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A Romance of Arizona

J >> John Murray and Mills Miller >> A Romance of Arizona




"That so?" she challenged. "Come to the birthday?"

"Not regular," he answered.

Polly glanced at him over her shoulder. It was too much for
Slim. He turned away to hide his embarrassment. Partly
recovering from his bashfulness, he coughed, preparatory to
speaking. But Polly had vanished. As one looks sheepishly for
the magician's disappearing coin, so Slim gazed at floor and
ceiling as if the girl might pop up anywhere. Spying an empty
chair behind him, he sank into it gingerly and awkwardly.

Meantime Polly returned with a broom and began sweeping out the
evidences of Slim's visit. She spoke again:

"Get them hold-ups yet that killed 'Ole Man' Terrill?" she asked.

"Not yet. But we had a new shootin' over'n our town yesterday."

Slim was doing his best to make conversation. Polly did not help
him out very freely.

"That so?" was her reply.

"Spotted Taylor shot two Chinamen."

Polly's curiosity was aroused.

"What for?" she asked, stopping her sweeping for a moment.

"Just to give the new graveyard a start," Slim chuckled.

Polly joined in his merriment.

"Spotted Taylor was always a public-spirited citizen," was her
comment.

"He sure was," assented Slim.

"Get up there. I want to sweep under that chair." Polly brushed
Slim's feet with the broom vigorously. With an elaborate "Excuse
me," Slim arose, but re-seated himself in another chair directly
in the pathway of Polly's broom.

"Get out of there, too," she cried.

"Shucks, there ain't any room for me nowhere," he muttered
disgustedly.

"You shouldn't take up so much of it."

Slim attempted to take a seat on the small gilt chair which was
Jack's wedding-present to Echo.

Polly caught sight of him in time. "Look out," she shouted.
"That chair wasn't built for a full-grown man like you."

Slim nervously replaced the chair before a writing-desk. Polly
wielded her broom about the feet of the Sheriff, who danced
clumsily about, trying to avoid her.

"You're just trying to sweep me out of here," he complained.

"Well, if you will bring dust in with you, you must expect to be
swept out," Polly replied, with a show of spirit.

Polly was shaking the mat vigorously at the door when Slim said:

"I see they buried Poker Bill this mornin'."

"Is HE dead?" It was the first Polly had heard of the passing
away of one of the characters of the Territory. She had
expressed her surprise in the of an interrogation, emphasizing
the "he," a colloquialism of the Southwest.

Slim, however, had chosen to ignore the manner of speech, and
with a grin answered: "Ye-es, that's why they buried him."

Polly laughed in spite of herself. "What did he die of?" she
asked.

As Slim was about to take a drink at the olla, he failed to hear
her.

"Eh?" he grunted.

"What did he die of?" she repeated.

"Five aces," was the sober reply of the Sheriff, before he
drained the gourd.

Polly put the broom back of the door, and was rearranging the
articles on the table, before Slim could muster up enough courage
to speak on the topic which was always uppermost in his mind when
in her presence.

"Say, Miss Polly," he began.

"If you've anything to say to me, Slim Hoover, just say it--I
can't be bothered to-day--all the fixin's and things," saucily
advised the girl.

"Well, what I want to say is--" began the Sheriff.

At this moment Bud Lane, laboring under heavy excitement, burst
open the door.

"Say, Slim, you're wanted down at the corral," he cried, paying
no heed to Polly.

"Shucks!" exclaimed the disappointed Sheriff. "What's the row?"

"I don't know--Buck McKee--he's there with some of the Lazy K
outfit. They want to see you."

Slim threw himself out the door with the mild expletive: "Darn
the luck!"

Bud turned quickly to Polly. "Did Jack pay off the mortgage last
week?" he almost shouted at the girl.

Polly stamped her foot in anger at what seemed to her to be a
totally irrelevant question to the love-making she expected: "How
do I know?" she angrily replied. "If that is all you came to see
me for, you can go and ask him. It makes me so dog-gone mad!"

