Part 11

No man's eye could have said which hand moved first. But See was the quicker. As Caney's gun flashed, a pool ball struck him over the heart, he dropped like a log, his bullet went wide. A green ball glanced from Jody's gun arm as it rose; the cartridge exploded harmlessly as the gun dropped; Weir staggered back, howling. He struck the swinging door simultaneously with the free-lunch man; and in that same second a battering-ram mob crashed against it from the other side. Weir was knocked sprawling; the door sagged from a broken hinge. See crouched behind the heavy table and pitched. Two things happened. Bullets plowed the green cloth of the table and ricocheted from the smooth slate; bushels of billiard balls streamed through the open door and thudded on quivering flesh. Flesh did not like that. It squeaked and turned and fled, tramping the fallen, screaming. Billiard balls crashed sickeningly on defenseless backs. In cold fact, Charlie See threw six balls; at that close range flesh could have sworn to sixty. Charlie felt rather than saw a bloodless face rise behind the bar; he ducked to the shelter of the billiard table as a bullet grooved the rail; his own gun roared, a heavy mirror splintered behind the bar: the Merman had also ducked. Charlie threw two shots through the partition. At the front, woodwork groaned and shattered as a six-foot mob passed through a four-foot door. Charlie had a glimpse of the crouching Merman, the last man through. For encouragement another shot, purposely high, crashed through the transom; the Merman escaped in a shower of glass.

"How's that, umpire?" said Charlie See.

The business had been transacted in ten seconds. If one man can cover a hundred yards in ten seconds how many yards can forty men make in the same time?

"Curious!" said Charlie. "Some of that bunch might have stood up to a gun well enough. But they can't see bullets. And once they turned tail--good night!"

He slipped along the rail to the other end of the table, his gun poised and ready. Caney sprawled on the floor in a huddle. His mouth was open, gasping, his eyes rolled back so that only the whites were visible, his livid face twitched horribly. See swooped down on Caney's gun and made swift inspection of the cylinder; he did the like by Weir's, and then tiptoed to the partition door, first thrusting his own gun into his waistband. The barroom was empty; only the diving Mermaid smiled invitation to him. See turned and raced for the back door. Even as he turned a gust of wind puffed through the open front door and the wrecked middle door; the lamps flared, the back door slammed with a crash.

With the sound of that slamming door, a swift new thought came to See. He checked, halted, turned back. He took one look at the unconscious Caney. Then he swept a generous portion of free lunch into his hat and tossed it over the crowning woodwork of the ten-foot refrigerator, with the level motion of a mason tossing bricks to his mate. Caney's revolver followed, then Weir's and his own. He darted behind the bar and confiscated a half-filled bottle of wine, the appetizing name of which had won his approving notice earlier in the evening. He stepped on a chair beside the refrigerator, leaped up, caught the oaken edge of it, swung up with a supple twist of his strong young body, and dropped to the top of the refrigerator, safe hidden by the two-foot parapet of ornamental woodwork.

A little later two men sprang together through the front door; a sloe-eyed Mexican and the dwarfish friend of the Australian giant. They leaped aside to left and right, guns ready; they looked into the gambling hall; they flanked the bar, one at each end, and searched behind it.

Then the little man went to the door and called out scornfully: "Come in, you damn cowards! He's gone!"

Shadowy forms grew out of the starlight, with whistlings, answered from afar; more shadows came.

"Is Caney dead?" inquired a voice.

"Hell, I don't know and I don't care!" answered the little man truculently. "I had no time to look at Caney, not knowing when that devil would hop me. See for yourself."

The crowd struggled in--but not all of them. Weir came in groaning, his face distorted with pain as he fondled his crippled arm. The Merman examined Caney. "Dead, nothing," he reported. "Knocked out. He won't breathe easy again for a week. Bring some whisky and a pail of water. Isn't this fine? I don't think! Billiard table ruined--plate-glass mirror shot to pieces--half a dozen men crippled, and that damned little hell hound got off scot-free!"

"You mention your men last, I notice," sneered the little man. "Art Price has got three of his back ribs caved in, and Lanning needs a full set of teeth--to say nothing of them run over by the stampede. Jiminy, but you're a fine bunch!"

