IN keeping with precedent, that ancestor worship of courts and lawyers, and all attendant upon the ponderous machinery which they revolve, the sale of Tom Laylander's cattle was held at noon, from the west steps of the county court house, on the appointed day. Cal Withers was the only bidder. The sheriff gave him the required evidence of ownership, and sent him off to claim his own.
Before holding the sale the sheriff had taken a private scout to the range to find whether Tom Laylander had come to his senses and gone off to Texas with the herd. He found Tom a few miles out of town, faithful to his trust, the cattle beginning to look sleek and fit, the biggest bargain for a judgment of ten thousand dollars and costs that a man was likely to run across in a lifetime.
The sheriff pretended to be greatly relieved to find the cattle still within his jurisdiction.
"I've been so busy I couldn't run out to locate you before," he explained, "but I had a wild feelin' in me you'd drove them cows down to the Nation. If you had 'a', Withers he'd 'a' sued me on my bond."
Tom had not made any reply to this. He was weary of insinuations and suggestions, disgusted with the warped and dishonest grain of Kansas people in general, if those around McPacken were to be taken as a fair sample of the whole. The sheriff went back to town, feeling safe, knowing that Tom could not get the cattle out of Kansas now before the sale, even if he should experience a change of heart.
The sheriff knew Laylander was a bigger fool than he ever had thought him. This had settled it beyond any doubt. Neither bravery nor cunning, sagacity nor reason, had brought that kid through his adventure with the bank robbers; nothing but that inscrutable supervision, that divine insurance, of fools.
Withers did not wait to get his dinner. With two men at his back he galloped off to the place where the sheriff said he would find the herd. He kept a sharp watch for Tom Laylander while in town, knowing very well that the lanky young Texan had not said his last word in that controversy. Withers wanted to get the cattle away from McPacken, his brand put on them, his ownership made complete. There was something like a cold chill of impending disaster at his back, urging him away from town, making it a torture to resist the impulse to twist in the saddle every little while and look behind.
That look of uneasiness grew in the cattleman's face as he rode, that strange coldness of threat at his back like an indefinable terror of night. His broad red suspenders were sweated and dusty over his gray shirt; the beard of a week was ash-gray over his cheeks and chin. He looked like a man pursued by many cares, his eyes fretted around by fine wrinkles, his big shaggy mustache dropping over his thick-lipped mouth.
The two cowboys along with him were not touched by the shadow of his cares, nor concerned in them to the least degree. They had taken a few shots of whisky while waiting for the sale, their mouths were full of loose laughter as they came on in their employer's dust.
Tom Laylander looked like any other cowhand from a distance. Cal Withers, not expecting to encounter him in that direction, approached him with confidence where he stood watch on the flank of the herd, the wagon a mile or so beyond him under some cottonwoods on the river bank. Withers was within ten rods of Tom before he recognized him. He jerked his horse up, veering off a little as if dodging a shot, throwing his followers into disorder of sudden surprise.
"Watch that man!" Withers warned them, hand thrown to his gun.
Laylander was sitting straight and alert, rifle raised in attitude of confident defense. He was as cool and easy as a man who had both might and right upholding his hand. Cal Withers must have felt the cold shadow of his impalpable fear suddenly materialized before his eyes, and understood that he never would be able to snap out his gun in time. He held up a hand in token of pacific intention.
"If you've got any business with me, Colonel Withers, approach and state it," Tom requested.
"That's the cow jerry!" said one of the men.
"Sa-ay man!" the other marvelled, blowing the words out on a big breath, as for the close-cutting to the edge of some peril that had left him with his life.
Withers threw a quick glance over his shoulder to see what his men were doing, motioned them up, and rode forward, keeping his hand pretty close to his gun.
"Where's the man in charge of these cattle?" Withers demanded, scowling and gruff, his voice considerably bigger than his confidence that everything stood the way he'd like to have it there.
"Right here,' Tom replied.
"I mean the deputy sheriff. Where's he at?"
"You're lookin' at him," said Tom.
"Laylander, I don't want none of your damn jokin', if that's what you call a joke."
"It's just about as serious a piece of business as you ever was up against, Colonel Withers. Didn't the sheriff tell you he deputized me several days ago when the men he had watchin' my cattle quit?"
