Honest, hard-working, peace-loving men though they were, when aroused they possessed the courage and tenacity of bull-dogs. They were aroused now, and they would carry on to the end, with a step as firm and relentless as the march of Time. Woe to whoever attempted to thwart them in their purpose!

Wade's neighbor to the north, Dave Kelly, spoke up in his slow, nasal drawl. "You say there's to be no lynchin'," he remarked. "How about Tug Bailey, when he gets here from Sheridan? According to what Lem says, Bailey shot Jensen."

"Sure, he did," Trowbridge put in. "We'll just slip a noose over his head and make him confess. That'll publicly clear Gordon and Bill. Then we'll give him a good coat of tar and feathers and run him out of town."

"That's right," said Santry. "Jensen was only a Swede and a sheepherder.

This here committee's to protect men."

Kelly chuckled. "Have it your own way," he said. "I'm not particular. As it is, there'll be plenty doing."

For an hour or more the cattlemen went over the plan of their campaign, which worked out into simplicity itself. Early the next evening they would marshal their force outside of Crawling Water, each man armed and mounted. After dark they would ride up the main street, where they would halt at each crossing, while a squad detailed for the purpose searched each saloon and other gathering place for members of Moran's gang. After the prisoners were rounded up they would be a.s.sembled in a compact body and marched to the railroad where they would be set free, under threat of instant death if they ever returned to Crawling Water.

Although counting on superior numbers and the morale of his men, Wade, who had been chosen to command the little army, knew that there would be considerable hard fighting. Moran's people would probably be scattered and otherwise unprepared for the attack, but many of them would resist to the death. If Moran should attempt an organized resistance, the cattlemen meant to storm the town. Once the first shot was fired, the fight would be to a finish, for any other outcome than victory would spell ruin for the cattle interests in that section.

The prospect was more than serious. Moran had established himself in Crawling Water and practically ruled it, surrounded as he was by some sixty adherents, the off-scouring of a dozen lawless communities. The decent citizens held aloof from him, but on the other hand the lower element viewed his reign with favor. The gamblers, particularly Monte Joe, who proclaimed himself Moran's lieutenant, had welcomed him, as had the saloonkeepers, to all of whom the presence of his men meant gainful trade. The better cla.s.s, in the town itself, was in the minority and unable to restrain the unbridled license which flourished everywhere.

No matter how stiff Moran's resistance proved, however, Wade felt very sure of the final result. He knew the men in his party and he knew that they meant business. He was relieved to believe that Dorothy and her mother would be safe at the ranch until after the trouble was over, and that Helen and Senator Rexhill had left Crawling Water. The two factions were now arrayed against each other almost like opposing armies, and the cattleman shuddered to think what his state of mind would have been had Dorothy and Mrs. Purnell remained in Crawling Water.

"You'll be entirely safe here," he told them, when he was ready to leave for Crawling Water on the following evening. "I shall leave Barker to look after your wants, but you won't really need him. There isn't a sheepherder, or any of the Moran gang, between here and Crawling Water.

The fighting will all be in town, thank goodness."

At the word "fighting" Dorothy caught her breath sharply, too proud to urge him against his duty and yet afraid for him. He had not been able to muster courage enough to speak to her of what was in his heart, foolish though that was in him, and he sat there in the saddle for a moment, looking tenderly down on her as she stood smoothing out his horse's forelock.

"Do be careful of yourself, Gordon," Mrs. Purnell called to him from the porch, but he did not hear her.

"I haven't had a chance yet to get into my church-going clothes, have I?" he said whimsically to Dorothy, who flushed prettily and looked away.

"I don't see what clothes have to do with talking to me," she said half coyly and half mischievously.

"Neither do I," he agreed. She had stepped aside and his horse's head was free. "I guess they haven't a thing to do with it, but I haven't been seeing things exactly straight lately. I reckon I've been half locoed."

Touching his horse with the spurs, he loped away to join Santry, who was waiting for him on ahead.

