The Lure of the Dim Trails

  CHAPTER VII. AT THE STEVENS PLACE

  When the excitement of the outrage had been pushed aside by theinsistent routine of everyday living, Thurston found himself thrust fromthe fascination of range life and into the monotony of invalidism, andhe was anything but resigned. To be sure, he was well cared for at theStevens ranch, where Park and the boys had taken him that day, and Mrs.Stevens mothered him as he could not remember being mothered before.

  Hank Graves rode over nearly every day to sit beside the bed and cursethe Wagner gang back to their great-great-grandfathers and down to morethan the third generation yet unborn, and to tell him the news. On thesecond visit he started to give him the details of Bob's funeral; butThurston would not listen, and told him so plainly.

  "All right then, Bud, I won't talk about it. But we sure done the rightthing by the boy; had the best preacher in Shellanne out, and flowerstill further notice: a cross uh carnations, and the boys sent up toMinot and had a spur made uh--oh, well, all right; I'll shut up aboutit, I know how yuh feel, Bud; it broke us all up to have him go thatway. He sure was a white boy, if ever there was one, and--ahem!"

  "I'd give a thousand dollars, hard coin, to get my hands on themWagners. It would uh been all off with them, sure, if the boys had runacrost 'em. I'd uh let 'em stay out and hunt a while longer, only oldLauman'll get 'em, all right, and we're late as it is with the calfroundup. Lauman'll run 'em down--and by the Lord! I'll hire Bowmanmyself and ship him out from Helena to help prosecute 'em. They're deadmen if he takes the case against 'em, Bud, and I'll get him, sure--andto hell with the cost of it! They'll swing for what they done to you andBob, if it takes every hoof I own."

  Thurston told him he hoped they would be caught and--yes, hanged; thoughhe had never before advocated capital punishment.

  But when he thought of Bob, the care-naught, whole-souled fellow.

  He tried not to think of him, for thinking unmanned him. He had thesoftest of hearts where his friends were concerned, and there weretimes when he felt that he could with relish officiate at the Wagners'execution.

  He fought against remembrance of that day; and for sake of diversion hetook to studying a large, pastel portrait of Mona which hung against thewall opposite his bed. It was rather badly; done, and at first, when hesaw it, he laughed at the thought that even the great, still plains ofthe range land cannot protect one against the ubiquitous pictureagent. In the parlor, he supposed there would be crayon pictures ofgrandmothers and aunts-further evidence of the agent's glibness.

  He was glad that it was Mona who smiled down at him instead of agrand-mother or an aunt. For Mona did smile, and in spite of the cheapcrudity the smile was roguish, with little dimply creases at the cornersof the mouth, and not at all unpleasant. If the girl would only looklike that in real life, he told himself, a fellow would probably get toliking her. He supposed she thought him a greater coward than ever now,just because he hadn't got killed. If he had, he would be a hero now,like Bob. Well, Bob was a hero; the way he had jumped up and begunshooting required courage of the suicidal sort. He had stood up andshot, also and had succeeded only in being ridiculous; he hoped nobodyhad told Mona about his hitting that steer. When he could walk again hewould learn to shoot, so that the range stock wouldn't suffer from hismarksmanship.

  After a week of seeing only Mrs. Stevens or sympathetic menacquaintances, he began to wonder why Mona stayed so persistently away.Then one morning she came in to take his breakfast things out. She didnot, however, stay a second longer than was absolutely necessary, andshe was perfectly composed and said good morning in her most impersonaltone. At least Thurston hoped she had no tone more impersonal than that.He decided that she had really beautiful eyes and hair; after she hadgone he looked up at the picture, told himself that it did not beginto do her justice, and sighed a bit. He was very dull, and even hercompanionship, he thought, would be pleasant if only she would come downoff her pedestal and be humanly sociable.

