text:
Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/389

 "I have been thinking," said he, "what we must do to recover our companion."

"What is your suggestion, Samuel? I agree to everything. Speak."

"First of all, it is important that Joe should have knowledge of our whereabouts."

"Certainly, or he will think we mean to leave him to his fate."

"He! He knows us too well to think that; he would never think of such a thing; but he must be told where we are."

"How?"

"We must take our places in the car and ascend again."

"But if the wind carry us away?"

"Fortunately it will do nothing of the kind. Look, Dick; the wind will bring us back again over the lake, and this, which would have been annoying yesterday, is to-day most propitious. We must therefore direct all our efforts to maintain ourselves above the lake all day. Joe will not fail to see us up there, where he will be anxiously looking for us. Perhaps he will be able to tell us where he is."

"If he be alone, and at liberty, he will certainly do so."

"And if he be a prisoner," replied the doctor, "as the natives do not incarcerate their prisoners, he will see us, and understand the object of our maneuvers."

"But if, after all," said Kennedy, "for we must be prepared for every contingency, if he has left no trace, what can we do?"

"We must endeavor to regain the northern side of the lake, keeping ourselves in view as much as possible. There we will wait, explore the banks, search the edges of the lake, which Joe would certainly endeavor to reach; and we will not leave the neighborhood without making every effort to find him."

"Let us go, then," said Kennedy.

The doctor took the exact bearings of the piece of dry ground they were about to leave; he estimated that, according to the map and his observations, they were to the north of Lake Tchad, between the town of Lari and the village of Ingernini, both of which had been visited by Major Denham. Meantime Kennedy completed the pro-


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/257

 "Well, I tell you, Hartwell," said he, "I was just a thinkin', you know, that maybe you'd better go on ahead, or let me go on ahead, you know. You know, you ain't in very good standin' here in Cottonwood, Hartwell, and it's apt to hurt my business to be seen out with you, you know."

He hummed and hawed a good deal in getting it out, and shifted from leg to leg like an embarrassed schoolgirl. Texas felt the blood come hot into his face, and his scorn for this chicken-headed shaver of gritty chins knocking at his teeth for utterance. He held himself in with an effort, and managed to speak without a tremor, although he flavored his words with a dash of contempt which was lost on Noggle as completely as a drop of his perfume would have been overwhelmed in a barrel of tar.

"I wouldn't take a shave away from you for a million dollars, or more," Texas said. "I'll go ahead, for I'm in a hurry to go to bed. It'll count more for you to have folks think you're chasin' me than that I'm a chasin' you."

"All right, Hartwell. A man's got to look out for number one, you know, specially if he's got a wife dependin' on him."

Hartwell did not feel that he could be trusted to make comment on that plea. He hurried off toward the hotel, where he was in earnest conversa-

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/257


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/258

 tion with Malvina when Noggle came grinning in at the office door.

"Was somebody sayin' you'd hurt my business if you stayed on here at the hotel, Mr. Hartwell?" Malvina demanded, rather severely, at that moment.

Noggle stopped when the words hit him, and jerked back like a foolish horse rearing against the halter; The animated triumph which suffused his narrow face over the feat of threading alone the perils of the streets faded out of him, leaving him the color of a boiled ear of corn.

"No, ma'am; nobody was sayin' that in so many words, ma'am," Texas replied; "but takin' the events of the day to base my judgment on, it might turn out thataway."

"Wait till it does," said she, with firm and lofty finality.

"I think it will be the wisest thing for me to pack out of here, and bring no trouble to your door, Mrs. Noggle," Texas maintained. "I seem to leave a trail of bad luck behind me, and you-all have been so kind to me here I'd rather cut my arm off than cause you to lose a dollar."

Malvina was behind the counter, her round white arms resting on the showcase, her round, freckled face as full of softness and good-nature as a human countenance could contain. Noggles came up and cleared his throat.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/258


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/259

 "I expect if he wants to leave, Malvina, you'd better let him," he suggested.

"What's bitin' you?" said Malvina, not even turning her eyes in her husband's direction.

Texas could not forbear landing one little dig, one little barb of discomfort, in Noggle's perfumed hide.

"Even your husband is afraid to be seen on the street with me any more," said he.

Malvina turned to Noggle now with fire in her eyes.

"Oh, he is, is he?"

"If it would hurt his business, ma'am, what might my stoppin' here in the ho—tel do to yours?"

Malvina took her arms down from the showcase, and came round from behind the counter. The color was gone out of her face, and her eyes were very bright.

"Mr. Hartwell, maybe there are some people in the world little enough to put business above gratitude," said she, never turning an eye toward her wilted, shifting husband; "but I'm not one of that kind."

She faced Noggle, burning him with a look that made him squirm.

"Maybe you're afraid to be seen on the street with Mr. Hartwell, but I ain't! I ain't afraid to be seen anywhere with him; I'd go to—"

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/259


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/260

 "Well, Malvina, a man's got to think of his business, you know."

"Yes, and I'd let him have room and board in this house if the last cow-man on the range turned from the door on account of it, and I'd tell 'em all to go straight to hell!"

"Well, Malvina, you know—"

"I'd give him my last dollar if he wanted it, and if that wasn't enough I'd go out and borrow more! As far as I'm concerned they can all go straight—"

"So would I!" said Mrs. Goodloe, coming into the dining-room door, her arms red from dishwater, her apron wet from the splashings of it.

"The trouble with people in this town is they don't know a man when they see one," Malvina declared; "that's what the trouble with these rundowns is!"

Texas took off his hat and gave Malvina his hand.

"Ma'am, I'm proud to know you!" he said. He stepped over to Mrs. Goodloe and shook hands with her. "And you, too, ma'am—I'm proud to know you both."

Noggle stood rubbing the back of his hand across his big mustache, no doubt feeling something like an outsider in the midst of his own family. He was well enough broken-in already to offer no further comment. All he did was stretch hugely, gape

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/260


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/261

 amazingly, and take off his little dove-gray hat and try to look unconcerned as became a valiant man with a thirty-two caliber pistol at his belt.

"Gosh! I'm as tired as a wet dog," he said.

"You better go to bed, then," said Malvina, at no pains to cover her displeasure with her new mate.

Noggle acted on the suggestion at once, heaving himself off up-stairs on his long, ostrich legs, his light trousers making quite an elegant showing as they flickered between the balusters. Malvina shifted the register, and dusted the place where it had lain with her apron, saying nothing until Noggle's feet had sounded along the uncarpeted hall overhead and come to silence.

"There was a man here lookin' for you a little while before you came in, Mr. Hartwell," she said.

"Did you know who he was?"

"No, he was a stranger to me—a little dark man off of the range somewhere. Well, I don't know all of 'em—new ones is comin' in all the time. He said he'd be back."

"I'll set outside by the door and wait for him, thank you, ma'am."

"Don't you mention it," returned Malvina with such stress of earnestness that it was almost a threat. "Wouldn't you like a cup of coffee and a piece of pie?"

"Thank you, ma'am, most kindly, but I'm so full

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/261


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/262

 of trouble I ain't got room for anything else. I don't feel like I want to eat again for seven or eight years."

"It'll all come out right—don't you worry over it, Mr. Hartwell."

"For my own part I can carry it; but look what I've brought on Miss Sallie McCoy, ma'am."

Malvina was wiping the showcase with her apron now, her head behind it, her face hidden.

"You was up there to see them this evening, wasn't you?"

"Yes, I called in on 'em for a minute."

"I heard they had the doctor for Sallie."

"So her mother told me, ma'am."

"It's a shame the way the school-board treated that girl! But it's nothing to get sick over—she knows she wasn't hurt nor spoilt by bein' seen walkin' along the street with you. It's foolish, plumb foolish!"

"But knowin' he's to blame for trouble like that is as draggin' on a man as a broken leg, ma'am. When did that man say he'd be back?"

"In a little while, he said."

"I'll set out in the cool of the night and wait for him, and thank you most generous for all your kindness to a footless stranger like me, ma'am."

Texas went out and sat on the bench along the hotel wall. There was a little space between the

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/262


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/263

 sidewalk and the building, and he sat in the shadow where he could see readily but be seen indistinctly. He was troubled over this stranger's presence in Cottonwood, for he believed it must be some messenger from Winch with a fresh taunt and defiance, or from Duncan, bearing word that would add to his unrest.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/263


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/264

EW people were passing that hour, for it was late for respectable Cottonwood, and the other half didn't roam down into that section. Texas had not waited long on the bench beside the door, scanning hurriedly every man who came into view, his mind alert, his hand ready to his gun, when the one for whom he waited came.

The stranger approached him without hesitation, Texas standing, turning to bring his elbow free from interference against the wall.

"Hello, Texas," came the familiar hail.

"Sir, good evening," Texas returned, watching the stranger narrowly, puzzled by his familiarity.

The stranger was of medium height, but' slender. He was dressed in the regulation cowboy style, except that his chaparejos were of plain leather instead of the hairy kind so much in vogue at that time on the Arkansas Valley range.

He was standing where the light fell full on him through the open door, and the friendliness of his attitude was as mystifying to Texas as his identity.

"Don't you know me, Texas?"

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/264


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/265

 He came a step nearer, turning his head in the light so Texas could see his face clearly. But beyond establishing that he was a comely youth, dark-skinned as an Indian, with dark hair cut close to his handsome head, Texas could make out nothing at all.

"No, sir; you've got me, as sure as you're born."

"Why, I'm your old side-pardner, Ben Chouteau, from the Nation," said the unaccountable stranger, speaking a little louder, for the benefit of Malvina, apparently, who had come to the door.

Texas started at the clearer note of that boyish treble, held out his hand, giving the cowboy the grip of genuine friendliness.

"I'm glad to see you—I'm more than glad, old feller!" he said. "It's an old friend of mine, a sure-enough good friend, like the rest of you-all here at this ho-tel, ma'am," he assured Malvina, who nodded, entirely satisfied, and returned to her duties within the house.

Texas drew the stranger into the shadow, still holding him by the hand.

