CHAPTER XI
ROCKET
The two men reached Rocket before midnight and rode up to the door of the combination saloon and hotel. While Scotty hammered on the planks with his fist, Loudon uttered stentorian yells. Rocket, male and female, awoke, poked their heads out of the windows and shrilly demanded information.
"Hoss thief!" bawled Loudon. "He's ridin' a long-legged chestnut with a white spot on his nose! Fellah with him on a black horse! The sport on the black may or may not be dressed like a bird, accordin' to whether he's washed himself! Have yuh seen 'em?"
Rocket with one voice assured Loudon that he was drunk, and advised the watering-trough.
"I ain't foolin'," expostulated Loudon. "The gent on the black cayuse, which his name is Block, Sheriff o' Fort Creek County, was tarred an' feathered in Paradise Bend this afternoon."
Partisan Rocket cheered, and, in the same breath, grieved that neither of the fugitives had been seen and clamoured to know details of the tarring and feathering. Rocket was in Sunset County, and it was delightful to hear that Fort Creek, in the person of its sheriff, had been insulted.
Loudon, sitting at ease on his weary, drooping-headed pony, told the tale. He carefully refrained, however, from mentioning his own leading part in the affair. Rocket received the story with howls of mirth. Later, the male portion stuffed its nightshirts into trousers, pulled on boots, and gathered three deep around Loudon and Scotty while the two devoured cold beef and beans in the dining room of the hotel.
"Glad to see yo're feelin' better over yore hoss," observed Scotty, when the last Rocketer had departed.
"Oh, I made 'em laugh," said Loudon, dismally. "But it didn't make me feel like laughin' myself a little bit. I feel just as bad as ever—worse if anythin'. Why, Scotty, that hoss could do everythin' but talk."
"Shore," said Scotty, hastily, "but we can't do nothin' now. We've done all we could. They didn't come through Rocket, that's certain. They've done turned off some'ers. We can't trail 'em to-night, an' by to-morrow they'll be forty mile off. There's no use in keepin' it up."
Scotty looked anxiously at Loudon. The latter made no reply. He was staring at the lamp on the table, his expression bitter in the extreme.
"Tell yuh what," hazarded Scotty. "Yuh can have that bay yo're ridin'. He ain't like yore reg'lar hoss, but he's a good pony. Look at the way he went to-day. Got bottom, that hoss has. Go till the Gulf o' Mexico freezes solid."
"That's right good o' yuh, Scotty, but I couldn't take him off yuh thataway. I might buy him some day."
"The offer goes as it lays. Yuh don't have to buy him. He's yores whenever yuh want him. Well, what are yuh figurin' on doin'?"
"It's no use chasin' 'em any more now. I know that. Might as well wander back where we come from. Later, two or three weeks maybe, I'm goin' south."
"Goin' south!" Scotty was aghast. He did not wish to lose his best man.
"Yep. Goin' south. Don't expect to find Cutting first off. But I'll find Block, an' I guess he'll know somethin' about friend Cutting. I'd go instanter, only I want to give Block time to get back an' get settled before I pay him a call. I tell yuh, Scotty, I want that hoss o' mine, an' I'll get him back if it takes me the rest o' my life!"
"You gents want beds?" inquired the landlord, suddenly appearing in the doorway.
"Shore," replied Scotty. "Two of 'em."
"Say, who's the postmaster here?" Loudon asked.
"Me," was the landlord's weary reply.
"A couple o' days ago," said Loudon, "a letter addressed to John Doubleday in Paradise Bend was mailed here. Remember who mailed it?"
"Couldn't say, stranger," yawned the landlord. "Oh, shore," he added, as Loudon looked incredulous, "I could tell yuh everybody else what mailed mail for the last month. But that one letter I couldn't. I didn't see the man, woman, child, or Injun what mailed it. Three days ago when I got up in the mornin' an' went outside to wash my face I done found that letter an' two bits a-layin' on the door-step. That's all. Just a letter an' two bits. I clamps on a stamp an' sends her along when the up-stage pulls in."
"Any parties from the Bend in town that day, or the day before?"
"Nary a party as I knows of—but then I ain't got eyes all over me. Some sport might 'a' slid through an' me not know it."
