The Lawless West (11 page)

If he felt any scruples, however, they were short-lived. He had, to be sure, tricked the man shamefully. But all things were fair, so it seemed, in combating one who did not hesitate to purchase a wife, and who, on the way to that end, thought nothing of buying the honor of another man. In the meantime, he had need for speed of hand rather than debates of conscience. Quickly he ripped up a sheet, and with the bands he bound Larry hand and foot and gagged him. All this he accomplished before the latter opened his eyes. The blow had landed just back of the temple where the skull is softest and thinnest and a great purple blur was beginning to show up where the hair did not cover it.

He had hardly ended this task when there was a trample of feet in the hall and then the rap and the voice of the landlord at the same instant. The door opened, but Jack Trainor was there, barring the entrance.

“Something fell,” said the landlord. “I heard something drop. Anything wrong?”

“I was tilted back in my chair,” said Trainor glibly, “and it fell over backward with me. I’ve got a bruised back. That’s all that’s been injured.”

The landlord looked as though he would enter, but presently he nodded, and then withdrew. Trainor closed and locked the door and returned to his victim.

He found that Haines was in the act of struggling weakly to a sitting position, his eyes blank and troubled, but, at the first glimpse of Trainor, the face of Haines flooded with intelligence and hatred.

“Now,” said Jack, drawing his revolver and laying it ostentatiously upon the table, “the time has come for us to talk business of a different kind from what you’ve expected, I guess. In the first place, I want to tell you that you’re right. I’m wanted. And I’m wanted for murder.” The lie came easily from his tongue. “Murder, Haines, and I want you to know it so you’ll understand that I’m ready to go the limit up here if you press me. A man can’t be hung more than once, and he’ll be hung as easy for one killing as for fifty.” It was evident that Haines was impressed. “And so,” said Jack, “I think I can trust you not to holler for help if I take the gag out of your mouth.”

He did as he said. Haines gasped violently to recover his choked-off wind, and then he stared steadily at Trainor with such a consuming rage that the larger man shuddered.

“What’s coming now?” asked Haines.

“The first thing is that I’m going to free your right arm and let you sit at that table to write a little note
to your home saying that you’re going to be kept out pretty late, and that you may sleep at the hotel. You hear?”

There was a snarl from Haines, but he carefully softened the tone so that it would not carry beyond the room in which he was imprisoned.

“I’ll do what you want,” he said. “I know that I’ve been a fool. I’ve trusted a stranger for the first time and the last time in my life. No matter what it costs me, I can’t pay too high for it.”

“Not even the woman you love?”

“Not even the loss of her is too high a price,” insisted Larry Haines, although he lost his color as he spoke. Accordingly Jack freed his arm, and then helped him to the table and saw him take pen and paper and write:

Dear Dad:

I’m kept out. I have to talk about some new business with Joe Bigot, who just got back today from the mountains. I may have to stay at the hotel all night. Don’t worry.

Larry

This note he then sealed in an envelope and handed to Jack, who got a servant and dispatched the message. Then he turned once more to the other and secured his right hand firmly. After that, he went on to tie Larry Haines hand and foot, so swathing him with bandages that he was well nigh like an Egyptian mummy.

“Because,” he said, when a faint protest was wrung from Haines, “I’ve got to leave, and, if I leave, I’ve got to make sure of you. There’s one safe way, Haines, and that’s a tap on the head. Then I
need not waste all this time. If you were in my boots, that’s what you’d do, eh?”

The suggestion brought a quick and indescribably cruel smile across the lips of the other man, and then he made his face impassive once more.

“Well, that’s a chance that may come my way one of these days. In the meantime, you lie here, partner, and keep thinking about what’s going on outside. When they come up in the morning and let you loose, you’ll find that Alice Cary and Joe Bigot are man and wife. No matter what you tell her then, the damage will be done, and in the end she’ll be glad that she married him.”

He moved the gag toward the lips of Haines, but the latter stopped him again.

