With Hoops of Steel

“You don’t mean to say that the Fillmore outfit is really tryin’ to drive Emerson and the rest of them out of the Fernandez mountains?”

“Well, they want to get control of the whole range for about a hundred miles, if they can. And there’s some politics mixed up in it, of course. Old Whittaker is a Republican, you know, with a lot of political schemes he wants to put through. Of course Emerson and the others are Democrats and stand in with the party, and the Colonel thinks he’ll be doing the Republicans a big service if he can break them up. Emerson expected the trouble to come to a head over the spring round-up, for Colonel Whittaker said that Emerson and McAlvin and the rest of them shouldn’t round-up with him.”

“Well, Emerson won’t stand any such nonsense as that!”

“I guess Whittaker and his cow-boys will have to flirt gravel mighty fast if they keep him from it!”

CHAPTER III

Unkempt, dusty and dirty, straggling its narrow length for a mile along the irrigating ditch, the village of Las Plumas lay sleepily quiet under the hot, white, brooding spring sunshine. A few trim-looking places cuddled their yards and gardens close against the life-giving channel, whose green banks, covered with vegetation and shaded by trees, bisected the town. Elsewhere, naked adobe walls flanked the dusty streets and from their stark surfaces gave back the sunshine in a blinding glare. Here and there an umbrella tree, or a locust, made a welcome splotch of green and shade down the length of the barren, dusty streets, or the tiny yard of a house set back a little from the adobe sidewalk held a few clumps of shrubs and flowers. A half dozen cross streets sprang up among the scattered adobe houses that dotted the edge of the plain rising to the Hermosa mountains on the east, crossed the bridges of the irrigating ditch, and ended in the one business street, which trailed a few closely built blocks along the western edge of the town, near the railroad and its depot. On one of these cross streets a yard and orchard of goodly size extended from the ditch a block or more to the east and surrounded a flat-roofed, square adobe house. A wide veranda, its white pillars covered with rose and honeysuckle vines, ran around the house, and a square of lawn, with shrubs and flowers and trees, filled the yard. A little boy, perhaps four years old, with flaxen curls floating about his neck, played in the shade of a fig tree beside the veranda.

Down the dusty road which wound a white strip over the pale, gray-green upland and merged into the street which passed this house, a man came riding at a leisurely lope. He was tall and broad shouldered, straight in the back and trim in the girth, and he sat his horse with the easy, unconscious grace of a man who has lived much in the saddle. His black sombrero shaded a dark-skinned face, tanned to a rosy brown. An unshaven stubble of beard darkened his cheeks and a soft, drooping, black mustache covered his lip. A constant smile seemed lurking in the corners of his mouth and in his brown eyes. But his face was square, firm-jawed and resolute, and had in it the look of a man accustomed to meet men on their own ground and to ask favors of none.

He checked his horse to a slow trot and, without turning his head, searched with a sidewise glance the yard and veranda of the adobe house. When he saw a flutter of pink inside a window he stopped at the gate and called to the child:

“Hello, little Bye-Bye! Don’t you want a ride?”

The child ran to the gate with a shout of welcome.

“Better ask your sister if you can come.”

“Daisy! Daisy! May I go?” the boy called, running back to the porch. A young woman in a pale pink muslin gown came out and led the child to the gate.

“Good morning, Miss Delarue. May I take little Bye-Bye for a ride?”

The roses in her cheeks deepened as she looked up and saw the admiration in his eyes.

“Certainly, Mr. Mead. It is very kind of you, I’m sure. But please don’t take him far.”

