Twelve years slipped by. Short as they seemed to those actually living them, they had brought great material changes. No longer did the ranch cattle graze at the will of their owners, but, under stress of competition, they browsed within the confines of miles upon miles of galvanized fencing. Neighbors, as Rankin said, were near now. There were four within a radius of twenty miles. To be sure, there was still plenty of land west of them, beyond the broad muddy Missouri,—open rough land, gradually rising in elevation, where a traveller could journey for days and days without seeing a human face. But this was not then a part of the so-called "cattle ranges." In the parlance of the country, that was "West,"—a place to hunt in, a refuge for criminals, but as yet giving no indication of ever becoming of practical use.
The Box R Ranch had evolved along with the others, and always well in advance. The house now boasted six rooms; the barn and stock-sheds had at a distance the appearance of a town in themselves; the collection of haying implements—mowers, loaders, stackers—was almost complete enough to stock a jobbing house. The herd itself had augmented, despite its annual reduction, until one artesian well was inadequate to supply water; and fifteen miles north, at the extreme limit of his home-ranch, Rankin had sunk another well, making a sort of sub-station of that point. From it an observer with good eyes could see the outlines of the modern Big B Ranch property, built on the old site, and ostensibly operated by a long-legged Yankee, Rob Hoyt by name, but in reality owned, as had been the remnant of stock Tom Blair left behind him, by saloon-keeper Mick Kennedy.
The ranch force had changed very little. Rankin, stouter by a quarter-hundred weight, shaggier of eyebrows and with an accentuated droop in the upper eyelids, and if possible an increased taciturnity, still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at the expense of her lord, who in equal ratio thinner and more weazened, danced attendance as of old. Only one of the former cowboys now remained. That one, strange to say, was Grannis, the "man from nowhere," who had apparently taken root at last. Regularly on the last day of each month he drew his pay, and without a word of explanation or comment disappeared upon the back of a cow-pony, to reappear, perhaps in ten hours, perhaps in sixty, dead broke, with a thirst seemingly unappeasable, but quite non-committal concerning his experience, apparently satisfied and ready to take up the dull routine of his life again.
Last of all, Benjamin Blair. Precisely as the boy had given promise, the youth had developed. He was now mature in size, in poise, in action. Long of leg, long of arm, long of face, he stood a half head above Rankin, who had been the tallest man upon the place. Yet he was not awkward. Physically he was of the type, but magnified, to which all cowboys belong; and no one would ever call him awkward or uncouth.
There had been less change upon the Baker ranch. Scotty was not an expansionist. Scarcely a score more horses grazed in his paddock than of old. The barn, though often repaired, was still of sod and thatch. The house contained the original number of rooms. The experiment with trees had never been repeated. If possible, the man himself had altered even less than his surroundings. Scrupulously fresh-shaven each day, fortified beyond the compound lenses of his spectacles, a stranger would have guessed him anywhere from thirty-five to fifty.
Time had not dealt as kindly with Mrs. Baker. She seemed to have aged enough for both herself and her husband. Notwithstanding the fact that for the first eight years of the twelve, the family had spent half their time in the East, she had grown careless of her appearance. True to his instincts, Scotty still dressed for dinner in his antiquated evening clothes; but pathetic as was the example, it had long ceased to stimulate her. The last four years had been dead years with Mollie Baker. The future held but one promise. She referred to it daily, almost hourly; and at such times only would a trace of youth and beauty return to the one-time winsome face. She looked forward and dreamed of an event after which she would do certain things upon which she had set her heart; when, as she said, she would begin to live. It seemed to Scotty ghastly to speak about that event, for it was the death of his father.
The last member of the family had developed with the child's promise, and at seventeen Florence was beautiful; not with a conventional prettiness, but with a vital feminine attraction. All that the mother had been, with her dark, oval face, her mass of walnut-brown hair, her great dark eyes, her uptilted chin, the daughter was now; but with added health and an augmented femininity that the mother had never known. Moreover, she had an independence, a dominance, born perhaps of the wild prairie influence, that at times made her parents almost gasp. Except in the minute details of their daily existence, which habit had made unchangeable, she ruled them absolutely. Even Rankin had become a secondary factor. Scotty probably would have denied the assertion emphatically, yet at the bottom of his consciousness he realized that had she told him to sell everything he possessed for what he could get and return to old Sussex he would have complied. Considering Mollie's daily plaint, it was a constant source of wonder to him that the girl did not do this; but she seemed wholly satisfied with things as they were. For exercise and excitement she rode almost every horse upon the place—rode astride like a man. For amusement she read everything she could lay hands upon, both from the modest Baker library and from the larger and more creditable collection which Rankin had imported from the East. This was the first real library that had ever entered the State, and, subject for speculation, it had uniformly the front fly-leaves remaining as mere stubs, as though the pages had been torn out by a hurried hand. What name was it that had been in those hundreds of volumes? For what reason had it been so carefully removed? The girl had often speculated thereon, and fitted theory after theory; but never yet, wilful as she was, had she had the temerity to ask the only person who could have given explanation,—Rankin himself.
