Tangled Trails Part 40

P.S. Esther sends bushels of love to Rose and will write to-morrow.

I'll say Im going to make her one happy kid.

COLE

Kirby laughed in sardonic mirth. He had fought the wrong man.

It was James Cunningham, not Jack. And, of course, Jack had known it all the time and been embarra.s.sed by it. He had stuck loyally to his brother and had taken the whaling of his life rather than betray him.

Kirby took off his hat to Jack. He had stood pat to a fighting finish.

He was one good square sport.

Even as he was thinking this, Kirby was moving toward the telephone booth. He had promised to report progress. For once he had considerable to report.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

OLSON TELLS A STORY

When Rose heard from Esther next day she and Kirby took the Interurban for Golden. Esther had written that she wanted to see her sister because Cole was going to take her back to Wyoming at once.

The sisters wept in each other's arms and then pa.s.sed together into Esther's bedroom for an intimate talk. The younger sister was still happy only in moments of forgetfulness, though she had been rescued from death in life. Cole had found her comfortably situated at a farmhouse a mile or two back from the canon. She had gone there under the urge of her need, at the instigation of James Cunningham, who could not afford to have the scandal of his relations with her become public at the same time as the announcement of his marriage to Phyllis Harriman. The girl loved Cole and trusted him. Her heart went out to him in a warm glow of grat.i.tude. But the shadow of her fault was a barrier in her mind between them, and would be long after his kindness had melted the ice in her bosom.

"We've got it all fixed up to tell how we was married when I come down to Denver last April only we kep' it quiet because she wanted to hold her job awhile," Cole explained to his friend. "Onct I get her back there in G.o.d's hills she'll sure enough forget all about this trouble.

The way I look at it she was jus' like a li'l' kid that takes a mis-step in the dark an' falls an' hurts itself. You know how a wounded deer can look at a fellow so sorrowful an' hurt. Well, that's how her brown eyes looked at me when I come round the corner o' the house up Platte Canon an' seen her sittin' there starin' at h.e.l.l."

Kirby shook hands with him in a sudden stress of emotion. "You'll do to take along, old alkali, you sure enough will."

"Oh, shucks!" retorted Cole, between disgust and embarra.s.sment. "I always claimed to be a white man, didn't I? You can't give a fellow credit for doin' the thing he'd rather do than anything else. But prod a peg in this. I'm gonna make that li'l' girl plumb happy. She thinks she won't be, that she's lost the right to be. She's 'way off, I can see her perkin' up already. I got a real honest-to-G.o.d laugh outa her this mo'nin'."

Kirby knew the patience, the steadiness, and the kindliness of his friend. Esther had fallen into the best of hands. She would find again the joy of life. He had no doubt of that. Gayety and laughter were of her heritage.

He said as much to Rose on the way home. She agreed. For the first time since she left Cheyenne the girl was her old self. Esther's problem had been solved far more happily than she had dared to hope.

"I'm goin' to have a gay time apologizin' to Jack," said Kirby, his eyes dancing. "It's not so blamed funny at that, but I can't help laughin' every time I think of how he must 'a' been grinnin' up his sleeve at me for my fool mistake. I'll say he brought it on himself, though. He was feelin' guilty on his brother's account, an' I didn't get his embarra.s.sment right. James is a pretty cool customer. From first to last he never turned a hair when the subject was mentioned."

"What about him?" Rose asked.

The cattleman pretended alarm. "Now, don't you," he remonstrated.

"Don't you expect me to manhandle James, too. I'm like Napoleon.

Another victory like the battle of last night would sure put me in the hospital. I'm a peaceable citizen, a poor, lone cowboy far away from home. Where I come from it's as quiet as a peace conference. This wildest-Denver stuff gets my nerve."

She smiled into his battered face. A dimple nestled in her soft, warm cheek. "I see it does. It's a pity about you. I didn't suppose your cousin Jack had it in him to spoil your beauty like that."

