Part 4

“Well, I’m much obliged to yuh, old-timer. That check looks better with Brill on it. Thanks. Reckon I’ll drift.”

We watched him saddle up and climb his bronc. Then he turns back.

“Wasn’t you trailing a _hombre_ named Toothpick Thompson? Thought I remembered it. Wish you all kinds of luck. _Adios_.”

“Was he a friend of yours, Hashknife--this Brill?”

“No-o-o-o, I don’t reckon so. He didn’t know me though. I knowed him by reputation as the slickest hair-brander in the Southwest, and they tell me he is some wise _hombre_ on brand combinations.

“One night me and three of the boys from the Hashknife outfit caught him hair-branding a filly by the light of a camp-fire. The filly was loco, so we tied him on her back and headed him into the Mohave Desert dressed in a undershirt.”

“He knowed Toothpick Thompson?”

“Maybe--I don’t know. Lot of the boys knowed I was trailing Toothpick.”

We got our broncs and Hashknife headed straight for the Lazy U instead of to Badger, and I follered--as usual. We walked right into the house and there is Abe Spooner, big as life, talking to Molly and the old gent. Spooner is a bit flustrated, but Hashknife shakes his hand like he was his pal.

“This sure is luck,” laughs Hashknife. “Sure saves us trouble. Tell you what I want you to do, Spooner; I want you to put into motion the machinery which will release Shorty Blewett from the pen.”

“You ... do?” says Spooner with his mouth wide open like a gasping fish.

“Uh-huh. You see, Spooner, he wasn’t guilty. No, sir, he wasn’t guilty at all. Ain’t that funny? Don’t your heart bleed for a innocent man thataway?”

“I--I--I don’t know----”

“Indigestion?” asks Hashknife. “You ought to chaw your food more. Set down and rest a little. Brill passed out this afternoon, and he left a little confession.”

“Brill ... passed ... out?” gasps Spooner. “He--he----”

“Uh-huh. Owned the JHE, didn’t he, Spooner?”

“Ye--yes--that is, I think so.”

“I bought him out,” says Hashknife.

“Spooner, have you any idea of how much JHE stock is on this range?”

“Why--why--no.”

“Well, I reckon I got a bargain, anyway. How soon can you get Shorty out of the pen?”

Spooner wets his lips and starts to get up.

“I don’t know. I--I’ll have to see the sheriff--and----”

“Well, we’ll go with you. Brill mentioned him, too. Said something about Lober being----”

“That’s a lie!” snaps Spooner. “Brill lied----”

“About what?” asks Hashknife.

“That--that-- I’ve got to go.”

Spooner grabs his hat and starts for the door, and we’re right on his heels. I caught Molly’s eye as we went out, and she looks like a person who wants to be joyful but is plumb afraid.

Spooner acts plumb tongue-tied and his eyes are wild, but I reckon he’d forgot he owned a gun--if he had one at all. Me and Hashknife rides one on each side of him, and we fogs off down that road like we was going to a dance.

Gray Wolf and Diablo sure can run, but they has to lay down and go some to keep up with Spooner’s little brown mare. We skids around a hair-pin curve, going like a bat out of ----, and all to once we tangles with another rider and his pack-animal.

Me and Gray Wolf and that pack-horse all went off the grade in a tangle. Gray Wolf was a born acrobat, and somehow he manages to hit on his feet at the bottom. I got skinned up a little, but I slides my rifle loose and climbs back up to the road.

Spooner is leaning against a tree, trying to pump wind back into his lungs and work the lever of Hashknife’s Winchester, neither of which seems to work properly. In the middle of the road stands the sheriff, gore running down his homely face, and acts a heap like he was trying to line his sights on Hashknife, who is down behind the sheriff’s horse, sort of tangled up.

“Look out, Bill!” screams Spooner when I climb over into the road.

Ells whirls toward me and I felt the wind of his bullet whisper past my ear. He didn’t feel the wind of mine. He just seems to sort of teeter forward on his toes, and then buckled backward to the dirt.

I hears another shot and glances sideways in time to see Spooner slump down on his hands and knees and slide flat on his face.

* * * * *

Hashknife drags himself out from under the dead bronc and rubs his chin.

“There goes their old court-house ring, Sleepy,” says he, grinning. “We met the enemy and they are ours.”

I turned Spooner over and hauled him into the shade, and then we did the same for Ells. Spooner blinks up at us and sort of remembers things. Tears appear in his little eyes, and he tries to beg.

“Shut up!” snaps Hashknife. “Save your wind, feller.”

“I don’t want to die!” wails Spooner. “Don’t let me die!”

“He can’t last long,” says Hashknife. “But I don’t care much.”

“Don’t say that,” begs Spooner. “I’ll do anything--anything--hear me?”

Funny what a bullet will do to a man, ain’t it?

“If you lie to me I’ll let you die like a coyote,” says Hashknife, and Spooner blinks hard.

“You hired two men to kill us as we rode in, didn’t you?”

Spooner groans and twists, but nods his head. Hashknife tears a check out of his book, turns it face down on the book and digs out his pencil. Then he props Spooner against a rock and hands him the stuff.