"Not on your life he never, the damn thief! Well, I've got a bill of sale for em. I'm here to take charge of these cattle as owner."
The two cowboys had come up. They sat looking at Tom in stupid wonder, leaving Cal Withers to figure out for himself how he was to enforce and defend his claim of ownership to the herd. All they could think about was that they were face to face with the cow jerry, the man who had followed four bank robbers into No Man's Land and come back with the sack of money. That was the gun—that gun he had right there in his hands! Withers could not have produced money enough, if he had thrown down all he possessed, to induce one of them to lay a hand to his gun.
"You three gentlemen ride ahead of me over to the wagon," Tom directed. "I'll look at your paper over there, and take your receipt."
Withers seemed assured by Laylander's manner, which was far from that naturally expected of a man called upon to surrender twenty thousand dollars' worth of property to one who had cheated him out of it, as he believed. Tom was mild-spoken and steady, no flurry of resentment or enmity about him. He rode a little way behind the three, the only indication that he was master of the situation being the rifle, which he held as one holds his piece when waiting for the game to break cover.
Cal Withers knew, and the two cowboys with him knew, that Laylander would fire if he had to do it without lifting the gun to his shoulder, loose-jointed and limber-armed, putting his shots about where he wanted them to go. That was Texas Ranger style, a fashion of shooting from the saddle well know to men of the southwestern range.
Russius Ransom had prepared the noonday meal. Several times he had blown the conch shell until he could feel his ears stretch, to summon Tom to his refreshment. Russius couldn't understand why he lingered out there on the edge of the herd. He was about to take horse and go after him when he saw the three riders approach. From their order of advance toward the wagon, the cook understood that Tom had not received them as a friendly delegation. He was quite ready to take a hand in anything that was to come off on the side of that Texas man.
Cal Withers and his men halted under the tree, close to the cook's dinner spread on the tailboard of the wagon. Withers drew a paper from his shirt pocket, offering it with a sudden lurch, reaching across his own body clumsily, presenting it with his left hand.
"Here's the sheriff's bill of sale. I suppose you're authorized to receive it," he said.
"I don't like a man that does business with his left hand while he's reachin' for his gun with his right," Tom said. "Russius, take these gentlemen's guns and put 'em in the wagon. Don't touch nothing but the leather, gentlemen."
"Keep your guns on you, boys," Withers said, in the calm, advisory way of a man in authority. "Nobody's got the right to take your guns off of you as long as you're inside of the law."
"It's too hot a day to have any argument over it, Colonel Withers," Tom said, in gentle, regretful way. He appeared entirely friendly, almost conciliatory. Only the rifle in his hands seemed to balance and poise.
The two cowboys stripped off their belts and guns in as many seconds, handing them down to Russius, who kept his eyes rolling for fear that Withers was going to shoot him in the back.
"All right, Tom," Withers agreed, cheerfullly, yielding as if he was the gainer in the dispute. "We can do business without guns, as far as I'm concerned."
Tom slipped the rifle into the scabbard under his leg, changing it for his pistol, giving him one free hand for business. He took the paper from Withers and read it; brought out the signature the sheriff had given him and compared it with the one on the bill of sale.
"It looks all right, I guess it is all right," he said. He gave it back to Withers. "I'll ask you to write a little notation on the back of it, if you please. Step over to the endgate of the wagon and use it for a table—here, you'd better write with this self-inkin' pen. I don't want any more pencil writin' on papers of mine."
"If you want a receipt, I'll write it on something else," Withers said, sitting half in the saddle, one thigh across the seat. "I'll just keep this bill of sale myself."
"Step down and write on the back of that paper what I tell you to write," Tom ordered.
Withers was not as calm as his bearing indicated, nor as friendly as his speech seemed. If he could have got a moment's edge at any time since his arrival, he would have shot Laylander without parley. The situation had developed so quickly that his usual resourcefulness and trickery in a tight pinch failed him and left him flat. Tom Laylander was the last man he had expected to see in front of him that, day.
"All right, Tom," Withers yielded, swinging to the ground, where he stood turning a sly eye to see where Russius had put the guns, and to calculate the chance of putting the wagon between him and Laylander in a bold jump.
