The Rangeland Avenger Part 24

Sinclair watched him out of sight. He turned to find that Jig had slumped against the tree and stood with his arm thrown across his face.

It reminded him, with a curious pang of mingled pity and disgust, of the way Gaspar had faced the masked men of Sour Creek's posse the day before. There was the same unmanly abnegation of the courage to meet danger and look it in the eye. Here, again, the schoolteacher was wincing from the very memory of a crisis.

"Look here!" exclaimed Sinclair. His contempt rang in his voice. "They ain't any danger now. Turn around here and buck up. Keep your chin high and look a man in the face, will you?"

Slowly the arm descended. He found himself looking into a white and tortured face. His respect for the schoolteacher rose somewhat. The very fact that the little man could endure such pain in silence, no matter what that pain might be, was something to his credit.

"Now come out with it, Gaspar. You double-crossed this Cartwright, eh?"

"Yes," whispered Jig.

"Will you tell me? Not that I make a business of prying into the affairs of other gents, but I figure I might be able to help you straighten things out with this Cartwright."

He made a wry face and then rubbed the side of his head where a lump was slowly growing.

"Of all the gents that I ever seen," said Sinclair softly, "I ain't never seen none that made me want to tangle with 'em so powerful bad.

And of all the poisoned fatheads, all the mean, sneakin'

advantage-takin' skunks that ever I run up again', this gent Cartwright is the worst. If his hide was worth a million an inch, I would have it.

If he was to pay me a hundred thousand a day, I wouldn't be his pal for a minute." He paused. "Them, taking 'em by and large, is my sentiments about this here Cartwright. So open up and tell me what you done to him."

To his very real surprise the schoolteacher shook his head. "I can't do it."

"H'm," said Sinclair, cut to the quick. "Can't you trust me with it, eh?"

"Ah," murmured Gaspar, "of all the men in the world, you're the one I'd tell it to most easily. But I can't--I can't."

"I don't care whether you tell me or not. Whatever you done, it must have been plumb bad if you can't even tell it to a gent that likes Cartwright like he likes poison."

"It was bad," said Jig slowly. "It was very bad--it was a sin. Until I die I can never repay him for what I have done."

Sinclair recovered some of his good nature at this outburst of self-accusation.

"I'll be hanged if I believe it," he declared bluntly. "Not a word of it! When you come right down to the point you'll find out that you ain't been half so bad as you think. The way I figure you is this, Jig.

You ain't so bad, except that you ain't got no nerve. Was it a matter of losing your nerve that made Cartwright mad at you?"

"Yes. It was altogether that."

Sinclair sighed. "Too bad! I don't blame you for not wanting to talk about it. They's a flaw in everything, Jig, and this is yours. If I was to be around you much, d'you know what I'd do?"

"What?"

"I'd try to plumb forget about this flaw of yours: That's a fact. But as far as Cartwright goes, to blazes with him! And that's where he's apt to wind up p.r.o.nto if he's as good as his word and comes after me with a gun. In the meantime you grab your hoss, kid, and slide back into Sour Creek and show the boys this here confession I've written.

You can add one thing. I didn't put it in because I knowed they wouldn't believe me. I killed Quade fair and square. I give him the first move for his gun, and then I beat him to the draw and killed him on an even break. That's the straight of it. I know they won't believe it. Matter of fact I'm saying it for you, Jig, more'n I am for them!"

It was an amazing thing to see the sudden light that flooded the face of the schoolteacher.

"And I do believe you, Sinclair," he said. "With all my heart I believe you and know you couldn't have taken an unfair advantage!"

"H'm," muttered Riley. "It ain't bad to hear you say that. And now trot along, son."

Cold Feet made no move to obey.

"Not that I wouldn't like to have you along, but where I got to go, you'd be a weight around my neck. Besides, your game is to show the folks down yonder that you ain't a murderer, and that paper I've give you will prove it. We'll drift together along the trail part way, and down yonder I turn up for the tall timber."

To all this Jig returned no answer, but in a peculiarly lifeless manner went to his horse and climbed in his awkward way into the saddle. They went down the trail slowly.

"Because," explained the cowpuncher, "if I save my hoss's wind I may be saving my own life."

Where the trail bent like an elbow and shot sheer down for the plain and Sour Creek, Riley Sinclair pointed his horse's nose up to the taller mountains, but Jig sat his horse in melancholy silence and looked mournfully up at his companion.

"So long," said Sinclair cheerily. "And when you get down yonder, it'll happen most likely that pretty soon you'll hear a lot of hard things about Riley Sinclair."

"If I do--if I hear a syllable against you," cried the schoolteacher with a flare of color, "I'll--I'll drive the words back into their teeth!"

He shook with his emotion; Riley Sinclair shook with controlled laughter.

"Would you do all of that, partner? Well, I believe you'd try. What I mean to say is this: No matter what they say, you can lay to it that Sinclair has tried to play square and clean according to his own lights, which ain't always the best in the world. So long!"

There was no answer. He found himself looking down into the quivering face of the schoolteacher.

"Why, kid, you look all busted up!"

"Riley," gasped Jig very faintly, "I can't go!"

"And why not?"

"Because I can't meet Jude."

"Cartwright, eh? But you got to, sooner or later."

"I'll die first."

"Would your nerve hold you up through that?"

"So easily," said Jig. There was such a simple gravity and despair in his expression that Sinclair believed it. He grunted and stared hard.

"This Cartwright gent is worse'n death to you?"

"A thousand, thousand times!"

"How come?"

"I can't tell you."

"I kind of wish," said Sinclair thoughtfully, "that I'd kept my grip a mite longer."

"No, no!"