White Wolf's Law

CHAPTER XXIV

THE WOLF CALL

Dot Reed, Treadwell, and McAllister headed toward old Miser Jimpson’s tumble-down house.

“Yuh mean to say that I may lose my ranch?” she asked anxiously.

“No, I didn’t say quite that,” Spur hastened to explain. “But things are in a mess, and while I, bein’ your guardian, perhaps have the right to decide without your consent, I thought it better to have it all explained to yuh an’ then have both of us decide what’s best.”

Bill McAllister shook his head. He was floundering in deep waters. He distrusted Spur, yet apparently everything the man did was aboveboard. He could not see how Spur could be blamed for the present tangled mess of the financial affairs of the Double R Ranch. He had seemingly done what he could to straighten them out.

The three turned into the gateless fence that surrounded old Miser Jimpson’s house and passed into a dingy, shabby room where they found three men – Jimpson, One-wing McCann, and a small, dapper man, named W. A. Raine, waiting for them.

“Miss Reed, this is Mr. Raine, who represents the Wilton County Bank. Yuh know the other two gents. The Double R Ranch owes them all money,” Spur said to the girl.

Dot Reed smiled at One-wing and old Miser and shook hands with Raine. He was forty-five, with quick, nervous movements. He had keen blue eyes. After studying him, Bill McAllister decided that he was not only clever, but honest as well.

“Miss Reed, I may as well try to explain to you briefly the bank’s position,” Raine said briskly, as soon as Dot had seated herself. “The bank holds a mortgage of twenty thousand dollars on the Double R. We are not pressing you for money at this time, but a sight note of twelve thousand dollars has been handed us for collection. Now, we also understand that you are indebted to Mr. McCann for ten thousand more, making a total of forty-two thousand dollars.”

“But surely the buildings, the water rights, and the Double R cattle are worth that!” Dot protested.

“If you had asked me that six months ago, I would have replied that they were worth three times that, without question. But, Miss Reed, you must remember that a bank loans other people’s money, so they have to take every care to protect it. And it has come to our ears that you have severely suffered from rustlers, so if the man who holds the sight note for twelve thousand insists on immediate payment, and unless you can prove that you have sufficient cattle to satisfy all claims, the bank, which has the first claim, will be forced to start foreclosure proceedings,” Raine explained.

“Then what am I goin’ to do?” Dot asked, bewildered.

“Don’t worry, Dot. I think they’ll find there’s enough cows to satisfy every one,” Spur Treadwell encouraged her, as he patted her shoulder.

“Who is this man who has this call note?” Bill McAllister demanded.

“Who do yuh suppose he’d be?” Spur replied, as he looked contemptuously at Miser Jimpson.

“’Tain’t me, but a client of mine back in Chicago,” the old miser squealed.

“I’m bettin’, like I tol’ yuh the other day, that if yuh wrote to him, he would be willin’ to wait, but yuh see a way of makin’ a few dollars so yuh refuse,” growled Spur, towering over the old man.

“Can’t yuh do that?” Dot pleaded.

“No I can’t. I tol’ this client to lend his money to your dad when he needed it to buy them Crossbar Double A cows, because the security was good then. Now I don’t think it good no more, I have to tell him to call his loan.” Jimpson spoke with a touch of malice in his voice.

“If Miss Reed will supply the necessary men I will arrive at the Double R to-morrow and make an estimate of the number of cattle on her ranch. We’ll hope for the best, and if these rumors are false, why, the bank will take up the note held by Mr. Jimpson’s client,” Raine said.

“Of course, yuh can have all the men yuh want,” Dot told him. Then she faltered. “And – if – if – Then the bank will foreclose?”

It was easy to see that Raine found himself in a difficult and unpleasant position and that he disliked his task.

“I’m afraid I will have to advise them to do that,” he said.

“My client is willing to buy the ranch,” Jimpson sputtered.

“So that’s it, yuh rat!” Bill McAllister growled as he stepped threateningly toward the leering old man.

“I have a good mind to sic the twins on yuh,” Spur Treadwell said coldly.

Dot Reed faced old Miser Jimpson, and he seemed more affected by the scorn in her eyes than by Spur’s threat.

“An’ what will this precious client of yours offer?” she asked coldly.

“He will assume all indebtedness an’ pay yuh twenty thousand cash.”

“He’s darn generous. The ranch is worth five times that. Yuh can tell this client of yours that Miss Reed refuses his offer,” Spur Treadwell cried.

“Miss Reed, I hope yuh understand that I am not pressing yuh,” One-wing McCann assured her, as she moved toward the door.

Out in the street, she turned to Bill McAllister and Spur Treadwell.

“I want to thank yuh for the way yuh stood back of me,” she murmured.

