Part 11

“There’s been one shooting in the family within the past few hours. She despises Noll and thinks considerable of me. Why should she feel worse about my shooting him than about his taking that shot at me?” Bart logically contended.

“Ask her,” Carver returned. “I’ll send you home now before some of the boys roll in and start remarking broadcast about your being shot through the shoulder. I have to ride over to Oval Springs sometime soon and if you don’t keep that crippled shoulder under cover meantime, so’s the neighbors won’t get to speculating about your case, why I’ll up and jail you myself just to keep you out of trouble.”

Bart faced him gravely.

“There’s not much in this life I wouldn’t do for you,” he said. “I’d ride on into Washington and loot the Mint if you was needing pin money. If you had an enemy I’d assassinate him just to save you the trouble. You’ve used me white. But there’s some things that just have to be done. This here is one. I’m out to get Noll. He’s had it coming all his life. The day Noll passes out I’ll put myself under your orders and never stray outside my homestead fence for a solid year except when you say the word. I’ll give you a guarantee to that effect.”

An hour after Bart’s departure Carver was saddling a fresh horse in the corral when a voice called to him from the edge of it.

“What’s the trouble, Honey?” he inquired, resting his arms on the top bar of the corral gate and facing Molly Lassiter across it.

“Don! Don’t let Bart go out after Noll,” she said. “Before I have time to thank you for helping him out this morning I’m asking you to do something else;” she essayed a laugh which ended in a sob. “But don’t let him do this. Can’t you think of some way? I never knew him to be in this mood before. He’s so quiet about it that I know he means to do it.”

“Likely it will wear off before morning,” Carver encouraged, but he knew that morning would find Bart in the selfsame mood. Only years would suffice to alter the determination he had read in Bart’s face an hour past. “He’ll forget it in a day or two.”

He spoke unconcernedly to reassure the girl for she was nearer the breaking point than he had ever seen her. Her habitual self-control had broken down.

“You know he’ll never forget,” she said. “But I can’t have that--a shooting between brothers--don’t you see? Not that Noll really is a brother; but people will always think of it that way. I wish something had happened to Noll before I ever saw him--just for what he’s done to Dad and Bart. I’m wicked enough to wish him dead; he should be; he’s not fit to live. But Bart mustn’t do it. He’d never live it down.”

She spoke disjointedly, her voice high-pitched and unnatural. Carver vaulted the corral bars and laid an arm about her shoulders.

“Sho! That’ll all pass off,” he said easily. “Bart wouldn’t--not after he’d thought it over. He’s excited about it now.”

She knew that he spoke only to quiet her fears, that he himself lacked the convictions which he expressed.

“He’s not excited,” she insisted. “He’s thought it all over now and made his decision. Oh, anything but that. It’s the one worst thing I can think of. There must be some way. Honestly, Don, I couldn’t stand that after all the other things the name of Lassiter has been linked with.”

“Then we’ll put a stop to it,” he said. “We’ll just fix it so he can’t.”

She noted the change in his voice. He was no longer speaking merely to reassure her. This knowledge exerted a quieting effect. She someway had vast confidence that Carver would find a way out. Bart’s quiet insistence had terrified her but Carver had thought of some means to dissuade him.

“I’ll be riding on into Oval Springs now,” he said. “Meantime you put your mind at ease.” He drew her to him and when she made a motion of dissent he gave her shoulders a little shake. “Right now,” he insisted a trifle roughly, and she lifted her face to him.

“You promise you won’t let him?” she implored.

He stood looking down at her with a queer little smile.

“Rest easy,” he said. “I’ll take a contract to that effect.”

He dropped the corral bars and a moment later she watched him ride off through the night toward Oval Springs.

XI

The atmosphere of Oval Springs reeked of new lumber and fresh paint. A dozen business buildings were being hastily constructed and new houses were started daily in the residence district of the town.

