Clarence E. Mulford_Hopalong Cassidy 04 (15 page)

"Why
I
ain't no hoss-thief, you liar!" Hopalong yelled. "My name's
Hopalong Cassidy of the Bar-20, an' when I tell my friends about what
you've gone an' done they'll make you hard to find! You gimme any kind
of a chance an' I'll do it all by myself, sick as I am, you yaller
dogs!"

"Is that yore cayuse?" demanded Charley, pointing.

Hopalong squinted towards the animal indicated. "Which one?"

"There's only one there, you fool!"

"That so?" replied Hopalong, surprised. "Well, I never seen it afore.
My cayuse is—is—where the devil
is
it?" he asked, looking around
anxiously.

"How'd you get that one, then, if it ain't yours?"

"Never had it—'t ain't mine, nohow," replied Hopalong, with strong
conviction. "Mine was a
hoss
."

"You stole that cayuse last night outen Stevenson's corral," continued
Charley, merely as a matter of form. Charley believed that a man had the
right to be heard before he died—it wouldn't change the result and so
could not do any harm.

"Did I? Why—" his forehead became furrowed again, but the events of
the night before were vague in his memory and he only stumbled in
his soliloquy. "But
I
wouldn't swap my cayuse for that spavined,
saddle-galled, ring-boned bone-yard! Why, it interferes, an' it's got
the heaves something awful!" he finished triumphantly, as if an appeal
to common sense would clinch things. But he made no headway against
them, for the rope went around his neck almost before he had finished
talking and a flurry of excitement ensued. When the dust settled he was
on his back again and the rope was being tossed over the limb.

The crowd had been too busily occupied to notice anything away from the
scene of their strife and were greatly surprised when they heard a hail
and saw a stranger sliding to a stand not twenty feet from them. "What's
this?" demanded the newcomer, angrily.

Charley's gun glinted as it swung up and the stranger swore again. "What
you doing?" he shouted. "Take that gun off'n me or I'll blow you apart!"

"Mind yore business an' sit still!" Charley snapped. "You ain't in no
position to blow anything apart. We've got a hoss-thief an' we're shore
going to hang him regardless."

"An' if there's any trouble about it we can hang two as well as we can
one," suggested Stevenson, placidly. "You sit tight an' mind yore own
affairs, stranger," he warned.

Hopalong turned his head slowly. "He's a liar, stranger; just a plain,
squaw's dog of a liar. An' I'll be much obliged if you'll lick hell
outen 'em an' let—
why, hullo, hoss-thief
!" he shouted, at once
recognizing the other. It was the man he had met in the gospel tent, the
man he had chased for a horse-thief and then swapped mounts with. "Stole
any more cayuses?" he asked, grinning, believing that everything was all
right now. "Did you take that cayuse back to Grant?" he finished.

"Han's up!" roared Stevenson, also covering the stranger. "So yo're
another one of 'em, hey? We're in luck to-day. Watch him, boys, till I
get his gun. If he moves, drop him quick."

"You damned fool!" cried Ferris, white with rage. "He ain't no thief,
an' neither am I! My name's Ben Ferris an' I live in Winchester. Why,
that man you've got is Hopalong Cassidy—Cassidy, of the Bar-20!"

"Sit still—you can talk later, mebby," replied Stevenson, warily
approaching him. "Watch him, boys!"

"Hold on!" shouted Ferris, murder in his eyes. "Don't you try that on
me! I'll get one of you before I go; I'll shore get one! You can listen
a minute, an' I can't get away."

"All right; talk quick."

Ferris pleaded as hard as he knew how and called attention to the
condition of the prisoner. "If he did take the wrong cayuse he was too
blind drunk to know it! Can't you
see
he was!" he cried.

"Yep; through yet?" asked Stevenson, quietly.

"No! I ain't started yet!" Ferris yelled. "He did me a good turn once,
one that I can't never repay, an' I'm going to stop this murder or
go with him. If I go I'll take one of you with me, an' my friends an'
outfit'll get the rest."

"Wait till Old John gets here," suggested Jed to Charley. "He ought to
know this feller."

"For the Lord's sake!" snorted Charley. "He won't show up for a week.
Did you hear that, fellers?" he laughed, turning to the others.

