HASHKNIFE AND SLEEPY
IT WAS several days after the funeral of Jim Wheeler, and things in the Tumbling River range seemed back on an even keel again. Joe Rich was still at large. The sheriff had broadcast Joe’s description, and the county had offered a thousand dollars reward.
Kelsey and Ralston still searched the Tumbling River hills, hoping that Joe had not left the valley. Even the Heavenly Triplets were too busy to annoy the sheriff, but were looking forward to payday.
Honey Bee was firmly established at the HJ, much to the amusement of every one. Uncle Hozie had never told him that Laura had fibbed about Lonnie Myers’ going to run the ranch; so Honey believed Hozie had done him a great favor.
Peggy took little interest in anything. The shock had taken the spirit all out of her, and she realized that it would only be a question of time until the Pinnacle bank and Ed Merrick would own the HJ. Twelve thousand is a lot of money.
Aunt Emma did not like the arrangement at the HJ.
“Them two girls livin’ alone with one man.”
“Nothin’ of the kind,” denied Uncle Hozie. “Honey’s in love, and a man in love ain’t more’n half a man. Anyway, there’s Wong Lee.”
“A heathen Chinee!”
“He’s a Chinaman, but I’ll betcha he’s as much of a Christian as any of us.”
“Anyway,” declared Aunt Emma, “I’m goin’ to spend all the time I can with the girls.”
Aunt Emma was one of those who believed that Jim Wheeler had not died from an accident. She talked with the old doctor about the bruises on Wheeler’s skull, and he told her that they were caused by Jim Wheeler’s head striking the rocks.
“But how did he fall off?” queried the old lady. “Jim was a good rider, Doc. The saddle never turned with him.”
The doctor shook his head.
“I’m sure I don’t know, Mrs. Wheeler. I am not a detective. His leg was broken from being hung in the stirrup, I suppose.”
“He wasn’t hung to the stirrup when Joe found him.”
“Wasn’t he? Perhaps Joe Rich knows more about it than we do, Mrs. Wheeler.”
“Sure—but where’s Joe?”
“If I knew I’d be a thousand dollars better off than I am.”
But few, if any, of the men thought that it had been anything but an accident. A sudden dizziness, perhaps caused by indigestion, might have made him fall. And the horse, even if it was well broken, might have got frightened and dragged him. But there was no question about his being robbed.
It was the evening of the fifth day since Joe Rich had left Pinnacle City when a long train of dusty cattle-cars drew into the town of Kelo. Dusty, wild-eyed animals peered out through the barred sides of the cars, bawling their displeasure.
The wind was blowing a gale, and to the north an electric storm was coming down the valley. But there was no rain; only wind and a depressed atmosphere which presaged the coming storm. The engine clanked in past the depot and stopped with a jerk that shortened every draw-bar in the long line of cars.
In the caboose of the cattle-train sat a cowboy, humped over on a bench, holding his face in his hands. His broad shoulders twisted painfully and he gave vent to a withering curse when the caboose almost jerked him off the bench.
On the opposite side of the car sat a tall, lean-faced cowboy, his sad gray eyes contemplating the sufferer, who lifted his head, disclosing a swollen jaw. Two other cow boys were seated on the floor of the car, resting their backs against the side-seats, while they industriously shot craps for dimes.
“Hurt yuh pretty bad, Sleepy?” asked the tall cowboy.
The sufferer lifted his head, nodded slowly and inserted a big forefinger inside his mouth.
“Wursh a glew har glog daged dantist libed.”
He removed the finger, spat painfully and took his face in both hands again. “Sleepy” Stevens was suffering the pangs of an aching molar. “Hashknife” Hartley, the tall, lean cowboy, nodded understandingly.
“It’s worse than I thought, Sleepy,” he said, his voice full of sympathy. “You’ve got what they call a Eskimo abscess.”
“Huh? How do yuh know?”
“I can tell by yore talk—pure Eskimo.”
“A-a-a-aw, ! If you had this tooth—”
“We’re goin’ to water these animals at Pinnacle City,” offered one of the crap-shooters. “You’ll have time to have that tooth pulled.”
“Hadn’t ought to be far now,” observed Hashknife.
