Part 7

"All right. Now, Curley," he said to the man whom he recognized; "we got the drop on you fellows. While McShay and your crowd have been gabbing over at the Agency we've got you cornered. Now I want you to walk ahead of us to the house, then call Coyote Kal out and we'll do the rest. Bill will have you covered from the stable and I will have you covered from behind the rock (meaning the rock that marked Nat-u-ritch's grave). If you give us away, neither of us could miss you. You're a dead man twice," he added with a laugh. His ill-humor always vanished in action. When the three men reached the barns, Hal made a short detour, crawling on his hands and knees until he was in the shelter of the rough, undressed bowlder which his father had hauled down from the canyons to mark the grave of the little Indian woman who had been his wife and the mother of the son who now crouched behind it, oblivious for the moment of everything except the dangerous business in hand. Then Bill untied Curley and pointed to the house opposite. The space over which Curley walked slowly was bathed in a flood of light. There didn't seem any way out of the predicament, so Curley stood before the adobe house and called softly: "Kal--Kal."

As this was repeated a sleepy voice within growled: "What the hell?" Then a tousled head appeared at the window and said: "That you, Curley? What's up? Has a messenger come from the Agency?"

"Yes. Come on out," urged Curley. "It's important."

The other man drew his trousers on and came out into the moonlight.

"What is it?" Then he noticed. "Where's your gun?"

"They took it away from me."

"They? What are you talking about?"

"It's no use, Kal; they got us surrounded."

With an oath the man addressed as Kal backed toward the house. Instantly Bill and Hal stepped into the light and covered him.

"Don't move," said Hal, and Coyote Kal had a solemn moment when the issue was uncertain.

Curley decided for him.

"Don't be a damn fool, Kal; they got us. What's the use?"

"Why didn't you ring the bell," said Kal surlily, "and call the men in?"

"Ring the bell?" sneered Curley. "Ring the bell? Say, wake up. Ring the bell with a couple of cannon up against your bowels? Does it take you a week to tumble? It didn't me. They stole up the dry crik and lassoed me; jerked me into the middle of next week before I knowed what ailed me. Ring the bell! I'll wring your neck if you say that to me ag'in."

"Bill, get that bench against the wall and put it there," indicating the middle of the court-yard. Bill did this with alacrity.

"Now, gentlemen, we're not going to fatigue you. We're going to treat you with distinguished consideration. Please be seated side by side on that bench. You can hold each other's hands if you get lonesome."

The two men obeyed in an apologetic way. Kal growled: "Why don't you tell us what you're up to and be done with it?"

"Now, Bill, ring that anxious bell for Coyote Kal."

Bill stepped over to the barn and rung a small bell affixed to its outer wall.

"Now, Kal, I want you to tell your men that they are trespassers on this property, and that you will be graciously permitted to withdraw if you do so at once and without trouble. If they stop to discuss the matter, there'll be a fight, and I don't think there'll be enough of you left to get away. Bill will occupy the stable and I will occupy the house, and if there is any show of resistance by your men you and Curley will be the first to meet your Maker; and I think you need more time for preparation."

"You sure ain't prepared," ejaculated Bill. "You sure ain't."

The ranch house was a mixture of styles. A log-cabin met an adobe addition at right angles. Each was supplied with a door, flanked by a window, and a portico leaned wearily against the house in various attitudes of discouragement. Hal took his stand in the shelter of the angle. He had the house on two sides of him. His position was exposed to the stable, where Bill was secreted, and the space between the house and stable was completely dominated by them both. One could have read a paper in the moonlight.

"My, it's clear to-night," said Hal, surveying the situation with a grin of satisfaction. "Anyway it happens it looks to me as if you two out there were a sure thing."

This was perfectly plain to Kal and Curley, but outside the purely physical situation they were completely dazed. McShay and his men were supposed to be looking out for their interests at the conference at the Agency, and here was Ladd's chief of police claiming their ranch and putting them forcibly off the ground they had bought and paid for.

They merely got a vague impression that this was just an effort on the part of Ladd to shift the battle ground. But as their brains worked slowly over it nothing seemed to fit into this theory. And it was part of Hal's plan to leave them no time to think. He realized that his only chance of success was in rushing them off their feet. It was a perilous game in which time was to be a deciding factor.

