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The SHERIFF OF BADGER
_A TALE OF THE SOUTHWEST BORDERLAND_
BY GEORGE PATTULLO
ILLUSTRATED
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON: MCMXII
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1909, 1911, by The Curtis Publishing Company Copyright, 1911, 1912, by Street and Smith Copyright, 1910, by the Pearson Publishing Company _Published June, 1912_ Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments are due to _The Saturday Evening Post_, _Pearson's Magazine_ and _The Popular Magazine_ for permission to use some of the material in this book.
TO A. W. BALLANTYNE
The Sheriff of Badger]
CONTENTS
I LAFE JOHNSON ARRIVES AT LAZY L RANCH
II CERTAIN COMPLICATIONS RESULT
III CONCERNING A BABY'S WAIL
IV OUT OF A JOB
V AN INCIPIENT LOVE AFFAIR
VI DISCOMFITURE OF A GUNFIGHTER
VII JOHNSON IS ELECTED SHERIFF OF BADGER
VIII A FEUD AND WHAT CAME OF IT
IX AN INQUEST AND A SURPRISE
X A JOURNEY TO SATAN'S KINGDOM
XI A WAITRESS TO THE RESCUE
XII THE SHERIFF SETTLES A CONJUGAL DISPUTE
XIII AND HETTY COMES TO BADGER TO LIVE
XIV THE SHERIFF ENSNARED
XV HOW HE WON A WIFE
XVI THE GUNFIGHTER RETURNS AND DELAYS WEDDING
XVII JOHNSON MEETS A FRIEND OF HETTY'S
XVIII A SACRIFICE AND ITS PUNISHMENT
XIX BUFFALO JIM GIVES WISE COUNSEL
XX THE SHERIFF PURGES TOWN OF BADGER
XXI A FIGHT IN THE DARK
XXII CAPTURE OF MOFFATT, THE GUNMAN
XXIII THE WEDDING
XXIV THE BRIDE IS LOST
XXV JOHNSON BECOMES BOSS OF THE ANVIL
XXVI ENTERS TROUBLE
XXVII A CLEVER WOMAN AND A MISUNDERSTANDING
XXVIII RECONCILIATION--MRS. VINING EXPERIENCES A CHANGE OF HEART
XXIX LAFE HELPS A DESERTER
XXX AND DISCOVERS HETTY'S BROTHER
XXXI GREAT EXPECTATIONS IN JOHNSON FAMILY
XXXII BIRTH OF LAFE JOHNSON, JR.
XXXIII JOHNSON ONCE MORE IN ROLE OF SHERIFF
XXXIV HE ARRESTS A SUSPECT
XXXV THE DEATH DICE
XXXVI RESPONSIBILITY SITS HEAVILY ON LAFE
XXXVII BUT THE BOSS AGAIN PROVES HIS METTLE
XXXVIII HOW A MOFFATT HENCHMAN WAS OUSTED
XXXIX NEWS FROM BUFFALO JIM
XL HE ARRIVES TO VISIT THE JOHNSONS
XLI A NIGHT RIDE AND DEATH OF BUFFALO JIM
XLII MIDDLE LIFE
XLIII MOFFATT ONCE MORE
XLIV THE DUEL IN THE MALPAIS
XLV THE END
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Sheriff of Badger
"She and Johnson rode together every day"
"As Lafe was coming from dinner ... a Mexican handed him a letter"
"So now Lafe, Jr., flattened out in his fissure in equal danger with hisfather"
THE SHERIFF OF BADGER
CHAPTER I
LAFE JOHNSON ARRIVES AT THE LAZY L RANCH
It may come as a shock to many to learn that we have in cowland aconsiderable number of full-blooded men who have never made it apractice to step outside the door of a morning and shoot afellow-citizen before breakfast. This is true; vital statistics andfiction to the contrary, notwithstanding. They are well-grown,two-fisted men, also, and work very hard seven days in the week, andwhenever they go to town they get drunk. But in the main they arelaw-abiding, and steal calves only for their employers.
There was Lafe Johnson. This story has him for its central figure.
"It's right queer about men," Lafe used to say, when in a reflectivemood. "A feller will knock in a friend what he'd be like to do himself.And he'll act mean one day so he's sure ashamed of it the next. Yes,sir; the best of 'em will. It all depends on how a man feels, I reckon,and what shape his stomach's in. No man ain't always going to do theright thing, and I've never met a feller yet who was all bad. What'smore, nobody thinks he's bad, or I expect he wouldn't be. Don't youreckon? Why, a man'll be plucky one day and the next morning he'd cry ifa jackrabbit was to slap him in the face."