In common with her sisters everywhere, Florence had an instinctive love of a fad. Realizing this fact, Scotty was not in the least deceived when, during a lull at the dinner-table one evening late in the Fall, she broke in with an irrelevant though seemingly innocent remark.
"I saw several big jack-rabbits when I was out riding this morning." The dark eyes turned upon her father quizzically, humorously. "They seem to be very plentiful."
"Yes," said Scotty; "they always are in the Fall."
Florence ate for a moment in silence.
"Did you ever think how much sport we could have if we owned a couple of hounds?" she asked.
Scotty was silent; but Mollie threw up her hands in horror. "You don't really mean that you want any of those hungry-looking dogs around, do you, Flossie?" she protested pettishly. "Seems as though you'd be satisfied with riding the horses tomboy style without going to hunting rabbits that way."
The daughter's color heightened and the matter dropped; but Scotty knew the main attack was yet to come. He had learned from experience the methods of his daughter in attaining an object.
Later in the evening father and daughter were alone beside a well-shaded lamp in the cosey sitting-room. Mollie had retired early, complaining of a headache, and carrying with her an air of martyrdom even more pronounced than usual; so noticeable, in fact, that, absently watching the door through which she had left, an expression of positive gloom formed over Scotty's thin face. Two strong young arms fell suddenly about his neck and abruptly changed his thoughts. A soft warm cheek was laid against his own.
"Poor old daddy!" whispered a caressing voice.
For a moment Scotty did not move; then, turning, he looked into the brown eyes. "Why?" he asked.
"Because,"—her voice was low, her answering look was steady,—"because it won't be but a little while until he'll have to move away—move back into civilization."
For a moment neither spoke; then, with a last pressure of her cheek against her father's, the girl crossed the room and took another chair. Scotty followed her with his eyes.
"Are you against me, too, little girl?" he asked.
Florence reached over to the table, took up an ever-ready strip of rice-paper, and, rolling a cigarette, tendered it with the air of a peace-offering.
"No, I'm not against you; but it's got to come. Mamma simply can't change. She can't find anything here to interest her, and we've got to take her away—for good."
Scotty slowly struck a sulphur match, waited until the flame had burned well along the wood, then deliberately lit his cigarette and burned it to a stump.
"Aren't you happy here, Flossie?" he asked gently.
The girl's hands were folded in her lap, her eyes looked past him absently.
"Really, for once in my life," she answered seriously, "I spoke quite unselfishly. I was thinking only of mamma." There was a pause, and a deeper concentration in the brown eyes. "As for myself, I hardly know. Yes, I do know. I'm happy now, but I wouldn't be long. The life here is too narrow; I'd lose interest in it. At last I'd have a frantic desire, one I couldn't resist, to peep just over the edge of the horizon and take part in whatever is going on beyond." She smiled. "I might run away, or marry an Indian, or do something shocking!"
Scotty flicked off a bit of ashes with his little finger.
"Can't you think of anything that would interest you and broaden your life enough to make it pleasant?" he ventured.
This time mirth shone upon the girl's face, and a laugh sounded in her voice.
"Papa, papa," she said, "I didn't think that of you! Are you so anxious to get rid of your daughter?" As swiftly as it had come, the smile vanished, leaving in its place a softer and warmer color.
"I'm not enough of a hypocrite," she added slowly, "to pretend not to understand what you mean. Yes, I believe if there is a man in the world I could care enough for to marry, I could live here or anywhere with him and be perfectly happy; but that isn't possible. I'm of the wrong disposition." The soft color in the cheek grew warmer, the brown eyes sparkled. "I know myself well enough to realize that any man I could care for wouldn't live out here. He'd be one who did things, and did them better than others; and to do things he'd have to be where others are. No, I never could live here."
Scotty dropped the dead cigarette stump into an ash-tray, and brushed a stray speck of dust from his sleeve.
"In other words, you could never care for such a man as your father," he remarked quietly.
The girl instantly realized what she had said, and springing up she threw her arms impulsively about her father's neck.
"Dear old daddy!" she said. "There isn't another man in the world like you! I love you dearly, dearly!" The soft lips touched his cheek again and again. But for the first time in her life that Florence could remember, her father did not respond. Instead, he gently freed himself.
"Nevertheless," he said, steadily, "the fact remains. You could never marry a man like your father,—one who had no desire to be known of men, but who simply loved you and would do anything in his power to make you happy. You have said it." Scotty rose slowly, the youthfulness of his movements gone, the expression of age unconsciously creeping into the wrinkles at his temples and at the corners of his mouth. "You have hurt me, Florence."
The girl was at once repentant, but her repentance came too late. She dropped her face into her hands.