Russius was close by, breaking the pistols, ejecting the shells. He threw the belts and holsters under the wagon, and went around to the front to put the guns in another place.
Tom rode a little nearer to the tail of the wagon, handing down his fountain pen. He was watchful and cautious, ready for any kind of a trick Withers might try to throw.
"Put the day and the date on the back of that bill, and write what I tell you to," he directed. He took a silver dollar from his vest pocket and gave it to Withers, who looked at it with unfeigned surprise.
"What in the hell's that for?" Withers asked, flushing and affronted as if he had been made the object of some vulgar jest.
"Put down the day and the date," Tom directed again. "Now, go ahead and write this; For value received—"
"I'll be damned if I do!" said Withers.
"Colonel Withers, if you've got any word to leave, you can step off to one side and give it to one of these men," Tom said.
There was no bluster in Laylander's manner of saying this, not an inflection of rudeness or threat. But Withers had lived a good while and learned something. He knew it was his sentence of death unless he resumed the pen and wrote what he was told to write. Withers's face was pale when he turned to write; the tremor of his body made a little rattling among the tin dishes near his hand.
"For value received," Tom repeated, pausing until he saw the words take shape on the paper, "I hereby assign and deliver to Tom Laylander"—slowly, waiting for the crudely-formed words to grow under the cowman's thick fingers—"all of my right, title and interest in the cattle herein described."
Tom took the paper from Withers and read it.
"That's all right, and there's your dollar," he said. "Sign it and give it to me."
"I'll write you anything, Tom; I'll sign anything you want," Withers said, regaining his poise again, now that he saw through what he believed to be the trick of a simpleton. "Where'll you take 'em to?" he asked, handing back the signed paper.
"I reckon I'll manage," Tom replied.
"Do you think I'll be settin' around while you're drivin' my cattle down to the Nation? Do you think you'll walk away with this piece of highway robbery? If you don't kick air between now and tomorrow night I miss my guess!"
"Colonel Withers, you're goin' to back up to that wagon wheel and straddle it, and stand there spread out and roped, so tight you can't bat your eye, till I've done what I aim to do. Say no more."
"You can't walk away with a trick like that," Withers declared, heedless of the injunction of silence. "You're in a civilized country now; I tell you these cattlemen up here in Kansas'll hang a man for a trick like that as quick as they can lay hands on him. If you think you can put through a steal on me this way, go ahead and try it."
"I aim to, Colonel Withers."
Withers protested that he'd die before he'd turn his back to the wagon wheel, and that any man who tried to put a rope on him would come to an abrupt end. He blustered and cursed, threatening with one breath, arguing with a shrewd persuasiveness the next. He offered to ride away and stay away any limit Tom might set, allowing him to carry out his plans for removing the cattle without interference.
"When I pass my word it's as good as my note," he declared.
"Every bit," Tom agreed. "Light down there and rope him—knock him cold if you have to—and don't monkey away any more time."
Withers's cowboys were not keen for the job, for he threatened them with a terrible hour of reckoning if they desecrated him by laying on a violent hand. Russius Ransom put an end to the cowman's defiance by roping him from behind and dragging him off his feet.
"Somebody will come along tomorrow and turn you loose," Tom told Withers when they had him duly spread and bound to the hind wheel of the wagon. "I'm not goin' to gag you, Colonel Withers. You can stand here and talk to yourself. The more you holler the drier you'll be. Come on with me, you men."
Withers's two men took orders with alert ears, and stepped fast to carry them out, for the ordinary cowboy was no more a ranting, roaring fellow than the hireling of small intelligence in any walk of life. These two men were fair samples of their craft, slim and sinewy, their cunning all in their hands. There was no more material in either of them than would have made a brakeman of Windy Moore's calibre, or a street car motorman of the present day.
They were awed by a vast respect and fear, for the cow jerry's adventure was the talk of cow camps farand near. They would have jumped just as lively with their guns on as they did without them. Tom's way of handling the situation with Withers had contributed greatly to this feeling of respect. When a man was smart enough to play a hand that way, they said, nothing could beat him. There was a good deal of spontaneous ginger in their movements and sharp cries as they helped Russius range the cow jerry's herd in a long line and start off on a slow drive toward McPacken.