Crooked Trails and Straight

  CHAPTER XIV

  A TOUCH OF THE THIRD DEGREE

  Cullison was not the man to acknowledge himself beaten so long as therewas a stone unturned. In the matter of the Del Oro homestead claim hemoved at once. All of the county commissioners were personal friends ofhis, and he went to them with a plan for a new road to run across the DelOro at the point where the canyon walls opened to a valley.

  "What in Mexico is the good of a county road there, Luck? Can't run awagon over them mountains and down to the river. Looks to me like it wouldbe a road from nowhere to nowhere," Alec Flandrau protested, puzzled athis friend's request.

  "I done guessed it," Yesler announced with a grin. "Run a county roadthrough, and Cass Fendrick can't fence the river off from Luck's cows.Luck ain't aiming to run any wagon over that road."

  The Map of Texas man got up and stamped with delight. "I get you. We'lllearn Cass to take a joke, by gum. Luck sure gets a county road for hiscows to amble over down to the water. Cass can have his darned oldhomestead now."

  When Fendrick heard that the commissioners had condemned a right of wayfor a road through his homestead he unloaded on the desert air a richvocabulary. For here would have been a simple way out of his trouble if hehad only thought of it. Instead of which he had melodramatically kidnappedhis enemy and put himself within reach of the law and of Cullison'svengeance.

  Nor did Luck confine his efforts to self-defense. He knew that to convictFendrick of the robbery he must first lay hands upon Blackwell.

  It was, however, Bucky that caught the convict. The two men met at the topof a mountain pass. Blackwell, headed south, was slipping down towardStone's horse ranch when they came face to face. Before the bad man hadhis revolver out, he found himself looking down the barrel of the ranger'sleveled rifle.

  "I wouldn't," Bucky murmured genially.

  "What you want me for?" Blackwell demanded sulkily.

  "For the W. & S. robbery."

  "I'm not the man you want. My name's Johnson."

  "I'll put up with you till I find the man I do want, Mr. Johnson," Buckytold him cheerfully. "Climb down from that horse. No, I wouldn't try that.Keep your hands up."

  With his prisoner in front of him, O'Connor turned townward. They joggeddown out of the hills through dark gulches and cactus-clad arroyos. Thesharp catclaw caught at their legs. Tangled mesquite and ironwood madeprogress slow. They reached in time Apache Desert, and here Bucky camped.He hobbled his prisoner's feet and put around his neck a rope, the otherend of which was tied to his own waist. Then he built a small fire ofgreasewood and made coffee for them both. The prisoner slept, but hiscaptor did not. For he could take no chances of an escape.

  The outlines of the mountain ranges loomed shadowy and dim on both sides.The moonlight played strange tricks with the mesquit and the giant cactus,a grove of which gave to the place an awesome aspect of some ghostlyburial ground of a long vanished tribe.

  Next day they reached Saguache. Bucky took his prisoner straight to theranger's office and telephoned to Cullison.

  "Don't I get anything to eat?" growled the convict while they waited.

  "When I'm ready."

  Bucky believed in fair play. The man had not eaten since last night. Butthen neither had he. It happened that Bucky was tough as whipcord, assupple and untiring as a hickory sapling. Well, Blackwell was a prettyhard nut to crack, too. The lieutenant did not know anything about bookpsychology, but he had observed that hunger and weariness try out thestuff that is in a man. Under the sag of them many a will snaps that wouldhave held fast if sustained by a good dinner and a sound night's sleep.This is why so many "bad men," gun fighters with a reputation forgameness, wilt on occasion like whipped curs. In the old days this came tonearly every terror of the border. Some day when he had a jumpingtoothache, or when his nerves were frayed from a debauch, a silentstranger walked into his presence, looked long and steadily into his eyes,and ended forever his reign of lawlessness. Sometimes the two-gun man was"planted," sometimes he subsided into innocuous peace henceforth.

  The ranger had a shrewd instinct that the hour had come to batter downthis fellow's dogged resistance. Therefore he sent for Cullison, the manwhom the convict most feared.