  When he wrote a story about a fellow being laid up in the same housewith a girl--a girl with big, blue-gray eyes and ripply brown hair--hewould have the girl treat the fellow at least decently. She would readpoetry to him and bring him flowers, and do ever so many nice thingsthat would make him hate to get well. He decided that he would writejust that kind of story; he would idealize it, of course, and have thefellow in love with the girl; you have to, in stories. In real life itdoesn't necessarily follow that, because a fellow admires a girl's hairand eyes, and wants to be on friendly terms, he is in love with her.For example, he emphatically was not in love with Mona Stevens. He onlywanted her to be decently civil and to stop holding a foolish grudgeagainst him for not standing up and letting himself be shot full ofholes because she commanded it.

  In the afternoons, Mrs. Stevens would sit beside him and knit thingsand talk to him in a pleasantly garrulous fashion, and he would lie andlisten to her--and to Mona, singing somewhere. Mona sang very well, hethought; he wondered if she had ever had any training. Also, he wishedhe dared ask her not to sing that song about "She's only a bird in agilded cage." It brought back too vividly the nights when he and Bobstood guard under the quiet stars.

  And then one day he hobbled out into the dining-room and ate dinner withthe family. Since he sat opposite Mona she was obliged to look athim occasionally, whether she would or no. Thurston had a strain ofobstinacy in his nature, and when he decided that Mona should not onlylook at him, but should talk to him as well, he set himself diligentlyto attain that end. He was not the man to sit down supinely and let agirl calmly ignore him; so Mona presently found herself talking to himwith some degree of cordiality; and what is more to the point, listeningto him when he talked. It is probable that Thurston never had tried sohard in his life to win a girl's attention.

  It was while he was still hobbling with a cane and taxing hisimagination daily to invent excuses for remaining, that Lauman, thesheriff, rode up to the door with a deputy and asked shelter forthemselves and the two Wagners, who glowered sullenly down from theirweary horses. When they had been safely disposed in Thurston's bedroom,with one of the ranch hands detailed to guard them, Lauman and his mangave themselves up to the joy of a good meal. Their own cooking, theysaid, got mighty tame especially when they hadn't much to cook and darednot have a fire.

  They had come upon the outlaws by mere accident, and it is hard tellingwhich was the most surprised. But Lauman was, perhaps, the quickest manwith a gun in Valley County, else he would not have been serving hisfourth term as sheriff. He got the drop and kept it while his deputydid the rest. It had been a hard chase, he said, and a long one if youcounted time instead of miles. But he had them now, harmless as rattlerswith their fangs fresh drawn. He wanted to get them to Glasgow beforepeople got to hear of their capture; he thought they wouldn't be any toosafe if the boys knew he had them.

  If he had known that the Lazy Eight roundup had just pulled in to thehome ranch that afternoon, and that Dick Farney, one of the Stevensmen, had slipped out to the corral and saddled his swiftest horse, itis quite possible that Lauman would not have lingered so long over hissupper, or drank his third cup of coffee--with real cream in it--with sogreat a relish. And if he had known that the Circle Bar boys were campedjust three miles away within hailing distance of the Lazy Eight trail,he would doubtless have postponed his after-supper smoke.

  He was sitting, revolver in hand, watching the Wagners give a practicaldemonstration of the extent of their appetites, when Thurston limped infrom the porch, his eyes darker than usual. "There are a lot of riderscoming, Mr. Lauman," he announced quietly. "It sounds like a wholeroundup. I thought you ought to know."

  The prisoners went white, and put down knife and fork. If they had neverfeared before, plainly they were afraid then.

  Lauman's face did not in the least change. "Put the hand-cuffs on,Waller," he said. "If you've got a room that ain't easy to get at fromthe outside, Mrs. Stevens, I guess I'll have to ask yuh for the use ofit."

  Mrs. Stevens had lived long in Valley Cou
nty, and had learned how tomeet emergencies. "Put 'em right down cellar," she invited briskly."There's just the trap-door into it, and the windows ain't big enoughfor a cat to go through. Mona, get a candle for Mr. Lauman." She turnedto hurry the girl, and found Mona at her elbow with a light.

  "That's the kind uh woman I like to have around," Lauman chuckled. "Comeon, boys; hustle down there if yuh want to see Glasgow again."

  Trembling, all their dare-devil courage sapped from them by the menaceof Thurston's words, they stumbled down the steep stairs, and thedarkness swallowed them. Lauman beckoned to his deputy.

