Eugene Manlove Rhodes

“If the bowl had been stronger
My tale had been longer.”

—Mother Goose.

When the sun peeped over Rainbow Range, Captain Griffith bent over Tobe Long’s bed. His eyes were aching, burned and sunken; the lids twitched; his face was haggard and drawn—but he had arrived at an unalterable decision. This thing could not and should not go on. His brain reeled now—another such night would entitle him to state protection.

He shook Mr. Long roughly.

“See here! I believe you’re Bransford himself!”

Thus taken off his guard, Long threw back the bedding, rose to one elbow, still half asleep, and reached for his shoes, laughing and yawning alternately. Then, as he woke up a little more, he saw a better way to dress, dropped the shoes and unfurled his pillow—which, by day, he wore as overalls. Fumbling behind him, where the pillow had lain, he found a much-soiled handkerchief and tenderly dabbed at his swollen eye.

“Bit of steel in my eye from a drill-head,” he explained. “Jiminy, but it’s sore!”

Plainly he took the accusation as a pleasantry calling for no answer.

“I mean it! I’m going to keep you under guard!” said Captain Griffith bitingly.

Poor, sleepy Tobe, half-way into his overalls, stared up at Mr. Griffith; his mouth dropped open—he was quite at a loss for words. The captain glared back at him. Tobe kicked the overalls off and cuddled back into bed.

“Bully!” he said. “Then I won’t have to get breakfast!”

Gurdon Steele sat up in bed, a happy man. His eye gave Mr. Long a discreetly confidential look, as of one who restrains himself, out of instinctive politeness, from a sympathetic and meaningful tap of one’s forehead. A new thought struck Mr. Long. He reached over behind Steele for the rifle at the bed’s edge and thrust it into the latter’s hands.

“Here, Boy Scout! Watch me!” he whispered. “Don’t let me escape while I sleep a few lines! I’m Bransford!”

Gurdie rubbed his eyes and giggled.

“Don’t you mind Rex. That’s the worst of this pipe habit. You never can tell how they’ll break out next.”

“Yes, laugh, you blind bat!” said Rex bitterly. “I’ve got him all the same, and I’m going to keep him while you go to Escondido!” His rifle was tucked under his arm; he patted the barrel significantly.

It slowly dawned upon Mr. Long that Captain Griffith was not joking, after all, and an angry man was he. He sat up in bed.

“Oh, piffle! Oh, fudge! Oh, pickled moonshine! If I’m Bransford what the deuce am I doing here? Why, you was both asleep! I could ’a’ shot your silly heads off and you’d ’a’ never woke up. You make me tired!”

“Don’t mind him, Long. He’ll feel better when he takes a nap,” said Gurd joyfully. “He has poor spells like this and he misses his nurse. We always make allowances for him.”

Mr. Long’s indignation at last overcame his politeness, and in his wrath he attacked friend and foe indiscriminately.

“Do you mean to tell me you two puling infants are out hunting down a man you never saw? Don’t the men at the other side know him either? By jinks, you hike out o’ this after breakfast and send for some grown-up men. I want part of that reward—and I’m going to have it! Look here!” He turned blackly to Gurdon. “Are you sure that Bransford, or any one else, came in here at all yesterday, or did you dream it? Or was it all a damfool kid joke? Listen here! I worked like a dog yesterday. If you had me stand guard three hours, tired as I was, for nothing, there’s going to be more to it. What kind of a sack-and-snipe trick is this, anyway? You just come one at a time and I’ll lick the stuffin’ out o’ both o’ you! I ain’t feelin’ like any schoolboy pranks just now.”

“No, no; that part’s all straight. Bransford’s in there, all right,” protested Gurdon. “If you hadn’t been working in the tunnel you’d have seen him when he went by. Here’s the note he left. And his horse and saddle are up at the spring. We left the horse there because he was lame and about all in. Bransford can’t get away on him. Rex is just excited—that’s all the matter with him. Hankering for glory! I told him last night not to make a driveling idiot of himself. Here, read this insolent note, will you?”

Long glowered at the note and flung it aside. “Anybody could ’a’ wrote that! How am I to know this thing ain’t some more of your funny streaks? You take these horses to water and bring back Bransford’s horse and saddle, and then I’ll know what to believe. Be damn sure you bring them, too, or we’ll go to producing glory right here—great gobs and chunks of it! You Griffith! put down that gun or I’ll knock your fool head off! I’m takin’ charge of this outfit now, and don’t you forget it! And I don’t want no maniac wanderin’ round me with a gun. You go to gatherin’ up wood as fast as ever God’ll let you!”

“Say, I was mistaken,” said the deposed leader, thoroughly convinced once more. “You do look like Bransford, you know.” He laid down his rifle obediently.

