The One-Way Trail: A story of the cattle country

CHAPTER XXII
THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE

Silas Rocket’s saloon was more than usually desirable just now. There was so much news of an exciting nature going about. Of course, fertile invention was brought to bear in its purveyance, but that only made it the more exciting.

On the morning that brought Jim Thorpe into Barnriff many of the men of the village were partaking of a general hash up of the overnight dish of news, to which was added the delectable condiment of Jim’s sudden advent in their midst. From the windows of the saloon his movements were closely watched, as, also, were they from many of the village houses. Speculation was rife. Curious eyes and bitter thoughts were in full play, while his meeting with Eve Henderson was sufficiently significant to the scandalous minds of the more virtuous women and the coarser men.

The saloon rang with a discordant blending of curses aimed at the head of the unconscious visitor, and ribald jests at the expense of the absent gold discoverer.

For the moment Anthony Smallbones had the floor. It was a position he never failed to enjoy. He loved publicity. And, in his secret mind, he firmly believed that, but for the presence of Doc Crombie in the village, he would undoubtedly have held place and power, and have been dictating the destiny of the village. Thus it was that, just now, a considerable measure of his spleen was aimed at the absent doctor.

“It’s clear as day. That’s sure. Doc Crombie’s hangin’ back,” he was saying, in his curiously mean, high-pitched voice. “It ain’t for me to say he ain’t got grit. No, folks. But it’s easy to guess for why he hangs back.” He blinked truculently into the faces gathered about him, mutely daring anybody else to state that reason. But few cared to discuss the redoubtable doctor, so he was permitted to continue. “Doc’s a sight too friendly disposed toward sech a skunk as Jim Thorpe. We’ve clear enough proof that feller is a cattle-rustler. We’ve the evidence of our eyes, sure. There’s the cattle; ther’s his brand–and–running with his own stock, hidden away up in the foot-hills. Do we need more? Psha! No. At least no one with any savvee. I’ve see fellers strung up on less evidence than that, an’ I’ve bin on the–”

“Rope?” inquired Gay, sarcastically.

“Not the rope, mister. Not the rope, but the committee as condemned ’em,” retorted Smallbones, angrily.

“Wuss!” exclaimed the baker with profound contempt.

“Eh?” snarled the little man with an evil upward glance at the other.

“Jest this,” cried Wilkes with heat. “The feller that hangs his feller man on slim evidence is a lousy, yaller skunk. Say he’d orter hev his belly tarred, an’ a sky-rocket turned loose in his vitals. I sez right here the evidence against Jim ain’t ’nuff to condemn a gopher. It’s positive ridiculous. Wot needs provin’ is, who set that brand on McLagan’s cattle? That’s the question I’m astin’.”

“Psha! You make me sick!” cried Smallbones, his ferret-eyes dancing with rage. “Put your question. An’ when you put it, who’s got to get busy answerin’? I tell you it’s up to Jim Thorpe to prove he didn’t brand ’em. If he can’t do that satisfact’ry, then he’s got to swing.”

But he had a divided audience. Gay shook his head, and two others audibly disagreed with his methods. But, in spite of this, the weight of opinion against Jim might easily have been carried had not the carpenter suddenly swept the last chance clear from under Smallbones’ feet.

“Wal,” cried the furious Jake, with such swift heat that even those who knew him best were staggered, “I’d sooner call a cattle-rustler friend than claim friendship, with such a low-down bum as Anthony Smallbones. Say, you scrap-iron niggler,” he cried, advancing threateningly upon his victim. “I’ll tell you something that ain’t likely leaked in that sieve head o’ yours. Cattle-rustlers is mostly men. Mebbe they’re low-down, murderin’ pirates, but they’re men–as us folks understands men. They ain’t allus skunkin’ behind Bible trac’s ’cos they’re scairt to git out in the open. They’re allus ready to put up a gamble, with their lives for the pot. An’ when they gits it I guess they’re sure ready to take their med’cine wi’out squealin’. Which needs grit an’ nerve. Two things I don’t guess Anthony Smallbones has ever heerd tell of outside a dime fiction. No, sir, I guess you got a foul, psalm-singin’ tongue, but you ain’t got no grit. Say,” he added witheringly, “I’d hate to see such a miser’ble spectacle as you goin’ to a man’s death. I’d git sick feelin’ sore I belonged to the human race. Nope, you couldn’t never be a man. Say, you ain’t even a–louse.”