  The very look of the cattleman, with that grim, hard, capable aspect,shook Blackwell's nerve.

  "So you've got him, Bucky."

  Luck looked the man over as he sat handcuffed beside the table and read inhis face both terror and a sly, dogged cunning. Once before the fellow hadbeen put through the third degree. Something of the sort he fearfullyexpected now. Villainy is usually not consistent. This hulking bullyshould have been a hardy ruffian. Instead, he shrank like a schoolgirlfrom the thought of physical pain.

  "Stand up," ordered Cullison quietly.

  Blackwell got to his feet at once. He could not help it, even though thefear in his eyes showed that he cowered before the anticipated attack.

  "Don't hit me," he whined.

  Luck knew the man sweated under the punishment his imagination called up,and he understood human nature too well to end the suspense by making realthe vision. For then the worst would be past, since the actual is neverequal to what is expected.

  "Well?" Luck watched him with the look of tempered steel in his hardeyes.

  The convict flinched, moistened his lips with his tongue, and spoke atlast.

  "I--I--Mr. Cullison, I want to explain. Every man is liable to make amistake--go off half cocked. I didn't do right. That's a fac'. I canexplain all that, but I'm sick now--awful sick."

  Cullison laughed harshly. "You'll be sicker soon."

  "You promised you wouldn't do anything if we turned you loose," the manplucked up courage to remind him.

  "I promised the law wouldn't do anything. You'll understand thedistinction presently."

  "Mr. Cullison, please---- I admit I done wrong. I hadn't ought to havegone in with Cass Fendrick. He wanted me to kill you, but I wouldn't."

  With that unwinking gaze the ranchman beat down his lies, while feardripped in perspiration from the pallid face of the prisoner.

  Bucky had let Cullison take the center of the stage. He had observed agrowing distress mount and ride the victim. Now he stepped in to save theman with an alternative at which Blackwell might be expected not to snatcheagerly perhaps, but at least to be driven toward.

  "This man is my prisoner, Mr. Cullison. From what I can make out you oughtto strip his hide off and hang it up to dry. But I've got first call onhim. If he comes through with the truth about the W. & S. Express robbery,I've got to protect him."

  Luck understood the ranger. They were both working toward the same end.The immediate punishment of this criminal was not the important issue. Itwas merely a club with which to beat him into submission, and at that amoral rather than a physical one. But the owner of the Circle C knewbetter than to yield to Bucky too easily. He fought the point out with himat length, and finally yielded reluctantly, in such a way as to aggravaterather than relieve the anxiety of the convict.

  "All right. You take him first," he finally conceded harshly.

  Bucky kept up the comedy. "I'll take him, Mr. Cullison. But if he tells methe truth--and if I find out it's the whole truth--there'll be nothingdoing on your part. He's my prisoner. Understand that."

  Metaphorically, Blackwell licked the hand of his protector. He was stillstanding, but his attitude gave the effect of crouching.

  "I aim to do what's right, Captain O'Connor. Whatever's right. You ask meany questions."

  "I want to know all about the W. & S. robbery, everything, from start tofinish."

  "Honest, I wish I could tell you. But I don't know a thing about it. Crossmy heart, I don't."

  "No use, Blackwell. If I'm going to stand by you against Mr. Cullison,you'll have to tell the truth. Why, man, I've even got the mask you woreand the cloth you cut it from."

  "I reckon it must a-been some one else, Major. Wisht I could help you, butI can't."

  Bucky rose. "All right. If you
can't help me, I can't help you."Apparently he dismissed the matter from his mind, for he looked at hiswatch and turned to the cattleman. "Mr. Cullison, I reckon I'll run outand have some supper. Do you mind staying here with this man till I getback?"

  "No. That's all right, Bucky. Don't hurry, I'll keep him entertained."Perhaps it was not by chance that his eye wandered to a blacksnake whiphanging on the wall.

  O'Connor sauntered to the door. The frightened gaze of the prisoner clungto him as if for safety.

  "Major--Colonel--you ain't a-going," he pleaded.

  "Only for an hour or two. I'll be back. I wouldn't think of sayinggood-by--not till we reach Yuma."