Polly, with flushed face and knitted brow, left the bewildered
Bud standing in the center of the room, asking himself what it
was all about.

The sound of the voices of disputing men floated in from the
corral. Bud heard them, and comprehended its significance.

"It's all up with me," he cried, in mortal terror. "Buck McKee
has stirred up the suspicion against Jack Payson. Jack paid off
his mortgage, and they wanted to know where he raised the money.
Well, Jack can tell. If he can't, I'll confess the whole
business. I won't let him suffer for me. Buck sha'n't let an
innocent man hang for what we've done."

The sound of footsteps on the piazza and the opening of the door
drove Bud to take refuge in an adjoining room, where he could
overhear all that was happening. He closed the door as the
cow-punchers entered with Slim at their head.


CHAPTER XI
Accusation and Confession

Buck McKee had not been idle in the days following the slaying of
'Ole Man' Terrill. Having learned that Slim and his posse had
discovered only the fact that the murderer had ridden a pacing
horse to the ford, McKee took full advantage of this fact. In
the cow-camps, the barrooms, and at the railroad-station he
hinted, at first, that a certain person every one knew could tell
a lot more about the death of the old man than he cared to have
known. After a few days he began to bring the name of Payson
into the conversation. His gossip became rumor, and then common
report. When it became known that Jack had paid off the mortgage
on his ranch, Buck came out with the accusation that Payson was
the murderer. Finding that he was listened to, Buck made the
direct charge that Payson had killed the station-agent, and with
the proceeds of the robbery was paying off his old debts.

Gathering his own men about him, and being joined by the idle
hangers-on, which are to be found about every town, Buck lead his
party to the ranch on the Sweetwater to accuse Jack, and so throw
off, in advance, any suspicions which might attach to himself.

Fortunately, Slim happened to be at Jack's ranch at the time.
When he entered the corral he found Jack's accusers and defenders
rapidly nearing a battle.

Jack was taking the charges coolly enough, as he did not know
what support McKee had manufactured to uphold the charges he
made. Slim informed McKee he would listen to what he had to say,
and if afterward he thought Jack guilty, he would place him under
arrest. For all concerned it would be better to go into the
house. The Sweetwater boys surrounded Jack as they followed Slim
into the living-room. Lining up in opposing groups, Slim stood
in the center to serve as judge and jury, with Buck and Jack at
his right and left hand.

Inside the door Jack said: "Keep as quiet as you can, boys. I
don't want to alarm my wife. Now what is it?"

The punchers hushed their discussion of the charge, and listened
attentively to what the men most interested had to say.

"Well, darn it all," apologized the Sheriff to Jack, "it's all
darn fool business, anyway. Buck here he started it."

Jack smiled sarcastically, and, glancing at McKee, remarked:
"Buck McKee's started a good many things in his day--"

Buck began to bluster. He could not face Jack fairly. Already
placed on the defense, when he had considered he would be the
accuser, McKee took refuge in the plea of being wronged by false
suspicion.

"I ain't goin'," he whined, "to have folks suspicion me of any
such doin's as the killin' of 'Ole Man' Terrill. I got a witness
to prove I wasn't in twenty miles of the place."

"Who's your witness?" asked Slim, in his most judicial tones.

"Bud Lane--me an' him rode over to the weddin' together--from the
Lazy K, an' I was put out as not fittin' to be there, an' by that
very man there that did the killin'."

The punchers had to grin, in spite of the seriousness of the
occasion. Buck appeared to be deeply hurt at the unceremonious
way he had been left out at the feast.

"What makes you point to me as the man?" asked Jack quietly.

"You was late gettin' to your own weddin'."

Fresno could not repress his feelings any longer. He started
angrily toward McKee, but Jack and Sage-brush held him back. The
others were about to follow his lead, when Slim motioned them
back with the caution: "Keep out of this, boys!"

