Part 16 (1/2)

”I heard some parties were jumping your claim, Jim,” said he, ”and, being near, I thought I'd come over and look out for you.”

”Thanky,” said n.i.g.g.e.r Jim, but made no offer to take the extended hand; nor did he turn his back upon the bad man, who evidently did not think the claim worth the hazards of an honest gun-fight, for he left soon afterward.

In Tombstone n.i.g.g.e.r Jim kept silent regarding the incident, but the news leaked out within a week or two when Buckskin Frank tried to slay the black man from behind and was prevented by a woman who threw her arms over him and held him until the prospective victim turned his head and took in the situation. With the spread of the story Frank saw that Tombstone was no place for him at present and he left the camp.

Whereby it happened that he was over in the San Simon on that hot day when John Ringo came across the Dragoon Mountains. And on the morning when the body was discovered he was riding through the pa.s.s on some dubious errand or other.

News traveled slowly in those days. Frequently it came to its destination sadly garbled. On this occasion young Billy Breckenbridge was the only man who brought the facts back to Tombstone; and he arrived there long after Buckskin Frank.

For the two-gun man had seen his opportunity to make men forget that incident wherein he had figured so poorly against n.i.g.g.e.r Jim, and had spurred his pony all the way to the county seat, where he told his story--how he had seen the desperado sitting under the dwarf live-oaks, had stalked him as a man stalks big game, and shot him through the head. And just to give his tale versimilitude he said he had done the killing from behind.

The times were brisk; one shooting came so fast on the heels of its predecessor that every affair in its turn swiftly pa.s.sed from public attention. By the time that Deputy Sheriff Breckenbridge arrived with the facts people were turning their minds to the big Benson stage hold-up. And so Buckskin Frank's story lived, and to this day in speaking of that bad man the old-timers give him grudging credit for having slain the big ”He Wolf.”

JOHN SLAUGHTER'S WAY

It was springtime in southwestern Texas and John Slaughter was gathering a great herd near the mouth of Devil's River for the long drive northward over the Pecos trail. Thousands of cattle were moving slowly in a great ma.s.s, obliterating miles of the landscape, trampling out clouds of dust which rose into the blue sky; the constant bellowing came down the wind as a deep, pulsating moan which was audible for miles.

The Man from Bitter Creek reined in his horse and turned in the saddle to look back upon that scene. He was a small man with hard, quick eyes; they grew harder as they rested on that wealth of beeves.

In the wild country farther up the Pecos the Man from Bitter Creek was known by the name of Gallagher. Among the riders who roved over that Land Beyond the Law, taking their toll from the north-going herds as gray wolves take it under cover of the night, he pa.s.sed as the big ”He Wolf,” the leader of the pack. Wyoming's sage-brush hills gave sepulture to eleven of his dead, and since he had fled hither he had added two graves to the boot-hill cemeteries of the Southwest.

Now as he gazed over John Slaughter's cattle, he promised himself that when they came on into the region where he maintained his supremacy, he would seize them and, at the same time, increase his grim list of victims to fourteen.

It was an era in some respects very much like the feudal days of Europe, a time of champions and challenges and deeds of arms, a period when strong men took definite stands for right or wrong and were ready at all times to defend those positions with their lives. The Man from Bitter Creek had received John Slaughter's gage within the hour. He had dismounted from his pony at the cattle-buyer's camp, attracted by the spectacle of that enormous herd destined to pa.s.s through the country where he and his companions held sway, and he had hung about the place to see what he could see.

He noted with satisfaction that the cattle were sleek and fat for this time of the year; and the satisfaction grew as he peered through the dust-clouds at the riders who were handling them, for every one of the wiry ponies that pa.s.sed him carried a swarthy vaquero--and half a dozen of those Mexicans would not be a match for one of the hard-eyed rustlers who were waiting along the upper Pecos in that spring of 1876. Just as he was congratulating himself on such easy pickings the cattle-buyer noticed him.

John Slaughter was in his early thirties but his lips had settled into an unrelaxing line, and his eyes had grown narrow from the habit of the long sun-smitten trails. He was black-bearded, barely of middle stature, a parsimonious man when it came to using words. When he was a boy fighting under the banner of the Lost Cause he sickened, and his colonel sent him home, where he did his recuperating as a lieutenant of the Texas rangers fighting Comanche Indians and border outlaws.

Then he drove cattle into Kansas over the Chisholm and Western trails and got further seasoning in warfare against marauders, both red and white. To maintain his rights and hold his property against armed a.s.sault had become part of his every-day life; guardedness was a habit like those narrowed eyes. And when he recognized the Man from Bitter Creek, whose reputation he well knew, he lost no time in confronting him.

So they faced each other, two veteran paladins who had been riding under hostile banners ever since they first bore arms; and John Slaughter delivered his ultimatum in three syllables.

”Hit the trail,” he said, and clamped his lips into a tight line as if he begrudged wasting that many words.

His eyes had become two dark slits.

It was a case of leave or fight and the Man from Bitter Creek had never allowed such a challenge to go unanswered by his gun. But during the moment while he and John Slaughter stood looking into each other's eyes he reflected swiftly, and it occurred to him that it would be wise to postpone this killing until the cattle-buyer had brought the herd on into the upper country where, without their employer, the Mexican vaqueros would be of no more consequence than so many sheep.

That was an inspiration: thousands of cattle for his own, where he had hoped to steal a few hundred at the very outside. He felt that he could well afford to mount his pony and ride away in silence. Now as he settled himself in his saddle after that last look backward, his heart was light with the thought of the wealth which was to come to him within the next two months. He urged the pony forward at a gallop toward the Land Beyond the Law.

The days went by, and late springtime found the Man from Bitter Creek in the upper river country which lies just west of the great Llano Estacado. Among those lonely hills the badness of the whole frontier had crystallized that year. Outlaw and murderer, renegade, rustler, and common horse-thief--all for whom the eastern trails had been growing too hot--had ridden into this haven beyond the range of the boldest sheriff until even the vigilance committee could not function here for the simple reason that there were too many to adorn the ropes and too few to pull them.

The ranchers of Lincoln County were starting in business, and the temptation to increase one's herds by means of rope and running-iron--a temptation which was always strong on the frontier--was augmented among some by a wholesome regard for their own lives and property: better to give shelter to outlaws and buy stolen cows for a dollar or two a head, than to defend your own stock against an overwhelming force of dead shots. There were others--and these included several of the bigger cow-men--who held that this was their territory and, deeming all outsiders interlopers, levied such toll of plunder on them as the old feudal barons levied on travelers by the Rhine in medieval times.

That was the way they reasoned; and the rustlers had easy pickings, stampeding range cattle across the bedding-grounds of the trail herds, gathering unto themselves the strays, disposing of their loot right on the spot. They were taking full advantage of the opportunity, and the Man from Bitter Creek was getting his share of the spoils.

But all of this struck Gallagher as petty business now; he was waiting impatiently for John Slaughter's herd. At Chisum's ranch, where he and a number of his companions had enforced their presence as unbidden guests since the pa.s.sing of the spring, he proclaimed his plan openly after the manner of his breed; and he even went so far as to exhibit a forged power of attorney by virtue of which he intended selling the beeves in the Northern market, after he had killed their owner and driven off the Mexicans.

”I'll lay for him up Fort Sumner way,” he told his fellow-wolves, nor did he take the trouble to lower his voice because he saw several cow-boys from neighboring outfits among his auditors. It was a tradition among those who lived by the forty-five thus to brag and then--make good. And it was a firmly established habit in Lincoln County to mind your own business; so the project, while it became generally known, created no excitement.