Carver strolled down the main street. Shafts of light, emanating from store fronts, splashed across the board sidewalk and relieved the gloom of the street. Scores of horses stood at the hitch rails. The blare of a mechanical piano sounded from an open doorway, accompanied by the scrape of boots and clank of spurs. The shrill laughter of a dance-hall girl rose momentarily above the din. From another door there issued the clinking of glassware at the bar and drunken voices raised in song; the smooth purr of the roulette wheel and the professional drone of lookout and croupier. The new county seat was a wide-open town.

Carver visited one place after another in search of Noll Lassiter. He discovered him in a saloon near the end of the street but the man he sought was in the center of a group near the bar. Carver nodded but did not join them. What he had to say to Noll must be imparted when there were no others to hear.

Noll was discoursing at some length to his companions and at the sight of Carver he raised his voice with palpable intent to include Carver in the circle of his hearers,--wherefore Carver listened.

“They hadn’t no business to throw me in,” Noll stated aggrievedly. “I ask you now! Of course Crowfoot and Alf Wellman never was any special friends of mine but they had no call to lock me up.”

“This may prove worth while. He’s anxious to have me get it,” Carver decided, and as the case was restated he gathered the cause of Noll’s grievance.

Two days before, in mid-afternoon, the two Lassiters had become openly conspicuous and Noll had indulged in target practice in the street, whereupon Crowfoot, acting town marshal, had declared that such sports were out of season during the daylight hours and with the help of the sheriff had conducted the two Lassiters to the county jail--that structure serving also as a city prison--where they had languished till noon of the present day. Their urgent representations, delivered verbally to acquaintances who had chanced to pass the jail during the morning, had resulted in their release at noon.

“The alibi club is in session,” Carver told himself. “It’s real accommodating of Noll to stage a monologue just to deceive me. It’s cleared up some points I was hazy on. The town marshal, the sheriff and his deputies are still trailing with the old crowd. It works out like this: Wellman and Crowfoot jail the two Lassiters in view of the populace. After nightfall the two prisoners depart by the back stairs and make a hard ride to some point near Wharton, hole up there till afternoon and raid the bank, hide out again till after dark and make another hard ride back to Oval Springs. They’re safe in jail before dawn. This morning they comment through the bars to pedestrians passing the jail. A perfect alibi--unless Noll overacts his part and talks himself into trouble.”

He mused further on the subject as he waited for Noll to detach himself from the group.

“This deal signifies that every man round the sheriff’s office is cutting in with the boys,” he reflected. “Wellman has appointed the two Ralston brothers deputies in addition to Freel. The fourth party in that Wharton hold-up was likely one of the Ralston boys.”

Noll eventually moved toward the door but the others accompanied him. Carver followed them out and called to Noll.

“Just a minute,” he said. “I have a bit of news to impart.”

Noll turned back and stood facing him while the others halted a few feet away. Carver lowered his voice so his words would not reach them.

“You’ve tried for me twice,” he said. “From now on it’s reversed.”

“What d’you mean?” Noll demanded.

“That I’m going into action the next time you loom up anywhere within range,” Carver stated. “I’m just telling you so that you’ll know how to act the next time we meet. Right soon after we next sight each other there’ll be one of us absent from human affairs.”

The group on the sidewalk saw nothing unusual in this interview,--merely a low-voiced conversation between two acquaintances.

“Absent!” Noll repeated. “That one will be you!”

“Maybe,” Carver assented and turned off up the street.

He spent the night at the hotel and in the morning sought the deputy United States marshal whose posse guarded against the destruction of railroad property and the consequent interference with the delivery of the United States’ mail.

“You helped me into this job,” Mattison greeted. “Now it’s up to you to help me hold it. You’re to be my right-hand assistant until this mess is cleared up. Did you know it?”

“Not for sure,” Carver said. “But I suspected it somewhat when you sent over for me. I’ll make a deal with you. You can deputize me now till we iron out this fuss, provided that some future time you agree to let me deputize myself on some occasion when I may have to go into action right rapid and you not at hand; when it’s a case where county officers wouldn’t fit in and a deputy marshal would. I’d proclaim that I was acting under orders from you, meantime having dispatched word for you to make haste toward the spot. You arrive and assume command.”

