Chapter 9

AT THE BAR

The arrival of a baby at the home of Harry Tenison in Sleepy Cat had an immediate effect on Kate Doubleday's fortune in the mountains--and, indeed, on the fortunes of a number of other people in Sleepy Cat--wholly out of proportion to its importance as a family event. It was not, it is true, for the Tenisons a mere family event. Married fifteen years, they had been without children until the advent of this baby. And the birth of a boy to Harry Tenison excited not alone the parents, but the town, the railroad division and the hundred miles of range and desert, north and south, tributary to the town.

For a number of years Tenison had run his place in Sleepy Cat undisturbed by the swiftly changing fortunes of frontiersmen and railroad men. Tragedies, in their sudden sweep across the horizon of his activities, the poised gambler and hotel man had met unmoved. Men went to the heights of mining or range affluence and to the depths of crude passion, inevitable despair and tragic death, with Harry Tenison coldly unruffled. He was a man in so far detached from his surroundings, yet with his finger on the pulse of happenings in his unstable world. But the birth of one baby--and that a small one--upset him completely and very unexpectedly shocked others of his motley circle of acquaintance.

The complications followed on the announcement--on a Monday when the baby was three days old and the mother and boy were reported by the nurse to be coming along like kittens--that the following Saturday would be "open day" at the Mountain House--Tenison's new and almost palatial hotel; with the proprietor standing host for the town and the countryside.

Before the week was out this word had swept through the mountains, from the stretches of the Thief River on the South to the recesses of the Lodge Poles on the North. It was the one topic of interest for the week on the range. Few were the remote corners where the news did not penetrate and the unfortunates who missed the celebration long did penance in listening to long-winded accounts of Sleepy Cat's memorable day.

It dawned in a splendor of blue sky and golden sun, with the mountain reaches, snow-swept and still, brought incredibly near and clear through the sparkling air of the high plateau. The Sleepy Cat band were Tenison's very first guests for breakfast.

"'N' you want to eat hearty, boys," declared Ben Simeral, who had reached town the night before in order that no round crossing the Tenison bar should escape him: "Harry expec's you to blow like hell all day."

Few men are more conscientious in the discharge of duty than the members of a small-town brass band. The Sleepy Cat musicians held back only until the arrival of the early local freight, Second Seventy-Seven, for their bass horn player, the fireman. When the train pulled up toward the station on a yard track, the band members in uniform on the platform awaited their melodic back-stop, and the fireman, in greeting, pulled the whistle cord for a blast. The switch engine promptly responded and one whistle after another joined in until every engine in the yard was blowing as Ben had declared Tenison expected the band itself to blow.

In this wholly impromptu and happy way the day was opened. The band, laboriously trained for years by the local jeweler--said to be able to blow a candle through an inch board with his South Bend B flat cornet--now formed in marching order, the grimed fireman gamely in place even after a night run, with his silver contrabass. At an energetic signal from their leader they struck up a march and started down street with the offering as a pledge of what they might be expected to do. They were not called on, however, to do all, for at noon the Bear Dance Band arrived from the West and an hour later came the crack thirty-two-piece military band from Medicine Bend, carrying more gold on their lacings and their horns than the local musicians carried in the savings bank.

By the time the noon whistle blew at the roundhouse every trail and road into Sleepy Cat showed dust--some of them an abundance. The hotel was naturally the center of attraction, and Main Street looked like a Frontier Day crowd. The Reservation, too, sent a delegation for the occasion and mingling in the jostling but good-natured crowd were chiefs, bucks and squaws, who, in a riot of war bonnets, porcupine waistcoats, gay trappings and formal blankets, lent yellows and reds and blues to the scene. All entrances to the Mountain House were decorated and a stream of visitors poured in and out, with congratulations for Tenison, who received them at the bar in the big billiard hall opening on Main Street.

By evening the hall presented an extraordinary scene. Every element that went to make up the shifting life of the frontier could be picked from the crowd that filled the room. Most numerous and most aggressive in the spectacle, cattlemen and range riders in broad hats, leathern jackets and mottled waistcoats, booted and spurred and rolling in their choppy steps on pointed heels, moved everywhere--to and from the bar, around the pool tables and up and down the broad flight of stairs leading to the second floor gambling rooms. At the upper end of the long bar there was less crowding than nearer the street door and at this upper end three men, somewhat apart from others, while nominally drinking, stood in confab. First among them, Harry Van Horn was noticeable. His strong face, with its hunting nose, reflected his active mind, and as he spoke or listened to one or the other of his companions--standing between them--his lively eyes flashed in the overhead light. On his left stood Tom Stone, foreman of the Doubleday ranch. His head, carried habitually forward, gave him the appearance of always looking out from under his eyebrows; and the natural expression of his face, bordering on the morose, was never lighted by more than a strained smile--a smile that suggested a grin, that puckered the corners of his eyes and drew hard furrows down his cheeks, but evidenced nothing akin to even the skim-milk of human kindness.