"I ain't askin' questions just to make talk," said Loudon, sharply. "So if yuh ain't got no real serious objections I'll ask a couple more."
"No need to get het, stranger," soothed the landlord. "No need to get het. Ask away."
"Any strangers been in town lately?"
"Two, to-day. They're the only strangers I've seen for quite a spell, an' they're upstairs now. Lady an' gent they are, travellin' separate. Goin' to the Bend, I reckon. Yest'day the off hind wheel o' the stage dished down at Lew's Gully, an' she come in on three wheels an' half a cottonwood. Passengers had to stay over till Whisky Jim rustled him a new wheel. Whisky'll pull out in the mornin'."
"Who's the gent?"
"Drummer. Dunno his name."
"Didn't Block—you know, Sheriff Block o' Fort Creek—didn't he stop here a day or two ago? He must 'a' come through Rocket."
"Shore he did. But he ain't no stranger. I see him as many as two or three times a year. Shore he come through Rocket. He had a drink here day before yest'day. Goin' to the Bend, he said."
"Well, if he stops on his way back tell him Tom Loudon was askin' for him. Old friend o' mine, the sheriff is. Just tell him yuh know me, an' he'll set 'em up for the whole town."
"I expect," grinned the landlord. "Was you wantin' beds, gents?"
"That's us," grunted Scotty. "Me, I'm asleep from the neck down. Show me that bed, Mister."
Loudon, sitting on the edge of his sway-backed cot, pulled off his boots, dropped them clattering on the floor, and looked across at Scotty Mackenzie.
"Block didn't send that letter—or write it," he said, sliding his long body under the blanket.
"How do yuh know?" came in muffled tones from Scotty.
"He ain't got the brains. No sir, some gent in Paradise Bend sent that letter, an' I think I know his name."
"Who is he?" Scotty was plainly striving to keep awake, and making a poor job of it.
"I'll tell yuh after we get back to the Bend."
Next morning, while the east was yet lemon and gray, the thunderous clamour of a beaten dish-pan reverberated through the hotel. The hideous din ceased abruptly, and the voice of the landlord became audible.
"Yuh half-witted idjit! Don't yuh know better'n to beat that pan when there's a lady in the house? Dish-pans is for common folks, an' don't yuh forget it! Now you hump yoreself upstairs an' bang on her door right gentle an' tell her the stage is due to pull out in a hour."
"Must be a real lady," commented Loudon, when a door at the other end of the corridor had been duly rapped upon.
"Must be," said Scotty in a singularly joyless tone. "Yuh couldn't hear what she said to the feller. Reg'lar female ladies always talk so yuh got to ask 'em to say it again, they carry fancy-coloured umbrellas when the sun shines, an' they pack their gold specs on the end of a stick. They watch yuh eat, too. I know 'em. Yuh bet I do.
"I met a pair of 'em once when they was visitin' at the Seven Lazy Seven. They made me so nervous a-lookin' at me that I cut the roof o' my mouth three times with my knife. Reg'lar ladies don't make me feel to home nohow. I'm goin' down now an' eat before this one scampers in an' spoils my appetite."
So saying, Scotty almost ran from the room, buckling on his cartridge-belt as he went.
The drummer was at the table when the two Flying M men sat down. An impressive person was the drummer. He was known in his own circle as a "perfectly elegant dresser." If the tightest of tight-fitting suits, the gaudiest of shirts, the highest of collars, an explosive cravat, two watch-chains, a bartender's curl, and a perpetual leer made for elegance, that drummer was elegant to a degree.
The three had nearly finished breakfast when there came a tapping of quick heels on the stairs. Scotty Mackenzie groaned. The drummer hastily patted his curl and broadened his leer. Loudon raised his eyes and gasped audibly. His knife and fork rattled on the plate. For the woman entering the room was Kate Saltoun.
"Good morning, Tom," said Kate, brightly, quite as if she and he, the best of friends, had parted the previous evening.
The nonplussed Loudon mumbled unintelligibly, but accomplished a passable greeting by the time Kate had seated herself directly opposite. The drummer glanced contemptuously at Loudon, and, with a flourish and a killing ogle, handed the bread to Kate. Miss Saltoun helped herself, nodded casual thanks, and bestowed a ravishing smile on Loudon.
