The Orphan Part 3

"Good," responded the sheriff, turning to go. "Every gun counts, and Jim is a good man."

"Say," the agent was lonesome, "I heard down at the Oasis last night that The Orphant was seen out near the Cross Bar-8 yesterday. He ought to get shot, d----n him! But that's a purty big contract, I reckon. They say he can shoot like the very devil."

"They're right, he can," Shields replied. "Everybody knows that."

"Charley seems to be in a hurry," remarked the agent, looking down the street at a cowboy, a friend of the sheriff, who was coming at a dead gallop. The sheriff looked and Charley waved his arm. As he came within hailing distance he shouted:

"The Orphan killed Jimmy Ford this morning on Twenty Mile Trail! His pardner got away by shootin' The Orphan's horse and taking to the trail through Little Arroyo. But he's shot, just the same, 'though not bad. The rest of the Cross Bar-8 outfit are going out for him; they've been out, but they can't follow his trail."

"h.e.l.l!" cried the sheriff, running toward his corral. "Wait!" he shouted over his shoulder as he turned the corner. In less than five minutes he was back again, and on his best horse, and following the impatient cowboy, swung down the street at a gallop in the direction of Twenty Mile Trail.

As they left the town behind and swung through the arroyo leading to the Limping Water, through which the stage route lay, Charley began to speak again:

"Jimmy and Pete Carson were taking a rest in the shade of the chaparral and playin' old sledge, when they looked up and saw The Orphan looking down at them. They're rather easy-going, and so they asked him to take a hand. He said he would, and got off his cayuse and sat down with them.

Jimmy started a new deal, but The Orphan objected to old sledge and wanted poker, at the same time throwing a bag of dust down in front of him. Jimmy looked at Pete, who nodded, and put his wealth in front of him. Well, they played along for a while, and The Orphan began to have great luck. When he had won five straight jack pots it was more than Jimmy could stand, him being young and hasty. He saw his new Cheyenne saddle, what he was going to buy, getting further away all the time, and he yelled 'Cheat!' grabbing for his gun, what was plumb crazy for him to do.

"The Orphan fired from his hip quick as a wink, and Jimmy fell back just as Pete drew. The Orphan swung on him and ordered him to drop his gun, which same Pete did, being sick at the stomach at Jimmy's pa.s.sing. Then The Orphan told him to take his dirty money and his cheap life and go back to his mamma. Pete didn't stop none to argue, but mounted and rode away.

But the fool wasn't satisfied at having a whole skin after a run-in with The Orphan, and when he got off about four hundred yards and right on the edge of Little Arroyo, where he could get cover in one jump, he up and let drive, killing The Orphan's horse. Pete got two holes in his shoulder before he could get out of sight, and he remembered that his shot had hardly left his gun before he had 'em, too. Pete says he wonders how in h--l The Orphan could shoot twice so quick, when his gun's a Sharp's single shot."

Shields was pleased with the knowledge that it was not a plain murder this time, and fell to wondering if the other killings in which The Orphan had figured had not in a measure been justified. Hearsay cried "Murderer," but his own personal experience denied the term. Did not The Orphan know that Shields was after him, and that the sheriff was no man to be taken lightly when he had shown mercy near the big bowlder? The outlaw must be fair and square, reasoned the sheriff, else he would not have looked for those qualities in another, and least of all in an enemy. The outlaw had given him plenty of chances to kill and had thought nothing of it, time and time again turning his back without hesitation.

True, The Orphan had covered him when his hand had streaked for his tobacco; but the sheriff would have done the same, because the movement was decidedly hostile, and he had been fortunate in not having paid dearly for his rash action. The Orphan had taken a chance when he refrained from pulling the trigger.

Charley continued: "Jimmy's outfit swear they'll have a lynchin' bee to square things for the Kid. They are plumb crazy about it. Jimmy was a whole lot liked by them, and the foreman is going to give them a week off with no questions asked. They are getting things ready now."

The sheriff turned to his companion, his hazel eyes aflame with anger at this threat of lynching when he had given plain warning that such lawlessness would not for one minute be tolerated by him.

"We'll call on the Cross Bar-8 first, Charley, and find out when this lynching bee is due to come off," he said, turning toward the northwest.

Charley looked surprised at the sudden change in the plans, but followed without comment, secretly glad that trouble was in store for the ranch he had no use for.

After an hour of fast riding they rode up to the corral of the Cross Bar-8, and Shields, seeing a cowboy busily engaged in cleaning a rifle, asked for Sneed, at the same time making a mental note of the preparations which were going on about him.

The foreman, as if in answer to the sheriff's words, walked into sight around the corral wall and stepped forward eagerly when he saw who the caller was.

"I see that you know all about it, Sheriff," he began, hastily. "I've just told the boys that they can go out for him," he continued. "They're getting ready now, and will soon be on his trail."

"Yes?" coldly inquired the sheriff.

"They'll get him if you don't," a.s.sured the foreman, who had about as much tact as a mule.

"I'll shoot the first man who tries it," the sheriff said, as he flecked a bit of dust from his arm.

"What!" cried Sneed in astonishment. "By G.o.d, Sheriff, that's a d----d hard a.s.sertion to make!"

"And I hold _you_ responsible," continued the sheriff, leaning forward as if to give weight to his words.

The cowboy stopped cleaning his rifle and stood up, covering the sheriff, a sneer on his face and anger in his eyes.

"If you're a-scared, we ain't, by G.o.d!" he cried. "The Orphan has got away too many times already, and here is where he gets stopped for good!