CHAPTER XIX

BAFFLED, BUT STILL DANGEROUS

When Trowbridge left Dorothy Purnell, promising to find his friend for her sake, he had a.s.sumed a confidence that he was far from feeling. No man knew the country thereabout any better than he did, and he realized that there was, at best, only a meager chance of trailing the miscreant who had succeeded in trapping his victim somewhere in the mountains. A weaker man would have paused in dismay at the hopelessness of the task he had undertaken, but Lem Trowbridge was neither weak nor capable of feeling dismay, or of acknowledging hopelessness. Time enough for all that after he should have failed. In the meantime it was up to him to follow Moran. He had learned from Santry of the place where Wade was stricken down, but how far from there, or in what direction he had been taken, was a matter of conjecture only, and the only way to learn was to trail the party that had undoubtedly carried the helpless man away perhaps to his death, but possibly, and more probably, to hold him captive.

Desperate as he knew Moran to be, he did not believe that the immediate murder of Gordon Wade was planned. That would be poor strategy and Moran was too shrewd to strike in that fashion.

It seemed clear enough that parley of some sort was intended but knowing both Wade and Moran as he did, Trowbridge realized that in order to be of any a.s.sistance, he must be on the spot without delay. He had planned rapidly and he now acted rapidly.

One of his men was stationed at the big pine, as he had told Dorothy, but all the others in his employ rode with him as swiftly as the best horses on his ranch could carry them, to the spot Santry had told him of. There they found unmistakable traces of half a dozen or more horses, besides the footprints of Wade's mount, and a brief examination was enough to show which way the party had gone. Undoubtedly they had taken Wade with them, so the pursuing party followed.

It was one thing to follow, however, and another thing to overtake.

Moran was better versed in the intricacies of big cities than in those of the wilderness, but he was shrewd enough to realize that Wade's friends would start an instant search, as soon as they should miss the ranchman, and it was no part of his plans to be taken by surprise.

Therefore, as soon as he had had his victim thrown into the prison from which escape seemed impossible, Moran selected a camp site nearby, from which he had a view of the surrounding country for miles around in every direction, and scanning the horizon carefully after his vain attempt to intimidate Wade, he saw Trowbridge's party approaching, while they were still half a dozen miles away.

His first thought was to stay where he was and give battle. In this he would have had a good chance of victory, for, by opening fire on Trowbridge and his followers as they came up, he could undoubtedly have picked off three or four of them before they reached him, and so secured odds in his own favor, if it should come to an immediate encounter.

Second thought, however, showed him the folly of such a course. There was too much remaining for him to do, and the temporary advantage he might gain would not compensate him for the havoc it would make in his ultimate designs. He therefore called Goat Neale aside and said: "There's a party of Wade's friends coming up from the East, looking for him, and I've got to lead them away. You stay here, but keep in hiding and take care that n.o.body learns where Wade is. He'll live for a few days without grub and I'll come back and tend to his case after I've got this party going round in circles.

"You stay, and the rest of us will all ride off to the north, and they'll think we have Wade with us, so they'll follow us, but we'll lose them somewhere on the way. Sabe?"

Neale demurred at first to the plan, but consented willingly enough when Moran promised him extra pay; so he stayed, and we already know the result. Moran, however, followed out his plans successfully enough, and before night he reached Crawling Water in safety, while Trowbridge, getting word through one of his scouts of Wade's rescue, abandoned the pursuit. He had been prepared to shoot Moran down at sight, but he was ready enough to leave that work to the man who had a better claim to the privilege than he had.

Accordingly Moran had ridden into town, exhausted by the exertions of his trip, and had slept for twelve hours before thinking of anything else. When he learned on awakening of all that had happened during his absence, he was furious with rage. Tug Bailey had been arrested and was on his way to Crawling Water in custody. Senator Rexhill and Helen had taken an Eastward-bound train without leaving any word for him, and to crown it all, he presently learned that Neale had been shot and Wade had been found, and that the whole countryside was aflame with indignation.

It was characteristic of the man that even in this emergency he had no thought of following his cowardly accomplice in flight. It might be hopeless to stay and fight, but he was a fighting man, and he really exulted in the thought of the inevitable struggle that was coming.

Sitting alone in his office studying the situation, he felt the need of liquor even more strongly than usual, though the habit had grown on him of late, and accordingly he drank again and again, increasing his rage thereby, but getting little help towards a solution of his difficulties.