He bent his long nose against the dirty window glass and peered out. The wind whistled past, and the sand sifted through the window. A lightning flash illuminated things and a rumble of thunder came to their ears.
A few minutes later a brakeman, carrying a lighted lantern, swung aboard.
“Wires down,” he said shortly.
“What’ll that do to us?” queried Hashknife.
“Not much. We’re late and we ought to lay out here and let Number 4 pass us, goin’ north; but we can’t get any orders, and the sidin’ is blocked with a freight that broke an axle. We’ll go on to Pinnacle City, and the passenger will have to foller us on a slow order.”
“Quite a storm, eh?” remarked a crapshooter.
“ of a storm ahead of us,” declared the brakeman, going out again.
Finally the engine sent out its shrill blasts, calling in the flagman, and in a few moments the draw-bars jerked shudderingly. The cattle-train was on its way again, picking up the conductor at the station.
Sleepy groaned and hunched down in his chair. The tooth had been thumping for eight hours. And there was a question in Sleepy’s mind about finding a dentist in Pinnacle City. Few of the old cow-towns boasted a dentist, and the local doctor was usually more or less of a failure with forceps.
The long cattle train moved slowly. There was considerable of a grade between Kelo and Pinnacle City, and the terrific head wind held them back. The conductor and brakeman got into the crap game, trying to kill time over the dreary eighteen-mile stretch.
The train rumbled and clanked along, unable to make much headway.
“Likely blow all the hair off them cow critters,” observed one of the cowboys.
The caboose was foggy with dust, and the oil lamps hardly made light enough for them to see the spots on the worn dice.
Suddenly the draw-bars clanked together and the caboose began stopping by jerks. Sleepy swore painfully, when it jerked him upright. The engine whistled shrilly, and the train ground to a stop. The conductor peered out, swore softly and picked up his lantern.
“Must be just about to the Tumbling River bridge,” he said.
“How far is it from town?” asked Sleepy.
“Couple of miles,” said the brakeman.
He too had picked up his lantern, and they went outside. A moment later the brakeman sprang back onto the steps.
“Bridge on fire,” he said. “Lightnin’ must have struck it.”
He lifted the top off a seat and took out several fuses which he tucked under his arm, picked up a red lantern and hurried out to flag down the track. Hashknife put on his sombrero and climbed off the caboose. It was a long way to the front end of the train, and the wind threatened to blow him off the side of the fill at any time.
The Tumbling River bridge was about a hundred and fifty feet across, built high above the stream. It was mostly of timber construction and one span of it was burning merrily.
Hashknife found the conductor and engineer looking over, both decided that it would be folly to try to run it. It had evidently been burning for quite a while.
“That shore hangs us high and dry, don’t it?” asked Hashknife.
The conductor nodded grimly.
“We’re here for a while,” he said. “Can’t take a chance on that thing, and we’ve got a passenger coming in behind us. They’ll be running slow, and won’t be hard to flag. The best thing for you boys to do is to go to bed. That span is sure to burn out in this wind.”
The wind was so strong that they had to yell in order to converse.
“Might as well be comfortable!” yelled the engineer.
The conductor nodded and followed Hashknife back to the caboose, where he broke the news to the rest of the boys.
“Ain’t that ?” wailed Sleepy. “Two miles from a dentist, and the road on fire!”
“Better go to bed, Sleepy,” said Hashknife. “Mebbe yuh can sleep it off.”
But Sleepy told them in no uncertain terms that sleep was out of the question. One of the cowboys produced a pint of liquor, and this served to put Sleepy in better spirits. No one denied him any of it. Hashknife was curious about the passenger train which was following them, and went on to the rear platform.
Possibly they had been stopped for thirty minutes when Hashknife saw the beams of the passenger engine. The road was fairly crooked for several miles, and he could see the beams of the headlight, as it swung around the curves, throwing streamers of light off across the hills. It was not traveling fast. It came closer and closer, and Hashknife wondered why it did not seem to pay any attention to the rear flagman. Of course he was out of sight around a curve, but the speed of the passenger had not diminished.
It swung to the straight track, the beams of the headlight illuminating the rear of the stalled train. It was then that the whistle shrieked and the train quickly ground to a stop about a hundred yards short of the caboose.
A man dropped from the engine and came up to the caboose. It was a uniformed brakeman.
