The Coyote Page 9

  The car drew to a stop with a screeching of brakes. The horseman raised his hands as he saw two rifles leveled at him from the rear seat. There were five men in the car besides the driver. One of the men, who had been sitting in the front with the driver, leaped from the machine and strode toward the rider.

  “Calm that horse down an’ climb out of that saddle,” he commanded. “If you make any motions toward that gun you’re packing, it’ll make things simpler, in a way.”

  The rider slipped from the saddle with a broad grin. “Right up to form,” he sang cheerfully, although he kept his hands elevated while the other took his gun. “My hoss’ll be calm enough now that that danged thing is shut off. You must be a sheriff to be flirting with the speed limit that way an’ forgetting you’ve got a horn.”

  “Where are you from an’ where was you going?” demanded the other.

  “I’m from up in the mountains, but I’d never got where I was going if I hadn’t seen you first the way you busted around that curve,” was the cool reply.

  “Stranger,” was the next comment in a tone of satisfaction. “Look here, friend, I’m Mannix, deputy from High Point. You’ll sail smoother if you answer my questions straight.”

  The deputy motioned to two men in the car. “Search him,” he ordered. Then he stood back, six-shooter in hand.

  The stranger built a cigarette while the men were going through him. He lighted the weed and smiled quizzically while they examined the meager contents of the slicker pack on the rear of his saddle.

  “See you’re packing a black slicker,” said Mannix, pointing to the rough raincoat in which the pack was wrapped.

  “That’s in case of rain,” was the ready answer.

  “What’s your name?” asked the deputy with a frown.

  “Rathburn.”

  “Where was you heading?”

  “I was aiming in a general eastern direction,” Rathburn replied in a drawl. “Is there any law against ridin’ hosses in this here part of the country?”

  “Not at all,” replied the deputy heartily. “An’ there’s no law against drivin’ automobiles or trucks. But there’s a law against stoppin’ ’em with a gun.”

  “So,” said Rathburn. “You stopped because you saw my gun? An’ I’m to blame, for it? If I’d known you were touchy about guns down here I’d have worn mine in my shirt.”

  One of the other men from the car had joined the deputy. He was looking at Rathburn keenly. Mannix turned to him.

  “Look like him?” he asked.

  The man nodded. “About the same size and height.”

  “This man was drivin’ a truck up here that was stopped this morning,” said the deputy sternly to Rathburn. “He says you size up to one of the men that turned the trick––one of them that wore a black slicker like yours.”

  Rathburn nodded pleasantly. “Exactly,” he said with a smile. “I happen to be in the country an’ I’ve got a black slicker. There you are; everything all proved up. An’ yet there was somebody once told me it took brains to be a sheriff!”

  There was a glint in Rathburn’s eyes as he uttered the last sentence.

  Instead of flying into a rage, Mannix laughed.

  “Don’t kid yourself,” he said grimly. “You’re not the man who held up this truck driver.”

  He gave Rathburn back his gun, to the latter’s surprise. Then he waved toward Rathburn’s horse.

  “Go ahead,” he said, smiling. “General eastern direction, wasn’t it? This road will take you clean to the desert, if you want to go that far. So long.”

  He led the others back to the car which started off with a roar. It passed the truck and continued on up the road.

  Rathburn sat his horse and watched the automobile out of sight. His expression was one of deep perplexity.

  “By all the rules of the game that fellow should have held me as a suspect,” he soliloquized. “Now he don’t know me from a hoss thief––or does he?”

  He frowned and rode thoughtfully down the road in the direction from which the automobile had come.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XV

  THE WELCOME

  The afternoon wore on as Rathburn followed the road at an easy jog. He quickened his pace somewhat when he passed through aisles in thick timber, and, despite his careless attitude in the saddle, he kept a sharp lookout at all times. For Rathburn was carrying some gold and bills in a belt under his shirt––which had been examined and returned to him at the order of the deputy––and he had no intention of being waylaid. Moreover, the man’s natural bearing was one of constant alertness. He rode for more than two hours without seeing any one.