"I'm awfully glad to see you again, Tom," she declared, buttering her bread. "It's just like old times, isn't it?"
Could this smiling young girl be Kate Saltoun? Was this the Kate that had called him names and broken his heart and driven him from the Lazy River? Loudon furtively pinched himself. The pinch hurt.
It was not all a dream then. Kate Saltoun, in the flesh, and separated from him by not more than four feet of scaly oilcloth, was actually smiling at him. Words failed Loudon. He could do nothing but gaze.
Scotty, fearful of an introduction, oozed from the table. The drummer, unused to being ignored, fidgeted. He cleared his throat raucously. He would show this dumb person in chaps how a gentleman comports himself in the presence of a lady. It was the drummer's first trip West.
"Beautiful day, Miss, beautiful," he smirked, tilting back in his chair, and rattling his watch-chains. "We should have a quick trip to Paradise Bend. Our driver, I understand, has procured another wheel, and——"
The full-voiced utterance died abruptly.
For Kate had looked imploringly at Loudon, and Loudon had swung about to face the drummer. For the first time in his life the drummer realized how cold, how utterly daunting, a pair of human eyes could be.
"You through?" demanded Loudon.
The drummer endured that disconcerting stare while a man might draw three breaths. Then his eyelids quivered, dropped, and a curious mottled pallor overspread his countenance. He glanced up, met again that disconcerting stare, and quickly looked elsewhere.
"You through?" repeated Loudon.
"I—I don't know as that's any of your business," said the drummer, faintly.
"Git out," ordered Loudon.
"Why, look here! By what right——"
"Git out." Loudon had not raised his voice.
The drummer glanced at Miss Saltoun. She was crumbling her bread and looking over his head with an air of intense boredom. So far as she was concerned, he had ceased to exist. And she had been so friendly and companionable on the long ride from Farewell.
"You've done kept me waitin' some time," suggested Loudon, softly.
Awkwardly, for he found his knees strangely weak, the drummer rose. With a lame attempt at jauntiness he pulled down his vest, shot his cuffs, and teetered from the room. He made his way to the bar and called for whisky. His nerves were rather upset.
"Jake's put yore stuff in the stage," announced the landlord, who was also the bartender.
"Then Jake can take my bags out again," said the drummer, disagreeably. "I'm staying over till to-morrow."
"Well, hotel-keepers can't afford to be particular," the landlord said, unsmilingly. "But yuh'll have to unload yore truck yore own self."
The drummer would have enjoyed cursing the landlord. But the latter had the same peculiar look about the eyes that Loudon had. The drummer went out into the street, thinking evil thoughts of these unamiable Westerners.
Kate, when the drummer left the room, smiled sweetly upon Loudon. It was his reward for ridding her of a pest. She did not know that Loudon's prime reason for squelching the drummer was practically the same reason that impels the average man, on receiving an unpleasant surprise, to throw things at the cat.
"How's Johnny Ramsay gettin' along?" inquired Loudon.
"He has completely recovered," Kate replied. "He went back to the Cross-in-a-box four days ago."
"That's good. I'm glad to hear it."
Paying no further attention to Kate, Loudon calmly proceeded to finish his breakfast. Kate began to find the silence painful.
"Why, Tom," said she, "aren't you even a little bit glad to see me?"
"Why should I be glad?" parried Loudon.
"You're not very polite, Tom. You—you make me feel very badly. Why, oh, why do you persist in making it so hard for me?"
Kate's voice was pitched low, and there was a running sob in it. But Loudon was not in the least affected.
"Last time I seen yuh," Loudon stated, deliberately, "yuh told me flat yuh never wanted to see me again. Yuh was engaged to Sam Blakely, too. I don't understand yuh a little bit."
"Perhaps you will when I explain. You see, I am no longer engaged to Mr. Blakely."
"Yo're lucky."
"I think so myself. Under the circumstances, can't we be friends again? I didn't mean what I said, boy. Truly I didn't."
Loudon was looking at Kate, but he did not see her as she sat there in her chair, her black eyes imploring. Instead, he saw her as she appeared that day in the kitchen of the Bar S, when she wiped his kiss from her mouth and ordered him to leave her.