Lafe started man's estate as a cowboy. What his antecedents were I don'tknow and don't care, nor did anybody else in our country. We have somany more important matters to engage us. Punching cattle happened to behis profession. In every other respect Lafe was a normal individual--nobetter than you or I, and assuredly no worse. Some thought he was worse,and among them a Mrs. Tracey--or she pretended to--who thought that anda few other things besides. That was why Mrs. Floyd, just before Johnsondeparted the ranch, insisted that he accompany her to the Tracey home inRowdy Canon.
"I'll tell her to her face what I think," she said.
Lafe tried to pacify her.
"I ain't much of a fighter, ma'am," he said. "You'd better go alone andhave it out. Miz Tracey, she's got me scared off the map right now."
"You'll come, too!" Mrs. Floyd assured him, pulling on her gauntlets.
This is what Mrs. Floyd said, sitting her horse in front of the Traceygate, her erstwhile friend being on the veranda: "I've heard thestories you've been spreading about me, Tracey!"
"Stories? Gracious, what's got into you, Sally? I never mentioned yourname! Do you reckon I've got nothing better to talk about?"
"Don't lie," Mrs. Floyd continued, her voice rising. "You know what Imean. And I've got Mr. Johnson with me to hear it, too. You keep yourmouth shut about me--do you hear? If you don't, I'll shut it for you.I'm right proud and glad to know Lafe Johnson--he's a friend of myhusband, too--and--and--"
She had much more to impart, having rehearsed it mentally on the wayover in order to be effective, but here rage and tears choked speech.Perhaps it was as well; finical people may even find something todeplore in what Mrs. Floyd did say. Mrs. Tracey answered, tucking herchin into her neck, that she was very, very glad to hear it, but, forherself, she must confess complete inability to discover any grounds forpride in Mr. Johnson's acquaintance. Upon which she slammed the door.
"Now, I wonder if that lady meant something?" Lafe murmured gently.
That was forever the way. People were never indifferent to Johnson. Theyeither swore by him or execrated his name, which ought to be held to hiscredit. A man's virtues must be negative if he make no enemies.
Here is the story of Lafe's advent in our part of the world--merely thefacts, and not the tale Mrs. Tracey spread. No man will blame him, andlet those of her sex judge Mrs. Floyd who have never erred a hair'sbreadth. We will then consider the jury.
The Lazy L outfit was loading a train with cattle--ones and twos, gradedstuff and some bulls--when Johnson first appeared. He arrived on afreight, presumably. It is my belief he was heading back for Texas onthe bumpers of an eastbound that passed. It stopped for water and hedropped off when he perceived us shipping.
Forty yearlings had been manhandled and heaved into a car, and one oldbull was added which would eventually visit eastern parts in tins.Perhaps the range monarch had some suspicion of this, for he turnedround to walk out. They yelled, and prodded at his neck and ribs withp
oles, but the bull shook his head in settled determination and starteddown the chute. If he gained the crowding pen, where more yearlings andanother bull waited, there would be a fight and a lot of mussing andlong delay. The boss danced up and down, swearing like a moss-trooper.
"Bar the chute! Bar the chute!" he yelled from the top of the corralfence.
Ere the poles could be thrust in, a seedy individual stepped downdirectly in front of the giant Hereford and began to lash him furiouslyover the face with a rope.
"Come out of there! You'll get killed. Come out!" cried the boss.
The bull bellowed with rage, but the sting of the blows forced his headup. Blood trickled down his nose, and there were livid wales above theeyes. One lurch forward and this man would be crushed, but the rope cutfiercely and without pause, and the bull began to back. The stranger didnot let up, but drove him into the car with savage recklessness.
"What the Sam Hill are you, anyhow?" said the boss, straddling thefence. "A circus or a town cowboy?"
Now, a "town cowboy" is a term of reproach among us, signifying a youngman who never did range work, but wears the clothes and does trickroping for the delectation of visitors. Ultimately he joins a Wild Westshow and instructs the rising generation.
"I reckon you're cleverer than me," Johnson said, "but you ain't awaketo me yet. Turn over. You're on your back."
Without concerning himself further about the boss, he clambered out onto the platform and threw the borrowed rope to Reb. We saw that he wastall and big of bone, and his shoulders had an indolent droop. Althoughhe could not have been over twenty-five, his hair was plentifullyflecked with gray.
Presently Buffalo Jim, who was keeping tally of the cattle going throughthe chute, lost count and admitted frankly that he could not say whetherthere were thirty-seven or forty in the car. He tried to appear grave inconfessing this, but was unable to repress a snigger. Everything wouldhave gone smoothly, he contended, had he not chanced to recall a storyUncle Hi Millet had told him the previous night.