As suggested by Kal, the bell was an alarm that called all the men on the ranch in for instructions. They came, and quickly, and all armed; some fifteen men. As they came into view their amazement was comic at the sight of Curley and their boss sitting on a bench side by side in the moonlight like two naughty boys kept in at school.

"Speak your little piece, Kal," urged Hal.

"Well, boys," said their leader, shamefaced; "I don't know how it happened, but the Agency folks got the bulge on us, got us corralled, Curley says, and it's fight or surrender. As they got a bead on me from the house and the stable, surrender looks a whole lot better to me. We can come back and fight 'em for it afterwards."

Instinctively there was a simultaneous movement for cover. The dilapidated sheds leaning against the barn with their bags, barrels, bales of hay, etc., were selected by those nearest to them. Carroll and the rest put the rock that marked Nat-u-ritch's grave in front of them. "Humpy" Carroll, as his name indicated, was a humpbacked little man with ambitions. He had always fallen just short of being a leader and it made him a chronic insurgent. His insubordination had brought him into frequent conflict with Kal, whose place he coveted, and the latter's uncomfortable position afforded him keen satisfaction. In fact, Kal's taking off would not have appealed to Humpy as an irreparable loss.

Kal knew this and it filled him with helpless rage.

"Surrender without a fight?" inquired Humpy in a tone that made Kal squirm.

But he replied calmly with a slow drawl: "You got a nice fat rock in front of you, Humpy."

"I don't mind kickin' the bucket with a gun in my hand," chimed in Curley; "but give us a _chance_ to fight, Humpy?"

"'Tain't our fault if you let 'em rope you."

"Say," said Kal, "if these fellers'll give me a gun, and will stand by, I'll fight _you_, Humpy; and the feller that gits over it--his word goes."

"Say, that's sporty," exclaimed Hal, delighted; "I'll stand for that."

Humpy's sardonic face grinned.

"Say, you'd like to get us a killin' each other, wouldn't you? Got us 'surrounded' have you? Well, we'll just have a look around and see."

"No, you don't." cut in Hal with decision. "You surrender or fight _now_."

"Boys," called out Kal, "you know I'm no coward, but I think you owe it to me and Curley to give us a chance. I'll give you your innings later. They can't keep what they've took, and no man of you'll beat me in comin' back after it."

"I'll give you 'till I count ten," said Hal.

Voices came spontaneously from various places: "Kal's right"--"Let _him_ decide"--"Leave it to Kal," and similar expressions. It was obvious that the men realized the position of their leader and would temporarily surrender possession of the ranch rather than see him sacrificed. Curley's fate was thrown in for good measure.

"Your men are with you, Kal," said Hal, eager to consummate the precarious deal. "Tell them to put their weapons in a pile back of you and Curley."

Kal repeated these instructions, but with evident reluctance. It was obvious that the fact that he was getting away with his life was hardly compensation for the humiliation suffered before Humpy and his comrades. As the men came forward from their hiding places Hal relaxed his tension. It came to him that he was very tired, and he leaned against the window of the log-cabin, the window Kal had opened before leaving the house. Just then a warning shout came from the stable. "Look out, boy! Look out!"

Bill had time to say no more. It all happened in a flash. Two sinewy bronze arms darted from the window and pinioned Hal from behind in a vise-like grip. Hal knew instinctively that it was Appah. Bill, as he was in the act of warning Hal, was over-powered from behind and bound by Appah's men so quickly that he had only time to see that his warning to the boy had come too late.

This had occurred without the cowboys being aware of it, so intent were they on their own part in the drama. Kal's head drooped with shame as he looked at the ground and said:

"We surrender."

"Surrender? Surrender? What are you talkin' about?"

It was Agent Ladd's voice as he strode nervously through the crowd of ranchmen. He stopped in front of Kal and Curley, his eyes blazing with excitement.

"Surrender this ranch to a couple of bluffs? You're a nice chicken-hearted lot!"

*CHAPTER IX*

As the cowboys turned and saw Hal and Bill with their arms pinioned and in the custody of Appah's men, they suffered a revulsion of feeling that boded no good to the men whose bluff had been called.

