CHAPTER XVI
THE MAIL ROBBER
It was close to seven the following morning when Pop Howes and his wife returned home. They found Slivers Hart and Jim-twin Allen finishing their breakfast.
“Anythin’ happen last night?” Pop asked eagerly.
“Nothin’ a-tall,” Jim replied, with his mouth full of bacon and bread. He and Slivers had spent the night in erasing the signs of the fight.
“Then the thing didn’t work?” Pop asked, and his face clouded.
“She sure did!” Allen said quickly. “I figger yuh don’t have to worry none!”
Directly after breakfast Slivers Hart started for town, and Pop went out to inspect his mine. Mrs. Howes took Allen by the hand and led him into the sitting room. She pointed an accusing finger at some holes in the wall opposite the door.
“Nothin’ happened last night! Then please tell me how them holes got in that wall. Now don’t lie. I know – yuh saved Pop an’ me once before when we was in Arizona, an’ yuh did it ag’in last night! They are buckshot marks, an’ they was intended for Pop. Oh, Jim, Jim! Yuh are too good to go on bein’ all alone!” she ended with a sigh, and there were tears in her eyes.
“Shucks, ma’am! Where did yuh get all the loose language at?” Allen asked nervously and twisted his hat in his hand.
“Will there ever come a time when I kin repay yuh for what yuh have done for Pop an’ me?” she asked wistfully.
“Sure! Didn’t yuh feed me pie an’ let me steal some for my hosses? Ain’t we even then?”
She looked at him and shook her head. “You know, Jim, I guess you really think that makes us even!”
“It sure does!” Allen said decisively, as he picked up his rifle. “Ma’am, don’t yuh worry – things is comin’ out pretty! I’m sayin’ good-by, ’cause I don’t figger on comin’ back!”
“Are yuh sayin’ good-by to Jack?”
“Me? Not any! After this mornin’, I hopes I don’t see him again for a long time!”
“Why?”
Allen hesitated.
“’Cause if he ketches me here, he’ll sure enough lock me up, an’ if he sees me afore he has time to forget things, he’ll paddle the stuffin’ out of me!”
At the ludicrous seriousness on Allen’s face the woman smiled. His expression was like that of a small boy who has been caught stealing apples. Then her heart swelled with pity. She knew him – she knew his job of saving herself and others was not yet finished. Yet he thought so little of his own life that his chief worry was of what Jack would do or think.
She watched him climb the trail that led to the shelf above the gulch and shook her head.
“Just let me ketch folks sayin’ anythin’ against him an’ I’ll empty a pan of b’ilin’ dishwater on ’em!” she said aloud.
Allen had hardly rejoined his two horses at the place where he had left them the night before when Slivers topped the rim of the gulch and rode toward him.
“Steve Brandon runs into the post office just after they close the mail bag an’ makes such a holler that they opens her up, an’ then he insists on droppin’ a letter in personal!” Slivers reported.
“That there stage will be along pronto!” Jim Allen cried, as he deftly tightened his cinches and swung into the saddle.
“I’m comin’ with yuh!” Slivers announced.
“Not any!” Allen said positively. “Yuh know, kid, we figgered last night that we’d sorta drift down to Texas an’ square yuh so yuh could marry that gal of yours. Yuh got to remember that Uncle Sam don’t never forget, if yuh monkey with his mail. So yuh ain’t goin’!”
“You’re goin’!” Slivers argued.
Allen grinned.
“Hell! There ain’t nothin’ I could do now that would make it worse!” he explained cheerfully.
Slivers watched him ride down the slope toward the trail to Black Rock.
That morning Jack Allen tacked notices about the town. They read:
The following men will leave town before sunset.
There followed a list of ten names, and the first one was Jim-twin Allen.
Those who are still in town after sunset will be held for investigation and later extradited, if wanted elsewhere.
