A Man Four-Square Part 44

Clammy beads of sweat stood on his forehead. He had been given a new chance, and it warred with every inherited instinct of his nature. The fight within was cruel and bitter. But when he rose, his breakfast forgotten, it was won. He would let Roush go unhurt. He would do it for the sake of Polly Roubideau, who had been such a good friend to him.

Devil Dave, ghastly with fear, was still pleading for his life. Clanton, who had heard nothing of what the fellow had been saying in the past ten minutes, came to a sudden alert attention.

"I'll go into court an' swear it if you'll let me be. I'll tell the jedge an' the jury that Joe Yankie told me an' Albeen an' Dumont that he bushwhacked Webb an' then cut his stick so that you-all got the blame.

Honest to G.o.d, I will, Mr. Clanton. Jest you trust me an' see."

"When did Yankie tell you that?"

"He done told us at the camp-fire one night. He made his brags how you got the blame for it an' would have to hang."

"Albeen heard him say it--an' Dumont too?"

"Tha's right, Mr. Clanton. An' I'll sure take my Bible oath on it."

Go-Get-'Em Jim whipped out the forty-five from its holster and fired.

Roush dropped screaming to the ground. He thought he had been shot. The bullet had cut the rope above his head.

"Get up," ordered Clanton in disgust.

Roush rose stiffly.

Jim swung to the saddle of the horse beside him. "Hit the dust," he told his captive.

The rider followed the footman to the top of the bluff. Here Roush was instructed to mount the horse Clanton had been astride all night. Riding behind the tame bad man, Jim cut across the hills to a gulch and followed it till the ravine ran out in a little valley. He crossed this and climbed a stiff pa.s.s from the other side of which he looked down on Live-Oaks a thousand feet below.

The young man tied the hands of his prisoner behind him. From a coat pocket he drew a looking-gla.s.s, caught the sun's rays, and flung them upon a house in the suburbs of the town.

Out of the house there presently came a man. He stood in the doorway a moment before going down the street. A flash of hot sunlight caught him full in the face. He moved. The light danced after him. Then be woke up.

From the cliff far above friends of his had been wont to heliograph signals during the late Washington County War.

He read the light flashes and at once saddled a horse. A few minutes later he might have been seen on the breakneck trail that leads across the mountains to the Ruidosa. After a stiff climb he reached the summit and swung sharply along the ridge to the right. A voice hailed him.

"h.e.l.lo, Reb!"

"h.e.l.lo, Go-Get-'Em! Thought Goodheart was bringin' you back a prisoner."

Quantrell's old guerrilla looked with unconcealed surprise at the bound man. He knew the story of Clanton's deep-rooted hatred of the Roush clan.

"I didn't sign any bond to stay his prisoner," Jim answered dryly. Then, sharply, he turned upon Roush. "Spill out yore story about Yankie."

Reluctantly Roush told once more his tale. He spoke only under the pressure of imminent peril, for he knew that if this ever got back to the men in the chaparral they would kill him with no more compunction than they would a coyote.

"Take this bird down to Billie Prince, Reb. Tell him I jumped Roush on the Ruidosa, an' he peached to save his hide. This fellow is a born liar, but I reckon he's tellin' the truth this time. If he rues back on his story, tell Billie to put an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Live-Oaks 'Round-Up'

and I'll drop in to town an' have a stance with Mr. Roush."

Reb scratched his sunburnt head. "I don't aim to be noways inquisitive, Go-Get-'Em, but how come you to wait long enough to take this hawss-thief captive? I'd 'a' bet my best mule team against a dollar Mex that you'd have gunned him on sight."

"I'll tell you why, Reb. He had one rifle an' one six-gun. I didn't have either the one or the other, so I had to borrow his guns before I talked turkey. By that time I'd changed my mind about b.u.mpin' him off right now.

When Yankie finds out what he's been sayin' he'll do the trick for me."

"You're right he will. Good job, too. I hate a sneak like I do a side-winder." Reb turned to his prisoner. "Git a move on you, Roush.

I want this job over with. I'm no coyote herder."

Chapter x.x.xIII

The Round-Up

Dumont had been on the grill for three hours. He had taken refuge in dogged silence. He had been badgered into lies. He had broken down at last and told the truth. Sheriff Billie Prince, keen as a hound on the scent, persistent as a bulldog, peppered the man's defense with a machine-gun fire of questions. Back of these loomed the shadow of a long term in the penitentiary.

