Lonesome Town Part 32

Why not now? In view of possibilities, it had not taken one of Pape's predisposition for action long to decide that the then and there were none too soon for adjustment of their relative status. He and his self-selected could spare time, he guessed, for a bout that would settle-well, what it would settle.

"Climb down. Let's get it over before some ladylike rule of this old-woman town of yours trips us up."

Pape was in the act of dismounting, in accordance with his own suggestion, when Harford executed a surprise that nearly crowded him to a fall. The attack was abetted by the inherent hostility of a thoroughbred horse for cross-breeds of the range. As though trained for just such partic.i.p.ation, the blue-blood rammed into the piebald, bringing his rider within tempting reach of the enemy ear. A whack more dizzying than dangerous followed the equine impact.

"So that's-the game?" Pape gasped during his recovery. "You've got-edge on me-with your-polo punch. But swords or pistols! I'm ready for-any old fight that's fought-Harfy _dar_-_rling_."

He threw back into the leather, where he felt as much at home as any man and jabbed his right foot back into its stirrup. Swinging his calico cayuse he pressed back the horses astride which the two girls sat-Jane with pale, set face, like a marble of avengement; Irene glitter-eyed and high-hued from excitement. For a duel of chevaliers this particular squared-circle hidden by Nature must be cleared. When the fair audience was crowded to one side in "reserved" quadruped standing room, West whirled and bore down on East.

Fights of diverse sorts had place in the variegated past of Peter Pape.

Rough-and-tumbles, knock-down-and-drag-outs, rim-fires or lightning-draws-all such he had survived. But no past emergency had he battled by fists on horseback. Once he had accepted the challenge, however, the form of fight looked fairer than at first blow, since it was unlikely that its instigator had more experience in stirrup battling than he. As for rules, he, for one, felt quite as hazy as he would have in some tilting bout of lance-laden knight of old. They would have to make up the rules as they went along, he supposed.

"At 'em, Dot!" he wirelessed the frecked ear laid back in rancor against a brushed-teeth nip of the over-groomed enemy mount. Not a heel urge did the piebald need, any more than a jerk of the rein which, already, Pape had twisted about the saddle horn. With a horse keen to knee pressure as was this cow-pony, he had the advantage of both hands free for swing or jab.

Straight at the aristocrats went the rough pair. Polkadot landed a shoulder impact that all but toppled the spindle-legged black. The while, his man-mate's bruising left, accomplished contact with the Harford nose. At the "claret" which oozed from a feature perfect enough in outline to have been inherited from cla.s.sic Greek, Irene uttered a cry in which sounded fear for the family friend and admiration of the person impossible. Jane sat her horse, silent and outwardly composed, except that the color had left even her lips.

In the break-away, the black kicked out viciously. But the pinto, with skill acquired in growing-up days when he had trained with an Arizona outlaw band, flirted his vari-colored rump out of harm's way. Already the battle was bi-fold, the two men its instigators, their mounts responsible for footwork.

On the second engagement, not counting that initial surprise attack which had bordered on the foul, Harford handled his thoroughbred into a position of such advantage that he drove a right to Pape's jaw. Rocked from crown to toe, the Westerner saved himself a fall by going into just such a clinch as he would have tried had they been balanced each on his own two feet instead of his horse's four.

There was something superst.i.tious in the look which distorted Harford's good looks, as he found himself held helpless while his opponent rallied-a look which suggested that he had put his all into that upper-cut and was worse nerve-shocked than was its recipient physically over failure to bring decision. There being no referee to command a break, Pape came out of the clinch when he was ready, with the "spinner"

aid of a horse that turned ends on signal-and all within the s.p.a.ce of a blanket.

The break-away, unexpected by the Eastern immaculate, reduced him sartorially to a plane with the Westerner. His stock and part of his striped silk shirt remained in the Pape paws, torn from his neck and back when Polkadot had capered. His dishevelment now matched that which Pape had acquired in his struggle against momentum upon the cliff.

