CHAPTER X
THE HORSE THIEF
Loudon, who had taken no part in the feathering, watched the departure of the sheriff with brooding eyes. He did not agree with Scotty Mackenzie and the citizens of the Bend. In his estimation the punishment had not been sufficiently drastic. Alive and in possession of all his faculties the sheriff was a great power for evil. He would seek revenge.
Loudon swore softly. He was far from being a bloodthirsty man, but he regarded the killing of Block as a duty. And he did not believe in putting off till some future date what could be accomplished to-day.
"It's quite a list," he said to himself. "Block, Rufe Cutting, Blakely, an' the whole 88 outfit. An' they won't be happy till they get me. It kind o' looks as if Blakely ain't expectin' to keep our little engagement in Farewell. Block wouldn't 'a' come up here without Blakely sent him."
Thoughts of Blakely quite naturally induced thoughts of Pete O'Leary. Where was O'Leary? Loudon recollected that he had not seen O'Leary in the crowd. He looked up and down the street. O'Leary was nowhere in sight. His absence was a small thing in itself, but it might signify a guilty conscience. Loudon wondered.
That disreputable person, Scotty Mackenzie, approached, leading his horse.
"Tom," said Scotty, his blue eyes twinkling, "don't look so downhearted. He wasn't worth shootin'."
"I dunno, Scotty," replied Loudon. "It'll come to it some day, or I miss my guess."
"Yuh'll miss it while yo're workin' for me. Block won't never come to the Bend again, an' yuh can go the limit on that. D'juh get the mail?"
"I ain't been to the post office. Didn't have time. I've been right busy ever since I sifted in."
"I'll get it then. Cap'n Burr wants yuh to eat dinner at his house. I'll drift round later. Better finish up what yuh come to town for before yuh eat."
"I come to town to meet you."
"To meet me!" exclaimed Scotty. "Now look here, Tom, do I look like I need a gardeen?"
"Didn't yuh write to Doubleday," said the bewildered Loudon, "tellin' him to send me in to meet yuh here to-day an' for me to ride my own hoss?"
"What are yuh talkin' about? Me write Doubleday! I should say not!"
"Well, all I know is Doubleday got a letter from yuh, an' it was mailed in Rocket."
"Mailed in Rocket! Why, I never was in Rocket! It's just luck me bein' here to-day. If I hadn't met Ben Burr down at the Wagonwheel I wouldn't 'a' come for another couple o' days, mebbe."
"It's damn funny. That letter from Rocket is no dream."
"I hope Doubleday saves the letter. Well, you go on an' eat. See yuh later."
Loudon swung into the saddle and galloped to the house of Captain Burr. On the doorsill Dorothy Burr and Pete O'Leary sat side by side. As Loudon dismounted Miss Bunrose to meet him.
"Oh, Mr. Loudon!" she exclaimed, "I've just heard about your frightful experience. I wish I'd been there. I'd have enjoyed seeing them plaster up that brute of a sheriff."
"He did look kind o' odd," said Loudon. "Yore ma shore saved my life."
"Wasn't it luck Ma was down street? I usually go myself, but this morning Mr. O'Leary came, so Ma went. We didn't know there was anything going on till Ma came back and told us, and then it was all over. My! I'd like to have seen Ma talking to that stupid Dan Smith. The big idiot! Ma's mad yet. Oh, I forgot. Have you met Mr. O'Leary?"
"I know him," said Loudon rather ungraciously, and nodded to the gentleman in question. "I guess I'll put the little hoss in the corral."
"Yes, do. Pa's out there. Dinner'll be ready soon."
Miss Burr returned to the doorsill, and Loudon led away Ranger. So Pete O'Leary had been spending the morning at the Burrs'! It would be interesting to know why the engaging O'Leary had chosen to call upon that particular morning. Was it because he did not wish to identify himself in any way with Sheriff Block? Was it the guilty conscience?
"Well, suh," smiled Captain Burr, who was kneeling at the feet of one of his horses, "well, suh, it went against the grain to let that scoundrel go in peace, didn't it?"