The boy, shouting with laughter, was lifted to the saddle in front of the rider, and the girl, smiling in sympathy with his delight, leaned against the gate watching them. She was tall, with the broad shoulders, deep bosom, slender waist, and clear, blooming complexion that tell of English nativity. Her eyes were blue, the soft, dark blue of the cornflower, and her face, a long, thin oval, was gentle and sweet in expression. Her light brown hair, which shone with an elusive glimmer of gold in the sunlight, was gathered on her neck in a loose, rippling mass. She took the child from Mead’s hands when they returned, and her eyes went from the boy’s laughing face to the smiling one of the man. Then the roses deepened again and she looked away. The man said nothing and they both waited, silent and smiling, watching the antics of the child. Presently she turned to him again:

“Are you – do you expect to stay long in town, Mr. Mead?”

“I think – I – do not know. It will depend on business.”

They were silent again, and after a moment he gravely said, “Good morning,” and rode away. He frowned and bit his lip, muttered a mild oath under his breath, and then put spurs to his horse and rode on a gallop up the main street. The girl glanced after him, still blushing and smiling. Then a frown wrinkled her forehead and she said, “Well!” under her breath with such emphasis that the child looked up at her curiously. At that, she laughed with a little touch of embarrassment in her manner, and, taking the boy in her arms, ran into the house.

In the busiest part of the main street, a flat-roofed adobe house with a narrow, covered porch forming the sidewalk in front, flanked the street for half a block. Offices and shops of various kinds filled its many rooms, and the open door of a saloon showed a cool and pleasant interior. In front of this saloon Emerson Mead halted as Tuttle and Ellhorn came out of a lawyer’s office beside it. Ellhorn explained his non-appearance at the ranch and told the story of Tuttle’s capture, over which they made jokes at his expense.

“The doctor says this is only a flesh wound,” said Nick, touching his sling-swung arm and speaking in answer to Mead’s question, “and that I can use my gun again in another week.”

“I’d have been out right away, Emerson,” said Tuttle, “but Nick had to stay here for the doctor to take care of his arm, and I didn’t dare leave him alone. He was bound he’d go on a spree, and he couldn’t shoot, and the Lord knows what trouble he’d have got into. Maybe I haven’t had a time of it! I’d rather have had a fight with the Fillmore outfit every day!”

“Yes,” growled Ellhorn, “he put me to bed one night and sat on my neck till I went to sleep. And yesterday morning he planted himself against the door and held his six-shooter on me till I promised I wouldn’t drink all day. Lord! the week’s been long enough for the resurrection!”

“How’s things at the ranch, Emerson?” asked Tuttle. “Have you had any fightin’ yet with the Fillmore outfit?”

“No, not real fightin’. I caught ’em puttin’ a branded steer into one of my herds, so they could say I stole it, about a week ago, and Will Whittaker and I exchanged compliments over the affair.”

As he spoke a tall, gray-haired man, riding a sweating horse at a hard gallop, rushed up the street and dismounted on the opposite side. His thin, pale face bore a look of angry excitement.

“What’s the matter with Colonel Whittaker?” exclaimed Ellhorn. “He looks as if he’d heard the devil behind him!”

Whittaker had spoken to a man in the doorway of an office bearing the sign, “Fillmore Cattle Company,” and already several others had gathered around the two and all were listening eagerly.

“Something’s happened, boys,” said Mead, as they watched the group across the way. “They told me in Muletown that Colonel Whittaker had passed through there the day before on his way to the ranch.”

Just then Miss Delarue came up the sidewalk leading the flaxen-haired child, and as she passed the three men she smiled a pleasant recognition to Ellhorn and Mead.

“Who’s she?” Tuttle asked, gazing after her admiringly.

“Why, Frenchy Delarue’s daughter!” Ellhorn answered. “Didn’t you ever see her before? That’s queer. You remember Delarue, the Frenchman who has the store up the street a-ways and loves to hear himself talk so well. He came here two years ago with a sick wife. She was an Englishwoman and the girl looks just like her. She died in a little while and the daughter has taken care of the kid ever since as if she was its mother. She’s a fine girl.”

“She’s mighty fine lookin’, anyway,” Tuttle declared.

