Part 17

With footsteps muffled by the mud of Royal City, moving unseen in the night, I was truly a generous cuss. I located nothing for myself. I took the “Imperial Emporium” for Pratt, and re-located the site of the “Imperial Hotel” for Dawlin. Then I stole back into the tavern, taking off my muddy shoes at the door.

That slatted bed and the snores pealing everywhere kept me awake nearly all night, and next morning I was down before anybody else was stirring. In the gray dawn out slouched from an inner room the landlord, yawning, growling, blinking--beginning his day’s duties in a distinctly grouchy frame of mind.

“What time does the stage-coach leave for Breed City?” I asked.

“Nobody but a fool would take a stage for Breed this time of year--but a man who comes out here in March and mud-time, wearing a plug-hat, must be a fool. So you’ll leave at ha’f pas’ six,” was the landlord’s genial response.

“And what time is breakfast?”

“Time for you to get the stage. What do you want to ask such a cussed fool question as that for? What do you think I’m getting up to do at this hour in the morning?” Well, I wasn’t in any jolly mood myself. “I didn’t know but you might be up to sing a hymn to the morning star.”

“Say, you’re looking for trouble, ain’t you?” bawled the landlord. He came from behind the counter. “I’ll cave that plug--”

That made me good and mad! “No, I’m looking for cartridges to fit my guns,” I stated, pulling both weapons. “I’ve got only twelve left--six in each chamber.”

My friend checked himself so suddenly that he nearly tumbled on his nose.

“Does the store open early?”

“Yes, sir,” said the landlord, quite respectfully.

“Then I’ll take a stroll up that way. Make my bacon thick and be very careful not to fry the juice out of it.” There’s nothing like establishing a bit of a reputation in a strange town, especially if a fellow has planted seeds of trouble; I could see those laths through the window! I had begun to feel rather devilish. .

“Yes, sir,” said the landlord. “We aim to please.”

I glanced at my work of the evening before as I sauntered along the plank walk. The new laths and the white twine showed up well against the black adobe mud.

Sounds of housekeeping, clatter of dishes and of stove-covers indicated that the proprietor of the “Emporium” dwelt over the store. I rattled the door, and at last the man appeared and unlocked it from within. He was surly and slatted the box of cartridges across the counter.

“Is it because you don’t care for early customers that you have built a fence of laths and string about your place?” I inquired.

“There ain’t no such thing there.” But he hurried to the door. He gazed. He ran to the nearest lath and stooped down and read what was written thereon and cracked his fists together and kicked the lath and stamped it into the mud and swore loudly. “Pratt, hey? ‘Peacock’ Pratt trying one of his gambling bluffs because titles ain’t been settled here yet, is he? If a kettle-bellied catfish like Pratt thinks he can jump a city lot on me he’s got trouble coming his way on the down grade with the axle greased.”

There was much more that the infuriated merchant had to say regarding the general standing of Pratt, but I did not linger. I strolled into the “Imperial Hotel.”

“I knew you’d come back--they all do; but you can’t do business with me,” the landlord informed me before I had opened my mouth. “Once you turn your nose up at my house, then up it stays, as far as I am concerned! Mosey back to your pig-pen!”

“Very well! But I’ll drop back here when the new proprietor takes hold.”

“What new proprietor?”

“I suppose it’s a man named Dawlin. I note that his name appears as the man who has re-located this property.” The landlord took a jump and a look and saw the laths and string. He ran out of doors. He was an able-bodied man with a large voice, and he outdid his merchant neighbor in volume of cursing. It was plain that he was well acquainted with the mental and moral qualities of Ike Dawlin.

So I went back to my own tavern. Judge Kingsley was waiting in the office, and the landlord was talking to the old man with considerable affability.

“I was telling your friend here that we aim to please! I reckon the girl can fit you out with breakfast now if you’re minded to step into the dining-room.”

“Thank you--we’ll step in, sir. By the way, there seems to be considerable excitement on the street, Mr. Landlord. Men named Dawlin and Pratt, whoever they may be, have re-located business sites occupied by the big store and the other hotel. I just noticed that the same thing has been done to you; you’d better take a look outside.”

