Part 9

"Pleasure first, pain afterwards," growled Gwinne. "You eat a few lines while I hold high discourse to you about the good and great. District attorneys, now. Us being a territory thataway, district attorneys are appointed by the President--allee same like our judges and U. S. marshals and clerks of the court. All of 'em are appointed for four years, the same being the President's term. Presidents being so constituted by a wise and beneficent Providence, they appoint men from states where said men and their friends, if any, vote for President, and not from our humble midst. 'Cause why? We're not allowed to vote. More coffee?"

Johnny held his cup. Gwinne took up his discourse.

"Also, and moreover, they appoint politicians. We will not pursue this painful subject further except to add that, New Mexico being what and where it is, these appointees, while they might be first-class men and seldom were--they were always tenth-rate politicians. Because politicians rated higher than tenth-rate demanded something better. Yes. When Grover was in, they all came from Missouri, and they wasn't so bad but what they might have been worse, with proper care. And now they're all from darkest Injianny; a doubtful state. Something else, too. Even when they was well-meaning--which often was guessable--why, they're not our people. We have our little ways and they have their own little ways, and they're not the same little ways; and they rule us by their little ways. That's bad. To judge a man by the standards of another time and place is prejudging, and that means oppression, and oppression breeds riots in hell. That is how most trouble starts, I reckon--not understanding, prejudging. Men don't naturally like to press down. They'd a heap rather comfort and help--if they could just see the way clear. Helping someone out of a tight is just about the pleasantest thing a man can do. But these people Uncle Sam sends here to manage us, they don't think our thoughts and they don't speak our tongue. They ask for brick and we bring them mortar; they ask for bread and we rock 'em to sleep. That's the way I look at it. Won't you coincide with me?"

"Why, yes," said Johnny, "now that you mention it--I don't care if I do."

The jailer eyed his captive with painful distrust. Then he sighed heavily.

"Flippant and inattentive! A bad mark. Nine more demerits and you'll be suspended." He rose and went to a closet and returned with a bottle and glasses. "A long drop and a quick finish!"

"Wishing you the same!" said Johnny Dines. The glasses clinked together.

"So you be advised and don't waive examination," resumed Gwinne. "Wade will want you to do that. Don't you listen to Wade. You make your fight to-morrow. Old Andy Hinkle, the J. P., he's a homespun. When he hits a drill he hits her with all his carcass, from the ground up, and when he goes a-judging, justice is what he wants. His habit and disposition is real earnest and he mostly brings back what he goes after. You could rake all hell with a fine-tooth comb and not find a worse man to try you--if you killed Adam Forbes. If you did kill him you're goin' to lose your shadow soon--and there's your fortune told, right now."

"It is my thinking that I will make old bones yet, and tell tales in the chimney corner. Now you sit back and smoke while I wash up," said Johnny, gathering up the dishes. "I gotta ingratiate myself with you, you know. Go on, now--tell us some more. And how about me having a confidential with my friends?"

"That's just it. I was a-preparing of your mind, so you wouldn't be disappointed too much. This prosecuting person, Wade--he done instructed me not to let you see anyone except your lawyer."

"Lawyer, hell! What do I want of a lawyer?"

"Oh! Then you claim to be innocent, do you?" Gwinne's silken brows arched in assumed astonishment.

"Well, I hope so!" said Johnny indignantly. "If I was claiming to be guilty, why confab with my friends? Say, this is one raw deal if a fellow can't get an even break."

"Wade claims you might frame up something. He was particularly anxious the John Cross shouldn't hear of it until after your preliminary. Undue influence and all that."

"Frame up my foot! I didn't kill that man and I reckon I can prove it if I have any chance to know what evidence they're going to bring against me." Again that angry spot glowed on the clear olive of his cheek. "How can I study it over when I don't know what's happened or what is said to have happened? I'll have to go to trial in the dark--no chance to cipher on what's what, like I would if I had a chance to thresh it out with my friends."

"Well," said Gwinne gently, "what's the matter with me?"

"So that's all?" said Gwinne, after Dines had told his story. "Sure of it?"

"Absolutely. He rode up while I was branding my long-ear. He gave me a letter to mail and gassed while he smoked a cig, and wandered back the way he came, while I oozed away down the cañon. No more, no less. Said he was prospecting, he did--or did he?" Johnny reflected; remembering then that Forbes in giving him a letter to mail had mentioned location notices. "Yes, he did."