"And two of 'em, _two_ of 'em hold you up. Why, you'll be the laughing stock of the country."

Ladd lost no time in fanning their smouldering pride into a relentless blaze.

"Gosh-a-mighty; ain't these your men?" gasped Kal.

It seemed such a useless question at this juncture to Ladd that he didn't stop to answer it.

"You lynch cattle thieves out in this country, but you 'surrender' to land thieves."

Hal looked at his adversary with admiration. He hadn't supposed that Ladd would follow him, that he would trust himself in the enemy's country; but here he was in time to turn victory into defeat, and he was appealing to this mob with all the cunning of a skilled demagogue and with the ferocity of a tiger.

Kal came over to Calthorpe and, looking him in the eye, said slowly--emphasizing every word:

"You made me look foolish, boy."

That is an unforgivable sin. You may take a man's honor or his money or his wife, and indeed have his life, and forgiveness is still possible; but don't expect mercy if you have made him look foolish.

"And you _roped me_," added Curley. "Ropin' bein' in fashion, we'll let you in on it." And he threw around Hal's neck a coil of the rope the latter had used on him.

"Wait a minute," said the irreconcilable Humpy. "If this feller ain't your man, Mr. Agent; who the hell is he?"

"He's the legal owner of this ranch," declared Bill with emphasis; "and if you lynch him you'll be guilty of committin' murder."

"Oh, no," said Kal grimly; "we'll just be guilty of a mistake."

"Fer which," added Humpy, "we kin apologize later."

"Is that right?" demanded Kal. "Do you claim this ranch and the asphalt on it?"

"I do. It's mine."

"Well, I guess that'll be about all."

"I guess we'll have to give your imagination an extra stretch."

"I can prove it."

"'Tain't open to argyment."

"If you git a chance to prove it, it'll sure be contributory negligence on our part. Ain't that right, boys?"

Everybody was in on the conversation now. The men gathered around Hal and Bill like carnivorous beasts at the smell of blood. Nothing stirs the average man's imagination like gold. Each one of these rough men had seen visions and had fashioned elaborate impossibilities out of this mysterious asphalt. They told each other apocryphal stories of its enormous value. Each saw himself fabulously rich. There was enormous potential wealth here, but nothing could have corresponded to their grotesque dreams, and the more nebulous and vapory they were the more these rough men clung to them, and at the mention of their "rights" they became feverish, fanatical, ready to tear into pieces whoever looked toward their disputed treasures; ready to tear each other to pieces for the fraction of a claim to that which they did not possess.

"Lynch him first and discuss it afterwards," suggested Ladd, seeing the temper of his audience and playing to its sardonic humor.

"You know what's eatin' _him_?" said Bill, pointing an angry finger at the agent. "The kid showed him up as a crook and a thief. When he's got you so deep in this you can't git out, he'll be the first to turn on you and sic justice onto you."

The eyes of all turned from the prisoner to Ladd, and Humpy expressed the prevailing suspicion of the man they had no reason to trust:

"It ain't been supposed that Mr. Ladd was a sittin' up at nights a tryin' to think of ways to help us."

Ladd faced them with courage and an air of apparent candor.

"I've fought you, but fair and in the open, and I'm goin' to fight you for the land that's on the Reservation, but this land, as I understand it, is yours, bought and paid for."

There was a chorus of fierce assent to this.

"You're in for a long and a losing fight against the Government; so if you lose _this ranch_ you lose everything."

There was no approving shout for this, but the force of it was felt by all.

"But this feller here," said the tenacious Humpy, pointing to the prisoner and not to be diverted by the agent; "what about him?"

Ladd looked at the wild animals with their fangs frankly bared and knew that they were easy. Then he played his trump card.

"As for this land-grabber, the best I know of him and the best he can say for himself is that he's a half-breed."

This irrelevant appeal to prejudice was so crude, raw, and unblushing as to be obvious to a child, but its effect was instantaneous. Every vestige of restraint, of irresolution disappeared in the faces of the mob. Human equality! There is no such thing even theoretically. There are differences which separate human beings and will always separate them, but they are moral and intellectual differences. No one admits the principle of human equality, because:

"The principle of human equality takes away the right of killing so-called inferior peoples, just as it destroys the right claimed by some of dominating others. If all peoples are equal, if their different appearances are only the result of changing circumstances, in virtue of what principle is it allowable to destroy their happiness and to compromise their right to independence?"[1]

[1] Finot.