"Yo're too many for me," he said at last. "I dunno what yo're drivin' at. But if yuh want to be friends, why, I'm the last fellah in the world to be yore enemy. Yuh know I never have exactly disliked yuh, Kate. Well, I got to be weavin' along. Glad to have seen yuh, Kate. I'll see yuh later, maybe."
"Of course you will, Tom. I'll be at Lil's—Mrs. Mace, you know, at the Bend. You will come and see me, won't you?"
"Shore I will, an' glad to."
Loudon dropped the lady's hand as if it had been a hot iron, and departed. He had no intention of going near the house of Mrs. Mace. He never wanted to see Kate Saltoun again.
In the street he found Scotty nervously awaiting him.
"Git yore hoss," said Scotty, "an' let's git out o' here."
"What's all the hurry?" queried Loudon.
"That female girl in the hotel. She'll be out in a minute, an' then yuh'll have to introduce me."
"She's Kate Saltoun, Scotty."
"Old Salt's daughter! It don't sound possible. An' him with a face like a grizzly. She's shorely four aces, Tom, an' as pretty as a little red wagon. But I ain't aimin' to make her acquaintance, an' yuh can gamble on that."
Happily for Scotty's peace of mind he and Loudon left Rocket twenty minutes ahead of the stage.
The drummer watched the departure of the stage with brooding eyes. When the dust in the street had settled he had another drink at the bar and ensconced himself in a corner of the barroom where he could glower unobserved at the landlord.
The latter had gone to the corral, but the drummer was still sitting in his chair, when, toward noon, two men entered. They were unprepossessing individuals, both of them, though one, the tall man with the black beard, had obviously just washed himself thoroughly. Even his clothing had been scrubbed.
The drummer sniffed inquiringly. What was that elusive odour—that strange smell or rather mixture of smells? The drummer sniffed again.
"Got a cold?" growled the black-bearded man.
"No," said the drummer, sulkily.
"Then don't snuffle. I don't like snufflin', I don't. It makes me jumpy, snufflin' does. Breathe through yore mouth if yuh got to."
The look which the black-avised individual bent upon the drummer was not reassuring. The wretched drummer shrank into himself and took care to breathe in an inoffensive manner. The black-bearded man was extremely sensitive about that odour, for it emanated from his own person and habiliments. Tobacco smoke had no effect upon it. It clung after the fashion of loving relations. Strong soap, scorched molasses, and singed feathers, had given birth to that odour. No wonder he was sensitive!
His companion, whose face bore numerous scratches, stared round the barroom.
"Where's the barkeep?" he grunted.
"Don't need no barkeep," announced the black-bearded man, and started to walk round the bar.
"Don't yuh?" inquired the voice of the landlord. "Yuh got another guess comin'. Yuh can't run no blazers in this shack, Block, an' that goes."
The eyes of the black-bearded man glowed evilly. He stopped in his tracks, his raised hand halted in the act of reaching for a bottle. He stared at the landlord standing in the doorway. The landlord stared back, his thumbs hooked in his belt.
"Get us a drink then," snarled Block, and he joined his friend in front of the bar.
"That's what I'm here for," rejoined the landlord, cheerfully. "I don't care who I serve. Why, I give that a drink awhile ago." He flicked a contemptuous thumb at the drummer.
"Hurry up!" admonished Block.
"No hurry," chirruped the landlord insultingly. "I never was in a hurry, an' I ain't goin' to begin now. What'll yuh have—milk?"
"Say," exclaimed the man with the scratched face, "are you lookin' for trouble?"
"Stranger," replied the landlord, turning a pair of calm brown eyes on his questioner—"stranger, a gent don't never look for trouble. It comes to him unexpected-like. But none ain't comin' to me to-day. Soon as I seen you two tinhorns in here I told a friend o' mine. He's a-watchin' yuh from the window right now."
Block and his friend involuntarily turned their heads. Framed in the open window were the head and shoulders of a man. In his hands was a sawed-off shotgun. The blunt muzzle gaped ominously at them.
"Well, by Gawd!" began the scratch-faced man.
"Shut up!" said Block. "These folks seem scared of us. No use fussin'. We'll just licker an' git."