"I was late," explained Jack, "but I told you I rode around to
the station to get a wedding-present I ordered for my wife--"

Jim interrupted him to substantiate the statement. Pointing to a
chair, he said: "That's so. There it is, too--that there
chair."

The Sweetwater outfit nodded in acquiescence, but the others
looked incredulous.

Buck sneered at the defense which Jack made. "Nobody saw you
over that way, did they?"

"I saw Terrill. It must have been just before he was killed. I
didn't meet anybody else." Jack showed no trace of temper under
the inquisition.

"Of course you saw him before he was killed--about a minute.
Mebbe you didn't plug him the next minute with a .44."

The charge roused Sage-brush's fighting blood. Drawing his gun,
he attempted to get a fair shot at the accuser. Fresno and Show
Low grabbed him by the arms, holding him back. The foreman
shouted: "There'll be some one plugged right now if you-all make
another break like that."

Slim waved his hands over his head, driving the men backward, as
if he were shooing away a flock of chickens.

"Easy now--easy," he drawled. "There ain't a-goin' to be nothin'
doin' here, 'cept law an' justice."

Buck laughed sneeringly at the wavering of his men. He would
have to do something to put more heart into them and regain the
ground he had lost by his single-handed conduct of the case.

"There ain't, eh?" he asked contemptuously. "Well, it's lucky I
brought some of my own outfit with me."

"Mebbe you'll need them if you get too careless with your talk,"
answered the unruffled Sheriff.

Turning to Jack, Slim said: "This fool thing can be settled with
one word from you."

The young ranchman listened to the Sheriff earnestly. He wished
to clear himself forever of all suspicion. He did not want Echo
ever to hear that there was a false impression abroad that she
was the wife of a slayer. "What is it?" he asked simply.

"Why, you paid off a mortgage of an even three thousan' dollars
last week, didn't you?"

"Yes, what has that to do with it?" he asked.

Buck broke in at this point. Here was the strongest card that he
had in his hand, and the Sheriff had played it to McKee's
advantage.

"Plenty," Buck shouted. "Old Terrill was shot and killed and
robbed, an' the man who did it got just three thousan' dollars."

"An' you mean to say that the boss here--" began Sage-brush, in
his anger making a rush at McKee. He was held back, but the
disturbance attracted Echo and Mrs. Allen from the kitchen. Echo
hurried to her husband's side. He slipped his arm about her
waist, and together they faced his accuser.

"All you got to say is where did you get that money," cried Buck,
who had seen Dick Lane pay it to Payson, and conjectured that
Payson did not dare to reveal the fact of this payment, with all
the disclosure it implied.

"Why, it was paid to me by--" Then Jack stopped. He could not
tell who gave him the money without revealing to Echo the return
of Dick. The whole miserable lie would then come out. Echo
noticed Jack's hesitancy.

"What is it--what's the matter?" she asked, in frightened tones.

"Nothing, nothing," he answered lightly, to lessen her terror.

"Hats off, everybody," commanded Slim, in deference to the
presence of Echo.

"Who are these men--what's wrong?" pleaded Echo.

Buck bowed to the trembling woman, who had thrown her arms about
her husband's neck.

"Nothin'," he exclaimed. "Only we want to know where your
husband got the money to pay off the mortgage on this ranch."

The request seemed a very simple one to Echo. All the talk of
harming Jack, the high words, the threats, could be silenced
easily by her hero. Smiling into his eyes, Echo said: "Tell
them, Jack."

"I can't," he faltered.

"It was paid to him by a friend," bravely began Echo. "A friend
to whom he lent it some time ago."

Buck interrupted her explanation. "Then let him tell his
friend's name, and where we can find him." Turning to Jack, he
bullied: "Come on--what's his name?"

Jack closed his eyes to shut out the sight of his wife. In his
agony he clenched his fists, until his nails sank into the flesh.
"I can't tell you that," he cried, in misery.

