Читать книгу Gunmen's Feud - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 5

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Three days went slowly, slowly over the head of the sheriff. During that time he was as profane, as slovenly, as smiling as ever, and yet every minute he waited for the crash. His mind reverted to a period fifteen years before when Hank Peyton had been a black name around Sloan. There were two men of might in those days—Peyton and La Paloma—and only by an act of grace was Sloan rid of them when Peyton killed the more famous bad man and was himself so terribly shot up that he could never draw a weapon again with a sure hand.

After that epic battle he had lived on his savage reputation alone, peacefully; but the picture in the sheriffs eye was the old Hank Peyton. Side by side with it he saw the son of the gunfighter, equally large, stronger, cleverer, and possessing one great attribute which his father had never known—a sense of humor. Hank had been all fire, all passion, but his son knew how to smile and wait—in fact, the sheriff knew that he was waiting even now to take the life of Jan van Zandt, and the suspense of that expectation was more terrible to him than the most violent outrage Hank himself had ever committed.

Looking into the future, the sheriff found himself already accepting the death of Jan van Zandt as an accomplished fact, and his concern was wholly for his own troubles when he should have to take the trail of young Peyton; but sometimes a sinister, small hope was mixed with his worry—a hope that Peyton was waiting so that he could make his kill with impunity. After all, that was the only satisfactory explanation of the long wait.

It was on the third day that the unexpected blow fell. Six men rode into Sloan. They raced their horses straight to the office of the sheriff, and, looking out of the window, he smiled when he saw the horses mill about as soon as the masters dismounted. They had saved two minutes by racing, he saw, and now they wasted an equal amount of time tethering their nervous horses; for they rode the type of horseflesh that Jan van Zandt rode—blooded fellows with which they hoped to build up a fine stock for saddle and harness.

“New horses, new men,” decided the sheriff calmly, as he recognized Rex Houlahan, Pete Goodwin, Gus Saunders, Pierre la Roche, and Eric Jensen.

He had just about decided that the blow had fallen, when he saw the hulking form of Jan van Zandt himself in the background, and never was sight more welcome to the sheriff. The six men came for his door in a bunch, wedged in the frame, and struggled for a moment before they sprawled into the room. It gave the sheriff time to finish working off an ample chew of Virginia tobacco, for which he was duly grateful.

“It’s happened,” said Pete Goodwin.

“He’s up and done it,” said Rex Houlahan.

“The thing, it is finish,” said Pierre la Roche.

They said these things all in one breath; the sheriff turned and blinked at Jan van Zandt to make sure that he was not a ghost. But he hated to ask questions, so he said nothing.

Van Zandt worked his way to the front, and Sheriff Sturgis saw in his face the pallor of a coward cornered or a peaceful man with his back to the wall and ready to fight. He had never seen another man who looked exactly like that and it troubled him.

“Prince Harry,” began the big farmer, and then stood with his mouth working while the sheriff wondered what on earth the chestnut stallion’s name could have to do with six armed men, “Prince Harry,” continued van Zandt, exploding, “the skunk has got him—and I’m going to get his hide! Peyton got him—Prince Harry.”

“Killed him?” asked the sheriff, seeing light.

“Stole him. There’s a law around here about hoss thieves, ain’t there? Well, we’re here to use it!”

“Young Peyton has a rope comin’ to him,” added Houlahan, “and we’re here to use it.”

“There’s a law about horse thieves,” admitted the sheriff with grim satisfaction, “but it ain’t a written law.”

There was a chorus of disapproval. It reminded the sheriff that there is one power more terrible and blind and remorseless than the worst gang of outlaws that ever raided a town, and that is a number of peaceful, law-abiding citizens who rise en masse for their rights. The sheriff lost all desire to smile.

“Gents,” he said, “if I was to see with my own eyes young Peyton climbin’ on the back of another man’s hoss, I’d disbelieve my own eyes. Hoss stealin’ ain’t up to his size. That’s all.”

Big van Zandt leaned over the desk, resting his balled fists upon it. “How d’you know?” he said. “Seems to me like you’re too fond of this Peyton!”

“I got to ask you to take your hands off’n my desk,” said the sheriff coldly. “You’ll be messin’ up all my papers pretty soon.”

In spite of his rage, van Zandt knew enough to obey.

“Who saw Peyton take the chestnut?” went on the sheriff.

“Who else would take him?” asked six voices, and the sheriff gave up all attempt to reason with them.

“Even if he ain’t got the horse now,” van Zandt said, “it only shows that he’s passed Prince Harry along the line to some of his friends in the hills. It ain’t the first hoss that’s been lost around here—and the others have gone the same way. Besides, where does Peyton get all the money he blows in around town? We have to work; he don’t do a tap. I ask you, what does that mean?”

The sheriff looked into each face in turn and saw that he could not answer. He only said: “Boys, you may be right. I hope you ain’t, but you may be right.”