Bill McAllister grumbled an unintelligible reply, cast a searching look at Treadwell, and then walked slowly toward the livery stable to secure the team and buckboard. He racked his brains, but could not discover the negro in the woodpile. Nor could he in any way decide how Spur was concerned or responsible in the remotest way for the present situation.

Another problem troubled him. How were the rustlers disposing of their stolen stock? The Double R range had been robbed wholesale, and Bill McAllister had learned through the Cattlemen’s Association that no large herds that were not absolutely bona fide had been sold. Yet the rustlers must get their stock out some way.

McAllister shook his head and commenced to harness the two horses. He was brought out of his meditations by a low voice close to him.

“Yuh Mr. McAllister?”

He nodded.

“My handle is Toothpick Jarrick. I got a message for Jim. Yuh tell him that me an’ a couple of his friends has the jasper he wants. We camp up the dry wash tother side of Hog Butte. Tell him to come an’ do his barkin’ – we’ll be watchin’.”

Bill McAllister stared. His mind raced backward, and he realized the meaning of this strange message.

“Yuh mean yuh got Squint Lane?” His voice was husky with eagerness.

“Yep, we sure has. I gets his telegram, collects a coupla friends, an’ go collect this Squint person. They thinks a lot of Jim down Cannondale way, so they arranges for a box car hitched to a train for the Three Roads Junction. We piles in, hosses an’ all, an’ a good time is had by all ’cept this Squint person, who is sufferin’ some, both bodily an’ mental torment. We gets to the junction yesterday, rides to a suitable place, an’ then I comes lookin’ for Jim.”

Suddenly he raised his voice.

“Mister, I’m tellin’ yuh I ride pronto; this here town is too dead for me,” he cried, as the hostler appeared in the doorway.

Bill McAllister was in a fever of impatience to pass on the news of Squint’s capture to Jim Allen, as he rode back to the Double R that afternoon with Dot Reed. He sighed with relief when he saw the diminutive outlaw trooping toward the cookhouse with the other riders to answer the supper call.

Allen had been assigned to night riding the cavvy, and it was his custom to go there each night with Snoots Stevens, change his saddle to one of the grays, and then leave for parts unknown. Bill McAllister bolted his food and then rode out to intercept Allen. It was shortly after dusk when Allen and Snoots rode up to where Bill awaited them. The old-timer drew Allen aside and hastily told him the news.

They rode forward to the pasture, and Allen whistled for Honeyboy. The great stallion cantered up, and the outlaw swiftly changed saddles.

They gave Snoots certain orders and rode away through the night. They left behind them the most curious cow-puncher in Texas.

For the first four or five miles the two rode in complete silence, as there was danger of encountering some of the men assigned to night riding. They passed no riders, and McAllister swore to himself when he realized that they were crossing the best part of the range and that it should have been covered with bedded cattle – yet they passed scarcely a hundred head.

After they had left the danger zone behind, McAllister told Allen of what had taken place in town that afternoon. The little outlaw listened in silence.

“Yuh say this here ol’ Miser gent didn’t scare none when Spur talked of puttin’ the twins on him?” he asked, when the older man had finished his tale.

“Not any – but he sure colored aplenty when Dot looked scornful at him,” the other replied.

Allen made no further remark.

“A gent like him don’t usually have nerve, but Spur didn’t scare him worth a cent,” McAllister said, after a time.

“That ain’t no sign he’s got nerve,” Allen said carelessly.

Again they rode in silence.

“Drat him,” McAllister grumbled to himself, “I ain’t the kind of gent what loves to hear my own voice, but that darn little half pint never talks a-tall unless he’s pryin’ somethin’ loose from the back of your head that yuh forgot yourself.”

After they had covered some fifteen miles across the broken flats, McAllister suddenly realized that it was Allen who was doing the guiding. In that black night it would have been necessary for him to stop occasionally and peer about for some landmarks, but Allen made his way across arroyos, through clumps of brush, with the sure instinct of a homing animal.

“Reckon they’re here somewheres,” Allen said as their horses’ hoofs rang on the stones of a dry wash.

McAllister grunted, then he jumped and swore, for directly beside him a wolf mourned his lonely cry. Once, twice, three times it rang out in the night.

“Darn yuh, Jim, no wonder they calls yuh the Wolf, if yuh bark like that. Darn me, I sure thinks a big lobo is gettin’ ready to jump me,” McAllister complained.

He saw Allen’s teeth flash in the darkness. Then ahead of them there came an answer.

“Gosh, yuh got a real wolf answerin’ yuh!”

“Yuh didn’t tell me Jack was with Toothpick,” Allen cried.

A short time before, McAllister had complained at the matter-of-fact way Allen had taken what he thought was exciting news, but now Allen’s voice quivered like that of a man who has just been reprieved from the scaffold.

