The Mountain Divide Part 22

"You mean Levake sent you," retorted Stanley. He sat at his desk and eyed the two ruffians, as they faced him somewhat nervously. They at length admitted that they had come from Levake, and gave Stanley his chance for an answer.

"Tell Levake for me there will be no peace for him or his until he comes down here with his hands behind his back. When I want Rebstock and Seagrue I will let him know. I want him first," said Stanley, dismissing the messengers without more ado.

CHAPTER XXIII

He had resolved that Levake was to be punished, but it was not a unanimous voice that backed the railroad leader in his determination.

Weak-kneed men in the conference wanted to compromise and end the fight where it stood. Even Atkinson was disposed to make terms, as the party returned to the barricade.

"No," repeated Stanley. "Levake is the head and front of this whole disorder. As long as he can shoot down unarmed men in the streets of Medicine Bend there will be no law and order here. While men see him walking these streets unpunished they will take their cue from him and rob and shoot whom they please--Levake and his ilk must go. A railroad, on the start, brings a lawless element with it--this is true. But it also brings law and order and that element has come to Medicine Bend to stay. If the machinery of the law is too weak to support it, so much worse for the machinery. I don't want to see blood shed or property destroyed, but the responsibility for this rests with the outlaws that are terrorizing this town. And I will spend every ounce of ammunition I have and fight them to the last man, rather than compromise with a bunch of cutthroats.

"If any man here feels differently about this, he may step out of the barricade now," continued Stanley, addressing those of the townsmen that listened. "There will be no hard feeling. But this is the time to do it. Worse is ahead of us before we can clean the town up as it will have to be cleaned sometime. The longer you leave the job undone, the harder it will be when you tackle it."

A movement across the square interrupted his words, and a messenger waving a white handkerchief came over to the barricade to ask for a surgeon for a wounded man. There were some who opposed sending any relief to men that had forfeited all claim to humane consideration.

Doctor Arnold, however, was summoned, and Stanley finally determined that the matter should be left to the surgeon himself--he could go if he wished. Arnold did not hesitate in his decision. "It is my duty to go," he decided briefly.

"I don't quite see that," muttered Atkinson.

The white-haired surgeon turned to the leader of the vigilantes. "It is not a matter of personal inclination, Atkinson. When I took my degree for the practice of medicine, I took an oath to respond to every call of suffering and I have no right to refuse this one."

Leaving his own injured with his a.s.sistant, the surgeon told the messenger to proceed and the two walked across the square and up Front Street to the Three Horses. Arriving there, Arnold was asked to dress the wound of a man that had been shot through the breast in the fight along Fort Street. While he was working over his patient, who lay on a table surrounded by a motley crowd of onlookers, Levake walked in. He nodded to the surgeon and drawing a pocket knife, while Arnold was cleansing the wound, sat down beside him to whittle a stick.

"I hear your man, Stanley, wants me," began Levake after an interval.

"I guess you hear right," returned Arnold dryly.

"Tell him for me to come get me, will you?" suggested Levake.

"If he ever comes after you, Levake, he will get you," returned Arnold, looking the outlaw straight in the eye. "There isn't any doubt about that," he added, resuming his task.

Levake whittled but made no reply. He watched the surgeon's work closely, and when Arnold had finished and given directions for the wounded man's care he walked out of the place with him.

"Tell Stanley what I said, will you?" repeated Levake, as the railroad surgeon left the door and started down street.

Arnold made no answer and Levake, taunting him to send all the men the railroad had after him, followed Arnold toward the square.

The surgeon understood that it was Levake's purpose to engage him in a dispute and kill him if he could. Arnold, moreover, was hot-tempered and made no concealment of his feelings toward any man. For this reason, despite his realization of danger, he was an easy prey.

To the final taunt of the outlaw the surgeon made rather a sharp answer and quickened his pace, to walk away from his unpleasant companion. But Levake would not be shaken off, and as the two were pa.s.sing a deserted restaurant he ordered the surgeon to halt. Arnold turned without shrinking. Levake had already drawn his pistol and his victim concluded he was to be killed then and there, but he resolved to tell the outlaw what he thought of him.

"I understand your game perfectly, Levake," he said after he had raked him terrifically. "Now, if you are going to shoot, do it. You haven't long to live yourself--make sure of that."

"No man can threaten me and live," retorted Levake harshly.

"I came up here, an unarmed man, on an errand of mercy."

