CHAPTER VII

MAINTAINING A REPUTATION

The abduction of Sa.s.soon, which signalized de Spain's entry into the stage-line management, created a sensation akin to the exploding of a bomb under the range. The whole mountain country, which concentrates, sensibly, on but one topic at a time, talked for a week of nothing else. No such defiance of the traditions of the Morgan rule along the reaches of the Spanish Sinks had been attempted in years--and it was recalled more than once, when de Spain's feat was discussed at the ranches, on the trails, and in the haunts of gunmen in Calabasas, that no one of those who had ever braved the wrath of the Sink rulers had lived indefinitely to boast of it.

Experienced men, therefore, in the high country--men of that cla.s.s who, wherever found, are old in the ways of the world, and not promptly moved by new or youthful adventure--dismissed the incident after hearing the details, with the comment or the conclusion that there would hardly be for de Spain more than one additional chapter to the story, and that this would be a short one. The most active Morgans--Gale, Duke, and the easy-going Satterlee--were indeed wrought to the keenest pitch of revengeful anger. No question of the right or wrong of the arrest was discussed--justification was not considered.

It was an overwhelmingly insolent invasion--and worst of all, a successful invasion, by one who had nothing but cool impudence, not even a budding reputation to justify his a.s.sault on the lifelong prestige of the Gap clan. Gale Morgan strode and rode the streets of Sleepy Cat looking for de Spain, and storming.

De Spain himself, somewhat surprised at the storm he had kicked up, heeded the counsel of Scott, and while the acute stage of the resentment raged along the trail he ran down for a few days to Medicine Bend to buy horses. Both Gale and Duke Morgan proclaimed, in certain public places in Sleepy Cat, their intention of shooting de Spain on sight; and as a climax to all the excitement of the week following his capture, the slippery Sa.s.soon broke jail and, after a brief interval, appeared at large in Calabasas.

This feat of the Morgan satellite made a loud laugh at de Spain's expense. It mitigated somewhat the humiliation of Sa.s.soon's friends, but it in no wise diminished their expressed resolve to punish de Spain's invasion. Lefever, who as the mixer among the stage men, kept close to the drift of public sentiment, decided after de Spain's return to Sleepy Cat that the stage-line authorities had gained nothing by Sa.s.soon's capture.

"We ought to have thought of it before, Henry," he said frankly one night in Jeffries's office, "but we didn't think."

"Meaning just what, John?" demanded de Spain without real interest.

"Meaning, that in this country you can't begin on a play like pulling Sa.s.soon out from under his friends' noses without keeping up the pace--without a second and third act. You dragged Sa.s.soon by his hair out of the Gap; good. You surprised everybody; good. But you can't very well stop at that, Henry. You have raised hopes, you have led people to invest you with the faint glimmerings of a reputation. I say, the glimmerings, because such a feat by itself doesn't insure a permanent reputation, Henry. It is, so to say, merely a 'demand'

reputation--one that men reserve the right to recall at any moment.

And the worst of it is, if they ever do recall it, you are worse off than when before they extended the brittle bauble to you."

"Jingo, John! For a stage blacksmith you are some spieler." De Spain added an impatient, not to say contumelious exclamation concerning the substance of Lefever's talk. "I didn't ask them for a reputation.

This man interfered with my guard--in fact, tried to cut his throat, didn't he?"

"Would have done it if Frank had been an honest man."

"That is all there is to it, isn't it? If Sa.s.soon or anybody else gets in the way of the stages, I'll go after them again--that's all there is to it, isn't it?"

Lefever tapped the second finger of one fat hand gently on the table.

"Practically; practically all, Henry, yes. You don't quite understand, but you have the right idea. What I am trying to hammer into your dense cocoanut is, that when a man has, gets, or is given a reputation out in this country, he has got to live up to it."

"What do you want me to do--back a horse and shoot two guns at once up and down Main Street, cowboy style?"

Lefever kept his patience without difficulty. "No, no. You'll understand."

"Scott advised me to run down to Medicine Bend for a few days to let the Morgans cool off."

"Right. That was the first step. The few days are a thing of the past.

I suppose you know," continued Lefever, in as well-modulated a tone as he could a.s.sume to convey information that could not be regarded as wholly cheerful, "that they expect to get you for this Sa.s.soon job."

De Spain flushed. But the red anger lasted only a moment. "Who are 'they'?" he asked after a pause.

"Deaf Sandusky, Logan, of course, the Calabasas bunch, and the Morgans."

De Spain regarded his companion unamiably. "What do they expect I'll be doing while they are getting me?"

Lefever raised a hand deprecatingly. "Don't be overconfident, Henry; that's your danger. I know you can take care of yourself. All I want to do is to get the folks here acquainted with your ability, without taking unnecessary chances. You see, people are not now asking questions of one another; they are asking them of themselves. Who and what is this newcomer--an accident or a genuine arrival? A common squib or a real explosion? Don't get excited," he added, in an effort to soothe de Spain's obvious irritation. "You have the idea, Henry.

It's time to show yourself."

"I can't very well do business here without showing myself," retorted de Spain.

"But it is a thing to be managed," persisted Lefever. "Now, suppose--since the topic is up--we 'show' in Main Street for a while."

"Suppose we do," echoed de Spain ungraciously.

"That will crack the debut ice. We will call at Harry Tenison's hotel, and then go to his new rooms--go right to society headquarters first--that's my theory of doing it. If anybody has any shooting in mind, Tenison's is a quiet and orderly place. And if a man declines to eat anybody up at Tenison's, we put him down, Henry, as not ravenously hungry."

"One man I would like to see is that sheriff, Druel, who let Sa.s.soon get out."

"Ready to interview him now?"