He was enraged most of all at Wade's escape from Coyote Springs and was still puzzled to think how this had happened, for Senator Rexhill in leaving had kept his own counsel on that point, and Moran did not dream of his having betrayed the secret.

Not only had the ranchman been able to turn another trick in the game by escaping, but he had also evaded Moran's intended vengeance, for the latter had had no thought of letting his prisoner go alive. He had meant first to secure Wade's signature, and then to make away with him so cleverly as to escape conviction for the act.

He realized now, when it was too late, that he had acted too deliberately in that matter, and he was sorry for it. He considered the departure of the Rexhills a cowardly defection. He was furious to think that Helen had refused to listen to him while she stayed, or to say good-by to him before leaving. The sting of these various reflections led him to take further pull at a silver flask which he kept in his pocket, and which bore the inscription, "To Race Moran from his friends of the Murray Hill Club."

"So," he muttered, chewing his mustache, "that's what I get for sticking to Rexhill." Leaning back in his swivel chair, he put his feet up on the desk and hooked his fingers in the arm-holes of his vest. "Well, I ain't ready to run yet, not by a jugful."

In his decision to remain, however, he was actuated by a desire to close with Wade, and not by any enthusiasm for the cause of the hired rascals who were so loudly singing his praise. They were not cowards, nor was he, but he had had too much experience with such people to be deluded into believing that, when the showdown came, they would think of anything but their own precious skins. He had heard rumors of the activity of the cattlemen but he discounted such rumors because of many false alarms in the past. He would not be frightened off; he determined to remain until there was an actual clash of arms, in the hope that events would so work out as to allow him a chance to get back, and severely, at Wade.

He got to his feet and rolled about the room, like a boozy sailor, puffing out volumes of smoke and muttering beneath his breath. When he had worked off some of his agitation, the big fellow seated himself again, shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders, and lapsed into an alcoholic reverie. He was applying his inflamed brain to the problem of vengeance, when hurried footsteps on the stairs aroused him. Going to the door, he flung it open and peered out into the dimly lighted hallway.

"h.e.l.lo, Jed!" he exclaimed, upon finding that the newcomer was one of his "heelers." "What d'you want? Hic!" He straightened up with a ludicrous a.s.sumption of gravity.

"The night riders! They've...." The man was breathless and visibly panic-stricken.

"Riders? Hic! What riders?" Moran growled. "Out with it, you jelly-fish!"

"The ranchers--the cattlemen--they've entered the town: they're on the warpath. Already a lot of our fellows have been shot up."

"The h.e.l.l they have! How long ago? Where?"

"Other end of town. Must be two hundred or more. I hustled down here to put you wise to the play."

"Thanks!" said Moran laconically. "You're headed in the right direction, keep going!"

But the man lingered, while Moran, as lightly as a cat, despite his great bulk and the liquor he carried, sprang to the nearest window. Far up the street, he could distinguish a huddled ma.s.s, pierced by flashes of fire, which he took to be hors.e.m.e.n; as he watched, he heard scattered shots and a faint sound of yelling. The one hasty glance told him all that he needed to know; he had not thought this move would come so soon, but luck seemed to be against him all around. Something of a fatalist, in the final a.n.a.lysis, he no longer wasted time in anger or regrets. He was not particularly alarmed, and would not have been so could he have known the truth, that the yelling he had heard marked the pa.s.sing of Tug Bailey, who had confessed but had made his confession too late to please the crowd, which had him in its power. Nevertheless, Moran realized that there was no time now to form his men into anything like organized resistance. The enemy had caught him napping, and the jig was up. He had seen the vigilantes work before, and he knew that if he intended to save his own skin he must act quickly. When he turned from the window, short though the interval had been, he had formed a plan of escape.

"They've brought every man they could rake up," Jed added. "I reckon they've combed every ranch in the county to start this thing."

Moran looked up quickly, struck by the significance of the remark. If it were true, and it probably was, then Wade's ranch also would be deserted. He half opened his mouth, as though to confide in his companion, when he evidently concluded to keep his own counsel.