Sandy Larch was squatted on the sand, against the wall of his shack, lacing a new leather into the cincha-ring of his saddle, and singing The Tune The Old Cow Died On. The ditty was one of his favorites, but his soul was not in it this morning and he sang as mechanically as his fingers moved about their familiar task. It was the morning after Gard’s loss of the packet, and he had been out at daybreak, going over every foot of the breaking-ground, but he could find no trace of it.
“Gosh! I’m sorry,” he muttered, testing the new strap. “I hate to see Gard look like he did fer a spell yesterday. If I had any idee Westcott had that thing, whatever it was, I’d choke it out’n him, fer a punched two-bit-piece.”
He turned the saddle over to investigate the other strap, taking up the burden of his song again:
He rolled out the chorus at the top of his lungs, as he cut loose the cincha-thongs, and had carried the next verse to
When a shadow fell upon the sand before him, and he looked up to see Wing Chang.
“Well, my Chinee friend,” he said, “Why don’t you join in? Can’t you sing?”
“No can.” The cook shook his head; then the wrinkles about his slant eyes deepened, ran downward, and met, midway of his chops, the upward ones that started around his grinning mouth.
“Allee samee you?” He questioned, slyly.
“Allee samee me what?” demanded Sandy, suspiciously.
“Sing. You catchee him?”
“Do I sing, are you askin’?” roared the foreman. “Why you yaller heathen! Ain’t you just bin hearin’ me sing?”
Wing Chang’s grin intensified, and gradually Sandy’s own visage widened genially.
“Take your rise,” he said, “you sure got it out’n me then.... Look a’ here,” he added, “What you hangin’ round here stealin’ music lessons fer? Where you bin, anyway?”
“Bin talkee Bloome,” Chang said. “Him wantee coffee.”
“Broome! What in hell’s Broome doin’ round here this time o’ day?”
The sly look deepened in Chang’s face. His slant eyes narrowed, and lost their humorous twinkle.
“Say him sick,” he explained. “Think mebby Mistlee Westclott come bimeby.”
“Not this time, my wise Chink. Westcott’s homeward bound for Tucson just about now.”
“Whafor Mistlee Glad go away?” Wing Chang asked, ignoring the other’s statement.
“I d’ know, Chang.” The foreman whistled a few notes, meditatively. The Chinaman drew nearer.
“Whafor Bloome an’ Mistlee Westclott hatee him so?”
Sandy regarded him severely.
“See here, now, Chang,” he bluffed, “You think I’m a animated booktionary work, guaranteeded to fit all your ‘whatfors’ with ‘is whats’? Not on your life. Ain’t I told you your job ’s cookin’? You don’t have to break out no question-marks on this here rancho. Sabbee dat?”
Wing Chang returned his intent look without winking.
“Him two allee samee hatee Mistlee Glad,” he repeated. “Speakee ’bout him allee timee, behind corral. Allee timee say ‘dlamn’, an’ spit, so.” He illustrated on the desert.
“Heap you know,” the foreman said, still more severely: “you think you’re a blanked Pinkerton detective, don’t you? Well you ain’t. Your job ’s beans, an’ bull meat. You go makee him.”
He waved a hand in the direction of Chang’s official quarters, and the Chinaman’s perennial grin returned.
“Allee lightee,” he said, “Then you keep look see out on Mistlee Westclott. Bimeby, he try do Mistlee Glad dirt, I makee my bull meat off him.”
He walked off, his hands in his sleeves, and Sandy Larch looked after him thoughtfully.
“Now I wonder what that Chink thinks he knows,” he mused. “Chang ain’t no fool. He’s hip to somethin’. ’T ain’t good discipline to ask questions off’n a Chink; but I sure wish I could see into his shiny skull.”
He picked up the saddle and took it into the shack, returning, after a moment, to stand in the door, humming—
He did not realize his variation on the ordinary version of his song. He had brought his warbling to a sudden finish, and stood peering out at a horseman who was riding along the edge of the farthest corral.
After a second he stepped back into the shanty, and watched through the crack of the half-open door.
“Sure’s shootin’,” he muttered, “The Chink was right. It is Westcott.”
His ear caught a low whistle that was presently answered from quarters. Sandy remembered that he, himself, was supposed to be at the upper range. He would have been on his way there but for the defect in his cincha-strap. He stopped to consider, wondering whether he had been singing loud enough for Broome to hear him.
