The Big-Town Round-Up Read online

  CHAPTER II

  CLAY APPOINTS HIMSELF CHAPERON

  As he traveled east Clay began to slough the outward marks of hiscalling. He gave his spurs to Johnnie before he left the ranch. AtTucson he shed his chaps and left them in care of a friend at theLonghorn Corral. The six-gun with which he had shot rattlesnakes hepacked into his suitcase at El Paso. His wide-rimmed felt hat flew offwhile the head beneath it was stuck out of a window of the coachsomewhere south of Denver. Before he passed under the Welcome Arch inthat city the silk kerchief had been removed from his brown neck andretired to the hip pocket which formerly held his forty-five.

  The young cattleman began to flatter himself that nobody could now tellhe was a wild man from the hills who had never been curried. He mighthave spared himself the illusion. Everybody he met knew that thisclean-cut young athlete, with the heavy coat of tan on his good-lookingface, was a product of the open range. The lightness of his stride,the breadth of the well-packed shoulders, the frankness of the steadyeyes, all advertised him a son of Arizona.

  It was just before noon at one of the small plains towns east of Denverthat a girl got on the train and was taken by the porter to a sectionback of Clay Lindsay. The man from Arizona noticed that she wasrefreshingly pretty in an unsophisticated way.

  A little later he had a chance to confirm this judgment, for thedining-car manager seated her opposite him at a table for two. WhenClay handed her the menu card she murmured "Thank you!" with a rush ofcolor to her cheeks and looked helplessly at the list in her hand.Quite plainly she was taking her first long journey.

  "Do I have to order everything that is here?" she presently asked shylyafter a tentative and furtive glance at her table companion.

  Clay felt no inclination to smile at her naivete. He was not very muchmore experienced than she was in such things, but his ignorance offorms never embarrassed him. They were details that seemed to him tohave no importance.

  The cowpuncher helped her fill the order card. She put herselfentirely in his hands and was willing to eat whatever he suggestedunbiased by preferences of her own. He included chicken salad and icecream. From the justice she did her lunch he concluded that his choicehad been a wise one.

  She was a round, soft, little person with constant intimations of achildhood not long outgrown. Dimples ran in and out her pink cheeks atthe slightest excuse. The blue eyes were innocently wide and theCupid's-bow mouth invitingly sweet. The girl from Brush, Colorado, wasabout as worldly-wise as a plump, cooing infant or a fluffy kitten, andinstinctively the eye caressed her with the same tenderness.

  During the course of lunch she confided that her name was Kitty Mason,that she was an orphan, and that she was on her way to New York tostudy at a school for moving-picture actresses.

  "I sent my photograph and the manager wrote back that my face was onehundred per cent perfect for the movies," the girl explained.

  It was clear that she was expecting to be manufactured into a film starin a week or two. Clay doubted whether the process was quite so easy,even with a young woman who bloomed in the diner like a rose of thedesert.

  After they had finished eating, the range-rider turned in at thesmoking compartment and enjoyed a cigar. He fell into casual talk withan army officer who had served in the Southwest, and it was three hourslater when he returned to his own seat in the car.

  A hard-faced man in a suit of checks more than a shade too loud wassitting in the section beside the girl from Brush. He was making talkin an assured, familiar way, and the girl was listening to him shylyand yet eagerly. The man was a variation of a type known to Lindsay.That type was the Arizona bad-man. If this expensively dressed fellowwas not the Eastern equivalent of the Western gunman, Clay's experiencewas badly at fault. The fishy, expressionless eyes, the colorlessface, the tight-lipped jaw, expressed a sinister personality and adangerous one. Just now a suave good-humor veiled the evil of him, butthe cowpuncher knew him for a wolf none the less.

  Clay had already made friends with the Pullman conductor. He driftedto him now on the search for information.

  "The hard-faced guy with the little girl?" he asked casually after theproffer of a cigar. "The one with the muscles bulging out all overhim--who is he?"

  "He comes by that tough mug honestly. That's Jerry Durand."

  "The prize-fighter?"

  "Yep. Used to be. He's a gang leader in New York now. On his wayback from the big fight in 'Frisco."

  "He was some scrapper," admitted the range-rider. "Almost won thechampionship once, didn't he?"

  "Lost on a foul. He always was a dirty fighter. I saw him the time heknocked out Reddy Moran."

  "What do you mean gang leader?"

  "He's boss of his district, they say. Runs a gambling-house of hisown, I've heard. You can't prove it by me."

  When Lindsay returned to his place he settled himself with a magazinein a seat where he could see Kitty and her new friend. The veryvitality of the girl's young life was no doubt a temptation to thisman. The soft, rounded throat line, the oval cheek's rich coloring soeasily moved to ebb and flow, the carmine of the full red lips: everydetail helped to confirm the impression of a sensuous young creature,innocent as a wild thing of the forests and as yet almost asunspiritual. She was a child of the senses, and the man sitting besideher was weighing and appraising her with a keen and hungry avidity.