"Oh, daddy, daddy!" she pleaded, but could not say another word. Indeed, there was nothing to be said.
Scotty moved silently about the room, closed a book he had laid face downward upon the table, picked up a paper which had fallen to the floor, and wound the clock for the night. At the doorway to his sleeping-room he paused.
"You said something at dinner to-night about wanting some hounds, Florence. I know where I can buy a pair, and I'll see that you have them." He opened the door slowly, then quietly closed it. "And about our leaving here. I have always expected to go sometime, but I hoped it wouldn't be necessary for a while yet." He paused, fingering the knob absently. "I'm ready, though, whenever you and your mother wish."
This time the door closed behind him, and, alone within the room, the girl sobbed as though her heart would break.
How long Tom Blair was unconscious he did not know. When he awoke he could scarcely believe his own senses; and he looked about him dazedly. The sun was shining down as brightly as before. The snow was as white. He had for some reason been spared, after all, and hope arose in his breast. He began to look around him. Not two rods away, his face clearly in sight, his eyes closed, dead asleep, lay the figure of the man who had waylaid him. For a moment he looked at the figure steadily; then, in distinct animal cunning, the lids of the close-set eyes tightened. Stealthily, almost holding his breath, he started to rise, then fell back with a jerk. For the first time he realized that he was bound hand and foot, so he could scarcely stir. He struggled, at first cautiously, then desperately, to be free; but the straps which bound him, those which had held his own blanket, only cut the deeper; and he gave it up. Flat on his back he lay watching the sleeper, his anger increasing. Again his eyes tightened.
"Wake up, curse you!" he yelled suddenly.
No answer, only the steady rise and fall of the sleeper's chest.
"Wake up, I say!" repeated the voice, in a tone to raise the dead.
This time there was response—of action. Slowly Ben Blair roused, and got up. A moment he looked about him; then, tearing a strip off his blanket, he walked over, and, against the other's protests and promises of silence, forced open the bearded lips, as though giving a horse the bit, and tied a gag full in the cursing mouth. Without a word or a superfluous look he returned and lay down. Another minute, and the regular breathing showed he was again asleep.
During all the warmth of that day Ben Blair slept on, as a child sleeps, as sleep the very aged; and although the bearded man had freed himself from the gag at last, he did not again make a sound. Too miserable himself to sleep, he lay staring at the other. Gradually through the haze of impotent anger a realization of his position came to him. He could not avoid the issue. To be sure, he was still alive; but what of the future? A host of possibilities flashed into his mind, but in every one there faced him a single termination. By no process of reasoning could he escape the inevitable end; and despite the chilliness of the air a sweat broke out over him. Contrition for what he had done he could not feel—long ago he had passed even the possibility of that; but fear, deadly and absorbing fear, had him in its clutch. The passing of the years, years full of lawlessness and violence, had left him the same man whom bartender "Mick" had terrorized in the long ago; and for the first time in his wretched life, personal death—not of another but of himself—looked at him with steady eyes, and he could not return the gaze. All he could do was to wait, and think—and thoughts were madness. Again and again, knowing what the result would be, but seeking merely a diversion, he struggled at the straps until he was breathless; but relentless as time one picture kept recurring to his brain. In it was a rope, a stout rope, dangling from something he could not distinctly recognize; but what he could see, and see plainly, was a figure of a man, a bearded man—himself—at its end. The body swayed back and forth as he had once seen that of a "rustler" whom a group of cowboys had left hanging to the scraggly branch of a scrub-oak; as a pendulum marks time, measuring the velocity of the prairie wind.
With each recurrence of the vision the perspiration broke out over the man anew, the sunburned forehead paled. This was what it was coming to; he could not escape it. If ever purpose was unmistakably written on a human face, it had been on the face of the man who lay sleeping so near, the man who had trailed him like a tiger and caught him when he thought he was safe. From another, there might still be hope; but from this one, Jennie Blair's son—The vision of a woman lying white and motionless on the coarse blankets of a bunk, of a small boy with wonderfully clear blue eyes pounding harmlessly at the legs of the man looking down; the sound of a childish voice, accusing, menacing, ringing out over all, "You've killed her! You've killed her!"—this like a chasm stood between them, and could never be crossed. Clasped together, the long nervous fingers, a gentleman's fingers still, twined and gripped each other. No, there was no hope. Better that the hands he had felt about his throat in the morning had done their work. He shut his eyes. A hot wave of anger, anger against himself, swept all other thoughts before it. Why, having gotten safely away, having successfully hidden himself, had he ever returned? Why, having in the depths of his nest in the middle of the island escaped once, had a paltry desire for revenge against the man he fancied had led the attack sent him back? What satisfaction was it, if in taking the life of the other man it cost him his own? Fool that he had been to imagine he could escape where no one had ever escaped before! Fool! Fool! Thus dragged by the long hours of the afternoon.
