The Sunset Trail Part 9

However brief that measure of time, it was crimson with multiplied tragedy. With the thought of defending her love, the Wild Rose, uttering a cry of horror, and clutching at the murderous pistol, threw herself between Sergeant King and Mr. Masterson. She was a breath too late for the first; the second, meant also for her idol, drove its way into her young breast. The Wild Rose fell; at her side fell Sergeant King, snuffed out by the unfailing six-shooter of Mr. Masterson.

Hard hit as he was, Mr. Masterson raised the Wild Rose in his arms. She opened her brown eyes, swimming with love.

"He said you wanted me," whispered the Wild Rose.

Mr. Masterson, looking into the soft depths, saw that love and knew it for his own. Even as he gazed, the warm lights failed and faded; the rose flush deserted the cheek. In the arms of Mr. Masterson the Wild Rose lay dead.

CHAPTER V

THE STRATEGY OF MR. MASTERSON

This came long after the battle at the 'Dobe Walls, and was of the year next before Dull Knife, that Red Richard of the Cheyennes, with one hundred and forty-eight followers, two-thirds of whom were squaws and pappooses, broke from the soldiers and fought his way to his old home in the North, whipping the cavalry once, twice, thrice; yielding only and at last to the lying treachery of Red Cloud and his Sioux police. It was a great trail that last long running fight of Dull Knife, and proved his heart good and his "medicine" strong. Some one some day ought to write the story high among the gallant deeds of men. However, here is not the place nor this the time; for what comes after is to be a tale of stratagem, not battle; politics, not war.

Commonly the face of Dodge was as open and frank and care-free as the face of a Waterbury watch. On the occasion in hand it wore a look of occupation and serious business. This business expression was fairly founded; a sheriff for Ford County must be selected, the gentleman who had filled that post of trust being undeniably dead.

The pa.s.sing of that sheriff was curious. One morning he rode forth, and fording the Arkansas at the Cimarron Crossing, made south and west for Sand Creek. And thereafter he never rode back. It was understood that he bore official papers to serve upon a certain miscreant who dwelt on Sand Creek. The Sand Creek miscreant having bought goods of Mr. Wright, later jeered at the suggestion that he pay, and Mr. Wright had been driven to ask aid of the law.

Three days after the sheriff splashed through the Cimarron Crossing his pony was picked up by cow people, saddled, bridled, and in the best of spirits, close by the river where the lush gra.s.s grows most to a pony's taste. It did not escape experienced eyes that, when the pony was thus recovered, the bridle reins were properly upon its neck and had not been lifted over its head, to hang by the bits and drag about its hoofs.

Later, the missing one's six-shooter and belt, the latter tooth-marked, together with shreds of clothing, sc.r.a.ps of leather leggings, and sundry bones gnawed white, were found an hour's ride out on the trail. The pistol possessed a full furnishment of six unexploded cartridges. Also, the tooth-marked belt and those fragmentary reminders, scattered here and there and all about for the round area of a mile, offered much to support a belief that the late officer, in his final expression, had become of gustatory moment to coyotes, which grey beggarmen of the plains were many and hungry in those parts.

When the evidence recounted was all in, the wisdom of Dodge made divers deductions. These found setting forth in the remarks of Mr. Wright, the same being delivered to Mr. Short and others in the Long Branch saloon.

"Those bridle reins on the pony's neck," observed Mr. Wright, inspired to the explanation by Old Jordan and a local curiosity which appealed to him as among the best intelligences in camp, "those bridle reins on the pony's neck shows that Dave went out o' the saddle a heap sudden. If Dave had swung to the gra.s.s of his own will he'd have lifted the reins over the pony's head, so's to keep that equine standin' patient to his call."

"Don't you reckon, Bob," broke in Mr. Short, "your Sand Creek bankrupt bushwhacks Dave?"

"No; Dave wasn't shot out o' the saddle, the six loads in his gun bein'

plenty on that point. It's preposterous that an old hand like Dave, in an open country, too, could have been rubbed out, an' never get a shot.

Dave wasn't that easy. Besides, if the Sand Creek hold-up had b.u.mped Dave off, he'd have cinched the pony. Gents, the idea I entertain is that Dave, in a fit of abstraction, permits himself to be bucked off.

Landin' on his head that a-way, his neck naturally gets broke."

The Wright theory having been adopted, Dodge, in addition to the serious business look, took on an atmosphere of disappointment which trenched upon the mournful. Not that the late sheriff's death preyed upon Dodge.

Dodge was aware of sheriffs in their evanescence. They were as gra.s.s; they came up like the flowers to be cut down. What discouraged Dodge was the commonplace character of that officer's exit, as so convincingly explained by Mr. Wright. Nothing had been left wherewith to gild a story and tantalize the envious ears of rivalry. To be chucked from a careless saddle to the dislocation of an equally careless neck was not a proud demise.

By Western tenets the only honourable departure would have been the one usual and official. The sheriff who would quit his const.i.tuents under n.o.blest conditions must perish in the smoke of conflict, defending communal order and the threatened peace of men. Obviously he must not be pitched from his own pony to fatten coyotes.

"For," as Cimarron Bill was moved to observe, "to be bucked into a better life, inadvertent, is as onromatic as bein' kicked to glory by an ambulance mule."

Had the late sheriff gone down before the lawless muzzle of some desperate personage, bent, as runs the phrase, on "standing Dodge on its head," what exhilarating ceremonies would have been the fruit! The desperate personage, on the hocks of that snuffing out, would have been earnestly lynched. The slain sheriff, his head pillowed in his saddle, his guns by his side, would have lain in state. Dodge, c.r.a.pe on its sombrero and with bowed head, would have followed the catafalque, while a bra.s.s band boomed the dead march; the rites, conducted in a mood of gloomy elevation, would have aroused the admiration of an entire border.

