Robert Welles Ritchie

“ Most times they were sleepy-slow in glance, and had a way of resting on you as if you were of no more account than a white-faced steer in a hundred-mile landscape. Slow to kindle but deadly quick in anger; men knew this about the eyes of Sheriff Bill.
Sleep would not come to them this night because of that telegram which had leaped over the mountains to Lodge Grass to summon him back to duty—the report of Prosecutor Johnson of Broken Horn, his co-official, upon the murders on Poison Spider. ”

“ Seven riders turned off the main road to the unfenced east. They put their tough cow-ponies to that long, velvety gallop which the saddle beast of the West knows how to sustain over an unbelievable number of miles. Smash through the night! No road, no sign-post nor landmark except that distant black line where stars stopped and the heavier black began—the crest of the Little Medicine range. The night was vacant as ocean; not a tree to stand alone against the stars; scrub sage-brush so low that it as formless. ”

“ The third dawn to burn the crest of the Little Medicine range since the murders on Poison Spider limned the figure of a man on horseback, alone in the waste which was fouled by the ashes of the sheep-wagons. ”

“ Would Prosecutor Johnson dare to whip the grand jury into finding indictments even if the sheriff produced hanging evidence before that body? These were questions that buzzed from saloon-bar to eating-house.
Overnight Mammoth had filled up with clansmen from the ranges. Out of the High Country over a radius of fifty miles they came—cattle-owners, range foremen, and cow-punchers. They rallied instinctively to the center of threatened attack against their power; to await the law's nomination of victims to pay the price of murder, and then to comfort and give succor to such by their presence. ”

“ Its population might be twelve hundred—retired cattlemen, storekeepers, gamblers, and, lowest in the social scale, vagrant sheep-herders and dry-farmers grubbing on the town's charity. Life in Mammoth was ebullient, fraught with interesting surprises and unpremeditated climaxes.
There was nothing evasive about the sheriff's coming to Mammoth. He pulled his fagged pony to a walk where the stores began to rank themselves; his saddle seat was easy to a shade of slovenliness; he rolled and lit a cigarette. ”

“ Free gift of the cattlemen, his fellows, had been his elevation to the shrievalty of Broken Horn, when by legislative enactment of a year before these last hundreds of square miles in No-man's Land had been made a county, with its law machinery come to supplant the uncoded law of the range. These friends of the old Plummer Trail, round-up, and beef drive—men who had grown saddle-wise with him, slept with him at the tail of many an outfit-wagon, whooped through town with him on a rollicking holiday ”

“ From man to man spread sinister hints in half-finished sentences, the flicker of an eye, pat of a hand against holster. Talk was of the strength of jail doors and the deadly sureness of Original Bill's shooting. Then at five o'clock the men of the grand jury filed out, solemn-faced, magnificent in their importance as mute guardians of the law's secrets. ”

“ More lay behind those blue lines of type on a yellow form than just a summons back to duty—more for Original Bill Blunt, born to the cattle clan and chevalier in that order of frontier feudalism which once divided an untracked empire into the fiefs and shires of range-grounds. ”

“ One of Tisdale's remuda, willingly loaned, was under saddle in less than an hour after the train rumbled to a vanishing-point. Off went the rider into the wide oblivion beyond the two threads of steel. The north star, kept steadily over the tip of his pony's left ear, was Original's guide; he needed no other, even had others not been lacking.
He had been ten hours in the saddle and had ridden his fifth horse to exhaustion when the wide country road swooped down a little alkali hill to become Mammoth's Main Street. ”

“ The three horsemen cast glances over their shoulders and spread themselves the width of the road to block its passing. Beyond them the democrat wagon kept squarely to midcenter. Original caught the sly movement of one of the mounted cowmen's hands; instantly he had his long-barreled revolver out and across his knees. But he sensed how great the odds if it came to shooting. Those ahead knew he would not answer fire when the girl, Kit, was among them.
"Bla-a-a-awp!" challenged Betsy's horn. Horsemen nor wagon gave an inch of road.
"Hold on!" Johnson yelled over the engine's bluster. ”