“What’s that ahead—a fire?” he asked, swinging up on the steps.
“Bridge on fire,” said Hashknife. “Looks like we’re here for a while.”
“Pshaw! Some wind, eh? Say, I wonder why nobody was flaggin’ the rear of this train?”
“They did,” declared Hashknife. “I saw the brakeman start back with his fuses and lantern.”
“You did? That’s funny, we never seen him.”
The conductor came out and corroborated Hashknife. In a few minutes the conductor of the passenger came along. He was a fussy little fat man, very important. He wheezed his profanity.
“Can’t get across, eh? ! Wires down behind us. Nothing to do but wait. How did it happen you didn’t send out a flag? We might have rammed you.”
“Flag went out!” snapped the freight conductor.
“We didn’t see it,” said the brakeman. “I was in the cab.”
“Anyway, he went back,” declared the freight conductor. “It’s no fault of mine if you fellows can’t see.”
“Any chance of putting the fire out?” asked the passenger conductor.
“Not a chance. One whole span on fire and this wind is like a blow-torch. Looks like a complete tie-up for this division. There’s a section crew at Pinnacle City, but this will be a job for bridge builders.”
Hashknife went back in the caboose where Sleepy was lying on a seat, still caressing a sore jaw.
“Stuck completely,” said Hashknife. “No dentist for you tonight, cowboy.”
The brakeman came in to light a cigaret, and Hashknife questioned him about Pinnacle City.
“South of here is the wagon bridge,” said the brakeman. “I ain’t familiar with this country, so I can’t tell yuh how far it is, but it can’t be a mile—not over that, anyway.”
He went out, and Hashknife turned to Sleepy.
“How about yuh, cowboy? It ain’t over three miles to town. Suppose we walk over and find a dentist?”
“, I’d do anythin’ to stop this ache, Hashknife!”
“All right.”
Hashknife went down the car, where he picked up their war-bags and brought them back.
“You ain’t pullin’ out for keeps, are yuh?” asked one of the crap-shooting cowboys.
“Nope,” grinned Hashknife. “We’ll meet yuh in Pinnacle City. Only a fool walks away and leaves his war-bag. Yuh never know what’s ahead of yuh.”
He dug down in his bag and drew out a well-worn cartridge belt to which was attached a scarred holster containing a heavy Colt revolver. He looped the belt around his lean hips, yanked the buckle together and proceeded to fill the cylinder with .45 cartridges.
Sleepy released his jaw long enough to buckle on his own armament, and swung the bag over his shoulder and they went out into the night. The train crew had left the caboose steps as the two cowboys swung down off the fill and stumbled their way to the barb-wire fence of the right-of-way.
“Blacker ’n the inside of a cat,” declared Sleepy, after they were away from the lights of the train. “Look out yuh don’t fall off the river bank.”
“It shore is kinda vague,” said Hashknife. “Jist take it easy.”
“Ain’t nobody breakin’ into a gallop,” retorted Sleepy.
They were traveling through a thicket of jack-pines, which whipped them across the face and tangled their feet. The wind was still blowing furiously, and there was a spit of rain in the air.
Hashknife was surging ahead, one hand flung up to protect his face from the whipping branches, when he almost ran into some object. It flashed into his mind that it was a range animal, perhaps a horse. Sleepy bumped into Hashknife and stopped with a grunt.
Then came the flash of a gun, a streak of flame that licked out into the wind not over fifteen feet from them. The wind seemed fairly to blow the report a away from them. It was little more than a sharp pop.
Hashknife stumbled over a little jack-pine and went to his knees while Sleepy unceremoniously sat down. And then the animal was gone. Evidently it had borne a rider. The wind prevented them from hearing which way it went.
Hashknife crawled back and found one of Sleepy’s boots.
“Didn’t hit yuh, did it?” yelled Hashknife.
“No! What do yuh make of it?”
“Queer thing to do, Sleepy.”
They got back to their feet.
“How’s the tooth?” asked Hashknife.
“Tooth? Oh, yeah. Say, I forgot it. Let’s go.”
They went ahead again, stumbling along, while the rain increased, and they began to be very uncomfortable. Added to their discomfort was the knowledge that they had lost all sense of direction. Hashknife knew they were traveling parallel to the river until they were shot at, and from that time on he wasn’t sure of anything.