With the coming of the chill of evening, Ben Blair awoke and rubbed his eyes. A moment later he arose, and, walking over to his captive, looked down at him, steadily, peculiarly. So long as he could, Tom Blair returned the gaze; but at last his eyes fell. A voice sounded in his ears, a voice speaking low and clearly.
"You're a human being," it said. "Physically, I'm of your species, modelled from the same clay." A long pause. "I wonder if anywhere in my make-up there's a streak of such as you!" Again a moment of silence, in which the elder man felt the blue eyes of the younger piercing him through and through. "If I thought there was a trace, or the suggestion of a trace, before God, I'd kill you and myself, and I'd do it now!" The speaker scanned the prostrate figure from head to foot, and back again. "And do it now," he repeated.
Silence fell; and in it, though he dared not look, coward Tom Blair fancied he heard a movement, imagined the other man about to put the threat into execution.
"No, no!" he pleaded. "People are different—different as day and night. You belong to your mother's kind, and she was good and pure." Every trace of the man's nerve was gone. But one instinct was active—to placate this relentless being, his captor. He fairly grovelled. "I swear she was pure. I swear it!"
Without speaking a word, Ben turned. Going back to his snow-blind, he packed his blanket and camp kit swiftly and strapped them to his shoulders. Returning, he gathered the things he had found upon the other's person—the rifle, the revolvers, the sheath-knife—into a pile; then deliberately, one against the other, he broke them until they were useless. Only the blanket he preserved, tossing it down by the side of the prostrate figure.
"Tom Blair," he said, no indication now that he had ever been nearer to the other than a stranger, "Tom Blair, I've got a few things to say to you, and if you're wise you'll listen carefully, for I sha'n't repeat them. You're going with me, and you're going free; but if you try to escape, or cause me trouble, as sure as I'm alive this minute I'll strip off every stitch of clothing you wear and leave you where I catch you though the snow be up to your waist."
Slowly he reached over and untied first the feet then the hands. "Get up," he ordered.
Tom Blair arose, stretched himself stiffly.
"Take that," Ben indicated the blanket, "and go ahead straight for the river."
The bearded man obeyed. To have secured his freedom he could not have done otherwise.
For ten minutes they moved ahead, only the crunching snow breaking the stillness.
"Trot!" said Ben.
"I can't."
"Trot!" There was no misunderstanding the tone.
In single file they jogged ahead, reached the river, and descended to the level surface of its bed.
"Keep to the middle, and go straight ahead."
On they went—jog, jog, jog.
Of a sudden from under cover of the bank a frightened cottontail sprang forth and started running. Instantly there was the report of a big revolver, and Tom jumped as though he felt the bullet in his back. Again the report sounded, and this time the rabbit rolled over and over in the snow.
Without stopping, Ben picked up the still struggling game and slipped a couple of fresh cartridges into the empty revolver chambers. The banks were lined with burrows and tracks, and within five minutes a second cottontail met the fate of the first.
"Come back!" called Ben to the man ahead.
Again Tom obeyed. He would have gone barefoot in the snow without a question now.
"Can you make a fire?"
"Yes."
"Do it, then. I left the matches in your pocket."
On opposite sides of the fire, from long forked sticks of green ash, they broiled strips of the meat which Ben dressed and cut. Likewise fronting each other, they ate in silence. Darkness was falling, and the glow from the embers lit their faces like those of two friends camping after a day's hunt. Had it not all been such deadly earnest, the scene would have been farce-comedy. Suddenly Tom Blair raised his eyes.
"What are you going to do with me?" he asked directly.
Ben said nothing.
The question was not repeated, but another trembled on the speaker's lips. At last it found words.
"When you had me down I—I thought you had done for me. Why did you—let me up?"
A pause followed. Then Ben's blue eyes raised and met the other's.
"You'd really like to know?"
"Yes."
Another moment of hesitation, but the youth's eyes did not move. "Very well, I'll tell you." More to himself than to the other he was speaking. His voice softened unconsciously. "A girl saved you that time, Tom Blair, a girl you never saw. You haven't any idea what it means, but I love that girl, and I could never look her in the face again with blood on my hands, even such blood as yours. That's the reason."
For a moment Tom Blair was silent; then into his brain there flashed a suggestion, and he grasped at it as a drowning man at a straw.
"Wouldn't it be blood on your hands just the same if you take me back where we're headed, back to Mick Kennedy and—"
With a single motion, swift as though raised by a spring, Ben was upon his feet.
"Pick up your blanket!"
"But—"
"Silence!" The big square jaw shot forward like the piston of an engine. "Not another word of that, now or ever. Not another word!"
For a second the other paused doggedly, then taking up his load he moved ahead into the shadow.
