin' Charlie...."
"I was outside when he was shot," said Thornton coolly. "I saw just asmuch as you did. Somebody shot him from behind me."
"Liar!" jeered Bedloe. "An'..."
"Don't be a fool, Bedloe," snapped Comstock. "The man you want is thesame man we want; only the other day he had a quarrel with Charlie andgot a bullet alongside the head...."
"Not Ben Broderick!" gasped the Kid stupidly. "Not him!"
"I think your little friend Jimmie Clayton knew," said Comstock. "Andyou ought to know that Thornton isn't that kind."
With widening eyes the Kid stared at him. At last he got again to hisknees; finally and shakily to his feet.
"Jimmie tol' me to watch him," he muttered thickly. "An' him an' Charliedid have words...."
He stared at them stupidly, hesitated, pondered the matter. Then heturned and went lumbering down the road. Comstock, stepping forwardswiftly, called out:
"I say, Bedloe! None of that...."
But Bedloe neither turned again nor paused. Thornton's hand shut downhard on Comstock's arm.
"He's going after Broderick," he said sharply. "Don't you see? He'llknow where Broderick is. And we don't. Besides ... I don't know just whywe should stop him.... If Broderick did kill Charlie...."
Comstock went back to administer to Hap Smith and the guard. Thorntonwatched the Kid go to a horse hidden in a clump of trees; then as Bedloerode down into the road and passed on whither it led, sittingslumped-forward and seeming at each step about to fall, Thornton rodeafter him. The Kid did not so much as look around; perhaps it matteredto him not in the least just then who followed or how many ... so thatthey left him to ride on ahead....
It was straight into the town of Dead Man's Alley that the Kid's wayled. The high sun glared down into a deserted street when he and BuckThornton, a hundred yards behind him, passed by the Here's How saloonand the Brown Bear and at last drew rein at Henry Pollard's gate. Acouple of men at the lunch counter stared curiously after the Kid; theyeven got down hastily from their high stools and stared more curiouslystill when they saw who it was who followed.
"They've rode hard, them two," said one of the men thoughtfully. "Theirhorses is all in."
"The Kid ahead an' Buck Thornton followin'!" grunted the other musingly."An' the Kid never lookin' around!"
He shook his head and, long after both of the riders had passed out ofsight down the crooked street these two men looked after themwonderingly.
At Pollard's gate the Kid dismounted stiffly. Now for the first timeThornton came up to him.
"If you think Broderick's in there," he said sharply, "you'd better letme go ahead. You're in no shape, Bedloe...."
"You go to hell," said Bedloe heavily. "He's mine."
He stepped forward and pulled open the gate. Here he paused just longenough to drag his revolver from the holster at his hip. With the weaponin his hand, swaying in his long-strided walk, he went to Pollard'sfront door. Just behind him, almost at his heels, came Thornton.
As he tried the door cautiously the Kid looked over his shoulder with ashow of teeth.
"He's mine," he snarled again. "You keep your hands off."
Thornton offered no answer. The Kid, having ascertained that the doorwas locked, drew back, steadied himself with his hand against the wall,lifted his foot and with all of the power in him drove his heavy bootagainst the lock. Something broke; the panel splintered; the door gavea little. But only a little; the heavy bar which Henry Pollard used wasin its place.
"Again," said Thornton. "Together!... Quick!"
So together Buck Thornton and Kid Bedloe, two men who had long hatedeach other, struck savagely at Pollard's barricade. And such was theweight of the two men, such the power resident in the two big bodies,that a hinge gave and after it an iron socket screwed to the wall wastorn away from the woodwork, and the door went down.
Gathering all there was of strength left in him Kid Bedloe pushed to thefore and went down the hall; and Thornton followed at his heels. In thisfashion they came to the do
or of Pollard's study and saw through it,since it had been flung wide open and so left.
In a far corner of the room was Winifred Waverly, her face dead white,her body pressed tight into the angle of the walls, her hands twistingbefore her, her eyes going swiftly to the two entering figures from thatother figure which had held her fascinated. Upon the floor, just rising,knelt Ben Broderick. He had tossed a rug aside and had lifted out theshort sections of half a dozen strips of flooring, disclosing a rudewooden vault below. Here was the accumulation of loot, here where theKid had known Broderick was to be found.
For a very brief yet electrically vital and vivid moment there was nosound in the room, wherein never a single muscle twitched. And thenthere were no words and only three sharp pistol shots. Broderick hadseen what lay in the Kid's eye, a look to be read by any man; he hadsnatched his gun up from the floor beside him and had fired, pointblank. There is no name for the brief fragment of time between his shotand the Kid's. But Ben Broderick had shot true to the mark, and the Kidwas sinking; Bedloe's bullet had gone wide.... And then the third shot,Thornton's ... and as the two men fell, Kid Bedloe and Ben Broderick,they pitched forward toward the centre of the room and the big body ofthe Kid lay across the body of Ben Broderick. As the Kid died his eyeswere upon Thornton, and in them was a look of content and of gratitude!
"Again he tried to kiss me.... He is all brute. He ... he told me youwere dead.... Oh, dear God, dear God!" cried the girl, shrinking back,covering her face with her hands.
Thornton, his face set and white and grave, came to her. She wastrembling so that he put his arm about her. She sobbed and caught at himas a child might have done. His arm tightened, holding her closer.
"Let me take you away," he said gently.
With never a look back to see what long hoarded booty there in the holein the floor had drawn Ben Broderick back to Pollard's house, he turnedand with his arm still about her, led the girl from the room, from thehouse and out to his horse at the fence. She moaned again and droopedagainst him. He gathered her up into his arms tenderly. And with atenderness which was to become part of the man, he held her close whilehe swung slowly into the saddle.
"Winifred Waverly...." he began.
There he stopped, looking with puzzled eyes down into her white face.God knew how much she had gone through, what fear Ben Broderick had putinto her heart. But at the least now she had fainted.
"She's all alone," muttered the cowboy. "All alone. And somebody's gotto look out for her...."
He turned slowly and rode down the crooked street, carrying her lightlyin his arms. And now, more than ever, did the two men at the lunchcounter stare.
THE END
Six Feet Four Page 27