A Texas Ranger - William MacLeod Raine (people reading books txt) 📗

your say-so when you’re behind that big gun.”

He said it laughing, and she threw the weapon angrily into the seat of the rig.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll amble down and see what’s behind the hill.”

By the flinch in her eyes he tested his center shot and knew it true. Her breast was rising and falling tumultuously. A shiver ran through her.

“No— no. I’m not hiding— anything,” she gasped.

“Then if you’re not you can’t object to my going there.”

She caught her hands together in despair. There was about him something masterful that told her she could not prevent him from investigating; and it was impossible to guess how he would act after he knew. The men she had known had been bound by convention to respect a woman’s wishes, but even her ignorance of his type made guess that this steel-eyed, close-knit young Westerner— or was he a Southerner?— would be impervious to appeals founded upon the rules of the society to which she had been accustomed. A glance at his stone-wall face, at the lazy confidence of his manner, made her dismally aware that the data gathered by her experience of the masculine gender were insufficient to cover this specimen.

“You can’t go.”

But her imperative refusal was an appeal. For though she hated him from the depths of her proud, untamed heart for the humiliation he had put upon her, yet for the sake of that ferocious hunted animal she had left lying under a cottonwood she must bend her spirit to win him.

“I’m going to sit in this game and see it out,” he said, not unkindly.

“Please!”

Her sweet slenderness barred the way about as electively as a mother quail does the road to her young. He smiled, put his big hands on her elbows, and gently lifted her to one side. Then he strode forward lightly, with the long, easy, tireless stride of a beast of prey, striking direct for his quarry.

A bullet whizzed by his ear, and like a flash of light his weapon was unscabbarded and ready for action. He felt a flame of fire scorch his cheek and knew a second shot had grazed him.

“Hands up! Quick!” ordered the traveler.

Lying on the ground before him was a man with close-cropped hair and a villainous scarred face. A revolver in his hand showed the source of the bullets.

Eye to eye the men measured strength, fighting out to the last ditch the moral battle which was to determine the physical one. Sullenly, at the last, the one on the ground shifted his gaze and dropped his gun with a vile curse.

“Run to earth,” he snarled, his lip lifting from the tobacco-stained upper teeth in an ugly fashion.

The girl ran toward the Westerner and caught at his arm. “Don’t shoot,” she implored

Without moving his eyes from the man on the ground he swept her back.

“This outfit is too prevalent with its hardware,” he growled. “Chew out an explanation, my friend, or you’re liable to get spoiled.”

It was the girl that spoke, in a low voice and very evidently under a tense excitement.

“He is my brother and he has— hurt himself. He can’t ride any farther and we have seventy miles still to travel. We didn’t know what to do, and so—”

“You started out to be a road-agent and he took a potshot at the first person he saw. I’m surely obliged to you both for taking so much interest in me, or rather in my team. Robbery and murder are quite a family pastime, ain’t they?”

The girl went white as snow, seemed to shrink before his sneer as from a deadly weapon; and like a flash of light some divination of the truth pierced the Westerner’s brain. They were fugitives from justice, making for the Mexican line. That the man was wounded a single glance had told him. It was plain to be seen that the wear and tear of keeping the saddle had been too much for him.

“I acted on an impulse,” the girl explained in the same low tone. “I saw you coming and I didn’t know— hadn’t money enough to buy the team— besides—”

He took the words out of her mouth when she broke down.

“Besides, I might have happened to be a sheriff. I might be, but then I’m not.”

The traveler stepped forward and kicked the wounded man’s revolver beyond his reach, then swiftly ran a hand over him to make sure he carried no other gun.

The fellow on the ground eyed him furtively. “What are you going to do with me?” he growled.

The other addressed himself to the girl, ignoring him utterly.

“What has this man done?”

“He has— broken out from— from prison.”

“Where?”

“At Yuma.”

“Damn you, you’re snitching,” interrupted the criminal in a scream that was both wheedling and threatening.

The young man put his foot on the burly neck and calmly ground it into the dust. Otherwise he paid no attention to him, but held the burning eyes of the girl that stared at him from a bloodless face.

“What was he in for?”

“For holding up a train.”

She had answered in spite of herself, by reason of something compelling in him that drew the truth from her.

“How long has he been in the penitentiary?”

“Seven years.” Then, miserably, she added: “He was weak and fell into bad company. They led him into it.”

“When did he escape?”

“Two days ago. Last night he knocked at my window— at the window of the room where I lodge in Fort Lincoln. I had not heard of his escape, but I took him in. There were horses in the barn. One of them was mine. I saddled, and after I had dressed his wound we started. He couldn’t get any farther than this.”

“Do you live in Fort Lincoln?”

“I came there to teach school. My home was in Wisconsin before.”

