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  “I was afraid it was that-a-way,” Bill muttered bleakly. He mulled it over for a moment. “You git busy, Latch, and do your best. If there’s a chance for him I’ll see that he gits it. They got a wagon here.”

  As Latch went back to Paint, Bill signaled for the others to step over to him. He told them what Latch had said.

  “That’s tough,” Luther murmured. “What do yuh aim to do?”

  “I aim to do all I can,” Bill replied. “I want a couple of yuh to round up Lytell’s team. In the meantime, some more of yuh can git your ropes on that wagon and right it. When you git it hitched, drive up here.”

  “You can’t take my wagon that-a-way!” Lytell cried defiantly.

  “We’re takin’ it!” Bill repeated. “Push him along with yuh, Link, and make him git his stuff out of it! It’s a long way to Bowie—and Paint won’t git no better on the way—but we’ll see that he gits there.”

  “Bill, are yuh crazy?” Luther demanded. “If we ride into Bowie tonight we’ll need more’n a doctor to help us!”

  “I’m goin’ in alone,” Bill answered slowly. “I’ll be there about nine o’clock.”

  “Yuh can’t do it, Bill!” Link exclaimed excitedly. “It’s foolish to even think of it!”

  “You’ll stub your toe, sure as shootin’!” Tonto agreed.

  “That’s right!” Luther echoed. “Why overplay your hand?”

  Maverick and Scotty voiced similar sentiments. For once, Cherokee had no objection to raise.

  “I don’t know what you all are gettin’ so excited about,” he said. “He don’t have to ride down the main street. I’m willin’ to go in with him. Is that agreeable to you, Bill?”

  The offer came unexpectedly, but Little Bill met it without lifting an eyelash. “That would be overplayin’ my hand,” he thought. His expression inscrutable, he glanced at the Kid. “No need of that, Cherokee,” he said, “I’ll be safer by myself.”

  If the Kid caught the double significance of the words, he dissembled it perfectly.

  Even though Luther and the rest realized the futility of further argument they would have continued to object to Bill’s going had he not ordered them to be on their way. As they went down the creek, he walked over to where Paint lay. He had not dismissed Cherokee from his mind.

  “I can’t figger out his play, unless all this talk about his breakin’ with Beaudry was a bluff,” he thought. “Wouldn’t be no other way he could turn me up without gettin’ himself snagged.”

  Paint was resting easier. Bill asked Latch to leave them alone for a moment. The rain had become a fine drizzle.

  “You’re takin’ an awful chance in doin’ this, Bill,” Paint said when he had been told he was to be hurried to town.

  “Well, it’s me that’s takin’ it,” Bill said grimly. “I owe this much to Martha. … I know she’s mighty fond of you.”

  “Aw, I didn’t have a chance when you were around,” Paint insisted. His face was bloodless.

  “I ain’t around no more.… That’s all over. You’ve got everythin’ your way now.”

  “I don’t want things that way,” Paint scowled. “I just took this job with Lytell so I could keep out of Bowie until you were around again. I’ll fight you fair for Martha. You ought to know it.”

  “I do,” Bill murmured, looking away. “That’s the only thing about this that’s right, Paint.… I always said I wanted you to have her if I couldn’t.” With an effort he threw off his moodiness. “It’s a long, joltin’ ride into town. You’ll have to buck up for it. It’ll take about all you’ve got to make it.”

  Latch saw the Two Bar O wagon coming up the creek. Link was driving the team. Lytell was up beside him.

  “Is that gent takin’ this boy to town?” Latch asked.

  “No, I’m takin’ him,” Bill answered. He explained briefly. Latch shook his head dubiously.

  “You know your reasons,” he said. “If you say you’ll go, you’ll go. You’re almost certain to find trouble awaitin’ yuh if this gent Lytell can arrange it.”

  “I want you to keep your eye on him, Latch. Don’t let him pull away from the Skull till least an hour after dark.”

  “Yuh want us to linger here then?”

  “Nothin’ else to do,” Bill said. “I don’t figger you’ll have any trouble unless he makes it for yuh.”