"Neither did I," he said, answering her smile. "I sure picked on the wrong man. He's one handy lad with his dibs--put me down twice before we decided to call it off. I like that young fellow."

"Better not like him too much. You may have to work against him yet."

"True enough," he admitted, falling grave again. "As to James, we'll ride close herd on him for a while, but we'll ride wide. Looks to me like he may have to face a jury an' fight for his life right soon."

"Do you think he killed your uncle?"

"I don't want to think so. He's a bad egg, I'm afraid. But my father's sister was his mother. I'd hate to have to believe it."

"But in your heart you do believe it," she said gently.

He looked at her. "I'm afraid so. But that's a long way from knowing it."

They parted at her boarding-house.

A man rose to meet Kirby when he stepped into the rotunda of his hotel.

He was a gaunt, broad-shouldered man with ragged eyebrows.

"Well, I came," he said, and his voice was harsh.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Olson. Come up to my room. We can talk there more freely."

The Scandinavian rancher followed him to the elevator and from there to his room.

"Why don't they arrest Hull?" he demanded as soon as the door was closed.

"Not evidence enough."

"Suppose I can give evidence. Say I practically saw Hull do it. Would they arrest him--or me?"

"They'd arrest him," Kirby answered. "They don't know you're the man who wrote the threatening letter."

"Hmp!" grunted the rancher suspiciously. "That's what _you_ say, but you're not the whole works."

Kirby offered a chair and a cigar. He sat down on the bed himself.

"Better spill your story to me, Olson. Two heads are better than one,"

he said carelessly.

The Swede's sullen eyes bored into him. Before that frank and engaging smile his doubts lost force. "I got to take a chance. Might as well be with you as any one."

The Wyoming man struck a match, held it for the use of his guest, then lit his own cigar. For a few moments they smoked in silence. Kirby leaned back easily against the head of the bed. He did not intend to frighten the rancher by hurrying him.

"When Cunningham worked that crooked irrigation scheme of his on Dry Valley, I reckon I was one of them that hollered the loudest. Prob'ly I talked foolish about what all I was gonna do about it. I wasn't blowin' off hot air either. If I'd got a good chance at him, or at Hull either, I would surely have called for a showdown an' gunned him if I could. But that wasn't what I came to Denver for. I had to arrange about gettin' my mortgage renewed."

He stopped and took a nervous puff or two at the cigar. Kirby nodded in a friendly fas.h.i.+on without speaking. He did not want by anything he might say to divert the man's mind from the track it was following.

"I took a room at the Wyndham because the place had been recommended to me by a neighbor of mine who knew the landlady. When I went there I didn't know that either Cunningham or Hull lived next door. That's a G.o.d's truth. I didn't. Well, I saw Hull go in there the very day I got to town, but the first I knew yore uncle lived there was ten or maybe fifteen minutes before he was killed. I wouldn't say but what it was twenty minutes, come to that. I wasn't payin' no attention to time."

Olson's eyes challenged those of his host. His suspicion was still smoldering. An unhappy remark, a look of distrust, might still have dried up the stream of his story. But he found in that steady regard nothing more d.a.m.natory than a keen, boyish interest.

"Maybe you recollect how hot those days were. Well, in my cheap, stuffy room, openin' on an air-shaft, it was hotter 'n h.e.l.l with the lid on. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I went out into the corridor an' down it to the fire escape outside the window. It was a lot cooler there. I lit a stogie an' sat on the railin' smokin', maybe for a quarter of an hour. By-an'-by some one come into the apartment right acrost the alley from me. I could see the lights come on. It was a man. I saw him step into what must be the bedroom. He moved around there some. I couldn't tell what he was doin' because he didn't switch on the light, but he must 'a' been changin' to his easy coat an'

his slippers. I know that because he came into the room just opposite the fire escape where I was sittin' on the rail. He threw on the lights, an' I saw him plain. It was Cunningham, the old crook who had beat me outa fifteen hundred dollars."