On Van Horn's left stood an older man of massive features, the owner of the largest ranch in the north country, Barb Doubleday.

Miners from Thief River, with frank, fearless faces, broad-throated, belted and shifted, and with brawny arms for pick and sledge and doublejack, moved to and from the bar like desert travelers breathing in an oasis. Men from the short spillway valleys of the Superstition Range--the coyotes and wolves of the Spanish Sinks--were easily to be identified by their shifty eyes and loud laughter and handy six-shooters. Moving in a little group rather apart from these than mingling with them, talking and drinking more among themselves, were men from the Falling Wall--men professedly "ranching" on the upper waters of the Horse, the Turkey and Crazy Woman creeks, tributaries of the Falling Wall river--in point of fact, rustlers between whom and the big cattlemen of the range there always existed a deadly enmity and at times open warfare.

At two card tables placed together in the upper inner corner of the room sat a little party of these Falling Wall men smoking and drinking in leisurely, or, more correctly, in preliminary fashion, for the evening was still young; and inspecting the moving crowd at the bar. At the head of the table sat the ex-cowboy and ex-pugilist, Stormy German, his face usually, and now, reddened with liquor--square-shouldered, square-faced and squat; a man harsh-voiced and terse, of iron endurance and with the stubbornness of a mule; next him sat Yankee Robinson, thin-faced and wearing a weatherbeaten yellow beard. And Dutch Henry was there--bony, nervous, eager-eyed, with broken English stories of drought and hardship on the upper Turkey. These three men--brains and resource of several less able but not less unscrupulous companions who preyed on the cattle range north of Sleepy Cat--led the talk and were the most carefully listened to by the men that surrounded them.

It was later that two men entered the room from the hotel office together. The contained, defiant walk of the slightly heavier and taller of the two was characteristic, and without the black beard, deep eyes and the pallor of his face, would almost have identified him as Abe Hawk; while in the emotionless, sandy features of his companion and in his more frank, careless make-up, the widely known ranchman of the Falling Wall, Jim Laramie, was easily recognized.

Hawk, separating from his companion, walked to the right. German hailed him and Hawk paused before the table at which the former prize fighter sat with his friends. Each of these in turn had something effusive to say to Hawk. Hawk listened to everything without a change of countenance--neither smile nor word moved him in the competition to arouse his interest. When all had had their fling of invitation and comment he refused an oft-repeated invitation to sit down: "I might injure your reputations," he said grimly, and moved unconcernedly on.

Van Horn's eyes had not missed the inconspicuous entrance of the two Falling Wall men: "There's the man himself, right now," he exclaimed, looking toward Laramie.

"No better time to talk to him, either, than right now," added Barb Doubleday hoarsely. "Take him back into the office, Harry. When you're through come up to the room."

Van Horn, leaving the bar, intercepted Laramie. Doubleday and Stone, pretending not to observe, saw Van Horn, on the plea of important talk, succeed, after some demur, in inducing Laramie to return with him to the hotel office. Once there and in a quiet corner with two chairs, Van Horn lost no time in opening his subject: "You know as well as I do, Jim, what shape things are in on the North range. It can't go on. Everybody is losing cattle right and left to these rustlers. They've been running Doubleday's steers right down to the railroad camp on the Spider Water--we traced the brands on 'em. You know as well as I do who took 'em."

Laramie listened perfunctorily, his eyes moving part of the time over the room. "Speak for yourself. Harry," he intervened at this juncture. "I know exactly nothing about who took anybody's steers, nor that any were taken."

Van Horn uttered a quick exclamation: "Well, you sure heard about it!"

"In this country a man can hear anything," observed Laramie, not greatly moved. "I've heard there isn't a crooked cattleman north of Sleepy Cat."

Van Horn stared.

"Go on," continued Laramie, looking at the passers-by, "I'm listening."

"Doubleday has sold the eating house and disposed of his property at the Junction----"

"You mean his creditors took it, don't you?"