By the manner in which the owner of the “Pallace” pounded his way to the street it might have been guessed that the consciences of the pioneers of Royal City were not wholly clear as to their several rights of property. But the manner in which they were taking the re-locations showed that they were entirely ready to fight for what they had squatted on.

“By the bald-headed juductionary of Walla Walla County,” howled the “Pallace” landlord, “that tinhorn Dragg has sneaked out of my house in the night so as to do me up, has he?”

“Do you say it’s Dragg?” bawled the landlord of the “Imperial” from a distance. “It’s Dawlin, up here! He’s been boozing here in my house under cover for a week, but he wasn’t so drunk, so it seems, but he could dodge out last night and try to steal my property away from me.”

Say, I swapped one very large look with Zebulon Kingsley, who stood in the hotel door, staring from furious landlord to furious landlord. The old man had heard enough the night before to appreciate the value of that information in regard to Dawlin.

“It’s that skunk of a dressed-up Pratt in my case,” shouted the owner of the “Emporium” from farther up the street.

“I reckon I can show any man who tries to steal my property that I’m mighty wide awake mornings if I do sleep nights when honest men ought to be in bed,” announced the proprietor of the “Pallace.” He rushed into his hotel, and clattered up-stairs.

“When the wheels of a scheme are running in good shape it’s best to stay away and keep your fingers out of the gearing,” I said to Kingsley. “We’ll go in and eat breakfast.”

While we ate, loud voices sounded through the thin walls. Men were crowding into the hotel office. Profanity, denunciation, denial, went on and on. The judge fingered his makeshift mustache uneasily every time the bawling of Pratt was heard.

“Better keep your hands off that and drink your coffee from your spoon,” I suggested. “They’ll never know you!”

When we were ready to leave the dining-room I warned the judge not to look at Pratt. We could hear him thundering away in the office.

Dragg and Pratt were surrounded by men; the landlord of the “Pallace,” the proprietor of the “Emporium,” and a grim man with a huge revolver in his hand and a deputy sheriff’s badge on his breast were right in the front row.

“You can swear, threaten, and deny till your tongues drop off--it don’t go for a minute with us,” declared the landlord, “for we all know your style and your nerve. Because you have got away with a lot of hold-ups in other places it doesn’t go that you can come here and do us in Royal City.”

“Do you think we’d be fools enough to go and put our names on--” began Dragg, but he was promptly interrupted by the landlord.

“Whose names would you put on if you were trying to steal land for yourselves? You thought we’d rather settle than fight, that’s what! But we’re going to fight.”

It was my turn--and my chance.

“Excuse me, gentlemen. I’m a stranger to you all--merely a passing tourist. But I feel it’s my duty to state that I heard two men discussing a matter of re-locating land last evening. They were in the next room to mine in this hotel. I recognize their voices. Those are the men.” I pointed to Dragg and Pratt.

The deputy poked the muzzle of his gun into Dragg’s face to make him stop swearing. “Shut up! Everybody can see that this is a real gent, and if he’s got evidence we want to hear it.”

“The evidence isn’t much,” I said, meekly, “but I distinctly heard them say that they could clean up a nice pile of money by a re-location scheme. It was to be bluff to a large extent. If that information is worth anything you’re welcome to it. I would hate to see the prosperity of a hustling city like this held up for one moment by men trying to bunco honest citizens.”

“You listen to me,” roared Dragg. “That hellhound there is lying like a--”

The sheriff slapped him across the mouth. “There’s no real gent gets insulted by you in Royal City while I’m boss of law and order here.”

Outdoors was a noise of clanking of whiffletrees and the “ruckling” of wheels. A stage-coach, mud-daubed from tongue to roof-rail, was pulling out of an opposite stable-yard.

“I’ve got to take that stage,” raved Dragg. “The whole of Royal City can’t stop me. I’ve been monkey-doodled by a shark. He’s trying to get there ahead of me. It wouldn’t work here. I’m no fool. I knew it wouldn’t work.” He yelled so loudly and talked so rapidly that they listened to him. “My scheme was for Breed--and it was a cinch! He’s stealing it from me--that doggone, lying plug-hatter found out that I was going to re-locate claims in--”

“Seem to be convicting yourself out of your own mouth!” broke in a citizen.