“Hell, Honeyboy – get along there some – don’t yuh know your ol’ boss?”

In response, the scrawny gray hurled itself up the wash. McAllister urged his horse up after the gray, but was rapidly outdistanced, for Honeyboy sped up the wash, with its treacherous footing, as rapidly as most horses could have run over a smooth plain in the daylight.

McAllister was still some hundred yards from the small fire around which he saw three men standing, when Allen brought his gray to a sliding stop and sprang from the saddle and landed on top of one of them. When McAllister arrived, he saw the two engaged in what appeared a desperate struggle; and all the time both contestants hurled the most blood-curdling oaths at each other. He stared at them in amazement. They whirled this way and that. The other man was no larger than Allen, but looked years older, because of the heavy beard that covered his face. Little by little, the other bested Allen, and, finally pinning him down on his face, planted both heels in the small of Allen’s back.

“Yuh got enough?” he panted.

“Yep,” grunted Allen.

The two arose to their feet and stood breathing deeply for a moment. Then Allen turned to McAllister.

“That there long galoot is Toothpick; reckon yuh met him afore. The other gent by the fire is Silent Moore, who is plumb ignorant an’ can’t talk, an’ this here is my brother, Jack, who is the dickens on hoss thieves, rustlers – ”

“Hoss thieves! Ain’t yuh one yourself? Didn’t yuh steal Honeyboy from me?” Jack Allen interrupted Jim’s flow of words.

Toothpick chuckled and Silent Moore grinned.

“Hello, Jim. Darn me, but I’m plumb glad to see yuh,” Toothpick greeted.

“’Lo, yuh little devil,” Silent mumbled.

Bill McAllister knew that here were two men who would willingly die at a nod from Jim Allen.

“Where’s this Squint person?” Jim Allen asked.

Toothpick led the way to where Squint Lane lay flat on his back beneath a tree. He was of medium height, with a big, loose mouth, a pug nose, and eyes like those of a Chinaman. He was snoring, and Jim Allen looked questioningly at Toothpick.

“We had to get him drunk afore he would come with us, so we figgered it would be best to keep him that way. He’s been ossified for five days now,” Toothpick explained joyfully.

“But he can’t tell us nothin’ now,” Bill McAllister complained.

“I can sober him pronto,” Jack Allen volunteered.

“I bet yuh could! Yuh got experience runnin’ poor drunks to the hoosegow an’ then maltreatin’ ’em. But I figgers we better try a psy-cho-log-ical experiment on him.” Allen grinned, first at his brother and then at Toothpick.

“Gents, I has erudition, so I’ll elucidate what this here psy-cho-log-ical thing is. It’s to do with the mind,” Toothpick explained, delighted at the opportunity to use a few long words which he devoutly hoped no one else understood.

“A professor gent once tol’ me that a hombre suffers a heap more from what he imagines is goin’ to happen than from what does, so we’ll try it on Squint,” Jim Allen told them.

He quickly explained what he had in mind, and then the five retreated to the fire and brewed fresh coffee. Later, he told them what he wished to learn from Squint as to the situation at the Double R Ranch. He kept most of his suspicions to himself.

“I heard tell of ’em twins – watch ’em,” Jack Allen warned.

Jim Allen hardly listened to the discussion which followed. Jack Allen occasionally volunteered a shrewd opinion; Silent emitted several grunts; but Toothpick talked continuously. That night Bill McAllister had a man who would talk and argue endlessly about Spur Treadwell’s plans. Before he and McAllister returned to the ranch, Jim gave explicit directions as to where the three would find Slivers Hart. It was arranged that Jack Allen was to go for him, as the wolf call was the signal of a friend. Besides, Jack Allen had met Slivers up in Goldville.

CHAPTER XXV

THE WOLF MAKES HIS KILL

The next morning the rays of the sun awakened Squint. He groaned and moved uneasily. His eyes fluttered open, and he stared about in bewilderment, trying to recognize his surroundings. He sat up with an effort and clasped his aching head in his hands. Once more he opened his eyes and stared about.

“What the hell?” he cried, amazed.

He buried his head in his hands again and tried to think. The last thing he remembered, he had been sitting in a back room of a saloon, and now he was in the country. He saw several things when he opened his eyes again that he had missed the first time. His foot was securely bound by several strands of wire to the trunk of a tree. From the limb of another tree, near by, there dangled a noose with a neatly and expertly made hangman’s knot. Below it was a small boxlike arrangement. His jaw dropped open.

“Sorta looks as if some gent is goin’ to get his neck stretched,” he mumbled to himself.

He cast an uneasy glance about. There was no one in sight. Near him he saw a plate of food and some water. He drank deeply and then feverishly began to tug at the wire that fastened his foot to the tree. He soon discovered that the wire was fastened in such a way that he would need the aid of a pair of wire clippers to free himself. He cast an uneasy glance at the dangling noose. As the moments passed a conviction grew that the noose was intended for him.

