They Of The High Trails Part 16

"What right--? You spied on me. It's a shame!"

"So it is!" he agreed, quietly; "but I don't want any killing done--unless I do it myself."

"You are a thief," she accused.

"All right," he answered, dispa.s.sionately. "Spy--keeper--big brother--dog--anything goes--only I don't intend to let you slide to h.e.l.l without a protest. You're nothing but a kid--a baby. You don't know what you're going into. I'm an old stager; I know a whole lot that I wish I didn't know. I've known women who _said_ they didn't care--lots of 'em--but they did; they all cared. They all knew they'd lost out.

There's only one end to the trail you're starting in on, and it ain't a pretty one. Harf married you in good faith, and even if he _is_ gettin'

old and slow-footed and skinny, he's your husband and ent.i.tled to a square deal."

Blinded by her tears, and weak with pa.s.sionate resentment of his tone, she could scarcely clamber down from the carriage. As soon as her feet touched the ground she started away. Kelley retained her by the force of his hand upon her wrist.

"Wait a moment," he said, huskily. "You're mad now and you want to murder me, but think it all over and you'll see I'm your friend."

There was something in his voice which caused her to look squarely up into his face, and the tenderness she saw there remained long in her memory.

"You're too sweet and lovely to be the sport of a cheap skate like that.

Don't throw yourself away on any man. Good-by and G.o.d bless ye."

She walked away with bent head and tear-blinded eyes, her heart filled with weakness and pain. She was like a child justly punished, yet resenting it, and mingled with her resentment was a growing love and admiration for the man whose blunt words had bruised her soul in the hope of her redemption.

Kelley went back to his little office, gathered his small belongings together, and called up Harford on the 'phone. "I'll take that blue cayuse and that Denver-brand saddle, and call it square to date.... Yes, I'm leaving. I've got a call to a ranch over on the Perco. Sorry, but I reckon I've worked out my sentence.... All right. So long."

Ten minutes later he was mounted and riding out of town. The air was crisp with autumn frost and the stars were blazing innumerably in the sky. A coyote had begun his evening song, and to the north rose the high, dark ma.s.s of the Book cliffs. Toward this wall he directed his way. He hurried like one fleeing from temptation, and so indeed he was.

KELLY AS MARSHAL

I

Along about '96 Sulphur Springs had become several kinds of a bad town.

From being a small liquoring-up place for cattlemen it had taken on successively the character of a land-office, a lumber-camp, and a coal-mine.

As a cow town it had been hardly more than a hamlet. As a mining center it rose to the dignity of possessing (as Judge Pulfoot was accustomed to boast) nearly two thousand souls, not counting Mexicans and Navajos. It lay in the hot hollows between pinon-spotted hills, but within sight spread the gra.s.sy slopes of the secondary mountains over whose tops the snow-lined peaks of the Continental Divide loomed in stern majesty.

The herders still carried Winchesters on their saddles and revolvers strung to their belts, and each of them strove to keep up cowboy traditions by unloading his weapon on the slightest provocation. The gamblers also sustained the conventions of their profession by killing one another now and again, and the average citizen regarded these activities with a certain approval, for they all denoted a "live town."

"The boys need diversion," said the mayor, "and so long as they confine their celebrations to such hours as will not disturb the children and women--at least, the domestic kind of women--I won't complain."

And really, it is gratifying to record that very few desirable citizens were shot. Sulphur continued to thrive, to glow in the annals of mountain chivalry, until by some chance old Tom Hornaby of Wire Gra.s.s was elected Senator. That victory marked the beginning of the decline of Sulphur.

Hornaby was Pulfoot's candidate, and the judge took a paternal pride in him. He even went up to the capital to see him sworn in, and was there, unfortunately, when the humorous member from Lode alluded to Hornaby as "my esteemed colleague from 'Brimstone' Center, where even the judges tote guns and the children chew dynamite"--and what was still more disturbing, he was again in the capital when the news came of the shooting and robbing of a couple of coal-miners, the details of which filled the city papers with sarcastic allusions to "Tom Hornaby's live town on The Stinking Water."

Hornaby, being a heavy owner of land in and about Sulphur, was very properly furious, and Judge Pulfoot--deeply grieved--was, indeed, on the instant, converted. A great light fell about him. He perceived his home town as it was--or at least he got a glimpse of it as it appeared to the timid souls of civilized men. He cowered before Hornaby.