"I didn't send for you."

"You would kill me just as quick if you had, Levake. What are you hesitating about? If you are going to shoot, shoot."

Throwing back his right arm, and fingering the trigger of his revolver as a panther lashes his tail before springing, Levake stepped back and to one side. As he did so, with the fearless surgeon still facing him, a man stepped from behind the screen door of the deserted restaurant.

It was Bob Scott.

The old and deadly feud between the Indian and the outlaw brought them now, for the first time in months, face to face. In spite of his iron nerve Levake started. Scott, slightly stooped and wearing the familiar slouch hat and shabby coat in which he was always seen, regarded his enemy with a smile.

So sudden was his appearance that Levake could not for an instant control himself. If there was a man in the whole mountain country that Levake could be said to be afraid of, it was the mild-mannered, mild-spoken Indian scout. Where Scott had come from, how he had got through the pickets posted by Levake himself--these questions, for which he could find no answer, disquieted the murderer.

Arnold, reprieved from death as by a miracle, stood like a statue.

Levake, with his hand on his pistol, had halted, petrified, at the sight of Scott.

The latter, eying the murderer with an expression that might have been mistaken for friendly, had not Levake known there could be no friendship among decent men for him, broke the silence: "Levake, I have a warrant for you."

The words seemed to shake the spell from the outlaw's nerves. He answered with his usual coolness: "You've waited a good while to serve it."

"I've been a little busy for a few days, Levake," returned Scott, with the same even tone. "I kind of lost track of you." But his words again disconcerted Levake. The few men who now watched the scene and knew what was coming stood breathless.

Levake, moistening his dry lips, spoke carefully: "I don't want any trouble with you here," he said. "When this town fight is over, bring your warrant around and I'll talk to you."

"No," returned Scott, undisturbed, "I might lose track of you again.

You can come right along with me, Levake."

With incredible quickness the outlaw, half-turning to cover Scott, fired. The cat-like agility of the Indian answered the move in the instant it was made. Scott was, in fact, the first scout from whom mountain men learned to fire a revolver without aiming it and it was not without reason that Levake sought no encounter with him. For Scott to draw and fire was but one movement, and hating Levake as a monster, the Indian had long been ready to meet him as he met him now, when he should be forced to face him fairly.

A fusillade of shots rang down the street. The air between the two men, feinting like boxers in their deadly duel, filled with whitish smoke. Arnold, stunned by the suddenness of the encounter, jumped out of range. In the next moment he saw Levake sink to the sidewalk.

Scott, springing upon him like a cat, knelt with one hand already on his throat; with the other he wrung a second revolver from Levake's hand. The surgeon ran to the two men.

Levake, panting, lay desperately wounded, as Scott slowly released his grip upon him. The Indian rose as the surgeon approached, but Levake, his eyes wide open, lay still.

"You are wounded, Bob," cried Arnold, tearing the stained sleeve of Scott's coat from his shoulder. The scout shook his head.

"We're in danger here," he replied, glancing hurriedly up the street.

"We must get this fellow away."

The two picked the wounded man from the ground and started quickly down street with him. The shooting, now so frequent all over the town, had attracted little attention outside the few that had witnessed the swift duel, and the two railroad men made good progress with their burden before the alarm was spread. But the surgeon saw that the strain was telling on Scott, whose shoulder was bleeding freely. He had even ordered his companion to drop his burden and run, when he heard a shout and saw Bill Dancing running across from the barricade to their aid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOR SCOTT TO DRAW AND FIRE WAS BUT ONE MOVEMENT.]

Half a dozen of the rioters, shouting threats and imprecations, were hastening down Front Street after Levake and his captors to rescue their prisoner. Scott, reloading his revolver as Dancing relieved him of his end of the burden, stood free to cover the retreat. He fired a warning shot at the nearest of their pursuers. A scattering pistol fire at long range followed. But the railroad men crossed the square in safety, and the big lineman, with Levake in his arms, carried him single-handed into the barricade.

The surgeon and Bob Scott followed close. Bucks was first to meet the wounded scout, and the railroad men, jubilant at Levake's capture, ran to Scott and bore him down with rough welcome. Levake was laid upon a bench in the station and Scott followed to his side. Arnold, joining the scout, made ready to dress the wound in his shoulder.

"See to Levake first, doctor," said Scott, "he needs it the most."

As he spoke, Dancing hurried into the room. "Bob, the car shops are on fire."