CHAPTER XI
The dawn that broke over Two Moons following the events just narrated ushered in a day bulking large in the town's history. Even now when a frosty autumn night finds the old-timers assembled around the stove of the back room of Goteh's drug store—substitute rallying place in this day of the Great Drought—reminiscence inevitably swings back to that cardinal spot in the calendar of the past. Gnarled old range riders leap into heated arguments: Supposing Sheriff Red Agnew had done thus and so; what would have happened if Zang Whistler had not had a bullet hole through his shooting hand? Alas, the mutations of time! Modern Two Moons' old-timers review thus the high tides of romance in a golden age that has sped; the new generation goes down to the station to see the eight-four from Billings come in.
The early morning stage, in from Lost Soldiers on the railroad, brought to this core of the Big Country internecine strife a new and potent actor. Yet so consistently did this field general of hidden forces follow his policy of unobtrusive penetration wherever he went that none of the knot of townsfolk and cow-punchers, gathered to watch the stage halt before the doors of the Occidental Hotel, recognized him. Had any attempted to follow recognition with a hail the stranger doubtless would have stared him out of countenance and passed on.
A sleepless night in the swaying stage up from the railroad point had touched the new-comer not at all. His bland unbearded features were as fresh and free from insomnia strain as a schoolboy's. A very wide mouth seemed perpetually cocked and primed for an ingratiating smile, but the hard gray eyes of him denied the genuineness of this consciously displayed tag of good humor. He wore the uniform of a politician,—for in the Big Country the broad-brimmed black Stetson, the black string tie and flaring tails of the Prince Albert have assumed for the wearer all the distinguishing importance of a uniform. He was, moreover, a great joiner; pins or fobs of at least four fraternal organizations glittered conspicuously from as many vantage points on his person.
"Warren J. Von Tromp, Cheyenne," was the signature he put in a sprawling hand upon the Occidental's register, and he went smiling into breakfast.
Now to Henry Quick, the Occidental's proprietor, this name carried nothing. Perhaps there were not more than half a dozen men in all the Big Country who would appreciate that the arrival of Warren J. Von Tromp, of Cheyenne, was a weighty event for town and country equally. If one could plump the question, "Who are you?" at Von Tromp with a fair assurance of receiving an answer even half truthful that answer might be, "I am a lawyer." In so far as a certain parchment upon the wall of Von Tromp's office in Cheyenne attested to his admission to the bar, that reply to the supposititious query would be truthful.
But only a modicum of truth therein. Warren J. Von Tromp was much more than a lawyer. His field of activity lay far beyond the confines of the State capital. Washington knew him better than Cheyenne, and he was not a stranger even to the Hyde Park Hotel in London. Von Tramp's appearance in a court was far less frequent than in some locked room, some place where work along his peculiar line was waiting to be done. He knew the statutes, but better he knew neat and safe ways to subvert the statutes. Von Tromp had his own code of ethics. Never would he stoop to suborn perjury, for instance; he would arrange matters so that perjury was unnecessary. Not for worlds would he buy a legislative committee, but he was a master at devising circumstances conducive to the picking up of an honest penny on the parts of a committee's several members.
When he had breakfasted Von Tromp strolled out on Main Street and ambled down the row of store fronts. That smile of his which seemed ever trembling to be released rewarded the gaze of the curious. He even made no bones of looking at the numbers on the doors and finally turning in at a door giving on to a flight of stairs over the Boston Store. The landlady of the suite of living rooms there said Original Bill had come in very late the night before and was still sleeping. She pointed out the door of his bedroom. Von Tromp knocked and entered at the bidding from within.
Original, propping himself upon an elbow among the bed covers, recognized in Von Tromp a man he had occasionally met in the company of powerful members of the Stockmen's Alliance down in Cheyenne and Denver,—one of those mysterious figures on the inside of the councils of his employers whose business was beyond his own experience on the wide range. He apologized simply for his undress, saying he had had a long ride during the night. Von Tromp held up a suave hand to check explanations, seemingly in an impulse of absent-mindedness hung his hat on the door knob where it would cover the keyhole and drew a chair alongside Original's bed.
