Prairie Flowers Part 23

"An' I ain't only just started. I'm goin' to knock out the rest of 'em, an' break the rest of your ribs--one at a time. You've got your guns on, why don't you shoot?"

"You'd kill me 'fore I c'd draw," whined the man.

"You've got me--exact. Stand on your feet--it's too far to reach when I want to hit you again." The man got to his feet and stood cowering before the Texan.

"Now you answer me--an' answer me straight. Every time you lie I'm goin'

to knock you down--an' every time you drop, I'm goin' to kick you up again. Where's that girl?"

"Purdy's got her."

"Where?"

"Over--over to the hang-out."

"What hang-out?"

"Ca.s.s Grimshaw's--" Again the Texan's fist shot out, again Long Bill crumpled upon the floor of the coulee, and again the Texan kicked him to his feet, where he stood shrinking against the cutbank with his hands pressed to his face. He was blubbering openly, the sound issuing from between the crushed lips in a low-pitched, moaning tremolo--a disgusting sound, coming from a full-grown man--like the pule of a brainless thing.

The Texan shook him, roughly: "Shut up! Where's Purdy? I know Ca.s.s Grimshaw. Don't try to tell me he's into any such dirty work as this."

"Purdy's in Grimshaw's gang," yammered the man, "Grimshaw ain't in on it--only Purdy. If she ain't in the hang-out, I don't know where she's at. Purdy wouldn't tell me. He'd be afraid I'd double-cross him."

"What's he goin' to do with her?"

"Git the reward."

"An', you're in on it? You're the go-between?"

The man shrank still farther back against the wall: "Yes."

"When are you goin' to collect it?"

"Yeste'day a week----"

Once more the Texan's fist drew back, but the man grovelled against the dirt wall, holding his hands weakly before his battered face: "Not agin!

Not agin! Fer Gawd's sakes! I kin prove it! Here's the paper! Kill me when you read it--but fer Gawd's sakes don't hit me no more!" Fumbling in his s.h.i.+rt pocket, he drew out the note Purdy had written and signed with the Texan's name. Carefully Tex read it and thrust it into his pocket.

"Where's Grimshaw's hang-out?" he asked, in a voice of deadly quiet.

"It's in a coulee--ten miles from here. A coulee with rock sides, an' a rock floor. A deep coulee. Ride straight fer Pinnacle b.u.t.te an' you'll come to it. It's up the coulee, in a cave."

The Texan nodded: "All right. You can go now. But, remember, if you've lied to me, I'll hunt you down. I ought to kill you anyway--for this."

He tapped the pocket where he had placed the note.

"Purdy writ it--I can't write. I ain't lyin'. It's there--the cave--west side--crack in the rock wall." The man was so evidently sincere that the Texan grinned at him:

"An' you think when I go bustin' in on 'em, they'll just naturally fill me so full of holes my hide won't hold rainwater--is that it? You wait till I tell Ca.s.s Grimshaw you're sneakin' around tippin' folks off to his hang-out. Looks to me like Long Bill Kearney's got to kiss the bad lands good-bye, no matter which way the cat jumps."

A look of horror crept into the man's face at the words. He advanced a step, trembling visibly: "Fer Gawd's sakes, Tex, you wouldn't do that!

I'm a friend of yourn. You wouldn't double-cross a friend. Ca.s.s, he'd kill me just as sure as he'd kill a rattlesnake if it bit him!"

"An' that's jest about what's happened." Both men started at the sound of the voice and glancing upward, saw a man standing at almost the exact spot where the Texan had stood upon the edge of the cutbank. He was a squat, bow-legged man, and a tuft of hair stuck grotesquely from a hole in the crown of his hat. With a shrill yaup of terror Long Bill jerked a gun from its holster and fired upward. The report was followed instantly by another and the tall form in the coulee whirled half around, sagged slowly at the knees, and crashed heavily forward upon its face.

"Glad he draw'd first," remarked Ca.s.s Grimshaw, as he shoved a fresh cartridge into his gun. "It give him a chanct to die like a man, even if he ain't never lived like one."

CHAPTER XXII

Ca.s.s GRIMSHAW--HORSE-THIEF

Lowering himself over the edge, Ca.s.s Grimshaw dropped to the floor of the coulee, where he squatted with his back to the cutbank, and rolled a cigarette. "Seen the smoke, an' come over to see who was campin' here,"

he imparted, "then I run onto McWhorter's roan, an' I knowed it was you--seen you ridin' him yesterday. So I slipped over an' tuk a front row seat--you sure worked him over thorough, Tex--an' if anyone needed it, he did. Set down an' tell me what's on yer mind. I heard you'd pulled yer freight after that there fake lynchin' last year."

The Texan squatted beside the horse-thief. "Be'n over on the other side--Y Bar," he imparted briefly. "Ca.s.s, I need your help."

The other nodded: "I mistrusted you would. Name it."

"In the first place, is Purdy one of your gang? Long Bill said so--but I didn't believe him."

"Why?"

"Well--he ain't the stripe I thought you'd pick."

The outlaw grinned: "Make a mistake sometimes, same as other folks--yup I picked him."

The Texan frowned: "I'm sorry, Ca.s.s. You an' I've be'n friends for a long while. But--Ca.s.s, I'm goin' to get Purdy. If I've got to go to your hang-out an' fight your whole gang--_I'm goin' to get him!_"

"Help yerself," Grimshaw grinned, "an' just to show you there's no hard feelin's, I'll let the tail go with the hide--there's three others you c'n have along with him."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if you don't get him before supper, I'll have to. The four of 'em's got tired of the horse game. Banks an' railroad trains looks better to them. I'm too slow fer 'em. They're tired of me, an' tonight they aim to kill me an' Bill Harlow--which they're welcome to if they can git away with it."

An answering grin twisted the lips of the Texan: "Keep pretty well posted--don't you, Ca.s.s?"

"Where'd I be now, if I didn't? But about this woman business--I told Purdy to let the women alone--but you can't tell that bird nothin'. He knows it all--an' then some. Is she your woman, an' how come Purdy to have her?"

"No, she ain't mine--she's the wife of the pilgrim--the one we didn't lynch, that night----"

Grimshaw shook his head: "Bad business, Tex--mixin' up with other men's wives. Leads to trouble every time--there's enough single ones--an' even then----"

Tex interrupted him: "It ain't that kind of a mixup. This is on the level. She an' I was on Long Bill's ferry, an' the drift piled up against us so bad I had to cut the cable. We drifted ash.o.r.e this side of Red Sand, an' while I was gone to get some horses, Purdy come along an'

made off with her. I followed an' lost Purdy's trail here in the bad lands--I was half crazy yesterday, thinkin' of her bein' in Purdy's clutches--but, today, it ain't so bad. If I find her quick there's a chance she's safe." He paused and drew from his pocket the folded hand-bill. "The pilgrim offered a reward, an' Purdy aims to get it."

The other glanced at the bill: "I seen one," he said, gruffly. For a moment he puffed rapidly upon his cigarette, threw away the b.u.t.t, and looked the Texan squarely in the eye: "There's a couple of things about that bill I've wanted to know. You've told me about the woman part. But the rest of it? What in h.e.l.l you be'n doin' to have a reward up fer you?