  "You go with 'em, Waller," he ordered. "If anybody but me offers to liftthis trap, shoot. Don't yuh take any chances. Blow out that candle soonas you're located."

  It was then that fifty riders clattered into the yard and up to thefront door, grouping in a way that left no exit unseen. Thurston,standing in the doorway, knew them almost to a man. Lazy Eight boys,they were; men who night after night had spread their blankets under thetent-roof with him and with Bob MacGregor; Bob, who lay silently outon the hill back of the home ranch-house, waiting for the last, greatround-up. They glanced at him in mute greeting and dismounted without aword. With them mingled the Circle Bar boys, as silent and grim as theirfellows. Lauman came up and peered into the dusk; Thurston observed thathe carried his Winchester unobtrusively in one hand.

  "Why, hello, boys," he greeted cheerfully. But for the rifle you neverwould have guessed he knew their errand.

  "Hello, Lauman," answered Park, matching him for cheerfulness. Then:

  "We rode over to hang them Wagners." Lauman grinned. "I hate todisappoint yuh, Park, but I've kinda set my heart on doing that littlejob myself. I'm the one that caught 'em, and if you'd followed my trailthe last month you'd say I earned the privilege."

  "Maybe so," Park admitted pleasantly, "but we've got a little personalmatter to settle up with those jaspers. Bob MacGregor was one of us, yuhremember."

  "I'll hang 'em just as dead as you can," Lauman argued.

  "But yuh won't do it so quick," Park lashed back. "They're spoiling theair every breath they draw. We want 'em, and I guess that pretty nearsettles it."

  "Not by a damn sight it don't! I've never had a man took away from meyet, boys, and I've been your sheriff a good many years. You hike rightback to camp; yuh can't have 'em."

  Thurston could scarcely realize the deadliness of their purpose. He knewthem for kind-hearted, laughter-loving young fellows, who would givetheir last dollar to a friend. He could not believe that they wouldresort to violence now. Besides, this was not his idea of a mob; hehad fancied they would howl threats and wave bludgeons, as they did instories. Mobs always "howled and seethed with passion" at one's doors;they did not stand about and talk quietly as though the subject wastrivial and did not greatly concern them.

  But the men were pressing closer, and their very calmness, had he knownit, was ominous. Lauman shifted his rifle ready for instant aim.

  "Boys, look here," he began more gravely, "I can't say I blame yuh,looking at it from your view-point. If you'd caught these men when yuhwas out hunting 'em, you could uh strung 'em up--and I'd likely uh hadbusiness somewhere else about that time. But yuh didn't catch 'em; yuhgive up the chase and left 'em to me. And yuh got to remember that I'mthe one that brought 'em in. They're in my care. I'm sworn to protect'em and turn 'em over to the law--and it ain't a question uh whetherthey deserve it or not. That's what I'm paid for, and I expect to goright ahead according to orders and hang 'em by law. You can't have'em--unless yuh lay me out first, and I don't reckon any of yuh would gothat far."

  "There's never been a man hung by law in this county yet," a voice criedangrily and impatiently.

  "That ain't saying there never will be," Lauman flung back. "Don't yuhworry, they'll get all that's coming to them, all right."

  "How about the time yuh had 'em in your rotten old jail, and let 'em getout and run loose around the country, killing off white men?" drawledanother-a Circle-Bar man.

  "Now boys."

  A hand--the hand of him who had stood guard over the Wagners in thebedroom during supper--reached out through the doorway and caught hisrifle arm. Taken unawares from behind, he whirled and then went downunder the weight of men used to "wrassling" calves. Even old Lauman wasno match for them, and presently he found himself stretched upon theporch with three Lazy Eight boys sitting on his person; which, beinginclined to portliness, he found very uncomfortable.

  Moved by an impulse he had no name for, Thurston snatched the sheriff'srevolver from its scabbard. As the heap squirmed pantingly upon theporch he stepped into the doorway to avoid being tripped, which was thewisest move he could have made, for it put him in the shadow--andthere were men of the Circle Bar whose trigger-finger would not havehesitated, just then, had he been in plain sight and had they known hispurpose.

