`But that depends on the Governor,' Sudden objected.
`Who wouldn't have any use for a dead judge,' was the grim retort.
`The ranchers must be pretty strong.'
`Their custom means a lot, an' they have the lawless element with 'em. How many? Well, there's the S P, north; the Big C--Cullin's, south-east; the Double V--Vic Vasco's, southwest; the 8 B--Bardoe's, due west; so I've got em all round me. It's a swell nest o' yeller-jackets you've stepped into.'
`My hide is thick,' the puncher smiled.
To the unaccustomed eye, Midway could only appear as a blot on the landscape. A few of the buildings boasted a second storey, some were false-fronted to convey that impression, and others were just cabins with sodded roofs. As they entered the town, Drait pulled up, and pointed.
`There she is,' he said. `Midway's pride.'
It was a big building, standing back from the others. Substantially constructed of squared logs, it had a second floor, and three doors, the boards above which told that here was congregated, in the court-house, gaol, and sheriff's office, the whole machinery of the Law.
`Looks fine from here,' Sudden said. `Seen the inside?' `Not yet,' the nester grinned. `There's Judge Towler.'
Sudden saw an oldish man passing on the other side of the street. Even without his battered high hat he would have been tall but for a pronounced stoop. A full-skirted shabby black coat flapped about his thighs, his boiled shirt was wrinkled and soiled, and his grey beard unkempt. Nevertheless, he still presented a kind of decayed distinction. Eyes bent, he seemed to be choosing his steps carefully, and twice they saw him stumble.
`I'm told he's hittin' the bottle pretty constant,' Drait remarked. Pity--he's got brains; if he on'y had courage too....' They went on to dismount at a saloon which announced itself as `Merker's.' Underneath was the statement, `No Fancy Names and No Funny Business.'
`An' that's no brag,' Drait said. `If you lose here, you have lost, an' if you win, yo're paid.'
The company within was small--less than a dozen men were seated at the tables in front of the bar, and the various games of chance were idle. Behind a barrier of polished mahogany stood a dark-haired, smooth-chinned man whose face would not have appeared out of place above a clerical collar.
`Glad to see you, Nick,' he greeted, and when the nester presented his companion, added, `You too, Mister Green.' He set out the inevitable bottle and glasses, and in a lowered tone, said, `The sheriff is makin' a big talk an' is lookin' for you.'
`Now if that ain't lucky,' Drait replied. `I came a-purpose to see him; get a bit further away, Jim; you don't know me till we hear what he has to say.'
A moment later, the swing-door was thrust aside, and the officer entered. Short, barrel-like in body, with stumpy, powerful legs, he waddled rather than walked in. Meanness was evident in his puffy cheeks, slit of a mouth, and cunning eyes, which gleamed for a moment when they rested on the nester, and then almost vanished, as though a light had been lowered inside him. He had been given--but did not rejoice in--the nickname of `Stinker,' owing to a reputed adventure with a skunk.
Pompously throwing out his huge chest, on which his badge was prominently displayed, and hitching his gun-belt so that the butt was handy, he growled, `Drait, I wanta see you.'
Nick turned slowly. `Help yoreself,' he said. `But don't come too close--my nose is a mite sensitive.' A chuckle from an onlooker did not improve the officer's temper. `Funny, huh?' he sneered. `Well, laugh this one off : I'm arrestin' you.' `Is--that--so?' the young man queried. `I've often wondered how it felt. Seems simple. What d'you do next?'
The sheriff ignored the question--an evasion which made some of those present smile, but their faces became serious enough when he continued. 'Yo're charged with stealin' four hosses from the S P.'
The accused grinned. `How on earth did you find that out, Stinker?' he wanted to know.
`That's my business.'
`Shore it is, but you never do it, an' didn't this time. You had yore information from a cow-thief named Lanty.'
`That amounts to a confession,' the sheriff said eagerly.
`How d'you figure it?'
