A Man in the Open Part 16

Well, that there laudanum soothes the fractious infant, and causes a whole lot of repose. Quite sweet without sugar. Yes, please, you'll lift the goblet to your mouth while I watch that nothing goes wrong with your pug nose. You want to throw back your head, you treacherous swine.

Drink, or I'll splash your brains on the floor!"

"I daren't! It's poison!"

"It's bullets--you'd better! Drink, or I'll kill you! Drink!

One--two--much obliged, I'm sure. Hope you'll sleep well."

"Curse you!" he shrieked, and flung the gla.s.s at my head.

Then down came the widow like a landslide. She scratched my face, confessed my sins, sobbed over her darling Billy _avick_, prescribed for my future, wrung her wet frock, and made a soap emetic for her offspring all at once. It's a sure fact that widow was plenty busy, and what with slinging that emetic at the patient, and gently introducing the lady to the kitchen cupboard, wall, I declare I didn't have a dull moment. Then distant shots brought us up all standing.

"At last!" Billy shouted, "they're off!"

"Who's off?"

"Father and his men--escaped while I kep' you in talk. Fooled, Jesse!

Fooled! I fooled you to the eyes! My father's Larry O'Flynn, Captain Larry O'Flynn, captain of the outlaws!" My, there was pride in the lad!

He sat on the table in the dusk, fighting to keep awake, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. "He's give me leave to join, and I'm hitting the trail to-night--hitting the trail, d'ye hear?" His eyes closed, his voice trailed off to a whisper, and then once more he roused. "I'm a wolf!" he howled. "I come from Bitter Creek! The higher up, the worse the waters, and I'm from the source! Robbery-under-arms, and don't you forget it, Mister Jesse Smith!" He rocked from side to side, gripping hard at the table, muttering threats.

Outside I could hear a rider coming swift, and Dale's voice hailing, "Jesse! Jesse!"

"Jesse," the lad was muttering, "lift his stock, and his woman, burn his ranch, and put his fires out--thatsh the way to--"

Dale had stepped from his horse, and stood in the doorway, making it dark inside. "Where in blazes are you?"

"Look," said I, and Dale watched, for the boy, dead pale, was lurching from side to side, his eyes closed, his lips still moving.

"Only drugged," said I. "Who let them robbers escape?"

"Ransome Pollock," said Dale.

"Who else?"

"Dave."

"How's his poor tooth?" says I, and Dale explained he'd been clubbed.

Young O'Flynn rolled over, and went down smash, so that I had to kneel, and try if his heart was all right. It thumped along steady and give no sign of quitting.

"I had to," said I, "old Whiskers yonder is the widow's husband, and father to this boy. He's clear grit, Iron."

"Where's the widow?"

"Resting." I heard horses come thundering out of the dusk. "Robbers broke south?"

"Yep."

"Hev they grow'd wings?"

"Nope."

"Can't swim the Fraser?"

"Bottled?" said he, cheering up.

"Some," says I. "Not corked yet. You want to make a line here quick, from the foot of the upper cliff to the edge of the river, and each man make three big fires. Then post half your men to tend fires, and the best shots to hold that line with rifles. Them robbers has got to break through when they knows they're cornered. Here's your boys, Iron. Git a move on!"

"That's so," says Dale, and in two shakes of a duck's tail he was throwing his men into line. Seems that some of the boys rode the robbers' horses, and the rest were bareback on my pack-ponies, so Kate had a fine gallop home with the mob. But when she saw what I'd prescribed for Billy's symptoms, she wasn't pleased, and by the time she'd made herself content, I had to be off on duty. Meanwhile the widow, wild and lone, had flew; so that left Kate without help, her job being coffee to keep the boys awake till we'd daylight to corner the robbers.

