“AS GOOD AS THE WHEAT”
Through the crowd at the mouth of the mine word flashed that the cage was coming up. All night they had waited there, the wives and children of the imprisoned miners, the residents of Piodie who knew one or another of the men caught in the raging inferno below. The women and the little ones had wept themselves dry of tears long since. They stood now with taut nerves, eyes glued to the cage as it swept into sight.
Someone started a cheer as the first of the rescued men stepped out to the platform. A wail of anguish rose above it and killed the cheer. It came from a young wife with a shawl over her head. She had asked a question of one of the men and learned that her husband was dead.
The crowd pressed close to those who had come up from the fire. A woman gave a sob of joy and fell into the arms of a grimy Cousin Jack. Another caught a glimpse of her husband’s face and fainted.
In the excitement two men pushed through the crowd toward a pile of lumber. The one in front moved with sullen reluctance. Only the pressure against his back kept him going. Nobody noticed that he was handcuffed.
From underneath the lumber pile the second man drew a sawed-off shotgun.
“We’ll be movin’ down to town,” he told his captive.
Dutch shouted one word, “Dodson.”
The mine owner swung round, and at the first glance understood the situation. He turned pale and stepped behind Carstairs. Not for a moment did he doubt that McClintock had come to kill Dutch. Would he make a clean sweep of it and shoot him, too? Convicted of guilt, he crouched behind his superintendent shaking like an aspen.
“Don’t let him kill me,” he begged.
Hugh spoke, his voice cold and hard. “I’m not on the shoot to-day, Dodson—unless you force my hand, you black-hearted murderer. I’m here to take Dutch back to Carson with me. The yellow wolf shot my brother in the back.”
“No such thing. I got him in a fair fight,” blustered Dutch. “An’ I ain’t goin’ to Carson with you, either.”
“You’re going, dead or alive.” McClintock’s face and voice were as inexorable as the day of judgment.
“He’s aimin’ to take me there to be killed,” Dutch cried out. “You boys won’t stand for that.” He named two or three of the men with whom he consorted, picking them out of the crowd.
“Sure we won’t.” A gunman stepped forward briskly. “You can’t pull that over here, McClintock. You don’t own this camp, an’ you can’t play chief here.”
Two men lined up with Hugh, one on each side of him. The man on his right was a whale of a fat man. Deftly he slid McClintock’s revolver from its holster. The second ally was a small wiry fellow. From a grimy blackened face keen eyes peered intently.
The fat man spoke. “Don’t run on the rope, Sloan. We’re with the kid on this. He’s a deputy sheriff, an’ it’ll sure be ‘Let’s gather at the river’ for some of you anxious gents if you overplay yore hand.”
Sloan hesitated. He could not very well look round to see whether the gang of which he was one were present in numbers, and, if so, whether they would support him. He knew these three men of old. They belonged to the pony express outfit, as hard-riding and fast shooting a group of men as the West has known. It was certain that Dutch could not be rescued without a fight, and Sloan was hardly in a position to call for a showdown. He was game enough. With McClintock alone he would have taken a chance. But the three of them were too many for him.
The sheriff of the county saved his face. He bustled forward.
“Tut, tut! What’s all this?” he asked fussily. “There’s good law in this town, lots of it. No need of gun plays. If Mr. Dutch is wanted, there’s a right an’ proper way to get him, but that way ain’t at the point of a gun.”
“McClintock’s a deputy sheriff,” put in Budd.
There was rivalry between him and the sheriff. Budd was a candidate for the party nomination at the coming primaries. The wise politicians admitted that even with the Dodsons against him the fat man had a chance.
“You’d oughta know better’n that, Budd, an’ you a candidate for sheriff,” the officer reproved. “Say he is a deputy. He can’t go cavortin’ round all over Nevada, California, and Utah arrestin’ any one he’s a mind to. Where’s his warrant? Whyn’t he come to me with it like a reasonable man would—that is, if he’s got one.”
With his left hand Hugh felt in his pocket and produced a warrant. He handed it to the sheriff. That gentleman ran his eye over it. He returned it.
“Good only in Ormsby County,” he snapped. “What arrestin’ is done here I do—leastways, at present,” he added with a sarcastic grin at Budd.
The fat man was caught. He knew nothing about the technicalities of arrests. What the sheriff said might or might not be true. He tried a bluff.
“This here’s an extra-territorial warrant that runs ex judicio,” he explained largely.
“That so?” asked the sheriff ironically. “Well, it sure don’t hold water here. Bad men can’t get on the prod with me. No, siree!”
The cage had descended to bring up a second load of miners. Meanwhile, the interest of the crowd centred on the dispute that had arisen. Those on the outskirts pressed forward, eager to hear what was being said. Sloan had fallen back and was whispering in the ears of a few choice spirits.
