With Hoops of Steel. Florence Finch Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ guard keeping alert watch, gun in hand and revolver by his side. Just before daybreak the other man returned and held guard while the first watered and saddled Tuttle’s horse and prepared breakfast. The captive was dimly conscious of the change, and then slept again until he was awakened at sunrise.

      “I had a mind to wake you by shooting a button off your coat, just to see if that would do the business,” said his host, smiling pleasantly, as he handed Tuttle the flask which had done duty the night before. “I reckon you’re about the soundest sleeper I ever saw.”

      By daylight Tuttle saw that the man was well along in middle life and that his face was smoothly shaven. Tuttle himself looked to be less than thirty years old. He was tall, broad of shoulder and big of girth, with large hands and great, round, well-muscled wrists that told of arms like limbs of oak and of legs like iron pillars.

      The young man ate his breakfast alone, his captor standing near by and talking pleasantly with him, but holding alertly a shot-gun at half cock, while crouching behind a bunch of greasewood was the Mexican with a drawn pistol in his hands. As Tuttle mounted, the tall man called out sternly:

      “Hold up your hands!”

      Tuttle hesitated for a moment, looking at him in surprise.

      “I mean it!” and the trigger of his shot-gun clicked to full cock. Tuttle’s hands went up quickly. The man came beside him and buckled on his cartridge belt, with the revolver in its holster. Then he backed to his own horse, mounted it, and leveled his shot-gun at Tuttle’s breast.

      “Now you can take down your hands and go,” he said. “But remember that I’m ridin’ behind you, ready to bang a hole through your head if you make the first motion toward your gun, or anything happens that ain’t straight. I’ll put you on the road to Plumas, and then I want you to make tracks, for we’ve got no time to waste.”

      As they rode away, Tuttle could hear the hoof beats of two horses and knew that both men were following. After a few miles the tall man called to Tuttle to halt and said, pointing to a road that wound a white line across the distance:

      “That’s your road over there, and you can go on, now alone. But I want you to remember that I’m here watchin’ you, with two loads of buckshot and six of lead, and every one of them is goin’ plumb through you if you ain’t square. You’ve been a gentleman so far, and dead game, and I’m proud to ’ve met you, Mr. Thomson Tuttle. If it ever comes my way to treat you whiter than I have this time, I’ll be glad to do it. Good-bye, sir.”

      As Tuttle rode away, he saw, from the corner of his eye, the tall man, shot-gun in hand, sitting motionless on his horse, and the other, watchful, holding a rifle, a little distance behind him. The young man put spurs to his horse and rode several miles with his eyes steadily in front of him, discreetly holding curiosity in check. He did not look back until he reached the highroad, and then he saw his two captors galloping across the plain toward their camp. He took out his pistol and examined it carefully. It was just as he had left it the night before.

      “They might have put every bullet into my head,” was his mental comment, “but they didn’t, and they might have emptied ’em all out and left me in a box. But they didn’t do that, either. I guess they played as square as they could.”

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      “

      Me, Tom Tuttle, holding up my hands while a fellow takes my gun! What will Emerson Mead say to that! Well, I reckon he wouldn’t have done different, for Emerson’s got good judgment.”

      Such was Tuttle’s soliloquy as he mounted the gradual ascent of the range that bounded the plain on the west. Alternately he chuckled and slapped his thigh in appreciation of the joke on himself, and exploded an indignant oath as mortified pride asserted itself.

      After a time he espied a black dot in a halo of dust coming down the mountain side. He considered it a moment and then decided, “It’s a man on horseback.” He took out his revolver and, holding it in his hand, made another scrutiny of the approaching figure.

      “Je-e-mima! If he don’t ride like Nick Ellhorn! I shouldn’t wonder if it’s Nick!”

      Presently the figure flourished a black sombrero and down the dusty road came a yell which began full-lunged and ended in a screeching “whee-ee-e.” Tuttle answered with a loud “hello,” and both men put spurs to their horses and were soon shaking hands.

      “What’s the news at Plumas and out at Emerson’s?” asked Tuttle.

      “Oh, things are fairly quiet at Plumas just now, but you never know when hell is going to break loose there. You’re just in time, though, for Emerson’s up to his ears in fight. Goin’ to stay?”

      “I will if Emerson needs me. I’ve been with Marshal Black over to Millbank after some counterfeiters from Colorado. He took ’em back, and, as he didn’t need me, I thought I’d just ride over here and see if you-all mightn’t be in trouble and need some help.”

      “Ain’t after anybody, then?”

      “No. But, say, Nick! I struck the darndest outfit last night! I got regularly held up!”

      “What! You! Held up?”

      “Yes, I did. Sat with my hands in the air like a fool tenderfoot while a man took my gun and cross-questioned me like a lawyer.”

      Ellhorn rolled and rocked on his horse with laughter. When he could speak he demanded the whole story, which Tuttle told him in detail.

      “What was their lay?” he asked.

      “I’ll give it up. I’ve thought of everything I could, and there ain’t a blamed thing that’ll explain it.”

      “Tommy, I reckon they need to be arrested about as bad as two men ever needed anything. Come along and we’ll corral ’em.”

      “We’ve got no warrants, Nick!”

      “Haven’t you got any in your pockets?”

      “Yes, but not for them.”

      “Tommy, you’re a deputy marshal, and that outfit took you at a disadvantage and misused you shameful. You’re an officer of the law, Tommy, and it was as bad as contempt of court! It’s our duty to arrest ’em for it and bring ’em in.”

      “But we can’t do it without warrants, Nick.”

      Ellhorn took some papers from his pocket and looked them over. “I’m lookin’ for a Mexican named Antonio Diaz,” he said. “Here’s the warrant for his arrest. Violation of the Edmunds act. You say one of these men was a Mexican. I think likely he’s Antonio. We’ll go and find out. Never mind tellin’ me how he looked,” he went on hastily, as Tuttle began to speak. “It’s likely he’s Antonio, and it’s my duty to go and find out. Of course, they’ll resist arrest, and then they’ll get their punishment for the way they treated you.”

      Tuttle looked disapproving. “Nick, what do you think would be Emerson’s judgment?”

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