The Orphan, Clarence E. Mulford [find a book to read TXT] 📗

if he should be needed. If he should think it necessary, he would even go so far as to become a regular passenger in the coach until the trouble died down. To the masterly driving and cool-headed courage of Bill no less than to the daring and accuracy of The Orphan was the sheriff indebted for the lives of his sisters; and the protection of Bill clove close to the line of duty, and not one whit less to the line of law and order.

Bill laughed and boasted and made a joke of the thought of any danger from the malcontents of the Cross Bar-8, and flatly refused to allow the sheriff to ride with him. He talked volubly until the agent profanely sent him on his journey, and he tore through the streets of the town in the same old way. He forded the Limping Water in safety and crossed the ten mile stretch of open plain without a sign of trouble. As he left the water of the stream the sheriff started after him from town, intending to be not far behind him when he entered the rough country.

When Bill plunged into the defile through the Backbone he began to grow a little apprehensive, and he intently watched each stretch of the road as each successive turn unfolded it to his sight. His foot was on the brakes and he was braced to stop the rush of his team at the first glimpse of an obstruction, or to tear past the danger if he could. One coyote yell and one snap of the whip would send the team wild, for they remembered well.

All was nice until he neared the place where The Orphan had held him up for a smoke, and it was there the trouble occurred. As he swung around the sharp turn he saw four cowboys bunched squarely in the center of the trail and at such a distance from him that to attempt to dash past them would be to lay himself open to several shots. They had him covered, and as he grasped the situation Tex Williard rode forward and held up his hand.

“Stop!” Tex shouted. “Get down!”

“What in thunder do you want?” Bill asked, setting the brakes and stopping his team, wonder showing on his face.

“Yu!” came the laconic reply. “Get down!”

“What’s eating you?” Bill asked in no uncertain inflection. Had Tex been less imperative and kept the insulting tone out of his words Bill might have had time to become afraid, but the sting made him leap over fear to anger; and genuine anger takes small heed of fear.

Tex motioned to one of his men, who instantly leaped to the ground and ran to the turn, where he knelt behind a rock, his rifle covering the back trail. Then Tex returned to the driver.

“Curiosity is eating me, yu half-breed!” he cried. “Get down! d––n yu, get down!! Don’t wait all day, neither, do yu hear? What th’ h–l do yu think I’m a-talkin’ for!”

“Well, I’ll be blamed!” ejaculated Bill, wrapping the reins about the back of his seat. “Anybody would think you was the boss of the earth to hear you! You ain’t no road agent, you’re only a fool amature with more gall than brains! But I’ll tell you right here and now that if you are playing road agent, I wouldn’t be in your fool boots for a cool million. And if you are joking you are showing d––d bad taste, and don’t you forget it. You’re holding up a sack of U. S. mail, and if you don’t know what that means––”

“Shut yore face! Yu talk when I ask yu to!” shouted Tex as the driver dropped to the ground. “But since yore so unholy strong on th’ palaver, suppose yu just explains why yu are so all-fired friendly to Th’ Orphant? Suppose yu lisp why yu take such a peculiar interest in his health and happiness. Come now, out with it–this ain’t no Quaker meeting.”

“Warble, birdie, warble!” jeered one of the cowboys. “Sing, yu –– ––!”

“We’re shore waitin’, darlin’,” jeered another. “Tune up an’ get started, Windy.”

“Well, since you talks like that,” cried Bill, stung to reckless fury at the cutting contempt of the words, “you can go to h–l and find out from your fool friends!” he shouted, beside himself with rage. “Who are you to stick me up and ask questions? It’s none of your infernal business who I like, you hog-nosed tanks! Why didn’t you bring some decent men with you, you flat-faced skunks? Why didn’t you bring Sneed! White men would a told you just what you are if you asked them to help you in your dirty work, wouldn’t they? Even a tin-horn gambler, a crooked cheat, would give me more show for my money than you have, you bowlegged coyotes! Ain’t you man enough to turn the trick alone, Williard? Can’t you play a lone hand in ambush, you bob-tailed flush of a bad man! You’re only a lake-mouthed, red-headed wart of a two-by-four puncher, that’s what––”

Tex had been stunned by surprise at such an outburst from a man whom he had always regarded as woefully lacking in courage. Then his face flamed with an insane rage at the taunting insults hurled venomously at him and he sprang to action as though he had been struck. It would have been bad enough to hear such words from an equal, but from Bill!

“Yu cur!” he yelled as he leaped forward into the tearing sting of the driver’s whip, which had been hanging from the wrist.

“You’re the fourth dog I cut to-day,” Bill said, jerking it back for another try.

Tex shivered with pain as the lash cut through his ear, as it would have cut through paper, and screamed his words as he avoided the second blow. “I’ll show yu if I am man enough! I’ll kill yu for that, d––n yu!”