“Write out a bill of sale to Crosby & Older for the JHE outfit. Mark it ‘Paid in Full.’ _Sabe?_”

Spooner stares at Hashknife, and he seems to get convulsions.

“Go ahead,” advises Hashknife. “The sooner you do it the sooner you’ll get to a doctor.”

“Bill of sale?” he whispers. “Who are you to-- What do I get?”

“You get help or--a harp. Decide quick.”

Spooner wet that bill of sale with bitter tears, but his life’s blood was worth a lot to him, and he signed it all proper-like.

“Did Ells have any interest in this?” asks Hashknife.

“Let him answer,” says I. “He’s woke up.”

We has to shake him quite a lot before he gets his _sabe_ back, and Hashknife wipes the blood out of his eyes before he can see. He reads the bill of sale sort of dazed-like and then squints at us. Hashknife hands him the pencil.

“Right below Spooner’s signature, Ells,” grins Hashknife, and Ells scrawls it like a man in his sleep.

Then he stares at poor Spooner.

“Much obliged,” says Hashknife. “The sheriff’s bronc is dead, I reckon, but Spooner’s will carry double. I’d advise the border--fast.”

“What are you talking about?” wails Spooner. “I need a doctor!”

“Like ---- you do,” whoops Hashknife. “You need a jeweler.”

He reaches down and picks out Spooner’s watch-chain. In the middle on the string of gold-pieces is one with a big lead slug partly wrapped in a twenty.

“That .44 slug busted into your stummick and upset your nervous system,” whoops Hashknife. “Ells’ head was so danged hard that Sleepy’s bullet just skidded. You fellers ain’t hurt--you’re simply shocked.”

Ells and Spooner stares at each other and then weaves to their feet. We threw their guns over the grade, and Hashknife watched ’em until I got Gray Wolf and their pack-animal back to the road. Then they both got on Spooner’s mare and started away.

I reckon I know how they felt, giving up everything thataway.

“Thy sins have found thee out,” grins Hashknife. “I hope mine never find me in.”

“Now,” says I, “you Egyptian Spinks, speak up and tell your little bunkie the secret. How did you know they rustled them cows?”

Hashknife rolls a smoke and leans back.

“McKee. As soon as I seen that pelican I says to myself, ‘Brands is the answer.’ I got to wondering why they changed the old Bar 80 to JHE.”

Hashknife takes a stick and makes a Cross L in the dust. Then he makes a Lazy U.

“See them two brands, Sleepy? Now watch.”

He makes an E out of the L, and draws a J ahead of it. Then he grins at me.

“See how they made a JHE out of Cross L without any trouble? Now, all you have to do is to finish up that Lazy U into an E, and add the J Bar to make it JHE. _Sabe?_

“Now if these pelicans had made any yelps about making good I was going to rebrand everything on the range with the O Cross B, the same of which fits right over the top of the JHE. _Sabe?_”

CROSS L ..... [L brand] ........ [JHE brand] LAZY U ...... [U brand] ........ [JE brand] J H E ....... [JE brand] ....... [JHE brand] O CROSS B ...................... [O+B brand]

“Hashknife,” says I, “don’t teach me any more. That’s penitentiary bait.”

“Uh-huh. I suppose I ought to ’a’ sent Spooner and Ells to the pen, but what’s the use of doing that? I wouldn’t pen up a coyote.”

Just then a wagon comes rattling around the curve, and in it is Older, Crosby and Molly. They stares at the dead bronc and then at us. Hashknife grins and hands them the bill of sale, and they sure gets interested.

“Wh-what does it mean?” stutters Crosby. “Everything on the JHE?”

“Uh-huh. That ain’t all either. I’ve got a confession that will bring Shorty Blewett out of the pen--whiter than snow.”

Molly sort of sways in her seat and stares at him.

“Absolutely, ma’am,” grins Hashknife. “Soon as I can find a judge.”

“Oh!” says she, and that’s all.

I reckon there are times when a person’s tongue gets handcuffed.

“Let’s go, folks,” says Hashknife. “We’ve got to see the judge.”

We looked back after we got started, and sees Molly setting there in the bumpy old wagon with her hands folded in her lap, but she wasn’t feeling the jolts of that old dead-ex wagon.

Old Judge Stevens was plumb receptive. The whole gang of us enters his office, and after he reads that confession he goes straight up.

“Get him out?” he howls. “Will I? Of all the rotten deals----”

“Come on, Sleepy,” says Hashknife, taking me by the sleeve. “Let’s get out before the old coot dies from apoplexy.”

Crosby grabbed us at the door and he’s trembly all over.

“Where you going?” he asks. “Me and Older want you to take third interest in the new outfit. No, no, you can’t refuse! Why, man alive, we’ve----”

“Just a minute,” grins Hashknife. “Me and Sleepy has got to see a man.”

We manages to get away before he kissed us, and then we met the man. He asked us what we’d have, and we told him. We bathed our souls in it, and we grew light-hearted and gay.