"Miss Fannie!" he whispered. "Where in this world did you come from—what're you doin' rigged up thataway?"

"Even you didn't know me!"

"Not till you spoke loud thataway, then it come to me in a flash."

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/265


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/266

 "I'm supposed to be dead, Texas."

"You don't tell me, Miss Fannie!"

"Well, I am. So we've got to go easy, and don't forget I'm your old side-pardner from the Nation, and Ben Chouteau's my name."

"I'll remember; don't you doubt I'll remember."

"I've come back to this town to throw a crimp into some of the crooks that thought they'd salted my old hide down, and I want you to help me, Texas."

"My heart's with you, and my hand's the same as your own."

"We'll have a bunch of these crooks breakin' their necks to hit the timber before this time to-morrow night. But I don't want to talk around here where somebody might be listenin'. Do you care to take a little walk?"

They walked toward the railroad station, for in that direction the town quickly blended out to open prairie, where there was room for all the confidences in the world to pass from ear to ear without danger of a leak. They came into range of a noise of shouting men and the rumble of hoofs on planks as they left the town, telling that cattle were being loaded.

"It's that Texas crowd," said Fannie; "they're roundin' them up fast. They shipped a big bunch two days ago, they told me—I came up that way

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/266


text:
Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/390

 visioning of the balloon. In many places he perceived the tracks of rhinoceros, manatees, and hippopotomi, but he never encountered any of these formidable beasts.

At seven in the morning, and not without great difficulty, which poor Joe would have made light of, the grapnel was detached from the tree. The gas was dilated, and the new "Victoria" ascended 200 feet into the air. After some coquetting with the wind, it fell in with a pretty strong current, and sailed over the lake, and was soon progressing at twenty miles an hour.

The doctor steadily maintained an elevation of between 200 and 500 feet. Kennedy often discharged his carbine. The travelers even approached imprudently near to the islands, examining the coppices, the brushwood, the bushes, and every shaded place, in which their late companion could have found shelter, then descended close to the long pirogues which skimmed over the lake. The fishermen on their approach threw themselves into the water, and swam to the island with every demonstration of terror.

"We can discover nothing," said Kennedy, after a search of two hours.

"Patience, Dick; let us not be discouraged, we cannot be very distant from the scene of the accident."

At eleven o'clock the "Victoria" had made ninety miles; it then encountered a new current, which carried it at almost right angles to its previous course for sixty miles towards the east. It hovered over a large and thickly-inhabited island, which the doctor pronounced to be Fanam, the capital of the Biddiomahs. They were in hopes to see Joe rise out of each bush, escaping and calling to them for assistance. If free, they could have taken him up without any difficulty; if a prisoner, they must put the same plan in practice to rescue him as they had for the missionary's release. He would soon have rejoined his friends, but nothing appeared, nothing was stirring. They were beginning to despair.

At half-past two the "Victoria" came in sight of Tangalia, a village situated upon the eastern side of the Tchad, and which was the extreme point attained by Denham in his expedition.

The doctor became uneasy at this persistent direction of the wind. He felt he was being driven towards the east,


text: Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume III/Chapter 33


text:
Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 25--Liturgy of Funeral Offerings.pdf/47

In Pepi I., line 83, we have: ". May Anubis give an offering: thy thousand bread-cakes, thy thousand vessels of beer, thy thousand vessels of purifying fluid which cometh forth from the Usekh chamber, thy thousand pleasant things, thy thousand oxen, thy thousand things to eat, thy gifts of thy heart. The palm tree followeth thee, and the mulberry tree presenteth its head for thee in that which Anubis doeth for thee."

In the Vth and VIth Dynasties Osiris is sometimes regarded as the giver of gifts of food,, and at a later period he generally takes the


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/267

 to-day, passed right through the thick of them. I guess there'll not be any trouble over them."

"Lucky for Stott!" said he.

"How did you know Stott was in it, Texas?"

"I knew him by his cussed voice."

"Anybody would that ever heard him twice."

They sat down by the roadside, far from any house. There was no moon, but starlight strong enough to break the density of the night, and a soft wind filled with the spicy ripe scents of drying grasses and blooming flowers in the boundless meadow lands.

"Stott's the first man on my list," she said.

"And mine, too, Fannie."

"He thought he left both of us dead down there on Clear Creek that night, Texas."

"Did that monstrous scoun'rel lift his hand—"

"Here—feel here." She guided his hand to the back of her head, where he felt a strip of adhesive plaster over a long wound.

"The houn' hit you!"

"I tried to go back and turn you loose."

"You pore little lamb! He hit you with his gun, didn't he, Fannie?"

"My horse ran away when I lopped over in the saddle, just sense enough left in me to hang on somehow. I think he shot after me—I think I can remember shots. Anyhow, I fell off after a while,

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/267


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/268

 and the horse went on. I heard Stott go by chasin' it, and go back with it. Then I crawled into the brush and fainted, I guess, like a regular woman."

"How in this merciless world did you ever get out of there?"

"I don't hardly know, Texas. I knew Stott would be back there at daylight to look for me, and finish me off if he found me alive, and I remember startin' to run away. When I got my head again I was away down in the Nation, miles from that place, and it was afternoon. I guess it must have been the next day."

"And you knew where you was—I'll bet a purty you knew!"

"Lucky for my skin, I did, Texas. I wasn't more than fifteen miles from Colby's ranch. I got over there about dark. My head was as big as a barrel, and my hair so mussed and matted with blood and tangles I had Belle whack it off right close up to the handle. She stitched up the gap in my scalp, and in the morning I was about as usual. Oh, well, I was a little fuzzy around the edges, like you feel after a drunk. Belle stained me up with walnut hulls, and I borrowed a horse and rode up here, hoping that I'd find you. And that's all there is to that, Texas."

Texas marveled over her escape, and sympathized with her in little soft ejaculations. She in-

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/268


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/269

 quired of his own adventures after they parted, and he told her all that had overtaken him from that time forward. Fannie sat silent a long time when he had ffinshed, as if there was something in his story that threw her into deep thought. After a while:

"Texas?"

"Yes, Fannie."

"That girl they fired, the one I helped Mackey and Stott and that gang hand out the crooked deal to—you think a good deal of her, don't you, Texas?"

"I hold her in the highest of respect—I have a very warm, friendly feelin' for her, Fannie."

"Of course you have, Texas, and more than that," she said, as if she had thought it out to an indisputable conclusion. "That's all right—you've got a right to—she's a nice kid, you can see it in her eyes."

"She's not exactly a kid, Fannie; she's a woman as old as you."

"Yes, but she's a kid in experience. Well, I wish to God I was, too! If I was, maybe—"

She let it stop there, and sat with her chin in her hands, her hat on the ground. He could see the white strip of adhesive plaster on her head, and his compassion for her was as deep as the sea.

"How do you know I'm square with you, Texas

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/269


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/270

 —how do you know I'm not planning to draw you into some fresh trouble?"

"I can't tell you just how I know, Fannie, but I know."

"Well, I am square with you. It came to me down there on Clear Creek that night that I had to be square; that it was the time set for me to part company with crooks. I'm through with them; they never brought me anything but trouble, anyhow."

"No, I don't reckon it pays out, Fannie."

"There's no use to tell you what my life's been, Texas—you know!"

"You pore little dove!"

He spoke with great tenderness, with boundless compassion; took her hand and stroked it, as if to console her for all that had been denied her in the parched ways that she had walked. Fannie bent her head to her updrawn knees and sobbed as if some great growth of sorrow had suddenly broken in her heart.

Her gust of weeping passed away slowly, only coming back now and then in diminishing force, like a bitter wind, making her voice shiver when she spoke.

"You're the only man that ever treated me like I was as good as other women," she said; "the only man I ever knew since I was a little girl, it seems

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/270


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/271

 to me, that says the same things with eyes and words to me at the same time. I'd die for you, Texas—I'd die for you, and be glad!"

Texas was greatly disturbed by her sudden and stormy confession. No woman, good or bad, ever had gone to such an honest and outspoken length with him before, and he had no precedent to guide him in the circumstances. But he still held her hand and stroked it to comfort her, and make amends for what he could not give her out of his heart.

"I couldn't ever permit you to do that, Miss Fannie," he said in all seriousness; "I couldn't begin to hear of it!"

Along the railroad half a mile away he could see the bobbing lanterns of the men who were loading part of the big drove of Texas cattle. He knew that Stott had gone on ahead to Kansas City to arrange for the sale of them, and collect for those already shipped, and a feeling of impatience came up in his breast at the thought of how many days it would be before he returned to face the adjustment that he could not now escape. He got up with an air of briskness, and drew gently on her hand to lift her to her feet.

"Don't you think we'd better go now, Fannie? You'll be drug plumb to death, you'll be so tired."

"Sit down, Texas; I haven't begun to tell you

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/271


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/272

 what I've got on that gang. We've both suffered by what they've handed us, but it's our day to talk now. Sit down—I'll tell you something."

When they started back to the hotel, Texas could read in the Big Dipper that it was close to two o'clock. But his weariness had gone from him, his troubles had dissolved. He felt like a man who had been armed to meet an enemy before whom he had stood bare-handed and hopeless a little while before.

Only a few hours since he had walked through the streets of Cottonwood in the distrust and contempt of the earth's mean cowards, such as Ollie Noggle, and the accusation of others, a load so heavy that it almost broke his heart. The back door of that town had stood open to him, and fingers were pointing him out that way between the dusk and dawn.

But it was different now. Confidence was in his heart, power in his hand. There would be a smoke in that town before long, and the crooks would be running ahead of it, like chinch bugs out of a blazing stubble field.

Even Mrs. Goodloe had gone to bed when they reached the hotel, and there was nobody to place Fannie. But Texas knew that half the rooms were empty, and one had but to go roaming along the hall until he found an open door. That was the

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/272


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/273

 rule for late arrivals at the Woodbine, known far and wide over the range.