"Tom, you're right," he sadly agreed. "The old town needs cleaning up.

It sure is disgraceful."

Hornaby b.u.t.tered no parsnips. "You go right back," said he, "and kick out that bonehead marshal of yours and put a full-sized man into his place, a man that will cut that gun-play out and distribute a few of those plug-uglies over the landscape. What chance have I got in this Legislature as the 'Senator from Brimstone Center'? I'll never get shet of that fool tag whilst I'm up here."

"You certainly have a right to be sore," the judge admitted. "But it ain't no boy's job, cleaning up our little burg. It's going to be good, stiff work. I don't know who to put into it."

"I do."

"Who?"

"My foreman, Ed Kelley."

"I don't know him."

"Well, I do. He's only been with me a few months, but I've tried him and he's all right. He's been all over the West, knows the greasers and Injuns, and can take care of himself anywhere. The man don't live that can scare him. You notice his eyes! He's got a glare like the muzzle of a silver-plated double-barrel shotgun. He don't know what fear is. I've seen him in action, and I know."

The judge was impressed. "Will the board accept him?"

"They've _got_ to accept him or go plumb to the devil down there. These articles and speeches have put us in wrong with the whole state. This wild West business has got to be cut out. It scares away capital. Now you get busy!"

The judge went back resolved upon a change of administration. The const.i.tuent who held the office of marshal was brave enough, but he had grown elderly and inert. He was, in truth, a joke. The gamblers laughed at him and the cowboys "played horse" with him. The spirit of deviltry was stronger than it had ever been in the history of the county.

"Something religious has got to be done," the judge argued to the city fathers, and, having presented Hornaby's message, demanded the installation of Kelley.

The board listened attentively, but were unconvinced. "Who is this Kelley? He's nothing but a tramp, a mounted hobo. Who knows him?"

"Hornaby knows him and wants him, and his order goes. Let's have him in and talk with him, anyhow."

Kelley was called in. He showed up a tall, composed young fellow of thirty, with weather-worn face and steady gray eyes in which the pupils were unusually small and very dark blue. His expression was calm and his voice pleasant. He listened in amused silence while the judge told him what the program was. Then he said:

"That's a whale of a job you've laid out for me; but Hornaby's boss. All is, if I start in on this, you fellows have got to see me through. It's a right stiff program and I need some insurance. 'Pears to me like there should be a little pot for Tall Ed at the end of this game--say, three dollars a day and a couple of hundred bones when everything is quiet."

To this the judge agreed. "You go in and clean up. Run these gunmen down the valley. Cut out this amatoor wild West business--it's hurting us.

Property is depreciating right along. We certainly can't stand any more of this brimstone business. Go to it! We'll see that you're properly reimbursed."

"All right, Judge. But you understand if I go into this peacemaking war I draw no political lines. I am chief for the time being, and treat everybody alike--greasers, 'Paches, your friends, my friends, everybody."

"That's all right. It's your deal," said the judge and the aldermen.

II

Tall Ed had drifted into Sulphur from the Southwest some six months before, and although fairly well known among the ranchers on the Wire Gra.s.s, was not a familiar figure in town. The news of his appointment was received with laughter by the loafers and with wonder by the quiet citizens, who coldly said:

"He appears like a full-sized man, but size don't count. There's Clayt Mink, for instance, the worst little moth-eaten sc.r.a.p in the state, and yet he'll kill at the drop of a hat. Sooner or later he's going to try out this new marshal same as he did the others."

This seemed likely, for Mink owned and operated the biggest gambling-house in Sulphur, and was considered to be (as he was) a dangerous man. He already hated Kelley, who had once protected a drunken cattleman from being almost openly robbed in his saloon. Furthermore, he was a relentless political foe to Hornaby.

He was indeed a mere sc.r.a.p of a man, with nothing about him full-sized except his mustache. And yet, despite his unheroic physique, he was quick and remorseless in action. In Italy he would have carried a dagger. In England he would have been a light-weight rough-and-tumble fighter. In the violent West he was a gunman, menacing every citizen who crossed his inclination, and he took Kelley's appointment as a direct affront on the part of Hornaby and Pulfoot.

"He'd better keep out of my way," he remarked to his friends, with a malignant sneer.