Hour after hour they advanced, alternately walking and trotting, following the winding bed of the stream. Darkness fell, until they could not see each other's faces, until they were merely two black passing shadows; but the figure behind was relentless. Stimulating, compelling, he forced himself close. Ever and anon they could hear the frightened dash of a rabbit away from their path. More than once a snow-owl fluttered over their heads; but they took no notice. Twice the man in advance stumbled and fell; but though Ben paused he spoke no word. Like a soldier of the ranks on secret forced march, ignorant of his destination, given only conjecture as to what the morrow would bring forth, Tom Blair panted ahead.
With the coming of daylight Ben slowed to a walk, and looked about in quest of breakfast. Game was plentiful along the shelter of the stream, and before they had advanced a half-mile farther he saw ahead a flock of grouse roosting in the diverging branches of a cottonwood tree. At two hundred yards, selecting those on the lowest branches, he dropped half a dozen, one after the other, with the rifle; and still the remainder of the flock did not fly. Very different were they from the open-land prairie chicken, whom a mere sound will send a-wing.
As on the night before, they broiled each what he wished, and, carefully cleaning the others, Ben packed them with his kit. Then, stolid as an Indian, he cleared a spot of earth, and wrapping himself in his blanket lay down full in the sunshine, smoking his pipe impassively. Taking the cue, Tom Blair likewise curled up like a dog near at hand.
Slowly and more slowly came the puffs of smoke from the captor's pipe; at last they ceased entirely. The lids of the youth's eyes closed, his breath came deep and regular. Beneath the blanket a muscle here and there twitched involuntarily, as in one who is very weary and asleep.
An hour passed, an hour without a sound; then, looking closely, a spectator could have seen one of Tom Blair's eyes open and close furtively. Again it opened, and its mate as well—to remain so. For a minute, two minutes, they studied the companion face uncertainly, suspiciously, then savagely. Another minute, and the body had risen to hands and knees. Still Ben did not stir, still the great expanse of his chest rose and fell. Tom Blair was satisfied. Hand over hand, feeling his way like a cat, he advanced toward the prostrate figure. Despite his caution, the crust of the snow crackled once beneath his touch, and he paused, a soundless curse forming upon his lips; but the warning passed unheeded, and, bolder than before, he padded on.
Eight feet he gained, then ten. His color heightened, the repressed arteries throbbed above the gaudy neckerchief, the skulking animal intensified in the tightened muscles of the temples. As many feet again; but a few more minutes—then liberty and life. The better to guard his movements, his gaze fell. Out and down went his right hand, then his left, as his lithe body slid forward. Again he glanced up, paused—and on the instant every muscle of his tense body went suddenly lax. Instead of the closed eyes and sleeping face he had expected, two steady eyes were giving him back look for look. There had not been a motion; the face was yet that of a sleeper; the chest still rose and fell steadily; but the eyes!
Tom Blair's teeth ground each other like those of a dog with rabies. The suggestion of froth came to his lips.
"Curse you!" he cried. "Curse you forever!"
A moment they lay so, a moment wherein the last vestige of hope left the mind of the captive; but in it Ben Blair spoke no word. Maddening, immeasurably worse than denunciation, was that relentless silence. It was uncanny; and the bearded man felt the hairs of his head rising as the mane of a dog or a wolf lifts at a sound it does not understand.
"Say something," he pleaded desperately. "Shoot me, kill me, do anything—but don't look at me like that!" and, fairly writhing, he crawled back to his blanket and buried his head in its depths.
With the coming of evening coolness, Ben again made preparation for the journey. Neither of the men made reference to the incidents of the day, but on Tom Blair's face there was a new expression, like that of a criminal on his passage from the cell to the hangman's trap. If the younger man saw it, he gave no sign; and as on the night before, they jogged ahead. Before daylight broke, the comparatively smooth bed of Bad River merged into the irregular surface of the Missouri. Then they halted. Why they stopped there, Tom Blair could not at the time tell; but with the coming of daylight he understood. Where he had crossed and Ben had followed there was not now a single track, but many—a score at least. At the margin of the stream, where the cavalcade had stopped, the snow was tramped hard as a stockade; and in the centre of the beaten place, distinct against the white, was a dark spot where a great camp-fire had been built. At the river the party had stopped. Obviously, there the last snow had obliterated the trail, and, seeing that they had turned back, Tom Blair gave a sigh of relief. Whatever the future had in store for him, it could reveal nothing so fearful as a meeting with those whom intuition told him had made up that party.
But his relief was short-lived. Again, after they had breakfasted from the grouse in the pack, Ben ordered the onward march, along the bank of the great river. As they moved ahead, a realization of their destination at last came to the captive, and for the first time he balked.
"Do what you wish with me," he cried. "I'll not go a step farther."
They were perhaps a mile down the river. The bordering hills enclosed them like an arena.
"Very well." Ben Blair spoke as though the occurrence were one of every-day repetition. "Give me your clothes!"
Tom's face settled stubbornly.
"You'll have to take them."
