The Sunset Trail Part 17

The Tomcat, now he was in Dodge, seemed in little haste to search out Mr. Masterson. This was in no wise strange; for one thing his Shylock pony needed rest. Shylock had been put in Mr. Trask's corral and, gorging on alfalfa, was bravely filling out the hollows of his flanks.

The Tomcat decided that he would abide in Dodge two days before sounding his warcry. Then, just as night was drawing, he would saddle up and hunt the obnoxious Mr. Masterson. Upon meeting that officer the Tomcat would shoot him down. His mission thus happily concluded, he would make a spurring rush Panhandleward. Once on the Canadian he need not fear for his safety.

Running the plan forward and back in what he called his mind, the Tomcat reflected on his coming glorious reward! His daring manhood should be the theme on every lip! He would be called no more the "Tomcat," but gain rebaptism as the "Man who downed Bat Masterson!" The girls of the hurdy-gurdies would set his fame to music! Indeed, the Tomcat foresaw a gorgeous picture when, returning to his native heath, he should wear laurel as that stout one who, from the fame of Texas, had washed a stain away. These matters ran like a millrace in the vainglorious thoughts of the Tomcat as he loafed about the barrooms of Dodge waiting for Shylock to recuperate and the moment of murder to ripely arrive.

On occasion the Tomcat brushed by Mr. Masterson in the narrow walks of Dodge. But the Tomcat did not give his victim-to-be a look. There was a steadfastness in the stare of Mr. Masterson that was as disconcerting to the Tomcat as had been the flinty eye of Mr. Cook when the latter brought him to bay that evening in the arroya. Wherefore when they met, the Tomcat gazed up or down the street, but never once at Mr. Masterson, albeit there reposed beneath his belt the whiskey whose absence he lamented when he quailed before the overbearing Mr. Cook.

"Never mind!" gritted the Tomcat behind his teeth; "I'll try a shot at him if I swing for it."

It was the day appointed by the virulent Tomcat for the downfall of Mr.

Masterson. The Tomcat programmed the slaughter for that last moment when the setting sun should touch the hard, gray skyline. The Tomcat might want in mental depth, but he was clear concerning the value of night as a trail-coverer. Under the pressure of events to come, the Tomcat's cunning had been so far promoted that he even thought of riding out of Dodge to the north after Mr. Masterson had been successfully obliterated. Then, when it was dark, he could swing to the south; not along his trail, but his direction would be thus lost to whomsoever should pursue. A hot all-night ride should bring him to the Cimarron.

There he would be out of Kansas and into the Indian Territory, Texas and celebration within easy fling. Now all this might have come to pa.s.s as the slender wisdom of the Tomcat schemed it had it not been for the unexpected.

It stood four for the hour with every honest clock in Dodge when the Tomcat, killing time, came into the Alhambra. There, among other attractions, he found a non-committal Mexican dealing monte.

The Tomcat cast a careless dollar on the queen, and lost. A second dollar vanished in pursuit of its predecessor. At that the Tomcat, holding Mexicans in cheap esteem, lifted up condemnatory voice.

"This is a robbers' roost!" quoth the depleted Tomcat, "an' every gent in it is a hoss-thief!"

Mr. Kelly, proprietor of the Alhambra, was present, dozing in a chair.

The clamorous Tomcat aroused him with his uproar. It struck Mr. Kelly that the extravagance of the Tomcat's remark multiplied the insult it conveyed. Without ado Mr. Kelly arose and exhaustively "buffaloed" that individual.

When an offender is "buffaloed" he is buffeted, shoved, choked, manhandled, and chucked into the street. Once on the sidewalk he is kicked until justice craves no more. In this instance the Tomcat was excessively "buffaloed," and at the close of the ceremony crawled to the cheap hotel wherein he had pitched his camp, there to nurse his bruises and bind up his wounds.

No, every violator of Western ethics is not "buffaloed." It is a method of reproof reserved for folk who are of slight estate. When one is known for the sandstone sort of his courage and the dignified accuracy of his gun, he is never "buffaloed." By his achievements he has raised himself superior to such reprimand, just as a Sioux warrior may lift himself above the power of tribal judges to "soldier-kill" him for misdemeanors, by his prowess in the field. Only humble offenders are "buffaloed."

Those whose eminence forbids the ordeal may be shot instead. When one is too great to be "buffaloed" he is free to the gun of any man he injures.