They poured water on Caney's head, and they poured whisky down Caney's throat; he gasped, spluttered, opened his eyes, and sat up, assisted by Hales and the Merman.

"Here--four of you chaps carry Caney to the doc," ordered the Merman. "Take that door--break off the other hinge. Tell doc a windlass got away from him and the handle struck him in the breast. Tell him that he stopped the ore bucket from smashing the men at the bottom--sob stuff. Coach Caney up, before you go in. He's not so bad--he's coming to. Fresh air will do him good, likely. Drag it, now."

"Say, Travis, I didn't see you doin' so much," muttered one of the gangsters as Caney was carried away, deathly sick. He eyed the little man resentfully. "Seems to me like you talk pretty big."

The little man turned on him in a fury.

"What the hell could I do? Swept up in a bunch of blatting bull calves like that, and me the size I am? By the jumping Jupiter, if I could have got the chance I would 'a' stayed for one fall if he had been the devil himself, pitchfork, horns and tail! As it was, I'm blame well thankful I wasn't stomped to death."

"All this proves what I was telling you," said Hales suavely. "If you chaps intend to stretch Johnny Dines, to-night's the only time. If one puncher can do this to you"--he surveyed the wrecked saloon with a malicious grin--"what do you expect when the John Cross warriors get here? It's now or never."

"Never, as far as I'm concerned," declared the bullet-headed man of the free lunch. "I'm outclassed. I've had e-nough! I'm done and I'm gone!"

"Never for me too. And I'm done with this pack of curs--done for all time," yelped the little man. "I'm beginning to get a faint idea of what I must look like to any man that's even half white. Little See is worth the whole boiling of us. For two cents I'd hunt him up and kiss his foot and be his Man Friday--if he'd have me. I begin to think Dines never killed Forbes at all. Forbes was shot in the back, and Shaky Akins says Dines is just such another as Charlie See. And Shaky would be a decent man himself if he didn't have to pack soapstones. I'll take his word for Dines. As sure as I'm a foot high, I've a good mind to go down to the jail and throw in with Gwinne."

"You wouldn't squeal, Travis?" pleaded the Merman. "You was in this as deep as the rest of us, and you passed your word."

"Yes, I suppose I did," agreed the little man reluctantly. Then he burst into a sudden fury. "Damn my word, if that was all! Old Gwinne wouldn't have me--he wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole. I've kept my word to scum like you till no decent man will believe me under oath." He threw up his hands with a tragic gesture. "Oh, I've played the fool!" he said. "I have been a common fool!"

He turned his back deliberately to that enraged crew of murderers and walked the length of the long hall to the back door. From his hiding place above the big refrigerator Charlie See raised his head to peer between the interstices and curlicues of the woodwork so he might look after this later prodigal. Charlie was really quite touched, and he warmed toward the prodigal all the more because that evildoer had wasted no regret on wickedness, but had gone straight to the root of the matter and reserved his remorse for the more serious offense. This was Charlie's own view in the matter of fools; and he was tolerant of all opinion which matched his own. But Charlie did not wear a sympathetic look; he munched contentedly on a cheese sandwich.

"Never mind Travis," said the Merman. "Let him go. The little fool won't peach, and that's the main thing. I'm going after Dines now, if we did make a bad start. There's plenty of us here, and I can wake up two of my dealers who will stand hitched. And that ain't all. A bunch from the mines will drop down for a snifter at eleven o'clock, when the graveyard shift goes on and they come off. I'll pick out those I can trust. Some of 'em are tough enough to suit even Travis--though I doubt if they'd take any kinder to pool balls than you boys did--not till they got used to 'em. I don't blame you fellows. Billiard balls are something new."

"We want to get a move on, before the moon gets up," said Weir.

"Oh, that's all right! Lots of time. We'll stretch Mr. Dines, moonrise or not," said the Merman reassuringly. "But we'll meet the night shift at the bridge as they come off, and save a lot of time. Let's see now--Ames, Vet Blackman, Kroner, Shaw, Lithpin Tham--"

On the refrigerator, Charlie See put by his lunch. He fished out a tally book and pencil and began taking down names.

* * * * *

Charlie See raced to Perrault's door a little before eleven. He slipped in without a summons, he closed the door behind him and leaned his back against it. The waiting men rose to meet him--Perrault, Maginnis, Preisser, and a fourth, whom Charlie did not know.