"Put it any way you like. He's going in for more cattle and we're going to put this range on the map. But--we've got to clean out this Falling Wall bunch first. The big men can't stand it any longer and won't stand it."

"What then?"

"I want you to get in right, on the move, with us, Jim--this is your chance. You're in a tough neighborhood over there. Now I know you're not a rustler."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do," averred Van Horn. "But everybody doesn't know you as well as I do. And your name suffers because you don't get along with the cattlemen--Doubleday, Pettigrew and the rest."

"What then?"

"What then?" echoed Van Horn, feeling the up-hill pull. "Why, line up with us against these rustlers. We're going to have a big get-together barbecue this summer and when it's pulled we want you there. You'll have a friend in every man on the range--however some of 'em feel now. They know the stuff you're made of, Jim; they know if you put your hand to your gun with them, you'll stay; and if you do it, they know it's good-by to the rustlers."

Closely as Van Horn, while speaking, watched the effect of his words, it was impossible to gather from Laramie's face the slightest clue as to the impression they were making. Laramie sat quite relaxed, his back to the corner, his legs crossed, listening. He looked straight ahead without so much as blinking. Van Horn, nervous and impatient, scrutinized him: "That's my hand, Jim," he said flatly. "What have you got?"

Laramie paused. After a moment he turned his eyes on his questioner: "No hand. This is not my game."

"Make it your game and your game in this country is made. Doubleday and Dan Pettigrew want you. They're the men that run this country--what do you say?"

"The men that run this country can't run me."

Van Horn, in spite of his assurance, felt the blow. But he put on a front. "What makes you talk that way?" he flared.

"This is the same bunch," continued Laramie evenly, "that sent two different men to get me two years ago--and when I defended myself--had me indicted. That indictment is still hanging for all I know. This is the bunch that owns the district court."

Van Horn made a violent gesture. "What's the use raking up old sores? That's past and gone. That indictment's been quashed long ago."

"This is the bunch," and Laramie spoke even more deliberately; he looked directly, almost disconcertingly at Van Horn himself, "that sent the men to rip off my wire just a while ago. I tracked 'em to Doubleday's and if I'd found Doubleday or you or Stone there that day--if I'd got my eyes on Barb Doubleday that day--you'd 've turned the men that pulled that wire over to me or I'd known the reason why.

"Now these same critters and you have the gall to talk to me about joining hands. Hell, I'd quicker join hands with a bunch of rattlesnakes. When that crowd want me let them come and get me. I'm not chiding. They talk about cattle thieves! Why, your outfit would steal the spurs off a rustler's heels. And when men like Hawk and Yankee Robinson and German set up a little ranch with a few head of cows for themselves your bunch blacklists them, refuses 'em work anywhere on the range. Where did Dutch Henry learn to steal? Working for Barb Doubleday; he branded mavericks for him, played dummy for his land entries, swore to false affidavits for him. Now when he turns around and steals the steers he stole for Barb, Barb has the nerve to ask me to round him up at my proper risk and run him out of the country!"

Van Horn rose: "That's the answer, is it?"

Laramie sat still. He looked dead ahead: "What did it sound like?" he asked, as Van Horn stood looking at him.

"Just the same, Jim," muttered Van Horn, "the rustlers have got to go."

Laramie looked across the office: "That all may be," he observed, rising. And he repeated as Van Horn started away: "That all may be. And the men that ripped off my wire have got to put it back. Tell 'em I said so."

Van Horn whirled in a flash of anger: "You talk as if you think I'd ripped it off myself."

"I do think so."

For one instant the two men, confronting, eyed each other, Van Horn's face aflame. Both carried Colt's revolvers in hip holsters; Van Horn's gun slung at his right hip, Laramie's slung at his left. Both were known capable of extremes. Then the critical moment passed. Van Horn broke into a laugh; without a yellow drop in his veins, as far as personal courage went, he had thought twice before attempting to draw where no man had yet drawn successfully. He put out his hand in frank fashion: "Jim, you wrong yourself as much as me when you talk that way."

He made his peace as well as it could be made in words. But when his protestations were ended Laramie only said: "That all may be, Harry. But whoever pulled my wire--and left it in the creek--will put it back--if it's ten years from now."

The two men, Van Horn still talking, made their way back to the billiard hall--Laramie refusing to drink, and halting for brief greetings when assailed by acquaintances. After they parted, Van Horn, as soon as he could escape notice, passed again through the door leading to the hotel office. He walked up the main stairway to the second floor, thence to the third floor and following a corridor stopped in front of the last room, slipped a pass key into the lock and, opening the door, entered and closed it behind him.