Curious crowds collected about the notices, and friends ran to warn those whose names appeared on the list. The men named received the news in grim silence and made no threats, but the roughs who aspired to being bad and had not been mentioned blustered and threatened as to what they would do if the little sheriff from Wyoming had tried to exile them. In a town full of hard men Jack Allen had unerringly selected the ten who were at all times dangerous, who believed in talking with their guns rather than with their mouths.
A short time before the stage left that morning, Jack Allen walked into the office of the jail and found Bill Tucker waiting for him.
“Yuh sent for me?” Jack Allen asked bluntly.
Bill Tucker silently handed Jack a letter. The little officer of the law read it carefully and then eyed Tucker curiously. There was something about the man that he could not place. Tucker should have been elated, and he seemed frightened.
“This gent to be relied upon?” Allen asked after a pause.
The big town marshal nodded. His face seemed to have grown suddenly flabby.
“Well,” said Jack thoughtfully, “he says bluntlike that the ores shipped from the Blue Sky Mine didn’t all come from out the same hole, so I reckon that means Baldy Kane is mixed up with these here quartz robbers.”
Bill Tucker licked his dry lips and nodded.
“Huh!” mused the little sheriff inwardly. “That’s what’s the matter with him. He’s scared plumb pink of Baldy! He’s a hell of an officer!” Allen thought he had found the reason for Tucker’s nervousness. Silently he mapped his campaign. “Baldy Kane is in town, an’ mebbe if I start toward Black Rock I could circle the town an’ get into the gulch an’ have a look-see at his mine without any fuss!”
“Don’t forget he’s a killer, an’ be darned sure to shoot first!” Tucker advised, as Allen strutted out the door.
After Jack had left, Tucker wiped his face with a handkerchief and sighed with relief. He buried his head in his hands and thought hard for several minutes, then called his deputy and said he would not be back until noon. Without further waste of time, the town marshal went to the livery stable, secured his horse, and headed for the El Dorado Mine.
As Jack-twin Allen left town, he pulled his horse to a walk to escape the dust of the Black Rock stage that was just ahead of him. About three miles from town he swung his horse off the trail and climbed up the bank of the gulch. Two faint reports of a Colt floated to his ears. He remained undecided for a moment. If it had been rifle fire, he would have ignored it as shots from some hunter, but this, he was sure, was a short gun.
“Some gent practicin’ on rabbits, I reckon. Still, it can’t be more than a mile down the trail, an’ I ain’t in no hurry. Won’t have to be back in town afore sunset, to see if them gents has left as ordered. Guess I’ll take a look!”
His horse slid down the shelving side of the gulch, and once more he trotted along the trail to Black Rock. He did not hurry – he was simply following a sort of routine duty in investigating those shots. The hill flattened and then turned sharply into a narrow cut. Jack Allen gave an oath and spurred forward. At the farther end of the cut was the stage, with several men trying to straighten out the tangled horses.
“What’s up?” Jack snapped.
Old Bill and the three passengers turned and stared at him for a moment before replying.
“Holdup!” one of them explained at last.
“Did yuh recognize him?” Allen asked sharply. “Which way did he go?”
He had to wait for an answer. Here was a situation altogether uncommon. Each of the men waited for the other to reply.
“It was Jim,” Old Bill finally blurted. “He didn’t make no attempt to disguise himself. He headed north!”
Jack-twin Allen’s face went white, and he stared unbelievingly at the man. Then his face changed, grew stern, and his mouth became hard. He circled north until he found his brother’s trail and began to follow it grimly.
“He’s only pretendin’!” Old Bill said.
“Not any!” came a reply. “Them twins ain’t human. Jack is set on law, an’ Jim on justice, an’ there ain’t nothin’ they won’t do to get what they think is right!”
Jack Allen’s mind was bitter, as he followed Jim’s trail. Why had Jim done this thing? As a sort of dare? No, he knew that was not the answer. Then why? Some fool idea of learning something from a letter? That was it. But the fool must be taught that Uncle Sam’s mail is sacred. Jack Allen fought a bitter battle with himself as he rode through those winding hills. He cared more for Jim than for anything else in the world – save the law! He found his outlaw brother’s trail easy to follow. No attempt had been made to throw off possible pursuit by a false scent.
