The Orphan - Clarence E. Mulford (that summer book .TXT) 📗

the curtains down, and no sound came from within it. The baggage flap had settled askew over the tell-tale trunks and hid them from sight on that side.

“Oh, it’s a missing herd this time, is it?” he inquired coolly. “Well, I reckon you won’t find it out here. They don’t wander over this layout while the Limping Water is running.”

“Well, we’ll take a look down south aways; it won’t do no harm now that we’ve got this far,” replied Larry. “Come on, boys,” he cried. “We’ve wasted too much time with th’ engineer.”

“Wait!” commanded the sheriff shortly. “Your foreman made me certain promises, and I reckon that you are out against orders. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sneed wants you right now.”

Larry laughed uneasily. “Oh, I reckon he ain’t losin’ no sleep about us. We won’t hurt nobody” –whereat Bill grinned. “Come on, fellows.”

“Well, I hope you get what you’re looking for,” replied the sheriff, whereat Bill snickered outright and winked at Charley, who sat alert and scowling behind the sheriff, rather hoping for a fight.

Larry flashed the driver a malicious look and, wheeling, cantered south, followed by his companions. They rode straight for the point at which The Orphan had disappeared, Bill waving his arms and crying: “Sic ’em.” The chase was on in earnest.

The stage door suddenly flew open with a bang and interrupted the explanations which Bill was about to offer, and in a flash the sheriff was almost smothered by the attentions showered on him. Laughing and struggling and delighted by the surprise, the peace officer could not get a word edgewise in the rapid-fire exclamations and questions which were hurled at him from all sides.

But finally he could be heard as he extricated himself from the embraces of his sisters.

“Well, well!” he cried, smiles wreathing his face as he stepped back to get a good look at them. “You’re a sight to make a sick man well! My, Helen, but how you’ve grown! It’s been five years since I saw you–and you were only a schoolgirl in short dresses! And Mary hasn’t grown a bit older, not a bit,” addressing the elder of the two. Then he turned to the friend. “You must pardon me, Miss Ritchie,” he said as he shook hands with her. “But I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for a long time. And I’m really surprised, too, because I didn’t expect you all until the next stage trip. I had intended meeting you at the train and seeing you safely to Ford’s Station, because the Apaches are out. I couldn’t get word to you in time for you to postpone your visit, so I was going to take Charley and several more of the boys and escort you home.”

Then he looked about for Charley, and found that person engaged in conversation with Bill as the two examined the bullet-marked stage.

“Come here, Charley!” he cried, beckoning his friend to his side. “Ladies, this is Charley Winter, and he is a real good boy for a puncher. Charley, Miss Ritchie, my sisters Mary and Helen. I reckon you ladies are purty well acquainted with Bill Howland by this time, but in case you ain’t, I’ll just say that he is the boss driver of the Southwest, noted locally for his oppressive taciturnity. I reckon you two boys don’t need any introducing,” he laughed.

Then, while the conversation throbbed at fever heat, Bill suddenly remembered and wheeled toward the sheriff.

“The Orphant!” he yelled in alarm, hoping to gain attention that way.

The sheriff and Charley wheeled, guns in hand, and leaped clear of the women, their quick eyes glancing from point to point in search of the danger.

“Where?” cried the sheriff over his shoulder at Bill.

“Down south, ahead of them fool punchers,” Bill exclaimed. “He’s only got a little start on ’em. And they know he’s there, too. That’s why they’re looking for cows on a place cows never go.”

Then he related in detail the occurrences of the past few hours, to the sheriff’s great astonishment, and also to his delight at the way it had turned out. Shields thought of his own personal experiences with the outlaw, and this put him deeper in debt. His opinion as to there being much good in his enemy’s makeup was strengthened, and he smiled at the fighting ability and fairness of the man who had declared a truce with him by the big bowlder on the Apache Trail.

“Oh, I hope they don’t catch him!” Helen cried anxiously. “Can’t you do something, James?” she implored. “He saved us, and he is wounded, too! Can’t you stop them?”

The sheriff looked to the south in the direction taken by the cow-punchers, and a hard light grew in his eyes.

“No, not now,” he replied decisively. “They’ve had too much time now. And it’s safe to bet that they rode at full speed just as soon as they got out of my sight. They knew Bill would tell me. They’re miles away by this time. But don’t you worry, Sis–they won’t get him. Five curs never lived that could catch a timber wolf in his own country–and if they do catch him, they will wish they hadn’t. And I almost hope they win the chase, for they’ll lose their fool lives. It will be a lesson to the rest of the bullies of the Cross Bar-8–and small loss to the community at large, eh, Charley?”

“Yore shore right, Jim,” replied Charley, smiling at Miss Ritchie. “Did you ever hear tell of the dog that retrieved a lighted dynamite cartridge?” he asked her. “No? Well, the dog left for parts unknown.”

