CHAPTER XIV

A BAD MAN

As Jack and Joe and three or four of the older men lounged around the fire a night or two after that, most of the younger boys having gone to their blankets, McIntyre turned to Hugh.

"Who do you suppose I saw to-day on the range?" he asked.

Hugh looked up inquiringly.

"Claib Wood."

"What's he doing here?" asked Hugh. "I thought he'd been run out of the country and had gone to stay."

"Oh, well," said McIntyre, "that's what most of us thought, I guess. He got a warning from the people around here and from the stock association that he'd do well to get out of the country; but I met him to-day, and he said 'Howdy' to me as chirk as you please. I didn't have any talk with him, and I watched him kind o' close, for I didn't know what he might be up to. He never turned his head, though, after he passed; just rode on across country, and I saw him going for a mile or two before he got behind a hill."

"Well," drawled Hugh, "I reckon that this time he's not after calves. Maybe he's come down here to go in to the railroad and see if he can't get some money out of that wife of his. Since he quit home about a year ago, she's been doing well, and has got quite a nice little eating-house there in town. Maybe he's heard about that and has come back to make her give up to him."

"If that's what he's after," said McIntyre, "it's an infernal shame. I never had any use for these bad men that we used to have in the country, but I do wish now that somebody a little worse than Claib would come along and kill him off."

When Hugh and McIntyre had begun talking, Jack Mason was lying on the ground close to the fire, seemingly asleep, but presently he opened his eyes and then rose to his elbow and listened intently. After a time he asked McIntyre if this was the Claib Wood who four or five years ago used to be around Rawlins.

"Yes," said McIntyre; "he's the man--little, sawed-off fellow with light brown hair and a brown mustache; good cow hand and mighty quick with a gun."

"I reckon that's the man," returned Mason.

He said nothing more for a little while. Jack was about to ask some question about the man, when Mason spoke again.

"I used to know Claib, but I haven't seen him for a good many years. Which way did you say he was going, Mac?"

"Well," answered McIntyre, "when I saw him he was just riding across the prairie, but from the way he was headed I judged that he was going in to the railroad."

"What time was it you passed him?"

"About two or three o'clock this afternoon. If he was going to town and rode fast, he'll be there by this time."

"Yes," Mason said, "so he will."

For a little while nothing more was said, and then Mason changed the subject.

"Mac, I guess you'll have to give me my time," he said. "I've got to go into town. I can't say sure when I'll be back, and I reckon maybe I'd better quit."

"What's the matter with you?" asked McIntyre, severely. "Ain't you satisfied? Ain't you bein' well treated? Anything wrong with the pay?"

"No; nothing wrong with the pay, nothing wrong with the treatment. Only it just struck me that I've got some business to attend to in town, and I reckon I'd better do it now than wait until the round-up's over."

"I hate to lose you, Jack," McIntyre said. "Can't you go in and attend to your business and then come back? Take two or three days off. The town ain't so big but what you can do everything you're likely to have to do in the course of twenty-four or forty-eight hours."

"Well," Mason replied, "maybe that's better. I'd like it better, if it suits you; only it don't seem just right for a man to take time off right in the middle of the round-up, just to go into town after his own affairs. So I thought, as I've got to go, maybe you'd rather have me quit for good. Still, if you'll let me take three or four days off, it'll be lots handier for me. I'll leave my horses here with the bunch, and then come back when I get through."

"All right," agreed McIntyre. "Do it your own way."

"Good!" said Mason. "I may as well start now, and then I'll get into town by daylight."

He rose from the fire and presently his cheery whistle was heard coming over the prairie from the direction of the horse herd, and a little later the men in the camp who were just dropping off to sleep heard him throw the saddle on the horse and draw the latigos, and then came the sound of hoofs, trotting off over the prairie and growing fainter and fainter in the distance.

All night long Mason rode through the dark, under the clear stars. It was nearly twenty miles to the wagon road, and after he had reached that, it was more than twenty miles in to the railroad, but the sun had not long risen when he trotted his tired horse down the straggling street of the forlorn little town. As yet there was hardly a sign of life there. Two or three pigs were rooting in piles of rubbish not far from the road; and a starved-looking cayuse stood humped up at the end of a picket-rope on a bit of prairie where once there had been grass but which now was as bare as the palm of Mason's hand.

As Mason trotted along the street, the door of a house opened, and a man came out carrying a bucket. Mason drew up his horse.

"Hello! Ross," he called.