“You came out here to be near him?”

“Yes. That is, near as I could get a school. I was to have got in the Tucson schools next year. That’s much nearer.”

“You visited him at the penitentiary?”

“No. I was going to during the Thanksgiving vacation. Until last night I had not seen him since he left home. I was a child of seven then.”

The Texan looked down at the ruffian under his feet.

“Do you know the road to Mexico by the Arivaca cut-off?”

“Yes.”

“Then climb into my rig and hit the trail hard— burn it up till you’ve crossed the line.”

The fellow began to whine thanks, but the man above would have none of them, “I’m giving you this chance for your sister’s sake. You won’t make anything of it. You’re born for meanness and deviltry. I know your kind from El Paso to Dawson. But she’s game and she’s white clear through, even if she is your sister and a plumb little fool. Can you walk to the road?” he ended abruptly.

“I think so. It’s in my ankle. Some hell-hound gave it me while we were getting over the wall,” the fellow growled.

“Don’t blame him. His intentions were good. He meant to blow out your brains.”

The convict cursed vilely, but in the midst of his impotent rage the other stopped and dragged him to his feet.

“That’s enough. You padlock that ugly mouth and light a shuck.”

The girl came forward and the man leaned heavily on her as he limped to the road. The Texan followed with the buckskin she had been riding and tied it to the back of the road-wagon.

“Give me my purse,” the girl said to the convict after they were seated.

She emptied it and handed the roll of bills it contained to the owner of the team. He looked at it and at her, then shook his head.

“You’ll need it likely. I reckon I can trust you. Schoolmarms are mostly reliable.”

“I had rather pay now,” she answered tartly.

“What’s the rush?”

“I prefer to settle with you now.”

“All right, but I’m in no sweat for my money. My team and the wagon are worth two hundred and fifty dollars. Put this plug at forty and it would be high.” He jerked his head toward the brush where the other saddle-horse was. “That leaves me a balance of about two hundred and ten. Is that fair?”

She bit her lip in vexation. “I expect so, but I haven’t that much with me. Can’t I pay this seventy on account?”

“No, ma’am, you can’t. All or none.” There was a gleam of humor in his hard eyes. “I reckon you better let me come and collect after you get back to Fort Lincoln.”

She took out a note-book and pencil. “If you will give me your name and address please.”

He smiled hardily at her. “I’ve clean forgotten them.”

There was a warning flash in her disdainful eye.

“Just as you like. My name is Margaret Kinney. I will leave the money for you at the First National Bank.”

She gathered up the rains deftly.

“One moment.” He laid a hand on the lines. “I reckon you think I owe you an apology for what happened when we first met.”

A flood of spreading color dyed her cheeks. “I don’t think anything about it.”

“Oh, yes, you do,” he contradicted. “And you’re going to think a heap more about it. You’re going to lay awake nights going over it.”

Out of eyes like live coals she gave him one look. “Will you take your hands from these reins please?”

“Presently. Just now I’m talking and you’re listening.”

“I don’t care to hear any apologies, sir,” she said stiffly.

“I’m not offering any,” he laughed, yet stung by her words.

“You’re merely insulting me again, I presume?”

“Some young women need punishing. I expect you’re one.”

She handed him the horsewhip, a sudden pulse of passion beating fiercely in her throat. “Very well. Make an end of it and let me see the last of you,” she challenged.

He cracked the lash expertly so that the horses quivered and would have started if his strong hand had not tightened on the lines.

The Westerner laughed again. “You’re game anyhow.”

“When you are quite through with me,” she suggested, very quietly.

But he noticed the fury of her deep-pupiled eyes, the turbulent rise and fall of her bosom.

“I’ll not punish you that way this time.” And he gave back the whip.

“If you won’t use it I will.”

The lash flashed up and down, twined itself savagely round his wrist, and left behind a bracelet of crimson. Startled, the horses leaped forward. The reins slipped free from his numbed fingers. Miss Kinney had made her good-by and was descending swiftly into the valley.

The man watched the rig sweep along that branch of the road which led to the south. Then he looked at his wrist and laughed.

“The plucky little devil! She’s a thoroughbred for fair. You bet I’ll make her pay for this. But ain’t she got sand in her craw? She’s surely hating me proper.” He laughed again in remembrance of the whole episode, finding in it something that stirred his blood immensely.

After the trap had swept round a curve out of sight he disappeared in the mesquite and bear-grass, presently returning with the roan that had been ridden by the escaped convict.

“Whoever would suppose she was the sister of that scurvy scalawag with jailbird branded all over his hulking hide? He ain’t fit to wipe her little feet on. She’s as fine as silk. Think of her going through what she is to save that coyote, and him as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. There ain’t any limit to what a good woman will do for a man when