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THE PLUNDERER
He leaned over her saddle, to where, as before somethingsacred, he stood with parted lips, and upturned face, bareheaded, inadoration.--The Plunderer]
THE PLUNDERER
By ROY NORTON
With Frontispiece in Colors
By DOUGLAS DUER
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers--New York
Copyright, 1912, byW. J. WATT & COMPANY
TO
REX BEACH
WITH ALL THE AFFECTION THAT ONE GIVES TO A PARTNER WITH WHOM HE HASTRAILED, AND MINED, AND ADVENTURED FOR MANY YEARS, AND NEVER FOUNDWANTING WHEN BACKS WERE AGAINST THE WALL
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I. Bully Presby 9 II. The Croix d'Or 22 III. An Ugly Watchman 36 IV. The Black Death 51 V. The Aged Engineer 71 VI. My Lady of the Horse 97 VII. The Woman Unafraid 114 VIII. The Inconsistent Bully 129 IX. Where a Girl Advises 151 X. Trouble Stalks Abroad 167 XI. Bells' Valiant Fight 182 XII. A Disastrous Blow 195 XIII. The Dynamiter 208 XIV. "Though Love Say Nay" 225 XV. "Mr. Sloan Speaks" 240 XVI. Benefits Returned 258 XVII. When Reason Swings 271 XVIII. The Bully Meets His Master 288 XIX. The Quest Supreme 303
THE PLUNDERER
CHAPTER I
BULLY PRESBY
Plainly the rambling log structure was a road house and the stoppingplace for a mountain stage. It had the watering trough in front, thebundle of iron pails cluttered around the rusted iron pump, and thetrampled muddy hollow created by many tired hoofs striking vigorouslyto drive away the flies. It was in a tiny flat beside the road, andmountains were everywhere; hard-cut, relentless giants, whose sternfaces portrayed a perpetual constancy. At the trough two burros, withtheir packs deftly lashed, thrust soft gray muzzles deep into thewater, and held rigid their long gray ears, casting now and then awise look at the young man in worn mining clothes who stood patientlybeside them.
Another man, almost a giant in size, but with a litheness of movementthat told of marvelous physical strength, emerged from the door of theroad house, and the babel of sound that had been stilled when heentered, but a few minutes before, rose again. He crossed to the well,and smiled from half-humorous eyes at the younger man standing besidethe animals, and said: "Bumped into a hornet's nest. Butted into anindignation meetin'. A Blackfoot war powwow when the trader hadfurnished free booze would have been a peace party put up againstit."
The younger man, who had turned to pump more water, following thepolite mountain custom of replenishing for what you have used, stoppedwith a hand on the handle, and looked at him inquiringly.
"It seems it's a bunch of fellers that's been workin' some placerground off back here somewheres"--and he waved a tanned handindefinitely in a wide arc--"and some man got the double hitch on 'emwith the law, provin' that the ground was his'n, and the sheriff run'em off! Now they're sore. But it seems they cain't help 'emselves, sothey're movin' over to some other place across the divide."
"But what has that to do with us?"
"Nothin', except that it took me five minutes to get the barkeep' totell me about the road. He says we've come all right this far, andthis is the place where we hit the trail over the hills. Says we savea day and a half, with pack burros, by takin' the cut-off. Says it'sseven or eight hours good ridin' by the road if we were on horses andin a hurry."
He paused and scanned the hills with an observant eye, while hiscompanion resumed the pumping process. The trough again filled, thelatter walked around the pails and joined him.
"Well, where does this trail start in?" he asked.
"He's goin' to show us as soon as he can get a minute's rest from thatbunch in there. Said we'd have to be shown. Said unless he could getaway long enough we'd have to wait till somebody he named came in, andhe'd head us into it."
They led the burros across the road and into the shadow of a cliffwhere the morning sun, searching and fervid, did not reach, and threwthemselves to the ground, resting their backs against the foot wall,and trying patiently to await the appearance of their guides. Thesteady, hurried clink of glass and bottle on bar, the ribald shoutsand threats of the crowd that filled the road house, the occasionalburst of a maudlin song, all told the condition of the ejected placermen who had stopped here on their journey.
"I don't know nothin' about the case, of course," drawled the big manlazily, "and it's none of my funeral; but it does seem as if thisfeller they call 'Bully' is quite some for havin' him own way."