With the words another memory came into his mind, of the trouble with Jody Weir on day herd--about another letter, that was. This memory--so Johnny assured himself--flashed up now because Weir was one of his five accusers. No--there were only three accusers, as he understood it from the talk of the night before; three accusers, five to arrest him. Yet only one had come actually to make the arrest. Queer!

"Now," said Johnny, "it's your turn."

He curled a cigarette and listened. Early in the recital he rubbed his nose to stimulate thought; but later developments caused him to transfer that attention to his neck, which he stroked with caressing solicitude. Once he interrupted.

"I never stole a calf in a bare open hillside, right beside a wagon road, never in my whole life," he protested indignantly. "As an experienced man, does that look reasonable to you?"

"No, it don't," said Gwinne. "But that's the story. Adam was found close by your fire--shot in the back and dragged from the stirrup; shot as he rode, so close up that his shirt took fire. And no one rode in Redgate yesterday, but you, and those three, and Adam Forbes."

"Yes. That might very well be true," said Johnny.

"It is true. They wouldn't dare tell it that way if it wasn't true. Tracks show for themselves. And they knew that good men would be reading those tracks."

The prisoner rose and walked a little before he made answer. When he spoke at last it was in a more serious tone.

"You see, I've got inside information. I know several things you don't know, that give a different meaning to all this evidence and all these tracks."

"Well," said Gwinne, "you need it. A horse's track leads from the dead man to Garfield--a track that lacks one shoe."

"My horse had lost a shoe," said Johnny.

"Yes. You tacked one on him at Sam Gray's store. But that is not the worst. The worst is that there are three of them and only one of you." Johnny felt of his neck again, delicately. "By your tell there isn't any man in the world to help out your bare word. If you have any fresh dope, spill it."

"I happen to be in a position to state certainly, at first hand, something which modifies the other evidence," said Dines slowly and confidentially. "I happen to know positively that I didn't murder that man. That's exclusive. You only hear me say it--but I know it. So you mustn't be hurt if I'm not convinced. If the horse tracks say I'm the killer--the tracks are wrong, that's all. Or wrongly read. You will be best served if you either accept the full assurance of my guilt, and so base your deductions on that, or else accept my innocence as sure, and read sign with that in mind. It gets you nowhere to fit those tracks to both theories. Such evidence will fit in with the truth to the last splinter, like two broken pieces of one stick. It won't fit exactly with any lie, not the cleverest; there'll be a crack here, a splinter left over there, unaccountable. For instance, if my accusers are right, the dead man's horse went down Redgate ahead of me; my tracks will be on top of his wherever we took the same trail."

"Exactly. That's what they say. They might have been mistaken. It is hard and stony ground."

"They may have been mistaken, yes. Someone else will see those tracks. Now you listen close. Listen hard. If it turns out that Jody Weir and his two pardners, coming down Redgate on a run to give the alarm, rode over and rubbed out all tracks made by my horse and the dead man's horse, wherever they crossed each other--then that's another mistake they made. For when I left Forbes there were only two fresh tracks in the cañon--tracks of two fresh-shod horses going up the cañon, keeping to the road, and made yesterday. I'm sorry they didn't take me back to Garfield. I would have liked a peek at those tracks myself."

"But it rained, and it rained hard."

Johnny felt of his neck again.

"She sure did," he agreed. "Started just as this man Lull picked me, like fruit on the bough. I forgot that. Well, anyway, if this Garfield place is half human, then a slew of men went up Redgate Cañon before the rain. There must have been some live ones in the bunch."

"I wouldn't worry about that none if I was you," said the jailer. "I know Garfield, and I know old Pete Harkey, and he was taking the lead. If Adam's horse came down the cañon after you did, he'll know it. And if your track and the other were carefully ridden out where they crossed--why, old Pete will see that, too."

Johnny raised his hand. "That's what he will see! Hold that idea tight--squeeze it! If I am innocent, those tracks were ridden out and spoiled, till Adam Forbes' horse went one way and mine another."

"Well, then--Pete Harkey'll see that, too; he will think about it once and twice. Don't you worry. Jerome Martin and Jim-Ike-Jones went along, too, and old man Fenderson, maybe. They'll see. That's what they're going for."

