He lifted his own as he spoke and there was a gun in each. Snap followed suit, squinting hopefully at the Double X men. There was no hesitation; the marshal was not popular, and the few who would have liked to support him realised that one false move would turn the comedy into a tragedy. Even the marshal knew it, and his hands were not the last to go skyward. Green's sardonic glance swept the room.
`Carried unanimous,' he said. `Ginger, I didn't know yu was that popular.' Then to Snap, he added, `Get him on his hoss, while I count the votes again, case I've missed any.'
For several minutes he stood there, guns poised ready for instant action, and a lurking devil of mirth in his eyes. When he had given Snap sufficient time he backed slowly towards the door.
`There, marshal, yu see how wrong yu was,' he smiled. `Everybody allowed it was an even break an' wanted Ginger let alone. Why, yu even voted for it yore own self.'
`This ain't finishin' here,' snarled the officer.
`Well, well,' drawled the puncher. `But don't be in a hurry, marshal.'
He slid quickly through the door, slammed it behind him, and found his horse. Vaulting into the saddle, he waited. Snap and the wounded man were already on their way. A moment or two passed and then a narrow band of light showed that the door of the saloon was being opened. Green drove a bullet into the jamb at about the height of a shortish man's head and laughed at the speed with which the bar of light vanished.
`I told yu not to be in a hurry, marshal,' he called out, and receiving no response, added to himself, `I reckon that'll keep 'em tied for a while.'
Turning his horse he rode slowly and noiselessly in the wake of his friends, and soon overtook them. There was no pursuit; the opening of the saloon door had been the marshal's last attempt to save his face, and had resulted in his nearly losing a part of it, for the answering bullet had been much nearer than Green had guessed or intended. Tonk was taking no more chances.
Chapter XII
THE news of the avenging of Bud produced a variety of sentiment at the Y Z. Ginger's friends, naturally, approved wholeheartedly and regarded the wounded man with envy and admiration. The foreman frankly stated his opinion that the killing was a misguided piece of `damn foolishness'--that he did not believe that Mex had anything to do with the slaying of Bud, and that the only result would be a range war which would bring trouble and calamity to the Y Z. The older men, though they cared nothing for the deceased, took their cue from the foreman and were plainly pessimistic.
To Simon Petter, when he reported the matter, Blaynes was even more outspoken. He put the whole of the blame on Green, whom he accused of egging on Ginger, and hinted that he must have some hidden motive for snirring up trouble.
`He's got the earmarks of a professional gun-slinger, an' if he's that, what's he doin' around here?' he asked. `I've a hunch we oughtta give him his time.'
But Simon did not adopt the suggestion; he was conscious of a curious liking for the stranger, and at the same time, in an indefinite way, he feared him. Was his arrival at the ranch purely accidennal or was there some sinister design behind it? That was a question Simon had wrestled with several times without coming to a satisfactory solution.
`An' now, I s'pose, we'll have Dexter goin' on the warpath, an' Tonk a-comin' round here with a warrant,' pursued Blaynes. `Huh! that sponge,' sneered his employer. `If I catch him onthe Y Z I'll bake him as hard to find as water on the Staked Plain, marshal or not. As for Dexter, if he wants a fight he can have it; I ain't eatin' no dirt at his orders.'
The foreman looked at his boss in amazement; this was a side of him he did not know. Old the ranch-owner might be, but the spirit of the pioneer who had blazed his path into new counnry and fought to hold his place there remained.
`Why do yu reckon they tried to bump off Lunt?' asked Simon.
`No idea--private difference, I should say,' replied the foreman. `See here, Simon, don't get the notion that I got any use for the Double X. Yu say the word an' I'll take a dozen o' the boys an' wipe 'em up.'
The cattleman shook his head. `Let 'em make the first move,' he said. `Yu just remember what I'm tellin' yu, if they want trouble they can have it. I ain't none so shore that--'
He left the thought unspoken, gave Blaynes a nod of dismissal, and turned away. The foreman, on his way from the house, saw Noreen talking to Green by the corral, from which he had just led his horse, and the sight drew a snarling oath from his lips. The girl was going to visit the hurt man when she met the puncher, and there was reproach both in eyes and voice when she asked how he was.
`Ginger's doin' fine,' said Green, `but I reckon he won't never recover.' Then noting her look of consternation, he added, `Not if yo're goin' to nurse him.'
She blushed a little and then retorted smilingly, `Then we must find a better nurse.'
`Shucks! I didn't mean it that way,' Green protested, and grinned at the neat way in which she had turned his little joke against him.
Noreen laughed too, but in an instant her face became grave again, and she asked, `Why did you let him do it?'
He had been expecting the question and his expression sobered immediately. `Ginger is a grown man, ma'am, an' it was his business,' he explained. `Bud was his friend, and he had it to do.'
`But surely it is the business of the law to punish a criminal,' she protested.
The law, meaning the marshal,' said Green. `Well, yes, but yu see the law is such a powerful long time gettin' to work that a criminal is liable to die of old age before it gets him. An' s'pose it does get him, what happens? Why, he's allowed to escape because the sheriff is a friend, or he gets let off by a packed jury of his "peers"--the fellers who oughtta be in the dock with him. Theoretically, the law is sound enough, but out here it's just a farce and a man must do his own police-work. This feller was a
cow-thief an' a murderer--his life was twice forfeit, an' I don't see that it matters whether one man or a hundred are concerned in puttin' him out o' mischief.'
He spoke seriously, and she was conscious that it was not entirely with the object of justifying Ginger, but that they were his own views, and that she might expect him to act in accordance with them. As a Western girl, born and bred, a deed of violence was no new thing to her, but this one had come very close to her, and the horror was still fresh. She realised that he was right, but she would not admit it, even to herself.
`But under your system, the man who is fast with his gun can commit any number of crimes with impunity,' she argued. `Had this man been quicker than Ginger, he would merely have added another murder to the one he was already guilty of.'
`I ain't claimin' the system, or that it is perfect,' the cowpuncher replied. `Yu have to have some penalty for offences against life an' property. An' yu mustn't mix up killin' with murder, too many folks do that, an' plenty o' fellers get reputations as bad men who don't deserve 'em. There's two sorts o' gunmen--one who kills for the sake of it, an' the other, who won't pull a gun until he has to, an' who gives his man an even break every time. No, the law of the gun may be defective an' primitive, but without it this country wouldn't be possible. Do yu reckon that if yore father catches a rustler with the goods he'll hand him over to Tonk?'
The girl was silenced, if not convinced, for, knowing Simon, she did not expect that he would do any such thing. Green saved her the problem of answering his question by turning the conversation.
`Yore friend has come a-visitin' again,' he said, and looking towards the ranch-house she saw that Taxman and Laban had just ridden up.
`I don't make friends so easily,' she returned, and then, `You don't like him?'