He laughed softly as if remembering scraps of conversation he hadsegregated from the murmur inside, and rolled his long body over untilhe rested on his belly with the upper part of his torso raised on hiselbows.
"It appears that the courts down at the county seat gave a decision inhis favor, and that he lost about as much time gettin' action as ahornet does when he's come to a conclusion. He just shows up with thesheriff, and about twenty deputies, good and true, and says: 'Hike!The courts say it's mine. These is the sheriffs. Off you go, and don'twaste no time doin' it, either!' And so they hikes and have got thisfar, where they lay over for the night to comfort their insides withsomethin' that smelled like a cross between nitric acid, a corn farm,and sump water. And it don't seem to cheer 'em up much, either,because their talk's right ugly."
"But I thought you said they were heading for some other ground?"
"So they are, but they're takin' their time on the road. I used to bethat way till the day Arizona Bill plugged me because I was slow, allthrough havin' stopped at a place too long. Then, says I, when I wokeup a month later in the Widder Haskins' back room: 'Bill, this comesfrom corn and rye. Never have nothin' to do with a farmer, or anythingthat comes from a farmer, after this; or some day, when your handain't quick enough, and things look kind of hazy, some quarrelsomeman's goin' to shoot first and you'll cash in.' And from that day tothis, when I want to go on a bust, I drink a gallon of soda pop tohave a rip-roarin' time."
A man lurched out of the door of the road house as if striving to findclean air, and stood leaning against one of the pole posts supportinga pole porch. Another one joined him, coarsely accusing him of being a"quitter" because he had left his drink on the bar. They werestubbornly passing words when, from down the road, there came thegritting of wheels over the pulverized stone, and the clacking ofhorses' hoofs, slow moving, as if being rested by a cautious driveralong the ascent.
The man by the post suddenly frowned in the direction of the sound,and then whirled back to the open door.
"It's Bully!" he bellowed so loudly that his words were plainlyaudible to the partners lying in the shadow. "Bully's a-comin' up theroad right now! Let's get him!"
There was a fierce, bawling chorus of shouts that outdid anythingpreceding, and the door seemed to vomit men in all stages ofintoxication, who came heavily out with their boots stamping acrossthe boards of the porch. They cursed, imprecated, shook their fists,and threatened, as they surged into the road and looke
d down it towardthe approaching driver. The men in the shade got quickly to theirfeet, interested spectators, and the burros awoke from their drowsysomnolence, and turned inquiring, soft eyes on their owners.
Calmly driven up toward the mob in the road came a mountain buckboarddrawn by two sweating horses. In the seat was a man who drove as ifthe reins were completely in control. He appeared to be stockilybuilt, and his shoulders--broad, heavy, and high--had, even in thatposture, the unmistakable stamp of one who is accustomed to stoopinghis way through drifts and tunnels. He wore a black slouch hat, whichhad been shaped by habitual handling to shade his eyes. His hair waswhite; his neck short and thick, with a suggestion of bull-like powerand force. His face, as he approached to closer range, showed firm andmasterful. His nose was dominant--the nose of a conqueror whooverrides all obstacles. He came steadily forward, without in theleast changing his attitude, or betraying anxiety, or haste. The menin the road waited, squarely across his path, and their hoarsefulminations had died away to a far more terrifying silence; yet hedid not seem to heed them as his horses advanced.
"Gad! Doesn't he know who they are?" the bigger man by the rockmumbled to his partner.
"If he doesn't he has a supreme nerve," the younger man replied. "Theylook to me as if they mean trouble. They're in a pretty nastytemper--what with all the poison they've poured in, and all theinjustice they believe they have met. Wonder who's right?"
A shout from the crowd in the roadway interrupted any furtherspeculation. The man who had first appeared on the road-house porchthrew up his hand, and roared, "Here he is! We've got him! It's theBully!"
The shout was taken up by others until a miniature forest of raisedfists shook themselves threateningly at the man in the buckboard whowas now within a few feet of them.
"Get a rope, somebody! Hang him!" yelled an excited voice.
"Yes, that's the goods," screamed another, heard above the turmoil."Up with the Bully!"
Two men sprang forward, and caught the horses by their bits, andbrought them to an excited, nervous stop, and the others began tosurround the wagon. The man in the seat made no movement, but satthere with a hard smile on his firm lips. The partners stepped to thetop of a convenient rock, where they could overlook the meeting, andwatched, perturbed.