The law has abandoned him and his hand must keep his head. That the Tomcat was disgracefully "buffaloed" may be accepted as evidence that he had no respectful standing in Dodge.

As stated, after he had been "buffaloed" the Tomcat withdrew to cure his aches while Mr. Kelly modified his own fatigues with three fingers of an Old Jordan which he kept especially for himself. The Tomcat had been so deeply "buffaloed" that he did not move from his blankets for two days.

Thereby the taking off of Mr. Masterson was deferred. Indeed, the current of the Tomcat's blood-desires found itself deflected. When he again crept forth, his ambition to kill Mr. Masterson had been supplanted by a vengeful wish to murder Mr. Kelly.

No one should marvel at this. Mr. Masterson, according to the Tomcat, had injured only the Texas public. Mr. Kelly had come more nearly home with injuries personal to the limping Tomcat himself. All men prefer a private to a public interest. It was but nature moving when the wronged Tomcat, forgetting Mr. Masterson, for whose hair he had come so far, now gave himself heart and soul to how he might best spill the life of Mr.

Kelly.

After mature study, when now he was again abroad, the Tomcat could devise nothing better than to pull up his pony in front of the Alhambra at the hour of eight in the evening and attempt, from the saddle, to pot Mr. Kelly with the Ballard. The Tomcat banged away with the Ballard all he knew, but the enterprise went astray in double fashion. The Tomcat missed Mr. Kelly by a wide foot; also, he killed a girl whose mission it had been to dance and sing in the Alhambra for public gratification.

Shylock jumped sidewise at the flash, and the Tomcat, whose seat in the saddle had not been strengthened by his troubles, was thrown upon his head. Before he might recover the Dodge populace had piled itself above him, and the Tomcat was taken captive by twenty hands at once. He would have been lynched, only Mr. Masterson charged into the press. With the Tomcat held fast in one fist Mr. Masterson drew his six-shooter with the other and established therewith a zone of safety. Since Mr. Wright, who acted as alcalde, was at leisure, Mr. Masterson haled the Tomcat instantly before him.

If one were writing fiction, one from this point would find open sailing. One would have nothing more difficult to do than empanel a jury, convict and swing off the Tomcat. In this relation, however, there opens no such gate of escape. One must record a temporary good fortune that fell to the share of the Tomcat.

The Tomcat, somewhat a-droop, was brought into the presence of Mr.

Wright, alcalde. Before a word might be said, a fusillade of pistol shots split the evening into splinters at the far end of the street. Two gentlemen were disagreeing; the dispute, audible to all in Dodge, aroused the liveliest curiosity. There befell a general stampede, every man rushing towards the forum where debate was being waged.

So universal was that sentiment of curiosity that it even swept the careful Mr. Masterson from his official feet. He forgot for the nonce the Tomcat. He recovered himself only to learn that the Tomcat was gone.

Our furtive one had slipped away in the hurly-burly, and since Shylock-who had been left saddled in the street-was also absent, the a.s.sumption obtained that the two had departed together and were already overhauling the distant Panhandle at the rate of fifteen miles the hour.

Disgruntled by what he looked upon as his own gross neglect Mr.

Masterson threw a hurried saddle onto the best horse in Dodge and flashed southward after the Tomcat.

Mr. Masterson was twenty minutes behind the hurrying Tomcat. Laid flat on the ground and measured, those twenty minutes, in the swallow-like instance of Shylock, would mean seven miles. Mr. Masterson cursed as he remembered this and considered how a stern chase is never a short chase.

For all that Mr. Masterson was resolved, dead or alive, to have his man again.

"I'll get him," said Mr. Masterson, "if I have to swing and rattle with him from Dodge to the Rio Grande!"

Mr. Masterson had an advantage over the Tomcat. He knew the country as a beggar knows his dish. At the end of the first three miles he struck into a short cut to the left. His design was to outride the Tomcat and cut him off at the ford of the Medicine Lodge.

Once in the side trail Mr. Masterson, like a good rider, disposed himself in the saddle so as to save his horse; the latter-big and rangy-uncoupled into that long, swinging gallop which carries the farthest because it is the easiest of gaits.

"It is the foxy thing to head this party off," communed Mr. Masterson as he swept along. "Once I'm in his front he ought to be sure. A flying man never looks ahead."