“He’s in a hurry now. He’ll try his stuff later. He’s sure enough circling back to the gulch,” Jack Allen told himself.
It was well past noon when the Wyoming sheriff suddenly pulled his horse to a sliding stop and led it into the shelter of some brush. He tied it and then began to crawl between the clumps of sage. He breasted a slight hill. Not twenty yards away he saw Jim sorting the mail from an open mail bag at his feet Jack crouched lower and crawled ten yards nearer, then sprang upright. His gun was in his hand, as he called:
“Put ’em up, Jim, or, by Heaven, I’ll shoot!”
Jim Allen turned his head and stared at his brother, then slowly raised his hands. In one of them was a packet of letters.
Jack Allen picked his way through the brush toward Jim. But he was forced to keep his eyes on his brother, and one of his extra-high heels betrayed him. He slipped and nearly fell. During the second when Jack’s eyes were off him, Jim’s hand moved with incredible swiftness, and the little packet of letters was jammed into a fissure of the rock on which he was sitting.
“Come on, Jim, drop your belts!” Jack ordered when he had recovered his balance.
Jim loosened his belts and allowed his holstered guns to drop to the ground. While Jack was gathering the scattered letters together, Jim thought hard. Jack must not find the letters he had hidden. He was sure one of them contained the proof he needed. Suddenly the freckle-faced outlaw laughed aloud.
“Jack, yuh sure is a hell of a gun fighter. When yuh slipped, I could have potted yuh easy!” he taunted.
Jack Allen started, but made no reply.
“I was so darn sure yuh was stalkin’ about town tryin’ to make yourself tall that I got a bit careless,” Jim continued.
“What fool idea did you have when yuh done this?” Jack said angrily.
“Hell, I was playin’ a joke on yuh!” said Jim, with a taunting grin.
“Yuh won’t think it a joke much longer! Damn yuh! I could have let most things pass, but yuh robbed the United States mails an’ you’re goin’ back with me!” Jack hastily closed the mail sack. He hooked Jim’s two gun belts over the pommel of the outlaw’s saddled gray and then swung into the saddle.
“Yuh climb onto that nag I rode,” Jack ordered.
“’Fraid I’ll run for it?” his twin asked sneeringly.
Then the two started back toward town. Jim sighed with relief.
“He’s sure sore an’ mad at me,” he muttered to himself. “But if I hadn’t riled him, he would sure have seen them letters stickin’ out behin’ that rock! I’ll tell him some day – afore they hang me! They’ll sure search me in jail – so why did I bring along these here letters?”
While Jack had been busy with the horses, Jim had seized the moment to cram the letters into his pocket. But he knew he would be searched at the jail.
For want of a better hiding place, therefore, he thrust them into one of the empty saddlebags on Jack’s horse!
The slanting rays of the sun hanging over the peaks of the Bear’s-foot Mountains were again hitting the piles of old cans and bottles, as the two brothers rode into town. Jim’s face seemed aged, and Jack’s hard. People stared at them in wonder. Like a flash the news spread about the town.
“Jack Allen is locking up his brother, Jim, as a mail robber!”
Jack thrust Jim into one of the strongest cells in the Goldville jail and locked the door. He departed without a word.
CHAPTER XVII
THE WOLF FILLS THE JAIL
Jim-twin Allen sat hunched on the bench in his cell and watched the bars of the window slowly fade, blending into the darkening sky outside. For a long while he sat without moving, then, like a caged animal, he commenced to pace back and forth, back and forth, across the floor. His bitterest thought was – that he had failed! Jack had refused to listen to him when he had attempted to explain while returning to town. He gave no heed to his own fate, though he knew what that would be! His only thought was of Jack, stubborn Jack, who was blinded by a sense of duty.
Joe Elston, the jailer, came with a light and looked at Jim through the bars.