"Why, hello! Jack," the man replied. "What are you doing down here? I haven't seen you for a dog's age. Four or five years, isn't it, since you were up in Rawlins?"

"Five years," said Mason; "and since then I've been away, up North, and now I've drifted back again."

The two shook hands, and began to exchange news and experiences, each telling the other more or less of what had happened to him since they last parted.

"Well," said Ross, "how long are you going to be in town? I want to see you before you go."

"I don't just know how long I'm going to be here; maybe for a day or two. I've got some business I want to attend to here, and as soon as I get through with that I'm liable to move out again. There ain't much to hold me in this burgh."

"No," agreed Ross. "If I had any sort of a job in the open I'd tackle that. By the way," he added, "did you know that Claib Wood was in town? Seems to me your brother and Claib had some trouble at Rawlins that winter we were all there."

Mason laughed.

"Sure they had some trouble; and just after it occurred Claib skipped. I never had a chance to speak to him about it. I heard the other day that he was in the country, but I didn't know that he was here in town."

"He is," said Ross; "and if I were you I'd look out for him. Claib was drunk last night, and you know when he's drunk he's awful mean, and he certainly is quick with a gun."

"So I always heard. He's quick with a gun, and he's mean; meaner, I expect, when he's drunk, but mean enough at any time. Now when he shot my brother in Rawlins, they hadn't had any words, or any quarrel. Rufe told me when he got well that he never did know why Claib shot him, and I always made up my mind that if I ever saw Claib I'd ask him."

"Well, Jack," cautioned Ross, "if I were you I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't have any words with Claib Wood. You're too good a man to quarrel with him, because if you do quarrel with him, you'll be liable to get killed quick."

"Oh, I don't expect that it's time yet for me to pass in my checks; but if I stay in town for twenty-four hours, and Claib is here, I can't help running up against him somewhere, and I reckon he won't forget whose brother I am."

"No," said Ross; "he won't; that's a sure thing. I'd like to have you avoid him, if you can. Of course, you can't leave town because he's here, and you can't hide because he's here; but I do hope you won't quarrel with him, for he's mighty mean and mighty quick."

"I'll have to do the best I can," replied Mason. "I don't want to get killed, and I don't want to have to kill anybody. See you later, Ross."

He swung into the saddle, and fifty yards farther on turned into the livery barn where he unsaddled his horse, watered it, tied it in a stall and gave it some hay.

At the little eating-place where he went for breakfast he had to wait a long time before anything was cooked, but about the middle of the morning he went back to Ross's house, where he had a pleasant and long talk with him, renewing old times. It was nearly noon when he went up the street again and entered the saloon. Half a dozen men were there. One or two were sitting at card-tables poring over old newspapers; two were playing a game of cards; and one was standing in front of the counter talking to the bar-tender. A glass of liquor which seemed just to have been filled rested on the counter directly in front of him. The man standing there was Claib Wood. Mason walked quietly into the room without receiving more than a casual glance from any one there, and was standing close to the counter before Wood saw him.

"Well, I'm darned, if this ain't Jack Mason!" Wood exclaimed. "Where did you come from?"

"Oh, I've been cutting little circles over the prairie between here and the British line for five years now, Claib," Mason answered; "ever since the last time I saw you in Rawlins, just before you shot Rufe. I always wanted to ask you about that. How did you come to shoot him? You didn't have any quarrel with him, so far as I heard."

"Say, now, what's the matter with you, Jack?" exclaimed Claib. "Are you looking for some of the medicine that Rufe got?"

Mason laughed merrily.

"Not a bit, Claib. I'm not looking for anything, without it's a little information. Of course I've heard of bad men that would shoot a fellow down just for meanness; but I never saw one, and I was wondering if you were that kind of man. I was wondering, for example, if I were to turn around and walk to the door here, whether you would plug me before I got there? Now, I don't know anybody who can tell me about that as well as you."

Claib's eyes were bloodshot from his excesses of the night before, and as Mason talked to him an ugly light seemed to glow in them and the sneer of his face grew more pronounced. The two men were standing face to face rather close together. Claib's right hand and Mason's left hand toward the bar.

"See here, Jack," said Wood, "it looks to me like you're hunting for trouble and trying to pick a quarrel with me, and I don't want nothing of the kind. I come in here to attend to my own business, and I reckon you'd better clear out and attend to yours, if you've got any."

"Sure, I've got some," replied Mason; "but when I saw you in here, I thought we could have a little friendly talk, and maybe you'd tell me why it was that you shot Rufe in Rawlins. As I say, I never could hear that you had any quarrel."