“I’m going to Breed by this stage. I’ve got to go!” gasped Dragg, twisting his throat from the sheriff’s clutch.

“You’re going into the calaboose right now--and Pratt is going there, too, and Dawlin is going as soon as they get his clothes on him,” declared the officer. “Grab a-holt, boys, and help me get on the wristers.”

“You men will stay here--and Dawlin, too, till we find out what you mean by this trick,” said my landlord. “You don’t get out of here to run away and file your location claims!”

“Send a man to the county-seat,” raged Pratt. “Look at the records. That will prove that we haven’t tried anything on here.”

“We don’t need any advice from you chaps as to what we shall do--whether it’s holding you for a show-down or shooting you out of this place when we have your numbers.”

I looked at Mr. Pratt. That remark started my think-works into action. I had my men anchored, to be sure, but that wasn’t getting me anything in the money line--and without doubt Royal City would cool down pretty quickly and send the men kiting. When they scooted they would go by rail, of course. That meant difficulties, the thought of which had already discouraged me. I needed to keep those chaps in the open--and the wilder the open the better! In the brush, where it was man to man, instead of in the city where law was safe and sane--and almighty slow! I needed to be quick and crazy!

Mr. Pratt was beginning to get his wits back. He was bellowing so wildly when I accused him and Dragg that he did not seem to sense the situation. He turned to me.

“Damn your lying tongue! What do you mean by putting up this job on me?”

“I have simply stated what I overheard!”

“Heard me say that I was going to jump claims? Why, I told Dragg I wouldn’t--”

“You told Dragg that you and your partner came down here on purpose to jump claims!”

He was so mad he was nigh black in the face. “Do I know you? Have I ever done dirt to you?”

I shook my head and looked him over with contempt. From the time I had left Levant I had been at a loss to decide what front I would put on when I met up with those men who had robbed the judge. I had thought all along that my best plan would be to build on my acquaintance with Jeff Dawlin and use his tips which were to put me next to the parties I was after. Then I might be able to come up on their blind side--if they had one--and--

Well, right there I had stopped. What could I do? Then I had been hooked by that infernal Dragg! In that mess with him I had allowed chance to swing me and our fortunes. After that squabble with Dragg I could not hope to make much of a hit with his associates, eh? Therefore, I was jumping for the other extreme and I proposed to make Mr. Pratt and his friends just as ugly as insults and injury could serve. I felt like a boy thumbing his nose at angry wildcats. And in my desperation I hoped that the wildcats would come chasing me. Chasing me where? Why not to Breed, wherever that might be?

I certainly was sure of Mr. Dragg, according to his threats and his promises. And if I could stick a few more darts into the broad flanks of Mr. Pratt and leave them stinging it was full likely that Mr. Dragg’s appeals to that gentleman would have much more effect than they did the night before.

A couple of citizens came dragging in another prisoner, a red-eyed and ferociously angry person, and I knew by Judge Kingsley’s expression that the round-up was complete.

“Who says I did it? Who says I--”

“I say so!” I told him. “You held me up and you asked me to buy twine and pencil for you.”

“That’s right,” stated the merchant. “The gent is right.”

“Of course it looked all square to me,” I said. “I never heard how claim-jumpers worked!” I told them. “I saw he had been drinking and I thought the string-and-pencil notion was only his bee buzzing!”

It was reckless lying, but that crowd was too much excited to bother with mere details.

“Why, you mutt-jawed smokestack, you, I never laid eyes on you in all my life!” raged Dawlin.

“I reckon my memory is a little better than yours, for I wasn’t drunk,” I reminded him.

The sheriff was obliged to assign two more men to the controlling of Mr. Dawlin, who was a husky chap. He was far too much occupied to pay any attention to the judge, who stood in a corner and goggled at me with plain and sure conviction that I had gone stark, staring crazy.

“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars,” roared Pratt, “that--”

“You’re a cheap tinhorn. You never saw a thousand dollars.”

Mr. Pratt jumped up and down and tried to throw off the clutch of the men who were holding him.

I felt perfectly safe in that crowd; I made up my mind to keep prodding till I was sure that Mr. Pratt and his friends had developed enough interest in me so that they would give up all other business till they had settled their grudges.