The room next to his own was empty, investigation disclosed, although a heavy-snoring cow-man had inhabited it the night before. Here Texas installed his side-partner, to go and sit by his own window until dawn, aflame with eagerness to make use of the astonishing information which Fannie Goodnight had put that night into his hands.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/273


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/274

T wasn't nothing but one of them back-breakin' headaches like a woman will git ever so often," Uncle Boley said. "I went up there this morning to see how she was, and she met me at the door herself, her eyes as big as, but smilin', son, smilin'."

"She'd smile, sir, I'd bet you a purty, if the last drop of blood was bein' drawn from her veins, like that old-time Roman lady, sir, and she'd 'low it didn't hurt a bit."

"I never heard tell of the lady you speak of, son, but Sallie McCoy can stand pain and sufferin' as good as any Indian that ever lived. She's been through it; she bends before the wind like a wilier, but when the sun comes out you see her standin' straight, maybe with some signs of tears like the rain on the willer-leaves, but standin' straight up with her eyes on the sky."

"This was different to any trouble she'd ever met before, and it must have cut her deeper, Uncle Boley, deeper than death and bereavement."

"Yes, she always had the highest respect of every-

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/274


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/275

 body—oh, well, she has yet, too. Them scoundrels a firin' her out of her job in the school won't make anybody that knows her think the less of her."

"She realizes that, sir, I'm sure. But there must be a good many newcomers in this town that don't know her. That's where it'll hurt. But there's a day of reckonin' close, sir, mighty close! And when it comes, I tell you, Uncle Boley, that school-board'll go down on their knees to her, and they'll take off their hats to me, and stand to one side when I go by, and I'll bet you a purty they'll do it, sir!"

Uncle Boley was putting holes through the sole of a mighty boot, preparing it for the thread. He left his awl standing in the leather, his hammer free of his hand on the bench, and looked at Texas with sharp, questioning eyes.

"I thought you looked danged pert and rambunctious for a feller that ain't got no name or fame or character whatsomever, as the lawyer said. What's been happenin'?"

"Something happened, Uncle Boley, that put me in tune like a fiddle, and raised my heart up like a bird in the morning. A friend of mine struck town last night lookin' for me, a little Indian feller from down in the Nation, Bennie Chouteau by name, and he came bearin' proof that puts the responsibility for them southern cattle on Henry

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/275


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/276

 Stott so certain he can't back out of it to save his ornery skin."

"Amen!"

Uncle Boley gave the bench a whack with his hammer that made the bottle of blacking on the shelf jump, and the finished boots standing there in a row shift as if they were setting their heels for a jig.

"Yes, sir; and that ain't all, it ain't half—it ain't more than the first word of what that little feller knows!"

"A man can't hide it—it'll come up agin him, it'll come up agin him out of the ground!"

Uncle Boley's hand trembled as he jerked the awl from the boot-sole and held it like a dagger.

"Miss Sallie's a comin', sir, as I live!"

Texas rose in embarrassment, pushed back his chair, and retreated as far as the partition, where he stood with his back against Uncle Boley's bedroom door. Few marks of his battle with the cowman Sawyer remained on his face that morning, where a new animation lighted the severity of its lines. Neither was there anything to be ashamed of, to draw back and attempt to hide, in his dress, which was neat and clean, with a flash of scarlet necktie at the collar of his gray woolen shirt, and tucked into his bosom as if it sprung from the fire of his heart.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/276


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/277

 Yet he looked as if he would have run away if he had been given time, as thirsty as his heart was for the cool laving of those soft, brown eyes, as hungry as his soul for the music of her voice. But there was not time for retreat; Sallie was in the door.

She was dressed in white linen, and her face was as pale as some religious penitent's who had knelt night-long beside a shrine. The virginal sorrow of her eyes struck the heart like a sad soft chord from a great, vibrant organ. She paused in the door a moment, a packet of papers and letters in her hand.

Uncle Boley rose to greet her in the ceremonious way that he always carried toward her, and she went forward without hesitation, or reservation, or question in her heart, and gave Hartwell her hand. Certain now that he was to be neither blasted nor scorned, he placed the chair for her, and the little shop instantly became for him the most glorious place in the world.

"You wasn't expectin' to find this feller here, was you?" Uncle Boley asked in the bantering lightness so common in the manner of the old toward the young.

"I hoped I'd find Mr. Hartwell here, Uncle Boley," she admitted with frankness, lifting her eyes to Hartwell's face, a flush in her pale cheeks.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/277


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/278

 The fire at once sprang to Hartwell's own brown, homely face, as if it leaped the space between them from heart to heart and found congenial fuel there.

"Well, you had a right to," said Uncle Boley, rather taken aback by her ready confession.

Texas stood up proudly, his head held high, glad that she was not ashamed to have it known that she had sought his company, despised as he was of men.

"I was afraid, from what mother said last night, that you might be gone, or about to leave, Mr. Hartwell. I want to ask you not to leave Cottonwood on my account, if there is any reason whatever for your staying on."

"Thank you, Miss Sallie. I felt so lonesome and cussed, and full of blame last night after I'd talked with your mother that I just wanted to sneak off into a corner somewhere and die like a dog. But things have changed around wonderfully since then, Miss Sallie. I've just got to stay around here for a day or two more."

"I'm glad it's coming out right for you." She gave him such a look that his heart melted in him, as it felt, with a most delicious pain. "Have the cattlemen found out their mistake, Mr. Hartwell?"

"Not just yet," said he portentously. "A friend of mine—here he comes now."

Fannie and Hartwell had arranged between

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/278


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/279

 them for a little test on Uncle Boley, for the purpose of learning under the shrewd eyes of that sharp-seeing old fellow how well her disguise covered her indentity. If it was sufficient to pass with him, they believed it would hold good anywhere in Cottonwood. In the end they intended to take him into their confidence, for Hartwell knew that he could be trusted to the rim of the world.

Fannie appeared in the door with a quick, half-careless, "Hello, Texas," hat pulled over her eyes, very much an Indian in appearance, indeed. She was wearing gloves with red stars worked into the gauntlets, and spurs with rowels which clicked on the floor as she walked. She was a trim figure of a cowboy, but not unusual in a field where lightframed men were the general rule.

Confident and careless as she appeared there when Texas introduced her as his friend Ben Chouteau, from the Nation, Fannie had walked in shrinking fear between the hotel and Uncle Boley's shop. She dreaded meeting some of the old gang who had been the tyrants of her past life of oppression, unconscious herself how truly effective was her disguise.

"I wanted you to meet my friend, Uncle Boley," Texas explained, "for we may need your help on certain matters of business that we've got to clear up in this town in the next day or two."

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/279


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/280

 "You can count on me to the last button of my jeans, boys. I used to know some Chouteaus up by Westport—might you be related to that crowd,"

"Distantly related," Fannie replied, speaking in a low voice. She felt uncomfortable under the eyes of Sallie McCoy, although without reason apparently, for Sallie had opened the Kansas City paper and seemed oblivious to all outside its pages.

"Them folks was French-Indians, and good business men, too. I don't recall now what tribe they belonged to, but they all went off to the Nation a long time ago."

"My people are Shawnees," said Fannie, sure of herself there, for it was entirely true.

Sallie McCoy turned her eyes upward to look over the top of the paper as Fannie spoke, and sat studying the masquerader a moment. Fannie stood with her back to Sallie, facing Uncle Boley across the little counter, Texas over by the door.

From where he stood Hartwell watched Sallie's behavior with alarm, for her close reading of the paper was only a sham and a pretense to cover her close scrutiny of the stranger from the Nation. When Fannie was not speaking, Sallie's eyes were decorously on the paper; when she spoke, they lifted, although the position of her face did not change. But there was nothing of suspicion, wonder, even curiosity in the look which she swept over

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/280


text:
Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/392

the wind rose to a hurricane, and blew with such violence that the "Victoria" could not remain at anchor without danger; the reeds beat upon the silk and threatened to tear it in pieces.

"We must be off, Dick," said the doctor. "We cannot stay here under these circumstances."

"But Joe, Samuel?"

"I shall certainly not abandon him; and if the storm carries us 100 miles to the north, I shall return here; but at present we are endangering the safety of all."

"Going without him, then?" said the Scot, with despairing tone.

"Do you not believe that my heart is as heavy as your own, and that I am only yielding to dire necessity?"

"I am at your orders," replied Kennedy. "Let us go."

But the departure involved great difficulties. The grapnel, which had sunk deeply, resisted all their efforts, and the balloon, dragging it, fastened it still tighter. Kennedy could not disengage it; besides, in their position, such an attempt, if successful, would have been very dangerous, for the "Victoria" might have taken flight before Kennedy could have rejoined her.

The doctor, who did not wish to run such a risk, made the Scot enter the car, and determined to cut the rope. The "Victoria" bounded 300 feet into the air, and made directly towards the north. Ferguson was obliged to yield to the storm. He folded his arms and remained absorbed in his own sad reflections. After some minutes he turned towards Kennedy, who was equally taciturn, and said, "We have been tempting Providence, perhaps. It scarcely seems man's province to undertake such a journey." And a deep sigh escaped him.

"But a few days ago," replied Kennedy, we were congratulating ourselves at having so well escaped danger; we were shaking hands all round."

"Poor Joe, what an excellent disposition he possessed, and a brave and honest heart! At one time dazzled by his riches, but he willingly sacrificed his treasure. He is now far away from us, and the wind still hurries along with irresistible violence!"


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/281

 Fannie Goodnight's back. It was more like the indefinable, knowledge-gathering stare of a little girl.

"I've made boots for lots of them big Indians down there," said Uncle Boley; "them ranchers along just below the line. They used to come up here regular, but in the last year or so they've been givin' me the go-by."

He named over several, all of whom Fannie knew, and added some detail to what the old man had said to prove the genuineness of her acquaintance. This pleased Uncle Boley mightily; it was the same as meeting an old friend. And Fannie was glad that such a safe vein had been opened for her to follow. It relieved her of the necessity of facing about and talking to Sallie McCoy, whose cool brown eyes she seemed to feel looking through her, right down to the end of her last pitiful secret, and despising them all.