"Well," said Claib--and his hand with a swiftness that the eye could hardly follow, flew around to his hip; but it never reached the butt of his pistol; for Mason with lightning speed shot forward his left hand and caught Claib by the wrist, while with his right hand he seized the glass of liquor resting on the bar and dashed it into Claib's face. Then he wrapped both arms around him, and called to Ross who had just stepped into the door.

"Take this man's gun and mine and keep them! This isn't going to be a shooting-match."

Ross snatched both pistols from their holsters and stood back.

For a moment the men whirled around over the bare floor in a rapid dance, and then Mason suddenly lifted Claib off the floor, held him for an instant in the air above his head, and then threw him an astonishing distance. The man's head and shoulder coming in contact with the plastered wall burst a large hole in it and loosened some of the weather-boarding on the outside of the building.

Several of the men hastened to Wood and picked him up, expecting to find that his neck was broken. He was senseless and on feeling him they found that his right arm and right collar-bone were broken and the shoulder out of place. None seemed to feel much sympathy for him; he was too well known.

"Now," said Jim Decker, the proprietor of the hotel, "who's going to pay that man's doctor's bills, and who's going to pay for that plaster that you've knocked off, Jack Mason?"

"Why," returned Mason, smiling, "there isn't any doctor in town, so there can't be any doctor's bills; and as for that plaster, if you'll take one of those old newspapers and tack it over the hole, that'll do fine until cold weather comes. When cold weather comes, I'd put a board over it, if I were you."

"Well," snorted Decker, "that's a great note! Coming in and breaking up a man's furniture this way!"

Mason laughed.

"Charge it up to expenses," he said; "that's just one of the incidental expenses of running a saloon."

Decker slouched away behind the counter, grumbling to himself.

By this time, applications of cold water had brought Wood to his senses, but he was more or less dazed and confused. Jack Mason went over and spoke to him.

"Claib, you've got some broken bones now, and you'll have to lie quiet for a while. There isn't any doctor in town, but I reckon Ross and me can fix you up so you'll be all right, if there's a place for you to stay. Have you got any money?"

"Yes; I've got money enough. But what's the matter with you? Didn't you just start a quarrel with me? And now I've got knocked out. Do you want to mend me up again?"

"That's what," said Mason; "mend you up; and then if I ever have trouble with you again, I won't stop at breaking your arm and collar-bone. I'll break your neck and make it a sure thing that you won't trouble this country any more; but don't let's talk about it now."

Three or four of the men carried Wood to the bedroom on the top floor of the hotel, and Mason and Ross, with the help of the station-agent, managed to set his arm in very good shape, to put the shoulder in place and to bind the arm so that they would presumably do well. Then Jack Mason had a long talk with Ross and the proprietor and made arrangements for them to look after Wood until the railroad company's surgeon could be got hold of.

During the afternoon, Claib had a good deal of fever, and at times was delirious. Ross sat up with him during part of the night and was relieved by Mason, and in the morning the patient was much better and quite rational.

About the middle of the morning Mason came into the room, where Claib was alone.

"Well, Claib," he said, "I see you're better and I reckon now that you'll get along all right. It won't take long for your bones to knit. I'm going off now, but I thought I'd come in and have a little talk with you before I left. You're a pretty mean man, and you're pretty quick with your gun, and a pretty good cowboy. After you shot Rufe in Rawlins I always made up my mind that I'd have a talk with you if we ever met up together, and now I've had it. You're mean, and I expect that when you get well maybe you'll try to get me; but if I were you I wouldn't do it. You're quick, but it isn't any ways likely that you're the quickest man in the world, or even in Wyoming, or even in Medicine Bow. You tried to draw yesterday, but you weren't quick enough. You may lay for me and get me in that way sometime, but if we ever meet and you try any of your tricks with me, I'm more likely to get you than you are to get me; and I believe it would be a good idea for you to remember that. I don't want to kill you, but if I have to I will.

"Now I've been to see your wife this morning and I've told her that you're laid up, and she says she's willing to take care of you until you're able to get around. You won't be able to move for a week or two now, and I told her she had better leave you here and just kind o' keep track of you, and see that you're comfortable, and not try to take you to her house. She's a good woman, Claib, and if you were smart you'd be good to her."

Claib made no reply to Mason's rather long speech, but his eyes glittered with anger. As Mason turned to go out of the room, Claib glared at him savagely.

"I'll git you yet, Jack Mason!" he cried.

"Better think it over, Claib," Mason called back cheerily.