“That’s good, Charley,” Shields responded with a laugh. “The dog just wouldn’t mind, and he was only a snarling, no-account cur at that, wasn’t he?” Then he looked at the coach, and his heart softened to the hunted man. “I can see it all, now,” he said slowly. “Those punchers must have forced him out of the Backbone, and he was getting away when he saw the plight you were in. By God!” he cried in appreciation of the act. “It wasn’t no one man’s work, five Apaches! One man stopping five of those devils–it was no work for a murderer, not much! It was clean-cut nerve, and if I ever see him I’ll tell him so, too! I’ll let him know that he’s got some friends in this country. They can say what they please, but there’s more manhood in him to the square inch than there is in all the people who cry him down; and who are in a great way responsible for his being an outlaw. I’m ready to swear that he never wantonly shot a man down; no, sir, he didn’t. And I reckon he never had much show, from what I know of him.”

“Helen was real kind to him,” remarked the spinster. “She bathed his wound and bandaged it. Spoiled her very best skirt, too.”

“You’re a good girl, Sis,” Shields said, looking fondly at the beautiful girl at his side. His arm went around her shoulder and he affectionately patted her cheek. “I’m proud of you, and we’ll have to see if we can’t get another ‘very best skirt,’ too.” Then he laughed: “But I’ll bet he blesses the warrior who fired that shot–he’s not used to having pretty girls fuss about him.”

Mary looked quickly at her sister. “Why, Helen! You’ve lost your gold pin! Where do you suppose it has gone? I’ll look in the stage for it before we forget about it. Dear me, dear me,” she cried as she entered the vehicle, “this has indeed been a terrible day!”

Bill grinned and turned toward his team. “I reckon she’ll find it some day,” he said in a low aside as he passed the sheriff. “I’ll just bet she does. It’ll be in at the finish of a whole lot of things, and people, too, you bet,” he added enigmatically.

Shields looked quickly at the driver, his face brightened and he smiled knowingly at the words. “I reckon it will; fool punchers, for instance?”

Bill turned his head and one eye closed in an emphatic wink. “Keno,” he replied.

Mary bustled out again, very much agitated. “I can’t find it. Where do you suppose you lost it, dear? I’ve looked everywhere in the stage.”

“Probably back where we stopped before,” Helen replied quietly. “We were so agitated that we would never have noticed it if it slipped down.”

“Well–” began Mary.

“No use going back for it, Miss Shields,” promptly interrupted Bill from his high seat. “We just couldn’t find it in all that trampled sand, not if we hunted all week for it with a comb.”

“You’re right, Bill,” gravely responded the sheriff. “We never could.”

As they entered the defile of the Backbone the sheriff suddenly remembered what Bill had told him and he stopped and dismounted.

“You keep right on, Bill,” he said. “I’m going up to hunt that fool puncher. Lord, but it’s a joke! This game is getting better every day–I’m getting so I sort of like to have The Orphan around. He’s shore original, all right.”

“He’s better than a marked deck in a darkened room,” laughed the driver. “He shore ought to be framed, or something like that.”

“You better go with them, Charley,” the sheriff said as his friend made a move at dismounting. “There ain’t no danger, but we won’t take no chances this time; we’ve got a precious coachful.”

“All right,” replied Charley as he wheeled toward the disappearing stage. “So long, Sheriff.”

The sheriff looked the wall over and then picked out a comparatively easy place and climbed to the top. As he drew himself over the edge he espied a pair of boots which showed from under a pile of débris, and he laughed heartily. At the laugh the feet began to kick vigorously, so affecting the sheriff that he had to stop a minute, for it was the most ludicrous sight he had ever looked upon.

Shields grabbed the boots and pulled, walking backward, and soon an enraged and trussed cow-puncher came into view. Slowly and carefully unrolling the rope from the unfortunate man, he coiled it methodically and slung it over his shoulder, and then assisted in loosening the gag.

The puncher was too stiff to rise and his liberator helped him to his feet and slapped and rubbed and chuckled and rubbed to start the blood in circulation. The gag had so affected the muscles of the puncher’s jaw that his mouth would not close without assistance and effort, and his words were not at all clear for that reason. His first word was a curse.

“’Ell!” he cried as he stamped and swung his arms. “’Ell! I’m asleep all o’er! ––! ’Ait till I get ’im! ––! ’Ait till I get ’im!”

“Sort of continuing the little nap you was taking when he roped you, eh?” asked Shields, holding his sides.

“Nap nothing! Nap nothing!” yelled the other in profane denial. “I wasn’t asleep, I tell yu! I was wide awake! He got th’ drop on me, and then that cussed rope of his’n was everywhere! Th’ air was plumb full of rope and guns! I didn’t have no show! Not a bit of a show! Oh, just wait till I get him! Why, I heard my pardners talking as they hunted for me, and there I was not twenty feet away from them all the time, helpless! They’re fine lookers, they are! Wait till I sees them, too! I’ll tell ’em a few things, all right!”

“Well, I reckon you may see one or two of them, if they’re lucky–and you can’t beat a fool for luck,” replied the sheriff. “They want to be angels; they’re on his trail now.”

“Hope they get him!” yelled the puncher, dancing with rage. “Hope they