He felt they had traveled more than a mile, but they found no wagon-road. There were no stars to guide them, and the wind had shifted several times.
“‘We’re lost, the captain shouted,’” declared Sleepy, as they halted against the bank of a washout, where the wind and rain did not strike them so heavily.
“That wind was blowin’ from the north when we started, and we tried to foller the wind,” laughed Hashknife. “Is yore tobacco wet?”
They rolled a smoke and considered things.
“I wish we was back in that nice warm caboose,” said Sleepy. “Gosh, that shore was a comfortable place. But this is jist my luck. It makes five times we’ve started East with a train of cows—and never got out of the sagebrush.”
“Aw, we’ll pick ’em up in Pinnacle City, Sleepy.”
“Yeah, that’s great. But where’s Pinnacle City?”
“Two miles from the railroad bridge.”
“Good guesser.”
“It can’t be more than nine o’clock, Sleepy. By golly, there ought to be somebody livin’ in this place-where-the-wind-comes-from.”
“If they’re all like that jigger we ran into back there, I don’t care about meetin’ ’em,” declared Sleepy. “Anyway, the tooth has quit hurtin’. I think the swellin’ busted when we stopped at the bridge. That engineer shore knows how to spike his mount’s tail to the earth!”
“There’s only three things that are botherin’ me,” said Hashknife. “One is: Why did that party take a shot at us? And the other two are my boots full of water.”
“And there’s another small matter,” said Sleepy flapping his arms dismally. “We ain’t taken any nourishment since this mornin’, Hashknife.”
“Yeah, there’s that small matter,” agreed Hashknife. “Oh, if yuh ever stop to check up on things, Sleepy, the world is all wrong. But never stop grinnin’ and look back. The only place yuh ever see ghosts is be hind yuh.”
“Well, that wasn’t no ghost that snapped his gun at us.”
“He shore wasn’t, cowboy. That jigger was plumb alive. Well, I dunno but what we might as well keep circlin’. Eventually we’ll wear a trail, if we keep goin’ long enough. I wish I knew which was south.”
They sloshed away from the brush and headed down a slope.
“There’s a light!” exclaimed Sleepy. “Straight ahead.”
A flurry of rain obliterated the light, but it flickered again.
“Light in a winder,” said Sleepy. “Must be a house.”
“Must be,” agreed Hashknife dryly. “Windows don’t usually occur without a house in connection.”
They struck a corral fence, followed it around to the stable and then headed for the house. It was the HJ ranch. But these two cowboys were far too wise to walk right up to a strange house in the dark, especially after having been shot at so recently; so they sidled up to the house and took a look through the window.
It was a side window of the living-room, and in the room were Peggy Wheeler, Laura Hatton and Honey Bee. It was evident to Hashknife and Sleepy that the living-room roof had sprung a leak and the three people were making an earnest endeavor to catch the water in a wash-tub, dishpan and numerous other receptacles.
A long dry period had warped the old shingles of the ranch-house to such an extent that they leaked like a sieve.
“Looks like a harmless place,” observed Hashknife.
“And not a of a lot of advantage over bein’ outside,” said Sleepy. “Anyway, they look awful human.”
They walked around to the front door, clumped up the steps and knocked on the door. Honey Bee answered the knock by opening the door about six inches and peering out.
“We just wondered if yuh didn’t need a couple of good men to fix yore roof,” said Hashknife seriously.
Honey opened the door a little and peered out at them. He had never seen either of them before, but the lamplight illuminated their faces enough to show their grins.
“Fix the roof?” he said slowly. “Oh, yeah. Well, I’ll bet we do need help.”
He opened the door.
“C’mon in out of the wet.”
They shuffled the mud off their boots and came in. The two girls stood near the dining-room doorway, each of them holding a receptacle, looking curiously at Hash knife, who removed his dripping hat and grinned widely at them. Hashknife’s grin was irresistible. Honey grinned foolishly and shuffled his feet.
“My name’s Hartley,” said Hashknife. “This soakin’ wet object with me is named Stevens. He was sufferin’ from a bad tooth, and we went huntin’ a dentist in the rain.”