"Hearsay evidence is no good in court. So I'm going to prophesy in writing--with you to witness and swear to the time of it--that all tracks this side of the murdered man are muddled. That written prophecy may not be evidence, but it will make the judge scratch his head."

"As much as to say--"

"Exactly. Someone killed Adam Forbes. You don't want to forget that. If it wasn't me--who was it? Well, let me tell you something. It was a mean man. Now you keep still a little, while I think over the meanest man I've seen lately."

Johnny rolled another smoke; and when it was alight he spoke again.

"Curious, when we come to think of it, but the meanest things a man can do is what he does with his mouth. To kiss and tell, for instance; betrayal under trust. We go to church and hear about the crucifixion. We have no hatred for the hands that drove the nails or the soldier who stood guard--scarcely for the fanatics who hounded the innocent to a shameful death. Our loathing is for Judas Iscariot, who betrayed with a kiss."

Gwinne eyed his captive benevolently.

"Good land of Goshen, son--what on earth has all this got to do with the price of hemp?"

"Everything to do with it. Demand for hemp is going to fluctuate violently if I can swing the deal I have in mind," replied Johnny, with spirit. "I was just thinking about two traitors I know."

In a prolonged silence Mr. Gwinne rumpled his beard and refilled his pipe.

"The two Garfield men and the other three did not seem to be agreeing very well," he said at last. "Lull--he's the one who arrested you--he went back to Garfield last night. Couldn't sleep, he said, and they'd be wanting to know in Garfield. The other one, See, the least one, he was round here soon this morning wanting to talk it up with you. He was real feverish about the quarantine."

Johnny cocked his head impishly and looked sidelong at the jailer.

"Just what was the big idea for sending one man to arrest me?"

"They didn't say."

"And why were they all crosswise with each other, like jackstraws?"

"They didn't tell me that either."

"You're allowed three guesses."

Gwinne puffed unhurriedly at his pipe, and after some meditation delivered himself of a leisurely statement between puffs.

"About a year ago, near as I can remember, this man Caney--Big Ed Caney--deputy sheriff in Dona Ana--did you know that? Thought not. Well, he went out beyond Hatch with a warrant for a fellow. He found another man--old Mexican sheep herder--cut down on him with a rifle and ordered him to throw 'em up. The old Mexican was scared or else he remembered something, I don't know which; he was perfectly innocent of this particular charge, whatever it was; they caught the other man later. Anyhow the old gentleman made a dash for his gun--it was leaning up against a tree not far away. And Caney killed him."

"So you think maybe Caney wanted to start something. Ambush, maybe? So I'd go after my gun?"

"I don't know anything about what Caney wanted to do or didn't want to do. All I know is--he didn't."

"And the Garfield boys wouldn't stand for it?" persisted Johnny.

"Lull and Charlie See won't stand for any crooked work--if it's them you mean. Lull was the only Garfield man. Charlie See is from Dona Ana, where they grow good and bad, same as they do here."

"Yes. I see. I know Jody and Toad Hales, myself. I met Lull and See yesterday evenin', just out of Garfield. Say, Mr. Gwinne, could you rustle me a razor?"

"I can too. Anything else on your mind?"

"Why, no. Only I wish I knew where the John Cross outfit is holding forth, and when they are likely to get word about me being in a tight. They may hear to-day, and it may be a week."

"They're up beyond Hermosa, somewhere at the head of Cuchillo Creek. And I shouldn't much wonder if they heard about you to-day sometime." Mr. Gwinne looked through the window at the visible wedge of Hillsboro, wavy low hills and winding streets; looked with long and lingering interest, and added irrelevantly: "I knew your father."

* * * * *

Late that afternoon a heavy knock came at the outer door of the jail. Gwinne hustled his prisoner into a cell and answered the call.

He was greeted at the door by Aloys Preisser, the assayer, a gay-hearted old Bavarian--the same for whom, in his youth, Preisser Hill was named--and by Hobby Lull. Hobby's face was haggard and drawn; there were dark circles under his eyes.

"We want to settle a bet," announced Hobby, "and we're leaving it to you. I say that Robin Hood knocked out the Proud Sheriff of Nottingham, and Preisser claims it was a draw. How about it?"

