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  Title: The Big-Town Round-Up

  Author: William MacLeod Raine

  Release Date: December 3, 2005 [eBook #17205]

  Language: English

  ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP***

  E-text prepared by Al Haines

  THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP

  by

  WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

  Author of

  A Man Four-Square, The Sheriff's Son, Oh, You Tex!, Etc.

  Frontispiece by George Giguere

  [Frontispiece: Hard knuckles pressed cruelly into the soft throat of the Villager. (Transcriber's note: most of illustration missing; enough of its caption remaining to locate its entirety in the book's text).]

  Grosset & Dunlap

  Publishers New York

  Made in the United States of America

  Copyright, 1920, by William Macleod Raine

  All Rights Reserved

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD I. CONCERNING A STREET TWELVE MILES LONG II. CLAY APPOINTS HIMSELF CHAPERON III. THE BIG TOWN IV. A NEW USE FOR A WATER HOSE V. A CONTRIBUTION TO THE SALVATION ARMY VI. CLAY TAKES A TRANSFER VII. ARIZONA FOLLOWS ITS LAWLESS IMPULSE VIII. "THE BEST SINGLE-BARRELED SPORT IVER I MET" IX. BEATRICE UP STAGE X. JOHNNIE SEES THE POSTMASTER XI. JOHNNIE GREEN—MATCH-MAKER XII. CLAY READS AN AD AND ANSWERS IT XIII. A LATE EVENING CALL XIV. STARRING AS A SECOND-STORY MAN XV. THE GANGMAN SEES RED XVI. A FACE IN THE NIGHT XVII. JOHNNIE MAKES A JOKE XVIII. BEATRICE GIVES AN OPTION XIX. A LADY WEARS A RING XX. THE CAUTIOUS GUY SLIPS UP XXI. AT THE HEAD OF THE STAIRS XXII. TWO MEN IN A LOCKED ROOM XXIII. JOHNNIE COMES INTO HIS OWN XXIV. CLAY LAYS DOWN THE LAW XXV. JOHNNIE SAYS HE IS MUCH OBLIGED XXVI. A LOCKED GATE XXVII. "NO VIOLENCE" XXVIII. IN BAD XXIX. BAD NEWS XXX. BEE MAKES A MORNING CALL XXXI. INTO THE HANDS OF HIS ENEMY XXXII. MR. LINDSAY RECEIVES XXXIII. BROMFIELD MAKES AN OFFER XXXIV. BEATRICE QUALIFIES AS A SHERLOCK HOLMES XXXV. TWO AND TWO MAKE FOUR XXXVI. A BOOMERANG XXXVII. ON THE CARPET XXXVIII. A CONVERSATION ABOUT STOCK XXXIX. IN CENTRAL PARK XL. CLAY PLAYS SECOND FIDDLE XLI. THE NEW DAY

  THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP

  FOREWORD

  The driver of the big car throttled down. Since he had swung away from the dusty road to follow a wagon track across the desert, the speedometer had registered many miles. His eyes searched the ground in front to see whether the track led up the brow of the hill or dipped into the sandy wash.

  On the breeze there floated to him the faint, insistent bawl of thirsty cattle. The car leaped forward again, climbed the hill, and closed in upon a remuda of horses watched by two wranglers.

  The chauffeur stopped the machine and shouted a question at the nearest rider, who swung his mount and cantered up. He was a lean, tanned youth in overalls, jumper, wide sombrero, high-heeled boots, and shiny leather chaps. A girl in the tonneau appraised with quick, eager eyes this horseman of the plains. Perhaps she found him less picturesque than she had hoped. He was not there for moving-picture purposes. Nothing on horse or man held its place for any reason except utility. The leathers protected the legs of the boy from the spines of the cactus and the thorns of the mesquite, the wide flap of the hat his face from the slash of catclaws when he drove headlong through the brush after flying cattle. The steel horn of the saddle was built to check a half-ton of bolting hill steer and fling it instantly. The rope, the Spanish bit, the tapaderas, all could justify their place in his equipment.

  "Where's the round-up?" asked the driver.

  The coffee-brown youth gave a little lift of his head to the right. He was apparently a man of few words. But his answer sufficed. The bawling of anxious cattle was now loud and persistent.