“Sleepy,” says Hashknife, “we’ve got seventeen hundred dollars and a third interest in a cow outfit. Do we settle down to a ripe old age?”

“And give up our hunt for Toothpick Thompson, Hashknife?”

We looks at each other and both shakes our heads at the same time.

“Tell you what we’ll do: We’ll give Molly and her feeance seven hundred and fifty to start housekeeping on, eh? Fine! A thousand is plenty for us.”

We talked to the man again, and later on we finds Molly and her dad and Older. Hashknife makes an elaborate bow, forgets the speech we framed up, but gives Molly the check. He orates in favor of giving Molly and her man the third interest and keeping the cow outfit in the family.

I starts in where Hashknife left off and talked so danged fast that they can’t refuse. Molly kissed both of us, and I think I kissed Older and Crosby. Hashknife says I did, but I don’t remember kissing Older.

Next thing I remember is meeting the restaurant person with the long lock of hair and ancient cigaret.

“The sheriff sloped,” says he. “Hope he never comes back.”

“Whyfore he sloped?” I asks.

“Shot a feller who didn’t have no gun. I hope they catch him and hang the son-of-a-rooster. Know what he done--him and Spooner? They arrested Shorty Blewett just when he was going to pay me the seventeen dollars he owed me.”

“Who did he shoot?” asks Hashknife.

“Brill. Betcha the JHE outfit will make him hard to catch.”

“Kill him?”

“Not dead. They sent him to Divide on a buckboard. Brill took a few drinks and met the sheriff. Nobody knows why Ells shot him, but Brill was unarmed and--that’s bad business. The sheriff packed a horse and lit out.”

Hashknife writes him out a check for seventeen, and we both shakes hands with the feller. Then we went on. In the saloon where we had our first run-in with Ells the bartender sets ’em up to us and acts real friendly.

“Got a note for you,” says he, handing Hashknife a slip of paper. “Brill wrote it after he was shot. Said to slip it to the tall one.”

Hashknife leans against the bar and reads it over several times. Then he digs down inside his shirt and pulls out a little buckskin sack, which he turns around and around in his fingers. Pretty soon he says:

“Sleepy, will you take this and give it to Molly? Tell her it’s a Christmas present to her and Shorty from Hashknife Hartley. Tha’s all, cowboy.”

Molly didn’t know what to say, and I went away before she said it. I had to hunt all over town to find Hashknife, and then I meets him coming out of the bank. We gets on our broncs and as usual I follers Hashknife out of town.

We rides along quite a while in silence and then Hashknife starts singing, “If I ne-e-e-e-ver had ’a’ met you, I ne-e-e-e-ver would ’a’ loved you, git along my little dogie, git along my little dearie----”

“Did you get that thousand dollars, Hashknife?” I asks.

“Minus seventeen dollars,” says he. “No, but it’s safe, Sleepy.”

“Where?”

“In a church.”

“Go ahead and talk.”

“I was in the bank to get it, Sleepy. Little old coot comes jigging in, and lays down a dollar and eighty cents. Funny little coot, Sleepy, with eyes like a tired dog. Says to the cashier----

“‘Here is a little more--very little; but each cent brings us nearer to a church in Badger City.’

“You building a church?” I asks, and he smiles--not grins, Sleepy--and says----

“‘We are not building yet, brother, but we have hopes.’

“I hands him the check and says to him----

“‘If every dollar brings a hope, pardner, have nine hundred and eighty-three hopes on us.’”

We drifts along for a while, and then Hashknife turns to me.

“Sleepy, you ain’t sore, are you?”

“Yeah, I am; sore that we gave two hundred and fifty to Brill when the church business is so hopeless. I ain’t asking much, Hashknife, but I’d admire to know what that present was which I gave Molly?”

“A bullet, Sleepy--just a old lead bullet.”

“Merry Christmas,” says I. “You’re a regular Santa Claus.”

“Once upon a time,” says Hashknife, “there was two jiggers, who--well, one of them says public-like----

“‘I’m going to shoot Hashknife Hartley.’

“Hashknife rises up on his hind legs and orates--

“‘If you do I’ll dig out the bullet and make you eat it if I have to foller you the rest of my life.’

“That was the bullet, Sleepy. I didn’t make good.”

We rides along for a while, and then Hashknife turns in his saddle and hands me back the note which the bartender had given him. It read:

DER SIR--Shorty Blewett is a nice feller, but maybe you like to know he is Toothpik Tomson just the same but diferent name. Yours truly, BRILL.

I stares at Hashknife’s homely, sober face, and all to once he breaks into a big grin.

“Aw, I ain’t mad at nobody, Sleepy. She’s a great old world.”

“Uh-huh, and few of us ever get out of it alive, Hashknife.”

“Yeah, that’s a fact, cowboy, but she helps a lot if we can help here and grin when we leave for the hereafter--ho, hum-m-m-m-m. Git along my little dogie, git along my little dogie; we’re going to Montana on the old Lo-Lo trail.”

And that was whatever.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 18, 1920 issue of Adventure magazine.]