Bar-20 Days, Clarence E. Mulford [world best books to read .TXT] 📗

at last—mighty wobbly, but tracks just the same. Them rocks couldn’t go on forever. Red, I’ll bet he’s cashed in by this time.”

“Cashed nothing! Them fellers don’t.”

“Well, if he’s in that joint we might as well go back home. We won’t get him, not nohow,” declared Hopalong.

“Huh! You wait an’ see!” replied Red, pugnaciously.

“Reckon you never run up agin a mission real hard,” Hopalong responded, his memory harking back to the time he had disagreed with a convent, and they both meant about the same to him as far as winning out was concerned.

“Think I’m a fool kid?” snapped Red, aggressively.

“Well, you ain’t no kid.”

“You let me do the talking; I’ll get him.”

“All right; an’ I’ll do the laughing,” snickered Hopalong, at the door. “Sic ‘em, Red!”

The other boldly stepped into a small vestibule, Hopalong close at his heels. Red hitched his holster and walked heavily into a room at his left. With the exception of a bench, a table, and a small altar, the room was devoid of furnishings, and the effect of these was lost in the dim light from the narrow windows. The peculiar, not unpleasant odor of burning incense and the dim light awakened a latent reverence and awe in Hopalong, and he sneaked off his sombrero, an inexplicable feeling of guilt stealing over him. There were three doors in the walls, deeply shrouded in the dusk of the room, and it was very hard to watch all three at once.

Red was peering into the dark corners, his hand on the butt of his Colt, and hardly knew what he was looking for. “This joint must ‘a’ looked plumb good to that coyote, all right. He had a hell of a lot of luck, but he won’t keep it for long, damn him!” he remarked.

“Quit cussing!” tersely ordered Hopalong. “An’ for God’s sake, throw out that damned cigarette! Ain’t you got no manners?”

Red listened intently and then grinned. “Hear that? They’re playing dominoes in there—come on!”

“Aw, you chump! ‘Dominee’ means ‘mother’ in Latin, which is what they speaks.”

“How do you know?”

“Hanged if I can tell—I’ve heard it somewhere, that’s all.”

“Well, I don’t care what it means. This is a frame-up so that coyote can get away. I’ll bet they gave him a cayuse an’ started him off while we’ve been losing time in here. I’m going inside an’ ask some questions.”

Before he could put his plan into execution, Hopalong nudged him and he turned to see his friend staring at one of the doors. There had been no sound, but he would swear that a monk stood gravely regarding them, and he rubbed his eyes. He stepped back suspiciously and then started forward again.

“Look here, stranger,” he remarked, with quiet emphasis, “we’re after that cow-lifter, an’ we mean to get him. Savvy?”

The monk did not appear to hear him, so he tried another tack. “Habla Espanola?” he asked, experimentally.

“You have ridden far?” replied the monk in perfect English.

“All the way from the Bend,” Red replied, relieved. “We’re after Jerry Brown. He tried to kill Johnny, an’ near made good. An’ I reckon we’ve treed him, judging from the tracks.”

“And if you capture him?”

“He won’t have no more use for no side pocket shooting.”

“I see; you will kill him.”

“Shore’s it’s wet outside.”

“I’m afraid you are doomed to disappointment.”

“Ya-as?” asked Red with a rising inflection.

“You will not want him now,” replied the monk.

Red laughed sarcastically and Hopalong smiled.

“There ain’t a-going to be no argument about it. Trot him out,” ordered Red, grimly.

The monk turned to Hopalong. “Do you, too, want him?”

Hopalong nodded.

“My friends, he is safe from your punishment.”

Red wheeled instantly and ran outside, returning in a few moments, smiling triumphantly. “There are tracks coming in, but there ain’t none going away. He’s here. If you don’t lead us to him we’ll shore have to rummage around an’ poke him out for ourselves: which is it?”

“You are right—he is here, and he is not here.”

“We’re waiting,” Red replied, grinning.

“When I tell you that you will not want him, do you still insist on seeing him?”

“We’ll see him, an’ we’ll want him, too.”