Loudon smiled grimly.
"I appreciate youah feelings in the matteh, Tom," continued the Captain. "Such a puhson should not be allowed to live. My impulse was to shoot him, but I stayed my hand. As I may have mentioned befo', I am growing soft-heahted. That's right, Tom, cuss away. If Block were otheh than he is, he would shoot himself. No gentleman would care to live afteh being tah'd and feath'ed. But Block will writhe onwa'd like the snake he is till he is crushed once fo' all.
"Do you remembeh what I said the day you made him quit right in the street in Fa'ewell? Well, suh, in o'deh to regain the respect of the town he did kill a man—an inoffensive strangeh."
"Yuh might know it. He'll be a reg'lar 'Billy the Kid' before a great while."
"Not quite. The Lincoln County young man was a wa'-eagle. Block's a buzza'd. Tom, I'm afraid this Jeffe'son Davis hoss is developing a wind-puff."
Loudon made no reply. He was watching an approaching rider. The horseman passed by without a glance toward the corral and loped on into town.
Now the road in front of the Burr house was the beginning of the trail to the Flying M ranch, and the mounted man was none other than Rufe Cutting. It was evident to Loudon that he had not underestimated the cook. He resolved to seek out his would-be bushwhacker immediately.
Loudon looked quickly down at the Captain. If Burr had perceived Loudon's absorption he gave no sign. He merely requested Loudon's opinion of the slight swelling on Jefferson Davis's near fore.
"Yuh've got to excuse me, Cap'n," said Loudon, hastily. "I've got a little business to attend to before I eat."
"Need any help?" inquired Burr, reaching for his Greener.
"No, thanks," replied Loudon, swiftly resaddling Ranger.
"Dinner!" called Mrs. Burr, sticking her head out of the kitchen door a moment later. "Why, where's Tom Loudon?"
"He's gone away," grumbled her husband, regretfully eying his shotgun.
"Well, of all things! Just as dinner's ready! Don't he know he's eatin' here? Will he be gone long?"
"He may not be away twenty minutes, and then, on the otheh hand, he may neveh retuhn."
"Never return! What are you talkin' about, Benjamin Burr?"
"Wait and see, my love, wait and see," rejoined the Captain, and went in to dinner.
Loudon, meanwhile, had galloped down to the corner of Main Street. Rufe Cutting was not in sight. But his horse was standing among the horses in front of the Jacks Up Saloon. Loudon rode across the street and dismounted behind a freighter's wagon near the Chicago Store, where he could not be observed from the windows of the Jacks Up. Then he walked briskly up the street and entered the saloon.
Rufe Cutting, his scratched features cast in sullen lines, was drinking at the bar. So were several other men. A knot of citizens in Cutting's immediate rear were discussing the events of the morning. Two faro tables were crowded. The Jacks Up was in full blast. With the place crowded a gun-play was apt to result in damage to the bystanders.
However, the choice lay with Cutting. Loudon would allow the first move.
With this intention, Loudon edged up to the bar and called for a drink. At the sound of his voice Cutting turned a slow head. There were two men in between, but they were not standing close to the bar.
Loudon, watching Cutting out of his eye-corners, picked up his glass with his left hand. Even as he did so, panic seized Cutting. His fingers closed on his own full glass and he hurled it at Loudon's head.
Involuntarily Loudon dodged. When he recovered himself his gun was out.
The bartender promptly vanished under the bar. Men skipped and dodged and flung themselves over tables and chairs in their anxiety to give Loudon a clear line of fire. But Cutting had disappeared.
Two swearing men sprawling under an open rear window told the story. In his fear-stricken efforts to escape Cutting had knocked them both down.
Loudon and the two men, one of whom was Jim Mace and the other Dan Smith, went through the window almost simultaneously. Both sashes went with them to a brave accompaniment of crackling glass.