"Come on to the jail, Maginnis! The gang have closed up the Mermaid and they are now organizing their lynchin' bee. We've just time to beat 'em to it!"

"How many?" asked Perrault, reaching up for a rifle.

"You don't go, Perrault. This is no place for a family man."

"But, Spinal--"

"Shut up! No married man in this. Nor you, Preisser. You're too old. Mr. See, this is Buck Hamilton. Shall we get someone else? Shaky Akins? Where's Lull?"

"Lull is asleep. Let him be. Worn out. Akins is--we've no time for Akins. Here's a plenty--us three, the jailer and Dines. Jailer all right, is he?"

"Any turn in the road. Do you usually tote three guns, young feller?"

"Two of these are momentums--no, mementos," said Charlie. "I've been spoiling the Egyptians. Spoiled some six or eight, I guess--and a couple more soured on the job. That'll keep. Tell you to-morrow. Let's go!"

"Vait! Vait!" said Preisser. "Go by my place--I'll gome vith you so far--science shall aid your brude force. Perrault and me, you say, ve stay here. Ve are not vit to sed in der vorevront of battles--vat? Good! Then ve vill send to represend us my specimens. I haf two lufly specimens of abblied psygology, galgulated to haf gontrolling influence vith a mob at the--ah, yes!--the zoölogical moment! You vill see, you vill say I am quide righdt! Gome on!"

* * * * *

"And they aim to get here sudden and soon?" Mr. George Gwinne smiled on his three visitors benevolently. "That's good. We won't have long to wait. I hate waiting. Bad for the nerves. Well, let's get a wiggle. What you got in that box, Spinal? Dynamite?"

Spinal grinned happily.

"Ho! Dynamite? My, you're the desprit character, ain't you? Dynamite? Not much. Old stuff, and it shoots both ways. We're up-to-date, we are. This here box, Mr. Gwinne--we have in this box the last straw that broke the camel's back. Listen!"

He held up the box. Gwinne listened. His smile broadened. He sat down suddenly and--the story hates to tell this--Mr. Gwinne giggled. It was an unseemly exhibition, particularly from a man so large as Mr. Gwinne.

"Going to give Dines a gun?" inquired Hamilton.

Mr. Gwinne wiped his eyes. "No. That wouldn't be sensible. They'd spring a light on us, see Dines, shoot Dines, and go home. But they don't want to lynch us and they'll hesitate about throwing the first shot. We'll keep Dines where he is."

He led the way to Johnny's cell. The conversation had been low-voiced; Johnny was asleep. Gwinne roused him.

"Hey, Johnny! When is your friend coming to break you out?"

"Huh?" said Johnny.

"If he shows up, send him to the back door, and I'll let him in. We're going to have a lynchin' bee presently."

"Why, that was me!" said Charlie.

"Oh, was it? Excuse me. I didn't recognize your voice. You was speakin' pretty low, you see. I was right round the corner. Dog heard you, and I heard the dog. Well, that's too bad. We could use another good man, right now." Mr. Gwinne spoke the last words with some annoyance. "Well, come on--let's get everything ready. You fellows had better scatter round on top of the cells. I reckon the iron is thick enough to turn a bullet. Anyhow, they can't see you. I'll put out the light. I'm going to have a devil of a time to keep this dog quiet. I'll have to stay right with him or he'll bark and spoil the effect."

"They're coming," announced Spinal Maginnis, from a window. "Walkin' quiet--but I hear 'em crossin' the gravel."

"By-by, Dinesy," said See. "I've been rolling my warhoop, like you said."

The jail was dark and silent. About it shadows mingled, scattered, and gathered again. There was a whispered colloquy. Then a score of shadows detached themselves from the gloom. They ranged themselves in a line opposite the jail door. Other shadows crept from either side and took stations along the wall, ready to rush in when the door was broken down.

A low whistle sounded. The men facing the door came forward at a walk, at a trot, at a run. They carried a huge beam, which they used as a battering ram. As they neared the door the men by the jail wall crowded close. At the last step the beam bearers increased their pace and heaved forward together.

Unlocked, unbolted, not even latched, the door flung wide at the first touch, and whirled crashing back against the wall; the crew of the battering ram, braced for a shock, fell sprawling across the threshold. Reserves from the sides sprang over them, too eager to note the ominous ease of that door forcing, and plunged into the silent darkness of the jail.