"Stranger," began Stevenson, moving slowly ahead again. "You give us
yore guns an' sit quiet till we gets this feller out of the way. We'll
wait till Old John Ferris comes before doing anything with you. He ought
to know you."

"He knows me all right; an' he'd like to see me hung," replied the
stranger. "I won't give up my guns, an' you won't lynch Hopalong Cassidy
while I can pull a trigger. That's flat!" He began to talk feverishly
to gain time and his eyes lighted suddenly. Seeing that Jed White was
wavering, Stevenson ordered them to go on with the work they had come to
perform, and he watched Ferris as a cat watches a mouse, knowing that
he would be the first man hit if the stranger got a chance to shoot. But
Ferris stood up very slowly in his stirrups so as not to alarm the five
with any quick movement, and shouted at the top of his voice, grabbing
off his sombrero and waving it frantically. A faint cheer reached his
ears and made the lynchers turn quickly and look behind them. Nine men
were tearing towards them at a dead gallop and had already begun to
forsake their bunched-up formation in favor of an extended line. They
were due to arrive in a very few minutes and caused Mr. Ferris' heart to
overflow with joy.

"Me an' my outfit," he said, laughing softly and waving his hand towards
the newcomers, "started out this morning to round up a bunch of cows,
an' we got jackasses instead. Now lynch him, damn you!"

The nine swept up in skirmish order, guns out and ready for anything in
the nature of trouble that might zephyr up. "What's the matter, Ben?"
asked Tom Murphy ominously. As under-foreman of the ranch he regarded
himself as spokesman. And at that instant catching sight of the rope, he
swore savagely under his breath.

"Nothing, Tom; nothing now," responded Mr. Ferris. "They was going to
hang my friend there, Mr. Hopalong Cassidy, of the Bar-20. He's the
feller that lent me his cayuse to get home on when Molly was sick. I'm
going to take him back to the ranch when he gets sober an' introduce him
to some very good friends of hissn that he ain't never seen. Ain't I,
Cassidy?" he demanded with a laugh.

But Mr. Cassidy made no reply. He was sound asleep, as he had been
since the advent of his very good and capable friend, Mr. Ben Ferris, of
Winchester.

Mr. Cassidy went to the ranch and lived like a lord until shame drove
him away. He had no business to live on cake and pie and wonderful
dishes that Mrs. Ferris and her sister literally forced on him, and let
Buck's mission wait on his convenience. So he tore himself away and made
up for lost time as he continued his journey on his own horse, for
which Tom Murphy and three men had faced down the scowling population of
Hoyt's Corners. The rest of his journey was without incident until,
on his return home along another route, he rode into Rawhide and heard
about the marshal, Mr. Townsend.

This individual was unanimously regarded as an affliction upon society
and there had been objections to his continued existence, which had
been overruled by the object himself. Then word had gone forth that a
substantial reward and the undying gratitude of a considerable number
of people awaited the man who would rid the community of the pest who
seemed to be ubiquitous. Several had come in response to the call, one
had returned in a wagon, and the others were now looked upon as martyrs,
and as examples of asinine foolhardiness. Then it had been decided to
elect a marshal, or perhaps two or three, to preserve the peace of the
town; but this was a flat failure. In the first place, Mr. Townsend had
dispersed the meeting with no date set for a new one; in the second,
no man wanted the office; and as a finish to the comedy, Mr. Townsend
cheerfully announced that hereafter and henceforth he was the marshal,
self-appointed and self-sustained. Those who did not like it could
easily move to other localities.

With this touch of office-holding came ambition, and of stern stuff.
The marshal asked himself why he could not be more officers than one
and found no reason. Thereupon he announced that he was marshal, town
council, mayor, justice, and pound-keeper. He did not go to the trouble
of incorporating himself as the Town of Rawhide, because he knew nothing
of such immaterial things; but he was the town, and that sufficed.