As the rain poured down again the sound of approaching horses was heard, and Hopalong ran to the door in time to see Buck Peters swing off his mount and step forward to enter the building. Hopalong stopped him and briefly outlined the situation, begging him to keep the men outside. The monk met his return with a grateful smile and, stepping forward, opened the chapel door, saying, “Follow me.”

The unpretentious chapel was small and nearly dark, for the usual dimness was increased by the lowering clouds outside. The deep, narrow window openings, fitted with stained glass, ran almost to the rough-hewn rafters supporting the steep-pitched roof, upon which the heavy rain beat again with a sound like that of distant drums. Gusts of rain and the water from the roof beat against the south windows, while the wailing wind played its mournful cadences about the eaves, and the stanch timbers added their creaking notes to swell the dirge-like chorus.

At the farther end of the room two figures knelt and moved before the white altar, the soft light of flickering candles playing fitfully upon them and glinting from the altar ornaments, while before a rough coffin, which rested upon two pedestals, stood a third, whose rich, sonorous Latin filled the chapel with impressive sadness. “Give eternal rest to them, O Lord,”—the words seeming to become a part of the room. The ineffably sad, haunting melody of the mass whispered back from the room between the assaults of the enraged wind, while from the altar came the responses in a low, Gregorian chant, and through it all the clinking of the censer chains added intermittent notes. Aloft streamed the vapor of the incense, wavering with the air currents, now lost in the deep twilight of the sanctuary, and now faintly revealed by the glow of the candles, perfuming the air with its aromatic odor.

As the last deep-toned words died away the celebrant moved slowly around the coffin, swinging the censer over it and then, sprinkling the body and making the sign of the cross above its head, solemnly withdrew.

From the shadows along the side walls other figures silently emerged and grouped around the coffin. Raising it they turned it slowly around and carried it down the dim aisle in measured tread, moving silently as ghosts.

“He is with God, Who will punish according to his sins,” said a low voice, and Hopalong started, for he had forgotten the presence of the guide. “God be with you, and may you die as he died—repentant and in peace.”

Buck chafed impatiently before the chapel door leading to a small, well-kept graveyard, wondering what it was that kept quiet for so long a time his two most assertive men, when he had momentarily expected to hear more or less turmoil and confusion.

C-r-e-a-k! He glanced up, gun in hand and raised as the door swung slowly open. His hand dropped suddenly and he took a short step forward; six black-robed figures shouldering a long box stepped slowly past him, and his nostrils were assailed by the pungent odor of the incense. Behind them came his fighting punchers, humble, awed, reverent, their sombreros in their hands, and their heads bowed.

“What in blazes!” exclaimed Buck, wonder and surprise struggling for the mastery as the others cantered up.

“He’s cashed,” Red replied, putting on his sombrero and nodding toward the procession.

Buck turned like a flash and spoke sharply: “Skinny! Lanky! Follow that glory-outfit, an’ see what’s in that box!”

Billy Williams grinned at Red. “Yo’re shore pious, Red.”

“Shut up!” snapped Red, anger glinting in his eyes, and Billy subsided.

Lanky and Skinny soon returned from accompanying the procession.

“I had to look twice to be shore it was him. His face was plumb happy, like a baby. But he’s gone, all right,” Lanky reported.

“Deader’n hell,” remarked Skinny, looking around curiously. “This here is some shack, ain’t it?” he finished.

“All right—he knowed how he’d finish when he began. Now for that dear Mr. Harlan,” Buck replied, vaulting into the saddle. He turned and looked at Hopalong, and his wonder grew. “Hey, you! Yes, you! Come out of that an’ put on yore lid! Straddle leather—we can’t stay here all night.”

Hopalong started, looked at his sombrero and silently obeyed. As they rode down the trail and around a corner he turned in his saddle and looked back; and then rode on, buried in thought.

Billy, grinning, turned and playfully punched him in the ribs. “Getting glory, Hoppy?”

Hopalong raised his head and looked him steadily in the eyes; and Billy, losing his curiosity and the grin at the same instant, looked ahead, whistling softly.