`Because' he paused, suddenly aware of an obstacle, and Drait finished the sentence :
`Lanty won't like bein' dragged into it, but he's goin' to be. Yestiddy, he an' three o' Bardoe's bullies ambushed, an' were just about to string me up when a couple o' strangers happened along an' interfered. The Bardoe men were usin' S P broncs, an' claimed to be ridin' for Gilman. I didn't believe it, an' set 'em afoot. So Lanty tries to come back at me by tellin' the sheriff he'll find stolen stock at Shadow Valley. Sent there yet, Stinker?'
`Yeah, an' if my fellas do find 'em you'll swing yet, for all yore fairy tale,' was the answer.
Drait, leaning comfortably against the bar, glanced round at the audience. `A hard man, our unworthy sheriff,' he remarked, and passed a piece of paper to the saloon-keeper. `Suspicious, too. Tell the company what that is, Sol.'
Merker read aloud : `Received from Nick Drait, four S P horses he had reason to believe stolen from this ranch.' He paused a moment. `It bears today's date, an' is signed by jack Gilman.'
Open sniggers greeted the discomfiture of the officer, who was by no means popular with some of the townsfolk upon whom he had been forced. He glared at the offenders, but could conjure up no retort to the blow. The nester spoke, contemptuously:`So you see, Stinker, I gotta decline yore invitation to the calaboose, but if I'm robbin' you o' one job, I'm givin' you another. When I reached home in the afternoon, I found Eddie Olsen--dead, an' hangin' from a limb. That don't seem to surprise you.'
The sheriff's unhealthy face had become a shade paler, and his attempt to depict astonishment was a poor effort. He lifted his massive shoulders.
`Nothin' that happens in Shadow Valley surprises me, 'cept that a damn fool should try to live there,' he sneered. `Gimme the facts an' I'll look into it.'
`As you did the murder o' young Rawlin?'
`That was self-defence, an' I'll bet this was too.'
`You'd lose; Eddie was crippled, an' he didn't tote a gun. He was hanged just as a warnin' to me.' A long-faced, bearded man at one of the tables looked up. `Why, there wasn't no harm in Eddie,' he remarked. `Hanged, huh?'
`Yeah, Pilch,' Drait replied. `Nine full-growed, masked men to murder one disabled, unarmed lad.'
`Yore chaps reckernize any of 'em?' the officer asked.
`Do you think I'd be here if they had?' Nick said savagely. The reply seemed to relieve the questioner. `Cattle-thieves, I reckon,' he said. `There's plenty about.'
'Yo're right, an' all of 'em own ranches. But these houn's warn't after cattle, but me, an' this proves it.'
He read out the notice the killers had left, and the sheriff shut his teeth on an oath; why did the cursed fools have to be so theatrical?
`What you expect me to do?'
`I ain't expectin', Camort,' Drait told him. `You'll do what yore masters' tell you, like any other tame dawg.'
Hard-boiled as he was, the bitter taunt stung, and the sheriff's face purpled with passion. But the flinty-eyed man who had hurled it at him was an unknown quantity, and Camort had a fondness for certainties. Remembrance came that, by virtue of his office, he was a privileged person. An ugly light in his slitted eyes, he ordered a drink, and turned on his tormentor.
`That'll be all from you, Drait,' he said furiously. `Pull yore gun, you...'
As the last word left his lips, he grabbed the glass on the bar, flung the contents full in the nester's face, and reached for his hip. Drait was helpless, blinded by the fiery spirit, and it seemed the dastard design must succeed. Camort's gun was out, and his finger actually pressing the trigger when flame jetted from the left hip of the strange puncher, now standing clear of the bar; the threatening weapon clattered on the floor, and with a yelped oath, its owner clutched a ripped fore-arm. Before he could move, iron hands gripped his throat, shook him like a rat, and flung him away. Against the power in those long, muscular arms the sheriff's bulk availed him not at all. The astounded spectators saw him stagger backwards, crash into a table, and lie prone amidst the ruins. The puncher stepped towards him.