“It seems a queer thing to me, stranger,” he said to Jack, “that a fellow like you would stand by and see such a girl as Alice Cary marry a blockhead like Bigot without lifting your hand. Why, man, she’s on fire with brains and energy. She’s the sort of girl…”

“That I’d like to marry myself,” said Jack. “That what you’re driving at?”

“I tell you this, that she’s fallen in love. She thinks that she’s in love with Joe Bigot. But I know that she isn’t. The man she’s in love with is the man who wrote those letters out of the mountains…and you’re the man.”

Jack shook his head. “It won’t work, Haines,” he said. “You certainly hate Bigot, eh? But you can’t make me do it. I don’t say that couldn’t be done. She’s like prairie grass in August. It wouldn’t take much to set her on fire, as you say. But the very things that make her incline to laugh at Joe are the things that will make her love him more in the end. Why, he’s twice the man that you and I are put together.
He doesn’t talk as much, that’s all. And what does a lot of chatter mean?”

“What’s he done for you?” asked the other suddenly, making no effort to reply to this sudden flood of words.

“He saved my life.”

“I thought it was that. Well, I’ll stop talking. But I’d rather see her married to any man in the world than to Bigot.”

After that, without a struggle, he allowed Jack to affix the gag between his teeth. Jack stood back, made sure that all the bonds were so fast that the victim could hardly lift his head, to say nothing of banging upon the floor in any manner, and then turned upon his heel and strode rapidly from the room.

Downstairs he found the proprietor and told him that he would be out for some time, and that Mr. Haines, in the room above, must not be disturbed at any cost, because he was doing some important work. Then, knowing that the door to that room was locked, and that the key was in his pocket, he hurriedly sought Joe Bigot in the house of Alice Cary.

There was only one light burning in the old house when he arrived. But he knew perfectly well that it was the room of Alice in which the light burned and never the room of his friend. Alice’s room it was, where she sat with her thoughts chasing through the clouds. She was full of the return of her lover, but that lover was by this time fast asleep and smiling.

Jack Trainor shrugged his shoulders. He could barely understand such a man. But at least he knew enough of Joe to be aware that the latter’s apathy did not always spring from indifference. No matter how calm his exterior might be, his calmness was no true sign that there was a lack of fire in his heart.
That he loved the girl with a quiet and enduring love, Trainor was certain.

He reached the house. In a minute he was in the room where Bigot slept, and roused him by dropping his hand upon the shoulder of the sleeper. Instantly Joe was up and grappling him with a bear-like power. It was a moment before he recognized the protesting voice of Jack and gasped out, as he relaxed his hold: “I thought it was Larry Haines come with a gun to get me because he couldn’t stop me any other way.”

It was such a basically true dream, in spite of its falsity, that Jack was amazed.

“Why does Haines hate you so much?” he asked at length.

“Once him and me and two others sat in at a game of poker. I caught Haines cheating. I didn’t say anything right then, but the next day, when I paid him what I’d lost to him, I told him what I knew. Ever since then he’s hated me. He thinks that I try to tell about that game to everybody. But you’re the first human being that’s heard me speak of it.”

It was such a tribute to the patient honesty of the big man that the heart of Jack Trainor softened suddenly. For years, perhaps, Joe had kept in perfect secrecy tidings about his greatest enemy that would have brought about the detestation of the rest of the acquaintances of the younger man. What motive of clemency had influenced him to this end? Once again, as so often before, Jack felt that he was brought into the presence of a fineness of heart of which he himself would be incapable.

He communicated the purpose of his errand at once. Larry Haines suspected everything. All must be put to the torch now. Tomorrow would be too
late. If he loved Alice Cary—if he really felt that he could make her happy to the end of her life—he must prepare to push matters, for, in the morning, Larry Haines would be at liberty, and he would reveal the deception in the writing of the letters. Before morning dawned, Alice must be the wife of Joe Bigot.

Poor Joe listened to the storm of words and bowed his head. It was the result of the first real lie he had ever lived and acted.

“Go to her now,” urged Jack softly. “Tell her that you’ve got to marry her now. And you can do it. You can have a minister here in no time. You can have everything fixed right away, eh?”