Two men sat in the room, Doubleday and Stone. Stone was just out of the barber's chair, his hair parted and faultlessly plastered on both sides across his forehead, and his face shaven and powdered. His forehead drawn in horizontal wrinkles rather than vertical ones, looked lower and flatter because of them. To add to the truculence of his natural expression, he was now somewhat under the influence of liquor and looked perplexed.

Van Horn did not wait to be questioned; he walked directly to the table between the two men and took a cigar from the open box: "Can't do a thing with that fellow," he reported brusquely.

Doubleday, by means of questions, got the story of the fruitless interview. Stone listened. The slow movement of his eyes showed an effort but none of the story escaped him.

Van Horn, answering with some impatience, had lighted one cigar, and bunching half a dozen more in his hand stowed them in an upper waistcoat pocket. Doubleday, between heavy jaws and large teeth, shifted slowly or chewed savagely at a half-burned cigar and bored into Van Horn. Van Horn was in no mood for speculative comment: "You might as well talk to a wildcat," he said. "Pulling that wire has left him sore all over."

Doubleday looked at Stone vindictively: "That was your scheme."

"No more than it was Van Horn's," retorted Stone.

"What's the use squabbling over that now?" demanded Van Horn impatiently. "I'm done, Barb. You've got to go ahead without him."

Doubleday chewed his cigar in silence. Van Horn, restless and humiliated, spoke angrily and thought fast. From time to time he looked quickly at Stone--the foreman was in condition to do anything.

"Look here, Tom," exclaimed Van Horn in low tones, "suppose you go downstairs and give him a talk yourself. What do you say, Barb?" He shot the words at Doubleday like bullets. Doubleday understood and his teeth clicked sharply. He said nothing---only stared at the foreman with his stony gray eyes. Stone drew his revolver from his hip and, breaking the gun, slipped out the cartridges and slipped the five mechanically back into place.

Laramie in the meantime had joined a group of men at the upper end of the bar in the billiard hall--McAlpin, Joe Kitchen's barn boss; Henry Sawdy, the big sporty stock buyer of the town, and the profane but always dependable druggist and railroad surgeon, Doctor Carpy. With one of these, Sawdy, Harry Tenison from behind the bar was talking. He interrupted himself to hold his hand over toward Laramie: "Been looking for you, scout," he said, in balanced tones. "Been looking for you," he repeated, releasing Laramie's hand and holding up his own. "If you'd failed me today, Jim----"

"I wouldn't fail you, Harry."

"It's well you didn't--champagne, Luke," he added, calling to a solemn-faced bartender who wore a forehead shade.

"No champagne for me, Harry," protested Laramie.

"What are you going to have?" asked the mild-voiced bartender, perfunctorily.

Laramie tilted his hat brim: "Why," he answered, after everybody had contributed advice, "if I've got to take something on this little boy, a little whisky, I suppose, Luke."

"No poison served here tonight, Jim," growled Sawdy, throwing his bloodshot eyes on Laramie.

"I don't want any, anyway, Henry," was the unmoved retort.

Luke, wrapping the cork of the champagne bottle under his long fingers, hesitated. Tenison, looking with his heavily-lidded eyes, did not waver: "You'll drink what I tell you tonight," he maintained coldly. "Open it, Luke."

Laramie stood sidewise while talking, one foot on the rail, his elbow resting on the bar, and with his head turned he was looking back at Tenison, who stood directly opposite him behind the bar. Laramie submitted to the dictation without further protest: "A man will try anything once," was his only comment.

As he uttered the words he felt a point pressed tightly against his right side and what was of greater import, heard the familiar click of a gun hammer.

It was too late to look around; too late to make the slightest move. All that Laramie could get out of the situation, without moving, he read, motionless, in Tenison's eyes, for Tenison was now looking straight at the assailant and with a frozen expression that told Laramie of his peril. The next instant Laramie heard rough words:

"Turn around here, Jim."

They told him all he needed to know, for in them he recognized the voice. In the instant between hearing the words and obeying, a singular change took place in the Falling Wall ranchman's eyes. Looking over at Tenison his eyes had been keen and clear. Slowly and with a faint smile he turned his head. When his eyes met those of Tom Stone, who confronted him pressing the muzzle of a cocked Colt's forty-five gun against his stomach, they were soft and glazed. Laramie had changed in an instant from a man that had not tasted liquor to a man half tipsy.

It was a feint, but a feint made with an accurate understanding of a dangerous enemy.