  “I’ll undertake to gentle him if he starts anythin’,” Latch grinned brazenly.

  As gently as they could they placed Paint in the wagon on a bed of hay.

  “You’ll find this stuff waitin’ for yuh when you hit Bowie,” he told Lytell.

  “I better find it! I’ll settle your hash for this some day!”

  Bill didn’t bother to answer. Leading Six-gun around to the rear of the wagon he ran the bridle reins through the ring in the end-gate and knotted them. He was ready to leave, save for a word to his men. He walked aside with them beyond Lytell’s hearing. After repeating what he had previously said to Latch, he added:

  “If there’s any orders necessary, Luther will give ’em. After yuh leave here tonight go right on as we planned. I’ll meet you about noon tomorrow in the Witch Hills. You wait there for me. If I don’t show up by evenin’—go on; you’ll know I ain’t comin’.”

  That was all he had to tell them. Without any formal leave-taking, he climbed up on the wagon and gathered up the reins.

  “Luther, maybe you better follow me as far as the trail. It’s pretty sticky there; you may have to put a rope on the wagon and snub me up a little.”

  Luther followed readily enough. The wagon rolled up the slope to the trail without any help from him however.

  “It ain’t bad here,” he said.

  “Course it ain’t,” Bill admitted. “I just wanted to say a last word to yuh: keep your eye on Cherokee. Don’t let him have anythin’ to say to Lytell that you don’t hear. I don’t want yuh to lose sight of him for a second.”

  Luther pulled down the corners of his mouth in a flinty stare.

  “See here, Bill,” he said fiercely, “are you holdin’ back somethin’? If that double-crossin’ coyote is makin’ a move to sell us out, I want to know it!”

  “He ain’t had a chance to make a move,” Bill replied, “and I ain’t givin’ him one.”

  “But you’re as suspicious of him as ever—”

  “I’m ten times as suspicious of him as I was the day Latch brought him into our fire.”

  “Then why don’t we kick him out?”

  Bill shook his head.

  “Not yet, Luther. Cherokee’s goin’ to figger awful important in my plans later on.”

  Chapter XVIII

  THE stars were out when Bill brought the jolting, springless wagon to a stop at Cain Springs. He had put two-thirds of the long ride behind them. Paint had not whimpered once. A score of times and more Bill had glanced back at him, wondering if life had flickered out.

  “Yuh makin’ it all right, Paint?” he queried now. “We’ve just pulled into the springs.”

  “I’m hanging on pretty well,” Paint answered. “Get me a drink, will you? I’m terribly thirsty.”

  “You can’t have no water, Paint. Worst thing in the world when you got somethin’ wrong with your innards. I’ll give the team a drop and we’ll be movin’ along.”

  He knew the boy was suffering untold torture. He offered to roll him a cigarette, but Paint said no.

  The springs had not changed since Bill had seen them last. The old stone house and the trough prompted old memories. He had no time for them tonight.

  The horses were too warm to be given much water. They quickly guzzled up what little he offered them.

  “We’ll be in Bowie in less than two hours,” he told Paint as they started on again. “Just lay quiet and don’t try to talk.”

  Since leaving the Skull they had seen no one. Several miles north of Cain Springs, however, Bill saw a freighting outfit creeping toward them. There had been no rain here, and the eight-mule team was kicking
up clouds of dust. The skinner was perched high on his load, swaying back and forth with the roll of the wagon and warbling to himself.

  As they drew abreast, the freighter pulled up and hailed Bill. Courtesy of the country demanded that he stop too. Instead, he turned loose a flood of unintelligible Spanish and drove on.

  “The hell yuh say!” the freighter yelled back. Deciding that he had been offended, he got to his feet groggily and made the air smoke with his cursing. Bill grinned to himself and whipped up the team.

  “I can see the lights of Bowie,” he announced to Paint an hour later. “We ain’t very far out now.”

  Danger to himself began here. Both of them realized it.

  “Bill—just leave me in the wagon at the edge of town,” Paint murmured weakly. “Someone will pass and find me.”