They stiffened in their tracks. For a shaft of light swept across the dark, a trembling cone of radiance, a dancing light on the clump of masked men who shrank aside from that shining circle, on a doorway where maskers crowded in. A melancholy voice floated through the darkness.

"Come in," said Gwinne. "Come in--if you don't mind the smoke."

The lynchers crowded back, they huddled against the walls in the darkness beyond that cone of dazzling light.

"Are you all there?" said Gwinne. His voice was bored and listless. "Shaw, Ellis, Clark, Clancy, Tucker, Woodard, Bruno, Toad Hales--"

"I want Sim!" announced Charlie See's voice joyously. "Sim is mine. Somebody show me which is Sim! Is that him pushin' back toward the door?"

A clicking sound came with the words, answered by similar clickings here and there in the darkness.

"Tom Ross has got Sim covered," said the unhurried voice of Spinal Maginnis. "You and Hiram Yoast be sure to get that big fellow in front. I got my man picked."

A chuckle came from across the way. "You, Vet Blackman! Remember what I told you? This is me--Buck Hamilton. You're my meat!"

"Oh, keep still and let me call the roll," complained Gwinne's voice--which seemed to have shifted its position. "Kroner, Jody Weir, Eastman, Wiley, Hover, Lithpin Tham--"

The beam of light shifted till it lit on the floor halfway down the corridor; it fell on three boxes there.

From the outer box a cord led up through the quivering light. This cord tightened now, and raised a door at the end of the box; another cord tilted the box steeply.

"Look! Look! Look!" shrieked someone by the door.

Two rattlesnakes slid squirming from the box into that glowing circle--they writhed, coiled, swayed. _Z-z-z--B-z-z-zt!_ The light went out with a snap.

"Will you fire first, gentlemen of the blackguards?" said Gwinne.

Someone screamed in the dark--and with that scream the mob broke. Crowding, cursing, yelling, trampling each other, fighting, the lynchers jammed through the door; they crashed through a fence, they tumbled over boulders--but they made time. A desultory fusillade followed them; merely for encouragement.

XII

"Ostrich, _n._ A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied the hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly." --_The Devil's Dictionary._

"Fare you well: Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you." --_As You Like It._

Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade paced a narrow beat on the matted floor. Johnny Dines, shirt-sleeved, in the prisoners' box, leaned forward in his chair to watch, delighted. Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade was prosecuting attorney, and the mat was within the inclosure of the court room, marked off by a wooden rail to separate the law's machinery from the materi--That has an unpleasant sound. To separate the taxpayer from--No, that won't do. To separate the performers from the spectators--that is much better. But even that has an offensive sound. Unintentionally so; groping, we near the heart of the mystery; the rail was to keep back the crowd and prevent confusion. That it has now become a sacramental barrier, a symbol and a sign of esoteric mystery, is not the rail's fault; it is the fault of the people on each side of the rail. Mr. Wade had been all the long forenoon examining Caney and Weir, and was now searching the deeps of his mind for a last question to put to Mr. Hales, his last witness. Mr. Wade's brow was furrowed with thought; his hands were deep in his own pockets. Mr. Wade's walk was leisurely important and fascinating to behold. His foot raised slowly and very high, very much as though those pocketed hands had been the lifting agency. When he reached the highest point of each step his toe turned up, his foot paused, and then felt furtively for the floor--quite as if he were walking a rope, or as if the floor might not be there at all. The toe found the floor, the heel followed cautiously, they planted themselves on the floor and took a firm grip there; after which the other foot ventured forward. With such stealthy tread the wild beast of prey creeps quivering to pounce upon his victim. But Mr. Wade never leaped. And he was not wild.

The court viewed Mr. Wade's constitutional with some impatience, but Johnny Dines was charmed by it; he felt a real regret when Mr. Wade turned to him with a ferocious frown and snapped: "Take the witness!"

Mr. Wade parted his coat tails and sat down, performing that duty with the air of a sacrament. Johnny did not rise. He settled back comfortably in his chair and looked benevolently at the witness.

"Now, Mr. Hales, about that yearling I branded in Redgate cañon--what color was it?"

