The Plunderer.
by Roy Norton.
CHAPTER I
BULLY PRESBY
Plainly the rambling log structure was a road house and the stopping place for a mountain stage. It had the watering trough in front, the bundle of iron pails cluttered around the rusted iron pump, and the trampled muddy hollow created by many tired hoofs striking vigorously to drive away the flies. It was in a tiny flat beside the road, and mountains were everywhere; hard-cut, relentless giants, whose stern faces portrayed a perpetual constancy. At the trough two burros, with their packs deftly lashed, thrust soft gray muzzles deep into the water, and held rigid their long gray ears, casting now and then a wise look at the young man in worn mining clothes who stood patiently beside them.
Another man, almost a giant in size, but with a litheness of movement that told of marvelous physical strength, emerged from the door of the road house, and the babel of sound that had been stilled when he entered, but a few minutes before, rose again. He crossed to the well, and smiled from half-humorous eyes at the younger man standing beside the animals, and said: "b.u.mped into a hornet"s nest. b.u.t.ted into an indignation meetin". A Blackfoot war powwow when the trader had furnished free booze would have been a peace party put up against it."
The younger man, who had turned to pump more water, following the polite mountain custom of replenis.h.i.+ng for what you have used, stopped with a hand on the handle, and looked at him inquiringly.
"It seems it"s a bunch of fellers that"s been workin" some placer ground off back here somewheres"--and he waved a tanned hand indefinitely in a wide arc--"and some man got the double hitch on "em with the law, provin" that the ground was his"n, and the sheriff run "em off! Now they"re sore. But it seems they cain"t help "emselves, so they"re movin" over to some other place across the divide."
"But what has that to do with us?"
"Nothin", except that it took me five minutes to get the barkeep" to tell me about the road. He says we"ve come all right this far, and this is the place where we hit the trail over the hills. Says we save a day and a half, with pack burros, by takin" the cut-off. Says it"s seven or eight hours good ridin" by the road if we were on horses and in a hurry."
He paused and scanned the hills with an observant eye, while his companion resumed the pumping process. The trough again filled, the latter walked around the pails and joined him.
"Well, where does this trail start in?" he asked.
"He"s goin" to show us as soon as he can get a minute"s rest from that bunch in there. Said we"d have to be shown. Said unless he could get away long enough we"d have to wait till somebody he named came in, and he"d head us into it."
They led the burros across the road and into the shadow of a cliff where the morning sun, searching and fervid, did not reach, and threw themselves to the ground, resting their backs against the foot wall, and trying patiently to await the appearance of their guides. The steady, hurried clink of gla.s.s and bottle on bar, the ribald shouts and threats of the crowd that filled the road house, the occasional burst of a maudlin song, all told the condition of the ejected placer men who had stopped here on their journey.
"I don"t know nothin" about the case, of course," drawled the big man lazily, "and it"s none of my funeral; but it does seem as if this feller they call "Bully" is quite some for havin" him own way."
He laughed softly as if remembering sc.r.a.ps of conversation he had segregated from the murmur inside, and rolled his long body over until he rested on his belly with the upper part of his torso raised on his elbows.
"It appears that the courts down at the county seat gave a decision in his favor, and that he lost about as much time gettin" action as a hornet does when he"s come to a conclusion. He just shows up with the sheriff, and about twenty deputies, good and true, and says: "Hike!
The courts say it"s mine. These is the sheriffs. Off you go, and don"t waste no time doin" it, either!" And so they hikes and have got this far, where they lay over for the night to comfort their insides with somethin" that smelled like a cross between nitric acid, a corn farm, and sump water. And it don"t seem to cheer "em up much, either, because their talk"s right ugly."
"But I thought you said they were heading for some other ground?"
"So they are, but they"re takin" their time on the road. I used to be that way till the day Arizona Bill plugged me because I was slow, all through havin" stopped at a place too long. Then, says I, when I woke up a month later in the Widder Haskins" back room: "Bill, this comes from corn and rye. Never have nothin" to do with a farmer, or anything that comes from a farmer, after this; or some day, when your hand ain"t quick enough, and things look kind of hazy, some quarrelsome man"s goin" to shoot first and you"ll cash in." And from that day to this, when I want to go on a bust, I drink a gallon of soda pop to have a rip-roarin" time."
A man lurched out of the door of the road house as if striving to find clean air, and stood leaning against one of the pole posts supporting a pole porch. Another one joined him, coa.r.s.ely accusing him of being a "quitter" because he had left his drink on the bar. They were stubbornly pa.s.sing words when, from down the road, there came the gritting of wheels over the pulverized stone, and the clacking of horses" hoofs, slow moving, as if being rested by a cautious driver along the ascent.
The man by the post suddenly frowned in the direction of the sound, and then whirled back to the open door.
"It"s Bully!" he bellowed so loudly that his words were plainly audible to the partners lying in the shadow. "Bully"s a-comin" up the road right now! Let"s get him!"
There was a fierce, bawling chorus of shouts that outdid anything preceding, and the door seemed to vomit men in all stages of intoxication, who came heavily out with their boots stamping across the boards of the porch. They cursed, imprecated, shook their fists, and threatened, as they surged into the road and looked down it toward the approaching driver. The men in the shade got quickly to their feet, interested spectators, and the burros awoke from their drowsy somnolence, and turned inquiring, soft eyes on their owners.