The youth's hand sought his hip, and a bullet spat at the snow within three inches of the other's feet. There was a meaning pause. Slowly the bravado left the other's face.
"Don't keep me waiting!" urged Ben.
Slowly, very slowly, off came the captive's coat and vest. Despite his efforts, the hands which loosened the buttons trembled uncontrollably. Following the vest came the shirt, then a shoe, and the sock beneath. His foot touched the snow. For the first time a faint realization of the thing he was choosing came to him. The vicious bite of the frost upon the bare skin was not a possibility of the future, but a condition of the immediate now; and he weakened. But in the moment of his indecision, the wave of stubbornness and of blinding hate again flooded him, and a rush of hot curses left his lips.
For a moment, the last time in their lives, the two men eyed each other fairly. Indescribable hate was written upon one face; the other was as blank as the surrounding snow. Its very immobility chilled Tom Blair and cowed him into silence. Without a word he replaced shoe and coat and took up his blanket. An advancing step sounded behind him, and, understanding, he moved ahead. After a while the foot-fall again gained upon him, and once more the walk merged into the interminable jog-jog of the back-trail.
It was morning when the two began that last relay. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived amid the outskirts of the scattered prairie terminus which was their destination. Within ten minutes thereafter the two had separated. The older man, in charge of a lank, unshaven frontiersman, chiefly noticeable from a quid of tobacco which swelled one cheek like an abscess, and a nickle-plated star which he wore on the lapel of his coat, was headed for the pretentious white painted building known as the court-house. The younger, catching sight of a wind-twisted sign lettered "Hotel," made for it as though sighting the promised land. In the office, as he passed through, was a crowd of men entirely too large to have gathered by chance in a frontier hostelry, who eyed him peculiarly; but he took no notice, and five minutes later, upon the bedraggled bed of the unplastered upper room that the landlord gave him, without even his boots removed, he was deep in the realm of oblivion.
Some time later—he had no idea of the hour save that all was dark—he was awakened by a confusion of voices in the room below, a slamming of doors, a thumping of great boots upon the bare floor. Scarcely remembering his whereabouts, he rolled from his bed and thrust his head out of the narrow window. Here and there about the town were scattered lights—some stationary, others, which he took to be lanterns, moving. On the street beneath his window two men went by on a run. Half way up the block, before the well-lighted front of a saloon, a motley crowd was shifting back and forth, restless as ants in a hill, the murmur of their voices sounding menacing as the distant hum of swarming bees. All at once from out the door there burst fair into the crowd a heavy man with great shoulders and a bull neck. About him, even in the uncertain light, there seemed to the watcher something very familiar. What he said, Ben could not understand; but he turned his head this way and that, and his motions were unmistakable. The crowd made way before him as sheep before a dog, and closing behind followed steadily in his wake. Gradually as the leader advanced the mass gained momentum. At first the pace had been a slow walk. In the space of seconds it became a swift one, then a run, with a wild scramble by those in the rear to gain front place. The frozen ground rumbled under their rushing feet. The direction of their movement, at first uncertain, became definite. It was a direct line for the centrally located court-house; and, no longer doubtful of their purpose, Ben left the window, fairly tumbled downstairs, and rushed through the now deserted office into the equally deserted street.
The court-house square was but two blocks away; but the mob had a good lead, and when the youth arrived he found the space within the surrounding chain fence fairly covered. Where the people could all have come from struck him even at that moment as a mystery. Certainly all told the town could not in itself have mustered half the number. Elbowing his way among them, however, he began soon to understand. Here and there among the mass he caught sight of familiar faces,—Russell of the Circle R Ranch, Stetson of the "XI," each taking no part, but with hats slouched low over their eyes watching every movement of the drama. Passing around a jam he could not press through, Ben felt a detaining hand upon his arm, and turning, he was face to face with Grannis. The grip of the overseer tightened.
"I've been looking for you, Blair," he said, "I know what you've been trying to do, but most of the crowd don't and won't. They're ugly. You'd better keep back."
For answer Ben eyed the cowboy squarely.
"I thought I left you in charge of the ranch," he said evenly.
The weather-stained face of the foreman reddened in the shifting lantern light, but the eyes did not drop.
"I have been. I just got here." A dignity which well became him spoke in the steady voice. "I had a reason for coming."
Ben released his gaze.
"The others are here too?"
"No, they're all at the ranch. Graham and I attended to that."
"I just saw Russell and Stetson. They couldn't possibly have got here to-day from home. Has—has this been planned?"
Grannis nodded. "Yes. Kennedy and his gang have been watching here and at the ranch for days. They thought you'd show up at one place or the other. The whole country is out. There are lots of strangers here, from ranches I never heard of before. Seems as though everybody knew Rankin and heard of his being shot. You'd better let them have it their way. It'll amount to the same in the end, and death itself couldn't stop them now."