Loudon landed on his knees, and was in time for a snapshot at a leg sliding over a windowsill of the house next door. Before Loudon could rise Mace and the marshal tumbled over him. The three fell in a tangle and rolled among tin cans and bottles for a space of time. When at last, red-faced and almost breathless, they rushed the house next door they were stopped by an angry woman brandishing a frying-pan.
"You drunk hunkers can't come through here!" screamed the irate lady. "If you an' yore fool friends want to play tag yuh can play her in the street! What do yuh mean by bustin' into folks' houses an' wakin' my baby up? You idjits! She'll be bawlin' her brains out all day now!"
"We're after a hold-up!" cried Loudon with great presence of mind.
It had the desired effect.
"Why didn't yuh say so at first? Come right in."
Through the house and out of the front door they dashed. Drifting clouds of dust marked Cutting's line of flight. He was a quarter of a mile distant, spurring for the ford of the Dogsoldier and the Farewell trail. The marshal fired a futile shot. Loudon laughed and holstered his six-shooter.
"Look at him go!" he chuckled. "Scared stiff."
"Get yore hosses!" commanded the marshal. "Don't stand here gassin'! We'll go after him right away!"
"Oh, let him go," drawled Loudon. "He ain't worth chasin'."
"But he's a road agent, ain't he?" said Jim Mace.
"No, I just said he was," grinned Loudon. "He ain't nothin' but a right good cook, so far as I know."
"Ain't he done nothin'?" inquired the perplexed marshal.
"Only jerked a glass of whisky at me," replied Loudon. "Yuh see, I ain't right popular with him."
"From the way he's splittin' the breeze," said Jim Mace, "it looks like he don't care for yore society none."
"I'd ought to go after him," grunted the marshal, vengefully, tenderly feeling a skinned elbow. "I don't mind a reg'lar gun-play, but this here chuckin' glasses round promiscuous an' bumpin' folks over ain't right. It's agin' law an' order. He'd ought to be arrested. The calaboose has been empty for a week, too."
Loudon left Jim Mace and Dan Smith explaining matters to the gathering crowd, and walked back to where he had left his horse. Ranger was not behind the freighter's wagon. Loudon ran into the Chicago Store.
"Shore," said the proprietor. "I seen a feller climbin' aboard that hoss a few minutes ago. Seemed in a hurry, too. What? Yore hoss!"
The proprietor ducked under the counter for his spurs and his rifle, and Loudon hurried out. Cutting's mount, the bay he had bought from Doubleday, was of course standing where he had been left among the other horses. Loudon threw the dropped reins over the bay's head and swung up.
"He's a hoss thief!" he shouted to Dan Smith and Jim Mace. "He got away on my hoss!"
Quirting and spurring, Loudon tore down the street. Before the horse's hoofs spattered the water of the ford the proprietor of the Chicago Store and the marshal were galloping in his wake. Jim Mace and a score of others followed at intervals. A horse was not stolen in Paradise Bend every day. The inhabitants were bent on making the most of their opportunity.
The bay was a good horse, but Ranger was the better, and Loudon knew it—knew, too that, unless Ranger fell down, Cutting would escape.
"Ranger's good for all day," groaned Loudon. "All day an' not strain himself a little bit."
As the bay flashed across the top of a rise two miles beyond the Dogsoldier, Loudon glimpsed two specks four miles ahead.
"Block! He's with Block!" exclaimed Loudon, and drove in the spurs.
The bay leaped madly forward and rocketed down the long slope. A high-lipped swell concealed the two specks, and for a long ten minutes Loudon rode between the sides of the draw. The bay charged at the high-lipped swell with undiminished vigour. He was doing his level best, but his gait was tied in. It bore not the remotest resemblance to Ranger's free-swinging stride. When Loudon reached the crest of the swell the specks had vanished.
He put the reins between his teeth and drew the Winchester from the scabbard under his left leg. He threw down the lever a trifle. There was a cartridge in the chamber.
The loading gate resisted the pressure of his thumb. There was at least one cartridge in the magazine, but by the weight of the rifle he judged it to be fully loaded. Loudon returned the Winchester to its scabbard and slowed the willing little bay to a lope.