“Yuh went huntin’ a dentist?” queried Honey foolishly. “Wh-where didja expect to find one?”
“Sounds kinda queer,” grinned Hashknife. “Yuh see, we was actin’ as a couple of chambermaids to a train of cows, but the bridge caught on fire and we got stalled. Sleepy’s tooth shore needed help; so we started out to find the wagon-bridge, figurin’ to find this Pinnacle City. But we didn’t find the bridge.”
“Oh, yeah,” Honey scratched his head. “The railroad bridge caught fire. Uh-huh. Ho-o-o-old on!”
He ran across the room, grabbed up a wash-basin and placed it under a fresh leak. Then he came back and introduced the girls to Hashknife and Sleepy.
“My name’s Bee,” he said. “B-e-e.”
“Last or first?” asked Hashknife.
“Last. Say, I better rustle some wood for that fireplace. Kinda take the chill off the air. Gosh, you fellers shore are wet.”
Honey hurried away for some wood, while Hashknife moved some of the containers to more advantageous spots. There seemed to be no end to the leaks in the HJ ranch-house.
“Terrible, isn’t it?” smiled Peggy.
It seemed to her that these two strange cowboys, even with their wet garments and muddy boots, had brought a warmth and cheer to the ranch that was sorely needed.
“Oh, not so bad,” said Hashknife, squinting at a leak. “Didja ever stop to think how much worse it would be if them few little spots were the only place where it didn’t leak?”
“That would be terrible,” declared Laura.
“Yeah, it would. But suppose it leaked everywhere. That would be worse, eh?”
“Do you always look at things that way?” asked Peggy.
“Mostly,” said Hashknife seriously. “Why not, Miss Wheeler? Sunlight is brighter than shadows; and it’s a lot easier to find, if yuh look for it. Bright things are easier to see than dark ones.”
“You listen to him a while and he’ll prove to yuh that a leaky roof is a godsend,” laughed Sleepy.
“Well, ain’t it?” asked Hashknife. “If this roof hadn’t leaked, you folks would probably have been in bed—and we wouldn’t have seen their light, Sleepy.”
“That is true,” said Laura. “Oh, it was way past bedtime at the HJ ranch!”
Honey came in with an armful of wood, which he threw in the big fireplace.
“I’m makin’ a bet you fellers are hungry,” he said.
“Never mind that,” grinned Hashknife. “Point us the way to Pinnacle City, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Not in that rain,” declared Peggy quickly.
She went into the kitchen, where she called Wong Lee.
“Aw, don’t bother the cook,” begged Hashknife. “Pshaw, it ain’t worth it.”
“It’s no bother to Wong Lee,” said Peggy. “You boys get over by that fire and dry out a little. Wong Lee will get you a meal, and Honey will show you where to sleep. Laura and I will go to bed. Good night, everybody.”
“Good night, and thank yuh a thousand times.”
Hashknife and Sleepy crossed the room and shook hands with the two girls. Peggy smiled at Hashknife.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
The two boys went back to the fire and removed some of their wet garments, after which Hashknife went back to the porch and got their water-proof war-bags, which contained some dry clothing. They could hear Wong Lee shuffling about the kitchen, preparing them a meal.
He came to the door and looked in on them. He was a little, wizen-faced Celestial.
“Yo’ like some ham-egg?” he asked.
Hashknife grinned at him, but did not reply. A smile slowly stole across the Chinaman’s face and he bobbed his head.
“Yessa, velly good,” he said. “No tlouble.”
“You kinda got the Injun sign on Wong Lee,” grunted Honey. “Darned old rascal almost laughed. I tell yuh, he ain’t even smiled since Jim Wheeler was killed.”
“Thasso?” Hashknife borrowed Sleepy’s tobacco and rolled a cigaret. “What happened to Jim Wheeler?”
“Horse dragged him to death the other day.”
Hashknife shuddered. The thought of a man’s hanging by one foot to a stirrup never failed to rasp his nerves. He had seen men die that way, and once when he was but a youngster he had been thrown from a wild horse and had hung from a stirrup. Luckily the horse had whirled into a fence corner, where another cowboy was able to hold the animal and extricate Hashknife.
“Tough way to die,” said Hashknife.