The equine pair also seemed possessed of battling madness. For a time they fox-trotted about, keeping their riders beyond each other's reach, while they fought an instinctive duel of their own. The black proved a fore-and-after-pawed out ladylike blows with slender forefeet, then lofted his heels in a way that jarred the human aboard him more than the wary target. At a familiar knee signal, Polkadot suddenly rose on his hindlegs as if for that bronco evolution known as sunfishing.

"Look out-he'll topple back and crush you!"

The outcry was forced from Jane.

As at once transpired, it proved unnecessary. The piebald had no intention of falling back upon his man-pal. Instead, he hopped forward on hind legs until he had the black cornered, then flung down with all his weight. The thoroughbred, crushed to his knees, escaped by sheer agility the sharp-shod hoofs; wriggled his fringe-bedecked neck and satin shoulders from out the commoner's clutch.

Dumbly infuriated by his failure and urged by an imperative signal, Polkadot pressed such advantage as was left him. By sparing the black no time to recover, he gave Pape his opportunity. Head to tail the horses met with terrific impact. For the second or so in which both staggered, a stirrup each locked crushingly.

Followed two fist blows from Pape, so nearly simultaneous that no on-looker could have been sure which did the work. He himself knew that his right had led by enough of a count to jolt his rival's head into fair position for his gnarled left. Far out from saddle he leaned to put into that follow his last ounce of power. The blow landed nicely under the Easterner's cleft chin. As the horses sprang apart, Harford toppled and fell.

What would have been a clean knock-out of which no fistic specialist need have been ashamed was spoiled by a mishap. The falling man's right foot did not clear the trap-like stirrup of his English saddle. The behavior of his thoroughbred too, was unfortunate. In a frenzy of alarm the black sprang forward, then dashed for the entrance of the glen, dragging his rider. Probably the fact that Harford was clear out, his body inert, saved him an immediate hoof wound, but there was scarcely a chance of his survival if hauled over the rocks of the entrance. His horse, however, did not reach that barrier. Having his rival dragged to injury or death was no more a part of Pape's program than was murder a component of his hate. Before the black had covered two rods, Polkadot was after him, for once dug by the spurs which he had every right to consider worn for decorative purposes only. One hundred yards of green, with the sharp teeth of the rock trap but fifty farther on, brought the racing beasts neck and neck-brought Pape to an equestrian exploit conceived on the way.

He kicked his right foot free of the wooden stirrup; encircled the saddle horn with his knee; throwing his weight on the left stirrup, leaned low. To retrieve a grounded hat or handkerchief from the saddle at gallop pace he regarded as a simple form of exercise. To seize and loft an unconscious man of Harford's build was difficulty multiplied by his dead weight of some hundred-seventy pounds.

"Impossible!"

Pape's jaw set with the thought-challenge which had taken him over the top of so varied contretemps-the word applied to him with such significance by the sn.o.b whom he was about to save.

Why not achieve the impossible now as heretofore? He put the demand on his tried muscles, risked two bounds of the black in making sure that his grip upon the collar of Harford's coat was firm, then heaved upon his burden. The initial inches of clearance were hardest-broke his nails, tortured his fingers, almost snapped the sinews in his arm. Not until his right hand was able to join his left did he breathe again.

And just in time was his double hold secured.

So quickly did the black horse swerve that the calico could not synchronize. For a moment Harford's body and the taut stirrup were a strained connecting link. Then Polkadot edged nearer and Pape was able to lift the unconscious figure to a position of partial support across his mount's forequarters.

But the stirrup still held, its iron shoe having been forced into the leather of Harford's boot and fastened as in a vise. They might be coupled together until the black ran down unless--

The stretch of strap gave Pape an idea. Quick almost as the thought he drew his gun; took three shots; severed the link. Turning, he rode the doubly burdened piebald back in the direction of the two girls, while the thoroughbred sought exclusiveness in the far reaches of the glen.

