Part 7 (1/2)
The foreman a.s.sented. ”I don't like the bunch,” he murmured; ”but n.o.body at our camp wants to tackle them. What can we do?”
While the foreman continued to talk, Stanley again looked over the human wrecks that he had rounded up and brought out of Sellersville.
”What can we do?” echoed Stanley, repeating the last question tartly.
”Well, I'll tell you one thing we can do. We can throw Sellersville into the river.”
Dancing and Scott were gone half an hour. The report, when they returned, was not encouraging. ”It is a bunch of cutthroats from Medicine Bend, colonel,” said Bob Scott.
”All friends of yours, I presume, Bob,” returned Stanley.
The scout only smiled. ”John Rebstock is there with his following. But the boss, I think, is big George Seagrue. He is mean, you know. George has got two or three men to his credit.”
”Are we enough to clean them out, Bob?” inquired Stanley impatiently.
Scott looked around and his eye rested for a moment on Dancing. He hitched his trousers. ”There's about thirty men down there. I expect,”
he continued reflectively, ”we can take care of them if we have to.”
Stanley turned to the sergeant of his troopers. ”Pitch a permanent camp, sergeant. There will be nothing to take us any farther up the river.”
As Stanley gave the order Bucks noticed that Dancing winked at Scott.
And without the meaning glances exchanged by the lineman and the scout, Bucks would have understood from Stanley's manner that he meant strong measures. Stanley sent a further message to the contractor, and the foreman, followed by his convoy of humanity, started on. The soldiers, foreseeing a lively scene, stripped their pack-horses and set at work pitching their tents.
Leaving four men in camp, the engineer, accompanied by his escort, rode down the bluffs and, striking a lumber road, galloped rapidly through the poplar bottom-lands toward the gamblers' camp. It was an early tour for human wolves to be stirring, and the invaders clattered into Sellersville before they attracted any attention.
A bugler, however, riding into the middle of the settlement, sounded a trumpet call, and at the unwonted notes frowsy, ill-shaped heads appeared at various shanty doors and tent-flaps to see what was doing. Stanley sent one man from door to door to notify the inmates of each shelter to pack up their effects and make ready to move without delay.
Five troopers were detailed to guard three gambling tents that stood together in the middle of the camp, each of these being flanked by smaller dens. Word was then pa.s.sed to the gamblers and saloon-keepers to line up on the river front.
Stanley regarded the gathering crowd with a cold eye. Scott, who stood near Bucks, pointed out a square-shouldered man with a deep scar splitting one cheek. ”Do you know that fellow, Bucks?” he asked in an undertone.
”No; who is he?”
”That is a Medicine Bend confidence man, Perry. Do you remember the woman you helped out with a ticket to Iowa? Perry is her husband--the man that Dave Hawk made pay up.”
Perry was a type of the Sellersville crowd now being evicted. There was much talk as the soldiers urged and drove the gang out of one haunt after another and a good deal of threatening as the leaders marched out in front of Stanley.
”Who is running this camp?” demanded the officer curtly. The men looked at one another. A fat, slow-moving man with small blue eyes and a wheezy voice answered: ”Why, no one in particular, colonel. We're just a-camping in a bunch. What's a-matter? Seagrue here,” he nodded to a sharp-jawed companion, ”and Perry,” he added, jerking his thumb toward the scarred-faced man, ”and me own these two big tents in partners.”
”What's your name?”
”My name's Rebstock.”
”Produce the axes stolen here from these two men,” said Stanley, indicating the choppers behind him. There was a jangle of talk between Rebstock and his a.s.sociates, and Perry, much against his inclination, was despatched to hunt up the axes. It was only a moment before he returned with them.
Rebstock, with a show of virtue, reprimanded Perry severely for harboring the men that had stolen the axes. ”Sorry it happened, colonel,” he grumbled, after he had abused the thieves roundly in a general way, ”and I'll see it doesn't happen again. We can't watch everybody in a place like this. Tell your men,” he continued, expanding his chest, ”to leave their axes with me when they come to Sellersville--what?”
The a.s.surances were lost on Stanley. ”Rebstock,” said he, in a tone that Bucks had not heard before from him, ”take your personal effects, all of you--and nothing else--and load them on a flatboat. I will give you one hour to get-out of here.”
Rebstock almost fell over backward. He wheezed in amazement. There was an outburst of indignant protests. A dozen men clamored at once. Perry rushed forward to threaten Stanley; others cursed and defied him.