“Y’betcha,” nodded Honey. “Head all busted up on the rocks, and his leg twisted. Golly, it shore was awful! He owned this HJ outfit. I work for the Flyin’ H, but I’m down here kinda helpin’ out. Hozie, Jim’s brother, owns the Flyin’ H.”
“Miss Wheeler is Jim’s daughter, eh?”
“Uh-huh. It’s shore been a hard time for her, Hartley,” Honey lowered his voice. “She was engaged to marry Joe Rich, and he got drunk on his weddin’ night. Didn’t show up. Then Peggy aims to go East with Laura Hatton. Yuh see, Jim wasn’t awful well heeled with money. He owes the Pinnacle bank quite a lot; so he borrows five thousand from Ed Merrick, who owns the Circle M, and gives Ed his note.
“Ed gives him the money, and Jim starts home with it. And that’s the last anybody ever seen of the money. Joe Rich was aimin’ to pull out of the country; so he comes out to tell Peggy good-by. And Joe was the one who found Jim Wheeler. Hozie Wheeler and Lonnie Myers comes ridin’ along just a little later, and found Joe with Jim.
“And when the sheriff finds out about the missin’ money, he tries to make Joe wait for an investigation, and Joe pops him through the gun-arm. That’s the last we saw of Joe. There’s a reward for him, and the sheriff has been ridin’ the hocks off his horse, but ain’t found nothin’. So yuh can see it’s been awful tough for Peggy.”
Hashknife had been standing on one foot like a stork, holding the other foot out to the blazing fire, while Honey sketched his story. Sleepy hunched down, his back to the fire, his damp hair straggling down over his forehead.
“I wonder,” he said, “if it ain’t stopped rainin’ enough for us to go on to town? We don’t want to miss that train, Hashknife.”
“Joe Rich was the sheriff,” said Honey, as an afterthought. “But he resigned the mornin’ after he got drunk. They made a sheriff out of his deputy. Jim Wheeler knocked Joe down that mornin’, but Joe didn’t do anythin’, they say.”
“And it hadn’t ought to take long to fix that bridge,” said Sleepy. “This rain would put the fire out.”
“What kind of a jigger was this Joe Rich?” asked Hashknife curiously.
“Jist salt of the earth, Hartley.”
“Uh-huh,” thoughtfully. “And got so drunk he forgot to get married, eh?”
“Yeah, that’s true,” sighed Honey. “I dunno why he did; and he never said.”
“Didn’t have no quarrel with the girl?”
“, no! Aw, it was to be a big marriage. I was to be best man. My , I almost crippled myself for life, tryin’ to wear number six shoes.”
“You come eat now?” asked Wong Lee.
Honey sat down with them. Sleepy looked gloomily at Hashknife and reminded him gently that sugar was for the coffee, and not for the eggs.
Hashknife chuckled, but sobered quickly. The rain still pattered on the old roof and dripped off the eaves. It was warm in the kitchen.
“Five thousand dollars is a lot of money,” mused Hashknife, stirring his coffee with a fork. He had used the same fork to dip sugar from the bowl and did not seem to realize that it had all leaked out.
Sleepy knew the symptoms and groaned inwardly. Years of association with Hashknife had taught Sleepy to recognize the sudden moods of the tall cowboy. Trouble and mystery affected Hashknife as the scent of upland fowl affects a pointer.
Hashknife, in the days of his callow youth, had been known as George. His father, an itinerant minister in the Milk River country and head of a big family, had had little time or money to do more than just let this boy grow up. As soon as he was able to sit in a saddle he lived with the cowboys and became one of them.
Blessed with a balanced mind, possibly inherited from his father, who surely needed a balanced mind to make both ends meet, the boy struck out for himself, absorbing all kinds of knowledge, studying human nature. Eventually he drifted to the ranch, which gave him his nickname, and here he met the grinning Sleepy Stevens, whose baptismal name was David.
From the Hashknife ranch their trail led to many places. Soldiers of fortune they became, although Hashknife referred to themselves as cow-punchers of disaster. From the wide lands of Alberta to the Mexican Border they had left their mark. They did not stay long in any place, unless fate decreed that a certain time must elapse be fore their work was finished. And then they would go on, possibly poorer in pocket. Their life had made them fatalists, had made them very human. To salve their own consciences they declared that they were looking for the right spot to settle down; a place to live out the rest of their life in peaceable pursuits.