The logic of prejudice is a strange and wonderful thing.

That some criminals were also half-breeds, that many half-breeds were undesirable citizens has crystallized into the conviction in most Western communities that all half-breeds are worthless and dangerous, and are therefore capable of any and all crimes. This has nothing to do with any ascertainable facts, and if opposite to Agent Ladd had arisen a man of intellect who had devoted his life and all the energies of a noble mind to finding out the truth, and had said: "If the word half-breed was strictly applied to the progeny which has really issued from a mixture of varieties, it would be necessary to include under this denomination all human beings with rare exceptions"[2]--it would have meant nothing to the audience to whom Ladd's appeal meant everything. As one man they turned upon Hal, their brows lowering and the pupils of their eyes contracting.

[2] Finot.

"Is it true," said Kal, "that you're a half-breed?"

The boy did not reply at once, but drew himself up proudly and looked them over contemptuously; he saw his last chance was gone, so he took his time and said very slowly:

"I'm the son of the Earl of Kerhill and of Nat-u-ritch, an Indian woman; and I've got better blood in my veins than any man here, you swine!"

"Throw the rope over that beam," said Kal, pointing to the timber that projected over the loft on the barn.

"Yes," added Humpy; "it's time we made an example of some one. Land-grabbin' and half-breeds has got to be discouraged."

"You haven't anything against Bill. Let him go," said Hal quickly.

"He'll be a witness against us."

"You bet I will," said Bill promptly.

"No; he'll leave the country."

"I'll camp on the trail of these murderers as long as I live."

"For God's sake, shut up, Bill," begged Hal, as his eyes filled with involuntary tears.

"Sorry you feel that-a-way," said Humpy; "leaves us no choice. Up with 'em."

"Hold on there--_you_!"

The cowmen turned to see McShay sitting on a smoking, gasping horse with quivering nostrils and trembling flanks, and mopping his dripping brow first with his sleeve and then with a huge bandanna handkerchief.

"Say, I ain't had a ride like this since I was a kid. Well, you beat me to it, Mr. Agent; didn't you? I guess your Injins showed you a short cut. Some of you hold up this horse, and some more of you help me off'n him, though I don't know's I can stand much."

The interjection of this cool personality seemed to lower the temperature several degrees. While McShay was dismounting, Smith and Lee rode in on horses which showed similar evidence of hard usage.

"If these are my leags as I'm a standin' on, I want to observe that you are gittin' precipitate a whole lot. I move to reconsider."

"What fer?"

"Well, boys, I'm afraid we're on the young feller's land."

This declaration from their leader would have made a sensation if it had come before their passions had gained momentum. It might have changed the progress of events, but now Kal voiced the general sentiment in a surly: "We'll give him some of it--just about six feet of it."

There is no use talking temperance to the drunkard who has already started on his debauch. The unacknowledged fear that their acts would not bear examination made them fiercely resentful of interference, and there was an unacknowledged conviction that what was done and could not be undone justified itself as inevitable.

"Even Judge Lynch usually holds court," suggested McShay.

"We've heard what he's got to say."

"Say; you're foolish to interfere."

"Interferin' is my long suit," drawled McShay. "I ain't happy unless I'm interferin'. Now there are two ways of lynchin' a man. One is to git hysterical and borey-eyed, and lose yer re-pose. The other is to proceed in a regular and high-toned way. Now these fellers has the right to a ca'm judgment, and they will git it."

"They will," glared Humpy; "if you'll agree to abide by the decision of the majority."

"I've always found I had to do that; so I usually fixed the majority."

McShay's imperturbability was irresistible.

"Now, I've mostly presided at functions like this, but I ain't a-pushin' my claims. Who do you want fer judge? Show of hands--who's fer me?"

Up went the hands of the two faithful retainers, Orson and Silent, and Mike saw that his effort to stampede the proceedings was late, perhaps too late. Before the "opposed" were called for there was a concerted shout for Kal.