Texas was growing so uneasy that he was beginning to sweat. He wanted to pass a hint to Fannie to go, and stood shifting his weight from leg to leg, debating whether it wouldn't be the most honest thing to take Sallie into the secret then and there, thus relieving the suspicion that he saw growing up in her mind. But doubt over Sallie's readiness to accept on such short notice, and under such peculiar conditions, the girl who had been a

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/281


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/282

 party to defrauding her out of her victory in the roping contest, held him back.

Fannie managed to break out of Uncle Boley's windy grasp at last. She turned to Texas with a hasty word that she must go. She shook hands with Uncle Boley, and from the door nodded good-by to Sallie, who inclined her head, her eyes lifting for a flash from the paper, and dropping instantly again to her reading.

"Nice kid," said Uncle Boley, "and a youngster, from his talk."

"Yes, sir, quite young, sir," said Texas, drawing a long breath for the first time in ten minutes as Fannie passed the window and was gone from sight.

Sallie folded her paper, gathered her mail, got up, and stood looking Texas Hartwell in the eyes as straight as if she aimed a rifle to shoot him dead. Her face was colorless, her eyes full of indignant fire.

"Mr. Hartwell, I don't believe there is any reason whatever, sir, for you to remain in Cottonwood another hour! The best thing—the manliest thing—you can do will be to take the first train that passes, no matter which way it goes!"

She passed him, holding her skirt back for fear the hem of it might brush him, and almost darted out of the door, and away. Uncle Boley leaned

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/282


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/283

 over the counter and looked after her, his beard working, his mouth open, but no sound coming out of him in that moment of greatest astonishment of his long and crowded years.

Texas was little less winded, although astonishment over her action was not among his emotions. Too well he knew the cause of her sudden scorn. The high feeling of pride that lately had warmed him and lifted him to the clouds was gone; his hope had collapsed in one swift word. The sun seemed to have gone under a cloud, the noise out of life and the world.

"Well, what in the hell!" said Uncle Boley.

"Sir, I've gone and mussed it all up again!" said Texas miserably. "That wasn't any man that was in here a minute ago, Uncle Boley; it was a girl dressed up like one, and she knew it!"

"A girl? What do you mean trickin' Sallie? What girl, damn it all, what girl?"

"Fannie Goodnight, sir. We wanted—"

Uncle Boley stood rolling his head from side to side as if he had been struck with a mortal pain. He groaned, eyes closed, hands clasping his head like an old Jew mourning beside the temple wall.

"She knew it, sir—she knew it from the first look! I'd give my heart out of my body if I could undo what's done, Uncle Boley!"

"Any fool can say that after he's kicked over the

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/283


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/284

 mush! Well, you've done it now, you've fixed yourself with her for good. I don't blame her, you keepin' that girl down there at the hotel under false pretenses—"

"I'm not keeping her, sir! She's payin' her way; I ain't got—"

"In your room, under pretext she's a man!"

"No such a thing, sir, Uncle Boley, sir!"

Texas was so vehement in his denial that he was almost wild. He swung his long arms, and slammed his hat down on the counter as if stripping himself to fight.

"Well, maybe not in the same room, but it looks just as bad to Sallie."

"She'll think I brought her up here to parade before her face!"

"Yes, and worse than that. No man can imagine the things a woman can think when she believes somebody else has crowded her out of his heart."

"There's not room even for a ghost to come in there beside Miss Sallie edgeways, Uncle Boley."

"You'll have a gay old time makin' her believe you."

"I'll never have even the show of doin' it!"

"What'd that darned Fannie want to go puttin' on britches for and paradin' herself around?"

"Uncle Boley, she wouldn't dare to show her face in this town in her own clothes. Stott thinks he

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/284


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/285

 killed her down there on Clear Creek the night of the raid—she's got a gash three inches long on the back of her head where he hit her with his gun."

"Say, is that so?"

Uncle Boley began to see through it like a reasonable man. Texas told him the facts in the matter, and how Fannie had come there in that disguise to find him. Before he was very far into the story the old man's face was glowing with admiration, and when he concluded Uncle Boley put out his hand in token that his belief and his friendship remained unshaken.

"I hope to see you two turn that feller Stott over like a snappin' turtle left on his back in the road."

"It will be done, Uncle Boley. And when it's done I'll set my foot on the road to go—I'll not have anything to stay around here for any more."

"If you're thinkin' about Sallie, I reckon not."

"I meant well—you can tell her when I'm gone that I meant well; but I kind of always tangled my feet up in the rope."

"You didn't have no call to fetch that girl up here to test her on me. I'd 'a' took you? word for it, Texas."

"I know it, sir."

"But it looks like things is shaped and set, and a man can't go around 'em, no matter which way he dodges. I guess it was laid out for this thing

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/285


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/286

 to come between you and Sallie. Well, a girl that'll do what Fannie tried to do for you ain't the worst kind a man could hitch up to; I don't care what mistakes she's made before."

"Her wings are singed, Uncle Boley, but her heart's as good as they make 'em."

Uncle Boley went to his bench and took up his work. He drove holes and he stitched, with his wax-end on his beard, and said nothing for a long time. Texas stood in the door, his temples throbbing, his world absolutely empty. Even the great work ahead of him seemed to have no purpose and no flavor now. But it must be finished, giving him a clean passport when he should turn his face away from that place to come back no more.

"It'll strike deep in Sallie," Uncle Boley said in time. "I don't think she'll ever overlook this. Well, I'm sorry. I had hopes I'd see you two settled down here, where maybe I could go to lay my head among them that cared for me when my time came at last."

"I'm sorry, Uncle Boley, from the bottom of my heart."

But the words had a perfunctory sound in his own ear as he spoke, and he knew there could be no consolation in them for Uncle Boley. Texas lingered on a little while in the shop, and then left

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/286


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/287

 to wander off over the prairie, where he could be alone with his troubles under the sky.

Late in the afternoon he visited the bank to inquire after Stott's return. To his satisfaction he learned that the banker would come home on the early morning train.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/287


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/288

TOTT was at his desk early, for banking-hours ran long in Cottonwood. After the habit of bankers, who seem to be so eager that the world see what they are doing, when in reality so little of it is ever known, Stott's desk was near the one window in the front of the brick building on the corner.

This was a low structure, built especially for the bank, and it was an ugly and uninviting place for any man to enter and leave his money. The word "Bank" was cut into the limestone lintel of the door, and painted again in gilt across the window near which Stott displayed his financial prowess.

As seen from the street that morning, Henry Stott was a figure to inspire a sense of solidity, even if one could read no deeper at a passing glance through his gilt-adorned window-pane. He was a large man, at work without a coat, heavy suspenders over his white shirt, no necktie to his collar; a man of pasty-whiteness, of broad, soft face, and small eyes placed so far apart that they looked as if

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/288


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/289

 nature had designed them for watching both sides of the fence at once.

Banking in that part of the country in those days was a game of chance for both the bank and its patrons. A gambling-house was a safer and surer business for the man that owned it, and the chances were about even between the two institutions when it came to profit and surety for the patrons. It was a significant fact that more banks than gambling-houses failed in the cattle country in those times.

But, unpromising as the bank appeared, and uncouth as the banker, large transactions were the daily rule within those uninviting walls. Loans of a hundred thousand dollars had been no unusual thing in the experience of Henry Stott, short loans at that, with interest as high as ten per centum monthly.

Cattlemen in a hole were glad to accept his hard conditions until they could turn their stock, and consider it a favor. When they sold, their money, such as remained to them, went on deposit in Stott's bank, to be loaned out to others on the same unstable security. The risks were big for the banker, and his profits probably justified thereby.

So there was no lack of money in the squat little bank, no matter what day or hour you might come to it, and no unusual sight, indeed, to see a cattleman get off the train from Kansas City, walk into

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/289


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/290

 the bank, open his old, battered gripsack, and pile up seventy-five or eighty thousand dollars for deposit as carelessly as some of us would handle collars. Those were the days on the range when men made money in a hurry when they made it, and lost it on the jump when it began to go. There wasn't any plodding, slow-going medium road for a faint-hearted man.

There were but two people regularly engaged in the bank besides Stott, the bookkeeper and receiving-paying teller. Neither of these had arrived when Texas Hartwell and Fannie Goodnight walked in through the wide-swung door and confronted Stott at his desk. A revolver lay on the desk within Stott's instant grasp, a rifle leaned against the wall not three feet away, and he seemed to hesitate between them as his early visitors drew up to the railing behind which he sat.

Stott was facing the door, and, as his hand crept now stealthily toward his revolver weighting the pile of papers at his side, his eyes sought the street as if for the waiting horses, or accomplices, of the two who had appeared so unexpectedly.

"It isn't a raid, Mr. Stott, sir," Texas hastened to assure him. "We've come to talk over a matter of business with you."

"Well, what can I do for you?" Stott asked, his

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/290


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/291

 ludicrous, high, metallic voice in absurd keeping with his bulk.

He looked them over sharply, sure of Texas at the first glance, as his expression betrayed, but altogether at sea regarding Fannie, who had added colored spectacles to her disguise.

"I see you know me," Texas said.

"I was just wonderin' if I did," Stott replied, affably enough, and apparently at ease, "but you've got me."

"It was night-time when we met, and you couldn't see my face, but from what you said at that time, sir, I was sure you knew who you were ropin' up."

A little color came into Stott's face as Texas spoke, but he laughed with a show of good humor, like a man who appreciates the spirit of a joke, even though he doesn't understand it.

"I guess I don't belong to your lodge," he said.

As he spoke his fingers were tapping the stock of his revolver paper-weight, and his quick little eyes were following every movement of foot and hand of the pair before him.

"We came in on you early, Mr. Stott, to save makin' these explanations before folks, and we haven't got time to trifle away on useless introduc-

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/291


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/292

 tions. You know me, and you know who's with me."

"We've come to talk over old times with you, Henry—away back old times."

In spite of his stolidity Stott's face changed at Fannie's first word. He jumped to his feet, revolver in hand.