I patted my breast pocket. “I always carry ten thousand dollars around with me just to keep the draughts off my chest. I find money better than a folded newspaper,” I told him.

I had been keeping my eye on the stage-coach for some few minutes. It had hauled up at the post-office. The driver came out with mail-bags and tossed them into the boot.

“Landlord, will you fetch our valises?” I asked.

“Certainly, sir!”

“I’ve got a few thousand in my own pocket,” yelled Pratt.

“So have I!” howled Dawlin.

“And we’ll spend it getting to you,” they shouted in chorus.

“It won’t cost you much to chase _me_,” I said, provokingly. “Cheap skates of your sort wouldn’t spend much getting to a man you’re afraid of.”

That taunt, in the ears of those bystanders, made Pratt and his cronies wild in earnest.

“I’m only going as far as Breed,” I said. “I’ve got to stay there for some time on business. When these good folks let you out of jail suppose you run over and call on me!”

“You don’t dare to wait there for us!” said Dawlin.

“I’ll bet you five thousand I do dare!”

They didn’t take me up on that bet. Perhaps I seemed too certain that I meant what I said. I intended to seem certain. I wanted the company of those gentlemen in Breed, no matter what the risks were. And I was mighty glad when Mr. Pratt and Mr. Dawlin had bragged about the thousands they had in their pockets. I looked into the glittering eyes of Pratt and I knew that even in his fury he was taking much comfort in his belief that I was giving him a straight tip about Breed.

“You don’t dare to hang up over there till I come,” he snarled, testing me out.

“If I am not there, I’ll hand over five hundred dollars to start a city reading-room here,” I declared. “I call on these gentlemen to bear witness.”

“I hope we won’t get the reading-room,” stated the landlord, standing with the luggage, “for I want to see a few fresh galoots get theirs.”

“It’s time to test out whether respectable business men can go about in this country without being insulted and bothered by rascals,” I observed. “Come over to Breed after Royal City gets done with you.” And just to clinch the thing I snapped my fingers under Pratt’s nose when I passed him.

I just naturally knew, that moment, that Mr. Pratt had made a binding appointment with me.

The landlord had hailed the stage, which was surging past through the mud. I was obliged to push the judge to start him toward the door; he seemed to be in a daze.

“But we’ve got to stay here,” he croaked in my ear. “They’ve got the money on ’em. They brag about it. You’ll never lay eyes on them again!”

I hurried him along the plank walk toward the coach. “Don’t fret one mite about that part, sir. If we stay here all we can do is stand outside the calaboose and ask ’em to push our money out through the bars. And I’m afraid they are not feeling generous enough just now.”

“But the law will keep them--”

“No, it won’t, sir, if I’m any judge of the sporting blood out here. Royal City will be mighty curious to find out what happens when Mr. Pratt and his friends arrive in Breed. And they’ll come! Don’t worry!”

But the judge was a stubborn old customer! He kept holding back.

“Why not settle it with ’em here?”

“Because I have always read that when a good general has a chance to do it, he picks his own battle-ground and throws up his earthworks before the enemy heaves in sight. I have picked Breed, sir! As to the earthworks, I’ll do some meditating on the way.”

Already my handy Mr. Dragg had given me the germ of a notion, though, of course, he had not meant to make me any presents.

XX--ACROSS CALLAS

THERE were four or five passengers inside the coach, and I boosted the judge over the wheel and put him in there. There was no one on the box with the driver, and that was not surprising, for I must say he did not have any coaxing way with him: he had his fists full of muddy reins and looked down on me with his mouth screwed around. I asked meekly if I might ride up there with him.

“If you think a plug-hat is going to help me any getting acrost sixteen miles of ’dobe clay, climb up! But do one thing or t’other damn quick!”

It did not look as if I would be making a specially promising friend, but I climbed just the same.

“Good luck!” said the landlord, “and I hope you’ll take it all right from us if we let ’em loose after we have shaken ’em down.”

“Send ’em along, sir. One at a time or the lot in a bunch!”

That little speech suited the crowd; I got a lot of friendly hand-waves.