  “No, I’ll take you in myself,” Bill demurred. “A few minutes may mean a lot to you. I’ll go across the flats and swing around by Lew Brown’s feed barn. If there ain’t no one in sight I’ll drive right into the Southards’ backyard.”

  It was quite the usual thing for men to camp out on the flat. Several wagons were there tonight. Bill kept away from them and passed the old feed barn without even being hailed.

  He was right in town now. Off to his left he could see down the main street. Presently he reached the road that led to the Rock Island depot. It ran at a right angle to the main street. He had to cross it to reach Doc Southard’s house.

  “I’m goin’ right across,” he decided. “It’ll be better than pullin’ up here and waitin’ to size things up.”

  He was halfway over the side road when two men rounded the corner from the main street, a block away. Who they were, or what business they had there, he could not tell. Without urging the team to move faster he rolled into the Southard yard.

  The two men were passing now. They glanced in his direction, and for a moment he thought they were going to stop. They went on, however, and he began to breathe easier.

  “We’re here,” he told Paint. “I’ll go to the door and call Doc …. I’ll be gittin’ along then. I—I hope yuh make it all right—”

  “If I do I’ll never forget what you did, Bill …. Take care of yourself—”

  Leading the big gelding, Bill approached the front door. Lights glowed within. At this hour Martha would be home.

  “I hope it ain’t her who comes out,” he sighed. “I want to git away without her seein’ me.”

  In answer to his knock someone approached the door. It was not Martha’s buoyant step. The next moment, to his surprise, he found Tascosa facing him.

  “Well for—” Tas started to exclaim.

  “Shut the door and step out here,” Bill cut him off.

  His tone was so tense it commanded obedience. His eyes large with questions, Tascosa followed him out.

  “Is Doc home?”

  “Why, yes—” Tas answered. “Is it to see Doc that you take a chance of runnin’ into town like this?”

  Bill told him why he was there. Tas shook his head pityingly as he heard him out, and his sympathy was as much for Bill as Paint.

  “Yo’re a precious damn fool, doin’ a thing like this!” he groaned. “What can yuh be thinkin’ of? Do yuh know Heck Short is in Bowie? I bet he’s within two blocks of yuh this second!”

  The news was not without effect on Little Bill.

  “I’ll keep out of his way,” he muttered. “You know why I had to come. Let it go at that. You and Doc git this boy in the house!”

  He put a hand on his saddle horn, ready to go.

  “Jest a minute,” Tas insisted. “Did yuh hear what happened in Bowie today? About Chilton and Beaudry, I mean.”

  “Why, no—”

  “It’ll interest yuh,” Tas promised. “Heck arrested Chilton this mornin’. Some time later Beaudry disappeared.”

  Bill soon had the facts out of him. He did not try to hide his satisfaction.

  “Kin Lamb has been appointed to fill out Beaudry’s term,” Tas went on. “It’s goin’ to be unhealthy fer a lot of yuh around here, the way things is goin’. They’re movin’ fast, Bill.”

  “They’ll be movin’ a lot faster directly,” the red-haired one scowled.

  Behind them the door opened. Through the branches of the sycamore under which they stood, Bill saw Martha. His throat tightened as he beheld her.

  “Tas—where are you?” she called.

  Bill clutched the old man’s arm. “Don’t let her know I’m here!” he whispered huskily.

  “You call your pa, Martha,” Tascosa answered her. “There’s a man here needs a doctor.”

  She left the door at once to notify her father. Since childhood she had become used to having sick and wounded men brought to their door at all times of the day and night.

  His face stony, Little Bill vaulted into his saddle.

  “Yo’re makin’ a mistake,” Tas upbraided him. “You shouldn’t go without seein’ her. Yuh may never git another chance.”

  “Don’t I know it!” Bill groaned. “Ain’t that the best reason in the world why I shouldn’t see her tonight?”

  “She often speaks of yuh,” Tas persisted. “What you’ve done ain’t turned her ag’in yuh.”

  “It will sooner or later. No use denyin’ the truth: I’m outside the law, and my life is goin’ to be lived among outlaws, doin’ as they do. That means goin’ from bad to worse. I don’t want her to remember me. Let her forget she ever knew anybody by the name of Bill Stillings.”

