CHAPTER XIV

A STRANGE ERRAND

DAN McMASTERS, sheriff of Gonzales and captain of state Rangers, rode into the straggling village of Austin, capital of a state so large a horseman could not cross it in a month. He bore no outward evidence of having passed through any agitating scenes. His apparel evinced no sign of disorder, his face was coldly emotionless as ever. He might have been almost any tall and well-clothed young man. One thing only set him apart from the usual visitor: By virtue of his calling he wore his two heavy six-shooters. The handle of the left-hand gun pointed forward; that of the right-hand weapon to the rear—a puzzling combination to any student of possibilities. Granted that he was a left-handed man, which hand would first seek a weapon? Or if right-handed, which? That was a problem which, lacking time, some half dozen men had never solved to their own success.

A certain red-faced, gray-haired and rather rotund individual active in the office of the treasurer of the commonwealth of Texas, sitting before a low-topped desk in a room of the building which served as state capitol, looked up as the newcomer entered.

“Good evening, sir,” said McMasters pleasantly. “Do I find Mr. Rudabaugh in?”

The official made no immediate response.

“You do not,” said he finally.

“No? I infer that he is out of town?”

“Yes,” rejoined the other.

McMasters smiled innocently.

“In such case he is no longer in jail?”

At this the official displayed feeling.

“What business is it of yours?” he demanded. “And how do you know he is in jail? He didn’t stay there longer than it took to call court. There are not people enough in Texas to keep Mr. Rudabaugh in jail.”

“I heard that a deputy United States marshal took him and his party the other day, below the Colorado, and sent him in with a force of Rangers. As you say, it might have been supposed that no court in this town would hold him.”

The red-faced official abated somewhat of his pompousness.

“From what I’ve heard in description, I believe you are Mr. McMasters, sheriff of Gonzales,” said he presently.

“I am that same, sir,” replied McMasters smilingly. “If I needed to quote Davy Crockett, I might say that I have the closest shooting rifle and the best coon dog in the whole state of Texas. Yes, I’m McMasters of Gonzales.”

“Well,” began the other, embarrassed, “it’s only right to tell you that at the preliminary hearing all those men were discharged.”

“That is why I called. I wanted to talk things over with Mr. Rudabaugh. I thought I might be able to explain one or two things to him. I thought maybe I might be of some use to him.”

Silence of the other, now afraid to speak.

“Where can I find Mr. Rudabaugh?” The quiet voice took a new note.

“That I can’t answer. He left town again yesterday morning, with some other gentlemen. They headed west.”

“It looks as though Mr. Rudabaugh thinks I still am after him. Perhaps he has been mistaken about my motives and purposes with him. Perhaps he forgets that my father voted and worked against slavery, the same as the gentlemen of your party did. Why antagonize Gonzales? Why fight the Rangers?

“Now, what I want to tell Mr. Rudabaugh is this: I know where that trunk of Texas land scrip is to-day. I am ready to tell him where it is.”

The official coughed, embarrassed.

“That was what he wanted to get hold of at Del Sol. Well, I got hold of it myself. I know where it is to-day. I can take him to it at any time he likes. Does that sound interesting?”

The red-faced man sat up.

“It sounds strange, coming from you!”

“Well, there are times when it’s hard to get the truth. I never found much use in showing all my own hand in public. A peace officer has to be careful. Perhaps the state treasurer has misunderstood me. Perhaps I am willing to work with him for a little time, and not against him. How then?”

“Mr. Rudabaugh and his associates, too, have been very much misunderstood by the people of Texas,” began the state official. “He is a man of large ideas, a man of vision. Our friends of the other party prefer to see Texas remain as she always has been—remote, impoverished, with no commercial outlook, no hope on earth. Mr. Rudabaugh sees a wider future for Texas. We all do here.” He spoke virtuously.

“Precisely! Well, I’m one of the growing number of Texans who’d agree with him on that last. We don’t deny that there are chances in land and cows such as we never dreamed. The men who work fast in Texas now will be rich—as rich as they like. But we can’t always climb up on the housetop and tell all the world about the means and methods. Of course, that means that some may misunderstand such men as Mr. Rudabaugh. You know that?”

“Why, yes, of course; I know the way Mr. Rudabaugh himself works—always decisive, never telling much of his plans. His friends deplore the criticism he has received in certain quarters.”

“Yes, he has occasion to be cautious. Still, if Mr. Rudabaugh, not as state treasurer but as president of a certain land-and-cattle company, has any wish to confer with the man who saw him arrested the other day, when he was inquiring about a certain block of additional land scrip, that man is willing to talk with him now. We might find something of mutual interest. You-all here in Austin might do worse than make friends down Gonzales way.”

McMasters smilingly waved a hand at either gun.

“I’m not quite alone. We will both have to come under a white flag. If he wants to be _muy amigo_, maybe I can be of service to him.”

His gray eyes, now narrowed, were fixed without wavering upon those of this other man.

“Tell me, where is Sim Rudabaugh!” he demanded suddenly. The man behind the desk started as though under an immediate menace.

“Well, since you seem to offer your aid, Mr. McMasters, in a misunderstanding—a very deplorable misunderstanding—I presume I may tell you. He’s gone north, up the trail, toward the Brazos. He’s on some private business of his own.”

“Yes? He’s in camp, waiting for the big Del Sol herd? Where is his camp?”

The desk man grew very uneasy; but at length he replied hesitantly: “Well, I’d take the trail that runs due north from San Marcos if I had to find him. I would say he might be camped a ride of a day and a half north of here—say, thirty to fifty miles north, on the general road to Fort Worth village.

“You don’t know where that herd is, do you?” he added. “Mr. Rudabaugh regards its going north as a very grave mistake; indeed, a risky and ruinous thing for the state at just this time. You don’t know where the herd is now?”

“Yes, I do know. I’ve just come from it. It’s been held up a few days in west of here. They may get over the Colorado by to-day. I ought to be able to find Mr. Rudabaugh well in advance of the herd itself, then, you think?”

“But you didn’t tell me where the scrip is.” The other man flushed at seeing his eagerness noted.

“Well,” said McMasters slowly, “you yourself and I myself are not supposed to know a damned thing about that chest of papers, are we? But we do, eh? Well, when we find the T.L. cows we will come pretty near finding that scrip. And scrip is going up, eh?

“Oh, I’ll tell you this much, my friend. I know all about the moves of Mr. Rudabaugh’s big company to get holdings west toward the edge of the Staked Plains—on the Double Mountain Fork and above there. You see? Well, I don’t see why you and I should beat about the bush. I know all about the operations that have driven almost all the central range’s holdings on out farther west.

“There are a lot of things I know. Well, do you think I am safe to trust? And don’t you think the administration might do worse than be friendly to Gonzales and Uvalde?”

The other man drew himself up with a long sigh of doubt, apprehension, but made an attempt at merriment.

“Well,” said he, “of course, this is the first time we’ve met. I don’t know that I’d trust you to take care of me, but I believe I’d trust you to take care of yourself.”

“I always have,” said McMasters simply. “That’s why I’m here now. Suppose you and I have a little war council, eh?”

When McMasters walked his horse down the long street of Austin town, rifle under leg, he looked neither to the right nor to the left, though well aware of the scrutiny which followed him from more than one door and window. The reputation of the mysterious, always restless sheriff of Gonzales, captain of the newly revived state constabulary, was one that reached beyond the confines of his own county. No one had looked for him in Austin—to the contrary. But then, as one man said to a neighbor, McMasters, of Gonzales, could always be counted on to be doing some unaccountable thing.