The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

if the P.R.N. could get away with so many sins of omission and commission what difference did it make? The strong survived, the weak perished, and perhaps it was just as well they did.

      Whoever chose Grist for this job understood the man well. Despite his colourlessness he was persistent in pushing forward the corporation's affairs, dangerous when he had positive directions to follow. Bred to Eastern standards, he never fully realized one fact concerning the West until Gillette woke him to that fact. Out here men didn't play at life as if it were a game of chess: behind every transaction stood an alternative an Easterner seldom dreamed of using—the appeal to weapons. He had been discounting this until he saw his own foreman sag to the floor of the saloon and spit out his last breath. That both sickened and warned him as nothing ever had before. For five days he kept to the Nelson hotel, and had he been left to his own thoughts he might soon have resigned. His book of rules didn't cover such a situation and he wasn't the kind to take long chances on his own responsibility. However, he wasn't long left to himself. There arrived presently the following summary order:

      MAKE HASTE AS PER INSTRUCTIONS. PRAGUE.

      Grist tore the telegram into small squares and paced fretfully down the dusty street to the railroad office. And, still shaken by the recent experience, he dispatched an extraordinarily tart response.

      DO YOU WANT ME TO SHOVEL DAKOTA IN APPLE BARRELS AND FORWARD TO YOUR OFFICE? GRIST.

      "I'm sick of it," he told himself. "Dead sick. I've a notion to quit 'em. I'll pull their chestnuts out of the fire, but I won't set up as a target. Not by a jugful of cider. If they want the south bank they've got to come into the open and give me directions I can read. And directions I can show as evidence."

      But his rebellion was brief, and close on the heels of the above war cry he sent a more explicit explanation.

      ONE PARTY UNWILLING. FINAL. GRIST.

      "Let them do the squirming now. I'll be hanged if I read between any more lines."

      He was mistaken. Back came a telegram in the same enigmatic style, as plain as a summer sky, and as subtle as three legal minds could make it.

      GLAD TO HEAR OF YOUR PROGRESS. BE SURE EVERYTHING IS LEGAL. MUCH CONFUSION AND CONFLICT OF TITLES IN A NEW TERRITORY. BETTER CHECK UP ON YOUR SURVEYS. ADVISE SEE LAND OFFICE REGARDS THAT. SALARY RAISED A HUNDRED. USE ALL EXPEDITION CONSISTENT WITH AIM IN VIEW. RANDALL.

      Had this been signed by Prague, Grist would have acted on the face value of the message forthwith. But Randall's name augured a different meaning; Randall was a miser with words, he loaded them double always. Grist settled to a close scrutiny. "He's glad to hear of my progress. That means get busy. He wants me to be sure everything is legal. All right. If a man wanted to hit me with his left hand he'd keep calling my attention to his right one. That's a plain sign to sift the gold out of what follows. Conflict of land titles—um. I know that. He knows I know it. Check up on surveys with land office. Well, by heavens!"

      He gathered the meaning. Why, this was as ancient as gilding a brick, and as crude. Grist shook his head. "They must want possession fearfully bad. How do they expect me to surround the land agent? I rise to inquire. Grist, you'll earn that extra hundred and live to spend it yet in a Federal jail."

      He folded the note, mulling the situation over and over in his mind. Finally he surrendered. Every man has a dream of creating an empire. Grist had his dream; as far as that went he already possessed the empire and was its titular ruler. But the horizons spread out. More land, more power. And if he didn't do this piece of work some less soft-hearted fellow would. "Therefore, Grist, be about the business. Be about it."

      He sought the land office. The agent saw him come, and before the P.R.N. man said anything the agent beckoned him to an inner room, closed the door, and went through all the motions of extreme secrecy. The fellow looked harried.

      "I know what you're here for," he muttered. "I know what it is."

      "You do?" was Grist's puzzled question. "Well, by Gad, you know more than I do. I'm in a state of mind."

      "I got a telegram from a certain gentleman in Washington," explained the agent. "A gentleman who exerts considerable influence in some quarters."

      "And so did I," grunted the P.R.N. man in evident relief. This made the whole thing easy. How had they managed to pull wires across all this distance? His opinion of his superiors rose.

      The agent struck his knee. "Now, for God's sake, don't give me away! I owe somebody for this job, and I'm paying my debts."

      "With perhaps an added consideration for the case in hand," suggested Grist, feeling himself in control of the situation.

      "I swear not!" exclaimed the agent earnestly. "Do you know what would happen to me if...Well, I'd wear stripes."

      "Entirely unbecoming to one of your tastes," murmured Grist. "Well, let's get to our muttons—or our beeves."

      "I do it under duress," said the agent. "If the commissioner ever got wind of it I'd be crucified and hung up as a specimen."

      "Protest registered. Ever read what Shakespeare said about protests? Never mind. Go on with the details."

      The agent leaned across the desk. "When Gillette filed he brought the location marks, and they were inserted in the application. One of those location marks ended in a figure three. The three has been changed to an eight. I won't say when or where or how or by whom. But it's been changed. Do you understand?"

      "Therefore," mused Grist, "Gillette is squatting beside water he has no right to. And that particular strip of land along the river is open to filing. Just so. But how about the responsibility of the land office? Weren't you supposed to know when he filed the location—I mean the location the application now shows—whether or not it was the place he had in mind?"

      "We're not supposed to meet a man's mind," said the agent. "He gave me the figures. I registered them. As a matter of course I looked on the record to see if that location had or had not been previously filed. That's all of my responsibility."

      Grist got up. "Very fine. You make out a new set of papers. I'll bring in one of my riders to sign 'em. He'll be the legal petitioner. Next in order is a writ of eviction. Squatters right doesn't apply on entry land, does it? Just so."

      "Gillette will contest that," muttered the agent. "There'll be a stink. But they can't prove malfeasance on me. It's his error, that's all. Not my error. I'll swear those were the figures he gave me. And what influence has he in the East, anyhow?"

      "That's the essential point. You stick to your story with a steadfast heart. Virtue is not alone in receiving rewards."

      He went out, immeasurably encouraged by the turn of events. It put him in a fighting humour. There was substantial support back of him. Gillette couldn't fight Federal authority.

      In the course of forty-eight hours he brought a P.R.N. puncher in to file, also got a writ of eviction, and also by use of sundry witnesses, had a warrant issued for Gillette on the charge of murdering his foreman. On the appointed hour and day he met the United States Marshal, one W. G. Hannery, and rode out of Nelson, bound toward the Circle G to see the writ executed and the warrant served.

      "You tried to obtain possession of these premises?" demanded the marshal, not in love with his mission.

      "No, certainly not."

      "Then what the hell about all this hocus-pocus?"

      "Listen, how near that ranch do you suppose Gillette would let me approach? How long do you figure he'd listen to me?"

      "Not much longer'n I'd listen to you, if it was me in the same skiff," said the marshal. "I'm telling you, frankly, I don't like to see a white man's country tied up by a bunch of Eastern highbinders, Grist."

      Grist smiled. "How Eastern? That strip is being filed on by one of my punchers. A son of the range, a product of the glorious West who never was east of the Dakota line and never owned more than a silver-mounted saddle in his life."

      "Gush," snorted the marshal. "I'm dry behind the ears. That's the old dodge.