For Dumont had been caught with his iron hot. The acrid smell of burnt flesh was still in the air when an angry cattleman and two of his riders came on the man and the rustled calf. Fortunately for the thief the sheriff happened to be in the neighborhood. He had rescued the captured waddy from the hands of the incensed ranchers and brought him straight to Live-Oaks.

The rustler was frightened. There had been a bad quarter of an hour when it looked as though he might be the central figure in a lynching. Even after this danger had been weathered, the outlook was full of gloom. He had to choose between a long prison sentence and the betrayal of his comrades. Dumont had no iron in his blood. He dodged and evaded and bluffed--and at last threw up his hands. If the sheriff would protect him from the vengeance of the gang, he would give any information wanted or do anything he was told to do.

The arrival of Reb and his prisoner interrupted the quiz. Prince had Dumont returned to his cell and took up the new business of Roush and his story. The sheriff knew he would be blamed for the escape of Clanton and he thought it wise to have the whole matter opened up before witnesses.

Wallace Snaith and Dad Wrayburn both happened to be in town and Billie sent the boss mule-skinner to bring them. To these men he turned over the examination of Roush.

They wrung from him, a sc.r.a.p at a time, the story Yankie had told his confederates at the camp-fire. A statement of the facts was drawn up and signed by Roush under protest. It was witnessed by the four men present.

Devil Dave was locked up and Dumont brought back to the office of the sheriff. Taken by surprise at the new form of the questionnaire, already broken in spirit and therefore eager to conciliate these powerful citizens, the rustler at once corroborated the story of Roush. He, too, signed a statement drawn up by Prince.

"Just shows, doggone it, how a man can be too blamed sure," commented Wrayburn. "I'd 'a' bet my life Go-Get-'Em Jim killed Webb. But he didn't. It's plain enough now. After his rookus with the old man, Yankie must have got a seventy-three an' waited in the chaparral. It just happened he was lyin' hid close to where we met Clanton. It beats the Dutch."

"An' if Jim hadn't escaped he'd have been hanged for killin' Webb."

"That's right, sheriff. On my testimony, too. Say, let me go to the Governor with these papers an' git the pardon. I'd like to give it to the boy myself, jest to show him there's no hard feelin's," urged Wrayburn.

"That's all right, Dad. I'm goin' to be right busy this next week, I shouldn't wonder. I've got business up in the hills."

"If you're goin' on a round-up, I hope you make a good gather, Prince,"

said Snaith, smiling.

Not in the history of Washington County had there been another such a round-up as this one of which Sheriff Prince was the boss. He made his plans swiftly and thoroughly. His posses were to sweep the country between Saco de Oro Creek and Caballero Canon. Every gap was to be stopped, every exit guarded. Dumont, much against his will, rode beside the sheriff as guide. Goodheart had charge of the first party that went out. His duty was to swing round and close the gulches to the north. Here he would wait until the hunted men were driven into the trap he had set.

Old Reb, with a second posse, started next morning for the head-waters of Seven-Mile Creek. An hour later the sheriff himself took the road. He left town sooner than he had intended because Roush had escaped during the night and was probably on his way into the hills to warn the rustlers.

Get them in a talkative mood and old-timers who took part in it will still tell the story of that man-drive in the mountains. Riders combed the draws and the b.u.t.tes, eyes and ears alert for those who might lie hidden on the rim rocks or in the cactus. It was grim business. Driven out of their holes, the rustlers fought savagely. One, trapped in a hill pocket, stood off a posse till he was shot to death. A second was wounded, captured, and sent back with two other suspects to Live-Oaks.

At the end of a week Prince had the remnant of the band surrounded in a mountain park close to Caballero Canon.

The country into which the outlaws had been driven was an ideal terrain for defense. The brush was thick and tall. Two wooded arroyos gashed the rim of the valley and ran down into the basin. An attack against determined men here was bound to prove costly.

Billie knew that three men lay in the chaparral and he believed that one of them at least was wounded. Old Reb had jumped them up from a fireless camp, and in their hurry to escape the outlaws had left all their provisions and two of their horses. They left, too, one of the posse with a bullet hole in his forehead. The sheriff's plan was to tighten the lines gradually and starve out the rustlers.

But though Prince would not let his men advance to a general a.s.sault, he made up his mind to find out more as to the condition of the men he had surrounded. He wanted to make sure they had not slipped past his guards into Caballero Canon. In the back of his head, too, was the feeling that if he could get into touch with them, perhaps he might arrange for a surrender.

He called Goodheart to one side. "As soon as it's dark I'm goin' in to find out what's doin'. We haven't heard a murmur from these birds for hours. Perhaps they've flown. Anyhow, I'm goin' to find out."