“What’ve you got in mind?” Mattison inquired a bit doubtfully.

“Not anything special,” Carver returned. “I may never avail myself of my end of the bargain. If ever I do I’ll guarantee that the parties I move on will be eligible to arrest for shattering some Federal law and I’ll be able to prove it. That will let you out.”

“Yes. Likely it will let me out of my job,” Mattison said. “But you’re responsible for my getting it and I oughtn’t to object if you should also be responsible for my losing it. We’ll close the deal.”

“One more small favor before you put me to work,” Carver requested. “I wish you’d pass out the word, quiet like, among the boys that the first time Bart Lassiter shows up here he’s to be arrested and sent up to Caldwell.”

“What have you got against Bart,” Mattison asked. “I thought you was friends.”

“That’s why I want him tossed into jail and kept out of trouble till I give the word to free him again.”

“All right. We’ll toss him if he shows up in town,” Mattison agreed. “Let’s head for the tracks and I’ll explain your job as we travel.”

For the next three nights Carver patrolled the railroad tracks for a distance of over a mile north of town, visiting the six men stationed in couples at intervals throughout that stretch. Mattison conducted a similar patrol to the south. Throughout that period no move had been made to tear up the tracks. Trains rolled through without a halt and no incident transpired which would furnish the least surface indication of the existence of a bitter feud. But both Carver and Mattison knew that the undercurrent of lawlessness had not subsided; that it merely smoldered, waiting an opportunity to break forth.

During the past month there had been five men killed and as many wounded in the progress of the county-seat war. Three of the slain had been members of the marshal’s posse, for Mattison’s operations were handicapped by red tape, his instructions prohibiting the firing of a shot except in case his own men were attacked. The participants on the reverse side of the question were burdened by no such restrictions. The marshal was unable to gather a single shred of information as to the identity of the men concerned in any one of the wrecking parties. The population of Oval Springs was solidly in favor of any move whatsoever, if only it should result in the stopping of trains at that point.

In mid-afternoon of the fourth day Carver sat cross-legged on the ground in the marshal’s camp beside the tracks a few hundred yards north of town. He leaned back against a bed roll and inspected the general surroundings through half-closed eyes. There was the usual congestion round the three town wells which furnished the only supply of water for the county seat. Tank wagons plied between these wells and the surrounding country, supplying settlers with moisture at fifty cents a barrel. Carver straightened, suddenly alert, as a rider dropped from his horse at the end of the street. His left arm was bound stiffly at his side.

“Bart couldn’t wait for that shoulder to cure before he started hunting for Noll,” Carver said. He noted that two men had stepped in behind Bart. They were Mattison’s men and Bart had not progressed a distance of fifty yards from his horse before he was under arrest.

“That much accomplished,” Carver said. “Bart’s safe out of the way as soon as they get him to Caldwell. Now it’s narrowed down to Noll and myself. I don’t care overmuch for my job but she’d rather it would be me than Bart to go through with it--some one outside the family; and this will rule me outside for all time.”

Bradshaw rode into camp and joined Carver, leaving his mount with several other saddled horses that grazed close at hand. Mattison’s posse, down to the last man, was composed of old friends of Carver’s, former riders of the Strip. Their old calling gone, they now gravitated to any point which promised to afford a touch of excitement.

“They’ve let us alone for quite a spell now,” Bradshaw said. “Time something was breaking.”

A stiff wind screeched across the country and the two men sought shelter behind a pile of baled hay, sprawling comfortably in the sun until Mattison located them there and reported a bit of news.

“Headquarters has thrown off the bridle and issued orders to shoot down every man that tampers with the tracks,” he informed. “I just got the word. Now that we’ve got free rein we’ll clean up this mess.”

These instructions were passed out to all of the marshal’s men. Two hours after midnight Carver stood on the tracks with Mattison.