"Hood got the decision on points," said Gwinne soberly.

"There! What did I tell you, you old hunk of Limburger?" Hobby Lull laid hands delicately upon his adversary's short gray beard and tugged it with deferential gentleness. The unresisting head wagged sedately to and fro. "Take that, you old bug hunter!" said Hobby, and stood back, waiting.

The assayer became statuesque.

"You see, Mister Deputy? He has assauldt gommitted, and you a witness are. With abusive language!"

"The wienerwurst is yet to come," observed Lull, in a voice sepulchral and ominous.

"With threats also, and insults--abandoned ruffian! Desperate! Catiline! Officer--do your duty! I make demand of you. Dake dot mon into gustody!" Preisser's eyes were dancing as he fought down a grin.

Mr. Gwinne regarded the impassioned disputants with grave eyes.

"You are under arrest, Mr. Lull," he said with somber official severity. "Can you give bail?"

"Not one red cent."

"Come in, then."

Lull followed through the door. Turning, he smiled back at the little assayer. Preisser winked.

"I'll have to lock you up, you know," said Gwinne. "District attorney particularly desired that no one should hold communication with Dines, over yonder." He locked Lull in a cell; forgetfully leaving the key in the lock. "Don't try to shout across to Dines, now," he warned. "I'll hear you. Well, I'll be meanderin' along to the kitchen and starting supper."

Hobby reached through the bars and turned the key. He went over to Johnny's cell.

"Well, Dines, how goes it? You don't look much downhearted."

"I'm not," said Johnny. "I'm sorry about the dead man, of course. But I didn't know him, and you can't expect me to feel like you do. I'm right as rain--but I can't say as much for you. You look like you'd been dragged through a knothole."

"No sleep. I went back to Garfield, made medicine, and hurried back here. Seventy-five miles now, after a day's work and not much sleep the night before. I thought you'd be having your prelim, you see, or I'd have waited over. Didn't know that Judge Hinkle was out of town."

"Any news?"

"Yes," said Hobby, "there is."

He held out his hand. Johnny took it, through the bars.

"You don't think I killed your friend, then?"

"I know you didn't. But, man--we can't prove it. Not one scrap of evidence to bring into court. Just a sensing and a hunch--against a plain, straight, reasonable story, with three witnesses. You are It."

"Now you can't sometimes most always ever tell," said Johnny. "Besides, you're tired out. Get you a chair and tell it to me. I've been asleep. Also, you and I have had some few experiences not in common before our trails crossed yesterday. I may do a little sensing myself. Tell it to me."

"Well, after Caney's crowd told us Adam was killed in Redgate, Uncle Pete and a bunch went up there hotfoot. They found everything just about as Caney told it. There was your track, with one shoe gone, and Adam's horse with the bridle dragging--till he broke it off--"

"And where those two tracks crossed," interrupted Johnny, "those fellows had ridden over the trail till you couldn't tell which was on top."

Hobby stared.

"How did you know that? Uncle Pete was all worked up over it. I never heard him so powerful before, on any subject."

"You're tired out, so you can't see straight," said Johnny. "Also, I know that when I came down Redgate there were no fresh tracks heading this way. If those three men killed Forbes and want to saw it off on me--then they confused that trail on purpose. If they didn't kill Forbes, and muddled the tracks that way, they're half-wits. And they're not half-wits. Go on."

"They found poor old Adam and your fire. They pushed on ahead to read all the sign they could before dark. Up in the park there'd been a heap of riding back and forth. Just at dark they found where a bunch of cattle had been headed and had gone over the divide into Deadman and gone on down. Then the rain came--and the rest is mud."

"Yes. It rained. There was a little low gap to the north from where I branded my calf. If anybody had been there making tracks--those cattle would blot 'em out." Johnny began to laugh. "Look, _amigo_--all this dope seems fairly reasonable and nightmareish, turn about, as we see it across thirty miles and twenty-four hours--but it is a safe guess that some folks didn't sleep much last night. They know all about it, and I reckon when they got to thinking it over it seemed to them like the whole story was printed in letters a mile high. Scared? I guess yes. I'd hate to trade places with 'em right now. And before it rained--oh, mamma! I bet they was tickled to see that rain! Well, go on. Proceed. Give us some more."

