The Land of Strong Men Part 65

Now, some years before, Garland had secured money from Mr. Braden on a promissory note, apparently endorsed by a well-to-do but somewhat illiterate rancher. When the note matured Garland was unable to meet it, and Mr. Braden intimated that he would have recourse to the liability of the endorser. Whereupon Garland, in a panic, had admitted that he himself had reproduced the rancher's painful scrawl. Mr. Braden secured his signature to a statement to that effect, and filed it away with the note. Eventually Garland paid or worked out the face of the note, but Mr. Braden kept it and the confession as well; Garland for obvious reasons being unable to insist upon their delivery. Now the envelope containing that old note and the signed statement had disappeared. The inference, to Mr. Braden, required no elaborate reasoning.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

TURKEY PLAYS A HAND

Mr. Braden's reasoning which fixed the responsibility on Garland, was perfectly logical; but his conclusion was entirely wrong. The missing doc.u.ments were in the possession, not of Garland, but of Turkey Mackay.

Turkey, on the night when he had seen Mr. Braden take certain papers from French's safe, had gone to that ranch to see young Larry about a horse. What he had seen, which included the fatal seizure of G.o.dfrey French, had put his errand entirely out of his head. The papers which Braden had taken, he reasoned, must be important. The French boys would sure raise blazes if they knew of it. Hence, he had followed Braden home, debating the feasibility of holding him up and taking the papers by force, but had decided against it. Reaching town he had scurried around to the rear of Mr. Braden's apartments, and when the light went on had chinned himself up to the window and seen him place papers, which must be those in question, in the little safe; and he had also observed where Mr. Braden had secured the key.

Thereafter he merely awaited a favorable opportunity to investigate the safe. There must be private papers in it which Braden would be sorry to lose. A skunk like that would have a lot of stuff he wouldn't want people to know about. Therefore, Turkey constructed a short ladder which, under cover of night, he concealed beneath a pile of old lumber in the rear of Mr. Braden's office. He found his opportunity in the night of the meeting at which Mr. Braden presided. It was a public meeting, and Turkey, looking in at the door of the hall, noted Mr.

Braden on the platform. It was exactly what he had been looking for. The night was cloudy, dark, with a spatter of rain. Turkey made tracks for his shack, and securing a short bit of steel which bore a strong family resemblance to a jimmy, and a flashlight, hastened to the rear of Mr.

Braden's building, erected his ladder, forced the window, found the key without difficulty and opened the safe.

At first he found the safe's contents disappointing. The old accounts and letters which he scanned hastily, seemed innocent, and what books there were contained no record of crime. The first item of interest was an envelope endorsed with Garland's name. This Turkey opened and read the contents. Grinning to himself he put them in his pocket. Anyway, he now had something on Garland. Searching further, he found what seemed to be a conveyance in duplicate from Braden to Sewell Winton. Turkey frowned, puzzled. Sewell Winton? That was the name of Angus' wife's father. Then those deeds should be in her possession. What was Braden doing with them?

Suddenly Turkey thought of the night he had seen Braden and French together in that very room, poring over doc.u.ments which French had taken away. French was Angus' wife's uncle, and had bought the property she had lived on for her father, Turkey had heard. Now French had taken doc.u.ments away; and Braden had stolen two doc.u.ments from French's safe.

Here were two doc.u.ments which, though he could not identify them, were connected more or less with both men. Unless he could find others bearing directly on French, these must be the ones.

Having reached this conclusion with the simple logic of a savage working out a trail, Turkey placed the deeds in his pocket and continued his search; but he found nothing more connected with French, nor were there any other papers which looked suspicious. And so Turkey reluctantly closed the safe, replaced the key where he had found it, reflecting that it might come in handy again, and departed as he had come.

When he reached his shack he got into his bunk as being a position favorable to profound thought, but went to sleep before he thought of anything. In the morning breakfast absorbed his mental faculties until it was consumed. Then he lit a smoke and read all the papers through.

Those connected with Garland were obvious enough, self-explanatory, but he did not know just what to do with them. If he made them public he would have to account for his possession of them. That would not do. He would keep them for a while and see what turned up.

But the deeds were a different matter. They represented owners.h.i.+p, and so should be in the hands of his sister-in-law whom he had never seen.

Why hadn't Braden or French given her these deeds? Why had Braden swiped them from French? The girl had been living on the land, so that she knew it belonged to her. Maybe, now that French was dead, that old skunk Braden was going to pretend that he never sold her father the place at all. But from what he, Turkey, knew of the old Tetreau lay-out, it wasn't worth going to much trouble about.