The laugh that followed ruined Smallbones’ last chance of influencing the public mind. He spluttered and shouted furiously, but no one would listen. And, in the midst of his discomfiture, a diversion was created by the entrance of a small man with a round, cheery face and bad feet. He was a freighter. He walked to the bar, called for a drink, and inquired where Mrs. Henderson lived. It was his inquiry that made him the centre of interest at once.

“Mrs. Henderson?” said Silas, as he set the whiskey before his customer. “Guess that’s her shanty yonder.” And he pointed through the window nearest him. “Freight?” he inquired casually, after the little man had taken his bearings.

“Sure. Harmonium.”

“Eh?”

Rocket’s astonishment was reflected in all the faces now crowding round.

“Yep.” Then the freighter perceived the interest he had created, and promptly became expansive. “From the Æolian Musical Corporation, Highfield, Californy. To order of William Henderson, shipped to wife of same, Barnriff, Montana. Kind o’ musical around these parts?”

“Wal, we’re comin’ on–comin’ on nicely,” observed Silas, winking at his friends gathered round.

Gay nodded, and proceeded to support him.

“Y’see, most of our leddies has got higher than ’cordions an’ sech things. Though I ’lows a concertina takes a beatin’. Still, education has got loose on Barnriff, an’ I heerd tell as ther’s some o’ the folks yearnin’ fer piannys. I did hear one of our leadin’ citizens, Mr. Anthony Smallbones, was about to finance a brass band layout.”

“Ther’ ain’t nuthin’ to beat a slap-up band,” agreed the freighter politely. “But these yer harmoniums, they’re kind o’ cussed, some. Guess my ma had one some years back, but she traded it off fer a new cook-stove, with a line o’ Chicago bacon thrown in. I won’t say but she had the best o’ the deal, too. Y’see that ther’ harmonium had its drawbacks. You never could gamble if it had a cold in the head or a mortal pain in its vitals. It wus kind o’ passionate in some of its keys, and wep’ an’ sniveled like a spanked kid in others. Then it would yep like a hound if you happened to push the wrong button, an’ groan to beat the band if you didn’t. Nope. They’re cur’us things if they ain’t treat right, an’ I guess my ma hadn’t got the knack o’ pullin’ them bolts right. Y’see she’d been trained hoein’ kebbeges on a farm in her early years, an’ I guess ther’ ain’t nothin’ more calc’lated to fix a woman queer fer the doin’s o’ perlite sassiety than hoein’ kebbeges. Guess I’ll get right on.”

He paid for his drink, and, followed by the whole company, hobbled out to his wagon. He was a queer figure, but, at the moment, his defects were forgotten in the interest created by his mission to Barnriff.

What prosperity the possession of a harmonium suggested to those men might have been judged by the attitude they took up the moment they were outside. They crowded round the wagon and gazed at the baize-covered instrument, caged within its protecting crate. They reached out and felt it through the baize; they peeked in through the gaping covering, and a hushed awe prevailed, until, with a cheery wave of the hand, the teamster drove off in the direction of Eve’s house.

Then the chorus of comment broke out.

“Gee!” exclaimed Wilkes. “A–a harmonium!” Then, overpowered by his emotion, he remained silent.

“Psha! Makes me sick!” cried Smallbones. “My sister in Iowa has got a fiddle; an’ I know she plays five toons on it–I’ve heerd her. She’s got a mouth organ, too, an’ a musical-box–electric! One ’ud think nobody had got nuthin’ but Will Henderson.” He strode back to the bar in dudgeon, filled to the brim with malicious envy.

Others took quite a different tone.

“It’s walnut,” said Restless, his professional instincts fully alert.

“Yep,” agreed Gay, “burr!”

“An’ it’s got pipes,” cried Rust, impressively. “I see ’em sure, stickin’ up under its wrappin’.”

