CHAPTER XI
AFTER THE STORM
It was well along toward midnight of the same day when two hors.e.m.e.n, after having ridden circ.u.mspectly around the outbuildings and corrals, dismounted from their horses at some little distance from the door of the Calabasas Inn. They shook out their legs as men do after a long turn in the saddle and faced each other in a whispered colloquy. An overcast sky, darkening the night, concealed the alkali crusting the riders and their horses; but the hard breathing of the latter in the darkness told of a pace forced for some hours.
"Find your feet before you go in, Pardaloe," suggested the heavier of the two men guardedly to the taller one.
"Does this man know you?" muttered the man addressed as Pardaloe, stamping in the soft dust and shifting slightly a gun harness on his breast.
"Pedro knows me," returned Lefever, the other man, "but McAlpin says there is a new man here, a half-wit. They all belong to the same gang--coiners, I believe, every one of them. They work here and push in Texas."
"Can you spot the room when you get up-stairs, where we saw that streak of light a minute ago?" demanded Pardaloe, gazing at the black front of the building.
"I can spot every foot of the place, up-stairs and down, in the dark,"
declared Lefever, peering through the inky night at the ruinous pile.
Instead of meeting de Spain, as appointed, Lefever had come in from the Thief River stage with Scott three hours late only to learn of the fight at the Inn and de Spain"s disappearance. Jeffries had already sent a party, of whom Pardaloe, a man of Farrell Kennedy"s from Medicine Bend, had been picked up as one, down from Sleepy Cat, to look for the missing man, and for hours the search had gone forward.
"Suppose you go back to the barn," suggested Pardaloe, "and wait there while I go in and have a little talk with the landlord."
"Why, yes, Pardaloe. That"s an idea," a.s.sented Lefever feebly. Then he laid the first two fingers of his fat right hand on the lapel of his companion"s coat: "Where should you like your body sent?" he asked in feigned confidence. "Concerning these little details, it"s just as well to know your wishes now."
"You don"t suppose this b.o.o.b will try to fight, do you, when he knows Jeffries will burn the shack over his head if another railroad man is attacked in it?" demanded Pardaloe.
"The most ruinous habit I have had in life--and first and last I have contracted many--has been, trusting other people," observed Lefever.
"A man shouldn"t trust anybody--not even himself. We can burn the b.o.o.b"s shack down--of course: but if you go in there alone the ensuing blaze would be of no particular interest to you."
"All right. We go in together."
"Not exactly that, either. You go first. Few of these forty-four bullets will go through two men at once."
Ignoring Lefever"s pleasantry, Pardaloe, pulling his hat brim through force of habit well over his eyes, shook himself loose and, like a big cat walking in water, stepped toward the door. He could move his tall, bony frame, seemingly covered only with muscles and sinews, so silently that in the dark he made no more sound than a spectre. But once before the door, with Lefever close at hand, he pounded the cracked panels till the windows shook. Some time elapsed before there was any response. The pounding continued till a flickering light appeared at a window. There was an ill-natured colloquy, a delay, more impatience, and at length the landlord reluctantly opened the door.
He held in his hand an oil-lamp. The chimney had been smoked in such a way that the light of the flame was thrown forward and not back.
Lefever in the background, nothing disturbed, threw a flash-light back at the half-dressed innkeeper. His hair was tumbled sleepily across his forehead and his eyes--one showing a white scar across the pupil--set deep in retreating orbits, blinked under heavy brows. "What do you want?" he demanded. Pardaloe, without answering, pushed through the half-open door into the room.
"We"re staying here to-night," announced Pardaloe, as simply as possible. Lefever had already edged into the doorway, pushing the stubborn innkeeper aside by sheer bulk of weight and size.
The sleepy man gave ground stubbornly. "I"ve got no beds," he growled surlily. "You can"t stay here."