Joe Bigot, for answer, went to the window and leaned out into the cooler and the more placid air of the night.

The man-of-all-work who took the letter from Larry Haines to his home hitched a horse to a cart, jogged the two miles into the country to the farmhouse of the Haines family, and then, having delivered the envelope, turned about and jogged peacefully back toward the village, his head jerking forward sleepily as the cart wriggled down the road. He had no idea of the hubbub that broke out behind him in the Haines house when he delivered the letter.

It was opened by a gray-haired lady, and, when she scanned the contents, she frowned, and then rose from her seat and began to walk the floor anxiously, very much as men do when they are in trouble. As a matter of fact, Larry Haines had managed to write into that apparently harmless note the message that all was not well with him. It had been in an entirely simple manner, and it had succeeded because Jack Trainor knew nothing of the domestic history of the Haines family. The alarm note lay entirely in the opening address—
Dear Dad,
read Mrs.
Haines—and caught her breath. Her husband had died ten years before!

It was one of those things that could not indicate a lapse of mind. One does not carelessly write down at the head of a letter a familiar name for someone who has been dead for ten years and in a quiet grave.

She read the note through. It was certainly sanely phrased. There was no evidence of liquor in it. Besides that, she knew that her boy did not drink. Moreover, it was his handwriting, or it seemed to be his handwriting. But, when she looked at the handwriting again, she said to herself that it was changed. And changed it certainly was, for with consummate art Larry Haines had altered some of the small details of his script. They had to be small things, and they had to be swiftly and smoothly done, for every line that he made was under the inspection of the hawk eye of the victor. What he managed to change was the method of crossing the Ts, not curling a line back from the bottom of the letter and swirling it over the top, making a separate and straight line through the letter to complete it. It was not hard, also, to follow the same method throughout the note. Every letter he formed with greater care than usual, leaving out all of those lazy little flourishes that tell where a careless writer’s pen has trailed across the paper.

Mrs. Haines stared eagerly at the letter, and then she went to her desk and took out a letter that her son had written from Montreal the year before. One glance was sufficient to sweep all of the color from her face.

“Boys!” she cried, and dropped into her chair almost in a faint.

It happened by the grace of Providence that two tall nephews were at that moment laughing and jesting in the next room. They came hurrying to her, and she thrust the two letters into their hands.

“Larry is in danger…Larry is in danger!” she cried. “Henry…Bob…help him!”

They stared at her as though she might have lost her mind. What danger could have overtaken clever Larry Haines, whose prowess with his fists and with weapons of all kinds they knew only too well?

“It’s a forged letter!” cried the poor mother. “Don’t you see? It’s addressed to his father…ten years dead! And look at the handwriting…forgery!”

The two crowded their heads close together, and they stared at the two letters.

“It is a forgery,” said Bob suddenly. “It’s got the swing of Larry’s writing, but all the little touches are left out. Come on, Henry. We’ll ride in to the hotel.”

Five minutes later they were in the saddle, and their horses’ hoofs were roaring down the hard road toward the village. They rode recklessly, for they were come of a reckless race. They covered the two miles before them in hardly more time than it had taken them to catch and saddle their horses, and then they flung out of their stirrups and rushed into the hotel.

“Where’s Larry Haines?” they asked. “Seen him around here?”

“Sure,” said the proprietor. “What’s happened? Is his house on fire? He’s right upstairs writing!”

Bob and Henry exchanged embarrassed looks.

“We’ll be drifting back, then,” growled Bob.

“Better see him and make sure, first,” said Henry. “You never can trust anything until you’ve seen it with your own eyes. I’ve heard that said a pile of times.”

He led the way up the stairs, and at the designated door they saw the filtering of light through the crack at its edges. They tapped, but there was no response.

“He’ll be mighty mad when we come in,” muttered Bob. “You know how he hates to be bothered. We better go back.”

“I’d rather have him mad at me,” insisted Henry, “than go back and face Aunt Marie without having seen him. I sure would!”

The fear of Aunt Marie made them knock again, and then call softly to tell Larry who was there.