  The car moved forward to the edge of the mesa and dropped into the valley. The girl in the back seat gave a little scream of delight. Here at last was the West she had read about in books and seen on the screen.

  This was Cattleland's hour of hours. The parada grounds were occupied by two circles of cattle, each fenced by eight or ten horsemen. The nearer one was the beef herd, beyond this—and closer to the mouth of the cañon from which they had all recently been driven—was a mass of closely packed cows and calves.

  The automobile swept around the beef herd and drew to a halt between it and the noisier one beyond. In a fire of mesquite wood branding-irons were heating. Several men were busy branding and marking the calves dragged to them from the herd by the horsemen who were roping the frightened little blatters.

  It was a day beautiful even for Arizona. The winey air called potently to the youth in the girl. Such a sky, such atmosphere, so much life and color! She could not sit still any longer. With a movement of her wrist she opened the door and stepped down from the car.

  A man sitting beside the chauffeur turned in his seat. "You'd better stay where you are, honey." He had an idea that this was not exactly the scene a girl of seventeen ought to see at close range.

  "I want to get the kinks out of my muscles, Dad," the girl called back.

  "I'll not go far."

  She walked along a ridge that ran from the mesa into the valley like an outstretched tongue. Her hands were in the pockets of her fawn-colored coat. There was a touch of unstudied jauntiness in the way the tips of her golden curls escaped from beneath the little brown toque she wore. A young man guarding the beef herd watched her curiously. She moved with the untamed, joyous freedom of a sun-worshiper just emerging from the morning of the world. Something in the poise of the light, boyish figure struck a spark from his imagination.

  A vaquero was cantering toward the fire with a calf in his wake. Another cowpuncher dropped the loop of his lariat on the ground, gave it a little upward twist as the calf passed over it, jerked taut the riata, and caught the animal by the hind leg. In a moment the victim lay stretched on the ground. In the gathering gloom the girl could not quite make out what the men were doing. To her sensitive nostrils drifted an acrid odor of burnt hair and flesh, the wail of an animal in pain. One of the men was using his knife on the ears of the helpless creature. She heard another say something about a crop and an underbit. Then she turned away, faint and indignant. Three big men torturing a month-old calf—was this the brave outdoor West she had read about and remembered from her childhood days? Tears of pity and resentment blurred her sight.

  As she stood on the spit of the ridge, a slim, light figure silhouetted against the skyline, the young man guarding the beef herd called something to her that was lost in the bawling of the cattle. From the motion of his hand she knew that he was telling her to get back to the car. But the girl saw no reason for obeying the orders of a range-rider she had never seen before and never expected to see again. Nobody had ever told her that a rider is fairly safe among the wildest hill cattle, but a man on foot is liable to attack at any time when a herd is excited.

  She turned her shoulder a little more definitely to the man who had warned her and looked across the parada grounds to the hills swimming in a haze of violet velvet. Her heart throbbed to a keen delight in them, as it might have done at the touch of a dear friend's hand long absent. For she had been born in the Rockies. They belonged to her and she to them. Long years in New York had left her still an alien.

  A shout of warning startled her. Above the bellowing of the herd she heard another yell.

  "Hi-yi-ya-a!"

  A red-eyed steer, tail up, was crashing through the small brush toward the brand
ers. There was a wild scurry for safety. The men dropped iron and ropes and fled to their saddles. Deflected by pursuers, the animal turned. By chance it thundered straight for the girl on the sand spit.

  She stood paralyzed for a moment.

  Out of the gathering darkness a voice came to her sharp and clear. "Don't move!" It rang so vibrant with crisp command that the girl, poised for flight, stood still and waited in white terror while the huge steer lumbered toward her.

  A cowpony, wheeled as on a dollar, jumped to an instant gallop. The man riding it was the one who had warned her back to the car. Horse and ladino pounded over the ground toward her. Each stride brought them closer to each other as they converged toward the sand spit. It came to her with a gust of panicky despair that they would collide on the very spot where she stood. Yet she did not run.