"If that feller could count up to fifty," said Johnson, in an aside tothe buyer, "he would be back in Texas still, a-teaching school."
"Hello, Lafe!" the other exclaimed. "Where did you drop from? Want ajob? Seventy a month?"
"Eighty."
"No, sir; seventy."
"Eighty. I got a lot of unfinished business down the line unless."
"Have it your own way. Eighty it is. Fly at it."
Johnson replaced Buffalo Jim and sat on a board between two posts,dangling his legs, staring at everything but the plunging steers. Yet henever once failed to tally.
The boss's wife rode up to the corrals. With her was Mrs. Tracey.
"Who's them there ladies?" Lafe whispered to a cowboy who wielded aprodpole.
"That pretty one's Miz Floyd. I cain't rightly see the other. Oh, yes.Shore. She's a widow woman--owns a flock of mines way up in themmountains."
"The pretty one's the one I meant," said Lafe.
We sealed the door of the last car, and a brakeman waved to the engineerto pull forward. The buyer grabbed Lafe by the shoulder and jabberedinstructions into his ear. Then he caught the caboose rail as it spedby, and Johnson informed the amazed Floyd that he had been commissionedto receive the other herds when gathered.
"And he don't even know your name? Oh, he does? All the same, that'ssure rushing it. Glad to do business with you, anyhow. I want you to beacquainted with my wife. Shake hands with Mr. Johnson, Sally."
Mrs. Floyd came down the platform, striding like a man. She was wearinga divided skirt, very useful-looking spurs on her high-heeled boots, anda man's felt hat. All the cowboys stopped work to eye her. She was onlytwenty-two and had an amazingly trim figure. With that meaningless smileof polite welcome with which a woman greets her husband's friends, Mrs.Floyd drew off a glove to give Johnson her hand.
"Lafe Johnson! Lafe!" she squealed. And with that she was pumping thebig fellow's arm up and down, her cheeks red with excitement.
"Why, it's li'l Sally!"
"I take it you two know each other," said her husband mildly.
"Do we? Why, we were raised together, Tom. Lafe was one of my bestbeaux. Weren't you, Lafe?"
"Ain't got over it yet," said Lafe.
The widow put in a reminder that she was on earth by a furtive pull atMrs. Floyd's sleeve. Lafe said, "Pleased to meet you, ma'am," verycorrectly, and shook hands. After the hand shake he looked at Mrs.Tracey again, with a new interest. The boss shouted for his horse. Hecould never be idle a minute.
"Let's go home. Reb, give Johnson your horse and double up with one ofthe boys. I'm sure getting hungry."
Laughing and indulging in horse-play, the Lazy L men set out. Mrs.Tracey paired off with Floyd and took especial pains to lead him well inadvance. There would have been nothing in this maneuver but for hermanner of executing it.
"What does she mean by that?" said Sally hotly.
"Who? What?"
"The way she went off there. Didn't you see her? You'd think we--oh, Idon't know how to say it."
"I reckon this lady knows her way about, ma'am?"
"She's awfully nice, Lafe. Really she is. When we're alone, I love her.But sometimes, when men are around--well, you saw how she acted."
"Sure," said Lafe, in his soft bass, and he grinned at her. "It ain'twhat she does, but it's what she don't do. That smile she smothers,now--"
"Have you noticed that, too? Tom did, very first thing. He doesn't likeher."
Johnson asked her of her marriage and how it had come about. It was fiveyears since he had seen her, wasn't it? Mrs. Floyd said four, and hemurmured that it seemed longer. She laughed, but was pleased,nevertheless. As they rode, she studied him without disguise, andremarked that the gray in his hair was an improvement. He was dressedvery poorly, and his boots were down at the heel and worn through thesoles, but she did not appear to notice their plight and he suffered noconfusion therefrom. Twice she detected him looking from her to Tom,loping in the van.
"What're you thinking about?" she said.
"Nothing much. Ideas don't get much of a hold on me. There ain't nothingto grip."
"I know--I can see it in your face. It's mean of you, Lafe, just becausehe's forty and--and--well, he's the truest and best--"
"Hold on there. Pull up!" He was chuckling. Abruptly sober: "Sure, I'llbet he's got a kind heart."
She glared at him for an instant. Then they both exploded into laughterand she shook her horse into a gallop.
"You're just the same old Lafe. Nothing'll ever sober you," she calledover her shoulder. "Remember--I'm a married woman, Lafe Johnson."
"I won't forget it if you don't, ma'am," he said amiably, upon which shegave him a fearfully stern look and giggled.