“That’s what comes o’ tryin’ to be a prima donna,” he muttered. “But any way I bin still long enough to make him think I’m gone, if he did hear.”
He stepped out upon the sand.
“They’s something sure goin’ on out yonder,” he said, “Sandy Larch, you’re managing this here shebang while the patron’s away; why ain’t you eligible to a box-seat?”
A long row of outhouses and ranch buildings stretched out from the foreman’s shack to the men’s quarters, and still beyond these were two fodder-sheds. The last of these was about half full of hay. It stood at the very edge of the farther corral, and Sandy noted that Westcott had ridden up into its shade.
The foreman slipped off his jangling spurs, and keeping well in the shadow of the buildings, made his way to this shed. He went with wonderful lightness and quickness for so big a man, and was presently creeping among the hay bales.
Outside, Westcott sat his horse, while Broome leaned against the wall. Guided by the sound of their voices, Sandy worked his way along, close to the boards, until he was directly opposite them.
“What makes you think you know where the burro is?” Westcott was saying as Sandy came within hearing.
“That’s my think,” was the sulky reply. “I ain’t no way bound to tell you it, special as you say you don’t care about sittin’ in the game.”
“Oh, I didn’t really say that!” There was a curious ring of exultation in Westcott’s voice.
“I only said,” he resumed, “that I had my own ways of finding out things. I have; and I dare say I could put my hands on your burro, if I needed it in my business.”
“A heap you could,” Broome sneered. “Mebby you think you kin put your hands on Gard, too, if you need ’im in your bizness. Well, mebby you kin; an’ mebby you wouldn’t git smashed if you tried it.”
“Put my hands on him—” The lawyer’s voice was thick with emotion. “I’ve got the blasted fool between my thumb and finger now,” he said, “When I get ready, I can smash him like that!”
Sandy Larch heard the speaker’s two palms come together.
“Not while Sandy Larch is ’round, my fine liar-at-law,” he muttered under his breath. Then he heard Broome’s incredulous grunt.
“What’s got you bug-house?” the cowboy asked, and Westcott laughed.
“Do you want to know who this fine Mister Gabriel Gard really is?” He sneered, and the listener in the shed fairly held his breath to hear.
“Do you know? You said you didn’t.”
“I just happen to,” Westcott said, deliberately. “And I know he could no more file on a claim, or on anything else in this land, than that little she-ass you seem so keen to get hold of.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” Westcott’s voice was vibrant with hate.
“Because,” he repeated, “He’s a damned state-prison convict. That’s why not!”
Inside the shed Sandy Larch’s face shone white in the gloom. Outside there was a sound of Broome’s hard breathing. Westcott’s statement seemed to have deprived the cowboy of speech.
“Do you remember Dan Lundy?” the lawyer said, and Sandy started.
“I never knowed ’im,” Broome replied. “He was a pal o’ Sandy Larch’s.”
“So? I didn’t know that. Then this here Gard won’t be so thick here when Sandy knows. But he won’t be very thick anywhere, in the open, for that matter.” Westcott laughed.
“This fellow’s the one who did the business for Lundy,” he added.
“Killed him?”
“Knifed him in his shack. He did three years for it, and then broke jail.”
“How d’you know?”
The foreman strained his ears to listen, a look of wondering comprehension in his face.
“That’s my business,” Westcott said. “I’ve got it down in black and white. He came up to Blue Gulch when I was there, and Frank Arnold came up to take him again. That was Arnold’s last job.”
“He was drowned, I remember,” Broome spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“Either that, or this fellow that calls himself Gard did for him, as he did for Lundy. Arnold was a good man. Lord! When I think the other fellow’s hanging around here with Larch this minute—”
“He ain’t here;” Broome said. “He went off yest’day.”
“Fury! Where to?”
“I d’ know. He rode off some time in th’ afternoon. He’d lost somethin’ when we was workin’ out them blame cows, an’ was mighty cut up, I heard. An’ when he couldn’t find it he went off.”
“Skipped—blast it!” Westcott seemed to consider.