“ Yes, and it was Original Bill who'd trapped the two Kay Ess boys—rigged up some flimflam about a birth-mark on a ca'tridge. Not Johnson—he was all right, and he had to go through the motions; but that sheep-herdin' traitor Bill Blunt, he was the skunk who did it!
Plummer, with one arm about Kit's waist, passed down the street from the court-house and into the Bald Eagle Hotel. As they went, men stepped aside and uncovered with the grave chivalry of a salute to a hero condemned to execution. The girl tried to smile into familiar faces, but secretly fought back tears. ”

“ The sidewalk loafers and men on horseback had frankly thrown aside pretense of polite eavesdropping and were now crowded close about the two. Original let his eye wander over eager, upturned faces of men he knew; he read in those faces all that lay behind Bear George's rough-shod interrogation. ”

“ The prosecutor was crackling like a string of squibs. Such was his nature. He was a little fox-terrier of a man, nervous, snappy, given to barking up every tree and eager to cover with much noise a secret lack of self-assurance.
"How's things stand?" Original queried in a flat voice.
"Couldn't be worse. Whole country's looking for a lay-down on our part; ready, by the Lord, to fight us if we make a move. No evidence. Usual coroner's jury verdict. Only possible to prove corpus delicti by bodies of the old man and kid found between upper and lower camps—others burned." ”

“ Keen expectancy was written on every face in the jury-box as a lanky man in squeaky boots stumped to the table and lifted one of the rifles. He aimed at nothingness and fired. A second and a third report shattered the silence in the morguelike chamber. The prosecutor then directed the foreman to eject the cartridges from the respective chambers. He marked each with a knife-blade, then passed the three warm tubes of brass to the nearest juryman. ”

“ The latter nursed a rifle between his knees. Down Main Street and off to the north country rattled the wagon. Several punchers leaped to their saddles and followed. The street buzzed with excitement.
Johnson dashed out of the stable and beckoned Original to him. In a dozen words he'd told the story of the telephone message. "Bear George's got the bulge on us," he panted. "Nothing wearing horseshoes can catch his team." ”

“ He blabbed to Bear George before he took it on the run for the court-house to report to the sheriff and prosecutor. Johnson he found, but not Original. The prosecutor was quick to grasp the significance of the news. It could be none but Joe Plummer, the missing witness, this "pindlin' ole man" who had put himself out of reach of law alone and in the night. And the long letter to Sheriff Blunt would certainly have a bearing on the murder case—perhaps a confession. He conjured the coroner to find Blunt while he ran down to the Fashion stables and ordered a team. ”

“ Two miles below is the second camp, with only two herders—one a kid—and one outfit wagon. After we get down into the valley you two reps from Kay Ess cut across and lie low near that lower wagon. Don't start nothing till you hear the circus begin up to the home camp. ”

“ He heard an oath from Bear George as the blacks veered in panic, saw swift fear play over the face of the girl, and the machine was back in the road again. Fifty—a hundred yards ahead of the team it drew, then, "Duck!" Original yelled, for Bear George had brought the blacks to a halt and was raising a rifle to his shoulder. Johnson flattened over the wheel and gave her more gas. A jet of dust leaped from the road not three feet behind the wheels. Again the rifle-crack. ”

“ Original replied. "Your father says he'll—"
"You lie!" the girl whispered between teeth that clicked. "Bill Blunt, you're planning to saddle this murder on Dad. No—no; not a word! I know. You, the boy Dad picked up on the range—the spindlin' outcast kid whom nobody claimed. Joe Plummer shared his blanket and his grub with you. Joe Plummer taught you fear of God, made a man of you, gave you your first stake of fifty head of steers. And now what do you do? Sneak and crawl up here to Kay Ess to put a rope round his neck. Oh, a coyote 'd have more decency!" ”

“ Original, rifle in hand, let himself out onto the steps and waited their approach. It was Kit Plummer who ran to him impulsively, Bear George lumbering behind.
"Where have you hidden Dad?" she choked. "Tell me! Where have you smuggled him? You and your law! You'll lie for it—cheat for it! You're not a man any more; you're a—a—" When her tears came, Bear George laid a great paw on her shoulder and clucked as he would to a mule. ”

“ Winds of the High Country speed no swifter than did the report of this circumstance. Windy Smith and Timberline Terry held on suspicion to await further action by the grand jury, and Old Man Plummer to go on the stand first thing in the morning. ”