“They tell me they is goin’ to ship yuh down to Santa Fe to be hanged,” he jeered.
Jim Allen stopped his restless pacing and thrust his face between the bars. Elston backed away, for there was something about Allen’s face that brought fear to him.
“I was only goin’ to tell yuh that there’s a lady wants to see yuh!” he muttered aggrievedly.
There was no use in antagonizing the man.
“Yuh was talkin’ of me gettin’ hanged – not seein’ a lady!” said Allen, grinning.
“It’s different, ain’t it?” the jailer asked good-humoredly.
“Yuh betcha!” Allen agreed and wondered who could be calling on him. Could it be some woman Slivers Hart had sent? If it were, that might mean that Slivers was planning a rescue. In the minute the jailer was gone his hope grew, sprang to life. When Elston returned with Mrs. Howes, Allen had a sense of bitter disappointment. Tears were streaming down her face.
“Oh, Jim – Jim! I know you did this tryin’ to help us,” she cried.
“Aw, shucks, you’re talkin’ large,” Jim cried with acute embarrassment. He glanced at the jailer, who was smirking.
“Jim, I’ve brought you a pie,” said the woman, still sobbing.
“Thanks, ma’am. Yuh go on home now an’ don’t worry none,” Allen begged.
She refused to go home, but leaned against the bars and wept. Jim Allen patted her head and otherwise showed acute embarrassment of a man who is being cried over publicly. The jailer stood close by and seemed to enjoy the spectacle.
From somewhere outside the jail there came the report of two gunshots. The jailer turned and entered the office. The moment he was gone Mrs. Howes took a package from the fold of her skirt and passed it into Jim’s hand.
“Slivers is waiting with your horses in the lot back of the livery stable,” she said in a cool, collected, voice. Then suddenly she began to cry again. “Oh, Jim – Jim Allen!” The jailer had returned. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Come on out of here, ma’am,” he ordered. “Yuh go on back to Pop. ’Tain’t fit for you to take on like that!”
Mrs. Howes allowed herself to be led from the cell door, still pretending to weep. The moment the two disappeared Jim Allen unrolled the package. It contained a Colt .45. He grinned to himself.
“Who would have thought the ol’ gal had that much spunk? Gee, she sure can act!”
He threw himself on the bench in an attitude of abject despair. Minutes passed, precious minutes. At last Joe Elston returned. Jim’s eyes searched the man, as he stood by the bars jeering at him.
“Wolf, hell! You’re a hell of a wolf – cryin’ with old ladies!”
Then his mouth dropped open and he took a step backward.
“Yep, the ‘Killer Wolf’!” Jim Allen snapped. “An’ I’ll sure drill yuh if yuh don’t open that door pronto!”
The jailer was only two steps from the door opening into the marshal’s office. He had but to take one backward leap and he would be free. But he never took that leap – for there was a deadly warning in Jim Allen’s eyes. And he knew the Wolf never missed.
With hands that trembled so that he could scarcely find the keyhole, Joe Elston hastily unlocked the door.
“She gave you – that gun?” he stammered.
“Mebbe so. But if yuh ever say it, I’ll come back an’ cut your throat,” said Allen quietly, as he forced the jailer into the cell. The very flatness of his voice convinced Elston that he would keep his promise. Allen locked the cell door, entered the office, and secured some rope. Then he returned and securely tied and gagged the jailer.
“You stay put!” he warned. “I’m comin’ back, an’ if you’ve moved an inch, I’ll sure fix yuh so yuh won’t move no more.”
The diminutive outlaw secured his guns and holsters from a hook in the office, then slipped out of the jail and stood in the shadow while he glanced down the street. He took the precaution of locking the outer door and then trotted toward the livery stable. Slivers Hart was waiting for him in the rear.
“So yuh made it?”
“Good kid, sendin’ the old lady,” Jim praised.
“Figgered she’d get to yuh, if anybody could. She tol’ me she always got her way with Pop by cryin’ real tears!”
Slivers grinned.
