With Hoops of Steel Part 19

"Now," said Nick, "we'll pile rocks across the mouth of the gulch, and then they'll be safe enough, for no coyote is going to jump down from the top of these walls."

Tom made no answer. He was standing with his hands in his pockets looking at the two b.l.o.o.d.y, mangled corpses.

"Nick, don't you-all think we'd better say something over these fellows, too? It ain't the square deal to put 'em away without a word, even if they were the worst scrubs in creation. You-all better say something, Nick, like you did before."

Tom took off his hat, without even a glance at his companion, and bent his head. Ellhorn also doffed his sombrero and bent forward in reverent att.i.tude, ready to begin.

"Good Lord," he said, and then he stopped and hesitated so long that Tuttle looked up to see what was the matter. "Go on, Nick," he urged in a low tone.

"Good Lord, Ye'd better do as Ye think best about lettin' 'em fry in their own fat--so long. They were scrubs, that's straight, but they're dead now, and can't do any more harm. Good Lord, we hope--Ye'll see Your way to have mercy on their souls. Amen."

They began piling rocks across the mouth of the narrow chasm, and worked for some moments in silence. Nick glanced inquiringly at Tom several times, and finally he spoke:

"Say, Tommy, that was all right, I guess, wasn't it?"

"Nick, I sure reckon Emerson would say it was." And Ellhorn knew that his companion could give no stronger a.s.sent.

They built a wall high enough to keep the coyotes away from the two bodies, and then followed the trail upon the canyon wall and across the mountain side to the spring. There they found Bill Frank's camping outfit and the few things that Jim and Haney had transferred from the canyon below. They found, also, the pan and the hand mortar, rusty and battered by the storms of many years, with which d.i.c.k Winters had slowly and with infinite toil beaten and washed out the gold he was never to enjoy. After an hour's search they found the store of nuggets where Bill Frank had hidden them. Haney and Jim had never guessed how near they had come to the wealth for which they were searching.

The two men looked over the contents of pail, coffee pot, oven and cans and talked of the long, wearisome, lonely labor d.i.c.k Winters must have had, carrying the sacks of ore on his back, from his mine down the canyon, up the trail, and across the mountain side, to this little spring, where he had then to pound it up in his mortar and wash out the gold in his pan.

"It's no wonder the desert did him up," said Nick. "He had no strength left to fight it with. It's likely he was luny before he started."

"Nick, you don't reckon there's a cuss on this gold, do you? Just see how many people it has killed. d.i.c.k Winters and Bill Frank and Jim and Haney, besides all the prospectors that have died huntin' for it.

You-all don't reckon anything will happen to us, or to Emerson, if we take it?"

The two big Texans, who had never quailed before man or gun, looked at each other, their faces full of sudden seriousness, and there was just a shadow of fear in both blue eyes and black. The silence and the vastness of an empty earth and sky can bring up undreamed of things from the bottom of men's minds. Ellhorn's more skeptical nature was the first to gird itself against the suggestion.

"No, Tommy, I don't reckon anything of the sort. Bill Frank gave it to us, and d.i.c.k Winters gave it to him, or, anyway, wanted him to find it and have it, and I reckon d.i.c.k Winters worked hard enough to get it to have a better right to it than G.o.d himself. It's sure ours, Tom, and I reckon there won't be any cuss on it as long as we can shoot straighter than anybody who wants to hold us up for it."

CHAPTER XVII

Emerson Mead heard the story which Ellhorn and Tuttle told and looked at the heap of yellow nuggets without enthusiasm. His face was gloomy and there was a sadness in his eyes that neither of his friends had ever seen there before. He demurred over their proposal that he should share with them, saying that he would rather they should have it all and that he had no use for so much money. When they insisted and Tom said, with a little catch in his voice, "Emerson, we can't enjoy any of it if you-all don't have your share," he replied, "Well, all right, boys. I reckon no man ever had better friends than you are."

Judge Harlin was still at the ranch, and while he and Nick and Tom were excitedly weighing the nuggets, Mead slipped out to the corral, saddled a horse and galloped across the foothills. Tuttle watched him riding away with concern in his big, round face.

"Judge," he said, "what's the matter with Emerson? Is he sick?"

"I guess not. He didn't say anything about it."

"Did you bring him any bad news?"

"Not that I know of."

