Cow-Country Part 21

"I think I'll stand out in front of the window," said Bud when they were inside. "It will look more natural, and if any of these fellows show up I'd just as soon not show my brand the first thing."

They showed up, all right, within two minutes of the unlocking of the bank and the rolling up of the shades. Jeff Hall was the first man to walk in, and he stopped short when he saw Bud lounging before the teller's window and the cashier busy within. Other men were straggling up on the porch, and two of them entered. Jeff walked over to Bud, who shifted his position enough to bring him facing Jeff, whom he did not trust at all.

"Mr. Lawton," Jeff began hurriedly, "I want to stop payment on a check this young feller got from me by fraud. It's for five thousand eight hundred dollars, and I notify you--"

"Too late, Mr. Hall. I have already accepted the checks. Where did the fraud come in? You can bring suit, of course, to recover."

"I'll tell you, Jimmy. He bet that my horse couldn't beat Dave Truman's Boise. A good many bet on the same thing. But my horse proved to have more speed, so a lot of them are sore." Bud chuckled as other Sunday losers came straggling in.

"Well, it's too late. I have honored the checks," Jimmy said crisply, and turned to hand a sealed manila envelope to the bookkeeper with whispered instructions. The bookkeeper, who had just entered from the rear of the office, turned on his heel and left again.

Jeff muttered something to his friends and went outside as if their business were done for the day.

"I gave you five thousand in currency and the balance in a cashier's check," Jimmy whispered through he wicket. "Sent it to the house, We don't keep a great deal--ten thousand's our limit in cash, and I don't think you want to pack gold or silver--"

"No, I didn't. I'd rather--"

Two men came in, one going over to the desk where he apparently wrote a check, the other came straight to the window. Bud looked into the heavily bearded face of a man who had the eyes of Lew Morris. He shifted his position a little so that he faced the man's right side. The one at the desk was glancing slyly over his shoulder at the bookkeeper, who had just returned to his work.

"Can you change this twenty so I can get seven dollars and a quarter out of it?" asked the man at he window. As he slid the bill through the wicket he started to sneeze, and reached backward--for his handkerchief, apparently.

"Here's one," said Bud. "Don't sneeze too hard, old-timer, or you're liable to sneeze your whiskers all off. It's happened before."

Someone outside fired a shot in at Bud, clipping his hatband in front.

At the sound of the shot the whiskered one s.n.a.t.c.hed his gun out, and the cashier shot him. Bud had sent a shot through the outside window and hit somebody--whom, he did not know, for he had no time to look. The young fellow at the desk had whirled, and was pointing a gun shakily, first at he cashier and then at Bud. Bud fired and knocked he gun out of his hand, then stepped over the man he suspected was Lew and caught the young fellow by the wrist.

"You're Ed Collier--by your eyes and your mouth," Bud said in a rapid undertone. "I'm going to get you out of this, if you'll do what I say.

Will you?"

"He got me in here, honest," the young fellow quaked. He couldn't be more than nineteen, Bud guessed swiftly.

"Let me through, Jimmy," Bud ordered hurriedly. "You got the man that put up this job. I'll take the kid out the back way, if you don't mind."

Jimmy opened the steel-grilled door and let them through.

"Ed Collier," he said in a tone of recognition. "I heard he was trailing--"

"Forget it, Jimmy. If the sheriff asks about him, say he got out. Now, Ed, I'm going to take you over to Mrs. Hanson's. She'll keep an eye on you for a while."

Eddie was looking at the dead man on the floor, and trembling so that he did not attempt to reply; and by way of Jimmy's back fence and the widow Hanson's barn and corral, Bud got Eddie safe into the kitchen just as that determined lady was leaving home with a shotgun to help defend the honor of the town.

Bud took her by the shoulder and told her what he wanted her to do.

"He's Marian's brother, and too young to be with that gang. So keep him here, safe and out of sight, until I come. Then I'll want to borrow your horse. Shall I tie the kid?"

"And me an able-bodied woman that could turn him acrost my knee?" Mrs.

Hanson's eyes snapped.

"It's more likely the boy needs his breakfast. Get along with ye!"

Bud got along, slipping into the bank by the rear door and taking a hand in the desultory firing in the street. The sheriff had a couple of men ironed and one man down and the landlord of the hotel was doing a great deal of explaining that he had never seen the bandits before. Just by way of stimulating his memory Bud threw a bullet close to his heels, and the landlord thereupon grovelled and wept while he protested his innocence.

"He's a d.a.m.n liar, sheriff," Bud called across the hoof-scarred road.

"He was talking to them about eleven o'clock last night. There were three that chased me into town, and they got him up out of bed to find out whether I'd stopped there. I hadn't, luckily for me. If I had he'd have showed them the way to my room, and he'd have had a dead boarder this morning. Keep right on shedding tears, you old cut-throat! I was sitting on the court-house porch, last night, and I heard every word that pa.s.sed between you and the Catrockers!"

"I've been suspicioning here was where they got their information right along," the sheriff commented, and slipped the handcuffs on the landlord. Investigation proved that Jeff Hall and his friends had suddenly decided that they had no business with the bank that day, and had mounted and galloped out of town when the first shot was fired.

Which simplified matters a bit for Bud.

In Jimmy Lawton's kitchen he received his money, and when the prisoners were locked up he saved himself some trouble with the sheriff by hunting him up and explaining just why he had taken the Collier boy into custody.