“I know what he lost, all right,” he went on. “Good thing for him Sandy Larch didn’t find it. But I’ll land him all right, too ... But that ain’t the point,” the lawyer continued. “The point is this: He can’t hold that claim. There’s nothing to keep us from walking in and taking possession, if you think you can find it.”
“You bet your life I can find it,” Broome swore.
“First, though,” Westcott spoke again, “I want to go up to Phoenix. I can get the noon train. And I’m going to fix our Mister Gard—his name was Barker in those days—as he ought to be fixed. He won’t be out of reach so that the authorities can’t find him, and he won’t get away this time. Then I’ll go down to Tucson and file that claim right. Since he’s got no legal status anyone can do that. Then I’ll come back here and we’ll talk about the rest.”
“Look a’ here,” Broome interrupted, “You don’t do no filin’ till I’m erlong, or you never gits to where the pay-streak is. You’ve gotter do some work on it anyway, before you kin file legal.”
“Oh, shut up! Tell me what the law is?” Westcott’s tone was brutal. “You blamed fool,” he said, “Do you think I can’t get along without you?”
“I ain’t sech a fool’s some,” was Broome’s retort, “I know you can’t, er you wouldn’t be here. You want me to help find the spot, an’ you know it.”
“There’s no use fighting over it,” said Westcott, more moderately; “I was going to Tucson this afternoon; but I’ll go up to Phoenix first. Mind you, now,” he added, “No funny business while I’m gone, or it’ll be a bad day for you.”
Sandy Larch heard Westcott ride away. A moment later Broome’s step sounded, returning to quarters.
The foreman waited some time before venturing out. When he did come into the light his face wore a strange, half-dazed expression.
“Well!” he finally ejaculated, “I sure got my money’s worth that time.”
He walked over to one of the corrals and stood staring with unseeing eyes at a bunch of yearlings huddled together in a corner.
“The dangnation fools!”
His exclamation seemed to afford him no relief; for presently he repeated it.
“The dangnation fools!”
“I should think,” he added, “that that there Westcott person’d wanter kick himself fer a sunbaked ’dobe ape, when he finds out what he’s bound to find out, when he gets askin’ questions along o’ Phoenix.”
“The plumb fool,” he said, again. “To think he don’t know Jim Texas confessed to killin’ Dan. The pizen-snake always said he would, an’ poor old Dan was mighty foolhardy about it.
“But, God!”—his tone was full of pity—“To think that ‘Gard’ was that poor devil of a Barker! How in tunk did he ever git where he is now?”
He picked up a bit of stone and flung it at the yearlings; not because he bore them a grudge, but through sheer vexation of spirit.
“If he’d only a’ told me,” his thoughts went back to Gard. “If he’d only a’ trusted me, ’stid o’ writin’ it out fer that hell-dog to find.” He leaned upon the top-rail of the corral and sighed.
“Lord,” he said, “I’m pretty near all in. It’s too much fer Sandy!”
He could not understand Gard’s agitation over the loss of his packet, if, as he now surmised, it merely contained the papers by which Westcott had identified him. He pondered the matter for some time, and then light dawned.
“Look a’ here!” he cried. “He’s in the same boat’s Westcott! He’s bin up in the mountains ever since he made his getaway; that’s what! Fer some reason or other he’s just come down, I wondered where in tunk he’d drifted in from. An’ he ain’t found out yet about Jim Texas.”
Silence again, while Sandy meditated upon the situation. Then another phase of it struck him.
“What’s he doin’ round here, anyway? Why ain’t he showin’ some enterprise? What’s he hangin’ round Kate Hallard for?”
He could not tell. It was the one thing about Gard that to him seemed to need explanation, and he would trust his friend without that. He was dismissing the matter when a fresh thought came.
“If he don’t know,” he muttered. “If he ain’t fixed his matters up, then that sneakin’ law-buzzard’s right. He can’t file any claim. They can do him, there; even if they can’t jail ’im. By the powers! That’s what they can do; an’ here I am, can’t leave the rancho!”
He groaned as this thought came home to him. He realized that he must stay at the Palo Verde: Morgan Anderson had left him in charge.
“If ’twant fer leavin’ the little gal all alone—” He stood distractedly considering.
“I don’t know enough about it anyway,” he at last exclaimed in despair. “Ah! That’s where Kate Hallard comes in.”
The words were scarcely off his lips when looking up, he gave a low whistle of surprise.