But down in their hearts they knew that this place did not exist. They wanted to see the other side of the hill. Hashknife’s brain rebelled against a mystery. It seemed to challenge him to combat. Where range detectives had failed utterly because they were unable to see beyond actual facts, Hashknife’s analytical mind had enabled him to build up chains of evidence that had cleared up mystery after mystery.
But solving mysteries was not a business with them. They did not pose as detectives. It merely happened that fate threw them into contact with these things. Sleepy’s mind did not function with any more rapidity than that of any average man, but he was blessed with a vast sense of humor, bulldog tenacity and a faculty for using a gun when a gun was most needed.
Whether it was merely a pose or not, Sleepy always tried to prevent Hashknife from getting interested in these mysteries of the range country. He argued often and loud, but to no avail. But once started, Sleepy worked as diligently as Hashknife. Neither of them were wizards with their guns. No amount of persuasion would in duce them to compete with others in marksmanship, nor did they ever practise drawing a gun.
“Leave that to the gun-men,” Hashknife had said. “We’re not gun-men.”
Which was something that many men would take great pains to disprove, along the back-trail of Hashknife and Sleepy.
And right now, while he ate heavily of the HJ food, Sleepy Stevens knew he was being dragged into the whirlpool of the Tumbling River range. He could tell by the twitch of Hashknife’s nose, by the calculating squint of his gray eyes; and if that was not enough—Hashknife was cutting a biscuit with a knife and fork.
“Five thousand is a lot of money for the HJ to lose,” agreed Honey. “Take that along with the seven thousand owin’ to the Pinnacle City bank and it jist about nails the HJ hide to the floor and leaves it there to starve.”
“Was Jim Wheeler a sickly man?” asked Hashknife.
“Sickly? Not a bit; he was built like a bull.”
“Drink much?”
“Hardly ever took a drink.”
“Ride a bad horse?”
“Been ridin’ the same one three years, and it never made a bobble. Jim’s bronc-scratchin’ days was over, Hartley.”
“Uh-huh,” Hashknife rubbed his chin with the fork. “Was it goin’ to take five thousand dollars for to ship that girl back East?”
“Probably not.”
“What kind of a feller is Ed Merrick?”
“Good cow-man. He’s one of the county commissioners. Owned the Circle M about five years, and is kind of a big man in the county. Mostly horse outfit.”
“Yuh say they made a sheriff out of the deputy?”
“Yeah; Len Kelsey.”
Honey described the trouble on the street between Kelsey and Rich, in which Kelsey was wounded. He also told them how the cowboys hid out to keep from being sworn in to follow the fugitive. This interested Sleepy.
“Sounds like there was some reg’lar boys around here,” he said.
“Oh, the boys like Joe,” grinned Honey. “You’d like him.”
“I dunno. Any man that ain’t got no more sense than to get drunk and miss a chance of a wife like that dark-haired girl ain’t very much of a feller. Or the blonde one.”
“The blonde one is my girl,” said Honey softly.
Sleepy reached impulsively across the table and shook hands with Honey, who looked foolish.
“I’m glad yuh told me,” said Sleepy seriously. “Prob’ly save me a lot of heartaches. She’s a dinger.”
Hashknife shoved back from the table, thanking Wong Lee for his hospitality.
“Velly good,” Wong Lee bobbed his head. “No double. You come some mo’.”
“Mebbe we will, Wong.”
“All lite; I cook plenty.”
The rain had increased again, and Honey advised them against attempting to go to Pinnacle City. It was not difficult to convince them. Sleepy’s tooth did not ache any more, and their clothes were beginning to dry; so they followed Honey down to the dry bunk-house and went to bed.
IT DID not take the rain long to extinguish the fire at the bridge, and after an examination the train crews decided that it was still safe. Many of the timbers were badly charred, and but for the heavy rain which followed the wind, the whole bridge would have been doomed.
The cattle-train, minus two of the cowhands, proceeded slowly to Pinnacle City, where it took the siding. It would spend several hours there, watering stock,and the man in ^charge expected Hashknife and Sleepy to put in an appearance before leaving time.
