Read Ebook: The Three Perils of Man; or War Women and Witchcraft Vol. 3 (of 3) by Hogg James

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Ebook has 906 lines and 87750 words, and 19 pages

He stepped forward and reached out to take from her belt a little watch whose ring he could see above her apron strings; but Mrs. Powell drew back.

"You shan't have that watch!" she cried. "I've had that ever since I was married, and I won't give it to you!"

The man caught her arm with his left hand and reached for the watch with his right hand; and Mrs. Powell screamed.

"Hold on!" said Bessie. "Let go my mother! I've got some money, and I'll give it to you."

"You've got some money, have you?" said Bill, releasing Mrs. Powell's arm.

"Yes; I have twenty-two dollars I was saving up to buy a saddle, and if you will clear out right off, I'll give it to you."

"All right," agreed Bill. "We'll go. Let's have it. But don't try to play any tricks, young woman."

"I'll get it for you right away," Bessie said; "it's here in my bedroom."

"All right," repeated Bill. "Be quick about it!"

Bessie ran into the bedroom and was heard to pull open a drawer, and a few seconds later a shot sounded. Bill staggered a little, felt for his pistol, and then turned around and fell to the floor; while the young man who had stood in the door ran out through the kitchen, jumped on his horse, and galloped off.

A ROBBER TURNED LOOSE

As Jack rounded a low point of hill only half a mile from the house, he saw the buildings again. The sun was getting low, and he decided that he would put the animals in Powell's pasture and ask Mrs. Powell to keep him over night at the house. He wondered if she would know him, for since she had last seen him he had grown, as it seemed to him, a foot or two. As he came in sight of the house he noticed, hitched to the fence near the door, two riding horses and a loaded pack horse. Evidently there were visitors at the house. They were travelers, not cow punchers, for the pack animal carried a sawbuck pack-saddle and a very small pack.

These thoughts had just passed through Jack's head, when to his amazement he heard a shot which seemed to come from the house, and an instant later the door flew open and a man burst out, rushed to the horses, jumped on one of them and galloped fast down the road toward him. Jack could not conceive what this meant--shooting in Powell's house. He did not know the man who was approaching. He was young, fair-haired, rode like one accustomed to the saddle, and had a good horse, though it looked as though it had gone a long way. The rider was coming directly toward him, and, as he rode, he looked back at the house two or three times, as though fearing pursuit.

They trotted up to the door of the ranch, and Jack called out for Mr. Powell, Charley and Mrs. Powell, and a moment later a tall, handsome, brown-haired girl appeared at the door, holding a six-shooter in her hand. Jack instantly recognized her as his old friend Bessie, but Bessie grown out of all likeness to the slim-legged little girl that he had known half a dozen years before.

"Hello, Bessie!" called Jack. "You don't know me, I guess, but I am Jack Danvers, just over from Mr. Sturgis' ranch. I heard a shot and saw this man running away from the house, and stopped him. What has happened? Do you want him, or shall I let him go?"

"I don't know, Jack," Bessie answered; "we'll have to think about that. He ought to be tied up for a while anyhow, until we can tell you what has happened, and can decide what to do."

"Well," said Jack, "the first thing is to take his weapons if he has any. Here is the six-shooter he had when I stopped him. Will you hold it, and keep an eye on him while I search him? You used to be able to shoot when you were a little girl."

"I guess you will think I can yet, Jack," said Bessie. Jack now noticed that she looked very white. "That man's partner is in here, and we will have to do something with him."

Jack said nothing, but dismounted, went to the young rider, unbuckled and took off his belt and felt him all over to see whether he had another pistol. Nothing was found on him more dangerous than a pocket-knife, which Jack took. He had the young man dismount and sit down on the ground, and asked Bessie to stand guard over him. Then with a rope taken off one of the horses he tied the man's hands and feet securely, and passing the rope from his wrists, which were tied behind his back, over a bar of the fence four feet from the ground, drew up the hands so as to keep the man's body bent forward, and to give him very little freedom of motion. Then he tied the horses to the fence and went to the door where Bessie stood.

"Tell me all about it now, Bessie," he said.

"No, Jack, I can't talk now," she replied. "Go in and speak to mother, and talk it over with her."

He passed through the kitchen and into the living-room, and the first thing that caught his eye there was a man lying on the floor, on his back, with one arm stretched out. Stepping up to him, Jack saw that he was dead, and apparently he had been moved a little, for on the boards was a smear of blood, leading to the man's body, which seemed to show that an effort had been made to drag him toward the door. Mrs. Powell was not there, but when Jack called her by name she opened a bedroom door and came out. Jack began to tell her who he was, but she knew him at once, and grasping both his hands began to cry and to tell him how glad she was to see him.

"Don't cry, Mrs. Powell," said Jack. "Tell me what all this is about, for of course I don't understand it at all. I heard a shot, and met a man riding hard away from the house. I stopped him and brought him back and now he is outside tied up, with Bessie watching him."

"Oh, Jack!" moaned Mrs. Powell, "to think that anything like this could happen in this country! We have plenty of bad men here, but I never thought that any of them would be bad enough to attack a woman; and I never supposed that Bessie would have to kill one." The poor woman had great difficulty in speaking, and it was hard for Jack to understand what she was talking about; but some ideas he got. He patted her shoulder and told her that the trouble was all over now, and she need not worry about it, and that he would look after everything, if she would only tell him the whole story so that he could understand it. Then Mrs. Powell told him what had happened.

"Well, well," declared Jack, "this is certainly bad business--that anybody in this country should start in and rob women and children. However, it is mighty lucky that Bessie is so quick with her wits, and so quick with her gun. Now what shall we do with this man's partner?"

