TOM LAYLANDER found no cars on the siding at the loading pens when he arrived at McPacken with his sweating herd that evening. As soon as he had the cattle safe in the pens he struck off as hot as a hornet for an interview with the station agent, who saw him coming and retreated behind his office door, which he closed and locked. He was a very bloodless and stammering agent when he faced Tom at the ticket window.
"Where's them thirty-five cars I ordered for today?" Tom demanded.
"Well, I tell you, Tom, I thought you was jokin' when you ordered them cars. That's right—I thought you was jokin'. I knew you didn't have any cattle, I didn't know you—"
"If you know your head's on your neck, you ornery little warthog of a man, you jerk some lightnin' to headquarters and order them cars! You have 'em on that sidin', with an engine to butt 'em around, before nine o'clock, or you and me we'll have a little side-talk."
"I guess I can pick 'em up right here in the yards, "Tom. I'll have 'em for you—I'll put the order through right now."
"While you're orderin', order an engine and crew to be ready by midnight to start with that train for Kansas City. Just put that in your order while you're orderin'. I'll wait here till you're through, you're such a forgetful feller."
Windy Moore's train was down in the yards, changing engines and crews. The business had proceeded to that stage where it could be carried to completion without Windy's presence, which very likely was not altogether as essential as he believed it to be, and Windy himself was coming up the station platform with his rubber coat across his arm, his lantern in his hand. He was grimy and dusty from the long run, and proud of his state. He saw Tom standing at the ticket window as he passed, and turned to get the news.
"Ain't leavin' town, are you Tom?" he inquired.
"No, I'm just shippin' out a little bunch of cows," Tom replied, easy and friendly in his way, yet with something different about him, as Windy Moore sensed; something of sureness, largeness, it might be said, as of a man who had come back to his own proper estate after reverses.
Windy's eyes enlarged; he looked Tom over, not doubting his word, but unable to get it just in the spot 'where his head would take it in.
"You been buyin' up some stock, Tom?"
"No, not precisely buyin', Mr. Moore. I've been recoverin' a few. I thought I'd better ship before they slip away from me once more."
"Is them them?" Windy jerked his head toward the pens, where Russius Ransom and the two impressed cowhands were roosting on the fence above the cattle, waiting Tom's return and further orders.
"Yes, sir. I'm disappointed in my cars. I ordered them several days ago, but this man failed to send my order in."
"It's all right," the agent announced, turning, hand on his telegraph key. "They'll be set right away for you, Tom."
Windy couldn't get a good breath, the wonder of the situation was so big inside his vest. He pegged along beside Tom down the platform toward the loading pens.
"Well, where's that feller Withers, the one that had a judgment on the note? I thought he was goin' to take them cattle over on the supposed-to-be debt?"
"Yes, sir; Colonel Withers bought my cattle in at the sheriff's sale today. Possession has passed back to me again, however."
"The-e-e hell! Say, where is Withers? Won't he be bustin' along here with a gang of men to take 'em away from you?"
"I don't look for him," said Tom with quiet confidence.
It was from that reply Windy Moore drew his material for the story he began to spread in a few minutes with eager tongue. Tom Laylander, the cow jerry, had killed Cal Withers, and taken possession of his cattle again. Withers was lying dead on the prairie, and Tom was there in town, cool as ice, waiting for cars to be set on the loading track.
Windy went on embellishing the story as he talked, stirring up no end of excitement, enthusiasm and admiration for the cow jerry. Windy said Withers's cowboys were gathering at the dead cowman's ranch, to come to McPacken, avenge their employer and take the cattle away to the range.
It was the duty of every man in McPacken, Windy said, to put his gun in his pocket and stand up for the cow jerry's rights. They owed it to him; he was the man that brought back the coin and saved the bank, and a good many of their rolls along with it. For one, Windy was going to throw lead if any sheriff or gang of cowboys, or anybody else, tried to take that cow jerry's cattle out of his hands.
Tom offered to pay Withers's two cowboys for their afternoon's work and let them go, confident that they would not be eager to turn their boss loose to visit his threatened vengeance on their heads. They said they believed they'd try to get a job in the stockyards in Kansas City, where pay was better and life easier than on the range. Wouldn't Tom give them a job helping him prod up the cattle on the train?
Tom would, and glad to have them. He went to supper very well pleased with the day's progress, leaving Russius and the two cowboys on guard at the pens. A switching crew was assembling his cars on a long track in the yard; through the dusk Tom could see the growing string. The four of them could make short work of loading; by midnight, at the latest, they ought to be hitting the high spots for Kansas City.
For two reasons Tom avoided the Cottonwood Hotel. First, he knew supper would be over, and Goosie would scowl and grumble and serve him scraps; second, because he didn't want to make any explanations about a job only begun, and still doubtful of its determination. For there always was a chance of something coming up to block him, smoothly as things had gone up to that hour. He went to the Lone Star Cafe, hoping it was too dark for Mrs. Cowgill to recognize him across the street and take offense.