He had been grievously troubled about finances in the past, and he
firmly believed that genius such as his should be above such petty
annoyances as being "broke." That was why he constituted himself the
keeper of the public pound, which contented him for a short time, but
later, feeling that he needed more money than the pound was giving him,
he decided that the spirit of the times demanded public improvements,
and therefore, as the executive head of the town, he levied taxes
and improved the town by improving his wardrobe and the manner of his
living. Each saloon must pay into the town treasury the sum of one
hundred dollars per year, which entitled it to police protection and
assured it that no new competitors would be allowed to do business in
Rawhide.

Needless to say he was not furiously popular, and the crowds congregated
where he was not. His tyranny was based upon his uncanny faculty of
anticipating the other man's draw. The citizens were not unaccustomed to
seeing swift death result to the slower man from misplaced confidence in
his speed of hand—that was in the game—an even break; but to oppose an
individual who
always
knew what you were going to do before you knew
it yourself—this was very discouraging. Therefore, he flourished and
waxed fat.

Of late, however, he had been very low in finances and could expect
no taxes to be paid for three months. Even the pound had yielded him
nothing for over a week, the old patrons of Rawhide's stores and saloons
preferring to ride twenty miles farther in another direction than
to redeem impounded horses. Perhaps his prices had been too high, he
thought; so he assembled the town council, the mayor, the marshal, and
the keeper of the public pound to consult upon the matter. He decided
that the prices were too high and at once posted a new notice announcing
the cut. It was hard to fall from a dollar to "two bits," but the
treasury was low—the times were panicky.

As soon as he had changed the notice he strolled up to the Paradise
to inform the bartender that impounding fines had been cut to bargain
prices and to ask him to make the fact generally known through his
patrons. As he came within sight of the building he jumped with
pleasure, for a horse was standing dejectedly before the door. Joy of
joys, trade was picking up—a stranger had come to town! Hastening back
to the corral, he added a cipher to the posted figure, added a decimal
point, and changed the cents sign to that of a dollar. Two dollars and
fifty cents was now the price prescribed by law. Returning hastily to
the Paradise, he led the animal away, impounded it, and then sat down
in front of the corral gate with his Winchester across his knees. Two
dollars and fifty cents! Prosperity had indeed returned!

"Where the CG ranch is I dunno, but I do know where one of their cayuses
is," he mused, glancing between two of the corral posts at the sleepy
animal. "If I has to auction it off to pay for its keep and the fine,
the saddle will bring a good, round sum. I allus knowed that a dollar
wasn't enough, nohow."

Nat Fisher, punching cows for the CG and tired of his job, leaned
comfortably back in his chair in the Paradise and swapped lies with the
all-wise bartender. After a while he realized that he was hopelessly
outclassed at this diversion and he dug down into his pocket and brought
to light some loose silver and regarded it thoughtfully. It was all the
money he had and was beginning to grow interesting.

"Say, was you ever broke?" he asked suddenly, a trace of sadness in his
voice.

The bartender glanced at him quickly, but remained judiciously silent,
smelling the preamble of an attempt to "touch."

"Well, I have been, am now, an' allus will be, more or less," continued
Fisher, in soliloquy, not waiting for an answer to his question. "Money
an' me don't ride the same range, not any. Here I am fifty miles away
from my ranch, with four dollars and ninety-five cents between me an'
starvation an' thirst, an' me not going home for three days yet. I was
going to quit the CG this month, but now I gotta go on working for it
till another pay-day. I don't even own a cayuse. Now, just to show you
what kind of a prickly pear I am, I'll cut the cards with you to see who
owns this," he suggested, smiling brightly at his companion.

The bartender laughed, treated on the house, and shuffled out from
behind the bar with a pack of greasy playing cards. "All at once, or a
dollar a shot?" he asked, shuffling deftly.

"Any way it suits you," responded Fisher, nonchalantly. He knew how a
sport should talk; and once he had cut the cards to see who should own
his full month's pay. He hoped he would be more successful this time.

"Don't make no difference to me," rejoined the bartender.

"All right; all at once, an' have it over with. It's a kid's game, at
that."

"High wins, of course?"

"High wins."

The bartender pushed the cards across the table for his companion to
cut. Nat did so, and turned up a deuce. "Oh, don't bother," he said,
sliding the four dollars and ninety-five cents across the table.

"Wait," grinned the bartender, who was a stickler for rules. He reached
over and turned up a card, and then laughed. "Matched, by George!"