  The rider, lifting his bronco forward at full speed, won by a fraction of a second. He guided in such a way as to bring his horse between her and the steer. The girl noticed that he dropped his bridle rein and crouched in the saddle, his eyes steadily upon her. Without slackening his pace in the least as he swept past, the man stooped low, caught the girl beneath the armpits, and swung her in front of him to the back of the horse. The steer pounded past so close behind that one of its horns grazed the tail of the cowpony.

  It was a superb piece of horsemanship, perfectly timed, as perfectly executed.

  The girl lay breathless in the arms of the man, her heart beating against his, her face buried in his shoulder. She was dazed, half fainting from the reaction of her fear. The next she remembered clearly was being lowered into the arms of her father.

  He held her tight, his face tortured with emotion. She was the very light of his soul, and she had shaved death by a hair's breadth. A miracle had saved her, but he would never forget the terror that had gripped him. Naturally, shaken, as he was, his relief found vent in scolding.

  "I told you to stay by the car, honey. But you're so willful. You've got to have your own way. Thank God you're safe. If . . . if . . ." His voice broke as he thought of what had so nearly been.

  The girl snuggled closer to him, her arms round his neck. His anxiety touched her nearly, and tears flooded her eyes.

  "I know, Dad. I . . . I'll be good."

  A young man descended from the car, handsome, trim, and well got up. He had been tailored by the best man's outfitter in New York. Nobody on Broadway could order a dinner better than he. The latest dances he could do perfectly. He had the reputation of knowing exactly the best thing to say on every occasion. Now he proceeded to say it.

  "Corking bit of riding—never saw better. I'll give you my hand on that, my man."

  The cowpuncher found a bunch of manicured fingers in his rough brown paw. He found something else, for after the pink hand had gone there remained a fifty-dollar bill. He looked at it helplessly for a moment; then, beneath the brown outdoor tan, a flush of anger beat into his face. Without a word he leaned forward and pressed the note into the mouth of the bronco.

  The buckskin knew its master for a very good friend. If he gave it something to eat—well, there was no harm in trying it once. The buckskin chewed placidly for a few seconds, decided that this was a practical joke, and ejected from its mouth a slimy green pulp that had recently been a treasury note.

  The father stammered his thanks to the rescuer of the girl. "I don't know what I can ever do to let you know . . . I don't know how I can ever pay you for saving . . ."

  "Forget it!" snapped the brown man curtly. He was an even-tempered youth, as genial and friendly as a half-grown pup, but just now the word "pay" irritated him as a red rag does a sulky bull.

  "If there's anything at all I can do for you—"

  "Not a thing."

  The New Yorker felt that he was not expressing himself at all happily. What he wanted was to show this young fellow that he had put him under a lifelong obligation he could never hope to wipe out.

  "If you ever come to New York—"

  "I'm not liable to go there. I don't belong there any more than you do here. Better drift back to Tucson, stranger. The parada is no place for a tenderfoot. You're in luck you're not shy one li'l' girl tromped to death. Take a fool's advice and hit the trail for town pronto before you bump into more trouble."

  The rider swung round his pony and cantered back to the beef herd.

  He left behind him a much-annoyed clubman, a perplexed and distressed father, and a girl both hurt and indignant at his brusque rejection of her father's friendly advances. The episode of the fifty-dollar bill had taken place entirely under cover. The man who had given the note and the one who had refused to accept it were the only ones who knew of it. The girl saw only that this splendid horseman who had snatched her from under the very feet of the ladino had shown a boorish discourtesy. The savor had gone out of her adventure. Her heart was sick with disappointment and indignation.

  CHAPTER I

  CONCERNING A STREET TWELVE MILES LONG

  "I like yore outfit," Red Hollister grumbled. "You're nice boys, and good to yore mothers—what few of you ain't wore their gray hairs to the grave with yore frolicsome ways. You know yore business and you got a good cook. But I'm darned if I like this thing of two meals a day, one at a quarter to twelve at night and the other a quarter past twelve, also and likewise at night."

  A tenderfoot might have thought that Hollister had some grounds for complaint. For weeks he had been crawling out of his blankets in the pre-dawn darkness of 3 A.M. He had sat shivering down beside a camp-fire to swallow a hurried breakfast and had swung into the saddle while night was still heavy over the land. He had ridden after cattle wild as deer and had wrestled with ladino steers till long after the stars were up. In the chill night he had eaten another meal, rolled up in his blankets, and fallen into instant heavy sleep. And five minutes later—or so at least it seemed to him—the cook had pounded on the triangle for him to get up.