"Blunt," he began in a confidential tone, "I 'm not one to beat round the bush. I came to Two Moons to have a little talk with you—got in on the stage not an hour ago, in fact, here I am. Perhaps there 's no need of my mentioning any names—make it a point never to mention any names when I don't have to—but you 'll understand I represent some mighty important people—yes, some people of prime importance, Blunt—and what I have to say you may take as coming straight from them."
Original nodded slowly and reached to a table for papers and tobacco. He divined his visitor would reveal himself shortly as bearer of some new message of strategy in the war of the range, something direct from headquarters. The first faint stirrings of dislike of his visitor began to prick under the alertness of the range inspector; Original resented an indefinable quality in Von Tromp's manner and voice, a something which seemed to set him in the status of a hired hand about to take his day's orders.
"I may say to start with that—ah—our people are greatly alarmed at the way things are going here in the Big Country," the voice of Von Tromp purled on. "They thought when they put the board-of-live-stock-commissioners thing through the legislature and had you appointed inspector for this county the wholesale rustling of cattle would cease. They relied upon you to exercise—um—a little moral suasion upon the sheepmen to keep them back from the cattle lands. Unfortunately, Blunt, neither of those hopes has been realized. Last fiscal year our people had to mark more than $150,000 off their accounts to the credit of cattle thieves. To-day, because of the invasion of the sheep and the taking up of claims by homesteaders—every one of whom is a cattle thief, remember, Blunt—the available range for our people's stock is less than half what it was ten years ago. Absolute ruin stares us all in the face."
"Well, what can one man do about it?" Original was quick to resent the innuendo of responsibility the other had pushed upon him. "I 've had twenty-two men before the grand jury on charges of brand smoking this past year; indictments were found against just five of 'em, an' on trial only one of those five got a conviction. One man outa twenty-two! I deal myself nothin' but trouble when I go up against a sheriff who's against the cattle outfits, a district attorney who 's elected by sheep money an' grand juries the sheriff manages to have drawn exclusive from the town."
"Just so—just so," the visitor from Cheyenne soothed. "Don't think for a minute, Blunt, our people have any fault to find with what you 've done. Perhaps they are inclined to wonder if you 've done all that can be done under the circumstances; that 's all—all that possibly could be done. When the courts fail to give justice, you know" He finished with a spreading of the hands and a sage smile. Original drew a lungful of smoke down deep and gave Von Tromp his steady gaze.
"Well, when the courts fail to give justice—what?" Original queried bluntly. His visitor gave his shoulders a slight lift.
"Take yourself as an individual. Suppose you had a man arrested for breaking into your house and the courts freed him. Suppose you had that same man arrested the second time for the same offense and the courts failed to convict. What would you do to protect your property? That's putting the question fairly."
"But I 'm an officer of the State of Wyoming," Original began. Von Tromp ignored his answer:
"You 'd make it healthy for that man to move away, would n't you? You 'd make the country too hot to hold him. Well, take the case of our people with their backs to the wall because of the rustlers and sheepmen" Von Tromp suddenly broke his speech and gazed reflectively out the window. He cast a shrewd look into the range inspector's face before resuming.
"I did hear something down at Cheyenne—just a rumor which circulates as rumors will—about somebody with a private grudge up here in the Big Country who 's been sniping unpopular sheepmen and water-hole homesteaders with a Long Tom. Maybe you can tell me, just to satisfy my curiosity, what 's been the effect of this man's private feud; how—um—have people taken it?"
Original kept his unwavering eyes upon Von Tromp as he rolled a fresh cigarette and lighted it.
"Effect?" he echoed. "Effect 's been to raise merry hell. Everybody says the Killer collects for every stone found on a murdered man's forehead an' collects from"
"It's a gross libel!" the visitor almost shouted. "No association of reputable business men would subsidize murder."
"That 's what I like to believe, too," Original added simply. Von Tromp quickly regained his aplomb.