There was a deep-throated growl in response, but they were somewhat pacified by this admission.

“I ask you to do this,” the sheriff continued. “Take the road down the valley and try to ride down the gent that took Prince Harry.”

“They ain’t a hoss in the valley that could catch him,” said van Zandt with gloomy pride.

“I got some money that would talk on that point,” said the sheriff calmly. “But all I say is: Will you do what I want?”

“We’ll go down the valley,” said Houlahan, combing his red beard. “But who’ll go up the valley? We got six here to go down the valley, but where’s six to go the other way?”

“I’ll go,” said the sheriff, buckling on his belt.

Their breath of silence admitted that it was a sufficient answer. “And if neither of us get him?” they asked.

“Then,” sighed the sheriff, “it’s up to me to hit the trail. We’ll start botherin’ about that when the time comes. Now you better be gettin’ on your way.”

“But what if Prince Harry was taken across the hills?”

“Nobody but a fool would take that hoss through the hills,” said the sheriff sharply. “He’d bust his skinny legs in the rocks inside of two mile. Now, get on your way.”

He followed them through the door, watched them tumble into the saddle and race down the street, shouting. Then the sheriff climbed into the saddle on his pinto. He used neither spurs nor quirt to start his mustang into a racing gait, but the pinto, as soon as the reins were drawn taut, broke from a standing start into a long, lazy lope, unhurried, smooth as the rocking of a ground swell. His head hung low, his leg muscles were relaxed, he seemed to fall along the ground, and he could keep close to that pace from sunrise to sunset.

Sheriff Sturgis paid no attention to his surroundings for some distance out of town. He was thinking of the man who took Prince Harry; if he were a man wise in horseflesh, he would keep far from the hills and go straight along the road. The chances were large that he would give his horse the rein for some distance out of the environs of the town; in fact, he would go at full speed until he had passed the forking of the roads, far up the valley—if he were traveling in that direction.

Once there, he would be in sparsely filled range land where there were no houses within a day’s ride ahead of him; and also where he would have small chance of getting a fresh mount. Realizing this, if he were at all familiar with the country, the thief would dismount and let his horse get his wind, preparing for the long grind through the foothills; but after the pause there was a great chance that the chestnut, winded by the hard riding and soft from the sort of work which Jan van Zandt gave him, would be stiff and almost broken down. The greatest difficulty before the sheriff was to decide on which of the roads the criminal would follow when he reached the forking. That is, granted that he took this direction up the valley.

His last doubt was presently removed from his mind, for coming to a stretch of road where the prints of horses’ feet were few, and these only the tracks which followed squarely between the wheel ruts, the sheriff discovered new signs that made him dismount from his horse to examine them more closely.

What he found was the print which a horse makes when it runs at full speed, the feet falling in four distinct beats, at about an equal distance from one another, and then a long gap where the last hoof leaves the ground and the body of the animal is thrown forward through the air.

The sheriff watched these tracks with painful attention, and then, to settle any remaining doubts, he got into the saddle on his pinto and spurred him into a hundred-yard sprint. At the end of it, he reined in the mustang and dismounted again. There were now two parallel tracks of running horses, but the differences between them were great.

The first comer outstrode the pinto by an astonishing distance, and in spite of the fact that the wind had drifted a good deal of sand into the marks, the indentations of the other horse were much deeper. It was the track, indeed, not of a cattle pony, but of a heavy horse which had enough blood to get into a racing stride; it was the track of a long-legged animal, and the mind of the sheriff reverted at once to the picture of Prince Harry and his long neck, a sign of speed.

Before he remounted, Sturgis looked carefully to his revolver; he even tried its balance, and after that unnecessary precaution, he climbed into the saddle again and sent the pinto down the trail once more, at the long, lazy lope which held on through the morning, rocking up hill and down dale until they came to the forking of the road. There was no problem here. As though to help his pursuers, the rider of the long-stepping horse had taken the curve short—his prints lay on the side of the road, far from all others, and the sheriff, without letting his pinto fall even into a trot, swung down the left-hand way toward the hills.

Two miles farther on, the sign disappeared on the road, and the sheriff cut in a small circle which brought him to a group of bushes and, in the middle of this, a spot of bare sand. There was not a single indentation on this sand, but the sheriff appeared to be greatly interested in it. He looked on all sides, and saw no other sign of shrubbery; then he dismounted, and searching among the brush he came upon a dry stalk broken across close to the surface of the ground.

The wood was so rotten that it was impossible to tell whether or not it had recently been broken, so the sheriff turned and looked fixedly at the center of the sand plot. It showed no sign; there was not the faintest indication of a mound, and sufficient wind had touched the surface to cover it with the tiny wind marks, in long, wavy lines. But apparently the sheriff had reduced his problem to a point where the clue must lie in the sand of this little opening. He stepped directly to the center, dug his toe into the ground, and turned up a quantity of charred sticks.