The Fighting Edge

  CHAPTER X

  IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

  Houck's jeering laugh of triumph came back to the humiliated boy. Henoticed for the first time that two or three men were watching him fromthe door of the saloon. Ashamed to the depths of his being, he hung hishead dejectedly. All his life he would be a marked figure because Jakehad stamped the manhood out of him, had walked off with his bride of anhour.

  In the country of the open spaces a man must have sand. Courage is thebasis upon which the other virtues are built, the fundamental upon whichhe is most searchingly judged. Let a man tell the truth, stick to hispal, and fight when trouble is forced on him, and he will do to ride theriver with, in the phrase of the plains.

  Bob had lost June. She would, of course, never look at him again. To havefailed her so miserably cut deep into his pride and self-respect. Withher he had lost, too, the esteem of all those who lived within a radiusof fifty miles. For the story would go out to every ranch and cow-camp.Worst of all he had blown out the dynamic spark within himself that isthe source of life and hope.

  He did not deceive himself. Houck had said he was going to take June toher father. But he had said it with a cynical sneer on his lips. For thegirl to be Jake's wife would have been bad enough, but to be his victimwithout the protection of legality would be infinitely worse. And thatwas the lot to which June was destined. She had fought, but she couldfight no longer.

  Fate had played her a scurvy trick in the man she had chosen. Anotherhusband--Dud Hollister, for instance--would have battled it out for herto a finish, till he had been beaten so badly he could no longer crawl tohis feet. If Bob had done that, even though he had been hopelesslyovermatched, he would have broken Houck's power over June. All the wild,brave spirit of her would have gone out to her husband in a rush offeeling. The battle would have been won for them both. The thing that hadstung her pride and crushed her spirit was that he had not struck a blowfor her. His cowardice had driven her to Jake Houck's arms because therewas no other place for her to go.

  Their adventure had ended in tragedy both for her and for him. Bob sankdown on a dry-goods box and put his twitching face in his hands. He hadflung away both his own chance for happiness and hers. So far as he wasconcerned he was done for. He could never live down the horrible thing hehad done.

  He had been rather a frail youth, with very little confidence in himself.Above all else he had always admired strength and courage, the qualitiesin which he was most lacking. He had lived on the defensive, oppressed bya subconscious sense of inferiority. His actions had been conditioned byfear. Life at the charitable institution where he had been sent as asmall child fostered this depression of the ego and its subjection toexternal circumstances. The manager of the home ruled by the rod. Bob hadalways lived in a sick dread of it. Only within the past few months hadhe begun to come into his own, a heritage of health and happiness.

  Dud Hollister came to him out of Dolan's saloon. "Say, fellow, where's mygun?" he asked.

  Bob looked up. "He--took it."

  "Do I lose my six-shooter?"

  "I'll fix it with you when I get the money to buy one."

  The boy looked so haggard, his face so filled with despair, that Dud wastouched in spite of himself.

  "Why in Mexico didn't you give that bird a pill outa the gun?" he asked.

  "I don't know. I'm--no good," Bob wailed.

  "You said it right that time. I'll be doggoned if I ever saw such a thingas a fellow lettin' another guy walk off with his wife--when he ain'tbeen married hardly two hours yet. Say, what's the matter with youanyhow? Why didn't you take a fall outa him? All he could 'a' done wasbeat you to death."

  "He hurt me," Bob confessed miserably. "I--was afraid."

  "Hurt you? Great jumpin' Jupiter. Say, fellows, listen to Miss--MissRoberta here. He hurt him, so he quit on the job--this guy here did. Inever heard the beat o' that."

  "If you'll borrow one of yore friends' guns an' blow my brains out you'lldo me a favor," the harried youth told Hollister in a low voice.

  Hollister looked at him searchingly. "I might, at that," agreed thepuncher. "But I'm not doin' that kind of favor to-day. I'll give you apiece of advice. This ain't no country for you. Hop a train for Boston,Mass., or one o' them places where you can take yore troubles to a fellowwith a blue coat. Tha's where you belong."

  Up the street rolled Blister Haines, in time to hear the cowpuncher'ssuggestion. Already the news had reached the justice of what had takenplace. He was one of those amiable busybodies who take care of otherpeople's troubles for them. Sometimes his efforts came to grief andsometimes they did not.

  "Hit the trail, you lads," he ordered. "I'll l-look out for thisb-business. The exc-c-citement's all over anyhow. Drift."

  The range-riders disappeared. At best the situation was an embarrassingone. It is not pleasant to be in the company of one who has just shownhimself a poltroon and is acutely aware of it.

  Blister took Dillon into his office. He lowered himself into the biggestchair carefully, rolled a cigarette, and lit up.

  "Tell me about it," he ordered.

  "Nothin' to tell." Bob leaned against the table and looked drearily atthe floor. The world had come to an end for him. That was all. "He showedup an' took June from me--made me tell her to go along with him."

  "How did he do that? Did he cover you with a gun?"

  "No. I had the gun--till he took it from me." He gave the explanation hehad used twice already within the hour. "I'm no good."