As Tex threw his arms wide open to clinch, Bill leaped aside and drove his heavy fist into the cowman’s face as he passed, knocking him sidewise against the wall of the defile; and then struggled like a madman in the toils of two ropes. He was a Berserker now, a maniac without a hope of life, and he screamed with rage as he tore frantically at the rough hair ropes, wishing only to destroy, to kill with his bare hands. The blow had not been well placed, being too high for the vital point, but it had smashed the puncher’s nose flat to his face and one eye was fast losing its resemblance to the other. Tex staggered to his feet and returned to the attack, striking savagely at the face of the bound man. Bill avoided the blow by jerking his head aside and snarled like a beast as he drove the heel of his heavy boot into his enemy’s stomach. Then everything grew black before his eyes and a roaring sound filled his ears. The rope slackened and the men who had thrown him head-first on a rock leaped from their horses and ran to him.

When his senses returned he found himself bound hand and foot and under a spur of rock which projected from the bank of the cut. His face was cut and bruised and his scalp laid open, but through the blood which dripped from his eyebrows he vaguely saw Tex, bent double and rocking back and forth on the ground, intoned moans coming from him with a sound like that made by a rasp on the edge of a box.

As Bill’s brain cleared he became conscious of excruciating pains in his head, as if hammers were crashing against his skull. Glancing upward he saw that a rope ran from his neck to the rock, over it and then to the pommel of a saddle, and his face twitched as its meaning sifted through his mind. Then he thought of the time The Orphan had held him up in the defile–how unlike these men the outlaw was! If he would only come now–what joy there would be in the flashing of his gun; what ecstasy in the confusion, panic, rout that he would cause. He was dazed and the throbbing, heavy, monotonous pain dulled him still more. He seemed to be apart from his surroundings, to be an onlooker and not an actor in the game. He wondered if that whip was his: yes, it must be . . . certainly it was. He ought to know his own whip . . . of course it was his. He regarded Tex curiously . . . there had been Indians, or was it some other time? What was Tex doing there on the ground? He struggled to think clearly, and then he knew. But the deadening pain was merciful to him, it made him apathetic. Was he going to die? Perhaps, but what of it? He didn’t care, for then that pain wouldn’t beat through him. Tex looked funny. . . . He closed his eyes wearily and seemed to be far away. He was far away, and, oh, so tired!

Tex finally managed to gain his feet and straighten up and revealed his face, bloody and swollen and black from the blow. His words came with a hesitation which suggested pain, and they were mumbled between split and swollen lips.

“Now, d––n yu!” he cried, brokenly, staggering to the helpless man before him. “Now mebby yu’ll talk! Why did yu help Th’ Orphant? If yu lie yu’ll swing!”

Bill swayed and his eyes opened, and after an interval he slowly and wearily made reply, for his senses had returned again.

“He saved my life,” he said, “and I’ll help–anybody for that.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” jeered Tex. “An’ why? That ain’t his way, helpin’ strangers at his own risk. Why?”

“There was women–in the coach.”

“Oh, there was, hey?” ironically remarked Tex. “Mebby he wanted ’em all to himself, eh?”

“He’s a white man, not a cur.”

“He’s a cub of th’ devil, that’s what he is!” Tex cried. “He ain’t no orphant, not by a d––d sight–th’ devil’s his father, an’ all hell is his mother. Now, I want an answer to this one, and I want it quick: no lie goes. Why don’t th’ sheriff get busy an’ camp on his trail? What interest has th’ sheriff an’ Th’ Orphant in each other? Come on, out with it!”

“I don’t know,” replied Bill, wishing that the sheriff was at hand to make an appropriate answer. “Ask him, why don’t you?” he asked, stretching his neck to ease the hairy, bristling clutch of the lariat.

“Oh, yu don’t, an’ yore still cheeky, eh?” cried the inquisitor. “An’ yu want yore d––d neck stretched, do yu?”

He motioned to the man on the horse at the end of the rope and Bill straightened up and daylight showed under his heels. As he struggled there was an interruption from the man who covered the back trail: “’Nds up!” he cried. “Don’t move!”

Tex signalled for Bill to be let down and ran backward to the opposite side of the defile until he could see around the turn; and he discovered the sheriff, who sat quietly under the gun of the cowboy.

“Stop! Don’t yu even wiggle!” cried the guard. “I’ll blow yore head off at the first move!” he added in warning; and for once in his eventful life Shields knew that he was absolutely helpless, for the time, at least. His hands were clasped over his sombrero, for it would be tiresome to hold them out, and he felt that he might have need of fresh, quick muscles before long.

“All right, all right, bub,” he responded in perfect good