Minutes slipped by, and then he saw four men approach through the trees. He opened his mouth to shout at them, but shut it with a snap when he recognized Slivers Hart. Again he glanced at the noose and again examined the wire.

The four walked by without speaking and seated themselves just out of earshot. They soon began to eat a hearty breakfast. Squint glanced at the plate of food near him, but his hangover and growing fears forbade his eating.

Hours slipped by, then more hours. Anything was better than this uncertainty, and Squint raised his voice and called to the four, but they gave no sign that they heard him. A little later he mouthed at them in anger.

“What yuh fellers goin’ to do? Where am I?”

Again there was no answer. Apparently he did not exist for them. He shouted vile curses. Always before him was that dangling noose. One of the men arose and walked away from the others, then called over his shoulder:

“Don’t worry, Slivers; the boss will be here soon.”

Squint shivered and cast an apprehensive glance at the noose. The sun slowly went down behind the hills and the shadows lengthened.

The silence of those men and the sight of the dangling noose further upset Squint’s already overwrought nerves. He shrieked curses and tugged at the wire until his hands were raw and bleeding. The uncertainty of the whole thing sapped his courage until he was cowering on the ground, muttering meaningless words.

“Mebbe yuh heard tell of me – I’m Jim-twin Allen.”

Squint Lane looked up with a start. He saw a small man who looked as if he might be a thousand years old. The man’s face was covered with wrinkles; his strange eyes were unfathomable; his voice was flat, expressionless. There was something inhuman in the small man, for his face showed neither cruelty, anger, nor hate.

Squint swallowed convulsively and then mumbled: “The Killer Wolf.”

“Yuh heard tell of me?” Allen repeated.

Squint nodded.

“Who paid yuh to kill Iky Small?”

The wretched man had long passed the time when he could think coherently.

“I didn’t do it – he – I swear I – ”

“Shut up; that’s a lie. If yuh didn’t, who did?”

Little by little, Allen drew the whole story from Squint. Squint had been drunk at One-wing McCann’s hotel for a week before the murder. Then Boston Jack had come to him and taken him away. Squint was ordered to wait for Slivers at the crossroads and send him back to his own ranch on a wild-goose chase. Squint swore he had known nothing about the murder until afterward. He had once quarreled with Iky Small, and Boston Jack had threatened to hang the murder on him unless he ran away. Lefty Simms had accompanied him part of the way on his trip. Lefty had been a friend of Iky Small’s, and the two had decided, from various things they had heard and known, that Spur Treadwell was the principal in the plot against Slivers. They had discussed ways of levying blackmail on Spur after he was married to Dot.

Jim Allen was disappointed in the little information he had learned from Squint, but it added one more link in the chain of evidence against Spur Treadwell and definitely proved to him that Spur and Boston Jack were partners or at least closely associated. It also linked One-wing McCann with both Boston and Spur and made Allen at last see light in the tangled financial affairs of the ranch.

Resolving to pay a visit to Boston Jack’s place that night, he briefly told the others what he had learned from Squint and then mounted one of his gray horses. With the other one following, he started toward the Hard Pan for another attempt to discover its secret.

“The aggravatin’ little cuss! He don’t tell no one nothin’,” Slivers growled.

“Yeh, his trail is sure hard to follow,” Jack Allen smiled.

All that night Jim Allen rode through the winding, twisting maze of blind passages and cul-de-sacs in the Hard Pan. But even he, skillful tracker that he was, could find no trail in the flintlike surface. Toward morning, he circled the Hard Pan and reconnoitered Boston Jack’s ranch. But here, also, he drew a blank – he could find nothing that indicated rustling was going on at the ranch.

It was toward dawn when he at last turned and headed back toward the cavvy. He was sure he had reached it without being seen, but in this he was wrong. It was the two grays streaking through the pale morning light that had betrayed him and told Lefty Simms who he was. And Lefty’s agile brain was busy with plans to trap the Wolf as he headed back to the Double R.

W. A. Raine, the representative of the bank, had arrived at the Double R the day before and, accompanied by Spur Treadwell, Bill McAllister, and a dozen cowboys, had started to check the number of Double R cows.

As the day’s work progressed, Raine’s face grew grave, and Bill McAllister cursed. Where there had been once a thousand cows, there were now a hundred. Late that evening, when they returned to the ranch, the punchers were already gossiping about the fact that the bank intended to foreclose its mortgage at once.

“Dot, things look mighty bad, but I ain’t given up hope yet,” Spur told Dot Reed that night.

Her face paled. With an effort she regained her composure. “It’s not the money – but dad loved this place, an’ I hate to see it pass into the hands of a stranger.”