Allen told him briefly where he could find the letters, and Slivers slid through the darkness toward the door that led to the saddle room of the livery stable. He was back again, five minutes later, with the letters.
“Come on, kid,” said Allen. “We’ll go over to the jail to read ’em. I figger we’ll have a minute alone there.”
When they reached the jail he ripped open the letters and at last found the one he sought. He read it eagerly and then looked up at Slivers. Allen’s face was split in one of his broadcast grins. Young Hart was walking about impatiently. He thought it a crazy act to return to the jail one has just succeeded in breaking. Yet Jim’s expression was that of a delighted schoolboy who had no other thought in the world but that he had won a prize.
“Read that,” Jim said.
Slivers hastily read the letter. When he had finished, he said: “That sure puts Bill Tucker an’ Steve Brandon in plenty bad.” A sound outside caused him to whisper: “Some one’s comin’!”
“Yeh, I heard ’em,” grunted Allen. “When they knocks, yuh open the door an’ stand behind it.”
A knock came. Steve Brandon entered and found himself staring into a heavy .45 held by Jim Allen. Slivers again closed and locked the door. Quickly and deftly the stupefied Brandon was tied, gagged, and rolled into a cell.
“Where’s Jack?” Allen asked.
“Last I see of him he was eatin’ in the chink joint an’ talkin’ to Hard-rock,” Slivers replied.
“We got to find him,” Allen said, as they slipped out of the jail again.
Slivers chuckled to himself, as he realized that escape was the last thought in Jim Allen’s mind. Allen himself laughed recklessly, as they crept down the street, hugging the shadows.
“There goes Bill Tucker,” Slivers whispered and pointed across the darkened street.
“We’ll lock him up for Jack,” Jim decided and swung about after the town marshal.
Bill Tucker was trying the outer door of the jail when something hard was poked against his ribs and some one cried warningly:
“Don’t move!”
After a moment Allen added: “All right, open the door.”
Too paralyzed from fear and surprise to think, Tucker staggered into the jail and stared open mouthed at Jim and Slivers. They disarmed him quickly. While Slivers was binding and gagging him, Allen spoke.
“Yuh skunk, I know why yuh brought Jack down here. Yuh was scared of Baldy Kane an’ wanted Jack to rub him out. I got the letter yuh wrote to the gent in Black Rock, an’ when I gives it to the miners, I reckon they’ll come an’ hang you an’ Steve Brandon. It’s darn lucky for you that your little double cross on Jack hasn’t worked, ’cause I’d sure enough string yuh up, if it had. I’m goin’ now an’ tell Jack somethin’. What yuh lookin’ at me like that for? Yuh got somethin’ on your mind?”
Jim Allen looked down at the trembling, pale-faced man. Then suddenly a fear flashed through his mind. Jack! Was he too late? Allen’s face changed, grew old. His eyes were smoldering sparks of yellow flame, as he stooped to stare into the marshal’s glassy ones.
“Yuh set a trap for Jack? Yuh skunk – tell me where he is! I’m tellin’ yuh true – if he’s downed this night – I’ll sure cut your throat.”
Allen’s voice was lifeless, flat, again. His soft tones gave greater force to his threat.
Bill Tucker shuddered. When first he attempted to speak, no sound came from his lips; then a flood of disjointed words poured forth:
“Ace High – Baldy Kane – to get him – men he warned to leave – hurry – hurry!”
The words were still pouring forth when Jim Allen bounded out of the jail and ran toward the Ace High Saloon. He had heard enough to know that the trap was set and that Jack had walked into it. Slivers came after him and cursed at the cans that caught his feet. Fast as Slivers ran, Allen had reached the Ace High and was pushing through the crowd about the entrance before his companion had covered half the distance from the jail.
A group of spectators had gathered in the street before the saloon. Some had left the Ace High at the first sign of trouble. Like carrion crows, others had gathered to witness a killing.
“The Wolf!”
