Good Men and True; and, Hit the Line Hard/Hit the Line Hard/Chapter 9

HE sky was washed clean; the sound of church bells floated across the sunny meadows; the winds were still, save as a light and loitering air wandered by, poignant with a spicy tang, the sweet alloy of earth.

Listening to those peaceful bells, Mr. Drake and Mr. Jones lolled at ease in the modest hostelry favored by the latter gentleman, and looked out on a freshened and sparkling world. As the last echo died away Mr. Drake resumed the conversation:

"I gotta hand it to you, Mr. Weisenheimer. That's a great bean of yours! You've made your case. Uncle had money; it's gone; somebody's got it; x is eager to give too much for my brand; y offers an exorbitant price for my scalp; z is willing to pay you to keep quiet. How long will it take two men to dig two graves if the age of the first man is twice that of the second one? And who should have the custody of the child? Perfectly simple!"

"But you can't explain it any other way."

"Hang it! I don't want to explain it any other way. You're right—but you can't go ahead. Your wind-up is good; but can you put it over? How do you propose to go ahead about collecting? It reminds me of a little passage in Shakespeare that my chum sprung on the Frosh class in English. I remember it because Kitty, the prof, was so justly indignant:

"It is widely believed," replied Neighbor, "that you cannot catch a weasel asleep; but I think it can be done, with patience. Don't be in such a hurry—be calm!"

"I want you to know I can be as calm as anybody when there's anything to be calm about," retorted Ducky with some acerbity. "It isn't so much the money—not but what I could use that to buy food with—but those fellows are not doing me right."

"There's our one best chance," said Neighbor, more seriously than was his wont. "They're doing wrong. Doing right is as easy as sticking a needle in the eye of a camel; but to do wrong takes a steady, dead lift. Every tendency and every fact pulls against it like the force of gravity at four I'm not particularly bitter against my own dear little sins, but I do believe that, in the long run, the way of the transgressor is really hard."

There came a tap at the door; Mr. Jones was wanted at the phone.

"Hello! This is Baca!" the telephone said; and could Mr. Jones step up to the house? It thought that matters might be arranged. "Inmediatamente!" said Mr. Jones, and hung up.

"Now, Ducky," he counseled, as they walked uptown, "you notice close, and I'll show you some diplomacy. I'll make Baca commit himself so deep that it will amount to a full confession. You still don't quite believe what you think. When I am done with him you'll have no doubts. That's your great trouble, son—you don't think hard enough. You don't concentrate. You will not give to the matter in hand the full impact of your mind. You think straight enough but you haven't got the punch."

Baca lifted a sarcastic eyebrow at Ducky's presence and bent a questioning look on Neighbor Jones, but showed them into the curtained room of the previous night's conference. Refreshments were offered and declined.

"Well, Mr. Jones, if you are still of the same mind to-morrow morning at ten o'clock your mortgage will be released to you on the terms you mentioned."

Neighbor wore a shamefaced look. He twiddled with his hat.

"Maybe I didn't do just right about that, Mr. Baca. I only wanted to draw you." He looked up and smiled. "You see, we knew all the time that you fellows had Drake's money," he said chattily. "My proposition was to make you tip your hand—to convince Mr. Ducky that my reasoning was strictly O. K., if not logical."

Mr. Baca received this rather staggering communication point-blank but, aside from a heightened color, bore up under it with surprising spirit. Indeed, he seemed less disconcerted than Ducky Drake.

"Ah!" said the lawyer. "You don't lose much time in getting to the point, do you? Your candor is most commendable, and it shall be my endeavor to observe a like frankness with you. It is better so. Deceit and subterfuge are foreign to my disposition. Though not anticipating this particular turn of affairs, I have been forewarned against you, Mr. Jones, and have made my preparations accordingly. Felipe!"

One of the portières slid aside, revealing a slim brown young man with a heavy revolver, and a fat brown young man with a rifle. At the other door the curtains parted for a glimpse of an older Mexican with a benign and philosophical face and a long white beard. His armament consisted of one double-barreled shotgun. All these men wore appreciative grins, and all these weapons were accurately disposed to rake Mr. Jones amidships.

