HUGH HITS THE TRAIL
While Hugh was still at the bedside of his brother he began to make arrangements for the thing he meant to do. Already he knew that Sam Dutch had left town. Word had come to him that two horsemen in a desperate hurry had clattered down the street from Doc Benton’s stable. They had disappeared in the darkness. But the man who had seen them go had not recognized the companion of Dutch. Nor could he tell whether the riders had turned off Carson Street into King’s Cañon road, had swung to the right along the foothills road, or had held to a straight course toward Reno.
The news of the outrage spread fast. Friends of the McClintocks poured into the Ormsby House by scores to see if there was anything they could do. Among them were the Governor, a Justice of the Supreme Court, half-a-dozen state senators and representatives, and the sheriff of the county.
It was characteristic of Hugh that even in the anguish he felt at seeing his brother stricken from lusty health by the bullets of assassins his mind worked with orderly precision. When he thought of the murderers a cold, deadly anger possessed him, but if possible he meant his vengeance to come within the law.
“There’s one thing you can do, Phil,” he said to the sheriff. “Swear me in as a special deputy. I’m goin’ out to get Dutch.”
“To bring him back here, you mean?” asked the officer.
McClintock’s eyes were inscrutable. “Of course.”
“Now, looky here, son, that’s our job,” the sheriff remonstrated. “I’m gonna git that fellow. He’s run on the rope too long. You stay right here with Scot.”
“No. I want Dutch. He’s mine. Hands off till I can leave Scot, Phil.”
The sheriff argued, but he could not move the grim-faced man from his purpose. At last he gave way with a shrug of his shoulders. A wilful man must have his way.
“All right, son, I’ll swear you in if you’ll promise to bring Dutch back to Carson providin’ you git him.”
“I promise that.”
“Alive,” the sheriff added.
“Alive,” agreed Hugh, meeting him eye to eye.
Baldy Green showed his teeth in a mirthless grin. “A few of us here in town’ll guarantee that if you bring him alive he won’t go away alive.”
The officer turned on him angrily. “That’s a fine way to talk, Baldy. You hold yore lines tighter. Monkey with my prisoner an’ I’ll show you a scatter gun that throws buckshot all over Carson.”
Meanwhile Hugh kept the wires hot with messages. He telegraphed friends at Virginia, Reno, Piodie, and Genoa, asking for news of the fugitives. His suspicion fastened on Robert Dodson as the man who was riding with Dutch. He knew the man had been in town earlier in the day, and he could not through his friends locate him here now. The night travellers might make for Virginia, where Dutch could lie hidden in one of the Dodson mines till the excitement was past. Or they might be making for Genoa with the intention of crossing the Sierras to California. More likely still they were headed for Piodie, where the sheriff, the law machinery, and the town bad men were all friendly to the Dodson interests. So Hugh reasoned it out.
The sheriff shook his head. “Don’t look to me like Dodson would mix himself up with Dutch now. Maybe he hired him to do this killing. I don’t say he did. I don’t know. But it ain’t reasonable that he’d give himself away by ridin’ hellamile outa town with him.”
“Ralph Dodson wouldn’t, but you can’t tell what his brother might do. My notion is he didn’t intend to go, but afterwards lost his nerve and wouldn’t stick it out here alone.”
“That’d be like Bob Dodson,” Baldy confirmed. “He’s got a sure enough rabbit heart.”
None of the answers to his telegrams brought Hugh the message he hoped for. The fugitives had not been seen at Virginia, Genoa, or Reno, though it was quite possible they might have reached or passed through any of these places unnoticed. He decided to play what would nowadays be called a hunch. The natural place for them to go was Piodie, and it was there he meant to look for them.
The doctors gave him no hope for Scot, but they now believed that his remarkable vitality would keep him alive several days. Hugh arranged to keep in touch with Baldy Green by wire. Now that the railroad was in operation he could get back to town within a few hours if an emergency call came for him.
He rode down to Reno and there boarded the Overland. A couple of hours later he left it at a small way station and engaged a saddle horse. He guessed that if the fugitives had gone to Piodie they would leave watchers to report on any strangers who might come to town. Therefore, four miles out of Piodie he left the road, took a cow trail that swung round Bald Knob, and dropped down a little gulch that led to the back of the Pony Express Corral, and under cover of dusk slipped into the stable.
Byers was there alone. “How’s Scot?” he asked.
“Bad,” said Hugh, and his haggard face twitched. “Doctor don’t think he’ll make it. What about Dutch?”
“Got in last night.”
“Dodson with him?”
The small man nodded. He was always parsimonious of words.
“Know where he is now?”
“At the Katie Brackett. Rode right out there.”
Hugh knew that this meant his enemies were playing it safe. The Katie Brackett was owned and controlled by the Dodsons. Here they were on home territory, surrounded by adherents. If a sheriff’s posse appeared on the road leading to the mine Dutch would be safely underground in one of the levels long before it reached the shaft house. There he would be as secure as a needle in a haystack. Even if the sheriff elected to search the mine, the bad man could play hide and seek with the posse in a hundred stopes, drifts, and crosscuts.
“Ralph Dodson in town?”
“No. Virginia.”
This was one piece of good news. With the younger mine owner absent he would have one less enemy to contend with, and the most dangerous of the three. For Ralph was game, audacious, and brainy. It would hardly have been possible to get the killer out of Piodie with young Dodson running the campaign for him.
“I’m goin’ up after him,” Hugh said quietly.
“With that gang round him?”
“Maybe I’ll catch him alone.”
“And maybe not.” Byers stepped to the wall and took down from a peg a belt to which was attached a revolver. He strapped on the belt.
“No, Dan,” Hugh told him. “I’m playin’ a lone hand. My only chance is to lie low and surprise Dutch before he knows I’m within a hundred miles.”
“Hmp! What if he surprises you?”
“I’ll be Number Sixteen. But he won’t. I’m goin’ to take him back to Carson.”
There was a sound of feet moving at a shuffling run. A man burst through the doorway and stopped at sight of them. The runner was Jim Budd. For a few moments he stood panting, unable to find his breath for speech.
“What’s up, Jim?” asked Hugh.
The fat man wheezed out an answer. “H-hell to pay! The Katie Brackett’s afire, an’ the day shift’s down in her, caught in a drift.”