With Hoops of Steel Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  Pierre Delarue, "Frenchy" Delarue, as all Las Plumas called him, hadbeen born and brought up in the south of France, whence he hadwandered to many parts of the earth. He had married and lived foryears in England, and, finally, he had come to Las Plumas with hisinvalid wife in the hope that its healing airs might restore her tohealth. But she had died in a few months, and he, perhaps because theflooding sunshine and the brilliant skies of the southwestern plainsreminded him of the home of his youth, stayed on and on, went intobusiness, and became one of the prominent citizens of the town. Theleisurely, let-things-drift spirit of the region, which could be soeasily stirred to violent storms and ardent enthusiasms, was near akinto his own volatile nature. Nobody in the town could be more quicklyand more thoroughly convinced by first appearances than he, and nobodyheld opinions more volubly and more aggressively, so that from thestart he had assumed a leading place in the discussion of all publicmatters. Although he had not taken even the first step towardnaturalization, he was active in the constantly sizzling politicallife of the town, and along all that side of Main street there wasnone more staunchly and violently Republican than he.

  He believed, and voiced his belief loudly and aggressively, that WillWhittaker had been slain and that swift punishment should be visitedupon his murderer. The Gascogne nimbleness of tongue which enabled himto express his conviction with volubility made him, all through thatexcited day, the constant center of an assenting crowd. As night cameon, the groups of men all gathered about his store. By that time everyone among them was convinced that Emerson Mead had killed youngWhittaker. At first this theory had been a mere guess, a hazard ofprobability. But it had been asserted and repeated and insisted uponso many times during the day that every man on the west side of thestreet had finally adopted it as his own original opinion, and bynightfall refused to entertain any other explanation. Inside thestore, Delarue was expounding the necessity of swift retribution. Mencrowded in and packed the room to its last capacity. They made Delarueget up on the counter, so that all could hear what he said. Thoseoutside struggled and pushed about the door. A man on the sidewalkcried out:

  "We can't hear! Let's go to the hall and give everybody a chance!"

  The crowd gave instant response: "To the hall, so everybody can hear!Let's go to the hall!"

  Those within took up the cry and drowned the speaker's voice withcries of, "Let's go to the hall! Let's go to the hall!"

  Delarue stopped in his harangue and shouted: "Yes, my friends, let usgo to the hall and make this a public meeting of indignation againstthe cowardly murder that has been done!"

  Out they rushed, and with Delarue in front, gesticulating and callingto them to come on, they hurried to the public hall. A man quicklymounted the platform and nominated Pierre Delarue for presidingofficer of the meeting. The crowd responded with yells of, "Yes, yes!""Of course!" "Go on, Frenchy!" "Hurrah for Frenchy!" There were manyMexicans among them, and as Delarue stepped to his place, there was acall for an interpreter and a young half-Mexican walked to theplatform. Some one was sent to hold guard at the door, with orders toadmit "no turbulent persons." Then Delarue began an impassionedspeech, pausing after each sentence for it to be translated intoSpanish. With each flaming outburst the "hurrahs" of the Americanswere mingled with the "vivas" of the Mexicans.

  The interpreter leaned far over the edge of the platform, swaying andgesticulating as though the speech were his own, his face glowing withexcitement. The crowd yelled madly, while with flushed face, streamingforehead, and heaving chest the speaker went on, each fiery sentimentincreasing his conviction in the righteousness of his cause, and thecries of approval urging him to still more inflamed denunciation andoutright accusal.

  Those who had gathered in Judge Harlin's office and in and about thePalmleaf saloon were closely watching developments. Two or three menwho mingled with the Republicans, and were apparently in sympathy withthem, came in occasionally by way of back doors, and reported all thatwas being said and done. Emerson Mead talked in a brief aside with oneof these men, and presently he stepped out alone into the desertedstreet. The other man hastened to the hall, took the place of the oneon guard, giving him the much-wished-for opportunity to go inside, andwhen, hands in pockets, Mead strolled up, his confederate quicklyadmitted him, and he stood unobserved in the semi-darkness at the backof the room. A single small lamp on the speaker's table and onebracketed against the wall on each side made a half circle of duskylight about the platform, showing a mass of eager, excited faces withgleaming eyes, while it left the rear part of the bare room in shadow.