"My executive staff!" announced the lawyer urbanely.

Neighbor nodded to the staff. Fascinated Ducky did the same.

"So pleased!" he murmured.

Baca paused for a moment to enjoy his triumph. Then he waved his hand.

"That will do." The portières slid together.

"I'm not scared," explained Neighbor Jones earnestly. "That noise you hear is only my teeth chattering!"

"Oh, you punch!" Ducky drew a long breath. "If I had three wishes I'd want to be a puzzle picture—find Ducky Drake!" Then he giggled. "Gee! Sumpin' must a happened to Ole!" he suggested lightly.

"Did you ever hear of the old Texan's advice to his boy?" asked Baca. "‘My son, don't steal cattle; but if you do steal cattle, never give 'em up!' It is an admirable maxim, and one which, in part, has been my guide."

"In part? Mr. Evers said in part: 'My dear Mister Umpire—my very dear sir—is it not possible that you erred in your decision?" murmured Ducky with an air of reminiscent abstraction.

"Drake!" said the lawyer, "whatever else you may have to complain of at my hands, you owe me your life—once and twice."

"Am I to be both your prisoner and your judge?" asked Ducky. "What inference am I to draw?"

Baca snapped his fingers.

"My dear young friend, I do not care that for your inference! Be well guided. Leave Saragossa to-day and never come back. The money for your cattle will be forthcoming when you send a deed; get some lawyer or a bank to attend to the details of exchange."

"Oh! By the way, how about that mortgage of mine?" inquired Neighbor.

"Pray accept my apologies, Mr. Jones. I charged you with insolence: you are merely impudent. You grow wearisome. Your caliber is about twenty-two short, Jones!" said Baca, tapping a monitory finger with a pencil. "I am no man to get gay with. When you measured your brains against mine you flattered yourself considerably. I am not to be bluffed. I am not to be forced. Judge for yourself what chance you have of outwitting me. And, as for the courts—'Fo' de land's sake, Br'er Fox, whatever you does—don't t'row me in de brieh bush!’"

Neighbor blinked mildly.

"Oh, well! When two men play at one game one of 'em has to lose!" he said philosophically. "Never mind about the mortgage. I've got no family anyway; so where's the diff? You win!"

"I win!" repeated the other. "And now you will pay forfeit. Day before yesterday, Mr. Jones, you drove a young man out of town. You made him leave his suit case"

"Oh, pshaw! I forgot that suit case. I must get it."

"You will not! And you took his gun. That was an arbitrary act, Mr. Jones; and now you are to receive fitting punishment for it. The northbound accommodation leaves here at eleven-forty. You will board that train, accompanied by Mr. Drake and escorted by myself. You will never come back."

"I hate to interrupt when you're going so good; but it'll be better for all hands if I declare myself now. You might propose something I shouldn't want to do," said Neighbor Jones. "I'm holding no grudge against you for outwitting me, and I'm willing you should crow a little; but don't rub it in. I'm not the kind to be evened with a tinhorn gambler. So I take that suit case with me. I value it highly. It is a keepsake."

"Pardon me; but I really do not see where you are in any position to dictate terms."

"It is a remarkable fact," said Neighbor Jones with great composure, "that, in spite of all the brag about the Southwest as a health resort, the death rate here is precisely the same as that of the crowded East Side of the city of New York—namely, one per capita. Such being the case, since I can die but once and must die that once—I should worry!—as we say in dear old Harvard. Therefore, though you may do all the dictating, I will make bold to mention the only terms that will be acceptable or accepted. I have no fancy for humble pie—my digestion ain't good."

"There is a certain force to your contention, certainly," conceded Baca, bending an attentive regard on his opponent. "You put it in a new light. Come, I must revise my former estimate of you, I see. And then?"

