The Ranchman Part 6

Again Taylor's voice was gentle, though this time it carried a subtle taunt.

Desperately harried, Keats licked his hot lips and cast a sullen glance around at the crowd. Then his gaze went to Taylor's face, and he drew a slow breath.

"I reckon I wasn't meanin' just that," he said.

"Of course," smiled Taylor; "that's no way for a sheriff to act. Take them in, Keats," he added, waving a hand at the prisoners; "it's been so long since the sheriff of this county arrested a man that the jail's gettin' tired, yawning for somebody to get into it."

He turned his back on Keats and looked straight at Carrington:

"Have you got any ideas along the sheriff's line?" he asked.

Carrington flushed and his lips went into a sullen pout. He did not speak, merely shaking his head, negatively.

Keats's glance at Taylor was malignant with hate; and Carrington's sullen, venomous look was not unnoticed by the crowd. Keats stepped forward and seized the two prisoners, hustling them away, muttering profanely.

And then Taylor was led away by Norton and a committee of citizens, leaving Carrington, the girl and Parsons alone on the platform.

"Looks like we're going to have trouble lining things up," remarked Parsons. "Danforth--"

"You shut up!" snapped Carrington. "Danforth's an a.s.s and so are you!"

CHAPTER VI-A MAN MAKES PLANS

Within an hour after his arrival in Dawes, Carrington was sitting in the big front room of his suite in the Castle Hotel, inspecting the town.

A bay window projected over the sidewalk, and from a big leather chair placed almost in the center of the bay between two windows and facing a third, at the front, Carrington had a remarkably good view of the town.

Dawes was a thriving center of activity, with reasons for its prosperity. Walking toward the Castle from the railroad station, Carrington had caught a glimpse of the big dam blocking the constricted neck of a wide basin west of the town-and farther westward stretched a vast agricultural section, level as a floor, with a carpet of green slumbering in the white sunlight, and dotted with young trees that seemed almost ready to bear.

There were many small buildings on the big level, some tenthouses, and straight through the level was a wide, sparkling stream of water, with other and smaller streams intersecting it. These streams were irrigation ditches, and the moisture in them was giving life to a vast section of country that had previously been arid and dead.

But Carrington's interest had not been so much for the land as for the method of irrigation. To be sure, he had not stopped long to look, but he had comprehended the system at a glance. There were locks and flumes and water-gates, and plenty of water. But the irrigation company had not completed its system. Carrington intended to complete it.

Dawes was two years old, and it had the appearance of having been hastily constructed. Its buildings were mostly of frame-even the Castle, large and pretentious, and the town's aristocrat of hostelries, was of frame. Carrington smiled, for later, when he had got himself established, he intended to introduce an innovation in building material.

The courthouse was a frame structure. It was directly across the street from the Castle, and Carrington could look into its windows and see some men at work inside at desks. He had no interest in the post office, for that was of the national government-and yet, perhaps, after a while he might take some interest in that.

For Carrington's vision, though selfish, was broad. A mult.i.tude of men of the Carrington type have taken bold positions in the eternal battle for progress, and all have contributed something toward the ultimate ideal. And not all have been scoundrels.

Carrington's vision, however, was blurred by the mote of greed. Dawes was flourishing; he intended to modernize it, but in the process of modernization he intended to be the chief recipient of the material profits.

Carrington had washed, shaved himself, and changed his clothes; and as he sat in the big leather chair in the bay, overlooking the street, he looked smooth, sleek, and capable.

He had seemed ma.s.sive in the Pullman, wearing a traveling suit of some light material, and his corpulent waist-line had been somewhat accentuated.

The blue serge suit he wore now made a startling change in his appearance. It made his shoulders seem broader; it made the wide, swelling arch of his chest more p.r.o.nounced, and in inverse ratio it contracted the corpulent waist-line-almost eliminating it.

Carrington looked to be what he was-a big, virile, magnetic giant of a man in perfect health.

He had not been sitting in the leather chair for more than fifteen minutes when there came a knock on a door behind him.

"Come!" he commanded.

A tall man entered, closed the door behind him and with hat in hand stood looking at Carrington with a half-smile which might have been slightly diffident, or impudent or defiant-it was puzzling.

Carrington had twisted in his chair to get a glimpse of his visitor; he now grunted, resumed his former position and said, gruffly:

"h.e.l.lo, Danforth!"

Danforth stepped over to the bay, and without invitation drew up a chair and seated himself near Carrington.

Danforth was slender, big-framed, and sinewy. His shoulders were broad and his waist slim. There was a stubborn thrust to his chin; his nose was a trifle too long to perfectly fit his face; his mouth a little too big, and the lips too thin. The nose had a slight droop that made one think of selfishness and greed, and the thin lips, with a downward swerve at the corners, suggested cruelty.

These defects, however, were not prominent, for they were offset by a really distinguished head with a ma.s.s of short, curly hair that ruffled attractively under the brim of the felt hat he wore.

The hat was in his right hand, now, but it had left its impress on his hair, and as he sat down he ran his free hand through it. Danforth knew where his attractions were.

He grinned shallowly at Carrington when the latter turned and looked at him.

He cleared his throat. "I suppose you've heard about it?"

"I couldn't help hearing." Carrington scowled at the other. "What in h.e.l.l was wrong? We send you out here, give you more than a year's time and all the money you want-which has been plenty-and then you lose.

What in the devil was the matter?"

"Too much Taylor," smirked the other.

"But what else?"

"Nothing else-just Taylor."

Carrington exclaimed profanely.

"Why, the man didn't even know he was a candidate! He was on the train I came in on!"

"It was Neil Norton's scheme," explained Danforth. "I had _him_ beaten to a frazzle. I suppose he knew it. Two days before election he suddenly withdrew his name and subst.i.tuted Taylor's. You know what happened. He licked me two to one. He was too popular for me-d.a.m.n him!

"Norton owns a newspaper here-the only one in the county-the _Eagle_."

"Why didn't you buy him?"

Danforth grinned sarcastically: "I didn't feel that reckless."

"Honest, eh?"

Carrington rested his chin in the palm of his right hand and scowled into the street. He was convinced that Danforth had done everything he could to win the election, and he was bitterly chagrined over the result. But that result was not the dominating thought in his mind. He kept seeing Taylor as the latter had stood on the station platform, stunned with surprise over the knowledge that he had been so signally honored by the people of Dawes.