  Durand took the girl in to dinner with him and they sat not far fromLindsay. Kitty was lost to any memory of those about her. She wasflirting joyously with a sense of newly awakened powers. The man fromGraham County, Arizona, felt uneasy in his mind. The girl was flushedwith fife. In a way she was celebrating her escape from the narrowhorizon in which she had lived. It was in the horoscope of hertemperament to run forward gayly to meet adventure, but when the manopposite her ordered wine and she sipped it reluctantly with a littlegrimace, the cowpuncher was of opinion that she was likely to get moreof this adventure than was good for her. In her unsophisticationdanger lay. For she was plainly easily influenced, and in the beat ofher healthy young blood probably there was latent passion.

  They left the diner before Clay. He passed them later in the vestibuleof the sleeper. They were looking out together on the moonlit plainthrough which the train was rushing. The arm of the man was stretchedbehind her to the railing and with the motion of the car the girlswayed back slightly against him.

  Again Clay sought the smoking compartment and was led into talk by theofficer. It was well past eleven when he rose, yawned, and announced,"I'm goin' to hit the hay."

  Most of the berths were made up and it was with a little shock ofsurprise that his eyes fell on Kitty Mason and her new friend, thesleek black head of the man close to her fair curls, his steady eyesholding her like a charmed bird while his caressing voice wove thefairy tale of New York to which she yielded herself in strange delight.

  "Don't you-all want yo' berth made up, lady?"

  It was the impatient porter who interrupted them. The girl sprang uptremulously to accept.

  "Oh, please. Is it late?" Her glance swept down the car and took inthe fact that her section alone was not made up. "I didn't know--why,what time is it?"

  "Most twelve, ma'am," replied the aggrieved porter severely.

  She flashed a look of reproach at her companion and blushed again asshe fled with her bag to the ladies' dressing-room. As for the man,Lindsay presently came on him in the smoking-room where he sat with anunlit cigar between his teeth and his feet on a chair. Behindhalf-shuttered lids his opaque eyes glittered with excitement. Clearlyhe was reviewing in his mind the progression of his triumph. Clayrestrained a good, healthy impulse to pick a row with him and go to themat with the ex-prize-fighter. But after all it was none of hisbusiness.

  The train was rolling through the cornfields of the Middle West whenthe Arizonan awoke. He was up early, but not long before Kitty Mason,who was joined at once by Durand.

  "Shucks! Nothin' to it a-tall," the r
ange-rider assured himself."That li'l' girl sure must have the number of this guy. She's flirtin'with him to beat three of a kind, but I'll bet a dogie she knows rightwhere she's at."

  Clay did not in the least believe his own argument. If he had comefrom a city he would have dismissed the matter as none of his business.But he came from the clean Southwest where every straight girl is underthe protection of every decent man. If she was in danger because ofher innocence it was up to him to look after her. There was no morecompetent man in Graham County than Clay Lindsay, but he recognizedthat this was a delicate affair in which he must move warily.

  On his way to the diner at noon the range-rider passed her again. Shewas alone for the moment and as she leaned back her soft round throatshowed a beating pulse. Her cheeks were burning and her starry eyeswere looking into the future with a happy smile.

  "You pore little maverick," the man commented silently.

  The two had the table opposite him. As the wheels raced over a culvertto the comparative quiet of the ballasted track beyond, the words ofthe man reached Clay.

  ". . . and we'll have all day to see the city, kid."

  Kitty shook her head. There was hesitation in her manner, and the manwas quick to make the most of it. She wanted to stay, wanted to skip atrain and let this competent guide show her Chicago. But somewhere,deep in her consciousness, a bell of warning was beginning to ring.Some uneasy prescience of trouble was sifting into her light heart.She was not so sure of her fairy tale, a good deal less sure of herprince.

  A second time the song of the rails lifted from a heavy, rumbling bassto a lighter note, and again a snatch of words drifted across the diner.

  ". . . the time of your young life, honey."

  The girl was crumbling a bread ball with her fingers as a vent to herrestless excitement. The heavy hand of the man moved across the tableand rested on hers. "And it won't cost you a cent, girlie," the NewYorker added.

  But the long lashes of the girl lifted and her baby-blue eyes met hiswith shy reproach. "I don't think I ought," she breathed, colorsweeping her face in a vivid flame.

  "You should worry," he scoffed.

  The chant of the wheels rose again, increased to a dull roar, anddeadened the sound of all talk. But Lindsay knew the girl wasweakening. She was no match for this big, dominant, two-fisted man.

  The jaw of the cowpuncher set. This child was not fair game for a manlike Durand. When Clay rose to leave the diner he knew that he meantto sit in and take a hand.

  Either the Limited was ahead of its time schedule or the engineer hadorders to run into the city very slowly. The train was creepingthrough the thickly settled quarter where the poorer people are herdedwhen Clay touched Durand on the shoulder.

  "Like to see you a moment in the vestibule," he said in his gentlevoice.