  "Just hold on there, boys," he called, and they could see the glimmer ofthe gun-barrel. Those of the Lazy Eight laughed at him.

  "Aw, put it down, Bud," Park admonished. "That's too dangerous a toy foryou to be playing with--and yuh know damn well yuh can't hit anything."

  "I killed a steer once," Thurston reminded him meekly, whereat the laughhushed; for they remembered.

  "I know I can't shoot straight," he went on frankly, "but you're takingthat much the greater chance. If I have to, I'll cut loose--and there'sno telling where the bullets may strike."

  "That's right," Park admitted. "Stand still, boys; he's more dangerousthan a gun that isn't loaded. What d'yuh want, m'son?"

  "I want to talk to you for about five minutes. I've got a game leg, sothat I can neither run nor fight, but I hope you'll listen to me. TheWagners can't get away--they're locked up, with a deputy standing overthem with a gun; and on top of that they're handcuffed. They're ashelpless, boys, as two trapped coyotes." He looked down over the crowd,which shifted uneasily; no one spoke.

  "That's what struck me most," he continued. "You know what I thought ofBob, don't you? And I didn't thank them for boring a hole in my leg; itwasn't any kindness of theirs that it didn't land higher--they weren'tshooting at me for fun. And I'd have killed them both with a clearconscience, if I could. I tried hard enough. But it was different then;out in the open, where a man had an even break. I don't believe if Ihad shot as straight as I wanted to that I'd ever have felt a moment'scompunction. But now, when they're disarmed and shackled and altogetherhelpless, I couldn't walk up to them deliberately and kill them couldyou?

  "It could be done, and done easily. You have Lauman where he can't doanything, and I'm not of much account in a fight; so you've really onlyone deputy sheriff and two women to get the best of. You could dragthese men out and hang them in the cottonwoods, and they couldn't raisea hand to defend themselves. We could do it easily--but when it was doneand the excitement had passed I'd have a picture in my memory that I'dhate to look at. I'd have an hour in my life that would haunt me. Andso would you. You'd hate to look back and think that one time you helpedkill a couple of men who couldn't fight back.

  "Let the law do it, boys. You don't want them to live, and I don't;nobody does, for they deserve to die. But it isn't for us to play judgeand jury and hangman here to-night. Let them get what's coming to themat the hands of the officers you've elected for that purpose. They won'tget off. Hank Graves says they will hang if it takes every hoof he owns.He said he would bring Bowman down here to help prosecute them. I don'tknow Bowman--"

  "I do," a voice spoke, somewhere in the darkness. "Lawyer from Helena.Never lost a case."

  "I'm glad to hear it, for he's the man that will prosecute. They haven'ta ghost of a show to get out of it. Lauman here is responsible for theirsafe keeping and I guess, now that he knows them better, we needn't beafraid they'll escape again. And it's as Lauman said; he'll hang themquite as dead as you can. He's drawing a salary to do these things, makehim earn it. It's a nasty job, boys, and you wouldn't get anything outof it but a nasty memory."

  A hand that did not feel
like the hand of a man rested for an instant onhis arm. Mona brushed by him and stepped out where the rising moon shoneon her hair and into her big, blue-gray eyes.

  "I wish you all would please go away," she said. "You are making mammasick. She's got it in her head that you are going to do something awful,and I can't convince her you're not. I told her you wouldn't do anythingso sneaking, but she's awfully nervous about it. Won't you please go,right now?"

  They looked sheepishly at one another; every man of them feared theridicule of his neighbor.

  "Why, sure we'll go," cried Park, rallying. "We were going anyway in aminute. Tell your mother we were just congratulating Lauman on roundingup these Wagners. Come on, boys. And you, Bud, hurry up and get wellagain; we miss yuh round the Lazy Eight."

  The three who were sitting on Lauman got up, and he gave a sigh ofrelief. "Say, yuh darned cowpunchers don't have no mercy on an old man'scarcass at all," he groaned, in exaggerated self-pity. "Next time yuhwant to congratulate me, I wish you'd put it in writing and send it bymail."

  A little ripple of laughter went through the crowd. Then they swung upon their horses and galloped away in the moonlight.