"Have them fellows over in Plumas been hatchin' out any more deviltry?"

"N-no, I think not. Oh, yes, I did hear that Colonel Whittaker and Daniels and Halliday were going over to the White Sands to hunt for Will Whittaker's body. I told Emerson so. That's the only thing I know of that would be likely to disturb him."

A quick glance of intelligence flashed between Tuttle's eyes and Ellhorn's. Each was recalling Mead's promise to surrender if Will Whittaker's body could be produced. Tuttle stood silent, with his hands in his pockets, looking across the foothills to where Mead's figure was disappearing against the horizon. Then without a word he walked to the corral, saddled a horse, and went off on the gallop in the same direction.

He came upon his friend at Alamo Springs, ten miles away. This was the best water hole on Mead's ranch, and, indeed, the best in all that part of the Fernandez mountains, and was the one which the Fillmore Company particularly coveted. Its copious yield of water never diminished, and around the reservoir which Mead had constructed, half a mile below the spring, a goodly grove of young cottonwoods, which he had planted, made for the cattle a cool retreat from midday suns.

Tuttle found Mead standing beside the reservoir, flicking the water with his quirt, while the horse, with dropped bridle, waited meekly beside him. Tom dismounted and stood by Mead's side, making some remark about the cattle that were grazing within sight.

"Tommy," Emerson said abruptly, "I've about decided that I'll give up this fight, let the Fillmore folks have the d.a.m.ned place for what they will give, and pull my freight."

Tom looked surprised at this unheralded proposition, but paid no further attention to it. Instead, he plunged at once into the subject that concerned him.

"Emerson, what's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," Mead replied, looking at the horizon.

"Emerson, you're lying, and you know it."

"Well, then, nothing that can be helped."

"How do you know it can't?"

Mead shrugged his shoulders and rested his hand upon his horse's neck.

It straightway cuddled its head against his body and began nosing his pockets. Mead brought out a lump of sugar and made the beast nod its age for the reward. Tom watched him helplessly, noting the hopeless, gloomy look on his face, and wondered what he ought to do or say. He wished Nick had come along. Nick never was at a loss for words. But his great love came to his rescue and he blurted out:

"Have you tried to do anything?"

"It's no use. There's nothing to be done. It's something that can't be helped, and I'd better just get out."

"Can't I--can't Nick and me do anything?"

"No."

Tom Tuttle was discouraged by this answer, for he knew that it meant that the trouble, whatever it was, must be beyond the help of rifles and revolvers. Still, he thought that it must have some connection with the Whittaker murder, and he guessed that Mead was in fear of something--discovery, apprehension, the result of a trial--that he meant to get rid of the whole thing by quietly leaving the country.

Tom's brain required several minutes in which to reach this conclusion, but only a second longer to decide that if this was what Emerson wanted to do, it was the right thing and should have his help.

"Well," he said, "if you want to pull out on the quiet, Nick and me will stand off the Republicans over at Plumas till you get out of their reach."

"Oh, I don't mean to run away." Mead picked up the bridle and with one hand on the pommel turned suddenly around. There was a half smile about his mouth, which his sad eyes belied. Tom's idea of the case had just occurred to him. "Don't you worry about it, Tom. It has nothing to do with the Whittaker case, nor with the political fights in Las Plumas."

They remounted and cantered silently toward home. Tom was revolving in his mind everything he knew about his friend, trying to find the key to the present situation. After a long time he recalled the conversation he and Ellhorn had had, as they sat on the top of the cattle-pen fence at Las Plumas, concerning the possibility of Mead's being in love.

"Golly! I can't ask him about that!" Tuttle thought, spurring his horse to faster pace. "But I reckon I'll have to. I've got to find out what's the matter with him, and then Nick and me have got to help him out, if we can."

He rode close beside Mead and began: "Say, Emerson--" Then he coughed and blushed until his mustache looked a faded yellow against the deep crimson of his face. He glanced helplessly around, vaguely wishing some enemy might suddenly rise out of the hills whom it would be necessary to fight. But no living thing, save Emerson's own cattle, was in sight. So, having begun, he rushed boldly on:

"Say, Emerson, I don't want to be too curious about your affairs, but--this--this trouble you're in--has it--is it--anything about a--a girl?"

Mead's spurs instinctively touched his horse into a gallop as he answered, "Yes."