  “Strange,” he observed aloud. “This road is used a lot, too. Maybe the morning’s ceremonies has scared all the travelers into the brush.”

  But, as he turned the next bend in the road, he saw a small cabin in a little clearing to the right.

  Spurred by a desire to obtain some much-needed information, he turned from the road into the clearing and rode up to the cabin. He doffed his broad-brimmed hat in haste as he saw a girl.

  “Ma’am, I’m a stranger in these woods an’ I’m looking for an honest man or woman to guide me on my way,” he said with a flashing smile.

  Instead of returning his smile with a gracious word of greeting, the girl regarded him gravely out of glowing, dark eyes.

  “Pretty!” he thought to himself. “Limping lizards, but she’s pretty!”

  “Where are you from?” the girl asked soberly.

  “From yonder mountains, an’ then some,” he answered with a sweeping gesture.

  “You rode down this morning?”

  “I rode down this morning. Down from the toppermost top of the divide with the wind singing in my whiskers an’ the birds warbling in my ears.” He laughed gayly, for he appreciated her puzzled look. “I was wondering two things,” he continued solemnly.

  “What might they be?” she asked doubtfully.

  “First: Why isn’t there more travel on this good road?” he said. “I haven’t seen a soul except yourself and a––a party in an automobile. Now on a road like this–––”

  “Where did you meet the automobile?” she asked in a voice which he interpreted as eager.

  “Two hours an’ some minutes back––and up. Near a truck which had had some trouble in the road. Perhaps you heard about it? Turned over on its side in collapse after some free-thinking gents turned their smoke wagons toward it.”

  It was plain she was interested.

  “Did––is the automobile still there?” she inquired with a breathless catch in her voice.

  “Oh, no. After some of the passengers had had a little disrespectful conversation with me, it went on up the road. Are they scarce around here, ma’am––automobiles?”

  “Not exactly,” she replied with a frown. “They truck ore and men and supplies to and from the mine every day. The reason you’ve seen so few people to-day is because it’s Sunday.”

  “Thank you,” he said gallantly. “That answers my first question. You remember, I was wondering two things?”

  Her lips trembled with a smile, but her eyes flashed with suspicion.

  “You will observe, ma’am, that I am not followed by any pack horses or heavily-laden burros,” he went on gravely, although his eyes sparkled with good humor. “Nor is there anything much to speak of in this slicker pack on my saddle. I need some new smoking tobacco, some new shaving soap, some new hair cut, a bath, a dinner, and a bed––after I’ve put up my hoss.”

  This time the girl laughed, and Rathburn was rewarded by the flashing gleam of two rows of pearls and eyes merry with mirth. But her reciprocating mood of cheerfulness was quickly spent.

  “You are only a mile and a half from High Point,” she said hurriedly. “You can get what you want there.”

  She retreated into the doorway, and Rathburn saw that the chance interview was at an end.

  “Gracias, as they say in the desert country,” he said,
saluting as he turned away. “It means thanks, ma’am.”

  He looked back as he touched the mustang with his steel and saw her looking after him with a strange look in her eyes.

  “That gal looks half like she was scared, hoss,” he reflected. “I wonder, now, if she got me wrong. Dang it! Maybe she thought I was trying to flirt with her. Well, maybe I was.”

  He thrust a hand in a pocket and fingered the two objects he had picked up in the road at the scene of the holdup. Then he pulled his hat a bit forward over his eyes and increased his pace. The town, as he had half expected, came suddenly into sight around a sharp bend in the road.

  High Point consisted of some two-score structures, and only a cursory glance was needed to ascertain that it was the source of supplies and rendez-vous for entertainment of the several mines and all the miners and prospectors in the neighboring hills. Several fairly good roads and many trails led into it, and from it there was a main road of travel to the railroad on the edge of the desert in the east.