"I've got some telegrams to answer."

"Those will keep. The Morgans are in town. We'll start out and find somebody."

It was wet and sloppy outside, but Lefever was indifferent to the rain, and de Spain thought it would be undignified to complain of it.

When, followed by Lefever, he walked into the lobby of Tenison's hotel a few moments later the office was empty. Nevertheless, the news of the appearance of Sa.s.soon's captor spread. The two sauntered into the billiard-hall, which occupied a deep room adjoining the office and opened with large plate-gla.s.s windows on Main Street. Every table was in use. A fringe of spectators in the chairs, ostensibly watching the pool games, turned their eyes toward de Spain--those that recognized him distinguishing him by nods and whispers to others.

Among several groups of men standing before the long bar, one party of four near the front end likewise engaged the interest of those keener loafers who were capable of foreseeing situations. These men, Satterlee Morgan, the cattleman; Bull Page, one of his cowboys; Sheriff Druel, and Judge Druel, his brother, had been drinking together. They did not see Lefever and his companion as the two came in through the rear lobby door. But Lefever, on catching sight of them, welcomed his opportunity. Walking directly forward, he laid his hand on Satt Morgan's shoulder. As the cattleman turned, Lefever, genially grasping his hand, introduced de Spain to each of the party in turn. What followed in the brief interval between the meeting of the six men and the sudden breaking up of the group a few moments later was never clearly known, but a fairly conclusive theory of it was afterward accepted by Sleepy Cat.

Morgan threw the brim of his weather-beaten hat back from his tanned face. He wore a mustache and a chin whisker of that variety designated in the mountains by the most opprobrious of epithets. But his smile, which drew his cheeks into wrinkles all about his long, round nose, was not unfriendly. He looked with open interest from his frank but not overtrustworthy eyes at de Spain. "I heard," he said in a good-natured, slightly nasal tone, "you made a sunrise call on us one day last week."

"And I want to say," returned de Spain, equally amiable, "that if I had had any idea you folks would take it so hard--I mean, as an affront intended to any of you--I never would have gone into the Gap after Sa.s.soon. I just a.s.sumed--making a mistake as I now realize--that my sc.r.a.p would be with Sa.s.soon, not with the Morgans."

Satt's face wrinkled into a humorous grin. "You sure kicked up some alkali."

De Spain nodded candidly. "More than I intended to. And I say--without any intention of impertinence to anybody else--Sa.s.soon is a cur. I supposed when I brought him in here after so much riding, that we had sheriff enough to keep him." He looked at Druel with such composure that the latter for a moment was nonplussed. Then he discharged a volley of oaths, and demanded what de Spain meant. De Spain did not move. He refused to see the angry sheriff. "That is where I made my second mistake," he continued, speaking to Morgan and forcing his tone just enough to be heard. Druel, with more hard words, began to abuse the railroad for not paying taxes enough to build a decent jail.

De Spain took another tack. He eyed the sheriff calmly as the latter continued to draw away and left de Spain standing somewhat apart from the rest of the group. "Then it may be I am making another mistake, Druel, in blaming you. It may not be your fault."

"The fault is, you're fresh," cried Druel, warming up as de Spain appeared to cool. The line of tipplers backed away from the bar. De Spain, stepping toward the sheriff, raised his hand in a friendly way.

"Druel, you're hurting yourself by your talk. Make me your deputy again sometime," he concluded, "and I'll see that Sa.s.soon stays where he is put."

"I'll just do that," cried Druel, with a very strong word, and he raised his hand in turn. "Next time you want him locked up, you can take care of him yourself."

The sharp crack of a rifle cut off the words; a bullet tore like a lightning-bolt across de Spain's neck, crashed through a mahogany pilaster back of the bar, and embedded itself in the wall. The shot had been aimed from the street for his head. The noisy room instantly hushed. Spectators sat glued to their chairs. White-faced players leaned motionless against the tables. De Spain alone had acted; all that the bartenders could ever remember after the single rifle-shot was seeing his hand go back as he whirled and shot instantly toward the heavy report. He had whipped out his gun and fired sidewise through the window at the sound.

That was all. The bartenders breathed and looked again. Men were crowding like mad through the back doors. De Spain, at the cigar case, looked intently into the rainy street, lighted from the corner by a dingy lamp. The four men near him had not stirred, but, startled and alert, the right hand of each covered the b.u.t.t of a revolver. De Spain moved first. While the pool players jammed the back doors to escape, he spoke to, without looking at, the bartender. "What's the matter with your curtains?" he demanded, sheathing his revolver and pointing with an expletive to the big sheet of plate gla.s.s. "Is this the way you build up business for the house?"

Those close enough to the window saw that the bare pane had been cut, just above the middle, by two bullet-holes. Curious men examined both fractures when de Spain and Lefever had left the saloon. The first hole was the larger. It had been made by a high-powered rifle; the second was from a bullet of a Colt's revolver; it was remarked as a miracle of gun-play that the two were hardly an inch apart.

In the street a few minutes later, de Spain and Lefever encountered Scott, who, with his back hunched up, his cheap black hat pulled well down over his ears, his hands in his trousers pockets and his thin coat collar modestly turned against the drizzling rain, was walking across the parkway from the station.

"Sa.s.soon is in town," exclaimed Lefever with certainty after he had told the story. He waited for the Indian's opinion. Scott, looking through the water dripping from the brim of his seasoned derby, gave it in one word. "Was," he amended with a quiet smile.

"Let's make sure," insisted Lefever. "Supposing he might be in town yet, Bob, where is he?"

Scott gazed up the street through the rain lighted by yellow lamps on the obscure corners, and looked down the street toward the black reaches of the river. "If he's here, you'll find him in one of two places. Tenison's----"