"Get to hell out of here!" he ordered.

"You'd better put down that gun, Henry," Fannie cautioned with reproachful scorn.

"You can't come in here and work any of your blackmail on me!"

"Sir, we're not even goin' to try it."

Texas had drawn back a step from the railing. He stood with his hand on his gun, every muscle of his body set.

"Get to hell out of here!" Stott repeated, his revolver lifted as if to fire a signal. Texas made a little motion of caution, an eloquent command of restraint, with his left hand, the other on his pistolstock.

"Put down that gun, sir!" he ordered. "We're not intendin' to rob you—we're after a settlement of another kind."

Stott was purple in the congestion of rage and fright. His moment had gone, and he seemed to realize it, for the weapon in his hand wavered. He made an indecisive movement as if to put it down,

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/292


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/293

 another as if to point it toward the ceiling and fire. But his moment had passed.

If he had fired it on the impulse he could have carried it for an attempt to rob the bank, and no testimony to the contrary ever would have convinced the public of Cottonwood. Besides that, there wouldn't have been anybody left to testify. Now it was too late to summon help, and Stott knew it. Texas had not drawn his gun; Fannie had not even put her hand to the weapon she wore. A banker couldn't rise up and give the alarm of thieves every time armed men came in his door, for eight out of ten of his customers wore guns.

"We want to talk Southern cattle for a minute, for one thing, unless you'd rather we'd talk it over with Duncan and the association," Texas said, a politeness in his voice that he did not feel in his heart.

Stott threw the gun down with a jerk of the head, in the manner of a man who yields to pressure against his judgment.

"Well, what do you want?"

"A little dab of justice," Texas said. "Your clerk's just stepped in next door for his morning snort, and he'll be here direc'ly. When he comes, you tell him we're goin' to your private room back yonder to talk over a deal. There'll not be any shootin', and there'll not be any cussin' and snortin',

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/293


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/294

 Mr. Stott, sir, unless you start it up yourself."

The teller came in before Texas had finished speaking; a little wrinkled old man, wearing his hat with juvenile tilt over his left ear, walking in a veritable alcoholic fog. Stott addressed him as "major," with a word about the business ahead, and led the way to his private room, with "President" painted on its door. Texas closed the door after them.

Stott threw back the top of his desk with a clatter, and sat down, facing them, with his thick hands spread on his thighs, a surly defiance in his face.

"Accordin' to your intentions both of us ought to be dead down in the brush on Clear Creek," Texas said.

Stott leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head, as if he had suddenly thrown away his worry and his ill-humor along with it, and had settled down into his unruffled business front.

"How far do you suppose your word would go against mine with the cattlemen on this range?" he wanted to know.

"I don't count," Texas admitted. "That's why I'm here to send you out to talk for me."

"You're a slick pair!" Stott sneered. "Now you're here, say something."

"One way or another, I aim to say enough to satisfy you, Mr. Stott."

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/294


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/295

 Fannie had dropped wearily into a chair and taken off her hat. She sat looking up at Texas, who stood before Stott in the dignity of his clean life and clean conscience, a superman compared with the gross, heavy-feeding banker. If there was admiration in her eyes, surely it was justified; and confidence, certainly it was not altogether misplaced.

Stott looked at her, a sneering smile lifting his thick lip.

"Fannie, what're you goin' to tell them?" he asked in a manner of friendly banter.

"I'll tell enough to crack your neck, you swill-guzzler!"

Stott's anger burned up his caution in a flash. He unclasped his thick hands, leveling a finger at her face, a vile name on his tongue.

"You and Mackey went into this to hold me up!" he charged.

Fannie leaned toward him, her face dark with the flush that sprang into it, holding out one hand to stop Texas, who had started at the name which Stott had applied to her as if he would turn it back down the foul lane of his throat.

"I went into it to draw a card to fill the hand I waited a long time to play against you, Henry Stott. It wasn't because Johnnie Mackey—"

"And you threw both of us down for this Texas

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/295


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/296

 rattler! If Mackey's half the man I think he is he'll cut your throat for that little trick!"

"He's not even that much of a man!"

"I'm sorry I didn't—"

"Let me talk a minute, Henry," said Fannie, something of her old sauciness in her manner, broken in spirit as she seemed to be. "Ever since I began to help Mackey shove his counterfeit money and raised bills, I've been holding a hand against you, waiting for the day when I was ready to make a big clean-up and quit."

"You never had anything on me, you little—"

"Johnnie's not much of a man, but he will stand by his friends—up to a certain time," she continued, unmoved by Stott's interruption. "We fussed over it the night before I went down there to help you trap Texas. Johnnie tried to kill me that time. I was afraid of the little devil after that."

Stott rolled his head, laughed a little, played with a pencil on his desk. He seemed rather amused by this attempt to trouble the waters of his security.

"I never trusted Mackey, even when we were as thick as we could be mixed, for he's a man that will throw anybody to save himself, and I started out early to get a cinch on him that I could twist when the time came. I got it, Henry."

"Well, go an' hold him up," Stott suggested mockingly.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/296


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/297

 "Mackey was afraid to use what he had on you, and I was satisfied to hold off on it as long as I didn't need the money. When you started him up in business here, Johnnie considered things square between him and you."

"I never started him up in business here, or anywhere else," Stott declared, red with his vehemence.

"Johnnie was satisfied, he was making ten dollars to your one. I got to thinking the hand I held against you never would be any good, and I was glad enough to draw another to fill. I'm full now; I hold a royal flush."

"And the settlement you're going to make to-day, sir," said Texas very gently, his voice low and well controlled, "goes back to the time Mackey raised that six-thousand-dollar note of Ed McCoy's for you to read sixty thousand, the very day you murdered McCoy with your own hand."

"You're a liar!" said Stott, springing to his feet, his face as white as the dead. "I'll make you prove it!"

"You'd better set down and keep cool," Texas advised.

"Do you realize what it means to charge a man with murder?" Stott demanded. His hand shook as he gripped the back of his chair.

"To the last word I do, Mr. Stott."

"I'll hand you over to the sheriff—I'll make you

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/297


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/298

 sweat for this dirty attempt to blackmail me!"

"If you're still in that notion five minutes from now, go and do it, sir."

Fannie stepped in front of Stott as he moved as if to leave the room in his high and virtuous heat.

"You can call the devil when we're through with you, Stott," she said.

"If Mackey's in this—"

"Mackey left Cottonwood last night, sir."

"We had a session with him yesterday afternoon, Henry. He sold his joint to Jud Springer last night."

Stott sat down again. Every word they said seemed to drive him a little lower, until he leaned forward, his head down, an ungainly, dispirited lump.

"Zeb Smith is drunk this morning, and locked up in a safe place," Texas added, speaking close to Stott's ear, as if in confidence. "He'll keep where he is without any sheriff."

"After you went to all that expense to have the wrong man killed, Henry," Fannie mocked, "and old Zeb came back to hold you up again."

"He's ready to go into court and swear he saw you shoot Ed McCoy. Now, if you want to fetch sheriffs into this case, sir, you can go right on and do it."

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/298


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/299

 Stott sat up with a sudden wrench, making his chair complain.

"Nobody in this country would believe that drunken burn on oath, any more than they would you two buzzards!" he declared, seeming to gather a breath of new courage.

"It might be that a jury in a court-room wouldn't take much stock in him, sir, but a jury of cattlemen on the open range is a different set of men," said Texas very solemnly. "Mackey wasn't willing to take the chance, and he was only your hired hand."

"You can't prove it—you can't prove a word of it!"

"But we can prove southern cattle on you to a fare-you-well."

Stott sat in heavy meditation a little while, the two who had brought him to such unexpected and heavy judgment waiting silently by.

"It's blackmail—I'll never pay it!" he muttered.

"You couldn't hire us to touch a cent of your money, Stott," Texas corrected him, his voice like the word of judgment in the banker's ear.

"Then what do you want?" Stott appealed, lifting his miserable face, staring at them in a dumb wonder, turning his glance from one to the other of that unaccountable pair.

"There's an old debt that's stood cryin' to your

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/299


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/300

 deaf ears many a day, Mr. Stott." Texas reminded him, "and this is the time you'll listen to its demands."

"What do you mean, Hartwell?"

"I mean the difference between six thousand legal debt and sixty thousand forged, with inter-ust from that day to this."

"You can't prove it!" said Stott again, weakly. "It can't be proved!"

"You might as well call it sixty thousand, to make it look better. We'll let you put any kind of a face to it you can think up, Stott, to save you in front of the world on that. You can send for Mrs. McCoy and count the cash money down in her hand, and tell her it's your gratitude for past favors done you by Ed McCoy, or that it's your heart moved by your great prosperity, or that you've got religion—or anything you want to tell her. That done, we cross off your crime and let you free on murder."

Stott sat thinking it over. Perhaps the turn that things took when they scorned his money put a newer and graver complexion on their case in his eyes; doubtless he realized that he couldn't make the plea of blackmail stick against them before the public. On their part, taking Mackey's skulking retreat into consideration, they could ruin him in an hour.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/300


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/301

 By the payment of the money to Mrs. McCoy as demanded by this unfathomable Texas stranger, his position would be strengthened against the shock of the cattlemen's discovery of his duplicity in running in the Texas herd. The glow of public approbation of such a deed would be warm and profitable. It would be almost worth the money—if these two dangerous people were out of the way.

There were many things for Stott to consider, indeed, in those hard-pressing moments. But behind all the argument that he could bring up to support a denial, plain and final, of their demand, stood the panic of his own guilty heart which cried out that no sacrifice was too dear to buy immunity from this ruinous exposure.

"What guarantee?" he asked, with his business caution, "will I have, if I do what you say, that you'll get out of the country and keep still?"

"There are conditions to add, sir, before any guarantee at all will be given," Texas told him. "First, do what I tell you—send for Mrs. McCoy and pay her sixty thousand dollars, cash money. You brought back more than that with you this morning from the sale of that first bunch of southern cattle. Mrs. McCoy is at Uncle Boley Drumgoole's shop, waitin' on your message, sir."