  "I demand justice," cried the speaker, "upon the murderer, theassassin of poor Will Whittaker! And I say to you, friends andneighbors, that unless you now, at once, mete out justice upon thatmurderer's head, there is no surety that justice will be done. To-dayyou have seen him walking defiantly about the streets, armed to theteeth, ready to plunge his hands still deeper into the blood ofinnocent men. Your own lives may yet pay the penalty if you do notstop his lawless career! Such a measure as he measures to others it isright that you should measure to him!"

  There was an instant of solemn, breathless hush as the speaker leanedforward, shaking an uplifted finger at the audience. Then some one ona front seat cried out, "Emerson Mead! He ought to be lynched!" Thecry was a firebrand thrown into a powder box. The whole mass of menbroke into a yell: "Emerson Mead! Lynch him! Lynch the murderer!" Thespeaker stood with uplifted hands, demanding further attention, butthe crowd was beyond his control. Moved by one impulse, it had sprungto its feet, clamoring and yelling, "A rope! A rope! for EmersonMead!"

  Then, like men pierced through with sudden death, they halted inmid-gesture, with shout half uttered, and stood staring, struck dumbwith amazement. For Emerson Mead, a half smile on his face, his hatpushed back from his forehead, was walking quietly across theplatform. The speaker, turning to follow the staring eyes of hisaudience, saw him just as he put out his hand and said, "How do youdo, Mr. Delarue!" The orator's jaw fell, his hands dropped nervelesslybeside him, and involuntarily he jumped backward, as if to shelterhimself behind the table. The interpreter leaped to the floor andcrouched against the platform. All over the hall hands went torevolver butts in waistband, hip-pocket and holster. The dim lightshone back from the barrels of a score of weapons already drawn. Meadfaced the audience, the half smile still lingering about his mouth.

  "I understand," he said quietly, "that you want to lynch me. Well, I'mhere!"

  A sudden, bellowing voice roared through the room: "Stop in yourtracks, you cowards!"

  Judge Harlin, having guessed where Mead had gone, had just plungedthrough the door and was shouldering his way up the aisle, his robust,broad-backed frame, big head and bull neck dominating the crowd.Behind him came Tom Tuttle and Nick Ellhorn, their guns in theirhands. A young Mexican, who was with them, leaped to the back of aseat, and on light toes raced by Harlin's side from seat to seat,interpreting into Spanish as he ran.

  "A nice lot you are!" shouted Judge Harlin. "A nice lot to prate aboutlaw and order, and ready to do murder yourselves! That is what you arepreparing to do! Murder! As cold-blooded a murder as ever man did!"

  He mounted the platform and faced Delarue, while Tuttle and Ellhorn,with revolvers drawn, stood beside Mead.

  "Better put your guns away, boys," whispered Mead.

  "Not much!" Ellhorn replied. "We can't draw as quick as you can!"

  "Let's go for 'em!" pleaded Tuttle in a whisper. "You and Nick and mecan down half of 'em before they know what's happened, and the otherhalf before they could shoot."

  "No, Tommy; it wouldn't do."

  "It would be the best thing that could happen to the town," hegrumbled back. "Say, Emerson, we'd better go for 'em before they makea rush."

  "No, no, Tom; better not shoot. I tell you it wouldn't do!"

  "Well, if you say so, as long as they don't begin it. But they shan'ttouch you while there's a cartridge left in my belt."

  The crowd,
arrested and controlled, first by the spectacle of Mead'saudacity and then by the compelling roar of Judge Harlin'sdenunciation, listened quietly, still subdued by its amazement, whileHarlin went on, standing beside Delarue and shaking at him anadmonishing finger.

