CHAPTER XXV

TRAIL'S END

"Shoot me! Hang me! I don't care. Only don't turn me over to that devil there. He'll torture me! For G.o.d's sake, don't do it! I'll confess! I'll tell yuh all I ever done. I an' my outfit's been rustling them cows from the Bar S an' the Cross-in-a-box. We've done it for years!

"We used to hold the cows in a blind canon south o' Smoky Peak till the brands healed. There's more'n a hundred cows there now! They're Hawg Pen an' Cross-in-a-box an' Bar S cows! An' we rustled Scotty Mackenzie's hosses while Skinny Maxson o' Marysville toled yuh away up to Hatchet Creek, an' 'twas me shot Scotty. I'd 'a' done for him only I thought he was dead. An' I sent Rufe Cutting to the Flying M so he could help us when the time come! Pete O'Leary the same way! He was with me to-night. Djuh get him?"

"No, we didn't," replied Loudon. "It's no use a-takin' on thisaway.

We trailed the hosses to Piegan City, an' Archer an' the Maxson boys are under arrest. Yuh see how it is. We know all about you an' yore gang. We can't do nothin' for yuh."

"But yuh don't know all I done myself!" Blakely pursued, wildly. "I tell yuh, I'd ought to be hung! I'd ought to be hung ten times over.

It was me shot Johnny Ramsay that time he found the dead Bar S cow an'

her calf on our range. An' I tried to get you, Loudon, when yuh was snuffin' 'round that ledge on Pack-saddle where we used to throw the cows across. An' I thought up that scheme for makin' yuh out a rustler with them Crossed Dumbbell cows. I done it, I tell yuh! Can't yuh understand? Hang me! Oh, please hang me, gents!"

Blakely, fairly gibbering with fear, crawled on his knees toward Loudon. Blakely's hands were bound behind his back. The drying blood from the scalp wound, inflicted by the barrel of Loudon's six-shooter, had stiffened his black hair into upstanding matted ma.s.ses. He was a wretched spectacle.

"Loudon! Loudon!" shrinked Blakely. "It was me swore out that warrant for yuh for stealin' the chestnut I sold yuh. I sent the sheriff up the Bend after yuh, an' I'd 'a' hanged yuu sure as ---- if I'd ever laid hands on yuh. Now hang me! Hang me quick, an' get it over with!"

"Telescope!" exclaimed Loudon, "I guess we'll go down to the corrals."

When Blakely perceived that there was no hope for him, that his was to be no easy death, he went frantic. Hysteria seized him. He sobbed, laughed, and uttered the most blood-chilling screams, his body thrashing about like a shark in its death-throes.

Laguerre, sitting cross-legged on the floor, had been whetting his skinning-knife on his boot-leg for the past half-hour. Now he held up the knife and thumbed the broad blade.

Loudon and the others, their eyes lowered, pa.s.sed out of the ranch house into the pale light of dawn. The morning star blazed diamond-bright above the lemon-yellow splendour in the east. A little wind blew past their faces. The air was fresh with the promise of the new day. They drew long, grateful breaths and looked from under their eyebrows at each other.

"I feel sick," Johnny Ramsay said, frankly.

The horse which Johnny had tied to the post had been lying down. It rose with a heave and a plunge and stood blowing and cracking its nostrils.

"Well, if there ain't Telescope's gray," announced Loudon. "So the fellahs we chased out o' Farewell was Blakely an' O'Leary after all.

They sh.o.r.e picked the best hosses in the corral when they took Brown Jug an' the gray. No wonder we couldn't catch 'em."

"Yo're right," Johnny and Chuck chorused, loudly.

"Life's a funny thing," Loudon rambled on, speaking quite rapidly.

"Here we run our legs off after them two fellahs, an' they turn 'round an' come back to us all prompt an' unexpected. I guess I'll water that hoss an' take his saddle off."

He turned back. The others crawled up on the corral fence.

"Wish I'd thought o' the hoss," grumbled Johnny. "I want somethin' to do."