  Before he entered the dusty, single street, lined with small buildings flaunting false fronts, Rathburn recognized the signs of a foothill town where the hand of authority rested but lightly.

  He rode directly to the first hotel, the only two-story structure in town, and around to the rear where he put up his horse and left his saddle, chaps and slicker pack in the care of the barn man.

  He received instructions as to the location of the best barber shop and speedily wended his way there. He found Sunday was not observed in the barber shop, nor in the resort which adjoined it.

  “Any chance to get a bath here?” he asked one of the two barbers with a twinkle in his gray eyes.

  He expected a snort of astonishment and a sarcastic reply.

  “Sure. Want it first or after?”

  Rathburn eyed the barber suspiciously. Was the man poking fun at him? Well, he was not a stranger to repartee.

  “First or after what?” he asked, scowling.

  “Your shave and hair cut.”

  Rathburn laughed. “I’ll take it first––if you have it. An’ if you have, I’ll say this is a first-class barber shop.”

  The barber led the way to a room in the rear of the place with a pleased grin.

  An hour or so later Rathburn, with the lower part of his face a shade paler than the upper half, his dark hair showing neatly under his broad-brimmed hat, his black riding boots glistening, and a satisfied smile on his face, sauntered out of the barber shop into the resort next door.

  A man was lighting the hanging lamps, and Rathburn looked about through a haze of tobacco smoke at a cluster of crowded gaming tables, a short bar, cigar counter, and at the motley throng which jammed the small room.

  He grinned as he read the sign over the cash register:

  FREE DRINKS TO-MORROW

  “Swiped in broad daylight from the grand old State of Texas,” he murmured aloud to himself.

  Then he noticed a small restaurant in the rear of the place, separated from the main room by a partition, the upper part of which was glass.

  He made his way back, passed through the door, and took a seat at the counter which afforded him a view of the resort through the glass. He ordered a substantial meal and, while waiting for it to be served, studied with calculating eyes the scene in the next room.

  The men were mostly of the hills––miners constituting the majority. Of professional gamblers there were many, and there was also a plentiful sprinkling of that despicable species known as “boosters” whose business it is to sit in at the games in the interest of “the house;” to fleece the victims who occupy the few remaining seats.

  But now he saw a man who apparently was not a miner, or a prospector, nor yet a member of the professional gambling tribe. This was a tall man, very dark, sinewy. He wore a gun.

  At first Rathburn thought he might be a cow-puncher, for he wore riding boots, and had something of the air and bearing of a cowman; but he finally decided that this classification was inaccurate. An officer at one of the mines, perhaps; a forest ranger––no, he didn’t wear the regalia of a ranger––Rathburn gave it up as his dinner was put before him on the counter.

  He fell to his meal eagerly, for he had had nothing to eat since early morning when he had broken camp high in the mountains to westward. Steak and French “fries” began quickly to disappear, along with many slices of bread and two cups of steaming coffee. Then Rathburn looked up, and to his surprise saw that the tall, dark man was standing near the glass, studying him intently out of scowling, black eyes.

  Rathburn looked at him coolly and steadily for a few moments and resumed his meal. But the other was inquisitive and Rathburn sensed, without again looking up, that he was being watched. Was this man, then, an aide of Mannix, the deputy? He doubted it.

  He finished his meal, paid his score with an added cheery word for the counter jumper, rose, entered the main room of the resort, and walked directly up to the dark man who still was observing him.

  “Was you thinking I was an old acquaintance of yours?” he asked pleasantly.

  The other’s eyes narrowed, and Rathburn thought he detected a glow of recognition and satisfaction.

  “Did you have your bath?” sneeringly inquired the man.

  Rathburn’s brows lifted. Then he smiled queerly. “I sure did. Why? Did I maybe keep you waiting? Was you next?”

  The other’s eyes blazed with wrath. “Let me give you a tip, my friend; you ain’t right well acquainted in this here locality, are you?”