The two cowboys were gone when Tom returned. Russius Ransom came down from the fence in a state of excitement unusual for a calm and experienced man such as he was, to report that Cal Withers had arrived in town, and that the station agent had been down there wanting to see Tom, leaving word for him to come to the office as soon as he returned.
The news gave Tom quite a jerk. Somebody had blundered along and set Withers loose, a chance that he had not calculated as likely to turn up in that secluded spot by the river. He looked to the loading track for his cars; they were not there. Down in the yards the noise and swinging lantern signals had subsided. He guessed pretty close to what it meant.
"I'm sorry we couldn't spot them cars for you, Tom," the agent explained, appearing at the window without his over-sleeves, which was equal to public proclamation that he was off duty. 'Colonel Withers was here a few minutes ago threatenin' suit against the company if we furnished you cars to move them cattle. He says you stood him up under your gun and drove 'em off. I'm not here to judge, you understand, but that's what he said."
"Read this," said Tom, placing the bill of sale under the agent's eyes.
"It looks all right, but I can't do a thing," the nervous, worried agent said, hand on the window to pull it down. "The super says you'll have to settle the question of ownership between you before he'll furnish cars for anybody."
The agent shut the window, the panes of which were made opaque by an uneven coat of white paint, that had turned a yellowish tint. It seemed to Laylander that it was the curtain dropped between him and his hopes. Somebody had happened along, where nobody had passed in all the days he had ranged the cattle there, and turned Cal Withers loose. It must have been somebody appointed from the beginning, Tom thought in bitter reflection, to pull down the plans of his life, or he never would have appeared at that unfortunate conjunction. It was somebody born to make trouble. He'd like to see the color of his hair.
If the agent had done his duty in the first place and—ordered the cars; if he, himself, had started toward the Nation with the cattle instead of trying to do the thing this way; if this had happened and that had been done, it would not have come to this, Tom thought. But it wasn't to be any other way. It had been arranged when the map of his life was drawn, for that person to cut his trail that afternoon and set Cal Withers free. It was the order of life, and nobody could alter that. But he sure would like to see the color of that man's hair!
Russius Ransom had yielded to the pressure of conscience, or some other equally insistent call, and merged into the night. Tom sat on the running-board laid along the top of the high white fence, considering his situation. The cattle were lying down, as happy in one place as another, puffing out big sighs after their comfortable way as they switched cuds.
Sitting there in the dark, the subdued noises of the town familiar in his ears, Tom confessed he had made a bad business of this undertaking. It would have been better to have worked to his original plan of confronting Withers when the law got through with the case, and settling it between them in his own way. He could have gone back to Texas then and related to them how he had been tolled up into Kansas and sheared like a sheep, for he would have done the least that his neighbors down there expected of a man in such case. If the law will not give a man justice, it rests with him' self to get something on account, at least. That was the way they looked at it in Texas.
Now, what was there to be done? It looked as if things had been framed to make a public spectacle out of him, first getting himself in as deputy sheriff to watch his own cattle, next putting into his mind what he had considered this shrewd trick for forcing Withers to assign him the bill of sale. It would have been all right, with that bill of sale in his pocket, to have headed the cattle into the Nation, the thing he should have done. No arraignment is as severe as conscience; no contempt as bitter as one's own. If Tom Laylander had been as small as he felt himself that night, Cal Withers and the sheriff never would have found him in the dark.
Windy Moore, and several other railroaders, who saw Withers and the sheriff pass the hotel, followed them to the cattle pens to see what was going to happen.
"How's this, Laylander?" the sheriff inquired, coming to a stop a little way from Tom's perch on the fence. "Withers charges you took his cattle away from him and drove 'em here. I'd like to hear your explanation."
"If you'll step up to the depot where there's a light, I'll give you a full and satisfactory answer to your question," Tom replied, thinking that a poor bluff would be better than no bluff at all.
Withers kept in the shade of the sheriff's protection, not half as keen to pull out his gun as he was the day he attached Tom's cattle. Several more railroaders, and a few scattering cowhands from the saloon, added to the little crowd that gathered around the three principals as they drew near the bay window of the depot, where the operator's light was bright.
"Here's a bill of sale from Colonel Withers for the cattle," said Tom, placing it in the sheriff's hand.
"I told you he'd spring it!" said Withers. "Pass it over to me—that's mine."
The sheriff backed up to the window, running his eye over both sides of the bill of sale.
"It looks straight enough," he said. "That's your writin', ain't it, Withers?"
"I told you how I come to write it," Withers said, holding himself in with difficulty. "I demand that paper!"
"This seems to be your night for demandin' things and not gittin' 'em," the sheriff said. "You acknowledge you wrote the bill of sale, and signed it, and took value received. Nothing for me to do, that I can see."
The railroad men applauded the sheriff's decision.
"I didn't come to you to be made a damn fool of!" Withers blustered. "Are you goin' to act, or ain't you?"