Mr. Wade rose, indignant.

"Your honor, I object! The question is irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial. Aside from its legal status, such a question is foolish and absurd, and an insult to the court."

"Why, now, I didn't object to any of your foolish and absurd questions all morning." Johnny's eyes widened with gentle reproach. "I let you ask all the questions you wanted."

Mr. Wade's nose twisted to a triumphant sneer.

"'He who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client!'"

"I didn't want to take any unfair advantage," explained Johnny.

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the court.

"You gallows meat!" snarled Wade. "You dirty--"

Johnny shook his head in a friendly warning. "He means you, too," he whispered.

The gavel fell heavily. The court rose up and the court's eyes narrowed.

"This bickering has got to stop! It is disgraceful. I don't want to see any more of it. Mr. Wade, for that last remark of yours you ought to pay a heavy fine, and you know it very well. This prisoner is being tried for murder. That does not make him a murderer. Your words were unmanly, sir."

"May it please the court," said Wade, white faced and trembling with rage, "I acknowledge myself entirely wrong, and I beg the court's pardon. I own that I was exasperated. The prisoner insulted me grossly."

"You insulted him first. You have been doing it right along. You lawyers are always browbeating witnesses and prisoners. You get 'em where they can't talk back and then you pelt 'em with slurs and hints and sneers and insults. You take a mean advantage of your privileged position to be overbearing and arrogant. I've watched you at it. I don't think it is very sporting to say in the court room what you wouldn't dare say on the street. But when someone takes a whack at you--wow! that's different! Then you want the court to protect you." He paused to consider.

The justice of the peace--Judge Hinkle, Andy Hinkle--was a slim, wizened man, brown handed, brown faced, lean and wrinkled, with thin gray hair and a thin gray beard and faded blue eyes, which could blaze blue fire on occasion. Such fire, though a mild one, now died away from those old eyes, and into them crept a slightly puzzled expression. He looked hard at Mr. Wade and he looked hard at Mr. Dines. Then he proceeded.

"Mr. Wade, this court--Oh, let's cut out the court--that makes me tired! 'This court fines you twenty-five dollars for contempt of court.' How would that sound?"

Wade managed a smile, and bowed, not ungracefully. "It would sound unpleasant--perhaps a little severe, sir."

The court twinkled. "I was only meaning how silly it seemed to a plain man for him to have to refer to himself as the court. I'm not going to fine you, Mr. Wade--not this time. I could, of course, but I won't. It would be unfair to lecture you first and then fine you. Besides, there is something else. You have had great provocation and I feel compelled to take that into consideration. Your apology is accepted. I don't know who began it--but if you have been insulting the prisoner it is no less true that the prisoner has been aggravating you. I don't know as I ever saw a more provoking man. I been keepin' an eye on him--his eyebrows, the corners of his eyes, the corners of his mouth, his shoulder-shrugging, and his elbows, and his teeth and his toes. Mr. Wade, your moldy old saw about a fool for a client was never more misplaced. This man can out talk you and never open his mouth. I'd leave him alone if I was you--he might make a fool of you."

Johnny half opened his mouth. The judge regarded him sternly. The mouth closed hastily. Johnny dimpled. The judge's hammer fell with a crash.

"I give you both fair notice right now," said Judge Hinkle, "if you start any more of this quarreling I'm goin' to slap on a fine that'll bring a blister."

Johnny rose timidly and addressed the court.

"Your Honor, I'm aimin' to 'tend strictly to my knittin' from now on. But if I should make a slip, and you do have to fine me--couldn't you make it a jail sentence instead? I'm awful short of money, Your Honor."

He reached behind him and hitched up the tail of his vest with both hands, delicately; this accomplished, he sank into his chair, raised his trousers gently at the knee and gazed about him innocently.

"My Honor will be--"

The judge bit the sentence in two, leaving the end in doubt; he regarded the prisoner with baleful attention. The prisoner gazed through a window. The judge beckoned to Mr. Gwinne, who sat on the front seat between See and Hobby Lull. Mr. Gwinne came forward. The judge leaned across the desk.

"Mr. Gwinne, do you feed this prisoner well?"

"Yes, sir."

"About what, now, for instance?"

"Oh--beefsteak, ham and eggs, _enchilados_, canned stuff--most anything."