"So you've told it all!"

Stott looked up sharply, his words the yelp of

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/301


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/302

 a beaten whelp. There stood in his face the ghost of his guilty years, the specter that had haunted him with the dread of discovery since the day of his cowardly shot in the prairie silences, with the unseen Zeb Smith lying low behind a sumac-clump.

"She don't know anything about it, sir, nor what she's there for. Send for her; we'll leave it to you to deal square with her, believin' that it will be done."

"All right, Hartwell," Stott agreed, nodding his heavy head, the fright of his cowardly soul almost shriveling his gross body, "I promise you I'll deal it straight to Ed McCoy's women—I'll deal it straight."

"When you've paid her, cash money in hand, and refused to take a cent of it back on deposit in this bank if she offers it to you, you'll send word to Malcolm Duncan, or carry it to him yourself, that will clear me of the charge of sellin' out my honor and trust to the men that brought that southern herd up and run it over me, sir."

"Hartwell, I'll hand you five thousand dollars if you'll let things stand like they are on that, and leave the country."

Stott begged it of him abjectly, holding out his guilty hands.

Hartwell drew back a step hurriedly, away from

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/302


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/303

 the possible contamination of Stott's unholy touch.

"You'll do what I set for you to do," he said sternly, "and bring back results within twenty-four hours, or you'll answer to me with your life!"

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/303


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/304

ARTWELL and Fannie loitered along the street until they saw the bank teller leave Uncle Boley's shop with Mrs. McCoy; turned and walked back toward the bank after they had passed on the other side, and waited in that vicinity until the widow came out with the package in her hand.

Mrs. McCoy held straight for Uncle Boley's shop, walking rapidly. They followed, well behind her, and stood in front of Noggle's barbershop, a little way down the street, waiting for her to leave. She had been in the shop but a minute when Uncle Boley came hurrying out,, his beard broken loose from under his suspenders and flying in the wind. He looked round him this way and that, like a man who hears a swarm of bees, his hoary face tipped up to the sky.

Presently he popped back into the shop, only to come out again at once with his hat on and repeat his queer weather-observation antics. Texas stood enjoying the old soul's excited maneuvers, not fully understanding what they meant, but he believed

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/304


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/305

 part of them related to a search of the heavens for the Angel Gabriel, part of them to a mundane exploration of the environs for himself.

"We'll go in here," he said.

Texas was in no mood for receiving either the credit or the thanks of Uncle Boley and Mrs. McCoy. He never wanted to be known in the transaction if he could keep his part in it covered, and the thought that it might come out on him before he could get away from Cottonwood made him cross. He cared little whether Noggle wanted his custom in that shop or not.

Noggle was contemplating the reflection of his own charms in the glass, adding a little powder here, smoothing an eyebrow there, giving a turn to the end of his long mustache with his beautiful soft fingrs. He turned with a hand still at the curling end of that adornment, to see who was breaking in upon his preening hour for a shave.

"Bennie, sit down and read the paper till I'm through," Texas directed.

"Good merning," said Noggle, pronouncing the good old word with a gimlet-hole sound. There would have been no distinction in saying it like everybody else in Cottonwood, and no style.

"Hi're you, sir?" Texas returned, his fingers busy with his cravat, his coat already on the hook. "I want a hair-cut and shave."

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/305


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/306

 He spread himself out in the chair, and Noggle stood by as if he teetered on indecision.

"All right," he yielded at last, "all right. But it hurts a man's business—"

"Damn your fool business, sir!" said Texas, lifting his head savagely.

Noggle shrank back from him, pressing his hand to his mouth as if he had bitten his tongue. Over in the corner, where she stood looking at the cigarette cards tacked to the wall, Fannie laughed.

Noggle began to snip round the edges of Hartwell's long hair with his shears, pausing now and then to tap them on the back of the comb, for no apparent reason in the barbering world. Noggle could not be expected to hold silence very long, not even while clipping an undesirable customer, especially when he was itching all over inside with big news. But it was along toward the end of the hairtrimming that he melted enough to begin.

"Cowboy in here from the Diamond Tail this morning said the Texas fever's broke out over there," said he.

"That so?"

Texas spoke as if the news was of little concern to him, but Fannie turned with a sharp exclamation, looking at Noggle with big eyes.

"Lost twenty-odd two days ago," he said, "and spreadin' like fire."

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/306


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/307

 "Too bad," said Texas, unmoved.

Noggle clipped on, nodding over Hartwell's head at Fannie, whose interest made her a better mark.

"Clean 'em out if it keeps on spreading they say, and make hard times here in the Arkansaw Valley. Well, the beauty of my business is, a man can pick up and foiler the money."

"Did you say he was from the Diamond Tail?" Fannie asked.

"Yes, that's Sawyer's brand, you know. He said it was spreadin' in on the Open Hat, too. I guess somebody oncorked a bottle of hornets when they drove them Texas cattle in here!"

Nobody offered any word to combat or agree with the assertion. Noggle pressed his subject back into the chair and began to rub the lather into his chin, keeping time to the movement with his foot like a man playing a banjo.

"I wouldn't like to stand in the shoes of the man who was to blame for them tick-bringin' cattle gittin' on this range," he said. "Cowboy that was in here from the Diamond Tail—I give him a hair-fcut, shave, shampoo, massage, and singe—said the cow-men was comin' in here in a day or two to look for the feller and handle him around some. If I knew who that man was I'd tip it off to him, as a friend, so he could make his gitaway."

"You're very kind and generous, sir," said

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/307


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/308

 Texas, pushing Noggle's finger and thumb away from the hold on his upper lip; "and if I happen to meet the feller you speak of I'll pass the word on to him."

"A man owes something to a feller that's stood up for him," said the barber, but looking about him and craning his long neck to sweep the street and make sure that his words would not be heard by anybody through the open door; "and I'm one of the kind that remembers my friends, no matter if my business is apt to suffer by it."

"No man's business ever suffered very long because he had the honor to do what was right," Texas assured him, his opinion of the barber rising a considerable degree.

"I sent for Malvina and told her to pass the tip on to that feller if she saw him."

"You're a sport, Nick!" said Fannie warmly.

Noggle suspended his operations, razor lifted high, to look at her, a cast of hauteur on his narrow face.

"Time for you to begin shavin', if you're ever goin' to, kid," said he.

"I shave with a hot wagon-tire," Fannie said, turning to study the cigarette pictures again.

"Yes, and there's one feller in this town I'd like to shave with my six-shooter!"

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/308


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/309

 Noggle looked steadily at Fannie, his chin thrust out, his powdered forehead wrinkled in a scowl. Perhaps he was trying the effect on her of an expression of fierceness which he had studied out before his mirror. If so, it looked as if he'd have to design a new one, for Fannie only laughed at him and turned her back.

"If you're hintin' at Zeb Smith, I can lead you to him," Texas offered.

"I don't want bloodshed, I don't want to git mixed up in any more of it if I can help it," said Noggle, as if his past had been drenched with the sanguinary fluid that waters human hearts, "but I ain't a goin' to hide out from no man, neither."

"I'll send him down to the shop, if it will oblige you any, sir."

"Don't you do it, don't you do it!" Noggle protested with undignified haste.

"If you don't wish it, sir—"

"I don't want to muss up the shop."

It takes a bluffer to color a thing like that with the significance, the unexpressed ferocity, that gives it weight. Noggle had practiced the art a long time; there wasn't a match for him between the Arkansas and the Rio Grande, with Zeb Smith in the contest.

"Yes, sir, I reckon they'll be some ground tore

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/309


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/310

 up and bushes bent down the day you two meet," said Texas gravely, his hand in his pocket for the fee.

"Your money ain't good here," said Noggle generously.

"Sir, I insist on—"

"It don't pass in this shop, Texas. You know, there'll be a up-train at two ten, and a down-one at four nineteen. Or if you didn't want to wait that long, you might buy a horse."

"Yes, sir, I reckon it could be done."

"You could sell him up at Wichita, you know."

"I guess I might be able to sell him up there," said Texas, his head bent thoughtfully, his hand still in his pocket; "but I'll not have any need, thank you, sir. I'll be around here a day or two more."

On the street Texas faced toward Uncle Boley's shop.

"I'll go on down to the hotel," said Fannie.

"Uncle Boley he'll be wantin' to see you, Fannie."

"I'm not going up there, I tell you!" She spoke sharply, a surge of blood in her dark-stained face.

"You don't need to mind Uncle Boley," he persuaded.

Fannie stood rasping her spur over the end of a board in the sidewalk, stubbornly refusing to lift her head.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/310


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/311

 "That McCoy kid'll be up there, suckin' a stick of candy!" she said.

"Why, Miss Fannie!"

"Oh, it's all right, Texas—go on up and see her," she said, her voice trembling, her face turned away. "She's a good kid, I haven't got anything against her. Go on up and see her if you want to."

"Fannie, you mustn't think that way about me. Miss McCoy can't be anything in this world to me."

"You care for her—you care a whole lot for her!"

"Her way and mine, Fannie—"

"I gave you my cards and you played them for her—you thought of her all the time!"

"You didn't want me to hold Stott up—that would have been blackmail, Fannie."

"You held him up for her!"

"That wasn't a hold-up, it was restitution. Stott owed them; he didn't owe you and me anything that money would pay."

Fannie thought it over a little while, then she turned frankly to him, her hand extended, a smile on her lips, a struggle in her throat to hold down the tears.

"I know it, Texas. I've run with crooks so long I can't see straight all at once."

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/311


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/312

 "You're all right, Fannie; you're as straight as a plumb-line."

"No, money wouldn't square what Stott owes you and me, Texas. I guess we'll have to cross that off—if I'm going to stay square."

"We've got to cross off a lot of things in this world," sighed he.

"Yes, when you stand clean and think square, I guess you have, kid. You're clean—it isn't hard for you. So is that girl with the big brown eyes. Maybe if I was—"

"You're as square as a die!" he protested.

"Oh, go on up and see her!" said Fannie crossly.