  The eyes of the two men met and the gambler knew at once that this manand he were destined to be enemies. Some sixth sense of safety,cultivated by a lifetime of battle, flashed him sure warning of this.The fellow meant to make trouble of some kind. The formernear-champion of the ring had not the least idea what about or in whatway. Nor did he greatly care. He had supreme confidence in hisability to look after himself. It was one factor of the stock in tradethat had made him a dominant figure in the underworld of New York. Hewas vain enough to think that if it came to the worst there were fewmen living who could best him in a rough-and-tumble fight. Certainlyno hill-billy from Arizona could do it.

  No man had ever said that Jerry Durand was not game. He rose promptlyand followed the Westerner from the car, swinging along with the light,catlike tread acquired by many pugilists.

  The floor of the vestibule had been raised and the outer door of thecar opened. Durand found time to wonder why.

  The cowpuncher turned on him with an abrupt question. "Can you swim?"

  The eyes of the ward boss narrowed. "What's that to you?" he demandedtruculently.

  "Nothin' to me, but a good deal to you. I'm aimin' to drop you in theriver when we cross."

  "Is that so?" snarled Durand. "You're quite a joker, ain't you? Well,you can't start somethin' too soon to suit me. But let's get thisclear so we'll know where we're at. What's ailin' you, rube?"

  "I don't like the color of yore hair or the cut of yore clothes,"drawled Lindsay. "You've got a sure-enough bad eye, and I'm tired oftravelin' in yore company. Let's get off, me or you one."

  In the slitted eyes of the Bowery graduate there was no heat at all.They were bleak as a heavy winter morn. "Suits me fine. You'll nottravel with me much farther. Here's where you beat the place."

  The professional lashed out suddenly with his left. But Clay was notat the receiving end of the blow. Always quick as chain lightning, hehad ducked and clinched. His steel-muscled arms tightened about thewaist of the other. A short-arm jolt to the cheek he disregarded.

  Before Durand had set himself to meet the plunge he found himselfflying through space. The gambler caught at the rail, missed it,landed on the cinders beside the roadbed, was flung instantly from hisfeet, and rolled over and over down an incline to a muddy gully.

  Clay, hanging to the brass railing, leaned out and looked back. Durandhad staggered to his feet, plastered with mud from head to knees, andwas shaking furiously a fist at him. The face of the man was venomouswith rage.

  The cowpuncher waved a debonair hand and mounted the steps again. Theporter was standing in the vestibule looking at him with amazement.

  "You throwed a man off'n this train, mistah," he charged.

  "So I did," admitted Clay, and to save his life he could not keep fromsmiling.

  The porter sputtered. This beat anything in his previous experience."But--but--it ain't allowed to open up the cah. Was you-all havin'trouble?"

  "No trouble a-tall. He bet me a cigar I couldn't put him off."

  Clay palmed a dollar and handed it to the porter as he passed into thecar. The eyes of that outraged official rolled after him. The book ofrules did not say anything about wrestling-matches in the vestibule.Besides, it happened that Durand had called him down sharply not anhour before. He decided to brush off his passengers and forget what hehad seen.

  Clay stopped in front of Kitty and said he hoped she would have notrouble making her transfer in the city. The girl was no fool. Shehad sensed the antagonism that had flared up between them in thatmoment when they had faced each other five minutes before.

  "Where's Mr. Durand?" she asked.

  "He got off."

  "But the train hasn't stopped."

  "It's just crawlin' along, and he was in a hurry."

  Her gaze rested upon an angry bruise on his cheek. It had not beenthere when last she saw him. She started to speak, then changed hermind.

  Clay seated himself beside her. "Chicago is a right big town, Ireckon. If I can help you any, Miss Kitty, I'd be glad to do what Ican."

  The girl did not answer. She was trying to work out this puzzle of whya man should get off before the train reached the station.

  "I'm a stranger myself, but I expect I can worry along somehow," hewent on cheerfully.

  "Mr. Durand didn't say anything to me about getting off," she persisted.

  "He made up his mind in a hurry. Just took a sudden notion to go."

  "Without saying anything about his suitcases?"

  "Never mentioned 'em."

  "You didn't have--any trouble with him?" she faltered.

  "Not a bit," he told her genially. "Sorry our tickets take us bydifferent roads to New York. Maybe we'll meet up with each otherthere, Miss Kitty."

  "I don't understand it," she murmured, half to herself. "Why would heget off before we reach the depot?"

  She was full of suspicions, and the bruise on the Westerner's cheek didnot tend to allay them. They were still unsatisfied when the portertook her to the end of the car to brush her clothes.

  The discretion of that young man had its limits. While he brushed thegirl he told her rap
idly what he had seen in the vestibule.

  "Was he hurt?" she asked breathlessly.

  "No 'm. I looked out and seen him standin' beside the track j'es'a-cussin' a blue streak. He's a sho-'nough bad actor, that JerryDurand."

  Kitty marched straight to her section. The eyes of the girl flashedanger.

  "Please leave my seat, sir," she told Clay.

  The Arizonan rose at once. He knew that she knew. "I was intendin' tohelp you off with yore grips," he said.

  She flamed into passionate resentment of his interference. "I'llattend to them. I can look out for myself, sir."

  With that she turned her back on him.