"Of course he can't," sneered Buck, smiling evilly in his
triumph.

"He can't account for himself on the night of the weddin'; he
rides a pacin' horse--rode on that night; he gets three thousan'
dollars paid him, and he can't tell who paid it; what's the
verdict?" Buck did not wait for an answer. Raising his voice,
he shouted: "Guilty."

"Damn you," bellowed Sage-brush, lunging toward him, only to be
held in restraint by his associates.

"Jack! Jack! what have you to say?" begged Echo.

"Nothing," was his only answer.

"Tell him he lies!" cried Sage-brush. "Jack, we all know you--
you're as white a man as ever lived, an' they ain't one of this
outfit that ain't ready to die for you right now--"

"You bet!" chorused his men.

"He ain't goin' to get off like that," declared Buck. Looking
confidently at his own followers, he said: "The Lazy K can take
care of him."

Buck's men moved closer to him, preparing to draw their guns, if
need be, and open fire on Jack's defenders.

"Look out, boss!" warned Sage-brush, at the hostile movement of
Buck and his punchers.

"Hold on!" drawled the Sheriff, who, as the danger grew more
real, became more deliberate in his movements. "They ain't goin'
to be nothin' done here unless it's done in the law--you all know
me, boys--I'm the sheriff--this man's my prisoner." Pointing to
Jack, he added: "There ain't nobody goin' to take him from me--
an' live."

Buck saw Jack slipping from his clutches. "You're not goin' to
be bluffed by one man, are you, boys?"

"No," his punchers answered in unison, crowding toward Jack, who
held up his hand and cried: "Stop! I want a fair deal, and I'll
get it."

"I'll settle this thing all right. All I ask is a few words
alone with my wife."

Jack clasped Echo to his breast as he begged this boon from the
men who sought his life.

"No!" blustered Buck.

"Yes," ordered Slim quietly but emphatically. "Payson--you'll
give me your word you won't try to escape?"

"Yes," agreed Jack.

"His word don't go with us," shouted Buck.

Slim laid his hand on the butt of his revolver, ready to draw, if
necessary, to enforce his command. Buck saw the movement, and
shouted to him: "Keep your hand away from that gun, Sheriff. You
know I am quick on the draw." He significantly fingered his
holster as he spoke.

"So I've heard tell," agreed Slim, hastily withdrawing his hand
from his revolver.

Slim appeared to agree to the surrender of Jack to Buck and his
punchers, permitting them to deal with him as they saw fit. He
fumbled in his left-hand waistcoat pocket, pulling out a bag of
tobacco and a package of rice paper. Ostentatiously he began to
roll a cigarette. Then, with the quickness of a cat, his left
hand was plunged in the inside right-hand pocket of his
waistcoat. Grasping a revolver by the muzzle he deftly jerked it
upward, and seized the handle in its flight. He covered Buck
McKee before that worthy realized what had happened. With his
right hand Slim pulled the weapon which swung at his hip, and
aimed it at the other boys of the Lazy K. The guns moved up and
down the line, backed by the Sheriff's usually mild blue eyes,
coldly steady now at the call to battle.

"I'll give you a lesson in pullin' guns, though," he declared,
his voice as steady as his hands. "Don't move, Buck," he warned,
as McKee wavered. "Nor any others of you. I'm playin' this hand
alone. Buck McKee, you've been flirtin' with a tombstone for
some time. Hands up, gents," he ordered, raising the pistols
significantly.

"I said GENTS," he repeated, when Buck McKee did not obey him
with alacrity. The balked leader of the Lazy K outfit
reluctantly held his hands aloft.

"Sage-brush!" called Slim.

"Here," answered the foreman, covering a man with his revolver.

"Parenthesis!" summoned the Sheriff.

"Here," the man of the bowlegs replied, as he drew his gun.

"Me, too," cried Fresno, while Show Low came to the front with
"An' likewise here."

