CHAPTER XXI—THE LAW AND THE LAWLESS
When Lex was gone, Dot gave the sympathetic hotel man the details of the raid on the ranch, omitting nothing except the fact of her father’s abduction and subsequent rescue; for she believed it unwise at this time when Lemuel was being accused of having friendly relations with Billy Gee, to mention the important part—heroic and praiseworthy though it was—the latter had played in the night’s events. She was positive that the raiders themselves would keep silent on the matter, if for no other reason than to cover up the lawlessness of their own act.
“But have you any proof that Quintell is at the bottom of this persecution, Dot?” asked Merriman, when she concluded.
“No. Not direct proof, but——”
“In that case, I wouldn’t make any rash move. If you have him arrested, it will simply aggravate the situation. You’d be worse off for it. Right now, Quintell is a power in Geerusalem. He is the new president of the Mining Exchange, besides. His clique is in absolute control. You couldn’t get a person to believe your charges. I’d advise you to wait—talk it over with Warburton first.”
“But, Mr. Merriman, this whole thing is a plot to ruin us,” cried the girl. “I don’t know why. We have never had dealings with the people of this camp, except to patronize the stores, and all our bills are paid. In the light of what happened last night, would you have us fold our hands and let them do what they seem bent on doing—force us to leave the country?”
Merriman patted her shoulder paternally. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that, Dot,” he said with a smile. “Things will adjust themselves, I know. Right now, the prudent course to pursue is to say nothing and see that your father remains away for a while.”
Dot gazed significantly at him a moment, then she said: “Quintell was out to see father early last evening. He wanted to buy the ranch. He offered better than thirty dollars an acre—ten thousand dollars. Would you pay that much for the Huntington ranch, Mr. Merriman, just as it stands?”
The man’s eyes opened wide with surprise. He whistled softly and replied, with a shrewd nod of his head: “So that’s it! I think I see the scheme, Dot—and it is a scheme. Something about your father’s ranch has made it valuable to Jule. And it’s mineral—nothing less. I’d say it was pretty good, because he never bothers with anything that isn’t pretty good. He’s liable to go the limit, Dot. Perhaps I shouldn’t say it, but he can be mighty dirty in his methods.”
“You might be right, but I don’t think he wants the ranch for the mineral that may be on it,” said the girl. “I am sure he has some other object. Did you ever hear talk of a resort, to be established a few miles out of camp?”
“Do you mean a summer resort?”
“Yes, something on that order.”
He smiled. “I was discussing with Harrison, Quintell’s secretary, some weeks ago, the possibility of starting such an enterprise. He seemed interested—enthusiastic, I might say. I believe we mentioned your father’s ranch as one of the sites. Of course, you understand, we were just speculating. While a resort would be a veritable mint once it got going, the initial investment would be prohibitive so far as I’m concerned. Why do you ask?”
Dot’s eyes glowed on him. “Mr. Merriman, if I entertained any doubts as to whether Quintell had a hand in last night’s outrage, you have dispelled them,” she said. Thereupon, she related to him the particulars of Dick Lennox’s visit to her and Lemuel at the Golden West Hotel in San Francisco.
They were still talking when Lex returned. He announced that he had dispatched a machine to bring Mrs. Liggs to camp, and instructed the driver to tell Warburton—in the event the latter was at the ranch—that Dot wished to see him immediately. Moreover, he had sent a cowboy riding for Blue Mud Springs, with a letter counseling Lemuel to remain in hiding, as well as requesting Warburton’s presence in Geerusalem.
While Dot and Lex were at breakfast in the hotel dining room, six horsemen rode singly out of camp. They were armed. They were old in the game of hip-shooting—practiced in the grim art of killing. They could keep a can dancing in midair as long as loaded six-shooters held out. In the pocket of each was a neat little roll of bills, slipped there by Jule Quintell’s right bower, Harrison. Their instructions were to seize the hill on the Huntington ranch, destroy the location monuments and notices on what were known as the Billy Geerusalem group of claims—locators, Tinnemaha Pete Boyd and Jerome Liggs—and relocate over their own signatures.
Reposing in Quintell’s safe in the Broker’s Exchange Building were deeds signed in advance by the six, which transferred what they intended to get possession of to the boss of Geerusalem and his associates. The deep motive beneath this move, however, was the death of Jerome Liggs and Tinnemaha Pete. That Dot’s father escaped a similar sentence was due, not entirely to Quintell’s hesitation to take so rash a step, as to the fact that, after hearing the report of the vigilantes’ work as given by Big George Rankin, the broker—following a furious scene in his office—had arrived at the conclusion that the havoc wrought at the ranch coupled with the terror with which Huntington and his daughter must be now inspired, sufficed to force them into a position to meet his terms for the purchase of the ranch.