Men watching on a strain like that get scary as cats, so by moonset some of our warriors would loose off guns at stumps, trees, rocks, or just because they felt lonesome. After the moon went down, dry fuel got scant, so that the fires waned, and some of our young men must have seen millions of outlaws. When at last something actually happened, it was natural that Ransome should have adventures. He wasn't built for solitude, and when he seen a flag wave from behind a bush, he called the boys from left and right to bunch in and corroborate. The flag kep'

waving, and presently two more of our men had to join the bunch because they couldn't shout their good advice, lest the robbers hear every word.

I was away to Apex Rock, Iron down in the canon, and these blasted idiots talked.

Of course old Whiskers knew that antelope will always creep up to inspect any waving rag. Before the excitement was properly begun he and his robbers slipped through our broken line.

If Ransome has time to aim he's dangerous to the neighbors, but since the odds were a thousand to one the gun would kick him as far as next Thursday, I'd have bet my debts he wouldn't hit the party with that flag. Yet that's what happened. He got the widow O'Flynn.

With one heart-rending, devastating howl she went to gra.s.s, and she did surely shriek as if there was no hereafter. Murthered in the limb she was, and as I left to follow the sounds of them escaping robbers, I didn't have time to send a carpenter.

CHAPTER IX

THE UNTRUTHFUL PRISONER

_Jesse's Narrative_

With creditors, women, robbers, and everything dangerous, you want to be chuck full of deportment, smooth as old Honeypott, and a whole lot tactful. Anything distractful or screeching disturbs one's peace of mind, and sends one's aplomb to blazes, just when a bear trap may happen at any moment. I traveled for all I was worth to put that widow behind me, and compose my mind.

Which her wolf howls was plumb deplorable. It wasn't her limb. Indeed, she wanted excuses for a new one ever since she seen that table limb in my barn. It was her husband, Whiskers, departing, desperate to get away from her. And I don't blame him. She was an irreverent detail anyhow, diminishing gradual into the night, for if I let them robbers once get out of hearing, they couldn't be tracked till morning. The worst of it was I'd no smell dog; my Mick being sick with a cold and hot fermentations, had his nose out of action. No, the only thing was to get clear of the widow's concert, and keep in hearing while the outlaws traveled. I was laying a trail of torn paper, mostly unpaid bills, so that the boys could find which way I'd gone.

Maybe I'd gone a mile before remorse gnawed Whiskers because he'd abandoned the widow. He paused, and as I came surging along, he lammed me over the head with a gun.

Yes, I was captured. They got my gun, too, and marched me along between them. Mr. Bull, he yapped like a coyote, full of glory's if he'd captured me himself. What with being clubbed, and not feeling good just then, I didn't seem to be much interested, although I put up a struggle wherever the ground was muddy, leaving plenty tracks down to the ferry, so that the boys would know which way I'd been dragged.

Old man Brown was away, but as I'd left the scow on the near bank, the robbers were able to cross, and put the Fraser between me and rescue.

That ought to have cheered them up, since it gave them a start of several hours toward safety, but instead of skinning out of British Columbia, as I advised them with powerful strong talk, they'd got to stop for breakfast on old Brown's beans and sow-belly, cussing most plenteous because he wasn't there to cook hot biscuits.

After breakfast they wasted an hour dressing his paw for old Whiskers, and wondering whether they'd waste one of my cartridges on me, or keep them all for my friends. On that I divulged a lot of etiquette out of my book. I told these misbegotten offspring they'd been brung up all wrong, or they'd have enough deportment to make tracks. "Now," says I, "in the land of the free and the home of the brave you been appreciated, whereas if you linger here till sunup you'll be shot."

That made poor Whiskers still more suspicious, wondering what sort of bear traps guileful Smith was projecting. "Wants to get us up on the bench," says he, "that means ware traps. We'll stay right here, boys, for daylight, when we'll be able to see ourselves, how to save them cattle."

"We'd better kill the prisoner," Bull argues, and this reminds me of his ancient friendship.

"Shut your fool head," says Whiskers. "His friends would rather us go free than see him killed before their eyes. You've no more brains than a poached owl."

"You're dead right, Whiskers!" says I. "Hair on you!"