CHAPTER XXI. SOMEBODY SHOT SAUNDERS
The hot days dropped, one by one, into the past like fiery beads upon avelvety black cord. Miss Georgie told them silently in the meagerlittle office, and sighed as they slipped from under her white, nervousfingers. One--nothing happened that could be said to bear upon theone big subject in her mind, the routine work of passing trains anddribbling business in the express and freight departments, and a longafternoon of heat and silence save for the asthmatic pump, fifty yardsdown the main track. Two--this exactly like the first, except that thoseinseparables, Hagar, Viney, and Lucy, whom Miss Georgie had inelegantlydubbed "the Three Greases," appeared, silent, blanket-enshrouded, andperspiring, at the office door in mid-afternoon. Half a box of soggychocolates which the heat had rendered a dismally sticky mass won fromthem smiles and half-intelligible speech. Fishing was poor--no ketchum.Three--not even the diversion of the squaws to make her forgetthe dragging hours. Nothing--nothing--nothing, she told herselfapathetically when that third day had slipped upon the black cord of asoft, warm night, star-sprinkled and unutterably lonely as it broodedover the desert.
On the morning of the fourth day, Miss Georgie woke with the vague sensethat something had gone wrong. True railroader as she had come to be,she thought first that there had been a wreck, and that she was wantedat the telegraph instrument. She was up and partly dressed before thesteps and the voices which had broken her sleep had reached her door.
Pete Hamilton's voice, trembling with excitement, called to her.
"What is it? What has happened?" she cried from within, beset by ahundred wild conjectures.
"Saunders--somebody shot Saunders. Wire for a doctor, quick as yuh can.He ain't dead yet--but he's goin' t' die, sure. Hurry up and wire--"Somebody at the store called to him, and he broke off to run lumberinglyin answer to the summons. Miss Georgie made haste to follow him.
Saunders was lying upon a blanket on the store platform, and MissGeorgie shuddered as she looked at him.
He was pasty white, and his eyes looked glassy under his half-closedlids. He had been shot in the side--at the stable, he had gasped outwhen Pete found him lying in the trail just back of the store. Now heseemed beyond speech, and the little group of section-hands, the Chinesecook at the section-house, and the Swede foreman, and Pete seemed quiteat a loss what to do.
"Take him in and put him to bed," Miss Georgie commanded, turning away."See if he's bleeding yet, and--well, I should put a cold compress onthe wound, I think. I'll send for a doctor--but he can't get here tillnine o'clock unless you want to stand the expense of a special. And bythat time--"
Saunders moved his head a trifle, and lifted his heavy lids to lookat her, which so unnerved Miss Georgie that she turned and ran to theoffice. When she had sent the message she sat drumming upon the tablewhile she waited for an answer.
"G-r-a-n-" her fingers had spelled when she became conscious of thefact, flushed hotly, and folded her hands tightly together in her lap.
"The doctor will come--Hawkinson, I sent for," she announced later toPete, holding out the telegram. She glanced reluctantly at the wrinkledblanket where Saunders had lain, caught a corner of her under lipbetween her teeth, and, bareheaded though she was, went down the stepsand along the trail to the stable.
"I've nearly an hour before I need open the office," she said toherself, looking at her watch. She did not say what she meant to dowith that hour, but she spent a quarter of it examining the stable andeverything in it. Especially did she search the loose, sandy soil in itsvicinity for tracks.
Finally she lifted her skirts as a woman instinctively does at a streetcrossing, and struck off through the sagebrush, her eyes upon a line ofuncertain footsteps as of a drunken man reeling that way. They were noteasy to follow--or they would not have been if she had not felt certainof the general direction which they must take. More than once she lostsight of them for several rods, but she always picked them up fartheralong. At one place she stopped, and stood perfectly still, her skirtsheld back tightly with both hands, while she stared fascinatedly at ared smear upon a broken branch of sage and the smooth-packed hollow inthe sand where he must have lain.
"He's got nerve--I'll say that much for him," she observed aloud, andwent on.
The footprints were plain where he crossed the grade road near the edgeof the bluff, but from there on it was harder to follow them because ofthe great patches of black lava rock lying even with the surface of theground, where a dozen men might walk abreast and leave no sign that theuntrained eye, at least, could detect.
"This is a case for Indians," she mused, frowning over an open spacewhere all was rock. "Injun Charlie would hunt tracks all day for adollar or two; only he'd make tracks just to prove himself the realgoods." She sighed, stood upon her tiptoes, and peered out over the sageto get her bearings, then started on at a hazard. She went a few rods,found herself in a thick tangle of brush through which she could notforce her way, started to back out, and caught her hair on a scragglyscrub which seemed to have as many prongs as there are briers on arosebush. She was struggling there with her hands fumbling unavailinglyat the back of her bowed head, when she was pounced upon by someone orsomething through the sage. She screamed.