"Majorities are always wrong," commented the experienced McShay; "you git it, Kal."

Kal took his seat on the bench where he had lately been the prisoner and Hal and Bill sat in the centre of the motley group of men who were accusers, witnesses, jurymen, and executioners.

Perhaps there have been times and conditions when Judge Lynch served a useful purpose, but even when the judge happened by accident to be right, the resulting demoralization must have been worse than the initial crimes. Now that McShay had entered the arena, Ladd retired to the outskirts of the crowd and, having fired the house, was content to stand by and see it burn.

"I got to have an office," said McShay. "Not gittin' judge, I'm attorney for the defence."

"All right," said the judge, getting quickly to business. "You have first innin's. How do you come to know mor'n and better'n us?"

"Well, I know a face card when I see it face up. I'm as good as that."

"He says he owns this ranch," interjected Humpy who was the self-appointed prosecuting attorney. The offices Humpy got were self-appointed.

"The worst of it is," answered McShay, "I'm afraid he does."

"You got to show _us_," said the judge in a tone that indicated the difficulty of such a proceeding.

"Well," replied McShay; "we bought it of Andy and Shorty, and we know they were crooks, 'cause they were crooked with us. Bill here says the signature to the deed is a forgery; and Bill knows the Earl's hand-writin'. That's all."

"Well," smiled Humpy, "that don't go very strong with me. Bill may be mistaken or he may be lyin'."

"Peradventure he ain't," retorted Mike. "Bill couldn't lie. He ain't gifted. Bill's the shortest distance between two points. I've knowed him fer an awful long time, and I wouldn't trust him to lie."

"Is that all?" asked the judge, obviously refusing to be impressed.

"That's all."

"'Tain't conclusive," said Humpy, trying to get the impressive lingo of opposing counsel.

"By the eternal it's presumptive," bellowed McShay. "Let the young feller go. If it should turn out that he owns the land, somebody might insist on making it awkward for some of us; if he don't own it, he can't prove it; he can't hold it, and no harm done."

"If he owns the land," said the judge, taking a hand; "why didn't he go to court in a regl'r way?"

Hal almost laughed aloud.

It was the first time he seemed to be even an interested listener. After his outburst of a moment ago his thought had gone back to the Agency and had left in his face a vacant and far-away look.

"Go to court, eh? Judge Swayback owns a nice thick wad of your stock and Sheriff Black owns another. And you have no difficulty in packing any jury in this part of the State."

"The prisoner seems to be unusually well informed," drawled McShay. "In resortin' to violence the defendant is at fault, but it is the indiscretion and exuberance of youth, gentlemen. I sometimes find myself resortin' to violence, and perhaps you gentlemen may remember in your own peace-lovin' and law-abidin' careers the sudden impulse to go and take what you thought was yourn. As a failin' it's distinctly human."

"I think we've heard enough," remarked the judge. "McShay's full of presumin's and peradventurin's, and such misleadin' legal gab, but no feller is agoin' to come around and hold me up at the muzzle of a gun and git away with it."

"Say, you're a judge; you ain't no right to argue."

"I ain't a-arguin'. It's a fact."

Humpy arose and advanced a step as if he felt the importance of the blow he was about to deliver.

"Testimony is conflictin'. Bill says he's all right. Ladd says he's all wrong. Testimony ain't no good any way. Never knew a feller as wouldn't lie if he had ter. This is the point. This feller wants land we bought and paid for, and he sets an awful bad example by comin' after it with a gun. That's enough fer me."

There were murmurs of approval at this simple statement and impatient cries of "Vote--vote."

"Say, Kid," said McShay to the prisoner; "you better offer to give up your claims and save your life."

"No half-breed would keep such a promise," said Ladd quickly.

McShay turned on the agent a look that held the other in a breathless grip for a second; then he only said: "Don't you interfere in this."

"And I won't make such a promise," said Hal simply.

"Vote--vote," came impatiently from all directions.

"All in favor of lettin' the prisoner go hold up the right hand."

McShay was always sure of the absolute support of Lee and Silent Smith on any side of any question.

"Three!" announced the judge grimly. "All in favor of hangin' the prisoner, similar!"

"He swings!" laconically added Kal.