"Them's the words I like to hear," observed the landlord, slapping bottle and glasses on the bar. "Yuh can't pull out too quick to suit me, Block. I know about yore goin's-on down in Farewell—rubbin' out harmless strangers. Yuh may be a sheriff an' all that, but yore office don't travel a foot in Sunset County."
"Yuh talk big," growled Block. "Yuh needn't think yuh can bluff me. If I feel like takin' this town apart, I'll do it."
"Shore, just like yuh took the Bend apart. Got the molasses out o' yore system yet?"
Block's eyes were fairly murderous. The landlord grinned.
"That shotgun's double-barrelled," he observed. "Buckshot in each barrel."
Block gulped his whisky. The scratch-faced man had finished his drink and was placidly rolling a cigarette.
"Never did like to quarrel," he remarked, "special not with a shotgun. Mister"—to the landlord—"have any gents from the Bend rode in to-day—or yesterday?"
"Lookin' for friends?" queried the landlord.
"Shore!"
"I thought so. Well, I can't tell yuh. Yuh see, I ain't right well acquainted hereabouts. I dunno everybody. There might somebody 'a' come through, an' then again there mightn't. I seed a Injun yest'day, though. Looked like a Digger. Might he be yore partic'lar friend?" An exquisite solicitude was in the landlord's tone.
The other refused to take offence. He smiled wryly. When he spoke, his words were without rancour.
"I can't claim the Injun. I was thinkin' of a sport named Loudon. Know him?"
"I told yuh I didn't know many people round here."
"I was just a-wonderin'. I was kind o' anxious to see Loudon."
"Well, I dunno nothin' about him."
"There was a man here named Loudon," piped up the drummer, perceiving an opportunity of annoying the landlord. "He stayed here all night. Another man was with him, a very dirty old character named Mackenzie. I think Scotty was his first name."
"Which way did they go?" demanded Block.
"They rode away toward Paradise Bend."
"That drummer can lie faster'n a hoss can trot," drawled the landlord.
"You know they stayed here all night," said the drummer with a flash of spirit. "I had breakfast with them."
The landlord walked swiftly to the drummer, who quailed.
"Yo're lyin'!" announced the landlord. "Say so. Say yo're lyin', yuh pup, or I'll pull yore neck in half."
"I'm lyin'!" cried the drummer, hastily. "I'm lyin'."
"There wasn't nobody here but you, was there?" inquired the landlord.
"N-no."
"I guess that's enough. You see how reliable this sport is, gents. Can't believe a word he says."
Block turned toward the door. The scratch-faced man winked at his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar and stuck his tongue in his cheek.
"C'mon," said Block.
The sheriff and his friend went out into the street. The landlord followed, his expression one of pleasurable anticipation. Four citizens of Rocket, grouped on the sidewalk, glumly watched the two men as they swung into their saddles and loped away. The landlord's face fell.
"Say," he demanded, "why didn't yuh arrest him?"
"Couldn't be did," replied the largest of the quartette, who wore a marshal's star on his vest. "Loudon said his hoss was a chestnut, white spot on nose, didn't he? One o' them two cayuses was a black, but the other was a bald-face pinto. Nothin' like a chestnut."
"But Loudon done said the hoss thief was ridin' with Sheriff Block."
"That's all true enough, an' the party a-ridin' off with Block may be a hoss thief, but if he is, he ain't ridin' Loudon's hoss. An' Loudon's hoss is the only one we know about. Got to go by the hoss, Dave."
"Why, looky here, Sim, Loudon described the feller right plain. That's Rufe Cutting a-ridin' away there with Block, or I'm a Dutchman."
"He may be," returned the marshal, equably, "an' if Loudon was here an' could identify him I'd grab him too quick. But unless he's ridin' a chestnut hoss with a white spot on his nose I can't arrest him without a warrant. An' there ain't no warrant. See how it is, Dave?"
"Oh, I see all right," mourned the landlord, "an' it makes me sick. Soon as I seen 'em come in my place I says to myself, 'Here's that hoss thief.' All I thought of was that Loudon said the sport was with Block. It makes me sick. It shore does. After me a-cookin' it all up with you to arrest him! C'mon in an' have somethin', an' watch me give that drummer the prettiest lickin' he ever had in his life."