Both men turned to view a vague light that seemed to flicker up from near a string of buildings at one end of the main street. The high wind which had prevailed throughout the day had died down within the past hour and in the resulting hush sounds could be heard at a considerable distance. The light increased and shed a pinkish glow over a portion of the sleeping town. A similar light, smaller and less evident, as if but a reflection of the other, appeared near the courthouse at the far end of the town. From somewhere there sounded the muffled thud of many hoofs.

“I wonder now,” Carver said, as he caught this sound. “An hour ago, before the wind went down, a fire would have wiped Oval Springs off the map--no water.” He listened again to the rumble of hoofs. “It’s come,” he announced. “Casa has been in a ferment for weeks, threatening to ride over and sack Oval Springs. Now they’re at it.”

Black smoke rolled above the pink glow which was rapidly swelling into a lurid glare. Tongues of scarlet flame now leaped above the buildings as the fire, started in the rear of them, licked hungrily up the back of the frame structures. There was a sudden clamor of voices as sleeping citizens were roused by the glare of the fire, then a roar of hoofs as forty horsemen thundered the length of the main street and emptied their guns at the store fronts. They wheeled and rode back through the street, shooting as they came, this last demonstration for the purpose of keeping citizens within doors until the flames had attained sufficient headway to spread beyond control.

The rumble of hoofs died out as the raiders pounded away toward the north and the population of Oval Springs boiled out to check the spread of the fire.

“It’s no affair of ours,” Mattison said. “Dog eat dog. Let ’em go. Wellman, our good sheriff, hasn’t exerted himself to help find out who’s been shooting my boys at night. Let him handle this deal himself.”

The Casa raiders had planned well and if the wind had held Oval Springs would have been reduced to ashes in an hour. But the fates had intervened. The wind had slacked off, then died, and now a reverse wind blew up and piled the flames back upon themselves. The fire at the courthouse had not attained sufficient headway and a determined body of citizens checked the spread of the flames. The blaze at the north end of town was confined to the one section in which it started, the strong wind from the south beating back the flames which leaped high above the buildings. Men on adjacent structures stamped out the sparks which were belched far and wide as each burning roof sagged and fell with a hissing roar.

The conflagration lasted till dawn, was still smoldering when Carver retired to the bed tent where he slumbered till high noon. An hour after rising he sauntered along the tracks to the north for the purpose of chatting for an hour with Bradshaw, who was stationed within a short distance of camp. His friend was nowhere in sight.

“The sun’s nice and warm,” Carver said. “I’ll find Brad napping on the sunny slope of the grade.”

A bare flat extended for four hundred yards on the east side of the tracks. Beyond it the country was broken and rolling, studded with dwarf brush and scattered thickets of scrub oak. Carver located Bradshaw reclining on the west slope of the railroad embankment in the sun, his hat pulled over his eyes. When within a few feet of Bradshaw’s position Carver flinched convulsively as a rifle ball snapped past within a foot of his head. The thin crack of a rifle accompanied the sound and a faint spurt of blue smoke drifted hazily from a black-jack clump on the far edge of the flat. Carver cleared the edge of the grade at a bound.

No matter what else might occupy Carver’s mind, the thought of Noll Lassiter was ever in the foreground of his consciousness, would remain there until the matter between them was settled, and he knew without question who had fired the shot from the black-jacks.

“Close shooting for four hundred yards. That didn’t miss me an inch,” Carver said. “Get down!” he called sharply; for Bradshaw, thirty feet farther north, had been roused by the sound of the shot and Carver’s plunge down the sheltered side of the grade, and he had risen to his knees to peer off to the east. “Down, Brad! Duck under the bank!”

The warning command came too late. Bradshaw sprawled on his face and slid loosely down the embankment as the rifle spoke again from the thicket. Carver ran to his friend but Bradshaw was beyond need of assistance. He opened his eyes with an effort as Carver knelt over him.

“I’m sorry, Brad,” Carver said. “He was out after me and got you instead when you raised up in sight. I’m sorry, old man.”

Bradshaw essayed a smile and made a feeble move to extend a hand for a farewell shake with his friend.