Mrs. Powell began to cry again.

"Dear me! dear me! I don't know what to say to you, Jack. If our men come back and find him here, he surely will never get off the place; they'll hang him on the gate-post; and I don't want that to happen. We've had trouble enough with this dead man here, and I don't want Charley or his father to get mixed up in any lynching."

"Well, Mrs. Powell," Jack replied, "this young fellow ought to be killed and killed quick. He surely has no business in this country. But I can understand how you feel. It wouldn't be very pleasant for you to have him hung right in your dooryard, as you might say. Let me go out and talk to Bessie, and see what she thinks. I have an idea from the way she looks and from what you tell me that she has pretty good sense; but first, it seems to me, we ought to get rid of this carcass here. I'll open the front door and drag him out."

Jack opened the door, and then going back to where the man lay, and moving the furniture out of the way, took him by the two wrists and dragged him out of the door and left the body lying on the ground.

Going back to the kitchen door, he saw Bessie leaning against the fence watching the young man who was seated on the ground, and who apparently had not changed his position since he was tied up.

"Come over here, Bessie," Jack requested, and she walked with him to a place fifteen or twenty yards from the young man, and there in a low voice they talked over the situation. Jack told her that her mother had explained what had happened, and of Mrs. Powell's fear lest some of the people now off on the round-up should come back and find the prisoner at the house, and should hang him without ceremony.

"That is what I am afraid of, Jack. I want to have this thing ended now, as quickly as possible. It seems terrible that I should have had to kill that man; but I didn't know what else I could do to protect mother, and nobody knows where he would have stopped if something had not been done."

"Well," suggested Jack, "what's the matter with giving this young man his horse, or horses, and turning him loose now without any weapons?"

"I wish with all my heart you would do that. It seems to me that is the easiest way, and the best way, and it will certainly keep out of trouble any of the boys that may turn up here in the next few days."

"All right," said Jack, "we'll do that. But first I've got to use him for a little while, and you must come along too, I am afraid, to stand guard over him."

"I'll do anything I can that you say is right," agreed Bessie.

Jack went over to the prisoner, and untying the ropes turned him loose.

"Now, young fellow," Jack said, "rub your arms and wrists and get the stiffness out of them, and then come down to the barn and help me hitch up a wagon."

They went to the barn and found there a couple of work horses, and harnessing them, hitched them to the wagon, into which they threw a pick and a couple of shovels. Driving up to the house, they stopped by the body of the man who had been shot, and lifted it into the wagon, covering it with a piece of an old tent. They then drove off up a ravine a mile or more from the house, where they stopped the wagon; and here in the side of a bank the two men dug a hole, and buried the would-be robber. Jack searched his pockets for some means of identification, but found in them nothing except a pipe, some tobacco, matches and a pocket-knife. His belt and cartridges were taken off to be carried back to the house.

The sun was close to the western horizon when they reached the house again. Jack left the young man unhitching the horses, and Bess watching him, while he returned to the house to tell Mrs. Powell what they had decided to do, and to ask her approval.

"That is the very best thing that can be done," she said. "Start him off for the railroad, and try to see that he gets there."

"I mean to ride with him for a mile or two," said Jack; "and I shall say to him that to-morrow morning I am going over to the round-up camp to tell them there what has happened, and that there is likely to be a hunt for him, and he had better quit the country as fast as he knows how."

"Good!" approved Mrs. Powell. "Ride with him over to the big hill, and from there watch him as far as you can, and then come back. We'll have supper ready by dark and we'll look for you then."

"All right," replied Jack. "Before I go, though, I'll turn my horses into the pasture, if you will let me, and take my bed off the pack horse."

It took scarcely five minutes to do this, for the hungry horses were still feeding close to the house. Then Jack went to the young man, who had returned to the place where he had been tied, and had seated himself on the ground there.

"You've got yourself into a place that will mean hanging for you, if you don't get out of the country quick," said Jack. "I am going to give you a chance for your life, and let you get to the railroad, where maybe you can strike a freight, or a passenger-train, that will take you away. If any of the people that belong in this part of the country come back and hear what you and your partner have done, they will start out and hunt you as long as they can find your tracks, and if they get hold of you, you'll swing. Who was this man that you came down here with, and where did you come from?"

"I don't know what his name was," answered the young man, "but up there we called him Bill Davis. We came down from just south of Buffalo. Davis had a little place up there with a few head of cattle and horses on it, but the stockmen thought he was branding too many calves, and they told him that he would have to get out of the country. When he saw they meant it, he came to me, for I had been living on a little place I had taken up not far from him, and said that he had to get out, and proposed to me to go somewhere and make a stake, and come back with something to put on our places. He persuaded me, and I went with him. I never knew he was going to try to rob these people here; they treated us awful white; but he said to me that if I didn't come with him to speak to the women, he and I would quarrel. I wish I had never seen him! I never got into trouble like this before. You can see for yourself that I ain't bad. Didn't I give up just as soon as you told me to?" The young man whimpered and looked as if he were going to cry.

"Well," admitted Jack, "you don't look to me like a fellow who would willingly be mixed up in robbing women and children, and I am going to let you go; but if I do, you've got to get out of the country quick, for if the men around here find you, they won't stop to talk to you, the way I have. The best thing for you to do is to ride into the railroad and get on a train and get out of reach as quickly as you can. Have you any money?"

"Yes, I have a five-dollar bill and some nickels."

"What about these horses? Who owns them?" asked Jack.

"One saddle horse and the pack horse belonged to Bill; and the horse I ride is mine, and so is the saddle."

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