“Sure ’s beeswax,” he said, softly, unconsciously straightening up. “Here’s exactly where Kate Hallard comes in.”
It was in fact Mrs. Hallard, riding in from the desert, her handsome face more troubled in expression than Sandy had ever imagined it could be.
“Hello, Kate,” he called, going to meet her. “What’s up? You don’t look like you was out fer your health so to speak.”
“I ain’t.” Mrs. Hallard drew rein and looked down at the foreman.
“I ain’t out fer my health an’ I ain’t sure what I be out after,” she said, without further preamble.
“Ash Westcott was in t’ the grille this morning tryin’ to make a deal with me in a matter Mr. Gard’s been tendin’ to fer me. I wouldn’t swap no lies with him and bimeby he gets mad an’ runs off a lot o’ talk I don’t seem to get straight, but it sounded like he had Gard nailed, an’ was goin’ to do ’im dirt. Sure’s you live, Sandy, he’s meanin’ mischief. I’m worried.”
She turned her horse toward the shade, Sandy walking beside her.
“I d’ know what to do,” she continued. “Mr. Gard, he’s gone off on business o’ mine an’ I d’ know what Westcott is cookin’ up against him. I know he’s got a good-will to do him all the harm he can, though, an’ I come over to talk to you about it.”
The cow-puncher stood regarding her, intently.
“Kate,” he said, “do you know who this Gabriel Gard really is?”
She looked at him blankly, her hard face set.
“You don’t need stand me off,” he cried. “If you’re his friend you know I am, too. An’ he’s sure needin’ us both.”
He told her, with picturesque brevity, of Gard’s loss and Westcott’s find, and of the talk which he had overheard between Westcott and Broome.
“Them blamed sneakin’ coyotes is puttin’ up a cinch game on our man,” he said, when he had finished, “an’ something’s gotter be done about it. Where’s Gard gone? Is that his real name? Why ain’t he lookin’ after his matters?”
Mrs. Hallard was thinking fast. Sandy’s story had been illuminating in many ways.
“You’re dead right about one thing, Sandy,” she said. “He don’t know about Jim Texas. That’s what’s bin eatin’ ’im.”
She suddenly realized the significance of Gard’s answer to her question about Helen Anderson. He did not know that his innocence was practically established.
“Well,” Sandy demanded, “what in thunder’s he doin’ round here then? Why ain’t he tryin’ to fix things up fer himself? He’s got a’ plenty cash. He ought to be gittin’ a good lawyer an’ seein’ if he can’t prove his innercence. As ’tis now, he must think he’s likely to be jugged any minit.”
Kate Hallard’s eyes flashed.
“He does think so,” she cried. “He’s afraid of it, too. That I know. An’ bein’ afraid, here’s what the man does.”
She leaned from the saddle and looked Sandy in the eyes.
“He somehow gits hold of a deed o’ Sam Hallard’s, to that Modesta range Sam bought just ’fore he was killed. I give that deed to Arnold to record, an’ Mr. Gard ain’t said nothin’ to me, but I figure he an’ Arnold was together when the cloudburst come that gits Arnold. He got Frank’s coat, someway, an’ that deed was in the pocket. I d’ know where he’s bin all this time, but I know one thing. He ain’t bin in no wickedness.”
“Bet your life not,” Sandy assented. “Drive erlong, Kate.”
“Well: the deed’s bin lost these two years, an’ that devil, Westcott, he found it out, an’ he done me out’n the prop’ty. Oh! He’s a side-winder, fer sure!”
“That’s no lie,” was Sandy’s comment.
“It’s plain ’s day,” Mrs. Hallard went on. “You say he’s got a’ plenty cash. I know he could light out from here an’ go where he could live like a lord. He’s got that much a’ plenty. But ’stid o’ that he comes back here to this God-forsaken place; an’ what for? Why to help me. He must a’ tracked over half the territory to find me an’ gimme back that deed; an’ when he finds how things stands he settles down here to see I git my rights. With this thing a’ hangin’ over him, so far’s he knows, he’s gone back where he was known, to try ’n’ find a feller that witnessed the transfer....”
Kate Hallard was all but sobbing with excitement and fear.
“Lord above us,—if they is any!” she gasped. “They ain’t never a man like that. He’s pure angel!”