"The further I go the less you'll like it," said Lull. "Pete and his hand-picked posse stayed up there and scattered out at daylight, for general results. They found one of Adam's cows with a big fresh-branded calf--branded yesterday. Dines, you're up against it--hard! It's going to look black to any jury. That calf carried your brand--T-Tumble-T!"

"'Hellfire and damnation--make my bed soon!'" said Johnny. "The boy stood on the burning deck, With neither high nor low! The Sons of Zeruiah!... Ho, warder! Pull up the drawstring! Let the portcrayon fall! Melt down the largess, fling out the pendulum to the breeze, and howl the battle cry of Dines!"

Hobby's gaunt features relaxed to a laugh.

"You silly ass! And the rope on your very neck! And what is the battle cry of Dines, if I may ask?"

"Only two out!" said Johnny Dines. He flung up his head; his hawk's face was beautiful.

"Good boy!" said Hobby Lull. "Good boy! You never shot Adam Forbes--not in the back. You hold your mouth right. It isn't so bad, Dines. I wanted to see how you'd take it. I know you now. There's more to come. You live a long way from here, with roughs and the river between. We've never seen any of your cattle. But we looked you up in the brand book. Your earmark is sharp the right, underslope the left. That yearling's ears are marked sharp the left, underslope the right.

"Yes. And I knew that without looking at the brand book," said Johnny. "They've overplayed their hand. Any more?"

"One thing more. Nothing to put before a jury--but it fits with a frame-up. This morning, Uncle Pete scouted round beyond where they quit the trail at dark. He found locations where Weir and Caney and Hales struck rich placer yesterday. A big thing--coarse gold. It was natural enough that they didn't tell us. For that matter, they mentioned prospecting along with their saddle-thieves' hunt. You heard 'em tell Gwinne about the saddle thieves last night. But--Adam Forbes was prospecting too. That's what he went up there for. Caney, Weir and Hales--any one of them has just the face of a man to turn lead into gold. There's a motive for you--a possible motive."

"More than possible. Let me think!" Johnny nursed his knee. He saw again the cool dark windings of Redgate, the little branding fire, the brushy pass low above him--where a foe might lurk--himself and Forbes, clear outlined on the hillside, the letter Forbes had given him.

"H'm!" he said. "H'm! Exactly!" With a thoughtful face, he chanted a merry little stave:

_The soapweed rules over the plain, And the brakeman is lord of the train, The prairie dog kneels On the back of his heels, Still patiently praying for rain._

"Say, Mr. Lull, isn't it a queer lay to have the county seat inland, not on the railroad at all, like Hillsboro?"

"That's easy. Hillsboro was the county seat before there was any railroad."

"Oh--that way? And how do you get your mail at Garfield? Does that come from Hillsboro?"

"No. Hillsboro is the closest post office, but our mail goes to Rincon. There's the river, you see, and no bridge. A letter takes two days and a hundred miles to get from Garfield to Hillsboro--and it's only twenty-five miles straight across in low water."

"I see," said Johnny.

Again he visioned the scene on the hillside, the fire, Adam Forbes, the location papers he was to mail; he remembered Toad Hales and his attempted betrayal of the horse camp guest; he remembered Jody Weir's letter to Hillsboro, and how it was to be delivered. Jody Weir--and the girl in Hillsboro post office--steady, Johnny--steady, boy! Even so, Jody Weir could keep those location papers from reaching the recorder!

The whole black business became clear and sure to him. And in that same flaming moment he knew that he could not clear himself by shaming this light lady--that he had never seen or known. To shield her fault or folly, he must take his chance. He looked up and spread out his hands.

"No go, Mr. Lull!" he said cheerfully. "Much obliged to you--and here is gear enough for a cuckoo clock, but I can't make it tick. Surmise and suspicion. Not one fact to lay hands on. Something may come out in the trial, of course. Looks like both ends against the middle, don't it? When dry weather keeps you poor and a rain hangs you? Tough luck! Alas, poor Johnny! I knew him well!"

So far his iron fortunes had brought him--to the shadow of the gallows. There, beset with death and shame, with neck and name on the venture, he held his head high, and kept his honor spotless. Well done, Johnny Dines! Well played, our side!

* * * * *