Like a startled band of sheep, they opened a path to allow him to pass. Far better to try to block an avalanche than Jim-twin Allen. He was a relentless force of destruction. His face was drawn into a thousand tiny wrinkles; the corners of his lips were drawn up; his eyes were great pools of yellow flame. Walking stiff-legged like a wolf, yellow eyes flaring, body loose and swaying, hands hanging close to his big guns, he stalked through the crowd into the saloon.
Jack Allen stood in a far corner, with his back to the wall. Before him stood Baldy Kane. A little to Baldy’s right stood a group of five men – five of the ten who had been ordered out of town that day. The Wolf saw it all now. Jack had been sent there to arrest Baldy. Even if he got Baldy, those five men would get him.
As Jim-twin Allen stalked by the bar toward the group in the rear, the bartender called out:
“Look! The Wolf!”
Jim Allen was still thirty feet away from them when he saw a flash of a hand and knew that Baldy had gone for his gun. As his hand flew down to his own weapons he knew that Jack had beaten Baldy to the draw. The hands of the five were clawing at their guns when Jim Allen opened fire on them. Surprised, the nearest ones attempted to turn their guns on the little outlaw. A continuous stream of fire came from his guns. The reports were blended into one, and the five men melted as if caught by a machine gun.
Blue smoke swirled in rings; the glasses and bottles on the bar danced and crashed to the floor from the heavy concussion of many Colts. The roar of the reports was deafening. Then, as quickly as it had commenced, it was ended.
Then silence – complete.
Jim-twin Allen stood staring through the swirling smoke – stared. With a cry he ran forward. Jack Allen lay in a crumpled heap against the wall. Swiftly Jim examined him and gave a cry of relief when he saw that his brother was only creased. A bullet had made a slight furrow across the top of the sheriff’s head.
Slowly the Wolf rose to his feet and faced the men who were crawling out from behind the bar, from beneath tables. As he stood there he pressed fresh shells into his guns and then dropped them back into their holsters.
“Jack ain’t hurt bad. When he comes to, I want you gents to tell him somethin’. The Blue Sky Mine ain’t no good – Baldy was gettin’ his ore by stealin’ from other mines. Steve Brandon was in it; so was Bill Tucker an’ a gent in Black Rock, called Ed Tucker – reckon he was Bill’s brother. Tucker an’ Brandon gets scared of Baldy an’ sends for Jack. They fixes things so that Jack will tackle Baldy an’ rub him out. They has men waitin’ to get Jack, so he can’t dig no deeper an’ mebbe go after them!”
Murmurs swept the crowd – a surge of resentment against such treachery. Then the murmurs died away and the men stared past Jim Allen. He turned and saw that Jack had struggled to his feet and was leaning weakly against the wall.
“These here folks will tell yuh all about it. So long, Jack!” Jim Allen cried and moved slowly toward the door.
“Come back here! Yuh’re goin’ to jail for robbin’ the United States mail!”
Jack was covering Jim with a big Colt. Jim stared at him and then shook his head and laughed.
“Yuh’re sure game, darn yuh! I’ve purty near filled your jail with crooks, an’ left the evidence on the office desk, so everythin’ is legal and plumb accordin’ to law!” Jim laughed and took a step backward.
“Darn yuh! Stop!” Jack ordered. Then he added: “Hell! what’s the use? Yuh know my gun is empty!”
Jim Allen turned, and the crowd opened to let him pass.
Several hours later that night two riders were traveling across the desert, headed due south. As they went they sang:
“He’s neither rich nor handsome,
Unlike the city dude – ”
Suddenly one of them broke off and laughed. “Slivers, I’m sure glad to have met yuh – ’cause you’re the first man I ever knowed what sings worse than me!”
“If I does, yuh can shoot me!”
“Kid, we’ll sure fix up that mess of yours down in Texas. Yuh figger that gal is still waitin’ for yuh?”
“Yeh.”
The two rode for a while in silence.
“Yuh know Jack is sure strong for the law. Hell, I wish I knew if that gun of his was really empty!”