  "Pierre Delarue, I am astonished that a good citizen like you shouldbe here inciting to murder! You have not one jot of evidence thatEmerson Mead killed Will Whittaker! You do not even know thatWhittaker is dead!"

  The crowd shuffled and muttered angrily at this defiance of itsconviction. It was returning to its former frame of mind, and wasbeginning to feel incensed at the irruption into the meeting.

  "We do know it!" a man in the front row flamed out, his face workingwith the violent back-rush of recent passion. "And we know Mead didit!" another one yelled. Murmurs of "Lynch him! Lynch him!" quicklyfollowed. Tuttle and Ellhorn were white with suppressed rage, andtheir eyes were wide and blazing. Tuttle was nervously fingering histrigger guard. "Then bring your evidence into a court of law and letunprejudiced men judge its value," Judge Harlin roared back. "Accuserswho have the right on their side are not afraid to face the law!"

  Mead caught the angry eye of a brutal-faced man directly in front ofhim, and saw that the man's revolver was at full cock and his hand onthe trigger. In the flash that went from eye to eye he saw with suretywhat would happen in another moment. And he knew what the sequence ofone shot would be.

  "Neighbors!" he shouted. "Jim Halliday has a warrant for my arrest.I protest that it has been illegally issued, because there is noevidence upon which it can be based. But to avoid any further trouble,here and now, I will submit to having it served. I will not bedisarmed, and I warn you that any attempt of that sort will maketrouble. But I give you my word, for both myself and my friends,that otherwise there shall be no disturbance."

  Judge Harlin shot at Mead a surprised look, hesitated an instant,and then nodded approval. Tuttle and Ellhorn looked at him inopen-mouthed, open-eyed amazement for a moment, then dropped theirpistols to their holsters and stepped back. A sudden hush fell overthe crowd, which waited expectantly, no one moving.

  "I think Jim Halliday is here," Mead said quietly. "He has my word. Hecan come and take me and there shall be no trouble, if he don't try totake my gun."

  A stout, red-haired young man worked his way forward through thecrowded aisle to the platform and took a paper from his pocket. Meadglanced at it, said "All right," and the two walked away together. Thecrowd in the hall quickly poured out after them. Tuttle, his lipswhite and trembling, looked after Mead's retreating figure and hishuge chest began to heave and his big blue eyes to fill with tears. Heturned to Ellhorn, his voice choking with sobs:

  "Emerson Mead goin' off to jail with Jim Halliday! Nick, why didn't helet us shoot? He needn't have been arrested! Here was a good chance toclean up more'n half his enemies, and he wouldn't let us do it!" Helooked at Ellhorn in angry, regretful grief, and the tears droppedover his tanned cheeks. "Say, Nick," he went on, lowering his voice toa hoarse whisper, "you-all don't think he was afraid, do you?"

  "Sure, and I don't," Ellhorn replied promptly. "I reckon Emerson Meadnever was afraid of anybody or anything."

  "Well, I'm glad you don't," Tom replied, his voice still shaking withsobs. "I couldn't help thinkin' when he kept tellin' us not to shoot,that maybe he was afraid, with all those guns in front and only usfour against 'em, and I said to myself, 'Good Lord, have I beenrunnin' alongside a coward all these years!' And I was sure sick for aminute. But I guess it was just his judgment that there'd better notbe any shootin' just now."

  Ellhorn looked over the empty hall with one eye shut. "Well, I reckonthere would have been a heap o' dead folks in this room by now ifwe-all had turned loose."

  "About as many as we-all had cartridges," and Tuttle glanced at theirwell-filled belts. He was silent a moment, while he wiped his eyes andblew his nose, and his sobs gradually ceased. "No, Emerson couldn'thave been afraid. Though I sure thought for a minute I'd have to quithim. But you're right, Nick. Emerson ain't afraid of anything, livin'or dead. It was just his judgment. And Emerson's got powerful goodjudgment, too. I ought to have known better than to think anythingelse. But, Lord! I did hate to see that measly crowd sneakin' out ofhere alive!"