"The--deuce!" Good Indian brought out the milder expletive with the flatintonation which the unexpected presence of a lady frequently gives toa man's speech. "Lucky I didn't take a shot at you through the bushes.I did, almost, when I saw somebody moving here. Is this your favoriteplace for a morning ramble?" He had one hand still upon her arm, andhe was laughing openly at her plight. But he sobered when he stooped alittle so that he could see her face, for there were tears in her eyes,and Miss Georgie was not the sort of young woman whom one expects toshed tears for slight cause.
"If you did it--and you must have--I don't see how you can laugh aboutit, even if he is a crawling reptile of a man that ought to be hung!"The tears were in her voice as well as her eyes, and there were reproachand disappointment also.
"Did what--to whom--to where, to why?" Good Indian let go her arm, andbegan helpfully striving with the scraggly scrub and its prongs. "Say,I'll just about have to scalp you to get you loose. Would you mind verymuch, Squaw-talk-far-off?" He ducked and peered into her face again, andagain his face sobered. "What's the matter?" he asked, in an entirelydifferent tone--which Miss Georgie, in spite of her mood, found lesssatisfying than his banter.
"Saunders--OUCH; I'd as soon be scalped and done with, as to have youpull out a hair at a time--Saunders crawled home with a bullet in hisribs. And I thought--"
"Saunders!" Good Indian stared down at her, his hands dropped upon herhead.
Miss Georgie reached up, caught him by the wrists, and held him so whileshe tilted her head that she might look up at him.
"Grant!" she cried softly. "He deserved it. You couldn't help it--hewould have shot you down like a dog, just because he was hired to doit, or because of some hold over him. Don't think I blame you--or thatanyone would if they knew the truth. I came out to see--I just HAD tomake sure--but you must get away from here. You shouldn't have stayedso long--" Miss Georgie gave a most unexpected sob, and stopped that shemight grit her teeth in anger over it.
"You think I shot him." As Good Indian said it, the sentence was merelya statement, rather than an accusation or a reproach.
"I don't blame you. I suspected he was the man up here with the rifle.That day--that first day, when you told me about someone shooting atyou--he came over to the station. And I saw two or three scraps of sagesticking under his shirt-collar, as if he had been out in the brush; youknow how it breaks off and sticks, when you go through it. And he saidhe had been asleep. And there isn't any sage where a man would have togo through it unless he got right out in it, away from the trails. Ithought then that he was the man--"
"You didn't tell me." And this time he spoke reproachfully.
"It was after you had left that I saw it. And I did go down to the ranchto tell you. But I--you were so--occupied--in other dire
ctions--" Shelet go his wrists, and began fumbling at her hair, and she bowed herhead again so that her face was hidden from him.
"You could have told me, anyway," Good Indian said constrainedly.
"You didn't want her to know. I couldn't, before her. And I didn't wantto--hurt her by--" Miss Georgie fumbled more with her words than withher hair.
"Well, there's no use arguing about that." Good Indian also found thatsubject a difficult one. "You say he was shot. Did he say--"
"He wasn't able to talk when I saw him. Pete said Saunders claimed hewas shot at the stable, but I know that to be a lie." Miss Georgie spokewith unfeeling exactness. "That was to save himself in case he got well,I suppose. I believe the man is going to die, if he hasn't already; hehad the look--I've seen them in wrecks, and I know. He won't talk; hecan't. But there'll be an investigation--and Baumberger, I suspect,will be just as willing to get you in this way as in any other. More so,maybe. Because a murder is always awkward to handle."
"I can't see why he should want to murder me." Good Indian took herhands away from her hair, and set himself again to the work of freeingher. "You've been fudging around till you've got about ten million morehairs wound up," he grumbled.
"Wow! ARE you deliberately torturing me?" she complained, winking withthe pain of his good intentions. "I don't believe he does want to murderyou. I think that was just Saunders trying to make a dandy good job ofit. He doesn't like you, anyway--witness the way you bawled him out thatday you roped--ow-w!--roped the dog. Baumberger may have wanted himto keep an eye on you--My Heavens, man! Do you think you're plucking agoose?"
"I wouldn't be surprised," he retorted, grinning a little. "Honest! I'mtrying to go easy, but this infernal bush has sure got a strangle holdon you--and your hair is so fluffy it's a deuce of a job. You keepwriggling and getting it caught in new places. If you could only manageto stand still--but I suppose you can't.
"By the way," he remarked casually, after a short silence, save for anoccasional squeal from Miss Georgie, "speaking of Saunders--I didn'tshoot him."
Miss Georgie looked up at him, to the further entanglement of her hair."You DIDN'T? Then who did?"
"Search ME," he offered figuratively and briefly.