“Naw; he ain’t that, quite,” Sandy said, swallowing hard. “He’s man enough to need that gold-mine in his business, one o’ these days, an’ he stands to git robbed o’ that, I’m afraid.”
“How can they touch it? He’s an innercent man.”
“Yes; but he’s a criminal yet, in the eyes o’ the law, if he ain’t bin pardoned an’ cleared. So his notice an’ filin’ ain’t legal.”
“Hell!” he exclaimed, and begged pardon next instant. “I wish I was in Prescott,” he added.
“What would you do in Prescott?” Mrs. Hallard asked, eagerly.
“Do? I’d see the Gov’nor; git them papers made out, an’ scoot fer Tucson an’ bring that there filin’ up to date.”
“Heavens an’ earth! Kin anybody do that fer ’im?”
“Sure.”
“Then look here, Sandy Larch: I’m goin’ to Prescott.”
“You?”
“Yes, me; why not? You say anybody kin see the Gov’nor fer ’im. Well: they ain’t many people knows Dave Marden much better ’n I did once. I rather reckon he’d do ’s much fer me ’s fer you.”
There was a deeper hue in the speaker’s cheek than even excitement had touched it to: but the foreman did not notice it.
“Bully fer you Kate!” he cried. “I’m inclined to think well o’ that scheme o’ your’n.”
“I’ll have to hustle if I’m goin’ to git away to-day.” Mrs. Hallard was practical and alert at once. “I guess I can skip back an’ git ready to catch the night train. That’ll get me to Prescott in the morning.”
“Westcott, he’s just gone up on the noon run,” Sandy explained. “He’ll be goin’ on to Phoenix I reckon.”
“Lord! I don’t wanter see him. I’m glad I couldn’t get that train if I tried.” Mrs. Hallard was already riding away.
“So long, Sandy!” she cried, over her shoulder. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good luck to you!” Sandy waved his big cowboy hat.
“Kate’ll fetch it I reckon,” he muttered, turning toward the sheds. “But now who’d a’ thunk we’d a’ fixed it up that a’way? Gosh-hemlock! What funny things you see when you ain’t got a gun!”
Kate Hallard, meantime, was thinking of many things as she rode back to Sylvania. The tide of old memories was at flood as she thought of the man whom she was going to see in Gard’s behalf. She had spoken truly when she told Sandy Larch she had once known the Governor well. How well, was a matter that lay deep in her heart, a part of her hard, sordid, unprotected girlhood, dead and buried now these thousand years, it seemed to her. Something within her that she had thought was dead with it shrank from the encounter of the morrow, but cowardice was not one of the woman’s weaknesses. She set her shoulders squarely at the memory of what Gard was braving for her.
“They’s one thing sure,” she said, half aloud. “Dave’ll do anything can be done. I reckon I can bank on that. He wa’ n’t a bad sort in the old days.”
The road ran along the edge of an ancient lake, now a sea of sand, and for many years, in the new order, the great rodeo ground of the region. The entrance was yet marked by two big posts, one of which bore a great yellow-and-black poster, such as the Salvation Army puts up through the desert wastes, seeking to turn the plainsman’s thoughts to higher things.
Beneath the poster, on the sand, a bull-snake and a burrowing owl fraternized comfortably at the mouth of the hole that was their common dwelling. Above it a carrion crow perched, cawing dismally at the scene. The poster itself was sun-bleached and weather-worn, peppered with the bullets of passing cowboys who had taken jocular shots at it, and beaten by the blown desert-sand, but still legible. Kate Hallard had seen many of its kind; had passed this very one on her way out that morning. She glanced at it now.
“FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH ON HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH—” The rest was obliterated.
In her softened mood the words held her attention as they had never before done. She checked her horse to read them again.
“I d’ know much about it,” she murmured. “The desert’s always been a mighty handy place fer perishin’; if they was a God, now, an’ He was int’rested enough to give us a few more folks like this here Gabriel Gard, I guess mebby believin’ ’d come handier, too.”
She rode on again, still thinking of Gard.
“We’ve got to help him out o’ this.” A dull flush crept up to her hair and her black eyes suddenly filled with unfamiliar tears.
“Go to Dave Marden fer him—” she cried, “Lord! I’d go to the Old Nick himself to help him, an’ that’s the truth!”