He took a step forward; for Ben, understanding all, had at last moved on.
"Blair!" he called after him, again extending a detaining hand. His voice took on a new note—intimate, personal, a tone of which no one would have thought it capable. "Blair, listen to me! Stop!"
But he might as well have spoken to the swiftly flowing water beneath the ice of the great river. Of a sudden, from out a passage leading into the cell-room of the court-house basement, a black swarm of men had emerged, bearing by sheer animal force a struggling object in their midst. The silence of those who waited, the lull before the storm, on the instant ended. A very Babel of voices took its place. By common consent, as though drawn by centripetal force, actors and spectators crowded together until they were a solid block of humanity. Caught in the midst, Grannis and Ben alike could for a moment but move with the mass. So fierce was the crush that their very breath seemed imprisoned in their lungs.
Like molten metal the crowd began to flow—to the right, in the direction of the railroad track. With each passing moment the confusion was, if possible, greater than before. Here and there a cowboy, unable to control his excess of feeling, emptied his revolver into the air. Once Ben heard the wailing yelp of a dog caught under foot of the mass. To his left, a little man with a white collar, obviously a mere spectator, pleaded loudly to be released from the pressure. Adding to the confusion, the bell on the town-hall began ringing furiously.
On they went, a hundred yards, two hundred, reached the railroad track, stopped. In the midst of the leaders, looming over their heads, was a whitened telegraph pole. Of a sudden a lariat shot up over the painted cross-arm, and dropped, the two ends dangling free; and, understanding it all, the spectators again became silent. Everything moved like clockwork. From somewhere in the darkness a bare-backed pony was produced and brought directly under the dangling rope. Astride him a dark-bearded figure with hands tied behind his back was placed and firmly held. Swiftly a running noose, fashioned from the ends of the lariat, was slipped over the captive's neck. A man grasped the bit of the mustang. Before him, the crowd began to give way. The great bull-necked leader—Mick Kennedy, every one now saw it was—held up his hand for silence, and turned to the helpless figure astride the pony.
"Tom Blair!" he said,—and such was now the silence that a whisper would have been audible,—"Tom Blair, have you anything you wish to say?"
The dark shape took no notice. Apparently it did not hear.
Mick Kennedy hesitated. Upon his lips a repetition of the question was forming—but it got no farther. In the midst of the mass of spectators there was a sudden tumult, a scattering from one spot as from a lighted bomb.
"Make way!" demanded an insistent voice. "Let me through!" And for a moment, forgetting the other interest, the spectators turned to this newer one.
At first they could distinguish nothing perfectly; then amidst the confusion they made out the form of a long-armed, long-faced youth, his head lowered, his shoulder before him like a wedge, crowding his way to the fore.
"Make room there!" he repeated. "Make room!" and again into the crowd, like a snow-plough into a drift, he penetrated until his momentum was exhausted, then paused for a fresh plunge.
But before him a pathway was forming. Seemingly the thing was impossible, but the trick of a spoken name was sufficient.
"It's Ben Blair!" someone had announced, and others had loudly taken up the cry. "It's Ben Blair! Let him through!"
Along the pathway thus cleared the youth made his way and approached the centre of activity. Previously the drama had moved swiftly,—so swiftly that the spectators could merely watch developments, but under the interruption it halted. The man at the pony's bridle—cowboy Buck it was—paused, uncertain what to do, doubtful of the intent of the long-faced man who so suddenly had come beside him. Not so Mick Kennedy. Well he knew what was in store, and reaching over he gave the pony a resounding slap on the flank.
"Let him go, Buck!" he commanded of the cowboy. "Hurry!"
But already he was too late. With a grip like a trap, Ben's hand was likewise on the rein, holding the little beast, despite his struggles, fairly in his tracks. Ben's head turned, met the bartender's Cyclopean eye squarely, and held it with a look this bulldozer of men had never before received in all his checkered career.
"Mick Kennedy," he said quietly, "another move like that, and in five minutes you'll be hanging from the other side."
For the fraction of a second there was a pause; but, short as it was, the Irishman felt the sweat start. "The day of such as you has passed, Mick Kennedy."
There was no time for more. As bystanders gather around a street fight, the grim cowmen had closed in from all sides. On the outskirts men mounted each other's shoulders the better to see. Of a sudden, from behind, Ben felt himself grasped by a multitude of hands. Angry voices sounded in his ears.
"String him up too if he interferes!" suggested one.
"That's the talk!" echoed a third. "Swing him, too!"
The lust of blood was upon the crowd, crying to be satisfied. But they had reckoned wrongly, and were soon to learn their error. Every atom of the long youth's fighting blood was raised to boiling pitch. On the instant, the all but superhuman strength at which we marvel in the insane was his. Like flails, his doubled fists shot out in every direction, meeting resistance at each blow. By the dim light he caught the answering glint on sheath knives, but he took no notice. His hat had come off, and his abundant brown hair shook about his shoulders. His blue eyes blazed. A figure of war incarnate he stood, and a vacant circle which no one cared to cross formed about him. One long hand, with fingers outstretched, was raised above his head. The brilliant eyes searched the surrounding sea of faces for those he knew; as one by one he found them, lingered, conquered. Silence fell intense.
