CHAPTER VII.
MIRIAM'S WONDER.
MY idea," said the big man, who by removing his hat had showed a great mop of red hair, "is to get some of the boys together and go hunting Daly and his crew. What d'you say to that, Doc Peters?"
"You won't get a crew around here," asserted Doc Peters. "The boys ain't got any stomach for fighting or trailing Joe Daly. They say that bullets don't even make no dent in him!"
Pete Burnside shuddered.
"Well," declared Red Stanton, "I'm one, and my partner here, Pete, is another that'll take the trail. Eh, Pete?"
Here he clapped Pete on the shoulder, and the latter winced. Pete fought with all his might to stand straight and nod a cheerful answer; he strove with all his force to appear at his best before this bright-eyed girl who was watching so intently. But he could only cringe. The very name of Joe Daly sent water instead of blood through his veins. Sickness took hold of the very heart of him. From the corner of his eye he saw scorn pass like a shadow over the face of the girl.
Suddenly she stepped to Red Stanton and shook his hand. "I have faith in you," she said.
And it sickened Pete Burnside to see her lift her head and smile up into his companion's brutal face.
"I have faith," she repeated. "I know that you can't lose!"
"Lose?" roared Red Stanton. "I ain't ever started a fight yet that I ain't won. I dunno what it means to get licked. Ask Pete, here. He'll tell you!"
Red winked with brutal meaning at the rancher and his daughter. He could not see the shadow of disgust which darkened their eyes for a moment. But here was an ally too powerful to be turned away simply because he seemed to be a bully and a braggart.
So they sat down with the two new-comers. They placed them at a table where there was more food than even the tremendous capacity of Red was equal to. And, while the two travelers ate, they were given in detail the history of the struggle against Daly, and in particular the feat of Dan Bunder in killing no less than two of the Daly gang, as was known, and three, as was conjectured. But since Dan had been killed in single combat with a man who must have been Joe Daly himself, no one in the mountains could be induced to take service on the Peters Ranch, with the exception of a few half-worthless hands who were shielded from the gunfighters by their great age. It would be a problem of the very first water to get even a handful of willing men together to attack such an enemy as Joe Daly had demonstrated himself to be.
Here Red smashed his great hand upon the table with such force that the dishes chimed.
"Leave that to me!" he said. "Lemme offer 'em money. Lemme go to town to get 'em, and I'll come back with men enough!"
It seemed impossible that he could do as he promised. But the next morning he mounted the only horse on the ranch capable of bearing his tremendous bulk with any ease or speed. On this mount he made the journey to the village on the eastern edge of the mountains. He entered in the late morning. He went straight to the combination general-merchandise store, post office, etc. There he emptied his six-shooter to the accompaniment of a wild whooping that brought every inhabitant but and ready for action. Afterward he harangued the crowd.
It was a good speech. He declared that he had come down for men. They were to get three dollars a day and their keep. They were to get good chuck. And there might be a small ration of moonshine whisky at the end of each day's work, if all went well. Also, their hours were to be short, and their work during those hours was to be light. They were not going to ride the range all the day. There was to be no wearisome wandering along a fence repairing the breaks and lifting the sagging wire. No, all they were to do was to join in a man hunt!
He made this pause and surveyed his audience with a growing enthusiasm. He would himself lead in that man hunt. He would ask no man to go where he, Red Stanton, did not first lead the way. He would ask nothing impossible of any of those who happened to serve under him. Not only did he make these promises, but he also declared that the number he could take was limited. Some men, he knew, would have been glad to take fifty men to do the work which he had in hand. But Red Stanton would admit only an even dozen men to the hunt. And he reserved the right to pick that dozen to suit himself from all those who flocked in to volunteer their services.
It was a master stroke, that limitation of the posse. It did what the promise of fat wages could not do. It put a distinguishing badge upon all who should be so fortunate as to be chosen to take part in the expedition. Money, indeed, could never have induced them to come forward. But, since it was to be a measure of merit, that, to be sure, was quite another thing.
Red Stanton got a room at the hotel and spent two hours there interviewing men who clamored for a place in the ranks. And it was not until he had each man closeted in the room, that he confessed the object of the expedition was to be against no other person than Joe Daly himself.
They heard it with abashed eyes and a scowl, but they would not take a step backward, once they had engaged their honor. Before the two hours were passed. Red Stanton had sifted out twelve of the hardiest men in Casterville. Of all the rough towns in the Sumner Mountains, this was the roughest; and of the toughest inhabitants in Casterville, Red Stanton chose the worst. He chose them by instinct; he recognized his brothers in heart, if not in blood. And, by an odd coincidence, when he had finally chosen all his worthies, it was found that there was not one, of the twelve who had not passed some days of his life in a prison.
