Part 17 (2/2)
”Well, you quit just then,” remarked Pan dryly. ”So much is settled.... Dad, I've got to get Jim Blake out of that jail.”
”I reckon so. It might be a job an' then again it mightn't. Depends on Jim. An' between you an' me, Pan, I've no confidence in Jim.”
”That doesn't make any difference. I've got to get him out and send him away. Head him for Arizona where we're going.... Is it a real jail?”
”Dobe mud an' stones,” replied his father. ”An Indian or a real man could break out of there any night. There are three guards, who change off every eight hours. One of them is a tough customer. Name's Hill.
He used to be an outlaw. The other two are lazy loafers round town.
”Anybody but Jim in just now?”
”I don't know. Matthews jailed a woman not long ago. He arrests somebody every day or so.”
”Where is this calaboose belonging to Mr. Matthews?”
”You pa.s.sed it on the way out, Pan. Off the road. Gray flat buildin'.
Let's see. It's the third place from the wagon shop, same side.”
”All right, Dad,” said Pan with cheerful finality. ”Let's go back to the house and talk Arizona to Lucy and Mother for a little. Then I'll rustle along toward town. Tomorrow you come over to the boys' camp.
It's on the other side of town, in a cedar flat, up that slope. We've got horses to try out and saddles to buy.”
CHAPTER NINE
As Pan strode back along the road toward Marco the whole world seemed to have changed.
For a few moments he indulged his old joy in range and mountain, stretching, rising on his right, away into the purple distance.
Something had heightened its beauty. How softly gray the rolling range land--how black the timbered slopes! The town before him sat like a hideous blotch on a fair landscape. It forced his gaze over and beyond toward the west, where the late afternoon sun had begun to mellow and redden, edging the clouds with exquisite light. To the southward lay Arizona, land of painted mesas and storied canyon walls, of thundering streams and wild pine forests, of purple-saged valleys and gra.s.sy parks, set like mosaics between the stark desert mountains.
But his mind soon reverted to the business at hand. It was much to his liking. Many a time he had gone to extremes, reckless and fun loving, in the interest of some cowboy who had gotten into durance vile. It was the way of his cla.s.s. A few were strong and many were weak, but all of them held a constancy of purpose as to their calling. As they hated wire fences so they hated notoriety-seeking sheriffs and unlicensed jails. No doubt Jard Hardman, who backed the Yellow Mine, was also behind the jail. At least Matthews pocketed the ill-gotten gains from offenders of the peace as const.i.tuted by himself.
Pan felt that now for the first time in his life he had a mighty incentive, something tremendous and calling, to bring out that spirit of fire common to the daredevils of the range. He had touched only the last fringe of the cowboy regime. Dodge and Abilene, the old Chisholm Trail, the hard-drinking hard-shooting days of an earlier Cimarron had gone. Life then had been but the chance of a card, the wink of an eye, the flip of a quirt. But Pan had ridden and slept with men who had seen those days. He had absorbed from them, and to him had come a later period, not comparable in any sense, yet rough, free, untamed and still b.l.o.o.d.y. He knew how to play his cards against such men as these.
The more boldly he faced them, the more menacingly he went out of his way to meet them, the greater would be his advantage. If Matthews were another Hickok the situation would have been vastly different. If there were any real fighting men on Hardman's side Pan would recognize them in a single glance. He was an unknown quant.i.ty to them, that most irritating of newcomers to a wild place, the man with a name preceding him.
Pan came abreast of the building that he was seeking. It was part stone and part adobe, heavily and crudely built, with no windows on the side facing him. Approaching it, and turning the corner, he saw a wide-arched door leading into a small stone-floored room. He heard voices. In a couple of long strides Pan crossed the flat threshold.
Two men were playing cards with a greasy deck, a bottle of liquor and small gla.s.ses on the table between them. The one whose back was turned to Pan did not see him, but the other man jerked up from his bench, then sagged back with strangely altering expression. He was young, dark, coa.r.s.e, and he had a bullet hole in his chin.
Pan's recognition did not lag behind the other's. This was Handy Mac New, late of Montana, a cowboy who had drifted beyond the pale. He was one of that innumerable band whom Pan had helped in some way or other.
Handy had become a horse thief and a suspected murderer in the year following Pan's acquaintance with him.
”Howdy, men,” Pan greeted them, giving no sign that he had recognized Mac New. ”Which one of you is on guard here?”
”Me,” replied Mac New, choking over the word. Slowly he got to his feet.
”You've got a prisoner in there named Blake,” went on Pan. ”I once lived near him. He used to play horse with me and ride me on his back.
Will you let me talk to him?”
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