But of his contemplated cold-blooded murder of the discoverers of the rich Billy Geerusalem strike, Quintell said nothing to his associates. Their putting away had nothing directly to do with this obvious act of dispossession. As has been said, Huntington owned the land on which the bonanza find had been made; the broker knew this and, in consequence, realized only too well that legal right to it must come from its owner, who, it must be remembered, had not the remotest idea of the fabulous treasure buried in the bleak, solitary hill west of his home.
Meanwhile, Quintell was busy stirring up public sentiment in the camp against Huntington. He had called a meeting the night before and charged that Billy Gee, the outlaw, had been found in hiding on the Huntington ranch. While he had not seen the bandit, Quintell gave a graphic account of an exciting chase after that elusive person, which had terminated when Sheriff Warburton mistook him for Billy Gee in the darkness, and dragged him into the house, resulting in the outlaw’s escape.
His whole story was a clever network of lies, convincingly told, and calculated to brand Dot’s father as an undesirable resident, if nothing worse; one who was scarcely as honest as Billy Gee, since Quintell made him appear as an accomplice who had been masquerading for years in the rôle of a reputable, law-abiding rancher. Moreover, he assailed Warburton by pointing to the latter’s friendship for Huntington, and intimated that Billy Gee’s sensational get-away from the sheriff, following Lemuel’s delivery of his prisoner to the official, was framed for the purpose of getting the reward which, he gave as his opinion, had been divided equally among the three. And because Quintell had a smooth tongue and a way of putting things over, Geerusalem believed his charges.
At the appointed hour—ten o’clock—Lex Sangerly left Dot in the hotel parlor and stepped over to Quintell’s office to accompany the broker on an inspection tour of the Lucky Boy placer claims. He went with reluctance, feeling more keenly than on the day previous his suspicions of Quintell in regard to the right of way matter, to which was added a profound indignation and rage against this wildcatter who was, from all Lex could hear, the cause of the Huntington raid.
A few minutes after Lex’s departure, Mrs. Liggs and Sheriff Warburton arrived in camp, and, as the result of a short talk he had with Dot, Warburton prevailed on her to take no immediate action looking to the arrest of Quintell, until he had investigated the case. Leaving the two women, he strolled out of the hotel and stood listening to a discussion going on among the members of a crowd of men standing before the entrance. Lemuel Huntington was being roundly condemned. There were ominous grumblings, threats being voiced; mob law was being openly fomented. To Warburton, wise in the psychology of crime and the natures of men, darkness alone was needed to spread the flame of lawlessness over that wild desert settlement. It would sweep through the underworld section, and thence from one mine bunk house to another, calling out the habitués of the dens and the grimy underground workers to mass in one vicious, formidable army, that, venting its violence on the Huntington ranch and its household, might finish out the night with an orgy of destruction and murder in the camp itself.
He looked up and down the street. Groups of men were everywhere. His eyes rested on the gilt sign bearing Quintell’s name, on the Brokers’ Exchange Building. A grim smile parted his lips. Quintell was surely a power in Geerusalem, he told himself. Presently his eye fell on the dapper figure of the town constable. The fellow, in correct mining camp attire—the rakish cut approved by the ranking element—stood spread-legged on the sidewalk, complacently smoking a cigarette. Warburton’s jaws set. He strode over to the man.
“Hullo, Mitchell!” he said gruffly.
The other glanced at the sheriff’s face with its two weeks’ growth of bristly whiskers, at the dirty shirt and overalls, then back at their owner’s face.
“It isn’t possible that it’s Sheriff Warburton?” he began, with a grin.
“It is. When I’m doin’ my duty, Mitchell, I don’t tog up. I’d like to talk to you a minute.” He led the way to the hotel office, halting just inside the entrance. “What’re you goin’ to do about this thing—all this lynch-law stuff they’re cookin’ up?” he asked.
The constable chuckled. “Do? Why, I’m powerless to do anything. A man would be crazy to interfere. The sentiment of the camp is such that if I butted in, they’d swear I was trying to protect Huntington and——”
“What’re you sportin’ that tin buzzer for,” broke in Warburton, with a contemptuous nod at the silver star on the breast of Mitchell’s tailored coat.
The man flushed angrily. “Say, Warburton, what’s eating you, anyhow?” he asked defiantly. “I’m constable of this township and——”
“You’ll find out what’s eatin’ me, in jest about ten minutes,” snapped the sheriff. “You git on the job or, by God, you’ll wisht you had! I’m tellin’ you somepn, Mitchell.” Glaring at the other, he turned and walked out of the door.
Mitchell’s rough laugh followed him.
Raging inwardly, cursing to himself, Warburton halted on the sidewalk. Word of his presence in camp had traveled like magic, and the crowd before the hotel was fast filling the street from curb to curb. It was an ominous crowd, the dregs of the settlement mingling with the army of mine workers, with here and there one of Quintell’s associates, circulating through the ranks whispering words of advice. Standing there in full view of the multitude, glancing it over, Warburton marked the hostility in its look and attitude. Caustic remarks began to be directed at him.
“Where’s your bandit friend, sheriff?”
“Hey, fellers, there’s Huntington’s bodyguard!”