“Look like your grandmother’s left hind foot!” sneered the outraged miner. “My eyes is brown and so’s Bransford’s. Outside o’ that——”

“No, but you do, a little,” said his ally, Steele. “I noticed it myself, last night. Not much—but still there’s a resemblance. Poor Cap Griffith just let his nerves and imagination run away with him—that’s all.”

Long sniffed. “Funny I never heard of it before,” he said. He was somewhat mollified, nevertheless; and, while cooking breakfast, he received very graciously a stammered and half-hearted apology from young Mr. Griffith, now reduced to the ranks. “Oh, that’s all right, kid. But say—you be careful and don’t shoot your pardner when he comes back.”

Gurdon brought back the sorrel horse and the saddle, thereby allaying Mr. Long’s wrathful mistrust that the whole affair was a practical joke.

“I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” said Rex triumphantly, and watched the working of his test with a jealous eye.

Long knew his Alice. “‘But it was the best butter,’” he said. He surveyed the sorrel horse; his eye brightened. “We’ll whack up that blood-money yet,” he announced confidently. “Now I’m going to walk over to the south side and get one of those fellows to ride sign round the mountain. You boys can sleep, turn and turn about, till I get back. Then I want Steele to go to Escondido and wire up to Arcadia that we’ve got our bear by the tail and want help to turn him loose, and tell Pappy Sanders to send me out some grub or I’ll skin him. Pappy’s putting up for the mine, you know. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Griffith.” He gave that luckless warrior a jeering look, as one who has forgiven but not forgotten.

“Why don’t you ride one of our horses?” said Gurdon.

“Want to keep ’em fresh. Then if Bransford gets out over the cliffs you can run him down like a mad dog,” said Tobe. “Besides, if I ride a fresh horse in here he’ll maybe shoot me to get the horse; and if he could catch you lads away from shelter maybe so he’d make a dash for it, a-shootin’. See here! If I was dodgin’ in here like him—know what I’d do? I’d just shoot a few lines on general principles to draw you away from the gates. Then if you went in to see about it I’d either kill you if I had to, or slip out if you give me the chance. You just stay right here, whatever happens. Keep under shelter and keep your horses right by you. We got him bottled up and we won’t draw the cork till the sheriff comes. I’ll tell ’em to do the same way at the other end. I won’t take any gun with me and I’ll stick to the big main road. That way Bransford won’t feel no call to shoot me. Likely he’s ’way up in the cliffs, anyhow.”

“Ride the sorrel horse then, why don’t you? He isn’t lame enough to hurt much, but he’s lame enough that Bransford won’t want him.” Thus Mr. Griffith, again dissimulating. Every detail of Mr. Long’s plan forestalled suspicion. That these measures were precisely calculated to disarm suspicion now occurred to Griffith’s stubborn mind. For he had a stubborn mind; the morning’s coffee had cleared it of cobwebs, and it clung more tenaciously than ever to the untenable and thrice-exploded theory that Long and Bransford were one and inseparable, now and forever.

He meditated an ungenerous scheme for vindication and, to that end, wished Mr. Long to ride the sorrel horse. For Mr. Long, if he were indeed the murderer—as, of course, he was—would indubitably, upon some plausible pretext, attempt to pass the guards at the farther end of the trip, where was no clear-eyed Griffith on guard. What more plausible that a modification of the plan already rehearsed—for Long to tell the wardens that Griffith had sent him to telegraph to the sheriff? Let him once pass those warders on any pretext! That would be final betrayal, for all his shrewdness. There was no possibility that Long and Bransford could complete their escape on that lame sorrel. He would not be allowed to get much of a start—just enough to betray himself. Then he, Griffith, would bring them back in triumph.

It was a good scheme: all things considered, it reflected great credit upon Mr. Griffith’s imagination. As in Poe’s game of “odd or even,” where you must outguess your opponent and follow his thought, Mr. Rex Griffith had guessed correctly in every respect. Such, indeed, had been Mr. Long’s plan. Only Rex did not guess quite often enough. Mr. Long had guessed just one layer deeper—namely, that Mr. Griffith would follow his thought correctly and also follow him. Therefore Mr. Long switched again. It was a bully game—better than poker. Mr. Long enjoyed it very much.

Just as Rex expected, Tobe allowed himself to be overpersuaded and rode the sorrel horse. He renamed the sorrel horse Goldie, on the spot, saddled him awkwardly, mounted in like manner, and rode into the shadowy depths of Double Mountain.

Once he was out of sight Mr. Griffith followed, despite the angry protest of Mr. Steele—alleging falsely that he was going to try for a deer.

Tobe rode slowly up the crooked and brush-lined caÑon. Behind him, cautiously hidden, came Griffith, the hawk-eyed avenger—waiting at each bend until Mr. Long had passed the next one, for closer observation of how Mr. Long bore himself in solitude.