With shaking fingers he rolled a cigarette and spilled most of the tobacco. The clamour within the ranch house suddenly became louder.

"He sh.o.r.e takes it hard," muttered Chuck Morgan, repressing a shudder with difficulty.

Loudon slid around the corner of the ranch house and joined them on the top rail.

"Thought yuh was goin' to water the hoss," said Chuck.

"Telescope's goin' to use him," said Loudon, and endeavoured to whistle "The Zebra Dun."

"I'm kind o' glad to know who did plug me that time," remarked Johnny.

"I've always knowed who done it," Loudon said. "I dug a forty-five bullet out o' Blakely's swell-fork the day we had the run-in at the Bar S."

"Why didn't yuh tell me?" demanded Johnny.

"The bullet wasn't proof, when yuh come right down to it. No use o'

yore lockin' horns with Blakely, anyway. It wouldn't 'a' done no good."

"Well, it don't---- h.e.l.lenblazes! Hear him yell!"

Loudon began to swear under his breath. A door banged suddenly.

Blakely's insane shrieking abruptly stilled. Soon the three men heard the trample of the gray's feet. Then, beyond the ranch house, appeared Laguerre. He was mounted. Face downward across his lap lay Blakely, gagged with his own holster and silk neckerchief.

Riding at a walk, Laguerre headed toward the grove of singing pines where they had left their horses. When Brown Jug and his double burden disappeared among the trees Loudon drew a long breath.

"I ain't in a bit of a hurry for my hoss," he declared.

"Which I should say not!" Johnny Ramsay exclaimed with fervour.

The sun was an hour high when Laguerre loped out of the grove. He was leading their four horses. They watched him with morbid fascination.

Laguerre rode up to the corral and halted. The gray, hard held, shook his head. On the right cheek-piece of the horse's bridle a black-haired scalp flapped soggily. And Laguerre looked up at the three men on the top rail of the corral.

"No use hangin' round here no more," said Loudon, slipping to the ground. "Might as well mosey over to that blind canon south of Smoky Peak an' see if them cattle really are there."

Three days later Loudon and his comrades, their horses drooping-headed and heavy-legged, rode into Farewell. Signs of the late skirmish were plentiful. There was not a whole pane of gla.s.s in any of the buildings which had served as forts; and doors, facades, and window casings were pock-marked with bullet-holes.

Bill Lainey, consistent always, was dozing under the wooden awning of his hotel. Awakened, the hotelkeeper solemnly shook hands all around, and wheezed that it was a fine day.

"Yeah," said Loudon, "the air round these parts does seem clearer a lot. An' there ain't so many folks on the street, either."

"There won't be for a while," declared Bill Lainey. "We buried twenty-three gents day before yesterday, hanged twelve up the road a piece, an' Scotty an' Jack Richie an' that crowd rubbed out nine o' the boys that slid out o' the Happy Heart over by Dead Horse Spring."

"How many got away?" inquired Johnny Ramsay.

"'Bout twenty--twenty-four maybe," replied the hotel-keeper. "I dunno for sh.o.r.e. But anyhow the 88 outfit is shot full o' holes. Eleven of 'em cashed here in town, an' seven was got outside o' town. The rest made it safe, I guess."

"Was they all here before the riot?" queried Loudon.

"Every last one of 'em, 'ceptin' Rudd an' Marvin. They come in a-huntin' trouble. They've been sore 'count o' Mike Flynn's sa.s.sin'

the sheriff an' darin' him an' the 88 to lock horns with him. Well, there was a gent in town that day, dunno who he was, but anyhow when Rufe Cutting went into the sheriff's shack the stranger went in, too.

Oh, you seen the inside o' the shack, did yuh? Well, it was what the stranger done started things a-rollin'. Two o' the deputies plugged him through the window, an' the rest of us wouldn't stand no such actions as that, so we started. Good thing you gents an' Jack Richie an' the others happened along when yuh did."

"Any of our boys get it?"