  Blister heaved himself up from the chair and waddled closer to the boy.He shook a fat forefinger in his face. He glared at him fiercely.

  "Say, where you from?"

  "Austin, Texas, when I was a kid."

  "Well, damn you, Texas man, I w-want to t-tell you right now that you'retalkin' blasphemy when you say you're n-no good. The good Lord made you,didn't He? D-d' you reckon I'm goin' to let you stand up there an' claimHe did a pore job? No, sir. Trouble with you is you go an' bury yoretalent instead of w-whalin' the stuffin' outa that Jake Houck fellow."

  "I wish I was dead," Bob groaned, drooping in every line of his figure."I wish I'd never been born."

  "Blasphemy number two. Didn't He make you in His image? What right yougot wishin' He hadn't created you? Why, you pore w-worm, you're only amite lower than the angels an' yore red haid's covered with glory."Blister's whisper of a voice took unexpectedly a sharp edge. "Snap it up!That red haid o' yours. Hear me?"

  Bob's head came up as though a spring had been released.

  "B-better. K-keep it up where it belongs. Now, then, w-what are youaimin' for to do?"

  Bob shook his head. "Get outa this country, like Hollister said. Find ahole somewheres an' pull it in after me."

  "No, sir. Not none. You're gonna stay right here--in the country roundBear Cat--where every last man, woman, an' k-kid will know how you ated-dirt when Houck told you to."

  "I couldn't do that," the boy pleaded. "Why, I wouldn't have a chance.I'd know what they were sayin' all the time."

  "Sure you'd know it. Tha's the price you g-gotta pay for g-grovelin'.Don't you see yore only chance is to go out an' make good before thefolks who know how you've acted? Sneak off an' keep still about what youdid, amongst s-strangers, an' where do you get off? You know all yorelife you're only a worm. The best you can be is a bluff. You'd bed-duckin' outa makin' the fight you've gotta make. That don't get youanywhere a-tall. No, sir. Go out an' reverse the verdict of the court.Make good, right amongst the people who're keepin' tabs on yore record.You can do it, if you c-clamp yore j-jaw an' remember that yore red haidis c-covered with g-glory an' you been given dominion."

  "But--"

  "S-snap it up!" squeaked Blister.

  The red head came up again with a jerk.

  "Keep it up."

  "What'll I do? Where'll I find work?"

  "Out on the range. At the K Bar T, or the Keystone, or the Slash Lazy D.It don't m-matter where."

  "I can't ride."

  "Hmp! Lear
n, can't you? Dud Hollister an' Tom Reeves wasn't neither oneof them born on a bronc's back. They climbed up there. So can you. You'lltake the dust forty times. You'll get yore bones busted an' yore red haidcut open. But if you got the guts to stick, you'll be ridin' 'em slickone o' these here days. An' you'll come out a m-man."

  A faint glow began to stir in the boy's heart. Was there really a chancefor him to reverse the verdict? Could he still turn over a leaf and makeanother start?

  "You'll have one heluva time for a while," Blister prophesied. "Take 'emby an' large an' these lads chasin' cows' tails are the salt o' theearth. They'll go farther with you an' stick longer than anybody else youever met up with. Once they know you an' like you. But they'll be rightoffish with you for a while. Kinda polite an' distant, I expect. S-someoverbearin' g-guy will start runnin' on you, knowin' it'll be safe. It'llbe up to you to m-make it mighty onsafe for him. Go through to a finishthat once an' the boys will begin sizin' you up an' wonderin' about you.Those show-me lads will have to get evidence about 'steen times beforethey'll believe."

  "I'll never be able to stick it. I'm such a--so timid," Dillon groaned.

  The justice bristled. "H-hell's bells! What's ailin' you, Texas man? Itell you that you're made in His image. Bite on that thought hardwhenever you're up against it an' want to hide yorese'f in a hole. Everytime you get too s-scared to play yore hand out, you're playin' it lowdown on yore C-creator."

  Bob came to another phase of the situation. "What about--June?"

  "Well, what about her?"

  "She's gone with Houck. He'll not take her home."

  "What d' you m-mean not take her home? Where'll he take her?"

  "I don't know. That's it. I'm responsible for her. I brought her here. Hemeans to--to make her live with him."

  "Keep her by force--that what you're drivin' at?"

  "No-o. Not exactly. He's got a hold over her father somehow. She's wornout fightin' him. When she ran away with me she played her last card.She'll have to give up now. He's so big an' strong, such a bulldog forgettin' his way, that she can't hold him off. June ain't seventeen yet.She's gettin' a mighty rotten deal, looks like. First off, livin' alonethe way she an' Tolliver do, then Houck, then me, an' finally Houckagain."

  "I'll notify Tolliver how things are," Blister said. "Get word to himright away. We'll have to take a lead from him about June."

  "I was thinkin'--"

  "Onload it."

  "Mrs. Gillespie was so kind to her. Maybe she could talk to June an' takeher at the hotel--if June an' Houck haven't gone yet."

  "You said something then, boy. I'll see Mollie right away. She'll surefix it."

  They were too late. The wrangler at Kilburn's corral had already seenHouck hitch up and drive away with June, they presently learned.