"I don't know about this," the elder said doubtfully. "Looks to melike there's too many against one, and I ain't sure whether hedeserves hangin'. What do you think?"
"Let's wait and see. Then, if they get too ugly, we'll give them atalk and try to find out," the younger man answered.
Even as he spoke, a man came running from the door of the road housewith a coil in his hand, and began to assert drunkenly: "Here it is!I've got it! A rope!"
The partners were preparing to jump forward and protest, when a mostastonishing change took place. The man in the wagon suddenly stood up,stretched his hand commandingly to the men holding the horses' heads,and ordered: "Let go of my horses there, you drunken idiots! Let go ofthem, I say, or I'll come down there and make you! Understand?"
The men at the horses' heads wavered under that harsh, firm command,but did not release their hold. Without any further pause, the manjumped from his buckboard squarely into the road, struck the manholding the rope a sweeping side blow that toppled him over like asprawling dummy, jerked the coil from his hands, and tore toward hishorses' heads. As if each feared to bar his advance, the men of themob made way for him, taken by surprise. He brought the coil of ropewith a stinging, whistling impact into the face of the nearest man,who, blinded, threw his hands upward across his eyes and reeled back.The man at the other horse's head suddenly turned and dove out ofreach, but the whistling coils again fell, lashing him across his headand shoulders.
Without any appearance of haste, and as if scornful of the mob thathad so recently been threatening to hang him, the man walked back tohis buckboard, climbed in, and stood there on his feet with the reinsin one hand, and the rope in the other. "You get away from in front ofme there," he said, in his harsh, incisive voice; "I'm tired ofchild's play. If you don't let me alone, I'll kill a few of you. Now,clear out!"
The men around him were already backing farther away, and at thisthreat they opened the road in such haste that one or two of themnearly ran over others.
"Say," admiringly commented the big observer on the rock, "we'd playhob helpin' him out. He don't need help, that feller don't. If I eversaw a man that could take care of himself----"
"He certainly is the one!" his companion finished the sentence.
"Who does this rope belong to?" demanded the hard-faced victor in thebuckboard, looking around him.
No one appeared eager to claim proprietorship. He gave a loud,contemptuous snort, and threw the rope far over toward the roadhouse.
"Keep it!" he called, in his cold, unemotional voice. "Some of youmight want to cheat the sheriff by hanging yourselves. After this, anyor all of you had better keep away from me. I might lose my temper."
He sat down in the seat with a deliberate effort to show his scorn,picked the reins up more firmly, glanced around at the rear of hisbuckboard to see that his parcels were safe, ignored the cowed men,and without ever looking at them started his horses forward. As theybegan a steady trot and passed the partners, he swept over them onekeen, searching look, as if wondering whether they had been of themob, turned back to observe their loaded burros, apparently decidedthey had taken no part in the affair, and bestowed on them a faint,dry smile as he settled himself into his seat. At the bend of the roadhe had not deigned another look on the men who had been ravening tolynch him. He drove away as carelessly as if he alone were the onlyhuman being within miles, and the partners gave a gasp of enjoyment.
"Good Lord! What a man!" exclaimed the elder, and his companionanswered in an equally admiring tone: "Isn't he, though! Just look atthese desperadoes, will you!"
With shuffling feet some of them were turning back toward the invitingdoor in which the bartender stood with his dirty apron knotted into astring before him. Some of the more voluble were accusing the othersof not having supported them, and loudly expounding the method ofattack that would have been successful. The man with red welts acrosshis face was swearing that if he ever got a chance he would "put arifle ball through Bully." The young man by the rock grinned and said:"That's just about as close as he would ever dare come to that fellow.Shoot him through the back at a half-mile range!"
The bartender suddenly appeared to remember the travelers, and ranacross the road.
"I'm sorry, gents," he said, "that I can't do more to show you theway, but you see how it is. Go up there to that big rock that lookslike a bear's head, then angle off south-east, and you'll find atrail. When you come to any crossin's, don't take 'em, but keepstraight on, and bimeby, about to-morrer, if you don't camp too longto-night, you'll see a peak--high it is--with a yellow mark on it,like a cross. Can't miss it. Right under it's the Croix Mine. Youleave the trail to cross a draw, look down, and there you are. Solong!"
He turned and ran back across the road in response to brawling shoutsfrom the men whose thirst seemed to have been renewed by theirencounter with the masterful man they called "Bully," and thepartners, glad to escape from such a place, headed their animalsupward into the hills.