  Without waiting for Tascosa to speak he swung the gelding around and rode away. He was in a mood to dare anything. Before he was halfway across the flats he changed his course suddenly and headed for the depot, his brain afire with the wild, utterly reckless idea of kidnapping Blackie Chilton and forcing him to confess who had killed Waco.

  The Guthrie train was not due for almost an hour. There might be one or two sleepy-eyed travelers in the waiting-room. The ticket window would not be open, however. He could walk through the waiting-room and into the office without being seen by the agent or night operator until he opened the office door. They didn’t figure to make him any trouble when they found a gun leveled at them. If Heck Short had only a leg chain on Chilton it would be no trick to shoot off the lock.

  The tracks lay between him and the depot. At the last moment some sense of caution returned to him and he changed his mind about riding up boldly. Half a dozen stock cars stood on the siding. Leaving his horse in the brush, he stole across the tracks and climbed to the top of an empty car. On hands and knees he proceeded from one to the other until he could look into the depot.

  He took one look and dropped back out of sight. Three men lounged just inside the door. Ten yards away, in the shadow of the baggage room he caught the glow of three or four cigarettes.

  He thought he had recognized one of the three men in the waiting-room. He peered over a second time. There was no room for doubt now. The man nearest the door was Grat Sontag.

  “They’re here to take Chilton away from Short!” he told himself as he flattened down on the car. “There’s seven or eight of ’em!”

  Thought of the jack-pot he had almost walked into sent a little shiver down his spine. He lay there for a second or two, trying to decide whether to shoot it out with them or steal away unobserved.

  According to his code it was murder to shoot a man down without warning, and that held whether the man deserved killing or not. That meant giving away the advantage that was now his. Even so he did not doubt that he could pick off one or two of them.

  “I could hold off the others for a few minutes,” he said to himself, “but it wouldn’t work out for me. Before I got through with ’em, Short and this new sheriff would have me surrounded. The thing for me to do is to git out of here.”

  A freight engine clanked past the depot. A brakeman ran ahead and threw a switch to let it in on the siding. The empties were being shunted down to the railroad corrals. Bill let himself be carried down the tracks for a
hundred yards before he swung off and made his way back to his horse.

  He’d had time to think things over and he retraced his way to town, passing within a few yards of the spot where he had left Tascosa. He continued on until he was within a block of the hotel. Turning into an alley then that ran between the Bowie Mercantile Company and another store he reached the main street. Leaving his horse at the hitch-rack, he stepped back into the alley. He knew Short must pass him on his way to the depot, and he settled back to wait for him.

  Maybe fifteen minutes passed before he saw the marshal leave the hotel and start up the street.

  Heck came along with unhurried step. As he reached the entrance to the alley Bill threw a gun on him.

  “Don’t you move!” he commanded. “I’ve got you covered, Heck!”

  “Well,” Short exclaimed on recognizing him, “you’re coming pretty fast, Bill, walking right into Bowie and sticking me up.”

  “This ain’t a stick-up, Heck. I’m here to do yuh a favor, but don’t you make a move for your guns.”

  “I’m listening,” Short said calmly. “What is it?”

  “Don’t you walk into that depot alone! Grat and a bunch are there! They’re waitin’ to take Chilton away from yuh.”

  “Well, that is a favor.” Short pursed his lips thoughtfully. There was little in his calm, unruffled manner to suggest that he was well aware that the warning he had just received had possibly saved his life. “Maybe I can do you a favor,” he said softly. “I’ll tell you who killed your father …. It was Cash Beaudry.”

  With another man, Bill would have taken it as a trick to throw him off his guard with surprise. Heck Short was above anything of that sort, the circumstances considered.

  “So it was Beaudry!” Bill got out, his voice harder than chilled steel. “How long have yuh known it, Heck?—and how do yuh come to know it?”

  “I wasn’t positive until now,” Short informed him. “I knew, though, the second you told me the Sontags had come for Chilton. I take it that you heard Beaudry shook the dust of this town off his feet this morning. He’s been gone just long enough to get word to Smoke and give this bunch time to ride in here by crowding their broncs.”