Suddenly Turkey whistled softly and swore to himself. He must be a bonehead! Braden wanted to get hold of that land because it was near his coal. Sure! That was it. The darn, old crook, trying to hold out on a girl after he'd made a strike like that on his own land! Why, the blanked, double-dashed old hog! Angus' wife must have the deeds at once, or Braden might put something over on her. It wouldn't do to trust the mail or any one else. He hated to go to the ranch, but he must give them to her himself.

Turkey thereupon saddled his blue mare and clattered away. The mare was in high spirits, the morning cool, and youth and good health surged in Turkey's veins. As he rode he sang cla.s.sics of the old frontier which for excellent reasons have never been embalmed in type. Within a couple of miles of his destination the road dipped down to a wooden flat, crossed a creek and mounted a steep grade. Turkey, walking the blue mare, was half way up when a horse and rider appeared at the top. To his amazement they bore down on him at a run, and to his greater amazement the rider was a girl. For anybody to run a horse down that grade was to tempt Providence. But in a moment he realized that the horse was running away.

The girl had given up trying to hold him, and was letting him run. The animal, a powerful bay, had the bit, and his eyes showed white. His rider was sitting still, holding the horn with one hand, trying to adjust her body to the thumping jar of the downhill run. She was staying with it gamely, and though her face was white her mouth was set. She was a complete stranger to Turkey.

The latter was not foolish enough to endeavor to stop a runaway head on, on a grade. He wheeled his mare in to the bank, giving right-of-way.

"Stay with it!" he yelled. "I'll get you at the bottom!" And as the big bay thundered past he regained the road and sent the mare down after the runaway at a pace which even he considered risky.

He reached the bottom some fifty yards behind the bay, and for the first time called on the real speed of the mare. She overhauled rapidly, but as he drew nearly level and reached for the rein, the bay swerved, abandoned the road and took to the brush. But the blue mare was accustomed to hard riding after wild, long-legged steers up and down brush-covered coulees. She stuck to the bay, through an undergrowth that slashed and whipped, and once more brought Turkey level. This time he got a hold, and dragged the bay to a halt.

"Th--thank you!" the girl murmured, and swayed a little, catching the horn with both hands. "I--I think I'll get down, for a minute."

"Sure!" Turkey agreed, but as he saw how she slid from the saddle he leaped down and caught her.

"I'll be all right in a minute. I must have been frightened. It's so silly of me."

She sat down on the gra.s.s, and Turkey tied the bay to a sapling. This done he regarded the girl furtively, deciding that though not exactly pretty, she was mighty easy to look at. Blue eyes, fair hair, nice skin, tall and well-built. He hoped she wouldn't faint. That would be--well, it would be embarra.s.sing. He wouldn't know what the--that is he would be helpless.

"I'm not going to faint," she said as if in answer to his thought. "I'm just shaken up."

Turkey nodded. A run down hill jolts even a hardened puncher at times.

Girls were complicated machines--soft, too. Shaking up wasn't good for 'em. But in a moment the color began to come back to her cheeks.

"There," she said, "I feel better. I want to thank you really, now."

"That's all right," said Turkey. "I couldn't stop him on the grade; he'd have gone over, likely. What started him?"

"A piece of newspaper blew off the sides of the road under his feet. I couldn't hold him at all."

Turkey feebly expressed his opinion of people who dropped paper beside a road, the feebleness being due to the s.e.x of his unknown companion.

The girl regarded him closely.

"You remind me of somebody," she said, "but I don't think I've ever seen you before."

"My name is Mackay," Turkey vouchsafed, and waited for a similar confidence which did not come.

"Mackay!" the girl exclaimed. Her eyes were veiled for a moment. When she again looked him in the face their expression had altered.

"Are you the Mr. Mackay who has a ranch somewhere near here?"

"That's my brother, Angus," Turkey replied.

"What a really Scotch name! Yours should be Donald, or Duncan, or Murdoch?"

"Worse than that," Turkey grinned. "Torquil. But most people call me 'Turkey.'"

"May I call you 'Turkey'?"

"If--if you like," Turkey stammered.

"Well, I do like. And I like _you_, Turkey."

"Huh!" said Turkey.

"Really and truly I do. Don't you like me?"

"I don't know you," the startled Turkey responded defensively.

"Oh, Turkey! what a speech! But wouldn't you like to know me better?"

Gos.h.!.+ was this darn girl trying to be fresh, to flirt with him.

"I--I hadn't thought about it," he stammered.

"Oh, worse and worse! I want you to like me, and I want you to come and see me. I'm going to live here--in this district--for a while."