"Yo're all right, old hoss," he said, "but yuh can't never catch that hoss o' mine. Not in a million years. We just got to wait till he stops."
Rufe Cutting could have devised no better revenge than the stealing of Loudon's horse. Since Loudon had owned Ranger no one save himself and Kate Saltoun had ridden him. Ranger's legs were frequently hand-rubbed. Ranger was curried. With his fingers—no true horseman would dream of using the comb of commerce—Loudon frequently combed Ranger's mane and tail. When a horse in the cow country is curried and combed, that horse is a highly valued horse. Johnny Ramsay accused Loudon of wrapping Ranger in blankets when the air was chilly, and of taking his temperature on all occasions. Undoubtedly Loudon was somewhat of a crank where Ranger was concerned.
And now the inconceivable had come to pass. Ranger had been stolen—stolen almost under the very nose of his master. Loudon did not swear. His feeling was too deeply grim for that. But he promised himself an accounting—a very full accounting.
Loudon rode onward at a steady lope. Before him stretched the dusty ribbon of trail. Blank and bare it led between the low hills and lifted over the ridges. He saw no more specks ahead. The quarry had outdistanced him.
Fifteen miles out of Paradise Bend he heard a faint shout in his rear. He looked over his shoulder. A half mile distant two men were galloping toward him. One of them waved an arm half red, half blue.
"Scotty," muttered Loudon, and checked his horse.
The two clattered up, their horses' out-blown nostrils whistling. One of the men was the owner of the Flying M. The other was the proprietor of the Chicago Store.
"Seen him?" demanded Scotty.
"Once," replied Loudon. "He's ridin' with Block now, but they pulled away from me. I ain't seen 'em for over a hour."
"They're stickin' to the trail," grunted the store proprietor, who rejoiced in the name of Ragsdale, glancing at the hoof-marks in the dust.
"C'mon!" snapped Scotty Mackenzie.
Three miles farther on Ragsdale's mount began to falter.
"He's done," growled Ragsdale. "Give 'em one for me."
Ragsdale halted. Loudon and Scotty Mackenzie rode on.
"Where did yuh get that bay?" queried Scotty, eying the Flying M brand on the bay's hip.
"It was his—Cutting's," replied Loudon.
"Cutting's? Djuh mean Rufe Cutting is the hoss thief?"
"Shore! I clean forgot yuh didn't know about Cutting's quittin' his job."
Loudon explained the manner of the cook's departure and his subsequent actions to Mackenzie.
"An'," said Loudon, in conclusion, "I seen that feller at the 88 that time I bought my hoss from Blakely."
"Yuh did! Are yuh shore?"
"Shore as yo're a day old. I was walkin' past the bunkhouse with Blakely, an' this fellah was out in front with his shirt off a-washin' himself, an' I seen a eagle tattooed on his chest in blue, an' underneath a heart with a R on one side an' a T on the other. Just before yore cook pulled his freight his shirt got tore, an' I seen his chest, an' there was the eagle an' the heart an' the two letters R an T. I knowed when I first laid eyes on him up here at the Flyin' M that I'd seen him some'ers, but I couldn't place him till I seen the tattoo-work. It all come back to me then."
"What was his name at the 88?"
"I never knowed. I never cut his trail again down there. He wasn't one o' the reg'lar outfit. I know all o' them."
"Did Cap'n Burr see him?"
"No, he didn't. I remember now, when the Cap'n come this fellah wasn't in sight, an' he didn't show up again while we was there. Cap'n Burr left when I did."
"Cutting worked for me nigh onto a year. He's always earned his pay. Never done nothin' out of the way."
"I dunno what it means. It's all a heap mysterious—special mysterious when yuh come to think o' what O'Leary asked me when I first hit the Bend. 'Couldn't Sam come?' says O'Leary to me. Busts out into the street to say it, too, right after I'd asked yuh the way to Cap'n Burr's house."