Lefever at once a.s.sumed the case for the intruders. "I could sleep this minute standing on my head," he declared. "And as for staying here, I can"t stay anywhere else. What"s your name, son?" he demanded, b.u.t.tonholing in his off-hand way the protesting man.
"My name is Philippi," answered the one-eyed defiantly.
"Regards to Brutus, my dear fellow," retorted Lefever, seizing the man"s hand as if happily surprised.
"You can"t crowd in here, so you might as well move on," declared Philippi gruffly. "This is no hotel."
Lefever laughed. "No offense, Philippi, but would it be indiscreet to ask which side of your face hurts the most when you smile?"
"If you"ve got no beds, we won"t bother you long," interposed Pardaloe.
"I"d like a pitcher of ice-water, anyway," persisted Lefever. "Sit down, n.o.ble Greek; we"ll talk this over."
"Who are you fellows?" demanded Philippi, looking from one to the other.
"I am a prospector from the Purgatoire," answered Pardaloe.
Philippi turned his keen eye on Lefever. "You a railroad man?"
"No, sir," declared Lefever, dusting the alkali vigorously from his coat sleeve.
"What are you?"
John looked as modest as it was possible for him to look. "Few people ask me that, but in matter of fact I am an _objet d"art_."
"What"s that?"
"Different things at different times to different men, Philippi,"
answered Lefever simply, exploring, while he spoke, different corners of the room with his flash-light. "At this moment--" he stopped suddenly, then resumed rea.s.suringly--"I want a drink."
"Nothing doing," muttered the landlord sulkily.
Lefever"s flash-light focussed on a United States license hanging back of the bar. "Is that a mere frame-up, Philippi?" he demanded, walking significantly toward the vender"s authority.
"Nothing in the house to-night."
"Then," announced Lefever calmly, "I arrest you."
Philippi started. "Arrest me?"
"For obtaining a thirst under false pretenses. Come, now, before we slip the irons on, get us something to eat. I"ll go up-stairs and pick out a room to sleep in."
"I tell you," insisted Philippi profanely, "there are no rooms for you to sleep in up-stairs."
"And I," retorted Lefever, "tell you there are. Anyway, I left a sewing-machine up-stairs here three years ago, and promised to keep it oiled for the lady. This is a good time to begin."
With Lefever making the old steps creak, ahead, and Pardaloe, with his long, soft, pigeon-toed tread close behind, the unwilling landlord was taken up the stairs, and the two men thoroughly searched the house. Lefever lowered his voice when the hunt began through the bedrooms--few of which contained even a bed--but he kept up a running fire of talk that gave Philippi no respite from anxiety.
Outside the kitchen quarters, which likewise were rigorously searched, not a soul could be found in the house. One room only, over the kitchen, gave hope of uncovering something. The party reached the door of this room through a narrow, tortuous pa.s.sageway along an attic gable. The door was locked. Philippi told them it belonged to a sheep-herder who did not use it often. He protested he had no key.
Pardaloe knocked and, getting no response, tried unsuccessfully to force the lock. Lefever motioned him aside and, after knocking loudly on the door himself, laid his shoulder against it. The door creaked and sprung in crazy protest. The panels cracked, the stubborn frame gave, and with a violent crash Lefever pushed completely through the locked barrier and threw his flash-light inside. Pardaloe, urging the unwilling Philippi ahead, followed.
The room, unfinished under the rafters, was dest.i.tute of furnishings, and bore traces of long disuse. Stretched on the floor toward the middle of it, and side by side, lay two men. One of them was very large, the other not more than half his companion"s size. Lefever kneeling over the man nearest the door listened for signs of breathing, and laid his head to the man"s heart. Having completed his examination, he went around to the other--Pardaloe and Philippi silently watching--and looked him over with equal care. When he had done, he examined, superficially, the wounds of each man. Rising, he turned toward Philippi. "Were these men dead when you brought them up here?"
"I didn"t bring "em up," growled Philippi.