“It’s all right,” he said--and passed out.

Carver ran back toward the camp, keeping under cover of the embankment. Several men had heard the two shots and had mounted the tracks to determine their source. They saw Carver running toward camp and knew that the two stray reports had carried at least some significance.

“What’s up?” one man called as Carver came within hailing distance.

He did not answer till after reaching the spot where a half-dozen saddled horses were grazing just outside camp, his own mount among them. He slowed to a walk lest he stampede the horses by a too precipitate approach. Mattison had come from the bed tent. Carver jerked a thumb back in the direction from which he had come.

“Some one downed Brad from the bush out across the flat,” Carver informed. “I’m going out to bring in the party that did it.”

The marshal turned to the men standing round.

“Saddles!” he ordered. “On your horses! Go bring him in!”

But Carver lifted a hand.

“This is my job,” he said. “I want him myself. He was trying for me--and Brad’s been my friend for fifteen years. Hold ’em back!” he insisted, as the men headed for their horses. He swung to the saddle. “Send up word to let Bart Lassiter out,” he called back, as he jumped his horse toward the tracks.

Mattison countermanded his previous order and the other men stayed in camp, cursing fretfully over this sudden turn in affairs which prevented their going.

Carver rode without caution, knowing that Noll would have departed immediately after firing the shots. The man would have a mile lead by now. The country to the southeast was a stretch of good land, solidly settled and thoroughly fenced. A rider heading that way would find his route confined to fenced section lines. Noll would head northeast where the country was rough and mostly unfenced. Carver lined his horse out at a run and after two miles he sighted his man, off to the left and a half-mile ahead.

When he saw him again the distance between them had lessened. Noll would hold on without stopping till he discovered the fact that a man followed him. Even then he would hesitate to dismount and attempt to bushwhack his hunter through fear that Mattison had turned the whole posse loose on his trail. Another half-mile and Carver glimpsed him again, this time less than four hundred yards in the lead. They passed out of the brush-covered area into a country that, while still rough, was covered only with coarse grass. It occurred to Carver that another few miles would bring them out into a good-land district, settled and fenced. Noll would never be crowded out into that section if he knew Carver followed, for he would be forced to travel along fenced roadways and settlers would witness his flight, establishing his identity.

As Carver crossed over a ridge he saw Noll again, only his head and shoulders visible as he rode straight away a scant two hundred yards ahead. Apparently he had no suspicion that there was a man on his trail, yet it seemed certain that before now he would have halted under cover of some ridge to scan his back track and ascertain if he were followed. If he discovered a rider behind him he would halt again at some other point to determine if others rode with the first.

It suddenly occurred to Carver that the swift lessening of distance between them was occasioned by this very thing. Noll had stopped under cover to view his back track; had halted again to make sure that but one man followed his trail. Even as this thought flashed into his mind Carver flung from the saddle and dropped flat on the ground.

He had ridden the length of a shallow draw and he left it only to discover that the landscape had flattened out into low waves of ground. It was the sight of the upper half of a riderless horse standing in the shallow depression beyond one of these waves which had occasioned his sudden fling from the saddle. Noll had dismounted in the next dip ahead, intending to shoot as Carver rode into sight.

Carver lay flat on his face and crawled thirty feet to the north through the shallow basin that sheltered him, then lifted his head cautiously and inspected his surroundings. His range was limited to a distance of fifty yards north and south. He might crawl back west for some twenty yards. The character of his surroundings rendered it impossible for him to move beyond this restricted area without showing himself to the man who was cached in a similar depression somewhere less than seventy yards east of him. And in all the shallow dip there was not one point of sufficient depth to permit of his straightening up on his knees without danger of bringing his head into view of the man who waited for him over across.

Inch by inch, Carver worked his way toward a spot where a few straggling stems of tall grass were scattered about. Poor cover this, yet even a few spears of grass break up the view to a surprising extent when one is prone on the ground. In thirty minutes he had covered as many feet. He removed his hat and elevated his head.