“Billy Gee’s duck-hunting on the Huntington ranch, Warburton. Why don’t you go get him?”
Warburton’s jaw set. His eyes flickered dangerously. A few yards away, grouped together on the sidewalk, stood a dozen or more cow-punchers—members of the Las Animas ranch, a large principality of fertile range on the north rim of Soapweed Plains—their great hats and gaudy silk neckerchiefs conspicuous in that sea of drab sameness. Having nothing in common with the men of the mines, they stood, curious spectators of the drama that was being enacted before them, maintaining a strictly neutral attitude in an affair of which they knew absolutely nothing. They had arrived in camp an hour before for a three-day lark and, true to the traditions of their kind, were willing to accept whatever fate tendered them—so long as it promised a departure from the usual humdrum of their daily existence.
Warburton gave them a significant look, then he faced the crowd again and raised his hand for silence.
So it was, that, as Quintell, accompanied by Lex Sangerly, Harrison, and two other men drove down the street in a machine bound for the Lucky Boy placer claims, they found the greatest throng ever assembled in Geerusalem gathered before the Miners’ Hotel, listening to Sheriff Warburton’s defense of Lemuel Huntington. The official was speaking vehemently, angrily, looking massive and potential from his elevated position on a hotel chair.
Quintell, who was driving, steered the car through the jam of men to a point opposite the speaker. He was pale, his eyes blazing with hatred. Warburton was just bringing his talk to a conclusion.
“An’ that’s how I happen to be in these parts. I’ve swore to git Billy Gee, dead or alive, an’ that’s what I aim to do. I was at the ranch last night from start to finish—like I jest said. An’ the man that says Lem Huntington is in cahoots with Billy Gee is a damn liar.”
Quintell slipped out from back of the steering wheel and stood up. Neatly groomed, his appearance—compared with the sheriff’s—at once dignified and impressive, he merited in every particular the title he had earned—boss of Geerusalem. With a sharp glance over the crowd, he began in a slow, ringing voice:
“Men of Geerusalem! I want you to all know that, regardless of what this sheriff of San Buenaventura County has said, he is not only an intimate friend of Lemuel Huntington, but the very man who has let Billy Gee slip through his fingers twice. There stands efficiency for you.” He leveled an accusing finger at Warburton. “There’s the stripe of official the taxpayers of this county are supporting—an official who has the audacity to address an intelligent audience of this kind in an endeavor to whitewash the shrewdest crook who ever betrayed the trust of the good people of this camp and section. Gentlemen, it’s this official’s word against mine. I charge Lemuel Huntington with being on intimate terms with an outlaw. Whom are you going to believe?”
A wild, deafening roar went up, increasing in volume as Warburton, his face purple with fury, made an attempt to speak.
“Lynch him! Lynch him! Get Huntington!” howled the multitude.
They swarmed about Quintell’s machine, clamoring their approval of the broker. The din and excitement grew. Sheriff Warburton stood deserted, ignored, outraged. The veins on his forehead and neck were swelled to bursting, his big hands opened and shut with an odd, slow movement. Lex Sangerly, sitting in the seat beside Quintell, watched him curiously. From behind the curtains of a second-story window, Dot and Mrs. Liggs looked down terrified at the mob of infuriated men.
Warburton’s eyes sought the group of cow-punchers again. He stepped down off the chair and reached them in two strides. A few curt words sent them hurrying off to a stable around the nearest corner. Then, his jaw set determinedly, the sheriff elbowed his way through the crowd to the side of Quintell’s machine.
“I’m warnin’ every man here ag’in startin’ anything,” he shouted. “As sheriff of this county, I’ll enforce the law if I got to shoot to do it. Understand that! An’ if I can’t do it, there’s national guards that kin. Keep away from Huntington an’ his ranch, if you ain’t lookin’ for trouble.” He turned to Quintell, who stood eying him venomously. “As for you, Mr. Man, if you don’t want to be throwed in for inspirin’ violence, you’d better git a-goin’. Drive on, or I’ll show you what kind of an official you got to deal with!”
Quintell hesitated; then he slid reluctantly into his seat. As the car started moving off, he fastened his fiery gaze on Warburton.
“We’ll meet again, sheriff,” he snarled back. “You can’t bluff me. You may protect a crook, but you won’t get away with it—not if I can stop it! Huntington goes. Remember that!”
The cow-punchers of the Las Animas ranch came spurring into the street at that moment, and at Warburton’s orders began dispersing the crowd. A little later, while Constable Mitchell was indignantly condemning the sheriff’s action to a group of Quintell’s supporters in the hotel office, Warburton entered and placed him under arrest and marched him off to the camp’s jail. Relieving him of his keys, the sheriff locked the fellow in a cell and placed two riders on guard.
“This ain’t very formal, Mitchell,” he said grimly, “’cos I ain’t got time to monkey with warrants and citations. You kin take yore pick whether you turn in yore star or git yanked up before the grand jury.”