A few rods from the last house in Royal City the muddy street swung to the right and sort of sneaked into the river, as if it were ashamed and wanted to wash the dirt off itself. There was no bridge. The horses plunged into the water and dragged the coach across the stream, floundering in depths that barely allowed them footing.

On the other side of the river the road whiplashed in long curves up the canon’s wall to reach the level of Callas prairie; I should say it was all of a thousand feet above the stream.

I offered to the driver comments on the weather, on the road: I offered him a cigar. I had stocked up with smokes with which to curry favor. The driver paid no attention to the comments and snarled his refusal of the cigar. Even with six horses leaping to their work under the lash, our crawl up the muddy slope was snail-like. The wheelers and swing team got the whip, and the driver heaved curses and little rocks at the leaders. He had nearly a peck of pebbles in a canvas bag at his side. When we were over the rim-rock at last and upon the prairie, I looked for more speed. But no such luck! The straining horses, half-way to their knees in the black mud, could barely move the heavy coach.

After a time the driver left what some flatterers might call a road and took to the open prairie, zigzagging here and there to find solid ground. Then intersecting gullies drove him back into the rutted road again. It was adobe mud--black as zip and as sticky as cold molasses. Every little while the driver was obliged to jump down from his seat and poke the clotted mud out between the spokes of the wheels. Otherwise the coach would have been anchored in spite of the best tussles of the horses.

“I should think they’d have to give up trying to run a stage across this prairie in mud-time,” I ventured to suggest to the driver when he came climbing back to his seat after a long assault on the mud-clogged wheels with his piece of joist.

“The mails _have_ to go, but the damn fools that I haul don’t have to,” he retorted, sorting his reins between his muddy fingers. “If you ain’t satisfied with the way I’m running this thing, mister, you can tuck yourself into that plug-hat of yours and roll across to Breed City. E-e-oyah! Go ‘long, you wall-eyed, splint-legged goats of the Bitter Root, you!”

However, I was thankful I was on the outside; the sun warmed me and the warmth was grateful, for the breeze was chilly on that upland. I could see snow on the far-distant peaks to the south. The passengers inside the coach were plainly far from feeling any thankfulness whatsoever. They groaned and growled and complained. I glanced down over the side dining one stop for wheel-clearing, and found myself looking into the face of Judge Kingsley, who had stuck his head out of the window. His false mustache gave him the appearance of an angry cat.

“How much more of this devilishness have we got to endure?” he demanded.

“That’s easy figuring, sir! Sixteen miles, sixteen hours! It must be the regular running time on this road.”

“I don’t want no sarcasm from no one,” yelped the driver, straightening up and shaking his joist. “And if any gent reckons he can keep passing out his cheap slurs on this trip he’d better come down here now and get his card entitling him to.”

I kept my gaze on the distant mountains, but when the driver climbed back to his seat and kept on cussing me out, I reckoned we’d better have a little understanding for the rest of the trip. I closed my fingers around his arm. It was only a pipe-stem arm--and his eyes were of the sad, pale-blue kind. I said very near to his ear: “Your breakfast seems to be hurting you, son! The stage company pays you to drive and to be respectful to passengers. Mind your tongue after this.”

I was trying on a little something. I have found that when you bluster and shout, the blusterer usually recognizes his own kind and blusters back. But the blowhard hasn’t any weapon when a man fights with a look and a quiet word.

“It’s the mud. It’s getting on to my nerves,” whined the man after he had driven a short distance.

“Have a smoke--it’s good for the nerves,” I invited. The driver’s hands were full of reins and whip and pebbles, so I set the end of a cigar to the drooping mouth and the driver bit off the end. Then I held a match while he sucked. And when the cigar was going he turned an appreciative grin on me.

“A fellow can’t bluff you much, can he, mister?” he remarked. “I didn’t have you sized up right at the start-off, I reckon. Why, _I_ couldn’t lick a prairie-dog with a hammer. But I bluff out most of the dudes who travel with me. I get a lot of innocent enjoyment that way. It helps pass the time for me on this jodiggered trip.”

Out of his cocoon of grouchiness he broke as a real butterfly of chatter. I got a lot of good stuff from him, for I learned the name of the mayor of Breed City and what sort of a man he was--a dry-goods merchant who took his job seriously and hollered about the development of the new place and loved those who said a good word for the municipality.