The white alkali trail spoke hard and loud beneath the horse's hoof-irons. There was a veil of cloud across the face of the sky. Then the west wind put it aside and the moon and the big stars looked down. A coyote punctuated the stillness with its staccato song. A jackrabbit jumped up and went bustling ahead, never leaving the paper-white streak of trail that seemed to fascinate it. At last, breath gone and wholly pumped, it had just instinctive sense enough to wabble a yard to one side and escape being run down by the galloping horse. A band of antelope brushed across in front like startled shadows. Mr. Masterson was not to be engaged by these earmarks of the hour and place; he must reach the Medicine Lodge in advance of the Tomcat. Lifting his horse to the work Mr. Masterson coaxed it through trail-devouring hours. Then there came an interference.

It was midnight by the shining word of the moon when a low roaring, distant and m.u.f.fled, like the beat of a million drums, broke on Mr.

Masterson. It was up the wind and from the west.

"What!" exclaimed Mr. Masterson aloud, and he pulled up his horse to listen. "It's a good ways off as yet," he continued. "It must be a hummer to send its word so far." Then, patting his horse's neck: "My sympathies will be all with you, old boy, when it reaches us."

Over in the northwest a cloud came suddenly up with the swiftness of a drawn curtain. One by one it shut out like a screen the stars and the moon. Mr. Masterson was on the ground in the puff of an instant.

"It'll detain him as much as it does me," thought Mr. Masterson, whose mind ran always on his quarry.

Mr. Masterson took a pair of hopples from the saddle and fastened the fore fetlocks of his horse. Then he stripped off the saddle.

"I'll leave you the blanket," remarked Mr. Masterson, "but I'm going to need the saddle for myself."

Mr. Masterson crouched upon the ground, making the saddle a roof to cover his head, the skirts held tight about his shoulders by the girths.

The roar grew until from a million drums it improved to be a million flails on as many threshing-floors. Mr. Masterson clawed the saddleskirts tight as with a swish and a swirl the hailstorm was upon him. The round hailstones beat upon the saddle like buckshot. They leaped and bounded along the ground. They showed of a size and hardness to compare with those toys meant for children's games.

Saved by the saddle, Mr. Masterson came through without a mark. His horse, with nothing more defensive than a square of saddle-blanket, had no such luck. Above the drumming of the hailstones Mr. Masterson might hear that unfortunate animal as, torn by mixed emotions of pain, amazement and indignation, it bucked about the scene in a manner that would have done infinite grace to a circus. A best feature of the hailstorm was that it did not last five minutes; it pa.s.sed to the south and east, and its mutterings grew fainter and more faint with every moment.

The storm over, Mr. Masterson caught up his horse, which seemed much subdued of spirit by what it had gone through. As gently as might be-to humour the bruises-he recinched the heavy saddle in its place.

"Better keep you moving now, old boy," quoth Mr. Masterson, "it'll take the soreness out. You needn't shout about it," he concluded, as the sorely battered horse gave a squeal of pain; "a hailstone isn't a bullet, and it might have been worse, you know."

Again Mr. Masterson stretched southward, and again the moon and stars came out to light the way. The storm had drawn forth the acrid earth-smells that sleep in the gra.s.s-roots on the plains. To mix with these, it brought a breath from the pine-sown Rockies four hundred miles away. These are the odours which soak into a man and make him forever of the West.

It was broad day when Mr. Masterson rode down to the lonely ford of the Medicine Lodge. He sighed with relief as his hawk-eye showed him how no one had pa.s.sed since the storm.

"I'm in luck!" said he.

Mr. Masterson hoppled his horse and set that tired animal to feed among the fresh green of the bottom. Then he unslung a pair of field-gla.s.ses, which he wore for the good of his office, and sent a backward glance along the trail. Rod by rod he picked it up for miles. There was no one in sight; he had come in ample time.

"I had the best of him ten miles by that cut-off," ruminated Mr.

Masterson.

Then Mr. Masterson began to wish he had something to eat. He might have found a turkey in the brush-clumps along the Medicine Lodge. He might have risked the noise of a shot, being so far ahead. But Mr. Masterson did not care to eat a turkey raw and he dared not chance a smoke; the Tomcat would have read the sign for miles and crept aside. Mr. Masterson drew his belt tighter by a hole and thought on other things than breakfast. It wouldn't be the first time that he had missed a meal, and with that thought he consoled himself. It is an empty form of consolation, as one who tries may tell.

"If there's anything I despise, it's hunger," said Mr. Masterson. He was a desperate fork at table.