The Mountain Divide - Frank H. Spearman (english reading book .txt) 📗

He had resolved that Levake was to be punished, but it was not a unanimous voice that backed the railroad leader in his determination. Weak-kneed men in the conference wanted to compromise and end the fight where it stood. Even Atkinson was disposed to make terms, as the party returned to the barricade.

“No,” repeated Stanley. “Levake is the head and front of this whole disorder. As long as he can shoot down unarmed men in the streets of Medicine Bend there will be no law and order here. While men see him walking these streets unpunished they will take their cue from him and rob and shoot whom they please––Levake and his ilk must go. A railroad, on the start, brings a lawless element with it––this is true. But it also brings law and order and that element has come to Medicine Bend to stay. If the machinery of the law is too weak to support it, so much worse 291 for the machinery. I don’t want to see blood shed or property destroyed, but the responsibility for this rests with the outlaws that are terrorizing this town. And I will spend every ounce of ammunition I have and fight them to the last man, rather than compromise with a bunch of cutthroats.

“If any man here feels differently about this, he may step out of the barricade now,” continued Stanley, addressing those of the townsmen that listened. “There will be no hard feeling. But this is the time to do it. Worse is ahead of us before we can clean the town up as it will have to be cleaned sometime. The longer you leave the job undone, the harder it will be when you tackle it.”

A movement across the square interrupted his words, and a messenger waving a white handkerchief came over to the barricade to ask for a surgeon for a wounded man. There were some who opposed sending any relief to men that had forfeited all claim to humane consideration. Doctor Arnold, however, was summoned, and Stanley 292 finally determined that the matter should be left to the surgeon himself––he could go if he wished. Arnold did not hesitate in his decision. “It is my duty to go,” he decided briefly.

“I don’t quite see that,” muttered Atkinson.

The white-haired surgeon turned to the leader of the vigilantes. “It is not a matter of personal inclination, Atkinson. When I took my degree for the practice of medicine, I took an oath to respond to every call of suffering and I have no right to refuse this one.”

Leaving his own injured with his assistant, the surgeon told the messenger to proceed and the two walked across the square and up Front Street to the Three Horses. Arriving there, Arnold was asked to dress the wound of a man that had been shot through the breast in the fight along Fort Street. While he was working over his patient, who lay on a table surrounded by a motley crowd of onlookers, Levake walked in. He nodded to the surgeon and drawing a pocket knife, while Arnold was cleansing the wound, sat down beside him to whittle a stick.

“I hear your man, Stanley, wants me,” began Levake after an interval.

“I guess you hear right,” returned Arnold dryly.

“Tell him for me to come get me, will you?” suggested Levake.

“If he ever comes after you, Levake, he will get you,” returned Arnold, looking the outlaw straight in the eye. “There isn’t any doubt about that,” he added, resuming his task.

Levake whittled but made no reply. He watched the surgeon’s work closely, and when Arnold had finished and given directions for the wounded man’s care he walked out of the place with him.

“Tell Stanley what I said, will you?” repeated Levake, as the railroad surgeon left the door and started down street.

Arnold made no answer and Levake, taunting him to send all the men the railroad had after him, followed Arnold toward the square.

The surgeon understood that it was Levake’s purpose to engage him in a dispute and kill him if he could. Arnold, moreover, was hot-tempered and made no concealment of his feelings toward 294 any man. For this reason, despite his realization of danger, he was an easy prey.

To the final taunt of the outlaw the surgeon made rather a sharp answer and quickened his pace, to walk away from his unpleasant companion. But Levake would not be shaken off, and as the two were passing a deserted restaurant he ordered the surgeon to halt. Arnold turned without shrinking. Levake had already drawn his pistol and his victim concluded he was to be killed then and there, but he resolved to tell the outlaw what he thought of him.

“I understand your game perfectly, Levake,” he said after he had raked him terrifically. “Now, if you are going to shoot, do it. You haven’t long to live yourself––make sure of that.”

“No man can threaten me and live,” retorted Levake harshly.

“I came up here, an unarmed man, on an errand of mercy.”

“I didn’t send for you.”

“You would kill me just as quick if you had, Levake. What are you hesitating about? If you are going to shoot, shoot.”

Throwing back his right arm, and fingering the trigger of his revolver as a panther lashes his tail before springing, Levake stepped back and to one side. As he did so, with the fearless surgeon still facing him, a man stepped from behind the screen door of the deserted restaurant. It was Bob Scott.

The old and deadly feud between the Indian and the outlaw brought them now, for the first time in months, face to face. In spite of his iron nerve Levake started. Scott, slightly stooped and wearing the familiar slouch hat and shabby coat in which he was always seen, regarded his enemy with a smile.

So sudden was his appearance that Levake could not for an instant control himself. If there was a man in the whole mountain country that Levake could be said to be afraid of, it was the mild-mannered, mild-spoken Indian scout. Where Scott had come from, how he had got through the pickets posted by Levake himself––these questions, for which he could find no answer, disquieted the murderer.

Arnold, reprieved from death as by a miracle, stood like a statue. Levake, with his hand on his pistol, had halted, petrified, at the sight of Scott.

The latter, eying the murderer with an expression that might have been mistaken for friendly, had not Levake known there could be no friendship among decent men for him, broke the silence: “Levake, I have a warrant for you.”

The words seemed to shake the spell from the outlaw’s nerves. He answered with his usual coolness: “You’ve waited a good while to serve it.”

“I’ve been a little busy for a few days, Levake,” returned Scott, with the same even tone. “I kind of lost track of you.” But his words again disconcerted Levake. The few men who now watched the scene and knew what was coming stood breathless.

Levake,