When we gets through with him he won't shoot no more friends of ourn, nor n.o.body else's!"

Shields looked him squarely in the eyes: "If you don't drop that gun I'll drop you, Bucknell," he said pleasantly, and his eyes proclaimed that he meant what he said.

Sneed sprang forward and knocked the gun aside; "You d----n fool!" he cried. "You ornery, silly fool! Get back to the bunk house or I'll make you wish you had never seen that gun! Go on, get the h--l out of here before you join Jimmy!"

Then the foreman turned to Shields, feeling that he had lost much through the rashness of his man.

"Don't pay any attention to that crazy yearling, Sheriff," he said earnestly. "He's only feeling his oats. But we only wanted to round him up," he continued on the main topic. "We meant to turn him over to you after we'd got him. He's a blasted, thieving, murdering dog, that's what he is, and he oughtn't get away this time!"

"You keep out of this, and keep your men out of it, too," responded Shields, turning away. "I mean what I say. Jimmy started the mess and got the worst of it. I'll get The Orphan, or n.o.body will. As long as I'm sheriff of this county I'll take care of my job without any lynching parties. Come on, Charley."

"Deputize some of my boys, Sheriff!" he begged. "Let 'em think they're doing something. The Orphan is a bad man to go after alone. The boys are so mad that they'll get him if they have to ride through h.e.l.l after him.

Swear them in and let them get him lawfully."

"Yes?" retorted Shields cynically. "And have to shoot them to keep them from shooting him?"

"By G.o.d, Sheriff," cried Sneed, losing control of his temper, "this is our fight, and we're going to see it through! We'll get that cur, sheriff or no sheriff, and when we do, he'll stretch rope! And anybody who tries to stop us will get hurt! I ain't making any threats, Sheriff; only telling plain facts, that's all."

"Then I'll be a wreck," responded Shields, still smiling. "For I'll stop it, even if I have to shoot you first, which are also plain facts."

Sneed's men had been coming up while they talked and were freely voicing their opinions of sheriffs. Sneed stepped close to the peace officer and laughed, his face flushed with foolish elation at his strength.

"Do you see 'em?" he asked, ironically, indicating his men by a sweep of his arm. "Do you think you could shoot me?"

The reply was instantaneous. The last word had hardly left his lips before he peered blankly into the cold, unreasoning muzzle of a Colt, and the sheriff's voice softly laughed up above him. The cowboys stood as if turned to stone, not daring to risk their foreman's life by a move, for they did not understand the sheriff's methods of arguments, never having become thoroughly acquainted with him.

"You know me better now, Sneed," Shields remarked quietly as he slipped his Colt into its holster. "I'm running the law end of the game and I'll keep right on running it as I d----d please while I'm called sheriff, understand?"

Sneed was a brave man, and he thoroughly appreciated the clean-cut courage which had directed the sheriff's act, and he knew, then, that Shields would keep his word. He involuntarily stepped back and intently regarded the face above him, seeing a not unpleasant countenance, although it was tanned by the suns and beaten by the weather of fifty years. The hazel eyes twinkled and the thin lips twitched in that quiet humor for which the man was famed; yet underlying the humor was stern, unyielding determination.

"You're sh.o.r.e nervy, Sheriff," at length remarked the foreman. "The boys are loco, but I'll try to hold them."

"You'll hold them, or bury them," responded the sheriff, and turning to his companion he said: "Now I'm with you, Charley. So long, Sneed," he pleasantly called over his shoulder as if there had been no unpleasant disagreement.

"So long, Sheriff," replied the foreman, looking after the departing pair and hardly free from his astonishment. Then he turned to his men: "You heard what he said, and you saw what he did. You keep out of this, or I'll make you d----d sorry, if he don't. If The Orphan comes your way, all right and good. But you let his trail religiously alone, do you hear?"

CHAPTER V

BILL JUSTIFIES HIS CREATION

Bill Howland careened along the stage route, rapidly leaving Ford's Station in his rear. He rolled through the arroyo on alternate pairs of wheels, splashed through the Limping Water, leaving it roiled and muddy, and shot up the opposite bank with a rush. Before him was a stretch of a dozen miles, level as a billiard table, and then the route traversed a country rocky and uneven and wound through cuts and defiles and around rocky b.u.t.tes of strange formation. This continued for ten miles, and the last defile cut through a ridge of rock, called the Backbone, which ranged in height from twenty to forty feet, smooth, unbroken and perpendicular on its eastern face. This ridge wound and twisted from the big chaparral twenty miles below the defile to a branch of the Limping Water, fifteen miles above. And in all the thirty-five miles there was but a single opening, the one used by Bill and the stage.

In crossing the level plain Bill could see for miles to either side of him, but when once in the rough country his view was restricted to yards, and more often to feet. It was here that he expected trouble if at all, and he usually went through it with a speed which was reckless, to say the least.

He had just dismissed the possibility of meeting with Apaches as he turned into the last long defile, which he was pleased to call a canon. As he made the first turn he nearly fell from his seat in astonishment at what he saw. Squarely in the center of the trail ahead of him was a horseman, who rode the horse which had formerly belonged to Jimmy of the Cross Bar-8, and across the cut lay a heavy piece of timber, one of the dead trees which were found occasionally at that alt.i.tude, and it effectively barred the pa.s.sing of the stage. The horseman wore his sombrero far back on his head and a rifle lay across his saddle, while two repeating Winchesters were slung on either side of his horse. One startled look revealed the worst to the driver--The Orphan, the terrible Orphan faced him!