“Most likely imitation,” suggested Gay, with commercial wisdom. “Y’see them things needs fakin’ up to please the eye. If they please the eye, they ain’t like to hit the ear-drums so bad. Wimmin is cur’us that aways.”

“Mebbe,” agreed Rust, bowing to the butcher’s superior knowledge. “But I guess it must ’a’ cost a heap o’ dollars. Say, Will must ’a’ got it rich. I’d like to savvee wher’,” he added, with a sigh, as they thoughtfully returned to the bar.

But nobody paid any attention to the blacksmith’s regrets. They were all too busy with their own. There was not a man amongst them but had been duly impressed by the arrival of the harmonium. Gay, who was prosperous, felt that a musical instrument was not altogether beyond his means. In fact, then and there he got the idea of his wife learning to play a couple of funeral hymns, so he’d be able to charge more for interments, and, at the same time, make them more artistic.

Restless, too, was mildly envious. But being a carpenter, he got no further in his admiration of Will’s wealth than the fact that he could decorate his home with burr walnut. He had always believed he had done well for himself in possessing a second-hand mahogany bureau, and an ash bedstead, but, after all, these were mere necessities, and their glory faded before burr walnut.

Rust, being a mere blacksmith, considered the wood but little, while the pipes fairly dazzled him. Henderson with a pipe organ! That was the wonder. He had only the vaguest notion of the cost, but, somewhere in the back of his head, he had a shadowy idea that such things ran into thousands of dollars.

A sort of depression crowded down the bar-room after the arrival of the harmonium. Nobody seemed inclined to drink, and talk was somehow impossible. Nor was it until Smallbones suddenly started, and gleefully pointed at the window, and informed the company that Jim Thorpe and Eve had parted at last at the gate of her cabbage patch, and that he was coming across to the saloon, that the gloom vanished, and a rapidly rising excitement took its place. All eyes were at once turned upon the window, and Smallbones again tasted the sweets of public prominence.

“Say,” he cried, “he’s comin’ right here. The nerve of it. I ’lows it’s up to us to get busy. I say he’s a cattle-thief, an’–”

But Jake turned on him furiously.

“Shut your ugly face,” he cried, “or–or I’ll break it.”

The baker’s threat was effective. Smallbones relapsed into moody silence, his beady eyes watching with the others the coming of the horseman. As Jim drew near they backed from the window. But they lost nothing of his movements. They watched him hitch his horse to the tying-post. They watched him thoughtfully loosen his cinchas. They saw that he had a roll of blankets at the cantle of his saddle, and saddle-bags at its sides. They saw, also, that he was armed liberally. A pair of guns on his saddle, and one attached to the cartridge belt about his hips. Each mind was speculating, and each mind was puzzled at the man’s apparent unconcern.

A moment later the swing doors parted, and Jim strode in. His dark eyes flashed a swift glance about the dingy interior. He noted the familiar faces, and very evident attitudes of unconcern. He knew at once that his coming had been witnessed, and that, in all probability, he had been well discussed. He was in no mood to mince matters, and intended to test the public feeling at once. With a cheery “Howdy,” which included everybody, he walked to the bar.

“Guess we’ll all drink, Silas,” he said cheerily, and laid a five-dollar bill on the counter.

But, for once in his life, the saloon-keeper felt it would be necessary to ask his customers what they would drink. This he did, while Jim turned to Jake and the butcher, who happened to be standing nearest to him.

“I’ve quit the ‘AZ’s,’” he said, with a light laugh. “Or p’r’aps I’d best say McLagan’s quit me. Say, I’m out on the war-path, chasing cattle-rustlers,” he went on, with a smile. “That bunch of cattle coming in with my brand on ’em has set my name stinking some with Mac, and I guess it’s up to me to–disinfect it. Eh?”

His final ejaculation was made at Rocket. There were three glasses set out on the counter, and the saloon-keeper was handing him his change.

“Three drinks,” that worthy was explaining. “The rest o’ the boys don’t guess they’re thirsty.”