The passenger train drew in at the station, possibly an hour late. The wires being down, it was impossible for them to get orders. The heavy rain swept the wooden platform, but the depot agent trundled out some express packages. The express car door was partly open, but there was no messenger.
The agent climbed into the car, and the first thing that greeted his eye was the through safe, almost in the center of the car, its door torn open. A single car light burned in the upper end of the car, and it was there that the agent found the messenger, bound hand and foot.
Running back to the depot, the agent told what he had found, and the train crew hurried to the car, while another man went to get an officer. In the waiting room of the depot the express messenger told what he knew of the robbery. A man had struck him over the head, and he was a trifle hazy about what had happened.
The man had boarded the car at Kelo. The messenger said he had received several packages from the agent at Kelo, and had gone to place them before closing the door. The wind was blowing a gale, and he did not hear the man come in. In fact he merely surmised that the man got on at Kelo, because as far as he knew there was no other man than himself on the car when they stopped at Kelo.
At any rate, the man had forced him at the point of a revolver to close and lock the door, and had made him sit down and wait for the train to pull out. There was quite a long delay, and the bandit seemed rather nervous.
In fact he grew so nervous that he knocked the messenger unconscious with his gun, and the messenger didn’t know that the safe had been blown open. He dimly remembered a loud noise, but was in no shape to find out what it was. Anyway, the robber had bound and placed him behind some trunks out of the way of the explosion.
He was just a little sick all over, yet he gave Len Kelsey a fairly good description of the robber—as good as usually is given. A masked man of medium height. Might have been tall, or possibly short. Wore black sombrero, striped shirt, overalls and boots. No vest. The shirt might have been blue and white—or red and green. The messenger wasn’t sure. He noted particularly that the robber had a six-shooter in his right hand, and that he wore leather cuffs—black leather, with silver stars in a circle around the upper edge of the cuffs.
“Was there any money in the safe?” asked Len.
“A lot of it,” declared the messenger. “I don’t know how much. I’d like to see a doctor about my head.”
Slim Coleman, of the Lazy B, happened to be there at the depot, and he walked back with Len Kelsey.
“What do yuh think about it, Len?” he asked.
“I dunno,” lied Len.
Slim had noted the expression of Len’s face when the messenger told about the leather cuffs.
When Joe Rich had left Pinnacle City he was wearing a blue and white striped shirt, black sombrero, overalls and a pair of black leather cuffs, on which were riveted a lot of small, silver stars. Joe had done the decorating himself, and Slim knew that no other cowboy in the Tumbling River country wore a cuff like Joe’s.
Len did not seem inclined to talk about it, so Slim went back to the depot, where old Doctor Curzon was bandaging up the messenger’s head. A drink of raw liquor had helped to make the messenger more sociable and willing to talk.
“You got a good look at his gun, didn’t yuh?” asked Slim.
“I felt it,” smiled the messenger, wincing slightly from Doctor Curzon’s ministrations.
“What did it look like?”
“Very large caliber—about six inches in diameter.” The man laughed at his description. “Weighed a ton. Seriously, I can’t describe it, but it seems to me that it had a white handle. Perhaps it was yellow, like bone. You know what I mean—not pearl. It was a Colt, I am sure.”
Slim sighed deeply.
“Man wear any rings on his fingers?”
“I didn’t see any.”
Slim went back uptown. Joe Rich carried a Colt .45 with a yellow bone handle. Slim remembered when Joe had carved out those pieces of bone, working for days, at odd times, shaping the grip to fit his hand. Slim didn’t know of another cow-puncher in the country that carried a bone-handled gun.
The news spread quickly around the town that the safe of the passenger train had been blown by a lone bandit who wore silver stars on his cuffs and carried a bone-handled gun. Joe Rich’s name did not need to be mentioned. Len Kelsey did nothing, because there was nothing to be done. The telegraph wires were down and there was no use in his riding out into the storm. Even if the robber did get out at the river bridge, the storm would wipe out any tracks he might make, and even if there were no storm, how could he track one man?
Len Kelsey was very wise. He stayed at home where it was warm and dry, and went to bed. He had sufficient description to prove who had pulled the job, and he had already worn out two perfectly good horses trying to find this elusive young man.