  None the less Red's grumbling was a pretense. He would not have been anywhere else for twice the pay. This was what he lived for.

  Johnnie Green, commonly known as "the Runt," helped himself to another flank steak. He was not much of a cow-hand, but when it came to eating Johnnie was always conscientiously on the job.

  "These here New Yorkers must be awful hardy," he ventured, apropos of nothing. "Seems like they're night birds for fair. Never do go to bed, far as I can make out. They tromp the streets all day and dance at them cabby-rets all night. My feet would be all wore out."

  Stace Wallis grinned. "So would my pocketbook. I've heard tell how a fellow can pay as high as four or five dollars for an eat at them places."

  "Nothin' to it—nothin' a-tall," pronounced Red dogmatically. Hollister always knew everything. Nothing in the heavens above or the earth below could stump him. The only trouble with his knowledge was that he knew so much that wasn't true. "Can't be did. Do you reckon any o' them New Yorkers could get away with five dollars' worth of ham and aigs? Why, the Runt here couldn't eat more'n a dollar's worth."

  "Sure," assented Johnnie. It was the habit of his life to agree with the last speaker. "You're damn whistlin', Red. Why, at the Harvey House they only charge a dollar for a square, and a man couldn't get a better meal than that."

  "Onct in Denver, when I went to the stock show, I blowed myself for a meal at the Cambridge Hotel that set me back one-fifty," said Slim Leroy reminiscently. "They et dinner at night."

  "They did?" scoffed Johnnie. "Don't they know a fellow eats dinner at noon and supper at night?"

  "I ain't noticed any dinner at noon for se-ve-real weeks," Hollister contributed.

  "Some feed that," ruminated Leroy, with memories of the Cambridge Hotel still to the fore.

  "With or without?" questioned Red.

  "I reckon I had one li'l' drink with it. No more."

  "Then they stung you," pronounced Hollister.

  "Mebbeso, and mebbe not. I ain't kickin' none. I sure was in tony society. There was fellows sittin' at a table ne
ar us that had on them swallow-tail coats."

  Johnnie ventured a suggestion. "Don't you reckon if a fellow et a couple o' plates of this here cavi-eer stuff and some ice cream and cake, he might run it up to two bucks or two and a half? Don't you reckon he might, Clay?"

  Clay Lindsay laughed. "You boys know a lot about New York, just about as much as I do. I've read that a guy can drop a hundred dollars a night in a cabaret if he has a friend or two along, and never make a ripple on Broadway."

  "Does that look reasonable to you, Clay?" argued Red. "We're not talkin' about buckin' the tiger or buyin' diamonds for no actresses. We're figurin' on a guy goin' out with some friends to eat and take a few drinks and have a good time. How could he spend fifty dollars—let alone a hundred—if he let the skirts and the wheel alone and didn't tamper with no straight flushes?"

  "I'm tellin' you what I read. Take it or leave it," said Clay amiably.

  "Well, I read there's a street there twelve miles long. If a fellow started at one end of that street with a thirst he'd sure be salivated before he reached the other end of it," Stace said with a grin.

  "Wonder if a fellow could get a job there. They wouldn't have no use for a puncher, I reckon," Slim drawled.

  "Betcha Clay could get a job all right," answered Johnnie Green promptly. "He'd be top hand anywhere, Clay would."

  Johnnie was the lost dog of the B-in-a-Box ranch. It was his nature to follow somebody and lick his hand whenever it was permitted. The somebody he followed was Clay Lindsay. Johnnie was his slave, the echo of his opinions, the booster of his merits. He asked no greater happiness than to trail in the wake of his friend and get a kind word occasionally.

  The Runt had chosen as his Admirable Crichton a most engaging youth. It never had been hard for any girl to look at Clay Lindsay. His sun-tanned, good looks, the warmth of his gay smile, the poise and the easy stride of him, made Lindsay a marked man even in a country where men of splendid physique were no exception.