Mr. Long bore himself most disappointingly. He rode slowly and awkwardly, scanning with anxious care the hillsides before him. Not once did he look back lest he should detect Mr. Griffith. Near the summit the Goldie horse shied and jumped. It was only one little jump, whereunto Goldie had been privately instigated by Mr. Long’s thumb—“thumbing” a horse, as done by one conversant with equine anatomy, produces surprising results!—but it caught Mr. Long unawares and tumbled him ignominiously in the dust.

Mr. Long sat in the sand and rubbed his shoulder: Goldie turned and looked down at him in unqualified astonishment. Mr. Long then cursed Mr. Bransford’s sorrel horse; he cursed Mr. Bransford for bringing the sorrel horse; he cursed himself for riding the sorrel horse; he cursed Mr. Griffith, with one last, longest, heart-felt, crackling, hair-raising, comprehensive and masterly curse, for having persuaded him to ride the sorrel horse. Then he tied the sorrel horse to a bush and hobbled on afoot, saying it all over backward.

Poor Griffith experienced the most intense mortification—except one—of his life. This was conclusive. Bransford was reputed the best rider in Rainbow. This was Long. He was convinced, positively, finally and irrevocably. He did not even follow Mr. Long to the other side of Double Mountain, but turned back to camp, keeping a sharp eye out for traces of the real Bransford; to no effect. It was only by chance—a real chance—that, clambering on the gatepost cliffs to examine a curious whorl of gneiss, he happened to see Mr. Long as he returned. Mr. Long came afoot, leading the sorrel horse. Just before he came within sight of camp he led the horse up beside a boulder, climbed clumsily into the saddle, clutched the saddle-horn, and so rode into camp. The act was so natural a one that Griffith, already convinced, was convinced again—the more so because Long preserved a discreet silence as to the misadventure with the sorrel horse.

Mr. Long reported profanely that the men on the other side had also been disposed to arrest him, and had been dissuaded with difficulty.

“So I guess I must look some like Bransford, though I would never ’a’ guessed it. Reckon nobody knows what they really look like. Chances are a feller wouldn’t know himself if he met him in the road. That squares you, kid. No hard feelings?”

“Not a bit. I certainly thought you were Bransford, at first,” said Griffith.

“Well, the black-eyed one—Stone—he’s coming round on the west side now, cutting sign. You be all ready to start for Escondido as soon as he gets here, Gurd. Say, you don’t want to wait for the sheriff if he’s up on Rainbow. You wire a lot of your friends to come on the train at nine o’clock to-night. Sheriff can come when he gets back. There ain’t but a few horses at Escondido. You get Pappy Sanders to send your gang out in a wagon—such as can’t find horses.”

“Better take in both of ours, Gurd,” said Griffith. He knew Long was all right, as has been said, but he was also newly persuaded of his own fallibility. He had been mistaken about Long being Bransford; therefore he might be mistaken about Long being Long. In this spirit of humility he made the suggestion recorded above, and was grieved that Long indorsed it.

“And I want you to do two errands for me, kid. You give this to Pappy Sanders—the storekeeper, you know”—here he produced the little eohippus from his pocket—“and tell him to send it to a jeweler for me and get a hole bored in it so it’ll balance. Want to use it for a watch-charm when I get a watch. And if we pull off this Bransford affair I’ll have me a watch. Now don’t you lose that! It’s turquoise—worth a heap o’ money. Besides, he’s a lucky little horse.”

“I’ll put him in my pocketbook,” said Gurdon.

“Better give him to Pappy first off, else you’re liable to forget about him, he’s so small. Then you tell Pappy to send me out some grub. I won’t make out no bill. He’s grubstakin’ the mine; he’ll know what to send. You just tell him I’m about out of patience. Tell him I want about everything there is, and want it quick; and a jar for sour dough—I broke mine. And get some newspapers.” He hesitated perceptibly. “See here, boys, I hate to mention this; but old Pappy, him and this Jeff Bransford is purty good friends. I reckon Pappy won’t much like it to furnish grub for you while you’re puttin’ the kibosh on Jeff. You better get some of your own. You see how it is, don’t you? ’Tain’t like it was my chuck.”

Stone came while they saddled. He spoke apart with Griffith as to Mr. Long, and a certain favor he bore to the escaped bank-robber; but Griffith, admitting his own self-deception in that line, outlined the history of the past unhappy night. Stone, who had suffered only a slight misgiving, was fully satisfied.

As Steele started for the railroad Mr. Stone set out to complete the circuit of Double Mountain, in the which he found no runaway tracks. And Griffith and Long, sleeping alternately—especially Griffith—kept faithful ward over the gloomy gate of Double Mountain.

CHAPTER XIV