Crooked Trails and Straight. William MacLeod Raine

cowpuncher with fifty dollars two weeks after pay day was a rarity. No wonder Bolt was surprised.

      “It’s not my money. Luck Cullison is going bail for him,” Maloney explained.

      “Luck Cullison!” Maloney’s words had surprised the exclamation from Curly. Why should the owner of the Circle C of all men go bail for him?

      The sheriff commented dryly on the fact. “I thought this kid was the one that shot him.”

      “That was just a happenstance. Curly shot to save his bacon. Luck don’t hold any grudge.”

      “So I should judge. Luck gave you his check, did he?”

      Bolt belonged to the political party opposed to Cullison. He had been backed by Cass Fendrick, a sheepman in feud with the cattle interests and in particular with the Circle C outfit. But he could not go back on his word. He and Maloney called together on the district attorney. An hour later Dick returned to the jail.

      “It’s all right, kid,” he told Curly. “You can shake off the dust of Saguache from your hoofs till court meets in September.”

      To Flandrau the news seemed too good for the truth. Less than twenty-four hours ago he had been waiting for the end of the road with a rope around his neck. Now he was free to slip a saddle on his pony Keno and gallop off as soon as he pleased. How such a change had been brought about he did not yet understand.

      While he and Maloney were sitting opposite each other at the New Orleans Hash House waiting for a big steak with onions he asked questions.

      “I don’t savvy Cullison’s play. Whyfor is he digging up two thousand for me? How does he know I won’t cut my stick for Mexico?”

      “How do I know it?”

      “Well, do you?”

      Maloney helped himself to the oyster crackers to pass the time. “Sure I do.”

      “How?”

      “Search me. But I know you’ll be here in September if you’re alive and kicking.”

      Flandrau persisted. “But Luck don’t owe me anything, except one pill sent promiscuous to his address. What’s he going down into his jeans for? Will you tell me that? And shove them crackers north by east. Got to fill up on something.”

      “Ain’t you as good a guesser as I am, Curly?”

      “Well then, here’s my guess. Miss Kate made him.”

      “I reckon maybe she influenced him. But why did she? You don’t figure that curly topknot of yours is disturbing her dreams any, do you?”

      “Quit your joshing and tell me why.”

      “I can’t tell you for sure. But here’s my guess. Don’t cost you a cent if you ain’t satisfied with it. First off, there was poor Mac shot by the Circle C boys. Course Mac was a horse thief, but then he was a kid too. That worried the little girl some. She got to thinking about brother Sam and how he might be in the same fix one of these days as you are now. He’s on her mind a good deal, Sam is. Same way with the old man too, I reckon, though he don’t say much. Well, she decided Soapy Stone had led you astray like he’s doing with Sam. It got to worrying her for fear her brother might need a friend some time. So she handed over her worry to the old man and made him dig up for you.”

      “That’s about it. Tell me what you know of Sam. Is he as white as the rest of the family?”

      “Sam is all right, but he has got off wrong foot first. He and the old man got to kind of disagreeing, for the kid was a wild colt. Come by it honestly from the old man too. Well, they had a row one time when Sam got into trouble. Luck told him he never wanted to see him again. Sam lit out, and next folks knew he was trailing with Soapy’s gang. Consequence is, Sam’s hitting the toboggan for Tophet by all accounts.”

      “Looks like some one ought to be able to pry him loose from that bunch,” Curly mused aloud.

      Maloney grinned across at him. “You try it, son. You’ve always led a good pious life. He sure would listen to you.”

      He had said it as a jest, but Curly did not laugh. Why not? Why shouldn’t he hunt up Sam and let him know how his folks were worrying about him? What was to hinder him from trying to wipe out some of the big debt he owed the Cullison family? He was footloose till September and out of a job. For he could not go back to the Map of Texas with his hat in his hand and a repentant whine on his lips. Why not take a hike into the hills and round up the boy? Of course Sam might not listen to him, but he could not tell that till he had tried. It had taken him scarcely a moment to make up his mind. The smile had not yet died out of Maloney’s eyes when he spoke.

      “Damn if I don’t take a crack at it.”

      The man on the other side of the table stared at him.

      “Meaning that, are you?”

      “Yep.”

      “Might be some lively if Soapy gets wise to your intentions,” he said in a casual sort of way.

      “I don’t aim to declare them out loud.”

      That was all they said about it at the time. The rest of the evening was devoted to pleasure. After dinner they took in a moving picture show. The first film was a Western melodrama and it pleased them both immensely.

      “I’d be afraid to live in a country where guns popped like they do in moving picture land,” Curly drawled. “Where is it anyhow? It ain’t Texas, nor Oklahoma, nor Wyoming, nor Montana, nor any of the spots in between, because I’ve been in all of them.”

      Maloney laughed. “Day before yesterday that’s the way I’d a-talked my own self, but now I know better. What about your little stunt? Wasn’t that warm enough for you? Didn’t guns pop enough? Don’t you talk about moving pictures!”

      After the picture show there were other things. But both of them trod the narrow path, Maloney because he was used to doing so and Flandrau because his experiences had sobered him.

      “I’m on the water wagon, Dick.” He grinned ruefully at his friend. “Nothing like locking the stable after your bronc’s been stole. I’d a-been a heap better off if I’d got on the wagon a week ago.”

      Since their way was one for several miles Maloney and Curly took the road together next morning at daybreak. Their ponies ambled along side by side at the easy gait characteristic of the Southwest. Steadily they pushed into the brown baked desert. Little dust whirls in the shape of inverted cones raced across the sand wastes. The heat danced along the road in front of them in shimmering waves.

      Your plainsman is a taciturn individual. These two rode for an hour without exchanging a syllable. Then Curly was moved to talk.

      “Can you tell me how it is a man can get fond of so Godforsaken a country? Cactus and greasewood and mesquite, and for a change mesquite and greasewood and cactus! Nothing but sand washes and sand hills, except the naked mountains ’way off with their bones sticking through. But in the mo’ning like this, when the world’s kind o’ smiley with the sunshine, or after dark when things are sorter violet soft and the mountains lose their edges—say, would you swap it for any other country on earth?”

      Maloney nodded. He had felt that emotion a hundred times, though he had never put it into words.

      At Willow Wash their ways diverged. They parted with a casual “So-long; see you later.” Curly was striking for the headwaters of Dead Cow Creek, where Soapy Stone had a horse ranch.

      He put up that night at the place of a nester in the foothills. His host looked at him curiously when he mentioned his destination, but he did not say anything. It was none of his business how many young fellows rode to Soapy’s ranch.

      Flandrau took the trail again next morning after breakfast. About two o’clock he reached a little park