Still there was no answer. They then tried the knob of the door and found that it was locked. Next they beat heavily against the door, and, when that summons brought no answer, they exchanged half-frightened, half-grim looks and in silence both put their strong shoulders to the door.

Something was certainly wrong when a light burned in a room where the door was locked and no one gave an answer. Down went the door with a crash, and, stepping over the threshold, they found the object of their quest lying near the bed, helpless with his bonds and nearly choked by the gag that had worked deeply into his mouth.

That was removed. Their knives slashed the strips of sheet away. For a moment he could only gasp for air, and then he managed to say: “Not a word of this…not a word of how you found me here. You understand? Otherwise, I’ll do a murder on you!”

The injury done to his vanity was, after all, of the first importance in the eyes of Larry. But now, in another moment, he had regained his breath and could speak and act. His first move was to tear the revolver out of Henry’s holster.

Then, briefly and savagely, he told them what he knew—that a conspiracy had been formed against Alice Cary—that she might at this very moment be in the midst of a ceremony that was making her the wife of the wrong man!

The mention of the name of the pretty girl and a wrong done to her sent the others into a fury. In a trice they were down the stairs. It was only a short distance down the street to the house of Alice Cary, but they traveled that distance on horseback, with Larry clinging beside Bob.

They reached the house. They rushed inside and shouted for Alice. The shout brought her sleepy father who, amazed, repeated the call for the girl, received no answer, and then threw her door open. But Alice was gone! Her bed had not been slept in!

He shouted these strange tidings down to the group below and was answered by a wail of fury.

Out of the house they sped and to their horses.

“Try the minister’s…try him at his house!” cried Larry.

And down the road they went at the full speed of the laboring, sweating, terrified horses. They flung themselves off when they reached the little vine-covered house of the man of God. And there, shining through the vines that tangled in front of his study window, was a light.

Yet he might be up reading. No, for they could hear other voices sounding in the room!

They crashed through the front door, and, almost in the same leap, they found themselves herding into the narrow, low-ceilinged room. The aged minister stood with his book in his hand and his eyes raised to heaven. Kneeling before him were Joe Bigot and Alice Cary. Behind stood the minister’s
wife and his man-of-all-work. At the trio’s entrance, the witnesses withdrew.

“It’s wrong!” cried Larry Haines, struck sick and white by this sight. “Alice, will you give me two minutes to tell you what I know…?”

“Rise up,” said the minister, “you are man and wife.” He turned upon the intruders. “You have come too late,” he said. “You should have spoken before. Hold your peace forever!”

But Larry cried, writhing in his passion: “There’s been foul play! I’ve been bound and gagged to keep me from coming here and telling Alice what I know to…”

“Wait, Larry,” said Alice.

She spoke with such a perfect coolness in front of his excitement that he was abashed in spite of himself.

“I know everything,” she said.

“Perhaps you think you do, but…”

“I know everything,” she answered, “about the letters.”

“When…?”

“Tonight. In the middle of the night Joe came and told me everything, just before he asked me to marry him. It wasn’t what you would have done, I suppose, if you’d been in his place. And it wasn’t even what that clever friend of his would have done…but it was the best thing, Joe.”

She stepped a little closer to Larry Haines, her eyes suddenly sparkling.

“It took the knife out of your hands. But up to this very moment I wouldn’t believe that you really intended to use it.”

Color rushed into the face of Larry. He saw himself baffled, shamed. For an instant he glared around him, seeking some equal foe on whom he
could work his vengeance. But, seeing none, he turned and rushed out into the night.

On that far-off hill that was the only elevation overlooking the beautiful little Canadian village, Jack Trainor halted his horse and looked back. He could make out two or three lights still burning in the town, but, even as he drew rein, one of these went out, then another. He waited for a few long minutes. At length the third light also disappeared, and no one could have told where the village lay in the deep blackness which covered the plain.

It was the blotting out of a great adventure for Jack. And, as he turned away, there was a weight of melancholy and a joy mingled with it, for he knew that he had learned to give more than he could ever take. For, as he said to himself, what did one added sorrow matter when, at the price of it, he could give great happiness to two?