The Rangeland Avenger Part 50

"I want you to save the lives of two men. They're both in jail--on my account. And they're both charged with murder. You know whom I mean."

Cartwright rose out of his chair.

"Sinclair!" he groaned. "Curse him! Sinclair, ag'in, eh? What's they between you two?"

Her answer smothered his fury again. It was pain that was giving her strength.

"Jude, if you really want me to go back with you, don't ask that question. He has treated me as an honorable man always treats a woman--he tried to serve me."

"Serve you? By coming here trying to kill me?"

"He may have thought I wished to be free. He didn't tell me what he was going to do."

"That's a lie." He stopped, watching her white face. "I don't mean that, you know. But you ain't actually asking me to get Sinclair out of jail? Besides, I couldn't do it!"

"You could easily. Moreover, it's to your interest. It will take a strong jail to hold him, and if he breaks away, you know that he's a dangerous man. He hates you, Jude, and he might try to find you. If he did--"

She waved her hand, and Cartwright followed the gesture with great, fascinated eyes, as if he saw himself dissolving into thin air.

"I know; he's a desperado, right enough, this Sinclair. Ain't I seen him work?" He shuddered at the memory.

"But get him out of the jail, Jude, and that will be ended. He'll be your friend."

"Could I trust him?"

"Don't you think Riley Sinclair is a man to be trusted?"

"I dunno." He lowered his eyes. "Maybe he is."

"As for Arizona," she went on, "the same thing holds for him."

"Yes; if I could get one out, I could get two. But how can I do it?

This Sheriff Kern is a fighting idiot, and loves a gunplay. I ain't no man-killer, honey."

"But you're rich, Jude."

"Tolerable. They may be one or two has more than me, around these parts."

"And money buys men!"

"Don't it, though?" said Jude, expanding. "Why, when they found that I was a spender they started in hounding me. One gent wanted me to help him on a mortgage--only fifty bucks to meet a payment. And they's half a dozen would mortgage their souls if I'd stake 'em to enough downstairs to get them into a c.r.a.p game, or something."

"Then let them have the money they need. Why, it wouldn't be more than a hundred dollars altogether."

"A hundred is a hundred. Why should I throw it away on them b.u.ms?"

"Because after you've done it, you'll have a dozen men who'll follow you. You'll have a mob."

"Sure! But what of that? Expect me to lead an attack on a jail, eh?

Throw my life away? By guns, I think you'd like that!"

"You don't have to lead. Just give them the money they need and then spread the word around that Riley Sinclair is really an honorable man who killed Quade in a fair fight. I know what they thought of Quade. He was a bully. No one liked him. Tell them it's a shame that a man like Sinclair should die because he killed a big, hulking cur such as Quade.

They'll listen--particularly if they have your money. I know these men, Jude. If they think an injustice is being done, they'll risk their necks to right it! And if you work on them in the right way, you can have twenty men who'll risk everything to get Riley out. But there won't be a risk. If twenty men rush the jail, the guards will simply throw down their guns and give up."

"Well, I wonder!" muttered Cartwright.

"I'm sure of it, Jude. Do you think a deputy will let himself be killed simply to keep a prisoner safely? They won't do it!"

"You don't know this Kern!"

"I _do_ know him, and I know that he's human. I've seen him beaten once already."

"By Sinclair! You keep coming back to him!"

"Jude, if you do this thing for me," she said steadily, "I'll go back with you. I don't love you, but if I go back I'll keep you from a great deal of shameful talk. I'm sorry, truly, that I left. I couldn't help it. It was an impulse that--took me by the throat. And if I go back I'll honestly try to make you a good wife."

She faltered a little before that last word, and her voice fell. But Jude Cartwright was wholly fascinated by the color in her face, and the softness of her voice he mistook for a sudden rise of tenderness.

"They's only one thing I got to ask--you and Sinclair--have you ever--I mean--have you ever told him you're pretty fond of him--that you love him?" He blurted it out, stammering.

Certainly she knew that her answer was a lie, though it was true in the letter.

"I have never told him so," she said firmly. "But I owe him a great debt--he must not die because he's a gentleman, Jude."

All the time she was speaking, he watched her with ferret sharpness, thinking busily. Before she ended he had reached his decision.

"I'm going to raise that mob."

"Jude!"

What a ring in her voice! If he had been in doubt he would have known then. No matter what she said, she loved Riley Sinclair. He smiled sourly down on her.

"Keep your thanks. You'll hear news of Sinclair before morning." And he stalked out of the room.

33

Cartwright went downstairs in the highest good humor. He had been convinced of two things in the interview with his wife: The first was that she could be induced to return to him; the second was that she loved Riley Sinclair. He did not hate her for such fickleness. He merely despised her for her lack of brains. No thinking woman could hesitate a moment between the ranches and the lumber tracts of Cartwright and the empty purse of Riley Sinclair.

As for hatred, that he concentrated on the head of Sinclair himself. He had already excellent reasons for hating the rangy cowpuncher. Those reasons were now intensified and given weight by what he had recently learned. He determined to raise a mob, but not to accomplish his wife's desires. What she had said about the weakness of jails, the strength of Sinclair, and the probability that once out he would take the trail of the rancher, appealed vigorously to his imagination. He did not dream that such a man as Sinclair would hesitate at a killing. And, loving the girl, the first thing Sinclair would do would be to remove the obstacle through the simple expedient of a well-placed bullet.

But the girl had not only convinced him in this direction, she had taught him where his strength lay, and she had pointed a novel use for that strength. He went to work instantly when he entered the big back room of the hotel which was used for cards and surrept.i.tious drinking.

A little, patient-faced man in a corner, who had been sucking a pipe all evening and watching the c.r.a.p game hungrily, was the first object of his charity. Ten dollars slipped into the pocket of the little cowpuncher brought him out of his chair, with a grin of grat.i.tude and bewilderment. A moment later he was on his knees calling to the dice in a cackling voice.

Crossing the room, Cartwright picked out two more obviously stalled gamblers and gave them a new start. Returning to the table, he found that the game was lagging. In the first place he had from the start supplied most of the sinews of war to that game. Also, two disgruntled members had gone broke in his absence, through trying to plunge for the spoils of the evening. They sat back, with black faces, and watched him come.