Hugh spoke out straight and strong. His words were not for the sheriff, but for the judgment of the unbiased public.
“I came here as an officer with a warrant to get this man. Three days ago he shot down from behind the best man in Nevada, Scot McClintock. Most of you know my brother, a first-class citizen and soldier. He ran this scalawag out of Virginia, and he made the mistake of not killin’ him right then. I’ve made that same mistake myself three times. Yet yore sheriff says I’m a bad man because I come here to arrest a fifteen-times murderer. How about that, boys?”
The crowd was with Hugh at once. The Dodsons controlled the camp. A good many of these men were dependent upon them financially. But even Ralph Dodson was hardly popular. As for Dutch, their camp bully, everybody feared him and nobody trusted him. He was so confirmed a gunman that at any moment while in drink he might slay any of them.
The sheriff had not volunteered to go down into the mine with one of the rescue parties; nor had Sloan or any of his cronies. But this young fellow with the fire-blackened face and hands, whose haggard eyes looked out with such quiet grim resolution, had gone into that hell below to save their friends. Byers, the man on his left, had been another of the rescuers. The fat man had volunteered three times and been rejected.
“His warrant goes in Piodie,” someone shouted.
“Sure does,” echoed another voice.
“Not on yore tintype,” retorted the sheriff. “Ormsby County don’t run our affairs. Not none.”
The Maine lumberjack lined up beside Hugh, an axe shaft in his hand. He had observed that Dodson and Sloan were gathering the camp toughs for a rescue.
“His warrant’s good with me—good as the wheat,” the big woodsman said. “He made it good, boys, when he stood up to that hose nozzle down below and stuck there while he baked. He made it good again when he went in to the crosscut where our friends were trapped.”
Sloan and his crowd moved forward. One of them spoke to the sheriff. “If you want to swear in some deputies to enforce the law, Dick, why, we’re right here handy.”
From out of the crowd a girl darted, light as a deer. She stood directly in front of Hugh, face to face with the gunmen of the camp. A warm colour breathed in her cheeks. Her dark eyes flashed with indignation.
“Don’t you touch him. Don’t you dare touch him,” she cried. “It was my brother this—this villain killed. He did shoot him from behind. I’ve had a letter. It was murder.”
A murmur of resentment passed like a wave through the crowd. They knew the slim young school teacher told the truth.
“Don’t I know?” she went on ardently, beautiful in her young unconsciousness of self as a flaming flower. “Wasn’t I there when he tried to kill Hugh here—and Hugh frozen from the blizzard so that he couldn’t lift a hand to help himself? Oh, he’s—he’s a terrible man.”
“He is that,” an Irishwoman’s voice lifted. “But glory be, there’s wan man not afraid to comb his whiskers for him. An’ it’s a brave colleen y’are to spake up for your fine young man like that.”
A roar of approval went up into the air. Men surged forward, and women, too, to express their gratitude by standing between this young man and the Dodson faction. Vicky, rosy with embarrassment, vanished in the crowd.
“I reckon you don’t get a chance to use yore scatter gun this trip,” Budd said with a grin. “Prospects look bilious for this killer you got rounded up. Sure do. I never did see such a son-of-a-gun as you, Kid. Me, I’d ’a’ bet an ounce of gold against a dollar Mex you never would ’a’ walked into Piodie an’ took Sam Dutch out. But that there miracle is what you’re gonna pull off, looks like.”
“Went right down into the Katie Brackett after him,” chuckled Byers. “Brought him from that hell hole with the cuffs on him.”
“Sho! It’s you boys that helped me out,” said Hugh. “And I haven’t got him to Carson yet, anyhow. Sloan won’t give up without makin’ a try to get Dutch from me.”
Evidently the gunmen knew better than to challenge public opinion at present. They drew off to the mine boarding house and left Hugh free to return to Piodie with his prisoner.
McClintock thanked the lumberjack and others who had come to his aid, and started down the gulch, accompanied by a straggling guard of townspeople returning to their homes for breakfast after a long and anxious night.
Dutch shambled in front of him through the sage. After a period of violent cursing he had fallen into a savage and vindictive silence. He, too, believed that his allies would not desert him without a fight.
Beneath the superficial needs of the moment Hugh’s thoughts were of Vicky. He had all the average man’s healthy reluctance at being defended by a woman, but deeper than this was his admiration for the spirit of the girl. He had never seen anything lovelier, more challenging, than the slender girl glowing with passionate indignation on his behalf. She had looked like a picture he had seen of Joan of Arc standing before the French army, her sword outflung and her young body clad in shining armour.