Probably because of the frequent back-fire of motors and the blow-out of tires which at times make Central Park suggest a West Virginia mining town on fusillade day, the curiosity of no sparrow cop had been excited by the gun reports.

Much more gently than he had gathered up his enemy, Pape now lowered him to the turf and flung out of saddle to a kneeling position. A cursory examination showed Harford's fine-featured face to be somewhat marred by fist blows. But his body, so far as the emergency first aid could determine, was intact. The last fear of a possible skull fracture was dissipated when the brown eyes quivered open and the flaccid lips began to move.

"He's trying to speak, Why Not," exclaimed Irene, a moment ahead of Jane in dismounting. "Listen, _do_! In the novels I've read they always say the most _important_ things when they're coming out of-of a hiatus or whatever you call it."

Pape leaned close enough to grasp part of the effortful mumble.

"Didn't steal-anything. Sorry called you-names. Irene loves--"

That was as far as Harford got at the moment. And it was well, as the perquisitory miss demanded the context of his utterances.

Now, the telling of lies was abhorrent to Peter Pape. Seldom did he consider recourse to the slightest misrepresentation even when straight-out talk made complexities. But he found himself tempted by an inspiration as to how he might repay both enemy man and enemy girl for the trouble they had caused him with the same slight elaboration of the truth.

"It is your name on his lips," he informed the romantic miss.

"'Irene'-_you_ were his first thought. You're the one he wants, my child, the one he calls for."

"Oh! _Oh_!" she murmured, her dark eyes expanding. "Then I haven't been wrong-Harfy _has_ cared for me in secret all along?"

She knelt down beside the fallen family friend; hovered over him in an egoistic ecstasy.

"Poor dar-rling-_how_ you must have loved me to have hidden it so well!

And all the time I thought that you-Oh, it is _thrilling_ that you should have pretended to regard another, when in reality your _grande pa.s.sione_ was for me alone! If you'd been killed, I _never_ could have forgiven myself-that is, I couldn't if I had found out afterwards. When I think what you must have _suffered_, I wonder how I ever can repay--"

"You've got a darn' good chance right here and now," interrupted Pape, as a finishing touch to his ruse for punishing them and cutting-out Jane from the "bunch." "He's coming around fast-ain't in any physical danger if his heart is cheered up. 'Tis better far for him that you two shouldest be alone when he comes clean to. You stay here and nurse him-you owe him at least that much. When he's able to ride make for the bridle path and home. The black is quieting down. You can catch him without trouble. And don't be afraid of pouring out your love and affection upon the poor man. It is your bounden duty as a woman and a vamp. Love may save his life."

"But you, Why Not?"

A sudden fear lest she lose the old in the new acquirement strained her face.

"I'll bear up some way. I, too, still have my health and strength." He tried to mask his triumph in a dark, desperate frown. "Come, Jane. You and I are no longer needed here."

He forestalled protest by remounting; gave the older girl a half-humorous, wholly-apologetic look; led the way toward the heights.

Five minutes later they dropped rein in a clump of warty-ridged hackberry bushes and started on afoot. On the way he made succinct report of his discovery during the pursuit of the red. At that, he had not prepared her-indeed, was far from prepared himself-for what they soon saw from cover at the edge of the mesa.

The stage was set as on his dash across it in pursuit of the run-amuck.

But the actors-half a dozen in number, inclusive of Swinton Welch, and none in laborer's garb-were now grouped about one of the supply carts.

Attention centered upon a man who sat the tail of this cart-one who had not been about during Pape's preview. His pudgy hands held open before him a sheet of paper from which he was reading aloud.

The pair in the bush stared at this man in amazement too breath-taking for speech. Then their glances met, as if to read substantiation, each in the other's eyes.

So, then, it was true! The _generalissimo_ issuing instructions was the long-time friend and family counselor, ex-Judge Samuel Allen.