"Then, this!"—Neighbor checked off the counts with the thumb and fingers of his left hand—"I am perfectly willing to leave town and I never expect to come back—but I won't promise not to come back. Dicky can have his trunk packed and sent after him—leastly because he wouldn't have time to pack, and lastly because there was no question of a threat about his baggage. Me, I'll take my duds."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. And I'll keep my gun. It's become a habit with—me that gun."

"We shall have to insist on the gun, I'm afraid."

"Baca," said Neighbor severely, " do you want me to nonplus you?"

"Why, no," said Baca after consideration; "I don't."

"Be a little ware, then. Don't bank too much on your militia. Any insurance company would rate you as a bad risk if they suspected you of any designs on my gun."

"Jones," said Baca, "you please me. Have it your own way. By all means march out with the honors of war, side arms and flags flying. Only you needn't march—I'll take you down in the machine."

Jones rose and looked at the clock.

"Well, let's go, then. … One thing more: You send the money for the cattle on to Albuquerque to-morrow, and we will both pass our words that we'll never, after this day and hour, try to recover the Drake money from you or make any claim to it. Yes, we will, Ducky. Do as I say and save your cow money. You can't collect a cent from Bennett and Baca, and there's no use in trying. … All right—he'll promise if you will, Baca."

"It's a go!" said Baca.

"Shake, then!"

A big touring car purred at the door. At Baca's invitation Ducky drove, with Jones beside him; while the bearded philosopher sat with Baca in the tonneau. During the exchange of views in the house the excitement had kept Drake's spirits up, but he cooled down now, and showed some natural depression, realizing the extent and hopelessness of his loss. But Jones was in no way abashed.

"I see the smoke. You'll have to hurry, if you want that suit case," said Baca as they drew up at Neighbor's hotel.

"Oh, no—got her all packed; it won't take but a minute. Come along, if you're afraid I'll give you the slip."

"I'm not," said Baca. "What good would it do you?"

"I guess that's right," grinned Jones. "I've done my worst now." He hurried in, thrust a bill into the hotelkeeper's hand and grabbed up the suit case, now his own, which had once belonged to the Kansas City Kid. The car trundled them to the station just in time to buy tickets.

"Well, good-by, Baca! Oh, say! Here's a V I borrowed from Beck. Wish you'd give it to him as you go back uptown, and tell him I'm much obliged. Give him my best. He sleeps up over the joint, you know."

"All right; I'll hand it to him. Hi! You're forgetting your suit case."

"Oh, yes! Well, here she comes. So long!"

"Glad co have met you. So long!"

There were no other passengers. The little jerkwater train halted for a bare moment to let them on and then chugged stolidly on her way. They stood on the platform of the rear car; the greenwood closed in beside the right of way, so that the last Ducky saw of Saragossa was the receding triangle made by the station, the old Almandares Warehouse, and a black doll waving from a toy car. Ducky sighed,

"No hard feelings, kid?"

"Of course not," said Ducky stoutly. "You're not to blame. Besides, I don't believe we should ever have recovered that money. That crowd got it, all right I know that anyway. I knew it before, but I didn't know that I knew it—wasn't sure; not sure enough, for instance, to sanction an attempt to take it by force. "

"Yes," assented Neighbor musingly. "I thought of that. That's why I took you up to Baca's place with me. I sure wasn't expectin' an ambush, though. Pretty smart fellow, Baca!"

"Yes; and if we had tried force we might jolly well have been killed," said Drake brightening.

"Maybe it's all turned out for the best, Ducky. Well, let's go in." "That's a heavy bag you have there," said Ducky, lifting it.

"Yes," said Neighbor carelessly. "A good share of it was gold."

"A good share—huh? Whadda you mean—gold?"

"Why, your uncle's estate. It's in there, under my clothes. Beck had it in a new bag, but I put it in mine when I counted it."

"What!"

"Don't say what—say sir! Beck, he stole it from his pals last night They ain't found it out yet; but Tavy will be untyin' Beck about now."

"What?"

Ducky was on his knees, struggling with the snaps of the suit case.

"Don't spill any of it, Ducky. Yes; I gagged Beck and hogtied him up in his own poker room. Some job—believe me! I put four aces in his vest pocket."

THE END