Jim stiffened his back, and coldly glanced over the faces about him. He counted ten men, without including himself and Rocket. Of these, only two, Jake and Gay, had accepted his invitation. Suddenly his eyes rested on the triumphant face of Smallbones. Without a word he strode across the room, and his hand fell heavily on the man’s quaking shoulder. In a moment he had dragged him to the centre of the room.

“Guess you’ll do, Smallbones,” he began, as he released the man’s coat collar. “No, don’t move. You’re going to stand right there and hand me out the story I see dodging behind those wicked eyes of yours. You’ve got it there, good and plenty, back of them, so get going, and–we’ll all listen. Whatever I’ve got to say you’ll get after.”

Smallbones’ eyes snapped fire. He was furious at the rough handling, and he longed more than ever to hurt this man.

“You’re a strong man, an bein’ strong, you’re mighty free with your hands,” he snarled. “But you’re up agin it. Up agin it bad, Jim Thorpe.” His face lit with a grin of venom. “Say, you don’t need no story from me. You’ll get it plenty from–everywhere! McLagan’s quit you, because– Wal, I’m a law-abidin’ citizen, an’ don’t figger to drink with folks suspected of–cattle-rustlin’.”

Smallbones’ challenge held the whole room silent. Jake, watching and listening, was astonished at the man’s moral courage. But the chief interest was in the ex-ranch-foreman. What would he do?

The question was swiftly answered. Jim’s head went up, and a light laugh prefaced his words.

“So I’m up against it?” he said calmly. Then he gazed contemptuously round on those who had rejected his hospitality. “So that’s why all you fellows refused to drink with me. Well, it’s a nasty pill, and it’s likely to hand me indigestion.” Then he deliberately turned his back on Smallbones and glanced at the counter. The drinks he had bought were still there. He looked up with a frank smile into the faces of the two men who were willing to drink with him. “Gentlemen,” he said, “it seems to me there are just two drinks between me and–the rope. Will you honor a suspected man by clinking glasses with him?”

He raised his own glass to them, and Jake and Gay nearly fell over each other in their frantic efforts to express their willingness, and their disapproval of Smallbones. They clumsily clinked their glasses, and drank to the last drop. Then, in silence, they set their glasses down.

“Thanks, Jake. Thanks, Gay,” said Jim, after a moment. Then he turned to the saloon-keeper. “I’m sorry the order’s so small,” he said, with a laugh.

“You can make it one bigger,” grinned Silas, and Promptly held out his hand.

The two men gripped.

“Thanks,” murmured Jim. And at the same instant Smallbones’ offensive voice broke in.

“A real elegant scene,” he sneered. “Most touchin’. Sort o’ mothers’ meetin’.” But in a second his tone changed to a furious rasp. “But don’t you mistake, Jim Thorpe; three drinks ain’t buyin’ you clear. If you’re the honest man you say, you’ll hev to prove it. There’s the cattle with your brand on ’em. Whose hand set it on? Who keeps that brand? Who runs his stock in hidin’ up in the hills? Them’s the questions we’re all astin’, an’ it’s up to you to answer ’em right. Ef you don’t, then–” he finished with a suggestive motion of hanging.

But Jim had had enough. A moment of blind fury seized upon him, and he swung round on his accuser. The heavy rawhide quirt hanging on his wrist was raised aloft threateningly, and his eyes were the eyes of a man at the limit of endurance.

“Another word from you and I’ll flay you alive with this quirt,” he cried. “You’ve had your say, and now, I guess, I’ll have mine. You know just as much as all the rest of the folk here; no more and no less. No more and no less than I do. When you or anybody else gets definite proof that I’m a cattle-thief you are at liberty to talk, but, until then, if I hear you, or of you, publicly charging me with cattle stealing, I’ll smash you, if I swing for it. Get right out, now. Get right out, quick!”

Smallbones stood for a moment glaring at the threatening man. His teeth were bared in a tigerish grin. He was the picture of ferocity, but, as Jim took a step toward him, his dark face white with passion, he dropped back and finally made for the door.

But the turn of fortune’s wheel was still against Jim. For Smallbones, the situation was saved by the advent of Doc Crombie. That redoubtable man pushed his way in through the swing doors and promptly hailed him back.