All these good advantages were denied Dodge, and it was that funeral loss which clouded the public brow. The possibilities would now be exhausted when the fate of the once sheriff was officially noticed, and the vacancy thus arranged had been filled.

And now a new sheriff must be chosen. Dodge, politically speaking, was all there was of Ford County. Politics, in the sinister sense of party, had never reared its viper head in Dodge; there existed no such commodity of misrule. Also, the station of sheriff was of responsible gravity. Thus, indeed, thought Dodge; and went upon that sheriff-mongering with care.

"My idea of a sheriff," vouchsafed Mr. Short, "is one who, while he does not wear his six-shooters for ornament, can be relied on not to go shootin' too promiscuous. The prosperity of Dodge swings and rattles on the boys who drive the herds. It isn't commercially expedient to put a crimp in one of 'em for trivial cause. Of course, should the most free-handed consumer that ever tossed his _dinero_ across a counter pull his hardware for blood, it is obvious that he must be downed. The demand of the hour is for a sheriff who can discriminate on the lines I've laid down."

This and more was said. When discussion had been exhausted Mr. Trask, with a view of focussing suggestion, advanced the name of Mr. Masterson.

Mr. Wright, as well as Mr. Short, was prompt with his support.

"For," said Mr. Wright, "where can you find a cooler head or a quicker gun than Bat's?"

"But Bat ain't here none," explained Cimarron Bill. "He's down on the Medicine Lodge, killin' buffalo; his camp's in Walker's Timber."

It was apparent that the better element, that is to say, the better shots, favoured Mr. Masterson. An informal count displayed among his supporters such popular towers as Mr. Wright, Mr. Trask, Mr. Short, and Mr. Kelly. Mr. Short was emphatic in his partisans.h.i.+p.

"Not only," explained Mr. Short, "is Bat cool an' steady, but, bar Mike Sutton, he's the best educated sharp in Dodge."

Cimarron Bill, who seemed born to ride bad ponies, saddled a bronco whose studied villainy of disposition was half atoned for by an ability to put one hundred miles between himself and his last feed. Cimarron Bill had been directed to bring in Mr. Masterson.

"An' don't tell him what's in the wind," warned Mr. Wright. "Bat's modest, an' if you spring this on him plumb abrupt it might shock him so he wouldn't come."

"What'll I tell him, then?" demanded Cimarron Bill. "I sh.o.r.e can't rope up Bat without a word an' drag him yere with my pony."

"Here's what you do," said Mr. Short. "Tell him I'm goin' to run, with Updegraffe up for the opp'sition. Tell him that Walker of the Cross K, an' B'ar Creek Johnson are ag'in me. That would fetch Bat from the Rio Grande."

On the south bank of the Medicine Lodge was a horseshoe bend, and the enclosed forty acres, thick-sown of trees, were known as Walker's Timber. Here was pitched the buffalo camp of Mr. Masterson, and therefrom, aided and abetted by his brother Ed and Mr. Tighlman, he issued forth against the buffaloes, slaying them serenely, to his profit and the fullfed joy of sundry coyotes and ravens that attended faithfully his hunting.

It was in the earlier darkness of the evening, and Mr. Masterson was sitting by his campfire, peering into a little memorandum book by the dancing light of the flames. In this book, with a stubby pencil, he soberly jotted down a record of the day's kill.

"We've made eight hundred and thirty-three robes, Billy," observed Mr.

Masterson to Mr. Tighlman, who was busy over a bake-kettle containing all that was mortal of two hen turkeys-wild and young and lively the night before. "And," concluded Mr. Masterson, with just a shade of pride in his tones, "I fetched them with precisely eight hundred and thirty-three cartridges, the nearest bull four hundred yards away."

Mr. Tighlman grunted applause of the rifle accuracy of Mr. Masterson.

Mr. Tighlman was the camp's cook, having a mysterious genius for biscuits, and knowing to a pinch what baking-powder was required for a best biscuit result.

Mr. Tighlman presently announced supper by beating the side of the bake-kettle with the back of a butcher-knife. The challenge brought Ed Masterson from the drying-grounds, where he had been staking out and sc.r.a.ping, with an instrument that resembled a short-handed adz, the fresh hides of that day's hunt. Mr. Masterson put away his roster of buffalo dead and made ready to compliment Mr. Tighlman in the way in which cooks like best to be praised.

Suddenly there came a sound as of some one crossing the little river.

Each of the three seized his rifle and rolled outside the circle of firelight. It was as one hundred to one there abode no danger; the Cheyennes had not yet recovered from the calmative influences of the Black Kettle war. Still, it was the careful practice of the plains to distrust all things after dark.

"Go back to your fire," shouted a voice from out the shadows. "Do you-all prairie dogs reckon that, if I was goin' to jump your camp, I'd come walloppin' across in this egregious style?"

"It's Cimarron Bill," exclaimed Mr. Masterson, discarding his rifle in favour of renewed turkey.

Cimarron Bill tore the saddle off the malevolent bronco and hobbled him.

"Whoopee!" he shouted softly, as he pushed in by the fire and pulled the bake-kettle towards him; "I'm hungry enough to eat a saddle cover."

Cimarron Bill, being exhaustively fed, laid forth his mission mendaciously. He related the vacancy in the office of sheriff, and said that it was proposed to fill the same with Mr. Short. Cimarron Bill, seeing a chance to tell a little truth, explained that the opposition would put up Mr. Updegraffe.

"Who's behind Updegraffe?" asked Mr. Masterson.

The veracious Cimarron Bill enumerated Mr. Webster of the Alamo, Mr.

Peac.o.c.k of the Dance Hall, Mr. Walker of the Cross-K, and Bear Creek Johnson.