  With that the door closed behind him. Blackwell cried out, hurriedly,eagerly. "Mister O'Connor!"

  Bucky's head reappeared. "What! Have you reduced me to the ranks already?I was looking to be a general by the time I got back," he complainedwhimsically.

  "I--I'll tell you everything--every last thing. Mr. Cullison--he's aimingto kill me soon as you've gone."

  "I've got no time to fool away, Blackwell. I'm hungry. If you meanbusiness get to it. But remember that whatever you say will be usedagainst you."

  "I'll tell you any dog-goned thing you want to know. You've got me beat.I'm plumb wore out--sick. A man can't stand everything."

  O'Connor came in and closed the door. "Let's have it, then--the wholestory. I want it all: how you came to know about this shipment of money,how you pulled it off, what you have done with it, all the facts frombeginning to the end."

  "Lemme sit down, Captain. I'm awful done up. I reckon while I was in thehills I've been underfed."

  "Sit down. There's a good dinner waiting for you at Clune's when you getthrough."

  Even then, though he must have known that lies could not avail, the mansprinkled his story with them. The residuum of truth that remained afterthese had been sifted out was something like this.

  He had found on the street a letter that had inadvertently been dropped.It was to Jordan of the Cattlemen's National Bank, and it notified himthat $20,000 was to be shipped to him by the W. & S. Express Company onthe night of the robbery. Blackwell resolved to have a try for it. He hungaround the office until the manager and the guard arrived from the train,made his raid upon them, locked the door, and threw away his mask. Hedived with the satchel into the nearest alley, and came face to face withthe stranger whom he later learned to be Fendrick. The whole story of thehorse had been a myth later invented by the sheepman to scatter thepursuit by making it appear that the robber had come from a distance. Asthe street had been quite deserted at the time this detail could beplausibly introduced with no chance of a denial.

  Fendrick, who had heard the shouting of the men locked in the expressoffice, stopped the robber, but Blackwell broke away and ran down thealley. The sheepman followed and caught him. After another scuffle theconvict again hammered himself free, but left behind the hand satchelcontaining the spoils. Fendrick (so he later explained to Blackwell) tieda cord to the handle of the bag and dropped it down the chute of a laundryin such a way that it could later be drawn up. Then he hurried back to theexpress office and released the prisoners. After the excitement hadsubsided, he had returned for the money and hid it. The original robberdid not know where.

  Blackwell's second meeting with the sheepman had been almost as startlingas the first. Cass had run into the Jack of Hearts in time to save thelife of his enemy. The two men recognized each other and entered into acompact to abduct Cullison, for his share in which the older man was paidone thousand dollars. The Mexican Dominguez had later appeared on thescene, had helped guard the owner of the Circle C, and had assisted intaking him to the hut in the Rincons where he had been secreted.

  Both men asked the same question as soon as he had finished.

  "Where is the money you got from the raid on the W. & S. office?"

  "Don't know. I've been at Fendrick ever since to tell me. He's got itsalted somewhere. You're fixing to put me behind the bars, and he's theman that really stole it."

  From this they could not shake him. He stuck to it vindictively, forplainly his malice against the sheepman was great. The latter had spoiledhis coup, robbed him of its fruits, and now was letting him go to prison.

  "I reckon we'd better have a talk with Cass," Bucky suggested in a lowvoice to the former sheriff.

  Luck laughed significantly. "When we find him."

  For the sheepman had got out on bail the morning after his arrest.

  "We'll find him easily enough. And I rather think he'll have a goodexplanation, even if this fellow's story is true."

  "Oh, he'll be loaded with explanations. I don't doubt that for a minute.But it will take a hell of a lot of talk to get away from the facts. I'vegot him where I want him now, and by God! I'll make him squeal before thefinish."

  "Oh, well, you're prejudiced," Bucky told him with an amiable smile.

  "Course I am; prejudiced as old Wall-eyed Rogers was against thevigilantes for hanging him on account of horse stealing. But I'll back myprejudices all the same. We'll see I'm right, Bucky."