"Men! Gentlemen!" The words went out like pistol-shots reaching every acute ear. "Listen to me. I've a right to speak. Stop a moment, all of you, and think. This is the twentieth century, not the first. We're in America, free America. Think, I say, think! Don't act blindly! Think! This man is guilty. We all know it. He's caught red-handed. But he can't escape. Remember this, men, and think! As you value your own self-respect, as you honor the country you live in, don't be savages, don't do this deed you contemplate, this thing you've started doing. Let the law take its course!"
The speaker paused for breath, and, as though fascinated by his audacity or something else, friend and enemy remained motionless and waiting. Well fitting the drama was its setting: the darkness of night broken by the flickering lanterns; on the pony the huddled helpless figure with a running noose about its neck; the row upon row of rugged faces, of gleaming eyes!
"Ranchers, stockmen!" rushed on the insistent voice, "you know responsibility; it's to you I'm talking. A principle is at stake here,—the principle of law or of lawlessness. One of these—you know which—has run this range too long; it's gripping us at this moment. Before we can be free we must call it halt. Let's do it now; don't wait for the next time or the next, but now, now!" Once more he paused, his eyes for the last time making the circle swiftly, his hand in the air, palm forward. "For law, the law of J. L. Rankin, instead of Judge Lynch!" he challenged. "For civilization instead of savagery—not to-morrow but now, now! Help me to uphold the law!"
So swiftly that the spectators scarcely realized what he was doing, he stepped over to the limp figure upon the pony, loosed the noose from around the neck, and lifted him to the ground.
"Sheriff Ralston!" he called; "come and take your prisoner! Russell! Stetson! Grannis!" designating each by name, "every man who values life, help me now!"
The cry was the trumpet for action. Instantly every one was in motion. Again arose the Babel of voices,—voices cursing, arguing, encouraging. The circle of malevolent faces which had surrounded the youth would not longer be stayed, closed hotly in. He felt the press of their bodies against his, their breath in his face. With an effort, marking his place, the extended right hand went up once more into the air. The slogan again sprang to his tongue.
"For the law of J. L. Rankin, men! The law of—"
The sentence died on his lips. Suddenly, something lightning-like, scorching hot, caught him beneath his right shoulder-blade. Before his eyes the faces, the lighted lanterns, faded into darkness. A sound like falling waters roared in his ears.
When Ben Blair left the Baker home he went back to his room at the hotel, closed and locked the door, and, throwing off coat and hat, stretched himself full-length upon the floor, gazing up at the ceiling but seeing nothing. It had been a hard fight for self-control there on the prairie the day Florence rejected him, but it was as nothing to the tumult that now raged in his brain. Then, despite his pain, hope had remained. Now hope was lost, and in its place stood a maddening might-have-been. Under the compulsion of his will, the white flood of anger had passed, but it only made more difficult the solution of the problem confronting him. Under the influence of passion the situation would have been a mere physical proposition; but with opportunity to think, another's wishes and another's rights—those of the woman he loved—challenged him at every turn.
At first it seemed that a removal of his physical presence, a going away never to return, was adequate solution of the difficulty; but he soon realized that it was not. Deeper than his own love was his desire for the happiness of the girl he had known from childhood. Had he been certain that she would be happy with the man who had fascinated her, he could have conquered self, could have returned to his prairies, his cattle, his work, and have concealed his hurt. But it was impossible for him to believe she would be happy. Without volition on his part he had become an actor in this drama, this comedy, this tragedy,—whatever it might prove to be; and he felt that it would be an act of cowardice upon his part to leave before the play was ended. He was not in the least religious in the sense of creed and dogma. In all his life he had scarcely given a thought to religion. His knowledge of the Almighty by name had been largely confined to that of a word to conjure with in mastering an obstreperous bronco; but, in the broad sense of personal cleanliness and individual duty, he was religious to the core. He would not shirk a responsibility, and a responsibility faced him now.
Hour after hour he lay prone while his active brain suggested one course after another, all, upon consideration, proving inadequate. Gradually out of the chaos one fundamental fact became distinct in his mind. He must know more of this man Clarence Sidwell before he could leave the city, and this decision brought him to his feet. Under the circumstances, a strategist might have employed others to gather surreptitiously the information desired; but such was not the nature of Benjamin Blair. One thing he had learned in dealing with his fellows, which was that the most effective way to secure the thing one wished was to go direct to the man who had it to give. In this case Sidwell was the man. With a grim smile Ben remembered the invitation and the address he had received the first night he was in town. He would avail himself of both.
café