Who Wants to Live Forever?

Calloway waddled forward to the sidewalk and through the door. He wiped his red perspiring face with a bandanna handkerchief.

'Let's not have any trouble, boys,' he puffed.

'Are you having trouble, Dud?' Hal asked.

'I'm an officer of the law,' Calloway explained. 'No personal feeling against you, understand. But I got a warrant to serve on you, Mr. Stevens, and on Frank. For your arrest.'

'Who wants us arrested? And what for?'

'Several of the boys claim you held them up at a poker game and robbed them. 'Course I don't know a thing about it. I'm just a deputy sheriff doing his duty.'

'Do you always make arrests in this rather violent way — by first wrecking a car, nearly killing the occupants, and then shooting at them as they run for cover?'

The deputy lifted a fat hand in protest. 'Now, Mr. Stevens, I hadn't a thing to do with that. Not a thing. Probably the boys thought you were trying to run away. But I'm not justifying them. They were too hasty.'

'You think so?' The smile on the face of Stevens was ironic. 'No doubt you will arrest them for assault with a deadly weapon and intent to kill.'

'If a warrant is sworn out for their arrest, I'll sure serve it.'

'And who pays for our ruined car?'

'Why, that would be a civil case, wouldn't it?'

Helen Barnes could keep silent no longer. 'This is the most outrageous thing I ever saw,' she burst out. 'You know what riff-raff these men are. You ought to be ashamed to come here on such an errand, Dud Calloway.'

Calloway's fat face creased to an oily propitiatory smile. 'Now, Miss Helen, you're not looking at this the right way, I got no option but to serve this paper. If these gentlemen are not guilty, why, of course they will come clear.'

'Is the idea to let us put up bond?' Hal inquired.

'Probably I would have to take care of you for tonight until we could get to a judge.'

'I thought so. In that flimsy old cabin you call a jail.

And what's to prevent somebody who doesn't like us much from slipping up in the night and shooting holes in us through the window?'

The officer looked shocked. 'Nobody would do that, Mr. Stevens. Why, that would be murder.'

'So it would. We don't want to be responsible for such a crime. It would be wrong for us to put such a temptation before anybody. Therefore, if you please, we'll postpone the arrest.'

'But —but—'

'The United States has called Frank up to join the army. We want to be sure he reaches Tucson in time — and not in a box. As a patriot you will understand, Dud, that the call of the country comes first.'

Galloway looked stumped. He did not know how much legality this argument had to stand on, but he was quite sure that he would have no luck in trying to arrest this cool customer with the gentle voice and the steely eyes. And he was just as certain that the men back of the guns across the street would give it no weight.

He rubbed a hand dubiously over his unshaven chin. 'I'll tell the boys,' he said, plainly crestfallen.

'Yes, do. And tell them that Miss Barnes and the restaurant force will come out and leave Frank and me here. If they think they can arrest us, they are welcome to try.'

'I don't want to leave,' the girl demurred. 'It's my place. If we go they will attack you.'

'Very likely.'

She thought of another talking point. 'Before they got through they would ruin the place.'

'Afraid you'll have to risk that.'

She still objected to going, but in the end he made her see that their enemies would come over in a body if she was still on the place and any effective defense would be impossible. With her beside them, they could not open fire on the attackers.

CHAPTER 10

Miss Barnes Speaks Her Mind

HELEN BARNES crossed the street to the hotel, Manuel and the colored cook in her wake. She saw a man peering out of a window of the Rest Easy and another lounging in the doorway of Flack's store. Probably both of them were on guard to prevent the escape of the two penned in the restaurant. The one at Flack's certainly was. He had a rifle in his hands. She knew him well enough to say 'Good morning' when they met. More than once he had eaten in the restaurant. His name was Hanford.

Except herself and the restaurant employees nobody was on the street. That was understandable, since it had just been swept by bullets and might be again at any moment. At sight of them a dog trotted down the middle of the road, cheerfully unaware of being in a dangerous No Man's Land. What interested him was the sight of two friends, Manuel and Sam, both of whom had frequently fed him table scraps.

'You Pete, better light outa here sudden,' Sam warned the dog, waving menacing arms.

Pete thought this a new and delightful form of play and bounded forward to jump up at the gesturing hands.

'Let him come into the hotel with you, Sam,' the young woman advised.

In the lobby were two more men with rifles, Cash Polk and a young fellow she had heard called Brick Fenwick, She turned on Cash, eyes hot with anger.

'What do you mean by shooting at my restaurant?' she demanded.

'Don't you worry, Miss Helen. You're just as safe as when you are singing in the choir. We wouldn't hurt you for anything.' The man's voice was unctuous with false good will. 'We were mighty careful where we shot. All we wanted was to let them two criminals who ran into your place know we wouldn't let them make a getaway.'

'I didn't see any criminals.' Her wrath exploded. 'I'm going to find out whether riff-raff can shoot up my restaurant and not go to prison for it.'

Brick Fenwick spoke, a drawl in his cool voice, but a quick excitement in his hot and glittering eyes. 'You and I will have to talk that over, Miss. We might come to an understanding.'

For just an instant her scornful gaze swept across him. In her words there was the sting of a small whistling whiplash. 'I have nothing to talk over with you… ever. When I talk, it will be to the law.'

'Now, Miss Helen, I wouldn't do that,' Cash replied, smooth as a well-oiled hinge. 'We'll fix up the front of your place and pay any damages you might ask.'

'And drop in frequent to eat at the restaurant,' Brick added, his gaze of jeering admiration still fixed on its owner.

'None of you will ever eat there again.'

'Take it easy, Miss,' the young ruffian advised. 'I like yore spunk. We're gonna be good friends, you and me.'

She gave him one brief contemptuous look before she turned away, moving toward the young man behind the desk. He was the son of the woman who ran the hotel, and she had often danced with him. 'You might tell these men, Jack, that if they make a move to attack Frank Lovell and Hal Stevens, two or three of them are going to die very quickly.'

Frawley came into the room by a passage that led from the back door. The girl noted that his face was badly cut and bruised. 'What's doing?' he asked harshly.

'Nothing yet, except that Stevens told Dud he couldn't arrest them,' Cash explained. 'He said Frank had got his call to report for enlistment and was on his way to Tucson.'

'We ought to of rubbed them both out while we had the chance,' Frawley cried bitterly. 'All this monkeying around and nonsense about arresting. They're a pair of hold-ups. Ain't that enough?'

The shocked voice of Cash reproved him. 'Sh-sh, Jim! That's no way to talk. We got to act lawful.' He gave a slight warning tilt of his head in the direction of Helen Barnes.

The discharged foreman was beyond caution. 'And very likely let them get away,' he stormed.

'They ain't going to get away,' Brick told him, almost in a murmur, the words distinctly spaced. 'I'm making it my personal business to see to that.'