Such were the men with whom Red Stanton returned to the ranch of Doc Peters. They filled the old bunk house with a thunder of drunken merriment that night, for Red Stanton had lived up to his word and had procured some moonshine whisky of innocent and watery appearance and terrible potency. But when the morning after the revel arrived, these hardy souls merely doused their faces in water, shrugged their shoulders, and prepared for the work of the day.
That work began at once Red Stanton was thrilled by the praise and the wonder of Doc. Peters, when the latter saw the troop of heavy cavalry which had then rallied to his cause by the ruffian. He was thrilled, more than by the words of the rancher, by the smile of Miriam from the background, and he started as soon as they had finished their breakfast. He took with him Josh Tompson, the only one of the cowpunchers then on the place with nerves steady enough to make him of any use. Josh had many ideas about where the headquarters of the rustlers might be, and he was willing to point out what he knew to the warriors, though he warned them every step of the way that they were apt to be shot, to the last man, by a hurricane of rifle bullets which might pour down at them at any moment.
While preparations were making for the start, Red Stanton lingered at the ranch house. He wished to state his self-assurance once more for the delectation of the rancher and the rancher's daughter.
"But they'll get the start on you, Red," said Doc Peters.
"My hoss will be ready with the rest of 'em," said the giant. "Pete does my saddling for me."
"Is Pete your slave?" asked Miriam with sudden interest.
"Pete's a no-good one," said the other in a large manner. "He ain't worth much. You'll watch him start out with the rest of us this morning, but he won't keep up with us. Nope, his hoss'll go lame—or something. I know! He'll have to drop behind and"
"The hound!" snarled Doc Peters.
"Why do you keep such a creature with you?" asked Miriam, shuddering as though she had been hearing of some unclean thing.
"Well," said Red Stanton, "he's pretty handy for saddling the hosses and making the fires and patching the clothes and such like. Besides, I ain't got the heart to turn him loose where other gents can kick him around. I'm sort of used to him and sorry for him, lady!"
Here his horse appeared, saddled and led by Pete Burnside.
"I'm with you, Red," called Doc Peters. "I ain't going to stay behind here!"
"Don't be a fool," growled the giant. "Ain't you going to keep a guard here at the house on all your chuck—and your hoss feed—and your family?"
He leered winningly at Miriam as he spoke. But, no matter how offensive his manner, it was perfectly apparent that he was right. A guard must be kept at the ranch house, and the rancher himself must take up that duty. So, frothing with impatience, Peters watched the expedition take to horse and thunder away down the slope to an accompaniment of yells and curses. In the rear rode Pete Burnside. After him the girl pointed.
"Do you see that?" she cried to her father.
"Yes," he nodded.
"What's wrong with the man they call Pete?"
"I dunno," answered her father. "When a gent is yaller there ain't no way of explaining him. He's just plumb wrong all the way through."
"But that man Pete," said the girl, "I can't explain how he haunts me. He did last night in my sleep, after I had seen his face for the first time. He fascinates me. He seems to be in torment all the time."
"Because he always knows that he's yaller," said her father, "and he's afraid that somebody's going to find it out!"
"I'll wager," she answered after a little interval of silence, "that he finishes the ride with the rest of them to-day. I'll wager that, if there's a fight, he fights as bravely as any of them!"
"Miriam, you're talking foolish. A dog can't act like a lion, and he's just a plain hound with no heart to him."
"Don't say it!" breathed the girl. "It's too horrible!"
"He ain't the only coward in the world, honey."
"But I keep thinking"
"What?"
"I keep thinking that he's been a brave man once, and that he's trying to be brave again."
"Miriam, quit your dreaming. Take a ride right over the hill, and you'll find him somewhere pulled up just the way that Red Stanton said you'd find him!"
She followed the impulse which had taken hold on her. In five minutes she was in the saddle and heading into the sharp wind which was blowing out of the northeast. An elbow twist around the pointed shoulder of a hill brought her suddenly in full view of her quarry. Not fifty feet away was Pete Burnside. The wind which blew from him to her cut away his chance of hearing her, and his back was turned, cutting off his chance of seeing her. She jerked her neat-footed pony behind some saplings and peered out curiously into the hollow.
Pete Burnside she had seen in the act of stopping his horse. Now she saw him drop limply out of the saddle. She saw him crouch down on the ground. She saw him take his head between his arms. She saw his body racked and tormented and quivering with pain.
Never had she seen a man act like that before. It was as though a bullet had torn through his vitals. The horse from which he had thrown himself, sniffed curiously at the bowed-head of his late master and then turned away to pluck at some grass near by. And still Pete was curled up in a knot.
Then she understood, and the understanding sickened her. She had been right in her first guess. Fear, as her father had said, had stopped this poor renegade and made him stay out of the group which was riding toward the mountains. And now the bitterest shame was making him writhe in an agony. She watched with horror and with awe. And then suddenly she turned the head of her horse away, as though she had been eavesdropping where she had no right. And, when she came back to the house of her father, she said not a word to him. She kept what she had seen to herself, as though she had entered upon a part of the shame.