  Rathburn now noted that they had attracted immediate attention. The tall, dark man, then, was a personage of importance. He noted another thing, too––rather, he realized it by instinct as well as by certain mannerisms. The man before him knew how to use the weapon which hung low on his right thigh.

  “If you mean was I born here, or do I live here, I’d say no,” Rathburn drawled; “but I happen to be here at this precise time so I’d say I’m right well acquainted with it.”

  A hush had come over the place. Interested faces were turned in their direction, and Rathburn sensed an ominous tremor of keen expectancy. The fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes tightened a bit.

  “This is a poor time for strangers to be hanging around,” said the dark man in a loud voice. “The Dixie Queen pay-roll has been taking wings too often.”

  The implication and the murmur from the spectators was not lost upon Rathburn. His lips tightened into a fine, white line.

  “Whoever you are, you’ve got more mouth than brains!” he said crisply in a voice which carried over the room.

  The effect of his words was electric. There was a sharp intaking of breath from the spectators. The dark man’s face froze, and his eyes darted red. His right hand seemed to hang on the instant for the swoop to his gun. Rathburn appeared to be smiling queerly out of his eyes. Then came a sharp interruption.

  “Just a minute, Carlisle!”

  Rathburn recognized the voice of Mannix, and a moment later the deputy stepped between them.

  “What’s the idea?” he asked coolly.

  “This gentleman you just called Carlisle seems to have appointed himself a reception committee to welcome me into the enterprising town of High Point,” drawled Rathburn, with a laugh.

  Mannix turned on Carlisle with a scowl, and Carlisle shrugged impatiently, his eyes still glaring balefully at Rathburn.

  The deputy again confronted Rathburn. “Had your supper?” he asked.

  “Best steak I’ve had in two months,” Rathburn replied cheerfully.

  “Horse taken care of?”

  “First thing.” There was a note of derision in Rathburn’s tone. “Service at the hotel barn is high grade.”

  Mannix’s eyes hardened before he spoke again. He hesitated, but when his words came they were clear-cut and stern.

  “Then come with me an’ I’ll show you where to sleep.”

  “You mean in jail?” queried Rathburn.

  Mannix nodded coldly.
/>
  “Sheriff,” said Rathburn, in a peculiar tone, addressing the deputy but looking over his shoulder directly into Carlisle’s eyes; “if there’s one thing I’m noted for, it’s for being a good guesser!”

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE DIXIE’S BOSS

  If Mannix expected any resistance from Rathburn he soon found that none was to materialize. The deputy, a short, rather stout man of perhaps thirty-nine, with bronzed features, clear, brown eyes, and a protruding jaw covered with a stubble of reddish-brown beard, was nevertheless wary of his prisoner. He had not yet obtained Rathburn’s gun, and he recognized the unmistakable signs of a seasoned gunman in the lounging but graceful postures of his prisoner, in the way he moved his right hand, in the alertness of his eye. He frowned, for Rathburn was smiling. There was a quality to that smile which was not lost upon the doughty officer.

  “I take it you’ve got sense enough to come along easylike,” he said, with just a hint of doubt in his voice.

  “Yes, I’ve been known to show some sense, sheriff; now that’s a fact.”

  “I’ll have to ask you for your gun,” said the deputy grimly.

  “I’ve never been known to hand over my gun, sheriff,” drawled Rathburn. “Now that’s another fact.”

  Again the tension in the room was high. Others than Mannix, and probably Carlisle, had readily discerned in the gray-eyed stranger a certain menacing prowess which is much respected where weapons are the rule in unexpected emergencies. The crowd backed to the wall.

  The deputy wet his lips, and his face grew a shade paler. Then suddenly he went for his gun, as Rathburn dropped, like a shot, to the floor. There came the crack of Carlisle’s pistol and a laugh from Rathburn. The deputy, gun in hand, stared at Rathburn who rose quickly to his feet. Then he thought to cover him. Rathburn raised his hands while Carlisle returned his own smoking weapon to its holster. Mannix turned and glared at Carlisle in perplexity.