Calmly driven up toward the mob in the road came a mountain buckboard drawn by two sweating horses. In the seat was a man who drove as if the reins were completely in control. He appeared to be stockily built, and his shoulders--broad, heavy, and high--had, even in that posture, the unmistakable stamp of one who is accustomed to stooping his way through drifts and tunnels. He wore a black slouch hat, which had been shaped by habitual handling to shade his eyes. His hair was white; his neck short and thick, with a suggestion of bull-like power and force. His face, as he approached to closer range, showed firm and masterful. His nose was dominant--the nose of a conqueror who overrides all obstacles. He came steadily forward, without in the least changing his att.i.tude, or betraying anxiety, or haste. The men in the road waited, squarely across his path, and their hoa.r.s.e fulminations had died away to a far more terrifying silence; yet he did not seem to heed them as his horses advanced.
"Gad! Doesn"t he know who they are?" the bigger man by the rock mumbled to his partner.
"If he doesn"t he has a supreme nerve," the younger man replied. "They look to me as if they mean trouble. They"re in a pretty nasty temper--what with all the poison they"ve poured in, and all the injustice they believe they have met. Wonder who"s right?"
A shout from the crowd in the roadway interrupted any further speculation. The man who had first appeared on the road-house porch threw up his hand, and roared, "Here he is! We"ve got him! It"s the Bully!"
The shout was taken up by others until a miniature forest of raised fists shook themselves threateningly at the man in the buckboard who was now within a few feet of them.
"Get a rope, somebody! Hang him!" yelled an excited voice.
"Yes, that"s the goods," screamed another, heard above the turmoil.
"Up with the Bully!"
Two men sprang forward, and caught the horses by their bits, and brought them to an excited, nervous stop, and the others began to surround the wagon. The man in the seat made no movement, but sat there with a hard smile on his firm lips. The partners stepped to the top of a convenient rock, where they could overlook the meeting, and watched, perturbed.
"I don"t know about this," the elder said doubtfully. "Looks to me like there"s too many against one, and I ain"t sure whether he deserves hangin". What do you think?"
"Let"s wait and see. Then, if they get too ugly, we"ll give them a talk and try to find out," the younger man answered.
Even as he spoke, a man came running from the door of the road house with a coil in his hand, and began to a.s.sert drunkenly: "Here it is!
I"ve got it! A rope!"
The partners were preparing to jump forward and protest, when a most astonis.h.i.+ng change took place. The man in the wagon suddenly stood up, stretched his hand commandingly to the men holding the horses" heads, and ordered: "Let go of my horses there, you drunken idiots! Let go of them, I say, or I"ll come down there and make you! Understand?"
The men at the horses" heads wavered under that harsh, firm command, but did not release their hold. Without any further pause, the man jumped from his buckboard squarely into the road, struck the man holding the rope a sweeping side blow that toppled him over like a sprawling dummy, jerked the coil from his hands, and tore toward his horses" heads. As if each feared to bar his advance, the men of the mob made way for him, taken by surprise. He brought the coil of rope with a stinging, whistling impact into the face of the nearest man, who, blinded, threw his hands upward across his eyes and reeled back.
The man at the other horse"s head suddenly turned and dove out of reach, but the whistling coils again fell, las.h.i.+ng him across his head and shoulders.
Without any appearance of haste, and as if scornful of the mob that had so recently been threatening to hang him, the man walked back to his buckboard, climbed in, and stood there on his feet with the reins in one hand, and the rope in the other. "You get away from in front of me there," he said, in his harsh, incisive voice; "I"m tired of child"s play. If you don"t let me alone, I"ll kill a few of you. Now, clear out!"
The men around him were already backing farther away, and at this threat they opened the road in such haste that one or two of them nearly ran over others.
"Say," admiringly commented the big observer on the rock, "we"d play hob helpin" him out. He don"t need help, that feller don"t. If I ever saw a man that could take care of himself----"
"He certainly is the one!" his companion finished the sentence.
"Who does this rope belong to?" demanded the hard-faced victor in the buckboard, looking around him.
No one appeared eager to claim proprietors.h.i.+p. He gave a loud, contemptuous snort, and threw the rope far over toward the road house.
"Keep it!" he called, in his cold, unemotional voice. "Some of you might want to cheat the sheriff by hanging yourselves. After this, any or all of you had better keep away from me. I might lose my temper."
He sat down in the seat with a deliberate effort to show his scorn, picked the reins up more firmly, glanced around at the rear of his buckboard to see that his parcels were safe, ignored the cowed men, and without ever looking at them started his horses forward. As they began a steady trot and pa.s.sed the partners, he swept over them one keen, searching look, as if wondering whether they had been of the mob, turned back to observe their loaded burros, apparently decided they had taken no part in the affair, and bestowed on them a faint, dry smile as he settled himself into his seat. At the bend of the road he had not deigned another look on the men who had been ravening to lynch him. He drove away as carelessly as if he alone were the only human being within miles, and the partners gave a gasp of enjoyment.
"Good Lord! What a man!" exclaimed the elder, and his companion answered in an equally admiring tone: "Isn"t he, though! Just look at these desperadoes, will you!"
With shuffling feet some of them were turning back toward the inviting door in which the bartender stood with his dirty ap.r.o.n knotted into a string before him. Some of the more voluble were accusing the others of not having supported them, and loudly expounding the method of attack that would have been successful. The man with red welts across his face was swearing that if he ever got a chance he would "put a rifle ball through Bully." The young man by the rock grinned and said: "That"s just about as close as he would ever dare come to that fellow.
Shoot him through the back at a half-mile range!"
The bartender suddenly appeared to remember the travelers, and ran across the road.