When the Lazy K outfit was thoroughly under subjection, Slim
stepped forward and said: "Now, gentlemen, if you please. You
see, this yere's my party an' I regalate it my way. Jack here
gave his word to stay and face this thing out. He's a-goin' to
do it. I'm responsible for him--Sage-brush, you will collect at
the door sech articles of hardware as these gentlemen has in
their belts--I deputize you. Gents, as you walk out the do', you
will deposit yo' weapons with Mr. Sage-brush Charley--the same to
be returned to you when the court sees fit and proper."

"You ain't goin' to let him--" Buck did not finish the sentence,
for Slim, thoroughly aroused, shouted: "Buck McKee, if you say
another word, I'm goin' to kill you. Gents, there's the door--
your hosses are in the corral--get."

Preceded by some of the Sweetwater boys, the Lazy K outfit filed
out, Sage-brush taking their guns as they passed him. Fresno and
Parenthesis brought up the rear.

"He needn't think he'll escape. We're bound to have him,"
declared Buck.

"Are you goin'?" demanded Slim, his voice full of menace.

"Can't you see me?" sneered Buck.

Sage-brush relieved him of his gun as he passed, handing it to
Fresno. Buck paused in the doorway long enough to lament: "Talk
of hospitality. I never get in but what I am put out."

Slim watched McKee from the window until he disappeared through
the gate of the corral. Then walking down to Jack, he took him
by the hand.

"It'll be all right in an hour--thank you, boys," Payson assured
them.

"We all know you are the whitest man on the Sweetwater," assured
Sage-brush, speaking for the punchers, as they left Jack a
prisoner with Slim.

Speaking in a low tone, Jim asked Jack: "Where did you get that
money?"

"Don't you know?" he asked, in surprise.

"From--"

Jack nodded his head.

"I'll wait for you in the other room," said Slim.

"Maw, Polly, we all better leave 'em alone."

As the woman and the girl left the room, the old ranchman paused
at the doorway, leading to the kitchen, to advise his son-in-law
earnestly: "I 'low you better tell her; it's best."

The two young people were left alone in the room in which they
had passed so many happy hours to face a crisis in their lives.
The day which had begun sunnily was to end in darkest clouds. The
awful accusation was incredible to Echo. Her faith in her
husband was not shaken. Jack, she felt, could explain. But, no
matter what the outcome might be, she would be loyal to the man
she loved. On this point she was wholly confident. Had she not
pledged her faith at the marriage altar?

"Jack?" a volume of questions was in the word. Taking her hands
in his and looking searchingly in her eyes, he said:

"Before I tell you what's been on my mind these many weeks--I
want to hold you in my arms and hear you say: 'Jack, I believe
in you.'"

Echo put her arms about his neck and, nestling close to his
breast, declared: "I do believe in you--no matter what
circumstances may be against you. No matter if all the world
calls you guilty--I believe in you, and love you."

Jack seated himself at the table, and drew his wife down beside
him. Putting his arms about her as she knelt before him, he
murmured: "You're a wife--a wife of the West, as fair as its
skies and as steadfast as its hills--and I--I'm not worthy--"

"Not worthy--you haven't--it isn't--" gasped Echo, starting back
from him, thinking that Jack was about to confess that under some
strange stress of circumstances he had slain the express-agent.

"No, it isn't that," hastily answered Jack, with a shudder at the
idea. "I've lied to you," he simply confessed.

"Lied to me--you?" cried Echo, in dismay.

"I've been a living lie for months," relentlessly continued Jack,
nerving himself for the ordeal through which he would have to
pass.

"Jack," wailed Echo, shrinking from him on her knees, covering
her face with her hands.

"It's about Dick."

Echo started. Again Dick Lane had arisen as from out the grave.

"What of him?" she asked, rising to her feet and moving away from
him.

"He is alive."