"Well, I will." Miss Georgie spoke with a certain decisiveness, andreaching out a sage-soiled hand, took his gun from the holster at hiship. He shrank away with a man's instinctive dislike of having anyonemake free with his weapons, but it was a single movement, which hecontrolled instantly.
"Stand still, can't you?" he admonished, and kept at work while sheexamined the gun with a dexterity and ease of every motion whichbetrayed her perfect familiarity with firearms. She snapped the cylinderinto place, sniffed daintily at the end of the barrel, and slipped thegun back into its scabbard.
"Don't think I doubted your word," she said, casting a slanting glanceup at him without moving her head. "But I wanted to be able to swearpositively, if I should happen to be dragged into the witness-box--Ihope it won't be by the hair of the head!--that your gun has not beenfired this morning. Unless you carry a cleaning rod with you," sheadded, "which would hardly be likely."
"You may search me if you like," Good Indian suggested, and for anengaged young man, and one deeply in love withal, he displayed acontentment with the situation which was almost reprehensible.
"No use. If you did pack one with you, you'd be a fool not to throw itaway after you had used it. No, I'll swear to the gun as it is now. Areyou ever going to get my hair loose? I'm due at the office rightthis minute, I'll bet a molasses cooky." She looked at her watch, andgroaned. "I'd have to telegraph myself back to get there on time now,"she said. "Twenty-four--that fast freight--is due in eighteen minutesexactly. I've got to be there. Take your jackknife and cut what won'tcome loose. Really, I mean it, Mr. Imsen."
"I was under the impression that my name is Grant--to friends."
"My name is 'Dennis,' if I don't beat that freight," she retortedcurtly. "Take your knife and give me a hair cut--quick! I can do it adifferent way, and cover up the place."
"Oh, all right--but it's a shame to leave a nice bunch of hair like thishanging on a bush."
"Tell me, what were you doing up here, Grant? And what are you going todo now? We haven't much time, and we've been fooling when we should havebeen discussing 'ways and means.'"
"Well, I got up early, and someone took a shot at me again. This time heclipped my hat-brim." He took off his hat, and showed her where the brimhad a jagged tear half an inch deep. "I ducked, and made up my mind I'dget him this time, or know the reason why. So I rode up the other wayand back behind the orchard, and struck the grade below the Pointo' Rocks, and so came up here hunting him. I kept pretty well out ofsight--we've done that before; Jack and I took sneak yesterday, and cameup here at sunrise, but we couldn't find anything. I was beginning tothink he had given it up. So I was just scouting around here when Iheard you rustling the bushes over here. I was going to shoot, but Ichanged my mind, and thought I'd land on you and trust to the lessonsI got in football and the gun. And the rest," he declaimed whimsically,"you know.
"Now, duck away down--oh, wait a minute." He gave a jerk at the knotof his neckerchief, flipped out the folds, spread it carefully overher head, and tied it under her chin, patting it into place and tuckingstray locks under as if he rather enjoyed doing it. "Better wear it tillyou're out of the brush," he advised, "if you don't want to get hung upsomewhere again."
She stood up straight, with a long, deep sigh of relief.
"Now, pikeway," he smiled. "And don't run bareheaded through thebushes again. You've still got time to beat that train. And--aboutSaunders--don't worry. I can get to the ranch without being seen, and noone will know I was up here, unless you tell them."
"Oh, I shall of course!" Miss Georgie chose to be very sarcastic. "Ithink I shall wire the information to the sheriff. Don't come withme--and leave tracks all over the country. Keep on the lava rock.Haven't you got any sense at all?"
"You made tracks yourself, madam, and you've left a fine lot ofincriminating evidence on that bush. I'll have to waste an hour pickingoff the hair, so they won't accuse you of shooting Saunders." GoodIndian spoke lightly, but they both stopped, nevertheless, and eyed theoffending bush anxiously.
"You haven't time," Miss Georgie decided. "I can easily get aroundthat, if it's put up to me. You go on back. Really, you must!" her eyesimplored him.
"Oh, vey-ree well. We haven't met this morning. Good-by,Squaw-talk-far-off. I'll see you later, perhaps."
Miss Georgie still had that freight heavy on her conscience, but shestood and watched him stoop under an overhanging branch and turn hishead to smile reassuringly back at her; then, with a pungent stirringof sage odors, the bushes closed in behind him, and it was as if he hadnever been there at all. Whereupon Miss Georgie once more gathered herskirts together and ran to the trail, and down that to the station.
She met a group of squaws, who eyed her curiously, but she was lookingonce more at her watch, and paid no attention, although they stoodhuddled in the trail staring after her. She remembered that she had leftthe office unlocked and she rushed in, and sank panting into the chairbefore her telegraph table just as the smoke of the fast freight swirledaround the nose of the low, sage-covered hill to the west.