“Hold on, Smallbones,” he cried, “I’ve a word for you fellows. How many are there here?” He glanced round the bar swiftly, and finally his eyes rested on Jim Thorpe.

“Ah!” He paused, while he mentally estimated the prevailing feeling. Then he addressed himself to Silas behind the bar. “You’ll help the boys to drinks,” he said. Then, pointedly, “All of ’em.” After that, he turned to Jim. “Jest in from the ‘AZ’s’?” he inquired casually.

“McLagan’s quit me on account of those cattle,” Jim admitted, frankly.

“Those wi’ your brand on?”

“Sure.”

Doc smiled. He could not well have failed to become the leader of this village. Power was written in every line of his hard, shrewd face.

The moment the drinks had been served and heartily consumed, he addressed himself to the company generally. And, at his first words, Smallbones flashed a wicked look of triumph into the face of Jim Thorpe.

“It’s this cattle-rustlin’,” he said, coming to the point at once. “It’s got to quit, an’ it’s right up to us to see it does quit. I ain’t come here like a politician, nor a sky-pilot to talk the rights an’ wrongs of things. It’s not in my line ladlin’ out psalms an’ things. Ther’s folks paid fer that sort o’ hogwash. It’s jest been decided to run a gang o’ vigilantes over this district, an’ every feller called upon’s expected to roll up prompt. I’ve been around an’ located twelve of the boys from the ranges. I want eight more. With me it’ll make twenty-one. Smallbones,” he proceeded, turning on the hardware merchant with an authority that would not be denied, “you’ll make one. You two fellers, Jake, an’ you, carpenter–that’s three. You, Rust–that’s four. Long Pete an’ you, Sam Purdy, an’ Crook Wilson; you three ain’t doin’ a heap hangin’ around this bum canteen–that’s seven.” His eyes suddenly sought Jim’s, and a cold command fell upon his victim even before his words came. “Guess, under the circ’s,” he remarked pointedly, “you’d best make the eighth.”

But Jim shook his head. A light of determination, as keen as the doctor’s own, shone in the smiling eyes that confronted the man of authority.

“Not for mine, Doc,” he said deliberately. “Not on your life. Here, I don’t want any mistake,” he hastened on, as he watched the anger leap into the other’s face, and beheld the sparkle of malice lighting the beady eyes of Smallbones. “Just listen to me. If you’ll take a look around you’ll see a number of fellers, mostly good fellers, more than half of ’em believing me to be the rustler they’re all looking for. Well, for one thing you can’t put me on a vigilance committee with folks suspecting me. It isn’t fair either way, to me or them. Then, in the second place, I’ve got a say. I tell you, Doc, straight up and down, as man to man, I don’t hunt with hounds that are snapping at my shoulders in the run. I’m either a rustler or I’m not. I choose to say I’m not. That being so I guess I’m the most interested in running these gophers, who are, to their holes. Well, that’s what I’m going to do. But I’m going to do it in my own way, and not under any man’s command. I’ve got a few dollars by me and so long as they last, and my horse lasts out, I’m going to get busy. You’re a man of intelligence, so I guess you’ll see my point. Anyway, I hunt alone.”

It was a lucky thing for Jim Thorpe that he was dealing with a really strong man, and a fearless one. One weak spot in the character of Doc Crombie, one trifling pettiness, which could have taken umbrage at the defiance of his authority, one atom of small-mindedness, whereby he could have been influenced by the curious evidence against this man, and the yelping hounds of Barnriff would have been let loose, and set raging at his heels. As it was, Doc Crombie, whatever may have been his faults, was before all things a man.

He turned from Jim with a shrug.

“Plain speakin’s good med’cine,” he said, glancing coldly over his shoulder. “You’ve spoke a heap plain. So will I. Hit your own trail, boy. But remember, this dogone rustler’s got to be rounded up and finished off as neat as a rawhide rope’ll do it. If he ain’t found–wal, we’re goin’ to clear Barnriff of this trouble anyways. I don’t guess you need a heap of extry-ordinary understandin’ to get my meaning. You’re gettin’ a big chanct–why, take it. Gay,” he said, turning abruptly to the butcher, “I guess you’ll make the tally of the committee. We start out to-night.”