“Well, boys,” said Mead, “I’m goin’ to my room to slick up. If you find out what the excitement’s about, come over and tell me.”

“I reckon if Emerson was rich he’d be a dude,” said Ellhorn, looking meditatively after Mead. “He keeps a room and his best duds here all the time, and the first thing he does after he strikes town is to go and put on a bald-faced shirt and a long-tailed coat. He don’t even stop to take a drink first.”

The crowd across the street had increased, and the men who composed it were talking in low, excited tones. As Emerson Mead walked away many turned to look at him, and significant glances were sent over the way to Ellhorn and Tuttle, who still stood on the sidewalk. They stopped a man who was hurrying across the street and asked him what the excitement was about.

“Will Whittaker has disappeared. His father thinks he’s been killed. He left the ranch a week ago to come to town and nobody’s seen him since. I’m goin’ after Sheriff Daniels.”

“Gee-ee! Moses!” Ellhorn exclaimed, as his eyes, full of amazed inquiry, sought Tuttle’s. But amazed inquiry of like sort was all that flashed back at him from Tuttle’s mild blue orbs, and after an instant’s pause he went on: “Whew! won’t hell’s horns be a-tootin’ this afternoon! Confound this arm! Say, Tom, you-all go and tell Emerson about it and I’ll skate around and find out what’s goin’ on.”

Tuttle hesitated. “You won’t go to drinkin’?”

“Not this time, Tommy! There’ll be excitement enough here in another two hours without me making any a-purpose, and don’t you forget it! Things are a-goin’ to be too serious for me to soak any of my wits in whisky just now!”

“No, Nick,” said Tuttle, looking at the other’s helpless arm, “I reckon I better go along with you-all, if there’s likely to be any trouble.”

It was as Ellhorn predicted. Before night the town was buzzing with excitement. Wild rumors flew from tongue to tongue, and with every flight took new shape. Shops and offices were deserted and men gathered in knots on the sidewalk, discussing the quarrel between the cattlemen and Emerson Mead’s possible connection with young Whittaker’s disappearance, and predicting many and varied tragic results. All those who congregated on one side of the street scouted the idea that the young man had been murdered, indignantly denied the possibility of Emerson Mead’s connection with his disappearance, insisted that it was all a trick of the Republicans to throw discredit on the Democrats, and declared that Will Whittaker would show up again in a few days just as much alive as anybody. Nearly all the men who had offices or stores in the long adobe building were Democrats, and the saloon it contained, called the Palmleaf, was the place where the men of that party congregated when any unusual excitement arose. On the other side of the street were the offices of the Fillmore Cattle Company, the White Horse saloon, and Delarue’s store, all gathering places for the Republican clans. There it was declared that undoubtedly Emerson Mead had killed young Whittaker, and had come into town to kill the father, too, that other outrages against the Republicans would probably follow, and that the thing ought to be stopped at once. But each party kept to its own side of the street, and each watched the other as a bulldog about to spring watches its antagonist.

A man, whose manner and well-groomed appearance betokened city residence, mingled with the groups about the cattle company’s office, listening with interest to everything that was said. He himself did not often speak, but when he did every one listened with attention. He was of medium stature, of compact, wiry build, had large eyes of a pale, brilliant gray, and a thin face with prominent features. He joined Miss Delarue when she came down the street on her way home.

“You get up very sudden storms in your quiet town, Miss Delarue,” he said. “An hour ago Las Plumas was as sleepy and decorous – and dead – as the graveyard on the hill over yonder. But a man rides up and says ten words and, br-r-r, the whole population is agog and ready to spring at one another’s throats.”

“Yes,” she assented, “when I went up town a little while ago everything was as quiet as usual. What is the excitement all about?”

“Why, they are saying that Emerson Mead has killed Will Whittaker!”

“What!”

Her face suddenly went white, and she stared at him with wide, horrified eyes.

“It may not be true.”

“Oh, I don’t believe it can be true!”