Jack did not dare look at his wife. He sat with his face white
and pinched with anguish.

The young wife groaned in her agony. The blow had fallen. Dick
alive, and she now the wife of another man? What of her promise?
What must he think of her?

"I didn't know it until after we were engaged," pursued Jack;
"six months. It was the day I questioned you about whether you
would keep your promise to Dick if he returned. I wanted to tell
you then, but the telling meant that I should lose you. He wrote
to me from Mexico, where he had been in the hospital. He was
coming home--he enclosed this letter to you."

Jack drew from his pocket the letter which Dick enclosed in the
one which he had sent Jack, telling of his proposed return.

She took the missive mechanically, and opened it slowly.

"I wanted to be square with him--but I loved you," pleaded Jack.
"I loved you better than life, than honor--I couldn't lose you,
and so--"

His words fell on unheeding ears. She was not listening to his
pleadings. Her thoughts dwelt on Dick Lane, and what he must
think of her. She had taken refuge at the piano, on which she
bowed her head within her arms.

Slowly she arose, crushing the letter in her hand. In a low,
stunned voice she cried: "You lied to me."

Jack buried his face in his hands. "Yes," he confessed. "He
came the night we were married. I met him in the garden. He
paid that money he had borrowed from me when he went away."

Horror-struck, Echo turned to him. "He was there that night?"
she gasped. "Oh, Jack. You knew, and you never told me. I had
given my word to marry him--you, knowing that, have done this
thing to me?" Her deep emotion showed itself in her voice. The
more Jack told her the worse became her plight.

"I loved you." Jack was defending himself now, fighting for his
love.

"Did Dick believe I knew he was living?" continued the girl
mercilessly.

"He must have done so."

"Jack! Jack!" sobbed Echo, tears streaming down her face.

"What could I do? I was almost mad with fear of losing you. I
was tempted to kill him then and there. I left your father to
guard the door--to keep him out until after the ceremony."

Jack could scarcely control his voice. The sight of Echo's
suffering unmanned him.

"My father, too," wailed Echo.

"He thought only of your happiness," Jack claimed.

"What of my promise--my promise to marry Dick? Where is he?"
moaned the girl.

"He's gone back to the desert."

Over her swept the memory of the terrible dream. Dick dying of
thirst in the desert, calling for her; crushed to the earth by
Jack after battling the awful silence. She moved to the middle
of the room, as if following the summons.

"The desert, my dream," she whispered, in awe.

"He is gone out of our lives forever," cried Jack, facing her
with arms outstretched.

"And you let him go away in the belief that I knew him to be
living?" accused the wife.

"What will not a man do to keep the woman he loves? Dick Lane
has gone from our lives, he will never return," argued Jack.

"He must," screamed Echo. "There is a crime charged against
you--he must return to prove your story as to the money--He must
know through your own lips the lie that separated us."

"You love him--you love him." Jack kept repeating the words,
aghast at the knowledge that Echo seemed to be forcing upon him.

"Bring him back to me." Firmly she spoke.

Jack gazed at her in fear. Chokingly he cried again: "You love
him!"

"I don't know. All I know is that he has suffered, is suffering
now, through your treachery; bring him back to me, that I may
stand face to face with him, and say: 'I have not lied to you, I
have not betrayed your trust.'"

"You love him," he repeated.

"Find him--bring him back."

Jack was helpless, speechless. Echo's attitude overpowered him.

The wife staggered again to the piano, slowly sinking to the
seat. She had turned her back on him. This action hurt him more
than any word she had spoken. Her face was buried in her hands.
Deep sobs shook her shoulders.

Jack followed her, to take her again in his arms, but she made no
sign of forgiveness. Turning, he strode to the rack, and took
down his hat and cartridge-belt. Picking up his rifle, he firmly
declared: "I will go. I'll search the plains, the mountains,
and the deserts to find this man. I will offer my life, if it
will serve to place the life you love beside you. Good-bye."

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