There were not many people in the street at that hour of the forenoon, and the few who passed behind them where they stood on the edge of the sidewalk facing into the street heeded them no more than they would have any pair of cowboys. They were as much alone, indeed, as they would have been in seclusion, as far as public notice was concerned. Texas put his hand on her shoulder and looked into her face.

"Fannie, there's no reason why I should go to Uncle Boley's, not any more at all, as I know of. We'll go back to the ho-tel, and set down and talk things over, for our roads are beginning to stretch out from the forks, and we'll be ridin' our ways, far apart, di-rec'ly."

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/312


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/313

 Again Texas saw that convulsive struggle in her throat, and her head was bent, her face turned from him, as if she was ashamed to let him see that there were tears on her cheeks, and her eyes half-blinded in their hot rain.

"All right, Texas," she said.

When they came to the hotel, Texas stopped, his shoulders back, his chin lifted, as if he turned his face up to feel the rain after a drought. The strong southern breeze lifted his broad hat-brim.

"The wind's blowin' right up from Taixas this morning; you can taste the taste of home in it," said he. "Wouldn't you like to take a little walk on out a-past the houses, Fannie, where it can come to you clean?"

For answer she started forward, and he walked beside her, looking now and then with all the compassion of his soul into her face. She did not turn her eyes to meet his, but kept on at his side, her great spurs clashing over the uneven planks, her head bent as if sorrow had descended upon her and wrapped her in its cloud.

They turned from the unfenced highway well beyond the last house of Cottonwood, and sat on a little knoll, where the wind from Texas came blowing free, full of the indefinable spices of autumn, soft and beguiling, and home-calling as a maiden's song.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/313


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/314

 "I wish I had my hair," said she, after a long silence.

"It was too bad to cut it off thataway, Fannie. Couldn't it 'a' been combed out?"

"Maybe."

"It was the finest hair I ever saw on a lady's head, bar none. Well, it'll grow out again, Fannie."

"Yes," she said, "it'll grow out, but you'll be gone then, Texas."

"Yes, I'll be gone."

"If I'd known for sure you were here I wouldn't have had it cut. But I didn't know whether you were alive or dead, and I was afraid to come back a girl. Between them, Stott and Mackey would have killed me, Texas."

"I wouldn't put it past them."

"Yes, and I'll tell you, Texas, Stott won't own up to the cattlemen to clear you. He'll wiggle out of it some way."

"I'll call him up to the lick-log in the morning."

"He'll not be afraid of us now, since he's paid that money back to the McCoys; he'll tell us to go to hell."

"Maybe he will, Fannie."

"Nobody will believe a man as generous as him would shoot his pardner in the back. I guess we

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/314


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/315

 cut the string and let him go when we put that up to him, Texas."

"Well, it's done; he owed the money, and it's paid—I reckon it's paid."

Fannie rolled over on the grass, stretched herself on her stomach, propping herself on her elbows. She chewed a joint of bluestem, and took her hat off to let the wind have its way, saying nothing for a long time. Then:

"Texas?"

"Yes, Fannie."

"Don't you think you ought to take the train out of here to-day?"

"I'm not runnin' away from any man, or set of men, Fannie. I'm not ready to leave just now."

"Stott won't tell the cattlemen you're square, Texas, and they'll get you. They'll be in here fifty to one, and you'll never have a show for your money at all."

"If Stott don't clear me, I'll have to do it myself, Fannie. I've got an appointment with a man that's undertaken to settle it in his own way for the rest of them. That's one reason why I can't leave till he comes."

Fannie got up, looking at him with a question in her frightened eyes.

"What man, Texas?"

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/315


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/316

 "His name is Winch. I don't reckon you know him."

The name seemed to daze her. She sat staring at him, her lips open, her eyes distended, her breath held as if she listened.

"I've been hearing about him for years. He'll never give you a square deal, Texas—he never gave any man a square deal. Dee Winch is as crooked as a snake!"

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/316


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/317

T was late that evening when the news began to fly around Cottonwood that Johnnie Mackey had transferred his interests to Jud Springer and quit the town in the dark. It was the biggest sensation that Cottonwood ever had experienced. Even the thrashing of the mayor became a secondary incident in the town's history, and in the minds of the knowing ones merely a forerunning branch of this great event. For, closely as their meeting with Mackey had been guarded, there were some who were aware of it, and Texas and the dark little stranger were at once clothed with a mysterious importance that lifted them to a conspicuous situation in the public eye.

Detectives, it was generally said they were, who had a line on Mackey's past, brought in by Jud Springer for the purpose of smoking him out. Springer got the credit for it; nobody ever had heard of a shrewder business move.

The town remained awake longer than usual to talk about it, the citizens and visitors shifting from one of Jud Springer's gaping doors to the other,

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/317


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/318

 almost everybody rejoicing in the overthrow of Mackey, who had made his office a position of oppression. On account of public felicitation, and the unusual celebration among the normally staid and domesticated citizens, the town was drowsy next morning and asleep later than its accustomed hour.

Cattlemen began to arrive before the sun had struck down to the door lintels of the stores, and before anything but the restaurants and all-night saloons was open. Several came to the Woodbine Hotel for breakfast, and Mrs. Goodloe was showing more teeth than a shark.

Hartwell was up early, waiting the opening of the bank, to exact justice, and the fulfillment of his agreement, from Stott. Back and forth, like a sentry, he walked a short beat opposite the bank, waiting the opening-hour. People who recognized him in passing spoke with respect, and turned in curiosity to look at him again, wondering what new eruption was to come in the business of Cottonwood out of that early patrolling in the street.

Hartwell was concerned over the arrival of the cattlemen, whose horses were already thick along the hitching-racks up and down the street. These had come from near-by ranches, as the freshness of their animals told, and there was none among them

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/318


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/319

 who seemed to recognize him, no one whom Hartwell identified as a member of the recent expedition against the Texans.

There was one advantage of having a crowd of them in town looking for him, at any rate—Stott's audience would be the larger for his confession, if he had not already made it to Duncan. His distrust of Stott, stirred by Fannie's declaration that he never would implicate himself by his own confession to clear another, had grown through the night. Hartwell was uneasy over the outlook now, for if Winch should come in before the bank opened it would mean a fight, and the useless sacrifice of one or the other of their lives.

It wanted a few minutes of nine o'clock when Major Simmonds, the teller, arrived, his hat at a gallant slant. He unlocked the door with high importance, swung it back, and put the brick against it, and disappeared behind the grill. Hartwell roamed anxious eyes up and down the street, watching for Stott, determined to go across and stop him before he could get into the bank.

He was thus engaged in his survey of the street when Major Simmonds came rushing out, bareheaded, hair disarranged from the bald spot which he took such studious care to conceal. Hartwell was the nearest person to him, directly across the

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/319


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/320

 street. Major Simmonds came running toward him, making a signal with his flapping arms like a switchman stopping a train.

"The bank's robbed!" he yelled, stopping in the middle of the street. Hartwell hurried to him.

"What's that?"

"Robbed—cleaned out—vault open, everything gone!"

"Run for Stott—I'll call the marshal!"

Texas hurried off toward the little calaboose, behind which the town marshal lived, and the teller started off to summon Stott, leaving the bank door wide open. People who had heard the shouted alarm came running, and when Texas returned with the marshal in a few minutes the street before the gaping bank door was filled by the crowd of deeply concerned patrons.

The marshal posted himself in the door, refusing to allow even the anxious directors of the concern to enter until the arrival of Stott. The teller came panting back presently, his face white, his eyes fairly hanging on his cheeks.

"Gone!" said he.

A big gray man in a grocer's apron laid hold of the teller's shoulder and shook him, as if to settle him down to coherency.

"Gone? Who's gone?" he shouted.

"Stott!" the teller groaned.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/320


text:
Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 25--Liturgy of Funeral Offerings.pdf/48

 place of Anubis in the performance of this office. In the text of Tetȧ, line 140, Seb, or Ḳeb, is said to give an offering to the king in his every form and in his every place,, but when it is remembered that Seb was the great Earth-god, and the lord of all its products, this is not surprising. A few lines further on (line 150) we have: ". May Seb give an offering to this Tetȧ. May he give to thee offerings of all kinds in sets of four, and a setting forth in abundance of bread-cakes and vessels of beer, and bread of all kinds which thou lovest, and which are fair for thee before the God." In Pepi II., line 680, we have the passage ". May Seb give these chosen haunches of beef and pert-kheru offerings to all the gods, so that they may cause every good thing to happen to Pepi Nefer-ka-Rā."

This passage is of considerable interest, for in it the words  occur, although


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/321

 "Where's his wife?" another anxious-faced business man inquired, pushing forward.

"She left for Kansas City yesterday afternoon."

"Oh, well, Stott's around town somewhere, then," said the grocer. "Come on, we've got to find him."

A general alarm for Stott went through the town, on the heels of the news that the bank had been robbed, and everything down to the last security carried off. The marshal held his place in the door, and would not allow anybody to enter until it became a determined fact that Stott was gone.

Then the directors took possession of the concern, to find that the president's hand, and no other, had cleaned it to the crumbs. There was no doubt about that; he had left his mark behind him in a hundred ways. He had left nothing but a heap of silver representing a few hundred dollars, too heavy and unprofitable to carry away.

Hartwell turned away from the sullen crowd that waited the final announcement of the bank's directors, feeling the defalcation and flight of the banker as keenly as any man whose all was on deposit there. Stott had robbed them only of their money, and a man could replace that if he lived long enough, and denied himself, and good fortune kept its hand over him; but a man who had been robbed of his main chance of saving his honor had been left bankrupt beyond repair.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/321


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/322

 The only temporary advantage of the situation was that it drew the thoughts of the cattlemen from himself to Stott, for most of them were depositors of the bank. There was hurried mounting among them, fevered riding away to spread the alarm, for Stott had not left by railroad. He had either gone toward the Nation, heading for No Man's Land, or in the direction of Wichita, where he would take a train on his flight to the security of Canada. On the chance that he might cross some line of information before he got away, the directors telegraphed his description abroad.

