The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

judgment made him retreat. So after scanning the plaza and noting the rather large number of horses at the racks, he went back and continued his prowl. At the stable he again risked his skin and cat-walked down the vault. Men were just strolling away, crossing to Studd's. Evidently the roustabout had gone with them, for nobody seemed to be left behind, and after reassuring himself of the fact, Seastrom deliberately lounged to the sidewalk and draped himself against a wall.

      "Loaded for bear," he told himself, scanning the town. "Must be thirty or forty riders here. You don't draw that many men together without it meaning some sort of hell."

      Another party of about ten men racked in and halted at Studd's. Seastrom saw Shander in the saloon light and he pursed his lips thoughtfully. Shander was top dog of all this business, the king pin. His presence meant action; he was the jasper who gave orders. "They had that fight framed. Got word of us being around the Bowlus place plenty soon, all right. Now who spilled the beans? Shander's come to get the score on that affair, and I hope it chokes him. I wish I heard what his orders were."

      That reminded him of Charterhouse. He began to worry. The designated hour was nearly gone, and the feeling of Angels was beginning to touch Heck Seastrom's nerves. There was such a thing as overstaying a visit. Some fool might stumble upon the horses and raise an alarm, upon which Angels' gates would be soon shut.

      Contemplating the plaza through narrowed lids, Heck detected a tremor of excitement near the saloon. Five or six men broke away and hurried off, skirting the town's southwestern corner, like terriers smelling game. Another fellow cut straight across the plaza, and bore down on the stable. Seastrom calculated his chances in the grateful gloom and decided to stay put. The fellow passed him, plunging on through the driveway, and Seastrom, taut- muscled, identified Sheriff Wolfert. "Going so fast his shirt tail's flapping," muttered the dynamic puncher. Instantly was born a rash decision. He let Wolfert get out in the back area before trotting silently in pursuit.

      The sheriff had swung along the back line in the direction of Madame LeSeur's. "Wonder if that drum-bellied cook told him? Well—" He followed carefully. Wolfert stopped. A door opened and the sheriff ducked inside. Seastrom approached, drawing himself more tightly to the building wall at each step; he had not reached nearer than twenty feet of the door when Wolfert came out, illumined in a patch of light, and started back.

      Coming so rapidly, Seastrom was caught unprepared. Instantly he obeyed his fundamental instinct, which was to use his own magnificent strength. Throwing out both arms, he smashed into the fast-traveling Wolfert and snapped all his muscles into a mighty bone-crushing hug. The impact carried both of them to the ground, Wolfert, unloosing a strangled yell and twisting as some madman.

      "Here, cut that out!" grunted Seastrom. "You want the whole town to know what's going on? Oh, so you do, do you! Well, if I got to smack you—"

      Somebody ran out of the hotel kitchen and Seastrom found himself trapped. That yell had wakened the town; there was a sudden traffic around the stable. Lights popped out of second- story windows. Seastrom, unable to control Wolfert's knees and finding the resistance more than he had calculated, decided to wind up a bad bargain before he was swamped. Letting go with one- hand, he started to rise. Wolfert pulled him back to the ground, shouting again. The hotel cook responded. "I'm coming. Hold on—"

      "Hold hell!" grunted Seastrom, going hog-wild. He cramped the sheriff in his arms, hoisted the man bodily, whirled and flung him into the cook's path with every cataclysmic ounce of strength. He heard the impact and it satisfied him. Without further argument, he leaped away from the buildings, setting a dead course for the slaughterhouse. Then the shooting began. The cook yelled frantically. Wolfert lifted a gasping warning. Bullets clipped along the earth to either side of Seastrom but he refused to open a return fire and reveal his location. Diving around the slaughterhouse, he straightened in a mad rush, reached the stinking hide shed and seized his horse.

      "Now I've got to get out of here and draw this damned town's attention another direction before they find Charterhouse's animal. If there was ever a borned fool, here he sits!"

      Time was short but he walked the pony twenty yards away from the slaughterhouse before applying spurs. He aimed east, veered and swept west. Presently he was facing the plaza from the sundown end and cracking bullets along the street to draw the embattled citizens away from the slaughterhouse and away from the direction Charter-house had to go. The plaza was swarming with men; they came stumbling out of Studd's, out of the hotel, out of the dimly lit recess along the south side. Horses bunched; one stampeded crazily away. Guns answered, drawn by Seastrom's own flashing muzzle. Being a canny young man, he backed off beyond dangerous range, all the while watching the shadows.

      "If Clint ain't hung up, he ought to be on his way by now," reflected the lone and somewhat bruised Box M puncher. "And I reckon I'll have to pull stakes and hike."

      Heck started to cut around for the slaughterhouse again but saw he would never make it; a line of horsemen struck out from the plaza furiously and so wedged him off from that direction. He hauled about and raced for the southwest, worried and fretful. The pursuers had picked up his trail and were in stiff pursuit. Twice he started to curl off for the east and so reach the party in Bowlus' clearing; but each time he lost ground and found the others closing on him. So he settled down to run them out.

      Meanwhile Clint Charterhouse, desperately trapped, had been granted a reprieve. Within two yards of a groping searcher, whose fingers were closing around the doorknob of the sheriff's office, he waited for the flood of light to come through. It was then the sudden shots from beyond the plaza broke like a warning gong. The searcher ripped open the door and plunged straight on through to the street without glancing back.

      Those waiting in the rear of the jail broke for the nearest alley; and in the confusion Clint Charterhouse' gambled on boldness. The sheriff's room was emptied; he pulled down his hat, ran through the room and gained the comparative darkness of the plaza, jostled by men to either side. Still in this human stream, he gained the stable, hurried through and settled for the slaughterhouse, vaulting over corral bars, going kneedeep in the slush of a water trough, and bruising himself badly against a wagon. But he gained the shed before others had begun to search that far from the buildings; and finding Seastrom's horse gone, he wasted no more time lining out for the ridge. The irrepressible Heck, he believed, had gotten into hot water and retreated according to instructions.

      He set a fast pace, crossed the ridge, and hurried through the trees to the Bowlus clearing. Expecting guards to challenge, he slowed down. But there was no life in the clearing and no glimmer of light; he whistled softly, receiving only the echo for reply. Disturbed, he dismounted and poked his head into the cabin. After a tentative inspection he entered to try the bunk. But Bowlus had disappeared, too.

      CHAPTER X

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      Clint suspected a trap and retreated from the cabin in long, swift backward paces. Yet it appeared unreasonably strange that the trustworthy and matter-of-fact Fitzgibbon would pull away without powerful incentive. Striking around the cabin, Clint poked into the barn, angled across the meadow and came back to crouch down against the earth. Yet as the moments dragged by he heard only the sigh of the wind, the chant of the night creatures and the mysterious undertone of the prairie night. His own subtle senses, which he trusted so greatly, were quiescent; the meadow was empty. He went inside the cabin and ventured to strike a match, but the flare of light told him nothing. No signs, no apparent messages—nothing. Box M had departed, Bowlus had likewise gone, and Heck Seastrom was overdue.

      Clint went out and climbed into the saddle, tarrying there with half-lifted reins while he turned the problem in his mind. Fitz might have decided to hit Shander a backhand wallop, he might have been driven off by a fresh attack from the renegades, he might have grown nervous and shifted ground, or he might have returned to Box M. None of these possibilities appealed to the fast-thinking Clint excepting the last. He recalled Haggerty's remark in the sheriff's office. Haggerty had been sent down to warn the Box M contingent. Whatever the warning and whoever had issued it, this empty meadow seemed to indicate Fitz had