"I merely cite that instance to show how a desperate man may sometimes be driven to take the law into his own hands when, as doubtless this Killer, so called, found it to be his experience, the courts fail him. Exactly! I gather in this case this misguided man's acts have intensified the feeling against the cattlemen through popular misconception of the inspiration for his conduct. Or, as you say, raised merry hell." Von Tromp sped a quizzical glance at Original. "But supposing, Blunt, certain people we need not mention, finding no relief from the courts, and their property being daily diminished by the rustlers and the pirating of the sheepmen upon the range rightfully theirs, should decide to take the law into their own hands—to make an example, you might say. Supposing it became speedily known that the agents of these outraged property holders intended to make no distinction between actual rustlers who steal cattle and piratical sheepmen who steal the range."
"You mean clean up the country?" Original asked.
"That 's a neat way of putting it," his visitor smiled. Original honed his stubbled jaw reflectively. He was of the cattle clan; its chivalry, its wild free code had been born in him; all the years of his life he had supported that clan's interests with fanatical devotion. With every other of his kind in the Big Country, Original had bitterly resented the invasion of the range by the low-caste homesteader and the woolly avalanche of the sheep; the anything but equal administration of the law in Broken Horn County had sickened him. But, somehow, the proposal made by Von Tromp smacked of heresy. Just because it came from Von Tromp, the outsider, the log roller and fixer,—a man of cities and alien to the Big Country.
"Well, sir, if anything like that 's started this country surely 'll be cat-dragged from one end to t'other. There 'll be a fine hell stew brewed unless"
"But supposing the State authorities understand our viewpoint and—um—keep hands off while matters are being settled?" Von Tromp's cold eyes invited Original not to be a fool—to see, in short, that one Von Tromp would not be idle in the contingency under discussion.
"Well"
Von Tromp suddenly rose from his chair, walked to the door, removed his hat from the knob and violently jerked the door open. As if disappointed at finding no eavesdroppers he peered into the hallway, then closed the door and again veiled the keyhole. He came and sat on the edge of the inspector's bed, removing a letter from his pocket as he did so.
"To get down to hard facts, Blunt, I 'm here to give you orders. You 'll find this letter vouches for me and all I may direct. Immediately you are to begin working quietly among the cow-punchers and foremen on this range, picking the most careful men of your acquaintance and organizing them into a force that can be relied upon. Certain men are now down in New Mexico and Texas rounding up other men of action. When the time is ripe these men will be thrown into the Big Country to do certain work. Your men will be ready to coöperate with them. But first," Von Tromp waved an emphasizing forefinger, "first, before the competent men come up from the South, you have something else to do. You are to attempt to clean up the gang of outlaws in Teapot Spout."
"I was aimin' to do that partic'lar thing soon 's I could put ten or a dozen good men at my back," Original volunteered. "I 've got reasons strong and particular for wanting that Spout cleaned up."
Von Tromp again turned upon the range rider his oily smile.
"But here is the most important part of your instructions, Blunt. Attempt to clean up the Spout. Put up a nice fight. Kill off a few of the Whistler gang if you want to. But fail in the effort to round up the gang completely."
"What!" Outrage cried aloud from the man's protest.
"I said to fail to do the job successfully. Fail to bring out Whistler or more than a few of his gang. The reason is simple. A State inspector does his best to break up by force a nest of outlaws after county authorities have signally failed in their duty of protection for cattle owners. But so powerful are the outlaws the inspector cannot make headway against them. Therefore the cattle owners are justified in sending into the country a force of their own, competent to clean up the elements of disorder protected by the county authorities and establish security. You follow me?"
Original, bewildered and with protest rising to his tongue, was forestalled by a clamor on Main Street. Doors banged, there were excited calls and the pounding of booted feet on the board sidewalks. Original leaped from bed and ran with Von Tromp to the window overlooking the street.
He saw a strange cavalcade passing slowly up the street in the direction of the courthouse and jail. Uncle Alf, the evangelist, led on horseback. Behind him, all mounted, were three: Hilma Ring, with a rifle carried in the crook of her left arm, a villainous-looking man bound as to arms and feet noosed under his horse's belly, and Zang Whistler of the Spout with a bandaged right hand gripping his bridle, and in his left, carried easily on the saddle horn, a .45.