“I wouldn’t!” she denied fiercely. “Oh! I wouldn’t! I’d a thousand times rather it was Bart!”
She hung her spurs up into her pony’s flanks and the little horse darted off up the road.
Carver stood looking after her.
“And I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t find out till it was just too late. Don’t that beat hell!”
XIII
Both Wellman and Freel had prospered. It was quite generally believed, though it could not be proved, that both men had “sooned” before the opening of the Strip, which fact accounted for their two filings adjoining the town site of Oval Springs, property which would eventually prove extremely valuable. However, they could not yet realize on these holdings so it was evident that their present affluence was derived from some other source.
Crowfoot, even before the run, had acquired moderate wealth but neither Freel nor Wellman had been possessed of any considerable means. Freel now owned the largest and most remunerative saloon in Oval Springs. He had occupied the sheriff’s office since the first election in the county, Wellman, the original appointee, having endorsed his candidacy instead of running for the office himself. Wellman was proprietor of the hotel, had been elected mayor of Oval Springs and was a stockholder and director in the bank, of which Crowfoot was president.
It was generally conceded that the money of the ex-cowman was responsible for the rise of the other two but there were some who, knowing Crowfoot, doubted that he would use his own means for the advancement of another. The three men were closely associated nevertheless, a power to be reckoned with in business and political circles, rated as influential and public-spirited citizens.
There was no longer necessity for Freel to associate himself closely with the wild bunch, many of whose operations he had formerly planned. The years he had served as marshal had fitted him for this work. He could visualize a scene in advance, discount its dangerous features and perfect an alibi that would stand the test. His was the mind that planned but he had seldom been present to witness the execution of those plans. His actual participation in the Wharton hold-up, the one misdeed of its kind where he had been present in person, had been occasioned by a desire to impress upon his associates that he was of the same fiber as themselves. He had gone out in a spirit of bravado and returned in a nervous panic. His main source of revenue was now derived from protection money which he levied against the lawless who operated in the county, these assessments collected through the agency of the two Ralstons who were his deputies as they had been Wellman’s before him. Protection came high and both Freel and Wellman profited accordingly. Oval Springs was a hotbed of lawlessness and a concession for any known transgression could be purchased for a price, a state of affairs confined not merely to Oval Springs alone but prevalent throughout the Strip.
The line between the law and the lawless was but vaguely defined. Instances of the apprehension of any wrong-doer were decidedly infrequent. Petty graft and crooked gambling flourished. As a carcass attracts scavenger birds so conditions in the Strip drew the vicious of the whole Southwest. Express messengers conveyed word of valuable consignments to friends who would make sure that the shipments failed to reach their destination. There were bankers who handled securities at stiff discounts without inquiry as to their source, jewelers who were equally incurious about the previous ownership of gems or gold, judges and county attorneys who were open to reason and sheriffs who followed false trails.