"I remember," said Scotty, thoughtfully. "I seen him talkin' to yuh. I thought yuh knowed him. I wonder who he took yuh for?"
"One o' Blakely's outfit, o' course," replied Loudon. "It was that 88 brand o' Ranger's done the trick for him like it done for you. 'Couldn't Sam come?' says he. Then he says, 'It's all right. I'm Pete O'Leary!' When he seen I didn't understand him none, he got gun-shy immediate an' wandered. An' he didn't forget me a little bit. Telescope told me that he'd been tryin' to find out if you'd hired me. One day he come out to the ranch an' stopped just long enough to say howdy. Wanted to make shore I was there, see? What do yuh make of it?"
"Nothin'—yet. We got to wait an' see what happens."
"Seein' what happens may be expensive. I tell yuh flat, Scotty, Sam Blakely has got somethin' under the table for yuh. He's aimin' to put a crimp in yuh. Yuh can go the limit on that."
"There ain't nothin' certain about it."
"O' course there ain't. Sam ain't goin' to give himself away. I wish you'd let me Injun 'round some an' see what's up. I think, maybe, yuh'll save money if yuh do."
"Well, I dunno——" hesitated Scotty.
"O' course," said Loudon, quickly, "Blakely's got it in for me. But whatever he's cookin' up for you he thought of before I ever rode north. My comin' north has sort of upset his plans. He knows I know all about him, an' he wants to shut my mouth before he turns his bull loose."
"Yo're goin' to meet him in Farewell, ain't yuh? Seems to me Richie said somethin' about it."
"Shore I am, but what's that got to do with it?"
"Why, maybe that's the reason he wants yuh out of the way. He may not hanker after shootin' it out with yuh."
"No, Sam Blakely ain't afraid," denied Loudon. "He wouldn't object any to meetin' me in Farewell if that was all there was to it. No, what's worryin' him is me bein' here at the Flying M. An' it's worryin' him a lot, or he'd never 'a' sent Block two hundred miles."
"Well, I dunno. Yuh may be right, Tom, but I don't just guess Sam Blakely will try to put any crimps in me. He knows it would come kind o' high. Of course it's mighty puzzlin'. I don't understand it none. One thing, Blakely shore tried his best to get yuh down on the Lazy River, an' that's why it looks to me like Block was sent to put in the last licks."
"He was, but not the way yuh think. I could gas my head off about Blakely up here in the Bend, an' it wouldn't matter a —— so long as he was down on the Lazy. But if he left the Lazy an' come projeckin' up to the Bend, then what I'd be sayin' would count a lot. See now?"
"I see," admitted Scotty.
"Well, gimme a chance to find out what he's up to."
"No, Tom, there's too much to do at the ranch. I can't let yuh go. Yo're too good a man. I need yuh right at home. We'll wait an' see what happens. Then we'll know what to do."
"It may be too late then," grumbled Loudon.
"If it is, then blame me. I'm the one to lose, anyway."
"Yuh shore are."
Oh, the denseness of ranch owners! Was Scotty Mackenzie to turn out another Saltoun?
"It's a blind trail," observed Scotty, picking up the tangled thread of their discourse. "Some things kind o' fit when yuh look at 'em one way, an' then again they don't when yuh look at 'em another. Cutting don't fit, none whatever. All the time he worked for me, he only went to town twice, an' the last time was six months ago. O'Leary never come to see him, so if somethin's up like yuh say there is, Rufe's out of it. But that won't help him none now. He'll go out if we ever come up with him."
"If we do," supplemented Loudon.
"My idea exactly. That hoss o' yores can shore wriggle along, an' he had a big start."
"I'm goin' through to Rocket anyhow."
"Me, too."
Till the latter half of the afternoon they kept the ponies loping. Then, slowing to a walk, they risked a short-cut and did not strike the trail again till the sun was setting.
"Still keepin' together," announced Loudon, after one look at the trail.
"An' still hittin' the high places," said Scotty. "Them two cayuses shore have bottom. Cutting knowed a good hoss all right."