Hartwell had not seen Fannie that morning. He turned to the hotel now to look for her.

"He was up before you, Texas, and et only a snack of breakfast," Mrs. Goodloe told him. "I saw him ride past a little while afterward, headin' south."

"Some business of his own, I guess," said Texas.

"He paid his bill like he wasn't comin' back."

"The little rascal—to go off thataway and never leave me a word! Oh, well, I reckon he'll be around di-rec'ly."

"I'll bet he's gone to see his girl. He had a pinin' look in his eye like a boy that was in love. He's a nice quiet little feller, as soft-spoken as a woman."

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/322


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/323

 "Pure gold, ma'am, right down to the tacks of his boots."

Texas was troubled over Fannie's peculiar behavior as he walked toward Uncle Boley's shop. Perhaps she believed that things were finished for her in Cottonwood and had gone back to her cousin's ranch. It might be that what he had said about their ways beginning already to part had something to do with it. Maybe she had gone away thinking that he was selfish and ungrateful. Remorse at this thought came over him, to make that dark hour more bitter.

It wasn't like Fannie to leave him as long as there might be need of her testimony to clear him in the cattlemen's eyes, and she did not know at the hour she left that Stott had cleaned out the bank and gone. Something had urged her upon her lonely road, but Texas was not vain enough, sophisticated enough, even to consider that it might be her love for him, hopeless as she knew it to be.

Uncle Boley was in his door, looking down the street toward the bank. He had his apron on, and his beard tucked out of the way, signs which told Texas that he had left the bench but lately, and did not intend to allow the rascality of Henry Stott to rise up between him and his work very long.

"Well, he's run off, has he?" Uncle Boley in-

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/323


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/324

 quired, his bright eyes livelier for the excitement, his voice eager.

"Yes, and everything gone with him that he could lay his ornery hands on, Uncle Boley."

"Serves 'em right for trustin' to that man. He never done an honest deed in his life 'cept when he was druv to it, and then it went so hard agin the grain you could hear him crack. I tell you, Texas, when this town finds out what you and that girl made him do for that widder woman yesterday it'll rair up and whoop."

"You didn't tell her—Mrs. McCoy—that we had any hand in it, did you, Uncle Boley?"

Texas asked him the question with such haste and eagerness that it was almost a plea.

"You know I never," said Uncle Boley, reproachfully. "When I pass my word to a man it sticks."

"I know it, Uncle Boley, and I beg your pardon, sir. I was nearly in a fit when I thought maybe they'd found out."

"It'd do you a hell of a lot of harm if they had!" Uncle Boley was sharply sarcastic. He spat on the sidewalk, and worked his mouth in that chopping manner so alarming to behold by one who did not know his ways.

"Well, this town it'll never think any better of me for it, Uncle Boley. That scoun'rel sneaked

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/324


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/325

 off and left me holdin' the sack, never said one word to them cattlemen that'll clear me."

"No, I don't reckon he did," said Uncle Boley, thoughtfully. "It wasn't to be expected of him. I see them cow-men ridin' in here early, and they're all stirred up, they tell me, 'count of fever breakin* out on the range."

"They're comin' in for a settlement with me, I've been told, Uncle Boley. This is the day of the big doin's, I guess."

"Yes, I was told; the news has went around. Well, where's that Fannie girl?"

Texas told him that she had gone, with no word behind her.

"What do you reckon got into her to fly up and leave that way?"

"I don't know, Uncle Boley, unless she felt hurt, sir, because she thought I was ungrateful for all she'd helped me to do, for all I never could 'a' done, sir, without her help."

Uncle Boley shook his head, bent over his work, shook his head again from time to time, through a long interval of silence.

"It wasn't that, Texas. She left because she was jealous. One agin the other, and you lost both of 'em. Well, you wasn't to blame; it just come out: that way."

"I bungled it up so, sir!" said Texas, regret-

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/325


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/326

 fully. "I always was as clumsy as a colt for gettin' my legs tangled up in the rope."

"Well, if Sallie don't come on her knees to you when she finds out what you've done for her and her mother, I'll take in my horns."

Texas put his hand on the old man's shoulder and looked him earnestly in the face.

"Uncle Boley, the best kindness you can do me is never to mention my name in that matter to them. Give Fannie the full credit for it; it rightly belongs to her. As she said, she gave me the cards—all I did was play them. Keep my name out of it the same as if I was a man that'd been hung."

"I don't see what you're goin' to gain by that," said Uncle Boley impatiently.

"There's nothing to be gained, one way or the other. I'll have to walk out there in the road direc'ly, sir, and face them cattlemen, for no man nor set of men's ever goin' to say they come a lookin' for me and I couldn't be found. I'll go out there and I'll face 'em, Uncle Boley, and I'll do my best for the sake of the land I come from, and the right that I know is on my side."

"It ain't right for you to have to go that way, Texas," the old man protested, "and you a burnin' your heart up for Sallie."

Texas did not deny it. He sat with drooping head, leaning forward a bit, dejection over him,

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/326


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/327

 his world so dark that he could not see more than the length of his arm ahead. And what he looked on then was only a world of strife.

A picture of a man staggering backward, his hands outfiung, his gun falling by his side, persisted in his mental vision against the background of men and horses and dust in the trampled street. This was a picture that did not change, that he could not divert his faculties from for one hour of complete peace. The central figure in it was always the same, and that falling man was Texas Hartwell, a death-wound in his breast.

"If you come through it, Texas, then what're you aimin' to do?"

Uncle Boley had put down his work, for the gloom of that threatening hour was heavy over his heart. He pulled his beard from under his suspender and spread it on his breast, sure indication that his work for that morning was at an end. Texas sat up stiffly, his eyes fixed as in a dream on the little window looking dustily into the street.

"Sir, I'm goin' to straddle a horse and take out after that pore little bird that's gone off draggin' her broken wings, and I'm a goin' to foller her till I find her, and if I can make her glad I'll do it, no matter what it costs."

Uncle Boley was moved by this declaration, almost to the point of panic. If Texas had been his

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/327


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/328

 son he could not have felt a sharper pang at his declared intention of allowing gratitude to push his life's promise all behind him, and go riding away on a quest like that.

"If Fannie was a good woman, Texas!" said he, a pathetic tenderness in his trembling voice.

"A woman don't have to be very good to be better than a man, Uncle Boley."

"And even if she was a good woman you couldn't give her your heart. It'd be a sin to throw yourself away on Fannie."

"I could give her a man's name and protection, and I could lift her pore face up to the sky."

"God help you, son, if you're set on doin' that!"

"Never mind," said Texas, soothingly, "never mind it at all. When I'm gone from here, no matter which way I leave, cross me out and turn over the leaf."

Uncle Boley turned to the row of boots on the little shelf, took them down, boot by boot, and wiped the dust from them on his sleeve. He kept his back turned toward Texas, for tears were rolling down his beard.

"Well, I declare, Uncle Boley, sir, if I didn't clean forget that old ant-eater we shut up here night before last!" said Texas, starting up.

"He's gone—slep' off his drunk about sundown yesterday and come walkin' out. Stopped to cuss

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/328


text:
Page:The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (IA journalindianar00loga).pdf/385

 ther the utensils of the deceased such as sumpitan, cooking utensils, parrangs, bliongs, &c.; these they place at the side; they then leave the spot and wander to other parts. The above account differs slightly from your own which shows that they are not guided by strict rules in the case of deaths and marriages.

Their language is the Malayan, spoken with a peculiar accent; whether or not they originally spoke another language I cannot offer an opinion. Their primary words are all the same, so it is probable that they speak the language unmixed with Arabic, but deeper research is required on this subject; an acquaintance with the philology of the Archipelago, might throw many interesting facts open to the world; your extensive enquiries on this subject will therefore be looked for with impatience. Their proper names differ entirely from the Slétar tribe, and are slightly mixed with the Malayan, the following is a list,

Males.
 * Lodang
 * Jalee
 * Angin
 * Oomboo
 * Solai
 * Serong
 * Rinnah
 * Deman
 * Ayin
 * Nipis
 * Bangas
 * Mooloot
 * Bootoon
 * Rama
 * Kassar
 * Looioot
 * Bintang
 * Talei
 * Kassaw
 * Pang

Females.
 * Reenee
 * Bookit
 * Tawei
 * Teemah
 * Meenah
 * Nareemah
 * Aisa
 * Mungee
 * Tengah
 * Dyang

A copious list of proper names I would suggest as forming a criterion of what races they have been in contact with, and as not the least important of the branches of ethnological enquiry.

The personal appearance of these denizens of the forest is, to say the least, pleasing; well formed features in the young and a contented placidity of contenance [sic] in the old, would at once show them to be an improveable race; unshackled with the dogmas of the Islam and infantine in their preception of all things, they stand as its were on the threshold of such a faith as christianity presents in its primitive, most humble, and purest form, but they have no one to invite them in. It


text:
Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/329

 me, place of thankin' me for his lodgin'. I've seen some ornery men in my time, but I never seen one that had all the ornery p'ints Zeb Smith's got."

"He'll not be needed, anyhow, it's just as well he's gone. He's lost his boardin'-house pass, now Stott's left; he'll have to rack out and hunt him up once more."

"I hear Ollie Noggle's packin' a gun for him."

"I expect Zeb'll live to be a mighty old man if he waits till Noggle bores a hole in him, Uncle Boley."

"I reckon he will."

Texas stood in the door. Down the street where there had been so much excitement and activity an hour before, all was quiet. Few horses remained hitched at the racks before saloons and stores, the midday somnolence of ordinary times having settled over Cottonwood again. Many of the cattlemen had gone riding for the trail of Henry Stott, the business that had brought them to town so early having been driven from their thoughts by this new calamity.

For a while Texas was more than half in the mind to buy a horse and strike out at once after Fannie, and leave that tangle of trouble behind. But he could not outrun it very long. A blot would remain on his name to spread and enlarge after him, and reach again to him in time, no matter

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/329