"It's a civil case," the sheriff declared, with judicial equanimity, handing the bill of sale back to Laylander, whose hopes leaped up in a new flame as if somebody had dashed a cup of kerosene over their paling embers.
"If there's a question of ownership over these cattle," the sheriff continued, "it's a civil case. Bring a suit against Laylander and prove his bill of sale ain't genuine. That's all you can do."
"I'll lay this before the prosecutin' attorney, I'll demand a warrant!"
"Well, colonel, you'll have to go down in the Nation somewhere if you do. He's gone off on a fishin' trip with Judge Burns."
The sheriff gave this information with evident satisfaction. He could see that every word was making him a vote.
"I demand that you arrest this man without a warrant, then."
"I'd nearly bust a belly-band to oblige you, Colonel, but I couldn't do that."
"The law gives you power to arrest anybody caught in the commission of a crime," Withers insisted. "Do your duty, sheriff—I demand you to do your duty!"
"Yes, and I'll do it without you or anybody else tellin' me," the sheriff replied, with corrective severity.
"You're in on the steal, you long-hungry office hyenar! I'll sue you on your bond!'
"You're beginnin' to talk foolish," the sheriff said.
"Puttin' that man in deputy to guard them cattle, playin' into his hand from the jump. I'll sue you on your bond!"
"If you want to do anything, swear out a writ of replevy," the sheriff advised, undisturbed by the cowman's threats. "There's Judge Coleman over there—take it up with him. I can't do nothing for you."
Judge Coleman came forward with the suggestion, as if to offer his services in the matter of the writ of replevin. He was a short, spare man with a grayishred beard, a lathe machinist in the shops, the only justice of the peace in McPacken. There was a knowing Scottish twinkle in his sharp little blue eyes as he stood in the light gravely shaking his head.
"I couldn't give you a writ of replevin, Mr. Withers," he said; "on no account could I give you a writ. The law limits my jurisdiction to matters not exceeding ninety-nine dollars."
"You can go straight to hell—both of you!"
Withers threw it in their faces hot, hand on his gun as if he stood ready to begin operations on his own account, seeing that the law offered him no relief. The sheriff hitched around, twisting his lean, coatless shoulders as if his back itched, the rather vulgar contortion bringing his hand to the butt of his gun with surprising facility. Withers blasted him with a scowl, turned his back and walked off into the dark.
The railroaders pressed up to shake hands with Tom, hearty in their appreciation of the admirable trick he had turned on Withers. The sheriff, well pleased with himself and the votes he had made by his diplomatic refusal to meddle in the case, shouldered his way out of them and went off to his own affairs. Bill Pinkerton, foreman of the night switching crew, who had long arms like a gorilla and a great deal of black hair around his eyes, reached over and gave Tom his hand.
"I'd spotted them cyars for y' if been allowed," he explained. "There's not a man of us in McPacken wouldn't go the limit to help y' win back and howld your own."
Windy Moore said they'd see to it that Tom got his cars in the morning, it would be too late to get hold of anybody at headquarters tonight. A conductor, in his long split-tailed coat with brass buttons, looking only half official on account of wearing trousers of another cloth and color, and hat instead of cap, declared Tom would have to do no more than show the superintendent his bill of sale to satisfy him of ownership. Then he'd get his cars without any more talk.
Meantime, somebody suggested, what if Withers came back with a gang and drove the cattle to the range? There had been something threatening in the old rascal's defiant way of going, with his curse flung at the law and the representatives of it.
The railroad men wanted to stand guard over the cattle with Tom, a hardship that he would not on any account put them to, he said. If they should hear a disturbance in that quarter during the night, they might come and give him a hand, which would be gladly ac'cepted. They arranged it with Baldy Evans, night watchman at the shops, whose main job was keeping steam up in the boilers, to blow the whistle if he heard shooting break out at the cattle pens.
Windy Moore had his bulldog in his pocket that minute, ready for any trouble that might come along, and keen to meet it. There always was a great feeling of security in the pressure of the bulldog against his ham. It seemed to Windy that he was enforced by that stubby weapon to the equal of any man that carried one more conspicuously. It made him so brave he would have stood up befote seven cowboys, confident that he was impervious as well as invincible with the bulldog in his hand.
A gun in the pocket gives a certain stripe of man that confident security and foolish self deceit that he is brave. He believes he cannot possibly be harmed, while he sows damage as thick as the seeds of plague. A little piece of shooting-iron has given many a coward quite a respectable length of backbone.
Windy sat on the fence with Tom Laylander a long time after the other railroaders had gone off to their night's entertainment or repose. Windy had a feeling of guardianship over this boy, of responsibility as the leader in his defense. He determined to be right there in case anything happened; right where the public could see him for what he believed himself to be—a general in the conflict of life. It is not unusual that self-appointed officials are the most meticulous, not so much out of loyalty to the cause they serve, as in fear of being supplanted by someone more worthy if they turn their backs for a single breath.