"You know yourself he's just a kid, and if you send him over the road he's a criminal for life. I believe I can make a decent man of him. I want to try, anyway. So you just leave me this deputy's badge, and make my commission regular and permanent, and I'll keep an eye on him. Give me a paper so I can get a requisition and bring him back to stand trial, any time he breaks out. I'll be responsible for him, sheriff."

"And who in blazes are you?" the sheriff inquired, with a grin to remove the sting of suspicion. "Name sounded familiar, too!"

"Bud Birnie of the Tomahawk, down near Laramie; Telegraph Laramie if you like and find out about me.

"Good Lord! I know the Tomahawk like a book!" cried the sheriff. "And you're Bob Birnie's boy! Say! D'you remember dragging into camp on the summit one time when you was about twelve years old--been hidin' out from Injuns about three days? Well, say! I'm the feller that packed you into the tent, and fed yuh when yuh come to. Remember the time I rode down and stayed over night at yore place, the time Bill Nye come down from his prospect hole up in the Snowies, bringin' word the Injuns was up again?" The sheriff grabbed Bud's hand and held it, shaking it up and down now and then to emphasize his words.

"Folks called you Buddy, then. I remember yuh, helpin' your mother cook 'n' wash dishes for us fellers. I kinda felt like I had a claim on yuh, Buddy.

"Say, Bill Nye, he's famous now. Writin' books full of jokes, and all that. He always was a comical cuss. Don't you remember how the bunch of us laughed at him when he drifted in about dark, him and four burros--that one he called Boomerang, that he named his paper after in Laramie? I've told lots of times what he said when he come stoopin' into the kitchen--how Colorou had sent him word that he'd give Bill just four sleeps to get outa there. An, 'h.e.l.l!' says Bill. 'I didn't need any sleeps!' An' we all turned to and cooked a hull beef yore dad had butchered that day--and Bill loaded up with the first chunks we had ready, and pulled his freight. He sure didn't need any sleeps--"

"Yes, you bet I remember. Jesse c.u.mmings is your name. I sure ought to remember you, for you and your partner saved my life, I expect. I thought I'd seen you before, when you made me deputy. How about the kid?

Can I have him? Lew Morris, the man that kept him on the wrong side of the law, is dead, I heard the doctor say. Jimmy got him when he pulled his gun."

"Why, yes--if the town don't git onto me turnin' him loose, I guess you can have the kid for all I care. He didn't take any part in the holdup, did he Buddy?"

"He was over by the customers' desk when Lew started, to hold up the cashier."

"Well I got enough prisoners so I guess he won't be missed. But you look out how yuh git him outa town. Better wait til kinda late to-night. I sure would like to see him git a show. Them two Collier kids never did have a square deal, far as I've heard. But be careful, youngster. I want another term off this county if I can get it. Don't go get me in bad."

"I won't," Bud promised and hurried back to Mrs. Hanson's house.

That estimable lady was patting b.u.t.ter in a wooden bowl when Bud went in. She turned and brushed a wisp of gray hair from her face with her fore arm and sh-shed him into silent stepping, motioning toward an inner room. Bud tiptoed and looked, saw Ed Collier fast asleep, swaddled in a blanket, and grinned his approval.

He made sure that the sleep was genuine, also that the blanket swaddling was efficient. Moreover, he discovered that Mrs. Hanson had very prudently attached a thin wire to the foot of the blanket coc.o.o.n, had pa.s.sed the wire through a knot hole in a cupboard set into the part.i.tion, and to a sheep bell which she no doubt expected to ring upon provocation--such as a prisoner struggling to release his feet from a gray blanket fastened with many large safety pins.

"He went right to sleep, the minute I'd fed him and tied him snug,"

Mrs. Hanson murmured. "He was a sulky divvle and wouldn't give a decent answer to me till he had his stomach filled. From the way he waded into the ham and eggs, I guess a square meal and him has been strangers for a long time."

Sleep and Ed Collier must have been strangers also, for Bud attended the inquest of Lew Morris, visited afterwards with Sheriff c.u.mmings, who was full of reminiscence and wanted to remind Bud of everything that had ever happened within his knowledge during the time when they had been neighbors with no more than forty miles or so between them. The sheriff offered Bud a horse and saddle, which he promised to deliver to the widow's corral after the citizens of Crater had gone to bed. And while he did not say that it would be Ed's horse, Bud guessed shrewdly that it would. After that, Bud carefully slit the lining of his boots tucked money and checks into the opening he had made, and did a very neat repair job.

All that while Ed Collier slept. When Bud returned for his supper Ed had evidently just awakened and was lying on his back biting his lip while he eyed the wire that ran from his feet to the parting of a pair of calico curtains. He did not see Bud, who was watching him through a crack in the door at the head of the bed. Ed was plainly puzzled at the wire and a bit resentful. He lifted his feet until the wire was well slackened, held them poised for a minute and deliberately brought them down hard on the floor.

The result was all that he could possibly have expected. Somewhere was a vicious clang, the rattle of a tin pan and the approaching outcry of a woman. Bud retreated to the kitchen to view the devastation and discovered that a sheep bell not too clean had been dislodged from a nail and dragged through one pan of milk into another, where it was rolling on its edge, stirring the cream that had risen. As Mrs. Hanson rushed in from the back yard, Bud returned to the angry captive's side.

"I've got him safe," he soothed Mrs. Hanson and her shotgun. "He just had a nightmare. Perhaps that breakfast you fed him was too hearty.

I'll look after him now, Mrs. Hanson. We won't be bothering you long, anyway."